Did WMH maybe fixate too much on improving fighters?

[Blackwaltzomega]

Alexander Augunas wrote:

necromental wrote:

Without any offense, it is you who does not understand. We get that combat feats build in theme and power in the chain. We just disagree with the method. Let me explain with a caster example: Spell Focus & Spell Specialization. You must take one before you take the other. The Specialization builds upon the Focus, is thematically and power-wise logical continuation of it, and yet it does not negate benefits of it. And it is much more flexible than say W.Focus &W.Spec.

As a general rule, if you tell someone that you mean no offense, then you're being offensive.

Spell Focus and Spell Specialization, actually, is a pretty poor example. Spell Focus gives a DC bonus to an entire school of spells while Spell Specialization gives a caster level bonus to a single spell. They don't negate the benefits of each other because they do radically different things. Your Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization choice is actually an apt comparison because the one feat focuses on attack rolls and the other on damage rolls.

That said, I'm not sure I follow the chain of logic in the Spell Focus vs Weapon Focus point.

There are schools of magic, and there are weapon groups. Wizards have a particular school of magic they specialize in, while Fighters specialize in certain weapon groups. If they focus heavily on Advanced Weapon Training, they specialize to an extreme degree with ONE weapon group. Based on this I assume that a school of magic and a weapon group are roughly similar groups of tools from a game design standpoint.

If you take spell focus, you become more capable with every spell in a particular school of magic. If you take weapon focus, however, you become more capable with a single specific weapon rather than a weapon group. This seems odd to me. Wouldn't the two be more similar if you took Weapon Focus to gain a bonus to attack rolls with your weapon group of choice, and then Weapon Specialization to gain a bonus to attack rolls with a specific weapon from that group, much like how Spell Focus makes ALL spells in a school of magic harder to save against while Spell Specialization increases the power of one specific spell from that school?

In both cases, Focus makes the entire toolbox more difficult for the enemy to avoid while Specialization means a favored tool IN that box is more potent than normal. But for weapons for some reason it focuses entirely on the tool and not on the toolbox at all.

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In-system, WMH is probably the most genius book to address fighter issues and some combat styles. We just disagree with the base system's treatment of fighter and throwing weapons. And would like that combat feats function more like Spell Focus&Spell Specialization rather than W.Focus &W.Specialization or Spring-Whirlwind Attack chain.

Both of the posts I've made, however, haven't been about the base system's treatment of fighters. They've been in defense of the feat prerequisites of several of the options in that book. Having feats that build upon each other is a GOOD thing, and just because the new feat adds on to the bonus of the old feat doesn't mean that the old feat is now "useless."

Well, there are examples where that is exactly the case. When you learn Improved Vital Strike, there is now never a reason to ever use Vital Strike again, and Improved Vital Strike will similarly be of no further use to the player when they have learned Greater Vital Strike. Unfortunately, as each is a prerequisite for the next, you can't retrain your old Vital Strikes away when the latest version renders the one before it obsolete, so by level 16/17 you have two feats that no longer do anything but cannot be retrained lest you no longer qualify for Greater Vital Strike.

Feats that build on each other is a good thing, but I must say I do think what Pathfinder needs MORE of right now are feats that SCALE, because it can be very frustrating to players that feats are scarce but one must buy the feat, its improved version five levels later, and its greater version five levels after that as opposed to the feat just getting stronger when they level up, the way spells get stronger just because your caster level increased.

My thinking goes something like this:

-Archery is good. A lot of feats are contained in the style, some of them admittedly a bit taxy, but for the most part Archery is a long chain of feats that build on each other, each new feat in the chain adding something new to what you can do with your bow. You are always growing more effective each time you get a new archery feat.
-TWF is not so good. There are a number of nice feats that chain off of it, but Two Weapon Fighting itself must be "bought" three times in order to keep up with the scaling of a PC's BAB rather than adjusting on its own. To keep up with your main hand, you must continue to buy further attacks for your off hand, which can make it trickier to branch out to other feats because you know you're going to be sacrificing four of your feat slots to TWF, Double Slice, ITWF, and GTWF to be able to keep your main hand and off-hand attacks relatively even. This is one of the reasons Sword and Shield, which adds a number of very appealing auxiliary feats to the TWF skeleton, is really hard to get into; there's just not as much room to improve the style when you know you have to spend a few feat slots just to keep it scaling properly.
-Vital Strike is really not in a good place. It is a three-feat chain, each step forward making the previous step useless to you but unable to be replaced. When you have the ability to quadruple your weapon's damage dice on an attack, the power to triple is no longer relevant, and the power to double even less so. The feats are essentially dead slots if you improve the feat, which is a uniquely poor deal out of all the fighting style feats. The only consolation is that rangers and slayers, with the ability to ignore prerequisites, can "cheat" on this by using the Natural Weapon fighting style to nab Improved Vital Strike without needing the others if they so desire.

I feel like there is a reason Power Attack is considered the best feat in the game. When you take Power Attack, there is no Improved Power Attack at level 6 and Greater Power Attack at level 11. The feat is good at level 1, it is better at level 4, and it will continue to improve on its own as the player levels up.

[Alexander Augunas]

Derklord wrote:

Alexander Augunas wrote:

Having Quick Draw as a prerequisite is the only thing that keeps Ricochet Toss from being power creep, because you would NEVER pick Quick Draw over Ricochet Toss normally.

Power creep means increasing the average power level. Now, the question is: Would Richocet Toss without those prereqs make thrown weapon stronger than archery? If the answer is no, then there would be no power creep.

You're incorrect; power creep means increasing in general power, and Ricochet Toss without Quick Draw as a prerequisite would be a creep on Quick Draw.

Quote:

And why does that "thematic chain" stuff only apply to martials and not to casters?

That's an interesting question that I just answered in a PM, in fact. First, you cannot blame Paizo for how the game works; they adopted a game system that they new worked at a time when the biggest TTRPG company in the history was getting pushback for changing the game heavily. They took in 3.5's problems and fixed some small things, but kept the core engine because it sold product. If Jason had written a completely new system (and believe me, as someone who's chatted with the man he totally could have), there's a very probable chance that you and I wouldn't be having this conversation right now because Pathfinder wouldn't have inherited the "lost, lonely souls" from 3.5.

So, let's take that question and point it back at 3.5. Now, I've never talked with any of the 3.5 designers about this, so I can't be 100% sure that I'm right. (Statistically speaking, I'm right about this sort of stuff 9 of 10 times, however!) My best guess is that you can blame the cleric, druid, and wizard for the lack of "thematic chain of prerequisites" in spellcasters. Because let's think about it; all three of those classes are essentially built around ease of access in terms of what spells they can prepare each day. Clerics and druids simply KNOW all their spells, and wizards are able to scribe any spell they've found into their spellbook. Saying, "You need to scribe spell Y into your book because you can scribe spell Z," probably seemed like a chore in terms of book keeping because the spell lists were kept so incredibly modular, and it likely seemed unfair to force sorcerers and bards (the only prepared spellcasters at the time) to have this entire unique system that would have eaten extra word count that simply would have been cumbersome to track.

Is it a good reason? Arguably no, but it makes sense from a design perspective. Switching over to a system like that would also be a royal pain in the butt; this is essentially what Words of Power tried to do, but that system simply can't compete because a prerequisites-based spellcasting system can't compete with the variety offered by the current "boxed lunch" style of spell that we're all accustom to. (That's why, for instance, you can't build a "magic missile" in words of power that's as good as the actual magic missile spell.)

Alexander Augunas wrote:

Is Unchained the only book allowed to improve game balance? Is there a "make sure the tiar list stays" that Paizo orders freelancers to do?

Nope. Only people with an agenda keep a tier list. Most of us simply write what's fun and cool.

Quote:

Now, please don't get me wrong, I don't lay the (primary) blame on you freelancers and ordinary developers. I blame it on Paizo's lack of someone who actually handles balancing.

So I'm not Paizo, obviously, but if I was working there and someone told me that my job was to handle balancing, I'd be a nervous wreck. Paizo puts out 12 Player Companion Issues and at least one Player-Focused hardcover a year, plus whatever options sneak into Campaign Setting issues and Adventure Paths. That's a lot of content to balance, and it basically boils down to a one-person funnel that bottlenecks all publications that comes out of the company. Second, I haven't forgotten how the community treated SKR when they thought he balanced everything all by himself, and some of the stuff people said to him was ridiculously brutal given that we're all talking about a game here. Finally, if I ever got hit by a bus, y'all would be in some SERIOUS trouble.

[Cheburn]

Insain Dragoon wrote:

More "replacement feats" like Dirty Fighting I would be OK with.

Dirty Fighting does many things. It replaces a prereq that you don't use and it gives you an additional bonus for tactical play.

A+ feat there

I guess I sorta wished something like Richochet Shot was more like that. Something a player could take early to enable a combat style many find iconic. I would have liked to see Fighter throwers get something unique for throwing that nobody else could do. Instead they got almost exclusive access to throwing and anyone else who wants to be a thrower has to sink 3 feats.

To be fair, Fighter also has easier access to Ranged Trip and Ace Trip due to their abundance of Feats. While it's not something ultimately unique to Fighter, the combination (Deadly Aim/Quick Draw/Ricochet Toss/Ranged Trip/Ace Trip/[Distance Thrower]) can be achieved at much earlier levels with Fighter than with other classes.

Blackwaltzomega wrote:

I feel like there is a reason Power Attack is considered the best feat in the game. When you take Power Attack, there is no Improved Power Attack at level 6 and Greater Power Attack at level 11. The feat is good at level 1, it is better at level 4, and it will continue to improve on its own as the player levels up.

I'm not opposed to having feats gated by each other, but I agree that it would be nice to have more feats that naturally scaled as you leveled. (As a sidenote, this would be a buff for all martial classes, and a bigger buff for Fighters than for other martial classes ... which is not a bad direction to go in).

[lemeres]

Envall wrote:

Arachnofiend wrote:

Unfortunately, the system is set up in a way where any weapon other than the One Weapon You Use is entirely worthless past the first few levels. When everything has DR/good and cold iron you better have specialized in that javelin if you want to use it at all.

"DR is a horrible way to make enemies difficult" is another point but there is no proper time and place for deconstruction whole ruleset is there

Plus, DR is something you can take care of without specializing. Cold iron equipment and oil of bless weapon can go a long way, especially since it lasts a whole fight at CL 1. That means it is cheap.

The real problem is enhancement bonus and support feats/equipment. Those require investment of resources. That javelin might hit -13 compared to your main stuff (+5 bonus, +4 weapon training, +2 gloves of dueling, +2 for both weapon focuses...foci...). So the general principle still applies, even if DR isn't the place where it rears its ugly head the most. Fighters have some tendency to hit this rather hard, since they specialize so much.

Which is actually why I view switch hitting with the same weapon as so important. Being able to do melee and ranged attacks with the same weapon means you get full results without diverting resources. Fighters benefit from this in thrown weapons more than a ranger that could just grab a bow and a great sword. Especially now that Advanced weapon training removes most desire to 'just put the second one into bows- you might need it' for your greatsword wielding fighter's weapon training.

[Chengar Qordath]

9mm wrote:

Aelryinth wrote:

I've said many times, you'll never get a real Fighter fix without a feat fix. They are too reliant on feats. And yes, the feat system is grossly imbalanced, mostly because it has no scaling mechanism in place internally, like, say, spellcasting does.

Paizo got the bones of this with the Stamina system - basically forcing them to do ad hoc add-ons to every combat feat there is. However, the system is clunky, not supported in base literature, and the sheer size of it discourages people from using it.

==Aelryinth

I'm afraid the fighters woes go far deeper than just feats. It's a class without an identity. Think about it Rangers are nature fighters, cavilers are mounted fighters, barbarians are angry fighters, paladins are holy fighters, brawlers/monks are Street Fighter II.

Yeah, this is definitely part of the Fighter's problem. They just don't have much a class identity or niche beyond "Guy who fights good." It's hard to really give them any unique skills or abilities when there's nothing unique about the class itself.

[Mudfoot]

If Unchained had included a proper fighter fix we wouldn't be having this argument; Paizo could have ditched half the 3.5 baggage of feat chains and two-dimensional fighters. They did a pretty good job with the rogue, but all the fighter got was stamina (which is a nice boost, but unbalanced, very bureaucratic and mechanically dull).

Maybe it's a conspiracy: if they'd fixed it in Unchained, there would be two less Player Companions to sell...

[Owen KC Stephens]

Insain Dragoon wrote:

Among people who have taken the time to peruse some third party materials it's not an uncommon opinion that the writers have a greater love for the Pathfinder system and role playing than the developers at Paizo.

Without saying anything to suggest Mark isn't full of both love for the system and a highly skilled game mechanic;

BUT

Linda Zayas-Palmer, John Compton, and Tonya Woldridge wouldn't put up with the titanic amount of (often thankless) work to produce material for PFS if they didn't love the game. They not only produce multiple adventures every month, AND special events, AND track an organization with thousands and thousands of active members, they also have to go over every book we release and use a fine-tooth rules comb to determine if the rest of us have added something that can ruin the fun for players (using dozens of different play styles) at a table.

Crystal Frasier has more years involved in this company than nearly any other developer - she may have us all beat.

Rob McCreary and James Jacobs have been grinding on APs for *years*, and it's not because they hate Pathfinder.

Dozens of freelance writers, many with awesome careers, got their start because Adam Daigle hunted them down and shepherded them through creating monsters. "I wrote monsters for Adam," is nearly a Pathfinder writer's mantra.

I'll happily put my love for this game on a scale against anyone else in the industry. I work full-time for Paizo. I'm simultaneously under contract to do development for Green Ronin. I am also the owner/publisher of Rogue Genius Games. 80% of my waking hours are dedicated to this game.

I don't interact with other departments as much, but as a fan of the game who still spend time on both sides of the 1st/3pp line, I can assure you there's no lack of love for Pathfinder among any of these people.

[Insain Dragoon]

Owen KC Stephens wrote:

Insain Dragoon wrote:

Among people who have taken the time to peruse some third party materials it's not an uncommon opinion that the writers have a greater love for the Pathfinder system and role playing than the developers at Paizo.

Without saying anything to suggest Mark isn't full of both love for the system and a highly skilled game mechanic;

BUT

Linda Zayas-Palmer, John Compton, and Tonya Woldridge wouldn't put up with the titanic amount of (often thankless) work to produce material for PFS if they didn't love the game. They not only produce multiple adventures every month, AND special events, AND track an organization with thousands and thousands of active members, they also have to go over every book we release and use a fine-tooth rules comb to determine if the rest of us have added something that can ruin the fun for players (using dozens of different play styles) at a table.

Crystal Frasier has more years involved in this company than nearly any other developer - she may have us all beat.

Rob McCreary and James Jacobs have been grinding on APs for *years*, and it's not because they hate Pathfinder.

Dozens of freelance writers, many with awesome careers, got their start because Adam Daigle hunted them down and shepherded them through creating monsters. "I wrote monsters for Adam," is nearly a Pathfinder writer's mantra.

I'll happily put my love for this game on a scale against anyone else in the industry. I work full-time for Paizo. I'm simultaneously under contract to do development for Green Ronin. I am also the owner/publisher of Rogue Genius Games. 80% of my waking hours are dedicated to this game.

I don't interact with other departments as much, but as a fan of the game who still spend time on both sides of the 1st/3pp line, I can assure you there's no lack of love for Pathfinder among any of these people.

I apologize completely. I have a lot of respect for the people in what I call "the Golarian group." I don't always agree with their choices, but I think that they do a lot within the framework that is 3.5/Pathfinder to make the game fun. In this case, with Richochet Shot, it's one of those times I disagree.

What I meant to say, and no it's not particularly nice, is that on the core dev team involving Mark Seifter, Jason Buhlman, Stephen, and a couple other people I believe Mark is the cream of that crop. Of all of them he seems the most likely to come up with designs that don't fit inside boxes, isn't afraid to engage the community, and he seems to have a more open view of how Pathfinder can be played. I don't believe the current lead has the same love and enthusiasm that he once had for the game. I find it hard to believe that the same man that wrote the Inquisitor and Factotum wrote the Arcanist and Psychic.

In my perfect little world I would want Mark to be the lead of the Dev team and thus be the final arbiter of FAQs and erratas.

[N. Jolly]

Alexander Augunas wrote:

That being said, we (Paizo/Pathfinder) inherited that feat progression from 3.5; as a matter of fact, I think a lot of the problem chains are ones we've inherited. I think that more "substitute feats" like Dirty Fighting is a good fix for that problem, because going back and making "Pathfinder 2E" or whatever just to remove Combat Expertise as a prerequisite from everything seems like a literal waste of paper and resources to me.

Yeah, we've got legacy, but as Dirty Fighting showed, there are 'backdoors' to legacy. Personally, a feat that simulated dodge and/or (especially) mobility would be quite useful, at least since there's an awareness that these are issues. Even mid to late 3.5 had feats that were 'substitutes' for other feats that were considered sub par, so while talking about 3.5's legacy, there is precedent for these kinds of changes.

I will certainly agree that a hardcover is more the place for these though (seriously, wouldn't mind certain WMH content being reprinted in hardcover like the Grenadier Archetype was for alchemist), but as long as it's known that there's issues with certain things that are limiting creativity, I'm pretty chill.

Also, what's up with dual strike's requiring improved vital? Just a personal question on that one.

Owen KC Stephens wrote:

Crystal Frasier has more years involved in this company than nearly any other developer - she may have us all beat.

As an aside here, Crystal is aces, full stop.

[HWalsh]

Blackwaltzomega wrote:

If you take spell focus, you become more capable with every spell in a particular school of magic.

Incorrect.

Spell Focus only helps with spells that require a Save DC. Depending on the type of caster you are this may never manifest. A buff/support caster may never see any benefit but may benefit from Specialization.

[The Mortonator]

I have no idea about any of these people as a person to work with, and as such this is not meant to slight them. Yet, just because someone is a good designer does not mean they are a good project lead. Without knowing the inner office workings I think it is quite rude to assume a better project could come out of a shift. When working on film stuff, I would much rather have a director that's terrible at the artistry and knows it but fantastic at soliciting the best from crew and staff and getting the best from their artists.

[graystone]

HWalsh wrote:

Blackwaltzomega wrote:

If you take spell focus, you become more capable with every spell in a particular school of magic.

Incorrect.

Spell Focus only helps with spells that require a Save DC. Depending on the type of caster you are this may never manifest. A buff/support caster may never see any benefit but may benefit from Specialization.

Or a summoner. One of the most baffling prerequisites is Spell Focus (conjuration) for Augment Summoning/Superior Summoning. How increasing the Difficulty Class for saving throws has anything to do with improving summoning spells is a mystery and these are non-legacy feats.

[knightnday]

While I recognize that I'll be branded as a defender of the company, does this current line of commentary really need to exist? Does measuring "how much love" someone has for the game -- as if we could ever do so -- mean anything?

Isn't it mildly possible to not like something in the book or even disagree with it without succumbing to the Internet's incessant need to be overly critical and melodramatic about the tiniest thing? Do we need to make personal comments about the people who work here?

It's unnecessary and, to paraphrase what I often see Chris and Liz and others comment on threads, doesn't make this a happy community. In fact, it makes me just sad and disgusted.

[Anzyr]

Neutral tone. True Neutral.

Alexander Augunas wrote:

Derklord wrote:

Alexander Augunas wrote:

Having Quick Draw as a prerequisite is the only thing that keeps Ricochet Toss from being power creep, because you would NEVER pick Quick Draw over Ricochet Toss normally.

Power creep means increasing the average power level. Now, the question is: Would Richocet Toss without those prereqs make thrown weapon stronger than archery? If the answer is no, then there would be no power creep.

You're incorrect; power creep means increasing in general power, and Ricochet Toss without Quick Draw as a prerequisite would be a creep on Quick Draw.

If negating *any* option is your definition of power creep, then I take it you would concede power creep has been running unchecked in PF. Many new options published make at least one old option significantly less viable. As such, if that is the definition you wish to use, the game is already rife with it, one more straw is unlikely to break the camels back. Particularly if the "power creep" option would not be considered as such under the definition below.

What I (and many other posters) mean when we say "power creep" is options that are actually stronger then the previously strongest options. Instances of actual power creep under this definition are actually incredibly rare, as the CRB contains hands down some of the most powerful options in the game. Under this definition, it is not Power Creep to make Quick Draw useless for throwers, because neither Quick Draw nor Throwing are the strongest options. Giving these weaker options powerful tools, makes them more viable under this definition. For an example of actual power creep under this definition, Sacred Geometry is power creep, because it actually does render some of the strongest options obsolete.

I hope this clarifies the issue with considering negating something fairly below the power level par like Quick Draw to be "power creep".

Alexander Augunas wrote:

That's an interesting question that I just answered in a PM, in fact. First, you cannot blame Paizo for how the game works; they adopted a game system that they new worked at a time when the biggest TTRPG company in the history was getting pushback for changing the game heavily. They took in 3.5's problems and fixed some small things, but kept the core engine because it sold product. If Jason had written a completely new system (and believe me, as someone who's chatted with the man he totally could have), there's a very probable chance that you and I wouldn't be having this conversation right now because Pathfinder wouldn't have inherited the "lost, lonely souls" from 3.5.

Post Pathfinder Unchained I believe it is a fair criticism as the entire purpose of Unchained was to show a Pathfinder unshackled from the design decision 3.5 and the need to be backwards compatible.

Alexander Augunas wrote:

Nope. Only people with an agenda keep a tier list. Most of us simply write what's fun and cool.

Of course we have an "agenda". That "agenda" is to clearly delineate individual classes versatility and ability to contribute to a given situation. This is very valuable knowledge for designers both 1st and 3rd party to have. Writing what is "fun" and "cool" is not what I consider to be good design. There are lots of "fun" and "cool" ideas that are not balanced, which will lead to issues in a cooperate game. How about a feat that lets you cast a single Domains granted spells 1/day as a Su ability? That's pretty damn coo right? Seems fun you know? But it is not remotely balanced and therefore bad design.

That being said, I agree the tone could be dialed back a bit some posts. Certainly no one who publishes Pathfinder material deserves accusations of not loving the game.

[Owen K. C. Stephens]

Derklord wrote:

Is Unchained the only book allowed to improve game balance? Is there a "make sure the tiar list stays" that Paizo orders freelancers to do?

Now, please don't get me wrong, I don't lay the (primary) blame on you freelancers and ordinary developers. I blame it on Paizo's lack of someone who actually handles balancing.

To be clear:

1) The developer outlines a project, and assigns it to freelance writers. The online may give as much detail as describing exactly what goes on every page, or may give more leeway with general themes that should be hit and roughly how much wordcount they should take.
2) The writer writes to the outlines, keeping in touch with the developer if questions come up or resources are needed.
3) The developer takes all the freelance material, and goes over it. Development may vary from as simple as altering unclear word choice to complete rewrites of entire freelance turnovers. A developer's job absolutely includes game balance. We are hired for it, train for it, study it, and if we get it wrong we hear about it.

No freelancer material is every printed without a designer or developer making a ruling on its game balance.

When we make that call, we must decide on its implication for every play style, for every game, in every environment, using every possible combination of our rules.

You have seen that just in this threat, when discussing just a single feat, players have options varying from it being useless due to requiring too many feats, to saying they prefer it exactly as is. No change could be made to make one group happier without making another less happy.

One of the hardest parts of the job, then, is to decide what will make the most players the most happy under the most circumstances.

But never think we don't carefully consider the question of game balance, or lack the skills to make those as rational, considered, skilled decisions.

And don't blame the freelancers. We go over everything.

[Insain Dragoon]

It always makes me sad when I see a freelancer tell me that what was published changed a critical feature of their work.

Like poor original Titan Mauler who got the ability to wield over sized weapons removed in editing. Thankfully they game them that back in the errata.

Or the poor Dune Drifter cavalier archetype that can't actually use their challenge class feature because the part that allowed them to apply challenge damage to ranged attacks got removed. Since it was a Player Companion book it's unlikely we'll ever see this FAQd or Erata'd though.

[Blackwaltzomega]

HWalsh wrote:

Blackwaltzomega wrote:

If you take spell focus, you become more capable with every spell in a particular school of magic.

Incorrect.

Spell Focus only helps with spells that require a Save DC. Depending on the type of caster you are this may never manifest. A buff/support caster may never see any benefit but may benefit from Specialization.

All right. I was unaware I was going to have to be this pedantic, but fair enough.

Spells that interact with other beings do so in three categories.

-Spells that use a ranged touch attack, with their own personal subcategory, rays. Oddly enough, Weapon Focus can be taken for rays, and applies to EVERY ray, whether it's Enervation or Scorching Ray despite these logically being rather more different than the mace and the morningstar.
-Spells that do their thing automatically and do not allow for a saving throw. There aren't very many of them and we don't particularly want too many because then that gets into the "no save, just die" element of casting.
-Spells that allow for a saving throw, which is the majority of the spells that interact with other creatures in the game. Since you've brought up buffing, fun fact; there IS in fact a saving throw against harmless and helpful magic most of the time and circumstances DO exist that will compel allies to try to save against your buffs or healing! Just as Spell Focus makes your offensive spells more difficult to resist for EVERY spell in the school you focused in, so too does it mean EVERY helpful spell you know in that school is less likely to be refused by your superstitious or otherwise addled comrades. So no, you are still more capable with your buffs as well!

graystone wrote:

Or a summoner. One of the most baffling prerequisites is Spell Focus (conjuration) for Augment Summoning/Superior Summoning. How increasing the Difficulty Class for saving throws has anything to do with improving summoning spells is a mystery and these are non-legacy feats.

Someone that prepares a lot of conjuration spells is probably pretty familiar with the familiar "Hi, Mr. Golem! BYE, MR. GOLEM" suite of offensive conjuration spells such as Grease, Glitterdust, and my personal favorite, the Create Pit family. Additionally, creatures can't save against being summoned but they can save against planar binding. As for spell focus > Augment/Superior Summoning, well...if you need to have Weapon Focus to qualify for half the feats involving the use of weaponry, it is only fair to ask the conjurer to do a little homework into their preferred school of magic before summoning their fighter replacements, is it not?

But now I'm going back to my original point- if you took Spell Focus, you are understood to be more skillful with an entire school of magic. You meet the prerequisites for more advanced techniques within that school, and while the effect will not increase EVERY SINGLE SPELL's effectiveness it will make the vast majority of the spells that interact with other creatures more likely to succeed.

Weapon Focus is still only one weapon. You might have learned how to do a very threatening display with your glaive-guisarme that shakes all your opponents badly, but you haven't a clue how to do that with a glaive or a guisarme unless you take Weapon Focus and Dazzling Display with both of them, too. Does that make ANY sense? Surely applying most of the techniques you need Weapon Focus to learn would have more application to other weapons of the same group than "I studied conjuring so my healing magic, giant-hole-in-the-ground magic, and make-something-slippery magic are all harder to shrug off now," don't you think?

[swoosh]

knightnday wrote:

While I recognize that I'll be branded as a defender of the company, does this current line of commentary really need to exist? Does measuring "how much love" someone has for the game -- as if we could ever do so -- mean anything?

Isn't it mildly possible to not like something in the book or even disagree with it without succumbing to the Internet's incessant need to be overly critical and melodramatic about the tiniest thing? Do we need to make personal comments about the people who work here?

It's unnecessary and, to paraphrase what I often see Chris and Liz and others comment on threads, doesn't make this a happy community. In fact, it makes me just sad and disgusted.

I have to agree with this. Both for Knight's reasons and more selfishly because we have friggin' Owen KC in here and I think it'd be way cooler to hear his opinions on feats and fighters and feat taxes and martial viability than to just argue about whether or not someone loves Pathfinder.

[Arachnofiend]

I disagree with a lot of the decisions some of the higher ups in Paizo make but I have to be very dubious of any accusations of them not loving the game. This is not a business you get into for the money.

[graystone]

Blackwaltzomega: "if you took Spell Focus, you are understood to be more skillful with an entire school of magic": I can't say NO enough times on this. It's so totally and completely wrong. You are more skillful in spells with saves... SO for the others you are JUST as skilled as you where before.

"vast majority of the spells": With conjuration? Lets look at the first 3 levels of spells from the core book. 14-5 and the non save spells are in the majority not saves. I'm skeptical if I look at the complete current listing that I'd find that the majority of conjuration, let alone the "vast majority", are save ones. Feel free to do a more complete study of conjuration but I'm satisfied with what I found.

no save:
Acid Splash
Grease
Mage Armor
Mount
Obscuring Mist
Summon Monster I
Unseen Servant
Acid Arrow
Fog Cloud
Summon Monster II
Summon Swarm
Phantom Steed
Sleet Storm
Summon Monster III

Save:
Grease
Glitterdust
Web
Sepia Snake Sigil
Stinking Cloud

"Augment/Superior Summoning": I'd be ok with a prerequisite but I'd like one that has at least a little to do with what the feat does. It's like requiring still spell for a feat that powers up Shout, a spell that only has "Components V".

[Insain Dragoon]

Arachnofiend wrote:

I disagree with a lot of the decisions some of the higher ups in Paizo make but I have to be very dubious of any accusations of them not loving the game. This is not a business you get into for the money.

Not a single time did I say anyone didn't have love for the game. I did say that other people have more love for the game though. I don't know how that was misinterpreted either.

Though more may be the wrong term. Maybe passionate?

Jason and Pathfinder is like an old married couple that's set in their ways and comfortable with stability.

Mark and Pathfinder is like a passionate love between two college students that results in a bunch of crazy adventures and occasionally hurt feelings.

I prefer that passion that results in crazy and different ideas coming to the game.

If you prefer the option with less passion, that's fine too, but I think it's boring.

graystone wrote:

Blackwaltzomega: "if you took Spell Focus, you are understood to be more skillful with an entire school of magic": I can't say NO enough times on this. It's so totally and completely wrong. You are more skillful in spells with saves... SO for the others you are JUST as skilled as you where before.

"vast majority of the spells": With conjuration? Lets look at the first 3 levels of spells from the core book. 14-5 and the non save spells are in the majority not saves. I'm skeptical if I look at the complete current listing that I'd find that the majority of conjuration, let alone the "vast majority", are save ones. Feel free to do a more complete study of conjuration but I'm satisfied with what I found.

no save:
Acid Splash
Grease
Mage Armor
Mount
Obscuring Mist
Summon Monster I
Unseen Servant
Acid Arrow
Fog Cloud
Summon Monster II
Summon Swarm
Phantom Steed
Sleet Storm
Summon Monster III

Save:
Grease
Glitterdust
Web
Sepia Snake Sigil
Stinking Cloud

"Augment/Superior Summoning": I'd be ok with a prerequisite but I'd like one that has at least a little to do with what the feat does. It's like requiring still spell for a feat that powers up Shout, a spell that only has "Components V".

Still makes more sense than Dodge+Mobility+Spring attack into Whirlwind attack.

[GM 1990]

Insain Dragoon wrote:

Still makes more sense than Dodge+Mobility+Spring attack into Whirlwind attack.

You think anyone has playtested or house ruled fighters being able to skip any of the pre-req feats as long as they met the ability score and BAB?

Like I mentioned in one of the other threads, even if they were allowed to dump the entry level feat when they re-trained, and it allowed them to retain feats for which it was a pre-req. Since other classes have emerged which get to take feat XXX w/o meeting the pre-reqs.

Would seem a quick and simple adjustment for fighters, maybe even for the out of combat skills, since you could dump something like Expertise (but retain Greater Trip as an example) and invest the Expertise feat into skill focus or athletics/etc for those skill check boosts.

I have no problem with where casters have gone since coming from 1E background, where I had to house rule several things just to entice some of my players to at least -try- a wizard.

[hiiamtom]

I did. It's better to just give tons more feats.

Originally, I had feats "progress" by allowing to select a feat you qualified for that uses the initial feat as a prereq at least four levels after the initial feat was taken as a bonus feat. It still left a lot of build feat starved at cumbersome times, and I didn't enjoy it in practice.

Then I had feats with repetitive prerequisites (like Improved Trip and 13 INT) ignore the all repeated prereqs. At the same time all feats used BAB as an alternative prerequisite instead of part of the prerequisite. It was more fun, and even better just ignoring all ability score prerequisites (the actual application of feats already used the ability score in question to gauge effectiveness).

Finally, I landed on giving feats out like candy. At character creation you can only choose 1 trait. At odd levels you can only choose non-combat feats. At even levels you can choose 1 trait or take a racial feat. Each increase of BAB grants 1 combat feat, so full BAB gets a feat every level and even casters get combat feats frequently (the only exception is spell-less classes count as full BAB, so a rogue gets a combat feat every level). I've yet to break the game with this, and it hasn't made encounters harder to figure out for me. The only change I have noticed is players trying new things out like making an archer that can also box, or making tweaks or customizations to feat chains to give a little more personality to them with a custom feat. It till constrains the players but they have so many options that they don't get stuck on not getting that one feat and just pick 2-3 other that they otherwise wouldn't ever consider.

I like it, I imagine others would hate it. It still is hard to make TWF fighter and such, but I also changed point buy to be based on tier.

[Deadmanwalking]

Insain Dragoon wrote:

Or the poor Dune Drifter cavalier archetype that can't actually use their challenge class feature because the part that allowed them to apply challenge damage to ranged attacks got removed. Since it was a Player Companion book it's unlikely we'll ever see this FAQd or Erata'd though.

There's no evidence whose mistake that is. Could've been either the editors or the freelancer.

And, while not official errata, Pathfinder Society did release a set of Campaign Clarifications recently that are intended for the same purpose (if technically limited to PFS), which fixed this issue among others.

[Owen K. C. Stephens]

Campaign Clarifications represent a LOT of work by Linda and John, who have asked my opinion on a lot of those issues.
If you play in PFS it's official, and of significant use to you.
If you don't play in PFS it's not official - but then no one is enforcing an errata or FAQ in your house either, so you can use them the same way.

[Owen K. C. Stephens]

swoosh wrote:

we have friggin' Owen KC in here and I think it'd be way cooler to hear his opinions on feats and fighters and feat taxes and martial viability than to just argue about whether or not someone loves Pathfinder.

If you want my opinion on, well anything, just start an "Ask Owen K.C. Stephens Anything" thread, and ask. :)

[DragoDorn]

Owen K. C. Stephens wrote:

swoosh wrote:

we have friggin' Owen KC in here and I think it'd be way cooler to hear his opinions on feats and fighters and feat taxes and martial viability than to just argue about whether or not someone loves Pathfinder.

If you want my opinion on, well [anything, just start an "Ask Owen K.C. Stephens Anything" thread, and ask. :)

You asked for THIS

[Insain Dragoon]

Deadmanwalking wrote:

Insain Dragoon wrote:

Or the poor Dune Drifter cavalier archetype that can't actually use their challenge class feature because the part that allowed them to apply challenge damage to ranged attacks got removed. Since it was a Player Companion book it's unlikely we'll ever see this FAQd or Erata'd though.

There's no evidence whose mistake that is. Could've been either the editors or the freelancer.

And, while not official errata, Pathfinder Society did release a set of Campaign Clarifications recently that are intended for the same purpose (if technically limited to PFS), which fixed this issue among others.

I had never heard of this and this is awesome! So Campaign Clarifications are like FAQs and erratas for the Player companion and campaign setting line of books?

[Deadmanwalking]

Insain Dragoon wrote:

I had never heard of this and this is awesome! So Campaign Clarifications are like FAQs and erratas for the Player companion and campaign setting line of books?

They're specific to PFS, so some of the game assumptions are specific to that venue (there are occasional erratas that refer to things like 'you can only do this on days of play, not between scenarios' that are clearly specific to the format), and there's pretty much just the one (out quite recently) so far.

But yes. And you can usually pretty easily tell the necessarily campaign specific stuff. It's cool.

It can be found here.