Ghostwalk (Veiled Moon) balance?

[Yuven]

So, I tried playing a harbinger tonight, just to test it out... i took the ghostwalk maneuver and used it to walk through the first locked door we came across. That I can negate any loced door in lvl 5 seems a bit broken to me. Any way to house rule it so I cant just walk through every door that is in my way?

[Johnnycat93]

Why should a locked door be a significant deterrent at level 5? This is a serious question because nothing about this seems unbalanced.

[Sundakan]

Oh no

The locked door industry will go out of business

Whatever will we do

For real though A.) Locked doors aren't an issue by level 5 for anyone with ranks in Disable Device anyway, particularly if they optimized for it by buying cheap magic items like Goggles of Minute Seeing or class features like Trapfinding, etc. You can very easily have a +20 by level 5 (5 ranks, class skill, 14 Dex, Goggles gives you +15 already. If you're a Dex based character that jumps to +18, and if you have Trapfinding from say being an Investigator or UnRogue that jumps to 20), enough to trivially bypass all but the strongest locks.

Here's the real issue with Ghostwalk though: What's the rest of your party gonna do? It's a GREAT scouting tool. Not the greatest if you plan to use it to ignore locked doors since, well...there's 3 other people that need to follow after you.

[kyrt-ryder]

I would posit that more than half of locked doors can somehow be unlocked from the other side (though that won't always disable any traps on the door.

[Air0r]

yeah, locked doors don't tend to be an issue in my group, the stealthy types rarely get to attempt to unlock before someone is hacking at the door or chest with an axe or otherwise breaking it down.
that as early as level 1. by level 5, locks just aren't a concern, and a minor nuisance at worst.

[Wheldrake]

But what does the goat think?

[Sphereshot]

I think the problem lies with being able to use maneuvers out of combat in general. The sleeping goddess discipline for example lets a player basically negate ongoing fear effects and reroll any saving throw at lvl 5. Silver crane would theoretically give someone unlimited healing for free. Was this not playtested?

[Lord Foul II]

what goat?

[Wondering Lars]

But wouldn't you have problems with maneuver recovery? Although a harbringer can "may concentrate on her inner negativity and recover a single maneuver as a standard action"1 the system and use section specifically mentions that:

"you cannot use an expended maneuver again until you have rested for a brief time or perform a particular action in combat that will allow you to recover one or more expended maneuvers"2

1 http://www.d20pfsrd.com/path-of-war/classes/harbinger
2 http://www.d20pfsrd.com/path-of-war/systems-and-use

As far as I can see you would be able to get through the door just fine, but be unable to recover the maneuver before you had once again been in combat.

[Wheldrake]

Lord Foul II wrote:

what goat?

It's just that the thread title, referncing "ghoatwalk" made me wonder if PF had started introducing feats for goats. They's need feets if they was gonna walk. <g>

Assuming the OP really meant to critique the "ghostwalk" ability, being able to go incorporeal for a round does look like a very cool ability. I'm not real familiar with Paths of War, and it wasn't clear how often this ability could be used. Is that the real issue?

[Yuven]

Wondering Lars wrote:

But wouldn't you have problems with maneuver recovery? Although a harbringer can "may concentrate on her inner negativity and recover a single maneuver as a standard action"1 the system and use section specifically mentions that:

"you cannot use an expended maneuver again until you have rested for a brief time or perform a particular action in combat that will allow you to recover one or more expended maneuvers"2

1 http://www.d20pfsrd.com/path-of-war/classes/harbinger
2 http://www.d20pfsrd.com/path-of-war/systems-and-use

As far as I can see you would be able to get through the door just fine, but be unable to recover the maneuver before you had once again been in combat.

But Then again, you start with all maneuvers ready at the beginning of combat.

As for the Ghoat: A ghoat is obviously the spirit of a dead goat. They are knowing for their haunting bleats, spectral horns, and ability to fly anywhere you dont want you goat to be.

[kyrt-ryder]

Sphereshot wrote:

I think the problem lies with being able to use maneuvers out of combat in general. The sleeping goddess discipline for example lets a player basically negate ongoing fear effects and reroll any saving throw at lvl 5. Silver crane would theoretically give someone unlimited healing for free. Was this not playtested?

It was playtested extensively.

Pathfinder is theoretically 'balanced' on the premise that the martials have very limited resource constraints and can essentially 'go all day.'

Paths of War actually provide that, to a certain extent.

[Daw]

Agree with the consensus, if a standard locked door is not trivial to a 5th level group something is very wrong. Sundakan, thanks for bringing up the goggles, I had totally spaced them helping a friend with a character rebuild.

[Sundakan]

Yuven wrote:

As for the Ghoat: A ghoat is obviously the spirit of a dead goat. They are knowing for their haunting bleats, spectral horns, and ability to fly anywhere you dont want you goat to be.

Ghoat.

They're dangerous.

[PathlessBeth]

Wondering Lars wrote:

But wouldn't you have problems with maneuver recovery? Although a harbringer can "may concentrate on her inner negativity and recover a single maneuver as a standard action"1 the system and use section specifically mentions that:

"you cannot use an expended maneuver again until you have rested for a brief time or perform a particular action in combat that will allow you to recover one or more expended maneuvers"2

1 http://www.d20pfsrd.com/path-of-war/classes/harbinger
2 http://www.d20pfsrd.com/path-of-war/systems-and-use

As far as I can see you would be able to get through the door just fine, but be unable to recover the maneuver before you had once again been in combat.

All path of war classes can recover a single maneuver with a standard action. It's usually not a good idea in combat, but you can always recover all your maneuvers out of combat when standard actions aren't at a premium. This feature is stated explicitly when the book says

Path of War, page 28 wrote:

An encounter is a period of time from when

initiative begins (starting with the surprise round, if
any) to the last initiative has ended and after a total
time amount of one minute has elapsed without
combat resuming. This means that martial disciples
have had time to recover all expended maneuvers
and abilities that are used and depleted within the
span of an encounter.

The idea is that "readying" a maneuver involves getting into an appropriate stance or pose (which is often the case in real martial arts), or merely catching your breath for a few seconds. Both of those tasks are supposed to be trivial out of combat, but both can be very costly in combat when action-economy is critical.