Hear me out on this. There comes a time when access to magic grows to such a degree in acampaign that the very nature of the challenges fundamentally change. At 9th level clerics gain raise dead and death goes from being a big deal to becoming a resource drain and a pause in the action. Wizards gain overland flight and go from walking around to permanently flying (at least for the adventuring portion of the day). Resist energy spell's also start becoming more common and pre-buffs can take a decent amount of time.
But what do fighter's get at 9th level? +1 to attack and damage with weapons from two different weapon groups. There is no fundamental change in how the fighter interacts with the world. There is no army raising like in AD&D. There is no transformation into a legendary king or holy Champion of a god. When wizards gain the ability to create entire worlds at level 15, fighter's get a reduction in armor check penalty by +1 and can increase the dexterity modifier they add to AC by +1.
So what do people think? Are paragon paths (not to be confused with epic or mythic) an additive feature that Pathfinder would benefit from in order to give all classes the narrative tools that casters get?
A lot of the 3/4 BAB classes already get cool toys at high levels. I think a better approach would be to closely examine the martial classes and give them some useful narrative-building class features if their high levels look bland. Some of the martial classes are probably fine as-is in this regard, like the ranger and paladin.
The idea of Paragon paths, if I'm not mistaken, was to replace Prestige Classes, isn't it? Which is to say, instead of having to halt progression in your class to take a PrC, you just get PrC analogous goodies on top of your normal level progression.
I kind of like the idea, but applying it in Pathfinder would be tough since the PrCs would require a lot of retrofitting to make this work.
I'm not so sure on that.
A Paladin can smite more times per day (no real change there), remove more status effects (nothing as dramatic as death though), put more properties on their weapon/armor, slightly better defenses and can share her smite ability. Level 20 is cool from a story point, but that's it.
Rangers get better defended, more favored enemy, more favored terrain, more feats and eventually hide in plain sight.
Rogues get more sneak attack, better trap sense and more rogue talents.
Wizards get to dominate people and make them their puppets whom obey their every command. Sorcerers (who take Dragon Disciple) turn into Dragons! More sneak attack or +1 to hit and damage doesn't really compare.
This can't be real....
Dude go read more, read the guide, read anything that's been posted this year about fighters.
I like the way classes are generally designed to offer a multitude of choices that are gained modularly as you level.
I think if you're going down the path of "what does it make sense for a person with a sword and a bow and knowledge do with equivalent narrative power as 'teleport'" you're going to run into trouble right away.
Likely, the best avenues to address that problem are "scale back teleport" or "give (almost) everybody access to the out-of-combat utility spells somehow."
This can't be real....
Sorry?
Dude go read more, read the guide, read anything that's been posted this year about fighters.
Dunno what "the guide" is, but if it's some DPR optimizing guide it doesn't really address anything I've said.
The idea of Paragon paths, if I'm not mistaken, was to replace Prestige Classes, isn't it?
There are superficial similarities. You kept gaining new base class features all the way up to level 30. Paragon Paths gave you extra features on top of your base class. Some Paragon Paths had more flavour then others (e.g. One turned you into an angel. Another made you king).
I kind of like the idea, but applying it in Pathfinder would be tough since the PrCs would require a lot of retrofitting to make this work.
If it worked like Mythic Tier it may not need as much retrofitting.
I think if you're going down the path of "what does it make sense for a person with a sword and a bow and knowledge do with equivalent narrative power as 'teleport'" you're going to run into trouble right away.
Likely, the best avenues to address that problem are "scale back teleport" or "give (almost) everybody access to the out-of-combat utility spells somehow."
One way to look at it might be "what does teleporting achieve from a story perspective?" Most of the time in my games it's been used for shopping trips or searching for someone to raise someone from the dead.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
4E did a *lot* of things right. And it got a lot of things wrong.
The biggest gripe I've heard about 4E is the length of combats - and while 4E combats can be *extremely* rewarding from a Tactitian's perspective, it was common for us to spend an entire session (or even more than one session) on a single combat. Even minor skirmishes lasted far longer than necessary.
We eventually figured out a fix for this in our group (spreading out multiple components of a full encounter out across a dungeon level and then limiting the short rest, which enabled the kinds of encounters you might have in any other edition of D&D.)
The other big issue with 4E was that they didn't stick to their guns. The moment they started trying to make 4.5 material, the system became a muddled mess.
But a lot of the rest was really good; in fact, we've implemented a lot of those elements into our PF houserules.
This can't be real....
Dude go read more, read the guide, read anything that's been posted this year about fighters.
Nothing released in the past year has adequately increased the Fighter's narrative power. All of the new material is good, but basically brings them up to par with Core only Paladins and Rangers, and only then in a combat sense.
A Paladin can smite more times per day (no real change there), remove more status effects (nothing as dramatic as death though), put more properties on their weapon/armor, slightly better defenses and can share her smite ability. Level 20 is cool from a story point, but that's it.
As a point of order, Paladins can Raise Dead (cost free, even) using Lay on Hands with a Feat. If only all Feats were that good.
This may only work for certain campaigns, but giving each class a pool of "build your own club" points would be cool. Like, fighters and rogues could make their own guilds or raise their own mercenary armies or be in charge of royal forces. Of course, Wizards/clerics could have them too for churches or arcane schools but you could put it in the martial's favor by making their developments and recruiting cost way less. There are way more individuals that are able to be martial classes so finding suitable recruits would be easier.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
My group got bored of 4th Edition because every class feels the same as they level up. Despite the game doing wonders of giving the fighter more interesting things to do, my 10th level fighter was still doing the exact same thing she did at 1st level. The only difference is that she had more encounter and daily powers that all did different variations of the same thing. Even the other players agreed that the power system was a joke. Every power is some variation of "target takes damage and bonus effect X happens" and is only useful for a specific build you had to decide at 1st level.
Radiance RPG did a way better job of what 4th Edition tried to accomplish with its power system.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Despite the game doing wonders of giving the fighter more interesting things to do, my 10th level fighter was still doing the exact same thing she did at 1st level.
As opposed to the far more dynamic growth of the Pathfinder fighter, where you start at first level indistinguishable from a Commoner with higher numbers and capable of nothing but full attacks, before gaining a variety of unique game-changing capabilities that no other class can get and that are completely different from what you did at 1st level.
Despite the game doing wonders of giving the fighter more interesting things to do, my 10th level fighter was still doing the exact same thing she did at 1st level.As opposed to the far more dynamic growth of the Pathfinder fighter, where you start at first level indistinguishable from a Commoner with higher numbers and capable of nothing but full attacks, before gaining a variety of unique game-changing capabilities that no other class can get and that are completely different from what you did at 1st level.
Well...yeah if you look at marshmallows schrodinger's fighter build.
As a point of order, Paladins can Raise Dead (cost free, even) using Lay on Hands with a Feat. If only all Feats were that good.
Fair enough. Ultimate Magic isn't something I've really looked at for quite a while.
This may only work for certain campaigns, but giving each class a pool of "build your own club" points would be cool. Like, fighters and rogues could make their own guilds or raise their own mercenary armies or be in charge of royal forces.
This is something I've been thinking about. Fighter's had it in AD&D 2e and I don't see any real reason for it's removal/outsourcing into a non-combat feat in 3e. I've been thinking about giving it to a Fighter Unchained class, but am thinking instead that a "legendary class" system might work better.
My group got bored of 4th Edition because every class feels the same as they level up. Despite the game doing wonders of giving the fighter more interesting things to do, my 10th level fighter was still doing the exact same thing she did at 1st level.
4th Ed was fundamentally flawed on many levels. But I do think it had a handful of good ideas, some of which is present in Pathfinder (possibly because they were in 3e).
Here are some half baked ideas that are currently acting as a prestige class type system. Where Mythic Tier allows you to become a god, this would be designed to make you a legendary King or bandit, or a prophet or Saint for your patron God. It also wouldn't be about getting +thousand to checks or rolls or about doing a billion damage each round.
Heroic Recovery is designed to remove the bag of CLW wands that high level play seems to be designed around. It also gives fighters the ability to shrug off death. Appeal is designed to give fighter's a 100% mundane "dominate person" with mechanics that capture its mundane nature while allowing a fighter to capture those moments in books and films where the hero makes the enemy or townspeople his ally. Stronghold gives you the flavour of the leadership feat minus the balance issues while growing reputation gives you the most common benefits of greater teleport (that I've seen used at least) again with no magic involved.
It won't be everyone's cup of tea, and the ideas are extremely rough at this stage, but I've seen complaints around narrative power in quite a few threads about mundane classes and this is designed to address that while making high level fighter's a little bit less reliant on magic.
The idea of Paragon paths, if I'm not mistaken, was to replace Prestige Classes, isn't it? Which is to say, instead of having to halt progression in your class to take a PrC, you just get PrC analogous goodies on top of your normal level progression.
I kind of like the idea, but applying it in Pathfinder would be tough since the PrCs would require a lot of retrofitting to make this work.
IIRC, the impetus behind PPs was "Everybody seems to really love these PrC things and in many groups they seem to be an assumed goal for every PC, so let's make them default in 4e. And while we're at it, let's eliminate all of those fiddly prereqs that require a lot of build-planning!"
Paragon Paths would actually be rather easy to implement in pathfinder;
Paragon Paths could be special archetypes that are taken on at 11th instead of 1st, and only really change abilities gained from that level onward.
A paragon path for a paladin, for instance, could only really alter; Aura of Justice, Aura of Faith, Aura of Righteousness, Holy Champion, and increases in their other class features that take place after 10th level.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The thing you are describing (adding narrative power to characters who don't have it) doesn't require paragon paths. It requires adding narrative power to classes without significant supernatural abilities.
The most straight forward example I can think of is in one of my games my rogue has a network of contacts and underlings in the region the party is operating in. This allows her to make skill checks at a distance with a bonus based on how influence her network has in the region. So as an example, the party was pulling into a port looking for a traitorous noble the party was tasked with finding, before they docked as they were in character discussing their plan, she was able to after receiving a bird (that's the element we describe for her being able to send messages by mundane means, ala Game of thrones style ravens), the ship the noble arrived at, where he was staying and who he had seen (after making a number of relevant skill checks by proxy through her network).
Paragon paths that are designed to fit within the framework of existing pathfinder abilities don't fix the issue of narrative power. Changing the framework for mundane classes does that.