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That is actually a clear factor in where much of the root of the problem lies. The core design team very obviously has some different philosophies and standards than the companion line team. Things that would never get printed in a core book frequently get printed in companion books, but there's not really any distinction between the validity or setting appropriateness of the options. In 3.5 (and I want to preface this with the fact that I greatly prefer how Paizo has done things overall compared to WotC) you knew clearly what was a Forgotten Realms specific option compared to a core line option, because all the Forgotten Realms options were in books with "Forgotten Realms" printed in multiple places across the cover. The player companion lines on the other hand don't really specify that they're supposed to be Golarion specific, so the options presented therein are generally treated exactly like any other option Paizo puts out, which is a big part of where these discussions come from. For most players, if Paizo printed it, it's got the exact same stamp of approval for general use regardless of whether it was part of the monthly softcover releases or the larger hardcover books, despite the fact that the differing design strictures have frequently led to situations where feats in player companion books are absolutely and undeniably strictly stronger than most feats and options found in core line products (Thunder and Fang, Sacred Geometry, Dervish Dance, etc.). There's also the added factor of people using the pfsrd to obtain much of their information, which pre-strips all the setting specific fluff out of the options and makes it more difficult for people to determine the context a feat or option was meant to be presented in, but there's not a lot of getting around that.I think this is very relevant. The player companion line is (clearly, based on the above) a supplement concerning golarion, rather than an avenue for developing generic rules intended to be used in any setting.
It may have mechanical options alongside it's flavor and they may be usable elsewhere with a little work. Nonetheless, it's an error to evaluate it as if it's an extension of the PFRPG line - it's more an extension of the campaign setting line.
Paizo are producing for many different markets, albeit with a lot of crossover. By necessity, their products will involve compromise when it comes to issues such as this.
I think it's inevitable given the differing markets. As is the nature of all compromise positions, I suspect that even amongst paizo staff, nobody is entirely happy with where they draw the line, but they have to draw it somewhere. They could have a really clean break between rules and flavor, but I suspect the revenue hit would be unsustainable.
Nonetheless, I think it's incumbent on those of us who learn the distinction (explicitly spelled out above - thanks, Mark!) to keep that in the forefront of our minds when debating it.
Whether it's the way we'd choose to break up the product lines or not, it's the way paizo have chosen. So mechanics from the player companion line should be evaluated as "mechanical options for golarion that you might be able to use elsewhere" rather than as "options for generic worlds with arbitrary flavor restrictions".
The argument about whether there should be golarion-tied mechanical options is separate to whether or not this is balanced or "philosophically compatible" compared with options from the RPG line.
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The argument about whether there should be golarion-tied mechanical options is separate to whether or not this is balanced or "philosophically compatible" compared with options from the RPG line.
I agree with pretty much everything you said, except this. If there are going to be different standards for what makes it into a companion product and what makes it into a core product, and let's be quite frank here there are, then you shouldn't need to go forum diving to know that. The issue is that many of the Golarion-tied options are strictly stronger than the "generic" core line options, and as long as that remains true than the existence of said options cannot be a separate matter from whether or not they are balanced or "philosophically compatible" compared with options from the RPG line.
Thematics: So flavor, that's it, that's still the entire argument.
No.
the question is why couldn't a character in the setting work around the restrictions on the feat. Worship and your mindset are an actual thing for a character in world.
Mechanics: What two fighting styles that require a deity could mix with this? What is this safe guarding?
If you're going to claim this, I want to see an example rather than just assuming it to be true, how is this safe guarding anything?
It's future proofing. They may want to add more fighting styles at a later date without having to double check it against every combination they've already put out.
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The argument about whether there should be golarion-tied mechanical options is separate to whether or not this is balanced or "philosophically compatible" compared with options from the RPG line.I agree with pretty much everything you said, except this. If there are going to be different standards for what makes it into a softcover and what makes it into a hardcover, and let's be quite frank here, then you shouldn't need to go forum diving to know that. The issue is that many of the Golarion-tied options are strictly stronger than the "generic" core line options, and as long as that remains true than the existence of said options cannot be a separate matter from whether or not they are balanced or "philosophically compatible" compared with options from the RPG line.
I think I wasn't clear. I don't think we're miles apart.
What I meant was that they clearly are different. But the critique shouldn't be "X is overpowered, compare with Y". The critique should be "X should be called out more explicitly as from a different category of options than Y".
The horse has already bolted, but I would see little problem if some feats/traits/Prestige-classes and whatever other options had a "Golarion" tag alongside the various other classifications they had. Then it would be clear that these are not intended to be lined up alongside the various generic options under the auspices of the PDT.
Instead, one often sees critique along the lines of "this option is broken" as if every rules element was filtered by the same team and was designed to suit the same purpose. The reason I think they are different problems is that, even if you think the two categories shouldn't exist, it is possible to analyse each group of options separately and to intellectually distinguish the two.
One can critique an option both from the point of view of what was trying to be achieved as well as from the perspective of whether that goal should ever have been set.
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That is actually a clear factor in where much of the root of the problem lies. The core design team very obviously has some different philosophies and standards than the companion line team. Things that would never get printed in a core book frequently get printed in companion books, but there's not really any distinction between the validity or setting appropriateness of the options. In 3.5 (and I want to preface this with the fact that I greatly prefer how Paizo has done things overall compared to WotC) you knew clearly what was a Forgotten Realms specific option compared to a core line option, because all the Forgotten Realms options were in books with "Forgotten Realms" printed in multiple places across the cover. The player companion lines on the other hand don't really specify that they're supposed to be Golarion specific, so they're generally treated exactly like any other feat Paizo puts out, which is a big part of where these discussions come from. For most players, if Paizo printed it, it's got the exact same stamp of approval for general use regardless of whether it was part of the monthly softcover releases or the larger hardcover books, despite the fact that the differing design...I think this is very relevant. The player companion line is (clearly, based on the above) a supplement concerning golarion, rather than an avenue for developing generic rules intended to be used in any setting.
It may have mechanical options alongside it's flavor and they may be usable elsewhere with a little work. Nonetheless, it's an error to evaluate it as if it's an extension of the PFRPG line - it's more an extension of the campaign setting line.
Paizo are producing for many different markets, albeit with a lot of crossover. By necessity, their products will involve compromise when it comes to issues such as this.
Steve Geddes got it exactly right in his post above, and you're right too. However, it's also useful to consider that there isn't a "Player Companion team". Whoever is listed as "Lead Developer" for a particular Player Companion (and occasionally two people, who split one) is the person who did that particular book.
Going back to Steve's post, he's hit it dead on the nose: The RPG line prints rules that are (or at least attempt to be) designed based on mechanics first. They're baseline products that most groups are more likely to own and so it's important for them to be safe for groups to use without a mechanical surprise that warps their gameplay or has to be retroactively table-banned. They also try to be cognizant of the corpus of other RPG line books and the potential for combination, both synergies and antisynergies, which is possible because that's a smaller corpus, and they've been trying recently to promote versatility, by doing things like not releasing an archetype that's just better than the base class and is seen as "mandatory".
Player Companions are different; they're generally focused on a particular flavor theme, and that puts them in a place where they might have mechanics that are more on the cutting edge. Certain mechanics might come into play with a thematic mandate in the outline, like "Let's make followers of X really really awesome at <thing Y related to X's portfolio>" as primary rather than primary being looking at how <thing Y> stacks up to other builds. And I think they're incredibly successful in that regard. I get lots of ideas for Golarion-themed characters whenever I peruse one. But it does mean the mechanics don't necessarily follow the same logic trains you might think to use on them to try to derive that <thing Y> should be available to everyone (that would be the train of "If it's allowed for followers of X, then it must be completely balanced with all other options, thus it should be allowed for all"), if they were designed primarily to make followers of X awesome at <thing Y> and only secondarily with respect to where <thing Y> sits in the ecosystem of choices in an unrestricted game.
But here's one cool way to use this to your advantage: I've noted over the years that a fair number of forumites are playing high optimization games with opposition that absolutely blows away the opposition in Adventure Paths or the Bestiary expectations
EDIT: Literally in the middle of this long post, Steve and Ssalarn each made insightful posts. This was written before I saw them, though I don't think anything I said would be different now that I read them, possibly just more agreeing that Steve has a wise and deep understanding of things.
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Prerequisite: Must worship Shelyn
Benefit: Whenever you donate a piece of art worth at least 1,000 gp to a church of Shelyn, you gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with a glaive for 1 week. This bonus increases to +2 if you created the piece of art yourself.That would be a feat that gives an incentive to roleplay, because the mechanical benefit is specifically contingent on your character taking actions in world, not the player scribbling a deity name on their character sheet. See the difference?
There is none. There might still be players who put the restriction into question (why can't I simply spend to Shelyn without actively worshipping her?), there might still be gamers who simply pay to get the boni and just make some craft checks to have some piece of art createrd by themselves. So a player who wants to have this might still just scribble the name of Shelyn onto their character sheet and ignore this aspect later on.
On the other hand, it might give the player incentive to actually roleplay a worshipper of Shelyn, even when it's not about mechanics. But that's exactly what can happen with the other feat as well, so again, no difference.
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here, since no trait I'm aware of gates an entire character concept behind an arbitrary restriction.
I used traits as an example for mechanics offering incentive for roleplaying and you called that out as patronizing. It wasn't clear to me that you were only referring to the restriction part so I didn't answer to that specifically.
That's nice, but they could have "helped" by simply including a tag that notes that certain feats are common to worshippers of certain faiths rather than gating them behind hard restrictions.
Well, yeah, they could have, but as far as the setting is concerned, that's a difference. And just to adress this argument as well, I actually don't give a damn about if the rules option is balanced or not. Even if it is perfectly balanced, that still doesn't mean that players must have unrestricted access to it if the setting says otherwise.
what you're saying amounts to "The rules are fine because I break them all the time anyways and I only play with people who are cool with me breaking them", while I'm saying "The rules would be better if they weren't reliant on people breaking them to begin with".
What I'm saying is that the rules are fine as they are, but they are only options and therefore not sacrosanct. Modifying them to increase everyone's fun factor is not breaking them, it's just using another option to account for the fact that there is no great rules unification theory to fit everyone's taste perfectly.
I mean, I guess there might be players out there who feel unnecessary restricted by the -2 CHA penalty dwarves get as per the rules. So, clearly it would be better if there were no mechanical difference between the races at all.
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Because...You're not in the zone.
That's as good an explanation as any other I've seen in this thread so far.
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Prerequisite: Must worship Shelyn
Benefit: Whenever you donate a piece of art worth at least 1,000 gp to a church of Shelyn, you gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with a glaive for 1 week. This bonus increases to +2 if you created the piece of art yourself.That would be a feat that gives an incentive to roleplay, because the mechanical benefit is specifically contingent on your character taking actions in world, not the player scribbling a deity name on their character sheet. See the difference?
There is none. There might still be players who put the restriction into question (why can't I simply spend to Shelyn without actively worshipping her?), there might still be gamers who simply pay to get the boni and just make some craft checks to have some piece of art createrd by themselves. So a player who wants to have this might still just scribble the name of Shelyn onto their character sheet and ignore this aspect later on.
I utterly and completely disagree with you. One option requires a character to actively support and interact with an institution in-game, the other requires you to scribble a name on a character sheet. Absolutely nothing about e.g. Dervish Dance encourages roleplay, and as I said, it actually does the opposite, encouraging people to ignore the fluff in favor of the mechanical benefit, as you yourself have stated you are wont to do.
On the other hand, it might give the player incentive to actually roleplay a worshiper of Shelyn, even when it's not about mechanics. But that's exactly what can happen with the other feat as well, so again, no difference.
It encourages players to ask their GM if they can ignore an arbitrary restriction. There is no roleplaying related benefit or incentive. None. It may give players an idea when deciding what character concept they want to play, but it does nothing to promote choices and decisions made at the table, which is where roleplay happens.
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here, since no trait I'm aware of gates an entire character concept behind an arbitrary restriction.I used traits as an example for mechanics offering incentive for roleplaying and you called that out as patronizing. It wasn't clear to me that you were only referring to the restriction part so I didn't answer to that specifically.
I was referring specifically to gating powerful options behind arbitrary restrictions, which traits generally have little to do with.
That's nice, but they could have "helped" by simply including a tag that notes that certain feats are common to worshippers of certain faiths rather than gating them behind hard restrictions.Well, yeah, they could have, but as far as the setting is concerned, that's a difference. And just to adress this argument as well, I actually don't give a damn about if the rules option is balanced or not. Even if it is perfectly balanced, that still doesn't mean that players must have unrestricted access to it if the setting says otherwise.
I'm saying that the entire reason this thread exists is because of the inversion of priorities as Mark describes above. All 250+ posts simply wouldn't be a factor if player companion feats didn't get to be stronger than core feats because "flavor". Right, wrong, or neither, that's simply the truth, and the conflict it engenders is exacerbated by the fact that looking from the outside in without the benefit of things like Mark's clarification about the differing philosophies, it simply seems like someone somewhere thought "must worship Gorum" was a good mechanical balance to an ability that has nothing to do with actually worshipping Gorum but which gets to be stronger than other existing options.
what you're saying amounts to "The rules are fine because I break them all the time anyways and I only play with people who are cool with me breaking them", while I'm saying "The rules would be better if they weren't reliant on people breaking them to begin with".What I'm saying is that the rules are fine as they are, but they are only options and therefore not sacrosanct. Modifying them to increase everyone's fun factor is not breaking them, it's just using another option to account for the fact that there is no great rules unification theory to fit everyone's taste perfectly.
And that's a perfectly fine opinion if you happen to have the freedom to break, or "modify", the rules whenever you want, but many players don't have that luxury.
From your perspective, a specific set of rules are fine because you feel you can freely change them whenever you feel like it. I'll avoid pointing out what fallacy that is.
From another perspective, a specific set of rules suck because they take really cool and/or iconic options and then weigh them down with arbitrary restrictions that have little or nothing to do with actual game balance.
If those particular rules weren't gated to begin with, nothing would change for you, but things would improve for the people who feel stymied by them. From a certain perspective, this is kind of like a rich billionaire voting against a policy that wouldn't affect him specifically because it wouldn't affect him, or a poor person voting on a policy that penalizes rich people simply because it penalizes someone who has something they don't, even if there's no direct benefit to them. I could draw more specific and accurate analogues, but I don't want to invest this subject with more gravity and weight than it actually deserves. Long and the short is, you're essentially advocating against a proposed theoretical change that would benefit some and which won't affect you either way, which sure to engender disgruntlement and disagreement from the people who stand to benefit and for whom your opposition seems purely contrarian.
I mean, I guess there might be players out there who feel unnecessary restricted by the -2 CHA penalty dwarves get as per the rules. So, clearly it would be better if there were no mechanical difference between the races at all.
That's a ridiculous strawman. Racial ability bonuses help define what a race is, and define what the race is supposed to be, what it's natural strengths and weaknesses are, so on and so forth. Saying "you have to worship X deity to hit someone really hard when you charge, or wield a polearm with finesse, etc." is something completely different- you're imposing an arbitrary restriction on something that has nothing to do with anything more than the most superficial in-world logic. Why should charging someone and hitting them really hard be limited to worshippers of Gorum? Sure, it makes sense as a feat that would be commonly taken by Gorum worshippers, but is Gorum himself skipping down to lean on their greatsword a little bit every time they run fast? Why define something through arbitrary exclusion when you can just as easily define it through specific inclusion?
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Is the player companion line really all that difficult to distinguish from being Golarion specific? I could understand someone buying a volume blind who was new to the game, but a casual look through any volume would reveal a ton of campaign specific text. I just don't see this as really ambiguous.
They really shouldn't be hard and fast rules. The point of "only members of this group know this thing" is to make "knowing the thing" more exclusive, a thing that defines members of the group as standing out, and to keep anybody and everybody from taking it purely for the mechanical benefit. If it's like weapon finesse or improved trip, then it's less special. But you don't have to limit it only to the in-group to keep it special.
If you had a character who was a follower of Shelyn and learned a dextrous glaive fighting style, then turned away from the faith for whatever reason, it's not like you'd forget how to fight. So I just read that sort of thing as "think about how to work the relevant fluff into your backstory" rather than just taking it without thinking about where or how you picked it up like any other feat. In theory you could do this with every feat, honestly. I'd be interested to know how wizards acquire "toughness".
Let me tell you about the 'Iron wizard' tournament sometime
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Absolutely nothing about e.g. Dervish Dance encourages roleplay
I've seen it give a few characters (including at least one of my own) a bit of back story and story progression that they probably wouldn't have otherwise had. Being a saranite at least says SOMETHING about your swordsman, even if the magi currently have their own mezanine section..
Let me tell you about the 'Iron wizard' tournament sometime
I mean "I used to be a bookish nebbish devoted to dusty tomes and old scrolls, let me tell you how I got SWOLE" is something I wish more Wizards would work into their character concepts.
While the Barbarian just eats or drinks whatever is handy and probably has never even heard of yoga, the Wizard can develop a nutritional plan featuring a series of protein shakes for his or her specific workout plan.
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Absolutely nothing about e.g. Dervish Dance encourages roleplayI've seen it give a few characters (including at least one of my own) a bit of back story and story progression that they probably wouldn't have otherwise had. Being a saranite at least says SOMETHING about your swordsman, even if the magi currently have their own mezanine section..It's been said before.
Inspiration is good.
Restriction suppresses individual inspiration.
Or it jump starts it.
Or guides it.
You think it suppresses, I think it helps.
But it's not as though a poet might not have something to say that isn't particularly suited to being said by a sonnet.
So it's not as though the expression of certain ideas ought to be limited to certain formal structures. Sometimes structure helps, but not all structure does.
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But it's not as though a poet might not have something to say that isn't particularly suited to being said by a sonnet.
So it's not as though the expression of certain ideas ought to be limited to certain formal structures. Sometimes structure helps, but not all structure does.
Actually, you have to use the same poetic structure all the time. Otherwise, you're a filthy powerwriter and not a real poet.
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Absolutely nothing about e.g. Dervish Dance encourages roleplayI've seen it give a few characters (including at least one of my own) a bit of back story and story progression that they probably wouldn't have otherwise had. Being a saranite at least says SOMETHING about your swordsman, even if the magi currently have their own mezanine section..It's been said before.
Inspiration is good.
Restriction suppresses individual inspiration.
Or it jump starts it.
Or guides it.
You think it suppresses, I think it helps.
An analogy I've used before is poetry - free verse vs the Sonnet (or haiku for more modern fans.)
Nothing against free verse, but it's pretty hard to argue that the strict restrictions in form harm the poetry.
It depends on who you ask; I adore sonnets and can compose a soonet on the fly for exactly the reason that the sonnet's restrictions breed creativity, so I tend to use them for divination spells. But my Poetry professor in college was major hardcore into the Beat Generation (like so much so that he literally knew people like Kerouac and Ginsberg personally), and he was critical of any sonnet I generated, while he was really supportive of anything free verse I wrote, regardless of whether I liked it or not.
Especially when
I thought...
about how
I could
use nonstandard line
breaks to
change up the pacing
and break
up phrases in an interesting
way.
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Is the player companion line really all that difficult to distinguish from being Golarion specific? I could understand someone buying a volume blind who was new to the game, but a casual look through any volume would reveal a ton of campaign specific text. I just don't see this as really ambiguous.
It doesn't help matters much that D20pfsrd is a common reference source for people that specifically strips out the Golarion-specific fluff for legal reasons. If, like many groups, you have one or two people who own the majority of the books and use an online resource to build your character ahead of the game, only to show up and find out that the character you spent three hours building isn't legal because that feat you grabbed actually requires you to worship Gorum specifically, it's going to be upsetting, especially if that choice was integral enough to the build that you're pushed back to scratch.
Similarly, pretty much every non-core line book that Paizo puts out is Golarion-specific, but only some of the options have Golarion-specific restrictions; for example anyone can learn how to nauseate or pin someone with Dirty Trick, but only people who worship Rovagug can trip someone they bull rush. Bull rushing is an action anyone can take, tripping is an option anyone can take, but combining them is a skill that is somehow gated behind obeisance to a world-eating monster? Only through faith in Rovagug can I learn how to knock someone down when I push them back? Falling over is a usually a natural result of being pushed backward hard enough, but apparently in Pathfinder only those who worship the Unmaker can make someone fall over when they push them. It's not that deity-specific feats are necessarily a bad thing, it's when a feat is deity-specific for no other reason than to be deity-specific that people start getting frustrated, both because they see the restriction as nonsensical, and because they're less likely to ever get a feat that does that that isn't deity-restricted since it would overlap with that existing feat.
Yeah. And I don't want to play Pathfinder all the time either.But it's not as though a poet might not have something to say that isn't particularly suited to being said by a sonnet.
So it's not as though the expression of certain ideas ought to be limited to certain formal structures. Sometimes structure helps, but not all structure does.
I think a more directly analogous version of this response to the way PossibleCabbage has extended the analogy would be to say that certainly not all feats in the game should have a deity requirement (that would be pretty bizarre), but the tools should be on the table when it helps.
Perhaps the restrictions could be thought of as more of a guideline.
Keep in mind that not everyone who plays Pathfinder is on these forums, nor are they up on all the cool ways that you can build characters, optimization guides and/or years of experience.
What is given to them, and us, is a guideline of "hey, this is cool! You could do it like this!"
More experienced or more knowledgeable gamers may chafe at what they perceive as a restriction and would rather everything was unlocked to start with instead of having to ask permission or negotiate with a GM.
But, at least for my money, it is easier for the experienced gamers and/or those with more knowledge to deal with their GM/table than it can be for newer gamers or those unsure about building characters to see how putting the blocks together can work. So the Companion, in this case, shows you how to build something neat.
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Skill Focus: Profession (Baker)
You get a +3 bonus on all checks involving the chosen skill. If you have 10 or more ranks in that skill, this bonus increases to +6.
Okay good start...
Improved baker
You make even more delicious baked treats, +2 to your Profession (Baker).
Greater baker
Req: Improved baker
Your delicious baked treats are known throughout the land, +2 to your Profession (Baker) and you can take 10 even when threatened and do not draw attacks of opportunity when baking. This bonus stacks with Improved baker.
Yes this is great, that chef AP won't know what hit it!
Elven baker
Req: Elf or half elf race
Your snobby elf nature spurs you to bake in order to show your superiority to other races bakers. +2 to your Profession (Baker)
Eh? I have to be an Elf? Damn I hate elves. Okay I guess I can let this slide for now.
Chef Of The Everlasting Pudding
Req: Good baker, must follow The Everlasting Pudding
Your delicious baked treats hold the mysterious rites of the Most Fluffiest One. +2 to your Profession (Baker)
Disgusting! This is just unacceptable. What if there's an elf of the pudding at this AP? I will have a 10% chance of not being him at the county fair bake-off. This is clearly an unfair and extremely poor method of FORCING my character to worship the EP. I will not stand for this, further more I will complain about it on the internet!
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I think the issue is that both the "I want to play a character from [wherever], what mechanics reinforce that" and "I want to play a character who does [thing], what mechanics complement that" are both valid ways to look at the game. The issue from the latter approach is that if your idea for a person who uses a specific fighting style starts requiring you to be from certain places, be a certain race, and worship a certain god it sort of seems like the game is making your character for you and not letting you do what you want.
Games constrain choices. The constraint you're referring to is nothing more than the fact that you're not going to play an astronaut in a game that's hard core sword and sorcery. Choices that open some doors will invariably close others.
If you've chosen to worship God A, you're not going to get special benies from Goddess B. And vice versa.
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Absolutely nothing about e.g. Dervish Dance encourages roleplayI've seen it give a few characters (including at least one of my own) a bit of back story and story progression that they probably wouldn't have otherwise had. Being a saranite at least says SOMETHING about your swordsman, even if the magi currently have their own mezanine section..
Right, but would that be any better than, for example, saying "the following feats are common amongst worshippers of Sarenrae..." or writing in the descriptive fluff "This technique, first developed by worshippers of Sarenrae, uses the scimitar's curving blade to convert your speed into power" or something similar. You can associate a feat with a deity or religion without limiting it to that deity or religion, particularly for feats that don't actually involve/require divine intervention.
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I think the issue is that both the "I want to play a character from [wherever], what mechanics reinforce that" and "I want to play a character who does [thing], what mechanics complement that" are both valid ways to look at the game. The issue from the latter approach is that if your idea for a person who uses a specific fighting style starts requiring you to be from certain places, be a certain race, and worship a certain god it sort of seems like the game is making your character for you and not letting you do what you want.Games constrain choices. The constraint you're referring to is nothing more than the fact that you're not going to play an astronaut in a game that's hard core sword and sorcery. Choices that open some doors will invariably close others.
If you've chosen to worship God A, you're not going to get special benies from Goddess B. And vice versa.
Why are "knocking someone down when I push them" or "hitting someone extra hard when I charge with a greatsword" special divine benefits in the first place though? It takes divine intervention to make someone fall prone after you bull rush them? Really?
You have to worship Cayden Caillean to get extra brave when drunk? That's why many people get drunk in the first place!Why do feats that have nothing to do with a deity other than the fact that someone decided to stick one in the prerequisites need to be gated to worshippers of these deities in the first place? Most of the combat oriented ones wouldn't even be compatible anyways since they're weapon specific.
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Right, but would that be any better than, for example, saying "the following feats are common amongst worshippers of Sarenrae..." or writing in the descriptive fluff "This technique, first developed by worshippers of Sarenrae, uses the scimitar's curving blade to convert your speed into power" or something similar. You can associate a feat with a deity or religion without limiting it to that deity or religion, particularly for feats that don't actually involve/require divine intervention.Absolutely nothing about e.g. Dervish Dance encourages roleplayI've seen it give a few characters (including at least one of my own) a bit of back story and story progression that they probably wouldn't have otherwise had. Being a saranite at least says SOMETHING about your swordsman, even if the magi currently have their own mezanine section..
I like the limitation. To be frank a continually evolving game such as 3.x/Pathfinder is deeply and profoundly vulnerable to bloat and power creep, and restricting options to thematically appropriate story points is a way to minimize the effects of that a little. It also serves to add detail, distinction, and unique mechanics to story points in the game.
You have to worship Cayden Caillean to get extra brave when drunk? That's why many people get drunk in the first place!
People get drunk to escape fear or support bravado in an empty escape from reality. The blessing of Cayden is given to those who aspire to be more than just common craven drunks.
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I like the limitation. To be frank a continually evolving game such as 3.x/Pathfinder is deeply and profoundly vulnerable to bloat and power creep, and restricting options to thematically appropriate story points is a way to minimize the effects of that a little. It also serves to add detail, distinction, and unique mechanics to story points in the game.Right, but would that be any better than, for example, saying "the following feats are common amongst worshippers of Sarenrae..." or writing in the descriptive fluff "This technique, first developed by worshippers of Sarenrae, uses the scimitar's curving blade to convert your speed into power" or something similar. You can associate a feat with a deity or religion without limiting it to that deity or religion, particularly for feats that don't actually involve/require divine intervention.Absolutely nothing about e.g. Dervish Dance encourages roleplayI've seen it give a few characters (including at least one of my own) a bit of back story and story progression that they probably wouldn't have otherwise had. Being a saranite at least says SOMETHING about your swordsman, even if the magi currently have their own mezanine section..
Gating abilities to deities creates the illusion of balance without actually providing any actual benefit. Try to find a couple feats that are gated away from each other by being tied to separate deities that would be more powerful if they could combine. Most of the combat feats are weapon specific, and those that aren't typically require very specific actions that wouldn't combine with the other abilities anyways. All that adding in those deity restrictions does is limit your roleplay options.
As to them providing "detail, distinction, and unique mechanics to story points in the game", well, I already addressed that right there in the post you're quoting. You can associate a feat with Sarenrae without locking them to Sarenrae, to exactly the same story effect.
You know what does create bloat and power creep though? Writing feats that are more powerful than the established baseline because you've prioritized flavor over balance. Either using Dex with a glaive is balanced, or it's not. If it's not, limiting it to worshippers of Shelyn won't change that.
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So you change it for your individual games and it exists as is for the people who aren't interested in modding their games in that manner. Everyone wins.
Why is this an argument?
I think the thing about Cayden Caillean is that the "person who is simultaneously drunk and awesome" is an idea that crops up all over the place in fiction (Jackie Chan in "Drunken Master", Lee Marvin in "Cat Ballou", Henry Kuttner's Gallagher stories, Soda Popinski/Vodka Drunkenski from "Punch-Out", Nick and Nora Charles/Frank and Sadie Doyle, etc.) and aside from the "Drunken Master" monk archetype Cayden-specific stuff is the best way to replicate that idea in Golarion.
Unlike "fights dexterously with a glaive" that seems like a character concept that only those fond of Cayden's schtick would want to replicate.
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So you change it for your individual games and it exists as is for the people who aren't interested in modding their games in that manner. Everyone wins.
Why is this an argument?
Because not everyone has the option of modding the feats for their games. As I mentioned earlier, if the feats weren't deity-locked to begin with, everyone wins. The people who can mod still can, the people who can't can now use the options without arbitrary fluff restrictions.
You're coming from a privileged mindset- you can freely change feats to fit what you want, so you assume everyone else can, but there are thousands of players whose only options are to play in PFS, or in restrictive home games where the GMs are strictly RAW. They simply don't have enough other players in their area to wait for a group willing to make those changes, at least not if they actually want to play the game.
So I would turn your own question back on you- why is it you feel the need to support arbitrary restrictions that wouldn't affect you anyways when not including them in the first place would have allowed everyone to enjoy them? Why be arbitrarily exclusive instead of inclusive?
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I think the thing about Cayden Caillean is that the "person who is simultaneously drunk and awesome" is an idea that crops up all over the place in fiction (Jackie Chan in "Drunken Master", Lee Marvin in "Cat Ballou", Henry Kuttner's Gallagher stories, Soda Popinski/Vodka Drunkenski from "Punch-Out", Nick and Nora Charles/Frank and Sadie Doyle, etc.) and aside from the "Drunken Master" monk archetype Cayden-specific stuff is the best way to replicate that idea in Golarion.
Unlike "fights dexterously with a glaive" that seems like a character concept that only those fond of Cayden's schtick would want to replicate.
Drowning your fear by getting drunk is best gated to only worshippers of Cayden? By your own statement, that's a trope that is rife in all kinds of fiction. If I want to play a drunken old wardog with PTSD who needs a stiff shot of whiskey to get overcome his fears and fight, why should the mechanical support for that concept be locked to one specific deity?
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It makes perfect sense that such a ccharacter 'might' worship C.C. but it's an arbitrary restriction suppressing creative alternative stories to say that he must.
We can probably invert that one pretty easily though- If you're habitually inebriated and are awesomely heroic when in your cups, you likely have Cayden's endorsement just for being that.
So you change it for your individual games and it exists as is for the people who aren't interested in modding their games in that manner. Everyone wins.
Why is this an argument?
Because not everyone has the option of modding the feats for their games. As I mentioned earlier, if the feats weren't deity-locked to begin with, everyone wins. The people who can mod still can, the people who can't can now use the options without arbitrary fluff restrictions.
You're coming from a privileged mindset- you can freely change feats to fit what you want, so you assume everyone else can, but there are thousands of players whose only options are to play in PFS, or in restrictive home games where the GMs are strictly RAW. They simply don't have enough other players in their area to wait for a group willing to make those changes, at least not if they actually want to play the game.
So I would turn your own question back on you- why is it you feel the need to support arbitrary restrictions that wouldn't affect you anyways when not including them in the first place would have allowed everyone to enjoy them? Why be arbitrarily exclusive instead of inclusive?
Ah, one of my pet peeves (the word privilege. 2016's most overused term).
I support that the book exists with the restrictions put in because it makes sense for what they are selling. I've never bought into the mindset that every feat, trait, racial ability and so on should be open source for every character to pick and choose from, cut off from any and all flavor text.
I cannot see into Paizo's head on why they have done what they've done, other than they seem to be trying to link world building with mechanics. That sort of thing seems to irritate some in our community, and perhaps rightly so.
But .. and this is a big but .. it isn't like it's a surprise, is it? This sort of thinking has been going on for years in the books. It is how they prefer to world build, how many feats/powers/items/etc are linked into the world.
Changing it doesn't bother me anymore than lifting something from Traveller or James Bond or Rolemaster and changing it to my preference would bother me. Call it privilege or call it choice. I choose not to play with many local groups. I choose to avoid the local PFS, when there was one, because of the style of play. Everyone, last I checked, has that same privilege. Choose not to play. Choose who you play with. Choose how you approach your GM with your rationale and change their mind -- which might be more beneficial directly and possibly quicker than attempting to change the minds of everyone on the forums or the Paizo staff.
There are PbP, play by boards, internet games, game stores with postings and more. Someone is locked into their current predicament by choice.
That's my privileged mindset. Light a candle rather than cursing the darkness. Run your own game and see if you can get people from the PFS or other local games or internet or via smoke signals and Ham radio to play with you to get the game you want.
As I pointed out in a previous post, the books are not expressly written for people with the need/desire to change/mod their game. I prefer that the mechanics work with some flavor material. It is far more interesting, at least to some, than unlinked math/mechanics.
Heck, HERO made a number of books just putting fluff to mechanics because not everyone was keen on figuring out how to describe what they wanted and preferred to select "Radioactive Powers" instead of 1d6 killing attack.
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Whenever I have a player that takes Dervish Dance, I always try to make sure there's at least one scene in the campaign where the party would greatly benefit if someone could impress on the dancefloor. Let's put those 2 ranks in perform to work!
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Right, but would that be any better than, for example, saying "the following feats are common amongst worshippers of Sarenrae..." or writing in the descriptive fluff "This technique, first developed by worshippers of Sarenrae, uses the scimitar's curving blade to convert your speed into power" or something similar.
In some regards, yes. You as a player start to see a lot of saranite characters with scimatars (there's little reason to use one otherwise) , NPC's with scimitars start to become very common and very effective,
It matches show with tell. You're telling me that saranites use scimitars with that technique and that's what i actually start to see, as opposed to telling me its a saratnite technique but showing me a bunch of ravogag users with it.