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I'd also offer that most weapon choices are hamstrung aside from others that are numerically superior. There's a reason why the weapons of choice for a group aren't going to vary too greatly unless they're forced to by conventions of their class or feats (the cleric's favored weapon, the selections available to the swashbuckler to benefit from panache).
Let's look at warriors who choose a weapon that uses two hands. More often than not, for the sake of simplicity they're going to use a greatsword. It doesn't require an extra feet to use to the best of its ability, works in close, and has very good steady damage. Take a peek at that critical modifier; x2 on a 19 or 20. Let's propose that through 20 rolls a player hits on an eleven or higher, and we tally up the total. We can say by the numbers that since 2d6 rolls an average of 7 each time, and doubling the damage dice for criticals, through 20 rolls a greatsword on average does a total of 84 points of damage. Not too shabby. Let's compared that to greataxe at 1d12 with an average roll of 6.5 and a x3 multiple. Through 20 rolls that figures out to be 78 points of damage on average. Not bad, but mathematically not as good a result. Who doesn't like a scythe wielding character? I know I do! Great imagery, all dramatic. However, with 2d4 damage the average roll is going to be a 5, and with a x4 critical the average roll after 20 rolls comes to be 65. Hmmmm. Lacks a bit of punch, doesn't it? Doesn't make it half as appealing.
You experience a similar problem when you look at one handed weapons, there are clear choices that will just be better. A longsword through 20 rolls will do an average of 54 damage. A rapier or scimitar might look tempting with that increased critical range, but their average damage through 20 rolls comes to be 45.5.
Now, I'm not just throwing this out there as a way to complain without offering a solution. You see, in a real fight you don't simply chose a weapon because it gives you the biggest hit. How fast you can maneuver a weapon matters quite a bit, too. If in real life I had to defend myself and I had a choice between an arming sword (a longsword by Pathfinder standards) and a rapier, I'd choose the rapier against most opponents. It's faster to strike with, faster to pull back into a guard posture and parry an incoming blow. However, this is an element that Pathfinder doesn't include in their combat mechanics. I suggest bringing back the attribute of weapon speeds. Think about how it will affect game play. No longer are those brutish tanks just charging off into the middle of the fray because they rolled well on their d20. Now, their heavy greatsword slows down their initiative so the spellcasters and the lighter weapon combatants act first with greater frequency. They're not domineering the combat because they do the most damage, more often reacting than dictating the flow of a fight.
I would propose an optional combat rule that would have weapon speeds effect initiatives. You could even have similar rules for armor, make their Dex penalties inclusive to their initiative roll. You'd suddenly see advantages that weren't present before to the lightly armored, lighter armed warrior who favors speed and maneuverability in a fight. And it doesn't suddenly invalidate those combatants that arm up with their greatswords and heavy plate, but rather adds a complicating wrinkle.
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You experience a similar problem when you look at one handed weapons, there are clear choices that will just be better. A longsword through 20 rolls will do an average of 54 damage. A rapier or scimitar might look tempting with that increased critical range, but their average damage through 20 rolls comes to be 45.5.
That gap narrows significantly as passive damage increases, I dont want to do the math but i'm pretty sure at some level of raw + to damage the high crit weapon wins out, especially once keen weapons/improved crit become available.
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Hey, I'm up for a challenge. Let's crunch some numbers!
Let's say that you have two individuals, both of them with improved critical AND keen on their weapons. One has a greatsword, the other has a greataxe. Going through the 20 rolls concept again, in which you hit on an 11 or higher, the greatsword will still have an average hit of 7 on 2d6 but with a critical range of x2 on 17-20. The total comes to be 98 points of damage on average. Compare that to the greataxe, doing 1d12 with an average roll of 6.5 but with a critical range of x3 on 18-20. Their total damage after 20 rolls is 110.5. You know what, you're right. I wasn't even thinking of the rolls that keen and improved critical might play. Good catch!
I'm curious now, let's look a the longsword / rapier comparison. A longsword has an average roll of 4.5 on 1d8, with a critical modifier of x2 17-20. After 20 rolls, that figures to be 63 average damage. The rapier does 3.5 average damage on 1d6, with a critical of x2 16-20. The result of that is 52.5. So, it's still not quite up to snuff. However, it makes me want to take a look at a weapon like the battleaxe. Usually 1d8 with x3 criticals, so it does an average damage of 4.5 each roll. In my above sums, a longsword pre-feat and keens does a final result of 54 damage. A battleaxe will do exactly the same on average. However, if you figure in the improved critical and the keen property, that same battleaxe does 72 damage over 20 rolls. Not bad at all.
So, I guess it goes to show you that there are extenuating circumstances where depending on your build (and your game masters allowing you to choose the magical natures of your weapons), the choices of you weapons might shift from one to another. However, if there's one constant, it's that the weapon choice is always going to one of the choices that does the most damage regardless of the critical.
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Thats an interesting take but i was referring to things like strength bonus, enhancement, power attack/specialization, and mostly for the high crit range weapons. At some point I expect the extra 10% crit chance is going to multiply your passive damage bonuses enough to close the average damage gap or even exceed it.
Not exact numbers but say you're looking at weapon +10 damage.
Basically You're looking at a model like 10X+10Y/z Where X is hits(including threats), y is confirmed crits and z is number of attacks. The larger Y within the same Z should eventually overcome the differences in the die roll.
Blind SwordsmanIt's doable, just start as a fighter and then after a few levels get blinded. Probably needs at least 5 levels of investment before it becomes workable.
It's sub-optimal yes, but then when deeper darkness/obscuring mist/invisible enemies come you will suddenly become amazing.
Eh...
You won't become amazing. You'll just become better than everyone else (assuming the party spellcasters weren't prepared). After all, in the land of the blind, the one with the most practice being blind is king.
You're also immune to dazzled, gaze attacks, visual illusions, explosive runes and probably other things I can't think of right now.
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You really don't want the game to make armor an option that's completely useless. As it would be if armor is that much of a deal.That's a bit of a strawman, isn't it? There's a lot of room between letting someone build an unarmored adventurer without being a monk (or one of like two other archetypes) and making armor useless. Like, a lot. A stunningly huge amount.
That sexist monstrositySpeaking of sexist monstrosities. Anyone else find it odd that male characters that run around with next to no equipment are badasses who don't need armor, but female characters in the same circumstances are just victims of oversexualization and marketing? Hooray for gender roles.
That's because there's a difference between sexy, and sexualized.
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A combat-oriented weapon user who, as he gains levels (and therefore, allegedly, power) does NOT require steadily increasing numbers of favorable d20 rolls in order to achieve the same results in his area of expertise.
If you become better than anyone else that's what matters. If you can do it reliantly you are golden. You might want to invest in some way to cast deeper darkness on you.
After all, the blind swordman that made his enemies fight in the dark is kinda classic, Zatoichi's style
Forcing you to use terrible weapons instead of whatever you might want/have counts as hamstringing.While you can't do Drizzt, you can still do TWF ranger.
just wear a gauntlet. Or a cestus. Those let you gesture and attack. You can even 2 hand a one handed weapon when you are not TWFing.
Hardly. The cestus style gives most of the benefits of double weapons, in that you can swtich between TWF and 2 handing at will depending on whether or not you full attack.
Furthermore, the cestus has fairly decent stats- basically mimicking the dagger. And this style allows you to pick your own 1 handed weapon- such as using a scimitar for its high crit range.
In comparison, Drizzt's twin scimitar style is terrible no matter the class. You would face extra penalties for not using a light offhand weapon.
There are a large number of character concepts that pathfinder doesn't support well that I have had to add to my games via houserules and 3rd party supplements
- Casters who have strong themes and don't want to cast spells which are not related to their theme. Good luck making a "light" or "ice" themed caster without heavily limiting your character.
- Martial characters who are skilled with a wide variety of weapons, who are not locked into using a single magical weapon for most of a campaign.
- Shapeshifting themed characters
- Dragon themed characters. We have some now, but only a few are viable and none of them can even turn into a dragon until the campaign is basically over.
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Read or Die style Papermancer (partially possible using scrollmaster)
Is this thread about concepts that supposedly the ruleset is supposed to support but don't, or all concepts ever?
Is this thread about concepts that supposedly the ruleset is supposed to support but don't, or all concepts ever?
Pretty sure it's about both.
Blind Swordsman
Get the various Blind Fight feats and scent.
Is this thread about concepts that supposedly the ruleset is supposed to support but don't, or all concepts ever?Pretty sure it's about both.
Sure, but only the former is interesting.
How do you define that?
I don't think anyone would deny that Xena looks like she's there to kick ass 90% of the time, but she's definitely got a sexy outfit on.
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Mind you it DOES often swing too far into sheer fanservice department. I love History's Mightiest Disiple Kenichi but it gets really annoying when the female fighters end up naked every damn time they get in a fight, while the men usually have no clothing damage at all or at least follow the rule of "Pants Are Invincible".
But it's not the outfits that are an issue, it's the framing. Shizune's outfit at rest is clearly not practical, but it doesn't detract from her being awesome just by it being worn. The problem comes in in how the camera pans and sweeps, or more attention is paid to jiggle physics than her actual weaponmaster skills, and so on.
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And you're immune to reading a spellbook, scouting for large enemy forces, visual bardic performances, reading... anything that isn't specifically written for you to read, and being able to find Waldo.
Aside from the bardic performance, I imagine the fighter isn't too interested in spells or reading. Or finding Waldo. Unless he's going to fight Waldo. Get rekt Waldo.
I was thinking more about seeing the squad of archers out to ambush you from a hundred feet away.Aside from the bardic performance, I imagine the fighter isn't too interested in spells or reading. Or finding Waldo. Unless he's going to fight Waldo. Get rekt Waldo.
And you're immune to reading a spellbook, scouting for large enemy forces, visual bardic performances, reading... anything that isn't specifically written for you to read, and being able to find Waldo.
A squad of archers all wearing red and white stripped sweaters. And Waldo is the one caster that makes his team of archers use disguise checks so no one can tell them apart.
I think you better pump that perception check so you know Waldo is so you can rekt him.
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I would like to see a Druidic Spellcaster, but without the shapechange and animal companion.
3.5 had the Spirit Shaman.
My first thought was a Whip using character. Definitley fall into the Hamstrung category with how feat intensive it is. If you have any interest at all in an Indiana Jones/Zorro/Simon Belmont character... then you are just out of luck. 5-6 feats to trope cliche' things with the whip... and it's still a drastically inferior weapon.
I'm fine with taking underpowered things for a fun flavor....
I'm fine with paying feat taxes for powerful things...
I HATE paying massive taxes on something that is drastically underpowered but flavorful. It's like an RP Tax...
While you can't do Drizzt, you can still do TWF ranger.
just wear a gauntlet. Or a cestus. Those let you gesture and attack. You can even 2 hand a one handed weapon when you are not TWFing.
Forcing you to use terrible weapons instead of whatever you might want/have counts as hamstringing.
Indeed, a light shield can be used to hold something, but not wield it, and it does not count as a free hand for anything. Which is also why it shuts off the Swashbuckler and Magus class features without a specific archetype. The workaround you are thinking of I think is that you can technically swap your weapon into your light shield hand to hold it, cast a spell, and then swap your weapon back again. But mentioning that sometimes draws DMs out to declare that it is abusiveness and they would rule against it in their games.{. . .}
Shields work too- everything short of heavy shields allow you to use your hand.{. . .} You can cast a spell with somatic components using your shield arm, but you lose the buckler’s Armor Class bonus until your next turn. {. . .}{. . .} A skirnir may use his shield hand to perform somatic components for magus spells, forfeiting the shield’s bonus to AC until the beginning of his next turn; if the bonded shield is a buckler, he retains its bonus to AC. {. . .}Strange that these have text that specifically allow casting spells with Somatic components using your shield hand, and other shields and most classes/archetypes don't, implying that normally you can't use your shield hand for somatic components. I could have sworn to having read somewhere that you can in fact use your shield hand to cast spells with Somatic components (although needing something like the above to do so in Spell Combat), but now I can't find it.
Ah, thanks, that workaround for spellcasting makes sense. Also makes sense that you would be able to use Spellstrike with such a workaround (similar to when using a two-handed weapon), but not Spell Combat (unless an archetype like Skirnir gives it to you, or you have at least one extra arm).
Still, I could have sworn to having read something about that somewhere on www.d20pfsrd.com itself, and it bugs me that now I can't find it again.
This also gives an incentive to use a Light Shield (or Buckler) instead of a Heavy Shield (or Tower Shield, but most classes don't get proficiency with that).
* * * * * * * *
With respect to Drizz't, I could have sworn to having seen an archetype or something recently that soaks up most of the penalty for using 2 One-Handed weapons instead of at least 1 Light weapon, but now I can't remember where that one is either.
A Summoner whose Eidolon is the smart person in the party.
It requires some coordination with the group, but:
1) all PCs dump Int to 7 or 8 (no Int-based casters).
2) summoner is human with the Eye for Talent alternate racial trait (and the GM allows it to be used on an eidolon to increase the eidolon's Int to 9)
3) the eidolon uses the ability score increase at 5th (and possibly 10th and 15th) to increase Int
4) select the Ability Increase evolution to increase Int at least once.
Sounds like it could be fun with the right group. Especially if the eidolon is one of those "half-smart" types, like Brain in Pinky and the Brain.
Controversial choice: Full plate wearing sword and board fighter. Probably the singularly most MAD build available, requiring high STR/DEX/Con and a reasonable wisdom. They're like monks except they require scattering feat selection amongst what would be the beginnings of 3 different feat trees.
I was thinking more about seeing the squad of archers out to ambush you from a hundred feet away.Aside from the bardic performance, I imagine the fighter isn't too interested in spells or reading. Or finding Waldo. Unless he's going to fight Waldo. Get rekt Waldo.
And you're immune to reading a spellbook, scouting for large enemy forces, visual bardic performances, reading... anything that isn't specifically written for you to read, and being able to find Waldo.A squad of archers all wearing red and white stripped sweaters. And Waldo is the one caster that makes his team of archers use disguise checks so no one can tell them apart.
I think you better pump that perception check so you know Waldo is so you can rekt him.
I have no tangible proof but I'm certain Waldo smells like peppermint candy.
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Throwing characters. While there are some archetypes that support them, and got better with Startoss Style and other stuff, they still need to pay a magic item slot tax (blink back belt), or specific and aditional weapon enchants (returning), plus feat tax (quick draw), their range is incredibly poor for guys that provoke when they attack, and would still be inferior to an archer. They come online too late, and are mostly underwhelming compared to the standard Legolas-clone.
A Summoner whose Eidolon is the smart person in the party.
Yeah, that's bothered me about Summoners about as much as the drastic decrease in conceptual space for Eidolons that came with Unchained Summoner. Eidolons (pre-Unchained or Unchained) are crammed into having almost the same ability score arrays, with just a couple of minor variations, and they all inherently dump Intelligence.
Nature fang druid, nature oracle, and maybe speaker for the past shaman are probably the best approximations for that role.I would like to see a Druidic Spellcaster, but without the shapechange and animal companion.
3.5 had the Spirit Shaman.
Well, oracles dont have access to the druids list, and Nature Fang is better at sneaking etc, but still has a companion. I want a Druid who is a primary spellcaster, not a melee guys.
But Yes, Shaman does have a interesting spell list.
Nature fang druid, nature oracle, and maybe speaker for the past shaman are probably the best approximations for that role.I would like to see a Druidic Spellcaster, but without the shapechange and animal companion.
3.5 had the Spirit Shaman.
Well, oracles dont have access to the druids list, and Nature Fang is better at sneaking etc, but still has a companion. I want a Druid who is a primary spellcaster, not a melee guys.
But Yes, Shaman does have a interesting spell list.
Just nature fang and trade the companion for a domain.
Edit: specifically the Plane of Air domain seems really relevant. Trade the animal companion for nonshapeshifted flight and an air elemental familiar. Pretty spellcastery.
Plus, correct me if im wrong but i think spellcasting is a class ability and works with studied target.
Nature Fang is better at sneaking etc, but still has a companion. I want a Druid who is a primary spellcaster, not a melee guys.Nature Fang druids make great spellcasters. You can just take a domain instead of an animal companion and use studied target to boost your casting DCs. You can always spend your slayer talents on useful defensive feats through combat trick and the weapon and shield or Sarenrae faithful ranger combat styles, plus eventually the feat advanced talent. Or you could grab some favored terrains and then get hide in plain sight in them, or learn trapfinding, or gain evasion, or get back woodland stride, or whatever else you feel like. For players who don't want wild shape, the Nature Fang archetype fills in the gap remarkably well.
The ability to turn any ranged touch attack into a death attack at level 10 is pretty epic.
Nature Fang is weird -- you get 1d6 Sneak attack at 4th level, and barring a dip into another Sneak Attack class, VMC Rogue, or the Accomplished Sneak Attacker feat, THAT'S IT.
Nature Fang is weird -- you get 1d6 Sneak attack at 4th level, and barring a dip into another Sneak Attack class, VMC Rogue, or the Accomplished Sneak Attacker feat, THAT'S IT.
It seems that is there because it insures parts of studied target still work.
Remember- you can do a study as an immediate action if you get in a sneak attack. So for low levels, you really aim to get in a sneak attack just to get your attack/damage booster without spending a move action. At higher levels... it means nothing for a slayer, since they don't use swift actions. Druids might find some tactical use to it, since they can do quickened spells.
Overall- they really don't want to give a sneak attack class a proper animal companion. Because that pretty much guarantees tons of sneak attacks easy- not some easily killed familiar, but a proper pet made for a fight. So for nature fang, they made your sneak attack vestigial instead of getting rid of the companion.
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A Summoner whose Eidolon is the smart person in the party.It requires some coordination with the group, but:
1) all PCs dump Int to 7 or 8 (no Int-based casters).
2) summoner is human with the Eye for Talent alternate racial trait (and the GM allows it to be used on an eidolon to increase the eidolon's Int to 9)
3) the eidolon uses the ability score increase at 5th (and possibly 10th and 15th) to increase Int
4) select the Ability Increase evolution to increase Int at least once.
Sounds like it could be fun with the right group. Especially if the eidolon is one of those "half-smart" types, like Brain in Pinky and the Brain.
But the point is, I want an eidolon with say a 14 int and a 10 str at 1st level. It seems like an easy thing to do yet paizo has not come out with a single archetype that increases mental stats (and as a pfs player it vexes me).
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Controversial choice: Full plate wearing sword and board fighter. Probably the singularly most MAD build available, requiring high STR/DEX/Con and a reasonable wisdom. They're like monks except they require scattering feat selection amongst what would be the beginnings of 3 different feat trees.
Having played one of these, at 15PB, all the way through Carrion Crown successfully I'd hesitate to say it's unsupported. You don't actually need Wisdom, for example.
^What did you do to keep from failing critical Will Saves?
I think there's an important line to draw there. Does it truly make the concept unplayable just because it has a major weakness—especially if the weakness doesn't contradict the concept? For instance, Raistlin isn't an unplayable concept, even if his 7 Con is a major weakness.