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If possible I'd like to ask about the reasoning behid some stuff that got banned in PFS in previous books, especially concerning martial stuff.
Weapon Master's Handbook:
-The Liberating weapon ability (which would help martials a great deal to snap put of paralysis effects and the like IF the PC can pass his check)
-Cailean fighting tankard (for 10,301 gp doesn't seem that OP at all, far from it actually. Maybe there's something I'm missing here?)
-Aldori Caution trait (is a +1 to dodge AC that much? You have to fight defensively or be in total defense to profit from it...)
-Most of the banned feats. The dwarven hatred style and orc fury style bans are especially puzzling to me. While powerful they'd need considerable feat investment (3 feats to get the full benefit), have drawbacks (for dwarven hatred style you need to be wounded before it starts working) and generally don't seem to compare with some of the stuff non martials have at their disposal even in PFS. Also Smash from the air being banned seems to continue the trend of anything even remotely working against spells being removed from martial hands.
Armor Master's Handbook:
-Advanced Armor Training - Armor Specialization (Again, this gives the PC a nice increase to AC but it's not that huge, especially considering how at high levels most monsters will hit you anyway with very little chance for missing).
Magic Tactics Toolbox:
-All advanced weapon training options being illegal for play seems a bit of an overkill to me.
If possible I'd like to know people's opinions on these bans and possibly the reasoning behind them all. Thanks!
Contributor
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I have theories about each of these. (Disclaimer: I have no special insight beyond observation of trends.)
Liberating weapon special quality: That's... impressively cheap for an at-will ability. In addition, the wording is loose enough that there may have been concerns about table variation.
Cailean fighting tankard: Perhaps the versatility was a concern - having a magic weapon and six potions in hand at once is pretty nice. I couldn't say.
Aldori Caution: I strongly suspect that they didn't want this added to all of the existing fighting-defensively options - Crane Style, etc.
Weapon Master's Handbook feats: The Ascetic Style chain was never going to make it in. I'm not shocked that Burrowing Shot was banned, either; that's a powerful debuff with minimal opportunity cost. Not surprised about the two Dwarven feats; being able to turn on a +4 AC or +2 atk/dmg is very impressive, especially for the relatively small number of feats required. It's hard to say why for Orc Style... I guess they just thought it was too much. Information for Overwatch Style can be found here. As for Smash From The Air, I'm not surprised about that one either. They don't want the fighter to be able to shut down an enemy giant's or mage's only action with relative ease, protecting himself or others, and at the cost of only attacks of opportunity... especially when enemy tactics are restricted by PFS rules and the balance of action economy is already in the PCs' favor. (Cut From The Air is more of an anti-archer technique, and archers are more likely to make a flurry of attacks than one big shot.)
AAT Armor Specialization: I'm guessing that the low cost-to-benefit ratio (a "tick" of armor training in exchange for a comparatively higher AC buff) is what got this one banned.
Magic Tactics Toolbox AWT options: No idea about Item Mastery, but Warrior Spirit is a lot of bang for its buck, especially when gloves of dueling enter the equation. The uses per day, especially with the gloves, would be more than enough for every important combat in many of the scenarios I've run. (I've found per-day abilities to generally be more useful in PFS than in other games, due to scenario length, predictability, and similar meta factors.)
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Assuming my suspicions are correct, I think the common themes are:
-Don't look at the option on its own, assume the most optimal leveraging/combination/abuse/build/context of the benefit.
-Look at the cost-benefit ratio. The AAT/AWT options are intentionally strong to spice up the fighter class, so when an advanced training option is strong compared to its kindred, it might be a little much for PFS.
-I strongly suspect that "martial-caster disparity" is far more of a concern to the posters here than to the designers and developers.
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In any case, that's my best guess at the situation. Let the record show that, at this time, I neither endorse nor oppose the disallowing of any of these options. I just run the scenarios, and play with the options they let me play with.
Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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Warrior spirit, can give a weapon bane, and assuming any interaction with the gloves of dueling ... it get's very silly very quick. Even more so when you consider that a number of classes could get access to this (a magus for example could use both abilities..).
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Kalindlara mentioned a couple of good reasons why something might not allowed in PFS, and it is always worth mentioning, that some options are not legal not because of what "you" might want to to with them.
Sometimes options are not made legal, because they make a build that already tears through scenarios even stronger, or create an unintended combination of several effects.
Since it is very unpleasant to remove something later (characters might be built around that option) it pays to be careful.
The exact reason why something was banned is sometimes hard to find, but if you believe that an option that is currently not legal should be made legal, you best chance is to make a good faith argument for its inclusion.
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I actually really enjoy playing the "why did it get banned" game. I have no inside knowledge and have already speculated on a couple of these items. With that said:
It is important to note that there are far more reasons something might not be allowed than simply "it's too powerful." In no particular order and in a non-exhaustive list those include:
-Does not fit in with PFS campaign setting (such as only being found in one particular part of Golarion or requiring evil play)
-Does not work with PFS specific rules (such as crafting)
-Reserved to appear on an adventure chronicle
-Text is confusing/conflicts with established rules (may appear later in Campaign Clarifications document)
-Conflicts with upcoming publication (that we know nothing about - the hardest one to analyze)
-Too powerful/mispriced
Liberating weapon property - It's too powerful for the cost. Normally the DC to break something like a grapple is equal to the creature's CMD. If you take a spin through the Bestiaries you'll see that trying the check the weapon property allows (vs. trying a CMB to escape) is around 2 points easier for a CR5 creature. 5 points easier for a CR 10 creature. A similar situation exists for spells, which often add your caster stat or a flat bonus to the DC. So the weapon property makes things easier as your level goes up even though the cost does not scale. Add in the fact that this allows you to make attempts to escape from things that are normally "one-and-done" (like blasphemy). Probably should be a +2 or +3 property rather than a flat cost.
Cailean Fighting Tankard weapon - Two problems. First is a clarification issue. What kind of action is it to drink from the tankard? What if you have the Accelerated Drinker trait or another power that lets you drink as a move action? Second is a power issue. Even if it is a standard action to drink, it's still as good as having six potions in hand at all times. It changes the action economy of potions.
Aldori Caution trait - This one might be a bit too powerful for a trait. The dodge feat gives you a +1 AC bonus and is an entire feat. The fact that you have to fight defensively is a drawback to the trait, but there are plenty of builds that always plan on fighting defensively anyway. I could see this one ending up as a Chronicle reward for a scenario that deals with Aldori Swordlords.
Other Feats Kalindlara pretty much has the same thoughts as me. I will quote myself from another thread about Smash from the Air.
Smash from the Air: Strength 13, Power Attack, Weapon Training, Cut from the Air, BAB +9
Ray Shield: Dexterity 15, Shield Focus, Missile Shield, Disruptive, Spellbreaker. (Spellbreaker has a requirement of Fighter level 10 so factor that in as well.)So Ray Shield requires 5 feats, at least 11 levels (10 with retraining), can be done once a round, only on ranged touch spells, and your shield takes the damage.
Smash from the Air requires 3 feats, 9 levels, can be done as many times in a round as you have attacks of opportunity, works on any ranged spell that requires an attack roll (and ballistas and boulders as a side effect), and doesn't damage your weapon.Ray Shield's only advantage is that it's automatic (no attack roll required).
Granted the visual of a character striking all three bolts of a high-level scorching ray to the side is way cooler than cowering behind a shield that takes one of rays while the other two sneak past. However Smash from the Air is overpowered compared to existing options. Personally I think it would make a great Mythic feat (with no prerequisites).
Armor Specialization - Just a tiny bit too powerful in my opinion. Although the bonus won't get above +2 in normal (1-11) play, that's still more than most feats give you. In general feats shouldn't add more than +1 AC. Armor Focus, Shield Focus, and Dodge are examples.
Item Mastery Advanced Weapon Training - I'm not sure on this one. If I had to guess, I'd say that the ability to ignore the spell school requirement of the magic item is the issue. That's a balancing factor but I actually think it's not game-breaking to give it to the fighter in PFS - where the additional Weapon Groups part of Weapon Training often go unused. Especially since PFS has put in a rule that you only use the base fortitude save of one class (to prevent the multiclass monsters that were way out of scale with design expectations).
Warrior Spirit Advanced Weapon Training - Too powerful. I would say the issue is that you can add any weapon special abilities. Bane being the number one choice in almost any situation. Or the one energy type your opponent is weak against. Or any other situational perfect (anchoring, holy, axiomatic, etc.) property. Warrior Spirit would have been fine with a limited list (like the paladin or magus has) to pull abilities from.
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I have theories about each of these. (Disclaimer: I have no special insight beyond observation of trends.)
Liberating weapon special quality: That's... impressively cheap for an at-will ability. In addition, the wording is loose enough that there may have been concerns about table variation.
Cailean fighting tankard: Perhaps the versatility was a concern - having a magic weapon and six potions in hand at once is pretty nice. I couldn't say.
Aldori Caution: I strongly suspect that they didn't want this added to all of the existing fighting-defensively options - Crane Style, etc.
Weapon Master's Handbook feats: The Ascetic Style chain was never going to make it in. I'm not shocked that Burrowing Shot was banned, either; that's a powerful debuff with minimal opportunity cost. Not surprised about the two Dwarven feats; being able to turn on a +4 AC or +2 atk/dmg is very impressive, especially for the relatively small number of feats required. It's hard to say why for Orc Style... I guess they just thought it was too much. Information for Overwatch Style can be found here. As for Smash From The Air, I'm not surprised about that one either. They don't want the fighter to be able to shut down an enemy giant's or mage's only action with relative ease, protecting himself or others, and at the cost of only attacks of opportunity... especially when enemy tactics are restricted by PFS rules and the balance of action economy is already in the PCs' favor. (Cut From The Air is more of an anti-archer technique, and archers are more likely to make a flurry of attacks than one big shot.)
AAT Armor Specialization: I'm guessing that the low cost-to-benefit ratio (a "tick" of armor training in exchange for a comparatively higher AC buff) is what got this one banned.
Magic Tactics Toolbox AWT options: No idea about Item Mastery, but Warrior Spirit is a lot of bang for its buck, especially...
Thanks for your answer. I respectfully disagree with some of your reasoning though.
Liberating: That's 7k gp for the chance to get rid of a death sentence for melee characters. If taking the ability out of the normal magic item progression is considered too much PFS could very well turn liberating into a +1 magic weapon ability (which would mean its cost would at least be 6k gp, possibly more if taken later).
Cailean fighting tankard: Honestly? For that price tag I would never take this item.
Aldori Caution: May be, but again fighting defensively crane style ets aren't going to suddenly create huge tanks of doom. There's already stuff in PFS that's way more powerful.
WMH Feats: I can agree with some of your reasonings but for the racial feats (it's not like you see dwarves or half orcs running rampant... personally I'm seeing a lot of Kitsunes, Griplis, and there's still a lot of Aasimars and Tieflings around), these racial feats are good (in the dwarven case very good when you reach lvl 7 with martial dwarf) but the class taking advantage of them is mostly the fighter because it has the feats to spare. Other martial classes are either getting these late or not at all. No need to ban imo.
As for Smash from the air a giant has a lot more going on than merely throwing boulders (and you can only deflect one boulder with cool looking manuever, if there's more than one giant you are going to eat those rocks anyway) and a wizard can do much more than cast ray spells.
The rest of your reasoning I can agree with but for the item mastery feats from the Magic tactics toolbox. As far as I understand none of those is banned luckily. Edit: you meant the Item Mastery AWT feat... Yeah, that's another thing I don't get. Yet the likelihood of having the correct items for the correct feat are quite high.
Some of the suggested rationale for these bans seems to be about the game having worse options already in play like ray shield compared to smash from the air so introducing a better option could "imballance" the game for those who took these lesser options. Yet things like ray shield are so bad basically no one took them, and that's probably why things like smash from the air were introduced. I hope the devs are not banning options because of terrible feats no one uses.
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Contributor
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Thanks for your answer. I respectfully disagree with some of your reasoning though.
Liberating: That's 7k gp for the chance to get rid of a death sentence for melee characters. If taking the ability out of the normal magic item progression is considered too much PFS could very well turn liberating into a +1 magic weapon ability (which would mean its cost would at least be 6k gp, possibly more if taken later).
It may be less of a death sentence in PFS - I'm not 100% sure how printed tactics interact with CdGing helpless targets, but if it wasn't explicitly in there, I'd have the enemies move on to still-active threats.
They could issue a Campaign Clarification, I suppose. I doubt that they'll want to tamper with the text just to unban it, though.
Cailean fighting tankard: Honestly? For that price tag I would never take this item.
It appears that you and Campaign Leadership are operating under different definitions of "not powerful enough/too powerful". I can't really add anything to that, as it's a matter of taste.
Aldori Caution: May be, but again fighting defensively crane style ets aren't going to suddenly create huge tanks of doom. There's already stuff in PFS that's way more powerful.
Bolding for emphasis. This is definitely something that won't sway them in the slightest. Whether or not it should be a factor is a matter of opinion, but I feel 100% certain that "X is more powerful, therefore everything else is fine" doesn't hold any water with them.
WMH Feats: I can agree with some of your reasonings but for the racial feats (it's not like you see dwarves or half orcs running rampant... personally I'm seeing a lot of Kitsunes, Griplis, and there's still a lot of Aasimars and Tieflings around), these racial feats are good (in the dwarven case very good when you reach lvl 7 with martial dwarf) but the class taking advantage of them is mostly the fighter because it has the feats to spare. Other martial classes are either getting these late or not at all. No need to ban imo.
I assume fighters with those feats are what they're concerned about, then. Besides, from what I saw, the dwarven style doesn't require any other feats. I bet a lot more folks can find room for those three feats than you'd think.
As for Smash from the air a giant has a lot more going on than merely throwing boulders (and you can only deflect one boulder with cool looking manuever, if there's more than one giant you are going to eat those rocks anyway) and a wizard can do much more than cast ray spells.
Combat Reflexes will net you far more than one deflection a round, especially if you're making even a halfhearted attempt to build into the feat.
And while a wizard can do more than cast ray spells, this is PFS. If the tactics say he casts rays, he casts rays (at least until it's proven ineffective enough to justify invalidated tactics, at which point the fighter's AoOs have probably defanged the encounter). Same for giants - if it says they throw rocks, they throw rocks.
The rest of your reasoning I can agree with but for the item mastery feats from the Magic tactics toolbox. As far as I understand none of those is banned luckily. Edit: you meant the Item Mastery AWT feat... Yeah, that's another thing I don't get. Yet the likelyhood of having the correct items for the correct feat are quite high.
No idea why the Item Mastery AWT option was banned. Anyone's guess.
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Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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Kalindlara made another excellent post, I just want to add, that just because you think that an option is severely underpowered for its cost, does not mean that others won't buy the item at the earliest opportunity.
No specific idea why smash from the air was banned, but a character who fulfills the requirements and can also access at least one use of martial versatility could ready an action to get this feat.
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Just assume, that the members of the additional resources task force who give a recommendation to John (what he does with it, and how many other factors influence his decision making is something we can only speculate about), have a lot of experience at gaming tables with "players who tend to appreciate every possible mechanical advantage" or are some of the worst offenders in that area themselves.
Often, something might be banned because of an obscure combination, that just isn't common knowledge, or that that option would interact weirdly with other currently legal items. When it comes to conflicts like this, in theory, the newer items loses all the time, even if it is better written in a variety of ways... since you can't just remove the old option.
And sometimes items are restricted for chronicle use, and without any insight into the inner workings of Paizo, individual scenarios might get delayed for a number of reasons.
(Also, I apologize if I'm a bit sharp-tongued. I've been up twenty-four hours trying to synchronize my schedule for this new medication.)
Seems fine to me, but I have just gotten older and more cynical ^^
they're illegal because of what i would do with them. MUAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!
And what would that be?
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armor specialization is because armor was getting too high too fast and too easily. They killed the jingasa because it was providing too cheap a source of AC and was ruining the curve. Which would be why the trait giving AC is banned.
The reason anyone cares about something being banned is because they have a build where they'd like to use it. If they'd like to use it that means that they see it as being good enough to take and want as is. And whatever build that would want that banned option is likely the reason it's not legal.