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<snip>
Lore Warden/Tetori is most likely better than a straight Tetori.
Feels like this is just theory-crafting though. How many actual Lore Warden/Tetori characters are there in the campaign, and how many tables have they actually rofl-stomped? How many tables have they rofl-stomped that would not have been equally rofl-stomped if the character was straight Tetori?
Nerfing because of theory-craft possibilities is not the direction I want to see the campaign go in.
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In fairness, I'd never seen the original treated as human-only. It was mostly a game of "give a loose justification of how your oread/Chelaxian/eidolon/mermaid qualifies as part of a Mammoth Lords following". No less of a free-for-all.Lost the 6 bonus hitpoints, and needs affiliation with Mammoth Lords instead of being part of a Mammoth Lord following.
Edit: in other words, instead of it being a human (kellid) only feat, it got turned into a free for all, and thus lost it's 6 hit points bonus.
Nothing in People of the North suggests that Mammoth Lord's Following is a human-only group. The group is regional, not racial, as far as I can tell. They don't seem like bigots either. I had a dwarf with this feat, didn't seem inappropriate that a dwarf could join up with the Mammoth Lords.
Did seem like the feat did more than a feat is supposed to do, but also didn't seem like it unbalanced anything.
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In fairness, I'd never seen the original treated as human-only. It was mostly a game of "give a loose justification of how your oread/Chelaxian/eidolon/mermaid qualifies as part of a Mammoth Lords following". No less of a free-for-all.Lost the 6 bonus hitpoints, and needs affiliation with Mammoth Lords instead of being part of a Mammoth Lord following.
Edit: in other words, instead of it being a human (kellid) only feat, it got turned into a free for all, and thus lost it's 6 hit points bonus.
Nothing in People of the North suggests that Mammoth Lord's Following is a human-only group. The group is regional, not racial, as far as I can tell. They don't seem like bigots either. I had a dwarf with this feat, didn't seem inappropriate that a dwarf could join up with the Mammoth Lords.
Did seem like the feat did more than a feat is supposed to do, but also didn't seem like it unbalanced anything.
The feat was definitely a front loaded feat, so when you compare it to other feats matter.
Most give 1/2 a save feat, 1/2 a split skill feat, and toughness at 6, half of toughness at 12 and 1/3 of toughness at 18.
so if all feats are equal it's OP. But if skill feats are weaker than it's mostly the save and HP, in which case it's just frontloaded.
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PFS Core does not require extra development or writing resources.
There is now PFS Standard, PFS Core, PFS Adventure Card Game, and now Starfinder Society. Paizo & VO resources already seemed strained before your hire and adding one person for a whole new product line (no matter how talented) seems underwhelming.
Didn't indicate that it did - thus the "1/2?" in the paragraph above where your quote of my post began.
We are talking about Starfinder Society, Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild and Pathfinder Society Adventure Card Guild. That's a total of 3.
Again, you could have just left my quote there... no arguements here SFS + PFS RPG + PFS ACG = 3, yes...
I think you missed the key "& VO resources" part of my quote. I've bolded it above.And to be honest, I'm not sure where the resources PFS wise are going into the ACG. I was under the impression the ACG stuff had a completely different team. But maybe that changed when Tanis left.
I'm not sure how they could have mixed PFS RPG & PFS ACG scenarios without at least some coordination with the PFS team, but you were / are in a better position to make that assessment as I've declined a VO position several times due to and thus never had access to the VO forums.
John & Linda do amazing work. I'm sure Thursty will as well. That said, their work load is more than just "make sure PFS scenarios get out" so I'd argue that it's not actually static +50% work for +50% employee situation, but I'm not Paizo. I can only state how it appears from this side of things which is that the PFS team works their butts off, but often still falls behind because there is SO much stuff they have to deal with.
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To be blunt, grappling is situationally an exceptionally effective strategy if your character is even marginally decent at it. My wife broke a level 9 module playing the pregen level 7 Sajan (chained Monk). My wife is the antithesis of a power gamer; it doesn't take an optimiser to use a 50' movement speed, ki jump, and a grapple check to shut down NPC mages, and the module had a lot of mages.
So do we nerf grapple?
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I'm pretty sure it didn't lose any of that. Just a couple of class skills around the edges.My theory is that the real reason why the Lore Warden is so popular was the skill points. Playing a full fighter in PFS is just too painful with 2+Int/Level. Now people will just go off and dip with brawlers and bloodragers instead.
The Lore Warden was an excellent fit for PFS play, and that should be no surprise since it's a Pathfinder Society Archetype. It wasn't the best fighter archetype... but its skill points made it the best fit for PFS.
Hmm
They lost Appraise as a class skill, which honestly is a little weird to give them everything else Int based. I agree with HMM, Lore Warden was a excellent fit for PFS because the skill points made them viable in more situations. Having played a core fighter in Library of the Lion and the like, it was really not fun to be unable to contribute effectively to all those skill checks due to lack of points.
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They lost Appraise as a class skill, which honestly is a little weird to give them everything else Int based. I agree with HMM, Lore Warden was a excellent fit for PFS because the skill points made them viable in more situations. Having played a core fighter in Library of the Lion and the like, it was really not fun to be unable to contribute effectively to all those skill checks due to lack of points.
...which it still has. Losing Appraise didn't take away the two extra skill points per level. It's still there, on page 144 of the Adventurer's Guide.
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In fairness, I'd never seen the original treated as human-only. It was mostly a game of "give a loose justification of how your oread/Chelaxian/eidolon/mermaid qualifies as part of a Mammoth Lords following". No less of a free-for-all.Lost the 6 bonus hitpoints, and needs affiliation with Mammoth Lords instead of being part of a Mammoth Lord following.
Edit: in other words, instead of it being a human (kellid) only feat, it got turned into a free for all, and thus lost it's 6 hit points bonus.
Nothing in People of the North suggests that Mammoth Lord's Following is a human-only group. The group is regional, not racial, as far as I can tell. They don't seem like bigots either. I had a dwarf with this feat, didn't seem inappropriate that a dwarf could join up with the Mammoth Lords.
Did seem like the feat did more than a feat is supposed to do, but also didn't seem like it unbalanced anything.
I must have read more into the flavor of being a part of a Mammoth Lord following and surviving the coming of age rituals than strictly by the rules of the feat I suppose. I've never taken this feat on anything other than a Kellid personally (in fact, I went out of my way and used the trait Child of Two Peoples to justify my ulfen life oracle taking that feat).
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To be blunt, grappling is situationally an exceptionally effective strategy if your character is even marginally decent at it. My wife broke a level 9 module playing the pregen level 7 Sajan (chained Monk). My wife is the antithesis of a power gamer; it doesn't take an optimiser to use a 50' movement speed, ki jump, and a grapple check to shut down NPC mages, and the module had a lot of mages.
So do we nerf grapple?
Not nerf grapple, but I was noting the sheer lack of sources to gain boosts to concentration checks. And in particular, a lack general concentration bonuses, rather than contextual boosts.
At one point, was trying to create a mounted caster. There are so very few sources of Concentration bonuses compatible with the checks required for vigorous motion (like that of riding a mount while casting).
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I must have read more into the flavor of being a part of a Mammoth Lord following and surviving the coming of age rituals than strictly by the rules of the feat I suppose. I've never taken this feat on anything other than a Kellid personally (in fact, I went out of my way and used the trait Child of Two Peoples to justify my ulfen life oracle taking that feat).
The only characters of mine that have ever taken it were Kellid. But it's far more open-ended than the restrictions in other sources, and I've seen a lot of justifications. (Which I'm not necessarily 100% against, for the record.)
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They lost Appraise as a class skill, which honestly is a little weird to give them everything else Int based. I agree with HMM, Lore Warden was a excellent fit for PFS because the skill points made them viable in more situations. Having played a core fighter in Library of the Lion and the like, it was really not fun to be unable to contribute effectively to all those skill checks due to lack of points....which it still has. Losing Appraise didn't take away the two extra skill points per level. It's still there, on page 144 of the Adventurer's Guide.
I did not say it did not, I said that I agree one of the reasons it is played was because of that feature. I feel the new version takes away too much now in exchange for very little beyond the skill points. If I am taking levels of fighter it is likely because I need more feats to make some janky concept function in PFS, effectively losing 2 feats with the new version is not great.
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I did not say it did not, I said that I agree one of the reasons it is played was because of that feature.
Fair enough - the phrasing in both your post and Hmm's made it seem like folks were bemoaning its loss.
I feel the new version takes away too much now in exchange for very little beyond the skill points. If I am taking levels of fighter it is likely because I need more feats to make some janky concept function in PFS, effectively losing 2 feats with the new version is not great.
I don't wholly disagree. That 2nd-level ability is painful. (In fact, the reason I cancelled my lore warden is because I can no longer get Thunder And Fang at 2nd level.)
I feel it would have been reasonable to get what we got for just bravery, or to lock in Combat Expertise as the 2nd-level feat.
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 8
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So some stuff got errated in a new release. I noticed the clear spindle ioun stone, and will loose no sleep over that nerf. I've long despised the ioun stone, and am happy to see it fall into a more reasonable power level. The lore warden change I'll admit is a bit of a blow, I enjoyed the options it allowed, with clever multiclassing etc, but I can appreciate why it was changed.
I will admit, I did expect a thread like this to start, I'm just surprised that it is where it is. This is nothing new, guys. It's certainly unwelcome to people who were using such options, but overall it's just part of the game, team.
It's unreasonable for PFS to dictate to Paizo what content they should or should not produce. We are an important aspect of the game, for sure, but we aren't the sole consumers of it. The devs are going to make balance changes that they see fit, and I think we should be at a point in our Paizo relationship where we trust these changes are not made lightly.
I say we should trust them because the PFS leadership has shown time and time again their willingness to work with us after negative change (re-summoner nerf), and ever their willingness to rollback a power creep change (re-early entry SLA nonsense). So they are listening, monitoring, balancing, and internalizing this feedback. That said, a game as bulky and old as Pathfinder (or any game that's celebrating 10 years of life) is going to need updates, patches, and errata. Consider the Adventurer's Guide another one of these patches.
Sure, we could have gone without this change and likely been fine. But what about the next feat or item they want to balance? Maybe they don't because they don't want to upset people playing Rangers or whatever? Now we have a system where balance isn't happening because it upsets people. And while that might keep some players happy, it's overall detrimental to the health of your system. Look where 3.5 is now. It's a madhouse of overpowered nonsense.
So rather than be upset that these changes have come, I'd be filled with some modicum of pride. If you are effected by these changes, it's because you were using one of the most powerful options in the game, and the developers of Pathfinder decided you were too strong. That's pretty cool. You basically broke the game, and forced them to fix it. You're like a bug-sniffer. And I bet you'll be able to find new, equally powerful options out of the massive options that make up Pathfinder.
And for people concerned about how this will impact PFS, I imagine it'll be handled thusly.
1) Existing lore wardens get to stay as such, and
2) clear spindle ioun stones can be resold for full value.
Why do I predict this? Because that's exactly how similar changes have been handled in the past. Which is why you can see pre-unchained Summoners, early-entry SLA casters, and a myriad of "retro" content in Society today.
As a side note, for anyone still unconvinced (everyone), there's another positive take you can have on these changes. Consider this: restrictions breed creativity. For example, if you were to play a game of Pathfinder without any limit on the point buy, you could have a character with 100+ in each stat. At which point your character class is largely irrelevant, and the system literally collapses. You don't need to find any clever feat/class combo or cool traits, because you literally have +50 in everything. The game breaks.
You need to have some restrictions, like a 20 point buy, in order to introduce a level of normalcy and balance to the game. That restriction allows you to create interesting characters, to find unique and powerful options. That restriction is breeding creativity. Without it, you couldn't play Pathfinder.
Think of erratas, patches, updates, nerfs--whatever you want to call them--as routine changes. These are the changes that keep the game interesting. If no new content is produced, and no changes are made, a handful of overpowered options rises to the surface and nothing else is played. It's what has happened with 3.5. And it's whats happened with literally every online video game that ceases getting updates. But if changes are made, and new restrictions are introduced, it forces everyone to return to the drawing board and start again. It's like a perpetual soft reset to the game, which keeps it fresh and allows for new, exciting combinations to arise.
Restrictions breed creativity.
TLDR: Don't despair, be happy.
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It's unreasonable for PFS to dictate to Paizo what content they should or should not produce.
That could easily be solved by letting both lore wardens exist side by side and letting the free market of players pick which one. Yes two things with the same name are confusing but it will still cause less problems than race trait and racial trait *drinks*
edit: Also the clarity that PFS needs sometimes isn't necessary for a home gam, but i'm sure it helps head off some arguments and bad feelings from rules questions during a game.
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This right here is an excellent description of why many people DON'T play MtG in certain formats. A perpetual churn of flavor-of-the-day decks, with certain play styles becoming nigh-impossible as the set cycles out of legality. All while paying for the new shinies, of course, that look a lot like the old shinies with a fresh coat of paint.
But if changes are made, and new restrictions are introduced, it forces everyone to return to the drawing board and start again. It's like a perpetual soft reset to the game, which keeps it fresh and allows for new, exciting combinations to arise.
This is exactly why I quit Magic. I was a highly ranked tournament player. I got out because of the constant churn and the requirement to buy/win/trade for new stuff every few months.
I do not want to see PFS go the same way, with periodic nerfing that comes with no prior warning and that invalidates my purchases. Because grandfathering is a one-time only affair, and if I don't have my character levelled in the old version of the class when the nerf comes in then I never get to use the content I bought for the purpose I bought it.
It's not about the money. It is about trust in the integrity of the product.
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Is there a better maneuver user than the original lore warden?
For grapple: Anything with grab and constrict really. Drood, druids snake. Tetori. Getting two chances to grapple and damage hurts a lot more than a few extra pluses.
For trip, disarm, sunder,dirty manuever : a magus is obscene/ True strike whack is a +20 and while its technically a limited resource, it will last longer more times than you'll want to do it (especially with a minimal investment in pearls of power)
Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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This right here is an excellent description of why many people DON'T play MtG in certain formats. A perpetual churn of flavor-of-the-day decks, with certain play styles becoming nigh-impossible as the set cycles out of legality. All while paying for the new shinies, of course, that look a lot like the old shinies with a fresh coat of paint.
But if changes are made, and new restrictions are introduced, it forces everyone to return to the drawing board and start again. It's like a perpetual soft reset to the game, which keeps it fresh and allows for new, exciting combinations to arise.This is exactly why I quit Magic. I was a highly ranked tournament player. I got out because of the constant churn and the requirement to buy/win/trade for new stuff every few months.
I do not want to see PFS go the same way, with periodic nerfing that comes with no prior warning and that invalidates my purchases. Because grandfathering is a one-time only affair, and if I don't have my character levelled in the old version of the class when the nerf comes in then I never get to use the content I bought for the purpose I bought it.
It's not about the money. It is about trust in the integrity of the product.
You could argue that having so many of those "must have items" is also something that is very similar to MTG. I am pretty happy that I don't have to spend obscene amounts of money for some options, just because they come out of a booster.
I get where you are coming from, but this really is one of the areas where the designers felt that those options needed to be toned down for the health of the game. There are a couple of explanations and reasoning in the product thread.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Massachusetts—Boston Metro
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From the view of ordinary players, when we see changes, what we see primarily are nerfs.
For the most part Paizo is pretty evenly split on upgrading and downgrading. In fact Im actually surprised more people have praised the upgrades because they are incredible.
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 8
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It's good I have a job where I can spend however long I want on these boards :P
@shaventalz
- Trusting Paizo: So yeah, definitely don't blindly trust a company. I appreciate that. But we should be able to trust that if (and a big IF) these changes are negative, Paizo will fix them. As they've shown to do in the past.
- Lore Warden is the most powerful option ever: Yeah, you got me, that's a stretch. But I think that whenever balance changes are made its because the options were too powerful for what the devs wanted, or could lead to future problems with new content. There are certainly other powerful options, but it doesn't mean that it wasn't one of the more powerful ones.
- Restrictions breed creativity: I've actually heard of lots of games where people start with a level of commoner before becoming PCs. But that aside, it's a little silly to compare a 20 point buy or an errata to an archetype to playing commoners. So obviously that design philosophy doesn't gel with you, and you did bring up MTG so now I can talk about it as a good example of this.
- MTG: MTG is the single most profitable non-digital game in the gaming world today. It's disgusting how popular it is. I'm working in an LGS right now with 20 kids playing MTG because it was a half day at school. WotC is obviously doing something right. Restrictions do breed creativity. And I understand that not everyone is going to like that, but it is overwhelmingly positive for the survival of your game. For the record, MTG will be 25 years old next year. It looks to be stronger than ever.
@plaidwandering
I don't think it's the THE most powerful option, but it is among the strongest. It's the most common 2 level dip (next to MOMS monk pre ban) that I've ever seen.
@supervillan
Ahh, a kindred spirit. I don't play competitive magic because it's too expensive, but I do follow it closely. When did you play MTG? Were you using a top tier deck? Were you playing in a format where if you weren't playing one of a handful of decks you weren't really playing the game? Because that's what happens every year or two with Standard and Modern. A handful of decks rise to the top and bans are needed to rebalance the game, and allow for new decks to shine. Otherwise, we're just stuck in a world of splinter twin and Melira pod, which is fine for people with those decks--but sucks for anyone else looking to break in.
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I've never actually seen any fighters at any of my tables that weren't lore wardens.
The possibility of a location aberration aside, that could easily be that for PFS, unlike a lot of other campaigns, you need skills. Especially knowledge skills. The fighter only has two ranks and two moderately useful skills: climb quickly gets surpassed by a wizard with fly and a rope. It really should not be surprising that a fighter designed to be more useful in pfs is more popular in pfs.
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Interesting to see what rules are being changed in Starfinder, which seems like a bit of a beta test of "things we might see in Pathfinder 2.0". AoOs are gone, and so is CMB/CMD. Instead combat maneuvers are a -8 penalty versus a regular attack. Why do you think they made them so much harder in Starfinder, if grapple and its friends work so well as-is?
I suggest it's because combat maneuvers actually violate the basic principle of d20 combat: it's abstract. Hp aren't a constant effect. Sometimes 10 points of damage is a minor wound that you mostly ducked (when you have 100hp left); sometimes it runs you through. Your attack roll isn't the only swing you take in a round, it represents the amount of swings that have a chance of doing damage.
Adding more detailed systems like combat maneuvers (and arguably firearms vs touch AC, parry, styles, etc.) adds levels of detail the main system doesn't support. That's why they are all more powerful than "straight" combat. And they're less situational than many other abilities like mind-affecting effects or elemental damage - they work on almost everything in PFS.
(Interestingly, they're also getting rid of a single hp pool in Starfinder - which tells me that the basic combat system will start to catch up to the level of detail these added systems already have. Can't wait to see it!)
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My issue is that generally when the nerf hammer comes down it comes down too hard. It reduces a must have option to a total non-option. We can take Tribal Scars for example but there are others. Currently it might be too front-loaded (6 bonus hit points at 1st level is a lot) however why does the nerf need to remove all of the bonus hit points? Would it still not be a very good (but not broken) feat if it granted 3 bonus hit points in addition to the other bonuses? As it stands I really cannot see anyone spending a Feat for the revised version.
Other examples that I can easily think of include the Jingasa and the Staff of the Master which originally far too cheap for the benefits they provided. However if the design team simply increased the price of the items instead of making them useless options players would be able to use them at a fair price.
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 8
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- MTG: MTG is the single most profitable non-digital game in the gaming world today. It's disgusting how popular it is. I'm working in an LGS right now with 20 kids playing MTG because it was a half day at school. WotC is obviously doing something right. Restrictions do breed creativity. And I understand that not everyone is going to like that, but it is overwhelmingly positive for the survival of your game. For the record, MTG will be 25 years old next year. It looks to be stronger than ever.I agree that it's disgustingly popular, and good for the company. It might even be good for the "game", taken as a whole and ignoring individuals. I disagree that it's (generally) good for the individual players, regardless of what that player was playing.
*cocks head quizzically*
So we agree that it's disgustingly popular. How can it be that the development decisions that brought them to this point bad for the individual players? They have more players than ever.Certainly, a few players dislike the tournament rules, and those players don't participate in tournaments. Doesn't mean they can't enjoy the game they want to. Just like with Pathfinder. If the PFS restrictions bother you, you can choose to participate in home games.
The goal of errata should be to bring the game to a point of sustainability for future growth. Regardless of how it effects a few individual people. If those people dislike it, they can house rule it. If those people are participating in PFS, they've agree to accept the "house rules" of Paizo, and these erratas should no longer come as a surprise. They should be expected.
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The current version of Tribal Scars is very similar to the existing Totem Spirit, from the Inner Sea World Guide. The dual-benefit design of each makes them both fairly similar to Additional Traits. So, it seems quite reasonably balanced against existing material to me.
The argument could be made that all feats should be better. But that's a different discussion.
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I've never actually seen any fighters at any of my tables that weren't lore wardens.
Fighters aren't a very PFS friendly class. Nothing bad about fighters, which remains an awesome combat option, but PFS isn't just combat. The fighters just have lacking skill access, despite being entirely dependent on feats and skills, which is an issue in PFS. Honestly, I was surprised we didn't get an unchained Fighter, back when they attempted to "balance" the core classes.
Fighters are more common in Core PFS, many feats can only be accessed in Core, by fighters. Still not common, just more common.
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Is there a better maneuver user than the original lore warden?There's a difference between being the best at a given subset of the rules, and being "one of the most powerful options in the game."
If they brought out a class that gave +20 to Profession (Weaver) checks at level 1, there would probably be no better weaver. That doesn't mean it's able to compete in a party with a Wizard, Cleric, and Druid.
It absolutely would. That +20 to day job checks is worth at least one potion or two scrolls per scenario, which isn't far off from a Wizard's spellcasting at 1st level. For the same reason, it would become a strong dip class.
One of the design goals Paizo has is to avoid making classes too dippable. Whether you like that or not, that's been a longstanding philosophy. It's hard to see this restructure as anything other than an attempt to reduce the frontloaded power of the Lore Warden. I say that without making any judgment on whether or not that change was needed, because I have never played one, or had one at my table. (I have seen a *lot* of potential builds that called for a 2 to 4 level dip in Lore Warden, though, so there was at least a perception in the wild that it was a strong dip.)
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Pirate Rob here.
I thought I'd share my 2 characters with Lore Warden levels just as examples for those who are curious.
Gyre here is a pure 13th level Lore Warden, having completed the entirety of the Emerald Spire.
His trip bonus is currently:
BAB 13 + Strength 4 + Dex 4 (Fury's Fall) + Weapon Training 5 + Weapon Focus 1 + Greater Weapon Focus 1 + Maneuver Master 6 + Improved Trip 2, Greater Trip 2 + Heirloom Weapon 2 + Enhancement 5, Power Attack -4, Dazing -5 = 36
(Dazing frequently gets left off against things immune to daze of if Gyre is suffering variousu to hit penalities. Frequently the bonus gets a bit higher with enlarge person and things like bard song, haste and even occasionally bull's strength)
Full stat block is available on his profile.
Between Advanced Weapon Training and Lore Warden skill ranks (and an int of 14) Gyre is quite skilled in a variety of ways.
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Regional Venture-Coordinator, Central Europe
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It's not "oh, a level 7 killed the CR15". It's more like "the party killed the high-CR creature thanks to a combination of Power Attack, good equipment, and skill."None of the equipment provided in the module has any use against the creature. It was killed by a full attacking eidolon and a x3 crit from a barbarian.
Yes, luck of the dice played a part. But it is still a testament to how powerful Pathfinder characters are. This is not the first time I have seen a party take out an enemy whose CR was twice the APL.
I was GMing another table of that scenario around 1 year ago where that thing got killed by a spirited charge using cavalier in 3 passes.
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Just going to reiterate what I've said RE: previous update-errata things. If there is going to be a comparison to a game Patch, I just want patch notes. Maybe some blog post or forum post where somebody goes over why they felt the change was needed, or what they hoped would be accomplished. Most games with an online (read: interpersonal) component do this, so I don't think it would be too out of the ordinary for Paizo.
While I'm upset about things I liked and considered fine-as-is getting balance-changed, a look at the rationale behind the change could at leasthelp me avoid content in the future that would be subject to such changes.