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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.
Hmm... upgrades...
URogue......UMonk...
...Prone Shooter to a feat that actually functions...
...maybe Sound Striker Bard (I've seen mixed reactions on it)...
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...yeah, that's all I've got...
downgrades:
Pretty much every change in the AA, ACG, ARG, & UE ... Fencing Grace (based on CC documentation, I've decided not to buy this book until at least it's 3rd printing and then probably only used because of the Fencing Grace reprint) ... USummoner ... and now the list of nuke from the Adventurer's Geld ...
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.
Link to that quote please?
From everything I've seen Paizo has actually made sure that martial classes benefit from dipping, it's part of the schtick of playing a martial character - it's often advantagous to dip or multiclass. If the design goal was to punish multi-classing, why haven't they eliminated Multi-Talented from half-elves?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?
Well, I know I remember the release of Fallen Empires... and the gaming stores and distributors it killed...
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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.
Did you plan to use the Klar+EB or do double EB? I have a Thunder and Fang fighter (using Klar and EB) that I went Viking with and I really enjoy it.
Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East
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I'll throw in on statistics. I've played 259 games and gm'd 255. I do not recall seeing a Lore Warden in any of them. I certainly don't get everyone's leveling schemes that I sit down with, so it's quite possible they've been around, but I haven't noticed any.
I've seen dedicated grapplers and other maneuver specialists before, but none of them were lore wardens. My own grappler is an Eidolon, so it doesn't get the option either way (and they just HAD to nerf the ioun stone that was helping me out)
Contributor
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Did you plan to use the Klar+EB or do double EB? I have a Thunder and Fang fighter (using Klar and EB) that I went Viking with and I really enjoy it.
Klar and earth breaker - the Campaign Clarification for Varisia, Birthplace of Legends makes it tricky to use it to dual-wield earth breakers in Pathfinder Society.
I'm more likely to just switch to ranger or slayer at this point. I wanted skills as well as strength, and without lore warden...
EDIT: Ironically, I may start with one level of lore warden for the class skills and bonus feat.
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Did you plan to use the Klar+EB or do double EB? I have a Thunder and Fang fighter (using Klar and EB) that I went Viking with and I really enjoy it.Klar and earth breaker - the Campaign Clarification for Varisia, Birthplace of Legends makes it tricky to use it to dual-wield earth breakers in Pathfinder Society.
I'm more likely to just switch to ranger or slayer at this point. I wanted skills as well as strength, and without lore warden...
EDIT: Ironically, I may start with one level of lore warden for the class skills and bonus feat.
I had considered levels of Ranger but ultimately decided to go the route of a more tanky build. The Shield Defense ability and Berserker are both nice.
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Is it not one of the most powerful fighter options in the game?
It is arguably one of the best fighter options for what it provides bonuses to.
But that statement does not make it one of the most powerful fighter options.
In an entirely different thread I provided 10 different ATs that are also best at what their bonuses provide and provide an equal dip opportunity than the Lore Warden. If I were to expand that rambling sentence beyond level 2 I could demonstrate a dozen examples of other fighter ATs that are equally desirable, depending entirely on what you're trying to do.
I hate playing any 2 skill point/level classes (with an ire directed almost exclusively to fighters and clerics), and yet this is why I have characters with fighter levels in Lore Warden, Unbreakable, Armor Master, and Tactician.
As many people have pointed out though, the Lore Warden a) was designed specifically to function as a Pathfinder Society fighter class (evidenced by being in the book written for Pathfinder Society (I was at the PaizoCon VO dinner when Hyrum first showed it to us) and b) it deservedly gained that reputation because of the skill points.
That doesn't make it "most powerful" though, just "most powerful at being a Pathfinder".
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Venture-Agent, 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.Hmm... upgrades...
URogue...
...UMonk...
...Prone Shooter to a feat that actually functions......maybe Sound Striker Bard (I've seen mixed reactions on it)...
...
...yeah, that's all I've got...downgrades:
Pretty much every change in the AA, ACG, ARG, & UE ... Fencing Grace (based on CC documentation, I've decided not to buy this book until at least it's 3rd printing and then probably only used because of the Fencing Grace reprint) ... USummoner ... and now the list of nuke from the Adventurer's Geld ...
Wait you really think Unchained Summoner is a downgrade and not a well needed sanity break.
EDIT:You also forgot Breath of Life which for some reason was something I didn't think PFS would allowed an upgraded version.
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 8
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@shaventalz
- Not the SAME players / people quit: So I don't see that happening where I live. Magic players aren't "constantly burning out," as you say. They're a very vocal group for sure, and complain ALL THE TIME, but rarely do people "rage-quit" because of a ban. By and large, in the LGS that I've ran for 4 years now, my players adjust to the MTG environment. They copy popular decks, see ban announcements, complain, and make changes. It's just part of the MTG cycle. And yes, a lot of players refuse to play "that kind of game" and play casually. You can do the exact same thing with PFS. If you really want to use the old ioun stone or the old lore warden--you can. In a home game.
- PFS restrictions: When you agree to play PFS you're agreeing to follow RAW. That's the game we all play. And RAW for Pathfinder, and by extension PFS, has erratas. Things get updated. Things get nerfed. It happens. Just like tournament play for MTG has bans. And I can see why that's irritating. Really, I can. Because I have this discussion all the time with my MTG players--like last week when they banned something in Standard.
But here's my perspective: It's part of the game. That's it. It's part of the game.
- Could it not be part of the game?: Possibly. But without constant balancing of a game like this, a handful of "most powerful options" will emerge and the game will be come ONLY that. It's what Legacy / Vintage has become for MTG. Things only change as more powerful cards are printed. Just like things would only change when more powerful character options were released. It would be the arms race of 3.5 and the system would die. Just like Legacy and Vintage are dying.
- Not having access to a home group: That's troubling, yes, but that isn't what this discussion is about. This thread is a plea for developers to stop nerfing content. I believe that such a plea is the antithesis of what allows this game to thrive.
- Stock in Paizo: I too, have no stock in Paizo. I am a consumer like you. And as a consumer, I want this company to grow and continue producing new content. Otherwise, PFS will stagnate and die.
- But why was X banned? It makes no sense: That I cannot answer. The only people that can are the devs, which would be a different thread in the NOT PFS section of the boards.
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Walter, PFS is not like MTG. Not yet, anyway.
In the 3.5 years of my PFS experience, most players are not endlessly seeking the "most powerful options." The proportion of players that set out to build powerhouse PCs is low, across the board. I think that I have seen many more underpowered PCs than overpowered ones. So we're not in the competitive power-balance of MTG. PFS, and Pathfinder, are after all cooperative games.
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For anyone wondering: here's a short list of a few things that are upgraded in Adventurer's Guide. This isn't an exhaustive list, just what I noticed on my first skim.
- Pathfinder Delver gets some new abilities.
- Mammoth Rider gets some extra mount choices.
- Cyphermage has extra choices for cypher lore.
- Pathfinder Savant is now a 10-level prestige class (not really an upgrade to the existing levels, but there are cool abilities at the new levels).
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 8
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@supervillan
I'm aware of what MTG is and how it is not PFS. The discussion I'm having with shaventalz includes MTG because it was brought into it by them. Just using it to make my points on the subject.
I also believe that Pathfinder is a cooperative game, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't ensure that it is balanced. If we agree that most people aren't making overpowered builds, then these errata changes aren't an issue. How many casual PFS players know about the clear spindle combo? And how many are seasoned players that are aware of the potency of it for such a low cost?
Those are the people we see arguing against nerfs. Not the casuals. The casuals will, as always, play home games where such erratas can be ignored. And if they play PFS then, again, they're agreeing to play the game RAW. And RAW has errata.
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@supervillan
How many casual PFS players know about the clear spindle combo? And how many are seasoned players that are aware of the potency of it for such a low cost?
Alex, I'm going to go with "Who are, all of those who started when Seekers of Secrets was a Core Assumption?"
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With a new product line (Starfinder) and only one new hire (Thursty), thus inevitably PFS must be even more talent-diluted....Addressing this now, before anyone makes any further assumptions on the matter...
Yes, I was hired to help handle development on Starfinder Society. I'm currently doing that right now. [snip] That being said, I've been more and more involved on the Pathfinder Society side of things to help further my skills for Starfinder Society, and to help the OP Team (John, Linda, Tonya, and Mark S.) out. Even before the official announcement of my position, I'd been involved in developing Pathfinder Society scenarios, along with some other external freelancers. So please don't misinterpret my presence as just being something to drain Pathfinder Society resources.
I appreciate your taking the time to respond, Thursty.
Thursty, it perceive my comment was taken as a personal affront. That was not my intent. I apologize for not being more clear. Please accept my public apology and allow me to clarify my statement.
I don't see you [Thursty] as taking away from PFS. I see Starfinder as taking away from PFS [AMEN to that!], and your presence as an attempt to mitigate that.
This is a correct interpretation of my intent. Thank you.
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.
This is a correct interpretation of my intent. Thank you.
I believe his point was that the team now has double (or more) the workload as it did before, but only 1 extra person to help. Meaning there'll be less time to work on something since you need to make 2 things in the time it took 1. Thus you can't make it as good, or "dilute the talent" available to the book.
Also a reasonable interpretation of my intent. Thank you.
My intent, as these three people correctly inferred, was to point out that there's a new product line (Starfinder Society) with all that entails, and yet only one new hire to assist an already overwhelmed staff.
I meant you no personal ill-will. Again, I apologize.
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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).
You have learned to enter a deeper state when casting spells, allowing you to shrug off distractions, damage, weather effects, and even the effects of other spells.
Prerequisites: Combat Casting.
Benefit: You do not need to make concentration checks when affected by vigorous or violent motion or by violent weather. You gain a +2 bonus on all other concentration checks.
So take Combat Casting and Uncanny Concentration, and there is no more need to even make the check for violent motion. Granted that's 2 feats on top of Mounted Combat or whatever other feats you are planning to take, but it gets rid of the problem you mentioned and a Human caster could have it at first level if you really wanted it.
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I genuinely cannot comprehend why combat maneuvers were attacked in this book. Combat maneuevers already require hyper specialization to keep releveant due to CMD scaling at a faster rate. Yet both the Lore Warden's CMB bonuses and the Dusty Rose Prism Ioun Stone Resonance bonus got nerfed in this book.
Well, you could add something like a +5 to +9 for the combat maneuvers that use a weapon.
Still not overpowered broken at all though. Specially taking into account the immunities to trip, disarm and sunder.
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Because CMB is ridiculously easy to power up at a rate that quickly outpaces even APL+4 creatures. When this happens, it becomes easy to end encounters before they start with only a 5% chance failure.let's try some real math, just glancing through several 7-11s, I am seeing an awful lot of 36-48 CMDs, and many outright immunities, flying, incorp, etc that just flat out shuts down manuevers. Yes there are some humanoids that are only in the 20s or lower 30s, but not that common at this level(though some of those also have fly or freedom of movement)
So let's take a lore warden, lvl 11 for the +6 bonus, +11 bab, let's say +6 str bonus, +1 trait bonus, +1 whatever else bonus, improved and greater feats Total +29
Success chance ranges from on a roll 7 for CMD 36, on a roll of 11 for the more common CMD 40, to very infrequently on a roll of 19 for the CMD 48.
So your 5% chance of failure is not factual. Even on the average CMD of 40, the 50% success chance is heavily skewed by the massive numbers of immunities or other abilities that render manuevers non-viable
This is why being the best at raw CMB is being the king of the trash heap.
36 to 48 CMD is laughable when that's the character's CMB.
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Well, you could add something like a +5 to +9 for the combat maneuvers that use a weapon.
Still not overpowered broken at all though. Specially taking into account the immunities to trip, disarm and sunder.
The special weapon property that gives double the weapon's enhancement bonus plus the weapon's enhancement bonus and a +5 weapon gives a +15 bonus.
I saw a trip build with fighter and alchemist get +40 something trip in a 30 foot reach range with whirlwind attack, and a brawler with a +40 to 50 something at level 9 or 10 on grapple.
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And once again, this is assuming you focus all your resources into that. That's the only way it even keeps pace.
If I put all my resources into doing massive damage I can 1 round a lot of creatures at my APL or higher. Do we need nerfs to stop that too?
I'll admit I've never heard of that enchantment though. Can you link it for reference. Or just name it even?
Well, you could add something like a +5 to +9 for the combat maneuvers that use a weapon.
Still not overpowered broken at all though. Specially taking into account the immunities to trip, disarm and sunder.
The special weapon property that gives double the weapon's enhancement bonus plus the weapon's enhancement bonus and a +5 weapon gives a +15 bonus.
I saw a trip build with fighter and alchemist get +40 something trip in a 30 foot reach range with whirlwind attack, and a brawler with a +40 to 50 something at level 9 or 10 on grapple.
Are you saying brawlers need a nerfing?
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One of the design goals Paizo has is to avoid making classes too dippable.
If that is one of their design goals then I think that they have failed. Miserably. At least for martial classes.
There are LOTS of hugely dippable classes and archetypes out there. And more are being added on a pretty regular basis.
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What paizo really hasn't done is given the martial classes any reason to stay in most of them past 5 or so. There's nothing cool past then until 20, so once you get 5 levels.. why NOT bail on it?
Swashbuckler, inquisitor, brawler, .. what do you stick around for?
Some are decent. I do find myself often wishing I could multiclass within the same class' archetypes, taking levels in another class, but one that is a different archetype of the same class. Like Titan Fighter 1/Weapon Master 4, or something like that.
Standouts, for me, on the Inquisitor include the Green Faith Marshall and the Infiltrator, but I'll admit, I've never actually gotten a build that I liked enough to actually play the class. Some of the Inquisitions are pretty impressive, too.
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Okay, so clearly there are some tables/places out there that work in the 'theoretical' range of game, and then there's the good vast majority of tables out there that operate in a *sane* and orderly fashion.
Utilizing the extreme as one's sample data (even if it is the only sample one has to work with) tends to skew plausibility and belief of discussion point.
It sounds more like that was a *player* problem than a character problem, tbh.
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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Thanks Lau. This post helps. I totally accept that we all want a thriving, fun, campaign.
I'd like to ask for some particular considerations.
Let me clarify: I'm just a venture lieutenant. When I heard about the changes in the Adventurer's Guide I kickstarted discussion about it on the venture officer messageboards. I foresaw that we'd get threads like this and wanted us to have thought about things beforehand.
So what I can grant as considerations is extremely limited :P
Could we get advance notice of when a longstanding option is going to be changed? This would help character planning and development and might possibly avoid the problem TimD brought up.
It's a legitimate desire, but I doubt that it's possible. Clearly Paizo isn't going to spoil the contents of books before publication.
And then there's usually a gap before the Additional Resources team publishes results. Their internal discussions are under NDA of course, because they sometimes need to make unpopular decisions for the greater good, and it's harder to defend those decisions if everyone is listening in on your deliberations.
However, I think most GMs will be reasonable enough - if you come to the table and learn AR just changed too recently for you to have made adjustments, I think most GMs will be lenient.
Secondly, could any free rebuilds include characters that have not yet taken levels in a class or archetype that is revised/nerfed, but include that revised/nerfed content as an essential element? This is something that might have to be taken on an honour system, I know. It goes beyond what is currently allowed. But it is a possible way of addressing nerfs/errata that break builds.
I don't think that's going to happen. It's just too open-ended. On the plus side, if you haven't yet taken levels in for example Lore Warden, you're probably lower level and it'll be easier to adapt.
My preference is still not to nerf. Make judgements when new material is published about what fits with the campaign and what doesn't, but don't kill off longstanding options that were never overpowered. I never heard anyone complain when a clear spindle ioun stone stopped a barbarian from killing the whole party. I never heard anyone say a Lore Warden broke a scenario.
I've seen lore wardens be pretty annoying. To be sure, any other maneuver build could have been just as annoying. The thing is, many PFS opponents just can't really deliver any kind of interesting encounter challenge if they're faced with a PC that only fails to trip them on a 1. NPCs get only so much space on paper, they're just not equipped with fallback options for a lot of things. I'm not saying I hate lore wardens or that I agree that that nerf was needed, but I can sort of see why someone might want to.
The spindle is another case. You don't complain when the barbarian isn't dominated. But the paladin does complain when a BBEG who's doing lots of evil stuff turns out to be "haha chaotic neutral" so that the spindle won't stop his Dominate Person. The spindle has a bad influence because it pushes writers into an arms race that makes the game worse.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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I'm seeing a couple of arguments keep popping up here, that I disagree with.
"It's been broken for so long. If you didn't fix it back then, you shouldn't fix it now."
Better late than never.
"Other broken things are worse, so you shouldn't do anything about this."
No, there was an opportunity to fix this thing; we'll take it. Hopefully we'll also get an opportunity later to fix the other thing.
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What if I think it wasn't broken?
Lorewarden was not broken and didn't need fixing.
The immunity to evil mental possession and control is 1/2 of the 2nd benefit of protection from evil. It is 1/6th of a 1st level spell. Not broken. I've never bought this item.
The dusty rose? It sounds like it was useful for what it did before (it did something besides give +1 initiative as the cracked version!?).
I don't think just because a change is made that the devs are automatically right. In every other thread where this happens people always rush in after the change and say "See I was right it was broken after all!" and it simply isn't true. It isn't that the options are objectively unbalanced but rather the perception of the development team has changed in the past 2 years. There's an echo chamber saying "We need to nerf character options. We need to make sure half of all published scenarios can be solved by a diplomacy check. We need to badwrongfun people who don't enjoy our way".
So no I disagree reselling you mandatory new content is correct. I disagree it was broken. I disagree making published content into published trash is going to help the game. The old version of the content should be made available again in downloads. It's not like Paizo lost access to this. Your old content made people happy to purchase it but now I can't use it anymore. Please give me it back so I can go play home games with the original rules so I can stop asking people to play 3.5 again.
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While there might be a variation in region I can say that in the online environment there is a definite skew towards very strong characters over very weak.
I find that it can vary quite a bit in online play.
online has lots of quite experienced players and they skew strong. But pick up games from discord and TPKon games have lots more newer players and they aren't anywhere near as strong.
I think that you're seeing a somewhat biased sample set for several reasons. I've noticed that the European online players seem to be experienced (and you get more of your share of them). Also, you yourself have a well deserved reputation of being a "Tough but fair" GM who does NOT play softball most of the time. I wouldn't be surprised to find that there is some self selection of players as a result.
From my perspective, its definitely the case that games at your tables seem to be tougher than at some other tables and, as a result, people tend to bring their A game.
I should emphasize that all the above comments on Andrews style are meant as compliments. He is very, very fair. But, especially with experienced players, he pulls few punches (the ones he DOES pull I heartily agree with. For example, he avoided a TPK by letting us run away when a misprint had caused a scenario to omit the 4 playeradjustment and the result was just blatantly unfair)
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stuff between you and Supervillan
Sorry, once again, the quote function fails in the face of a long post.
Not sure what the "Spindle" references, but would love to know.
Regarding balacing the more specialize character builds with the NPC opponents, like a trip build PC, the solution there is to give the PFS GMs the option to use their own tactics, rather than having to play every NPC in a preset way. Yes, there just isn't enough room to write varied tactics, so don't, and just let the GMs be actual GMs, instead of the PFS referees that they are. Sounds like you are nerfing classes to match your nerfed NPCs, rather than just fixing the NPCs by allowing the GM to use good tactics...
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stuff between you and SupervillanSorry, once again, the quote function fails in the face of a long post.
Not sure what the "Spindle" references, but would love to know.
Regarding balacing the more specialize character builds with the NPC opponents, like a trip build PC, the solution there is to give the PFS GMs the option to use their own tactics, rather than having to play every NPC in a preset way. Yes, there just isn't enough room to write varied tactics, so don't, and just let the GMs be actual GMs, instead of the PFS referees that they are. Sounds like you are nerfing classes to match your nerfed NPCs, rather than just fixing the NPCs by allowing the GM to use good tactics...
The "spindle" is the clear spindle ioun stone, subject to a resonance nerf in Adventurers' Guide.
PFS GMs do have freedom to adapt when PC actions invalidate written tactics.
However, if the actions of the PCs before or during an encounter invalidate the provided tactics or starting locations, the GM should consider whether changing these would provide a more enjoyable play experience.
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So a trip build is either effective or can't do anything depending on the number of legs/flight ability of your opponent. Seems balanced to me. Disarm only works if they weild weapons. Grapple requires the most feats of them all to do well and gives you some penalties as well.
Please tell me more about how "overpowered" combat maneuvers are.
@Tallow, you never gave me that enchantment name you were talking about. I'd really like to know since I've never seen nor heard of it.
@Tallow, you never gave me that enchantment name you were talking about. I'd really like to know since I've never seen nor heard of it.
http://archivesofnethys.com/MagicWeaponsDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Dueling%20(PS FG)
EDIT:
This one do something alike
http://archivesofnethys.com/MagicWeaponsDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Leveraging
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Seems balanced based on the fact that disarm and trip are the most situational of maneuvers. Disarm won't work on a lot of the enemies you fight (have you seen how many bestiary monsters don't use manufactured weapons?) and trip quickly gets impossible based on the number of legs or flight.