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Would Campaign Leadership please agree to grandfathering of the original Lore Warden fighter archetype?
Many of the arguments for doing so have been hashed out in earlier threads, but I will try to summarise succinctly.
1. the archetype does not have any similar equivalent: whilst some mechanical elements can be replicated with other classes, these alternatives have very different role-play connotations (eg Untamed Rager is not a scholarly fighter).
2. the new version of the archetype is very different than the original.
3. rebuilding will be very hard to do because to preserve the mechanical aspects of the original would require departing from the essential role-play characteristics of the scholarly fighter.
4. players have purchased content in good faith that has been invalidated by the unexpected revision presented in Adventurers' Guide.
Others may wish to present additional arguments.
Thanks for your consideration.
Venture-Agent, Nebraska—Omaha
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I would also add that "let the players use Adventurer's Guide content if they show the Field Guide" violates one of the stated purposes of requiring players to own the books. With that ruling, GMs can no longer ask to see the player's resource to verify how an ability works. "Just check the PRD" doesn't work if nobody in the group has immediate internet access.
You should bring a printout of the PRD if you don't have reliable internet access or a tablet with the screencaps.
I'm ambivalent about including a grandfather clause to the changes.
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Personally I dislike grandfathering of stuff that goes illegal.
Like grandfathering races is fine because they are still legal via boons.
Grandfathering a class that is illegal but reopened via chronicle would be fine.
But grandfathering classes that are illegal to me is annoying because then people show off and play these classes that have been deemed as inappropriate for PFS play and usually will slow track them, doubling the time they have to use their inappropriate option, plus holding onto them to only play certain scenarios, thus elongating the time more that it takes grandfathered classes to leave the system.
Like I still see grandfathered Mystic theurge that are only like lv9 now from doing the above.
While I can understand that the character's build and vision is quite possibly broken and irreparable with current legal material, I prefer in principle to keep with the change. This seems to effectively supposed to be viewed and handled as change via errata for PFS, and it's stated in the rules as stuff that happens and that you'll need to change for it. So while purchased in good faith, that good faith was supposed to already be aware that things could change any day when new errata comes out. So the fact that the errata isn't the same book doesn't really change that it's errata.
I do support that the rebuild offered maybe be more than normal, allowing for potentially up to a complete rebuild of the character.
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I'm in favor of grandfathering this.
I don't have a lore warden myself any more. I actually did have one that I played once at level 1, but I had too many PCs and never got around to playing him again. I eventually rebuilt him two or three years later, when I had another PC idea that excited me more.
I'm just opposed to screwing over players, in general.
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I second what BNW said. This is a pretty big redo of the archetype. Given the precedent of APG Summoners not having to rebuild, I would ask that you allow those of us with Lore Wardens to keep our current characters without needing to rebuild.
(I'm also sad about what happened to the Enlightened Bloodrager, but that's another story.)
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I have only one PFS character. He is heavily multiclassed to be a somewhat efficient Halfling Opportunist. The build relies rather strongly on the old Lore Warden. If it cannot be grandfathered, I will have to rebuild my character completely or he will turn out very different and even less viable than he currently is :-(
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As someone without any Lore Wardens, I support grandfathering them. I just don't see keeping the old ones around as something that is going to cause any major problems, while forcing them to rebuild is going to impact a lot of characters. Something similar to APG Summoner requiring they be 2nd level and have played a game with Lore Warden levels seems like it would be fine.
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Please don't. Too much stacking CMB bonuses into absurdity. Please allow full rebuilds, but no grandfathering.
Summoners were a class completely rebuilt from the ground up. This is just an archtype change.
To allow someone that has a level 2 lore warden to be so completely different from a fresh level 1 lore warden is too much.
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Please don't. Too much stacking CMB bonuses into absurdity. Please allow full rebuilds, but no grandfathering.
Summoners were a class completely rebuilt from the ground up. This is just an archtype change.
To allow someone that has a level 2 lore warden to be so completely different from a fresh level 1 lore warden is too much.
It requires a complete rebuild, feats and abilities change. Also that means that you must purchase a new book to play your existing character, unless they suspend the rule for owning the material for this archetype. And that would create even more problems than grandfathering.
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Please don't. Too much stacking CMB bonuses into absurdity. Please allow full rebuilds, but no grandfathering.
Summoners were a class completely rebuilt from the ground up. This is just an archtype change.
To allow someone that has a level 2 lore warden to be so completely different from a fresh level 1 lore warden is too much.It requires a complete rebuild, feats and abilities change. Also that means that you must purchase a new book to play your existing character, unless they suspend the rule for owning the material for this archetype. And that would create even more problems than grandfathering.
No it doesn't. You have to own the source material to use the class features, so yes if you wish to use any version of Lore Warden you have to own the new book?
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Please don't. Too much stacking CMB bonuses into absurdity. Please allow full rebuilds, but no grandfathering.
Summoners were a class completely rebuilt from the ground up. This is just an archtype change.
To allow someone that has a level 2 lore warden to be so completely different from a fresh level 1 lore warden is too much.It requires a complete rebuild, feats and abilities change. Also that means that you must purchase a new book to play your existing character, unless they suspend the rule for owning the material for this archetype. And that would create even more problems than grandfathering.
They've already said, once the PRD is updated you need to use that source but are able to use your book as the ownership requirements. So if you have the old book, just print out the PRD for the new stuff you use and you're good to go.
Developer
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Rebuilding this is going to be a total headache. I already had to make little flash cards with all my feats for this balanced-if-not-underpowered character, and now I'm going to have to retrain numerous class levels and feats to fit everything into the same way.
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Let the people who bought your books use your books. Not buy your book then have to do more stuff to use what is not what you bought the book for.
Updates and Errata should not only make things worse.
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As a GM, the updates have been a pretty solid round of fixes to things that were too powerful.
Lore Warden's fate is unfortunate but not grossly so unless you were a Lore Warden dipper.
So it is 'unfortunate' that a knowledge skill-accessing fighter archetype has been removed from consideration for a good portion of folks?
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As a GM, the updates have been a pretty solid round of fixes to things that were too powerful.
Lore Warden's fate is unfortunate but not grossly so unless you were a Lore Warden dipper.
You make it sound like anyone who isn't "pure" lore warden is some kind of munchkin.
Lore Warden has been around for 7 years. It is, imho, quite unreasonable to say that an option that has been available for 7 years should all of a sudden be regarded as egregiously overpowered and meriting the nerf hammer.
Regional Venture-Coordinator, Appalachia
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Its not THAT bad as is - everyone acts like it has been reduced to complete unplayableness and it just hasn't.
It IS dumb that you lose a feat (especially since you're effectively losing 3 feats in armor and shield proficiencies already) but a fighter with a brawler's maneuver training is still pretty good at what it does.
Alternatively, getting Know thy enemy done quicker is pretty solid and creates a new and more in keeping with the "Smart Fighter" option.
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Regional Venture-Coordinator, Appalachia
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As a GM, the updates have been a pretty solid round of fixes to things that were too powerful.
Lore Warden's fate is unfortunate but not grossly so unless you were a Lore Warden dipper.
You make it sound like anyone who isn't "pure" lore warden is some kind of munchkin.
Lore Warden has been around for 7 years. It is, imho, quite unreasonable to say that an option that has been available for 7 years should all of a sudden be regarded as egregiously overpowered and meriting the nerf hammer.
But were you really using Combat Expertise for combat expertise in the first place?
The text is still pretty favorable. You just lose an extra bonus feat and don't get to use the defensive fighting aspects of Combat Expertise.
The mega nerf here is one feat which I get makes a HUGE difference in terms of builds but the ability to access those feats without 13 int is pretty decent and until last year Lore Warden was the only way to do it but in the end its probably not entirely build-shattering
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Regional Venture-Coordinator, Appalachia
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You're not really paying for it though - you're circumventing a requirement for it.
To be clear though none of this is why I oppose grandfathering - I oppose grandfathering because as a VO the bookkeeping required of us is already pretty heavy. Adding in more necessary character audits to make sure a character is truly and correctly granfathered isn't something I want.
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Regional Venture-Coordinator, Appalachia
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Yes but what you might NOT have is an int of 13. That's the purpose of it.
It IS totally useless at that level but its not nothing.
If it were up to me I would have done one (removing full access to Combat Expertise but allowing the regular bonus feat still) or the other (just flat out granting Combat Expertise without the int requirement) but not both as they have done.
But what I don't want to have to do as a VO is keep track of who all has a special rules-bending grandfather clause in the region.
It was admittedly worse with the APG summoner, precisely because it was so game-shatteringly good, but I just don't want that to be the precedent every time something like this happens.
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Douglas you're giving up a feat that you would otherwise have if you weren't taking the archetype, it's functionally equivalent to playing a core fighter and taking Combat Expertise as a feat. And the real issue is that this has rendered people's characters unplayable. Maneuver training is not good because specializing in a single combat maneuver is not good, and the bonus from maneuver training is garbage to begin with. The other abilities of the Lore Warden are... really not good. Not a person on this earth was complaining about how Lore Warden was OP and needs nerfs because it's a dang fighter archetype, so it baffles me why they even did this in the first place, but the fact that it fundamentally and irreparably cripples builds that made use of it to the point where they either can't be played anymore or have to be retrained into less thematically appropriate options is appalling. And I'm sorry but "I don't personally want to do more bookkeeping" is not an excuse to support ruining other people's characters.
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Regional Venture-Coordinator, Appalachia
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Yes but what you might NOT have is an int of 13. That's the purpose of it.
It IS totally useless at that level but its not nothing.
Again, Dirty Fighting. Don't need Int 13, COUNTS as Int 13 and some other goodies, and gives a situational benefit a "maneuver master" type can actually use.
And if you don't have Int 13, newLoreWarden doesn't help any. You still need that Int to pick up the maneuver feats that the archetype is supposed to support - check their prereqs.
Which wasn't an option before for a lot of people (myself included) when they made their Lore Wardens.
Retraining really is pretty viable here and is a one time pain in the butt.
Grandfathering is a many times over pain in the butt on people who already have a lot of those thrust on them. The only option we have is to lessen the load is to literally just be negligent which isn't something that should be encouraged.
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My seeker is a 14th level Lore Warden/Duelist. He will probably only get to play in one scenario a year. How can that be worth the effort of a total rebuilding? He certainly isn't stealing the spotlight from the other seekers.
Exactly. My 13.2 LW rarely even makes full attacks or combat maneuvers because I'd rather spend my combat time helping other players do cool things. The old LW was flexible enough that I could do a lot of useful things other than lay out ridiculous amounts of damage every round. If I retrain into the new LW, I lose the entire flavor and flexibility of the character. But I'd be able to lay down even more ridiculous amounts of damage every round. I just don't want to.
By making the LW 'less powerful', you have actually increased my damage output while making me unable to do anything but damage.
Forcing the change to the LW harms any player who chose the archetype for its flavor and RP, while making it even easier to powergame- which seems to be exactly what the update was trying to avoid.
In 20+ years of gaming, I have never requested grandfathering, as I find the process extremely distasteful. I'm asking for grandfathering now.
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I'm unclear how the new more warden actually adds to damage?
It's an opportunity cost evaluation.
Old lore warden, being pretty good at manoeuvres, is suitable for things like tripping, disarming or dirty tricks, all of which can be used to help other members of your party to shine.
New lore warden has lost much of that specialism. It therefore becomes much less attractive to attempt such manoeuvres, and you wind up being just another two-handed fighter whacking the bad guy with your greatsword.
I think that's what Amanda is getting at.
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Every fighter level I've ever taken in PFS has been with the Lore Warden archetype, so this affects three PCs of mine (one of whom, an arcane archer, will require a major rebuild). Despite that, I still don't support grandfathering the old version. But that's probably because I don't use the CMB/D system, which is not well implemented.
In PFS, one trip or disarm will effectively end half of the combats, due to the major penalties invoked for being prone and outnumbered. The combat maneuver system was not well-designed in 3.0/3.5, and with the extra feats and bonuses since then, has become far too powerful relative to "regular" combat.
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I also don't support grandfathering on principle. Every time we grandfather something that is deemed inappropriate, it continues to do its damage until the character retires. That's 33 games they can negatively impact, if it's a particularly bad option. (Or more, when people go and start up several level 1's just to get around the impending ban.)
I expect the campaign staff will/have looked at all sides of this, and are likely to have more than just forum reports to go on. I trust them to make the right decision for the campaign, and I will change my PC's if needed and go on. Season 9 is shaping up to be amazing (as I prep the upcoming special - oh my gosh, can't wait to run this!!), and losing a +4 is not going to impede my fun that much. YMMV.
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The best way to avoid manoeuvres ending encounters "prematurely" would be to write and run more comprehensive tactics, and to include more than one weapon in an antagonist's stat block.
I have seen an NPC magus get disarmed, and the GM say "welp, he only had that rapier." It did not end the encounter though. The magus kept spellcasting, even landing a shocking grasp whilst disarmed and prone. He also got his rapier back, before the fight finally ended.
And if combat manoeuvres are genuinely overpowered in Pathfinder, what the deuce do we do about stuff like create pit ( >> trip); grease (trips in 4 squares, with a single 1st level spell); pilfering hand, telekinesis.... I could go on.