Inner Sea Intrigue **Archetypes: All archetypes in this book are legal for play except the Anaphexia thought-killer, provocateur, and royal accuser. The Galtan agitator gains the Persuasive feat at 12th level rather than Leadership. The studious librarian gains Skill Focus (Knowledge [any]) instead of the Scribe Scroll feat. Equipment: All equipment in this book is legal for play except bloodlink, Brastlewark brew, Harrow deck of secret schemes, mask of the cursed eye, masterful gray gloves, seemless skin, and the training weapon enchantment. Feats: All feats in this book are legal for play. Prestige Classes: The enchanting courtesan and Lion Blade prestige classes are legal for play; a Lion Blade PC must be a member of the Sovereign Court faction. Spells: All spells in this book are legal for play except assumed likeness, brightest light, oath of anonymity, and recorporeal incarnation. Daggermark's exchange can only create poisons that are legal in the organized play campaign. Other: The investigator talents, rogue talents, social talents, and vigilante talents are legal for play except false spellcaster and Twilight Talon improvisation. All inquisitor inquisitions in this book are legal for play; the sedition inquisition grants the Persuasive feat at 8th level, not Leadership. The special building materials and room augmentations are not legal for play.
Anaphexia Thought-Killer - Though-Scent at 7th is the archetype's main benefit, but doesn't appear to impact the typical mystery-solving scenario. No listed requirement to be evil. You do get to cut off your own tongue and bleed on yourself.
Provocateur - Trash-talk bard gets bonuses to manipulate opinion.
Royal Accuser - A very busy archetype. Must sacrifice Solo Tactics and all granted Teamwork feat slots. At first glance, Informed Hunch seems worth it. Upon second glance, the package looks worse than the base Inquisitor class.
Bloodlink - 4800gp neck slot item radiates chaotic-evil (but doesn't actually make you evil). Lets you cast dancing lights, darkness, and faerie fire 1/day each. For 300 less gold, the character could buy a wand of Darkness and cast it as often as they like as a standard action while keeping their neck slot open.
Brastlewark Brew - Convince somebody to drink your expensive booze and they'll laugh at your jokes. (For the bard who can't do that already, I guess.)
Mask Of The Cursed Eye - Face slot. Once per day, if someone Scrys or True Sees (divine only) you, there's a chance you'll deduce who they are, and they could be blinded for a few minutes if they fail a fortitude save. (This one I can easily see the rationale for banning, as many "boss" adversaries have True Seeing at higher levels. Scry pownage is less problematic for 'mod-breaking' since the scrying NPC is unlikely to be in the same room as you.)
Masterful Gray Gloves - For 5,400gp hand slot, you're a master pickpocket. The bonus to Sleight of Hands is higher than the bonuses the Greater Steal maneuver would grant, but if you get away with a Greater Steal, the target is unaware until the encounter is over, whereas the gloves have a 3/day ability to Immediate-action turn the pilfered item invisible (which won't necessarily help if they can see invisible, or you can't or don't want to use a swift action slot that round. - A more practical use of these is to smuggle your own weapon past a checkpoint where they are not permitted.
Seamless Skin - a 70,000gp cos-play suit that reeks of necromancy and takes a minute to put on. Impossible to buy in PFS until 9th CL minimum with absolutely perfect Fame acquisition (and having seventy grand laying around). For the same money you could buy a Hat of Disguise and have enough left over for 1,364 potions of Enlarge Person.
Training - A +1 weapon enhancement that grants a combat feat "...as long as the weapon is drawn and in hand" (which, per RAW, I assume means that it would not work on an AoMF, Tusk Blades, throw weapons, ammunition, etc). Wielder must meet the prerequisites, and the feat cannot be used as a prerequisite.
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First, things are not "banned", they're just just not allowed in the PFS campaign. It's a subtle difference, but an important one. "Banned" makes it sound like it's too good/bad/cheap/powerful, when in fact sometimes it's just that it doesn't fit the campaign background for PFS.
As a non-PFS example, there are no clerics allowed in the Aethera campaign setting, because there are no gods that can be contacted from there. No one thought, "clerics are too powerful, we have to ban them" - they just don't fit that setting, so they're not allowed. I expect many of the items you describe above are like that.
Like the Anaphexia Thought Killer. Keeping this spoiler-free, but those folks don't really get to go around and do their own thing - they work for a particular person who keeps them on a tight leash, and doesn't really allow divided loyalties. How do you justify getting three years off to go to Pathfinder school if you're one of these folks? The Pathfinder Society explores, REPORTS, and cooperates - exactly the opposite of what the Anaphexia does. It makes complete sense to me that they're not allowed in the PFS campaign, no matter how their power level compares to other archetypes.
Most of the rest of your analysis seems to focus on some kind of combat benefit/gp balance, but that is only one factor at play. The campaign is based on certain premises, and not everything published for home games is going to fit.
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It is important to note that there are far more reasons something might not be allowed than simply "it's too powerful." Sometimes it's multiple reasons.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
The last reason is by far the most debatable and most contentious. In a large part "too powerful" is in the eye of the beholder. Unless the new material gives added advantages but otherwise is exactly identical to something previously published it is not possible to make strict comparisons. Even then there is a sizable contingent of messageboard posters who do not consider any Paizo-published material "too powerful."
Since I actually enjoy the speculation game, here are my opinions:
Anaphexia Thought-Killer - Not a good fit. Anaphexia is a thoroughly evil organization. In addition it is dedicated to collecting secrets but never sharing them with anyone. That's not a good fit with "explore, report, cooperate."
Provocateur - Requires a lot of GM intervention. Changing how organizations view each other could really twist up some scenarios. However there are other legal abilities that do similar things. Maybe being reserved?
Royal Accuser - Not sure.
Bloodlink - Couple of reasons. One is the explicit tie to Drow, which is a race PFS has attempted to keep solely as an "enemy" race. Secondly it's a bit underpriced. It's not the spell-likes, it's the weapon proficiencies and adding a language that should cost more.
Brastlework Brew - Possibly will be on a chronicle after you encounter it.
Mask Of The Cursed Eye - Mechanics confusing (there is no "face" slot). Could be too powerful. In addition to Slim Jim's analysis, many creatures, even some relatively low-CR ones, have see invisibility as a constant spell-like ability.
Masterful Gray Gloves - Too much GM interpretation and table-to-table variability. It's the last part that causes problems. "three times per day, when a creature notices the wearer’s Sleight of Hand check to take something from it, the wearer can cause the object to become invisible as an immediate action, allowing the wearer to disavow the theft." OK, but what does "disavowing" actually mean? Just because I say "I didn't do it!" that doesn't mean I am believed. There's also an exploitative use as Slim Jim suggested (using them to smuggle your own weapon). Hand an item to an ally, then deliberately fail a Sleight of Hand check to take it from them so you can make it invisible.
Seamless Skin - Possibly a bit too evil. More importantly it's "a specific humanoid creature." It's the specificity that could cause problems with players claiming it is "the skin of important person X." There's also a power issue. There are lots of large humanoids. If a medium creature puts on the skin of a large one it is enlarge person with no casting time or duration limits.
Training Weapon Enchant - Too powerful. There's a whole thread or two on the "best" choices. In my opinion the best choices are going to be the "dead-end" feats that don't serve as a prerequisite for anything else, especially those at the end of a very feat-intensive chain. Like Aldori Dueling Mastery or Dorn-Dergar Master. Piranha Strike is a really good choice for a light-weapon wielder.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Massachusetts—Boston Metro
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Aren't there all ready evil with a capital E organizations that are PFS legal? Always thought it was kind of odd that a faction loyal to one of the most evil leaders in Golarion who openly is antagonistic to the society is allowed to operate within the society. Also, the only time where they overtly contradicted fluff.
<snip much good stuff>
Training Weapon Enchant - Too powerful. There's a whole thread or two on the "best" choices. In my opinion the best choices are going to be the "dead-end" feats that don't serve as a prerequisite for anything else, especially those at the end of a very feat-intensive chain. Like Aldori Dueling Mastery or Dorn-Dergar Master. Piranha Strike is a really good choice for a light-weapon wielder.
Oh yeah, it'd be totally broke if it let you take any combat feat willy-nilly, but, at least according the Nethy's (I don't have the book), the enhancement's tied combat feat won't work for anyone that doesn't already meet its prerequisites. (And most of the really nasty ones have steep BAB or class-level requirements, or are capstones past a string of "tax" feats the weapon's wielder would already need to possess.)
I haven't pondered it too deeply, but no "easy" combat feat immediately springs to mind as overpowered in the context of a +1 bonus (which in and of itself is a scaling expense when applied to a PC's main weapon, and particularly within the context of PFS "fame" requirements).
Anyway, thanks for the response.
Training
Source Inner Sea Intrigue pg. 52
Aura faint transmutation CL 3rd
Slot none; Price +1 bonus; Weight —Popular among those who seek to impersonate skilled warriors, a training weapon grants one combat feat to the wielder as long as the weapon is drawn and in hand. The feat is chosen when this special ability is placed on the weapon. That feat cannot be used as a prerequisite for any other feats and functions for the wielder only if she meets its prerequisites. Once chosen, the feat stored in the weapon cannot be changed.
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Here is a link to one of the threads about the Training weapon enchantment. If the below doesn't clear up what I meant, let's discuss in a thread specific to the topic.
The Training enchantment has a couple of issues
1. It is a feat on an item. This breaks general design guidelines. (See some of Sean K. Reynold's posts on game design. He may refer to this no-no as "feat-in-a-can" or "FIAC.")
2. If you are willing to overlook that issue it wouldn't be terrible in a setting where the GM exercises a lot of control. If the feat granted by the enchantment is random, specifically chosen for a plot reason, or if the GM simply has veto power over the feat it can be in power level. But in PFS the player would get to make all the decisions about the feat. Which means that - at its cheapest - it is 8,300 (and change) gold pieces for exactly the feat you need in your build (and a +1 enhancement bonus). As you suggested some of the best choices are "capstones past a string of "tax" feats." Training lets you get that feat for 8,300 immediately upon getting the next-to-last feat instead of having to wait two more levels for your next feat. But the feat's designer (assuming it is properly balanced) didn't consider that an option.
The counterargument is that the cost is scaling. That's true but in normal PFS play (1-11) weapon bonus very rarely goes above +4. So at its most expensive it's 14,000 gp for a feat (difference between +3 and +4). That's still a good deal at level 10 or 11.
I think it can be a clever item for a GM to use in a campaign. But it's too powerful when players are making all the choices.
quick note on training, if you take "drawn and in hand" meaning ready to attack with than things like bolder helmet would be a free feat for 8000gp.
Given that there are almost as many (or are there more now?) feats in the game as there are spells (which are often way more powerful than feats, reticence to having feat-items seems...quirky. Getting things early by way of opening your wallet is a basic aspect of the game.
A typical feat-granting item seems to run around 10k gold; the Training enhancement, an opalescent white pyramid ioun, and the Commander's Helm run about that. The ordinary +1 enhancement on a weapon is roughly analogous to Martial Focus (the weapon you want) and stacks with it.
Meanwhile, the wizards have been playing with these for five years.
The Rods only have 3 uses per day and you have to hold them, the Training enchantment goes on the weapon you're using and is always on.
No. If your training sword bestowed Power Attack, it would work only while you were holding it (same as the rod).
<backpeddle to something Kevin wrote earlier>
Piranha Strike is a really good choice for a light-weapon wielder.
Analyzing....
A) ...a low-level character with four feats is buying his 2nd enhancement on his main weapon. He acquires a fifth feat via the Training enhancement.
B) ...a higher-level character with ten feats. With the Training enhancement, he acquires an eleventh feat.
-- Far from being broken, it's a case of diminishing returns. Character B likely has already dialed in his schtick, and taken advantage of the considerably cheaper retraining mechanism to ensure that the best feats for his concept from newly-released material are all rinsed, drained, sorted, and stir-fried in. Whatever he's getting for his Training enhancement money is basically eleventh in his order of priority (since the feat in question cannot be used as a stepping-stone), and will likely be going on a secondary or tertiary weapon.
-- In the case of A, he's a lower-level character. What's Piranha Strike giving him for his 2000gp? -2 attack for +4pts of damage? That doesn't seem out of line, and the character still needs Weapon Finesse elsewhere in the build.
If the training enhancement was allowed, is there anything stopping a character benefiting from a training gauntlet/cestus on each hand, and training armour spikes?The money for enhancing three different weapons a second time each? (RAW for Training implies you can't put it on the spike, so let's assume you have Quick Draw to get a 3rd weapon out as part of a full attack with weapons in your hands.) You'll be around 5th or 6th, and neglecting defensive items to do it that early. Farther up, and you're basically character "B" in the example above: every crucially important feat will be in the character build, not in the weapon. Only the also-rans will be in weaponry, and they'll be fighting for space with an extensive list of arguably more powerful already-existing +1 enhancements, such as Fortuitous, Furious, and Dueling.
Or would that just become a default part of play?
It's already a default part of play: Brawlers are effectively doing it for free from 1st-level with Martial Flexibility, as are fighters from 5th with AWT: Weapon Specialist (if they take that). And the Brawler can swap his choices with a move-action, whereas weapon-upgraders are stuck with buyer's-remorse if they change their minds.
Making a Seamless Skin is not only a not-nice act, despite not having an Evil descriptor, but the spell it references explicitly states that the XP cost mechanic isn't in the PF rules. The whole "XP Cost mechanic does not exist in Pathfinder" thing would make it non-PFS legal.
Training is just abuse asking to happen. Someone will go and make a bunch of Small Kusarigamas to get various Skill Focus feats and try to munchkin a boulder helmet and armor spikes in.
Brawlers are doing it for "free" as one of the main shticks of their class.
And as a move action, eventually swift, then a free action.
Guy shopping for Training enhancement: He has a thousand feats to select from, and a hundred he's qualified for. Buys one of them.
Brawler: can swap out for any of those hundred feats, and from 6th onward is doing more than one at a time.
The purchaser of Training enhancements won't get anywhere near close to that level of versatility.
Say I had a 10th level Eldritch Knight. I do not have ten combat feats - I might only have five, and feel embarrassed by the dedicated combat characters.I don't think it's possible to have a 10th-level character who's an EK with only five feats given that every character has nine general slots by 10th, and EK1 grants a feat, and the qualifying martial class dip likely contained a feat or class ability equal to or better than a feat. If the character is all-but-one caster, as EKs tend to be, then he's on the high side of caster/martial disparity, and a combat feat on a manufactured weapon isn't liable to grant him much additional power, percentage-wise, relative to where he's already at.
At level 10 I might have 8k spare to buy a feat on a cestus. Should that option be allowed?That seems about the right price to pay for your sixth/seventh/eighth-most important feat.
I don't think this enhancement exists for fighters. I think it exists for partial martials who run out of feats. Ultimately I think it isn't allowed because it's open-ended and twice almost-slotless.As previously noted, retraining opens up even more options and costs a lot less.
I think there are plenty of specific feats where it wouldn't be a problem, but the fact that it's the right enhancement for any character who's short one martial feat is probably the sticking point.
I still haven't seen an example where it's clearly broke. A arcanist with a Lesser empower metamagic rod (9000gp) is able to cast spells he'd otherwise need to be four levels higher to lob, and the game seems to be putting up with it. I cannot think of one combat feat that lets you be four levels better, as prerequisites must otherwise be possessed by the character with a Training weapon.
For example, a 6th level archery-focused fighter picks up Manyshot,and also buys +1/Training(Snap Shot) bow. What does he get? A feat (Snap Shop) that he could have waited just one level for. And he couldn't use such a bow at, say, 4th level, because Snap Shot wouldn't work unless he possessed all of Point-Blank Shot, Rapid Shot, Weapon Focus, and base attack bonus +6. He could get a Training bow with Rapid Shot or one of the others at 4th, but then he might lack a prerequisite for Manyshot at 6th.
Also, of the three mentioned alternative enhancements, "furious" and "fortuitous" both need to go on the users primary weapon, which is a significant limitation.No they don't. In fact, they can go on an AoMF or a Tusk Blade (among other things that Training can't go on as presently worded).
Meanwhile a "training: improved initiative" cestus is significantly cheaper than a "duelling" one, if you weren't actually planning on enhancing it further.
Assuming this character is a caster (to exploit this idea best), he's buying a 3000gp item to clear Improved Initiative out of his character build to accommodate, let's say, a metamagic or a summon-augmenting feat. -- But we already know that casters are very powerful...except in the few instances when they're not (@ 4th level?). The amount of extra power they can achieve is relatively minor. If at the level of going-first-equals-"I win", then ImpInit will already be in the caster build, unless your wizard routinely wears his cestus to bed (they'll shred the pillows and give him a bloody nose if he's a nocturnal thumb-sucker).
Training is just abuse asking to happen. Someone will go and make a bunch of Small Kusarigamas to get various Skill Focus feats and try to munchkin a boulder helmet and armor spikes in.
Training only works "...as long as the weapon is drawn and in hand" (in fact, if "in" and "on" have different meanings, then cestus wouldn't apply either, since they're worn rather than wielded).
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Training only works "...as long as the weapon is drawn and in hand" (in fact, if "in" and "on" have different meanings, then cestus wouldn't apply either, since they're worn rather than wielded).
Calling that bit of persnickity rules lawyering a fact is vastly overstating the amount of evidence you have for it.
Worn and wielded are not mutually exclusive (he can't be a painter he's a dentist)
wielded simply doesn't have a precise definition in pathfinder
neither does something being in hand.
While you can't munchkin it for all the feats at the same time, you could get Skill Focus in every feat, two at a time (a Small Dagger in each hand).
While you can't munchkin it for all the feats at the same time, you could get Skill Focus in every feat, two at a time (a Small Dagger in each hand).
Skill Focus is a general feat, not a combat feat.
Furious on a cestus while attacking with another weapon gets you, at best, a skill bonus (at worst nothing). Fortuitous on a cestus means that if you AoO with your main good weapon you can then also slap someone with the cestus... provided your cestus hand wasn't already in use, which it probably was. Free attacks are free attacks, but... that's a lot of investment for a weak attack that only works on a specific build.
Whereas "training" on a cestus might get me Moonlight Stalker. I can't reasonably afford moonlight stalker according to current projections, because it's got two other feats as prerequisites and neither of them is exactly a high priority. But reducing it from a three feat chain to a two feat + cash chain makes it...
This is a campaign in which you can get away with being a Primal Transformation Hunter whose animal companion ("Mr. Fluffy Bunny") died at 1st level and was never replaced (because that's not required, as far as I know) and who then spends the rest of his career swifting two eidolon evolution points into himself at the beginning of every encounter.
-- I'm pretty sure that'll top whatever you can cheese with a pair of Training cestus (speaking of one particular weapon which has always been so badly worded that I wouldn't mind seeing it dumped out of the game, if for no other reason than its frequent appearance at the center of controversies preventing us from having nice things).
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Slim Jim (or anyone, really) if you are ever at a convention where a Paizo designer is on a panel, go to it! Maybe ask a question or two.
Hearing them talk about the vagaries of the production process, the things that slip through - from "too powerful" to "too specialized," on to "doesn't work with the rules as intended" can be really eye-opening. From what I've heard, most of the things people are the most vocal about on the boards are items not written by the core design team (developers, editors, outside freelancers... I was surprised by how many people are contributing to any given book).
One thing I have taken away from these panels is that a lot of time it's just that the writer of a particular thing isn't immersed deeply and solely into the Pathfinder system. So they write something that would have been useful in 3.5 but does nothing thanks to a change buried in the Core rules. Or combines with something from a Player Companion they haven't read in an unintentionally powerful way. Or maybe they have just been playing low-magic, GM-guided campaigns and write things that would be useful GM tools but are way too good when players get to decide how to apply it. Or that are intended to be moderated by a GM on a case-by-case basis.
Development catches a lot of these problems, but not all.
Tying that back into Pathfinder Society, that's another pass at the material to see if it fits into a campaign attempting to avoid variability without causing issues. Especially when it comes to material that a GM in a home game could use, not use, modify, or moderate.
And tying it back to the Training enhancement, it's something that works fine when it is limited. The GM can give some tiny rogue enemies +1 Training (Overwhelming) weapons when she needs to balance out an encounter. Or give them to the players when they are going to face a high-level dragon. It's a completely different situation when the Bloodrager is putting Training (Double Slice) on one kukri and Training (Twin Fang Strike) on the other but the GM is still limited to opponents balanced for a bloodrager with two less feats.
Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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While you can't munchkin it for all the feats at the same time, you could get Skill Focus in every feat, two at a time (a Small Dagger in each hand).Skill Focus is a general feat, not a combat feat.
Furious on a cestus while attacking with another weapon gets you, at best, a skill bonus (at worst nothing). Fortuitous on a cestus means that if you AoO with your main good weapon you can then also slap someone with the cestus... provided your cestus hand wasn't already in use, which it probably was. Free attacks are free attacks, but... that's a lot of investment for a weak attack that only works on a specific build.
Whereas "training" on a cestus might get me Moonlight Stalker. I can't reasonably afford moonlight stalker according to current projections, because it's got two other feats as prerequisites and neither of them is exactly a high priority. But reducing it from a three feat chain to a two feat + cash chain makes it...
This is a campaign in which you can get away with being a Primal Transformation Hunter whose animal companion ("Mr. Fluffy Bunny") died at 1st level and was never replaced (because that's not required, as far as I know) and who then spends the rest of his career swifting two eidolon evolution points into himself at the beginning of every encounter.
-- I'm pretty sure that'll top whatever you can cheese with a pair of Training cestus (speaking of one particular weapon which has always been so badly worded that I wouldn't mind seeing it dumped out of the game, if for no other reason than its frequent appearance at the center of controversies preventing us from having nice things).
Re primal companion hunter... no.
I have a level 8 primal companion/divine hunter hunter without animal companion, a level 5 primal companion hunter with a pouncekitty, a level 5 feral hunter, a level 15 vanilla hunter, a level 1 vanilla hunter/magus 11 without animal companion...
The character without animal companion seems like she is more versatile than the others, but when it comes to combat power and BS potential having a pouncekitty really is hard to beat... especially if you use divine hunter to get access to certain spells. My primal companion hunter with companion goes the outflank + pack flanking route, it is pretty damn effective.
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Not that this really counts, you are comparing apples to laptop batteries - or class features to items.
As the discussion has shown and mentioned by BigNorseWolf, the discussion about wearing/wielding is no as clear as I would like. Sometimes items are kept outside of the campaign because things are just to unclear.
I am not sure that this is the case here though, looking at power level alone, I have quite a number of feat starved characters who don't need the bonus on their weapons (magus etc.) and would buy this in a heartbeat.
Even for a monk, wielding two useless bits of enchanted metal is a minor price to pay if you are just headbutting people.
EDIT: Kevin made a better post than me.