First, I don't think it's over- or under-powered. This is a cool ability, worded well.
I have two distinct issues:
1) This ability breaks immersion. I don't understand what's happening IN THE GAME WORLD. Why could my fighter do something yesterday and today I can't do that anymore but have suddenly learned a different trick that I won't be able to do tomorrow?
This is my same objection to the PF1 Hunter's ability to change their teamwork feat as a standard action, or the Brawler's martial flexibility. What is happening?
Fixing this would be pretty easy. We simply need some flavor text to justify the ability so the GM can narrate this plausibly.
2) This ability requires rules-mastery to use well. If there's any class that shouldn't require a player to know every single feat, it's the fighter. Because this is a required ability baked into every single fighter, a player's going to feel like he isn't playing his character up to potential unless he knows every single fighter feat in the game. That might be easy enough to do when the only source is Core, but in a couple years, every fighter player will be like the hunter & brawler players of PF1 where you need to bring a spreadsheet of all possible feats to every game to feel like you're playing your character well.
This is also the kind of ability that tempts every optimizer at the table to start suggesting possible feats for your character to take that day, a helpful but slippery slope that often ends with other people making your character's decisions.
I don't think this ability or any feat-swapping ability like it should be a baked-in ability of any class.
As long as there's some game world explanation for what's actually happening here, I think it would be a fine ability for, say, a class-specific archetype (if such things ever return). I really think abilities like this should be reserved for players who enjoy that flexibility. There are players who prefer to take passive bonuses only, so not to have to toggle and brainstorm during play.
Don't force every single fighter player into rules mastery!
I feel like Combat Flexibility could work fine if it was just "you get an extra fighter feat which you can retrain for free during downtime."
As for the rules mastery issue, I figure *the best* version of a lot of classes is going to require significant knowledge of the rules- the best Druid has to know about all the Primal spells, for example. So the question is whether a "I know only what is in the core book" version is good enough. Since there is only the core book now, I don't see it as an issue so much as a potential future issue.
|
1) I totally agree, the idea that "stretching" a specific way or a bit of practice for the day will prepare a Character to use Greater Cleave, Double Slice or whatever else UNTIL they go to bed and forget it all. Wake up the next day, learn something else you'll forget in 18 hours.
2) As #1. Baking a Rules-Mastery feat such as this "Tutor- Feat" doesn't mesh with the flavor of Fighter as well, besides they have MORE than enough feats to choose from from advancement.
This Flexibility indeed would likely be better served as an optional ability lest ALL Fighters ALWAYS be Flexible in nature for Feats and Weapons they specialize in.
I would like if you could select two or more feats, with only one active at a time, and you could switch which one was active with an action or when you enter a stance.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Honestly, as a fighter, I look at a lot of them and go "I don't care about any of these. I mean, maybe once in a while I'll need that, but...using it means putting away my +5 Swrod of Mighty Squishing and pulling out my Backup Misfit Xbow of Suck."
2) This ability requires rules-mastery to use well. If there's any class that shouldn't require a player to know every single feat, it's the fighter. Because this is a required ability baked into every single fighter, a player's going to feel like he isn't playing his character up to potential unless he knows every single fighter feat in the game. That might be easy enough to do when the only source is Core, but in a couple years, every fighter player will be like the hunter & brawler players of PF1 where you need to bring a spreadsheet of all possible feats to every game to feel like you're playing your character well.
This is also the kind of ability that tempts every optimizer at the table to start suggesting possible feats for your character to take that day, a helpful but slippery slope that often ends with other people making your character's decisions.
I don't think this ability or any feat-swapping ability like it should be a baked-in ability of any class.
Switch "feats" with "spells", and you pretty much have the 1.6 Wizard with its built-in Quick Preparation. Heck, just the average Cleric or Druid with instant-access-to-all-spells-ever-printed fall into the same problems you describe.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I’m not saying every class needs to avoid this rules mastery trap, but I do think the Fighter shouldn’t require this for every build.
Spontaneous casters are Core alternatives to the rules-intense prepared casters, and great for casual players.
The Core build of the Fighter shouldn’t require this mastery for the player to feel she's playing her character well. The Fighter has traditionally been the first class a new player plays.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think that fighter Combat Flexibility is a really interesting and useful mechanic, it's easy enough to justify through the fighter constantly practicing during their preparations and downtime. Considering casters used to be able to cast a spell to gain a temporary feat, and there is a class in P1E that could do that with a ton of feats at once it's fairly tame.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I’m not saying every class needs to avoid this rules mastery trap, but I do think the Fighter shouldn’t require this for every build.
It is not a requirement. If you don't feel like dumpster-diving for the 'best' feat, just pick one you like and stick with it.
The point is that a HUGE part of 'linear Fighters vs. quadratic Wizards' is that Wizards have potentially hundreds, if not thousands of class features, a.k.a. 'spells' to chose from and nothing that is holding them back from getting ALL of them. It would not be so bad without a certain 'blessed book', that is, if Wizards and their ilk AT LEAST had a limit on how many spells they could carry around in their spellbooks, but as it stands...
Compare to the Fighter, who only has feats as class features. Not only are feats never as powerful as spells and don't scale, once you are stuck with them, you are stuck with them. Why do you think that both the Brawler as a class and the Barroom Brawler feat as so well received? Because they allow the martial classes at least a shadow of the flexibility that casting classes have enjoyed since their inception.
So, complaining about a class feature that gives the martials nice things is not really helping make that caster-martial divide go away...
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Switch "feats" with "spells", and you pretty much have the 1.6 Wizard with its built-in Quick Preparation. Heck, just the average Cleric or Druid with instant-access-to-all-spells-ever-printed fall into the same problems you describe.
And this is a good argument for why Combat Flexibility should be a feat option and not a class ability. Wizard is generally considered the hardest class to play, and fighter the easiest. There is a point to having some simple and newb-friendly classes.
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
And this is a good argument for why Combat Flexibility should be a feat option and not a class ability. Wizard is generally considered the hardest class to play, and fighter the easiest. There is a point to having some simple and newb-friendly classes.
Switch "feats" with "spells", and you pretty much have the 1.6 Wizard with its built-in Quick Preparation. Heck, just the average Cleric or Druid with instant-access-to-all-spells-ever-printed fall into the same problems you describe.
... it's a 9th level ability.
Even back in 1st and 3.5 Fighter was never new player friendly.
I adore Flexibility and think they should get it earlier if anything.
And this is a good argument for why Combat Flexibility should be a feat option and not a class ability. Wizard is generally considered the hardest class to play, and fighter the easiest. There is a point to having some simple and newb-friendly classes.
Switch "feats" with "spells", and you pretty much have the 1.6 Wizard with its built-in Quick Preparation. Heck, just the average Cleric or Druid with instant-access-to-all-spells-ever-printed fall into the same problems you describe.... it's a 9th level ability.
Even back in 1st and 3.5 Fighter was never new player friendly.
I adore Flexibility and think they should get it earlier if anything.
The fighter was literally the easiest class in PF1E, as for combat flexibilty I think it’s neat.
|
|
The fighter was literally the easiest class in PF1E, as for combat flexibilty I think it’s neat.And this is a good argument for why Combat Flexibility should be a feat option and not a class ability. Wizard is generally considered the hardest class to play, and fighter the easiest. There is a point to having some simple and newb-friendly classes.
Switch "feats" with "spells", and you pretty much have the 1.6 Wizard with its built-in Quick Preparation. Heck, just the average Cleric or Druid with instant-access-to-all-spells-ever-printed fall into the same problems you describe.... it's a 9th level ability.
Even back in 1st and 3.5 Fighter was never new player friendly.
I adore Flexibility and think they should get it earlier if anything.
Easy yes, just not new player friendly.
The fighter was literally the easiest class in PF1E, as for combat flexibilty I think it’s neat.
I would say the fighter was the easiest class to play in most cases, but also the hardest class to build effectively, particularly when you got into grabbing feats to order with Barroom Brawler+Abundant Tactics and Warrior Spirit + the Trained enhancement, since it involves things like leaving an advanced weapon training feat slot open so you can instantly grab any item mastery feat in case you need to cast a spell and an encyclopedic knowledge of class feats.
Which is to say that the Ranger, Barbarian, and Paladin never had anything close to this combinatorial explosion of complexity in the hands of someone who knew what they were doing.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
First, I don't think it's over- or under-powered. This is a cool ability, worded well.
I have two distinct issues:
1) This ability breaks immersion. I don't understand what's happening IN THE GAME WORLD. Why could my fighter do something yesterday and today I can't do that anymore but have suddenly learned a different trick that I won't be able to do tomorrow?
This is my same objection to the PF1 Hunter's ability to change their teamwork feat as a standard action, or the Brawler's martial flexibility. What is happening?
Fixing this would be pretty easy. We simply need some flavor text to justify the ability so the GM can narrate this plausibly.
2) This ability requires rules-mastery to use well. If there's any class that shouldn't require a player to know every single feat, it's the fighter.
1) I’m not sure if this would help, but maybe the ability could be framed as something more experimental, desperate, or glory-seeking? A move that the fighter is working on, but not yet mastered to the point that they’ve selected it as one of their set-in-stone/written-in-ink-on-the-character-sheet feats (or are sure they even want to, or that it fits their aesthetic)?
One of the things that springs to mind is pretty much the one scene I remember from the only one of the ghastly R. A. Salvatore Drizzt novels I ever read (borrowed from my kid brother on a very slow summer afternoon), in which the hero finally works out a counter to a particularly dangerous attack he encounters earlier in the novel. Inspiration might strike in a terribly melodramatic situation (I think it might be a fight over magma or something, if I recall correctly), and if the counter comes up again, it’s only as something that the hero has since added to his repertoire of nasty surprises in combat.
So much for dreadful game fiction. I wonder if renaming the ability could help: maybe “Glorious Deed,” riffing off the deeds/dares swashbucklers and gunslingers could take in PF1? Sadly, “feat” is already taken. :)
2) As someone who plays prepared spellcasters (badly) almost exclusively, in quite friendly groups, I wouldn’t worry about this much. Granted, it might be more of an issue in more demanding circles like organized play in some areas, and I don’t have any easy answers to that. I’m not sure how much everyone can lean on roleplaying to use the excuse that their fighter has never heard of Hamatulatsu or your other outlandish planar fighting styles (for example), or that said fighter is so focused on their chosen weapon and style that they don’t always see an opening to use another approach when it might be useful.
In the end, I would just make the best of it and try to find a group with compatible levels of interest in optimization, which is probably just always for the best. Then again, I’ve always been stubborn and may be getting more so: I got into fantasy roleplaying games for the magic, darn it, and have never played a plain fighter, and there are some mechanically sound choices that just don’t appeal to me – I dislike summoning spells, and even my conjuration specialist avoids them. As a few other folks have suggested, so long as focusing on only a few options from one’s choices for Combat Flexibility only means missing out on other but not necessarily generally superior options, the whole range could be a mini-game for those who do like to tinker with such things.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I guess what I hated about the similar ability as a hunter, and what I definitely hated about it as a 2e fighter, is that, once I have an ability, I feel the need to make the best use of it--even though in this case it's not an ability I ever wanted.
As a hunter, I felt like I had to bring this stupid spreadsheet of tactical options with me every time I played.
As a fighter, there aren't that many options YET but no one doubts there will be.
These kind-of pick-any-feat you want for the day just feel like they shouldn't be baked-in to any class. They feel like advanced options for players who really want to do homework.
I would have traded this ability out in a hot second if I'd been given the option to do so.
As I said, I think it's really important to have some classes in the game where a new player can take mostly passive bonuses.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
These kind-of pick-any-feat you want for the day just feel like they shouldn't be baked-in to any class. They feel like advanced options for players who really want to do homework.
"But, Ms. [Such-a-one], what should we do for next class?"
I was totally that girl. No, honestly. It's a miracle I survived high school. :)
(And Hermione was always the coolest of the Hogwarts kids.)
I take your point that extra homework might not be everyone's cup of tea, though.
Setting aside flavor concerns, I really don't see the issue with point 2. You can't can't switch the feat up in the moment like the Brawler of yesteryear. That means in most contexts it is just an extra feat-- you snag the one that you think will be generally the most useful as your default option. You don't need encyclopedic knowledge for that, you just need to need to pick the best single feat available to you like every class in the game does.
If you get advanced warning that you are going to be fighting something specific, you can then swap the feat out for something techy. Revealing Stab for invisible foes, felling strike for fliers, etc. This is the only point encyclopedic knowledge is actually useful. And if they put out something hyper-specific in a splatbook you are unaware of, you are just gonna default to your generic best pick as usual, which will probably still be useful.
The other thing the feat lets you do is experiment with different feats and see how you like them in practice, which is nice regardless of system mastery. In fact, it is probably better for folks who don't have that encyclopedic knowledge, because high system mastery folks probably have a better handle on which feats are good in practice anyway and don't need as much trial and error.
Revealing Stab is awful. You know how Disarm is a combat maneuver that on a crit success takes a wielded weapon away?
Revealing Stab let's you do that to yourself voluntarily.
"But now the creature isn't invisible!" You say. To which I reply, "Until the creature goes and spends an action picking up your weapon. How badly do you think it wanted a +3 Flaming Spear of its very own? Pretty badly, I'd wager."
|
|
You might want to read all of that ability.
For 2 Actions you can hit a concealed creature without a Flat Check (or low Flat Check for sensed) and then you can choose to impale your weapon in them, immobilizing the target and also granting the above boons to your allies. Makes for a nice finisher.
And an Interact Action to remove it would provoke as well (or is that Manipulate only?).
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Oh sure, when not-disarming-yourself the great does have use. It just isn't amazing. Two actions to avoid a low flat check (or reducing the flat check) instead of swinging twice.
As for the interact, sure, it'll provoke. But what are you going to hit it with, your fists? Have fun with that. Oh no I've been slapped. Let me just get back to unimpaling myself without any further interference. Thanks for the sword! *scuttles away*
The great would be so much better if you could keep hold of the weapon, or betray its presence with the blood splatter, or...well, just about anything.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
... why are you giving your weapon up to reveal the opponent if you don't have any allies around to take advantage of it?
Why are you giving up your weapon at all, ever?
There is no situation in which I, as a fighter, would choose to permanently disarm myself for a less-than-one-round "that guy isn't invisible" debuff.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I mean, the use for Revealing Strike my players came up with is- use it on a two-weapon fighter, and leave the weapon you were holding in your iron-ringed hand poking out of the invisible thing and then draw a backup (with doubling rings you only need to pay for your "offhand" weapon's quality, it need not be magic, so you can have several of these.)
I mean, the use for Revealing Strike my players came up with is- use it on a two-weapon fighter, and leave the weapon you were holding in your iron-ringed hand poking out of the invisible thing and then draw a backup (with doubling rings you only need to pay for your "offhand" weapon's quality, it need not be magic, so you can have several of these.)
Indeed, that's a good call.
Interesting concept brought about by the discussion of Combat Flexibility.
What if a little like rogues are skill monkeys, fighters were combat monkeys, but a little more limited.
Each level where a fighter gets a class feat, they get another 'reserve feat'. Reserve feats have to be filled with a Fighter class feat. This feat actually behaves similar to a reserve feat. Changing reserve feat would be done similar to retraining feats. You have to have the prerequisites for reserve feats, and those prerequisites can't be fulfilled by other reserve feats.
A fighter would be given spell/reserve points, but instead of accessing spells. Spending a spell point enables a fighter to enable a particular action/activity once from one of their reserved feats.
I think it might also be interesting to allow a fighter can also define the next class feat they are working towards. At most, once a day they might be allowed to spend a spell point to access this feat. (if you feel that is too powerful, you could require they spend something like a hero point)
That way fighters would choose what features they are going to want to use frequently. But they could also slot some feats that seem like they would be occasionally useful, but not necessarily the fighter's primary choice of fighting style.
I understand the idea of not wanting Combat Flexibility not being a core aspect, in the sense of it eventually becoming an constantly growing list of potential feats after more and more options come out. But the idea of them choosing some skills they have learned, but not mastered to the point they can do it over and over without pulling out from an reserve pool.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I feel this discussion is partly over a false difference of opinion. I think all of us agree that Combat Flexibility is powerful and should be available to fighters. The disagreement is whether it should be something ALL fighters have, or if it should be an elective.
Making it a feat makes it available thru multiclassing, which might be too much. But making it one of say 3 choices for a class feature at level 9 would be interesting.
How badly do you think it wanted a +3 Flaming Spear of its very own? Pretty badly, I'd wager."
Well, as an NPC, it gains no benefit from a magic item, so it might not want it after all. :D
I mean, the use for Revealing Strike my players came up with is- use it on a two-weapon fighter, and leave the weapon you were holding in your iron-ringed hand poking out of the invisible thing and then draw a backup (with doubling rings you only need to pay for your "offhand" weapon's quality, it need not be magic, so you can have several of these.)
This is a good tactic in many cases. Put all magic on an handwrap, use doubling ring to make it affect what you're actually using.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I feel this discussion is partly over a false difference of opinion. I think all of us agree that Combat Flexibility is powerful and should be available to fighters. The disagreement is whether it should be something ALL fighters have, or if it should be an elective.Making it a feat makes it available thru multiclassing, which might be too much. But making it one of say 3 choices for a class feature at level 9 would be interesting.
Yes, this exactly. So a no-homework or beginner player can choose something meaningful but passive instead.
|
I agree that Combat Flexibility is confusing, and will get even more confusing as more books with more feats come out. It can be a pain keeping track of all of the ones you want, and what they do.
Though I like calling it, "You can use combat feats as if they were spells", even writing down a bunch of go-to feats in the spell list on my character sheet. I liked explaining it as, "The brawler takes a look at you, thinks for a bit, and says, 'Yeah, I can take you,' then disarms your Arcane Bond" or whatever, related to whichever feat they picked. It is a simple solution for complaints that casters get to rework what they can do every day, while fighters are stuck for life, retraining aside; it also makes niche feats handy in their way.
But I do also like other options for people who want more simplicity, like the brawler archetype that trades that out for alchemist mutagens. Why "Fake It 'Till You Make It" with combat feats when you can just resort to performance-enhancing alchemicals?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
As for the rules mastery issue, I figure *the best* version of a lot of classes is going to require significant knowledge of the rules- the best Druid has to know about all the Primal spells, for example. So the question is whether a "I know only what is in the core book" version is good enough. Since there is only the core book now, I don't see it as an issue so much as a potential future issue.
I'm really, really hopeful that Paizo commits fully to the rarity system and classifies anything more than "vanilla" options as "uncommon" or rarer. This specifically stops clerics and druids from being some of the most versatile classes in the game and helps a GM determine what spells are and aren't available in his campaign world by giving him the mechanic to work off.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It is a simple solution for complaints that casters get to rework what they can do every day, while fighters are stuck for life, retraining aside; it also makes niche feats handy in their way.
Considering the weakness of the sorcerer, it seems that the ability to change your spells from day to day is an ability the developers have assigned a very low "point value". Sorcerers cannot change their spell selection, and their class features outside of spells is weaker than any of the competing spellcaster classes. It almost seems the developers feel that being able to change spell selection is a flaw rather than a merit.
One could think that this is supposed to be balanced by spontaneous casting, until you look at the bard - a spontaneous caster that rivals the occult sorcerer, and has WAY better abilities outside of spells.
Maybe this argument is moot and the playtest sorcerer is just weirdly weak for no reason.
It is a simple solution for complaints that casters get to rework what they can do every day, while fighters are stuck for life, retraining aside; it also makes niche feats handy in their way.Considering the weakness of the sorcerer, it seems that the ability to change your spells from day to day is an ability the developers have assigned a very low "point value". Sorcerers cannot change their spell selection, and their class features outside of spells is weaker than any of the competing spellcaster classes. It almost seems the developers feel that being able to change spell selection is a flaw rather than a merit.
One could think that this is supposed to be balanced by spontaneous casting, until you look at the bard - a spontaneous caster that rivals the occult sorcerer, and has WAY better abilities outside of spells.
Maybe this argument is moot and the playtest sorcerer is just weirdly weak for no reason.
They really over value an extra spell per spell level at low levels. It's super weak at low levels, especially because you only get one and low level spells suck (they suck so they aren't over powered for high level casters). At high levels it's wonderful as it's worth lots of spells, some of which are high level and powerful.
Sorcerers just exemplify the problem of all spell casters, they're bad at low levels, but their power scales way more than weapon users, so they're powerful at high levels.