Xatasha wrote on Aug 15^th, 2011 at 12:02pm:


I corrected your post. In addition, here are step by step instructions to enjoying a Pathfinder game:

First, gather your rulebooks. Stack them on top of each other. You should place them on even, level ground and well away from anything else.

Second, obtain a bottle of lighter fluid. You can use the kind used for Zippo style lighters or for charcoal grills, or some other such device.

Third, obtain a fireplace lighter. If you don't have one of these, then anything that will allow you to start a fire at a distance will do.

Fourth, douse the books in the lighter fluid. Be more liberal than the worst Foxtard hyperbole with it.

Fifth, kill it with fire. Be careful not to breathe in the fumes, as they cause Int, Wis, Cha, and San damage.

Sixth, once they have been reduced to ash, and you have ensured that the fire is out quarantine the land you burned it on, as nothing will ever grow there again.

Seventh, go get some 3.5 books. You can simply settle for the core 3, or if you'd like to play more than 3 or 4 classes you can obtain some of the other books.

Eighth, ???

Ninth, profit!

I just can't justify spending $50 on a book we wouldn't really use.

I have a ton of 3 and 3.5, not all by any means but plenty enough to play anything we want.

Arkat wrote on Aug 15^th, 2011 at 12:51pm:


And you are a horrible person for it. Worse even than the ponyfags.

Hi Welcome wrote on Aug 15^th, 2011 at 1:23pm:

Hi Welcome wrote on Aug 15^th, 2011 at 1:58pm:

I used to frequent the Character Optimization forum on the Wizards website where the abuse of the system was absolutely incredible (Pun-pun anyone?).

Please link me to an article or forum post showing that kind of system abuse is even REMOTELY possible with Pathfinder.

Arkat wrote on Aug 15^th, 2011 at 3:33pm:


After spending some time reading about the arguments on both sides, I actually tend to agree with Squelch.  It's not that the potential for system abuse is greater/same/less, it's that weak classes (fighter/barb/rogue/paladin/ranger/monk) got weaker, and strong classes (wizard/sorcerer/cleric/druid) got stronger.

If your group is more into the story or RP side of the game, you may never notice.  A group that focuses purely on the tactics and mechanics will probably get frustrated.

It's a shame, too.  I think Paizo puts out some of the best adventures in the industry, hands down.  Erik Mona is a D&D god.  In addition, the Pathfinder system started under great pretenses and looked shiny at the start.  More Feats!  Improved Combat Maneuvers!  Rebalanced Classes!  It's just that somewhere along the way they got hopelessly lost and couldn't see the forest for the trees and ended up just exacerbating the very problems they were trying to fix.

Schmoe wrote on Aug 15^th, 2011 at 3:57pm:

It appeared to me that Monk got stronger and Paladin got a HUGE boost.

Heck, with all the new Critical feats, it looks like the Fighter got even better.

Please clarify why you think those classes got nerfed.

Well, I've included a quote from another thread a few months ago.  While I'm not quite as vociferous about it as Squelch, I agree with some of his points.  For example the feats.  Sure, everyone gets more now, but look at Improved Trip vs. the 3.5 version.  In 3.5 tripping was actually a useful tactic, but in Pathfinder it has been nerfed to just more useless filler.

Sure, paladins got some shiny new toys, but did you see what sorcerers got?  More known spells.  Free metamagic.  Divine spells for known spells.  The gap got wider, not narrower.

Skills were consolidated.  Cross-class is relatively meaningless.  On the surface it's a good thing, but it dilutes the benefit of skill classes like rangers and rogues, because now anyone can be good at a wide variety of skills.  Again, casters retain their benefits, while other classes see their benefits either diminished or given to others.

Anyway, just my personal opinion, and if your groups are enjoying the game, that's all that really matters.  I have long felt that high-level non-caster characters were underpowered, from 2e on, so maybe Pathfinder just struck a nerve.


Hi Welcome wrote on Apr 22^nd, 2011 at 6:36pm:

Schmoe wrote on Aug 15^th, 2011 at 3:57pm:


You forgot bard (is on the weak side) but yeah.

Quote:


Well yeah, if you ignore the rules you might not notice that said rules are horrible. Of course if you wanted to play pretendy land, you could go hang out with Dispel for 0 dollars and 0 cents, and not spend 100 dollars or more on rulebooks.

Quote:


Lolwut. And you were doing so well too. As it is, the published modules are only marginally better than their attempt at making rules systems. Now all published modules are terrible for various reasons, but their work is terrible even by those standards.

Quote:


At the very beginning. Their "playtesting" was a joke. You thought Mournlands was bad? Imagine a testing environment in which they are not only not actually looking for testing, but actively discourage people from providing it as what they are really wanting is positive quotes for quote mining purposes. That's what you get there, so it should come as no surprise to you that the Godhs and Snootches of the PnP community have successfully created an abomination upon gaming.

Xatasha wrote on Aug 15^th, 2011 at 4:27pm:


Yes, because going from save or lose spamming casters, to save or lose spamming casters with +8-9 DC is such a major build change right? I mean you're totally doing something different! That will show those dirty rotten powergamers that wanted to play a Fighter or Rogue and not have people form lines to kick them in the balls! And because going from other types of classes being potentially playable, to Godh builds means more options right?

You must be a member of the Paizo boards, because that makes no sense to anyone with 2 or more brain cells.

Arkat wrote on Aug 15^th, 2011 at 4:29pm:


The long post that Schmoe was so kind as to hunt down does a good job of summarizing the general details, however it misses several sections I forgot to write at the time, and does not go into the particulars.

First, the TL;DR version: Monks are even worse now, and so are Paladins, and critical feats are just a noob trap with no substantial value of any kind to anyone.

Now to elaborate.

First Monks and Paladins, just like all the other non casters are DPS classes. It's all they can do, therefore their value is directly proportional to the nonexistent numbers that float over their imaginary heads. All of the general non caster nerfs mentioned in that long post apply to them as well, and since those two were already bottom of the barrel, well you can imagine how that goes.

Second, they are Multiple Attribute Dependent classes, which means they need more than 1 non Constitution stat high. While this also isn't unusual, as it applies to all non casters Monks and Paladins are more subjected to it than any other. So let's back up for a moment and start at the beginning.

You are creating a character. So you have x points to assign at will. When compared to the 3.5 point buy system, the Pathfailure point buy system further punishes Multiple Attribute Dependent characters while making it so those who only need a single, non Constitution stat are even better. Since Monks and Paladins are both very highly MAD, they are screwed over quite hard by this. And they're not even a fully created character yet, just a stat line. The Pathfailure point buy system also emphasizes lower point values more than 3.5 does. Lower point values of course favor those who need fewer points to get up to par, which means those who need fewer stats to assign those points to. Aka the SAD characters.

Next you pick your race. There are six of them, and half of those increase one stat of your choice by 2, and the other half increase two preset stats by 2 and lower one preset stat by 2. As you can imagine this means that Single Attribute Dependent characters benefit a lot more from race than their MAD counterparts.

Next you select your class. Now if you had a low HD before (which means caster, or Rogue but those suck now) you get a larger one, which means +1 HP/level. Because of the way the PB system works you also get +1 HP/level if you are a SAD class, because you can take a higher Con. Notice that non casters with the exception of Rogues and I think Bards are not getting any of this.

Next you select your favored class. Basically every time you take a level in your favored class, you get +1 HP (you could also get one skill point, but you'd be fucktarded to ever do so for reasons that will be explained later). This obviously favors those who will take a single class to level 20. Now casters only end up PRCing because it gives them all of their class features (spells) and some other stuff. But since you get those anyways, due to the caster buffs Cleric or Druid or Sorcerer or Wizard 20 is a valid life choice. Meanwhile all the other classes are still weak and frontloaded, so you have to dip around like crazy to even attempt to keep up, and that of course means losing out on those HP.

All in all it amounts to this:

Sorcerer/Wizard: +3 HP/level. Which is also the precise degree of difference between them and Fighters. In other words, they have the same HP now. Well 3 points less (not 3/level, just 3) but close enough.
Cleric/Druid: +2 HP/level. As in they have more HP than Fighters.
All the various non casters, with the exception I mentioned: No change.

Once you actually make your character and start playing you realize the one drawback to crafting - the XP cost is gone. Now the XP cost isn't itself meaningful, after all if you're a level behind you gain approximately 35% more XP from everything until you catch up, and if you're a level behind because you crafted a lot of gear you're not actually weaker. It does matter though simply because you will most likely run out of XP before you run out of GP. Remove that, and it's a ticket to double wealth and thus double power. Only casters can do it though (if you say Master Craftsman, I will laugh at you and say mean things about you on the Internet). More items, and getting those items sooner when you need fewer items = a whole lot more power. So his stat boosters are cheaper to begin with, he needs fewer of them, and then he gets a discount on top of that? End result: Caster has same or better stats as non caster in every single area that matters, even the things you wouldn't think they'd have an advantage on like HP and Fort saves.

Meanwhile the same sort of deflation that applies to non caster feats applies to their wealth. Put simply, their stuff costs more. And while everyone gets slightly more cash, the deflation still more than counters that. What deflation, you might ask? Stat items. All physical stat boosters are one item. All mental stat boosters are one item. So if you are a SAD character you make your physical booster Constitution, and your mental stat booster your casting stat and you are fine. But if you need more than one physical or mental stat you have to pay markups each and every time. On top of that you have to upgrade them all at once, so if you want say... +4 str, +2 con well that's just too bad, you're stuck with your 10k +2 str +2 con item until you can afford the 40k +4/+4 model. Monks and Paladins, being so extremely MAD and gear dependent are hit the hardest by this.

Aside from being hit the hardest by the general changes there was also some things that hit them hard in particular. For Monks, the only way to make them not completely worthless was to stack a whole bunch of die size increases so that when they finally managed to hit something, it might actually matter. A part of this was size increases, which were nerfed, and a part of it was Improved Natural Attack: Unarmed Strike which was also nerfed. There's also the usual melee stuff, Leap Attack Shock Trooper you know the drill that got destroyed by the Power Attack nerf.

For Paladins, see above about charging, except multiply it because charging is all they can really do. The only thing they have going for them is stacking to hit bonuses and converting it to damage, which of course was nerfed. There's a premade Pathfailure Paladin around there somewhere. It's level 13, and is basically custom designed specifically to kill CR 13 Ice Devils, and is supposed to be anti evil outsider in general. Despite this, it was demonstrated that said Paladin would always fail to defeat the Ice Devil. She could not possibly win, because the Ice Devil would just troll her with Wall of Ice and Persistent Image all day, so she couldn't even hit him, but he could hit her. How the fuck do you manage that?

So that in a not so succinct package is why Monks and Paladins fail.

Now, the critical feats. Here is the thing about effects that only trigger a small percentage of the time. They only trigger a small percentage of the time. Over a high number of iterations, they average out and can be fairly considered as part of any decent calculations. With a small sample size, they are statistically insignificant.

DDO fights consist of everyone involved taking hundreds of actions each. So stuff like Improved Critical is actually worthwhile (Khopeshes not sucking also helps).

PnP fights consist of everyone getting about 2 rounds of actions, which means 10 attacks at most and more likely somewhere in the 1-5 range.

Now, if you are a non caster, the only way you can possibly contribute is to win the DPS race. In other words, kill the enemy before it kills you. And if you lose once, well you die. That's it. Yes you can come back, but if it happens more than once you're better off deleting and rerolling because you will lose a level each and every time (and will likely lose more levels than you gain, so you will quickly reach that double death threshhold). To do this you must be able to consistently one round the enemy, because if it takes two you die each and every time the enemy goes first, and if it takes three you just lose.

Suffice it to say relying upon effects with a maximum trigger chance of 30% is the exact opposite of reliable.

Not only that, but said effects aren't that good to begin with. Even if they do trigger, no one will care either because they do nothing that matters, or they do nothing that classes worth a damn couldn't do a dozen levels ago.

On top of that the critical weapons themselves are traps. See, you NEED reach. Enemies have reach, and if you don't that means they get free hits on you. That of course means it's harder to win those all important DPS races. If you have reach, then you've at least negated one of the many advantages your opponents have over you.

The weapons with the wide crit profiles of course do not have reach. So if you're using a Falchion, you're getting smacked around like the dumb bitch you are for using a terrible weapon. If you're using a proper weapon such as the Spiked Chain in an edition that does not have a massive caster fetish, then you cannot use those terrible feats, but since they are terrible that's fine. In effect, because those exist, gullible/stupid/naive people are tricked into fucking over their character.

As for Ultimate Combat, that was the book that pioneered the phrase "Paizo: Powered by your Failure". You see, the Gunslinger has this feature that basically rewards them for trying to do stuff they're not very good at. Because they're not very good at it they will epic fail of course, but since doing so powers them up playing one consists of doing a bunch of stupid shit that doesn't matter, so you can later do something meaningful. It's also written by people who apparently have a thing for critical fumbles, which is just further proof that Paizo has attracted all the dregs of the tabletop gaming community.

As for the Samurai and Ninja, remember the standard rule of Asian themed classes in RPGs. If it is a video game, they will be very good if not the best. If it is a tabletop game, they will be very bad if not the worst. It is a tabletop game, and further they are non casters written by Paizo so they can safely be written off as irredeemably horrible without even looking at them.

One more thing. Skills. Now skills were never that good to begin with. At best you used them until about... level 5 or so, and then you more or less forgot about them as you have better things to do. Which means focusing on skills in PnP is like making healbots or trap gimp Rogues in DDO. You're missing the forest for the trees, and helping no one save those who need a laugh and will take it at your expense. Pathfailure however lives up to its moniker and makes it worse, because skills got nerfed even further.

See, those few skills that were worth using before? They now have much higher DCs. Like Tumble for example. Before it's DC 15 in order to move past someone without provoking an AoO, so pretty easy for some agile type to get to where he needs to be.

Well remember why combat maneuvers went from being usable (trip only) to completely worthless because they won't work? That's because they're opposed by Combat Maneuver Defense, or CMD. Guess what happened to Tumble? Yup, CMD fucked. So now you try to flip past someone, lolfail at it and get smacked anyways.

Spot? Stuff has better Stealth now, so you're not seeing it (and including Listen into the mix doesn't change anything except making it so people actually can hear things now).

Your own Stealth? Sorry, all the auto lose stuff is still in, and enemy Perception is now higher as well. You can't get Darkstalker, so you automatically fail to sneak past anything that matters.

Diplomacy? Oops higher DCs and lower effects. And by lower effects, I mean even if you succeed at the check, you still fail to do what you set out to do (likely some variation of persuading someone to help you or not to kill you).

Of course all the other skills are either just as bad as before, or even worse by requiring much higher DCs to do the same, trivial things.

So yeah. I probably forgot more stuff but this post is long enough as it is.

Hi Welcome wrote on Aug 16^th, 2011 at 12:53pm:


I should probably say that my primary experience with Paizo comes from the APs and Dungeon magazine.  If you think those were trash, well, there's a padded cell I'd like to introduce you to.

Arkat wrote on Aug 16^th, 2011 at 12:59pm:


Heh.  Sorcerer/Druid/Wizard/Cleric - pick one.

I will say that one thing Paizo did well with Pathfinder is make leveling more fun.  With 3.5, many levels are "empty" and going from 6 fighter to 7 fighter, for example, is pretty boring.  With Pathfinder, virtually every level of every class you get some shiny toy to look forward to.  If only those toys were more worthwhile, it would be great.

Hi Welcome wrote on Aug 16^th, 2011 at 1:07pm:


Except... they weren't.  The very people who repeatedly win the GenCon powergamer competition got roffle-stomped by the SCAP climax.  Although, they walked all over Kyuss and Demogorgon, so maybe there is something there...  At any rate, I'd happily DM any of the three APs and I guarantee you I'd improvise enough to keep the players happy and challenged.  It's like DDO - you have the people who like to solo epics for breakfast, and you have the people who die falling off the harbor bridge.  The same adventure won't be fun for all of them without some serious DM intervention.