Pathfinder: the Lowdown

[Psychic Robot]

MGuy: The problem with that scenario is that the RNG gets thrown out of whack. Consider that the cleric is already going to have a Will save of around +20 without buffs. Even in a system where saves advanced at the same rate, the fighter would be lucky to have a +15 with a cloak of resistance.

[MGuy]

Leress: *shrugs* If that's what they want to choose. The important thing is that the choice is there.

PR: How does it mess up the RNG? Granted the fighter will indeed be behind the cleric when it comes to Will saves (something that seems iconic between the classes to me) but having a 20th level cleric with a +18 Will (unaided by magic) and a fighter with a +12 (or 13 if he spent anything in Wis, again unaided by magic) is pretty much what I would expect from the classes. You won't be targeting the Cleric's Will save and the fighter now has a chance (+17/18 if he spent the money on a full +5 cloak) to actually make that save. Having them all advance just by 1/2 HD (and assuming that this way multiclassing still gives a +2 bonus here and there) seems to basically require you to multiclass to get good saves.

[Kaelik]

I have no idea what you guys are smoking that either your characters or your monsters had saves that failed.

I mean sure, animals had bad will saves and undead had bad fort, but I've never had a problem with Dragons or Outsiders or Elementals or Players having bad saves at all.

[TOZ]

Names have been changed to protect the stupid. A few replies to Frank's breakdown of CMD.

I have no problem with Huge Storm Giant being pretty much imunne to crazy antics of a Medium humanoid with Str of 24.
However, at lvl 17, and raging, I believe that Str of a Barbarian would be higher anyway. But I digress.
Also, the monsters are given using their 3.5 stats, not the PFRPG stats. And even then, the Cornugon's CMD is calculated incorrectly (should be 43)...
Let's make a Trip Monkey Barbarian shall we ? We kick off with STR 18, we get the +2 racial, +4 from leveling, +6 from the belt, STR 30 @ lvl 17, raging STR 36, Improved Trip and Greater Trip. CMB when trippin' = 34...
We trip ze Cornugon at 9+, without any buffs.
There, done.

This comment pretty much destroyed the OP's argument. I"m still laughing over people actually complaining that their character can't trip a storm giant. Our characters are supposed to by heroes not demi-gods like Hercules and.....Drizzt LOL.

And this is why Pathfinder doesn't work.

[baduin]

I agree with the proposition to make saves equal 1/2 character level + ability. Starting classes add a bonus (+2 or better +3) to some saves. Multiclassing doesn't influence saves at all.

Save progressions are designed with the express purpose of falling off the RNG.

Feats such as Iron Will should replace the bonus from ability with some reasonable progression (+2 at first level, +7 at 20 level). This way warriors would always be worse than clerics at Will saves, but would remain comparable.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I wonder how strong Warblades are now.

I've tried making Warblades before and I can say that their biggest weakness is either not having enough feats or having to forgo the Master of Nine PrC altogether; which is a fukken shame, since 4 levels of that PrC gives you a ton of extra manuevers known and stored.

With the nerfing of generically-useful feats (which Warblades don't really give a care for, aside from the TWF chain) and the whole project of giving everyone more feats altogether I think Pathfinder accidentally and contemptuously made Warblades the best sword-based class.

[Lago PARANOIA]

... and that's the biggest reason why I think Pathfinder's nerf-fest project is doomed to failure. All groups I know that still play 3.5E (with the exception of TenebraeMUSH) also use the Book of Nine Swords stuff. Nerfing sword-based classes will only make more people flock to expansion material.

[RandomCasualty2]

With the nerfing of generically-useful feats (which Warblades don't really give a care for, aside from the TWF chain) and the whole project of giving everyone more feats altogether I think Pathfinder accidentally and contemptuously made Warblades the best sword-based class.

Not that I really care, because nobody plays fighters anyway when you can be a warblade. Not because of power reasons exactly, but just because the warblade is way more interesting and fun to play.

The big design mistake of PF is not having the default fighter be like a warblade. I realize they can't copy ToB for copyright reasons, but they should have totally ripped off the idea of maneuvers and just made their own fighter/warblade hybrid.

[sake]

So everyone would just choose Fort and Will as the good ones and call it a day.

*shrug* I would imagine that the sensible thing to do under that mechanic would be to buff Evocation and Direct Damage spells. Reflex would suddenly seem a lot more important if Fireball was scary again.

[RandomCasualty2]

*shrug* I would imagine that the sensible thing to do under that mechanic would be to buff Evocation and Direct Damage spells. Reflex would suddenly seem a lot more important if Fireball was scary again.

Or if reflex added to your touch AC or something.

[MGuy]

I like that idea.

[Crissa]

Of course, most answerable arguments for come like this guy and he keeps screwing up the math. It's like I did the probability analysis or something.

Of course, most arguments pro-paizil just saw the first post here is full of bull, or is full of non-explanations or 'wait for the finished product!' or just plain insults.

*sigh*

-Crissa

[Psychic Robot]

PR: How does it mess up the RNG?

Level 1 in 3e's system: A fighter has a base Will save of +0. A cleric has a base Will save of +2. With stat mods included, the fighter probably has a -1 Will save and the cleric has a +5 Will save. That means that the cleric is 30% more likely to succeed on a given Will save than the fighter. (DC 10 Will save: fighter is 50% likely to make it, cleric is 80% likely to make it.)

Level 10 in 3e's system (assuming no magical boosts): A fighter has a base Will save of +3; a cleric has a base save of +7. Adding in stat mods (again, assuming no boosts from the base stats), the fighter has a +2 and the cleric has a +10. Now the cleric is 40% more likely to succeed than the fighter on a given save. (DC 15 Will save: fighter is 40% likely to succeed, cleric is 80% likely to succeed. The gap has widened by 10%.)

Level 20 in 3e's system (still assuming no magical boosts): A fighter has a base Will save of +6; a cleric has a base save of +12. That becomes +5 and +15 with their respective base stat mods. The cleric is now 50% more likely to succeed on a save than the fighter. (DC 20 Will save: fighter is 30% likely to succeed, cleric is 80% likely to succeed. The gap has widened by a total of 20%.)

Notice that the cleric has maintained an 80% likelihood of succeeding on those saves because his Will save has advanced at +1 per two levels. However, since the fighter's Will save advances at +1 per thee levels, the fighter falls farther and farther behind the cleric, and he will eventually be at the point where he can only succeed on a natural 20.

Of course, there are ways to overcome this particular issues in 3e, namely a cloak of resistance. But that item isn't available only to fighters; clerics can take it, too. The fighter gets the cloak and has a +10 Will save at level 20. Then the cleric gets the cloak and has a +20 Will save at level 20. That means that enemies have to contend with the cleric's +20 save, which means that they're going to boost their save DCs to ridiculous levels to compensate for the cleric's power. Then the fighter is out of luck because he's stuck in the same boat he was in before, thanks to the arms race of magic items.

[MGuy]

I'm still not understanding how giving the fighter the choice of having a good will save is messing up the RNG. The RNG is still the same even if the Fighter has a good Will save cause it still doesn't change the DCs everyone has to meet nor does it have an effect on any other class. It seems that most of what you put is aimed at how well they do next to clerics in the Will save department. I don't know what the comparison has to do with the RNG but the cleric is always gonna be ahead by virtue of their ability scores. If however you're talking about how the enemies have to deal with the cleric's saves I'd think they'd just aim for Fort instead of Will. Even if you had the +1/2 HD advancement for Will saves the Cleric would only be missing 2 points of Will, which isn't much.

[Crissa]

M, the Fighter falls out of range later instead of sooner.

-Crissa

[MGuy]

Isn't later better than sooner?

[Psychic Robot]

Better never. Giving the fighter the choice of having a good Will save doesn't solve the underlying problem with the save mechanics (where they advance at different rates). If all saves advance at the same rate--even the poor saves--then you don't run into the RNG issues (outside of stat boosters/save boosters, but that's another problem that needs addressing).

[MGuy]

Well what are you saying the chances for success of a save should be then?

[Psychic Robot]

That depends on your design goals, and it's not particularly relevant to the RNG issue. The main purpose of keeping everyone advancing at the same rate is to keep the fighter from getting worse and worse at succeeding on level-appropriate Will saves--in short, you want to keep everyone playing the same game, so to speak. The 3e fighter ends up playing the "please roll a 20" game for his Will saves while the 3e cleric is off playing the "please don't roll a 1" game.

Neither of those is particularly fun, in my opinion. They don't really have a good balance of risk vs. reward, and knowing that you can succeed by rolling a two just isn't that interesting.

[virgil]

Hmm, they decided that enlarge person was slightly overpowered, by not allowing the spell to boost the damage for projectile weapons.

[PhoneLobster]

I looked. I regret it.

All equipment worn or carried by a creature is similarly enlarged by the spell. Melee weapons affected by this spell deal more damage. Other magical properties are not affected by this spell. Any enlarged item that leaves an enlarged creature’s possession (including a projectile or thrown weapon) instantly returns to its normal size. This means that thrown weapons deal their normal damage, and projectiles deal damage based on the size of the weapon that fired them. Magical properties of enlarged items are not increased by this spell.

All equipment worn or carried by a creature is similarly reduced by the spell.
Melee and projectile weapons deal less damage. Other magical properties are not affected by this spell. Any reduced item that leaves the reduced creature’s possession (including a projectile or thrown weapon) instantly returns to its normal size. This means that thrown weapons deal their normal damage (projectiles deal damage based on the size of the weapon that fired them).

It's like a game of "find 10 things wrong with these rules quotes".

Here's some highlights.

1) Your equipment changes size category in both spells. Meaning that it automatically changes it's damage dice because of the weapon size rules. Only it may or may not because of a throw away line that says "Melee weapons effected by this spell deal more damage" thus screwing ranged weapons.

2) Only... "Melee weapons effected by this spell deal more damage" is not actually an exclusive statement.

3) And the line about projectile and thrown objects returning to normal size when fired and how projectiles are influenced by the size of the object firing them makes enlarge person apparently boost projectile damage (but nerf those pesky enlarged sized shuriken users and javelin throwers, the OP bastards had it coming!)

4) Then there is all that shit about these spells "not effecting other magical properties". Enlarge person goes out of it's way to say it TWICE, first to say magical properties aren't effected, THEN to later on out of nowhere to say they aren't increased. Reduce person is more low key, just stating the aren't effected line. Which is all very confusing because why the fuck would anyone think magic properties would be effected/increase from these spells? (though apparently if they can not effect but decrease from reduce person they might). What magic item properties are there that change by size? Or do they mean sized changed magic items somehow don't work right because the magic bit remains "normal sized"? WTF?

Again. WTF?

Edit: Fair enough the magical properties bullshit is legacy text. But couldn't they have cleaned that shit up?

Indeed the whole thing is basically legacy text failure. The dumb ass "writing" the new test cut and paste without understanding and changed a line that was basically reminding you that the other text of the spell just told you that melee and projectile weapon damage increased to not include (but also not exclude) projectile weapons like that fucking made some fucking difference.

Bloody idiot.

[hogarth]

3) And the line about projectile and thrown objects returning to normal size when fired and how projectiles are influenced by the size of the object firing them makes enlarge person apparently boost projectile damage (but nerf those pesky enlarged sized shuriken users and javelin throwers, the OP bastards had it coming!)

This is exactly the same as it worked in 3.5.

4) Then there is all that shit about these spells "not effecting other magical properties". Enlarge person goes out of it's way to say it TWICE, first to say magical properties aren't effected, THEN to later on out of nowhere to say they aren't increased. Reduce person is more low key, just stating the aren't effected line. Which is all very confusing because why the fuck would anyone think magic properties would be effected/increase from these spells? (though apparently if they can not effect but decrease from reduce person they might). What magic item properties are there that change by size? Or do they mean sized changed magic items somehow don't work right because the magic bit remains "normal sized"? WTF?

Again, this is exactly the same (dumb) wording as in the 3.5 SRD. The "magical properties" boilerplate is clearer in the PHB; it specifies that you can't double the size of a potion and get the same effect by drinking half of it, for instance. I still don't know why they said the same thing twice, though.

[Psychic Robot]

All equipment worn or carried by a creature is similarly enlarged by the spell. Melee and projectile weapons affected by this spell deal more damage. Other magical properties are not affected by this spell. Any enlarged item that leaves an enlarged creature’s possession (including a projectile or thrown weapon) instantly returns to its normal size. This means that thrown weapons deal their normal damage, and projectiles deal damage based on the size of the weapon that fired them. Magical properties of enlarged items are not increased by this spell.

It makes no sense in either Pathfinder or 3e, unfortunately.

[PhoneLobster]

It makes no sense in either Pathfinder or 3e, unfortunately.

PR I think you need to not play the spot ten things wrong with this game and play the "spot the tiny difference" game instead.

Path finder removed a single word from their cut and paste thinking that did something. Only it didn't. And even if it did then all it did was contradict itself.

But hey, you read my edit on my post so why the fuck you have the excuse to fail to know that I have no idea.

Oh wait. That's right. It's you.

[Crissa]

This is why you hand reduced boulders to the halfling and enlarge the elf; but no the other way around.

Why this is? We don't know. So that you can enlarge the halfling and do nada and reduce the elf reduces his damage? Like the Mini spell?

-Crissa