Pathfinder Is Still Bad

[Swordslinger]

As an aside, I think it was very hypocritical of Gygax to call anyone else a rules-lawyer, since his very idea of game balance was rules-lawyering in ways to screw his players over.

I never recall Gygax rules lawyering, he seemed to just outright ignore the rules with no justification with no-save deathtraps and similar crap.

[Darth Rabbitt]

True dat, point taken.

[Shadow Balls]

What I want to know is why the fuck is it taking so long to level up?

Write down a few more HP, your save boosts if any, your BAB changes if any, pick a spell or two, possibly pick a feat, possibly write down a class feature and you're done. It might take a full minute if playing a complex class. You probably spend more time waiting for someone to select an action in combat.

[Fuchs]

What I want to know is why the fuck is it taking so long to level up?

Write down a few more HP, your save boosts if any, your BAB changes if any, pick a spell or two, possibly pick a feat, possibly write down a class feature and you're done. It might take a full minute if playing a complex class. You probably spend more time waiting for someone to select an action in combat.

Uh... did you play 3E at all? Do you know how many feats are there, how many spells, how many prestige classes you might want to get into? What skills, and what skill tricks you want to pick?

You honestly want to tell me you pick that in a minute? Lol.

(Unless of course you always pick the same class and build, or follow a route taken from the CO boards.)

Not to mention that many players do not have all books, so they rely on the GM's library to look that stuff up.

[Juton]

What I want to know is why the fuck is it taking so long to level up?

Write down a few more HP, your save boosts if any, your BAB changes if any, pick a spell or two, possibly pick a feat, possibly write down a class feature and you're done. It might take a full minute if playing a complex class. You probably spend more time waiting for someone to select an action in combat.

Well there are a fuckton of feats and spells, they will take forever pondering synergies instead of playing the game. Our Wizard just hit level three, so he gets two second level spells. I'd pick Scorching Ray and Invisibility, he has to contemplate a lot because he hasn't prepared. Through in the fact that they nerfed some but not all spells from 3.5 there was some legitimate discussion about whether glitterdust and alter self are still worth it. I assert that if you care enough about spell selection to talk about it for half an hour, you should care about it enough to go on any plethora of forums and take care of it away from the table.

[Leper]

What I want to know is why the fuck is it taking so long to level up?

Write down a few more HP, your save boosts if any, your BAB changes if any, pick a spell or two, possibly pick a feat, possibly write down a class feature and you're done. It might take a full minute if playing a complex class. You probably spend more time waiting for someone to select an action in combat.

Uh... did you play 3E at all? Do you know how many feats are there, how many spells, how many prestige classes you might want to get into? What skills, and what skill tricks you want to pick?

You honestly want to tell me you pick that in a minute? Lol.

(Unless of course you always pick the same class and build, or follow a route taken from the CO boards.)

Not to mention that many players do not have all books, so they rely on the GM's library to look that stuff up.

Not just that, but among the hundreds of options there's plenty that look good, but just aren't, so unless you're deeply familiar with all of the options you get to sit down and evaluate each on a case by case basis.

I have a friend who actually has pretty close to the entire library, including plenty of 3PP products. Despite being relatively handy, he spends more time leveling characters than anyone simply because of this. Of course he's also the most likely to absolutely destroy game balance, so i guess you can't argue with the results.

[Username17]

I blame Prestige Class requirements. The fact that the game seriously asks you to take feats and set them on fire with Skill Focus: Knowledge Nobility (no joke) in order to get the special piece of ass kicking you want five levels from now makes leveling take way longer than it should.

Prestige Classes should trigger on decisions made no more than one level before.

-Username17

[ishy]

I also blame trap options. And the fact that there is no retraining rules in core. Now retraining is of course a difficult subject, and you shouldn't be able to retrain everything everyday or something like that. But if you picked something awesome and it turns out it sucks you should seriously be able to ditch that.

Most DMs I play with allow that though, dunno about yours.

[hogarth]

Don't forget the bozos out there who literally don't know what class they'll take a level in next (e.g. "My wizard likes singing; should he take a level in bard?").

Spell and feat selection are usually the slow parts of levelling up, though.

[Shadow Balls]

What I want to know is why the fuck is it taking so long to level up?

Write down a few more HP, your save boosts if any, your BAB changes if any, pick a spell or two, possibly pick a feat, possibly write down a class feature and you're done. It might take a full minute if playing a complex class. You probably spend more time waiting for someone to select an action in combat.

Uh... did you play 3E at all? Do you know how many feats are there, how many spells, how many prestige classes you might want to get into? What skills, and what skill tricks you want to pick?

In order:

Not that many worth taking.
Not so many that it would be that hard to select one or two of them.
Not so many that the decision making process is being made now, as opposed to a long time ago.
Those don't matter at all, but if you care, how hard is it to +1 the stuff you were already taking, and if you want Swift Concentration or Collector of Stories or one of the other three or so skill tricks worth taking, then you +1 every skill but 2, and then you take that.

You honestly want to tell me you pick that in a minute? Lol.

I know it is hard for you due to your extreme incompetence, and special helmet cutting off the blood supply to your peanut brain. But for most people, it isn't at all hard as you're either incrementing a few numbers with little to no actual decision making, or you've already preplotted your build, in which case it's a manner of incrementation and decisions in a predescribed manner.

Level 7 Wizard (Wiz 3, Master Conj 4): +7 HP, +1 BAB, +1 Will, +7 HP to summoned/called creatures. +1 1st and 4th level slots, +1 4th level slot from Int. Spells selected: Black Tentacles, Dimension Door.

It took me longer to type that than to remember what it gives.

(Unless of course you always pick the same class and build, or follow a route taken from the CO boards.)

If you are playing a character, and leveling them up you're either going to take more of the same, in which case you already know what's coming, or you are going to dip around, in which case you've already plotted it out, and it is still fast.

Not to mention that many players do not have all books, so they rely on the GM's library to look that stuff up.

Even then, material they are actively using they should be familiar with.

What I want to know is why the fuck is it taking so long to level up?

Write down a few more HP, your save boosts if any, your BAB changes if any, pick a spell or two, possibly pick a feat, possibly write down a class feature and you're done. It might take a full minute if playing a complex class. You probably spend more time waiting for someone to select an action in combat.

Well there are a fuckton of feats and spells, they will take forever pondering synergies instead of playing the game. Our Wizard just hit level three, so he gets two second level spells. I'd pick Scorching Ray and Invisibility, he has to contemplate a lot because he hasn't prepared. Through in the fact that they nerfed some but not all spells from 3.5 there was some legitimate discussion about whether glitterdust and alter self are still worth it. I assert that if you care enough about spell selection to talk about it for half an hour, you should care about it enough to go on any plethora of forums and take care of it away from the table.

Yeah, there's a fuckton of spells but unless the DM is playing on Hell difficulty you can just pick some decent ones and go. Glitterdust and Invisibility. Bam done. Yes I know you're talking about PF. Since the nerfs to Glitterdust are not meaningful, but the buffs are it's still totally worth it to do the same as before, except with more bonuses. Now Alter Self is shit, but in the specific case of a system nerfing some spells but not others it makes the decision making process easier, as all you have to do is determine whether or not something is really nerfed. And if it is, you check it off as no longer a consideration, and if it is not you leave it there.

Not just that, but among the hundreds of options there's plenty that look good, but just aren't, so unless you're deeply familiar with all of the options you get to sit down and evaluate each on a case by case basis.

I have a friend who actually has pretty close to the entire library, including plenty of 3PP products. Despite being relatively handy, he spends more time leveling characters than anyone simply because of this. Of course he's also the most likely to absolutely destroy game balance, so i guess you can't argue with the results.

Trap options are a problem, granted. It's 2011 though. Anyone playing a non caster has long since gotten used to that and presearches. Or, if they lack the ability to do that they either play a caster (which has far fewer trap options, and the ones that exist are far less severe) or netdeck their character so that someone else has done the trapfinding for them.

[Fuchs]

I'd be slightly more inclined to believe your claims of extreme competence if you were slightly less incompetent in your actual rules claims (see Dragon battle).

As it is it sounds like a whole lot of hot air.

[Psychic Robot]

What I want to know is why the fuck is it taking so long to level up?

Write down a few more HP, your save boosts if any, your BAB changes if any, pick a spell or two, possibly pick a feat, possibly write down a class feature and you're done. It might take a full minute if playing a complex class. You probably spend more time waiting for someone to select an action in combat.

consult class chart, assign skill points, roll for HP, change your attack bonus, change your save bonuses, pick new spells, pick a new feat (or two), write down class features, calculate stat boosts from leveling (and then possibly rewrite more numbers). and this involves lots of page flipping for players who don't know what feats do by heart.

yes, it takes awhile. the worst part is recording the information. if you have your character all planned out, you can do it quickly, but a lot of players don't have their characters planned out ahead of time.

[Previn]

Prestige Classes should trigger on decisions made no more than one level before.

-Username17

I'm not sure I'd knock down PrC requirements to that level without redefining what a PrC was or how it's abilities should be designed.

[tzor]

yes, it takes awhile. the worst part is recording the information. if you have your character all planned out, you can do it quickly, but a lot of players don't have their characters planned out ahead of time.

That's why every good DM should have a few different types that they can whip out for such an occasion. (Including the occasion when a friend is visiting and only plans on playing for that evening.)

[Shadow Balls]

I'd be slightly more inclined to believe your claims of extreme competence if you were slightly less incompetent in your actual rules claims (see Dragon battle).

As it is it sounds like a whole lot of hot air.

Aw, hey look. It's Fuchaduck trying to get in good with Likadik.

Even if you had any ground to stand on, you're the guy who openly admits to being a complete and abject failure at D&D which means that anyone that knows anything about D&D ranks higher than you. Even Shadzar is higher on the competence ladder. If that isn't a sign to delete and reroll IRL, I dunno what is.

What I want to know is why the fuck is it taking so long to level up?

Write down a few more HP, your save boosts if any, your BAB changes if any, pick a spell or two, possibly pick a feat, possibly write down a class feature and you're done. It might take a full minute if playing a complex class. You probably spend more time waiting for someone to select an action in combat.

consult class chart, assign skill points, roll for HP, change your attack bonus, change your save bonuses, pick new spells, pick a new feat (or two), write down class features, calculate stat boosts from leveling (and then possibly rewrite more numbers). and this involves lots of page flipping for players who don't know what feats do by heart.

BAB and saves follow standard formulas. One has 3 possibilities, one has 2. At most you'd need to reference the class chart if it has a new ability you don't know about. Generating and adding a small number to HP takes about 3 seconds, counting the 2 it takes for the die to stop rolling. Potentially adding 1 or possibly 2 to a number takes a second or two, most of which is spent marking out the old number. Picking spells is perhaps the longest step, but still a short one as there are so many good spells that all you have to do is avoid the few obvious traps, and then narrow it down to ones relevant to your character's interest and then just pick some. For the feat, you either take the next thing in the chain, or one of the few good feats. Quick and easy. If your level is a multiple of 4, and that boosts a stat to an even number you might have to increase stuff based on that stat by 1.

Even making allowances for being slow, if it's taking more than 5 minutes you need to stop scratching your balls and start focusing on the game.

yes, it takes awhile. the worst part is recording the information. if you have your character all planned out, you can do it quickly, but a lot of players don't have their characters planned out ahead of time.

And the ones that don't are just going to take a level of whatever they were taking, which means it's just as fast.

[Fuchs]

Even more hot air. If we could harness the steam blowing out of SB's ears we'd be able to go without oil.

Unless of course you play always the same character, and just erase the name whenever you die.

[...You Lost Me]

Even more hot air. If we could harness the steam blowing out of SB's ears we'd be able to go without oil.

Unless of course you play always the same character, and just erase the name whenever you die.

I remember a 4chan post like that. Some guy played a ranger 5 times with all the names of the power rangers.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I used retraining options in my game. I banned it because one of the players retrained his feats every session and it got on my nerves.

To be very specific, he kept retraining Open-Minded over and over and over again, to the point where I couldn't keep track of his skill points anymore (he would take away 5 skill points, give them somewhere else, take them away for another feat). After the 5th or 6th week of that, I told him to retrain once permanently, because he was getting on my nerves.

[CapnTthePirateG]

All this discussion of feat retraining and PrC requirements brings up the anima mage question. Can you take it with the feats Bind Vestige and Improved Bind Vestige as a straight caster, or do you need to take binder levels? Really shitty rules writing IMO.

[Psychic Robot]

BAB and saves follow standard formulas. One has 3 possibilities, one has 2. At most you'd need to reference the class chart if it has a new ability you don't know about. Generating and adding a small number to HP takes about 3 seconds, counting the 2 it takes for the die to stop rolling. Potentially adding 1 or possibly 2 to a number takes a second or two, most of which is spent marking out the old number. Picking spells is perhaps the longest step, but still a short one as there are so many good spells that all you have to do is avoid the few obvious traps, and then narrow it down to ones relevant to your character's interest and then just pick some. For the feat, you either take the next thing in the chain, or one of the few good feats. Quick and easy. If your level is a multiple of 4, and that boosts a stat to an even number you might have to increase stuff based on that stat by 1.

Even making allowances for being slow, if it's taking more than 5 minutes you need to stop scratching your balls and start focusing on the game.

maybe you can level up in five minutes, but everyone else seems to be in agreement that for the majority of players, it takes significantly longer.

[Shadow Balls]

Even more hot air. If we could harness the steam blowing out of SB's ears we'd be able to go without oil.

Unless of course you play always the same character, and just erase the name whenever you die.

Nah, that's the wind blowing over your lips as you flap them about instead of going back to gumming dick.

First, we are discussing leveling up an existing character and not making an entirely new one. So your posts are as irrelevant and useless as ever. Second, it's easily doable with a wide variety of characters, from BSFs to properly made Wizards.

I know, it's impossible for you to fathom that anyone else could have the requisite two brain cells required to replace a few numbers in less than a few hours simply because you are incapable of doing so, but that is why you should learn to separate self from others.

BAB and saves follow standard formulas. One has 3 possibilities, one has 2. At most you'd need to reference the class chart if it has a new ability you don't know about. Generating and adding a small number to HP takes about 3 seconds, counting the 2 it takes for the die to stop rolling. Potentially adding 1 or possibly 2 to a number takes a second or two, most of which is spent marking out the old number. Picking spells is perhaps the longest step, but still a short one as there are so many good spells that all you have to do is avoid the few obvious traps, and then narrow it down to ones relevant to your character's interest and then just pick some. For the feat, you either take the next thing in the chain, or one of the few good feats. Quick and easy. If your level is a multiple of 4, and that boosts a stat to an even number you might have to increase stuff based on that stat by 1.

Even making allowances for being slow, if it's taking more than 5 minutes you need to stop scratching your balls and start focusing on the game.

maybe you can level up in five minutes, but everyone else seems to be in agreement that for the majority of players, it takes significantly longer.

Since when does Fuchaduck = everyone else? Now I get it, you're just trolling as you always do, and you didn't really mean what you say, but trolling is supposed to be funny, and as you might expect from a robot, you have failed to produce humor.

[RobbyPants]

BAB and saves follow standard formulas. One has 3 possibilities, one has 2. At most you'd need to reference the class chart if it has a new ability you don't know about. Generating and adding a small number to HP takes about 3 seconds, counting the 2 it takes for the die to stop rolling. Potentially adding 1 or possibly 2 to a number takes a second or two, most of which is spent marking out the old number. Picking spells is perhaps the longest step, but still a short one as there are so many good spells that all you have to do is avoid the few obvious traps, and then narrow it down to ones relevant to your character's interest and then just pick some. For the feat, you either take the next thing in the chain, or one of the few good feats. Quick and easy. If your level is a multiple of 4, and that boosts a stat to an even number you might have to increase stuff based on that stat by 1.

Even making allowances for being slow, if it's taking more than 5 minutes you need to stop scratching your balls and start focusing on the game.

This works for people who have put in the work ahead of time learning the system this well. The problem is, you need to seriously read all of the options to figure out which 5% are worth taking. Once you've done that, then leveling can be done much quicker. In my experience, none of my players have read that much of the material or have memories that good. The quickest they do in leveling is if I offer suggestions to help them prune through stuff quickly (like offer then two or three ideas along the lines of what they're looking for to give them a few decisions rather than 400). But maybe your groups are really awesome. YMMV.

I used retraining options in my game. I banned it because one of the players retrained his feats every session and it got on my nerves.

To be very specific, he kept retraining Open-Minded over and over and over again, to the point where I couldn't keep track of his skill points anymore (he would take away 5 skill points, give them somewhere else, take them away for another feat). After the 5th or 6th week of that, I told him to retrain once permanently, because he was getting on my nerves.

Yeah, he was definitely abusing the intent, there. The idea is to help you either get out of trap options you didn't realize were traps, or to pick a useful low level feat that you can swap out later.

[Shadow Balls]

This works for people who have put in the work ahead of time learning the system this well. The problem is, you need to seriously read all of the options to figure out which 5% are worth taking. Once you've done that, then leveling can be done much quicker. In my experience, none of my players have read that much of the material or have memories that good. The quickest they do in leveling is if I offer suggestions to help them prune through stuff quickly (like offer then two or three ideas along the lines of what they're looking for to give them a few decisions rather than 400). But maybe your groups are really awesome. YMMV.

If people don't know the system well, you should be directing them to play a caster, because it's much harder to mess up. At that point it's simply a matter of determining what they want to do, and generally there are ways of doing that that don't involve much trap dodging.

If they aren't, well let's be honest here. They're going to be netdecking it, or they're going to be flopping around. And at that point taking more than a minute to level is the least of their concerns.

[Leper]

Since when does Fuchaduck = everyone else? Now I get it, you're just trolling as you always do, and you didn't really mean what you say, but trolling is supposed to be funny, and as you might expect from a robot, you have failed to produce humor.

You are also failing to produce humor. Profanity was amusing for Lenny Bruce (and Lester Bangs. Birthday party, cheesecake, jelly bean, boom!) because he had something to say. You just come off as crass and ignorant, which is its own sort of amusing, but not really funny.

Multiple people have responded back explaining how and why leveling up frequently takes longer than a few minutes. I'll note that it generally takes me about 15-20 minutes, assuming I haven't just done it before the game and saved a separate character sheet just in case, but among the folks I play with, I'm far and away the exception. Among 8-10 people with varying knowledge levels and familiarity, the average is about an hour with the extremes being 2-3 hours for one player and 15-20 minutes for me.

I'm not sure anyone (other than you) has supported your thesis that everyone, everywhere, other than the mentally deficient is capable of leveling up a 3e character in less time than it takes to make a sandwich.

Since when are you everyone?

[Shadow Balls]

Since when does Fuchaduck = everyone else? Now I get it, you're just trolling as you always do, and you didn't really mean what you say, but trolling is supposed to be funny, and as you might expect from a robot, you have failed to produce humor.

You are also failing to produce humor. Profanity was amusing for Lenny Bruce (and Lester Bangs. Birthday party, cheesecake, jelly bean, boom!) because he had something to say. You just come off as crass and ignorant, which is its own sort of amusing, but not really funny.

Complaining about rude language on the Den. That's a new one. What next, will you get butthurt and ragequit for a few years because someone said the word [EDITED]?


[The Great Fence Builder Speaks]
Filter dodging is not allowed.
[/TGFBS]

Multiple people have responded back explaining how and why leveling up frequently takes longer than a few minutes. I'll note that it generally takes me about 15-20 minutes, assuming I haven't just done it before the game and saved a separate character sheet just in case, but among the folks I play with, I'm far and away the exception. Among 8-10 people with varying knowledge levels and familiarity, the average is about an hour with the extremes being 2-3 hours for one player and 15-20 minutes for me.

So you've proved that multiple people are stupid. Um, so? That doesn't change that not stupid people can increment a few numbers and write down a class feature quickly. I mean what the fuck are you doing, writing the changes one pixel at a time?

I'm not sure anyone (other than you) has supported your thesis that everyone, everywhere, other than the mentally deficient is capable of leveling up a 3e character in less time than it takes to make a sandwich.

Since when are you everyone?

Perhaps the intelligent people are driven away from this board by the faux elitists who get butthurt when a real elitist shows them how it's done?