Pathfinder Is Still Bad

[sake]

I wonder if it'd be possible to create a game that actually runs at the balance that pathfinder DM's fudge their games into.

Delete the tier 1 and 5 classes, and tell the guy playing the sorcerer that he's not allowed to use any computer programs to completely preplan out his spells known/trades from lv 1 to 20 in order to not get stuck with deadweight or redunant crap? It's lazy as all fuck, but it's quick and easy to explain to the group,, compared to the massive list of house rules needed to do it properly.

[Kaelik]

I wonder if it'd be possible to create a game that actually runs at the balance that pathfinder DM's fudge their games into.

Delete the tier 1 and 5 classes, and tell the guy playing the sorcerer that he's not allowed to use any computer programs to completely preplan out his spells known/trades from lv 1 to 20 in order to not get stuck with deadweight or redunant crap? It's lazy as all fuck, but it's quick and easy to explain to the group,, compared to the massive list of house rules needed to do it properly.

Except of course that there is no reason in shut fuck hellscape that Sorcerer would even need to trade out a spell even once to be way the fuck more powerful than Pathfinder DMs fudge their games into.

I mean, why on Earth are we pretending that Sorcerers casting Web at level 4, or Planar Binding at 12 is somehow less problematic than Wizards who cast Web at level 4, and Planar Binding at level 12?

[Juton]

I wonder if it'd be possible to create a game that actually runs at the balance that pathfinder DM's fudge their games into.

Sad to say, but most Pathfinder games probably run fairly balanced. We all know that preparing nothing but fireballs is a waste of a Wizard's time, some pathfinder players play casters worse than that.

[PhoneLobster]

I dispute that "fudging" a massive clutter of unbalanced crap even produces a single definitive "balance point" in the first place.

So you can't write a rules set that supports "the balance" that pathfinder GMs fudge in practice, because in practice the results of their fudging are not balanced.

Fudging at best gives you some minimal fixes to specific issues. In actual practice especially with vast and varied rules sets like pathfinder what it gives you is ineffective fingers plugging a minority of leaks in a dyke wall that is about to simply be flooded over the top of anyway.

People like to talk up the amazing adaptive powers of the human GM. But in actual practice the fact is that GMs are merely human and their fudging is an ineffective and weak fall back at best and it doesn't balance significant mechanical issues at all. GM fudging might result in preventing Jim the Competent Wizard from pulling a single notable huge "fuck you" on the fighter with one specific spell once. It will never and in practice doesn't ever prevent Jim The Wizard from being over all better than the fighter and pulling the long drawn out hard coded "fuck you" to the fighter because you can't fudge the entire god damn rules set.

edit: Now if you want to talk about what Pathfinder GMs WANT their balance point to be, or stupidly IMAGINE their balance point to be, that's another issue again.

But I also dispute that even that produces a single describable non-contradictory balance point.

[sake]

I mean, why on Earth are we pretending that Sorcerers casting Web at level 4, or Planar Binding at 12 is somehow less problematic than Wizards who cast Web at level 4, and Planar Binding at level 12?

Because it really is less problematic. With a sorcerer you at least know he's always going to have Web and Planar Binding and know exactly how many times he could cast them, and can plan accordingly. While a Wizard, unless you were deliberately limiting the fuck out of their access to new scrolls and enemy spell books (and making yourself look like an asshole DM in the process) is going to be a brand new x factor every single extended rest and you'll never know just how he's going to break everything today.

[Kaelik]

Congratulations, you know how many times the Sorcerer is going to Planar Bind an efferti to wish for more wishes.

The answer is more than once, your game just ceased to exist.

The fact that the Sorcerer Casts Web at level 4, and the Wizard could be casting Web or Glitterdust or Ray of Stupidity makes the Sorcerer slightly worse. But sure as fuck not significantly worse. Sure as fuck not enough worse that banning the Wizard solves even a single thing.

And the fact that you know how many times the Sorcerer is going to cast Polymorph or Planar Binding is less than useless, because those things are already an infinite number of broken things in themselves.

[Krusk]

I've played with a few PF dms, and most of them do stuff like ban monks and keep a close eye on paladins because of how overpowered they are.

You could run a game based on their ideal level if the party was something like
- Paladin - Never mounted, and be wary of him.
- Sword and Board fighter 20. Do not take power attack.
- Wizard. only prep evocation. Don't take good feats. Don't bother to learn new spells, or take a familiar. You probably cast magic missile every fight until you learn fireball. Then just metamagic those two
- Cleric - Prep healing spells. Maybe a few buffs. Take healing feats.
- Rogue - Do not TWF, and definatley don't throw anything. Single dagger only.
you could potentially add in a bow ranger, but you would have to have a low strength score and no archery feats aside from the free ones.

You'd also have to nerf monster tactics to nothing more than "Thing with big hit points jumps out and runs at you". Occasionally add in archer kobolds, or sorcerers who magic missile you all combat.

I ran a game for some of them once where flying invis sorcerers spamming orb of cold were a TPK at IIRC level 15. This was an intro encounter so I could judge tactics they would use in the game and so they could get a feel for their characters.

[Juton]

You could run a game based on their ideal level if the party was something like
- Paladin - Never mounted, and be wary of him.
- Sword and Board fighter 20. Do not take power attack.
- Wizard. only prep evocation. Don't take good feats. Don't bother to learn new spells, or take a familiar. You probably cast magic missile every fight until you learn fireball. Then just metamagic those two
- Cleric - Prep healing spells. Maybe a few buffs. Take healing feats.
- Rogue - Do not TWF, and definatley don't throw anything. Single dagger only.
you could potentially add in a bow ranger, but you would have to have a low strength score and no archery feats aside from the free ones.

I know you're being sarcastic, but this comes close to describing most PF/3.5 parties I've played with. If your players are bringing you that type of shit are you really going to worry about balance?

[virgil]

That eerily describes the PF group I ran for Council of Thieves. The rogue wasn't single dagger but falchion. The wizard stuck to being a magic missile specialist all the way through without bothering with fireball; I had let him take the Magic Missiler PrC from one of the older Dragon magazines. The Sword & Board Fighter was a Barbarian who never used PA. I later got a monk who refused to accept all manner of buffs I offered him.

At level 5, the six of them, almost had a TPK from a CR 5 water elemental. They also barely escaped with their lives (except for the paladin, who was barely able to kill himself in time) against a pair of shadows.

[Lago PARANOIA]

If you absolutely must play something cheesy, remember that you'll get more away with it if you make everyone else (including yourself, optionally) awesome.

That doesn't mean doing stupid things like healing in combat. Just reserve most of your spells as party buffs and keep a few blasters/backup weapons for yourself.

[Krusk]

I know you're being sarcastic, but this comes close to describing most PF/3.5 parties I've played with. If your players are bringing you that type of shit are you really going to worry about balance?

I was totally serious basing that off many 3.5 groups I have run/played in... thats how I came up with the fine tuning portions.

Yes, if they bring this level of play you need to worry about balance. Much more so than if they bring optimized builds. An optimized build you can just throw problems and expect they find some solution even if its too strong on occasion. With these builds you have no idea what, if anything, they can beat. So you need to pay close attention to balancing the foes exactly at a level where they can still possible win. Without just letting the players steamrole. The normal indicators (level, ECL, and CR) don't help.

[Username17]

My experience with Pathfinder was that I played a converted Dread Necromancer and spent most of my time sand bagging. The monk in the party got a massively "overpowered" set of magic gloves that acted like giant magic weapons and still let her do unarmed damage and also a special amulet that allowed her to turn into a tiger. The Ranger/Rogue/Fighter polyclass ran around with an ice bow and did moderate damage, and the Dwarf Cleric couldn't figure out his spell list and mostly ended up as a post-battle healbot who nevertheless did about as much in melee as the monk.

Every so often we would run into something stupidly out of the range of things the front liner characters could handle, and they absolutely refused to do anything other than stay in melee anyhow. So as Necromancer I would sometimes have to "bring the power" to bail them out.

-Username17

[Seerow]

Every so often we would run into something stupidly out of the range of things the front liner characters could handle, and they absolutely refused to do anything other than stay in melee anyhow. So as Necromancer I would sometimes have to "bring the power" to bail them out.

This sounds suspiciously like a euphanism for raising your buddies as undead after they get turned into paste.

[Maxus]

My experience with Pathfinder was that I played a converted Dread Necromancer and spent most of my time sand bagging. The monk in the party got a massively "overpowered" set of magic gloves that acted like giant magic weapons and still let her do unarmed damage and also a special amulet that allowed her to turn into a tiger.

-Username17

What IS it with the monks and amulets that turn them into tigers? I mean, I remember that same effect being mentioned years. Da'Vane, wasn't it? She had a monk with the amulet?

One of these days I'll have to do a boxing match with a monk and a fighter. Or a monk and a barbarian.

And we can see what decent HP, Full BAB, and prioritized Str is worth.

[Koumei]

What IS it with the monks and amulets that turn them into tigers?

I'm pretty sure a few other people here have reported cases of monks with tiger amulets. Da'Vane was the memorable one - due to arguing that the Dire Tiger amulet was a normal thing and that's why Monks are balanced.

I'm wondering if there's some "martial artists turn into tigers" trope in movies or something?

[Username17]

Those two items: the amulet of Tiger Form (or other cat form) and the gloves of counting as the better or unarmed and beweaponed are so common as spot fixes for monk characters that I can only assume they are written in the Akashic Record. I have seen more amulets of the Monk getting to turn into a fucking tiger so s/he stops sucking so badly than I have seen magic lances.

Despite the fact that the amulet and the glove are both "illegal", they appear to be near universal in practice for DMs who can't quite muster the balls to tell the resident monk player to play something else.

-Username17

[Blicero]

I remember that in RA Salvatore's Demon Wars trilogy, one of the main badguys was basically a D&D monk. What made him so hardcore was that he had a magic gem that let him turn into...a giant tiger. Furrealzies.


(I doubt that that would be enough to make monk players worldwide want to turn into tigers, though. So this is probably more of an additional symptom of the overall syndrome rather than the cause itself.)

[Maxus]

I remember that in RA Salvatore's Demon Wars trilogy, one of the main badguys was basically a D&D monk. What made him so hardcore was that he had a magic gem that let him turn into...a giant tiger. Furrealzies.

heh. De'Unnero. Good times. Eventually he didn't need the gemstone to do it.

Oh, yeah. The tiger and his Fast Healing/Regen thing he got after a while.

Yes, that's totally how you make a non-magic-using fist-fighting monk viable in a world with swords and armor. Let him grow claws and rip faces off, and heal constantly.

Side note, I was thinking the other day a fast-healing effect on 24/7 would probably give an extended lifespan. Or cancer, one.

[Koumei]

Come to think of it, all of the cats in Disgaea* are basically Monks. And because of reincarnation, who is to say that it's a case of cats naturally deciding to undergo monk training instead of monks reincarnating as cats?

And yeah, there are actually very few weapons I've even seen your bog-standard +1 variety of. Not a single magic Dire Flail! Yet all these amulets of tigerness (and for Barbarians, some kind of "I radiate an AMF that doesn't affect any of my gear" ring or amulet).

*And in Phantom Brave, though in Makai Kingdom they're generally Samurai instead.

[LeadPal]

That eerily describes the PF group I ran for Council of Thieves. The rogue wasn't single dagger but falchion. The wizard stuck to being a magic missile specialist all the way through without bothering with fireball; I had let him take the Magic Missiler PrC from one of the older Dragon magazines. The Sword & Board Fighter was a Barbarian who never used PA. I later got a monk who refused to accept all manner of buffs I offered him.

At level 5, the six of them, almost had a TPK from a CR 5 water elemental. They also barely escaped with their lives (except for the paladin, who was barely able to kill himself in time) against a pair of shadows.

Ugh. I know the encounter you're talking about, and the group I was in did just as badly. We had a bard/rogue, a ranger/cleric, a TWF fighter/rogue, a healbot cleric, and my illusion-focused sorcerer (beguiler was not allowed, sadly). So basically, too many goddamn rogues, and an enemy immune to sneak attack. The first three PCs spent about five rounds refusing to disengage, despite that their flailing was doing shit for damage. I actually can't think of many encounters past Book One that didn't chew us up, not just because our party lineup averaged around 60% crappy builds at any given moment, but due to spectacular tactical incompetence.

Sidenote: we had a monk for most of our run, and he did get special monk-only bracers, but they were only strength +4, so he was still useless. At level 12 the GM let him adventure with a CR 6 outsider. A guardianal, I believe. This made him useless twice a round--so, twice as effective as our inquisitor/ranger (different guy from the ranger/cleric).

[ModelCitizen]

Most of my 3.5 groups have been full of the same family of terrible builds: Rogue or Ranger multiclassed about 1:2 with a medium BAB caster. I actually play a lot of them myself if I'm playing with friends, even though I know these builds pretty much categorically suck.

I think there's three things to take away from this:

• About half the 3e fanbase want to be gishy everyman swashbucklers.
• They don't want to play single-class Bards or Inquisitors or any other such thing. There are plenty of single-class gishy skillmonkeys and people still multiclass them with Rogue or Ranger. They actually want to be multiclass Frankensteins so they don't feel like they're being shoehorned into a class archetype.
• Despite wanting to do a lot of fairly complex character building stuff, they have no idea how to make the result any good and they don't care. They want complexity so they can make their character a unique snowflake, not to reward them for system mastery.

If that's what people want then that's what D&D should be, but consciously writing that game sounds like it would require deliberately terrible design practices.

[souran]

I think the other thing that isn't being explained is that the divide between people who want to play archtypes and the people who want to play characters who are impossible to catagorize is about a 60/40 split.

Most of the games I have seen tend to have a single classed wizard/sorcer/druid and a single classed or at best appropriatly prestige classed ranger/paladin/barbarian/knight (at least late n the edition).


There are lots of people who play pretty un-optimized games. My normal game was pretty tame in terms of optimization. Here is the party my last year or so of 3.x D&D had and their level of optimization.

Warblade - only optimized to the level of using a dumpstat, utilized a sword that had a bunch of extra d6s to damage. Did figure out that the armor of fortifcation was mandatory after about level 10.

Druid - took and 18 wisdom and played an elf race with a wisdom bonus. Otherwise the druid just took any feat that would enhance his shapeshifting and the feat that lets you cast while shapeshifted. Spend the game as a either a housecat, a raven, or when really called upon to fight a velociraptor.

Wizard/Archmage - played a halfling/kinder. Used every scrap of money she ever found to keep upgrading her headband of intellect. Spent whatever was left on a ring of wizardry and then on one of the late-edition staffs that let you swap out prepared spells for ones on the staffs list.

Cleric - Eleven cleric who was an archer (not cleric archer build) who spent feats on getting the various feats to make shooting a bow helpful but spent 80-90% of the time healing/buffing the rest of the party. Started with an 20 dex and a 16 wisdom.

Fifth player who changed his character eveyr couple of weeks. He played a beguiler/rogue. He played a mystic theurge, he played a ranger/rogue. He played a barbarian/cleric. No character was more optimized than what a first pass by a person who understood the mechanics of the game would do.


This group was not particularly optimized. However, even this level of optimzation will break 3.x to tiny bits. The age of worms adventure path was pretty much a cakewalk for that party.

[hogarth]

I think the other thing that isn't being explained is that the divide between people who want to play archtypes and the people who want to play characters who are impossible to catagorize is about a 60/40 split.

Which of the characters you described are supposed to be the "impossible to categorize" ones? Or am I misunderstanding you?

[souran]

I think the other thing that isn't being explained is that the divide between people who want to play archtypes and the people who want to play characters who are impossible to catagorize is about a 60/40 split.

Which of the characters you described are supposed to be the "impossible to categorize" ones? Or am I misunderstanding you?

No, my common group is actually really bland and pretty much everybody could be categorized (except hte player who liked to change of up character all the time).




Games that I have run at conventions or for D&D gamesday always seemed to have copositions like

Wizard
Druid
Paladin
Fighter/Ranger/Wizard
Mage/Barbarian/Bard

With about 60% of the players playing basialy iconics and the lats 40% playing a collection of abilties without a single level appropriate ability to be found on their character sheet.

My point was actually that compared to ModelCitizens view that people want to play everyman swashbuckers and unique snowflakes most people want to play a fairly straightforward class that does its bit for the team without to much stepping on other peoples toes as long as it does its thing effectively enough to not feel carried.

Then about 40% of the people want to play with lego-brick levels and get to have 900 options written on their character sheet even if none of them are strong enough to be useful. They really don't care if they piss somebody off by stealing the spotlight or even if they piss hte rest of the players off by trying to steal the spotlight and then failing so hard that the whole party gets punished.

Further, this applies to optimization as much as pure class selection as well.

Just as most of the party can play Iconic Archtypes, if they play those iconic archtypes with a level of optimization at the level of "I will do things that are are clearly good for my class/archtype without stressing the rules as written in any way" and a few of the others are just a smidge above "I will try and not be actively stupid" or "I like to role play not roll play!" you can get results that are even weirer than the people who like lego brick levels.

[ModelCitizen]

My point was actually that compared to ModelCitizens view that people want to play everyman swashbuckers and unique snowflakes most people want to play a fairly straightforward class that does its bit for the team without to much stepping on other peoples toes as long as it does its thing effectively enough to not feel carried.

Then about 40% of the people want to play with lego-brick levels and get to have 900 options written on their character sheet even if none of them are strong enough to be useful. They really don't care if they piss somebody off by stealing the spotlight or even if they piss hte rest of the players off by trying to steal the spotlight and then failing so hard that the whole party gets punished.

I did say "about half." Your 40% is more or less the same thing I said, except that you think those 40% are assholes. It sounds like you ran a lot of modules so from your perspective I can see that.