Pathfinder Is Still Bad

[Lago PARANOIA]

On that they get SM 4 as a 3rd level spell, as well as Haste/slow as 2nd.
Worship Asmodeus and you can summon 1d4+1 Hell hounds*. Not to mention they spell-like summoning ability.

They get a magical ball of force reducing all damage as a 2nd level spell (coverts 5 lethal you take from any source to nonlethal) dur 1hr/lv.
And +2 Armor bonus, but mage armor provides 4 so the armor bonus uis only there is someone dispel Mage armor.

You are aware that almost all of that is inferior to a generic Asmodeus cleric, right?

Hell, since you brought up Asmodeus, Asmodeus grants a spell line that lets you transfer some of your spells to a willing recipient. And we're not talking Imbue with Spell Ability crap, either. And if you don't want to worship Asmodeus specifically there are ways to plunder that spell regardless.

Wizards and clerics get the damage reduction spell earlier and at a higher value -- in that it's actual damage resistance except for bludgeoning, not lethal to nonlethal.

The only real advantage summoners get is access to haste at character level 4. That's actually very, very good. Of course this also enables people to buy a haste wand for 2250 gp, so, c'est la vie.

[Dean]

Ummmm Yes Same Game is a totally viable standard to judge class viability by. What the fuck are you talking about? What are you even using then? There isn't any other standard we've made. Do you have some sort of arbitrary personal goal a class has to meet? If so, tell us, and use small words so our tiny minds can conceive of it. The Summoner gets powerful level appropriate spells at level appropriate times, it beats level appropriate threats, and it is fun and entertaining to play. I don't know another standard that makes sense.

Follow me here Lago cause I think it's noteworthy; At this point you're using the same line of reasoning that the horrible "Fighters Can't Have Nice Things" crowd is, just inverted. They call basically everything overpowered and you are calling basically everything underpowered. The fact is that powers and abilities all exist on a spectrum and you have both simply chosen an arbitrary slice of that spectrum as "Good" and the rest of it as "Bad". Which is the right level of power? Invisibility or Gust of Wind are the same level spell. Evards Black Tentacles or Rainbow Pattern, which one is right? Force Cage or Phase Door. Shock Trooper or fucking Mobility. Some things suck and some things rock and people just pick a little slice of that spectrum and say "That's right everything else is wrong" and that isn't constructive. This is why Same Game is good. It shows you level appropriate challenges that the Dungeon Masters guide tells the DM to make the players play against and if you can beat them you're good and if you can't you suck. Level appropriate challenges are the bar for characters of those level to pass or fail at. That is our standard, that is our measure.

[virgil]

Yeah, declaring something that succeeds the SGT as useless because it doesn't overpower it like the wizard/cleric is a terrible stance to take.

One idea with the summoner class, now that I think about it, is that it might actually be worth a 1-level dip for any of the casters if you use the synthesist archetype. I'm not sure whether the character can use his own BaB in favor of the eidolon's though, which might influence things.

One question I certainly have is whether they 'fixed' that firearm feature, where because it was a touch attack it got to ignore DR. I believe in either case, they should likely make a viable weapon for rogues to make up for the loss of their flasks.

Here's a question: can you enchant flasks as thrown weapons or ammunition?

[Koumei]

It shows you level appropriate challenges that the Dungeon Masters guide tells the DM to make the players play against and if you can beat them you're good and if you can't you suck. Level appropriate challenges are the bar for characters of those level to pass or fail at. That is our standard, that is our measure.

Actually it isn't quite what you say it is: the SGT presents a selection of things you very well might face, according to what the DMG/MM say a party should face. If a basic character of class X appears to more-or-less have a 50-50 chance of beating the challenges (even if "Yeah they'll lose against the mind flayers, but they'll beat the undead army in their sleep" means it isn't 50-50 for every individual task), then they are pretty much balanced.

Now, a specific character you make, with all the ideal feats and everything, yes that should have decent chances of winning each of those challenges, and failing at that means the party is better off with someone else (given they have to share treasure with you). So when making a character you should look at the SGT and go "Okay, am I generally pretty good here and able to pull my weight?"

But just when looking at the value of a class, if it works out as "This will beat all of the challenges", then it's too good.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Yeah, declaring something that succeeds the SGT as useless because it doesn't overpower it like the wizard/cleric is a terrible stance to take.

It shows you level appropriate challenges that the Dungeon Masters guide tells the DM to make the players play against and if you can beat them you're good and if you can't you suck. Level appropriate challenges are the bar for characters of those level to pass or fail at. That is our standard, that is our measure.

And I'm saying that attitude wrecks class balance and worsens the game in the long run. Not only individual DMs but game designers can and do change the difficulty setting of the game. 4E D&D has had no less than FIVE major across-the-board difficulty tweaks (the stupid monster errata, Essentials' change to the wealth accumulation/magic item system, the release of the Rules Compendium, the first set of errata, and the Monster Manual II) in its four years. 3E D&D has had about as many.

If the classes are all relatively equal to each other, then tweaking the difficulty setting does not create a singular bad or 'good' class. If they aren't equal, then you'll have characters that suddenly fall above or below the baseline when the game undergoes a major change. Since 'class balance' is a great selling point, that encourages game designers to keep tweaking the difficulty lower and lower until everyone passes.

That shit is exactly what makes 4E combat so deterministic and boring once you get out of the low levels. And considering that Pathfinder has already undergone two major difficulty tweaks (quietly abandoning backwards compatibility and the release of Ultimate Magic/Feats) there's absolutely no reason why anyone should praise the creation of a 'not top tier, but good enough' class unless they're pandering to a motivation not related to personal gameplay. If you want to know why D&D games devolve into participation trophy hugbox fests, classes like the Warblade and the Summoner and the 4E barbarian are exactly why.

[virgil]

"Blah, blah, blah...and therefore because the summoner doesn't win ALL of the combats like the wizard or cleric, it's shit on shit and shouldn't be played."

How is making everything on par with the highest end stuff ANY different in terms of making combat deterministic and hug boxy? This sounds like a more philosophical version of Roy's rants.

[Koumei]

Okay Lago, here: nearly all classes ever suck and are bad and not fun, and everyone should just play a Wizard for ever, or maybe a Cleric (but only if they pick the right domains and by (their) god you'll make sure they do) or Druid (but only if they abuse Wildshape and Greenbound Summoning and crap). Nothing else. Ever.

You can even feel free to copy that, and paste it any time any new class for any 3E-ish game is mentioned. And everyone else can just nod, smile and ignore you.

[Lago PARANOIA]

"Blah, blah, blah...and therefore because the summoner doesn't win ALL of the combats like the wizard or cleric, it's shit on shit and shouldn't be played."

I don't mean that the summoner shouldn't be played. I'm saying that it shouldn't be praised. What's done is done. The summoner can't be readily retconned out of existence, but we can attempt to stop more classes like it from being made.

How is making everything on par with the highest end stuff ANY different in terms of making combat deterministic and hug boxy?

Because when you peg the difficulty meter to the lowest performer but don't nerf the top performers, it reveals the strings of the game and causes the experience to devolve into a participation trophy. Adding a 4E ranger to a shaman/O-Assassin/Paladin/invoker party or a 4E monk to a ranger/warlord/warlock/fighter party won't change the difficulty much in either way but it still reveals the supposed class balance to be a pile of donkey dicks. And that harms the game, even (especially) a supposedly cooperative one.

Now because the current difficulty setting of the game right now has way too many classes that still can't pass the SGT, classes like the Summoner and Warblade are relatively better for the game than the Fighter 2.0 or a Monk 2.0. But that's still just a degree of shittiness. If you're given the option of having a soda pop with your mandatory shit salad then go for it, but don't pretend that you got a good deal. All that does is encourage people to keep serving shit salads with a can of soda pop.

[virgil]

"Blah, blah, blah...and therefore because the summoner doesn't win ALL of the combats like the wizard or cleric, it's shit on shit and shouldn't be played."

I don't mean that the summoner shouldn't be played. I'm saying that it shouldn't be praised. What's done is done. The summoner can't be readily retconned out of existence, but we can attempt to stop more classes like it from being made.

"Blah, blah, blah...therefore because the summoner doesn't win ALL of the combats like the wizard or cleric, it's shit on shit and shouldn't exist." Better? If the reason is because the benchmark is surpassed by the cleric/wizard, then you've gone the route of agreeing with Roy. If the reason is because there exist things that fail the benchmark, then essentially all RPGs die at the core book because supplements won't retcon the suboptimal choices?

[RobbyPants]

And I'm saying that attitude wrecks class balance and worsens the game in the long run.

Okay, now that much, I can get on board with. You're looking to solve a broader problem, and that makes sense.

[Slade]

One question I certainly have is whether they 'fixed' that firearm feature, where because it was a touch attack it got to ignore DR. I believe in either case, they should likely make a viable weapon for rogues to make up for the loss of their flasks.

Actually, it isn't a touch Attack, it hits Touch AC. The distinction allows it to be used with Deadly Aim (power attack for ranged weapons).

And yes, a Firearm Rogue is a decent idea, but how are you getting the enemy to lose Dex to AC? Can't grease, no blink... both nerfed.

Greater Invis works, but expensive. If you were a Ninja I'd suggest the swift Invis Ki ability. But that only grants 1 attack till level 11 Ninja when it turns into Greater Invis.

[Lago PARANOIA]

"Blah, blah, blah...therefore because the summoner doesn't win ALL of the combats like the wizard or cleric, it's shit on shit and shouldn't exist." Better?

Why did you add that 'win ALL of the combats' crap? That's totally unnecessary to my analysis. It doesn't matter whether the new tests/difficulty level had commoners passing them or Batman wizards failing them. Since difficulty can and does change with the evolution of the game, the important benchmark is how the class performs to existing classes.

If you forbid characters from performing or comparing against other characters and only allow them to fight straw men (which is what the SGT is) then you're encouraging participation trophies. Full stop.

[sabs]

Because he's one of the D&D Idiots who think that as long as a class is at least as good as a Fighter, then it's perfectly fine class. Anything better than a fighter is OP. He's one of the assholes who have made it so that D&D will always break down at 6th level, and why the mundane characters have to be mundane. And he can't understand that the problem isn't that summoner's don't' win all the combats. It's that any combat sufficiently difficult to stress a Wizard/Cleric/Druid would obliterate all the other classes without a sweat.

[virgil]

I added the "win all the combat" part because when the benchmark is something as vague and mobile as "the most powerful class choice", then you have guaranteed power creep much faster than normal.

The SGT is uses the actual encounters expected in a campaign as a benchmark, and is the basis of the entire CR system. Once you start ignoring that, which you've essentially declared, then return to the 2E days where you can't predict whether you've thrown something too big for them to chew and get even more random deaths.

If you forbid characters from being less than overpowered compared to what you actually fight in a game, then you're encouraging participation trophies. Full stop.

[erik]

If you forbid characters from performing or comparing against other characters and only allow them to fight straw men (which is what the SGT is) then you're encouraging participation trophies. Full stop.

Wat? Level appropriate challenges are straw men? How stupid is that?

Comparing to other classes is the more useless metric since it still doesn't demonstrate if they can handle their level appropriate challenges.

SGT is also handy because you can actually figure out just how over or underpowered something is by finding what level appropriate challenges are acceptable for a given class level.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Wat? Level appropriate challenges are straw men?

Because a 'level appropriate challenge' for D&D can and does change over the course of the game. If you didn't realize this from the change of 3.0E->3.5E, then the various changes that 4E D&D did should have shown the man behind the curtain.

Level appropriate challenges, while still important, are so mutable both within individual tables and the evolution of the metagame as a whole that they cannot function as the gold standard for determining 'is this class shit or not'. What's more important is how the class stacks up to every other class.

[virgil]

Because he's one of the D&D Idiots who think that as long as a class is at least as good as a Fighter, then it's perfectly fine class. Anything better than a fighter is OP. He's one of the assholes who have made it so that D&D will always break down at 6th level, and why the mundane characters have to be mundane. And he can't understand that the problem isn't that summoner's don't' win all the combats. It's that any combat sufficiently difficult to stress a Wizard/Cleric/Druid would obliterate all the other classes without a sweat.

With the greatest love, fvck you. I NEVER said the Fighter was fine, and am one of the first to deride it as shitty as your mom. I do not compare classes to the Fighter, or any other class. My judgement is whether it actually loses roughly half of any equal level challenge as seen in actual gameplay; the freakin' definition of the Same Game Test.

If you actually paid attention to the SGT's results, then your brain would fvcking implode because it deduces that noncasters largely break down past level 7, and the casters start becoming either slightly OP or wildly OP in the mid-teens.

Bah, I'm a stereotypical Dennite today.

[John Magnum]

Is it just me, or is "as seen in actual gameplay" a ridiculously nebulous qualifier?

[virgil]

Level appropriate challenges, while still important, are so mutable both within individual tables and the evolution of the metagame as a whole that they cannot function as the gold standard for determining 'is this class shit or not'. What's more important is how the class stacks up to every other class.

Hear that, fellow readers and sufferers of synesthesia? Challenge Rating is dead. It can't be used judge whether your character can take it on, because they're not balanced in regards to it. We might as well use Rifts encounter design, open the book and throw whatever looks like a challenge, and be just as surprised as the players when that TPK hits them.

Is it just me, or is "as seen in actual gameplay" a ridiculously nebulous qualifier?

I mean that is uses challenges that are to be thrown against a player, like monsters and traps, rather than just a bunch of PC duels.

[Parthenon]

What's more important is how the class stacks up to every other class.

What, so we're back to one-on-one arena battles to see whether a class is competent or not?

And really, you're contradicting yourself- first you say that the important thing about the Summoner class is how it compares to the Wizard, Cleric and Druid, and now you're saying that the important thing is how it compares to every class.

Your basic argument is that the metagame changes, which means the challenges faced changes, which means the Same Game test is worthless. I don't follow the logic of the last part. If thats the case, then the answer isn't to give up on the Same Game test; the answer is to change the challenges in the Same Game test.

If a reasonable encounter at the beginning of an edition of an RPG which is tested in the Same Game test for a particular level is fighting a minotaur while trying to escape a labyrinth and two years later a reasonable encounter is waking up to a pair of succubi trying to seduce you and fuck you to death then you simply replace the first encounter with the second. As time goes on, change the Same Game test to remove the encounters which are no longer standard for that level and replace them with ones that are. Then, quickly check classes against the new version of the Same Game test to see how the classes currently balance against what the game expects.

[erik]

Metagame essentially only shifts with the inclusion of new material. So perform a SGT under the material you expect to use and voila, it does not shift. 4e might have changed material constantly, but if you adopted every change then that's yer own damn fault. I wouldn't play under such irritating conditions. Lock your rules down once play begins I'd say.

When performing the SGT it is generally safe to assume that things are not significantly in flux, or you can specifically compare something by running 2 SGT's like "Pelor Cleric" and "Pelor Cleric with Nightstick abuse"

If you add significant amounts of material during a campaign then yes, that will tweak things. But if you want to know how you'll be affecting things then the only way to really measurably tell is by seeing how new material would change someone's ability to handle level appropriate encounters.

How do you compare how classes stack up to other classes if not by seeing how they each deal with the same challenges?

Now if you want to make complaints about SGT, you could say it takes too long to compare, and it doesn't take into account synergy/interplay between multiple characters.

But suggesting that you just compare characters really is no help since often it is apples and oranges.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Hear that, fellow readers and sufferers of synesthesia? Challenge Rating is dead. It can't be used judge whether your character can take it on, because they're not balanced in regards to it.

What part of 'while still important, are so mutable both within individual tables and the evolution of the metagame as a whole that they cannot function as the gold standard for determining 'is this class shit or not' is confusing you?

What, so we're back to one-on-one arena battles to see whether a class is competent or not?

Isn't that what the SGT is supposed to do already?

More seriously, not necessarily. I'm just saying that the SGT doesn't really measure or at least place a value judgment on how hardcore a class passes or fails a particular challenge. Not to mention that barely passing 100% of the challenges is viewed as 'better' than completely obliterating all but one and then barely failing the last one.

That's fine and all, but that's only a piece of the puzzle for class balance. Ideally what people should be doing is comparing the after-action reports and ranking the classes by performance. Doing that is more fair and consistent than just awarding a PASS/FAIL sticker because you can crank up or down the difficulty without changing the relative rankings.

And really, you're contradicting yourself- first you say that the important thing about the Summoner class is how it compares to the Wizard, Cleric and Druid, and now you're saying that the important thing is how it compares to every class.

Uh, yes. For example, it's totally possible for the Cleric/Wizard/etc. to get nerfed to bard level and for the summoner to suddenly be the King of Classes. Depending on how much the primary casters got nerfed the summoner can even be freakishly overpowered once the smoke clears and become a shit class for another reason.

Now, that's not likely to happen because of legacy issues and the fact that nerfing overpowered options is more unpopular than boosting feasible options. So by and large 'class balance' means 'functioning at wizard/cleric/etc. level'.

I hope that clears the apparent contradiction up.

Your basic argument is that the metagame changes, which means the challenges faced changes, which means the Same Game test is worthless. I don't follow the logic of the last part.

Half-right is not the same thing as worthless, unless something 'totally right' is sitting nearby.

[Juton]

I would posit that a well constructed Wizard is OP. As in it is not appropriate for the majority of campaigns because it trivializes everything. I think at some level developers realize this and stop making classes with a Wizard's power level. This is what happened in 3.5, the only other base class (not build) out of dozens published that approached a Wizard's power in high levels was the Archivist but even that relied on a really lenient DM.

EDIT: So Wizards are a bad metric of balance. Because they aren't balanced. While destroying challenges is fun and all, it should be possible for a DM to challenge a Wizard without vapourizing a monk. Past level 12 that is not possible at all without the DM being a serious douche.

[virgil]

What part of 'while still important, are so mutable both within individual tables and the evolution of the metagame as a whole that they cannot function as the gold standard for determining 'is this class shit or not' is confusing you?

The fact that CRs are not as mutable as classes and declaring something that solidly meets the SGT through its life as a failure shows a greater importance being placed on the mutable goalpost of "the most powerful".

That's fine and all, but that's only a piece of the puzzle for class balance. Ideally what people should be doing is comparing the after-action reports and ranking the classes by performance. Doing that is more fair and consistent than just awarding a PASS/FAIL sticker because you can crank up or down the difficulty without changing the relative rankings.

The SGT gives a % success rate, which is already fairly granular. I know in many of the more thorough SG tests I've seen/performed, a bare failure doesn't count as much as being pwned. In my testing of the PF beta classes, I have each segment a score of -3 to +3 rather than WIN/LOSE. In practice, it hasn't shown too much difference to do it this way, since the circumstance where this matters is apparently fairly rare.

Now, that's not likely to happen because of legacy issues and the fact that nerfing overpowered options is more unpopular than boosting feasible options. So by and large 'class balance' means 'functioning at wizard/cleric/etc. level'.

Of PF casters, I've only tested the wizard, and that class ended up on the cusp between OP and balanced at high levels; but was solidly on par below that. Class balance only means it's functioning at wizard level because the wizard happens to meet the SGT.

My disagreement is the philosophy behind all of this rather than specific case of the summoner's balance. Personally, I'd like to test the Summoner some time to see where it actually falls; rather than a vague declaration by looking at someone's character sheet.

Half-right is not the same thing as worthless, unless something 'totally right' is sitting nearby.

I still don't see how this is truly different than Roy's logic.

[ishy]

So Lago I know that you're a 4urry, but bear with me for a second.
You're advocating that if pathfinder would print a class with:
full bab + all good saves + full divine & arcane casting + domains + animal companion + many other class features.
That would mean that clerics, druids , and wizard are now underpowered, not that that class would be too strong?