Pathfinder is still bad, summary

[violence in the media]

I don't resent the things they changed so much as the things they didn't fix. Such as:

Monks
High level divinations
High level play in general
Caster/Non-Caster disparity
Spontaneous Casters getting slower progression

Two of those things are hard to fix. Not impossible, and it's not like there was less than a dozen potential fixes on the web as 3.5 was winding down. The other three I take as a direct 'Fuck You' to the player base.

Do these things not get fixed because there are so many fixes on the web? Like designers either figure that people can grab a web fix for whatever they're unhappy about, or are they afraid to adopt a fix officially because of some misguided belief of owing the author of the fix all the monies or some shit?

[sabs]

Well, but the Ninja Class in pathfinder kind of sucks.
It gives up rogue survivability and utility in order to get some extra + to damage options, and some not very good ki maneuvers.

Why would anyone look at Ninja and think it was good.

[Ted the Flayer]

Do these things not get fixed because there are so many fixes on the web?

That would be a bad decision in my opinion. If that was the case, then why would I pay them for something I can pull off the internet for free? I buy these books on the assumption that I'm paying someone else to do a better job than I could myself. Otherwise I'd just damn well do that.

Then again, people have thought much stupider things, so you may be on to something here...

[Username17]

Do these things not get fixed because there are so many fixes on the web? Like designers either figure that people can grab a web fix for whatever they're unhappy about, or are they afraid to adopt a fix officially because of some misguided belief of owing the author of the fix all the monies or some shit?

They don't get fixed because Jason has no idea what he's doing and is making changes at random. Monks aren't "left alone", they are changed massively, they just aren't fixed.

A Monk:

• Has had their skill list changed. Not just in things that have been changed globally (like Tumble -> Acrobatics), but in puzzling other ways such as having their Knowledge Arcana taken away and replaced with Knowledge History.
• Had their starting wealth changed from 5d4 to 1d6x10 gp.
• Changed the way their Flurry of Blows work.
• Changed their list of Bonus Feats.
• Changed their progression of Bonus Feats.
• Changed their rate of armor class increase.
• Changed Stunning Fist from a bonus feat to a special class feature that does not work like the feat.
• Created a special rule that affects how Monks interact with special combat maneuvers from 3rd level on.
• Made Ki Strike into a limited use effect rather than always-on. Created a list of other bonuses Ki Strikes can be spent to gain.
• Created a special rule that affects how Monks interact with Jumping from level 5.
• Changed the way Purity of Body interacts with magical diseases.
• Changed the way Wholeness of Body's use limit works.
• Changed the way Abundant Step works, and how its use limit works.
• Changed Quivering Palm's use limit.
• Changed Empty Body to be a completely different ability.
• Changed the Damage Reduction provided by Perfect Self.

This is not a dotted i or a crossed t. This is not a class that was left alone because they didn't care. This is a class that has had more than a dozen changes made to it, ranging from extremely trivial to highly extensive. And the class is still terrible. The Monk class is really awful. It's been really awful for a long time. It was dreadful in 3e, it was dreadful in 3.5. And it's at least as spectacularly useless in Pathfinder.

But it's not because Pathfinder left it alone. It's because after 9 years of people complaining justifiably that Monks were completely incapable of pulling their weight at any level, the Pathfinder authors decided that the way to fix the class was to nerf Abundant Step so that you could no longer take allies with you as passengers. That was apparently higher priority than delivering a Monk who could actually fight level appropriate opponents without getting transformed into a Tiger by custom magic items or getting an artifact level pair of adamantine gloves.

-Username17

[ishy]

Well the real reason why pathfinder didn't fix the monk, was because they didn't think there was anything wrong with it. And Jason Bullmahn even said during alpha that he didn't understand why people thought rogues work in 3.5, while monks with the same BAB progression don't.
And then goes on about how Monks are great at harassing spellcasters. And can't stand up to full Bab melee, which is fine because that is not their 'role'.

tldr: They don't understand the game.

[Juton]

Well the real reason why pathfinder didn't fix the monk, was because they didn't think there was anything wrong with it. And Jason Bullmahn even said during alpha that he didn't understand why people thought rogues work in 3.5, while monks with the same BAB progression don't.
And then goes on about how Monks are great at harassing spellcasters. And can't stand up to full Bab melee, which is fine because that is not their 'role'.

tldr: They don't understand the game.

Over the years I've vacillated between this position and the position that they are cynically just delivering what the player base wants. The player base thinks things are all hunky dory and all the classes are balanced, so why rock the boat?

I think the most telling indicators are the spell progressions of the Summoner and the Oracle. The Summoner has L9 spells squeezed into a L6 progression, that should never have happened. The Oracle should have finally been a L9 spontaneous caster that gets new spell levels at odd levels. I figure they did things like they did so that the classes would look balanced by being similar to core classes without actually being balanced.

For all their faults Paizo does seem to know how to pander to its audience. Although I will admit that sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice though.

[sabs]

Summoner gets Haste at 2nd level spell casting.
Stoneskin at 4th.

It's a great class to dip into brew potions, and craft wands.

[ishy]

Can't a wizard just grab a scroll of 2nd level haste from the summoner, and then learn & cast it as a 2nd level spell too?

@Juton
If you read his post here, from pathfinder alpha, how can you see it as anything other than incompetence?

So, I am thinking a lot about the monk as of late. The monk, as I stated before, fills a different role than a fighter. They hit more like a rogue, with a different sort of damage potential. For some reason, and I am wondering why, there seems to be an opinion that the monk does not work, but the rogue, who is based off the same progression, does. The monk has access to some of the same bonuses as a rogue (to hit at any rate), but the monk has quite a bit more defenses (good saves, some immunities, and, in the right build, a better AC).

So, to help me understand the arguments being thrown about here. I am wondering. Where is the flaw with the monk? And, as a secondary question, why are these not the same problems with the rogue?

I have seen a large number of monks played over the past few years, and every one of them has been pretty solid at their role in the party. They are great at harrassing spellcasters (clerics, bards, wizards, and sorcerers) and other, equally classed, combatants (rogues and other monks). They do not stand up as well in a straight up fight with fighters, barbarians, and paladins. But this limitation is more about their niche than their shortcomings.

Once again, I am trying not to come off antagonistic here, but I am not sure I undersand the beef. Help me see the point.

[hogarth]

If you read his post here, from pathfinder alpha, how can you see it as anything other than incompetence?

I would use the word "ignorance" instead of "incompetence" (although maybe it's incompetent for a gaming company to employ an ignorant head developer). If someone has never played a monk, it's easy to look at the long list of abilities and say "hey, that sounds cool" even though they don't pan out much in practice.

[sabs]

No, a Wizard cannot. Wizards can only learn spells from the Wizard/Sorcerer spell list. Not the Summoner, Bard, or Magus spell list.

It's a weird arbitrary thing.

[Username17]

Can't a wizard just grab a scroll of 2nd level haste from the summoner, and then learn & cast it as a 2nd level spell too?

Literally, yes. That's one of the rules that absolutely no one believes is a rule. Everyone thinks that you can only add spells taken from Wizard scrolls to your spellbook, but it really doesn't say that. It says that you can scribe a spell from any scroll that you have deciphered. And deciphering a scroll is something that happens before you even know what spell list the scroll came from. This exact situation has held since well before Pathfinder came out. If I recall correctly, the same general wording that no one believes is real was in AD&D.

Now in Pathfinder, they partially addressed this issue by adding the additional text:

A wizard can only learn new spells that belong to the wizard spell lists

Now, you're right that this additional text still doesn't specify that the scroll was literally penned by a wizard or even that it appears at the same level as it appears on the wizard list. Just that it is on the wizard spell list at all. But seriously: lots of games wouldn't let you dumpster dive scrolls into your spell book in 3.5, I doubt a lot of Pathfinder DMs are going to go for the open interpretation after the Pathfinder authors very obviously attempted to make it go away.

-Username17

[ModelCitizen]

While I understand that the rules do imply a wizard can pilfer the cleric list and the Trapsmith list and whatever else, that's a pretty big deal and it's never explicitly stated. I've never seen a DM actually go for that interpretation. As far as I can tell the only reason anyone ever even talked about it was to troll charoppers who wouldn't stop fapping to the archivist.

[sake]

wasn't there a feat that lets you learn a spell from another class's spell list as long as it was the same type of magic as you use, and it was two or so spell levels lower than what you could cast? Or was that a psionics only feat.

[ModelCitizen]

Psionics has Wild Talent and Expanded Knowledge for pilfering other class lists. It sounds like you're thinking of Expanded Knowledge.

[Tumbling Down]

All hail the glorious Samsaran master race.

[RadiantPhoenix]

All hail the glorious Samsaran master race.

A summary of my reading of that page:
"Let's see, blahblah, +2 INT, +2 WIS, blahblah (Sp) abilities, blah... ADD SPELLS FROM OTHER CLASSES TO YOUR SPELL LIST!?!?!?"

[Tumbling Down]

A summary of my reading of that page:
"Let's see, blahblah, +2 INT, +2 WIS, blahblah (Sp) abilities, blah... ADD SPELLS FROM OTHER CLASSES TO YOUR SPELL LIST!?!?!?"

Yeah, I WTF'd too. And then I had to go back and check that it really did get +2 int/wis, just to make sure it really was the best caster race ever printed.

[sake]

Aww, Pathfinder... now you're stealing races from 4E? I though you were better than that.

[tussock]

Do these things not get fixed because there are so many fixes on the web?

Things like Fighters don't get fixed because designers actually only work on one thing at a time. The go into their office and have a meeting about Fighters, and then spend a week pouring through topics and old rules and various other half-remembered shit about Fighters, ignoring every comparison to other classes because it's "Fighter week", and they change the Fighter to make it a "better" Fighter.

Where "better" means that it does exactly what the old Fighter does with slightly more bells and whistles and a couple rough edges filed down. When people go on to tell them they didn't fix the Fighter because "Wizards!", they're like, "WTF? I spend a week fixing the Fighter you ungrateful cock-bags, there's only so much you can do with a fucking Fighter!"


The last time anyone even looked at changing the base underlying system for Fighters vs Wizards in an official line we got 4e with it's one-size-fits-all design. 3e did very little to change the math we've had since Greyhawk hit in 1975, they mostly took away the extra attacks and damage all Fighters got from 1985-2000 while giving the monsters way more HP, and we haven't gone back since, because some fucknut in about 1998 decided Fighters need to stop dominating fights.

[Juton]

All hail the glorious Samsaran master race.

A summary of my reading of that page:
"Let's see, blahblah, +2 INT, +2 WIS, blahblah (Sp) abilities, blah... ADD SPELLS FROM OTHER CLASSES TO YOUR SPELL LIST!?!?!?"

That is pretty nice, potentially broken. What is really sweet though is Paragon Surge. A properly built spontaneous caster can use this to get any Wizard spell known for one minute a level.

@ishy

That is a pretty telling quote I have to admit. Even his base hypothesis is wrong, a Monk will hit far less often than a Rogue at higher levels because he is so MAD he gets diddly from his attribute bonuses to hit.

On the other hand the development team (not Bulhman himself) came up with the Paladin re-write which is actually fairly decent. The Ninja looks similarly decent. The new wildshape rules require less book keeping and are more in line powerwise with the other classes than what was going on in 3.5. Someone over there can actually make adequate content, I don't know if they keep them looked up in a cage most of the time or what.

[GâtFromKI]

A summary of my reading of that page:
"Let's see, blahblah, +2 INT, +2 WIS, blahblah (Sp) abilities, blah... ADD SPELLS FROM OTHER CLASSES TO YOUR SPELL LIST!?!?!?"

Actually, there's a trade-off, and it's more like: "+2 Int, +2Wis, [blah], alternate racial traits: lose a shitty +2 to some skill and ADD SPELLS FROM OTHER CLASSES TO YOUR SPELL LIST!?!?!?".

[Slade]

Well, but the Ninja Class in pathfinder kind of sucks.
It gives up rogue survivability and utility in order to get some extra + to damage options, and some not very good ki maneuvers.

Why would anyone look at Ninja and think it was good.

Offensive abilities are stronger than defensive abilities.

The ninja unlike the rogue can turn invisible as a class feature (as a like the spell, swift action) at level 11 (or was it 10?) this upgrades to Greater Invisibility.
While a rogue can use a wand, they waste a standard action.

They can make an extra attack/rd by spending Ki points. Unlike monk they can do it with any weapon while wearing anything.

They can sneak attack to lower stats starting at level 2 (Pressure points).
Proficient in decent weapons. Better choice overall for rogue talents.

In exchange, they give up disabling trap for others (they can bypass traps for themselves) and evasion is higher level.

[Pseudo Stupidity]

Well, but the Ninja Class in pathfinder kind of sucks.
It gives up rogue survivability and utility in order to get some extra + to damage options, and some not very good ki maneuvers.

Why would anyone look at Ninja and think it was good.

Ninja is superior to Rogue, all they lose is evasion and fucking trapfinding.

In exchange, they get better weapons (fuck yeah), a free ki pool (which gives bonus attacks and actual defensive options), and more useful class features for non-trap campaigns. Hell, even in a trap campaign the Ninja can just moonwalk over shit and not even set off traps.

Since traps are a joke the Ninja is just better. The rogue has to burn a trick to get a worse ki pool (with fewer options) just to get the defense Ninjas can have (going invisible after stabmurdering something). The Ninja can burn one trick to get Evasion if he really wants it that badly.

The Ki pool being tiny issue is practically removed if you want to cheese out and go with a double Wyroot wakizashi Ninja, critting on 18-20 (and you will take improved crit to make it even more likely) and regaining a ki point each time you crit.

Rogues can do that too, but they have to waste a feat and a trick to do it. The Ninja just does that right out of the gate.

A Ninja can do anything a Rogue can do better, except for trap finding (and even then, Ninjas can find traps almost as well as a Rogue). Evasion isn't that big of a deal and it is all Ninjas lose.

Edit: Damnit, I got Ninja'd.

Also, Pathfinder is bad because it powered up the overpowered classes while adding MORE TRAP OPTIONS to mundanes. Look at the fucking 2 handed fighter. Just look at it.

[Slade]

The Ki pool being tiny issue is practically removed if you want to cheese out and go with a double Wyroot wakizashi Ninja, critting on 18-20 (and you will take improved crit to make it even more likely) and regaining a ki point each time you crit.

You could just buy a bag of rats/chicken/frogs and keep attacking them until you roll a Crit (or if DM declares them helpless just Coup de Grace).

I'd just suggest rats/chicken but they can fight back so defenseless frogs is best.

[Korgan0]

While we're at it, would it be helpful for people to compile a list of Spells That Fucking Kill People in Pathfinder in this thread? I know nothing about the game, but it would still be pretty useful.