Pathfinder Is Still Bad
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- Adam Reith
- NPC
- Posts: 14
- Joined: Mon Mar 31, 2014 7:27 pm
- Location: USA
Picking traits is easy. "Reactionary" is better than all the other ones, so everyone takes that. Whatever else you pick is likely so situational it will never come up, and so minor it won't matter if it does. So waive the second one, or just pick it at random. Done!
Last edited by Adam Reith on Tue Apr 01, 2014 5:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Oh yeah, I know. I'll go through and make sure everything is non-copyright infringing.Adam Reith wrote:I know jack-all about comic books, so I can't be of much help in that regard except to caution you to be very, very careful about publishing anything that even looks like it might skirt the line near copyright infringement. There are people who seriously make a living now doing nothing but suing people who post/copy/adapt stuff that they made up years ago.Edit: Adam, if you could take a look at the stuff I'm planning on publishing for Pathfinder, I'd appreciate the eye of someone who knows the system.
This is actually really, really good to know. Thanks. It means more writing, but it also means a larger pdf that could reach another dollar higher in price, so I'm cool with that.That said, PF seems to be very anti-base classes except for random "hybrids" used to cover up the fact that mutliclassing in 3.0/3.5/PF doesn't work, and never did, and still doesn't. Tightly-themed classes seem to all be made into lame archetypes now, but I suppose there will always be a market for well-made prestige classes.
I'm sure you're already aware that the trick to appeal to the fanbase is to disguise mechanics at all costs and focus on "flavor" instead -- don't say "this works like [SRD ability X]" when you could instead insert two paragraphs of fluff that kind of hints around what the effects might be, assuming the DM is willing to concede them. Showing the mechanics the way you're doing here is a good way to balance them for actual play, but make sure you hide them in the final product, because most PF players don't want to look too closely at what's under the hood.
Well, once I hide the mechanics, maybe it won't be so obvious.At a quick perusal only, the power levels look good to me, but the people here can probably give better feedback on that. Be prepared for the fact that PF players will yell ZOMG OVERPOWERED! at anything that's even close to balanced with a core rules bard, much less a full caster.
yes, I know. I just still slip up from time to time.Minor editorial: "it's" means "it is." The possessive is "its."
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.
You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
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- Knight-Baron
- Posts: 913
- Joined: Fri Apr 29, 2011 5:24 am
You can disable sources in the configure hero box.
Kaelik wrote:Fuck you Haruhi is clearly the best moe anime, and we will argue about how Haruhi and Nagato are OP and um... that girl with blond hair? is for shitters.darkmaster wrote:Tgdmb.moe, like the gaming den, but we all yell at eachother about wich lucky star character is the cutest.
If you like Lucky Star then I will explain in great detail why Lucky Star is the a shitty shitty anime for shitty shitty people, and how the characters have no interesting abilities at all, and everything is poorly designed especially the skill challenges.
Reactionary is probably the most all-purpose useful one, but there are others that can be good for certain characters.Adam Reith wrote:Picking traits is easy. "Reactionary" is better than all the other ones, so everyone takes that. Whatever else you pick is likely so situational it will never come up, and so minor it won't matter if it does. So waive the second one, or just pick it at random. Done!
Magical Lineage, Wayang Spellhunter - Like Arcane Thesis; makes you a one-trick pony, but potentially a very potent one at low level. Or even high level, if you don't mind being boring.
Various X stat to Y traits, like Student of Philosophy. These can be worth quite a bit, actually.
Get any skill as a class skill and +1 to it. I mean, IMC, I say "fuck class skills", but if you're in a game that uses them it could be worthwhile.
Unnatural Presence - Fear stacking is mysteriously easy in Pathfinder - make your Intimidate skill work on things it usually wouldn't.
Blade of Mercy - Mainly as an easy way to use Enforcer.
Be crazy strong at first level (and slightly less useful afterward) by taking both the "extra money" traits and buying a bunch of trained guard dogs. Or an elephant.
Last edited by Ice9 on Tue Apr 01, 2014 6:06 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Since it is new posts by Pathfinder people week...
Ultimate Campaign's traits were astoundingly terrible. My favorite is Tireless Avenger, which lowers the DC for a forced march to 10+1/hour instead of +2/hour. But only when tracking a favored enemy. And only when saving against lethal damage. Note: forced marches do nonlethal damage, so this probably does nothing. I also like that they published new traits for "+1 to a Craft" and "+2 to a Craft" in the same book. I'm sure it was for realism, since everyone knows people who learn from "Artisans" instead of "Monks" are just better.
The whole book is really a thing of beauty. It has a 55 page downtime system detailing managers, teams, organizations, rooms, and buildings. After all the rolling and bookkeeping you earn points to buy buildings. However, you still need to pay half the price of those points in GP, and a castle can be bought outright for 7000gp so the whole thing doesn't matter to begin with. The system is of course incompatible with the 52 pages on Kingdoms and War, which is a second draft of the Kingmaker rules with a bunch of new errors. It did bring us Sean K Reynolds defending the inclusion of a magical fountain of endless water that doing absolutely nothing while a cistern actually gave a bonus, which I would consider redeeming.
Ultimate Campaign's traits were astoundingly terrible. My favorite is Tireless Avenger, which lowers the DC for a forced march to 10+1/hour instead of +2/hour. But only when tracking a favored enemy. And only when saving against lethal damage. Note: forced marches do nonlethal damage, so this probably does nothing. I also like that they published new traits for "+1 to a Craft" and "+2 to a Craft" in the same book. I'm sure it was for realism, since everyone knows people who learn from "Artisans" instead of "Monks" are just better.
The whole book is really a thing of beauty. It has a 55 page downtime system detailing managers, teams, organizations, rooms, and buildings. After all the rolling and bookkeeping you earn points to buy buildings. However, you still need to pay half the price of those points in GP, and a castle can be bought outright for 7000gp so the whole thing doesn't matter to begin with. The system is of course incompatible with the 52 pages on Kingdoms and War, which is a second draft of the Kingmaker rules with a bunch of new errors. It did bring us Sean K Reynolds defending the inclusion of a magical fountain of endless water that doing absolutely nothing while a cistern actually gave a bonus, which I would consider redeeming.
Last edited by Paizil on Tue Apr 01, 2014 6:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
- Adam Reith
- NPC
- Posts: 14
- Joined: Mon Mar 31, 2014 7:27 pm
- Location: USA
Ice, I hadn't seen a few of those traits before -- there's a limit to how deep into dumpsters I'm willing to dive. So, is it just me, or did someone actually say "We already took away 1/2 ranks for x-class skills, and I know the wizard already gets bonzo skill points from Int, but I want to make especially sure at all costs that wizards are the best diplomancers in the game, because wizards, herp derp." And so the Student of Phiosophy trait was born?
Kill me now.
Kill me now.
Last edited by Adam Reith on Tue Apr 01, 2014 7:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
- OgreBattle
- King
- Posts: 6820
- Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2011 9:33 am
Go to his account on the Paizo forums and search for "Everflowing Spring." It is the only post that comes up. The main part is shorter than I remember:
So asking for crossbows to be as good as bows is like asking for water balloons to be just as good, but having a magical fountain made of decanters of endless water be cheaper and worse than a cistern was purposeful design decision.
By "costs less" he means 5 BP instead of 6. Also, he is wrong about the Cistern taking a lot. It can also share a lot with something else, it is just that it is listed as "6 BP, 1 Lot" and the Spring is "5 BP" for some unknown reason.SKR wrote:Benefits like the Cistern... which adds Stability +1, costs 6 BP, and fills 1 lot (whereas the Everflowing Spring has no stat bonuses, costs less, and doesn't fill a lot).
My point is, just because we don't explain why something is X instead of Y, or that this option gives X but a similar option doesn't, doesn't mean it's an error.
(It doesn't mean it ISN'T an error, but in this case it isn't.)
So asking for crossbows to be as good as bows is like asking for water balloons to be just as good, but having a magical fountain made of decanters of endless water be cheaper and worse than a cistern was purposeful design decision.
- Adam Reith
- NPC
- Posts: 14
- Joined: Mon Mar 31, 2014 7:27 pm
- Location: USA
I had the sad misfortune of asking "If martial weapons are better, and cost a feat to prove it, then why can't I spend a feat -- or even two -- and have a sling perform as well as a longbow?" Cue references to water balloons. One poor fellow actually claimed you'd be BETTER, and proceded to post some goofball half-human halfling hybrid who spent like 3 feats just to get iterative attacks, and whose "sling" damage potential thereafter derived largely from boots of haste.Paizil wrote:So asking for crossbows to be as good as bows is like asking for water balloons to be just as good...
Last edited by Adam Reith on Tue Apr 01, 2014 7:53 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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- Knight-Baron
- Posts: 913
- Joined: Fri Apr 29, 2011 5:24 am
Well I think the obvious answer is that if you need a feet to make a weapon preform as well as another weapon that doesn't need a feat to preform then the first is by definition still worse than the second.
Kaelik wrote:Fuck you Haruhi is clearly the best moe anime, and we will argue about how Haruhi and Nagato are OP and um... that girl with blond hair? is for shitters.darkmaster wrote:Tgdmb.moe, like the gaming den, but we all yell at eachother about wich lucky star character is the cutest.
If you like Lucky Star then I will explain in great detail why Lucky Star is the a shitty shitty anime for shitty shitty people, and how the characters have no interesting abilities at all, and everything is poorly designed especially the skill challenges.
- Adam Reith
- NPC
- Posts: 14
- Joined: Mon Mar 31, 2014 7:27 pm
- Location: USA
Granted, most classes hand out martial weapon proficiencies like candy, but let's still pretend the difference in performance between a longbow and a sling is accounted for by the Martial Weapon Proficiency feat. I'm even willing to go out on a limb and say the composite longbow should arguably be Exotic for what it does, so let's spot it two feats instead.
A sling is Simple (0 feats) to start, so you'd think 2 feats would catch it up. But to do so we'd need Far Shot (or some equivalent, for range), plus a 3-feat chain to get iterative attacks, plus Improved Critical to bridge that x2 vs. x3 gap, and also Weapon Specialization to make up the damage.
So in Pathfinder math, 1 feat (or 2 feats if they admit a mistake) = 6 feats.
A sling is Simple (0 feats) to start, so you'd think 2 feats would catch it up. But to do so we'd need Far Shot (or some equivalent, for range), plus a 3-feat chain to get iterative attacks, plus Improved Critical to bridge that x2 vs. x3 gap, and also Weapon Specialization to make up the damage.
So in Pathfinder math, 1 feat (or 2 feats if they admit a mistake) = 6 feats.
Last edited by Adam Reith on Tue Apr 01, 2014 8:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"Are other Earthmen on Tschai?"
"All men are Earthmen."
"All men are Earthmen."
Especially since d20pfsrd likes to put everything on its own page. I wouldn't mind reading a bunch of traits, but I have to load a new page for each one.FrankTrollman wrote:Pathfinder chargen has gotten so complicated that I don't know anyone who does it without consulting min/max tomes from the internets. The idea of actually reading all that shit before making a character is simply anathema. It's not a job for one person, and the effort has to be distributed across message board participants.
That is fucking insane.
-Username17
Happy Birthday: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/traits/tools/traits-filterTiaC wrote:Especially since d20pfsrd likes to put everything on its own page. I wouldn't mind reading a bunch of traits, but I have to load a new page for each one.FrankTrollman wrote:Pathfinder chargen has gotten so complicated that I don't know anyone who does it without consulting min/max tomes from the internets. The idea of actually reading all that shit before making a character is simply anathema. It's not a job for one person, and the effort has to be distributed across message board participants.
That is fucking insane.
-Username17
Edit: Though apparently it's missing some.
Last edited by Prak on Tue Apr 01, 2014 10:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.
You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
- Hey_I_Can_Chan
- Master
- Posts: 250
- Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm
- Location: Garden Grove, CA
Fuck that. It's a trait called Hill Fighter, and it isn't about beating the crap out of hills? I mean, seriously, fuck hills.I looked up hill fighter because I didn't believe there would be an archtype that was that stupid.
Turns out there isn't, but there is a trait named "Hill Fighter" that lets you charge down hills (but not up them, you fucking munchkin) without making an acrobatics check.
Jungles rule!
Oh man.Hey_I_Can_Chan wrote:Fuck that. It's a trait called Hill Fighter, and it isn't about beating the crap out of hills? I mean, seriously, fuck hills.I looked up hill fighter because I didn't believe there would be an archtype that was that stupid.
Turns out there isn't, but there is a trait named "Hill Fighter" that lets you charge down hills (but not up them, you fucking munchkin) without making an acrobatics check.
Jungles rule!
Oh man.
Now I need to see a Tome Feat "Hill Fighter" all about beating the shit out of mountains.
- Adam Reith
- NPC
- Posts: 14
- Joined: Mon Mar 31, 2014 7:27 pm
- Location: USA
If it was good enough for Cu Chulainn, it's good enough for me!Seerow wrote:Now I need to see a Tome Feat "Hill Fighter" all about beating the shit out of mountains.
Last edited by Adam Reith on Tue Apr 01, 2014 11:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"Are other Earthmen on Tschai?"
"All men are Earthmen."
"All men are Earthmen."
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- Duke
- Posts: 1040
- Joined: Wed Dec 09, 2009 8:33 am
It does something. It reduces the DC for a forced march if you somehow figure out how to march while unconscious.Paizil wrote:Since it is new posts by Pathfinder people week...
Ultimate Campaign's traits were astoundingly terrible. My favorite is Tireless Avenger, which lowers the DC for a forced march to 10+1/hour instead of +2/hour. But only when tracking a favored enemy. And only when saving against lethal damage. Note: forced marches do nonlethal damage, so this probably does nothing.
I wish in the past I had tried more things 'cause now I know that being in trouble is a fake idea
- CatharzGodfoot
- King
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Wouldn't you automatically be considered 'willing' and fail the save anyway?A Man In Black wrote:It does something. It reduces the DC for a forced march if you somehow figure out how to march while unconscious.Paizil wrote:Since it is new posts by Pathfinder people week...
Ultimate Campaign's traits were astoundingly terrible. My favorite is Tireless Avenger, which lowers the DC for a forced march to 10+1/hour instead of +2/hour. But only when tracking a favored enemy. And only when saving against lethal damage. Note: forced marches do nonlethal damage, so this probably does nothing.
The law in its majestic equality forbids the rich as well as the poor from stealing bread, begging and sleeping under bridges.
-Anatole France
Mount Flamethrower on rear
Drive in reverse
Win Game.
-Josh Kablack
-Anatole France
Mount Flamethrower on rear
Drive in reverse
Win Game.
-Josh Kablack
- rasmuswagner
- Knight-Baron
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There's at least 3 guides that I know of for traits alone. One for all the "gain X as class skill". One for "good traits only, skill traits are covered in that other guide", and one "comprehensive".
Every time you play in a "low magic world" with D&D rules (or derivates), a unicorn steps on a kitten and an orphan drops his ice cream cone.
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- Duke
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- OgreBattle
- King
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it's odd that the trait letting you act first more often is called REACTionary
So yeah if Traits didn't suck and were coherent what design space would it occupy? I think the whole thing could just be replaced with an action point system that lets you reroll something X/day or encounter or something.
So yeah if Traits didn't suck and were coherent what design space would it occupy? I think the whole thing could just be replaced with an action point system that lets you reroll something X/day or encounter or something.
Before that, I have to inform you about the thrush familiar from the APG. It gives +3 Diplomacy (and +2/+4 Sense motive, as any familiar). It's not as good as the scorpion familiar (+2 init), but if your group already has a wizard and need a face, it's still better than using some lame Cha-class.Adam Reith wrote:So, is it just me, or did someone actually say "We already took away 1/2 ranks for x-class skills, and I know the wizard already gets bonzo skill points from Int, but I want to make especially sure at all costs that wizards are the best diplomancers in the game, because wizards, herp derp." And so the Student of Phiosophy trait was born?
Kill me now.
Oh, and btw... Can someone explain me what the word "reactionary" means?
My English isn't very good, but when I try to find out what "reactionary" means, I get that: clic. It happens to be what I though it means, but doesn't justify an initiative bonus.
In the other hand, I can't find any reference using "reactionary" as a synonym of "reactive". Except Pathfinder.
So I'm a bit confused.
My English isn't very good, but when I try to find out what "reactionary" means, I get that: clic. It happens to be what I though it means, but doesn't justify an initiative bonus.
In the other hand, I can't find any reference using "reactionary" as a synonym of "reactive". Except Pathfinder.
So I'm a bit confused.
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- Duke
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Dictionary.com wrote: re·ac·tion·ar·y [ree-ak-shuh-ner-ee] Show IPA
adjective
1.
of, pertaining to, marked by, or favoring reaction, especially extreme conservatism or rightism in politics; opposing political or social change.
noun, plural re·ac·tion·ar·ies.
2.
a reactionary person.
Yeah... I don't think it means what Paizo thinks it means.The Free Dictionary wrote: reactionary (rɪˈækʃənərɪ; -ʃənrɪ) or reactionist
adj
1. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) of, relating to, or characterized by reaction, esp against radical political or social change
n, pl -aries or -ists
2. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) a person opposed to radical change
reˈactionism n
They should probably have called it vigilant.
Last edited by radthemad4 on Wed Apr 02, 2014 9:25 am, edited 1 time in total.