Pathfinder might become less bad

[virgil]

He considers weapon focus to be a must-have feat for the fighter.

I kind of agree with that, only because pathfinder has shit feats for fighters for the most part. Of course, everytime anyone picks a fighter, you basically wonder why they didn't just make a magus.

Fighter ineptitude isn't a universal trait in Pathfinder, as you're capable of being on par with a 3.5 flask rogue. You just need to navigate through a veritable jungle of trap options, and spend an annoying amount of time in character building; at which point, you stand a real chance of being accused of cheating.

[Lago PARANOIA]

About the Power Attack thing, there are instances where the Pathfinder version is better than the original 3.5E version. If you're power-attacking for small amounts it's better. The ratio is also improved enough so that two-weapon fighters don't feel like morons for using it at all.

Unfortunately, the cap on Power Attack really hurts the power enough so it that it's a nerf. See, the standard way for sword-based characters to compete at mid-levels was to stack on as many attack-boosters as they could get and power-attack for the moon. So while a 10th-level Pathfinder glaive fighter gets a better return on their power attack (-3 to attack, +9 to damage) in actuality they're weaker because effective glaive fighters at that level power-attacked for like -7 or -9 for 14-18 damage. So it's a pretty grievous nerf.

It's pretty much a classic example of penny-wise and pound-foolish in game analysis.

[souran]

I still have to hold out some hope. When I used to frequent the WOTC D&D forums I thought that people were bad about not critically examining evidence.

Pathfinder message boards are filled with evidence deniers that would embarasse a convention of creationist climatologists.

My last excursion over there I tried to point out that the likelyhood that Paizo doesn't at least have a pathfinder 2E in pre-production if not in development has to be almost nil and that based on the content of their last few books that I thought it seemed likely that the fighter and rogue (and maybe other classes) would get a pool similar to the pools they have given the gunslinger, swashbuckler, magus, warpriest, and arcanist only to be told that Paizo would never do either of those things because they love their customers to much to ruin things.

While Rogue Eildelodon will sometimes shout that he can see the emperor's new clothes as loud as any of the other fanboy's, but if he is asked to eat a steaming pile he will at least point out its a steaming pile before taking a bite.

[Cyberzombie]

Fighter ineptitude isn't a universal trait in Pathfinder, as you're capable of being on par with a 3.5 flask rogue. You just need to navigate through a veritable jungle of trap options, and spend an annoying amount of time in character building; at which point, you stand a real chance of being accused of cheating.

What does an optimized fighter build look like in PF? I'm curious because the feats looked like garbage for the most part, and the ones that aren't, like Crane Wing, get rapidly nerfed.

[virgil]

Fighter ineptitude isn't a universal trait in Pathfinder, as you're capable of being on par with a 3.5 flask rogue. You just need to navigate through a veritable jungle of trap options, and spend an annoying amount of time in character building; at which point, you stand a real chance of being accused of cheating.

What does an optimized fighter build look like in PF? I'm curious because the feats looked like garbage for the most part, and the ones that aren't, like Crane Wing, get rapidly nerfed.

Archery feats (especially the extra arrow in a full-attack stuff), primary stat in Strength (enough Dex to get the good archery feats), and maximizing your Notice skill bonus as much as possible.

[erik]

if he is asked to eat a steaming pile he will at least point out its a steaming pile before taking a bite.

I fail to see how this is a virtue if after taking a bite he also proclaims it to be a delicious steaming pile and invites others to take a bite too.

Steaming piles of crap never get enough love. And in Pathfinder they really should. They’re delicious, and they’re the baseline to which I compare all other piles of crap.

Righto.

[OgreBattle]

What does he think of clerics, wizards, and game balance

[CCarter]

Reading over the fighter's and rogues' guides I'm slightly baffled by a couple of things he's recommended. The fighters' guide recomends "Dazzling Display" to make the archery rogue "love you forever"; I checked out his rogues guide for details http://www.d20pfsrd.com/extras/communit ... -to-rogues and there's a lengthy passage there he seems to believe Shatter Defenses renders everyone who've been demoralized flat-footed, although my copy of PF and the online SRD both suggest that's just against your own attacks. Unsure if he's noticed some synergy I haven't though, had his guide screwed by errata, or is just an illiterate.

[hogarth]

He's still only the mouthpiece for the entire dev team and can't answer FAQs/make errata without group consensus.

Not to mention that books like the Advanced Player's Guide, Ultimate Combat, Ultimate Magic, etc. are written using a dozen different people to churn out feats, archetypes, spells, etc. Replacing one of them doesn't make much difference.

[Voss]

I still have to hold out some hope. When I used to frequent the WOTC D&D forums I thought that people were bad about not critically examining evidence.

Pathfinder message boards are filled with evidence deniers that would embarasse a convention of creationist climatologists.

My last excursion over there I tried to point out that the likelyhood that Paizo doesn't at least have a pathfinder 2E in pre-production if not in development has to be almost nil and that based on the content of their last few books that I thought it seemed likely that the fighter and rogue (and maybe other classes) would get a pool similar to the pools they have given the gunslinger, swashbuckler, magus, warpriest, and arcanist only to be told that Paizo would never do either of those things because they love their customers to much to ruin things.

While Rogue Eildelodon will sometimes shout that he can see the emperor's new clothes as loud as any of the other fanboy's, but if he is asked to eat a steaming pile he will at least point out its a steaming pile before taking a bite.

I don't understand. Everything you say in the middle is actually sane. But you've wrapped the whole thing in starting and ending sentences that comes across as someone who is desperately denying evidence. What exactly are you holding out hope for?

[Username17]

He's still only the mouthpiece for the entire dev team and can't answer FAQs/make errata without group consensus.

Not to mention that books like the Advanced Player's Guide, Ultimate Combat, Ultimate Magic, etc. are written using a dozen different people to churn out feats, archetypes, spells, etc. Replacing one of them doesn't make much difference.

Those are all just late period shovelware products that people are expected to line item allow pieces of into their home games. The real work is in whatever is going into PF2. Crap like Ultimate Magic is at best public playtest focus grouping for the next edition (like Magic of Blue was), and at worst just shovelware put out by the B-Team to keep the publication schedule from being empty while they work on their Next Big Thing (as Elder Evils was).

Now that being said, I have no evidence that Pathfinder has learned the lessons of the 2000s and figured out that they need a small and motivated design team to make their core rules for their next edition. It's possible they think that they can continue hacking together drafts from a dozen people who aren't talking to each other into a rambling shovelware project and call it a core book. If so, then we're in for New World of Darkness: the Pathfindering. But having a core team of designers work on the next edition while a disorganized mob of outsiders cranks out shovelware books while the current edition's clock runs out isn't exactly unheard of in this industry.

-Username17

[animea90]

Important to keep in mind: you can retrain your feats, unlike all other classes, thus letting you take Cleave or other short-term feats and then discard them later. They also forgot to put in any clause against switching into a feat you didn’t qualify for at the time you took the original, which I thought should have been a no-brainer.

Yeah, god forbid you use your unique retraining class feature to switch out old techniques for level appropriate ones.

It makes the retraining ability a way to increase your power quite significantly.

If they intended this as a significant source of power for Fighters, they should have made it much clearer.

[animea90]

Is this a "specialist outperforms generalist" rant?

No, because fighters are the specialists. They have terrible saves, skill points and no abilities to help them out of combat.

[darkmaster]

... Anm, animeg- 90, I'm fairly certain you don't actually now what those those words mean.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Those are all just late period shovelware products that people are expected to line item allow pieces of into their home games. The real work is in whatever is going into PF2. Crap like Ultimate Magic is at best public playtest focus grouping for the next edition (like Magic of Blue was), and at worst just shovelware put out by the B-Team to keep the publication schedule from being empty while they work on their Next Big Thing (as Elder Evils was).

Well, if Pathfinder is releasing a PF 2.0 a lot of their recent design moves make sense. Including their releasing of what would otherwise be a high-B or even A-list concept book right when D&D 5E D&D hits the shelves as crippleware.

I mean, the timing is just perfect pretty much for them to do a counter-attack. Release PF 2.0 in September-October (which is totes possible) right when 5E D&D is still trying to get all of their books out. That'll settle WotC's hash right then and there and make them go down in history as a D&D Double Killer.

The question is: does Pathfinder have the STEEL SPINE and IRON MIND required to pull off this stunt? I dunno. For one, if this is Pathfinder's strategy then they need to tip their hand pretty quickly. Don't want people to be going 'oh, yeah, Pathfinder 2. That's out already?' when it's time to marshal your fanbois. What's more, this will also require them to not fuck up the new edition.

The next few months should be tragicomically entertaining.

[Rawbeard]

why bother with Pathfinder 2.0 when the current one still does moneys and D&D has a great chance to be forgotten by January? I know it's "time" to make a new edition, but who would care to buy it with most Pathfinder stuff being free online anyway? Having to restart your game Sims style (now without the Paladin and Grease, will be sold seperatly) doesnt seem likely in this day and age.
Also Paizo really doesn't seem to care. And as long as their shovelware keeps coming, neither do the fanbois.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I can think of several reasons.

1.) The first and most cynical one would be to have an IP that they can more tightly control. Pathfinder might decide to go down the same road that 4E D&D after deciding that they bleed too much money and quality control with their evolution of the SRD.

2.) A less cynical one would be that a new edition would be the prime opportunity to finish D&D off and grab the rest of their players. If 5E D&D turns out to be a disappointment then the best time to capitalize would be before a significant portion of the product line came out and the lines of the console TTRPG wars solidified.

3.) They might just think that the IP is too bloated with expansion material and/or want to have a chance to correct the mistakes that the engine is built on. Like it or not, Pathfinder hasn't quite succeeded with its meme to be '3E D&D, but balanced'; the consensus is that even with all of its changes it's still a rocket launcher tag caster edition. And there are still a number of reachable TTRPG fans to whom that is a turnoff. It'd also be an opportunity to excise all of the shovelware and experimental crap that Pathfinder has accumulated.

4.) It'd be a chance to consolidate and promulgate Glorantha lore. I think Glorantha is an unremarkable fantasy heartbreaker setting with no real literary history, but a bit part of the problem (or rather, what the devs see as a problem) is that the setting was a work in progress where shit got added on as the game evolved. A new edition would be Pathfinder's opportunity to 'do it right' with a new setting.

I mean, there's no guarantee that what they produce might be mismarketed or just designed poorly and they fall flat on their ass right after 5E D&D does. But it's a defensible line of attack.

[hogarth]

And as long as their shovelware keeps coming, neither do the fanbois.

The point is that you get diminishing returns on your shovelware (Ultimate Magic Volume 13 is unlikely to sell as much as Ultimate Magic Volume 1), so you make a new edition under the guise of making "improvements" so you can start at the beginning again.

Whether Pathfinder has hit the point of diminishing returns is unknown, of course. Last year, Erik Mona claimed that they had sold more copies of the Core Rulebook in 2012 than they previous had in the previous few years, so they're at least claiming they haven't hit "peak Pathfinder" yet.

[Blicero]

4.) It'd be a chance to consolidate and promulgate Glorantha lore.

Wait, what? Are you saying that Pathfinder has taken over the Runequest setting that silva faps to?

[rasmuswagner]

4.) It'd be a chance to consolidate and promulgate Glorantha lore.

Wait, what? Are you saying that Pathfinder has taken over the Runequest setting that silva faps to?

Probably a slip. The PF setting is Golarion.

[PhoneLobster]

Why is it that even the names "Golarion" and "Glorantha" put me off?

I could handle G-names for fantasy worlds or settings. There are precedents of such names in fiction.

Those two just both sound transparently fake, wanky, hard to say and yet somehow also generic and dull at the same time. In practice as a GM everytime I would find myself forced to use them at the table, assuming I wrangled the slightly odd structure, I would still feel embarrassed at having correctly pronounced it.

That is Phonelobster's review of two nonsense words. It was clearly important.

Carry on.

[erik]

Golarion always reads in my head as Girallon.

[edit: and that slip between Goralion and Glorantha is something I've made a few times myself]

[magnuskn]

BTW, they are floating a trial balloon of their next edition pretty openly right now, with the spring 2015 release of Pathfinder Unchained.

"The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game contains numerous rules considered sacred by players and GMs alike. Since the system itself was based upon RPG "technology" already more than 20 years old, "backwards compatibility" often meant sticking with the familiar, even if tradition was filled with cobwebs and decades-old assumptions. Pathfinder Unchained dares to take a fresh look at the system itself, altering some of the fundamentals of the game and giving fresh optional takes on classic rules. Inside this collection of alternate rules and options you'll find completely redesigned versions of the barbarian, monk, rogue, and summoner classes. Delve into a new system for resolving player actions designed to speed play and dispel confusion. Many of the new systems (such as the revised classes) work seamlessly with the existing Pathfinder rules. Even the most staunchly traditionalist player will appreciate the book's math-lite system for on-the-fly monster creation and the new system for generating dynamic magic items that go far beyond a simple +1 to add lore and interest to the campaign. Players will love the book's new resource pool for martial characters, allowing for exciting new tactical options, as well as the robust new system that allows spellcasters to modify their spells with powerful spell components.

This 256 page hardcover addition to the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game is designed to be used by GMs and players that want to change the way their game is played. You can pick and choose the systems you want to change or you can adopt a number of them for a truly new play experience. With Pathfinder Unchained, you can have the game you want to play!"

[Avoraciopoctules]

Interesting. I'll give it a look, at least.

[brized]

The link's timing out for me right now...Just going by that excerpt, Pathfinder Unchained seems like a response to 5e's advertised design philosophy. For the rest, their track record isn't so great on getting mechanics to deliver on the promises of their marketing.