Pathfinder Is Still Bad

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Sun Jul 27, 2014 3:14 pm

Maybe he was the one-eyed king in the land of the blind all along.

CapnTthePirateG · Post by **CapnTthePirateG** » Sun Jul 27, 2014 3:54 pm

As has been pointed out numerous times in the thread, Sacred Geometry is bad for the game in every possible way. Free metamagic is pretty powerful, and the fact that it takes 10 minutes to resolve one guy's nuclear strike is kind of a problem.

What else is in this Secrets of the Occult book?

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sun Jul 27, 2014 4:01 pm

Well go to sleep and look what happens...

GnomeWorks wrote:
Maxus wrote:NO.

NOT COOL AND NOT INTERESTING.
So sorry that my opinion offends you.

It doesn't offend, I disagree strongly. I see you don't get the distinction. These feats are an abomination of bookkeeping and bogged-down gameplay for very little benefit.

"Sacred geometry" and "arithmancy" are really dumb pseudo-science concepts pushed by New Age woo peddlers.
You're an idiot. These concepts have grounding in a number of "magical" disciplines that predate New Agers using them, and the notion of shapes, numbers, and even particular characters/symbols having some kind of intrinsic power is a really old idea.

And besides, what the fuck does it matter if they're dumb pseudoscience? They make for potentially more interesting takes on magical systems in games than the bog-standard slot and point systems D&D is so keen on.

The execution here is lacking, I will agree on that point. But I'm willing to give points for the attempt.

It'd be really nice, except the bog-standard stuff is what works. Everything else so far is either impossible to balance or incoherent or both.

Attempting to staple prime-number hunting and putting a woo name on it just becomes automatically impossible to balance and incoherent.

They would be fine if it was an in-character thing. They really would. If drawing Metatron's Cube or the Triforce were mentioned as something the character did draw, or even where the character did the computations in an abstract and pulled out some extra oomph.
So just MTP it, then? Is that your fucking point? Mechanics and flavor should be reflections of each other. You can doodle all the bullshit shapes you want, but if it has no mechanical ramifications, there's no point in doing it and it's just meaningless flavor.

In this instance, the crazy-bullshit math these feats require are meant to be reflections of the calculations the character is making. Again, the execution is lacking.

Hell no. Don't MTP it. Don't write shit this terrible and unfitting to the system at all. If you want something more elegant, write a new system based on geometry and prime numbers and numerology and whatever other old idea. Even some sort of Eternal Darkness Rune-based grammar hack would fit and flow better than this because most people can get their head around "I say 'big fire target priest not warrior' in the Ignan Flame-brand alphabet" and getting identifiable results.

This kind of concept-intensive shit doesn't work unless you build the system with it in mind. The idea of what was it, Sacred Geometry working off a skill is about the only thing there that makes any kind of sense and then the feat authors watched too much Spirit Science and decided to smoke them some of those magic healing crystals.

I'd rather play a Deadlands-style hand of no-card draw poker against the DM for a bonus and call it "Gambling with Fate" or something than try to kludge some rolled dice into resulting into a prime number (and how the fuck does that relate to geometry? Seriously), if you want player activity to have an influence in whether or not the character gets a bonus or whatever.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sun Jul 27, 2014 4:03 pm

ishy wrote:
Covent wrote:my Maximized Dazing Fireball,

Just let me roll 20d6 twice
Why are you rolling 20d6 for a maximized spell?

Boy, sucks to be an evoker these days.

MisterDee · Post by **MisterDee** » Sun Jul 27, 2014 4:12 pm

MfA wrote:How did Sacred Geometry get published? Did we misjudge SKR and was he actually the force keeping Paizo from descending into total shit and insanity?

Well, it's third-party bullshit.

Paizo itself is generally good at avoiding overcomplicated feats. There are some exceptions (looking at you, Achievement Feats) but they generally err on the side of "have a meaningless +1 (and two Shame points) to a situationnal ability" over "WHARRGARBL fhtagn! FHTAGN!!!!!"

Covent · Post by **Covent** » Sun Jul 27, 2014 4:14 pm

MisterDee wrote:
MfA wrote:How did Sacred Geometry get published? Did we misjudge SKR and was he actually the force keeping Paizo from descending into total shit and insanity?
Well, it's third-party bullshit.

Paizo itself is generally good at avoiding overcomplicated feats. There are some exceptions (looking at you, Achievement Feats) but they generally err on the side of "have a meaningless +1 (and two Shame points) to a situationnal ability" over "WHARRGARBL fhtagn! FHTAGN!!!!!"

This is a Paizo made feat.

From the occult mysteries book.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Jul 27, 2014 4:25 pm

MisterDee wrote:
MfA wrote:How did Sacred Geometry get published? Did we misjudge SKR and was he actually the force keeping Paizo from descending into total shit and insanity?
Well, it's third-party bullshit.

Paizo itself is generally good at avoiding overcomplicated feats. There are some exceptions (looking at you, Achievement Feats) but they generally err on the side of "have a meaningless +1 (and two Shame points) to a situationnal ability" over "WHARRGARBL fhtagn! FHTAGN!!!!!"

Sacred Geometry wrote:Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Occult Mysteries © 2014, Paizo Inc.; Authors: Jason Bulmahn, Crystal Frasier, Jim Groves, Brandon Hodge, James Jacobs, Erik Mona, F. Wesley Schneider, and Jerome Virnich.

Not only is it a Paizo feat, it is put out in a book that supposedly has Paizo's A-team working on it.

-Username17

Antariuk · Post by **Antariuk** » Sun Jul 27, 2014 5:07 pm

Funny, I would have bolded the three names between JB and JJ when talking about a supposed A-Team of Paizo, since JB is clearly confused about everything ever and JJ gets angry and defensive when his opinion is cornered by rules as written. Looking at the mechanics from recent publications I wouldn't even bother to divide the Paiz staff into levels of system mastery anymore. They have a few good adventure authors though.

GnomeWorks · Post by **GnomeWorks** » Sun Jul 27, 2014 8:59 pm

Maxus wrote:It doesn't offend, I disagree strongly. I see you don't get the distinction. These feats are an abomination of bookkeeping and bogged-down gameplay for very little benefit.

When did I say anything positive about the mechanics? These add a ton of complexity for wildly out-of-proportion benefit; they're fiddly, make the player do a bunch of weird math, and are generally just bad.

But the ideas at play are interesting.

It'd be really nice, except the bog-standard stuff is what works. Everything else so far is either impossible to balance or incoherent or both.

That strikes me as a pretty narrow view.

Yes, the execution here is terrible. Nobody is arguing that these feats are solid, mechanically. That doesn't mean the concepts at play are automatically untenable, or that these feats couldn't have been written in a way to make the concept come across while also being not-shit.

Attempting to staple prime-number hunting and putting a woo name on it just becomes automatically impossible to balance and incoherent.

I don't think that's an automatic thing. Again, the execution here is stupid; again, that doesn't mean it couldn't be done better.

Hell no. Don't MTP it. Don't write shit this terrible and unfitting to the system at all. If you want something more elegant, write a new system based on geometry and prime numbers and numerology and whatever other old idea. Even some sort of Eternal Darkness Rune-based grammar hack would fit and flow better than this because most people can get their head around "I say 'big fire target priest not warrior' in the Ignan Flame-brand alphabet" and getting identifiable results.

...this is the kind of thing I was getting at. It probably can work mechanically, it just isn't in this particular scenario.

malak · Post by **malak** » Sun Jul 27, 2014 11:31 pm

While we're discussing official feats, what about this one:

Troth of the forgotten Pharao

Pathfinder Adventure Path #82 wrote: You’ve pledged your body to a forgotten pharaoh, and are willing to sacrifice yourself to keep his secrets even in death.

Prerequisite(s): Must be a member of a cult of a forgotten pharaoh.

Benefit: Upon taking this feat, you undergo a ritual wherein the cartouche of a pharaoh is carved into your flesh (typically on the chest or back), and then embellished with painful crimson and ocher tattoos. The ritual takes 1 hour to complete, and you take 3 points of damage from the wound (see Special, below). Upon completion of the ritual, you gain the feat’s benefits.

As an immediate action, or when you die, you can cause white-hot fire to burst from the tattooed cartouche on your flesh, immolating your body in a bright flash and instantly reducing it to ash. If you are still alive, you are immediately slain. Spells such as raise dead or speak with dead cannot be used on your remains, but your equipment is unaffected.

As the fire consumes you, fiery snakes whip out of your body in a 5-foot-radius burst, dealing 1d6 points of fire damage + 1 point per character level. Creatures in the area can attempt a Reflex save to negate the damage (DC 10 + 1/2 your character level + your Constitution modifier). In addition, creatures within a 10-foot burst must succeed at a Fortitude save (DC 10 + 1/2 your character level + your Constitution modifier) or be blinded for 1 round. Blind or sightless creatures are unaffected by this blinding effect.

Special: You permanently lose 3 hit points when you take this feat. This damage can be healed only with a miracle or wish spell, but doing so causes you to lose all benefits of this feat.

Isn't that great? For the low, low cost of a feat slot and 3 hp off your max hp, you can do 1d6 + 1 point per character level fire damage. Oh, and blind for 1 round. But then you die. And can never be raised.

Wtf.

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Sun Jul 27, 2014 11:34 pm

Sounds decent for NPCs and monks.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Jul 27, 2014 11:46 pm

I say anything that requires or causes you to die, especially things which say you cannot then be resurrected, should just be fucking free, or at least not cost character creation resources.

If the pharaoh thing only cost 3hp, and some down time, and then you get to just do it when you're going to die anyway, that'd be fine. But a feat that says "you can use this piss poor effect exactly once, and then you have to make a new character" is abysmal.

Axebird · Post by **Axebird** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 12:12 am

The feat literally only exists in the book for NPC use. It's just a way to have mooks that explode.

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 12:15 am

Axebird wrote:The feat literally only exists in the book for NPC use. It's just a way to have mooks that explode.

It's still pretty dumb to make it a feat, just make it a template you get when you go through the ritual.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 12:55 am

Axebird wrote:The feat literally only exists in the book for NPC use. It's just a way to have mooks that explode.

So have mooks that explode. I have no idea how pathfinder determines XP values for monsters, but 'they totally zap people when they die for bullshit damage' isn't worth much, is something you can just tack on, and maybe give a bit more XP for.

It doesn't even make sense as a template, really.

Seriously, this is already a thing.
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/addi ... ark-slayer

Death Throes (Su) When a dark slayer is slain, its body implodes violently into nothingness, leaving its gear in a heap on the ground. All creatures within a 10-foot burst take 1d8 points of sonic damage and must make a DC 13 Fortitude save or be deafened for 2d4 rounds. The save DC is Constitution-based.

Just drop the deafness, alter the damage type and change the numbers around. Whatever.

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 1:25 am

So pretty much this:

Death Troth (Su): As an immediate action, or slain, its body implodes cause white-hot fire to burst from the tattooed cartouche, immolating its body in a bright flash and instantly reducing it to ash. Fiery snakes whip out of its body in a 5-foot-radius burst, dealing 1d6 points of fire damage + 1 point per character level. Creatures in the area can attempt a Reflex save to negate the damage (DC 10 + 1/2 HD + Constitution modifier). In addition, creatures within a 10-foot burst must succeed at a Fortitude save (DC 10 + 1/2 HD + Constitution modifier) or be blinded for 1 round. Blind or sightless creatures are unaffected by this blinding effect.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 1:39 am

Sure. The main point is writing it up as a feat is completely unnecessary and they've inexplicably doubled the word count to write it up as something completely useless. The rules need a sentence or two, and the rationale behind fanatical suicidal cultists needs a bit of explanation (which is probably elsewhere already). Prereqs, permanently lost hp and 'take the feat to undergo a ritual to gain the benefits of the feat' is such useless verbiage that it actually makes me a little angry, though a little detail on the ritual itself is a nice touch (but again, can go elsewhere, like a description of the cult that mentions their fondness for elaborate rituals, the color red and ocher.)

Rawbeard · Post by **Rawbeard** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 2:07 am

Pathfinder Adventure Path #82 wrote: You’ve pledged your body to a forgotten pharaoh, and are willing to sacrifice yourself to keep his secrets even in death.

Prerequisite(s): Must be a member of a cult of a forgotten pharaoh.

Benefit: Upon taking this feat, you undergo a ritual wherein the cartouche of a pharaoh is carved into your flesh (typically on the chest or back), and then embellished with painful crimson and ocher tattoos. The ritual takes 1 hour to complete, and you take 3 points of damage from the wound (see Special, below). Upon completion of the ritual, you gain the feat’s benefits.

As an immediate action, or when you die, you can cause white-hot fire to burst from the tattooed cartouche on your flesh, immolating your body in a bright flash and instantly reducing it to ash. If you are still alive, you are immediately slain. Spells such as raise dead or speak with dead cannot be used on your remains, but your equipment is unaffected.

As the fire consumes you, fiery snakes whip out of your body in a 5-foot-radius burst, dealing 1d6 points of fire damage + 1 point per character level. Creatures in the area can attempt a Reflex save to negate the damage (DC 10 + 1/2 your character level + your Constitution modifier). In addition, creatures within a 10-foot burst must succeed at a Fortitude save (DC 10 + 1/2 your character level + your Constitution modifier) or be blinded for 1 round. Blind or sightless creatures are unaffected by this blinding effect.

Special: You permanently lose 3 hit points when you take this feat. This damage can be healed only with a miracle or wish spell, but doing so causes you to lose all benefits of this feat.

This is literally an "item", not a feat. what kind of imbecile did this?

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 6:11 am

It's a thing where an NPC needed a custom spell cast on them, but wasn't a spellcaster, so they made it a feat instead. That'd be a neat thing to chuck on your minions as a necromancer too, so being a feat prevents that fun from happening.

Hating fun, it's almost as bad as requiring fun.

As for Sacred Geometry, there'll be an app for it somewhere, give you your chances of reaching each spell level and everything. Realistically, it's massively powerful.

6,6,4,3,1; which while their example is easy because primes are common +-1 to multiples of 6, and there's a 1, another couple ways to make 1, and two 6.
(6*6*3)-4-1 = 103, 9th level spell.
(6+6)*(4+3)-1 = 83, 8th level spell.
(6*4*3)+6+1 = 79, 7th level spell.
(6*3)+(6*4)+1 = 61, 6th level spell.
(6*(6+1))+4-3 = 43, 5th level spell.
(6*6*(4-3))+1 = 37, 4th level spell.
(6+6+4+3)*1 = 19, 3rd level spell.
(4*3)-1+6-6 = 11, 2nd level spell.
(4+1)*(6-6)+3 = 3, 1st level spell.

Something like 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 is harder to calculate, but ...
(5*4*3*2)+1 = 101, 9th level spell.
(5*3)*(4+2)-1 = 89, 8th level spell.
(5*(4+1)*3)-2 = 73, 7th level spell.
((5+1)*4*2)+3 = 59, 6th level spell.
(5+3)*(4+2)-1 = 47, 5th level spell.
(5*3)*(4-2)-1 = 31, 4th level spell.
(5*3)*(4-2)-1 = 29, 3rd level spell.
5+4+3+2-1 = 13, 2nd level spell.
5+4+3-2-1 = 9, 1st level spell.

Yeh, I'm guessing it's basically always free however much metamagic you want at any level, plus two metamagic feats, plus no prep on it, plus you need a big spreadsheet running to speed the process up. Probably gets harder for no reason with any more than about 7 ranks, only really need one odd number, though 2 or 3 helps, and you want at least one 5 or 6 to hit the big levels, with not too many 1s and 2s.

Axebird · Post by **Axebird** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 6:47 am

Leress wrote:It's still pretty dumb to make it a feat, just make it a template you get when you go through the ritual.

Oh yeah, absolutely. Not a template though, that'd be pretty pointless for just one ability. The way Paizo implemented the effect is pretty dumb.

But it's not presented as a player option. Critiquing it like that's what it's for is almost as silly.

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 9:25 am

What do you mean, "not a player option" ... it's exactly perfect for a character I'm making!

So the character is a Ghost with the "possess items" alternate power, and some way to change shape (haven't decided yet). The goal is to possess someone's pants, grapple them, and then have the pants turn into a shark. And with this feat, I can also make the pants/shark self-destruct!

... Ok, so it's only useful because I'm playing a weird-ass character. And, how this interacts with possessing things is a bit dubious; if it was ruled to only work on the 'real' body, it would be useless again. But it is pretty amusing that I heard about this just as I was looking for something like it.

It would actually be pretty nasty for a standard body-possessing Ghost. Oh, you have Protection from Evil, your friend will be free next round? Nope! Kaboom!

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 10:22 am

Spell Tags. Have a party member carry around a bunch of spell tags, possess them, and adhere to a person, turn into an animated spell tag, and blow up.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Tue Jul 29, 2014 3:40 am

Did TGDMB ever have a "best class for first time player to D&D/PF" discussion? If so, what was it.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Tue Jul 29, 2014 3:58 am

For pathfinder? Ouch..
Cleric or oracle maybe, or sorcerer, with a massive tutorial on spells. I know the developers would probably say fighter, but punishing players with a shitty class seems a bad way to actually keep them.

Really, though pathfinder is such a noob unfriendly game that I wouldn't hit a new player with the system at all.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Jul 29, 2014 4:04 am

Probably Sorcerer, but build the character for them, including spell selection. Ask them in broad terms what they might like to do, but make all actual character-building decisions for them so they can't fuck it up.

Or Cleric, and choose the spells they prepare. This lets them later on make their own choices when they're used to it, and gives the character a bit more muscle as well.