Pathfinder Is Still Bad

Silent Wayfarer · Post by **Silent Wayfarer** » Mon Jul 20, 2015 1:37 am

Archmage Joda wrote:So, a while back (I mean so many pages I don't even begin to remember precisely where), someone mentioned something about being able to make the bard a good arcane gish-in-a-can. How in Pathfinder would one make a good fighting bard (the actual bard class, not a skald or anything like that), preferrably with a sword of some sort. I know everything eventually loses to full casters, but my group never plays anything past level 8-10, so high level crap isn't a concern.

I like the Dawnflower Dervish bard, it gets double Inspire Courage bonuses but only to themselves. Also a free dervish dance feat (dex to attack and damage).

So - play an azata-blooded aasimar (+dex, +cha). Try and swap your SLA for another +2 Dex. Pick up Master Performer and Grand Master Performer (they're on archives of nethys). As an aasimar bard, huck ALL your favored class bonus into making Inspire Courage count higher, you want to have an effective bard level of 17-18 for this, so you probably want that banner that increases your inspire courage effective level.

This gives you a base +6 from inspire courage, doubled to +12 by battle dance, on 2 attacks (3 with haste) a round with an 18-20 weapon, and you can personally cast all the good buffs on yourself. This is before weapon mods. Fighters don't get a third attack before level 11 anyway, so you don't really care that you're 2 BAB behind when you're +10 attack and damage ahead.

On the whole I think a charging Primal Companion Hunter on a velociraptor would be better since they do triple damage on a charge and have attack generation shenanigans via shared teamwork feats, but I really like the dervish dancer bard.

Orca · Post by **Orca** » Mon Jul 20, 2015 10:58 am

ishy wrote:Why the fuck would you pick the insane option? Why not pick between you always/never count the weight of melded items?

I can see the thought process, I think.

Imagine someone with 10 strength, loaded up to the light encumbrance limit, changes into a little bird. You don't want them to be squashed so you say the melded items don't count.

The same person picks up a dead body, or a treasure chest, which takes them well into heavy. It annoys you that they can turn into a little bird and flit away so you say no, they're still encumbered.

Sure the second decision is being an arsehole, but we cannot reasonably say there are no arseholes on Paizo staff.

Orca · Post by **Orca** » Mon Jul 20, 2015 11:04 am

Prak wrote: I think I'm going to do damage resistant monsters the way I suggested D&D should too. Is Regeneration (Silver) really any more bookkeeping than DR 5/Silver? DR requires remembering it's there when the party wails on the thing without silver, while Regen (Silver) means they're just doing damage that can only knock it out without silver. And the fact that silver makes for a crappy knife means it's actually probably better to wail on the thing with real iron and then just cut it's heart out with a silver dagger when it's passed out. But I'm honestly asking, because I never played AD&D.

Regen in any form is more bookkeeping than DR because you've got to remember it at two points; when the monster takes damage and on its turn, when it regenerates. I know I've forgotten the 2nd part a few times. Add in keeping track of two damage totals, and yes it is a pain.

But sure, more often than not regenerating monsters die the way you describe.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Jul 20, 2015 11:13 am

OK, what about regen the way I propose it, where it just means all damage converts to nonlethal unless it meets a specified condition and then all healing faster than nature is subsumed into Fast Healing?

Orca · Post by **Orca** » Mon Jul 20, 2015 11:58 am

Prak, I think that's exactly what I described. You're going to have to point out any difference you see.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Jul 20, 2015 12:03 pm

I mean dropping the healing part of regen so that it's just "only X deals real damage, everything else is nonlethal and heaps at the standard rate"

"In fact, I'd almost say that regeneration shouldn't even get a number, that it should just be "all damage from sources that aren't X is nonlethal" and then Fast Healing should be written as #/(time unit) rather than being specifically X/round. So Trolls would have Regeneration (Fire, Acid) and FH 5/round and Werewolves can have Regeneration (Silver, magic, energy attacks) and FH Con Mod/Hour or something."

Orca · Post by **Orca** » Mon Jul 20, 2015 12:27 pm

The troll would be facing exactly the same situation as I described. Two types of damage to keep track of for each troll, fast healing on each troll's turn (or at the end of the round, whatever). The werewolf would be simpler in combat than that due to not having combat-time fast healing.

BTW rather than con mod/hour I'd use 'all nonlethal hp recover after a long rest' because that seems like a needless form of bookkeeping.

Have you ever read Elizabeth Boyer's books? Norse myth fantasy. The mention of trolls brought them to mind, they're not much like D&D trolls.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Jul 20, 2015 5:23 pm

Yeah, the troll would be. I suppose it's somewhat academic as almost all existing Regen monsters would just have Fast Healing too in this set up.

I'll look into the Elizabeth Boyer books, thanks. Trolls are just the go to regen example for D&D.

Covent · Post by **Covent** » Fri Jul 24, 2015 9:45 am

So, as you may or may not know, about a year ago Paizo released the Advanced Class Guide. It was a comedy of errors and incomplete editing and writing.

They have been promising an errata document for almost a year now and they just released it...

I read it and had to sit down and put my head in my hands. It is just... *Blargle*

Sorry, the stupid ham handed nerfbat that was applied to basically everything in the book just stirs my rage and boggles my mind.

I do recommend it for a good laugh, or a good cry, depending on if you had any hope left for Paizo.

Fucks · Post by **Fucks** » Fri Jul 24, 2015 11:18 am

Do you have a link?

Antariuk · Post by **Antariuk** » Fri Jul 24, 2015 11:32 am

Link

There seems to be a fair amount of outcry and confusion on the Paizo boards because they ignored a lot of known issues and nerfed other things to the ground. Bloodragers now can use shields and re-learn spells, but Swashbucklers got it in the earhole pretty hard. Divine Protection went from stupidly-broken good to "meh, maybe if I don't have something better to do with my feat". The whole thing is a giant mess, especially since Paizo decided to play coy about when the fuck people are going to see the 2nd printing as PDF or in print.

Covent · Post by **Covent** » Fri Jul 24, 2015 1:47 pm

Spirit's Gift, The Primal Companion Hunter, Hex vulnerability, so many fun things just shattered with the nerfbat from whatever group of mongoloids wrote this heaping pile of... I cannot even call it SHIT because at least shit is useful, this is just toxic waste spewed from a pustulent sore.

I am so pissed at Paizo right now.

MisterDee · Post by **MisterDee** » Fri Jul 24, 2015 2:49 pm

I stand by my basic assertion. The only way a character build gets good/working things is if someone plays it in the Paizo home group. It's the only actual playtesting that's done, every other build gets nerfed to the ground because only the Paizo home group aren't munchkins in their eyes.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Fri Jul 24, 2015 2:56 pm

It's been years, so I forget. A common dismissal to people pointing out that the math doesn't work for class X is that it needs to be playtested rather than looked at. Presumably there have been people who 'playtested' a class and came to the same conclusion. How were the 'playtesters' dismissed? Were they dismissed by the same people who told others that only actual games count for data?

Orca · Post by **Orca** » Fri Jul 24, 2015 3:10 pm

"My friends' playtest says otherwise" is how playtest data inconsistent with your beliefs can be dismissed. It isn't, always; some opinions can be swayed by playtest data.

"Ahah! I have a fix!" can be just as pernicious, I've seen fixes for totally unrelated problems passed off as answers.

Edit: Paizo in particular doesn't usually answer directly, so which of these they're using can only be inferred in most cases.

Lurky Lurkpants · Post by **Lurky Lurkpants** » Fri Jul 24, 2015 4:26 pm

Don't forget "you are playing wrong." If something is too weak it is because you are doing it wrong or your friends are powergaming munchkins, f it is too strong it is because you are the powergaming munchkin. In either case your GM sucks and that scenario would never would, or your GM sucks because they did not create a scenario that specifically caters to your ability set and actively shuts down everyone else's.

"But in an antimagic field..." comes up a lot in these.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Fri Jul 24, 2015 4:40 pm

Has anyone noticed that for the last twelve hours, the Paizo General Discussion forum has been nothing but spambot posts? As in, over 1300 consecutive posts of random Chinese(Korean?) spam posts by numerous different accounts, at about two posts per minute.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Fri Jul 24, 2015 6:32 pm

virgil wrote:Has anyone noticed that for the last twelve hours, the Paizo General Discussion forum has been nothing but spambot posts? As in, over 1300 consecutive posts of random Chinese(Korean?) spam posts by numerous different accounts, at about two posts per minute.

Obligatory joke about not noticing due to equivalent post content value, etc.

TOZ · Post by **TOZ** » Fri Jul 24, 2015 7:44 pm

Holy shit, the ACG errata has educated me on what an MMO patch update feels like.

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Fri Jul 24, 2015 10:33 pm

I'm starting to get burnt out on Pathfinder. Even in the context of being a barely adequate substitute for 3.x that has a player-base and a free SRD. It seems like Paizo really wants people to play a certain way - ie. picking a lots and lots of widgets that each give tiny shitty bonuses, with the goal of voltron-ing enough together to get a fairly effective (but not too effective, or they'll nerf it) end result.

And I hate that style. I've noticed that in Magic, I almost never make decks that use the "steadily build up stuff with pretty good value, win by reliable attrition, nothing flashy" method, because it bores the shit out of me. And that's what Paizo considers the right way to play. Well, sucking is also acceptable, of course.

Also, a big selling point of Pathfinder was that they left much of the world-affecting stuff from 3.x in. For "backward compatibility" reasons rather than active support of it, but still. But looking at anything Paizo writes for social / large-scale stuff, it's clear that they really prefer a 4E style "PCs just fight shit and get extremely local power, anything large-scale is by DM fiat" approach, and it's more that they didn't realize/admit what the spells they kept could do than that they endorsed it.

It all came together when I noticed how apathetic I've gotten toward building any PF characters or even browsing the new stuff they publish for gold among the chaff.

Insomniac · Post by **Insomniac** » Sat Jul 25, 2015 1:23 am

They want everybody to be playing a borderline acceptable character, if even that, kind of like a Vanilla Ice Cream philosophy. But they then they give every class hundreds of easily swappable options and get upset when a funky known build happens or it seems like the community "figures out" a class.

It's bizarre. They give everybody sprinkles and toppings and 50 different flavors and get upset when people start eating Tutti Frutti. Hey, this is exactly what you'd expect to happen with things like choosing racial attributes, talents, feat proliferation, archetypes and multiple archetype characters,
class bloat, etc.

Why do they get so honked off when people don't play vanilla? They give all the mechanical rules for free and it looks like they really want people to take talents, different race abilities and archetypes. It's free flavor and powe on tap, what did they expect to happen?

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Sat Jul 25, 2015 2:19 am

Insomniac wrote:what did they expect to happen?

You know when you go dumpster diving (for AGES) in pathfinder option sets. You know all those heaps of dross abilities that are so shitty you probably would be better off just not taking anything? All those ones you take one look at then toss into the ever growing pile of shit options you won't even take a second glance at.

They are probably the intended balance point for pretty much every "new" choice pathfinder introduced. Fake options that don't matter. Anything that exceeds that clearly needs to be nerfed into uselessness. They were never meant to voltron into anything useful, they were meant to give the pretense of "moar" than 3.5 without ever actually delivering anything meaningfully disruptive to still basically being 3.5, as imagined by the pathfinder nutters anyway.

Covent · Post by **Covent** » Sat Jul 25, 2015 8:33 am

PhoneLobster wrote:
Insomniac wrote:what did they expect to happen?
You know when you go dumpster diving (for AGES) in pathfinder option sets. You know all those heaps of dross abilities that are so shitty you probably would be better off just not taking anything? All those ones you take one look at then toss into the ever growing pile of shit options you won't even take a second glance at.

They are probably the intended balance point for pretty much every "new" choice pathfinder introduced. Fake options that don't matter. Anything that exceeds that clearly needs to be nerfed into uselessness. They were never meant to voltron into anything useful, they were meant to give the pretense of "moar" than 3.5 without ever actually delivering anything meaningfully disruptive to still basically being 3.5, as imagined by the pathfinder nutters anyway.

I hate to say so but, "I agree". I don't know if that is what the Paizo designers actually intend but it certainly looks that way.

This is what made me just shift my current game mid campaign from Pathfinder to Fate. Not trying to claim Fate is awesome or anything but at least it does not have "You must be this much of a caster, with this spell selection, to play."

God the design point seems to be so low. *Sob* I have wasted so much money on books...

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Sat Jul 25, 2015 10:56 am

Change the Pummeling Style feat’s introduction to “Your unarmed strikes weave together in an effortless combo, focusing on the spots you’ve weakened with the last hit.” Change its Benefit section to
“Benefit: Whenever you use a full-attack action or flurry of blows to make multiple attacks against a single opponent with unarmed strikes, total the damage from all hits before applying damage reduction. This ability works only with unarmed strikes, no matter what other abilities you might possess.
[ . . . ]
In the Twist Away feat’s Benefit section, at the end, add “If you are prevented from becoming staggered, you can’t use Twist Away, nor can you ignore the staggered condition from Twist Away or remove it early”.

I find it interesting just how much they are relying on constructs like these. (you can't remove it early, you can't ignore it, it only works with X no matter what other feats say)

Insomniac · Post by **Insomniac** » Sat Jul 25, 2015 2:34 pm

PhoneLobster wrote:
Insomniac wrote:what did they expect to happen?
You know when you go dumpster diving (for AGES) in pathfinder option sets. You know all those heaps of dross abilities that are so shitty you probably would be better off just not taking anything? All those ones you take one look at then toss into the ever growing pile of shit options you won't even take a second glance at.

They are probably the intended balance point for pretty much every "new" choice pathfinder introduced. Fake options that don't matter. Anything that exceeds that clearly needs to be nerfed into uselessness. They were never meant to voltron into anything useful, they were meant to give the pretense of "moar" than 3.5 without ever actually delivering anything meaningfully disruptive to still basically being 3.5, as imagined by the pathfinder nutters anyway.

So then it really is like Magic, where MTG deliberates prints crappy cards and junk rares so you "feel good" when you understand "card evaluation." So Paizo prints bullshit feats, races, talents, spells and items, hell, maybe even bullshit CLASSES on purpose and you're supposed to feel good when you understand "evaluation." But even still, Magic has undergone a colossal amount of power creep and they want people to find out the decks they found in testing and they deliberately push card power and are happy to do it.