[Pathfinder] More previews up

[Kaelik]

Kaelik, the Pathfinder change to skills is as follows (if memory serves, it's been months since I cared):

All skills are bought at 1 rank per skill point.
The maximum rank for everyone is your character level.
If you buy a skill with skill points from a class for which it is a class skill, you get a +3 bonus to that skill.

So the only difference between a class skill and a cross class skill is some bullshit 3 points, and it's possible for the paladin to have a decent stealth and UMD or whatever else they might want.

That's fine for UMD, but frankly, claiming that the Paladin can just because of skill changes have a good MS score is a joke. A good move silent score is a halfling rogue with dex focus. For a Paladin to have a good score, or even an acceptable score requires grave sacrifices of character.

Paladins are already some of the most MAD classes, though slightly better in Pathfinder. And we are talking about having a bunch of skill points and a good dex while still not sucking at combat? And what, is he just going to drop the Full plate and go for Chain Shirt?

Paladins as far as I can tell still have only 2 skill points, so even with an Int of 10, and human, they still get only 3 stats. Even maxxed Stealth isn't enough to be useful against most foes, so why the Paladin is going to have Stalth as any kind of ranks is beyond me.

[Leress]

@DMR: My mistake on the golem fight I forgot that +4 gets past the DR.

[hogarth]

So I'm wondering (a.k.a. trying hard to change the subject) about what the Pathfinder team actually do? According to the Q and A sessions on the blog it seems to be made up of 9 people, only two of which are Jason Bulmahn and Sean K Reynolds. What have the others actually done and how are they involved in creating Pathfinder?

Unless they are forum mods or something like that they will be involved in creating stuff. And they already don't include interns. I can see one cartographer, one artist and one inker, but the other 4 need jobs. And they can't be the playtesters because otherwise they only have about 4 playtesters for whole adventure paths. Which would mean that only one party went through the campaign.

Ideas? Or am I looking too hard at this?

"Pathfinder" means at least 4 different things. It means Paizo's RPG (which we're talking about here). It also means their Adventure Path module line-up. It also means their organized play league. It also means their campaign setting.

Jason Bulmahn is the only guy who was working full-time on the RPG. I'm sure the other folks chipped in their two cents every now and then, of course.

[Roy]

Well, at least that explains why the Fail is consistent.

[Psychic Robot]

Using her detect evil SLA takes a move action. That means that she has one action in which to actually do anything to the Gelugon. Since it is using wall + kiting tactics, it is presumably keeping out of standard-action charge range the majority of the time. What with having an Int of 22 and not 4.

Once the paladin identifies the actual threat, he can ignore the illusions. That's the entire point.

Unless they've made drastic changes, yadda yadda...
"The wall takes the form of a hemisphere whose maximum radius is 3 feet + 1 foot per caster level. The hemisphere is as hard to break through as the ice plane form, but it does not deal damage to those who go through a breach." The paladin is a human, it is not 17 feet tall, it is fully encompassed by the hemisphere.

And the point is that the hemisphere actually protects him. Unless the hail is somehow penetrating the dome of ice between the paladin and itself. Of course, we're then heading into unorthodox interaction of spells, so run for the hills.

Irrelevant, due to stalling tactics due to the ice hemisphere described above.

But then the paladin will see the illusions being created. So you can spam illusions all you want, but the paladin is going to say, "Gee, that balor that just appeared? That's probably not a real balor."

This is irrelevant and mistaken. Summoning is an action that gives certain benefits, specifically another balor's abilities and actions sans summoning, and is factored into his CR. If the balor doesn't summon another, this is a tactical distinction, not a matter of one vs. two CR20 monsters in an encounter. You can argue that the CR is wrong, but it doesn't change because the balor chooses or does not choose to summon.

You don't adjust the EL of the cleric because he used a summon spell for the same reason you don't adjust his EL for casting implosion. Casting a summon spell takes an action and gives you specific benefits, which are an inherent part of "being a cleric". So does casting implosion. If you're adjusting the cleric's EL for every time it casts a spell... I feel sorry for you.

If you're fighting a cleric with a small army of undead, the EL for fighting him and the undead is higher than if you're fighting just the cleric.

This is fairly simple.

Cleric vs. Cleric + undead legion.

Which one is more difficult to kill? As in, which presents a more challenging encounter?

Having or not having equipment changes the fighter's CR specifically and only because having or not having equipment changes a character's CR. It has nothing to do with abilities like summon or spellcasting.

It changes the EL. Yes, the ability to summon is factored into the gelugon's CR, but you are increasing the EL. And, since the gelugon is summoning the other devils for free (no real waste of actions since he can teleport out and get the jump on the paladin), it's a larger boost to the EL than if he was using a standard action in combat to summon them.

Being able to solo a monster of a CR higher than them is not brokenness. You are actually arguing that a single level 17 wizard should never be able to win against a single level 18 wizard here (since the second is CR 18, and 18 > 17). That is a bad thing.

Then allow me to amend my statement: when they can solo encounters of a CR significantly greater than theirs, then there's a problem. When they can solo creatures of their CR with ease, then there's a problem.

Ice storm can be used to hit the paladin from further than 60 feet. It's not a stalemate when one person is sniping and the other is trapped in place with their head in plain sight without a gun (which is the actual scenario being described here).

Again, the paladin isn't necessarily an easy target. Again, if you're assuming "herp derp smashadin," then yes, he's going to die easily, but if you assume that he has a modicum of intellect, then the paladin isn't going to be helpless against the gelugon.

Flesh to stone, finger of death, and baleful polymorph are unbalanced at any and all levels? Good to know.[/sarcasm]

Again, allow me to amend my statement: being able to one-shot a monster of an equal CR more than 50% of the time is unbalanced. And it's not a very good system, either.

[Psychic Robot]

Then what the fuck are you talking about?

Seriously, we all agree that it is possible to make a 13th level character who can sometimes win against a Gelugon. Also, Jason's Pathfinder revisions are specifically intended to make that more difficult. And while we haven't actually seen the final Paladin rules, it appears that some of the very few Paladin builds that had a chance n basic 3.5 rules have been nerfed out of existence in exchange for frankly minor powers that are very definitely insufficient to best their standard opponents.

So seriously, if you aren't talking about Seelah the Paladin, what the fucking hell are you talking about?

-Username17

Frankly, I don't know what you're talking about. I'm talking about the revisions to the paladin class itself. If you're going to go by the Paizo builds for the iconics, then the entire discussion is moot because the iconics are basically anti-optimized. Again, a level 1 orc wizard has a good chance of one-shotting Valeros.

[Parthenon]

The Paizo 'pro' team appear to be made up of 9 people as shown by the Ask a Pro articles. They also have lots of others shown by mentioning editorial interns and "cartographer Corey Macourek". They are below, with their job title:

• Lisa Stevens - CEO
• F. Wesley Schneider - Managing Editor
• James Jacobs - Editor in Chief
• Erik Mona - Publisher
• Jason Bulmahn - Lead Designer
• Sean K Reynolds - ? no title but designer
• Joshua J. Frost - Events Manager
• James Sutter - Fiction editor
• Chris Self - Sales Manager

Sean's wiki article is retarded with text such as "He does not put a "." after his middle initial." Wow.

I think my real question is how many people do they actually have making up rules for Pathfinder and the various adventure paths? Who exactly is working on it?

Looking some more at the 'Pathfinder Wiki', Paizo supposedly have 11 members of staff. They have two designers, two people in advertising, one in publishing, one in charge and five editors. They seriously have more people editing than they have creating on the staff. And what the hell is the difference between "Managing Editor" and "Editor in Chief"? Who is superior to who?

However, what it actually looks like is that they have about 70 people outsourced to send in shit and what the editors and designers do is pick out the stuff they want. Including Keith Baker, Monte Cook and R.A. Salvatore. However, this actually means that they have 5 editors trying to filter out 70 people's random gibberish based on Bulmahn's current thoughts.

No sign of playtesters or even people in charge of playtesters, it all looks like a mess. No wonder Pathfinder is shit.

[Leress]

No sign of playtesters or even people in charge of playtesters, it all looks like a mess. No wonder Pathfinder is shit.

Oh you didn't know, the forum members are the playtesters. After a number of people were asking what the guidelines for playesting were (including me) they added a playtesting section sticky about playtesting. After I read that post I pretty much concluded that they didn't have any real clue about playtesting and all I heard was " it's as much a science as it is an art".

Hell, I wouldn't be surprised that every good melee build in Pathfinder had vital strike and the overhead chop chain. Pretty much every one is going to do the whole burn the shitty attacks to get the bigger badass two cuts. It would somewhat speed up combat but not much else.

[Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp]

Yeah, it basically sums up the symptoms we've been discussing for months about bad game design. If you don't understand what's wrong with the patient, you cannot cure the patient.

It is ironic how the people who could have been their greatest saviors were rejected.

[hogarth]

Looking some more at the 'Pathfinder Wiki', Paizo supposedly have 11 members of staff. They have two designers, two people in advertising, one in publishing, one in charge and five editors. They seriously have more people editing than they have creating on the staff.

Have you never looked at the masthead of a magazine before? The permanent employees are pretty much all editors, and articles are written by the editors or by freelancers.

Most of their modules are written by freelancers, with Erik Mona or James Jacob writing some as well.

[smug]

... and five editors. They seriously have more people editing than they have creating on the staff. And what the hell is the difference between "Managing Editor" and "Editor in Chief"? Who is superior to who?

However, what it actually looks like is that they have about 70 people outsourced to send in shit and what the editors and designers do is pick out the stuff they want. Including Keith Baker, Monte Cook and R.A. Salvatore. However, this actually means that they have 5 editors trying to filter out 70 people's random gibberish based on Bulmahn's current thoughts.

They employ freelancers and edit their content. I don't see what's weird about that (and the submissions have mostly been 3.5 to date, although they're sharing stuff with other publishers early, and of course they'd have to show their AP and other authors for the post-August stuff). James Jacobs (Editor-in-Chief) is the senior editor, I believe.

No sign of playtesters or even people in charge of playtesters, it all looks like a mess. No wonder Pathfinder is shit.

Playtesters aren't employees or else playtesting is a lesser element of their job?

[hogarth]

And what the hell is the difference between "Managing Editor" and "Editor in Chief"?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=managing+editor&l=1
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=editor-in-chief&l=1

[Kaelik]

But then the paladin will see the illusions being created. So you can spam illusions all you want, but the paladin is going to say, "Gee, that balor that just appeared? That's probably not a real balor."

Well it's a good thing that Balors don't have some ability to appear in a location they weren't in before magically and without visiting points in between. Because if they did, the Paladin would have no way of knowing.

Also, you seriously don't understand Illusions:

First you encase in a Ice wall, then you make an illusion of a wall of stone, then you make a bunch of illusions behind the wall of stone, including more ice walls (and real ice walls) and walls of stone. That way, what you actually have is a situation where he has to go through a maze with a bunch of illusory monsters and walls and also some real monsters and walls, and he's being Cone of Colded from behind different walls all the time.

If you're fighting a cleric with a small army of undead, the EL for fighting him and the undead is higher than if you're fighting just the cleric.

This is fairly simple.

Cleric vs. Cleric + undead legion.

Which one is more difficult to kill? As in, which presents a more challenging encounter?

Not if he created the undead, because that's an example of the Cleric using his abilities. Just like when a freaking Ravid animates an object, it doesn't become higher CR. Just like when a Wizard casts Summon Monster X he does not become higher EL.

Cleric vs Cleric + Implosion

Which one is more difficult to kill? As in, which presents a more challenging encounter?

If a Cleric uses his class abilities, he does not become a higher EL, since his EL was calculated based on his ability to use those abilities.

Again, the paladin isn't necessarily an easy target. Again, if you're assuming "herp derp smashadin," then yes, he's going to die easily, but if you assume that he has a modicum of intellect, then the paladin isn't going to be helpless against the gelugon.

You are being a fucking dick and you know it. A Smashadin is the iconic Paladin right after the Chargadin, and it actually uses the class features.

When you say "a modicum of intelligence" you really mean a Paladin with high dex in chain shirt who spent 25,000gp on ring of invis and maxxed UMD and Stealth so he could hide better. That's bullshit. First of all, your stupid non fullplate wearing Paladin can't actually beat the Ice Devil in melee combat at all. Secondly, you have demonstrated that a Paladin who uses zero class features, and plays like a Rogue can sort of hide from an Ice Devil.

So fucking what?

A Rogue can buy a staff of Holy Word, a +30 UMD item, max charisma and pull out CL 45 Holy Words at ECL 13. No one cares. Because the only thing he's using is UMD as a class skill. And in Pathfinder, well fuck, any class at all can just take a -3 to CL and do the same thing.

That doesn't mean that every class in Pathfinder is really good. It means that UMD is good.

Similarly, you have proved that blowing 25,000gp on a ring, and focusing on Dex can allow any class to hide almost acceptably from a single CR 13 foe. (But not from a fucking Glabrezu, who of course has True Seeing, oh shit, your Bullshit Rogadin still can't accomplish his main fucking purpose!) That's great, but you've got some problems:

1) Prove that a dex focused non plate wearing Paladin could ever beat an Ice Devil in melee combat.

2) You fucking designed this character after we presented the challenge, and designed it in a way that makes it a worse character against every single other CR 13 challenge (And this one.) If we had started by pointing out that a Glabrezu kicks his ass all day, you'd pull out some other bullshit item to claim your Paladin could handle him, like a fucking Ring of Fire Resist 30 or something equally stupid.

[Grek]

Pathfinder seems to be unintentionally slipping into a classess system, because for pretty much every class, a viable opton is to do something like "Put 1 point into UMD every level, purchase a staff of something badass. Ignore your actual class abilities, those are just catrips and flavor text."

[TarkisFlux]

[Stuff]

I wasn't especially defending them, and rather dislike the change for lots of reasons. I was just explaining the rules changes since you didn't know them and I thought you'd want to be arguing on the same ground as everyone else. They do get better scores than they would otherwise (past level 3 anyway), even if that score still sucks.

[Psychic Robot]

Well it's a good thing that Balors don't have some ability to appear in a location they weren't in before magically and without visiting points in between. Because if they did, the Paladin would have no way of knowing.

Sigh. Once the paladin sees repeated illusions of balors, he's probably going to ignore the other illusions.

Also, you seriously don't understand Illusions:

First you encase in a Ice wall, then you make an illusion of a wall of stone, then you make a bunch of illusions behind the wall of stone, including more ice walls (and real ice walls) and walls of stone. That way, what you actually have is a situation where he has to go through a maze with a bunch of illusory monsters and walls and also some real monsters and walls, and he's being Cone of Colded from behind different walls all the time.

Let's say that you start illusion spamming. You're right in that this is a difficult challenge for the paladin to overcome without resorting to the use of his own magic or UMD. If you use extremely complicated illusions, then you've probably got the paladin beat. However, once the paladin starts getting CoCed, he'll be able to tell from what direction the spell is coming from. He can then safely move in that direction because he will know that the area in that direction is open enough for him to be hit with a CoC.

Furthermore, if you're making all these illusory walls, the paladin can just fly over them.

Of course, this doesn't change the fact that no other noncaster can deal with illusions without resorting to UMD.

So the gelugon wins this round, but it's not just against the paladin.

Not if he created the undead, because that's an example of the Cleric using his abilities. Just like when a freaking Ravid animates an object, it doesn't become higher CR. Just like when a Wizard casts Summon Monster X he does not become higher EL.

Cleric vs Cleric + Implosion

Which one is more difficult to kill? As in, which presents a more challenging encounter?

If a Cleric uses his class abilities, he does not become a higher EL, since his EL was calculated based on his ability to use those abilities.

I am not sure that you understand the difference between EL and CR. Raising the EL != raising a monster's CR. (And don't even give me some bullshit about how spell choice doesn't affect CR. If a cleric prepares only healing spells, his CR drops about tenfold.)

You are being a fucking dick and you know it. A Smashadin is the iconic Paladin right after the Chargadin, and it actually uses the class features.

When you say "a modicum of intelligence" you really mean a Paladin with high dex in chain shirt who spent 25,000gp on ring of invis and maxxed UMD and Stealth so he could hide better. That's bullshit. First of all, your stupid non fullplate wearing Paladin can't actually beat the Ice Devil in melee combat at all. Secondly, you have demonstrated that a Paladin who uses zero class features, and plays like a Rogue can sort of hide from an Ice Devil.

Herp derp derp. Apparently, having a player work to shore up the weaknesses of his character = LOL BEIN A DICK. For the second time, a ring of invisibility is 20,000 gp, and expecting a paladin to put a few skill points into UMD, Perception, and Stealth isn't exactly HOLY SHIT OUT OF LINE. Christ Almighty, the ring itself largely negates the necessity of Stealth, and the paladin should have a decent Charisma score to boost his UMD.

Furthermore, your argument was that the flask rogue could take on the gelugon by using UMD. Don't give me any two-way street bullshit. Either allow UMD or don't.

Similarly, you have proved that blowing 25,000gp on a ring, and focusing on Dex can allow any class to hide almost acceptably from a single CR 13 foe. (But not from a fucking Glabrezu, who of course has True Seeing, oh shit, your Bullshit Rogadin still can't accomplish his main fucking purpose!) That's great, but you've got some problems:

He wouldn't need to hide from a glabrezu because the glabrezu won't try any illusion bullshit.

1) Prove that a dex focused non plate wearing Paladin could ever beat an Ice Devil in melee combat.

I already have. Shit, on top of that, a +5 competence bonus to your Stealth skill is only 4k. Why not slap that on the armor, too? Even without any points in stealth, a character can pretty much match the gelugon's Perception check.

2) You fucking designed this character after we presented the challenge, and designed it in a way that makes it a worse character against every single other CR 13 challenge (And this one.) If we had started by pointing out that a Glabrezu kicks his ass all day, you'd pull out some other bullshit item to claim your Paladin could handle him, like a fucking Ring of Fire Resist 30 or something equally stupid.

Ring of invisibility is a poor investment? But you are correct in that I am retroactively designing a character. However, I would like to know two things:

1. How has Pathfinder made the paladin weaker?
2. How can any noncaster hope to compete against equal-CR monsters without resorting to UMD?

[Kaelik]

Sigh. Once the paladin sees repeated illusions of balors, he's probably going to ignore the other illusions.

He has to figure out they are illusions. And even if he starts ignoring all the monsters as illusions, that's a perfect time for summoned Bone Devils or a full attack.

However, once the paladin starts getting CoCed, he'll be able to tell from what direction the spell is coming from. He can then safely move in that direction because he will know that the area in that direction is open enough for him to be hit with a CoC.

Great, and he runs through the wall to discover he still has a wall in every direction, and he can't see the Ice Devil, because the Ice Devil moved, and is going to do it again.

Furthermore, if you're making all these illusory walls, the paladin can just fly over them.

WTF. Please stop smoking crack. This isn't a featureless plane. Ice Devils probably live in Ice Caves. They probably teleport inside buildings to eat people. The Ice Devil can easily make walls that Paladin can't fly over. Even if the Paladin could fly over, he can;t do anything, so he's still just wasting 3 charges of his boots to fly around for 15 minutes getting cone of colded. (Okay, so he dies way before that, whatever.)

I am not sure that you understand the difference between EL and CR. Raising the EL != raising a monster's CR.

Fuck you, CR EL, same damn thing. Replace CR with EL, the statement is still true. A Wizard casting Summon Monster does not increase EL, just like a Wizard casting Defenestrating Sphere or Fireball or Stinking Cloud doesn't increase EL.

Apparently, having a player work to shore up the weaknesses of his character = LOL BEIN A DICK. For the second time, a ring of invisibility is 20,000 gp, and expecting a paladin to put a few skill points into UMD, Perception, and Stealth isn't exactly HOLY SHIT OUT OF LINE. Christ Almighty, the ring itself largely negates the necessity of Stealth, and the paladin should have a decent Charisma score to boost his UMD.

You aren't shoring up his weaknesses. You are making him much much weaker at his primary stick so that you can pretend to hide, but you still can't do anything when you are hiding, so it doesn't matter.

If he puts a couple points into Perception and Stealth, he can't fucking hide, because he starts of the RNG, and winning 1 check out of every 300 doesn't make that any better.

He wouldn't need to hide from a glabrezu because the glabrezu won't try any illusion bullshit.

He also won't be able to close with the Glabrezu, or beat the Glabrezu in melee, or survive the ass pounding from at will SLAs.

1) Prove that a dex focused non plate wearing Paladin could ever beat an Ice Devil in melee combat.

I already have. Shit, on top of that, a +5 competence bonus to your Stealth skill is only 4k. Why not slap that on the armor, too? Even without any points in stealth, a character can pretty much match the gelugon's Perception check.

Thank you for not reading. I said prove he could beat him in melee combat, not in fucking Perception checks. He can win all the perception checks he wants, if his method of combat is to full attack the Ice Devil who can full attack him back but better, he's still useless.

Okay, let's try this again.

In order for the Paladin to be able to beat the Gelugon in melee combat, he needs to be wearing Full plate. Fullplate has a penalty of -6 penalty. He then gets a 10 Dex or something, plus a +5 competence bonus. He now has a net penalty of -1. He fails every time. Now let's say he throws all his ranks into it. He now has a net bonus of +12, he still loses more than 90% of the time to the Gelugon's +25. The only way he can get close is to drop the Full plate, and boost dex at the expense of Cha/Str/Con, those things that were keeping him alive against the Ice Devil. He now loses to the Ice Devil in melee combat, and he still never even gets to the point where he wins 50% of his Stealth Checks.

1. How has Pathfinder made the paladin weaker?

Well, 1) Probably screwed over the Chargadin build, you know, the one that didn't suck.

2) No one is saying they made it weaker overall. We are saying that they didn't make it strong enough to be worth what it should be.

If I take the Monk and I create a custom Monk class that is exactly like the basic Monk, but gets +1 more AC at every level, I made it stronger. It still sucks.

2. How can any noncaster hope to compete against equal-CR monsters without resorting to UMD?

By being a Chargadin, or a Shocktrooper. By being a Warblade or Frenzied Berserker. By being a Flask Rogue or a hardcore Archer or bullshit.

[Akula]

Psychic Robot strawmaned both of you for this entire argument. That is, when he wasn't busily shifting goalposts.

You claimed: This paladin sucks! It can't deal with the challenge it was designed to meet.
He claimed: *This* paladin can beat it.
You claimed: No, it can't.
He claimed: But with these alterations it totally can run away. And any character that can consistently deal with challenges is broken. The problem is with them nasty casters.
You claimed: Your paladin still can't deal with the challenge. And neither can the paladin we started talking about.
He claimed: I'm talking about paladins in general, how dare you claim I was trying to interact with the discussion in a meaningful way. Or have the paladin do anything that wouldn't win him the fight.
You claimed: It wouldn't work, still.
He claimed: No martial class could beat your challenge.
You claimed: Yes. These martial characters can.

PR, shut up. You aren't having an honest discussion; hell you aren't having an interesting discussion, and when you start the "Herp Derp Derp" I start to have flashbacks to Roy's dickish behavior. You are dangerously close to the line. The I'm an intellectually bankrupt troll line.

[Roy]

1. How has Pathfinder made the paladin weaker?
2. How can any noncaster hope to compete against equal-CR monsters without resorting to UMD?

Standard PA nerfs, and whatever else they did that made the damage output so pathetic even after factoring that in.

Noncasters can deal with it by doing real damage that actually matters, and by actually being able to survive stuff. This usually means chargers, but machine gun archers and Rogues can also manage it. The best auto attackers might also be able to do it, since part of that is gaining the ability to actually move while doing so. Most are cut right out, but one specialized in killing a certain kind of foe could at least do that much. See: FCRWoG 13.

Also, fuck you Akula.

[TarkisFlux]

Other points aside, unless Pathfinder went and changed it you are fucking wrong on the summoning = ++EL thing PR.

Do not award XP for creatures that enemies summon or otherwise add to their forces with magic powers. An enemy's ability to summon of add these creatures is part of the enemy's CR already. (You don't give PCs more XP if a drow cleric casts unholy blight on them, so don't give them more XP if she casts summon monster IV instead.)

If you're not going to add XP for the summoned backup, their addition doesn't increase the EL. The assumption that the base monster will summon backup is already included in the CR of the base monster, so their actually doing it does not increase the difficulty of the encounter. Your point about a playing a creature like an idiot and not using powers decreasing its CR might be valid, but it certainly doesn't go the other way.

[Psychic Robot]

PALADINS SUCK

At this point, I think we can say that this isn't a very fruitful argument, and I wager that we're both sick of it.

There are some very challenging aspects of the gelugon that the paladin would have to overcome. The potency of said aspects depends both on the terrain and the efficacy of the gelugon's illusions. However, the two main aspects of the encounter that leave the paladin most incapable of dealing with the gelugon are illusions and the gelugon's ability to teleport.

Can we agree on this?

Fuck you, CR EL, same damn thing. Replace CR with EL, the statement is still true. A Wizard casting Summon Monster does not increase EL, just like a Wizard casting Defenestrating Sphere or Fireball or Stinking Cloud doesn't increase EL.

You're wrong. Economy of actions. If a cleric has an 80 HD skeleton wyrm or something and you go to fight him, you're going up against an encounter that needs to factor in both the cleric's strength and the wyrm's strength.

In order for the Paladin to be able to beat the Gelugon in melee combat, he needs to be wearing Full plate. Fullplate has a penalty of -6 penalty. He then gets a 10 Dex or something, plus a +5 competence bonus. He now has a net penalty of -1. He fails every time. Now let's say he throws all his ranks into it. He now has a net bonus of +12, he still loses more than 90% of the time to the Gelugon's +25. The only way he can get close is to drop the Full plate, and boost dex at the expense of Cha/Str/Con, those things that were keeping him alive against the Ice Devil. He now loses to the Ice Devil in melee combat, and he still never even gets to the point where he wins 50% of his Stealth Checks.

Let's say you've got +4 full plate vs. +4 mithral breastplate. Your AC is 22 + Dex vs. 19 + Dex. Let's just leave it at 22 vs. 19 for the sake of ease. Gelugon's full attack routine is...

19 AC
+20 (95%), +15 (85%), +10 (60%), +14 (80%), +14 (80%).

Average damage is: 15.2 + 13.6 + 9.6 + 12.8 + 12.8 = 64.

22 AC
+20 (95%), +15 (70%), +10 (45%), +14 (65%), +14 (65%).

Average damage is: 15.2 + 11.2 + 7.2 + 10.4 + 10.4 = 54.4.

Unless I've miscalculated. I'm not seeing a large enough difference to make me care. So you don't have to take a huge penalty on your Stealth checks. The gelugon will be more likely to win on opposed rolls, but you certainly aren't as crippled as you make it out to be.

Well, 1) Probably screwed over the Chargadin build, you know, the one that didn't suck.

2) No one is saying they made it weaker overall. We are saying that they didn't make it strong enough to be worth what it should be.

If I take the Monk and I create a custom Monk class that is exactly like the basic Monk, but gets +1 more AC at every level, I made it stronger. It still sucks.

Fair enough.

By being a Chargadin, or a Shocktrooper. By being a Warblade or Frenzied Berserker. By being a Flask Rogue or a hardcore Archer or bullshit.

Outside of the warblade, how can any of the above deal with the illusions you mentioned? If you used the same tactics on the listed classes as you suggested with the paladin, they would all die horribly. The flask rogue might stand a chance because he can sneak up on the gelugon, but if the gelugon doesn't die in one round, the rogue is screwed.

[Psychic Robot]

Psychic Robot strawmaned both of you for this entire argument. That is, when he wasn't busily shifting goalposts.

You are a worthless piece of shit, so go eat my dongs. (That's plural, asswipe.) From the get-go, I was working under the assumption that we were not using the Paizo iconics because their iconic fighter would lose to a level 1 orc wizard more often than not. So shut the fuck up, you turd.

Other points aside, unless Pathfinder went and changed it you are fucking wrong on the summoning = ++EL thing PR.

A gelugon with 5 bone devils is an EL 15 encounter. A lone gelugon is an EL 13 encounter.

[Akula]

Psychic Robot strawmaned both of you for this entire argument. That is, when he wasn't busily shifting goalposts.

You are a worthless piece of shit, so go eat my dongs. (That's plural, asswipe.) From the get-go, I was working under the assumption that we were not using the Paizo iconics because their iconic fighter would lose to a level 1 orc wizard more often than not. So shut the fuck up, you turd.

Maybe I was wrong about that. You're not denying the others though, because you can't. Also, everyone else was working under the assumption that we were using the Paizo character, when you assume an argument that your opponent has not made in order to better attack their point or defend your own, that is a strawman. You can't argue and you can't think.

[Psychic Robot]

Maybe I was wrong about that. You're not denying the others though, because you can't. Also, everyone else was working under the assumption that we were using the Paizo character, when you assume an argument that your opponent has not made in order to better attack their point or defend your own, that is a strawman. You can't argue and you can't think.

Thank you for your commentary. Your criticisms have been duly noted and filed.

[Kaelik]

There are some very challenging aspects of the gelugon that the paladin would have to overcome. The potency of said aspects depends both on the terrain and the efficacy of the gelugon's illusions. However, the two main aspects of the encounter that leave the paladin most incapable of dealing with the gelugon are illusions and the gelugon's ability to teleport.

Only because the Paladin sucks. Lots of real characters don't give a crap about the teleport. And that's part of my point. Being built on the assumption that you have several short term enemy specific buffs in order to fight your equal is a bad way to go. And that's the problem.

If the Paladin could fight an enemy without blowing smites on illusions and needing protection from evil to even survive and taking more than one round to power through an Ice wall, he could at least not look like a total bitch in this situation. Though he'd still have problems without a party, at least with a party he would matter.

You're wrong. Economy of actions. If a cleric has an 80 HD skeleton wyrm or something and you go to fight him, you're going up against an encounter that needs to factor in both the cleric's strength and the wyrm's strength.

Economy of actions my ass. When those extra actions aren't very good they aren't worth CR. An Ice Devil who can't summon is not a CR 13 monster. That's the fucking point. An Ice Devil is an EL 13 encounter. When he summons, he is still an EL 13 encounter, because the summons count as part of his abilities, just like when a Wizard summons and just like when a Cleric casts animate dead.

And fuck you and you 80HD Wyrm Strawman. You can't animate an 80HD skeleton of anything until epic. The best a Cleric can pull out is a few 20HD skeletons, and he has to kill 20HD creatures first. And at level 20, 20HD skeletons don't fucking matter, and that's the point.

An Ice Devil is a EL 13 encounter. An Ice Devil and 2d4 Bone Devils and 1d6 Bearded Devils none of whom can summon is also an EL 13 encounter.

An Ice Devil and 4 Bone Devils who have not summoned yet is an EL 15 encounter.

If later 1d6 Bearded Devils and 2d4+2 Bone Devils are summoned, it is still an EL 15 encounter.

It says right in the fucking rules that summoning doesn't increase EL.

Outside of the warblade, how can any of the above deal with the illusions you mentioned? If you used the same tactics on the listed classes as you suggested with the paladin, they would all die horribly. The flask rogue might stand a chance because he can sneak up on the gelugon, but if the gelugon doesn't die in one round, the rogue is screwed.

You didn't ask what level 13 character can beat an Ice Devil, you asked which can beat CR challenges.

The Chargadin can charge from 600ft away and kill it in a round, that's not going to work every time, but it will work more than the zero percent chance that sword Paladin has.

The Rogue can sneak up any full attack kill it. Again, not every time, but that's okay.

The Warblade can use Scent and maybe something else to narrow the odds, ect. The Frenzied Bersker is just immune to damage and breaks Ice walls as easily as Illusions.

The point is that though the Gelugon can beat them, they can beat lots of other challenges.

The Paladin can't actually stand in melee against anything he can't smite evil on. He just loses. And anything he can use Smite Evil on is capable of negating his Smites.

It's the problem with a class design that requires enemy specific buffs to stand comparable to regular CR monsters.

Characters that don't require enemy specific short term buffs to compete can deal with teleport, and deal with being tricked by Illusions. Paladins can't.