Pathfinder Is Still Bad

[tenngu]

Speaking of hidden changes, Eldritch Knight and Mystic Theurge can be entered a lot earlier now. Here's the ruling:

http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fm#v5748eaic9qow

So you can go Fighter 1/Scryer Wizard 1/Eldritch Knight +. This is actually a positive change, but if you read the ruling it doesn't appear that it was intentional.

Edit 7/12/13: The design team is aware that the above answer means that certain races can gain access to some spell caster prestige classes earlier than the default minimum (character level 6). Given that prestige classes are usually a sub-optimal character choice (especially for spell casters), the design team is allowing this FAQ ruling for prestige classes. If there is in-play evidence that this ruling is creating characters that are too powerful, the design team may revisit whether or not to allow spell-like abilities to count for prestige class requirements.

Hahaha holy shit. Yeah man getting into mystic theurge like 4 levels early is totally sub par.

Also, if prestige classes are sub-optimal, why write them? And especially for spell casters? you lose nothing usually by prestiging.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Favored Class bonus for extra hit points is kinda nice. And if you play a specific kind of sorcerer, you can spend your favored class bonus on extra spells known. I'm assuming the former is what they were thinking of.

Man, I wonder if I could actually get that early-access loophole to fly in the Isger game. I could do some truly ridiculous stuff with a genuinely effective cleric/mage...

[tenngu]

As an aside while I'm thinking about this, has anyone looked at that "NPC Codex" book at all? My new DM friend pretty much TPKed us while this one dude in in on page 165.

He's a CR7 sorcerer. and he has 4 phantasmal killers a day with a DC of 21. While this isn't an outright death in most cases, all of two of us had either a weak fort or will save, and this fucking npc is designed around phantasmal killer. As a fallback it has deep slumber 6/day.

It was almost surprising how hard someone minmaxed this supposed mook for save or dies at level 7. What's worse is this guy could hypothetically do nothing all combat, or kill off a couple people.

Am I just being crazy, or is this kinda retarded design?

[Voss]

Hahaha holy shit. Yeah man getting into mystic theurge like 4 levels early is totally sub par.

Weird. But it also brought this to my attention:

Ally: Do you count as your own ally?
You count as your own ally unless otherwise stated or if doing so would make no sense or be impossible. Thus, "your allies" almost always means the same as "you and your allies."

I remember 4e jokes about this, and even some 3e situations that called this into question (and I don't remember what the resolution was). But...

almost always? Hell, just logically, it never makes sense for you to be another entity allied with yourself. The 'makes no sense' clause should always be in effect.

But even taking a deep breath and ignoring utter failure of reason, why is this a FAQ answer? 'Most of the time, but sometimes not' doesn't answer the fucking question no matter how small a quantity you tack onto sometimes. Do the damn work, hit Ctrl-F, put in 'allies' and change every instance to whatever is actually appropriate (either 'you and your allies' or just 'your allies'). It is a fucking pdf and electronic document, being able to fix fucking mistakes and oversights is part of the goddamn point.



Also, bonus stupid for shield proficiencies not making you actually completely proficient with shields, and tracking the all the sources of temporary hit points so you don't accidentally stack one with itself. You can get 20 temp hit points from aid and false life but not from either twice. Because energy drain.

[Kaelik]

Voss, you are stupid. Your allies always includes you. I mean, not apparently in Pathfinder, and not in 4e, but in any well designed game.

There is no reason to use a cumbersome "you and your allies" language to describe anything when you can use allies. And there is never any fucking effect that you want to not work on the person using it, but work on their teammates.

Declaring that people don't get to benefit from their fucking +4 save bonus aura or whatever is bullshit.

[Grek]

Declaring that people don't get to benefit from their fucking +4 save bonus aura or whatever is bullshit.

Counterexample:

Paladinoid Sacrifice (Su): As a free action, you can take 5 damage to heal all allies within 60' for 1d6 damage. This does not heal the user.

[Mask_De_H]

Favored Class bonus for extra hit points is kinda nice. And if you play a specific kind of sorcerer, you can spend your favored class bonus on extra spells known. I'm assuming the former is what they were thinking of.

Man, I wonder if I could actually get that early-access loophole to fly in the Isger game. I could do some truly ridiculous stuff with a genuinely effective cleric/mage...

I really want to play Pathfinder now, with someone who allows that early-access trick.

[Kaelik]

Declaring that people don't get to benefit from their fucking +4 save bonus aura or whatever is bullshit.

Counterexample:

Paladinoid Sacrifice (Su): As a free action, you can take 5 damage to heal all allies within 60' for 1d6 damage. This does not heal the user.

Nope, ignoring for a moment how incredibly stupid that ability is in fact (in concept fairly whatever), that is a perfect example of why you definitely should not fucking make your allies mean not you. It is trivially easy to call out it not effecting you, and so there is no excuse for using this singular power as a reason to punish the player every time they have an aura. And to top it off, it is a better fucking power if it effects you to, with or without math jiggling. Delete the last sentence from the ability and it still is just as good if not better, add two damage if you are particularly dickish.

[Juton]

Favored Class bonus for extra hit points is kinda nice. And if you play a specific kind of sorcerer, you can spend your favored class bonus on extra spells known. I'm assuming the former is what they were thinking of.

Man, I wonder if I could actually get that early-access loophole to fly in the Isger game. I could do some truly ridiculous stuff with a genuinely effective cleric/mage...

I really want to play Pathfinder now, with someone who allows that early-access trick.

I think you would be allowed to bring this to a PFS game. Just have all your documentation with you, if you fall back on 'the authour says it's OK' argument I think they'll let you do it. Because either they can't think critically about about class balance and just blindly follow SKR. Or they can and they realize using this for Eldritch Knight doesn't make you Uber and using it for Mystic Theurge still doesn't break the game (more than just a Wizard or Cleric normally does).

[Voss]

Voss, you are stupid. Your allies always includes you. I mean, not apparently in Pathfinder, and not in 4e, but in any well designed game.

There is no reason to use a cumbersome "you and your allies" language to describe anything when you can use allies. And there is never any fucking effect that you want to not work on the person using it, but work on their teammates.

Declaring that people don't get to benefit from their fucking +4 save bonus aura or whatever is bullshit.

Which isn't what I said at all. What I said was you should actually use clear fucking language that actually makes sense, not take pains to avoid logic because you don't like the way English works. Suck it up and add two whole words, or find a way to express yourself that isn't fucking stupid.

[Voss]

Voss, you are stupid. Your allies always includes you. I mean, not apparently in Pathfinder, and not in 4e, but in any well designed game.

There is no reason to use a cumbersome "you and your allies" language to describe anything when you can use allies. And there is never any fucking effect that you want to not work on the person using it, but work on their teammates.

Declaring that people don't get to benefit from their fucking +4 save bonus aura or whatever is bullshit.

Which isn't what I said at all. What I said was you should actually use clear fucking language that actually makes sense, not take pains to avoid logic because you don't like the way English works. Suck it up and add two whole words, or find a way to express yourself that isn't fucking stupid.

You're also ignoring the major element I mentioned. The FAQ answer is specifically 'most of the time, but not all the time.' If your stupid bullshit linguistic construct of convenience doesn't even work for the cases you're using it for, what the hell is the point?

[echoVanguard]

As a fallback it has deep slumber 6/day.

I was surprised to find recently that Deep Slumber (and Sleep) have 1-round casting times, meaning that you begin casting them on your initiative on turn 1 as a full-round action and the spell completes at the start of your second turn. This tends to make Sleep (and by extension, Deep Slumber) difficult to pull off in combat, as any damage taken during the round requires a concentration check.

echo

[hogarth]

Favored Class bonus for extra hit points is kinda nice. And if you play a specific kind of sorcerer, you can spend your favored class bonus on extra spells known. I'm assuming the former is what they were thinking of.

Man, I wonder if I could actually get that early-access loophole to fly in the Isger game. I could do some truly ridiculous stuff with a genuinely effective cleric/mage...

I really want to play Pathfinder now, with someone who allows that early-access trick.

I think you would be allowed to bring this to a PFS game. Just have all your documentation with you, if you fall back on 'the authour says it's OK' argument I think they'll let you do it.

You still suffer the risk that the developers might backtrack on their ruling, which has already happened. For instance, the Trickery domain has a power called "Copycat" that works sort of like Mirror Image, so it was ruled to satisfy requirements that required casting 2nd level arcane spells, but then they backtracked and said it's actually like casting 2nd level divine spells. Some dude posted a thread on the Paizo boards griping about how his PFS character is now illegal.

But even taking a deep breath and ignoring utter failure of reason, why is this a FAQ answer? 'Most of the time, but sometimes not' doesn't answer the fucking question no matter how small a quantity you tack onto sometimes.

I don't know what to tell you. Name-space collisions between a word's game term usage and regular English language usage are inevitable in a game with hundreds (thousands?) of pages of rules unless you want it to sound like stereo instructions or a chemistry textbook, so I have no problem with those weasel words.

[Kaelik]

Which isn't what I said at all. What I said was you should actually use clear fucking language that actually makes sense, not take pains to avoid logic because you don't like the way English works. Suck it up and add two whole words, or find a way to express yourself that isn't fucking stupid.

That is exactly what I said you said. You have some sort of boner for a specific word usage that isn't even fucking universal, so you want to make them specify themselves in every ability, something that is both extremely useless and extremely hard to do. And of course, will result in you punishing everyone with an aura because the editor missed "you" in this one ability out of 100, even though allies has included you in every D&D game prior to 4e and Pathfinder probably wasn't going to rewrite the fucking spell text for a bunch of buffs, and the assorted aura abilities for something so fucking trivial.

You're also ignoring the major element I mentioned. The FAQ answer is specifically 'most of the time, but not all the time.' If your stupid bullshit linguistic construct of convenience doesn't even work for the cases you're using it for, what the hell is the point?

No you fucktard, I'm ignoring the part that isn't relevant to what I said. I didn't tell you their answer was correct, I told you that allies including you is not a bad fucking thing.

[Voss]

Declaring that people don't get to benefit from their fucking +4 save bonus aura or whatever is bullshit.

This isn't that complicated. I didn't at any point say this. What I said was they should clarify when they want to hand out bonuses to just allies or allies and you. Not just point out that usually they mean 'allies and you' but sometimes they don't, and while they're going to admit that, they aren't going to tell you when they mean it.

Why you think doing search and replace is somehow hard is fucking mystifying. That it was a longstanding issue meant it was something they should have addressed when they did their 'improved' edition, not fucking propagated it. Considering all the trivial and unnecessary changes they made, adding clarity would have actually been useful in comparison

No you fucktard, I'm ignoring the part that isn't relevant to what I said. I didn't tell you their answer was correct, I told you that allies including you is not a bad fucking thing.

In concept, no, it isn't. But when the language used doesn't actually distinguish between both cases and can actually mean either case with separate things with the exact same wording, it is needlessly confusing and stupid.

It also opens up a whole host of other shit, like people pretending to be allies to get the effect, or enemies disguished as allies being outed because the effect obviously fails on them and so on. It is really worthless crap, and there was no reason to carry it over.

[Kaelik]

This isn't that complicated. I didn't at any point say this. What I said was they should clarify when they want to hand out bonuses to just allies or allies and you.

So fucking what? What I said is that if you make your blanket rule for the game that allies always includes you, that is the best ruling.

You don't get to whine about how I'm wrong because some other stupid people said something stupid that isn't what I am saying.

This is a fallacy:
1) Pathfinders answer is bad because they don't actually answer the question.
Therefore: Allies should never include you and it should always be written as "you and your allies."

Why you think doing search and replace is somehow hard is fucking mystifying.

1) Because search and replace doesn't always work.
2) Because reworking 100+ instances of the word allies and simultaneously changing the definition of the word ally is way more work and way more likely to confuse someone than just not changing either thing

That it was a longstanding issue meant it was something they should have addressed when they did their 'improved' edition, not fucking propagated it.

It wasn't a longstanding issue. It wasn't even an issue. Prior to 4e, it was never an issue and ally always included you. You are the first fucking person not named Mike Mearls to ever declare that you are not your own ally is a better solution.

In concept, no, it isn't. But when the language used doesn't actually distinguish between both cases and can actually mean either case with separate things with the exact same wording, it is needlessly confusing and stupid.

Fuck you. Idiot. Whether or not their answer is good or bad for reasons besides whether allies should include you is not fucking relevant to whether ally should include you.

If their answer denied the Holocaust, it would still be a bad answer, but that would not suddenly make one side or the other of the argument stronger, because irrelevant things are irrelevant.

You are stupid for thinking ally shouldn't include you, not for criticizing them.

It also opens up a whole host of other shit, like people pretending to be allies to get the effect, or enemies disguished as allies being outed because the effect obviously fails on them and so on. It is really worthless crap, and there was no reason to carry it over.

No it fucking doesn't you shitty liar. None of that is in any way even remotely a function of whether or not you count as your own ally.

Saying "your allies and you" does not fix any of those problems.

[Username17]

I for one, am totally puzzled by the people who apparently think it is possible to not be a member of your own alliance. An ally is a member of an alliance. Your allies are members of your alliance. How could you possibly not be your own ally? It doesn't make any fucking sense.

-Username17

[hogarth]

I don't think there's any sensible person in the world who reads this feat description...

Escape Route (Teamwork)
You have trained to watch your allies' backs, covering them as they make tactical withdraws.

Benefit: An ally who also has this feat provokes no attacks of opportunity for moving through squares adjacent to you or within your space.

...and then genuinely believes that a PC with this feat should never provoke attacks of opportunity from moving.

Understanding words in context is not a crime.

[Kaelik]

I don't think there's any sensible person in the world who reads this feat description...

Escape Route (Teamwork)
You have trained to watch your allies' backs, covering them as they make tactical withdraws.

Benefit: An ally who also has this feat provokes no attacks of opportunity for moving through squares adjacent to you or within your space.

...and then genuinely believes that a PC with this feat should never provoke attacks of opportunity from moving.

Understanding words in context is not a crime.

I don't think any sensible person reads that feat. But I think any sensible person who did would have to allow you to count as your own ally, because the chance that two people would be so dumb as to take that feat is so unlikely that otherwise it just takes up space on your sheet.

[...You Lost Me]

Using "it's a bad feat, buff it" is not a good argument. Saying you count as your own ally for Escape Route sounds very dumb. Very dumb.

[Avoraciopoctules]

So the Eldritch Knight has a capstone where you can cast a spell on something as a swift action when you critically hit it with a weapon. Is there anything keeping you from using this to speed-cast downtime spells?

If not, what are some good candidates? Binding, perhaps? Smack a fool with your scimitar, so hard their soul gets stuffed into a bottle.

I suppose the most abusive combat trick would be researching a custom teleport spell that takes a week to cast, then pulling a Dicko and sticking people in the sun when you confirm a crit.

[Cyberzombie]

I for one, am totally puzzled by the people who apparently think it is possible to not be a member of your own alliance. An ally is a member of an alliance. Your allies are members of your alliance. How could you possibly not be your own ally? It doesn't make any fucking sense.

In the english language, you're not your own ally. It requires two or more separate entities.

Lets say someone asks the question: who were Germany's allies in World War 2?
A native english speaker would never respond by saying, "Germany, Japan and Italy."

You never refer to someone as their own ally, in much the same way you'd never refer to someone as their own friend. The English language just doesn't work that way.

[Koumei]

When you get to this level of linguistic bullshit separate from game terminology, you may as well say your character is from the British military of 1945, therefore is in fact one of The Allies, and very much definitely an ally, always. Thus people who quibble about English language (and not game definitions) can shut up and let you benefit from your own effects.

Adding "except for you" is really easy for the genuine cases where it is better that you can't _______ yourself.

I'll agree with Voss on one point though: whatever decision they went with, they should have fucking gone with it, and not gone "usually but not always".

Avora: I'm not sure there is anything keeping you from doing that, but note that many of the downtime spells aren't really cast on a target. So if there's a spell called "Create Artifact" that takes a week, you can't get around that just by critting someone unless it specifies a target. You're probably best off using stuff like Binding, yeah. I mean, any Save-or-Lose is an obvious generic choice, but if you can take their soul and theoretically sell it, that's nice.

[Pixels]

Why you think doing search and replace is somehow hard is fucking mystifying.

I would look up "dawizard" before casually suggesting that find+replace is a good strategy for substituting words in extremely large bodies of text. Even if you are very careful with your regex (unlike the lowly editor responsible for your crystal ball showing you iwizards of places far away) you're probably going to drop "you and your allies" in some places where it sounds bizarre, or really was not intended. That and you'll cause a big ol' bloat in your errata for little gain.

[Wiseman]

iwizards

iWizard

Now i know what to call my new portable convenient device for wizards to contact each other and keep track of their spells.