Pathfinder Is Still Bad

Dean · Post by **Dean** » Tue Feb 11, 2014 9:07 pm

That cockwhore nailed us

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Tue Feb 11, 2014 10:49 pm

We don't threaten to dismember, we threaten to rape.

We steal their wives, rape their houses, set their dogs on fire, kill their cars and say mean things about people. On the Internet.

sake · Post by **sake** » Wed Feb 12, 2014 1:28 am

So ultimately which is the worse part of that sequence?

A) That a lawful good goddess abducts several adventurers and tortures them if they get a pop quiz, about how awesome she is, wrong.

or

B) That this was in an adventure path intended for high level characters just a few levels away from seriously thinking things like how 'The God Slayer" would be a really neat title to have, or how much better their character sheets would look with the words 'Divine Rank X' written on it.

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Wed Feb 12, 2014 2:12 am

A, exacerbated by B.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Wed Feb 12, 2014 3:25 am

It would be tempting at that point to build for Locate City nukes, scry out her worshippers, teleport next to them, then set off locate city. Lather, rinse, and repeat (because if you're going evil, why go halfway?)

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Wed Feb 12, 2014 5:01 am

I find it interesting though, that Pathfinder idea of good Deity is pretty much a Good murderhobo. Kill everyone who pings on "Detect Evil", and you are fine.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Wed Feb 12, 2014 5:02 am

James Jacobs wrote:I'm still frankly kind of surprised at how violently some folks have reacted to the encounter in question. And that violent reaction really caught me off guard. So it's certainly something I'll be keeping in mind going forward when and if we do similar encounters,... if only that means limiting such encounters to the actually friendly and nice good guy deities!

He really doesn't understand what the problem is.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Wed Feb 12, 2014 5:10 am

Some folks are dense, Longes. I was in a group once with a dude who, for kicks, asked me to look over his character's backstory. And it was some pretty trite garbage. When I said I thought it was kinda weak, he said, "Oh. Well, more conflict can be added."

When he already had dead parents, near-sexual abuse, and a couple of betrayals in there. He seriously equated "Tragickal Historie" with "compelling story"

RadiantPhoenix · Post by **RadiantPhoenix** » Wed Feb 12, 2014 5:13 am

Mask_De_H wrote:A, exacerbated by B.

No, no, B makes A better because A provides a motivation for going through with the thoughts in B.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Wed Feb 12, 2014 5:19 am

Longes wrote:I find it interesting though, that Pathfinder idea of good Deity is pretty much a Good murderhobo. Kill everyone who pings on "Detect Evil", and you are fine.

That could make a neat campaign idea, actually. Paladins are good guys because they fight evil. Evil is determined by "Detect Evil" spell. But "Detect Evil" actually works on mostly random basis, and is used as a tool for a governmental opression and as a basis for class system (not rpg-class).

Slade · Post by **Slade** » Wed Feb 12, 2014 5:39 am

JJ says more on another thread:

Mind you, I'd prefer for there to be no such thing as NPC-only content, but I'll freely admit that's an opinion thing. But if you're gonna do it anyway, why not go all the way? As-is you've taken a subset of your fanbase - fans of goblins - and baited a trap option for them. That's kinda rude.

His answer:

Because the idea of designing a game where EVERYTHING is an equally viable and legal option for players isn't the type of game we designed.

So apparently, they don't like certain things to be viable on purpose. Goblin alchemist might be thematic but screw the players of them. Only their(designers) vision matters.

Foxwarrior · Post by **Foxwarrior** » Wed Feb 12, 2014 5:54 am

JJ wrote: Because the idea of designing a game where EVERYTHING is an equally viable and legal option for players isn't the type of game we designed.

Some day, people will act like this attribute of Pathfinder was always both obvious and blatant. I hold out hope for that shining day, when people stop holding up Paizo to any standards of balance whatsoever.

But acting like only their vision matters isn't accurate either. There are plenty of viable things that the designers surely had no intention of making that effective.

Korwin · Post by **Korwin** » Wed Feb 12, 2014 8:50 am

Slade wrote:JJ says more on another thread:
Mind you, I'd prefer for there to be no such thing as NPC-only content, but I'll freely admit that's an opinion thing. But if you're gonna do it anyway, why not go all the way? As-is you've taken a subset of your fanbase - fans of goblins - and baited a trap option for them. That's kinda rude.
His answer:
Because the idea of designing a game where EVERYTHING is an equally viable and legal option for players isn't the type of game we designed.
So apparently, they don't like certain things to be viable on purpose. Goblin alchemist might be thematic but screw the players of them. Only their(designers) vision matters.

Sounds surprisingly honest...

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Wed Feb 12, 2014 8:59 am

Reminds me off: If you want a game where all builds are equally viable, you should play a different game. Pathfinder lets you make suboptimal choices, or even poor choices, and it doesn't reward you for making those poor choices. Because rewarding poor choices is dumb.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Wed Feb 12, 2014 9:51 am

Coax Information wrote:Benefit: A rogue with this talent can use Bluff or Diplomacy in place of Intimidate to force an opponent to act friendly toward her.

Will the wonders never cease?

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Wed Feb 12, 2014 12:27 pm

ishy wrote:Reminds me off: If you want a game where all builds are equally viable, you should play a different game. Pathfinder lets you make suboptimal choices, or even poor choices, and it doesn't reward you for making those poor choices. Because rewarding poor choices is dumb.

It's poorly phrased, but I agree with the sentiment: if it's impossible to build a weak character in your game's character-building system, then there's probably not enough choice (for my taste) in your character-building system.

A Man In Black · Post by **A Man In Black** » Wed Feb 12, 2014 12:42 pm

hogarth wrote: It's poorly phrased, but I agree with the sentiment: if it's impossible to build a weak character in your game's character-building system, then there's probably not enough choice (for my taste) in your character-building system.

This goes a step further: that some options will be deliberately created to be worse than others, in order to oops he forgot to explain why!

There is a significant difference between "Weapon Focus: You can get +1 to things with whatever weapon you want, including stupid ones like darts I guess" and putting "Two-Handed Weapon Fighter" and "Dart Fighter" archetypes next to each other as if they were somehow equal options. The former is just an open-ended option to do whatever you like, including stupid things, but the latter implies a specific endorsement and support for the stupid things as somehow a valid option. At best it's useless page-filler.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Wed Feb 12, 2014 2:11 pm

Yeah, it's generally* agreed on the Den that we don't actually want a system where players can literally pick options out of a bucket and be just as effective as if they'd used their brains, that you want to support some things and not other things. Where possible, go as far as "not actually including" - so if you don't want vampires, you don't put vampires in and make them suckuseless, you just don't put vampires in. And you then accept that if someone wants to throw actual rocks picked up off the ground in your space lasers game, then you have in no way encouraged it but they've gone out of their way to be useless and have themselves to blame. And should be encouraged to not do that.

And that's the big thing. You don't then, in your Advanced Space Lazors handbook, have "Expert Rock-Tosser" as though suggesting people should do it.

We don't complain that wielding dogs is ineffective in Pathfinder**, what we complain about is "As a Monk, you can take this option we spent time typing up. It makes you even worse than normal for a Monk, which is the Zen Enlightenment of suckitude."

*give or take
**as far as I know. Feel more than free to prove me wrong on this!

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Wed Feb 12, 2014 2:24 pm

A Man In Black wrote:
hogarth wrote: It's poorly phrased, but I agree with the sentiment: if it's impossible to build a weak character in your game's character-building system, then there's probably not enough choice (for my taste) in your character-building system.
This goes a step further: that some options will be deliberately created to be worse than others, in order to oops he forgot to explain why!

There is a significant difference between "Weapon Focus: You can get +1 to things with whatever weapon you want, including stupid ones like darts I guess" and putting "Two-Handed Weapon Fighter" and "Dart Fighter" archetypes next to each other as if they were somehow equal options. The former is just an open-ended option to do whatever you like, including stupid things, but the latter implies a specific endorsement and support for the stupid things as somehow a valid option. At best it's useless page-filler.

In all honesty, Two-handed fighter is shitty shit. I don't doubt they made a worse archetype, but it is just about equal to normal fighter (except during levels 3, 4, and past 15, when it does slightly more damage at the cost of armor training).

VoP monk and separatist Cleric are two of the most fucked up things I've seen in print. They are worse than wastes of space because the game would be better had they never been written.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Feb 12, 2014 2:26 pm

Koumei wrote:**as far as I know. Feel more than free to prove me wrong on this!

It's an ideal, but it's impossible to achieve.

1.) There are always going to be some tactics that are weaker or stronger than the sum of their parts. Melee interdiction and stealth go together about as well as Nutella and anchovies. People with Rage Meter and Warm-Up resource management systems end up tripping over their dicks.

2.) Because people usually play TTRPGs in a group, there are some party configurations where a character is stronger or weaker for reasons outside of their control. If you already have a good healer in the group, the utility of a second one is less. If everyone else in your group primary uses ranged attacks, being the sole melee tanker can do anything from making you the MVP to chunky salsa.

GâtFromKI · Post by **GâtFromKI** » Wed Feb 12, 2014 3:17 pm

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:VoP monk and separatist Cleric are two of the most fucked up things I've seen in print. They are worse than wastes of space because the game would be better had they never been written.

VOP monk isn't only weak, it's also very dumb.

A VOP monk. You can see his amulet is a mix-up of several amulets; because in Pathfinder, "wow of poverty" means "instead of wearing several shiny objects, I wear a single very shiny object worth several centuries of peasant's labor. Poverty sucks!". That's dumb.

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Wed Feb 12, 2014 4:43 pm

I found a 3.5 game to play in, can my VoP monk be Mr. T? I really want to do this if it can be made viable.

Ferret · Post by **Ferret** » Wed Feb 12, 2014 5:13 pm

There's tons of games where VoP is a worthwhile choice, largely in games where the GM is stingy with magical treasure. However, those are exactly the games where VoP will be laughed right out of the game as an allowed option, soooo....

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Wed Feb 12, 2014 5:38 pm

Ferret wrote:There's tons of games where VoP is a worthwhile choice, largely in games where the GM is stingy with magical treasure. However, those are exactly the games where VoP will be laughed right out of the game as an allowed option, soooo....

I'll make my own thread on this if need be (aka it extends past this post, or yall can PM me), but why will it be laughed out of games? I believe I'll be working with a "3.5 is NOT unbalanced" crowd, so a Mr. T monk shouldn't be too over or under whelming.

Edit: Unless 3.5 monks have it even shittier than PF monks, which I find hard to believe.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Wed Feb 12, 2014 6:08 pm

So while I was making a thread to direct to all the random crap I've made on here, I found that I've written, like, a lot of D&D material based on comic book characters. Something like four or five classes, three or more items, etc.

Would it be particularly worthwhile to convert all that stuff over to Pathfinder and sell it in a pdf?