Pathfinder: the Lowdown

Thymos · Post by **Thymos** » Fri Aug 21, 2009 12:01 pm

Oh, if you want a rule for killing mooks in droves, try this variant.

Give mooks a pool of HP, let's say 100. Now we'll put 20 mooks in play for this example.

When you attack a mook your attacking their HP pool. Every mook has 5 HP. At every 5 point (so 95, 90, 85) you kill another mook. So if a Fighter does 28 damage to the mooks, 5 mooks die and ones left at 2 HP (72 HP left total).

My experience with this rules was using nWoD, but it worked so well in that system I have little doubt it would work well in 3.x.

You might want to consider making moods vulnerable to fireballs somehow, but really that's probobably not even needed.

FatR · Post by **FatR** » Fri Aug 21, 2009 1:07 pm

Why you even need rules for mook-killing in 3.X? Decent characters usually can one-shot weak opponents anyway.

violence in the media · Fri Aug 21, 2009 1:43 pm

FatR wrote:Why you even need rules for mook-killing in 3.X? Decent characters usually can one-shot weak opponents anyway.

Because people think that they should arbitrarily be able to OHKO ogres in a fistfight with their 10th level Bard, despite an unwillingness or inability to construct said Bard to be mechanically capable of doing so.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Fri Aug 21, 2009 3:08 pm

I think the idea is to kill them at a decent clip. OHKOing one is assumed. However when they're say... a dozen, that's still a long and boring fight. Something like that 1st edition rule where higher level Fighters can kill an arbitrarily large number of 0 level Men-At-Arms in a round.

shau · Post by **shau** » Fri Aug 21, 2009 3:20 pm

Edit: Posted in the wrong place because I am a moron.

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Fri Aug 21, 2009 3:27 pm

I do not know... I fear some people were serious in thinking that removing the money cost for rituals was RAW.

TOZ · Post by **TOZ** » Fri Aug 21, 2009 4:29 pm

Did we discuss the change to Manyshot? It's now part of a full attack in Pathfinder. Apparently it was broken in 3.5.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Fri Aug 21, 2009 4:47 pm

At least it's not some kind of special full-attack action, so it stacks with Rapid Shot and synergizes with the fighter to create an archer that can pull its own weight.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Aug 21, 2009 5:09 pm

But yeah, the archer fighter who could move and still pull his own weight has been edited out of Pathfinder. No one knows why.

-Username17

TOZ · Post by **TOZ** » Fri Aug 21, 2009 5:16 pm

Apparently to make room for their Vital Strike feats.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri Aug 21, 2009 7:09 pm

What's with 3.5E's ridiculous hate-on for the Archer Fighter?

The 3.0E Archer Fighter build was one of the few ways you could stay competitive at higher levels for damage.

Seriously. You were something like this: Elven Fighter 4 / Ranger 1 / Order of the Bow Initiate 2 (you want close combat shot and ranged sneak attack so hard) / Peerless Archer 4 (you want ranged sneak attack, fletching +2 for spell-storing arrows, power shot, and sharp shooting so hard) / Deepwood Sniper 2 (you want keen arrows, concealment reduction 10%, and improved criticals so hard) / Order of the Bow Initiate 8 (rest of the levels continue to give you sneak attack and some pretty nice class features to boot, such as improved Weapon Specialization to make up for that sneak attack bonus you're not getting, +WIS + 1 bonus to attacks, and opportunist).

Feats:
1: Point Blank Shot, Rapid Shot
2: Weapon Focus: Composite Longbow, Precise Shot
3: Far Shot
4: Weapon Specialization: Longbow
6: Manyshot
9: Improved Critical
12: Zen Archery
15: Hamstring
18: Who cares, really?

But anyway, yeah. You had a pretty big attack bonus as this kind of archer and you could do a really large amount of damage to boot. You still needed to suck wizard cock to do your character schtick for enhancement bonuses to arrows and bows but a critical multiplier bonus + power shot + 7d6 sneak attack + vampiric touch arrows was pretty frickin' sweet you got to admit.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri Aug 21, 2009 7:32 pm

Why is this character no good anymore in 3.5E?

1) Order of the Bow Initiate, the lynchpin of this build, has been nerfed beyond all recognition. It no longer gives out the Superior Weapon Focus and Specialization bonuses people so craved. No sneak attack either. And even worse, you lose out about 2 to 4 points of attack from the WIS bonus to Manyshot you're not getting anymore.

2) The Full Attack + Manyshot combo doesn't work anymore because haste is no good now. Unless your DM still lets haste armor from DotF work.

3) Keen no longer stacks with Improved Critical. Um, why?

4) Enhancement bonus to arrows... no good. This change I can understand more than the others.

I mean, sure, your Archer Fighter was not as good at dishing out of the pain as a Cleric Archer (nobody was, though) but you at least did more damage than a rogue! Even the acid-flask rogue! Seriously! You had Power Shot, Weapon Specialization, Improved Crit + Keen + Improved Multiplier to your Manyshot arrows and they didn't. You honestly didn't bring much to the table other than raw, filthy damage but at least you contributed!

Complete Warrior and 3.5E were the worst things that happened to fighters in this miserable edition.

Fucking Jesus I fucking hate Andy Collins!

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Sat Aug 22, 2009 2:14 am

Why would I want to play a more complex yet less chance for successfully doing ...things... game?

-Crissa

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sat Aug 22, 2009 4:11 am

You wouldn't. And the fact that a designer could happily say "You probably don't want to use combat manoeuvres* against equal opposition" yet still bothered including them as options that you had to spend resources on in order to attempt (and fail at) makes me want to arrange a surprise bukkake party for him.

*actually he spelled it the American way.

TOZ · Post by **TOZ** » Sat Aug 22, 2009 5:48 am

Thank you Koumei. I now need brain bleach to remove that image from my mind. >.<

ubernoob · Post by **ubernoob** » Sat Aug 22, 2009 6:53 pm

Thymos wrote:Oh, if you want a rule for killing mooks in droves, try this variant.

Give mooks a pool of HP, let's say 100. Now we'll put 20 mooks in play for this example.

When you attack a mook your attacking their HP pool. Every mook has 5 HP. At every 5 point (so 95, 90, 85) you kill another mook. So if a Fighter does 28 damage to the mooks, 5 mooks die and ones left at 2 HP (72 HP left total).

My experience with this rules was using nWoD, but it worked so well in that system I have little doubt it would work well in 3.x.

You might want to consider making moods vulnerable to fireballs somehow, but really that's probobably not even needed.

I've used a rule something like this simply for ease of tracking (because 12 different HP totals is a pain in the ass). It worked pretty smoothly.

TOZ · Post by **TOZ** » Sun Aug 23, 2009 5:04 am

Oh, and Concentration is no longer a skill. If anyone still thought 'backwards compatible' meant anything.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sun Aug 23, 2009 9:43 am

TOZ wrote:Thank you Koumei. I now need brain bleach to remove that image from my mind. >.<

Obviously I was just trying to get sigged again, and vulgarity tends to work.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Tue Aug 25, 2009 5:52 am

I am amazed at the fact that people are having the equivalent of an edition war over the removal of the cleric's heavy armor proficiency. According to some of the people on the Paizo forums, this change has

a) nerfed the cleric into uselessness,
b) harmed roleplaying potential,
c) undermined the cleric's role as a holy warrior,
d) created a feat tax on the cleric,
e) and crippled backwards compatibility.

Strange lot, these folk are.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Tue Aug 25, 2009 6:15 am

I'm still not understanding how not having heavy armor is a big deal for a cleric... In other news some product by a third party came out to support PF. Tome of Secrets. Apparently it hit some sort of snag on its way out the door (something about e-mails) and has several problems including bad editing, unbalanced races/classes.

Spaghetti Western · Post by **Spaghetti Western** » Tue Aug 25, 2009 6:29 am

Psychic Robot wrote:I am amazed at the fact that people are having the equivalent of an edition war over the removal of the cleric's heavy armor proficiency. According to some of the people on the Paizo forums, this change has

a) nerfed the cleric into uselessness,
b) harmed roleplaying potential,
c) undermined the cleric's role as a holy warrior,
d) created a feat tax on the cleric,
e) and crippled backwards compatibility.

Strange lot, these folk are.

It just goes to show that if you start by constraining yourself by what was you end up boxing yourself in so much you can't do anything. These people wouldn't give two shits if the cleric had limited armor from the get go but because it's the way Gygax did it it's cast in cement. Which is to say the issue has nothing to do with balance, good role playing, class survival, basically anything other than it's the way it used to be.

They should have never preached about all that backwards compatibility BS. Now it's just thrown in their face. But you can't create interest in your product by with a bunch of self righteous pandering and be surprised when bites you in the ass.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Tue Aug 25, 2009 6:55 am

MGuy wrote:I'm still not understanding how not having heavy armor is a big deal for a cleric...

It's not for a cleric archer, but for your standard cleric, generally they want to dump dex, since you can just get full plate anyway.

3 points of AC can be a pretty big difference at the lower levels.

TOZ · Post by **TOZ** » Tue Aug 25, 2009 8:29 am

The funny thing is they think arguing over it will change anything. Same as the spiked chain, and prestige classes, and spell changes, and...well...pretty much all of Pathfinder.

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Tue Aug 25, 2009 9:21 am

Psychic Robot wrote: According to some of the people on the Paizo forums, this change has

a) nerfed the cleric into uselessness,
b) harmed roleplaying potential,
c) undermined the cleric's role as a holy warrior,
d) created a feat tax on the cleric,
e) and crippled backwards compatibility.

Change for the sake of change.
a) is wrong.
b=c=d: people who have a hardon when their cleric walks around in full armor are understandably disappointed, and they now have to waste a feat for fluff, which is retarded.
e) is a legitimate complaint.

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Tue Aug 25, 2009 3:47 pm

"Crippled" is a pretty hard word to toss around. If premise A isn't a big deal, then why is premise E still legit?