More Pathfinder previews: Rogue (+ traps & poisons)

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 3:23 pm

http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/v5748dyo5lael

A CR 10 trap that has a DC of 20 to disarm? Huh?

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 3:53 pm

What's worse is the actual damage, because the trap going off is pretty pathetic and not even something you care about.

For a trap to even matter in 3E, it has to basically either be part of an encounter, cause ability damage/drain or kill someone. Just dealing damage is pretty pointless.

The rogue itself is really shitty. No TWF, which is a total no brainer in PF, since sneak attack affects everything. Instead they took Mobility (wtf?).

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 4:20 pm

Yeah, they fucked with traps pretty badly. Level 18 for... a Harm trap? Fail. Slay Living is still like 6 though. Oh and there's a level 20 trap that's... a +20 to hit javelin doing piddly shit damage, and forcing a DC 20 save vs poison. Yeah right. Power level much?

And that's not just snark, one of the Paizil devs has actually said something to the effect of 'farm enemies seven levels lower than you for cash' and was being serious. Well, setting off traps in high level dungeons handles the XP part of that.

Oh and a DC of auto pass is not really an improvement over one you have to waste a lot of buff time on and will still fail to detect 70-80% of the time (and fail to disarm another 70-80% of the time).

They sure do love mookifying people though. The one thing they actually got right (no one fucking cares about poison past 7th level... which makes you wonder why the aforementioned level 20 trap exists) is then ruined by turning people back into dumbass mooks, to be raped by Iterative Probability. Which makes Minor Creation a win spell again. Good job dumbfucks.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 4:30 pm

hogarth wrote:A CR 10 trap that has a DC of 20 to disarm? Huh?

Skills still work the same in PF, right? Do the designers realize how easy it is to get a +19 mod at level 10? Why not set the DC to "standard action"?

And to think I thought PF was going to be cool when I first read about it over a year ago...

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 4:45 pm

It took them this long to realize poison is made of Fail, and to start grasping basic character creation such as using cloaks of resistance. There are still many obvious things they don't get, because they're backwater like that. Damn Paizils. Anyways, none of this should surprise you in the slightest.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 6:25 pm

The plan to make poison matter at all levels was to nerf Heroes' Feast?

Delay Poison still exists, right?

-Username17

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 6:46 pm

Roy wrote: Oh and there's a level 20 trap that's... a +20 to hit javelin doing piddly shit damage, and forcing a DC 20 save vs poison. Yeah right.

Ha! I never saw that one before. Note that it's "only" CR 18, though (according to the Pathfinder Beta).

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 7:09 pm

hogarth wrote:
Roy wrote: Oh and there's a level 20 trap that's... a +20 to hit javelin doing piddly shit damage, and forcing a DC 20 save vs poison. Yeah right.
Ha! I never saw that one before. Note that it's "only" CR 18, though (according to the Pathfinder Beta).

When I looked it was a CR 20 'deadly spear trap'. And Harm was like CR 18, but Slay Living only CR 6.

Suffice it to say, there's a reason why traps only went up to CR 10, and even then most of them were jokes (inbeforelulzpittraps).

And while 'you have around a 10-20% chance to disarm level appropriate traps while wasting a lot of time, and mostly just setting them off like you would if you walked through them' is not a good system, turning traps into nothing but an easy power leveling mechanism by ignoring them anyways and getting massively inflated XP is, as is usual with the Paizils a downgrade.

erik · Post by **erik** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 7:59 pm

I'd really like their picture...

the rogue is hidden after he apparently stabbed this gelfling chick in the back six times to no ill effect.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 9:55 pm

Yeah, honestly I don't have a big problem with having traps be an automatic disarm. The challenge in traps should be locating them, not so much disarming them (whcih is just a random die roll anyway). If you thought to search for the trap and found it, then really, I don't see why having a random chance to blow yourself up on the trap is a good thing.

Now, there's also the in combat traps, which are honestly in my opinion just plain cheap. You don't have time to search for them, and you certainly don't have time to disarm them. So really putting pit traps and bullshit in a combat encounter is just an arbitrary way to hose your PCs.

Now what I am more concerned about is how fucking weak those traps are. Damaging traps honestly shouldn't even exist past like CR3. Once you have wands of CLW, nobody even cares how much damage the trap does. It either kills you or it doesn't. And if it doesn't, you zap off a few charges, and you're as good as new.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 12:54 pm

Why the Paizils should self eviscerate immediately, in detail:

Which is where I'm getting my ammo for how under cut the Bard got. Assuming a 10 Con Barbarian at 20th level 42 round (PF) vs 30 (3.5). At 18 Con its 46 (PF) vs 48 (3.5). this is darn near spot on to what the 3.5 was doing, although it really starts loosing out at higher stat values. I don't think the Barbarian players would be very happy if in the final it was CON + 4 at first and 1 more per level.

I agree that using the shortest time isn't a good thing for setting the value, however it is the most reasonable compromise point give that many combat uses of Bardic music went well beyond that limit. And it doesn't take into account uses of Inspire Competence or Fascinate. Mainly to placate those non-bard players who think a Bard shouldn't be able to buff-sing all day.

4 + Cha at 1st and 2 + Cha every level there after may be the better scaling formula. Although again using minimum values you should look at a Cha of 16 not 18, as that's the lowest you can go and still cast all the Bard spells. I stand by a flat 5 per level as the simplest change.

Ganbare Gincun · Post by **Ganbare Gincun** » Tue Jul 28, 2009 2:03 am

clikml wrote:the rogue is hidden after he apparently stabbed this gelfling chick in the back six times to no ill effect.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 6:55 pm

They've introduced the wizard. They're definitely keeping the idea of casting defensively be DC 15+double spell level, where you roll Level+Casting Stat.

Specialists can still cast spells from their prohibited as long as they're willing to spend two equal level spell slots each. Generalists had their bonus spells removed, and their hand of the apprentice ability got changed: use any melee weapon as a 30' thrown attack that uses Int for attack instead of Dex (doesn't replace Str), and can be used 3+Int mod times per day. Their divine metamagic like ability (half caster level past 6th in free metamagic spell levels per day) got changed to never be able to allow you to cast spells of higher spell level than normal. Arcane Bond has been further degraded, as the bonus Item Creation feats (only for enchanting the bonded item, which only works for you) can't be accessed until you're high enough level to take them normally. At least they're undoing or scaling back the unneeded buffs to wizards they gave out.

Ray of Enfeeblement was deemed too powerful and now allows a Fort save for half effect. Web is clarified to instead just force any who enter it for the first time have to make a CMB check (DC = spell's normal) or be grappled, and once they break out, it's just concealing difficult terrain. Being grappled in Pathfinder is almost exactly like being entangled now (can't use 2H weapons); it doesn't even stop them from attacking other people in reach or make them flat-footed unless the grappler chooses the pin option next round.

Acknowledging Scry & Die, their response is for scry and similar spells to never grant better than "Viewed Once" status for teleport. Wall of Force and similar spells are no longer indestructable, now having 30 hardness and 20 HP/level (disintegrate still auto-destroys). Their stated reasoning for that was so players can't completely stop giant monsters or rivers of lava.

FatR · Post by **FatR** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 8:42 pm

virgileso wrote:Wall of Force and similar spells are no longer indestructable, now having 30 hardness and 20 HP/level (disintegrate still auto-destroys). Their stated reasoning for that was so players can't completely stop giant monsters or rivers of lava.

Well, I sort of agree with the general idea that non-magical characters should be able to do something about Walls of Force, but this reasoning is moronic. If you don't want to do crazy shit, like stopping rivers of lava, all the time, why the fuck you are playing DnD at two-digit levels?

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 10:30 pm

FatR wrote: Well, I sort of agree with the general idea that non-magical characters should be able to do something about Walls of Force, but this reasoning is moronic. If you don't want to do crazy shit, like stopping rivers of lava, all the time, why the fuck you are playing DnD at two-digit levels?

Well I mean you really couldn't even stop rivers of lava with WoF in the first place, since WoF requires that complete unbroken plane, so I don't think you can just bury it in the middle of a river of lava in the first place.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 11:01 pm

Presumably you put the Wall of Force in front of it. Of course, as gimped as their characters are hardness 30 might as well be indestructable, even if you ignore the hundreds of HP.

FatR · Post by **FatR** » Fri Jul 31, 2009 6:09 am

You can put WoF before them, as rivers of lava you would want to stop probably result from volcanic eruptions, breaches in dungeons, etc.

SunTzuWarmaster · Post by **SunTzuWarmaster** » Fri Jul 31, 2009 5:46 pm

If I can't stop a river of lava rushing down a cave tube with a goddamned Wall of Force (level spell), I don't want to play.

Can it be Immune to Fire in the very least?

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Fri Jul 31, 2009 5:56 pm

SunTzuWarmaster wrote:If I can't stop a river of lava rushing down a cave tube with a goddamned Wall of Force (level spell), I don't want to play.

Can it be Immune to Fire in the very least?

Well it would stop the lava for a decent amount of time. The lava on average is doing 70 damage, which is halved because it's fire damage on an object. So that's 35, then you apply hardness. so it's doing only 5 damage.

Considering the wall has 20 hp/level, even at level 9, it's holding back the lava for 36 rounds on average. That's not bad.

Though really, the object damage rules kinda suck given that basically there's no way you can have lava running through a cavern, because contact with the lava is basically going to destroy all the stone in a short time period.

Quantumboost · Post by **Quantumboost** » Fri Jul 31, 2009 7:14 pm

RandomCasualty2 wrote:Though really, the object damage rules kinda suck given that basically there's no way you can have lava running through a cavern, because contact with the lava is basically going to destroy all the stone in a short time period.

This isn't really a problem with the object damage rules, it's a problem with the lava not actually cooling off. What you really want in this case is the lava losing hit points to deal that damage and "healing" when dealt fire damage. That's more realistic (yes, realistic, and hence closer to what we expect when we think of "lava") as far as energy flow goes.

Possibly you also want the lava dealing less actual fire damage, which is a curve-fit problem.

A thermal object damage revision actually sounds like something we'd want in the Magic Physics section of Tome of Tiamat.

Edit: Making the second paragraph more better English

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Fri Jul 31, 2009 11:17 pm

Doesn't Wall of Force only last a round a level? So it's effectively still just as good for that purpose, only the wall can be broken in theory. If you have a competent character. Which in PF, you won't at all.

erik · Post by **erik** » Sat Aug 01, 2009 12:09 am

FatR wrote:
virgileso wrote:Wall of Force and similar spells are no longer indestructable, now having 30 hardness and 20 HP/level (disintegrate still auto-destroys). Their stated reasoning for that was so players can't completely stop giant monsters or rivers of lava.
Well, I sort of agree with the general idea that non-magical characters should be able to do something about Walls of Force, but this reasoning is moronic. If you don't want to do crazy shit, like stopping rivers of lava, all the time, why the fuck you are playing DnD at two-digit levels?

Agreed. The change is probably actually a good thing, but the stated justification is pretty retarded.

I find it hard to believe that defeating lava was a driving factor for any change to wall of force, as that is beyond a niche case. They may have mentioned it as support, but surely the bigger concern is the trapping and outright stopping of big critters... which isn't much of a big deal either since most of those are simply defeated by flight.

So I'm not really feeling any outrage over that change to wall of force, poorly justified though it may be. As a level 5 spell I think I prefer wall of force as some sort of very hard but still possible to destroy. Around a level 7 spells I am closer to approving of an unbreakable wall of force preferably with a more substantial duration as well.

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More Pathfinder previews: Rogue (+ traps & poisons)

More Pathfinder previews: Rogue (+ traps & poisons)

Re: More Pathfinder previews: Rogue (+ traps & poisons)