The Gaming Den

So I was thinking about just how much Epic Fail they are, and decided to present a challenge. Create the lowest level character possible to solo all of them, one after another. Then create the lowest level character to blow all the mooks away at once. Simple enough really.

For reference, the mook squad:

http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/tags/iconics&source=rss

Fighter 14.
Sorcerer 10.
Ranger 11.
Cleric 8.
Paladin 13.
Bard 8.
Druid 8.
Monk 8.
Barbarian 17.
Rogue 6.

They don't have a Wizard, the Cleric is a healbot with some weaksauce Fire, the Sorcerer is fucking around blasting for piddly shit, and the Druid does nothing special. All of the others are stuck flailing for piddly shit damage. There might be one or two that can actually do more than 20 damage a hit, and seeing as most of the beatsticks are the high levels, that's just pathetic. You might remember them being dissected from such fun discussions as 'You are a level 13 Cold Resistant Warrior of Good, so slaying Gelugons is your fucking job and if you can't do that, we don't want to hear about you'. If you want that, just read the preview threads here. Otherwise just keep reading.

Anyways, any 3.5 WotC material is allowed. 32 PB, standard wealth rules. I'd let tome stuff in, but I haven't memorized it. No PF stuff, it's made of Fail anyways, and part of the point of this is to prove they're inferior to the stuff they meant to replace.

As for how this 'challenge' would work, I haven't fully decided yet. The simplest would be Same Game where you just analyze probabilities and guess. The most accurate yet efficient would be weighted averages (so say... an 80% chance to hit, 25 damage attack is 20 weighted damage). Actually playing it out would be pointless, as the luck factor would skew it too much. Resting between battles... Since no one should have to actually run from these gimps, let's say every time you'd level up from farming them you can rest and recover spells and such. Which due to the way the XP system and expectations of level appropriateness work, won't take long. And you fight them in a random order. Assuming you're going the one at a time route. If you fight them all at once, you'd have to do it on one tank. But that's a separate 'challenge'.

My prediction is that a level 9-10 could take them all on one at a time. The only one that might be a problem is the Barb, because she actually has saves worth half a fuck and therefore would resist save or lose effects, along with a big enough bag of HP that a 9 might not be able to plow through it before being scratched to death. Of course if she came up at least fourth in line, you'd be a level or two higher and therefore wouldn't have any trouble.

If you took them all on at once, you'd probably need level 13 just because the sheer amount of weaksauce spammed at you might be enough. In other words, Iterative Probability.

Of course, I expect you can do better. But here's a 9.5 that should have little trouble annihilating them in sequence:

http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.p ... tid=134913

For the first challenge, I'm not sure it's a good idea to take them on in random order, because it factors in the "Luck" element too much, which is what you're trying to avoid. Like you said, if you take on the Barbarian at first, you might die, but if you level up in the meantime when you take on meatbags like the Cleric & Bard, you'll be fine. Either you take'em in a fixed order (either by level or by relative difficulty), or you don't level up at all.

My 2 cents.

Do you believe that this will do anything to change their mind? If anything, proving that the old stuff is more powerful will just fuel their claims that Pathfinder is "more balanced". Their victory condition is the only one that is served by proving objectively that the Pathfinder stuff sucks monkey balls in terms of raw mechanical capability.

The Paizo fans are playing on a different battlefield to the one you think they are.

Make your character a non-pure caster.

A rogue or Ranger could work.

Also, you need to identify the point of this project.

The Vigilante wrote:For the first challenge, I'm not sure it's a good idea to take them on in random order, because it factors in the "Luck" element too much, which is what you're trying to avoid. Like you said, if you take on the Barbarian at first, you might die, but if you level up in the meantime when you take on meatbags like the Cleric & Bard, you'll be fine. Either you take'em in a fixed order (either by level or by relative difficulty), or you don't level up at all.

My 2 cents.

This is true, but as everything else about them is random it can be written off as 'beating them on their own terms'. Anyways, the level up bit was only there to play off the snark of 'farming' them. I could remove it, but then that removes pithy catchphrases such as 'the only thing their characters are good for is giving real characters five free levels'.

Though if you did fight them in a fixed order, especially ordered by level it would then become even easier, and you could just blow through it with a level 3 by soloing one of the 8s and gaining 1.35 levels on the spot, at which point the rest becomes beyond trivial, as by the time you hit the 17 you're around that or close yourself.

As for the Paizils themselves, I don't expect sapience from them. However, those who haven't been suckered by Xenu Jason yet will realize that means that even if Pathfinder was any good, it would still be too weak to actually be usable in any campaign. Which should not surprise anyone, given that most everyone involved is the sort that thinks Rogues outdamaging a Fireball is really what has been holding D&D back all this time (which is also why their 1d6 per 2 levels weaksauce heal got NERFED, despite the fact that is less than one decent hit at every single level).

But aside from that, the point of this is damage control + lulz + thought exercise. After all, if these fuckers are getting trivially disposed of by much lower level stuff, imagine how they fare against even routine encounters (hint: It's not any better).

As an addendum to this, it might be interesting to run some standard vs. Pathfinder mirror matches of the same character doing the same thing, fighting him or herself.

It may help show that combat maneuvers, and therefore combat-specialists in generals, got nerfed, and spellcasters got more awesome.

FYI: they have a wizard 10 now.

Starmaker wrote:FYI: they have a wizard 10 now.

I'll look into it later. The mirror matches will also come later, though it's mostly only interesting for the non casters (the casters came out better in PF).

I'd figured they would. It might help a case to illustrate the problem with Paizo, though.

A variant might be running mirror-match encounters. The equivalent build against the exact same monster, who tries to do the exact same thing.

The equivalency test would be the best idea methinks, because to be honest Roy, all your original idea will amount to is trolling and more Paizil butthurt. If we're being objective here and trying to make a point other than "lol i troll u". then that's the completely bassackwards way to do it.

Same Game 3.5 vs. 3.P seems like the best idea. They'd listen to a party test, but that would be much more difficult to run.

So, let me get this straight. Your proposal is to create a min-maxed character, to take out a bunch of non-optimized, essentially random, "iconic" characters.

Uh... why? What does that prove? Other than that YOU can create an elaborate set of circumstances so that YOU can win a challenge that YOU set up in the first place?

*yawn*

Gee, thank you for all your insightful input Mr Troll. I'm so glad you made an account just to say that. In the future kindly just keep your mouth fucking shut.

Are all the classes going to have the same general type of encounters to fight? Or are the two fighters going to have a radically different challenge than the Monks?

Akula wrote:Gee, thank you for all your insightful input Mr Troll. I'm so glad you made an account just to say that. In the future kindly just keep your mouth fucking shut.

Okay, I've been around a little while so let me get this straight. Your proposal is to create a min-maxed character, to take out a bunch of non-optimized, essentially random, "iconic" characters.

Why?

You could spank 3.path iconic characters with your own 3.path character of a lesser leve. Or you could spank them with 3.x NPCs and iconics. Sure.
But why bother?

They were made specifically to showcase pathfinder mechanics. It really wouldn't be that hard to create roughly similar characters in 3.5. It should show the differences between the way the systems work. Is there a really good way to prove a hypothesis empirically without comparison? I'm just kinda interested in the exact results. Specifically I want to see if what has been done to the high powered characters (spellcasters) has really mattered all that much. I can only speculate as to Roy's motivation; if pressed I would guess that he just wants something he can wave around and use to prove his general distaste for "Paizils" is justified.

Now see, there's a civil response which could have been returned to that guy's first post, even if his name was Sock Puppet. He might have been trolling but I think his query was valid so I'll try to be as charitable as possible with my assumptions.

If this is for a pissing contest with Paizil, then there's a lot of ways to skin that cat, most of em banal. If it is about gauging their success in making viable characters, then I'd recommend rather than PvP, which is notoriously variable and inaccurate, to instead run equivalent characters from each system against the same level-appropriate challenges perhaps.

I recall a good gauntlet of challenges that were used to vet Tome characters to make certain that they each could do something or if not, that their weaknesses would be identified. (at CR 10: Pit trap, a few trolls at once, a pair of mindflayers, I forget the rest, but something like that)

Here it is:

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/The_Same_G ... Guideline)

It could probably stand to have some kind of elaboration on it through--Distances and exactly how many shadows is a horde.

Mr. Sock Puppet is ultimately correct, though. Creating a character to PVP a bunch of other characters who are not established with sheer bullshit in terms of rules is both trivially easy, and not what the game is about, really. It's kinda pointless. You only will successfully cement them against you. You will not show them anything insightful or interesting. In brief, the way to persuade people to See the Light is not to be overtly antagonistic.

And even in the case of things like the Same Game Test, the characters aren't always supposed to succeed. A random challenge (PKing/surviving PK from another PC-type) may be one their class is designed in such a way as to make it hilariously likely they fail at, if the matchup is bad. This doesn't even necessarily say anything negative about the class design, just that it has a blind spot, which really lots of well-built classs do (and kinda should... Do Everything Man is a touch dull).

I always thought that the point of the Same Game Test was to make sure that a variety of challenges are presented, roughly half of which you will be expected to lose. It is hardly an arena challenge. I think those can't possibly not favor one side.

To Sock Puppet. I spoke hastily, I should have extended the benefit of the doubt to you. I assumed you were a troll because a thread like this attracts the edition warriors and I don't know who the hell you are. I shouldn't have done that.

My comment was that a single encounter (a specifically designed PKing enemy) does not necessarily disqualify any of the other PCs from being viable because of the nature of the Same Game Test. Even if they all lost individually it wouldn't demonstrate much about the viability of them as characters overall, and thus going "zomg I can PK all these dudes with this hilariously differently leveled character!" doesn't... matter.

Well, I thought we had moved away from that and are now talking about how to SGT those characters with their 3.5 counterparts. Which is a lot more telling and interesting.

Well congratulations troll, you ruined the thread with bullshit. Damn Paizils indeed.

Yeah, so maybe "Sock Puppet" is a pretty jerky name, especially for a first-time poster - chalk it up to a bad joke. So, Akula, if it makes you think less of me, or not take me seriously, that's my fault, and not yours. Thanks for offering me the benefit of the doubt, even if it wasn't your first impulse.

So, to prevent distraction, let's say that my name is Honest Abe, the Great Emancipator. Does that make my query any more or less valid?

And, Roy, I'm sorry you feel that way. But I contend that it is impossible to "ruin with bullshit" a thread that was based on it in the first place. It seems to me, my friend, as if YOU are the one that is trolling. But if you have an alternate explanation, then hey, I'm all ears.

Edit: and what the hell does "Paizil" even mean, anyway? Where does that term come from?

Sock Puppet wrote:Edit: and what the hell does "Paizil" even mean, anyway? Where does that term come from?

It's a word coined by Roy, contracted from "Paizo" + "Fail". It means exactly that. Much like other Royisms, it's opaque and nonsensical to anyone who doesn't know where it comes from, is not particularly meaningful to those who do, and is rarely used by anyone but him and Psychic Robot, maybe one or two others.

Sock Puppet wrote:Yeah, so maybe "Sock Puppet" is a pretty stupid name, especially for a first-time poster - chalk it up to a bad joke. So, Akula, if it makes you think less of me, or not take me seriously, that's my fault, and not yours. Thanks for offering me the benefit of the doubt, even if it wasn't your first impulse.

So, to prevent distraction, let's say that my name is Honest Abe, the Great Emancipator. Does that make my query any more or less valid?

And, Roy, I'm sorry you feel that way. But I contend that it is impossible to "ruin with bullshit" a thread that was based on it in the first place. It seems to me, my friend, as if YOU are the one that is trolling. But if you have an alternate explanation, then hey, I'm all ears.

Edit: and what the hell does "Paizil" even mean, anyway? Where does that term come from?

Paizil = Paizo + Fail, so named because almost everything they make, and almost everyone from there is objectively bad with no real redeeming qualities, thus Fail.

Anyways, the purpose of this is to demonstrate their mechanical ineffectiveness in an amusing manner. It's already been established here that this is so, after all the Paladin can't handle a Gelugon like at all, despite supposedly being perfectly suited for the task and should therefore at least manage the 50% baseline success rate expected, if not higher due to the specialization. And similar lines can be drawn about the others, except MAYBE the Wizard, and I only don't include that in because I haven't looked at it yet and I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt even though the chances are infinitesimal it will not make me doubt giving it that benefit.

Also, a party test contains too many variables and is too prone to 'Fighter leeches off Wizard, so the Fighter can't be that bad right?' which happens in any game where both classes appear on the same side, but even so it obfuscates more than it clarifies.

And it's much easier to show them getting slaughtered by something that should be much weaker then pull an a = c then to not cut out the b and do a SGT, which will just mean more Paizil whining and flailing, as they complain about the monsters selected with optional digging around for the weakest enemies possible at that level etc. Not that I expect to convince them regardless, they're too deep in the self delusions. If they haven't gotten it after the first try, they probably never will. But it can convince those on the outside looking in that holy fucking shit, Paizil non casters suck, and they don't know how to build casters which means they don't know how to work with their own edition and therefore their judgment cannot be trusted regarding their own game, much less the game it was based on.

Edit: Fail. Paizil uses the first four letters of Paizo, and the last two of Fail. Therefore it is reasonably intuitive. It is also fairly commonly used around here, so clearly people don't have that much of a problem with it. I was the one that started it, but hey. Anything that can turn a few repetitive paragraphs into one word has my vote. Especially since the Paizils make the same mistakes over and over again. Hell, I'm going to start using SPF Type I/II/III to reference doing exactly the opposite of what they said they would do/change for the sake of change/the illusion of change, respectively.

Wouldn't it be a more "even-ish" if you instead took the iconics for their level and optimized them by paizo rules before going through their individual tests?