Pathfinder Is Still Bad

[DMReckless]

None of it matters after 11th level anyway, because

Gunfighters retire at level 11

OH MY GOD LEVEL ELEVEN CHARACTERS CAN MAKE A LOT OF MONEY!!!!!!

Considering how much effort Jason B. went through to edit the spells (wall of iron, etc.) so that they couldn't, it seems Paizo doesn't want level 11 characters to be able to spam money. Just seems a poor choice to lay out a simple 2 step process to instant wealth and then say "ah, don't be silly, I didn't mean it to work that way." as someone who is supposed to be designing classes.

But whatevs.

[Parthenon]

Thanks, that makes sense.

[Koumei]

that is quite literally Powered by Failure.

It's not just the class that's powered by failure.

I feel we have some sort of slogan here, it just needs some polishing. "Paizo: we're Powered by Failure!" perhaps? Or "Paizo: your Failure just makes us stronger!" maybe?

Someone get a team onto that.

[virgil]

I'd help, but I feel that Paizo's failure is contagious, so any attempt at making a slogan will fail.

[tzor]

Just wondering, why is a person said to be the sperm and not the egg?

A leftover from early misunderstanding of birds and bees (and plants and trees), where the male was thought to be the transmitter of life and the female just the fertile soil where the "seed" of life is planted.

[Draco_Argentum]

Most classes suck in their first iteration. They're in the rough draft phase, and that's fine. The problem is that Paizo only does two iterations: the rough draft, and the slightly-polished draft. Revision in writing is about ripping the guts out of a piece, rearranging its limbs, and adding new organs where necessary.

The fact that they have a bad playtest class isn't damning. The fact that they'll publish a bad playtest class is damning.

I was going to say the same. The fact that they came out with even a obvious loophole or silliness isn't the problem. Thats why you never edit your own work, you know how it should be and its just hard to see other possibilities.

[Roy]

that is quite literally Powered by Failure.

It's not just the class that's powered by failure.

I feel we have some sort of slogan here, it just needs some polishing. "Paizo: we're Powered by Failure!" perhaps? Or "Paizo: your Failure just makes us stronger!" maybe?

Someone get a team onto that.

Paizo: Powered by the Failure.

It's even almost the same as their existing slogan. Except that the fans are failure. Yay double meanings!

And yeah, that's kinda the point of me bringing it up repeatedly.

[hogarth]

Considering how much effort Jason B. went through to edit the spells (wall of iron, etc.) so that they couldn't, it seems Paizo doesn't want level 11 characters to be able to spam money.

It's ridiculous to think "if only I can nerf spell/ability XYZ, then somehow the abilities of an 11th level character won't be worth paying for", whether Jason (et al.) is doing the nerfing or not. The ultimate end of that road is something like 4E, where every inherent PC ability is "you kill stuff" (with a little "you heal stuff" thrown in) and non-combat rituals are exorbitantly expensive.

[Slade]

Oh, you know how in the playtest things are really expensive for gunslinger?
Pathfinder was just screwing with the players.
Screwing with players about cost


Second post a designer comments: "The final rules in Ultimate Combat will have rules if you want to play with firearms that are not new, rare, expensive, and even easier to use."

So they just wanted to be jerks and playtest it with bad rules to see reaction.

[hogarth]

Oh, you know how in the playtest things are really expensive for gunslinger?
Pathfinder was just screwing with the players.
Screwing with players about cost


Second post a designer comments: "The final rules in Ultimate Combat will have rules if you want to play with firearms that are not new, rare, expensive, and even easier to use."

So they just wanted to be jerks and playtest it with bad rules to see reaction.

Uh, here's the whole quote. Apparently your eyes got tired before reaching the end of the sentence and several words got compressed into a single black dot:

"The final rules in Ultimate Combat will have rules if you want to play with firearms that are not new, rare, expensive, and even easier to use, but those will be options rather than the baseline for the campaign. "

So the final book will have some optional rules if you want more reliable guns. OMG!!!

[Slade]

Bah, I might have been a little sleepy.

Still at least with the better/smarter optional rules, the gunslinger might be viable.

[quanta]

Well, at least the people in the thread are saying "WFT Steve? What you thinking? How is we supposed to playtest this?"

[Xur]

Dunno if someone posted this already: Your Whispering Homunculus: 20 Malfunctioning or Disappointing Magics.
It reads like the good ol' SCREW YOU PLAYERS!!1, but this was the real offender to me:

3. Bag of Not Always Holding: While in general this bag functions as a bag of holding of the appropriate type, occasionally things held in it vanish. Every week, there is a 10% chance that one item (a gold coin, a magic item, a sack of silver) vanishes, and a 10% chance that a missing object (including those from previous owners or perhaps even the previous owner itself) reappears.

Yeah...

Don't get me wrong, I don't totally oppose the basic idea that you can have flawed magic items, but they should be funny, interesting, or at least not be a party/fun-killer... it's not like we don't have cursed items already, right? RIGHT?

[Slade]

It depends on how great a DM you have, but you might gain a macgriffin or something awesome if you got the item from a battle.

It says previous owners after all.

But in general without a amazing DM, not that useful.

[Xur]

But in general without a amazing DM, not that useful.

Exactly Problem is, at least in my experience, there are only so many amazing DMs out there. And for every amazing one you get a handful of Shadzars.

[Roy]

But in general without a amazing DM, not that useful.

Exactly Problem is, at least in my experience, there are only so many amazing DMs out there. And for every amazing one you get a handful of Shadzars.

And a larger number of Elennsars, and a still larger number of Jarons.

[RobbyPants]

You're really pissed at Jaron, aren't you?

[Xur]

Are we talking about JaronK? I have seen him on BG and Giantitp... what did he do?

[Juton]

Are we talking about JaronK? I have seen him on BG and Giantitp... what did he do?

Jaron and Roy got into an argument ... about something stupid. I think it was something about Fighter Archers riding Desmondo War Bats or something, I forget all the details. I could link to it but you'd be wasting your time if you went to read it.

[Roy]

You're really pissed at Jaron, aren't you?

Angry? No, not at all.

You should really know this by now, but I can harbor the utmost contempt for someone, or something without the slightest bit of anger. And he is an acceptable target.

Are we talking about JaronK? I have seen him on BG and Giantitp... what did he do?

Jaron and Roy got into an argument ... about something stupid. I think it was something about Fighter Archers riding Desmondo War Bats or something, I forget all the details. I could link to it but you'd be wasting your time if you went to read it.

More than that.

Basically...

Jaron constantly argues borderline TO crap... as long as it supports his argument. If it doesn't he is suddenly against it. So I mention Wind Wall owns archers, he starts blabbering about mounts. I warn him, specifically it would be a bad idea to bring up the borked mount rules from the MM2. He does so anyways, so I take them to their logical conclusion and point out Magebred Warbeast T-Rexes are like 2k gold or something stupid, and are CR 9 or so when you're only CR 5. Suddenly he doesn't like that. Even though he's brought up the exact same use of those rules before.

That bit of fail goes on a while, eventually stopping. That's not the problem.

The problem is, a while later there was a thread attempting to determine if a stealthy guy in a non stealthy party is worth a damn. Stealth, being skills is of course invalid past low levels (and that particular skill is fucked with rather badly even at low levels). Several people say as much.

Jaron, being the guy who faps to skills way too fucking much, and bans the actually good classes because they show his gimped ass up like the fool he is of course attempts to defend scouting... by fielding some super optimized scouting build, and then whining when enemies act remotely competently, much less are optimized, since, as it happened a single feat completely negated his entire character (Mindsight). He attempted to claim that a super genius Ice Devil (Int 22, Wis 22) who acts remotely intelligently, uses basic tactics, and knows at least a little about the party is +2 CR (originally he said +5, but he was smited so hard he changed to +2). Because apparently, it's supposed to roam around ice fields with a nice tag over its head broadcasting how much XP it is worth. Assuming it doesn't randomly decide to attack CR +5 SPARKLY VAMPIRES and die in the meantime, of course. Yes, he actually insisted there would be random, super high level vampires running around. In Eberron. In broad fucking daylight. And I will never, ever let him live that down. He will be smited as persistently as the Paizils are.

[Roy]

Smite Imbeciles aside, what being a Jaron means, specifically is that if you play at any level higher than a mouth breathing fuckwit, you will be nerfed. Either because it "raises your CR by some vastly inflated amount, so less XP" or because it makes him and his gimpy characters feel small in the pants. However it's perfectly ok for him to throw some random assortment of templates at you. It's just that if you do it, well you're not being Powered by Failure, so less XP.

[Xur]

He attempted to claim that a super genius Ice Devil (Int 22, Wis 22) who acts remotely intelligently, uses basic tactics, and knows at least a little about the party is +2 CR (originally he said +5, but he was smited so hard he changed to +2). Because apparently, it's supposed to roam around ice fields with a nice tag over its head broadcasting how much XP it is worth. Assuming it doesn't randomly decide to attack CR +5 SPARKLY VAMPIRES and die in the meantime, of course. Yes, he actually insisted there would be random, super high level vampires running around. In Eberron. In broad fucking daylight. And I will never, ever let him live that down. He will be smited as persistently as the Paizils are.

That sounds like a good idea after all... I mean, it's Eberron
Can you provide a link?


On Pathfinder: I recently discovered this anouncement: We Be Goblins! Have to admit, the text reads good and I really like stuff for non-standard adventuring parties. Could make a decent oneshot.

[cthulhudarren]

I wish that Paizo stuck with adventures. They are good with fluff, not so good at crunch.

Despite the railroad, a lot of their adventures are very good.

[Roy]

He attempted to claim that a super genius Ice Devil (Int 22, Wis 22) who acts remotely intelligently, uses basic tactics, and knows at least a little about the party is +2 CR (originally he said +5, but he was smited so hard he changed to +2). Because apparently, it's supposed to roam around ice fields with a nice tag over its head broadcasting how much XP it is worth. Assuming it doesn't randomly decide to attack CR +5 SPARKLY VAMPIRES and die in the meantime, of course. Yes, he actually insisted there would be random, super high level vampires running around. In Eberron. In broad fucking daylight. And I will never, ever let him live that down. He will be smited as persistently as the Paizils are.

That sounds like a good idea after all... I mean, it's Eberron
Can you provide a link?

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards ... ic=10959.0

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards ... ic=10971.0

Here's the best two. There's plenty of others, just see the thread they came from. His argument at this point is that actually playing the enemies remotely intelligently makes them harder than if they are dumb MOBs. Which is true, but the default is not dumb MOB, especially in regard to Int 22 Wis 22 super geniuses. Jaron mobs are -5 CR (he'll change to -2 if you smite him hard enough), enemies played at their Int scores are at CR.

Oh and don't you dare ever have the enemies know anything about the PCs at all, ever. If they do, that instantly raises the CR. Which of course means everything you ever fight is CR + 2, simply because any group of PCs that actually has a chance in hell (see what I did there?) of taking on a fucking Ice Devil is practically living legends, which of course means PEOPLE KNOW AT LEAST BASIC INFORMATION ABOUT YOU. This, of course is because not only is his little one trick pony scout automatically negated by a single feat, he is automatically negated by having the enemy know that one of the PCs is an exceptionally intelligent, and sneaky undead. Yeah, that's it. That's all that is required to shut him down. One fucking sentence. And yet he still claims to not be a waste of space in a real party.

Since he is also the Powered by Your Failure sort (see, I'm on topic!) I can honestly see him deliberately telling enemies basic information about his character and seriously expecting double XP for that. After all, he's the sort to go Haunt Shifting into things with his 1d12+4 HD, free +4 Str and Dex item at any level, and then get mad when enemies aren't completely brain dead. Which means he's the worst kind of optimizer - the kind who fails at it, because they can't handle stock mobs, much less serious opponents.

Now, I wouldn't actually play with Jaron. But if I did his character would likely get raised by the undead Cleric as a skeleton to hold the party's stuff after one fail incident, making him 0/1. That at least would be semi useful. That and getting 14 more of him, and throwing 15 Jaron fail midgets with TK.

[Midnight_v]

Several people say as much.

You know... I'm one of those people and I forget that people are on both boards like me and Robby.
I also was unaware that Jaronk did that as an M.O., but it does explain a lot. LOL desmondu warbats.