Pathfinder Is Still Bad

[A Man In Black]

Could you link to the thread? All I see on the forums is a tard whining about how a barbarian taking a sorceror level is min-maxing, and he needs a reason to do that so he can be a weal wolpwaya!

Well, I suppose not.

Cirno, I know you're reading this, stop rehashing things people say here.

[Draco_Argentum]

AMIB, is this: "I don't care if a new rule isn't the "optional choice,"" a direct quote?

If so, rofl.

[K]

I kind of love that he used a "canon" argument for Pathfinder.

I mean, his reasoning is that the gods want you to be less powerful if you are a Seperatist because you're doing something against the canon for the setting.

You know, the canon you as a designer can totally change at a whim.... the canon you can expand to include anything as long as you do it well.... the canon that's a blatant rip-off of several other DnD settings.

That canon. That's the one holding SKR back.

The fact that he can't imagine heretical clerics or opposing sects of a religion is kind of adorable. I wonder if he is a Fundamentalist in real life too?

[Fuchs]

Well, I have trouble imaging real divisions in a church in a world where you can simply commune with your god. Rivals, yes, enemies, no.

Edit: To clarify: I don't see different religious doctrines within the same church leading to a fight, not with the "let's ask our god" solution so apparent and easy.

[A Man In Black]

AMIB, is this: "I don't care if a new rule isn't the "optional choice,"" a direct quote?

If so, rofl.

It's copy-paste, but it's just a typo.

[K]

Well, I have trouble imaging real divisions in a church in a world where you can simply commune with your god. Rivals, yes, enemies, no.

Yeh, but in DnD you don't talk to your god. You talk to agents of your god, because it's assumed your god is super-powerful and busy and is not on personal speaking terms with every priest. Those agents sometimes don't even give answers or give answers in the diety's best interests.

At least, that's what says in the commune spell description.

That being said, why would your god have to give everyone the same answer? I mean, he's speaking in your head.... it's not like talking to your god involves bringing him personally down to address your local temple.

Where does it say that a Sun god has to be Lawful and Good and not Evil and Death? The Aztec gods and the Christian one both use Sun imagery, and I could see a god of the Sun only really caring about Sun worship.

I could see relativism, though. If you've never studied the Aztec culture then you could never connect to the Death and Evil aspect of the Sun god and you'd only be able to connect to the Sun God through his peace and love aspect. He'd be agnostic about the whole thing as long as you were worshiping the Sun.

[hogarth]

Someone made a thread on the Paizo forums, pointing out how mediocre this archetype is. SKR is going to the mat to defend it.

What drives me nuts is that he'll fight to the death to defend a flaw in the rules, only to have that flaw fixed later in errata. Oops.

Having said that, I can sympathize on his position with the Vow of Poverty feat. People will choose to play D&D on "hard mode" whether or not that feat exists.

[GâtFromKI]

Me, I'm going to write for, and play, a game where it's okay if you want to play a Indiana Jones-style wizard who starts with a 15 Dex and 12 Int and fights with a whip.

The funny fact: if SKR create an archetype for the Indy-style wizard someday, it won't be an archetype which give bonus in order to make the concept at least playable.

SKR explained that is the WoP thread and in the separatist thread that if someone chose a weak option, then the option should remain weak even with a dedicated archetype. Just because. Thus, you have an option that existed before the archetype (you can create a monk without any possession with core only, without the UM), and which is still unbalanced with the archetype.

Therefore... I don't even see what all those archetypes are for. Except for filling more pages and killing some trees.

----
The worst part: the rules of those archetype are often worst than nothing. I mean, SKR's version of the wow of poverty is "instead of having 20 000 gp of stuff, the monk has a rolex worth 20 000 gp - but he pretends he doesn't have any wealth".

Having said that, I can sympathize on his position with the Vow of Poverty feat. People will choose to play D&D on "hard mode" whether or not that feat exists.

That's what SKR said, but that's bullshit. "I tried to play a monk without any possession to make the game harder. It was too hard! I need exactly 1 ki point per two level, in order to make the game easier but not too easy".

----
I finished Doom using only the shotgun. I didn't need a special mode which allow only the shotgun and add a worthless bonus: I just didn't use any other weapon than the shotgun.

That's the cool thing about "hard mode": you don't need any rules about it; just make the game harder by not using any magical item, or playing without casters, or using only CR+3 encounter, or playing NPCs classes, or... Suggestions about how to make the game harder can be useful. But an option that makes the game harder without saying it, and which give a random bonus to pretend it's balanced (some peoples on French forums think the WoP is balanced - it makes me sad), is completely useless.

[hogarth]

Having said that, I can sympathize on his position with the Vow of Poverty feat. People will choose to play D&D on "hard mode" whether or not that feat exists.

That's what SKR said, but that's bullshit. "I tried to play a monk without any possession to make the game harder. It was too hard! I need exactly 1 ki point per two level, in order to make the game easier but not too easy".

----
I finished Doom using only the shotgun. I didn't need a special mode which allow only the shotgun and add a worthless bonus: I just didn't use any other weapon than the shotgun.

I agree. The Vow of Poverty feat is pretty crappy and useless, but that doesn't make it any different than the other nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine crappy, useless feats out there.

[CapnTthePirateG]

How many of those were intended to be crappy, and how many were intended to be used?

[hogarth]

How many of those were intended to be crappy, and how many were intended to be used?

I'm sure every crappy feat ever written was intended to be used, and none of them were intended to be crappy. I'm not following your train of thought...

EDIT: To clarify, Vow of Poverty is a monk variant, not a feat as I stated above. Sorry for the confusion. That makes it a crappy variant, not a crappy feat.

[K]

The problem is not that he wrote a weak option. The problem is that he's defending it as intentionally weak.

I mean, design of any kind is going to involve weak ideas because few things are going to be perfectly balanced the first time you write them, but you really can say "yeh, after player reports it does seem that this is weak. Here is an option to fix the problem now that I see it."

[GâtFromKI]

The Vow of Poverty feat is pretty crappy and useless, but that doesn't make it any different than the other nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine crappy, useless feats out there.

Many feats or variants try to give an advantage, or at least an alternative way of playing. A crappy advantage, but an advantage.

I mean: the sensei gives you bardic's powers instead of monk's powers. The variant is crappy, because you should play a bard instead, but at least the author tried to provide a new character's concept with some strengths and some weakness, some kind a Wis-bard with mass-buff without spells.

The authors of the WoP, the separatist or the holy gun didn't even try: they have just written some random things on a paper, without any thinking about existing options, playability, etc. And then SKR says "oh, it work exactly as intended: it is the hard mode, while Ice tomb provide the easy mode. And for less clarity in the rules, we didn't explain it, you have to figure it by yourself".

I mean, design of any kind is going to involve weak ideas because few things are going to be perfectly balanced the first time you write them, but you really can say "yeh, after player reports it does seem that this is weak. Here is an option to fix the problem now that I see it."

+1

I mean, even if you don't fix the problem (because you try to limit the size of errata), you can recognize that there is a problem and that your job as a game designer is to avoid this kind of problems, or explain why you don't think there is a problem ("the option is balanced if you take it in conjunction with this, this and this..."). Jason Bulhman often does the latter (he explains why he thinks an option is balanced).

The worst thing to do is to create unbalanced option in purpose. In what purpose? Huh, because, err, you feel this option shouldn't be balanced, because, err, that's not the right way to play the game, but, err, we created an option nonetheless... That's what SKR does, and that's awful game design.

[hogarth]

The problem is not that he wrote a weak option. The problem is that he's defending it as intentionally weak.

Absolutely. He's a bozo who'll defend anything even when (or especially when) he's clearly wrong.

[CapnTthePirateG]

The problem is not that he wrote a weak option. The problem is that he's defending it as intentionally weak.

Absolutely. He's a bozo who'll defend anything even when (or especially when) he's clearly wrong.

Precisely. So why the hell does this man keep getting hired?

[hogarth]

Precisely. So why the hell does this man keep getting hired?

Because he's willing to work in a low-paying industry and he returns his manuscripts on time?

[shadzar]

The problem is not that he wrote a weak option. The problem is that he's defending it as intentionally weak.

Absolutely. He's a bozo who'll defend anything even when (or especially when) he's clearly wrong.

so the problem is something being designed that isnt already fully optimized?

well if that is the case, then i dont see a problem. D&D isnt about optimization, not is its spin-off, nor does everyone want to play the optimization game.

SKR = Sean K Reynolds?

[GâtFromKI]

so the problem is something being designed that isnt already fully optimized?

Not, the problem is something being designed that already exists.

[Maxus]

...And the designer not taking criticism well, and finding spurious positions and standards to hold so that, no matter what, he never has to admit he's wrong.

It's cool to screw up. Really. Hell, someone on this board once said that being wrong is something you should celebrate, seeing as you now know better than you did before. It's a point worth thinking about.

But digging in your heels rather than taking into account that you could be wrong...that's just idiocy no matter what your job is.

[rasmuswagner]

The problem is not that he wrote a weak option. The problem is that he's defending it as intentionally weak.

Absolutely. He's a bozo who'll defend anything even when (or especially when) he's clearly wrong.

so the problem is something being designed that isnt already fully optimized?

well if that is the case, then i dont see a problem. D&D isnt about optimization, not is its spin-off, nor does everyone want to play the optimization game.

SKR = Sean K Reynolds?

I was gonna explain about how trap options annoy optimizers because they're shit filler in a book, but they FUCK non-optimizers. Look at Death or Glory (and the Sensei archetype) from Ultimate Combat for an example. But I'm not going to change your mind about anything ever, am I?

[hogarth]

The problem is not that he wrote a weak option. The problem is that he's defending it as intentionally weak.

Absolutely. He's a bozo who'll defend anything even when (or especially when) he's clearly wrong.

so the problem is something being designed that isnt already fully optimized?

I can't speak for K, but what makes me cringe is when he says:

"Yes, brass knuckles/the witch's bonus spells/the Heirloom Weapon trait/etc. work that way and it was intentionally designed to work that way and you're wrong for complaining"

and then a few months later it gets errataed.

It's cool to screw up. Really. Hell, someone on this board once said that being wrong is something you should celebrate, seeing as you now know better than you did before. It's a point worth thinking about.

I'd even settle for a curt "we're not planning on issuing errata on X at the current time".

How many of those were intended to be crappy, and how many were intended to be used?

I'm sure every crappy feat ever written was intended to be used, and none of them were intended to be crappy. I'm not following your train of thought...

EDIT: To clarify, Vow of Poverty is a monk variant, not a feat as I stated above. Sorry for the confusion. That makes it a crappy variant, not a crappy feat.

Let me clarify even more: every feat/class/variant/whatever was intended to be used even if it were only going to be used for an NPC. From an NPC point of view, there's nothing particularly wrong with something like Vow of Poverty (as long as you're adjusting CRs appropriately), just like there's nothing particularly wrong with the Warrior or Expert NPC classes.

[GâtFromKI]

Warrior and Expert are in a chapter named "NPC classes". I think there's a disclaimer in this chapter : "those classes are too weak for regular PC".

There's nothing comparable.

[hogarth]

Warrior and Expert are in a chapter named "NPC classes". I think there's a disclaimer in this chapter : "those classes are too weak for regular PC".

There's nothing comparable.

I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just saying that some published rules practically scream "NPC" (e.g. a mountain druid archetype filled with all kinds of mountain-y goodness that's useless in other terrain, like immunity to altitude sickness) even though they're not specifically labelled so. Would it be better if they were in an "NPC-only" chapter? Damned if I know.

[shadzar]

Absolutely. He's a bozo who'll defend anything even when (or especially when) he's clearly wrong.

so the problem is something being designed that isnt already fully optimized?

I can't speak for K, but what makes me cringe is when he says:

"Yes, brass knuckles/the witch's bonus spells/the Heirloom Weapon trait/etc. work that way and it was intentionally designed to work that way and you're wrong for complaining"

and then a few months later it gets errataed.

functionality of those i cant speak too, as i cant find my damn PF beta to even see if those specifics are in there. but i DO know that errata isnt always to fix a problem, but sometimes to end bitching about it from a vocal minority.

both are plausible...

i just thought the idea was it was bad something isnt fully optimized, and him defending something not fully optimized was seen as strange....

i will go back to just reading about it now.

[PhoneLobster]

What drives me nuts is that he'll fight to the death to defend a flaw in the rules, only to have that flaw fixed later in errata. Oops.

Perfect first time... perfect every time.

Thus is the fan boy creedo. Even when you are your own fan boy.