[Pathfinder] More previews up

[DeadlyReed]

Someone has been transcribing further previews from PAZIOCON HERE.

[FatR]

And once again their fixes make 3.X clerics and wizards even more awesome.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

Someone has been transcribing further previews from PAZIOCON HERE.

I find it amusing that the OP in that thread didn't know that 3.5 cleric domain lists have always had wizard spells. Unless Pathfinder had reversed this in the beta.

[Roy]

It's not, but 90% of the changes in Pathfinder are cosmetic anyways.

I must admit that I like what they tried to do with the Sorcerer class to set it apart from the Wizard. And I also like the changes that they made to the Polymorph Spells. But as Roy would say... it's mostly filled with Fail.

No. I wouldn't give them more credit than they deserve. Completely made of Fail. The very few things they got right were stolen without them understanding. It would be like some random guy copying off particle physics notes. They don't even fucking understand what they're doing, so even when they do get it right one time in seven hundred twenty like a broken clock they don't realize it. And since it's so far over their level, they never will get it even if they do wake up.

The problem with "You can use PrCs feats and spells from normal books with Pathfinder" is that Pathfinder was supposed to be a fix.

If you splatbook spells, all their spell nerfs are fucking wasted. It just means people cast Vertigo Field instead of Glitterdust.

If you allow feats, then they take all those awesome feats like Shocktrooper and shit that were designed to compensate for weaknesses in Core that Pathfinder supposedly fixes, overfixing a weakness usually means being too strong. Oh yeah, and by the way, they get more of them.

So you end up with the actual balance completely fucked, and absolutely zero characters actually playing the way Pathfinder intended.

Except that Shock Trooper builds off the core Power Attack, which they fucked with because they are literally incapable of understanding 1 - 1 = 0. That's option count by the way. So what they actually did there is make it so you can't correct the problems in the system without ignoring their fucking content, because they exasperate the aforementioned problems. So you either pay for something inferior to what you already own, pay for something inferior to what you do not own but could get, or don't fucking buy their stuff. No points for picking the sensible solution.

[hogarth]

And once again their fixes make 3.X clerics and wizards even more awesome.

Without seeing the final version of various spells, it's hard to say. But I suspect you're right.

[Roy]

So anyways, after predicting the usual brands of Fail I actually read the thread someone linked here.

Let's see...

Wizards got a buff. A small one, and one that only matters at low levels (before Blessed Books are assumed) but a buff nonetheless.

Then there's the dumbass commenting on how 'super' Paladins are because they can burn an entire round to know the guy fighting them is evil so they can smart smiting on round enemies already dead (otherwise known as two).

Also, the same dumbass seems to think bodyguards actually work, which is a red flag that nothing he says can be trusted for accuracy.

And oh yeah, they made poison even more useless for some reason.

The rest is just the usual circlejerk bullshit.

Edit: The more I think about it, the more I am reminded of something.

http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/left_behind/

Now, this doesn't directly have anything to do with Paizo. It's the detailed breakdown of a religious book series. What makes it notable is that if you flip to page 6 and check one of the entries there, the guy writing this states that that series qualifies as among the Worst Books Ever because they achieve the precise opposite of what their authors intend.

Sound like anyone else you know?

Now, if you start reading the rest of those review pages, you'll notice many more parallels between the particular brand of anti logic inherent to that religious book series (and to a lesser extent, the religion it's based on and religion in general) and the work done by Paizo. For that matter, similar lines can be drawn between it and 4.0, and Paizo and 4.0, forming a triangle.

When your business is failing for the same reasons religion is, something is very fucked up. Full stop.

[Iron Mongler]

Now, if you start reading the rest of those review pages, you'll notice many more parallels between the particular brand of anti logic inherent to that religious book series (and to a lesser extent, the religion it's based on and religion in general) and the work done by Paizo. For that matter, similar lines can be drawn between it and 4.0, and Paizo and 4.0, forming a triangle.

In the name of the 4.Fail, the Paizil, and Jack Fucking Chick.

Amen.

[Roy]

Win.

[Psychic Robot]

Why does it sound like monks have flurry BAB and non-flurry BAB? This is painful to contemplate.

[virgil]

Well, they hurt casting defensively by forcing them to only use a bonus of (caster level + casting ability modifier) rather than a skill check, and raising the DC to 15 + double spell level.

Casting on the defensive: Love it! Now you get to use your main casting attribute and multiclassing suffers. Fighter/clerics and others get to pay. LOVE IT!!!!
Flame Bolt a per-day thing – Good. I didn’t like the Beta at will thing. It was too good.

[Crissa]

Oy, casting defensively will then scale out of people's range.

In other words, instead of a high level spellcaster being able to be in a combat, they'll just have to use all the combat avoidance, which means that they shouldn't be in the same party as anyone who depends upon combat to do anything.

-Crissa

[ubernoob]

Oy, casting defensively will then scale out of people's range.

In other words, instead of a high level spellcaster being able to be in a combat, they'll just have to use all the combat avoidance, which means that they shouldn't be in the same party as anyone who depends upon combat to do anything.

-Crissa

No...

Level 1 caster casting their top level spell: (18 stat, CL 1) = +5 vs DC 17. 45% chance of success.
Level 10: (24 stat, CL 11) +17 vs DC 25. 65% chance of success.
Level 15: (28 stat, CL 17) +26 vs DC 31. 80% chance of success.

All it really does is make whoring your casting stat and CL boosters even more important.

[Kaelik]

1) WTF? He's crowing about how Fighter Clerics are screwed? Multiclassing is apparently bad? Fuck it all.

2) Defensive Casting:

What you lose: +3 bonus over level for a skill check. Easy to boost skill checks.

What you gain: Based on casting stat instead of Con. When you increase the check, you are increasing something you really care about, CL. Also, as far as I can tell, 1 free skill point per level, except for the total non-compatibility of all those things based on concentration checks, like swift concentration or mobile casting or whatever else.

If your casting stat was going to be +3 or more over Con, you are actually getting greater success rates in defensive casting. So for a Gray Elf Wizard with 20/12, you actually get a +1 bonus to your Concentration check that scales better since you are putting more into Int than Con.

A Dwarf Wizard on the other hand with his 18/16 takes a relative -2 penalty, but works it off pretty quick due to investing in Int more than Con.

Since you were never going to make the concentration check for damage if you took damage while casting a spell anyways, and you were going to auto-succeed by the time you could afford to waste money on a Steady Concentration vest:

End Result: 90% of characters get 1 more skill point per level and auto succeed on Defensive casting sooner.
5% (Notably combat clerics) reach auto success at the same rate or one point slower. But still get a free skill point.
5% have something else concentration based, and don't get the skill point. They still get auto success on defensive casting sooner.

[Roy]

In the name of the 4.Fail, the Paizil, and Jack Fucking Chick.

Amen.

SPF factor: About 20 or so. And half of that is coming from the quoted dumbfuck.

[hogarth]

If your casting stat was going to be +3 or more over Con, you are actually getting greater success rates in defensive casting.

Not quite; the DC is now 15+(spell level)*2, not 15+(spell level).

[Roy]

Ya know, since it's a caster level check that means Arcane Mastery would work with it. So you can take 10. At which point it isn't hard at all to get it to auto pass status. So that's one more thing it does. Alternately, you ignore other books and it's not backwards compatible.

SPF about 10 or so.

[Iron Mongler]

Given that it's not backwards compatible at all without severe silliness, do you think Paizo will instead make articles or extra books ($$$) to address the other splatbooks with Pathfinder? They've already fucked up this badly.

[hogarth]

Given that it's not backwards compatible at all without severe silliness, do you think Paizo will instead make articles or extra books ($$$) to address the other splatbooks with Pathfinder? They've already fucked up this badly.

It is guaranteed that they will come out with a line of splatbooks.

What is the "this" that they've fucked up? Their business plan? Their revenue stream?

[Iron Mongler]

What is the "this" that they've fucked up? Their business plan? Their revenue stream?

Given what I've seen of Pathfinder so far, just about everything. I'm not even trying to bash it over and over like a broken record, it just doesn't seem like an improvement on anything at all, and looks like it'll just be making people pay for the same (read: lower) quality books that they already have.

[Roy]

But have they fucked up fucking up? Two negatives do not form a positive in this case.

[hogarth]

[It] looks like it'll just be making people pay for the same (read: lower) quality books that they already have.

If they make people pay for various books (whether they're an improvement or not), doesn't that mean they succeeded as a business?

From Paizo's standpoint: If people buy their products, then Pathfinder succeeds. If people don't buy their products, then Pathfinder fails. Frankly, I think the correlation between revenue and "high quality" (whatever that means; one person's Win is another person's Fail) is fairly weak.

[sake]

Why does it sound like monks have flurry BAB and non-flurry BAB? This is painful to contemplate.

It scares me that the PF people thought that 3E abortion, that made multiclassed Monks even worse than they were in 3.5, was worth bringing back instead of just giving them fucking full BAB.

[RandomCasualty2]

From Paizo's standpoint: If people buy their products, then Pathfinder succeeds. If people don't buy their products, then Pathfinder fails. Frankly, I think the correlation between revenue and "high quality" (whatever that means; one person's Win is another person's Fail) is fairly weak.

Well, you can produce low quality shit when you're using a brand name and still do ok. Still if the game sucks, your sales will still be affected (ie. 4E, nWoD). If on the other hand, your game is 3rd party and has no real brand name value, then pretty much your game is sold entirely based on how good it is and how much people like it.

Now, arguably this quality may not be as influenced by game balance as it's influenced by how fun the actual game is. But producing a quality product is still a #1 priority. The pathfinder name alone just won't sell many copies.

[hogarth]

Still if the game sucks, your sales will still be affected (ie. 4E, nWoD).

It's impossible to prove how much a game's sales are hurt by "suckiness" as opposed to poor advertising, changing demographics, market fragmentation, etc. But I'm pretty sure that video games are the #1 competitor to "sucky" RPGs and "awesome" RPGs are a distant, distant second place.

The pathfinder name alone just won't sell many copies.

Sell many copies compared to what? Arcana Evolved? Iron Heroes? True20? GURPS? World of Warcraft? Bunnies & Burrows?

[Lich-Loved]

If they make people pay for various books (whether they're an improvement or not), doesn't that mean they succeeded as a business?

From Paizo's standpoint: If people buy their products, then Pathfinder succeeds. If people don't buy their products, then Pathfinder fails. Frankly, I think the correlation between revenue and "high quality" (whatever that means; one person's Win is another person's Fail) is fairly weak.

Oh, stop looking at the big picture

While I cannot say that I truly admire the Pathfinder changes or that all of the changes make perfect sense, you are just wasting your time here with this sort of reasoning. The general idea here is CharOp (via edge case or using even basic RAW where it is clearly disruptive to the game) is king. Really most of the Dennites don't even play the same game as the intended PFRPG audience (when they play at all, some here just critique the rules without playing games with the rules, but that is another topic). This isn't saying that anyone is Doing it Wrong, it is just that approach to the games are so completely different that what you effectively have is a bunch of apples screaming murder at the oranges for being so far off color.

Actually, it is even more fundamental than that. I guess you could call it the Oberoni Dichotomy. On one hand, you have a group (let's call them the Casuals) that simply do not care about the nuances of the RAW; they are in the hobby casually and use the rules as a general resolution engine, with various portions of the RAW simply being Rule 0'd either consciously or unconsciously or ignored beyond some level of resolution. You also have this other group that see Rule 0 for the fallacy that it is (let's call this group the Hardcore group) and demand that the RAW be internally consistent in all points and finely resolved so that they can develop cases to maximize some variable (character power, survivability, whatever). The dichotomy occurs because the Hardcore group and the Casuals are nominally supposed to be playing the same game and occasionally run into each other at the tabletop. It also occurs whenever game design is discussed, because the two groups want wildly different things from the design. The Casuals want new ideas and approaches and are willing to accept warts and defects for a fresh view on things because the blemishes are simply overlooked or handled by Rule 0 without a great deal of thought, whereas the Hardcores want rigid goals and a new RAW that backs those goals in the name of internal integrity, without which all the wanking about being the Greatest Wizard in the World would be useless, denuding this group of a portion of their enjoyment of the game.

The dichotomy presents itself clearly because both groups are Right. The Casuals have it right because anyone should be able to play the game the way they want without stressing over details they don't care about or can work around and the Hardcores have it right because having an internally consistent ruleset certainly can't hurt the casual player. The funniest part of this dichotomy is the amount of nerd rage the Hardcores have toward the Casuals. The Casuals, by and large, are simply not interested enough to argue about it. It is this group that Pathfinder is targeting, knowing full well that the perfect is the enemy of the good, the number of Casuals out there far exceeds the number of Hardcore players and most importantly, the Pathfinder team is forced to deal with the business reality that they have to work within the fundamentally flawed 3.x framework if they want to make their new rules economically viable at all.

What we really need to resolve this dichotomy is a new set of internally consistent rules written from the ground up that begins with throwing the 3.x core and splatbooks on a fire. I am working on this very thing; it is hard work and luckily I do not need to make it a profitable endeavor. I have chosen to spend my time fixing the problem (at least from my point of view) rather than posting endlessly about changes to 3.x/PFRPG, gripped by an apoplectic rage at what other people are doing.