Pathfinder Is Still Bad

[Korwin]

Creatures getting no saves while unconscious because they are willing is obviously the best answer. From a textual literalism standpoint it is best because it requires inventing no rules and requires ignoring no rules.

It requires ignoring multiple rules because there are still several spells that specifically only work against unconscious creatures while allowing saves.

You do know there are general rules and specific rules?

Like generally you get an save, but some spells say you dont get an save (like Magic Missile).
Like generally you get an save, unless you are willing or unconcious....

[maglag]

Nightmare and the like don't have any specific clause, they follow the general rules for saves. If unconscious creatures are willing forever, then you must ignore Nightmare's save section as it's an auto-fail.

Of course, it's completely nonsensical for people, let alone heroes to act unconsciously. Nobody ever heard of honed battle instincts or warriors that keep fighting even after losing all senses. And nobody ever dreams in Frank's campaigns I guess. Specially strange coming from a doctor.

[Covent]

Mask thank you for restoring my faith in human asshole'ery! For you I have a barrel full of cocks lovingly gift wrapped. Please enjoy.

On a different note I am bad at game design. I have a player that wants to play something that does not have any moving parts, such that even barbarian is too much math for him. I would like to find a pathfinder based class that is simple requires no real math at the table, and can contribute in at least some out of combat situations. He wants to in his words "Hit things with a stick, not do math, not cast or select spells, and still be relevant."

I tried home brewing a fighter but since as I mentioned I am bad at game design it ended up not doing what was needed, and being much too complex. So does anyone have a simple elegant class that fulfills those criteria? I would be willing to adapt a 3.5 class if someone has a recommendation.

[Mechalich]

There's various versions of the Warlock converted to PF out there. Blasting every round isn't all that efficient, but it's more or less without moving parts. Most of the other warlock abilities are fairly static and you can simplify invocations by just having the player take only blast-based invocations. The warlock gets bluff and sense motive, so they're not completely useless in the skills department either.

[Mask_De_H]

Mask thank you for restoring my faith in human asshole'ery! For you I have a barrel full of cocks lovingly gift wrapped. Please enjoy.

You're welcome and because I'm such a great person, I'll let you keep that barrel for yourself. :V

On a different note I am bad at game design. I have a player that wants to play something that does not have any moving parts, such that even barbarian is too much math for him. I would like to find a pathfinder based class that is simple requires no real math at the table, and can contribute in at least some out of combat situations. He wants to in his words "Hit things with a stick, not do math, not cast or select spells, and still be relevant."

I tried home brewing a fighter but since as I mentioned I am bad at game design it ended up not doing what was needed, and being much too complex. So does anyone have a simple elegant class that fulfills those criteria? I would be willing to adapt a 3.5 class if someone has a recommendation.

Unchained Rogue. It is "find thing, hide from or flank thing, stab thing, roll a bunch of dice." Outside of combat, it is "do skills for thing", which will carry him until you need to give his handicapable ass gear to keep up. Or the Tome Barbarian/Monk, which should port over almost effortlessly. You could also try Tome Soulborn, with the soulmelds chosen for him.

Or you could just drink with him or watch movies or play vidya or some shit that doesn't require math in the first place, because with what he's saying, it kinda sounds like he doesn't want to play period.

[virgil]

What about the Fire Mage?

[Username17]

What about the Fire Mage?

That's probably the direction you'd want to go. Melee combat in Pathfinder is all about figuring out how to stick bonuses together. If you want simple, you should go for fixed list spellcasting. And the simplest fixed list classes (like the Warmage) are about as simple as it gets. And of course, the Fire Mage was written to be simpler than that, because it's also a fixed progression.

-Username17

[Covent]

Thank you guys for your suggestions. Just to be clear he very much likes to play, he just wants to play something that has one set of numbers and does not change unless buffed externally. He also likes big two handed sword wielders.

In his first game he played a fighter but quickly became irritated by the fact that he had little to do outside of combat, but he very much enjoyed the combat portion. He has tried full caster and got option paralysis which he did not enjoy. Tried bloodrager and same thing. Tried barbarian and said it was ok but had too many dials with rage and once a rage rage powers.

Basically I think something like fire Mage refluffed to be a swordmage or something is what he will like.

Thanks again guys.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Covent, take a look at my Iconic Dwarf, which is a Tome class but could be adapted to PF pretty easily. I've had a lot of positive responses to it.

I also wrote up a super-simple magic-sword-type man in my Reaver, although it doesn't do out-of-combat stuff except having skill points.

I'm willing to take a swing at a more specific custom class for the guy, it might take a couple days.

[Covent]

Thanks everyone again for your help upthread.

I now have another pathfinder question.

I was raging a few minutes ago about another nerf Martials FAQrrata that ignores and contradicts text that just came out and of course was always clearly this way with a whole band of the PDF out to celebrate, but then I got to thinking.

So my question is this, assuming lack of malice, what logic path are they using to generate the FAQs and erratas coming from Paizo?

I am going to try and figure this out in good faith but everything I can think of involves stupidity, lack of game design talent, malice, or deliberate obtuseness.

[virgil]

The first two, with standard cognitive biases to justify their choice.

[schpeelah]

I'd attribute it mainly to stupidity/ignorance - when writing the FAQ they're forgetting or misinterpreting the rules they are contradicting.

[Orca]

One common process is this: some item, ability or combination of abilities is reported as being unreasonably effective in Pathfinder Society games. If the ability is a spell or not in one of the core books they FAQ it is ignored. Otherwise it may be nerfed.

Not nerfing individual spells is probably a matter of convenience, the same for limiting the books they FAQ. The rest of the problem is that PFS games are weird. Often with people who don't know who they'll be gaming with, with low levels of optimisation and a fondness for non-spellcasters, and of course with no way to run plans which take or last longer than a single session. It's convenient for the developers but it's a hugely biased information source.

[FatR]

So my question is this, assuming lack of malice, what logic path are they using to generate the FAQs and erratas coming from Paizo?

Catering to the audience they targeted from the beginning (i.e., people who believed that 3.5 is a-OK and only needs a few minor fixes, and people who still seriously use the word "realism" when discussing capabilities of DnD martials). Works for them so far.

Keep in mind, that DnD Z with 3.X full casters used as the benchmark for class balance (as they were in Tomes) is not really a popular concept outside of this forum and would have required for Paizo to entirely change their adventuring design paradigm.

I am going to try and figure this out in good faith but everything I can think of involves stupidity, lack of game design talent, malice, or deliberate obtuseness.

Paizo may lack genuine talent or long-term vision, but they know what they're doing. Maybe you can call that "malice" as their decisions routinely prioritize marketability over solid gameplay.

[hogarth]

Paizo may lack genuine talent or long-term vision, but they know what they're doing.

I think it's fair to claim that publishing an item/feat/class feature/whatever and then saying "whoopsies! I didn't mean to do that" shows a certain lack of knowing what they're doing.

[FatR]

I think it's fair to claim that publishing an item/feat/class feature/whatever and then saying "whoopsies! I didn't mean to do that" shows a certain lack of knowing what they're doing.

If your standard of "knowing what they're doing" excludes pretty much everyone, including MMOs with vastly greater budget and bigger development teams than PF, never mind actual testers, then maybe your standard is too strict.

Errata/nerf patches/whatever are pretty much unavoidable once a project exceeds a certain degree of complexity, while still at least pretending mechanical balance. Paizo errata probably only drew the attention of the poster to whom I first answered just because they are trying to balance the game around the benchmark/set of expectations he didn't even notice (and others, mostly correctly, believe to be poor/contradictory).

[MGuy]

I'm pretty sure that the people at Paizo don't know what they are doing in terms of designing functional things for the D20 system. Case in point most of the new classes, especially any class they introduce a new fiddly resource system to, or any other mechanic (see rules for running a kingdom). Now, I do believe that they know they want to keep things confusing enough in order to not get burned alive by their rabid fan base who think they can do no wrong. I still remember getting a lot of internet hate when I thought I was saying something that was common knowledge (that the Diplomacy rules are shit and the favor rules they added don't help) but was very aggressively yelled at by people who genuinely think that the people at Paizo would never write a rule that was so clearly breakable into the game. I still remember the Prone Shooter feat which, if I recall, gave you absolutely no benefits as it copied the bonuses from just being prone and wrote them up as a feat. So marketing wise? They do a decent enough job to basically have stolen a good deal of DnD's player base.

[Mechalich]

Paizo errata probably only drew the attention of the poster to whom I first answered just because they are trying to balance the game around the benchmark/set of expectations he didn't even notice (and others, mostly correctly, believe to be poor/contradictory).

I imagine they are attempting to balance the game for low-optimization (or actually, no-optimization) play. Low-optimization PF and 3.X play incredibly differently than high-optimization to the point that they're practically different games.

Now, this is a bad idea in the current market since anyone can build a fairly highly-optimized character simply by typing Class Name + Builds into a google search, but I imagine its what portions of the fan base want - partly because highly optimized 3.X D&D is seen as stupid and unfun in the minds of much of the fanbase.

[maglag]

Paizo may lack genuine talent or long-term vision, but they know what they're doing.

I think it's fair to claim that publishing an item/feat/class feature/whatever and then saying "whoopsies! I didn't mean to do that" shows a certain lack of knowing what they're doing.

Human beings make errors. That's inevitable. But reviewing your work, finding said errors and fixing them, that's actually a sign that you know what you're doing.

As pointed out, even games that are considered as hallmarks of balance are only so after lots of errata/patches/fixes.

[DSMatticus]

Paizo errata probably only drew the attention of the poster to whom I first answered just because they are trying to balance the game around the benchmark/set of expectations he didn't even notice (and others, mostly correctly, believe to be poor/contradictory).

I imagine they are attempting to balance the game for low-optimization (or actually, no-optimization) play. Low-optimization PF and 3.X play incredibly differently than high-optimization to the point that they're practically different games.

Now, this is a bad idea in the current market since anyone can build a fairly highly-optimized character simply by typing Class Name + Builds into a google search, but I imagine its what portions of the fan base want - partly because highly optimized 3.X D&D is seen as stupid and unfun in the minds of much of the fanbase.

But low/no-optimization play isn't balanced. Casters rule, martials drool is still true even when your players don't know how to build either - they're just not going to notice.

[spongeknight]

But low/no-optimization play isn't balanced. Casters rule, martials drool is still true even when your players don't know how to build either - they're just not going to notice.

Naw dawg, no optimization is even worse than you think it is. Just writing "grease" instead of "magic missile" on your character sheet is too much optimization for some people. I've played with people in the early 3rd edition era who thought that fighters were way better than wizards because the wizards in question used blasting spells almost exclusively and took garbage feats. You seriously can play casters so badly that martials outshine them.

[Mechalich]

And lowering optimization goes through cascades. For example, if the wizard goes forward as an inefficient blaster, then the party takes more damage, which means the cleric has to reserve close to 100% of available spell slots as heals (wands of cure light do not exist in this optimization zone), which reduces overall damage output and prolongs combats, making the 'all-day' capabilities of fighters and rogues much more potent.

This is doubly true given that low-optimization DMs are likely to explicitly reject the 5-minute adventuring day and structure encounters one after another to maximize the potential of martial classes. Restricting resource recharge via 'you have been waylaid by enemies and must defend yourself' goes a long way towards making martial classes much more appealing.

[FatR]

But low/no-optimization play isn't balanced. Casters rule, martials drool is still true even when your players don't know how to build either - they're just not going to notice.

If your audience is not going to notice then the game is balanced enough.

Disparity between casters and martials is in general overstated as a problem, particularly compared to the problem of excessive complexity and fiddliness in PF, which kicks in earlier and cannot be mitigated.

[OgreBattle]

Given a similar level of optimization, is a Fighter significantly superior to a Barbarian that's not raging? Against better judgement I had wandered onto the pathfinder reddit and found some upvoted comment on how once the barbarian is out of rages because having a dozen fights in one day is totally how OP runs games, the fighter shines.

[rasmuswagner]

Given a similar level of optimization, is a Fighter significantly superior to a Barbarian that's not raging? Against better judgement I had wandered onto the pathfinder reddit and found some upvoted comment on how once the barbarian is out of rages because having a dozen fights in one day is totally how OP runs games, the fighter shines.

A Barbarian without rage is almost indistinguishable from a Warrior with +10' speed.