Pathfinder Is Still Bad

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houstonderek
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Post by houstonderek »

Heck, I stopped even posting in the Pathfinder RPG section of the forums until y'all started going back over there. Gave me a headache, really.
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TOZ
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Post by TOZ »

I keep telling myself to stop posting there. Damned low Wisdom score.
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Post by K »

TOZ wrote:I wish they would steal the RIGHT people's work. Then maybe the game would turn out better.

K, I think their argument about the monster is, the monster doesn't know the fighter can't hurt it. Most things are adverse to pain. The monster doesn't know the guy in front of it can't hit it, but sharp metal hurts, and the imagined threat of it keeps the monster from intentionally leaving itself open to an attack. Nevermind that AoOs are vastly overrated. The monster isn't 'in character' when it tanks the AoO and bypasses the fighter.
Most monsters are smart.

I'm not even joking. There is a good chance your griffin is as smart as your fighter. I mean, the Griffon can understand Common even if it doesn't have a mouth to speak with. It could be a playable character.

I do understand you point though, and I'd expect animals or mindless creatures like vermin to act like that... but them I'm not threatened by vermin or animals.
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Post by houstonderek »

TOZ wrote:I keep telling myself to stop posting there. Damned low Wisdom score.
Yeah, but you never get down here to game any more. How else can I keep up with you?

;-)
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Post by TOZ »

I was thinking more like orcs and giants. I can see demons and other super-intelligent foes with supernaturally tough skin and regeneration laughing as they stroll by. But your average merc? Much as we talk about being tough enough to survive jumping off a cliff thanks to bags o' HP, getting stabbed freakin' hurts. The bleedy types are going to try and find the safest way to gank the mage, not just let the idiot with the yard of steel take a swing at him as he walks by.
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Post by houstonderek »

But, remember, if your opponents act like they live in the game setting and act intelligently, the GM is obviously "meta-gaming".
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Post by rtaylor »

K wrote:As far as I can tell, Jason B. goes to the forums to steal ideas..... nothing more. He's not even subtle about it.

Which is not surprising. Paizo holds a yearly "Steal The Playerbase's Ideas" contest with the "prize" that three people get to do their gruntwork adventure design for Pathfinder Society.

I mean, I might be willing to let them take my ideas if I got to design an AP, but getting to do one BS Pathfinder Society adventure that a few fringe players will see is kinda demeaning.

I mean, I don't need the tens of dollars they are paying.
This is not a very accurate description of RPG Superstar. First, the grand prize has always been "write a print adventure". THIS year, for the first time, the other three of the top four finishers get to write a PFS scenario. While I don't know what that winds up paying, Paizo's word rates are competitive in the industry. You won't get ripped off, but keep in mind that game writing doesn't pay well. You'd best be doing it for love, and take the money as a nice bonus.

More importantly, competing and doing well in RPG Superstar is a gateway to doing writing on print products. How do I know this? I'm currently working on my 10th and 11th print credits for Paizo, several of them in hardcover books. I was also a "top 6" finisher in the original RPG Superstar. The two are related :)

As far as stealing ideas go...ideas are cheap. Implementing them is where you earn your keep. I don't really see anything odd about taking an idea from a board and turning it into something workable.
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Post by Leress »

rtaylor wrote:
As far as stealing ideas go...ideas are cheap. Implementing them is where you earn your keep. I don't really see anything odd about taking an idea from a board and turning it into something workable.
Too bad they can't make it workable. Also taking ideas without really understanding why it was done or what you are fixing is pretty playing "throw it on wall and see what sticks" and then "let God sort it out".
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Post by Roy »

K wrote:
TOZ wrote:Because you have to have a common lingo to base your stories on? Telling someone you have a full BAB character says 'my character is a warrior'. Just because that warrior couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag were they to actually use the numbers he has, doesn't change their perception of things.
Strangely, no.

I mean, I'm currently in one of your classic Wizard vs Fighters arguments on Paizo's board and someone is seriously trying to say that "fighters are protecting the Wizard!"

And they won't actually tell me how the Fighter is doing that since it lacks any ability to control a monster's actions or even act as a speedbump.

Then they reply with an example where a Fighter runs up, does an attack, and the monster stops and lets the fighter full attack the next round.

So basically they somehow think that the results of DM fiat are somehow a feature of the game and the monster has to sit there for a Full Attack.

Damn strange behavior really.
Magical tea party is the basis of their arguments. 10 bucks says at least one person accused you of being me, 20 says at least one person accused someone that agreed with you of being me, and 50 says they've made at least one argument in the past week that requires actively ignoring the rules entirely.
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Elaborate.
K wrote:
mean_liar wrote:Every intelligent monster knows to geek the mage first.

Or is that another game?
Apparently everyone at Paizo thinks you should attack the heavily armored guy that you have a low chance of hitting and that can only wound you over the lightly armored mage who can steal your soul.
AC works in Pathfailure now? When the hell did that happen?

Not surprised they're still relying on the DM to humor the players though.
houstonderek wrote:But, remember, if your opponents act like they live in the game setting and act intelligently, the GM is obviously "meta-gaming".
But if they act like MMO mobs it's fine?
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Post by Midnight_v »

Bihlbo wrote:[quote="Midnight_v]On a related note. . . I'm amazed that people actually have been convinced to keep paying for this when the srd is free...
Regardless of the merits of their house rules, Paizo has produced without a doubt the best quality books for 3.5 that have ever been printed. Their books are well put-together, there aren't loads of typos, the pictures are awesome, the index is fantastic, the rules are easy to find, and what you need for the game is there. I have friends who came from Exalted and other 3rd party 3.5 books who are sold on Pathfinder simply because the book is so good. Of course, if you criticize the rules they come back with "Who cares? We just roleplay to tell stories!" And really for them, since GM fiat determines the result of almost everything, the system doesn't matter and balance issues cannot help their experience.

So buying the book, in some cases, is better than the SRD.[/quote]
Did you read the link "the future will be rulled by bullshit"
So... They're buying the book because of... the cover?
I mean those things you mentioned are essentially formating editing issues. So essentially, take the srd, add lots of pretty pictures and make superficial changes to the rules that are easy to find becaues of the indexing.. viola, you've created a sellable work.
I mean, ultimately they're not buying it because its better or worse than any other system but because it LOOKS better? I find that intellectually insulting, but I can't refute your point w/out more study.
Finally... if the argument is "Who cares, we're out to tell stories" and dm fiat determines everything as you say...

Then pathfinder is correct in the handling of its playerbase... and I wisth suddenly to do myself harm that I'm not forced to live in a world like this.
Wait I know what this reminds me of Htc vs Iphone4.


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Post by hogarth »

Midnight_v wrote: On a related note. . . I'm amazed that people actually have been convinced to keep paying for this when the srd is free, and the changes aren't really all that signifigant in the places that matter.
I'm not surprised that people are willing to pay $30-$50 for a big thick hardcover rulebook; a lot of tabletop RPG nerds are book-loving nerds, too.

What does surprise me is that Paizo can get people to pay $10.99 for a 32-page glorified pamphlet full of fluff with their "Pathfinder Companion" line of books.
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Post by Murtak »

Yes, packaging matters. Good art matters. A useable index matters. And all of them matter much more to newbies than to veterans of a game. If you just picked up a new(ish) game you do not want to spend twenty minutes to look up the rules for lifting stuff, find out they are stupid, houserule them on the spot only to find out later you had them confused with the rules for carrying stuff. Too much rules confusion kills games. And while good rules matter, so does finding them in the first place, good writing to make sure everyone understands the rules and good art to immerse and entertain you.

We just tend to focus on rules and mechanics on this board because we can discuss those logically and without being limited by a text-only format. But that does not mean art, flavor text and a goddamn index are not just as important to a good game. For example two of my favorite Shadowrun books are the Street Samurai Catalog and 4E Core Rules. The latter because it has a useful index and the former because of the fantastic way crunch and flavor combine.
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Post by mean_liar »

TOZ wrote:I was thinking more like orcs and giants. I can see demons and other super-intelligent foes with supernaturally tough skin and regeneration laughing as they stroll by. But your average merc? Much as we talk about being tough enough to survive jumping off a cliff thanks to bags o' HP, getting stabbed freakin' hurts. The bleedy types are going to try and find the safest way to gank the mage, not just let the idiot with the yard of steel take a swing at him as he walks by.
I don't think this is how HPs work in DnD. They really only measure how close you are to being unconscious, rather than strictly measuring how much damage you've taken. A 4HP attack against a 100HP giant is more likely than not just some light fatigue rather than actually being stabbed.

Taking away half their HPs is a good sign you've actually nearly killed them.

So when the fighter hits the thing with 165 HPs for 15 damage, think of it in terms of, "if he keeps this up for another minute then I'm dead". If I'm in life-or-death combat with someone, I guarantee that requiring someone with a fucking axe to take a whole minute to actually drop me means I'm not impressed... especially if behind him is a dude with a rifle.
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Post by FatR »

mean_liar wrote: I don't think this is how HPs work in DnD. They really only measure how close you are to being unconscious, rather than strictly measuring how much damage you've taken. A 4HP attack against a 100HP giant is more likely than not just some light fatigue rather than actually being stabbed.
This is an old justification. Every monster that injects poison/whatever on a succefful attack, every monster with Improved Grab or equivalents, and every monster that swallows people fly in its face. Oh, and the fact, that your HPs are modified by your toughness, but not by your skill or relfexes. High-level characters in DnD are like One Piece main cast - they can be slashed repeatedly and still fight fine, unless the enemy is strong enough to make his attacks count.

The rest of your post if valid though. But not because 4hp against a giant does not mean that didn't get stabbed. Because the giant is so big, that, while he is on adrenaline, he can just ignore minor pinpricks. People are, in fact, capable of fighting most severe pain for brief amounts of time. And if you know that you can take an axe blow to the head from an inferior opponent and just shrug it off, you will be much less reluctant to take an axe blow to the head when this allows you to secure an advantage.
Last edited by FatR on Thu Nov 25, 2010 3:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Roy »

Another thing to keep in mind: HP damage has no effect until you fall unconscious. It spells this out explicitly in the 3.5 books. It says it even more explicitly in the Pathfailure books.

Now if any of you have ever seriously hurt yourself before, you know that that degree of pain actually penalizes you. And what do you know, effects that specifically mention pain too.

But some beatstick swinging an axe around? Anything he does to you is either going to be instantly or near instantly fatal, or have all the bite behind it of a catscratch... no, fuck that. Being scratched by a cat is an actual distraction.

And once you're past about level 2 or so, and particularly when dealing with giant and dragon levels you're looking at an infinitely small chance of near instantly fatal and an almost certain chance it does nothing, or near nothing.

So if they have to walk around and take out that fucker with a sniper rifle before he headshots them, and get beestung for it they still win.

Even if the sniper rifle guy headshots him anyways, well at least he tried to emulate the thread instead of swatting at the annoying, but near harmless insect.
Last edited by Roy on Thu Nov 25, 2010 4:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by JonSetanta »

I'll reiterate the obvious facts about proper tanking in case there's someone out there that doesn't get it:
1. Punish the opponent for targeting an ally other than the tank
2. Provide the tank some means of actually stopping the opponent from injuring said ally.
3. Tada, the tank's role is complete.
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Post by Roy »

sigma999 wrote:I'll reiterate the obvious facts about proper tanking in case there's someone out there that doesn't get it:
1. Punish the opponent for targeting an ally other than the tank
2. Provide the tank some means of actually stopping the opponent from injuring said ally.
3. Tada, the tank's role is complete.
You forgot an important detail.

Tanks only work when you have no vested interest in their survival.
Draco_Argentum wrote:
Mister_Sinister wrote:Clearly, your cock is part of the big barrel the server's busy sucking on.
Can someone tell it to stop using its teeth please?
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Koumei wrote:Shad, please just punch yourself in the face until you are too dizzy to type. I would greatly appreciate that.
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Post by For Valor »

Roy wrote:
sigma999 wrote:I'll reiterate the obvious facts about proper tanking in case there's someone out there that doesn't get it:
1. Punish the opponent for targeting an ally other than the tank
2. Provide the tank some means of actually stopping the opponent from injuring said ally.
3. Tada, the tank's role is complete.
You forgot an important detail.

Tanks only work when you have no vested interest in their survival.
That's not entirely true! I've have a vested interest in the survival of a Tome Barbarian, and make him a Tank, and same with a knight.
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Post by TheWorid »

FatR wrote:
mean_liar wrote: I don't think this is how HPs work in DnD. They really only measure how close you are to being unconscious, rather than strictly measuring how much damage you've taken. A 4HP attack against a 100HP giant is more likely than not just some light fatigue rather than actually being stabbed.
This is an old justification. Every monster that injects poison/whatever on a succefful attack, every monster with Improved Grab or equivalents, and every monster that swallows people fly in its face. Oh, and the fact, that your HPs are modified by your toughness, but not by your skill or relfexes. High-level characters in DnD are like One Piece main cast - they can be slashed repeatedly and still fight fine, unless the enemy is strong enough to make his attacks count.
No, HP do work that way in D&D. At least, they are stated to.
AD&D Players Handbook, page 34 wrote:Each character has a varying number of hit points, just as monsters do. These hit points represent how much damage (actual or potential) the character can withstand before being killed. A certain amount of these hit points represent the actual physical punishment which can be sustained. The remainder, a significant portion of hit points at higher levels, stands for skill, luck, and/or magical factors. A typical man-at-arms can take about 5 hit points of damage before being Killed. Let us suppose that a 10th level fighter has 55 hit points, plus a bonus of 30 hit points for his constitution, for a total of 85 hit points. This IS the equivalent of about 18 hit dice for creatures, about what it would take to kill four huge warhorses. It is ridiculous to assume that even a fantastic flghter can take that much punishment. The some holds true to a lesser extent for clerics, thieves, and the other classes. Thus, the majority of hit points are symbolic of combat skill, luck (bestowed by supernatural powers), and magical forces.
The real problem is how crappy writers fail to take how HP works into account when they write things like Improved Grab.
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Post by magnuskn »

K wrote:
TOZ wrote:I wish they would steal the RIGHT people's work. Then maybe the game would turn out better.

K, I think their argument about the monster is, the monster doesn't know the fighter can't hurt it. Most things are adverse to pain. The monster doesn't know the guy in front of it can't hit it, but sharp metal hurts, and the imagined threat of it keeps the monster from intentionally leaving itself open to an attack. Nevermind that AoOs are vastly overrated. The monster isn't 'in character' when it tanks the AoO and bypasses the fighter.
Most monsters are smart.

I'm not even joking. There is a good chance your griffin is as smart as your fighter. I mean, the Griffon can understand Common even if it doesn't have a mouth to speak with. It could be a playable character.

I do understand you point though, and I'd expect animals or mindless creatures like vermin to act like that... but them I'm not threatened by vermin or animals.
But then again most Wizards are smart, too, and have Improved Invisibility or Mirror Image or Displacement and/or any other number of longer-running defensive effects up, which make many melee attacks most likely futile. The beatstick in front of the monster normally has a high AC.
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Post by FatR »

TheWorid wrote:
FatR wrote:
mean_liar wrote: I don't think this is how HPs work in DnD. They really only measure how close you are to being unconscious, rather than strictly measuring how much damage you've taken. A 4HP attack against a 100HP giant is more likely than not just some light fatigue rather than actually being stabbed.
This is an old justification. Every monster that injects poison/whatever on a succefful attack, every monster with Improved Grab or equivalents, and every monster that swallows people fly in its face. Oh, and the fact, that your HPs are modified by your toughness, but not by your skill or relfexes. High-level characters in DnD are like One Piece main cast - they can be slashed repeatedly and still fight fine, unless the enemy is strong enough to make his attacks count.
No, HP do work that way in D&D. At least, they are stated to.
AD&D Players Handbook, page 34 wrote:Each character has a varying number of hit points, just as monsters do. These hit points represent how much damage (actual or potential) the character can withstand before being killed. A certain amount of these hit points represent the actual physical punishment which can be sustained. The remainder, a significant portion of hit points at higher levels, stands for skill, luck, and/or magical factors. A typical man-at-arms can take about 5 hit points of damage before being Killed. Let us suppose that a 10th level fighter has 55 hit points, plus a bonus of 30 hit points for his constitution, for a total of 85 hit points. This IS the equivalent of about 18 hit dice for creatures, about what it would take to kill four huge warhorses. It is ridiculous to assume that even a fantastic flghter can take that much punishment. The some holds true to a lesser extent for clerics, thieves, and the other classes. Thus, the majority of hit points are symbolic of combat skill, luck (bestowed by supernatural powers), and magical forces.
The real problem is how crappy writers fail to take how HP works into account when they write things like Improved Grab.
There crappy writers are approximately every single writer who worked on mid- to high-level monsters ever. Because MMs featured gigantic monsters that totally can chew on you or swallow you since earliest editions. Heck, we had the picture of one of the iconics being chewed on by a Colossal dragon and pretty much unfazed in one of 3.X PHBs. Needless to say, no amount of luck or skill (not even an impenetrable magical armor) can save anyone remotely normal from instant death in such situation.

As I said before, this is old justification, that always was lame. And only exists in the first place because early editions of DnD liked to wank on "realism".
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Post by TheWorid »

FatR wrote: There crappy writers are approximately every single writer who worked on mid- to high-level monsters ever. Because MMs featured gigantic monsters that totally can chew on you or swallow you since earliest editions. Heck, we had the picture of one of the iconics being chewed on by a Colossal dragon and pretty much unfazed in one of 3.X PHBs. Needless to say, no amount of luck or skill (not even an impenetrable magical armor) can save anyone remotely normal from instant death in such situation.

As I said before, this is old justification, that always was lame. And only exists in the first place because early editions of DnD liked to wank on "realism".
By no means am I disagreeing about anything you just said. Bad writing has been there since the very beginning; if HP worked mechanically the way they say it did, then grabs, SoDs, and a great many other things should deal HP damage before they can work. I was just quoting the source of the concept that HP meant luck, skill, etc.
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Post by Midnight_v »

Murtak wrote:Yes, packaging matters. Good art matters. A useable index matters. And all of them matter much more to newbies than to veterans of a game. ....
....
But that does not mean art, flavor text and a goddamn index are not just as important to a good game. For example two of my favorite Shadowrun books are the Street Samurai Catalog and 4E Core Rules. The latter because it has a useful index and the former because of the fantastic way crunch and flavor combine.

Packaging matters: Really? Not really. That is an idiotic rubric to judge things on by most measures. Now I'm not saying that there aren't people out there who buy shitty used cars because they have a nice shiny paint and a fresh wax job. There are, and the used car industry is better for it, but not the drivers who actually fall for that type of dick job.
Good Art Matters: Maybe. Seriously, though... you're playing a game that actually doesn't use pictures. Good art matters in things like video games but much less so when you're reading a book full or rules of reference. Thats not to say that it matters "nil" but you could totally do without it.

Oh and srd's actually have some of the best index fucntions fucking imaginable. You can actually use Cntrl+f and it'll find it for you. The hypertext srd actully lets you click on links to different sections that take you exactly where you need to be. So "meh" ymmv I suppose but my vote goes to computing on that one in terms of efficacy

Now, your argument that these things matter to people who don't know how to play the game may have merit. It does explain a lot actually. Though really its just reiterating that people are suceptible to advertising ploys. Really cause since this all relates back to pathfinder, it still a lot if false starts and non-fixes in a pretty package, and ultimately thats the issue here.
Last edited by Midnight_v on Sun Nov 28, 2010 1:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by mean_liar »

FatR wrote:...the fact, that your HPs are modified by your toughness, but not by your skill or relfexes. High-level characters in DnD are like One Piece main cast - they can be slashed repeatedly and still fight fine, unless the enemy is strong enough to make his attacks count.

...MMs featured gigantic monsters that totally can chew on you or swallow you since earliest editions. Heck, we had the picture of one of the iconics being chewed on by a Colossal dragon and pretty much unfazed in one of 3.X PHBs. Needless to say, no amount of luck or skill (not even an impenetrable magical armor) can save anyone remotely normal from instant death in such situation.

As I said before, this is old justification, that always was lame. And only exists in the first place because early editions of DnD liked to wank on "realism".
Well, I'll certainly admit that the fact that CON is the only stat ever added to HPs is lame (despite classes giving +INT to AC and similar mechanisms) under the "HPs as a measure death-avoidance" model, that doesn't mean that your interpretation is correct. DnD HPs are a strange thing that aren't really meant to be looked at closely since under any model they fail, for similar reasons to what you've mentioned: there's always going to be some exception or another that makes that model fail.

Calling the justification "lame" might be an accurate estimation, but I'd posit that there IS no justification for DnD HP mechanics that ISN'T lame or fails somehow.

For example, the "HPs as ability to suck up raw punishment" measure doesn't really make much sense to me in light of the Massive Damage rules, or how armor AC works, or the disconnect between REF saves and max Dex on armor.
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Post by CapnTthePirateG »

Am I the only one who thinks its hilarious that they nerfed finger of death, but flesh to stone is A-OK? Building a pathfinder wizard recently...most of out good buddy spells are still there. Despite the supposed wizard nerf.
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