Pathfinder Is Still Bad

[Juton]

While Pathfinder is still Bad, all the other would-be heirs to the crown deserve to be looked at but don't necessarily deserve their own thread.

[Krakatoa]

Perhaps the moral of the story is that the king is dead.

[Aryxbez]

It is built on the assumption that some characters will die.

It is built on the assumption that the strongest characters will provide long-term campaigns.

So..the most optimized characters, the players who understand the system better than the other players, and thus made the better tactical choice, will be the one who gets to keep playing the longest? Yeah...and it's supposed to be "impossible to optimize", which if was even true, then it'd mean that everyone would die. So then it even goes on to say "It is lots of fun to play", how is being the one who's character died/forced to sit out because I wasn't the "strongest" for not being better than my fellow players at the rules, "fun" again? To hell with this game, doesn't sound like there's anything good about it, it belongs with the like of Pathfinder indeed.

It is built for low-level, mid-level, and high-level play.

I would like to see that, I doubt the designers even know what that entails, probably just be stuck with fighters still rooted in reality, despite high level supehero expectations.

[Koumei]

So remember the character introduction and preview for the terrible Engrish Pathfailure Adventures? Guess what.

THERE'S MORE!
And more.
And more.
And more.

No need to thank me. No really. There is no need. Or reason.

[Username17]

What the fuck?

No seriously.... what the fuck was that?

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

Anyone got a clue as to what's going on? I watched the fourth video and it left me feeling enraged and confused. As far as I gathered, there's a perverted catgirl who helps assemble a map of what the continent of Gavri or whatever will look like 100 years from now and go to pre-emptively investigate some predicted oddities to see if they can fight fate. It's actually not a bad idea for a plot. But I fucking love Chrono Trigger, so I'm biased on the whole 'screw our bad future' plot and OH MY MOTHERFUCKING JESUSASS I HATE CHRONO CROSS SO MUCH RIGHT NOW.

I kind of like it. I like the cut of Larvi's jib.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Offhandedly, I wonder if the people who made 4E feel like total dimwits for trading the free-floating SRD for the draconic GSL. It pains me physically that Pathfinder is doing as well as it is.

[Koumei]

What the fuck?

No seriously.... what the fuck was that?

-Username17

Remember this?

They're continuing to... bless... us with their exploits in the game.

[Lago PARANOIA]

4th Video from Koumei's link (so... fifth?)

7:02 Holy shit, what a payout. How come I can't get such good swag in MY D&D games?

10:23 NICE HAT BRO.

10:55 French toast and griffin steaks?! Buncha fat cats. In my day we ate boiled turnips and hardtack and we LIKED IT!

11:26 Bloodskull is the best bartender name ever. Might explain the silly Touhou hat, for it is hiding a hideous sight.

12:19 Curse it! POISONED WATER.

12:50 One of these in every group. I guess wanting to play a catgirl maid should've been the big tip-off.

12:58 ... I'm kind of scared, now.

13:21 I'm surprised the bard didn't smash the catgirl maid and Sashi over the head with the lute.

13:31 A charisma of 7--WHY AM I NOT SURPRISED?!

14:50 In a shocking swerve, the DM springs his Fantasy General Hospital crossover setting on the group! The players are not impressed.

[sake]

Offhandedly, I wonder if the people who made 4E feel like total dimwits for trading the free-floating SRD for the draconic GSL. It pains me physically that Pathfinder is doing as well as it is.

The people who made 4e? Maybe. The people who actually made the GSL? Not a chance.

Hell, you could strap those people into a clockwork orange like contraption and force them to watch hours of charts, graphs, and sales reports and they'd still refuse to even consider the notion that anything like the SRD could possibly help sell books.

[Ganbare Gincun]

No need to thank me. No really. There is no need. Or reason.

Thanks! More shit for me to break people's brains with!

[Slade]

There is a topic on Pathfinder where the OP is upset that a Barbarian is doing 25 damage/attack at level 8.
Let that sink in.
Yes, the number after 7 and before 9.
Apparently, he has yet to tell the new player that they have an unspoken rule of playing with nerf bats. And he thinks 120 damage at level 20 is too much (ToB maneuver).

They have an Alchemist, a Cleric, and some Jester class from Dragon Compendium.
Somehow none has beat 15/rd (his perfered limit).

[Xur]

There is a topic on Pathfinder where the OP is upset that a Barbarian is doing 25 damage/attack at level 8.
Let that sink in.
Yes, the number after 7 and before 9.
Apparently, he has yet to tell the new player that they have an unspoken rule of playing with nerf bats. And he thinks 120 damage at level 20 is too much (ToB maneuver).

They have an Alchemist, a Cleric, and some Jester class from Dragon Compendium.
Somehow none has beat 15/rd (his perfered limit).

Can you provide a linK? I know I'll regret it but this has to be seen firsthand.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Let's break it down.

Half-orc barbarian, starts with a strength of 18. Being level 8, the barbarian put both stat boosts into strength. They have greater rage by now and almost undoubtedly a +2 strength item. They almost certainly have a +2 enhancement bonus martial weapon to boot; this is less than half of the expected wealth an 8th level character is supposed to have. Let's say it's a greatsword. And also Power Attack, because they're not idjits.

So let's ladle it up.

2d6 + 2 (enh) + 12 (strength w/two-handed weapon on a rage) + 4 (power attacking for -2 to attack), easily 25 average damage an attack.

There's not even any real cheese in that build. No obscure feats, no 'winner' magical items, no prestige class wrangling, no multiclass whoring, no UA-rules wrangling, nothing.

(ED: Oh, sorry, I forgot how much D&D hated barbarians. They don't get the upgrade until level 11. Okay, so subtract two points of strength bonus to damage. They still have a raging attack bonus of +16/+11.)

[hogarth]

So let's ladle it up.

2d6 + 2 (enh) + 12 (strength w/two-handed weapon on a rage) + 4 (power attacking for -2 to attack), easily 25 average damage an attack.

Pathfinder Power Attack works differently. An 8th level barbarian power attacking with a 2-handed weapon would suffer a -3 to attack and would do +9 damage.

[Slade]

Here:
Here


Apparently they always scare away the new player: probably because of how non-functional they are. The alchemist should be overpowered to them at level 8 (deals more than the Barb if trying).

[virgil]

Meh, I've seen games where someone who can do more than 15 damage in a single attack at level 12 is seen as grossly OP, so I'm not surprised.

EDIT: And in that thread, several people think the very idea of having an 18 in any stat is munchkin. And doing more than 30 damage each round at level 10 is considered the goal for people who aren't power gamers.

[Juton]

I'm more familiar with Pathfinder than I should be, funny thing is the Barbarian went from the most powerful mundane melee combatant (until ToB) in 3.5 to the weakest in Pathfinder. Barbarian's Rage hasn't really improved since 3.5, it's actually gotten worse from the Pathfinder Beta, for the first ten levels a Barbarian gets +4 strength and a bunch of once per rage abilities, most are very weak.

For instance a PF Paladin adds charisma to attack and AC, does his Paladin level in extra damage, double in some circumstances. A Fighter's gets a bunch of small bonuses that accrue over levels, Rangers have an ACF that lets them apply their favoured enemy bonus to one enemy until they are dead.

There isn't much point in playing a Barbarian in Pathfinder right now, as one of the other classes will do everything a Barbarian wants to do better.

[tussock]

Let's break it down.

Hell, let's see if it's possible to get under 25 with a PA Brb, even in Pathfinder.

Human, 16 Str, +2 for level and no strength enhancement. Rage +4 gives us 22. Greataxe for bonus style points is 6.5 + 9 Str, +9 PA, +1 Item = 25.5 damage. 76.5 on a crit. Nope, not possible. Only hitting at +12/+7, but that's what you get for not trying.

[K]

Here:
Here


Apparently they always scare away the new player: probably because of how non-functional they are. The alchemist should be overpowered to them at level 8 (deals more than the Barb if trying).

That thread was hilarious. Thanks for linking.

I especially liked the "he cast a single spell and killed a bunch of much lower-level enemies! He cut the encounter in half!" like that's actually a bad thing.

I'll never know why some people think it's good roleplaying to suck at your job.

[...You Lost Me]

AHHHHHHHHHHH FORMATTING!!!!!!!!!!

[tussock]

hopefully I fixored that. Ew. Sorries.

[...You Lost Me]

is OK.

[Psychic Robot]

I will highlight all the warning signs.

Hello everyone, and welcome to a discussion of something that has bothered me for a long time, boh as a player and a GM. I plan on doing several of these posts on different subjects, so i would appreciate it if we could stay focused on the subject of each individual thread.

Today we will be discussing ability scores, specifically, scores at character creation.

To start things off, let me tell you a bit about the group i play with. For about 6 years, we have had a core group of players, with a fluctuating "final spot". The core group all gets along pretty well, but we always seem to drive away/kick out that last player and find a new one. We're all [EDITED] whiners whose asshole-ish behavior causes us to go through new players faster than George Lucas rapes his own franchise.

The problem is that we are all more focused on role-playing, and the last player always is a power gamer. We're totally REAL roleplayers! In the situation of ability scores, these players always build a character with an 18, some mid range stats, and at least one "dump stat". We have done different ability score generation, but it always ends up the same.

Point buy: dump 2 stats to 7, max out the key scores
Dice pool: 4 stats with 3 dice, distribute extras in key scores
Standard roles: well, it's standard, hard to power game it, but i can tell you what roll is going in charisma...

I will point out before i get flamed for it, we have had "power campaigns" before. For example, one was with 3 book of nine swords characters and a mystic theurge for arcane/healing. The mystic theurge is totally a powergame option, and anything that fighters do beyond full attack is overpowered. The point is, however, is everyone agreed beforehand, that we were going to power game. We were playing Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, a dungeon crawl that we more affectionately refer to as "The Meat Grinder"

Anyway, what this tends to lead to, is that we have a front line putting out ridiculous damage or a caster with ridiculous unmakeable save dc's. Currently we have an 8th level barbarian on one set of characters, who averages 50+ dmg on a full attack, highest was 83 dmg with haste up. Best average damage output by any other member of the group is 15 or so. Damn dirty powergamers. The main problem here is that anything that is a threat to the group, can usually One-shot any member of the group, or has such a high AC that no one can hit it and gets frustrated.

Example 2: (this partially bleeds into my next subject, magic item combo's)
The high save dc: the same player that has the barbarian has a witch in the other campaign (we switch off every couple weeks, taking turns as GM). A couple weeks ago, against a large group of low level opponents, he basically cut the encounter in half with one spell and some metamagic, all cuz nothing could mace the save. (fireball maximized, intensified, metamagic rod: selective). Direct damage spells are totally overpowered. Droped the fireball right on 2 PCs heads's and eliminated 8 enemies.

While i understand that everyone likes to sometimes have the spotlight and do something impressive, it shouldn't take away from everyone else's enjoyment of the game. In this case, the power gamer outshines everyone, routinely doing twice as much damage per round, than thte rest of the group combined.

Feel free to post opinions on power gaming, what you do about it as GM, or specific responses to thie given examples.

The party I'm playing with has made it clear that the power gamers actions are un-welcome, any thoughts on further action to take, aside from just outright kicking out another player.

DO NOT WANT.

Well said Mae, i do hate when said orc spends more time telling the group where to set up so the wizard can hit the most targets with fireball, instead of just running in and seining away STOP BEING SMART YOU BIG STUPID FIGHTER.

This is more or less what I'm talking about... Maybe not to that extent, but yes.

Personally, I'm against counting squares on the grid before droping a fireball. Period. Shitty stupid shitty stupid shit. I know the birds eye view with a battle grid gives the feel like your playing a video game with satellite grid lines for targeting, but come on barbarian, stop telling everyone where to stand so the fire ball hits every enemy while missing every friendly... Just throw a dice down and start calculating squares based on your chosen grid intersection.

Maybe as the caster you should be doing this in between turns, but not as the barbarian, just pick something and attack it IMO ( that is, if your have dump stats in your int/wis )

That's sort of the point star buck, the group frowns upon optimizing. I want to play with this group right now. We aren't looking for gimp'd characters by any stretch, just a decent character designed around intended party role And some roleplaying. What we aren't looking for, is the "short bus" optimized super damage dealing moron who swings a big stick. Trust me, the ppl that we have cycled through over the years were all very good at optimizing. Math is bad. Fuck you for trying.

As to what JDG said, i think he is more or less hitting e problem i see on the head. It's the optimized "non- roleplaying" gamer i have the problem with.

For example of my rogue again. I have a very high ac, i admit that freely. But i back it up with role playing. I say that my view of an elf is very hard to hit because they are agile and quick, but because of that, not very strong, (my str is 9 before magic items). As such, she can only deal good damage when able to deliver a precise blow (sneak attack)

Every character wants a situation where they shine, for the rogue, it's sneak attack, for the wizard, it's damaging multiple enemies at once. Rofl. Yes, i understand that single target dpr is sort of the role of the barb, the problem my group in particular has it that his damage>the rest of the party's damage on just about every round ever. Personally, i wouldn't mind if the rest of the party was around as much damage inn their highlighted are of expertise, but since we don't specifically focus on "only damage output" the barb is way out of whack compared to the group and their playstyle.

Try this :

When the caster wants to use an AoE spell, he choose a single SQUARE (not an intersection) as the center of the AoE. Then, roll 1d4 to determine which intersection of this square will be the real center of the AoE. It should at least take care of that specific problem.

I did something like that once to him, resulted in a 100% miss, no friendlies, no enemies, nothing... LMAO for about 3 minutes solid Yep, I'm getting a good picture of this group in my head.

[Starmaker]

You forgot the thread title. "for GMs: Roleplaying vs Power Gaming - Round 1 - Ability Scores". Looks like shit and smells like shit, I wonder what it is.