Pathfinder Is Still Bad

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 5:41 am

What the fuck, Pathfinder Rogues are worse than Fighters??
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2qkxu?Why-t ... derpowered

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 6:43 am

Aaaaaand they deleted the thread.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 1:08 pm

Longes wrote:Are Pathfinder monks anywhere near being good?

They are better than in 3.5E, but that still doesn't qualify them as being good. They don't start to get meaningfully better than their 3.5E counterpart until about level 10, which is when 90% of games are over anyway. And even at level 20, they're like a full-BAB two-weapon fighter who invested the full feat chain.

Of course, the extra attack system giveth and the extra attack system taketh away. Pathfinder monks can't use the TWF-feat chain or natural attacks in conjunction with flurry of blows anymore. So the one way a monk could kinda-sorta hope to keep up with the other fighting classes (grab as many extra attack things as possible, whore for attack bonuses) doesn't exist in PF.

So while a lackadaisically built monk in PF will outshine a 3.5E monk, a min-maxed PF monk is worse than a min-maxed 3.5E monk. But that's Pathfinder for you, yo'.

MisterDee · Post by **MisterDee** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 4:30 pm

Also, the monks got a serious stealth buff with the archetypes. The basic monk is still a subpar fighter with highly specialized abilities that get trivialized by spells, but most archetypes trade off shitty abilities for relevant stuff.

And obviously, all monks who have ki pools should be Quinggongs, since that allows replacing the specialized stuff you find out later is shitty or useless with tolerable options.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 7:02 pm

How is the Magus, Alchemist, and Inquisitor for Pathfinder? I've read that Alchemists can get sneak attacks and sneak around and be another viable rogue replacement. I'm surprised by how 'videogamey' the Alchemist's powers are, they can only have X amount of bombs and mutagens per day solely for the sake of game balance with a hand waived in-game explanation of 'one goes inert if you make a second one, because'. I thought this was the kind of thing PF players made fun of 4e over.

How does a magus compare to a D&D3.5 duskblade or eldritch knight? How does the inquisitor compare to a cleric?

Seerow · Post by **Seerow** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 7:07 pm

OgreBattle wrote:How is the Magus, Alchemist, and Inquisitor for Pathfinder? I've read that Alchemists can get sneak attacks and sneak around and be another viable rogue replacement. I'm surprised by how 'videogamey' the Alchemist's powers are, they can only have X amount of bombs and mutagens per day solely for the sake of game balance with a hand waived in-game explanation of 'one goes inert if you make a second one, because'. I thought this was the kind of thing PF players made fun of 4e over.

Alchemist actually struck me a wizard with an unusual material component. He has a limited amount of magic which gets invested into his flasks when he makes them. If he tries to make more than his maximum, the magic from an older one fades to make room for it.

How does a magus compare to a D&D3.5 duskblade or eldritch knight? How does the inquisitor compare to a cleric?

Not sure on Inquisitor, but my impression of the Magus is better than Duskblade, but still worse than a real Gish build.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 7:23 pm

The Magus doesn't compare too well, for several reasons.

1.) The Magus is MAD with no backup mode. You're a melee combatant so you need good scores in CON, INT, and DEX -- because you're taking up Dervish Dance or an Agile weapon. If you don't have those things, you need a good STR, too. Clerics and wizards can operate just fine with two or even one good stat; Maguses need at least

2.) The Magus has low AC for much of its early career unless you ignore its class features or roll some really good stats/treasure.

3.) Medium BAB but with no extra damage features other than Arcane Pool. No inherent class attack features or extra attacks either. Restricted to using a one-handed weapon.

4.) The Concentration skill is noticeably harder to use in Pathfinder. It's generally not a huge deal unless you need to cast a spell right in an enemy's threatened area -- which you fucking do, as a magus.

5.) The Magus Arcana, the other big draw to the class, suck eggs. There are a couple of genuinely good ones like Wand Mastery and Arcane Accuracy, but by and large it's crap.

6.) The Magus seriously trips over its dick with all of the swift actions being thrown about. Pathfinder is really awful with the Swift Action shenanigans and it's really obvious with this class.

With the Pathfinder d20 fan-wiki, you could build a better magus with just the Bard. Seriously.

Dean · Post by **Dean** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 7:45 pm

I have no experience with the Magus so I'll leave that to someone else. The Inquisitor is not particularly good or exciting but he has 6th level spells and some damage buffs so he can play. I think he plays best as a worse Cleric Archer. By 10th level he can use his class abilities to gain +5 to hit and +6 to damage on all of his attacks that round which is pretty good before you get any buff spells involved. Add in a normal array of divine spells in a slowed progression and he can participate in most encounters. I consider the Inquisitor at the minimum balance level necessary to play the game.

The Alchemist is pretty decent. His Alchemy spellcasting gives him utility and buffs and if you follow the Force bombs track you can be doing huge piles of unresistable Force damage and totally fucking things up until you run out of bombs. He's basically a Nova damage dealer who walks around the rest of the day as a buffbot. There is an Alchemist archetype called the Vivisectionist that gains sneak attack like a rogue instead of bombs. I'm unsure if the Alchemist has the buffs to make sneak attacking work a lot but it's often considered a strong choice. Finally Alchemist can be a pretty decent barbarian by doing a Jekyll-Hyde thing and gaining like +8 strength/+4 con which is cool. I think you can even combine that with vivisectionist which sounds like a pretty good melee Alchemist. All in all Alchemist is a strong choice equivalent to the D&D Rogue or Psychic Warrior or something. Classes that are playing and contributing, but won't dominate.

Scrivener · Post by **Scrivener** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 8:34 pm

OgreBattle wrote:How is the Magus, Alchemist, and Inquisitor for Pathfinder?
How does a magus compare to a D&D3.5 duskblade or eldritch knight? How does the inquisitor compare to a cleric?

Alchemist - it can be videogamey with the abstract limits to powers, and the base class is all over the place (Int caster with poison use and a physical stat boost, with a heavy focus in thrown weapons), however with archetypes it can be fairly effective.

They can't compete with real casters due to their potions taking a standard action and effecting only one person, but as a rogue replacement it shines. You get nearly as many skills, and instead of trying to use broken stealth rules you turn invisible.

The class is dripping with flavor, you can play an isle of dr. Monroe evil scientist, a freak from total recall growing extra limbs, the Villian from Johnny quest who kept cloning himself, or a guy turning himself into an alchemical lich.

Mechanically it's tier 2/3, flavorwise it's one of the best ideas for a class in a very long time.

Magus- does your party use hp damage? Does your MC hate save or dies and other "cheesy" ways to win encounters? If so this is the class.

The BAB could be better, the spell combat mechanic makes you more immobile than a fighter, but you deal the most HP damage in the game. If you build it with any competence, you'll be polymorphed into a form with umpteen natural attacks, with chill touch or shocking grasp going off. Playing a magus is kinda like playing Shadowrun, you pick up a ton of d6s and say "hang on, I gotta roll 6 more of these".

While it does have some MAD, every time I've seen one it does consistently good damage, mostly due to multiattacks and high crit ranges.

Thematically it is lacking. You're a wizard, you're a fencer, you're a guy who loves using 1st level spells for your entire adventuring career. A couple archetypes are interesting, the Elric and Kensai, beyond that, boring town.

It's an out of the box Gish, solid tier 2, with picky MCs tier 1, however the class is bland as toast.

Inquisitor- why does this class exist?

It is worse at casting than a cleric, and has the same BAB. It is worse at fighting than a paladin. The only use is as a holy rogue type. It can fake most of the rogues utility via spells, but lacks any real damage output (the primary damage source is the ability to make their weapon X bane, really).

The class lacks focus in theme too. It seems to want to be a powered down cleric that tries to make you give a fuck about teamwork feats. If it had sneak attack and an "intimidate into loving you" ability, it would be a pretty happening rogue replacement/investigator type.

Tier TEAMWORK FEATS, flavor TEAMWORK FEATS

Swok · Post by **Swok** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 9:21 pm

I'm sure that like all pathfinder classes there is an archetype somewhere that gives Inquisitors bullshit power ups but I've never cared enough about the class to actually filter through the oceans of shit that most archetypes are.

Alchemists are really awesome at replacing rogues or melee types depending on which archetype you pick or stack on them. I've only played a few pathfinder games but in each one the alchemist in the party was different than the other I saw/played. So as far as I can tell they probably work best when you're an optimizer that wants to hold back but still play at casting or if you do want to be a potionmaker since they're probably the easiest way to reliably use potions for your magic rather than pouring money down on making "real" potions.

I've seen people interpret the quick drinker or whatever trait working for alchemist infusions, but that always seemed exceedingly questionable to me in terms of how the various abilities are written.

MisterDee · Post by **MisterDee** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 9:50 pm

Longes wrote:Aaaaaand they deleted the thread.

Nah, the whole Paizo site was on the fritz. Now it's back.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 10:05 pm

I got into a debate on Facebook with a Pathfinder fan yesterday.

I claimed that, after decades of D&D mistakes and bad balance, Paizo had every chance to correct the flaws of its ancestors, but didn't.
One instance was the severe lack of HP at level 1. Unless you minmax your HP, CON bonus, and grab that fucking Toughness feat, you will die to a good Longsword critical. End of character.
He claimed that with proper "preferred class" selection, good CON, and Toughness, a Sorcerer can have 11 HP at level 1, which has absolutely no effect on the rest of the class/race/stat combinations.

Shit design. Shit forum. Shit fandom.

Juton · Post by **Juton** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 10:45 pm

The Pathfinder forums are interesting form afar. Like with the whole Rogue debate, it's like their community is trying to realize that their game is balanced. However the culture that the mods and parts of the community enforce prevent them from having the type of debate that used to happen on 339.

This isn't the first time that the Pathfinder boards seemed on the brink of realizing their game has major flaws. I wonder what it will take for the lesson to finally stick.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 10:56 pm

Sigma999 wrote:I claimed that, after decades of D&D mistakes and bad balance, Paizo had every chance to correct the flaws of its ancestors, but didn't.
One instance was the severe lack of HP at level 1. Unless you minmax your HP, CON bonus, and grab that fucking Toughness feat, you will die to a good Longsword critical. End of character.
He claimed that with proper "preferred class" selection, good CON, and Toughness, a Sorcerer can have 11 HP at level 1, which has absolutely no effect on the rest of the class/race/stat combinations.

Dying to a good longsword critical at low level isn't a balance issue, because it happens to all characters. A longsword critical can dish out 24 damage to any character with a high strength and they don't have to have any special ability or unique investment. That would kill the hypothetical sorcerer straight dead, but so what? That's not a "balance" issue because by definition a balance issue requires a discrepancy between one character and another. If everyone is equally affected by the issue in question (and they are), then there is - by definition - no balance issue.

But beyond that, the fact that people die when they are killed at low level is, by itself, a problem. Some people really like high fatality games where new characters are brought in like Red Shirts on the Enterprise. There's nothing wrong with that playstyle, and if you were going to include support for it, it makes a fuck tonne more sense to put it at first level than it does to put it at tenth. You can make a convincing argument that supporting the disposable characters option is incompatible with character generation that requires feats, skills, traits, archetypes, backgrounds, build planning, and all that other crap - but that's a different argument and obviously not the argument you made.

Hate to say it, but it sounds like you actually lost an argument to a Paizil.

-Username17

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 11:11 pm

I've said for a good long time that a couple of my problems with low-level 3E D&D is that:

A.) The game is too difficult when played without DM Pity for most groups. It's not so much that the game is outright lying to you so much as the game designers don't really seem to grasp how difficult certain tactical setups are for most players. Something as simple as 'elves in the woods, and they're filling you full of arrows' can easily result in a TPK for a lot of groups.

B.) The only plausible outcome of most combats is one-sided butchery. Retreat is really difficult, there's no good way to force a mid-combat surrender, and the critical existence failure encourages foolishness like coup de gracing opponents even when you're surrounded on all sides.

C.) There aren't enough ways to easily resume playing your character or at least a similar one at low level. I'm cool with consequence-free resurrection being a mid-level thing, however, I still think that the game is poorer for any kind of resurrection being off of the table until 90% of games are over. Low-level D&D resurrection should involve shit like making leonine contracts with devils to come back to life or getting Six Million Dollar Manned or being brought back as a werewolf or adventuring as a ghost or some shit.

Furthermore, while Knights of the Dinner Table used the concept as a parody, I really think that the game would be richer if there was a way to quickly tag in a character to replace a fallen low-level character. Their spouse or best friend or mentor or even identical twin sibling could be swapped in on a temporary or permanent basis after a character dies.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 11:13 pm

sigma999 wrote:I claimed that, after decades of D&D mistakes and bad balance, Paizo had every chance to correct the flaws of its ancestors, but didn't.

I'd actually disagree with you. I've grown bitter and cynical and disillusioned about RPGs, and postulate that it is impossible to build a solid simulationist game engine without the involvement of mathematicians and programmers. And mathematicians usualy want money for their work, which is incompatible with current industry. And you'll also have to pay actual writers to write stuff around the built engine. In the end of the day, building a solid non-MTP game is too much money and effort for a big risk.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 11:22 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:I've said for a good long time that a couple of my problems with low-level 3E D&D is that:

A.) The game is too difficult when played without DM Pity for most groups. It's not so much that the game is outright lying to you so much as the game designers don't really seem to grasp how difficult certain tactical setups are for most players. Something as simple as 'elves in the woods, and they're filling you full of arrows' can easily result in a TPK for a lot of groups.

I think the huge flaw of D&D is its skewed sence of scope.

I expect:
Level 1. Fight giant rats in the cellar.
Level 5. Fight elven brigands in the woods.
Level 10. Rule the kingdom.
Level 15. Fight world-scale threats.
Level 20. Bar-fight with Thor.

D&D expects:
Level 1. Fight giant rats in the cellar.
Level 5. Fight giant level 5 rats in the mayor's cellar.
Level 10. Fight a small retarded dragon (which may or may not be a rat and in the cellar).
Level 15. Fight giant level 15 rats in the kiing's cellar.
Level 20. Fight giant level 20 rats in the Thor's cellar.

Wizards play by the first framework, mundanes never grow out of second.

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 11:57 pm

Seerow wrote:
OgreBattle wrote:How is the Magus, Alchemist, and Inquisitor for Pathfinder? I've read that Alchemists can get sneak attacks and sneak around and be another viable rogue replacement. I'm surprised by how 'videogamey' the Alchemist's powers are, they can only have X amount of bombs and mutagens per day solely for the sake of game balance with a hand waived in-game explanation of 'one goes inert if you make a second one, because'. I thought this was the kind of thing PF players made fun of 4e over.
Alchemist actually struck me a wizard with an unusual material component. He has a limited amount of magic which gets invested into his flasks when he makes them. If he tries to make more than his maximum, the magic from an older one fades to make room for it.

How does a magus compare to a D&D3.5 duskblade or eldritch knight? How does the inquisitor compare to a cleric?
Not sure on Inquisitor, but my impression of the Magus is better than Duskblade, but still worse than a real Gish build.

I played an alchemist. Smoosh flask rogue with a limited spell list and you have alchemist. Or you can forego all of an alchemist's benefits and drink your Jeckyll & Hyde formula and get a minor strength buff in exchange for dropping all your mental attributes.

In other words, that's a dead end. Alchemists otherwise focusing on bombs and flask throwing can eventually throw cloudkill bombs and the ability to shape splash damage and shit.

Oh, and bombs and flasks are all ranged touch attack, and you have a decent BAB. Throughout most of the game I would hit on a 5 or higher on the D20, and many, many times I literally couldn't miss. I had a higher damage output than the rest of the party at level 1 combined because I almost never missed and got to add my INT bonus to damage and shit like that.

At one point around level 7 or so, in one round, I took an adult white dragon down to 1 hitpoint in 1 round.

Also, you get flight a little after the mage, but you also have healing spells. But more importantly you get flight. So you can totally turn yourself into a B-17 bomber. More fun if you also take improved invisibility as one of your concoctions.

I basically totally broke the game as an alchemist, and I wasn't even trying.

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Sun Jan 19, 2014 12:20 am

You don't get to go full Flasked Avenger with an Alchemist until level 8 (Fast Bombs and a decent amount of them), but Vivisectionists with Beastmorph on the side make the Rogue and Ninja feel bad about themselves from level 1. They also have one of the few ways to get Pounce on demand and skip one of the most videogamey part of their class.

Play an Alchemist. Magi are depressing unless you goof around with Blackblade Kensai or something, Inquisitors have some neat tricks with Inquisitions but they're a deformed bastard child of the Cloistered Cleric and the Cleric Archer.

Witches are interesting if you want to have the best Enchantment attack spell and flight always level appropriate forever (take Accursed Hex). The Half-Elf archetype is a fun Harry Potter style mage, but most of the choices suck. But hey, you get some of the best fuck you spells of the Cleric list at Cleric level.

Summoners are also interesting until things start flying, then they run into trouble.

Dean · Post by **Dean** » Sun Jan 19, 2014 1:44 am

Mask_De_H wrote:Summoners are also interesting until things start flying, then they run into trouble.

Pshhhh, unless they start flying by the spell or by mounting their flying Eidolon, or just growing permanent wings.

You could say it's a flavor bottleneck that Summoners basically need to walk around with wings or have an Eidolon who has wings but they have the mechanics to fly just fine.

TheFlatline wrote:I basically totally broke the game as an alchemist, and I wasn't even trying.

2 Questions. How were you dealing with your bomb supply. Did you just kill everything before you ran out or was it actually just never a problem. Secondly how were you bombing shit so hard before level 8? Like Mask said they can throw tons of bombs when you hit 8th level but before that it's basically one bomb a round which, while giving incredibly reliable damage, didn't seem like that much damage.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Sun Jan 19, 2014 1:56 am

Do Alchemists have ways to get around the sneak attack restrictions of Pathfinder though? I thought one of the reasons Rogues were considered weak in that game was 'cause of more sneak attack restrictions compared to 3.5

If you were to run a game of PF with classes restricted to ones roughly equal in power, which ones would you pick? It seems Alchemist is the standard for fun.

sake · Post by **sake** » Sun Jan 19, 2014 2:31 am

Scrivener wrote:
Inquisitor- why does this class exist?

Best explanation I've seen is that it's a jack of all trades fighter/thief/caster class for people who don't want to play a Bard because they think all that music/perform crap is gay and that Bards all must inherently suck.

And to be fair, it does mostly have the Bard's spell (minus a few save or sucks) list and spontaneous casting but without arcane spell failure, so it is probably a better choice if you're wanting to make a melee gish with a side of thief skills...and for some reason you don't want to just make a cleric with the right domain choices and a few dips in a skill monkey class.

deanruel87 wrote: You could say it's a flavor bottleneck that Summoners basically need to walk around with wings or have an Eidolon who has wings but they have the mechanics to fly just fine.

I think you can make a wingless flying Eidolon, you just have to set your evolution points on fire to do it.

Seerow wrote: but my impression of the Magus is better than Duskblade, but still worse than a real Gish build.

I can't help but think the Magus would have been better as a spontaneous caster (always assuming it gets the extra spells known race bonus the other spontaneous casters got)like the duskblade was, or at least had the option to drop out prepared spells on the fly for the touch attack spells it's main gimmick runs on. Gishs are the only type of caster where spontaneous casting seems like a better option since they're usually based around a pretty limited set of shticks anyway.

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Sun Jan 19, 2014 2:37 am

Sneak Attack isn't worse, Rogues are worse because they made splash weapons not work with SA anymore. A Beastmorph Vivisectionist Alchemist can get a claw claw bite routine for multiple SAs and they get to be invisible while doing it. And they have other tricks to fall back on.

If we were cutting things off at equal power level, the game is Caster Edition even moreso than 3.5. Off the top of my head, you've got:

A+: Cleric?
A: Wizard, Witch
B+: Oracle, Sorcerer, Druid
B: Summoner, Alchemist, Bard?

E: Honorable mention to the Antipaladin for Full BAB class at whatever level they can get a Succubus instead of a magic pony.

Now luckily, most every character concept under the sun can be covered by those listed classes. Especially if you start messing with Mythic abilities.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Jan 19, 2014 4:09 am

Bow and arrow rogues still have a pretty good backup plan. Behold, Sniper Goggles.

Then again, with the vivisectionist archetype I don't see a reason to play a rogue, like, ever.

sake · Post by **sake** » Sun Jan 19, 2014 5:10 am

Rogues should have a way to apply status affects with their sneak attacks. And it needs to A) available at a lowish level as a base ability B) be status effects people actually give a shit about C) 'SA damage affects undead and constructs' should be included as one of the low level effect options and D) be applied in addition to the rogue's normal SA damage instead of an either/or choice

OgreBattle wrote: If you were to run a game of PF with classes restricted to ones roughly equal in power, which ones would you pick? It seems Alchemist is the standard for fun.

Sorcerer (Non-Human, Non-Arcane bloodline only)
Summoner
Alchemist
Magus
Inquisitor
Bard
Paladin
Ranger
All Psionic classes except for the Psion, Soulknife, Tactician, and that stupid psychic synthesis summoner class that doesn't actually get any spells/powers

The sorcerer is on there just because there has to be at least one full caster option or people would bitch, and the Ranger is there because there needs to be more than one full BAB class, and between the Ranger and Paladin you can fill a lot of flavor archetypes. If the Advanced Class Guide was out I'd consider putting the Hunter and the Bloodrager on there in place of the Ranger.

It's nowhere close to a perfect list, even with it's best class options removed, the sorcerer *will* probably make the ranger feel small in the pants, but it would still even out a hell of a lot fairer than trying to balance wizards/druids/clerics against rogues/fighters/monks.