Pathfinder Is Still Bad

RadiantPhoenix · Post by **RadiantPhoenix** » Sun Dec 07, 2014 5:10 am

If you can move the cubes, you only need to cast the spell once, then keep concentrating on it.

Thus, you have an illusion you can alter at will up all the time, and an entire set of Wizard spells prepared too (minus one).

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Dec 07, 2014 9:46 am

The problem here is that the short description of the image chain is:

This spell creates the visual illusion of an object, creature, or force, as visualized by you.

But the examples include six Orcs and a card table. And that's extremely definitely not "a creature." What the spell line actually does is to allow you to control the vertical and the horizontal in a really quite huge area with limitations on finesse and sensory components that also make no sense. Seriously, minor image allows you to include "minor sounds" and I have no idea what the hell that is supposed to mean save that it specifically does not include intelligible speech. What it actually does include is totally unknown.

So right away you have this massive disconnect, where the short description and the spells' actual effects are as different as scorching ray and fireball. And what limitations the spells have are incomprehensible gibberish.

Then there's the duration problem. While you're concentrating on it, you can make your illusion do pretty much anything, even when it isn't your turn. This is specifically to allow you to have illusionary goblins react to getting shot with arrows. But of course there's no reason you couldn't have little black clouds follow your opponents' faces around or something instead. And now the hard part: what happens when you stop concentrating isn't clear. The illusions stick around for a period of time, but it's not clear what they are supposed to do at that point or how well they can follow their original script. An illusionary goblin doesn't freeze frame at that point, but can the illusionary black cloud continue to follow the moving heads of the enemy Gnolls? I have no fucking idea. And then there's the extra bonus fun Pathfinder problem with duration, which is that the signature ability of Illusionists is that they get a bunch of extra bonus rounds of illusion duration when they stop spending concentration actions. Like, the entire combat worth of extra rounds of illusion duration. And there is absolutely no indication as to how responsive their illusions are during that period.

Finding out what Illusions can and can't do in your game is going to involve a lot of discussion with your DM. There's too much of it that is completely incoherent and needs DM adjudication. And the tidbits of explanation are buried so deeply that you'll need to provide your DM with all the separate bits of canon law before they can even make their decision. For fuck's sake, you have to read out the examples for the later spells in the chain and then read out the descriptions of all the earlier spells in the chain in order to figure out what some of the capabilities of silent image must be. It's horrible.

Illusion is a very powerful school. In many ways, it is probably the most powerful school. But it cannot be used without a long and boring discussion with your DM. If you say that Illusion is too much effort, I won't say you're wrong. But once you nail everything down, you can probably do your share of cleaning out an entire dungeon with a single 3rd level spell slot.

-Username17

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Dec 07, 2014 10:03 am

That said, don't let FrankTrollman's warnings discourage you. I've had DMs metagame the fuck out of illusions (but even then, they were only able to take it so far) but when they work they're soul-crushingly powerful. Campaign-definingly powerful.

So, naturally, Pathfinder had to power them up. I've been pimping the Veiled Illusionist for quite some time now for any blaster cleric, but just so we're on the same page let's just go over some of the class features.

A veiled illusionist learns to cloak herself in the forms favored by the goddess—human, halfling, elf, gnome, cyclops, and naga. Once the veiled illusionist learns a veil, she can expend 1 point from her veil pool to disguise herself as a member of that veil's race as though using disguise self, even if doing so would exceed the limitations of disguise self. When disguising herself as one of these races, she gains an additional bonus on her Disguise check equal to her class level. Each veil also grants the illusionist an additional power. Assuming a different veil while still under the effects of her disguise self spell-like ability is a free action, and does not expend any additional points from her veil pool.

Human: At 1st level, a veiled illusionist may select an illusion spell from the sorcerer/wizard spell list of a level she can cast and add it to her class spell list at the same level. If the spell is already on her spell list, she adds it to her spellbook, familiar, or list of spells known. Each time the illusionist gains a level, she may select an additional illusion spell.

Halfling: At 2nd level, a veiled illusionist can spend 1 point from her veil pool as a free action while casting an illusion spell to disguise her spellcasting. Creatures attempting to identify the spell as it's being cast must succeed at a Will save (DC 15 + the number of points remaining in the illusionist's veil pool) or misidentify the spell as a spell of the illusionist's choice. The illusory spell must be the same level as the true spell, and must be one the illusionist can cast.

Elf: At 4th level, a veiled illusionist can spend 1 point from her veil pool as an immediate action to reroll a caster level check made to bypass spell resistance. She must use this ability before the results of the first roll are revealed, and must accept the second roll, even if it's worse.

Gnome: At 6th level, a veiled illusionist can spend 1 point from her veil pool to concentrate on a glamer or figment as a swift action, rather than a standard action.

Cyclops: At 8th level, a veiled illusionist can spend 1 point from her veil pool as a free action to gain the benefits of the spell true seeing until the beginning of her next turn.

Naga: At 10th level, as a free action while casting an illusion spell, a veiled illusionist can spend 1 point from her veil pool to coil the illusion upon itself. Any creature that disbelieves the illusion sees a second illusion within the translucent outline of the first, as if the illusionist had cast the spell a second time. Effectively, after a creature disbelieves the first illusion, it sees a second illusion in its place, which it must attempt to disbelieve separately. The veiled illusionist must determine the features of the second illusion as she casts the first. If the second illusion is especially similar to the first one, creatures that study or interact with it receive a +4 bonus on the save to disbelieve the effect.

That said, there are still reasons why an illusionist wizard wouldn't want to go into that PrC right away. Well, one big reason. Again, I know I pimped this just a few pages before, but since Frank primed the pump I feel it's even more appropriate.

Prerequisite: Wizard 8
Benefit: Anytime a creature tries to disbelieve one of your illusion effects, make a caster level check. Treat the illusion's save DC as its normal DC or the result of the caster level check, whichever is higher.

Archmage Joda · Post by **Archmage Joda** » Mon Dec 08, 2014 4:00 am

So, which would perform better for an illusionist character then, an arcanist or a cleric using veiled illusionist?

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Mon Dec 08, 2014 4:12 am

Arcanist doesn't get the thing Lago just pimped and don't really get abilities that interact with illusions. You could go School Savant for Illusion, but why not just play a Wizard at that point. So a cleric with the right domain going into Veiled Illusionist would probably get the job done better.

rasmuswagner · Post by **rasmuswagner** » Mon Dec 08, 2014 6:22 am

Archmage Joda wrote:So, which would perform better for an illusionist character then, an arcanist or a cleric using veiled illusionist?

Gnome Heavens Oracle into Veiled Illusionist. That way, when you're out of creative juice, you can just [Pattern] things into lockdown.

rasmuswagner · Post by **rasmuswagner** » Mon Dec 08, 2014 6:27 am

So, Paizo being fuckwits. They recently released Advanced Class Guide, a hardcover of pure crunch, and even by their mediocre standards, the editing was terrible. There's so much half-explained shit in there.

So, naturally, the design team is on the ball, answering questions, right? Nope. Last weeks FAQ was "what's the duration on ring of invisibility and hat of disguise".

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Dec 08, 2014 9:08 am

Is there like a list of potential questions? I want to know what's up with the Amateur Swashbuckler and related feats, since you can use those feats to pick up a class feature where you have literally no levels in the base class. Fun times.

TiaC · Post by **TiaC** » Mon Dec 08, 2014 9:34 am

I like this throwaway line in the hunter description "A hunter may teach her companion hunter's tricks from the skirmisher ranger archetype instead of standard tricks."

That just does not work at all. What's the DC? Which tricks actually work for this? Is the AC limited in uses like a skirmisher? Can you "push" the AC to do one it doesn't know?

TOZ · Post by **TOZ** » Mon Dec 08, 2014 2:37 pm

There is no way to know what will be answered next, as you cannot even manually reference the question threads and count FAQ requests. As I understand it, it is based on the number of FAQ requests crossed with how ready the staff is to answer that question. Naturally, the really big problems aren't dealt with any time soon, while little inconsequential stuff that they think won't have far-reaching consequences gets answered relatively quickly.

MisterDee · Post by **MisterDee** » Mon Dec 08, 2014 3:28 pm

And that is only if some fuckwit forum moderator doesn't arbitrarily declare that your FAQ candidate needs no answer from the FAQ team (without bothering to, you know, actually giving you the presumably official, apparently already clear answer.)

Slade · Post by **Slade** » Tue Dec 09, 2014 9:05 pm

MisterDee wrote:And that is only if some fuckwit forum moderator doesn't arbitrarily declare that your FAQ candidate needs no answer from the FAQ team (without bothering to, you know, actually giving you the presumably official, apparently already clear answer.)

They never post a link when they answer: answered in a FAQ....why?

There is no way to know what will be answered next, as you cannot even manually reference the question threads and count FAQ requests. As I understand it, it is based on the number of FAQ requests crossed with how ready the staff is to answer that question. Naturally, the really big problems aren't dealt with any time soon, while little inconsequential stuff that they think won't have far-reaching consequences gets answered relatively quickly.

Well, they kicked off a fire storm a few times when they answered non-consequential stuff.

Like the "hands" needed to fight with more than one weapon. Worse, the Beard weapon thingy requires "hands" even though it is using your face.

Then the Monk issue, they backpedaled when they realized no one uses flurry like the designers.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Tue Dec 09, 2014 9:15 pm

It really blazes my balls that Pathfinder is as successful as it is.

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Tue Dec 09, 2014 9:58 pm

I sort of get what they're going for with the "hands" thing, although they're going about it in the clumsiest possible way. Not helped at all by the fact that they usually try to pretend they never made a mistake in the first place and people are just "misunderstanding it".

But in HERO, for instance, Extra Arms is very cheap, but doesn't give you any extra attacks - that's a different (and more expensive) power. So I could see doing something like:

Deadly Attack (replaces Power Attack and all similar feats)
You can take a penalty to hit (up to BAB/4 + 1) and gain 3x that amount to damage.

Light Weapon Fighting (replaces TWF, Flurry, etc)
When using exclusively light or one-handed weapons, you can take a -2 penalty to all attacks in order to make an extra attack (stuff about it upgrading with BAB).
When using this feat, you can't gain more than 1x your Strength bonus to damage, and if using Deadly Attack you only get 2:1 instead of 3:1.

Done. Of course, this being Paizo, they would feel that it doesn't have enough feat bloat as is too nice for martials anyway.

souran · Post by **souran** » Tue Dec 09, 2014 10:24 pm

Ice9 wrote: Deadly Attack (replaces Power Attack and all similar feats)
You can take a penalty to hit (up to BAB/4 + 1) and gain 3x that amount to damage.

This shouldn't be a feat, it should be a class ability for everybody at level 1. +1 BAB classes should get +3 (+4 if using a 2 handed weapon), +3/4 BAB should get +2 per -1, and 1/2 should get 1 for 1 with no benefit for using a 2 handed weapon.

Anyway, every feat needs to scale, and they all need to do something real. But that is well known here.

Insomniac · Post by **Insomniac** » Tue Dec 09, 2014 10:27 pm

Many systems already explicitly have Power Attack style options available to everyone, even magicians and superheroes. Haymaker/Pushing in HERO is a great example of this.

Power Attack should have never been a feat and it should not have been watered down from prior incarnations.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Wed Dec 10, 2014 7:05 pm

Slade wrote:
Then the Monk issue, they backpedaled when they realized no one uses flurry like the designers.

Man, why the fudge is flurry even a unique rule? The most obvious thing to do would've been giving them the two weapon fighting chain as bonus feats, the other most obvious thing to do is give them full BAB cuz monk weapons are already terrible as a handicap.

As for Power Attack, well there's already the Tome power/expertise stuff so everyone should use that as a house rule.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Wed Dec 10, 2014 9:43 pm

How much of Dungeonomicon, Races of War, and Book of Gears could you import to a Pathfinder game and how much work would it be?

LeadPal · Post by **LeadPal** » Wed Dec 10, 2014 11:39 pm

Orion wrote:How much of Dungeonomicon, Races of War, and Book of Gears could you import to a Pathfinder game and how much work would it be?

Not much more work than importing it into 3.5, really; the rules are similar enough in all the right places. The biggest differences, like CMB, get dropped anyways. Finishing the Book of Gears is still what takes almost all the effort.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Wed Dec 10, 2014 11:44 pm

Orion wrote:How much of Dungeonomicon, Races of War, and Book of Gears could you import to a Pathfinder game and how much work would it be?

-Combat Maneuver Bonus is a Pathfinder thing
-Skill list is consolidated in PF
-I imagine you'll throw out most of PF's feats for Tome feats

Actually the question is more "What does PF bring to a Tomes game?", beats me.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Thu Dec 11, 2014 3:29 am

OgreBattle wrote:Actually the question is more "What does PF bring to a Tomes game?", beats me.

Art and playerbase.

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Thu Dec 11, 2014 4:10 am

Archetypes too.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Thu Dec 11, 2014 5:25 pm

Yeah, although the relevance of the archetypes is limited if everyone is playing dungeonomicon monks and races of war fighters. Basically my question is whether I can run the Den version of 3.5 and tell everyone it's Pathfinder.

Slade · Post by **Slade** » Thu Dec 11, 2014 7:16 pm

OgreBattle wrote:
Slade wrote:
Then the Monk issue, they backpedaled when they realized no one uses flurry like the designers.
Man, why the fudge is flurry even a unique rule? The most obvious thing to do would've been giving them the two weapon fighting chain as bonus feats, the other most obvious thing to do is give them full BAB cuz monk weapons are already terrible as a handicap.

That would be way too smart for PF designers.
Maybe the new Unchained Monk will get it though.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Thu Dec 11, 2014 8:02 pm

Orion wrote:Yeah, although the relevance of the archetypes is limited if everyone is playing dungeonomicon monks and races of war fighters. Basically my question is whether I can run the Den version of 3.5 and tell everyone it's Pathfinder.

Tell them it's a secret insider's double-NDA playtest of "The Pathfinder version of (3.5 book your player likes)"

I think most people who are hangry for tRPG's though will go with whatever's available. I'd love to play a TOME game in person at a table and finally be a Fighter that is Good At Fighting Many Things