Pathfinder Is Still Bad

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Mon Mar 16, 2015 9:10 pm

DSMatticus wrote:Yes, I said it would be unsatisfying. But as an aside, I have to ask; do you think 3.5 currently has satisfying boss fights? I guess you could say "poke the RNG until the dangerous man loses" can be tense, but I would not say it makes a satisfying showdown. I've never had a good BBEG fight that wasn't actually closer to a "big bag evil committee whose chairman is a slightly higher CR" fight. There's always a decent chance the BBEG is going to get taken out of the fight on round 1 (unless he has all the immunities!!1!, which is pretty fucking unsatisfying for its own reasons), so I find having fights that can survive that happening and still be noteworthy is about the only way to get consistently decent results.

This. While one-rounding a BBEG is anticlimactic, it's not like an extended fight won't necessarily suck either:
A) Grind it down with small amounts of damage. Aka 4E. Sounds boring.
B) Spam SoD spells, wait for the boss to roll really low on the save. Sounds boring and frustrating. And can still be a one-round KO depending on luck.
C) Use a spell combo like Assay Resistance / Ability Rip / SoD to finish him off. Still a round-round KO, but it's up to whether you prepared the right spells.
D) Some kind of dramatic back and forth chess game of tactics that the D&D rules don't actually support.
E) Say "fuck it" and use a committee of evil, or a multi-monster.

If you go the last route, then ultra-damage is fine, but only if it's single target. Chop off the titan's arm with $TEXAS damage - fine. Split that damage into five parts that are each huge and kill everything, now we're back in one-round territory.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Tue Mar 17, 2015 12:51 am

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/won ... -spellbook

Am I misreading things, or is this actually an economical and super-compact method of dumping a bunch of blast spells on the field, then casting Make Whole and doing it again next adventure?

Maybe an edge case where you can use it directly offensively by holding it up so other people see "Magic Missile 4 Dummiez" scrawled as they run up to stab you, in addition to general demolition work.

Slade · Post by **Slade** » Tue Mar 17, 2015 1:14 am

Avoraciopoctules wrote:http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/won ... -spellbook

Am I misreading things, or is this actually an economical and super-compact method of dumping a bunch of blast spells on the field, then casting Make Whole and doing it again next adventure?

Maybe an edge case where you can use it directly offensively by holding it up so other people see "Magic Missile 4 Dummiez" scrawled as they run up to stab you, in addition to general demolition work.

Seems like a great book for explosive runes (with metamagic applied) since each page is destroyed not the book.
Then you make whole restoring them.

Great buying a bunch of books is cheaper. But eh.

MisterDee · Post by **MisterDee** » Tue Mar 17, 2015 1:25 am

I think that flipping pages and shooting spells is probably expecting a generous ruling on the DM's part. I figure that "reading a spell" probably doesn't happen without willingly spending an action. I imagine you could just have a cohort qualify as "unauthorized" and use that workaround to trigger AOE effects.

As to make whole - you'd need to be 22nd level to make whole this item since it's CL11 to create it. And that's only if you treat it as an item that doesn't have charges, since make whole doesn't restore charges.

Personnally, there's a lot of shit a CL22 caster can pull that scares me a lot more than just having a bunch of AOE available.

EDIT: there is Greater Make Whole. So a CL11 caster could do it. OK, that's more troubling if you rule it can just be repaired that way.

momothefiddler · Post by **momothefiddler** » Tue Mar 17, 2015 2:58 am

MisterDee wrote:I think that flipping pages and shooting spells is probably expecting a generous ruling on the DM's part. I figure that "reading a spell" probably doesn't happen without willingly spending an action. I imagine you could just have a cohort qualify as "unauthorized" and use that workaround to trigger AOE effects.

As to make whole - you'd need to be 22nd level to make whole this item since it's CL11 to create it. And that's only if you treat it as an item that doesn't have charges, since make whole doesn't restore charges.

Personnally, there's a lot of shit a CL22 caster can pull that scares me a lot more than just having a bunch of AOE available.

EDIT: there is Greater Make Whole. So a CL11 caster could do it. OK, that's more troubling if you rule it can just be repaired that way.

If you allow that on anything that doesn't explicitly say it uses charges, doesn't that break a lot of things? I mean, if you lose beads off a necklace, Make Whole should restore them, right? Just for instance.

icyshadowlord · Post by **icyshadowlord** » Wed Mar 18, 2015 9:41 am

Avoraciopoctules wrote:http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/won ... -spellbook

Am I misreading things, or is this actually an economical and super-compact method of dumping a bunch of blast spells on the field, then casting Make Whole and doing it again next adventure?

Maybe an edge case where you can use it directly offensively by holding it up so other people see "Magic Missile 4 Dummiez" scrawled as they run up to stab you, in addition to general demolition work.

That item reminds me of all the bitching that started when people found ways to kill Cthulhu by spamming Explosive Runes...

Slade · Post by **Slade** » Wed Mar 18, 2015 3:27 pm

icyshadowlord wrote:
Avoraciopoctules wrote:http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/won ... -spellbook

Am I misreading things, or is this actually an economical and super-compact method of dumping a bunch of blast spells on the field, then casting Make Whole and doing it again next adventure?

Maybe an edge case where you can use it directly offensively by holding it up so other people see "Magic Missile 4 Dummiez" scrawled as they run up to stab you, in addition to general demolition work.
That item reminds me of all the bitching that started when people found ways to kill Cthulhu by spamming Explosive Runes...

Why doesn't Cthulhu have force resistance? That'd solve that problem.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Wed Mar 18, 2015 5:12 pm

Slade wrote:
icyshadowlord wrote:
Avoraciopoctules wrote:http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/won ... -spellbook

Am I misreading things, or is this actually an economical and super-compact method of dumping a bunch of blast spells on the field, then casting Make Whole and doing it again next adventure?

Maybe an edge case where you can use it directly offensively by holding it up so other people see "Magic Missile 4 Dummiez" scrawled as they run up to stab you, in addition to general demolition work.
That item reminds me of all the bitching that started when people found ways to kill Cthulhu by spamming Explosive Runes...
Why doesn't Cthulhu have force resistance? That'd solve that problem.

Is force resistance even a thing in Pathfinder?

Second, the Book Bomb.

Count Arioch the 28th · Thu Mar 19, 2015 7:03 am

Didn't Cthulhu get killed by ramming a steamboat into him? That seems doable for fantasy characters...

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Thu Mar 19, 2015 7:07 am

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:Didn't Cthulhu get killed by ramming a steamboat into him? That seems doable for fantasy characters...

They rammed a speed boat into his head, it split his head in half.

Then his cranium began to pull itself back together.

Then the island sank, somehow trapping him beneath the waves again.

erik · Post by **erik** » Thu Mar 19, 2015 8:11 am

Maxus wrote:
Count Arioch the 28th wrote:Didn't Cthulhu get killed by ramming a steamboat into him? That seems doable for fantasy characters...
They rammed a speed boat into his head, it split his head in half.

Then his cranium began to pull itself back together.

Then the island sank, somehow trapping him beneath the waves again.

It was described as a "heavily armed steam yacht", so Count recalled that rightly. Here is the skull crushing and remending for fun's sake.

But Johansen had not given out yet. Knowing that the Thing could surely overtake the Alert until steam was fully up, he resolved on a desperate chance; and, setting the engine for full speed, ran lightning-like on deck and reversed the wheel. There was a mighty eddying and foaming in the noisome brine, and as the steam mounted higher and higher the brave Norwegian drove his vessel head on against the pursuing jelly which rose above the unclean froth like the stern of a daemon galleon. The awful squid-head with writhing feelers came nearly up to the bowsprit of the sturdy yacht, but johansen drove on relentlessly. There was a bursting as of an exploding bladder, a slushy nastiness as of a cloven sunfish, a stench as of a thousand opened graves, and a sound that the chronicler could not put on paper. For an instant the ship was befouled by an acrid and blinding green cloud, and then there was only a venomous seething astern; where - God in heaven! - the scattered plasticity of that nameless sky-spawn was nebulously recombining in its hateful original form, whilst its distance widened every second as the Alert gained impetus from its mounting steam.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Thu Mar 19, 2015 4:43 pm

erik wrote:
Maxus wrote:
Count Arioch the 28th wrote:Didn't Cthulhu get killed by ramming a steamboat into him? That seems doable for fantasy characters...
They rammed a speed boat into his head, it split his head in half.

Then his cranium began to pull itself back together.

Then the island sank, somehow trapping him beneath the waves again.
It was described as a "heavily armed steam yacht", so Count recalled that rightly. Here is the skull crushing and remending for fun's sake.

But Johansen had not given out yet. Knowing that the Thing could surely overtake the Alert until steam was fully up, he resolved on a desperate chance; and, setting the engine for full speed, ran lightning-like on deck and reversed the wheel. There was a mighty eddying and foaming in the noisome brine, and as the steam mounted higher and higher the brave Norwegian drove his vessel head on against the pursuing jelly which rose above the unclean froth like the stern of a daemon galleon. The awful squid-head with writhing feelers came nearly up to the bowsprit of the sturdy yacht, but johansen drove on relentlessly. There was a bursting as of an exploding bladder, a slushy nastiness as of a cloven sunfish, a stench as of a thousand opened graves, and a sound that the chronicler could not put on paper. For an instant the ship was befouled by an acrid and blinding green cloud, and then there was only a venomous seething astern; where - God in heaven! - the scattered plasticity of that nameless sky-spawn was nebulously recombining in its hateful original form, whilst its distance widened every second as the Alert gained impetus from its mounting steam.

Why the fuck did I type 'speed'

Fuck.

FROM THE WELLS OF NIGHT TO THE GULFS OF SPACE, AND FROM THE GULFS OF SPACE TO THE WELLS OF NIGHT, MY APOLOGIES FOR THAT ONE ARE ENDLESS, FOR I KNOW THE PAIN IT MADE IS NEARLY SO.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Thu Mar 19, 2015 5:05 pm

Howard and Lovecraft kept an amicable correspondence, so I figure any hero manly enough to be Conan has a chance against the eldritch horrors

Strung Nether · Post by **Strung Nether** » Thu Mar 19, 2015 8:30 pm

Something I just realized: Combining a Bountiful Bottle with a cl20 potion of Greater Magic Weapon is a 7k gp way to get a +5 enchantment bonus for 20 hours per day.

In fact, a Blessed Bottle seems to be full of bullshit in general.

Edit: called it a blessed bottle for some reason.

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Thu Mar 19, 2015 9:19 pm

Where is the Blessed Bottle from?

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Fri Mar 20, 2015 3:10 am

...You Lost Me wrote:Where is the Blessed Bottle from?

I think it's the Bountiful Bottle from Mythic Adventures.

icyshadowlord · Post by **icyshadowlord** » Fri Mar 20, 2015 9:59 am

OgreBattle wrote:Howard and Lovecraft kept an amicable correspondence, so I figure any hero manly enough to be Conan has a chance against the eldritch horrors.

That may be true, but the way things work in D&D doesn't exactly reflect that.

If you want something like a Shoggoth down, you're going to have to go above and beyond Conan's level.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Mar 22, 2015 3:38 pm

It seems to me that if you use the Spirit Binder wizard archetype to snag yourself a familiar with full BAB and the School Familiar archetype with the Conjuration specialization, you could make a Summon Monster wizard whose familiar could totally embarrass the fuck out of the fighter-types even worse than the Eidolin does.

Granted, it's not a combination that I would recommend. It requires a cubic assload of feats to get rolling (Acadamae Graduate, Spell Focus: Conjuration, Evolved Natural Summons, plus giving up Scribe Scroll and two wizard bonus feats) and even if you min-max to the hilt the benefit still isn't that good. But it's a nice way to bitchslap the fighter-types and makes them feel small in the pants. "My fucking kitty cat fights better than you. Give her all of your treasure and go cry in a corner, you're useless."

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Sun Mar 22, 2015 9:05 pm

I don't usually read a lot of 3rd party material for Pathfinder, but someone on the Paizo boards said that the Zeitgeist adventure path was the best adventure path out there, so I took a look at the Zeitgeist Player's Guide (free download).

It's definitely worth it's weight in gold, as an object lesson of what not to do.

A prestige class with the class feature "you receive this magic item"? Check.
A prestige class with an ability that's literally playing "Mother May I" with the GM? Check.
Feats and class features that are so vaguely defined that they're unplayable as-is? Check.
Class features that have static damage attacks that are almost instantly obsolete? Check.

It's just truly impressive all around.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 12:47 am

MisterDee wrote:I think that flipping pages and shooting spells is probably expecting a generous ruling on the DM's part. I figure that "reading a spell" probably doesn't happen without willingly spending an action. I imagine you could just have a cohort qualify as "unauthorized" and use that workaround to trigger AOE effects.

Conceivably, you could rip a bunch of pages out and put them on the ground as mines instead. Just depends on whether MC rules that the book has "read this page" as it's trigger instead of the triggers mentioned in Greater Glyph of Warding, rather than in addition to.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 1:33 am

hogarth or anyone familiar with APs, are there any post-Pathfinder Paizo APs that you'd recommend?

As an aside, I kind of like the premise of the Numeria line, since I've always been a fan of the whole 'fantasy setting realizes that it's sci-fi' trope. However, I do have some related sourcebooks (like, as in actually own through my Pathfinder subscription) such as the Technology Guide and... I'm not very impressed. Anyone got any opinions on that?

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 2:21 am

I made some comments on some of the adventure paths here:
http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=214107#214107

Out of the PFRPG paths I've played, I liked Rise of the Runelords and Carrion Crown the best (the 1st adventure of Carrion Crown was especially good) and Council of Thieves the least.

I didn't care for Kingmaker and Serpent's Skull very much because I'm not personally fond of sandbox adventures. Some people think Kingmaker is really the bee's knees, though.

I know next to nothing about Jade Regent or anything later than that, so I can't help you with those, other than to say that people have complained that a lot of encounters in Wrath of the Righteous are totally unchallenging to mythic PCs, which sort of defeats the point of using the mythic rules. Also, Shattered Star is just a bunch of dungeon-crawling, if that's what you're into.

ScottS · Post by **ScottS** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 2:24 am

Ran first and part of the second mod in Iron Gods so far; no one in the party wants the tech gear yet. Overall meh but not terrible, has some of the usual problems of Paizo APs (severely underpowered encounters made up for with "story XP", stat blocks are occasionally wrong).

LeadPal · Post by **LeadPal** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 4:19 am

I actually like Shattered Star. Of course, I like dungeon crawling. The AP gives a reasonable amount of support for adventures in-between dungeons, without giving too much of a shit about how they go about their adventures. This alone makes it a lot less railroady than most APs.

Again, there are some usual problems. Level 1 is boring and generic. The last two dungeons are full of bans against teleportation, divination, mining through walls, and so. There isn't always an incentive to avoid 5 minute workdays, and the encounters are usually easy as it is.

The only really glaring weakness is the third adventure, The Asylum Stone, which I'll focus on because this is a thread about why Pathfinder is bad. In the first part of the adventure, after a pointless travel montage, the party is given two plot hooks. The first deals with anime club politics, where they discover that the steampunk cosplayers have kidnapped the host of the precognitive guro panel, and they just roll their eyes and look into the other plot hook because the conflict is in a town of eight thousand, and not even their home town. The second hook is a library that has recently closed down, underneath which is the actual dungeon. Presumably the GM is supposed to railroad the party back towards the anime club if they try to investigate the library first, but the adventure doesn't even say. The dungeon itself is mostly just a series of monster closets, without much opportunity to move tactically, much less actually explore. On top of all that, the party is teased with passages leading to further dungeons that are "beyond the scope of this adventure," multiple times.

The adventure is written by James L. Sutter, who is also credited as senior editor. I suspect this is why the adventure sucks so badly: the foreword gives the impression of an author who is way, way too invested in his work to take a hard look at it himself.

FatR · Post by **FatR** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 6:17 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:hogarth or anyone familiar with APs, are there any post-Pathfinder Paizo APs that you'd recommend?

Kingmaker, Jade Regent, Serpent's Skull.

But take note that I have pretty loose standards of quality regarding Paizo's APs. None of them, not even Rise of the Runelords passes "I'm willing to run this using the plot as written" bar. Not even close. So it is more about having a useable sequence of maps and encounters and whether the general concept, NPC descriptions and art excite me.

I recommend to check the third-party Way of the Wicked adventure path. No good art to speak of, of course, because tiny publisher. But in terms of general serviceability as a game supplement I'd rate it much higher, needing only tune-ups of certain unwieldy parts, not throwing away nearly everything beyond the basic idea. The only persistent problem is it being really a level 1-9 AP pretending to be a level 1-20 AP, and issues stemming from that, like various uberasskickers on the opposing side apparently taking a vacation while you run the first three adventures, armies of footmen mattering, mooks suddenly getting major upgrades in later part, etc. But that goes for the majority of adventuring paths I've seen, for any edition.