Pathfinder Is Still Bad

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erik
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Post by erik »

Maglag, the point is more than 99% of people never used any of those alternate class features, never played as a broken prestige class and never got thought bottles or free equipment or a free ride on the wish economy. But despite that, casters were still better than non-casters. The casters are just out and out objectively overpowering as compared to non-casters with no special tricks. You don't have to dig deep and find the special sauce. If the problem was a few overpowered prestige classes then 3.5 wouldn't really have had a problem since nobody actually used those classes.

With Pathfinder, if anything it is even harder for a caster to *avoid* being better than non-caster. Your weak points have been shored up and you don't even need a prestige class, you can just ride 1-20 in your base class.

The only way you can make the claim that Pathfinder casters are weaker is if *all* the stronger options have been removed. Going from 10 winning options to 3 still means you can pick the winning spells, and it can be argued that Pathfinder has added at least as much as it has taken away even on that front.
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Post by RelentlessImp »

maglag wrote: And that was even more true in 3.5, in particular because the cleric/wizard could call an even stronger cleric/wizard as a standard action.

So again, where did PF did worst than them in that department?
Is your argument seriously "Pathfinder casters are no more or less better than you than 3.5 casters therefore it's okay"? I don't think you understand what the phrase "Fighters can't have nice things" means. Pathfinder was a complete and utter failure in making the NON CASTER CLASSES fucking MATTER.
maglag wrote: Again, my question is why do you claim PF is worst than 3.5 in that regard?
Because they made the non-casters WORSE overall. They removed things that let, say, a Rogue continue to fucking contribute and be level-appropriate by nerfing the shit out of Ring of Blinking and flask sneak attacks. And that was bad for the game.
maglag wrote: In the recent OSSR relentlessimp keeps complaining about how the adventure writers didn't take in account the casters using magic to get magic gear for free while mass-calling outsider slaves.
Be fair, I played that up for comedy-rage and have been taking it straight as the way they want it to be played since I made that claim.
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Post by DSMatticus »

I find your choice of cheese perplexing.

Some of it is probably not as good as you think it is. Abrupt jaunt, for example. It's not at all clear how abrupt jaunt works in relation to attacks, but if your DM allows you to use it to make attacks automiss (instead of resolving it before the enemy's action, allowing them to do something else), then that's a considerable buff not particularly supported by the RAW (strictly reading, making the attack, rolling the attack roll, and dealing damage are all one unsegmented activity or trigger regardless of any changes in state, like no longer being in range). Being a melee only monster is suffering, news at eleven.

Some of it involves an intense amount of dumpster diving. Precocious apprentice is in a splatbook sidebar and is explicitly called out as requiring DM-vetting. The hummingbird familiar is out of Dragon magazine. I have never seen Dragon magazine material used, ever.

Some of it has never been used at any table, ever, except as a joke. No one actually uses thought bottles, because they're stupid. No one actually lets you conjure up an efreeti to wish for a ring of infinite wishes and then use that ring of infinite wishes to wish for +1,000,000 bling. It's nothing more than a cute way to illustrate problems with the ruleset, not a thing that ever actually happens. At this point, you may as well be shouting "candle of invocation!" over and over. Yes, the candle of invocation is a bullshit item. P.S. funny story the candle of invocation is also in pathfinder.

My pathfinder-fu is not nearly as good as my 3.5-fu, but yes. If you dumpster dive hard enough there's a bunch of stupid broken caster shit that breaks the game in half. That's not really all that interesting. What is interesting is that the 99% of wizards who aren't trying to break the game/whose DM's won't let them break the game are better off in PF than in 3.5, because PF gives them more shit. For free. EDIT: And the 1% of wizards who want to break the game and are allowed to are still going to do that.
maglag wrote:You yourself wrote the tomes that are based on casters spamming wish SLA for gear starting at 7th level until gold becomes worthless trash, so yes, that kind of extreme cheese saw play in 3.5, and PF rules specifically balanced that bit out if nothing else.
Tomes use a modified wish with a magic item value cap. The only gear you can beat out of an efreeti is low level gear, and if you want gear more powerful than that you either craft it, go adventuring, or buy it using magical currencies that can't be wished for or bought for gold.
Last edited by DSMatticus on Sat Apr 18, 2015 2:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Insomniac
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Post by Insomniac »

While martial classes got a boost, Casters got similar and equivalent boosts and their boosts are stronger overall.

Lets look at what a Wizard from the first 10 levels (where the overwhelming majority of the game takes place) gets without min-maxing or dumpster diving. Just straight up lets consider what they get...

A d6 and favored class bonus to get another 10 HP.
That's nothing to sneeze at.

Specialist Wizards are not prohibited from casting spells off prohibited schools and must simply expend 2 spells slots. They may also use spell completion items from prohibited schools and craft items with spells from prohibited schools, provided they know the spells. That is a raw power increase with no downside.

Bonded Object allows once a day casting of highest level spell known or spells from prohibited schools without paying double spell slots. They may also be further enhanced. I believe this to be a raw power up from familiars, which are also available.

Arcane Schools are another raw power up to Wizards, some of them such as Teleportation and Exploiter Wizard are exceptionally strong.

In comparison, most martial classes, the ones that desperately needed the most help, like Fighters, Monks and Rogues, got absolute bullshit.
Classes like Clerics, Wizards and Sorcerers, the strongest classes from 3.5, got prestige class worthy abilities rolled right into them.
Fighters get marginal bonuses to hit, damage and saves against fear.

Marginal nerfs to things like Concentration and selected spells are pointed out as balance points, but are largely red herrings. Core book spells being nerfed, such as Glitterdust, mean less and less as the game publishes more spells. If a selected I Win button spell is nerfed, there will always be new, strong spells taking their places. Feats like Power Attack and the Improved line being damaged hurt more. Because there will never be Power Attack if it Didn't Suck or Trip Feat That Is Worth It getting printed to take the place of gimped, nerfed feats that were martial classes' bread and butter.
Last edited by Insomniac on Sat Apr 18, 2015 9:17 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Username17 »

While martial classes got a boost
The thing is... martial classes didn't get a boost. Yes, some things are better, but a lot of things are also worse. They get more feats, but special combat maneuvers are a lot harder to use and martial feat chains are longer and the payoff isn't really any better. Rogues can use sneak attack on more enemies (without resorting to wands of gravestrike), but their sneak attacks don't apply to good weapons and most of the ways you'd like to get sneak attack as a mid level character have been spot banned for no reason.

Spellcasters traded some nerfs to some high level spells they weren't going to use anyway for being massively better all the time and getting replacement cheese if they want to read through the new books. It's just better. Martial classes are a lot more complicated, and there are basically less viable builds in Pathfinder for a martial character than there are in 3.5.

-Username17
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Post by Insomniac »

I think while the feat nerfing hurt feat starved classes, that the Barbarian, Paladin and Ranger are high points of the core game. Were Fighters, Monks and Rogues balanced off them, they would be much better off. I find it almost impossible to believe that a Paladin didn't get an overall substantial power boost from the 3.0/3.5 Paladin. Barbarians and Rangers also appear to be much better off.

As for builds, some oddly viable ones have arisen. Taking Paladins again, Smite Evil is much stronger and applies to ranged weaponry. An "Arch-Paladin" (tee hee) can shred through an evil opponent with shocking efficiency.

And while the Writers Take Away, they also Give. Melee combat did get a bunch of kicks in the nuts, but ranged feats in Pathfinder are quite strong it appears, at least as strong if not stronger than 3.5 counterparts.
Last edited by Insomniac on Sat Apr 18, 2015 10:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
ishy
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Post by ishy »

Keep in mind, monsters in pathfinder also got a slight number upgrade (on everything but saves iirc) to offset the melee character increases.
DSMatticus wrote:Listen, CaptPike, if you can't be swayed by evidence, then you can't actually be swayed by anything. Every single piece of evidence we actually have points to 4E underperforming relative to 3.5.

For crying out loud, when Nathan Stewart did his Forbes interview a few days ago bragging about the possibility that 5E might end up being the best launch they've ever had, he did it by comparing 5E to 3.5, not 4E. That is the WotC employee in charge of managing the brand. That's someone who has access to the sales numbers, and whose job it is to understand them and ultimately increase them. And having looked at those numbers, his criteria for the best launch ever is beating 3E or 3.5, and he didn't mention 4E at all. Nathan Stewart will never tell you 4E underperformed, because he is a suit and corporate secrecy is a part of his job description. But his choice of benchmarks still gives the game away.
Well if you want some numbers:
FrankTrollman wrote:So all the core books together sold less than a million collectively. I'm guessing a lot less than a million, but it's clear from court records that the combined total of Adventurer's Vault and Monster Manuals and PHB2s and everything else they put the core book stamp on when added together adds up to "hundreds of thousands of books" and not "millions of books." And that's really not that great when we consider that The Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting puled in over 175000 units back in 1992. Certainly it isn't good when you consider that WotC's own studies claim that there are over six million D&D players.

-Username17
Ryan Dancey wrote:We sold 300,000 copies of the 3E PHB in 30 DAYS. I have a screen shot of Amazon with the 3E PHB in the #1 slot. If I was running the D&D business and I produced a high-profile core rulebook that sold 1,800 copies a month, I'd pretty much have to tender my resignation - unless THAT'S THE NEW NORM. Which it probably is. Which says a lot more about tabletop roleplaying as a business than it does about the WotC team as business people.

RyanD
So yeah, many 4e books combined sold about as well as the 3.E phb did in 30 days.
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Post by maglag »

I don't really get the argument of "people will dumpster dive for every borked caster ability they can in PF, but always played fair in 3.5, nobody tried to slip an incantrix or shadowcraft mage under less cautious DMs, and Divine Metamagic wasn't so popular that it was included in every serious cleric guide", but another point that will be easier to prove presented itself...
ishy wrote:Keep in mind, monsters in pathfinder also got a slight number upgrade (on everything but saves iirc) to offset the melee character increases.
Actually it's the other way around. For example, size categories only grant +1 on grapple/trip/similar, so non-casters actually stand a chance of succeeding at that stuff against giant opponents.

Another example, the PF Tarrasque in particular has less HP, HD and Str (for a total of -20 attack bonus), while having ranged attacks, so isn't auto-defeated by the wizard casting fly.
Last edited by maglag on Sat Apr 18, 2015 11:42 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by Avoraciopoctules »

maglag wrote:I don't really get the argument of "people will dumpster dive for every borked caster ability they can in PF, but always played fair in 3.5, nobody tried to slip an incantrix or shadowcraft mage under less cautious DMs, and Divine Metamagic wasn't so popular that it was included in every serious cleric guide", but another point that will be easier to prove presented itself...
Dumpster diving for power is much easier in Pathfinder, where everything is dropped into the same searchable SRD legally. If someone hears about a new trick, they don't need to get a new book or PDF to check it out.
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Post by maglag »

3.5 had the charop forums filled with guides, often pointing you straight to the sources if not the very pages and paragraphs of the abilities.

Heck, here's a discussion from 2008 where someone basically says "Got a friend who wants to play an incantrix, needs help building" and the other people act perfectly normal. None of "Ban Incantrix" or "Nerf Incantrix".

That's why I find the argument of "Nobody played borked caster Prcs in real games" really hard to believe. Were all the wizard/cleric guides and campaign discussion in the Charop forums some form of elaborate trolling all along then?
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Post by MGuy »

maglag wrote:3.5 had the charop forums filled with guides, often pointing you straight to the sources if not the very pages and paragraphs of the abilities.

Heck, here's a discussion from 2008 where someone basically says "Got a friend who wants to play an incantrix, needs help building" and the other people act perfectly normal. None of "Ban Incantrix" or "Nerf Incantrix".

That's why I find the argument of "Nobody played borked caster Prcs in real games" really hard to believe. Were all the wizard/cleric guides and campaign discussion in the Charop forums some form of elaborate trolling all along then?
Even if you want to refuse to buy that* why are you ignoring basically everything else? Even if you want to trot out some of the worst examples of fuckery that still doesn't actually mean that PF isn't worse. It still doesn't erase the fact that you can just be causally better than the noncasting types without looking up obscure ass prestige classes and specifically can do so with less effort in PF. You're trying real hard to say "There's broken stuff in 3rd I can find it!" while ignoring the fact that people are telling you that the cheesiest cheese isn't even the reason people are slapping that particular label on PF.

*I don't know why you would as I've never had a game where anyone tried stupid shit like that. Being able to find an example of someone trying to do it in a particular game is not really all that impressive and ignores the lion's share of games that don't allow that shit.
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Post by karpik777 »

maglag wrote:Actually it's the other way around. For example, size categories only grant +1 on grapple/trip/similar, so non-casters actually stand a chance of succeeding at that stuff against giant opponents.
However while a 3.5 grapple was BAB+str. bonus+size bonus+applicable boni vs BAB+str. bonus+size bonus+applicable boni , in Pathfinder it is BAB+str. bonus+size bonus+applicable boni vs 10+BAB+str. bonus+dex bonus+size bonus+applicable boni.
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Post by Insomniac »

CMD having a 10 slapped on it for no real reason, and then adding Dexterity to boot, conceptually hoses so many people. Even the way they want you to play a Rogue, tumbling around, happens against sky high CMDs.

CMD should NOT have that plus 10 and Dexterity or Strength, the best number, should be used for CMB.

The only score for a player or a monster should be the CMN, the Combat Maneuver Number.

Grappling, tripping and tumbling are so much harder for PCs in Pathfinder.
Splitting up the Improved feats (which everybody told them not to do, and in actuality preferred a scrunching down in those combat actions) and then terrible CMD math screwed a lot of martials. Everybody told them way early in Beta that they hated the martial feat gimping and CMDs were too high. Paizo's response was to tell everyone to have a hale and hearty fuck off.

"Trust us. We know what we're doing."

Then they proceeded to not even fix known issues in 3.5 and worsened existing ones while creating new ones. Good job, idiots.
Last edited by Insomniac on Sun Apr 19, 2015 1:37 am, edited 4 times in total.
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Post by Archmage Joda »

So, Insomniac, if the Barbarian is in a better spot amongst mundane classes, what of the Bloodrager? Is it worse than the Barbarian despite having some spells, or is it actually worth playing in the sort of game where a Barbarian type can work out?
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Post by Insomniac »

Archmage Joda wrote:So, Insomniac, if the Barbarian is in a better spot amongst mundane classes, what of the Bloodrager? Is it worse than the Barbarian despite having some spells, or is it actually worth playing in the sort of game where a Barbarian type can work out?
Its comparable. I think a well-constructed Rage-Cycling Barbarian is better, but you've got a pretty solid chassis. You're a d10 full attacker gish-in-a-can with inherent damage reduction/-, a bloodline and quasi-feats.

Not having 2 good saves and the way that Pathfinder does 1/3 casting (no spells at all until level 4 BLOWS) is a very jagged pill to swallow, especially if the game starts at low levels. They don't take hits to their Caster Level, though. They come into their own like most casters, when they hit their 3rd level spells, which for a Bloodrager is level 10. The real crippling thing is a very low amount of spells known. That theoretical Level 10 Bloodrager knows 5 first, 4 second and a measly 2 3rd level spells.

One of the archetpes, Blood Conduit, looks like a power increase.

I'd say they are strong for a martial class. Having any casting at all, or at least something that can closely approximate self-buffing like Rage powers is definitely Pathfinder's "You must be this high to ride."

Power wise, would you ever play this over a Sorcerer? Not only no, but hell no. Does it compare decently to the martial competition, like the Barbarian, Ranger and Paladin in the core book? Yeah.
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Post by Archmage Joda »

Well, yeah, I know better than to measure it against the sorcerer, or any full caster. It would just be a matter of whether it can hold it's own at the 5-10 level range that my group usually plays at.
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Post by Slade »

In other news, Monk got buffed in unchained and nerfed...

How Paizo managed to mess up buffing I'll never know.
I mean, apparently, since they upped it BAB they felt "chained" to up its HD, but they then felt they had to nerf its Will save.

Slow Fall is now any distance, but cost Ki (and you have limited Ki).
You could take a Vow , but that removes Still Mind (remember they nerfed your will save)

Flurry no longer uses full Str bonus, so you can two hand stuff for 1.5 Str, but then don't you also now take 1/2 str penalty to off hand...

This is why the pseudo playtest were cool. At least they could pretend to listen to the audience; when they make stuff without supervision the staff goes full retard. Never go full retard.
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Post by Antariuk »

I've only skimmed the Unchained thread at Paizo, but I've seen that they propose a way to get rid of the "big six" and simply grant those bonuses automatically as soon as you fill the approriate slot (the bonus itself is tied to the price, so 2000 gp in the shoulder slot equals +1 resistance bonus on saves, for example). That way you can actually drop some unique/more interesting items in your campaign and see them being used and not sold.
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erik
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Post by erik »

If you go that far then may as well dump ability items and build that into level progression. That would be an improvement. Pity they only half-assed it.
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Post by magnuskn »

erik wrote:If you go that far then may as well dump ability items and build that into level progression. That would be an improvement. Pity they only half-assed it.
Actually, the gave two options for the big six-less progression, one was the one talked about already, the other simply does what you said.
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Post by Insomniac »

So they're a d10 full BAB class but they dropped Will save, yanked Still Mind?

And the Slow Fall thing is just absolutely perfect of what they think Monk Buffs constitute. An actual monk buff that matters is something like X AC/X times 10 to move speed where X is half Monk level, or Flurry of Blows being the ability to make multiple attacks with standard actions, charges, spring attacks, cleaves and whirlwind attack actions and not "flurry of misses," wisdom to damage with unarmed strikes and Monk weapons, Wisdom and Monk level to CMB/CMD etc etc.

You know, the class is supposed to be a balls out combatant but its a non-stop Fail Train of shit that doesn't matter in combat and inaccurate, non-synergistic combat actions.

But hey, Feather Fall! Kind of. But worse.

Paizo has MONK SYNDROME so bad.

"Dude, Monks and Clerics are totally the same power. Look, the cleric is a full caster with great healing ability built into the class but like, Monks Get Something Every Level (tm)!"

Every time they put out a new 1-20 martial class without spellcasting (Cavalier, Swashbuckler, etc), it stinks to the high heavens...but it Gets Something Every Level.
Last edited by Insomniac on Mon Apr 20, 2015 7:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Gnorman »

If Monks are bad enough, nobody wants to play Monks anymore, and Paizo no longer has to support Monks. It's win-win! Except for the part where, bizarrely, some people still want to play Monks.
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Post by Ice9 »

Wow, that's even shittier than I thought. I knew they weren't really going to go far enough to fix Monks, but I didn't think they'd try to match buffs with nerfs!

I guess it fits with their improvement strategy though - "Never admit you did anything wrong". If they're still pretending that the core is all balanced and Fighter is a great class, then there's a limit to how much they can improve Monk. A limit that stops well short of being close to enough, but hey.
Last edited by Ice9 on Mon Apr 20, 2015 8:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by TOZ »

Unchained discussion thread wrote:Ah, so it is better for spellcaster's VMCing with martial classes rather than vice versa.
Ah. Now the design goal is crystal clear.

VMC=variant multiclassing
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Post by Insomniac »

Ice9 wrote:Wow, that's even shittier than I thought. I knew they weren't really going to go far enough to fix Monks, but I didn't think they'd try to match buffs with nerfs!

I guess it fits with their improvement strategy though - "Never admit you did anything wrong". If they're still pretending that the core is all balanced and Fighter is a great class, then there's a limit to how much they can improve Monk. A limit that stops well short of being close to enough, but hey.
That is why Fighters, Rogues and Monks need genuine buffs or they gotta go. The impose an artificial floor on the game and it hurts every other class they try to make without spells. They've got to Raise the Floor balance wise. A good balance point, floor wise, is Barbarian for no spells, Paladin and Ranger for limited spells, and all their d8 classes that 3/4 cast. If something isn't up to snuff with Bards, Skalds, Alchemists, Inquisitors, Hunters and Warpriests it needs to buffed a bit.

Here's the thing...

If you looked at the monk and made it d10, 6 skills, all good saves...
Its on par with a strong Ranger or Paladin.

Paizo is in such Monk denial. Going Buff-for-Nerf is so stupid.
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