Pathfinder Is Still Bad

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Mon Jul 18, 2016 3:11 pm

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-fe ... bat-goblin

Kind of surprised at Pathfinder people considering this feat to be mediocre...

RedstoneOrc · Post by **RedstoneOrc** » Mon Jul 18, 2016 4:32 pm

virgil wrote:http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-fe ... bat-goblin

Kind of surprised at Pathfinder people considering this feat to be mediocre...

Did you you miss the staggered win or lose clause? Never mind stagger not is not dazed like I was thinking it's another gold standard for saying fuck off martials

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Mon Jul 18, 2016 4:45 pm

Ah, yes, I did miss the stagger clause. Dang, and there I was, thinking Pathfinder accidentally made something good.

Antariuk · Post by **Antariuk** » Mon Jul 18, 2016 5:00 pm

How is being staggered worse than being dazed? At least you get one action, plus swift and free actions.

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Mon Jul 18, 2016 6:17 pm

virgil wrote:Bah, this player. I offered them use of the Tome Monk, and they read the class and everything. They asked to play Pathfinder's Unchained Monk instead, felt it was easier to understand...

Or Tome Barbarian, since that's pretty simple, with Rage flavored as Martial Trance, and give them that feat that makes unarmed strike count as a two-handed weapon.

RedstoneOrc · Post by **RedstoneOrc** » Mon Jul 18, 2016 9:51 pm

Antariuk wrote:How is being staggered worse than being dazed? At least you get one action, plus swift and free actions.

I mixed the two. But I corrected myself in the post so don't know what you're on about

RelentlessImp · Post by **RelentlessImp** » Tue Jul 19, 2016 1:10 am

virgil wrote:http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-fe ... bat-goblin

Kind of surprised at Pathfinder people considering this feat to be mediocre...

My favorite part of this feat is that they don't make an exception for moving along diagonals. So you could take 11 points of damage, Acrobatic Roll two squares diagonally, and get 15 ft of movement out of it - unless Pathfinder changed the 5-10-5-10 repeat of diagonal movement.

erik · Post by **erik** » Tue Jul 19, 2016 2:39 am

I think that feat is worth considering for some characters. A caster would benefit most since being staggered doesn't prevent casting, as befitting Casterfinder, of course. It will prevent ever being hit with a rend attack which is nice. Dunno if it can break grapples or avoid improved grab/swallow whole. As much as I like the feat, it seems like an argument generator.

Is there a anything that lets you ignore staggered condition? Or get additional immediate actions?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Jul 19, 2016 5:23 am

There seems to be no limit to the number of times you can use it in a turn. So if your Acrobatics bonus exceeds the expected damage from enemy melee weapons you're essentially melee immune. If you're in a confined space, enemies can point you at walls for 2.5 damage per hit, but that is bullshit damage that won't ever amount to anything.

Being staggered is a big problem for weapon users. You can't full attack or move and attack. So once you start being Bouncing Boy you perform really poorly with a bow and can't do shit with a sword. But you can cast spells just fine. Now if only there was a way for a full caster to get a stupidly high Acrobatics bonus (there actually is).

-Username17

Orca · Post by **Orca** » Tue Jul 19, 2016 6:47 am

The limit on uses/turn is that it requires an immediate action to use. Attacks of opportunity may limit its effectiveness too - the movement from Roll With It still triggers them.

There's a cheap ring which bypasses staggered 1/day - but only from enemy attacks, not from your own actions. I think it may have been nerfed at some point, I'm sure I remember reading about the combination.

Antariuk · Post by **Antariuk** » Wed Jul 20, 2016 8:56 am

I'm pretty sure that ring was hit hard with the nerfbat because it also used to have five (?) charges per day. Fucking errata.

Archmage Joda · Post by **Archmage Joda** » Fri Aug 05, 2016 11:30 pm

So, question: what's the best way to make an unarmed badass type in pathfinder (read: one who kills his enemies with punches and/or kicks, or maybe with a gauntlet) with the least amount of suckage? Warpriest? Pure Cleric? something I'm not thinking of because I'm a moron?

Meikle641 · Post by **Meikle641** » Sat Aug 06, 2016 1:07 am

Speaking of Pathfinder: tagline contest for my upcoming release.

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Sat Aug 06, 2016 3:36 am

Archmage Joda wrote:So, question: what's the best way to make an unarmed badass type in pathfinder (read: one who kills his enemies with punches and/or kicks, or maybe with a gauntlet) with the least amount of suckage? Warpriest? Pure Cleric? something I'm not thinking of because I'm a moron?

At what level? And do they need to be/appear human?

One tactic I've seen, since unarmed strike damage can stack up pretty high, is to use the Vital Strike chain. Combine it with Flyby Attack (Spring Attack won't work, technically) and you can have good mobility at least.

Slade · Post by **Slade** » Sat Aug 06, 2016 3:57 am

Archmage Joda wrote:So, question: what's the best way to make an unarmed badass type in pathfinder (read: one who kills his enemies with punches and/or kicks, or maybe with a gauntlet) with the least amount of suckage? Warpriest? Pure Cleric? something I'm not thinking of because I'm a moron?

Avenger Vigilante gets pretty good with shielded gauntlet style.

Archmage Joda · Post by **Archmage Joda** » Sat Aug 06, 2016 7:03 am

I thought the vigilante was basically a hot bag of piss or something, wasn't it? Also, level would probably be within the 1-8 range at most, since that's what tends to be played in my group.

Orca · Post by **Orca** » Sat Aug 06, 2016 7:21 am

Synthesist summoner (not unchained) can deliver a decent slam attack from level 1; if allowed that'd be my pick for low-mid levels. And while it lacks any other abilities an unchained monk is OK at the actual punching.

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Sat Aug 06, 2016 7:18 pm

Vigilante spends a lot of time trying to make you care about your secret alternate identity. It does get some nifty abilities, though.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Aug 06, 2016 8:22 pm

Archmage Joda wrote:So, question: what's the best way to make an unarmed badass type in pathfinder (read: one who kills his enemies with punches and/or kicks, or maybe with a gauntlet) with the least amount of suckage? Warpriest? Pure Cleric? something I'm not thinking of because I'm a moron?

I actually really like Brawler. Hilariously, if you wanted to make Captain America for whatever reason, you'd take Brawler with the shield based archetype, since it includes shield throwing (I have no clue why either)

Aryxbez · Post by **Aryxbez** » Sun Aug 07, 2016 6:28 am

Starfinder? STARFINDER

I like the idea of "Giant Floating Cubes" race, and having exotic races in general. Although the rest seems kinda like a step back, like continuing to have a Fighter Class in a game of space-goers.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Aug 07, 2016 8:02 am

I'm certainly unimpressed with "Fighters get Weapon Specialization!" If you lead with that, I am not super interested in the rest of your design ideas.

Fighters were contributing party members in 2nd edition at most levels, but it wasn't because Weapon Specialization was a good idea. Weapon Specialization was a shitty kludge that made Fighters even less interesting in exchange for better raw numbers. Back in 2nd Edition AD&D days, team monster had small enough numbers that Fighters could get numbers high enough to pull teir weight in a lot of circumstances - but that was still objectively worse than just giving Fighters the numbers they needed to pull their weight and still be able to toolbox the weapons they found.

This is a full nostalgia play. Paizo is presenting tropes from Spelljammer and Planescape, and they are blowing 2nd edition A&D mechanics dog whistles as hard as they can. And you know what? 2nd edition AD&D was pretty bad. It was pretty bad for the time. And that was a time when games unironically used variable target numbers for dice pools.

This is a sales pitch directly at me, and the sales pitch is "Remember playing D&D when you were 12?" And to be honest, I find that fairly insulting. I actually do remember playing D&D when I was 12. And I remember why we stopped playing like that.

-Username17

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sun Aug 07, 2016 8:50 am

I don't think "fighters continue to be fighters" is part of any deliberate marketing strategy. I don't think anyone at Paizo (or WotC) ever really thinks about whether or not individual design tropes are worth continuing. That sort of introspection just doesn't happen, and everyone ends up making 3e but different (and this time in spaaace) over and over again.

CapnTthePirateG · Post by **CapnTthePirateG** » Sun Aug 07, 2016 3:54 pm

Yeah I have no friggin clue what PF fighters are supposed to do!

I was trying to build a PF fighter the other day, and there are very few feats worth taking. We all know about the Power Attack nerf, but there are no ways to move+full attack, cleave has been split into 2 feats, and most of the feats in PF seem to be balanced around crappy situational bonuses.

I'm also not sure how much sense the Starfinder setting makes - sure, magic is supposed to be dying out due to tech or some shit, but...magical creatures live for a really long time. I'm not really sure where all the wizards and clerics went in the setting, because even with technology there's no reason to give those arts up! I haven't seen their caster classes so I'll reserve judgement, but still...

Regarding the 2e pandering, I'm not sure why that would be a good strategy at all because 5e flopped pretty hard while doing that. I think DSMatticus is right and it's just them not wanting to clean up the legacy code.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Aug 07, 2016 7:12 pm

The reason I don't think this is "fuck it, this is how it worked in 3e" and more of a "We should appeal directly to 2e AD&D Nostalgia" is because they pitched weapon specialization as the signature issue of the Starfinder Soldier. If they were appealing to 3e nostalgia nerdery they would have pitched "something something feat customization."

The deal here is that "using one type of weapon expertly" is really only a thing for 2e AD&D Fighters. The 3e Fighter's shtick is "get a bunch of feats" rather than weapon specialization specifically. Weapon Specialization is an option for where to dump your feats (and generally a horrible one if your weapon of choice isn't a bow), but it's not particularly part of the class sales pitch. The 2nd edition Fighter gets Weapon Expertise front and center as pretty much their only class feature until they get to level 9.

That combined with the setting explicitly inspired by 2nd edition settings (Spelljammer and Planescape) and you got a total package that is very much "We miss 2nd edition AD&D."

-Username17

CapnTthePirateG · Post by **CapnTthePirateG** » Sun Aug 07, 2016 8:03 pm

I'll grant the weapon specialization point indicating that 2e nostalgia is their strategy, but is anyone actually suffering from 2e nostalgia these days?