Dreamscarred Press, ToB:Bo9S and Pathfinder

codeGlaze · Post by **codeGlaze** » Sun Sep 15, 2013 3:31 pm

So I ran across this, because I had the remnants of a hang over and there was not much else I was good for aside from trolling on mah smurt fone.

Since most of my Pathfindering has just been rooting through books and oggling pretty pictures while occasionally stealing some ideas... just how "balanced" is Dreamscarred stuff, normally?

I know Miekle has a problem with them over their Patronage project, but in that thread even he said he had liked the work they'd done for him previously.

Just curious as to what The Den might see in this.

Also, this is hilarious.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Sun Sep 15, 2013 4:18 pm

Not actually sure what their current stuff was like, but their setting/monster books during 3rd edition were wildly variable, with a handful of passable ideas hidden amongst terribly shit and terribly strong crap.

For this specific stuff- the warlord makes my head ache. The gambit system seems like the kind of thing you either stack in your favor, or you accept the fact that you're doing stupid random shit and you might fail a lot, and some of those failures are really bad.

Winsome presence is amusing, just for the fact that someone consulted a thesaurus and ignored the connotations. Apparently all warlords are teenaged girls.

Maneuvers are of course either trivial or no-brainer shit.

Stalker pretty much made me sigh on seeing the class table. Medium BAB, bad saves, ki pool and something called 'deadly strike +1d6'? Plus a dodge bonus? Oh, good, a terrible monk/rogue combo.

And deadly strike only turns on after a crit, and the damage curve is really slow (1d6 every 4 levels). Ugh, trash.

Bonus shit:

Body of the Night
Steel Serpent (Stance) Level: 1 Initiation Action: 1 swift action Range: Personal
Target: You Duration: Stance
A wielder of the secrets of Steel Serpent knows his body and how to use it effectively in the art of stealth. By learning to manipulate his ki flows to obfuscate his movements from sight and to use his body control to mask the sounds of his passage. The disciple may add his ranks in the Heal skill to his ranks in the Stealth skill when making a Stealth check while in this stance as a competence bonus. This is a supernatural ability.

Hurrah, a mandatory ability for stealth RNG breaking. And there are feats to take maneuevers, of course.

tenngu · Post by **tenngu** » Sun Sep 15, 2013 5:26 pm

Does the warlord's Gambit system seriously need penalties for failure? Is the wasting of a full turn, and additionally not recovering your maneuvers, not enough? It seriously feels like someone liked critical failures way too much, and had to bake it in to this class.

Having said that, take the knowledge one and just pump knowledge and then get something to take ten.

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Sun Sep 15, 2013 6:13 pm

Voss wrote:Not actually sure what their current stuff was like, but their setting/monster books during 3rd edition were wildly variable, with a handful of passable ideas hidden amongst terribly shit and terribly strong crap.

I.e., exactly the same as every other splatbook ever made for 3.5E.

Antariuk · Post by **Antariuk** » Sun Sep 15, 2013 6:35 pm

You have to admit, it's genius. A lot of people still talk about ToB:Bo9S or its mechanics all the time, and I bet most of those guys play Pathfinder one way or another. Since Dreamscarred Press already has a pretty dictinctive profile (for a PF publisher) with their Psionics stuff, this is almost guaranteed to make a profit. Especially with a so-called playtest attached.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Sun Sep 15, 2013 6:47 pm

tenngu wrote:Does the warlord's Gambit system seriously need penalties for failure? Is the wasting of a full turn, and additionally not recovering your maneuvers, not enough? It seriously feels like someone liked critical failures way too much, and had to bake it in to this class.

Personally, I wouldn't think so. But looking at the two class write ups, it looks like they are really aiming for classes even worse than the Bo9S' classes, so punishing the players as much as possible seems to be intentional.

@antariuk- Not really. I see no reason why you wouldn't just cite 'compatibility' and simply use the Bo9S. This is really terrible crap. They honestly turned the shitty crit mechanic for 4e magical weapons into a class feature for a class with the worst aspects of the monk and rogue.

echoVanguard · Post by **echoVanguard** » Sun Sep 15, 2013 7:21 pm

Wow, those writeups are not very good. I particularly like how the Warlord's Gambit ability, in addition to being an intrinsically terrible idea, refers to requiring both a full round action and a swift action while claiming that it replaces other actions without being clear about exactly what actions you take when those actions are replaced. Bonus points for Victory Gambit, which requires that you "use a full round action" to "reduce an opponent to 0 or few hit points with a melee or ranged attack on his turn from either a standard attack or a full attack action". Word Salad Level: Caesar.

I also like how the Stalker writeup wastes an entire paragraph describing the ways in which Combat Intuition III does not stack with Critical Focus, disallows you from ever taking Critical Focus, and forces you to drop Critical Focus and replace it with another Critical Feat if you already have it...instead of saying "You gain the Critical Focus feat. If you already have this feat, you gain a Critical feat of your choice".

I admit to being especially surprised by this since I thought their Psionics PF content was pretty good.

echo

Antariuk · Post by **Antariuk** » Sun Sep 15, 2013 7:43 pm

Voss wrote: @antariuk- Not really. I see no reason why you wouldn't just cite 'compatibility' and simply use the Bo9S. This is really terrible crap. They honestly turned the shitty crit mechanic for 4e magical weapons into a class feature for a class with the worst aspects of the monk and rogue.

I said nothing about whether or not their idea - or the writeups for that matter - was any good, just that I think its a really well done marketing gig.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Sun Sep 15, 2013 9:15 pm

Antariuk wrote:
Voss wrote: @antariuk- Not really. I see no reason why you wouldn't just cite 'compatibility' and simply use the Bo9S. This is really terrible crap. They honestly turned the shitty crit mechanic for 4e magical weapons into a class feature for a class with the worst aspects of the monk and rogue.

I said nothing about whether or not their idea - or the writeups for that matter - was any good, just that I think its a really well done marketing gig.

Is it? I have no idea if dreamscarred actually sells product to pathfinder players. Their psionics crap has entries on the other srd for pathfinder, but they're buried at the bottom and are one of two things: straight ports of the 3.5 psionics crap or all new psionics crap that seems as bad or worse. Does that make people buy their products?

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Sep 15, 2013 11:57 pm

Voss wrote:straight ports of the 3.5 psionics crap or all new psionics crap that seems as bad or worse.

Unlike the conversion of spells from 3E to Pathfinder, psionics crap (with the exception of the Erudite) was straight-up buffed or boosted. If you're forced to play in a Pathfinder Game, play a Psion, Wilder (human Student Wilders have a lot more powers than 3E ones), or Tactician.

Psionics sits in a weird place with Pathfinder. It's obviously part of the 3E SRD but Pathfinder is really reluctant to do an official conversion. And with DS press beating them to the punch it seems unlikely that they'll ever do one -- even if they weren't fighting against the whole perception of psionics as some weird add-on system that only rabid fanboys love.

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Mon Sep 16, 2013 12:09 am

I've actually talked to (one of) the heads of DSP, and he says he plans on tearing apart everything until it works.

It certainly doesn't look good right now, but I have faith in ErrantX to take constructive criticism and write something that isn't terrible.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Sep 16, 2013 12:25 am

Why? There really isn't any point to doing that. The only way psionics would 'work' within the Pathfinder paradigm would be nerfing it to hell and back (psionics got a slight buff in the conversion, which makes is grossly overpowered compared to most non-minmaxed Pathfinder stuff) and/or completely redoing the system.

The psionics fanboys are only going to accept the former if it comes with an ironclad oath from Paizo to make it 'official' content. If it's the latter, then no one is going to want it. It's still not part of the Pathfinder paradigm, putting it firmly in the category of '3rd party crap people know about but don't let in their games like Multiclass Archetypes' and they alienate the hardcore psionic base.

If Dreamscarred Press wants to break out of the small-time penny ante business with psionics then their only way forward is to make a Devil's Deal with Paizo to make what they're offering first-party material that will get official support in books from then on.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Mon Sep 16, 2013 2:52 am

...You Lost Me wrote:I've actually talked to (one of) the heads of DSP, and he says he plans on tearing apart everything until it works.

It certainly doesn't look good right now, but I have faith in ErrantX to take constructive criticism and write something that isn't terrible.

Why? If the starting point is 'fuck yourself if you want to have your abilities back' and the other base mechanic is a numerically worse version of sneak attack that happens less often; why would you have any faith that they could turn the whole thing into something useable?

The constructive criticism in this case is, in fact 'Set fire to both classes (for fucks sake, they're both MAD heavy) and start from scratch.' It is far more likely to produce positive results. As well as weeding through the maneuvers, as many of those are just crap or utterly ridiculous - such as incorporeal at low levels (which you can chain for several rounds worth of fuck you), or bizarre effects that don't make any sense- attacks that ignore armor that aren't just touch attacks, or abilities that ignore the (nonexistent) miss chance for attack incorporeal creatures.

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Mon Sep 16, 2013 3:15 am

Lago: I don't care about psionics. I'm talking about Path of War.

Voss: Because I know the guy writing Path of War, and I know he responds well to community critique, and I also know there are a bunch of Bo9S fanboys who all want the book to be awesome and strong and they will harass him until the product comes out as such. What on earth makes you think that something being bad means it will always be bad forever?

If there are things you don't like, he's got a thread on the home website dedicated to hashing things out, and if you post on any thread about his work he'll probably look at it. So, like, do that.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Mon Sep 16, 2013 3:42 am

His project is bad, and he should fucking stop.
Critique: done.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Sep 16, 2013 4:23 am

...You Lost Me wrote:Lago: I don't care about psionics.

What on earth makes you think that something being bad means it will always be bad forever?

Are you sure you don't care about how Dreamscarred Press, the company that is doing Path of War, did with their previous psionics projects? I think it's rather relevant to your question.

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Mon Sep 16, 2013 4:54 am

So your argument for why Bo9S is bad (or can't be not good, I have no idea) is because the same company (not the same author, no that would make too much sense) also wrote some psionics which can't be balanced they were written strong like the way wizards and clerics are written?

I mean, ignoring your reasons for thinking the rules are unsalvageable to... whatever balance point you're using... does that argument actually make sense to you? Especially since the only author didn't write anything for DSP Psionics?

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Sep 16, 2013 5:19 am

...You Lost Me wrote:So your argument for why Bo9S is bad (or can't be not good, I have no idea) is because the same company (not the same author, no that would make too much sense) also wrote some psionics which can't be balanced they were written strong like the way wizards and clerics are written?

Snark all you want, but yes. Yes, that's really how it works and is supposed to work. Now, sometimes mediocre or shitty teams can sometimes be blessed with newbies/outsiders who manage to rise above the crap and reverse the reputation for crap. Nonetheless, the history of TTRPGs and TTRPG writing teams have shown us that in absence of a serious shakeup of management or strategy, smart money is on: this new person will also produce more crap, don't get your hopes up.

Work environment and project history has to count for something.

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Mon Sep 16, 2013 6:24 am

... If you can't see why your reason for psionics sucking is dumb, and how "making things strong" somehow translates to "making other seperate things totally nonfunctional" then I just can't help you.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Sep 16, 2013 10:51 am

It wasn't so much that making psionics strong was the reason why it sucked so much as the reason for them making psionics strong.

Psionics became boosted from 3.5E to Pathfinder in exactly the same way that makes the PF changes by and large nitpicking chores with occasional nuggets of gold. You know the drill: tons of meaningless little filler between levels that accidentally has something nice; increase in racial segregation with that stupid favored class bullshit; random bullshit nerfs to powers based not on how objectively abusive the power is but by how much fanboys complained about them. Since few people play psionics, only the shamzow powers like Metaconcert even got looked at.

Now, unless they decide to repudiate the sort of design philosophy that made PU and Pathfinder-at-large to be shitty, I expect any products they get their hands on to be equally shitty. Book of Nine Swords absolutely does not need the signature Pathfinder Touch if it wants to be relevant and workable. From what I've seen in this very thread, they're making the same kind of fuckups that made Pathfinder unbearable.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Thu Dec 18, 2014 12:22 am

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/path-of-war

Path of War content now on the SRD

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Thu Dec 18, 2014 1:11 am

It's still third-party material, so who gives a shit?

Like I said a year ago, all this move did was permanently taint Bo9S and make the chances of it appearing in a 'real' Pathfinder game completely nil. It's like the Best Brains crew getting Roman Polanski to come out of retirement and finally directing a sequel to the MST3K movie. It doesn't matter how good the result is, you've still wrecked the franchise.

Of course, Bo9S and Psionics fanboys are retarded goat felchers so they probably see this move as their fandom's big break instead of the nail in their coffin.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Thu Dec 18, 2014 1:17 am

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/path-of-war/pre ... age-hunter

Oh man, did they write an Ur-Priest? Nice.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/path-of-war/pre ... bral-blade

And a way to use Dex for attack and damage in exchange for one level. It might even keep progressing your maneuvers.

TiaC · Post by **TiaC** » Thu Dec 18, 2014 3:45 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:It's still third-party material, so who gives a shit?

Like I said a year ago, all this move did was permanently taint Bo9S and make the chances of it appearing in a 'real' Pathfinder game completely nil. It's like the Best Brains crew getting Roman Polanski to come out of retirement and finally directing a sequel to the MST3K movie. It doesn't matter how good the result is, you've still wrecked the franchise.

Of course, Bo9S and Psionics fanboys are retarded goat felchers so they probably see this move as their fandom's big break instead of the nail in their coffin.

You say this like there was ever a chance of Paizo giving martials nice things. For that matter, there was never any real chance of them adding any subsystems outside of core. No, they are and have always been an unadventurous company.

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Thu Dec 18, 2014 4:20 pm

I really like Bo9S. I feel like it's an excellent jumping-off point for all kinds of shenanigans for martial characters, like the spellcasting alternate Swordsage (replace maneuvers with spells, same recovery mechanic, same method of calculating spell level access as maneuver level access) and the general power-up the martial classes get.

Tack on some custom PrCs and I like the result.