[PF] Explain Pathfinder Design Philosphy to Me

[Person_Man]

OK, so I read a lot of games, and I play whenever possible. I'm a bit of an obsessive list maker, and like to think about why writers and editors do what they choose to do.

But I can't seem to understand the main design philosophy behind Pathfinder. I've read the rules and most of the supplements and played the game, and these are the patterns which have emerged to me:

No dead levels. However, it's ok to give a minor bonus for 5ish+ or more levels if you're a non-caster. (Gunslinger's Nimble, Inquisitor's Judgment, Fighter's Armor Training, etc).
Feats provide minor bonuses or abilities. Very few provide scaled bonuses or multiply effects, and those tend to be holdovers from 3.5.
Useful Feats tend to require 2+ less useful pre-reqs.
If you have full BAB or even 3/4 BAB, your Powers or Talents are roughly as powerful as Feats. Higher level abilities get better, but tend not to be nearly as powerful as higher level spells.
Damage bonuses are few and far between (which actually makes the Rogue and Ninja a bit more unique and useful).
Combat Maneuvers suck unless you highly specialize in them (2+ Feats plus class abilities). In particular, most Combat Maneuvers require a Standard Action to use unless you have a special ability which triggers them, and then you're usually getting just 1 per turn with your normal full attack routine.
Pounce and free movement are fairly hard to come by, which makes melee more difficult.
A meaningful good faith effort was made to remove the worst abuses of magic. But they just ended up creating new and different issues in their supplements (mostly by adding new spells which are dramatically more powerful then Feats or class abilities), while leaving most non-caster classes in Tier 4.


Now I like Paizo a lot, and thank them deeply and honestly from the bottom of my heart that they're still publishing my favorite game. But I can't understand the rationale behind the above choices.

Please explain it to me. Or tell me why I'm wrong (preferably with examples and not insults). I'm interesting in spirited, informative debate. If your answer is "because they suck" it's probably not useful. Thanks.

[Blisstake]

OK, so I read a lot of games, and I play whenever possible. I'm a bit of an obsessive list maker, and like to think about why writers and editors do what they choose to do.

I think I can give some explanation. Keep in mind, I'm not on the design team, but I usually keep up with their thoughts on game design.


No dead levels. However, it's ok to give a minor bonus for 5ish+ or more levels if you're a non-caster. (Gunslinger's Nimble, Inquisitor's Judgment, Fighter's Armor Training, etc).

It's still a character improvement without overloading the player with options. I know there are a lot of people who loved the 3.5 fighter due to its simplicity. The Pathfinder developers want to retain this, and keep the overall feel of the class the same, without going overboard on the extra abilities. This helps keep these classes good at what they're supposed to do (damage, taking hits) without overwhelming a newer player, or someone who just wants to play something simple for once.


Feats provide minor bonuses or abilities. Very few provide scaled bonuses or multiply effects, and those tend to be holdovers from 3.5. Thus classes which provide Feats as part of their class abilities (Fighter, Cavalier, etc).

Useful Feats tend to require 2+ less useful pre-reqs.

Personally, I feel this preferable to having extremely good feats surrounded by a mountain of crappy ones. There were many builds that required exact feat orders without really any variation.

The feat implementation could have still been a lot better, in my opinion, but I think they realize that many are minor bonuses. That's probably why they give you more of them now.


If you have full BAB or even 3/4 BAB, your Powers or Talents are roughly as powerful as Feats. Higher level abilities get better, but tend not to be nearly as powerful as higher level spells.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean on this one. And no, high BAB class abilities won't be as good as spells. Spells, especially the high level ones are a very limited resource that pretty much are the sole power held by casters. A paladin can run out of smites and still be powerful, and a barbarian can still do some good hits while raging. It helps them out, but casters need spell slots to function.


Damage bonuses are few and far between (which actually makes the Rogue and Ninja a bit more unique and useful).

Really? I feel like there are plenty. :smallconfused:


Combat Maneuvers suck unless you highly specialize in them (2+ Feats plus class abilities). In particular, most Combat Maneuvers require a Standard Action to use unless you have a special ability which triggers them, and then you're usually getting just 1 per turn with your normal full attack routine.

They actually don't suck - I used to think this too, but then I came across an important rule: you modify your combat maneuver checks by any other bonuses you would receive to attack. This includes enhancement bonuses, weapon focus, haste, bless, flanking, charging, all that good stuff. Since I've used that rule, combat maneuvers have been a lot easier to land, and exceedingly helpful in battle.


Pounce and free movement are fairly hard to come by, which makes melee more difficult.

Definitely intentional. Pounce basically became a "must have" for every melee class everywhere. If you don't have pounce, you're crap. Well, now not every melee class has to dip into Lion Totem Barbarian (or something similar) to be competetive. It also helps archers (which are much better in PF) show their biggest advantage, and lets positioning become a more important aspect of the game.

And if the next argument is that it makes them weak compared to casters, my answer is "not really." The reason casters are better is mostly because of their utility, and the variety of ways they can solve a problem in and out of combat. Plus, they can't do more damage than a fighter now by polymorphing, so there's another point to the melee classes.


A meaningful good faith effort was made to remove the worst abuses of magic. But they just ended up creating new and different issues in their supplements (mostly by adding new spells which are dramatically more powerful then Feats or class abilities), while leaving most non-caster classes in Tier 4.


I don't think Pathfinder was designed for gaming groups where the tier system applies the most. Honestly, I think if that were the case, it wouldn't have been nearly as successful as it is now. The gaming group it was meant for? Probably the ones that mostly use core, occassionally using something in a supplement book they found, wondering why their fighter doesn't really do that much damage compared to a fireball.

As for the spells, I think they did fix a lot. And when they didn't, they usually come around to errata the worst abuses. It's not nearly as bad is it was before, in my opinion. I mean, there aren't any game breaking polymorphs any more, celerity is in the trash can, Gate is slightly less abuseable, metamagic stacking is out, instant stat deaths are a no-go (looking at you, Shivering Touch), and Consumptive Aura has yet to reveal its ugly head.

Of course, there's plenty left that can be abused, and some new material that I frankly do not care for (Summoner and Alchemist irritate me), but overall, I like the direction the design is going in.

Now keep in mind, I'm explaining the thought process behind many of these decisions, not saying they are the correct way it should have been designed. That's open for debate, and honestly, not one I feel like getting into.

[Bhaakon]

Now I like Paizo a lot, and thank them deeply and honestly from the bottom of my heart that they're still publishing my favorite game. But I can't understand the rationale behind the above choices.

Their business strategy was to make a game virtually identical to 3.5 in mechanics and feel, so that they could take over the large population of D&D fans who didn't care to make the conversion to 4e. They (perhaps rightly) figured that players who cared that much about balance had gone to 4e, and they were better off maintaining the feel of 3.5, flaws and all.

This meant keeping a lot of underlying issue in place, like linear fighters/quadratic wizards and melee can't have nice things, because those design flaws had long since become a distinguishing feature of D&D, and couldn't be removed without significantly altering the rules.

You also have to realize that their company background is in developing adventures rather than game design, so they care more for verisimilitude and building consistency between fluff and mechanics than pure game balance. It's also obvious that they don't care much for loophole exploitations and cheese, which they tend to define as achieving magical ends by mundane means.

[Akal Saris]

Well, I'll give my opinion regarding each of those design decisions, for what it's worth:

* No dead levels...

The intent here is clear - avoid Fighter 5 problems. It's similar to the 3.5 "Dead Levels" series of online articles that give tiny, barely-noticeable abilities, just so a PC has something to look forward towards, even if the mechanical benefit is small.

* Feats provide minor bonuses or abilities.

I think this is because scaling/multiplicative bonuses are much harder to balance than simple numerical ones. Many charging builds in 3.5, as you know, rely on adding up charge multipliers (valorous, spirited charge, rhino's rush, etc) and stacking up scaling bonuses from power attack and leap attack/shock trooper. It meant a lot more math (Seriously - multipliers and calculating variable power attack takes too much time for most people at my table...) and it meant that melee builds were frequently shepherded into this sort of charge-and-1-shot type of build, which I don't think was very enjoyable in general.

* Useful Feats tend to require 2+ less useful pre-reqs.

I think this is a carry-over from 3.5 design philosophy and is inspired by the idea of delayed gratification making the final reward feel more satisfying. I'm not a big fan of it really.

* If you have full BAB or even 3/4 BAB, your Powers or Talents are roughly as powerful as Feats. Higher level abilities get better, but tend not to be nearly as powerful as higher level spells.

Well, calling rogue talents equal to feats is an insult to feats everywhere :P But I see the logic of this - you want these powers to be equal to feats so the fighter doesn't feel left behind, and feats provide a relatively easy measure of power. Since most of these abilities are at-will, then making one equal to equivalent level spells would be problematic and might leave behind classes without this kind of talent (such as cavaliers, for example).

* Damage bonuses are few and far between (which actually makes the Rogue and Ninja a bit more unique and useful).

Again I think it comes back to removing scaling bonuses and multiplicative effects.

* Combat Maneuvers suck unless you highly specialize in them (2+ Feats plus class abilities). In particular, most Combat Maneuvers require a Standard Action to use unless you have a special ability which triggers them, and then you're usually getting just 1 per turn with your normal full attack routine.

I think a lot of the optimization in Pathfinder for CM's comes down to obtaining special abilities that trigger your CM, which is a bit odd. I suppose the purpose is to make a character feel more strictly defined by a specific style of fighting rather than being good at multiple maneuvers.

* Pounce and free movement are fairly hard to come by, which makes melee more difficult.

I think this is another design hold-over from 3.5. Lion Spirit Totem Barbarian was a complete aberration in terms of class design - without that then options for obtaining pounce without polymorph/wildshape diminished drastically to either quasi-pounce feats with claws/light weapons or higher level abilities (5th level maneuvers for swordsages/warblades) or specific vestiges for binders.

* A meaningful good faith effort was made to remove the worst abuses of magic. But they just ended up creating new and different issues in their supplements (mostly by adding new spells which are dramatically more powerful then Feats or class abilities), while leaving most non-caster classes in Tier 4.

First, as a caveat, I don't think the tier system as commonly acknowledged is actually relevant to in-game performance for most classes, because it ignores ease of usage for a class. Summoner is a weaker tier class than a cleric, but its much easier for your average player to build a very powerful summoner than it is to build a great cleric or wizard.

Otherwise I think Paizo weakened a number of the strongest go-to spells that were used effectively by spellcasters while leaving in place the spells that can be used creatively in theoretical builds to break the game. Solid Fog and Glitterdust were nerfed (Glitterdust is still quite good really), while PAO and Planar Binding were untouched, for example.

It's tricky to add new spells that aren't better than class features because then they wouldn't be competitive with existing spells that weren't nerfed, and Paizo shied away from weakening every level 5+ spell across the board.

***
At the end, you have to ask: is balancing melee with magic a core design decision at Paizo? And as an optimizer, I think the answer is no, it's not central to their balancing. This is not 4E, where classes are fairly uniform in strength (all things being relative), and it's not quite 3.5 where melee "balance" with casters was mainly through rocket tag style damage boosts and winning the fight if you won initiative. Does that make Pathfinder a poorly designed game? Or is it simply a game with other design goals in mind?

[Water_Bear]

A meaningful good faith effort was made to remove the worst abuses of magic. But they just ended up creating new and different issues in their supplements (mostly by adding new spells which are dramatically more powerful then Feats or class abilities), while leaving most non-caster classes in Tier 4.


I'd say that they brought the Tiers a lot closer together and, despite the inadvisable melee nerfs, improved non-casters significantly.

The spell lists, while still full of cheesy goodies, are much less cheesy with a lot of the most problematic spells nerfed or omited. And while Wizards got a really unjustifiably large number of class features, Clerics lost Turn Undead cheese and Druids got hit with the nerf bat.

While the goodies given to non-casters don't (with the exception of the Rogue) move them up to higher Tiers, they are much easier to play well. Combat Maneuvers and Skill consolidation, along with the huge number of archetypes available, really help make non-casters an appealing option.

I wouldn't say Pathfinder 'fixed' the balance issues of 3.5, but they took a beloved system and made it, IMO, much more playable and fun. Plus, it helped kill 4e which is a glorious victory on it's own.

[Answerer]

I'm thoroughly convinced that there is no one in Paizo intelligent enough to know what the word 'philosophy' even means.

(while that is a joke, there are definitely some team members there that I have suspicions in that direction about)

Asking Paizo to justify any decision is silly. They don't have reasons for most of the things they do except for a gut reaction at the time it comes up. If you'd asked this question on their forum, there is a relatively good chance you'd get banned.

And the reality is, it's probably a good business plan. That's how a lot of people approach D&D anyway, and it saves loads on development. They've got a cornered market for the most part, and it's allowing them to survive. Hard to critique that in a company. But to expect that they have a higher ideal in mind? I don't think that's reasonable.

[navar100]

If you are enslaved by the Tier System, Pathfinder will not help you. If you're enraged by 3E magic, warriors use equipment, and Natural Spell exists, Pathfinder will not help you. Admit to yourself already you hate the 3E system and play another game. If you have admitted as such and do play another game, then get over your hatred of 3E already and stop complaining about it ad infinitum.

Pathfinder caters to players who liked 3E and not 4E, the fired customers of WOTC, as well as obviously wanting players new to the genre. Those who like 3E agree it has its faults, and Pathfinder gave its opinions on the matter on where changes were necessary. It is not universally liked by those who like 3E. While that was the ideal goal it is not a required happenstance.

The main contention is feats. Some people are bothered some 3E feats got split and Power Attack changed. I think this was done to allow for more variety of warrior combat styles. In 3E, the vocal minority 3E bashers who haven't gotten over their hatred of 3E declare the only viable warrior option is to use a two-handed weapon and either go Lockdown or Ubercharger. Two-weapon style? You suck. Sword & shield? You're a sucker. Archery? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. The changes Pathfinder made has allowed those other fighting styles to be competitive. Two-handed style may still deal out the most damage, which is fine because it should have a nice niche, but it is no longer overwhelmingly the optimal choice. That I find is a good thing.

[Answerer]

It would be a good thing if it were true but it's not.

[navar100]

Gesundheit

[Aemoh87]

I was waiting for one of these threads to pop up.

Obviously Paizo's first goal was to sell product. But have we forgotten the old "WHY IS 3.5 BORKEN?! LETS FIX IT EASY SIMPLE TIME!!!1!" threads. Did we not learn anything from late 3.5? Factotum and ToB? Come on! Utility is king and super-specialization is a game killer. Clearly they wanted every class to be better at more things (the opposite of 4E). There is a ton of new utility spells and options (like combat maneuvers) which give you more to do than just straight damage. A lot of the classes now operate on several different and accessible (to newer players) mechanics.

Now clearly spells are really really good. Because you have lots of options and more options = better class (assuming each class has decent options to pick from). If fighter picked as many feats as wizard picked spells things would be different right?

So to my point, now you can actually play Barbarian more than one way without getting laughed at. Your much more likely to make a good character with no research or optimization forums. Paizo made a much better game but the problem still stands, you get to pick more spells than feats/class abilities. Oh and Wizards get to pick class abilities now too.


I'm thoroughly convinced that there is no one in Paizo intelligent enough to know what the word 'philosophy' even means.

(while that is a joke, there are definitely some team members there that I have suspicions in that direction about)

Asking Paizo to justify any decision is silly. They don't have reasons for most of the things they do except for a gut reaction at the time it comes up. If you'd asked this question on their forum, there is a relatively good chance you'd get banned.

And the reality is, it's probably a good business plan. That's how a lot of people approach D&D anyway, and it saves loads on development. They've got a cornered market for the most part, and it's allowing them to survive. Hard to critique that in a company. But to expect that they have a higher ideal in mind? I don't think that's reasonable.

As to this quote... THOUSANDS of hours were poured into 3.5 to break it. Then a couple hundred spent trying to fix it on several different forums with NO SOLUTION. No one came close to how far these guys got. So maybe the fact they just decided to pump out a fun game with tons of new content wasn't good enough since they couldn't solve the riddle that is 3.5. But as some one who played way to much 3.5 this was amazing to have new material to pour over, and a fun update to say the least. I am sad they didn't learn more from psionics (power points = more utility) and they didn't learn from ToB (melee can have nice things too, or at least shiny things), but they got alot right.

But since your so smart I will be expecting your 3.5 fix in my private message box sometime next week.

[Answerer]

No one came close to how far these guys got.
This isn't even remotely true.

And I'm not taking people's money for my supposed fix. I'm not advertising any product as a fix. I didn't stage an entire faux-playtest as a publicity stunt to spread the propaganda that I was making a fix.

By their own actions, Paizo has set themselves up to be judged by higher standards than the rest of us. They have claimed achievements, and when anyone looks to see them, they have been found lacking. And then they banned the people who pointed it out.

As for better alternatives, 3.5 Core is arguably better-balanced than PF Core. 3.5 as a whole is much better balanced than PF, particularly if you remove the Core classes.

And, finally, while we're on the subject, I'd point you to Legend as a game that was made to "fix" 3.5 that is massively, far-and-away, superior to Pathfinder, and moreover actually does fix 3.5's myriad problems.

[Starbuck_II]

As of Ultimate Equipment book, we hsve a new design rule: Never design any item that only benefits Monks.

the new Monk Wraps: benefit one attack with +1-+7, 1 extra attack at 6 BAB, 2 extra attacks at 12 BAB, 3 extra Attacks at 16 BAB.
The catch it works on unarnmed strike and Natural weapons. Cost more than Amulet. Better for animal companions. Bonus squared x 3,000 gp for it. Unlike Amuet of Mighty Fist: this goes up to +7, but has to have a +1 enhancement bonus before any special weapon property.

Brawlers armor property must be put on Light armor: grant +2 unarmed hit/damage and grapple checks. So Fighters are better at unarmed if they want.

[BRC]

A meaningful good faith effort was made to remove the worst abuses of magic. But they just ended up creating new and different issues in their supplements (mostly by adding new spells which are dramatically more powerful then Feats or class abilities), while leaving most non-caster classes in Tier 4.

The thing is that Spells are a really easy trap to fall into, game-design wise. A Feat is a permanent part of a character, and must somehow be explained as sufficient skill or training. A Spell is simply a Spell, they say "Make Me Thirty Spells", and so you do, and they need no explanation. You think "What is something cool that could happen", and then make a spell that does it.

That said, I think PF's philosophy was "Let's Fix 3.5". I'm not going to touch the question of if they succeeded with a ten foot pole of +5 touching, but I do prefer Pathfinder to 3.5. Largely for the simple stuff, like combining Hide and Move Silently into Stealth, or including a simple "Advanced" template so I can easily power up weaker monsters without spending twenty minutes calculating how Hit Dice Increases work.

[Novawurmson]

In regards to the damage bonus/pounce questions...

In 3.5, combat quickly devolves into a game of rocket-tag; damage bonuses and multipliers mean that focused builds (cough cough chargers) can deal much more damage than anything in their CR range can be expected to handle. PF attempted to deal with this by lowering both the amount of damage that can be done and the number of ways to gain damage bonuses, meaning that players are eventually left with spaces in their build that can't go to damage, and instead need to go to utility, defense, etc. The lack of many viable pounce options is a way of reducing DPR.

[Blisstake]

As of Ultimate Equipment book, we hsve a new design rule: Never design any item that only benefits Monks.

the new Monk Wraps: benefit one attack with +1-+7, 1 extra attack at 6 BAB, 2 extra attacks at 12 BAB, 3 extra Attacks at 16 BAB.
The catch it works on unarnmed strike and Natural weapons. Cost more than Amulet. Better for animal companions. Bonus squared x 3,000 gp for it. Unlike Amuet of Mighty Fist: this goes up to +7, but has to have a +1 enhancement bonus before any special weapon property.

Brawlers armor property must be put on Light armor: grant +2 unarmed hit/damage and grapple checks. So Fighters are better at unarmed if they want.

This is actually intentional. Monks aren't designed around being able to do as much damage as a fighter.

[RndmNumGen]

Unlike some, I do not think Pathfinder's goal was to 'fix' 3.5. They wanted to keep 3.5 intact, with all of the good and bad that entailed - this is how they aimed to appeal to veteran players.

What I feel Paizo's design philosophy was with Pathfinder is threefold:

1) Retain the look and feel of 3.5, but in a new product.
2) Make the game more accessible to new players.
3) Remove the largest exploits, power outliers and mechanical aberrations.

3.5 was successful - why would Paizo, a company that didn't have a history of publishing RPGs, make a new system, one with the potential to fail? Paizo didn't want that, they wanted to continue publishing adventures for 3.5 like that had been doing. However, they couldn't because 3.5 was retired by WotC. So they re-released 3.5 in a way that fit their business model.

Paizo wanted to bring new players into the fold, but not make the same mistakes WotC did with 4e. Rather than make any huge changes, Paizo just tried to simplify the more confusing systems in 3.5(grapple flowchart, anybody?) to make it easier for new players to pick up.

Finally, while Paizo didn't want to make any large changes, they did realize that several exploits and loopholes were damaging to the system as a whole, and worked to remove them. This includes the polymorph line of spells, among others, but not the 'linear warrior quadratic wizard' problem - that would be too big a change, and risked alienating the 3.5 veterans.

[Wyntonian]

This is actually intentional. Monks aren't designed around being able to do as much damage as a fighter.

I imagine they are supposed to be better at fighting unarmed, though. Y'know, the one thing they're supposed to be good at?


Also, this is how I imagine the design decision went down at Paizo on the topic of fighters.

Designer: Hmmm... I've always wondered why people don't like the fighter. I mean, it gets some pretty impressive numbers at times. What could be missing?

Intern: Um.... Bigger numbers?

Designer: Oh... my... god. EGAD! You're RIGHT! Just give the class that's supposed to have big numbers slightly bigger numbers! That'll fix EVERYTHING!

Intern: Jesus, dude. I was kidding. No need to be sarcastic.

Designer: Sarcastic? Heavens above, no! You just earned yourself a bonus! Well done, my lad, well done!

Intern: Thanks?

Designer: Now, I have this question about the wizard...see, I don't think they get enough spells per day......


20 mins later:

Intern: Um. What if they had unlimited cantrips?

[Blisstake]

I imagine they are supposed to be better at fighting unarmed, though. Y'know, the one thing they're supposed to be good at?

No, not if the fighter is specialized for it. It's quite viable for them now, even compared to two handed.

[Reverent-One]

And, finally, while we're on the subject, I'd point you to Legend as a game that was made to "fix" 3.5 that is massively, far-and-away, superior to Pathfinder, and moreover actually does fix 3.5's myriad problems.

And how backwards compatiable is it with 3.5?

[Ashtagon]

And how backwards compatiable is it with 3.5?

I know there is a lot of old material written for 3.5, but given that a lot of that old material is just as wonky, is backwards compatibility necessarily a goal to strive for these days?

[Reverent-One]

I know there is a lot of old material written for 3.5, but given that a lot of that old material is just as wonky, is backwards compatibility necessarily a goal to strive for these days?

It is for Pathfinder, in fact, by all indications it was their primary goal. They wanted to continue 3.5, not create a largely/totally new game system, which is generally it's main appeal to those who play it.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

As for the spells, I think they did fix a lot. And when they didn't, they usually come around to errata the worst abuses. It's not nearly as bad is it was before, in my opinion. I mean, there aren't any game breaking polymorphs any more, celerity is in the trash can, Gate is slightly less abuseable, metamagic stacking is out, instant stat deaths are a no-go (looking at you, Shivering Touch), and Consumptive Aura has yet to reveal its ugly head.
Otherwise I think Paizo weakened a number of the strongest go-to spells that were used effectively by spellcasters while leaving in place the spells that can be used creatively in theoretical builds to break the game. Solid Fog and Glitterdust were nerfed (Glitterdust is still quite good really), while PAO and Planar Binding were untouched, for example.
The spell lists, while still full of cheesy goodies, are much less cheesy with a lot of the most problematic spells nerfed or omited.They only nerfed the lower levels of the list, plus the Polymorph line. Then they got bored, said "no one ever plays high level," did a trivial change to gate (and nerfed Irresistable Dance and Mind Blank, because those were the game breakers?) and called it a day. All the other "omissions" are a function of Paizo's relative lack of content. If you're playing 3.P they're in; if you're not, you're throwing away part of Pathfinder's backwards compatibility selling point (and a lot of good content).

I agree with the notion that Pathfinder's selling point was simply continuing 3.5 while making enough changes, especially at those low playtesting levels, that to a non-optimizing crowd the game got "fixed." To be honest, no matter the actual quality of the game, their strategy appears to be working very well for them.

[Person_Man]

Lots of great posts here - and I appreciate the variety of perspectives.

Perhaps it would be useful to work through an example together, to better illuminate the design philosophy from the perspective of a Paizo author or editor.

Lets say that we wanted to rewrite the Incarnate for Pathfinder. For the sake of this example, let's assume that he has absolutely no magical, supernatural, or psionic abilities, and has 3/4 BAB and Rogue-ish Skills (which would make sense for a class based around boosting Skills and defense). How would we write this class, assuming that we want it to fit into the overall ecosystem of Pathfinder.

Can he shape any 2 of it's 50ish soulmelds starting at level 1, or is that too many options for a non-caster?
Can he change them every day (or multiple times per day), or does he have to be locked into his choices?
Are insight bonuses to multiple Skills to big (+4-14ish)?
Are the combat bonuses provided too big (+1-10ish to-hit and/or AC, +1-30ish to damage, +1-6ish on Saves, +2-120ish bonus hit points)?
If you reduce any of the above to reduce its versatility or bonuses provided, what the rationale for doing so?


Thoughts?

[Tyndmyr]

They also seemed to worry a lot about existing melee combos that were well known(ie, power attack, etc). It's almost as if a bit of internet surfing/table wisdom was used to inform these decisions, but nobody really delved deep into the mysteries of charop.

The same is true of spells. There wasn't much in the way of changes among the highest levels. Grease is changed, true...but wish economies are not addressed.

I'm assuming that the folks behind it never really played beyond a medium op level, and tended not to play higher than about level ten much.

[RndmNumGen]

For the Incarnate:


My gut instinct is that 50 is too many; while useful for versatility, that is a lot of options for a non-optimizer to sort through. I would start with 20, with the possibility of adding more though additional splatbooks.
I think he can probably change them as much per day as he wants, but probably with a 1-hour preparation time each time he changes them.
I'm unfamiliar with how Incarnate scales, but +4 to a skill at first level should be reasonable, if a bit on the high end. +14 at 20th would be fine.
If the 1-10 to hit runs from levels 1-20, that should be fine. +30 damage at 20 seems far too large, though. Saves should probably run 1-4, and HP maybe 3-60?


I didn't really analyze these, they're just based off my gut feeling with other Pathfinder classes.

[Boci]

I'm unfamiliar with how Incarnate scales, but +4 to a skill at first level should be reasonable, if a bit on the high end. +14 at 20th would be fine.

If you invest essentia (which you will be able to do for 1 of your two melds at level 1), its +6, or +4 to two skills as a general rule. Some exceptions though.

[RndmNumGen]

If you invest essentia (which you will be able to do for 1 of your two melds at level 1), its +6, or +4 to two skills as a general rule. Some exceptions though.

So, for both melds, you can have one skill at +4 and another at +6?

[Boci]

So, for both melds, you can have one skill at +4 and another at +6?

If you are only interested in increasing skills, then yes, that is what you will have at level one (although two of the races in MoI will have +6/+6 due to having an extra point of essentia).

[Wonton]

While we're talking about philosophy, here is another interesting question about both 3.5 and PF:

Why are so many of the feats in both systems just boring +1 bonuses to something-or-other? Personally, I like my characters to have something they can do round-to-round, and then a few "oh crap I need to kill this" moves (like 4e's encounter powers) and one or two "I REALLY need to kill this" moves (like 4e's daily powers). Video game designers figured this one out a long time ago - active abilities are far more fun than passive ones.

And yet if we think about the first few feats we take on martial characters, there's a lot of "+1" type things like Point Blank Shot, Weapon Focus, Precise Shot, Two-Weapon Fighting. Deadly Aim and Power Attack are small steps in the right direction - at least you can choose when to use these feats (although the effect is still a fairly boring numerical +/-). Pathfinder Cleave is an even better design - here is something that actually gives you a new attack option. But really, if you ask me, there need to be a lot more feats like Leaping Shot Deed (although, arguably, it's a little weak). Something that's limited in use, completely different from the regular attack routine, and feels very cool to use. Way more fun than a +1 to hit will ever be.

[NamelessNPC]

I'm thoroughly convinced that there is no one in Paizo intelligent enough to know what the word 'philosophy' even means.

(while that is a joke, there are definitely some team members there that I have suspicions in that direction about)

Asking Paizo to justify any decision is silly. They don't have reasons for most of the things they do except for a gut reaction at the time it comes up. If you'd asked this question on their forum, there is a relatively good chance you'd get banned.

And the reality is, it's probably a good business plan. That's how a lot of people approach D&D anyway, and it saves loads on development. They've got a cornered market for the most part, and it's allowing them to survive. Hard to critique that in a company. But to expect that they have a higher ideal in mind? I don't think that's reasonable.

Does anybody else thinks this post is waaaaaay to aggresive for the matter we are discussing? Answerer, do you hate the people at Paizo?

And also, the bolded part demands a huge [citation needed]

[Wonton]

Does anybody else thinks this post is waaaaaay to aggresive for the matter we are discussing? Answerer, do you hate the people at Paizo?

And also, the bolded part demands a huge [citation needed]

I thought so too. I mean - there ARE a few cases where it feels that the Paizo designers just didn't think something through all the way (Ninja = Rogue 2.0?), but they don't deserve that much flak.

[Aemoh87]

And, finally, while we're on the subject, I'd point you to Legend as a game that was made to "fix" 3.5 that is massively, far-and-away, superior to Pathfinder, and moreover actually does fix 3.5's myriad problems.

... no offense to the people who made legend, but no. First of all it is not massive. Legend is tiny compared to most systems out there. Pathfinder releases more in 1 month that Legend has ever released. It is not far-and-away superior to Pathfinder in most ways, unless you really wanna play the balance card (which legend has created it's own balanced problems, but to your point they are different than the ones in 3.5)... but then 4E is the best system ever made. And Legend has a ton of it's own problems and outside of the play by post it groups on Gitp I have never heard of or seen Legend played. I see more L5R, Serenity, Wushu, and Mechwarrior than Legend.

[RndmNumGen]

I thought so too. I mean - there ARE a few cases where it feels that the Paizo designers just didn't think something through all the way (Ninja = Rogue 2.0?), but they don't deserve that much flak.

Ninja is just an Eastern adaptation of the Rogue class, or as another way of thinking about it, an advanced archtype. The designers state so themselves; this is why you can't take levels of both Ninja and Rogue. I don't think it was ever intended to really be a different class.

[Blisstake]

Ninja is just an Eastern adaptation of the Rogue class, or as another way of thinking about it, an advanced archtype. The designers state so themselves; this is why you can't take levels of both Ninja and Rogue. I don't think it was ever intended to really be a different class.

I think he was suggesting that the ninja was just plain superior to the rogue, not that they were too similar.

The ninja is pretty nice, mostly because of the ki pool (extra attacks and ninja tricks are pretty nice), but the rogue has a lot more archetype support.

[Baka Nikujaga]

... no offense to the people who made legend, but no. First of all it is not massive. Legend is tiny compared to most systems out there. Pathfinder releases more in 1 month that Legend has ever released. It is not far-and-away superior to Pathfinder in most ways, unless you really wanna play the balance card (which legend has created it's own balanced problems, but to your point they are different than the ones in 3.5)... but then 4E is the best system ever made. And Legend has a ton of it's own problems and outside of the play by post it groups on Gitp I have never heard of or seen Legend played. I see more L5R, Serenity, Wushu, and Mechwarrior than Legend.

Aemoh, the Answerer did not claim that "Legend's player base was massive" nor that it was "larger than Pathfinder's" only that it is "mechanically superior to Pathfinder's attempt at improving 3.5" (on a massive scale).

http://i54.tinypic.com/2nsz4av.jpg
As for Paizo justifying decisions,
Honestly, I would much prefer it if the posting Paizo staff would be willing to properly explain their decisions and hold a proper discussion with their player base (even if it's restricted only to their forum). I mean, Pathfinder Society, which is meant to be a "living campaign," would benefit greatly if the staff would be willing to increase transparency and work [openly] to addressing some of the issues and gray spots that arise from the rule differences between the normal game and PFS (even a YT Stream or something would be much better than "We thought about it" explanations). Similarly, rules changes that affect the totality of Pathfinder (such as the multitude of additional Monk restrictions on Unarmed Strikes and the culminating "Monks are Borked" threads), would generate better public relations if Paizo's staff would post either regular updates or openly discuss the materials they are working to address.

[Wonton]

Ninja is just an Eastern adaptation of the Rogue class, or as another way of thinking about it, an advanced archtype. The designers state so themselves; this is why you can't take levels of both Ninja and Rogue. I don't think it was ever intended to really be a different class.

I was more referring to the fact that the Ninja only loses trapfinding and Evasion compared to the Rogue, while gaining poison use, a ki pool, a ton of new talents, No Trace, and Light Steps. Just seems like a superior class in every way to me.

[Answerer]

And how backwards compatiable is it with 3.5?
Meaningless, since Pathfinder isn't either.

Oh, Pathfinder is closer, but it's not actually backwards-compatible. This is actually a major problem – it looks backwards-compatible, it claims to be backwards-compatible – but it isn't. It's disingenuous and involves a non-trivial amount of work to adapt 3.5 material.


Does anybody else thinks this post is waaaaaay to aggresive for the matter we are discussing? Answerer, do you hate the people at Paizo?

And also, the bolded part demands a huge [citation needed]
I consider a number of their design "decisions" to be indicative of the very worst in tabletop game design. Sean K. Reynolds has made it abundantly clear that he not only cares nothing for mechanics, he actively disdains anyone who does. Numerous decisions have been made with no regard to the ramifications of those decisions. For examples, there's Monk non-full BAB (but full sometimes! which is really terrible design from the simple perspective of having to keep track of more things), haphazard approach to spell balance, the whole Flurry/TWF fiasco, etc. etc. Add on to this the fact that Paizo responded to such criticism with bans during their publicity stunt playtest, and you have people that I cannot take seriously as designers.

I'm sorry I can't give more detail than that; Paizo isn't worth that much time to me. If you want to discount my position on that basis, I fully understand and accept that position (having taken it myself with respect to other posters).


... no offense to the people who made legend, but no. First of all it is not massive. Legend is tiny compared to most systems out there. Pathfinder releases more in 1 month that Legend has ever released.
The word used was "massively" As in, an adverb. Modifying the verb "is" in this case, indicating that it "is [...] superior" in a "massive" way.

Not that it has a massive amount of content.


It is not far-and-away superior to Pathfinder in most ways, unless you really wanna play the balance card (which legend has created it's own balanced problems, but to your point they are different than the ones in 3.5)... but then 4E is the best system ever made.
Legend's balance is better than 4E's, and also it is arguably more flexible and variable, despite far less publishing time, far fewer publishing resources, and less published content.

But in any event, you are correct that it's not necessarily superior to Pathfinder in every way. I stated, or at least intended to state, that it was better than Pathfinder in the realm of fixing 3.5's mechanical problems. A statement which, I think, is probably beyond dispute. My apologies if that was unclear.

As for most ways, that's an interesting statement even before we consider the its veracity. "Most" implies a majority, more than 50%. Which implies a finite list of "ways" in which to consider a game's quality, of which Legend is not far-and-away superior to Pathfinder in more than half of them. I don't even know how to respond to that because I don't think the premises hold: I don't think there is any such finite list, that one could even use the word "most" against. If you had one in mind, I'd be curious to hear it.

Are there ways in which Pathfinder is superior? Undoubtedly. It's not backwards-compatible, but adapting material from 3.5 is more straightforward (I originally stated that it was much easier, but in some cases that may not be true; making a track in Legend is not very difficult – still, in many cases, it is true). There's more Pathfinder material than Legend material. The quality of that material, at least IMO, is decidedly lacking, but even if only a small percentage of the material is worth using, it may still add up to more than Legend has total. And as you say below, there are a lot more people playing Pathfinder than Legend.


And Legend has a ton of it's own problems
Off-topic, but I'm curious what you'd call these. I would say it definitely does have a lot of its own problems, but most of those have more to do with its nature as an indy, totally-for-charity, made-by-people-with-day-jobs product than to do with the actual system.


outside of the play by post it groups on Gitp I have never heard of or seen Legend played. I see more L5R, Serenity, Wushu, and Mechwarrior than Legend.
That's certainly a valid complaint. The system is, however, less than a year old, and still in a beta.

[Baka Nikujaga]

I was more referring to the fact that the Ninja only loses trapfinding and Evasion compared to the Rogue, while gaining poison use, a ki pool, a ton of new talents, No Trace, and Light Steps. Just seems like a superior class in every way to me.

http://i40.tinypic.com/jgqgrb.jpg
Even worse, a Ninja apparently qualifies for Rogue archetypes so long as they have the correct features (see?! (http://paizo.com/forums/dmtz58mm?can-alternate-classes-and-archetypes-be-mixed#9))!

More seriously...there are a number of archetypes that a Rogue can take advantage of over a Ninja (in addition to specific features that may be necessary to particular builds). Of course...others will probably argue "why bother using a Rogue or Ninja when you can be a Vivisectionist" and...I really have no answer off-hand.

[Novawurmson]

Person_Man, as someone who adores both your homebrew and optimization guides and as a deep admirer of Pathfinder, let me be the first to lovingly and tenderly suggest that you find another place to have an open and honest discussion of Paizo design goals. The community on GitP, while excellent for helping you roll up a ToB character or come up with a cool backstory, has quite the reservoir of bile built up against Pathfinder. At the very least, I would recommend changing the title to "[PF] Adapting the Incarnate" for somewhat more helpful answers.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Answerer: I find it pretty easy to convert 3.5 stuff to Pathfinder. A tweak here and there and I'm done, and it's usually the same tweaks across the board. IME the big problem is when the DM doesn't allow you to convert the content at all. Sadly, even if it was perfectly backwards compatible some DMs will always be more comfortable in PF-only games (sort of like 3.5 Core only games).

Nova: There's a lot of back and forth to my eyes. Just because there's more bile than, say, the Paizo boards, doesn't mean it's too much.

[Reverent-One]

Meaningless, since Pathfinder isn't either.

Oh, Pathfinder is closer, but it's not actually backwards-compatible. This is actually a major problem – it looks backwards-compatible, it claims to be backwards-compatible – but it isn't. It's disingenuous and involves a non-trivial amount of work to adapt 3.5 material.

Sorry, but no. PF is 3.5 with houserules, sure it's not the exact same, but it is similar enough that the switchover is much less work than learning a new system (even another d20 based system) as well as when porting over material.

[Answerer]

Learning a new system was not the complaint made. That's a valid complaint, but it isn't what I was responding to.

Yes, my point only makes any kind of sense if you already know the Legend system, and that is a distinct point in Pathfinder's favor. However, you greatly underestimate the problem of "gotchas" – little things that changed that you didn't even notice until you go to use something and realize you need a number you'd forgotten to calculate, or whatever. Pathfinder has some fairly considerable issues in that regard.


Person_Man, as someone who adores both your homebrew and optimization guides and as a deep admirer of Pathfinder, let me be the first to lovingly and tenderly suggest that you find another place to have an open and honest discussion of Paizo design goals. The community on GitP, while excellent for helping you roll up a ToB character or come up with a cool backstory, has quite the reservoir of bile built up against Pathfinder. At the very least, I would recommend changing the title to "[PF] Adapting the Incarnate" for somewhat more helpful answers.
I do believe this is the first time I've been taken for speaking for the entire forum. I assure you that I do not.

And finding a forum where they all refuse to consider any possible criticism of their beloved Paizo is not likely to get him the answers he wants. Person_Man is smart; I'm sure he's quite capable of ignoring comments that don't ring true to him.

[Reverent-One]

Learning a new system was not the complaint made. That's a valid complaint, but it isn't what I was responding to.

Yes, my point only makes any kind of sense if you already know the Legend system, and that is a distinct point in Pathfinder's favor. However, you greatly underestimate the problem of "gotchas" – little things that changed that you didn't even notice until you go to use something and realize you need a number you'd forgotten to calculate, or whatever. Pathfinder has some fairly considerable issues in that regard.

Given that I've switched over from 3.5 to PF, no, I don't. Little gotcha's like that don't change my main point, that Legend is a new system, while Pathfinder is largely a backwards compatible system with 3.5. Legend's successes at fixing errors come at the cost of it not being 3.5 anymore. Hence why I brought up the question of how backwards compatible Legend is with 3.5, seeing as you were offering it up as a fix for 3.5.

[DrDeth]

Aemoh, the Answerer did not claim that "Legend's player base was massive" nor that it was "larger than Pathfinder's" only that it is "mechanically superior to Pathfinder's attempt at improving 3.5" (on a massive scale).

http://i54.tinypic.com/2nsz4av.jpg
As for Paizo justifying decisions,
Honestly, I would much prefer it if the posting Paizo staff would be willing to properly explain their decisions and hold a proper discussion with their player base (even if it's restricted only to their forum). I mean, Pathfinder Society, which is meant to be a "living campaign," would benefit greatly if the staff would be willing to increase transparency and work [openly] to addressing some of the issues and gray spots that arise from the rule differences between the normal game and PFS (even a YT Stream or something would be much better than "We thought about it" explanations). Similarly, rules changes that affect the totality of Pathfinder (such as the multitude of additional Monk restrictions on Unarmed Strikes and the culminating "Monks are Borked" threads), would generate better public relations if Paizo's staff would post either regular updates or openly discuss the materials they are working to address.


They do. I post there quite often.

Tell me, what other FRG games "properly explain their decisions and hold a proper discussion with their player base" online? Last time I saw that was back in the days of SuperGame, and that's because I was one of the playtesters.

As a dev myself, I think Paizo bends over backwards for their customer base, far more than WoTC.

And, not only have I never heard of Legend, but a brief perusal of the appropriate forums here show no thread at all devoted to that game. In fact, after various D&D games, it seem to be Exalted as the next, and altho that game is certainly interesting no-one, not even their own devs claims it's much good as far as mechanics goes.

PF does better in almost every aspect than 3.5- across the board, including game balance and mechanics.

Now, if you compare it to 4th, then yes, 4th does have some things that beat out any other D&D system, including balance. Myself, I prefer PF, but 4th Ed does have it's fans.

[Akal Saris]

Person_Man, as someone who adores both your homebrew and optimization guides and as a deep admirer of Pathfinder, let me be the first to lovingly and tenderly suggest that you find another place to have an open and honest discussion of Paizo design goals.

Actually, checking the first page, I see 38 threads on 3.5 and 14 threads on PF, which suggests to me that PF has begun to build up a decent minority here. There's some vocal haters, but there's not much you can do about that except check their posts to see what's a legitimate argument and what's just rage left over from Paizo booting a bunch of optimizers from the beta forum.

Is there a forum where PF and 3.5 are 50-50 yet? I read GITP (3.5 is 60% or more of content), Minmax boards (3.5 85% or so), and Paizo (3.5 - what's that?).

Sidenote:
I suspect that if Paizo were to make an Incarnate class, they would marry it to their model of "gain a new soul meld at 1st and every even level" and set the maximum # of soulmelds active at a time to something close to paladin smite progression.

[Baka Nikujaga]

Oooh, it's DrDeth!

And I agree that the other "living campaign settings" are equally (typically, more) guilty of ignoring their respective player base's (or more, in most cases) - but should we look at the lowest bar or set standards to aim towards in the future?

As an example, if someone want answers for known "gray zones" (questionable areas) and common misconceptions that are not directly (more so, "blatantly" and "explicitly") addressed in the current incarnation of the FAQ or the Additional Materials page, it would take additional time and effort to locate and aggregate the associated posts in order to properly answer, maybe...half of the "gray zones" or common misconceptions. A problem further exacerbated by the fact that a majority of PFS players most likely do not participate on Paizo's forum (which is a bit odd, to be honest but most games tend to be that way).

In any case, has Paizo cleaned up the Monk class? As far as I can remember (which isn't too far back, admittedly, I don't think it has been fixed yet). Honestly...it'd be nice to see articles like "Rules of the Game" make a comeback...

On the matter of bending backwards,
I might be a bit blind...but I must admit, I don't see it (at least, not on a level that's particularly effective). Are they more interactive than WotC with 3.5? Yes, but that wasn't being debated or questioned.

As for Legends (since it seems addressed towards me),
I was not defending the Answerer's stance nor attacking Aemoh's position, I was only clarifying the contents of the Answer's post (to which the Answerer posted a similar, though more abrasive version, of what I had stated). But, if you want my personal opinion on it...
I can't particularly tell if it's a good game or not due to how my on-and-off group acts...but, mechanically, it looks like a very beautiful system (in that the rules tend to be concise with little room for confusion). However, for the tables and groups I know IRL, only the local 4E tables (and one person who is currently drowning in work hours in order to make ends meet), tend to be willing to learn the system.

Regarding my on-and-off group...they've almost been wiped out in ever encounter (largely due to odd choices by the players [such as attempting to solo, running away and leaving the party behind to fight, or otherwise unsound choices like attempting to steal a donkey in broad daylight without a distraction or even alerting the rest of the party to this decision]).

On Balance (since this is part of the same thing),
While I agree that the assumed tier disparity is not as great as it used to be (in 3.5), the disparity is still just as noticeable (ignoring the strange restrictions occasionally visited on comparison threads), which is why people tend to complain about it.

[Random Note]
NOOOOOOO, my Undead Lord Cleric is illegal now! *shakes fist at Paizo*
Ah well, at least I don't really play PFS anymore...so it isn't too much of a loss...

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

As a dev myself, I think Paizo bends over backwards for their customer base, far more than WoTC.I find they are extremely majoritarian their backwards bending, insofar as they ban dissent from said majority. Not that this is really groundbreaking stuff for a dev to do, mind, but it's not like Paizo listens to everyone with a good point.
PF does better in almost every aspect than 3.5- across the board, including game balance and mechanics.Considering that's a major point of contention in this and many other threads I would suggest actually defending this position. For instance, I think that overall mechanical goodness goes as follows...

3.P > Full 3.5 > Full PF > Core PF > Core 3.5

And I'll actually defend it. Splat 3.5 uplifts the low-powered classes more than the high-powered classes; more importantly it gives the low-powered classes more viable options, even within one character. More options/choices leads to better roleplaying and more fun strategic combat for me. Of course, it still leaves the option of simple specialist open for those who don't want to be bogged down in versatility.

Splat PF offers up a bunch of partial casters; all are T3 except the Summoner, who's very low T2. They're relatively easy to play and rock out, and they work very well with existing classes. With Bard, Summoner, Magus, Alchemist, and Inquisitor (and throwing in Oracle for another low T2) you can have almost any magical casting theme without the game breakers.

Combine 3.5 with PF (3.P), and you can throw in Beguiler, Warmage*, Incarnate, Totemist, Psychic Warrior, Binder, and Shadowcaster and you have enough thematic casters to satisfy most game systems - not to mention 3.5's melee options and delicious feat content.

The problem with full PF compared to full 3.5 is that full 3.5 has so much more delicious content. Yes, with that much content comes abuses, but there's also beautiful, flavorful stuff there.

*Before the complaints come in, of course a specialty blaster is going to suck compared to a Sorcerer; compared to an archer, the Warmage is a BAMF

[Ashtagon]

Oooh, ...

Hi, just chipping in to say that pale blue text on white (or any other low-contrast combo) is really hard to read. I'm sure you do have something very interesting to say, but many people just won't read it because it causes eye strain.

[DrDeth]

Oooh, it's DrDeth!


As an example, if someone want answers for known "gray zones" (questionable areas) and common misconceptions that are not directly (more so, "blatantly" and "explicitly") addressed in the current incarnation of the FAQ or the Additional Materials page, it would take additional time and effort to locate and aggregate the associated posts in order to properly answer, maybe...half of the "gray zones" or common misconceptions. A problem further exacerbated by the fact that a majority of PFS players most likely do not participate on Paizo's forum (which is a bit odd, to be honest but most games tend to be that way).

In any case, has Paizo cleaned up the Monk class? As far as I can remember (which isn't too far back, admittedly, I don't think it has been fixed yet). Honestly...it'd be nice to see articles like "Rules of the Game" make a comeback...



Like I said, if you participate in the forums (and where else who you communicate with the game devs and gets answers?) then you'll find that their devs are quite active and helpful in clearing up grey areas. Many of the time they repost these into FAQ.

The Monk remains a problem, according to many. But that's because what the monk lover want will require a rewrite. And to give paizo credit, they have promised to do that very thing.

[The Random NPC]

Given that I've switched over from 3.5 to PF, no, I don't. Little gotcha's like that don't change my main point, that Legend is a new system, while Pathfinder is largely a backwards compatible system with 3.5. Legend's successes at fixing errors come at the cost of it not being 3.5 anymore. Hence why I brought up the question of how backwards compatible Legend is with 3.5, seeing as you were offering it up as a fix for 3.5.

I've personally found that the changes in Pathfinder has made large amounts of 3.5 unusable, the Mage Slayer line comes to mind. Mind, this is anecdotal and may not be the case for the majority, but of the characters I want to play, I need to make major changes to the content to be Pathfinder compatible.

[Novawurmson]

I guess my experience has varied. I feel like whenever I see a thread that starts "[PF] Help me build my Fighter!" the first few responses are "Play a Dungeon-Crasher/Zhentarim Fighter/Warblade and pick up Leap Attack and Shock Trooper." Even when these people are sincerely trying to be helpful, I feel like there's a lack of knowledge of the Pathfinder system.

Not that the Warblade is a bad class - in fact, I've had plenty of success with playing a Warblade in a 3.P campaign, a fact that I will try to exploit to in order to get back to the topic of the thread :smalltongue:


Can he shape any 2 of it's 50ish soulmelds starting at level 1, or is that too many options for a non-caster?

What the soulmeld system comes down to is a completely new system, something that 3.5 had lots of (manifesters, truenamer, initiators, etc.), but something that Pathfinder has avoided, for the most part.

What I do think is a good comparison point is the Eidolon (or the third-party Aegis, which uses much the same system): A scaling amount of "soulmelds" [evolution points] that can be distributed through a list of options with scaling costs based on power. Bindings would still unlock a secondary effect, and essentia could allow them to improve.

For example, the Claws "soulmeld" might grant the meldshaper a pair of 1d6 claws (for a medium-sized creature). The Binding effect might give the claws a Rend, and Essentia investment would grant a +1/+2/+3/+4 bonus on attack and/or damage rolls with the claws.


Can he change them every day (or multiple times per day), or does he have to be locked into his choices?

I really like how the Aegis handled this: Make them able to change some of them a limited number of times a day, with the ability to temporarily gain a bonus one for a short period of time. I.E., spent an "essentia" point to gain access to a soulmeld for 1/2 level rounds?


Are insight bonuses to multiple Skills to big (+4-14ish)?
I would say follow the PF Skill Focus and give a small bonus at low levels that doubles after 10 ranks - or follow the PF Barbarian Raging Climber line and give a bonus equal to class level, but restricted in some other way.


Are the combat bonuses provided too big (+1-10ish to-hit and/or AC, +1-30ish to damage, +1-6ish on Saves, +2-120ish bonus hit points)?
I'd need to dust off my copy of MoI and take a look at a few soulmeld individually. I was always more interested in the totemist to be honest.


If you reduce any of the above to reduce its versatility or bonuses provided, what the rationale for doing so?
Bringing it in line with the other options available to a PF character. It might have been you who told me this (or it was an equally wise poster on this forum), but when designing something, you want to ask yourself two core questions: Why would someone use this and why wouldn't someone use this? If the bonuses are substantially greater than playing a PF class, no one would play the existing material. If the bonuses are substantially smaller than a PF class, no one will use it.

How many Cavalier optimization guides do you see? :P

[Person_Man]

The Rogue -> Ninja and comparison is very interesting to me.

On one hand, they have nearly identical design structures. (Sneak Attack, minor bonuses, Talent/Tricks, etc). On the other hand, the Rogue seems to be strictly inferior to the Ninja in terms of actual power.

So if the Rogue was too weak and needed to upgraded, why not just upgrade the Rogue (either directly, or by adding additional archetypes)?

Or if they are just categorically different for some reason that's escaping me, is the basic design philosophy behind Pathfinder that you can do anything you want as long as it fits with the fluff/narrative?

Returning to my example of how would we write the Incarnate (a class with a large number of floating, all day bonuses and abilities) for Pathfinder, it seems like it could be done, but you would just have to nerf some bonuses which "feel" to big for Pathfinder, even though you could achieve similar or greater bonuses with magic.

And I guess that's what's bugging me the most. It's all based on feelings and horse sense, and not a consistent set of logical guidelines.

[Boci]

So if the Rogue was too weak and needed to upgraded, why not just upgrade the Rogue (either directly, or by adding additional archetypes)?

I always though ninjas were better because they come from Japan, hence automatically being superior. Why do you think midevil Europe never invaded Japan? They knew their rogues would be no match for the ninja...

In all seriousness, maybe they felt that the subtle differences between the two classes would be beneficial to making a oriental game feel different to a standard European style fantasy setting, and by making the ninja a separate class they would highlight that these were two similar concepts, but born from completely different cultures, and thus not automatically compatible.

[Answerer]

Person_Man: my apologies, I should have foreseen how this would derail the thread, but I didn't. This is only dubiously related to your topic, but it's probably not deserving of its own thread either, so I'm a bit stuck. I do feel that I must respond to those who have addressed me.

I'm spoilering it, anyway.


There's some vocal haters, but there's not much you can do about that except check their posts to see what's a legitimate argument and what's just rage left over from Paizo booting a bunch of optimizers from the beta forum.
I appreciate you reducing my position to "hating on Paizo" because of "rage left over" from the banning incident. That's very respectful of you.

In reality, I noted numerous design idiocies that have come up; I don't follow Pathfinder, I only hear about these things after the fact and if they make a certain amount of noise, so the fact that I even hear about them is saying a lot. Every time Paizo gets my attention, it's to reaffirm my opinion of them.

And to ignore the banning incident, I think, is extremely narrow-minded. To have a playtest, and then ban those who come back and say "you still have major problems here, here, and here," is not just incredibly bad form, it's indicative that the entire playtest was a publicity stunt, that nothing was ever intended to get changed, and that Paizo is unwilling to accept criticism. That was my initial opinion of them, and every incident since then (monks shouldn't have full BAB because... because!, exotic weapons don't need to be better just because they cost a feat, Flurry and TWF are the same thing even though no one on earth can actually explain what that means because it's completely nonsensical, etc.) has only reaffirmed that.

So yes, I have absolutely no respect for Paizo. I think they're incredibly poor designers, and furthermore I think they're extremely narrow-minded and have a strong refusal to accept criticism. I mean, there is a reason WotC fired SKR: he is a bad designer who fails to grasp that there might be cases where he is wrong. Paizo picked him up immediately, which I think says a lot about the company.

But this is not just random hate because I got banned; I didn't even take part in the playtest. I never had any interest in the playtest. I only heard about it, and was disgusted. I was linked to threads where perfectly reasonable statements were made, and "Banned" appeared next to the poster's name. I'm aware some were rude, but it was a carpet ban of anyone with detailed or (gasp!) mathematical criticisms of Paizo. And then over time I've been linked to and told about controversy after controversy, where someone at Paizo made some stunningly dumb decision, or defended the same with the most tautological and meaningless statements.

Basically, in short, Paizo is still stuck in the days of "things are this way because that's what makes sense to me, this world is supposed to have verisimilitude!" Except that we're talking about magic and heroes and the reality is that designers have a lot more freedom than they think they do. Paizo seems constrained by what they think a given class should be able to do – not from a mechanical or balance perspective, but from a perspective of "what if this were real?"

But it's not real. Not even the most mundane class in the game is realistic. Even an NPC Warrior is super-human by like level 5. Ignoring this is what caused 3.5's problems; by the end of the edition, WotC was finally getting that (see Tome of Battle for a great example). Paizo still doesn't, and moreover it thinks that it can claim mechanical superiority and improved balance without understanding this. They're convinced (apparently, based on how they respond to questions of truly awful mechanics) that verisimilitude causes balance.

The trick is to have both. A good designer strives for, and tries to create, both. There are always trade-offs, and it would be valid to fall on one side or another of that trade-off, but that's not how Paizo explains itself. It doesn't seem to recognize the trade-off at all, or feel that its mechanics suffer in the least bit because of verisimilitude.

They don't understand that the answer to a mechanical/balance question either has to be a mechanical/balance answer, or owning up to the fact that they sacrificed balance for the sake of verisimilitude. They don't; they want to have their cake and eat it too.


And, not only have I never heard of Legend, but a brief perusal of the appropriate forums here show no thread at all devoted to that game.
It's a d20 game, so it's in the D&D 3e/3.5e/d20 section. There have been two threads.

It's certainly true that Rule of Cool has not been able to do much publicity. Being an indy developer who donated all proceeds to charity does limit one's marketing budget (as in, they do not have one; their playtest was actually a test, not a publicity stunt).

Popularity is not the same as quality. It certainly affects the choice of game one will play; there's no doubt about that. You need people to play with. But my statements were (intended to be, though I acknowledge that this was unclear) restricted purely to the realm of mechanical balance and lack of "outliers" well outside the expectations of the system. Both 3.5 and PF have those in spades.


PF does better in almost every aspect than 3.5- across the board, including game balance and mechanics.
This is a laughable claim. It's simply not true, not even if you include all 3.5 material as included within PF (which you should not). Assuming, for the sake of brevity, that we don't include 3.5 material, then 3.5 has the benefit of an enormous library of material that PF doesn't have.

[PinkysBrain]

The original design philosophy was : lets go back to the year 2000, and break as much stuff as we fix ... and that's still pretty much where they are.

Unfortunately some of the stuff they broke along the way is making it more difficult for them to progress the game, for instance the greater per attack damage boosts from PA and weapon training for core only pure fighters makes pounce much more deadly than if it were given to a 3.5 core fighter.

Which is why pounce should simply have been an integral part of charging, so they could design the damage around it. Not that they even try to balance damage output of the martial characters ... as can be clearly seen by the bonuses they gave to archery, even if casters don't make melee cry in PF the archers will. Also the Summoner's Eidolon is Artificer level absurdity.

They had a chance to fix the game and they blew it ... from mid level on it's again a game of people with rocket launchers and scrubs.

PS. Vow of Poverty ...

[Starbuck_II]

So if the Rogue was too weak and needed to upgraded, why not just upgrade the Rogue (either directly, or by adding additional archetypes)?


I think was because giving out Ki power to all rogues might offend players who like weak classes (the AKA "roleplayers").
If they wanted to strengthen rogues they just unnerf it by making grease remove dex to AC, Blink does, etc.

They purposedly weakened it by removing those options.



PS. Vow of Poverty ...
"Being poor is supposed to suck" was the worst designer quote I've ever heard on that site.

[Psyren]

The Rogue -> Ninja and comparison is very interesting to me.

On one hand, they have nearly identical design structures. (Sneak Attack, minor bonuses, Talent/Tricks, etc). On the other hand, the Rogue seems to be strictly inferior to the Ninja in terms of actual power.

So if the Rogue was too weak and needed to upgraded, why not just upgrade the Rogue (either directly, or by adding additional archetypes)?

Or if they are just categorically different for some reason that's escaping me, is the basic design philosophy behind Pathfinder that you can do anything you want as long as it fits with the fluff/narrative?

I think the Ninja Tricks are stronger simply because you have to manage a resource (ki) to use them. Thematically, Ninjas are also more combat-focused. Look at the earliest RPGs, like Final Fantasy 1 - whenever both were in the same game, the Ninja was always seen as an "upgrade" of the Thief. As D&D/PF are combat-focused games, this has the natural consequence of making them stronger. And finally, Ninjas are seen as more mystical/magical, thus their ki abilities are too - so their design space is wider, i.e. they get access to effects (like supernatural Mirror Image) that would be harder to justify on a simple burglar. These abilities are stronger than most Rogue Talents, but are somewhat balanced by being supernatural (as opposed to Ex) and needing points to fuel.



Returning to my example of how would we write the Incarnate (a class with a large number of floating, all day bonuses and abilities) for Pathfinder, it seems like it could be done, but you would just have to nerf some bonuses which "feel" to big for Pathfinder, even though you could achieve similar or greater bonuses with magic.

Would you though? Look at the psionic classes - sure they weren't paizo-created, but they still fit very well power-wise with the Paizo classes, and across the board they all gained power. As this is our best example of an alternate magic system making it to PF it's a good point of reference.

Incarnum is also unique in that it can be compared to item creation. This became much, much easier in PF - ergo the power of Incarnum would need to be adjusted upwards as many of a soulmeld's benefits are more easily duplicated with wealth now. For instance, anybody (even a Monk or Fighter) could create a +insight or +competence item now, negating the need for the corresponding soulmeld. Remember how the 3.5 Fighter could theoretically become a better meldshaper than the Soulborn? Using the PF Fighter instead you can port in the feats wholesale and completely blow it out of the ether.



And I guess that's what's bugging me the most. It's all based on feelings and horse sense, and not a consistent set of logical guidelines.

Yes it's inconsistent - but I'd call that a feature rather than a bug. Part of the balance decision are thematic (Rogue vs. Ninja above), part are to lessen the learning curve (Fighters are almost universally weaker than Magi/Hyde Alchemists for instance, but are also much easier for a new player to pick up and play), and yes, part are due to designer bias (Wizards are still the strongest at high levels... because.) For better or for worse, it's a winning formula - keeping what made 3.5 enjoyable and improving on it.



EDIT: As far as the paizo hate, I only have this to say: you're not going to convince anyone who likes PF to give it up by pointing fingers at that mean old man Reynolds, anymore than I would expect anyone who likes PF to convince you that they aren't a roomful of simians with typewriters. The only real solution for either side is to live and let play.

[Boci]

I think the Ninja Tricks are stronger simply because you have to manage a resource (ki) to use them. Thematically, Ninjas are also more combat-focused. Look at the earliest RPGs, like Final Fantasy 1 - whenever both were in the same game, the Ninja was always seen as an "upgrade" of the Thief. As D&D/PF are combat-focused games, this has the natural consequence of making them stronger. And finally, Ninjas are seen as more mystical/magical, thus their ki abilities are too - so their design space is wider, i.e. they get access to effects (like supernatural Mirror Image) that would be harder to justify on a simple burglar. These abilities are stronger than most Rogue Talents, but are somewhat balanced by being supernatural (as opposed to Ex) and needing points to fuel.

Couldn't a rogues get mirror image through the arcane talent tree?

[Psyren]

Couldn't a rogues get mirror image through the arcane talent tree?

No, as it's a second-level spell - but even if they could, it would be much weaker as its a SLA instead of Su. So it could be dispelled, can provoke and be interrupted etc.

[DeusMortuusEst]

For the Incarnate:


My gut instinct is that 50 is too many; while useful for versatility, that is a lot of options for a non-optimizer to sort through. I would start with 20, with the possibility of adding more though additional splatbooks.


This is something I've never understood, why limit availability because you're afraid that new players will be daunted by the task of reading through them all.

Instead take 5 pages to suggest possible builds (skill-focused, combat, utility etc.) and break them down level by level. That way you retain flexibility for veteran players and provide an easy slope for beginners.

Perhaps not very relevant to the thread in question, but it's a thing that I've been wondering about.

[Starbuck_II]

This is something I've never understood, why limit availability because you're afraid that new players will be daunted by the task of reading through them all.

Instead take 5 pages to suggest possible builds (skill-focused, combat, utility etc.) and break them down level by level. That way you retain flexibility for veteran players and provide an easy slope for beginners.

Perhaps not very relevant to the thread in question, but it's a thing that I've been wondering about.

Yeah, it would be nice if books would list which feats (or melds in this case) are good for which build/role.
Complete Warrior was only book is sort of do this in the feat section.

[Reverent-One]

I've personally found that the changes in Pathfinder has made large amounts of 3.5 unusable, the Mage Slayer line comes to mind. Mind, this is anecdotal and may not be the case for the majority, but of the characters I want to play, I need to make major changes to the content to be Pathfinder compatible.

How much work it takes depends on what you're bringing over. In any case, it's almost certainly going to be less than a full re-write of it for a different system. But even then, my main point is that it's similarilty to 3.5 is one of it's main selling points.

[Novawurmson]

Well, I can't speak for Paizo, but when I was playtesting material for Dreamscarred Press, someone brought up an argument that a new Soulknife feature was overpowered. Jeremy Smith showed calculations from a DPR program...let me see if I can find it...

Here we go.


[...]using the formula DPR = h(d+s)+tchd and a fully defined build, I get:

Build:

Level 10 human soulknife wielding a greatsword - +3 Keen (that technically violates the DPR rules, but so be it)
Feats:
Human - Weapon Focus (greatsword)
Soulknife 1 - Power Attack
Character 1 - Psionic Weapon
Char 3
Char 5
Char 7 - Greater Psionic Weapon
Char 9 - Critical Focus

Blade Skills - Deadly Blows

That leaves room for a bunch of options - including Psychic Strike modifications, etc.

This is assuming no focus expenditure, etc, but is assuming full attack using Power Attack against an AC of 23. Using +4 STR Belt. Using +2 STR stat boosts from level up. Maintaining psionic focus.

His DPR is 58.87 - 34.22 from the first hit, 24.65 from the second. He has a 20% chance to threaten a critical. On his first hit, he has a 95% chance to confirm. On his second hit, he has a 75% chance to confirm.

Falchion Fred - the first "benchmark" fighter - was dealing 59 DPR.

So, rather quick and dirty, but the DPR is comparable to a fighter.

I recall future builds (but didn't dig through) that exceeded 70 DPR consistently.

The soulknife has the capacity for burst potential, but since a large portion of his DPR is from the iterative attacks, actions spent recharging focus end up being roughly a wash to the damage gained.

Source (http://dreamscarredpress.com/dragonfly/ForumsPro/viewtopic/t=1896/highlight=dpr+olympics.html).

The point being that the developer (albiet a 3rd party developer) was using mathematical formuals and benchmarks of what material existed to balance new material.

If you have access to Ultimate Combat, the section about creating new spells is enlightening. It puts up benchmark spells for each level that should be considered when creating new characters. The Advanced Race Guide race creator is really much the same thing: "This is how we eyeball whether a race is balanced or not."

So find benchmarks for yourself. I think the PF Druid wildshape might be a good place to start. For instance, the Druid can get pounce with Wild Shape at 6th level (when it functions as Beast Shape II), but only in a selection of specific forms, when using an expendable class feature. Level 6 is also when Pounce and Trip appear. Of course, it's boring if everyone always gets the same things at the same times, but consider the expenditure of resources compared with the benefit.

Again, I'm stuck in Totemist mode. Find a class (or classes) that you feel give benefits similar to the Incarnate. For example, the Alchemist is a class that can fulfill a variety of roles depending on specialization and what class features you're using at any given time (throwing bombs vs. "Casting" infusions vs. drinking a mutagen and wading int melee vs. putting that high Int to work in skills). You might decide the Oracle (another d8, 3/4 Bab) class fits better or the Magus. There is not (as far as I know) a sign somewhere in the Paizo office that says "You should not have a bonus bigger than +3 to a skill from a class feature at 1st level" or "A +10 insight bonus to attack rolls should only be given to 1/2 BAB classes." Pick a few signposts and find your path.

Edit: Rolls/roles confusion.

[Blisstake]

"Being poor is supposed to suck" was the worst designer quote I've ever heard on that site.

Aha, really? That actually sounds brilliant to me :smalltongue:

[Psyren]

I suppose it would have been softer had he added "...for an adventurer." Pretty funny the other way though, if you like dark humor.

[Suddo]

Aha, really? That actually sounds brilliant to me :smalltongue:

Being monk is suppose to suck too I guess.

[Prime32]

3.5 Vow of Poverty was "You give up all your magic items. In exchange you get a series of bonuses a little below what you could normally get, while leaving some glaring weaknesses which are hard to overcome."

PF Vow of Poverty was "You give up all your magic items. In exchange you can't meet the prereqs for monk PrCs."

:smalltongue:

[Starbuck_II]

3.5 Vow of Poverty was "You give up all your magic items. In exchange you get a series of bonuses a little below what you could normally get, while leaving some glaring weaknesses which are hard to overcome."

PF Vow of Poverty was "You give up all your magic items. In exchange you can't meet the prereqs for monk PrCs."

:smalltongue:

Slight edit needed: PF Vow of Poverty was "You give up all your magic items but one. In exchange you can't meet the prereqs for monk PrCs. But you get a few Ki points. And you lose Still mind ability just because."

You get one magic item in PF version.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Well, I can't speak for Paizo, but when I was playtesting material for Dreamscarred Press, someone brought up an argument that a new Soulknife feature was overpowered. Jeremy Smith showed calculations from a DPR program...let me see if I can find it...I don't think anyone's mistaking Paizo for Dreamscarred Press.

[Psyren]

PF Vow of Poverty was "You give up all your magic items. In exchange you can't meet the prereqs for monk PrCs."

:smalltongue:

Actually, you can in fact keep one magic item. And like the regular VoP, you can still use consumables/buffs that others give you. I think it should have given more ki (at least 2x) but it's not all bad.

[Novawurmson]

So if the Rogue was too weak and needed to upgraded, why not just upgrade the Rogue (either directly, or by adding additional archetypes)?

Or if they are just categorically different for some reason that's escaping me, is the basic design philosophy behind Pathfinder that you can do anything you want as long as it fits with the fluff/narrative?

One Two Three things that may have influenced the decision to split the Rogue and Ninja:

1. A lot of people don't like Eastern/Japanese/Anime-themed content in their fantasy worlds. As a 3.5 player with a published like for the Tome of Battle, I'm sure you may have run into some of these people on the internet. It's a lot easier to call the Ninja and Samurai "Alternate Classes" so that GMs can quickly identify them as somewhat different from the core design of Western Fantasy. When a class is introduced, it becomes part of the "world" of the game; for instance, when you introduce Summoners into your game, you're telling GMs and players that this relationship between an outsider can and probably will exist in your games, even if it hadn't before. If the Ninja was introduced entirely as a unique class instead of an "alternate class" for the Rogue, there would be more onus on GMs to include them in their campaign world, something many would rebel against. Similarly, Firearms are given their own section and an "optional" flag, because while many people enjoy the concept of a Renaissance-Era, "full plate exists, but so do emerging guns" or "mad alchemist with a boomstick," many others find them jarring and unsuitable. Even by just including them as an archetype of a Rogue, there's a higher level of endorsement there.

2. I think another reason is that they're trying to save face. Nobody likes to say "I was wrong," especially game developers after there are thousands of copies of their books being sold around the world. Take a look at the Advanced Race Guide playtest - originally, it showed all the core races as neatly totaling to 10 RP - despite the obvious fact that some races get significantly more and/or better racial features than others, even in core. In this case, however, they relented somewhat: The Dwarves were marked an 11 RP race for all their bonuses and the Half-Orcs were totalled at 8 RP. The subtle admission is, "We ****ed up. By an objective standard, Half-Orcs are weaker than the other races." Paizo does these things occasionally: The introduction of the Qinggong Monk read to me "Sorry the Monk still isn't that good. Here's a bunch of spell-like abilities you can give them to make them actually more like the mystic warriors they were supposed to be." It's not an errata that gives Monks d10 HD and full BAB, but it's better than nothing.

Whoa, tangent. Point being: It's hard to say "Rogues are a tier 4 class guys; they're still not going to be overpowered if we throw on a Ki pool." It's easy to say, "Here's an alternate class for people who want something different out of their sneaky/stabby guys."

3. It's easier to give people something new than to change something that people already have and cherish. To bring up ToB again, why didn't the folks at WotC just name the Crusader, Swordsage and Warblade what they really are: The Paladin, the Monk, and the Fighter? I think the answer is that if they told people "Hey, you know that character you played for years and loved? It wasn't good enough for our current design philosophy. THIS is what your character should have been." Plenty of people who post on these boards are proof that many people were fine with the 3.5 Paladin, Monk, and Fighter. Plenty of people are satisfied with their PF Rogue (my wife included), and don't feel like the Ninja captures their character as well. So for the fan of Eastern Fantasy and the number-cruncher, the Ninja is a present; for the satisfied, there's no reason to bother them.

Edit: Gram to the mar

[Baka Nikujaga]

Hi, just chipping in to say that pale blue text on white (or any other low-contrast combo) is really hard to read. I'm sure you do have something very interesting to say, but many people just won't read it because it causes eye strain.

Hahahaha...you aren't missing anything...I assure you. Most of my posts are neither particularly insightful nor important (no matter how much I may wish for the contrary). But I have thought about changing colors...maybe a darker blue? But I'm a bit apprehensive about it since the color is associated with sarcasm (at least, on this forum).


Like I said, if you participate in the forums (and where else who you communicate with the game devs and gets answers?) then you'll find that their devs are quite active and helpful in clearing up grey areas. Many of the time they repost these into FAQ.

The Monk remains a problem, according to many. But that's because what the monk lover want will require a rewrite. And to give paizo credit, they have promised to do that very thing.

I have participated in a short number of discussions on the Paizo forum (though, nowhere near the amount you have) and I don't see most of their posts as how I've described (more often, I've found an answer from another member, a non-RAW/non-acted upon fix by an author, an answer by the PFS staff that doesn't include much information about their thought processes - the recent ban on certain archetypes being an excellent example, or that the "gray zone" persists after a brief discussion). I know that the Paizo staff is active (I have never said to the contrary), but that doesn't mean they are active in the way that I'd prefer.

As for the Monks, that's a pity. I had thought they'd just make some official changes to the wordings as a "temporary fix" in between the final...ah well, at least I don't use Monks. :x
(I'm not sure if I'd call it a "credit" towards them, though, since their wordings were similar enough to WotC's that they should have had the time to realize the wording doesn't work)

[Edit]
I agree with Novawurmson's post. :D

[olentu]

"Being poor is supposed to suck" was the worst designer quote I've ever heard on that site.

Ah I remember that, hilarious. It might even be better then the one about exotic weapons.

[PinkysBrain]

Slight edit needed: PF Vow of Poverty was "You give up all your magic items but one.
Ridiculously contrived "loopholes" (really more word twisting than a genuine loophole) which can only be exploited with custom magic items are irrelevant to the depth of stupidity of Vow of Poverty ...

[Answerer]

Well, I can't speak for Paizo, but when I was playtesting material for Dreamscarred Press, someone brought up an argument that a new Soulknife feature was overpowered. Jeremy Smith showed calculations from a DPR program...let me see if I can find it...

Here we go.

The point being that the developer (albiet a 3rd party developer) was using mathematical formuals and benchmarks of what material existed to balance new material.
Yes, Dreamscarred Press are good developers, in all the ways that Paizo are terrible developers.

[Novawurmson]

So, I looked at the Incarnate and the Totemist again, and I came to a startling realization: MoI really does follow Pathfinder design philosophy to a fair degree.

See if there's a flaw in my logic here: If we use the shape soulmeld feat as a guideline, a soulmeld is worth approximately 1 feat. An incarnate gets 2 at 1st level, 1 at 2nd, 4th, 7th, 10th, 13th, 16th, and 19th, for a total of 9.

The Witch starts out with one Hex - a feat equivalent (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/extra-hex) - and then gains one every even level, for a total of 11.

The Alchemist gets a Discovery (a feat equivalent) at level 2 and every even level, for a total of 10.

The Rogue gets a Talent (a feat equivalent) at level 2 and every even level, for a total of 10.

The Barbarian gets a Rage Power (a feat equivalent) at level 2 and every even level, for a total of 10.

The Magus gets an Arcana (a feat equivalent) at level 3 and every third level, plus a bonus feat at 5, 11, and 17, for a total of 9.

The Oracle gets a Revelation (a feat equivalent) at level 1, 3, and every four levels thereafter, for a total of 6

The Paladin gets a Mercy (a feat equivalent) at level 3 and every three levels for a total of 6.

The Inquisitor gets a teamwork feat at third level and every three levels thereafter for a total of 6.

The Monk gets a bonus feat at 1, 2, 4, 6, 10, 14, and 18th, for a total of 7.

Call me crazy, but I think getting 6-11 feat equivalents is pretty damn close to Pathfinder design standards.

What I think is the harder part about adapting the system is the essentia mechanic; If we use the Bonus Essentia feat as a guideline, an essentia is worth .5-1 feats. An Incarnate gets 26 essentia from class levels alone - not counting racial features or feats (or, I imagine, a Favored Class bonus that gives essentia that would be implemented in Pathfinder). That is, depending on your interpretation, between 13-26 feats that can be reassigned with a swift action. Nobody else in PF gets that kind of power.

But we do have some benchmarks to use as suggestions when rebalancing MoI for Pathfinder.

1. Thinking about essentia...feat-equivalents from class features are generally set in stone once chosen: Barbarians don't get to reassign their rage powers as a swift action. However, the War Domain (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/cleric/domains/paizo---domains/war-domain) Weapon Master ability allows for a temporary feat for a for a few rounds.

What if meldshapers chose their essentia in the morning, and could only reassign their essentia a number of times per day? Once a day, plus once for every 4 class levels? A number of times per day equal to Con modifier+1/2 class level? Maybe the essentia is set in the morning, but you gain bonus temporary essentia that only last for a few rounds?

2. Thinking of soulmelds, again, feat equivalents are not generally generally rechosen every morning. However, we do have one class that can change theirs as a standard action: The Inquisitor (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/inquisitor#TOC-teamwork-Feat).

What if, instead of reseting soulmelds every morning, the meldshaper could change one soulmeld as a standard action, a number of times per day equal to Con modifier? This would be a net gain for most low level meldshapers, but a nerf for ones whose number of soulmelds exceeds their Con modifier.

[Akal Saris]

Hahahaha...you aren't missing anything...I assure you. Most of my posts are neither particularly insightful nor important (no matter how much I may wish for the contrary). But I have thought about changing colors...maybe a darker blue? But I'm a bit apprehensive about it since the color is associated with sarcasm (at least, on this forum).



I have participated in a short number of discussions on the Paizo forum (though, nowhere near the amount you have) and I don't see most of their posts as how I've described (more often, I've found an answer from another member, a non-RAW/non-acted upon fix by an author, an answer by the PFS staff that doesn't include much information about their thought processes - the recent ban on certain archetypes being an excellent example, or that the "gray zone" persists after a brief discussion). I know that the Paizo staff is active (I have never said to the contrary), but that doesn't mean they are active in the way that I'd prefer.

As for the Monks, that's a pity. I had thought they'd just make some official changes to the wordings as a "temporary fix" in between the final...ah well, at least I don't use Monks. :x
(I'm not sure if I'd call it a "credit" towards them, though, since their wordings were similar enough to WotC's that they should have had the time to realize the wording doesn't work)

[Edit]
I agree with Novawurmson's post. :D

Huh, I never knew that blue signified sarcasm on this forum. Good to know, and it makes me wish there was a globally recognized color for internet snark so people would know it when they saw it :P

For what it's worth, I don't remember ever seeing more than 1-2 dev posts from WoTC in several years on the CharOp board, though maybe that's just selective memory. I've been very impressed with the dev's engagement on the Kingmaker forum, which is where I've spent most of my time when I'm on the PF forums.

Btw, Answerer:
I apologize if you took offense at my remark - it wasn't directed at you; I was thinking mainly about the MinMax boards. I'd be glad to discuss the topic further in a private message if you'd like. Unfortunately, I think you and I approach games from a different perspective - my main incentive to purchase Pathfinder is that I enjoy the APs, world setting, and artwork. If I recall, when I downloaded Legend's playtest, the criticism that I posted to the thread was that I felt like the ruleset seemed interesting, but I really wanted more details on Hallow and why the classes were appropriate for the world. For example, tying them into the world the same way that you can't have Eberron without artificers.

[Baka Nikujaga]

For what it's worth, I don't remember ever seeing more than 1-2 dev posts from WoTC in several years on the CharOp board, though maybe that's just selective memory. I've been very impressed with the dev's engagement on the Kingmaker forum, which is where I've spent most of my time when I'm on the PF forums.

And that's why I've been saying that it's a mistake to say that my stance is "Paizo's problem is inactivity." |<

[Kuulvheysoon]

Novawurmson -

Interesting analysis.

But you've forgotten one of the major elements of the Incarnum sub-system. Chakra Binds. I won't spend time explaining them (as you clearly know your incarnum), but you cannot leave out chakra binds in any serious discussion of incarnum.

[Psyren]

I discussed this with Person_Man before, but I think a Pathfinder update would require diluting essentia. Require a larger investment for certain effects, then have the actual meldshaper classes grant more of it. That way, non-meldshapers could potentially power one or two soulmelds (as they do now) while the actual meldshapers could maintain the suite of buffs and options they currently enjoy. It would make meldshaping via feats much weaker (though still possible) while actually following the path of the meldshaper would grant the greatest benefit.

[Novawurmson]

I discussed this with Person_Man before, but I think a Pathfinder update would require diluting essentia. Require a larger investment for certain effects, then have the actual meldshaper classes grant more of it. That way, non-meldshapers could potentially power one or two soulmelds (as they do now) while the actual meldshapers could maintain the suite of buffs and options they currently enjoy. It would make meldshaping via feats much weaker (though still possible) while actually following the path of the meldshaper would grant the greatest benefit.

That was actually my plan, too. Make essentia plentiful, but ~half their benefit. You can still get the same benefit as before, but it requires greater investment.

@Kuulvheysoon - Well, in the extended analogy, the chakra binds would be equivalent to say, Sneak Attack for the Rogue or Rage for the Barbarian - it's the main reason you take the class, the core mechanic that you do. The soulmelds that you don't bind are mostly just spice.

[MukkTB]

Paizo had a simple design philosophy.

#1 Lets remake 3.5 to pick up all the customers wizards abandoned.
A This keep our market for adventure modules in existence.
#2 We need to change things just enough to incentivise players to join.
A Slight power creep would help a bit.
-Bump each races stats up by +2.
-Fill in dead class levels.
-Make miscellaneous fixes that we can think up.

There you go. I personally like playing 3.P. I think Paizo are horrible designers who think math beyond addition is scary. But they're not half bad storytellers.

[navar100]

Huh, I never knew that blue signified sarcasm on this forum. Good to know, and it makes me wish there was a globally recognized color for internet snark so people would know it when they saw it :P


It's not "official", just something poster Seerow had commented in his signature and occasionally did once in a while. It was a cool idea that caught on as part of Forum culture.

[Answerer]

Paizo had a simple design philosophy.

#1 Lets remake 3.5 to pick up all the customers wizards abandoned.
A This keep our market for adventure modules in existence.
#2 We need to change things just enough to incentivise players to join.
A Slight power creep would help a bit.
-Bump each races stats up by +2.
-Fill in dead class levels.
-Make miscellaneous fixes that we can think up.

There you go. [...] I think Paizo are horrible designers who think math beyond addition is scary.
This is my position stated with less vitriol.


I personally like playing 3.P. [...] But they're not half bad storytellers.
Wouldn't know; I prefer my DM's story or my own story if I'm DMing.

[navar100]

Paizo had a simple design philosophy.

#1 Lets remake 3.5 to pick up all the customers wizards abandoned.
A This keep our market for adventure modules in existence.
#2 We need to change things just enough to incentivise players to join.
A Slight power creep would help a bit.
-Bump each races stats up by +2.
-Fill in dead class levels.
-Make miscellaneous fixes that we can think up.


You say that like it's a bad thing.

Hooray for Pathfinder.

[Big Fau]

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Hooray for Pathfinder.

He is. It wouldn't be if they could hire Mystery Inc. to help them get a freaking clue.

[Psyren]

Eh, you can't really argue with results. When was the last time any tabletop RPG dethroned the wizard who lives by the coast?