Unchained Classes

[Milo v3]

I've read that amoung the classes to be revised in Pathfinder Unchained are Barbarian and Summoner, who will apparently be getting nerfs. I don't understand why those two be the classes that are being nerfed. Barbarians don't approach the levels of power to even be tier three with them just being able to deal out big-numbers of damage, and summoners are strictly inferior to druids who get companions and summons and wildshape all at the same time...

Wouldn't it make more sense for Clerics/Druids/Wizards to be the ones being hit with the Nerfbat? :smallconfused:

[Extra Anchovies]

It's because Paizo, similarly to WotC, doesn't know that T1s are T1s.

I also just noticed that both the Barbarian and Summoner can get Pounce (well, the eidolon can, but close enough). Who wants to bet that they'll both be losing that?

[Elricaltovilla]

It's because Paizo, similarly to WotC, doesn't know that T1s are T1s.

I also just noticed that both the Barbarian and Summoner can get Pounce (well, the eidolon can, but close enough). Who wants to bet that they'll both be losing that?

*Gasp!* Movement and a full attack? How could anyone think to allow such a thing to happen! They might actually be effective!

To be honest though, I wouldn't mind seeing the Summoner get a bit of a nerf. Their spell list is amazing, their SLAs are better than the Druid's and their companion is totally customizable. They're powerful and flexible, which is great, but they can easily bog down a campaign and quickly become spotlight hogs since they're so focused on minionmancy. I'm not saying they're bad, I'm just saying their playstyle can grate on those of us who think of D&D as a team game.

[Tanuki Tales]

While Tier 2 classes need nerfs, this isn't why Summoner is getting hit. And are you surprised Milo? I'll bet good money the regulars on the Homebrew subforum are far more knowledgeable on good game design than Paizo's actual staff.

They hired and listened to SKR for Buddha's sake.

[Snowbluff]

I suspect Paizo will nerf summoner because it was the only fun class they made. Naturally, it has to be destroyed or people might start enjoying building characters.

[wooper]

They hired and listened to SKR for Buddha's sake.

A fitting answer for whenever you ask yourself why Paizo is doing anything.

[Turion]

Basically? Barbarian and (Synthesist) Summoner are the two classes that the Paizo forums tend to be most... vocal... about. Summoner gets the same flak over there that T1's get around here (mostly because the eidolon is so versatile, from what I can tell), and Barbarians apparently do too much damage. They listened to their primary feedback source, what can ya do. :smallfrown:

[Tanuki Tales]

Basically? Barbarian and (Synthesist) Summoner are the two classes that the Paizo forums tend to be most... vocal... about. Summoner gets the same flak over there that T1's get around here (mostly because the eidolon is so versatile, from what I can tell), and Barbarians apparently do too much damage. They listened to their primary feedback source, what can ya do. :smallfrown:

Yes, but the staff cultivated that specific source by culling anyone who didn't go "Baa" the right way. Or so I've heard.

[Gnome Alone]

Criminy, it's as if thinking that the guy who can rewrite reality in thirty different ways every day is the one to watch out for is some kind of crazy fringe position or something.

"Gee whillikers, let's do something about that dude that can hit people, like, really hard."

[Turion]

Yes, but the staff cultivated that specific source by culling anyone who didn't go "Baa" the right way. Or so I've heard.

I've heard that one before, too. Don't really hang around there too much (and mostly just in the 3PP subforum), so I can't really say one way or the other, although I've been significantly less than impressed with their moderation policies. Point is, that's the source they have data for (number of members, purchasing habits, rough demographics, etc...), so that's the source they're most likely to listen to. Still sucks, though.

[Tanuki Tales]

It's not like really anyone on this forum is going to respect and adhere to the Barbarian nerfs anyways.

[BWR]

To play the devil's advocate, it seems to me that Paizo designs PF to be played at a certain level of optimization which is a bit (up to quite a bit) lower than what some groups play. So they make new stuff and change old stuff to better reach that level of optimization without gettting too powerful too easily.
Seeing how my group plays the game, we seem to be pretty on par with what they intend and it works just fine. We haven't tried many of the classes people complain about being too powerful or too weak or getting nerfed or whatever (including the Barbarian and the Summoner) so we can't comment on how well those worked at that level of play.

[Pex]

The only thing my group dislikes about barbarians is the lost of hit points when the rage ends because the CON is returned to normal, regardless of the barbarian's hit points at the time the rage ends. It is a built in drawback to raging, but my group has found it too much. The barbarian character in one of our campaigns kept dying because of it, even the DM was sick of it. The player wasn't doing anything stupid. He was doing what barbarians were supposed to be doing but when dropped to less than 0 hit points down he goes. The rage ends, so his CON goes back to normal and the character immediately loses 2 x level hit points, killing him. Unlike every other character the barbarian does not get the benefit of Death's Door.

The DM house ruled to make the extra hit points gained from the CON increase count as temporary hit points. CON goes back to normal when the rage ends, but there's no further loss of hit points. If the loss of hit points when rage ends rule is changed to something similar, for that we'd be happy.

[Zanos]

I will say that Summoner is one of the few classes I've actually had problems with, since an Eidolon can almost always be better than any melee combatant of it's level, to the point where they can one round most monsters even at low levels. To top it off, the actual summoner is very seldom at as much risk of dying as a "primary" melee combatant. Even if the Eidolon goes down, they still have their max level summon monsters and a decent number of spells that are at lower levels than normal despite their slow progression.

I imagine it was a similar thing with barbarians one rounding basically everything, but at least barbarians tend to be riskier since rage lowers your AC.

It might not be the encounter changing power of a wizard, but wizards tend to play synergestically with the party with control and debuffs rather than make everyone else feel worthless.

[Kurald Galain]

For the Barbarian, I'm hoping they'll get rid of that stupid rule that if you get knocked out while raging, you lose your Con bonus and usually die (unless you take the feat tax).

[T.G. Oskar]

*Gasp!* Movement and a full attack? How could anyone think to allow such a thing to happen! They might actually be effective!

No wonder why 5e is getting so much hate. Moving and making all your attacks breaks the game so hard! An affront to good design!*

*:everyone is entitled to their reasons why they (don't) like 5e; this is a tongue-in-cheek response to a tongue-in-cheek response.


I suspect Paizo will nerf summoner because it was the only fun class they made. Naturally, it has to be destroyed or people might start enjoying building characters.

I wouldn't say so. I'm not a fan of Pathfinder, and yet I dig the Inquisitor. It combines good stuff from Bard and Rogue in a nice divine package, alongside a few other things. You can make lots of builds with it if you work it just right.

The rest is a mixed bag. It seems, and correct me if I'm wrong, that Paizo seems to like a specific chassis (medium BAB, 2/3rds spellcasting, 4/6 + Int skill points), since most of their more "balanced" and interesting content seems to fall on that region (examples may vary, though, and the Summoner is nowhere near balanced). Magus, Inquisitor, Hunter, Skald, Warpriest, Alchemist and Investigator fall under these lines, and so will some (if not all) of the Occult Adventures classes. Very few are "half" spellcasting + full BAB (Paladin and Ranger because of legacy, and Bloodrager just because they wanted a Barbarian), or full BAB but no spellcasting (Cavalier, Gunslinger and Swashbuckler; you may also add Slayer to it), and the second-most available chassis is the one that leads to Tier 2 classes most of the time - medium or no BAB and full spontaneous spellcasting (Oracle and Shaman; potentially the other half of Occult Adventures classes). It's almost a surprise that the Witch isn't Tier 1, since it would have approached that otherwise.

Interestingly enough, that's the kind of approach that made the Psychic Warrior in 3.5 a Tier 3 class (and thus a favored one for most martial characters), even though it doesn't necessarily work all times (case in point: Divine Mind), even when class features were somewhat wider (case in point again: Divine Mind and Divine Auras + Divine Grace). Kinda strange that they aren't tampering so much with other classes, and only with two Core classes so far (Barbarian and Rogue) because of perceived or real problems with the classes. Perhaps if they also rework some of the top-level spells, you may see a reduction in the power of spellcasters to justify getting them actual class features? Even in 3.5, the power of a spellcaster is on its spell list, and the #1 fix to it is "tamper with their spell list via banhammer".

[Tanuki Tales]

It might not be the encounter changing power of a wizard, but wizards tend to play synergestically with the party with control and debuffs rather than make everyone else feel worthless.

You must surely be joking.

[DarkOne-Rob]

Can anyone share a link to where Paizo has said these two are their first targets? I would read that post, just to see if there is logic to the decision...

[Blackhawk748]

Im gonna look at the "nerfs" and i will most likely laugh until i fall off my chair. I will concede that the Summoner may need a retweaking, but ive only been exposed to the Synthesist and him and the Fighter are having a ball wrecking stuff, so no problems there.

As for the Barbarian........ what are they smoking? "The Barbarian is doing to much damage :smallfrown: Nerf him!" heres my rebuttal, "What else is he supposed to do??" Seriously Barbarians only have one job and thats murder-stabbing that thing in the face.

[Prime32]

I also just noticed that both the Barbarian and Summoner can get Pounce (well, the eidolon can, but close enough). Who wants to bet that they'll both be losing that?Pounce is the barbarian's main source of damage, since the bonuses from Rage are equal to what the fighter gets from Weapon Training (albeit a bit more front-loaded). You can pick up natural weapons through rage powers, but Mutation Warrior (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/fighter/archetypes/paizo---fighter-archetypes/mutation-warrior) does it better. So if damage is the only issue, why is no one calling for nerfs to fighter? :smalltongue:

[Squirrel_Dude]

As much as I can enjoy people ragging on Paizo's design decisions, I prefer it isn't people talking out their ass.

The barbarian is expected to be changed, but not "nerfed," at least not intentionally. Specifically, the rev team has stated that they'd like to make the class easier to run at the table. This is more likely going to mean that rage will require less of an on the fly character rebuild.

The summoner is going to get nerfed, though.

Of course the concept of using a supplemental book to nerf a class is silly, but whatever.

[kardar233]

As much as I can enjoy people ragging on Paizo's design decisions, I prefer it isn't people talking out their ass.

The barbarian is expected to be changed, but not "nerfed," at least not intentionally. Specifically, the rev team has stated that they'd like to make the class easier to run at the table. This is more likely going to mean that rage will require less of an on the fly character rebuild.

The summoner is going to get nerfed, though.

Of course the concept of using a supplemental book to nerf a class is silly, but whatever.

Hey, WotC did that with Complete Psionics, so at least Paizo is consistent in repeating the mistakes of its predecessor. :smalltongue:

[torrasque666]

It's because Paizo, similarly to WotC, doesn't know that T1s are T1s.
How much would you be willing to bet that if they even so much as touched the damn things everybody here would cry out "ITS 4E ALL OVER AGAIN!!"? Face it, D&D regulars hate it when the T1s get hit with the nerf bat, and then they complain that the T1s are too powerful.

[Zubrowka74]

How much would you be willing to bet that if they even so much as touched the damn things everybody here would cry out "ITS 4E ALL OVER AGAIN!!"? Face it, D&D regulars hate it when the T1s get hit with the nerf bat, and then they complain that the T1s are too powerful.

Mainly this.

[Tvtyrant]

How much would you be willing to bet that if they even so much as touched the damn things everybody here would cry out "ITS 4E ALL OVER AGAIN!!"? Face it, D&D regulars hate it when the T1s get hit with the nerf bat, and then they complain that the T1s are too powerful.

I think the term vocal minority comes to mind. Like TO in that I have known many long term players and out of them only I play the optimization sub-game.

[Squirrel_Dude]

How much would you be willing to bet that if they even so much as touched the damn things everybody here would cry out "ITS 4E ALL OVER AGAIN!!"? Face it, D&D regulars hate it when the T1s get hit with the nerf bat, and then they complain that the T1s are too powerful.
I suspect that's because there's a gap between recognizing that casters are more powerful and finding that to be a serious problem.

[Psyren]

It's because Paizo, similarly to WotC, doesn't know that T1s are T1s.

It's not that they don't know - it's that T1s are typically only a problem in real games when you have jerkass players. And if you have players like that they can cause trouble with T3 just as easily as T1 and T2.



They hired and listened to SKR for Buddha's sake.

Are we still whingeing about SKR? He's been gone for nearly a year at this point.

[grarrrg]

They hired and listened to SKR for Buddha's sake.

Well, unless SKR wrote Prone Shooter, Monkey Lunge, or a fair portion of the editing nightmare that is the ACG, then he still has a better track record than some of those people...

[NightbringerGGZ]

As far as I know the only class that is getting a confirmed nerf is the Summoner. While the class works fine in high optimization games (especially ones that run mostly T1/T2 classes), I can attest that the class can be a bit too much in mid to low optimization groups. Considering the number of GMs who complain about the class on the Paizo forums having a weaker version available as an option can only be a good thing.

Barbarian changes I'm going to remain skeptical amount. I see a lot of silly "OMG so much damage" posts on Paizo from GMs who don't try to target saves. Yes I know, Superstition combats attempts to target the Barb with magic, but in the low-op games where a Barbarian is so scary I find most players don't want to risk not getting targeted by heals or buffs.

I'm actually rather excited by the idea of a revamp for the Monk and Rogue. The Monk needs to be reworked now that the Brawler is out, though prior to ACG it worked fine in mid or low optimization games. The Rogue was outclassed by several classes prior to ACG, Slayer and Investigator were just nails in the coffin. I'm also interested for the "resource pool for martial characters" concept. If executed decently (and if it is actually supported in future updates), then that could kick up some of the low tier classes to be more on par with all the T3-T4 classes Paizo has produced.

[atemu1234]

How much would you be willing to bet that if they even so much as touched the damn things everybody here would cry out "ITS 4E ALL OVER AGAIN!!"? Face it, D&D regulars hate it when the T1s get hit with the nerf bat, and then they complain that the T1s are too powerful.

I'd rather see no errata and have powerful martial characters than see everything weakened, so yeah.

[Extra Anchovies]

The Monk needs to be reworked now that the Brawler is out, though prior to ACG it worked fine in mid or low optimization games.

Very true. I'm hoping to see the monk as a weapon master rather than an unarmed master, because monk weapons are cool but don't get enough love.

[Tanuki Tales]

Are we still whingeing about SKR? He's been gone for nearly a year at this point.

Thanks for the ad hominem and welcome to the conversation Psyren.

[Zanos]

You must surely be joking.
I'm not joking that a Summoner with an Eidolon optimized for natural attack invalidates the existence of essentially every melee character, no.

As an aside, "Dead" is a pretty good control condition to inflict on enemies.

[grarrrg]

I'm not joking that a Summoner with an Eidolon optimized for natural attack invalidates the existence of essentially every melee character, no.

As an aside, "Dead" is a pretty good control condition to inflict on enemies.

I figure that the Bigger Boat (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?245496-PF-We-re-gonna-need-a-bigger-boat) is a relevant thing to link right now...

[Tanuki Tales]

I'm not joking that a Summoner with an Eidolon optimized for natural attack invalidates the existence of essentially every melee character, no.

My apologies, I thought you were talking about the Barbarian.

[Psyren]

Thanks for the ad hominem and welcome to the conversation Psyren.

Glad to be here, thank you :smallsmile:

Is what I said false? Is he still at Paizo?

Also, an ad hominem has to be directed at you personally; I addressed your argument. But while we're on the subject of fallacies, you may want to look up association fallacy.

[Zanos]

My apologies, I thought you were talking about the Barbarian.
I did mention Barbarians because I think people have a problem with them for similar reasons(tons of damage), but they're nowhere near as egregious as Eidolons.

[Blackhawk748]

You know, if the people on the Paizo boards are complaining about the "crazy amounts of damage!!" that a Summoner can do, i wonder how they would react to a fully optimized Totemist? I remember Keledrath posted a build that did what can only be described as insane levels of damage. Made me want to play one lol

[Milo v3]

You know, if the people on the Paizo boards are complaining about the "crazy amounts of damage!!" that a Summoner can do, i wonder how they would react to a fully optimized Totemist? I remember Keledrath posted a build that did what can only be described as insane levels of damage. Made me want to play one lol

Lower the chances of them ever making an PF version of Incarnum, reducing the chances of us getting non-vancian supernaturals further?

[Blackhawk748]

Lower the chances of them ever making an PF version of Incarnum, reducing the chances of us getting non-vancian supernaturals further?

Sadly ya. Im not holding my breath on them making their own Incarnum as its a pretty hit and miss splatbook for usage at tables. I own because i want to own all 3.5 books and i am glad that i bought it, even if ive never used it lol One of these days ill get around to actually playing a Totemist.

[Coidzor]

It's not like really anyone on this forum is going to respect and adhere to the Barbarian nerfs anyways.

Depends on how they incorporate them into the web resources. If they completely replace the old versions then anyone who doesn't have an earlier printing of the books or didn't save the relevant information will end up just using the new stuff. And probably even a few people with the core rule book will end up using the new version due to the convenience of the web resources.


Lower the chances of them ever making an PF version of Incarnum, reducing the chances of us getting non-vancian supernaturals further?

I doubt they would, especially after the Dreamscarred Press stab at it.

[Milo v3]

Sadly ya. Im not holding my breath on them making their own Incarnum as its a pretty hit and miss splatbook for usage at tables. I own because i want to own all 3.5 books and i am glad that i bought it, even if ive never used it lol One of these days ill get around to actually playing a Totemist.

Though, PF does now have a Binder and a Warlock so not all hope is lost. Even if they don't Dreamscarred Press has it's Pathfinder version of Incarnum already.

[Hiro Protagonest]

I'm not joking that a Summoner with an Eidolon optimized for natural attack invalidates the existence of essentially every melee character, no.

As an aside, "Dead" is a pretty good control condition to inflict on enemies.

Wizards invalidate the existence of every melee character. They just don't do so by using melee.

[Blackhawk748]

Though, PF does now have a Binder and a Warlock so not all hope is lost. Even if they don't Dreamscarred Press has it's Pathfinder version of Incarnum already.

I kinda like PFs "Warlock" but im not big on their "Binder" Im not sure why as it is put together well, i guess i just dont like that its a half caster. On the plus side the Binder transitions fine to PF so i can still play it.

[Zanos]

Wizards invalidate the existence of every melee character. They just don't do so by using melee.
That hasn't been the case in games I've actually played. The most effective builds make mundanes shine.

[aleucard]

That hasn't been the case in games I've actually played. The most effective builds make mundanes shine.

Ah, but with only the investment required to get a fanatic goon from, say, Planar Binding, the Wizard gets just as good a platform for their buffs, that they are NOT obligated to either care about nor share loot with, that also can have its own unique quirks that may equal or surpass any build of comparable level a martial could muster. The martial-player isn't going to appreciate the help as much if he realizes he could be swapped for an NPC with no difficulty.

And that's (part of) why we are so hard up about Linear Fighter Quadratic Wizard and how bad it is for game design.

[Kudaku]

It's worth noting that Pathfinder Unchained will actually be addressing four classes: The Barbarian, the Summoner, the Rogue and the Monk.



The summoner will likely be seeing some nerfs - either to the spell list or the eidolon, possibly both. The summoner spell list causes some controversy in regards to consumables (Improved Invisibility potion etc) since it's essentially a 9th level spell list shrinkwrapped into a 6th level caster, while the eidolons are both complex to make and heavily reward min/maxing.

The Rogue will likely be seeing some improvements - the Rogue has been on life support for a long time because of archaeologist bards and vivisectionist alchemists, with the Investigator and the Slayer essentially turning off the machines. I expect to see some kind of pool like Panache or the Sleuth's Luck, as well as a way to consistently improve their attack bonus. Hopefully also a radical rewrite of rogue talents - Comparing the Rogue's Hard to Fool and the investigator's Empathy really does say it all.

The Barbarian will be seeing some changes to make it easier to run at the table (Rage giving bonuses that are easier to track, HP boost not causing instant death) and make some rage powers less underwhelming - an example here was that Raging Climber should simply give a climb speed instead of a scaling enhancement bonus to Climb. I'm not sure where other people get the idea that the barbarian is seen as too powerful? It's considered one of the highest DPR options around for the olympics, but I've yet to see anyone complain that barbarians break the game. I expect this class to be made more streamlined and less "math ragey", not nerfed.

The Monk will also see a complete rebuild, though I'm not aware of any hints as to what this might mean. I think it's a safe bet to assume it'll get full BAB progression.


They're also including a new resource pool system to give martial classes more interesting options in combat - this was mentioned specifically because a lot of people on the Pathfinder forums were expressing concern that the fighter (widely regarded as the second most underwhelming class in PF) wasn't being 'unchained'.

Out of the four classes, I think the only class that will actually see "nerfs" is the summoner, and even then I believe that both class options are still playable and will be supported. The Unchained monk is not intended to "replace" the Core Monk, but rather serve as an alternative base class akin to the cavalier and samurai.

[Squirrel_Dude]

I'm most interested in seeing how this is going to translate to PFS rules. Whether they will have specific versions of the class that they will allow/ban.


On Barbs being seen as too powerful: I've seen posts about that. One along the lines of "why are we talking about the Summoner and not the Barbarian." It's not a very common view, but one held by some vocal posters on Paizo's forum from what my confirmation bias tells me. Same general line of thought that says gunslingers are overpowered. I don't agree with either point of view, but I can see the framework for them. Besides damage being one of the most visible ways of defeating an encounter (and one of the more permanent ways of eliminating an NPC), if you only compare synthesist summoners, barbarians, and gunslingers to Rangers/Rogues/Monks/Fighters/Paladins, the number they can so easily throw out look really weird.

[Kraken]

That hasn't been the case in games I've actually played. The most effective builds make mundanes shine.

This is my experience too in general. I suspect that the reason wizards, clerics, and so forth aren't getting nerfed is simply the fact that the level of system mastery required to really abuse them enough to cause problems at a table is rare enough that it wouldn't be worth rocking the boat. Additionally, it's easier to play a reigned in version of T1s, even if all your build choices allow for maximal levels of power. Edit: whereas summoners and barbarians, for instance, are comparatively easy to optimize, so they're more likely to create problems at the average table.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

To be fair, Gunslingers are seen as T5 in this forum somehow, but they can consistently put out decent damage, as a set of ranged touch attacks. They're solidly in one trick pony T4 territory, and an optimized one trick pony can look quite broken in a low-op group.

Basically the same goes for Barbarians.

[Extra Anchovies]

To be fair, Gunslingers are seen as T5 in this forum somehow, but they can consistently put out decent damage, as a set of ranged touch attacks. They're solidly in one trick pony T4 territory, and an optimized one trick pony can look quite broken in a low-op group.

Gunslinger is T5? Odd. I'd put them at mid/high-T4, especially with how powerful non-throwing ranged combat got in PF.

[skypse]

It's worth noting that Pathfinder Unchained will actually be addressing four classes: The Barbarian, the Summoner, the Rogue and the Monk.



The summoner will likely be seeing some nerfs - either to the spell list or the eidolon, possibly both. The summoner spell list causes some controversy in regards to consumables (Improved Invisibility potion etc) since it's essentially a 9th level spell list shrinkwrapped into a 6th level caster, while the eidolons are both complex to make and heavily reward min/maxing.

The Rogue will likely be seeing some improvements - the Rogue has been on life support for a long time because of archaeologist bards and vivisectionist alchemists, with the Investigator and the Slayer essentially turning off the machines. I expect to see some kind of pool like Panache or the Sleuth's Luck, as well as a way to consistently improve their attack bonus. Hopefully also a radical rewrite of rogue talents - Comparing the Rogue's Hard to Fool and the investigator's Empathy really does say it all.

The Barbarian will be seeing some changes to make it easier to run at the table (Rage giving bonuses that are easier to track, HP boost not causing instant death) and make some rage powers less underwhelming - an example here was that Raging Climber should simply give a climb speed instead of a scaling enhancement bonus to Climb. I'm not sure where other people get the idea that the barbarian is seen as too powerful? It's considered one of the highest DPR options around for the olympics, but I've yet to see anyone complain that barbarians break the game. I expect this class to be made more streamlined and less "math ragey", not nerfed.

The Monk will also see a complete rebuild, though I'm not aware of any hints as to what this might mean. I think it's a safe bet to assume it'll get full BAB progression.


They're also including a new resource pool system to give martial classes more interesting options in combat - this was mentioned specifically because a lot of people on the Pathfinder forums were expressing concern that the fighter (widely regarded as the second most underwhelming class in PF) wasn't being 'unchained'.

Out of the four classes, I think the only class that will actually see "nerfs" is the summoner, and even then I believe that both class options are still playable and will be supported. The Unchained monk is not intended to "replace" the Core Monk, but rather serve as an alternative base class akin to the cavalier and samurai.

Hey everyone!

Is there a link for those announcements so we can follow from this thread??

On the changes thing, I believe the first hits will be on stuff that are not PFS legal like Master Summoner and Synthesist since things like that are the "most whinned about" in the forums.

As far as Barbie is concerned, I can see rage powers getting some hate or even pounce removed, but the most "balanced" nerf I can see happening is hitting Rage-Cycling REALLY hard. I can see some features like trap sense going for a walk away from Barbie and I hope for a description and a "cause" in the existance of "Totem-Warrior" archetype.

Monks will always be irrelevant imho except for MoMS because I really believe flurry is a mediocre class feature that needs hell lot of opt in order to become viable. A buff that I would be happy to see is to do something like the Warpriest's "Sacred Weapon" class feature but for Monk's weapons instead of only his unnarmed strike as well as giving him the ability to use his Style powers with Monk's weapons as well.

I can't see how rogues can become relevant again after all those exterior hits they have taken. Archetypes, new class features, ACG, they all made rogues a really "meh" class that I don't think a Full BAB or some new talents will help them overcome their inferiority. Maybe by adding some "flavor" from the Ninja's tricks list like the Vanishing trick, but in general I can't see them becoming stronger without becoming game-breaking. I would prefer if the other choises that are currently over-shadowing the rogues get nerfed in order to bring them "down" to a rogue's level.

[Milo v3]

A buff that I would be happy to see is to do something like the Warpriest's "Sacred Weapon" class feature but for Monk's weapons instead of only his unnarmed strike
Considering brawler basically has that, it seems likely that the new monk will get something along these lines.


I can't see how rogues can become relevant again after all those exterior hits they have taken. Archetypes, new class features, ACG, they all made rogues a really "meh" class that I don't think a Full BAB or some new talents will help them overcome their inferiority. Maybe by adding some "flavor" from the Ninja's tricks list like the Vanishing trick, but in general I can't see them becoming stronger without becoming game-breaking. I would prefer if the other choises that are currently over-shadowing the rogues get nerfed in order to bring them "down" to a rogue's level.
It wouldn't just be adding a few new talents, they are completely remaking the class from the ground-up. It likely wont even have rogue talents.

[EisenKreutzer]

Thanks for the ad hominem and welcome to the conversation Psyren.

Umm.. Ad hominem literally means "at the man." It describes a personal insult, which is clearly not what Psyren did here.

[skypse]

Considering brawler basically has that, it seems likely that the new monk will get something along these lines.


It wouldn't just be adding a few new talents, they are completely remaking the class from the ground-up. It likely wont even have rogue talents.

They are totally remaking a basic class that runs back to AD&D because their newer classes have outrunned it? I don't like that :( If they are following the same logic with the Monk's rework, it feels like ACG screwed Core rulebook. Who knows what will be next...

I would much prefer it if the changes were more focused on balancing things up instead of just boosting everything to a better point than the previous one. This will never stop and it will end up to the chaos that 3.5 is due to the immense amount of books and sources :S

[Milo v3]

They are totally remaking a basic class that runs back to AD&D because their newer classes have outrunned it? I don't like that :( If they are following the same logic with the Monk's rework, it feels like ACG screwed Core rulebook. Who knows what will be next...

Actually, they apparently wanted to remake rogue and monk (and likely barbarian but not sure) when they originally made pathfinder but they knew that alot of fans from 3.5e (99% of their target market) wouldn't like the standard classes suddenly being different, but now they can remake them and say they are variants keeping both people who like the 3.5e rogue and people who want a tier 3 rogue happy.


I would much prefer it if the changes were more focused on balancing things up instead of just boosting everything to a better point than the previous one
... this is them balancing it up though. This isn't making a class that will make the rogue useless, it's making the rogue so that it's not useless.

[NightbringerGGZ]

They are totally remaking a basic class that runs back to AD&D because their newer classes have outrunned it? I don't like that :( If they are following the same logic with the Monk's rework, it feels like ACG screwed Core rulebook. Who knows what will be next...

I would much prefer it if the changes were more focused on balancing things up instead of just boosting everything to a better point than the previous one. This will never stop and it will end up to the chaos that 3.5 is due to the immense amount of books and sources :S

You'll never have perfectly "balanced" classes in a d20 / 3.5 world without rather extreme homogenization. Based on the little bits of information we've been given it sounds like Unchained is going to make the the fiddly bits of a couple classes less fiddly and provide rules to pump up the weakest classes in the game.

[Talya]

You must surely be joking.

Why would he be?

The archetypical "Batman Wizard" that everyone discusses here is entirely based around making everyone else in the party incredibly effective. The well-played Batman wizard is the most effective character in the game specifically because he turns his entire party into God-like beings of pure effectiveness. (Yes, even if they play that class. You know the one.)

[Snowbluff]

Here's my thing about Synthesist Summoner (and regular summoners to a degree):

All of the other melee classes are dumb. Seriously, if you have the better option of being a Sentai hero with a variety of options and abilities customizable by level and on the fly, why would you ever limit yourself to "silly primitive who 'thokks' things?"

From a meta standpoint, Synthesist should be better. With a barbarian you write the words power attack and barbarian on your sheet, and you're done. The Synthesist takes a lot more effort and thought to build. I don't know it should ever sit right with people that a Barbarian can be as effective as the harder (by it's variety of options, and therefore greater points of failure) class.

[Ssalarn]

I've read that amoung the classes to be revised in Pathfinder Unchained are Barbarian and Summoner, who will apparently be getting nerfs. I don't understand why those two be the classes that are being nerfed. Barbarians don't approach the levels of power to even be tier three with them just being able to deal out big-numbers of damage, and summoners are strictly inferior to druids who get companions and summons and wildshape all at the same time...

Wouldn't it make more sense for Clerics/Druids/Wizards to be the ones being hit with the Nerfbat? :smallconfused:

Actually, while the Summoner is confirmed as getting nerfed, every indication is that the Barbarian will actually be getting a power up, with 1/rage abilities getting revamped into things you just get to do while raging, skill bonuses getting translated into abilities or movement modes, etc.

The monk and rogue are also getting power-ups, and Jason Buhlman had indicated that there will be a new subsystem all martial characters can use that utilizes some kind of pool function.

[Talya]

Wizards invalidate the existence of every melee character. They just don't do so by using melee.

Again, not true. A wizard played to their potential turns melee party members into deadly tools that the wizard wields as effectively as their spells.

[atemu1234]

Again, not true. A wizard played to their potential turns melee party members into deadly tools that the wizard wields as effectively as their spells.

So your suggestion is just let the wizard play all the characters?

[Talya]

So your suggestion is just let the wizard play all the characters?

I didn't say it was balanced. I was agreeing that the actual play experience doesn't necessarily rely on balance. A well played wizard can make the melee types in the party feel like they are amazingly effective, even if it is the Wizard's effectiveness that the melees are feeling, not their own.

The "problem" with the barbarian is that, despite their limited capabilities, they can perform those capabilities so well they make everyone else who shares their limitations feel completely useless.

Summoner is similar, although it lacks the barbarian's limitations.


Basically, Paizo's focus on those two classes has nothing to do with addressing a "balance" issue. It's about shutting up complainers who don't understand game mechanics, and feel that the ineffectiveness of some classes in their limited roles means that other classes who perform those limited roles well need nerfing, when in reality, it is limited roles themselves which are the bigger problem.

[squiggit]

I'd be surprised to just see straight nerfs/buffs to everything. I mean, these have been advertised as alternate/rebuilt classes entirely and I'm not sure "here's a rogue but better!" Or "here's a summoner but terrible at everything" really has that much selling power.


Actually, while the Summoner is confirmed as getting nerfed, every indication is that the Barbarian will actually be getting a power up, with 1/rage abilities getting revamped into things you just get to do while raging, skill bonuses getting translated into abilities or movement modes, etc.

The monk and rogue are also getting power-ups, and Jason Buhlman had indicated that there will be a new subsystem all martial characters can use that utilizes some kind of pool function.

Has the news changed then? When the book was announced pretty much all the signs pointed to the unchained barbarian probably being the most stripped down of all the classes.

[georgie_leech]

While it's true a well-built Tier 1 can do anything, at this point adjusting the Wizard (and Cleric and Druid) down would be an extremely difficult prospect, and would likely have all sorts of ancillary effects on the game as power levels are shifted across the board. They may have the potential to invalidate melee, but they tend to do it in ways that are fundamentally different than what the Fighter is doing. The Summoner, meanwhile, invalidates other Melee classes by virtue of being better at it than they are. It's an obvious design oversight that can be adjusted far more easily than a potential rewrite of the entire spell system.

In other words, while both Wizards and Summoners can overshadow the Fighter, the Sumonner does it by being a better Fighter. At least Angel Summoner never rode around on a fancy motorbike.

[Ssalarn]

Has the news changed then? When the book was announced pretty much all the signs pointed to the unchained barbarian probably being the most stripped down of all the classes.

I was actually at PaizoCon 2014 this year when they announced Unchained and the Paizo staff was actually talking about things, and I've been following the threads on it, every word I've heard from the designers mouths has made it seem like any nerfs to the Barbarian are going to be little things that result from simplifying the class (like it losing bonuses to Strength-based skills during a Rage because it gets direct boosts to attack and damage and temp hp insted of increased stats), while many of the proposed changes are direct boosts in the Barbarian's capabilities, like 1/rage powers being replaced by flat "you can do this while raging", or rage powers that give bonuses to things like climb or swim checks being replaced by abilities that flat out give climb speeds or swim speeds. Basically, instead of a hodge-podge of abilities that can be used in various forms and to varying extents while raging, the rage is going to become a block of flat abilities like
"When I Rage, I get +2 to attack, +2 to damage, 2 temp hp per hit die, +2 to Will saves, and I can:
Grow fangs and bite
Swim like a shark
Dispel magical effects with my attacks"
Where basically each Rage power is just a new "this is what happens when I rage" instead of "each time I rage I can, at some point but only once each, do one of the following things...".

I don't think "stripped down" will necessarily translate to "nerfed" in this instance. They want the class to have fewer fiddly bits, but I don't believe they have any problems with its actual power level. Hell, one of their more recent FAQs actually re-enabled most of RAGELANCEPOUNCE, letting Barbarians use their Pounce ability from the back of a charging mount again.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Why would he be?

The archetypical "Batman Wizard" that everyone discusses here is entirely based around making everyone else in the party incredibly effective. The well-played Batman wizard is the most effective character in the game specifically because he turns his entire party into God-like beings of pure effectiveness. (Yes, even if they play that class. You know the one.)

That's the GOD Wizard. The Batman Wizard isn't pure buff and control.

[Talya]

That's the GOD Wizard. The Batman Wizard isn't pure buff and control.

Hey, even as a sorcerer I lived by TLN's Guide to being Batman. And if that's the wizard you play, you will not appear to overshadow your party. You'll just win.

[icefractal]

Based on the material I've seen from Paizo, especially the newer stuff, I've come to feel that their basic design style, and I guess target audience, is caring about the process of the mechanics, rather than the result.

So having mechanics for almost every aspect of your character, and having a ton of options to customize - that's important, that's process. Whether all those options have close to an equal effect, whether maybe there's half a dozen traits with a significant effect and the rest are chaff - that's result, that's not important.

And process-wise, Wizard and Fighter can't even be compared - they do different things. The result can be compared, in terms of how much a different each one makes to the party's success, but again, it's not about results. The Synthesist or Barbarian though, they have the same process as the Fighter, and unambiguously larger numbers. Therefore, OP, needs fix.

I think a lot of players are happy with that though. I know several people who like crunch, know the system well enough to run it (and do), but what they care about is having a feat to represent (for instance) their acrobatic fighting style, not whether the effect of that feat is significant or compares well to other feats.

Personally, I can't unsee the way the mechanics work, so it's not ideal for me. But luckily Paizo churns out so much material that there's a few grains of gold to sort from the chaff. I'd prefer a system I didn't have to dumpster dive in, but there are other factors favoring PF.

[Ssalarn]

Based on the material I've seen from Paizo, especially the newer stuff, I've come to feel that their basic design style, and I guess target audience, is caring about the process of the mechanics, rather than the result.

So having mechanics for almost every aspect of your character, and having a ton of options to customize - that's important, that's process. Whether all those options have close to an equal effect, whether maybe there's half a dozen traits with a significant effect and the rest are chaff - that's result, that's not important.

And process-wise, Wizard and Fighter can't even be compared - they do different things. The result can be compared, in terms of how much a different each one makes to the party's success, but again, it's not about results. The Synthesist or Barbarian though, they have the same process as the Fighter, and unambiguously larger numbers. Therefore, OP, needs fix.

I think a lot of players are happy with that though. I know several people who like crunch, know the system well enough to run it (and do), but what they care about is having a feat to represent (for instance) their acrobatic fighting style, not whether the effect of that feat is significant or compares well to other feats.

Personally, I can't unsee the way the mechanics work, so it's not ideal for me. But luckily Paizo churns out so much material that there's a few grains of gold to sort from the chaff. I'd prefer a system I didn't have to dumpster dive in, but there are other factors favoring PF.

This isn't entirely a wrong assessment, but it's not entirely correct either. Pathfinder has a lot of situational feats and traits, but few truly bad ones (and most of the legit bad ones they find and fix, like Prone Shooter). They do this intentionally to support the widest variety of playstyles; a feat that makes a character better at handling vehicles, for example, might be a terrible feat in a classic Tolkein-esque game, but the difference between success and failure in something more like Eberron or with a steampunk vibe. Similarly, performance combat feats are probably only going to be useful in a campaign that revolves around gladiatorial combat, but are nearly worthless in a campaign where the bulk of the fights don't include an audience. It's on the player and GM to determine which options are appropriate for the game being played. As another example, Power Attack is widely regarded as one of the best feats available; that changes pretty drastically if your world involves firearms being common and most combat taking place on flying mounts or vehicles where combatants rarely come within each other's reach.
I think our group really learned this lesson best when we played in the Cerulean Seas campaign setting by Alluria Press. That's an aquatic game where you have to deal with buoyancy, drag, and multiple other dynamics that pretty much shatter the full attack dynamic. In that setting, Vital Strike was one of the few ways to keep your damage competitive vs. level appropriate challenges and any number of other options that may seem subpar in a different setting made a huge difference in your performance.

One of the things that was spot on in your post though was Pathfinder's attention to process balance. For them, it isn't just about whether or not the thing someone does is the best thing you can do, it's about the balance within that thing for its own sake. Basically, it doesn't matter (as much) if there's a Tier 1 who has other ways of accomplishing the same result as the thing your Tier 4 guy does, but it does matter if he can do the same thing better. So if class A's schtick is being really good at killing guys by dealing loads of damage, and class B can kill guys without ever dealing any damage, that's okay, because class A still has his schtick and there will probably be situations where class B's thing doesn't work as well. But, if class B both has other ways of doing things and is better at class A's thing than class A, that's a problem. That's why the Gunslinger and the Summoner are so commonly viewed, even by the Paizo design team, as problematic; they can do things that are normally the purview of other classes, particularly dealing lots of direct damage, as well as or substantially better than the guy(s) who specialize in dealing lots of direct damage, plus they've got a bunch of other stuff like no-save maneuvers and status effects or potent spellcasting. This gets lost sometimes in discussions using a linear Tier system as the gauge, when in reality classes would be better represented on like a chart with an X/Y axis.

[Tanuki Tales]

Glad to be here, thank you :smallsmile:

Is what I said false? Is he still at Paizo?

Also, an ad hominem has to be directed at you personally; I addressed your argument. But while we're on the subject of fallacies, you may want to look up association fallacy.

And you might want to refresh yourself with the strawman fallacy, since nothing I said made comment towards him still working with them.

And...yeah...when you call the way I'm talking "annoying", I'm going to take that as being directed personally at me. Don't really see how you can see it as anything otherwise. :smallsmile:

Edit:

@Tayla: Please don't do me the disservice of replying to an earlier comment of mine when that line of conversation continued, when you are fully willing to show that you've read past that initial comment in this thread. I thought that Zanos was saying that Wizards don't invalidate party members but Barbarians do, not that the Eidolon invalidates mundane melee characters (which it does). Still, Wizards trivially invalidate the party with little system mastery, unless you consider the Summon Monster X line, Planar Binding and Gate as being a high level of system mastery.


@ EisenKreutzer: I fail to see how calling the way I'm making discourse as being annoying is anything except a personal jab. I understand that Psyren is an extremely loyal proponent of Paizo, some would say to a fault, but SKR made some major foul ups and trying to sweep that under the rug when others are voicing their opinions on Paizo based on their history up to this point, in some attempt to clean their record since it "shouldn't matter anymore", just feels dishonest to me.

And seeing as how I was one of the only two people to even mention SKR, I fail to see how that is not a comment that was directed at either me or Wooper. There was no deconstruction of any kind of point or conversation (as there was no conversation or point to refute, I had made a comment that was empty of anything to deconstruct) made by myself or Wooper, just a flat blanket comment of "it's annoying".


And for posterity, the definition of the word "whinge":

verb \ˈhwinj, ˈwinj\

: to complain in an annoying way


Edit edit:

Regardless of everything, this is where I'm taking my leave of this discussion. I wish you all happy holidays and a good weekend.

[Ssalarn]

While Tier 2 classes need nerfs, this isn't why Summoner is getting hit. And are you surprised Milo? I'll bet good money the regulars on the Homebrew subforum are far more knowledgeable on good game design than Paizo's actual staff.

They hired and listened to SKR for Buddha's sake.

SKR is actually a pretty awesome designer who did a lot of cool stuff. Anyone who actually took the time to read a lot of the threads he caught flak for would be aware of the fact that most of those were group decisions he relayed since part of his job was being Paizo's voice on the forums. The Monk flurry fiasco is a great example of this; he literally swiveled in his chair, said "Jason, what did you mean when you wrote this?" and then relayed that information on, only to be called a wide variety of not very nice things. A quick glance at the project philosophies behind the non-Paizo materials he's worked on, the Kickstarter he recently funded, or his own discussions on his blog and elsewhere, show what SKR being SKR can and will do. Sure, he could be a bit confrontational, but if your job was to wade into the internet and interact with the people you find there (http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19), you'd probably end up with a pretty short fuse too.

The Summoner is getting hit with the nerfbat, not because he's a Tier 1-2 class, but because he's a Tier 1-2 class that is directly better at doing the things Tier 4 classes do than those Tier 4 classes are. The problem with Tier discussions is that Tier discusses facility, not power. Many people confuse the two and tend to have a mindset of "Well, it's not Tier 1, so what's the problem?". It'd be better to view classes on a chart with an XY axis instead of trying to view them linearly; while a Fighter can only do one thing, the reality is that he (or at many levels, the Barbarian) is able to do that one thing to a degree that no one else can. The Fighter at 20th level actually has the highest direct damage potential of any class in the game; that'll bear out with DPR comparisons, but auto-confirming all his crits with big reliable bonuses bears that out. The eidolon, which is not a class, can top that. It can top that while the Summoner drops buffs, debuffs, and control spells readily on par with most other spellcasting classes. The issue is that the Summoner is simultaneously a Tier 1-2 class, and better at being Tier 4 than the Tier 4s.

[Hiro Protagonest]

SKR is actually a pretty awesome designer who did a lot of cool stuff. Anyone who actually took the time to read a lot of the threads he caught flak for would be aware of the fact that most of those were group decisions he relayed since part of his job was being Paizo's voice on the forums. The Monk flurry fiasco is a great example of this; he literally swiveled in his chair, said "Jason, what did you mean when you wrote this?" and then relayed that information on, only to be called a wide variety of not very nice things. A quick glance at the project philosophies behind the non-Paizo materials he's worked on, the Kickstarter he recently funded, or his own discussions on his blog and elsewhere, show what SKR being SKR can and will do. Sure, he could be a bit confrontational, but if your job was to wade into the internet and interact with the people you find there (http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19), you'd probably end up with a pretty short fuse too.

That may be true. But he also wrote a passive-aggressive story about elves being forced to work for evil bean counters who wouldn't let them make splatbooks that were entirely fluff.

Edit: Here we go (http://oracle.wizards.com/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0207c&L=dnd-l&P=15263). The original blog no longer works or something.

[Ssalarn]

That may be true. But he also wrote a passive-aggressive story about elves being forced to work for evil bean counters who wouldn't let them make splatbooks that were entirely fluff.

I feel like, unless you're directly empathizing with the bean counters, that's more funny than anything else. It also reflects kind of a sad truth of being a designer working for a company with an overly aggressive business plan; you don't always get to write what you want, sometimes you have to write whatever's on the schedule, or whatever happens to be selling, and for creative people, it can be a painful slog to have to check all the little boxes (do I have an archetype for X, Y, and Z? Oh, we've already got our quota of casters so I need to write a martial class instead, even though that in no way interests me? etc.)

Having chatted with SKR on a one-on-one basis several times, he's a really nice guy and very knowledgeable about game design. I'll point you back to John Gabriel's Greater Internet ****wad Theory. You spend enough time forced to immerse yourself in the morass that is any internet forum ever without the luxury of being able to straight up ignore the ****wads because it's your job as the guy who has the most experience with the internet to interact with them, you'll become fairly acerbic as well.

This actually underscores one of the things I like about Pathfinder: they've always operated under the same basic business model, it's one that makes lots of room in the production schedule for things that are both crunchy and fluffy, and more often than not, the designers are writing stuff they want to write, making the kinds of things they themselves want to play.

**EDIT**

Also, that story is pointed at Hasbro, not the fans, and the colossal failure of their crunch heavy, story-lite, edition after he left their employ kind of indicates that maybe he was on to something. If you actually read that article, it's an accurate and scathing endictment of Hasbro's attempt to over-commercialize D&D.

[avr]

For those who are worried that they'll nerf the barbarian - they just put out barbarian+, aka the bloodrager. This suggests that someone at Paizo still likes martial types with big damage.

[Ssalarn]

For those who are worried that they'll nerf the barbarian - they just put out barbarian+, aka the bloodrager. This suggests that someone at Paizo still likes martial types with big damage.

Right? And they released it in the same book as the Skald, so you can now have a party with a bardbarian who gives your bloodline-having, spell-casting barbarian fill-in the best rage powers of a true barbarian, for a flying, pouncing, murderizing monstrosity. With a 30 foot reach. And Strength-based Mediums from the Occult playtest are ridiculous monsters as well, and those classes (like the Spiritualist) have been cited as being good places to look to evaluate the general power level we'll see in Unchained.

[Thealtruistorc]

Remember, everyone, you have the right to omit certain rulings in your campaign. If you want to keep your classes as they are you are entitled to do so.

[Squirrel_Dude]

Yeah, recent supplements and additions to the game have somewhat debunked the theory that Paizo won't give martial characters nice things. It's taken far too long for people to relearn or reapply the lessons of the past, but they're clearly being brought back, which can only be a positive. It doesn't solve all of my issues with Pathfinder, or help to solve how burnt out I am with it, but it's a step in the right direction.

[Divayth Fyr]

A quick glance at the project philosophies behind the non-Paizo materials he's worked on, the Kickstarter he recently funded, or his own discussions on his blog and elsewhere, show what SKR being SKR can and will do.
Like his feat point system, where the feat prices either made you roll on the floor laughing or caused a headache due to how terrible they were by themselves and how some of the justifications were simply stupid?

[Sartharina]

Frankly, I wouldn't mind if Barbarian and Gunslinger damage were reigned in, especially if it means they can use that 'freed up' power to make them more versatile.

A class is not not-underpowered if it has one good build that eclipses everything else, but sucks outside a narrow band of construction.

[kellbyb]

Why would he be?

The archetypical "Batman Wizard" that everyone discusses here is entirely based around making everyone else in the party incredibly effective. The well-played Batman wizard is the most effective character in the game specifically because he turns his entire party into God-like beings of pure effectiveness. (Yes, even if they play that class. You know the one.)

CW Samurai?

[Raven777]

That may be true. But he also wrote a passive-aggressive story about elves being forced to work for evil bean counters who wouldn't let them make splatbooks that were entirely fluff.

Edit: Here we go (http://oracle.wizards.com/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0207c&L=dnd-l&P=15263). The original blog no longer works or something.

I fail to see the problem with that story :smallconfused:

[Psyren]

And you might want to refresh yourself with the strawman fallacy, since nothing I said made comment towards him still working with them.

EDIT: I'm going to moderate my tone because I'm coming off more hostile than I mean to.

But the above tells me that, since you know he's no longer with Paizo and hasn't been for months, that you should whatever problem may have resulted from him being there (and I'm with Ssalarn on this one, your blame is sorely misplaced) that it simply isn't relevant anymore and hasn't been for a good long while.

[icefractal]

This isn't entirely a wrong assessment, but it's not entirely correct either. Pathfinder has a lot of situational feats and traits, but few truly bad ones (and most of the legit bad ones they find and fix, like Prone Shooter). They do this intentionally to support the widest variety of playstyles; a feat that makes a character better at handling vehicles, for example, might be a terrible feat in a classic Tolkein-esque game, but the difference between success and failure in something more like Eberron or with a steampunk vibe.Useless like "doesn't work at all", that's very rare. Useless like "a whole campaign might go by without this feat making a difference", I've seen quite a few.
Ostentatious Display (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/ostentatious-display), to pick one semi-randomly. It does do something. That something is a very small effect, comes at the opportunity cost of things that could give those skills a bigger boost, and compares rather poorly to the +2/+2 feats. Not sure what the niche for that would be.


That's why the Gunslinger and the Summoner are so commonly viewed, even by the Paizo design team, as problematic; they can do things that are normally the purview of other classes, particularly dealing lots of direct damage, as well as or substantially better than the guy(s) who specialize in dealing lots of direct damage, plus they've got a bunch of other stuff like no-save maneuvers and status effects or potent spellcasting. This gets lost sometimes in discussions using a linear Tier system as the gauge, when in reality classes would be better represented on like a chart with an X/Y axis.There's something to that - a number of groups do play in such a way that direct damage counts for a lot.

However, I still have one big issue - for a book about rebalancing things, they picked the wrong balance point. The Alchemist, Barbarian, Gunslinger, Monk*, and Synthesist all form a nice "direct damage" block that's roughly on par with each other. Of courses, the two casters do that plus other things, but at least in the damage regard they're close. And it's an amount of damage that spells can't trivially match, which is good.

Rogue is already acknowledge to need improvement. If they just dropped their assertion that Fighter is balanced, and bumped the underperforming classes up to the "good damage" block standard, they'd have what for most groups would be a more balanced game. I think casters would still have the better of it when going full-out, but for low/mid-op groups, you'd get "non-casters** are the best at killing stuff, casters can do many other things", which is not the worst place to be.


* For fairly optimized Monks, in a high-wealth game.
** Well, except that two of them are casters. Those two might need a reduction in either kill-power or casting versatility. Elephant in the room when talking about reducing the Summoner is the Druid, of course.

[Coidzor]

So your suggestion is just let the wizard play all the characters?

Eh, GOD Wizards aren't quite doing that, and are preferable to Batman Wizards who make the other characters feel like cheerleaders.


The monk and rogue are also getting power-ups, and Jason Buhlman had indicated that there will be a new subsystem all martial characters can use that utilizes some kind of pool function.

Well, that sounds rather interesting, potentially even promising.

[Feint's End]

@Summoner: I do think that the spell list needs a nerf since it is true that summoners are a bit too powerful there for a well balanced t3.

I disagree on the damage however since I ran the math once on moderately optimised melees in pathfinder. IF you pour all your resources into damage for your Eidolon the damage is pretty high (like 500ish if all attack hits compared to the 250-300 of fighters and barbarians) that is true but you sacrifice any Form of utility and even flight (you even need to be half elf to have enough evolution points).
On a decent optimisation level Eidolons are actually pretty comparable to barbarians and fighters when it comes to damage. I assume raging for barbarians with two handed weapons and two handed weapon fighter with a two handed weapon.
On a related note ... Brutal Disruptor Cryptics and Natural Weapon Psywars can deal more damage than Summoners.

@Barbarian and other classes: I'm curious to see how those turn out.. especially the monk rework.

[Milo v3]

On a related note ... Brutal Disruptor Cryptics and Natural Weapon Psywars can deal more damage than Summoners.

For some reason I doubt paizo would be comparing to third party classes for this :smalltongue:

[Feint's End]

For some reason I doubt paizo would be comparing to third party classes for this :smalltongue:

Fair point :smallwink:. I was merely listing it for the people on this boards who know about DSPs excellent work and that Cryptic and Psywar are very well balanced. I wanted to show those can do extremely high damage if they put a lot of ressources into it while giving up flexbility (similarily to Eidolons).

[Talya]

@Tayla: Please don't do me the disservice of replying to an earlier comment of mine when that line of conversation continued, when you are fully willing to show that you've read past that initial comment in this thread. I thought that Zanos was saying that Wizards don't invalidate party members but Barbarians do, not that the Eidolon invalidates mundane melee characters (which it does). Still, Wizards trivially invalidate the party with little system mastery, unless you consider the Summon Monster X line, Planar Binding and Gate as being a high level of system mastery.

My opinion of the Summon Monster line has always been coloured by TLN's guide, which suggests they are a waste of a wizard's time. Following his guide, most of your spells will be: defensive buffs, offensive buffs, utility spells, save or die/lose/suck, and battlefield control. With the lone exception of save or die (which you can't use on very many enemies anyway -- you don't get enough spells per day to target each enemy with their own single target spell when the usual encounter outnumbers the party), none of these will ever make the party feel useless. Oh, they trivialize the fight, but they still require finishing that the wizard doesn't bother keeping the capability to do. That's what the party is for.

[Ssalarn]

Fair point :smallwink:. I was merely listing it for the people on this boards who know about DSPs excellent work and that Cryptic and Psywar are very well balanced. I wanted to show those can do extremely high damage if they put a lot of ressources into it while giving up flexbility (similarily to Eidolons).

Just wanted to note, the Brutal Disruptor's damage per successful attack against an opponent matching his active type is really good, but in actual play suffers from many of the same problems as a standard Rogue. If they're actually out-damaging a pouncing eidolon with a buff Summoner, something is very wrong with the picture. The psywar's damage tends to be on par with an Anger Inquisition Inquisitor's, which is very good, slightly less than a Fighter or Ranger, but with far greater ability to adapt.

@Tayla

Summon Monster also changes substantially in the hands of a Summoner; with 10 times the duration and a much swifter casting it is noticeably more powerful for the Summoner than for other spellcasters.

[subject42]

Jason Buhlman had indicated that there will be a new subsystem all martial characters can use that utilizes some kind of pool function.

If this is true I'm rather intrigued. A universal resource pool might allow for more flexible martial characters with respect to multiclassing.

[PsyBomb]

The martial resource system and class rewrites, I am cautiously optimistic about. Summoner and Monk especially, since those are two of my favorite Paizo classes.

What I'm eager to see, however, is what else will be in the book. If it represents major paradigm changes, then they could be looking more at feats for Martials and Mundanes. Possible non-level system or class creator. Things like that. Whether they end up awesome or mediocre, I want to see how far they are willing to push the envelope on concepts.

As a community, we can ALWAYS take the seeds and run with them

[VincentTakeda]

From what I've heard they're interested in compartmentalizing the eidolon. Essentially to choose an outsider 'theme' for the eidolon which forms the basis for restrictions or new options on what evolutions it can choose, in order to provide a slightly less deadly eidolon and, by improving the thematic options, reduce the summoner's tendency to create a 6 armed 4 legged pouncing rending kalimonster, which seems to be a disturbingly regular trend. The entire book is indeed regarded as 'an optional rule set'.

If you like your barbarian you can keep your barbarian. - Obama.

[grarrrg]

I disagree on the damage however since I ran the math once on moderately optimised melees in pathfinder. IF you pour all your resources into damage for your Eidolon the damage is pretty high (like 500ish if all attack hits compared to the 250-300 of fighters and barbarians) that is true but you sacrifice any Form of utility and even flight (you even need to be half elf to have enough evolution points).

That's the problem right there.
An Eidolon optimized for damage does better than the class that's supposed to BE damage.
An Eidolon "sort of" built for damage does just as good as the class that's supposed to BE damage.

And the Eidolon comes with a bonus "sort of a 9th level caster" as a class feature.


Honestly? I'm expecting "fixed" Summoner to be a heck of a lot closer to the Hunter.

[Extra Anchovies]

Honestly? I'm expecting "fixed" Summoner to be a heck of a lot closer to the Hunter.

I would be super happy with this. The Hunter is nice if I want an überpet from a set list of animals, but what if I want my überpet to be, say, a dragon? I consider Summoner every time, but then they have that pesky Summon Monster ability, and I really don't like using summons. So I go and make another homebrew Summoner archetype (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?378993-Summoner-Archetype-Eidolon-Master-PEACH) to lie in the corner, never actually used, but that still isn't enough.

[skypse]

I would be super happy with this. The Hunter is nice if I want an überpet from a set list of animals, but what if I want my überpet to be, say, a dragon? I consider Summoner every time, but then they have that pesky Summon Monster ability, and I really don't like using summons. So I go and make another homebrew Summoner archetype (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?378993-Summoner-Archetype-Eidolon-Master-PEACH) to lie in the corner, never actually used, but that still isn't enough.

Why not simply go non-optimized Synthesist and have a dragon Eidolon? You can summon it only when you leave safe areas and go for adventuring.

[Extra Anchovies]

Why not simply go non-optimized Synthesist and have a dragon Eidolon? You can summon it only when you leave safe areas and go for adventuring.

Well, with Synthesist I become the Eidolon (which sorta defeats the point of a pet class), and the Eidolon isn't at all part of my personal issue with the Summoner; it's all of the other things it summons. Are there any first-party archetypes that fully trade away the Summon Monster ability for a non-summoning thing? Closest I can find is Wild Caller, which would be pretty frickle-frackling awesome to try out sometime (bonus evolution points from Wild Caller + bonus evolution points from Half-Elf = you're gonna need an even bigger boat), but that still summons other stuff and has the summoning fluff, which I don't want.

I've been thinking about homebrewing another archetype who, instead of having an eidolon he summons, has a magically-created monster (magical beast instead of outsider) that he adds fleshgrafts and magical alterations to as he levels. No summon monster, but a much more versatile spell-list, beefier eidolon (more evolution points, better hit die), and some other stuff I haven't thought up yet.

[Milo v3]

I've been thinking about homebrewing another archetype who, instead of having an eidolon he summons, has a magically-created monster (magical beast instead of outsider) that he adds fleshgrafts and magical alterations to as he levels. No summon monster, but a much more versatile spell-list, beefier eidolon (more evolution points, better hit die), and some other stuff I haven't thought up yet.

I made something like that as a hybrid class of alchemist and summoner.

[Ssalarn]

I did a Summoner archetype that drops the Summon Monster SLA and replaces it with some unique mechanics for Dreamscarred Press' Akashic Mysteries (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?349964-Dreamscarred-Press-Introduces-Akashic-Mysteries&highlight=akashic+mysteries) line. The eidolon isn't quite as flexible as your standard one, but it's a veilweaver (think meldshaper from Magic of Incarnum) in its own right and (in my opinion) synergizes much better with the Summoner himself.

[skypse]

Well, with Synthesist I become the Eidolon (which sorta defeats the point of a pet class), and the Eidolon isn't at all part of my personal issue with the Summoner; it's all of the other things it summons. Are there any first-party archetypes that fully trade away the Summon Monster ability for a non-summoning thing? Closest I can find is Wild Caller, which would be pretty frickle-frackling awesome to try out sometime (bonus evolution points from Wild Caller + bonus evolution points from Half-Elf = you're gonna need an even bigger boat), but that still summons other stuff and has the summoning fluff, which I don't want.

I've been thinking about homebrewing another archetype who, instead of having an eidolon he summons, has a magically-created monster (magical beast instead of outsider) that he adds fleshgrafts and magical alterations to as he levels. No summon monster, but a much more versatile spell-list, beefier eidolon (more evolution points, better hit die), and some other stuff I haven't thought up yet.

Well you can't use your SLA while your Eidolon is out so you are getting rid of that during combat. You can use your SLAs for utility purposes like scouting an area or transfering something to another player or NPC, open a door or check for traps. Instead of using them the annoying way, use them the disposable way instead :)

[Feint's End]

Just wanted to note, the Brutal Disruptor's damage per successful attack against an opponent matching his active type is really good, but in actual play suffers from many of the same problems as a standard Rogue. If they're actually out-damaging a pouncing eidolon with a buff Summoner, something is very wrong with the picture. The psywar's damage tends to be on par with an Anger Inquisition Inquisitor's, which is very good, slightly less than a Fighter or Ranger, but with far greater ability to adapt.

In my calculations I got both of those above Ranger and Fighter. I did however use some rules for myself. Aside from a haste effect (which everybody should have one way or another at level 20), a +10 weapon and the usual stat boosting (assumed to be 36 at level 20) only buffs which can be cast be the character itself can be used. Meaning that Psywars and Inquisitors are actually quite a bit stronger than Fighter and Ranger damagewise.

Also a Half-Giants Natural Weapon damage looks something like this (using fully augmented bite of the wolf, claws of the beast, Form of doom, expansion^2 + advanced feral path):
1 bite for 12d8+23, 2claws for 12d6+23 each, rend for 12d6+27, 4 tentacles for 12d8+14 each

That is 60d8+36d6+152 or an average of 548 without even trying hard. I could add power attack, warmind and battle transformation for even more damage.

No way for a Fighter to match this.

Edit: I agree on the brutal disruptor but it is of importance that you can just get battle transformation via EK and get +6 to hit and damage. This solves the biggest issues.

[skypse]

In my calculations I got both of those above Ranger and Fighter. I did however use some rules for myself. Aside from a haste effect (which everybody should have one way or another at level 20), a +10 weapon and the usual stat boosting (assumed to be 36 at level 20) only buffs which can be cast be the character itself can be used. Meaning that Psywars and Inquisitors are actually quite a bit stronger than Fighter and Ranger damagewise.

Also a Half-Giants Natural Weapon damage looks something like this (using fully augmented bite of the wolf, claws of the beast, Form of doom, expansion^2 + advanced feral path):
1 bite for 12d8+23, 2claws for 12d6+23 each, rend for 12d6+27, 4 tentacles for 12d8+14 each

That is 60d8+36d6+152 or an average of 548 without even trying hard. I could add power attack, warmind and battle transformation for even more damage.

No way for a Fighter to match this.

Edit: I agree on the brutal disruptor but it is of importance that you can just get battle transformation via EK and get +6 to hit and damage. This solves the biggest issues.

Psywarriors and Half-Giants. What do those have to do with Pathfinder rules? If we get into calculating the fighting potential of a martial character like Fighters and Rangers why would you compare them with 3rd party material or even 3rd edition material? It's a whole new system if you include non-official sources. I agree that a typical fighter is weaker than an Eidolon so one of them might need some tweaks, but at least both the Fighter and the Eidolon come within the same ruleset and system.


On another note, someone mentioned that the changes will be more focused on making things simpler. If that's true, then the summoner will get a very huge strike from the tweak(nerf)stick since Pathfinder players and PFS consider him so complicated to ban him.

[PsyBomb]

DSP classes are accepted broadly enough that they are barely considered a 3PP, and are usually better balanced than Paizo can manage, so they are usually brought up in these discussions.

Plus, they have most of the old favorite subsystems under their umbrella (Psionics, Initiating, Incarnum).

[skypse]

Still I don't agree on the assumption that Paizo should be making changes according to what people are "used to" or what 3rd party systems introduce to the table. Paizo should be making changes according to how the system they already have functions. If they ever decide to include psionics as an official source (hopefully never) in Pathfinder then there would be a point in arguing where or not Fighter needs a buff cause he is weaker than Psywarrior.

[georgie_leech]

Still I don't agree on the assumption that Paizo should be making changes according to what people are "used to" or what 3rd party systems introduce to the table. Paizo should be making changes according to how the system they already have functions. If they ever decide to include psionics as an official source (hopefully never) in Pathfinder then there would be a point in arguing where or not Fighter needs a buff cause he is weaker than Psywarrior.

Considering that Tabletop RPG's as a genre are a result of game companies looking at people using Tabletop Strategy Games' mechanics to role play (here's a really simplified version (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0644.html)), I don't think it's especially weird for a game that's still updating to look at what their player base is enjoying/using and trying to fill in the needs that are currently being met by 3pp's. Pathfinder has an extremely strong set of 3pp's, and expecting them to ignore that aspect is frankly kind of ludicrous. If you're concerned about having a "pure" Pathfinder experience, you can always look into PFS.

[Feint's End]

Still I don't agree on the assumption that Paizo should be making changes according to what people are "used to" or what 3rd party systems introduce to the table. Paizo should be making changes according to how the system they already have functions. If they ever decide to include psionics as an official source (hopefully never) in Pathfinder then there would be a point in arguing where or not Fighter needs a buff cause he is weaker than Psywarrior.

Aside from the point that I was only answering to a comment and it specifically on topic I disagree with you. Paizo should do exactly that .... look at 3rd party. As a matter of fact they did with a lot of their newer classes it seems.
I do however think that it's nice paizo didn't use some of the more controversial subsystems because this way people won't complain about them being broken that much.

Also Inquisitors are already better fighters than fighters ... mainly due to selfbuffs being heads and above everything a fighter can give you. On top of being great skill monkeys to boot. You don't even have to look at third party material. It's just that inquisitors don't get that much hate because their damage is somewhat more hidden.

[skypse]

Considering that Tabletop RPG's as a genre are a result of game companies looking at people using Tabletop Strategy Games' mechanics to role play (here's a really simplified version (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0644.html)), I don't think it's especially weird for a game that's still updating to look at what their player base is enjoying/using and trying to fill in the needs that are currently being met by 3pp's. Pathfinder has an extremely strong set of 3pp's, and expecting them to ignore that aspect is frankly kind of ludicrous. If you're concerned about having a "pure" Pathfinder experience, you can always look into PFS.

PFS's responce is "ban the material that seem unbalanced and then piss on everyone who's asking to fix them instead of ban them". I fail to see how this is "pure"
Also, I never said that they should be ignoring the players. I simply said to give the players what they want THROUGH your already created material. Don't just add new things without giving a sh 1t for the old ones.


Aside from the point that I was only answering to a comment and it specifically on topic I disagree with you. Paizo should do exactly that .... look at 3rd party. As a matter of fact they did with a lot of their newer classes it seems.
I do however think that it's nice paizo didn't use some of the more controversial subsystems because this way people won't complain about them being broken that much.

Also Inquisitors are already better fighters than fighters ... mainly due to selfbuffs being heads and above everything a fighter can give you. On top of being great skill monkeys to boot. You don't even have to look at third party material. It's just that inquisitors don't get that much hate because their damage is somewhat more hidden.

Wait. We all agree that PF as it is, IS unbalanced and some of the core features (classes/races/class features etc) need rework to be competitive again. Why do you think that is? It is simply because while they introduce new stuff all the time like classes, archetypes, feats and books, they completely abandon older ones. A campaign that purely relies on Core rulebook and no other source will be as close to balance as possible. If you you start adding sources however, things change. That is the root of the problem. That is when "unblanance" issues jump in. All I'm saying is that imho Paizo should stop producing new stuff for Pathfinder and start reworking on the old staff it has COMPARING them to what THEY have added.

-Ok guys I think that Monk has some problems regarding his abilities scaling in later levels and his limitations in fighting. What can we do about it?
-Look at the rest of the choises for someone who wants to play a Martial class, compare it to Monk and bring Monk on the same level as those choises!
-Let's create brawler. This way almost noone will ever play Monk again and they won't whine in the forums for that class being underpowered

As long as they don't have a BASIC balanced material, I disagree that they should be adding more sources and newer stuff in the blend while leaving the old ones rot in oblivion.

I understand that the more choises you have, the more difficult it is for them to be all fair and equal but just adding more choises in there doesn't fix anything. This is why every day in the forums we see at least 5 new "optimize x for me" threads. You will either be a BEAST in your game, or you will be mediocre but flavourful. Not that you can't be both, but this is a little bit rare.

[TheIronGolem]

A campaign that purely relies on Core rulebook and no other source will be as close to balance as possible. If you you start adding sources however, things change. That is the root of the problem. That is when "unblanance" issues jump in.
That's definitely not true. A Core-only PF game is where Caster Supremacy shines the most brightly; it's only when you step outside of Core that martials begin to get some semi-decent options.

Also, adding new material is not mutually exclusive with fixing the old. The Monk needs love, but that doesn't mean the Brawler shouldn't exist.

[skypse]

That's definitely not true. A Core-only PF game is where Caster Supremacy shines the most brightly; it's only when you step outside of Core that martials begin to get some semi-decent options.

Also, adding new material is not mutually exclusive with fixing the old. The Monk needs love, but that doesn't mean the Brawler shouldn't exist.

Well casters will always be stronger than martial classes so I just didn't feel like mentioning them. No matter what the sources are Batman/God wizards will always kick ass so they are out of the picture anyway. Magic is magic; you can't balance it. However a wizard's choises are much more limited and easier to deal with when you only include CRB and not feats/other content from Advanced or Ultimate.

Of course not! Everyone loves new material and especially frequent players since they get bored of the old one easier than others. But that hasn't being the case. I totally want to see other classes being "sneaky" and having a rogue-like concept, as long as the initial character (rogue) is on par with them and they don't outshine him on everything! I totally want to see classes that are based on Core material, but I hate to see them rendering the core material useless.

[Elricaltovilla]

Of course not! Everyone loves new material and especially frequent players since they get bored of the old one easier than others. But that hasn't being the case. I totally want to see other classes being "sneaky" and having a rogue-like concept, as long as the initial character (rogue) is on par with them and they don't outshine him on everything! I totally want to see classes that are based on Core material, but I hate to see them rendering the core material useless.

Counterpoint: If the rogue is a bad class, then I don't want to see the new sneaky classes forced to play at the level of a poorly designed/ineffective class simply because the poorly designed/ineffective class came first.

Writing for a game is a learning process, and as time goes on the writers for a game will become better at doing their jobs, especially as they have more and more access to data that accurately portrays the effectiveness of their creations. If new ideas become available that allow a particular class to be more effective than its predecessor then these ideas shouldn't be withheld to protect the feelings of the predecessor class. Classes don't have feelings, they are words on bits of paper.

[skypse]

Counterpoint: If the rogue is a bad class, then I don't want to see the new sneaky classes forced to play at the level of a poorly designed/ineffective class simply because the poorly designed/ineffective class came first.

I am actually saying the exact opposing. Since they want to put out there more sneaky classes and they have better/stronger/more ideas than when they first created the rogue, then just do it. Publish those new stronger classes and under NO circumstance nerf them to suck just as much as the rogue. Instead buff/rework the rogue up to those classes' level! You have 3 new ideas for sneaky class for example? Publish 2 of them and use the third one to tweak the rogue. It would still be a new experience for an old player and you suddenly have 3 sneaky classes where none of them suck or at least none of them suck THAT hard that you would forget it ever existed in the first place!

[Elricaltovilla]

I am actually saying the exact opposing. Since they want to put out there more sneaky classes and they have better/stronger/more ideas than when they first created the rogue, then just do it. Publish those new stronger classes and under NO circumstance nerf them to suck just as much as the rogue. Instead buff/rework the rogue up to those classes' level! You have 3 new ideas for sneaky class for example? Publish 2 of them and use the third one to tweak the rogue. It would still be a new experience for an old player and you suddenly have 3 sneaky classes where none of them suck or at least none of them suck THAT hard that you would forget it ever existed in the first place!

I can see where maybe you meant to say that, but I certainly didn't read it that way. Thank you for clarifying though.

The rogue is a finished class though. Updating the rogue every time a new sneaky class comes out would require an obnoxious amount of work and ultimately you'd just end up replacing it with something else again in six months to a year (or whatever your production schedule is). Plus, now that you've added two more sneaky classes to the mix, you'd have to update them as well, or you fall into the same issue as the original rogue problem.

Constantly updating all your classes when new relevant material comes out isn't feasible. Paizo tries to do so with the Archetypes, and most of them just end up being crap. No, I think its just a better option to look at the rogue as a prototype and move forward from there.

[TheIronGolem]

Well casters will always be stronger than martial classes so I just didn't feel like mentioning them. No matter what the sources are Batman/God wizards will always kick ass so they are out of the picture anyway.Magic is magic; you can't balance it.
Certainly you can. Bard, Magus, and 3.5's Beguiler and Dread Necromancer are all pretty well balanced, to name examples off of the top of my head. Not every caster class is a Tier 1 monster.


However a wizard's choises are much more limited and easier to deal with when you only include CRB and not feats/other content from Advanced or Ultimate.
Yes, but you're hurting the martials a lot more that way. A Core-only game means the Tier 1 casters are limited to "only" Real Ultimate PowerTM, instead of Real Ultimate Power With CheeseTM. Martials, meanwhile, lose out on options that would give them some of the versatility and flexibility that they badly need.


Of course not! Everyone loves new material and especially frequent players since they get bored of the old one easier than others. But that hasn't being the case. I totally want to see other classes being "sneaky" and having a rogue-like concept, as long as the initial character (rogue) is on par with them and they don't outshine him on everything! I totally want to see classes that are based on Core material, but I hate to see them rendering the core material useless.


Well, if you mean that the existence of newer, better-balanced classes does not excuse neglect of the older, poorly-balanced ones, then we are in agreement.

[skypse]

@Elricaltovilla

Your logic is correct but it is based on the assumption that everytime a new class comes out, it should be stronger than the previous ones. This is what Paizo has been doing and this is where I disagree with their methods. Imagine the following scenario:

Instead of publishing ACG and introducing all those new classes and archetypes, they use the time they needed in updating the classes and archetypes (and Prestiges if possible) they already have. This way they would raise the strength bar to a satisfying point where let's say the clean fighter would not be martially outclassed by an Eidolon. (again I leave the pure casters out of the equation for obvious reasons)

This could result in making ALL martial classes to become Tier 2 (using tier system only as a metric reference) instead of the various Tier 2,3,4 we already have. Then Paizo can use this resulted Tier 2 as a point of reference for creating future classes and archetypes, thus eliminating the need for revisiting all the older ones every time they want to publish something new. Achieving this could result in a much more balanced system than the existing one right? Fighter, Barbie, Monk, Brawler, Ranger, insert-martial-class and their archetypes would ALL be Tier 2 in terms of total power (martial strength, durability, flexibility, utility, out-of-battle oriented stuff). So when Paizo has a new idea and wants to bring out another flavourful martial class, there is a stable point of reference so that the new class would be balanced according to all the previous ones. This can lead to having 10 different classes with 10 different archetypes each that are all more or less equal in terms of general gameplay and mechanics but very different in terms of flavour and RP which will give players a whole new experience in their campaigns and the satisfaction of playing "themed" characters exactly as they want them without worrying that they will be a party liability (I'm talking to you Rage Prophet).

Same logic can be applied to all "types" of classes. Sneaky, bulky, whatever. Balance is created because noone can be good at everything (except wizards). A Barbie can hit harder than an Eidolon, which can hit faster than a Fighter, who can hit more accurately than a Monk, who can outmaneuver the Barbie. The circle of life :D

I personally prefer this circle instead of the "Eidolon screws all other martial classes" system that we have right now.

[PsyBomb]

I like to look at a hybrid approach to this rewrite. Facts are as follows:

1) Game state at present is off-balance, and much of this is from the initial state.
2) Newer material coming out is not as far off in most cases (note I said MOST, let's ignore the Swashbuckler for now)
3) The experience and expertise now exist to bring the weaker original classes more (even if not completely) in-line, but this would require a deep-level rewrite

Given the above, there is no reason NOT to conduct an update, such that future options will be acting on a more even footing. This does not require more classes to come out in order to accomplish (though future subsystem creation will result in the occasional new class and/or archetype).

These deep-level rewrites are only for when you hit major checkpoints in game design, to bring the platforms together. They are not for the regular cycle of things

[skypse]

Certainly you can. Bard, Magus, and 3.5's Beguiler and Dread Necromancer are all pretty well balanced, to name examples off of the top of my head. Not every caster class is a Tier 1 monster.


Yes, but you're hurting the martials a lot more that way. A Core-only game means the Tier 1 casters are limited to "only" Real Ultimate PowerTM, instead of Real Ultimate Power With CheeseTM. Martials, meanwhile, lose out on options that would give them some of the versatility and flexibility that they badly need.

I have no idea from 3.5 classes so I can't have an opinion on that, but from what I've discussed and concluded, 3.5 needs a lot of houserule strikes in order to get close to hearing the word "balance" being shouted somewhere along the Planes of existence. Bards are not balanced compared to other spellcasting classes (or even compared to themselves Dervish Dancer and Dervish of Dawn ?!?!?!?) and Magus is just a better version of Eldrich Knight :D

Again: Magic > Martial and that's acceptable. However limiting one's options to fight against grapple and other combat maneuvers is very crucial to a Martial class. Nothing can beat an optimized wizard, but a Barbie will smack the **** out of one without a Rod of Quicken Metamagic when he grapples him. I agree that I am hurting Martial classes, but they are less hurt than the pure casters.



Well, if you mean that the existence of newer, better-balanced classes does not excuse neglect of the older, poorly-balanced ones, then we are in agreement.

Yup :)

[Sartharina]

DSP classes are accepted broadly enough that they are barely considered a 3PP, and are usually better balanced than Paizo can manage, so they are usually brought up in these discussions.Actually, they're not... and as for the balance, they have a much higher optimization floor than most Paizo classes, and also a higher optimization ceiling in many cases as well (Though it tends to be squarely between the optimization ceiling of Paizo Martial characters and Paizo Caster characters)

[Elricaltovilla]

@Elricaltovilla

Your logic is correct but it is based on the assumption that everytime a new class comes out, it should be stronger than the previous ones. This is what Paizo has been doing and this is where I disagree with their methods.

My logic isn't based on the idea that new classes should be stronger, but that new classes are stronger. Paizo, WOTC, White Wolf and any other publisher of a game series I've ever encountered have set the pattern, I merely account for it in my argument.


Imagine the following scenario:

Instead of publishing ACG and introducing all those new classes and archetypes, they use the time they needed in updating the classes and archetypes (and Prestiges if possible) they already have. This way they would raise the strength bar to a satisfying point where let's say the clean fighter would not be martially outclassed by an Eidolon. (again I leave the pure casters out of the equation for obvious reasons)

By leaving casters out of your scenario, you are making yourself part of the problem. That casters can do anything better than any other class is the entire reason for the existence of the tier system. Their presence in the game all but obviates the need for any other classes after a certain point.

Regardless, even the introduction of new material which updates these old classes creates the same issue you profess to dislike, chiefly that it makes the old classes useless. Nobody is going to play the old rogue if the new rules don't allow it. However, with the introduction of new classes, those fans of the old rogue can still play it if they so choose, while the rest of us can try out the Investigator or Slayer.

People will still complain, but people complain about everything.:smallbiggrin:


This could result in making ALL martial classes to become Tier 2 (using tier system only as a metric reference) instead of the various Tier 2,3,4 we already have. Then Paizo can use this resulted Tier 2 as a point of reference for creating future classes and archetypes, thus eliminating the need for revisiting all the older ones every time they want to publish something new. Achieving this could result in a much more balanced system than the existing one right? Fighter, Barbie, Monk, Brawler, Ranger, insert-martial-class and their archetypes would ALL be Tier 2 in terms of total power (martial strength, durability, flexibility, utility, out-of-battle oriented stuff). So when Paizo has a new idea and wants to bring out another flavourful martial class, there is a stable point of reference so that the new class would be balanced according to all the previous ones. This can lead to having 10 different classes with 10 different archetypes each that are all more or less equal in terms of general gameplay and mechanics but very different in terms of flavour and RP which will give players a whole new experience in their campaigns and the satisfaction of playing "themed" characters exactly as they want them without worrying that they will be a party liability (I'm talking to you Rage Prophet).

If you bring every class up to the same tier, all you do is create a new Tier system. And your solution still fails to address the issue of Tier One casters. They are still head and shoulders above these hypothetical new classes.

You also run into the problem that 4e had, chiefly that everyone being of the same power level means that they all seem really similar and boring. And 4e STILL has a tier system, so the problem as you define it doesn't go away.


Same logic can be applied to all "types" of classes. Sneaky, bulky, whatever. Balance is created because noone can be good at everything (except wizards). A Barbie can hit harder than an Eidolon, which can hit faster than a Fighter, who can hit more accurately than a Monk, who can outmaneuver the Barbie. The circle of life :D

I personally prefer this circle instead of the "Eidolon screws all other martial classes" system that we have right now.

And a wizard/cleric/druid flies over all of them and drops any number of 3rd-9th level spells that makes each of those classes utterly obsolete. Or a Warpriest outlasts all of them because self-healing and swift action buffs gives him more durability, accuracy, damage and utility than the Barb, Fighter, Monk and Eidolon could achieve.

You're talking about an idealized hypothetical situation here. What you end up with is people complaining that the monk's maneuvers are overpowered compared to the fighter's accuracy because he can lock down a Barb who outdamages the Eidolon who is obviously more useful than the fighter because he gets more attacks per round so his potential damage cap is higher than the practical damage cap of the most accuracy focused fighter.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

All of this doesn't really approach my point that making new classes is easier and better for the game in the long run than constantly updating old classes. Now, introducing new features to old classes is fine. Its a reward for people who stick it out with their favorite class and it helps sell new books to people who otherwise might not buy them. But if you chuck the old classes out, you just get angry customers who complain about the game not giving them exactly what they want.

[skypse]

My logic isn't based on the idea that new classes should be stronger, but that new classes are stronger. Paizo, WOTC, White Wolf and any other publisher of a game series I've ever encountered have set the pattern, I merely account for it in my argument.

And my point is that this logic should be stopped by the publishers themselves.


By leaving casters out of your scenario, you are making yourself part of the problem. That casters can do anything better than any other class is the entire reason for the existence of the tier system. Their presence in the game all but obviates the need for any other classes after a certain point.
Magic is magic; a punch cannot be stronger than energy itself. It can be enhanced but that's another issue. Magic is part of fantasy and fantasy is what D&D/PF is based on. Yes a wizard can become better than a fighter at xx levels but in reality you will have to go through all the previous levels before xx in order to achieve your goal while going fighter since lvl 1 can give you the full experience you are looking for. Not all campaigns start at lvl 15 and not all campaigns reach those levels.


Regardless, even the introduction of new material which updates these old classes creates the same issue you profess to dislike, chiefly that it makes the old classes useless. Nobody is going to play the old rogue if the new rules don't allow it. However, with the introduction of new classes, those fans of the old rogue can still play it if they so choose, while the rest of us can try out the Investigator or Slayer.

Nobody will play the old rogue if he can do NOTHING different than a slayer or an Investigator AND the 2 latter are better in everything the rogue does. However, buffing up the rogue to their level AND creating new classes that have their own strong/weak points but are overall in the same powerlevel as the other 3, will provide us with so many more VIABLE choises to make. Right now we are stuck in a "Investigator or suck" kind of situation.


People will still complain, but people complain about everything.:smallbiggrin:

If you bring every class up to the same tier, all you do is create a new Tier system. And your solution still fails to address the issue of Tier One casters. They are still head and shoulders above these hypothetical new classes.

You also run into the problem that 4e had, chiefly that everyone being of the same power level means that they all seem really similar and boring. And 4e STILL has a tier system, so the problem as you define it doesn't go away.

On contraire, I believe people prefer playing challenging classes instead of only casters because of 2 reasons:
1) It's challenging, thus not boring
2) They don't want to wait xx levels to reach the point where their character does what they want.
Is it a matter of strength? A wizard is better at punching than a Brawler at level 15 because he has 1 more attack than the Brawler or because he has higher damage dice or because he can turn into a dragon and kill stuff? It doesn't really matter. If I want to play something that hits hard with a beatstick, I will prefer to go through 15levels of Brawler than playing 15levels of something I don't want, in order to reach what I want. People will always complain about everything because the very nature of a human being is needy and greedy. Too bad we can't all be Elves :D




And a wizard/cleric/druid flies over all of them and drops any number of 3rd-9th level spells that makes each of those classes utterly obsolete. Or a Warpriest outlasts all of them because self-healing and swift action buffs gives him more durability, accuracy, damage and utility than the Barb, Fighter, Monk and Eidolon could achieve.

You're talking about an idealized hypothetical situation here. What you end up with is people complaining that the monk's maneuvers are overpowered compared to the fighter's accuracy because he can lock down a Barb who outdamages the Eidolon who is obviously more useful than the fighter because he gets more attacks per round so his potential damage cap is higher than the practical damage cap of the most accuracy focused fighter.


The point is to have a variety of choises for each "type" of character. All martial classes are of the same power level, but each one excels in something. That is a matter of flavour and choise. Apply the same logic to caster classes and to "dexterity/sneaky" classes and you win. YES an optimized wizard will still outclass everyone at everything, but again this is different. It is not a matter of balancing a guy with a beatstick and a guy who spent his entire life discovering the secrets of the world and mastering the energy around him. It is a matter of balancing a guy with a beatstick to a guy with strong fists, a guy who masters energy with a guy who masters the force of nature and a guy who masters the use of poison with a guy who masters presise attacks.


All of this doesn't really approach my point that making new classes is easier and better for the game in the long run than constantly updating old classes. Now, introducing new features to old classes is fine. Its a reward for people who stick it out with their favorite class and it helps sell new books to people who otherwise might not buy them. But if you chuck the old classes out, you just get angry customers who complain about the game not giving them exactly what they want.

So let's create new stuff that are totally and clearly better than everything in the CRB,APG and Ultimate books because we need old players to buy the new books as long as we attract new customers who will buy the old books anyway because they need the rulesets. Sorry but if this is Paizo's or any other publisher's logic it sucks.
Not giving the clients what they want? So we must accept that the clients want new features but they want them in the form of a new class and not in the form of reworking the old ones? You said it yourself; people will just complain about everything. It's good to listen to them, but at the end of the day the developers should have an understanding over what's best for their material and how to balance things up. In the past when people used to complain about how out of flavour and underpowered the Eldrich Knight is, all Paizo did was to publish Magus. Did this make EK better in anyway? No. They just gave a placebo to the players so they would stop busting the developer's balls. That's a logic I despise.

[Extra Anchovies]

Actually, they're not...

This. DSP may be very readily accepted on these forums, but a lot of DMs just want to stick to Paizo content, while also not running a PFS game because they [want to use their own setting]/[don't like all the bans PFS has put in place]/[want to play with just their friends, and not with random strangers who happen to be PFS members].

[Milo v3]

Magic is magic; a punch cannot be stronger than energy itself.


Nobody will play the old rogue if he can do NOTHING different than a slayer or an Investigator AND the 2 latter are better in everything the rogue does.

How come one class is allow to override All other classes bar two, but slayer isn't allowed to override one really weak class? :smallconfused:

Anyway, people still do play rogues, and fighters, and monks even though they are inherently weaker.... I mean, even truenamers get played now and then and their are all Commoner games.

[skypse]

There is no possible way that a character who posseses magic can be on the same level with a character that doesn't. This kind of "imbalance" comes from nature itself. It is the core aspect of Fantasy worlds. During the dark ages it was called witchcraft. In modern world it goes by various names like "chi", "chakra", "universal energy" etc. However, in games it is less arbitrary as a concept than in life. A wizard will always have access to "higher" powers than a brawler in the same way that a Saolin Monk will have access to "higher" power than Brock Lesnar. It is apples and oranges.

However you can measure the power between 2 different martial arts. People will go on and on arguing whether or not Tae Kwon Do is better than Kung Fu, but in the end of the day they are both martial arts. Noone is arguing if voodoo powers are stronger than a fist though. A rogue should be on the same level as the slayer based on the logic that they are the same type. A wizard should be balanced compared to a druid or a cleric. Not compared to a fighter or a rogue.

[aleucard]

I believe that the common phrase for that is "Guy at the Gym Fallacy". You seem to be under the conception that everything a martial does has to be something replicable by a real-world human. I, and just about everyone on these forums, think that the point at which real world people hit their level-cap is somewhere around level 3. As such, restricting the martial classes in such a way makes no sense whatsoever from a verisimilitude standpoint on top of being absolute Hell for balancing. Just because the only thought that 4e had for balancing the classes is to make them all play the same bloody way (and even then the edition failed miserably at that, from what I hear) does not mean that balancing the classes is impossible. It just means that the people doing the balancing need to not live in an echo chamber for the duration.

[Extra Anchovies]

Magic is magic; a punch cannot be stronger than energy itself.

This is the exact reason why game devs don't give martials nice things. It's not a healthy design philosophy. Martials should be like the CRB Barbarian, where they grow fangs and claws when they fight because they're just that angry, or they should be like Swordsages, where they can pass their weapons straight through enemies' armor because they're just that good at fighting. It's heroic fantasy, and in heroic fantasy the heroes border on the supernatural even without casting a single spell.

[skypse]

I'm just making a logical assumption based on the actual definitions of the words "fighter", "brawler", "martial" etc as well as reading the descriptions of each class as written in the books. I fail to see the logic on the argument that fighters should be as strong as wizards since they use completely different methods and tools. If you believe that martial gaps at level 3, then go multiclass since the game gives you that flexibility/freedom. When I read the word "Fighter" I want a guy who will punch/kick/wrestle/choke the **** out of something and then break it's fcking bones to dust. I don't expect a guy wearing a robe shouting weird words and moving his arms around like crazy just before he shoots a freaking ball of fire to my face. The freedom the game gives me is that whichever from the two I want to play, I should have choises. But it is different to compare apples and oranges, and different to have 10 apples from which the 9 are rotten so I MUST chose the non-rotten one or I will just suck. Why is it hard to understand that my perception of game balance is the acceptance of different types of classes (thing that already exists since we have casters and non-casters but in a more detailed/analyzed manner) and the balance in power between classes OF THE SAME TYPE. I want the Barbarian to be as competitive as the Fighter and vice versa in the sense that my ONLY dilemma when I want to create a character would be "what theme do I want to play" and not "how hard do I NOT want to suck"

[Milo v3]

There is no possible way that a character who posseses magic can be on the same level with a character that doesn't.

Healer is a class with magic. Warblade is a class with no magic. Warblade is significantly more powerful than healer. Adept is a class with magic. Slayer is a class with no magic. Slayer is more powerful than an Adept.

Magic doesn't have to be automatically more powerful than non-magic.

[skypse]

This is the exact reason why game devs don't give martials nice things. It's not a healthy design philosophy. Martials should be like the CRB Barbarian, where they grow fangs and claws when they fight because they're just that angry, or they should be like Swordsages, where they can pass their weapons straight through enemies' armor because they're just that good at fighting. It's heroic fantasy, and in heroic fantasy the heroes border on the supernatural even without casting a single spell.

No problem with that. There definetly should be a way for those classes to do extraordinary things like what you describe. I want the fangs though, to be as good an option as the armor penetration of the swordsage. This way I can be relevant and helpful to my party while I also follow the theme I want.

[skypse]

Healer is a class with magic. Warblade is a class with no magic. Warblade is significantly more powerful than healer. Adept is a class with magic. Slayer is a class with no magic. Slayer is more powerful than an Adept.

Magic doesn't have to be automatically more powerful than non-magic.

When did we stop talking about PF???? I can't find warblade in PFSRD and Adept shows up as an NPC class. Did I miss something along the infinite quotes?

[Milo v3]

When did we stop talking about PF???? I can't find warblade in PFSRD and Adept shows up as an NPC class. Did I miss something along the infinite quotes?

...
I assumed you'd react like that to the warblade example, which is why I mentioned adept.... :smallsigh:
Yes adept is an NPC class. So What. It is a tier 4 caster. It is a caster on the level of power of rogue. There are non-magic classes in the same system that are stronger than it. Casters don't have to be stronger than non-magical classes.

EDIT: Also, could use warlord as an example of PFSRD class but I assume you'd react badly to it. Even though it shows that classes can exist for the pathfinder system that are non-magic and not-pathetic.

[skypse]

...
I assumed you'd react like that to the warblade example, which is why I mentioned adept.... :smallsigh:
Don't say it like it's bad... No need to sigh. I can stop arguing if I am becoming that much of a pain in the ass. :S



Yes adept is an NPC class. So What. It is a tier 4 caster. It is a caster on the level of power of rogue. There are non-magic classes in the same system that are stronger than it. Casters don't have to be stronger than non-magical classes.

Well I don't really know how to answer that. I wasn't expecting a NPC-PC comparison. I guess that if I compare Adept to the rest of the NPC classes however he is much stronger than Warriors so there is a connection to that as well.


EDIT: Warlord is from PoW as I see. Isn't that 3rd party?

Anyway to save the trouble of proving your point I just accept it. I accept the fact that what I claim is not a definite and absolute rule but can we meet somewhere in the middle and agree that it applies to more than the 80% of classes?

[Milo v3]

Well I don't really know how to answer that. I wasn't expecting a NPC-PC comparison. I guess that if I compare Adept to the rest of the NPC classes however he is much stronger than Warriors so there is a connection to that as well.

NPC class-ness is only flavour. It is a class, on the level of rogue that is a spellcaster. This means, that it is easily possible both mechanically and flavour-wise to have a class that does magic as it's main thing, yet isn't an overpowered god.

Also, there is a class that is very magical and yet is considered the weakest class in the game, monk. Magic only equals overpowered if that's what you want it to equal, it doesn't have to surpass everything.

[TheIronGolem]

Why would it matter if a class is 3rd party or not, or whether it's a PC class vs an NPC class? Your claim was that "magic is better than non-magic" is somehow intrinsic to fantasy gaming, and if that were true then even the weakest 1st-party NPC caster would be more powerful than the strongest 3rd-party martial PC.

[skypse]

NPC class-ness is only flavour. It is a class, on the level of rogue that is a spellcaster. This means, that it is easily possible both mechanically and flavour-wise to have a class that does magic as it's main thing, yet isn't an overpowered god.
How exactly is a class that only gets low level spells by using rogue talents and a NPC-only class with limited casting ability good examples of having magic as their main thing? Last time I checked I couldn't cast black tentacles or entangle with my rogue. It's like saying that a Paladin is a caster class or pretty much everyone with some UMD ranks have suddenly the same potential with a pure Sorceror just because he is holding a weird stick really hard in his hand.


Also, there is a class that is very magical and yet is considered the weakest class in the game, monk. Magic only equals overpowered if that's what you want it to equal, it doesn't have to surpass everything.
Are we still talking about that dude that lives in Lawful harmony and loves to smack and trip things around using his fists and kicks? Or is this another weird thing that the totally balanced and not at all chaotic 3.5e has to offer?


Why would it matter if a class is 3rd party or not, or whether it's a PC class vs an NPC class? Your claim was that "magic is better than non-magic" is somehow intrinsic to fantasy gaming, and if that were true then even the weakest 1st-party NPC caster would be more powerful than the strongest 3rd-party martial PC.
Of course it matters. The whole point of this conversation that everyone forgot how it started but if we search a little bit we will remember, is that Paizo developers should balance PF according to what they already have as official sources and not just publish new stuff while leaving all the old stuff die in oblivion. I then claimed that because total balance is a little bit impossible to achieve, there should be a power system (and used the already existing tier system as an example) where same themed classes (and used martial as an example) should be of a same power level so that if a player wants to play a martial class, he wouldn't be limited to "that 1 or you will suck" options. This would be applied between all the same-theme classes. However you cannot match the power of a high level wizard because magic is stronger than fists in D&D. You can't change the whole game system just because you don't like God Wizards.
This however, does NOT mean that a lvl 1 caster is stronger than a same level martial class simply because there is that little mechanic that is called class progression. A wizard, no matter how optimized, cannot be a God until he reaches a specific level which more or less is after double digits. This effectively means that a barbarian will kick the wizard's ass every day, all day long, until the wizard learns strong enough spells to save his sorry ass. Is a high level wizard stronger than a high level Beatsticker? YES. Should it be that way? Well considering the fact that one of them spent all his life beating sh1t with his beatstick and the other spent all his life on gathering knowledge and mastering the secrets of the universe, in the words of the mighty Steve Austin, HELL YEAH!!!
After that however it all comes down to 1 thing: Are YOU a powergamer? If yes, then you will only play caster classes in this game and you should either find another game, or be in peace with this reality. Are you NOT a powergamer? Then I am happy to announce you that you can now chose between 10 different martial classes, with different class features between them that have both weaknesses and advantages over each other. You don't want a Beatstick char? No problem since I have 10 different classes who can act as assassins, masters of shadow, skillmonkeys, diplomats, gamblers and they are ALL viable options depending on the flavour you want your RP to have.

[Milo v3]

How exactly is a class that only gets low level spells by using rogue talents and a NPC-only class with limited casting ability good examples of having magic as their main thing? Last time I checked I couldn't cast black tentacles or entangle with my rogue. It's like saying that a Paladin is a caster class or pretty much everyone with some UMD ranks have suddenly the same potential with a pure Sorceror just because he is holding a weird stick really hard in his hand.
What.... :smallconfused:
I am not saying rogue is magical... I am saying Adept is on the same power level as rogue, and adept is a casting class. Which means it is easily doable to have casters that aren't gods compared to mundanes.


Are we still talking about that dude that lives in Lawful harmony and loves to smack and trip things around using his fists and kicks? Or is this another weird thing that the totally balanced and not at all chaotic 3.5e has to offer?
umm... yeah... the monk class. The one with supernatural powers like teleportation, ki manipulation, and (in pathfinder) can shoot fire from his fists. It's a weak class. It's magic. It's a weak magic class.


Of course it matters. The whole point of this conversation that everyone forgot how it started but if we search a little bit we will remember, is that Paizo developers should balance PF according to what they already have as official sources and not just publish new stuff while leaving all the old stuff die in oblivion. I then claimed that because total balance is a little bit impossible to achieve, there should be a power system (and used the already existing tier system as an example) where same themed classes (and used martial as an example) should be of a same power level so that if a player wants to play a martial class, he wouldn't be limited to "that 1 or you will suck" options. This would be applied between all the same-theme classes. However you cannot match the power of a high level wizard because magic is stronger than fists in D&D. You can't change the whole game system just because you don't like God Wizards.
Firstly, I am the one who made this thread... I am pretty sure I know how this conversation started. Also, you can match the power of a high-level level sorcerer/wizard, there are homebrew classes on this forum that do that, such as Bellator (Tier 1/2 Fighter) and Teramach (Tier 1/2 Barbarian).


Why should martial be limited to be pathetic, when there is evidence that they can mechanically be high tier classes? All they need to do is raise low-tier classes up (like what they are doing with the Unchained Rogue), and lower high-tier classes down (like what they are doing with the Unchained Summoner).

[skypse]

Firstly, I am the one who made this thread... I am pretty sure I know how this conversation started. Also, you can match the power of a high-level level sorcerer/wizard, there are homebrew classes on this forum that do that, such as Bellator (Tier 1/2 Fighter) and Teramach (Tier 1/2 Barbarian).
That was going to TheIronGolem specifically for the "magic is magic" part of the conversation. Not the whole thread. I am not going to the "homebrew"/3rd party VS official material again.



Why should martial be limited to be pathetic, when there is evidence that they can mechanically be high tier classes? All they need to do is raise low-tier classes up (like what they are doing with the Unchained Rogue), and lower high-tier classes down (like what they are doing with the Unchained Summoner).

Why would you assume they are pathetic? Scroll up and read what I posted before please. I said that classes like rogue should be buffed to the point that they are competitive with their alternatives like Slayer. I didn't say that Slayer should be nerf to hell and be as useless as a rogue. Summoner is a really sensitive matter that's why I haven't mentioned it at all. The main reason he is unbalanced (not talking about synthesist that sh1t is broken) is the fact that he totally ignores action economy from a point on. I am not sure how you can take that down without taking down his very core of existence which is his summons. As far as the rest of the pure casters are concerned I find it difficult to believe in a system where a fighter or a swashbuckler can use Wish, Miracle, Astral Projection, Enervation or other strong-ass spells that can shutdown whole situations or have something even remotely as strong as those. How would you balance a caster with 8th+ level spells? Remove them? But I guess that's why I am not a developer. Even if that is possible, I believe that Paizo should be making baby steps instead of diving to the bottom and try to fix everything at once. Wouldn't be easier to balance Martial and Magical AFTER setting a point of reference for each, instead of trying to do it for each class seperately?


EDIT: BTW saying that Monk is magical cause he uses Ki pool is exactly the same as saying that Rogue is magical because he gets "minor magic" as a talent, a Ninja is magical because he uses pool and can become invisible with Vanishing trick and a Barbie is magical because he can use fire attacks with the Elemental Rage power tree. "Ex" and "Su" are NOT magic.

[Elricaltovilla]

@Skypse: The reason people here bring up 3rd party/Homebrew classes is because your argument seems two-fold.

The first part of your argument appears to be that martial classes can not be at the same level of power and versatility as magical classes. The Mythos Homebrews and Path of War 3rd party materials prove this assertion false. Mythos Classes are all Tier 1/2 including their fighter, barbarian and rogue equivalents, while all of Path of War's material sits at the upper end of Tier 3 and can break into lower Tier 2 with the highest optimization. So the idea that Martial Classes can't be written to match the same power and versatility of Magical Classes is false.

The second part of your argument appears to be that martial classes should not be at the same level of power and versatility as magical classes. Well honey, you posted in the wrong forum to make that kind of assertion. I would be willing to put large sums of money I don't have on the claim that 90% of the posters here feel that there is no reason why Martial Characters should be required to be less powerful than magical characters.

You point to the Tier System and say "this supports my claim that Martials shouldn't be as good as Magicals." But that only demonstrates that you fail to understand the reason why the Tier System was created in the first place, which was to point out a flaw in the game design paradigm of D&D 3.X. In fact, its this very same game design flaw that you're supporting. That Martials shouldn't be as strong as Magicals.

You go on to claim that the Slayer is a good point of reference for how strong rogue-like classes should be with regards to the tier system. Do you know what tier the Slayer falls under? Tier 4. Do you know what tier the Rogue falls under? Tier 4. And yet, you can still recognize a huge difference in the effectiveness of the two classes. Your arguments and assertions are flawed. Martials can be as high tier as magicals, and there is no compelling argument which you could make that would give me a reason why they shouldn't be.


After that however it all comes down to 1 thing: Are YOU a powergamer? If yes, then you will only play caster classes in this game and you should either find another game, or be in peace with this reality. Are you NOT a powergamer? Then I am happy to announce you that you can now chose between 10 different martial classes, with different class features between them that have both weaknesses and advantages over each other. You don't want a Beatstick char? No problem since I have 10 different classes who can act as assassins, masters of shadow, skillmonkeys, diplomats, gamblers and they are ALL viable options depending on the flavour you want your RP to have.

I want to address this point specifically. I am a powergamer. I spend days crafting characters to crank out the absolute most from their class abilities. I research builds online, keep abreast of new and upcoming material. I theorycraft for fun, and I'm getting pretty good at it. My RL gaming friends just hand me blank character sheets and tell me to go to town because they trust my ability to give them both exactly the character they want to roleplay and my ability to make that character an incredibly potent force on the table.

But do you know what I don't do? I don't play tier 1 casters. I don't even play tier 2. I play martial characters, I play gishes. I play these characters because they are the characters I like. When I imagine myself trapped in a fantasy world, going on adventures and fighting dragons, its not with some piddly wand and a book fully of ink smudged pages. No, I grab my flaming sword in two hands, roar my defiance at the sky and charge headlong into battle against impossible odds, trusting in my skill with the blade to carry me through.

Powergamers don't just pick the most powerful classes. We pick the classes we like to play and make them as powerful as they can be.

[Feint's End]

Actually, they're not... and as for the balance, they have a much higher optimization floor than most Paizo classes, and also a higher optimization ceiling in many cases as well (Though it tends to be squarely between the optimization ceiling of Paizo Martial characters and Paizo Caster characters)

We are not talking about them being accepted in a lot of games but rather acknowledged to be rather close in power. All DSP classes are between t2-4 and work perfectly well. All of them useful and good at their roles.

I disagree on the ceiling. Maybe some of them have a higher floor (well path of war most certainly has) but that's mainly because they are better designed -> even useful for players who are not min maxing. Most certainly they don't have a higher ceiling than the PF t1 and t2 classes though.

I'm just curious if you could give me a specific example for a case where dsp ceiling is higher than paizo ceiling.

[Coidzor]

How come one class is allow to override All other classes bar two, but slayer isn't allowed to override one really weak class? :smallconfused:

Anyway, people still do play rogues, and fighters, and monks even though they are inherently weaker.... I mean, even truenamers get played now and then and their are all Commoner games.

Yeah, but part of the problem there is that they shouldn't be inherently gimped and weaker and people shouldn't be operating under the mistaken belief that monks are up to snuff. :smallconfused:

All Commoner games are generally only done by people with some idea of just what they're doing, on purpose, so it's a lot like knowingly playing a Truenamer despite the issues, only with less of a feeling of a need to prove one's self/masochism/both.

[Ssalarn]

In my calculations I got both of those above Ranger and Fighter. I did however use some rules for myself. Aside from a haste effect (which everybody should have one way or another at level 20), a +10 weapon and the usual stat boosting (assumed to be 36 at level 20) only buffs which can be cast be the character itself can be used. Meaning that Psywars and Inquisitors are actually quite a bit stronger than Fighter and Ranger damagewise.

Also a Half-Giants Natural Weapon damage looks something like this (using fully augmented bite of the wolf, claws of the beast, Form of doom, expansion^2 + advanced feral path):
1 bite for 12d8+23, 2claws for 12d6+23 each, rend for 12d6+27, 4 tentacles for 12d8+14 each

That is 60d8+36d6+152 or an average of 548 without even trying hard. I could add power attack, warmind and battle transformation for even more damage.

No way for a Fighter to match this.

Edit: I agree on the brutal disruptor but it is of importance that you can just get battle transformation via EK and get +6 to hit and damage. This solves the biggest issues.

Did you factor in critical hit confirmation? Fighters auto-confirm all of their critical hits at 20, which, if combined with a weapon like a nodachi or fauchard, creates a huge spike in their effective damage. Similarly, a damage focused Ranger at that level can generally apply his Favored Enemy bonus to at least a couple encounter's worth of combats (thanks to Instant Enemy), so he should be having his full +10 to attack/damage factored in (this applies to his pet too, if he has one).

Also, not sure if you're counting Powerful Build as increasing natural weapon damage, but I don't believe it does. I could be wrong though.

I'll put together a 20th level Fighter comparison, but I know the last time I looked at one of these comparisons he came out well ahead of most classes, including the Barbarian (and, sadly, my Anger Inquisitor, who could stack a lot of hurt on).


That's definitely not true. A Core-only PF game is where Caster Supremacy shines the most brightly; it's only when you step outside of Core that martials begin to get some semi-decent options.

Also, adding new material is not mutually exclusive with fixing the old. The Monk needs love, but that doesn't mean the Brawler shouldn't exist.

Worth noting, while core-only monk certainly has some issues, monks that use the full array of options currently available in Pathfinder (particularly certain archetypes and style feats) are actually some of the stronger martial options available. A Sensei with the Mantis Style chain and Qinggong replacements for a few options is almost the martial version of a "spellcaster" with good buffs, SAD stacking, and the ability to effectively target multiple defenses. Zen Archers are... well, Zen Archers. They're some of the best users of the most effective combat style in Pathfinder. Tetori and Sohei are also solid choices with unique niches. And the Pummeling Style chain is great for unarchetyped monks to get their damage up at competitive levels, thanks to allowing them to move and "flurry" and multiplying all of their attacks if any of the crits in a Pummeling sequence confirms.

[Talya]

Most people seem to want to play in a high-fantasy archetypical setting. In such settings, Magic is supposed to be special, powerful. Beyond the abilities of normal mortals. Whether you're talking about Gandalf, Allanon, Merlin, Zeddicus, Rand al'Thor/Aes Sedai - there's a marked separation from the great warriors and swordsmen of the settings and those who can actually work the supernatural. Not everyone wants to play the wizard. Some people want to play the Legolases, Garret Jaxes, Lancelots, Richard Cyphers or Lan Mandragorans.

Does that translate well into a game? Yes, so long as you put thought into it and you're not playing it like a tactical wargame. If you are, well, be prepared for the mundanes to start feeling very useless.

[Feint's End]

Did you factor in critical hit confirmation? Fighters auto-confirm all of their critical hits at 20, which, if combined with a weapon like a nodachi or fauchard, creates a huge spike in their effective damage. Similarly, a damage focused Ranger at that level can generally apply his Favored Enemy bonus to at least a couple encounter's worth of combats (thanks to Instant Enemy), so he should be having his full +10 to attack/damage factored in (this applies to his pet too, if he has one).

Also, not sure if you're counting Powerful Build as increasing natural weapon damage, but I don't believe it does. I could be wrong though.

I'll put together a 20th level Fighter comparison, but I know the last time I looked at one of these comparisons he came out well ahead of most classes, including the Barbarian (and, sadly, my Anger Inquisitor, who could stack a lot of hurt on).

I didn't factor in crits at all (neither did I factor in to-hit ... but psywars are ahead in this department and cryptics on par) so you have a point. Still lower than a psywar one buffs. I do however need to say that this is the speciality of psywars ... melee novaing. Nothing can match a fully buffed psywar.

Powerful build does increase damage. even if it wouldn't you could just pick improved natural attack. Actually if you are OK with increasing size above colossal you can get 16d for every attack instead of 12d ... which would add another 128 average damage (before factoring in crits).

Would be nice to see your comparison. Maybe we should do this in another thread though as to avoid farther derailing.

[Raven777]

Arguably, Rand and Richard are both more like gishes, though.

[Talya]

Arguably, Rand and Richard are both more like gishes, though.

Rand is a gish-wizard but he's got full 9th level spellcasting.

Richard Cypher/Rahl...I admit to not getting very far into that series, but when I finished with it, any magic he had was contained in the sword of truth. Wizard's First Rule, he's far more mundane than he ends up, I guess.

[Ssalarn]

Most people seem to want to play in a high-fantasy archetypical setting. In such settings, Magic is supposed to be special, powerful. Beyond the abilities of normal mortals. Whether you're talking about Gandalf, Allanon, Merlin, Zeddicus, Rand al'Thor/Aes Sedai - there's a marked separation from the great warriors and swordsmen of the settings and those who can actually work the supernatural. Not everyone wants to play the wizard. Some people want to play the Legolases, Garret Jaxes, Lancelots, Richard Cyphers or Lan Mandragorans.

Does that translate well into a game? Yes, so long as you put thought into it and you're not playing it like a tactical wargame. If you are, well, be prepared for the mundanes to start feeling very useless.

I felt the need to point out the fact that Garret Jax was Allanon's equal in power, and Richard Cypher with the Sword of Truth in hand was the equal of most spellcasters (and literally the most powerful guy in the entire world once his own spellcasting was figured out). Similarly, Warders in Wheel of Time had all kinds of benefits making them more than mundane, Legolas had an array of supernatural powers, Lancelot would be expressed as a Paladin in D&D/PF rules (definitely not mundane)...

None of the "mundanes" in that list were actually mundane. Garret Jax probably comes the closest, but he also lives in a world where 1st level spells like burning hands put you among the elite magic-users of the setting... So, E6 basically. There are very few fantasy settings where the equivalent of a Pathfinder caster goes around adventuring with "mundanes". Gandalf never used more than the equivalent of very low level spells and Tolkein still manufactured reasons to remove him from huge swaths of the various LotR stories because even that little bit would have trivialized many "intense" encounters.

The Brawler, Investigator, Alchemist, and Slayer probably mark what a "mundane" class should look like in a setting that includes 9th level spellcasting, and even then the Brawler and Slayer are really toeing that line.

[Talya]

Gandalf's an odd case, because while you rarely see him work more than a cantrip, he's martially more than a match for Legolas, Aragorn, and Gimli together, who couldn't even scratch him on a concerted attack (when they thought he was Saruman.)

[Ssalarn]

Gandalf's an odd case, because while you rarely see him work more than a cantrip, he's martially more than a match for Legolas, Aragorn, and Gimli together, who couldn't even scratch him on a concerted attack (when they thought he was Saruman.)


Emergency force sphere :smallbiggrin:

But yeah, I think the general consensus is that he's more like an outsider with some druid SLA's than a true spellcaster. The underlying point remains of course; there really aren't many examples of mundane characters adventuring with powerful spellcasters. Most who start out mundane either evolve to a point where they're no longer truly mundane, or the powerful spellcaster finds other places to be. The Dragonlance novels are a good example of the writers realizing this; Raistlin is out the door like the moment he hits level 5 and becomes a powerful NPC / plot device from that point forward. As mentioned, Gandalf fills the powerful NPC / plot device as well, Shannara is actually a fairly low magic (see- E6) world (though one that operates off the assumption that there's magic present in almost everything), true mundanes are basically Red Shirts in the Sword of Truth series... Even in Jim Butcher's Dresden Files, the mundanes start out with guns and eventually evolve to artifact wielders or alchemist-like gadgeteers (or they happen to be vampires or other supernatural powerhouses). True mundanes either die, get phased out, or stop being mundane.

At the end of the day, Gimli doesn't belong in the same party as Naruto from the most recent episodes of Shippuden. And that's a very intentional comparison, as dwarves in Pathfinder are pretty much the best equipped Fighters for functioning in a magical world, and they still can't go the full 1-20 distance while maintaining real relevance.

[Divayth Fyr]

Gandalf's an odd case, because while you rarely see him work more than a cantrip, he's martially more than a match for Legolas, Aragorn, and Gimli together, who couldn't even scratch him on a concerted attack (when they thought he was Saruman.)
That can easily be attributed to the fact that he is basically a powerful (at least when compared to regular mortals) outsider, equipped with a legendary (even if not too powerful) blade, and an artifact ring. Said ring could - or not - be responsible for a large part of his "spellcasting" (as in: anything connected with fire, perhaps even emotions).

And if he was given full access to his powers, he would be more than a match for just about anyone and anything in Middle-Earth, barring Sauron himself - after all both were originally Maia. Perhaps Tom Bombadil would stand a chance in his domain - after all, nobody knows what he is capable of.

[Extra Anchovies]

The simple answer to the Gandalf question is that he has a few Mythic tiers.

[Ssalarn]

The simple answer to the Gandalf question is that he has a few Mythic tiers.

Lol! Amusingly, Druid 2 / Wizard 3 with like 3 Tiers of Guardian does pretty much cover it.

[Extra Anchovies]

Lol! Amusingly, Druid 2 / Wizard 3 with like 3 Tiers of Guardian does pretty much cover it.

Hm. So if most of the party members are martial characters, and one member is a Druid/Wizard with mythic tiers...

Gandalf is played by the DM's boyfriend! That explains why he always knows what's going on plot-wise!

[Ssalarn]

Hm. So if most of the party members are martial characters, and one member is a Druid/Wizard with mythic tiers...

Gandalf is played by the DM's boyfriend! That explains why he always knows what's going on plot-wise!

OMG!!!! I about fell out of my chair laughing when I read that.

[VincentTakeda]

I'll never stop loving playing the angel summoner to someone else's bmx bandit.

[Project_Mayhem]

Not everyone wants to play the wizard. Some people want to play the Legolases, Garret Jaxes, Lancelots, Richard Cyphers or Lan Mandragorans.

Does that translate well into a game? Yes, so long as you put thought into it and you're not playing it like a tactical wargame. If you are, well, be prepared for the mundanes to start feeling very useless.

Interestingly, according to my girlfriend, who's been essentially studying medieval pop culture for the last year, Lancelot stories generally have him as a tier 2 or so martial. He is gloriously sueish - stories would have him slaughtering armies, then vaulting over hills on to his horse. I'm pretty sure at one point there's a bridge made of swords or something, and he just says 'Nope, I'm immune to that'.

[T.G. Oskar]

Interestingly, according to my girlfriend, who's been essentially studying medieval pop culture for the last year, Lancelot stories generally have him as a tier 2 or so martial. He is gloriously sueish - stories would have him slaughtering armies, then vaulting over hills on to his horse. I'm pretty sure at one point there's a bridge made of swords or something, and he just says 'Nope, I'm immune to that'.

If Lancelot is "sue-ish", how about Sir "I'm so Pure only I can see the Holy Grail", "I have a frickin' seat that only I can sit upon" Gawain?

Arthurian knights were larger than life people. So did Amadis of Gaul, and so did Roland on the Italian novels. There's one reason why Don Quixote got mad because of them and how Cervantes used the scathing satire of knightly novels to make his satire of everyday Spanish life, after all.


I'm just making a logical assumption based on the actual definitions of the words "fighter", "brawler", "martial" etc as well as reading the descriptions of each class as written in the books. I fail to see the logic on the argument that fighters should be as strong as wizards since they use completely different methods and tools. If you believe that martial gaps at level 3, then go multiclass since the game gives you that flexibility/freedom. When I read the word "Fighter" I want a guy who will punch/kick/wrestle/choke the **** out of something and then break it's fcking bones to dust. I don't expect a guy wearing a robe shouting weird words and moving his arms around like crazy just before he shoots a freaking ball of fire to my face. The freedom the game gives me is that whichever from the two I want to play, I should have choises. But it is different to compare apples and oranges, and different to have 10 apples from which the 9 are rotten so I MUST chose the non-rotten one or I will just suck. Why is it hard to understand that my perception of game balance is the acceptance of different types of classes (thing that already exists since we have casters and non-casters but in a more detailed/analyzed manner) and the balance in power between classes OF THE SAME TYPE. I want the Barbarian to be as competitive as the Fighter and vice versa in the sense that my ONLY dilemma when I want to create a character would be "what theme do I want to play" and not "how hard do I NOT want to suck"

Here, I made a double-take...


Anyway to save the trouble of proving your point I just accept it. I accept the fact that what I claim is not a definite and absolute rule but can we meet somewhere in the middle and agree that it applies to more than the 80% of classes?

Here, I was starting to agree...


Are we still talking about that dude that lives in Lawful harmony and loves to smack and trip things around using his fists and kicks? Or is this another weird thing that the totally balanced and not at all chaotic 3.5e has to offer?

This made me go haywire...


Of course it matters. The whole point of this conversation that everyone forgot how it started but if we search a little bit we will remember, is that Paizo developers should balance PF according to what they already have as official sources and not just publish new stuff while leaving all the old stuff die in oblivion. I then claimed that because total balance is a little bit impossible to achieve, there should be a power system (and used the already existing tier system as an example) where same themed classes (and used martial as an example) should be of a same power level so that if a player wants to play a martial class, he wouldn't be limited to "that 1 or you will suck" options. This would be applied between all the same-theme classes. However you cannot match the power of a high level wizard because magic is stronger than fists in D&D. You can't change the whole game system just because you don't like God Wizards.
This however, does NOT mean that a lvl 1 caster is stronger than a same level martial class simply because there is that little mechanic that is called class progression. A wizard, no matter how optimized, cannot be a God until he reaches a specific level which more or less is after double digits. This effectively means that a barbarian will kick the wizard's ass every day, all day long, until the wizard learns strong enough spells to save his sorry ass. Is a high level wizard stronger than a high level Beatsticker? YES. Should it be that way? Well considering the fact that one of them spent all his life beating sh1t with his beatstick and the other spent all his life on gathering knowledge and mastering the secrets of the universe, in the words of the mighty Steve Austin, HELL YEAH!!!
After that however it all comes down to 1 thing: Are YOU a powergamer? If yes, then you will only play caster classes in this game and you should either find another game, or be in peace with this reality. Are you NOT a powergamer? Then I am happy to announce you that you can now chose between 10 different martial classes, with different class features between them that have both weaknesses and advantages over each other. You don't want a Beatstick char? No problem since I have 10 different classes who can act as assassins, masters of shadow, skillmonkeys, diplomats, gamblers and they are ALL viable options depending on the flavour you want your RP to have.

And here is where I simply couldn't agree less with you. Take this with a grain of salt and a lime wedge: it's a nice combination.

When everyone here seeks that martial characters are raised in power, it's because of one reason: no one likes, consciously or not, to utterly replace another character's niche by being better without that much effort. This is a problem most martial classes have, and indeed, all mundanes have: a Wizard can, with as much effort as a Fighter or Rogue (or even less) replace the intended purpose of those characters and STILL be capable of doing its own thing. That is to say, a Wizard can be the party's buffer and blaster, but it can summon someone that can fight as well (if not better) than the Fighter and has spells that can deal with nearly all of the skills a Rogue can deal with. This was a problem in 3.5 (which reminds me: even though 3.5 players may not be civil about Pathfinder, some of us do, so please respect our choices when we say we don't like the core of Pathfinder; some of us like some of the stuff, and some PF players prefer some part of 3.5 content, after all), and to an extent is the same problem in Pathfinder.

The problem I see is that you want to group characters based on their similarities to each other. You claim that the Tier system is a good example, and while it has a tendency (full spellcasters end up being higher than mundanes), you want to alter the function of the Tiers to your convenience. After all, the argument I hear the most from you is "Warrior classes should be balanced parallel to Fighters, Skill-monkey classes should be balanced parallel to Rogues, Spellcaster classes should be balanced parallel to Cleric/Wizard". Note that I said balanced parallel, meaning that instead of balancing all classes to the core Fighter, Rogue, Cleric and Wizard, you balance them towards their best representative: if the best Fighter is, say, the Barbarian, then all Warrior classes (including the Fighter) should be equal in potential to the Barbarian, but never aspire to be the same as the Wizard or Cleric.

The problem is when you consider the inverse: the best representatives of Spellcaster classes are game-breakers, and you seem to aspire that ALL spellcaster classes work the same way. Perhaps I might be wrong on that one, but I'm not wrong on this one: you also aspire that no Warrior or Skill-Monkey class ever surpasses a Spellcaster, but you don't care that a Spellcaster can surpass a Warrior or Skill-Monkey on its own turf, sometimes without even trying. That's the reason why you find the Summoner so iffy: it's a Spellcaster class, but the Eidolon surpasses a Warrior class at times without even trying, and it has ways to supplant Skill-Monkeys as well.

On the other hand, people like Elricaltovilla, Extra Anchovies and Milo suggest that all classes should be pretty close to each other to remain relevant. That doesn't mean giving them the ability to cast spells (common misconception) and much less to claim that Magic can't do everything (though I'd like, honestly, to see a rein in its power). It DOES mean that designers should accept that, after a point, Warriors and Skill-Monkeys cannot remain mundane and should consider having supernatural abilities. It should also consider that, on their area of expertise, a Wizard must devote resources to beat the specialist to an extent that they expend the same resources a specialist Warrior/Skill-Monkey has. If all you need to beat a Skill-Monkey is a bunch of CL boosters, while the Skill-Monkey needs high ability scores, feats, traits and magic items to compensate, or when it's more cost-effective to summon a creature and then buff it rather than buff the specialist Warrior, then there's a problem. Pathfinder tried to ameliorate this, but changed other stuff that it didn't had to and THUS remained with the same problem 3.5 has: at best, the changes to most of the spells traditionally considered broken (Glitterdust, Knock, Protection from Evil, etc.) is a good step, but others remained just the same (mostly the immunity-granting spells: hence, a Warrior with optimized Fortitude still has a 1/20 chance to fail a save, while a Wizard will NEVER fail it due to immunities, and it still gains immunity to Will saves where the Fighter is found lacking). Players have to devote many resources to make a working Warrior or Skill-Monkey, while Spellcasters don't. That's the imbalance I'd like to see solved, and the imbalance I think others here want to solve.

If the changes in PF Unlimited aim towards this, then it should be welcome. The Wizard might be left untouched, but if the Rogue turns out to be a better skill-monkey, then sure, go for it. However, if the designers believe that the Barbarian is too unbalanced and they attempt to nerf it, then there's a big problem. I would have liked to see some additional considerations to certain spells (Freedom of Movement and Mind Blank coming to mind, pardon the redundancy), but it doesn't seem like that'll do, since spells are almost always left untouched. But, that's me: however, for once, I'd like to see that a "mundane" character doesn't have to spend resources to be as awesome as some of the legendary exemplars of each class, and much less be outshadowed by the spellcasters just because magic is meant to be unquantifiable in its potential. If that involves making all classes end up having supernatural potential to do a variety of things, then do so. The Wizard is still untouchable in terms of blasting, so I don't expect a Two-Handed Fighter to suddenly pull this off, but at least let the Fighter be capable of throwing 20-ton boulders to enemies by 20th level since they're meant to be superhuman(oid) by those levels, if they propose to. Have them artificially restrained to mundane limits is folly, and further builds the divide between mundanes and spellcasters. Have the traditionally considered "mundane" characters actually pull off supernatural feats once in a while, if they propose to do so; if it requires spending a lot of resources that makes them so good at it that the Wizard simply can't compare with anything else, let alone the Cleric, then that's good. Likewise, if the Warrior class wants to diversify a bit on what it does best (fighting), it shouldn't be shot in the foot because it can't upstage the Skill-Monkey, while the Spellcaster can pull this off without breaking a sweat.

[Sartharina]

This. DSP may be very readily accepted on these forums, but a lot of DMs just want to stick to Paizo content, while also not running a PFS game because they [want to use their own setting]/[don't like all the bans PFS has put in place]/[want to play with just their friends, and not with random strangers who happen to be PFS members].And it's not even readily accepted in our own Finding Players section on these forums.

And with the whole "Wizards should be inherently superior to fighters" thing... no. I don't mind the extra versatility magic gives, but the ability to out-fight fighters is a problem. Magic users do not and should not have access to 'everything'.

The rogue could have been good in Pathfinder if it weren't for 3.5's bull**** inherited... and systematic screw-overs (Poor BAB progression, bad saves, Full Attack nonsense, Sneak Attack difficulty, and that stupid 30' range limitation. The 5e rogue is awesome, and is what the Pathfinder rogue should have been.

[skypse]

On the Dark Ages/British History(or mythology)/Tolkein etc matter:
I would like to point out that most of the characters you mention being mundane, they surpassed that point after they got some kind of artifact. They didn't all present innate spellcasting abilities. It's like when Aragorn took the sword from the elves in the last movie. It more or less gave him the ability to Summon Undead Swarm Of Freakishly Huge Numbers 1/day. It didn't make him a summoner/necromancer. Gandalf uses his magical powers mainly to fight Saruman and to summon eagles (and butterfly omfg) but when Saruman takes his staff he is helpless against him. Point being that those mundane characters never surrpased their associated spellcasters. They just got more plot than the spellcasters so that there would be a good story to tell, and they got magical artifacts/items to get a boost in power.

@T.G. Oskar

First thing I want to make clear is that I do not agree/like the existing Tier system. I am only using it as an example because of simplicity as I have mentioned in an earlier post. I have no idea about 3rd party material, psionics and PoW for simple reasons.
1) I don't have that much free time to read about them and not mess my head up trying to distinguish the differences between pure PF and PF + company.
2) I believe psionics are totally broken from the little I have read but mainly because from what I see in these forums they are part of EVERY optimization built which pretty much proves that they outclass everything similar to them. (After all the point of comparing Psywarrior with Fighter was exactly that right?)

I still fail to see Monk as a "magical" class only due to the fact that he has a Ki pool. As I said before, the same logic makes Ninja a "magical" class and that's just wrong.


The problem I see is that you want to group characters based on their similarities to each other. You claim that the Tier system is a good example, and while it has a tendency (full spellcasters end up being higher than mundanes), you want to alter the function of the Tiers to your convenience. After all, the argument I hear the most from you is "Warrior classes should be balanced parallel to Fighters, Skill-monkey classes should be balanced parallel to Rogues, Spellcaster classes should be balanced parallel to Cleric/Wizard". Note that I said balanced parallel, meaning that instead of balancing all classes to the core Fighter, Rogue, Cleric and Wizard, you balance them towards their best representative: if the best Fighter is, say, the Barbarian, then all Warrior classes (including the Fighter) should be equal in potential to the Barbarian, but never aspire to be the same as the Wizard or Cleric.

It's a process. If you go to previous posts you will see that I said this at a point:

I believe that Paizo should be making baby steps instead of diving to the bottom and try to fix everything at once. Wouldn't be easier to balance Martial and Magical AFTER setting a point of reference for each, instead of trying to do it for each class seperately?
This proves that I do believe in the potential of total balance but in order to achieve that they need to take it slow. It's not like we have a perfect system that only needs some tweaks. We have a crumbling system that fails to address older issues (even issues that date back to 3/3.5e) and instead is putting out new classes as if giving us Placebos instead of Medicine. All I'm saying is that in the process to make everything balanced (and achieve nirvana as a NON magical Monk would say) I propose to first make similar classes balanced/balanced parallel to each other. Of course balance all beatstick classes according to their best representative which means buff them since they are already underpowered.

I find the main problem with spellcasters to be in their spells variety/power. The only reason a wizard can outfight a fighter is either due to summons, or due to "form" effects. However, it is very difficult to work on the mechanics of some spells since you older players know much better than I do that 1 word in a description can take a spell or ability from "Godly" to "Useless slot per day". Yes I do believe that magic should be stronger than fists, but the reason this will continue in PF is not because I believe so. It is firstly because I doubt the developers will ever go that far into balancing out the different spell lists and all the rest stuff they have out there. And secondly because even if they remove some spells, even if they remove some effects, even if they manage to find balance in power and tweak some numbers in order to bring everything close, PF will always have this that will break the balance:

Creating a Spell

Successfully researching a new spell requires time and expensive research. An optional system for researching new spells is outlined below.

The research should cost at least 1,000 gp per spell level (or even more for particularly exotic spells) and require both the Spellcraft skill and a Knowledge skill appropriate to the researcher's class. Wizards and bards use Knowledge (arcana), sorcerers use a Knowledge skill appropriate to their heritage (usually arcana, nature, or planes), druids and rangers use the Knowledge (nature) skill, and clerics and paladins use Knowledge (religion). The actual research process varies by the type of spell, often involving magical experimentation, the purchase and study of moldy scrolls and grimoires, contact with powerful magical beings or outsiders, and extensive meditation or rituals.

For each week of research, the caster makes separate Knowledge and Spellcraft checks against a DC of 20 plus twice the level of the spell being researched, modified according to Table: Spell Research Modifiers. To successfully research the spell, the caster must succeed at both checks. Failure indicates the week was wasted. Spells of 4th-6th level requires 2 weeks of successful research, while spells of 7th-9th level require 4 weeks. The researcher may employ up to two assistants in the research process to assist on the skill checks using the aid another action.

Table: Spell Research Modifiers
Condition DC Modifier
Caster already knows a similar spell -2
Per material component required -2 (maximum -6)
Focus required -2 to -5 based on cost and rarity
No verbal component +10
No somatic component +5
Additional research materials -1 per 100 gp per spell level maximum +5)

In the end, whatever you want to do with magic, you can do it. That's why it is pointless to seek balance on that. If they remove this part, then balance is achievable but they still need to take baby steps in order for it to be good.

[Divayth Fyr]

On the Dark Ages/British History(or mythology)/Tolkein etc matter:
I would like to point out that most of the characters you mention being mundane, they surpassed that point after they got some kind of artifact. They didn't all present innate spellcasting abilities. It's like when Aragorn took the sword from the elves in the last movie. It more or less gave him the ability to Summon Undead Swarm Of Freakishly Huge Numbers 1/day.
More like 1/ever - and it was the power of his bloodline.

Also, I hate the scene in the movie (for me it looks like some green toilet-cleaner is poured over the battlefield). In the books, the battle of Minas Tirith was won by mundane strength.


Gandalf uses his magical powers mainly to fight Saruman and to summon eagles (and butterfly omfg) but when Saruman takes his staff he is helpless against him.
As far as the books are concerned, I'm not sure Saruman took the staff from Gandalf (Frodo had a vision of a white haired man with a staff getting picked up from a tower by some giant winged creature) and he defeated the Balrog without it (it shattered while destroying the bridge).