Pathfinder Version of the Villainous Competition/Iron Chef?

[ArendK]

As I'm reading through the different competitions, I love looking through the various aspects of the flavor, build mechanics, etc.

As I primarily focus on Pathfinder (and Shadowrun) nowadays, I'm curious as to what if any, attention to Pathfinder my fellow Giants have put in to similar competitions. I haven't seen anything, but maybe I'm just not looking in the right spot.

[Psyren]

While you could do something like this in Pathfinder, the lower ceiling and tighter constraints on ridiculousness unintended interactions (like builds that stay at 0 HP every level) makes it less attractive for that sort of crowd, at least by my understanding.

[ArendK]

Fair enough. Oddly enough, that kind of craziness is what kind of moved me away from 3.5 and into Pathfinder.

[daremetoidareyo]

It might work if you did it by splat book

[Psyren]

The other problem with this for Pathfinder is the higher floor; very few classes in PF are so weak that they get the creative juices flowing like Iron Chef does. In 3.5 you can yell "Soulborn!" or "Battle Dancer!" or "Elemental Savant!" and immediately people will get engaged. In PF, even if a class is low power, it's fairly evident what the intended role for it was, even if said role would be better suited to an NPC or cohort.

Thinking about it a bit more, I could see an "Iron Chef" style competition for some of the weaker archetypes out there ( e,g, Sword Saint) if the goal is less "optimize this for raw power" and more "come up with a competent build where the quirks of this archetype play a prominent role."

I could also see a Zinc Saucier-style competition - the one where you are given a class (or again, archetype in this case) and you have to duplicate its capabilities/feel through a combination of other classes, PrCs, feats etc.

[Florian]

Hm... I´ve simply grown tired of this kind of things and I´m pretty happy to not have to deal with this anymore in PF, at least not to the usual levels of excess and especially not the follow-up discussion, when people talk on and on about how certain rules interactions could be interpreted by RAW.

After 30 years of roleplaying, pure rules lawyering and solo-optimization is.. boring.
Now PF offers a lot of distinct subsystem that at least tend to come up in the APs and pretty much alter what "efficiency" realy means, as you have to focus on two fronts. Now competitions that go deeper into that would hold my interest.

[Vaz]

The other problem with this for Pathfinder is the higher floor; very few classes in PF are so weak that they get the creative juices flowing like Iron Chef does. In 3.5 you can yell "Soulborn!" or "Battle Dancer!" or "Elemental Savant!" and immediately people will get engaged. In PF, even if a class is low power, it's fairly evident what the intended role for it was, even if said role would be better suited to an NPC or cohort.

Thinking about it a bit more, I could see an "Iron Chef" style competition for some of the weaker archetypes out there ( e,g, Sword Saint) if the goal is less "optimize this for raw power" and more "come up with a competent build where the quirks of this archetype play a prominent role."

I could also see a Zinc Saucier-style competition - the one where you are given a class (or again, archetype in this case) and you have to duplicate its capabilities/feel through a combination of other classes, PrCs, feats etc.

Being fair, while swinging for the fence will net you some points, especially if it's a new abuse, or a novel way of achieving an existing abuse, it's still only 25% aspect of it, and known abuses tend to lose points for elegance and originality because it's rarely elegant, and often unoriginal anyway, and also dependent on judge, arguably less Use of the Special Ingredient. One of my favourite builds was a Plane Hopping Dragonfire Initiate Pirate with ranks in Prof Sailor, Swim and Knowledge (Geography), which is hardly something you'd typically consider to be raw power, even within a game based at sea.

[Florian]

Being fair, while swinging for the fence will net you some points, especially if it's a new abuse, or a novel way of achieving an existing abuse, it's still only 25% aspect of it, and known abuses tend to lose points for elegance and originality because it's rarely elegant, and often unoriginal anyway, and also dependent on judge, arguably less Use of the Special Ingredient. One of my favourite builds was a Plane Hopping Dragonfire Initiate Pirate with ranks in Prof Sailor, Swim and Knowledge (Geography), which is hardly something you'd typically consider to be raw power, even within a game based at sea.

You know, this is why I mentioned the PF-specific subsystems. Prof. Sailor or Prof. Soldier actually is raw power when using the naval or mass combat rules, up to the point where a skill focus here can be actually seen as being "op".

[Psyren]

Point - it's not about power so much, more about unintended interactions. Even if they don't lead to a particularly powerful outcome, they just don't sit well with me, and ICOC is full of them. It's part of the reason I jumped to PF in the first place - having the devs right there to answer questions (even if they don't do it nearly as often as I'd like), and moreover a setup and use of technology that allows their answers to have the weight of law, was more appealing to me than any number of tricks and PI I'd be leaving behind.

Having said that, again, I do think something along the lines of "put together a cool build based around this weak/obscure archetype" could be fun for this game. Especially if it leads to me discovering feats and items I'd have otherwise missed (Pathfinder has a ton of them.)

[Florian]

You mentioning Sword Saints is a pretty good example here. It´s a very lackluster archetype, but when you either use performance combat or social social combat, it shines.

[Vaz]

You know, this is why I mentioned the PF-specific subsystems. Prof. Sailor or Prof. Soldier actually is raw power when using the naval or mass combat rules, up to the point where a skill focus here can be actually seen as being "op".

But that's irrelevant to the point of the Iron Chef Ingredient though. Anyone can go Pun-Pun and still qualify for the Ingredient in Iron Chef. That's not the point, though.

[ArendK]

Okay; so if someone (not necessarily me, as I don't really have the time to analyze a bunch of builds) were to put out a competition of Pathfinder- say "Make X archetype cool/usable/fun" with better wording, would we have submitters? Would we have judges (again, not necessarily me).

Were I inclined to do it myself, it would have the following criteria. This is just my opinion.

-Paizo only.
-Background of the character
-Race restrictions (normal and featured, maybe a slight knock on points for uncommon races)
-Incremental builds; 1st, 5th, 10th, and 15th, as few get to 20.
-15/14/13/12/10/8 build.
-Gear recommendations; beyond weapon choices and the like, points knocked for reliance upon a items to make a build work.
-Tactics at each level.

[Red Fel]

As someone who was involved with the Villain competitions early on, I'd like to speak to that.

It's important to recognize that the Villain and Iron Chef competitions have two very different purposes, despite having similar methodologies. The Iron Chef competitions are about optimizing a particular ingredient which may or may not be potent on its own, or may or may not have an obvious use. They're about taking a particular class or ability or mechanic and using it in clever new ways.

By contrast, the Villain competitions aren't about optimizing a particular class or ability. They're about building a concept, a complete character. (That's not to say that people don't do that in Iron Chef, but rather that it's the more direct purpose of the Villain competition.) Iron Chef characters may never see play, but Villain competition characters are specifically designed so that - among other things - an enterprising DM could legitimately pick up that character and implement it in a game as the villain. That's part of how they're judged - would this character make a compelling villain? It's why, instead of having a secret ingredient that's mechanical, the Villain competitions have a secret ingredient that's conceptual - the warlord, or nature's avenger, or what-have-you.

All that said, while I agree that running an Iron Chef in PF would be trickier, given the higher floor as Psyren mentioned - optimizing in PF is less challenging, because there's less patently weak or obscure material - I do think a PF Villain competition is quite doable. PF does a good job of offering ample resources and archetypes to custom-tailor a character, as well as the means to even custom-tailor a race (which gives the competition a potential entirely new dimension), and the majority of those resources are available on the PFSRD, which is extra-convenient for would-be competitors.

Now, has one been done? I don't recall. I don't think the Villain competitions allowed PF sources, but that may have changed. I do think, however, that if we had the judges familiar with PF, it could be done. And done well, in all likelihood.

[ArendK]

Were it my preference, I'd rather do a hero/villain style competition anyways with a certain requirement either in theme or mechanically. I do like the full character concept as opposed to the "mechanical" focus of the Iron Chef.

[Psyren]

-Paizo only.
-Background of the character

These two are fine. I would further specify PATHFINDER Paizo-only, as some of Paizo's 3.5 stuff did make it to the PFSRD like Guided Hand despite not being reprinted in Pathfinder itself.



-Race restrictions (normal and featured, maybe a slight knock on points for uncommon races)

Nah I'd prefer not to restrict race. There are new ones in every Bestiary that the ARG didn't account for, like the Astomoi, several of which I haven't even read in detail yet. If you use a powerful one like Drow Noble I'd probably dock points for elegance, and if you played as a monster race I'd dock even more, but I wouldn't want to write off a potentially interesting build entirely just on those grounds.



-Incremental builds; 1st, 5th, 10th, and 15th, as few get to 20.

Agreed. I'd probably consider 12th as a notable level as well (the PFS cutoff, and a common endgame-y level.)

Builds that are PFS-legal on top of being 1st-party would probably get style points from me - though of course the ingredient itself might not be, so this would never be a penalty, only a bonus.



-15/14/13/12/10/8 build.

I'd rather specify a point buy value (most likely 20 PB) than dictate what specific scores people should use. Some builds might want a 7, 16, or 18 somewhere. I personally wouldn't penalize for dumping stats (even down to 5) as long as the backstory/roleplay adequately justifies it.



-Gear recommendations; beyond weapon choices and the like, points knocked for reliance upon a items to make a build work.

I'd only dock items (and for that matter feats and traits) if they were specific to a given adventure path. Anything from the main product line, the Inner Sea/Golarion books, or the Player Companions should be fair game, even if the build really relies on it. However, I'd expect that if a build absolutely must have a certain item, they should have a way to craft it themselves (the character would likely know their fighting style and what they need.)

For example, a certain barbarian might just need a Cord of Stubborn Resolve to rage-cycle reliably for their build to work. There are other options but they tend to be far more limited, so I wouldn't fault them for basing their build on that. If the Barbarian doesn't have Master Craftsman though, that's when I'd consider docking a point.



-Tactics at each level.

Agreed.


Also, I'd import some of the 3.5 Iron Chef restrictions like banning Leadership. (I'd allow Animal Ally, Familiar Bond and VMC though.)