Elephant in the Room: Yay or Nay?

[TotallyNotEvil]

As I look forward to starting a new campaign, in which I plan to introduce a bunch of players to PF, I caught myself wondering: "Would EitR help?".

So, what's your experience/thoughts on it? The proposed changes can be found here: https://michaeliantorno.com/feat-taxes-in-pathfinder

I'm somewhat ambivalent, as while it looks fine, martials might be better served with, say, the Background Skills mod than this, and that wouldn't make them hit even harder, which isn't something they remotely need help with.

On something like an E6 game I'd go "hell yes, use it". But I'm looking at running Savage Tides, so it's a game that, hopefully, will go on for a long while.

[Cortillaen]

Solid Yea here. I've played a few games with it, though none of them passed 8th-level, so I can't speak for higher levels with it. My experiences have been that it is almost exclusively a positive. It does away with several feat taxes that were brain-dead, "gotta take it" things for martials while rolling some of the fundamental benefits (like Power Attack and Deadly Aim) into everyone's default kit, and a number of the over-specific maneuver feats get bundled together. It does make certain gish builds (particularly caster-archers) more viable, so that might be a negative depending on your view of them. Aside from that, it's almost purely good stuff for martials.

The only bit of confusion is, if you allow feats from a lot of sources, people will have to remember when a prereq feat has been removed/replaced by EitR.

Also, there's no reason you can't combine it with Background Skills. I've had both together with no issues since they aim to fix different problems.

[Axel_Neco]

I can give a solid yay on EitR as a player. My group has played with it up to lvl 14 so far, with only a few snags. Almost all of the player snags are caused by either the extra splat books like Cortillaen mentioned, or by third party options such as Path of War or Psionics. Background skills don't change a thing on EitR unless you have something that relies upon them, like Path of war. In that case, we've house ruled that the discipline skills for initiators becomes an active skill instead of background, and things have been working out fine with that change.

There is one huge DM snag that comes up: Monsters. Something I need to start work on is a short list of the replaced feats, and what monsters can take in their place so I don't have to spend time trying to customize or improve them, and end up wasting time trying to pick just 1 or 2 feats that feel "unique" to them. Remembering everything getting power attack now, easy. Replacing it on the fly because I didn't see it buried in the stat-block, annoying. NPCs are easier, since I always build them from scratch anyways.

[SangoProduction]

Even as a Spheres obsessive (where spheres has its own solutions to the feat taxes), I do say that EiR is a pretty incredible and elegant fix that has no other strings attached.

[Kurald Galain]

I'm somewhat ambivalent, as while it looks fine, martials might be better served with, say, the Background Skills mod than this, and that wouldn't make them hit even harder, which isn't something they remotely need help with.

Your intuition is spot on.

The Elephant guide is mostly aimed at making martials deal more damage, and that's literally the one thing martials don't need help with. It is also eight years old, and later PF material largely fixes these issues already (e.g. the Dirty Fighting feat, or the Unchained Rogue class).

Considering there's been a lot of criticism on this Elephant, both here on GITP and on his own comments section, this is really not something I would blindly apply. So let me ask you, what, specifically, are your new players bothered by? If you aren't really sure what you're trying to fix, don't fix it.

[SangoProduction]

Your intuition is spot on.

The Elephant guide is mostly aimed at making martials deal more damage, and that's literally the one thing martials don't need help with. It is also eight years old, and later PF material largely fixes these issues already (e.g. the Dirty Fighting feat, or the Unchained Rogue class).

Considering there's been a lot of criticism on this Elephant, both here on GITP and on his own comments section, this is really not something I would blindly apply. So let me ask you, what, specifically, are your new players bothered by? If you aren't really sure what you're trying to fix, don't fix it.

No... considering only 2 of the feats deal added damage, I don't think it's "mostly aimed at making martials deal more damage." Definitely looks more like "There are a lot of feats that should just be tactical options for martials rather than build options."

[Psyren]

We use it and it works very well, so +1 positive. Consolidating the maneuver feats into Deft Maneuvers and Powerful Maneuvers gives a lot of free options to martials, you don't feel like you are a disarm/steal specialist who now has nothing to do against a natural weapon foe for example. This frees them up to take things like Style Feats sooner, and start customizing their characters in meaningful ways sooner as well, rather than "All right, I've spent 9 levels laying the foundation and the campaign is almost over, time to finally build my concept!"

We actually put Trip and Reposition into both Deft and Powerful (but they don't stack.) This lets both the Str-based and the Dex-based martials be good at knocking people over and moving them around, just fluffed differently.

Also, definitely disagree with Kurald that it is just focused on more damage. Yes, getting rid of these taxes does improve martial damage, but more than anything it lets them get to meaningful non-damage customization much faster.

[Nizaris]

I ran a 1-14 homebrew with Spheres and EitP as well as played a full 1-20 run of a Spheres converted Return of the Runelords with EitP and it's the default now with my group. Eliminating the feat taxes that we'd be taking anyways allows for taking one of the CM feats so we have more options if the one we're focusing on is less useful in a given fight. Mind you we were playing Spheres with overlaps some, but if we were playing base PF it would let us get to the non-damage feat options faster so we have things to do other than, I hit/shoot harder.

[TotallyNotEvil]

I think at the very least, Deft Maneuvers, Powerful Maneuvers and Weapon Focus applying to a weapon group seem like they'd bring very little "power creep" and bring in a lot of ease of use.

[Psyren]

I think at the very least, Deft Maneuvers, Powerful Maneuvers and Weapon Focus applying to a weapon group seem like they'd bring very little "power creep" and bring in a lot of ease of use.

Definitely. And some of the most vestigial taxes like Point Blank Shot, Dodge and Weapon Finesse can just be gone.

[Xervous]

As I’m still easing my way into a broader PF understanding are there feats in PF that give noteworthy noncombat capabilities or are they pitiful when compared to good class features?

[Psyren]

As I’m still easing my way into a broader PF understanding are there feats in PF that give noteworthy noncombat capabilities or are they pitiful when compared to good class features?

Class features are almost always king but yes, there are useful utility feats too. Crafting is a big example of a set of feats that can add a lot of capabilities to your character they can't get just from their class.

The problem is that martial classes almost always do require feats that make them baseline capable in combat, especially if they're up against monsters who have feats of their own. Because those are required for your role to function, they crowd out the utility stuff. Elephant in the Room decided to just consolidate a bunch of those required feats so that the player can express themselves sooner rather than later.

[Kurald Galain]

are there feats in PF that give noteworthy noncombat capabilities or are they pitiful when compared to good class features?

Some that come to mind are Hellcat Stealth, Shadow's Shroud, Eldritch Heritage, Animal Ally, Insightful Advice, Amateur Investigator, Flickering Step, War Blessing, Magic Trick, and possibly Deific Obedience. But yeah, there's not a whole lot of them.

The problem is that martial classes almost always do require feats that make them baseline capable in combat,

This is only true if your new players are 3.0/3.5 veterans. Because unless your players (and you) are heavily into optimizing already, the baseline from Paizo's adventure paths as well as in PFS modules is easily attainable by all martial classes (although for monk and rogue you should use the Unchained variant). Of course harcore optimizers have a higher baseline.

[Psyren]

This is only true if your new players are 3.0/3.5 veterans. Because unless your players (and you) are heavily into optimizing already, the baseline from Paizo's adventure paths as well as in PFS modules is easily attainable by all martial classes (although for monk and rogue you should use the Unchained variant). Of course harcore optimizers have a higher baseline.

You're right, it doesn't take much to meet baseline DPR checks. I suppose my bar also involved interesting tactical choices like maneuvers and styles, and for those you do need a number of feats.

[SangoProduction]

As I’m still easing my way into a broader PF understanding are there feats in PF that give noteworthy noncombat capabilities or are they pitiful when compared to good class features?

*Visibly trying desperately not to shout out "Spheres" in every reply.*

[vasilidor]

I am just going to say...
Spheres of combat awesome.
But this is good to.

[Quertus]

If you aren't really sure what you're trying to fix, don't fix it.

Regardless of its applicability to the suspicious specifics of the vibration conversation at hand, this advice is pure gold. I've had co-workers who I'd have loved to tattoo this to the inside of their eyelids.

Perhaps, in programming lingo, it would be… never write a patch until you've written the unit test to demonstrate that there is a bug?

[SangoProduction]

Regardless of its applicability to the suspicious specifics of the vibration conversation at hand, this advice is pure gold. I've had co-workers who I'd have loved to tattoo this to the inside of their eyelids.

Perhaps, in programming lingo, it would be… never write a patch until you've written the unit test to demonstrate that there is a bug?

mmm. Not quite a good comparison. Patches are often written for various reasons, not only for bug fixing (especially early on).
But yes, knowing what you're trying to do is often the best first step. But not always.
Sometimes it's good to just go with the flow and see what comes out of it, and just try things and see if they are positive. (While working on your own, separate branch, of course... and really not for "critical" systems.)

[RNightstalker]

If you aren't really sure what you're trying to fix, don't fix it.

I'll second this motion, and add post of the day.

[Psyren]

I don't see any problem with doing both EitR and Background Skills.

Will they bring martials on par with casters, of course not. But for a player who just wants to be a swashbuckler - will having several solid choices each round, as well as being an accomplished sailor/pirate, and having build resources left over be fun? Absolutely.

[Kitsuneymg]

Forget EitR* and just go full spheres of might. You can use both, but 80% of EitR is fixed better by spheres.

*give everyone equipment: finesse weapon for free. Let people trade all their armor armor proficiency (usually light after archetypes) for unarmored training as a flavor thing.