Pathfinder 1E Sacred Geometry - Ladies and gentlemen, Pathfinder has jumped the shark

[Michael Morris]

The problem is the feat gives you two free metamagic feats with no in game drawback. If you are capable of the math there's no reason not to take it. Statistically the dice will provide you with the numbers necessary to get to the prime you want 95% of the time or more. All you really need to do is find your target number, and find a way to get 0 out of the remaining numbers.

Suppose I'm 7th level (Hence rank 7) and casting an effective 4th level spell with this. I need 31, 37 or 41. Suppose I roll 1,2,3,3,4,5,6. So step 1, get a target: 6*5+1 is 31. Step 2, get the other numbers down to 0. (3-3)*2*4. The multiplication rule by 0 makes this absurdly simple to do.

I do math for a living so this sort of thing won't slow me down in play a lot, but it is an enormously unbalanced feat all the same.

3.0 jumped the shark with Vow of Poverty. This is just as flavorful, and just as broken - probably even more broken. I say "jumped the shark" because when the designers are putting out material this poorly balanced, you know they've run out of ideas.

 

[Shemeska]

The problem is the feat gives you two free metamagic feats with no in game drawback. If you are capable of the math there's no reason not to take it. Statistically the dice will provide you with the numbers necessary to get to the prime you want 95% of the time or more. All you really need to do is find your target number, and find a way to get 0 out of the remaining numbers.

Suppose I'm 7th level (Hence rank 7) and casting an effective 4th level spell with this. I need 31, 37 or 41. Suppose I roll 1,2,3,3,4,5,6. So step 1, get a target: 6*5+1 is 31. Step 2, get the other numbers down to 0. (3-3)*2*4. The multiplication rule by 0 makes this absurdly simple to do.

I do math for a living so this sort of thing won't slow me down in play a lot, but it is an enormously unbalanced feat all the same.

3.0 jumped the shark with Vow of Poverty. This is just as flavorful, and just as broken - probably even more broken. I say "jumped the shark" because when the designers are putting out material this poorly balanced, you know they've run out of ideas.

Not everyone judges a game's content and ideas entirely based on the numbers and perceptions of balance in the absence of any other complicating factors.

As for this feat or any others, this is why DM discretion exists. If a player is just taking random, cherry-picked feats to exploit the interplay of rules without the feat selection making sense in-game and in-character, just disallow them from taking those feats. It's not that hard. Unless the character has a thing for numerology in their backstory it isn't really justified for them to have the feat given the heavy flavor it carries.

Not seeing a problem here. YMMV.

 

[Ainamacar]

Solving the feat would be a pretty good project in an undergrad computer science course. Something like "Write an algorithm that, given a list of positive integers of arbitrary length, determines all possible output values using only addition, subtraction, multiplication and division (ignoring the remainder). Every input integer must be used exactly once."

The project would likely cover several useful areas: Reverse polish notation. Practical use of trees and stacks. Recursion in many implementations. Combinatorics and combinatorial explosion. (The latter I especially like, since having a valid algorithm isn't necessarily the same as being able to run it to completion in your lifetime, even if you know the algorithm in question must eventually halt.)

 

[DaveMage]

Yeah, this feat won't make it into my game...

Talk about a show-stopper. Yikes.

 

[Michael Morris]

Not everyone judges a game's content and ideas entirely based on the numbers and perceptions of balance in the absence of any other complicating factors.

This feat sucks pretty soundly on those measures though. First, unless the player with the feat is great at math, the game will be slowed down. Second, the feat is completely unfair to the players who aren't math savants because now even if they want to play a character according to the flavor the feat models, they won't be able to. Even if their character has a 20 intelligence, that character's ability will be limited to the player's ability to solve the math puzzle. That isn't fair and if games are supposed to be anything, it's fair.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I've seen worse in Pathfinder, but not very often. There's an item in Ultimate Equipment that lets you slap on free Persistent Spell on any spell with a specific type of duration. (The defenders "won" the argument because it doesn't work on Time Stop, never mind that that's a straw man.)

The problem is the feat gives you two free metamagic feats with no in game drawback.

I agree. It's unbalanced, and it's too complicated to work well around the table. It's like a summoner. I call broken on it.

 

[TwoSix]

Not everyone judges a game's content and ideas entirely based on the numbers and perceptions of balance in the absence of any other complicating factors.

As for this feat or any others, this is why DM discretion exists. If a player is just taking random, cherry-picked feats to exploit the interplay of rules without the feat selection making sense in-game and in-character, just disallow them from taking those feats. It's not that hard. Unless the character has a thing for numerology in their backstory it isn't really justified for them to have the feat given the heavy flavor it carries.

Not seeing a problem here. YMMV.

You don't need to lose balance to add flavor. Flavor and balance are orthogonal considerations.

They could have made the feat balanced by restricting the combination of feats to a total spell level of adjustment of +2, for example.

 

[reiella]

That is a neat feat, but I would make sure that a player who wanted to use it knew that I may revoke it if it became disruptive to play (in either terms of power or slowing down combat).

More likely, I'd use the idea behind it for a puzzle.

 

[Obryn]

I think the game also needs, Martial Workout. "Do push ups for 20 seconds. Take that as a damage bonus to your next weapon attack."

 

[Thaumaturge]

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Sacred Meter
Sing an original iambic pentameter couplet to have your bard character give all allies within hearing +10 to attack.

Thaumaturge.