Pathfinder 1E Does pathfinder strike anyone as too gamey?

[Starfox]

* Wades into the pillow fight, half blinded, looking for the soap box

There are certainly plenty of cases where a character would deal more damage with SA. But by changing it from a multiplier to bonus dice, they made the base damage of the character go from wildly swingy to borderline irrelevant. I preferred the method that rewarded the player for planning an assault and building a character with high base damage.

I like 3E+ sneak attack.

I recall having a rogue with longsword 1d12 (+ pretty small bonus) x5 damage. Swinginess extreme!

But that's not real reason I prefer sneak attack . I do that because it is empowering on a rogue, lets you attack with quirky personal weapons, a sap, an unarmed attack (you don't even need the feat as they get no AoO if they are flat-footed). Sure taking greatsword proficiency is cool as a rogue, but I like that the weapons selection doesn't really matter a few levels up.

 

[HardcoreDandDGirl]

It is when I've already clarified that I've been playing D&D for 35 years. The likelihood that I don't know how to run a spellcaster after 35 years of playing, is so unlikely that to suggest I actually try - is very much an insult, especially being a longtime GM. Don't think my players have indeed tried X, to suggest they haven't is quite plainly insulting.

no one said you don't know HOW to play, but I don't think anyone just knows what it feels like though... going back to my example. I take level 8 rouge and get X skill points, I take level 8 wizard I get Y skill points AND get to pick 2 spells that can totally change the game. So when you go 2-3 weeks to do a minor increase, or same amount of time is a much more powerful level up... and then there is the fact that everyone can do A B C D or E, but only spell casters can do F -Z

 

[brvheart]

By that point Michael and I had a combined 32 years of experience with D&D. Even when I started playing 3E I was playing it with 1E standards and have kept them with Pathfinder. 2E Skills and Powers had plenty of its own issues. Did my best to avoid it.

 

[Ahnehnois]

so what is the suggestion that making a concentration check DC of there AC to deal +1d6 extra damage once per encounter, or attack 2 targets as the same action, or giving all allies a +4 to hit the person you just hit, is a 'draw back... or gaining a +1 (as long as you have at least a +1 int) to your ref save. or having d12 hp... yea that is a perfectly legal 1st level warblade... so yea no 'drawbacks' and no 'performance enhancings' all things a normal person could learn to do... so that is all wrong. try reading the book

If your point is that it's possible to build a low-level Bo9S character that doesn't embody my concerns, that isn't much of a point.

Nor does it even hold; note the "per encounter" designation. That is a drawback. Much like, say, amphetamines, which grant a quick temporary boost, followed by a crash. It's also not something that a normal person could learn how to do. Bursts of effort and fatigue happen, but a person does not lose the ability to do one particular thing while maintaining all their other abilities. Even this rather cherry-picked example ends up illustrating my point.

Now if you're okay with these drawbacks, and if your personal conception of D&D characters isn't disrupted by these mechanics, that's fine.

 

[brvheart]

no one said you don't know HOW to play, but I don't think anyone just knows what it feels like though... going back to my example. I take level 8 rouge and get X skill points, I take level 8 wizard I get Y skill points AND get to pick 2 spells that can totally change the game. So when you go 2-3 weeks to do a minor increase, or same amount of time is a much more powerful level up... and then there is the fact that everyone can do A B C D or E, but only spell casters can do F -Z

And there are certain things that only a Rogue can do, or better said only a Rogue can do well. Same for all the Core classes. Each has its own value. You put a 8th level wizard in melee with a CR 8 monster and he is not going to last long. Not true of a fighter based class.

 

[gamerprinter]

no one said you don't know HOW to play, but I don't think anyone just knows what it feels like though... going back to my example. I take level 8 rouge and get X skill points, I take level 8 wizard I get Y skill points AND get to pick 2 spells that can totally change the game. So when you go 2-3 weeks to do a minor increase, or same amount of time is a much more powerful level up... and then there is the fact that everyone can do A B C D or E, but only spell casters can do F -Z

I said, "I didn't play a wizard - meaning as a player," I've run 20 levels of a villain wizard going from 4th level leveled up to a 20th level lich. I've built all the nuance of a detailed wizard only spellcaster to epic levels. I just haven't done so as a player, because the role of a spellcaster, I don't find enticing. When I play, I play martials, not due to inexperience with casters, rather by preference. I prefer not to play casters as a player, but I am well familiar with how to run a caster - even though I personally find those classes, unfun.

 

[HardcoreDandDGirl]

I said, "I didn't play a wizard - meaning as a player," I've run 20 levels of a villain wizard going from 4th level leveled up to a 20th level lich. I've built all the nuance of a detailed wizard only spellcaster to epic levels. I just haven't done so as a player, because the role of a spellcaster, I don't find enticing. When I play, I play martials, not due to inexperience with casters, rather by preference. I prefer not to play casters as a player, but I am well familiar with how to run a caster - even though I personally find those classes, unfun.

I find that people that don't PLAY the classes don't get the same experience as someone who NPCs them. An NPC is not in every encounter, every game. PCs are. NPCs don't earn and use XP, they go up when you want them to. once again the problem is some people like mechanic that give them choices in and out of game. I don't under stand why anyone would ever say that we shouldn't have our idea of fun... and saying things like "Broken book" or "Lotsof players don't like" or "I will never let it in my game" are all ways of saying "Badwrongfun"

 

[N'raac]

Nor does it even hold; note the "per encounter" designation. That is a drawback. Much like, say, amphetamines, which grant a quick temporary boost, followed by a crash. It's also not something that a normal person could learn how to do. Bursts of effort and fatigue happen, but a person does not lose the ability to do one particular thing while maintaining all their other abilities. Even this rather cherry-picked example ends up illustrating my point.

OK, I don't play it and I don't think you do, but encounter powers are a big part of 4e, aren't they?

Second, up to 3e, a person would lose the ability to cast one particular spell once they cast it, while maintaining all their other abilities.

 

[billd91]

but only spell casters can do F -Z

You're complaining about him not seeing that point of view, but you don't seem to be really acknowledging his point of view either. In this case, if doing F-Z isn't important to your fun playing D&D, then why would the fact that only casters can do those things be a factor in the classes you prefer to play? They wouldn't.

And it has been my experience that more players have favorite modes of playing D&D and they don't really care that other classes can do things their PC's class cannot do. Or they approach the game with a particular character concept (potentially even one of waiting for everyone else to pick their classes and then filling in obvious gaps with the class they pick) in which case they pick the class that best matches their concept.

 

[HardcoreDandDGirl]

If your point is that it's possible to build a low-level Bo9S character that doesn't embody my concerns, that isn't much of a point.

ok, what is the point? At what point does making a character that nothing about it would cause your, or any other game go off the tracks be an OK argument? If I make a level 10 Warblade, a level 10 Warlock, and a Level 9 Wizard and the wizard is limited to PHB1 and The spell compendium and the wizard is still more options AND more power is that a gauge for the first two aren't 'broken'? What do you hope to get out of this? I hope that I will help raise the fact that some of us really want MORE like this...