Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder Sneak Peeks (Old thread)

[AllisterH]

In that case, Valeros has a Wisdom above 8, took the Iron Will feat and has a couple of magic items available. You see, Valeros was build specifically to fail Will saves, so it's pointless to use him as an example of how easy is for high level fighters to fail them.

You can not be serious.....Valeros is obviously a fighter built by a newbie a.k.a doesn't realize how much he will get screwed by an enchanter...System Mastery for the WIN!!

 

[Corinth]

Show me sample characters that real players, the ones that actually master the ruleset and dominate the game, would actually build and use- not showpieces for corner cases.

 

[Betote]

Show me sample characters that real players, the ones that actually master the ruleset and dominate the game, would actually build and use- not showpieces for corner cases.

Wow, those are the real players?

My group is going to be disappointed when I tell them they're not real players after 4 years of gaming together...

 

[dm4hire]

Wow, those are the real players?

I'd have to agree. I don't min/max my characters. I don't begrudge players who do, but when the chips are down I want my character to be able to face a diverse challenge while still meeting the theme I want. Having one flaw doesn't break a character and if the wizard or cleric are doing their jobs on the defense side they'll make up for that weakness.

 

[Nikosandros]

No. I accept the premise that characters may want to leave the base classes for some particular specialty.



It's not that I don't want them to not leave the base classes. I want them to have a proper trade-off of choices. There should be something appropriately lost by giving up the base class. Good game design should avoid blatantly dominated strategies given a type of character to play.

Exactly. Prestige classes should offer viable alternatives fro players wanting to specialize their characters. They shouldn't be superior to the base classes... otherwise what's the point of having 20 levels of base classes? It is certainly possible to have a system like d20 Modern with basic classes and advanced classes, but I'm glad that Pathfinder still has 20 levels worth of the "standard classes" and that they have striven to make them balanced with prestige classes.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Wow, those are the real players?

My group is going to be disappointed when I tell them they're not real players after 4 years of gaming together...

Calling them "real player" is probably nonsense.
And only showing those characters build by "real players" doesn't tell us anything, either.

What can be telling is the difference in power levels between optimized and non-optimzied? are the differences small or large? How many* "bad" decisions were required to get to a "weak" build, how many* "good" decisions where required to create a "strong" build?

My preference wouild be to require a lot of bad choices to make a truely weak character, and you need to really make the perfect, corner-case decisions to create an overpowered build. This tends to create a very large area of viable, interesting, no-more-than-necessary-exotic characters.


*) It's not alwas a matter of "numbers" of choices, but also the gravity of a choice. Picking an ability score is a pretty obviously important choice, it should be obvious whether you need a low or a high choice for your character to not be weak.
If you pick, say, a template, it's also a frigging big decisions.
If you needed to go through a decision tree to finally get one specific feat that will "break" your character combined with one racial ability or class feature, that is a really long way, and it might just be something that doesn't really happen in most campaigns. And if they happen, they can be tracked back easily and the group can just ban the option if it hurts the game.

 

[Storminator]

In that case, Valeros has a Wisdom above 8, took the Iron Will feat and has a couple of magic items available. You see, Valeros was build specifically to fail Will saves, so it's pointless to use him as an example of how easy is for high level fighters to fail them.

He has the same Will save he would have in 3e.

I once built an epic character around the idea that he was incredibly irresponsible and foolish. Even with his +5 cloak he had a Will save of 13 at 25th level. It wasn't long before my party could throw 6 Break Enchantments (2 Quickened) in a round. That PC was a lot of fun...

PS

 

[Runestar]

Does mindblank still exist in pathfinder? That was really the only reason fighters could get away with dumping will saves prior to PHB2/MIC/ToB.

 

[dm4hire]

You have to wonder how often mind effecting spells really come into play during a game, especially targeting the fighter. Once in awhile is okay, but if every session then it starts getting old and the players will look at it as you are deliberately picking on their weaknesses. A good encounter that effects a weakness will come along once in awhile while the rest of them will present no problem to the character in question. As I pointed out, once the part meets that kind of encounter the first time and almost gets wiped out by their own fighter they will take precautions against it next time to make up for the weakness and it won't necessarily require the fighter to go out and buy items to fix it.

 

[BryonD]

I really don´t know. Is "can boost his/her spell DCs" really a fix or change 3.5 has needed? This doesn´t look like changes that were needed, thats just... fiddly.

Again, Huh? What exactly was fiddly? The DCs are exactly the same as 3.5.