Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder Sneak Peeks (Old thread)

[NilesB]

Energy drain's purpose was to make pcs afraid of undead, to make them something to be avoided at all costs,

Wrong, energy drain's purpose was to make PCs use up some of their stockpile of wishes.

Gary said so himself in one of the ask Gary threads.

As such I don't think it has a place in any campaign model where the PCs aren't expected to keep a large stockpile of wishes to undo any harm or to solve otherwise impossible difficulties.

 

[Atlatl Jones]

I am glad - very glad - that they got rid of pidgeon holing instruments/perform styles into bard song, but, while I like the IDEA of the whole replace one skill with perform, I don't like that it's tied to a specific type of perform.

I don't like that there are NINE "perform" skills in the first place. This "use Perform (cello) instead of stealth" cludge would be completely unneccessary if the pathfinder designers just reduced Perform to a single skill.

It's a truly bizarre design choice. They combined listen, spot, and search into one skill, and combined hide and move silently into one skill, yet for some bizarre reason the designers felt the need to have nine completely different perform skills.

Maybe just me but I don't find it all that bad.

Are you intentionally trying to damn it with faint praise?

 

[Hunter In Darkness]

Are you intentionally trying to damn it with faint praise?

Nope I just fail to see the issue with it is all.

 

[Hunter In Darkness]

It's a truly bizarre design choice. They combined listen, spot, and search into one skill, and combined hide and move silently into one skill, yet for some bizarre reason the designers felt the need to have nine completely different perform skills.

Not really, you can have way more then nine if you like. It is a skill just like craft and profession. there are as many as you can think of. Just because you take 9 ranks in sing, does not mean your that good with flutes or drums or string interments if you can play them at all

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Not really, you can have way more then nine if you like. It is a skill just like craft and profession. there are as many as you can think of. Just because you take 9 ranks in sing, does not mean your that good with flutes or drums or string interments if you can play them at all

But why not? The Bard is the master of instruments - if you really think that a Rogue shouldn't be both a good singer and a good lute player without investing tons of skill points, fine. But the Bard? He is the go-to-guy when it comes to music!

Instead of using his performance for something strange like Stealth or Sense Motive (I don't know if this would actually be possible ), why not just say "A Bard that takes ranks in Perform gets a rank for every Perform subcategory".

Could also be something for Artificers and Craft, if that was ever an issue or can ever be an issue in Pathfinder.

---

Aside from all that - a Bard does not cover multiple roles. He covers a subset of them. If you really need someone in that role - be it the dedicated healer (that also deals with poisons and diseases, not just hit point damage), the dedicated trapsmith and lockpicker (that actually gets you through the Temple of Certain and Fatal Death), the dedicated meat shield (that can survive the full attack of an Ogre) or a fully-fledged spellcasters, he won't do it. He can just help you a little in ever aspect.
And often it is more important to have at least one of the guys that does the job really good then a guy that makes multile jobs mediocre. If you don't have a meat shield, you can still hope that the fully-fledged spellcaster blasts the opposition away before things turn ugly. Or that the dedicated healer keeps whoever stands in the front-line standing. Both need to take out their big "guns" in this scenario, of course. But they have the big guns. The Bard doesn't.

Three things that could make the Bard useful where usual:
- Social Skills
- Bardic Music (Reliable Buffing, even stacks with many other Buffs)
- Use Magic Device (unfortuntely not limited to the Bard and if you have a Wizard and a Cleric, not required.)

 

[Hunter In Darkness]

But why not? The Bard is the master of instruments - if you really think that a Rogue shouldn't be both a good singer and a good lute player without investing tons of skill points, fine. But the Bard? He is the go-to-guy when it comes to music!

Instead of using his performance for something strange like Stealth or Sense Motive (I don't know if this would actually be possible ), why not just say "A Bard that takes ranks in Perform gets a rank for every Perform subcategory".

Could also be something for Artificers and Craft, if that was ever an issue or can ever be an issue in Pathfinder.

Ya know this sounds alot like something I ran into back when 3.0 first came out..A player had placed Knowledge all on his sheet..as it was on the list so kept saying he had knowledge of everything....

I do not see a need to know everything at once. Should wizards be granted all knowledge skills> what about rogues getting ever rogue skill for 1 point?(I know a little extream there)


Bards are not just the music guys, they have the ability to work magic with their music far beyond any other music maker, they are dabblers not pure musicians

Ya know though that would make an interesting PRC

 

[Starbuck_II]

But why not? The Bard is the master of instruments - if you really think that a Rogue shouldn't be both a good singer and a good lute player without investing tons of skill points, fine. But the Bard? He is the go-to-guy when it comes to music!

Instead of using his performance for something strange like Stealth or Sense Motive (I don't know if this would actually be possible ), why not just say "A Bard that takes ranks in Perform gets a rank for every Perform subcategory".

Funny that is what my 3.0 PHB says. One step forward 2 steps back?

 

[Hunter In Darkness]

Ya know I had forgotten about that...but no on ever played a bard in 3.0.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I do not see a need to know everything at once. Should wizards be granted all knowledge skills> what about rogues getting ever rogue skill for 1 point?(I know a little extream there)

Well, Pathfinder is already combining a few skills - Hide and Move Silently; Spot and Listen.

Knowledge skills - it actually makes a difference whether you just know something about arcane lore or religion. It makes a difference if you know something about the undead creatures or the dragon...
But the difference between Perform (Lute) and Perform (Drums) is minuscule in game effect.

Bards are not just the music guys, they have the ability to work magic with their music far beyond any other music maker, they are dabblers not pure musicians

They do their magic through music. There is is no other class or PrC that does more with music then Bards. They can inspire people with songs, they can even apparantly kill them with it. If that doesn't make them masters of music, what does?

Funny that is what my 3.0 PHB says. One step forward 2 steps back?

IIRC, it doesn't do exactly that. Each rank expands your Perform knowledge (I am not sure if it also increased your Perform skill then). My approach would be a little more "extreme". Though the 3.0 approach wasn't too bad, either. (The Bard just suffered from the fact that he had only 4+INT skill points, so it was still a pretty hefty "tax" for a Bard.)

 

[billd91]

Well, it's not like a druid was like a Monk and had crazy MAD problems. Pre Wildshape nerf, all you needed was an 18 WIS....

More MAD is a good thing. It requires players to make choices. Do I become a powerful melee/wildshape druid? Do I maximize my spellcasting power? Not every druid needs to be best at everything they can do.