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

[Henry]

Just curious for the math fans out there: how hard would it be if you said either "multiplication by zero is not allowed"?

Reading over it, and assuming a 100% success rate (though it might be closer to 80%)' it's still not too bad, only slightly overpowered, because

1) it takes a full round action or longer;
2) the choice of metamagic feats are fixed and cannot be altered unless you're using the downtime rules from ultimate campaign;
3) it requires a wizard or cleric to invest in a skill that has almost NO other use in game (I can't recall the last time anyone picked engineering)
4) still doesn't beat metamagic rods, which ignore spell level limits and casters end up buying anyways.

Perhaps as was suggested, put a cap on the metamagic effects, or make the math a little harder (1 minute max time to compute real-time?)


I'm willing to bet that the chance this will be banned in PFS play is greater than (6*6)+4*5*2*1/5+(6+5)*5 percent.

 

[reiella]

Speaking of Pythagoreanism, could you recommend a few good books or web resources I might use to read up on that in more depth?

Honestly, not really. I wish I did because I would love to go over them myself . Most of what I get can be easily summarized from wikipedia (which I did check against to make sure my memory on other mostly random references to Pythagoreanism were accurate]. I know you can find some similarities in mason belief sets however.

If you do find a good book covering it, please let me know though. I'd definitely want to go into it a bit more in depth .

Just curious for the math fans out there: how hard would it be if you said either "multiplication by zero is not allowed"?

Reading over it, and assuming a 100% success rate (though it might be closer to 80%)' it's still not too bad, only slightly overpowered, because

1) it takes a full round action or longer;
2) the choice of metamagic feats are fixed and cannot be altered unless you're using the downtime rules from ultimate campaign;
3) it requires a wizard or cleric to invest in a skill that has almost NO other use in game (I can't recall the last time anyone picked engineering)
4) still doesn't beat metamagic rods, which ignore spell level limits and casters end up buying anyways.

Perhaps as was suggested, put a cap on the metamagic effects, or make the math a little harder (1 minute max time to compute real-time?)


I'm willing to bet that the chance this will be banned in PFS play is greater than (6*6)+4*5*2*1/5+(6+5)*5 percent.

It would reduce the ability to hit identity as easily. However, I think multiply by 1 may be advantageous in terms of identity cheese.

One of the things to remember however, making the numbers harder to work makes the feat more disruptive to the flow of combat. After all, the player isn't going to try to find other solutions once they have one, it's when they lack a readily apparent solution that they will spend more time to find one. Putting a cap on the time to solve definitely alleviates that problem, but it does very blatantly reduce it to player skill check as opposed to their character. And one that benefits the not commonly used skill of number sense.

You do have some fair points on the other aspects, but largely, I feel them to be ancillary to the 'time to calculate' / testing player skill component. But as I said, I wouldn't be against letting a player try it. I would just let them know up front that I have reservations that it may be disruptive and I won't let it continue if it was disruptive.

 

[Thaumaturge]

That feat is overpowered. It needs a time limit

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
...
To the last syllable of recorded time;

Thaumaturge.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

What I want to know is if this feat counts as having 2 metamagic feats as it applies to meeting prereqs for other feats, prestige classes, and/or crafting like Craft Metamagic Rod of X.

Because if the answer is yes, This is a really useful feat, even if you never use it. The ability to craft lesser metamagic rods of a variety of enhancements replaces this feat's ability, you can do the same effect for gold and time instead of dice rolling.

 

[Henry]

OK, I've changed my mind, after reading the thread over at Paizo's forums: This feat is quite ridiculous. Even ignoring the balance issues, the time increase at the table just makes it not worth any flavor benefits.

BTW, it's not (yet) PFS legal: the book it appears in hasn't been added to allowed sources yet. When it is, I still expect this to be banned for time issues if nothing else.

 

[Celebrim]

1) Broken.
2) Unfun in actual play with a group. Either you don't have a time limit in which case the group spends several minutes trying to come up with the right combination, or the DM enforces a very short time light and the player who took the feat gets frustrated. I generally require a player to complete the declaration of their turn in 6 seconds.
3) Basically, if you are a mathematical genius, you get a stunningly powerful feat. If you are a bit slow at math, you get a useless feat. This is too much reliance on player skill for my taste.

On the good side, it's very flavorful and creative and in solo play it makes a pretty nifty little mini-game.

 

[Grydan]

You don't need to be a mathematical genius. You can be horrible at math as long as the DM doesn't bother to check your work.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Quantum Magic, is coming, magic on the sub-Vatican level.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

This Feat really takes me back!

In the very late '80s/early '90s I played with two players who were actual, no-BS math geniuses (both also perfect pitch, played multiple instruments extremely well, etc.). One of them was perfectly reasonable. The other always felt that he was somehow being "short-changed" by RPGs, because he couldn't leverage his math/musical brilliance at all (beyond normal optimization, which even people like me could do! Peasants!). He wrote a number of homebrew RPGs and optional rules which all amounted to "If you are really good at math and related subjects IRL, then your PC will also be, even if he is as dumb as a box of rocks on paper AND you will gain some special advantages!" (none of these ever actually got used, of course, because they were such obvious advantage-seeking BS).

This seems like the kind of Feat he'd come up with. I actually looked at the authors to see that he wasn't on the list!

It's wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiidly overpowered, really suitable only for Wizards (and he never played a PC that wasn't either a Specialist Wizard or X/Mage) and requires you to do fairly complicated math at the table such that it would be off-putting for most (not all - one of my current players would do this without blinking, but she'd think it was cheesy as hell).

Anyway, wow, real trip back in time!

 

[Nikosandros]

I'm a Physicist (and BTW, additions, multiplications, etc. are arithmetic, not algebra!), I like the numerological flavor of the feat, but I think I would never allow it. Stopping mid-action for a player to do a bunch of calculations doesn't strike me as particularly fun...