Pathfinder 1E So what do you think is wrong with Pathfinder? Post your problems and we will fix it.

[Minigiant]

Again, the preparedness of the caster comes down to DM and adventure type. Too often adventures and DMs put parties in situations that Pathfinder (and 3.5) cannot handle well (a lone big dumb brute)'

Experience mitigates the problem. But oh boy if the DM doesn't have it. Fortunately many do.

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As for martial prowess, I see it like this. Technically you can do the same things as a top athlete in a sport but chances are you will fail. The ability to hit a buzzer beater is their "magic". Technically anyone anyone can do it but really only a martial character can do it in a manner that an rpg can handle. Since an rpg can't really handle a 0.00001% chance Joe Dude can repeat Boromir's, Cap's, Batman's or whoever's extraordinary feat.

 

[Chaltab]

Are we limiting casters by what they're capable of in Middle Earth? No? Then why are we cherry picking an example to limit warriors, and then picking an entirely different example for the limits of casters? That's not cricket. There are plenty of examples of warriors doing far more than Aragorn and Boromir who can be "held up as tokens for 4e martial powers"; use those and the problem you see doesn't look so large.

The size of that supposed problem with 4th Edition is also rather unrelated to Pathfinder.

It doesn't matter what you use as your base models for the fiction of the game, as Caster-Martial disparity is something fairly ingrained into the design of 3.X. In Pathfinder specifically it's still a matter of casters having easy versatility while martials are forced into narrow specializations. To me it seems like if you want to solve that problem you'll need to start at one or both of two places: either culling/rewriting much of the spell list, or taking away the necessity of Martial classes to become extremely niche to perform on level. Base Attack Bonus should be the same across all martial melee classes, for one, but more than that, instead of Feats buying you individual techniques or improvements on techniques, I'd condense nearly all such feats into Specialization Paths, where you buy a feat at the level it becomes available and it gradually unlocks more options as you level without costing more Feats.

The thing is at that point you're practically writing Pathfinder 2E, which is probably beyond the scope of an Enworld thread.

 

[Bluenose]

In Pathfinder specifically it's still a matter of casters having easy versatility while martials are forced into narrow specializations. To me it seems like if you want to solve that problem you'll need to start at one or both of two places: either culling/rewriting much of the spell list, or taking away the necessity of Martial classes to become extremely niche to perform on level. Base Attack Bonus should be the same across all martial melee classes, for one, but more than that, instead of Feats buying you individual techniques or improvements on techniques, I'd condense nearly all such feats into Specialization Paths, where you buy a feat at the level it becomes available and it gradually unlocks more options as you level without costing more Feats.

I don't think you'd necessarily have to rewrite the spell list (though it would help). If I was seriously interested, my starting point would be to kill the generalist Wizard and the Cleric with access to the whole spell list. Create casters based on the Warmage, the Beguiler, the specialist priests from 2nd edition. Basically, make the casters specialise instead of having the easy versatility you speak of. It still wouldn't address the power issue, but that's something that I believe would be handled better at the saving throw/save DC end. I'd also want to increase warrior capabilities, allowing them to do things that they currently can't without magic such as inflicting conditions - bleeding, dazed, stunned, crippled, blinded, for example.

 

[pemerton]

Because that's your interpretation of what the passage means... not what the actual passage says... it says that the martial power source isn't magic in the traditional sense... again if it isn't magical at all... why not just say martial power is not magic, as opposed to it is not magic in the traditional sense?

Because the game is leaving open how it is that a character can do mighty deeds. The fighter/cleric in my game is an Eternal Defender. How does he become so powerful? In the fiction of our game, because he is blessed by Moradin, the dwarven father-figure of a god. Other games could go other ways.

Here is what the rulebooks says about this Epic Destiny (MP p 153):

You have taken the defender ideal to heart. This devotion might have started at childhood, when you stood up for those weaker than you. Perhaps the ideal of the mighty protecting the weak was culturally instilled in you, as it is in all good-hearted dwarves. Whatever the case, rather than using your strength and power solely for personal gain, you willingly placed yourself in harm’s way to make sure that others had a chance to survive and thrive. . .

The world always needs someone of your strength and stature at the ready to come to its defence. Those wishing to take up sword or hammer to defend others refer to you as if you were a saint. . . Perhaps, then, you take a place in divine dominions, next to or in service to a godly stalwart such as Moradin. Building a post somewhere in the cosmos, you might take it upon yourself to stand vigil over a primordial threat or against the machinations of evil deities. If something stirs or threatens, you herald the coming danger and stand the first to face it. Perhaps instead some power helps you eternally watch over a chosen people, infusing your watchful spirit into the land. Or you might make a pact to pass away but instil your defender’s heart into your folk, awakening a new profusion of heroes.​

The game leaves these issues of fictional interpretation open. That way, it avoids linking the mechanical and fictional possibilities for martial PCs to any particular conception of what is feasible for a "mundane" character. It's a deliberate design decision.

Aragorn does use magic, especially as it seems to be defined by Tolkien in Middle Earth

Aragorn does not use spells, nor perform prayers in the sense in which a D&D cleric does. Which was my point. How can Aragorn hear the earth? Tolkien doesn't tell us. Is Elrond's long life magical? Tolkien doesn't tell us that either. 4e lets me play an Aragorn-esque ranger as a martial PC if I want (probably with a side-helping of paladin to pick up "the hands of the king"). This is an instance of that design decision at work.

with a high enough check you can spend 10 mins and read a language fluently. I don't care at what level it is likely that you do it reliably, it can be accomplished at even low levels with a high enough roll and the use of this ritual... SO yeah it does say what I claimed it did, contrary to your attempt at pedantry and rules minutia to make it seem otherwise.

Do I have to quote the book again? With a high roll you can, in 10 minutes, read one page of text as if you were fluent in the language. That is not "learning to read any language fluently". It is not different from the thief's Read Languages ability that goes back to earliest versions of the game. (Or the 3E successor ability Decipher Script, which permits a character to "decipher writing in an unfamiliar language or a message written in an incomplete or archaic form . . . understand[ing] the general content of a piece of writing about one page long" - or are you now saying that that is also a magical ability?)

Seriously, are you making the contention that a back-alley thief could encounter supernal or abyssal in the "school of hard knocks" frequently enough to learn to always understand it and sometimes read it fluently?

Yes. That's a conceit of the 4e world - that supernatural beings, or cultists who speak their languages, are part of the world, and are the sorts of beings that adventurer's encounter and learn smatterings of language from. In the case of Abyssal, that might be gnolls, or petty demons, or demon cultists. In the case of supernal it would more likely be priests.

What do you think explains the ability of a 1st level 3E thief to decipher Ignan using the Decipher Script skill?

The practice is infallible, by taking the practice the player has made it so that his character understands any language he encounters and if he rolls high enough he not only understands it but understands it fluently... but there's never a chance he doesn't know it or can't understand it, there's an infallibility factor that makes it nothing like Read Language which always had a chance to fail.

This is making a move from mechanical resolution to fiction which I reject. The mechanics permit the player to decide whether or not to spend a surge and therefore be able to read a page (fluently or otherwise). It doesn't follow that the character is infallible. For instance, there are times when the character might look at a page of script and not be able to make it out (eg because the player, for whatever reason, can't or won't spend a healing surge).

No one is confused as to whether or not 4e uses different resolution techniques, and different rationing techniques (in this case, healing surge expenditure rather than lottery), from 3E and PF. But that doesn't mean that, in the fiction, the ability is magical.

In 3E the maximum DC for Decipher Script is 30. An 18th level rogue with 21 ranks, 20 INT and skill focus has a +29 bonus, and hence can also, infallibly, read even the most "intricate, exotic or very old writing." There is actually no prospect of rationing at this point, because - unlike 4e - there is no resource cost, and the skill bonus eliminates the lottery. Does that make the 3E rogue a magician at this point?

As to the ritual, that's a great description but there is no cost requirement in the actual martial practice for materials to actually do this...only the expenditure of a healing surge

I infer from this that you think the following text, from p 153 of MP2, is irrelevant to understanding how Warded Campsite works in the fiction?: "You arrange tripwires, traps, and other devices so that you and your allies will know when an intruder approaches your campsite."

Maybe the materials are purchases when you pay 50 gp to master the practice (not unlike a wizard's spell component pouch in 3E, which involves a one-off outlay of 15 gp - or is that now a magical item?).

Could Aragorn through stress and fatigue, naked on a featureless plain conjure the materials and supplies necessary to set these infallible tripwires and wards around a campsite?

I don't know - it's a long way outside Tolkien's genre. Conan probably could, though. He's a recurrently impressive improviser.

If 3E rogues with infallible, unlimited Decipher Script are not magical, and 3E spell component pouches which never run out of bat guano and sulphur are not magical, but setting guards around a campsite becomes magical because the rules don't cover the corner case you describe of neither gear nor natural materials to be deployed, then I'm at a loss for the criteria you are using to make your judgement.

 

[pemerton]

I have never understood this whole idea of charm monster/person in PFRPG being some sort of autowin.

Who said it's an autowin? But it doesn't strike me as very risky. How is making a hill giant guard or two friendly going to hurt the caster? And how is it not going to be a significant help in infiltrating the Steading? In the real world spies get what they want in part by making other people believe the spy to be their friend. Why would this not work against Hill Giants (with their INTs of 6 and their WISs of 10).

And that 55% is with two feats invested.

I don't know the suite of 3E or PF feats very well, but I would have thought feats that boost save DCs are at least passable choices for a decent wizard build.

If the creature is being threatened by you, it gets a +5 to its save.

So why would you threaten it? You'd just walk up and Charm it! (Perhaps using Tongues, which at the level we're talking about lasts over 1 hour, to help you talk to it. I think Tongues is one of those spells that you'd keep on a scroll for this sort of situation; even at 5th caster level it lasts nearly an hour, which is not too bad. Of course, with your high INT you could just have learned Giant.)

non-hostile hill giant

Where in the Charm rules does it say the target has to be non-hostile? Is that part of PF? In 3E, all that matters it that you not threaten it. A hill giant has a speed of 50'. The range of Charm Monster for a 7th level caster is 60'. So it doesn't seem to be that hard to engineer to be within casting range, but outside melee range, of the giant, run the risk of a thrown rock (definitely the giant's less impressive attack) and then cast your spell.

Then there's the whole issue of what the hill giant is going to do for you. It has a friendly (not helpful) attitude towards you and only you. There's a good chance that its not going to suddenly turn on all its mates just on your say so

<snip>

More likely, you simply pulled it from being a combat encounter to a non-combat encounter (at least until it realizes its been made a fool of)

It seems to me that the 6 INT, 10 WIS giant is not going to be that hard to manipulate by my 20 INT wizard even if my CHA is only (say) 14 for a +2 (vs the giant's -2 for a 7 CHA). As to whether or not I can turn the giant on its mates, I note that a hill giant is Chaotic Evil which means that the giant "does whatever his greed, hatred, and lust for destruction drive him to do. He is hot-tempered, vicious, arbitrarily violent, and unpredictable [and t]ypically . . . can be made to work together only by force, and [the giant's] leader lasts only as long as he can thwart attempts to topple or assassinate him." How hard is it going to be to get this guy to start fighting with fellow Chaotic Evil giants? (Aragorn makes a similar observation in The Two Towers, when the three companions come across the bodies of the orcs that were killed in the argument over where to take the kidnapped hobbits.)

So, if the giants are okay with talking, you're looking good at charming one. This might piss off the other ones, though. And if it does, now you're in combat (or they're threatened), where your odds of success have dropped significantly lower than what you've offered. And, of course, just because the charmed giant sees you as Friendly.

Yes, Charm would allow you to try to manipulate it ("You can try to give the subject orders, but you must win an opposed Charisma check to convince it to do anything it wouldn’t ordinarily do. (Retries are not allowed.) An affected creature never obeys suicidal or obviously harmful orders, but it might be convinced that something very dangerous is worth doing."). However, I'm not certain that you could convince it to attack its own allies.

I don't see how a Chaotic Evil giant even has allies - its leader, for instance, "lasts only as long as he can thwart attempts to topple or assassinate him". And a 6 INT, 10 WIS, 7 CHA creature looks pretty manipulable to me.

Is there some subtle feature of the alignment rules, or of the implications of those mental stats, that I'm missing?

For the wizard to do this comes with an opportunity cost and incrementally reduced effectiveness, but sure

<snip>

Even better is the case where the wizard casts Invisibility on the rogue, whose maxed stealth and various abilities allow him to leverage it more effectively.

I guess I'm thinking that, at least for the typical playing group where each player has one PC, the rogue comes with an opportunity cost too, namely, of not being a wizard or comparable caster. I'm not saying that that makes it obvious that the wizard is better, but it seems to me that even if the party with two wizards is not quite as optimised for scouting, it might have capabilities and synergies that compensate in other domains of adventuring activity. Which still leaves me puzzled why the two-wizard party would have a harder time of things.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Which still leaves me puzzled why the two-wizard party would have a harder time of things.

Assuming the party faces a variety of situations, they will be less well off in a few that specifically involve the rogue. The abilities to use stealth, use other skills, evade area damage, and backstab are all unlimited; whereas any character that lacks them and is trying to patch those areas is using limited resources to do so, which is suboptimal.

More generally, there's also a loss of durability. Having two characters with weak defenses (hp, AC, CMD) means that some nasty situations can develop. Every arcane spellcaster in a party is a weakness that the other characters have to cover for. Two of them is two weak spots.

A wizard is probably adding the least to the mix of the four major classes; in typical challenges spells are less effective than conventional d20 based combat and skill options, but there are various exceptions where spells are useful. Occasionally, those spells are really trump cards, but that isn't 99.9% of the time or even 9.9% of the time. So what you have with more wizards is higher-variance characters that are less effective on average.

In particular, the wizard, being limited by the constraints of memorization and a spellbook, is the worst of the arcane primary spellcasting classes (especially noting that PF has upgraded the sorcerer and added the witch).

 

[Dungeonman]

Then why are we cherry picking an example to limit warriors, and then picking an entirely different example for the limits of casters? That's not cricket. There are plenty of examples of warriors doing far more than Aragorn and Boromir who can be "held up as tokens for 4e martial powers"; use those and the problem you see doesn't look so large.

I'm not cherry picking examples like that. Pemerton brought up the example of Boromir and Aragorn. I merely responded to that and that only. Nor did I say anything about LoTR wizards.

 

[Wicht]

Who said it's an autowin?

Nearly everyone who tries to show why it makes the wizard some sort of unbeatable mega-power.

So why would you threaten it? You'd just walk up and Charm it! (Perhaps using Tongues, which at the level we're talking about lasts over 1 hour, to help you talk to it. I think Tongues is one of those spells that you'd keep on a scroll for this sort of situation; even at 5th caster level it lasts nearly an hour, which is not too bad. Of course, with your high INT you could just have learned Giant.)

Now I don't know about you, but if I'm at home and all of a sudden there is a strange group of armed, scruffy looking people in the room with me, I am not assuming they just popped in for a cup of tea.

Of course a hill giant is going to think a stranger in their complex is there to do them harm. Why else would they be there? They may not be the brightest of creatures, but they are going to be suspicious of that sort of thing.

It seems to me that the 6 INT, 10 WIS giant is not going to be that hard to manipulate by my 20 INT wizard even if my CHA is only (say) 14 for a +2 (vs the giant's -2 for a 7 CHA).

Intelligence is a nonfactor in trying to sway your new "friend." It's charisma.

Which means that you have a better than 50% chance of swaying it if you have a 14 Cha, but far less than 100%

As to whether or not I can turn the giant on its mates, I note that a hill giant is Chaotic Evil which means that the giant "does whatever his greed, hatred, and lust for destruction drive him to do. He is hot-tempered, vicious, arbitrarily violent, and unpredictable [and t]ypically . . . can be made to work together only by force, and [the giant's] leader lasts only as long as he can thwart attempts to topple or assassinate him." How hard is it going to be to get this guy to start fighting with fellow Chaotic Evil giants? (Aragorn makes a similar observation in The Two Towers, when the three companions come across the bodies of the orcs that were killed in the argument over where to take the kidnapped hobbits.)

I don't see how a Chaotic Evil giant even has allies - its leader, for instance, "lasts only as long as he can thwart attempts to topple or assassinate him". And a 6 INT, 10 WIS, 7 CHA creature looks pretty manipulable to me.

Depending on who the boss is, this might or might not work, but I would lean mostly towards not. Charm explicitly does not make creatures suicidal, so that if the boss is savage enough to have an army of hill giants, then I would guess that "friendly" is not enough to make your giant pal stupid enough to go up against the chief and his pet dragon. Sure he likes you and all, but do you know what happened to that last guy who did that, and who do you think was cleaning up the mess afterwards. "I don't want my guts hanging from the candelabra, thank you very much."

Anyway, Charm still does not get you a giant meat-shield in this case, imo.

Addendum: I might also point out that the alignment thing goes both ways. You have now made a chaotic evil creature "friendly" towards you. But it was likely "friendly" towards its companions, some of them at least. The suggestion that CE makes the creature so unpredictably violent as to make it willing to thrash its old friends, implies that while it likes you, its going to lash out at your allies anyway, just for the fun of it. However, I do tend to play Hill Giants as slightly more rational than that.

 

[pemerton]

if I'm at home and all of a sudden there is a strange group of armed, scruffy looking people in the room with me, I am not assuming they just popped in for a cup of tea.

For the sake of clarity, are you saying that any adventurer-type PC turning up unexpectedly and casting Charm counts as threatening, and grants a +5 to save? What if the caster holds up one hand (the non-casting one) in a gesture of peace?

Of course a hill giant is going to think a stranger in their complex is there to do them harm. Why else would they be there? They may not be the brightest of creatures, but they are going to be suspicious of that sort of thing.

The spell says "If the creature is currently being threatened or attacked by you or your allies, however, it receives a +5 bonus on its saving throw." You are saying that turning up uninvited and armed counts as threatening. I don't think that's either a fair or a reasonable interpretation of the spell text.

Intelligence is a nonfactor in trying to sway your new "friend." It's charisma.

Intelligence is relevant to whether or not I can manipulate a Chaotic Evil giant into attacking its friends. Opposed CHA checks only come into play "to convince it to do anything it wouldn’t ordinarily do". For a chaotic evil giant, indulging its violent passions is something that it would ordinarily do.

Depending on who the boss is, this might or might not work, but I would lean mostly towards not. Charm explicitly does not make creatures suicidal, so that if the boss is savage enough to have an army of hill giants, then I would guess that "friendly" is not enough to make your giant pal stupid enough to go up against the chief and his pet dragon.

Why would the giant think it's suicidal to help you kill the boss and take over? (Presumably a PF wizard can have Bluff as a skill.)

I might also point out that the alignment thing goes both ways. You have now made a chaotic evil creature "friendly" towards you. But it was likely "friendly" towards its companions, some of them at least. The suggestion that CE makes the creature so unpredictably violent as to make it willing to thrash its old friends, implies that while it likes you, its going to lash out at your allies anyway, just for the fun of it.

Hopefully my allies are tough enough to cow it. That's part of why it will believe that we can help it overthrow its boss.

So what do players use Charm for in your game, if not to try and manipulate their enemies in the course of play? I'd always assumed that was the point of the spell, and that's always how it's been used by players in my game (across multiple systems).

 

[Wicht]

For the sake of clarity, are you saying that any adventurer-type PC turning up unexpectedly and casting Charm counts as threatening, and grants a +5 to save? What if the caster holds up one hand (the non-casting one) in a gesture of peace?

I am saying that a group of adventurers being in a dungeon is inherently threatening to the inhabitants. Yes. Generally, such a situation is going to make the save easier for the creature. Now, if the wizard wants to try and bluff the creature before the casting of the spell, that's a different story.

The spell says "If the creature is currently being threatened or attacked by you or your allies, however, it receives a +5 bonus on its saving throw." You are saying that turning up uninvited and armed counts as threatening. I don't think that's either a fair or a reasonable interpretation of the spell text.

People who turn up uninvited and armed at my home are going to be considered moderately threatening unless I know them. As an experienced DM trying for some level of verisimilitude in his world, I think it an imminently reasonable assumption on the part of the monsters. The feeling of being threatened is dependent entirely on the perception of the other party as to your intentions.

Intelligence is relevant to whether or not I can manipulate a Chaotic Evil giant into attacking its friends. Opposed CHA checks only come into play "to convince it to do anything it wouldn’t ordinarily do". For a chaotic evil giant, indulging its violent passions is something that it would ordinarily do.

Why would the giant think it's suicidal to help you kill the boss and take over? (Presumably a PF wizard can have Bluff as a skill.)

Hopefully my allies are tough enough to cow it. That's part of why it will believe that we can help it overthrow its boss.

Intelligence is not relevant at all to how well you can manipulate him. Its Charisma, by the rules. And obviously it wouldn't normally attack its boss.
I would assume that if the boss is powerful enough to cow the giant in the first place, the answer as to why would be self-evident. Now if you are going to try and charm one of the higher level hill giants that's a different matter. But then the save is going to be harder. And if you want to try and convince the giant you are going to make it chief, then I suppose you could try, but its still not a sure thing.

Charm does not make a creature your slave. It makes it your friend. Charm does not inherently make a creature fight for you. It makes it wish you well.

So what do players use Charm for in your game, if not to try and manipulate their enemies in the course of play? I'd always assumed that was the point of the spell, and that's always how it's been used by players in my game (across multiple systems).

Well of course Charm is used to manipulate enemies. But it has limits. It does not make a creature into your newest meat-shield. It does not replace Summon Monster, Dominate, or any of the other spells which actually get a creature to fight on your behalf. Charm must be used, at the least, in conjunction with other abilities to be effective, abilities which the average wizard is short on (Charisma, Diplomacy and Bluff; in point of fact Charm is generally much more useful for sorcerers). It also offers no guarantee of protection for your allies and its easy to have one of your allies inadvertently undo the spell.