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

[Wicht]

The rage rounds/day is a (shudder) dissociative element; it takes the player into a different game than the one everyone else is playing. It's also pointless and serves no real purpose.

Bards play the same tune.

I would also disagree that there is no purpose. It makes the skill more useful in short burst and for things such as breaking down doors or lifting heavy rocks off of people..

 

[Ahnehnois]

Also, how would it balance with clerics able to automatically remove the fatigued condition with a touch?

Very nicely, I imagine.

Not that it would change anything fundamental. Barbarians run out of hp; clerics can increase their staying power by healing them. Barbarians get tired; clerics can enhance their staying power by rejuvenating them. Same thing.

But what impact would that really have on play? If the characters are facing multiple encounters that are dangerous enough to merit the use of rage, without having the opportunity to rest, then the barb/cleric combo would be rather helpful (or some wand-using character covering the spells). But how often does that happen? People rest after battles.

To me, the barbarian was designed with the intention that rage was the core ability and that you would be raging at any time that it really mattered. The daily limitation is tangential to any balance considerations. The balance of a barbarian is what can you do in a round when all your stuff is active. Just as the balance of a spellcaster is mostly what can you do with your high level spells.

In the existing paradigm, each additional round of rage you get per day is less valuable than the last, because you only have so many rounds of important action before the whole party will simply rest. It's not a satisfying or useful reward for advancement, and the hypothetical barbarian without rage is something that won't normally happen. So again, how much does just making it fatigue really change things?

Bards play the same tune.

Bardic music is magic. However, it's still a stupid mechanic and I still replaced it. For the enchanting abilities, I simply made them work like some hexes and monster abilities wherein a save makes the target immune for a day. For most of the other stuff, I toned it down and removed the restrictions. Bardic music should just be something you do, not something you have to track.

I would also disagree that there is no purpose. It makes the skill more useful in short burst and for things such as breaking down doors or lifting heavy rocks off of people.

I would agree that my solution doesn't account for short bursts of effort. To me, that's a distinct phenomenon from the berserk state. To rage, one has to get pretty worked up. The idea of it having an on/off switch that the player uses to maximize the utility of rage in a given day irks me. That's not how barbarians think.

I'd rather handle the sudden bursts using a different mechanic, if anything, because they're not the same thing in-game.

 

[billd91]

I would also disagree that there is no purpose. It makes the skill more useful in short burst and for things such as breaking down doors or lifting heavy rocks off of people..

There was definitely a point to it and that was to make it less subject to the issues of being useful only once or twice a day (but for multiple rounds) and allow the barbarian player to apportion it out in smaller doses. From a game mechanic perspective, it got a lot better and that fixed it enough for my concerns. I'm quite content with the barbarian as he sits now in PF.

I'd say that the rounds/day mechanic doesn't work as well for the bard. It handles his inspire courage OK since that's better charged in rounds than times/day. But it does not play well with other bard abilities like inspire competence. I'm not sure all of the bard's abilities necessarily need to be on a resource management schedule.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I'm not sure all of the bard's abilities necessarily need to be on a resource management schedule.

I don't know why anything needs to be. If there's one thing the 3e warlock taught us, it's that resource management is vastly overrated. If you just took every use-limited ability in PF and removed the limitations, I think the only ones where it would really make a difference are the highest-level spells of primary spellcasters (and possibly secondary casters) and some of the smite abilities and their ilk. The rest is a lot of text that mostly amounts to window dressing.

 

[MoonSong]

I'd say that the rounds/day mechanic doesn't work as well for the bard. It handles his inspire courage OK since that's better charged in rounds than times/day. But it does not play well with other bard abilities like inspire competence. I'm not sure all of the bard's abilities necessarily need to be on a resource management schedule.

Emphasis mine, No just no, tracking rounds for inspire courage truly ruinned it for me. Before you could be confident you had at least one combat worth of inspire courage. Now you just run the risk of getting out of them in the middle of combat, and tracking them round by round is exccessively fiddly leaving no time to act like a fool or think of witty taunts to say to the enemy. Add that to the nerfing of persuassion and is no wonder I believe PF bard to be the worst bard across the editions. (And no the free heal at first level makes nothing to alleviate it)

 

[Ahnehnois]

I believe PF bard to be the worst bard across the editions. (And no the free heal at first level makes nothing to alleviate it)

Isn't that like being the fattest kid at fat camp?

 

[billd91]

Emphasis mine, No just no, tracking rounds for inspire courage truly ruinned it for me. Before you could be confident you had at least one combat worth of inspire courage. Now you just run the risk of getting out of them in the middle of combat, and tracking them round by round is exccessively fiddly leaving no time to act like a fool or think of witty taunts to say to the enemy. Add that to the nerfing of persuassion and is no wonder I believe PF bard to be the worst bard across the editions. (And no the free heal at first level makes nothing to alleviate it)

I don't know that I agree with all of that (particularly not being able to think up taunts or acting like a fool - since the inspire is maintained by a free action, I think you've got ample ability), but I can see where you're coming from. I'd still call the 2e bard the worst version, though, not PF.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Might be that the PF bard is one of those problems that need fixing though.

My solution revolved around:
*Rewriting bardic music to remove use limitations and change various other parameters.
*Adding abilities that allow more combined actions (of attacks, music, and spells)
*Adding bonus feats

 

[MoonSong]

I don't know that I agree with all of that (particularly not being able to think up taunts or acting like a fool - since the inspire is maintained by a free action, I think you've got ample ability), but I can see where you're coming from. I'd still call the 2e bard the worst version, though, not PF.

Actually I consider the Elven minstrel from 2e one of the most awesome bards ever. Flavorful and with some strong suppport. The 4e bard is very good too, though it feels empty and soulless, like it had the potential to be the best one ever, but like it lost something along the way and is fundamentally incomplete. The PF bard is like a 3.0 bard but weaker.

EDIT: And my complaint is that with a PF bard you are too busy keeping track of stuff, and managing resources that you are taken out of the action. You just lose connection with your character, the resources management causes you to dissociate with your character. Not something so bad with sorcerers and clerics where the rounds per day thingy is secondary, but with bards it is awful, because it is your schtik

 

[pemerton]

Here is ForeverSlayer arguing that Boundless Endurance must be magic, because it involves the regeneration of tissue:

I'll note that the "Martials are magic" crowd has yet to name a single magical ability that martial characters can do.

Boundless Endurance Fighter Utility 2

The power initiates whenever you reach bloodied. I'm sure we can all guess what the word "bloodied" involves, seeing as it has the word "blood" in it. Now, Trolls have regeneration which can be stopped using fire. This means that the meat is actually repairing itself, like it always has, unless a specific type of damage is used. Trolls usually "shake off" most damage because of their Regeneration ability.

When a fighter uses that ability and gains Regeneration, does he lose that damage he has taken when the fight is over? No. Is HP 100% non meat? No. Does this ability heal even the parts of HP that are meat? Yes. If they made the power only work when you are not bloodied then maybe I could see it as shaking off fatigue or what not, but clearly it doesn't work that way.

Here is Wicht stating that, in PF, regeneration and fast healing mean the regeneration of tissue:

Regeneration in Pathfinder, as well as Fast Healing, are generally understood to be the knitting together of damaged tissue

Biological fast healing is a cool visual image which serves to make the story more fantastical and emotionally engaging for the players, as they live vicariously through their character.

And here is Paizo, in Ultimate Combat, stating that a barbarian can gain fast healing as an EX (= non-magical) ability:

Regenerative Vigor (Ex)

Prerequisite: Barbarian 6, renewed vigor rage power

Benefit: After using her renewed vigor rage power until her current rage ends, the barbarian gains fast healing 1 for every 6 barbarian levels she has (maximum fast healing 3). She regains hit points from fast healing at the start of each of her turns.

At least one of [MENTION=91812]ForeverSlayer[/MENTION], Wicht and Paizo must be wrong:

• If Paizo and Wicht are both correct, then ForeverSlayer is wrong to thing that the ability to rapidly knit together tissue is magic;
  
  
• If Paizo and ForeverSlayer are both correct, then given that rapidly knitting together tissue is magical, and given that there is a non-magical fast healing ability with the word "regenerative" in its name, then Wicht is wrong to think that fast healing and regeneration in PF have any general connotation of knitting together tissue (and is wrong also to think that Regenerative Vigour involves knitting together of tissue);
  
  
• If ForeverSlayer and Wicht are both correct, then Paizo was wrong to label a fast healing power EX - it should be SU.

Is anyone able to tell me who it is who is wrong?