Pathfinder 1E What's broken or needs vast system knowledge?

[JeffB]

I am a big fan of Gregory Peck, but as a amateur military historian, it pains me to see him in his role of MacArthur, instead of the General himself.

As for the topic at hand, man kids these days sure don't play D&D like we used to. I do not find any fun in system mastery/optimizing/best builds, and never did in any version, or any RPG rules system for that matter.

 

[N'raac]

Excellent tacticians who were unique and colorful characters. All of whom, incidentally behaved very much differently from each other.

To pick one, Patton's slapping incident seems a poor tactical decision. He was guided by his emotions.

Of course, player characters are not often afforded the command role. They usually act as soldiers.

Actually, I find the "PC's = Military" suggestion pretty narrow. PC's come from all manner of backgrounds, at least in my games, and are neither soldiers nor officers. Some seek out adventure, and others have it thrust upon them.

Here is, in essence,my question to you: Why would a person whose job it is to get into life or death situations on a regular basis by confronting and killing his enemies, not lean to do so in the most efficient and deadly method possible?

To suggest otherwise would be unrealistic, given how real people behave in the real world. Mechanical considerations (what would make me better at achieving his goals?) should be considered alongside the roleplaying motivations (what are my goals?) as both are integral to creating a fully realized character.

This first assumes PC's can read the rule books and assess their options in such a focused manner, knowing exactly when a new BAB, bonus feat or Saving Throw bonus will be earned. I suggest, rather, that they train constantly and do not, as PC's, decide to take a Bard, Wizard or Fighter level.

To the Barbarian School of Lame Oracalism, I question how the barbarians all arrange to be "granted power without their choice, selected by providence to wield powers that even they do not fully understand".

Now, I could choose to interpret the fact that the choice of Oracle curse "is made at 1st level, and once made, it cannot be changed" as meaning any L1 character must take a curse or forever be barred from Oracle levels. Oddly, this actually seems consistent with the fact that the "oracle must pick one mystery upon taking her first level of oracle", phrasing quite different from the curse selection a couple of paragraphs later. I wonder how many barbarians would be OK working for their first 8 levels with the Lame curse, without the "never fatigued" benefit. Odd, also, that these characters all return to their training in barbarian skills, and never follow up on the Mystery that granted their rudimentary powers.

Choosing a more difficult option may well be in character, and out of tactical wizardry. If my character hates Wizards, or Orcs, then facing off against the Orc Wizard's summoned beast while my teammates take down the vile spellcaster may be the tactically correct choice, but attacking the wizard may be the appropriate role playing selection.

The player may know the best way to elicit information from a reluctant captive is a Torch to the Groin, but the character may be opposed to torture. Patiently waiting may be the best tactic in many cases, but an impulsive, impetuous character would not often be properly played when exercise such patience.

I know on many occasions there are things I should be doing, but I keep typing away on message boards instead. Few of us select the "tactically best choice" consistently throughout our lives. Neither do the protagonists in most good adventure fiction. Wouldn't Batman, Doc Savage and Spider-Man be better off to carry a gun - it would only give them more options. Yet none of them do.

Weaknesses are as much a part of the character as strengths, often the aspects that make them most interesting. I doubt we'll ever hear an uber-optimized PC question "why it had to be snakes".

Of course, to encourage PC's who are not optimized to the maximum possible extent, the GM also has to run a game where failure to optimize PC power and tactical choices is not guaranteed failure/death to the PC at best and the whole party at worst. Some games are all about the competition between the GM and players to best use the resources available to them, and between the players to optimize their individual power. I prefer more balance between "Role Playing" and "Game" myself.

 

[Dandu]

Actually, I find the "PC's = Military" suggestion pretty narrow.

Well, we were talking about barbarians...

PC's come from all manner of backgrounds, at least in my games, and are neither soldiers nor officers. Some seek out adventure, and others have it thrust upon them.

But no matter what they do, they have to have a sense of purpose and the motivation to achieve their goals. This applies to every field of human endeavor. For example, if someone wanted to play a detective, that's great! And I'm sure the detective would spend his time trying to be the best detective possible. If someone wanted to play to be a poet, that's fine. It's his decision to take whatever he feels best enhances his ability to write poetry. Of course, if he ends up fighting in the trenches and carries on writing in iambic pentameter without developing any skills more suited to his situation, I think we can both agree that's a bad idea in and out of character.

This first assumes PC's can read the rule books and assess their options in such a focused manner, knowing exactly when a new BAB, bonus feat or Saving Throw bonus will be earned. I suggest, rather, that they train constantly and do not, as PC's, decide to take a Bard, Wizard or Fighter level.

We are playing characters in a game, so we as players should be able assess the options of our characters, who are not entities unto themselves but merely puppets that we control.

In the "game world" the characters do not know what BAB, bonus feats, or saving throws are, but they do know that wizards are worse at hand-to-hand combat than barbarians, certain martial arts masters have training regimes that teach special tactics to their students, that knights can hold their alcohol better than the average person, and that fighters are more physically resilient than sorcerers. This is obvious.

The characters have to have, at some basic level, a general idea of how their world works, otherwise it becomes impossible to function in it. I do not say that it must be to Order of the Stick levels, where they comment on metagame concepts for humor, but the concepts such as "training under Master Lin at the White Lotus Monastery allows you to punch people better" must exist.

To draw on a real world example, the laws of physics that govern our existence are arbitrary and strange, but we've developed quite an understanding of them during the past century. Electrons, for example, are both particles and waves, and their "orbits" around an atomic nucleus is not given by rails, like the generic picture of an atom depicts, but rather by a probability distribution with a shape governed by mathematical equations.

Example: d oritals of transition metals

Another example would be the Planck Constant. There is no known reason why its value is 6.62606957×10−34 Joules*second; it just is.

What I'm saying is that if our world operated off of BAB, saving throws, skill points, and feats, you can bet someone would have figured it out, seeing as we've already started to probe the arbitrary laws that make up our existence. So expecting characters to have some idea of the laws governing their existence is reasonable.

And as for the specific Barbarian/Oracle multiclass in question, I imagine you could have a situation similar to this:
"Worf son of Mogh, I have heard that those warriors who make a pilgrimage to the Temple of Boreth in order to undergo a vision quest may be rewarded with visions of Kahless, who guides them in battle and renders them indefatigable should they be men of worth and honor."

Actually, that brings up an interesting historical point: in Japan, it was common for Samurai to study under Zen teachers in order to overcome their fear of death, calm their minds, and, in some cases, become better people (or, at least, less violent). And there were certainly many warriors in the West who also had a religious side - military orders such as the Knights Templar, for example.

To the Barbarian School of Lame Oracalism

The proper term is Rage Prophet. It's a prestige class in the Pathfinder Advanced Player Guide. Which, curiously, makes the munchkin multiclass dipping combination of Barbarian/Oracle that you are raging against officially supported.

I question how the barbarians all arrange to be "granted power without their choice, selected by providence to wield powers that even they do not fully understand".

Vision quest. Communing with spirits. Taking lots and lots of mescaline. Asking really nicely. You're a bright kid, you can surely come up with a creative answer.

I personally don't let the default fluff of classes bother me that much. Fluff is mutable. I pay more attention to the mechanics of a class. It enables me to create more interesting characters. For example, a Pathfinder Barbarian is a berserker according to the official class description. If I choose to play a Barbarian, must I follow the provided fluff to the letter, or can I play a Barbarian who is not some kind of Viking? What if I wanted to do it differently?

Could I play, for instance, the son of a common smithy who leaves his family business in the city of Calimsha to join the army in defense of his homeland against the invading Goblin Khanates? He'd be strong, tough, and quick from working in a smithy, have a good amount of skill points from doing skilled labor, be illiterate because most commoners were through most of human history, and might have a bit of a temper to explain his ability to rage.

Now, I could choose to interpret the fact that the choice of Oracle curse "is made at 1st level, and once made, it cannot be changed" as meaning any L1 character must take a curse or forever be barred from Oracle levels. Oddly, this actually seems consistent with the fact that the "oracle must pick one mystery upon taking her first level of oracle", phrasing quite different from the curse selection a couple of paragraphs later.

Upon reading more about the Oracle class, I note that the Final Revelations of the Battle Mystery reads:

Final Revelation: Upon reaching 20th level, you become an avatar of battle. You can take a full-attack action and move up to your speed as a full-round action (you can move before or after the attacks). Whenever you score a critical hit, you can ignore any DR the target might possess. You gain a +4 insight bonus to your AC for the purpose of confirming critical hits against you. When you are below 0 hit points, you do not die until your negative total is in excess of twice your Constitution score.

Now, could choose to interpret the fact that the Final Revelation of the Battle Mystery is gained "upon reaching 20th level", without reference to the Oracle class level, as meaning any L20 character gains this ability. But that would be unbecoming of me, as I would be using semantic gymnastics commonly seen in munchkins. It would, of course, be wrong of an upright man such as myself to emulate the dishonest and disingenuous rules-lawyering of lesser roleplayers who seek to twist ambiguous wording to their advantage whenever it occurs.

Anyways, I have read the Oracle class and it is clear from the context of the class feature that the intent of the designer is for the player to select the curse when he takes his first level in the Oracle class. The curse is a class feature of the Oracle, after all, and you cannot benefit or suffer from class features without first having levels in said class. If you examine the wording of every class ever published by Paizo, you might notice that they use the term "at xth level" liberally without specifically stating that they refer to class level based on the assumption that people understand what they mean.

If you have any doubt, you can always ask Paizo. I believe that they have a very good customer service department.

Choosing a more difficult option may well be in character, and out of tactical wizardry. If my character hates Wizards, or Orcs, then facing off against the Orc Wizard's summoned beast while my teammates take down the vile spellcaster may be the tactically correct choice, but attacking the wizard may be the appropriate role playing selection.

If you wish to play your character in such a manner, then by all means do so. But is there anything wrong with attacking the wizard in the situation you just described?

I know on many occasions there are things I should be doing, but I keep typing away on message boards instead. Few of us select the "tactically best choice" consistently throughout our lives.

I know we don't, but should we not aspire to make the correct life choices?

Neither do the protagonists in most good adventure fiction. Wouldn't Batman, Doc Savage and Spider-Man be better off to carry a gun - it would only give them more options. Yet none of them do.

I know, I know, Batman was disarmed in 1939. In universe, this was explained by his desire to avoid taking a life, since firearms do not generally have a non-lethal option. He makes up for it by lots of martial arts and sophisticated gadgets, so I'm not sure if your point still holds. Yeah, he might not have a gun, but he certainly has a lot of wonderful toys, like a jet with missiles on it and anti-shark spray.

If your argument is that Batman is not optimized for his role, then you've shot yourself in the foot.

Doc Savage

Gadgets

Some of the gadgets described in the series became reality, including flying wing, answering machines, television, automatic transmission, night vision goggles, electromagnetic rail guns, and hand-held automatic weapons called variously machine pistol, supermachine pistol or rapid-firer. Doc has created a wide range of ammunition types for the machine pistols including incendiary bullets that smash on contact, coating the target with a high-temp paste-fed fire, high explosive bullets able to uproot trees, ordinary lead bullets & tracer, and the trademark sleep-inducing "mercy bullets" rather than regular lead bullets which are used in gunfights in keeping with Doc's firm code against personal direct taking of human life, even of the most evil. (Doc has no problem with enemies dying from causes other than his direct attack on them, though.)

Spiderman - Lives in New York City, which has strict gun control laws. Presumable, Peter Parker didn't want to break the law in that regard and draw even more attention from the police. After all, he's the good guy. The Punisher, on the other hand...

Of course, to encourage PC's who are not optimized to the maximum possible extent, the GM also has to run a game where failure to optimize PC power and tactical choices is not guaranteed failure/death to the PC at best and the whole party at worst. Some games are all about the competition between the GM and players to best use the resources available to them, and between the players to optimize their individual power. I prefer more balance between "Role Playing" and "Game" myself.

As do we all. But, to be honest, I feel like you are throwing about many false dichotomies here. Why does it seem like you believe there is no middle ground between roleplaying and optimization? From some of the responses I have been reading, it seems like you think that people build a character to fulfill a roleplaying concept or be an "uber-optimized PC", but not both.

To bring up an examples from before, here's a pirate captain, as well as a dwarven martial artist of my own design. Both have used multiclassing with, in my opinion, justifiable justifications for having done so, and I think it enriches the character concept.

As for the topic at hand, man kids these days sure don't play D&D like we used to. I do not find any fun in system mastery/optimizing/best builds, and never did in any version, or any RPG rules system for that matter.

Shall I get off your lawn?

 

[Neonchameleon]

1; The class abilities, definitely. The Paizo guys were so desperate to fix the broken classes, they sometimes overshot.

Not so much. If it's weak in 3.X (i.e. non-caster) it's weak in PF and strong to strong. The tiers are almost exactly the same (there's some play round which tiers fighters, rogues, and bards are in but that's about it).

The summoner class needs some watching as the Eidolon can be extremely effective and cut into a hth specialist's role.

Oh please! If the Eidolon is trying to cut into the HTH specialist's role you don't have too much trouble. It becomes a huge problem when the summoner turns their Eidolon into a scout, cutting in to the rogue's role. And then summons d3+1 augmented creatures who can act on the first round of combat every combat (six or more times per day) cutting deeply into the hth specialist's role, and allowing them to save their spells for utility magic.

But the difference in power between martial and caster classes has been reduced to the point where a well built fighter can be far more powerful than a poorly built spellcaster.

It always could in 3.X; the Evoker was always weak.

I know, I know, Batman was disarmed in 1939 due to the Comic's Code.

Pedant point: Batman must be a time traveller because the Comics Code was only formed in 1954. Batman, however, started off as a knock-off of The Shadow. But was disarmed as part of a moral panic that predated the Comics Code by fifteen years.

 

[Cadence]

Besides Summoner and Oracle, are the other APG classes reasonably balanced?

Do traits actually help anyone RP better, or is it just another power boost. (Any reason not to just have someone who wants one sub-out their 1st level feat for two of them?)

...aspects of Wish and Miracle ought to be moved up to their own, unique, 10th spell level, or else rewritten to behave like a 4E-style ritual that takes more than mere standard action to cast.

Any other spells that seem overpowered for their level?

Not so much. If it's weak in 3.X (i.e. non-caster) it's weak in PF and strong to strong. The tiers are almost exactly the same (there's some play round which tiers fighters, rogues, and bards are in but that's about it).

Tiers somewhat closer than in 3.X though?

Besides E6, E8, E?, any thoughts on how to nerf the high level casters a bit to keep them in line (or is it hopeless)?

 

[Dozen]

Not so much. If it's weak in 3.X (i.e. non-caster) it's weak in PF and strong to strong. The tiers are almost exactly the same (there's some play round which tiers fighters, rogues, and bards are in but that's about it).

I said broken, not unbalanced. Balancing 3.x is fundamentally impossible, and completely unnecessary. Frankly, I couldn't care less that spellcasters are better on the long run than those who dare to try another approach. The purpose of the Tier System is to differentiate between the power of the classes, not to tell which one is "broken". High Tier classes just so happen to be able to easily abuse the game's flaws, usually. That didn't stop the Wish from going down in history as the third most broken build ever, thanks to the Warlock's ridiculous UMD check and good multiclass options. There's difference between correlation and causation, ya know.

 

[Cadence]

To draw on a real world example, the laws of physics that govern our existence are arbitrary and strange, but we've developed quite an understanding of them during the past century.

What I'm saying is that if our world operated off of BAB, saving throws, skill points, and feats, you can bet someone would have figured it out, seeing as we've already started to probe the arbitrary laws that make up our existence. So expecting characters to have some idea of the laws governing their existence is reasonable.

But don't we have our understanding of physics now because we have lots of people dedicated to studying them and hundreds of years of mathematical infrastructure to bring to bear?

If we look at the historical periods most commonly associated with D&D (ancient greece to late medieval europe to pre-industrial japan) how well had things been figured out and how widely disseminated was that knowledge? How much of it was just wrong (how many people in the US still have areas of science and medicine they discard for various reasons, even when confronted with the evidence)? It seems like those from 500-2000 years ago trying to optimize would be trying lots of very faulty but "reasonable sounding" objective functions.

In the case of combat and saves, who would be doing the studying and who would they study? Are the mages and sages studying the underlying probability distributions of combat and trying to do challenging things, or are they developing new spells and still trying to figure out magic and the multiverse? How many fighters of vastly different level are their out there to study if most of the world is 0-1st level? What tools do they have to do the stuyding? The ELO system didn't get applied to chess until the last century, and it takes lots of repeated attempts between players to get the ratings down. Fielding metrics in baseball just seem to have gotten there, and they take video records of all the games to do well. Judging teacher quality is still not ready for prime time according to many of the best psychometricians. And none of those tell us how to get better at chess, fielding, or teaching in a measurable way.

And even if we know what we're supposed to do (say in terms of diet, exercise, studying, not using certain drugs that are addictive, not having our affairs on e-mail when we work for the government) how many people at the top of their game (be it college athletics or running the CIA) actually make those choices.

Having a copy of the PHB with options analyzed through simulation and poring through notes on the inter-webs seems like a lot more than "a general idea of how their world works..."

Why does it seem like you believe there is no middle ground between roleplaying and optimization?

Is it that, or the definition of "middle ground"? I wonder if its in the (over dichotomized) difference between picturing a character that doesn't suck and would be interesting to play and finding the feats/skills/classes that realize that picture versus finding the feat combo that makes the character a world beater and then trying to justify why it was chosen.

 

[Ahnehnois]

As for the topic at hand, man kids these days sure don't play D&D like we used to. I do not find any fun in system mastery/optimizing/best builds, and never did in any version, or any RPG rules system for that matter.

I see this a lot and I empathize with your perspective, but I'm not convinced it's a generational issue.

 

[N'raac]

But no matter what they do, they have to have a sense of purpose and the motivation to achieve their goals.

Character personality need not include such a focus. In fact, that sounds very Lawful in nature. There is nothing wrong with a player choosing a character who is simply out in the wild world, experiencing what life has to offer, and following his whims. One such character who stood out in a game many years ago, when granted a Wish, thought for a second or two, then wished for "A life filled with adventure". The scratch note as he phrased his wish crossed out "long" before "life" as the player reasoned it simply wasn't an addendum the character would consider to add.

This applies to every field of human endeavor. For example, if someone wanted to play a detective, that's great! And I'm sure the detective would spend his time trying to be the best detective possible.

I find often good players will forego full optimization to build a more rounded character. Sure, I could put the extra skill points in a skill that would augment his detection abilities, but his professional cooking skills are also an element of the character that makes him different from all those other Detective characters.

If someone wanted to play to be a poet, that's fine. It's his decision to take whatever he feels best enhances his ability to write poetry. Of course, if he ends up fighting in the trenches and carries on writing in iambic pentameter without developing any skills more suited to his situation, I think we can both agree that's a bad idea in and out of character.

So should we tell the Bard's player to take Fighter levels instead, as this game won't support a Bard? Or should the DM, having read the character's background and basic personality, either design his game such that the poet wi9ll be a meaningful contributor, and have reasons to be drawn to the campaign, or indicate that, as this is a military trench fighting campaign, that character should be shelved for use in a future campaign that would better support such a character? I favour the latter.

We are playing characters in a game, so we as players should be able assess the options of our characters, who are not entities unto themselves but merely puppets that we control.

"Mere puppets we control" are playing pieces. I prefer to create characters that are more fleshed out, have a personality and have some verisimillitude. They don't, for example, pull levers on the artifact because there's a 10% chance of gaining a significant reward and hey, if he gets killed or cursed, I can always make a new character to replace him. Their flaws and foibles don't disappear because they become inconvenient (just because we need to travel overseas, the character's fear of water does not fade away).

In the "game world" the characters do not know what BAB, bonus feats, or saving throws are, but they do know that wizards are worse at hand-to-hand combat than barbarians, certain martial arts masters have training regimes that teach special tactics to their students, that knights can hold their alcohol better than the average person, and that fighters are more physically resilient than sorcerers. This is obvious.

The characters have to have, at some basic level, a general idea of how their world works, otherwise it becomes impossible to function in it. I do not say that it must be to Order of the Stick levels, where they comment on metagame concepts for humor, but the concepts such as "training under Master Lin at the White Lotus Monastery allows you to punch people better" must exist.

"Well, I took an Oracle level to get the Lame curse so I would not be fatigued after raging" sounds very OoTS, actually. And, if they understand the way the game world works, then they should know that "training under Master Lin at the White Lotus Monastery" for 20 years does nothing - you will only be able "to punch people better" when you gain enough xp to level up. There is no requirement at all for training under the Pathfinder system. By the RAW "A character advances in level as soon as he earns enough experience points to do so". Any training is less than fluff - it is not even mentioned in the RAW. Funny, given how many class abilities and feats use the word "training", but just practicing on your own will gain you any or all of these abilities - as long as you engage in enough combat to generate the required XP. A hermit can achieve L20 in any or all classes - he just needs enough wolves, grizzlies, etc. to fight at his cave in the wilderness. If he's a wizard, 2 spells will appear whenever he gains a level.

What I'm saying is that if our world operated off of BAB, saving throws, skill points, and feats, you can bet someone would have figured it out, seeing as we've already started to probe the arbitrary laws that make up our existence. So expecting characters to have some idea of the laws governing their existence is reasonable.

I don't see them governed by BAB, saves, etc., however. Those are mechanics we add to simulate the characters' advancement, not mechanics that they can perceive.

And as for the specific Barbarian/Oracle multiclass in question, I imagine you could have a situation similar to this:
"Worf son of Mogh, I have heard that those warriors who make a pilgrimage to the Temple of Boreth in order to undergo a vision quest may be rewarded with visions of Kahless, who guides them in battle and renders them indefatigable should they be men of worth and honor."

Actually, that brings up an interesting historical point: in Japan, it was common for Samurai to study under Zen teachers in order to overcome their fear of death, calm their minds, and, in some cases, become better people (or, at least, less violent). And there were certainly many warriors in the West who also had a religious side - military orders such as the Knights Templar, for example.

The proper term is Rage Prophet. It's a prestige class in the Pathfinder Advanced Player Guide. Which, curiously, makes the munchkin multiclass dipping combination of Barbarian/Oracle that you are raging against officially supported.

This is a PrC that combines Oracle and Barbarian, not which says "Hey, dip in for one level of Oracle - and always be Lame!" In fact, it could just as easily be an Oracle with 1 Barbarian level. A one level Oracle dip will eventually gain 9th level casting, insufficient for many of the additional spells he can learn. In fact, only one of those spells could be attained at 2nd PrC level with a 1 level oracle dip. At least he can pick from the many 2nd level spells (five of those) when reaching L4 in the PrC.

That second level ability isn't overly useful as an 8th level character* when the only Cure spell you can cast (with 2 levels of spellcasting) is Cure Light Wounds. Concentration bonus at 3rd PrC level is only useful for spells as well. Most of the early abilities augment spellcasting rather than combat skills.

Overall, I'd say the PrC is aimed at more balanced multiclassing, not just a dip. A Barbarian dip could be more practical, but you need at least 2 Barbarian levels to get Moment of Clarity.

* BAB +5 requires 5 barbarian levels and you need at least one Oracle level as well, so that's 6th + 2 levels of Rage Prophet

Vision quest. Communing with spirits. Taking lots and lots of mescaline. Asking really nicely. You're a bright kid, you can surely come up with a creative answer.

Again, this is where we come to Meta Player vs In World Character. I don't think the Oracle picks his curse. I think the player picks the curse his character is afflicted with. The fact that Lame is the only curse that afflicts Barbarians seems significantly off. You could certainly write it into the game world - and you may as well, since none of those Oracle/Barbarians (rage prophet or 1 level dip) seem likely to select a different curse anyway.

I personally don't let the default fluff of classes bother me that much. Fluff is mutable. I pay more attention to the mechanics of a class. It enables me to create more interesting characters. For example, a Pathfinder Barbarian is a berserker according to the official class description. If I choose to play a Barbarian, must I follow the provided fluff to the letter, or can I play a Barbarian who is not some kind of Viking? What if I wanted to do it differently?

It's funny how RAW is all-important until some of the RAW doesn't support the desired conclusion. That portion of RAW is then dismissed as "fluff". The "fluff" is what makes a character class more than a bundle of random mechanics.

The Barbarian Rage is his berserking. Sure, you can do it differently, but not having Rage defeats the purpose of Barbarian levels. The official description says nothing about vikings, or any other culture. That fluff does not in any way restrict your "son of a smithy" example. Craft is even a Barbarian class skill. By the way, nothing in Pathfinder denies literacy to Barbarians. That's a throwback to 3e (one which begged the question why that Barbarian seeking training in another warrior class was also taught to read along the way).

Anyways, I have read the Oracle class and it is clear from the context of the class feature that the intent of the designer is for the player to select the curse when he takes his first level in the Oracle class. The curse is a class feature of the Oracle, after all, and you cannot benefit or suffer from class features without first having levels in said class. If you examine the wording of every class ever published by Paizo, you might notice that they use the term "at xth level" liberally without specifically stating that they refer to class level based on the assumption that people understand what they mean.

While I agree "at xth level" gets bandies about a lot in class abilities, the fact that the Curse actually provides a formula for mixing Oracle and non-Oracle levels makes this poor editing particularly noticeable. In any case, I agree it's a problem with the writing style and not a specific change of intention.

If you wish to play your character in such a manner, then by all means do so. But is there anything wrong with attacking the wizard in the situation you just described?

Once again, it depends. Role playing my character, he should go after the wizard, even if that is not the tactically correct choice. Similarly, if the character has been established as having a hatred of Goblins, he should logically go after the summoned Goblins before attacking the Wizard - his hatred overriding tactical judgement. But either way, watch the rest of the players berate this player for letting his character personality override the best possible tactics. "I know it's bad tactics, but that's what the character would do" is good role playing, in my books. "Well, he doesn't hate Goblins THAT much" returns the PC to a pawn on the chessboard.

None of your explanations for the characters not carrying a gun provide an in-game reason. Bats gave up guns because he does not kill. But sometimes, killing is the better tactical choice. Spidey would likely not carry a gun for similar reasons (yeah, the police just love him now, and he'd be so much easier for them to catch than the Punisher is...). Those mercy bullets may be useful much of the time, but having the option would add flexibility for times when a normal bullet would be more useful. But the three characters don't have it in their nature to use lethal force.

As do we all. But, to be honest, I feel like you are throwing about many false dichotomies here. Why does it seem like you believe there is no middle ground between roleplaying and optimization? From some of the responses I have been reading, it seems like you think that people build a character to fulfill a roleplaying concept or be an "uber-optimized PC", but not both.

There can certainly be middle ground. "Every Barbarian is a Lame Oracle" falls outside that middle ground, at least to me. Are there no other interesting Barbarian character possibilities?

To bring up an examples from before, here's a pirate captain, as well as a dwarven martial artist of my own design. Both have used multiclassing with, in my opinion, justifiable justifications for having done so, and I think it enriches the character concept.

So one of these characters trains extensively as a Magus expert in the use of a single weapon, training in spells and swordplay, while living like an animal in the forest. By the way, don't Deepwardens need the Endurance feat?

As to the pirate, I note the entire description is focused on mechanics. I assume he has a personality in-game, but it doesn't come through from the post.

I also note that, between both characters, there is only one dip, the Marshall. All the other classes are taken for at least a few levels.

 

[N'raac]

To add, for me it is not mechanics (the world beater combo) or shock value ("She's a demon!" "He's hideously ugly!" "My character cuts the ears off fallen opponents and saves then as trophies/eats them by the campfire!") but an underlying interesting personality that makes for an interesting character.