Post by Deleted on Sept 6, 2013 4:34:29 GMT
I'm not going to beat around the bush with this, I'll just give it to you straight: this system is 100% terrible for new players.
Tonight I played with a group of two other noobies (making 3 level 1s). On our hunts, we encountered 1 raccoon, 1 dire wolf, 12 elephants, 5 wolves, and 7 foxes. Guess which we fought?
If you answered: the elephants, you'd be dead wrong.
The encounter system is awfully unbalanced. It makes it nearly impossible to level up (I gained a whopping 265 exp tonight) and didn't get to use half of my skills.
See, here's the thing. I'm a rogue. Fully equipped with knowledge skills, stealth, climb/acrobatics, slight of hand, and disable device, and social skills. And after looking over the combat system, I ain't going anywhere.
Here's the problem:
Skill based characters rely on skills to overcome their weaknesses in combat. Right now this system caters to one type of class: fighty fight, hitty, hitty. You either do massive damage (wizards) or you make sure you're very survivable (tank). In the instance of bards and rogues, not happening.
I rely on these skills to make my character successful in combat:
Stealth, bluff, sleight of hand. My build intended to take tricks and feats that increased my movement in combat (mobility, etc), increase my two-weapon fighting, and increase my sneak attacks and stealth. Right now, stealth is totally useless. Throw it away. I'm rolling "perception" to not be noticed by an enemy? What? "Yo dawg, I'm watching you, watch me, so I watch you while you watch me, so you can watch me, while I watch you." Doesn't make sense. And when I asked to make a stealth roll at the beginning of combat to enter stealth, there wasn't any way to stealth (we're in a prairie, with what I'd assume to be tall grass). Throw out the rogue's most important skill. I was going to take tricks that increase stealth speed, but don't see the point.
Next up: disable device. Not going to get used, toss it. Everything is combat focused, so unless it hits an enemy in the face, it's really not worth it.
Followed by: bluff. Well, since we're fighting a lot of monsters, I don't think I can really feint an elephant. Toss it. This also makes Underhand useless, a crucial part of my build.
A close third: intelligence-based skills. Knowledge local? Dungeoneering? More like point dumps.
And: diplomacy. Not even going to touch that one.
As it stands, there's no reason for me to play anything but the beatiest, head-on rogue I can. Ranged rogues are out of the picture entirely due to lack of stealth, so the only way to get sneak attack is to surprise round or flank, which is only done in melee.
What I wanted to play: An assassin. Someone who focuses more on urban combat and stealth and subterfuge (disguise, bluff, sense motive, diplomacy) than a Bear Gryllis fanboy. As it stands now, that's totally unfeasible and impossible.
What I'm suggesting:
Apart from the heavy sarcasm above, I legitimately propose the following:
-Encounter charts are based on CRs. The farther you are from town, the bigger the CR can get. You choose the CR of your encounters (brackets, like CR1-5, 6-10, etc) and roll against those tables, instead of being a level 1 party staring at a herd of elephants.
-Missions and campaigns that can take place socially and politically, as well as urban. I'd suggest creating an urban scenario of crime vs cost. Every city has a crime rate, the more "hunts" you spend in town (bandits, sewer monsters, Jack the Ripper, etc) the lower the crime rate gets. The lower the crime rate gets, the cheaper it is to construct things in that town. Or hell, make it kingdom wide if needed. That way the PCs who want to delve more into an urban setting can, and those who are more woodsy can stay woodsy. Knowledge local can determine the hunts in cities instead of survival.
-Stealth vs. perception if the party spots an enemy. Those who wish to stealth the encounter may roll it, those who do not may choose not to. But stealth needs to be a thing.
-Obstacles in combat. Trees, debris, buildings. Things you can flank from and hide behind.
-"dungeons" that can take the form of houses, buildings, haunted mines, bandit camps, etc. Create a template map and use it for encounters, with randomized monsters per encounter. Think "mmo dungeon" with new monsters each time. Same with traps, new traps as well.
-Disguise and social aspects of things.
Realistically, I wanted my character to be a hybrid between Garett from Thief, and Corvo from Dishonored, and right now he's turning into Mugsy. I wanted to be able to disguise my way into a social event and stab the host, or sneak my way into a dungeon and free a prisoner. That seems feasible a bit for PvP, but I don't just want to slay players (in fact I'd like to shy away from that a bit since I'm not a big fan of ruining people's games and characters). I want to be able to boot knife a guy in the gut and gain underhand sneak attack bonus. Things that make a rogue a rogue, I want. Right now it seems pointless to really play one when I can get more DPS from a wizard, and more livability from a paladin.
I want to build a social and city reputation as an assassin, but assassinating foxes and elephants really isn't the way I'd like to go.
As of now I don't know enough about movement mechanics or city mechanics, but I feel we're really missing out on an important aspect of pathfinder without the social / manipulation and city aspect of the game. The role play is missing entirely.
1st week of play, first session: 265 exp. We killed the hell out of those foxes. But outside of that, I don't feel at all satisfied with my character's development and don't want to treat this as an MMORPG and twink the pants off a world-obliterating caster (I played an artificer/monk in DDO BEFORE it was cool), but I feel the game's mechanics encourage that...
Tonight I played with a group of two other noobies (making 3 level 1s). On our hunts, we encountered 1 raccoon, 1 dire wolf, 12 elephants, 5 wolves, and 7 foxes. Guess which we fought?
If you answered: the elephants, you'd be dead wrong.
The encounter system is awfully unbalanced. It makes it nearly impossible to level up (I gained a whopping 265 exp tonight) and didn't get to use half of my skills.
See, here's the thing. I'm a rogue. Fully equipped with knowledge skills, stealth, climb/acrobatics, slight of hand, and disable device, and social skills. And after looking over the combat system, I ain't going anywhere.
Here's the problem:
Skill based characters rely on skills to overcome their weaknesses in combat. Right now this system caters to one type of class: fighty fight, hitty, hitty. You either do massive damage (wizards) or you make sure you're very survivable (tank). In the instance of bards and rogues, not happening.
I rely on these skills to make my character successful in combat:
Stealth, bluff, sleight of hand. My build intended to take tricks and feats that increased my movement in combat (mobility, etc), increase my two-weapon fighting, and increase my sneak attacks and stealth. Right now, stealth is totally useless. Throw it away. I'm rolling "perception" to not be noticed by an enemy? What? "Yo dawg, I'm watching you, watch me, so I watch you while you watch me, so you can watch me, while I watch you." Doesn't make sense. And when I asked to make a stealth roll at the beginning of combat to enter stealth, there wasn't any way to stealth (we're in a prairie, with what I'd assume to be tall grass). Throw out the rogue's most important skill. I was going to take tricks that increase stealth speed, but don't see the point.
Next up: disable device. Not going to get used, toss it. Everything is combat focused, so unless it hits an enemy in the face, it's really not worth it.
Followed by: bluff. Well, since we're fighting a lot of monsters, I don't think I can really feint an elephant. Toss it. This also makes Underhand useless, a crucial part of my build.
A close third: intelligence-based skills. Knowledge local? Dungeoneering? More like point dumps.
And: diplomacy. Not even going to touch that one.
As it stands, there's no reason for me to play anything but the beatiest, head-on rogue I can. Ranged rogues are out of the picture entirely due to lack of stealth, so the only way to get sneak attack is to surprise round or flank, which is only done in melee.
What I wanted to play: An assassin. Someone who focuses more on urban combat and stealth and subterfuge (disguise, bluff, sense motive, diplomacy) than a Bear Gryllis fanboy. As it stands now, that's totally unfeasible and impossible.
What I'm suggesting:
Apart from the heavy sarcasm above, I legitimately propose the following:
-Encounter charts are based on CRs. The farther you are from town, the bigger the CR can get. You choose the CR of your encounters (brackets, like CR1-5, 6-10, etc) and roll against those tables, instead of being a level 1 party staring at a herd of elephants.
-Missions and campaigns that can take place socially and politically, as well as urban. I'd suggest creating an urban scenario of crime vs cost. Every city has a crime rate, the more "hunts" you spend in town (bandits, sewer monsters, Jack the Ripper, etc) the lower the crime rate gets. The lower the crime rate gets, the cheaper it is to construct things in that town. Or hell, make it kingdom wide if needed. That way the PCs who want to delve more into an urban setting can, and those who are more woodsy can stay woodsy. Knowledge local can determine the hunts in cities instead of survival.
-Stealth vs. perception if the party spots an enemy. Those who wish to stealth the encounter may roll it, those who do not may choose not to. But stealth needs to be a thing.
-Obstacles in combat. Trees, debris, buildings. Things you can flank from and hide behind.
-"dungeons" that can take the form of houses, buildings, haunted mines, bandit camps, etc. Create a template map and use it for encounters, with randomized monsters per encounter. Think "mmo dungeon" with new monsters each time. Same with traps, new traps as well.
-Disguise and social aspects of things.
Realistically, I wanted my character to be a hybrid between Garett from Thief, and Corvo from Dishonored, and right now he's turning into Mugsy. I wanted to be able to disguise my way into a social event and stab the host, or sneak my way into a dungeon and free a prisoner. That seems feasible a bit for PvP, but I don't just want to slay players (in fact I'd like to shy away from that a bit since I'm not a big fan of ruining people's games and characters). I want to be able to boot knife a guy in the gut and gain underhand sneak attack bonus. Things that make a rogue a rogue, I want. Right now it seems pointless to really play one when I can get more DPS from a wizard, and more livability from a paladin.
I want to build a social and city reputation as an assassin, but assassinating foxes and elephants really isn't the way I'd like to go.
As of now I don't know enough about movement mechanics or city mechanics, but I feel we're really missing out on an important aspect of pathfinder without the social / manipulation and city aspect of the game. The role play is missing entirely.
1st week of play, first session: 265 exp. We killed the hell out of those foxes. But outside of that, I don't feel at all satisfied with my character's development and don't want to treat this as an MMORPG and twink the pants off a world-obliterating caster (I played an artificer/monk in DDO BEFORE it was cool), but I feel the game's mechanics encourage that...