Dreamscarred Press - Path of War Expanded! (Thread VII)

[tekevil]

Harbinger also needs to land an attack roll, be flanking, and be in one of it's weakest stances for all that to be true. The chance of missing the swing, or soaking a hit because you're up close and don't have Infinity Mirror Stance active, seems balanced with a 15-30% increase in your save DCs.

A wizard can drop SoD from a hundred feet away, while maintaining flight, greater invisibility, mirror image, or whatever combination of buffs they desire. They also usually have more options at their disposal than single target save spells. Crowd control spells, walls, summons, and so on. If a boss monster has high enough saves the Harbinger won't be doing well despite his DC boosts, where wizards can avoid targeting saves at all.

(I guess wizards do have spell resistance to deal with sometimes.)

Land an Attack roll: My Harby with base 14 str was landing attacks against CR appropriate foes on 5's.
Be Flanking: With Fly by attack, the speed, and a reach weapon this was easy as pie. In addition Path of War itself makes flanks incredibly easy and safe to get into with even a modicum of teamwork.
Weakest Stances: It's not their strongest, but to call it among the weakest? Sure man. Even without that stance they still are running pretty dang high DCs at +4-6 higher.

Please don't invoke Schroedinger's wizard either, in Pathfinder discussions it's the equivalent of calling someone a Nazi. Just because a Wizard is Tier one doesn't mean every class needs to be Tier one.

If you don't like me comparing the DCs to Full caster DCs I can instead compare them to Psion, Cryptic, Kineticist, and many other classes DCs and still find it significantly higher.

[Kaidinah]

I noticed that there has been almost no feedback on the Martial Traditions to be included in Path of War: Expanded.

I decided to look into them and found that the lore and Oaths are all both cool and pretty reasonable.

The allegiance benefits though range from stuff like

Spoiler: some Allegiance benefits

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Cirque de la Fumée (Tempest Gale):In addition to access to the Tempest Gale discipline (exchanging a discipline of their choice), Harlequins of the Cirque de la Fumée do not provoke attacks of opportunity for making ranged attacks while threatened, provided the attack is made with a thrown weapon. Additionally, they benefit from a +2 insight bonus to Perform (Comedy), Sense Motive, and Sleight of Hand checks.

or
Sultanate of Beggars: In addition to access to the Broken Blade discipline (exchanging a discipline of their choice), Sultans of the Sultanate of Beggars do not suffer the attack penalties associated with using improvised weaponry, may treat improvised weapons as monk weapons for the purposes of class features and feats that interact with monk weapons, and enjoy a +4 anarchic bonus to CMD against bull rush attempts and grapples.

A Sultan who breaks his oath (such as by permitting slavery) loses his bonus to CMD, but not the bonuses associated with improvised weapons, until such a time as he atones by meditating for seven days and nights on the nature of his crime, or else by donating 100 gp per level (or equivalent service) to the poor and destitute. He may also find himself targeted for an educational beating by his fellow Sultans.

Which are fun and mostly harmless in terms of player power.

to

Spoiler: some more allegiance benefits

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Reverents of the Lance: In addition to access to the Piercing Thunder discipline (exchanging a discipline of their choice), Reverents of the Lance threaten adjacent creatures while using a weapon from the spear or polearm weapon groups that has reach. Furthermore, they are always aware of the exact position of any outsiders with the chaotic and/or evil subtypes within 60 ft. of themselves and may not be surprised by such beings (such outsiders still benefit from concealment, if they have it).

or

Cagebreakers: In addition to access to the Elemental Flux discipline (exchanging a discipline of their choice), Cagebreakers may channel part of Rumor’s unbridled chaotic spirit into a rebel yell. Once per encounter, as a swift action, the Cagebreaker lets out a wild cry; all allies (including the Cagebreaker) within sixty feet that can hear him gain a +2 bonus to attack rolls for a number of rounds equal to the Cagebreaker’s character level and may immediately roll new saving throws against any and all undesired mind-affecting spells or abilities affecting them (such as charm person or cause fear), provided the chosen abilities allow a saving throw.

Which are on par with some of the strongest feats available through Dreamscarred Press materials.

I know the allegiance benefits are optional, but I know the people at my table would prefer that each Tradition's allegiance benefit be roughly on par with one another. Supposing they were rewrote to all be similar power level would you prefer they all be buffed up to be powerhouses Cagebreaker or Reverent Lance level or would you prefer the benefits be focused on enhancing underused combat styles or fun/cool mechanics like Thrashing Dragon's allegiance benefit?

Pros and Cons as I see them of Traditions as I see them now

Pros:
-Do not cost a trait or a feat
-Give you a discipline that you want
-Give you an allegiance benefit
-Almost all the oaths are very easy to abide by (Hate and kill Demons? I was probably gonna do that anyway)
-Give you something fun to roleplay and helps guide your character backstory

Cons:
-If the DM chooses to he can use the organization to get you to do things
-You have an oath
-It may restrict some of your build options (Hard to be a Barbarian Black Thorn Knight)

In my eye, since the pros outweigh the cons and I don't believe players should have access to super feats for free at level one I would prefer to see allegiance benefits brought down in power level to be similar to the mentioned Traditions. I'd rather be able to tell players that this book is entirely legal instead of saying it's legal except for X, Y, and Z options.

I absolutely adore the Steel Serpent order (Ordre des Repas Exotiques) for both its bonus (immunity to poison and disease from food/drink, +2 on all knowledge checks to identify creatures AND those checks can be made untrained) and the fact that the entire order is notorious because sentient creatures are terrified that its members will legit eat them. They'll cook them first!

Members also make for a fantastic party chef.

My thoughts on the matter are that currently, not all allegiance benefits are created equal. In some cases, this is very okay, since being a Quill is pretty hard, so getting a +2 will save is pretty nice compared to other tradition's situational save bonuses.

Order des Repas Exotiques, Order of the Arrows, or the Sultanate of Beggars have probably the best kind of allegiance benfit though. They give you a lot (Especially the Sultanate), but that "a lot" is just a lot of cool stuff, or stuff that buffs a bad weapon group to decent or good (Sultanate does this). Cirque makes thrown weapons not as suck as much, without wasting a feat. Lens Makers buff up sleight of hand and sword canes.

Cagebreakers on the other hand feels stronger than a majority of boosts. It grants a very strong reroll effect, and a decently long lasting typless bonus to attack rolls. The reroll feels significantly stronger than most allegiance benefits. Reverents of the Lance take one of the strongest combat styles in the game, and buffs it up while also granting great benefits against chaotic and/or evil outsiders (So even Azata, and such).

[amberlink]

Do archtypes gain any benefit from initiator level in regards to which level maneuvers they can gain? Such that say I had 10 levels of some other class, and then took a level or two of an archtype that uses the table, would I still be limited to level 1 maneuvers?

[Nyaa]

Do archtypes gain any benefit from initiator level in regards to which level maneuvers they can gain? Such that say I had 10 levels of some other class, and then took a level or two of an archtype that uses the table, would I still be limited to level 1 maneuvers?

I'd guess they do, but with 10/1 levels they'd be limited to level 2 maneuvers (IL 6 on archetypes table).

[tekevil]

Can intimidating force, Demorallizing Roar, and other similar counters stop attacks from enemies immune to mind effecting effects?

Stuff like Golems, mindless Undead, Oozes, ect.

[Captain Morgan]

Land an Attack roll: My Harby with base 14 str was landing attacks against CR appropriate foes on 5's.

Which means that 20% of the time you're missing, if you need a 5 or higher to hit. So having your DCs 20% harder to pass seems very well balanced at first glance. (Unless I'm missing something about how 2 separate d20 rolls interact with each other. I am not an expert in table top statistics.)

Be Flanking: With Fly by attack, the speed, and a reach weapon this was easy as pie. In addition Path of War itself makes flanks incredibly easy and safe to get into with even a modicum of teamwork.

Sure, you can set it up to apply in a lot of cases, perhaps even most cases. But probably not all cases, and you're putting yourself in more danger than the wizard to do it.

(And there's a decent chance a reach weapon isn't a discipline weapon for you, unless you invest a feat to make it one or only use Cursed Razor. Which is perfectly valid to do, but that's more resource expenditure.)

Weakest Stances: It's not their strongest, but to call it among the weakest? Sure man. Even without that stance they still are running pretty dang high DCs at +4-6 higher.

A 10% reduction in saves is awesome, but most of the stances available to the Harbi are awesome, especially past level 1. If an opponent(s) is scary enough to make me feel like I need a 10% reduction in saves, it's probably scary enough to make me want Mirror Images up in case it goes after me. If it's a caster I may care more about being able to 5 foot step after it, or I may need blind sense or buff sharing instead. Aura of Misfortune is a solid weapon to have in the aresenal, but there is an opportunity cost to use it.

Please don't invoke Schroedinger's wizard either, in Pathfinder discussions it's the equivalent of calling someone a Nazi. Just because a Wizard is Tier one doesn't mean every class needs to be Tier one.

If you don't like me comparing the DCs to Full caster DCs I can instead compare them to Psion, Cryptic, Kineticist, and many other classes DCs and still find it significantly higher.

I think this comparison holds true for more than just the wizard. Probably most full casters, if they aren't trying to do the battle cleric thing. A Harbinger can push it's single target DCs really high. But looking solely at it's 4 disciplines, it doesn't have tons of ways to force a dozen enemies to take massive damage from a blast spell, or shut down entire crowds via a Greater Forbid Action. It may be able to make a single target DC higher than a T1 class. That does make it a T1 class. Because unlike the T1 class, the Harbi:

--Is expected to get closer to harm's way.
-- Has to actually land an attack roll.
-- Is probably more MAD than the T1 classes, and without an extremely generous point buy likely means an INT that is a point or two lower.
--Can only cripple one or two enemies a round, until it gets to very high levels of maneuvers.
--Lacks other world shaping effects.

Harbingers can get some sweet utility, but they simply don't have the versatility of a Tier 1 caster. You could make a case for T2, as (like spontaneous casters) they have their choice of some really awesome powers, but can't use EVERY power. But even then, most of those powers are very limited to combat.

Also, I'm sensing some hostility. I'm not looking to cause any offense here. I just honestly don't think the Harbi having such high DCs is a big deal when you compare classes outside of the vacuum.

[tekevil]

If you can tell me any other classes from DSP or Paizo that gets such huge bonuses to DCs I will concede. Cryptics, Kineticists, Many Veils, and other effects that key DCs off of attacks all still run the normal DC calculation formula.

I don't believe any of them are tier one either.

Edit: For reference my Harbinger was PB 20, which is generally the assumed PB.

[Captain Morgan]

If you can tell me any other classes from DSP or Paizo that gets such huge bonuses to DCs I will concede

But that's not my argument. My argument is that the Harbi gets huge bonuses to DCs and that's OK. The other classes almost universally have other advantages that make up for this. At a very basic mathematical level, a 20% chance to miss with your attack roll very cleanly offsets the DC being 20% harder to pass. The remaining 5-10% can be offset by things like the Harbinger not being able to shut down a room with black tentacles. Or summon other monsters to provide distractions, meet shields, damage, and utility.

Or having to be in close quarters. Assuming it is fighting something threatening, it is quite likely going to be within that things move increment, and open to counter attack, even with flyby. Or if the opponent is trying to stay out of range and used ranged attacks. Harbi can close that distance, but it can't always close and use a save or suck on the same turn. Casters can quite often zorch things at functionally any range.

Or having to flank. Flanking isn't always possible. Maybe your allies having clicked through on initiative yet. Maybe the enemy is using hit and run tactics themselves, or has otherwise figured out a way to spread you out.

Other initiators don't get as high DCs, but stuff like the Warlorld and Warder are probably focused on raw damage over save or sucks anyway, and the Harbi has a hard time keeping up there.

I can't comment on the Psionic stuff. My DSP exposure is mostly limited to Path of War. But the Paizo classes that focus the most on DCs simply don't need DCs as high as the Harbinger, for the reasons I outlined above.

(Side note: you mentioned the Kineticist a couple of times. Aside from many people seeming to think the class isn't as functional as it could be, I'm under the impression it's big focus is saveless blaster damage, with only the occasional Infusion needing a save. That doesn't strike me as a particularly relevant class to compare to.)

[amberlink]

Thrashing Dragon mentions that it can be used while fighting with natural weapons, what all do they allow you to use? Like can swift claws and the two level 1 stances be used with claws?

[MilleniaAntares]

Thrashing Dragon mentions that it can be used while fighting with natural weapons, what all do they allow you to use? Like can swift claws and the two level 1 stances be used with claws?

Most of the melee disciplines can be used with natural weapons.

And yes, as long as you have two claws, you can use the stances and the Swift Claws maneuver.

[Mithril Leaf]

If you can tell me any other classes from DSP or Paizo that gets such huge bonuses to DCs I will concede. Cryptics, Kineticists, Many Veils, and other effects that key DCs off of attacks all still run the normal DC calculation formula.

I don't believe any of them are tier one either.

Edit: For reference my Harbinger was PB 20, which is generally the assumed PB.

Wilder. They can easily rock a Save DC well above the bell curve.

[Lord_Gareth]

(Side note: you mentioned the Kineticist a couple of times. Aside from many people seeming to think the class isn't as functional as it could be, I'm under the impression it's big focus is saveless blaster damage, with only the occasional Infusion needing a save. That doesn't strike me as a particularly relevant class to compare to.)

I don't mean to speak for Tek but I believe he is referring to Kineticist (the specialist Psion) as opposed to Kineticist (the failed Warlock reboot).

[Captain Morgan]

I don't mean to speak for Tek but I believe he is referring to Kineticist (the specialist Psion) as opposed to Kineticist (the failed Warlock reboot).

Ah, that would make more sense. I have no real input on psionics, but I assume most of the same arguments I made for casters still apply. Don't need attack rolls in addition to saves, greater utility and range of options, and not forced to leap into the meat grinder.

[tekevil]

I don't mean to speak for Tek but I believe he is referring to Kineticist (the specialist Psion) as opposed to Kineticist (the failed Warlock reboot).

The Kineticist and Warlock actually have very little in common. Mark Seifter used to be a third party dev like yourself, so I think it would be nice if you gave his work a shot instead of condemning him. He managed to sneak a lot of very cool stuff into the class under Jason's nose and that's very impressive. He's one of the two truly talented people on Paizo payroll, the other being Owen KC Stephen who has hijacked a lot of the Player Companion line and brought us a series of strong feats and archetypes in the last few releases.

It's no coincidence that the two best people in Paizo's staff were from the 3PP community.

[MilleniaAntares]

Given that the Knight Chandler is due for improvement (according to a /tg/ thread), how about having an animus augmentation that applies healing to an ally within 15 ft of the Soul Candle (perhaps on a successful strike only)? Something like 1 animus for 1d6 (d8?) healing, up to X animus.

Might be weaker at higher levels, so some autoscaling could apply. So it could improve to 2d6 healing per animus spent at level X, and an extra dice every Y levels thereafter, as appropriate.

Edit: On another topic, wouldn't it be cool if the God of the Hourglass Stance let you use Time Stop or a similar effect? Then again, it could introduce quite a bit of complications with two people acting in frozen time...

[amberlink]

So..if I took levels in something without access to Veiled Moon, and later took levels in Mage Hunter, would I be able to advanced study anything from Veiled moon ever?

[Captain Morgan]

Oh, and since I forgot to mention this, the PoW:E version of the Harbinger gets Scarlet Throne over Primal Fury.

Are there going to be any changes to make the Dark Focus DC boost stack with using a Discipline Weapon? And will the Harbinger get any tweaks to work a little better with reach weapons? Changing the wording on massacre, adding a reach option for Discipline Weapons on Shattered Mirror, etc.

[tekevil]

One of the nice things about the Dark Focus increase not stacking with the Discipline weapon increase is that it allows non-discipline weapons to be only 1 DC behind a discipline weapon. Makes you feel a little less incentivized to stick purely to discipline weapons and pick up a Hooked Lance or Long Spear.

Massacre does need to work on reach weapons though.

Tenebrous Reach would be cool if it allowed you to instead ignore AoOs from a Claimed target, that way the ability still fit in with the theme of a skirmisher.

[Jigawatts]

I don't mean to speak for Tek but I believe he is referring to Kineticist (the specialist Psion) as opposed to Kineticist (the failed Warlock reboot).

Lord Gareth, your disparaging of Paizo is by far my least favorite thing about DSP. It's rather offputting. I don't know why you feel the need to take these passive-aggressive potshots at them, but I've seen you do it not-uncommonly on both forums, and it would probably be ok if you were Random Forum Poster C, but you are an employee of a third party publisher for the very company and game you belittle, a higher standard needs to be adhered to. There is such a thing as tact and professional etiquette, look to Ssalarn as an example, he's excellent at it.

(And this specific example I quoted isn't even an overly egregious offender, but I noticed it and felt it was something that needed to be addressed as it fits the overall recurring trend, straw that broke the camels back and whatnot).

[MilleniaAntares]

So..if I took levels in something without access to Veiled Moon, and later took levels in Mage Hunter, would I be able to advanced study anything from Veiled moon ever?

From the moment you take Mage Hunter, you can take Advanced Study for Veiled Moon maneuvers as a discipline you have access to; so you can choose between 2 maneuvers or 1 stance, rather than a mere 1 maneuver.

Keep in mind the minimum maneuvers known limit, however.

[Lord_Gareth]

Lord Gareth, your disparaging of Paizo is by far my least favorite thing about DSP. It's rather offputting. I don't know why you feel the need to take these passive-aggressive potshots at them, but I've seen you do it not-uncommonly on both forums, and it would probably be ok if you were Random Forum Poster C, but you are an employee of a third party publisher for the very company and game you belittle, a higher standard needs to be adhered to. There is such a thing as tact and professional etiquette, look to Ssalarn as an example, he's excellent at it.

(And this specific example I quoted isn't even an overly egregious offender, but I noticed it and felt it was something that needed to be addressed as it fits the overall recurring trend, straw that broke the camels back and whatnot).

Welp, this is the discussion I needed to wake up to with a hangover.

What, precisely, are we talking here? The statements about the design failures of Fighter & other "traditional" martials? My general record re: statements about Paizo? From what point forward?

Though I've generally calmed down about things, my opinions on Paizo's work have not particularly changed. I'm not going to pretend like they have. Here, now, in this thread, I express them when they're likely to relate to my own work. There is a point at which the honest expression of a negative opinion becomes impeded by attempting not to hurt anyone's feelings. When forced to choose between honesty and tact, I'm going to be honest - every time.

And the thing is, that is what I hope for from others. My playtesters certainly haven't been shy; I don't expect anyone else to be either. My issue with critique phrased as an attack begins and ends at "it can obscure your point unhelpfully". Beyond that I have no expectation that anyone is going to tiptoe around my feelings or give me anything less than their complete and sincere opinions & data, and I don't particularly want anyone to. Sometimes I need a good slapping to pay attention.

I often have to engage with my readership on design principles and explain what has, and hasn't, succeeded in the context of the game or what I feel is good design. The comparisons are going to be inevitable, and honestly I feel like it'd be more disrespectful to sugarcoat or lie than it would be to hold to the stance I had well before I got hired. If Paizo feels otherwise, they've got avenues to contact me.

Also, and I do not mean this in any way negatively, Ssalarn & I often have disagreements - sometimes strident disagreements - over the state of chunks of the design. What you see as tact may instead be agreement.

[Lord_Gareth]

Just wondering, have you ever actually opened the Occult Adventures release or are you just relying on the first impressions made by an angry 4channer who compared an unoptimized Kineticist to an expert archer?

You wound me. I always check my data, usually through multiple channels. In this particular case, the esteemed Psybomb was kind enough to share his numbers with me, and I've had to observe tinkering with the class as part of Psionics Augmented: Occult. My issues with it also go beyond the performance you can wring from it; in fact, they tend to start at having to wring the performance. I don't like minimum-optimization buy-ins.

[tekevil]

Just wondering, have you ever actually opened the Occult Adventures release or are you just relying on the first impressions made by an angry 4channer who compared an unoptimized Kineticist to an expert archer?

If the criticisms come from, at the very least, informed theorycrafting I could understand. But if you've never even cracked open the cover then it really is just uninformed and unproffessional to say things like that.

Not only that, but the us vs them mentality you have shows that if a 3pp makes it big and gets hired by Paizo that they will get nothing but scorn from you. Kind of sad to turn on your brother's in arms like that.

Edit:Guess you read it since the last time we talked then. Also curious about Psybombs numbers since I found the Kineticist to have the same DPR as my fully buffed Bard archer.

[Lord_Gareth]

Not only that, but the us vs them mentality you have shows that if a 3pp makes it big and gets hired by Paizo that they will get nothing from scorn from you. Kind of sad to turn on your brother's in arms like that.

I judge stuff as it comes to me. I don't dislike work because of who makes it; I dislike it because of things about the work itself.

Edit:Guess you read it since the last time we talked then. Also curious about Psybombs numbers since I found the Kineticist to have the same DPR as my fully buffed Bard archer.

Poke 'im, dude's PM box ought to be open.

[Elricaltovilla]

Remember, Gareth, ErrantX, the rest of the DSP staff and I are not just 3pp writers, we're also fans of the Pathfinder (and more largely 3.5) system. While we try to keep our opinions as fans separate from our publishing, it would be wrong to deny that these opinions as fans don't inform our designs. A major part of the reason PoW and PoW:E exist is a dissatisfaction (as fans) with the way that martial characters are presented mechanically in 1st party material.

We're not in the business of making uninformed decisions, the occasional kneejerk reaction aside (we are human after all). I have not personally built a kineticist yet, but I have seen kineticist builds, as well as comparison numbers from others that I trust (Psybomb, for example). It's easy to draw conceptual and mechanical comparisons between the Kineticist and the Warlock, and those comparisons don't really end in favor of the kineticist. Denying that isn't going to help anyone, and would be detrimental to our publishing work if we ignored it.

I'm just as guilty as Gareth of having a rather acerbic tone, and sometimes it can be bad if I don't catch it. We do our best to be tactful, but it doesn't always work. But there is no benefit to be gained from hiding the flaws of someone's writing, especially not when we're expected to then put our own spin on that writing.

[Ssalarn]

Also, and I do not mean this in any way negatively, Ssalarn & I often have disagreements - sometimes strident disagreements - over the state of chunks of the design. What you see as tact may instead be agreement.

To be fair, it's not too hard to find posts where I've openly disagreed about lots of Paizo design decisions, including-

Firearm mechanics in general.

The majority of their recent mounted combat rulings.

The over-valuation of feats, particularly in design chassis' like the Fighter's.

The entire concept of "hybrid classes" (even if I do still like the Hunter).

The weird idea of "extraordinary = mundane" and strange adherence to the guy at the gym fallacy for a lot of design in non-magical classes.

The idea and design principles of "all day" vs. limited resource classes.

And lots of other things on a case by case basis, including Unchained Rogue and Barbarian design decisions, what I see as a really bad habit of the design team to always go with exclusive instead of inclusive rulings in their FAQs and errata, etc. Heck, I open up my Vizier release talking about how I dislike Vancian casting models, which is something Paizo has chosen to make a core part of their design identity.

That being said, I also understand a lot of what goes into their design decisions, I personally think they do a great job of encouraging people to support the 3pps who design for their game when someone is looking for something they aren't going to touch on (over the last few years I've heard many people on the Paizo staff, including Erik Mona, Mark Seifter, and even Jason Buhlman publicly endorse Dreamscarred's Ultimate Psionics, and even published an interview on my blog where Erik mentions how great he thinks it is that DSP decided to do Path of War for the people who wanted Tome of Battle style options), and I think that more often than not they do a pretty decent job given the constraints they have on their publishing windows (even if now and then a real stinker like the first print Advanced Class Guide comes out).
Their track record also shows that they do try to listen to their community, even if they can be a little slow in righting the course, or decide that some things aren't at the same priority level for them as others. They put Owen KC Stephens, a designer for whom some of his most popular releases are fixes to classes like the Fighter and Monk, in charge of their Player Companion line, and since then they've released feats and options like Dirty Fighting which addresses the common complaint about the Combat Expertise tax, and they brought Mark Seifter onto the design team, a guy who was a long standing member of the community with 3pp design experience that took some big steps away from their standard conventions.

Anyways, I'm not a fanboy and anyone who knows anything about me knows I'm not afraid to call them out on things I view as bad design decisions or poor policy, but generally speaking I'm also going to listen to their side of things, and I try to always respect the people I'm disagreeing with, particularly when their work is what is helping pave the way for and support my own.

Personal thoughts on the OA Kineticist- The Warlock was actually a pretty "meh" class, and I don't find the Kineticist to be particularly better or worse. Last I checked, the Kineticist actually had better comparative damage numbers within his system than the Warlock did within his (possibly with the exception of the Hellfire Warlock prestige class), probably because Mark Seifter religiously balanced directly against the Bestiary CR design standards. I think the floor is notably higher than most CRB classes, though the ceiling is also lower by a roughly equivalent amount. It's not something I personally am too likely to play (especially given that I've written a bunch of versatile "casters" with recharging and/or non-expendable resources that I think do a lot of the stuff the Kineticist does better), but I think it gets less credit than it deserves.

Random anecdote on the OA Kineticist- I was at PAX earlier this year and was shocked to discover that almost every PFS GM there (and a lot of the players), volunteers from all over the country with no direct affiliations with Paizo to speak of (in fact, most of them didn't realize the guy I was chatting with was Erik Mona until I had him sign my copy of OA, something of a PAX tradition since he's signed a book for me every PAX since I started attending), thought the Kineticist was overpowered. Like, the whole freaking room, with people who had never met before and who represented gaming communities from all over the country, thought the Kineticist was OP. It was just kind of a startling reminder for me of how big the gaps between the floor and ceiling of the game are, and how many people actually play closer to the bottom of the curve than the top, to the point that something that exists pretty solidly in the middle with relatively limited upward mobility actually seemed so strong to them.

[tekevil]

For reference I find that classes that exist "Solidly in the middle" are the ideal balance point for the game. I'm not talking about tier system either.

[Captain Morgan]

To tie Ssalarn's point about relative game balance with the argument tekevil and I had earlier, I came across this thread on the DSP boards.

http://dreamscarred.com/topic/path-o...ad-characters/

This particular player found the DCs of the Initiator classes unacceptably low. Now, he was basically trying to play a Warder like a Harbinger and dumped INT and what not, but it still shows that achieving balance that pleases everyone is really freaking hard.

[Elricaltovilla]

To tie Ssalarn's point about relative game balance with the argument tekevil and I had earlier, I came across this thread on the DSP boards.

http://dreamscarred.com/topic/path-o...ad-characters/

This particular player found the DCs of the Initiator classes unacceptably low. Now, he was basically trying to play a Warder like a Harbinger and dumped INT and what not, but it still shows that achieving balance that pleases everyone is really freaking hard.

I realize what you're trying to say, but seeing those two clauses together like that made me laugh.

[Ssalarn]

I realize what you're trying to say, but seeing those two clauses together like that made me laugh.

I read it and was like "that's a really good point, so I'm not going to ask about the whole 'tried to play an Int focused class like an even more Int focused class and dumped Int' thing".

I think maybe the general idea is that, despite the Harbinger sitting on a heavy Int focused chassis, he actually has tons of native ways to have competitive or even flat-out superior save DCs that aren't directly reliant on INT boosting, while the Warder still needs to boost his DCs in the more standard and traditional ways, stat boosting and feats. The Warder is very much a martial character with DC based effects as a secondary component, where the Harbinger is more like a gish specialising in effects that offer saves and thus has the tools to make debuffing a primary tool instead of a secondary one. In other words, Warder is tank first, anything else second, and trying to build him as a primary debuffer probably isn't going to go as well for you unless you change the way you approach the class.