About classes and feats which are "traps" <SPOILER?>

[imminence]

As I wrote frequently: I am familiar with classic AD&D, but didn't know about Pathfinder until I found this game.

I spent 100+ hours meanwhile, always starting over and try another class. My "highest" is a scaled fist monk with level 9.

When I read through all the forums I often find the expression "that's a trap" in regard of certain classes / subclasses. Also, certain feats are considered as "traps".

Perhaps I'm a bit too meticulous, but a trap is - IMO - something willingly set up by someone to cause disadvantages for someone else.

So, are some classes and feats "set up" by the devs to annoy the player? It's hard to believe...

If the expression "trap" is meant as "not balanced, not correctly implemented (yet)" etc.
then it would be a different matter.

What are your opinions? Which classes and feats are in your eyes "traps" and why?

NOTE:
This should not be a discussion about "favourite classes".

Example:
I don't like to play rangers and paladins, but I would never doubt their usefulness
I like to play monks, but I would never consider them as "the only really good".

[Midnight]

I think it might be better to build a party as a whole than talk about single characters because I think my Val is extremely effective but then again I had to drop No-nok from my party because I was smashing through enemies too fast.

Between MC Magus, Cleric, custom Monster Tactician and Wizard I have enough support spells and utility to turn the rest of the party whatever they are into meat grinder. Val with the the debuffs on top of my buffs just shifts the balance of power a little further to my advantage.

With a bit more martial focused party I'd probably build differently.

[Ghost]

I use Valeria as a pure TSS tank and Amiri as a Monster Tactician on hard no probs guys

[Biggie]

There are no traps in this game just bad planning from the individual player.

You have access to all your feats and feats that you can get by just clicking in the box to see the entire list including high level feats. So picking and planning feats should be a no brainer.

No one use tower shield but tower shield fighter and if it didnt say on the tower shield, when you browsed through the various classes and saw the Tower Shield level 5 ability I assume you gave it a moments thought.

Again, there are close to no traps but on the other hand there are plenty of them which you just learn from trial and error and playing and understanding the game and its mechanics.

From a development perspective I think they are kind enough to give you all information at hand its up to you to take your time to read through it, including all feats before making hasty decisions.

Also there is not many bad choices in the game overall, especially on normal and below just enjoy and play however you want.

On harder difficulties, especially hard and above all on Unfair you need to know to the grain of salt what your doing or your screwed.
This just give the game longevity which is a good thing since I dont recomend for anyone to attempt hard or unfair until you completed the game on normal or below, since without the knowledge whats going to hit you in the face end game, you have little knowledge of how to best prepare and build your character.

PS : Crusaders rock, they get fighter weapon feats like no other class. If you choose to take up Tower shield without knowing that any class but tower shield fighter have a minud to hit while wielding this,....

That said : There is an option fo additional information but I dont see this working as intended.

Other then that google is your friend.
This is a game converted from table top where players discuss for YEARS on what works and what not. So expecting to log in create a character, reading up a few minutes and understanding the math etc around everything is not going to happen. Again making it more interesting.

[Locklave]

Цитата допису Waagabond:

There are no traps in this game just bad planning from the individual player.

You have access to all your feats and feats that you can get by just clicking in the box to see the entire list including high level feats. So picking and planning feats should be a no brainer.

There are plenty of things that seem good but don't work as intended or how they sound like they'd work. They've been outlined in this thread already.

Picking feat is not a no brainer as this game is terrible when it comes to details. In game find what the sickened effect does without using an ability that does it on an enemy. You can't, because no details are given. Just like many other feats/class options and features.

Your players are always to blame opinion is not good for the game community.

[Tanlaus]

I will say, as someone who played 3.5 d&d crpgs but isn't that familiar with pathfinder, they could do a better job with class, feat, and weapon descriptions.

One thing the BG series did great is that, if you clicked on an archetype (they called thems kits IIRC) during character creation, outside of the general description they gave you a quick pros and cons of the mechanics.

When I first opened this game up I had no real idea of what I was looking at.

Same with weapons. Did not know what an even curved blade was, or a dealing sword, took awhile and a few restarts and a lot of googling, to figure it all out.

Now that I've finished a play through it all seems to make sense, and I know what to mouse over to get extra information, but things could be presented more clearly for new players.

[Katananga]

Valery is a pretty good tank for a NPC and I doubt that any 20 point merc is doing a much better job on the long run: 25+ attribute points (27 or 28), the possibility to do some persuasion stuff as a fighter,,, Lv3 with unbuffed 31 AC in a fight backed up with some serious hitpoints is good enough for me on challenging / hard and it is growing fast with some equipment.

[lindavius]

Цитата допису Katananga:

Valery is a pretty good tank for a NPC and I doubt that any 20 point merc is doing a much better job on the long run: 25+ attribute points (27 or 28), the possibility to do some persuasion stuff as a fighter,,, Lv3 with unbuffed 31 AC in a fight backed up with some serious hitpoints is good enough for me on challenging / hard and it is growing fast with some equipment.

As I see it, there are three types of different tanks: "The Unhittable" , "The Meat Shield" , and "The Pro-Active Defense" .
Number 1 tries to stack AC and other defensive measures, like Displacement, the Big Meat comes with tons of hitpoints, while the pro-active dude (maybe similar AC to Valerie, less HP; far better offensive) tries to help kill stuff ASAP; resulting in taking fewer hits in fewer combat rounds.
It is not too hard to see where Val mostly belongs... ;)
The issue is often that she, in my eyes, lacks crucial 4-5 AC (say: 40 instead of 45, which sounds not much, but can make a world of pain of a difference), mostly felt on Hard (+), and is rather vulnerable against Touch, even with TSS9/SD, compared to a "dedicated" tank, who is mostly only hit by Natural 20; while she is rather obviously of very little help offensively.

It makes her pretty expensive to maintain; healing her large, but quite easily depleteable, life pool can result in resting in a quick succession in some areas.
And, that Big Bad Dude living yet another round or two, as she is quite inept offensively, can also prove rather unhealthy to some of her teammates, at times.

- Nothing too dramatic; but such issues still deserve to be mentioned. ;)

[khinra]

What I find to be real "traps" in this game (and that isnt even using the term correctly) is that all the prestige classes dont list their abilities, until you can actually pick them. So someone could look at them and think, hey I wanna try that cool prestige class, and then find that the abilities are not what he thought they would be. In general the lack of information in the game is a BIG problem and something that can lead new players into some annoying situations and maybe even entire restarts becaus they gimped their characters.

A strange thing I think is often a trap, is 1d6 damage (for instance frost) on a weapon vs another +1 enchantment bonus. The 1d6 might sound like a great idea but it very rarely is

[OnlyOffensive]

I havent seen Joyful respite cure ANY condition. True sight is total crap aswell.

[Star Colonel Ichaerus Ward]

Valerie is definitely a trap. The hair and CHA give it away.

[Blackdragon]

There are definitely "trap" classes, of three kinds:

1. Classes that are simply suboptimal despite "cool" appearance;

2. Classes that have hidden/non-obvious mechanics which can be confusing to new players;

3. Classes that are BUGGED and simply not working correctly.

Example of Type 1+2 trap:

Eponymous Crusader - this archetype has a "hidden feature" of also losing 1 spell slot per spell level, which may leave you completely without spells (yes, not even domain slots) if you don't have an overcharged Wisdom stat giving bonus slots for that spell level. Its other "hidden feature" is that many domain spell lists have been changed from PnP and generally to the worse, so given Crusader only has 1 domain, you might very well have no decent domain spells for several spell levels.

Crusader's bonus feats are also a) lackluster, b) spread too thin. Weapon focus is available to all characters anyway, and Greater Weapon Specialisation comes too late in the game to actually matter (if you play with a full party, you'll probably finish the game at level 16-17, and even solo builds are struggling to reach level 20). So basically the only advantage of Crusader over just taking 1 level of Fighter is GWF (+1 to attack) and Weapon Spec (+2 to damage). THAT'S IT. For that, you pay with an entire domain (spell list + domain powers), and lose 1 spell slot per level, including 9th level spells.

Example of Type 2 traps:

Dragon Disciple - despite its outward appearance as being tailored for Sorcerers, this is not a "pure caster" prestige class. It loses too many caster levels and its bonuses are largely irrelevant to a caster. This is a "gish", i.e. fighter/mage prestige class, suited for some niche builds when you know very well what you're doing (e.g. a Transformation/Dragonkind melee-focused build), but outright toxic for a pure caster Sorc, who is already one spellcasting level behind Wizard.

Ecclesitheurge - this type of Cleric can't wear any armor (and it's not just a spell failure chance, so you can't offset it with feats), which, considering Clerics have two casting stats (Wisdom for spells and Charisma for channeling), makes him extremely MAD (multiple-ability dependent) - since he needs high Wis/Cha for casting, high Dex/Con for survivability/ranged attacks, and high Str for damage. This type of character is extremely tricky to build well, especially considering that....

Example of Type 3 traps:

Ecclesitheurge is simply BUGGED so that it's primary ability - casting domain spells from regular slots - is not working. Therefore making it strictly a worthless archetype to play.

Many Cleric domains are also bugged (as in not working). Many other class features/abilities/feats are also not working as intended. All of these (too numerous to mention) fall under Type 3 traps.

Overall, this game is like a frigging minefield in terms of building a character while avoiding all the traps and bugs.

Your best bet might be just to scan the forums for some tested optimal builds, and construct your party accordingly. Otherwise, it's a disaster waiting to happen. Respec mod is your friend.

[imminence]

@ Waagabond

As someone else wrote, is your attitude of "the player is to blame", respectively between the lines "..if you are to dumb too read, then go play something else" in no way beneficial for any discussion about this game.

If you read my OP carefully, then you will see, that I personally did not call any class a "trap".
I asked, why others call some classes and feats "traps".

And here you see the risks which are involved, when there is too much text:
People easily misunderstand or don't understand at all.

"Google is your friend"...
Well, why are there sooo many "dumb" people" asking "dumb" questions, when anything is explained so well in game?
I could agree, that the entire world consists mainly of dumb people, when you see what these people elect for their presidents, but that's another story.



As a matter of fact, some or even many of the ingame descriptios are either non-informative or even misguiding.

Would someone second this?

Finally one proposal for all others:

This is not really a "Valerie"-thread. I think the poor girl has gotten enough hate thus far :)

[SIlverblade-T-E]

Цитата допису FeurinLongcastle:

In terms of companions Valerie is a definite trap. She seems like she would be a useful companion (Fighter tank with high Con) but she's very sub-optimal for her role. Not only is TSS a crappy subclass but her stat arrangement is all over the place. You can't really fix her by building her differently (no matter how you build her she can't do much damage and the Corugon Smash route is mediocre since she has average Cha and Persuasion isn't a class skill)

Several companions serve the role of tank better than she does (Jaethal, Harrim) and bring a lot of other utility with them.

took me a lot of time/work, but I found, IMHO, that a "traditional" monk is my fave tank
alas the class sitll has some bugs, the "monk additonal feats" are NOT working right which requires a lot of work and care so can be a trap (take trip if it does show up, and improved blind fight because they wont' when they should and "Greater Trip" NEVER shows)

set up for "Pummelling Bully" as a "trip" expert, he is incredibly good
Assimar, the race that gives Invis and iirc Wis and Dex bonus, weapon finesse, necklace that makes Dex into damage, right items and hes got 47 AC at lvl 14.

yeah I did cheat like I do with ALl my characters as I *HATE* stat buys, grrrrrrrrrrrr!!
even so, it's a superb class but the IDIOCY of stat buys in a system where you can have classes like Paladins and monks having THREE essential stats is outrageous, with the bugs, you can get your build screwed up too easily.

Stat buys and way you have to carefully build a chain of feats, in a buggy game, THAT is the worst trap as you cna find yourself after playing for weeks that your character is screwed out of something you wanted
a "build simulator" and a "dice roll" mechanic would help a *ton* IMHO! :)

[OnlyOffensive]

that guy doesnt even know that TSS gets shield bonus to touch AC and said that TSS crap because low touch AC. Also suggesting smash ( which require power attack ) when you can pick dazzling display + shatter defences, with that combo i land effect 99% of time when enemies not immune.

Valerie is excellent tank, that land hits with shatter defences and crush skulls with legendary proportions on hard, that theorycrafter is noob.

[Fendelphi]

Цитата допису SIlverblade-T-E:

yeah I did cheat like I do with ALl my characters as I *HATE* stat buys, grrrrrrrrrrrr!!
even so, it's a superb class but the IDIOCY of stat buys in a system where you can have classes like Paladins and monks having THREE essential stats is outrageous, with the bugs, you can get your build screwed up too easily.

Stat buys and way you have to carefully build a chain of feats, in a buggy game, THAT is the worst trap as you cna find yourself after playing for weeks that your character is screwed out of something you wanted
a "build simulator" and a "dice roll" mechanic would help a *ton* IMHO! :)

The thing about stat buy is, it is easier to "get off the ground".
If you are a group of 5 people wanting to get a long campaign going, and then 1 of you have a disastrous roll-off(both for attributes and the first few level ups), then you might as well restart, because he/she is not going to have a good time.
Even with a generous/skilled DM that changes the encounters to better fit your party, a Barbarian who keep rolling 1s and 2s for HP on level ups and having no stats over 15 at level 4 is not going to have a good time and will simply slow the rest of the party down.

In a computer game, people will simply keep rerolling until they get "the best stats" or near that, which would be far higher than what the point-buy system would allow, and then the gameplay experience would be skewered because difficulty would be non-existent/pointless to such OP characters.
Unless the game was designed with this in mind, in which case you HAVE to reroll to get those stats, which is also bad.
As computer games have no DM, they cant adjust encounters, etc. to your party's strengths and weaknesses.

So point-buy reduces some of the RNG and simply gets the game going. It also makes it easier to balance the gameplay experience(for either the devs or the DM) by having an easier discernible powercurve.

It can be fun with a Roll-based campaign, but it can also be an exercise in frustration for everybody involved.