Difference between revisions of "Talk:Professional (Pathfinder)"

Revision as of 10:21, 27 February 2013

Finished updating feats and skills. Since I've been staring at this for a while, I'm beginning to feel like the professional is underpowered compared to the other core classes. Some of this may just be that I still value combat skills over talky skills, which is no longer probably true for the SW game. Still, I think base classes got buffed quite a bit in PF, and some (like rogue) seem to be strictly a step above, so here are my current thoughts/comparisons:

Don't forget you get a Cohort follower for free from Professional: and now one level earlier than possible anywhere else and ignoring any requirements. If we're talking about a dungeoncrawler balanced version of this class, there's every reason to suspect you're basically going to get a CL-2 tweaked out assbeater to make up for your combat deficiencies. Tana is hardly a gamebreaker, but if I'd given you free hand to make one instead of creating one with storyline significance it would be out of control.-gm

Haha, it's doubtful that my cohort would have come out particularly optimized. I probably would have made her a Goblin wizard with nothing but utility spells and a couple of rogue levels for staying out of the way/not getting shot. If I did make an optimized assbeater, it could probably be a huge difference in battle. But don't forget that the entire rest of my party is level 7-8, so the perception of imbalance is probably skewed by that. Also, you talk about Tana, but Matt's the person who made the table. -Slitherrr

The above said, I agree that Leadership availability belongs in that table of pros/cons. But to qualify that, it's not for free, it's taken as a talent. And ignoring any requirements only means ignoring the level restriction, which means he gets it one level earlier. Every other class can take it a level later, because they get a feat that level, and then the cohort is just as powerful as the one that the Prof got a level earlier. -Slitherrr

Yeah, what Slith said. Taking leadership one level early as a talent is a cute buff, but it fundamentally provides no benefit that isn't available to everyone past the very short term. For me, it's the rogue/prof comparison that makes me nervous--the rogue is strictly the same or better, but never worse, than the prof in every category. I know there are a few talents that are prof-only, but they are not game changers, and there are a lot of strong rogue-only talents. I doubt we could do much that would change Germ because he focuses on what the prof does now so it works, but in a broader sense, I think the prof is lacking. --Msallen

Allow them to take a second leadership - abat something like level 12. -gm

I'm not sure what you mean since the message seems like it was probably addled by alchol and/or pills, but I do remember a 3e prestige class that granted additionally animal companions. It gave you a new one every 4 levels at level-4, so a 12 level druid/this class would get a 12, 8, and 4th level companion. Are you suggesting something similar with cohorts? Otherwise, I'm not sure what you mean. --Msallen

What? One typo, jesus christmas. "about something like level 12." And, yes, basically that: give them a second cohort at level 12 or something like that. -gm

I think leadership -> cohort would have been the clarifying change--without it I had to reflect on your message for days before I made sense of it. I figured out what "abat" meant prett quick ;) Straight up second full cohort, or with a steeper levle restriction? --Msallen

Second full cohort is crazy, but definitely unique. But definitely crazy. -Slitherrr

I think it should probably be at a penalty, although too much of one and it isn't near as useful. With animal companions, they can sort of die without repercussion, so if you go into battle with an animal companion at PC level - 8, who cares? Maybe they soak up a few hits before they die. With a cohort, they quickly become useless. Anyways, here is the class I was talking about. --Msallen

That brings up something I've always hated about the Leadership feat (I also hated it about the familiar in DnD3.5e, but they fixed it in PF by reducing the post-death wait time from a year to a week. Which makes sense because a year is basically an asshole dick way of saying, "Forever") is the ability to permanently cripple the ability. If the cohort/follower dies, and it was somehow "caused" by the PC (spoiler alert: the cohort is generally in whatever dangerous place it is by order of the PC, or because the PC wasn't paying attention, or because of blah blah blah PC, so causation is not hard to justify, ever), the ability permanently loses power. Where else is that possible (in a way that is explicitly given in the ability--obviously any permanent loss can be made up ad-hoc)? That's also my biggest problem with Professional-as-petomancer--I love the concept, but the feats that give it are problematic. I'm actually a bigger fan of a teamwork/tactical-synergy-based Prof for that reason. -Slitherrr

I was looking at the leadership rules, and its only a -2 penalty to your cohort leadership score when they die, but no enforced time limit on when they get replaced. Germain could afford to have 2 die before he is impacted right now. Still, I tend to agree that the cost is high enough that it is risky to bring cohorts into many dangerous situations. I don't think they'll ever be a "tweaked out assbeater" because I don't think they'll every be more than a "secon rate assbeater" compared to an acutal PC due to level discrepancies, lack of good items, and threat of permanent gimping. They are more "trusted guys to do shit for you in town while you are stomping around dungeons," which is huge for a guy like Germain, but not so huge for a Kib, and as much an asset to the GM as the PC. So I guess I'm saying that I'm with Slith on where I would like to see the Prof go... more teamwork/tactics/saves, but not so much more leadership past what it has now. --Msallen

Well, thought experiments aside, you're dead wrong about the efficacy of cohorts in combat. You should have played Living Greyhawk. -gm

My proposed solution for transferring to PF is still simply not to have this class. I still think it's basically unnecessary with the PF skill system. I'd be just as happy forcing Germain to just pick up Expert class. -gm

I mean, I'm game, especially now that I know PF a lit better. That said, it'll change Germain quite a bit (no expert class--it sucks), but I'll put that on his talky page. --Msallen

I agree with Jones that cohorts can have combat efficacy. I also agree with MSAllen that "free" leadership isn't the boon that it appears to be. But I'm not entirely convinced that the Prof really needs more than it gets as it stands--diplomacy is either super-effective or it's completely useless depending entirely on the campaign/mood of the GM, and that throws off the math no matter what. It would be cool to take things down a more tactical path, since PF allows play with teamwork benefits and stuff, but if we want to throw up our hands and say fuck it, then I can squeeze Kib into a Fighter (Tactician) template and just deal with it until the differences sort themselves out in a couple of levels. -Slitherrr

So, yeah, basically what Slitherr says. As usual. Let me "me too," almost all of that. Except the part about cohorts, but ultimately none of my players are the sort to abuse the cohort, so I don't lose much sleep over all the disastrous edge case possibilities. Now that I'm home and have time to be a little more verbose, let me say I wasn't trying to shut down the Professional upgrade or be punitive, just pithy. Which never works in text. From my PoV, the professional class was made to fill a weakness in D&D that doesn't really apply so much to Pathfinder. That is to say, I don't really think the Professional class is *needed* anymore, although for the sake of those who have played for many, many years and invested in this class, I think that it SHOULD be converted, if only for Best Intentions reasons. And some people need it more than others. Quin's concept works just as well if not better without Professional in Pathfinder. Kib is a little more affected - although more in terms of concept than efficacy - and Germain is the most affected at all. So, really, the question is how much work and time that you and I can and should be putting into balancing and tweaking something that impacts maybe one or two people total, one of whom is arguably an NPC now. Not to mention, at the end of the day, MattA is always going to look for a way to inject a little feature creep into his pet class. All MattA suggestions default to maximum skepticism. :D As for the teamwork feats and tactical stuff: there is already a PF class that exists to exploit that role: Inquisitor, and to a lesser extend Cavalier. I'm open to the idea the Professional needs some boosts to be comparable to other PF classes, but I'm not terribly convinced that the Professional's pitifulness on the battlefield is a problem or where the balance needs to come from. I consider the lack of combat efficacy a feature and not a bug. The professional is SUPPOSED to be pitiful: he's role is not the battlefield, and if that makes him a little underpowered for boilerplate D&D, so be it. Also, the Universality trait! Thats really great in Pathfinder! Anyway, I want to say below I tagged a few suggestions as being anywhere from interesting to awesome. I think we've already done quite a bit by porting over the Thief Talent menu and expanding the Professional Development offerings. I'm much more interested in carving out a unique and interesting role for the class itself than I am beefing it up for the sake of "balance," and thus my 2nd Cohort suggestion - it's something no other class gets, it fits the theme and role of the class, and ultimately it's as effective or ineffective if you want. At the end of the day, *every* hard core munchkin in Living Greyhawk picked up leadership as soon as possible, so much so that cohort and follower limits were placed on games: when all of the powergamers are reaching for a feat regardless of class, that doesn't suggest mediocrity. I think crunch backs that up : I simply don't believe that a 7th level guy running with a 10th level guy is just wildly outclassed - I mean, right now in most the parties there are level differences of at least that much, and the junior partners are doing just fine. A 14 level guy with a 16? Still no problem. -gm

The Inquisitor and Cavalier are both pretty cool classes in their own right, although they're both "X with some teamwork stuff" rather than "teamwork guy". The Cavalier would even be a great fit for Kib in a lot of ways, although it would emphasize the mounted combat in a way that has up to now come only as an outgrowth of having a horse, and de-emphasize his "Charismatic, Honest-Guy-Face Leader" aspect. I love all the teamwork stuff to death. And I am actually warming up to the "2nd cohort" idea. I would love to see that "-2 on cohort death" rule house-ruled to something more like the familiar rules, though--it's not that I really expect to go killing off Tana any time soon, it's just that an ability with a built-in mechanism for (permanently!) gimping itself is just super-fucking-weird.

I feel like it would actually be pretty fun to create a class whose only power is from synergizing with other teammates, but I don't think the Professional is that class. As it stands, a Professional who takes some teamwork feats and then uses his cohorts to pull them off is actually looking at some interesting play, and can still be effective in the combat that rules the lives of all DnD players. -Slitherrr

Hah! My analysis was objective and righteous, as always! This was a pretty constructive conversation/experience for me re: learning pathfinder. Now that I know the system a lot better, though, I agree that the professional isn't really necessary, or at least unique as it stands now. From my perspective, what we tried to accomplish for d20 was a skill-based class like the rogue that wasn't so frail and traded DPS for flexibility, and we added the petomancer bit to offset the combat gimpness. Now that rogues have a HP boost and a number of skill- and defense-based talents, it just isn't a unique class unless we take it in another direction like teamwork, petomancer++, and/or multiclassing. As it stands now, it just looks like a gimpy rogue, which was the point I was trying to make. I have the day off so I'm going to make a second Germain version without professional, and I think it's going to be very very close to what he currently is in d20. --Msallen

So, rogue first, I'd say sneak attack/trap sense is probably better than subset of general feats, rogue talents are strictly better than a subset of rogue talents, and they are break even on all other stats. This is the big case against the current prof power level. Compared with fighter, again, all combat feats is strictly/significantly better than some general feats, weapon/armor training is probably eqivalent to a subset of rogue talents (although I may be way off there), and the hp/bab are a wash. Bard and inquisitor are harder to compare, but I feel like their spells/specials are somewhat better than professional as a gut evaluation, and I think 1 extra save is better than 2 skill points.

Here are suggestions to strengthen the professional:

• Bonus feats
  • All general feats--in this case, professional is a strong multi-class option, because you can pick up spell/mobility/racial/class-specific feats using your professional ranks.
  • Add combat/teamwork feats--this is the more stand-alone option IMO where we add defensive/tactical abilities like the expertise/mounted/defensive trees and teamwork feats.

I like the idea of adding teamwork feats to the bonus feat selection. I could get behind that. Maybe even give them an ability or professional development that allows their Cohort to share teamwork feats with them. -gm

• Talents
  • More spellcasting options (maybe more tiers than rogue)
  • Gain class-specific 1/2 level skill buffs (like: bardic lore, track)

This is also good, but most obviously on a Profession or Craft skill.

• • Expand in-class skill selection (stealth, escape artist, disable device, umd, etc)
  • Universality (definitely plays into multiclassing)

Did I take that off? -gm

Matt sounds more like he's just listing things here as possibilities, not saying the Prof should get all of them. And there was discussion before over whether or not the Prof should keep this. -Slitherrr

• Base abilities
  • Two good saves
  • d10 hp

As far as I'm concerned, d10 is the exclusive provice of entierly martial classes.

I agree with this, honestly. Ranger got bumped up, but he's the only one to go from d8 to d10, and he's definitely pretty martial. -Slitherrr

• Special abilities
  • Dragoman-like skill boost--something like +1 to all skills associated with a given stat every 4 levels starting at 4th

--Msallen

Just so I'm clear, I'm not married to any of these ideas, I'm just brainstorming. At a macro level, here are the areas that I think are in flavor to buff the prof:

• Increased defensive combat skills (ie. hp, saves, select combat talents, insightful defense)
• Better unique skill abilities (ie. dragoman stat-based buff, ranger/bard/etc level-based buff, new talents)
• Unique multiclassing ability (since pathfinder seems to be moving away from it ie. universality, talents to cover class-specific abilities)
• Focus on tactical/strategic skills (ie. teamwork talents, leadership improvements, select combat feats)

--Msallen

Why did you change my 10/16/20 version of Adv. Professional Development to be a mimic of the rogue progression? Also, why'd you give it a stupid name? Also, why are you not flying down for gamecon this weekend? -gm

It needed a name that wasn't lame. I thought the advanced talents gimp was a bug, but if it wasn't, what's the rationale? I mean, professional development is mostly a subset of the rogue talents, advanced professional development is mostly a subset of the advanced rogue talents, and general feats seem pretty weak compared to trapsense and sneak attack. So why also give the prof less advanced talents than the rogue? I'd say they need to be buffed at this point, not gimped. Also, I wish I was flying down, but I'm too strapped for cash with the new home purchase and too strapped for time with a tiny baby :( --Msallen

That was actually really easy, and I like it. Nerfed combat abilities somewhat and reworked Professional Development system to make it like Rogue Traits, several of which fit very well on the Professional list. Selected the more skillzy ones and added some. The biggest change is dropping one category of Best saves to bring more in line with other core classes, but the increased number of potential feat selections via the new professional development should offset this somewhat for those that want mega saves since there are plenty of chances to pick up save boosters(for example, there are a whole host of PF feats that sub in one Attribute Score for another in Saves that should be put on the bonus feat list)

Neat! I haven't pored through the developments, will have to do that for edification. -Slitherrr

PF also likes to put unique 20th-level stuff in its base classes, but it's really hard to think about what would even entail for this class. It's the definition of a splash class, after all. -Slitherrr

In this case, they get an Advanced Professional Development. The rogue only gets one Advanced Rogue Talent. I decided that, since the professional would be ever more hampered at the fundamental D&D stuff at the stratospheric levels, it would be a good trade off. But, as you say, I don't even know what a 20th level professional would even look like or why it would exist. Maybe it should be a five or ten level only core class, sort of a prestige class turned on its head. -gm

Ah, I haven't looked at the rogue, so I didn't know that. Yeah, it is weird, the Professional is kind of a course correction for Pathfinder's divergence from 3.5e's tendency toward splash classes. Sure, the language in the PF SRD would love you to think that they're making multiclassing easier by removing exp penalties, but what they really mean is that they're making the bookkeeping easier--all the foregone bonuses are there to make multiclassing in PF a lot LESS attractive than 3.5e, in my opinion. The Professional basically says, "Hey look, man, sometimes classes just need a little more salt, not a ton more paprika or turmeric or whatever crazy you're working with over there." -Slitherrr

I thinks this is a clean, straightforward way to do the professional without having to make a big deal out of the conversion. Matt, I'm pretty sure you read the advanced rogue talents wrong--they are available anytime after 10th level. --Msallen

Yeah, I think I did misread it. -gm

Do we want to consider retiring the dragoman prestige class and just folding some of those abilities into the 10+ professional? Given the content of the rogue talents, it's seeming a lot less unique as a prestige class concept. --Msallen

I also agree it's probably easier to just get rid of the Dragoman class, since a lot of the dragoman skills have comparable feats in PF (like Taunt) that are easy to pick up with PFs greater number of feats. -gm

I'll try to go over the feats, and then if there are other abilities we want to add from Dragoman, we can. Given the talents, I think the only thing is the level 5 abilitiy and the (probably overpowered) level 1 ability. --Msallen

What does Universality mean for PF? Does that mean they can pick a non-professional class at startup, and then get +1 hp/sp per level with that class or professional? --Msallen

If we decide to keep that trait, then yah. If we do, I'd suggest lowering this down to d6 HD, which is the new normal. -gm

Hm. I think we move it to a professional development, but otherwise leave it. I think the models for this class are the rogue, bard, and inquisitor, and of those all but the rogue are 1d8. I'd say at d6 we'd have to seriously boost DPS or magic to make up for it. --Msallen

Also, I saw there was a PF human racial feat for this, so I think there is probably some straightforward prescedent to add it as a professional development. --Msallen

Correction, rogue is also d8 hp. I think we have to give the Prof a lot to justify dropping to d6 IMO. --Msallen

Also, the PF SRD has racial alternatives for the Focus Class traits (Human Fighters can choose +1 to UMD against two selected combat maneuvers, for example). Any ideas what that might look like for Professional, or would we rather just use the normal +1sp or +1hp? -Slitherrr

Reading a bit, slippery mind is redundant--hard to fool is strictly better. -Slitherrr

That is, hard to fool, advanced version, not regular version. Did Paizo really not realize that they were calling two completely different talents (without any prerequisite relationship) by the same name? -Slitherrr

QA is not their strong suit. That's a pretty sad oversight.