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

Revision as of 17:14, 22 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

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.