So you're not gonna learn anything today. This is the first time that our trapped little author Mouse gets mad and uses the funny words real, real loud. I understand if ya'll want to skip this one, but every once in a while the thing I want to get off my chest isn't something that's really a teachable moment that I can use to enlighten. Now, I always advocate trusting the game source as written until it's proven that something's broken, but that does happen sometimes. Sometimes something is just really powerful or really awful and you can't really figure out what the developer was thinking. Today, though, I'm talking about a slightly less obvious thing that happens in Pen and Paper game design that pisses me off.
Sometimes a feat, power or concept is a game-changer. This doesn't mean it's bad or overpowered, it just means it becomes a seriously important part of the game. In Shadowrun it's Wired Reflexes or similar initiative enhancing abilities. In Deadlands you could argue it's that smiling Red Joker on character generation, or the three point Huckster or Mad Scientist edges. In D&D 3.X you could call Power Attack one of these things. Basically, it's a power or concept you need to sit up and take notice of regardless of the character you're playing.
These aren't bad, but being unable to identify a game-changer until you've played a game a few times is part of the reason people get scared off PNP games. More on that later. Way more. An average or seasoned player picks out game-changers as a matter of course. You do it even if you don't realize it. How do you make a decent damage-dealer in D&D 3.X? Two Handed Weapon. Power Attack. Monkey Grip. How do I build a decent adept in Shadowrun? Improved Reflexes. Improved Ability. Killing Hands. It's stuff you just know. And that's okay. It doesn't (necessarily) mean the game is unbalanced or bad, it means it has things that are incredibly important and fundamentally make a big, big impact.
What pisses me off is when developers clearly have no fucking idea that they've put a game-changer into their source. Like I said, I advocate trusting your source instead of picking at it like a fussy grandma. Sometimes, though, you really feel like you want to because you find something in an obscure little book and it feels like finding rats in your pantry. Unfortunately though, banning a game-changer from play can often make big, big waves in the game, bigger than you want.
I'm guessing some of you already figured out I'm talking about Dervish Dance.
Dervish Dance has a sister ability in 3.X called Shadow Blade, and they both essentially do the same thing: They let you apply DEX to melee damage instead of STR. Remember when I talked about MAD and SAD? Attribute Dependencies mean that, at ANY stat level, being able to remove a stat dependency is very powerful. These abilities are game-changers because it gives you a stat that does more 'work', it means DEX is attack, AND damage, AND armor class, AND several important skills, AND reflex save. It means you can really pump that stat because you have no use for STR.
Just so we're clear, this is far better than Weapon Finesse on its own because of the vast importance of damage. On its own, weapon finesse is a "catch up" feat best used by a primarily ranged character to make sure they're not screwed if they're missing their bow, musket, blaster rifle, or what have you. It's also used by a utility character like rogue who can achieve 'okay' damage via weapon finesse and sneak attack and still focus mostly on their utility.
The problem comes in the role of design. Shadow Blade is a feat presented in the good old Book of Weaboo Fightan Magic, the Book of Nine Swords. In fact, it's conditional on some things listed in that book which it just so happens a non-maneuver character can reach anyway. Dervish Dance is a regional feat listed in Pathfinder Companion: The Inner Sea World Guide. What the hell's THAT book?
That's exactly my fucking point. It's a shitty little setting guide that just so happens to make a gigantic fundamental impact on Pathfinder. Dervish Dance has a lot of cousins like this. Twist the Knife in Rokugan's Ninja book. Jotunbrud in Forgotten Realms. Bishojuo and Niche Protection in Mecha and Manga arguably rub elbows with this shitty family. These big, powerful feats and abilities being listed in esoteric books and stuffed in little regional feat sections of Setting books is thoughtless, awful design. This is what scares people off playing, when they feel like they never could have found this on their own without a huge amount of research. It makes people think there's a huge gap between them and people like Me, Dale, Maestro or Flux when there isn't. It shows a complete lack of give-a-shit in their product to slap something so important in a "conditional" book, and that will never not piss me off.
In addition to that, anything that makes a character act in an unnatural manner for a mechanical benefit is bad. In M&M 2E, Grappling is weird and broken (partially) because it's better for the attacker to let you go at the beginning of their round, then punch you to get extra damage alongside tripping a free grapple check with Improved Grab. Essentially, the attacker is punching you in the face, grabbing you, holding you for roughly six seconds, then letting go to do it again. That's dumb and wrong. Shadow Blade restricts you to a list of weapons that's essentially small and light: Daggers, rapiers, unarmed attacks, kukri, and that sort of thing. This is logical and cements its tie to the Shadow Hand maneuver category. Dervish Dance, however, only functions for scimitars. This means that a dominant strategy of dextrous characters using scimitars emerges. Not small or light weapons like daggers that rely on your speed and finesse. No. Apparently, the best weapon for an exceptionally agile person is a long curved blade intended for attacking from fucking horseback, and ONLY that weapon. Why? Because we didn't give even half a shit about what we were designing. We seriously thought we could give a regional feat to these frigging horseback nomads that are just a ripoff of the Bedouin because we have no creativity and totally trust the average player to ONLY take it if it's ROLEPLAY APPROPRIATE.
Luckily, Dervish Dance mostly had its teeth removed. There's now two classes in Pathfinder that provide the "DEX to damage" ability, and an easily found feat that's thematically tied to one of those classes. The other of the classes, Unchained Rogue, grants Weapon Finesse along with "DEX to damage" early on, giving you single weapons(off a list) to use this capability with over the course of the class and letting you 'buy' weirder ones with Rogue talents.
Of course, this creates a Dominant Strategy of taking three levels of Unchained Rogue, just like the fabled two levels of Fighter. That's an entirely different rant.
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