"There's no such thing as fair or unfair in battle. There is only victory.
Or in your case, defeat."
I think Pathfinder has better balance than D&D 3.5 did. I think it's good enough to be your primary high fantasy game, and I think most groups won't have a problem in terms of balance. But I never said it was perfect. I'm sorry if you ever got that impression from me and my ever-present advice to avoid constant house-rules, rule bending, lawyering, lying, or armchair developer meddling by using the book whenever possible. No, that advice exists primarily to scare you away from a solution that's worse than the problem. There are absolutely things I'm not sure of, and probably even a few I'm certain shouldn't be allowed in the game. They're not always where you think, though. A lot of the time, something that sounds really powerful(like slashing grace) really doesn't make the impact you think it does.
So today I thought I'd go over some of the feats I look at and worry while sucking on my teeth. I'm going to focus on things that are on the "too powerful" end of the scale, because I think we're all pretty familiar with the other end of that spectrum. We all know feats like Run or Endurance never come up and I'm not gonna pad out the length of this post by reminding anyone.
Crane Wing. So I'm kinda talking about all three of the Crane Style feats, but the big culprit is the middle feat, Crane Wing. The errata'd version is that it gives you +4 to AC vs. melee attacks until something misses by four or less. With fighting defensively and all three feats, this is seven points of AC, with only some of it being conditional. Armor Class isn't a great thing to stack since you're nearly always going to have a good chance to be hit by primary(full attack bonus) attacks, but this is a lot of AC as well as some retaliation damage as icing. You need to keep a hand free, but...hell, I'd say that's a bonus over other styles outright requiring you to be fighting unarmed.
Why am I not sure? Well, even though this is a similar amount of AC for a similar number of feats than the fucking Knight Defense tree in SWD20...it's partially conditional. You're also more likely to be fighting monsters in Pathfinder, meaning more natural attacks and more being hit despite the AC you're stacking. There is also an "all things considered" factor with Jedi seeing as how they get that AC on top of Deflect. Did you know they can deflect slug weapons as well? They just can't reflect the shot since the bullet burns up in the lightsaber's blade.
Sap Master. Double your Sneak Attack damage if you're dealing nonlethal damage. Obviously this is to facilitate being better at ambush fighting, silently clearing out areas or knocking guards out. It uh...it doubles your sneak attack damage. An analysis of Rogue vs. Fighter damage is coming soon, but I'm pretty sure that fucking doubling the sneak attack dice would put it over Fighter.
Why might it be okay? You gotta read carefully. You only get the bonus when the victim is flat footed. This means you don't receive the bonus on flanking, which is your primary method of activating sneak attack. Getting a full attack action along side the Sap Master bonus requires a more coordinated set up with another character, and I'm tempted to say that doing so is worth the reward. As for its use in sneaking around? So long as your GM remembers how perception and combat works, this is okay too. Hitting someone is combat, and combat makes noise other people might hear depending on how far away they are. You're probably also going to end up taking a feat like Quiet Death to bolster this capability anyway.
Eldritch Heritage Tree. This one is kind of famous. It lets you take a limited amount of Sorcerer bloodline abilities as feats. Despite being level-locked and requiring you taking Skill Focus, you can get some pretty hefty abilities. The basic version can net you some nice but fairly benign things like getting a familiar or claw attacks or something, but by the time you're taking Improved or Greater Eldritch Heritage, we're getting to things that were probably balanced around being given to a 1/2 AB class. Orc and Abyssal Bloodline get inherent bonuses to Strength starting at level 9. Orc gets the amazing Power of Giants, which is a size large boost as well as hefty bonuses to STR and CON. It's not even once a day, it's your level in minutes. It'll be up basically any time you want it.
What's our counterpoint? Well, outside of Abyssal and Orc, these abilities are a lot more okay. There are still some gems like Shadow Bloodline granting Hide in Plain Sight or Fae granting Greater Invisibility, but nothing else is really as insane as Orc. I'm fairly sure the person who created the Orc bloodline had no conception of these abilities ever being given to classes other than Sorcerer. Given the fact that a normal character who reaches Power of Giants has fifteen levels in a 1/2 AB class and probably started with a moderate-to-bad STR, this is just a nice buff he can stack with Tenser's Transformation or something and turn him into a fighter for a limited time. Given to a fighter, though? Hoo boy.
Dervish Dance. I swear I'll stop beating this horse and be brief. Dervish Dance's wording says it can't be used if you're "carrying a weapon or shield in your off hand". You generally want your off hand to be occupied somehow if you're a melee type, so this is its intended drawback. However, since it was worded without foresight in mind(Magus wasn't out yet) it gets to loophole past its drawback and let Magus use Spell Combat and Dervish Dance at the same time. This became a somewhat popular and famous way to build a Magus.
I don't have a counterpoint for this one. Really, if your GM lets you use this loophole, you should be suspicious. He probably just doesn't care...but he might be the type of person who thinks loophole fuckery is the way the game is intended to be played. "Logically" is still the worst word in PNP gaming, but "Technically" is probably a close second.
Leadership. Do I even have to say it? Action economy is the most important thing in any pen and paper game ever invented and this is basically the only way to directly increase yours. Your cohort is two levels lower than you, sure, but that's still a ton of power and utility. Cohorts or even followers can be dedicated to actions not normally worth it for PCs to take like Assist Attack, Assist Defense, or things like bracing a door or holding a light source.
What might make it okay? It all just depends on what that character intends to do with it, man. Someone who wants a cohort just to cast some utility spells or roll some skills probably isn't the end of the world. If you accept the fact that the cohort gets reduced amounts of treasure, the primary PC having to spend his own money on the cohort is a big mitigating factor. I know that the book says that the cohort gets an equal share, but I have yet to meet a person who sincerely thinks it should work like that. The mitigating factor for someone's feat shouldn't be how it impacts people who didn't take that feat. Ah, but let's keep this discussion for another day.
Cornugon Smash. This is another pretty blunt one. Basically, if you take Shatter Defenses, you want a super easy way to make people shakened because that makes them flat footed to you. There's three ways on the table: The conditional and somewhat expensive Boar Style tree, the nonlethal-only Enforcer, or Cornugon Smash. With this one, all you need to do is Power Attack, which is something you're gonna do anyway if you're using Shatter Defenses. That's the whole point, after all.
But it's probably not nearly as bad if the character isn't shooting for Shatter Defenses and just wants to be scary and cause mild debuffs. It's easier to activate than Enforcer or Boar Style, but those feats still exist and it's not like they're too bad to take. Boar Style is probably my favorite style, after all. Shatter Defenses also doesn't proc on your primary attack no matter what you do anyway.
Slashing Grace. I'm a pretty big defender of this feat, but a lot of people go back and forth on it. That's why I'm including it despite saying up at the top that it's not that bad. Being able to get your dexterity to damage is pretty big, since it means you can forgo putting any points into STR and put them into DEX instead, which generally gives you a bigger return. STR is only good for melee damage, hauling shit around, and a few generally disused skills. DEX gives reflex save, AC, and plenty of great skills. It's a very powerful thing to be able to add melee damage to this and essentially remove the large penalty of weapon finesse.
But in addition to the Weapon Finesse weapon restriction and slashing damage, Slashing Grace doesn't let you do anything with your off hand. It doesn't have Dervish Dance's loophole, either. In Pathfinder(and 3.X) you always want to be doing something with your off hand, whether that's a weapon, a shield, or two-handing your weapon. The only time you won't be doing this is if you can't (like swashbuckler), if you want to keep a hand open for casting and don't have a decent two handed weapon(like bard or cleric), or if gaining the ability to do this would be too many resources spent for your liking, like rogue. Slashing Grace almost entirely removes your ability to use your other hand, meaning it's best for classes like swashbuckler, bard, cleric, or anyone else trying to get a leg-up on fighter or barbarian. A primary fighting class is going to be giving up something important if he uses Slashing Grace.
So I hope you enjoyed point/counterpoint on some stuff I'm still not entirely sure of. Keep in mind that I'm still unsure of the balance of these feats even though I provided counterpoint. Expect the next time to be a collection of spells, archetypes and items since I don't think I have enough of any of those to fill their own post. As always, I don't recommend you jump the gun and try to re-balance your game by banning these. The potential of something to be unbalancing and the reality of your game are often two very different things, and I think most people are primarily concerned with building a cool character over a powerful one. Even people like me who enjoy the mechanics of PNP systems are usually just picking a wild or neat concept and making it fit into a game more than trying to make the most powerful thing we can.
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