August Path of War Poll

The real problem with PoW is the same problem as everything else: Min/maxers. Ban everyone, problem solved.

Then go ahead and make me your best non pow pure martial builds. I'll trump all of them with 10 minutes of effort and caster classes.
It doesn't matter what aspect of pathfinder you go for, the mechanics that paizo makes available to it's martials just doesn't keep pace with the options available to casters.

and there goes zanos, horribly missing the point.

Regardless, it's looking like Pow is out by this point. While I would have liked to see an option for preventing people from having both initiator levels and caster levels, I suppose that option won't be getting any reasonable amount of discussion.

Fortunately, between PoW being brought in to DG and now there's been a lot of class additions so it shouldn't turn back to full caster city again. and hell, PoW being nixed might even encourage people to try out some of the newer classes.

I'm implying that no amount of knowledge and planning can make a paizo martial better than a caster. The one thing martials have that I haven't been able to replicate with casters is a barbarian's damage at level 1, though that's only because I haven't counted in animal companions or eidolons.

And before I begin my tirade let me correct you on something; I don't want to ban casters from taking dips. I want to prevent player characters from having both spell/extract lists and maneuvers. The power you get from having both far outshines having either one individually, especially when you get blade caster, and to a lesser degree battle templar, in the mix. In fact, now that I think about it, it might have just been best to ban blade caster and call it a day.

With that said, commencing rant.

The point I have been trying to make ever since the beginning is that it's absolutely pointless to say something shouldn't be allowed because it overshadows paizo martials. The wizard is the best grappler at level 1, sacred fist warpriest is a better monk (though to be fair, monk on it's own is on the edge of the caster/martial paradigm) , magus is the best for burst damage, alchemist is the best natural attacker until you can to the stupid crap that druids can pull off with wild shape, and the list goes on.

Paizo martials are already bottom of the line, and yet I keep seeing people say they don't like PoW because it makes paizo martials worthless. You can't be the cause of something being worthless if it's already worthless when you showed up.

By this point, I'm content to just sit back and see what happens when PoW gets axed.

I don't think most people want to get rid of PoW because it overshadows paizo martials. I think most people want to get rid of Path of War, because despite all of your optimization experiments, GMs have far more problems with initiators than with spellcasters.

While some maneuvers do have a will or fort save for them to work, most just target AC, and let's not forget substituting skill checks for attack rolls, saving throws, AC. That's also a really powerful factor, getting a high skill check is relatively easy and then substituting that for combat actions allows them to do some stupidly funky stuff. It reminds me to snake style just on everything defensive and offensive...

That's why we should look into an alternative to PoW, my idea that I threw out earlier was the removal of combat feat tax. That may not be the best alternative but I think it may be a start.

Also, as for being able to pass high SR, if a GM needs to they can tweak SR so as to provide some sort of challenge, however, there is no such mechanic that helps balance out PoW maneuvers outside of AC.

The thing is Xemadus, Rainen is ridiculous compared to anyone, even the other high level characters. Using him as a yardstick doesn't overly work, aside from showing how ridiculous a single build could get. Your characters tend to share that trait above everyone else's so it's more a case of you building characters that happen to be at a comparatively higher level of optimisation.

As such using Rainen as an example for the silly stuff that can happen 'in situation x' is mostly just relevant to you.

Sythus you purposely provoked Xem in what should be a discussion, then you complain when he's calling you out on your trolling? Don't say such stupid remarks then. Keep this in the debate whether PoW should stay or go.

Based on the outcome of this poll, Path of war is now removed. I'll make an announcement post detailing the season 2 changes, with this, shortly.