0gre's page

Yes, because it's the spell-slinging ape that breaks the druid... and not the, you know, spells they cast.

I agree this is really the big issue and I disagree with some people who suggest that the changes to Wild Shape AKA "Beast Form I,II,III" are the complete answer.

I'm not sure, I haven't tried to power game this yet but to me at 6th level the Elemental Body forms look particularly appealing and can speak (countering one of the big disadvantages of Wild Shape). You could argue that they only speak the language of the elemental but it wouldn't be too hard to get someone in the party to pick up a language or to get a magic item to speak it.

Heck... Elemental Body I for hours at a time at 6th level alone is pretty powerful without natural spell. Small Elementals aren't the strongest combat forms but defensively and for utility purposes they are awesome. Earth Glide, Fly 60/ Perfect combined with a decent AC, and strength or dexterity buff... add in spellcasting and some of the great self buffing that druids have and it's pretty awesome.

Or the fact that every book gives all druids, everywhere, new spell choices, whether it makes sense or not.

Pathfinder cannot fix the fact that spells appear in every new splat book... and is not being balanced against every splatbook out there. There is no way Paizo can salvage the splatbook issue because it's all WotC proprietary content. The best they can do is take the core SRD content and balance it and the let the DMs make their own judgement about including supplemental content.

-- Dennis

Frank Trollman wrote:

But why keep the book flipping aspect at all? Why not just let people look like whatever they want within the size limits?

Or, do the flipping once, out of combat?

The problem with this is that when you rely on any sort of mechanic like this then your characters power and flexibility increases with the number of books the player owns. Your idea of making the character use skill points and tracking the forms is great but you can still have 2 players using the same spell with vastly different results and effectiveness.

Personally I'm with Trollman on this one, give a set list of abilities gained with each spell (or a menu where the player picks from a number of options). The form that the player takes is up to him, however the benefits of the spell are from a fixed list.

The Sorcerer

I also agree with someone's comment above that by splitting the spell into multiple different spells the sorcerer gets short changed here. The wizard can learn 12 different shape changing spells and pick the appropriate one for the day. A sorcerer who used to have 1 or 2 polymorph spells now has to use a bunch of his spells known to pick up the same flexibility.

-- Dennis

I was thinking more like, when you are disarmed of your wand your suddenly having to make spellcraft checks. Think potter. How many times did they snag away wands and the like? A lot.

Thank you, but I enjoy my D&D sans Potter. For starters there are no instant disarm spells in D&D like there is in Harry Potter.

As has been pointed out, a wand is perhaps not the best choice for a bonded item. Wands are easy to sunder and conspicuous. A ring, an amulet, a dagger (maybe just as easy to disarm but tougher to sunder).

-- Dennis

The best suggestion for me and my game was to break out the Ban-Hammer on it. It's the only core feat I won't allow into my game.

I spent quite a bit of time on the ENWorld's Rules Forum, and 99% of the complaints about druids being overpowered could be solved by removing this one feat.

I certainly hope Natural Spell doesn't defile the Pathfinder RPG, and if it does, it certainly won't darken the door of any game I run.

This is why I wanted to bring it up. I've heard a lot of DMs say this was a game-breaker. I posted what I thought was the best suggestion above. Keep in mind the druid has already been toned down a bit by the reduction of max spells/ level. As I said I'm a fan of turning Natural Spell into Meta Magic...

Maybe this belongs in the feat section but I think this single feat makes a huge difference with the druids relative power in the game.

What is conspicuous in it's absence in the latest Alpha is any reference to Natural Spell. Considering it is absent from the Alpha and not explicitly called out I have to assume that it is still considered a viable feat. So is Pathfinder RPG still going to have 650 lbs apes swinging scimitars and blasting spells left and right?

Personally, I'm not sure where I sit on this issue I do think that wild shape is great and love druids using it and casting spells but it just takes the power level a little over the top (especially as you add additional monster manuals with more and more creature options).

The best suggestion I've heard is allowing Natural Spell but treating it as +1 level meta-magic. This would force casters into making a choice at the beginning of the session, memorize the spells without the metamagic for more powerful spells or use memorize the meta-magic version and spend combat in your favorite beast shape. This isn't my idea but it is the best compromise I've heard of rules wise for Natural Spell.

I guess this should go into rules suggestions... except I feel that it's absence from the Alpha where the druid is posted is a significant omission since it effects the druids power so dramatically it should be explicitly included or excluded.

-_ Dennis

Now, look at the feats and abilities the bloodlines give them: Dodge, mobility, Power Attack, Mounted combat, ride by attack, Sunder, Bull rush, blind fighting and weapon finesse. Most of the bloodline "powers" at first are "punch the dragon, do 1d6+1 damage of x type". What? What the heck is the sorcerer doing punching people? What is even more astonishing is that some of these abilities actually *progress* (poison at 9th level? what?) If you're punching 9hd monsters as a sorcerer you'll be dead pretty quickly. Sure, they have touch attacks. . . but most likely they'll be delivered via a ghost hand, or some other way.

In general I agree that the feat selection for some of the Sorcerer Bloodlines is pretty weak. I'm not a big fan of the melee attacks either though the abberant one is almost decent since you get reach at 2nd level. I'm not sure why wizards (and some cleric domains!) get ranged touch and Sorcerer gets melee touch, doesn't make much sense.

Change their melee abilities to ranged type attacks. Like the Wizard has (1d6 ranged attacks, enhance them as they progress). . . remove any feats that are melee oriented, or add additional feats that aren't melee oriented.

I agree here.

There isn't any reason to be a druid beyond 4th level. Any decent PrC will advance spellcasting and Wildshape. There should be at least some mildly compelling reasons to stay straight classed, but I don't see the druid as having any incentive to do so. A Thousand Faces lost all of its appeal with the mangling of the Alter Self spell (which, along with all the polymorph changes needs to be reverted back to normal 3.5 rules, IMO). Timeless Body has always been fairly useless in my experience. How many campaigns use ageing? How...

I don't get this at all. The druid is very powerful and while the changes made trim that power back a little they are still definitely one of the top 2-3 in terms of total power.

What I don't see is any mention of Natural Spell?? Is this nuked entirely or just hidden somewhere?

Thousand faces is actually better than it was previously. It was previously based on disguise self and only altered the basic appearance. Now with thousand faces you can change into a form with a swim speed and swim under water. It's much much better than it was.

What PrC will advance spellcasting and Wildshape? As far as I know Druid is one of the few classes in D&D that was powerful enough that people didn't feel compelled to PrC out of it. Even if there is a PrC that is out there, the goal is not to supplant all of the PrCs.

The way I see it almost all of the 'at will' abilities and 2nd level abilities are fairly weak and limited after about 8th-10th level. The damage dealt by touch attacks is too small to significantly anything but the weakest creatures. However once you get past 8th to 10th level a wizard or cleric should have enough spells that these abilities are superfluous. They are useful for small encounters or for their utility functions. Keep in mind these abilities are not meant to supplant spells but to give a little extra staying power to the casters. At higher levels staying power isn't as much of a problem.

As an example if a higher level wizard encounters a couple Kobolds who don't know enough to run away he can dispatch them without using any spells. I do agree that the SLAs should all be roughly equivalent. But you have to consider the whole package, not just the individual powers.

The Wizard School often suffer from the same problem. Summon Monster I (Conjuration) starts out as a mediocre, but useful combat spell, but later is useful only to disarm traps (which can even be seen as an abuse of the ability). Ray of Enfeeblement (Necromancy) however starts useful and gets even better, especially with the new Power Attack limits.

I have to disagree a little on Summon Monster I, overall not stellar but sometimes it's nice to have an extra pair of hands or an extra flanker. Once I used a pink poodle (hey it's celestial!) to trip up the BBEG who was about to escape. DM was not happy about that.

The low level powers don't need to be super useful throughout but roughly balanced from one school to the next (or if one because really worthless maybe a slightly better higher power.

I really like the idea of shadow arcana much better than a simple at will ability. I would suggest addition Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus (Illusion) perhaps instead of Augment Summoning or Lightning Reflexes.

Here is a very rough first cut for this.

[spoiler]
Shadow
Bonus Feats: Augment Summoning, Blind-Fight, Improved Initiative, Lightning Reflexes, Silent Spell, Skill Focus (Knowledge[planes]), Skill Focus (Stealth), Weapon Finesse
Bloodline Powers: The essence of Shadow is part of your very being, granting you unusual powers and luring you into the darkness.
Shadow Arcana: At 1st level, you add the following spells to your list of Spells Known: 1-unseen servant, 2-darkness, 3-deeper darkness, 4-shadow conjuration, 5-shadow evocation, 6-shadow walk, 7-greater shadow conjuration, 8-greater shadow evocation, 9-shades.
Darkvision (Ex): Starting at 3rd level, you can see up to 60 ft. in normal and magical darkness. If you already have this ability from another source (such as your race) then your range is increased to 90 ft. You also gain a +4 competency bonus to any skill checks or saving throws to detect or identify magical shadow spells or powers. At 9th level, your range increases to 90 ft. (or 120 ft. if you already have the 90 ft range) and your bonus increase to +6. At 15th level, you gain the ability to see normally under any lighting conditions, as well as into the Plane of Shadow, and your bonus increases to +8.
Cloak of Shadows (Su): Starting at 9th level, you gain the ability to grant yourself total concealment (as per greater invisibility) in any artificial lighting, including magical light such as continual flame, but not in daylight, or within the area of a daylight spell. This ability can be used for a number of rounds equal to your caster level. Starting at 12th level, you can extend this ability to up to six allies who are adjacent to you. Starting at 15th level, this ability functions in any lighting condition.
Walk The Dark Path (Su): Starting at 15th level, you can pass through the boundary of the Plane of Shadow to move from one...

Ok, this one is a little petty and has nothing to do with the rules but I'm gonna post it.

Page 49: The very excellent artwork from this page is repeated on page 53.

Am I the only one who thinks that the sorcerers who gain non-damaging powers at level 9 are being nerfed for that level? At 6th level, a sorcerer can cast the Fly spell. So at 9th, he gains the Fly spell once per day (Wings of Heaven, Celestial Bloodline, p29)? I am unenthused, especially when compared with Grasp of the Dead (Undead Bloodline, p32).

Hmm, 9+ rounds of fly versus once doing less damage than a fireball (1/2 caster level d8). Hmm, I would say flight is a better ability.

Look at it this way, the direct damage spells are less their third level equivalents (4d8 versus 9d6) while the wings are better than it's 3rd level equivalent since you can use the flight over multiple encounters.

Grasp is a pretty good ability since not only does it damage but it immobilizes also, plus unlike most of the other abilities it can be used twice. The scaling DC is nice though, but since it's CON-based... eh.

You also have to look at the total package. Resist Acid is better IMO than DR versus non-lethal. Heavenly touch is also nice compared to grave touch since it gives the healing option. Personally, if your sorcerer is out using his touch attack a lot he's probably in trouble but having an extra 1d8+(CL/2) healing for your party is pretty nice (Going on the assumption that a celestial sorc. is going to be hanging with a mostly good party).

I'm not sure but I believe that other than the glaring stuff (skills) and additions there were very few changes made. I think the theory here is that . revisions are for updates while whole number revisions are for major additions and changes.

I wouldn't be surprised to see some changes to the older content in 2.1.

On Page 30 "Elemental Blast" has no range specified. I would assume that it's not centered on the caster but it's not listed.

On Page 27 "Claws" Abyssal Bloodline Power: Are these considered primary natural attacks? Do you get one attack for one claw/ round or one for each hand like typical claw attacks? The wording is unclear, at one point it says "these claws" which implies that you can use both. Under other bloodlines it states "a melee touch attack" which is clearly singular.

On Page 30 "Claws" Same question as previous only for Dragon Bloodline Power.

On Page 31 "Hellfire" Infernal Power has no range listing.

On Page 32 "Grasp of the Dead" has no range listing.

As should now be obvious to anyone who has trotted out the Pathfinder rules at even modest levels: very small amounts of damage are very small. Seriously man, what was the thinking behind crap like the Evoker's Energy Ray? It does about 3 points of damage. You shoot it at an Orc Warrior and the Orc doesn't drop. On the other hand, the Orc is equipped with a Falchion, and if he hits you with it, the 2d4+4 damage it inflicts will drop a low level Wizard. Heck, it will often drop a low level Ranger.

Abilities like the Evoker's Energy Ray and the Necromancer's Gravetouch are offensively worthless. Not only are they extremely inferior to what other characters can do by simply using simple weapons, they are inferior to what the low level monsters do by just existing.

Umm... the idea of this ability is to essentially replace the wizard using the crossbow or simple melee weapon in combat and as such it does so fairly well.

XBow - +DEX to hit normal AC/ 1d6 piercing damage (avg 3.5)
Energy Ray - +DEX to hit touch AC/ 1d4+1 energy choice (avg 3.5)

Against your typical AC 14-18 1st-3rd level enemy touch AC gives you a 40-50% better chance to be effective.

So rather than having a 1st-2nd level wizard using his 3-4 spells in his first encounter with magic missile he can focus all of his spells on area effect or utility spells and use his at will ability as a basic attack. This gives him more staying power without significantly increasing his power.

At higher levels this ability becomes less significant and less important but that's ok because at those higher levels the wizard generally has enough spells to last the day.

Something I thought should be addressed, though I don't see it as too big of a problem. But tumble has been worked in to the Acrobatics check, which Bards and Rogues get as a class skill. Fine and well but so do Barbarians and the idea of a massive Orc Barbarian with his greataxe nimbly slipping past someones AoO seems wrong to me.

thoughts?

Since barbarians can't use Dexterity based skills during rage the skill isn't very useful to the barb even if it is a class skill. Outside of rage I like it, it gives them a bit more of a skirmisher feel which ties in well with their fast movement.

Incidentally the new Combat Mobility feat pretty much steals the thunder of the best combat use of tumble so that makes this even less an issue.

I don't understand. In the AD&D PHB page 25 the second table shows that Rangers get a limited selection of Druid Spells and Magic User spells.

...
The Paladin has had spell casting in each edition in a similar fashion to the Ranger.

I have the AD&D book at home, Rangers have had spells for quite a long time. Since they were first a distinct class as far as I know.

I like ranger spell casting, in particular I like it since the release of ranger specific spells which came later in 3.5. One of the big problems with it has been that historically they had access to low level druid or cleric spells which made them weak choices.

Spells that directly tie to the rangers core abilities rather than being cast off from other classes would be great.

-- Dennis

I agree to some extent Rez, Due to the nature of my players (casual gamers who for the most part don't even own their own books) I would much prefer a far simpler game system with lower power levels at all characters. I know this is one of the audiences 4e is supposed to be targeting but I just don't see it in the stuff released so far.

That said, if one of the goals of the products is compatibility with 3.5 then you cannot significantly reduce the power levels or the complexity of the game. The power creep with the wizard and the cleric are concerning to me but the changes to the rogue and the fighter much less so. What I would really like to see is a significant reduction in the complexity of some of the classes.

-- Dennis

Bah . . . I guess this just falls into the catagory of "Can't please everyone." I was expecting the "printer-friendly" version to be art free.

I mean, I can understand having the art in the beta release. but I don't want to have to buy a new ink cartridge every time they release a new set of updates. I'd planned on printing off a cpy of the rules for each of my players . . . Ah well.

Take it to Kinkos and photocopy it in B&W, even if it's straight text kinkos copys are much cheaper.

Personally I like the printer friendly version a lot, the old version took about 45 minutes to print for me while the new one was spit out in about 5.

For clarification, how do the Turn Elemental and Turn Outsider feats work with regards to healing characters? Also what type of damage do they deal? Is the damage affected by Spell Resistance or Energy Resistance at all?

This seems more than a little steep for the advantages granted. Take away a wizard's bonded item and low levels and you take away a great deal of his spell casting prowess. Even at higher levels it would be inconvenient at best and crippling at worst.

Much less steep than losing experience if it gets destroyed which is what happens if your familiar gets killed. And the familiar would be much easier to target as far as that goes.

I would much rather see contact/possession of the bonded item granting a Caster Level bonus or a bonus to the Save DC of spells. Also perhaps the ability to deliver touch effect spells through the item (similar to that granted by familiars at higher level).

The idea is to keep the caster at roughly the same power level he currently is. This replacement ability should be roughly in line with the powers gained by the familiar.

I like the bonded item mechanic. It give the wizard a little flexibility without too much extra power and makes it a nice option for large parties which really don't need yet another mini on the board.

The conjurer wizard's school powers etc. aren't very conjurer-ey. I mean I'm not going to go in to a rules debacle over the +2-+6 AC, but simply ask why? Why would they get that, I would have much rathered a free augment summoning feat. One that scales would have been awesome. Te first two and the last power are fairly alright, and web is a handy spell, but I expected more conjuratio of beings and trafficking with outsiders from the rest of the ability set.

This is particularly weak in light of the fact that it's an hours/ day ability, by 5th level or so it's the first thing my wizard does in the morning and almost never has it run out.

Some people suggest Augment Summoning that scales... except Augment Summoning scales by default. As you summon more powerful creatures they have more hit dice and benefit more from the spell.

Personally... I would rather the power be something similar to sculpt spell than augment summoning. That would help out with grease, glitterdust and all of the cloud spells. Our group is rather large and having a bunch of summoned creatures really bogs things down so I don't summon much.

Are the people at Paizo also having a debate over the use of skill points or is it just here on the messageboard?

My guess is that they are letting us have it out before stepping in and cleaning up the mess.

Regardless, whatever Paizo decides to go with, not everyone will be happy. They should make sure to include optional rules for both sides.

I think the current rule system (SRD 3.5) will always be considered alternate rules in this system

Pathfinder is a great idea et we've tested some of the game mechanics this very afternoon. Works great.

Here's the point:
Etools was a great tool to use with the new 3.0 and 3.5 rules. Now it's over.
Is there something cooking similar to Etools for Pathfinder or best a Pathfinder edition? Some help to design a character and especially a powerful NPC is always truly appreciated.

Wish you the best, Jason.

I'm debating working up some PCGen .lst files for it.

I hear a lot of comments but it seems no one has actually play tested it. Just making it a cone would make it far more useful

Rebuking is obviously a problem but I think making the effect a cone would significantly reduce the issue. Also I can see evil clerics going to town against a PC party with this spell, blowing through 3-4 turn uses, bolstering his undead and blasting the PCs. I also think the whole if a cleric heals an undead beyond it's HP mechanism he can command it... seems clunky to me.

I'll see if I can play test it, Maybe I can chase some of my players down for some separate sessions to do this.

I'm all for nuking the iterative attacks. They are cumbersome and the benefit of each additional attack is worth significantly less than the previous one.

Giving a static bonus to damage that roughly equates to the iterative damage would a blessing. Maybe some of you enjoy tons of extra rolling but my players are casual gamers at best and doing 2-3 attacks per round (3-5 with haste and cleave) all with different attack bonuses is confusing.

The static bonus you mentioned of 1 pt for every 2 levels sounds like a reasonable compromise to me.

As for backwards computability... if the static bonus is close to being equivalent to the average damage from iterative attacks then you can just play the stat blocks. If an existing NPC has iterative attacks you can just play it as written, similarly if a player wants to continue using them you could allow it (I actually have one of each).

The other thing people like using iterative attack for is hitting multiple targets in a round. It seems to me that the new versions of cleave and great cleave enable this in a much more elegant way. With great cleave you can just keep smacking until you miss.

Learn staff, then spear comes easy. Learn sword, other swords come easy.

I don't think this follows at all. Staff -> Spear? Spear is mostly a thrusting weapon while a staff is primarily a swinging/ spinning motion. While you could use a spear roughly like a staff or vice verse it isn't ideal by a longshot. Even sword=sword is not true, some swords you use to thrust, some slashing, and some are sort of a brute force hacking action. All of them require their own unique styles. Heck, wielding a great sword is more like using a two handed axe than like using a short sword.

Personally if it wasn't for the whole issue of chasing down your preferred magic weapon I think most fighters wouldn't have a problem with specializing in one particular weapon, they would pick up a nice magic weapon early on then train for it. This whole concept of needing increasingly more powerful gear for the fighter to stay relevant is IMO the elephant in the room.

I have a question for the crowd. Is it the actual chaining that is a problem? -OR- Is it that some of the more common used familiar feats got put in a chain? -OR- Is it that you can only use one combat feat per round?

In my group it is the chaining of feats that is the problem. If my players took these feats the second or third round effects would never get used.

I really like quite a few of the combat feats, for example the changes to cleave are IMO an improvement.

Are iterative attacks going away? Pulease?

Skyler Brungardt wrote:

I'd sure like to see Magic Missile get a revision. It's hands down the most powerful attack spell for all of the first level spells, and better than many second level spells too.

I strongly disagree with this. If anything MM needs a boost at lower caster levels and maybe a very slight tweak once you hit 9th level.

At levels 1-2, sleep, grease, and color spray are far superior to a single 1d4+1 damage. Once you hit level 3, then shocking grasp and burning hands do more damage, through level 6, and only at level 7 does MM come into its own. At level 9 it's certainly a better choice.

I don't think it needs to be fixed either way. Since under the pathfinder RPG specialization rules most wizards gain an at will ability at first level which gives them a 'free' attack per round wizards at low level will likely skip MM as redundant and take more area effect/ utility spells.

At higher levels a caster might take this as his fallback/ damage anything spell but the damage isn't so high that it's devastating.

Alter Self (for similar reasons as above - I think it should allow all sorts of minor features and visible appearance, but have a set limit on mechanic changes it allows - i.e. it can give +2 to natural armor, claw attacks that do 1d4 damage for medium casts, bite that does 1d6, and one of a list of extroninary abilities, like swim speed, climb speed, etc. These changes would remove the need to find the 'best' humanoid that can be changed into)

I think this is a great idea for alter self.

Alter Self

Transmutation
Level: Brd 2, Sor/Wiz 2
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: 10 min./level (D)

You can make minor alterations to your physical form which last for the duration of the spell. When you cast this spell you gain one of the following special qualities:

• Physically alter yourself to resemble another humanoid creature of your size, your abilities do not change but to all outward appearances you are a creature of that race. If you are using this to disguise yourself as a specific creature you gain a +10 to disguise checks.
  
• Gain an enchantment bonus to Natural Armor of +1
  
• Your toes lengthen and webbing grows between your toes and fingers. You gain a swim speed of 30.
  
• Grow gills which enable you to breath water for the duration of the spell
  
• Grow claws which give you 2 primary natural attacks. These claws do 1d4 slashing damage + your strength bonus (1d3 for small creatures, and 1d6 for large) each and threaten on a 20.
  
• Your jaw extends giving you a bite attack which deals 1d6 damage
  

At 5th level and ever 5 levels after this you choose an additional ability from the above list, choosing the same one twice does not increase the benefit gained.

You can cast this spell to gain multiple effects but the benefits from any single effect do not stack.

Really... the list of alterations could be even larger than this. But IMO should be limited to at most duplicating the effects of a 1st level spell. I suggested Nat Armour +1 because barkskin which is second level grants a +2 bonus and this second level spell shouldn't be able to do what barkskin does PLUS a ton of other stuff.

Also, IMO this should be a possible druid spell also.