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Another option, of course, is just to kill it entirely. A number of changes made to the classes (which we will discuss later) were designed to encourage folks to stick with one class, which might make this entire subrule obsolete.

Please, don't! This is a great carrot to encourage D&D tropes, and it doesn't penalize anyone who wants to play against stereotypes.

I say keep it!

I would suggest granting halflings a racial proficiency in either shortbows or throwing axes. Shortbows would be more 'village militia'-ish.

I'm glad someone mentioned Hawk the Slayer. I rented it recently, and my 10 year old son loved it. The effects are utterly painful.

As I recall, there was also a pilot made for a series in the 70s that was very D&D -- the hero had a bow, and the recurring villan had a jeweled gauntlet. Great thief character in it "I can't die ... I've never been fat yet!". The Archer: Fugitive from the Empire!

Here's the trailer! http://www.videodetective.com/titledetails.aspx?publishedid=3566

So here's a summarized list so far, as I have seen posts on, or noticed myself ...

Races
- each race now has two favored class options, and one must be chosen at 1st level

Classes
- favored class levels now grant +1 hit point or +1 skill point, chosen each level
- Barbarian Mighty Rage reduced to 3 points per round
- Bard – bardic performance abilities’ DCs are no longer based on Perform checks
- Wizard specialists may choose bonus spells again, but at one level higher than the spell slot becomes available
- Wizard generalists now gain a bonus spell as specialists, of any school
- Wizard’s arcane bond powers are no longer at half cost

Skills
- Acrobatics (Jump) checks now grant a bonus for speeds greater than 30, as 3.5
- Perception no longer allows you to taste disease

Feats
- feats added – Extra Ki, Extra Lay on Hands, Extra Rage, Improved Shield Bash
- feats removed – Deft Shield, Exact Targeting
- metamagic feats – now states that spontaneous quicken spells are not full-round castings
- Alertness now grants a +2 bonus to Perception and Sense Motive, and it progresses to +4 if you have 10 ranks in a skill.
- Arcane Strike – added progressively better bonus based on caster level
- Careful Targeting has been removed
- Deft Shield – removed, and Improved Shield Bash changed?
- Dodge is now a swift action to grant +1 AC, +2 if you have 10 ranks in Acrobatics
- Double Slice is no longer a +2 attack bonus (the feat summary list has it wrong), but instead allows you to use your full Strength bonus with your off-hand weapon. Note that this change, combined with changes to Power Attack we saw in the Alpha, means that Power Attack has become a viable option of two-weapon users at last.
- Exact Targeting has been removed.
- Far Shot now halves range penalties rather than increasing range increments
- Gorgon’s Fist now allows a save
- Improved Familiar – new options of dire rat, stirge, grig, and shocker lizard has been removed as an option
- Improved Shield Bash – added back (was removed in the Alpha) and that feat chain does not require Two Weapon Fighting
- Mobility now works the same as in 3.5
- Overhand Chop is now a standard action
- Pinpoint Targeting’s prerequisites have been changed to Dex 19, Improved Precise Shot, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, BAB +16, and is a standard action, and it no longer allows you to ignore concealment
- Quick Draw – clarified to indicate non-weapons cannot be drawn
- Scorpion’s Style duration is now Wis mod rounds, and allows a save
- Skill Focus – now progresses to +6 when you have 10 ranks in the skill
- Two Weapon Rend no longer requires activation - you get the bonus damage automatically, on any turn in which you hit with both weapons.
- Weapon Finesse no longer requires you to have a +1 BAB

My thought on the domains is very similar to the OP.

The idea of domain powers throughout the cleric class is great -- it encourages straight-classing as a cleric, allows the domain choices to be relevant throughout the character's advancement, and allows some fun opportunities. I do feel the domain powers as listed as too combat oriented, and some more well-rounded abilities would be nice. The Plant domain is an excellent example.

However, the loss of bonus spells seems unnecessary. Giving a cleric a limited extra spell each caster level does not add huge power to the cleric -- we seem to be jumping all over the cleric as the class of doom, but when did anyone point to domain spell slots as the source of that imbalance?

I am in favor of putting back domain spells - if you want to mirror specialist wizards, you could allow access to them 1 level after that spell slot level becomes available, and I wouldn't cry, but many of those domain spells are only available as domain spells, and to remove them from the game would be a shame.

How about halfling weapon familiarity - slings and any weapon with the word 'halfling' in it? Every class is familiar with the sling to begin with.

Poor halflings...

I really like the change of half-elves gaining skill focus rather than a class skill. Nice change.

However, I'm still of the belief that giving humans a free martial weapon proficiency is a bad idea. I've never had an issue with human characters being underpowered. And it skews one of the tropes of D&D -- now *all* human wizards can have swords, druids can have greatswords, monks can have battleaxes, and so on.

I would still strongly recommend the weapon training skill be removed from humans.

Maybe this time Pathfinder have stretched a bit too much the need to "tone down" some powerful spell/item/whatsoever. I personally welcome the nerfing of the Wish spell towards the increase of Ability Scores (never liked very much characters who suddenly buff all their ability scores when reach high levels), but the Tomes now are in comparison very powerful.

I don't find Wish in need of toning down. If a character has 27,000 gp that they want to spend for a minor effect on game play, they are welcome to in my game. Even if they used multiple wishes in a row, and they had 135,000 gp to increase *one* ability, that's still not going to break the game at the level they would be at.

When I decided to revive my AD&D campaign world and update it to 3.5, there were a scary number of similarities to Golarion when it came out.

- I had a wasteland to the northwest called the Theld. Golarion has the Cinderlands

- I had a strong fey influence - so does Pathfinder

- I had an italian-style collection of city-state colonies called the Malacisti Protectorates. They have Cheliaxian cities that are the same

- I had (and this is the clincher that is scary) a god named Aarishem who died, leaving the italian-style empire left to worship archangels-turned-demigods and devils -- like Cheliax.

I'm really enjoying lifting a great deal out of Golarion and using it whole-cloth ...

I'm looking to drive down to Gen Con this Friday, just so I can pick up my own print copy ... looking forward to incorporating most, if not all the changes into my campaign!

Lythande, by Marion Zimmer Bradley -- great independant character, with a dry sene of humor.

Cawti from the Teckla series -- strong, independant, and very feminine, and realistic how she acts in relationship that breaks down.

The Lady from the Black Company series -- she's lived for hundreds of years, had to do horrible things, and is still human underneath. Great villan turned protagonist.

While it's sci-fi, not fantasy, Arianhod from the Eisenhorn series is great.

That is incredibly awesome!

Can I ask what software and methods you used to create that map? I'd love to personally do up my homebrew campaign map in that style ...

Well, if you like Steven Brust, see if you can get your hands on his "To Reign in Hell". One of my favorites.

Another good series is Glen Cook's Black Company Trilogy (The Black Company, Shadows Linger, and the White Rose). Fred Saberhagen's Empire of the East trilogy, which is then followed up by The Book of Swords. If you like Steven Brust for his brief to-the-point writing style, you will like Saberhagen and Cook.

What I took on vacation this year is Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint, the Fall of Kings, and the Privelege of the Sword. Another good series.

Oh, and while it's older, I also would recommend Roger Zelazny's Nine Princes in Amber. I found it as an e-book and loaded it on my Treo Phone to re-read whenever I'm stuck somewhere I don't want to be ... :)

I am not one for horror films, normally, but this film was brilliant. I highly recommend it too.

The sequel, 28 weeks later, is also good, better for horror/suspense, weaker for story, but it too is worth seeing.

And in production, 28 months later ...

I've been running FR since 3.0 came out, and with the advent of 4.0, I've decided to re-hash my homebrew campaign world from my old university AD&D days, and steal VERY liberally from Golarion. I've ended up with a world that feels like something out of Stardust, or Van Helsing, or Brothers Grimm, and draw on books like Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser, or the Black Company.

Golarion is not my perfect world, but it has a LOT of good stuff I'm using, and my world has a lot of parallels to it.

I have to be honest, switching to a homebrew is refreshing -- It's making D&D a new game for me, just based on environment, with my new PC races and where classes come from and equipment.

Hey guys,

Tonight we continued our 'Curse of the Wyrmling Throne' campaign (very closely modelled on COTCT). The party was 4th/5th level.

From a playtest point of view, there were a few issues. The Gray Maidens attempted to deal with a pistol-wielding PC, and since they couldn't easily hit him, tried to disarm and sunder his gun. With their CMB of +6 and his of +7, they had almost no chance of succeeding -- not sure if that's a good or bad thing, just an observation.

We're using Spellcraft DC 25 + 1/2 CL to identify magic items, and with Zellara's Harrow Deck, it's still working 90% of the time -- and the ability to identify 10 items per identify is keeping the party using items. They stole poor Dr. Davalus' magic rapier and have put it to good use.

The new Appraise rules continue to impress me -- now they have a couple expensive mundane items they don't know the value of. Very cool.

Hey all,

I'm currently running the Curse of the Crimson Throne in my own homebrew campaign setting, and I am continuously brainstorming with my players to fill in bits of culture and history.

Would people be interested in seeing what we've done for our game, and maybe throwing in their two cents worth? I'm rather keen to share, and get new ideas that I can incorporate as I can ...

Thanks!

I'm using it in my home brew as a fallen gith flying citadel, and since in my campaign the gith were sworn enemies of aberrations from beyond ... :)

Well, by giving specialist wizards and clerics bonus spells, that's a huge step towards keeping backwards compatability.

Now my hope is they've balanced the specialist schools and domains so they are all equally good character choices...

I'm a HUGE stickler for NPC names, and I tend to rename NPCs and places for my campaign, even when I'm running something almost unchanged from Dungeon or Pathfinder, but keep a hint of the original name so *I* don't get confused.

I try to match my campaign world's cultures, and keep the names memorable and un-mangled by my players.

For example:

Darb Tuttle = Darien Toth
Eodred Arabasti II = Enerius Arabasti II
Gaedren Lamm = Gadren Lanner
Glorio Arkona = Glorio Vencona
Jakthion Krovosa = Janthion Goethe
Jolistina Susperio = Joli Sassino
Keppira d’Bear = Keppira den Barro
Lolia Perenne = Iola Perenne
Marcus Thalassinus Endrin = Marcan Thalassinus Entares
Neolandus Kalepopolis = Nelandus Kalopolus
Perishial Kalissreavil = Palfalas Calenoril
Pilts Swastel = Pilus Ostrel
Severs “Boneclaw” DiVri = Severus den Varro
Syl Gar = Sallen Gar
Toff Ormelos = Mordenkainen Hoenott
Zenobia Zenderholm = Onoria Janderholm

I didn't have a problem with high level play. However, creating NPCs was nightmarish, and some aspects of the game did break down.

- massive damage saves should scale - otherwise it becomes a 'roll a 1 and you die' - I solve it in my game by making the save DC 15 + 2 per 10 points above the massive damage threshhold

- Spellcraft to identify spells, Tumble, Concentration all become over-easy and should scale up in difficulty

- Poison and Disease become simplistic (solved in Pathfinder Alpha 3)

- Iterative attacks become tedious and ineffective by the 3rd attack - rather than have a feat, allow a combat option like fighting defensively, let's say 'Cautious Striking' - for every iterative attack that is forgone, all attacks gain a +2 to hit and +2 to damage - just my suggestion.

- AC is far outstripped by attack modifiers - this might be solved by Dodge scaling up, feats that chain up from Dodge, and such. The fighter's armor training is certainly a step in the right direction

Those are my thoughts ...

No, I think what Jason means is:

Balthazar the Wizard gets a Headband of Intellect +2, and gains 8 skill points. He chooses to invest 2 in Spellcraft, and 6 in Knowledge Religion. The DM should note that, so if he takes it off, and later regains it, he gets those skill points back.

Now, if his friend Balto Barrelgut puts it on, he can buy a different set of skill points, which should be noted ...

Stupid role playing games with hit points, wounds that heal, and high fantasy challenges. I'm going back to Harnmaster with the Wound Infection Table with results for gangrene and amputation ...

I'm looking forward to some of the meat in the Beta version ... my question is, what day will the Beta be available for download on the website?

Our group has been using a d20 for these percentage things for years.

- stabilization rolls
- concealment checks
- other percentage things (like being material for blink, etc)

Thanks!

Next question ... I'm using cultist clerics of Apollyon in my game -- any idea what would be a favored weapon for him? Unofficially, of course.

Hey all,

In Seven Days, they talk about Apollyon being the Horseman of Famine amongst the Daemons. Have any of the other Horsemen been referred to by name? If so, what are they?

It is in 7 Days ... but I don't see anything detailing what the vault contains.

As for the infiltration, the players were very clever. Our beguiler put on the physician's outfit from the corpse in the Direption, went to the seedy part of town, found an abandoned house, and put the rest of the party inside. The beguiler made 'hey, there's sick people inside this house' motions to a physician/Gray Maiden patrol, and they promptly bushwacked them by casting silence, barring the door, and beating them to death.

The beguiler cast invisibility, and snuck into the hospice, and saw a bit of details, and left. They now are dressing up as physicians and Gray Maidens and are going to waltz into the hospice. I'm sure they can get past the nurse at the front door, but I'm not sure about the main ward ...

Yes, antitoxin is becoming important with these new rules ...

Hi guys,

So last night, my underwater player characters fought the dreaded silt eels, which had bites with poison, doing DC 11 1d6/1d6 Constitution. So, I attempted my best to adapt it to Pathfinder poison rules. After the session, I re-read the poison rules, and it seems I may have mis-run it, so I have questions for clarification.

1) I did the silt eel poison as DC 11, 1 Con (6 rounds). Is that a fair conversion?

2) I re-read the poison rules, and in Pathfinder Alpha 3 it says Cure (1 save). Does that mean if a character makes the first save, the poison is done, and if they fail their first save, they take 1 point of Con damage, and must save again next round? I didn't do this, and made them make all 6 saves, which was pretty nasty.

At the end of combat, there were 4 rounds of poison left. So I went around the table and asked for 4 saves -- let me tell you, the 4 saves even at DC 11 were potent, and a number of characters lost a point or two of Con. What has everyone else found from the round-by-round saves?

Hey guys,

In one of the early adventures, there is a key to a numbered vault in the Temple of Abadar ... what did you guys put in the vault? I did my own thing, but I'm curious what the other DM's out there did.

At the end of last session, my group decided to ambush a Physician/Gray Maiden patrol, and take their clothes to infiltrate the Hospice ... how far would you recommend letting them get to?

I gave this some thought a while ago ... why would anyone, including NPCs, take levels of NPC classes?

Rather than assign compensating abilities to make up for the lesser abilities of the classes, I decided that anyone who takes a level of expert, adept, warrior, or aristocrat gets a 25% 'bumper' of XP upon taking that level. So a 1st level aristocrat starts with 250 xp. Commoners get a 50% 'bumper'.

So, NPCs who need saving throws, skill points, and feats, but no fancy class abilities to be better radish farmers, merchants, etc.

That's my solution, any way ...

I think a point is being missed. I know I missed it until running a higher level playtest.

It's not about changing Hit Dice from 1d4 to 1d6. It's changing Hit Dice, changing Favored Class, and improving Toughness. Combined, they increase hit points by a further 50% to 100% at almost every point from 1st to 20th level.

Let's take a 3.5 human wizard with a 12 Con. At 1st level he will start with 6 hit points. At 10th level with average rolls he will have 39 hit points. At 20th level he will have 69 hit points.

Now with Pathfinder, the same human wizard with D6 Hit Dice and the new favored class rule has 9 hit points at 1st level. At 10th level he will have 59 hit points. At 20th level he will have 112 hit points.

Never mind that with increased numbers of feats at alternate levels, the likelyhood of a wizard or sorcerer taking Toughness are good, and he can have a further 4 hit points at 1st level, 13 at 10th level, and 23 at 20th level (for totals of 13 hit points, 72 hit points, and 135 hit points, respectively).

I think Favored Class is a good rule change. I think Toughness is a good rule change. I'm a bit against Hit Dice changes (although we are talking about a measely 1 hit point per level here), but combined, these increase hit points a lot. I'm keeping the D4 Hit Dice in my ongoing playtest, because the characters are already tough enough with their other increases.

It's funny, to me, D&D 4th edition is D&D the same way Basic D&D was D&D, and Pathfinder seems to me to be D&D in the same way that Advanced D&D was D&D ...

I ran an 8th level playtest with an 8th level sorcerer, with d4 hit dice, a 14 Constitution, +1 hp/level favored class, and Toughness, with 61 hit points. That's hardly shaky. If he had a d6 hit dice, we're talking another 8 hp, or 69 hp.

I don't think they need the D6 at all ...

Hey all,

Since the blog shows some juicy details from Origins, including copies of the Pathfinder Beta, does anyone have any spoilers for what we can expect in a month or so?

One thought ... have Charisma add to level checks. It was used in the old turn undead mechanic, why not have Charisma added to any level checks to overcome SR, use Neutralize Poison and Remove Disease, etc.?

Great news! Sean is one of the best math-fu, reasoned argument kind of designers I've ever chatted with online.

I hope some of his 'lack of absolutes' proposals on his web site find their way into the Pathfinder Rules ...

I preferred weapon training to be given to half-elves rather than humans. Even without this benefit, people still choose human characters for their strengths -- adding another isn't necessary.

I agree the charm protection part of protection from evil is problematic. My players have constantly had potions of protection from evil, crafted rings of protection from evil, and so on.

I think the easiest 'nerf' is to change the immunity to a +5 resistance bonus to save vs. charm and compulsion effects ...

From PFRPG PG 154: Blind: The creature cannot see. It takes a –2 penalty to Armor Class, loses his Dexterity bonus to AC (if any), and takes a –4 penalty on most Strength- and Dexterity-based skill checks including CMB.

Bold would be my suggested change. Perhaps the DC should only be 10+CMB as well. I noticed in our 8th level playtest that special combat actions almost never succeeded (about 1 in 5).

More than that. If you add a penalty to blinded characters' CMB, maybe a small footnote should be added for Stunned, Dazed, Sickened, etc ...

Hey guys,

We ran our biweekly game, and only 3 players made it, but nonetheless running the COTCT, they were able to go in and deal with Girrigz and his wererat pals (barely).

The playtest part of our session came in after the characters cornered Girrigz, and the beguiler managed to blind him. The fighter then stepped in, and made an attempt to disarm him. He rolled a 14, added his +5 CMB bonus for a total of 19, and failed, as Girrigz' CMB was +7 and his target was 22

Afterwards, we discussed if blindness should reduce CMB, as it reduces Str and Dex checks. I said no, but interestingly, if Girrigz had the feat Agile Maneuvers, and his Dex was reduced due to blindness, so would his CMB. Certainly, if a character is blinded, trip attempts, grapple attempts, and overrun and bull rush attempts should be easier. Disarm, likely so.

Maybe it's worth adding to the blindness description in the glossary that all opponents suffer a -2 or -4 to CMB?

Hey guys,

Something I might be tempted to do is run a Pathfinder version of SCAP. I ran it previously up to 16th level with my existing gaming group, but I have a stable of players who are chomping at the bit to have me run something who have never played before.

Any thoughts on areas where the game might encounter snags?

Hey all,

From our Sunday playtest, something was rightfully brought up. The issue of tieflings and assimar as LA +1 races.

Under the SRD, if you play a tiefling, for a 1 level penalty, you gain +2 Dex, +2 Int, and -2 Cha. You gain 5 points of resistance to fire, electricity and cold, darkvision 60 ft, and darkness 1/day as an SLA.

Now, if you took a level of sorcerer with the abyssal bloodline instead, you would gain whatever stats your race granted you (let's say +2 as a human to one stat), 1d6 + Con Mod hit points, 2 + Int mod skill points, 4 0-level and 2-1st level spells per day of your choosing, and your level counts towards total feats, stat increases, and character level.

Clearly, the level beats the race.

Maybe, if we are looking at this, instead of all these monsters, maybe revising how racial hit dice work. So, instead of a level adjustment for a tiefling, what would happen if someone took 1 level of outsider (evil)? If racial hit dice granted a few abilities that scaled, rather than making them inherent to the type, or have the cosmetic race overlay further abilities, might it be worthwhile to link some abilities to racial hit dice?

For example, levels of monstrous humanoid might grant some natural armor bonuses. Levels of outsider or fey could grant SLAs.

Thoughts? Is this a worthwhile experiment?

I would give a character that's frightened or panicked the choice: accept the normal effects of fear and flee, or suppress the normal effects of fear by taking huge penalties of some sort. The character can choose to forgo the penalties and flee at any time, but once the character flees, he continues to flee for the duration of the fear effect.

Oooooo ... give them the penalties, unless they can break line of sight or gain cover or concealment from the source of their fear. That would do it!

(I hide under the bed from the scary ghoul ...)

Pathfinder Basic would be a great idea! However, here's what I'd do, if I were the editor of such a project:

1) Take out Attacks of Opportunity, and simplify a number of the special combat maneuvers. In fact, it would be possible to take out a lot of the miniature/battlemat-dependant items.

2) Shorten the feat and spell choices

3) Limit the game to 10th level

4) Limit the monsters, and print their XP value in the stat block (eliminating the XP chapter of the GM's section)

5) Limit the magic items to items available to 10th level, and avoid the complicated ones

6) Simplify certain skills (Perception, Survival)

The more I think about this, I might do something like this for my son ... we had the black dragon version of the D&D basic game, and he loved it. I even posted a kid-friendly character sheet for it on www.dmtools.org ... hmmm ...

Well said Wolvorine ...

You are absolutely right, and I agree the bleed attack scales against opponents -- obviously some opponents suffer more than others (a 15th level wizard with an 8 Constitution is in BIG trouble, no matter what).

However, I don't believe someone should *automatically* bleed to death. Otherwise, a 1st level rogue could sneak attack an elephant, and then back off. The elephant will *automatically* die (after some time and suffering).

People burn to death in real life, but D&D allows a Reflex save to stop burning. I'd allow a Fortitude save to stop bleeding (what the save is, is a lesser issue for me).

I guess the biggest *game* problem is that when choosing rogue talents, the bleed attack is such a no-brainer, either it is over-powered, or the rest of the talents are underpowered. There's no variety here, because the choice is one-sided.

My 2 farthings...

Something a lot of people have gotten away from is the Tomb of Horrors mentality -- making the right decisions so a character isn't put into a save or die situation.

Certainly, certain tone-downs in Pathfinder I agree with, such as negative levels going away after a certain number of days. But still, if you get into a group hug with a clutch of vampires, you are dead, period. So, it's fine.

One of the changes I like is the 'save' part now in a few spells gives you a lesser effect. That's great. So many casters get frustrated with the enemy saving and their turn is effectively ruined. The "0/1" option is absolute and someone gets the short end of the stick.

Save or die spells have their place. I wouldn't want them to go completely away. Now, I use action points in my game, so my players have a buffer against save or die, and that's great, but there needs to be some sort of threat of imminent demise to keep tension up, and make successful adventurers proud of their accomplishments.

Why, I remember in the old days, when you played every character from 1st level ... :)

Our group uses tact-tiles for our dry-erase needs. The DM screen is for a bit of privacy and often-referred to stuff ...

I think it should be Bluff, and yes, it should be a skill option.

Taunt: Using a standard action to taunt an opponent within 30 feet, if you successfully roll against a DC equal to 20 + your opponent's Will save, you can cause your opponent to attack you in the most efficient manner possible, using either ranged, melee, or other abilities, such as spellcasting. However, if the target of the taunt cannot harm the character without provoking an Attack of Opportunity, the taunt fails.