Belazoar's page

I liked tali, is must have for geth. But geth share their bad guy status with reaver spawn, opposing racial factions and cerberus, and MA2 has so many great crew members to ignore more than one or two.

Plus, some like goto are great in any situation.

I'm more wanting of tali to have had the fire tech or something.

Jacobs, imo, brings poor skill combo with poor weapon choices. Basicaaly, he's not miranda.

Haven't got her in 3 yet, but the class changes indicate tali won't be a limited in scope of abilities as she was in 2. Hopefully.

I'm also curious if running pull 4, throw 4 is as awesome in 2 as running pull 6, and throw 6 (both twinned) is in 3. Twinned pull and twinned throw are amazing primaries in 3. I also have warp and sinularity at 6 too, but only break those out when there's shield/barrier/armored mobs, and then only long enought land pull.

Twin pull with BM 6 can rip a shield apart from the guy holding it.

I always ran ME2 with singularity/warp/reave.

I'm not saying he got the worst attituded but he's got something negative to say to half the crew when they join the normandy, in addition to the huge drawback of not being Miranda.
Admittedly, due to fact that i never use him, I'd be the least qualified to comment. I still think he bottom tier, and after his loyalty mission i tried to reconsider but nah.
Tali's skill set was too specific to bring her along often after she spent all of 1 opening boxes. The others are solid.

This is why you never dump wisdom or charisma.

Jacob is just like that. Even in ME 2 he was making snarky comments to half the crew. That's why he watched from the ship the entire game.

Monk for disease and poison immunity, stats for good saves, great run speed and no reliance on physical objects to be formidable.

Sorcerer would be a second choice, but monks don't usually run out of fists.

I'd start by clueing the players in to how power an opponent they are dealing with. This will be easy to do, just leave a brutally killed corpse of another hidden away for them to find. Just pick a creature or npc powerful enough that its brutal defeat would hint at the devils power.

Next, there's a very good chance one of the devil's allies has already set up contingencies to kill the beast, that's just a fact of life when evil deals with itself. The players could find some items that another person has acquired to make the encounter easier for the players.

Last, I'd work out a means to defeat the devil that doesn't incolve taking it's hp to zero. Okay, maybe figure that out first.

Something the players should pick up along the way is something that gives them a CHANCE to escape if things go horribly wrong. You are doing this for fairness of putting against a monster that out classes them by so much.

I'd say ride check if ride is so low that you can't take ten vs. the climb DC. Some of the FR books have drow tie themselves to the saddle of their lizard mounts and use their mounts ability to climbs walls and ceilings efficiently.

Might also require the player to drop some gold on a custom saddle as he would be pulling that off with a run of the mill horse saddle.

As far as dismounting, slip- knots, or something, it's the strapping in that will take a few minutes.

Sounds like you may need to keep looking for a group to play with. The fact that the one player that left was the healer and your options are healer or you can't play throws up a whole bunch of red flags for me.

Your options are basically see if you have fun running the groups heal-b***h, or not playing with them. I,m already not having fun with that group.

I guess you could sit through one game and see how it goes.

You need to make their behavior have an impact on the game, for them.

Skip their turn if they are on the phone instead of paying attention. Have spells fizzle and be expended if they don't know what magic they are trying to harness.

Be cool headed and blunt about it, don't be pissy. You are trying to let them know they need to step up, not punish them.

Say it again without throwing stones at muslims and russia and you'd be closer to where you need to be. I know sometimes it's hard to resist, but you basically countered the point you were trying make.

1. It would be dependant on geography and whether politics stuck its nose in, but most likely nothing would happen unless that person made an effort to get attention.

2. Tradition. The laws should not intermingle with the religion in so far as the legal effects of state recognized marriage, but you also have to keep in mind the issue involves more than just marriage for some, so how any particular discussion or event plays out will vary.

Don't be surprised if some of these old witch hunts fire back up. These guys are getting pushed on the defensive and their knee-jerk has always been demonization (sp). RPG's have always been a safe target as our community is relatively small.
It also seems like anti-gaming rhetoric (especially on the video game side) never really loses momentum.

Heck, when i was a teen a few decades ago my church forbid me from being a guide for church camps specifically because i. Defended AD&D at their church.

People who become so engrossed in rpgs that it has a negative impact on their lives would have let a different hobby do the same thing is rpgs weren't available. It's a personal issue. Rpgs, like i said are just easy targets, even though there's no end of other hobbies that can be as involving; cars, shopping, etc.

Dude, maybe you spent too much time playing video games. I have only a few FPS, mostly rpgs or games like Mass Effect. I think there's a good balance of combat in most. I also think adding combat to games is an entertaining and cost effective way of making the games i really like last longer. Good games like the Mass Effect series always leave you wanting more, but then again you also want to accomplish goals. How much shorter would those games have been if it was just dialog, or mini-games, and without combat to break up the other aspects would you have found non-stop non-combat as enjoyable or replayable?

And while i do think it would be cool to play someone learning magic, and that's something that gets glossed over, i definately want to go about shooting lightning and fireballs at crap afterwards.

And space operas without intergalactic wars are just musicals; so ***** that.=D

I recommend that you do away with magic stores, and have component gathering for crafting an adventure in itself. My personal opinion is when a list of magical items become part of a build, your probably making it to easy. And you will most likely be forced to retire the characters earlier because. when they have access to that much power you start having to get a little ridiculous to keep them challenged.

Besides powerful magical items are kind of the coolest things to get in an rpg, if you let the players run wild, what are going to reward them with for doing awesome, that they can't get themselves with all the magical items they just bought.

Balance in all things.

Or crit immunity for krogans and leave it at that.

The races seem a bit OP, racial tendencies don't need to be reflected in game by innate modifiers or bonuses.

I'm curious what your rules for power point regeneration is, considering biotics and tech were used constantly in combat. For what little bit of OP the races are underpowering their powers would make them really unfun to play it seems to me.

I wonder if you made biotic, tech and combat powers work like class skills instead of spells. . .

Anyway, overall, you did a good job. Will be interesting to see where you take this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoWfambAi6A

I say take levels in bard.

If you stat something PC's will try and kill it. It made a joke of deities in dnd.

Deities don't meddle because opposing deities will counter and soon it will escalate into religious wars. Deities, in other games, increase in power do to the number of people that worship them. Religious wars only hurt them in scope of power leaving them vulnerable to other deities.

Besides when kids fight over their toys usually the toy justs gets broken.

Clerical powers, however, are good promotional abilities.

Mage Armor should be your first selection. It's duration is in hours and is reliably effective, especially at lower lvls where +4 AC can make a big difference.

IMHO, Mage Armor outweighs Magic Missile by a considerable amount. For limited uses you are comparing +4 AC for 1 hour/level vs. a one time 2-5 damage, when you are most likely carrying a dmg cantrip you can cast all day long.

Additionally, with Shield only lasting 1 min/level, it's worth strong consideration to just stock up on Mage Armor if you are a prep-caster, and instead of stacking Mage Armor and Shield, cast Mage Armor on multiple people. After a few levels, you'll be able to go all day with the spell on, and you should.

Daze is a great cantrip until CR increases make it obsolete, even with the PF nerf.

Mirror Image as soon as you can.

First, there are a lot of wrong ways to play, most involving one person playing at the expense of everyone else, which doesn't appear to be the case for you.

As far as eliminating rules for the betterment of you game you have a number of options, but note that because you've already let your players become accustomed to easy access to magic they may not enjoy restrictions. If you did restrict magical items access, characters are more managable at higher levels, allowing you to keep groups going longer and easier.

Note i wrote restrict, not ban.

Lowering point totals for buys, and utilizing terrain rules make challenges. . . Challenging, but it has to play fun or it will just be a hassle to everyone.

Don't allow magic item buys or creationfeats, instead reward magical loot more thoughtfully, and make adventures out creating cool magical items.

However, if no one is up for the increased challenge, it probably won't be worth the effort.

I believe the first time i heard the term was from Vampire Hunter D. You can watch that if you are looking for someone else saying it, though the princesses accent is a little thick.

A single level dip into any caster class for orisons/cantrips can bring some nifty convenience. If it's sorc then you don't even need material components for a lot of them.

While not as powerful as anything else mentioned, i thinks they are worth noting.

BBEG rock max HP as a rule of thumb anyway, in my games, i find that works out pretty good as far as giving the fight some breathing room.

Other than that it's not really about cheating hp, it's about allowing players to realize they are in over their heads and having a fair chance at retreating when things go horribly wrong. If things go horribly wrong for me then grats to the players for kicking butt.

I'm more relaxed about the paladin's code nowadays. In 2nd ed. Dnd paladins got quite a lot in comparison to other classes in exchange for a strict code to live by. That was the deal; a list of cool abilities and a list of regulations. Since PF, especially, classes are more balanced and i really don't see pushing code very hard as fair to the paladin.

Doesn't mean they get to ignore their code, of course. I'm just not eagle eyeing their actions like i used to.

There's a big difference between discussing rule interpretation after the game, and arguing over them during the game. Not all things PF are created equal and it is the DM who has final say. Not all things are as they seem, and the DM is the one who knows why. Those two reasons alone should be enough for anyone to understand why most people side with the DM.

I hate to sound trollish but most of the time DM problems are game problems, whereas player problems tend to be their character problems.

Someones willingness to run games should be met with an equal willingness of the players to cooperate with him/her in character creation and play style. If you can't find common ground there the answer is that game isn't for you. Everything else is a matter of courtesy; waiting till after the game to discuss rules, not throwing dice and tantrums when things don't go your way and not cheating and have you BBEG bring into being powerful monsters in retaliation for one rounding him.

Look, this is way simpler than all of this. For all the bs about people who mistakenly think that DMs don't have more invested into games, running them, than any single player, playing them, here you go:

If all the players have a problem with the DM, what's the discussion?

If you are the only player that has a problem with the DM, guess what? Still no need for discussion, is there.

Thank you, Ravingdork. I was on the verge of rage at some of the bs posted till I read your response.

Well done, and well said, sir.

IMO, this should be something that all players should be wary of. There's no reasonable excuse for every monster they encounter to be assumed a viable combat choice.

Having said that, it's up to you, the DM to role-play how dangerous these creatures are. Displays of strength or killing npc's are a good way to let the players get a rough estimate of how bad ass the creature before them is.

A giant may heft up a boulder the size of a Clydesdale and lob it at someone for massive damage. There's a good reference to how continuing combat is going to go.

A dragon, on the other hand may instead rip an even larger chunk of rock, out of the side of a mountain and lob it at some people with messy results. That's a good indicator of how that fight is going to go.

Unless the players are in completely barren terrain, there's generally enough environment for a beast's thrashing about to relay a good proximity to it's power.

If the giant wolf beast can snap full grown trees like kindling in an attempt to get to the players, they have a really good idea what those teeth are going to do to them.

Use your presentation of the creature to reflect it's power level, after that, you can consider they appropriately warned.

The group I'm DM'ing for now were told up front, before the first game, there are creatures out there, that will easily destroy them. I even ran one session where there were fleeing from a sadistic inquisitor and his posse because they blew the previous session and found themselves wanted for murder of a wealthy member of the town they were in.

Each group of man-hunter rangers/ninjas was a struggle. It was set up as a chase through a swamp, and these smaller encounters kept them injured, sometimes poisoned. Talk of making a stand was unanimously decided as suicidal.

Adding sessions like this help with the flow of other games, where players will access situations better. They'll pay more attention to not just a guessed CR of the encounter by base CR, but they'll start paying more respect to numbers, terrain, etc.

This is, ultimately, a great way to help player immerse themselves in your world, and start acting like an adventuring group instead of a roaming death squad. Players like their characters, and they don't want their characters to die. Sessions that threaten to kill them and require them to explore options other than combat can really improve the quality of the game in general, as long at it's not over used. You do have to let your players shine, or else why try to be heroes.

1. Horrible spell list. I'd even go as far as to say that witches have the worst spell list of all the caster classes.

2. Access to hexes are too limited. You'll want half of the minor hexes just to increase your witchyness; claws, water breathing, etc. but will be stuck choosing others because you don't want to start the game with those hexes. I, personally, would like to see some of those automatically added as class features. Then, the hexes you do have are, are one save away from being useless against everything you fight. Not a big deal for fighting the smaller stuff, but incredibly aggravating when BBEG renders your signature moves useless until you or him are dead.

When you are using all of your feats for extra hexes there's something lacking in the basic design of the class. And w/o the extra hex feat I don't think anyone would play a witch for long.

3. Useless against undead. At least for the first levels. Even then, your hexes are still mostly useless vs. undead. Which is odd, for a witch. Course, I also see witches as zapping people with lightning in addition to making people laugh/sleep.

4. IMHO, the class should have been a mid-B.A.B. class with more hexes to offset the lack of higher lvl spells. Witches, after all, are THE "come and get you" casters of the spell using classes.

I'm not saying they can't be fun, especially if the antagonist/s in your game aren't immune to you by default. I'm saying you will be left wanting a lot of the time.

Anyway, that's my 2 c.p.

Here's another one: why can a wizard get a pouch of a thousand different spell components for free and grab any one he wants from it without spending an action, but an archer needs to track arrows and spend a move action to take out a bow?

I'm going to say because casters have to keep track of their spells/day uses. If all they needed were components to cast, and not have to worry about spell slots, then your complaint would be valid, but at that point irrelevant.

It's would probably be worth your time to get a hold of the old M.E.R.P.'s rulebook, and mabye some of the Lords of Middle Earth accessories. In the base book there's some great race info, spell lists (to help give it a ME feel), an outstanding herbalism list, and one of the most brutal crit/fumble lists you will ever see.

The lords of middle earth include all the characters you know, most of them you won't unless you memorized the similarran (sp), all stated out, which notation as to their every appearance in the books, and what pages they were on, though some books may be different due to all the recent republications.

Plus it will give you an idea about how much magic there is in the world (a lot). Some of the things you don't think of, like the elven gifts, etc.

I always thought of Schmedrik when I read the 2nd Ed. rules for Psionics. Painstaking effort to establish contact then a roll which, if fails wastes points for nothing. Not an easy roll either.

2nd.Ed. Psionics. Now THERE was a failure of design and implementation. After that mess i was so happy when the expanded stuff came out. But that's not for here.

However, the 2nd. ed. is a great model for schmedric type casting. Good luck getting anyone to play it though

Just got home from work. JSYK, M.E.R.P.s Lords of Middle Earth have him listed as a one level lower than the Balrog (who is 'more powerful than a dragon') 35 and 36 respectively. Both are Maiar. The Balor may have been based on the Balrog, but I don't think you can use it as an accurate comparison to determine Gandalf's lvl or power.

The ring has 9 powers listed, including unlimited use of full spell lists, continuous effects, regen, stun immunity, etc. Note: When the One Ring is destroyed, Narya loses it's power.

Another thing to take into consideration is Gandalf's M.O. was never the lolsteamroll type. Up until he went one on one with the Balrog his greatest feat was igniting some pine cones. You just always assumed he was a badass, without him actually grandstanding his abilities.

It's be easier to convert him as 3rd edition, due to rules for demigods, which he would probably be; 20th lvl native outsider/20th lvl mage.

Well, Xeno, there's really only one course of action to take in this situation; wait till he passes out and duct tape him to the wall and sharpie male genitalia on his face.

I would start construction of an awesome city. with a outer wall a few miles away from an inner wall (wherein lies the city) that I would fill with perfectly manicured forests, ponds, streams. Then the city would take days to think out. Once there, and wish preserved, open the doors and let the money come to you.

Yes, your Red Dragon DOES have to be a sorceror/19. It's as natural to him as his breath weapon. Hell, sorcery was originally put forward as coming from having the bloodline of dragons.

If you're going to make it a Witch/19, you're creating a Dragon with class levels. There's a Black Dragon Great Wyrm in FR that is a Wizard/20, goes around creating dragon-only gates and portals and stuff, and except for the extra HD from Con, is only pegged a couple CR higher.
==Aelryinth

If we were talking about anything that wasn't a dragon, sure. Take into consideration that sorcerers were originally presented as humanoids with a 'trace' of dragon-blood. That in no way means that an actual dragon need be pidgeon-holed into the humanoid class that stems from humanoids have a trace of draconic heritage. A dragon of a forest, for example, may be rocking druid spells and abilites, instead of sorcerer spells. And let them pull it off just because they are dragons. Doesn't mean the dragon is a wannabe druid either. He's still a dragon. And if sorcerers don't like it, they can take it up with a dragon. :P

One could easily give a dragon the spells of a druid, witch, etc. in place of sorcerer spells and not give it 19 additional levels to pull it off. Just swap sorcerer spells out for witch spells, remove some special abilities for hexes and you are good to go.

Nothing wrong getting creative with the greatest adversary in the fantasy genre.

Belazoar wrote:

First, raise the dex to over 18, then prepare the dragon using it's incredible resources. All stats should be wished to permanent +5, add another +5 from magical books. Always max hps for dragons.

Minor quibble, but Wishes and books both give INHERANT bonuses which do not stack.

Thanks for the catch, Ughbash.

Belazoar wrote:

While the point of a game would be to have fun, the GM may have to 'teach the players a lesson,' I've already warned my players that not every creature they encounter are placed there for them to kill, and thinking like that will get them killed.

If, using a previous example, you have a dragon torch a village where there are lvl 1 characters, they obviously aren't meant to engage, but do everything to not die. These types of events, imo, are important for players to relate to the people and the world they live in.

If a group forms w/o a key class type, good for them, but I wouldn't cater to them in terms of encounters. Treasure, yes, a little. If your players all play casters, they have more options to compensate for their weakness as casters than say, a group of all warrior types. If they fail to do that, it's really their own fault, and there should be no expectation for the world around them to gimp itself.

This topic is one of the reason I used to hate paladins. People who play paladins seemed to be obsessed with never running from combat or creatures that would obviously kill them easily. As a GM you have to occasionally correct players false assumptions about the game you run. Sometimes, paladins get themselves killed for the lamest of reasons.

It may not be fun for a game, but it's better then feeling obligated to run gimped game after gimped game to entertain silly notions.

If you can't keep the game fun without relying on "gimped" notions, then you are clearly doing it wrong.

Also, letting bad experiences from the past cloud your judgement is one of the worst things to do when you are DM.

My group usually seemed like a bunch of idiotic murder hobos, but they have more than once proven me wrong in that regard.

If you read my quote you'll see that I specified "a game" not "the game." The point being, taking all that I've said in context, you'll see that I'm referring to the occasional foolish notion the players have in their games.

Teaching the players a lesson, by allowing negative consequences to affect them due to THEIR mistakes is not only right, games where that doesn't happen are even lamer when the GM cheats time and again to keep people playing their characters stupidly alive.

I figured the paladin example I used one that everyone who actually GMs games could relate too. My judgement is, in no way, clouded against paladins, I love to see them played correctly. However, when players have nonsensical notions that they will never have to flee a monster and capable, and obligated, without proper preparation to just take off to kill every evil they hear off, that character will eventually get in over their heads and get themselves killed.

Remember we are talking about how far GM's should cater their players, specifically.

And I've had no complaints about my games, thank you.

And too the OP, I think you already know this, but, you should run games "similar" to how you run all games. Your group having no 'tank' shouldn't compel you to tailor all encounters to the group. It's a challenge THEY need to address and deal with, and you should encourage them to. If they wish to pretend that the basic dynamic of combat is going to change on their behalf, then that problem will solve itself, yes?

Krigare wrote:

Don't plan on the wishes doing much, the will saves at 20 are going to be high. Maybe do it with disjunction, I've used disjunction traps as a DM to pretty good effect, especially if the lair has a layered style of defense, which I think a dragon that old would have and put to deadly use. The point is less a 1 shot hose them than gradual attrition in that case.

Well I just looked at the spell contingency and you can only use a spell 1/3rd your character level with it so any 9th level spell is out

Krigare wrote:

As far as the demiplane, dead magic is a double edged sword. It will remove anything of the dragons that an antimagic field would, so you probably want to think hard about that one.

And yes the dead magic would work against the dragon as well but he is still looking at being able to fly, use breath weapons, be colossal and have his damage reduction, all against pc's that would at best be completely mundane with no ability to cast a including spell like abilities

I'm not talking about using the contingency spell with wish, I'm talking about casting wish with conditional triggers.

Please note, that wished don't have to be directed AT the players to effect them. You can wish changes in the environment.

Also note, that your dragon doesn't HAVE to be a sorcerer. 19+ lvls in witch would be fun.

And remember that dragons, especially this old, have lived for centuries and are vastly intelligent. Don't let whiners crying meta-gaming prevent you utilizing the intelligence and experience a dragon deserves to be represented with. Including preparatory magics such as wishes. If any creature will have them, dragons will.

Diehard + Healing judgement and CLW wand or two, they are relatively cheap. Also, the rest of your group should play smart. If you have a arcane caster, Mage Armor.

Diehard + Healing judgement will keep you concious and recovering 1hp a round until the end of battle, probably the biggest thing you can do for yourself at lower lvls.

First, raise the dex to over 18, then prepare the dragon using it's incredible resources. All stats should be wished to permanent +5, add another +5 from magical books. Always max hps for dragons.

There are so many options here. Floors covered in hundreds of fire trapped eggs, filled with poison, concealed by illusory terrain, or nets holding hundreds of fire trapped vials, filled with oil, suspended above bottle-necks in the dragons lair. Layer defensive wish contingencies to dispel, lower stats and saves. Wishes that remove all gear and clothing from intruders and place them in the dragons horde. Dragons are smart, powerful, wealthy and have centuries of dealing with adventures to be prepared for just this occasion.

take your time, be brutal. The thought of fighting a dragon should make your group shutter and cringe every time. There's a small list of creatures that all players should respect at all levels, and dragon is at the top of that list. Feel free to break RAW and give your dragon more class levels, more treasure (resources) to use for setting up lair defense.

Teaching the players not to charge in like idiots is one thing. But massacring them for not making a balanced party just feels harsh to me. Surely there's a middle ground between "never design a melee-only battle" and "bash sense into them with a TPK".

I completely agree, my group started with fighter, soulknife, wizard and sorcerer. Some wanted to reroll as a cleric, but I encouraged them to instead play smarter and stick with a non-traditional group.

While the point of a game would be to have fun, the GM may have to 'teach the players a lesson,' I've already warned my players that not every creature they encounter are placed there for them to kill, and thinking like that will get them killed.

If, using a previous example, you have a dragon torch a village where there are lvl 1 characters, they obviously aren't meant to engage, but do everything to not die. These types of events, imo, are important for players to relate to the people and the world they live in.

If a group forms w/o a key class type, good for them, but I wouldn't cater to them in terms of encounters. Treasure, yes, a little. If your players all play casters, they have more options to compensate for their weakness as casters than say, a group of all warrior types. If they fail to do that, it's really their own fault, and there should be no expectation for the world around them to gimp itself.

This topic is one of the reason I used to hate paladins. People who play paladins seemed to be obsessed with never running from combat or creatures that would obviously kill them easily. As a GM you have to occasionally correct players false assumptions about the game you run. Sometimes, paladins get themselves killed for the lamest of reasons.

It may not be fun for a game, but it's better then feeling obligated to run gimped game after gimped game to entertain silly notions.

The best way, imo, is to have the group roll for loot order, and let them pick what they want. If you are worried about encounters that don't have a balanced amount of loot to distribute, then keep track of loot order and who's next looter. That way, it stays balanced across your encounters.

Have it manifest in his chest and burst out, all blood and gore, but no harm.

Maybe start with the blade talking to him, like a voice in his head. Then he starts to feel a pressure in his chest, etc. You could mess with him a bit if he doesn't suspect it's the blade. Could be fun.

1. with 1) I have an interesting query: What if the god/dess of the cleric is gone?

Would that mean the cleric lost all power?
Would it mean the cleric now casts spells from its own might?
Would it mean it would have to pick something like the "Heir" of the original entity to be target of its worship?
Or would it mean that with the return of one priest of the god/dess, the entity also gets revived as it is no longer forgotten and has a worshiper once more?

Depends on why the deity is gone, I imagine. Usually, however, when a deity is lost, other/s subsume that god/goddesses portfolio's. You can find several references (at least one in PF) where a deity grants powers/spells to the followers of the fallen/lost god.

If an allied deity got the portfolios the cleric may not need to change a thing about it's behavior.

I doubt a single cleric could restore a deity thought worship, at least it wouldn't restore it as a deity. Maybe some demigod like entity. Though, if the deity's portfolio's were free, and the cleric was high enough level the cleric could probably try for deification, replacing the god.

There are more than enough anthropomorphic manimals in the game. I like the Catfolk design from the Bestiary 3 book over the ARG interpretation.

Bonded Witch. Gets rid of the familiar, and comes with some nifty spells you normally wouldn't have access to. Particularly like the weapon spells
.

Eh, truthfully, I have more trouble getting my players to want to do something else. Sometimes I'd love it if they'd just come over and we could watch movies all day or something, but it's generally "D&D! D&D! D&D!". GMing fatigue sets in after a while. (o_o)'

When I started playng again the first rule was that there wasn't going to be only one D.M. You should be alternating from D.M. to player at least every other game.

I think you are spending too much time on it. Do what I do and don't bother with handing out xp. When I want my PC's to gain a level I just tell them at the end of an adventure they've all raised one level.

At the moment I'm giving them one level/adventure (full weekend of playing). When they reach level 5 I'll slow it down to giving out a level every two adventures, and I'm planning on at least three adventures to level when they hit level 10. Perhaps more.

There are other rewards for adventuring than leveling, and this allows you to keep them at certain power levels for as long as you need them to be there. Otherwise, for longer campaigns you'll end up being stuck messing with CR 20+ mobs when you aren't really to bring out the big guns, just to keep things challenging for them.

I'd house-rule that ranged weapons while prone take a floating -4 penalty points placed into attack, (damage + range divider).

Example: -2 attack, -2 damage & 1/2 range, or -1 attack, -3 damage & 1/3 range.

Reasoning: You can shift your body to get a full pull of the bow, but your aim would go out the window, or aim good, but can't get a good pull or good throw with full power.

For casting, I'd just have them take the prone -4 penalty mod to their concentration check.

Chect the Scout archetype out for rogues. it's skirmisher ability may be what you are looking for. Or convert the Scout class from DnD Complete Adventurer to Pathfinder, it wouldn't take much, it's a well designed class. IMO

The Scout archetype for Rogues is in the APG. It's ability to look at is Skirmisher.

Also in the APG is the Skirmisher archetype for Rangers. You do not want that. :)