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BellyBeard wrote: NPC design is very different in the new edition. With the new design philosophy, all first level creatures (including NPCs and even PCs) should be roughly equal in power, and NPCs do not have classes. Of course a level 1 barbarian is probably more powerful than a level 1 sorcerer in most combat situations, but that's the idea. Based on this, I don't think your level 1 commoner has roughly the same combative power as a level 1 fighter or wizard, and I don't think commoner as a class needs to exist. If you haven't seen it I would recommend looking at the Monster Creation Guide. You can use this same guide to make NPCs. A commoner could be a level -1 creature with these rules. No offense but that can't work for every NPC. The King has to be more than a level one character but there is no reason from him to be a class and power level equal to a PC. thus what this guy is proposing is not a bad idea. Sure most NPC's in town may just be level one knockoffs but not all. Personally I don't really like the idea of advancement or whatever for most monsters that are humanoid in design or intelligent. I like the idea of leveling them up via class ability because it allows me as a DM to better gauge power levels. I just cannot see it working. I have expressed my displeasure with this from the Bestiary where creatures like say the drow are just listed with various hit points and powers. It is too cookie cutter and takes from creativity to make it simple. It sucks and for myself I will find a way to add levels the way you do in 1e because that makes more sense. I like the idea that a 20th level party can meet a group of goblins which are their equals. Thus exploring another ways to do this with house rules works for me better.
Staffan Johansson wrote:
Magic item shops where you can simply buy a wand of whatever you like are too Monty Haul. Why, if crafting that wand is so difficult would a mage simply sell it. Even if inclined to sell it, if it is more time consuming would that not mean less product on the shelves. Magic items for sale should be rare. In fantasy literature when the hero needs an item he has to have it made. He does not go to the magical equivalent of Walmart. Besides Wizards are supposed to spend all their down time studying and crafting things.
Ediwir wrote: Spell list and spell known are different things. Hmm read that one wrong. To my mind a wizard only has access to spells that he knows which is the list in his spell book so the terminology was confusing. But that brings up a question regarding sorcerers. If they have access to one of the spells in the staff because they either have that as a bloodline spell or one of the spells happens to be say a primal or occult spell as well. If the are spells that are arcane only and the sorcerer is primal and there is say one spell not accessible through bloodline. Can he use the staff to cast that spell. I am assuming the answer to that question is No. Still I actually like the version of my mistake better. If you find a magic item you have to learn the spell (if a wizard or sorcerer) to use the spell in the staff. I would give a circumstance bonus to attempts to learn the spell from the staff. Knowledge is power.
PS: You could then make various commoner type class feats that specialize in things NPC's typically do such as lawyer, apothecary, merchant, etc. these feats should not be real useful in combat but would be useful out of combat for the utility things people do in down time out of town. A lot of it would be profession based. In this way commoners that take these feats would experts etc.
Koboldking15 wrote:
... Ok was able to get there manually by removing that space. There is a bug with the link program evidently. You might try entering the link itself in as HTML code but I am not sure if there program will allow it.... Any moderators out there, you might want to report this issue to whoever is in charge to they can analyze what is happening and fix it. ... Any rate it seems to me what you are doing is giving a commoner 3 skills plus intelligence modifier, trained in one saving throw and the commoner Dc. You are giving them all the skill, general and ancestry feats and no class abilities. I did not see armor or weapons training but probably missed it. ... Since the idea is to make the class weak as a challenge this is fine but I would recommend that you include the class feats as well. Don't make any commoner class feats. Instead allow a player to take a dedication and thus all class abilities the character learns are the lessor multiclass version. I think this makes sense because while a farmhand may start out knowing nothing of combat, if you put him in with a group of adventurers and force him to fight goblins and such he will eventually learn the abilities of classes. It also means the class is not so bland for player characters.
Shadari-77 wrote: I would like some advice on making outright orders of Tyrant-archetype Antipaladins: such as what kind of places could they be based in, what sort of missions they would embark on, what sort of internal relations they might have, etc. I think the evil Champions are much harder to design for a game than the good ones. The "good" orders all have the need to cooperate and work together built in and a morality code is fairly simple to understand. There are variations but essentially it is what your mother tells you a good boy does at its core. The issue with the Good orders is to humanize them to make them more relatable so that the game with the Paladin in it does not become a Dudley DooRight cartoon. Evil orders have the issue that betrayal and not following orders is built in so one has to work out how the order survives. Sure one could say Fear but what happens when the person in charge is taken down. Only if the person who did so is strong enough to control everyone else and has the desire to do that will the order survive this. Odds are that without some overriding philosophical belief to drive these backstabbers to work together then eventually the order falls apart. This means that passing on knowledge and tradition is limited. This can be handled two ways. One is to assume the orders don't matter. Instead the knowledge of a tyrant or anti Paladin or Death Knight or whatever they call them is found and learned and the character can embrace the abilities of a Champion on his own. This might mean that the evil Gods have to make sure that prospective candidates are given insight or guidance. So appearing in dreams, ordering clerics to hunt for candidates and train them etc. In this fashion it does not matter that the Anti Paladins can't cooperate. This method might be the best option for Chaotic Evil. The other method is to have orders that have philosophical goals or political goals that transcend simple morality which the evil characters probably don't care about much anyways. So an order of Hobgoblin Tyrants may wish to bring back the Ancient Hobgoblin kingdom where the truly powerful race ruled the lands with an iron hand. In this case the leader could be betrayed but the remaining hobgoblin Tyrants are more willing to keep the order alive because it is useful in achieving this goal. This is a political goal. A philosophical goal might be that only the church of insert your God here has the true way for the world. The precepts of this church must be applied by everyone in the land. Maybe other deities should not be worshiped or maybe the church should be the arbiter of justice or maybe this church's God is considered to be in control of designating who should rule. Whateve, it is, the members work toward this goal and so the order survives. Beyond that, betrayal itself, might have to be more carefully done so that the overall philosophical goal is not weakened by it. This is probably more suited to Lawful Evil. Neutral Evil probably is more a cult of personality type situation. This means that while you can just say "Oh it is an order of liberators" and the players immediately "get" how it works. It is all about freeing slaves, etc., this won't work for the evil order. Players wont know why the order works together and hey since they are evil they will just do what is evil and betray the order when they get powerful enough. The order had to be defined and essentially there requires some exposition in game where the players are shown what the tenants of that order mean to the group. This creates a code that is political or philosophical to replace the obvious moral code that all good groups will have. This does not mean this level of nuance can't be applied to good orders. It is just that good orders don't require it to be worked out in order for the player to be part of it. Just my two cents anyways.
Hey Guys Someone just pointed to me where it was and it fixes the whole Bard dedication issue. The feat Fascinating Performance covers the old 1e Bard ability and anyone can have it. It is a performance skill feat not a bard class feat. Therefore the modification I am going to make is instead of getting the Bard Dedication feat for free everyone gets the Fascinating Performance feat at first level regardless of prerequisites. Still not useful if one does not have at least trained in Performance though so maybe they get that skill gratas as well but probably not. This encourages every character to take that skill. This could result in interesting roleplaying. The tent maker for instance could wait till higher level to take the feat and the way we played this out is they surprise everyone by making a performance for the first time. This way players have fun with it. They can't wow the crowd since the start of the campaign but through roleplaying come out with a virtuoso performance. This would give options to add fun to the campaign. I like it! Thank you guys for pointing this out.
Salamileg wrote:
That is what I was missing. Thank you so much. It still is different but at least it is not gone. However, at higher levels you do seem to lost the ability to fascinate more people.
Squiggit wrote:
There still is confusion with your RAW interpretation. The Text under Leap says that the High Jump and Long Jump use the basic leap. Reading the High Jump and Long Jump a failure says "you leap normally". So I think what they are doing is giving the character the option to attempt a super leap with a check but if you fail this text box on leap defines how you move. Alternatively if you don't want to bother with rolling this is how you move. Powerful Leap says your vertical leap is 5'. Not added five feet but five feet. The Basic Leaps says it is 3 feet so I think this replaces the basic leap. It then says you add five feet to your horizontal leap. This part is ambiguous. I think it is clear that five feet is added to the basic leap so 10 feet is 15 and 15 20. Since it gives a flat amount less than the high jump success roll this part obviously does not apply to the vertical part of the high jump. This means does it apply to the distance of the long jump? My assumption is it could go either way but since the high jump is not affected then to be consistent the long jump should not be affected either. PS: I am unsure how the stride is 45' (other feats and class abilities??) I still maintain that to adjudicate the initial leap of cloud jump one determines the result of a normal long jump and then whatever that result is one triples it. This means that for a character with a 25' stride the most the long jump can be before the cloud jump is his stride of 25' no matter how high he rolls. In that instance then the quickened cloud jump would be 75' with the option to go 100' with two actions and 125' with three. Essentially the rule about not jumping greater than the speed modifies the initial long jump calculation which is the result used to go to the cloud jump. This is why the example says the 20' check results in a 60' leap. Their example is following this rule.
Old_Man_Robot wrote:
I am not sure he is quite right but the Leap skill says you cannot leap farther than your speed. The example is a DC 20 for a 20 foot long jump. Cloud Jump however says it triples the jump and states the DC 20 is 60. He reading this that you can never go farther than 25' as a human if 25' is your stride speed. I think he is reading this wrong. I think cloud jump allows one to determine this maximum and then triple it as that is its ability. However, this makes your assumption wrong. You state at 20th level you can default to a 38 foot check and jump 38 feet. However, you are still limited in what you can jump to your speed so no matter how high on the Athletic check one rolls the distance is limited by that speed which is 25'. The way I read cloud jump is it triples your leap so you can take your leap of 25' if human and triple this to 75' and that would be what you can cloud jump at with one action. However cloud jump offers more. It states that if you give up an action you can increase your leap by your speed. So if you have Quick Jump you can Jump 75' with one action, 100' with two and 125' if you use up all your actions. I think this is the right way to read this. Though I don't know if the poster who says the 5' does not add for Cloud jump is right. Powerful Leap says "when you leap" not when you take the leap action add five feet. Cloud Jump triples your leap and does not specify the action. So taking this down to mortal levels if the character rolled a 15 for whatever reason on a Jump and had Cloud Jump then you would take the 15' made and add five feet form Powerful Leap to that to get 20' and then triple this to 60' If the character rolled a 21 however they would leap 25' still and not 26 since you cannot leap more than your stride and so would lose the extra foot the roll allowed. A fine point but while one would not be able to increase the maximum leap with powerful leap the feat does add in cases where you don't roll the maximum.
Sabazius wrote:
Hi, may take on this was the Bard's abilities which I believe they call composition spells. The ability to fascinate crowds, inspire courage etc. was something that I felt would be a given for the circus. From a DM's perspective I was not worried about the cantrips affecting power that much. As to the stepping on other's niche I felt that in this case the theme of the campaign is such that it is essentially about a group of bards i.e. performers and artists and thus one would have to find levels of bardic performance abilities to stand out. One person may be the dancer, the other can sing, another can fascinate the crowd as an announcer while others play act out on stage. Everyone including the guy who puts up the tent would be expected to learn some ability with that. However, checking the details of the Bard class it appears they do not have a focus spell for the one thing from 1e I was thinking about. The fascination ability with their performance. The closest thing I am seeing is the spell hypnotic pattern which while useful to a character in this setting is not what I envision. So I may have to rethink this altogether. I am not sure how to fix this as I don't see any mention of using performance to fascinate crowds in the book. ?!? I must be missing something.
Ok So ever since 3rd edition they went to this prepared spells every day business that streamlined how spells worked. This changed some of the dynamics of being a wizard greatly, specifically the need to guard your spell books. In first edition based on your intelligence you had a minimum number of spells and a max. This was the spells you could know well enough to cast. IF you wanted to learn a new spell you had a percentage die roll which allowed you to learn a spell from a scroll. If you failed you had to wait until you leveled up to try again. IF you however were at your maximum int4elligence you had to unlearn a spell in order to get the new one. Once you were above 18 intelligence (bsck then only through a tome magic item) you had no more maximums. You still had to have the spells in your spell book and you had to have access to your spell book to prepare them. At the time different gaming groups played the rules two different ways. Either the spells per day was the spell slots you could learn and the spell range was the minimum spells you learned automatically on getting access to that level of spells and the max the number you knew. Option A OR..... The Spells per day was the spells you learned in your book automatically as you leveled and the range say 9 to 18 for wizards was the number of spells you cast every level. This method however was not how it read in the book but many people where I gamed played it as if it was. Option B Any rate the game made you spend I believe 15 minutes per level of the spell memorizing it and you had to be in a period at rest when you did it. Once you cast a spell you had to spend that time to memorize a slot. You could do multiple memorizations of the same spell but had to spend the time in game. This meant that a wizard that had cast all his spells who was at say 7th level or greater could take a full day of memorizing to a week to get maximum spells depending on whether the GM used option A or B. This made casting a spell a hard choice for a wizard especially if several encounters were going to be played out in a dungeon where there would not be appropriate setting to comfortably rest and thus would not be able to regain spells. If he cast every spell he knew then it could take weeks to reup all his spells and get them back. This is why option B was not overpowered. The other thing was that it was much easier to lose spells. IF you took damage in combat in the segment range you were casting the spell I.e. as you were casting you lost the spell, period. IT did not go off and you lost the spell slot. So If the wizard got a 4 in the initiative (a d10 roll because there were 10 segments in a round) then on segment 4, 5, 6 or 7 if they were hit they would lose the fireball spell that took 3 segments to cast. This is why wands and staves were prized, the charge went off immediately. The other thing was that a loss of a spell book was devastating. The wizard no longer could memorize the spells he knew without a copy of it. He could write down a copy of a spell he knew to a scroll or another spell book and use that to rememorize so there were ways to recover from the loss however if he did not have a spell memorized at the time it was lost until he could get another copy of the spell. Since he knew it he did not have to make the percentage roll to cast it. This meant that if you captured a wizard and did not bind his hands and mouth he was dangerous as there were spells with no components. Essentially the captors would spend all day torturing the wizard demanding he speak a spell component then punching him as he was doing this to force the loss of a spell. A tedious and not usually effective tactic but it was tried. So while there are benefits to adjudicating this the easy way there is a loss in how wizards are supposed to be in the spirit of true original ADnD and I was wondering how some of that could be restored. Back then wizards spent a lot of money on their spell books placing magical protections guarding it from being opened, making it resistant to damage. and hiding it. (One method was a Mordencain's Pocket creating a dimensional space tied to an innocuous object.) They other thing was there were multiple copies of books. Players would have a travelling copy of there spell book and a traditional one that stayed in his domicile and many wizards had 3rd or even 4th secret spell books stashed as back ups just in case. I believe signature spells was first given in 2nd which allowed one to know a spell and memorize it without a spell book. This way the wizard always had access to the spell. Despite the problems the prepare your spells every day thing solved there was a lot of great roleplaying regarding this method back in the day. If faced with a powerful wizard (called mages then) you had to not only defeat the wizard but many times find and destroy his spell books as well. If you managed to get hold of an enemy wizards spell book that was a real jackpot worth more sometimes than any magic item. In the system as the rules define it now spell books are an after thought. Something you give the wizard after the adventure to see if any spells in it are useful and then discarded. Certainly the party would never consider the second and other copies and hunt them down. To me this is a loss but I don't see an easy way to tweak the current rules to make it feel more like this. I don't know!
Aquateenflayer wrote:
Not a bad idea however this all depends on the amount of time characters spend between adventures compared to what they are spending. If characters are going on an adventure one after another due to say plot need. We have to get to the top of Mount Orc Haven and find and kill the Enchanter driving all the goblins and orcs to attack us or everyday innocents die in their raids fueled by magical aid. If there area several steps to this where the party can level or level more than once then the lifestyle tax seems out of place. Likewise if the party is on a major hiatus between adventures and say take six months off for whatever reason then this is too little. I would suggest that as the players establish themselves that you force them into more roleplaying sessions where they interact with the locals and create issues for them that would make them want to spend money on other things. Is a character trying to get followers or set up a keep. Ca ching…. there are people that need things or he loses this. Is the character a bard trying to impress the local clientel. Ca Ching! he better buy expensive clothing and pay to upkeep it or people will just not care about his performances. Is the character a champion trying to impress the Bishop of his church. Ca Ching he better give alms to the poor, donate to the church etc. or he won't be seen as a true patron of his faith. Is the character a fighter trying to impress the king. Ca Ching he better pay for expensive armor as well as barding and armor that is ceremonial and give alms to the poor (throwing coins when he enters a town) in order to get the attention of the nobility. You can use a characters background (if you have them write one on character creation) to guide you in creating "choices" for the character where they might be willing to expend their gold for what are cosmetic concerns because they want their character to be seen a certain way in town. Another way to get your characters considering this is to have "adventures" where they do not have to initiate combat to ever be successful. For instance, maybe a wizard is come to town and has convinced the town mayor to enter into a course of action that allows some evil party free reign. Maybe a new guild is "approved" to set up shop and that guild is a front for a thieves guild. The party knows this but the town folk do not. The Theives guild members are playing like they are helpful merchants so attacking them outright will just make them look like the victims and the party look like villains. The party has to convince the mayor these are bad guys. If they do the townsfolk run them out of town. The party gets experienc4e for this as if they defeated them in battle. With the adventure I just described your party members become more concerned with the cosmetics than they are with the mechanics. One character may need to pretend to be a local constable from another city and thus they spend money to buy a uniform and armor that helps them look the part because they have a plan they concocted that suits their needs. You can still have this tax if you want, I am not saying it is wrong. My point is that the more you have your characters invest in their lives outside the dungeon then the more they will decide to spend that money anyways. IF the game is all dungeon crawl and no downtime in the actual time playing it then honestly can you blame them for only spending money on combat mechanics?
FowlJ wrote:
NPC's follow the rules of the class they are assigned in the same way that everyone else does as far as I can tell. A court magician is still a wizard. Yeah I could ignore levels and just assign abilities but that would be very difficult to gage the power level of that character as a threat of the party attacked him. It is better to stay within set rules in my opinion. Your criticism of the 10th level difference is not on point, no offence. Unarmed Defense is not affected by this rule. Unarmed Attack is. A 10th level character trained in unarmed with a 10 strength punching someone has an attack of 12. Their level plus their proficiency bonus. A 10th level character who is untrained in attack has a 0 bonus because untrained adds 0 to your roll and no level bonus is assigned. So the difference between a 1st level attacking an unarmored character at 1st level is three while the 10th level character attacking an unarmored 10th level character is 12 points. Untrained attacks do not scale. This is why proficiency is so much more important in 2e than 1e. If you have a barbarian for instance using an advanced weapon he is not proficient in his proficiency bonus is a 0. It essentially removes his level from the equation. In 1e he just got I believe a -4.
Hi just wondering. Will the GM guide have zero level base characters or will they have NPC classes that are weaker to flesh out the normal NPCs such as the tailor, blacksmith, farmer peasant, nobleman, etc. that are not Player character level? For instance the town guard would be a warrior with light and medium armor and simple weapons and maybe one or two advanced such as say a Halberd. He is not a trained fighter in all weapons but has some level of combat training etc. Likewise there could be an apothecary class which is similar to an alchemist but only certain basic things like making sunrods or anti plague poulstices and maybe some contrips and spells but limited to utility or very base healing. MAybe even knows spells that are a lesser version of the ones PC's get etc. Right now if I want to make a base human guard I just make a first level fighter etc.. This is fine but not necessarily the best method to go with this.
HammerJack wrote: I guess if you really wanted to stop a wizard from casting Dragon Form more than once, this would be a way to do it. I don't really see the value in that goal, though. It is not about the player characters but the NPCs. They would not as a rue be trained in it at all. But to your point a Bard in this case with 1d4 unarmed damage takes a -2 penalty to do lethal with his fists. At say 10th level that does not matter that much. This is the same as the dagger at 1d4. Now if untrained then they don't just lose the +2 for being trained but the level bonus as well. This means in said situation an unarmed bard whose weapon has been disarmed is going to first be concerned with finding a weapon in order to be able to attack. This adds more realism. If the person in question is an NPC who plays the lute for the king and not an adventuring PC then they might put more effort into spells or skill than learning to punch someone. Again I am approaching this from a GMs perspective. This rule would make NPCs more realistic. This is why I approached this as a player option. If you want to lose unarmed for the extra cantrip I am giving the NPC's, well OK your choice. This makes it fair and avoids arguments about it.
Squiggit wrote: What does this accomplish? All this really seems to do is making someone who wants to play an unarmed wizard or bard worse.. and unarmed wizard is already a pretty questionable build. It's not like they're very good with weapons to begin with. It accomplishes adding realism to the game. The court wizard NPC is not going to learn to fight effectively with his hands. He spends his youth training with spells and studying and when he learns basic the court guard will give him a weapon and teach him basic moves with it. This rule would reflect that.
Ok so looking at the classes I notice that no matter who you are you gain trained in unarmed combat. I see the reasoning behind this, every adventurer must learn to throw a punch but classes apply to more than adventurers and there are some classes where the power is not in combat but spells. AS such these guys would be the book nerds who ended up getting the swirlies in school only to later on get back at the bullies with itching powder or clumsy cantrips (prestidigitation I guess. Just a metaphor). It seems to me there are certain classes where the weapons combat is rushed. OK wizard you may be in a place where you are out of spells so here is how to handle a staff. Learning to fight at a basic level with weapons does not necessarily mean knowing how to throw a punch. AS such what do we think about a house rule that takes trained in unarmed combat from Bards, Clerics, Sorcerers and Wizards. The idea being that these individuals rely heavily on spells and weapons and are not true warriors. The classes still retain unarmored defense. As I see it the only penalty is that with an unarmed blow they have a +0 attack for proficiency. They can still throw a punch just won't be good with it. If there are other penalties then this needs to be waved to make this work. To compensate if one takes a weapon proficiency feat along with whatever level of weapons they upgrade to (simple in the case of wizards, martial, etc.) they also gained trained in unarmed combat. This signifies the time taken to study weapons included basic hand to hand fighting, I think this is Ok because spell attacks use the Spell Attack feature not unarmed. Maybe give the player another cantrip to make up for it. I don't know, players that get nerfed usually want something in return. Understandable. Perhaps give the player the option. They add one more cantrip known and able to be prepared to cast each day in exchange for losing trained in unarmed combat. At least then it is the players choice and the DM can feel free to have court wizards and clerics that never leave the castle grounds not have it. That would be more fair.
Very interesting points.... I assumed the Monk was all about meditation. I am seeing that one could not take the more eastern style feats. There is definitely a way to build something similar with this build. Still the Monk gains Mystic and metal strikes which leads to the supernatural nature of a monk. Fighters do have some options. They gain AOC which was key to the old build. But they also have feats like combat grab and powerful shoves that would really assist in fleshing out the character. Still I would have to go with gauntlets. I suppose leather gauntlets with the fingers cut out count otherwise I'd have to explain it as metal sheets along the fingers. The Rogue gets the distracting feint feat which would meld nicely with the concept. The idea was that in combat the character would feint first leaving the opponent flat footed and then deliver a powerful sucker punch which is what the precision damage was about. Armor is not that much of a concern. My character usually wore no better than leather armor unless in a gladiatorial fight and even then that armor was piecemeal (using the later rules). I think I'll try posting a build as monk, ruffian rogue and fighter and see how it goes.
Ok so I have a build for a character I really like and it seems to problematic to do in 2e. Essentially the background is he is a half orc, tall and strong (at least 16 and definitely highest stat with the next best stat being dex). The background is he is a gladiator who grew up in the pits. This was a fairly even multiclass character build starting out as fighter and the next level rogue and then repeating in that order. The character learned to fight bare handed because many times he was not given a weapon and forced to fight armed opponents. Eventually he picked up the spiked chain as an exotic weapon early on for the spectacle of the weapon. The only weapons the character used were his hands, a spiked chain and a sling although he learned to fight with all the others in order to combat those styles in the arena. So Starting as a fighter his first feat was Unarmed Combat as his beginning feat and Exotic Weapon Proficiency Spiked Chain as his fighter feat. From that point on he chose the combat reflexes rogue talent, weapon specialization in unarmed and then spiked chain, improved trip and as he leveled up rogue talents that provided combat feats or combat abilities and fighter feat that complemented his fighting style. The idea was that he was not a monk but learned to fight with his hands unarmed and used his strength and weapon proficiency to make up for the d3 or d4 damage. Now for this build to work unarmed combat was a must as he needed to not have the negative penalty to do lethal damage. Right now 2e has no real way to do this. To come close you have to archetype as a monk first and cannot add rogue until 8th level which is completely contrary to the character concept. He was a rogue because the pit taught him by necessity to fight dirty. I think if I remember improved feint was on the list to eventually get. He did not take any levels of monk because he was the opposite of what a monk would be. He was a bare knuckled grindy cage fighter relying on wits and rage. So it seems that this build is not doable in 2e which is too bad! Am I right however. Is there some other way to do this and no I don't mean gauntlets. It seems unarmed attack proficiency or whatever it is called (can't remember) is now a monk only class feature. If this is correct will future supplements address this.
Rysky wrote:
Published adventures have the encounter already detailed for you and supposedly someone game tested it to determine if the encounters really did meet the expectations for the party level suggested. If I have a long term villain which the party has been chasing for several adventures the ability to take a stock template and upgrade it systematically with exactly what I want the villain to do while keeping the power levels equal to the party is really helpful. Actually when they introduced this in 1e or 3.5 I forget where it started I thought the whole idea was to make it easier for DMs to flesh out monsters and villains by giving them guideposts. Prior to that starting from first edition AdnD we GM's had to just make it up as we went along and I can tell you many times what played out on the table was not what I had in mind. PS: AS to CR's I can't say as I never used them as GM. I always gave out experience based on two things. How well the session went from a roleplaying standpoint especially how the party handled the entire adventure and the challenges in between and not just the fights and 2) how difficult the fight really ended up being for the party. If the party had an encounter with a cloud giant and killed it first round before it got initiative I awarded less eeps for that then say the party being ambushed by goblins and having half the party go down and them barely avoiding a TPK. I did keep the relative power of the creature in mind as players want eeps for taking out a cloud giant but I always gave more experience for fights that were in fact difficult as played out for the party regardless of the power level of the monsters as I felt this made players learn more. But in the end it is all relative I guess.
Yossarian wrote:
Thank you all for your responses. I am glad they will come out with a system for this in the Game Masters handbook. I hope it provides what I want. If it does wat you state here then I can work with it.
In 1e if you wanted to just quickly for instance make tougher orcs you just adjusted hit points, saves, attacks or damage accordingly on the fly and kind of gauged the power level yourself. This is what the bestiary says to do in 2e. To me that is OK for a quick random monster encounter you have two minutes to set up for the party but it is terrible for planned encounters in an adventure because let's face it the "on the fly" thing is guessing and you usually ended up with fights that were either TPKs or way to easy for final boss fights. The system in 1e where I can add levels which means I can add feats meant I could make encounters with creatures customized to challenge my characters. For instance, suppose a party member played a multiclassed fighter / rogue build built around improved trip feat. He took combat reflexes to get multiple AOCs and maximized the trip potential with feats and weapons. The character wades in attacks, trips the creature and gets an AOC to attack and trip them again when they stand up. He used a weapon with reach to make the five foot crawl first not "effective. As a GM I can whine the rules are "cheesy" and I guess house rule them out or I can consider the characters reputation and prior fights getting to the ear of the enemy. So in the final encounter there is say a dwarf with spells that add bonuses to not be tripped added on to him who is the bodyguard for the boss to protect against the trip rogue and maybe a ninja with prone fighting and kip up and even improved trip themselves that is hired specifically to seek the character out and take him out before he wades through his minions. Now if the threat are not PC races but say an aboleth and skum or maybe a lich with undead zombies and wights etc. that are superpowered one can make use of class leveling to form threats that will challenge the party so they are not just cake walking through the adventure which gets boring. Is this extra work. Yes it is but it is optional extra work. One done when you want to make encounters mean something to your adventuring group. To my mind what we are doing here is sacrificing complexity for ease and I think that makes the game worse. The idea to consider is that with any complex game you can always simplify it off the cuff for brief encounters but with a simple game you can never add the level of complexity needed to spice up the game or cater it to how you need.
The monsters are great and well done but the way the bestiary is written it leaves not ability for a GM to adjust things. Monsters such as the Derro for instance have three set different types which appear to be classes but there is no distinction that say the MAgister is a 6th level sorcerer with an occult bloodline or that the strangler is a rogue etc. The stats are set at a certain power level with set abilities and there is no distinction as to which are class add ons and which are part of the monsters natural ability. This means that the GM cannot easily upgrade the creature for higher levels or take the base creature and add a class such as say for the SKUM in the Algothu entries. It is not apparent how to add ancestries or backgrounds or whether not at al nor whether one just adds a level of say fighter. I know the book states you can just adject stats but half the ease of making a fight adequate for whatever level party with whatever level monster there was, was t.he ability to add levels to the creature. The prior system the first bestiary had rules for upgrading and adding classes to monsters especially pointing out which monsters could be upgraded this way and which were better not. It also had advice for how this affected the CR of the encounter. For whatever reason these rules in any form do not exist in the original bestiary. I don't find that helpful at all. I can make changes but it is more difficult to then adjudicate the real CR. I am not sure why this was done. Also there are no monster only feats at all such as fly by. Curious as to why they wnet this way?
OK so games systems are becoming dumbed down and it is not to my taste because I like complex rules. I understand the need to make them workable but I like the diversity one gets in choice that complexities bring and simplifying of necessity removes. I am an old school gamer who liked Rolemaster. Actually not true the game I liked was Spacemaster, the Rolemaster space opera variant. This was the game that had a board game released for their combat rules that had three levels of complexity, simple, reasonable and expert. The expert rules introduced three dimensional space so ships had a position on the grid as well a height factor either negative, zero or positive that represented how many grid cells up or down it was. To move or determine range to fire you had to measure with a ruler the number of grid cells (centimeters) the ship was on the map and then use that number and its height to calculate the actual distance to be moved or to the ship using the Pythagorean theorem. IF I would have found people that would play this level of the game I would play it. So this shows my bias. Overtime however I realized that playable games had to balance out my nerdy math tastes with rules that were more easy to play (especially of there are rule arguments) so I never let this bother me much. Every iteration of games since maybe the mid 90's seemed to get more and more dumbed down to the point that it affected playability by limiting options in my view. This version of pathfinder is no different in that respect although unlike fourth edition D&D it does not seem so bad to me. But that is another rant you probably don't want to hear either. Now at the time I was told that this was being done because a certain group of gamers did not like complexity because they found it too hard and were therefore not playing the games as much as another group of gamers. My first question is why do that group of gamers find complexity too hard. there is nothing about that group that makes them stupid. The answer to this is Yes they can figure it out but they don't want to so we have to change it. To which my reply was well I don't want it changed even if that group does not like it because I like the complexity To which I was told that this made me a bad person for thinking a certain group of people were stupid and the game is not for me. To which I responded Oo a oh Kayyy! then. Now I only mention this version of the argument which I am sure you have seen iterations of online to explain this to you since many may feel the need to assume this argument has any meaning to ho3w I feel. I am an old school gamer and quite frankly I don't have any clue to what people are getting on about no matter which side of that argument they are on. I am not a millennial so I don't get it. Oh well! So feel comfortable in the knowledge that nothing here is to trigger anyone because I don't even know how the bomb works and could not find it if you showed it to me. Nor am I inclined to learn. That being said I have an issue with the skill system and ideas how to fix it that are hopefully not going to involve the Pythagorean theorem. The problem is they wanted to dumb down the skill system so that you had a few choices to make and there was less calculation of where points go and who gets them. While this does reduce the paperwork level of the game it really flies against the idea behind how skills would work IRL. One can choose to be trained in a skill or not. If they are not trained they only have their stat bonus. If they are however the skill raises with each level the character receives automatically and all skills raise at this rate. You cannot master a skill until 7th level or become legendary until 15th and since you only get skill raises through class leveling it limits the number of skills one can master or better. This is fine however it means my character cannot take a few points into a skill any more just to be "familiar" with the subject. Best I can do is the feat that allows me to get half my level in every untrained skill but that is not my intention. I may want my character not to have any knowledge of some topics and a little on one or two That system automatically raises my knowledge based on level not matter what the skill. Beyond that unless I want to take a feat that requires once I get past say 8th level there is no reason to ever be more than trained. The trained gives me +2 with +2 more each level more so the difference between legendary and trained is only +6 yet my level is more than that from 7th on. To me this is problematic. It means in the end once someone gets to 15th level being legendary in a skill is not that much superior to those who are only trained but still 15th level. I don't like this. So my fix is this. Change the bonus to the skill levels exponential instead of cumulative. Untrained 0^2 or 0
Then reduce the level bonus to half level for Expert and Master with no level bonus for trained and full level bonus for legendary (maybe but maybe van stay at half). The feat is now one fourth level add. If this gives to few skills then give two skill raises out each level the character gets a skill raise with the caveat that it requires both raises to go from expert to master or master to legendary. This will allow the characters to get more skills they like to expert. This is somewhat more complex which I know nowadays is the big no no but not stubbornly so and it does make the variance between skill training levels (untrained, trained, e)xpert, master, legendary) somewhat more prevalent.
Staffan Johansson wrote:
That is a good point. It is why I thought they could take the other four feats without taking the Bard feat. I don't mind the occult theme to the party however as it is the Circus so it should have that 19th century spiritualist vibe to it. Still that might be a better idea.
Samurai wrote:
From a practical standpoint I think that we can agree that the only anathema we are discussing is that against using metal armor or shields. I think if you are a druid and you go around purposely trying to burn down all the forests or you start a class for everyone to learn Druidic in three easy lessons and see what those green capped weirdos are really saying to each other that your god or your philosophy will stop granting you spells. So the question is can a multiclass druid such as a champion were metal armor or use metal shields or is this individual limited to hide armor. I'd say that depends on the specific order and different orders might have different rules even if they are the same. There might be a leaf order that is really militant about it because mining metal from the earth despoils it (in their view). There may be another leaf order that frowns on it but will make exceptions for a few "weirdos" who dedicatee themselves say first to freeing slaves. There might by another that says hey you only have to worry about not wearing the metal armor while you are casting spells. Perhaps this restriction is in fact not a true tenet of druidism but a practical one. Maybe the amount of metal from armor disrupts the primal magic of druids such that it can't work. BTW: if this is the case then Sorcerer's who use primal magic and take armor proficiency feats would be banned from wearing metal armor even if not a druid. I see the problem with this question is people reading the book and demanding to know the "rule" that everyone must follow and implement it. Rules are more guidelines to be determined by the players. How do you want to play your game. What Druid Orders are there, what do the teach, are their regional druid orders for instance do Goblin Druids who fight mercilessly in an endless war with elves all join the same druidic order as elves. I would say not, each race has its own orders because they exclude each other due to racial war. By that token do all druids have the same druidic cant. Would not goblins in this scenario have their own druidic language that they keep from other druids. Perhaps the animal orders are racially excluded but the leaf orders don't care. Maybe the storm orders share the same cant and are combined but the goblins and elves vie for control of that order through politics and even assassination when the politics get heated. Perhaps the wild orders feel the racial divide is against nature itself and the elves and goblins in that order who are druids work together to end the war. Each group above would approach the same question in very different ways and the dictates of that group would be enforced by the god or even the philosophical tenant. IS the god making the tenant or are the followers influencing the god. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Does art imitate life or does Life imitate art? Who knows? I would suggest GMs being forced to answer this question by the players choose a roleplaying answer as opposed to a rulesplaying answer. Just my advice!
So I am finally looking at my second favorite class to play the fighter and honestly they nerfed them too. The number of attacks is less and the feats are much weaker. Power attack gives you an extra damage die but it counts as two actions and you get multiple attack penalties. Seems to me you are better off swinging twice as that will give you your STR modifier and statistically you are more likely to hit at least once. This gets fixed at 6th level with another feat in that you don't have the multiple attack penalty but it still takes two actions meaning you could still make two strikes. S power attack was the go to damage feat for fighters nerfing it does hurt them. Overall it seems the took feats everyone could take and instead just made them only for the fighter but overall it seems they toned down the feats. I don't know maybe this is good too. However, one thing is certain the days of a fighter with power attack and a few other choice feats charging the giant with a feat giving them a full attack and leveling it with over 200 points of damage in one round is gone too. I don't know yet, what have they upped for the fighter that gives them more benefits.
Temperans wrote:
Why does one need a plan for changing Martial Characters just becaue he wants to retool how the Wizard works? Honestly take some advice from an old school gamer. Tabletop does not and cannot work like a video game. WOTC tried that with DnD and ruined the game. Paizo exists because of that mistake. Get out of your head that there has to be some mythical balance to the game or that you can even effectively create one. You can't. Casters will always end up powerful in any game. Even if you start out with what you think is a nerfed version that balances it out after four or five additions and rule supplements the players will find ways to cheese the game and the casters will always have more options to do this. No offense to you but I have seen enough of this whining "casters need to be nerfed" argument that is being forced into this discussion and ultimately it is pointless. First off it fails miserably to understand that fighters have had a unique role as the frontline since the game began and trust me you could always have a party of nothing but fighters but a party of wizards at any level was dead on arrival. Just because the wizard could do flashier things did not make them more powerful. The only reason they seemed powerful in 3rd on was that they removed the restriction that a caster who took damage when casting his spell lost the spell, no concentration check, gone. Spell fizzled and used up as well. Back in first addition ADnD it was the most difficult. Spells had casting times. A fireball was three segments. There were 10 segments in a round. If a Wizard got and initiative of say 3 he began casting on segment three but the spell did not complete until segment 6 when it went off at the end of the segment. If an ememy swang at the caster and hit him on segment 3, 4, 5 or 6 then no fireball. Play style usually was three fighters in front of the caster making damn sure no one had line of sight and certainly never got close so that those spells could go off. Yeah having the cool power abilities was fun but good DM's playing smart monsters always targeted that weak caster first because a dead wizard can't cast spells. This lessoned a great deal in 3.0 with the concentration check rules which were cheesed out with specializations and other adds. It was amazing how many wizards had better abilities to meditate than the monks. Table top is not a video game. There are way fewer actions. Video game fights that go on can have 50 or more attacks. Ten rounds of tabletop is your entire evening. It would take you three days without sleep to match the level of combat strikes in a video game. Also the notion that your character can go on their own or has to have similar balance to make the fights seem even is not there. Tabletop requires team effort and cooperation. A wizard needing to line up enemies for a lightning bolt requires the fighters maneuvering the enemy on the table to do so. Because most fights will not have more than 10 actions you can't just wing it like you do in a video game and wait for the lightning bolt to recharge. I am not really aiming this at you specifically just that I find this video game balance argument really annoying (and yes that is where it comes from) because it makes the game roll playing and not role playing. And this is my beef with it. For instance I was playing an Oracle star revelation and one of his cantrips was mage hand. I was playing a gnome so not a strong hand to hand and relied on spells and abilities. Party was I think 2nd level and fighting a wild boar near the edge of a cliff. As it turned out the boar turned to attack the rogue and missed and was five feet from the cliff edge. On his initiative the rogue sidestepped. Other characters were in hand to hand behind it and it was difficult for me to get to attack it and not very wise. We were all woefully out of spells from other fights and many wounded. So having nothing useful to do I get creative. I told the DM that I use my mage hand which does 5lbs of force to squeeze the boar's gonads. Everyone was WTF our you doing. I explained. I can't actually do enough force to harm the boar even grabbing there but I should be able to apply a pressure the animal will notice given the nerve endings in that area. My goal is to startle the boar in the hopes that it moves forward which if it does may cause the animal to jump off the cliff. I admitted I have no idea what the rules are for that but given the description of the spell I should be able to try it whatever it does. DM said Ok first you make a ranged touch attack to see if you can localize your spell in that area. I made this easily. Then he gave the boar a will save which it passed and a perception check which it also passed. Next round it turned and charged me however I was told had the will check failed it would have jumped off the cliff so it was not in his view a useless idea and that had it failed the perception check it would have spent a round "confused". Now if I was playing with the kind of rules lawyering "nerf the mage3s" and "balance the game" and that is not in the rules so you should not allow your unseen servant to trigger pressure traps people that are making these arguments I would have been told you can't do that and the group would not have had the many days of joy reminiscing at the ridiculousness of that happening. In conclusion the different classes have different roles. The trick is not to try and balance out every combat so that no one class ever shines. The trick is to make sure you have challenges that require every classes abilities. That is what people should be focusing on but that takes ROLEPLAYING and not ROLLPLAYING. I get off the soap box before the half orc barbarian cleaves it in two!
So this is my idea for a campaign. The party starts out as members of a circus troupe. They are all experienced newbies. They can be any race or class but not repeat classes. So only one Bard, one Rogue etc, The way to start characters as being similar I would limit the backgrounds to the following list: Acrobat (Trapeze Artist)
The party would not see themselves as "adventurers". Instead they would go from town setting up shop to entertain and would you know it they would always find themselves having to save the town from some monster or problem every week.. It would start out as a "monster of the week" serial show and eventually would have a running plot line with recurring villians and goals. At second level members can multiclass as normal but for them the Bard Dedication would be a free feat if they want to take it. They still have to pay for other Bard archetype feats and cannot take an additional Bard acrchetype feat at 2nd level and must take a class feat. Also they still can't take a 3rd dedication until they have two other Bard Dedication feats and must meet the Bard Prerequisites. Characters do not have to take the Bard Dedication if they do not want to. I am considering those that don't should be able to take one of the following for free instead ( breath control, feather step, fleet or Experienced Professional). Lastly every party member gains the Skill Lore: Circus for free. What do you guys think. Obviously this will work better when they eventually release all the unusual races that they have in 1e but still cool idea right!
ClanPsi wrote:
I don't know 2e enough to just abandon it but I will point out that magic items are the key to power in 2e. Wands are different now. There are not 50 charges you can just dump in one battle. Only one spell per day but that is one spell every day and 2 if you are willing to lose the wand which if you have resources and time you might be willing to do. I don't think you have to invest wands but if you do you can have five of them. The staff is even better. You get charges equal to the highest level you can cast even if the staff only has level one spells in it. You then trade those points one per spell level to cast spells and the staff recharges every day. Yes they took some of the higher level limburger cheese aspects of scrolls and wands out of the system but as a wizard player I understand. Now if you find a scroll you can't cast it unless you know the spell meaning a wizard can't just buy 50 scrolls of every spell for use when they need it. The wizard has to learn the spells. Same with wands and staves. Got that nifty staff of power. Great but until you learn how to cast every spell it can cast you can't fully use it. This does limit the caster. That said ……….. The key to power in 2e as written is magic items. Scrolls of spells you can cast ups your ability to last in long fights. Wands can do the same thing. Crafting items starts later as you have to be expert in crafting to have the magical crafting feat however you only need that one feat TO make any magic item so the crafter does not need to devout every feat he gets to Craft Potion, Craft wondrous item, crsft weapon, craft armor, craft want etc. This means that PC casters should find it easier to make magic items for their own use especially scrolls and wands and the one staff they are allowed. The wizard to my mind needs to do this. The old notion that magic items are OP, god I hate giving them to the players especially the spell casters is now no longer a valid complaint. To me this fixes magic items. It also means making a magic item is now necessary for a caster to realize their true potential which I am good with. Casters need to scribe scrolls, they need to learn magic spells to up their power level. They need to make wands to add to their ability. HAving scrolls, wands and staves should be considered a norm for wizards because the DM has ways to limit it. You cast the spells at your level. They give you extra spells but one a day. You can't csat as spell froma scroll you don't know and certainly no more wizards rolling decipher checks to cast cleric spells. This I like. I don't know how it actually plays but it makes sense to me. As to having to learn heightened versions of spells. This should not be a problem for a wizard to my mind. They should with time be able to figure out and add the heightened levels of spells they already know. I think GM's can be more free with this. Certainly one should not need Inventor feat for it. So this means the learning heightened spells is an issue for the Sorcerer and the Bard since the divine casters will get it anyways. Now the spontaneous casters have the ability to swap out lower level spells when they go up in level. My house rule for this is that when the heightened version of a spell becomes available they can take that as their known spell which automatically frees up the lower level slot for something else. I think this makes this work without much change. The one benefit the Sorcerer and the Bard get are with Staves. A 10th level Sorcerer gets 5th level spells so when they prep a staff they get five points. They can ast a 5th level spell for one point again instead of spending 5 which means their thing cast more spells per day stays even with magic items. The change I would make to the Sorcerer is to give them the Occult List instead of Arcane. I would then based on their bloodline give them access to two a few Arcane spells which they can learn added to their list. This would be at least one spell per level but may two. All spells tied to the bloodline. I would also make them OCcult spellcasters. To my mind this makes more sense and it gives them a different spell list.
Ravingdork wrote:
Except that in 1e the curse itself gave you benefits that overcame it. Blind Cursed gain Blindsight which became powerful in itself as you went up in level. The Curse started as an annoyance and then morphed into benefits. Have not seen this but man it sounds like they escalate the problems as you go up in level and don't really give you anything to deal with it. Sorry from what I have read here I donet get it.
FlashRebel wrote:
Honestly I think the real question is, is there any difference between small and medium creatures that matters. From a pure combat standpoint small creatures are no harder to hit than medium ones but also do no less damage. I don't actually like this. Smaller means less damage and less ability to dominate in a fight. It also means you are harder to hit nd can maneuver where the larger ones can't. This is part of the fun of playing the halfling or the gnome. I have no idea what they thought they were fixing. If you played a little martial character you relied on dex and there were dozens of ways to make up for the size penalties. Unless I am missing something a halfing sized two handed sword does the same damage in his hand as the 6'5" half orc. How does that work out.
HumbleGamer wrote: Waiting for a "Are mages really nerfed threads really needed? " thread. I think so because the point for me of this thread is to get real discussions of what if anything was changed for good or ill. In all the other threads all I got was no offense a lot of gripes, complaints, antagonism from people that "hate" casters or ad hominem attacks because it is "the internet" To me those discussion threads are not useful so I started one that I hoped would be useful. I don't care about the contention of whether wizards out classed fighters or any of the other video game mentality regarding which class is better. That as I mentioned is not germane to the question I have. Are Wizards overall worse or better based on what they can and can't do and if so how and why? There have been some good points made by posters that informed me. Quandary, thank you I misread the Shield spell description. Regarding durations the utility spells like mage armor are reduced in time which is a minor reason but honestly the spell gives a +1 AC and takes away from DEX bonuses. What is the point of ever casting it. Regard the pity effect of the success effect. Sure but in the other game spells failed roughly at the same point meaning you never tried it against any creature that you thought would save. Here at least these spells are more useful. The spell I am thinking of is Color Spray. However I do see that other problems with this. I have no problem really with Mage Armor lasting a minute or so if they would give casters the ability to hold a spells in status and activate them at one time so that the Mage can have what he needs to survive up in combat but that was an issue before as well. It seems to me the thought process was to rank spell power by spell level and not caster level. Shocking Grasp stays 2d12 as a first level spell but you can heighten it for more damage. In reality this may be a huge negative because for that to work casters need more spell slots. The Wizard gets less. Again all of that depends on the ability to craft scrolls and wands. This is easier now as you only need one feat, two if you want to get the ability early through skill increase. Sure I can't do 5d6 with my shocking grasp but I can make a Wand of Shocking Grasp heightened fairly easy, I just need the feat and the formula. Am I worse off, probably not a mid to high level, definitely at low level.
I know the general assumption is that they have been or that martials are elevated to be on par with them and there are many discussions on that topic already. This is a specific question in 2e in my Wizard truly less powerful than he was in 1e? Many people point to the fact that certain spells have durations reduced and I think overall this might be true however to me this is not so great a disadvantage in combat. Most combats I have played in rarely go more than 10 rounds. It may take three hours to adjudicate those 10 rounds but by that time one side or the other has won. Thus unless a spell is reduced in duration to less than a minute I don't think it affects combat all that much. Now certain spells useful outside combat (OC) this could be a real limiting factor. So I guess it is all on perspective.
Wizards do still have access to the one major advantage of their class which was scrolls. Now it requires Expert in Crafting and a 2nd level Magical Crafting feat so it may take longer for a Wizard to be able to use downtime to stock up on scrolls just in case. This does weaken the wizard at lower levels and is a big factor. On the plus side the cantrips are much more powerful affecting multiple targets (Electric Zap) or doing extra affects sometimes even if the target saves. The damage is at least 1d4 plus Intelligence Modifier so they are more damaging. That means a wizard who is saving spells for real fights is more effective in combat and not trying to wade into battle with a staff. This is not a small advantage as these cantrips are unlimited. What I do like is that in order to be completely unaffected by a spell a target has to make a critical success. This makes casting that control spell somewhat less frustrating if the monster saves. At least it does something. Overall the wizard casts less spell levels per day from one on however those spells do seem somewhat more powerful. Burning hands is a healthy 2d6 damage and shocking grasp is 2d12. This is a bump in power level that can make up for it. Wizards will rely heavily on cantrips until the enemy is corralled into the most effective use for their spells and then they will judiciously use them for maximizing effect. This means wizards will be required to play more tactically sound and not just spam spells every round because why not! To me this is more in line with how I envision a fantasy wizard to have to be. Intelligence and cunning being key. But does that weaken them... I don't really know yet, have not decided. Some changes I love. Charm spells! It is not readily apparent to the target you tried to cast a spell on them unless they critically succeed. This is a good fix and I like it. Plus more powerful. Mage Armor is a real let down. It almost seems useless to choose this spell unless you need it to craft magic armor and even then you don't take it, you find it in game and buy it when you have the feat to do that. Plus it is one combat in length so I see that as weakening wizards but then again they can take a feat and wear armor eventually and this no longer hampers spell casting. I am not sure I like that. The unarmored wizard is something I liked form the inception fo AD&D but I can live with it. I think however the shield spell is better. I do however find it awfully strange that the fighter can now block magic missile spells with his shield but the wizard cannot with his spell. That just seems wrong! The only issue I had that they did not seem to fix was the raising your buff spells problem. Wizards have access to many utility and defensive spells that are great in battle but have to cast each one, one by one prepping for battle and forget it if you are ambushed and the fight is ongoing. I always felt there should be some feat or ability that wizards could start off with (maybe sorcerers or other spellcasters too not sure) where spells could be cast into a vessel of some sort or the bonded item and with an action or two released and the magics activated. Thus one could immediately react and get one to three or more, depending on how powerful they let the ability be, spells that turn on. Afterward the caster could reassign magic but that would take time, etc. I don't know. Not familiar enough with the changes to make an informed decision but overall I am not conviced my favorite class has been nerfed. It may be the fighters are now more powerful than they were in comparison to me but that is a separate argument not related to the question "Did my wizard become less powerful?" So anyone with ideas regarding this. Let me know what you think? Cheers!
Data Lore wrote: Naw, because then the caster can cheat and st use reach spell on it. ot Yes they can "cheat" and use a reach spell. Three times per day and oh yeah they don't get whatever cool spell of that level instead. Not so solid an argument.Here is a question. Do scrolls still exist and can casters scribe them every day. This was how the wizard became God of the battlefield. Let's see Volume A is a book of 20 fireballs, Volume B you have five each of every resist energy. Volume c all dispel magic type spells, etc,
tuhs1985 wrote:
Yes it is intentional. The feat does grant you battle aze, pick and Warhammer which are much better melee weapons. However, if you take the weapon proficiency feat at third level then you will become trained in clan dagger as it will be a simple weapon along with every other simple weapon.
FYI (for anyone who cares) Ok here is the first draft of the concept. I always make the character at 10th level as a level. Concept: Eldritch Knight
Perception: Trained
Skills:
Arcane School: Illusion, Arcane Bond (Longsword), Arcane Thesis Spell Substitution Feats:
Focus Points: 2 (I believe one for Illusionist and one more for Champion Deity's Domain Feat)
Spells Known:
Wish List to find or purchase in game:
Quest in Game to Find: All Dream Related Spells inclunding Mindreading, Dream Message, Telepathy, Nightmare, Mind Probe, Telepathy, Sending (Note he is looking for a specific version of these spells that come from the lost archives of his people who were decimated by the Drow. This has no in game use but roleplaying wise the nature of how these particular spells were crafted will give clues to who his people were and their magic) Armor Worn: Depends on where he is:
Weapons Used (from Horseback as well) Long Sword, Rapier (for formal Dueling), Club, Composite Short Bow Background:
In the great conflict back in the dawn of time these Star Elves were defeated with the help of monstrous Red and Black Dragons as well as the denizens of the Drow Although the Drow were pushed back to the Underdark these Star Elves that survived were subjugated by the Drow and forced to serve them as slaves. At first the Drow were extremely cruel even for the Drow but overtime the star elves showed to be very useful in cataloguing and understanding magic that eluded the Drow. As such some of these elves were allowed to serve house servants and even allowed a limited access to the libraries in order to aid the Drow although usually this aid was forced under the pain of death. His people changed due to the underground conditions becoming alabaster white in skin color, even those who were normally darker hued on the surface due to Albinism. There eyes were a dim glowing yellow in color and not pink and they adapted to seeing in the dark. This is theorized to be due in part to the introduction of underdark fungus into their diet. A glowing off white to blue to violent crimson moss like fungus that covers cavern walls is harnessed and processed to make a type of bread. The Star Elves changed their names to Void Elves or the Lost over the years to mirror their new fatalistic outlook on life as even slaves with special skills that are prized by the Drow are subject to immense cruelties. Xevan was the Second Son to parents who were the slaves of a particularly cruel Drow who were given a somewhat elevated position because they both had a modicum of magical talent. They were employed in crafting illusions with which to entertain his friends and which were meant to be permanent forms of art. They crafted the illusion for their master including all the various parts who used his superior magics to make permanent replicas. Not having any artistic ability himself he used Xevan's parents for their creative instincts while taking credit for the work with his peers when the art was "displayed". Despite the controls over the slaves namely limiting the spells made available to the pair to only illusions that are not harmful (along with magical items worn by the Drow giving great resistance to illusion magic) the Void elves managed to keep hidden certain magical prowess from the Drow, Dream Magic. This special version of occult magic was able to work in the dreams of other individuals. Essentially the magic was implemented when a caster cast mind link on a sleeping group of individuals and then entered a waking dream state where they were able to communicate with them. Certain spells of a psychic nature could be cast in the dreamlink using dream message and other magics. Individuals could train each other in magic that they had leaned and communicate through dreams to others. By using imprint message and object reading the formula for spells and other messages could be psychicly stored with out the arcane casters of the drow being wise to what was going on. Especially since dream magic easily looked like the illusion magic that certain individuals were allowed. Overtime the void elves found ways to rebel and Xevan and his parents were part of a group that planned an escape attempt when much of the Drow's family was away. After a brutal and hard fought battle where Xevan's parents sacrificed their lives so that the group Xevan and his sisters were with could escape and make it to the surface world where the underdark denizens were reluctant to remain during daylight. Xevan due to his parents status as special slaves was able to work in the Drow master's library where various information and treatises, none of it was supposed to be magical were stored. his parents had managed to sneak in certain magical tomes to be hidden in the library for him to study. Over the years Xevan collected a great deal of knowledge regarding the arcane because it was Drow texts which they were able to steal over the years. When the small group reached the surface as luck would have it they came out of a pass to the mountains near a great Dwarven Hall. The Mountain King of this area had tunnels underground and mines but also great Bulwarks overlooking the valley where his subjects lived and toiled. He was not just king of the Dwarves but a great number of humans and halflings as well as some goblins, orcs, half orcs and even Elves in small numbers. The kingdom was situated on the outskirts of the border to great wildernesses and many stragglers looking for a home made their way there. A great believer in Freedom the Mountain King was a devout follower of Cayden Cailean and so any ex slave o matter what their race or who their captors could find sanctuary in his lands. Xevan was welcomed into the land and when it became known that he was a great scholar with magical abilities was taken into court to be trained as an apprentice. Knowing no gods but the murderous deities of the Drow and never having the ability to partake in the faith of the Void Elves as his communication was limited so he spent his time learning about magic instead of faith when he could dream talk with his parents he adopted Cayden Cailean and became a devout follower embracing the edict to free slaves. Attending church regularly he was invited to become a Deacon. His order was a militant one of Liberators and so he began training as a squire as well while continuing his arcane training. Adopting the weapons of his surface world clan, the knowledge of which was kept alive by the Void Elves and passed on he eventually learn to ride and was knighted. Over time he was tasked with many tasks for the sake of the Church, the Mountain King and the Liberator cause. When he was powerful enough as a mage, specializing in the illusions of his parents he became invaluable to the knights he rode with being protected by them while he helped decimate their foes with his magics.
Quandary wrote:
Right so that means a specialist gets 3 spells per level plus one spell of their school only plus one extra spell of their choosing ... while a universalist gets 3 spells per day plus one more spell of any school for each level of the bond.So to sum up the power differential.
So specialist has one more spell but the universalist has more flexiabilty
Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Have not read the rules in detail but can't you create new formulas with the inventor feat. I know you can invent existing ones with it. Also it seems that there is a market for formulas as well so I am certain if you have "magic item" shops then you can have people selling formulas as well. To my mind I think the extra work is fine. Magic items should be something you care to invest in and not just Oh, let me take a day to craft that and sell to random hobos that have the gold. This always struck me as the worst aspect of DND, the magic shop. I understand why the players and gms do it to make advancing characters items with level more seemless but to me it should be a process the character has to work for.
beowulf99 wrote:
Regarding Bespell Weapon, I just don't personally think it's worth it. As NielsenE mentioned, 2 feats for... I am not certain what you guys mean. For a wizard Bespell Weapon is a level 4 Feat and I don't see any Prereqs for it??? Is that not one feat! Not arguing just don't get what you are talking about. I also found the spell Weapon Storm which I think will work out. I guess I'll have to go with False Life, Stone Skin, Maybe the color cloak or Fire Shield But that takes a lot of prepping. I am noticing that the arcane casters have very little chance to buff their own melee attacks.
Hi Super Bidi I think the problem is in your approach that you are coming at it from more of a roll playing aspect as opposed to a role play playing aspect. I am not one of those artsy roleplaying is everything purists but in this case the results are subjective to begin with. Take your example for instance. Are dragons so nonexistence that no one knows red ones breath fire and white ones breath cold. Sure your DM could give you that false information but honestly if it is that spurious then how long can he expect you to accept it bad roll or no. Let us assume that no one knows anything about Dragons in this world and that mistake is a plausible one. This would mean every legend about Dragons would be wrong maybe because it has been a thousand years before any dragon was seen. If the DM has flights of Dragons scarring the villagers across every corner of the map then this is harder to justify but let us assume this is true. When you get to the cave and it is freezing cold. It can be assumed that the characters might be skeptical. The party then sees the ice crystals forming from its breath if they watch the dragon from afar. Maybe the party hits the beast with a cone of cold. They then are going to realize something is up. At every sentence I have mentioned there is an opportunity for party members to question the information. Maybe they get a negative circumstance bonus but it matters how they roleplay it out. There might be some metagaming from a certain point of view of this but so long as the character is using the mistake to get roleplaying elements out of it then that is OK. Suppose the Wizard sees the cleric as a rival and he does not like the meddling of the gods. So he spends his time arguing with the wizard because that is what he does. IF this is a running gag the player of the cleric can have his character memorize divine flame with the hope of proving the wizard wrong. DM's are better inclined to give wrong information of a type that aids the plot happening not just be mean. Say the mistake is recalling knoweldge about a troll the party is hunting. They look to the ranger who uses nature lore because no one has monster lore at any high level. The ranger rolls bad and the DM says that Trolls skin dries out quickly and thus they spend time in rivers submerging themselves. Let us assume it is a Rock Troll that lives in the mountains. The party goes to the River Bed where a whole other set of events and adventure awaits that gets thrust on them. The mistake hampers the party who lose the troll's trail but it offers more plot twists and maybe eventually they find out where the trolls are hiding at the end of it. This to me is what these rolls should be used for.
Castilliano wrote: Eldritch Knights couldn't cast spells through a weapon until 10th on a critical hit so you may be thinking of the Magus who specialized in stacking spells on their weapon damage. An archer build... Hi everyone Thanks for the responses. This is a character so it is not about the metagame entirely. The idea is a wizard that casts spells in armor riding a steed. Fighter MC does not give you armor prof which is why I am not using it and the champion is closet to a Knight. Castiallano In 3rd, 3.5 and Pathfinder one you could deliver a spell with a touch range through a melee or unarmed strike if you had the Unarmed Fighting Feat. When you did so if you hit the target took damage from your weapon and the spell simultaneously but separately. The downside was you required a melee attack and not a melee touch attack which made it more difficult to hit armored opponents. The spell was a charge that was lost if you missed. This only worked for spells with a range of touch which is not as good as the magus or the prestige classes critical which converted say lightning bolt to electricity damage. In 2e the way I did this was to take the still spell feat and memorize all my spells one level down when the caster was "in armor" on the battlefield and supplement with wands he created. Certain later feats allowed the still to be added without increasing spell level on a limited basis. Many of the spells the knight chose were buff spells such as greater magic weapon, heroism etc. that overcame the wizards poor THACO to place them comparable with fighters. The mage armor not stacking is not as bad for this build as the magic weapon bonus limited to a +1. You would think they would heighten twice to +2 and +3 to mirror greater magic weapon but this was not done. So while I agree some of your other ideas might be more effective I think this particular build wizard with champion liberator MC is more descriptive of the character roleplaying wise.
OK so I am trying to see how certain concepts flesh out in 2e. One is the concept of the Eldritch Knight. This is a knight in full plate armor casting wizard spells. The character is an elf. Now in 1e this had to be done with still spell feat with one or two levels sacrificed to Cavalier. In 2e the build is more straight forward. Play a Wizard class with an Elf Heritage. Choose the elven weapons feat as your 1st level weapons and you get access to longswords and long bows. Then at 2nd level choose the Champion Dedication to get access to armor, assume at 1st level you were an apprentice or squire and at 2nd you graduate to squire or knight I guess. With the 3rd general feat take ride and wala you can call yourself an eldritch knight. Now the thing about the Eldritch Knight was using spells to accentuate melee. There is a feat a wizard can take that allows an extra d6 on a strike if you recently cast a spell since the last round. The rules for targeting now say nothing about allowing touch spells or other to channel through a melee attack. It is all a touch attack to I guess no stabby with sword release shocking grasp. Oh well! The book states there are specific rare spells which utilize a weapon to deliver the spell however I could not find them. I really am disappointed that the authors did not have a better index to establish that rules are different from the way it worked before i.e. stating spells cannot be cast through a weapon or unarmed attack that does damage which was an option before. They lifted the cast spells in armor restriction as well except for druids but never mentioned this. Does anyone know if there are rules for activating spells through a weapon I missed or which spells utilize an attack? Also Mage Armor gives an item bonus to AC. Does this stack with worn armor or is it just armor. The description seems vague.? Lastly are there spells that buff attack better than Magic Weapon. This is only +1 and has not heighten capabilities. So I don't see how one cast cast a spell on the fly to get better attacks.? Just trying to figure 2e out!
Arachnofiend wrote: Yes, wizards got nerfed. This is fine because the 3.5 Wizard ranks towards the top of classes in any RPG that really needed a nerf. In a sense it depends on how you define nerf! Take Baleful Polymorph for instance. IT is 6th level now but my point is the spell. The regular failure turns one into a frog for one minute which is worse than the other version where is lasted longer. So roleplaying wise it is nerfed. But combat wise no because most combats end after 10 rounds so the time length is not relevant there. What makes it useful is the other effects. The success is minor but useful if used right for instance during a wedding or someone giving an important speech. What I really like is the versatility of the critical failure. This is useful. So I can have a high level witch crash a royal wedding and turn the 0 level princess into a frog with the PC's watching. Most likely she critical fails and it is permanent. The PC's might be able to handle the witch and kill her but now have to go on an adventure to save the princess. Having spells assured to do major things to low levels makes the spellcaster mirror fantasy writing. Sure the protagonists could overcome the magic themselves but it was a terror for the populace. This in a sense I like.
Here is a weird question? I do not see any reference to whether armor interrupts thee ability of casters to cast spells. I see for instance that the Bard only has proficiency in Light Armor. Before that there were either no ability to cast in armor if the spell had a somatic component without making a concentration check which was pretty impossible if you wore say Plate Mail. So it would seen the control is if you where armor you are not proficient in you lose your level bonus and the extra +2 to 8 or so which might balance it out. However if at second level you multiclass as a Champion in 2E you gain proficiency in Light, Medium and Heavy Armor. So by multiclassing your Bard can wear Plate Mail. There does not seem to be a rule that says he cannot cast spells. If this is so then if a wizard multi classes as a Champion then it seems he can cast his spells in Plate Mail. Am I wrong? It seems I should be..... I
Wrath wrote:
Skin coloration is a very minor genetic variation hardly worth mentioning. Humans are probably the least differentiated species given we are not separated. They did a study of a tribe in the African Congo which was thought to have been isolated from other populations to see about distinctions in DNA. They found the genes to make every other so called race on the planet. There is much more sexual dimorphism among humans with men having 20% more muscle mass and women being able to endure pain and fight off disease better than men Many of those cyclids you speak about are different species or developing into different species. To have a creature like the deep sea angler where the female is 100 times the size of the male you need sexual dimorphism. Changes like this tied to race would preclude mating. There might be reasons it could happen but it would not be the norm. |
