Jagyr Ebonwood's page

Why not stick with something core to test a core product? Or at least stay away from the 'Tome of Broken' for the playtest. These characters aren't really a good benchmark for testing.

I strongly agree.

I imagine that the reason the enhancements are so cheap is that they only work (or only should work) for the Wizard that created it.

I agree. A familiar shouldn't "work" for someone who kidnaps it. Same idea.

I negate the issue IMC by being lax on (non-magical) ammo tracking :-p

Every now and then, I have the PCs buy ammo in town, but as long as they're just using mundane ammo, I assume they've got enough ammo between what they have left in their quiver, what they pull out of the bodies, and what they loot from dead enemy archers. Magic or special arrows I enforce tracking on, but the other stuff is too book-keepy for us.
My campaigns are usually level 6 and under, and this method works great for us, YMMV.

On the stonecutting example. That looks to me like a cultural trait. But maybe there's something I missed. What was that reference to elementals upthread all about?

AFAICT the idea is that dwarves may actually have a touch of elemental earth in their blood, in a similar way tieflings have a touch of demonic blood, or the way Pathfinder gnomes are biologically very close to the fey. I could get behind that concept easily, although I'd also support Stonecunning as a cultural trait.

Back to the original idea, I'm very in favor of splitting off cultural and innate traits. I love the Traits system in Mike Mearls' Iron Heroes. IH has some traits such as:

Swampborn
You were raised in the fens. You get a +2 to Survival while in swamp or marshlands. Also, choose one of the following:

• Swampswimmer - You get a +2 bonus to swim checks and on checks to hold your breath.
  
• Muckdweller - You gain acid resistance 5 and a +2 to saves vs poison.
  
• Marsh Recluse - You gain a +4 bonus to bluff, diplomacy, intimidate and sense motive checks vs creatures that typically live in swamps, but a -2 on such checks against non-swampdwellers.

Of course, I just made up the above, but you get the idea. This would be a great thing to do for the races, such as:

Dwarf Racial Traits
Dwarves have the following innate traits:

• Darkvision 60'
  
• Slow and steady
  
• +2 vs magic and poison
  
• etc.

In addition, dwarves receive one of the following cultural traits at creation:

• Miner - Stonecunning
  
• Sailor - +2 balance/swim/prof(sailor)
  
• etc.

What do you think?

Perhaps a blend could work, where players could select skills as "cross class" on purpose.
[...]
What if you could take one of those skill selections and pick a class skill but cap it at the cross class value, and have it cost 1/2 a slot?
[...]
You could keep cross-class skills at one full slot for the cross-class value.

This might work; it avoids the time-consuming crunch and single point splashing, but gives enough versatility to pick up some less key flavor skills like professions or knowledges.

I LOVE this idea! A great compromise between those who want "generalist" characters and those who like the simplicity of the "saga" system.

And of course, should you ever want to bump up one of those skills to a full class skill level, you could put 1/2 a skill selection into it, and either gain another class skill at the cc level, or bump up your other lesser skill as well.

I highly recommend keeping the current alpha skill system, and adding this rule as a sidebar.

Jagyr Ebonwood wrote:

I also support rolling OL into DD, however, it appears to me that they are only rolling skills that use the same key ability, and DD is Int while OL is Dex.

Jump was Str-based and got rolled into Acrobatics. Concentration was Con-based and got rolled into Spellcraft. The first one doesn't bother me, but the second one does.

Combining OL and DD doesn't bother me though, and I would prefer that and leave Sleight of Hand as-is.

D'oh. So they did. Anyhow, I agree that, if they are going to roll Open Lock, it should be into Disable Device, not SoH.

What about a sentence in the rule for the skill that states that it can be used with Dex or Int, whichever the PC chooses?
In other systems (such as the Cortex System by MWP) skills aren't tied to specific stats. Would this concept make skills too complex? Or would it ease backwards compatibility? Or make skill-users too powerful?

With characters getting more feats in PRPG, that allows all spellcasters an extra feat to spend on Heighten Spell.

There you go, problem solved!

Non-specialist wizards also get a little boost with the Universal abilities (which are a bit too good, IMO).

This is one of the things the designers have acknowledged, and it will be fixed in an upcoming revision.

Non-specialist wizards also get a little boost with the Universal abilities (which are a bit too good, IMO).

This is widely recognized, and the designers have already said that they will be scaling back the abilities for generalists.

I also support rolling OL into DD, however, it appears to me that they are only rolling skills that use the same key ability, and DD is Int while OL is Dex.

This news has brought me here from WotC's messageboards. There has been a lot of effort, both officially and in the fanbase, that has gone into 3.x and I'm so glad that Paizo is stepping up to provide support for the large 3.x fanbase.

I say let WotC head up 4.x. I may play 4e, I may not, but I have a lot of stuff invested in 3.x and I'll always be able to fall back on the for gaming, even more so now that Paizo is refusing to let it die.

More so, I applaud Paizo for stepping away from the label of third-party publisher, and taking up the mantle of a company who not only writes support for a game, but controls the game itself.