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It seems strange to me that every other Core Class employing magic can, except for Rangers and Paladins. Detecting magic seems to be the most elementary of things one would learn on the path to comprehending spell-casting. Anyone know? Is it a balance thing? Oversight?

For a discussion of why I'm thinking about removing the monetary costs of Raise Dead/Resurrection/True Resurrection/Restoration, see Raise Dead and the Diamond Thing, especially Sean K. Reynold's post in that thread. I totally agree with him. I run a somewhat deadly campaign, and I don't like for my players to feel punished for their bravery, nor to feel like it is economically advantageous to simply make a new character instead of continuing to play the one they already have and like. So, without turning this into discussion of whether Raise Dead is good, bad, should cost less, or more....

I was thinking about entirely doing away with the material components of the raise dead-like spells and perhaps replacing them with a roleplaying element in which the character being raised must pledge a solemn vow to the deity who's power is being called upon to do something for that deity with their newly restored life. It would therefore be a requirement of the spell to pledge something that the deity considers worthwhile in order to call upon their power. Certainly if the PCs are at a temple, I can imagine a situation where the cleric can intercede on behalf of the party to pledge something to the deity on behalf of the character being raised, but certainly this would entail the PCs doing something for that cleric/temple in the future. Or perhaps calling upon very powerful angels/devils/demons can accomplish the same thing (i.e., the restoration of life) but certainly they would want something in return as well. I'm purposefully being vague, because I want to leave it open-ended. I want the player to have to come up with a worthy vow that they feel is enough to appease a deity. Of course the deity can certainly say no, in which case trying again with another casting of the spell and a different vow, or trying again with a different deity altogether might be in order. An example vow could be to eliminate some great source of evil on behalf a good-aligned deity, restore balance to a forest or ecosystem on behalf a neutral one, etc. It could be very easy for the player to find an appropriate goal, for example if dying in a dungeon of some evil creature to pledge that creature's destruction (the goal of the party anyway) and use that to appease a good deity. In any case, it would sort of force the players to think about the gods in terms of their personality, alignment, goals, desires, etc, which would be a good thing in the game I think.

If the party has no cleric, or doesn't have the appropriate levels, then they would still have to pay for the spell to be cast in the first place, but the cost would be the standard cost for NPC spellcasting (spell level * caster level * 10gp), so pretty cheap compared to the RAW cost of the spells. The vow would have to be carefully chosen since if the deity doesn't find it worthy, the casting is lost. I'm not sure how to handle the situation in which a PC pledges something, and then willfully ignores their own solemn vow and doesn't even try to carry it out. Perhaps nothing happens, except that deity can no longer be called upon by that character, or perhaps they start having dreams calling them to fulfill their vow, eventually turning into nightmares, perhaps even some sort of curse.

This rule also has the added benefit of explaining why everyone doesn't go around getting raise from the dead all the time. Lowering the cost certainly makes the spell more accessible to the nobility, even very rich merchants, soldiers, bad guys, certainly kings, queens, etc. BUT, perhaps not everyone wants to pledge to undertake a quest on behalf of their deity in order to gain their life back.

What do you all think?

I say 5E inspired because I'm borrowing the tie-in to Hit Dice, but in all other regards this is PF specific (uses the Heal skill check, etc.) and probably very similar to other non-magical healing options out there.

Basically I want to model greater resilience to damage, and faster natural recovery from wounds as a hit-dice based capability.

I would also modify the amount of hit points healed at night (or for a full day's rest according to this:

This would decrease the reliance on out-of-combat magical healing, freeing up the Clerics to do more interesting things with their spells AND making non-Cleric parties a more viable option. Might even help with groups that suffer from the 15-minute-adventuring day problem. What do you guys think?

Terrible idea? or great idea?

I totally dig the combat freedom of D&DN and was thinking about trying this as a house rule. I'm not granting the pre-reqs, so if you move through a threatened square you still take an AoO (unless of course you get both Dodge and Mobility separately), and I was thinking about allowing double and quadruple moves ala Mounted Combat with the same modifiers (-4, -8). Definitely no full attacks while moving, just a single standard action during the move. Perhaps a concentration check for the wizard and smaller penalties (-2) for the melee/ranged attackers if the terrain they are on warrants it.

What do you guys think?

I know a lot of us are playtesting (or in my case reading) the DnD Next rules, and I'm wondering, as I'm sure a lot of people are, what cool stuff I can "borrow" for my own games. I don't think anything I write here violates their silly pseudo-NDA, but if the mods disagree, feel free to delete this. I'm not trying to breed bad juju on the PF forums.

Soo with that out of the way... I really like the idea that players can subscribe to "themes" within their chosen class, which basically predetermine what skills they get, how many ranks, and their feats. (I know there aren't really skills in DDN, but that's exactly what the "skill" bonuses model... a rose by any other name, etc. etc.) I think for new players, or old players that don't like to pore over the rules every time they level, this is total old school genius. It goes much farther than the archetypes in the APG. You don't even have to *think* about feats or skills, nor do you have to ponder what you want your character to eventually end up as, and then reverse engineering a progression to get you there.

I'm not saying that this is "better" or "worse" than flexibility, but it's super handy. I don't see why we can't do the same thing with the pathfinder rules. Anyone know of a 3rd party resource that attempts anything like these pre-ordained PC progressions I'm describing? A database of pre-chosen PC progressions (5-10 per class or so) would be so useful.

Can personal arcane mark be duplicated? The spell description doesn't seem to offer any hints.

Case in point. Grand vizier of the army (high level wizard) wants to send a written message, and would like to ensure that it cannot be forged. If he arcane marks it, can any arcane caster duplicate the mark on a forged document?

If not, is there anything at his disposal to accomplish this? Maybe I need to create a wondrous item: Magical Sealing Wax of Authenticity

RAW says invisibility grants a +2 attack bonus against opponents. I assume this is, in general, for when the opponent is aware that there is danger about, but they just can't see you to know where the attack is coming from.

Invisible: Invisible creatures are visually undetectable. An invisible creature gains a +2 bonus on attack rolls against sighted opponents, and ignores its opponents' Dexterity bonuses to AC (if any). See Invisibility, under Special Abilities.

But what happens when say a rogue sneaks right up to an unaware opponent that is not moving (sitting still, or standing still), but awake. If the opponent doesn't successfully perceive the rogue, then basically she can just sit there and study the opponent for a number of rounds and carefully ready an attack.

Rules "suggest" that a 'coup de grace' might be possible in this case, if you can believe that the opponent is helpless in regards to the rogue:

Helpless: A helpless character is paralyzed, held, bound, sleeping, unconscious, or otherwise completely at an opponent's mercy. A helpless target is treated as having a Dexterity of 0 (–5 modifier). Melee attacks against a helpless target get a +4 bonus (equivalent to attacking a prone target). Ranged attacks get no special bonus against helpless targets. Rogues can sneak attack helpless targets.

As a full-round action, an enemy can use a melee weapon to deliver a coup de grace to a helpless foe. An enemy can also use a bow or crossbow, provided he is adjacent to the target. The attacker automatically hits and scores a critical hit. (A rogue also gets his sneak attack damage bonus against a helpless foe when delivering a coup de grace.) If the defender survives, he must make a Fortitude save (DC 10 + damage dealt) or die. Delivering a coup de grace provokes attacks of opportunity.

(Italics are mine) I can see a case for and against the opponent "being completely at the rogue's mercy" in this instance. It seems that if they are immobile (not held or bound, just not moving) that you could pretty easily ready a thrust to the heart or something of that nature. Called shot rules doesn't seem to cut it, since the bonus is only +2 vs. the enemy unless you consider them helpless. So that leaves coup de grace as the only way to flat out kill them in one action, which I should think would be possible if you really manage to sneak right up to them and carefully aim a rapier thrust.

Am I missing something in the rules that covers this situation? Is it legal for the rogue to coup de grace?

Ok, this is a work in progress but I have to admit I'm kinda excited about it. The name needs some work I think....

I've been pondering how to "get rid" of the more "mundane" magical items that compromise the must-have assortment commonly referred to as the big six (ring of prot., magic weapons and armor, resistance boost, ability score boost, can't think of the sixth.) without unbalancing the game. Definitely a certain level of wise investment in magic items is required by players to keep up with the power curve of increasing CRs. You can't simply remove these items without unbalancing the game.

I want to do away with the most common magic items because they make magic FEEL mundane. There's nothing particularly fantastical about a ring of protection, or a +1 dagger in my opinion. Combined with the fact that most of these things are so good that players feel like they should buy them before any of the more unique, but less-useful stuff is even considered, makes me wonder why the stat increases shouldn't just be rolled into character advancement. Incidentally, this technique would work for a Low Magic campaign quite handily.

I'm definitely not the first to try my hand at some homebrew solution to this. Most offer some modified progression that might-or-might-not-be balanced. In a lot of ways it is similar to erian_7's Advantage Point System but without changing the costs of the bonuses in regards to the expected wealth of the characters. I feel like this method is inherently balanced.

The main idea is this. Remove 75% of the wealth in gold, and replace it with gold-equivalence-points that can be spent on the effects of the big six magic items, without having to buy the items themselves. In effect, the most common magical item stat boosts can be bought with points that characters gain each time they level up. The choice cannot be undone, although you can horde unspent points from level to level. The pricing works out exactly in terms of expected wealth by level. 1000g in the expected income per level becomes 1 point.

Enhancement bonuses work on any armor/weapons (though I think requiring them to be masterwork is not unreasonable). You can still add other magic effects to weapons and armor, but you don't have to have them enchanted to +1 anymore. Thus you can have a masterwork keen greatsword. In the hands of a fighter who spent points to gain +3 weapon enhancement, it becomes a +3 keen greatsword.

Here's a table showing expected wealth gained per level, and points gained per level:

Level Wealth-Gained Points-Gained
2 250 1
3 500 3
4 1000 5
5 1625 9
6 2375 14
7 3500 20
8 4750 28
9 6750 39
10 8750 53
11 11750 70
12 15250 93
13 19750 120
14 26500 159
15 33500 207
16 45250 270
17 57250 353
18 75250 455
19 96000 589
20 124000 756

*Note that this is not WBL, but how much you are expected to increase your wealth by upon reaching the next level.

**If you consider each point as 1000g, the WBL progression is completely unchanged

You can use the heroic advancement points gained in this way to buy stat increases for your character according to the following point-buy costs. The costs are taken exactly from the Magic Item costs section (1000g = 1 pt.) Here's a table of everything you can spend your heroic character advancement points on. It is awfully formatted, but the main idea is that the cost is always the same for the point-buy bonus as for the magical item that would have conferred it.

Note that the armor, shield, and weapon enhancement bonuses apply to ANY weapon, shield, or armor you use. This massively increases the utility of the spent points since you can now replace your +3 longsword with a +3 greatsword for the price of a masterwork greatsword. I think this is great for players since you don't have a lug around a ton of magic weaponry, and go about selling your +2 sword so you can afford your +3 sword. Magical items become more rare, and thus more exciting without gimping anyone. In fact, PCs are more powerful using this system since no item slots are taken up by any of these bonuses, and they cannot be dispelled, or suppressed with anti-magic fields, sundering isn't as terrible anymore, etc. I don't believe this is unbalancing in itself since these types of tactics are rarely used by the BBEGs anyway.

Conversely, PCs have less disposable income this way, and there are no rings of protection, pearls of power, +X this and thats in the game anymore. I can sort of see this being a problem for those players who want to get creative with the way they spend their gold since they have less to spend, although the 25% gold, 75% points ratio could be altered to suite your playstyle. Also, perhaps more bonuses should be added to the table, but I'm at a loss as to what to add at this point. I noticed that there are no hit-point increasing magical items. That might be something worth buying.

Finally, I would think this system totally breaks down around the 12-14th level range as the expected wealth gets into ridiculous ranges. I haven't thought of a way to fix this yet, but perhaps at levels beyond 12, the wealth-to-point ratio should change to 50/50 or even 75/25.

If anyone has made it this far, what do you think? Any potential balance issues that I'm ignoring?

Not sure if this is the right forum. I'm designing a new spell and wanted some help making sure that it is balanced.

DEATH METAL
School necromancy [death]; Level cleric 2
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S, M (blood of an enemy mixed with ash, an amount of which is consumed during casting the spell)
Range touch
Target one metal weapon
Duration 10 min./caster level
Saving Throw none (if the weapon is intelligent it is allowed Will save to negate)

The spell imbues a metal weapon to channel the ebbing life force of a creature to fuel the power of the wielder. The weapon must be made predominantly of metal (e.g. daggers, swords, maces, etc. are allowed but not wooden clubs, quarterstaves, or wooden arrows, etc.). Upon dealing a killing blow to a target with a Death Metal weapon (a blow which brings the target's hit points below 0) the target must make a Will save. If it fails the save, the target is immediately killed and the wielder gains 1d8 temporary hit points and a +2 enhancement bonus to strength. These effects last 10 minutes per HD of the creature killed. The wielder of the Heavy Metal weapon must strike the killing blow, and the effect on the weapon is consumed. If the weapon is used to strike a successful coup de grace, the target is not allowed a saving throw and the life force drain automatically succeeds.

If the target makes its saving throw, the effect on the weapon is not consumed and the wielder may try again.

Essentially this spell functions exactly like Death Knell (also a level 2 cleric spell), except allowing for it to be cast on any metal weapon (and thus benefits anyone dealing a death blow with it).

My main concerns are
(1) should this spell be [evil]? Note that Death Knell has an evil descriptor, but in this case you are not really applying the effect to a helpless and dying creature, but as part of a blow intended to kill it anyway.

(2) should the effect be consumed, or should it continue to function after being used? I would think not since despite the +2 str bonus not stacking for multiple uses, the extra 1d8 hit points each time might be too powerful. What do you all think?

(3) would you use this spell if you had it?

I've been pondering the effect of pre-drawn dungeon maps on the player's "suspension of disbelief."

On the one hand, drawing maps on dry-erase (or any other medium really) as the players explore an area room-by-room takes up a bunch of game time, and the results are less-than-satisfactory since I'm doing it fast. Now I don't want to become a slave to the 1" grid, but even combat grids aside, it's nice to have a full-scale map of a place to reinforce the description of a place.

On the other hand, pre-drawing an entire dungeon and placing it on the table gives up a bunch of information about the dungeon that the PCs wouldn't have going into it. It removes the element of exploration from the picture since you already know what's coming, even if you don't know what monsters are in the next room, you have an idea how big the place is and whether you should continue pressing on, or flee and come back another day. I feel like this hurts the suspension of disbelief that you are actually exploring the unknown.

Anyone have a clever solution to this? Do you cover up the maps and uncover it as you go? Do you just deal with it and just call it an artifact of table-top gaming?

So far I've been drawing the maps as we go along, but only for the most important rooms/encounters and leaving most of the adventure locales unmapped and existing only in our minds, but I'm wondering if this is really be best way. I know this is a totally subjective question, I just wanted to get some opinions from you master DMs out there. :)

This is a stupid question, I'm sure it's in the rulebook but I can't seem to find it. I've been looking for like 10 min. How much do spells cast by NPCs cost (e.g. Restoration at a temple, etc.)?

I've been mulling over two possibilities for an alternative to the blanket DC10/+2 mechanic for aid another. My reasoning is that some situations would allow more than one person helping (e.g. Survival for gathering food, finding shelter, or gather information, even certain diplomacy cases) and I never liked the arbitrary +2 irrelevant of how good the person helping actually is at the task. I'd like it to scale with the ability of the helpers, but with diminishing returns from having overlapping expertise, too many cooks in the kitchen, that sort of thing.

So..

Option 1:
Allow first person helping to add half of their skill bonus, second person can add on third their skill bonus, third person helping gets one fourth, etc. Round down of course.

and if that is over-powered, then I propose

Option 2:
Same as option 1, but instead of adding skill bonus, you can only add skill ranks (so 1/2 ranks, 1/3 ranks, 1/4 ranks, etc.).

What do you all think?

I've been toying with the idea of running a low-magic campaign, and having read a bunch of similar threads on these forums I'm still not sure about how best to go about it. I've read about E6, and yes that could probably work but I'm wondering if it can be done without the level capping.

I was always fond of worlds where grand magic existed in the past, but has been lost to the world ages ago. There would still be magical weapons and items, but they would be far more rare and "precious" since the art of creating them is forgotten by mortals. Some of the BBEGs could still be witches and sorcerers and the like, but they gain their power through pacts with other-worldly beings, gods, devils, and the like, so although they gain immense power, they also become utterly beholden to their "makers" and a pawn in their cosmic plans.

I like Pathfinder, I don't really want to switch to a different rule system. I also don't want to get into messing with the rules since I think that is a very time consuming balancing act. I've been wondering if I could run an effective low-magic campaign without changing any rules or unbalancing the game simply by eliminating the casters as PC class choices.

So no Alchemists, Bards, Clerics, Druids, Inquisitors, Oracles, Sorcerers, Summoners, Witches, or Wizards. Technically you can build a totally valid party without them. I rather like the idea of leaving Paladins and Rangers untouched, since they're spells are capped at 4th level, but I'm wondering if they would become a requirement to any band of PCs since they CAN cast spells. I don't want to burden every group composition with a Lawful Good paladin character since that's not really my players' style. Thoughts?

Also, magical items would remain part of the game, but would be VERY rare as the art of creating them is lost to the world.

Obviously I'd have to be light-handed with monsters that posses spell-like abilities, diseases, level- and ability-drains, and basically just careful with how CRs are calculated with spellcasting PCs in mind, but other than that do you guys think this could be done?

Anyone ever run a campaign this way? How'd it go?

I'm sure this is a dumb question, but I can't seem to figure it out the proper way to handle monsters with multiple special attacks. If a monster (say the Behir) takes a full-round attack action, do they get all of their attacks AND special attacks?

For example, if in one round, the Behir attacks, successfully grapples (grab, free action), can it also use it's breath attack?

OR

If it attacks, but is already grappling a previously grappled opponent, can it also use it's Rake attack, and it's breath attack? It doesn't say in the universal rules if these are free actions, swift actions, move actions, or standard actions.

I know in general this has been covered in a large number of posts, but I am developing some house rules for handling how PCs can make money selling magical items and I was hoping for some feedback on this specific idea.

I am reasonably happy with RAW for selling found items at half price. The Settlement modifiers are fun too for helping to determine price modifiers. However, it seems silly to NOT be able to craft magic items for a profit. The question is, what should that profit be?

If we start with the regular non-magical professions available in the game (like Craft-Alchemy, or Profession-Silversmith), you can "earn half your Profession check result in gold pieces per week of dedicated work." I would think these checks encompass such activities as finding buyers, or posting flyers or hiring criers to bring in potential buyers, hawking the wares, costs of setting up a shop or booth in the market, relevant taxes, etc.

But what happens if you want to make money selling magical items using the item creation feats? The rules are (intentionally) light on the subject since I think the game designers didn't wish to delve too deeply into magical economic theory. There are definitely several obvious issues to consider:

(1) how much money can people spend?

According to cost of living, unskilled laborers dispense with 36 gold per YEAR for their living expenses, craftsman, warriors, and other skilled laborers dispense with about 120 gold per year, and the wealthy (nobles, landed gentry, etc.) spend around 1200 gold per year. Obviously everyone accumulates a bit of wealth on the side as time goes by for larger purchases (land, horses, cottages, dowries, etc.) but the amount of disposable income for large purchases falls within a reasonable distance around these values.

(2) what is the market like?
Is it already saturated by low-level wizards and clerics making money on the side selling magic items? Or is there a specific lack of such things in one particular area? Would you be treading on some powerful being's toes if you set up shop and started selling crafted magical items?

Obviously market conditions and the wealth of your potential buyers will play a large role in what you can make and sell in any given location. I want house rules that make sense, but aren't so complex that they require a mini "economy" game withing a game to handle...So this brings me to my idea. What if we handle magic item creation (for fun and profit) using the following house rules.

When you craft magic items you have to roll a skill check (usually spellcraft since it will be higher than whatever other relevant skill check like craft-armor) to see if you are successful. What if we take this check and say:

A PC can earn gold per week crafting magic items equal to the result of a relevant magical item craft skill check (probably spellcraft) X the caster level of the item.

That is, if you are creating magical items for sale (instead of for yourself), you simply make your craft skill check multiplied by the caster level of the item in gold per week of dedicated work. No need to pick a specific item to craft, and to find a specific buyer for it. Also note that the relevant check is not divided by two like in using basic profession and craft skills to make money.

Basically this would mean that a first level wizard could make 2x as much as the average tradesman by creating scrolls (since the skill check is not divided by 2) per week. Or a 3rd level cleric could make potions for 6x the amount of money as a tradesman per week (skill check * CL 3 vs. skill check divided by two), or a 5th level wizard could enchant magical weapons and armor for 10x as much income as a tradesman.

What do you guys think of this? Good idea? Bad idea? It is definitely more profitable at lower levels, since income generated this way doesn't scale with the expected value of treasure from fighting more and more powerful foes. However, it's better than regular profession and craft incomes, and I feel like this is reasonable anyway given that the market for your crafted magical items will shrink as the items become more and more expensive, and it will be harder and harder to sell them.

I would continue to allow special cases for crafting a particular powerful item and selling it for a lot of money to a specific buyer in the course of a mini-quest, but this not something a PC could do in their "down time" hanging out in large cities plying their magical crafting trade.

I've been pondering the usage of non-magical fire for combat situations, and I'm a bit confused about how to handle it.

The most obvious situation to me is a group of PCs attempting to cause massive fire damage to something by first soaking it with lantern oil, and then igniting it. Obviously you can't ignite creatures with instantaneous-duration fire spells, nor can you with non-magical fire like crossbow fire bolts. However, I don't see why such things couldn't ignite a creature that is already soaked in lantern oil, which could easily be applied as a thrown splash weapon (doing no damage, but soaking the creature). Here's what the rules say about lantern oil:

Oil: A pint of oil burns for 6 hours in a lantern or lamp. You can also use a flask of oil as a splash weapon. Use the rules for alchemist's fire (see Special Substances and Items on Table: Goods and Services), except that it takes a full-round action to prepare a flask with a fuse. Once it is thrown, there is a 50% chance of the flask igniting successfully.

You can pour a pint of oil on the ground to cover an area 5 feet square, provided that the surface is smooth. If lit, the oil burns for 2 rounds and deals 1d3 points of fire damage to each creature in the area.
----------------------------
Alchemist's Fire: You can throw a flask of alchemist's fire as a splash weapon. Treat this attack as a ranged touch attack with a range increment of 10 feet.

A direct hit deals 1d6 points of fire damage. Every creature within 5 feet of the point where the flask hits takes 1 point of fire damage from the splash. On the round following a direct hit, the target takes an additional 1d6 points of damage. If desired, the target can use a full-round action to attempt to extinguish the flames before taking this additional damage. Extinguishing the flames requires a DC 15 Reflex save. Rolling on the ground provides the target a +2 bonus on the save. Leaping into a lake or magically extinguishing the flames automatically smothers the fire.

If I forget about the fuse, and otherwise treat thrown lantern oil like alchemist's fire (obviously something still needs to ignite it), it would do 1d6 fire damage the first round, and 1d6 the second round, then go out by itself.

Does this make sense? Would fire really go out by itself after two rounds?

So the other question is, how to handle PCs who apply oil soaked rags to the front of their arrows. Do you guys add fire damage for such projectiles, or is there no extra damage except for the ability to ignite otherwise flammable creatures? The damage should be less than the fire bolts obviously, since that is much more advanced than just igniting the front of the arrow. Would it be 1d3 fire damage? or Just 1 point of fire damage?

Hi all, I have searched but not yet found. I've been thinking about a good way to explain "in-game" why magic item 'slots' exist. For example, why you can you only have two magic rings, or wear only one magic necklace? The need for such a mechanic is obvious from a rules perspective (otherwise rings, and other magic items that you could potentially wear a lot of, would have to cost monstrously huge amounts of money for balance reasons).

I've yet to come up with a really awesome reason in-game, and the rules are mum on the subject. I thought about interfering auras or something, but then how can you have two rings on the same hand? What do you guys use to explain slot restrictions?