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 Recent posts by
Matthew Bromund:
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Concentration as a skill has, I think, been seriously underutilized. When I started 3.5 as a DM, I didn't see the point of it. Then I read Quintessential Monk and started thinking about Concentration as a skill for flavoring in-game situations. Ultimately, I ended up realizing that it has a great application for each class. Here are my thoughts, harvested from playing 3.5 as a DM for the last several years (and as a veteran of Basic D&D and AD&D too, a grognard for sure):
Concentration should be a class skill for each base class. It is the only skill to use Constitution and thus provides a necessary additional reason not to treat it as a dump stat (HP bonus and Fort Saves are both good but why not feed it with a skill support too?) All classes have Craft as a class skill, some have Perform, and many have Profession. All of which seem logical to enjoy a synergy bonus from Concentration and would cement a PCs decision to develop a trade for in-character reasons. Why not roll a Concentration check rather than arbitrarily rule that the character is too distracted to 'take 10' or 'take 20'? A roll is always better than a ruling, from the gameplay perspective and it contributes to the idea that a PCs heroic focus can freeze time and achieve impossible things.
Barbarian: When attempting to accomplish a tribal rite of passage such as walking on fire or staring at the flame or the like, Concentration is the right skill to check.
Bard: To overcome hecklers, repair his instrument, and to cast his spells under difficult circumstances, concentration is the issue.
Cleric: Meditating and conducting precise rituals for in-game purposes is always a question of concentration.
Druid: Achieving the focus to communicate some fixed purpose through empathic connection while restrained or confined would seem to be a feat of Concentration.
Fighter: To see through sand kicked in the eye or with sweat or blood obscuring vision, to battle on despite the din around you in the midst of war, a fighter's concentration is often required for the greatest feats of combat. Similarly, why not use a concentration check to modify a particularly long-range shot where the range increment might otherwise impeded success? Not a huge difference, but something to let the player know the DM is considering the importance of the shot and the intensity with which the PC is lining up his action.
Monk: From board breaking to fire walking, meditating to feigning death, the monk has so many uses for concentration it is the source of this whole line of inquiry. Truly, the monk's need for effective concentration checks gives him a ton more die-rolling flavor when engaging in his kung fu.
Ranger: As the druid and the fighter, a ton of things fit the Ranger and Concentration. But how about the ability to sift out distracting and confusing details when tracking an opponent. A synergy bonus on survival checks to track seems appropriate when the Ranger focuses his concentration on a specific detail.
Rogue: This class thrives through strict attention to detail and focus. As so many other skills have situation-applicable synergy bonuses from a strong concentration, so too can the skill be directly applied for rogue situations. Disarming Devices should almost always have a concentration check influence, especially if the attempt is made in combat. Reducing it to just the roll of the die denies a rogue the chance to demonstrate his focus and excellence under pressure.
Wizard/Sorcerer: Far better than spellcraft (which I house ruled out of existence, substituting Knowledge (arcana) and concentration checks for all of spellcrafts uses) concentration reflects the arcane arts as applied in game. Casting a spell in combat has always been a fitting concentration check. Evaluating an enemy spell for counterspell seems much more a question of knowledge rather than 'spellcraft' so I use arcana here. Concentration furthermore comes into play for constructing items as a much better synergy issue with the applicable craft check rather than spellcraft. A dwarven mage forging a mighty sword seems not to fail in has task due to inferior 'spellcraft' but rather a lack of concentration that forced his focus to slip. For spells that take a long time to cast, or items that take an extended period to create, the concentration check makes a ton more in-game sense to see what the mage can do. Even better, I have occassionally allowed an extremely high DC concentration check to give a mage without access to rest or his spell book to attempt to recover a spell that can get him out of a tight pickle. This usage gives my PCs the chance to 'break the system' for reasons consistent with the plot.
In the end, I believe that Concentration serves a ton of great role-playing use, just as Craft and Profession do. Because it is such an all-purpose skill, I endorse applying it as a class skill for all base classes. Because it is driven by Constitution, it makes our dour, severe character races (dwarves for example) much more flavorful and effective at emphasizing the personalities of their races. Similarly, the flighty races (elves for example), taking a Con penalty, have a clearer game mechanic for expressing their easily distractible natures.
This then is my bid to scrap spellcraft and put Concentration back in the game. I have been playtesting this one for three years now and have yet to see a real downside to it.
Your thoughts or experiences?
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The Paladin as a LG-only class was designed to be balanced by the Assassin as an Evil-only class in original AD&D. As successive iterations of the game have moved away from that balance, it has become increasingly difficult to justify the alignment restriction.
It is extremely easy to justify calling the LG Holy Warrior a Paladin, however, and the variant alignment-specific Holy Warriors have worked out pretty well in all the games I have run, both as PCs and NPCs. Pathfinder broadening the Holy Warrior (or Champion or Cavalier even, whatever you want to call it) to encompass the other alignments would return balance to the classes. This makes even more sense when one factors in the migration of Druids (once True Neutral only), Rangers (once Good only), and Thieves/Rogues (once Neutral or Evil only) across the alignment spectrum.
So on the question of a broadened class where the LG version is called 'Paladin', count me in. It plays out well and it has enough of a difference from the Cleric (barring a multiclass Fighter/Cleric) to be unique and fun.
On the subject of the mount for a Paladin, I love the idea of a Paladin being able to manifest his holy weapon as a class ability. Paladins have historically had super-intelligent or powerful mounts and it is a great piece of flavor that, like the wizard's familiar, is best when treated as flavor rather than as a key part of the character's arsenal.
What if the holy weapon bond were made into the class ability and the whole issue of a mount removed to the character's later development/feat selection? After all, the 'Pokemon-style' mount leads to the storage issues discussed here and the older conception of a mount leads to a lot of time spent dealing with the mount's basic needs in a party where no one else necessarily has to have such challenges.
Some Paladins will want their mount and they should have that option. Some wizards want the same (Gandalf anyone? Was he a Pal 5/Wiz 25 to accomodate his mount? Or was he just a Wizard who cultivated the relationship with his mount?).
A Holy Weapon, created and sustained by faith seems to me to be a much more iconic, and universal, trope of the Paladin ideal.
What if Pathfinder has stumbled on the right solution, the Alpha just hasn't gone far enough yet?
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I love the favored class bonus of +1 hp.
I admit I am an old AD&D first edition fan as it made the flavor of each character relatively clear from the outset and allowed you to really spend 10 levels or more building up a unitary character concept. One of the things that sold me on AD&D was the real differentiation that existed between classes from the outset and that was maintained even at high levels. The multiclassed character in AD&D paid a substantial price for his ability to operate in more than one world at a time.
That was diminished when multiclassing became much more mechanically favored by the 3.5 rule-set. PRCs made that tendency absolutely clear as more and more PRCs (and later, feats) were concocted solely to allow a character to mine more than one class without penalty. By late 3.5, it was really clear that the game designers felt that you should be able to do just about anything imaginable through the creative addition of 'mods' in the form of feats and PRCs.
The outcome, in my opinion, was a ton of campaigns where each PC attempted to build himself up to be a self-contained party. As a DM, this made it so much more important to say no to PRCs, feats, and the like so as to make it possible to design encounters where one character or another was truly indispensable. In original AD&D, that was never a problem--the fighter could not do what the magic-user could do and the party knew it; knock out the magic-user and there was likely coming a situation where the party couldn't go forward. This allowed me to bind parties together in bonds of mutual dependence. 3.5 reduced that.
The Pathfinder fix is nice and elegant. Favored class mechanics give the the player a reason to pick up levels in a favored class over time (especially in the low HP favored classes). The class skill mods make it really likely that a party will need someone who has max ranks and the class skill bonus to succeed at a level appropriate challenge. Add in good discipline on PRCs and feats that blur the line between class abilities and you can get the party back in the mindset of being dependent upon each other to survive the DMs quiver of tricks.
If anything, I would strengthen favored class even further, adding racial traits that arrive every five levels the character takes in a favored class (perhaps a +2 in the key ability of a favored class? or something equally general to apply) as a way of making the favored class really profitable (and as an antidote to having players constantly seeking out the latest and greatest PRCs).
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I wholeheartedly endorse the addition of more combat styles for the ranger. There are so many great fantasy tropes that the ranger class fits but don't work mechanically inside the rules as written:
Cavalry (already well documented and essential given the Ranger's terrain focus and natural connection)
Duelist (Attack of Opportunity reducing feats to allow for more mobility, 3 Musketeer type)
Hoplite (Shield and Longspear together as culmination of combat style, allowing for reach and close up use while retaining shield bonus, Theseus was surely a ranger of this style)
Improvised Weapon User (the warrior who doesn't even need a weapon is a classic)
In the alternative, dispensing of the whole combat style and simply giving an additional bonus for combat feats the ranger takes when using those feats against a favored enemy could allow for the focus on weapons/opponents to play out as well. That way, the 'combat style' isn't a straightjacket and the character can apply his combat training (feats) to his favored enemies with even greater effect.
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Monks are more than just asian kung fu masters. Here are some of the monks I have played or DMed in the years since 1st ed. (all of which fit in the Pathfinder retrofit)
Asian feel
shaolin monk (think Bruce Li)
weapon master (think Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon)
sumo wrestler
drunken master (think Jackie Chan)
serene contemplative (think Ancient One from Dr. Strange comics)
Indian feel
Yoga Rishi or Sadhu(wise man, supremely disciplined, living on nearly nothing and possessing nothing, self-denial)
Buddhist bhikkhu or monk (simplicity but not denial, spartan discipline over life's passions, teacher)
Tantric master (opposite of rishi, extolling acceptance and indulgence as a path to eliminating opposition to the world)
Arabian feel
muslim sufi (poet, parable teller, wanderer)
dervish (dancing, ecstatic, focused on rhthyms of life expressed through the body)
Western feel
Judaic nazarite (obssessed with ritual purity, observance of their God's laws and with rooting out sacrilige; contemplative and chaste; lives in desert away from the city, seeks to purge out impurities in his soul)
Christian-style monk (focused on sexual abstinance and contemplation of the divine mystery, service to the poor and downtrodden, renunciation of wealth and preservation of knowledge; disconnected from a church hierarchy and identifying with the oppressed wherever they are; here the simple weapon proficiency becomes critical and swapping out unarmed combat for 'use anything as a weapon' for the same damage is critical
primitive/barbaric culture
Witch Doctor (focus on fetish object and gains power through mystic communication with the spirit world)
A terrific monk class is one whose features and spirit are able to encompass all of those milieus and broad aspects, not just the kung fu master. The Pathfinder project offers us all real promise to finally attain this promise.
After all, they fixed the sorcerer, paladin, fighter and wizard already.
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Playtesting feedback (from last night):
Mods applied to Pathfinder Alpha 3:
-Monk proficient in all simple weapons (monk special weapons are, as noted, simply simple weapons from the Asian milieu, and I have a personal gripe about confining the monk to the chopsocky genre)
-Improved Unarmed Strike is the foundation of monk unarmed combat
-Damage enhancement applies to monk use of any weapon with which the monk class is proficient (as opposed to increasing only unarmed damage)
-Ki focus ritual ability added at level 6, allowing monk to meditate, sacrifice XP and spend GP on ritual materials like creating a magic item, to create wrappings that can be applied to any monk-proficient weapon (including unarmed) and accomplish enhancement equivalent to any weapon enhancement for that monk only
-Flurry of Blows as a standard attack at double ki pool cost
-Improved Vital Strike Feat Tree available to monk without meeting BAB prerequisites
-Wisdom mod to apply to BAB and Damage with monk proficient weapons
Result:
Pure multicultural b%*~-kicking bliss for my three monk characters in the playtest. They adventured in a party with a fighter, wizard, and paladin and thoroughly contributed at our 10th, 15th and 20th level playtest combats.
The 'can't fly' problem was minimal at higher levels due to the application of magic items that the players purchased as flight became more of an issue; monks don't have to be broke.
Note:
No multiclassing or prestige classing applied, all human race only.
Opponents were a Giant, a Dragon, and an undead in each case.
I anticipate that the monk would be much more lethal and potentially unbalancing against a humanoid character of equivalent level (all those combat abilities work best against PC types, after all).
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I would argue that the monk's core role in combat is this:
Mage killer.
Between the speed (to get to the mage hiding in the back), the resistances/Saving Throws (to resist spells cast going in), and the ability to hit a relatively low AC opponent many times quickly, the monk is built for that combat role.
Outside of combat, the monk's role is to provide a profoundly ascetic quality to adventure; to call the party to higher objectives without the preachiness of a paladin or cleric. Importing the pursuit of secret knowledge and spiritual/physical perfection into any of the cultural milieus in which we adventure is a great addition to a party.
I have enjoyed playing monks since the 1st edition and find they can go a long way beyond the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon cliche from which they sprang. In most of my parties, the monk has ended up serving as the eyes, ears, and wisdom of a party. The clear combat role, once understood, insures a good tactical approach for most encounters. The clear story role provides tons of story hooks, a ton of PC interaction, and a really nice way to import higher concepts without the dogmatic arguments that religiosity in the game can sometimes provoke.
So, my feedback to anyone developing the monk as a class is to insure that the class has enough special abilities to fulfill the combat role and enough flavor to allow players to deliver on the promise of the story role.
(Which, btw, is one of my big gripes with 4E: by attempting to force all characters into one of four archetypes, they ruin the ability of a player to deliver other arechetypes into the storyline. LOTR didn't capture all that there is in imaginative game-play.)
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I like these ten things about 4e:
1. It gives us all a chance to remember that what matters about the game is the role-playing. By chucking out years of mechanics, WOTC is offering us the opportunity to return to the idea of role-playing, where the rules are a backdrop and not the focus. As a transition exercise, try a role-playing session without dice, where everything happens according to dramatic flow and the DMs rulings are done only to move events along. Then, in the next session, use 4e rules and watch how much better your players role-play rather than munchkin the game.
2. Personified demons and devils complete their march back into the core game. The greatest sin of 2e was purged at the end of the 3.5 era and now we have a universe pulsing with personifications of evil.
3. Integrated CCG, MMORPG, and minis gameplay into the core RPG. Perhaps enough so to stave off the slow death caused by aging grognards declining to delve into the deep below. I began playing in middle school and believe that to keep that funnel open the game needs to get to that middle school playing vibe, wherever it is mechnically.
4. A great opportunity to perfect 3.5 house rules without worry that WOTC will back-fill your fixes with something else.
5. A core setting that is so blenderized that every DM will be building home-brew worlds that are setting-specific; the dawning of an age of 'Viking only' 'Underwater' and 'Chinese only' worlds as it was in mid-to-late 1st ed AD&D.
6. Rules that emphasize party-building rather than character-building will surely help DMs lead players to balanced groups making encounter planning easier.
7. New monster tropes to explore, personify, and argue over pronunciation. After all, the drow/cow/grow debate helped keep that silly race in the running until Drizz't was invented.
8. Giant seafaring halflings completing their genocide of dwarf-cousin gem-loving badger raising gnomes and pint-sized kleptomaniac interlopers from Krynn, finishing once and for all the days of hobbits and Kender and Garl Glittergold. And without anyone crying for reparations or a museum!
9. An era where a virtuous knight of justice can descend into corruption and depravity without needing to impose alignment-based mechanical penalties or accomplish extensive conversions. After all, with the Devils back in the game, their work shouldn't be delayed by a need for erasing alignment.
10. WOTC finally answering, loud and clear, the challenge of taking pen-and-paper RPGs into the world of Magic-the Gathering.
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The new world WOTC is preparing? Conan's world (without all that annoying licensing)
The worlds WOTC are abandoning?
--30 years of Greyhawk lore created overwhelmingly by PCs and DMs in actual RPGs (leading to silly names and stories that other DMs can use to inspire players to imagine how their characters can have their adventures written into history)
--35 years of Forgotten Realms lore created by Ed Greenwood and a host of others that are written as high adventure novels primarily, where every wizard could become a Merlin or more.
What has already been cut by WOTC?
--Planescape, the philosopher's game with a quirk for every worldview.
--Lankhmar and any number of other fantasy-book-based worlds that TSR mined every time they could get a license.
--Ravenloft and the amazing demiplane of dread (is there anywhere a better friend to DMs than the 'mists' and 'corruption points' when in need of a PC correction?)
--Historical world settings from Ancient Rome to swaggering Viking and Pharoanic Egypt, Arabian Nights to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon--all gone.
Why has all this been cut?
So we can find our pallet of imagination reduced to a game that is easily expressed by miniatures combat. Perhaps, at its core, this is really WOTC getting back to the real origin of D&D--tabletop wargaming.
For me though, it is a terrific impoverishment of the game. Rather than a 4th Edition, I would have WOTC fill out their catalog with more setting books and discussions. The Fiendish Codex was a step in the right direction (as was Draconomicon) but this world they are creating will not have room for that kind of detail.
Consider the Erinyes and Succubus. They do not serve the same purpose at all. A Succubus tempts with sex and releases violence through lust, turning nobility into vice by giving license to every repressed desire a character has. With a Succubus, no paladin's virtue is safe and you will know he has succumbed the minute he strikes down an ally to keep his sexual 'fix' available.
An Erinyes is vengeance personified. Springing from ancient Greece, where the Gods would punish any who failed to fulfill their word, the Erinyes is able to claim authority because the mortal gave it to them. They defile by bringing power to obtain the satisfaction of the deepest grudges and hatreds. An Erinyes will tempt a mortal by whispering of the power to be had in revenge, revenge justified by some breach of agreement or contract. Heartless and cruel, they do what they do so that the evil in men's souls does not go undone.
I never had a game where these were confused nor do I find there to be any appeal in making Devils all 'fallen angels'. Dragon magazine's "The Politics of Hell" is such a sublime expression of how the Nine Hells work, the Abyss needs to be different just so it is possible to show players the different flavors of evil.
Just the opinion of a DM who has been at this for a while and happily adopts things that help (racial substitution levels and 4e's 20-level races, for example) regardless of the cost and hates those that don't help (Sorcerers being denied more skill points and metamagic feats, for example).
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I think my problem is that I don't feel like I have played 3.5 out yet. With the original AD&D, I played for years and then with 2d edition it was possible to ignore most of the rules changes and continue using original AD&D. As a result, I had characters and campaigns that lasted decades and involved tremendous fun.
All that changed with 3.0. To retrofit characters from AD&D to work in the new system was virtually impossible. I accepted that and worked all my old characters into 'concept NPCs' (all flavor, no stats) and built new games. 3.5 fixed most of what was broken in 3.0 (although I still don't know why anyone would play a half-elf) and finally I have built campaigns worthy of the original AD&D.
Going to another new rule-set right now seems premature. I would prefer it if they would simply ret-con in their new 20 level race rules (fixing the biggest missed opportunity of 3.5) and give us another couple of years before they dump 4.0 on us. After all, the well is not dry for new rules and game play options with 3.5.
Consider:
20 level race optional rules (one book for each race perhaps? that could add up)
Grittier adventures in a low magic milieu (Heroes of Horror, and Battle could have another installment)
Theme books to explore Magical Beasts in greater details (like Draconomicon, Libris Mortis, and Lords of Madness)
Setting books (Arabian Nights, Harry Potter's world--modern with hidden magic, Ancient Rome, Spelljammer, etc., the list is endless)
Converted 3.5 versions of the 'Mature Line' of books
and more.
Just another couple of years of 3.5 goodness would be great.
As it is, I will probably hold my party back from converting so that I can get that anyway.
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The easiest way to have an alternative cosmology is to make it specific to your mythos. The Greek gods live on Olympus and all the dead either are raised to the status of gods, placed in the stars, or reside in Hades underground. The Norse have a cosmology of nine worlds, connected via Ygdrassil and littered with portals hidden in isolated spots all over. It wasn't until the Christian gnostics that Heaven and Hell became worlds apart from ours.
The Great Wheel serves one key purpose--to eliminate the need for a defining mythos. It allows the game designers to put Thor and Hercules in the same multiverse. It allows for Devils and Demons to operate in a cross-cultural system (Asmodeus, Mephistopheles, Satan, etc. all being either 'the Devil' in a Christian sense or one of several devils in a gaming sense). If not the Wheel, then a system that will still allow the cross-cultural environment has to be included in any generic cosmology.
For my games, I tend to treat the vast majority of the Great Wheel as simply unreachable, hypothetical conjecture--much like alternate Prime Material planes. I used to employ the Wheel and a multiverse but I found that educating players on a mythos and getting them to really take on the world was hard. It was playing in Ravenloft, with its closed system, that turned my head the other way.
My advice to all--pick and choose what suits your game best and then close off the rest to your players. That way, your devils can be truly terrifying, freed of the threat of the Blood War. Your Gods can be truly awesome, free of the threat of attacks from Kronos God-Slayer. As DM, you are the one who should be defining the cosmos, not WOTC.
Of course, my halflings are still really hobbits as opposed to kender. ;)
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Matthew Bromund,
