Phil. L's page

I really can't believe this argument has gone on for so long. The rules clearly indicate how the feats should be interpreted. If the designers wanted the enhancement bonus of the shield to stack with the bonus of Shield Master they would have said so. Since Paizo specifically uses the term shield bonus I don't think there is anyone who can honestly say that the feat is poorly worded. And, in the case that someone wants to turn his magical shield into a magical weapon, then I'm afraid the bonuses won't stack unless Paizo says otherwise (but see below).

There is a clear distinction in the rules between a shield and a weapon. Even when a shield with an enhancement bonus is used to make a shield bash it is still not treated as a magic weapon. To do so the shield must be separately enchanted as a weapon (and costs as much to do so as any normal weapon). It may not make sense, but for game balance reasons it doesn't really need to.

I'm not sure if this was answered previously, but if you have Greater Shield Focus, Shield Focus and Shield Mastery does your bonus to hit and damage with a heavy shield increase to +4 (this would certainly abrogate the need to give your shield a high enhancement bonus and would enable you to make it a flaming or holy shield instead)?

Is the duration the same as that of the spell the druid is mimicking or the duration of his normal wild shape? Being able to transform into a huge dragon at 15th level (who could also cast druid spells with Natural Spell) for 15 hours seems a tad too powerful (well perhaps more than a tad).

I'm all in favor of making the druid a bit better (I allow druids to wild shape as a move action at 11th level and as a swift action at 19th level), but this seems to be overdoing it. I'm not saying it can't work, but it needs a bit of modification first.

As for the natural/non-natural, intelligent/non-intelligent argument, I can swing both ways. You could argue that dragons are not representative of nature because of their innately magical origins, but you could also say that their breath weapons and immunities make them highly representative of the elemental forces at play in the world.

Am I correct in thinking that a Rogue can now sneak attack creatures that are immune to critical hits?

I think it goes something like this:

Corporeal undead (can be sneak attacked)
Incorporeal undead (cannot be sneak attacked)
Constructs (can be sneak attacked)
Elementals (cannot be sneak attacked)
Oozes (cannot be sneak attacked)
Plants (can be sneak attacked - not a 100% sure on that one).

I'm sure that there will be some exceptions to this listed in the book.

Already this has become an arguing point among people. I personally think that expanding the list is a good thing.

Unfortunately, it's just one of those features of the game. However, you could easily create a feat whereby an evil or neutral cleric would give up two uses of his channel energy class feature to channel positive energy, but only to heal his living allies. The feat could be called something like Heal the Wicked and require the Selective Channeling feat as a prerequisite.

I don't have a problem with clerics getting medium armor. If a cleric desperately wants heavy armor he can simply take the proficiency feat to get it.

On another note, I give all domains a tertiary ability. The fact that domains like Darkness, Glory, Rune and Travel get extra bonuses, while others don't just seems inconsistent to me. As a result, the War domain grants the Heavy Armor Proficiency feat in my games.

The ranger has certainly become a better class than in was in previous editions, though for some people the changes weren't quite good enough (which is surprising considering how good the ranger is nowadays). As has been pointed out previously, much of the fault lies with your GM and his lack of gaming sensitivity, which is something that you probably can't fix.

A ranger who chooses animals or goblins as his favored enemy at 1st-level will probably find plenty of opportunities to fight such creatures at lower levels, but by 10th level these foes might become virtually nonexistent. At these advanced levels the ranger is much more likely to be fighting powerful dragons, outsiders or undead, and his bonus against goblins becomes something of a dead ability. Because of that, I strongly believe that the ranger should be able to swap out favored enemies in favor of other favored enemies at lower levels. In other words, the ranger would be able to swap his 15th level favored enemy choice with his 1st level or 5th level favored enemy. This would also abrogate the need for expanded ranger enemy lists.

Unabashed attempt to endear hatred and lust in readers by mentioning the words "4e is great" and "Seoni's boobies".

It fills me with unbridled joy to know that this thread is still going strong, and hasn't improved in quality one iota.

The LHC caused the recent market crisis. It's the butterfly effect. Run a few atoms is a circuit and halfway around the world the financial system collapses.

I'm a big fan of alternate class abilities. I also think the paladin is quite powerful enough with all the changes. Those auras really start to help at higher levels. I think that paladins who want to focus on combat could lose their auras and replace them with feats like weapon focus or weapon spec. It's not quite a perfect trade off, but I'm worried about the power-creep with paladins. Plus, the restrictions on paladins aren't that restrictive in the hands of a good roleplayer (though they make many of the decisions in Pathfinder adventures interesting for PCs).

Theoretically, this sounds like a good idea, but the proof as always is in the playtesting. You never know how the game will change until you playtest paladins and clerics together with the current changes and then playtest the same group under the same conditions using the alternate changes. Of course, this never happens in reality, so is difficult to pull off.

As I said, theoretically it sounds good, but doesn't this weaken clerics? Maybe they should get d10 hit points to compensate?

Now some of the same people who say yes to having lay on hands changed would say no to the d10 hit points option. Why? Are their reasons legitimate ones? You can argue this any number of ways.

And so the circle turns... and turns.

I can't believe more people haven't picked up Kobold Quarterly yet! You have your great campaign material and adventures covered by Paizo, but Kobold Quarterly takes over from where DRAGON left off. If you used to purchase DRAGON you should really pick this one up. It might even have a bit of Pathfinder stuff in there in the future.

Kobold Quarterly is the best of the current RPG magazines at the moment hands down! All of the issues are spectacular and I have had the privilege of contributing too the last two issues (and the one coming up).

So give KQ a shot! You won't be disappointed!

Arazyr wrote:

I would suggest the following substitutions:

bludgeoning/piercing/slashing: +2
cold iron/silver: +3
alignment (chaotic/evil/good/lawful): +4
adamantine*: +5

(If I recall correctly, older editions of D&D [1st Edition, I think] pretty much said +5 weapons were automatically made out of adamantine, or something like that. If I'm wrong, please correct me gently. 8^)

No, you're right on for 1e. And all +3 weapons were assumed to be of "special meteorite iron," so assigning "+3 = cold iron" makes sense as well.

Phil. L wrote:

The monk is really one of those classes that should be redesigned from the ground up. I believe most of the problems stem from the monk's abilities in that there is really no cohesion to them. The original 3e monk was a throwback to 1e (just like the 3e ogre mage), and the 3.5 version wasn't really changed.

I like the concept of monk training or abilities like part the veil, but feel that these small solutions won't solve the greater problem that the monk has. That is, the lack of a clearly defined role. Really, monks need to be either a replacement fighter or a replacement rogue, not some weird mixture of both with a hodge-podge of loosely related abilities.

Redesigning the class would also stop the problem of giving the existing monk too many abilities and suddenly making them more powerful than the other classes without really realizing it. I think more thought needs to go into the basics of the class.

All that being said, I have actually played a 3.5 monk successfully in a campaign. So, go figure!

But we can't do a full redesign of the class, Jason has already pointed that out. We have to work within an acceptable boundary of backwards compatibility.

So working within those parameters, do you have any suggestions?

What do you feel is the best and worst feature of each of the 3 designs currently on the table?

I feel they are taking a rogue's role.

I would start by stripping away most of the monk's higher-level supernatural abilities. I'm sorry, but abilities like timeless body, perfect self and diamond soul might have "flavor" but few of the abilities are actually useful and most of them are not linked in a believable way. Some people might balk at removing timeless body, diamond body or tongue of the sun and moon, but none of the abilities really make the monk a better monk. So, that's the first thing I would do. Remove some of the higher order supernatural abilities of the monk with the exception of abundant step and empty body (both for movement purposes)

The monk's ultimate attributes are maneuverability, speed and the ability to make lots of strikes. I would give monks a bonus to Acrobatics, Climb and Jump checks, and increase this bonus as the monk increases in level. I would allow them to take 10 on these checks once they reached a certain level, and would give them a range of supernatural abilities that would help them cover distances quickly or take the fight to hard-to-reach foes, such as the ability to fly for limited durations and balance on impossibly narrow surfaces (much like the wuxia monks of film and literature). This would give them more movement options.

I would use your qi power idea for combat. Monks would be able to spend their qi points to improve their AC, gain the same BAB as a fighter, make flurry of blows attacks, reroll dice rolls, or stun victims (or nauseate or daze). I would also increase the number of qi points a monk would get each level (like others have suggested). I would actually remove the whole bonus feat section as people can never seem to agree on what feats should go in the monk's grab-bag.

I would create ki straps and leave amulet of mighty fists (but call it amulet of mighty attacks). The ki straps would be less expensive than the amulet but could only be used by monks and those with the Improved Unarmed Strike feat.

I would improve monk weapons by increasing the damage monks can do with them. Basically, the monk weapons would improve whenever the monk's unarmed attacks improve. Monk weapons would always do one less damage dice however, to prevent monk's relaying on them at all the time. I would also increase the range of monk weapons to include spears and various types of swords (such as the butterfly sword and even longsword).

This is a very quick rundown of the changes I would make, hence they would probably need a great deal more revision and thought.

It was first used for some of the monsters in Monster Manual III, so its not OGL but for personal games it's fine.

The trouble with some of your house rules Saurstalk is the issue of game balance. What works for a select group of gamers is often open to abuse by other gamers and gaming groups. For game balance reasons (and so Pathfinder doesn't become a weird 4e clone) Paizo can't make many of the changes you suggest.

My golden rule for house rules is that until you have playtested your house rules from 1st to 20th lvl, you really have no idea of their overall impact on your games or your campaign. Often a change that seems okay when you are running 3rd-lvl characters becomes a monumental headache at 12th-lvl. This is why Paizo cannot make sweeping changes. It would take too much time to see if they would unbalance the game. It's also why most of your house rules will be ignored in favor of more conservative changes. If Paizo make too many changes many people will start comparing them to WotC.

Squirrelloid wrote:

This has long been regarded as an undocumented feature (re:bug) of 3.5, and is widely known. (I seem to recall a WotC CharOp thread in which it was proposed a halfling rogue should take the feat (whose name i'm forgetting - has to do with snakes iirc) which lets you swallow whole large creatures and smaller, or something like that. Tagline "I will eat you". And that was mostly a demonstration of how silly the lack of limitation was.)

Something appearing on those boards doesn't make it so, however. The number of rules errors made by "character optimizers" is nothing short of staggering. The base rule for a feat, bonus or not, is meet the prereqs, and sans documentation of being able to skip prereqs, you must either meet them or not take the feat.

The monk is really one of those classes that should be redesigned from the ground up. I believe most of the problems stem from the monk's abilities in that there is really no cohesion to them. The original 3e monk was a throwback to 1e (just like the 3e ogre mage), and the 3.5 version wasn't really changed.

I like the concept of monk training or abilities like part the veil, but feel that these small solutions won't solve the greater problem that the monk has. That is, the lack of a clearly defined role. Really, monks need to be either a replacement fighter or a replacement rogue, not some weird mixture of both with a hodge-podge of loosely related abilities.

Redesigning the class would also stop the problem of giving the existing monk too many abilities and suddenly making them more powerful than the other classes without really realizing it. I think more thought needs to go into the basics of the class.

All that being said, I have actually played a 3.5 monk successfully in a campaign. So, go figure!

Zaister wrote:

Multiclass restrictions for monks and paladins have been removed in Alpha 3.

And this sounds bad... Maybe game-balance oriented, but kinda blows the background texture of the classes. How can you dabble into paladinhood or monasticism?
I would go for feats, specifying a class which made sense within your character concept, like Paladin-clerics (warrior priests) or monk-rogues (for a fantasy ninja type), not free multiclassing.

Also, requiring that the new class does not go over your paladin or monk level sounds like a good idea.

Maybe that's not in the spirit of current-day power gaming, but I am the story background guy :-)

I'm in that funny camp of liking both DR versions, and can see where both could be implemented.

For example:

A true lycanthrope could have DR 10/silver or +2 weapon, while a cursed lycanthrope could have DR 5/silver or +1 weapon. Similarly, an iron golem could be DR/adamantine and +1 weapon or simply +3 weapon, while a balor could have DR 15/good and +2 weapon or simply +4 weapon.

It's interesting to note that 4e has almost completely done away with DR and replaced it with a new mechanic altogether.

Has anyone looked at Monte Cook's Book of Experimental Might II? 228 combat feats for your fighter, including double-feats, uber feats and oblation feats, oh my!

By the way, I think Grounded Swing should actually be Strength-based, so that players who don't have a high Dexterity can take it. Those who want to avoid falling over can make Athletics checks while those who don't can take this feat. Its just an option, but this feat puts me in mind of a short stocky dwarf slowly moving forward and swinging his warhammer. I also think you should still be impaired in movement. (half-speed at least) because you are concentrating on keeping your footing.

You could also just ignore my suggestion.

Some people hate it some people love it. It seems the majority of people who dislike rage points are those who don't want to have to keep another points tally. It comes down to individual gamers and their gaming styles and preferences.

I really like the idea of regaining (or possibly even gaining) rage points by accomplishing various actions, but can see how such a system might be open to abuse. It also smacks of WOW a bit, which is not what I really want to see in Pathfinder.

Considering you add your Con bonus every level to your rage points I can't see how the abilities should be lessened in cost. I do think new abilities could be implemented, though (just like they have talked about in the other barbarian thread).

I think Paizo should keep the rage point system. If people don't want to use it they can use the old 3.5 PHB barbarian instead.

Those people who want to include Run in an Athletics-type skill (or simply have it as a separate skill) I have a few things I want you to consider.

Running any length of time in the game is currently a factor of Constitution. How would a Run/Athletics-based skill that uses Strength as it prime ability score handle this conundrum?

What would be the DC for running triple your speed? What would be the DC for running quadruple your speed in armor? Would your armor check penalty affect your running speed? What would the Athletics/Run DC be for running 10 times your speed for 3 rounds?

There are so many questions.

Now its up to all those people advocating change to provide some answers.

The floor is yours.

TWF needs to be as beneficial to use as using a two-handed weapon, but cannot be more powerful either. This is the main problem. How to make TWF worthwhile without making it overpowered. It's a really hard balancing act for designers because of the number of feats and abilities that can add to both, and the different types of characters, choices and weapons available. I'm certain that for every character who has suffered from using TWF there has been a character who has excelled when fighting with two weapons.

TW-Rend is a good option for making TWF better, as is a feat or ability that allows you to use both weapons as a standard action. making TWF easier to use is also another option, but from experience I can tell you using two weapons at once is a lot harder than using one weapon and when swinging a single weapon with two arms you can hit harder.

This is where threads on this site work at cross-purposes to each other. Look around at some of the other posts about barbarians or sneak attacks. For every person who is upset about TWF there is someone pointing out the damage that a rogue can do with TWF and sneak attack.

Also, what about poor old characters who use a weapon and shield. Making TWF even better will doubtless harm this combination even more, forcing those people to complain that they need to make the combination more powerful.

There is no one true solution to this problem, because as soon as someone "fixes" TWF there will be someone complaining that it is too powerful. You know it and I know it. It's almost like the old Cold War arms race. Everyone wants to make sure that their option is as powerful if not more powerful than everyone else's.

Hopefully, no one is making an argument for TWF simply so they can slice through 10,000 orcs with two scimitars at once!

That drow has a lot to answer for.

Outside of the gaming world all of this is golly-gosh neat, gee-wiz fun to discuss.

But inside game, just playing PCs or running NPCs, Chaotic is ALWAYS stupid.

Stupid Evil
Stupid Neutral
Stupid Good

So Lawful is better.

If a DM or PC is running a "Chaotic" character and not being stupid that means the character isn't really Chaotic despite its character sheet.

-W. E. Ray

It's one of the few things I liked about 4e straight up. No chaotic or lawful to worry about.

Reddog wrote:

I don't see a real problem with the pathfinder sneak attack. Maybe for the dm's who don't like new sneak attack, here is an idea. Make the PC do a spot check vs. the oppenets AC to find a weak spot. This makes common sense for someone who can't make a knowledge check of that type of creature. I plan on playtesting this and seeing how it works out.

Not a bad idea. But AC and Spot modifiers don't scale up at the same rate. A Rogue could get +1 on spot every level, when AC don't go up by one every level.

But the idea is not bad. Maybe this can be applied to type of creature not previously sneakable (3.5 vs PFRPG)

Spot is already one of the fonction of the Rogue.

I really don't mind that much if Paizo rolls Climb, Jump and Run into Athletics, but skill synergies should be dropped or revised. I also think that rolling swimming into Athletics would be wrong, since its not a function of Athletics.

By the way, players may be the most important part of an adventure or campaign, but they aren't separate from everything else, and changes in rules affect all aspects of the game, not just the PCs.

Then again, I'm coming to this argument from the perspective of a designer and GM, not necessarily as a player. As a player I would like nothing better than to shrink down and streamline the skills. It would make my troll barbarian and human monk/rogue characters (in the WOW rpg and Eberron respectively) fantastic.

I do have a few questions, however. The player's speed determines the bonus he gains to the Jump skill. How would this be rolled into the Athletics skill? Would a monk character have to keep separate modifiers for his Athletics skill? would his base speed add to his bonus when running? How about the combination of running and jumping? Could a player use the Athletics skill to run very fast and then gain a bonus to his Jump check?

What about armor check penalties for swimming? Are they still doubled for those with the Athletics skill? That's yet another separate modifier. And does your land speed affect your swim speed?

Also, when creating monsters or animals with a climb speed what do we give them, a +8 racial modifier to their Athletics skill, but only when climbing? A choker would then have to have two entries, one being its Athletics skill and another in brackets its Athletics skill when climbing. It makes sense I suppose, but are we potentially confusing GMs here?

I don't mind rolling stuff together into one skill, but is it absolutely necessary? Is your game being ruined because it isn't being done?

Seriously, the only reason people want this to happen is for the sake of convenience and to minimize their lack of skill points (great, now I can put 4 ranks into Acrobatics and Athletics and be good at everything).

All the people who want to combine various skills that are not necessarily the same nor should go together for the sake of convenience should play 4e. You'll get your heart's desire there.

If your idea were actually grounded in any sort of reality the world rock-climbing champion would also be an Olympic swimming champion, high jump and long jump champion. That is not the case and that is why the skills should remain separate.

Plus, all sloths must be expert swimmers and all otters mountain climbers.

I think people have forgotten that many, many types of creatures are still immune to sneak attacks in the Pathfinder setting. Elementals, some plants, oozes, incorporeal undead, some constructs, and even some aberrations. Then you have high-level NPC barbarians, monks and rogues with uncanny dodge or improved uncanny dodge.

People are also forgetting DR at medium to high-levels. Often the rogue needs sneak attack simply to get through a creature's damage reduction, particularly at high-levels where multiple weapon qualities or materials are required and the DR is in the 10 to 15 range. Now if you make the rogue sneak attack a standard action, the rogue will often be able to damage the foe on the first attack. After that he would sit back and provides flanking opportunities (and that would be the limit of his effectiveness).

Chaos will win out. It was there first, and it will be there after all order crumbles.

Chaos is the natural (get this) order of things. It's always there, and it's always there first. You have to establish order from chaos. It's always limited, both in time and space (which are really the same), and all "victories" of order over chaos won't last.

Plus, chaos is so much more fun. Can do what you want.

See? We win. On all fronts. Haha.

Mike McArtor wrote:

Molech wrote:

In fact, it's always wrong if any Chaotic Power is better than any Lawful Power. It's just wrong.

I totally agree!!!

I totally disagree!!!

Entropy rules!

The alignments should be evenly balanced in power (at least on a macro-level).

Obviously, nobody here has the Immortal: Ascension book, because becoming as god in there is pretty easy!

The whole idea of opposing turning checks would make for some very interesting encounters.

That lovely piece of prose has led me to think about a high-level turning feat for evil clerics. Any creature slain by the evil cleric while using a turning check is animated on the next round as a zombie.

That would make creating armies of undead a bit easier. ;-)

I also like the roleplaying and world-building applications of this new turning ability (both for evil and neutral clerics). It sure makes for an interesting campaign setting.

I'm fine with clerics not being healers, but they don't need extra powers to do that. Plus, while clerics don't have to be healers they still end up healing simply for the sake of expediency.

This is why in 4e other PCs can now heal themselves and why in Pathfinder clerics turn undead power is now an alternate healing source. Both rule-systems are to make life easier on clerics. But there is a limit you can get to. Clerics have long been regarded as a powerful class. With the implementation of new spells, feats and prestige classes I have seen individual clerics stand toe-to-toe with fighters, disable every trap that a rogue can, and match wizards for sheer firepower. They don't need a plethora of domain powers every 2 levels and I am fairly happy with the current situation. Paizo's changes are just enough to give the cleric a bit more staying power and a few more options to play with without going overboard.

Phil. L wrote:

I don't think throwing powers at the cleric would solve that problem. You would have people pick the cleric not for its healing capabilities, but for its other powers. Therefore, it would more likely appeal to players who don't want to heal the other party members, but want to be powermongers.

The cleric is already one of the strongest classes. Then again, I always have at least one player choose a healer of some kind, since they realize what happens when they don't (things becomes a lot more difficult).

I think making clerics different is more of a flavor thing (like other posters have suggested).

Newsflash, smart cleric players don't heal people. They have each party member buy a wand of CLW (or lesser vitality) and use it between combats for them. Healing in combat is generally a poor tactical choice. The cleric will end the combat faster (and thus save party member's lives more effectively) by opening a gigantic can of whupass CoDzilla style. Offense trumps defense in D+D.

So giving them more powers is totally unnecessary, but won't have the effect you detail - people already do that. In fact, heal-b#@%* is a really boring role which is what caused WotC to improve Clerics in the first place (seriously, the designers *said this*) - no one wanted to play them because no one wanted to spend combat healing other people.

Turning has now become a healing option so that clerics have more healing power. This is to free up clerics spells for other purposes. Obviously, the people at Paizo thought that clerics still used a large portion of their spells for healing and wanted to change it.

I have played in campaigns where everyone had wands, but what happens during combat when players are being hammered by monsters for lots of damage and need healing during combat? Is the cleric supposed to rummage through the other players gear to get his wand? Also wands cost money, and at high levels wands of CLW (created at minimum CL) just don't cut it anymore. Even a wand of CMW is 4,500 gp (that's 18,000 gp for 4 PCs and even that only heals 2d8+3 hp per use).

Again, people like you seem to want to bring up specific situations that happened in their games and apply it to every situation. I can tell you that I have seen over a score of clerics played in D&D over the years (by over a dozen different people including teachers, lawyers, police officers and scientists) and only one of them chose your smart option.

People here are all about crunching the math and not about trying to find an actual solution to the problem. Use all that brain power you are expending to be constructive in solving the problem if one actually exists.

Strangely, I doubt the Paizo staff are going to spend the time reading through all your hypothetical situations and biased mathematical claculations (the maths itself is not biased but your application of it is).

Ask this question:

Were the campaign's you have played in ruined by the rogue or were there other factors at work? An overly permissive GM, a number-crunching power-gamer, a glut of magic items specifically tailored for the rogue, a lack of creatures with immunity to sneak attack, a rule or rulebook that stuffed up game balance so badly that it made the rogue a powerhouse?

Obviously the Paizo staff thought the rogue needed a power boost, not a further retraction of its abilities.

Also, how many people here have been colored by an obvious bias against the rogue? Are you a GM whose campaign was ruined by a player with a rogue character? Guess whose fault that was? YOUR'S! Are you a player with an unreasoning dislike of the rogue? GET OVER IT! Are you one of those people who just like to whine and whinge to prove you are right? I wonder.

Present an actual reason for reducing sneak attacks to a standard action other than a mathematical one. And you can't use the argument that a person can't strike different weak spots multiple times, because of course they can if they have been trained to do so. Come up with another viable non-mathematical reasoning. If you can?

I think making more creatures susceptible to critical hits and sneak attacks is useful for both martial characters and rogues (and some ray specialist wizards). Sneak attack as a standard action is a sound change if it doesn't weaken the rogue to such an extent that it becomes incomparable to other classes.

Perhaps to solve the problem Paizo could make up an advanced talent that allows rogues to sneak attack multiple times? Therefore, a rogue who wants to sneak attack more than once per round must take an advanced talent to do so.

This means that a rogue who wants to sneak attack multiple times can't do so until he reaches 10th-level. this also stops fighter/rogues or ranger/rogues from excelling at sneak attacks because of multiple attacks or two-weapon fighting (making single class rogues even more attractive).

I haven't read all possible posts so someone else might have suggested this already.

By the way, perhaps the Spring Attack feat should read "a rogue can use sneak attack in conjunction with Spring Attack, but only gains the sneak attack damage once regardless of the number of attacks he gets while using Spring Attack". Perhaps this should be a section at the beginning of the feat list that addresses this issue (if more than one feat is affected).

The prerequisite has never been a problem for me. Then again, I see no reason for it either. 1st-level rogues should be able to take the feat if they wish without penalty.

From the post I'm assuming that Paizo hasn't changed it for the Pathfinder RPG? Is this the case?

I do think Fly should be both a Strength-based skill and a Dexterity-based skill. A dragon or eagle really uses the strength of its wings to fly, while a creature relying on levitation or magical flight would use Dexterity to maneuver. I think this should also be modified by the GM on a case-by-case basis. An small bird (even a small eagle or raven) should be able to use Dexterity in place of Strength simply for the sake of convenience, but a griffon or wyvern should definitely use Strength. This would actually make these monsters a lot more impressive while in the air (the way they should be).

Perhaps certain flying feats should have a Fly rank prerequisite. In other words, to use Flyby Attack you must have at least 5 ranks in the Fly skill (though certain creatures might gain it as a bonus feat).

I don't think throwing powers at the cleric would solve that problem. You would have people pick the cleric not for its healing capabilities, but for its other powers. Therefore, it would more likely appeal to players who don't want to heal the other party members, but want to be powermongers.

The cleric is already one of the strongest classes. Then again, I always have at least one player choose a healer of some kind, since they realize what happens when they don't (things becomes a lot more difficult).

I think making clerics different is more of a flavor thing (like other posters have suggested).

Plus, I like my percentile dice. They make a nice sound when they hit the table together. Ahhh...

The reason that they have a Climb skill, a Swim skill, and now a Fly skill is primarily for PCs who are not designed for such activities. That is why there is no Walking skill (I believe it was made in jest anyway folks).

Creatures with natural Climb, Fly and Swim speeds actually have to make checks just like anyone else. The difference is that most creatures receive a +8 racial bonus to the skill and can take 10 even while being rushed or threatened (this is standard for all creatures unless otherwise noted). This is why sharks and birds can manuever and such without having to make checks. They simply take 10 and automatically succeed. Note however, that a shark caught in a whirlpool or a bird caught in a fierce storm would certainly need to make Swim or Fly checks.

I think it works. Why shouldn't the skill exist? Because humans can't fly. That's bolocks! If magic exists for PCs to fly I think making a skill check to execute a sudden change in direction or fly upwards quickly is a lot simpler than figuring out the existing maneuverability rules.

I'm still trying to digest the fact that someone gives a manta ray a bonus to Fly. What the *#%@?

Go Paizo!

Well, unfortunately, I do not have the time to go into the thinking behind every decision we made, I can go over some of the questions you posted here.

1. The skill system was changed to streamline them from the GMs perspective. Skills can be a real headache for GMs and this system attempted to address that issue. I was a bit surprised by the backlash, but not too much. We are currently revising the system.

2. The thought here was to give a cinematic flavor to combat, allowing combatants to flow from one maneuver to another. Considering the response, there is a change in the works here as well. I would note that issues 1 and 2 here are perhaps the most contentious in the whole document and we are moving to fix both of them.

3. The classes did need a boost. Most stray off into pclasses as soon as they qualify or take multiple classes to garner valuable abilities. We wanted to make it more of a choice. You can gain some significant abilities by investing in another class, but we wanted the base classes to remain an tantalizing option. As for which class is the most powerful, I think if you ask 11 people, you will get 11 different answers.

4. These rules were changed for the reasons presented on page 44. We needed to give the cleric the ability to actually cast his spells, instead of just converting them in to healing.

5. We went with the CMB to unify the mechanics for a number of similar abilities. Fixing up the grapple rules was high on my list of problems to fix.

6. Because the existing XP system is not open content. We went with this system to eliminate the need of a nasty XP like the one from the 3.5 rules set.

Hope that helps.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer

Keep up the great work.

Some of the classes (such as fighter and wizard) definitely needed a power increase, simply to keep them level with some of the other classes available in various splatbooks/resources. I'm not so sure about the skill and feat accumulation, then again some DMs advocate that players should be getting a feat every single level!

The only glaring problem I can see with this new system is how saving throws work. A fighter or rogue has a single good save (Fortitude and Reflex respectively) which means that the fighter has a good chance of saving against slay living while a rogue has a good chance of saving against fireball. Unfortunately, both classes also have two poor saving throws, which means they are quite likely to fail spells which require them.

Now, with that discrepancy in mind (which continues to grow bigger and bigger as PCs advance in level) consider what increasing the spell save DCs of all spells would accomplish? Characters with good saves probably wouldn't be hurt that much, while characters with poor saves would be hammered. Now you may think I am overreacting and magic items and feats can improve saves, but the same can be said for spellcasters. Between Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus, Heighten Spell and ability boosting magic items, spell save DCs could be so high that certain characters or monsters might never stand a chance of saving against them unless they rolled quite well.

Also, consider this. You have a 20th-level enemy fighter with a +6 base Will save, +3 for a cloak, +1 for Wisdom, and +2 for Iron Will. Then you have a 17th-level PC cleric with hold person and a Wisdom of 25 (15 base + 4 stat increases + periapt of Wisdom +6)Now the save against the spell is DC 19, which means the fighter has a pretty good chance of succeeding against it. But if we were to increase the power of the spell as suggested, a 2nd-level spell would be DC 26 (base 10 + (17 + 2) + 7 = 26). Now that enemy fighter better start praying he rolls a 14 or higher otherwise he might as well kiss his life goodbye.

Sorry, but until saving throws are also changed, I don't think spell DCs should be modified any further than they already are.

I don't know if this question has been asked before but what design principles have been followed when developing this game? Is this a question that Paizo staff can't answer, and if not why not?

I'm asking you these questions because you have asked for quite a bit of feedback from people but haven't elaborated on why you have made these design decisions in the first place. It's interesting that you want comments about the game but haven't elaborated any further than you have about your decision making process. In the Alpha rules you briefly talk about things like more hit points (which most posters agree with) but what about the bigger changes in the game? for instance:

1. Why did the team change the skill point system and have you been surprised by the response?

2. What were the thoughts behind the new Combat Feat rules? Why were chaining feats created? Did you expect the strong backlash that you have received?

3. The classes. Why did the designers feel that all the classes needed a boost? Most people agree that they did, but what were the throughts behind things like rogue talents and domain powers? Plus, considering that clerics are already regarded as one of the most powerful base classes why did they need to be even better?

4. Why change the turning rules? Was it simply to give clerics more healing or was there something more to it?

5. Why change the grapple rules? We know that the grapple rules needed to be changed, but what made the team decide on the CMB?

6. Why did the XP rules need to be changed? In the team's estimation, what was wrong with the original system?

Some of these questions have been answered in a piecemeal approach, but not in any concerted way. Perhaps if people knew some of the reasons you changed things they would be more likely to agree with you. Then again, it might not make any difference. At the very least it would give us an insight into the minds of people like Jason, Mike, James and Erik.

So, how about it?

I actually like save-or-die effects, be they something like a medusa's petrification gaze or a death spell or whatever. What I don't like is how unnecessarily punishing it is to raise a character from the dead.

In my home game, save or die effects are there, but the PCs have resources to counter them (such as hero points) or fix them (such as stone to flesh, or cure deadly wounds, or resurrection, or whatever).

Throwing creatures with save-or-die effects at a party when they don't have ways to handle the effects is cheesy though. The cockatrice, by extension, probably shouldn't have a petrification attack... or alternately, it should be quite a bit higher than CR 3.

I'm ambivalent about Sod mechanics. They can make encounters particularly tense and deadly (and fun for DMs and players), but at the same time can ruin a person's night because of one unfortunate dice roll.

That being said I wouldn't mind playtesting a system where SoD mechanics were replaced by ability damage and physical damage. Therefore, the gaze of a meduse would deal 2d8 points of Dexterity damage on a failed save, while something like slay living would deal 3d6 points of Con damage on a failed save.