Pneumonica's page

Hey there all.

First off, lets tone down the nature of this thread. No need to argue, we are all on the same side here. As for the language, I have been thinking about toning it down a bit, if for no other reason that to make sure that there are a wide variety of options open to half-elf and half-orc characters.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing

I would say that the language should be touched down a bit for half-elves, as human/elf unions are more often with consent than without. Statements about upbringing might be there (*cough*Tanis*cough*), but the brutality of conception is more of an issue for orcs.

Dodge is lame.

I mean, it's really really terrible.

-Frank

To be more informative to the point, a +1 dodge bonus to AC can be taken away by surprise (althouhg it is good against touch, which is nice). The fact that it's good against one foe per round limits it further. Making it a combat feat makes it downright useless.

Firstly - I hate Combat Feats, except as a convenient way of categorizing fighter-type Feats. There shouldn't be any of this "one per round" or "stack pursuit" crud. It's a worthless, counterproductive addition to the game.

Secondly - If it's going to be part of this "one per round" crud, then make it a bonus good against all attacks. It's a useless addition otherwise.

EDIT: If they make it not be part of this "one per round" deal, or remove that restriction to Combat Feats entirely, then it's gravy leaving it as is.

Maybe you should explain to them how being a level down means more XP for the same encounter the rest of the group is fighting, so that magic item creation is actually free in terms of XP. There is just an inconvenient session or two where you are down a level.

Not true in 3.Paizo.

My group's adventure for the sake of adventure. For some reason, the people who do it for money never seem to understand that.

People who adventure for the sake of adventure are like people who write for the sake of writing - neither of them get paid. Sure, you can mention the loot you got from the last adventure, but what did you spend it on?

The moment you turn middle-aged, your lifetime career is over, and you've got all kinds of magical items and such that will do nothing to make your retirement go smoothly. Hope you're looking forward to a long career as a burnout tavern-drunk.

For some reason, the people who "adventure for the sake of adventure" never seem to understand that.

There will indeed be new treasure tables and wealth guidelines for PCs. I am hoping to get them in the next release.

This and more clearly-defined and comprehensive rules for making magical stuff and it'll all be gravy.

Dumb question #2: Why not allow clerics use healing spells at range?

This is how you get the healer Daleks that I suffer through. ("RE-JUV-EN-ATE RE-JUV-EN-ATE"!) Given that Clerics now heal with their turning, I don't see it as needed at all.

On top of that, 3.0 introduced the wonderful Weapon Finesse feat, and 3.5 removed its one weapon only restriction.

Assuming Pathfinder RPG doesn't do away with that, we have the best of both worlds here already.

I would point out that this Feat doesn't apply to all weapons. However, I would also point out that I agree with Strength being the to-hit modifier for the majority of weapons.

For starters, the majority of people using weapons fight as if strength equals speed. It doesn't, but they don't realize that. (If you disagree, try watching boffer training sessions.) Thus, I would agree that it would require a Feat to use your Dexterity (since, in practice, it does).

I would also point out from my experiences at failing to become proficient in claymores, that for large weapons (especially such like the greatsword or the maul) the weapon is carrying you through the attack, not the other way around. You produce the impetus and inertia does the rest. The entire fighting style for most two-handed weapons involves bending rather than directly controlling weapon trajectories. A quick dude might be able to cut the air with a rapier, but the quick dude ain't going to have a lot of advantage with a two-handed waraxe.

Actually, there are several possibilities. A few sources had the concept of special components to replace stuff, but here's an alternative.

Any spellcaster with the Craft skill and the prerequisite spell can produce a magical item normally, without the Feat.

Anybody with the Craft skill and the Feat may produce any magical item of the Feat's type provided their character level at least equals the caster level of the item, even if they don't have the spell prerequisites.

In this way, the Feats are still useful and there's still 95% backwards compatibility.

I am against this idea, although I would sit the fence on the power to Turn all creatures with the Extraplanar descriptor or all Outsiders except for those who have the Native descriptor. This wouldn't heal anything, it would just get rid of unwanted discrepancies to the natural order.

That I would almost be okay with, but my problem is between being able to shapeshift, the various benefits and immunities, and all the other crud they get, adding Turn to Druids makes them broken as hell. I mean, if the Monster Manual is your character sheet, what more do you need?

I don't see this as a problem. Once they'd taken the craptasticness out of wield skill, the only real "problems" were once-only benefits, since detect secret doors, spider climb, and the like are all of temporary use and take up a spell slot. The best use for these spells is for your healer Dalek to be able to follow the rest of the party or as backup in case the rogue is busy or incapacitated (or nonexistent - I've seen several groups with no rogues at all).

LilithsThrall wrote:

Reviewing the content on bards in these messageboards, it looks like the criticisms about it are

1.) Its a support character and certain members on these boards don't want other players to have the option of playing support characters
2.) Its a JoaT and most members want it to have its own niche
3.) Certain members want options for other than music
Is that a complete high level list of all the criticisms?

(snipped two iterations of "then don't play bards!")

3)Here I can see a sidebar for an alternate ability (similiar to what PHB II did)... though a bard was one of a caste of poets and scholars of medieval and early modern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Cornwall.. by the way, I'ld change the ability to Bardic Performance... Perform(Oratory) [rousing speeches] and Perform [Poetry] [Epic Poems always have heroes larger than life] are just as morale inspiring to some as music is to others... and really no Dwarf Bard should be Perform (singing) [oh my poor ears].

Agreement on 1 and 2. I would like to point out something, though:

3) I don't so much want options other than music - I want other music options. A demoralizer to debuff foes, a distraction to force concentration checks, a prayer to boost turn checks and resistances to negative levels, etc. All of these things should be based on Perform. Also, as has been said above, make it possible to use any Perform skill to use these abilities. Or do you honestly believe a dancer can't Fascinate?

I am in agreement with Dracodruid, but only because the Alpha Rague is TOO good. The rogue tricks every two levels gives it the effective bonus feats of a Fighter (better since they can choose combat feats at 2nd level and any feat beginning at 10th level). Additionally they get uncanny dodge, evasion, sneak attack, trapfinding, and now a d8 HD. Something needs some scaling back.

The only point on this element that I would scale back would be the D8 hit die - Rogues don't get Clerical hit dice, they're glass cannons. I actually also dislike the upgraded hit dice for Sorcerers and Wizards.

Favored Terrain. I always LOVED this feat! It might need some reworking, but the idea is great!

You could even make this feat a general one (Actually so could Favored Enemy)

Actually, I wasn't certian if they were going to make this a standard option, but since I always (always) house rule it in, I didn't figure on it making a difference. Favored Terrain goes miles towards getting rangers out of the city, as well. You could have one ranger be a "hunter", with Track, Archery, and Favored Terrains, and another ranger be a "stalker", with Urban Track, Two Weapons, and Favored Foes. And all of this comes out of OGL, so it's groovy.

I disagree with just about everything in this thread, but a few points to be made:

I believe a pet peeve of mine for D&D 3.5, is that players can never keep an accurate count of the modifers in combat with all the buffs / magical effects / racial bonuses etc.

I would suggest to keep the number of stacking named bonuses and things like damage types down.

1. Dmg types
Just 8 will do pls - Holy, Unholy, Fire, Acid, Lightning, Cold, Physical, Force, and re-classify everything else into those types.

Uhm, the only damage types you've excluded are bashing, piercing, and slashing, and axiomatic and anarchic (Law/Chaos). And I want those.

I'd pare it down to:(snipped by the server)

Firstly, lumping racial bonuses in with all those other bonuses is a guarantee that race will become an irrelevant characteristic after level 6.

Secondly, while I'm with you on the "Divine" bonuses (I've actually seen somebody stack sacred and profane bonuses - it was disgusting), the diversity of modifiers is a useful one. Typically, the reason why a new modifier name is used is so that the bonuses from one source will stack with others but not with itself (take alchemical bonuses for instance). Simply mindlessly declaring that there can be no other forms of modifier limits the system in ways that it should not be limited.

Andrew Betts wrote:

I'm playing in a game that is currently using Weapon groups, and while I find them balanced in the sense proficiencies, weapon focus and other feats that relate to specific weapons being affected by whole groups seemed too powerful. We stuck to feats affecting only specific weapons.

Honestly as a player I wouldn't mind feats affecting the whole group of weapons, but I don't think the GM would like my fighter doing it.

That would worry me, too.

Honestly, not a considerable worry. Unless a character is fighting with two weapons, they will only get the benefit with a single weapon at a time. The advantage is they are able to use a wider diversity of magical weapons without having to just "go to town and sell it" in order to purchase a less-effective but more-applicable weapon. The DM can throw in unusual types of weapons without worrying about the PCs just selling it without relishing in its coolness.

In conditions of two-weapon fighting, most of the time characters already use the same weapons in both hands, which means they're already getting the double-benefit. This way, they can actually provision some tactics beyond "whappitywhappitywhappity" (TM).

1 size larger than user-----2 hands

same size as user----1 hand
1 size smaller than user---light weapon

Please re-read the rules, because the 3.0 rules for weapon size in fact make no sense whatsoever and contradict themselves. A dagger is tiny. A medium-sized creature technically can't use it. Throwing knives and shuriken as well.

In addition, should a gnome be able to wield a dagger as a shortsword (except they'd wield it like a dagger, because it's Tiny and the gnome's Small - how does that make any sense?)? How about lizardmen and longswords?

What is simpler is 3.5. 3.0 is nonfunctional in this regard, and always has been.

Having been in an acrobat in a carnival for a while, I can tell you this - I do not have the physique to be considered a "natural" at acrobatics. I do, however, have a learning curve that let me swiftly learn exactly what movements to perform when in order to perform the movements that made the crowd gasp.

Intelligence allows you to learn the trade. I learned in a week what takes most people two, and in a month what some people simply don't grasp, and I did it without any natural aptitude at the skills in question.

That's what Intelligence does.

In addition, if you strip Intelligence from the character's learning rate, only about five classes will see any real use in Intelligence, while the other five are in some way useful to all classes (unless you play in a low RP game, in which case Charisma might be a general dump stat).

Xyll wrote:

Theft should be a rogue class ability only. Not a skill choice. Their is no spellcasting skill or weapon wielding skill. End of story. No other class should have access to a specially trained subset of theiving abilities.

That would also go a long way towards expanding the "one-level class" (that Rogue has become under the proposed Pathfinder skill system) back to 20 levels. Consider me convinced.

The thing is, every class can use weapons, and there are Feats that provide some magical proficiency and especially so for psionics. Why wouldn't a fighter know how to disarm a trap. I've played Fighters with one or two ranks in Disable Device specifically for this purpose - it only takes one alarm bell to turn a simple entry into a massive combat.

Zero backwards compatibility. That and I made a conscious decision to not play RPGs by the Blacksburg Tactial Research Center, and I plan to stick with it.

As should now be obvious to anyone who has trotted out the Pathfinder rules at even modest levels: very small amounts of damage are very small. Seriously man, what was the thinking behind crap like the Evoker's Energy Ray? It does about 3 points of damage. You shoot it at an Orc Warrior and the Orc doesn't drop.

Half the time, you strike an Orc Warrior with your two-handed melee weapon of choice in a power attack with weapon specialization and he doesn't drop. Most foes don't drop from a single attack, and few drop from a full round of a single character's attacks. For that matter, a number of them don't drop even when hit by the highest-level spell of the spellcaster. Small amounts of damage are all sources of damage at mid to high levels where characters have over 100 hit points.

Your argument is essentially with the magic missile spell, which the wizard can only cast once per day per preparation. Admittedly, it requires no attack roll. Crap like the Evoker's energy ray means the Evoker is never unarmed unless in an antimagic shell. The fact that it scales to level makes it even nicer for an Evoker, who otherwise has to rely on ranged weapons whose damage doesn't scale unles they take Feats that they'd really rather spend on their spellccasting abilities.

The divination special ability is far too powerful in comparison to all the other ones. It takes a 10 level prestige class now to get that ability; see Divine Oracle in Complete Divine (p.34-36).

The fact that some abilities occur at given levels in given classes doesn't mean that it's powered to that level. Evasion and Uncanny Dodge occur at all different levels.

I don't actually find it overwhelming - you're still starting the combat flat-footed, and you only act in the surprise round if there is a surprise round. You're getting less than you would if you'd succeeded at the Perception roll to spot the ambush in the first place. The ability to ignore flat-footed is vastly more powerful (and appropriately placed in the progression as well).

It's great, yeah, and I'd love to have it, but it doesn't throw the balance anywhere off. Personally, I'm happy that Diviners are no longer getting the shaft. I would love to see Divination restored to being something other than the bastard stepchild of the schools of magic.

As for Enchantment, it definitely needs an upgrade. Perhaps give Enchanters the Elvish "everybody likes me" ability and give elves the "boost to Charisma skills" ability?

Stunty_the_Dwarf wrote:

...I'll take that back. If something has to go, the bardic knowledge ability is almost pure 3rd ed.

An argument could be made that historical bards were given such a broad education that it supports such an ability, but if something's got to go, that's the least "flavorful" of his abilities.

I dissagree, but only so far as the class feature is called "Bardic Knowledge." Lore would be a better name, and could just be replaced with something as simple as a +1 bonus to knowledge skills known (or +1 per level). This would also keep other classes from saying thinkgs like: "The Loremaster gains the ability to know stuff like a bard does, and levels in bard stack with loremaster levels for the purpose of determining what the total lore bonus is."

I find that having a bonus to knowledge skills is very appropriate for someone supposedly so well traveled, especially if they went to all the trouble of putting ranks into them.

I'm a little on the fence about Bardic Knowledge, but mostly in how it interacts with other Knowledge Skills. My problem is that people treat it as Knowledge (everything) rather than as Knowledge (bits from everywhere).

Profession or Craft are both skills that I don't take. DnD has skills that do actual things(ex. Tumble makes you better at combat, UMD gets you new powers, perception skills keep you from being surprised). Craft and Profession are just fun roleplaying things.

You could give them away for free and no one would care. They might even forget to take them.

In your group, yes, and in many others. However, in my gaming group Profession has saved at least one character's life and Craft is used frequently.

My question is this - why should the rules be revised to fit your style of play only when the rules are as easily made to fit both your and my style of play equally?

I am ambivalent about this variation on the rules simply because it contains the original system, this way I can simply house-rule it out since I don't like it.

I don't think the Pathfinder RPG should go down that route because I don't see it as justifying its own existence as a break from backwards compatibility. Squeezing Move Silently and Hide together justifies itself. This I don't think does - what value does this system contribute to the game vice the original system? (My 10 cents.)

One of the reasons I like the subheading of "combat feats", even if it's not mechanically any different, is that it means not having to have a discrete "fighter" list. No more having to note "can be taken by fighters", etc. Fighters get combat feats. Period. End of story.

One other thing - Streamlining isn't the specific intent of the skill splats. It's done to equalize skill values against each other. I don't 100% agree either with intent or with outcome, but in some cases I can see the point. I personally am in the "ditch Use Rope" camp myself, and I also never liked the notion of having to take two different skills in order to be sneaky (Move Silently and Hide).

I like having the Fly skill. It exists for the same reason as Swim and Climb. For those people who disagree with having a skill that not every character can use, I bring you Spellcraft.

Maybe the bard needs more tastey bits to intice players to play it. But also a bard needs a wider variety so that bards just aren't carbon copies of eachother.

Actually, when they started presenting alternate songs and song feats in the various Complete books, I rewrote the Bard in our games to gain one song Feat at levels where they would normally gain a song and stripped all of the song features and alternate features into additional song Feats. Thus, one Bard might be the happy Halfling singing funny songs that distract and soothe, another might be a Dwarf or Gnome whose songs are sea chanties and labor-rhythms, and another might be a Human whose songs are death metal rock ballads. DUDE!

*ahem*

Anyways, one of my favorite prestige classes is the Dirgist from Ravenloft, who reversed the concept of the Bard. Instead of buffing the party, they mostly debuff enemies. Their only major buff required that a partymate be dropped to 0 or fewer HP, thus whipping the party into vengeful fury. If you got a list of songs to choose from, that would be infinitely better than just getting the same songs at given levels.

If I was in a life-or-death fight, and one of my compatriots started singing a song to "amp me up", I'm pretty sure I'd punch them in the face afterwards, if I survived.

If I was in a life-or-death fight, and one of my compatriots spent ten seconds invoking the blessings of their preferred deity, I'd do the same thing.

(Note: Despite the fact I disagree with you, I'm not intending this as a rebut - I'm continuing the joke.)

I would, at this time, like to reiterate my desire for read magic, as a spell, to die a grisly and horrible death. Spells should be readable by anybody who can read the language and cast the spell, no other spell required. Read magic is a terrible spell and has no reason to exist - let somebody who has a spellbook read the spellbook, whomever wrote it. Part of the advantage of the wizard is being able to tack on new spells - part of the weakness is needing those damn books in the first place. If my book gets torched, but I can pick up the book of the dude who torched it, I should just be able to read it (unless it's written in a language I don't understand).

If you want to get tricky, you could take a language of "magical cypher" so that anybody who wants to read your spellbook has to decipher it using a Linguistics check. Once it's deciphered, you can then take as a language "that dude's magical cypher" and be able to read it freely.

In other news, I would also like to say that the limited wish and wish powers are still sick and wrong. Removing the innate ability of the Universalist actually is a good move - they simply don't have a specialist ability to lose. However, letting them cast wish once per day for free is beyond too much.

However, I can see an easy fix - re-write spell-like abilities so that XP costs still have to be paid for them. If that's the case, the wish and limited wish powers are within bounds.

Consider Peasant Paladins as doable (Joan of Arc).

Oh, yeah, I know. I'm just pointing that out as an exception rather than the rule. Actually, that shepherd paladin rocked - the temples loved him (he donated like 90% of what he earned since he used so little of it).

I mean, I understand the whole genre and the inpirational stuff and all that, but even in the most ridiculous circumstances what kind of dolt is going to sit in the middle of battle playing music to inspire and uplift everyone.

What dolt is going to sit there and pray while a ten-foot-tall monstrosity is swinging a club at them that's bigger than they are? What dolt is going to spend years focusing their mind in order to be able to spontaneously conjure blades of energy?

Answer: Someone who gets results from it.

If you don't like the bard, that's fine, but it makes no less sense than any other class, and considerably more than some, and the only "suck" aspect of the class is that their primary ability is to buff others rather than personally shine. It's a skills class (look at their skill selection and skill points per level) with a lot of support abilities. It's the toolbox, and groups that dislike bards generally have no use for half the skills in the game anyway (Profession, Knowledge, and Craft come to mind).

Note: I'm not speaking against that style of play, but I'm pointing it out - if it goes against your style of play, don't use the class.

My thoughts on Paladins ...

They ABSOLUTELY should remain Lawful Good. (I also agree that the Blackguard, or whatever the new 'anti paladin' ends up being should be Lawful Evil)

See, I would state that it would be easier to implement the LE paladin of tyranny (as they're called in the OGL) easier if it was simply a path build of the main paladin (like Rangers get to choose between archery and two weapons). However, I'm following your concept, just a little off on your implementation.

I would also like to see the Lawful Neutral knight get rolled into it.

They should not be forced to follow a Deity but should instead be able to follow the Lawful Good Ideal, as it were.

I agree that while they probably belong to a holy order that worships a deity, they don't specifically get their powers from a deity. They're also possibly in service to a lord/lady, a national power, or even just themselves.

They should NOT be spell casters (no divine spells - those are for Clerics, Druids etc)). Instead, they should get various abilities etc to reinforce the 'holy warrior' arch type they were meant to embody.

Hear, hear. I'm for giving them a Domain - while those do include spell-like abilities, those aren't "spellcasting" (and at any rate, remove curse and cure disease are also spells). Probably an alignment domain (Good, Lawful, or Evil, depending on the alignment of the Paladin), plus some extra stuff for being paladin-y.

The special mount should be some sort of idealized, celestial 'horse' that can be summoned and dismissed at will.

I flash on my Kobold Paladin (LG - it was a long story) who rode a warlizard. Ordinary giant lizard ("ordinary"), but what horse do you know that could pursue an enemy up a wall?

Anyways, general agreement, although again your implementation and mine differ.

I believe they removed "Talents" (0-level powers) from the game in 3.5. If you wanted to use them, you'd have to reintroduce them, and I'm not sure how well that would gel with the current rules set.

Presently, the lowest-level Powers are 1st.

For an actual martial artist, especially with the current build, I'd just go with a Fighter. The Monk covers something specific (more of a taoist internal alchemist, really).

In short, Fear sucks. I'd much prefer to see something much more *fun*, to use a 4e term. :)

It's played in multiple ways, but technically there are three grades of fear, and panic-stricken flight isn't mandatory at all of them.

Shaken: Shaken creatures suffer penalties, period.

Frightened: Suffer penalties and if they are able to get away from the source of their fear they must attempt to do so. If there is no clear path of escape, they may act normally.

Panicked: Runs like a scared little kobold, dropping everything and fleeing randomly. If unable to flee, they are left "cowering".

Cowering is interesting because it's a fourth class of fear, but doesn't fit on the scale. It keeps a character from acting and puts them under fear penalties.

Now, here's why I'm talking about all of this - can the grades of fear be implemented more flush with the rest of the system? For instance, a turned creature that exceeds the cleric's level in HD is shaken, if the cleric is greater they are frightened, and if the cleric is over twice they're panicked (if they even still exist). Or something, I'm just throwing this out because I *like* the grades of fear and don't think they're used enough.

I leave for Iraq in roughly 3 weeks.

Incidentally, good luck warfighter.

What astonishes me is that everyone assumes the PCs deal in the same economies that farmers do. Are Paladins peasants? (Okay, forget my "shepherd paladin" concept.) Wizards are the intelligencia of the pseudomideval fantasy world, paladins and fighters its knights, clerics its priests, etc. These folks are unlikely to be dealing in the same economy that the peasantry is. They would be the kinds of people to deal in such "abstract nonsense" as letters of credit.

I'm not going to some farmer to buy a longsword, and I'm surely not going to some podunk blacksmith to get a holy soulbreaker longsword +2. Lords, guildmasters, and priests deal in gold all the time, and given the socioeconomic stresses of the settings (read: dragons), the set-up makes sense provided you assume peasants aren't a part of it.

Now, how many people run games for peasant characters?

The major problem that the fighter always had is that it covered too many concepts and didn't reach to touch even the majority of them. Hence the reason for, say, the Swashbuckler.

Now I would venture to say that classes that are "Figher alts" are unneeded - between the new Feats (I'm assuming there will be more as time goes by when I say that) and the ready access to them by Fighters, plus their ability to diversify and concentrate their focus simultaneously, they've got a lot of scope to their abilities.

Personally, I have to vote in favor of the Conjurer being able to summon tools, items, and aid rather than gaining lesser mage armor, web, and such. I think conjurers, at their base, make tangible things, and giving them a continual envelope of permeable force doesn't produce a sense of the conjurer to me. It isn't the question of game balance or not (for me), it's a question of concept.

As to your question about why would he ever choose to melee if he does have the air domain, the answer is for things that he doesn't WANT to touch - many oozes come to mind, not to mention wizards with fire shield or similar effect (if the cleric grabs a longspear instead of his mace).

I don't have the rules set in front of me, so I can just ask. Is it a ranged touch? Does the caster actually have to touch the target? "Touch attack" frequently does not mean "lay your hands upon it", as many ranged attacks are touch attacks and I'm pretty sure that you're not cutting off your own hand to make them.

I am confused about the wording on this one. It reads: "this ability has no effect on creatures of a higher level than you or with more HD..."

Does this relate to class (cleric) level, caster level or character level?

Also - is there a save or a duration? My presumption is that it is as the spell Daze, but I don't like to presume.

The creature is unable to act normally. A dazed creature can take no actions, but has no penalty to AC.

A dazed condition typically lasts 1 round.

FWIW, the first appearance of the paladin class in 1975 did not include spells as part of his repertoire of abilities. The paladin could lay on hands, cure diseases, and dispel evil. He could also summon a mount but there's no clear implication that it was re-summonable on a regular basis.

I specifically remember in 2nd edition an adventure was required to "summon" the mount (you didn't summon it, you found it). In most versions of the Paladin, the mount was just this side of irreplacable - replacement after a month of -2 penalties to everything is one of the nicer variants.

(current rules allow for a cleric build that can outshine a fighter in battle pretty easily plus have the added capability of spellcasting)

Okay, I hear this all the time, and I take umbrage. Two words will solve nearly every variant, and most of the remaining ones this won't solve will work even better on a Fighter: dispel magic. If one enemy casts that spell on the Cleric before the fight begins and kills even half the spells that are required to boost a Cleric to outshine a Fighter, the Cleric is suddenly a low-yield healer who's missing half his spells per day.

The ability modifier tends to make things more 'swingy', especially with Pathfinder giving races like the elf a +2 Intelligence. To avoid that a saving throw of 10+1/2 caster level + spell level would reduce the power of low level casters a bit (usually), and cap the 'insane' high DCs that high level casters can create.

I don't intend to throw an insult by saying it, but I think you've got it totally backwards. A 20th level spellcaster need a Metamagic Feat and a 9th level spell slot to inflict 19 + ability modifier DC on a first level spell. The proposal would remove the requirement for the Feat and make it 20 + ability modifier, and the spell would be cast as a 1st level spell. I'd call that heinously increasing the power of a spellcaster, not controlling it.

Frank Trollman wrote:

Recall for the moment that the current rules about Item Slots (with the waist and arms chakra and all that) aren't open content. They were written up in the Magic Item Compendium and Magic of Incarnum - neither of which are available for fair use. So rather than come up with something that is very much the same, I propose that we ditch the entire concept and just give people a maximum number of magic items.

-Frank

The particular system described in the Magic Item Compendium and Magic of Incarnum may not be open content, but fortunatly the idea of item slots is. It exists in the DMG, because of how magic items are worn, and it also exists dozens, if not hundreds, of other video and RPG games. It is now too universal a concept to gaming to be surpressed.

If you limited the number of crazy items (or tinkets) you can carry to 8 or so (less then what it is now anyway), you could reduce the Christmas Tree syndrome of 3rd edition. They can very easily update Pathfinder to include these rules.

Actually, I would direct your attention to Green Ronin's Advanced rulebooks. I don't know which one did it, but one of them presented the chakra system for magic item limits (Gamemaster's Guide, I think) and those rules were entirely open game content.

Less die rolling. That's my only thing.

I'd like for iterative attacks to be replaced by a Fighter ability that allows them to add one extra die of base damage for every four or five points he exceeds the targets AC.

Replace? No. An extra die of damage isn't comperable to an extra attack. For starters, as you say later in your post, it doesn't multiply on a crit (extra damage never does). Secondly, it makes lower-damage combat builds worthless (why use a light weapon when you can use a two-handed weapon).

Additionally, it points out the most huge weakness to Green Ronin's d20 system variants - you can only attack one target per round. (And the "split attacks" option is such a horrifically ineffective replacement as to be laughable unless you're facing foes that you would rightfully victimize in a single hit.) Being able to wade in is part of what makes fighters an effective class - making them unable to deal out large numbers of attacks not only takes away their DPS, it makes them ineffective against large numbers.

Finally, it makes them extremely volatile. Even if their one attack does as much damage as all the attacks they would otherwise get, what you've done is give them one extremely granular unit of damage rather than multiple somewhat granular units. If they miss, an entire combat round of damage is immediately lost. Meanwhile, under the current system, they can make multiple attacks, with the misses taking away only a portion of the damage for that round.

The only situation where that ability would be truly functional is against high DR foes, and with that in mind I would like to say this - as a combat feat, that ability sounds like it'd be really cool, because it'd take away the dependance on the golf caddy of weapon materials. The massive single-unit damage is nice if you happen to not have a cold iron holy sword +2 when you face off with the demon of horrible damage reduction 25. Maybe require Power Attack for it?

For me, Dwarves are: bearded, greedy, goblin-hating craftsmen with axes and an uncanny connection to stone and earth. But for another gamer, Dwarves might just be short, stocky, gruff dudes (cf Dark Sun).

And obsessive-compulsive. Don't forget that Athasian Dwarves are gentically OCD.

But I do see your point. The racial/cultural divide, if it has any place, is in the campaign sourcebook, not the core rules. While I disagree, I have to agree. And that statement does make sense if looked at sideways. ;-p

Okay, let's look at this practically. If this were a "realistic" pseudomideval fantasy economy, then in many parts of the world zircon would be more valuable than diamond, silver more valuable than gold, and aluminium and mercury more valuable than all of those combined.

Frankly, I like a bit of escapism in my fantasy, and I didn't sign up to play Wizards of Wall Street.

And for those of you about to jump at my comment about aluminium, bear in mind I said "aluminium" and not "tin".

One house rule that I currently have in my 3.5 game is the option to allow all spellcasters to choose a 0th level spell that can be cast at-will at 3rd level and every 3 levels thereafter.

Paizo's intention to allow this by default is a bold move, and one that I like.

Actually Paizo's gone you a step further - every cantrip or orison you prepare has infinite castings per day. It is the shiznat.

However, I would point out that cure minor wounds is gone, replaced by stabilize. You can't use orisons to heal anymore, but the fundamental effect of cure minor (stabilize the dying) is now a codified orison that does only that.

I also like what they've done with some of the buff/heal Domain/School abilities, where they can be used as often as desired but only once per day on a given target.

[sarcasm]Cheer up! There will always be the pain-in-the-ass players that take Profession (hooker) regardless of the skill changes. [/sarcasm]

To quote from one game I've played in, "I'm not a slut, I'm a whore!"

Seriously, it bothers me that Clerics are supposed to be clergy, founding temples in remote places, etc., and yet never have Profession (clergy) or (administration) or some such. When I took it on one of my characters, the DM was actually surprised.

I was playing the toolbox Cleric (multiclass with Bard). The other Cleric in the party was a healer who wore enough armor to be practically immobile and could cast cures as ranged spells (leading me to chant "RE-JUV-EN-ATE RE-JUV-EN-ATE" every time his actions came up). He didn't even have Knowledge (religion).

It shows two different styles - some groups/players will get no benefit out of Profession, Craft, Knowledge, etc., because they don't do the "feelie" end of the game. Meanwhile, some groups find them absolutely mandatory.

I also have to agree - having to take a full Saga Skill pick for a Profession makes the whole skill exceedingly unattractive when generally you only want a few Ranks in it to show basic proficiency in the discipline.

Additional, new item, posted here because this is the most recently active Heal Skill thread and I don't want to threadspam.

Why is Heal based on Wisdom? I mean, I realize it's sort of a Cleric-y skill, but seriously, Wis is for calling miracles. Medical proficiency isn't something that a baboon is supposed to be able to achieve, and basing it on Wis allows you to have an unaugmented baboon expert chiurgen. Say what you will about your own doctor, that's just wrong.

Can we consider basing Heal on Int? I would be vastly more amenable to Heal allowing for recovery of hits if it was based on Int, because it would diversify the playing field of healing. You'd have your faith healers and you'd have your skill healers.