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The Advanced Player's Guide introduced the concept of Alternate Racial Traits. These allow you to exchange one or more standard racial traits in order to customize your character to reflect his or her individual heritage.

Is there a way for a GM to use the new system to offer players a couple of alternate racial traits for a campaign-specific custom race?

How would people handle this? Is it reasonable to allow players to swap out one racial ability for one with an equivalent RP cost from a list offered by the GM? Is this a good way to model variant subraces within a single species?

There's only a little bit of time left before the beta playtest for the Pathfinder RPG ends, so I'd like to make one last suggestion to the folks at Paizo who are working on the final version of the rulebook.

As you work feverishly to get the final manuscript ready, take a moment every now and then to step back from the rules and pay some attention to the tone and 'feel' of the product.

Speaking personally, improved rules are not the main reason that I want to play the Pathfinder RPG. I want to play the game because I sincerely hope that it will capture the magic that attracted me to roleplaying in the first place. I really want the final version of the Pathfinder RPG to be the rulebook that I dreamed of when I was 12 years old. And this has as much to do with the quality of the 'fluff' between the covers as it does about the quality of the 'crunch'. It is all about atmosphere and attitude. I believe that flavor actually matters!

Although the Pathfinder RPG contains modern game mechanics, I encourage you to wrap them in old-school sensibilities. Make sure that you show proper respect for the traditions of fantasy roleplaying that have kept many of us playing for more than twenty years. Always choose flavor text that accentuates the 'feel' of the game. Reach back to the pulp fantasy roots that inspired D&D in the first place. And try to capture the spirit of that tradition.

We're counting on you to show us something really special in August. At the end of the day, I hope that you will astonish and inspire us with an amazing piece of work...

When the 3.5 rules replaced the 3.0 rules, many people complained that the use of miniatures became mandatory. For example, Monte Cook commented:

"The game now has an even stronger focus on miniatures. 3.0 had a strong focus on miniatures, but we wanted to at least address the fact that you might not want to play the game that way. But everyone in the Wizards of the Coast offices does, and so now you have to as well. And Wizards has a new line of miniatures to sell you. Seriously, though, for those wanting to play the game sitting on the couch, the game now offers a new barrier for you. The Combat chapter in the Player's Handbook now reads like a miniatures game. More and more of the game stats use "squares" rather than feet (or both). This is a huge step backward toward the "inches" used in 1st Edition."

He also noted that this approach could have some strange side-effects:

"Facing (now called space) is now always square. In order to facilitate miniatures play (apparently), horses are no longer 5 feet by 10 feet when you put them on a grid, they're a 10-foot square. The horse has to "squeeze" to get through a 5 foot wide space. Three 9-foot-tall ogres require a 30-foot-wide passage in order to walk abreast. D&D, with its already abstract combat system, did not need this extra layer of abstraction. Not to mention the fact that this changes game play in strange ways, such as how many of the charging ogres you can get with your fireball spell."

The Pathfinder RPG inherits a strong focus on the use of miniatures from 3.5 and is unlikely to move away from this focus because doing so would break backward compatibility. In addition, a number of combat feats and combat maneuvers are dependent upon the use of miniatures and removing them would penalize characters (particularly fighters) who have invested time and effort into acquiring or using them.

Although I enjoy playing with miniatures, there are times when breaking out the figures for a combat is a chore. Does anybody have any suugestions for changes to the rules that would reduce the overdependence upon minitures?

Perhaps it would be worth adding a brief 2-3 page appendix with an streamlined abstract combat system for those times when the full combat system is too much? Speaking personally, I would find this useful for minor incidental combats, barroom brawls, etc.

One of the problems that crops up in high-level play is the growing size of the gap between a character's best saving throw and the character's worst saving throw. In the 'sweet spot' that exists from about level 5 to about level 10, the size of this gap is approximately 2-3 points, but above level 15 or so it grows to a whopping 5-6 points. This means that an encounter that is a reasonable challenge for one member of a high-level party is likely to be deadly to those that have a poor saving throw against its attack. It is also one of the reasons that the challenge rating system breaks down badly at high levels. And it ensures that high-level characters have a glass jaw - any attack that targets their weak spot (their poor save) ensures that they go down. When this is combined with the growing proliferation of save or die effects, problems ensue. Most characters respond to this issue by loading upon items that boost saving throws - which exacerbates the christmas tree effect.

So what it the solution? Short of modifying the saving throw progression (which would seriously break backward compatibility), I suggest that those feats which improve a character's saving throws could do with a bit of a boost. I'm thinking of Great Fortitude, Iron Will, and Lightning Reflexes. I would suggest tweaking them to read something like this:

Great Fortitude
Benefit: You gain a +2 bonus on all Fortitude saving throws. This bonus increases by +1 for every four levels of experience that you possess.

This would ensure that characters can compensate for their weak saving throw without resorting to magic items - but only at the cost of a feat. It would also have a smaller impact on backward compatibility than most of the alternatives.

So what do folks think?

I'm a bit surprised that the official schedule for the Pathfinder Beta playtest doesn't include any opportunity to review the rules for multiclassing. Does this mean that the 3.5 rules will be carried across to the Pathfinder RPG unchanged?

Personally, I have a couple of suggestions / comments:

The improvements to the various core classes go a long way towards discouraging 'class dipping' (taking only one or two levels of a single class in order to cherry-pick the low-level abilities from multiple classes), but I wonder if a minor change to the multiclassing rules is needed to further discourage this phenomenon. Perhaps there should be a maximum limit to the number of different classes that a PC can have (2-3)? Or perhaps the rate of progression should be slowed proportionally to the number of classes that a character has (eg -10% experience penalty for each class beyond the first).

Each PC should only be permitted to have a single prestige class. They are supposed to be prestigious after all...

Multiclassing can sometimes do strange things to a character's saving throws at high levels. With the right combination of classes, it is possible to build some abusive combinations. I'm not really sure what should be done about this, but it needs to be addressed - possibly in the high level playtest period.

I was browsing the recent Design Focus thread for Barbarian Rage powers and I was wondering whether it would be possible to take a similar approach to customizing fighters?

Here's an example of what I mean - I know that it is pretty rough around the edges, but there might be some usable ideas:

Combat Techniques: As a fighter gains experience, she studies various advanced combat techniques. At 2nd level, and at every four class levels thereafter, a fighter learns a new combat technique. Unless otherwise noted, a fighter cannot select an individual combat ability more than once. Once per day per fighter class level that she possesses, the character may use one of the combat techniques that she has learned in melee combat. Unless otherwise noted, these combat techniques are swift actions that must be performed on the fighter's turn.

Analyze Fighting Style (Ex): After engaging in melee combat against an opponent for three or more consecutive rounds, the fighter may analyze that opponent's fighting style. The fighter gains a +1 insight bonus to all attack rolls against that particular opponent for a number of rounds equal to her Intelligence modifier (minimum of 1 round). This insight bonus increases by +1 for every four class levels beyond 2nd, to a maximum of +5 at 18th level.

Battle-Cry (Ex): As a swift action, the fighter can shout a battle-cry in combat that inspires her companions. All allies within 20 feet receive a +1 morale bonus to attack rolls for a number of rounds equal to the fighter's Charisma bonus (minimum of 1 round). This morale bonus increases by +1 for every four class levels beyond 2nd, to a maximum of +5 at 18th level.

Combat Sense (Ex): As an immediate action, the fighter can re-roll a single Initiative check. The fighter may activate this ability after rolling his initiative. The fighter must take the results of the second roll, even if it is worse than the original.

Deft Footwork (Ex): The fighter may sacrifice a single attack of opportunity in order to take a 5-foot step as an immediate action.

Indomitable Spirit (Ex): Once per day, the fighter may add a +1 morale bonus to a single Will save. This bonus increases by +1 for every four class levels beyond 2nd, to a maximum of +5 at 18th level. The fighter must declare that she wishes to use this ability before the Will save is made.

Precise Strike (Ex): The fighter may add a +1 insight bonus on a single roll to confirm a critical hit. This bonus increases by +1 for every four class levels beyond 2nd, to a maximum of +5 at 18th level. The fighter must declare her intention to use this ability before the confirmation roll is made.

Tactical Acumen (Ex): The fighter may provide a single adjacent ally with a +1 insight bonus on their next melee attack roll, provided that the attack is made before the end of the next round. This bonus increases by +1 for every four class levels that the fighter possesses beyond 2nd, to a maximum of +5 at 18th level.

Rallying Cry (Ex): The fighter may attempt to rally all allies within 20 feet who have been afflicted one of the following conditions: Fatigued, Exhausted, Nauseated, Shaken, or Sickened. The fighter must make a Charisma check against DC 15. If this check is successful, the fighter may remove a single condition from the list from each ally within the area of effect.

Will Paizo be producing some kind of Pathfinder trademark license similar to the d20 System Trademark License or Green Ronin's M&M Superlink License that will allow 3rd party publishers to indicate compatibility with the Pathfinder RPG?

I realize that the Pathfinder RPG is being released under the OGL, but section 7 of the OGL explicitly prohibits you from indicating that compatibility with other people's trademarks:

You agree not to Use any Product Identity, including as an indication as to compatibility, except as expressly licensed in another, independent Agreement with the owner of each element of that Product Identity. You agree not to indicate compatibility or co-adaptability with any Trademark or Registered Trademark in conjunction with a work containing Open Game Content except as expressly licensed in another, independent Agreement with the owner of such Trademark or Registered Trademark.

Personally, I'd love to see the growth of a vibrant developer community around Pathfinder.

I'm thinking of working on a fan website for my homebrew campaign setting that will go live when the Pathfinder RPG is released. However, I wonder how to indicate that people need the Pathfinder RPG to use the material that I develop.

Wow...this is AWESOME news! As a long-time admirer of Leigh Brackett's work, the opportunity to see a reprint of this work is very cool indeed - especially as my current copy is a paperback from the late 1960's or early 1970's that is falling apart.