Roman's page

Again... see my recent post. We don't have time to reply to everything. We do when we can, but just because you don't see a reply to a post that doesn't mean no one here sees it and no one here is thinking about it. Remember: what we're asking for is feedback, not asking for opportunities to give feedback to the feedback.

James, unfortunately, I think that Paizo's Pathfinder RPG is the victim of something I posted earlier:

To some extent, although I think the open playtest is helping Paizo make a better game, the playtest may harm the popularity of the game for some users. Ihe open playtest, I think, created an unrealistic expectations among playtesters regarding the degree to which they can shape the outcome of the final product. When their individual preferences were not met to the degree they expected, some people have inevitably reacted with disappointment that leads, in some cases, to the wholesale rejection of the game.

I hope that the lesson learned for Paizo is not that it should avoid open playtests in the future. An outcome like that would be something that would really disappoint me. Although Paizo may lose some people because of this factor, the ultimate quality of the game will be higher due to the open playtest.

Roman wrote:

Moving some spells from school to school, however, might be viable. Just to mention one example of the spells you discussed, I definitely agree that Fear should be in the Enchantment school.

Fear is the worst offender, IMO. I could totally get behind an Illusion spell that created a scary image that could frighten people, or a Divination spell that revealed scary information to frighten people, or a Conjuration spell that summoned up something that yelled booga-booga and scared people, or a Necromancy spell that, uh, did something involving completely neutral non-mind-affecting negative energy that for some inexplicable reason scared someone who had no idea what it was..., but Fear itself, and spells like Cause Fear and Scare, should be Enchantment all the way.

They are the very definition of mind-affecting spells! They are *totally* Enchantment spells.

We are in complete agreement on this. Fear is a quintessential mind-effecting spell and thus should be in the Enchantment school and so should all the associated spells (Cause Fear, etc.). Other schools might achieve similar effects as you describe.

And if we have to have an Abjuration school, Mage Armor belongs in it. Putting it in Conjuration makes zero sense. Evocation would make more sense (since that's where the other Force spells got arbitrarily dumped), but really, it's 'natural home' home should be Abjuration.

Again, I cannot but agree. Abjuration school is a bit strange, but if it must exist, Mage Armor should be right in the middle of it.

Roman wrote:

Just out of interest, can you give us any hint of some of the rules you might consider reverting back to how it was in 3.5E? Perhaps an example or two might be nice and might provide some 'hope' for those posters who want the game to remain closer to 3.5E.

I'd rather not; I'd rather not influence things even in such a small way. I do have my own personal things I'd like to see not make it out of the Beta, and while I've mentioned them (and will mention more) to Jason, in the end I trust him to make the best decisions for the game. One thing I learned working on Dungeon is that not every adventure I love will be well-loved by the readers, and some adventures I hate and almost didn't publish will end up being well-loved by everyone else. The game's not just for me, in other words, it's for everyone. And in some cases, things I might not like in the Beta should go in there anyway. What's best for the game as a whole is what's important.

Reading your response prompted me to reread my question and it is clear that I misphrased it, which perhaps stems from my thinking that although Jason is the lead designer you are also involved in the design process of the Pathfinder RPG. I did not mean to ask what 'you' personally would like to revert back to the 3.5E way of doing things. By 'you' I sort of meant the 'design team' in general - sorry for not being specific. So the better way to phrase the question would be:

Would it be possible to give us some hints (perhaps just one or two examples not to give too much away) as to what rules are being considered, or perhaps have already been decided upon, for reversion from the Pathfinder RPG Beta back to the 3.5E way of doing things? If you are not familiar with it in person, would it be possible to ask Jason to give us a hint or two?

I agree with you both, Set and Kalyth, that the schools are not conceptually perfect. Illusion, for example, could be conceptually subsumed into Evocation and thus also give the underpowered Evocation school a rather useful boost. Abjuration could also perhaps be abolished or reworked. Necromancy, is a conceptually viable school on its own, I think, dealing with the manipulation of life/unlife-energy.

That said, the culling of schools, is simply not going to happen. It is too large a change for the Pathfinder RPG - just look at how many are already decrying that the Pathfinder RPG has moved too far away from 3.5E - imagine what would happen if we changed the schools.

Moving some spells from school to school, however, might be viable. Just to mention one example of the spells you discussed, I definitely agree that Fear should be in the Enchantment school.

We need to have a rulebook in print if we're going to continue publishing RPG supplements and adventures. Having 3.5 books available in the used book store circuit or having the SRD online is great, and I personally suspect that there'll be a LOT more folks using Pathfinder products for their 3.5 games than folks using the Pathfinder RPG itself. I'm okay with that. But that doesn't change the fundamental fact that we still need to have rulebooks in print for new customers to be able to purchase if they're coming to the game for the first time, or perhaps returning to the game after a period of absence in which they may have lost or sold or otherwise divested themselves of their 3.5 books.

Agreed - without a rulebook in print, you would be catering to an ever dwindling market. That might work initially, but it would be disastrous for you in the long run.

Now, further complicating this is the fact that the SRD is an incomplete game in and of itself. It's got MOST of the rules in there, but it's missing rules for generating ability scores and rules for advancing characters. The versions of the rules you see in the Player's Handbook aren't open content. So, if we were to simply print the SRD, we'd have to make up new (if very similar) rules for these two parts of the game anyway. And while we were at that, we decided we might as well look at addressing other issues that folks have had with the rules as they stand.

Also agreed - if you have to change these things, and you do, than you might as well address some other issues with 3.5E, though always taking care not to alter the system too much.

The current result is the Pathfinder Beta. And it DOES go further from 3.5 than it needs to. That's what a beta does; it tests boundaries. We're as much using it to test out new rules as we are using it to test how far our customers want us to go with the rules, and to find out what parts of those rules we shouldn't change much from the 3.5 rules. Well over 30,000 people have downloaded the Beta PDF so far, and not all of them agree. One of our goals is to look at all of your feedback and produce the game that the most of you (and us!) want the Pathfinder RPG to be.

Haha, I was just typing a post where I refer to "Jason or another Paizo staffer" saying repeatedly that the Beta is there to test the bounderies and there might be some reversion to 3.5E rules in the final product and you posted this in the meantime essentially saying the same thing! Quite a coincidence! :)

Just out of interest, can you give us any hint of some of the rules you might consider reverting back to how it was in 3.5E? Perhaps an example or two might be nice and might provide some 'hope' for those posters who want the game to remain closer to 3.5E.

I would like to point out that either Jason or another Paizo staffer has stated on several occassions that the Beta is supposed to test the boundaries in how far the changes can go. It is, therefore, reasonably likely that some of the changes will be rolled back in the final product, which will thus be closer to 3.5E than the current rules.

As much as I like 3.5E, however, I wouldn't want the new rules to be identical. I think there is potential on improvement without any enormous impact on compatibility. The boosts to the fighter class, for example, pose very few compatibility problems, yet help the fighter remain competitive. As another example, various bonus types could be consolidated into fewer categories for greater simplicity of play at higher levels, without causing any major compatibility problems.

In some cases, though, apparently greater simplicity can actually lead to more confusion and hidden complexity. That might be the case with some of the consolidates skills. Perception would be one example. Sure, it is neat how Perception can now be used for any sense, but the conflation of Listen and Spot (though not so much Search) can cause gameplay problems. If a rogue is sneaking up on some guards during dusk/twighlight, but the guards are Elves, so get sight bonuses, and the distance is such and such... do you use the sound modifiers or the sight modifiers to the Perception roll to detect the sneaking Rogue? Ouch! Obviously, this is solvable, and indeed I address the issue here: Link to Threa But ultimately, it would be much simpler to simply keep Listen and Spot (or Hearing and Sight to name them as senses) separate and avoid the entire calculation/comparison/confusion headache by simply rolling for both separately, while also having better backward compatibility. It's not as if the Spot/Listen skills were somehow underpowered anyway.

I quite like the idea of a skill for non-magical Concentration and to replace the Endurance feat, though it would mean that the ranger 3rd-level ability would need to be revised. People who hate 4th Ed would complain all the more loudly though.

I hate 4E, but I wouldn't complain about an Endurance skill replacing the Endurance feat and Concentration skill. In fact, I have been musing about doing this in my home game for a long time (but haven't implemented it). It is, however, not going to happen - the skill list is set, so we are better off trying to discuss other approaches.

I just have one major concern I have to shout out loud:

"PLEASE! Stop making every aspect of the game, the classes and the feats focussed on Combat!"

The Rogue(Thief) was once the ultimate Skill-Monkey. Now (especially with his new capstone) he is just another fighter type (but with skills). If you look at the rogue it is: Sneak attack, sneak attack, sneak attack.

The same goes for the wizard and the sorcerer. All those ideas about bloodlines and improved specialists/universalists are GREAT. But almost everything they get is: +Armor, more damage, touch attack, magehand for fighting with weapon...

It's just sad. Pathfinder really has the opportunity to become more than what WotC has done.
Please, take a look again and think about it.

Thanks.

I think you mean to say that non-combat aspects of the game are very important (rather than 'roleplaying'). If so, I completely agree with you. Non-combat spells, abilities, skills, powers and so on, are extremely important for me to have in the game. Without them, the game would be rather boring for me. I think the reason for the tendency towards making everything combat-oriented (and the Pathfinder RPG is much, much less guilty of this than 4E) is that combat abilities are easier to balance. Ultimately, though, if the game is boring, and for me the removal of non-combat abilities does serve to make it boring, it doesn't matter how balanced it is... (I am by no means implying that the Pathfinder RPG is boring in this regard - it is a general statement.)

Long-duration spells replacing items does not worry me in the slightest - it is one spell per person per boost... that is a fair sacrifice for the day. Besides, I don't allow my player's to have their characters simply 'purchase' magic items, so reducing reliance on magic items is a good thing in my book.

The big issue I have with 'buffs' is that the party doesn't always get to initiate combat, and doesn't often know the *exact round* that combat will begin, making buffs that take one standard action to cast and then last one round per level situationally useful at best (and, primarily rewarding to powergamer sorts who use tactics like scry-and-die to micromanage exactly when and where combat occurs, which, IMO, is the *last* group of people who need more useful spells...).

That's another argument in favor of longer-duration spells.

Buffs that last hours should mainly just include stuff like water breathing (since 1 round / level of water breathing is just silly).

Sure, water breathing should also last hours per level - no argument there.

If a buff is intended to be usable in multiple combats throughout the day (such as 3.0 Bull's Strength, it should just last 8-12 hours or so and be done with it). Mark off a 2nd level spell slot and have +4 strength for the adventuring day. BAM. Durations in the minutes per level, 10 minutes per level or hours per level ranges are, IMO, a huge pain in the @$$.

I like having spell durations affected by level and would be pretty angry to see that go. Hours per level spells are effectively 'last whole adventuring day' spells, considering that adventuring days are not all that long, and it is easy to handwave them as such if you so desire, but I like the extra level of precision for when I want/need it. Besides, I lose arbitrary non-specific/wishy-washy units of time (encounter, milestone, adventuring day) having an affect on durations - that was one of major dealbreakers for me in the 4th edition.

If you do do that... I do hope that your primary product support (through further books and so on) will stay with the 'advanced'/normal/main Pathfinder RPG game.

That said, the original billing was one that a player with PF RPG could bring his book to the table, sit down with a group playing 3.5, and have little to no issue playing. No hugely differing mechanics, that kind of thing.

I don't remember that kind of 'original billing' at all. It is also a wholly unrealistic expectation - after all, the ruleset would have to avoid any changes whatsoever to have that kind of backwards compatibility.

I started playing D&D with AD&D 2nd Edition and have been a fan of D&D ever since. 3E/3.5E only served to improve the game for me and my group(s), so we have embraced them enthusiastically. When 4E was announced, however, as much as I tried to approach it with a positive mind (just as I did with 3E/3.5E when they came along), almost every preview made me like it less and less. Ultimately, it became clear that 4E would absolutely not be for me and my D&D group(s) and all of us decided to stay with 3.5E, though we still continued to watch 4E new with sadness about what was being done to the game. Then Pathfinder RPG was announced which was supposed to be en evolition of 3.5E. I immediately downloaded the first Alpha release to see what it was like and I have been onboard ever since. Prior to that I have been a 100% WotC only RPG customer and never bought a single third party product. Since 4E was announced I simply did not buy any d20/OGL products from anybody - full stop. This still hasn't changed - the Pathfinder RPG is set to be the first non-WotC OGL product I buy... ever. Depending on how that turns out, and I am optimistic, more purchases might follow.

I am also still excited about the Pathfinder RPG. There are some changes I don't like, but that is inevitable, we all have slightly different preferences and house-rules can address most of these. Overall, I am happy about how the Pathfinder RPG is shaping up.

Rage points... I liked them, but I liked the alternate rage system posted later even better! As such, I hope it is the alternate system that makes it into the final product, rather than the rage point system, although (apart from some supernatural powers) I prefer either of them to the vanilla 3.5E rage system.

I find the opinions on compatability expressed here very surprising. Our campaigns has 3.5 splat book classes running along side PFRPG classes with 3.5 monsters, feats and encounters etc. in use with no problems at all. There is a very slight up tick in character strength but in most casses this just balances the base classes with the splat ones. Both DM's have noticed a slight need to strengthen encounters, but nothing more cumbersome than what you would do for a group that has a couple too many magic items for example. All the new rules changes have been met with approval by a group of 7 players with very different skill levels and ideas of what makes a great game. Do we think some fine tuning is needed sure...but the overall opinion is that we are onboard with PFRG replacing the players handbook on release.

For me, the changes also have not crossed the threshold of incompatibility (though some changes were not necessary) and I also like many of the changes introduced.

To some extent, although I think the open playtest is helping Paizo make a better game, the playtest may harm the popularity of the game for some users. Ihe open playtest, I think, created an unrealistic expectations among playtesters regarding the degree to which they can shape the outcome of the final product. When their individual preferences were not met to the degree they expected, some people have inevitably reacted with disappointment that leads, in some cases, to the wholesale rejection of the game.

I hope that the lesson learned for Paizo is not that it should avoid open playtests in the future. An outcome like that would be something that really disappoint me. Although Paizo may lose some people because of this factor, the ultimate quality of the game will be higher due to the playtest.

If the designers were going to axe any 1 new rule, which would you be glad to see go?

Hit dice size increases!

Although... I can do that myself relatively easily through house-rules... maybe I should chose something more complex that is more difficult to house-rule.

I like both 3.5E and the Pathfinder RPG, which I view as its successor. I think backward-compatibility is still there. I guess the exact level of backward compatibility that's acceptable for somebody is very subjective. For me, it is still compatible enough. That said, I do think some of the changes are not entirely necessary and do needlessly raise the bar for backward compatibility to jump over. For example, skill consolidation - I find it to be fine - no huge problems have arisen because of it, but it was not really needed, apart from removing Use Rope, which I think we have all done in our 3.5E houserules (well, I certainly have).

Other changes, however, are very positive. For example, my players refused to create magic items in 3.5E because it would cost them experience points. The elimination of this requirement is a good thing and might induce my players to try some magic item creation in the future (for which I will make them quest for rare components they cannot just buy, muhahaha). Might this introduce other problems? Sure, I guess we will see - that's what the playtest is for after all. A potential problem I can foresee is that gold is a much less 'controlled' resource than experience points. Yes, there is the wealth per level chart, but that is much more lose than the hard and fast XP chart. Personally, I more or less ignore the wealth per level chart altogether and my players acquire wealth as it makes sense to me depending on their actions and not according to some formula - and this cannot be directly used to buy magic items in some shops. I guess we will see the impact the change will have on my campaign if the players decide to try some magic item creation. Maybe creating something like 'essence' that derives from the level of the characters (perhaps essence could even be equal to XP if not spent) and needed to create magic items would be better for those of us not wanting to have a magical economy, but I will see how my players respond to the the Pathfinder changes first.

One area where I am less than enamored with the changes are some of the power boosts:
1) Hit point boosts are possibly the worst offender here and in particular the higher hit dice for some classes (d6 for Wizards, d8 for Rogues, etc) - this was a completely unneccessary change that I will definitely reverse through house-rules if it is not reversed in the final product. It only leeds to hit point creep and does not even address low-level survivability, since most of the bonuses accrue over time (a one time 1st level bonus would be better for the low-level survivability stuff). If standardization of hit dice to BAB is truly necessary, than make it d4/d6/d8, not d6/d8/d10 - combats are not exactly short - there is precisely zero need to lenghten them by adding more hit points.
2) Races should not have +2/+2/-2, but should either revert to +2/-2, where the +2 can be assigned to either of the two ability scores that currently both receive a +2, or at most should be something like +2/+1/-2. In the latter case the +1 probably ought to be the bonus to the mental ability score in order to put a bit of a damper on casters.
3) Boosts to some powerful classes that absolutely didn't need them. The prime example is the Wizard, who got a bigger power boost than the Fighter. What the heck? The Channel Energy feature for the Cleric, while much nicer than the older turning rules, is also overpowered. Some other classes also need a bit of a tone-down - even the non-spellcasting rogue - perhaps sneak attack needs to have limited effects on formerly invulnerable creatures.

In some cases, however, power-creep has been worth it, since some classes were underpowered in the first place (e.g. Fighter) and in other cases power-creep provided such huge amounts of flavor that I am happy to overlook it (e.g. Sorcerer).

Apart from power-creep, the second area where I am a bit concerned is the 'supernatural-creep', where increasing numbers of supernatural or spell-like powers are making it to formerly non-supernatural/spellcasting classes, such as the Barbarian or the Rogue. But this is easier to houserule out than power-creep, which is much more pervasive.

Overall, I am still pretty happy with the direction of the Pathfinder RPG. A reversal of some changes, however, would indeed be desirable. Skill system deconsolidation/partial reversion would be nice (but not essential), hit dice reversion (or decrease) is essential for me (but doable through my house-rules), power decreases for Channel Energy, Wizards, and so on would be welcome. But because I also like many of the Pathfinder RPG changes, these things are unlikely to be game-breakers for me even if not reversed. Barring something unforeseen, I will get the final Pathfinder RPG product and probably use it as the basis for my campaigns, though I might revert some things back on my own for the changes that I think go too far or are unnecessary.

Idea 2: Ability Score Increases:

Characters currently get a +1 increase to one ability score of their choice at level 4 and at every 4th level thereafter. For some time now (way back to when 4E was not even to be announced for a long time yet), I have seen calls to enable more increases of ability scores. Star Wars Saga and 4E both heeded this call, but enabling characters to increase two ability scores by one point each at level 4 and every 4 levels thereafter. This is, however, not particularly elegant, because concentrating both of those increases to a single level only increases the suddenness of the ability score increase... now the pattern is 0-0-0-2 instead of the previous 0-0-0-1.

The solution would be to permit more frequent ability increases, rather than concentrating two of them at the same level. This fits well, with the dead general levels that come at levels 2, 6, 10, 14 and 18 (and, naturally, level 22 and every 4 levels thereafter for levels beyond 20), which lie right in-between the levels that grant ability score increases and would thus provide a following pattern: 0-1-0-1.

Of course, the reason the two ability score increases were relegated to the same level in Star Wars Saga and 4E is that it is important for reasons of balance to prevent the character from increasing the same ability score twice and it would be a pain to track which ability score was increased at what level between levels, so it seems simpler to have both ability score increases at the same level.

There is, however, a solution to this problem. Every character could chose a primary ability score at level 1. This ability score would be marked on the character sheet and increase automatically at levels 2, 4, 6, 10, 14, 18 (and every 4 levels after 18). The player would still chose an ability score to increase at levels 4, 8, 12, 16 and 20 (and every 4 levels after 20), but the increase could not be assigned to the primary ability score. This would ensure that balance would not be thrown out of whack, spread out the ability point increases, fill the general dead levels and enable easy tracking.

The downside of both of my proposals, of course, is that they increase general power level of the game.

Here come the two ideas I have for filling the dead general levels:

Idea 1: Skill Bonus Increases:

The class skill bonus could increase by +1 every 4 levels, starting at level 2. If the original +3 bonus at level 1 were retained, the 5 increases at levels 2, 6, 10, 14 and 18 would bring it to +8 by level 20. This may sound like a lot, but consider the fact that the synergy bonus between skills from 3.5E no longer applies and if these were added up, for some skills they could even exceed the extra +5 this rule would provide for class skills.

(Note: Also, I am not so keen on the +2/+2 feats (which provide another way to boost skills to higher levels) that needlessly try to tie some skills together conceptually and that I would not mind to see eliminated to save book space for more flavorful feats, abilities and rules. Skill focus is the skill boosting feat - there is no need for more stackable ones... but that is perhaps a discussion for another topic and eliminating these feats is not necessary to implement the increasing class skill bonus.)

The Pathfinder RPG has been very good at eliminating dead levels and this is a very positive change. Every class now gets something every level be it a new level of spells or Armor Mastery or a talent or a bonus feat or some other ability.

By the same token, the Generalized Progression (which I sometimes call General Levels) that is universal for all classes also grants something at every level... almost: Every odd level grants a feat and every 4th level grants an ability score increase.

That leaves levels 2, 6, 10, 14 and 18 (and 22 and every 4th level thereafter if we extend the progression to levels beyond level 20), where the general level itself does not grant anything to the character.

This is not a major problem, because class levels still grant their thing, but it is a slight design anomaly, and what can I say... I am a perfectionist and like elegant design.

As such, I would like to propose some ideas as to what could be granted by those general levels. Two things come to mind immediately: Skill Bonus Increases and Ability Score Increases.

Oh come on, it's not as if the previous Assassin was a paragon of difference vis-a-vis the Rogue. He was basically a Rogue with spells (which never made any sense anyway). There are plenty of specialization-based prestige classes. It is one of the functions that these prestige classes are supposed to provide. What is a Loremaster other than a Wizard with a couple of his abilities exchanged for lore ones? This is a normal way prestige classes are supposed to and do function. The new Assassin is great in this regard.

Thanael wrote:

I'm not sure what you are aiming at Sam.

If you want a "The PCs are special" rule, I do not think this is where PF wants to be heading. 4E already introduced much along those lines, namely the PC-NPC divide. PF aims at patching up the holes and spicing up of 3.5, which is a very simulationist game at heart. In 3E PCs and NPCs go by the same rules, with each in the end only really protected from permanent death by the Power of Plot. So assasins should imho be abel to kill PCs as much as they should be able to kill NPCs.

OTOH i think attacking the root of the problem might indeed be the better option, if by that you mean fixing the resurrection spells and what they imply in world building.

I'd be quite happy to see Raise Dead bumped to 7th, Resurrection to 9th and True Resurrection disappear completely. Then the only way to bring back someone who has their body completely destroyed would be by special quest (like Orpheus' descent into the Underworld to recover Eurydice).

I did this in several of my campaigns. I bumped up all life-returning magic by 1 level and doubled the costs. Reincarnate became a 5th level spell, Raise Dead became 6th level, Resurrection became 8th level and True Resurrection became a 10th level spell (I don't use the broken epic rules, so 10th level spells are basically plot devices). It worked fine. In my current campaigns, however, life-raising magic is by the book so to speak.

seekerofshadowlight wrote:

Majuba wrote:

Idea for the choice here.

No please just no. I dont want replacement spell like powers. Keep it spell less

i agree. I always liked 1e assassins

I also agree. The new assassin prestige class is pure awesome!

No this thread is not about spelling! :D Rather, I want to share some thoughts about spells before the Spell Forum opens and I would like to invite others to do so too.

I want to talk first about enhancement/buff spells:

Spells that enhance the party, often referred to as ‘buff-spells’, have very short durations. At the same time, the 5-minute adventuring day is a problem for many groups. Wouldn’t it be logical to, therefore, simply extend the duration of these spells substantially? I would say change it to 10 mintues or 1 hour per level (or maybe even longer durations), rather than 1 round or 1 minute per level. This would provide less incentive for the party to rest and more to carry on with adventuring. I don’t foresee any game-breaking problems that this would engender, after all, durations of some spells used to be longer in past editions.

The longer durations would apply to the various ability-score enhancing spells and other spells that enhance the party, such as perhaps bless et al (though not necessarily all such spells).

After some further analysis, I have concluded that it would be best for the Morale bonus/penalty to remain a separate category both conceptually and for gameplay purposes.

Here is the revised list of combined bonus types:

Armor = Armor
Circumstance = Circumstance + Luck
Competence* = Competence + Insight
Deflection* = Deflection + Shield
Divine* = Sacred + Profane
Dodge = Dodge
Enhancement = Enhancement + Resistance + Alchemical
Inherent = Inherent
Morale = Morale
Natural Armor = Natural Armor

Unnamed = Unnamed + Racial + Size

This yields 10 + 1 bonus types, which is approximately half that in 3.5E D&D.

*There might be better terms than these. The term ‘competence’ could be replaced with ‘insight’, ‘deflection’ could be replaced with ‘shield’ and ‘divine’ could be replaced with ‘moral’ or ‘ethical’ for example.

Roman wrote:

Still, this changes the game fundamentally (not to mention that if formalized in this way, adding the spell to another spell list moves it from the Arcane or Divine to the General category) and is thus probably best left avoided. A slightly different idea I considered was to separate only some spell-types, such as transmutation spells, into giving specific bonuses, for example the "Transmogrification bonus". Ultimately, though, the fact that this changes the game to a large extent remains an obstacle.

I even considered abandoning stacking altogether, or allowing any kind of stacking, or allowing all stacking coming from a different source (usually a different spell), but ultimately, these are all very radical and some create more problems than they solve.

In the end, I concluded that the current system should remain in essence, but should be simplified by cutting down on bonus types, but only to a reasonable extent, for example so that there are no hidden bonus types within explicit bonus type categories.

Why not merely modify stacking itself, rather than messing with the categories? It is simpler and more backwards compatible.

I would use the "2 + 1 + 1/2" rule:
Only one bonus per category, as normally determined
2 best bonuses stack fully
1 bonus of +1 stacks fully
1/2 bonus rounded down for all others

I agree this would definitely help limit the total attainable bonuses. That said, it makes the stacking rules even more complex and arbitrary than they already are and makes it more difficult to track in-game by adding another layer of rules that need to be followed when adding bonuses. I am not sure that is the way to go.

Brett Blackwell wrote:

I can't comment on higher-level campaigns since we are currently only 2nd level, but as for low-level it doesn't really do squat on undead encounters from my experience.

I do think the healing powers are too powerful. Let me give an example. I have two PCs with Channeling with a potenial third returning.

I also speak from experience - my players also played classes with Channel Positive Energy - Paladins and Clerics. My experience, however, indicates that Channel Positive Energy is overpowered in its current form - that's why my suggestions for making it weaker but usable more frequently. The issue is not the total amount of healing PCs can receive from it per day - I have no problem with that whatsoever. The problem comes into play when they are fighting undead. When doing so, a 9th level Cleric is healing the entire party for 5d6 hit points per round, while simultaneusly damaging all the undead for 5d6 hit points per round! This makes battles against the undead trivial in my experience. So it is in combat, where this is a problem, not in after-combat healing. That's why I am suggesting making the ability less powerful per use, but giving more uses of it per day, so the total amount of healing per day could stay the same or even increase, but the ability would no longer be overpowered.

For some reason this discussion is making me feel that the Assassin should really be a full base class like the Blackguard will probably be (though also not necessarily in the core). I know that's very unlikely to happen, but it's the vibe I get.

It's never felt right to me that assassins had spells - I've always thought that they should be a purely martial class. I hate the fact that my suggestion for implementing a trap-the-soul style ability (posted above) could only really be implemented as a Supernatural or Psionic ability. I'm wracking my brain for some fluff to explain it a different way - and failing :(

I am on the same page as you on this issue. I like the trap the soul ability. It is flavorful and good for gameplay. But I too, really dislike the idea of spells/spell-like abilities/supernatural abilities for Assassins. They should be deadly martial killers not magic wielders. I must say I really like what Jason/Paizo did to Assassins in the Pathfinder RPG Beta web enhancement - the class is really great now.

Back to the trap the sould ability though - trying to think of some non-supernatural fluff for it. Perhaps we could base it on fear effects. Consider: Let's say the ability can only be used as part of the death attack and it implies that the assassin kills the victim in such a gruesome or sudden/unexpected manner that the victim's soul panics and in its terror flees to the nearest possible receptacle rather than to wherever souls are supposed to go after death. That receptacle would, of course, be the assassin himself and, of course, he would have to permit this to happen (so the ability cannot be used to force the soul into somebody else). Hmm, it could work but it is really stretching the flavor.

Jason Bulmahn wrote:

I am also thinking that an Assassin should be able to trap the soul at 10th level, but they can never have more than one soul in this way... meaning that if they take another, they have to let the previous one go. Could make for some fun RP opportunities.

Thoughts?

What about if the reason they can only trap one soul, mentioned as an arbitrary limit in some intervening posts, is that they take an essential part of the soul of the creature and absorb it into themselves. This could manifest as whisperings in the corner of the assassins mind and doing it to more than one creature at a time could lead to the tales of assassins going mad hearing the voices of all they have slain calling to them from the darkness.

It also gives an out to a PC slain by an assassin at the start of a session. They get to go on a ride with the killer and get a chance of influencing his actions or maybe taking his mind over briefly until the assassin has been able to fully subdue the soul. Could make for a fun session rather than grumbling in the corner and rolling dice.

This is an interesting idea. It does solve the 'player dead, what now?" problem and it provides further RP opportunities.

An ability that prevents raise dead at low levels, and scales up to prevent up to Resurrection (but True Res will always work). In addition, this ability could prevent Speak with Dead at a certain level.

Sounds good to me, though I would prefer if the ability to prevent Resurrection were non-magical, which is workable I think. I am less sure about how a non-magical ability would work to prevent Speak with Dead. Hmm, perhaps it could be some kind of fear effect. The soul is simply too afraid to speak with the living after its experience with the Assassin!

I am also thinking that an Assassin should be able to trap the soul at 10th level, but they can never have more than one soul in this way... meaning that if they take another, they have to let the previous one go. Could make for some fun RP opportunities.

I am generally opposed to giving non-magical classes spell-like or supernatural abilities, but the ability to trap one and only one soul at a time is so flavorful that I like it anyway. It would indeed make for great roleplaying opportunities!

Even though this entire discussion is probably redundant, considering that the skill list is probably already finalized, there is, nevertheless, one more thing that I want to add.

Skills are not only for player characters, but are also used to build other creatures. As such, it is important that these other creatures also be taken into account in the design of the skill system. I for one don't want to see fish being the best climbers in the world! Unless, of course, they are some weird mountain fish or tree-living fish or something along those lines. By the same token squirells, monkeys, apes or mountain creatures also should not be the top swimmers in the world, unless there is a very good reason for them to be that way.

Yes, it would be possible to resolve this by not giving these creatures ranks in a unified Athletics skill and just giving them racial bonuses to the Swimming or Climbing part of Athletics only. Ultimately, though, it's just an added hassle and despite the appearances of fewer skills, it just makes the system more convoluted, rather than cleaner and more streamlined. Sometimes removing too much for the sake of simplicity adds additional complications, because what is simpler on the surface merely hides the complexity under another layer. This is such a case - retaining these two skills (Swim and Climb) actually makes the system more streamlined than combining them into an artificial entity and then being forced to distinguish between the two anyway.

In some ways, this is similar to the Fly skill controversy. Some people would like to see it disappear, because they consider it useless, considering that PCs don't fly very frequently. Well, PCs don't fly often, but various other creatures that PCs will encounter do fly a lot! The skill is useful for that purpose. Sure, it could be in the monster manual only, but I prefer to have the skills all in one place. Of course, Swim is different, as it can be used quite frequently if PCs come near any significant bodies of water (and in my campaigns at least, PCs tend to move around quite a bit and certainly do come across water - it is not considered a useless skill in my gaming groups).

Although the idea of skill groups is a nice one (the exact details of how these would work could be worked out relatively easily if the decision to adopt them were made), this is really not going to happen. Jason has stated that the current system is now set in stone. Discussion of modification of how each skill works is another matter, but the skill system itself is already immutable and indeed so is probably the current skill list (though this one is slightly less certain).

I am very pleased that this solution was adopted for saving throws and am entirely in favor of it. I do think it would work for all multiclassing, including the base classes. Indeed, I would go even slightly further and make good saving throws also start with +0 just like poor ones (though they would still improve faster) - after all the spread being too high between saving throws at higher levels is a common complaint. If there must be a first level bonus, it could be tied to race instead of class (Dwarves could get +2 (or maybe just +1) to Fortitude, Halflings could get the bonus to Reflex, Elves to Willpower, Humans (and Half-Elves and Half-Orcs) could chose any one saving throw and so on for other races).

For some reason I find taking Jump out of Acrobatics and combining it with Climb less offensive than combining Swim and Climb. I am guessing the reason is that Climb and Jump are at least somewhat interrelated and there are situations when the two are used together.

I guess it is also a question of 'flaw' archetypes. An inability to swim is a relatively common archetypical weakness that I would like to see preserved and not tied to skill at climbing or skill at other pursuits. Indeed, allegedly most people couldn't swim up until the relatively recent past and this supposedly even applied to the majority of sailors! (I don't know how much truth there is to that, but that's what I recall reading somewhere anyway) An inability to jump, on the other hand - well that's not much of an archetypical flaw. Sure, I could make a character with such a flaw if I wanted to be weird, but it would not feel very archetypical.

That's one of the reasons why Swim is sarcosanct for me. Removing this particular skill just breaks immersion for me in ways that manipulating/combining/removing/adding other skills does not.

Roman wrote:

I would like to see a non-magical Assassin ability to prevent resurrection. Perhaps the Assassin hides a small shard near the heart (or some other vital organ), so that immediately if it starts beating again, the person dies, thus effectively preventing resurrection. Circumventing this method would require finding the shard(s) by the resurrector and this could be made very difficult indeed.

Nice! This gets round the no supernatural abilities idea. Another option would be the egg of a creature that stays dormant until the body warms up and then chomp, chomp, thud.

Thanks for the love! :) Yes, I agree - it doesn't have to be a shard - it can be an egg or another object. It could even be a physical alteration that is not counted as damage (so that it does not heal when the resurrection spell kicks-in), which would even preclude the need for the Assassin to have the requisite object. An example of that would be the tying of important arteries (e.g. one of the coronary arteries).

It needs to be something that is hard to circumvent even with magic,

Definitely! It needs to prevent resurrection magic with a high degree of certainty.

Some kind of enchanted gemstone that explodes when exposed to magic or light? Try to resurrect the king and he and his high-priest coat the tapestries. Or someone has to perform an autopsy by touch in the dark.

You know, we could do something like this:

Death Eternal

This ability allows the Assassin to ensure that a dead creature remains dead. It prevents the workings of all resurrection magic that rely on the existence of the body of the deceased.

The Assassin can chose to make a physical alteration to the corpse that will prevent resurrection. The alteration is not be healed by magic, because it is not damage - it merely causes a lethal amount of damage to a resurrected creature. An example would be the tying of crucial arteries to prevent blood flow to vital organs such as the heart or the brain, but the exact details of what physical alterations are made are usually best left to the imagination.

It takes a full-round action to use this ability, except when used as part of a Death Attack, in which case it is a free action. The Assassin makes a Sleight of Hand check adding his Assassin class level as a bonus to the check. If he has sufficient time, he can take 10 or take 20 instead of rolling. Ridding the victim of the resurrection-preventing physical alteration requires an opposed heal check.

Various implements can be used to aid the Assassin on his skill check to prevent resurrection. These are left to the imagination. A shard or a needle, for example, could provide a +3 bonus on the check.

Assassins can also use special implements to produce additional effects. They can, for example, insert eggs of parasites that hatch when the victim is resurrected. These can be used to kill the resurrected victim slowly and painfully rather than immediately, thus often ensuring that the soul does not want to return to its body ever again. As another example, miniature explosive devices can also be used to harm the healer/resurrector, as well as the victim being resurrected.

Roman wrote:

I would like to see a non-magical Assassin ability to prevent resurrection. Perhaps the Assassin hides a small shard near the heart (or some other vital organ), so that immediately if it starts beating again, the person dies, thus effectively preventing resurrection. Circumventing this method would require finding the shard(s) by the resurrector and this could be made very difficult indeed.

That would require a Heal check to fix, I think. Which would be rather similar to a Caster Level Check for practical purposes.

Both solutions are good.

Yes, a Heal check would be appropriate. It could be made pretty difficult to make - the Assassin would probably make a Sleight of Hand* check to hide the shard (or if he has no object at hand, perhaps he could tie a crucial artery - basically do something that resurrection does not automatically undo). He would, however, get his Assassin class level as a bonus to the check and could take 10 or even 20 if he had sufficient time to do so, which would make it almost impossible to raise victims killed by a high-level Assassin.

*A Heal check might be thematically more appropriate for this too, but we don't want to penalize the Assassin for doing what he does best and we can expect most Assassins to have the Sleight of Hand skill, but not the Heal skill. I suppose we could replace the skill check with a generic check entirely if we wanted to, but I think Sleight of Hand fits this reasonably well.

- Saving throw progressions are different for prestige classes to help keep the save averages a bit closer to the "norm". Does this work and would it work for all multiclassing?

I am very pleased that this solution was adopted and am entirely in favor of it. I do think it would work for all multiclassing, including the base classes. Indeed, I would go even slightly further and make good saving throws also start with +0 just like poor ones (though they would still improve faster) - after all the spread being too high between saving throws at higher levels is a common complaint. If there must be a first level bonus, it could be tied to race instead of class (Dwarves could get +2 (or maybe just +1) to Fortitude, Halflings could get the bonus to Reflex, Elves to Willpower, Humans (and Half-Elves and Half-Orcs) could chose any one saving throw and so on for other races).

I would like to see a non-magical Assassin ability to prevent resurrection. Perhaps the Assassin hides a small shard near the heart (or some other vital organ), so that immediately if it starts beating again, the person dies, thus effectively preventing resurrection. Circumventing this method would require finding the shard(s) by the resurrector and this could be made very difficult indeed.

Well, taste, listen, smell, touch, and spot are all different modes of perception, and they have been combined in one skill. Why different modes of movement would be different ?

Because both Spot and Listen are generally used to detect hidden movement and are thus usually rolled simultaneously. As such, having two skills mostly used for the same purpose and at the same time (just requiring two rolls instead of one) seemed to be redundant to the designers. The situations where Climb and Swim would be used simultaneously are rare at best.

Move silently and hide are different modes too. You can be good at move silently, but terrible at hiding. They have been combined too.

Again, there use has been simultaneous and for the same purpose in the majority of occassions only calling for two rolls to do the same task.

Climb and Swim are not even remotely conceptually similar. They are in fact entirely different skills just about the only similarity is that they both rely on physical strength. Here we have a game issue against combining Swim and Climb - if they were combined, there would be only one strength-based skill in the game. The game would be the poorer for it - I don't think it should be 1 ability score = 1 skill. At that level of consolidation, we might as well abandon skills altogether and have people able to advance their ability scores by adding skill points into them, but I prefer to have an actual skill system.

I am a huge fan of Vancian magic and the D&D flavor and am very happy that this won't change in the Pathfinder RPG (after all, if it were changing, I would be staying with 3.5E...).

Well said toyrobots and seekerofshadowlight! I completely oppose the idea of combining swim and climb into one skill. They are fundamentally different modes of movement.

Toning down the frontloading of save-progressions is a good thing. Even making good saves start at +0 would be fine by me.

Just out of interest: Has the schedule shifted, because of the changes that have occured to accomodate unforseen developments, or is it back on track?

I'm sorry OP, but I really don't agree. The Leadership feat is the one feat in the DMG, that the DM really has to approve, and its just easy to say "okay, but no followers" or something like that.

In 3.5E D&D you would be correct, but in the Pathfinder RPG, the Leadership feat is no longer in the DMG, but right there among the other feats. Personally, I would still require that a player gets my approval before taking it, but by the official rules it is now a normal feat that is no longer in the DMG.

In my game, all the four characters actually have leadership (one got at leve 6, one at leve 9, one retrained at level 10 and one got now at level 12), and although I don't have problem with Rping the cohorts and the followers, two of the players said "I want leadership to have (insert dear-to-the-party-and-the-story npc's name here) as a cohort, but I don't want any followers. My char don't want and I don't want".

That's what I am doing right now. I also have players who take the feat and I house rule the feat so that it does not grant both cohorts and followers. Yes, it is possible to house-rule anything - I even stated as much in my original post. After all, if I want to I can rule that Dragons breath rainbows instead of fire, but we are talking about how the rules are officially and not how I can change them at my whim. The feat is internally sufficiently conceptually different to be split into two feats and cohorts have a very different impact on the game from followers, so it makes little sense to lump these two functions of the feat together.

Leadership really needs to be separated into two feats:

Leadership
Attract Cohort or Find Associate or Personal Bond something like that

Leadership would then only provide followers and no cohort, whereas Personal Bond would only furnish a cohort and no followers. The conflation of these two within one feat is annoying and makes the Leadership feat practically unusable as written in many campaigns one or the other (cohort or followers) is not appropriate or wanted by either the players or the DM.

Yes, Leadership can be house-ruled to provide one or the other without changing it officially. Alternatively, followers or cohorts can be obtained through pure roleplaying rather than through a mechanical contrivance, such as feats, but since the mechanics for this do exist, let's make them flexible and separate the gaining of a cohort and of followers into two separate feats. It's not as if Leadership and Personal Bond would be underpowered feats anyway.

Personally, I really like both versions of Cleave! I think both should be separate, but available feats!

Before coming up with the compromise simplification, I was actually thinking of a wholesale reform of the bonus system.

Magical bonus types
- Spell bonus
- Item bonus

Mundane bonus types
- Inherent bonus
- Equipment bonus
- Circumstance bonus

Under the revised system, there would have been only 5 bonus types, though in some versions, even fewer, for example, in some I tried combining the Spell bonus and Item bonus into one magical bonus. This would, of course, allow so much less scope for magical enhancement, unless the magical bonus was stackable, which would to some extent defeat its purpose. Such minimization of magical enhancement might not be such a bad thing, but it changes a fundamental assumption of the game to too large an extent.

The approach outlined-above seemingly cuts down on the number of bonus types, but one could say that it merely hides some of them into broader categories within which distinctions are still needed. The equipment bonus, for example, would not permit the stacking from armor and shield to get a better armor class, unless stacking was permitted. But if stacking was allowed, it would need to be limited in some way, because unlimited stacking could lead to multiple layers of armor granting a huge AC bonus. The workaround I used was to allow non-magical bonus-stacking from items in different slots. Another approach would be to simply make an exception for shields and armor. But if I were to do that, I realized it would be easier to simply have those as separate bonus types and not hide the different bonus types under equipment slots. So it is not always for the best to cut down on bonus types.

In other versions, I tried distinguishing between the types of magic that gives the bonus, so that different sources would stack:
- Arcane
- Divine
- (Possibly also "Nature", "Psionics", or even "Technical/Alchemical")

This would allow both Arcane casters and Divine casters (and possibly other types of casters - Psionic, Natural and so on) to complement each other in magical enhancement. On the other hand, problems could arise when the Arcane and Divine casters are using the same spells, which appear on both spell lists. If these were allowed to stack, it could break the game. One solution is to keep the system, but simply disallow the stacking of the same spells even from different spell lists. This would essentially yield three (+) bonus types:
- General Magical Bonus (GMB - could be called "Enhancement" bonus)
- Arcane Magical Bonus
- Divine Magical Bonus
- (Possibly Psionic, Natural, etc. bonus types)

Still, this changes the game fundamentally (not to mention that if formalized in this way, adding the spell to another spell list moves it from the Arcane or Divine to the General category) and is thus probably best left avoided. A slightly different idea I considered was to separate only some spell-types, such as transmutation spells, into giving specific bonuses, for example the "Transmogrification bonus". Ultimately, though, the fact that this changes the game to a large extent remains an obstacle.

I even considered abandoning stacking altogether, or allowing any kind of stacking, or allowing all stacking coming from a different source (usually a different spell), but ultimately, these are all very radical and some create more problems than they solve.

In the end, I concluded that the current system should remain in essence, but should be simplified by cutting down on bonus types, but only to a reasonable extent, for example so that there are no hidden bonus types within explicit bonus type categories.

Yeah, it does seem unlikely.

Roman wrote:

There were several threads about the change to Wish and how it requires lowering one attribute to raise another. The change was universally hated and reviled. I generally have to agree with that - I would like to see Wish reverted back to the way it was before the change.

I would love to see it go back to the classic way where it is extremely hard to increase stats past 18 (or 20 now since 20 is the new 18)

I have an idea. Perhaps we could make each casting of Wish equivalent to giving a point in point buy. So to increase a stat from 17 to 18 would require casting 4 wishes in a row and so on. For stats above 18, the number of casting would increase by 1 for every two points in a stat, thus extending the point buy progression indefinitely.

Here is a simple system of consolidated bonus types that I would like to suggest. The idea was to keep the basic 3.5E system and consolidate some bonuses where I thought they fit together conceptually and where consolidation would not cause too many problems.

Bonus types in 3.5E:

Alchemical
Armor
Circumstance
Competence
Deflection
Dodge
Enhancement
Inherent
Insight
Luck
Morale
Natural Armor
Profane
Racial
Resistance
Sacred
Shield
Size

Unnamed

Counting them all gives us 18 + 1 bonus types in total.

The +1 refers to the ‘Unnamed’ bonus type, which also includes all natural bonuses.

There is also the Roman Lajciak (RL) bonus!

Combined Bonus Types:

Armor = Armor
Circumstance = Circumstance + Luck
Competence* = Competence + Insight + Morale**
Deflection* = Deflection + Shield
Divine* = Sacred + Profane
Dodge = Dodge
Enhancement = Enhancement + Resistance + Alchemical
Inherent = Inherent
Natural Armor = Natural Armor

Unnamed = Unnamed + Racial + Size

As is apparent, the above exercise of combining the various bonus types yields 9 + 1 bonus types, which is half that in 3.5E D&D. At the same time, the conceptual system of 3.5E gets preserved and I would say that backward compatibility is not overly damaged either. It would be possible to go even further in bonus type consolidation, or to use a conceptually different system altogether, but I would say the above is a reasonable compromise between simplicity and backward compatibility.

*There might be better terms than these. The term ‘competence’ could be replaced with ‘insight’, ‘deflection’ could be replaced with ‘shield’ and ‘divine’ could be replaced with ‘moral’ or ‘ethical’ for example.
** ‘Morale’ fits reasonably well with ‘competence’ and ‘insight’ conceptually, but it might be mechanically worthwhile to subsume it under the ‘divine’ bonus instead.