Roman's page

The basic concept of having Death effects do Constitution damage rather than hit point damage is a good one, but may have some strange side-effects.

I think that 3d6 + 1/2 Caster level Constitution Drain on a failed save may be a bit too steep for the Save or Die spells though. Or perhaps that might be retained, and the victim takes no damage on a successful save...

Well, death effects ought to be deadly... and this is still less deadly than it was in 3.5E, where they led to automatic death.

More effects doing Con damage, forcing to recalculate opponent's HP = worse game. As if high level play wasn't complicated enough.

This is a fair point that hasn't been brought up before. I don't think it is very difficult - just remove a number of hit points equal to level times half the constitution lost from both the maximum and existing hit points (unless the Con drain is enough to kill the target outright - in that case no further calculations are needed), but I can see how some people might see it that way. Although for me this is not too much of an issue, I agree that this is a reasonable point that must be taken into account when making a decision on the nature of death effects and other save or die/suck effects.

Death effects should cause, well, instant death. If you don't like this, get some protection. Also, DnD has probably cheapest resurrection ever, so I have nothing good to say about the players who believe that instant death is a big deal at levels, where really good death effects become available.

I don't actually have a huge problem (I do have a slight problem) with death effects as they were in 3.5E, particularly if the autofail on a natural 1 is removed for saving throws, as I have done in my games. Many people, however, do not like instant death effects on a failed saving throw.

The thing is that death might not be a big deal at higher levels in D&D, but many people feel it should be a big deal and would like to make resurrection more difficult, but turn down lethality of instant death effects to compensate.

In any case, what do you think about my other idea of hit point thresholds determining whether a creature is affected by save or die/save or suck spells and otherwise leaving them as they were in 3.5E?

Additionally, most people would rather just have the character die than suffer Con drain, or so 4th ed says statistically.

This is mystifying to me - after all Con damage heals naturally and even Con drain can be 'cured'.

Whereas previously death effects meant instant death on saving throw failure before, now they merely do straight hit point damage - this makes them effectively evocation spells in all but name and simply adding more normal damage spells is well... boring. I understand the balance reasons why this was done, but there must be other solutions to the problem.

Indeed, there was an excellent thread on this matter back during the Alpha 3 playtest stage. It can be found here: Link

The near-consensus of the thread was that death effects should do Constitution drain or damage. Much of the rest of the thread was discussion about how much Constitution drain/damage they should cause and there were several viable proposals. One of my proposals was for:

3d6 + 1/2 Caster level Constitution Drain on a failed save
(Note: possibly it could also do 3d6 +1/2 Caster level hit point damage on a successful save)

There was also some discussion about whether to apply the same logic to other save or die and save or suck spells that are not strictly speaking death effects. These would drain other ability scores and reach full effect once the ability score reached 0. So, for example, Petrification would drain Dexterity (perhaps also to the tune of 3d6 +1/2 Caster level) on a failed save and the creature would turn to stone upon reaching 0 Dexterity. There was no consensus on this part though.

I really dislike the ordinary hit point damage caused by death effects, so the above system would work great for me. Alternatively, though, we could simply revert back to the 3.5E way of doing things and temper them with an additional rule. Save or die and perhaps even save or suck spells could have a hit point limit and the creature would have to have fewer hit points than this limit to be affected. That would mean that a powerful dragon would first have to be brought down to say 200hp (or whatever the limit would be), before it could be affected by the spell and thus couldn't be off'ed in the first round due to an unlucky save making the final battle very anticlimatic.

Thoughts?

- Save or die spells have mostly been changed into a damage dealing spell. What are your thoughts on this decision?

I don't like the decision at all. It may make the game more balanced, but at the cost of huge loss of flavor of death effects, which are now nothing more than damage-dealing effects. Mechanics don't determine flavor, but mechanics do influence flavor...

If you are looking for alternatives, there was a huge thread on the topic back in Alpha 3 and the best solution seemed to be to have death effects deal constitution damage. The thread can be found here: Link

(Note, there was some disagreement on whether other save or die/suck effects [rather than only death effects] should also cause ability damage - such as Petrification causing dexterity damage until the character turns to stone.)

I will start a thread on the matter on this board to have an updated discussion of the matter.

If you are not looking for alternatives, than just revert back to 3.5E way of doing things, perhaps softening it by making it similar to power word spells in terms of only working if the creature has less than a certain amount of hit points.

hmarcbower wrote:

Plus, it doesn't solve the problem, it just adds a side-trek to get the appropriate focus. Once they have it, they can still teleport willy nilly to get around. I know that any wizard of experience would have a bag of holding (or something similar) full or dirt samples from everywhere he'd been, and locks of hair from every person he'd met, etc... I don't think it would serve as the limiter you're seeking, but it is a good concept flavour-wise.

Roman wrote:

The thing is that the DM can have a significant degree of control over which objects/locks of hair become available to the players, so it is no longer possible to scry and teleport to the evil cultists' hidden crypt unless the DM permits the players to acquire the relevant items.

That's true... but how is it different from just choosing what locations to make impossible to scry, or to teleport into? What if the player gets it in his head that he is going to find what he needs and continues despite the DMs constant roadblocks? At least with the contrivance of "no, that area is warded against inbound teleports" the player knows that he shouldn't spend more time trying to figure out a way to teleport there. Unless you're going to come straight out and say "There is no way your character can ever find a possession/piece of the target, so give up now" then it could lead to a lot of frustration on the part of the player when this new possibility is dangled before him but is always kept just out of reach without the knowledge that he cannot succeed.

I see what you are saying. If the head cultist PCs want to scry is in the hidden temple, they will have trouble obtaining his lock of hair - and it acts as an effective ban on scry/teleport. In other situation, though, it might be easier to gain the right focus items. I guess that depends on the DMing style. I would usually let the players succeed in obtaining the required object, but depending on the object's importance and rarity, it could even be an adventure in and of itself. It also feels less contrived/artificial than giving every important location protection from scrying/teleportation. The aim is not so much to outright prevent teleportation and scrying, but to make sure that it is not an adventure breaker. If the players quest to acquire the right items to cast their spells, rather than trying to slog their way through temple guards directly, that's legitimate in my eyes and provides for an adventure with similar levels of fun.

Plus, it doesn't solve the problem, it just adds a side-trek to get the appropriate focus. Once they have it, they can still teleport willy nilly to get around. I know that any wizard of experience would have a bag of holding (or something similar) full or dirt samples from everywhere he'd been, and locks of hair from every person he'd met, etc... I don't think it would serve as the limiter you're seeking, but it is a good concept flavour-wise.

The thing is that the DM can have a significant degree of control over which objects/locks of hair become available to the players, so it is no longer possible to scry and teleport to the evil cultists' hidden crypt unless the DM permits the players to acquire the relevant items.

I am fine with opening this line of discussion, but lets make sure this does not turn into the "scry teleport" argument or one of its many permutations, as I am well aware of them and they do not really get us anywhere.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing

The scry-teleport issue is avoidable while preserving the spells in the game with slight modifications. The solution is to require foci for some divination and some transportation spells. Maybe an object or a pinch of earth from the location to which the caster is teleporting is necessary as a focus. There could be some exceptions for 'attuned locations' - such 'attuning' could take a day-long ritual to complete and perhaps the number of such locations could be limited. See this thread for more: Link

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 (I like durations that are 'per level' and thus increase with the level of the caster). 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.

Which spells would have their duration increased, would have to be considered carefully, but with spells like 'Bless' and so on, I think this would be desirable.

The bigger concern was this spell being used as a counterspell (ie readying an action to cast it as an opponent casts a spell). As it stands now, I think there are a host of ways around it.

It should be noted that the bad guy should know something is up the moment everything goes silent. After all, if he is a spellcaster, he would know of this trick, and would probably get out of the area ASAP.

But I am open to thoughts..

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing

How about allowing Concentration checks, or Spellcraft checks or Caster level checks or whatever else it is that ultimately ends up replacing Concentration, to allow casters to cast spells without verbal components? The DC could be 15 + 2 x Spell Level or something along those lines.

Yes, this change would make the Silent Spell metamagic feat relatively less useful. Perhaps Silent Spell would not be a metamagic feat at all (Really, how often does it get used? Who knows ahead of time that he/she will be captured and thus prepares spells with the feat?...), but would provide a +10 (or some appropriate) bonus to Concentration/Spellcraft/Caster Level checks to cast silently.

Althought that is not the topic of this thread, I might even consider the same approach for Still Spell and casting spells without Somatic Components.

For completeness sake, here are all the 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.

One of the major problems encountered at higher levels is the amount of various stacking bonuses. It makes it difficult for the DM to use many types of NPCs effectively without extensive preparation time and can slow down the game substantially when various bonuses are applied or removed mid-game.

It is a bit sad that there was and is not any time allocated specifically to discussing systemic issues, as this is, of course, a systemic issue (as are many other problems in 3.5E). Still, we can at least discuss it here. Some of these systemic issues are not resolvable without fundamentally altering the system, which is not on the cards for the Pathfinder RPG, but the matter of bonus types is different. One of the principal causes of this problem is the sheer number of bonus types, but it also makes the issue resolvable with bonus type consolidation, rather than making some huge systemic alterations.

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.

Without further ado, here is the revised list:

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. 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.

The new Wish spell and thus I presume other magical effects in Pathfinder can only provide inherent bonuses to ability scores by removing points from other ability scores unlike in 3.X edition, where Wish and other magical effects could. This change is universally reviled in my group and I dislike it as a DM too. Would it be possible to revert the Wish and other magical bonus-granting effects back to how this worked in 3.X edition? If necessary, we could make these effects more expensive or requiring rare components to compensate, but I thought the XP/gp conversion rate was already established with balance in mind.

As an alternative idea, perhaps Wish (and other Inherent-bonus-granting magical effects) could work on a point-buy basis. The number of Wishes cast in immediate succession grants the equivalent number of point-buy points which provide an inherent bonus to the given ability score. The inherent bonuses should probably still not stack.

Divination and transportation spells can pose problems for high level games, because of their ability to completely bypass the need for information-gathering and overcoming the obstacles of terrain. It is possible for the DM to overcome these problems with anti-divination or anti-transportation magic or by designing adventures where these won't automatically solve the core problem, but if this is done too often, it feels artificial. A better solution would be to change the spells themselves to be less problematic for the DM, yet retain their flavor and 'magic'.

At some point when we were still in the Alpha testing stage I suggested a solution for Find the Path that proved relatively popular and could be extended to other divinations and transportation spells and perhaps even to other types of magic.

The basic premise is that divination spells work as described in the rules, but in order to use them, the caster must have a focus. The focus must be an object from the place he is trying to scry/find/enquire about or belonging to the person he is trying to find/scry/enquire about.

Just how an object that can be a focus is defined is open to debate. To look back in time, perhaps the focus object must have been in the appropriate place at the appropriate time. To scry on a person, maybe it must be a body part or a possession of the person in question. Some feats might even be made to slightly relax the criteria of what qualifies for a focus object or even eliminate it altogether for specific spells or classes of spells (though the latter idea might defeat the purpose of having foci in the first place).

Applying this to Find the Path, the spell works as described in the rules, but in order to use it, the caster must have a focus - an object from the place he is trying to find.

It is entirely possible to expand this concept to other divination spells too. In order to scry on the evil priest locked away in his Tower of Doom, the caster might need a focus - one of his posessions or perhaps a lock of his hair.

Such an approach enables divinations to be meaningful and useful, yet it means they are less likely to break the game for the DM by completely obliterating his carefully-crafted "Find the Lost City" or "Who Murdered the Heir to the Throne" or similar adventures. The DM can, after all, control the availability of the items that serve as foci.

Exactly the same approach can be applied to some problematic transportation spells such as Teleport and its various variants. Maybe an object or a pinch of earth from the location to which the caster is teleporting is necessary as a focus. There could be some exceptions for 'attuned locations' - such 'attuning' could take a day-long ritual to complete and perhaps the number of such locations could be limited.

In principle, the idea of using foci could be extended even further and a similar approach could be used to limit, but not remove, other problematic spells, such as the various Save or Die (and Save or Suck) spells. Yes, the caster can transform a creature into a frog, or kill the creature instantly with a death effect, but not without having something (body part, prized possession,...) from that creature (the DM determines what counts). This could lead to interesting combat mechanics, as the caster could not just wipe out a powerful creature that the party has just now come accross with a single save or die spell. However, the party rogue (or even another character) may perhaps try to steal something from the creature during combat to pass it on to the caster, or the party Fighter (or Paladin, or...) might decide to disarm the creature (if it has a weapon) and throw the weapon to the caster so that the caster can cast his save or die spell. There could even be a mechanic tied to Slight of Hand, that when damage is done, the character doing the damage may snatch a meaningful 'piece' of the creature, such as a lock of hair from a humanoid or a single scale from a reptilian or dragon, or a feather from a griffin (you get the idea). Meanwhile, the caster can still be useful in combat casting other spells, such as buffs, debuffs, utility spells, direct damage spells, and so on that do not require a focus.

These further extensions (to Save or Die and other spells) may be taking the idea too far - the game is not Foci and Dragons after all, but using the foci to limit many divination spells and some transportation spells would solve many problems without eliminating those spells (and even adding further flavor to them).

One of the major problems experienced at higher levels is the ridiculous amount of buffing that groups do and all that it entails in terms of bonus calculations, bonus stacking and what happens when dispelling magic is used and how it all interacts together. There are various ways to approach this problem, but here is one I haven't seen mentioned before:

We could create a few high level spells, each of which could provide the buffs of many of the lower level spells combined into one. This would significantly simplify the buffing process - casting probably only one or two spells instead of many and as such the number of buff combinations would decrease drastically with the advantage that buffs could be pre-calculated and take next to no time to calculate and adjudicate in-game and reduce bonus stacking calculations too. The interaction with dispel magic would also be simplified.

An extreme form of this idea would be to have only one high-level buff spell per type of magic. To make it less extreme, however, high level spells could be divided by function and type of magic. For example:

Divine Spells:
Combat/Physical Aspect - Bless, Bull's Strength, Bear's Endurance, Divine Power, Divine Strength, etc.
Pious/Mental Aspect - Eagle's Splendor, Owl's Wisdom, etc.
...

Needless to say, something similar could be done for arcane spells.

If we wanted to simplify it further, we could even ensure that the spells don't stack with other buff spells, but last 1 hour / level (thus improving the length of the adventuring day) and be very difficult to dispel. Perhaps these spells represent the limits of the infusion of magical power possible into an individual which could prevent the stacking. So Combat/Physical Aspect does not stack with Pious/Mental Aspect nor does it stack with any buffs that are part of Pious/Mental Aspect, etc. Note that this lack of stacking is not actually necessary, but I am just including it to expand the idea.

Although I don't actually favor doing this, taking this idea to the extreme, we could even make just one chain of buff spells per function and magic type (Least Combat Aspect, Lesser Combat Aspect, Combat Aspect, Greater Combat Aspect...) and thus solve stacking problems entirely. This is too extreme for my taste, but some groups may like it. Still, the creation of some high level buff spells subsuming the bonuses of multiple lower level buff spells is, I think, a good idea that could solve some very important high-level problems for some groups.

Roman wrote:

Nevertheless, may I make a suggestion of my own? Perhaps the Game Master could be called Path Master in the Pathfinder RPG. It would be a neat touch and the name is logically sound too (at least as much as Dungeon Master). The abbreviation, PM, evokes 'personal message', but such short abbreviations always have multiple meanings anyway, for example: GM = General Motors and DM = Display Manager.

So,...I could be... Prime Minister?

Cool.

:D

PM = Path Master
PM = Personal Message
PM = Prime Minister

GM = Game Master
GM = General Motors
GM = General Manager
GM = Genetically Modified

Yeah, short abbreviations can take on multiple meanings. :D

The Pathfinder brand encompasses all of those things, but Pathfinder is not the actual name of any of them.

The roleplaying game is the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.
The campaign setting is the Pathfinder Chronicles campaign setting, and support books for the setting bear the Pathfinder Chronicles logo.
The organized play group is the Pathfinder Society.
The monthly adventure path product is the Pathfinder Adventure Path.
The modules are the Pathfinder Modules.
If you're referring to the fiction stories in the AP volumes, those are the Pathfinder's Journal.
The bimonthly player-oriented book is the Pathfinder Companion.

So the Pathfinder brand ties all of these things together, but none of these things are just called "Pathfinder."

And to be clear, third-party publishers who produce products for use with the Pathfinder RPG under our forthcoming Pathfinder Roleplaying Game compatibility license won't be allowed to call them "Pathfinder" anything, and they won't be able to place them in the Pathfinder Chronicles campaign setting, though they will be able to place a logo on the product that indicates that it's "compatible with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game."

I thought OP's original idea about p20 was nice, but you make a convincing case that it is a bad idea from the marketing point of view.

Nevertheless, may I make a suggestion of my own? Perhaps the Game Master could be called Path Master in the Pathfinder RPG. It would be a neat touch and the name is logically sound too (at least as much as Dungeon Master). The abbreviation, PM, evokes 'personal message', but such short abbreviations always have multiple meanings anyway, for example: GM = General Motors and DM = Display Manager.

What a DM's dream, this sounds like the way to go.

Getting rid of XP has been nothing but a boon. It greatly reduces the amount of numbers I have to track and I am not going back to the XP system unless something there will be something really compelling added to the system that would persuade me to return to it. I can't think of much that would fit the bill.

hogarth wrote:

Roman wrote:

Elijah Snow wrote:

Does anyone have any house rules for leveling up players without giving out XP per session?

I know that's common in online PBP games...

I don't use XP in the current games I run. I just tell the players that their characters gain a level, whenever I feel they have accomplished enough to do so.

I do exactly the same thing.

How do you do this in a standard 3.5 game where PCs are making magic items

Truth be told, my players don't really make magic items. When they by any chance do I have them go on quests to recover mythical components. I never considered XP expenditure on magic item creation to be logical at all - so, by making something new you become less experienced!?!?! In fact, I am not completely sold on the Pathfinder system of doing it (gold expenditure) either. So far, the players have not yet attempted to create a magical item under the Pathfinder rules. Nevertheless, if they do, I will probably require them to pay the costs AND to acquire a special ingredient. I might exempt potions and scrolls from the latter requirement, or make the ingredient purchasable, but only in some locals. The gold-piece expenditure system seems too much like manufacturing rather than magical item creation.

I want to applaud the decision of the designers to move away from the dead at -10 rule to the dead at -Constitution score rule. The new rules are a definite improvement over the old system and this would hold even more strongly if they were coupled with extending the disabled condition from 0 to -Constitution bonus a la Monte Cook in Arcana Unearthed.

That said, I think these rules could still be improved upon further. Before judging how to improve the rules, though, it is prudent to establish the goals for a rule change:

1) To provide a slightly greater negative hit point buffer against untimely death from unlucky rolls (particularly important at lower levels and when a monster crits)

2) To extend the range of the disabled condition to something more reasonable than just one hit point

3) To remove to some extent the certainty of the timing of death from bleeding when a character is dying and thus to increase tension in the game when a character goes down and make it a bigger priority for the rest of the party to stabilize him rather than say "yeah, we have X more rounds, let’s do something else first..."

4) To maintain some degree of verisimilitude and to avoid completely wacky outcomes (e.g. hopefully no 4E-like springing back to life at quarter hit points after a good stabilization roll ) (see note at the end)

5) To preserve the ablative nature of hit points even when they are negative. This is how hit points work in positive numbers and negative numbers should therefore be no different in this regard.

6) To ensure that the rule works well among the standardized rules framework already used for the game.

Point 3 remains largely unsatisfied by all these rules, because dying characters lose a predictable 1 hit point per round until they stabilize or die or take damage from external sources. In order to decrease predictability and the “we have 5 more rounds till we need to stabilize him, let’s attack the hydra for now instead” types of effects in the game, it would be better to randomize the amount of damage a dying character takes per round with a dice roll. A loss of d4 or even d6 hit points instead of just 1 hit point per round provides a significant amount of variability in the damage taken when dying, or when disabled and taking a strenuous action, and makes the timing of the death more unpredictable, but if combined with the standard rules, it would probably be too deadly. As such, using randomization of dying damage, it becomes necessary to increase the negative hit point buffer.

Here is an idea for a system that expands the disabled range, scales slightly with level and allows the use of Fortitude saves for stabilization. Using Fortitude saves would be more consistent than the anachronistic d10, but normally Fortitude saves tend to favor physically tougher characters. However, there is a solution to that dilemma without unduly penalizing physically weaker characters. It lies in making the 'disabled' range equal to the Fortitude saving throw bonus.

Therefore:

Disabled: 0 to -(Fortitude save bonus) hit points
Dead at: -(Fortitude save bonus + 10) hit points

Roll a fortitude save to stabilize when dying. DC is set at current negative hit points plus 10.

Therefore:

Fortitude save DC: 10 + negative hit points

This system makes saving throws to stabilize equally difficult for all characters, because the DC depends linearly on negative hit points, but the point at which they start to save is based on their fortitude save.

Example:

Fighter has a fortitude save of +10
Wizard has a fortitude save of +5

Therefore:

Fighter's disabled/dying threshold: -10 hit points
Wizard's disabled/dying threshold: -5 hit points

This means that a fighter only begins dying and thus only needs to start rolling to stabilize once he reaches -11 hit points. A wizard reaches this condition at -6 hit points.

For the sake of argument, let us say that the death threshold (the point at which a character dies) is set at -(Fortitude save + 10) hit points.

Therefore:

Fighter's death threshold: -20 hit points
Wizard's death threshold: -15 hit points

Therefore:

DC to Stabilize: 10 + negative hit points

Now consider:

An attack brings both the fighter and the wizard 5 hit points into the dying range. But a fighter's (at -11hp) dying range begins lower than the wizard's (at -6hp), so the DC is for them is different. The fighter is now at -15 hit points and has to reach DC 25 to stabilize, whereas the wizard is only at -10 hit points and thus only needs to reach DC 20. The fighter's fortitude save bonus is +10, so he has to roll a 15 to stabilize, whereas the wizard's fortitude save is +5, so he also has to roll a 15 to stabilize. This equality, of course, remain regardless of how many hit points deep into the dying range each character is, because the beginning of the dying range is dependent on the fortitude save bonus.

Here is an idea for a system that expands the disabled range, scales slightly with level and allows the use of Fortitude saves for stabilization without unduly penalizing physically weaker characters. The secret lies in making the 'disabled' range equal to the Fortitude saving throw bonus.

Disabled: 0 to -(Fortitude save bonus) hit points
Dead at: -(Fortitude save bonus + 10) hit points

Roll a fortitude save to stabilize when dying. DC is set at current negative hit points plus 10. Therefore:

Fortitude save DC: 10 + negative hit points

This system makes saving throws to stabilize equally difficult for all characters, because the DC depends linearly on negative hit points, but the point at which they start to save is based on their fortitude save.

Example:

Fighter has a fortitude save of +10
Wizard has a fortitude save of +5

Therefore:

Fighter's disabled/dying threshold: -10 hit points
Wizard's disabled/dying threshold: -5 hit points

This means that a fighter only begins dying and thus only needs to start rolling to stabilize once he reaches -11 hit points. A wizard reaches this condition at -6 hit points.

For the sake of argument, let us say that the death threshold (the point at which a character dies) is set at -(Fortitude save + 10) hit points.

Therefore:

Fighter's death threshold: -20 hit points
Wizard's death threshold: -15 hit points

Therefore:

DC to Stabilize: 10 + negative hit points

Now consider:

An attack brings both the fighter and the wizard 5 hit points into the dying range. But a fighter's (at -11hp) dying range begins lower than the wizard's (at -6hp), so the DC is for them is different. The fighter is now at -15 hit points and has to reach DC 25 to stabilize, whereas the wizard is only at -10 hit points and thus only needs to reach DC 20. The fighter's fortitude save bonus is +10, so he has to roll a 15 to stabilize, whereas the wizard's fortitude save is +5, so he also has to roll a 15 to stabilize. This equality, of course, remain regardless of how many hit points deep into the dying range each character is, because the beginning of the dying range is dependent on the fortitude save bonus.

As an evil GM, you would think that I would be for this rule, but to be honest, it is not one that I use.

That said, it is a current 3.5 rule so I am hesitant to kill it without reason. Does this rule serve any valuable purpose? Are there any other reason it should go?

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing

Well, I would be hesitant to remove the rule too. I would much rather get rid of auto-fail of saving throws when rolling a 1 (and not just because of this rule, but also variou save or suck effects). Plus, instead of death, failing the saving throw should bring a character to 'disabled' status at 0 hit points.

Does anyone have any house rules for leveling up players without giving out XP per session?

I know that's common in online PBP games...

I don't use XP in the current games I run. I just tell the players that their characters gain a level, whenever I feel they have accomplished enough to do so.

I used various systems before that, including going by the book and giving out XP in the same way I currently give them levels, without doing any calculations.

I've just read version 1.10.

Good: The explanatory text is definitely clearer now.

Excellent

Bad(?): The additional class costs don't seem to correspond to the total class costs in the table, or to the example in the prestige classes section.

Thanks for pointing this out - it seems that in my eagerness I only changed the second column of the table...

I'm not sure about the level spread, but 18/19/20 seems about right to me.

OK - sounds good!

The Level Point System is now at version 1.10: Level Point System

The list of changes includes:

Making the Level Point System copyright compliant (i.e. removal of any "DM" references and their replacement with "GM")
Minor corrections of calculations, grammar and spelling
Clearer phrasing (hopefully) of some sections
Experimental shift in the point formula as outlined in my post above
Addition of a section on racial and minor hit dice
Other minor changes

Thanks for all the comments everybody!

I have a question for you. What do you think should be the level spread between high-powered (e.g. Cleric, Wizard...) and low-powered (e.g. Fighter, Paladin...) classes by level 20? I worked off the assumption, that the high-powered spellcasters should still get their highest level of spells by the time the lower-powered martial classes reach level 20, so the high powered classes ought to reach 17th level by that time (I have now shifted the Sorcerer to the medium cost group for that reason).

Another possibility would be to shift the start of the progressions by 2 levels, to ensure that, 20th level for the low cost group is equivalent to 19th level for the medium cost group and 18th level for the high cost group. This would be rather neat/elegant and the Sorcerer could be shifted back to the high cost group. Do you think it would correspond well to the respective power levels of the classes?

Thanks Roman, good work as usual! I'm slightly confused as to how it work, however...do you add up the general level points you've got up to that level, then compare it to your class-specific level points requirement to see if you go up a level?

Thanks for the heads-up! Yes, you got the gist of how it works.

If so, it seems to me that the Rogue would only be level 18 when the Fighter was level 20 (36 more level points required for level 20, -5 from level 1 is 31 more points, and level 20 requires 30 level points, so they'd be 1 short. Or have I got the wrong end of the stick?).

You are correct. I typed the example section and then tinkered with the numbers some more, while forgetting to change it.

As to what classes should go in which categories, I'd probably swap Barbarian and Bard, but leave the others as they are. This thread from the old WotC site seems to generally agree with your power ratings, as least as far as 3.5 is concerned.

An interesting thread - thanks for linking it. As to the Bard and Barbarian, I was indeed considering moving the Bard down and the Barbarian up, but I wonder about the Pathfinder Bard... he was significantly upgraded was he not? Nobody has played the new Bard in my group and I haven't used Pathfinder Bards as NPCs, so I haven't paid much attention to the Bard changes.

I'm lazier than most.

1) Calculate CMB.
2) Max out HP.
3) Use the skills unchanged.

I can't justify doing the math for skills before each game. The numbers are arbitrary enough that I don't think it affects the CR except in fringe cases with highly skilled enemies. If it gets to the point where I can't just use the old skills unmodified without breaking the game, then Pathfinder RPG creates more work than it saves.

Luckily, I haven't had any skill roll catastrophes yet. So I recommend just rolling the old skills where appropriate.

I also don't bother converting skills. It doesn't really matter if the monster has no perception, but has a listen skill if it is there just for a single combat. If it is a long-term villain, of course, that is another matter, but that is hardly an "on the fly" conversion.

[I would stay away from Facebook since it tracks every site you visit and reports that information back to Facebook the next time you logon.

Wow, that actually sounds scary. Isn't this phishing and perhaps even illegal?

Mediafire is definitely the way to go.

Yes, in the end I did upload it to Mediafire: Link

Ugh, reading through it again, I noticed that I forgot to replace "DM" with "GM" (I tend to use "DM" generically out of habit)... so much for all my attempts to be correct about this...

Nevertheless, when you do read it, I would appreciate some comments. :) If, conversely, you have questions about something that's not clear or about some design decisions, feel free to ask.

I have tried creating a Facebook account, but I cannot figure out how to upload PDF files to it, so I tried the mediafire suggestion and it seems to work.

Here is the file: Level Point System

Yes, on second thoughts, maybe I did panick unnecessarily about the legal issues and didn't need to change things, add the OGL document at the end and so on. Still, it is already done... I hope you enjoy it.

I will try creating a Facebook account and then uploading it. I got a bit scared though about the legal issues, since it is an actual PDF document that will be uploaded, which is different than posting on the messageboards, so I will try adding the open gaming license, authorship and such stuff in an attempt to make it legally acceptable to do this. Among other things, I will also have to replace the experience point system with my own example, since I believe the experience point system is product identity for both WotC and Paizo respectively. It shouldn't take me too long - probably around 20 minutes or so and hopefully I will have no problems as a result.

Hi, Roman. I'm working on a point-buy system for Pathfinder myself, and would be very interested to see what you've come up with. If there's no good way to upload a PDF of your table and post a link to it, maybe you'd be willing to email it instead to those people who are interested?

I would have no problem converting it into a PDF file and uploading it somewhere, so that people can download it and comment on it here. Do you know of any websites with free hosting space and no-hassle uploading?

I have created a Level Point system. My motivation was that classes are not balanced in terms of power. This is inevitable in a game that has major differences between classes and where some classes have access to magic that can create wondrous effects whereas others do not. I would not want to see those magical/wondrous effects removed, as it would make for a poorer game in my opinion. Such a system can still have a form of balance through differential progressions as in 2E D&D, but that complicates multiclassing. I have tried to create a system that enables both 3E-style multiclassing, yet enables differential rates of progression to account for balance differences between classes. And while at it, I have also taken a stab at using the system to fix Level Adjustments.

The problem is that the system contains a table. Is there any way to post it here, so that people can read it and comment on it, without the formatting going completely out of whack? Thanks!

I favor option B.

I did the calculations with some interesting results. I would favor using option 2 and completely rule out option 1.

Option 1 gives ridiculously high amounts of lifting power to the characters.

Option 1 Table: (2xMax. Encumberance = Taking 10 on Strength Checks)

Strength
Check DC
...........Weight Lifted (lb)
5..........20
6..........40
7..........80
8..........120
9..........160
10.........200
11.........260
12.........350
13.........460
14.........600
15.........800
16.........1040
17.........1400
18.........1840
19.........2400
20.........3600
+5.........x4

The table is derived by using the lower strength score for a given bonus to calculate the weight lifted, except for DC 5, which is based on strength 1, since there are no scores lower than that apart from score 0. It would be more consistent to use odd numbers (or to use averages), but it would increase the weight lifted even further and it seems far too high already.

Option 2 still gives considerable lifting power, but it is less egregious than in option 1.

Option 2 Table: (Max. Encumberance = Taking 10 on Strength Checks)

Strength
Check DC
...........Weight Lifted (lb)
5..........10
6..........30
7..........50
8..........70
9..........90
10.........115
11.........150
12.........200
13.........260
14.........350
15.........460
16.........600
17.........700
18.........920
19.........1,200
20.........2,240
+5.........x4

The table is derived by using the higher strength score for a given bonus to calculate the weight lifted.

Alternative Option 2 Table derived by using the average (mean) strength score for a given bonus to calculate the weight lifted:

Option 2 Table: (Max. Encumberance = Taking 10 on Strength Checks)

Strength
Check DC
...........Weight Lifted (lb)
5..........5
6..........25
7..........45
8..........65
9..........85
10.........107.5 --> rounded to either 107 or 108
11.........140
12.........187.5 --> rounded to either 187 or 188
13.........245
14.........325
15.........430
16.........560
17.........750
18.........980
19.........1,120
20.........2,120
+5.........x4

The table is derived by using the average (mean) strength score for a given bonus to calculate the weight lifted.

The first option 2 table gives neater/cleaner numbers, whereas the second option 2 table gives more accurate numbers, which also happen to be slightly lower (that's a good thing). Ultimately, though, either one would work pretty well.

Hmm, one thing that is ill-defined about encumberance is how it interacts with strength checks. For example - can a character lift a weight that is more than twice his maximum encumberance above his head with an appropriate strength check?

It would be helpful to have some sort of table for strengh checks to determine what result equals what amount of weight lifted.

There are two reasonable options as to how to do this, as derived from the current rules.

1) Lifting twice the maximum encumberance would be the equivalent of taking 10 on the strength check.
2) Lifting the maximum encumberance would be the equivalent of taking 10 on the strength check.

Rolling to generate ability scores is something I like for several reasons including the two below:

1 - It generates a nice normal distribution of ability scores within the population that I can use as a reference
2 - It inserts some unpredictability and randomness into the character creation process, which is nice, since most other mechanical aspects of character creation entail planning and uniformity

The first point, of course, could be dealt with by maintaining rolling for NPCs as means of determining the distribution of the ability score within a population, yet have a different system of generating ability scores for characters.

Apart from rolling, various point-buy systems seem to be common/popular forms of ability score generation - whether the point buy is on 1 for 1 basis, or on 1 for X basis, where X changes depending on how high the ability score is being raised. I personally don't allow them as a DM, primarily because of reason 2. As a player, I will, of course, use whatever system the DM perscribes, but my preference is rolling.

Nevertheless, I am considering a system that would combine point-buy and rolling as follows:

The DM decides on the point-buy value that characters will be built on. The players than roll dice (the rolling system again picked by the DM - could be 4d6 drop the lowest considered standard, or some other system) and assign them to ability scores. The point-buy value of the character is then calculated and if it is below the point-buy value set by the DM, then the player gets to distribute the extra points among his character's abilities. If the value is above the point-buy value set by the DM, nothing happens.

This system ensures that there is some DM-set baseline that all characters will meet. It also provides a trade-off. If you roll high, you will have better overall ability scores, but less control on how ability scores are distributed. If you roll low, your ability scores will be lower in total, but still meet the DM-set baseline and you get to spend the points precisely how you want. Also, some degree of randomness is still assured, which is welcome in my book.

In any case, what do you think about the system?

Note: I am posting this in the Pathfinder RPG General forum, because I am not entirely sure where else to place generic rules discussion and it pertains to the Pathfinder RPG/3.5E in as much that I would use the above ability score generation method in those two RPGs.

(Alternatively, the player who rolls high could lose the extra points and be forced to take them off their ability scores, but I am a generous DM and would let the character keep the scores.)

I am running two games in a world of my own and using my own adventures. As such, there are two groups:

Party 1: All characters are at level 7.

Human Fighter
Elven Rogue
Elven Wizard (Focused Specialist: Evoker)
Elven Cleric (Worshipping Savoral, the God of Justice)

Party 2: All characters are at level 10.

Human Fighter/Barbarian
Human Paladin
Human Rogue
Elven Wizard (Specialist: Evoker)
Elven Cleric (Worshipping the God of the Sky)

There was also a Human Monk and a Human Ranger... but alas I am a DM who does not pull his punches. The Monk was never found after venturing off on his own into a far-away dangerous area and the Ranger was killed in a fight with an Assassin Cult. Resurrection was not a possibility in that case. There was, however, also one resurrection, involving the Fighter (who later multiclassed to Barbarian) that entailed a short adventure to accomplish.

I am also a player in a Forgotten Realms game (3.5E), but that game runs pretty infrequently and is currently on hiatus.

Our party in that game: All characters are at level 7.

Human Ranger
Human Rogue
Human Paladin
Elven Cleric
Elven Wizard/Psion/Cerebremancer

Some of the other characters in this party also have Prestige class levels (such as the Human Ranger), but I only remember the precise class/level structure of the character I am playing - the Elven Wizard/Psion/Cerebremancer. I started as a Wizard concentrating on transmutation spells, but was forced to multiclass to a Psion, after I was cursed by a powerful Wizard (Lady Lairal - spelling might be different), so that I couldn't cast any spells - or I would lose a level for each spell I cast. This was done for my allegedly irresponsible use of magic and for some reason Lady Lairal seemed to insist that it's not a curse. In any case, the restriction did not apply to Psionics, so hence my multiclassing to that (there were also story reasons/justifications enabling the multiclass).

Hmm, I don't really want to change the encumberance system itself. At most, I want a method that helps the DM and Players eyeball when encumberance becomes worth tracking, though even that is not really necessary for me.

I do think the rules should explicitly state that encumberance should not be tracked unless there is reason to suspect that a character is overloading himself. That's what I do already and I suspect that's what most groups do, but it would ease the burden on those groups that want to play everything by the rules.

Every character has several basic items that rarely get removed/added to the equipment list, yet that weight a lot. This refers especially to armor and weapons. There is little reason not to pre-calculate the mass of armor and weapons he character carries, since this rarely tends to change (excluding collecting loot, but that is not the character's primary equipment). The weights of the items that form the characters primary equipment should be added up and the number should be subtracted from the carrying capacity. The resulting number gives us the discretionary carrying capacity. This is all pre-calculated and only rarely changes, as I will show below.

What changes often is the loot the characters collect as well as expendable items they carry. As such, a convenient way to deal with this would be to simply say that encumberance does not need to be tracked, as long as no non-primary item is heavier than 3 pounds and the total number of items (sets of items, such as 10 arrows can count as 1 item) does not exceed a certain number. This number would be pre-calculated as follows:

Number Limit = (Carrying Capacity [Light Load] - Primary Equipment Weight) / 3

The pre-calculation isn't any easier than an initial calculation of encumberance, but the system would allow for tracking only the number of perishable/expendable/loot items, rather than having to track their weight. Exceeding the Number Limit, however, would be a red flag for the DM that the character is probably overloading too much and he might want to call on the player to begin tracking his character's encumberance normally.

Most people, of course, would still just eyeball when encumberance needs to be tracked, but the above could provide a guideline for those who want to play it safe. Regardless, it might be helful for some groups if the rules explicitly stated that encumberance only needs to be tracked if it seems the characters are overloading themselves.

I don't have a problem with the encumberance rules. The reason for that is that I don't normally track encumberance in my games, but only do so when I feel the characters are overloading themselves or in other specific circumstances when I feel it is warranted, at which point I tell my players to check their encumberance. At that point, it provides me with accurate and specific information about how much weight is too much.

That said, I can see how some groups, who do try to track encumberance all the time, would find the encumberance rules cumbersome (pun intended). I think the best approach is not to change the system, or at least not dramatically, but rather to find a way of quickly estimating whether characters are close to the tipping point when it would make sense to begin tracking encumberance. This would involve advising the DM/players not to routinelly track encumberance unless the characters come close to the encumberance limit.

This can be eyeballed, which is how I deal with it in my games, and that may well be sufficient. We can, however, also try to develop a method for quickly estimating whether a character is close to the encumberance limit.

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. The emphasis is on backward compatibility and simplification at the same time.

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.

One of the major problems encountered at higher levels is the amount of various stacking bonuses. It makes it difficult for the DM to use many types of NPCs effectively without extensive preparation time and can slow down the game substantially when various bonuses are applied or removed mid-game.

It is a bit sad that there was and is not any time allocated specifically to discussing systemic issues, as this is, of course, a systemic issue (as are many other problems in 3.5E), but since equipment accounts for a lot of the stacking, this might be a good place to discuss it. Some systemic issues are not resolvable without fundamentally altering the system, which is not on the cards for the Pathfinder RPG, but the matter of bonus types is different. One of the principal causes of this problem is the sheer number of bonus types, but it also makes the issue resolvable with bonus type consolidation, rather than making some huge systemic alterations.

I originally started a thread on the matter on the General Forum: Link

blope wrote:

I am fine with more ability score increases along with eliminating the ability score magic items.

I like that! Use the OP's levels to raise ability scores and/or saves. Then drastically increase the cost of resistance and stat boost items -- maybe to double what they are (or more). Then characters still have the "appropriate" stats for their level, but stat-boost items stop being mandatory for all PCs.

I like that too!

I debated with myself whether to even post these suggestions, precisely because of my power-creep concerns (which I actually do mention at the end of my post), but this would help resolve this issue. It is especially the case since I dislike dependence on magic items.

Maybe... the bonus could even be classified as enhancement bonus to prevent stacking with magic items, though this might be pushing the idea too far, perhaps just do what you said - drastically increase the resource costs of stat-boosting items.

I have to agree that a new print run wouldn't make much sense at this point in time. Nevertheless, it is heartening to hear that the demand for the Pathfinder Beta has been so good. Just how large was the print run anyway - 5000 copies or so? Regardless, maybe this should have some bearing on the print-run of the final product!

Roman wrote:

The ability to edit my posts disappears about an hour after I post them. I know that this is probably deliberate and not a bug, but may I ask why? Oftentimes I find mistakes that I would like to correct (and not just spelling mistakes) in my posts later than that. Can we please get the ability to edit posts regardless of the time that has passed?

While at some levels this seems like a great idea, there are enough times when people "even with the hour limit", Post and Delete leaving an orphan thread with a lot of statements attacking some position which "apparently" no one ever took.

I don't know, but many boards get by with having unlimited editing periods. An example would be ENWorld. I have never, not even once, seen it to become a problem, despite the general decline in maturity of the posters since the announcement of the 4th edition split the community in two. I have also not noticed anybody deleting one's post in the one hour limit to 'avoid' responses. I can see how it could theoretically be an issue - but I have never seen it happen in practice.

The ability to edit my posts disappears about an hour after I post them. I know that this is probably deliberate and not a bug, but may I ask why? Oftentimes I find mistakes that I would like to correct (and not just spelling mistakes) in my posts later than that. Can we please get the ability to edit posts regardless of the time that has passed?

Nice to see a positive response on this issue. I think I will try implementing the cut-down bonus list in at least one of my games. One is at level 10, so it is gradually going to be moving into the high-level arena, where these things become an issue.

The key difference between Illusion and Enchantment is that Enchantment directly effects the mind, introducing an element of control from the caster upon the target.

Illusion creates a sensory input, primarily audio-visual (possibly emotive rather than sensory, in the case of 1e Fear), and then the creature reacts "naturally" to the input (or saves, and recognizes it as unreal).

So while a sensory input has an effect upon the mind, it is not a direct manipulation of the mind.

Sure, I understand that, but the point is that those sensory inputs are dependent on the creation and manipulation of various energues: light, sound, force... which is precisely what the school of Evocation is supposed to be all about.

In the end, this is more a philosophical debate about schools and their consistency - schools are not going to change - they have a lot of history. The Illusion school is thematically archetypal and has a deep D&D history, so it's surely not going away. But individual spells can perhaps be shifted among the schools to make them conceptually more sound. As such, Fear belongs squarely in the Enchantment school, as do other spells that manipulate emotions directly. On the other hand, a spell that would create the illusion of a phantom causing fear, would belong in the Illusion school.

Roman wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

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.

It's true. You'll note that very few companies do huge Beta playtests like this. Had we known the mayhem that it would have caused, we might not have done it; we certainly didn't expect 35,000+ playtesters, for example (I was anticipating a number along the lines of 5,000 at the highest myself). And to be totally mercenary, if half of the 35,000 playtesters are disgruntled with the way it's working out, that still leaves us with a LOT more customers than I thought we'd get.

Of course, I hope that the number of customers we retain from the Playtest is as close to 100% as possible... but I know that's not gonna be the case.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. I do hope that Paizo will not shy away from open playtests in the future due to this experience. As you point out, you may lose some players due to disgruntlement with it, but the fact that you are willing to do it in the first place, also gives you positive emotional capital among many people, plus enables you to tailor the game closer to the preferences of your target audience and of course the playtest does catch a lot of bugs and problems in the system and can help correct them.

That is not to say that disgruntled playtesters should be ignored and you clearly are not ignoring them (to your credit) - but some will leave regardless of how hard you try to retain them, as their expectations of how closely the game will match their preferences are not going to be met.

In some ways, however, the playtest also works as a form of advertising. I might or might not have found out about the Pathfinder RPG if it weren't for the playtest. I probably would have found out about it, but I would have never even considered buying it if I did not get to see what it was aiming for and if I couldn't sample the rules through the playtest. I was a WotC only customer before that and no third party publisher would have seen my money. Now, thanks to the playest, I could sample Paizo's work and plan to make the Pathfinder RPG my first OGL-related non-WotC purchase. I would imagine that my situation is not unique.

Roman wrote:

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?

Yeah; I realized you were talking about the Design Team, which is why I said you outnumber us about 6000 to one. If I were to compare just Jason to the playtesters... they'd outnumber him like 35,000 to one.

Anyway, it's not really possible to give out hints about what rules are gonna be in the final game yet, since we're still many weeks away from the end of the playtest. And even after that, things will be in flux. I'd rather not set false expectations—the Beta itself is already doing enough of that! :-)

In any case, it'll probably not be until February or March before we know for a fact what rules are sticking for GOOD and what ones aren't. We might start doing some previews then, maybe a "Countdown to PF RPG" on our blog or something. But again, that's months away.

The forum monster ate my response! :( :( :(

Oh well, the essence of the response was that I knew that many rules were still in flux, but I thought some rules/reversions must already be set in stone by now and thus an example or two could be given. I guess I understand and respect that rules that are not firm yet are not going to be hinted at - considering the false expectations issue (though if it was explicitly stated that they are only provisional, I think false expectations could be managed). I guess I will have to wait patiently for some previews.