Staffan Johansson's page

How about another skirmishing class, this one actually 3/4 BAB like the monk: Bard. Forget that he's a six level caster. With inspire courage he's maybe a point behind full BAB, gets extra damage, and gets even more extra damage when the fighter hits.

I'm not sure Inspire Courage should count as a buff to the bard specifically. After all, if there's a bard in the party everyone gets that bonus, so the bard is still 10-15 points of attack bonus behind the fighter at level 20 (5 for just the BAB, 4 for Weapon Training, Greater Weapon Focus for another +1, and then there's the fact that the bard has probably focused on buffing Cha instead of Str).

Deadmanwalking wrote:

You could play a Barbarian in 2nd Ed. as a berserker (there was a character kit and everything)...but it certainly wasn't a base part of the class.

The Barbarian as a class wasn't even a part of 2nd edition...

TSR's reasoning was that to be a barbarian was a philosophy, not a choice of career or profession (which is what classes were in 1st/2nd edition)

The "Complete Barbarian's Handbook" (the 14th book in the series) didn't even come out until 1995 (and 2nd edition came out in 1989)...

You also had Barbarian as a kit in the Complete Fighter's Handbook. The only mechanical abilities they had was that they got Endurance as a free NWP, and that they got more extreme results on reaction rolls on account of being "impressive".

There was also a Berserker kit, but it kind of sucked. The Berserk ability took a full turn (10 minutes/rounds) to activate, and had some pretty serious drawbacks as well.

Here's a suggestion that just occurred to me regarding the monk's ability at 'skirmishing'. Well, two suggestions actually:

One is to allow, at a certain level, the monk to get a 'short flurry' as a standard action. Say two attacks at 8th level, and three attacks at 15th level.

PHB2 had a pair of feats that allowed a second and third attack when using Spring Attack (at -5 and -10, like other iteratives), which you could take at BAB +12 and +18. I could see the "short flurry" trigger for monks at level 12 and 18.

When I see lists of different bonus types, and which can stack with which (circumstance bonus, deflection bonus, dodge bonus, enhancement bonus, size bonus, etc.), I do feel a bit like that encourages a ton of different fiddly situational buffs to 'stack' as many bonuses as possible to a particular roll.

Rich Baker had a very nice idea on his blog the other week (can't recall the URL, I was pointed there by a Facebook post by someone else): no-one can have more than one arcane and one divine buff on them at once. You get mage armor OR shield. You get shield of faith OR prayer. That would also allow the buffs to be a bit better, or at least have longer durations, because you're still only getting one.

Another problem with that, is how do you determine the caster level. Let's say an item that need Finger of Death. It's a 7th lvl spell for Wizards, 8th level for druids. Dimensional door is 3rd level for Summoners. There are a gazillion examples more.

What do you use? The lowest? What if, suddenly, Paizo release a new class, that has some spell at lower level? The item become easier?

If a primary caster class (cleric, druid, witch, wizard, and their variants) has the spell , use the lowest among those. If not, use the lowest among the semi-casters (bard, inquisitor, summoner - not sure whether to include the alchemist since they're technically not casters). If none of those have it, resort to the quasi-casters (paladin, ranger).

Mage armor is a problematic spell anyway (as is Shield, to a lesser extent). Yeah, it's fine for PCs, shoring up the AC of otherwise unarmored characters a bit.

But the problem comes with monstrous spellcasters. Take an Adult Blue Dragon for example. CR 13 with AC 28 - that's pretty standard. But they also have the spellcasting abilities of a 5th level sorcerer - and the best possible spells they could take include Mage Armor and Shield. It's not like 1st or 2nd level spells cast at caster level 5 with a save DC of 14-15 will do much directly against 13th level characters. But +8 to AC? That's going to put the dragon at AC 36, which is the appropriate AC for CR 20 creatures!

Using the scaling rules, your Ooze should have a minimum of a +14 Natural Armor bonus...rather intentionally negating this problem for most purposes.

Oozes generally don't have much in the way of natural armor. The only ooze from the Bestiary that does is the Shoggoth, which doesn't have much in common with the other oozes (black pudding, gelatinous cube, gray ooze, and ochre jelly) other than general amorphousness.

Which reminds me of another thing I'd like to see if/when they get around to making a Pathfinder v2: either remove creature type as a mechanical concept altogether (it's fine for things like Bane and Favored Enemy, but it's bad for determining creature stats), or at least separate out the stuff that's actually based on the creature type from the stuff that's just common among them. Just because the black pudding and gelatinous cube are mindless it doesn't mean that ALL oozes have to be mindless.

To those of you saying "But in movie X, character Y attacks like a dozen times with a sword in six seconds! Monks should be able to do that too!"

An "attack" in Pathfinder, or any previous version of D&D, has never been about a single strike with a weapon. Or are you arguing that when two 1st level fighters face off, they alternate strikes every three seconds? So the number of attempted strikes a character performs in "reality" has nothing to do with the number of mechanical attacks he gets in the game.

Looking at the book, I realize that this particular language has vanished from Pathfinder (probably a casualty of the D&D-to-SRD conversion process), but the 3.5e PHB says "An attack roll represents your attempts to strike your opponent. It does not represent a single swing of the sword, for example. Rather, it indicates whether, over several attempts in the round, you managed to connect solidly."

That said, I still think Sean's statement on Flurry of Blows is bunk, but that particular argument won't fly.

Lets be honest, background wise I think we all know the Warforged came from secrets from Xandrix and originially mostly an accident that they figured out how to repeat.

I'm pretty sure Word of God (aka Keith Baker) on the topic is that most of the knowledge for making warforged was figured out on their own by house Cannith, using some Xen'drik artifacts to jumpstart the process. But the constructs found in Xen'drik are not warforged, though there is some compatibility.

Yeah, I don't really have a problem with efficient quiver needing a 9th level crafter to make it. It might not be optimal, but I can live with it.

And the problem comes when deciding what items actually cast spells. In the days of yore (AD&D), the overlap between spell effects and item effects wasn't so big, and even items that did mimic spell effects often did so in a somewhat different manner (e.g. potion of clairvoyance - works as the spell except you can see unknown areas up to 30 yards distant and it lasts for 1 (AD&D-style) turn). Nowadays, some spells are reverse-engineered from various items (e.g glibness).

Should a ring of freedom of movement be classified as casting a spell, or should anyone be able to make one? If the ring gets classified as spellcasting, why wouldn't an amulet of natural armor be as well, seeing as it provides a permanent effect similar to barkskin? Does a pair of winged boots cast fly, or do they just let you fly as per the spell?

The problem with this is, CL and item power don't always map directly together that well.

Players would have to wait until 11th level to make the cool-but-not-super-powerful CL 11 dust of dryness, which retails for a measly 850 gp.

Just two short levels later, they can craft the late-game-equipment CL 13 helm of brilliance, a 125,000 gp item that gives them access to a big pile of spells.

That just doesn't make sense, and that's not the only example. There are several items in the book priced and written with low-level characters in mind that are suddenly out of bounds until mid-to-high level when they're less effective/important.

It seems to me most of the shenanigans people are complaining about have to do with PCs accessing spells through item crafting that they can't normally cast--so wouldn't you be better off using that as your limiter? If an item casts a spell, make that spell an absolute requirement (ie one you can't bypass by increasing the DC). That way you can't make a luck blade without casting wish, but you can still craft your handy haversack before 9th level (and, it brings the rest of item crafting in line with Craft Wand and Brew Potion, which already have that requirement).

That's what I was getting at with my second requirement. The caster level listed in the item is not a prerequisite in and of itself (with the exception of things like pearl of power or amulet of natural armor. But the caster level needed to cast the prerequisite spells is.

To use the dust of dryness as an example, it has control water as the prerequisite. Control water is a 4th level cleric/druid spell, and a 6th level sorcerer/wizard spell. Since the prerequisite spell could be cast by a 7th level caster, the minimum caster level would be 7. A 5th level caster could not create dust of dryness, but a 7th level caster could, even if he isn't a cleric/druid with access to the control water spell - but then he'd get +5 to the creation DC.

The helm of brilliance on the other hand has prismatic spray, a 7th level sorcerer/wizard spell, as its prerequisite. Therefore, the minimum caster level of the helm is 13th.

Using the actual spell as the can't-avoid prerequisite would work too (it did in 3e, after all), but that would kind of nullify the point of the Master Craftsman feat, and make things like amulets of natural armor and amulets of mighty fists harder to find (druids often have better things to do with their feats than crafting items).

Doesn't affect blind people, either, so enemies who know what's coming and close their eyes are not affected. Of course, then they're vulnerable to other things...

I would rule that a character would have to state at the start of his turn whether his eyes are closed until the start of the next turn. If he wants to try shutting his eyes just as the wizard is casting his spell and keep them open while attacking himself, well, that's what the save is for.

That also applies to gaze attacks.

That math seems close but much like "Some Call Me Time"s item I feel the item you are describing would have 3 charges for lvl 1-3 spells and 1.5 charges for lvl 1-6. Rather than 3 for lvl 1-3 OR 1.5 for lvl 1-6.

Nope. The lesser rods get the 50% discount, so they draw from the same set of charges. If I was making an item with two sets of charges, the discount for the lesser rods would have to start over from the beginning, and they'd also get hit with another x1.5 for multiple different abilities. It would look something like this:

1. Normal part: 5,500 + 5,500x75% + 5,500x50% = 12,375 gp
2. Lesser part: 3,000 + 3,000x75% + 3,000x50% = 6,750 gp. Multiply by 1.5 for a second power in the same item, for a total of 10,125 gp
3. +1 weapon: 2,000 gp x 1.5 for a third power in the same item, for a total of 3,000 gp.

Total: 25,500 gp. Add maybe 1k for Eschew Materials and masterwork weapon, so call it 26,500 or maybe 27k. Of course, a "1.5 charge" item would be silly, so I wouldn't do that - it'd either be 1 charge (for a total price of about 4k less) or 3 charges (for about 12.5k more)

For what I suggested in my original post, I extended the rule about creating staffs where you can have some abilities draw more charges, and get a proportionally smaller cost for them. That's basically what I'm doing here: twice the charges, half the price for the "normal" rod abilities. After that, you have six abilities drawing on a common set of charges, which gives you one at full price, one at 25% off, and the rest at half off. Technically I should apply the discounts first and then halve the cost for using multiple charges (that's how it's done for staffs), but in this case it doesn't change anything.

Wizards are not proficient in the light mace. Keeping it a club prevents them from having a -4 non-proficiency penalty. I will change the item description the next time I describe the item.

Ah, didn't think of that.

I wouldn't have any problem whatsoever with a Lawful person using Controlled Rage. That's sort of what I had in mind when I talked about the 3e Sohei stuff earlier, sort of a "lesser Rage".

Quite possibly. But the dragonmarks were the first thing I saw :)

But you're not in complete control of yourself. You get a -2 penalty to AC, because as your offensive instincts come to the fore your defensive ones take a backseat. You also lose the ability to use most skills based on Charisma, Dexterity, and Intelligence, as well as any ability requiring "patience or concentration" (while the book doesn't outright state it, I would argue that that includes any spellcasting).

Basically, you go all HULK SMASH, but you retain enough control to aim yourself in the right direction.

The house rule I'm planning on using for crafting items goes like so:

1. You can't make an item with a higher caster level than your own. No siree.
2. While the "caster level" listed in the item description is usually not considered a prerequisite, you do need to make the item with a high enough caster level to cast any spells listed in the item's prerequisites.

That ought to put a stop to any shenanigans with item creation.

This is actually the exact kind of item the "multiple similar abilities" discount is intended for: multiple abilities all drawing from a common source of charges. Just like a staff.

First things first: your costs are only half the actual cost for the items. I'm guessing you looked at the creation cost rather than the market price, which of course is wrong. So double everything in order to calculate things using the proper base price: 3k for each of the lesser rods, 11k for the normal rods, and 2,300 for the club +1.

Then I'd start with using half the cost of the normal rods, for 5,500 gp "each". That gives us three rods worth 5,500 gp and three worth 3,000 gp. One of the normal rods gets 25% off, and another plus all the lesser rods get 50% off. So that's:
5,500 (100% of 5,500)
+4,125 ( 75% of 5,500)
+2,750 ( 50% of 5,500)
+4,500 ( 50% of 3,000, x3)
Total (for the rod part): 16,875 gp

Now, let's look at the weapon part. That's 2,000 gp for the +1, and 300 for the masterwork club (most rods that can be used as weapons are light maces rather than clubs, but those 5 gp are kind of beside the point here). I'd multiply the 2,000 gp by 1.5 because you're combining a weapon with a utility item, avoiding the issue of swapping between them, so that would be 3,300 gp.

16,875 + 3,300 = 20,175 gp.

That's ignoring Eschew Materials, which no-one is ever going to call a powerful feat. Let's use that as an excuse for bringing the item up to a nice, even 21,000 gp. Heck, let's throw in the 5 gp for making it a light mace instead for free in that cost :)

I'm really not a fan of the sorcerer bloodline/Eldritch Heritage version of dragonmarks.

The whole point of dragonmarks is that they're an add-on to whatever other abilities you have, and open to non-spellcasters. In particular, they are open to people with NPC classes, like Experts. The best house Jorasco healer in town is a 6th-level Expert with Heal +13 and the ability to cast cure light wounds 2/day and neutralize poison 1/day. He's not a 6th level sorcerer who can cast both fireball and lesser restoration.

Sure, the ex-barbarian can still get angry. But he doesn't have the mindset anymore to tap into that super-adrenaline-surge-RAGE.

I don't think it would be a problem from a balance point of view to allow Lawful barbarians or to allow Lawful ex-barbarians to rage, but I think it should be flavored in some other way, like the Defensive Stance of the Dwarven Defender, or the Ki Frenzy of the 3e Sohei (from Oriental Adventures - sort of a combination of monk, barbarian, and paladin really).

First, there's no "second move" action in Pathfinder. Each round, you get (1) one swift action, and either (2a) one full-round action, or (2b) one standard and one move action. "Double-move" means you use your standard action to move as well.

As for your actual question, using Acrobatics to move through another character's square is not an action as such, it's done as part of the move action. So let's say you have a move of 8 squares and start out with two squares between you and your opponent. You then first spend 2 squares to move up to the opponent, then two each for entering your opponent's square, leaving your opponent's square, and leaving his threatened square (assuming you didn't just want to go through him to flank or something). If you fail, your opponent gets an AoO and you stop right next to him. If you want to, you can try again with your standard action, but then you won't get to attack. After that, your round is over.

You can't order the Rex to dance, but you don't need any special issue to make him to attack your oponents. That would be stupid.

IMO, if you want the summoned creature to do anything other than "attack the nearest creature you consider an enemy", using whatever tactics they normally do, you'd need a way to speak to them. If you summon an air elemental in order to wreak havoc on your foes, you don't need to speak with it. But if you summon it in order to have it carry you and your friends across a chasm, you need to explain that to it, and to do that you need to speak Auran. You might even need to speak Auran in order to make it attack specific targets ("No, don't attack the guy with the sword in the front line, go pick up the guy in the robe hanging back there casting fireballs!")

Yes, WBL has always been a guideline. What that has to do with anything, I have no idea. Unless you think that having more wealth than the guideline for a full level (or more) higher than your current level is still following the guideline. But that's so obviously wrong that I have to assume that's not your point.

It's a guideline in the same way that "encounters should have an encounter level no more than 4 higher than the party's average level" is a guideline. In my campaign, if the 3rd level party decides to go raid a the lair of a dragon that terrorizes kingdoms, I'm not going to say that the dragon is only CR 7. Nope, that dragon's likely going to have a CR in the high teens, because he's the dragon that terrorizes kingdoms.

Similarly, if a character takes an item creation feat, he's going to have better gear. He's taking the item creation feat instead of something like Spell Focus, after all. I'll grant you that this was more of a trade-off in 3e where magic items cost XP, but it's still a trade-off.

I want to play a human. Humans are medium size. A good guideline for medium size is six feet. So, I'll make him 15 feet tall. After all, six feet is just a guideline!

Closer to "I want to play an elf. Most elves live in the forest. But I want my elf to come from a city!"

Pathfinder isn't 3.5, but I'd like you to give me an exact quote and page number for that rule in 3.5

DMG 3.5, page 199: "A spellcaster created at a higher level than 1st can use any of the XP and gp you have awarded to make magic items, provided that she has the proper item feats and prerequisites." It's pretty clear that that sentence allows you to take gold + XP + prerequisites and turn them into an item worth more gold.

And that's even for starting characters! There's nothing at all limiting the treasure given out by a DM, or that a character earns on his own. I'd say that the treasure tables are closer to being actual rules than the wealth-by-level guidelines, and those are extremely random. I mean, sure, an average level 6 encounter will provide 2,000 gp worth of treasure, but once you start rolling on the tables you could get anything from nothing at all, to 120 pp plus 4 art object worth 12,000 gp each plus a tome of understanding +1 worth 27,500 gp, all in all worth 76,700 gp. Would this hoard be "illegal" in 3.5e? No, it could theoretically be honestly rolled using the random treasure tables (note: Pathfinder doesn't use random treasure tables, possibly for precisely this reason).

Back when I ran Eberron, I never saw any of the players take the Dragonmark feats, which leads me to believe that they are a little on the weak side. The problem is, really, that they scale poorly - unless you plow more feats into them or take an otherwise underwhelming prestige class, their caster level and such will never go up, and by the time you're 6th level having a 1/day cure light wounds that heals 1d8+1 hp isn't going to make anyone particularly happy with the feat they spent. If translated to magic items, most least dragonmarks would be worth about 360 gp (Spell level 1 x Caster level 1 x 1800 gp for command word item, divided by 5 for a 1/day item) or 720 gp if you count them as slotless. I would rank most feats as being worth more than that.

That's a shame, because dragonmarks are very flavorful, and the supplemental material (particularly Dragonmarked, of course, but IIRC also a bit of Magic of Eberron) had some really cool stuff based on them.

One solution I've been bouncing around in my head is to remove the skill bonus from the Least Dragonmark, and make it a trait instead of a feat. That way, it wouldn't compete with actual feats for usefulness. 360 gp's worth of coolness is about right for a trait - maybe a little high, but given the strong tie to the setting I think it's OK. A basic trait effect normally is "+1 to a skill and it becomes a class skill for you" - in effect, +4 to that skill if it's not already a class skill (and if it was, you probably wouldn't have taken that trait). A +4 skill item would cost 1,600 gp, so in comparison the 360 gp for a dragonmark is pretty cheap. In addition, Serpent's Skull Player's Guide, one of the campaign traits gives you 300 extra gp with which to start the game.

The thing about Retain Essence in 3.5e is that it was pretty much a trap. Retain Essence destroyed a magic item and recovered the XP spent in creating it (reduced for a partially charged item), at a rate of 1 XP per 25 gp base price.

1 XP in 3.5e is generally priced at 5 gp. That's the conversion used for buying the services of a spellcaster, as well as increasing the cost for a magic item requiring more XP than usual to be spent (e.g. a scroll of limited wish). So, essentially, you would destroy an item in order to get a resource worth 5 gp per 25 gp worth of item. OR, you could sell the item and gain half the item's cost in actual gold.

If you want to keep Retain Essence for flavor reasons, but make it actually useful, just say that you can use half the market price of one magic item to pay the cost for creating another. That would be more useful than the 3.5e version anyway.

This is the problem here, with the Amulet of Mighty Fists. There was a single root fallacy that the decision was based on:

Amulet of Mighty Fists is a monk item.

It isn't, it's an item for the druid's animal companion. Seriously, I bet that's where most of them are employed. Of course if you made it cheaper you would then be powering up druids, who are already more than powerful enough already.

The Amulet was originally created as a monk item back in 3.0. It first appeared in Sword & Fist, the splatbook intended for fighters and monks. Had it been primarily intended for druids and their companions, it would have been in Masters of the Wild. The fact that you use magic fang to create it has nothing to do with the matter, anymore than a ring of chameleon power is a wizard item because you use invisibility and disguise self to make it. Of course, S&F doesn't exactly have a good reputation when it comes to its rules elements (like Mercurial Swords, or the Halfling Outrider prestige class that didn't have a BAB progression).

The name amulet of mighty fists is a pretty big hint as well that wolves aren't the the primary intended users. Plus, why would druids need it? They already have (greater) magic fang.

I left Pathfinder a couple of monks ago when SKR made that ludicrous rule that crafting allows a character to ignore WBL. Magic item crafting wouldn't be too easy if this stupid ruling hadn't been made.

Wealth-by-level has always been a guideline, never a rule. It's been there to give GMs a rough measuring stick as to how much gear characters are likely to have, and how much a character starting at a higher level is supposed to have, but it has never, ever, been intended as a rule saying "5th level characters always have 10,500 gold pieces worth of equipment."

I don't think it's as bad as you make it out to be. I think bards are much better now than they used to be. Most combats don't last that many rounds anyway, I daresay a bard of a certain level will have more than sufficient performances, usually. If not you can take Lingering Performance, which will effectively triple your available rounds of performance - kind of, at least. Extra music also gives you 6 more rounds per day. How long are your combats typically, if even that isn't enough?

Lingering performance gives you triple rounds, at the cost of restarting your performance every third round. And 3.5e performances usually had that built in - the three primary bard buffs (Inspire Courage, Greatness, and Heroism) all lasted for five rounds after you stopped the performance as a built-in ability (as opposed to three rounds for a feat). If you wanted to keep it going for even longer, there was a feat in Complete Adventurer called Lingering Music that extended it to 1 minute. The 3.5e version of Extra Music gave you four uses extra per day, which is quite a bit better than 6 rounds.

Restricted spellcasting sucks, especially with all the nice combat buffs and immediate action spells the bard gets now.

Remember that the main bard buffs lasted longer than you played. Spend one round activating Inspire Courage, and then the next five casting spells to your heart's content. Just like in PF, except you don't have to expend performance rounds to keep it up.

You would also have to think about what to do with all the Finale-spells that have a powerful effect but ends the performance. They would receive a nerf if you made it X performances/day.

Haven't looked into those at all, to be honest.

And the ease of activation at level 7/13 would also be sorely missed, in my opinion.

The way I see it, that's the main buff bardic music did get in PF. Being able to cast while keeping your performance up is rather inconsequential given that the effects of bardic music had a duration in 3.5e. This would let a mid-level 3.5 bard keep up both Inspire Courage and Inspire Greatness, which is completely impossible in PF (even with Lingering Performance, the effects of your performance end if you start a new one).

The long sword is clearly heavier than 7 pounds (given that most medieval long swords weighed in the 15 pound range

Wait, what?

A medieval one-handed sword that's close to what D&D calls a long sword generally weighs around 3 pounds (1.2-1.5 kg). A hand-and-a-half sword generally clocks in at little under 4 lbs (1.6-1.8 kg). Even two-handed swords generally weigh about 5 lbs, possibly 6 (2.0-2.8 kg).

This site has some rather accurate replicas of ancient, medieval, and early modern blades. The single largest sword there weighs 3.7 kg, or 8.2 lbs. The second largest sword is 2.8 kg, or 6.2 lbs. A 15 lb sword is not a sword, it's an I-beam. Or maybe something from Exalted or Final Fantasy, where people use swords the size of surfboards.

That's not what Scott Reynolds said in the other thread, linked above, nor what he said in the FAQ. In fact he says the exact opposite in the thread, and says there's no reason NOT to upgrade your items to higher CLs as you go up in level/spellcraft.

I'm not saying it's not dumb. I'm just saying it is what it is.

It depends on what item it is. For a magic sword, there's no reason not to pump up the caster level as much as possible, in order to give the item better saves and resistance to dispel magic. The cost of the sword is completely non-related to caster level: it's just bonus squared x2000 gp (plus the cost of a masterwork sword). The same goes for a pearl of power.

But if you want to make, say, an amulet of proof against detection and location with a higher caster level than 8th, you're also going to need to pay a proportionally higher cost, because the caster level is actually figured into how the item works (the DC 19 mentioned in the item description is 11+the caster level of 8, as described in the nondetection spell). Unless of course you interpret the item as having a DC of 19 no matter what the caster level is.

In Pathfinder, most classes got a buff compared to how they worked in 3.5. Barbarians got rage powers, rogues got talents, paladin smiting became awesome, and even wizards got school abilities.

Bards weren't completely left out: Versatile performance and the new Bardic knowledge makes them compete with rogues for the top skill-monkey spot. But I think their flagship ability, bardic music/performance, took a pretty big hit.

Compare it to the barbarian's rage: in 3.5e, barbarians could rage once/day plus once/day per 4 levels. This was turned into 4+Con rounds at level 1, plus 2 rounds per level. Most barbarians probably get about the same number of rage rounds per day, but split up as they please, which is overall a buff. 3.5 Bards could use bardic music once per day per level, and the most common uses for bardic music (Inspire courage, greatness, and heroism) lasted for as long as the bard kept playing plus 5 rounds. Countersong could be kept up for 10 rounds on a single use of bardic music, and Fascinate for up to 1 round/level. Inspire Competence required concentration, but could be kept up for up to 2 minutes, long enough to take 20 on most skills. But in Pathfinder, bards get as much use of their bardic music as the barbarian gets from his rage (maybe a few rounds more since bards are likely to have a higher Cha than the barbarian has Con), and all these abilities are limited to as long as the bard keeps playing.

Sure, there are some buffs to bardic performance as well. You can now cast spells while keeping up a performance - that's no big deal though, since in 3.5 the effect of the music would likely last long enough to cover the whole combat anyway. At higher levels, the bard can start performances with lesser actions: move action at 7th level and swift at 13th. That's pretty cool. Some new performances were added: Distraction as a visual counterpart to Countersong, Dirge of Doom and Frightening Tune as offensive options, Soothing Performance for extra healing (though having to wait 4 rounds for some healing and removing some conditions is pretty bad), and Deadly Performance as the capstone ability. Inspire Courage scales faster, and Inspire Competence scales at all. On the other hand, Song of Freedom (single-target break enchantment for 10 rounds of singing) was lost.

I'm going to talk it over with the guy playing a bard IMC as well as the other guy who has a good grasp of rules (they're not the same person :) ), but I'm leaning toward returning bardic music to X performances per day rather than X rounds per day, and not being able to directly combine it with spellcasting. I will likely keep the actual performances from PF rather than 3.5, maybe with the reintroduction of Song of Freedom. I'm not sure about whether to still use the speed boost bardic performance gets at level 7/13 in PF.

What do people think? Am I completely out of whack thinking PF bardic performance lost quite a bit?

Holy thread necromancy, Batman!

Or should that be unholy?

Anyway, I generally feel that Pathfinder's response to sub-races are the alternate racial traits from the Advanced Player's Guide. Some dwarven clans live deep underground and spend a lot of time fighting off weird Things Man Was Not Meant To Know - these have the Deep Warrior racial trait instead of Defensive Training, getting bonuses versus aberrations instead of giants. Some elven tribes live on (not below) the sea, and become great swimmers and learn to fight with spears, nets and tridents rather than bows and swords. These have the Spirit of the Waters trait, replacing their weapon proficiencies and their bonus on spell resistance and Spellcraft checks.

The Artificer's ability to "fake" spellcasting in order to create magic items is a bit redundant in Pathfinder, since everyone gets to do that (except instead of requiring a separate roll to do it, the DC to craft the item increases).

I would suggest something like this instead:
Item Creation (Ex): An Artificer has learned how to channel magic in a particular way well-suited for crafting magic items. While he can't actually cast the spells needed to do so, he can use Use Magic Device as the skill used for creating the item. When doing so, the DC for creating the item only increases by 2 rather than 5 for each prerequisite he is missing.

What number to increase the DC level by is of course up for debate, but I think that this would be a more elegant way of handling the ability, playing into the way item creation works for everyone else in Pathfinder.

If the negative levels are temporary, but long term(more than 24 hours) you get to try to remove every day. I don't know of any long term temporary energy drains at the moment though.

So why are they even brought up in the CRB, which is after all the primary source for the game's rules?

The CRB says, via the PRD:
---
Some spells and a number of undead creatures have the ability to drain away life and energy; this dreadful attack results in “negative levels.” These cause a character to take a number of penalties.

For each negative level a creature has, (blah blah about the actual consequences).

A creature with temporary negative levels receives a new saving throw to remove the negative level each day. The DC of this save is the same as the effect that caused the negative levels.

Some abilities and spells (such as raise dead) bestow permanent level drain on a creature. These are treated just like temporary negative levels, but they do not allow a new save each day to remove them. Level drain can be removed through spells like restoration. Permanent negative levels remain after a dead creature is restored to life. A creature whose permanent negative levels equal its Hit Dice cannot be brought back to life through spells like raise dead and resurrection without also receiving a restoration spell, cast the round after it is restored to life.
---

The main source of negative levels in the game are creatures, mostly undead. I'm fairly certain that if the intention when writing the rules was to have this level-drain be permanent, this should have been mentioned in the primary source regarding the rules of the game. They should not have written, essentially, "There are some exceptions where the negative levels are permanent, such as when brought back to life by a Raise Dead spell." They ought to have written "Generally, energy drain is permanent after you fail one save. There are some cases where you get a new save to remove it every day, such as _______."

I got a response in another thread here (about what to change in a hypothetical Pathfinder v2), which said that the CRB took precedence over the Bestiary in any case where the two differed. Not sure if that's canon, but I'm certainly going to run with that in this particular case anyway.

Celestial/Fiendish doesn't say the creature changes type, so it doesn't (In 3e, Celestial/Fiendish animals changed to Magical Beasts, but PF doesn't do that). Not every creature on the planes is an Outsider. Bodaks, for example, are Undead, and Retrievers are Constructs.

Here is the AoMF as presented from the editions in which they've appeared (there is no 3.0 version of the AoMF as it was created for 3.5).

There is a 3.0 version in Sword and Fist. As I recall, it's pretty much identical to the 3.5 one.

I am not a lawyer, but I think Wizards would have a lot of trouble getting a lawsuit over a feat that gives +4 to caster level, to a max of HD, to stick. The problem however is that there is enough there to bring the suit, and lawsuits are expensive as hell.

I don't think there is a mundane quiver anywhere yet. There is a magical Efficient Quiver, but no regular quiver to carry around regular arrows or bolts.

"Arrows come in a leather quiver that holds 20 arrows." So it's included in the cost and weight of ammo. Bolts and sling bullets have similar language.

Wow , that makes it 4 weeks on average "warehouse to mailbox" then. To major countries and logistic hubs, say like the UK or Germany, even . Since I receive the pdf, it doesn't bother me that much, but given that intra-EU mail/packages rarely take more than 3 days (say like UK -> Denmark or Spain ---> Germany)... =(

You know, shipping from the US to Europe does take a bit longer than shipping within Europe. There's this little thing called "the Atlantic Ocean" in between. I'm guessing that you, like I, have opted for the cheap international shipping option for your subscription. That means your stuff gets shipped by an actual ship rather than plane. I believe these shipping times can be pretty random, because the vessels stay in port until they are full which can delay things by another week or so if you're unlucky.

And as for not getting early access to the PDF... well, it doesn't work like that for business reasons. I mean, I'm pretty sure Paizo has the PDF ready to go and all, but they can't let us have it yet. The reason is that Paizo are not allowed to charge your credit card until your order has shipped (or is ready to ship). Doing otherwise is considered very bad form, and can lead to penalties from credit card companies if customers decide to complain about it. And since Paizo haven't charged your card, you haven't bought anything yet. You can still tell Paizo, "You know what, I'll cancel the order this month." And if they have already given you access to the PDF by then, well, it's not like they can take it back. So things need to happen in order: first Paizo prepare to ship your books, then they charge your card, then your order goes out, and then you can get access to the PDF.

Wasn´t this Astromundi-Cluster-Thing also a solar system book ? But anyway...let's be generous and say "not as good as Distant Worlds." :D

Astromundi was what Spelljammer should have been from the start. Much of the Spelljammer material was focused on using it as a way to travel from FR to GH to DL and back, and that created weird problems for those settings (why bother with ocean-going vessels when you can buy a spelljamming vessel at only three times the cost of a galleon, and the spelljamming ship flies at speeds 130x as fast even with a complete novice at the helm and isn't limited by the availability of water?) At the same time, given how large a planet is, most people would be happy using the ship to hop around there instead of going into space, and if you do want to go to other settings altogether it's probably more convenient to use Plane Shift.

Astromundi fixed both those issues, by not having any ties to established settings, and by having tons of little asteroids instead of large planets, creating a feel similar to having an archipelago full of small islands to visit rather than having a whole continent. That allowed Spelljammer to be its own thing, rather than something attached to the other settings.

At least they learned their lesson with Planescape later, which definitely focused more on the planes themselves and places like Sigil, as opposed to using the planes as a way of getting from A to B (more often, Planescape would be having A as a base and then going to both B, C, D, and E).

Okay -- I have been playing a summoner up to 8th level, and so far all of the summons on the Summon Monster I-IV lists have proven to be relatively unimpressive in combat. For those who have played to higher levels, is there a point at which the summoned monsters go from "meh" to "OMG WTF was that"?

Summon Monster isn't supposed to be "OMG WTF was that?" any more than any other spell. It is, however, an amazingly flexible tool.

Need some healing? Why, here are 1d4+1 Lillends to fix you up.

Need a scout? Hello, 1d3 Bone Devils (with flight and invisibility).

Need a tank? ME ELDER EARTH ELEMENTAL.

Need some hanky-panky? 1d4+1 succubi can help you with that (though for most casters the 1 round/level will be a limit, but summoners get theirs for 1 minute/level).

Oh, wait a minute. You said 8th level, I thought you said Summon Monster VIII. Still, the point stands. Summon Monster gets its power from its amazing flexibility, not direct power. The monsters it brings forth are not supposed to win the battle on their own, anymore than a single fireball is. But remember that every attack or spell aimed at one of your summons is an attack or spell not aimed at you or your buddies.

So how does the Blood War work?

They all just go there for the giggles?

Note that I also suggested in an earlier post that all instances of "good" in the description of devils and their weaknesses ought to be changed to "good or chaotic", with a similar thing happening to the demons. So the axiomatic nature of the armies of hell is just as inimical to the hordes of the Abyss as the holy nature of the hosts of heaven.

It would still mean that demons have trouble hurting one another, but I'm OK with that :)

Generally, I would be leery of allowing unlimited command-word or use-activated items casting any spell with a duration other than instant or a few rounds, especially if it's a buff (an offensive spell would be easier to deal with, partially because offensive spells in items suck because of bad save DC and partially because it means you have to take time in combat to use it).

So, a rod of flames shooting a scorching ray at will? Sure, I'll allow that for 11k (by the book it's 10,800, but I'll round it off to the nearest thousand). A robe of duplication that summons a few illusionary duplicates like mirror image? Yeah, I can deal with that, because once the dupes have been destroyed you need to spend another action casting it again. But slippers of spider climbing need some sort of limit on their use (and they have: max 10 minutes per day, to be used in one-minute increments), and there's no way I'll let a vest of the bull that casts bull's strength at will into my game. That one is going to have to go the bonus route, with +4 to Strength costing 16k gp. I would probably allow an item that casts bull's strength once per day into the game though, for something like 2k, but that's a lot different from something that's virtually always on.

Incidentally, the action thing I mentioned above is the reason I don't really have a problem with the trueshot bow or whatever it was called from Sword & Fist, which let you cast true strike at will as a spell-trigger item (essentially a wand with infinite charges). The reason I didn't have a problem with it was that you needed to spend an action first to activate it, plus you needed either a level of a class that had true strike as a spell, or the Use Magic Device skill. In most cases, using it was a bit of a trap since two full-round attacks at your normal attack bonus is generally superior to one full-round attack where the first attack (which is the one with the best attack bonus in general) is a virtual auto-hit.

Creatures with the same DR/Regneration should be able to breach the others.

Don't really agree there, but that's a matter of how I see DR/regeneration.

Basically, I see greater devils (and demons and so on) as being really, really tough. On top of their AC and hit points, they have damage reduction that lets them completely shrug off lesser attacks, and the attacks that do manage to hurt them heal in a matter of seconds to minutes. They're just that tough.

Unless, of course, you happen to be toting a silver (cold iron for demons) weapon infused with the power of Good. That slices through them and burns them with holy flames, leaving them crying for mommy. The claws of another devil don't have the same oomph behind them, so they don't hurt them in the same way. If a devil wants to really put a hurting on another devil, he's going to have to get tricky, just bashing his head in isn't going to help much other than temporarily inconveniencing the other guy.

Celestials have a similar level of toughness they get from their purity (except their wounds don't close on their own, but their command of holy magic generally suffices to fix it for them) - but when faced with the corrupting touch of pure evil, their resistance to injury fades away, leaving horrible corrupted wounds.

Sure, some might argue that celestials (and paladins, for that matter) should get DR X/non-evil instead. But that's missing the point. Even though they are vulnerable to evil, they go out and fight it anyway. That's how bad-ass they are. And it's not as if they don't bring plenty of stuff to bear against their foes, what with Smite Evil and whatnot. But the inherent toughness that comes from being infused with the power of the planes of Good - that's vulnerable to Evil, just like the opposite is true.

Because if you have Combat Expertise, you can already reduce your offensive output in order to get an AC bonus, although you do it via attack bonus instead of damage. Shield of Swings is there as an alternative for two-handed fighters instead, and two-handers generally have Power Attack already.

If there is ever a Pathfinder Revised, my main realistic hope is that they go through the game and clear up things that are unclear or contradictory. Things like the Energy Drain issue I found yesterday (where the CRB and Bestiary disagree on what happens after 24 hours), or magic item creation rules that both spread out important stuff across two different parts (there's nothing in the Magic Items chapter that says you can't make a potion of a spell with a Personal range, that restriction is only found in the Brew Potion feat) and still have confusing things like "Multiple Similar Abilities" discounts (No, you don't get the discount on an item giving you four different AC bonuses, you get it on things like staffs).

My unrealistic hope is that Paizo would come to some sort of agreement with Wizards that they can mine all the 3e/3.5 books for stuff they can use to improve the game. In late-era 3.5e, many problems with the game were identified and sort of fixed, like some of the magic item issues that got fixed with the Magic Item Compendium, and classes that could heal up to about half hp on a timescale of rounds to minutes (Dragon Shaman, Healing domain reserve feat). If Paizo could import those fixes to a revised Pathfinder, it would be awesome.

Tox1: You're still using the "Multiple similar abilities" rule incorrectly. What you want is "Multiple different abilities", although it doesn't apply to non-slot items. I do agree however that +1 four times should be a lower cost than a single +4 bonus, because you can't readily enhance it further with a ring of protection or a ring of natural armor. But you should not be able to get away with a +1x4 item cheaper than four different +1 items. No way, no how.

Oh, and the phrase "creating an ______ costs half the market value listed" is standard for magic items. It's the same rule that says you can buy a Belt of Strength +2 for 4,000 gp, or make your own for 2,000 if you have the feat, time, and spell.

As for the unlimited shield-on-command-word item, I would not allow that for the same reason I would not allow an unlimited protection from evil-on-command-word item. Using spell equivalencies is the last resort when it comes to pricing items. The hierarchy goes something like this:

1. Is it a potion, wand, or scroll? If so, use the spell level x caster level x item factor pricing with the possible addition of component costs and such.

2. Is there a similar item? If so, compare them and set a price accordingly.

3. Does the item provide a bonus of some sort? If so, price it according to the bonus costs.

4. Does the item mimic a spell? If so, price it according to the command word/use-activated rules, but be VERY careful.

I would not, however, have a problem with an item that had a limited number of shield charges per day. Say, an item that casts Shield 3x/day for 1,000 gp (by-the-book cost should be 1,080 gp but calling it an even thousand feels better). My reasoning here is that this won't be an always-up Shield spell, but only something done when it's important, and you'll likely have to spend actions either in combat or just before in order to use it.

The main thing to remember here is that while all rules are subject to GM adjudication, that goes a lot more for rules about creating new magic items. The other items that have a hard-and-fast built-in cost in the game are potions, scrolls, and wands, which all just mimic spells and have limited charges. Anything permanent or unlimited, you're going to have to be a lot more careful with.

@Drejk: The item creation guidelines actually specify that the extra cost for Multiple Different Abilities only apply to "items that take up a space on a character's body".

This whole idea sounds ridiculous. Please tell me there is a better way for them to do this.

I think the best way of fixing it would be to change all devils that have DR X/good to DR X/good or chaotic, and demons would instead get DR X/good or lawful. Their same goes for their regeneration. You could fix celestials up with similar changes as well.

IF Unarmed Strike counts as a single weapon, then considering you can flurry with all unarmed strikes, it makes sense that the cost is 2.5x greater than a normal weapon. 2x for the fact that if can affect all your attacks, and 0.5x for the other benefits of Unarmed Strike (not needing to draw the weapon, can't be disarmed, etc.)

I've seen a few people saying Unarmed Strike needs to cost more to enhance than weapons (even more than two weapons), because fighting unarmed has other advantages such as not being disarmed and being able to bring it anywhere.

I don't buy that. That's part of the unarmed "package." Do you also think a magic longspear should cost extra for being a reach weapon? Or a dagger cost extra for the +2 to Sleight of Hand checks to hide it? Or maybe a hand axe should cost extra because you can also throw it? If not, why should unarmed cost extra for side benefits?

Iron Heroes also had a cool idea for combat feats, although a bit higher powered than would work for regular D&D/Pathfinder (because Iron Heroes compensates for lack of magic by upping the inherent badassosity of its characters).

Basically, instead of having feat chains you had "Mastery Feats." Each class got access to different masteries at different levels - for instance, a Harrier (a class focused on mobile combat) at level 10 would have Defense and Finesse Mastery at level 5, Projectile Mastery at level 4, and all other Masteries at level 3.

Each Mastery feat chain started, of course, with a single feat. But in order to take the higher-level versions, you only needed the basic mastery feat and the appropriate mastery level. So, for example, the Mobility mastery feat (categorized as a Defense mastery) looks like this for the first six levels:

1 - +4 Defense (IH uses class-based instead of armor-based DCs for hitting people) versus movement-based AoO. Same as PF Mobility, except you don't need Dodge.
2 - +6 Defense against one target for movement-based AoO.
3 - Can move before and after attack, doesn't work in heavy armor (AKA Spring Attack).
4 - If one foe takes a move-based AoO against you and miss, you get +2 Defense against any other move-based AoOs for that square (your foes interfere with one another)
5 - Foe must save or fall prone after move-based AoO.
6 - Can attack at any point along a charge, and doesn't have to charge straight at an opponent.

A 10th level Harrier with the base Mobility feat could thereafter cherry-pick any of the level 2-5 feats. He could not take the level 6 feat, because he doesn't have the right level of Mastery. Neither could he take the level 3 Dodge mastery feat (another Defense mastery), unless he had taken the base Dodge feat.

This system still serves the purpose of limiting the cooler feats to higher levels, and requiring fighters (used in the generic meaning, not to mean the specific class) to focus to some extent, but it doesn't require them to spend all their feats on just one thing.