So here it is and it's one gorgeous book. I've skimmed through it, read some choice chapters and so far I have to say this is a definite improvement over 3.5. However, like others have also stated, it feels more like 3.6 than 3.75 and that's mainly because 90% of the work seems to focus on the stuff that was already good to begin with.
The classes and races have been rebalanced, skills and feats tidied up and compressed, troublesome spells nerfed or made less complex. There is a lot of good stuff here, it feels clean, and I'm especially impressed with the combat maneuvre overhaul.
Still my main gripe with 3rd edition remains: high level complexity. Apart from the Vital Strike feat chain, which gives an alternative to the endless rolling of iterative attacks, I just don't see how PFRPG improves what imo has always been this edition's weak spot.
Am I missing something? Was it maybe decided at some point that simplifying high-level combat could not be accomplished alongside the goal of backward compatibility? Or is it just deemed a lost cause (the fact that the APs still end around level 14 seems to point that way)?
I like the format a lot, but I would like it even better if you'd separate feats into "feats that give combat options" and "feats that don't give combat options"
I have a better idea: Feats that give combat options are going to be mentioned in the combat sections.
Like
Defense
AC...
Saves..
Defensive options: Dodge (swift; +1 dodge AC), Parry (...), Combat Expertise (-4 at +4 AC)
Offense:
Attacks...
Attack options: Power Attack (-4 at +8 dmg), Smite Evil (...)
Spell like abilities..
I agree; this would make the stat block even easier to read as you're running combats.
NOTE: One thing this preview also shows is how the format of the PF RPG stat blocks is pretty much unchanged from what we've been doing. One more way that compatibility with pre PFRPG stuff and post PFRPG stuff should be easy to handle...
I like the format a lot, but I would like it even better if you'd separate feats into "feats that give combat options" and "feats that don't give combat options" like Monte Cook did with Ptolus (he used the terms "crucial feats" and "other feats"). After all, feats like Toughness and Weapon Focus already are implemented in the stats, wheras feats like Combat Expertise and Cleave are not.
The bell towers are mentioned in the second paragraph on page 3. The blackmail scheme is also on page 3, second column, paragraph beginning with "Recognizing his own follishness". The 30 minute time limit is on page 10 right at the beginning of Act 5.
I will DM a group that really gets into the backstory, that's why I need to get my story straight beforehand. :-)
I'm cool with the "bright people can do very stupid things" explanation. I'm thinking of twisting it so that Yargos and his friends (the three guys that are chained to him in Act I) are history fanatics who like to re-enact historic events. So they dress up as Old Taldorans, light the beacons and rush to the bell towers pretending they are the saboteurs (of course not with the intention of sabotaging anything). Imagine their surprise when they witness the Black Echelon actually destroying the towers.
I still don't see how Nessian gets involved in all of this. Maybe he's a fanatic Taldoran and one of his goons overhears Yargos and his friends in the Drowning Depths as they plan the event. He reports this to Nessian, who orders the goon to steal the book. As the War Hounders follows the group around waiting for the right opportunity, they also witness the attack. They then take the book from the group and bring it to Nessian. He then tells them to erase the traces for the reason you gave.
Nessian's motivation now becomes not to blackmail the city, but to carry out the Silent Tide, mistakingly believing that this would be in the interest of Taldor.
I'm curious how other DM's answered the following questions:
Spoiler:
1. Yargos replicates the codes on a lark. Why on earth would he do this? And what happened next? Did the Black Echelon destroy the bell towers?
2. Yargos then tries to alert the city. I take it nobody believed his story? If the bell towers were destroyed, why didn't they believe him?
3. He then tries to hurl the codebook into the sea. However, Nessian "intervenes". How exactly did Nessian learn of the book and how did he intervene?
4. Nessian later sends his goons to kill Yargos. Why didn't he kill the historian immediately?
5. Act 1 starts at early evening. Act 4 at sunrise. Since the PCs are under time pressure, I assume they didn't sleep. Where did the time go then? Surely act 2 and 3 don't take all night to complete?
6. Nessian plans to blackmail the city. However, it is made clear that unless the abort code is given within half an hour of the cathedral attack, the city is doomed. So how exactly does he plan to go about his blackmailing in that short timeframe?
7. For that matter, is it wisdom to be encamped just outside the city when you summon an army of undead to sack it? :-)
One thing, one thing... imo the biggest priority is making high level play run almost as smoothly as low level both for the players and the DM. But that's a little vague, so since I have to limit it to one specific wish:
Less buffs. Condense the types, impose a buff limit, grant players better stats so you can get rid of the Big Six and Bull Strength etc. -whichever way you do it, just please lessen the number crunch at high level.
Lethality is a cost. If you enter combat or fall into a trap, there should be a risk and thus a cost for failing and in vanilla D&D the only possible cost is death. You used to have magic item destruction and level loss, but those were few and far between and have more or less been taken out of the game entirely.
One of the biggest dilemma's in roleplaying games is that while you need to have the risk of death in the game, nobody likes to lose his character. Epecially to a (series of) bad roll(s).
Hero Points or whatever you want to call them can provide a perfect middle ground. Enter combat or fall into a trap and you could lose a Hero Point. Lose a Hero Point and you are one step closer to death.
But that's just one version of the Hero Point. It might not be to your liking, but for me it beats the alternative of having the game come to a crashing halt while the PCs run for a cleric who can cast True Resurrection. But then I am a DM who never ever fudges a die roll or tones down an encounter and I only allow a character to be resurrected once. My Hero Points also have other uses (I am currently using Monte Cook's system from AE) which give my players a lot of extra options (extra options are good!).
That's what a good Hero Points system does imo: it adds options for the players and (possibly) provides an alternative for death.
Too bad we aren't all as genius as you. Why even bother with dice at all, I wonder? A good DM can easily adjucate the outcome of anything the players come up with.
Bah. Those "Anyone who likes X, is just a video game/MMO/WoW geek" comments always get my blood boiling.
Okay, you guys have convinced me to try it out "as is". I'll convert NPCs with core classes/races to the beta as per Option 2: Complete Conversion on p. 299.
As for the monsters and other NPCs, I think I'll compensate for the power increase by giving them a +2 on their highest stat and +1 hp per hit die (but see below).
My players use the standard starting hit points option (max + Con modifier) and the elite array, just like the iconics.
I think the reason why I'm having trouble on deciding how to balance the modules with the beta rules, is that I'm not sure if they are balanced with the iconic party in mind (which is pretty underpowered imo) or one that uses all the 3.5 splat books, prestige classes and whatnot.
If the RotRL AP is balanced with the latter in mind, no adjustments seem necessary.
So... Eberron and 4E have action points, Arcana Evolved and Mutant & Masterminds have hero points, Star Wars has force points, True20 has conviction points, Warhammer has fate points. I see a trend...
Will Pathfinder have any such system, maybe as an optional rule? Are you good folks at Paizo even considering it?
Well, if your average damage for your scimitar is, say, 23, your crit is 46 . . .
I understand that its less climatic than seeing all of the damage randomized, but even playing at 11th level, but especially in the 20th level playtest, counting up dozens of dice multiple times, especially for the ranger and the fighter that had multiple attacks, became even more tedious, and brought us out of the feel of the fight a lot more than not rolling dice did.
I second this motion. Five dice is just about the maximum I like to see flying around at once. :-)
I'm keeping the 3.5 XP rules and calculate XP as if the PCs are one level higher than they actually are. Then if they would have leveled from, say, 2 to 3, they level from 1 to 2 instead.
That method almost always asured my players a success, which may be good, naturally, but it took away much of the sense of danger.
That's why I like the idea of hero points that once spent are gone forever as opposed to the action point system, where you regain all your spent action points when you level.
I'm a huge fan of Hero Points and would love to see them find their way into PFRPG in one form or another.
The best system I've come across so far is from Warhammer FRP. Basically, the PCs start out with a couple of Fate Points which can be expended to avoid death. As long as the PC still has points, he also can make one reroll per day per Fate Point. PCs gain Fate Points very sparingly, and only when they achieve some major success.
The result is a system that diminishes the amount of PC deaths but at a very real cost - every Fate Point expended means one less reroll per day.
Since WFRP is deadlier than D&D, beginning characters should probably start with only one Hero/Fate Point and never be allowed to have more than one at a time. They could then be given a chance to regain any expended points every three levels or so (once per PF AP module).
I'm going to playtest this in our next campaign, but in the meantime I'm curious what others think of such a system for PF.
I should have mentioned that I don't have much time to convert the modules. Also I feel a conversion would only bring NPCs with core class levels up to par. Of course I will be using the new spell versions and CMB etc.
Right now I'm leaning towards the following:
- Use the modules as is. No extra HPs for the monsters, NPCs use the 3.5 races and classes.
- The PCs stay one level below what is expected. They start out with three PCs at level 1 and instead of becoming level 2, they must expend their XP to let the fourth PC join.
- Every PC starts with one Fate point, which can be expended to avoid death. It also grants 1 reroll/day. At the end of each module, if the PCs succesfully twart the evil guys' plans, their fate point is replenished. (Shamelessly stolen from Warhammer FRP).
This way I hope to keep the game balanced with a minimum of work.
I'm thinking of using the beta rules for our upcoming RotRL campaign, but am worried that the AP will be too easy for the beefed up PCs. PFRP suggests handling the PCs as one level higher than they are, but that seems a bit harsh.
What are your thoughts? Are the encounters challenging enough, even for PF characters? Has anyone tried to keep the PCs one level below what the modules expect?
1. A lot of stuff (sneak attack, immediate actions) is "once per round". I'm a bit confused as to what they mean by a round. Is it the time between your current turn and your next turn (as in 3.5) or is it the combat round (in which every combatant takes one turn)?
2. The Healing/Inspiring Word powers grant more healing than just using a normal Healing Surge. What's to stop anyone from using this after combat?
3. If I understand correctly, you can take a move action and then charge as a standard action? Allowing you to completely bypass anything in the way?
I kind of like Metamagic the way it is . . . I've used a few metamagic spells and feats, especially quickened spells in the past. To address the OPs idea of trimming down the number of spells that characters have on their spell list at high level, I bounced this idea around for a bit last year and had this idea, though I've yet to give it a good playtest (used it for a few NPCs though).
Two spells of a given level can be combined into a spell slot of the next highest level.
In other words, two first level spells can be condensed into one second level spell. Two second level spells can be condensed into one third level spell, etc.
You cannot condense spells into the highest level spell you know (so, for example, if you are a 5th level wizard, you can't condense 2nd level spells into a 3rd level spell, but a 17th level wizard could condense all of his spells up to 7th level).
From the few NPCs that I used this with, they might have had one or at most two extra higher level spells come into play than they would have normally, and this is talking about having one more scorching ray instead of two shocking grasps, for example.
This is another good idea and Arcana Evolved does just that, except that you need to give up three spells of a given level for one of the next highest level.
Okay, I found the blog entry. The relevant passage is a bit hidden, so I'll just copy it here and put it in bold (if I'm violating intellectual property, please give me a day's warning before unleashing the dogs):
From Monte Cook's blog, April 17th 2008:
"I have a pile of notes somewhere for a high level play book that I never got around to writing. One of the concepts in there was adding in low level spells that you cannot cast until you are high level. Basically many of them would be designed so that they were permanent, but required the permanent sacrifice of a slot as well. These included buffs but also other minor at-will abilities or constant enhancements. Because at high level it stops mattering all that much if you can cast Melf's Acid Arrow when you've got maximized lightning bolts and whatnot. (With that in mind, metamagic probably should have involved combining spell slots of the same level rather than utilizing higher level slots, to cut down on the number of lower level spells to keep track of.) Taken to their ultimate conclusion, you'd do things like give up all your 1st level slots and get SR 10+level all the time. And so on."
I see from the majority of the responses that my OP has been interpreted as trying to answer the question "How to fix metamagic?"
That wasn't my intention. Nor - if I recall correctly - was it Monte's. What the rule tries to do is find a way to condense the spell list, especially for NPCs. For an example see my above post.
I'll try to find his original blog entry and post it.
would this be an either/or suggestion or a replacement suggestion, if its to replace I'm against it, if either/or, I have no issue.
I can't speak for Monte, but I would go for either/or.
The elegance of this rule - and what the other variants mentioned lack - is that it cleans up the spell lists, especially of NPCs.
As a DM, whenever I turn a page during preparation and see an NPC spellcaster with a gazillion spells, I groan. 99% of the time the NPC isn't even going to use his lower level spells, but still I have to look up everything in advance just to make sure I don't play her sub-optimally.
Take all those 1st - 4th level cleric buffs for instance. I'd much rather run a 15th level cleric who has a list that at the bottom looks like this:
1 - quickened shield of faith
2 - quickened cure moderate wounds
3 - quickened protection from energy
4 - quickened divine power
than
1 - shield of faith, protection from evil, divine favor, bless, sanctuary
2 - bull's strength, cat's grace, boar's endurance, aid, resist energy
3 - magic circle vs evil, magic vestment, prayer, protection from energy (x2)
4 - death ward, divine power, freedom of movement, greater magic weapon, spell immunity
Since he's on the team now, I wanted to bring up a suggestion Monte once made to get rid of those bloated spell lists spell casters have to drag around with them their whole life.
His idea was to use multiple spell slots of the same level instead of one slot of a higher level to balance metamagic.
For instance, a maximized magic missile would not cost a 4th level spell slot, but four 1st level ones. I'm not sure whether he intended there to be any other limiting factor (like that you have to be able to cast 4th level spells before you can maximize a 1st level one), but I really like this rule.
Any chance this might be considered for the PFRPG?
Since when is BASIC math considered calculus????!?!
I agree. I've seen this come up since 2E and THACo. If addition and subtraction are giving you problems, maybe you should try a game that's a little less cerebral.
Sigh. I'll refrain from insulting you back, but it's sad that you feel you have to demean me to give weight to your statement.
What I was getting at, obviously, is the large amount of crunch a DM has to cope with, especially if his players are not exactly walking calculators.
Of course 3.5's spell durations are simple math. But all that simple math adds up. I want to make tactical decisions, not keep track of when what ends and how what changes.
The Barbarian: "Did my rage end? What round is it? Oh wait, I have two extra rounds because my constitution is higher. Okay, I'll hit the orc. Damn, I miss. No, wait. Since I'm a dwarf I get a +1. And he charged last turn, didn't he? So his AC is down by 2. Still need 1 point. When did you cast Bless? Great! Orc pie!"
The Druid: "Okay, I change into a dire bear. No, make that a dire lion. Wait a sec, gotta update my stats. Next round I'll animal growth myself. What's my fort save now?"
The Cleric: "Damn, so he dispelled my Divine Power and Shield of Faith? But my Divine Favor, Bull's Strength and Enlarge Person are still good? Okay, so now my attack bonus is... wait, are you still singing? No? How many rounds does your song linger?"
The Rogue: "I attack with my shortswords. My attack bonus on my first attack is... with Bless, singing, Cat's Grace, flanking, two-weapon fighting, miss. Next attack is with the same hand. Hit. Then another. No, wait it's with the off-hand. Damn, miss. Wait, is Haste still up? Okay, so then I did have an extra main hand attack. That's a hit then."
You do not have to be cerebrally challenged to think the way 3.5 does certain things is overly complicated. Rage should just last for one combat and that's that. Mage armor should last all day. Wild shape should be restricted to specific shapes (like the excellent PHB II druid variant).
I'm not saying 4E is going to make it all better. But at least it will address a lot of these issues. Not everyone will feel those changes necessary, but I and my players do.
meaningful difference between spellcasters and non-spellcasters: gone
vancian spellcasting: gone
simulationist play: gone
cosmology: gone
accepted standard mythology and lore: gone
low level characters who aren't high hit point uber-competent superheroes: gone
The only thing left is monsters, loot, and exp. Many fantasy games have those, and they aren't D&D.
Crosswiredmind already addressed these, so let me just add that you forgot to mention a lot of other "gonnees", like:
- The 15-minute work day: gone
- Spell duration calculus: gone
- Polymorph/Wild Shape calculus: gone
- Charisma as a dump stat: gone
- Two rolls for one and the same thing (Hide/Move and Spot/Listen): gone
- Class disbalance: gone (well...)
- Cleric as a healbot: gone
- High level NPCs with spell lists longer than your arm: gone
- Flipping through a gazillion books to check what every feat, spell and race/class ability does: gone
- Dipping into ten different classes: gone
- Levels where you gain nothing: gone
- Death at level 1 because an orc crits you: gone
- Death at level 10 because the monster's penultimate attack leaves you at 1 hit point: gone
- Death at level 15 because you rolled a 1 on your save: gone
- Casters that suck if they multiclass: gone
- Magic items that do nothing but give you a bonus: gone
I too have playtested the quick start rules and let me assure you 4E still feels very much like D&D. To me, it's a lot more streamlined and fun, especially since I'm the DM, but that's not to say 3.5 isn't fun or Paizo's baby won't be a work of genius (I'm sure it will be and I'm planning on playing both 4E and Pathfinder).
Now as far as flavor is concerned (Forgotten Realms etc.), that's a different matter entirely and I can understand that people oppose big changes in their favorite setting. But the realms with a new cosmology and dragonborn and spellcasters that can cast all day, doesn't make D&D any less D&D.
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