I'm running book 6 at the moment and I agree that Richards return to the side of good was done badly. Do you guys have any advice on how to handle it better?
I would like it to be little shock to the PC's that he turns. Maybe some thing happens as a catalyst?
My PCs have installed Richard as a king, maybe Bellinda sends a kidnapping team and they kill Dessiter in the fight so he can't scry on his location?
If the Pcs are present they will most certainly foil the kidnapping but doing it "behind the scenes" seems a bit cheating.
A rescue/kidnapping team sounds good. The final battle has a solar. Have a cleric that's possessed by that solar be part of the team to do an atonement on Richard and rescue him. It also gives a reason for why the solar is present for the final battle besides just having more holy allies. You could also have a half-giant/titan mauler/titan fighter be part of the team, and make it be the child of titan. If you're not opposed to 3pp, it could even be a giant blooded sorcerer with teleportation spells.
As for how it all came to be, the whole Richard's mother thing could still be present in the story. Maybe Richard's mother becomes an angel and was the one who had the solar sent.
Samurai Sheepdog sent out a request back in April for people to come and submit entries for a charity bundle for Owen Stephens, who is currently battling cancer. Myself and many others wrote up boss encounters for Pathfinder 1e, Pathfinder 2e, Starfinder, Cypher System, 5e, and OSRIC. That bundle is being released today, and will have periodic updates as more is added to it.
Please consider donating. If you can't, please share this around so that others can donate and share. Every bit helps.
Came up with a side-quest idea - the boggard tribe had fallen on hard times under Kumanda's leadership, and is seen as weak by other boggards.
In order to allow Zikomo to start recruiting new tribe members, they need a show of strength - killing a marsh giant that the other local tribe worships would be great, but that requires a day-long expedition into the swamp.
That's pretty good. In Book 7, you're tasked with getting a hydra for the cave. That could also be a show of strength instead of using minions.
Argossarian is a CR 13 young adult silver dragon who has no wealth on him whatsoever because his horde is somewhere else entirely. As such, my suggestion would be to have "some" of that 11,600 gold the PCs normally wouldn't be able to access,
Problem is, that would also buff his dragon form, and the party, while experienced in rpg, is new to Pathfinder. I don't know how good they will be at fighting by the end of the module.
It just occured to me.
The party is very unlikely to figure it out or want to use it, but Grumblejack's backstory technically qualifies him for the first sacrifice.
You accidentally quoted things too many times.
It would buff the dragon in his original form, but it's honestly only something you'd give him if he needed it in his humanoid form. That said, this might get Ezra to help because a dragon is difficult to take on, and an undead can only do so much. It's just assumed that the dragon is in its original form always. You could also make a custom item that reduces his size to Medium so he can get around. Make it a monster version of reduce person. It's a 3PP spell, if you're okay using it. Wouldn't be that much of a stretch that ancient beasts like dragons would have access to "ancient" magic.
If your group figures it out, and decides to sacrifice Grumblejack for the ritual, they wouldn't be the first to do that.
1 My group had not much trouble with the escape. 25 point buy and 2 extra skill points helped. Even though _none_ of them took ranks in Disable Device they managed to get out. They had Grumblejack to help as well. It was a bit hairy but they managed to kill most of the guards without alerting the keep.
2 I used the material in book 7 and some suggestions here on the boards. The flesh golem (book 7) and the Gates brothers (Kevins idea if I recall correctly). Also I beefed up some enemies, like Odenkirk and commander Havelyn. Also did you remember to give all the story awards littered throughout? I missed a few and gave the players the xp later. If I would do this again, I would ditch XP altogether and just level them whenever appropriate.
3 Maybe the cultist confused Pale with White? They are almost the same color.
4 Good question. My players (or me) never noticed that. Maybe they had slaves throw them in the acid pit (C2), or just carry them outside.
5 Have you perused the book 2 thread already? My players killed Ezra immediately so I did not have that problem. Remember that Ezra is insane, the temptation to attack might just be too much for him to wait until the optimal moment. Also why not have him attack at the same time as Richard? Nice three way fight there.
6 I guess so. But do what ever is coolest.
The oozes were a nice shock to my party. If your party tactic is to always rush a room en masse this is a good lesson for them. You can have some minions hang back and then drag them back with reach weapons. When they are woken they are immune to the aura. Besides its DC 21 :) The oozes are non-intelligent, they do not know how to coup de grace. They attack the helpless PC grabbing and constricting and the pain wakes them up.
The individual book threads were really helpful for my GMing. Also Kevins really good blog entries have good ideas that I used a lot.
Appreciate the name drop and shoutout to my old blog. And, yes, the Gates brothers was mine.
Normally when you transform with polymorph, your equipment melds into your new shape. But for Argossian, the dragon form is his base one.
Does it mean that while he's running through the narrower parts of the horn, he's butt naked and reduced to punching things? That's a way less challenging battle.
(also likely to get the spiral clogged with a solid block of meat, if the party kills him there and he reverts to his base shape)
If you choose to have him naked and bits hanging out, that's your call. Usually the transformation adds basic clothes. But, no, there's no armor.
Could always have the party kill him and his dragon corpse potentially crush them. I've experience that kind of game before (colossal red dragon archmage).
Argossarian is a CR 13 young adult silver dragon who has no wealth on him whatsoever because his horde is somewhere else entirely. As such, my suggestion would be to have "some" of that 11,600 gold the PCs normally wouldn't be able to access, as something he can make use of. He has no armor, but has access to 1st and 2nd level spells. My suggestions would be for him to wear a ring of spell knowledge with mage armor in it, and page of spell knowledge for shield of faith. That's 2500 gp and gives +6 AC for two 1st level spell slots. As for change shape, it's any animal of humanoid. Lizardfolk are humanoids with two claws and a bite. Could turn into one of those, or even a sasquatch for slams. Could always have another page of spell knowledge for a 2nd level spell that'd cost 4k gp, and pick your favourite. I'd probably go bull's strength of bear's endurance, but resist energy is good for those fire-based spells. Whatever you add, just make sure the PCs can only access a minimal amount of it, if anything.
I'll be buying this solely to show that there's a market for it, even though I don't see myself running this particular AP (although I've been wrong before).
I've also converted and ran Rise of the Runelords and I'm converting and running Curse of the Crimson Throne right now in 5e! It can be done.
You don't happen to have those available online, do you? Like as a Google Doc?
I haven't updated my blog in some time, but from time to time I'll get a question from someone who's currently playing the adventure path. This happened yesterday, and the GM was in Book 3 dealing with Izevel the medusa petrifying everyone. I'm sure there are more ways to deal with gaze attacks, but I put down nearly two dozen ways to deal with her in this entry.
Good to has a free 3pp adventure, Throne of Night, player's guide out there for PF1e, kevin_video- plus all the other links too. ;)
lol Yeah, you'd almost think I was the one who wrote this thing. It's unfortunate that it ended up on our shoulders to finish things up. Still, want to do my part so other people can enjoy this for what it should be.
For ease of use, instead of making people jump from link to link, it's true that I did compile everything together on one Google Doc. I even added the reddit posts. Also, the person who wrote the reddit posts, might (no promises) do another one, but this time based on the map the Kickstarter people were given exclusively. Apparently, there might be a few questionable things on that.
It's just as thought out and blunt about how Gary put things together, as the review as Book 1. It was a good read about how the errors and questionable plot elements seem very on-point at this stage for Gary's writing.
Reddit user Zorothegallade has gone over books 1 and 2, done a review, and listed all the fixes that need to be made to each stat block, and there's a few. The review is rather long so each were broken down to a number of parts, linked for your convenience.
Reddit user Zorothegallade has gone over books 1 and 2, done a review, and listed all the fixes that need to be made to each stat block, and there's a few. The review is rather long so each were broken down to a number of parts, linked for your convenience.
Honestly never thought I'd be posting here again, but here I am. Came across a recent (Oct 1st 2022) review on Reddit for Book 1 of Throne of Night, and it also has corrections for NPC and monster stats. After the pages upon pages of errors from Way of the Wicked, and other people commenting errors in Book 1, this person broke it all down and found way more issues than most of us discovered. Honestly shocked that there was this many with just the first book. I'll be curious to see a review for Book 2.
The review is well done, and points out some plot line flaws with the drow side of things, saying "FMG forces the idiot ball on yet another villain.", which, the reviewer isn't wrong. Drow are arrogant, but they're not stupid.
Hey peeps, not to resurrect an old thread, but my group will be undertaking this adventure in a month or so, so took the info presented here and made a single reference document. I have not yet edited it, but feel free to check it out, download it, or comment with ideas. I am setting it on the Island of Kortos outside of Absalom...the Red Hand pushing out or recruiting the centaurs and harpys into their army.
Hey man, i know its a few years later but i was wondering if you still have the google doc with the pathfinder conversion? i read it a while ago and its just what i need, but the link doesn't work anymore. Thanks!
He might come back, but unfortunately he's been gone from the site for about a year.
While it's not completed, you might have to rely on this one or this one. There's also a few Reddit posts of people doing their shot at it.
As the shipping date draws near, I was wondering if the Kingmaker Adventure Path Special Edition hardcover was written entirely for 2E or if 1E skill DCs were provided? I purchased the 1E Bestiary Add-On but I am uncertain if some amount of 2E to 1E conversion will be required when I run the adventure. Any information on this would be greatly appreciated; thank you.
It's 100% written for 2nd edition. If you want to run this version in 1st edition, the Bestiary provides all the stat blocks for monsters and NPCs and traps/hazards you don't already have in 1st Edition's Bestiaries #1 through #6, but all other content (skill DCs, treasures, etc.) are things the GM will need to adjust as they go.
There's also a 5e version, correct? Or is that just the Bestiary?
I didn't initially think to post it here, and only posted it on Book 6, but for those DMs still running the game, it'd make sense that I put the link here as well.
That's a great find. While I was looking for a conversion, I came across a not so nice reddit post about the AP in general, which I posted on Book 6. The main thing I wanted people to be aware of was all the errors for the monsters and NPCs so that they can adjust their own campaigns accordingly. I didn't realize it was quite that bad. I knew it wasn't great as over the years I had emails Gary with my own corrections for the later books, but seeing it all laid out like that... Wow.
That said, the person who did that also wrote an epic reddit post about the AP, and was not exactly kind. The title of it speaks just how much this book hurt them. Literally, the final paragraph describes that the AP affected their mental health negatively.
Hi not sure this is the right place but Kevin_video I seem to recall you having talked to the artist of both this and way of the wicked (I believe same artist for both) was wondering if there was anywhere he had art for way of the wicked up or art prints?
Yes, Michael Clarke did the art for both adventure paths. Other than his website, which is mostly Throne of Night art, he didn't have a lot of art for Way of the Wicked uploaded anywhere besides the now defunk FMG website. There are websites that share the art, mostly because they're doing a playthrough online, and the GMs need visual representation for the players.
I shared as much of his art as possible on my Pinterest page.
I noticed the Nereid grace max Deflection bonus is +6 at CL18.
Yeah, I don't know if that's an errata or what. The +6 limit is definitely in the online versions of the spell. I don't have a copy of the 1st printing, which might not have had a limit.
Regardless, it's druid/witch 1, so it has to be a magic item. Belinda couldn't cast that on herself unless it was through a wish.
I don't know who still needs this, but because I get 0one's newsletters, this morning I received a link to the company's Dwarven Depths - Western Outpost map, currently being sold for 99 cents US.
And that's not all. Going through their map list, there's an entire series on Dwarven Depths, the Dwarven Stronghold, as well as for their Drow City. There's even a Dwarven Excavation map that's in colour.
Definitely no shortage of maps from 0one Games. Thankfully.
For anyone looking for more drow content, especially 5e, Midnight Tower is doing a Kickstarter for their 2019 trilogy to become a single physical tome with extra and expanded. It's already reached its goal and there's only one (1) stretch goal left to hit (it's apparently a secret one).
If you're done with drow, I totally get it. Wanted to bring to everyone's attention though, just in case.
I've already added this to the Resource Page that I linked above, and placed under the "Alternative scenarios and modules to run for your own version of ToN/complete the story" section.
Dyson Dodecahedron draws fantastic maps, and what's even greater is he adds little scenarios to each one. Not in-depth, but just enough to inspire the GM/DM and give a basic background that could either be used to elaborate on the story's past and how it's relevant to the current story, ignore completely, or even have the story take place during the background itself instead of in the future. While I've been following his map-making for some time "Heart of Darkling" was a relatively new series to me as he's taken a break from them, and is now getting back into finishing off the series. He's been doing a lot of commissions during the pandemic as lots of people were playing over the past year. Go figure. However, since things are slowing down he's able to get back into it again.
The latest map, 14A - Deception's Bridge, discusses xenophobic cavefolk and an intellect devourer. This could be a great lead-in for Book 6's story where there's a LOT of intellect devourers for the party to face off against. Maybe this intellect devourer originally came from there.
Other map locations discuss ghouls, ghasts, ice mephits, white puddings, gibberlings (check out the Creature Chronicles conversion; consider adding their trip ability from 4th Ed and a PF1e's grimple gremlin's lice ability), invisible stalkers and mind flayer slaves, derro, deity worshiping gazers (ie. tiny beholders) that might be controlled or influenced (could be the star spawn is who they worship), hags, medusa, and gnomes. Such a huge variety.
All of this happens along a specific lake and river. The lake could be the Lake of Violet Mists where the Isle of Seven Horns is, or it could be in another section of the underground entirely. It's totally up to you how you'd want to run it. There's only 17 of the 20 maps currently available, but you don't necessarily need to do all of them. Just little side quests, or maybe by the time you reach the current map that's out, the last three will have been uploaded.
More than anything else, I wanted everyone to made aware that these maps exist and they're available for anyone looking to do an underground adventure, or complete one that they're already currently doing.
This is a free resource I made for everyone to view. This link is also in the threads for Book 1 and Book 2. Want to make sure it's available for as many people looking to run this game as possible. We're all in this together.
Quite a few of you are at the end of Book 2, and desperately waiting for Book 3, or you're very nearly ending Book 2, but are stalling your players as best as you can. There are also those of you who have used Weslocke's own ending to the AP. Those of you have bought the pdfs, but were not part of the Kickstarter never saw the July update where Gary essentially summarized the next four books, and put up photos for what the PCs would be taking on. With it being December, I thought it'd be in line with the holiday spirit to copy and paste that summary here. I doubt I'd get in trouble for it given how things are looking at this point.
Remember, this is just a summary, and nothing more. There's lots of pictures on Michael's official sites that show that there's way more creatures that the PCs have to contend with than what the summary suggests. Namely, an underground magma dragon, another shoggoth like back in Way of the Wicked, a purple worm, and an aquatic sea life version of a charnel colossus.
I absolutely recommend his Google+ site and his worktime main art site. The guy has gone above and beyond, and deserves the proper recognition for this troubles.
There's a lot here so I'm putting it in a spoiler. Also, there are likely those don't want to know the story via spoilers because they're playing it, and not running it. Don't want to ruin the surprise.
** spoiler omitted **...
I finished the first book and want to start the second.
Thankfully the second book exists. It's the third and beyond that sadly don't exist. Thanks to everyone here we have equivalent books that'll help GMs and players still achieve some form of finality that both are hopefully content with.
So, a fellow Canadian who goes by the name of Dungeon Dad, recently did a video on the ascomoid from AD&D and how you could use it in 5e. While this is a PF1e adventure path, he had a brilliant idea during his plot hooks segment that I think everyone could use. (BTW, if you converted this to 5e and want to use his free stat block that he links in the video description, but want it closer to Pathfinder's, just make it resistant to fire and piercing weapons. You could also give it the warhorse's trampling charge ability, but change hooves to slam attack. Be wary though as this might make it a CR 5 instead of a CR 4.) The spawn ability is still present in the Pathfinder version, it's just that it's in the ecology section.
The concept is this: someone learned about the ascomoid and has been feeding it the bodies of its enemies, causing the creatures to spawn into more of itself. Eventually, the food supply isn't able to keep up with their hunger, so they burst forth and take over the town, consuming everything. Now, 1 of 2 things could potentially happen. That being either the PCs are in the town when that happens and have to help the townspeople cull the herd, or the PCs show up afterwards and there's just skeletons and a fungus covered city left. Going with the second one, myconids migrate to that city and take it over. There's some cool visuals in the video too. If you go with the second one, it could be a fallen drow city that no one talks about because it's too big of a hit to their pride to admit that they fell to fungus.
When I saw the fungal jungle pic at 1:19 it immediately made me think of this AP, and I felt the need to share, but that doesn't mean that it couldn't be used for any other underground adventure such as "Rise of the Drow", or a homebrew.
I don't know if anyone else has the Adventurer's Armory 2 book, but damn is there a nasty alchemical item to use in the underground. More so at lower levels.
Darkflare is basically darkvision nullifying dynamite that you light and it then explodes the following round. Fort save or lose your darvision for 1d10 rounds, and it's only 1 gold. That's it. Wizards and alchemist drow and dwarves would have so much fun with that, regardless of what side they belong on.
I'm not sure how after all this time, I never mentioned that the dusk lantern was a thing. It's a variant hooded lantern lets you see in the dark and those who have darkvision are none the wiser that you're coming. Great alternative to the light spell while traversing underground.
As well, if you're playing all drow, or even if you're playing as the dwarves and want another ally, the darklantern vigilante might be up your sleeve for a potential NPC.
That is very cool. Also, for those that didn't have it, I had the link in the resource page for the "world" of ToN. The one that no one can access anymore because the site disappeared and took everything with it.
Herzlichen Dank für den Vertrauensvorschuss! Wenn wir es nach Corona mal hinbekommen uns IRL zu treffen, kann ich das Buch auch gern unterschreiben. :)
Translation for everyone who needs it (including myself): "Thank you very much for the leap of faith! If we manage to meet IRL after Corona, I can also sign the book. :)"
No, that's awesome, and I hope the project does extremely well. Look forward to the PF1 conversion so I can give it a proper look. And I love when one project you're working on doesn't work out, but you're able to forward all of that work to another one. You can rest easy that you didn't waste your time.
I was just reminded of something, and I can't believe I forgot. Selective memory, or maybe I blocked it out..
Gary wrote articles for volumes 7-9 of Wayfinder. Volume 7 is "Rise of the Runelords" as an evil campaign; volume 8 is "Curse of the Crimson Throne" as an underwater campaign; and volume 9 is "Council of Thieves" as a drow campaign. Of course there's lots of references to houses that were to be in Throne of Night.
These magazines are all free to download.
I added Wayfinder vol 9 to my resource link. If you haven't already run that AP, this could another avenue.
Wanted people to know that I've been in contact with a third party company that's looking to buy up the Fire Mountain Games IP, but Gary's been too elusive, as is Mr Clarke. The person will keep trying, but until he gets a response, he can't promise anything. However, if he's successful, I will be at the forefront of it getting completed. Anything beyond that, I haven't a clue. Details are sketchy until such times that we can actually get a hold of someone. We're pretty sure it's 100% a fool's errand, but there's still a lot of 2021 left to go.
No promises or guarantees on anything, and I'm not looking to get anyone an unwanted sense of hope. Just wanted people to know an attempt is being made. No matter what, even if this actually goes through, this will likely not end up being the original AP that we were all promised.
Didn't want to start my own thread, as it doesn't seem quite necessary, but would love if everyone here could fill it out. Wanting to see if there's any desire/want for pre-written adventures, especially for Pathfinder 1e.
Have a questionnaire waiting over here on Google forms. Your participation is very much appreciated.
The thought process with some publishers is that no one wants them, so they're not being made. If there's no one wanting them, that's okay. At least we'll know. Once I get enough responses for a "yes", I can discuss further what the premise would be. That would be its own thread so as to not derail this one.
Thank you in advance.
Wanted to thank the 17 people who took the time to respond to the questionnaire. Not sure if it would change now, as I'm not sure how recent the last few entries have been, but it's 100% unanimous that you want a Pathfinder 1e written adventure. I admit I did not see that coming. Thought there'd be at least 1 or 2 people wanting 5e.
The PF version has a few flaws in that if your players use every resource out there from Paizo, the AP won't be able to keep up the challenge.
To be fair, this is the same for every adventure written by Paizo. It aims for the middle of the road.
A real GM (which is rare round these parts) won't have trouble adjusting for their own table.
I agree on both accounts about the GM. While it's definitely something that reviewers can easily point out being an issue with Pathfinder 1e, I'm seeing DMs/GMs now saying the same thing about the new subclasses and racial variants of 5e. No matter what, you're going to have that power creep the older a system gets, if it keeps releasing new books and releases more options. It's just that one system has had more years to do so, in this regard.
They undertook too many projects. I wish they just stuck with Psionics. They branched off into PoW, Vampires, Akashics, etc.etc. and to me that wasn't why I signed on with DSP.
I'm a huge psionics fan, WotC doesn't care about Psionics, Paizo abandoned Psionics and went with Occult magic with rips from Psionics, which left DSP as my only real source for new Psionic material.
I was fine with them doing a few projects. Going psionics, PoW, and Savage Species was fine for me because they were usually separate people doing the designing, but the same group doing the editing. Doing the other projects was what really kind of killed things. Not to mention edition changes and other systems coming in that they wanted to be a part of.
WotC is doing psionics again with the release of Tasha's, but they're a "fixed" version. The psi-warrior and soulknife are pale abstract comparisons to the original. Thankfully they had the intelligence to listen to us complaining that the psi-warrior shouldn't be the psychic warrior. Even then, you give the character a sun blade, and it's straight up a Jedi. Literally no difference.
That’s hella impressive when anyone’s granny wants to show it off, and it’s not something their child or grandchild made.
I have the original 3-parter and helped fund the original Kickstarter to expand it from level 1. I likely won’t worry about getting the Pathfinder version of this, but I’m definitely intrigued by the 5e version.
Endzeitgeist just did a review for the Collector's Edition of "Rise of the Drow". There's both a PF 1e and a 5e version. The PF version has a few flaws in that if your players use every resource out there from Paizo, the AP won't be able to keep up the challenge. At the same time, however, the 5e version is near perfect for challenge.
He does go into how this version is different than the original version, which I admit I supported back in the day. Now, it's a complete sandbox. It's apparently nowhere near as linear as it was originally. That's great to know.
The sheer number of additional maps is apparently something to drool over as well.
You can read his review and get your copies of the new version here.
I think it's safe to say that this underground AP would have blown ToN out of the water, even if it did get completed. RoD Collector's Edition is now being considered the epitome standard for how modules should be designed, and that intrigues me.
So funny enough, the spell I shared was updated to Pathfinder, and the book was one that I believe I remember Gary backing. I can’t double check if I’m right or not as he’s locked his KS account so you can’t go through his list anymore. But you’ll notice, the same name of “penumbral lord Dar’Tan” appears in the description. Also, no more fire descriptor, so untyped damage. And, no verbal component. I will say though that the 5e version of blackflame is significantly more impressive, doing 10d10 psychic damage on the first round.
Either way, I’ll share the Pathfinder version of the spell here. Consider revising it further and taking elements of the 5e version. Maybe do my suggested 6d10 and increase that every round. I also still prefer how the original can bypass SR. Made it so much more of a threat to drow and duergar.
Also, I’m being more courteous this time and cropping the spell.
Blackflame Spell:
BLACKFLAME
The penumbral lord and archmage Dar’Tan is known for this signature spell, which causes his target to burst into agonizing, shadowy flames. For many years, it was believed blackflame was unique to him, the only copy secure in his great fortress. Recently, however, the thief Alaria is said to have traded a copy of the spell to a few powerful mages.
School illusion (shadow) [fear, shadow]; Level sorcerer/ wizard 8
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components S
Range medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level)
Target one creature
Duration 1 round/level (D)
Saving Throw Will and Fortitude (see text);
Spell Resistance yes
The target of this spell is engulfed in semi-illusory flames, a shadowy conflagration that manifests as very real wounds on her body. Every round, the target must make a Fortitude save or suffer 3d6 damage. On any round in which she suffers damage, the target must also make a Will save or become panicked for 1 round. Every round the target fails the Fortitude save, the damage dealt increases by 1d6; every round she fails the Will save, she suffers a cumulative –2 penalty on her next Will save against this spell.
One thing that I really want to see stay, despite other companies saying they should go (and in some cases did toss them when they printed their own books), is NPC classes. However, I want to upgrade them. It makes no sense to me how a warrior 20 is CR 18, but a fighter 5/warrior 15 is somehow CR 19. That makes absolutely no sense.
Regardless, back in 3.5 there was a book called, Unearthed Arcana, and what it did was use a system called Generic Classes. At specific levels, you could customize your character by taking a feat or a class feature that you met the prerequisites for. For example, a warrior and an expert got bonus feats at the same level as a fighter did, but nothing else. No weapon training, no armor training, bravery, or any of that. As for class features, if you had Base Reflex save +3, you could spend a bonus feat for evasion. If you of a good alignment, you could take smite 1/day. If you cast divine spells, you could take Turn Undead. Nowadays, it'd likely be channel energy. If you didn't have any prerequisites, you could still spend that bonus feat for a feat, or you could take Favored Enemy +2. Personally, I like that if I had 4 ranks of Handle Animal, I could access wild empathy. That seems like something everyone should be able to gain access to, honestly.
In addition, I'd like to see an arcane version of the adept. In 3.5, the Eberron book had one, and they named it the magewright. The main difference with that one was, unlike other NPC classes, it actually got something at 1st, 4th, and every 4 levels afterwards. However, that was also part of the draw back. Every ability was the Spell Mastery feat. Why? Because they could only cast spells they knew. They couldn't learn spells from scrolls nor did they have a spell book. So by 20th level, they had Spell Mastery six times. It was kind of like a weaker sorcerer that used Intelligence instead of Charisma. But, I'd like to see that carried over. Maybe rename it to some like, apprentice.
Lastly, I'd like to see a rule that if your NPC class levels are twice that of your base class levels, then your CR is -2. That's honestly how it should be, and originally you see that with the old NPC builds, but then Paizo got rid of that line of thinking entirely for no good reason.
At any rate, it makes the NPC classes closer to what the base classes are, and if the base classes are getting another boost, like they might, then the NPC version should get something as well. They'll still never be anywhere close to what a full base class character will be, but even a 10th level commoner should be rewarded in some fashion. Even if all of their feats are put into Toughness, Great Fortitude, Iron Will, and the like.
And what I'd really love to see is that at 1st level for each NPC class, is for them to have access to one unique boon or skill. Examples:
Adept:Skill: Favorable introductions to contacts in a local church, providing a PC a +2 bonus on Diplomacy checks made to influence members of that specific church.
Aristocrat:Favor: Use of influence to save the PCs from prosecution for a crime.
Commoner:Unique: Creates a map or leads a PC through the local wilderness to a secret location only he knows about.
Expert:Skill: Grants access to an exceptionally well outfitted workspace, granting a PC a +4 bonus on a specific Craft or Profession check.
Warrior:Unique: Can form a posse, bringing together a group of 2d4 low-level warriors to aid in one specific plan.
And each one have up to six choices. At higher levels, they could have two or even three of these.
Talking to an old DM of mine, and told him of the Corefinder project. His request was that dragonhide, which is very expensive, do something like what he had houseruled for his group. He had it so that if the original dragon had an immunity to an energy, it gave the wearer resistance 3 to that element. If it was immune to something like poison or death effects, etc, that the wearer gained a +2 bonus to saves against the effect.
Something that I was discussing earlier with others, but when CF gets to magic items, can we revise the price on the brilliant energy weapon property and the glove of storing? Please. They are way too overpriced.
Practically no one takes brilliant energy because it costs a +4 bonus and is now useless against undead and constructs. Or objects, but if you have brilliant energy you don't have a sundering build. What does it do? Torch light, and hits touch AC like an firearm can. And can ignore cover if it's an object. If you have it on a ranged weapon, maybe attack like you're trying to hit an invisible target. Still, not worth +4. Maybe +3. If put on a ranged weapon it's basically a seeking arrow.
Glove of storing is not worth 10k. Back during its first incarnation, it was worth 2,200 gp. If that's considered too low, compromise at 5k.
I'm sure other people will want to see some other magic items drop down in price too.
