Long time 3e-er, never played Pathfinder. So, I've been going through my BB this morning, I have a plan to use it for an old school sandboxy campaign for levels 1-5 - http://www.meetup.com/London-DnD/messages/boards/thread/19272292 - if you're in London you're welcome to come along and give it a try! :)
Looking at what rules were left out, generally it promotes the old-school flavour I'm going for. Eg no attacks of opportunity, no ranged spells or ranged weapons in melee, no DEX cap on armour, which makes armoured Elves potentially very nasty; a good thing IMO. I like all of these; opportunity attacks in particular don't work well IME and tend to bog down combat.
No armour check penalties, and no encumbrance - a good thing I feel, but there are cases where the DM will need to reality-check it, eg swimming long distance in plate will require a buoyancy aid or you'll sink; you can't carry 30 crossbows, that sort of thing.
However: the one house rule I'll be adding is allowing Readied actions, standard + free. This enables a PC to eg ready to 5' step & attack if someone tries to run past him, enabling some battlefield control. Otherwise it looks like the box rules meet my needs very nicely.
If you're using the BB for a campaign, how about you? Are you using any house rules?
House rules I've thought about:
- E5 style campaign
- Remove critical hit confirmation roll (and reduce any weapon's with threat range of 18-20 to 19-20).
- 4E movement and square fireballs to help move combat along that much faster
- All magic items are unique, save only consumable items (like potions, scrolls and wands) and +1 weapons and armorI talk a bit about my 'hypothetical' BB campaign here on my blog, if you're interested.
-Ed
E5? Any big difference from E6? Do you have a set of house rules for that type of campaign? I'm looking to adapt PF to E5 using th BB as a base. Any other useful input would be much appreciated
smon I suggest you play the game before you start adding house rules.
I think lvl 5 vs 6 is close, although doesn't seem like Fighter get their "capstone" ability until level 6: a second attack.... (unless Weapon Training counts...) Yeah, it's a new rule (can houserule like Trailblazer: optional 2 attacks a round, both at -2 (+4/+4); seems easier than +6/+1), and not exactly a fireball, but something cool for fighters to work towards....But all depends on what ye want.
One other diff with E6 are new feats to bring in higher level aspects that you want... http://dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/E6_(3.5e_Sourcebook)/Rules#Extra_Feats
Other sources of ideas for house rules I've considered:
http://lonelygm.blogspot.com/2011/11/simplifying-pathfinder.html
http://lonelygm.blogspot.com/2011/01/my-pathfinder-campaign-mad-house-rules .html (for full PF; but a couple of interesting ideas that could be applied to a Beginner Box game)
Actually for the the fighter, and ony the fighter, I was thinking to add a epic feat that would allow him a 2nd attack/round. Still trying to figure out if it would be a full attack bonus or at +1, that would be made as a move action. This way no need to explain the Full attack action...
Other wise I was thinking to add class feature as epic feat with prerequisite that you are level 5 in that class. Otherwise for multiclass character only general epic feat would be available.
Also I'm considering some kind of capstone epic feat that would available if the charachter has progress up to level 5 in a class and gained so much epic feat (5, 10, 15, etc.)
Should a character that gain a new epic level be able to choose both an epic feat + a regular feat or choose from one or the other?
See it's still very preliminary :D