Name one Pathfinder rule or subsystem that you dislike, and say why:


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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Cerberus Seven wrote:

Currently, a lot of things about the combat maneuver system bug the hell out of me.

"Say, GM, I wanna grapple that guy!"

"Okay. You don't have Improved Grapple, so he gets an attack of opportunity aaaaand rolls a 1." *curses*

"Oh, right, I forgot. Well, do his buddies next to him miss me too?"

"No, they don't get to AO you."

"But...I'm not trained in this technique and it's happening right next to them. I'm not focusing on them with my sloppy maneuver attempt, I'm focusing on this one guy. Why does the guy I'm actually attacking get to AO me, but his bodyguards within arms reach don't?"

"Oh look, the wizard cast dominate person, fight's over! Moving on."

T

The whole system is just bonkers on close inspection.

And yet- the PF system is so much better than the 3.5 system.


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DrDeth wrote:
Cerberus Seven wrote:

Currently, a lot of things about the combat maneuver system bug the hell out of me.

"Say, GM, I wanna grapple that guy!"

"Okay. You don't have Improved Grapple, so he gets an attack of opportunity aaaaand rolls a 1." *curses*

"Oh, right, I forgot. Well, do his buddies next to him miss me too?"

"No, they don't get to AO you."

"But...I'm not trained in this technique and it's happening right next to them. I'm not focusing on them with my sloppy maneuver attempt, I'm focusing on this one guy. Why does the guy I'm actually attacking get to AO me, but his bodyguards within arms reach don't?"

"Oh look, the wizard cast dominate person, fight's over! Moving on."

T

The whole system is just bonkers on close inspection.

And yet- the PF system is so much better than the 3.5 system.

My group tried to grapple once under 3.5 rules. In trying to work out how it actually worked, we accidentally opened our minds to truths man was not meant to know and transported ourselves outside of time and space. After much bargaining with Yog-Sothoth, we were returned. Alas, half of us did not retain our sanity and have since been institutionalized.

We still visit them, on moonless nights when the stars are right, so we can reenact the ritual to contact our dread master and renew the immortality he has bestowed on us.

Ooh, it's jello and pills time!


Simpler isn't necessarily better.

The granular details of the 3.5 system felt a bit more accurate to me in terms of simulation and getting a +4 bonus and nice side benefit were only one feat away rather than cut in half.

That being said the size modifiers in 3.5 were ridiculous. [But at least there wasn't a rule prohibiting you from tripping flying creatures >_<]


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
TriOmegaZero wrote:

I don't think Feather Fall is a good choice, since it has to target free falling creatures.

Spell Failure wrote:
If you ever try to cast a spell in conditions where the characteristics of the spell cannot be made to conform, the casting fails and the spell is wasted.

...I'll be bringing this up with my players. They'll probably just switch to using Wave Shield instead though. Same result.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Pathfinder Accessories, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Don't you have to be touching each other to Dimension Door together? Or is this an individual tactic?

Sovereign Court

hiiamtom wrote:


As for running "serious" games, stick to systems that are specific to what you like. If you like 3.5; 5e is more balanced and tosses the trap options, and both Fantasy Craft and 4e make terrific super powered character games. If you like the options and system mastery there is GURPS or Fantasy Craft. If you like building strong characters there is RuneQuest or FATE which depend on your character's backstory and give good plot armor to the danger in the world. If you like "old school" games there are a ton of retroclones, and even Warhammer Fantasy plays like a much more dangerous and challenging 3.5.

TL;DR, I love playing Pathfinder in a specific set of circumstances with a healthy dose of house rules the table agrees to, but everyone should play more than one system and try to avoid using one system for literally everything.

Well, I part agree and part disagree with you.

A really bloated amount of material has been written for D&D / Pathfinder over the years, yes. And you can now have a custom made character that covers just about any possible concept.

So that means that if you have a thematic adventure (SF, Pirates, Wild West ...) there IS something out there to run it. If everyone at the table agrees to avoid the kitchen sink approach and limit the options offered to stay true to the genre, than you CAN play about everything without having to learn another RPG system.


Stereofm wrote:
hiiamtom wrote:


As for running "serious" games, stick to systems that are specific to what you like. If you like 3.5; 5e is more balanced and tosses the trap options, and both Fantasy Craft and 4e make terrific super powered character games. If you like the options and system mastery there is GURPS or Fantasy Craft. If you like building strong characters there is RuneQuest or FATE which depend on your character's backstory and give good plot armor to the danger in the world. If you like "old school" games there are a ton of retroclones, and even Warhammer Fantasy plays like a much more dangerous and challenging 3.5.

TL;DR, I love playing Pathfinder in a specific set of circumstances with a healthy dose of house rules the table agrees to, but everyone should play more than one system and try to avoid using one system for literally everything.

Well, I part agree and part disagree with you.

A really bloated amount of material has been written for D&D / Pathfinder over the years, yes. And you can now have a custom made character that covers just about any possible concept.

So that means that if you have a thematic adventure (SF, Pirates, Wild West ...) there IS something out there to run it. If everyone at the table agrees to avoid the kitchen sink approach and limit the options offered to stay true to the genre, than you CAN play about everything without having to learn another RPG system.

You can do the same with FATE, Savage Worlds, and a number of others.

We've got enough kitchen sink systems to fill the Tarrasque's kitchen sink. We really don't need Pathfinder to continue to be one.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
TriOmegaZero wrote:
Don't you have to be touching each other to Dimension Door together? Or is this an individual tactic?

Both players are full casters with access. Their cohorts can't do it and they've never attempted to teleport a cohort with them so it hasn't come up. It's a free Nope at least once a day.


TriOmegaZero wrote:

I don't think Feather Fall is a good choice, since it has to target free falling creatures.

Spell Failure wrote:
If you ever try to cast a spell in conditions where the characteristics of the spell cannot be made to conform, the casting fails and the spell is wasted.

Bouyancy is a low level immediate spell with no particular situational prerequisites, AND it even targets a bunch of people of your choice, so any other casters in your party who wish to have contingencies of their own built on "bouyancy being cast on me by Jim Smith" can have those fire too.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/b/buoyancy

Immediate spells are dumb. Especially ones that make you float...


Stereofm wrote:

Well, I part agree and part disagree with you.

A really bloated amount of material has been written for D&D / Pathfinder over the years, yes. And you can now have a custom made character that covers just about any possible concept.

So that means that if you have a thematic adventure (SF, Pirates, Wild West ...) there IS something out there to run it. If everyone at the table agrees to avoid the kitchen sink approach and limit the options offered to stay true to the genre, than you CAN play about everything without having to learn another RPG system.

5e already supports pirates and sci-fi better than pathfinder does, and I still would not use it for more modern games. Pathfinder needs to stay in the fantasy super hero arena with splashes of sci-fi or modern equipment (Rasputin Must Die is very fun, and Iron Gods is one of my favorite APs), and have a heavy dose of 80s B-movie poured on. You might even go as far as Big Trouble in Little China, but it must stay over the top for the options and rules to mesh together.

I say 5e does sci-if and pirates better than Pathfinder, because UA: Waterborne Adventures and the most recent UA have rules independent of setting. Your City domain cleric or hacker Warlock don't treat technology as Numenera magic, which is the only thing Pathfinder supports. A sailor in 5e can get a ship and a fighter had a climb and swim speed, guns are as effective as crossbows (which are also effective), and while Pathfinder has more rules they only work for pirates with magic and who use longbows.

If I was going to use a "universal" system, I would use FATE, Savage Worlds, or RuneQuest 6 for those stories because they have better rules for being a pirate with or without magic and RuneQuest has my favorite firearms rules I have read (and there is no way to emulate it with Pathfinder).


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hiiamtom wrote:
Stereofm wrote:

Well, I part agree and part disagree with you.

A really bloated amount of material has been written for D&D / Pathfinder over the years, yes. And you can now have a custom made character that covers just about any possible concept.

So that means that if you have a thematic adventure (SF, Pirates, Wild West ...) there IS something out there to run it. If everyone at the table agrees to avoid the kitchen sink approach and limit the options offered to stay true to the genre, than you CAN play about everything without having to learn another RPG system.

...Pathfinder needs to stay in the fantasy super hero arena with splashes of sci-fi or modern equipment (Rasputin Must Die is very fun, and Iron Gods is one of my favorite APs), and have a heavy dose of 80s B-movie poured on...

That's just, like, your opinion, man.

I generally run Pathfinder games that are a sort of mashup of Greek mythology and Cthulhian horror, and the system works just fine for my purposes. That you cannot imagine how Pathfinder could support anything other than goofy-ass Golarion doesn't mean that nobody can.


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Well I would argue Greek Mythology is basically fantasy superheroes. Everything boils down to the select few with the blessing of the gods, and even the gods themselves are super powered humanoids.

As far as lovecraftian themes goes, you can have mystery and occult themes but a Pathfinder PC is expected to squash the horrors on the world making for bad horror stories. If you just mean having fantasy adventures with strange and alien creatures with a theme to them, then yeah Parhfinder can do that as long as the PCs are expected to beat them up.

There is a reason that horror systems are designed to hide the horrible creatures and the threat of exposure to madness is greater than physical injury. Pathfinder will be Dead Space 3 compared to Darkest Dungeon (and especially not something like Amnesia). You might be able to squeeze an Eternal Darkness out if you really carve up the system. 3.5 Ravenloft was just not very good.


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The d20 sanity rules:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/campaigns/sanity.htm

They actually work quite well in pathfinder, though I skip "indefinite insanity" (takes the PCs out for too long without just ending them), throw out the junky alchemical treatment/drug/mental disorder rules at the bottom of the document, and only dock PCs sanity on spellcasting if they do silly crap like polymorph into an aberration or reanimate loved ones.

I still don't get why you think "Pathfinder PCs" (whatever the hell that means) are expected to do or be anything, in particular. If what you mean is that a few screws need to be turned here and there to make default Pathfinder truly horrifying (like upping encounter CRs, adding sanity rules, etc.), then I agree with you, but it is not at all the case that Pathfinder is ill-suited to a wide variety of possible genres. Genre is, at any rate, much more about narrative and mood than it is a question of game mechanics.


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Alchemists, occult classes, investigators, witchs... especially witchs....

As you walk through the building you suddenly feel your resolve weaken. You feel a chill in the air... a certain stillness of death (evil eye). Suddenly from the shadows echoing all around you heard a loud and maniacal cackling that drives into your ears. You all look around but see nothing (failed perception checks). Suddenly everything around you warps... changes. There is blood everwhere and screams of agony fill your ears. Everywhere you look, you can only think one thing... this is hell (failed will save vs Vision of hell spell). (This can prompt the failed ones to gain insanity points, kind of demonstrating a lingering imprint of seeing such a horrifying sight.)


The Genius Guide to Gruesome Undead is also very good

This pdf provides rules for making horrifyingly twisted creatures actually meam something. Some things are just so grotesque that they cause ypur character to attempt a will save not to be disturbed by it (its a fear effect)


Since this short conversation started with "what I live about Pathfinder", and now you are trying to sell me on things that I not only know about but don't think d20 is good at I'm just going to break away. I think the comparison between action horror and survival horror/lovecraftian horror still entirely fits. Classes in Pathfinder are incredibly heroic and capable, and the game is built around classes being effective at combat and combat is what most XP is from. Just putting higher CRs I'm front of them doesn't make for a scary experience, it makes for a frustrating one that you have to cap the reward from.

And as far as horror being separate from mechanics I disagree entirely. Mechanics that make the characters feel hopeful and that each action holds a lot of weight are critical in horror. I would much rather use FATE if I was using a universal horror system, but if I was going to play a true horror game I would keep it short or episodic and use Dread. Dread, if you don't know, resolves actions with a Jenga tower to resolve actions which is a very effective mechanic. As play goes on each choice is harder and the mechanics raise the emotions alone with the narative.

I mean, Pathfinder is a horror game where a player rarely dies and even if they do die it's rarely earned. Because everything is balanced around a PC engaging encounters directly.


The thing I hate about most 'Sanity' systems is that they're entirely too mechanical.

If you're going to make my character insane, by all means do it but don't screw his effectiveness because of it.

Insanity can actually be fun to RP [just try not to get too deep into character] but costing the character raw combat functionality is- in my personal opinion as both a GM and a player- absolutely f~%%ing ridiculous.


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Armor Check Penalties and Costs

This game, since 3.5 has HATED armor. Hated.

Heavy Armor, even in Pathfinder, is annoying as all heck.

You get insane skill check penalties to climb (that aren't right, I did SCA for years and years and I can tell you I am not hampered that much wearing plate armor as far as climbing goes, its actually easier because rocks and wood aren't rubbing up against my skin) and jump (these are real, but less so) for little benefit.

The armor's bonus can be circumvented by anyone with touch spells and even combat maneuvers. (Seriously, heavy armor would give BONUSES to stop trip attacks and overrun/trample due to center of gravity.)

On top of that, full plate, 1500 GP? 9 out of 10 times it is simply better to make a high dex character.

Example:
I am a chunky Jewish guy, and I *can* turn a cartwheel while wearing full plate armor. Without a problem. Just as easily as I can while not wearing it. (I actually used to do this as a teacher SPECIFICALLY to teach my game design students the difference between pop culture knowledge and real facts. Specifically to show that 99% of games don't know how armor works.)

By the rules, assuming a cartwheel is DC 10, and if I can do this when I am not rushed (take a 10) then that means my full plate gives me a -6 Armor Check Penalty, so I must have a +6 acrobatics...

I don't. I know I don't.

Armor check penalties really should be no more than:
+0 for Light
+1 for Medium
+2 for Heavy

Unless one isn't proficient.


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HWalsh wrote:

Armor check penalties really should be no more than:

+0 for Light
+1 for Medium
+2 for Heavy

Unless one isn't proficient.

Even then, "wearing armor" isn't actually a skill that someone has to practice at. It doesn't take long to get used to it, and the only way it might hinder you is that you will get tired faster - Which is a matter of fitness, not skill.


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Proficiency can be movements and posturing though, armor does require forcing angled strikes to glance off its surface. Giving the ACP as a penalty to AC would probably more accurate, but 3.5 makes up most of its rules with little bearing on reality. I don't see why this is worse than a lot of abstraction taking place around action economy or attacking in general.

Sovereign Court

CaptainGemini wrote:


You can do the same with FATE, Savage Worlds, and a number of others.

We've got enough kitchen sink systems to fill the Tarrasque's kitchen sink. We really don't need Pathfinder to continue to be one.

True, except I don't want to learn another system if I have the choice.


kyrt-ryder wrote:

The thing I hate about most 'Sanity' systems is that they're entirely too mechanical.

If you're going to make my character insane, by all means do it but don't screw his effectiveness because of it.

Insanity can actually be fun to RP [just try not to get too deep into character] but costing the character raw combat functionality is- in my personal opinion as both a GM and a player- absolutely f$*&ing ridiculous.

I agree, which is why I do not use the d20 "indefinite insanity" rules, as published. I'm fine with temporary insanity measured in rounds (basically like a panic attack or a confused/fear effect) or rarely hours, and permanent insanity leading to character retirement, but the middle ground is where the role playing happens, and mechanics don't need to be a part of that.

I also think that it is the job of the DM to track the mechanical aspects of sanity systems, and just tell the players how the PCs are feeling. Having the players track their own "sanity points" kills immersion, imo.


Animal companion uniformity.

Yeah they all have different starting stats which is supposed to represent the differences, but can you really tell me that it makes sense for a Puffball and an Allosaurus should both have comparable HP because they both roll D8's?

How about a Giant Slug gaining 12 in natural armor simply for being listed on this page? Where does that extra armor come from, does it get more slime?


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Bear Companion inferiority.

Tell me why the hell Big Cat companions get to become large AND pounce AND rake AND Grab, while the Bear gets bupkis.

Liberty's Edge

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My top few:

Alignment - Doesn't really add much, IMO. It can be useful in certain kinds of games maybe, but mostly not. I feels like a legacy tack-on with little real meaning.

Proficiency - Why? What purpose does this serve? At best I can see MWP being one feat for all and EWP being one for a group. Armor and shields? Nope, just use it. Tower Shields? Maybe. Either way, it just puts certain kinds of gear behind feat walls. I want my feats to be spent on doing new cool things, not just grabbing the kind of sword I want.

Spells - And no, I don't mean vancian magic specifically. I've made my peace with that kind of magic. It's weird, but it works. My problem is with the overall design process of spells themselves. Which doesn't seem to exist (or exists only within subgroups of spells). Some spells give you startling diversity and power in one package, all decisions made just before you cast. Others seem to be so overly specific as to never be useful. Spells that affect the environment don't allow SR, unless they do, because why not. There's very little rhyme or reason. (SR itself is, I feel, a lame patch to spells being poorly designed.) And by the time you breach into higher level it becomes a game of "Spells can do that, but no-one else can. Because reasons."

Feats - There are too many filler feats. Things you must take to not-suck that prevent you from taking fun side feats. I almost feel like there should be a handful of extra feats just for things like precise shot, power attack, two-weapon fighting, etc, so that people can get their basic "I need this to do anything" feats without breaking the bank. Casters wouldn't get them because they don't need them: their style is implied by their spell choices. Feats should be for the cool things you can do *in addition* to smashing it with your favorite kind of weapon. In my group we just make most of the basic ones free to clear some space.
On the subject, we also ditched ability score prerequisites on feats. It has changed nothing so far.


You can largely fix a lot of the feat trees with simply "dodge and point blank aren't prereqs for anything anymore" (you don't get them for free, they're just not prereqs). Maybe one or two more for other trees, but these are usually the most complained about feat trees in my experience.

Liberty's Edge

Crimeo wrote:
You can largely fix a lot of the feat trees with simply "dodge and point blank aren't prereqs for anything anymore" (you don't get them for free, they're just not prereqs). Maybe one or two more for other trees, but these are usually the most complained about feat trees in my experience.

Oh man, don't even get me started on prerequisite chains. IMO, a pre-requisite should only exist if the feat wouldn't make sense without the pre-requisites being met, or if the the new feat acts as a more expansive version of the old. To do anything else is just begging to have shitty feats justified with better ones that require them (thus creating dead time in your build), to create feat taxes for builds, and to cut off interesting feats via long anachronistic prerequisite lists.

Examples: Furious Focus requires power attack? Sure. Mobility requires Dodge? Why? Dervish Dance requires ranks in perform (Dance)? Okay, I can take that.

Whirlwind Attack is a giant WTF. Two prerequisites (combat expertise, dodge) are thematically opposite to it (defensive vs. offense), while the other two are straight-up mutually exclusive! (mobility, spring attack). The only prerequisite it has that actually belongs there is the BAB prerequisite! You know what would make sense as prerequisites? Cleave and Great Cleave. Now whirlwind is an expansion of the style rather than some strange side path from nowhere. In fact, I'm adding that to my house rule document.


Speaking of absurd prerequisites take a look at what Paizo did to 3.5 Greater Cleave [now called Improved Cleaving Finish]

To get to what once required Power Attack and Cleave now costs those two and two more feats.

All to do what should be part of a single Cleave feat that really has no place requiring Power Attack to begin with. [Heck, at the level when Cleave is most valuable Power Attack isn't a great idea anyway.]


hiiamtom wrote:
Proficiency can be movements and posturing though, armor does require forcing angled strikes to glance off its surface. Giving the ACP as a penalty to AC would probably more accurate, but 3.5 makes up most of its rules with little bearing on reality. I don't see why this is worse than a lot of abstraction taking place around action economy or attacking in general.

that's if it's plate. Not all armor is plate. mail and lamellar work differently.

then again, even in mail, I imagine that you would still want to be practiced at dodging, to make hits on your person a more glancing blow, because internal bleeding isn't a fun thing, and from a very square hit you might be at risk of it even in a gambeson, which you really should be wearing under your armor 24/7 like a sensible person.

keywords, "I imagine". I haven't actually been able to wear mail and see it in action. Yet. Give it time and income.


alexd1976 wrote:

I know it's already been said, but the poison rules...

Why so expensive? I mean, at one TENTH the cost they are still pretty pricy.

Also, the DCs aren't great.

I would LOVE to see rules on custom making poisons/increasing DCs etc.

You know, for research purposes. *tenting fingers*

One house rule I made that my players enjoy and at the same time fear poisens is that depending on which they would either last 1 hour or one fight and that they don't get used up after 1 hit but will go on every hit. It applies to both npcs and to players.

Liberty's Edge

alignment no so much the concept. Just that what one can do is too vague imo. It causes more problems than benefits at the table imo. I prefer Palladium Books alignment system. It tells a player in point form what they can do. Can a a player steal items it tells you. Torture a prisoner it tells you. When I ran any games with that system I had no Lawful Stupid or Dirty Harry style Paladins at my table.

Vancian casting. Even with the removal of fire and forget fluff from the description. I'm a 15th level Wizard yet I still lose spells from memory. I prefer a point based system.

Feats. Not so much feats that some of them don't scale as one goes up in level. That +1 to ac from Dodge is really going to make a difference past level 10.

Penalties to low attributes really does not mean much in 3E and later editions. With 2E if one took a dump stat it really had consequnces. Low con you better roll well on the resurrection dice or your character is not coming back to life.


kyrt-ryder wrote:

Speaking of absurd prerequisites...

All to do what should be part of a single Cleave feat that really has no place requiring Power Attack to begin with. [Heck, at the level when Cleave is most valuable Power Attack isn't a great idea anyway.]

I just get really annoyed by that pre-requisite too... its a pre-req that kind of makes sense with flavor... except it absolutely doesn't because cleaving something is technically a slash or stab(only penetrating on a stab... you don't cut limbs off, don't break armor, so where exactly is any kind of "power" required for this blow? mechanically all that happens is your blade cuts 2 people in one attack, but because it's linked to power attack my GM won't even let me take it on a ranger without PA without penalizing it...


Y'know, I never liked how learning a new language worked. It seems too fast and too cheap. Actually I don't like the acquisition of knowledge that is reasonably obscure or hard to learn being so easy to get so I'm not big on Knowledge Local. Basically you're using general knowledge to gain really really specific knowledge. I kinda wished some things worked like 5e proficiencies where your knowledge skills give you general knowledge but specific expertise like knowing how to make a specific magic item, a new language, about local politics and figures, were handled much like weapon proficiencies.

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Jim Groves wrote:

Appraise Skill

A large source of book keeping

Totally agree with this one. I've all but removed this skill from my games.


dmchucky69 wrote:
Jim Groves wrote:

Appraise Skill

A large source of book keeping

Totally agree with this one. I've all but removed this skill from my games.

No one in my group has taken this ever.

Of course, we just hand-wave identifying stuff and appraising altogether, so we have chosen to render it useless...


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I don't particularly like the way max skills ranks, hp and BaB are all so interlinked with levels.

That is to say that I dislike the idea that to have a, for example, Master Blacksmith or, perhaps more aptly, a Master Artist you need to have a higher leveled character, which in turn means that the aforementioned Blacksmith/Artist will have to be tougher, stronger and more accurate.

It's a cyclical aspect of the game I dislike.


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Corbynsonn wrote:

I don't particularly like the way max skills ranks, hp and BaB are all so interlinked with levels.

That is to say that I dislike the idea that to have a, for example, Master Blacksmith or, perhaps more aptly, a Master Artist you need to have a higher leveled character, which in turn means that the aforementioned Blacksmith/Artist will have to be tougher, stronger and more accurate.

It's a cyclical aspect of the game I dislike.

No kidding. Its weird to think that in Pathfinder DaVinci would have been able to take an a dozen recruit soldiers without breaking a sweat just because of his 4th or 5th level hit dice and Expert BaB.


Skill focus?


Barathos wrote:


firearms
I hate pathfinder's firearm rules with a passion. I'm OK with firearms treating armour as a lower value, but it's b&$*@%*% that it ignores 50 points of natural armour like it was tissue paper.

I proposed using either of incorporeal touch AC against firearms or bullets having a penetration value, the latter is more complex but reflects that even modern firearms don't always penetrate the thickest natural armor, let alone dragon scales.

Incorporeal Touch was based on (since emergency force sphere didn't exist just yet) the hardness 30 of force effects, specifically the only one to stipulate a hardness at the time: wall of force. Armor and shield bonuses from mage armor and shield that are THREE TIMES harder than steel should contribute to the target's firearm bullet AC. Instead, they don't. At all. *facepalm*

The simplest solution would be to halve natural armor bonuses against firearms, but that overly complicates the simpler solution of using incorporeal touch AC.

"But Turin, we the publishers don't wanna revise our stat block format!" Yeah, well, since bog-standard creatures by far don't have it, it doesn't affect that many of them. Just do it and be done with it for the few creatures that do. NPCs wearing bracers of armor and casting shield should have this in their stat block anyway since spells such as spectral hand and player-conjurable monsters such as shadows and shadow demons have been in-game throughout all of Pathfinder and most if not nearly all of 3e. The whole point of the stat block is so that they paying customer (and thus presumably the GM running your campaign) doesn't have to do any more math than absolutely necessary.


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Doomed Hero wrote:
Corbynsonn wrote:

I don't particularly like the way max skills ranks, hp and BaB are all so interlinked with levels.

That is to say that I dislike the idea that to have a, for example, Master Blacksmith or, perhaps more aptly, a Master Artist you need to have a higher leveled character, which in turn means that the aforementioned Blacksmith/Artist will have to be tougher, stronger and more accurate.

It's a cyclical aspect of the game I dislike.

No kidding. Its weird to think that in Pathfinder DaVinci would have been able to take an a dozen recruit soldiers without breaking a sweat just because of his 4th or 5th level hit dice and Expert BaB.

I'm pretty sure he could have though, he was awesome. :D


Doomed Hero wrote:
Corbynsonn wrote:

I don't particularly like the way max skills ranks, hp and BaB are all so interlinked with levels.

That is to say that I dislike the idea that to have a, for example, Master Blacksmith or, perhaps more aptly, a Master Artist you need to have a higher leveled character, which in turn means that the aforementioned Blacksmith/Artist will have to be tougher, stronger and more accurate.

It's a cyclical aspect of the game I dislike.

No kidding. Its weird to think that in Pathfinder DaVinci would have been able to take an a dozen recruit soldiers without breaking a sweat just because of his 4th or 5th level hit dice and Expert BaB.

the concept of levelling in d20 bothers me for this very reason.


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DaVinci: 1st level Expert, Int 20 (rolls 18 on 3d6, +2 for being human), Skill Focus: craft. His total bonus is +12. He can Take 20 to produce phenomenal (DC 30) masterpieces. And still has a total of 4 hp and a BAB of +0.


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Turin the Mad wrote:
Barathos wrote:


firearms
I hate pathfinder's firearm rules with a passion. I'm OK with firearms treating armour as a lower value, but it's b&$*@%*% that it ignores 50 points of natural armour like it was tissue paper.

I proposed using either of incorporeal touch AC against firearms or bullets having a penetration value, the latter is more complex but reflects that even modern firearms don't always penetrate the thickest natural armor, let alone dragon scales.

Incorporeal Touch was based on (since emergency force sphere didn't exist just yet) the hardness 30 of force effects, specifically the only one to stipulate a hardness at the time: wall of force. Armor and shield bonuses from mage armor and shield that are THREE TIMES harder than steel should contribute to the target's firearm bullet AC. Instead, they don't. At all. *facepalm*

The simplest solution would be to halve natural armor bonuses against firearms, but that overly complicates the simpler solution of using incorporeal touch AC.

"But Turin, we the publishers don't wanna revise our stat block format!" Yeah, well, since bog-standard creatures by far don't have it, it doesn't affect that many of them. Just do it and be done with it for the few creatures that do. NPCs wearing bracers of armor and casting shield should have this in their stat block anyway since spells such as spectral hand and player-conjurable monsters such as shadows and shadow demons have been in-game throughout all of Pathfinder and most if not nearly all of 3e. The whole point of the stat block is so that they paying customer (and thus presumably the GM running your campaign) doesn't have to do any more math than absolutely necessary.

I think having guns target flat footed ac is easier. It also has a side benefit of making guns a good option for sneak attack specialists.


I've never seen guns as an issue. They are practically melee weapons, and every shot costs money...

*shrugs* I'm guessing you guys have seen them in play a lot though.


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Trogdar wrote:

I think having guns target flat footed ac is easier. It also has a side benefit of making guns a good option for sneak attack specialists.

That's how I run it. In addition, if you have evasion or uncanny dodge, you get to use your full AC.


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I hate that despite a gazillion pages of rules, there no facing in Pathfinder. We have house rules for facing and it makes the rogue class very dangerous and improves the monk quiet a bit.


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Degoon Squad wrote:
I hate that despite a gazillion pages of rules, there no facing in Pathfinder. We have house rules for facing and it makes the rogue class very dangerous and improves the monk quiet a bit.

Does your house rule take into account the fact that in PF a round is 6 seconds, so without a way to change orientation repeatedly between turns you end up with this ridiculous situation where extremely nimble highly trained monster hunters turn around on the spot slower than a 300 pound tubby does in real life?

Because if your rules don't, then that's why the Pathfinder rules don't even try. That's not to say that the PF rules are perfect - it would be nice if they at least acknowledge facing outside combat, where creatures aren't spinning around on the spot looking for attackers coming at them. But no facing with a flanking abstraction beats a clunky nonsensical facing system by a country mile.

Of course, if you think your facing rules are perfectly sensible, why not throw them up for us all to look at. You might have figured out an elegant way of doing it that is both simple and reasonable. But the obvious options aren't reasonable, and to fix that they stop being simple.

Grand Lodge

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Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Pathfinder Accessories, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Any time I see someone mentioning facing rules, I imagine characters running laps around each other to get backstabs. Certainly not how I imagine combat.


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After running Skull and Shackles twice;

Any AP specific subsystem, Specifically Ship to Ship combat.

Why:
DCs are set to accommodate a casua investment of resources. If they were set higher, they would become impossible for PCs who did not specialize in the subsystem. However, set at a moderate difficulty, they become trivial for a PC who DOES specialize in the subsystem.

In both S&S games, ship to ship became a two round, at most, affair. The pilots were able to close distance between bot boats and board with minimal effort, because they built to do so. Oh, the DC 35 Profession(sailor) checks that may come up in a book or two? The pilot's Profession(sailor) is base 43, so yeah, no roll needed.


Snowblind wrote:
Degoon Squad wrote:
I hate that despite a gazillion pages of rules, there no facing in Pathfinder. We have house rules for facing and it makes the rogue class very dangerous and improves the monk quiet a bit.

Does your house rule take into account the fact that in PF a round is 6 seconds, so without a way to change orientation repeatedly between turns you end up with this ridiculous situation where extremely nimble highly trained monster hunters turn around on the spot slower than a 300 pound tubby does in real life?

Because if your rules don't, then that's why the Pathfinder rules don't even try. That's not to say that the PF rules are perfect - it would be nice if they at least acknowledge facing outside combat, where creatures aren't spinning around on the spot looking for attackers coming at them. But no facing with a flanking abstraction beats a clunky nonsensical facing system by a country mile.

Of course, if you think your facing rules are perfectly sensible, why not throw them up for us all to look at. You might have figured out an elegant way of doing it that is both simple and reasonable. But the obvious options aren't reasonable, and to fix that they stop being simple.

Yeah...the handling of facing is one place where I think D&D 3.5/Pathfinder got it right in terms of sacrificing precision for ease of play. I'm also ok with ignoring facing out of combat and consolidating spot/listen and move silently/hide into single skills and letting opposed perception/stealth checks work out as a sort of weird agglomeration of both visual and auditory information. Sometimes, simulation is just not worth the trouble.

Generally speaking, action economy/tactical movement (with the exception of the full attack, which I simply don't use) is probably the strongest area of the Pathfinder chassis, and the main reason I haven't abandoned the system.

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