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I truly don't believe we need a 2nd edition to the Pathfinder RPG but I am always interested in better rules to retrofit into my existing game. For that reason I am asking other gamers on their opinions on how to improve this great system that we enjoy playing.
I have many rules I have added/changed to make the system better(in my opinion) one being adding Dreamscarred Presses Psionic system into our groups gaming experience, please share yours.
Our group has all incorporated the Rules from Rogue Glory (Drop Dead Studios)so as to make the Rogue a viable class in which to play.
For horror campaigns, I add on a sanity system.
Wisdom x 5. When you encounter something scary, you roll a d100. If the result is higher than your sanity score, you lose sanity. In time, you can go quite insane...
What do you do for someone with a wisdom of 20 or higher? I guess a 100 always fails?For horror campaigns, I add on a sanity system.
Wisdom x 5. When you encounter something scary, you roll a d100. If the result is higher than your sanity score, you lose sanity. In time, you can go quite insane...
Yep. 100 always fails, no matter what. It's like rolling a natural 1 on a d20.
1 always succeeds.
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The Talented line from SSG
Talented Fighter
Talented Rogue
Talented Monk
Talented Cavalier
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My house rules are:
Hit Dice: Wiz/Rog/etc revert back to D&D hit dice
Ability Point Advancement: Instead of 1pt/4lvl I give out 2pt/1lvl, and compensate by starting the characters at average ability scores at 1st level. This approach simulates the characters really growing into heroes from average joes. This is, also, obviously QUITE personal preference, some wouldn't like this type of thing at ALL.
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
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I had one game where Will saves were split into two types of saves. There was a Defiance save for mind controlling effects and a Suspicion save for illusion like effects. Defiance was Charisma and Suspicion was Wisdom based.
It was a little more complicated than that, as not everything that calls for a Will save fits exactly in one or the other.
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I have a few house rules I like.
1) Monks may use Flurry of Blows with any weapon they have Weapon Focus in.
2) My crit/fumble system is quite a bit more streamlined and deadly.
a) to confirm a crit it's a straight DC 11 roll.
b) fumbles need to be confirmed like crits using the same DC 11.
c) Either a crit or fumble uses the respective Gamemastery Deck for crits and fumbles.
*I find that this rule speeds up combat and leads to more crits and slightly less fumbles. Of course, its a double edged sword, as the BBEG's use the same rule.
3) I give each PC and Major Villain 1 free reroll per session.
I would place far more emphasis on the non-combat aspects of the game including class support for them. Social characters, political characters, crafting characters, business characters, ruler characters, etc. All are valid characters that can have real impact on the world and tell great stories.
I like your idea Hark, unfortunately only a few players are interested in playing the social and business aspects of the game out, in my current group there are 2 not counting me and that is incredibly high. Usually I'm the only one with an interest in the social and political aspects. I would like to see some more work on this, but it should be an optional thing not part of the core system. I would like to see the magic item creation rules cleaned up and streamlined a little bit as I have 4 out 5 people in our gaming group that are interested in item creation and they frequently get frustrated by not being able to get something to work right.
@ Betsy
Have you looked at the paizo's Downtime system and the rules from Kingmaker ? This provide a pretty solid base to political and business aspect of the game.
About my house rules, I use the Monk's amendment to reduce the monk's MADness and I reworked some class, the big change being the Rogue and Fighter, which I fully redesigned to allow more balance and also more utility outside of combat. I gived 4 skills point per level to Fighter, Paladins, Clerics, Sorcerers and Summoner and introduced a backstory system called «Occupation» that provides additional class skills and even utility feat according to the character storyline (GM discretion).
To counter the caster's supremacy, I introduced higher point buy as a standard in all my games, making half-caster and martial class more effective, since they benefit more from high stats than the casters. I don't run adventure path, so it doesn't change anything to me, I only have to build harder encounter or rework monster's feat selection to challenge my party. All my average joe NPC use heroic stat (15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 8) and my big boss use the same stat as the players.
I converted some feat from 3.5, as Brutal Throw (Str to hit with thrown weapon) and Force of Personnality (Cha to will save) to open the way to some unusual build (Throwers, crossbowman, finesse fighter) and counter Charisma dumping.
I use a scavenging system based on the appropriate Knowledge skill. All monster that don't include treasure in their equipment and don't have a defined treasure lair can be scavenged to provide magical/alchemical components for a value based on the treasure value they are supposed to provide. The Knowledge DC is based on the creature CR+15. Failure means less or no result and super win (DC+5) means full treasure + additional gain (such doses of the creature's poison).
It'd probably be way too much for Pathfinder 2.0, considering the general consensus that people seem to have, that if it does have a second edition, that they'd want it to have as little change as necessary, but:
Make it so martials have more things to do beyond full attacking for maximum DPR. Maneuvers stared out promising for a while, but given that you have to put so much of your limited resources into them, and they scale atrociously, I'm less than pleased. Back when I was trying to homebrew up a system, I had a mechanic where there was a moderate resource system, in the form of a dice pool, where you could use maneuvers, which would usually be very good, but if you failed to beat a target number with the die that you used for the maneuver, you'd lose it, sort of representing stamina, or something like that. They'd be regained quickly, but it put more to martial combat, than simply rote "I attack"
Again, in that homebrew system, I also came up with a way to fix the problems I had both while playing as, and playing opposite the table to, casters. Essentially spells were split between major and minor spells. Major spells were your classic vancian spells, where minor spells were adjudicated differently. Minor spells were less powerful than major spells and were prepped like major spells, but you didn't lose the spell slot, when they were cast, just the spell. So with a short period of time, you could reprepare minor spells. In the system, you get significantly fewer major spells, but you get minor spells to make up for it. That way it solved my problems with playing as a caster, where I had to worry about running out of spells at lower levels, and at higher levels, it reduced the complete dominance of spell-casters.
Now, I know Paizo will never do this. Even if they agreed with these ideas, it would be a bad business decision, considering the customer base. But if they could move even a small bit in that direction, I'd be happy.
Using a modified spell points system, in which you have to prepare each and every use of the spells you cast, and each spell costs its level in points:
Wizards, and other prepared casters who can learn new spells get 1+ their Int modifier in spell points each level, much like their skill points per level. Essentially, your magic powers ARE skill points each level...
A 2nd level wizard with 16 intelligence would have 8 points, and be able to cast 8 first level spells.
Sorcerors and other full spontaneous casters would receive 2+ their chosen spell casting stat bonus each level.
I was thinking of making something similar to this, never finished typing it up for review... I wanted to make it possible for any class to learn a spell or to (if they wanted). Caster level was going to be inverse to BaB (so if you had half BaB you had your full level as your caster level).
I was going use the point cost set out in UA and limit the amount of MP/SP used in one round to your caster level. This would hopeful help counter the Nova problem most Point systems have; as even if you have a way to cast more than one spell the limit on total cost per round would mean they would have to be lower level... If a 20th level caster cast a 9th level spell he would then be only able to cast a 1st level spell in the same round...
I was going to use the number of 1st spells per day at level 20 as a guide to MP/SP gain; like your system I was going with Number + stat per level. Stat would be what ever spontaneous casters used for their Spell DC; Non-spontaneous casters got a buff by becoming spontaneous but nerfed as they are now more MAD. Hoped this would balance it out. Wizards MP gain would be based off non-specialized even if they were, and Divine casters wouldn't count their domain slot.
I was thinking of adding 2 to this (so [Number of 1st @ lvl20] + stat + 2) so that even fighters (who have 0 first level spells at 20th level, but still get MP/SP in this system) would always get some MP/SP each level. And then making magic items (either new ones for lower level or existing items) be powered by this MP/SP. So that cape that teleports you once a day no longer does it for free, but works as many times as you have the MP/SP for. Flaming swords would work for so many rounds and then need more MP/SP (I'm thinking 2 MP/SP, as thats the cost of Meta magic to do the same), and may even have stronger special attacks that cost more. The end result would be that the power would be more from you than the item. If some NPC picks up your item and trys to use it, he's not going to have an easy time of it.
This wasn't all I had in mind but is a good overview.
I use my own monk changes and I'm considering some alterations in the rogue as well.
casters IMO have a few major issues with them. First, at low levels they have essentially 0 stamina for combat, and are essentially a commoner carrying a crossbow who follows the rest of the party around. Second, your ability scores really have very little affect on your capacity. Casters see very little increase in the amount of spells they can sling around with an increasing ability score. Three, the spell slot system is enormously confining for most play, and spell point systems are unwieldy and often far too powerful
I like it, though I'm not shure if differentiating bettween Wizard and Sorcerer still makes sense this way. Do you know D&D Psionics worked in a similar way? http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Psion
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Greatly altering the AC values for shields.
I always preferred systems that didn't treat shields as armor, rather as active/reactive blockers. Over the years, I've toyed with how to get this into 3.0-3.5-PF and here's what I have so far:
When you're aware of a physical attack and not flat-footed, you may attempt to block it with your shield as an immediate action. You roll your BAB+Dex and, if you meet or exceed the attack roll, you block the attack, taking no damage.
Bucklers may attempt this once per round and never against ranged attacks.
Small shields once per round.
Large shields twice per round.
Tower shields always count as partial cover and may be used as full cover as a move action.
Ideas?
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Headfirst and JTibbs,
somebody on these forums had a house rule that as an immediate action, a character using a shied can treat an incoming attack as a Sunder attempt instead. This automatically scales for shield type, which is cool.
I am considering adding this to my house rules, but I'd like to flesh it out better.
Does anybody else do this?
The Sunder attempt sounds cool.
I would make it like this:
A set amount of times per day, those with the Block feat may choose to treat an attack against their person as a Sunder attempt. Doing so expends an attack of opportunity.
Buckler - Up to Dex mod times of treating attacks as sunder attempts, however not for ranged objects.
Light shield - Max Dex bonus of 3 times of treating attacks as sunder attempts. +2 to CMD against such attempts. Modified by Armor Training.
Heavy Shield - Max Dex bonus of 2 times of treating attacks as sunder attempts. +3 to CMD. Modified by Armor Training.
Tower Shield - Max Dex Bonus of 1 time of treating attacks as sunder attempts. +4 to CMD. Modified by Armor Training.
And maybe add in some extra feats regarding defense versus said Sunder Attempts and stuff.
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Like it, but what do you pay for this
The cost to use this maneuver is using a shield instead of having another weapon in your off-hand, using a two-handed weapon, or leaving that hand free for other reasons.
People forget how powerful it is to have two hands available. While using a weapon and shield (other than a buckler), you don't have a free hand to grab potions, cast spells, or do anything else.
I've always found it odd that shields are so rare in D&D, yet they were basically mandatory pieces of equipment in almost all forms of ancient combat (and most fantasy literature as well).
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A set amount of times per day, those with the Block feat
I don't agree with any of this. Using a shield is such a downgrade from almost every other use of a character's off-hand that players should just be able to take the immediate block action without having to spend actions or feats.
Sure, some feats and class abilities could make blocking better (I'm looking at you, Spartans from 300 and Captain America) but the basic ability to use a shield to block incoming attacks should come with basic shield proficiency.
Maybe characters without shield proficiency could only attempt blocks with readied actions. A peasant could pick up a shield and inch his way toward an archer, though he probably wouldn't be able to block every shot. Meanwhile, a trained fighter with a shield could straight up charge a guy hurling javelins at him, like Achilles in the movie Troy.
When you're aware of a physical attack and not flat-footed, you may attempt to block it with your shield as an immediate action. You roll your BAB+Dex and, if you meet or exceed the attack roll, you block the attack, taking no damage.
I like this a lot. Very reminiscent of the WFRP parry, which I've always found to be a ton of fun.
Shields can be made fine with a simple Weapon'n'Shield Fighting Style or Class feature:
Weapon’n’Shield Fighting Style
Prerequisite: BAB +1.
Benefit: You gain +1 shield bonus with small shields (total +2 shield bonus) and +2 shield bonus with large shields (total +4 shield bonus). Alternatively, you may forgo your shield bonus to AC to make off-hand attacks with your shield without penalty (-0/-0) if using a small shield (1d3 damage, or 1d4 if spiked), and with -2 penalty (-2/-2) if using a large shield (1d4 damage, or 1d6 if spiked).
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Are you familiar with the argument (and variant house rule) that shields contribute to both active and passive defenses (Flat-footed and Touch AC)?
This is a way to increase the breadth with which they are useful without increasing the metrics. Because heavily armored classes usually have a pitiful Touch AC indeed, so the small boost would be welcome.
Also, it'd be wonderful if such an easy option (picking up a buckler) didn't interpose another die roll to slow down the combat - why not just defer a damage roll straight unto a shield's hardness and hit points? To limit the shenanigan, one could say that only what would otherwise be a felling blow (reduction to 0 HP or less) triggers the opportunity to allow the proficient shield user to take an immediate action (or AoO, I guess) for Sundering retrograde.
But I am aware that parry-riposte mechanics are all the rage these days... either way, homebrew on!
Also, Headfirst, it's true that Pathfinder is perfect and your idea is bad and you should feel bad. So there.
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interpose another die roll to slow down the combat
I would normally agree with you on streamlining and simplifying combat. Hell, I'm in love with E6 specifically because it keeps this moving. However, there are two things working in favor of the system I proposed above:
A) Players rolling dice is always good. Of course, this can go too far when the game gets to high levels, with martials rolling half a dozen attacks and creature summoners rolling for every minion.
B) Doing something when it's not your turn is always good. Any game that gives players a reason to pay attention and stay involved when it's not their turn is fantastic. It keeps them engaged and off of their phones. Settlers of Catan is a brilliant example of this.
A + B = Fun
I'm going to flesh out this concept and post it in a new thread for further discussion.
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Turning wands from disposable 50 use items into rechargeable miniature staffs is a great houserule.
10 uses, and it recharges just like a staff. only it can have 1 spell in it, rather than the multiple spells a staff can.
I'm sick and tired of blowing thousands and thousands of gold on ultimately disposable items...
how do you adjust the cost and the fact that this is suddenly a more precious treasure (in a randomly rolled treasure system)?
how do you adjust the cost and the fact that this is suddenly a more precious treasure (in a randomly rolled treasure system)?Turning wands from disposable 50 use items into rechargeable miniature staffs is a great houserule.
10 uses, and it recharges just like a staff. only it can have 1 spell in it, rather than the multiple spells a staff can.
I'm sick and tired of blowing thousands and thousands of gold on ultimately disposable items...
Well looking at magic item creation. A "staff" for a CL1 Level 1 spell is 800gp. Which is only 50 gp more than the equivalent wand. This difference is fairly negligible.
If you wanted to reduce how valuable it is (to simulate finding a wand with less charges remaining) you can simply reduce the maximum amount of charges the wand/staff can hold at once. This is also contained in the rules for creating a magical staff.
Hmm, couple of ideas...more basic than some in the thread though.
You can always full attack if you want. This probably helps the martial classes tremendously...including the fighter.
The Rogue can sneak attack at anytime as long as they aren't in front of the enemy.
Rogue skills get their skill bonus doubled
ONLY Rogues get trapfinding
Monks get their Defenses (Saves and AC) DOUBLED (doesn't increase Monk damage, but makes them even better tanks and mage killers).
Check out this blog.
http://larkspireslair.wordpress.com/
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Oh boy. Where in the world am I gonna start...
Oh. yeah. Duh.
Mechanics that will be A Thing in Pathfinder as I'd write it: Spending dice from a die pool to fuel/improve actions.
Barbarians
Rage will not affect your Constitution. Instead, you get temporary hit points equal to twice your barbarian level, and you get a morale bonus to Fortitude as well as Will.
While you're raging, you have a pool of d8s that you can roll to give you attack/damage bonuses. (This is going to be a recurring theme.) For each rage die missing from your pool, you get a -1 penalty to your Armor Class.
Bards
My big change to the bard, inspired from the d20 version of Everquest: You no longer get spells/day. You are a non-magical bard.
In exchange, you get a much, much greater selection of bardic music. Think something like 2 + Cha mod songs known at first level, and you gain one every level.
You can perform one song at a time, and you can add additional song effects into the mix with ever-increasing difficulties on Perform checks. (Like, you start with Inspire Courage to boost the party's attack rolls, next round you make a DC 20 Perform check, so you can add in a Song of Soothing to grant some fast healing.)
Clerics
Let's keep this simple: You get a limited amount of spells known, just like the sorcerer. You can spontaneously cast any of them that you know. (Cure/Inflict Wounds never count against your spells known.)
So why choose a deity? Because besides granting you a favored weapon, your deity grants you additional bonus known spells and an additional effect to your Channel Energy ability, depending on your chosen domains (Water channeling can heal creatures with the Water subtype or harm creatures with the Fire subtype.)
Druids
Hoo boy. I've not played druids much. I actually don't really have much of an idea of how I'd alter them.
Maybe I'd just "borrow" the Pyeryem [shapechanging] stuff from 7th Sea, where you have to negotiate with animals to get their spirit selves so you can wild shape.
Hell, maybe I'd add something similar to Deadlands' shaman magic, where you have to appease the spirits of nature in order to cast spells.
Fighters
First major change, and this affects every class as a whole: The fighter is the only class in the entire game that gets to make iterative attacks. Period. You want more attacks in a round? Either put a knife in your left hand, or become a fighting-man with the most hits.
And yes, you can move ten feet, make two swings of your sword, then move your other twenty feet before making your third attack.
That said, let's take a cue from Fifth Edition's Martial Master fighter. You get martial superiority dice. You can spend those dice to essentially Power Attack, Combat Expertise, Accurate Attack, give yourself instant damage reduction, add a knockback/knockdown effect to your attack, &c.
Monks
First things first: If you take monk levels, you must make Bruce Lee sounds every so often during combat. Qwo poo.
Stupidity aside, monks get ki. You can use the ki to fire energy beams (1d6 damage/round spent charging your ki, and yes, you have to roleplay it as "Kame-hame-hame-hame-hadouken!"). You can use ki to run along/up walls or on water/other liquids (just make sure you have a safe place to stop moving.) You get to flurry, of course, and you get your monk defense and fast movement as normal.
You also get to pick a monastic tradition which affects some of your monk abilities. The Order of the Gentle Rain, for example, gives you a better wholeness of body ability, while the Order of the White Tiger gives you faster monk unarmed damage progression.
Paladins
Rangers
You are a master of the hunt, you should have something better than a flat +2 to hit and damage against favored enemies. I'd go with "roll 2d20 and use the better roll" for attack rolls on your favored enemies, and starting at second level (and every 3 levels after) you get +1d6 damage against your favored enemies.
Rogues
Rogues can excel at sneak attacking, but there is some very limited opportunity to do so. They can do melee sneak attacks against enemies they flank like normal, and they can do both melee and ranged sneak attacks against enemies that at least two other party members are engaging in melee.
Sorcerers
You're mana-based now. You still get spells known, of course. (Metamagic feats increase the mana cost of the spell you're trying to cast.) Every few levels, you get one metamagic permanently attached to one spell for free. You're like a wu jen!
The drawback to this power: You are not entirely in control of your magic. You get to randomly determine your spells' energy type.
Wizards
I'd enforce the old Second Edition limits on just how many spells a wizard can have in his spellbook, but that's just me.
Oh, and speaking of spellbooks: Your spellbook doesn't necessarily have to be a book. It can be a very very long scroll written in a script that looks like musical notation; it can be a series of glass discs engraved with arcane writing that looks proto-Elven; it can be the fighter's old shield that you engraved Braille-like writing on the back of; hell, you can just pull a Star Ocean 3 and tattoo your entire spellbook onto your person with mysterious arcane ritae. Just remember that you can always be separated from your spellbooks! (And in the case of the spellbook tattoos, you're entirely at the mercy of your DM as to what ill effects you suffer there.)
@ Snorb
100% combat related changes, though.
If the fighter's the only one to make iterative attacks, then you'r going to have to compensate for that to the other classes, some of whom just lost their potential to melt people's faces off entirely.
Instead of that, why don't you try to give the fighter in-combat options to do something other than full-attack.
For instance, maybe allow the fighter the ability to make an attack and combat maneuver in the same action and give him no more than two iterative attacks in comparance to the other classes.
Maybe allow battle-field control options. Special attacks that could deny an enemy his move action or prevent him from making any attacks of opportunity this turn.
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Druids don't really need much change. What you've got there is purely flavor-related in the sense that it forces the player to tailor his character to that concept and limit his own roleplay. The Druid class (or any class ever) doesn't have to be roleplayed as strictly a druid at all.
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You basically changed nothing for the barbarian while making the wording and stats much more awkward and cumbersome. Just say that the CON bonus the barbarian is granted disappears first and foremost when exiting rage.
And the fact that he can't make more than one attack's going to need -serious- damage compensation, especially because you're going to want to keep the fact that barbarians need to have the possibility to be the Kings of Smack and Damage.
One way to do this is to make Power Attack stronger and limit it to Barbarians only.
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I don't know if you've realised or not, but now Martials can run around 30 ft every round and smack people anyway, because they've no reason to stay in someone's face, engaged in gritty combat, like they used to.
If you're attacking someone, limit movement in some manner. Or maybe cause the martial character to lose some other actions in exchange for the move action afterwards.
Make charge something that could occur in circumstances as limited as Sneak Attack is, to avoid the very same problem you've made.
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That didn't really fix anything for the Monk. The things you describe for the monk's ki is cool and all, but instead of just shoving options like that onto the player, why don't you make a talent pool where the player can choose his own ki-related abilities at each level, especially seeing as the Monk is limited in the number of attacks he can make now.
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Rangers' +2 is the best in the game, son. You realise it stacks in the same way Weapon Training does, right? And you can change your Favored Enemy with the Instant Enemy spell, essentially granting yourself those massive damage and hit bonuses against just about anyone.
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It never had to be a book. The system doesn't really limit the player in that way at all as long as he has imagination.
A way to balance out wizards:
Grant them a different spell-list than Sorcerers. And give Sorcerers some really intense spells which the Wizard can't learn or perform, because they don't possess the raw fire power of Sorcerers.
In that manner, the Sorcerer's spell choice, although smaller, becomes much more dangerous for anyone confronting them, while the wizard is able to effectively adapt to any situation at all.
Maybe the Sorcerer's will even have spells they can perform only due to their bloodlines!
All saving throws are now at ¾ HD progression (max +15). If one of your classes has a 'good' save then that save is granted a +2 bonus.
Well, even after eliminating resistance bonuses from items, save-or-X powers are much weaker for the PCs under that change, assuming (of course) that monsters also benefit from much higher saves across the board.
I use all characters, NPCs have a saving throw progression of 1/2 HD.
Good Saves get a +2 flat bonus.
Works fine for me.
I would not add a Ref save to touch spells, since we already use a Base Defense Bonus (BDB) with a progression equal to +1/2 BAB.
Of course, to do that you must review magic items and exclude AC bonuses from rings and amulets, so you would have only bonus AC from magic armor or bracers.
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I don't blame someone for making an effective character either, because that would be silly, but when 'effective' slides into 'game-breaking', it's not just the rules themselves at fault.
One thing I would change is to give all spellcasters osirions which scale with level. This would allow a wizard to still cast some "minor" spells when he burned all his normal spell slots.
Why? "A Caster is called a caster because he cast spells (and don't stand in the background and do nothing/miss with his crossbow)".
I still working on some rules here, but can't find anything which fits yet; and I don't have a round to test them at the moment :(
Been a while since I looked at this thread....
With respect to the Shield discussion, shields have three effects:
1) It passively blocks access to your body from certain angles of attack.
2) You can use it to actively block incoming attacks.
3) You can hit people with it.
Pathfinder, and D&D3.X, has never handled point 2 very well, but on the flip side they extend the shield's protection to attacks from all angles by doing away with facing rules. Swings and roundabouts, but a set of "blocking" feats might make a nice addition.
Point 3 is VERY well catered for, and really makes up for the rest in terms of shield usefulness. A sword 'n' board fighter can dish out horrendous damage and while feat-intensive it actually leaves the two-handed fighter in the shade in terms of DPR - especially if you have a class feature like paladin's smite or ranger's favoured enemy to stack on the damage with each hit. While two-weapon fighting is usually not so effective, the Shield Master feat really makes up for it, especially when you add shield spikes and the bashing quality.
House Rules
The only major house rules I make are for monks. They are pretty extensive in scope, a series of minor changes that add up to make a big difference in how effective the weakest class in the game performs - you can track them here: http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2pn0f?Some-Monk-Suggestions-playtested