Simple extension of tiers


Homebrew and House Rules


Pathfinder has four basic tiers, natural people (what real world people can do), enhanced/supernatural (real people can make supertech to do this like powersuits. Also covers weaker stories of vampires or lycanthropes), Mythical (not quite godly, but still able to achieve very powerful results), And Demigods (the larval form of deities and generally worthy of worship).

However these tiers are implicit rather than explicit sadly.

Many however like to stay within a single tier. However, each tier only spans 5 levels, and character growth is no less enjoyable for wanting to stay in a tier.

So I had the idea of basically splitting each level into 4 and the core numbers grow at a reduced rate, so that plenty of character growth can be achieved via versatility, yet the raw power slows down so that you can gain around 20 levels and still be within a single tier.

I'll post more details later, but what are your thoughts?


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What we need is simple execution of tiers as in the entire concept needs to go away.


For what reason?

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I mean, a GM could just slow XP gains so that his campaign stays in the "tier" everyone wants to play in.


Slow XP keeps everyone in the tier, but also slows the mechanical growth of the character. Sounds like the OP is trying to achieve what E6 does for the lowest tier. I think it would be a ton of work to do for the other tiers, but could be done. The trick would be finding a way to expand a character's capabilities with out sliding into a different tier. I think extra feats is probably a good place to start.


I don't think it'd be much work at all really.

I mean think about it. what elements of the system describe activities that can't be done by real people (even if a master might be required)? Not many. In fact, almost all of the system parts that make any level 20 character more capable than a human on earth are purely numerical progressions.

For example, world records for the long are a little short of 30'. So being able to jump 60' is very much a superhuman capacity, but all you need to do to fix that is either limit the jump skill, or redefine the results to map to where needed.

So the idea is limit progressions and skill caps and such to a much slower progression. For example, bab would advance by 1 every 4, 6, or 8 levels, in which a level 20 fighter would have a +5 bab. Saves and skill rank caps can similarly be slowed.

In this basically, playing at higher tiers would start with bonuses to these aspects. Or you could just make each tier back to back for 80 levels of progression and start characters at 1, 20, 40, or 60.

The reason I wouldn't settle for redefining the results is the disparity between low level and high level. In the real world, a master fears an untrained warrior more than a fellow master because the untrained fellow is less predictable and if lucky can still kill said master. Also, an untrained warrior can still be smart and use terrain, environment, or other factors to defeat opponents with master level skill. In Pathfinder, or d20 in general, a level 1 can't do that to a level 10 much less a level 20.

Magic is a bit touchier of course. So what I'll probably do is make casters gain slots and spells known, but limit the max spell level.

Since most of it is just numbers though, I figure the majority of it can be done by developing a simple set of rules for handling the numbers, then simply callout the handful of other things.


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You could use the slow character advancement experience track in conjunction with the staggered advancement rules from Pathfinder Unchained. That would make the characters feel like they are receiving small level ups about as often as they would normally be leveling if they followed the fast experience track.

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/coreRulebook/classes.html

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/unchained/classes/index.html

I think the biggest problem you may have with just giving less benefit at every level would be that the players may not be able to keep up with monsters of their own challenge rating. For example, 20th level characters that function like 5th level character would be hopelessly out matched by a 20 challenge rating monster.


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RDM42 wrote:
What we need is simple execution of tiers as in the entire concept needs to go away.

I think the concept of asymmetric things being better or worse than each other wont go away by definition, sorry.


The power of a class relative to tier is unchanged by number of options nor by versatility. Indeed, many real life people are vastly more versatile than pathfinder characters.

The idea here is to allow growing in available options while keeping the raw power down.

As for monsters and challange rating, indeed you would need to modify the numbers, but that will usually be a simple divide/multiply by 5, if you really wanted to use something outside the selected tier.

Besides, adjusting monster stats is easy. I admit though, have never selected monsters by cr, I always select based on flavor and then adjust stats to the party.

In fact the entire concept of saying certain monsters are only suitable for characters of certain levels has always been something I never understood the point behind.

But if playing a module and thus using preprinted stat blocks, dividing/multiplying the key stats by 4 or 5 and adding tier bonuses will make short work of getting a monster into the right range.


I am honestly not clear on what you're trying to do here. Some powers don't relate to numbers. Are casters going to get a fifth of a spell at a level. I think pathfinder is granular enough; I am not sure there's an actually solve for your concept that isn't just slow exp progression.

You would have to add new powers and concepts in order to make leveling up enjoyable.


So far,

BAB improves by 1 every so many levels, 4, 6, or 8 for full, medium, and slow respectively.

Saves improve by 1 every 5 or 12 levels, for good and poor respectively. Good saves do not get the initial +2.

For set HP, take the hit die size (either max or average) and add the con bonus, divide by 4 for how many gained each level. Save any fractional amounts from one level to the next.

For rolling HP, the con bonus (and other static gains) adds HP as above, but for the hit dice, roll a d20. There are three DCs, meet or beat the lowest for +1 hp, meet or beat the second lowest for +2 hp, meet or beat the highest for +3 hp, and a nat 20 gives +4 hp.

HD = +1/+2/+3
d6 = 11/17/20
d8 = 18/15/9
d10 = 17/14/8
d12 = 15/12/6

This should give similar results over 20 level as rolling normally over 5 lvls. The maximum and minimum limits are different though. Therefore, rolling 0 hp for 5 levels gains 1 hp anyway.

Bab and saves start at 0. HP starts at 4 plus con.

Skill ranks are capped at 1 plus 1 more every 5 levels.

Higher tiers are the same but get a tier bonus to each stat at lvl 1.
Tier 2
bab +5
saves +4
skill rank cap +5
HP +30

Tier 3 gets twice that, and tier for gets 4 times that.

Monster adjustments,
Minus 1 tier,
hp /4
atk /5
ac bonuses /5 (the initial '10' remains untouched)
skill ranks in a skill/5

Spellcasting and magic items coming soon.


Create Mr. Pitt wrote:

I am honestly not clear on what you're trying to do here. Some powers don't relate to numbers. Are casters going to get a fifth of a spell at a level. I think pathfinder is granular enough; I am not sure there's an actually solve for your concept that isn't just slow exp progression.

You would have to add new powers and concepts in order to make leveling up enjoyable.

There isn't any need to slow down the growth of options such as feats, gaining iterative attacks, learning new skills, gaining more spells per day, learning new spells known, etc.

What needs slowed are things like bab, hp, saves, skill ranks, and similar.

What makes a character part of one tier or another is not how many options they have available, it is hp and the maximum/average result of a d20 check. Well, magic as well but I'll handle that soon.

3.0 was built on a scale that firmly relates to reality, save where magic is concerned obviously.

For example, you can roll a jump check and get a really good comparison to reality on how far/high one can jump.

However, on that scale, real humans reach a maximum of lvl 5. Beyond that, you go supernatural all the way to demigod.

The other issue is the disparity between those who get high bab vs low bab, good saves vs bad saves, etc. At higher tiers that gap opens dramatically. This is why I'd avoid having each tier back to back and instead you select a tier and get a uniform tier bonus.

Powers, and what they can do outside modifying d20 rolls, usually have no effect on tier. In fact, there are many things that high level martials can do outside of numbers that real people can do, so why limit those things to demigods?

More than that, something like this allows you to play whole campaigns or APs within a single tier, also, if you like higher tiers, you go straight there without slogging through lower levels (I know you can in theory start at higher level, but there seems to be two camps, those who think you should have to slogg through lower levels to get to the higher ones [and generally treat low levels as sloggs or grinds], and the other camp are those so tired of having lower levels treated like a trial of passage to be allowed into higher play that they skip the lower levels completely. The number of folks I've played with not in either camp are few and far between.). Seriously, when was the last time a game was played where lvl 5s saved the world?

Tiers have somehow become this thing where people think that only certain types of adventures are suitable to certain tiers, which is just stupid. My hope is that this variant not only allows entire campaigns to be played within a tier and still get 20 levels of advancement, but also to thus encourage a decoupling of adventure type from tier. Being a demigod is not a requirement for having a story whose protaganists save the universe. Being a lvl 1 does mot mean one is only suitable for guarding caravans from bandits.

Frodo was not level 20, in fact, I wouldn't rate Gandalf as even level 8 (and definitely not even lvl 6 in the hobbit).


in your idea, what would you do about skill points per level, class features, and magic items/wealth by level?


I'll need to look for specific abilities, whether class abilities, feats, or by some other source, but for the most part they should be fine either as is, or by simply applying the same number reduction as for monsters.

Still looking into skills. They might need a slight reduction, but I doubt it'll be much of one.

Magic items will probably be the difficult part. Honestly I'd prefer to do away with WBL completely as it is one of the poorest design decisions in d20 in my opinion, but that endeavour is out of scope for this project. Likely some reliance on gm will remain, but I hope to get a few guidelines in place at least. Though it'll really only apply to stat and number boosters. Things that simply allow new options (such as immovable rods) and thus don't directly affect numbers should be fine without any tampering.


Okay, magic.

Caster lvl works exactly like bab (full casters getting the full bab progression, medium casters getting medium progression, etc). The exception is range and duration which improve based on the level of the casting class instead.

Maximum spell level goes up based on caster level. Max spell level is equal to 1/2 the caster lvl, minimum 1.

Caster lvl gets the same tier bonuses as bab.

Spell slots are earned as is save that slots of higher spell lvl than can be cast, may still be earned, and as normal, those slots can be used for casting lower level spells.


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Folks have already done quite a lot of work on E6/P6. I'd think if you use that with very slow XP you should get something close to what you're looking for with a lot less work. On the other hand, maybe I don't understand what it is you're looking for...


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TheAlicornSage wrote:
Caster lvl works exactly like bab (full casters getting the full bab progression, medium casters getting medium progression, etc). The exception is range and duration which improve based on the level of the casting class instead.

Legends of Sorcery built an entire system around a magic BAB. Even if you don't want the product you might get ideas by reading reviews.

Eventually the Talented Bestiary will come out, claiming to offer a way to scale any monster to any CR.


TheAlicornSage wrote:

I'll need to look for specific abilities, whether class abilities, feats, or by some other source, but for the most part they should be fine either as is, or by simply applying the same number reduction as for monsters.

Still looking into skills. They might need a slight reduction, but I doubt it'll be much of one.

Magic items will probably be the difficult part. Honestly I'd prefer to do away with WBL completely as it is one of the poorest design decisions in d20 in my opinion, but that endeavour is out of scope for this project. Likely some reliance on gm will remain, but I hope to get a few guidelines in place at least. Though it'll really only apply to stat and number boosters. Things that simply allow new options (such as immovable rods) and thus don't directly affect numbers should be fine without any tampering.

rogues with a 10 or higher intelligence score by level 4 would have to invest heavily into craft, profession, and perform, and could still max out every skill. classes with 6+ int (and have at least 14 int) is in the same boat, follows by classes with 4+int (and at least 18 int).

That is before taking favored class bonus into account.

Your tiers could maybe benefit from having ability score maximums.


What I'm running into with skills is that at different tiers, skills have different limits. At demigod tier, skills seem almost too few as written, yet at natural tier, they are too many. I'm thinking of changing the cost of purchase of ranks based on tier so gained skill points remains the same, but I'm still looking into how that'll play out.

As for ability scores, I think you are right, though that should be only a magic item/spell issue.


TheAlicornSage wrote:


As for ability scores, I think you are right, though that should be only a magic item/spell issue.

I was thinking that it could also alleviate the skill point issues a little. like 14 max for baseline tier, 18 for tier 2, 22 for tier 3, and no limit for tier 4 (or 26).

skills for baseline tier, in combination with the above proposed ability score limit could likely be reduced by 4 (to a minimum of 2+int). these means rogues and experts are the only ones with more skills than everyone else.
tier 2+ could likely receive a multiplier based on tier. perhaps not modifying the int bonus though.

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