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Homebrew and House Rules

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Gulthor wrote:


Pathfinder 2.0 instantly loses Paizo thousands of customers, me included.

I'd either continue using PF or drop Paizo and switch to 5E, even if PF 2.0 is "better", sheerly out of principle - for the same reasons, in fact, that Paizo was able to steal our group's business from WotC.

The doublethink is strong with this one. You start by asserting that you will never, ever buy a new edition out of "principle." Then, in your very next sentence, you assert that you, in fact, do buy new editions, as you switched from 3.5 to Pathfinder! And you've stayed with Paizo through six iterations of the Pathfinder Core Rulebook. If you were really opposed to new editions, you wouldn't have switched to Pathfinder, you'd have stayed with whatever the first edition you played was.

And then you assert that, the next time Paizo releases a new edition, you might switch to yet another system out of a principled opposition to...switching editions? Make up your mind, please.


DungeonmasterCal wrote:
I'd also remove the monk from the Core classes, as it sticks out like a sore thumb among the more "European" feeling classes. I'd put out an Oriental Adventures style book with it in it, instead.
Kyrt-Ryder wrote:
2: Fighter, Rogue, Monk, Barbarian, Cavalier, Samurai, Ninja, Swashbuckker, Gunslinger (to be replaced with a flexible powerful hybrid class that can fill any of those niches)


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I'd start by removing HeadFirst's limitation that I am only allowed to remove three things. There, now I can remove as many as I want!

With my remaining ability to remove things, I would remove everything on the Ban List.


kyrt-ryder wrote:
DungeonmasterCal wrote:
Kyrt-Ryder wrote:
2: Fighter, Rogue, Monk, Barbarian, Cavalier, Samurai, Ninja, Swashbuckker, Gunslinger (to be replaced with a flexible powerful hybrid class that can fill any of those niches)

I'd keep most of those, though I'd move the Ninja and Samurai to my Oriental Adventures book and ditch the Gunslinger (that's just personal dislike coming in there).


DungeonmasterCal wrote:
kyrt-ryder wrote:
DungeonmasterCal wrote:
Kyrt-Ryder wrote:
2: Fighter, Rogue, Monk, Barbarian, Cavalier, Samurai, Ninja, Swashbuckker, Gunslinger (to be replaced with a flexible powerful hybrid class that can fill any of those niches)
I'd keep most of those, though I'd move the Ninja and Samurai to my Oriental Adventures book and ditch the Gunslinger (that's just personal dislike coming in there).

That's the beauty of my solution. They ALL cease to exist. Instead you have the Badass class, or maybe the Martial or the Warrior.

This one class can do anything any of those classes do, and the flavor is entirely open to the Player and GM without any of the baggage one sees in... say... Monk...


Yeah, I get what you're saying and it's not bad.

Another thing I'd do is what I do as a houserule. Classes get the same number of skills they already do, but they can pick and choose the ones they want instead of having a static list. I love being able to customize classes, and I see this as another step in that direction, because traits and feats can all be chosen to suit the player. I know lots of folks will have a problem with this, but we do it in my homebrew and it works fine.


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For what it's worth, I'm with you on the Gunslinger.

Guns I like, but locking them behind specialized classes is ridiculous.


kyrt-ryder wrote:

For what it's worth, I'm with you on the Gunslinger.

Guns I like, but locking them behind specialized classes is ridiculous.

I ***might*** allow them if that were the case, but they'd be limited to very primitive ones and I'd do away with Grit points. Probably change the name to Musketeer or something less Wild West sounding.


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DungeonmasterCal wrote:
kyrt-ryder wrote:

For what it's worth, I'm with you on the Gunslinger.

Guns I like, but locking them behind specialized classes is ridiculous.

I ***might*** allow them if that were the case, but they'd be limited to very primitive ones and I'd do away with Grit points. Probably change the name to Musketeer or something less Wild West sounding.

Primitive and Powerful and not vulnerable to misfires I could totally dig. Carrying around single shot hand-cannons and such. Even OK if they have to be protected from excess moisture.

In my own games I go the other way, using revolvers and lever-actions to emulate bows. Higher Strength Ratings allow one to handle a more powerful powder load.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Generally I think it'd make sense to do away with all the classes that are just built around a single weapon. I mean, the fighter is theoretically a generic class that specializes around whatever you want to build, so then having specialist classes designed around a single combat style seems redundant.

Ideally you should be able to build a cavalier or gunslinger or swashbuckler or monk out of the fighter by picking the right options.


Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscriber
Maneuvermoose wrote:

I'd start by removing HeadFirst's limitation that I am only allowed to remove three things. There, now I can remove as many as I want!

With my remaining ability to remove things, I would remove everything on the Ban List.

looks over the ban list...

wat


1. DEX-to-damage

2. Anything below 20 point buy.

3. Weapons that aren't 20/2x.


Things I've removed from my own game.

1: Stats to most rolls [Attacks, Saves, Skills]

2: Stats to Passive Defenses [such as AC]

3: Annoyingly minute weapon differences.


Bandw2 wrote:
Maneuvermoose wrote:

I'd start by removing HeadFirst's limitation that I am only allowed to remove three things. There, now I can remove as many as I want!

With my remaining ability to remove things, I would remove everything on the Ban List.

looks over the ban list...

wat

Bandw2 is now officially BANNED!


Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscriber

i mean the thing that got me was greatswords.


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1) The forum. Seriously, it's a really crappy forum. Very limited bbcode. No wysiwyg editor. Moderator tools that are extremely limited. No post editing. Poor flagging mechanism (what good is a flagging system without a details field?) The forum is just generally extremely feature poor compared to free forum software from a decade ago. We'd be better off with no official forum because an unofficial forum would inevitably develop with actual forum software and a normal moderation policy and an infraction system.

2) The unwritten rules. Paizo is in the business of selling rules. They can't sell rules that aren't written. Paizo is in the business of selling content for a rules system. Consumers can't use rules that aren't written. Unwritten rules are for illicit organization where writing down the rules would be evidence that could get the members prosecuted. A perfectly legal corporation whose major business is selling rules has no reason to have such things. Write them down in clear English and publish them or retract them.

3) CMB/CMD. Especially size bonuses. I can't count how many times I've complained about this. It's a horrible mechanic. And unlike other changes I'd like it doesn't invalidate statblocks or spell lists.

The Exchange

Atarlost wrote:
Consumers can't use rules that aren't written.

Human beings use unwritten rules every day. What makes you think that just putting on one's customer hat makes this behavior suddenly impossible?

As it stands, I already ignore a lot of the written rules in Pathfinder RPG not necessarily because they are terribly bad but because we are used to wing it a lot or are too lazy to look them up in the book or simply are creative enough to invent our own rules. I don't mind publishing Paizo new rules per se, as it might give me new insight or show me a probably better alternative and as I'm just interested in how other people tackle a problem, but it's not as if I'm paralyzed by Paizo not doing my job for me.


1) Vancian casting. I like SoP or something similar.

2) All classes. All of them. Instead I would replace them with a few very generic framework classes - warrior, caster, skill user, etc. on to which you can layer Archtypes and options to build the multitude of classes that are out now.

3) Leadership as a feat. It should be built into the base rules as one of the players options. With some flexibility added.

Community & Digital Content Director

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Removed a post and the replies to it. "Playful banter" surrounding physically harming or ending the life of a Paizo employee or any member of our community is not acceptable on our website.


Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscriber
Atarlost wrote:


2) The unwritten rules. Paizo is in the business of selling rules. They can't sell rules that aren't written. Paizo is in the business of selling content for a rules system. Consumers can't use rules that aren't written. Unwritten rules are for illicit organization where writing down the rules would be evidence that could get the members prosecuted. A perfectly legal corporation whose major business is selling rules has no reason to have such things. Write them down in clear English and publish them or retract them.

It would be easier to make a book report on the book >Ulysses< with less than 24 hours to read the book and write the report, that it would be to codify the unwritten rules if you had 1 year to do so. It would probably more than quadruple the size of the CRB and would be mostly filled with lame stuff like what exactly happens when a character's HP hit's zero(ergh... negative con score...), aka a definition for the "dead" condition and what not.

Excerpt from Ulysses

The Exchange

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1) Actually, adding a Book called Ultimate Creation Guide.
2) That's it.


Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscriber
Theliah Strongarm wrote:

1) Actually, adding a Book called Ultimate Creation Guide.

2) That's it.

you're never going to stop are you? :P


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I would love to see the Path of War classes make it into "core" Pathfinder.


Again, I don't think Paizo should get their hands on any of the 3rd party classes.


Why not? They've done great things with 3rd party monsters.


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Mostly because they'd quickly get FAQ'd and errata'd into trash becaus they aren't core. Minor lay because any archetypes they made for the classes would be terrible(looking at you, Drake-based archetypes...).

The Exchange

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Wait, there are FAQs and erratas for official Paizo stuff?

Just kiddin' of course, but the truth is that apart from the erratas already integrated in my core rulebook and/or any rule book pdfs, I just don't use any of them.

I'm quite confident that, if something like this would happen, Paizo would be smart enough to understand that the fans like those classes as they are and didn't wish for them to be included just to be changed into something else. And I think that the beauty of the OGL actually would make it quite easy to sanction them for PFS play if Paizo wanted to.

But then, apart from official PFS play, I can already use them as I want to. So I don't mind that this won't happen.

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16

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I'm surprised I never mentioned Ultimate Combat firearms when I wrote an article about them. I don't think it was a good idea to build upon Inner Sea World Guide's gimmicky Alkenstar guns. It would have been better just to make firearms be like a short range crossbow with a Dexterity rating like composite bows. Making a weapon so broken that it has to be locked behind an entire class just feels like a punch in the face.


Cyrad wrote:
I'm surprised I never mentioned Ultimate Combat firearms when I wrote an article about them. I don't think it was a good idea to build upon Inner Sea World Guide's gimmicky Alkenstar guns. It would have been better just to make firearms be like a short range crossbow with a Dexterity rating like composite bows. Making a weapon so broken that it has to be locked behind an entire class just feels like a punch in the face.

Kyrt-Rider and I discussed earlier just doing away with the Gunslinger and Grit points entirely and allowing any class to use firearms. Should probably have a Firearms Proficiency feat, but yeah, building a whole class around one weapon is kinda silly, IMHO.


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I personally would do away with the gunslinger and grit (and the similar Swashbuckler and its panache mechanics)... as for letting any class have firearms, it all depends how prevalent you want them to be in your campaign, I quite like the options given on p 135 of Ult Combat to that effect.

I'd also do away with the nerfing of spellcasters and roll back many spells to their 3.5 or maybe even 3.0 or Ad&D1 statistics, and do away with damage caps


Klorox wrote:
I personally would do away with the gunslinger and grit (and the similar Swashbuckler and its panache mechanics)... as for letting any class have firearms, it all depends how prevalent you want them to be in your campaign, I quite like the options given on p 135 of Ult Combat to that effect.

I'll have look up that page and see what it says. But since I don't really want firearms in my campaign anyway, it's kind of a moot point. But if I were to allow them the Gunslinger class would be right out and anyone could use them.


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Hey, firearms are definitely an optional rule, like most of the stuff in UC, nobody will force you to allow them, I myself would probably either forbid them altogether, or make them highly prevalent for a western atmosphere.

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32

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Hmm, let's see:

The Antagonize feat (aggro mechanics are so unnecessary in a tabletop game)
The custom magic item table (abused by so many)
The PFS potion/scroll/wand campaign rules (I find them indecipherable. Just let people buy paladin potions of lesser restoration.)

Actually, if I could add something, I'd add a line to each spell description detailing the cost of making a potion, scroll, and wand of that spell. It would simplify so many things.


Level 9 spells.
Level 8 spells.
Level 7 spells.

Gg no re


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Klorox wrote:

I personally would do away with the gunslinger and grit (and the similar Swashbuckler and its panache mechanics)... as for letting any class have firearms, it all depends how prevalent you want them to be in your campaign, I quite like the options given on p 135 of Ult Combat to that effect.

I'd also do away with the nerfing of spellcasters and roll back many spells to their 3.5 or maybe even 3.0 or Ad&D1 statistics, and do away with damage caps

As a note, I've taken great steps to make firearms on the level of bows with equal accessibility, and very few of my players have pursued them, though picking up an enemy'a sidearm and ammo reserve and using them until depleted was common enough.


ryric wrote:

Hmm, let's see:

The Antagonize feat (aggro mechanics are so unnecessary in a tabletop game)

Very strong GM guidelines are required in a tabletop game in the absence of aggro. That or very strong battlefield control for martials.


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I've gotta agree with Kyrt. With no aggro mechanic or nonmagical battlefield control, the tank is more of a theory than something a player can actually do. People talk about the NPCs adjusting to the party's abilities to keep the mages from getting out of hand, but the "tank" that put all his resources into amazing saves, HP, and AC is going to feel like he wasted his time if after a while every intelligent enemy starts going "take down the others first, starting with the mages. We'll overwhelm the armored one with numbers when they're out of the way." The ONLY reason Tanks work at all in most party-based games is because there is a mechanic that forces the boss to get through them to attack the more vulnerable members of the party. In a tabletop game with no such mechanic, there's no real reason the highly intelligent pit fiend or dragon won't cripple the party's support or battlefield control first and then turn around to deal with the tank, who is now at a massive disadvantage against the foe.

I'm also not sure what the hate for grit and panache is all about. Deeds are a nice way to give a class a bag of tricks that isn't magical or feat-based and can go all day but might also be depleted if you're careless in spending it. Frankly, I wish they'd do more with deeds, such as not putting them on classes that are kind of forced to be one-trick ponies.

But anyway, on topic...I'm going to assume things I cut can be replaced or reworked.

1. Vancian Casting- replace with Spheres of Power.
Reasoning: Vancian Casting, despite its long-standing tradition in D&D and games based on it, tends to come across as a very gamist system. Very few people I have met consider fire-and-forget magic immersive, and more importantly, it's confusing to new players, highly exploitable by experienced players, and in Pathfinder in particular has become an app store. For every conceivable situation a GM might create, there is a spell for that, sometimes a bizarrely specific one. This creates a situation where players that are playing casters need to browse through a metric ton of spells, sometimes on an in-game daily basis, just to work out what their character can do that day, while the GM has to account for every single spell the players might have access to when designing plots, making caster-proofing certain plotlines nearly impossible. Spheres is more limited, more thematic, easier by far to grok, and very simple to keep track of as GM.

2. Feat Taxes- replace with fighting styles and scaling feats.
Reasoning: Does anyone REALLY like having to buy two-weapon fighting three times for it to remain relevant? Does anyone REALLY think Vital Strike is so good it deserves to be a chain where each link completely invalidates the one that comes before it, but you can't retrain any of them? Is Whirlwind Attack so star-spangled awesome that you need to pay four feat taxes, NONE OF WHICH HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH WHAT WHIRLWIND ATTACK DOES? Making feats improve as BAB makes for far less feat bloat, which means your players don't need to do nearly as much brushing up on that sea of chaff looking for something good every odd level. Fighting styles still exist, but as the base feat of the style scales now, new feats add new behaviors. Archery is my model here; there's a lot of archery feats, but the majority of them allow you to do something NEW with the bow after you take them while the majority of the TWF feats and Vital Strike feats merely adjust the numbers involved somewhat without adding any new abilities. Side bonus, Fighters get significantly better under this system because rather than paying taxes with their bonus feats they are instead able to master multiple fighting styles for improved versatility while ALSO having space for utility feats, and feat-starved classes like the Paladin are able to branch out into techniques they normally don't have enough feats to get into.

3. The Full Attack system- replace with something that works.
Reasoning: Stand still or suck syndrome is awful and Full Attacks limiting a melee class to a five-foot shuffle or they won't be able to use most of their offensive abilities is versmilitude-breaking. Nobody likes being the class that has to ask "Is the enemy in reach of a 5-foot-step?" while their buddy is running around throwing lightning bolts without a care in the world. Fighting classes need to be able to MOVE AROUND while still using their techniques. This is particularly egregious with two-weapon types, who are generally supposed to be agile skirmishers but might as well not have their other weapon if their target isn't standing RIGHT NEXT TO THEM.

I have to say I preferred 5e's system, where martial classes get two attacks at level 5, but both are at full BAB and you can move freely while using them. (Fighters and Monks can get up to four attacks, although the Monk needs to spend actions or resources to get past the normal double-attack.) I know combat math would need to be reworked, but the current system tends to mean players lose interest in full-attacks after the novelty of rolling a big bucket of dice wears off.

Grand Lodge

Blackwaltzomega wrote:
With no aggro mechanic or nonmagical battlefield control, the tank is more of a theory than something a player can actually do.

How about this?


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1. Feat Taxes - Feats should be investments that keep paying off as you level and gain more feats. Therefore, a lot of top of the branch combat feats are instead combat, weapon, and equipment tricks that you can perform when you meet the basic (and adjusted) feat, stat and BAB requirements. So things like Whirlwind Attack (Which should different prerequisites) and Spring Attack become Combat Tricks which a martial learns from combining his feats.

Skill Focus grants Unlocks for the associated skill.

Other feats I'd just plain merge like Steadfast Mind and Combat Casting. Basically, in addition to that, Weapon Focus should count as weapon training for the advanced weapon training feat.

2. Leadership - It shouldn't be a feat, it should be a boon for good roleplaying.

3. Current Mundane versus Magic Item Crafting ruleset - apparently a wizard with no first hand experience in metal forging can craft an enchanted suit of full-plate much faster than a born and raised blacksmith can an average one. Yeah no. Gotta revamp that.


ryric wrote:

Hmm, let's see:

The Antagonize feat (aggro mechanics are so unnecessary in a tabletop game)
The custom magic item table (abused by so many)
The PFS potion/scroll/wand campaign rules (I find them indecipherable. Just let people buy paladin potions of lesser restoration.)

Actually, if I could add something, I'd add a line to each spell description detailing the cost of making a potion, scroll, and wand of that spell. It would simplify so many things.

I'll second the idea of getting rid of Antagonize (if you're going to tank, build so that an enemy really pays in blood for ignoring you), and of putting magic item tweaks in individual spell descriptions. Of course, the latter would be a huge amount of work now, but imagine what things would be like if Pathfinder had started that way . . . .


Blackwaltzomega wrote:


3. The Full Attack system- replace with something that works.
Reasoning: Stand still or suck syndrome is awful and Full Attacks limiting a melee class to a five-foot shuffle or they won't be able to use most of their offensive abilities is versmilitude-breaking. Nobody likes being the class that has to ask "Is the enemy in reach of a 5-foot-step?" while their buddy is running around throwing lightning bolts without a care in the world. Fighting classes need to be able to MOVE AROUND while still using their techniques. This is particularly egregious with two-weapon types, who are generally supposed to be agile skirmishers but might as well not have their other weapon if their target isn't standing RIGHT NEXT TO THEM.

I have to say I preferred 5e's system, where martial classes get two attacks at level 5, but both are at full BAB and you can move freely while using them. (Fighters and Monks can get up to four attacks, although the Monk needs to spend actions or resources to get past the normal double-attack.) I know combat math would need to be reworked, but the current system tends to mean players lose interest in full-attacks after the novelty of rolling a big bucket of dice wears off.

Something I've considered doing is allowing full-attacks with movement, but at a -1 attack penalty per 5' moved previously on your turn.


JiCi wrote:
Vidmaster7 wrote:
only thing I don't agree with you on is the fewer weapon groups.

The fighter can currently get Weapon Training for 4 weapon groups. The problem is that your typical fighter will have one primary melee weapon, one primary ranged weapon and probably one backup melee weapon. Even then, your fighter will focus on either melee or ranged combat, making the other weapons very situational.

Rare are the times where a fighter will have a longsword, longbow, longspear and short sword, because most fighters will favor a specific fighting style instead of having a weapon for "every" situation.

oh yeah keep in mind you can now exchange the new weapon groups for other bonuses via thew weapon masters handbook.


Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscriber
kyrt-ryder wrote:
Klorox wrote:

I personally would do away with the gunslinger and grit (and the similar Swashbuckler and its panache mechanics)... as for letting any class have firearms, it all depends how prevalent you want them to be in your campaign, I quite like the options given on p 135 of Ult Combat to that effect.

I'd also do away with the nerfing of spellcasters and roll back many spells to their 3.5 or maybe even 3.0 or Ad&D1 statistics, and do away with damage caps

As a note, I've taken great steps to make firearms on the level of bows with equal accessibility, and very few of my players have pursued them, though picking up an enemy'a sidearm and ammo reserve and using them until depleted was common enough.

this was longer than i expected for a tangent:

I feel like if I made guns, I'd go the opposite route most people would take. I'd probably make Single shots, Semi-automatics and fully automatic weapons. Except they'd obviously be clockwork, magical or otherwise contraptions and not modern day weapons.

Single shots would have high base damage and allow dex to damage maybe. How they'd work is if you fire as a full round action you get a single shot per turn but every time you miss you get to make an iterative attack and if that one hits you can do damage as normal, but you can NEVER gain more than one attack applied per turn. basically, you can roll all your iteratives and if at least 1 of them hits, you apply your weapon's damage.

Semi-automatic would use normal iterative attacks and fully automatic would have an extra full BAB attack but -2 or 4 or something to all shots.

then there'd be shotgun, rifle and pistol versions of each firing method with relevant stats. shotgun would be high variable damage(like 1d8 damage), while rifles would have higher crit ranges, and pistols have neither but are one handed.

Then maybe a few feats to improve range or something


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Hybrid classes.

Attacks of Opportunity (or at least find another way to handle it).

Grapple rules (and do new ones that don't need a PHD in nuclear physics to work out).

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