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Hey all,
I'm toying with the idea of using automatic bonus progression in my next campaign. I'm gonna be running kingmaker which is a good case of a campaign where I can keep the economy local, and there's a lot of cool items in there that I'd like to see the players use instead of desperately selling in order to scrounge out some superior numerical bonuses. (For an exemple,if we had the auomatic bonus progression with my current level 16 party, our WBL each would be around 40k for some trinkets and knicknacks)
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/unchained-rules/automatic -bonus-progression/
The big problem I have is that the table is SO SLOW compared to regular play. Also, the weapons and armor enhancement feel stupid to me, and overly complicated (I'll have 2 brand new players, 2 newish, and 1 veteran) for the party.
I'm thinking of using this progression instead:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SeTBq1Pzq1ucCydYBq9H2tWsWR-jJDRHGztpC_O V5C0/edit
Although I would probably start giving out legendary gifts at level 14-15 or so, I'll have to think on it.
I plan on just removing +x enhancement bonuses to armor and weapons, your innate field becoming the x bonus, and the weapon just adding its special abilities, I would then price weapons only from +1 to +5. It encourages golf bagging of weapons but I'm actually ok with that :)
My main questions would be this:
1: is the weapon interpretation broken? It reduces the cost and thus the resell value of weapons and I don't think early vorpal weapons are a problem, most special abilities on swords are either lackluster or not that good so having flashy weapons doesn't seem that bad, btu I could be wrong.
2: What about the spells? GMW Magic vestments, barkskin, circle of protection and other like that all provide bonuses that can, at levels, be superior to those of the normal progression, do I allow the better bonus to supercede? I was thinking of tweaking GMW so that it's now a buff to the inherent weapon enhancement of the person, same with magic vestment.
3: What about the monsters? Do i give them those bonuses? Or use the regular table for their bonuses and the faster table for the PC? Or are they ok like they are?
Advice is appreciated, thanks.
I'd suggest using the bonuses for classed npcs/monsters, although since NPC wealth is lower then equivalent PC wealth, i'd make their effective level for bonus progression lower as well.
With inherent progression, you 'could' remove spells like GMW, shield of faith, etc. but since they overlap and not straight add, leaving them as-is probably wouldn't break anything.
A good ABP system should roughly match regular WBL bonuses.
If it does, there's no reason to change NPCs and monsters; they're already supposed to be balanced against WBL.
1) I have always run with magic weapons just adding special abilities. There is no reason for the enchantment bonuses to still exist if they are being provided by ABP. Additionally if a player is dual wielding just let both of their weapons get the maximum ABP bonus for their level. There is no point in penalizing someone for dual wielding more than they already are by the rules. Same goes for someone using throwing weapons, all their thrown weapons count as having the same enchantment.
2) I have always just allowed the spells to supercede the ABP bonuses. Though this does mean those spells actually lose effectiveness as levels grow. Items that grant those bonuses however are removed from the game.
3) NPCs get the bonuses if they're important enough for me to give them a full stat block, but monsters don't need it. They are already balanced to account for WBL. Also something to note most premade NPC statblocks already have statboosting items on them so they only need minimal adjustment if any. Though this does mean you need to add extra treasure loot to the NPCs given that their pergenned items don't exist anymore.
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A good ABP system should roughly match regular WBL bonuses.
If it does, there's no reason to change NPCs and monsters; they're already supposed to be balanced against WBL.
It should actually exceed it, IMO; you're replacing a varied, optimizeable bonus with a fixed one.
The official table thing recognises that too;
Lvl ½WBL, - ABP value
3 - 1,5k - 1k
4 - 3k - 4k
5 - 5,3k - 6k
6 - 8k - 10k
7 - 11,8k - 14k
8 - 16,5k - 22k
9 - 23k - 28k
10 - 31k - 39k
11 - 41k - 51k
12 - 54k - 63k
13 - 70k - 84k
14 - 92,5k - 108k
and so on.
It's important to note that ABP replaces only half your normal wealth by level, not the entire thing.
The system is designed for “normal groups”, not for over-optimised groups. If you find it slow, perhaps your group likes to over-optimise? It also allows player characters to use a wider range of “interesting” items as opposed to being focused on the Big 6 items all the time. It also allows NPCs to actually be more of a challenge; they are not good enough otherwise, as they *should* have stats that match the Monster Statistics By CR table (Bestiary 1 page 291).
Who says it's not your group who's under-optimizing, and OG's group is the normal one?
Thanks for the replies all.
I'll try my hand at modifying that table.
One thing that annoys me is that in my groups you usually start buying + tomes (we let them stack up to 5 max) around level 13 then progress slowly in the following levels (with 770000 go at level 20 having two +4 for off stats like Dex and cons and 1 +5 for your main stat is pretty much a no brainier)
I'm thinking of giving one legendary gift at 13 and then slowly progress up to a maximum of 13 at level 20.
And as for normal vs optimised, I don't know what kind of party they were thinking about when they made the campaign but a 140 hp 19 AC owlbear is not a sufficient challenge for a level 7 party, whatever the optimisation level. A barbarian with 18str power attack and a +1 weap who has haste on him (hardly the stuff of mythical optimisation) will take care of it in 2 rounds, 3 TOPS. and that's not even with help from the party.
I'd just like to know what their baseline for scaling is... It's really frustrating to have to redo all encounters...
Wasn't it supposed to be this one?
A word on kingmaker specifically ; it's super swingy because it's written as location-based. It's woe-fully under CR'd for the most part as it's 1fight/day, and then if you up the threats after that benchmark, it's easy to cause TPKs by accident whenever you have a location that has three or more fights.
No the siege owlbear would be awesome and I'm stealing it.
They had an advanced owlbear with some studded leather...
And yeah I think I'll pace encounters for dungeons but I'll crank it up for location bases
We wanted to try out ABP but there was some concern that the progression was too slow, so we decided to use ABP +2 (but still dropped roughly 50% WBL) in Mummy's Mask. Looking back, if anything that felt a bit too good.
Based on the experience in Mummy's Mask we went into Hell's Rebels with normal ABP (ie level +0) + 50% WBL and it worked out fine. I quite like ABP and recommend it if you have the time for the extra WBL homework.
We wanted to try out ABP but there was some concern that the progression was too slow, so we decided to use ABP +2 (but still dropped roughly 50% WBL) in Mummy's Mask. Looking back, if anything that felt a bit too good.
Based on the experience in Mummy's Mask we went into Hell's Rebels with normal ABP (ie level +0) + 50% WBL and it worked out fine. I quite like ABP and recommend it if you have the time for the extra WBL homework.
I'm kinda wondering how it was ''too good'' ? It's my experience that vs a normal progression party the normal progression would be at least 2 levels behind (more if you count inherent bonuses to stats).
I'm honestly asking, in your party what is the regular stats and armor progression? I will be DMing some brand new players, some almost brand new and 1 veteran, and I'd like to know what's a regular game progression (my usual party is almost all veterans so i'm biased)
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I'm a player in the Crimson Throne Adventure Path. We just started book 6. We're using Bonus Progression so I'll give you some feedback at least
We used level +1 to determine what we got. The GM has made some adjustments to difficulty of encounters.
We've had lots of character deaths (something like 6 overall) and a couple of near TPKs. But no actual TPKs.
From my point of view, we have a lot less flexibility. I had to go to some reasonable level of shenanigans with my build to compensate for the fact that I couldn't just throw money at the places I cared the most about (I valued good defences over good offences with this character).
And losing great amounts of our wealth cost. I was about 2 levels behind where I normally would have been in buying a set of Celestial Plate Mail that my character had wanted for many, many levels :-)
We recently retrieved an artifact level McGuffin weapon to take down the big bad. This weapon is significantly less powerful with Automatic Progression than it otherwise would be (at least the way the GM is adjudicating how it interacts with Auto Progression. His ruling is quite reasonable but only one of several different possible rulings. Mine would have been different).
So, even at +1 level, I think that we were somewhat underpowered. Losing the flexibility to buy exactly what you want is very significant.
No, the above isn't quite true. We're DIFFERENTLY powered. I have stat boost items that I'd never have bought under regular rules.
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So, even at +1 level, I think that we were somewhat underpowered. Losing the flexibility to buy exactly what you want is very significant.
On the other hand, a player who doesn't know much about equipment (or doesn't care) should get a stronger PC with automatic bonus progression. It seems to be somewhat of an equalizer, lowering the ceiling and improving the floor - at least for equipment dependent classes.
Yes which is precisely what I want. In a newbish party I don't expect them to crack out buy lists and such or to think about selling everything all the time in order to get a +6 headband 2 levels earlier than expected in order to massively control encounters.
As for artefacts and such (orvinbane and briar come to mind). I've already though on them as I've already decided to change orvinbane to a keen impact greatsword that can become bane vs a type of ennemy of the users choice 3/day as a swift action for 1 minute. ( I mean why else name it bane of all ennemies).
With abp, the enhancement bonus would scale as the adventure progresses (or be boosted by some douchebag arcane Caster with umd, an orange ioun stone, karma beads and GMW)
I can't open your link AlastarOG.
Speaking for myself I really really like ABP. The only tweak I make to it is I allow players to choose whether they'll get their physical or mental bump first at level 6 and 7 rather than going by the fixed table.
If you're worried about flexibility then you could enhance that to say that you could pick the bonus from a range of the table. So at Levels 3 through 7 they can pick from any of 3 to 7 bonuses once. It's more complicated and more bookkeeping though so that has it's own downsides.
You can always go Level +1 or Level +2 if you think it's underpowered or drop WBL gold along with ABP. I don't think it is personally. I'm pretty sure the designers made sure the equipment gold cost of the bonuses they give out in the ABP table matches WBL/2 closely which is why they want you to reduce WBL by that much to compensate.
I really like the idea of not having to attune to a weapon or set of armor to get the enhancement bump. Simpler and Dual wielding has enough problems as is.
I also use Feat Tax Reduction as described here:
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I like ABP, it cuts down on worrying about getting belts/headbands. I admit, I do like juicing up a cloak of resistance early, but the other big six items seem more of a fun tax than anything. Stuff I have to spend gold on to keep up with the Joneses. What I love about ABP is that while I get less gold, what I'm spending it on is probably much more relevent to the character's class/specialization.
Of course, everyone has their own spending preferences, and in general the loss of freedom is a flaw of the system.
I like Mark's expanded rules for ABP, but ultimately I still think they're entirely better without weapons/armor.
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So, even at +1 level, I think that we were somewhat underpowered. Losing the flexibility to buy exactly what you want is very significant.On the other hand, a player who doesn't know much about equipment (or doesn't care) should get a stronger PC with automatic bonus progression. It seems to be somewhat of an equalizer, lowering the ceiling and improving the floor - at least for equipment dependent classes.
Quite possibly true. They'd at least be in the ballpark.
Yeah the rules seem needlessly complicated, weapon enhancements aren't game breaking Eve. The most powerful ones (in fact it's the least powerful one that often are, like bane and keen) are often lackluster , so by reducing their resale value as well as their cost you are in fact
1: keeping wbl (most of the cash PC's get is through the resale of +x items)
2: making each weapon matter
3: making keeping more than the one weap a distinct possibility.
4: keeping weird maths out of jt
I like point 3 more than the others, it reminds me of my inventory in bgee2
AlastarOG, I'd really recommend giving everybody, or at least all the full BAB classes, the Martial Mastery feat for free. That'll really help diversify people's weapon lineup as well while still keeping it so your maritals can specialise into a certain weapon type that strikes their fancy.
I use feat tax rules which already do that as well as a couple other hotfixes for fighter type classes.
Edit:. I see you recommended feat tax earlier so don't worry were on the same page.
I actually went further and modded weapon finesse so that it instead gives Dex to damage (so classes that give weapon finesse give Dex to damage) with no .5 or 1.5 modifier (gotta give rogues and two weapon fighter something)
I also allow elemental channel to sub for channeling smite for guided hand and allow the guided weapon enhancement with the prerequisite of having guided hand for it to work.
We wanted to try out ABP but there was some concern that the progression was too slow, so we decided to use ABP +2 (but still dropped roughly 50% WBL) in Mummy's Mask. Looking back, if anything that felt a bit too good.
Based on the experience in Mummy's Mask we went into Hell's Rebels with normal ABP (ie level +0) + 50% WBL and it worked out fine. I quite like ABP and recommend it if you have the time for the extra WBL homework.
I'm kinda wondering how it was ''too good'' ? It's my experience that vs a normal progression party the normal progression would be at least 2 levels behind (more if you count inherent bonuses to stats).
I'm honestly asking, in your party what is the regular stats and armor progression? I will be DMing some brand new players, some almost brand new and 1 veteran, and I'd like to know what's a regular game progression (my usual party is almost all veterans so i'm biased)
I wrapped up a level 16 campaign back in August and we're currently playing Starfinder so it's been a while since I was thinking about stat/armor progression in Pathfinder, but I'll give you a benchmark.
By level 3, a PC is expected to have about 3000 GP in wealth. To simplify things, let's call that a +1 weapon (2300 GP) and a CLW wand (750).
The way we used the system, a player would get ABP +2 and half the WBL for a normal level 3 PC, so he would have ABP for a level 5 PC and 1500 GP for other items. That means that for the price of 1500 GP he gets a +1 armor (1150), a +1 weapon (2300), and a +1 resistance bonus (1000). He can spend the other 1500 GP on two wands of CLW (750 x2). In practice his WBL is ~6k, not 3k.
In that comparison it's pretty clear that the ABP +2 (+ half normal WBL) guy is coming out ahead. It keeps going like this - generally speaking the ABP +2 guy is going to have higher bonuses than the guy using normal WBL, but the WBL guy has much more freedom to focus or spread his wealth as he chooses.
The reason we initially used ABP +2 was because there was some concern that ABP gives you rewards that you don't want: A level 4 wizard will normally spend his money on a +2 INT Headband, not on a +1 staff and +1 armor. He certainly wouldn't wait until level 11 to upgrade his headband to +4 INT, or 15 to make it +6.
After playing through Mummy's Mask we felt that the bonuses were a bit too generous, and were happy to step it down to ABP+0 in the next game. I should note that in the game we ran after Mummy's Mask there was no pure spellcaster, so everyone was benefiting from all the bonuses ABP was offering.
ABP is definitely a nerf to pure spellcasters (that don't care as much about armor/weapon bonuses but REALLY want to max out their mental stat) but personally I consider that a feature, rather than a bug.
I really agree with Paul - ABP doesn't feel underpowered or overpowered compared to conventional WBL, but it does feel different. It forces PCs to be more "rounded" and spread their stats around.
I also agree with Sheepish Eidolon that WBL is a good addition because it raises the floor and lowers the ceiling on WBL-o-mancy.
A bit of a necro and for that I apologize, but I wanted to throw my two bits in:
I switched to ABP for my campaign and I really like it. I'm running homebrew. I did modify it in a big way though; I never actually removed the bonuses from gear. So +1 swords, belts of giant strength +2, and so forth still exist. I did this because ABP came out in the middle of my campaign and I thought it unfair remove the stat boosting items from the game since several players had spent a big chunk of their wealth on them.
I've been very happy with this decision as well. For starters, it allows me some flexibility in equipping NPCs. For example, one NPC the players found alongside for a couple of battles was a prince (now king) and as a result had magic item wealth far above his level, which I felt was logical given his background.
Another bonus is that it still allows some flexibility in character advancement. So for characters who really want to focus on a particular stat - such as a defensive character who wants to boost their AC above all else - they can still do it, just at a greater cost since WBL is cut in half. I think this is a fair compromise.
Going back to the topic of NPCs, another benefit of the ABP system in general is that is allows a lot more combats with class-leveled NPCs without throwing too much wealth at the PCs. Going by traditional WBL guidelines for NPCs the CRB suggestion is to balance class-leveled NPC encounters with encounters that give no loot at all. In my game that wasn't as feasible since so my game is less focused on dungeon crawling and as a result many of their opponents are class-leveled NPCs.
The ABP system is by far my favorite thing from Pathfinder Unchained and I'm so grateful the system exists.
How does ammunition bonuses work?