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That’s literally why Take 10 exists as a rule.Take 10 is one of the best rules for speeding up gameplay and not failing at trivial checks because your dice decided to screw you.If the check is trivial, why are you rolling at all?If there's a tall that's trivial, where success or failure isn't important, there's no reason to make any checks at all. What about someone who could only succeed in an 11? It takes time for something that, in the end, doesn't matter.
If it's trivial in the first place, just let people decide how it turns out.
Thats why Take 20 exists.
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Stealth. Please figure out if someone can stealth while you look at them or not.
Dude, stop looking at me while I try to figure this out.
Wait, that's not what you meant, is it?
By my very quick count of what I decided counts as a "unique request", I believe we have specifically addressed roughly 28 out of the 35 "unique requests" in this thread (whether we handled it well enough for you will require playtesting, but it at least came up in discussion and has some solution implemented). 80% is much better than I expected before reading this thread!
"I'm A Rock Star And This Is How I Work"
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*Please, please do something to standardize special material items. I have some character concepts that would just love mithral weapons but it's just cheaper to buy adamantine weapons.
I strongly second this. If a material can be made into a weapon or armor, we need sensible pricing for all possible items.
My personal preference is to have a more realistic cost increase that takes into account weapon category (light, one-handed, etc.) and size of the weapon or armor.
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One thing is flying combat. Like it's hard to know if my bow can shoot in the first range increment or not all the time.
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One thing is flying combat. Like it's hard to know if my bow can shoot in the first range increment or not all the time.
Quick and nasty way to work out range from different elevations that I use is take the longer of height and distance and add half the shorter. It's not going to be right, but it's close enough for a TTRPG.
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Pronunciation guides in Bestiaries so I can be confident of not mangling the names of creatures from real-world traditions I'm not familiar with.
Punctuation guides in everything. When playing a game that borrows from all manner of written fantasy and real-world mythology you can't expect people to grasp the varied pronunciations.
Same for the names of outsiders and dragons. Over the years I have come to haaaaaate having to run encounters with some of the unique enemies. It can spoil the immersion when No one can figure out what the creature is named.
Personally, I would love if the bestiary entries also had a chart/sidebar for knowledge checks. It'd make for a faster reference for the DM and serve to help establish how known different creatures are, without tying it in to CR. Because really, why are older dragons harder to ID than younger ones (And if you decide that they're less common in your setting, you can easily bump the DCs by a bit)
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Just treat one square as one square no matter whether in a straight or diagonal. No reason for Pathfinder to exist in a Euclidean universe especially with all those elder things chipping away at the edge of reality.
Ooo, I haven’t tried the elder things argument. Maybe I can get James on board!
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* because of the nature of the campaigns I'm in, I usually have Improved Unarmed Strike, and the text around Attacks of Opportunity and IUS are .. complicated and make kerries sad. "Armed" Unarmed Attacks? -_-...
I put a lot of time into unarmed attack language, and I’m hoping it’s close. We’re aiming to be more precise about not defining a thing that’s not a weapon as a weapon. (See also 1E natural “weapons” vs. unarmed strikes). Yet unarmed attacks need to live in some of the same categories for weapon groups, etc. Challenging!
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The 'attack action is a specific type of standard action'.
What is the DC to jump a 10 foot pit?
Does Vital Strike work with....
Does trapfinding work on traps behind a locked door (the 'line of sight magic missle down a 50 foot corridor behind a locked door' question).
Making an attack of opportunity against a foe with reach: Feat. Ready an attack against that opponent: Non-feat.
Rules on flying - if a creature relies on natural methods to fly (such as wings) some kind of increasing DC penalty vs. damage to ground said creature.
Fog Cloud - if you stand at the edge and attack the next square out - do you roll concealment?
Wall spells that have no width - can they exist between squares? Can spells with a line effect that have height also be cast sideways? (IE can a wall of force make a bridge?)
Crafting: Make the rules for non-magical crafting and magical crafting work the same way so that I don't have to do a weird 'convert to silver' dance.
Crafting: please have *clear* rules and examples of crafting DC's and time to craft while adventuring.
City/Town stat blocks: It would be awesome if we could start getting a line about trade goods: that is stuff bought cheap 'here' or stuff the town wants/needs - I know this is a small detail but adventure can be 'take the wagon of wine 3 towns over and sell it for twice the profit' - I realize that these stat blocks may not even be in the core rules but the statblock format might be.
Good stuff!
What he said.
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Personally, I would love if the bestiary entries also had a chart/sidebar for knowledge checks. It'd make for a faster reference for the DM and serve to help establish how known different creatures are, without tying it in to CR. Because really, why are older dragons harder to ID than younger ones (And if you decide that they're less common in your setting, you can easily bump the DCs by a bit)
Oh gods yes! This should definitely be in the bestiaries, as well as a tactics bullet point.
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Such as the distance you fall in a single round.
To add to this, I've had players fall purposefully to get extra movement so they can move 100 feet (falling down), 5 foot step, and still full attack.
Does the distance fallen equal movement? All 3 actions? So it should be determined how far you fall per separate action (or reaction).
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Bullet points. If a sentence runs on and has more clauses than a chelaxian labor contract, bullet points.
This matches up with another post I made in a different thread requesting a more Technical Writing style for mechanics. If you have a list of single word things or a list of clauses or even sentences that all work equally under a specific header sentence, then list them in bullet point. This disambiguates the language so you don't have to parse whether the clause that comes after the comma is inclusive of the information before the comma.
Such as the distance you fall in a single round.To add to this, I've had players fall purposefully to get extra movement so they can move 100 feet (falling down), 5 foot step, and still full attack.
Does the distance fallen equal movement? All 3 actions? So it should be determined how far you fall per separate action (or reaction).
With falling damage now being 1/foot, falling seems like a bad idea.
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I'd like to see less emphasis on "what you are doing with your hands" and if they need to publish things that require free hands, please unambiguously define stuff like held, wielded, and free.This!
Held, wielded, used, possessed, used, etc. should be clearly defined. I would also like to see a little more definition around things like defending weapons, fighting defensively, etc.
And can I threaten with both a pole arm and armor spikes? Or is holding a pole arm in two hands (so-as to wield and threaten) it negates my ability to threaten with armor spikes? Or if I do, its considered a secondary weapon like a Boulder Helmet, Bite Attack, or Boot Knife? And if that's the case, why aren't armor spikes considered a secondary attack when holding/wielding something in both hands?
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Burrow rules. I brought this up at the PaizoCon Rules Q&A and the joke was made that it might make it into Ultimate Wilderness. Earth Glide is defined but not burrow, which causes some issues for PCs and animals in particular.
All types of movement (swim, climb, fly, burrow, walking) should be given equal attention so that they can all be adjudicated appropriately. I think Burrow is the worst of them. But there should be a separate chapter (or sub-chapter) on movement types, so you don't have to look in the skill description sections to parse how fly or climb works mechanically as opposed to just what modifiers there might be to the skill check.
Additionally, flying and climbing need to have a specific clarification on encumbrance and/or riders affecting the speed and even ability to fly or climb. Earth glide and burrow probably shouldn't be allowed to carry a rider or other creature with.
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Personally, I would love if the bestiary entries also had a chart/sidebar for knowledge checks. It'd make for a faster reference for the DM and serve to help establish how known different creatures are, without tying it in to CR. Because really, why are older dragons harder to ID than younger ones (And if you decide that they're less common in your setting, you can easily bump the DCs by a bit)Oh gods yes! This should definitely be in the bestiaries, as well as a tactics bullet point.
They started doing this with the last couple v3.5 monster manuals, and it was fantastic.
I really don't like the meta-gamey process of "asking questions" about a creature. How much info do I give if they ask, "what are the creature's defenses?" All of it? Just one aspect? And determining for myself what information to give can sometimes be too much work.
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This matches up with another post I made in a different thread requesting a more Technical Writing style for mechanics.
For the sake of GMs and players everywhere:
If it's an X, call it an X wherever you talk about it. Don't get "creative" and use three different nouns for X.
That leads to far too many discussions about whether Xa is the same as or different from Xb
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It's a running joke that any monster the DM doesn't know how to pronounce is referred to as "unspeakable horror"
For years, I'm been calling slaads salads. ;)
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This matches up with another post I made in a different thread requesting a more Technical Writing style for mechanics.For the sake of GMs and players everywhere:
If it's an X, call it an X wherever you talk about it. Don't get "creative" and use three different nouns for X.
That leads to far too many discussions about whether Xa is the same as or different from Xb
Using italicised key words could be an option
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This matches up with another post I made in a different thread requesting a more Technical Writing style for mechanics.For the sake of GMs and players everywhere:
If it's an X, call it an X wherever you talk about it. Don't get "creative" and use three different nouns for X.
That leads to far too many discussions about whether Xa is the same as or different from Xb
EXACTLY!
I know once upon a time Sean K Reynolds talked about reasons for doing this. It was for creative writing reasons and for ease of reading for pleasure. His paraphrased quote was something like, "Nobody wants to read a technical manual for an RPG rulebook." And I think what got lost in the forest for the trees, was that rarely do people actually read a rulebook for pleasure like they'd read a novel.
And there are places where you can get creative and fun with your writing. The flavorful description of a feat or spell can be the fun part of the rules element. While a specifically separated part labeled, in bold, Mechanics: And then write how it works in clear, concise, comprehensively used (boiler plate even) language.
This is the only major point that will be make or break on this edition for me, that they can fix immediately. The other two items will only be able to be determined over time as they publish more and more material.
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Using italicised key words could be an optionThis matches up with another post I made in a different thread requesting a more Technical Writing style for mechanics.For the sake of GMs and players everywhere:
If it's an X, call it an X wherever you talk about it. Don't get "creative" and use three different nouns for X.
That leads to far too many discussions about whether Xa is the same as or different from Xb
I'm not sure italicizing will be necessary if they use the same keywords throughout the rules manual. Although, yes, doing so will make things much easier to parse. And I would appreciate it if they did do so.
Simply getting them to only use keywords and boiler plate language for the mechanics of things is going to be the major issue for me though.
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So this is another place where the sample of gamers I know is atypical ?
And I think what got lost in the forest for the trees, was that rarely do people actually read a rulebook for pleasure like they'd read a novel.
I suppose I should clarify. Rather, the ONLY reason they read a rulebook is not for pleasure. I'd wager than 80% of the reason you read a rulebook, is to learn and use the rules of the game. And if you can't figure out what the rule is when you look it up, then the pleasure reading is pointless.
You can sacrifice some of the creative writing for more technical clarity without sacrificing the pleasure of reading a rulebook.
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Personally, I would love if the bestiary entries also had a chart/sidebar for knowledge checks. It'd make for a faster reference for the DM and serve to help establish how known different creatures are, without tying it in to CR. Because really, why are older dragons harder to ID than younger ones (And if you decide that they're less common in your setting, you can easily bump the DCs by a bit)Oh gods yes! This should definitely be in the bestiaries, as well as a tactics bullet point.
Actually, I'd like to refine this... in 3.5e Monster Manual... uh... 3 and 4? 4 and 5? Whatever... there was a small table per monster that gave the Knowledge DC along with what information should be released to characters for something like four levels of having beaten the DC.
As the game exists, my groups err on the side of rattling off information. It'd be nice to have a formal list.
Such as the distance you fall in a single round.
If Golarion has gravity close to earths you can say that on a single round you can fall around 40 feet, to not complicate to much the mathematics.
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Removal of the Take 10 rule.Nope, nothing wrong with take 10 as long as you accept the GM has right of veto.
If the GM has arbitrary veto power then it is not really a rule.
Such as the distance you fall in a single round.If Golarion has gravity close to earths you can say that on a single round you can fall around 40 feet, to not complicate to much the mathematics.
That is much slower than earth. In six seconds you fall 16+32+48+64+80+96 feet.
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I would like to be able to buy a coat. Lots of artwork in the game contains good looking greatcoats, frock-coats et al, especially Quinn's outfit, but there is nowhere in the various equipment lists that mentions non-magical coats, apart from the cold weather outfit.
With my PFS head on I am eternally grateful for the "ostentatious garment" in Heroes of the High Court, as it is the only PFS legal way to dress some of my characters.
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The vast majority of mechanics that work on "adjacent" enemies/allies need to be changed to "within your reach".
If I can reach 3 squares away, I shouldn't need to be adjacent in most cases.
For example, with Bodyguard, you're just interfering with an enemy's attack like normal Aid Another, so you should be able to do that if the enemy is within your reach.
With In Harm's Way, you're literally decking your ally out of the way and taking the hit, so yeah you should be adjacent then.
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Likewise, Aid Another really shouldn't be limited to melee only. Covering fire is definitely a thing, but in Pathfinder it's a huge pain to actually make work (requiring lots of investment in teamwork feats).
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Just treat one square as one square no matter whether in a straight or diagonal. No reason for Pathfinder to exist in a Euclidean universe especially with all those elder things chipping away at the edge of reality.Ooo, I haven’t tried the elder things argument. Maybe I can get James on board!
Best part is you don’t have to consult Pythagoras every time you target a flying creature. It is always the longest length of a or b, no need to calculate c at all.
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More damage rules. I mean like hitting people with doors, jumping on people, etc. Also better falling object rules
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Best part is you don’t have to consult Pythagoras every time you target a flying creature. It is always the longest length of a or b, no need to calculate c at all.Just treat one square as one square no matter whether in a straight or diagonal. No reason for Pathfinder to exist in a Euclidean universe especially with all those elder things chipping away at the edge of reality.Ooo, I haven’t tried the elder things argument. Maybe I can get James on board!
I play with other middle schoolers and me and my brother are the designated math people. Every time someone shoots at a flying creature we calculate.
I play with other middle schoolers and me and my brother are the designated math people. Every time someone shoots at a flying creature we calculate.Best part is you don’t have to consult Pythagoras every time you target a flying creature. It is always the longest length of a or b, no need to calculate c at all.Just treat one square as one square no matter whether in a straight or diagonal. No reason for Pathfinder to exist in a Euclidean universe especially with all those elder things chipping away at the edge of reality.Ooo, I haven’t tried the elder things argument. Maybe I can get James on board!
Longest distance + half shortest distance is close enough. No need for complicated maths.
Switch to hex grids so we can ditch the 5-10-5-10 diagonals
That doesn't require hex grids.
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I've used the "one square is one square, whether in a straight line or a diagonal" approach as a house rule for years. It works great and simplifies things for new players. As long as PCs and monsters follow the same rules, the end result is the same. After all, we allow the abstraction that a gnome with a dagger and a hobgoblin with a great sword each need exactly 5' square of fighting space, so why not another minor abstraction that speeds things up?