Aerthos's page

I actually think everyone SHOULD be able to get an animal companion if they want it. I have a bard in my current game who wanted a buffalo, and it's a headache trying to figure out if I should give her an AC, or make it an awakened fighter. A fighter should be able to have a bear steed w/o being a ranger or druid. Why don't we make it an optional feat for everyone, but make it a bonus feat for rangers and druids?

The problem you run into there is where is the line? Let's say you make it a feat... what level HD is the companion, and does it scale?

I cannot personally find a balanced way of doing this, so I'm going to have to agree with James on this one and say that animal companions should remain in the realm of druids & rangers. Beyond that should be a DM call and not a rule-revision of the core material.

One thing that's always worked for me is to roll those checks yourself. Only have the players roll the Listen/Spot/Perception check when they are actively using the skill. If you're just checking to see which of the PCs hear the kobold sneaking down the tunnel, roll that yourself.

Sure, they can see that you're rolling dice. But they don't know why.

Unless I missed it somewhere, you don't actually say anywhere in the book what language options you have. There are the bonus languages in the Races section, but there isn't a full list of all the languages anywhere that I could find. Definitely something you want in there, though maybe not in the Races chapter (though still a good option, would probably be better with the Linguistics skill description)

My opinion would be to go with the Improved/Greater/Superior tree for all the CMB options. Put a BAB requirement on the Greater feats so that other martial characters can be good at it. But then make the Superior feats FIGHTER ONLY to help with their identity crisis.

Certainly a cleaner fix than feat-swapping for fighters, but I would be okay with some variation on that too.

I really like some of the monsters that were put out in MM2-5 and the various location books during 3.x (Sandstorm, Frostburn). I don't know if any of those monsters are OGL, but it'd be great to see some of them officially make the conversion to PRPG.

1) Too many buff spells. High level combats too easily turn into long sessions of "How many spells can I have going at once?" I wonder if limiting the number of buff spells a character can have at once is the solution? Basically, each character would have, say, four "buff slots" that he can use to put spell effects on, with additional spell effects simply not having enough "soul" or "aura" to attach to if there's already too many spells active? The number of slots is of course fluid; it's probably cool to tie it to level so that at first level you have 1 slot and 20th you have four or five? This certainly keeps things from being too complex with having dozens of spell effects running at once. Of course, magic items like boots of speed would still allow their effects to function since they're already using a "slot" and their magic is self-contained. Buff slots would only limit effects from spells, spell-like abilities, spell trigger items, and spell completion items.

I'm still pretty torn on this one. I haven't done a ton of high-level play, but I never ran into a buffing issue with my groups. If everybody keeps track of what effects they have going on it seems to work pretty well. A useful tool I use are notecards with common buffs listing what changes the character has to make to his sheet.

e.g.
CAT'S GRACE
+4 Dex, +2 AC, +2 touch AC, +2 ranged attack, +2 init

Then the player can quick reference the card instead of flipping through a book and the DM just asks for the duration of the spell from the caster.

I've got a simple solution for this ... only allow dispel magic to dispel effects up to 3rd level, and only allow greater dispel magic to dispel effects up to 6th level. Create a uber-dispel magic spell to dispel spells up to 9th level, and that will limit the extreme counterspelling with a single 3rd level spell slot ...

I agree, I think this is definitely the way to go on the Dispel Magick issue. The power of a caster's ability to dismantle his foe's defenses is then based on the caster's spell mastery. I'll playtest this concept once I get my group together again; hopefully other people will too.

I don't agree with the change you propose to Favored Enemy, but I do agree with one of your complaints:

Also, it seems somewhat silly that a ranger can get a bonus against a creature "because he is trained in fighting monsters of its type" even if he fails the Knowledge check needed to realize that the monster belongs to the creature type he has selected.

Perhaps to fix this issue, give Rangers a bonus on Knowledge checks to identify creature of their favored enemy type. If he fails the knowledge check, he doesn't get the favored enemy bonus. Seems like a simple enough addendum while remaining backwards compatible.

I also think that a "Wish List" would be a boon for the site. I know there are over a dozen random things that I'd love to get but don't have the money for right now. A wish list would help me keep track of all the goodies that I want. :)