Alex Trebek's Stunt Double's page

Basically the title.

To calculate the number of skill points per level it's the class you take for that level's skill points plus your Wisdom Modifier rather than your Intelligence Modifier. This would be a houserule to apply to new games.

Rationale...

Intelligence is a reflection mostly of academic intellect; knowledge, appraise of objects, knowledge of divine and arcane spells (spellcraft) though Craft is still relatively practical. While the Wisdom Based skills suggests that Wisdom is more practical intelligence, Survival checks, Sense motive. A person who is more Wise is much practial minded, wouldn't he have more skills? Why is a bookworm like a Wizard better at Acrobatics than a Fighter? Because the Wizard has higher Int, so more skill ranks.

Another rationale is almost no one dumps Wisdom. Some let it go low, others can pump it up really high but the Class's allocated Skill Ranks Per Level is far more representative as you don't have things going so wild in terms of Wizards having as many Skill ranks per level as a Rogue.

Problems!

Well Int TRULY becomes a dump stat, if you aren't crafting, you're very safely dumping it. But I'd argue that's already being done anyway, on so many point buys even for Fighters who have only 2 skill points they will very often let Int drop as low as 7 and limp along with 1 skill point per level. Maybe it will go to 8 and on very high point buys, who knows.

This can lead to a situation where the party is all extremely ignorant. For them to reliably succeed DC10 knowledge checks they'd need chronicles to grant the +2 circumstance bonus. Crafting remains deeply unlikely as almost no one will have synergistic ability score to make remotely good headway.

Solutions?
Int based classes like Wizard will still be really powerful, they will find it harder to max out the skill ranks that they really benefit from maxing out like get 5 ranks in fly so they can walk over water with ease with Air Step. They just won't be able to do everything better than anyone else. And with int based PCs around, the ENTIRE party shouldn't be clueless, in fact they may be wise enough to ask the highly intelligent scholar to enlighten them on something they don't naturally know.

http://i.imgur.com/3mzx7l2.jpg

Also many feats still have minimum int requirements. And not even of Int 10 but Int 13. Now Fighter's Stamina Pool variant rules are nice for this as for almost every single combat feat that has a minimum Int prerequisite it says you can take that feat despite not meeting prerequisite int level. But you must have at least one point in your stamina pool or else the feat and feat chain from it collapse. That's all fine and good for Fighters but it's not like they are the only relevant class for that.

And crafting wasn't being used anyway as it took a ridiculous amount of time to be able to craft anything worth having even with high Int scores.

If you pick to play human in Pathfinder with the Dual Talent variant you get and incredibly raw deal. According to Creating New Races guidelines then Dual Talent humans get an RP score equivalent of only RP2. I'm not counting the 1RP from Linguistics trait as it's totally worthless unless you start the game with an int bonus higher than +7. If you don't then standard language quality will have the exact same effect.

This is in contrast to Dwarf which has RP11. Hell, every other class has at least RP9.

I've toyed around with letting players have free reign with Create-a-race rules able to go up to RP10 with human (No advanced nor monster traits) but half couldn't be bothered, the other half just came up with nonsense.

Since human is so popular and then they take Dual Talent usually as well I'd like to give them a bit more while still being in the flavour of being a Human and not particularly like a Dwarf or Elf or any other distinct race. I would really like something that is a good balance between the all the main races so not too much like Orc, but a great role for any direction they may want to go unless they REALLY want to specialize.

Flexible (2 RP)
Because it's the most straightforward option. +2 to any two stats and no -2 to worry about.

Language Quality: Standard (0 RP)
Perfectly fine for every purpose.

Skill Training (1 RP)
Because it's so annoying how some classes will neglect one or two skills that should be class skills for them yet aren't. Like Fighter not having Stealth or Monk not having Heal as a class skill.

Spell Like Ability, Lesser (1 RP)
So many times players take a single level dip just to get a spell or waste round after round trying to get one spell they want. Limit it to 1st level spell but does it need more limits on what spells are allowed? Melee Combatants going for Lead Blades is an obvious one, but isn't that par for the course?

Weapon Familiarity (1RP)
To reflect Humans' varied nature, and to help with player options, they can pick any two weapons to add to their list of weapon proficiencies. I see the need for things like exotic weapon proficiency but a feat is too much to spend to get such proficiency yet a trait is too little. I think this is a healthy balance to cater for everyone who looks over exotic weapons and wishes. Also good for classes who have abysmal weapons proficiency options.

Climb (2 RP) and Swim (2 RP)
Obstacles and water are usually too much, the inherent penalties are so severe players end up treating anything more than waist deep water like lava and any obstacle as insurmountable. Throwing these in allow for plenty of dynamism but nothing a GM cannot control for. It's ADVENTUROUS to try to climb along an average dungeon wall without an atrocious chance of failure, but if there's some walls GM doesn't want them to climb then they can say they are smooth.

I'd also leave the option to give up the last 4 feats to get Flexible Bonus Feat (4 RP) instead.

So that's my Human Homebrew, a little bit of everything. Is this too much? Too good? I wouldn't actually mind it being the obvious choice, people assume every character is human anyway, and when it turns out they aren't I'm rather fed up of the "quirky zany racism lol" that happens every damn time.

The homebrew item I have in mind would be a wondrous or alchemical item, I haven't decided which, but fundamentally you pour multiple potions into the bottle but can drink all the potions together as the same action as drinking a single potion.

This is because some potions naturally go together, like Enlarge Person gives a huge and deep threatened area. But the penalty to dexterity means even with combat reflexes you may be easily overwhelmed with many guys running at you per round. So also in the mix would be Line in The Sand.

Alchemical vs Magical
Both have pros and cons. Magical would obviously be re-usable and its pricing is a bit easier to figure out but then you have the worry of dropping it and remembering to pick it back up. An alchemical item would be easier to include as it's something anyone could craft with enough time and effort and it would be disposable.

Something like an Alchemical item "Double-dose-bottle"

"Pour two potions into this compact squeezable bottle with two chambers that allow you to consume two potions in the same time it would take you to consume one potion to have both spell effects occur simultaneously. This item is destroyed after use. The price does not include the cost of the potions loaded into them."

I'd like to include this as trying to get a dynamic of combatants and casters into a healthy buffing relationship rarely seems to work, especially not going to waste their precious time on low level buffs. Also, I like to drop potions so that no party is too tied to a caster buffing in any particular way.

It doesn't depend on anything except finding potions and deciding how to combine them. Also, as GM, I can introduce novel combinations in a pre-mixed form.

I've been thinking a lot about a crossbow main Fighter build.

Yeah, stop looking at me like I'm crazy for going with a crossbow rather than a Composite Longbow, where's the fun in retreading such well trodden ground? Also I just like the idea of a crossbow.

Why Fighter?

Armour Training. That's the big deal with trying to have a high dex based ranged combatant you keep hitting armour limits which then mean your armour is worthless. I kept trying to make rogue work but you're so dependant on being able to get sneak attacks and I'm jsut fed up of GM's quibbling over the broken stealth and detection rules.

Also the full BAB... very nice.

How can a crossbow compete without a strength bonus to damage?

Basically, dumping Dex can give you such a bonus that you can use deadly aim with the same overall chance to hit and with the same bonus damage.

For example STR 14 DEX 14 is a +2 strength bonus and +2 to your attack roll from dex.

But for nearly the same point-buy cost you can go STR 8 DEX 17 which is a +3 dex bonus to hit and as an odd number you can use the +1 ability score to immediately bump it up again at Level 4 when deadly aim's cost goes from -1 to-hit to -2 to hit. So at level 4 you've basically got the same bonus to hit and bonus the base-damage roll.

Yeah but as you NEED Deadly-aim to be competitive how can you pile on more damage?

You can't, that's what I like about it. The problem with balance comes in how you can keep on piling on bonuses to damage all the time from everywhere and things get way too splatty. This actually allows you probably far more useful flexibility which is to give up damage to increase the chance to hit. It infuriates me no end to just not be able to land hits, I want to be able to be landing hits as often as possible, even if only base weapon damage.

That's what I've found from playing Fighter a lot, too many rounds wasted unable to get into position AND strike and I far more often wanted the opposite of power-attack/deadly aim, I wanted to give up damage for higher hit chance as I was just getting such bad luck or the enemy armour was too damn high.

I avoid the dangers of taking strength damage as a Comp Longbow fighter does. And I'm even more dex focused with decent armour as well so my AC should be quite good. And I can go prone to use my crossbow, something I'd always been terrified to do till in case an enemy ran up to me but STAGGERPROOF BOOTS let you stand up without provoking. Fantastic.

What about feat costs?

They are killer but fighter gets a lot of feats, a very tight build even with the bonus feat from not using Hero Points. Something like:

1st Point Blank Shot, Deadly Aim, Rapid Reload (Light Crossbow)
2nd Rapid Shot (yay, full-attack 4 levels early!)
3rd Weapon Focus (Heavy Crossbow)
4th Crossbow mastery (Re-train Rapid-Reload for heavy Crossbow)
5th Weapon Specialization (feat tax for Point Blank Master)
6th Snap Shot (this is mainly as a defence mechanism to shoot anyone who tries a combat maneuvre on me)
7th Point Blank Master (in for when I get cornered)

8th Bullseye Shot (I did the math, it's worth it)

9th Precise shot (feat tax) Advanced weapon Training =[Burrowing shot]

10th Dodge (feat tax)

11th Improved Precise shot (What else?)

12th Mobility (death and feat taxes)

13th Shot on the Run (finally, what I want!) Advanced Weapon Training = Armed Bravery (huge Will Save bonus)

14th Parting Shot (I guess)

15th (no idea what feat to get here)

16th Pinpoint Targeting (aww yeah, for when you HAVE to hit)

Lv17 Feat (I dunno) AWT=[Versatile Training]

Anyone else have any ideas on this?

Like is it worth it doing all that for shot on the run is there another way to get moving and shooting other than all those feat taxes?

This is also hugely predicated on me getting some way to use Gravity Bow with reasonable reliability and without huge cost.

My main problem is that Stealth is not a fighter skill and I don't particularly want to burn a trait just on getting it yet most archetypes change too much.

I've been a PC in The Curse of the Crimson Throne, one of 6 PCs and my "party" is full of such lone wolfs.

The campaign does a good job of bringing all the PCs together, but they just refuse to do basic party introduction things. NO ONE will tell anyone their names! Or each other their names, even though the GM is referring to them by their character names. I've repeatedly and respectfully asked how I should refer to them but they won't because "My character just isn't the sort to be so friendly".

Apparently giving their name requires an inalienable bond.

As they arrived one-by-one for the first meeting point I introduced myself "Hi, I'm John Smith..." and then of course they laughed like hyenas because I was repeating myself to the group chat with "hurr, Matt Damon" jokes even though in-character each was only hearing my introduction once.

When I refer to them by their character names they break character to say "You don't know what my character is called"

When I refer to them by their real person names they say "keep it role play"

When I refer to them by how they appear or act (non pejoratively like "cloaked fighter") they object to that characterisation, either out of character or directly threatening my character under pretext of "my character would be quick to anger over things like that".

Every time I tried to raise it gently with "I didn't catch your name?" they'd be reply snidely with words to effect of "that's because I didn't give my name". They are brooding in corners, constantly using stealth to hide from the rest of the group even though it's VERY well established we have a common cause. Refuse to share even the basics of their back story. It got weird like when we met the big bad one would cry out "What did you do with my sister!" a complete surprise.

Even though I'd asked earlier what beef that character had with the big bad. This was even after we'd committed to raid his headquarters. We've been through two combats and STILL they won't even tell me their names or any title to refer to them by, I've given then Message spell to communicate over distance, I've given them buffs, I've backed them up and haven't taken anything they claimed.

Still "my character isn't going to be so open with complete strangers" I SAVED YOUR LIFE!

We have a new GM who doesn't know what to do here and mostly wants to be hands off.

How do I get the PC's in my party to open up?

Here is the puzzle as it would be presented, if you feel like you may try to solve it and/or your opinion on how hard you think it is, whether this is too much of a challenge to give to people trying to role-play to solve.

Party is following antagonists along a jungle trail.

Opens up to a clearing where the trail ends a there is nothing there but an inactive Teleportation Circle (Permanency).

Careful searches find no one hiding nearby in the bushes, only a parrot that squawks at them. It periodically makes a similar squawk of "Caw - CawCaw - Caw"

Examination of the teleportation circle reveals a row of 10 stones numbered 0 to 9. Moss is growing on all of the stones but much less moss is growing on three of the stones, numbers 3, 0 and 7

Pressing any of the stones causes the number to appear in the teleportation circle and the parrot caws in response. They can press the same stone to make the same number appear. If they keep entering wrong combinations the ground shakes and on every 3rd incorrect try monsters are summoned to attack everyone nearby.

So, is it reasonable a group of ordinary players can figure out the combination in a reasonable amount of tries?

Can you solve it? http://i.imgur.com/gjJikyF.jpg

The point of this puzzle is that it isn't an arbitrary brain-teaser that baffles those the villain wants to have access as much as those who they want to keep out. You know the sort, "solve this rubiks cube to open the bank vault" sort of puzzle.

This is a reasonably realistic security measure but let down by poor user errors and a bit of luck so that it's a puzzle someone could reasonably solve by using some basic lateral thinking.

Here's my idea for guns in a campaign starting almost completely from scratch. Forget everything PF said about guns before, here is my take:

(1) Guns are classed as Simple Weapons, not exotic.
(2) Guns resolve against Full-AC, not touch
(3) Rolling a natural 1 just means a dud, no weapon damage
(4) They are extremely slow to reload and no way to speed up the reload
(5) They are too expensive to carry multiple
(6) No cone or line of effect weapons, single target per shot
(7) Buckshot works by having damage drop off rather than range increment
(8) High damage with 4d6 for a musket, 2d6 for a pistol
(9) Double Barrel allows second shot before a reload
(10) Multi-chamber weapons only at ultra high level (Lv 13-20)

Only issues remaining:
-Price: how expensive should these be. They shouldn't be so cheap that with quickdraw you can be whooping them out, shooting then dropping them on a whim.
-Precisely how long a reload: I'd like to say, long enough that they'd never seriously consider trying it in combat but not a complete chore out of combat. Maybe a skill check to reflect how despite being easy to use, the complexity is in reloading. DC10 so Unseen Servant can do something?
-Crit multiplier: I know this should be good, but should it be x4 or the more unusual 19-20/x3? Should it be different based on whether the weapon is rifled or smoothbore?
-Range increment: toughest one. On one hand, muskets are inaccurate from not only barrel dynamics but recoil and blast, on the other hand compared to lower velocity projectiles the trajectory is flat with short flight time.

I want to reflect how firearms were when they were first introduced, an oddity that could really mix up the opening stages of combat but the meat and potatoes of combat was still cold steel.