Alratan's page

Funny thing. I was rereading The Hobbit, and it occurred to me that I didn't need to know about the economics of the Shire to enjoy the story...

The reader of a story doesn't need to know these things - but the writer should have a good idea, otherwise it breaks immersion and it's difficult for the reader to suspend disbelief. If the writer didn't put much thought into it and had, say, blacksmiths in the shire producing a longsword every minute, it would be a problem. That's why I find it useful to have guidelines for this, as it allows me as a DM to have vague benchmarks in my head. It's all well and good saying that you don't need to know how long action X takes, but if you arbitrarily assign action X an unreasonably long or short amount of time (or skill, or cost, or whatever), then anyone who comes along and knows it's unreasonable will find it jarring.

Secondly, this is a false analogy as the DM is not (just) a story writer. The DM has to interact with players and give answers to questions asked to NPCs like, "How long will X take you?" See above for why it's useful to have a system for that. If a character in a story asks another character how long it will take something to make, I wouldn't be surprised if the author looks up how long it would take in reality, so as to keep things consistent. This is no different.

The crafting rules don't exist to allow the DM to 'quickly gage (sic) the life and times' of NPCs. They exist to allow PCs another option.

The implication I take from this is that you see the Craft rules as PC only. I think it's fair for both PCs and DM to assume that NPCs follow similar rules for crafting as PCs, don't you?

You, the GM, exist to determine the status of NPCs. Crafting rules don't take into account the effects of war or famine...

So because some things have to be determined by the DM based on contextual variables, we shouldn't even bother? A similar argument could be made for scrapping skill checks entirely as, hey, what happens if the wall is slippery when climbing?

The current craft/profession rules aren't perfect, but they give the GM a basis for how long an item takes to create.

Then why not try to improve them?

You, as the GM, don't need to know that the blacksmith make 12gp 8sp 6cp last year.

I completely agree that this degree of precision isn't necessary, but it is helpful to know if they can tally their income in terms of sp or gp. The points mentioned by Derek Blake that the Profession and Craft skills seem to be out of line in terms of money, and also that Craft seems odd in terms of time are worth fixing, if possible.

It doesn't help your game to know that information. It doesn't help your players immerse themselves in the world, because they don't know that information, nor will they have any reasonable means of getting that information.

Irrelevant. Player's don't have immediate access to a great deal of information in a campaign or setting, but that information can inform quite a few other things about the world - such as how long it will take the blacksmith to make them that suit of full-plate.

The main thrusts of your argument seems to be that you don't care about any flaws in the Craft system, and that all improvements to realism are necessarily bad. I don't agree with the latter, and the former seems irrelevant to whether other people might benefit from what they see as an improved Craft system.

Yes, I can handwave all times to be more suitable, as you suggest Doug, but that's coming perilously close to the Rule 0 Fallacy. It also doesn't help me construct a simulation; it doesn't let me know how long it takes different crafters to make their goods, how rare those goods should be based on the time investment, how wealthy they probably should be, etc. If the crafting rules aren't suitable for allowing me to (relatively) quickly gage the life and times of various NPCs and the equipment they create, then they're not a good system for a rule set which prides itself in lots of areas as being able to simulate a fantasy world. I'd like to have a craft system that has reasonable internal consistency (which my ad hoc arbitrations may start lacking when I make enough of them) and with real world crafting times, for verisimilitude.

At the moment, half of the dice unmodified from the monk table + 0.5*Wis (or Str bonus, if high enough), so a level 7 with 18 Wis would add 1d4+2 damage to combat manoeuvres. I'm using few splatbooks, a low magic world and the PCs are currently low level, so no Amulet of Might Fists (yet) and no feats which modify base damage are available. It doesn't add much damage and might well require revision at higher levels, but at low levels it's working out quite well as an incentive to focus on manoeuvres, especially on grapples which already do damage.

(Somewhat embarrassingly, I'm actually the brother of person you're referring to, and we both maintain that each other stole the online nickname we use from the other one.)

In my games, we allow monks to use their Wis bonus for attack/damage bonuses when using anything they can flurry with (so unarmed strike and monk weapons), add one-half of their unarmed strike damage to all combat manoeuvres and make a FoB as a standard action for 1 ki point. This seems to fix the manoeuvrability, MAD and emphasises the combat manoeuvre niche over the pure damage route.

Not wishing to seem neagtive but Pathfinder needs Psions like a fish needs a bicycle. I'm happy to be rid on them in my fantasy world. If Paizo does a Sci-Fi Pathfinder than I'm all for them.

seeker is absolutely correct about the eastern/mystic theme. Monks, for instance, work really well if psionics are deliberately mentioned in their SLAs. The whole point of that kind of flavour is mind-over-matter without ritual or divine aid, and psionics captures that aspect of eastern flavour really well.

Another, completely unrelated, area it does quite well in is the githzerai and illithids. It captures the flavour of Limbo-manipulation of the githzerai incredibly well, and also the weirdness of the illithids. Illithids are deliberately alien creatures with vast intellects, and part of the manifestation of that intellect is that they can use their pure mental force rather than having to rely on clumsy ritual or worship of other beings. The psionics might even add to the alien nature of them in a setting where psionics is rare.

How are spells memorised? Can a wizard memorise X spells per day and only cast from that choice, or can they cast any spell that they know without any form of prior preparation (thus rendering sorcerers completely obsolete)?

Regardless of which it is, this does make spellcasters vastly more powerful than non-spellcasters, and if there are one or two casters in your party then all players are verging on being forced to play spellcasters to remain viable.

In keeping with Selk and moon glum, I'd say that a modern philosopher in D&D is much less a person with ranks in Profession (philosophy), as someone with a variety different skills and ranks in Profession (teacher/orator/lecturer). Ranks in various Knowledge sub-skills, mainly things like Arcane, the Planes and Religion, but depending on their special field any other Knowledge field is open. In addition, skills in Perform (oratory) and Diplomacy might be handy.

If we're talking more classical (Greek) philosophers or sophists, then more ranks in Perform and the like in exchange for bits of Knowledge would be more appropriate.

While translating the spell-less Paladin variant from Unearthed Arcana to Pathfinder, I decided to make some Paladin variants based off other alignments. I've never been terribly fond of the single alignment class, but fortunately the Pathfinder Paladin has abilities that are quite easy to swap for other alignments. In case any of you are interested, here goes:

Alignment Variants
Standard Paladins may no longer apply the axiomatic ability to weapons under Divine Bond. Paladins may now apply the vicious ability to weapons under Divine Bond.

The standard Paladin may be any-Good, and aside from the above note functions in an identical manner to the standard Pathfinder Paladin. As Paladins are not tied to an ethical alignment, Paladins need not adhere to a code of conduct regarding authority and lying, but a player of a LG Paladin may still choose to adhere to such restrictions.

Paladins may also choose to be any-Evil, in which case all references to Good or holy in any spell or ability descriptors should be replaced with Evil or unholy, references to evil in abilities should be replaced with good, and other appropriate abilities should be replaced. Thus, detect evil becomes detect good, Divine Bond may now add unholy instead of holy to weapons and the mount's celestial template should be replaced with fiendish. Other conversions should be relatively straightforward and obvious.

Paladins may also be any-Lawful or any-Chaotic. For Lawful Paladins, all normal descriptors of good should be replaced with law/lawful, holy with axiomatic, evil with chaotic, etc. and the opposite for Chaotic Paladins. The slight complication occurs for mounts as no axiomatic or anarchic template exists in the rules, and the one listed in other D&D supplements are more powerful.

Fortunately, fiendish and celestial are remarkably similar to each other except for flavour, so we can simply steal from them and use them as lesser anarchic and lesser axiomatic templates. Both templates grant darkvision 60 ft., smite opposing ethical alignment, DR 5/opposing ethical alignment and SR equal to new CR +5. Lesser anarchic creatures gain no energy resistances but gain fast healing 1. Lesser axiomatic creatures gain energy resistances to cold, electricity and sonic.

Some suggestions for appropriate action restrictions (other than leaving the alignment) are:

Good: Must help those in need, must not commit evil acts, must punish those who do evil, and should not associate with evil characters.

Evil: Must not do honestly selfless or good acts. Such acts are those which are not only apparently good acts, but those intended to have good outcomes and not mere stepping stones towards an evil goal. An Evil Paladin must be careful not to do genuinely good acts, or he may risk losing his status.

Law: Must respect legitimate authority, must not perform acts which promote lawlessness or seek to bring down a legitimate authority, must not engage in falsehoods, as well as deep adherence to any other specific codes or religious requirements (such as never raising an arm against your lord even in self-defence). Such specific codes may vary per Paladin depending on her training.

Chaos: Must not support or perform actions which might support rigid hierarchies, rules and authorities, must encourage freedom, autonomy and independence.

Note 1: Regarding the any-Good allowance, no mention of Law is mentioned in *any* Paladin ability, and only really appears in a brief blurb in the code of conduct. Given that, it seems that the only thing sticking the Paladin to LG is tradition. You may wish to call non-Good Paladins something else, such as Blackguards for Evil Paladins, Crusaders of Freedom for Chaotic Paladins and Justicars for Lawful Paladins.

Note 4: I'm somewhat dubious in allowing a Paladin to embody two alignments at once. I'll give a brief outline on how you may do it at the end, but I don't really support doing it.

Negative Energy Variants
Paladins may choose to channel Negative Energy rather than Positive Energy. Negative Energy Paladins channel Negative Energy at level 4, instead of Positive Energy. Their Lay On Hands heals 1d6 points of damage only on Undead, and it can be used as a melee touch attack against living creatures (or Deathless) dealing 1d6 points of damage, in the same way as a standard Paladin may do so against Undead.

The Mercies gained at level 3 onwards are Cruelties for a Negative channelling Paladin, and inflict the intended effect against a living target instead of curing it.

The Diseased effect replicates the effect of the contagion spell and and the Poisoned effect replicates the effect of the poison spell. All other cruelties last for one hour unless otherwise cured. The target receives a Fort save to negate against a DC equal to (Paladin’s level + Cha modifier + half the level required to select the Cruelty used) unless otherwise noted. Negative Energy Paladins may take the Extra Cruelty feat, which functions like the Extra Mercy feat, but for Cruelties.

Note: The Negative Energy variant is easily combined with the above variants, such that all manner of combinations are possible for Paladins. A Paladin (Evil, Negative) represents your standard D&D Blackguard, a Paladin (Good, Positive) represents your standard D&D Paladin, and lovely combinations like Paladin (Law, Negative) could represent someone in charge of smiting lawbreakers, such as Vhailor.

Spell lists for both variants might need some revision, but as I originally made this for a spell-less version I haven't put much work into it. On the face of it, though, a standard alignment replacement should work, with smite evil becoming hammer of justice for a Paladin (Law), and cure spells becoming inflict for a Paladin (Negative), for instance. The only change for standard Paladins is that under this, normal Paladins would only gain protection from evil, and not protection from evil/chaos, along with similar modifications to account for no longer having access to anti-Chaos/pro-Law abilities. Other changes are always plausible as well, such as darkness instead of daylight for a Paladin (Negative), and so forth.

Double-alignment Variant
Finally, the double-alignment variant. I don't really recommend it as it still seems a bit powerful, and also violates the standard DR progression. Not violating the DR progression makes the Paladin very powerful though, as they would either have two DRs that must be defeated , or worse, one DR which is much harder to defeat at a higher value than below.

Paladins may also choose to embody two alignments rather than one (e.g. Law and Good rather than just Law as a Lawful Good Paladin), in which case they can use Detection and Smite powers against the two opposing alignments, and gain DR 3/ethical alignment and moral alignment at level 17, with DR 6/ethical alignment and moral alignment at level 20 (so a level 20 Paladin (Law, Good) would have DR 6/chaotic evil). A Paladin embodying two alignments may use both appropriate Smite abilities, but the total is shared by the two Smite abilities, so a level 10 Paladin (Law, Good) could use Smite Evil and Smite Chaos a total of 4 times a day split between them. Additionally, they may only use detect [Alignment] once per turn for each of their alignments, so a Paladin (Law, Good) may use detect chaos and detect evil each once per turn. A double-alignment paladin who chooses a mount may choose either of her alignment's templates to apply, but may only apply one.