Andy Griffin's page

So I said I'd post a follow up so...

The bombs weren't the problem I thought they would be. It's amazing how you can stress about something, and then have it not be a big deal.

The formula list hasn't been that bad, but have had to tweak it, more for feel than for balance issues.

Player never seemed to want to take feral mutagen, as I was concerned about that one as well.

Even an alchemist can't craft poisons great, it's expensive and the DC's aren't that great. I think some of the bard trade secrets would make good poisoning discoveries. There is one that increases DC of poisons crafted, and another that decreases cost, they might not work in other settings, but I think they are appropriate for DS.

Anyway I think it has worked out fine, if anybody else was thinking about allowing this, I would say to go for it.

I don't think that giving everybody dual path is a solution. Everybody will benefit from it, some MAD classes may benefit more, but I don't think it's enough to make a difference. Giving out dual path for free would just generally up the amount of mythic power uses available.

Giving ability score increases across the board is an interesting idea, but may go too far the other direction. +1 to every ability score would be a dream for a monk or a melee alchemist, both of whom get considerable benefit from each attribute. Still a rule that you can't use all of your mythic ability score increases in a single stat seems like it would help here, at least keep the save DC's from being pumped so high that it's a "sure thing"

I think the problem is inherent to tying mythic power to ability scores, unless you use them all. It's defiantly a defining feature of d20 to add ability score bonuses to things, and I'm not sure if it is a good idea to deviate from that tradition. Perhaps the devs will come up with something clever here.

Perhaps just leaving things as they are and capping the mythic ability bonuses on any single stat is enough (perhaps at +4). This does have the unfortunate side effect of making dual path even more attractive.

By the time the wizard has a 22 int, you should have at least 18/18 in your primary stats. Smaller upgrades to multiple stats use less wealth than maximizing a single stat.

For example, I can get +2 str & +2 wis for 8,000. The wizard has to pay 16,000 for +4 int.

As for the save DC's, a caster focusing on a sigle stat may have higer DC's, but he also has lower saves. The MAD character is going to be more likely to have stat bonuses to all saves. The trade-off is glass cannon vs durability.

Nothing stops a SAD character from taking dual path, an elf wizard may well have a 14 dex, with a +2 magic item he could pick up another 3 mythic power uses with the feat. (Dual Path seems like a pretty good feet for just about anybody once you take magic items into account.)

The thing about the save math is that the DC's go up faster than save, since all of a classes DC's tend to be based off a single stat, while there are 3 saves each based off a different stat. Also a SAC character might be boosting one of his saves with his stat increases as well.

Creating characters to play-test the mythic rules with I noticed the following:

Take a level 1 wizard eith a bit of optimisation it's entirely possible for them to have an 18 or 20 in their casting stat. Now take say a monk who may only be able to get a 16 in their highest stat, needing a decent score in multiple stats. This translates into an immediate two extra mythic power uses for the wizard over the monk.

Things tend to get worse as levels go on, with the wizard putting all his increases into his one good stat, while the monk might put most of them into one stat, he may need/want to put a few into other scores, especially if he ended up with a few odd number at character creation.

This isn't a wizard/monk thing, those are just the two builds that I had in front of me when I noticed this, basically the more stats your build depends on, the few mythic power uses you will have.

Also, save DC's will increase with mythic tier (due to attribute increases) much faster than save's will, since most classes derive their save DC's from a single stat while each save keys off a different stat. This essentially allows single attribute classes to pump their DC's even higher.

Since multi attribute classes are already often said to be at a disadvantage, I'm concerned about a rich get richer effect.

So I have basically decided to run the class mostly as written mechanically and see where it goes. I will adjust things if it becomes necessary.

I'm going to treat both the discovery and spell/formula lists as suggestions. There are some things on both lists that I just can't see allowing in the setting, and some spells that I would be perfectly happy to allow. I think I will allow some of the bard trade secrets as discoveries.

I am still nervous about the bombs, but I'll deal with it if it comes up. I don't think it will even out over time on it's own, as the PC's get better equipment.

If there's interest I will post a follow-up with how it goes.

Other classes get altered to fit in the setting. No reason why the alchemist should not be changed to better fit. Maybe Alchemist bombs can cause their own form of desecration to the fragile landscape.

I like this, it really pulls the alchemist into the setting better. Maybe they could damage the environment when their bombs go off in the splash radius of the bomb.

I don't think it addresses the mechanical problem though. The alchemist may simply decide he doesn't care about the negative effects of his bombs on the land and use them liberally. After all that's what defilers do.

Also would there be a preserver option for the alchemist? That either doesn't use bombs or has some ability to reduce or eliminate the negative effects on nature. Perhaps a discovery.

So I have finally gotten around to running a DS game, something I've been talking about for a long time. I am using the athas.org 3.5 with conversions to pathfinder. Also I am using the Psionics Unleashed rules for the psionics stuff.

One of my players has asked to play an alchemist, and I am a bit unsure how to respond. There is no history of the class being available on Athas, but it is also a new class created by Paizo, so it never existed when the DS material was written. Athas' bards are masters of alchemical goods and poisons, and potions exist, so there seems no reason why an alchemist would be out of place in the setting.

I also don't really see a problem with the use of alchemist to avoid the stigma of arcane casting. Since alchemists must be literate (which is and of itself a crime) carry a formula book (which looks much too much like a spell book to an execute first and ask questions templar) and carrying around contraband items (like poisons) should be enough to keep the alchemist in trouble with the authorities. Other NPC's could regard the alchemist similarly to a bard.

My main concerns are mechanical, and how an alchemist would interact in a low magic, low gold game. Bombs are a powerful weapon available early. I don't know how I feel about the alchemist tossing bombs around when other characters don't even have metal weapons. Feral mutagen also seems like it could be a problem. The natural attacks are good in normal games, they look even better when compared with the weapons available to low level DS characters. I think I would forbid that discovery, or give it a level requirement. The extracts seem like they wouldn't be a huge problem.

I'm leaning towards allowing it, partially out of curiosity to see how it works out. But I'm wondering what other people think. Would you allow it? If so what modifications if any would you give the class?

I hate the Two Weapon Fighting rules!

Take a tone of feats, and still do less damage than someone using a two-handed weapon, which takes zero feats to use. TWF is basically take a bunch of feats, be less effective.

Other than that it's mostly other ineffective things, like exotic weapons which not being worth a feat etc...

Personally, I think you should give at least some thought to melee alchemists. A well built melee alchemist is a decent front-line combatant (at least when buffed by mutagen/extracts) and almost as good a bomber as the bomb focuesed ones...
That aside my thoughts on your discovery ranking from the point of view of a bomb focused alchemist....

Cognatogen: This can be better than Dex mutagen for bombers, especially at high level. If you want it however, it makes sense to just go mindchemist, perfect recall is probably better than poison use for a bomber anyway.

Enhance Potion: Does this work with alchemical allocation? If so that MAY make it better if your using alchemical allocation a lot with potions that aren't on your list. Of course if another party spell caster can provide you with high level potions you certainly won't need this.

Extend Potion: I don't know if this is green. It's not super useful unless it works with alchemical allocation. It's a mediocre prerequisite to an awesome discovery. Also it's better for a melee build than for a bomber.

Feral Mutagen: Feral mutagen is awesome, but not for a bomber I guess.

Frost Bomb: I think this is green. Of the three elemental bombs (Frost, Acid and Shock) this has the best de-buff. Not many things are immune to cold AND fire, and for those you have force bomb. I think it only makes sence to get one of the three, and frost is a decent choice.

Mutagen: It makes zero sence to take this, you can only have 1 mutagen or cognatogen at a time, if you traded your mutagen at first level, stick with what you've got.

Shock Bomb: This is the weakest of the elemental bombs I think.

Smoke Bomb: Good but not great, again opens the door to the really good stink bomb.

Spontaneous Healing: Is this really green? It's not that much healing.

Strafe Bomb: Again is this really green? probably good in corridors but not as useful in the open.

Tanglefoot Bomb: This might be blue.

Immolation Bomb: This could be useful against spell casters, force lots of concentration checks. But it's still probbably red.

Stink Bomb: Possibly the best bomb available.

Bottled Ooze: This isn't that good, remember the ooze must have cr equal to your extract level, which is a very slow progression.

Concussive Bomb: If you have two elemental bombs, I think you can wait for force bomb, gets around DR and deals with incorporeal and can knock them over on a failed save. You don't need this AND Force Bomb, and force bomb is better.

Blinding Bomb: I think this is probbably orange, it's situational, but good in an undead heavy or under-dark campaign.

Combine Extracts: Better for a melee build than a bomber, but still good, basically quicken but better.

Confusion Bomb: Sane DM's will give a will save, It'd still be good.

Sunlight Bomb: If the creatures it effects come up a lot (undead heavy campaign, underdark etc...) it's gold, otherwise it's useless.

Greater Cognatogen: This is where the Cognatogen runs into trouble, you beef up your int even further, and that's nice but you rather have to eat a dex penalty for a will bonus (-ref and AC for + will could be ok, especially if you ware armour) or trade con for cha which doesn't sound good to me.

Greater Mutagen: If your a bomber your boosting Dex, now you can also boost Con which damages your Cha which you don't care about. This could be useful, but not a must have.

Poison Bomb: I might give this green, by the time you get it most of the kill is gone from cloudkill, it's good but not great, but probably something to pick up for a dedicated bomber.

Eternal Potion: I still give it blue, eternal haste, eternal good hope...

Diego Rossi wrote:

Thinking again about all the thread with a cool mind, probably most of the dislike for the effect on the druid is that the "common" effects of the spell can be achieved trough guile or trickery.

I.e.:
- you can get a person to wear a necklace of strangulation without the need of a spell, it is a piece of jewellery after all;
- you can get a person to drink a spiked or poisoned beer, apparently it is beer;
and so on. With that use the spell make feasible on PC and easier against all characters what can be normally done to NPC with a bluff or diplomacy check.

But, in this scenario we have some giving an item that is evidently harming for the guy that receive it and the target can't do anything if he fail the ST.

Let's change the scenario:
- the bard offer a vial of smoking vitriolic acid. Even someone without any knowledge in alchemy would realize immediately that it is a harmful substance but he is compelled to drink it the same.;
- the bard offer a pot with molten lead. It is a liquid, the target is forced to drink it ....

That seem broken and overpowered. RAW it work, RAI the spell seem to be meant as an enhanced for of trickery, not as an instant death spell.

So at least for me, what seem overpowered is that offering something clearly harmful has the same difficulty as offering something cleverly disguised.

Yes; that's the big problem.

We're not talking about 'Come here, dearie, have this nice juicy apple (with a sleeping hex in it).', or 'How'd you like a tall jug of cold beer (with poison in it)?'.

It's 'Here, grab this glowing uranium rod, and stick it up your fundament.', or 'Try our new mouthwash, Toxic Waste flavor!'.

There should be a re-roll, or a save bonus, or just flat-out fail, for items that are so blatantly deadly or debilitating.
Especially when the effect is compared to higher level spells.

The spell causes the target to take and use the item, not hurt itself with the item. From the spell "...consumes or dons the item as appropriate for the item in question". It then lists several examples, each one is something that a character would normally do with the item in question, eating an apple, wielding a weapon etc... Some items may be harmful when held (though such items would also pose a potential threat to the caster), and some might be harmful when used (a potion of inflict wounds, a poisoned apple, a cursed item) but all of these are a trick.

Jiggy wrote:

LazarX wrote:

For Beguiling Gift to work the gift offered has to be appealing at some level by it's natue. So yes using Beguiling Gift to offer a poisoned apple is viable because most people like apples. It would not have worked that well if the Evil Queen had offered Beauty a severed head instead. Similarly to a Druid a metal shield is not something innate appealing but appalling. At the very least to pull it off the shield would have to be disguiesed as a wooden or hide shield.

And this is based on...?

The obvious inspirations for the spell. and that it's called Beguiling Gift, and not Shove Any Gift into Unseeing Hands?

The spell doesn't give any indication of this. The druid takes the item and uses it a is appropriate, by equipping it, he incurs a penalty as a result of using the item. The whole point of the spell is that it makes an otherwise unappealing item appealing. The evil queen didn't use a severed head, because she wanted snow white to eat the poison, and people don't usually eat severed heads.

The only thing unclear about the spell is what happens when an item is offered that has no clear use (such as a severed head). I think it's reasonable to say that the target accepts the item, and then simply holds onto it for a round.

To me I don't see any reason not to allow this, sure it's a great trick but it's the sort of thing that would in practice be very hard to pull off, in order to do this to the druid the bard would have to:
1) Know that druids are forbidden from wearing metal: I would require a dc 10 knowledge religion or nature check to know this, not a big hurdle for a bark but things get tougher.
2) Get next to the druid: If a druid is spell focused, he won't be hanging out on the front lines waiting for your bard to walk up to him. If he's combat focused, being next to him might not be a place you want to be, especially if your spell failed. A wild shaping druid has lots of mobility options available to him as well.
3) The druid must fail his save: Will is a strong save for druids, they have good will progression and high wisdom. They laugh at your measly level 1 spell.
4) The druid must be able to use your shield: If the druid is wild shaped into a form that can't hold or use the shield the spell fails.

Finally even if you succeed there are still ways it could backfire:
For starters you just handed one of your major defensive items to an opponent who is probably at least your equal in close combat.
Moreover the druid, realizing he is screwed may decide to flee into the woods, taking your shiny shield with him.

I'd say that the difficulties and downsides balance it out quite nicely.

You probably want to spend most of your discoveries on improving your bombs. Get infusion as soon as you can, most of your spells are buffs that don't lend themselves to a ranged character. Get stink bomb and poison bomb as soon as you can. Precise bombs let you bomb into mlee (combined with precise shot is better). You NEED fast bombs. Many other good discoveries.

Far shot, Rapid Shot and improved precise shot are all good feats for bombs (some will be good for your crossbow as well) you will need to get the prerequisites for all of them to get focused shot.

Iron will and it's improved version will shore up your weak will save. Toughness is good for extra hp. Extra discovery is great, many discoveries are better than feats. Also you will probably want extra bombs. Running out of bombs will be a real problem in mid to high levels.

If your using traits accelerated drinker is great. Even if you can't use it on your extracts, you will likely be a big potion user.

Skip the poison stuff, Sticky poison won't give you anything for ranged combat and there are better discoveries for you than concentrate poison. Poisson is better for melee characters.

Check out ogre's guide especially the strange lob section:

So my question is that is what he did an evil act in killing the wyverns while they are asleep.

As noted several times, not a good word is said about wyverns in their decryption, they are portrayed as both brutal and dangerous, almost certain to attack the party should they be woken up, and not likely to be convinced to a peaceful agreement. Killing a dangerous animal could hardly be considered evil.

At the very least the action is cowardly, as paladins' should not attack sleeping foes.

Cowardly or pragmatic? The paladin got the drop on the wyverns and took advantage, I don't think that is cowardly.

I'm going to go ahead and ask how you think the paladin SHOULD have handled it. Should he have tried to sneak past the wyverns? Wouldn't that have been cowardice also? Should he have ignored them? A paladin's code requires him to punish those who threaten or harm the innocent. It could be argued that the wyverns did both, would it then not be breaking his code to ignore them?

Just a couple things to think about.

This a is truly well optimized Eidolon, close to cheesy in fact ... the druid only really has to say "I pick the tiger" to get an optimized animal companion.

Actually I thought his Eidolon was rather tame, he specifically avoided the worst cheese available.

I'm going to suggest a gnome oracle of lore.

Stats:
Str 8 (10 - 2)
Dex 10
Con 13 (11 + 2)
Int 10
Wis 10
Cha 16 (14 + 2)

Those stats arn't awful for any cha caster, but if you take Sidestep secret at level 1 you can use your cha for AC and reflex saves.

Pickup toughness as your first level feat, a single ability score advancement to con would get you up to 14 shoring up your hp and helpin with your fortitude save.

Pickup great fortitude.

At 7th level get the mental acuity revelation, you'll slowly build up a decent intelligence.

Squabbling Brothers? Old friends that haven't really seen each other since being accepted into their version of magic school.

I second this idea. Two brothers/old friends with opposed ideas who haven't seen each other for a long time forced to work together to oppose some evil.

This situation actually came up in a game recently. The DM ruled we had 1 round to save him. (Cleric got him with a Stabilize spell, but he later got coup de graced anyway)

I do think it's a cheesy way to die, but I wouldn't want to see radical changes to how the class works to fix it. I felt like our DM handled it well.

Some good points here, thanks.

Secondly, I thought I might be pushing it on the class's overall power if they could build to get 9th level Druid spells but... maybe I was being a bit harsh. Anyone have any prereq suggestions for making the class available at Bard 3/Druid 3? (I'd propose something myself, but I'm at school and don't have my book with me).

If you require the class ability Well Versed, that would force Bard 2/Druid 3, You could then perhaps use a skill requirement to make sure you couldn't enter before level 6 or 7. Without getting cheesy like requiring inspire courage +2 I don't think you can require Bard 3/Druid 3, but maybe somebody else has a sharper eye than I do and can spot something.

While you made the class a lot easier to get into, it isn't as powerful as it use to be, and I think it's lost some of what made it one of the most interesting PRC's in all the 3.5 material.

Also, since you advance both bard and druid abilities, instead of just bard abilities, and since druid casting is better than bard, it makes seance to max out your druid levels, in the original FL, most people maxed out their druid levels, and they only got bard abilities. Just something to consider

Also a few purely mechanical thoughts:

Also, the only entry to the class that makes sense is bard 4/druid 3. This entry will never reach 9th level spells. Spell casting wise, the mystic theruge is much better, you can get 9th level spells with one of your classes, and the other will have better spell casting that bard. You get some other neat abilities, but I think this class is weaker than the MT, which is generally considered worse than single classing. Perhaps 1st level arcane casting, 2nd level divine, this would allow you to max out either of the two casting types (9th level druid and 4th level bard or 6th level bard and 7th level druid), but not both.

Did you leave out Bardic Knowledge on purpose?

A ranger who spent a skill point on speak language(sylvan) could enter this class. Is that intentional? If so do they gain nature bond from this class or does it only advance it if you already have it? If not, I would consider adding nature bond as prerequisites. This would be better than the original requirement speak language(druidic) as there were ways to cheese that.

Wild empathy can only be used to improve an animals attitude, not communicate useful information. Consider allowing members of this class to also communicate with animals, magic beasts etc...

Finally I don't think it would be overpowered to add some sort of capstone ability. The MT has one, I don't think your class is any more powerful.

All in all I think the class is under powered. It's more restrictive than the Mystic Theruge, which is generally considered an underpowered class. Without gaining any great abilities that make up for it. Even if you make the assumption Bardic Casting + Bardic Music = Full Casting (and I would argue it doesn't) the fact that you can't get 9th level spells with this class makes it worse than the mystic theruge.

2. Lumping large numbers of attacks in a round into a single attack with super high to hit and damage mods. Watching a lvl 17 dual wielding ranger, hasted, make his ungodly number of attacks, some on a favored enemy and some not (so the bonus' had to figured differently) is beyond painful. Its torture for the player, the DM, and the rest of the gaming group.

4. Use averages for dice rolls involving large numbers of dice. Nobody that I know really enjoys rolling 20d6 and adding it all together. Provide a guideline that says 'large numbers of d6s result in a 4 on each die.' Use the same idea for the other dice types, of course. Its not mathematically true (a range from 1-6 should result, over a large sampling of an average of 3.5 but who wants to multiply that?) but its fast and convenient and balanced if the bad guys are playing by the same rules as the good guys.

A good computer die roller can solve both of these problems. Many people find that computer die rollers ruin the game, but I find that it keeps the game moving, and reduces the focus on mechanics. I have often thought it would be nice to have a small box that could sit on a game table and produce randome die results. I wounder if there is a market for such a thing.

Another trick for big rolls (i.e. 20d6) is to roll 1/2 or 1/4 the number of dice and multiply the results by 2 or 4. Easy math to do in your head and gives pretty close results to rolling the full 20 dice. (Way more fun than fixed results, and I think better than the xd6 + Y approximation) If you have a fist full of dice this can be resolved in 1 roll.

I only have one problem with the bonded item, and that is how it scales with level. A first level wizard with 16 int (for the sake of argument) without his bonded item to cast a 1st level spell must roll a 17 or better to cast successfully. A 20th level wizard with an an int of 20 in order to cast a 9th level spell would have to roll only a 4.

Picking good FE's is important to playing a ranger, even more in Pathfinder than in 3.5 because some of his abilities quarry and master hunter, are tied to FE's.

Many people choose monkish monsters, or monsters that only show up sometimes and then complain that FE stinks. If you choose wisely then you'll find yourself facing your FE's more often than not. Some good choices (assuming that you have no knowledge of what types of enemies you will be facing) are:

The playable races, especially humans. In many campaigns a big chunk of the enemies you will be facing fall into this category. There are tones of humans, elves etc... Even when you are not fighting them, you will probably use bluff, perception and sense motive against them. Humans are a great level 1 choice. Elves also tend to show up a lot.

Undead. There are lots of undead out there. Most every campaign will feature some at some point. If you've got humans and you don't know what to take, this will probably come up.

Magical Beasts. Like undead it is unlikely that you will go a campaign without facing them. Also remember that a wizard's familiar and many summoned monsters are magical beasts.

Aberations, monsterous humanioids and constructs. These are all good choices, that tend to show up reliably.

1. The only rules-based problem I have run into is the "Favored of the Spirits" ability which spirit shamans get at 19th level. It grants a contingency Heal spell if the character is going to be reduced below 0 hit points by an attack. Gaining the protection requires an 8-hour ritual and the expenditure of 1000 XP per the 3.5 rules. Since XP costs are eliminated, I've decided to state that the ritual consumes rare herbs, precious and semi-precious gemstones and other materials costing 24,500 gp. This would place the ability on par with a pearl of power for a 7th-level druid spell, which is what Heal would be for a spirit shaman. Does that seem fair? I think by that level a 24,500-gp ritual wouldn't be excessive, but I'm not sure.

First off I think that a pearl of power is a poor comparison. The pearl allows you to regain a spell you cast once per day, the contingency effect only works once. To me this makes the pearl much more valuable. The actual gp cost to cast contingency is 1500 gp this is probably a better compassion (contingency only works for 6th level spells, so maybe it should be a worth little more). If I were dm I would just give it for free (with an 8 hour ritual, perhaps no more than once a week) The ritual length is enough to ensure it won't come up more than once in a single dungeon, the ability is powerful, but it is also at level 19, some of the other classes get some pretty powerful stuff at that level. All the core classes received a boost in pathfinder, and the spirit shaman wasn't overpowered so... Also I hate class abilities you must pay for with cash/xp they feel like a jip to me. Either way I think 24,500 is way too much.

Zaister wrote:

Winteralker wrote:

I think so far what I like most is having the DM choose for the cohort when it comes to loot time.

Likewise, where does the loot come from when equipping animal companions, familiars and paladins special mounts (assuming that this is allowed in your campaigns)? If it comes from the PC who 'controls' the animal companion etc. then the PC that attracted the cohort is the one who equips the cohort. If animal companions etc. gain a share of the loot in your campaign then the same should be true for a cohort.

Animal companions, familiars and special mounts have much less in equipment requirements than a cohort does.

Take this for example: An evil psion NPC has NO GAME REASON to throttle his PSP use. He can unleash all of his PSPs on the party as 9th level spells, since he's only going to be in the game for one combat; he doesn't have to hold back to save points for later.

How would you feel about making the psion's power point pool a per encounter pool rather than a per day pool. This would reign in the nova potential which seems to be the biggest complaint, and would preserve the points mechanic which would prevent a mod of torch brandishing psions from decending on Paizo HQ. Could such a small fix solve the problem with psions?

As a corollary, it would be good if save-or-dies in general to simply drop you to -7 or so and bleeding. That way, the DM can actually use them against the PCs, and the PCs can get hit by them without having to roll up a new character or go through the hassle of getting rezze.

I think this is one of the best Ideas I have heard about save or die spells.

*Disclaimer* As a Dark Sun player, I would really like to see a psionics book, and am rather partial to the system

What does Psionics mean to you?

The first thing I think is that Psionics has a bad reputation. People go on and on about how it's over powered etc... I've read posts where people hate psionics but haven't played with then since 2nd edition. I think that much of this is undeserved (at least with reference to the 3.5 rules) but that's just my opinion, the fact is a lot of people don't like it.

The next thing that comes to mind is Nova. I like the system, but I will admit that a player who wants to break the game certainly can with psionics. It's possible to design a game breaking character with any system, but the thing about psionics is that it just isn't that hard to do. Sure there are ways for DM's to get around the problems with the system, but it's tiring. It would make life easier if the potential for abuse was removed.

Also, I only really think psion when I think psionics. I think the wilder and psychic warrior need some love. Also there is very little difference between a Nomad and a Telepath, thanks to the fact that there are few school specific powers, and there is a feat that lets you take powers from another schools list. Weather or not to specialize is a big decision for a wizard but choosing a specialty for a psion just isn't that big of a deal, you can always pick up the powers you want with expanded knowledge.

How can I get you to buy a psionics book and use it in your campaign?

Dark sun + Pathfinder, I'll probably pick it up.

What is an absolute deal-breaker?

I would rather not see a total re-write, or a major gimping of psionics to satisfy those who hate the system.

Also, changing psionics to be too similar to magic, there is no point in having another system that is just like the magic system.

First off I won't generally change a characters alignment based on a single incident if the character has been playing his alignment faithfully up until now. If he has slipped up before, however, all bets are off.

Secondly, did the characters actions have any chance of saving the baby? Could the party have charged in and successfully rescued the baby, or did attacking the ogre automatically cause the death of the infant. It seems unfair to force the PC's into a negation in which the ogre clearly has the upper hand. More over negotiating with terrorists is a slippery slope. If any action which might kill the baby is inconsistent with a good alignment, the good characters only option is 'do what the ogre says'. If the character could have saved the baby through quick action then you are essentially altering the characters alignment based on success or failure of a plan.

Finally there is the remorse thing. Generally I only alter alignment based on actions (talk is cheap). The character could be feeling remorse but be too proud to show it. He could legitimately believe he did all he could to save the baby. Being good doesn't require you to beat yourself up over all your failings.

We have a house rule, if you save vs. any effect three times, you are immune for the rest of the day. This prevents the sorts of problems you are seeing, while still allowing the danger of a auto fail on a natural 1.

Also, saves for partial damage exempt and must always be made.

The main problem with two weapon fighting is that it (A)has no real advantage over two weapon fighting (unless you are a rogue), it is in fact arguably worse, because you give up the advantages of a shield every round, but only gain the benefits of TWF when you make a full attack action, and (B) it costs several feats to make it work. I propose the following changes:

Add to the two weapon fighting feat the following:
A character with 8 or more BAB may make a second off hand attack, at a -5 penalty, A character with 13 or more BAB may make a third off hand attack, at a -10 penalty and a character with 18 or more BAB may make a fourth off hand attack, at a -15 penalty. Basically you get your additional off hand attacks for free a few levels after you get the primary hand attack. No more greater/improved two weapon fighting, there is no reason why TWF needs to cost so many feats, it isn't that good.

Also add the following feat.

Dual Strike [Combat]
Prerequisites Two weapon fighting, DEX 18
You may attack with each of your two weapons as an standard action, taking the usual penalties for doing so. You may apply presicion based damage (critical/sneak attack) to only one of the two attacks, if both attacks are critical hits, only the primary hand weapon is considered to have made a critical hit. If you hit with both weapons you may rend as usual.

I think this is a smaller change compared to other fixes. It still costs two feats, but it brings it more up to power with two handed weapons. It does give a small boost to a rogue with sneak attack (he has two chances to land a sneak attack) I think this is a minor thing, but you could easily change it so that precision damage only applied to the primary weapon if you thing it was a deal breaker.

In general I like the unlimited cantrips. I think that cantrips represent an abundant but still finite resource for casters. The caster has plenty to use for himself and his companions, but not enough for a whole army or even a village. I think this view fixes many of the problems that people are complaining about.

In order to implement this, make any character who casts spells continuously for a while (what ever you deem "too much") make some check against an ever rising dc (I used constitution) if it fails that character can't cast any more spells until he has rested. This doesn't stop someone from using a tone of cantrips but adds a potential cost if they do.

Use this only after many castings. The druid doesn't need to roll to see if he can cast create water a few times for his party, but by the time he has cast it for the 15th thirsty villager he would.