Its not implied.
You're right, it was stated plainly in the FAQ:
"He can set the caster level to whatever he wants (assuming he can meet the crafting DC)"
Discussion over, you are wrong. End of story.
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If the rules don't say you can, then you can't. Its that simple. It's implied by how several items are presented, with arbitrarily high caster levels. Such as the Belt of Giant Strength and Pearls of Power, in the FAQ below:
The relevant part is thus: "He can set the caster level to whatever he wants". This is followed by a paranthetical comment about setting it only as high as you can reach, but you can technically set the crafting DC so high you'd need to roll a 20 in order to successfully craft it, and you'd still end up with a cursed item on a roll of 15 or less. At that point, I'd just stop jerking the PC's chain around if he really wants to make a cursed item and just let him make the damn thing. In any case, my interpretation of that paranthetical comment is just some unsolicited advice, and not actually a hard ruling that you can't set the DC to whatever you want, regardless if you can make the check or not. Setting the DC as high as you want is useful for guarding against Dispel attempts as well. Say you have Wings of Flying that you got at 10th level, but now you're 18th and you're worried about the easy dispel check that could drop you hundreds of feet. You can invest in Wings of Flying with a higher CL, by "setting the caster level to whatever you want".
On an entirely different note, a thought just occured to me. The Helm of Opposite Alignment affects the ethical component of your alignment as well as your moral one. So what would this society do about a Lawful Evil person? Hell, as a Lawful person, he might even submit to the Helm out of self-interest (it being the best option for him to get back to his life without jail time or what-have-you). But now he is suddenly Chaotic Good, and probably feels intensely violated by what just happened to him, since Freedom of Choice is probably one of the cornerstones of the CG alignment. Now, he fully embraces being Chaotic Good, and part of that is clinging to his new-found conviction to the right of personal freedom with a passionate intensity. He does not want to go back to being Lawful Evil, but he does want to stop any and all future uses of the Helm. (Being Good means you are altruistic and you think of others, so he would want to spare everyone else the intense violation he feels.) Now this country just turned a selfish, manipulative person into a Freedom Fighter, and made a much bigger problem for themselves. Which is to say, they probably shouldn't be changing anyone to Chaotic alignments.
This Thread discusses the morality of that situation at length. I recommend reading the whole thing. Lots of good stuff from both sides. Interesting. Particularly one reply from The black raven: For a Lawful character, it would heavily depend on what his traditions state. I think an American Paladin (MURICA!) would find this practice abhorrent, because of the underlying traditions of personal liberty this country was founded on. Perhaps he would even Fall for going against such a core value of his beliefs. You could argue it goes against the "respect legitimate authority" clause if his legitimate authority (ideally) protects liberty. An official of a Fantasy USA trying this method might be acting without legitimate authority, using powers not constitutionally granted to him to deny personal liberties. Even prisoners have rights. A paladin going along with it willingly would be violating his code of conduct. But that's a vastly different culture than the one Rabbiteconomist is describing, and since his legitimate, literally divine-mandated government is acting on their own traditions, then protecting personal liberty wouldn't be part of any of their paladin's codes.
It's actually pretty easy to purposely make cursed items. You can set the target caster level of a completed magic item to whatever you want, and then if you can't meet the caster level requirement, the DC goes up by five. So if you purposely set the final caster level to be 105, then the final total Spellcraft check to make the item would be DC 115. You are probably going to fail by more than 5, and voila, cursed item.
It sounds like the entire debate comes down to whether or not you think that mentally locking away someone's evil is more evil than physically doing so. In less biased terms, is there something inherently sacred about the mind and free will that makes these types of punishments worse than physical imprisonment. That's a disagreement of axioms, so it may not be possible to come to an agreement. Just know where your GM stands on the issue, and if you are the GM... good luck, and hopefully some of the arguments on this thread are at least enlightening. This is the crux of the issue. Do you agree that "You can take our lives, but you can never take our freedom?" Would you rather face execution to avoid a lobotomy, because the very thought of losing your sense of self is so abhorrent to you that you'd rather die instead? If you answered yes to either of those questions... congratulations, you have a valid opinion! But so does the guy that said no. What is inherently more sacred to you, your right to exist, or your right to choose? I'm not sure if this is a hot-button topic, but the Book of Exalted Deeds offers two opposing arguments. In an early chapter discussing what is "Good", it goes into mind-altering magic. It describes it as not being inherently evil, but that over-use of it can lead to a loss of the dignity of sentient life. Using Charm to nonviolently convince a criminal to confess their crimes? Eehhhh, that might be ok. Making him dance and humiliate himself all the way to trial? No. But then the BoED goes and gives us the Santified Creature template/spell combo. Which is essentially this entire argument in the form of an spell with the Good descriptor. This also happens to be why so many people dislike the book, because they consider the stripping of a creature's right to as least think the way they want to be, at the very least, Not Good. But, there it is, the Good descriptor. I realize this is a 3.5 book and not Pathfinder, but if you are using it and its concepts in your Pathfinder game, then there you go: mechanical justification for using this procedure, as forced conversion against the will of evil creatures to not be evil is considered an inherent force for universal Good. Probably not Chaotic Good, though.
It doesn't. When I originally wrote the rant, I was ignorant of the actual skymetal spectrum that was in use. So that was my failing. I still think using the visible wavelength spectrum would be a better choice, but I now understand the reasons why the tech color spectrum is the way it is. So at least my head not asplode now.
Red has the shortest wavelength in the visible spectrum? Since when? Derp, sorry, got my science facts mixed up. It is the least energetic, so that would make it the longest, right? Anywho, so, yeah, I do have to own up to not noticing the bit about the starmetals. What threw me was I was reading this from the Pathfinder Reference Document, where I thought they had removed most campaign setting details. I wasn't expecting non OGC stuff to be informing the content. I understand that the choice was made to make tech seem alien in yet another way. I can understand why that choice was made, but I'm not sure I agree with it. It forces players to devote additional headspace to this alternate color scale, and that seems like just more mental arithmetic that's unnecessary. You made identifying items in PF easier than 3.5 for exactly that reason. Because it was a hassle and dumb to make players jump through hoops to figure out what's better than what. If you have a color scale in place to easily grade tech, just make it one every player will recognize, so there are no hoops to jump through, having to learn a scale that is completely arbitrary. (And it is abritrary, your assignment of which starmetals go where on the scale is simply a design choice, adhering to no laws of physics or universal constants. It's an artistic decision with no reasoning behind it other than what makes internal sense to the fiction, and is therefore arbitrary.)
So, sure. I can understand how this makes sense for the Pathfinder Campaign Setting now. It just isn't as useful as it could be to people wanting to use it as a "tech source" for other PF games.
I'm sorry. This is dumb. But I have to vent. The technology color scale is screwed up in so many ways. In order of lowest level to highest, it goes Brown, Black, White, Gray, Green, Red, Blue, Orange, Prismatic. I'm sorry, but this is complete gibberish. Let me tell you how many ways this makes my head asplode. Headsplosion 1: The inclusion of Prismatic if both Black and White exist makes my head asplode because color either goes subtractive (like light waves), in which all colors combine to make white, or additive (like with pigments), in which the addition of certain colors makes black (like how some color printers can simulate black ink if you run out).
Headsplosion 2: If we go by the placement of Prismatic at the highest level to mean that this is an subtractive scale, where all colors equal the best, you must subtract colors from the high end to give you individual colors.
Headsplosion 3: The inclusion of both Brown and Grey in a chromatic scale is nonsense, because grey only exists in monochrome scales. There is no color grey. If you add a color, or hue, to grey, it becomes a brown. (Try mixing random paints willy nilly, you get a muddy brown color). There ARE certain pigments that when mixed can give you a grey (which is why grey paints exist), but that is actually the carefully formulated combination of many pigments, and not a color all on its own. At the very least, grey should be below Brown, as it contains "less information" than a brown would. (A brown contains a hue and a shade, where a grey just contains a shade.) So here we are so far: Keep "Prismatic" just because you want to be fancy, fine. But then White should be second highest. Black should be lowest. Grey should be second lowest, and Brown should be after that. But what are we left with? Headsplosion 4: THE ACTUAL ORDER OF REAL COLORS DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE EITHER! Green, Red, Blue, Orange? What? How do you even? Colors are actual measurable wavelengths! You can put them in a sequence! Scientifically! Red has the smallest wavelength! Then Green! Then Orange! Then Blue! This is not a subjective decision by a culture, this is SCIENTIFIC FACT! Even if you decide to jump to an additive scale for the colors, why are Orange and Green, both non-primary colors, at opposite ends of the sequence? And with the subtractive scale, you're jumping all over the place! Just.... ARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH! I'm not even going to begin to fathom why you didn't just go Black, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Violet, White, Prismatic. You picked your odd color choices, so be it. But it should have looked like this: Black, Grey, Brown, Red, Orange, Green, Blue, White, Prismatic. That at least would have made some sense.
My ideas on how to fix the Finnese/Dex-to-Damage problem. This is independant of Precise Strike Swashbuckler Finesse (Ex): At 1st level, a swashbuckler gains Weapon Finesse as a bonus feat. At 2nd level, she gains a +4 bonus to her CMD on disarm, steal, and sunder attempts against light or one-handed weapons usable with Weapon Finesse. At 3rd level, she may add her Dexterity modifier in place of her Strength modifier on damage rolls made with light or one-handed weapons usable with Weapon Finesse. Moves Finesse to 1st level where I think everybody universally agrees it is needed, but prevents too much front-loading by keeping the CMD bonuses at 2nd level. It also removes the issue with not actually having Weapon Finesse, which is dumb. Putting the dex-to-damage at 3rd level keeps people from dipping into Swashbuckler just to get it. By the time you're three levels into a class, you can't really be "cherry-picking" it. It also coincides with the level the Precise Strike deed becomes available. Essentially, a low-level Swashbuckler will be able to hit, but may not be doing much damage.... until level 3. Then bam, dex-to-damage and Precise Strike at the same time.
e of 'strike talents' as a utility-rider effect changes the consideration given to Sneak Attack. and though i agree that sneak attack ought to have other triggers as part of the rogue class package, i don't think tipping the threshold into 'sneak attack every round' is a justified over-correction. thus, i have considered the 'half-liberal' (unlimited) restriction in addition to the 'full-conservative' (1/round) restriction. Sorry, I think you may have misunderstood me. I was not suggesting letting Sneak Attacks work all the time. While it wouldn't break the game, the restrictions actually lend to tactical gameplay decisions, which make the game more fun and interesting, which is good. I was praising you for coming up with a different set of circumstances that lets a Rogue sneak attack, while still keeping Sneak Attack tactically interesting. In other words, we are totally on the same page :P
Agreed. I like the use of Panache to add to mobility too. Maybe a high-level usage for Panache would be to take a second 5-foot hop as a swift action. That would help the swashbuckler be "more mobile" than a fighter.
Thanks! I'll be looking at your races and see if they will work for me or not. At the least I'm sure they'll help inspire me, which is what I need right now. Great :) I should note that I made alternate-alternate versions of advanced humans, half-elves, and half-orcs for campaigns that don't use Eberron's Action Points. I liked giving Humans the niche of "awesome with Action Points" as their advanced traits, but in a game without Action Points, it makes no sense. The non-Eberron advanced humans, half-elves, and half-orcs get +2 in TWO ability scores of their choice. I costed this at 4 RP, using the Static Bonus Feat and Flexible Bonus Feat racial traits to guesstimate that adding versatility doubles the cost of a racial trait. (So since the "Flexible" ability score trait grants +2 in two ability scores, but which ability scores are static for every member of the race, I doubled it's trait-cost from 2 to 4 to get the "Versatile Flexibility" racial score trait, to let every member choose where each of their +2s go into). Also note that they cannot double up and pick one ability score to get +4, it needs to be two different scores. This "Versatile Flexibility" replaces the Heroic racial trait for half-elves and half-orcs, and the Paragon racial trait for humans. I then also changed the human's region-based weapon familiarity, since in a non-Eberron game, weapon familiarity based on Eberron regions also makes no sense. Replace it with "Versatile Weapon Training: Pick one weapon; if it is simple or martial you are automatically proficient with it; if it is exotic, you treat it as martial", which is basically a "Versatile Weapon Familiarity", which I costed at 2 RP.
oh, well in that case, Here's the link to my homebrewed Eberron races I understand your worry about power creep. I very intentionally "crept" the power for all races up to the 14-19 range, because the Advanced Races Guide already divides races into three power groups, "standard" at 0-10 RP, "advanced" at 11-20 RP, and "monstrous" at 21-30 RP (and even gives an example of Drow Nobles that are off the scale at 41 RP). The standard core races all fall into the "standard" category... except for Dwarves which clock in at 11 and are "advanced". This... bothered me, so I added abilities to all the core races to get them into the "advanced" range, targeting 16 RP and going less or more depending on how much flavor of the race I felt I had to maintain. There is even a sidebar that tells you how different power levels for races impact the game. You're supposed to take the average RP value for all races in the party, and then see where they lie in the "standard/advanced/monstrous" spectrum. If the average is "advanced" then you treat the party as 1 level higher when determining what's challenging to them in an encounter, until they reach actual level 5, at which case their starting advantage is negligible. I didn't feel like doing the math of averaging all the RP in the party, so I just made sure *every race available* was in the 11-20 range. Oh, as for your Hobgoblins, I like them. Very balanced for a "standard" race. Although if you're okay with drawing the line at 12 Race Points, I would give them the "real" version of Weapon Familiarity for 1 more RP, and give them automatic proficiency with longswords (or other thematically appropriate weapon) and treating "hobgoblin" weapons as martial.
I would have given you a link to my Eberron-themed website where I put up some pathfinder-ized versions of some races, but they're in the 14-19 RP range, so a little more powerful than you're looking for. But I will give you some suggestions on non-standard races: Doppleganger-kin (Eberron calls them changelings, but that name is used for "hag-kin" in Pathfinder)
and, if it doesn't completely ruin your day, Warforged (constructs) For the Gnoll, Bugbear, and especially Minotaur, ignore their racial hit dice. Just make no-HD PC-playable versions of them from the ground up. If you need an "in world" flavor reason for the different types, the monster versions with racial hit dice could be seen as savages or prehistoric versions of these races. (Like a "dire gnoll" or something.)
As I said earlier, it may sound harsh, but if you want to play Strength based melee, you can play literally any other melee class. Though it should ideally support many different builds, this ought to be the one Dexterity based melee class.I mostly agree in principal, but I hope that at least some of the archetypes allow for alternative weapon choices (two handed swords only, for instance, or possibly heavy blades only). Meanwhile, I think perhaps the deeds should be reworded to specify light blades; as in the Fighter weapon group. The saber or cutlass could easily be rapiers reskinned as cutting weapons, or if you have your own homebrew stats you could just add them to the light blades group, and as such they'd be included in all of the deeds. I heartily agree. Let's change the Swashbuckler to using "light and one-handed weapons of the blades weapon group (as per the fighter's weapon groups)". This can only add to the "Fighter half" of this hybrid class, and reinforces the actual archetype the class is trying to represent (all dex-based sword fighters) rather than one specific example of that archetype (rapier fighters, and doing it poorly at that). Don't like how that would include the Swashbuckler being able to "fence" with a longsword? Well I don't like how the current Swashbuckler is able to "fence" with a morningstar or trident. Take your pick. I am also voicing my desire for a Two-Weapon Fighting Swashbuckler build/archetype. I mean really, the rules for using a light weapon in your off-hand making TWF easier (less penalties) is based entirely off historical warriors that were more Swashbuckler than Fighter. Saber and main gauche? That's totally a swashbuckler thing to do. Florentine style. Two-Weapon Fighting is an "archetype" (in the English dictionary sense, not a game term) of the Swashbuckler, so let it be part of the class.
I would rather remove the doubling-damage-for-a-panache and let the Precise Strike damage multiply on critical hits, so that it encourages builds with x3 crit modifier weapons. The weapon selection is already severely limited for the Swashbuckler, but if we allow more options to get their maximum effectiveness, then so much the better. As for the unlimited use of Precise Strike... I know this might sound insane... but the limited daily uses of abilities aren't really an issue. A class's damage math is balanced for when they are running at maximum effectiveness. Play the game with unlimited barbarian rages, smites, a ranger getting his highest favored enemy bonus against all creatures, and with sneak attack working on everything without needing to flank it or deny its Dex. It will not break the Challenge Rating system, because characters are assumed to activate everything they need to beat an encounter. That being said, taking away limitations like that would be bad for the game, because it removes interesting tactical and strategic gameplay. So I am not suggesting doing that. But where limitations don't make sense, they shouldn't be there. A swashbuckler should be able to land his precise-strike damage all day long, like a Rogue can land sneak attacks all day long. The rogue is limited to flanked and denied-dex targets purely for flavor reasons, because the rogue is supposed to be a dirty fighter that gangs up on opponents or shivs them from ambush. A swashbuckler just fights with his flourishy, dexterous style, all day long, so there is no flavor basis for limiting the damage. And the reason why a precise strike damage should multiply and sneak attack should not, is because one is a static bonus to damage, and the other adds dice. That is the only reason from a mechanical point of view.
There are 3 Precise Strike abilities in the game. Duelist, a Feat, and the Swashbuckler. Two of the three are strictly called out as Precision damage, the third isn't, RAW, called out as being precision damage. Here's an interesting thing. The 2 abilities that are explicitly called out as being "precision damage"? They are bonus damage DICE, and no one here is arguing to have bonus damage dice multiply on a critical hit. Do you know why? Because from a non-flavor-purely-mechanical point of view that would be broken. The other ability that's not explicitly called out as "precision damage" is the duelist's Precise Strike. Do you know why people are saying it shouldn't count as precision damage? Not because they are munchkins, trying to pull one over on the DM, or because they are terrible rules-layers, trying to enforce an unrealistic black-and-white interpretation of RAW with no room for real-world logic... but because from a non-flavor-purely-mechanical point of view it would NOT BE BROKEN TO THE GAME'S MATH IF IT DID. It also makes a unified, simple, rule for how crits work. "Flat bonus multiplies, additional dice do not" Period. Done. End of story. For proof of how unbroken it would be for a Duelist's precise strike to multiply on a crit: see Smite Evil, which does multiply. If you can explain to me why a Paladin isn't being a munchkin when his +1 damage per class level multiplies on a crit, but a Duelist is, then you will have taught me something. Little hint: The limitation on evil targets is purely flavor-based and has no bearing on system math. For proof of how arbitrary it is for a flat-bonus to be labeled as "non-multiplying" (ie, "precision damage"), please provide the counter-argument for why a Ranger's Favored Enemy damage bonus (which represents knowing a creature's weak points and how to strike them) multiplies on a critical, while a Duelist's/Swashbuckler's Precise Strike (which represents being extremely accurate with all finesse-type attacks) does not. The only reason Favored Enemy multiplies and Sneak Attack doesn't is because Favored Enemy is a static bonus, which wouldn't break the math of the game to multiply, and Sneak Attack is bonus damage dice, which would break the math of the game to multiply. There is no other reason.
I would still like a Developer response to what "1d6+11" would do on a crit for swashbucklers. As Malachi Silverclaw has already pointed out twice, there is no quick way to figure out critical damage for a swashbuckler using precise strike by reading his stat-block. A DM would have to reverse engineer it by subtracting the NPC's swashbuckler level from the "+11", then take the remainder and multiply that, then add back the swashbuckler level. This is a hassle. If Smite Evil multiplies on crits, as a 1-for-1 scaling damage bonus from another class, then so should Precise Strike. Just remove the ability to double damage for a panache entirely, and let it multiply on crits already. If the ONLY reason it's not being multiplied on critical hits is because the ability is flavored as being precision damage, then change the flavor. Or change it to bonus damage dice. Not letting a flat-damage bonus multiply is unheard of and it makes DMing npcs that do it a headache because of the "how much damage does this do on a crit" problem.
I think this is a great idea. I wouldn't worry about modifiers like half-sneak attack damage, or worrying that it's "broken" to let Sneak Attacks happen more often than normal. The reason for which being that from a purely game-design rationale, a Rogue is always considered to be sneak attacking when determining what's balanced. Yes, the "denied dex or flat-footed" thing is purely a flavor restriction. The Paladin is also balanced to always be smiting, and the Barbarian is balanced to always be raging. The fact that these abilities are limited and restricted is mostly a flavor issue, but also encourages tactical thinking and resource management. However, strictly speaking, it would not break the game's math to have these abilities always be constant. So letting the Rogue have a flavorful reason to apply Sneak Attack damage more often is entirely balanced within system math, and I agree that it should not take up a Talent slot. Let the good times (for the Rogue) roll, I say.
Really hard to say if casting off HP is balanced or not, since the current game doesn't have anything like that I could compare it with. The best you can do it tell your players that this is a playtest and that if things get out of hand you might need to adjust mechanics. (Or do extensive playtesting beforehand). As to scaling the powers of the gems, I would really encourage you to have different levels of the elemental gems emulate existing spells. Say the first level Fire gem does Burning Hands, then Scorching Ray, then Fireball, etc. This might not be what you're looking for, but I have tried doing something similar once. I ran a game using d20 Modern rules but set in the Final Fantasy 7 world, and we used a Materia system. Materia gained as much experience as the character gained from an encounter, and when it gained the same amount of XP a sorcerer would need to cast the next level of spell, then it learned that spell, and any character could later equip it. For example, a Fire materia started off with 0 XP and knowing Burning Hands, since a first level Sorcerer with 0 XP would be able to cast it. To be able to level the Fire materia to it's second tier spell (Scorching Ray), it required having the Fire materia equipped for as many encounters as it took a character to earn 6000 xp, because that's how many experience points it would take for a Sorcerer to become level 4 (using the Fast track for advancement in PF) and be able to cast 2nd-level spells like Burning hands. In order to cast it's third tier spell, Fireball, it needed to be equipped for as many encounters as it took a character to earn 15,000 xp, because that's when Sorcerers are high enough level to cast 3rd-level spells like Fireball. In the end, it was a pretty elegant system since if you wanted to be able to cast Fireball as early as possible, you had a Fire materia equipped since level 1, but if later in your character's life you wanted to start using a brand new 0-xp Fire materia, 15,000 xp might not be such a huge investment (being less XP than necessary to go from 8th to 9th level), while still rewarding the early-equippers by giving them first available access to the spell. For higher level spells (like Meteor Swarm) from rare materia (like the Comet materia) that the party wouldn't be able to find at an early level and couldn't possibly gain the XP to learn their spells, we had armor and weapon properties that could double or even triple XP gain for equipped materia, but these were worth +3 and +5 price adjustments, respectively. As far as casting, since we were trying to emulate Final Fantasy, we went with an MP system, and gave every class a basic MP progression (like psionic classes have a PP progression), and every spell had a casting cost of (Spell Level x 2) - 1 (1st level spells cost 1, 2nd cost 3, 3rd cost 5, etc.). I'm not sure if a similar costing scheme would work for casting from HP instead of MP, but I would try to follow a similar formula.
I would suggest an alternative 4e strategy, and treat a bunch of minions as a swarm (which D&D did for dretch, hordlings, and ghouls). Anyone trying to get to the big bad will have to go through the swarm, taking damage. When the wizard shoots magic missle, you just have to GM it as "four of the 50 goblins in front of the Balor just bought it." It is simpler to run 1 swarm then 10 minions. You can also make an artillery swarm that sits in the back shooting a rain of arrows. I usually make the hit something like a fireball, even including the half damage on a miss, since only the nimble rogue can dance through rain without getting wet. Hi Mechagemera. Thanks for your thoughts. One of the very first encounters I ran in Pathfinder after returning from 4e was an outsider with a "swarm" of cultists (lifting the Mob rules from the 3.5 DMG II), trying exactly as you suggest. While it was an interesting fight, it definitely has a different shape and feel than a 4e minion fight. With a 4e minion fight, PCs get to see bodies fall, squares on the field freeing up at a much more rapid pace than usual. In the fight against the cultist mob, because of the completely different way you have to approach swarm fights, the PCs felt more frustrated than empowered. Not that I mind frustrating my PCs once in a while, but for me a "mob fight" and a "minion fight" are two separate tools that I can pull from my DM utility belt, instead of one being a substitute for another.
However please keep this thread about helpful rules suggestions to make the idea work. The people that want minions want minions, and you're not going to dissuade us no matter how much you tell us they're "unnecessary".Sorry for the derail. It wasn't intended as a criticism of minions, just an alternate solution I was suggesting to the problem you described in your example. I tend to go off on tangents sometimes. No worries, sorry if I came off as defensive.
mkenner, while you're absolutely right that a city could call in the SWAT, my point is that adding minions to my repertoire can only add variety and spice to my adventures. If the only response to high-level PCs attacking a city is "call in the SWAT", then "calling in the SWAT" is going to be boring. I'm not say that this is currently the case, but every new option you add to the DM toolkit can only make every other previous available option that much more unique (say, like, the local high-priest of a god of Law starts summoning outsiders). So now a high-level party that decides to overthrow a city's rulership can be met with one more option than was already available. It keeps things interesting. It also allows a gradation of response. First, they send in the minions, and when those get wiped out, NOW they send in the SWAT. In that scenario, the minion encounter only helps to add a frame of reference to how badass the SWAT team is by comparison. And then when the PCs destroy those guys, now you have the Lawful outsiders coming for their heads. Bam, now that's an adventure, and now you have a narrative flow of events about how the city responds to threats. There are also other concerns that are specific to some types of campaigns. If you are running a game in say, Eberron, it's also going to break verisimilitude if you constantly send in the SWAT team and standard high-level threats, because Eberron assumes that high-level PC-classed individuals are rare and special. So for an Eberron campaign, I would feel like I am misrepresenting the flavor of the setting (which I like, because that's the whole reason I am running a game in that setting in the first place) if 13th level PCs try to take over, say, Stormreach and I keep throwing CR 9 or higher NPCs at them. For the record, by the current rules and setting information, if PCs wanted to do this to Stormreach, then without misrepresenting the setting, I could only throw about 3 10th-level warforged at them, then a bunch of CR 1-4 chumps. Minions can only add to the fun and narrative of the game from my perspective. If you don't agree, I perfectly understand. However please keep this thread about helpful rules suggestions to make the idea work. The people that want minions want minions, and you're not going to dissuade us no matter how much you tell us they're "unnecessary". EDIT: Also, if you've never had high-level PC's power go to the player's heads, I can only bless your luck. My group tends toward sociopathy.
Additionally... what if I don't want to use kobolds? The classic rational behind minions for me is... what happens when a 10th level or higher party starts disregarding all local laws and feels basically untouchable, because they know most city guards are just CR 1-2 shmucks? Now the city guards are CR 10+ shmuck minions. Sure, they go down fast, but you can actually have meaningful encounters with the city guard again, even at mid-to-high levels, and still let the PCs feel like high-powered badasses because they're going through them like a hot knife through butter (while still feeling the thrill of combat because they ARE being threatened)
There really is no defensible justification for denying flat damage bonuses to be multiplied on a crit. THANK YOU. This is what I was trying to say the other day, but people got hung-up on the definition of "precision damage".
Think you might be onto something. If anything a template can be just a way to start, and then you remove all "save or suck/die" affects.
This was my initial concern as well. Might want to put a caveat on racial ability traits. Say, stick with the 0-cost ability score traits, and disallow all others.
Awesome calculations Thanks Charender! I think it works out, even with a bottomed-out ranger or paladin. Against a medium CR 10 construct minion, they would need better than their minimum damage roll to kill it, by just 2 points. I think that's fair. In a full round of attacks, they're bound to do at least one 8-damage hit.
Yes I was thinking that as well. Monsters with special and abilities or spells would be very difficult to manage in this case. Perhaps it requires all 4 of them working in conjunction to cast a spell? That is an interesting idea. I kind of like the image it evokes too. Like a circle of occultists chanting together to try and get off a Blasphemy before the PCs get to them. Hmmmmm..... Blah, that was a mouthful. Really interesting concept but a little unwieldly...
It took me a little bit, but I remembered the other situation where the DR idea breaks down. Two weapon fighters and any other damage dealers that rely on lots of small hits to kill(Melee druids for example). Rather than using DR per say. Add up the total damage deal by a single full attack, and compare it to the "DR" value. Hmmm... I'd be interested to see the numbers on that. Like, how much damage per a single attack would you expect a Two-Weapon Fighter to deal at levels 1, 5, 10, 15, and 20, and see how they stack up to some iconic monsters turned into minions. If anything, I agree with the "total all damage from a full-round attack before applying Minion Resistance" would be a hot-fix. I'm just hoping to not have to do it for ease of play at the table. I like minion resistance working just like DR, because then it occupies the same "head space" as DR when running an encounter. It wouldn't be another rule I have to keep track of then.
Don't worry, I don't mind. To tell you the truth, while I do prefer the simultationist leanings of 3.5/Pathfinder, I did take away some things from my time DMing for 4e campaigns. So to answer your question, there is no simultationist explanation for a 1 hit point monster. It's entirely a game construct. Think of the minion subtype/template as a lens that the PCs see the monster/NPC through. The minion will not die to a commoner, because to a commoner it wouldn't BE a minion. This is purely "gameism" design, and doesn't reflect a simulated fantasy world. (Plus also, my rules for minions give them a kind of "super damage reduction" that wouldn't let a thrown improvised weapon from a 1st level human child that does 1d4-2 damage do anything to it, anyway.) And like I said, I do actually prefer a simulated world than a game-y world, but I'm more willing to compromise now that I've DMed for both sides of the PF/4e coin. I can understand if you don't agree, and I bear you no ill-will for doing so. For my part, I just miss being able to throw huge numbers of enemies for the PCs to mow through, and actually have the encounter still be threatening. Throwing low-CR monsters at PCs in 3.5/PF to get the same number of bodies in an encounter as a 4e minion fight just results in giving the PCs free XP, as the low-CR monsters attack values are just woefully unable to handle the higher level PC's defenses and you just end up rolling lots of dice and hoping for a critical threat (that will probably never confirm). Oh hey, that's a good rule for minions. They can never confirm crit threats! EDIT: Think of it this way, the game-logic would be that minions calculate the abstraction of hit points differently. Like Charender pointed out above, even in simultationist 3.5/PF, "40 damage" is meaningless on its own in terms of figuring out how much bodily harm it does. You can only tell how bad a hit it is in relation to a creature's maximum hit point total. For a 20th level fighter, 40 damage is a scratch, while to a 1st level fighter 40 damage is probably "reduced to a bloody smear". So while the amount of damage points didn't change, the effect they have on creatures depends on the creature. For my minion rules, instead of comparing damage dealt to their maximum hp total, you instead compare damage dealt to a minion's damage threshold. 40 damage for just about any minion is "bloody smear", while 10 damage might be "bloody smear" to a CR 5 minion, and "barely a scratch" to a CR 15 minion. Just a different way of seeing things in a game that already abstracts damage. Just using a different abstraction method.
Yeah, my goal is to make running minions as simple as possible, which is why I don't want to make anything you have to track inherent to the rules for running them. (I even tried to simplify some outside factors, like confusing or staggering them, to just take them out of the fight entirely) Also, while minions might run away, I feel like that should be an ad-hoc morale thing that the DM decides, rather than hard-coded into their rules. For one, I know my players HATE when monsters escape and get aggravated whenever someone escapes, no matter how small-change they are, so I'll probably just let them mow minions down. I have been thinking about the damage output. Current, I have 4 minions = 1 monster purely because that's how 4e has it. What if it was only 3 per monster?
I see your point about the rogue thing being more common, but personally I'm not convinced. The threshold will be very small for CRs 1-10, and only get crazy huge at very high CRs (I calculated a minion Balor's threshhold at 23), at which point I feel like parties are crazy powered enough to take on anything. Thanks, also, for doing the math on minimum damage. It is a little concerning that 4 minions will do around double damage what a regular monster would do.... however, I think there is one mitigating factor: The minions will do less and less damage the more you take out, whereas a single monster will be able to pump out its full damage potential until its very last hit point. This means minion fights will seem overwhelming on the first volley if they all beat the PCs in initiative, but otherwise (assuming an even mix of initiative rolls among PCs and minions) PCs will have a chance to mitigate this before they ever get to act. I'm leaning toward being okay with this... but you're right, I think this deserves some playtesting before unleashing it.
Thanks for your input Charender. Mind if I try to come up with some counter points? 1) I don't think I mind if this is the case. I believe the rules of the game are balanced and designed with classes working optimally. (i.e., paladins are always smiting, barbarians are always raging, rogues are always getting sneak attack) To design a game element around "what if a rogue can't sneak attack it?" is not something I think we should worry about. Also, I'm hesitant to use "if something happens to a minion twice" -type mechanics, because the entire point of minions is to make them "fire-and-forget". 2) I'm not sure if you missed it, but my rules have minions always doing MINIMUM damage, not average or half or whatever. So minion fireballs would do 1 point of damage per caster level, and minion archers would do 1+whatever bonus they have to damage per arrow. Do you think this is not enough? I had them doing minimum before I saw this thread, and I liked the "can't take a full-attack action" fix, but I was hesitant about doing both. The caster level thing is also a good idea, but I went with a reduction in save-DCs across the board instead (because, minion monsters might have things like breath weapons but not spells, so I thought the DC reduction was more universal)
So, I'm super late to this party. Please forgive me, I've only recently discovered the joys of Pathfinder, and TriOmegaZero was kind enough to point me to this thread. After reading through it, I've made some adjustments to my own "minion template" that I posted elsewhere, and I hope it's alright that I share them here. I originally used both "mega-Evasion" and "uber-DR" to keep higher level minions in the fight, but realized that they were both conversions of 4e's "minions never take damage from a missed attack" rule, and doubling up on both makes minions TOO durable. I would have liked to keep both, but only have the "mega-Evasion" work for the first save a minion makes in an encounter, but then that would just introduce another element of bookkeeping (which minion successfully saved last turn?), so I just dropped it entirely. The math on the "uber-DR" Minion Resistance might be a little complicated for on-the-fly minion creation, but it's easy enough to calculate before a session, and just a note of it on the stat-block makes it as easy to use as DR. Minion Subtype: Minions represent creatures that, enmass, can still threaten player characters with their strength and skill (rather than luck, i.e. hoping to roll critical hits), but are ultimately small-change and can be taken out easily. The minion subtype can be added to any creature, and provides the following traits:
Thanks! Appreciate the point in the right direction.
I did a search for "Precision Damage" in the PRD and came up bubkiss.Exception: Precision damage (such as from a rogue's sneak attack class feature) and additional damage dice from special weapon abilities (such as flaming) are not multiplied when you score a critical hit.Your search-fu needs work. While you dishonor my search-fu, I graciously accept defeat in this battle. Precision damage does seem to have a mechanical rules effect. However, my war is not over. A Duelist's Precise Strike is not called precision damage (despite what your intuition might tell you) because the term "precision damage" at the time of writing that passage, 100% referred to additional bonus damage dice. Since the Duelist's precise ability to precisely deal damage with their Precise Strike dealt this precise damage in the form of a static bonus, it was specifically (and precisely) not called "precision damage". And it multiplies on a crit. Why is this different for the Swashbuckler?
I think you are tilting at windmills if you expect the devs to allow precision damage of any type to multiply on a crit. So then.. lets not call it precision damage? All previous precision damage is bonus dice, which cannot under any circumstances multiply on crits, and I would never suggest them doing so. Why is a static bonus to damage not multiplying? It breaks previous rules assumptions for little reason. Unless I'm missing something, there is NO other static bonus to damage in the game that does not multiply on critical hits. The Duelist PrC's Precise Strike does multiply on critical hits, and is not called out as precision damage. But even if it was, as you said there is no rules-element to the wording of "precision damage" in the PRD, so there is no rule stating, hard and fast, that "precision damage never multiplies". Therefore the Duelist's precise strike, which does NOT have a clause disallowing multiplication on critical hits, would multiply on critical hits, whether it's precision damage or not.
It's one of those 'soft defined' terms. Sneak Attack is the classic example. Swashbuckler (archetype, not class) Int Bonus damage is another. Well okay, to bring BACK the question about types of damage: First: "precision" damage is not a type, like you said. It is not a rules quality that you can make rulings off of. It currently exists as flavor and nothing more. Second: Your stipulation that "if Precise Strike can multiply, then so can Sneak Attack" is fouled by the already pre-existing, hard-rules stiupulation that bonus damage in the form of bonus damage dice are never multiplied (from sneak attacks, to the flaming weapon property) while static damage bonuses, like from Power Attack, do. Rogue Eidolon: I'm missing something, I think. You can't decide to spent the swift action to double damage after you rolled the crit confirm, can you? Honestly I would rather get rid of the doubling for 1 panache and just let the bonus multiply on crits like every other static-number bonus to damage in the game.
It's one of those 'soft defined' terms. Sneak Attack is the classic example. Swashbuckler (archetype, not class) Int Bonus damage is another. Alright then. But even if this is true, what I was really asking was: Why SHOULDN'T the precise strike damage multiply? As in, forget types of damage, what would really be the game-balance reason to disallow Precise Strike to multiply? Is the damage bonus simply too large? The way I see it, Precise Strike makes up for not being able to two-hand a weapon for 1.5 Str and Power Attack bonus, both of which multiply on crits. Am I just seeing it wrong?
It's considered Precision Damage. And Precision Damage is never multiplied. Where is that? I did a search for "Precision Damage" in the PRD and came up bubkiss.
Could anyone explain to me a mechanical reason why the Precise Strike damage does not multiply on a critical hit? As far as I know, all non-dice bonus damage multiplies on crits, such as from Power Attack. I think even the Duelist's version of Precise Strike multiplies on crits. So why is the Swashbuckler's bonus singled-out? The part about it being "precision" damage is a little iffy for a reason, because the only precision damage we've seen before have been bonus damage dice, right?
EDIT: Want to update the minion resistance math, and account for Constructs: Minion Resistance (Ex): Minions reduce all damage dealt to them from any source (weapons, energy attacks, force effects, spells, etc) by an amount equal to their Constitution modifier (minimum 0) + 1/2 of their CR. Construct minions gain a bonus to this value equal to 1/10th the bonus hit point non-minion constructs would receive from size (+1 for small, +2 for medium, etc). If the creature has preexisting damage reduction or resistances, use those against applicable attacks if the reduction in damage is greater. (For example, a CR 10 medium construct minion has Minion Resistance 7 to all damage, but might have DR 10/adamantine against weapon attacks. All non-adamantine weapon attacks would have their damage reduced by 10, but all damage from any other source, including adamantine weapons, would be reduced by 7). Any immunities possessed by the minion still apply.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Some design thoughts. The reduction in DC for all abilities is to mitigate the potential to throw four saves at the PCs instead of one. For instance, an outsider might be able to cast, say, Implosion 1/day. Minion versions of that same outsider still have that ability, and they can all unload their Implosions at the same PC in the same day. Reducing the DC by 5 is a pretty hefty nerf to keep it from getting too crazy. It also keeps minions with a poison attack from being able to stack doses of their poison to pump the poison's DC to ludricrous levels. The uber-DR granted by Minion Resistance is intended to keep higher level minions from being immediately chumped by low level effects, like Magic Missile. Four Minion Balors would be CR 20, but without Minion Resistance, all that's stopping a wizard from killing all of them in one round is a couple of SR checks, and the investment of just four attacks from the party would kill them just by beating their AC. With Minion Resistances, any single attack would need to deal over 23 damage to take one out (13 for the Balor's Con modifier + 10 for 1/2 it's CR). Completely attainable, but no amount of magic missile pot-shots will get through it. The value of the "uber-DR" being based of Constitution as well as CR is to get some variance between different types of minions in one CR range. For instance, a tiny fey minion at CR 2 might only have "Minion Resistance 1", but a big burly 3rd level half-orc fighter NPC might have "Minion Resistance 3" if his Constitution is 14 or 15. The Evasion and pseudo-Mettle granted by Minion Resistance is also intended to give minions at least some lasting power, modeling 4th edition's minions getting that "never take damage from a missed attack" rule. The division of treasure will not normally affect monster minions; it's mainly a limitation for NPC minions. By dividing the treasure, NPC minions won't have as good equipment as a non-minion version of the same NPC. This means player characters with DR/magic or DR/adamantine (or other expensive materials) might enjoy their damage reduction actually being relevant to combat for more levels that they'd otherwise think (because who really expects DR/magic to do anything beyond level 3?) This is fine by me, as it just means NPC mooks are that much easier for PCs to deal with.
Tried to do a thorough search before making this thread, but couldn't find anything on it, so here we go! I started DMing with 3.5, moved onto 4e, and have recently returned to my first love in the form of Pathfinder. While I have come to terms with preferring the verisimilitude offered by 3.5/Pathfinder's simultationist design philosophies, one thing I really miss about 4e's "game-ism" is the encounter design. In other words, I really miss minions. Using lower-CR creatures just isn't a satisfying answer to the problem either, as they just end up missing a lot and generally not being much of a threat. So I want minions. I've thought things over, and I came up with the Minion subtype/template. Let me know what you think. Minion Subtype: Minions represent creatures that, enmass, can still threaten player characters with their strength and skill (rather than luck, i.e. hoping to roll critical hits), but are ultimately small-change and can be taken out easily. The minion subtype can be added to any creature, and provides the following traits:
Concerning the limitation of Precise Strike on two-weapon swashbucklers, I agree that this is a problem. I believe, historically, the use of an off-hand dagger or "main gauche", was a fighting style used mainly by people who could easily be modeled in-game with the Swashbuckler (fencers and other lightly-armored duelist types). I think this historically-accurate archetype should be supported
It does not state that you gain the Dodge feat, so you do not qualify for Mobility. On the other hand, taking Dodge would not be much of a waste, since dodge bonuses to AC always stack, so you just even even MORE nimble by taking the feat.
Well alright then! Sorry, missed that tidbit.
So, I'm really pleased with the Swashbuckler. With the errata that clarifies they always get Precise Strike if they have at least 1 panache, they're easily my favorite new class of the bunch. I do have one concern, and it may be a small one. Swashbucklers actually make poor firearms users. While they can take Amateur Gunslinger to get 1 deed and 1 grit, they are forever barred from multiclassing with Gunslinger. I feel like this is a mistake, as the Swashbuckler is perfect for exactly one-half of the typical pirate character. I was hoping to make a character that fights with a rapier in one hand and a pistol in the other, which seems like it was the intention behind the Swashbuckler, but the execution specifically bars the Swashbuckler from being as good at it as it could be. I'm hoping that there will be an archetype for the Swashbuckler that lets them use panache for firearm deeds. Because right now, the ideal character I want to make is a multiclass Swashbuckler/Gunslinger, but that option isn't allowed by the alternate class rules.
Gotcha. Thanks
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