Castimirr's page

Jason,

Thanks for all your work on this. However, I have to agree with most of the rest of the posters. We need Concentration as a skill. I regularly make use of it for situations other then casting defensively.

I also agree that this change heavily favours wizards over all of the other classes. Given that the other classes are more likely to be in melee, this seems less then optimal.

One of my rules I use to determine what I allow in my games is based on enjoyment. Will this make the game more or less enjoyable for the player, for the rest of the group and for me as the DM. While this might have a minor impact on overall fun, it is still a negative one. It shifts the balance unnecessarily, takes away fun from some players, and adds nothing to anyone else's enjoyment.

If you want to kill a skill, kill Spellcraft. Personally, I don't see a need to get rid of any of them, but if something needs to go, get rid of the one that has heavy overlap with another skill. While it has always been my understanding that K: Arcana was theoretical while Spellcraft was practical, I could easily live with rolling them into one for the sake of simplification. I so far can't see a solid reason to take a skill with no overlap and roll it into an unrelated skill.

My other question, and I am genuinely curious, what skill do I use in place of Concentration for all of the other situations it comes up in? I regularly use it for situations where a character has to focus on a task over an extended period of time, usually in the face of either extreme distraction or extreme boredom. I find that adds something my group likes to the game, and I don't see a clear replacement for it.

Overall I can't tell you how happy I am to see what you are doing here. I have high hopes for this system and look forward to supporting it for years. I would just prefer to not have to make a house rule before the book goes to press. I've largely been able to play 3.5 without them, and I have no desire to go back to the notebook we kept under second edition.

Thanks for listening.

I believe the reason for dropping the x4 is twofold.

1. With fewer skills, due to condensing, a balance must be kept with the # of skills vs. the # of skill points. getting rid of the x4 kept the balance. Otherwise characters would have way too many points to use on too few skills.

2. Ease of use. Calculating skills for high level NPC's and the # of max ranks was a pain and took too long. Distributing points for NPC's was by far the longest, weariest part of NPC creation. Dropping the x4 and making the max ranks = to lvl, means less calculations and less referencing to charts. It's Quick, clean and easy now!

Thank you! I never had much of a problem with skill allocation, but that will make it easier do. That makes sense.

Hi all,

I'm new to Pathfinder, but so far what I've seen has me very excited overall, and I can't express how thankful I am that this task is being undertaken.

Overall, I like what I see and I'm eager to get a play test underway. However, my gut reaction on a few of the changes is that they seem like a step backwards or sideways in some way. I suspect, given the complexity of any RPG, that there is a good chance that my understanding is more deficient than any change of rule. So, I would like some help in understanding these changes.

If a short answer is possible, great. If not, just point me in the direction of the relevant thread(s). I don't want to touch off a bunch of discussions that have already been beaten to death, and I hate being that guy who is late for the meeting and wants to re-discuss the whole agenda.

So, for my first question.

Why do intelligence boosting items give you bonus skill points? While I can see one argument for it, and made that argument myself long ago, it seems like it adds another level of heavy bookkeeping without adding much of anything to the play experience. It also seems conceptually odd that I should become more practiced just because I got smarter.

Your assistance is greatly appreciated. I haven't quite managed to get the search engine to show me what I'm looking for.

Thank you.

Since you're in the PRPG thread, you should be made aware that under PRPG there is no 1st level x4 multiplier. Rogues get 8+Int, Fighter gets 2+Int. All Class skills get +3 bonus, even when you multiclass.

I'm just getting into the rules and still trying to find the changes that are being made, and nowhere near understanding them yet. With a few exceptions, I'm loving it so far.

So, with that said, what was the reason for dropping the times four? If it isn't a straight forward, easy answer, links in the right direction would be just as welcome. This isn't a change I disagree with, just one I don't understand well enough to have an opinion on.

Thanks.