Da'ath's page

I like the direction you're going, but I think a 100% crit negation is too strong, even if it means damaging the shield.

I pretty much agree. You could go the route I did with a "resilience" attribute, which adds +X to the difficulty of critical hit confirmation rolls based on shield weight.

For example, a light shield might add +2 to the difficulty, while a heavy shield might add +4-6.

What Zhang said, and it is pretty evil stuff when you look at the results. I did a quick google search for "Drow fleshwarping" and found some interesting hits. You might wanna hit up the giantitp.com forums for some inspiration. For example, here is a prestige class for fleshwarping that you might find helpful as a source of inspiration.

Thanks for the laugh, Cyrad. I think the next time one of my players asks for an explanation of something, I'll respond with, " Because... Meteors!"

Never quite understood why, but halflings and gnomes having a 20 move has always amused me, since kobolds have a speed of 30 and always have in 3.x iterations. Size has no bearing on speed in the game, so far as I can tell. Is their speed slower because they just kinda mosey along everywhere, while kobolds run around like crackheads?

I'm sure it has something to do with an old MC entry or as a means to offset some of their "nicer" things, like excessive save bonuses for halflings (in my opinion).

Dumping those speed penalties would probably go a long way.

This is a work in progress. No one in my group, myself included, likes the arcane bonded item rules. Since wizards do not gain familiars in my setting (or anyone other than witches, save in special circumstances requested by a player), my players asked me to revise the bonded item with certain elements borrowed from some pretty obvious sources. So far, this is the result.

Link: Arcane Bond

Most of it is pretty straight forward; the "arcane bolt" is based on a suggestion by one of my players who is quite fond of the "staff" mechanics from the Dragon Age console/computer game, which he felt was a better idea than "shoot them with my crossbow" - with which I agree.

I'd appreciate constructive comments and feedback, as usual.

Many folks seem to have the paladin hard-coded into their brains as lawful good, whether it is because that's how the class was first introduced to them and they're attached to the nostalgic aspect or because they're just that married to their opinion (ie unwilling to change their opinion).

Call them Champions or Templars or whatever floats your boat, even if the mechanics are identical and no one will bat an eye. Call them paladins with any alignment but lawful good and no matter what you say, you're NOT playing a paladin and/or wrong.

I'm not knocking the perspective (much), but I find these responses to be quite fascinating.

Falantrius, it is probably in your best interests to skim through these posts, copy and paste to a file all the constructive advice you've been given, save it, and HIDE this thread from here on out. Make sure you save the names of those with constructive advice so you can PM them later if you have further questions about their suggestions.

The majority of posts you'll get at this point are going to be regurgitations of the same material offered, either in the form of constructive advice or people trying to showboat how knowledgable they think they are regarding your religion, how foolish you are for your ideas, incomprehensible responses harping on the same thing you've already addressed/apologized for, or other similar responses and/or wastes of space.

Hiding the thread will save you a lot of typing and headaches over the course of the next 300 or so posts which will all say the same thing.

This thread really should be locked at this point.

Face it.. the only reason you and many others care about the place, is because an American discovered it. If it was yet another European discovery, there wouldn't be all the foofarah.

I'd be willing to wager it has more to do with the fact many Americans were taught in early childhood that it was a planet, and with most things, are resistant to change (particularly as we get older).

You're "average American" likely doesn't remember who discovered it or cares.

The benefit to being an atheist or an apostate is you don't have to follow behavioral guidelines set forth by an authority figure. Sure, the others might get boons, but they have to follow said deity's rules.

This was a brief discussion I was part of in another thread and I think it holds true here, as well. Your "boon" is being your own master.

So, one of the projects I've been working on in the background, when I have time, is a correction for certain issues I and my group have with certain spells. It is by no means exhaustive, but we do make efforts to address specific spells which are problems for our group. We take a vote every time someone points out an issue and if it's deemed important enough (the results of the vote determine this), it is added to the list. The "Dominate" line is one of a few groups that EVERYONE agrees with (I have 8 players, same group for the past 12+ years and for them to all agree on something is a big deal) and I'm currently working on it. The following is what I've got so far, with Skill-Based Spells information included for reference purposes only (we've been using it for sometime and are happy with the way it functions). A side-effect of this project is a "fix" for the protection from <alignment> spells and "blanket immunity" spells relating to enchantment once this "fix" is complete.

Dominate Spells
I. A caster must expend his move action to exert direct control after the first time direct control is used. The victim will, to the best of his ability, perform the desired action and will continue to do so until such time as a new command is given. Any command given when direct control is exerted, including the first, grants a new saving throw to the victim; commands which go against the nature of the victim grant a +4 modifier to the saving throw.

II. In addition, these spells allow the caster to influence the victim in more subtle ways. While a spellcaster may still directly command an individual, risking the victim throwing off the effects of the spell, they may also use social skills to influence the victim, at a much lower risk, which also grants the benefit of the Skill-Based Spells rule - in this case, with Bluff and Diplomacy. While under the effects of this spell, a victim may be convinced to do things they might not otherwise do - failure on the skill check does not grant the victim a saving throw, but does prevent them from being influenced in this way for 24 hours, i.e. the spellcaster may attempt the same check on the following day. If the spellcaster succeeds, he may attempt additional checks to influence the behavior of the victim in other ways until such time as he fails (he may not attempt to influence on the same topic for another 24 hours). For every 5 cumulative points that she exceeds the DC, she may treat the victims alignment as 1 full step in a direction of her choice (5 points is 1 step and 10 points is 2 steps) in determining what she may convince the victim to do.

o For example, a 12th-level witch with a Charisma of 18 has dominated the 10th-level fighter (10 Ranks Sense Motive, Wisdom 13), Lawful Good king of a particular land. Instead of directly commanding the king, she decides to use the secondary aspect of the spell, influencing him through Bluff. Since the prince of the kingdom objects to her presence, and opposes her at every turn, she creates a false story of the prince's intentions to dethrone his father. We will treat this as a far-fetched lie, as the prince has demonstrated loyalty to his father and the king trusts his son, but it is far from impossible. As she has maximum ranks in Bluff, she gains a +6 bonus to her roll to convince the king to imprison, banish, or even have the prince executed for treason. Her attempt results in a roll of 5 (total of 32 - 10 = 22) against a DC of 10 + the king's Sense Motive + the king's Wisdom modifier (a total DC of 21 - 5 for spell level = 16). Her roll is successful, and sufficient to alter the king's alignment by 1 step for the purposes of her check (assume that good will imprison, neutral will banish, and evil will excecute for the purposes of this example), so for the time being, she has to settle for the banishment of the prince from the kingdom.

I'm seriously considering that when the alignment is adjusted on a particular topic, that it "remain" adjusted for the duration of the spell, as well as reducing the victims saving throw for further castings of the spell (i.e. extending the spell) while the initial effect is still ongoing.

Thoughts, comments, criticisms?

So we can have Goo Girls?

I had to look that up, as I'm unfamiliar with the reference. Unfortunately, now I'm not.

There was an old PDF (well, not that old - think it was 3.0-3.5 edition range), written by either Sean K. Reynolds or Skip Williams (pretty sure it was one of these two, but I could be misremembering) that was useful for this sort of thing. In essence, it was a tool to help you gauge CR and so on for monsters you created and what not. I used to use it when working on templates.

The reason I bring it up is, you can do as Kelazan suggests, as well as use the monster creation rules to help you out. Slap your finished template on a monster in each "bracket" and see how it affects the result (1, 3, 5 CR, as well as a 10, 15, and 20). Should give you a rough idea. Use the monster creation chart on Paizo's site to compare.

There isn't to my knowledge. Templates, generally, fall into the realm of educated guesswork. unless someone else is aware of something I'm not, you'll have to look at other templates and go from there.

Maybe I'm getting old (I'm only 38!) or whatever, but I'm at the point these days that something has to really impress me to separate me from my money. D&D lost me as a customer shortly after SWSE ended and Paizo is going to lose me fairly soon unless they at least release some sort of free errata regarding Rogues (and others, but rogues are the deal breaker for me) bringing then in line with all the shiny new crap they've been releasing.

As it stands, I have well over 200 books from 3.0 - Pathfinder (including d20 Conan and SWSE). I don't NEED any new books, but do support the games I play, up to the point where they start releasing material without correcting glaring disparities. I currently have all the material I will ever need to run and adjust the system until the day I die (hopefully in the very, very distant future).

Some of these alleged "fixes" should have been done ages ago, but were ignored. Pathfinder Unchained, from what I've read, is just a book of errata we should have already received as a free PDF.

My opinion, mind you. Most likely, I'll just keep doing what I've always done: buy the RPG collections of hungry college students for dirt cheap and eBay the crap I don't need.

When we started using the system, I didn't even let them out of character attempt the use of the points, they didn't have a clue how it worked and are still only guessing today - it cut down a lot on attempts to game the system too. As GM, I always know where a combat is going to go long before the players do, so I'll give a few examples of them in use, which have actually occurred. Keep in mind I'm using a hybrid of SWSE's Force Points, Pathfinder Hero Points, and SRD Action Points.

• Player X will die if he fails his saving throw. He fails his saving throw. As he hits the ground, he sees a vision of his goddess before all goes black, but does not die. (Usage: roughly equivalent to cheat death in the hero point section).
  
• Player Y has been having trouble hitting all day. If the opponent survives much longer, she and her allies are going to die. She describes her action, adding in she says a little prayer to her god and rolls the dice. Her attack strikes soundly and surely. She feels a strange warmth come over her and suddenly strikes again. (Usage: she rolls her die, since she hit, I didn't bother using a point as it'd be wasteful. Her damage is reasonable, but not quite enough to kill the beast. I expend a point, due to her prayer, and grant her an additional standard action in the form of a standard attack. She rolls, hits, and finishes it off, ultimately saving the party cleric that I was going to kill in all probability on the next action).
  
• Player Z isn't sure what the party should do next. They make camp and he tells his allies he's going to pray to his god for guidance (purely RP, he didn't expect anything to come of it). When he awakens, he's had a vision with several new clues regarding the mission. (Usage: Similar to the inspiration option in hero points. I granted him a vision in the form of a dream with subtle and not so subtle symbology).

Since we've started using this, they've begun actively attempting to figure out and use the system: one player regularly donates to his religious organization, another preaches the good word, others roleplay their characters as more or less pious depending on character. I saw a definite increase in them asking for a "blessing" from their deity at critical moments, particularly if the dice have been failing them over the course of a session. In essence, I keep the entirety of the mechanics out of their hands and my game has certainly improved as a result of it.

I also do not reward characters by picking the anti-hero option (i.e. not having a deity). It doesn't exist. If you don't worship the gods, you get no special favors from them and you certainly don't get a feat as Paizo suggests. One of my players plays a very Conan-like character, and even while he serves his gods interests, he's fairly blasphemous at times. He STILL gets the benefits of the system. Only godless characters don't get the benefits or those who only pay lip service.

I hope that better explains it.

I'll have to take a look at the Shadowrun 5e - I've never really looked at the game before, but I've heard good things.

Edit: thank you, Cyrad, for sharing it. I'm going to see if I can find a way to insert them into my setting. Thankfully, I've got more than enough undiscovered territory to fit them in.

There is a whole lot of "if you don't do it my way, you suck" in this thread. These forums would be a much better place for conversation if there was a lot less of this.

While I agree there is no need for name calling I'll admit I'm in the bolded text's camp. But I think your reasoning against kitsune, (or any race outside of core for that matter.) is wrong. They don't HAVE to 'popping out of portals', or using anything else different. They are born into the world as much as any hairless vanilla ape is.

Maybe he edited his posted before I saw it, but I don't see any indication that he believes kitsune or any race aren't born in a given world, just that it's possible to have any race pop in from anywhere else if it doesn't already exist.

This thread is a perfect example of several aspects common to every forum I've ever read or contributed to:

I. Wide Spectrum: You have a range of people (old and young, novice and veteran) and GMing styles from every extreme and place in between: from "my way or the highway", to "anything goes".

The above posts clearly illustrate that there are many methods to the madness and that you, as GM, need to find the sweet spot for your group. Any new posts will just be regurgitation of this with little deviation or complete off-topic (not to indicate that is a bad thing).

II. I'm not going into the second aspect, as it will turn into an off-topic rant, and I'm trying to be less of an ass these days.

I'll keep this fairly brief. We don't use traits, but are interested in replacing them. Always liked the idea of merits and flaws, but every system we've seen has been a bit of a let down. I stumbled upon the "Arcana" from 7th Seas d20 and really liked the feel of them. I'm considering working on a project to flesh these for our Pathfinder games, with some changes, of course - these are rough examples.

Monologue [Flaw]
Trope: Evil Gloating
Benefits: The GM or a player (who has discovered this flaw) can activate this flaw once per day in order to get you to tell them your scheme.

Hopeless Romantic [Flaw]
Trope: Serial Romeo
Benefits: The GM or a player (who has discovered this flaw) can activate this flaw once per day in order to shoot you with Cupid's arrow, yet again.

Upon selecting a Flaw at 1st level, the character may also select a single bonus feat or a single Merit. Basically, you get one flaw and one merit (or a bonus feat) if you choose at 1st level.

Seductive [Merit]
Trope: Femme Fatale.
Prerequisite: Charisma 13.
Benefits: You may activate your merit once per day in order to make a Bluff check to convince another character (NPC only) to commit a deed that he normally wouldn't perpetrate. You gain a +5 insight bonus to this roll.

Discerning [Merit]
I couldn't find a trope, but basically putting yourself in the opponent's shoes to anticipate his next move.
Benefits: You may activate your merit once per day to predict what an opponent's very next action is going to be. Once the GM has told you what the action is, he cannot change his mind based on your actions.

Hopefully, that will get the idea across. Mostly, I'm going to be adapting these directly (but removing mechanics specific to 7th Seas), but I plan to add some new ones in, as well. A lot of the originals are good or evil, only, and neutral characters aren't permitted to select them, which I found to be quite silly outside of a 7th Seas game, but I understand why in the context of the game.

For my games, I'm thinking I'll probably go with everyone selects a flaw and they gain one merit as a result. Anyway, was mostly wondering if this interested folks in terms of contributing to and using, and so on.

So have you guys checked THESE out? You might find some options you like... ;)

This is where I go for hybrids. These guys love the game, do good work, and do it for love of the game - not to part me with my hard earned cash. It is my opinion, mind you, but Pathfinders attempt at copying them pales in comparison.

As an added bonus, you can make requests in their thread, get prompt responses, and a lot of peer review.

For the record, I have no affiliation or what have you with these folks outside of the homebrew boards, so I'm not trying to "pimp" it, I'm just THAT happy with the material.

A lesson Paizo can take away from 5th/Wizards is there writing style. Some people are annoyed by the fluff mixed with the crunch but, honestly, with my first time DMing D&D it was phenomenal. From just reading the PHB and a little on Forgotten Realms, I've roleplayed the setting and its inhabitants better from just a few days of reading of thought work than I ever did with Golarion and Pathfinder in spite of years of exposure. I could probably go back and do better with Golarion now but Wizard's writing almost narrates a movie while giving you mechanics. It's much easier to digest than the hard separation Paizo currently does.

I thought this was an abberation with 5th but then I looked back to the 2e DMG and 3.0 FR setting. Everything I read was genuinely written better. Though, it could be those resources cover much more mundane topics. It's not all fantasitical events and powerful creatures. There are articles on bartering systems and various economies. I felt like it was trying to improve me as a DM rather than just giving me material to use in games.

Personally, I like the separation of church and state (fluff and crunch). The difficulties present in misinterpreting fluff interlaced with crunch - mistakes and confusions for both players and GMs alike - was nightmarish (in my opinion).

I agree whole-heartedly with your second paragraph, however. Anytime I decide I need a mechanic to cover something, I look back at my AD&D 1 and 2e books and usually find it (horse quality and traits from the 2e DMG, for example). Anytime I try to fix a problem we find in iterations of 3.x (especially regarding spellcasters), I look to AD&D 2e to see what Cook & his merry band removed that caused the problem (and I ALWAYS find something, again, especially with spellcasters).

I've been tooling around with the idea of a spontaneous witch (the warlock) and spontaneous druid class (the ovate) for some time. Ultimately, I gave up on them both until recently, when I was once more motivated to get back on it.

This is the first draft of a spontaneous witch, the warlock, and was designed as a result of gutting my Witch Archetype to give the Warlock his own, unique, class feature which didn't involve reusing bloodlines, tiresome pact concepts, hexes, and so on.

You can find the draft here: Warlock

I'd appreciate constructive comments, questions, and so on.

Note: For some reason, google docs really hates my pasted tables, so spells known and spells per level are left out of the document. However, they're identical to those of a sorcerer/oracle.

I kinda like the mechanical take on the dragonborn, their scaling breath weapon in particular. As it stands, there's not really an easy way I've found to do that in the Race Generator.

When the Advanced Race Guide was in beta, there were several individuals who extrapolated that if you gave a PC race approximately 1 RP per level (around 1-3, if I recall correctly) as they leveled, you could scale abilities to go along with it without affecting their CR.

I use this method for all my homebrew races, granting 1 RP per level and a select list of abilities I deem fitting; I give the players the illusion of getting to customize their race by getting to spend points on things in this list, which further attaches them to their character and make their characters quite unique. I use standard "PCs should have this ability as X level, this one at Y level" and so on (no uninhibited flight prior to level 5, and such, for example).

You're right. I meant tedious when I wrote complex. And yeah, wake down exemplifies the point quite well.

I probably wasn't being fair in my interpretation of what you guys were saying.

When my wife points out that I'm being an ass about something, I often respond, "Well, I wasn't trying to be an ass." She responds, predictibly, "As with many things in our life, dear, you excel without effort."

She's often right - this may have been one of those instances.

I tend to get writers block quite often, and while I can't be of more help to you in curing yours, I can offer you a tool that's helped me get past mine.

The Adventure Generator found here is great. I usually refresh it until something catches my eye. Hope it helps.

[...stuff...]

Your post sums up a great example of a "challenge", in my opinion.

...killing for no reason but to join the assassin guild.

I have always felt that was one of the silliest prerequisites in existence. We altered it to "complete an approved task set by an assassins guild handler."

This isn't a criticism of your brother or his player, but of the "requirement" as presented for the class. While this is judgmental on my part, it feels like it was written by a 12 year old (and I've felt that way since it was released in 3.x).

That's it more or less. I also think liberty can be taken to add additional abilities or whatnot to the list of prestige abilities, but that depends on what class is being converted.

Excellent and I agree. I look forward to seeing this develop. Again, I think it's a rather elegant and excellent idea to implement with a cautious eye.

This is a VERY QUICKLY thrown together version of Eldritch Knight, as an example, and is NOT to be taken as a serious and/or complete version. I want to make certain I understand the process you're using in construction. Let me know if I'm close.

In essence, it looks like you're doing HD granted by the class / 2 (round down, I'm assuming) and the class skill bonus is simply X + Int, but drop the Int. The achievement-based abilities are designated with a difficulty/number of challenges/quests/and so on you'd want them to perform to acquire, as well as "relative power level", no?

Be careful with your challenges. You don't want it to turn into a list of video game achievements.

I don't get the impression from his material that an achievement means "Orc Slayer - Kill 100 orcs."

It looks to me like a challenge might represent a quest or plot hook developed for the specific prestige group. I could be reading into it, however.

I rather like the concept; after reviewing your noble scion example, I like it even more. I have concerns about bonuses or benefits that ignore action economy for combat purposes, and certain stacking class features, but overall, very impressed.

I'd love to see more examples when you have the time.

There is probably a good example somewhere but do arcane tricksters get any trickster-specific abilities before level 3? I don't think they do.

In my opinion, Paizo should have dropped prestige classes the second the archetype idea took off and converted pre-existing prestige classes to archetypes to allow "from-the-get-go" playing of your concept. I like archetypes, though I understand many may not for whatever reasons.

I've done this for some prestige classes for my campaign setting (assassin, shadowdancer, and so on). It is tiresome work for one guy, but like you, I enjoy the crunch.

"Werewolf: Damage Immunities bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing

damage from nonmagical weapons that aren’t silvered."

This pretty much sums up what I like they have done with 5th ed. The whole 'if I hit hard enough with a stick I can kill anything' of 3e/PF drives me nuts. I had zero issues with some creatures being almost unstoppable with the players were dumb enough to go against them unprepared. Running away IS a valid tactic.

This retro-rule alone means I will be giving 5th ed. a real good go.

Alternatively, you could just do what I and others have done: ignore the "house rules" introduced by Pathfinder that you disagree with. Pathfinder is just another 3rd party publisher with marketing good enough to convince folks it's somehow better than other 3rd party publishers, after all.

@JoeJ, while I agree with the spirit of what you're saying, I don't think GMs need a little blurb of text to tell their players the GM is the final arbiter and so on (see The Most Important Rule).

The GMs that NEED this are still going to let their players brow beat or walk all over them. They NEED a backbone, which Paizo cannot provide.

Edit: On second thought, I'm sure Paizo could provide a backbone, for the low-low price of one of their hardcover books. As an added bonus, it would contain a pamplet chock full of new spells and feats for monks!

I prefer the current iterations of the 3.x product and homebrew rules, which does not include D&D 4e (though I know a few folks who rather enjoy it). I am highly unlikely to give 5e even a glance without significantly more information and releases - the OGL for 5e will determine that.

Hasbro pretty much lost me as a customer shortly after the release of 4e and the end of SWSE.

And all these suggestions, nerf the limited utility of anything that doesn't use magic.

This is a perfect example of why you shouldn't make blanket statements without reading the entire thread.

I do it a bit different. We got really tired of the way hit points were handled and the low survivability of low-level characters, so I was tasked with solving the problem (as GM). It is really simple, too.

We use average hit point gains per level, I just decided to "front load" it instead of the "standard" method. My players gain maximum hit die at 1st level + Consitution modifier + 10 and average hit points (rounded down) based on their hit die + Constitution for each level thereafter. Here's an example:

Bobgoblin the sorcerer gets 1d6 hit die per level. Assume Bobgoblin has a Constitution of 12 (+1 modifier). At 1st level, Bobgoblin gains 7 hit points due to hit die and modifier - to this total he adds 10 for a total of 17 hit points at 1st level.; at each level thereafter he gains 3 + his Constitution modifier.

Where does the +10 bonus hit points come from? At each level after first, Bobgoblin normally gains 3.5 hit points. This means he gains 3 hit points at even levels and 4 hit points at odd levels using the average. All I've done is remove the .5 he gains each level (to 20th), added a bonus of +0.5, which totals 10, and given it to him at 1st level instead of over the course of all 20. It has worked out great and I've "given" them absolutely nothing (okay, I gave them +0.5 hit points, but still!). I do the same for NPCs with class levels, but not monsters or run-of-the-mill NPCs.

I think your method is fun, far more "fun" than mine (I like the gambling style component). It doesn't really improve the odds of survival, however.

Due to the larger number of deaths at 1st level, I ended up using a "front-loaded" average system. The hit points remain the same, overall, with just a .5 hit point gain. It boils down to:
1. Maximum hit points at 1st level (6 on a d6). Add 10 to this total.
2. Average hit points from levels 2-20 (rounded down, so 3 hit points a level on a d6).

The 10 "bonus hit points" are the result of dropping the decimal, i.e. levels 2-20 would grant 3.5 hps per level under the usual rules. The total comes to 9.5 and I round it up.

Die (Starting HPs {before Con}/HPs Per Level After 1st)
d6 (16/+3)
d8 (18/+4)
d10 (20/+5)
d12 (22/+6)

I have a race called the Primal. It was based off the Shifters of Eberron. My version has Beast Shape I with limitations and hasn't proven unbalanced yet, despite me allowing raven and bat forms. YMMV

Edit: I allow them to progress through feats as they level in the particular ancestry they chose, just to clarify my forms comment.

This post was full of antagonistic and snarky commentary in response to ShadowcatX. I've removed it in order to avoid escalation and move back on topic.

I normally do not edit or remove any posts in this fashion, but there is no benefit to the thread by allowing it to remain and be responded to.

Crops up every game in my large group; thankfully, we're all mostly mature adults and it isn't a focus of a campaign. The relation ship deal is mostly sidelined and responses are somewhat descriptive* as opposed to direct role play. I'm almost 40, and roleplaying out a romantic scenario with an overweight tattooed biker looking guy with a Duck Dynasty beard is not happening (who also happens to be a physics professor). Additionally, role playing the same sort of encounter with my best friends attractive wife is not happening, either. Mature or not, weird things happen at a table if this element isn't handled properly.

You might take a look at Kismet Rose's site. She has a lot more experience with this sort of thing outside of the clear boundaries we use in our group.

* Bobgoblin might tell me he's sending gifts and beginning a courtship. After a time, he'll receive information on the response and so on.

I hate to be a broken record, but I'll assume the role anyway: instead of spells auto-succeeding where one would normally make a skill roll, spells should grant a bonus to said skill, treat you as trained, add rerolls, and so on. While the binary nature of skills is problematic without GM intervention, the number 1 issue with skill use is, "don't bother, Bobgoblin the Wizard has <insert spell> which has no chance of failure."

When Gygax and Co. wrote the original spells, skills as we know them didn't exist. The 3.0 writers did not account for that -or didn't care - which caused many of the problems we still deal with today in PF. Continuing to purchase products and support a company that refuses to correct this oversight, however, is our own fault.

My opinions, of course, so take them with a grain of salt.

I'll put this as simply as possible. The two competing theories are "buff all other classes, feats, skills, and so on" and "nerf full casters".

Of the two competing theories, either or both could ultimately solve the perceived problem (the potential for both solutions to fail in solving it exists, as well). One solution is complex, the other is simpler. Of the two competing theories, which does the principle support selecting?

If your answer is the first solution, you get a gold star.

Furthermore, an opinion is, "any view or judgment formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge". With that in mind, do you now plan to argue that a solution - not yet proven as fact - is in some way not an opinion?

PS I'm sure you missed the, "I think" line because you didn't bother to read the whole post before you started your diatribe. You seem to have some need to prove me wrong, which I'm good with. However, arguing philosophy is off-topic for the thread, so if you'd like to continue our e-peen contest, I'd be delighted in PMs or the general discussion thread.

Try building the new spell using the Words of Power rules. Gives a pretty good idea how powerful that spell is.

Sorry I didn't respond to this sooner, its been busy around the house and I only just noticed it.

I kinda like the Words of Power, but seems to slow down gameplay a lot, so we just use it as a basis for spell construction for homebrew spells. I'd love it even more if it ever got the support such a system merits from Paizo. Was released in what, 2011 and no updates or mentions of it since, which is really unfortunate.

These are my opinions.

You cannot bring fighters or melees up to the level of wizards and other spellcasters. A fighter can never compete with the near-infinite options available to spellcasters - the day he is equal to these classes is the day the fighter is just a wizard with a new name. All you do by attempting it is to escalate the overall power level and numbers just climb higher and higher. Ultimately, the status quo is maintained.

The 4e system tried the reverse, they brought everyone down to the same level. While some may disagree, it was ultimately not a successful endeavor - while many new players liked it, many old-school players were very disappointed in it.

The problem is rooted in a number of things, not limited to the following:

• Each edition removed more and more restrictions on spellcasters (increased hit dice, mechanics which allow them to bypass spells per day, further focus on single attribute for everything, spell resistance is trivialized {if you don't believe me, look up AD&D 2e Magic Resistance}, spells used to autofail if you took damage during a turn you were casting, so on and so forth). This list just goes on and on.
  
• Extremely poor wording on spells and effects which allow for exploitation. Again, the number of spells which are poorly worded is astounding.
  
• No solid system for spell design. Benchmarks for spells are basically, "if it's as powerful or more powerful than this spell which is extremely powerful for its level, you might want to increase your new spell by 1 level". I think benchmarks should include Weak, Median, Strong and some solid formulas for when x, y, or, conditions should start appearing, especially for newer GMs.
  
• Magic Items? No real cost to a spellcaster for making them. AD&D had limits and where those limits failed, the cost was more severe and/or required more effort than a single dice roll.
  
• The big three for controling magic items in one's campaigns (command words, charges, and curses) are considered "Dick Moves," because we should always get what we want, when we want it. Capturing a wizard's stash of wands and rods was of little use if his books and notes couldn't also be found.
  
• Any and all changes to correct for magic, including fixing the wording on exploits to some folks, is considered a nerf. Am I nerfing my code when I correct a bug that crashes the system? Am I nerfing my child when I restrict her for clearly not behaving in a fashion that conforms to the rules all must follow? Probably poor examples, but still.

These are just a few examples, and while I think moving away from some of them was a move in the right direction, others should have remained in place. Additionally, I'm not saying that 1e, 2e, 3e, 4e. whatever was so much better than any of the others that we were fools to ever switch. I think the game has come a long way and still love it. I am, however, saying when you remove all the shackles that keep magic a component of the game, it becomes the game.

When a problem arises, an even hand and objective head must be applied to solve the problem in a gradual manner with objective and consistent solutions.

Again, my opinion, for what its worth.

I really liked the interpretation of Fey from the book, Van Ritchten's Guide to the Shadow Fey, a supplement from the 3.0 splat book done for Ravenloft. I really can't recommend it enough, if only for the flavor. Statistics need updated, mind you, but the lore is refreshingly creepy.

Fixing STUPID is very difficult and sometimes not worth the effort. You cannot fix STUPID with mechanics, but with an even, gentle hand as a GM one on one with the problem player(s).

Often, STUPID is confused with IGNORANCE, which can more easily be corrected.

I'll be glad to help with suggestions regarding problem players or mechanics, but I'd really like more specifics on the core problem. Is it one player, more? Do they play the same personality every game? So on and so forth.

There are several Reputation systems out there, so you don't have to construct one yourself unless you really want to.

I really like the idea.

I started this ages ago, based off another's work, and a couple days into it TheRedArmy went full swing and finished it much better than I could have. Link: Social Combat.

I'm linking it for the purpose of providing you with a ton of suggestions for action types and so on. It has several action types listed for both sides which may provide you with inspiration for your own project.