Diego Bastet's page

My setting began with the tips of ye olde Dungeon Master Guide, starting with a single detailed area in a bigger world that became more and more detailed with time.

Ten years on the road and lots of campaigns happened in the more or less core regions, shaping the history of the world, while some elements of the outside regions creeped in in small fragments (a character from the necromancer lands, a god from the desert, a legend from another place, this kind of thing).

Now the setting is about the same size that it started, but much, much more developed. Now my players are so immersed on it that they asked for a GT-like (grand tour) kind of campaign, that took them to all kinds of different places in the setting, and there's actually so much developed material in the setting that I've taken to writing an article per week about a Region/Organization/People of the setting (player's choise what they want to know each week).

I guess my tip is: If you're making a setting for home-game purposes (and not for commercial ones) take it easy and follow Ye Olde DMG and the tips from Monte Cook in the old dungeoncraft articles on dragon magazine. Start small, with your core cool idea, an interesting regional map and a big map with the far-off regions and no more than some lines about its coolness; the rest will come and you'll develop. I see too many dms creating extensive work before even playing on their settings, and in my humble opinion this can backfire when you can't SHOW people what you created.

Hm, the graveyard, that's what I though; good to have it clarified.

I finished translating your rules yesterday and already posted them to the players. I only diverged from you in that I created hero units from the characters, as they were itching for taking pat in the fight, but I made it clear that in any day they participate in the fight they can't go adventuring, and that while their help in the fight will be needed here and there (they want to feel needed, after all), the rebels REALLY need them to act as Big Guns to remove the other side's Big Guns, and they got the idea.

I measured by my player who likes less RTS and wargames, and she loved it. Great job Kaushal.

Here it is Lord Snow: http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2ikdl&page=2?Crown-of-Fangs-Impressions

Just do a good look at his posts, because they are in spoilers.

BTW Kaushal, I have one more question: The player's units are supposed to be able to start where? I understand the clerics should start at the graveyeard, but am I missing where they are allowed to be allocated?

Amazing! Exactly what I need. With these encounters, plus Tito's original two extra encounters and those already on the adventure path we can look at a much bigger revolution! Thanks for that!

My playerz blazed thru the final part of skeletons of scarwall on today's session in a way that amazed and inspired me. So I'll be using your system two sessions earlier, meaning I'll be present it tomorrow. of course they'll have some time when returning home to know people, ask around, look for their families and begin to know the resistance and the system; but as soon as I can i'll provide constructive feedback.

And any chance on the drafts of the special missions?

I'm dming coct since the beggining of the year, and the players are finally at the final part of skeletons of skarwall. Since the beggining I've changed around parts of the campaign, including at least another full theme-linked adventure from paizo or dungeon into each chapter. But then, I was wondering how could I make the revolution with some kind of mini-game between the quests, and this fits perfectly. I'll begin preparing War pieces for the units at once, and design some units myself.

Now, would you be willing to post here at least a draft of your ideas for the missions? I suppose they are to be encounters ou chains of simple encounters, like trifacia or the dragon's battle instead of full dungeons, but it would be good to take a look at least on the basic draft and use it.

Also, if I asked, would you develop or help me develop stats for other two units that aren't part of the vanilla coct campaign but should feature in mine? (They would be shoanti warriors (they got the best possible outcome and kept relationships), and a certain powerful npc they kept alive and made switch sides)

One of the main flaws I see in SD is the difference between what the material makes the players expect and what the campaign is about. I'll be dming this campaign in some months, but since I like to prepare myself, I decided to be a little more honest on the player's expectations, making exploration of the shadow in the sky more important than the gaming hall, but leaving the option for the character (but not the player) ignoring the shadow for now and just gambling and such.

However, after reviewing the first book, on the first pages I was re-introduced to the golden goblin and the diabolical theme and such. And given the option of being more or less a common adventurer-mercenary trying to hit the prize, I see that one of the players would NEVER forgive me if she didn't have the chance to play one of the hot succubus-clad waitresses. Since she always like to be the sexy one, instead of waiting to hear "cool, can I be one?", I intend on giving her this option.

Given that, I'm planning some more traits, including the option of being one of the reccently employed girls at the golden goblin, but I'm at a loss... I don't want to custom-make the trait for her char (the players would see it, and they don't like custom-made things. They like to think that with different groups they could tackle the same challegens differently)), but I spent some ten minutes imagining a cool ability, so thought "Why not ask?"

So, any good ideas on what could be the benefit of this trait, and also, can you imagine some other nice traits? All ideas are welcome!

I use a system where you buy the feat Ritual Caster and gain a spellbook. You then have to copy spells to your spellbook, and when you want to cast it you have to make a number of Knowledge checks equal to the spell level, with a DC of 10 + 5 x spell level. If you don't have a number of ranks equal to the level the spell is gained (for example, 5 ranks for 3rd level spells, 11 ranks for 6th level, and so on) you receive -5 / difference in ranks. Each check takes one minute. You have to spend some money, and while I use a number that is ok for my games, every GM is different, and should use whatever he thinks is best. I use only 10gp x CL x spell level, but I could understand pricing it equal a potion at 50gp x CL x spell level.

It's quite simple, and it works very well in my games.

Usualy I don't need to clarify anything, but yesterday came an interesting question on my gaming group, about the primalist ability Primal Magic.

When you use the ability your intent is not losing your prepared spell level, but if you fail the concentration check you lose the slot AND you don't cast the spell AND you unleash a primal event. You can use this once plus one more at 5th, 10th and so on. Seems easy enough.

My players,however, asked me about a certain detail. The text says like other abilities the number of times you can use it. However, since there is a "wild mage" type of character that they really like, they are convincing the player to use, since unleashing the primal event would be very similar to using a rod of wonder, and, truth be told, for that character that is completly awesome.

Their question was: Since that char can fail the concentrarion check on purpose to unleash a primal event, if you fail you concentration check do you still lose your daily use? They ask about both the letter and the spirit of the rule, because for them unleashing the primal event is THE class ability, and they want to "fail" like this many times per day.

There's no indication of "if you fail you don't lose your daily use", so the letter is easy, I think, but what about the spirit? Since they WANT to fail the concentration check, do you people think it's interesting to allow multiple failures per day?

"Advanced Race Guide: Because "a Dwarf and an Elf enter a cave full of Kobolds..." never gets old".

Ileosa as a psion? Holy Funk!

Katana, 1d8, 18-20/x*.

x2 and Finesse with one hand, x3 with two hands seems cool.

But then, c'mon, it's a damned martial weapon. Someone here mentioned here that not all, just most styles used it two handed. The ones who use it two handed are the "common" styles, and the ones who use it two-handed are the "uncommon" styles...

Keep the per day. Not all groups are the same. In my campaign the chars don't rest now for, what, four days? They're starting to feel it, and there a levl o "humanly possible" feel for not being able to just go and go and go and go.

I like the skill. I have one playable race with wings, so it helps a lot.

Hell, now I can even put some monsters who fly and have half-decent rules to use with it.

The skill seems odd, but actually it does help a lot to try some flying battles. Plus, the player of the winged race loves it.

I don't like new systems too. I love alternate systems. I use Everyone-as-Sorcerer in some games and a system as warlocks (at will) in others. Variant and alternate FTW.

I used it once. Pretty good actually, with the UA variant. Magic fang, barskin and such things. It's not very hard to combine the emulate nature of druid with the study of the body of the monk.

You use play with fire from Frank and Keith. That I could understand.

The point I did mention, however, is that being mindless can be an argument as to invalidate evil in a creature, like golems and vermin.

You really get into some problem when you think about some things like Demonflesh golem. But not being able to discern something, and having totally not any kind of instinct, self preservation or need to do something, seems to me some things that can make a thing being neutral.

It's very interesting in fact that I'm a totally drama-oriented player (being a student of psychology and such), but I really love good rules.

My plaers are shaped by me into some gr eat roleplayers that love drama and interaction, however I also help them to make the most optimized build out of the character concept and story they make. I just hate dips, strange races, classes and non-prestige prestige classes. All the other (using the best feats to the g reater effect and such) is fair and encouraged game.

I would make some cleric that was closer to the deity portfolio than to either role. If I'm going to make a cleric of a god of fire I'll be using area spells, specially with fire, and fire spells in my weapons.

It don't really matter. Trying to tie the cleric to these two categories just diminishes it.

Last knight, I'll respond the question because I think I think equal to the one you asked:

There can be magical items that are simply evil because they are made with evil spells. If you really follow the way you are leading, there aren't evil spells, just evil uses for spells. A magic item, if you think deeply, can't really be "evil". But it has a tainted aura, it was created with evil spells and (supposedly) with evil rites and such things.

In my way of thinking, a creature without inteligence can't be evil. But it's a creature. This extends only to creatures. it's not an exercise of applying this way of thinking to extremes. If it was, you couldn't even have evil rocks, evil doors and such things. This sounds really dumb, evil doors or rocks, but there could be. They're probably magical too. But I believe that the rock being evil (hehe) just means that it has an evil aura, no that the rock wants to kill babies...

For me, mindless creatures won't ever be evil. Creating an undead may be UNNACEPTABLE because this taints the sacred death and this kind of thing, but isn't to be something EVIL. A cleric could raise a dead ox to help the farmers with the harvest. They would look strange, and wouldn't trust it, but then, the ox isn't evil per se. It's a construct. A thing.

A magical evil item isn't a thing? It is. But it's evil because it was created with an evil spell.

There are many evil spells that don't use negative energy, and they should still be evil. There are some that destroy and kill but shouldn't be more evil than a fireball!

And in my opinion, a spell shouldn't be evil just because it uses negative energy.

My two cents.

i'll only add on thing to this interesting discussion, abou the 2e feel.

I also played 2e a little less than a lot, and I'll tell that back there it was very fun and interesting and stuff (actually, the portuguese translation had a serious problem that made people think that you gained weapon profs every level, tcs... that was hard...), but back there there were some stupid things in my opinion.

One of them was the cleric. The cleric was nice, and it was a war priest, really christian by the way, but since I always loved mithology, even as a early teen (I was a late child/ early teen when I played it), I always asked myself why in the nine I couldn't be priest of a different god, somethin like a priest of a god of death with a scythe and such things, or some kind of egyptian priest with kopesh... No one never let me play a cleric like this, but one small, little and almost forgotten phrase I found what I thought was great. it was more or less like this: "Priests of different gods may be able to use other weapons, like a priest of the God of the Hunt being able to use a Spear".

That oppened a lot of theorical options that I never got to play. So when I started Dming in 3.0 my very first change was "clerics get medium prof. and can use their god's weapon for free". Pretty much since 3.5 I also declared that they couldn't spont. convert. healing spells, but could convert. spells into their domain spells. Lately, I killed Turn Undead and gave clerics a equivalent special ability based on their gods.

And it was all good.

So, for me, those changes to the cleric, for example, don't seem strange, or even out of the "holy box", because back there at 2e I wanted clerics to be like they are now. And as the years passed I made my cleric be what they are now.

As I grew up I started to be annoyed by other little things, and I still think that the disparity between casters and non-casters is too great. But hey, I can always use my remake of the spellcasting system (won't give details, but jump on me if you want: Spellcasters cast spells at will, but, as a warlock, know very little spells, and instead of 9th circle, they only get to learn up to 7th spell circle, and that's only at 19th level!).

So far so good for me, the changes, and the paradigm, and all those things.

And since I like it so much, I believe my players are going to give me one copy of the core rulebook in my birthday. I hope, at least :D

Note: It's a litte hard for a long timer to swallow the drawings of the magic swords in the core rulebook. They look less like real swords and more like videogame game swords. But I love videogame, and Lineage, and such things. And I did HATE the OLD appearance of AD&D, and, and, and... I'll just swallow this as the Zeitgheist of the gaming world of today...

Hello again those who helped.

Yesterday I was taking a look at the poisons, and was really puzzled on how they came to those costs. So I tried to find similar poisons, and came to two interesting examples: The giant was and the giant scorpion. They do almost the same thing, but one has DC 18, costing 210 and the other has DC 17, costing 200. of course, they cause damage to different abilit scores that aren't Constitution.

Looking at the simplest point first, I searched for an injury poison without ability drain, special effect or 2 saves, and found the weakest of all, the small centipede poison.

With some work I tried to scalate it to the Giant Wasp Poison, since both cause Dex damage, and later with the Black Adder Venom and the Greenblood Oil. I tried to make a "base poison" where you could add factors that would increase the final cost, and came with this. I don't know how much right this is, but reverse-enginering the Giant Wasp, Black Adder and Greenblood oil I came with very approximate costs, while the others missed the cost by some 10 or 20 gp.

This is, however, only for injury poisons, for now, as I don't have time yet to look at the other ones.

Assume that you will work with this base. It was created reverse-enginering other poisons:

Basic Injury Poison - Fort DC 10 - 1/turn for 2 turns - Damage 1 point of phisical ability damage - 1 Save cures - 50GP

Then you can add factors, wich you increase the basic cost:

A - Fortitude DC
10: +0 gp
11: +10 gp
12: +20 gp
13: +30 gp
14: +40 gp
15: +50 gp
16: +65 gp
17: +80 gp
18: +95 gp
19: +110 gp
20: +125 gp

B - Frequency
1/turn for 2 turns: +0 gp
1/turn for 4 turns: +20 gp
1/turn for 6 turns: +40 gp

C - Damage
1 Phisical Ability Damage: +0 gp
1d2 Phisical Ability Damage: +20 gp
1d3 Phisical Ability Damage: +50 gp
1d4 Phisical Ability Damage: +75 gp

With these numbers, most of the injury poisons can be made missing around 10-30 gp on their base price, with some being exactly right.

I can't figure yet the price for the "2 consecutive saves" poisons. Trying with the Wyvern poison I came to the conslusion that they should cost around ten times the price of the poison, but I'm just assuming...

So, please try a little and make this small trying of mine into pieces. I really want some help with this (it's hard to come to these numbers...).

What do you people think?

Many intersting points here. I came to the conclusion that it's the point of the Dungeon Master to decide what is the problem. Negative energy may be evil in the minds of some, or may be neutral in the minds of others. It is something that the DM must choose, and if his choice makes some abilities idiot (like positive or negative channeling etc). As the Lastknight pointed very well, he chose a side and used it in his game. And that's TOTALLY valid.

The big great point is that in the core D&D, and with that Pathfinder, negative energy isn't something evil. As set said, it's retarded that negative energy is evil but positive isn't good. Mindless beings being evil is like telling me that Vermin are evil (or good!). See, normal vermin are mindless, and they are living beings (powered by positive energy) but they are neutral, because, well, they are mindless! I could understand using smite evil to destroy a terrible Ghoul or something like that. But that skeleton right there is just an automaton.

Some say that the enslaving of elemental beings is evil. There is theories in both sides, but as Eberron puts to us, it is simply one method, like the pure elemental beings are just, well, elements, and not beings. I can understand that and live with that.

Now, using what Todd Stewart said:

since 99% of things in the multiverse are empowered by + energy, with only undead and a very few creatures naturally "living"

In my game worlds, negative energy is simply the energy of death. I could go on and start to mention Freud about the Eros and Tanathos, but this is useless at this point. The positive energy is the energy of life, renovation, etc, and the negative is of death and decay. So, or 1 - The spark of positive energy leaves us as we age, and finally ceases to keep us alive, or 2 - When we are born we are at full positive energy, and as we age we gradually lose some and get more negative energy. When the equation unbalances too much, we die. It could be like this, for some games.

What I know is that in my games the positive and negative energies are more clearly put as "elements", like fire and water (besides that I have two more elements, Wood and Force, but this doesn't matter here), so there's the Elemental Plane of Positive Energy (or simply Life), with full simple elementals of positive energy and even Genies of positive energy. All elements are neutral, and of course, probably inimical to the material life.

The other thing that I change on my games, mostly based on the Tomes by Frank and Keith, is that healing spells are Necromancy and not conjuration. This thing of just making necromancy evil is hard for me to accept: Necromancy is the art of life and death and the beyond. There's simply the [Healing] subschool of necromantic effect that deals with positive energy. I'll tell you all, so far this is unfelt by the players in the rules sense, but it just makes much more sense for everyone at the table.

With that I could free my clerics from being good at healing always, and being good at something that their god was supposed to be.

The big point is probably as Set pointed out: The DM gotta choose what he thinks about negative energy.

A) It IS evil. If you choose this, then give the mindless undead inteligence (basic inteligence is enough), and make the necessary revisions.

B) It IS NOT evil. Then mindless undead are neutral, and you're happy.

I really hope that the bestiary AT THE VERY LEAST solves the problem with the skeletons and zombies.

I remember very well askind around for some advice on how to make the Shadowdancer more shadow and such things, for one of my players that took the first level of the class. I do remember some people giving some good ideas (one use of shadow illusion / 2 levels, shadow conjuration that became greater shadow conjuration and such things), tjat we refined and worked until I said "great, I'll use like this". it was around the barbarian and other guys part of the playtest.

Since I lost the prestige classes part of the playtest, it was a very big surprise to see most of that thread ideas in the new shadowdancer. So, in some cases yeah, the boards' ideas were used.

There were sme big shifts in things considered holy from edition to edtion. And you can see many of them in the wizards of the coast things.

If I do remember correctly, animal companion was a ranger's thing in 2e, not a druid's. Am I wrong? (played too little with both classes)

The races couldn't be free for their classes.

Even some minor things, like gnomes being bards and not illusionists anymore, and this one came only with 3.5, not 3.0 at all! This was something different, and broke many paradigms of many people.

I believe that some things, like making the cleric less holy medieval priest were some good things. And I don't believe that PFRPG was intended as a stepstone to their new game.

But if it is, you can always keep playing 3.5 and PF. Gods, there are enough material for some 15 years of gaming, this if you never repeat anything !

Diego Bastet wrote:

Thanks for trying to remember for be.

But in any case, I love the poisons in PF, and I'll probably have to create my own guidelines based on the prices...

I'll probably create it in some hours of calculations and post here for evaluation.

I'd suggest something along the lines of the following in your formulations:

delivery method (most to least expensive) - inhaled, contact, injury, ingested. Your PC will probably mostly make use of injury poisons, later taking forays into contact and inhaled.

strength - the saving throw DC, presumably however much above or below 10 the DC is.

onset time - the listed onset times are pretty dominantly followed - but not always. Perhaps faster-acting poisons (ingested working faster than normal, for example) are more difficult - and thus, cost more.

effect - the amount(s) of ability damage or drain and/or any other conditions the poison delivers. A "neurotoxin cocktail" that deals all the ability damage types plus several conditions would be mind-bogglingly expensive!

frequency - not only how often the poison cycles, but how frequent those cycles are.

cure - weaker poisons seldom require more than one successful saving throw to throw off - stronger ones typically require two consecutive successful saving throws. Rare poisons that require three or more successful saving throws, or that require either a high-level magical curative (heal or the like) or a combination of 'standard' magical curatives (such as remove curse and neutralize poison that succeed against the poison's DC) are going to be pretty pricey.

Good luck, and let us know what you come up with!

That's pretty much the whole idea I had. But then, thanks for putting it here.

Thanks for trying to remember for be.

But in any case, I love the poisons in PF, and I'll probably have to create my own guidelines based on the prices...

I'll probably create it in some hours of calculations and post here for evaluation.

Finally someone praising the loss of heavy armor prof.

I said "amen!" when I saw that. Why? because now clerics do look like a little more like clerics of varied gods than the christian middle age war priests! That was the image of AD&D, with only blunt weapons and such. And to think about it, most clerics of other cultures, when they used armor, it was never the heaviest kind of armor possible in that culture.

Praise the medium armor prof. And if you want tanker cleric just buy it with a feat! There aren't really many feats that a cleric needs to be a total baddass (the class still overpowrs non-casters a lot), and you can burn a feat in this anyway.

it's even better in my games, because we use Class Defense bonuses instead of armor defense bonus. So they know medium armor and have less defense than the fighter or paladin. Glorious.

I remember this book. It was the Quintessential Rogue, or something like that by mongoose.

But then the mighty Jason could see this and say "Io, and behold, for I bring the formula I used, for it is this simple one. Each price brings some "slots" that you can, and should, use to set the DC, the damage and so forth. For you can, and should, have a poison with good damage and, behold, crappy DC, or a poison with crap damage but, behold, incredible @##-ripping damage. For this is your right, and I bestow it upon thee" or something like that.

By the Nine Divines!

Not the craft thing fair people. Please. I'm speaking about creating new poisons for my game. Not crafting for my character.

Welcome back to the boards!

The core rules do cover crafting poisons - although the rules use Craft (alchemy) - on page 558. Note that without skill mastery or an equivalent ability, the character has to roll the craft check due to the risk of rolling a natural 1. (This is moot if the character is immune to poison or has the poison use class feature.)

So many thanks for the imput, friend, but as I stated in the title, my question is not about crafting the poison. But creating new poisons. Like, I'm the DM, and I want to create a new poison, or better yet, give a balanced price to a poison of my own creation for my game world.

I'm very sorry if I wasn't clear, my non-native english is way too redundant.

Hello fair folks at paizo. And stout folks. And human folks too.

I spent a good deal of time out of this forum because of real life issues (work, college, my campaign, etc etc), leaving the forum in around the time that the playtest got to the feats, if I remember correctly. And that was no problem, because my help was limited to just one prestige class at that point.

But then, now that the game is on, and I'm playing it, and saying to my players "Know this feat? It works better now" and those kinds of things, I'm in need of a little something.

The point is: I have one little deranged player who plays a tiefling in my game (the races of my world are quite different, and the tieflings look in abilities closer to the Hell...hellpawn...hellchild...helladon'trememberthename, the race in the Fiendish Codex II), but the part that is important is that he's got Craft (Poison) (I keep it separate from alchemy for tas te reasons), and of course wants to make some poisons.

Looking at the new poisons I was happy to see that they look a lot more like real life poisons, and the fact that they seem to have a more robust design method: The fort CD is the same for the craft, they have a onset, delivery and strenght.

So I figured out that it would be nice to know wich are the guidelines to create new poisons. But I didn't find any.

Since this new poison system is more robust to work with, did someone around here see some guideline anywhere? Did I miss something? Is there this kind of thing anywhere?

If not, I think I'll have to create my own design guidelines, but if this is the case, do someone have a good idea for it?

Thanks in advance, and welcome me back to the forum.

"I plan to keep the numbers as they are for now, but allow players to choose how much to sac."

This is something sweet, that should be in the core book, I believe.

In my games we use a different kind of smite evil (one of the kinds that were proposed during the playtest), but I can fondly call the new Aura of Justice by it's nickname: "Holy War"

I barely returned to the forums and the Post Monster already ate my post...

So, basically, I think you could simply add "At each level multiple of X, the ranger can choose one Favored Enemy and trade for another kind", where X is equal to 1, 2, 3 or 4. In my games I use 2.

It works.

Ranged touch attacks, obviously...

I think it awsers the OP question.

As the last poster said, i think there's actually no real excuses why the good clerics channel positive and the evil negative energy besides the class function.

You know, I think it's strange for all the clerics to have this kind of relationship with the undead. In the 3e there were many gods who would have nothing to do with undead. I remember on the playtest someone saying that they would channel energy like that to still be able to harm or bolster the undead, but also because the cleric class is supposed to be very good at healing, and that without the need to convert every little spell to healing.

So, if you think from a design point, it's alright: Good clerics heal, evil clerics harm.

If you think with more verissimilitude in mind, actually gods from the different deities should do different things. Maybe you could make the "channel energy" cease to exist like this, being only a "divine battery", and give each cleric an ability based on his god. So cleric of the fire god would turn water creatures, of the war god would gain bonus to attack and such.

In some old dragon magazines there was an article about clerics who could trade turn undead for some other ability. This other ability had the same number of times per day and could be used to fuel divine feats. Atually, IMO, this is the way that someone who thinks that clerics should be closer to the deity portfolio than to healing, should totally go in their games.

After all, energyies aren't evil. Fire destroys you, but it isn't evil. And positive energy also destroys you, but isn't evil. Like, four elements, positive is the element of life, and negative the element of death. This makes me think why that mindless undead are evil, if they are just automatons that do what you say, and do nothing if you do nothing (not even defending themselves if not ordered to)?

I brought this discussion here last year, but most agreed that mindless undead should be evil because it's classic, and because it's desecration of the holy dead and etc, but that flesh golems shouldn't be evil, even being too desecration of the holy dead.

And about inteligent undead, most are evil and SHOULD be evil because they ACT evil and DECIDE to be evil (but there are good ghosts...). My problem is the same: Evil clerics with negative energy only and mindless evil undead.

I totally keep with my idea that the olde power attack was better because it was more useful for the melee. You know, they needed all the help they could get to keep on the power level. Now casters gained some more things, and non-caster didn't gain enough. While I think it makes the game easier for the begginers, I'll always keep the old power attack, even if the Pope asks me to use the new one.

Not to mention that I go even foward and give power attack and combat expertise to EVERYONE for free (they are in my game simple combat options)...

The old one had much better potential.

I already have the fighter choose one more class skill (making him kinda versatile) that on part with the BG and some other little things here and there.

Now, really, Bumping this one, do anyone else has some other kind of idea? I would really love a brainstorm here.

There are different settings and different ideas of what a 1st level adventurer is.

There are many who say that 1st level adventurers are fully fledged commoners.

I think that they are somewhat much better people than that. I don't agree with fully fledged, but I can't take the "straight outta the farm" concept also. After all they DID train for all those great abilities.

In my games we currently use the system a little bit different. We use the Defense system of the UA, except that you add the levels of classes with similar armor proficiencies (so ranger 2 and rogue 2 is equal to 4 levels of light armor), you have a -4 penalty (minimum 0) in any different table you multiclass. This actually makes the Ac really interestingly high.

The armor we use as DR. Half the value of the normal Ac value as DR. It isn't perfect, but it's something. The pcs are relatively harder to kill.

Since we also use Wound and Vitality points (with tweaks) armor's still great, since it can soak up some of those Wound points you took...

I say, give heavy armor a little love with some small dr. Really, it should be somewhat good.

Convenant Plasma Rifles beat any other any day. if you only you could just put another battery on it instead of just having to throw it away, or just make those dammed Elites stope running...

There's wisdom there...

Let me see.

1 - More or like something like taste, I think. But then, the 3 and beyond would help the fighter to get those levels. More or less like pure taste...

2 - Oh, sure, this is basic, and I think I didn't make it clear. You must have all the pre-reqs.

3 - The idea is good, but I think it goes against the idea of the Wild Card feats. Why?

Because to me this whole idea seems to help the fighter complement his choices of feats. of course ther will be those dorks who will always choose the same feats, sure, but the whole idea behind this is to help the fighter get to some other situation. You know, at level 8 he is supposed to have three of those wild cards feats, and he never actually used a bow in the adventure, but now's the time to use one (don't ask me), and he could take Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot, feats that he would NEVER get normally, and he could at least fire it without having the nasty -4 to shoot into melee. He still would have his only one left wild card feat of the day. With that maybe he could get, don't know, Two Weapon Fighting in a moment that this could help, or maybe even improved trip, or whatever.

I think that this whole idea is to give acess to some "you would never get those otherwise" feats. This could potentialy double the number of feats (for thoe who would trow the versatility out of the window), but then how could this make the fighter overpowered? He would have more feats, but poor fighter, needs all help he can get. And then, since the good feats still need bba and fighter level pre-reqs...

But anyway, good points Set.

Just my cents here: Make the AT more able to do tricks.

Sneak attack, and spells already make it very able to take on combat. Lowering the requirement to 2nd level spells makes it on par with the "Multiclass" casters like fighter/mage (you actually lose two levels of "mage"), priest/mage, barbarian/mage, whatever/mage.

My opinion is that the class abilities should go on the way to let you do some cool things outside combat that could save your butt. You know, RL can save your butt outside combat. Impromptu Sneak is already there, and somehow is part of the class. If you can cast mage hand at will and Sneak Attack someone at will with your ray of frost, why not some more cute abilities to save your butt outside combat? I'm thinking with things like "you can be more than a ranged sneaker with spells" thing. Spells are already the top of versatility, but you could gain some other things too, something on par with RL -something nice, combat-useless (almost), but could save your life outise it.

My two cents, as said...

I can't take it anymore people. I try to help and all Elizabeth, the fighter of my group, but hell, she simply isn't great as everyone else. She has a lot of feats but everyone else has other option, and she only got some more feats instead of class abilities. And she doesn't even got THAT MANY MORE feats...

While I have no problem with the fighter being the guy who has a ton of feats, I can't really see that this is really that much. The feats (still) don't equal class abilities, and while the class abilities of the fighter now are cool, it still ins't all that way to cool. You still have to burn a lot of feats to be good at something and horrible at everything else.

While I see that the PF fighter is very good for a book, and a long way improving the poor fighter, for MY pf games I think I need something more. I don't like much the new feats (besides, too much headache for me comparing them to all my other books of 3.50, so, FOR MY PERSONAL GAME (please note that I'm speaking for my game only) I can't go to the way "feats will fix it" thing solely. I intend to hug as many fighter only feats as possible, but then I need some help.

I've seen many fixes for the fighter, but two actually caught my eyes in a myriad discussions ans threads I've been. I want your opinions (PLEASE, CONSTRUCTIVE OPINION) on what those could help. Oh, and if someone has a good "fix" that fits on my expectations, please:

Expectation 1: No ToB. The fighter isn't to be the master of manuevers. He is to be the guy with the many many feats. Cool powers are nice, but the original idea is that.

Expectation 2: No really new subsystem. I like things simple. A small subsystem is cool, nice and worthy it, like the barbarian's rage. A big subsystem like ToB is bad...

But then, the fixes I found were those.

1 - Fighters gain feats at every level. Like this they gain "class abilities" (since their class abilities are just feats on plain D&D) at every level. This still does not solve the problem that feats are weak or that the fighter suffers to master anything. It helps giving the fighter more feats to specialize more than other classes. Since everyone on PF already gains more feats this could make the fighter and more...ahm... "Featish"...

2 - Same as above, but those feats (3, 5, 7, 9, etc) are like Iron Heroes "wild card" feats. At the beggining of the day the fighter may choose how to choose those feats from the fighter feats (in the normal way, you must have the pre-reqs and all). With that he can customize himself to the situations that will appear along the day, much like spellcasters can.

3 - Same as above, but the fighter doesn't choose at the beggining of the day, but instead he spends a move action to assign as many "blank" feats as needed to some feat. Once a "blank" feat is assigned to a feat, he can't change it until the next day. In that way the fighter begins the day with some "blank" feats, and he can assign some (or all) to a combat situation that he finds, while leaving space (or not) to other situations. I find this one interesting.

Well, I didn't create any of those. While I see wisdom in them, I would love some other opinions. What do you gentlemen think?

Just my opinion here:

The cleric IS the Holy Warrior of a church. There are priests, like, experts or commoners, sometimes even much better than a real cleric to speak with the faithful, make marriages, rites (think like "the rite of the sun" or "the spring godess festival" or just "the happy bath at the river for the water god" or anything like that), or even Adepts, maybe (like in Eberron). He can fight, he can heal, he can crusade against the infidels and all such things that makes him a Warrior Priest IMO. They can be simple priests too, but they CAN be much more. In the AD&D they were based on the catholical warrior priests, so the cure and all. In 3e they are meant to be the best healers, but they are meant to be able to do other things. That's why domains and all. After all a cleric of the Fire of d00m god SHOULD be able to throw fiery d00m at the foes of the god (like, say, the clerics of the Healing Waters goddess...). I think that the classe would need some little different fluff abilities and some other things, but it's good as it is now: A holy warrior priest.

Now, the paladin isn't a holy warrior priest. He is the White Knight, Holy Knight and all. A Paladin and a cleric of the Paladin God are very much the same, but a cleric of the Smart Rogue God and a paladin are som much different.

The Paladin is the champion of an ideal, the Hero ideal (Justice, goodness, courage and all are some good adjectives, but I think that "Hero" is kinda cool). I don't think they step on each other's toes in this way...

I don't see anything wrong with this class, and I Dmed for two Eds already. What we did was to raise the HD to d8, but the new d10 is even better.

Less power than straight fighter, less spell power than straight wizard, but a very versatile class. I think that all the classes that fuse together concepts lose some power in trade for versatility. Warrior-mage, thief-mage, cleric-mage, everything. No need to give more power to it.

The Prc problem you point, IMHO is not in the rules, but on the approach that each DM makes on that.

There are some dms who just make somewhat clear to the player that a prestige class is like a feat, something you get to increase your power instead of your base class. Something quite like a variant class ability or whatever, like "prestige Class".

But then this is not wrong. It's a very valid way of handling prestige classes. You just have to look at the 3.5 books and see how many prestige classe have "fluff" pre-reqs.

There are some DMs that like to enforce prestige classes as "Prestige class", creating fluff requirements, saying something like "if you enter it, you HAVE to finish it" or things like that. Actually, the DMG allows for the two kinds of playing. It says that the prestige classes might fit a special place on the campaign, or not. The Duelist might be a school of the duel (or maybe many schools of duel) or might just be a class that anyone with the reqs can enter.

As for myself I like better the second option. I create fluff requirements in my campaigns, enforce the "you MUST finish it", insert training rules (you must see your mentor/teacher/spirit guide, whatever, and waste some days training to level up in a prestige class, even and even harder) and all that comes with it. Hell, I even give the "special power" entry in Leadership to any char that finishes a prestige class. It's PRESTIGE after all (Yeah, in my campaign it's easier to just level as a base class. It makes the characters with prestige classes more prestigious, like "Ranger: Yeah, ranger level 13!" "Tempest: Oh, hell, to get my next level of Tempest I'll have to travel to that pirate insland to meet that strange wraith-like swordsman and hope he teaches me without breaking my bones again" "Ranger: Sucks to be you" "Tempest: Sucks to not have a prestige class :P").

You know, it's DM taste. It shouldn't be enforced to everyone. You should allow MANY different styles of gameplay, not only yours...

People, allow me to copy and paste this thing I posted on the other topic. I forgot to mention there, but I'll mention here: I'm dming an ongoing campaign that changed to accomodate PF beta and the playtest, and I have this player that is now playing a SD for seven months now. We had many discussions about the powers and our opinions, and she made me swear that when the prestige classes discussion was hot on the forums I would post our opinions. In the end this is asking to give more power to the abilities (the idea is cool already), and giving the SD a slow-progression sneak attack.

Ctrl+v

"Alright, alright, one of my players has played Shadow Dancer for around seven months in my ongoing campaign.

First, she really wanted shadowdancer since the beggining, but could not afford the feats early, so she only got at level 9. Allow me to say what really works and what not. This is not a plain "I see this rule is strange", but this is the result of actual gameplay.

Requirements: Trash. Really. But then, they are some feats that may help. Oh, hell, they are requirements anyway. Dance BTW is the coolest.

HIPS: This is the great ability of the class and should stay at first level. It allows some sweet things that only the SD may do. This was the reason the player wanted it.

Evasion: I know that the SD is notonly for the rogue, but it's mainly for the rogue and the monk. And then, at the level he gains this, the two say "I already have this..."

Uncanny Dodge: Alright here. It makes your UD go up to IUD, so okay.

Shadow Illusion: My player is not a powergamer, nor she is an optimizer, and she does not really even care about power, but this ability made her sad. Now, a weak illusion, at level 10, only ONE TIME? When I asked on these boards for some love on the SD some people told me to put this ability at level 1 and give one more use at level 3, 5, 7 and 9. So far it worked really nice. It's a weak power at best...

Summon Shadow: A shadow is a powerfull creature. When you happen to undertand that the shadow shouldn't be used to fight every battle, it's still a powerfull monster. Let's think, at level 10, a creature that can only be hit by magical weapons is not that much. But then, there are not many monsters in the MM at this level that can hurt a shadow. I am not sure, but having the natural weapons count as magic weapons for the purpose of DR doesn't make them count as magic weapons for the purpose of incorporeal creatures. The shadow is meant to be used against certain oponnents, and the STR damage is sweet. It's good as it is.

Shadow Jump: I understand that it may be best used to escape cells, go to other side of doors and all this kind of great thing that may save the life of the character outside combat, but I think that it should have a longer range. You can shadowjump too little each day to be usefull...

Improved Uncanny Dodge: Like "I already have this"...

Sllipery Mind: I can understand why it's here... Opportunist is so much more the SD type of ability!

Improved evasion: Now, really, rogues and monks feel cheated with that. My player said that. Gaining it at level 17? Really, there are TONS of games that END at or before level 17... The capstone ability should be something great like unlimited shadow jump or something like that, that maybe made the SDs go to level 10...

The greatest con: Lack of SA. Really. It was my player's greatest sadness. It didn't need to be such a great SA as the assassin or the rogue, it could be 3 or 4 levels, but at least HAVE SA. My player asked, besides all the RP reasons she had to choose SD, what was the REAL profit to chose the RAW SD instead of assassin in terms of power, and I said "well...none".

Ideas of changes:
1 - Move shadow illusion down to the 1st level of th class and give more uses at level 3, 5, 7 and 9. Not powerfull, but tasty.
2 - Give shadowjump more love. Maybe +1/2 range or something.
3 - Sneak Attack. Every rogue gets HIPS for easy sneak attack. At level 2, 6 and 10, or 1, 4, 7 and 10.
4 - Some ability. ANY ability at level 10. Something like "halves penalties for hiding. -5 instead of -10 and -10 instead of -20". Anything.

Well. The player still loves SD and she's enduring it. But I had to make some changes to praise her for choosing a colorful class instead of a powerfull one. And IMHO, that what the SD needs: A little more power on the greatly coloful abilities."

That's it, so, how about sneak attack?

Alright, alright, one of my players has played Shadow Dancer for around seven months in my ongoing campaign.

First, she really wanted shadowdancer since the beggining, but could not afford the feats early, so she only got at level 9. Allow me to say what really works and what not. This is not a plain "I see this rule is strange", but this is the result of actual gameplay.

Requirements: Trash. Really. But then, they are some feats that may help. Oh, hell, they are requirements anyway. Dance BTW is the coolest.

HIPS: This is the great ability of the class and should stay at first level. It allows some sweet things that only the SD may do. This was the reason the player wanted it.

Evasion: I know that the SD is notonly for the rogue, but it's mainly for the rogue and the monk. And then, at the level he gains this, the two say "I already have this..."

Uncanny Dodge: Alright here. It makes your UD go up to IUD, so okay.

Shadow Illusion: My player is not a powergamer, nor she is an optimizer, and she does not really even care about power, but this ability made her sad. Now, a weak illusion, at level 10, only ONE TIME? When I asked on these boards for some love on the SD some people told me to put this ability at level 1 and give one more use at level 3, 5, 7 and 9. So far it worked really nice. It's a weak power at best...

Summon Shadow: A shadow is a powerfull creature. When you happen to undertand that the shadow shouldn't be used to fight every battle, it's still a powerfull monster. Let's think, at level 10, a creature that can only be hit by magical weapons is not that much. But then, there are not many monsters in the MM at this level that can hurt a shadow. I am not sure, but having the natural weapons count as magic weapons for the purpose of DR doesn't make them count as magic weapons for the purpose of incorporeal creatures. The shadow is meant to be used against certain oponnents, and the STR damage is sweet. It's good as it is.

Shadow Jump: I understand that it may be best used to escape cells, go to other side of doors and all this kind of great thing that may save the life of the character outside combat, but I think that it should have a longer range. You can shadowjump too little each day to be usefull...

Improved Uncanny Dodge: Like "I already have this"...

Sllipery Mind: I can understand why it's here... Opportunist is so much more the SD type of ability!

Improved evasion: Now, really, rogues and monks feel cheated with that. My player said that. Gaining it at level 17? Really, there are TONS of games that END at or before level 17... The capstone ability should be something great like unlimited shadow jump or something like that, that maybe made the SDs go to level 10...

The greatest con: Lack of SA. Really. It was my player's greatest sadness. It didn't need to be such a great SA as the assassin or the rogue, it could be 3 or 4 levels, but at least HAVE SA. My player asked, besides all the RP reasons she had to choose SD, what was the REAL profit to chose the RAW SD instead of assassin in terms of power, and I said "well...none".

Ideas of changes:
1 - Move shadow illusion down to the 1st level of th class and give more uses at level 3, 5, 7 and 9. Not powerfull, but tasty.
2 - Give shadowjump more love. Maybe +1/2 range or something.
3 - Sneak Attack. Every rogue gets HIPS for easy sneak attack. At level 2, 6 and 10, or 1, 4, 7 and 10.
4 - Some ability. ANY ability at level 10. Something like "halves penalties for hiding. -5 instead of -10 and -10 instead of -20". Anything.

Well. The player still loves SD and she's enduring it. But I had to make some changes to praise her for choosing a colorful class instead of a powerfull one. And IMHO, that what the SD needs: A little more power on the greatly coloful abilities.