Dustin James Nelson's page

Pathfinder

I have to get up early for work and the first of my finals is coming up but I have been thinking between bouts of cramming about incorporating the Specialties in the D&D Next playtest into Pathfinder. Essentially they are prescribed feat trees for players wanting to play a particular character type (dual wielding, archery, blaster mage, etc.). This would be presented in addition to the simplified rules presented in the Beginners Box. As only one person in my gaming group ever has interest in playing a spellcaster at any given time, I have also been thinking about going as far as making some of the 0 to 1st spells accessible by feats but would have a very narrow focus (healing, identify/detection, etc.).

In a .5 and not a FULL revision, the changes I would like to see are rather modest...

• Streamlining conditions and bonuses: Until the introduction of condition cards, I would only take into account the easier or commonly reoccurring ones. It just took up too much time at the table looking it up and debating the finer points. How bonuses would stack was much the same way; morale, class bonus, inherent, or non-specified... I just let everything stack and thankfully my players enjoy playing warrior-types more so than casters.

  I would tweek this by trimming down on conditions and pairing down what each condition entailed. Also implement plainly stated keywords (yes, like in 4e) and allow bonuses to stack so long as none of them came from a similarly "keyworded" ability.

• Presentation: This is more of a pet-peeve than anything else, but I would like to see something different in the way that rules are presented. I realize that they had to keep the style of 3E and 3.5 for the transition to the Pathfinder ruleset; but two-column, bolded text for class abilities, italicized font for sub-abilities and magic items, etc. just makes me thing they could do more to make it seem less like a textbook.

  The thing is, they already did this with the Beginner's Box. I bought it for the pawns but was really impressed with the layout and would like to see more of it.

This is just an idea i had, i was lookingaround the Homebrew board and thinking there are so many great ideas here, that manys people will never see, so how about we make collections of the greatest homebrew ideas that come up around here?

we could separate them into different categories such as skill related, combat rules, class archetypes, character options (such as trais, feats and spells), monsters, balance fixes and things like that.

The way we should go about it i guess is (especially for balance fixes) to voteon which to include, and then make pdfs for everyone to download. (I'm currently learning print media design so I would even do that and maybe provide a pencil illustrtion here and there too, too make it look even better)

I've been thinking the same thing. So many great ideas get tossed around on here and it would be great to have something like this put together.

+1 for Laurefindel's overland rules. I actually use it quite often in my home game when the players want to spend significant time doing non-adventuring stuff.

Hi all. I have a pretty vanilla campaign document, I would like to give it a sepia toned background, and add some nice framing. I understand that the pathfinder stuff might be unavailable as it is proprietary, but I don't need to clone their exact look. I would just like to make my document look nice for my gaming group. I have no experience with this kind of thing, can anyone point me in the right direction?

Hey James, I'm going to assume, hopefully rather safely, that you are using Microsoft Word for your documents?

In order to alter the background, go to Format > Background, and from the toolbox that pops up, go to Fill Effects... Play around with the colors until you get the color you want. It should be mentioned at this point that most printers will not be able to print all the way to the edge (called "bleed"), so even if you fill the background with a different color on your computer it will not come out of the printer that way and will be bordered in white. You can likewise choose to insert a picture here, but will need to go with something light as a dark picture will likely obscure your text.

Speaking of which, Cambria or Georgia font will get you close to the look you want. Fonts with serifs, "tails" at the ends of letters, will help to evoke more of a fantasy feel. I take a different approach with tables, serifs can make these difficult to read at times, so something like Verdana works nicely.

You did not mention it but I thought that I would suggest that Word has a hyperlink function, which can be very useful when referencing rules text. Highlight the text you want then go to Insert > Hyperlink... and put in your desired url.

Hope that gets you a little closer.

I like additional PC Races to be modeled after the +2/+2/-2 Ability Score model. It's easier to see how well they balance with Elves and Dwarves and such.

That being said, the potential weaknesses I see are that two of the Racial Abilities, Shadow Meld and Light Blindness, are situationally unbalanced. When the situation exists the Racial Ability is either too powerful or too detrimental.

See in Darkness is easy to compare with other Racial Abilities.

Shadow Meld feels more like a Feat with some strong pre-reqs, indicating it's likely too cool at low levels and balanced at high levels (like you said).

Light Blindness just feels bad for all the right reasons, namely because it can hinder the party of PCs. I'd adjust this.

Eliminate Draconic and Giant from possible Languages. Absolutely. Can't imagine why they're there; the others seem good.

Although the +2/+2/-2 arrangement is the standard, it frees up race design to be more flexible in balancing between ability score bonuses and abilities. If I were to go with the standard, I would probably add +2 to Charisma; to have +2 Int, +2 Cha, -2 Wis.

I understand where you are coming from balancing between Light Blindness and Shadow Meld, but I played a character levels 3 - 12 and it wasn't an issue, they balanced each other out and by later levels I was just using Stealth checks to run and gun as my character was a rogue. Which is what I really meant with Shadow Meld, at higher levels my skills were better than the racial ability and/or I was UMDing scrolls of invisibility to get by areas where cover wasn't easily available. Light Blindness however never lost it's kick, but it fit with the flavor of the race and hardly went up against anyone with a Daylight spell prepared.

Here though is an alternate Shade I have been mulling over this past week, one that I think is more closely tied to its Dark Folk roots:

+2 Intelligence, +2 Charisma, –2 Wisdom: Shades are forceful and cunning but impatient.
Medium: Shades are Medium creatures, and have no bonuses or penalties due to their size.
Normal Speed: Shades have a base speed of 30 feet.
See in Darkness: A shade can see perfectly in darkness of any kind, including that created by deeper darkness.
Shade Magic: Shades add +1 to the DC of any saving throws against necromancy spells that they cast. Shades with a Charisma score of 11 or higher gain the following spell-like ability: 1/day—darkness.
Keen Senses: Shades receive a +2 racial bonus on Perception checks.
Light Sensitivity: Shades are dazzled in areas of bright sunlight or within the radius of a daylight spell.
Languages: Shades begin play speaking Common and Dark Folk. Shades can choose bonus languages from the following: Abyssal, Aklo, Elven, Infernal, and Undercommon.

Giving an ability to cast darkness while also being able to see through darkness may be powerful but it is only something they can do once per day. Having played through once before, I am more inclined to change See In Darkness to Darkvision and bring back Shadow Meld as opposed to granting a spell-like ability. The ability adjustments I am not too thrilled with either, as it seems all shadow creatures from the Fetchling to the Wayang have a negative Wisdom modifier. I thought about a penalty to Strength but it seems like it will most likely be a dump stat for most Shades anyway.

I was hoping I could get a few critiques regarding mechanics and balance for this race. I am not concerned with the 'shadow meld' ability, I think that no bonus to a second stat and the availability of magic items at higher level that do things that are much better, make up for it. I also playtested it, and although useful it is not game breaking. What I am concerned about is the 'see in darkness' ability, as this remains a little to viable at later levels. More information about shades can be found at my blog.

If I were to get rid of 'see in darkness', I would likely replace it with darkvision and tone light blindness down to light sensitivity.

Shade Racial Traits

+2 Intelligence, –2 Wisdom: Shades are cunning but impatient.
Medium: Shades are Medium creatures, and have no bonuses or penalties due to their size.
Normal Speed: Shades have a base speed of 30 feet.
See in Darkness: A shade can see perfectly in darkness of any kind, including that created by deeper darkness.
Shade Magic: Shades add +1 to the DC of any saving throws against necromancy and shadow spells that they cast.
Shadow Meld: In any condition of illumination other than full daylight, a shade can disappear into the shadows as a full-round action, gaining total concealment. Artificial illumination, even a light or continual flame spell, does not negate this ability. A daylight spell, however, does. A shade becomes visible when attacking, casting spells with a somatic component, and moving.
Keen Senses: Shades receive a +2 racial bonus on Perception checks.
Light Blindness: Abrupt exposure to bright light blinds shades for 1 round; on subsequent rounds, they are dazzled as long as they remain in the affected area.
Languages: Shades begin play speaking Common and Dark Folk. Shades can choose bonus languages from the following: Abyssal, Aklo, Draconic, Elven, Giant, Infernal, and Undercommon.

I really like what you have done here Ringtail. Psychic Hammer did seem a little underpowered but I think stringburka's suggestion puts it up to par with similar abilities at that level.

I think at 19th level, Body Adjustment could give regeneration. Fast healing is good but at near epic it should do near epic things, maybe stipulate that it can not reattach limbs if you are uncomfortable with that aspect of the ability.

Also, was leaving the damage type out on Psychokinetic Weapon a conscious choice? If not, I would suggest force damage.

As for swapping out skills, I would trade Perception for Intimidate and Knowledge (engineering) for Knowledge (arcana or planes). I know giving up Intimidate may be erksome, but Perception is a very useful skill, and I can imagine this character being more the silently observing type than banging his weapon against his shield type. Knowledge (arcana or planes) representing the connection with psionics and supernatural forces.

Without the feats, etc., that you mentioned elsewhere in your post, there's no reason to go with the full-attack action?

I am interested to see how this plays out. I would suspect that it would lead to more movement and 5' stepping around during combat or otherwise coming up with ways to use that move action.

@Laurefindel I seem to recall that you have houseruled something like one attack per person per round at your table, how has this affected your game?

I do see a reoccurring theme here: that is not necessarily getting rid of iterative attacks entirely but less of them and with higher bonuses. I think if I were to do this, I may as well not try to tinker base attacks.

I noticed that the latter part of my post concerning critical hits has not received the same amount of attention. Do people generally agree with getting rid of confirmation rolls?

@LovesTha It isn't /just/ rolling the dice that takes the time. It's rolling the dice, determining if it's a hit, adding the damage (and bonuses), determining the effect on the target, deciding whether to full attack and if so, who is the next target and whether and where to 5' step, and whether that is a hit, and what damage that does and whether that target drops... and so on. Now, that was two attacks. (My 15th level paladin has six attacks, seven hasted, with about 50% chance per round of getting an extra attack due to a crit. My friend the alchemist can throw something like five or seven bombs a round. The rogue has five attacks.)

@threemilechild This is exactly what I'm talking about. It's not just one or two of those things but all those things combined that are slowing things up at my table, especially with such a large group. As for companions (familiars, summons, etc.), since none of my players have any I hadn't really considered it. I may say that it takes a player's swift of move action to direct a companion, with the result being that the companion can either take a move or standard action (companion swift or immediate actions would not cost anything from the player).

So with the reduction in melee characters damage output how are you reducing casters so that they dont over shadow the martial guys?

even if the iteratives are only hitting 20-35% of the time you have increased the amount of time for martial characters to kill off a threat by that % which means they will get hit more often need more healing draining more resources. mean while the caster still uses save or sucks or in your game blasts multiple targets in one turn which might cause hard feelings among the players.

Nothing wrong with making folks get their $%#t together before their turn comes up (giving them a 10 count to declare and start moving the minis or else they forfeit their turn may be a better option to impart the importance of knowing what to do). But this does not seem like a very solid solution to the problem.

Thanks for your input. I suppose I forgot to mention that that group consists nearly entirely of martial characters and that these rules would also affect NPCs as well. I see your point though, this does tip the favor in the way of spellcasters a tad, but I think that with the other characters consistently hitting most rounds with a much greater chance of getting their damage multiplied doesn't necessarily break the game in the favor of those with access to spells. I also realize that most monsters have numerous attack methods, but I'm mitigating the damage they would otherwise cause by making them only able to have one of their natural attacks per turn unless they have the Multiattack feat or abilities like Pounce or Rend. I think this will also give me more time to engage individual members of the party as I too will be spending less time calculating the monsters' dice rolls.

I have also instituted a 1 minute policy on turns, so that also helps quite a bit, but I've been really wanting to try this and want to see if other people have put this into practice. I may have to throw a spellcaster against them or an NPC caster in the party just to test your theory. I intend on starting this on Saturday, so I'll keep people posted on the results if anyone is interested.

I wanted to see if anyone had tried something like this before. My goal is to simplify things at my table (at times I have 7 players with most playing their first higher level character, the group average is 11th level), by more or less getting rid of iterative attacks and having no roll to confirm critical hits in order to keep things moving without drastically altering the balance of the game.

Base Attack Bonus: This is added as normal, but a character doesn't benefit from additional attacks, unless he or she has an alternate mode of attack (such as a bite attack) or a class feature or feat that allows the character to do so (such as the Two-Weapon Fighting feat or Flurry of Blows).

Rolling a Natural 20: The attack is a critical hit any time a player rolls a natural 20 on an attack roll.

Threatening a Critical Hit: A player that threatens a critical hit with a die roll lower than a natural 20, such as a wielding a rapier or having the Improved Critical feat, must still roll high enough to hit the target. If the attack hits, it's a critical hit.

This obviously doesn't address feats or class features that affect confirmation rolls, but I'm willing to deal with those on a case by case basis. Thanks for your input!