Earl Grey's page

Earl Grey wrote:

Quote:

You stumble over unseen imaginary deceased turtle....

This is the only one that comes to my mind when thinking about fumbles. This "gem" could be found in Rolemaster. (EDIT: Or maybe it was MERP, can't remember)

It's probably both. MERP was just a Middle Earth overlay on the Rolemaster system, so they probably have the same critical fumble tables.

I ran into it in MERP, though.

Thanks, it has been a while since I played either of those. But even though those were entertaining, I wouldn’t like to see similar in PF.

There was a critical hit table in some old Dragon issue that we used in our D&D campaign, but we had to stop using it later as the criticals became too frequent. The chance for critical was a percentage calculated from the difference between the number you needed to hit and what you rolled. It became too easy to hit when we took the Armor Value system in to use, which is basicly AC to DR.

Soneone has studied the history of criticals in D&D:

https://songoftheblade.wordpress.com/2015/12/14/a-short-history-of-critical -hits-in-dd/

P.s. Sorry for not noticing that had already posted the exact same dead turtle fumble earlier.

EDIT: For those interested the Dragon magazine article I was referrring to is issue 39 page 34 ”Good hits and bad misses”. https://www.annarchive.com/files/Drmg039.pdf. As you can see it could be brutal.

You stumble over unseen imaginary deceased turtle....

This is the only one that comes to my mind when thinking about fumbles. This "gem" could be found in Rolemaster. (EDIT: Or maybe it was MERP, can't remember)

Overall, I would like to see different weapons used in different situations and the proficiency system should accommodate that so that it isn't too single weapon focused. E.g. you start using spear but if the opponent gets too close you drop the spear and draw a sword and further if the opponent starts to grapple with you, you draw a dagger. And I have always been puzzled that all the dungeons and living quarters are big enough to wield a greatsword effectively. There should be limitations and different weapons used in different situations. Now with weapon focus and specialization feats (or dex to damage with a single weapon type with unchained rogue) people tend to stick to one weapon in all the situations and there seems to be no limitation to this.

There is already mechanics for DR and there are damage types (S/P/B) for weapons so these could be expanded. E.g. Full plate would have some DR against slashing but not piercing.

Wicked Woodpecker of the West wrote:

unholy wounding adamantine flaming +5 greataxe should not be worth more than a kingdom

200,000 GP is a lot of money, but not more than a kingdom. Not even close. 1 Build Point is 4,000 gp, and most 'kingdoms' start with 50 BP minimum. So it's precisely enough to start a kingdom, but only in the Kingmaker 'this kingdom is tiny and probably has one village' sense. And selling it would only get you half that. Which is still substantial, but building a fort costs 24 Build Points and a Castle costs 54 BP. So it's worth one expensive building, not a kingdom.

I a starting kingdom (size 1-25) 1 BP is 1000gp so you can get a lot more with 200 000gp.

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ultimateCampaign/kingdomsAndWar/kingdomB uilding.html#starting-from-scratch

I too would like a silver based economy and also include electrum (silver & gold mixture) coins in also. Gold and platinum should be more valuable. We make more money now than our parents did in the 70's even though the spending power of our dollar has diminished quite a bit. People look at millionaires as the floor for being very wealthy so when you offer them 200 gold for a quest in PF1 or D&D 5E they end up laughing because it won't even cover their initial gear expenses for outfitting more than a few characters. This way if you offer 200 gold it is a serious offer that people can grasp. They can easily carry this treasure and when players walk into an establishment with a platinum piece the owners will know these PC's are high rollers.

I agree (and nice that we are back in the original subject)

The only game I have played with reasonable value for gold is MERP and there you really felt rich if you had only a handful of gold. Btw with that in mind I lost it when I saw the size of that golden statue in the Hobbit movie. I calculated that it would contain almost all the gold ever excavated in real world. The amounts of gold in D&D and Pathfinder are just silly compared to that. Why does gold have any value in these games if it is so common?

I'd personally love to see the economy change so that WBL isn't really much of a thing anymore. Magic items as clearly priced commodities really kills the fantasy for me.

In my opinion both WBL and CR are part part of the problem when it comes to Big Six. Certain amount of wealth (and items) is assumed to be able to overcome the CR. But if you need to spend that wealth on the Big Six to beat the CR rather than something else, you really don't have much a choice in the matter. If they want to get rid of the Big Six they need to adjust CRs accordingly and/or remove WBL.

Earl Grey wrote:

The biggest problem comes with the containers and carrying capacity. E.g. belt pouch can hold only 100-200 coins and you can't buy anything with that. This makes the bags of holding and handy haversacks a necessity which is stupid.

How tiny could we plausibly make coins? The less they weigh, the less silly it is to carry around thousands of gold pieces.

I think the current size/weight for gold coin is about right, e.g. aureus was 1/40 to 1/50 pounds. The valuation though isn’t, as you need vast amounts of those.

I'm opposed to changing this.

If I'm trying to convert old adventures to a new system, and I forget to convert 10,000gp into 10,000sp, suddenly all the PCs are stinking rich.

I've never seen any issues with the current system. Copper and silver are for the commoners. Sackfuls of gold are for rich adventurers.
1cp A pound of wheat or a candle
1sp A cheap lamp or half a pound of cheese
1gp A goat or a traveler's outfit

As an adventurer I wouldn't like to prance around the cities with sackfuls of gold when the commoners would kill you for even a portion of what you carry.

The biggest problem comes with the containers and carrying capacity. E.g. belt pouch can hold only 100-200 coins and you can't buy anything with that. This makes the bags of holding and handy haversacks a necessity which is stupid.

Btw where can you buy those magic pouches that always have the exactly right amount of coins and you can just toss around? Like in all the movies.

Now, the economy of Pathfinder could use some adjustments, sure. Figure out much things should cost in relation to each other or to labor.

I agree. Especially some mundane items cost too much or take too long to craft when compared to magic items of similar value. E.g. you can brew 1st level potions in 2 hours and higher level potions in a day or two but crafting alchemical items or poisons takes weeks. Yes it is magic but still it should be more in line. Now it is clear that rules for crafting magical items and mundane items have been developed totally separately and the inconsistencies haven't been addressed properly.

"Divide all prices by 10. Anything listed in GP is now the price in SP."

That would be the quick and simple solution but even that would be nice.

There has been discussion about this before (http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2sar6?Rogues-and-weapon-proficiencies) but now with the 2nd edition coming I'd like to discuss it further.

What I'd like to see is an expansion to rogue weapon proficiencies. If they are supposed to be the dexterous guy in a party and suitable for archery they should be able to use longbow. Furthermore i'd like them to be able to use some, if not all, of the light blades and close combat weapons groups.

Another omission that has bothered me is that the rogues don't have Ride as a class skill. Even the scout archetype doesn't have it and when thinking about scouts I see a lightly armored guy on a horseback scouting for the army. I know the ranger would be quite appropriate for this task but why not rogues?

What say you?

I feel like the 15gp starting gold mentioned in the Glass Cannon Playtest seems to be a good indicator of a silver based economy for PF2.

I really hope so. And again we seem to have too little information about the upcoming product.

Hello,

The monetary system in D&D has bugged me for almost 30 years i.e. since I started BECMI. After the first few encounters we noticed that there is no use carrying around any silver and especially copper pieces. What I would like to see is to make the system more silver centered and make gold more valuable. Or if the gold is the only currency that matters, why do we need to have the exchange rates in the rules? I know there is something that costs a few copper but those are hardly ever used.

Maybe shortsword should be named goblinsword to really get this conversation going. ;)

...Furthermore, because the setting is Golarion and not Earth, where society has evolved differently, sometimes a high degree of paying attention to Earth's history distracts from the unique nature of our fantasy setting's evolution.

Excellent post and I agree with you almost 100% but Pathfinder is used for multiple settings other than Golarion and therefore the naming convention should be generic and/or as close to the real world naming as as possible. The evolution of different weapons and armor could be handled with ’tech level’ for each weapon/armor/culture to make it more unlikely for people to use weird combinations. The PC’s are of course special and could therefore overcome these limitations.

... have you seen Amiri's bastard sword?

Unfortunately yes but at least I don’t have to watch it while playing like in video games and I mostly use prd anyway. But that is just what I meant by over-sized weapons which are a real turn-off for me.

TL;DR

Don't cry realism in a game with fire-breathing dragons, magic spells, non-genetic inheritance, and other fantasy elements.

This argument annoys me as there needs to be some realism in addition to suspension of belief. Realism where it is possible within an fantasy setting helps with immersion. E.g. over-sized weapons like in some video games have always been beyond my suspension of belief and therefore I have avoided those games.

I find it weird that raising dead would be a problem without the material component. I have played in a BECMI/Mystara campaign for 25+ years and we had a 36th level cleric in our party and even without the material component our DM was able to control excessive use of raise dead and such. E.g. sometimes the deity/immortal just didn't want to raise certain individual. And the material component wouldn't have been enough to control as the cleric was extremely rich merchant prince.

Something I often hear the game developers referring to is 'word count'. Therefore I'd say the material components should be left out from depleting the precious limitation and maybe something new added instead.

The 'frightened people can be sneak attacked' one is only 4th level, though. And I'd be shocked if you can't make people frightened pretty readily with an action and a Skill Feat (which Rogues get bunches of, remember).

I wonder if that 'frightened' is exactly the same condition than in 1st ed. or general fear effect?

In the first edition I have tried to look different ways for my rogue to make targets cowering or stunned (to loose their dex) but found it a way too hard. Maybe he should just scream BOO! when breaking stealth. ;)

Well, there's a high level fix to both of those (the thing where you spend an action and the enemy is flat-footed now...just removes these problems completely once it's online). The fear-based one would also work for this combined with Intimidate stuff, in all likelihood.

I somehow missed that or misunderstood it but it is good if it is so. But how high level? The ranged sneaking should work for rogue from level one as a low level rogue really needs to avoid hand-to-hand combat.

There may well also be other ones that just haven't been listed yet.

There probably is quite a lot unknown to us yet but what makes it even harder to ascertain how a class or class abilities work as the whole combat system is getting an overhaul.

Is there btw something in 2nd edition that would make sniping, i.e. long range sneaking possible without magic?

In my opinion the biggest problem with 1st edition rogue has been that it relies too much on others (i.e. flanking) or it doesn't work at all with ranged weapons. With 2nd edition, I don't see any remedy in those areas and this is a really big disappointment for me.

Another problem with rogue is that people seem to think sneak attack is too powerful and thus give it all these restrictions. if 20th level rogue can have max. 10d6 sneak attack against one target which is really situational and uncertain (rogue has also problems in actually hitting something) compared to Wizards with possibility cast 40d6 disintegrate or inflicting that 10d6 to a number of targets with fireballs and such, the sneak attack doesn't sound that powerful. But for some reason nobody seems to care what wizards or even fighters are capable of but at the same time like to nerf poor rogues.

What I would like to see is a separate mechanic to knock people unconscious when catching them unawares with a higher certainly than making non-lethal sneak attack damage. E.g. now I have a 9th level rogue but I would still think really hard if I'd take the chance to try to knockout e.g. 5th level fighter guarding something. I have one, maybe two chances to make a sneak attack and after that no sneaking if you are alone.

What also bothers me is this discussion about "vital spot" and that rogue is able to spot it and thus inflict precision damage. But it the whole armor class system an abstraction of just that? If you hit higher AC you are able to bypass shield, armor, dodging etc. and thus find an opening/vital spot? Should the sneak attack be more about bonus to hit than just damage dice?

Furthermore I'd like to see the mechanics for poisons changed to make rogues (and assassins) more effective and especially I'd like to see new rules craft rules for both poisons and traps. The current rules are ridiculous.

An additional question on the same topic.

What is the effect of the new crafting rules on Master Alchemist feat?

Also: you want more proficencies?

Try spending feats. It is what fighters do if they want an exoctic weapon proficiency

Rogues don't have too many feats to spare and spending them on something non-exotic is quite a waste.

What I'd like to see the RAW support is this:

If you are playing in Japanese style of a campaign then wakizashi and katana or not that exotic. If you are playing in Pirates of the Caribbean style of a campaign, cutlass and boarding axe are not that exotic (well they are not even now but for a rogue they kind of are as you need a feat to be able to effectively use them).

Furthermore it would have been great if some of the weapons introduced in books after CRB (e.g. sword cane) were added to the list of unchained rogue's proficiencies.

I'd also like to see more of these:

Gladius: Feats and abilities that affect short swords apply to the gladius.

There really should be more of statements like that as quite a lot of weapons are almost the same, they are just called differently in different cultures. Like scimitar and cutlass. Both are curved one-edged one-handed swords, only the curvature might differ (the stats in pathfinder are actually identical).

I Fail to undestand why rogues need to be proficient in weapons from different cultures from all over the World. This is like saying "I can imagine barbarians with exotic weapons, so they should get them all!"

I can only imagine that you see rogues as some sort of weapon experts. And i suggest you give them a bonus to hit, or not even profisincy in every Cheasy weapon in the game will save them.
Does profisient in unarmed strikes meen that they get improved unarmed strike for free?

And I fail to understand why fighters should be proficient with all the weapons from different cultures from all over the world.

Are you saying that all the rogues come from the same cultural background and thus know only rapier, short sword in addition to simple weapons?

I would say the culturally special weapons should be available only to the people from those cultures. E.g. when I suggested that rogues would be proficient with light blades they could only choose those appropriate for their culture from that list. Most of them would just not be available even though in theory they might be able to use them. Now as a rogue from certain cultures, you are not able to choose weapons from that culture.

For anyone interested, I've been working on a rogue rework, and after seeing this thread figured I'd go back and redo their proficiencies as well

Rogues are proficient with all simple weapons, plus the blade boot, bladed scarf, bolas, butterfly knife, crank crossbow (light and heavy), cutlass, dueling sword, estoc, garrote, grappling hook, hand crossbow, harpoon, knuckle axe, kukri, lasso, longsword, machete, net, rapier, rope gauntlet, sap, scimitar, shortbow, short sword, spiked chain, switchknife, swordbreaker dagger, two-bladed sword, unarmed strikes, war razor, and whip. They are proficient with light armor, but not with shields.

The list looks good but now I see why the pathfinder dev team has done it like they have. It is much simpler and less space consuming to say "Rogues are proficient with all simple weapons, plus the hand crossbow, rapier, sap, shortbow, and short sword. They are proficient with light armor, but not with shields." than list all the thematically appropriate weapons like you did.

Jason Buhlman stated elsewhere:

I think we probably should have spelled this out a wee bit clearer, but space in the Stealth description was extraordinarily tight and ever word was at a premium.

I understand that they don't want to mess up with the page numbers in the Core rules with errata but with unchained rogue they could have change this.

EDIT: Maybe this would work:

Rogues are proficient with all simple weapons, plus the hand crossbow, shortbow, light blades and close-combat weapons (see fighter weapon groups).

Pathfinder Unchained wrote:

Never knowing what to expect, they prepare for everything, becoming masters of a wide variety of skills, training themselves to be adept manipulators, agile acrobats, shadowy stalkers, or masters of any of dozens of other professions or talents.

Rogues aren't petty thieves or some purse cutter. He's a trained professional.

All the more reason why there should be more options available. Isn't it funny how they all train themselves to be able to use exactly the same weapons?

Honestly, the fact that the Unchained Rogue gets free Finesse Training bothers me because it limits what kind of (conceptual) "rogues" are possible. The class should be way more open in this sense.

That is true.

Btw. There is a pirate archetype who doesn't know how to use a boarding axe or a cutlass.

And why is light mace simple but light hammer is not?

To me, simple weapons is a given, plus a splash of archetypical weapons (bootblade for spy, bolas for bounty hunter, garrote for assassin, longbow for scout, swordcane for investigator, etc) goes a decent way towards satisfying a lot of "rogue" tropes (within class).

Yes, that is what I'd like to see. More variation with the rogues. In that sense your suggestion further above is excellent.

Maybe the profiencies should differ between the archetypes?

I would trade most of those recommendations (maybe keep the sword cane) for the garrotte.

Sweet, sweet (slow and ineffective) strangulation. How can I have a proper thug and extorter without it?!

That is indeed something all the thugs rogues should have at their disposal. ;) What I can't understand is that it is exotic, a weapon doesn't get much simpler. And furthermore this: "Sneak attack damage does not apply to a garrote."

On the contrary, to use it the victim needs to be unaware of you (=stealth), so is there anything more rogue than that?

But you did explicitly ask for kukri, which is fairly close to 'dagger, but better criticals' in mechanical terms. And while you were reluctant about the long sword in the house ruled list above, you didn't seem to complain about the cutlass.

Kukri yes, because just like you said, is close to dagger. Cutlass because that would ideal for rogue pirates.

In my house rules, these are the Rogue's weapon and armor proficiency.

Quote:

A rogue is proficient with all simple weapons, plus the Blade Boot; Crossbow, Crank (Light); Crossbow, Hand; Crossbow, Launching; Crossbow, Repeating (Light); Cutlass; Dagger, Punching; Garrote; Katar, Tri-bladed; Kerambit; Knife, Switchblade; Kukri; Longsword; Rapier; Sap; Shortsword; Shortbow; Starknife; War Razor and Whip. They are also proficient with light armor and shields (except tower shields).

With it the Rogue can fit in more archetypes, like a assassin and a sniper better.

Yes, this is what I meant when starting this thread. Maybe not longsword though.

So...besides of a couple trick weapons like the cane and whip....this is mostly just going to be 'I want more 18-20 weapons', isn't it?

No, didn't even consider that. Our campaign doesn't have elves so I wasn't after elvish weapons. I think racial weapons should be racial and shouldn't be available even via exotic weapon profiency without a really good backstory.

A.) Sword cane sucks. If you are going for a hidden weapon that can only be used in 1 hand, just use a dagger.

Even though they suck, who would better be suited to use them than rogues? There are many things that suck but it doesn't mean that they are not used.

B.) The difference between a bow and long bow is 1 average damage. So this is not much for making you a 'more efficient ranged attack', and not really worth the loss of flavor (long bows are weapons of war, short bows are easier to master weapons of hunting and such)

In my opinion range is quite important too and shortbow lacks in that.

C.) Who the hell needs buckler proficiency? No one, not even martial classes, need buckler proficiency.

Low-level squishy rogue for example.

You do not actually understand how proficiency penalties work for armor and shields, do you? Basically- the armor check penalty is applies to attack rolls. But...if ACP is 0, then the penalty is 0. Both bucklers and light shields have an ACP of -1, which goes to 0 when they are masterwork. There is a reason why the iconic rogue's builds get bucklers.

I understand perfectly well how the penalties work, thank you very much, but again the low-level rogue doesn't have the money for the masterwork shield.

D.) 'proficient in all finessable weapons'? That includes all martial and exotic light weapons, and it also includes the elven curved blade (an 18-20x2 2 handed weapon) and the elven branched sword (which is a reach weapon that gives +2 to AoO attack rolls). Monks had a vague justification (I still think the unchained monk should have only gotten the simple and martial monk weapons; those were the only funny bits- exotic should stay exotic), this doesn't.

Well maybe not exotic finessable weapons but there are many very roguish weapons in martial light weapon category e.g. kukri or blade boot.

There is a vague justification for whips, but those are often niche builds anyway.

Might be niche but still very well suited for rogue. I have a jailor, slavemaster or executioner or torturer in mind.

I was just comparing the weapon proficiencies of the different roguish types.

Rogue:
"Rogues are proficient with all simple weapons, plus the hand crossbow, rapier, sap, shortbow, and short sword. They are proficient with light armor, but not with shields."

Unchained rogue:
"Rogues are proficient with all simple weapons, plus the hand crossbow, rapier, sap, short sword, and shortbow. They are proficient with light armor, but not with shields."

Investigator:
"Investigators are proficient with simple weapons, plus the hand crossbow, rapier, sap, shortbow, short sword, and sword cane. They are proficient in light armors, but not shields."

Slayer:
"A slayer is proficient with all simple and martial weapons, as well as with light armor, medium armor, and shields (except tower shields)."

Assassin:
"Assassins are proficient with the crossbow (hand, light, or heavy), dagger (any type), dart, rapier, sap, shortbow (normal and composite), and short sword. Assassins are proficient with light armor but not with shields.

In my opinion these are a bit too limited. E.g. I think all of them should be able to use longbow, in order to be more efficient ranged attacker. Rogues and assassin should be able to to use sword cane like investigator. And furthermore they should be proficient with all the finessable weapons, especially whips. Also I would add buckler proficiency too.

What are your opinions about this? And what are all the daggers that assassin is able to use?

Just compared core monk and unchained monk and noticed that core has d8 HD and 3/4 BAB and unchained has d10 HD and 1/1 BAB. I didn't find any other class than DrD that doesn't fit into to this rule.

Nevertheless, I find this weird from the balance point of view. E.g. if you'd like to create a nimble martial class (kind of like rogue) and you'd like to give it full BAB and maybe d8 HD and compensate lower HD with other skills, it would be against this rule.

I also checked slayer more thoroughly for the first time and I have to say I still not see why would someone create unchained rogue rather than slayer.

Slayer has better HD, better BAB, two good saves vs one, sneak attack, 6 skill ranks vs eight, access to rogue talents via slayer talent (not vice versa), martial weapon prof, shield prof, medium armor prof and other stuff.

Is evasion, danger sense, trapfinding, rogues edge, rogue finesse and uncanny dodge really comparable with all that? And why wasn't slayer talents added to unchained rogue? I understand that it wasn't in the core because slayer didn't exist when it was created but there is no excuse now.

Forget about the HD, the fractional rule is based on the actual BAB of the class. In this case, 3/4.

Indeed, and just the reason why it is confusing. Why not put 1/1, 3/4 and 1/2 to the column title in "Fractional Bonuses by Class Level" table rather than HD? The intent is clear enough.

The D12 classes exist outside the normal HD/BAB combinations. Use your judgement on deciding whether you want to nerf these classes, buff these classes, or make some straightforward inferences that allow you to leave them alone.

Barbarian is core with d12 HD and full BAB so it is not outside normal combinations.

I'm not trying to nerf or buff any classs but I had never thought that was some kind of a connection between BAB and HD so I found it confusing when it was presented like this in the Unchained.

The fractional base bonuses variant in Pathfinder Unchained says:

"For classes with a d8 Hit Die, their BAB increases by 3/4 per level. For classes with a d10 or d12 Hit Die, their BAB increases by 1 per level (so it's not necessary to round the BAB for these classes). A multiclass character's base attack bonus will only ever improve using this variant."

However e.g. Dragon Disciple (not sure if there are others) has d12 HD but their BAB progression is 3/4. Should there be another way than HD to determine what is the correct BAB progression for each class? Or should the Dragon Disciple BAB progression be changed to match this rule?

The question then, is this: why is it cool and fine that 9th level spell-casters can rewrite reality and make or break nations daily, or hourly if they choose? Conversely, why is a 20th level rogue, who has based his entire concept and build on being able to kill one dude at a time who he catches unawares and hits perfectly dead to the point of completely neglecting all other important aspects of combat (mobility, defense), utterly unacceptable?

I think that the people are ok with e.g. powerful wizards because they are used to it and rogues should stay in their own underpowered niche.

With sap master rogues might be able to do something that every sneaky bastard should be able to do, i.e. knock out people unawares. How is that game breaking? In my opinion normal rogue should have possibility to knock out someone while using sap without wasting all their feats. Maybe fort save against knockout or similar rather than inflicting incredible amounts of damage as with sap master.

It seems that the Flat-footed AC for Ren is not right. Ren has Uncanny Dodge so the Flat-footed AC should also be 16.

Otherwise, both of them look nice.

Even rogues with uncanny dodge can be caught flat-footed. It's just much more rare (generally requiring another high level rogue), so the number is fine as is.

Ok, even though I currently play a rogue, I haven't yet ran in to such situation so could you elaborate how?

And if you have have Uncanny dodge, certain character generation systems automatically calculate your Flat-footed AC with Dex bonus, so that got me confused.

Here are my first unchained rogues:

Remy the mutant
Ren the poisoner

I highly recommend this class change for ANYONE playing a rogue.

It seems that the Flat-footed AC for Ren is not right. Ren has Uncanny Dodge so the Flat-footed AC should also be 16.

Otherwise, both of them look nice.