Eleion's page

My method requires a little math (not that hard, but some people are against anything above simple arithmetic on principle).

What I did is have each of my players roll 4d6 drop lowest 6 times and then arrange them in order from greatest to least. I then averaged each character's scores down the line, so each highest score, then the next highest score, etc.

So two stat arrays of:

18, 16, 14, 12, 10, 8
16, 14, 12, 10, 8, 6

Would become:

17, 15, 13, 11, 9, 7

I took a holistic approach to deciding whether to round up or not when dealing with non-whole numbers. If anyone rolled absolutely terribly then I would have them reroll. In this way you get the enjoyment and randomness of rolling without anyone being left behind.

hida_jiremi wrote:

I already noted my approval on the rpg.net thread, but let me echo it here. "Samurai" is the name for a social class, not statement of profession. Many thanks for choosing to go this route

Its like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Cavalier is a social class also, and then you have a cavalier class, trying to fit another culture classes in european classes is priceless, bard?, cavalier?, paladin?, this cannot be done better with proper classes?.

Your call, but I for one dont think that NOT having classes that are designed specifically for a setting is better than having them.

What about the classes presented in the Pathfinder rulebook is 'European'? Sure, the fluff is there, but if you take away the fluff and look solely at the game mechanics, what do you have that is inherently non-Asian? What would creating a separate Samurai class give you that rolling up a fighter or a paladin or a ranger and fluffing it to fit your vision of the character would already give you? It's much easier to throw in a few little house rules to make a class work than designing a whole new class.

For my last game I had everyone roll 4d6 drop the lowest 6 times, and then averaged everyone's highest score, second highest score, etc. down the line. It's a tad bit more work at character creation, but I thought it was kind of fun and worked out really well.

For Pathfinder I would never want to use point buy; I don't feel it's a good fit with the 3.x system.

Oh! Right! That would be important wouldn't it? :P

They just got to level 5.

Edit: So Shadow Conjuration would be a little too powerful, but I could see it happening once they get 4th level spells.

So last week in my campaign our CG gnome cleric (who worships the CN spirit of Fire and Trickery) stood up to a powerful shadow demon and managed to impress it with his bravery/stupidity. This meant that the party didn't have to sacrifice the evil wizard to the demon to suffer about an eternity of suffering.

I want to give the character something interesting in response to this act. An ability he can use every now and then, or something along those lines, that suggests that this powerful outsider left some sort of mark on the character. One of my ideas was giving him darkvision, but that seems a little boring. Does anyone here have any ideas that might be more interesting?

Thanks!

What do you guys think of this system?

http://dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/Mana-Based_Spellcasting_%283.5e_Variant_Rule %29

I'd be very interested in running a game using that, as I was a little unhappy with the Unearthed Arcana version and was already trying to work a fatigue system into it. It only has rules for full casters, however, so if any of my players wanted to be a bard or a ranger I'm not sure what I'd do.

The best system like this IMO is Elements of Magic Revised by Ryan Nock. The only real issue is submersing it into Pathfinder. I've been working on a set of reference cards for my personal games using this systems and my players love that they can create their own custom spells.

I got excited about Elements of Magic last year and tried to shove it rather inelegantly into Pathfinder, but found that as a DM you need to be very familiar with the system before it can be run smoothly. My players had way too many questions that I couldn't answer easily. In short, I didn't do my homework and I think it requires a lot of it. I think it has the potential to be very good, however.

Felgoroth wrote:

On opposed diplomacy checks is it diplomacy vs diplomacy?

Yes. I'm talking about Diplomacy versus Diplomacy for the opposed skill check.

I'm not sure this makes a whole lot of sense. People can be very set in their ways without being very persuasive. Should the stubborn dwarf whom everybody detests be easy to convince?

Wouldn't it be easier to just keep the Pathfinder rules and do more adjusting of DCs as appropriate (if they are too easy). Maybe adjust the DCs for each disposition as you feel is necessary?

My initial reaction is to be a little wary of combinations like a Dwarven Soldier, with a +2 Str, +2 Con, +2 Wis, -2 Int, -2 Cha, though maybe that's more a problem with giving the +2 Str as a soldier.

I think you could make it work, and I think it could be really interesting, but it seems like a little more work than I'd like to do in order to make sure everything is balanced.

I had not heard of Relics and Rituals before you mentioned it. Does it have different options for stat modifiers?

This idea was inspired by multiple sources. The first was this thread, which I both agreed and disagreed with. I've never liked the idea that Dwarven clerics were inherently better (on average) at casting their divine powers than, say, Elven clerics. That idea was always a little jarring to me. However, I like the concept behind racial stat modifiers (one of them, anyway): to add a little more character customization, and I think taking that away would be a shame. While reading a thread where someone wanted to make 36 different races based on all the different [+Physical Stat, +Mental Stat, -Physical/Mental Stat] combinations, one response was to make one of the races based off of a caste system and give them different bonuses according to their societal class.

And thus this idea was born. I wouldn't be surprised if something similar has been done before, but I think it will work pretty well in the game I am planning to run, so I am happy with it. Essentially, players choose a background concept at character creation. They can fluff this in any way they like. Perhaps their mother/father was a certain profession, maybe they were trained this way, maybe they just have a natural affinity for the role, what have you. Any race can choose any background, and as it stands now these backgrounds only give you stat modifiers.

Here is the list I have come up with so far:

Artisan - +Dex, +Int, -Con
Bandit - +Dex, +Cha, -Wis
Captain - +Con, +Cha, -Str
Hunter - +Dex, +Wis, -Int
Merchant - +Dex, +Cha, -Str
Noble - +Dex, +Int, -Wis
Official - +Con, +Int, -Wis
Peasant - +Con, +Wis, -Int
Priest - +Con, +Wis, -Str
Scholar - +Dex, +Int, -Str
Soldier - +Str, +Wis, -Int

Right now the only thing I'm a little wary about is the +Str that the soldier gets, because Pathfinder has seemed to shy away from that in the past (changing the half-orc racial modifiers from the beta). Is +Str a little overpowered? Additionally, I'm debating on having a background that gives a +2 to any stat (like humans). With so many different stat modifier combinations, is such a choice as useful/desirable as it was before? What could I call such a background?

Suggestions? Comments? Criticisms?

Thanks for your help!

Thank you so much Kolokotroni, that helps a whole lot. It's much simpler than the system I had. I think I'll try it out and see how it goes!

And maybe I wasn't clear on the monk changes. I meant that they could use their Flurry of Blows ability as a standard action, but to make iterative attacks from having a high BAB they would still have to make a full round action. The same would also be true for two-weapon users who wish to make a single attack with each hand as a standard action, rather than a full round action, which helps put them more in line with two-handed weapon users.

I think I'll try the spell point system for a while, because it feels more natural to me, but if spellcasters feel too powerful I might revert back. I'm still trying to think of ways to make magic feel a little less safe than in standard D&D (if only in role playing terms), and that might balance it a little more.

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind when designing the campaign. I want to give them enough magic items so that they can make their characters' equipment feel special without feeling like they're walking department stores.

Additionally, I came across this website while searching for good low-magic rules. I like it a lot, and wanted to see what people think as far as implementing it into Pathfinder. My plan is to get rid of +1/+2/+etc magic weapons and armor but keep enchantments, so I think it would work pretty well.

Lastly, I have a rough version of how I would want to deal with no stat-boosting items:

Level Ability Score
1st -
2nd +1 to one
3rd -
4th +1 to all
5th -
6th +1 to two
7th -
8th +1 to all
9th -
10th +1 to one
11th -
12th +1 to all
13th -
14th +1 to two
15th -
16th +1 to all
17th -
18th +1 to one
19th -
20th +1 to all

I think this works out to be just about the same as characters with a bunch of stat-boosting paraphernalia (or close enough to not matter that much). It also creates a sense of a bit more uniqueness in how attributes are assigned.

What do people think?

So I'm planning on running a Pathfinder game with my friends over the summer, and I've been tossing a few house rules about in my head, but I wanted to post them here first to see what people who are much more familiar with the rules than I am think about them. This is not a comprehensive list, just the things I'm thinking about now. I will probably post more later.

The first thing is that I don't really like the way magic items work in D&D. I know it's something of a staple for the system, but something about a bunch of people running around the countryside completely decked out in random magical gear and strange artifacts bugs me a little. I don't want to get rid of magic items entirely, but I do want them to feel much more special and unique than they currently do. Essentially, I don't want them to be things to add to a character build, but rather items that draw them into the world around them and make them feel a little special to boot. I'm still working with the specifics of how I'd make these changes, but the one I know I'm going to do is to get rid of the items that give bonuses to stats. Instead I would like to give the players more options to increase their stats as they level up. Does anyone have any suggestions to implement this while still being balanced? I'm not entirely sure what stat-increasing items a party would reasonably have at certain levels, so I feel uncomfortable arbitrarily deciding where the new stat increases would go and how many.

The other thing I'm currently thinking about, changes to the monk, is a little more minor, especially since I don't think any of my players will create a monk, but I was considering making the following changes to make playing a monk feel more accessible and more fun in comparison to a fighter:

HD to d10
Full BAB
Dexterity (or Wisdom, not sure) as the to hit/damage stat for monks
Flurry of Blows (and Two-Weapon attacks in general) as a standard action, rather than full (multi attacks from high BAB would be as normal)

What do people think of that? Good? Too strong? Not enough? I'm not really good at figuring out what's balanced or not, but those were some fixes to things about monks that been bothering me.

Well that's about all of them for now. Thanks in advance for any feedback!

Edit: Oh, one thing I forgot about. I was planning on implementing Unearthed Arcana's spell point system. Does anyone have any experience using this? Thoughts/opinions about using it in Pathfinder?