Evil Lincoln's page

Evil Lincoln wrote:

For a real GM,

Ugh.

Snow, this is contrasted with Players who are forced into GMing because of a vacuum.

This isn't a "true scotsman" statement. What delineates a "real" GM is the decision to GM even if you have the option to be a player.

I completely understand your response, I could have worded it better.

No need to make new exceptions, just leave the existing Mage armor/bracers exception in place. It's RAW.

Opinions may differ as to which is more complicated, of course.

But I'd say, if you can't enhance it in the RAW, no bonus.

Evil Lincoln wrote:

Does this plot remind anyone else vaguely of Dream Pod 9's Tribe 8?

If so, you're a cool person for knowing about that game.

What kind of person are you if you know of the game, but always thought it symbolized the worst of the pretentious alt-gaming trend that arose in the late 90s/early 00s?

As mentioned, you're still cool, but I have to point out that this sentiment is a kind of staggering pretentiousness in its own right.

But it's all good.

Well, you can't enhance bracers of armor.

So they don't count.

The one problem with this system, is that it gives all characters the same plus to hit and damage, and the same to all attributes. As they progress, this "greying" gets worse and worse.

Right. This is the system for people who feel like the game doesn't need more character creation options.

Kolokotroni's Heroic Distinctions is the system for people who want to solve this with yet more character creation options.

I respect that method, but frankly, with the addition of Traits making the character creation process take 10+ % longer now, any house rule I introduce has to be playable on auto-pilot or my players simply won't take their medicine.

So yes, I aim to take a step backward on the customizability track. All characters get the same bonus so that monster CRs are balanced to APL without gear. Simple. Inflexible. Awesome.

What kind of person are you if you know of the game, but always thought it symbolized the worst of the pretentious alt-gaming trend that arose in the late 90s/early 00s?

Still a cool person.

I like to think I found the good in those games, and many others besides (Rifts?)

The wonder of youth.

My brother points out that bracers of armor do grant an armor bonus, not an enhancement bonus.

Another player of mine adds that the armored kilt has basically no barriers to entry, even for a non-proficient arcane caster. So there's not a lot of reason to disallow the AC bonus.

Thoughts?

Does this plot remind anyone else vaguely of Dream Pod 9's Tribe 8?

If so, you're a cool person for knowing about that game.

So... everything is Mythic X and Mythic Y, then?

I'm a little disappointed. I thought that was one of the reasons they wanted to differentiate from the epic rules.

I'll still check it out, obviously.

Evil Lincoln wrote:

I haven't seen Evangelion. Evidently many of my homebrew plots overlap with theirs. It's really annoying.

It's because Eva is a 40-car pileup of plots.

So I have gathered. I probably will never see it because I somehow managed to spoil it for myself even though I've never seen it. Bah! Humbug.

I haven't seen Evangelion. Evidently many of my homebrew plots overlap with theirs. It's really annoying.

I'd really like to see a radio-button form for each review. It would have options like: "Don't own/Service Review", "Skimmed", "In-depth reading", and "used in play". The result would be displayed at the top of the review.

It all started because I got sick of everyone shirking the responsibility. We had rotating GM duty for decades. I got sick of games breaking down. I wanted closure. I wanted a clear narrative vision.

Then, something clicked. When you GM, you don't just control NPCs or place monsters in the path of the PCs. For a real GM, the campaign is their player-character. A good campaign inspires the same pride and fondness (perhaps even more) that a cherished PC does.

These days, I prefer to GM, and I would gladly launch yet another campaign if there were any time left over to do so.

One question I have had for a while: how bad is the Mythic spam?

What percentage of new rules are just old rules, turned up to 11, and prepended with "Mythic"?

I have my fingers crossed that there will at least be some meaty new sections, after Ultimate Campaign. What they've previewed so far has disappointed me in the way of spamming the word Mythic like 3e spammed the word epic; until it lost all meaning.

If every choice has things to recommend it, it may be time to leave it up to table choice. Some GMs have time to substitute most of the items in an adventure path. Some do not. Some can make up customized magic item tables. Some can't.

That is my intention in all things. A discussion of the pros and cons is usually helpful to all tables, though.

It's a thin line I like to walk. I'd like to keep everyone who is using a very similar rule in the same conversation, without balkanizing into a dozen variants. But within that rule, it is best to experiment and share your results.

You people get this. This is the homebrew forum!

@StabbityDoom: Good point about the armor bonus. Folks could just rock bracers of armor, I had a kind of blind spot for that. I think I will adopt that change. Interestingly, the defense bonus advocacy crowd might now be interested in the rule now.

I'm not sure I like +1 to all stats as a choice. What's your reasoning?

@Orthos/Subcreator: Leaving enhancement bonuses on the items and relying on stacking to sort things out is an interesting approach. However, it undermines one of my personal goals with the rule — keeping players from seeking out enhancement bonus items above all else. If a character with a +3 weapons/shields enhancement from level can lay his hands on a +5 weapon, he's going to shell out all of his gold to do so. Pretty soon we're right back where we started, aren't we?

I understand that in practice, the GM has much finer control over availability. But in the abstract, it seems like a lot of work for nothing — you're helping the players cover all the bases, but many players will do anything to stay one step ahead on fundamentals.

I'm not saying it's badwrongfun, just that the GM should consider this implication before adopting that version.

Interesting stuff all around.

I'm gonna have to process the implications, and I'll also have to playtest what I've got so as not to frustrate my players by fiddling around too much.

Since there are good ideas here that I can't playtest for the above reason, please be sure to report back here with the variation you are using! I'm much more inclined to switch to your version if you can analyze the pros and cons with actual play.

I look forward to seeing more from you all.

Starving, eh?

You could apply the fatigued condition to the wolves, that would bring them down a bit in CR.

Since you're a new GM, I think you should seize this opportunity to embrace the nuance of the encounter. The PCs can "defeat" these wolves at the mere cost of some rations. Make sure you're playing them like hungry wolves. They stalk, but they don't start an out-and-out confrontation unless they know they can win. They'll pick off wounded PCs, but they won't fight to the death. They will run as soon as it is evident they are losing.

Simply saying "remaining wolves flee once you show them you are not going to be an easy meal..." can change the timbre of your entire campaign. Don't be the guy who treats all encounters as identical deathmatches.

Also, once you establish that killing the enemy to a man is not the sole path to victory, you can introduce higher-than-usual CR challenges that the players are meant to run away from. This should come in handy when they encounter the

But if the players learn the simple lesson that not every monster is there waiting to be converted to XP by way of the sword, then your game (and theirs) will be forever enhanced!

A wolf is CR 1. (400 xp)

Two wolves are CR 3. (800 xp)

Three wolves are CR 4. (1200 xp)

You are indeed correct, three wolves should be a tough-ish encounter for a 1st level party. However, a first level party of 6 with some healing will probably do okay, just out of sheer economy of actions.

I don't have Crypt of the Everflame at hand, is there any kind of mitigating factor they mention that would make the wolves less than a full challenge?

I find it hard to envision three wolves taking on a party of six, from a roleplaying perspective. I figure they'd follow and eat whatever the players killed (goblins, etc). They might not follow into the dungeon though.

If anyone was injured earlier in the adventure and is straggling behind the party and easy to pick off, then yeah. But wolves aren't stupid.

I have definitely bought a product solely because of an in-depth one-star review before.

If a reviewer's post is rife with spelling and grammatical errors, snap judgements, and philistine logic, I may enjoy a product that they hate.

I don't see how wilderness survival would become much easier compared to parties laden with bows and crossbows. Food is already trivially easy to come by under the Survival skill rules. The real trick to survival adventures is incorporating environmental challenges — getting lost, storms, droughts, avalanches, etc.

Melee combat won't vanish, but it will become more rare. A fair bit of melee combat goes on in the USA every day and this place is lousy with advanced firearms.

However, most people understand the implications of guns far better than they understand the implications of magic, for instance. So it should be something the players can grasp and act accordingly.

hogarth wrote:

Bad example -- halberds don't have reach in 3.5/Pathfinder.

Wow - I don't think I realized that! Seems like a halberd should definitely be a reach weapon ...

Until you give it 10 ft reach, when it seems like it shouldn't be a reach weapon.

It should be in between. I'd let it be, in my own campaign. 10 feet inclusive.

The thing is, in a real life-and-death struggle with sharp metal objects, even an extra inch of reach could conceivably sway the fight. If you blow that up to 5 feet, you're going to have to expect some strange results.

Oh, and by the way, I totally know how to fight. I have a blackbelt in halberds. I have to register my halberdeering hands with the state as lethal weapons. Don't let my beer gut and fast typing speed fool you.

Evil Lincoln wrote:

With the "shorter" reach weapons— halberds and the like— that are actually close combat weapons with a slight reach advantage but get "bumped up" to 10ft because Pathfinder has no middle ground, yes, the result can be sort of silly.

Bad example -- halberds don't have reach in 3.5/Pathfinder. Can I interest you in a glaive-guisarme instead?

No thanks, just the guisarme for me. I'm on a diet.

Evil Lincoln wrote:

Human warfare had quite a few centuries of an arms race where longer and longer spears became the way to win. Those kinds of spears were totally useless once the enemy closed within your reach — to the point where specialized combatants developed who could counter spearmen. Many battlefield tactics in mass combat are about maneuvering to negate the reach advantage.

That's the essence of all combat.

Sure is!

But whether or not it is valuable or necessary to include that in Pathfinder/3.5 in the manner which has been done, that's debatable. And I mean that, debatable, as in both sides have a case.

Pathfinder is a game where individuals of great personal prowess and supernatural power do things on a daily basis that make no sense in reality. And then sometimes you have a "nod" to some realistic tactical element like AoOs and reach weapons. I happen to like the mix, but I can understand the confusion it causes.

If a player comes to me and says "I want to wield a longspear like in this chinese action film and I think I should be able to whack someone with the side of the spear even at 5 ft." I think that's a very legitimate case. The guy next to him the table can superheat enemy weapons until the drop them.

But if the GM would like to preserve the element of tactical combat where a spear is less useful once the enemy has closed, that's fine too. My brother plays a reach fighter with natural weapon claws for this reason. It's pretty cool, and it is borne out of the limitations.

Neither case really "wins", it's about the preferences of the group. The RAW, however, is clear enough in prohibiting reach weapons from striking close.

Well... if we're comparing it to reality (always a silly decision in RPGs) I think the question is "how much reach are we dealing with?"

Human warfare had quite a few centuries of an arms race where longer and longer spears became the way to win. Those kinds of spears were totally useless once the enemy closed within your reach — to the point where specialized combatants developed who could counter spearmen. Many battlefield tactics in mass combat are about maneuvering to negate the reach advantage.

I think the PF/3.5/3e rules are an attempt to nod to that historic element of combat.

Now, the reach we're dealing with in PF isn't usually that extreme, so yes, it's a little unfair to say that a spearman can't shorten his grip at all. Really, I would prefer if it were just a -4 to attack rolls to account for improvised weaponry (using a weapon for something it really wasn't designed for).

With the "shorter" reach weapons— halberds and the like— that are actually close combat weapons with a slight reach advantage but get "bumped up" to 10ft because Pathfinder has no middle ground, yes, the result can be sort of silly. Some of these could be dropped to 5 ft, or have a reach of 5-10ft like natural weapon reach.

But if simulationism on the issue of weapon reach is that big a priority in your campaign, compared to all the other stuff going on in this wacky superhero game, may I recommend trying the Burning Wheel RPG. That ought to scratch the itch, and you can come back to Pathfinder and all its awesome silliness unconcerned with historical accuracy.

Personally, I think the problem with vital strike is that it attempts to fix the problem of full attacks and martial mobility by charging another feat.

If I had my druthers, I'd just have iterative attacks that you could take at any point along a standard move.

But we all know that would cause the fabric of the universe to split asunder.

That's some suspicious capitalization there in the thread title.

I mean, I knew all lefties were evil... but Lawful?

If your GM is willing to play ball with the outcome of the infinite duration friendly request then this is one of the best spells in the game.

If your GM is adversarial or disagrees with your interpretation of the text, skip it. Heck, if your GM is less than 100% accommodating with that line of the spell, skip it. Otherwise, the value of the spell lies almost entirely in the value of the infinite request.

I have one party where another PC actually joined the group solely as a result of a successful hypnotism. He was indifferent, made helpful with the spell. I suggested that he should follow me and protect me from all harm. From that moment on, that is what he does.

I don't think Vital Strike is that bad. It's not a super great feat, but it is good for some situations.

As an example of how hard it is to write such a feat correctly, OP, your suggested feat text is a huge gift to ranged combat characters, who may now apply their strength bonus to attacks that didn't allow it previously. :)

I thought the item was treated as having the enhancement bonus of it's owner. Thus your defending weapon would become more powerful as the owner gained levels. Your snake belt could grant a +5 to escape artist as the wearer could slither out of someone's clutches. :)

That would be my first impulse.

I'm using a system similar to this and we just treat the inherent enhancements as just that - enhancement bonuses, and thus they don't stack with bonuses of the same type given from items such as this. So a character that has an inherent +2 STR and then equips this belt simply gains no benefit from that portion of the belt's enhancements, because the effects don't stack.

It's worked well for us so far.

I've thought about this also... I like the implications that a +3 sword makes you strike like a person with a +3 enhancement bonus.

I'm not sure I would use it, but there's something neat there for sure.

The important thing is getting the actual bonuses right, then individual GMs can vary from there. How are people feeling about the most recent table?

Evil Lincoln, how would you adjust the WBL for someone using your system for a homemade adventure? I assume that with an AP you just throw out

the Big Six treasures, let them have the rest and assume it works out.

There are two obvious approaches:

#Blorch) Add up the value of the enhancement bonuses for that level, and subtract that from the total WBL. This is very precise and will appeal to many number-crunchers. It is also (IMO) silly and a lot of work for little gain. I would, however, still welcome the effort of anyone who made a new WBL table for use with my variant.

#Sweem) Use the WBL as is. The logic here is that without any items tipping the offensive/defensive balance of the game, and with the ability boosters locked away, there's not really a lot you can do with the extra gold that's going to matter to encounter balance/CR.

Personally, I aim to be over WBL anyway. It's a guideline, and I have found it is better to be over than under. So for me the choice is obvious: #sweem. But if #blorch is your cup of tea, more power to you. I'd love to see the revised WBL table. It would certainly make it *feel* like this rule was very carefully balanced and researched. :)

Methinks Yellow Dingo has found a way to fund the construction of a space elevator.

Anyone who thinks lance charges are an "easy" path to anything needs to actually play the build. :)

6

Kthulhu wrote:

Some of the people in this thread SERIOUSLY need to check out some of the Grimtooth's Traps books.

Pathfinder is not designed for that kind of trap. If you use traps that are solved by mechanisms other than "rogue rolls disable device" then the circular justification for the rogue is lost. Using Grimtooth traps means sacrificing a party role a lot of people are attached to.

Good riddance.

The circular justification for the rogue is just that: circular.

If the GM runs the kind of game where skills feature heavily, regardless of traps, the rogue is good to play. It seems like that kind of campaign is rare, because most of the book is about combat, and most of the discussions are about combat.

I wonder how these rules would apply to the forthcoming Mythic Adventures. I have a Wrath of the Righteous game coming up and really want to incorporate something like this. I dislike the Christmas Tree effect and enjoy the idea of more magical magic items. I couldn't think of a good way to houserule the effect away but this seems to do it nicely.

My other game is a Rise of the Runelords/Shattered Star mashup that is a little ways from getting underway. This game, like Wrath of the Righteous will go all the way to level 20, though will not include mythic tiers, so I am curious if these rules remain solid through all levels of play.

My Legacy of Fire campaign will be dipping a toe into mythic at some point, and that's the only campaign where I'm testing Enhancement by Level. So I'll definitely let you know if something (good or bad) comes up.

At the outset, it seems like it should be fine. Right now I have statblocks that say things like:

"Melee frost scimitar +x (1d6+x, 18–20/x2)"

instead of

"Melee +2 frost scimitar +x (1d6+x, 18–20/x2)" .

I added mythic to that statblock and nothing really controversial happened.

If the rule is working as intended, it should be basically the same as the RAW, just with no enhancement bonuses coming from gear. They're all a factor of the character's level.

VRMH wrote:

Quick aside: several knightly orders were technically monks. A lot of the bunk written about the Templar knights makes for a great "mystical yet Western monk", without having to shun combat.

I think this illustrates the difference between titles and actual lifestyles. If you're using the "bunk written about the Templars," the one thing that absolutely gets lost is the asceticism that is basically the defining cross-cultural feature of "monks." And the whole point of the mysticism is that it derived from secret Oriental techniques, which makes them only loosely western.

Well, to be fair, much of that asceticism was shed in favor of excess over the course of several hundred years. There's not much you can say about the Templars of the second crusade that applies to the organization 200 years later.

However, those early Templars are an excellent model for "western martial artist holy men". They even embraced impoverishment for a time.

The trouble is, the warfare of the day necessitated a fighting style that looks a lot more like a paladin or a cavalier than a monk.

If my character believed like a Buddhist believes... would he still be a viable PC?

Or is that kind of mindset going to kill an adventure path?

May I recommend reading the story of Robber Zhi? Okay, it's Zhuangzi, who's really a Taoist, but it underlines the kind of logic that can lead a monk to be... very un-monk-like. (I still say the orders themselves are lawful, though).

Buddhism has many sects, and the precepts of buddhism allow for a wide range of characters with their own believes to be at odds with each other.

You can be a zen buddhist and be downright evil by western narrative standards, even though the fundamentals of buddhism are about the alleviation of suffering. Especially zen buddhism, because once you arrive there you can justify seemingly any behavior as long as you grasp the nature of things.

I just discovered something that will help me with this rule a lot.

If you include a line in the statblock called "Enhancements" and you list the enhancements in the order that they reach +1, you'll never have to look up the table. It will always be obvious which one is due for an upgrade.

For example, let's say I have a character at 6th level. She has:

Str 10, Dex 18, Con 13, Int 8, Wis 12, Cha 16; BAB +4

Feats spellsong, harmonic spell, agile maneuvers, medium armor proficiency; Bonus Feats Dervish Dance
Enhancement +2 armor, +1 weapon, +1 saves, +1 dex, +1 con, +1 wis, +1 cha
Skills Acrobatics +10, etc...

Enhancement +2 armor, +2 weapon, +1 saves, +1 dex, +1 con, +1 wis, +1 cha

Enhancement +2 armor, +2 weapon, +2 saves, +1 dex, +1 con, +1 wis, +1 cha

Enhancement +2 armor, +2 weapon, +2 saves, +2 dex, +2 con, +2 wis, +2 cha

Enhancement +3 armor, +2 weapon, +2 saves, +2 dex, +2 con, +2 wis, +2 cha

See the pattern?

This means that as long as you can remember the order (armor, weapon, saves, four ability scores) you never have to look up the bonuses!

@SKR, I've been using that on my PC statblocks for a year or so and I love it. That and the underlining of 1 round casting times has saved a lot of time looking things up.

@Laithoron, I believe that's the rationale behind the original "new" statblock. Combat-starter information goes in the header. Information you need when it is not your turn is in the Defense block. Information you need when it is your turn is Offense. Anything you need to reference occasionally outside of those two criteria is in Statistics.

As Pathfinder has added and changed things, notably CMB/D, they've deviated slightly from this method. The BAB/CMD thing is okay I guess, it saves space. I prefer my method when I'm running though.

BAB in statistics is fine. You don't need BAB on your turn most of the time.

I've actually been spelling out my CMB/CMD on their own lines, like the breakdown for AC.

I've recently taken to listing the ranks for each skill after the bonus with a slash. For example, a 5th level rogue with dex 18 and skill focus (disable device) and max ranks would have: disable device +15/5

In practice, I don't need a full breakdown of the bonuses as much as I need to know what one rank does. This obviously adds a lot of characters and wouldn't be good for print situations, but it works well if you're like me and you run your PCs off a statblock out of sheer habit.

Anguish, this is why the outer planes exist in the D&D cosmology. It gives "finished" heroes a place to go that doesn't completely rewrite the narrative of their world of origin.

The rules only explicitly work with the Perception skill to delineate who may act in the surprise round.

However, in the case you mention above, I would consider rolling bluff vs. sense motive to determine who acts.

In either case, the initiating party acts in the surprise round.

I would NOT rule that the initiating party gets a free attack before the surprise/initiative.

In such a situation, reacting is not impossible for the defender and depends on the skill levels involved. If I try to suckerpunch an aikido master out of the blue, something tells me I'm still going to end up on my ass.

If both sides are expecting aggression to be possible, but they're parleying before a possible fight, it becomes a straight-up initiative with no surprise round.

If the attacker is trying to mislead the other party before his attack, that's the bluff skill.

Algorithmic Method, but then I was an engineer by schooling / trade so that works for me.

-- david

Takes less room, easier to memorize.

But for some reason it seems more official done up as a table.

I think we have the ability bonuses at the right levels now, but I still think the actual bonuses need work.

Right now they're not very easy to remember, and they're not very accurate. I would prefer if they were both.

I have incorporated Mathius' idea into my version of this variant. I swapped the levels for save bonus and ability scores, and lowered the amount of bonuses to ability scores
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The resulting algorithm is actually fairly memorable:

Armor: +1 at 2nd level and every 4 levels beyond 2nd.
Weapon: +1 at 3rd level and every 4 levels beyond 3rd.
Shield (if worn): +1 at 3rd level and every 4 levels beyond 3rd.
Saves: +1 at 4th level and every 4 levels beyond 4th.
Abilities: Pick either two or four abilities to enhance.
Two Abilities: At 5th level, and every five levels thereafter, the enhancement bonus increases by +2 to a maxiumum of +6 at 15th level.
Four Abilities: At 5th level and every four levels thereafter, the enhancement bonus increases by +1 to a maximum of +4 at 17th level.

I have created a googledoc specifically to display this information: Enhancement Bonus by Level Tables

There are a few different tables there that all display the same information. Which is best?

Also, this is starting to feel finished to me, so if there aren't any more suggestions in the next day or two I might start a new thread that's a little more friendly for newcomers.

Evil Lincoln wrote:

It turns out that a horse with two fighter levels is badass.

A PC like that must undergo quite the training.

One could say he would need to have nerves of steed.

During one critical encounter, the team captain authorized "use of deadly horse."

It comes down to player perception, Shadowdweller.

I arrive at my conclusions because my players aren't scared by those kind of traps.

But your point is noteworthy; perhaps some player types will have their behavior affected. To me it hardly seems worth the effort, though.

I was just thinking...

The threads that are good over 150 posts are generally threads where someone is creating something, or helping someone else.

The threads that get terrible are usually the ones where people are criticizing something, or tearing down other people.