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Unless the lich was prepared for combat in advance, having Spell Resistance would be a massive impediment to its combat abilities as it would either have to sacrifice a combat round to lower its SR or run the risk of wasting a round on its self-buffs failing.
There's no need to be this way when I'm clearly neutral on the subject and keeping my opinions out of it. If you were fishing for my opinion then fine, it's "The child is a part of the natural process of the creature's body until it tries to separate, AKA birth, and shapeshifting should just be dangerous near birth." This is something the DM also came up with independently, and what we are going with. You know, I didn't express any personal opinion about you and your game until you said this-- I asked you directly, knowing your player's wishes in advance, what benefit you thought you were going to derive from taking the game in a very personal and potentially very hurtful direction instead. You've now confirmed that you're doing this anyway, using historically less-than-ideal attitudes towards pregnancy and childbirth as justification, and you're complaining that I'm being rude to you? You are literally trying to explain to me how magical shapeshifting powers would "realistically" impact pregnancy to justify turning your game into an abortion simulator at the expense of your players' expressed wishes and concerns. I still haven't expressed my personal opinion of you and your game, but at least now I am heavily implying it by comparison. If you think the shoe fits, I'm not going to stop you from lacing it up and wearing it to town.
Your player told you how she wants it to work-- can you honestly think of a single halfway decent reason that it should not work that way? Can you think of a single, solitary way that making it work any other way is going to make the game more fun for anyone sitting at the table? Whoever wrote the rule you think you remember is obviously a tremendous a~~%%$$, and the biggest tragedy here is that you don't remember his name so you won't know not to take anything he says seriously in the future.
What was it SKR said, about some weapons not being very good in the game because they're not very good in real life? It's kinda like that, except actually realistic.
Wiiiiiiiitch. They just need contingency and permanency, and they'd be perfect. Runner-Ups: Bard and Magus.
Druid, by far, but I prefer the weird 3pp archetypes. Hunter can be a real hoot with the right archetypes, too. Oracle doesn't fall under the reasons that Clerics, Inquisitors and Paladins are anathema... but I just can't get over the Curse.
Multiweapon Fighting.I believe Derklord is referring to the fact that there is no way to generate more attacks with multiple limbs, per RAW. There have been a lot of lung, tedious discussions on the subject, and the verdict seems fairly clear: you don't get more attacks the more limbs you have (unless your bestiary stat block days otherwise). In other words, Paizo failed to transcribe those rules from 3.5 but continued to reference rules that were based on them... and this is somehow supposed to support an argument that there's nothing wrong with the rules people are apparently still using. It's still a pretty poor argument once someone has been motivated to actually spell it out.
Honestly I'd like to see a menu list of options that are subbed out for standard abilities (That Paizo believes are equivalent exchanges) to allow a player to customize their base class so no two fighters, rogues, wizards, clerics etc. are the same. Rogue Genius Games has done this for the majority of the CRB classes, plus the Cavalier and Witch, in the series Rogue Genius Guide to the Talented $CLASS and Rogue Genius Guide to More $CLASS Talents. I miiiiight be laying it on a little too thick trying to convince them to finish the APG classes and tackle the ACG and Ultimate classes... and maybe Occult Adventures... and DSP psionics.
Fine, then, the rules that govern the penalties that the feat reduces.
Multiweapon Fighting.
You know a handful of the most common names of your god, the names and dates of all the major holidays, the name of the leader of your local temple and the name of the highest-ranking church official in the part of your setting you consider "the world". You know what your deity stands for, what they oppose, and the basic code of conduct for their followers... without rolling. To use an example, let's talk about the Roman Catholic Church and assume a layman with an INT of 7 and zero ranks in Knowledge (religion)-- what questions they should be able to answer about Catholicism by taking 10 with a -2 penalty. They worship God, the Almighty, Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour, the Holy Trinity. They know who "Mother of God" refers to, they know the name and "portfolio" of one or two saints who are personally relevant. They can recite the most common prayers by heart. They know the name of their priest, possibly their bishop, and the holy name of the current Pope and possibly his predecessor. They can name at least half of the Ten Commandments, and the Golden Rule, and the Church's general position on the issues the local clergy care most about. Anything more than this, and you would start to suspect they had the benefit of some formal education... but anything less, and you'd struggle to believe that they'd been raised with the Church's teachings, or that they'd attended Church at all since they were small children.
' - that'll be four. It's a reminder that PF doesn't handle extra limbs well. Well, to be honest, it's because the rules for using four hands in combat are extrapolated from the rules for using two weapons... and those rules aren't great in the first place. I hate to say it, and I really hate to say it here, but you know what game handled four-armed characters the right way? Fourth.
Purple Duck put out a series of supplements that converted all of the Core Rulebook PrCs and many of the official Paizo PrCs into 20-level base classes. Here's their take on the Dragon Disciple. If your DM allows it, that's what I would do.
Frankly, it's a lot of rigmarole just to make the stat generation technically random but effectively ensuring high stats in some (if not most) abilities. Point buy with tighter limits, or choosing from arrays, accomplishes the same thing faster, easier, and without the chance that one player gets a monster statline under a generous rolling scheme. The whole deal with point buy is that it prevents characters from having ability scores that are unexpectedly low for their classes. You pretty much need to guarantee this, or else the character doesn't pull their weight in combat or exploration. The main draw to rolled abilities, for people who complain that point buy is "inorganic", is that it causes characters to have ability scores that are unexpectedly high for their classes-- surprises that don't affect their party role, but make them feel more individal and well-rounded.
Goodness no. I was referring to Tolkien; my experience with any and all of game-based novels is extremely limited. I've read a smattering over the years, but none of it really grabbed me enough to pursue a specific author or series. Oh, that's fair. We could argue their respective weight within the fantasy genre and the RPG community... or we could just agree that they are both titans far beyond their all too short bibliographies. Worth pointing out, though, for all of the foibles of the hobbits... none of the Fellowship's human or elven allies share them. I would even be hard-pressed to say that Gimli had any specific "dump stat".
I think it depends on if you are looking for “power fantasy” or not. Frankly, I’m cool either way, but I know plenty of people who find “power fantasy” to be immature. I can not think of any single thing less mature than thinking that your aesthetic preferences in boardgames about elves make you more sophisticated than anyone else.
The only thing I can think of in terms of comparison is that we're probably comparing best-selling and literaturally more well-crafted apples to oranges, but even that's a stretch. I love Margaret Weis, I really do, but are you really going to sit here and claim that her work is more powerful and influential than Robert E. Howard's?
In my opinion, power fantasy has no relation to playing characters with no critical weaknesses, and my friends and I far prefer playing flawed characters to "Mary Sues". There's a huge difference between having the kind of character flaws and personal weaknesses that make a character interesting and having the kinds of physical and cognitive disabilities that low ability scores represent. Again, I will see your hobbits and Raistlin and I will raise you a Conan and a Drizzt. (Maybe Drizzt is a bad example, but Bruenor and Wulfgar aren't -exactly dullards, either, despite being a Fighter and a Barbarian.)
The bonus feats class ability is specific to your fighter class level, not character level. You get bonus feats at FIGHTER LEVEL 1, 2, 4, 6, etc... NOT at character level 1,2,4,6...So if I were to go Oracle 3 levels then kick in Cad at level 4, I would get the bonus feat for level 4, and that's it? I only ask because it's a specific class feature, and it refers to specific levels. Thanks! No. You would be an Oracle 3/Cad 1 and you would get the features for the 1st level of Cad-- not the 4th.
Alright, I'm curious. Why and what is, then? I don't think I'm too far off the mark in saying that Pathfinder is a power fantasy for the majority of its players-- this is a major part of its appeal, and a major part of why level-based systems are so popular. Tell me, what is Conan the Cimmerian's dump stat? Which of his ability scores is below 10? Hell, which of his ability scores is below 13? I'm not familiar with Golarion's iconics and other NPCs, but if you look at the official statblocks of practically any main character from any of the novels... they don't have dump stats. They don't have arrays you can legally purchase with point buy, or have any hope of rolling on any official rolling method. I'm interested in playing the equals of those characters-- the main characters of the stories that me and my friends are playing out at the table, not their sidekicks.
A Prestige Class that acts to support a multiclass character archetype by advancing (some of) the features of two classes simultaneously-- like Mystic Theurge.
I will note, for informations' sake, that if the system forces me to have a "dump stat", I'm out. I have absolutely zero interest in roleplaying a character who is substantially below average in any capacity. That's not what I play D&D for.
I might be repeating myself here... "Dragon Disciple" PrCs for all of the "monstrous" Sorcerer bloodlines. More Shifter archetypes in general, but in particular more "monster type" Shifter archetypes, like the existing ones for fiends, dragons, and plants. More "multige" classes and multiclassing feats like Monastic Legacy.
As for Cleric, avoiding death forever kinda seems opposite their entire thing. How does one get powers from a god then work to avoid ever meeting that god? "When She wants me, She always knows where to find me. Until then, I've got Her work to do."
Well it is a shame that bloodrager and sorcerer had all the same bloodlines. Something of a pain in the ass that they don't, given that if they multiclass they have to pick the same bloodline.
Best random method for rolling HP (I use average) is that you reroll all your Hit Dice every level, including the one you just gained. If it's higher, you gain the difference; if it's lower, you add +1. I've also seen this system replace natural healing.
So does anyone have an ability generation system other than point buy/rolling that is more organic, less random and less "Here's your dumpstat"? Maybe search for a PF-compatible "lifepath" system?
It's very unreliable and I don't recommend it as a system though. I never used it. When I started playing AD&D with more normal groups, it was always best of 4d6, six times to taste. When I switched to 3.0, I switched to point buy and never (seriously) looked back. I understand and sympathize with the point that point-buy characters are all samey and inorganic. I just hate using dice for something that's going to define my character for his entire career, hence my interest in hybrid systems. Rolemaster gives everyone a free 90 in the ability of their choice. Mind you, that's more like a 14 in PF. 90 is absolutely the equivalent of an 18. It's just that Rolemaster, like d20/PF, draws a difference between "1st level max" and "absolute max". Tweaking Ability Score Increases is also definitely on my TO-DO list. Pondering a number of issues, including 4e/Conan style versus Dragon Fist style, possible random elements, and making ancestry a factor.
Interesting method i assume the extra die need to be assigned before rolling you cant just add them later if you roll low or want to bump up... Yeah, exactly. I can't find a reference right now, but I was pretty sure it was one of the optional methods in AD&D-- either the 1e Unearthed Arcana, the 2e Player's Handbook, or Player's Option: Skills & Powers. But I am apparently mistaken. On the other hand, it also wouldn't break anything if you also gave players, say, 3d6 or 4d6 they could add after the fact. You'd just get higher average scores with a little less variation... like a higher point-buy. I'm currently working on a d20-based game and... I don't like rolling, but I'm trying to work out a number of different ability generation and ability increase mechanics to see what I like best. And to include in the rulebook as options for DMs who disagree with me.
Yeah. Hard for a rule to be broken when everyone at the table is using it-- it's only the extremes of dumb luck you have to worry about, and the free 18 reduces the amount of dumb luck in play. Rolemaster gives everyone a free 90 in the ability of their choice.
Okay... if you want to avoid the blatant minmaxing and sameyness of point-buy, give players vague control of their prime/dump stats, but not total. For instance, instead of rolling 4d6k1 six times and assigning to preference, try each ability score starting with 3d6 and each player gets 9d6 to assign as they please-- to roll their scores in order. So Billy Bloodrager might roll STR 6d6 (keep 3 as always)
while his sister Molly Magus might roll STR 4d6
Now. If you want to control for the possibility of miserable characters in random chargen, what you need to do is set an artificially higher floor for ability scores-- specifically, a much higher floor for a character's core abilities, and only a modestly higher floor for their dump stats. Like you could implement a brutally low point-buy, something way lower than you want to run-- like 10 or 12-- to set the bare minimum for rolled ability scores, and then roll them using the above method or the standard method or any other rolling method you prefer. Roll higher than the point buy? Keep the roll. Roll lower? Keep the point buy. Any random system where players don't have access to the same pool of results is going to have the potential for massive disparities in ability scores. If you want to feel better about running a higher-powered game, let me tell you about how I learned to play D&D. AD&D, in specific, First Edition. Unearthed Arcana had some nutso rolling methods, but nothing like this. 5d6 keep 3, six times in order. Reroll 1s. And 2s. But if you roll Yahtzee, your score is 18 + face value: 19-24. All of the DM's characters had multiple Yahtzees. Us mere mortals who had to roll at the table... had a more statistically likely number.
The cost to enchant weapons is also a cost. And using unenchanted weapons is a cost of a different kind. It's paid in hit points.
Don't double up on crit-fishing and higher base damage. Just get the crit-fishing weapon, because the lower base damage won't hurt you appreciably unless your campaign is practically all elementals and plants. (I want to play in your campaign.) Trip and Disarm are... pretty irrelevant, I think. If you have the Feats, you don't need the weapons, and if you don't have the Feats, the weapons won't matter. I would say you don't need a sap. Your Rogue needs a sap. You need a shield and a one-handed weapon, and you need a polearm... I'd argue it's probably better if you have two Fighters, though. These roles work better in concert. Going to say heavy shield, heavy mace, scimitar, longspear, short bow. Multiple daggers. You can wield them while you're grappled. You need to be able to reach them while you're grappled.
Some Non-Golarion setting oneshots. More Distant Worlds, more Tian Xia, more First World. At least three or four years from now, Pathfinder Unchained 2.
Honestly, I feel like every Chaotic Champion is going to have shades of the Liberator unless they are a pure #nolivesmatter nihilist. The Liberator does not seek to overthrow Order, per se; they seek to trim back Order where it overreaches, and to burn out Order where it has grown malignant. They do this knowing that Order protects its own, at all costs, and that the Greater Good requires sacrifices of the just and the innocent alike. A Liberator will wield as much force as is necessary to remove the unjust from power, but no more, and will seek to avoid harming the just as much as possible. A CN Champion might not believe that all Order is inherently unjust, but certainly those who protect the unjust cannot claim to be among the just themselves. They're going to burn out the corrupt, and anyone protecting the corrupt, and anyone else who doesn't get out of the way fast enough. And then, it is not enough for the unjust to be removed. They must be destroyed, the fruits of tyranny seized and its monuments burned. You feel sympathy for the innocent victims of the regime, and they're the reason you do this, but on some level you know they are all complicit; if the vast majority of them had not cooperated and collaborated, there would not have been a regime for you to overthrow. We already know how to play a CE Champion. The only question is, why we want to play it so seriously.
Crossblooded is a massive trap. Anything that helps foolish players fall into it has got to be a good thing.
Bard, Magus, Skald, Hunter. If we're counting DSP, Soulknife. The only half-caster I'm really into is the Bloodrager, and I'd rather just play an Eldritch Scion.
My favorite ranged weapon is always going to be unarmed strike. Unchained Monk 4/Deadly Fist Soulknife 4 gives you the prerequisites for Monastic Legacy, Fighter's Blade, and the Psychic Fist PrC-- plus the Improved Psychokinetic Discharge, Focused Offense, Psychokinetic Armor, and Improved Armor blade skills. Your DM might even allow to to apply Enhanced Range to PK Discharge... even though it technically doesn't. Improved PK Discharge improves the range increment of your unarmed strike to 30 feet and allows you to Flurry with it. Psychokinetic Armor does what you think it does... but Improved Armor means that your light armor form (+4 AC base) grants all of its bonuses... and doesn't count as wearing armor. If you've got feats to burn, Soulknife has some amazing options in Blade Skills.
Whereas an archer can stand 100ft away and pepper an enemy with multiple arrows a round for just a couple feats, at a fraction of the cost, and doesn't break their weapon on a nat 1. And a bunch of different classes can be competent archers, while if you want to use a gun competently you're almost locked into gunslinger. Yeah. I'm under no illusions that the Gunslinger or other firearms experts are overpowered-- I ban them because the rules are so wonky, both mechancially and narratively, that they damage my enjoyment of the game. This isn't intended as a dig at Paizo. If I thought I could have done better myself, I'd have done so already. I'm a Spelljammer guy, so I love me some guns in my D&D.
A witch-monk hybrid with monk HD/BA, martial arts, 6th level witch casting, Hexes, and using your hair as a weapon. So basically a Kung Fu witch like from some old Kung Fu movies. Bright gods, that would be gorgeous.
So no benefit over longbows at all? Or even crossbows? Harsh. I feel almost hypocritical pointing out that in real life, early firearms were strictly inferior to longbows and crossbows-- they became prevalent on the battlefield because they reduced the training time for peasant conscripts from generations to weeks. Also, the word "bulletproof" was coined by 16th century armorers because that's exactly what their products were.
Your multiclassing classes continue unaffected because they are "bought" with the 3 feats (each)... just like VMC continues through a prestige class. Thank you. I know I came back at you a little too hot, and I really appreciate you responding in good faith. The idea of the Prestige Class replacing the main class has merit... it bothers me on some level, but I'll have to think about it further.
I don't allow multiclassing, VMC or otherwise, with Gestalt at my table. As if having two full classes somehow isn't enough. ... I really think you missed the point. This system uses a limited form of Gestalt as multiclassing-- it is not trying to allow Gestalt and multiclassing. The entire rest of your post is you trying to tell me there's nothing wrong with the current rules and to just use the existing rules-- or an existing rules variant-- instead. This is the exact thing I was referring to as "stupid and pointless" in literally the second sentence of my post. What do you find inherently wrong with the current multiclassing system? Everything. It doesn't make narrative sense and it encourages character builds that don't make narrative sense. It forces class design to delay iconic class features until mid-level or later. It does not support classical AD&D multiclass character archetypes, nor any archetype in which a character progresses equally in two or more classes. It doesn't support multiclassing, period. But I have already had all of these arguments on these forums, and I am not interested in having these arguments again. The system in the book that I linked to, that I have partially described in the OP, solves most of the problems I have with multiclassing-- in fact, the only problems it does not solve are the ones I have specifically listed in the OP. This is the system I am planning to use. If you would like me to describe it in further detail, I would be happy to-- but telling me there's nothing wrong with the rules and that I don't need to fix them is a waste of time.
So... I've always hated the way multiclassing works in D&D 3.X and Pathfinder. I've been trying to fix it, nearly consistently, for the past fifteen years and I've gotten into a lot of stupid and pointless arguments with people who don't think it needs to be fixed. Luckily, I am now in possession of Tipsy Tabby Publishing's Overhauling Multiclassing rules, which use a much more elegant implementation of fixed-progression Gestalt than my own-- you may select one secondary class, you take multiclass feats (with ability prerequisites a la 5e) to upgrade your chassis, and when you're at least 5th level with at least 2 multiclassing feats, you can take the Cross-Training feat that gives you all of the class features of your secondary class at your character level -4. This is leagues better than the original system, and likewise leagues better than anything I ever came up with. But there are still four major problems that I think can be improved, and that I'd like to address.
Cost Versus Benefit I think I've got this one licked, as long as I don't try to implement Triple-Class characters. Also, for the record, I am an idiot sandwich. Pathfinder already has a mechanism for encouraging characters to stay single-class: Favored Class Bonuses. Single-class characters get Favored Class Bonuses; the level they take a multiclass feat, they stop. Low-Level Characters Just add a multiclass feat that grants the 1st-level features of the chosen class. This is your entry-level multiclass feat, overwritten by Cross-Training later. Triple-Class Characters I've got nothing, and I'm honestly half-convinced that I shouldn't even attempt this. On the other hand, I really want to. Prestige Classes This is a real sticking point because a lot of cool concepts in 3.X and PF are gated behind the Prestige Class system. Also, a lot of the later "multige" classes did unique things beyond just +1 spellcaster level/+1 spellcaster level that... should be available to multiclass characters in some capacity, but probably aren't worth a whole class with fixed progression. And there's the rub: most Prestige Classes are obviously designed to replace the class features of the base class, not co-exist with them. +1 spellcaster level is only the most obvious example... but in a fixed progression game, it's meaningless. Easy enough to ignore, but suddenly a 5/10 casting PrC is the exact same as a 10/10 casting PrC. I'm generally thinking that your first (and only) Prestige Class should just be "free": meet the prerequisites, choose it, and advance. Prestige Classes would not count against being single-classed for the purposes of FCBs. There's a part of me that wants to support having more than one Prestige Class, but I'm pretty sure that would lead to nothing but shenanigans and ruination. So that's where I'm at. Any ideas?
First thought is Genies. Then Dragons.
It occurs to me that seeing Rogue Genius Games revisit some of their own classes for the Talented treatment would be pretty neat.
Oooh: an alien/aberration-focused Druid and Shifter. Fleshgrafts. Specifically fleshgrafts that are not limited to Evil characters and aren't saddled with ludicrous drawbacks. A Fleshwarper archetype and/or Prestige Class... compatible with the alien/aberration Druid archetype mentioned above. Martial archetypes for the recipients of fleshgrafts. Campaign settings that weren't attached to Golarion, and weren't fantasy kitchen sinks. Golarion's fine... I just really would have liked to see what Paizo could have done with more focused themes. ... okay, and I'm going to go there: Chaotic. Good. Paladin. Archetype. edit: And while we're going there, how about an explicitly Chaotic Monk archetype that doesn't give up all of their supernatural abilities?
I'm not currently in a game, but the next game I'm planning is using the PF rules for my Shroompunk setting-- think Conan the Barbarian meets Super Mario Bros. I'm kinda playing around with a couple of 3pp alternate multiclassing systems and how I'd build my "idealized self" in them. Generally leaning on Unicorn Sorcerer|Talented Druid, though I'm developing a sudden interest in the Kinetic Chirurgeon and I am always interested in Soulknife. It's too bad none of the systems I'm looking at work with triple-class characters.
The Genius Guide to the Talented Druid. It's still technically a Druid... but you don't technically have to take Spellcasting, either. Take Claws, Bite, Vicious and Senses at 1st level instead of Spellcasting. Or put Senses off until Level 3 to get an Animal Companion. Druid has some crazy options if you're willing to give up a level... or nine... of spellcasting. Combine it with Talented Monk. Martial Artist waives the asinine Lawful requirement and allows you to take Fighter feats with your Fighting Style weapons-- in this case, the Natural Weapons group. Unfettered Kata, Deadly Strikes, Insightful Strikes. Mix and match to taste.
So... with The Genius Guide to the Talented Paladin now released, there are only two Core classes-- Wizard and Sorcerer-- that haven't been given the Talented treatment. The Cavalier and the Witch from APG have also been covered. To show Rogue Genius Games our appreciation of their prior efforts, and our desire for more of the same... I thought I'd post my wishlist of Talented Classes I want to see, and encourage others to do the same. I mean, I'm going to buy the whole line regardless, even for classes I hate and/or ban. Advanced Player's Guide
Other Paizo
Dreamscarred Press
What classes would you love to see get the Talented treatment?
Another great product in my favorite line of 3pp supplements... ... but now there are only two CRB classes left, and I feel compelled to renew my pleas for coverage of the remaining APG classes and DSP psionics. Or at least my highly specific wishlist from those classes. ;) Really looking forward to Genius Guide to More Paladin Talents. Thanks, again, for all your hard work.
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