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The original designers deliberately built the math of the game such that a CR=APL encounter uses up 20%-25% of a party's resources.

You refer to the CR system which first appeared in 3rd Ed which never worked correctly. Primarily because it was based on flawed assumptions.

You assume that the valuation of martial attack all day vs limited number of spells per day was based on mathematical analysis rather than legacy carryover from previous editions.

However, I think we do martials no favors for ignoring where they do excel. People need to understand that because one of the most common answers people initially make for martials is "mwoar damaaaage!" which is not what is needed at all.

True, increasing damage just to increase damage is a poor attempt at addressing the actual problem. However, making it easier to do more damage by freeing up more feats (consolidating feat chains and having them scale) creates flexibility and opens up more options. Allowing more than a 5' step with full attack increases mobility options, not just increasing damage output. We can't just dismiss options simply because they also increase damage output.

The martial caster disparity is real. But we must be honest about how far we have come!

CRB made great strides in closing the martial/caster gap vs 3.5. Those of us that were part of the playtest wouldn't have accepted it if it didn't. But the gap has grown again since then, not as rapidly as in 3.x, but it has grown none the less. Too liberal toward magic, too conservative toward martials. While I count myself as someone who thinks the CRB didn't go far enough, I still stand by my assessment at the time that it was a vast improvement over 3.5. I feel the recent surge in martial/caster disparity discussion is less about trying to force more gains in balance but more pushback against losses to the gains we had made.

The amount a mage can do in 6 seconds is truly staggering in Pathfinder.

Not to dredge up any edition warring again, but one thing I thought was really smart in 4E was chopping up magic into spells and rituals.

In "traditional fantasy", how exactly does a pure "gritty" martial counter a caster? He interrupts his casting.

In Pathfinder, most spells are standard action casting time, meaning you can cast one and move your full movement, all on your action. The only way to interrupt that is readied action or AoO. If a caster sees a martial not attacking anyone, he can fairly well expect a readied action to try and interrupt a spell, so he can just not cast and effectively waste the martial's action that round. The AoO requires the martial to be next to the caster, but the caster can just move out of range (yes, Step Up and Step Up And Strike). Longer casting times go further to balance out the power of spells than anything else.

Prior to 3rd Ed casting times were such that other characters could get actions before spells went off and could interrupt them. This was changed as a quality of life improvement for casters because not only did the spell not go off, but you wasted the spell slot as well. It went against the concept of casters doing things with magic.

To be fair, while I advocate for 1 round (start casting this round, spell goes off on your action next round) casting times, I would also be in favor of giving the caster a chance to not lose the spell slot if interrupted.

I also support the idea of taking some of the most powerful magics in the game and making them rituals that take minutes, hours, or even days to cast.

I would even be willing to see rituals not require a spell caster, but have a higher cost/casting time for non casters.

It's not that martials haven't gotten any nice things, but those things are often weaker than needed (especially not scaling to level), and martials are starved for access to them (long feat chains and unnecessary prerequisites), and all because not having limited uses per day has been highly overvalued.

Is it any wonder any time something nice for martials gets nerfed in errata there is a firestorm of martial/caster disparity discussion?

For the record, I do not expect Paizo to directly fix the underlying problems. They are too deeply rooted in 3.x and Pathfinder was built on a large degree of backward compatibility with 3.x, both as a selling point to players/DMs who could still use their not inconsiderable 3.x collections of material and to build on Paizo's existing 3.x products without having to re-do everything from scratch. What I hope for from them is more options like Unchained to give us tools to work with, and less nerfing of nice things that martials do get.

... I just don't want the basic D&D casting system ripped out and replaced with something else. It's too much of what makes D&D for me.

And here lies a key to why this has not been fixed and why any fix will not be simple. The magic system - aka. the heart of the caster side of martial/caster disparity - is a herd of sacred cows (er...sacred cattle).

What's more, I vaguely recall some dev (maybe not even one working for Paizo) stating that designing a spell in this system is more art than science, which I believe translates as: there is no logic behind the magic system, it's just random bits that sounded cool all stuffed together. (Spell groups with logical progressions like the cure and summon spells being odd exceptions)

This mess was once balanced by it being very difficult to actually cast a powerful spell - any damage taken and the spell was lost, and between beginning to cast the spell and it going off, other characters got their actions. 3rd Ed changed all that, and it was not entirely a bad thing. It was a quality of life improvement for casters taking them from crossbow guy who occasionally manages to get off a spell to being magic guy.

Now casters are kings of the action economy, able to rewrite reality in the 6 seconds of their turn, after moving their full movement, and only interruptible by an AoO or someone sacrificing their action in advance to ready an action that they only get to take if the caster tries to cast, with the fighter (and all other martials) limited to a single attack if he moves more than 5 feet.
This right here is the poster child for martial/caster disparity.(for those who don't believe it exists)

Spells completely replace and are better than skills. (anything you can do I can do better) For (pretty much) every mechanical check in the game there is an app spell for that. Not necessarily a bad thing in principle as it remvoes the single fail point of requiring one person in the party to have trained up a specific skill sufficiently or have a specific class feature and allows magic to carry the rest of the team when everyone needs to make the check as opposed to only a single character.

Skills are a spot where fighters were really left out in the cold with only 2 skill points/level. It's just not enough to go around, especiall with must have skills like perception usuall being opposed rolls that must be kept maxed to meet level appropriate challenges.

Feat chains were an interesting idea, but feats not haveing a per day limit was greatly overvalued and as a result feats are individually weak, with the chains becoming a tax on limited feat slots. Worse, they tended to be designed to be level appropriate for the level they first become available, resulting in feats that are fine taken early but almost worthless if taken at later levels. Which combines with long chains to make single feat chain focus the only viable option. non-branching chains should be consolidated to single feats that unlock additional abilities as the prerequisites (be they BAB or Character Level or whatever) are met.

And then we get to the other major issue holding up fixing martial/caster disparity - raising up martials without handing them magic. They need to be able to do superhuman things to compete on the same field as dragons and wizards creating their own demiplanes. Yet there is an insistence that they be limited to what an average human is capable of. I can understand not letting them fly without an item granting them flight even though it is needed to face level appropriate challenges, but the status quo is too conservative.

And while we are looking at all the various facets of this gem of an issue, let's look at the design trap that everyone is caught up in - damn near everything is a +n bonus to a die roll. This has resulted in numbers being pushed off the RNG (random number generator aka d20) and a lack of real creative solutions. If all anything you add gives you is bigger numbers, you aren't adding options, you are just further minimizing the random game elements. But this mustn't lead to the trap of "you can't attempt to do this without x ability (feat, or spell)". It has been said "Don't say "no", say "yes, but...". Too much is gated in the rules behind "you cannot even attempt this without x feat or n spell". Instead of "no you can't without n" we need more "yes, and if you have n then you can also..."

In case you hadn't guessed from that wall of text, I've been following these discussions for a while now and mulling over the points of both sides. This is where I've gotten to from all that has gone before. Once I got started posting I needed to get it all out, so /rant.

If you expand skills so that you can do really cool stuff with them -- if and only if you have "x" number of ranks as a class skill, then class skills mean a whole lot more than just +3 to the check. You can then tailor the class skill lists based on which cool abilities you want each class to have access to.

The spider climb spell could then be rewritten as follows: "For the duration of the spell, the target treats Climb as if it were a class skill. If it is already a class skill, the subject treats it as if he/she had an additional 3 ranks," or something like that. Same with invisibility vis-a-vis Stealth, and freedom of movement for Escape Artist, and charm person for Diplomacy, and doom, cause fear, scare, fear, etc. for Intimidate, and so on.

I may have to steal this concept for my homebrew rule set.

The idea of tying class skills into skill unlocks is excellent, and then tying skill based spells into that rather than just numerical bonuses offers some real possibilities.

Granted the fighter still needs more than 2 skill points. (maybe some day an Unchained Fighter will get some love in Unchained II)

What I could use some help with is firstly, does this make any sense?

Even in the Tippyverse it would make sense that some would choose the option of "dig a hole and pull it in after yourself" to protect themselves.

What you have to remember is that prior to reaching Tippyverse levels of magical utopia, these communities would have grown naturally. Once faced with magically backed annihilation, they would face a choice:

• Become individually big/bad enough that they could match any attacker
  
• Form an alliance with other cities to deter attackers with mutual destruction
  
• Your option of disappear and hide
  
• Ignore it, hope it goes away, and/or be destroyed
  

Your option is the lowest initial risk option, but it relies entirely on a single fail point - not being found, EVER!

This means no one ever leaves the community. Anyone who finds your community must never be allowed to leave. And if they find it remotely without ever actually being where you can get at them, then it is game over.

What this means is that your hidden community would actually have been a subset of a larger community that broke off and disappeared. The rest of the Tippyverse would still be out there. Maybe it would end with last man standing final showdown, maybe it would destroy itself and the cycle would start over (unless someone managed to destroy magic). That's not your concern because you are secure in your vault hidden community.

But war, war never changes...

Or we could wake up and insist on a rulebook that has everything people need in it to actually play. In other words, rules that actually reflect all these agreements we've evolved over the last 35 years.

Exactly - rules that work right out of the box without all these unwritten behind the scenes agreements to make them work.

This is what I keep arguing for.

1-4

Realistic
These are the levels where men rise up to face their fears

5-8
Heroic
When men become legends and surpass their limits

9-12
Mythical
When physics break under the strain of awesome

13-16
Demigod
The path to divinity, where mortality falls behind

17-20
Divine
The trials of Divinity, where gods alone do tread

---

This codifying was done to make sense out of the sheer power that Full Casters achieve as they gain new spell levels.
...
In order to justify Heroes who are qualified to fight alongside these spellcasters, I've codified these 'Tiers of Play' in a manner that ensures that anybody at the same Tier of Play is roughly playing the same game in terms of overall power.

(emphasis mine)

Let's start with the idea that PCs are special and always had the potential to transcend mortal limits and achieve godhood (PC glow). It's what makes them PCs and not NPCs. (High level NPCs have similar potential, they just aren't particularly motivated to pursue it - lazy slackers that they are) Based on this premise, these tiers should work. However...

Mechanically, the game limits non-casters to the 3rd tier (maybe just barely breaking into the fourth). Sure they get 20 levels, but with much reduced power. Pre-3.0 this was acknowledged by the fact that classes leveled at different rates, it would eventually break down, but not as quickly and therefore not as noticeably. Locking all classes to the same leveling track made this disparity come to the fore much sooner.

Part of this might be due to kitchen sink design, where it tries to include everything, combining with a limited scope of 20 levels. Trying to model everyman heroes and nigh-omnipotent casters in the same 20 levels doesn't work because they are two fundamentally different scales. You may as well try to say a 52 inch tall person is comparable to a 52 floor building because they are both 52 levels tall. The units of scale aren't equal.

As a result you end up with 20th level non-casters who are power wise on par with 9-13th level casters. 20th level Aragorn still looks like a chump next to the 20th level caster whose power gods are beginning to envy, even though they are both 20th level.

(and before anyone tries to argue that realistic limits cap non-casters at 4-6th level, generally fictional realistic heroes never face opponents that actually get above 13th level, even if the game models them at a higher level. Additionally, the game stretches non-casters 20 levels ending them with a power level falling somewhere from Mythic to low end Demi-god)

This disparity has always been built into the game, but 3.0 broke/removed a lot of the things that reined in the power of casters. This wasn't entirely bad as some of those things were downright punishing to casters, but it did result in this power disparity showing itself earlier and more blatantly.

Which brings us to where we are today and why martial/caster disparity discussions end up going nowhere. Nice things on the realistic martial scale =/= nice things on the caster scale. Combine this with an unwillingness to make any changes that go beyond minimal impact and you have what we have.

DM_Blake wrote:

Petty Alchemy wrote:

Honestly, I'd like a hard definition of "nice things" in the context of this topic.

Are bigger numbers a "nice thing"? Is extreme combat competency (such as pre-errata Crane Wing) a "nice thing"? Is built-in narrative power/control a "nice thing"?

The first two are things people probably enjoy when playing martials, but not everyone will agree whether they are as nice as the third.

I prefer the term to be undefined - let each (contributing) poster make suggestions based on his or her own personal opinion as to what that means.

Therein lies the derailment, I suspect. How can we fix the problem when the problem is undefined? Everyone is fixing the problem as they perceive it, and disagreeing on the problem as others perceive it.

No, what is happening is that everyone is fixing individual symptoms, while circling the actual problem.

The actual problem is that martials and casters are working on two distinctly separate rule sets:

Martials are limited by reality (or a reasonable facsimile thereof). They are not allowed to transcend physical limitations (at least those imposed on a 'normal mundane' by the game mechanics).

Casters get to unlock wish fulfillment. I want that target to lose, save fails and they do. I want to be on top of this cliff, and I am there. Whatever I want, there is an app a spell for that.

There is a lot of focus in the discussion on combat because a lot of the game mechanics live there. Skills are an area where this problem shows up very blatantly (sneak v invisibility, climb v fly). But the real issue is that casters get to bypass things that martials need to grind their way through, and at a certain point they grind to a halt because the math starts working against them.

And we are all acknowledging the problem. We just don't want to to face the problem with solving the problem - solving this problem requires sweeping fundamental changes to the game.

Ok, putting aside the "keep your chocolate magic out of my peanut butter martial" debate, let's start small:

Collapse feat trees. Especially the feat/improved/greater ones. If you take the first feat in the chain, it automatically upgrades when you reach the prerequisites for the next one. This will free up feat slots for more possible diversity vs committing them all to a narrow specialization. This will be a start toward "martials can't do anything besides hit things" since they might be able to afford to invest in doing something else.

Also don't skill starve them (looking at the 2+Int classes). This cripples diversity when popular skills need to be maxed to keep up with level appropriate challenges. (Doesn't do a damn thing for when spells completely obsolete skills, but it is a start.)

Also let them move and full attack. Casters can do huge amounts of damage or even bypass hp altogether as a standard action and still move 30 feet. Martials don't need to be penalized in the action economy.

Yes, these have all been said before. They aren't enough in and of themselves, but they are a beginning that shouldn't offend the magic vs mundane sensibilities of anyone. And if you think this little bit is changing the game too much then you are part of the problem because this is just a band-aid on the sucking chest wound that is martial/caster disparity.

To be fair, Hercules and Cu are demigods, not mundane folk.

So, flying around, raising the dead, teleporting across the country, causally hopping across the planes, and creating demi-planes - are these things mundane folk would do or are they things demigods would do?

After having seen the interview with Jason and getting a better idea of the Devs position and viewpoint (as well as some clue as to what we didn't get in the playtest) I'll append this note on fixing the most outstanding issues of the class (Dual Identity):

• The social identity needs access to class features. This is a must and a deal breaker for the class. Each specialization needs about 6 talents that can also be used by the social identity, otherwise it is completely stripped of class features. Signature talents and 'Shock and Awe' talents can stay limited, but there need to be enough that are usable in both identities to make both sides function as PC classes.

• The time to change between identities is too long. While I presume it was intended to include the time to change in and out of armor, it ends up being overly penalizing. I can see it taking at least 1 minute for 1st level characters, with a note that donning armor rules apply and may extend the time.

• The full round action switch between identities come way too late. It should be kicking in by around 6th level. By that point a non-vigillante character with a couple of magic items (hat of disguise and glamored armor) is doing it better.

That still leaves the last issue of integrating a vigilante with an adventuring party without secret identities. In another thread I compared this with Power Rangers - "Except with only one ranger morphing into civilian identity and the rest of the group going about their daily business in their ranger identities. I mean no one would ever suspect the guy hanging out with 4 of the 5 rangers is the 5th ranger."

As you can see there would still be outstanding issues, but these are more inherent in the concept itself (a natural tendency to divide the party) rather than the mechanics to implement it.

I still feel this concept would be best served with mechanics that integrated it into the existing base classes rather than a parallel base class (an opinion I've seen voiced by several others), but the fact that we are playtesting this class pretty much means that the decision to go this route has been made.

As for the talents themselves, they aren't amazing (some are definitely interesting, but not "where have you been all my life" amazing), but they aren't cripplingly bad (a term that could be used to describe Dual Identity as presented). Fixing the Dual Identity would bring this class to a place where it just needs dialing in.

The masked superhero with a secret identity. This is the concept behind this class. Yet it fails to take into account the world in which that character exists. The masked superhero don's a mask to rise above the world around him. But what happens when the world around him has heavily armored juggernauts wandering the streets accompanied by people who can call down lightning bolts from their deity and people who can warp reality to imprison someone in a block of ice - and seeing them walk down the street means it is Thursday? A flying lizard the size of a house just landed in the middle of town? Oh, that just means it's the second Tuesday.

Ok perhaps I exaggerate a bit, but the fact remains - PCs and giant monsters are not that uncommon. And the Vigilante is meant to join the ranks of the PCs. How does he fit in? The answer is not very well at all. Oh sure, in his masked persona he can pass as one of them, maybe even be mistaken for one of the other PC classes. But he's not quite on par with them. There is a reason for this - he leads a double life. He is not just a PC, he has a Dual Identity. He had to trade off some of his ability as a PC in exchange for this power.

[Dual Identity] is the defining feature of this class, and at the same time the Achilles' Heel of this class as well. What it grants you is a divination shield, protecting you from the various divination magics that instantly reveal your secret identity (a mechanical patch to make the whole secret identity thing work). However it does so by turning you into NPC Man - a pale shadow that inhabits the background of the PC's story. No, really, this guy falls somewhere between commoner and the other NPC classes.

As if that wasn't bad enough, it also suffers from netrunner syndrome where this ability becomes it's own little side game that doesn't include any party members that it doesn't apply to. ("I'm going to change into NPC Man now, the rest of you can go out for waffles, and don't forget to bring back take out for me and the GM.")

Oh, and as has been pointed out numerous times by others, while you can freely change between identities, it takes 5 minutes until level 13. Which means unless you are in your masked persona, you are sitting out the action (or are stuck trying to survive it as NPC Man).

Honestly, the best way to sum up this class as written is "NPC who moonlights as a PC".

The divination shield is a necessary feature for enabling secret identities, but it could have worked better as a feat.

The concept of living 2 lives has merit, but in a world where PCs casually walk among the masses forcing one of those lives to be NPC Man is immersion breaking. I get that giving the Vigilante 2 full PC classes would be overpowered, but this class would be much cooler (about 20% cooler) if you could do things like Paladin by day and Vigilante by night. (it would also justify 5 minutes to change identities since you would need to change out of your easily identifiable Paladin armor). Maybe it could be done:

"A vigilante picks a second class (PC or NPC) for his secret identity. When in vigilante identity, all features of the social identity class are lost and replaced by those of the vigilante class. When in their social identity they retain only those vigilante features that specify being available to the social identity."

(note: this could result in some power creep, especially in the from of a BAB boost, the skill boost should probably not be too disruptive)

Final point: I have not gone into detail about the Vigilante specializations. This is probably infuriating the Devs as I suspect they had intended this playtest to focus on assessing and balancing them. They are weaker than their full base class equivalents, but that was already known. The problem is that determining how much weaker they should be is dependent on what one is getting in exchange for the trade off. At worst we have a vague "stuff" and at best we have an "NPC secret identity that cannot be uncovered by divination". I say worst and best because the worst gives no basis for comparison and the best is what has been clearly defined. It's like evaluating the fighter without access to any feats. You know there is more to the class but it is and undefined value of "and stuff". If however there is no "and stuff" for the Vigilante, then they are clearly giving up too much for too little.

Sidenote: This class makes an interesting proof of concept for replacing the multitude of base classes with a single customizable class.

I'm going to put on my Devil's Advocate suit for a moment and say that he may have intended this construct as defensive only, with that defense being one shotting anything that got close to him.

Now with that out of the way, the DM who enabled this truly dropped the ball. Wealth == Power and he handed out far too much wealth. While the party had equal access to said wealth, he knew one of his players was built to better leverage said wealth. (Speculation: the DM may have wanted to see what the character would come up with with that much available and didn't consider consequences)

Even assuming that he made his crafting services available to the rest of the party, making their wealth go further, there is a limit to how much they can add to their characters in gear (limited slots, maximum bonuses, stacking limits). He knew this. He knew what he was building would eclipse another party member. When he asked for advice on how to mitigate that, he was told "don't do it". He then did it any way. What he spent on damage he could have spent on more AC - he didn't.

He knew what he was making would not go over well, did it anyway (against the advice he asked for on this forum), and then when it went bad came back to the forum asking for validation for his choices.

He could have held back on DPS - he didn't.
He could have spread the money around on multiple projects - he didn't.
He could have prevented this from going bad - he didn't.

One thing to his credit:
He could have made it worse (more DPS) - he didn't.

His creation might possibly have been better received if he had named it "Plan B" and presented it as an "in case of disaster nuclear option".

As for his title argument -
Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit

Got it myself and was a bit concerned since my browser isn't on your list but does support TLS 1.1/1.2. Thought you might be just checking user agent string against your list.

Pale Moon

"Pale Moon: Release notes
24.3.2 (2014-02-11)
An update to implement TLS v1.2, implement a few new features and fix some minor bugs.
Fixes/changes:
New feature: Implemented the TLS v1.1 (RFC 4346) and TLS v1.2 (RFC 5246) protocols for improved https security.
"

I logged in to make sure I still could and then noticed my OS update notifier. Did a restart due to kernel updates (linux) and you had reverted to 1.0 by the time I got back.

FYI current version is 25.5 released today.

The actual problems with magic are that 7-9th level spells are over the top powerful and most importantly the action economy.

The 7-9th level spells may or may not be problematic to the individual DM/campaign. YMMV.

The action economy is systemic. A martial can't make more than a single swing if he moves more than 5'. A caster can walk 30' and still alter reality. This would be a minor issue if both were whittling away at HP. But it gets compounded with casters getting save or lose rocketlauncher tag that bypasses HP entirely. The solution is extending casting times, specifically for save or lose to 1 round - that is you start casting this round and the spell goes off at the beginning of your next action. Now clearly this would result in focus fire on the caster likely resulting in the spell being disrupted and the slot wasted, but it doesn't have to. A simple change to the concentration rules where the slot is expended only on a 1 or perhaps if failed by more than n (where n=5 for example). The result being save or lose going from the go-to spell to the Hail Mary big risk for big reward spell.

That would still leave a few poorly conceived and badly written spells to be fixed, but would address the bulk of the issues.

I got lots of love for rogues. Roleplay wise they are tons of fun.

I cry when I see how they got shafted by a combination of changes in the play style of the game combined with selective nostalgia and niche protection.

Once upon a time when rogues were still called thieves, traps could kill characters outright if not wipe entire parties. Back then character death was considered normal and gameplay was much more roguelike than collaborative story telling.

Then things changed, the game became more about the story and character death became unfun badwrong. So traps became less deadly, more of an inconvenience really. But selective nostalgia of rogues saving the party from deadly traps got them assigned the niche of trap monkey. This selective nostalgia also gave them sneak attack which is one of their few saving graces, but it is still all but useless at range (because ranged combat is the ranger's niche and you can't be better at it than they are). But then because it gives them fairly consistent DPS selective nostalgia is used again to demand it be nerfed (because get back in your niche trap monkey).

I still love playing rogues despite all of this. If anything I hate how they get marginalized and when playing a rogue I refuse to be shoved into the corner.

In literature where distances are covered at the speed of plot the units of measure are irrelevant. This makes it easy to use whatever units the author wants.

When you want people from different cultures to visualize a distance however, you need a common unit. Even here in the US we have some idea of what a kilometer is.

The metric system may not be the most stylistic means of expressing measurements in a fantasy setting, but it beyond a doubt quite practical.

Davor wrote:

Xaaon of Korvosa wrote:

Runnetib wrote:

Playing Pathfinder means that when I take out the Stag Lord, the Stag Lord is taken out, not is taken out for a few minutes, or until the next group starts the dungeon/instance. (I do realize this would make for an expansively large number of quests, but I think player generated quests could help with that, and for 'big' events such as these, perhaps staff can play the part(s), or players can 'apply' to run the scenario/quest on the bad-guy side. I, at least, think that would be a great addition to the game.)

+5 THIS

See, I have to disagree with this, just because it forces players to compete against each other, further removes a sense of community, and only encourages griefing outside of direct PvP confrontation.

I am going to agree with Davor here. Any content as far as PvE encounters go should be available to any player or group of players willing to put in the time and effort to make it there, not just the first and fastest poopsockers who blow through the prerequisite content. Nobody wants to pay for a game wherein the features of that game have been "used up" or "taken" by someobody else.

If any content were to be unique, one-time events it should be player-driven and player-created content.

I have to say I agree with both sides and prefer the compromise of instanced encounters. Your character can kill the Stag Lord once. This sets a flag on that character and they will no longer be able to enter that instance for the Stag Lord. To do this however, drops would have to be guaranteed to every party member (the quasi-unique "I beat the Stag Lord" t-shirt which is unique only in that can only get one by beating the Stag Lord).

More reactive mobs.

I can't stand that the orc on the other side of the road will just stand there and watch while I slaughter his cousin Bob because I'm just outside his aggro range.

Yes, this means safely pulling will pretty much be a thing of the past. And before everyone chimes in about this killing soloing, I'm someone who generally soloed in MMOs. It just means treating every Line of Sight aggro mob as a single encounter (unless you can do crowd control). It means you're not soloing those 5 level 7 orcs at 7th level, and maybe just barely at 12th.

I support stat caps (and caps in general). I feel the game breaks down when the spread between modifiers approach the maximum of the Random Number Generator (d20). I've been looking at similar for my own house rules. Since I don't run a lot of modules (and have learned that I have to go over over encounters and possibly rewrite them if did) and use a lot of home brew or modified creatures, it's not as much of an issue for me to rebalance for it. If you are expecting to run encounters straight from the book, especially at higher levels, then expect them to get noticeably harder. The three big areas this will impact are saves which you mentioned, attacks hitting (to hit and AC bonuses being brought down by the cap), and CMB/CMD. HP, damage, and initiative will also take some decreases. Also any ability with stat based uses per day will be effected by this limit. Skills will be affected, but that will probably be the least noticed impact (YMMV).

It's not exactly a simple change. There will be a ripple effect. But if you are willing to make the associated adjustments, then it should work just fine.

I like the idea of a stat cap to better be able to balance baseline expectations. I think 30 is a better number for no reason other than personal preference. Thus, you can determine what expected numbers a party of nth level will be, and balance the game around that.

Rebuilding monsters would be some work, but that's a problem of any substantial change. I think if I were to do this, I'd include my idea of removing Str/Dex bonus to hit. This would shrink attack bonuses and make it easier to balance around the d20 roll.

With a cap of 30 then I agree with you on removing the stat bonus to hit. At a cap of 20 the extremes are still within 20 of each other, but at 30 you end up with extremes greater than 20 apart. (note this is basing solely on BAB and Stat Mod with no other modifiers or magic but it establishes a baseline)

I just read again the "Adding new spells to the spellbook" section and... Knowledge Pool doesn't work all that well to "learn all spells".

Putting spells on the spellbook comes specifically from copying from a magical writing like a scroll or spellbook. Just being able to cast the spell doesn't let you put it on a spellbook.

A possible workaround is to get the spell, then scribe a scroll with it, but that means interpreting Knowledge Pooled spells as spells known, which they aren't because they are not in your spellbook.

So... at best you will still expend a lot of gold, time and a feat.

Actually you can write a prepared spell directly to your spellbook according to this:

Replacing and Copying Spellbooks

A wizard can use the procedure for learning a spell to reconstruct a lost spellbook. If he already has a particular spell prepared, he can write it directly into a new book at the same cost required to write a spell into a spellbook. The process wipes the prepared spell from his mind, just as casting it would. If he does not have the spell prepared, he can prepare it from a borrowed spellbook and then write it into a new book.

(emphasis mine)

I'll grant that it would cost a feat for the Magus to go the scroll route. The gain would be to cut the cost of acquiring their spells in half and be guaranteed all the spells on their list since there is no way to limit availability.

As for comparison to Limited Wish, a Wizard can't add spells cast through limited wish to his spellbook because it only allows him to duplicate the spell effect, not prepare the spell. Limited wish is a 7th level spell which means a 13th level Wizard, while Knowledge Pool is a class ability a 7th level Magus that lets him prepare spells on his class spell list but not in his spellbook, not just duplicate their effects.

As for the Wand -> Scroll route that was mentioned above, it's limited to 4th level spells and would be a time and money sink comparable to just buying the scrolls if you could actually do it. Creating spell trigger or spell completion items require the caster to meet the spell prerequisites:

Note that all items have prerequisites in their descriptions. These prerequisites must be met for the item to be created. Most of the time, they take the form of spells that must be known by the item's creator (although access through another magic item or spellcaster is allowed). The DC to create a magic item increases by +5 for each prerequisite the caster does not meet. The only exception to this is the requisite item creation feat, which is mandatory. In addition, you cannot create spell-trigger and spell-completion magic items without meeting their spell prerequisites.

(emphasis mine)

The creator must have prepared the spell to be scribed (or must know the spell, in the case of a sorcerer or bard) and must provide any material component or focus the spell requires. A material component is consumed when she begins writing, but a focus is not. (A focus used in scribing a scroll can be reused.) The act of writing triggers the prepared spell, making it unavailable for casting until the character has rested and regained spells. (That is, that spell slot is expended from the caster's currently prepared spells, just as if it had been cast.)

Wow, no one had fun from 1974 until 2000. Gotcha.

Nobody realized they weren't having fun because they didn't have the "Fun Police" to tell them it wasn't fun yet.

This gets...complicated.

The first and likely biggest complication is putting cost on spell casting is seen as penalizing a character for using a class feature. This is generally considered bad.

That being said, I do agree with the idea that spellcasting is too certain. Then again, I prefer a skill based casting system where casting incurs non-lethal damage as opposed to a spells per day system. The main complaint about the non-lethal damage limiting factor is casting yourself unconscious and out of the fight is no fun, followed by the nova potential of having another character heal the non-lethal damage immediately.

Keeping within the existing magic system, the only change that does not become de facto spell denial would be an increase of casting times of combat spells to no more than 1 full round (start casting this round, spell goes off on your action the next round). Even though this only increases the possible opportunities for spell disruption, it is still looked upon as spell denial by some.

As for using ASF as a model, generally most arcane casters avoid ASF like the plague. An occasional few may be willing to risk 5-10% at most, but this is exceedingly rare. Giving all spells a failure chance starting around 50% will put an end to spellcasting in the game, especially if the spells per day limit is kept.

Spell failure and the spells per day limit are conflicting proposals. Every failed spell is gone for the day and seen as a denial of the use of a class feature. I'm beginning to suspect this is part of why counterspelling rules are written in such a way that they seem to discourage countering spells.

Fumbles which cause random events are amusing the first couple of times, but don't always make sense under given circumstances and PCs will usually make more rolls than any given opponent causing them to feel the sting of this more often.

One idea that just came to mind that may be workable is having a caster take the spell level in non-lethal damage on successful saves, although this may not implement well for area of effect spells.

Frankly characters in books feeling that the rules of the world are treating them unfairly aren't much of a concern, but players of a game complaining about the rules being unfair is a major problem.

I started working on just such a thing and if anyone is interested in getting involved...

I'm currently up to my elbows in 3.x conversions/rebuilds and house rules right now and probably will be for several months.

What I can offer right now is that most of the design concepts we agree on have already been done in other products. The following are all d20 based/compatible.

Remove classes/levels has been done with Buy The Numbers.

Monte Cook's D20 World of Darkness and Green Ronin's True Sorcery for True 20 offer good skill based casting systems.

Most of the heavy lifting has already been done, and you can just fit the pieces together. Even if you want to change what dice are being rolled for various things (weapons/hp/checks) it's probably already been done somewhere.