I created a homebrew pen and paper game based on the CRPG Dragon Warrior. You will also find plenty of Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder as well as elements from many other games, books, movies and mythology mixed in here too. It was designed and created for my son to enjoy and as a way for him to play Dragon Warrior even when he’s out of “screen time”. I also consider it an educational resource for any child who is learning basic math skills. Don’t let that discourage you, though, as the game should be fun for anyone (not just kids). Dragon Warrior Infinity is fully playable and, for the most part, a complete game. It can be played solo or multi-player. Enjoy.
I’m looking for:
People to enjoy my creation
Additional Content
Beta Testers
Proof Readers
The Long:
I’ve been working on this game for over a year now and have most of the aspects fleshed out to my liking. Since you all are well known for your beta-testing chops and your eagerness to contribute, I figured that I’d hit you guys up and see if you could help me out with a few things. The two big things I’d much appreciate from you are additional content and beta testing.
Additional content would help me make this game live up to its name. The Infinity in its title is supposed to represent the idea that it can be played over and over and not feel like you’re just playing the same exact game. While I believe that I’ve done that to some extent, having more Classes, Villains & Storylines, Items, Powers and Side Quests would certainly allow for more re-playability. Please submit any additions you like to these categories in this thread. Provide as much detail as possible.
The following is just a suggestion of what I believe would make it easiest for you to provide and me to add new content to the game. It doesn’t need to be taken as gospel. I’m lazy and like to copy and paste when I can. When you review and [hopefully] play the game, you’ll see how these entries fit the format, what the abbreviations mean and how they relate to game play.
Example - Knight Class:
Class
Name: Knight
Type: Multi-play
Desc: The Knight is a noble warrior, fighting for honor and glory. They can hold the best weapons and armor in the game. They are very strong and defensive but gain very few powers. A Knight will often sacrifice their own safety to protect others.
Att: Fast
Dam: Fast
Pow: Slow
Res: Medium
Speed: Slow
Powers: 1-Guard, 3-Inspire, 6-Multi-attack, 9-Die Hard
Weapons: All but Iron and Golden Claw
Armors: All
Power
Name: Guard
DC: 12
TGT: 1 ally
TYP: Ability
MXD: 1 round
Desc: When an ally is struck by a normal attack, you may use this power to take the hit instead. You receive the damage instead of the player that was hit.
Etc.
I reserve the right to make tweaks to your suggestions but will try to keep the spirit of your ideas intact. While strict balance is not a goal, I obviously don’t want any elements of the game to be too weak or overpowered. Also, I may get too many suggestions for say, CR 3 Side Quests and may need to adjust it a little and make it CR 4 to fill a void there. I’ll do my best to not make changes to your ideas but I can’t promise anything.
I provided a bunch of templates that you can copy/paste to submit new content if you’d like. You don’t need to; just trying to make it as easy as possible for everyone.
The other big thing that I’d be very grateful for is play testing and feedback. While my son and I have played through a few times, there are still many aspects of the game that haven’t been tried out yet. Also, my son is only six years old so he doesn't quite understand the concept of game balance. If you believe that a statistic should be higher or lower, let me know and I’ll consider adjusting it. If I decide not to, I’ll explain my logic and reasoning behind the decision. Feel free to suggest anything, though. If you feel a different monster would work better in a specific region, don’t hesitate to throw it out there. Not everything in this game was carefully planned and calculated. I put in a decent amount of filler to get the ball rolling and I’m sure there’s plenty still hanging around. I am open to suggestions for improvement to already existing elements of the game.
I’d love to hear about your (or your kid’s) experience with the game in general terms. I’m open to praise and criticism. Don’t worry; you won’t hurt my feelings even if you think the game totally sucks. I’m an adult and these things don’t bother me. If it’s constructive criticism, I might be able to use it to make improvements.
Super Bonus Points: The world map that I created and included in the game is terribly crude. If you can do better (which shouldn’t be too difficult) and want to take on the task, please do. You rock!
If you provide play-testing feedback, additional content and/or suggestions to help make Dragon Warrior Infinity a better game, I’ll add your name to it as a contributor on page 2. If you want your real name added, you’ll need to tell me what that is. Otherwise, I’ll have to use your Paizo handle. None of this is a requirement and I’m not expecting or demanding anything. If you don’t want or end up with anything to contribute, that’s perfectly fine. I’d still like you to enjoy the game. If you have little ones, maybe this can serve them as a gateway into full-fledged roleplaying.
I have a fantasy RPG that I will be publishing online relatively soon but I have no campaign setting to accompany it as of yet. I was kind of wondering if there was anything out there like this that I could use (or more likely recommend)?
1. If you are on Facebook and you agree with my message, please LIKE my page.
2. If you don't agree with my message enough to LIKE it, I would greatly appreciate some constructive criticism. What is it that you don't like about my cause? Is there anything that could be done to improve it without changing the underlying message?
I need to know something here so would you be so kind as to answer a couple of questions for me? If you live in the US and are old enough to vote, do you typically vote for:
A) Democrats and/or Republicans
B) Not Democrats or Republicans
If the answer is A, answer the following.
C) My ideals match the political party that I vote for better than any others (counting less popular third parties).
D) I split my votes between Republican and Democrats pretty evenly.
E) I pretty much vote for the lesser of two evils. [whichever side that may be for you]
F) I would support a third party but then I'd just be throwing my vote away.
And finally ...
G) I believe our elected officials are doing a great job or at least the best that we can hope anyone to do.
H) I wonder if they actually do anything in Washington?
This is a serious question. I'm not just trying to start a political flame war. Please keep it civil.
I come to these messageboards because it's a fun place to hang out. I used to hang out on Facebook because it was a fun place with lots of stuff to do but it's pretty dull and boring now. There's a few other places I frequent but I'd like to find something new.
So besides Facebook, Twitter and the Paizo messageboards, where do you hang out on the internet (or are maybe wanting to check out)?
Every great RPG needs an equally great name ... and I can't for the life of me think of one. All I know is that I don't want to name it something that makes it sound like a D&D rip off; you know, things like Magic and Steel or Axes and Orcs.
I should be finished with the website relatively soon so I have to come up with something. My RPG is of the high-fantasy genre much like D&D and Pathfinder. Also, once I get the core rules up online and alpha tested, it will be open for anyone to use from beta onward. Even better yet, it will be open for anyone to contribute content to as well (feats, spells, items etc.). I'll let everyone know when that happens so you can check it out if you'd like.
But first, it needs a name. Can you help me? Any suggestions would be appreciated.
P.S. Make sure you don't give me any names that you intend on using for your own personal projects without specifying whether I can use it or not.
P.S.S. Feel free to give your own opinion on other peoples ideas for names.
Pretend that I am totally insane and actually want to replace all d20 rolls with 2d10. This would create a bell curve of probability that makes really high rolls and really low rolls more rare mitigating some of the swinginess of the d20 system. My question is, could this work and what aspects of the game would you need to change to accommodate?
The obvious one that pops in my mind is critical hits and automatic misses. You'd probably have to make 19-20 the default and reduce by one as normal for each step. My other worry is that heavily armored fighters would be untouchable at high levels.
Nothing else really springs to mind though. Wonder if anyone has ever tried this.
Just curious what you guys think. Maybe it's something that you homebrewed yourself. Maybe it's just something you happen to come across while browsing the web that looked intriguing. I'd be more interested in hearing about RPGs that actually invented their own mechanics and rule-sets as opposed to the, probably, millions of d20 based knock-offs out there. Some of those might still be worth mentioning if they are really unique in some way.
Okay, say you're a Bard or maybe an Elf who really doesn't want to use an Elven Curved Blade but wants to fight with a sword in two hands (I know, bad example). You have Long Sword proficiency but are not proficient in all martial weapons. The Bastard Sword counts as a martial weapon if used in two hands and it's basically a bigger Long Sword that requires special training if you want to use it in one. Obviously, these couple of instances where someone would get Long Sword proficiency individually aren't going to list “and the Bastard Sword but only if wielding it with two hands”.
The RAW is no as far as I can tell. You don't have proficiency. How would you rule if you were DMing and a player asked you, though? I'm curious because I am probably going to ask my DM this very question and was wondering what you guys had to say. If you'd say no, please explain why so that I can inform my DM of any possible concerns in allowing it.
After playing a Cleric in PF for a while and playing a couple back in the 3.0 and 3.5 days, there's something that has been bugging me for a little while. It has to do with their spell list. I've always thought of the Cleric as the masters of life and death. I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only one. I've come to learn over the years that this is not even close to accurate especially in Pathfinder. Let us compare a couple of Clerics.
Let's look at Kyra's list of spells for the day. At lower levels you talking mostly about cure spells and such. A good Cleric never has to memorize any of these but can (and usually does) convert most of her unused spells for the day into cures. At fourth level spells, she gets death ward. Protection or immunity from death spells and negative energy effects. At 5th level spells, she gets raise dead. This spell brings a dead character back from to life. They were dead...now they're alive. At 6th level, she gets heal which gives you or an ally 110-150 HP back. She also gets undeath to death which is like a death spell for undead. 7th level brings the second resurrection spell to the table (which happens to be its name). Now you can raise the dead all the way to full HP, vigor and health with no loss of spells. At 9th level, she gets both true resurrection and mass heal. Cure all allies a ton of HP or completely revive someone whos been dead for almost 200 years without even having physical remains. "Hey, my father died in battle before I was even born. I think I'll bring him back to life".
Not bad. I think that more than qualifies for "Master of Life Magic". Let's take a peek at the other side of the coin.
Now comes Meecrob the Pitiful. All of his lower level "death" spells are inflict spells. At third level spells, inflict serious wounds averages 18.5 points of damage at touch range (if the target fails their save) while the wizard is doing that to huge groups of enemies from hundereds of yards away. As they level up, the damage doesn't even go up for poor Meecrob (okay, +1 damage per level). These spells aren't even worth using 99% of the time they are so bad. Now he's got 4th level spells and gets...nothing. Good Kyra gets protection from all of his negative energy effects (including his channel) and he gets nothing. On to 5th level though. It's going to get good now. We're talking about slay living! Oh, crap. It doesn't kill you anymore. Now it does 51 HP worth of damage if they fail their save and you have to touch them to do it (so forget about killing the wizard with this one). 6th level brings us harm which does a whopping 110-150 HP damage. Now we're talking. Of course a successful save halves the damage and whether that save is successful or not, this spell can't kill anything. If the target only has 1 HP left, harm does nothing. Also missing from Meecrob's list is circle of death. Kyra can wipe out his entire undead army but he's got nothing that can even kill a 12 CON wizard without rolling better than average. 7th level spells finally bring us a real nasty death spell, destruction. This spell isn't too bad. It'd be better if it still killed you but at least we're back in the 10 damage per level territory again. It even makes the victum really hard to resurrect. At 9th level, he gets implosion. This spell is kind of meh. It's basically destruction without the nasty side effects. The difference is that you get to choose a new target each round without having to cast another spell (unless you take damage and loose your concentration which would never happen at level 17+). And of course you get mass harm. What's that? No, you don't? Poor Meecrob.
At the same time, a wizard gets:
phantasmal killer at spell level 4
cloud kill at level 5 (not death magic but it still kills you)
circle of death at level 6
finger of death at level 7
temporal stasis at level 8 (okay not a death spell but still a perminant coma
trap the soul at level 8 (sucks someones body and soul into a gem, possibly without SR or a saving throw)
weird at level 9 (phantasmal killer times infinity)
wail of the banshee at level 9 (finger of lots of death)
power word kill at level 9 (if you have 100 HP or less, you die with no save)
Needless to say that the Cleric's mastery over death magic is poor at best. Master of death magic? Not even close. The wizard grinds him on the bottom of his shoe.
So why does anyone sign up to be an evil cleric? What's their specialty? What do they do besides wish that they were real necromancers? And why does the good cleric get all of the extra nice things that the evil cleric seems to be missing even though they are exact opposites in terms of effect? Why are the "exact opposites" not even opposite anymore (slay living vs. raise dead)? Why do we perceive clerics as the masters of life and death magic? Where did this originally come from?
I often read posts that talk about Clerics and I've found one thing that's pretty constant. Most people feel that the positive energy channeling Cleric is hands down better than the negative energy channeling one. I seem to be the only one, or one of the very few at least, that disagrees. Possibly disturbing, a lot of people talk like you have to have a healy Cleric in the group and I'm starting to think that it's a suboptimal choice (not that I could be hypocritical enough to discourage anyone from playing a suboptimal character). I guess I'm looking for two things.
1. Your opinion on which one is better and why and of which type (Battle Priest, Spellcasting, Channeler)
2. Maybe some number crunching that offers a little more insight
I'll point out that this isn't a direct head to head fight between the two. Let's assume that you are plopping them into a party of 3-4 other adventurers and we only have access to PF core books (PF RPG and Bestiary).
I'm playing a character who is borderline evil...or is he evil? I don't know. All of the other players see him as evil but I still consider him (and have his alignment written down as) Chaotic Nuetral. The reason the others see him as evil is because he does some truly evil things. He once channeled and killed 60 innocent bystanders in some twisted carnival (RotRL, I think) just to damage an invisible foe that we had no other way to get at.
On the other hand, he's saved many more people than he's needlessly killed and does do many good things as well. He doesn't do what is good or what is evil by definition. He does whatever he feels is necessary to get the job done. He has dug in and fought very close to death on several occations when the others were about to bail. He's very loyal to the group (and probably only to the group) and I still see him as Chaotic Neutral.
I find it practically impossible to play an evil character mixed with a standard (good and nuetral) aligned group mainly because you'd end up refusing to take part in 95% of the adventures because it goes against your alignment. As I said above, though, the rest of the group still view him as evil because of some of the things he's done.
So the million dollar question is, what makes someone evil? Does commiting evil acts automatically make you evil or does the balance make you nuetral? What alignment do believe my character is.
Quick question. I'm sure someone has asked this before but I didn't see it by doing a search.
My Cleric has two aura special abilities. Neither one lists what kind of action is required to activate it? Would these be free, swift or standard actions? Do they require any action to keep activated?
Destructive Aura (Su): At 8th level, you can emit a 30-foot aura of destruction for a number of rounds per day equal to your cleric level. All attacks made against targets in this aura (including you) gain a morale bonus on damage equal to 1/2 your cleric level and all critical threats are automatically confirmed. These rounds do not need to be consecutive.
Aura of Madness (Su): At 8th level, you can emit a 30-foot aura of madness for a number of rounds per day equal to your cleric level. Enemies within this aura are affected by confusion unless they make a Will save with a DC equal to 10 + 1/2 your cleric level + your Wisdom modifier. The confusion effect ends immediately when the creature leaves the area or the aura expires. Creatures that succeed on their saving throw are immune to this aura for 24 hours. These rounds do not need to be consecutive.
Also with the Madness domain, I have another ability.
Vision of Madness (Sp): You can give a creature a vision of madness as a melee touch attack. Choose one of the following: attack rolls, saving throws, or skill checks. The target receives a bonus to the chosen rolls equal to 1/2 your cleric level (minimum +1) and a penalty to the other two types of rolls equal to 1/2 your cleric level (minimum –1). This effect fades after 3 rounds. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Wisdom modifier.
There's no save DC listed. Does this mean that there is no save?
I have a character that is pretty much the living persona of the Grim Reaper. In case you wanted or needed to know, he's a cleric who specializes in channeling negative energy and even dresses the part. He even custom made a skeletal mask that gives him a +5 to Intimidate. His best skill is, of course, Intimidation and I wanted to do more with it.
The Dazzling Display feat has the perfect mechanic attached to it but the flavor is all wrong. I'm looking more for a frightful presence type thing as opposed to a weapon display in which I'm not even any good with anymore. What's worse, it's part of the Weapon Focus feat chain which totally doesn't make any sense if I just changed the flavor text of the Dazzling Display feat to fit my needs.
So the question is, is Dazzling Display really that good that it needs to be part of a feat chain and if so, what could I substitute in Weapon Focus' place that makes more sense (with DM approval, of course)?
Much like 97% of people on these boards, I have a desire to create my own tabletop RPG and have ideas bouncing around in my head. I won't go into boring details, though. I just want to know what you would choose for base classes in your game if you were designing everything from scratch? Mine is very DND/high fantasy but all ideas are welcome.
Here's the default list of base classes. I noticed something when thinking about what classes I wanted for my base classes. I don't really like the default concepts of DND as much as I thought I did.
* Barbarian - Like
* Bard - Dislike (rather have jack of all trades class that's not tied to a profession)
* Cleric - Not sure (I'm not even sure if I like the concept anymore)
* Druid - Yes (probably be a Witch)
* Fighter - Yes
* Monk - Yes
* Paladin - Probably not (see Cleric)
* Ranger - Probably not (rather have finesse version of a Fighter not tied to the wilderness but can be through options if they wanted to)
* Rogue - Yes
* Sorcerer - No (subsumed into Wizard, no need for both)
* Wizard - Yes (split into many variants, not so general)
This last part is just the very general direction that I'm leaning towards. So, what about you?
Simple question really. Keep in mind that I haven't read any of the latest trilogy yet. I never read them until the last book comes out so please, no spoilers on those.
And if you don't hate Drizzt, that's fine and feel free to say so if you'd like.
Say you're facing off with a powerful rogue who's sneak attack could jack you up. One of his allies summons a weak creature to flank you so that the rogue can get his deadly sneak attacks on you. Can you turn all of your defensive focus on the rogue to prevent him from sneak attacking you? What would be the bonus to the other attacker(s)? I'd say +2 or +4 and you're flat-footed. I'm not aware of any rule that covers this but I feel that there shoud be.
Hypothetical situation here. Paizo decides to start working on Pathfinder 2.0, a totally new PnP RPG. It's not based on 3.x, 3.P or 4E. It's going to be completely brand spankin' new.
What radical departure(s) are you looking for from Pathfinder v1? You want less attacks at high levels or fewer spells per day so that high level play moves faster? You want SoS spells completely removed from the game? You want Barbarians removed and have the Fighter class able to cover that niche with selectable class abilities? You want that worthless Bard class out of core or maybe add in the Warlock type class? Maybe you only want three generic classes that you can build any concept imaginable? Is magic risky yet insanely powerful or can any schmuck with a $2 prayer book heal the party? Death to the Vacian spell system? No more HP?
Alignment Channel (Evil) seems like it would be the most useful one by far in a standard campaign. Obviously, if you were playing a desert campaign then Elemental Channel (Fire) and/or (Earth) would probably be better. But considering the standard, run-of-the-mill campaign, which one(s) would get the most use and why? You can even rank them if you'd like.
Other than Evil, I'm thinking Fire, Earth and Chaos but I really don't have anything to back that up with. How many of these do you think one would need to cover a large majority of the possible encounters.
We've all heard of Nystul, Mordenkainen, Bigby, Leomund, Tasha and Melf. Why, because they've all invented spells that became common enough to made it into the basic DND cannon. Many of us probably still use the name Nystul's Magic Aura even if Pathfinder isn't allowed to.
My question is, have any Clerics or Druids ever invented spells of their own and if not, why?
Also, I am currently playing a cleric by the name of Talbot. He's more of a dark priest type cleric who would almost certainly have fallen into a villainous role had he not inadvertantly stumbled upon and joined up with a group with more righteous goals. I'd like for him to invent some spells with his name tagged on the front to ensure that his legacy lives on after he's gone.
I'm looking for a niche that hasn't really been touched on much yet. I was thinking of something that would attack his targets muscles, nervous system or maybe even break their bones but I'm open to anything really. Anyone have any ideas for me to develop a line of spells that work off a common theme that won't just duplicate what's already available?
Huh? Oh, sorry about the intentionally misleading title. I'm not here to tell you who the greatest villain is. I want to know what you think. In all of the campaigns that you've either run or played in, who was the coolest villain ever?
It appears that our favorite RPG now has a "new" type of Cleric to compete with the age old, traditional, iron-clad battle priest. Now that Channel Positive Energy is such an attractive option for it's ability to not only heal but to do so at a distance and for multiple targets, what will likely be forever referred to as the White Mage is born. Clerics everywhere are hangin up their full plate in favor of focusing on becoming the ultimate healer...or are they?
I'm curious, if you were forced to make and play a Cleric right now, what kind would he or she be? Would you make a Battle Priest, a White Mage or perhaps the new Dark Priest that many seem to overlook?
If you are going with the White Mage, is it just because it's something shiny and new and you want to give it a try or do you feel that it fits better than the traditional medieval warrior concept?
If you are going with one of the other two, feel free to say why that option looks more interesting if you'd like.
Or feel free to flame me for creating yet another Cleric related thread if you'd like.
Maybe this has been brought up before. I'm sure I'm not the first to notice this but why do all of the base classes have capstone abilities except for Clerics?
I know that having two domains might complicate things a little. If the capstone were based on domains then they'd have to be half-capstones and if you chose, say, Earth and Fire then you do get immunity to Acid and Fire. That's pretty weak but at least it's something. None of the other domains appear to give you anything at level 20 except for maybe one more use of something that you've been getting since level 8.
So, what's the deal? Where did the Cleric's capstone ability go? Could they not think of anything to give you for staying for 20 levels?
This is more of an exercise as I don’t plan on playing a homebrew prestige class in my first Pathfinder game but my build heavily leads to an obvious PrC that I’m suspecting that we’ll see in the Advanced Players Handbook or perhaps one of the magazines or something. The change from Turn/Rebuke Undead to Channel Energy opens up the way for a new kind of character build that has never been possible before. I’m not going to find a PrC which makes me (or an enemy) a specialist at Channeling Energy. Granted this PrC favors the negative energy channelers but is perfectly valid for those who want to be a heal battery or scourge to the undead, elemental and extra planer. Okay, so here’s a rough draft. Let me know what you think from both a flavor and balance perspective. Any suggestions for improvement are, of course, welcome.
Class Skills
The channeler’s class skills are Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Heal (Wis), Knowledge (arcana) (Int), Knowledge (planes) (Int), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Linguistics (Int), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), and Spellcraft (Int).
Weapon and Armor Proficiencies
No additional weapon or armor proficiencies
BAB For/Ref/Wil - Special | Spells per day
1. +0 +0/+0/+1 - +1d6 Channel Energy, Bonus Feat
2. +1 +1/+1/+1 - +1d6 Channel Energy | +1 level of existing class
3. +1 +1/+1/+2 - +1d6 Channel Energy
4. +2 +1/+1/+2 - +1d6 Channel Energy | +1 level of existing class
5. +2 +2/+2/+3 - Energy Admixture (2), Bonus Feat
6. +3 +2/+2/+3 - +1d6 Channel Energy | +1 level of existing class
7. +3 +2/+2/+4 - +1d6 Channel Energy
8. +4 +3/+3/+4 - +1d6 Channel Energy | +1 level of existing class
9. +4 +3/+3/+5 - +1d6 Channel Energy, Bonus Feat
10. +5 +3/+3/+5 - Energy Admixture (3) | +1 level of existing class
Class Features
* Bonus Feat: Must be chosen from Alignment Channel, Elemental Channel or Extra Channeling
* Energy Admixture: Choose the indicated number of effects that you’d like to apply to your channel energy each time it is used. For example, a good channeler could choose to channel energy that heals allies and hurts undead or an evil channeler could channel energy that hurts the living and also hurts fire elementals.
After seeing the couple of small sections on firearms in the campaign setting and thinking that I must be missing some rule or something, I came here and did some searching. I found some old archived threads that indicated that firearms were included into Golarian but more as a flavor thing. To make sure that people didn't abuse (or even use apparently) firearms, the damage output for most of them is well below what you'd do with a bow if you decided to specialize in it and about the same if you didn't. Add in a much higher cost for the gun and ammunition and it's fairly pointless to ever use one and downright foolish not to sell one if you found it.
Now, I'm not complaining here. I understand that they didn't really want firearms to be a big part of Golarian and that's fine. If I'm going to even bother using them though, they have to have a use. I'd like to house firearms into something useful for my campaign.
I'm trying to decide between two mechanics and will certainly entertain your ideas as well. My two are...
Accuracy equals damage: Basically this means that you do more damage based on how accurate a shot you are which makes sense. Applied to DND, this would mean that DEX bonus adds to damage. I'd probably rule that precision damage isn't possible due to these guns not being accurate enough for that kind of thing. I'd like to avoid combining sneak attacks with DEX based damage.
Guns have their own strength: This also makes sense. It doesn't matter if you are the srongest person in the world or the weakest, the gun itself is going to provide it's own power. In this case, I'd have to assign a (fairly high) STR modifier to each gun and that would apply extra damage to each shot. I could also add extra dice to the attacks but that makes damage much more swingy.
So, which one do you think I should go with or do you have a better suggestion?
Well, I wanted to bring up an idea for a house rule on two weapon fighting and at the implied suggestion of someone else and to avoid potentially hijacking the house rule thread or resurrecting an archived thread, I'm starting a new one.
Like many, I don't care for the two weapon fighting rules and the fact that you have to spend three or more feats in order to do it well enough to even bother. Alternatively, you can fight with a two-handed weapon which often yields greater damage results leaving TWF to Rogues (because of sneak attack potential) and Rangers (who can get it as part of their class abilities if they don't want to go the archery route). Anyone else is only going to do it for flavor and character concept.
I'd like to remove the immense penalty on TWF but also keep balance in check (for Rogues mostly). If the end result is that it is still a little less optimal than fighting two-handed or even a little more now, I personally don't care. I just want it much closer than it is now.
My initial idea would be to effectively give many classes the ability, option really, to choose to fight with two weapons as if they had all of the TWF feats but without having to spend their precious feats on them. The exception would be that precision damage, like sneak attack and maybe favored enemy, could only be achieved with a primary hand attack and not with the off-hand. The standard penalties would be as follows.
Table X–X: Two-Weapon Fighting Penalties
Prerequisites not met, normal penalties: -6 -10
Prerequisites not met, off-hand weapon is light: -4 -8
Prerequisites met, normal penalties: –4 –4
Prerequisites met, off-hand weapon is light: –2 –2
Prerequisites
Proficient with all martial weapons
First attack: Dex 15
Second attack*: Dex 17
Third attack*: Dex 19
* You can not make a second or third off-hand attack without meeting the prerequisites
The following feats would be available to anyone who could take advantage of them.
Off-hand Precision: You are treated as being proficient in all martial weapons only for the sake of meeting the prerequisite to fight with two weapons. Also, you may make precision damage with your first off-hand attack if applicable.
Off-hand Precision, Improved: Gain precision damage with your second off-hand attack
Off-hand Precision, Greater: Gain precision damage with your third off-hand attack
This should put the Rogue in check and allow the Ranger to pick up the extra off-hand damage from favored enemy if he wanted to spend feats to get it (although it doesn't grant nearly as much but achieves the same end result). It also forces Bards, Wizards, Sorcerers and others to take a feat (or a level dip) if they want to fight with two weapons since they normally wouldn't have the combat expertise to do it at no cost and would basically have no reason to not fight with two weapons otherwise. I'm not exactly sure how this will function with the Monk's flurry of blows but they will at least need the first feat. I might have to just disallow the two to mix or force them to take a feat each time in order to get the extra attacks.
So is there anything that I'm overlooking that would break this? Are the two weapon defense feats too accessible now? Should the Ranger just get his Favored Enemy damage bonus on off-hand attacks for free as part of his class features?
Any thoughts, advice, ideas or improvements would be appreciated. Thanks!
Sorry, I'm still pretty new to Piazo and Pathfinder. My group has been running 3.x for the last 9+ years mostly in various homebrewed worlds but we tend to just simplify things by defaulting to generic Greyhawk dieties since that's the default that WoC used in all their books that weren't campaign specific. We've done a little Forgotten Realms and even less Ebberon but tend to just keep going back to Greyhawk just because it's easier (and FR has like 500 gods or something...it's crazy).
Now that I plan to get the group on board with PFRPG (which will take about two seconds once they see the new core classes and races let alone everything else Piazo has done), all of the new material is going to be set with Golarian as the default setting. Thankfully, no one in the group even likes the Greyhawk gods so there won't be any lost love there. I know that I'm going to get stuck DMing from the start in order to learn the new system and I'm too lazy to homebrew another world. I'd like to just adopt Golarian.
I just noticed that the campaign setting came out under 3.5 rules almost a year ago. I'm sure it's still very usable, especially concerning the fluff, but I was curious about a few things.
What percentage of the book is fluff and how much is crunch?
Is the crunch still usable under PFRPG? Are variant races listed as "same as a human except for these changes" and if so, do they still work with the changes? What about the PrCs?
Piazo isn't planning on rereleasing the campaign setting with the updated PFRPG rules are they?
I know there are smaller books detailing the different areas. How much detail for each area are in the campaign setting?
Is there anything else I should know about the campaign setting that is good, bad or something that I at least need to consider before picking it up?
1. Do feats that grant a bonus to skills stack? If you take a feat like Deceitful which gives a +2 bonus to Bluff and something else, does Skill Focus (Bluff) grant you another +3 or would it overlap (effectively making it not worth taking)? If they do stack, what's stopping you from taking Skill Focus over and over again (besides the fact that it probably says that you can't).
2. I noticed that the new feat Improved Turning increases the DC to resist channeled energy by 2. This is essentially the same thing that Ability Focus (channel energy) would have granted. Is Improved Turning just a rebranded Ability Focus to make the option more obvious or is it meant to stack for those who really want to get the DC as high as it can go.
As a sometimes DM, I'm not thinking that either of these stack but I want to make sure (and maybe even get a designers take on it especially if I'm wrong). The thing that throws me off is that the bonuses ar usually untyped, indicating that they stack but maybe there is a blanket rule like feat bonuses never stack or something.
Thanks for the input and sorry if this has already been covered before.
All class previews are out and we pretty much know what to expect from each one. I know a lot of people are stuck converting their characters over from beta when this happens but for the rest of you, what class looks like the one you most want to start with?
Me? I know I'm going to be stuck DMing in order to fully get the group to switch over to Pathfinder. I'm the only one following it but I know it won't take much convincing once they actually play it. If I can play though, I'm seriously thinking of one of the following.
Cleric: My first character I ever played (like a lot of people) was a Cleric but I enjoyed him a lot. My party members would hate me because the negative energy burst just looks way powerful from what I can tell so far. This would probably be my munchkin build.
Barbarian: I was always bummed that the 3.x barbarian just seemed...lame. The new version sounds awesome and it would allow me to play a character that is pretty much the opposite of what I typically play (brash and impulsive).
