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Hey guys, I had a quick question about incorporeal creatures. There are going to be some in an upcoming session in my campaign, but the rules threw me for a loop on the first few read-throughs.

"An incorporeal creature has no physical body. It can be harmed only by other incorporeal creatures, magic weapons or creatures that strike as magic weapons, and spells, spell-like abilities, or supernatural abilities. It is immune to all nonmagical attack forms. Even when hit by spells or magic weapons, it takes only half damage from a corporeal source (except for channel energy). Although it is not a magical attack, holy water can affect incorporeal undead. Corporeal spells and effects that do not cause damage only have a 50% chance of affecting an incorporeal creature. Force spells and effects, such as from a magic missile, affect an incorporeal creature normally."

I want to make sure I have this right. If a barbarian is wielding a +1 greataxe and swings on the ghost, he deals half damage; if the archer in the back with a mundane bow tries to shoot it he does nothing; but if the priest in the back slaps the ghost across the face with channeled energy (or with a Ghost Touch mace) he deals full damage.

Additionally, the wizard standing next to the archer trying to cast "Bestow Curse" or some other nonsense on the ghost only has a 50% chance of having it work. But if they had a friendly ghost on their side, it could use whatever it had, from a random pointy stick to a delayed-blast fireball, without any problems on the enemy incorporeal?

Also, if the incorporeal enemies wanted to set up an ambush, could they hide inside the walls? Or is the theory behind incorporeal enemies that they're less the traditional "you cant hit me im an ethereal spoopy ghost" and more "my physical makeup is similar to mist or smoke", in which case could they just sorta shimmy up next to a wall and wait?

And last but not least, the incorporeal creature can affect all four of them normally without a problem (or even the friendly ghost if he gets mad at the traitor)? The creature in question is a shadow, and I only ask because I was thinking about switching it up and using a Wolf shadow instead of a normal shadow and one of its abilities states it has to turn corporeal to use its bite/trip.

I scarcely remember the particulars of the Frenzied Berserker, as it's been near 10 years since I opened the book; I know I didn't want to take the PrC just because of its propensity to nuke the party. What other parts of the class is your player uneasy about?

As I mentioned above, the player has more of a "lone wolf" mental image when it comes to the Frenzied Berserker, so an ability that affects the entire party didn't sit well with him, in addition to dwarves getting one of his higher-up prestige class-specific ability as a feat at like level 5. But what irked him the most was not being able to use Dex skills while frenzied.

Like I kinda understand where the designers were coming from, where you can't focus on the intricate footwork required for some dex skills, but even in 3.5 straight up not being able to make a balance check to avoid a level 1 spell (grease) kinda sucks. Useful to avoid a TPK, but still sucks.

As interesting as this conversation is getting (I actually enjoy finding out about past editions like you all have been discussing, game design is an interesting subject to me and seeing the process over time is fascinating), I think I've decided on the course of action.

As has been said, roles are an integral part to the game (meatshield, DPS, etc), so I'll make the following change:

Power attack will officially be reverted to PF's version, and HP will likewise be reverted. However, to try and compromise with the player, power attack is now no longer a feat that needs to be taken but a standard thing for all characters (similar to how I've allowed weapon finesse to be "standard"). Likewise, point blank shot will be given the same treatment. I do think the player will value this change, as he took a 1 level dip in fighter at level 2 specifically to get furious focus sooner, and I'll allow him to retrain that level back to bloodrager at no cost.
I will, before making this change, run through the next dungeon and make sure the bloodrager is still contributing the lion's share of the damage (after all the witch is going for a debuff-caster rather than straight damage), but still allows the magus to shine when he steps up to the plate and gets his full combo off.

Lastly, I would be ok letting him take frenzerker as written, but he has expressed distaste with certain class features other than just the potential TPK aspect.
Inspire Frenzy: hes not too keen on the whole "and now the party frenzies too", even after I said "no TPK necessary when frenzying". He suggested, with iterations on the idea provided by me, more of a X/day ability to auto-crit after landing an attack. Since we're using the 'laying waste' crit system (where critting just does maximum normal damage and adds an extra effect from a sliced cheek to lopping off an arm), I thought it would be an ok change. With the lay waste system, I believe we settled on something like +20 to the confirmation roll? I may lower it, but I'd still like thoughts on the change/ability itself.
Something something 5ft step: the cleave enhancements from frenzerker were cool in 3.5, but we noticed something in PF, namely dwarfs and dwarfs alone can take a pretty high up class feature from frenzerker as a feat at pretty low levels, the one where in the middle of a cleave you can take a 5ft step. Considering that this idea of a giant brute who just carved a bloody path through enemy after enemy was his one goal with this character (if he was more of a powergamer Im pretty sure he would take the...I think its Warhulk? Class from 3.5 that gives bonus strength every level), he felt pretty jipped. Any thoughts on this?
No Dex for you: lastly, despite it being the best backup plan to make sure a frenzerker doesnt tpk, he doesnt like that being able to balance isnt possible while frenzying. Like he understands not getting do do complex acrobatics and tumbling around the battlefield, but not being able to stand up from a grease spell made him frenzy a little irl. Again, thoughts?

Again, thank you all so much for responding to this thread. Im glad my first post got more attention than I thought it would.

Thanks for the response!

These are all definitely points that I've considered before, especially the BBEG tactics section. The AP book I have is definitely giving me strategies, and I've even thrown in a few extra to try and spice things up (ie when the party found a bunch of ettercaps ina harpoon spider's lair, I used some of the ettercap web traps and almost got some people with them). Thats not my biggest issue I'm having, it's that the the party bard is taking nothing but buff spells and using them exclusively on the bloodrager, no one else, simply because the now-magus had a few bad damage rolls starting out.

And he's not bemoaning his not being a wizard, he's more complaining that wizards are able to do everyone's job (and often better than the class that's supposed to do it. This is mainly from him being brought into 3.5/PF by some of the BIGGEST powergamers I know, and their constant droning on and on about 'tier list this' and 'im not powergaming im telling how to properly play an underpowered class', and he doesnt want to be punished for just doing large damage while the party witch is sitting in the backline slinging hexes every turn for free (and the hexes often roll out to be a save or suck) and then also casting save or dies.

Its really just the fact that mages force OTHERS to roll that bothers him. No targeting or rolling to hit, just point your finger at someone and say "make a save". A regular phrase bandied about amongst our little group is "welcome to 3.5 pick your magic class".

So I recently (and by recently I mean in January) began DMing for a group of friends by running the Shackled City AP. I know it's an old one, but it was the AP that got me into this crazy world so I wanted to share it with others.

Anyway, before starting out I asked everyone for their character concepts and laid out some house rules.
-Everyone gets weapon finesse and qualifies as having it for later feats.
-3.5 feats are allowed.
-Players could choose between 3.5 and PF versions of classes, and so long as they could show me the page where they were getting it from, the PFSRD would be allowed as well.

What wound up happening was a human bloodrager, a human magus (he started out as a homebrew because I didn't know any better but he's since retrained his levels), a witch who's hiding her true race for reasons, and a drow bard.

So far it's going good and everyone's having fun, but about halfway through I had to make a change that I'm still to this day not sitting well with. I made it so all characters, both players and monsters, get full HD for HP. I had to do this because the party barbarian was literally 2-shotting bosses because he took Power Attack from 3.5 and then took Furious Focus. And then the party bard frontloaded all his buffs into him so his to-hit was through the roof. Making matters worse is the fact that the witch says "Misfortune" to all of the enemies (I know there's not much you can do about that one, but when the bloodrager says "hit me in 2 rounds or you dead" with that debuff, it gets hard to give the players a challenge).

I've brought the issue up with him before, but he is very...adamant. He's the type of guy who is still salty that Barbarians can only rage a certain number of rounds per day, and both he and the party know that he's the largest (and right now the ONLY) damage dealer in the party. So when I suggest he only be allowed to take the PF power attack or furious focus doesn't work with 3.5 power attack, he has at least 15 arguments on why damage is his only power and he should be allowed to keep it. Most of these arguments revolve around "Mages get HOW much damage? Yeah, that's what I thought." Plus, I made a change to Deadly Aim (I think that's what it was called? The ranged version of Power Attack) where if the player wanted to they could treat it as 3.5 power attack too (take a penalty up to your BAB for damage bonuses), because the guy playing Magus/Homebrew was going for ranged combat at the time and felt like he did no damage.

Additionally, at the start he expressed interest in the "Frenzied Berserker" prestige class, which I thought was a cool looking class and we both agreed it could use a little help in the "please don't TPK" department. So I said I'd let him not worry about it and that's his plan for the moment.

I feel like I've screwed up in multiple places here. Any help resolving these issues would be appreciated, as the bloodrager is a close personal friend and it's very hard for me to tell him "No you cant have all of the damage" when his immediate counter-argument is "Spells do what again?"

My goal here is for everyone at the table to have fun (even if as a DM I don't, as long as the players are happy and get through the story I'm happy). And for a while, it was fine and everyone WAS having fun. But with the party advancing into higher levels (they just hit 6 and are gearing up for the Demonskar Ball), the Bard is leaving and a new player just came in (playing an unchained rogue), and with the Magus trying (and failing) to be relevant in combat, I feel like the bloodrager is starting to step on some toes.