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Having ran this campaign to the end my players did not trust the Zon-Kuthon gang at all. However, Laori (a cute babe?) I portrayed as a friendy and fun-loving character who wanted to help the PCs (the opposite for Sial). Laori helped them to defeat the emperor in old Korvosa and turned up later a reluctant ally of Sial (Sense Motive is good here).

When they reached Scarwall I had the zon-kuthonites arrive before they reached the castle. By portaying Sial as a nasty bastard most PC groups will not allow him to join them. That way you get to have the zon-kuthonites arrive when they are least ready for it or conversely, when they most need it. In my case they attacked the party after a nasty fight vs the dragon in the courtyard. They struggled to win and managed it, although Laori escaped (and turned up later to wrest the crown from the queen before the players very eyes!)

In my latest campaign I am using an experience system whereby the PCs recieve 'hero points'. These points can be used as hero points already can be used but are also used to increase the PCs level (at twice current level). They can also be used to buy feats: 3 hero points gains you a feat.

At low level they have spent them on gaining a level, but later, when it costs, for example, 18 points to go from 9th to 10th level, would gaining 6 feats be more useful than a level?

I am still testing this system but it seems to work so far and the players like the additional option for character design.

It also means that spending points to gain big bonuses etc. costs you in long term character development

In the Harnmaster RPG, clerics/priests must pray for 'piety points', which represent the favour of their diety. These points are then spent casting rituals and creating miracles learned from their church or channelled directly from the diety.

Piety points may also be gained from completing holy quests, converting heretics and so forth.

A system like this would work well for bestowed casters.

In the Harnmaster RPG, clerics/priests must pray for 'piety points', which represent the favour of their diety. These points are then spent casting rituals and creating miracles learned from their church or channelled directly from the diety.

Piety points may also be gained from completing holy quests, converting heretics and so forth.

A system like this would work well for bestowed casters.

Charisma can be considered to be a character's force of personality etc. and is used with use magic device to handle magic items. I am considering a house rule where rather than limiting a PC's magic items by body parts (which leads to the xmas tree effect) a character is limited to one item per point of charisma, which he has to attune to over several hours/days (note that 'item' here is really 'power' to prevent players from combining several items into one to get around the ruling). Since magic items are an important part of any character, dumping charisma will have a knock on effect.

Rather than use spell points why not allow them to cast any spell they know but:

1) require a rather difficult casting roll (meaning that high level spells tend not to be cast but low level spells are easy to cast)

2) caster takes 1d4 points of non-lethal damage per spell level, fortitude save for half damage (meaning that constant high level casting results in an unconscious wizard)

I have just finished running this campaign. Laori popped up three times.

The first times was as in the book. The PCs allowed her to live and she kept true to her word and helped them out.

The second time the party spurned her aid and fought her and Count Sial in the depths of castle Scarwall. She escaped. He did not.

The last time I added in. She negotiated with the party rogue (who I made the bastard son of the king at the players request!) saying that the church of Zon-Kuthon would help the party be rid of the church of Asmodeus in Korvosa and all they wanted were the fangs of Kazavon. The player (in true political style) agreed and she gave him a dagger which allowed her to track the party to the Queen. At the end she popped up to dispel a charm on the same rogue (who was atempting to kill the party cleric/sorcerer at the queens orders) and then she snatched the crown from the queens head in the final round of fighting and ran away! Laori ended up with the crown and the queen escaped via dimesion door ready to return again...

This is an excellent campaign. My only gripe was the lack of detail concerning the city (even with the city guide). I had to wing several sections when the PCs took over Eels End and created their own brothel (much to the disgust of the cleric of Sarenrae in the party!), the dwarf fighter decided to adopt the pseudodragons in the city and make it his mission to help them and the insane rogue/sorcerer in the plague book was cured of her insanity and promply fell in love with the bastard king!

Hope you enjoy it as much as I have...

Aaron Bitman wrote:
I know that it makes no sense. The system was designed to be FUN, not realistic.

Imagine a system where your AC improves but your hp remains the same. One lucky hit (like a natural 20) from a goblin could fell your 20th-level character.

More hp with each level doesn't make sense, but I think that it's supposed to simulate a certain kind of fantasy story. I've read several of REH's Conan stories with a line like "Conan had taken enough wounds to fell five normal men, but he kept on fighting."

End quote

I imagine the system to run something like 'the lucky hit stabs your fighter in the chest, causing a nasty bleeding wound. You stagger stunned for a moment then recover and swipe the goblin back.'

The lucky hit causes a wound which stuns and maybe causes a penalty until healed. The high level fighter can keep going because he is tougher than the low level goblin.

Improving AC by BAB means that a high level fighter does not have to rely on magic items to improve his AC. He gets better because he is better at it. He can still benefit from being tougher (i.e. hp) and fight on as you have said with Conan. Adding this rule in does not detract from the tough hero theme and does not make it less fun.

As an aside, I have ran several campaigns using harnmaster, which uses a realistic damage system whereby the characters take individual wounds which build up until either the character gets stabbed in the heart or drops from multiple wounds/bleeding. This system was lethal but still fun to play. Unfortunately, the game company concentrated on producing world supplements rather than adventures (which is why I like Pathfinder) so I came over to D&D again (via exalted). I still find the same old combat mechanic which existed in the 1980s when I started playing. This is why I hate it. I hated it then and I hate it now!

I really hate the fact that yet another variant of D&D has a 'fixed' AC, meaning that no matter what your level your defences do not improve. A 1st level fighter wearing plate armour has the same AC as a 20th level fighter, all other things being equal. A defence value which improves by BAB is a simple rule and makes the whole thing much more realistic.

And, yes, I know that this is suppossed to be bundled up with HP, a rule which makes no sense. How does Constitution improve your parry?

And for the most part most of what you said is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. You can be a perfect spring attack rogue, and the dragon charges you, and nails you with a lucky crit with a bite attack, and now you are low health with a pissed off dragon standing next to you, and you can't spring attack because the dragon is closer than 10 feet. You better make use of those defensive options.... oh wait, they all suck.

...
In short, how you end up with low health standing next to a pissed off dragon isn't really the point.

Not quite, since any changes to these rules will only improve armour class and a lucky crit (needs a 20 remember) will always hit you.

You could house rule the parry rules for the Duelist. I seem to remember the first version of Neverwinter used a Parry skill. You forfeit your attacks and use them to block attacks (one per) by making an opposed Parry roll vs Attack roll. If you roll high enough you get a 'riposte' attack.

I didn't get to the point of my last post so here it is. If you can't stand in melee then change tactics. Discuss plans with the other party members so that your tactical plan keeps you alive. Teamwork within a party can easily make up for the weaknesses of individual characters (as we do with our archer/scout combination).

Fighters have enough bonuses already. Rogues need to stay alive. My rogue is actually a scout so I don't need a flanker to get the damage but your point is taken. TWF does not work with this style of rogue anyway.

Besides, the 'fighter' in the party is an archer who does not melee anyway. We once had a situation where a large gnoll leader (the carrion king I think) couldn't hit either of us because we refused to stay in melee range and could run faster than him by virtue of a haste spell!

I actually play a rogue similar to the one you have stated. Rogues do not stand and melee a dragon. They nip in and take it down in bite sized chunks. The feat is called spring attack. You move in (no AoO) do one attack and nip out (no AoO). Hopefully you have ran far enough to avoid it's counterattack but if not it only gets one attack anyway. This is a question of tactics.

Fighters stand in melee

Rogues do not

That said, I have always disliked the fact that D&D in all it's variations has never granted an increasing defence by level. Attack goes up, defence does not. I actually built a character once and worked out that at 1st level he needed a 16 to hit himself. By 12th level he needed a 2.

I usually find a picture I like and build the character around it... though once someone in our group said that animal companions were rubbish so I just had to prove him wrong. That ended up with the character being considered a familiar of the animal companion!

Currently I'm DMing Rise of the Runelords + homebrew add-ons (just finshed the 5th book of the series, Curse of the Crimson Throne (one big session left now, the PCs are 2 levels down on the series recomendation and have the Queen to kill!) and playing a rogue/assassin variant in the Legacy of Fire campaign.

If Paizo keep up the adventure paths I still don't think e'll ever finish them...

I have used a house rule granting a +1 bonus to one stat every even numbered character level for some years now with few problems (one particular bard aside). My current house rules limit the maximum ability score before racial and ageing nodifers) to 20. This prevents players putting all their eggs in one basket and makes them feel better at the same time.

By the way, in my latest campaign (currently in planning) I am getting rid of stat boosters as well...

I like the idea of these wands/staffs. Let me know what you decide. One thing you could do to limit the power a bit is to make the DC bonus not stack with the Spell Focus feats. I also think it would be a nice addition to the Arcane Bond ability of a wizard/sorcerer.

Why limit wands to just a fixed bonus to all spell DCs? You could give a small bonus to all spells and an extra +1-+3 to one spell school. This allows for a higher bonus but limits the range of application. In the same vein, you could have an elemental fire wand listed as +1 to all DCs, +2 to Fire spells or a divine focus giving +2 to good spells.

Be wary though. The save or suck spells rely on spell DC to function and any wizard who uses these kind of spells will become much stronger as a result.