Hakon007's page

The other day my wife said to me "I have a 16 wisdom". I believe that she honestly believed this because she is a librarian with two masters degrees, one from NYU.

If you make any character under the current rules you will always have an 18 in one stat at first level. This is just insane.

The strongest man on earth cannot lift 3x his weight or drag 5x his weight. The most beautiful actress/model barely rates a 15 in charisma. No one with a wisdom above 14 would ever enter the political arena because s/he would be wise enough to see the pitfalls. The smartest rocket-scientest at MIT probably has a 16 intelligence.

I don't see the need for such exaggerated scores.

Why do we make the rules so that only the GODLIKE can survive?

I've always had intelligence equate to a IQ test score divided by 10

so a 14 means IQ 140, an 8 is an IQ of 80, barely above mentally disabled
the highest achievable by a human is around 21-23for n IQ of 210-230

I treat the other stats with the same view.

take the strongest current and you get your answers on what the caps should be for humanoids of standard stats.

for strength Hafthor aka the mountain set a world record of 1041lbs lift, in 3e dnd that would equate to STR 27.

so considering that I would say stat maximums are fine, but what I have a problem with is how high they start at, one fix could be to add a step to generating ability scores.
make step 6 become step 7 and insert one of these 2 new step 6's

option 1
step 6, choose 4 ability score reduce them by 1 point each.

option 2 (my favourite)
each stat gets a number, STR 1, Dex 2, Con 3, Int 4, Wis 5, Cha 6
roll 4 d6, reduce the abilities that are rolled by 1 each time they appear on 1 of the 4 dice.

this could 1 time out of 1296 mean that 18 turns into a 14 if they roll very bad, but most times this will result in the unique character that this system lacks

So I really love a lot of things in the Playtest and I find certain elements to be a big improvement on the TTRPG genre as a whole. However there are some things which need finessing and a decent number of problems that can be improved upon.

Some of the biggest complaints about the game involve designing your character and how much more narrow your options are for designing a character. Wanna be a duel-weilding or sharp-shooter Barbarian? You can, but you'll always suck compared to a Fighter or Ranger in the same vein.

In top of this, increasing your proficiency in skills feels...well to put it bluntly, dull. Going from Master to Legendary at level 15 in any skill chagnges your bonus from 17 to 18...not very exciting. You have to wait another level to get a Legendary Skill Feat before you start feeling actually Legendary.

A lot of this has to do with the Pathfinder Playtest design mentality which puts so much weight on balance and "class niche" that it doesn't allow much design flexibility or variance outside of the scope of what the classic version of that class can do.

Here is my proposed solution that allows people to have a lot more design flexibility, while maintaining the Playtest's design goal of being more structured, and also fixing the problem with skill proficiency on the way there.

1) Every class needs different paths to take. Plenty already do, like the Sorcerer's Bloodlines or the Barbarian's Totems. But every class needs something like this so that my Paladin feels more substantially different from yours. Paladin is actually a good example because it's a very easy one. Have the different Paladin paths be tied to the different Alignments, each one adjusting how the Paladin's base powers work and only allowing some class feats to be taken by certain alignments. Other classes might be trickier, like the Fighter, but I think it would be doable.

2) Get rid of Skill Feats. Instead, fold in the abilities of skill feats with the proficiency increases. Maybe not all. Some are...

agree, but while we are at it, lets not add level to proficiency in a skill, lets instead gain skill point, as many as we did at level 1 for the class, at each level.

Hakon007 wrote:

plaidwandering wrote:

N N 959 wrote:

When I sign up for PFS scenarios at level 5 and above, I will sometimes opt out if there are no casters in the group.

Are you serious? In the 200ish tables I've sat at PFS at all levels of play is utterly dominated by weapon combat - maybe not pure martials, but people who "do combat" by hitting things with a weapon.

There's the occasional fast bomber or dragon sorc that do significant damage, but mostly a caster summons something that never hits or does a minor debuff, and then an archer or 2her goes and makes it completely irrelevant by crapping out 120 damage

You know when I have to softball GMing? Parties that do not have a significant weapon damage dealer...

your maths are off because the bonus doesn't change the dice result, both the protagonist and antagonist have the same auto crit chance regardless of dice roll

I think Hakon007 wanted to reply to my comment where I denoted two characters as "protagonist" and "antagonist" and clicked the reply button for the comment below mine.

I admit that I was talking solely about the +/-10 critical system and ignoring the natural 1 and natural 20 criticals that depend on the actual die roll. Yes, the critical hits that rely on the value rolled on the die are not directly affected by the +2 bonus. There can be a small indirect effect, which Pathfinder 1st Edition corrected with the confirmation roll.

But those nat-1 and nat-20 criticals are also not affected by the shape of the probablity curve, so what do they have to do with a discussion about the shape of the probability curve? That is why I ignored them by chosing DC values that put the highest die roll into the +10 crit range regardless. My math is valid.

Instead, my error was when I said, "I suspect that Hakon007 wanting the bell curve of 3d6 or the triangular curve of 2d10 is out of a desire for diminishing returns,...

What I am saying is I would like a 2d10 system, but I understand now you are referring to the double success being a critical of the p2 system, where I was just referring to a generic d20 system.

I would prefer a 2d6/2d8/2d10 system with exploding dice, ie rolling a nat 10 on a d10 allows you to roll an extra d10 and add it on, but rolling a natural 1 means you roll a d10 and deduct it.
this allows for thrills of good rolls.

but I prefer the double success doesn't mean a critical so that bounded accuracy does not change with +1's to much.

as the current incarnation means a +1 to hit increases critical chance

I think the main problems are as follows, with the biggest problem being add level:
Ac and attack add level:
All this does is make high level characters invincible to low level characters
If you always vs adversaries that are similar level to you the dice rolls never change, this results in you never feeling more powerful, it’s the world of warcraft syndrome where you don’t feel like your getting stronger Le, they feel it in that game because of fear, we fell it in this game because the number goes up each level for no reason.

Hit points too high:
Too many rpgs go with more and more hit points, it’s a shame they didn’t try a spin on the FFG Star Wars, soak system.
Where armour soaks damage but you don’t have many hit points so once the reduction occurs the excess goes through and can kill you.
With higher and higher hit points, higher and higher damage output needs to occur. Keeping the numbers smaller makes it more manageable.
This is seen by the mistake of making magic weapons increase dice number.

Skills
adding level to skills seems stupid, my 20th level fighter can make a better bow then a 2nd level bow maker because he’s killed more people, really?

How to fix:
Ac and to hit and hp and damage;
This issue could be fixed by separating being hit and having your armour hit.
By this I mean you take a war hammer approach of, roll to hit then the person takes an armour save roll, although in this case there would be no armour save roll, you would just reduce damage by the armours soak value,
Excess would be done to the player.
You could incorporate a hit location, and certain armours protect different areas better or worse, example a breast plate would not protect the arms, getting hit there would not only receive full damage but if the damage exceeded a percentage amount the ads would be destroyed, eg a hit occurs, it’s on the arm, the breast plate doesn’t work, the damage exceeds 10% of the characters hit points, so the arm is destroyed. You could do a lesser version without hit allocations nd it would work too.

Hp is fine at first level, but the increases to fast.
If you incorporated a soak system you could have caster health increase by 2 per level, rogue types by 3 per level, fighters by 4 per level, barbarians by 5 per level.
Con bonus would be added per 5 levels.
Resulting in a human wizard with con 10 at level 20 having 48hp
And a human barbarian with con 18 at level 20 having 128hp
It brings in the numbers, now those magic weapons go back to a magic increase is +1 damage for. +1 magic item and +5 damage for a +5 magic item (you could make a a +1 item be +1 to hit, +2 damage and so on)

Skills:
Skills tiers are enjoyable, but maybe instead of ramping up the scores, you reduce the dc scale of what’s needed for easy and hard.
Make the players get skill points to invest as before, maybe give them heaps, but have the ranks in skills harder to attain.
Example:
Have ranks untrained, apprentice, adept, professional, master, legendary
Untrained is 0 skill points, apprentice is 1-2, adept is 3-6, professional is 7-11, master is 12-17 and legendary is 18 ranks
A character can only invest 1 point per level
And gains 8 skill points per level, a bard might get +1 per level and rogue + 2 per level.
Bonuses to skill rolls would be ranks invested plus ability score, and the ranks would unlock new benefits similar to feats automatically upon reaching them.
Weapons and armour and magic schools could also have a similar system, but it would be automatic, and gained through the class.

Spells should also have options, as I have said in another post, making spells be templates that combine together, would allow for far more creativity. Eg as a level 0 spell I choose bolt and combine it with the template fire, fire says deal 1d8 damage and if the character fails a save, it’s catches slight suffering 2 damage per turn until put out, bolt says action, 60yard range 1 target, but I could have chosen frost bolt, same range and target and somantic components, but frost deals 1d8 and prevents 1 of the targets actions next turn from being slowed.
As a level 3 spell I combine the blast template which deals damage to everyone in a 20ft radius at 120ft range with the sonic template, which means it deals 6d6 sonic damage and deafens everyone it hits for 1d4 rounds.
The same could be done for healing spells and so on.

I also think something like 5e cantrips could help keep casters competitive with melee.

Anyway hope this feedback helps

maybe they should use the old spectrum to figure out who gets what

you pick 4 distinct angles, we know these will be called
occult vs divine
arcane vs primal

in this sense if primal is natural raw magic
arcane is man made artificial twisting of magic

and where divine is otherworldly assistance form other planes
occult would be an artificial assistance from powerful beings from the cosmos

the best way to describe it in my mind is:

Cthulhu follower vs cleric
and
dragon vs wizard

what you need to do to seperate the spells then
is place 4 circles on a spread sheet, overlapping each other slightly
the spells are then placed in the circles based on which casters should have access
the idea is to give less over lap by having less room for each spell.

you could also take the following approach

draw a line from left to right and up to down, like a plus, put the 4 titles at each end, then like a scale place the spells where you feel they belong....

maybe every spell can be used by every class, but in that scenario, the spells that are easy to some should be hard to others, and by that I mean while a cleric can cast a heal easily, maybe a magic missile would be a 9th level spell, but have the effect as a 1st level wizard spell

like wise maybe a wizard could cast a heal but to him its a 8th level spell that works just like the clerics first.

in that kind of setup you have access to all, but what is easy for you to cast is determined by the type of magic you use.

I would like to see some more ability drain spells, especially at lower level, I also feel there is a serious lack of damaging spells.

have you thought about putting more into allowing self created spells?
eg fire adds a burn effect
electricity adds a dazed effect
frost adds a slow effect
sonic adds a deafen etc

some damage types would do d6, some d8, some like acid do d12

you take a spell like bolt at level 0 ray at level 1, burst at level 2, blast at level 3, wall at level 4 etc
when you do you pick a damage type.

so my 2 1st level spells could be fire ray and frost ray
or at level 3 fire blast and acid blast.

I think making spells less rigid and just be templates that combine with other templates would allow for a much better magic spell list and help to differ it from games like d&d

it would also mean if the templates vary enough, millions of spell combinations to be made, allowing for truly unique characters to be played

N N 959 wrote:

When I sign up for PFS scenarios at level 5 and above, I will sometimes opt out if there are no casters in the group.

Are you serious? In the 200ish tables I've sat at PFS at all levels of play is utterly dominated by weapon combat - maybe not pure martials, but people who "do combat" by hitting things with a weapon.

There's the occasional fast bomber or dragon sorc that do significant damage, but mostly a caster summons something that never hits or does a minor debuff, and then an archer or 2her goes and makes it completely irrelevant by crapping out 120 damage

You know when I have to softball GMing? Parties that do not have a significant weapon damage dealer...

your maths are off because the bonus doesn't change the dice result, both the protagonist and antagonist have the same auto crit chance regardless of dice roll

maybe if they had background levelling alongside class levelling it would make the game better
(and I mean with its own progression tree)

Hakon007 wrote:

the problems you speak of OP happen because of the system using an out dated back bone known as a d20

change it to 2d6 or 2d10 and then you well get a nice bell curve.

There is an official variant for this (3d6):

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/bellCurveRolls.htm

thank you, I wonder how this would work with 2d10, 3d6 just seems to fat a curve, bit of overkill

in my opinion spell level has always been a theoretical exponential scoring system, like the Richter scale.

so it would take 10 level 1 light spells being cast simultaneous to defeat a level 10 darkness

or 10 casters casting level 7 prismatic spray to defeat a prismatic wall level 8

or an army of 10 billion low level casters casting level 1 light to defeat a level 10 casting of darkness

sunder should totally be in the game, it makes repair magic and crafters be useful, if they can repair equipment. how many fantasy settings have a blacksmith go along on a mission, make a black smith a useful party member (well not so much in an all druid party hahaha)

but repairing and damaging objects adds to realism, and I'm all for it

the problems you speak of OP happen because of the system using an out dated back bone known as a d20

change it to 2d6 or 2d10 and then you well get a nice bell curve.

in a 2d6 system, an untrained person attempting a basic dc of 10, should have a +3 modifier for what ever reason.
rolling a 7 or more 58% of the time to pass the test.

your chance roll goes as follows:
number/chance/percantage chance/chance succeeding if minimum
2 = 1/36 = 2.8% = 100%
3 = 2/36 = 5.5% = 97.2%
4 = 3/36 = 8.4% = 91.6%
5 = 4/36 = 11.1% = 83.3%
6 = 5/36 = 13.9% = 72.2%
7 = 6/36 = 22.1% = 58.3%
8 = 5/36 = 13.9% = 41.7%
9 = 4/36 = 11.1% = 27.8%
10 = 3/36 = 8.4% = 16.7%
11 = 2/36 = 5.5% = 8.4%
12 = 1/36 = 2.8% = 2.8%

in this system auto crits happen half as often (as do auto fails)
but you don't need these huge numbers, you can remove the add level to the proficiency
having the following system for skills:

untrained +0 (-2 or 3 if requires training)
apprentice +1
adept +2
professional +3
expert +4
master +5

dc's would be

5 hard to fail
6 easy
7 normal
8 medium
9 challenging
10 hard
11 difficult
12 superior
13 extreme
14 masterful
15 godlike

so in such a system an untrained villager trying to make a bow which is a hard task

would have a 16% chance to do so
where as an intelligent character with int 14 (+2) and a master at making bows has a 97.2% chance of making the bow

as to the other point if you want to raise the floor so to speak you are taking away both realism and fun, the scores need to be compacted not raised with level, you need to stop raising dc's first, yes the rogue will always sneak passed the guards and find it trivial, he should, he should only have a 3-10% chance of failing, its his job, it should be on the rogue to help the others, sneak somewhere else, distract the guards so the others can make it.
it should not be an auto succeed for a lvl 15 wizard to sneak passed a level 1 guard

What about you make it work this way?

you gain additional mental reactions equal to your half your int mod, these can not be used to make an attack.

now you can use a reaction to identify, then make the counter spell like you wished, of a fighter could do something like recognise an incoming attack then use there second reaction to block or dodge it.

would that work or would it still make int to powerful