Hickaru's page

Hi, I DM a small group and we are currently replaying through Skull and Shackles (Because Pirates)
I put some effort this time around into making a rules system for ship to ship combat that wasn't just about boarding.

This is the result of those efforts. When forced to choose between a fun rule of choice and realism we choose fun. :: D

We kept advantage because it works well but we ditched the movement part of it. Instead it gains you 45 degree turns. We have since limited that to a max 0f 90 degrees which feels like a reasonable balance.

Set up is the same too, defending ship heading roll d8, then position of enemy ship d8, then squares away it starts is 1d4+2, then the wind is a d8. Since ours allows diagonals.

We ended up limiting siege engine range and rotation a bit to make it more fun as a grid based maneuvering game. So broadsides are only in straight lines up to one range increment straight from the sides of the ship. So for light ballista 4 squares, or 3 diagonal. Front and back guns get shooting wedges, which templates for can be found Here. You just place the template at the front of the ship or rear and thats what the forward and rear guns can shoot

We allow catapults to shoot up to 3 range increments on the map to give them a different feel than ships with ballista

This set up of kinda limited siege and only straight shooting broadsides, really lets you dodge and plan your moves around the board, getting in close but not within a firing arc of the enemy ship, broadsiding them on a pass by and getting behind them, knowing its gonna be hard for them to turn at their current speed and get you.

Basically the pilot "builds" a check, then roles. If he succeeds he can do all the parts that he put into his check, if he fails he loses control
(just moves straight and loses 30ft of speed)

So an example of this wound be, Hold Her Steady which you need to take one of, so thats 10, then a turn at 30ft, so thats 4, for 14 total, plus then we want to accelerate and swerve, ones 10 the other is 6, so the total is 30. And thats the DC the pilot has to make, but hes get to do all that in a single turn. It's awesome cause at higher levels you just keep getting more badass. Fun at lower levels cause you can end up getting "stuck" in the wind for a couple turns cause the high speed makes it hard to turn.

We allowed ships to move more than their max speed when coming out of the wind losing it at at start of their next turn.

I threw in the ship actions page, which the ship gets ONE (thats not one per player) of a turn just to give other players something to do, also sharks...

If anyone is interested or has any questions feel free to ask. Not looking for too much feedback since were already playing with it and its really fun. (seriously go play some of it and tell me it doesn't feel AWESOME to pull off a risky maneuver you had like 30% of succeeding on)

Notes: We play this on a standard grid, ships only take up one square, and squares represent 30 ft. (I know this is off, but it makes it more fun.)

I made a pdf so my players can reference most of it. Its got some random art work grabbed of google to make it less dull.

Naval Rules Booklet. (I even enabled commenting on the file.

p.s. Sharks!

Hi, I DM a small group and we are currently replaying through Skull and Shackles (Because Pirates)
I put some effort this time around into making a rules system for ship to ship combat that wasn't just about boarding.

This is the result of those efforts. When forced to choose between a fun rule of choice and realism we choose fun. :: D

We kept advantage because it works well but we ditched the movement part of it. Instead it gains you 45 degree turns. We have since limited that to a max 0f 90 degrees which feels like a reasonable balance.

Set up is the same too, defending ship heading roll d8, then position of enemy ship d8, then squares away it starts is 1d4+2, then the wind is a d8. Since ours allows diagonals.

We ended up limiting siege engine range and rotation a bit to make it more fun as a grid based maneuvering game. So broadsides are only in straight lines up to one range increment straight from the sides of the ship. So for light ballista 4 squares, or 3 diagonal. Front and back guns get shooting wedges, which templates for can be found Here. You just place the template at the front of the ship or rear and thats what the forward and rear guns can shoot

We allow catapults to shoot up to 3 range increments on the map to give them a different feel than ships with ballista

This set up of kinda limited siege and only straight shooting broadsides, really lets you dodge and plan your moves around the board, getting in close but not within a firing arc of the enemy ship, broadsiding them on a pass by and getting behind them, knowing its gonna be hard for them to turn at their current speed and get you.

Basically the pilot "builds" a check, then roles. If he succeeds he can do all the parts that he put into his check, if he fails he loses control
(just moves straight and loses 30ft of speed)

So an example of this wound be, Hold Her Steady which you need to take one of, so thats 10, then a turn at 30ft, so thats 4, for 14 total, plus then we want to accelerate and swerve, ones 10 the other is 6, so the total is 30. And thats the DC the pilot has to make, but hes get to do all that in a single turn. It's awesome cause at higher levels you just keep getting more badass. Fun at lower levels cause you can end up getting "stuck" in the wind for a couple turns cause the high speed makes it hard to turn.

We allowed ships to move more than their max speed when coming out of the wind losing it at at start of their next turn.

I threw in the ship actions page, which the ship gets ONE (thats not one per player) of a turn just to give other players something to do, also sharks...

If anyone is interested or has any questions feel free to ask. Not looking for too much feedback since were already playing with it and its really fun. (seriously go play some of it and tell me it doesn't feel AWESOME to pull off a risky maneuver you had like 30% of succeeding on)

Notes: We play this on a standard grid, ships only take up one square, and squares represent 30 ft. (I know this is off, but it makes it more fun.)

I made a pdf so my players can reference most of it. Its got some random art work grabbed of google to make it less dull.

Naval Rules Booklet. (I even enabled commenting on the file.

p.s. Sharks!

Oh so you're saying that at 2 out you'd still be a -1 since the normal would be -2. In other words, you halve the TOTAL penalty, not the per-increment penalty. That makes more sense *fist to head*
That would mean a -5 at 10 range increments. That seems better than -0.

Yah pretty much. The trick is the difference between a per increment and the ALL range weapons increments. So take a -1 penalty per increment and divide that number by 2. I've looked at range increment rules way to often... I had one of my players make a character who could shot 16 miles with a -6 penalty or so...

Hi. So I am about to begin work on a mega "campaign" a series of adventures all involving a group called Torchwood (I like doctor who, plus its a catchy name... Don't judge me!!!) The basic idea of the group is that they obtain "advanced" technology and magics. They believe the planar war between the lower planes and upper planes is going to end up being fought on the material plane. They are on the "side" of all mortals. Thus the organization will be Neutral. The group itself will have all sorts of things mixed into it. With interesting characters ect... My players are roleplayers and they also enjoy combat. As such they expect a higher level of complexity and depth to my games. This group will have to have relationships between the cast figured out. They need to make mistakes. It's a lot to build... as such I was wondering if anyone out there wanted to help? It could be really fun. My skype can be found under explosin@gmail.com - Danny Roberts. You can also email or just reply here. I don't really care. I just want to see if some people who like to help out.

They all look pretty good, thing is i don't like having a lot of unnecessary stuff on my sheet, the official pathfinder sheet dosn't have enough necessary stuff (space to list equipment/notes/feats) that's why my favorite character sheet is the ultimate character sheet for 3.5. Check it out, just Google it. So i modified the front page of it to have the pathfinder skills selection. (i used photoshop so its a picture, but it prints well) Thing is... *twiddles thumbs nervously* i don't have a place to upload it, anyone know one i could use? If not, check out the 3.5 one it's pretty awesome. Only needs the skills changes. It's a two page monster of a sheet. If it does not have something our group does not have we have side sheets that do.

Wow ... I think WIS is better than INT for Initiative ( ...read on, as both are irrelevant, though ).

The high-Intelligence person is likely to act last because they will consider all of the various combinations and permutations of options for action, multiple cause-effect relationships of their actions and over-analyze everything.

The high-Wisdom person will have a gut feeling about what to do that is best in the current circumstances and act immediately on that feeling.

However, in my experience, animals react faster than people to almost any situation/stimulus. That should end the INT/WIS question there.

Think about the people at your table. Some are very intelligent but take forever to decide on their PC's actions when it's their turn to act, either because they are not paying attention to the evolving circumstances through the round or because they are over-analyzing every possibility to make the "right" or "best" choice of action.

Actually, the foolish/inattentive people often act the fasted in my experience. They do not make good decisions, but they do act swiftly on their bad decisions, and the speed of action rather than the quality of action is really what Initiative is all about.

Thus, the entire question is really a fallacy, IMHO. DEX is the only relevant stat because Initiative determines only who acts first, not the "correctness" of that action. INT and WIS are both irrelevant to the question of the order in which you act, but rather affect the choice of action when you finally do act.

Really, it's tempting to give a bonus to low-INT / low-WIS characters since they will think of fewer options to act and so have less to consider/evaluate/choose-between when it comes time to...

Rock on!!! So true, dex is the only stat that does matter. I perosnaly give a bone to people who have chosen improved initiative. And in a game of dice I'm surprised no one has just rolled another initiative check, whoever gets higher on this new check, wins the tie. (in the cases of the pc's tying just let them pick which one wants to go first)

I tried using the Defense Bonus from d20 Modern and UA a while, but it caused too many compatability problems with published adventures. Instead what I started doing was allowing a +1 Dexterity Modifier bonus to AC for every 5 ranks in the Jump and Tumble skills. Now why did I phrase it "Dexterity Modifier bonus to AC" instead of "Dodge bonus to AC"? Because all armors have a Maximum Dexterity Bonus already built in. In this way, I save on the head-ache and shattered-immersion factors.

defense bonus' just don't work in most dnd games. There are some neat things in UA (of course UA is just a giant book of house rules) Personally I don't like the idea of raising AC's they work fine how they are. Of course you obviously disagree, so as such I wish you good luck building a good AC system that works for you. (neat idea of doing it through skills)

I sorta gave the short form. We do have other mechanics at play.

• HP=death threshold=mostly dead.
  
• HP=2xdeath threshold=DRT (Dead Right There)=no Resuscitation. You can go through his cloths and look for loose change.
  
• HP=4xdeath threshold=Morally, Ethically, Spiritually, Physically, Positively, Absolutely Undeniably and Reliably Dead=no raise dead, not enough body left. Resurrection is in order.(Can you tell we have a Wizard of Oz fan in the group? She can recite that from memory on command, I still can't).
  
• Decapitation (or dropping a house on PC<Special rule>)=same as 4xdeath threshold

And we use Eberron Action points. Dead guy can burn points to influence the rolls for Resuscitation.

It also lead to specialized magic items like a Potion of Resuscitation. It had a big needle and a plunger and was applied Pulp Fiction style(not kidding). There was also a white necromancy spell developed by a PC to do the same thing. I think the Verbal component was "CLEAR!"(kidding) ;-)

The girl who's character was the impetus for these rules developed a self imposed fear of anything that killed her or other members of the party. Whenever she sees someone using that weapon or spell, (her brother in game was killed by a double ax for example) she either runs and hides behind the tank or hits it with the biggest spell or...

Sounds well thought out and and interesting, still I don't see its place in everyones dnd game, but its a really neat and good idea. I know a couple people who would find this idea interesting and take a look at this for sure

I might not agree with all of Saurstalk's houserules, but I certainly wouldn't label them "bad!" or "pointless!" or "NEVERRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" The thing with houserules is, you test them out, and see how well they work. The Alpha 1-2 would have enabled Saurstalk to get wider playtesting, and thus more feedback. He can still test them and use them, and I can't see that any of them will invalidate the rest of the PfRPG rules set, so they can STILL be houserules. Some of them might turn out to be very good; they just didn't make it in early enough to be tested for consideration as core rules. Others might be retired after they fail a few trial runs.

They are great house rules, for him. They sound neat and interesting, but there are definitely not source material. I would like to hear his ideas on other things, for his ideas seem well thought out and he seems to be a very smart person. What people need to understand is that the core rules don't and should not include these kinds of rules.

It's like the hit die argument, to be random or not to be random, everyone has a different houserule concerning how to role them or how to take the average. The thing is it's one of those things that should be left as it is because everyone does it differently. There is a wrong way to play Dnd but everyones opinion of what is wrong is different. Whats wrong for someone is right for another person. The pathfinder rpg needs to find a middle ground. Thankfully the middle ground is pretty much laid out for them. As long as they keep to the spirit of 3.5 they should come up with a great system (heck the alpha already is a great system)

I instituted a similar buy more complex rule to keep a danger-prone character in play. From 1st to 5th level she died almost every session. Cleric really got to shine though.

Resuscitation: When a character falls below their death threshold (read -9hp we moved the death number to be unique to each character based on Level and CON) they die but can be revived by attempting a resuscitation. The attempt must begin within 5 rounds of death and must be completed within 6+d4 rounds. If the character is not resuscitated within that time death is fixed and only magical intervention can revive them. Once the attempt begins the character attempting to revive the fallen PC must stay at her side the entire time. The Reviving PC can choose to take other actions some rounds but cannot make a resuscitation check that round. Within the 7-10 rounds available for resuscitation the Reviving PC must succeed 3 heal checks (DC 15 + 1/rd since death (the first round 15 second round 16 etc)) to revive the character. Any PC can aid (role their Heal instead) if they are adjacent but only one resuscitation attempt can be made each round. If 3 checks succeed the dead character upgrades their condition to stable and can be healed by all normal means.

Sounds neat, still has to have something added to it about damage to great to be revived from, maybe if they are at -30 hit points or more they can not be revived this way. As I said before it sounds pretty neat. I've heard of destiny point systems as a way of doing something similar. Where the character can spend a destiny point to stay alive (barely) Really bad deaths take multiple destiny points. I could imagine varying this so that you could spend one of your points to make a heal check on a dead person (basically give the point to him. How to handle death is a very touchy question, and probably best left up to DM discretion

Hickaru wrote:

P.S. I have been sharping my +5 bubble popping needle (so really hope that I rolled a 1 and missed your bubble)

Don't worry. You missed my bubble.

In all honesty, a lot of these have already been house ruled into my games and the games haven't suffered. If anything, they've become grittier and more streamlined. (Especially with the damage enhancement, the instant criticals, and the damage condition track.)

And yes, we don't mind instant kills.

Sh*t happens. . .

. . . and then you die.

The problem is damage increases are not streamlining play, its just making the rounds go by even faster. Quite frankly I'm always amazed at how people keeping mentioning real life, and never mention the fact that a fight with a dragon should take longer than 6-10 rounds. Because in a more realistic time frame you could not kill a dragon in 1-1 1/2 minutes its just does not work that way. And the reason they are house ruled into your games is because they are house rules Honestly though I would like the average rounds that combat lasts to go up but to I talk about that no I don't. This goes for everyone you don't need to have all your house rules

put into official print, house rules appeal to minorities so remember you are a minority! Don't ruin the Core Rules over little things that don't really matter that much. Saurstalk you have said multiple times that these are house rules. So as such they don't have a place in the main errata. House rules are great for forum discussions and telling other people about how you like to play! There are so many posts on these forums about house rules that people want in the final thing. Question do you mind the fact that your personal house rule is not written in the 3.5 Players Handbook, most people don't care they jot down a note, tell there players and live with it. Honestly this is like complaining that your name wasn't personally written down on the constitution. Or that your daily paper does not have articles written specifically about what you want to read about. This is like expecting the sun to revolve around the earth because of how narcissistic you are. We are not special! No matter how many times your mommy told you you were. Cause guess what she lied you are not SPECIAL!! and neither am I. I am a person, I am a gamer, and guess what the rules do not revolve around you or me!!! They revolve around the sun of gaming!! Whatever that may be. Some people say it is the soul of the game or the spirit of the games, I say that it is the majority of players. And thats who this book should please first and foremost, we can always fix our selfs what they "did wrong". Everyone likes something else, how would you like it if vending machines served only mars bars? That is what we are talking about. Getting rid of what most people want so that some guy can have his mars. Now imagine this is a magic vending machine where you can buy any kind of chocolate bar you want. So if you can always add you chocolate bar to the menu later, why change it for other people!!!! Now then this is what is wrong with your stuff, it is house content not actual errata worthy information, so if you have ideas about anything that is fair to include in the final book please tell!

p.s. They sound like well thought out house rules, and I hope your group
enjoys itself. By the way I think my needle hit so 2d6+25 damage

1. Occupation (+ Bonus Feat, + Skills/Skill Bonus, + to Profession) (as in d20 Modern.)

Why??? 3.5 has profession and perform and they work great for what they are worth. (To lazy to see if pathfinder changed these into one skill so don't yell it me if I'm now wrong )

You also have to remember that if you want more depth into this kind of thing go look at 3.5 books that are already published. WOTC (damn them!!) have made some pretty descent stuff that covers a lot of your "problems". An example is the business rules in the DMG2, you want too go in to professions and jobs looks at those rules and house rule them.

2. Armor Bonus = Reflex Save. (Why should BAB only improve as characters progress?)

Once again why???? AC's would skyrocket, game balance would be out of wack (just imagine how good the already overpowered monk gets). Besides its to D20 moderny, a lot of people who I know who play dnd hate d20modern, so leave the two separate they are more different than they seem.

3. Damage Bonus = +1/2 CL. (Why should BAB only improve as characters progress?)

Nooo!!!!!!!!!! Whole heartily object to this. Sound like its a house rule that works for you but to the average gamer, (that me (it really is)) this rule does things to combat we don't want to see. It is mean to casters, and speed up the game(just a note speeding up game and streamlining the game are different things, speeding up game play means cutting down on the number of rounds and how much game time combat takes up, streamlining is all about fixing cumbersome rules and mechanics)

Personally combat seems to (in game time at least) be over to quickly, the average combat duration is like 6-10 rounds, double for large fights .

4a. Darkvision. See in the dark, ignoring concealment and total concealment due to darkness. Darkvision is black and white only. No distance limitation.

Sound like an interesting idea, but still no darkvision can surprisingly be used to balance the game. Neat idea though.

4b. Low-Light Vision. See without penalty in shadowy illumination, ignoring concealment (but not total concealment) due to darkness. Distinguish colors and details under these conditions. No distance limitation.

You don't get low-light vision do you? Low light vision when outside under the moon lets say, would let the elf see twice as far as the humans are. So if the humans can see 5000 ft (very! possible on clear nights)the elf in the party can see 100000ft, the way your rule handles this situation (elf can see infinite ft) is fine. When you take it indoors (dungeons) it changes it drastically. I believe a torch sheds 20 feet of good illumination 20 shadowy (could be forty?) the humans see that far. The elf sees 40 feet good and 40 feet shadow, your rule says his sight goes on forever!!! see the problem. Besides low-light vision is also a very useful tool for balancing things. You also have to remember that different races have better eyes. Dragons (or some anyway) have even better low-light vision than elves. Theres is triple I believe , your rule changes this and thus changes the balance.

5. Advanced Rogue Talent: Full Sneak Attack. Provided you have more than one available attack in a round and would be able to make a full attack when you make a sneak, you get one additional attack at sneak attack damage that round.

Others have already talked about this, and what they say is true rouge already can do multiple sneak attacks a turn. In fact if when attacking from surprise they can. As long as they do it in the flat-footed round (or if the rouge wins initiative the opponent counts as flat-footed until his turn)

6. Item Familiar (Wizard). (I actually drew this right out of the annals of Dragon - Imbued Staff - and altered it for any item. It's more dynamic than an arcane bonded item.)

Ok this right here defiantly a house rule, and because pathfinder includes all of 3.5 anyway is almost in the game already. Use the base rule as it is, and expanded however you have as a house rule.

7. Acrobatics Check = Initiative Roll.

Wrong! Acrobatics check does not make a lick of sense. Initiative skill I could barely stand but could. Heres the important question is initiative broken (most gamers would say no, and because your a minority you have to live with that) do not fix things that don't need fixing thats how people end up dying in random explosions.

8. Heal Check = Revivify (DC25 + Healer's Kit) to bring a character back from the dead and stabilized at -9. (The check must be made no later than one round after the character dies and requires a full round.)

I like it in some ways. If the guy was killed by magic or his head cut off, it would not make sense though. If the guy is dead from anything but bleeding to death I'd say probably not. I mean think of what happens when the vorpal sword comes down critical's cuts the guys head off, then presto hes alive do to a lucky check by the cleric. Or even more sensible gets coup de graced by some guy wielding a mace, and has his brain smashed in.

9. Feats: Skill Focus (+3), Improved [Feat] (+3), No +2/+2 Feats.

Bah, those kinds of feats where fine as they where although skill focus being knocked up a +1 could not hurt (mind you just skill focus)

11. Feat: Arcane Foci: Material components of greater than 1 gp need not be expended for spellcasting, but rather serve as foci for the spells. Pre: Eschew Materials.

Like everyone else I agree its overpowered and does not make sense, personally our group buys components then forgets all about them. No need to remove something that isn't a problem unless you make it one (and lets face it, anyone could make the fact you can chew into a power cable on a computer and shock yourself a problem)

12. Metamagic Feats: Does not require additional spell slots. One use per day.

Naw I like it as it is, but sound like an excellent house rule, sound like it works great in your group so keep doing it. (wont bother me in the slightest, would bother me if it were in the pathfinder book, cause then id have to house rule back to the old system)

13. Massive Damage Threshold [MAS]: 10 + Fortitude Save + Sz Modifier. Any damage that exceeds the MAS reduces a character's Atk, Def, CMB, Saves, and Skill checks -1. Stacks. Full round recovery restores +1. Heal exceeds MAS = restores +1.

First of all massive damage itself is an optional rule, so the rule you want is based of a "house rule" so this is best left as a house rule (strange how that works)

14. Spell Recharge. Concentration DC 20 + No. of Highest Spell Level Available = Prepare spells more than once in a day. One hour preparation is still required. (+5 for each additional attempt made in a 24 hour time period.)

Power gamers would have a ball. Personally I don't like it. This is why you buy, wands, staffs, rods, and scrolls!

15. Movement. Diagonal counts as 1 square.

I can't believe no one else does this but I find that a little A squared

+ B squared = C squared does the trick. count the squares down to the target square, then over to the target square and do the math on a calculator, round whatever way you want and your good. It sounds hard but really its easy, and heck think of it this way you finally get to use algebra in a real life situation.

16. Critical.

Natural 20 = Instant Critical; Natural 1 = Instant Fumble.
Threat Range >20 = Critical if hits.
Instant Kill = 2nd confirmation roll results in critical.
(Improved Critical stacks with Keen Weapon Quality).

Almost what it is already, just makes it easier for critical's to kill.

Personally I'm against having to many instant death effects, 3 20's = kill is good enough for me. If you want better, throw around more vorpal weapons.

17. Aim (2 swift actions): Ignore cover (less than full cover).

Theres feats "like" this, just use them.

19. Carrying Capacity: Light (.5 x Str Score squared) / Encumbered (Light Load x2). Encumbered = -5 penalty to Dex-based checks.

Like the other guy said, you have to look at the chart once at first level, personally I don't care, Paizo probably has more crushing "problems" to deal with

20. Gear: Backpack (3 lb) (Holds 60 lb) 2 gp; +2 Str Score for Carrying Capacity.

Yah I find its best to leave the

hold any item not matter odd shape, always on top, never described as wearing it backpack alone. Players tend to ignore backpacks as such so should game mechanics and DM's

Anyway those are my thoughts, I personally really like what they have done with pathfinder and don't really have any problems. I find it really interesting that you want to increase the average amount of damage dealt. It sound like more of a 4e way of thinking. You sound like a person who would enjoy 4e but doesn't want to convert to it, he wants it to convert to him. Would enjoy reading any comments on my comments, and what you have to say about my opinions/ points

P.S. I have been sharping my +5 bubble popping needle (so really hope that I rolled a 1 and missed your bubble)