Igor Horvat's page

Is it just me, but the more I read the rules the less sense Volley trait makes.

Penalty to accuracy for closer target?

How did they logic their way out of that one?

If they needed to balance shortbow to longbow, then give shortbow Agile and reduce it's Deadly value to d8 or remove it.

being less precise at 30ft than 100ft and having same accuracy at less that 30ft and at 200ft has no sense what-so-ever.

Right now racial boosts and penalties can prevent in certain combinations having 18 in primary stat and prevent option to have it at 22 at 20th level.

So this suggestion is to broaden a little bonuses and penalties for abilities.

Every race(ancestry) will have 3 primary and 3 secondary abilities. Exept humans ofc.

you will get 2 boosts to give to 2 out of 3 primary abilities. And one penalty to give one of the 3 secondary abilities. After that you get one free boost to any ability that cannot be stacked with 2 primary boosts.

Humans: 2 free boosts to any ability. no primary or secondary abilites.

Dwarves: primary; str,con, wis. Secondary; dex, int, cha.

Elves: primary; dex,int,wis. Secondary; str, con, cha.

Orcs: primary; str, dex, con, Secondary; int, wis, cha.

Halflings: primary; dex, wis, cha. Secondary; str, con, int.

Gnomes: primary; con, int, wis. Secondary; str, dex, cha.

Hi!

I was wandering, if it is possible to get a new rulebook with all changes integrated in their places where there should be.

Rulebook is already pretty hard to navigate back and forth and with added listing with "patches" it's a nightmare.

Wouldn't be easier even for you to open the file and directly write new stuff over the obsolete?

In this suggestion base untrained modifier for weapons and armor is +0, and for skills and saves also, but it does not matter for this discussion.

All characters begin with untrained with all weapons and armor(+0) and some classes will start with weapons and/or armor trained.

Also there will be more levels of proficiency that can be acquired.
By various degree, depending on the class/feats/ancestry

Untrained: +0
trained: +1
Expert:+2 (can spend two starting skill proficiencies to get one skill to expert)
Master:+3(minimum level for skills: 7)
Grandmaster: +4(minimum level for skills: 11)
Epic: +5(minimum level for skills: 15)
Legendary: +6(minimum level for skills: 19)

All weapons should be in the same category. No more simple/martial/rare/exotic, and rebalanced with that in mind.

Armor should be balanced around AC bonus, touch AC bonus, max dex, ACP and speed penalty. And cost to a degree(later is a non issue)

I.E.

padded armor(gambeson): +1 AC,+0 TAC, max dex +7, ACP 0, speed -0ft
leather armor: +2 AC, +1 TAC, max dex +6, ACP -1, speed -0ft
hide armor: +3 AC, +1 TAC, max dex +5, ACP -1, speed -0ft
Chain shirt: +4 AC, +2 TAC, max dex +4, ACP -2, speed -0ft
Scale mail: +5 AC, +2 TAC, max dex +3, ACP -2, speed -5ft
Chain mail: +6 AC, +3 TAC, max dex +2, ACP -3, speed -5ft
Halfplate: +7 AC, +3 TAC, max dex +1, ACP -3, speed -10ft
Fullplate: +8 AC, +4 TAC, max dex +0, ACP -4, speed -10ft

*Max dex limits AC bonus, ref save bonus and init
Note: to balance spellcasters, spell attacks and DCs suffer ACP.

Also true caster will not advance far in proficiency level for weapons and armor, maybe expert with class and Master with feat invested.

I.E. wizard trained in weapons and armor at lvl 6, expert at lvl 14.
optional feat for master level training on 15+

Fighter would get by default trained(+1) in armor and weapons at level 1
then either expert at lvl 2 for weapons or armor.
Master lvl 6
Gr master lvl 10
Epic lvl 14
Legendary lvl 18

other proficiency would be one category lower.

A simple suggestion for out of combat healing.

Healing surges.

Healing surge has a value 1/4 your max HPs

You can spend one healing surge after 10 minute rest.

Number of surges are determined by your class and your Con modifier.

Number of surges per day is equal to half the number of HPs that you get per level from your class,

That means 3 for sorcerer,wizard, 4 for rogue,cleric,druid,alchemist,bard, 5 for fighter,monk,paladin,ranger, 6 for barbarian,
modified with current Con mod.

Medicine can be used to boost a healing surge.
During someones break to heal up, you can try DC15+targets level medicine check.
Success heals up 50% of max HP of the target.
Raise DC by 5 each time for this kind of medicine checks until the next day(rest).
Critical failure also raises the DC by 5.

As the title says,

Remove weapon categories.

Give all weapons minimum strength requirement.

If you have required strength you are proficient(+0 bonus),
If you do not have str then you are unproficient(-2 penalty and minimum damage).

Make all melee/thrown weapons use either str or dex on attack and damage bonuses.

Ranged weapons would use dex on attack and damage.

Weapons would go from let's say

str 6 for a dagger or a dart,

to

str 20 for great-ax, pike, or similar 2Handed large weapon.

This way you could also have different kinds of bows.

str 8, d4
str 10, d6
str 12, d8
str 14, d10
str 16, d12

or use it as crossbow reload mechanics

I.E.

str 8, light crossbow, 1d8, reload 3 actions.
but, with str 10 reload 2 actions, str 12 reload 1 action, str 14 reload 0 actions.

Edit bonus:

Racial weapons;
If some race is very familiar with it's favored weapons,
reduce str requirement by 2 for those weapons.

Now this sounds like a drastic suggestion, and it is.

It is also inspired by Pillars of eternity and their character creation where abilities are determined at 1st level and only can be increased by magic effect after(and some rest bonuses).

By removing GIANT boosts in power at lvls 5,10,15,20 and concentrating it all at 1st level, it is easier to balance 1st level and all after.

By removing ancestry(racial) and background bonuses, we eliminate forced stereotypes for class/race combos.

Other racial features could help some class more than other, but abilities are where impact is the hardest.

Now:
we start with all abilities at 8.
People wan't some penalties, we should provide them.

Every character would get 33 pts to improve their abilities.

Cost would be

8, 0pts
10, 1pt
12, 2pts
14, 3pts
16, 4pts
18, 6pts
20, 8pts
22, 11pts

that could give arrays:
22,22,22,8,8,8

or: 20,20,18,16,16,16

or: 18,18,18,18,18,16

or anything in-between.

Would this make 1st level characters more powerful?

Yes, but it would avoid "super levels" later on as there it would not be any huge ability boosts.

it also makes low power campaigns easier to make. Just lower the points in ability pool.

IMHO, armor should only come in two categories(3 if you count unarmored)
Light and Heavy.

Also it needs to be little streamlined more.
No need for noisy or clumsy mechanics.

Light armor:

Padded armor, AC +1, max dex +6, ACP -0,
Leather armor, AC +2, max dex +5, ACP -1,
Hide armor, AC +3, max dex +4, ACP -2,

Heavy armor:

Chain shirt, AC +4, max dex +4, ACP -2, speed -5ft
Scale mail, AC +5, max dex +3, ACP -3, speed -5ft
Chain mail, AC +6, max dex +2, ACP -4, speed -5ft
half-plate, AC +7, max dex +1, ACP -5, speed -5ft
full-plate, AC +8, max dex +0, ACP -6, speed -5ft

Classes proficient in medium armor will be only proficient in light armor.
Can provide them with extra skill or two training for compensation.

Am I reading this right?

I've read Encounter mode starting on page.304 and as I can tell there is no surprise round.

Is there any point in sneaking or setting ambushes as now worst that can happen when you walk into an ambush is that you maybe act after ambushers.

And many times you will act before your ambushers.

I don't think that this was thought through well enough.

While I like the feat, why not simply make it more simple and more reliable.

1. Needs a spell that has maximum of 2 casting actions.

2. Add 2 somatic actions to remove a verbal action,

3. Add 2 verbal actions to remove a somatic action.

Now multiclassing is done via way of feats.

But, what if we do it by adding levels that "level-up" two classes at once.

I.E. you want to play gish fighter/wizard.

on 1st level you would get a level of fighter, 2nd level would be 1st level wizard, then at 3rd level 2nd level of fighter, then on 4th 2nd level of wizard.

Now on 5th,8th,11th,14th,17th and 20th level you would level-up both classes. You would get average HPs for this dual levels.

this would give in the end 13 levels of both classes at 20th level.

You would have HPs as lvl10 fighter and lvl10 wizard and you would count as 20th level character.

This would give more options for character to have but it would delay high level features and make 14+ levels impossible to get.

PF 2nd ed will have a +1 per level treadmill on everything as it stands for now.

This is very bad thing as it makes low level monsters obsolete very fast and prevents players with good ideas and tactics to engage higher level monsters, because no matter how good the plan is, it will fail because of +1/lvl mechanics.

proficiency bonus should be 1+1/5 levels. You get increase at the same time with ability boosts.

training categories should be

untrained: -3 mod
trained:0
expert: +3
master: +5, min lvl 7
legendary: +6, min lvl 15

As you can see every step in training gives less and less bonuses so characters are encourage to spread their training around.
But some skills will be picked to legendary for access to skill feats.

Signature skills should go away or just be for legendary tier.

No proficiency bonus for AC.
Using armor unproficient gives -2 to AC, attacks, str and dex skills, dex saves and adds extra somatic casting action to spells.

this way 20th level character with 8 in a key ability would have +1 on a
untrained skill check and 1st level character with 18 in ability and training would have +5 on a skill check.

Currently with how advancing abilities work, maximum is 22 in an ability without magic.

20th level, 22 in ability(+6 bonus), legendary proficiency +6, level bonus +5.
That comes to a nice +17 bonus from starting +5 in above example.

Clearly an improvement, but not a HUGE difference.
By current rules it would be +20, +3, +6. That is +29.

Also magic weapons should give only +damage, not +attack.

Oh no!

Not this again.

Now it is on AC also?

I thing that this will give too much power to higher level characters over lower level encounters.

They will become too trivial.

the +1 per level needs to go ASAP.

flatten it down to +1 per 4 or 5 levels.

And remove it from AC.