Immortalis's page

Having played this version-ish of the game since 3rd edition came out. We never use or even look at the faq or errata, unless we saw a problem. Then we would look or in the early days post for an answer, even then most werent forth coming so sorted it ourselves.

As i have said in my earliest post 'keep what you like, dump the rest' and if it works for you whos to say diffrent.

Way of the wicked by Fire mountain games (i think). Its a 6 part adventure path just like pathfinder adventures.

I just miss out the + equals what material, like in 3.5 works well for us.

I once played a fighter/rogue who was an ex-enforcer for a now defunked thieves guild. When the party got together and he was asked what he did, he answered "Survive"

My wife quite often when she plays a halfling rogue (which is quite alot, she is a kender at heart) tells people she is "a finder of lost things, some of which people dont know are lost yet"

In Return to castle ravenloft there is a Sunsword for 3000GP thats a +1 Bastardsword thats treated as a Short Sword.

I think there would be, But I know it would come keen.

Not if you have two weapon scissor.

No sounds to slow how about "instant eunoch"

I like that "turn male to eunuch" now how do I work that in....

It does Nine. As I say some things that a charcter does as his main schtick are braoder than others, I dont know why they decided to leave things like weapon focus and such to just 1 weapon when they gave us weapon groups. Weapon focus/specialisation to a group does make more sense and give more options when finding weapons ingame.

You know the Ranger gets favoured enemy which although situational makes a bigger diffrence than other fighter bonuses which are I would think more focused. The more I think about it the more i going to look at feats this way.

Also youve convinced me next fighter I make has got to have spell focus, if I get +1 to sooooo many things its a no brainer :P

Following Matt I about redoing the system from the ground up I think sales show what people want in someway. People came to pathfinder instead of 4e to continue with the 3/3.5 base rules.

Derail - the way weapon focus works is really just how weapon proficency worked in 2nd and you guys were fine with that.

Back on track - We keep talking about fighters and realism and not getting the really cool stuff, but what would people like to see that doesnt mean a whole rewrite?

(Ps edit) And for me that doesnt mean a new Bo9S book that makes the base martials classes look even worse.

Ok here we go again.

Swinging a sword id what fighters do, casting spells is what casters do. So +1 to what you do is great. Ok so the fighters +1 doesnt cover ALL weapons but it does cover wnat they do best. Would it be better to cover any weapon you ever find? Sure it would, but weapon training already does that to weapon groups.

Going on the example I just use the greatsword, why because I only lose +1. If the spell I find in the book isnt from my school I can still use it because I only lose +1.

Yes the casters options are broader as the main thing they have for their spells is schools, so really the fighters main thing (now we have them is weapon groups) so it would be good if the same applies to things like weapon focus.

But what would happen nothing much in game fighters would be happier, but guys on forums like this would still complain because unless every possible option has the same effect to the same number of things its not balanced. But what if I find a great hammer and I have my + is swords its not fair?

I have looked into this crap when I was looking at redoing epic and you see the numbers game and the more you look at the numbers game the more the game loses untill its not fun anymore. The more you see that trying to balance the numbers just makes it more numbers till all your left with is the numbers, no story no imagination or fantastical things.

I for one dont like that, if thats what you want fine. But for me is a player wants to be better with his sword - weapon focus, if he wants to be better with his spells - spell focus.

P.S I might try the weapon focus to weapon groups change.

As for feat laws V 2nd you could just do it. The Dm just came up with the rules, really and thats better than having rules in place. How many threads can you find about how a rule works RAW V RAI, now lets take the rules away and see what happens. You get what we had rules after rules from one group to the next, questions after questions in magazines or just plain NO.

Can I break his shield? 2nd ed NO, 3rd ok heres the rule.
Can I madly swing with even more of my strength by taking away from by chance to hit? 2nd NO, 3rd heres the rules.

Sure there are things I miss from 2nd and some of the feats and the way feats work bug me, but atleast I have rules to do cool stuff without having to make it up or the dm make it up.

Your right your finding are subjective, as to what you choose to add it to and the effect it has on the game.

Casting spells and hitting things are the primary attack forms of the two classes. Just because for casters the +1 adds to multiple spells doesnt make it more usefull its the same +1 regardless of spell cast its still +1, it cant be taken as +1 to every spell in the game as seperate things. The +1 weapon focus adds to more than just your attack bonus but you chose not to take that into account.

But if you are going to take this route then you have the 'none bonus' bonus feats because he is proficient it all none excotic weapons, that casters have to take if they want the same.

Please can I cash in these feats for others?

scaling DC (as his spell levels go up)

What you mean like scaling bonus when his base attack bonus goes up.

Thanks for that link Hama well worth a read and eye opening. I think he makes a very good point on why Aragorn is 5th level ie if hes 20th why is he having a hard time fighting orcs.

Ok back again. Yes after re-looking at things from my 2nd ed books the stuff you have pointed out are right. That said a fighter could still only swing his sword and a caster could bend reality. I think my point is still valid its has always been like that to diffrent degrees.

In 3rd ed at least the fighter got some cool options he could take (feats), are they as good as the stuff casters gained propably not. But you know I was happy I much prefered it over 2nd (and so did my now wife how really couldnt get to grips with 2nd but got 3rd from the get go).

I did do a comparison on pathfinder classes using points and opinions from these boards and its surprising really (let me know if you want to see it).

The thing is as I have found the more you look into the mechanics of the game the more you see problems (3rd ed did make this easier to see). As people have said if you like the style find something you do. I liked 3rd ed I liked 3.5 upto the end then stuff started to bother me and I like most of what pathfinder has done. Is it ever been perfect no but I roll with it and have fun.

Would I like to see fighters get a boost? sure but I think as with the end of 3.5 some of the new classes been released make other classes redundent anyway. What about the other martial classes they get some cool stuff fighters could do but sometimes they just fit the feel of another class better.

HP I roll with, what else is there 1 shot kills, being hit by a random bus and killed? It works and has done since 2nd.

Yeah not sure people want every class to be perfectly balanced or we get 3.5 psionics which was just nothing new, just copies of magic spells which was boring.

For me 3rd ed psionics is a good example (and no i'm not saying they were balanced or anything). They were diffrent from other casters just as clerics are diffrent from wizards etc. You didnt get X ability/spell which is just the same as everyone elses X ability/spell but with diffrent fluff.

For me thats the thing not complete balance but diffrent abilities that make you feel usesful and unique, i dont know like mages get fireball area damage and the Hulk gets to smash his hands together and shock wave.

Am I even making sense anymore?

LOL how did we forget that. This has had me hooked all day and I think it comes down to what you want out of a game and how much you let it bug you.

Nothing and no-one is perfect, but I'm so damn close its scary :P

Well its how it works really. Should all martials do it to all spells? I dont think so. Is spell sunder any good? Ive never taken it :p

But the idea as i say sounds cool, but its how it really works that counts.

When you look at thinks like that then there are feats and abilities non-casters can take.

Want to break spells with your sword = barb
want to cause your enemy to bleed = rogue

The designers thought these abilities would be better for those classes to have then for all non-casters to get. I dont know why, but everything has to have a hole it fills to be a choice over another.

I like the idea of killing an illusion (once you know its an illusion) much like you do with mirror image. After all a caster can dispel it.

Fighter: its not really!
other: it is real and its scaring the crap outta me
Fighter: NO ITS NOT, sundering the illusion and watching it wisp and fade away.
Other: *sigh* thanks for that.

Pretty much spell sunder.

following from Malachi. How would we as a designer see if a rule was goimng to work. When I did mine I did try some stuff myself to get a bench mark.

Here, Here Aaron.

But I don like feats, ok not all of them but I like the ability to choose how my fighter does things and what he can do. Feels less vanilla to me, do I think there as good as magic/spells? No

But just like a caster gets to pick find new spells so too can my fighter. He still cant do the awesome stuff like in movies/myths/novels but in my opinion he is more like that than in pre 3rd ed.

As the old adige goes you cant please all of the people all of the time.

For me the internet and big buisness spoilt things. Its the thing I have come to see in past years, 2nd ed for me didnt change much in 20+ years. Yes we got books that changed things about and gave you other options but if you had one of the first books printed it wasnt a million miles away from the last print.

We changed things we didnt like in house, sure it wasnt the same way if you played with a new group but it didnt matter. We didnt change group much. In the years I have been playing I can count on 2 hands the diffrent groups I have played with.

As an idea could we ever have martials do everything people want and still make magic feel diffrent?

On hit points and stuff people are talking about I did in my younger years write/convert a rpg that was pretty real. It was well played by my friends, why no-one wanted to die to a single arrow to the eye. There are games out there that try for realmism I have played some and dont like them personnaly I always come back to DnD.

For me its fun even with its faults, just like everything else in life.

Now i remember why i dont reply on the boards. I get too involved.

My point still stands about fanboys or it was better in my day.

Did we enjoy DnD back then? yes we did.

Were casters more awesome than martials? yes

Did it matter? no we didnt have the internet to rant and troll on, if we didnt like something but wanted to keep on playing we changed it.

Did we keep having up dates and rule changes because someone didnt like something and have the Designers second guessing them selves? No, we did get changes but they were in books or maybe in Dragon magazine but if you didnt like it you didnt buy it and all was well.

So the goal posts have changed abit since then some for the better and some for the not. But the real point is that the martial V magic has always been there. You cant blame that on 3rd ed.

To me its easy if you dont like 3rd ed and beyond dont play, why would you. I dont like anime rpg's so i dont play. I prefered 3rd so I changed, I didnt like 4th so stayed with 3.5 till pathfinder if i didnt like it I would have stuck with 3.5. Hell I have more 3/3.5 books than i know what to do with I didnt need to keep buying more. I played 2nd for 5ish years with just 3 books.

But the real question as I'm doing my best to talk about (without ranting or getting shouty) is why do martials not get to do awesome stuff like casters? Why is it so ingrained that it has to be real? Sure magic is magic, but why do fighters have to be well just sword swingers.

Ok found something, not sure how new it is.

Good idea :)

Yeah Real life is just like myths, its full of real real-world people who to most can do some pretty out there thinks, just like Mr Lee. martial artists (and I dont just mean Asian martial arts), atheletes and other people at the top of their game.

I remember seeing a video of a guy who trains the swat teams and other high level american law and military guys to shoot pistols. He has someone shoot a 6mm BB out of a BB gun into the air and he draws and shots it from his hip. English medieval records state that some exceptional archers could lose 23+ arrows a minute.

If your going to come up with what someone in the game can do based off what you can do without training then their never going to be fantastical.

I do European medieval martial arts, do I think fighters are unreal because I cant do it NO! Can I fight as good as they did back then? Gods no! Some of the battles lasted days of constant fighting, I give my all for an hour tops in large scale battle and I'm done.

The real question is as the op stated, should martials really be limited to the real world (even real world as Mr Lee) just because they dont use magic? Is everything awesome got to be magic?

I agree Orthos to some degree. I believe the reason is always give as its too asian/anime is people have elivated asian myths and martial arts through anime to real world god-like status. It does thinks to certain parts of their bodies. Do I have to point out the Katana threads here and all over the net. I think this is why these abilities in books are give a semi-asian feel to them if not look, fanboys get katanas over them.
Just look at the Ninja V Rogue best to look at it East V West, why because fanboys want that or think it has to be that way. I wont get onto the real world asian version and their origins and why fors and how comes, nobody listens.

Myths are just that and you can find examples of warriors doing god-like things in nearly all of them, But like has been said before if martial types had those abilities in the game caster-fanboys would want it nerfed. Do I think martials/fighters should get cool god-like abilities? Sure, does the way they are now stop me or players playing them HELL NO!

Again on the 3rd messed it up in 1st and 2nd fighters got nothing, no cool abilities just the ability to use weapons abit better than others. With 3rd at least you got feats to get some ability.

Going to stop before I get too ranty.

What always gets me when these questions are asked is the answer "its all 3rd ed's fault". Having played DnD for nearly 35 years i really dont see how 3rd ed is resposible for the martial/caster disparagy. I really dont see how 3rd ed messed up magic to increase that disparagy.

Since the beginning casters could bend reality and the law of physics to there will.

As stated above heres alink to the Lich template

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20031212a

We still use our 3.0/3.5 stuff even though we use pathfinder now as the core rules and we havent had any problems yet. The way I see it is I have far more 3/3.5 books than pathfinder and would have happily stayed with that when 4e came out, then I found pathfinder and so just carried on. My group do just see pathfinder as 3.75 and were happy with it that way. And we dont feel like we wasted our money on all the 3/3.5 books.

In an interview with Ed Greewood I saw he said Elminster was created as a sort of him in his books and games. Someone how could do the commentary, read the narrative and stuff.

Its a carry over from the first rules from wargaming, chainmail or some sort. Sleep was a very good spell and could put lots of troops to sleep in 1 shot. So when they added non-human races they wanted them to have benefits and so elves became immune to sleep, not just didnt really need it as roleplay wasnt a big deal back then yet. From there it has just stuck.

If you can get your hands on a copy of 'City of the spider queen' that would give you some great ideas. The author even tells you what he intended in the front, npc's and monsters used as PC's using PC tactics.

Just read his points and look at how he sets up his encounters and add/change for your campaign and if you add in Grimtooths as others have said = very worried players.

I would say armoured hulk would be best but spiked gauntlets dont work with the brawler rage powers. He does have spiked gauntlets in the books but the damage in game is bad, you would probably be best going unarmed as there feats and rage powers to increase this.

Armoured hulk is in Ultimate Combat and the brawler rage powers are in Advanced players guide.

I didnt really expect replies so quick and find it hard to keep up with posts from just you 3, gods know how I would cope with lots of replies :)

I agree LazarX, I have these moments quite alot with one thing or another but most dont last long LOL. This one has stuck through the night (couldnt get to sleep for it), so for once thought I would post it here for your thoughts. I'm trying to be more active on these forums when I can and this seemed like a good one to start with.

I still dont know how I feel about it, but am sort of siding with what you guys are saying 'It wouldnt break anything or be over powered but then why do it, its fine the way it is'

Yeah being a frothing lunatic is bad for your health I had a dwarf barb back in 3.5e and he had to be healed before his rage ended most fights so he didnt die :)

The one time he didnt die when his rage ended he was still Unconscious when his water breathing ended :( he was still loads of fun to play but that story is for another time.

Thanks guys :) I know Barbs have always had D12's and never had any thoughts on it, its just now in Pathfinder it came to me.

I totally forgot about gunslinger maybe keep it to fighters. Anyway was just an idea and wanted just as I'm getting feed back :) You know you see something and wonder why keep it that way or why it is that way.

I can also see the -ac thing but they also get powers that can incease their ac too, I cant see it being the reason for the hit dice increase as much as its just how it has been. As they get a boost to con when raging which gives them bonus hit points.

Again great replys and civil which is good :)

Ok so reading through the core rule book as I do sometimes and a thought hit me. Why does the Barbarian have D12 hit dice when Hit dice are tied to BAB? I sort of have a vague memory of something about it but can’t remember.

But then an idea come to me, would it be so bad if fighters had D12 hit dice? Why? Well they take a pounding in combat much like a barb, then it hit me no spell casting! Mechanics wise they have no spell casting, so why not house rule it.

My idea keep hit dice as they are tied to BAB but if it is a full BAB class with no spell casting then they get jumped from D10 to D12.

Don’t want to go on rambling, so what do you guys think?

The video is indeed set up, the nerdrager in the video is Francis a character played by boogie2988 on youtube.

You can find his channel here http://www.youtube.com/user/boogie2988

On the topic of parrying there are past rules for parrying in Dragon magazine 301 starting on page 33. I have used them in the past and they worked fine, the only thing I can see now would be its all based on your 'to hit rolls'. As with alot of past 3/3.5 feats I find they still fit fine without changes, but if they dont work as you would like then they could be a good starting point for house rules for you.

Hope this helps.

I think you ran a very good session there RD, I would have been happy to play that. One thing that does come to me is the fact you have some/one player that wants to do what ever they want, go anywhere at anytime. After all all adventures have to be railroaded to some point as with yours going into the goblin stronghold. The GM cant be expected to be able to have something planned for every situation the players come up with and they need to understand that.

As for the guest player I agree with Nipin, coming up with someway to try and get the other player to go with the party. But then you could again have been accused of railroading, some players are just alittle too confrontational.

You said you asked them if they enjoyed the game, but have you spoken to the players as to what they liked and disliked about the game? This could give you a better understanding as to what they are looking for and you can also explain why things cant be done if they come up.

P.S I will be stealing some of your ideas :p

Ive looked at this as the devils advocate.

As you can see from mounted combat (highlight mine) ‘Your mount acts on your initiative count as you direct it. You move at its speed, but the mount uses its action to move.’ is the only time in says anything about you and your mount working together. But if we also look at the feats (highlights mine) It uses the term ‘when you are mounted and using the charge action’ now the rules for mounted combat don’t cover ‘who’s charge action’ but we have to assume it means the rider directing the mount to charge, or else as others have said the feats do nothing. Or to put it another way going from the above rules the rider just uses the mounts movement in place of his own.

Now I know people are going to say as they have it doesn’t say that but does say ‘when your mount charges’ and ‘you gain the bonuses and penalties of the charge’ but as we can see these things ‘you’ ‘your mount’ aren’t constant. You have to use some sort of sense to work this through and the only logical sense I can see are that they both mean you both working as one as the mount does what you direct it to do.

If we agree on this then we must from reading pounce from the Brb

On a side note as someone pointed out if you read here

Hope this is a clear as it sounds in my head.

Came to the party to late as normal but for future refrence I find this helpfull for finding Dungeon adventures.

Dungeon Index

Hope you find it usefull too.

If you can use older prints then use a crescent blade from Dragon 275, these allow you to make another attack each time you attack. With the two-weapon tree your attacks would be as follows.

8th - 8 attacks
12th - 12 attacks

Not adding things from splat books isnt an issue as Ultimate Combat has Archetypes for the Alchemist, Cavalier, Inquistor and the Magus in it. I think its just a matter of material they have that is up to standard and fits the book.

Do you roll your characters?

- Yes we have just started using 3d6 drop lowest and add 6. Before that 4d6 drop lowest.

Is your answer the deefault of your gaming group?

- Yes always has been, we have never used point buy when put to the group they are happy the way we do stuff so why change.

How long have you been gaming?

- Too long :) 30+ years

What system did you first game in?

- AD&D red box I think it was.