JHegner's page

I would support the -2 Int OR the -2 Chr for the Half-Orc. Infact, I'd make it a choice based on whether you were raised by orcs or humans.

Orc Raised (-2 Int): You grew up in the savage and brutal world of the orc. Books were a rarity and learning anything more than how to survive was even rarer. As such your base of knowledge and ability to learn is just as stunted as the orcs who raised you.

Human Raised (-2 Chr): You grew up in the prejudice world of humans. You learned early on not to push your opinions too far or to speak your mind very often because of the constant ridicule and backlash from others. As such your force of personality and ambition to lead others is weak.

I suspect most Half Orcs will be Human Raised (since Chr is the dump stat), but I could see some good Half Orc sorcerers coming out of Orc raised tribes (where books of magic are rare, but the need for magic is still high).

I second that applauding. *applause*

Perhaps what should be calculated then, is the total percentage of the encounter they did defeat, then tally all of it together to get a raw percentage of capability rather than a straight win loss record.

This means that even if Tanya can't smash open the water trap door, if she can destroy 90% of it before drowning then she gets +90% but -100% for a net of -10% effectiveness.

If the ghouls consistently kills Tanya off before taking even half damage, she scores 50% - 100% for a net of -50% effectiveness.

Slaughtering a pair of zombies and taking no damage means she gets +100% - 0%, for a net of +100% effectiveness.

Wizards also take into account their spell usage as a percentage, perhaps roughly equal to their HP. So a mage who uses half his spells and loses half his hit points, evens out to no gain or loss.

This would give us a rough idea of how that party member would weigh into a party atmosphere since it gives us an idea of what the rest of the party would need to contribute for that character to get through the fight alive (heals, AOE spells, trap finding and disarming, etc.)

I want to see S's challenges for the other classes too.

6th level sorcerer 6 0-level spells, 6-1st level spells, 5 2nd-level spells, and 3 3rd-level spells.

Let's say 0-level spells = 1/2 a SP.

That makes 3+6+10+9= 28 SPs, and +4 charisma for 32 points.

That's 10 fireballs, or 16 scorching rays. The sorcerer already has a lot of flexibility in casting, and this system actually affords more firepower to a sorcerer by letting him use lower level spells to fuel his higher level ones.

What if you just let the sorcerer cannibalize lower level spells to fuel higher ones like they can do higher ones for lower level ones.

A spell requires 2 spell uses of the level below it to be cannibalized to fuel it. In order to cast a 4th fireball, the sorcerer could use 2 2nd level spell uses, 4 1st level uses, or a combination of 1 2nd level, 1 1st level, and 2 0th level spells.

This makes it more costly to get a large number of high level instant death spells off.

A 7th level prismatic spray would cost 2 6th level spells, 4 5th, or a combination of numerous lower level spells that would be less and less cost efficient.

Effectively this would allow the sorcerer to either cast the exact spell he needs by sacrificing a higher level usage, as currently written, and to sacrifice a lot of lower level power to fuel the most powerful of his abilities one or two more times.

It's not as elegant as spell points, but I think it is more balanced since the 6th level sorcerer from above would only be able to cast 7 fireballs, or 12 scorching rays, effectively double the normal, but at the cost of all his spell power.

The trouble with a lot of the single class playtests is that they are ignoring the need for the rest of the party.

In several of Virgo's wizard play test scenarios I see that the wizard casts fly to get out of reach of the opponent and then bombs them from the air. The trouble with this is that a mixed group of foes is not so easily dispatched.

Imagine a group of stone giants with boulders and some dire bears (straight out of Fortress of the Stone Giants). A wizard can cast fly to get away from them in melee, but now the giants hurl huge boulders at him +12 to hit, 2d8+12 damage each. The wizard might take one or two, but eventually will die.

The point of the rest of the party is to enable the wizard to not have to cast fly to survive an encounter. With a party along for the ride the wizard can instead first cast Charm Monster or something while the rest of his party runs interference against the charging bears and giants.

Sure, the wizard is going to do a lot of the damage here, he always does, but the rest of the party is key to getting that to happen with only 20% resource losses.

I would love to a see a full party test with 4 archtype classes and then swap out problem classes for the archtypes to really see how they shine or fail in a party atmosphere.

That seems like a pretty small amount of SPs. A 6th level sorcerer would get 10 SPs (1+2+3+4chr=10). That's far less casting than normal. Maybe your formula works differently than I'm reading.

The Concentration check to cast Prismatic Wall in melee is DC 23 (15 + lvl 8 spell).

With a +4 constitution and two feats available (let's say Combat Casting and Skill Focus: Concentration) we end up with +11 to the roll.

Though only 7 skills are mentioned, the 20 base intelligence of the character with the 2 skill points each level isenough to buy those 7 skills to max, while from 8th level on the wizard got an additional skill point from his now 22 int.

These 8 skill points could be placed into concentration, giving him a +19 total to the roll, giving him only a 15% chance of failing the concentration check to cast the readied Prismatic Wall (roll of 3 or lower).

And I just remembered that there is no concentration in PRPG. Omit everything I just said. :P

I think it is intended to go beyond spells that were added in later books since a wizard could do the same it doesn't really warrant the addition of that text.

While it may not be a simple affair of speaking to a druid or cleric and learning the spells, I could see a Sorcerer talking to a unicorn, for example, to learn Cure Light Wounds or Cure Serious Wounds, or to summon demons by learning from a demon (since the summon demon ability says it acts as a X level spell.)

As I said, this is unfortunately something that varies heavily from DM to DM and could wildly affect a sorcerer's powers. But the nice thing is that it gives the sorcerer something to do akin to a wizard hunting down spellbooks.

There is a lot to read through on this subject and I showed up late, so I apologize if this was mentioned after page 1.

One of the most powerful abilities of a 3.5 Sorcerer seems to go ignored, probably because it isn't listed in bold or put on a table. This ability is the ability to learn spells that aren't on the Sorcerer/Wizard spell list. Here is the text from the 3.5 PHB.

"A sorcerer begins play knowing four 0-level spells and two 1st-level spells of your choice. At each new sorcerer level, he gains one or more new spells, as indicated on Table: Sorcerer Spells Known. (Unlike spells per day, the number of spells a sorcerer knows is not affected by his Charisma score; the numbers on Table: Sorcerer Spells Known are fixed.) These new spells can be common spells chosen from the sorcerer/wizard spell list, or they can be unusual spells that the sorcerer has gained some understanding of by study. The sorcerer can’t use this method of spell acquisition to learn spells at a faster rate, however."

Used optimally a sorcerer can have the most potent spells from all caster types at his command, and suddenly his 1 level behind a wizard doesn't seem so bad.

For example, a 7th level sorcerer's spell list could look like this.

1st Level Spells (5 known)
Produce Flame (druid 1)
Mage Armor (sorcerer 1)
Entangle (druid 1)
Shield of Faith (cleric 1)
Magic Missile (sorcerer 1)

2nd Level Spells (3 known)
Cure Moderate Wounds (cleric 2)
Flame Blade (druid 2)
Resist Energy (sorcerer 2)

3rd Level Spells (2 known)
Fireball (sorcerer 3)
Summon Nature's Ally III (druid 3)

Of course, the primary issue with this is that all of the non-sorcerer spells need to be learned via roleplaying, which is not so much a rule set as it is the property of the individual DM. Of course, a sorcerer with his high charisma probably has the best chance of coaxing out the secrets of magical creatures, ranger cadres, druid circles, bardic knowledge, and the divine scriptures of various faiths and paladin knighthoods.

Major Creation has a casting time of 10 minutes.

I think what the fighter needs to do is the following.

1.) He should be at home in the center of the fighting. The rogue is at home at the edges and the casters prefer to stay out of it.

2.) The fighter should excel at taking damage from numerous foes and dishing out damage to numerous foes. The more guys he fights, the better he pulls his weight.

3.) The fighter should also excel at taking on very powerful single opponents.

4.) The survivability of a fighter should make him threatening over the long term. I.E. he shouldn't dish out all of his damage at once, but he should prove to be such a resilient foe that if he isn't dealt with quickly, he will likely outlive his opposition.

Taking these points in mind I suggest feats or abilities along the following.

1.) The more enemies fighting the fighter, the more bonuses he recieves. +1 to hit per foe in melee after the first, or +1 AC per foe in melee after the first.

2.) Damage reduction for shields, stances, something, anything to allow his d10 hit dice to last him through a fight. Attacks of opportunity against anyone who misses him in melee.

3.) Combat maneuvers cover a lot of this, but even something like a challenge to boost effectiveness versus the big bad.

4.) All of the above combined should make the fighter something that the monsters don't want to ignore for too long, but that they have a hard time dispatching very easily. The fighter should be a methodical juggernaut, slowly rolling over his foes and shrugging off their attacks.

Charging is a full-round action, so therefore Overhand chop has a use for any level fighter on the charge. This could get particularly brutal for anyone using a lance and Spirited Charge. Yes, I know that a lance is a piercing weapon and using it to overhand chop someone is comical, but the rules don't establish that you cannot do it.

Sorry for the length.

Having played with all manner of starting hit point (and other methods of prolonging character life at low level) I feel that my view on the various suggestions might be of some use.

Firstly, I can't remember the last time I played a game with random HP at first level. I think it was a common house rule in 2nd ED to max out first level HP and 3.0/3.5 carried that legacy on. Max HP at first level is expected now-a-days and I think the power level of an EL1 fight expects this.

Second, ability score generation has a large impact on starting HP. Do you roll 3d6 in order, allow stat moving, points, stat blocks, 2:1 conversions? This will impact, more than anything, whether your wizard starts with 2 HP, and takes the Toughness feat, or ends up with a perfectly explainable Con 14 (because the cost is just right at 6 points).

Third, Armor/DR optional rules. We've played with this a lot recently, modified rules from Unearthed Arcana, and it works out pretty well in good stat games. The fighter in banded mail rushes into goblins who strike for 1d4 damage and 75% of the time the DR 3 of his armor deflects the hit. Meanwhile the mage stays back because his robes do nothing to help him. This benefit of small Damage Reduction is very nice at low level and helps keep characters alive without turning wizards into battle ragers. It does, however, heavily penalize characters that can't inflict at least 5 damage minimum per attack, making them feel somewhat worthless in a fight against Lord Evil in his full plate mail.

Fourth, the proposed Paizo choices and some insight into why I think the reactions on the forums are what they are.

Flat +6 HP. This is probably the least invasive of the suggested methods since it is flat across the board and doesn't allow for too much munchkin antics. You could also alter this rule to just say, "All 1st level adventurers get the Toughness feat, twice." They're heroes, and they're tough.

Racial HP bonus. This method suggests that now you should consider looking at the heartier races first when creating a character class of any type. Sure, there is only a difference of 4 HP total between a halfling and a half-orc, but what I have divulged as the true issue behind this method for many people is that (and this heavily depends on how ability scores are generated) their original character concept is suddenly put into question when they don't try to build the character as a tough race first. Whether this is munchkin syndrome or pressure from their gaming group to "not make a gimped character" is probably only the tip of the iceberg, the result is that it starts to muck up the works when the race also has a big say in how survivable your character is.

Example: The party needs a cleric, because nobody wants to be the band-aid machine. I decide that I want to make an elven cleric who can use her longsword and shield, or longbow and naturally high dexterity, to help fight in combat as a secondary tank or archer (so I can conserve spells for healing).
-My elf's average con of 10 plus d8 hit dice and + 4 for frail race nets me a respectable 12 total hit points. (8 + 0 con + 4 = 12)
-Unfortunately this pales in comparison to the dwarven rogue in the group who, with a modest 14 con, d8 hit dice and +8 for hardy race, nets a total of 18 hit points. (8 + 2 con + 8 = 18)
-This is further criticised by the fact that the human sorcerer in the group with an average con of 12, d6 hit dice and +6 for standard race, nets her a total of 13 hit points. (6 + 1 con + 6 = 13)
-The human fighter enjoys Con 14, d10 hit dice and +6 hp for standard race, netting 18 HP, just like the dwarf rogue. (10 + 2 con + 6 = 18)
-My cleric, suddenly, has the lowest HP in the group, and she's supposed to be the second line fighter

Basically the racial choices (along with new HD for classes), even when not fully exploited, buck all kinds of pre-established norms for D&D parties by putting the starting hit points rather drastically out of whack.

This same party without racial hit points (or new class HD) would enjoy a tough dwarf rogue on par with the elven cleric, rather than a wall of meat who rivals the main fighter.

This, to me, is the core of the resistance to the racial HP adjustment suggestion.

Add Con Score to HP. I think most people have hit this one on the head and realized that with a point system or stat blocks that the first level characters end up being extremely beefy. This works well if your idea of a good first level encounter is 4 orcs with Falchions. Ironically, this system does work out rather uniquely if you follow the ancient methods and roll your statistics in order on 3d6. The halfling rogue with Con 5 is now viable, and Sir Loin the fighter, with his con of 15 is a total beef cake. I'm not really a fan of this method because I like to put the fear of gods into my players at level 1, but with the good old 3d6 this method is not a bad idea in my eyes if you still want that epic story feel at level 1.

Double HD. This method seems good for a epic hack and slash campaign. D&D definitely has its problems throwing numerous goblins at low level parties to achieve that Lord of the Rings hack-through-Moria feeling and this does well to resolve it without making them second guess their race or ability score placement. For a normal D&D game though, I think this is way too many HP. Magic Missile should be a viable spell for the 1st level evil wizard encounter in the first adventure.

Following are some of my own suggestions.

No Criticals at 1st level. As the DM you have the ability to do whatever you want, including cheat. The biggest let down for a first level party is having an orc with a falchion run up and crit the fighter in the first round of combat and inflict 12-24 damage. If you are starting a new campaign and the players have spent a lot of time on their characters and are into the game, nothing will kick their legs out from under them faster than a "lucky" dice roll ending one of their lives. Keep the danger in the game with normal nickle and dime hits, just get rid of the game ending critical hits. But above all, do not tell them you are doing this. It is perfectly believable for the DM to not score any crits in a session or two after all, and you want them to respect and fear your monsters.

Morale. Monsters have nothing to really live for except to do bad things. The town guard, while statistically could probably hold their own against goblins, have a reason to live beyond fighting. So when the going gets tough and an even number of goblins are facing down the town guard, the guard will probably adopt the better part of valour and let some heroes do the dying. Morale, in my opinion, is the biggest part of a low level game making sense, and it cuts both ways.

If you want to throw a dozen goblins at the party for their first fight, go right ahead, but when the PCs chop down a quarter of the goblins and are still fighting, the goblins might realize that they are fighting something tougher than normal town guards and high tail it. This keeps elements of danger, heroism, and most of all, makes your party feel like a pack of bad-asses when they do what nobody else could.

The same goes for larger monsters like bugbears. Sure, they could probably kill a PC or 2 in a 1st level party, but that party can also seriously threaten his life. Just because he has 16 hit points doesn't mean he's going to stick around and fight after half of them are gone.

Using Turn Undead to heal your party while fighting undead is a good use of it, regardless of whether you think you can actually make the undead flee. Everyone heals up, you have a chance of causing undead to flee or inflict damage on them (which is better than all or nothing like normal). Good use of your cleric's round. But using it to heal the party while fighting Ogres seems like a bad idea unless the undamaged ogres happened to ambush you while you are wounded and your priest goes first on the first round of combat. No, the new turn/heal is primarily a downtime heal, reserving the Cure spells for emergency in combat healing.

To address this from a totally different angle. From what I read in the 2nd version of the Alpha rules set is that the whole idea behind the positive energy burst was to provide a party with more healing so they would feel confident rampaging through a dungeon from beginning to end.

Personally I feel that the new turning rules are an interesting experiment in making a largely unused cleric ability into something more central for the class. They help address a big problem in many adventures which is that the party will delve as deep as they feel safe doing, then retreat to a safe point to heal up and tackle the rest of the adventure the next day. But this is a fundamental problem with adventure design, since not every adventure can be a race against time or similar circumstance that forces the party to barrel through it all in one run.

To me, the heart of playing a spell caster is conserving your magic for when it is needed, not blasting everything that moves or healing every scratch like in an MMO. Most published adventures make this conservation a moot point because the party is the one on the offensive, and can leave and return as needed. In reality this is just a byproduct of the author trying to be neat, brief, and concise. It is up to the DM to take the relatively "static looking" encounter-by-encounter adventure set up and reason out if the antics of the party's delvings have shaken things up enough to give the players some real problems should they leave and come back.

Along this vein, I don't think the added Turn Undead healing is the answer to this problem. I do think that it does help in many of the instances presented in the Pathfinder Adventures, such as Fortress of the Stone Giants, where the party is defending Sandpoint and are on a timetable (25 rounds), or when the party delves into Jorgenfist and faces EL11 fights one room after another all the way down to Mokmurian.

The problem exists in the fundamental differences between these two situations. The party is on the defensive in Sandpoint and so their conservation of spell power and hit points is not the deciding factor in this fight, the 25 round time limit is. Conversely, they are the attackers when they enter Jorgenfist. Honestly, I can't see how a party should survive Jorgenfist other than literally having each room be completely oblivious to the next room so they have 1 EL11 fight at a time. This style of game, of course, supports the "delve in as deep as we can and then retreat to heal" strategy since the enemy doesn't react to the PCs unless they make headway.

If I ran this adventure, the second the party slew a stone giant (let alone started battling something that can swing a tree) the "defenders" would probably come to help defend (not to mention Mokmurian once he is made aware of these adventurers making their way through his entire army and into his inner sanctum). I just can't see a party of 10-11th level characters surviving that without some harrowing hide and seek game-play. Even with all the goodies like the new Turn Undead or wizard At Will blasty powers, a realistic reaction to adventurers attacking a monster stronghold with as many encounters laid out as they are would result in bad news for the party.

Perhaps the real issue is trying to jam pack so much XP into so few adventures. After all, a party should be able to deal with ~4 even level encounters before being exhausted, and it does take ~13 even level encounters to level up. Maybe the answer isn't to shovel in all sorts of extra power on the PCs to allow them to fight more encounters per dungeon dive, but to make fewer encounters that are more interesting and let the characters know that if they don't go on the offense, then they'll be on the defense.

I'm somewhat of a purist when it comes to D&D, and tweaking and modifying what I feel are pretty solid base character classes does tend to rub me wrong on occasion. But, as I said before, I do like the idea of taking a relatively un-used cleric ability and turning it into something universally useful, I just think the power level of it and reasons behind this move are not the right ones. That being said, I think effectively turning it into Laying On Hands points is a much better idea than the huge number of dice suggested in the current rules.