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So it's always bugged me how a 1st level fighter could be proficient in like 30+ weapons outside exotics, and always use his full attack bonus with them. I was trying to figure out a way to make it a bit more realistic (GASP I said the R word), and this is the best I've come up with for a homebrew system. I'd like your opinions please.

Basically, instead of automatic base attack bonuses ganted every level, a PC instead invests skill points into Skill: Longsword, or Skill: Longbow.

For martial characters you get your full skill ranking in the weapon as you base attack bonus for said weapon. Your skill level is your proficiency.

non martial characters like wizards would get +1 base attack bonus per 2 skill points invested in a weapon. Basically the same proportion as their normal progression.

Non martial characters would get 2 or 3 skill points free at first level to assign depending on progression, and martials would get 4.

Martials like fighters would also get 4+int bonus instead of 2+ int skill point every level to allow for the 'training' of weapons. classes with lower progression would get 3+int each level.
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I just want to get away from the idea that a fighter or someone can pick up one of a couple dozen weapons, and fight as if they had used it as their primary weapon all their life. It doesn't make sense.

Does anyone have any suggestions or amendments they think might help this work better?

So please correct me if I'm wrong, but Fly and overland flight don't allow faser rates if movement is a full round action, correct?

No x3 or x4 rates?

So an Overland Flight spell is 8 miles an hour, and a Fly spell is only 12 miles and hour?

Or can you apply the higher rates?

One thing that has always severely grated on me about the D20 system is the ever increasing HP levels characters have.

At low levels, small animals can kill you with frightening regularity. At higher levels you can take a dozen+ sword strikes to the face without falling over. Or how a cure light wounds could cure a peasant to full health from deaths door, but it would just close a paper cut on a lvl 16 juggernaut of a fighter.

Frankly, it's absurd.

I want to put together a set of variant rules which give a species and age group a set amount of HD.

Basically a 5 year old and under human has 1HD, 6-9 has 2 HD, 10-13 3HD, 14-17 4HD and adults have a full 5 HD.

So an adult commoner has the same amount of hit dice as a fighter, but of course they are going to be smaller dice, d6 versus d10.

The average adult commoner would then have 17.5 hp with 10 constitution. The average fighter with 15 constitution and the toughness feat would have 42.5 hp. Humans being humans, rather than paper caricature peasants who melt when it sprinkles a bit of rain and God-like fighters with flesh made of adamant.
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The goal here is to prevent hp bloat that allows some humans to tank more shards of metal to their gut than some dragons.

To go with the lowered overall HD, armor instead gives half its AC value (before magic) as Damage Resistance. Its still gives its full AC value as well.
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In addition to armor as DR, characters when leveling also gain AC derived from skill and combat experience. I havent decided the progression yet, but I was thinking something like this:

Front line heavycombat classes (tier 1) like fighters get an experience based AC point once every even level. So a 10th level fighter would get +5 AC, purely from his experience and skill. At 20th level he would have +10 AC

Tier 2 (rangers, rouges etc..) get +1 AC every third level, starting at level 3. So a 10th level rouge will have +3 AC from their experience and character level. At 20th level a ranger would get +6 AC.

Tier 3 (full caster classes like wizards druids and clerics) get an AC bonus every 5th level, so at 10th level a wizard would receive +2 AC. At 20th level a wizard would receive +4 AC.
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I'm wondering if anyone can help me refine this further, and point out any glaring issues.

Advice in redoing certain spells like Sleep which target effective number of HD would be great.

I've always disliked the exponential power progression of magic users, and the fact that very little benefit is derived from high stats, with most of it being from class level instead. I've also been annoyed at the magical UPS delivery truck that comes every 24 hours on the dot to return their magical powers in little brown wrapped parcels. This is my attempt to change it up a little.

Please let me know about anything that might work better, or your own ideas.

Wizards:

Use a spell point system, though scaling spells don't use more points. Spell points used are equivalent to spell slot level. so a magic missile cast at 9th level is still just 1 point.

Point progression is radically changed, however, to eliminate the exponential growth of power. Wizards get spell points pretty much identically to getting Skill points. 2+Tnt modifier per level.

I like this method because A: it removes exponential power growth from level (high level spells giving you more and more points), and it better rewards Int bonuses. The more brainymeats you have the better the wizard.

All of a sudden that Tome of Clear Thought +1 is looking pretty good to your 10th level wizard with 19 INT, since it means a 20% increase in spells memorized.

This method has the overall effect of raising the number of spells a low level wizard can cast, making them more than someone to carry an extra crossbow, and limiting the huge number of overpowerful spells a high level can cast. limiting the high level characters huge number of spells is meant to encourage the use and the utility of Wizard Staves, to increase their payload. A single staff with 10 charges of a 5th level can be a third or more of you total spell power (in spell points worth at least)!

Wizards, primarily limited by mental fatigue for spells, can however sleep and get back their spell capacity after a full nights rest. interrupted sleep nets you 1/2 your capacity, and half a nights sleep nets you 1/4 your capacity back.

So a wizard who blew their spells can take a nap, and get a little bit back, or sleep a third the day away and be ready to rumble again.
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Sorcerers change similarly, only they get 4+Cha bonus spells points per level. A 2nd level sorcerer with 18 Charisma is actually fairly dangerous, having 16 spell points.

Sorcerers change in one more way, similar to wizards. They don't gain back their spells every 24 hours, like a UPS truck comes to deliver them again. Instead they get 1/2 their sorcerer level (rounded down), plus half their casting stat modifier of spell points regenerated every hour. They are essentially magical creatures, and they generate their own magic, recharging themselves.

I'm only sorta happy with the Sorcerers recharge rate, so I'm open to suggestions on that.
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So basically, low level wizards and sorcerors are much more effective at BEING sorcerers and wizards, while high levels can't just point and say 'ha ha ha, i make your army go boom'.

Sorcerers arent quite as hurt as wizards are in spell allotment at high levels though. They can't however cheat with magical bedrolls and rings of sustenance though.

One thing i don't like about the d20 style games is that they never properly represent human racial attributes, and don't properly represent attributes from other things, like lifestyle...

Humans when not unhealthy and with an active lifestyle have stupid stamina compared to most races, but the nonlethal damage system for things like forced march doesn't take that into account. Various species, so long as they have a decent CON score can outlast a random human peasant in stamina.

The farmer situation brings up the second thing: lifestyle. Living in a rural environment is going to greatly boost the average persons strength, constitution, and likely dexterity. This isn't really represented at all. That subsistence farm boy over there can probably punch like a mule, haul hay bales his own weight, and run around all day and never get too exhausted a 5 minute break couldn't cure.

I'm talking about him having like 16 strength, 15+ con, etc... due to his lifestyle, of fairly heavy work.

The standard NPC averages with their single +2 to an ability score, as well as the rest of their scores hovering around 10 really aren't very good for representing people.

Examples of NPC's given include farmers with strengths of only 13. I, an out of shape guy can match that. A real farmer could do much better.

A smith would have some stupidly huge strength score. And his stamina and hardiness would be through the roof, simply from the rigors of his profession. This isn't ever properly represented.

What would the best ways to fix these issue be? Attaching various minimum stats or bonuses to people with various 'character backgrounds'?

Say rural farmers have high strength and con, but somewhat lower on average int?

Smiths having abnormally high str, con, and at least decent dexterity and intelligence? Those are all pretty much required for their job after all. Smiths who specialize outside of basic horse shoe and nail fabricating would at least develop high dexterity over time working on their craft. They need to be skilled and precise with they hands or they could ruin whatever they worked on.

Merchants should have higher charisma and intelligence bonuses...

Educated npcs should have certain minimum int scores, since int is part education, part natural ability, etc...

Its makes the system more complicated, but I think it would help to flesh out the world in which you play, and make everyone just a bit more realistic and immersive.

Anyone have any ideas or things to add?

So i was wondering how people would houserule the increased effect from a certain scenario not covered by the rules...

Say I had the cantrip Ray of Frost, and basically spammed it for a couple minutes at a stone wall or something similar. Just making sure its nice and cold.

Then I hit it with Burning Hands. Due to thermal expansion and the joy of Physics! the rock would likely shatter and splinter.

What would you rule the combined effect as? Temporarily giving the rock The cold subtype, and allow fire damage to do 1.5x the damage (and before or after damage reduction?) like if the wall was a frost creature? or something else?

Also what about hitting a very cold stone door or mechanism with a pick or hammer? Do you think it would be reasonable to give it the 'fragile' descriptor for the duration of its low temperature? Very cold stone is more likely to shatter when struck. And very hot rock is much easier to damage too. Ancient mining techniques often included heating the rock with a fire before hitting it with picks and hammers. Much more efficient effortwise.

Ray of Frost would become a lot more useful for dungeon crawls.

The Pathfinder Savant prestige class allows you to add one spell per level (beyond the first) from any class spell list to your own. And you cast it as your base spell casting class. So a wizard casting Cure Light Wounds can cast it as an arcane spell. The only drawback is that its +1 spellcasting level, so Cure Light Wounds [Arcane] is a second level spell.

Likewise, a Cleric casting Magic Missile [Divine)] is casting it as a second level spell as well.

This strikes me as a very good mechanic that justifies the old 'magic is magic, we just cast it differently' fluff i've always liked.

To expand on this I've thought that it wouldn't be unfair or unbalanced to allow a caster of whatever type of magic to be able to get a copy of a spell they would like to cast, such as a Wizard wanting Death Knell, and in addition to the copying costs/scroll cost they would also need to pay the research costs for a new spell.

The resulting [Arcane] Death Knell spell would be a third level spell in their spell list, just like the prestige class.

So basically 'pay a lot of extra money, and you can cast the spell, albeit at a higher level'.

Anyone have any thoughts on this rather simple houserule?

So I got to thinking about how it might be possible to build an actual undead army in Pathfinder without having tons of lieutenants who would command the undead for you. Meaning you wouldn'tactually be fully in control...

The best thing i could come up with would be to basically make a s$**-ton of custom Bone Bead bracelets, only making them slotless.

A Slotless Bone Bead bracelet would cost you 6,000 gold to make (12,000 to buy) and would allow you to command an additional 8HD worth of creatures. Also become an Evil Fashionista.

If you were a level 11 necromancer who had all the resources necessary to become a Lich, but suddenly decided 'screw it, ill do it later or maybe even never' and devoted all the money a phylactory costs to making those bone bead bracelets you could get 21 bracelets (19 slotless, 2 regular). So 168 HD of undead. A pretty terrible fashionista too. Like a middle schooler emo-kid wearing tons of bracelets to complement their 'dark' lifestyle. At least you can console yourself that at least you have an actual dark lifestyle, being a necromancer and all. :)

So add these 168HD into the 44HD of undead you can command for being a lvl 11 necromancer/wizard, and you are well on your way to being able to command a small undead army. 212 HD of undead, though its pretty damned expensive.

Just remember to use the 'Blood Money' spell to be able to create undead without having to spend any money, or maybe a 100gp False Focus. The blood money spell would let you create 20HD of undead using the animate undead spell, or 10HD of undead using animate undead each day. Though you would need to heal somehow. probably a spell to become temporarily undead and infuse yourself with negative energy.

Does anyone have any cheaper ways to create an undead army solely under your control?

I thought about making a small army of Wights using the bone beads to control them, and having them spawn more wights themselves from their kills, but the problem with that is when the wight that spawns the other wights dies, the wights are free. So you'd all of a sudden have a tonof free wights running around uncontrolled, plus all the wights THEY spawned,etc..

Thats basically a quick way to start a Wight-ocalypse.

I was thinking it would be pretty cool to be able to have a sort of focus that would add +1 caster level to an elemental subschool, or a small damage bonus to non-scaling spells.

This is sorta like the Alchemical Power Component, just its never consumed for any spell, and its kinda expensive.

I was thinking something like 5-8000gp worth of focus, due to a general +1 caster level wondrous item costing 15,000 to buy.

So say for the Air school, a wizard who has a necklace/talisman/whatever made from something like the essence of a small air elemental, or a thunderbirds feathers would get +1 caster level for all spells with the Air descriptor, but in the case for the odd spell like Jolt (the cantrip that only does 1d3 damage at a range of 25 +5/2 a caster level) feet would get +1 damage per dice or something.

Does anyone have any ideas for such a focus for the other schools?

i.e. What would you use as a focus for the wood subschool, void, life, fire, etc...? Also what do you think about the whole idea?
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EDIT: someone suggested to me that various rings with different 'stones' as a jewel would be pretty cool thematically.

As in a focus for the Fire School would be a red-gold band (copper/gold alloy) with a tiny fire elemental bound in a jewel like a ruby. The jewel would look to have a roaring flame trapped in it. The water school would have a sapphire with a tiny water elemental in it, looking like it has a whirlpool inside, and the Air school would have a diamond with a whirlwind, etc...

Please correct me if someone has already done this or brought it up before, but has anyone ever created a literal Pathfinder class?

Pathfinders are supposed to be specially trained in a lot of fields and seem to be a pretty awesome starting class to later specialize into another class. Pathfinders are trained in areas "Covering not only combat and arms training, but also scholarly work - history, magic theory, research assistance. While in training, initiates will do work for the society - everything from guard duty, mundane cleaning, and research assistance - both to help train the initiate, and to filter-out only the most dedicated to becoming a Pathfinder."

I had the thought that an optional prestige class for lvl 1 players would be interesting. A kinda jack of all trades, master of none starting point.

Something like this:

Pathfinder

Hit Die: d8
BAB: +1 Fort save: +1 Ref save: +1 Will save: +1

Start with 2 lvl 0 spell slots, prepared as a wizard. light armor training, simple weapons, longsword, bows, crossbows, and spear proficiency.

Class skills everything from cartography and survival to history and spellcraft.

You would only be able to take a single level in the prestige class, but you can take it at any time, assuming you can get in good with the Pathfinder society, or you are starting at lvl 1.

TL:DR its a one level dip prestige class to represent pathfinder society training which isn't represented.

Thoughts?

So just as it was in 3.5, Pathfinder also includes obsidian as a 'lesser gem' with the value of the gem being about 10gp on average.

Interestingly, there is a 4th level wizard/sorcerer/druid spell called obsidian flow which turns the first inch or so of dirt instantaneously into a LOT of obsidian in a circle 40 feet in diameter.

That's seriously several thousand pounds of obsidian, which in itself is pretty valuable.

Assuming you didn't flood the market, you could make a lot of money off of that one spell.

It isn't even low quality 'pitchstone' obsidian either. pitchstone is more rock like and doesnt fracture quite like higher quality obsidian glass does. The description of the obsidian produced by the spell pretty much guarantees its the high quality stuff.

So essentially this 4th level spell 'prints' money in the form of a massive gem bed.

Mostly you just have to worry about spending so much obsidian that you flood the market and make it worthless. But then again, gems are considered tradegoods anyway...