Know Remorse's page

Monte Cook has the completely correct idea in his Books of Experimental Might II of where I think the fighters and melees need to be directed. Options and directions, versatility....the ability to impact his enemies and help direct the action on the battlefield, not more damage (yawn).

I haven't finished the book yet but I'm very impressed with what I have seen so far. The optional stuff seems too much but the bulk of the BoEM 2 looks well thought out and pretty well balanced with the rest of core.

Really, the first thing we have to decide is what the fighter is supposed to represent. There's no clear concept here. Heck, it isn't totally clear what archetypes *melee* characters in general are supposed to represent at high levels. Lets take a look at some fictional melee characters and their approximate D+D level.

Conan - 3-5th
Lancelot - 2-4th
King Arthur - 7th, tops
Sir Gawain - 5th, tops
Hercules - 8-10th
Beowulf - 8-10th
Aragorn - 6th, tops
Thor (marvel comics) - ~13th
Hulk (marvel comics) - ~13th
Captain Marvel, Mar'Vell (marvel comic) - ~11th
Superman (DC comics) - ~17th
Colossus (marvel comics) - ~10th
Angel (marvel comics) - ~5th
Beast (marvel comics) - ~7th
The Thing (marvel comics) - ~11th
Spider-Man (marvel comics) - ~9th
Wolverine (marvel comics) - ~11th

Now, some of these arguably fit in different classes, but they're all melee characters and fit in melee classes, primarily fighter or barbarian.

Notice that even before 10th level all of them have supernatural abilities. Hercules is supernaturally strong, as is Beowulf (come now, he pulls the arm off of Grendel - that's supernaturally strong, and i'm not talking about the movie version)

The only one of these guys who gets by mostly on fighting skill above 10th level is Wolverine, and he still has unbreakable bones, claws that can cut through anything, and a healing factor that has regenerated him from as little as a single cell (I'm serious, UXM Annual 13 iirc).

By approximately 17th level we have a guy who can shatter planets with his fist, take a hydrogen bomb to the chest and not notice, shoot heat rays from his eyes, freeze people with his breath, fly, and travel faster than light (remember going around the world really fast to go back in time.... yeah). That's a 17th...

How in the heck do you derive your estimations on character levels of fictional and fantasy heroes?

Conan fights the avatar of a God in the second movie, 3-5th level? Im not much of a Marvel guy, but isn't Thor a god or deity himself?

Your assumptions on what level these completely unrelated heroes of fiction are in D&D terms is stretching the means of any comparison. Superman is level 17, but I'd love to see any 17th level character in D&D have that kind of power. Give me a break.

I know what you mean KR - I was thinking the same thing when I read it the first time. I've been convinced otherwise however, consider this:

Undead typically have *at least* as many HD as the cleric.
Undead get d12 HD.
The cleric gets d6 damage every *two* cleric levels.
The Undead gets a save for half damage.

This means if the undead creature has as many HD as the cleric, even failing its save, it will only take about 1/4 of its hp in damage (slightly higher on the odd levels), 1/8th if it succeeds. The Will save for half and to avoid fleeing is also fairly easy, especially considering most undead have Good Will saves.

I don't think there will be anything trivial about undead encounters because of this.

I can easily see Empower and Maximize turning feats, will use up most of the turn attempts for the day while doing a good bit extra damage.

I have little problem with the amount of damage it delivers to undead. I have a huge problem with how much it heals the group of adventurers, at the exact same time. Waaaaaay too efficient.

I can guarantee you I will see munchkin clerics based around the turn ability alone if this current phase of channel positive energy stands.

Dont forget, there is also the extra turn ability which gives an additional 4 uses of turn undead. Who gives a craptastic about the cleric spells, his turn undead ability is by far the biggest bomb he can deliver, both inside combat with undead, or not.

One of my biggest turnoffs of 4E is the healing ability that all characters get.... with Pathfinder, the cleric can handle that extreme while cleaning his fingernails and still have alot left over. I understand the intention behind it, freeing up the cleric to use his spells elsewhere is an admirable and difficult task. However the new turn undead makes me think that every character should take some levels in cleric, take practiced spell caster and just have superfluous amounts of healing all around and never worry about a thing except for single round damage or save or die spells.

Heck lets just let bygones be bygones and fill in a party of complete clerics. Put that with empowered or maximized turning for more added frills.

Area of effect spells against adventurers will be completely negated... and I guarantee you, my players will be SCREAMING at me when I introduce them to their first pair of enemy clerics healing their group against them.

I'd have to say one of my largest drawbacks to PFRPG is the unbalancing issue of the channeling positive energy mechanic. It replaces 4E's healing surge by giving the ability to one person, rather than individuals healing themselves by taking a 5 minute smoke break.

Not to be totally nitpicky...

you have False life giving 9.5 hp as being precast, but its not in his spellbook, nor in his memorized spell list for the day. It lasts 1 hour/level so its not something he can cast the day before and still have on him the next.

Would that mean that he would have to give up one of his memorized 2nd levels spells?

On principle alone, I will buy the finished product.

I will have to wait and see how much of the system works with the old 3.5 stuff that I have. If it isn't going to trivialize the old modules I have stacked up, I will be thrilled and use it.

I don't really want to see the power of the characters increase much, I just want the overall playability to go up for some classes that just always seemed to be out of whack with the others.. as well as interesting flavor and flare added to those that didn't need a power boost.

The addition of Monte to the crew, as long as his expertise and input is regarded in the development phase will prove to be a solid boost and add alot of confidence (for me) in the balance of the final product.

And for the "striking a weak spot" debate, sometimes it is logical to find weak spot on some weird creature. Maybe a ghost don't have a weak spot, since is not even corporeal. But if you think about a skeleton, it is possible to destroy only ONE bone and render it useless. Just crush a vertebra in the middle of the back and watch him fall in half! hehe!

I would also go as far as allowing Rogues to find weak spots in objects. Think modern movies, where a car has its side full of bullets hole and keep rolling... and then only one bullet in the gas tank make it explode...

Except that only happens in movies with pyrotechnic goons that like to blow things up for any reason they can muster. Unless you are firing tracer rounds, the bullet to the gas tank will likely do nothing but make a hole.

I like the idea of a circle of protection around the cleric vs undead being created against those who failed their saves. Maybe a 15' radius.

I never liked the original wording on turn in 3.5 anyway. The rest of the party can engage the undead that are cowering just fine, but if the cleric tries to they break the turn. I'd rather see turn deal damage to the undead, not necessarily make them gibbering idiots afterwards.

I really dislike the healing effect that it generates now, but thats another matter all-together. I guess I'm just in the minority that thinks that the new PFRPG channel positive energy mechanic will mean that undead encounters will be trivialized, and they should be something scary again.... Long Live Ravenloft!

I think its really important to stress that the fighter does not necessarily need a boost in his raw damage to improve the class.

Where the class needs assistance (and all pure melee classes for that matter) is in allowing them to contribute in shaping the battle, some control, etc.

If the fighters are supposed to be able to help prevent the wizard from going splat, then there needs to be skills and abilities that they can use to perform that role.

The Knight in the PHB2 had a great ability to make all terrain around him difficult terrain, making it difficult to blitz past him and go to the squishy caster behind him. I'd like to see feats and or abilities that do things like the stun of the monk. Perhaps at higher levels if they take a full round action they can make one attack and deliver a stun or some other ability to allow them to not only draw attention to themselves, but perhaps orient themselves or allow the party to put themselves in a better position to allow him to protect the party.

There are quite a few abilities that can be attributed to do this kind of thing, they just need to be created :).

An increase in damage is not the best answer in my opinion, expanding the ability to shape what is happening on the battlefield is.

Robert Brambley wrote:

I can see your point - it is a bit 'hokey'.

However, how do you feel about the concept that was suggested that a Rogue can learn to sneak attack a new type of creature at the expense of raising his usual sneal attack damage - expressly theorizing the the rogue in question studied and learned "tricks" to find weaknesses most others aren't aware of.

Personally I see this as a fair and balanced - and I dare say flavorful and interesting trade-off.

Robert

I'd prefer to see some creatures who are immune to sneak attacks under the core rule either halve the number of sneak attack dice or reduce the number by a fixed amount. Gaining the ability to sneak attack one creature type by forgoing a sneak attack die permanently strikes me as a bad deal.

Another option would be to phase in the types of creatures that can receive a sneak attack. So, at 1st level pick one type, and then pick an additional type every X levels.

Or, what's wrong about having a few creatures that cannot be sneak attacked? No matter how hard you train, I just have a hard time biting into the fact that a rogue finds a weak spot on a pile of goo like a black pudding, or found the achilles heal of the non-corporeal ghost.

I never had a problem with running into a few creatures that couldn't be SA'd when I played a rogue. A bigger problem for me was getting into a position where I could use the skill. The fact that I can sneak attack a grappled character, a tripped character, etc over before is definitely a boon.

I hate the Everquest rogue that transformed the class into a two dagger wielding damage machine that backstabs anything. What I would rather see is a Garret style rogue (the Games Thief I, II and III) who relies on stealth and subterfuge, striking from the shadows to take down his enemies.

As a DM, it was clear to me that certain adventures (undead mainly) were more difficult for the rogue, but there were also adventures that were troubling for the wizards as well. Thats par for the course, and I generally avoided large scale adventures that would isolate a player for extended periods.

I really dislike sneak attack as it is in pathfinder, its no longer finding the vital organ, the kidney-spleen removal skill, its now little more than the 4E version that can hit anything. The ability leaves a really bad taste in my mouth due to bad flavor and no believability.

Rogues have always been a favorite of mine, but I think the weakest addition for the PF rogue is the new sneak attack.

Why should my sneak attack work on a blob? A ghost?

I know 4E made it so that you can sneak attack anything, why should PF take from this? It completely destroys any believability for me.

Player: "Can I use sneak attack and break down the door?"
DM: "No, of course not, the door is not alive."
Player: "Why not? I was able to sneak attack that stone golem back there, why not the wooden door?"

For the record, I like the idea of increasing the number of conditions for sneak attack to be met... but I thoroughly dislike increasing the number of opponent types that can be sneak attacked, as it completely disrupts any believability.

First off...

I love the effort, the momentum and intensity this 3.5 revision has stirred. I love the dedication from the players and developers alike.

I'm 50-50 on the PF system so far. I'm worried that after years of poorly written and unbalanced splat books that have been thrown at us that most people are stuck with the mentality that "more power = better."

I'm concerned with the upcreep of power of the classes, all of them generally. While some effort is given to flavor and a little part goes into playability, the average level of power creep is building more and more momentum, and with that comes the very thing that will drive me from this wonderful effort.

It's always easy to make a splat book where the classes look more interesting because they are more powerful (See Players Handbook II or many of the numerous 3rd party products that came out during the 3.X era). It's much more difficult to make a book where interest is generated by addressing issues of obvious weaknesses or imbalance are presented. In fact, I would argue that just about the only person that really made an effort in working toward this was Monte Cook.

I don't want 4E, which is all about increasing the power of all the classes, making balanced groups a non-issue. To do this, 4E has mechanically attempted to balance all the classes, and they immediately lost many of us that had been carrying the D&D torch for 20+ years.

I will go as far as being unable to present my old 3.5 modules to my players, because they are able to shrug off the core of the threats due to the increased power of all classes. I don't want to have to increase the statistics on the encounters in my old 3.5 adventures to make them a challenge. Weakness of all the characters in 3.5 is not a problem with the game, so PF hasn't necessarily fixed a thing if they up the power on all classes. Some classes needed boosts, in class features, and abilities that allowed them to fulfill certain roles within the group, but increasing damage is not necessarily the fix for this.

I'm fearing that I will have to throw my first level PFRPG characters through 3rd level modules to get them to feel a remote challenge, and if that proves to be so, I think I will probably slowly let this effort slip away from my attention.

Playability is better, flavor and flexibility are better. Power is not always better, and if done too much, will lose the main interest for me.

If certain classes were thought to be weak, fine, spruce them up, but all the classes being equalized in damage is the first way to destroy this effort. Heck, just go buy 4E and save yourself the hassle of creating this thing if thats the case.

I agree that something melee characters could be given is abilities which force monsters to engage them instead of other characters. That would give them a schtick that actually works, and while it wouldn't be as usefully tested by this methodology (similarly the bard), it gives them something they can do to control the shape of a battle and have a level appropriate ability. (Now they'd just need level appropriate ways to absorb damage).

But as presented, martial classes don't do that, and all the barbarian really does is hit stuff. So this methodology is an adequate test of how well hitting stuff is as a life choice. Any character whose abilities are offensive or personal defensive is testable by this methodology. Its characters with multiplicative effects in a party (like a bard) who aren't tested as well in this way.

I completely agree. Abilities akin to the monks stunning fist, or even attuned to the deft opportunist ability that the rogue has... say if the targetted foe attacks someone else he drops his guard down and immediately incurs an attack of opportunity from the skilled melee class.

Things like this would make foes more likely to not ignore the melee.... theres lots of abilities like this than can be presented to give warrior classes an added edge, as well as combat flavor and feel.

I appreciate the effort that you have taken to test this out.

I still have some skepticism with the true culpability of the test, however.

Should the barbarian be able to do as much damage as the wizard on a single fight? If so, maybe he should have D6 hp and the inability to wear armor.

The fight with the barbarian and wizard would be distinctly different had the wizard already been adventuring throughout the day, had already expended some of his resources. Any wizard able to dump his load of daily spells or pick from a full spellbook is going to be at a distinct advantage over a melee class. The melee classes need healing, usually from someone else, and they are back to full 100% operation, even at the 4th encounter of the day as long as someone has topped them off.

The casters on the other hand are distinctly different, sure they can excel in the beginning of the day, but they have to become much more resourceful and are unable to keep that pace throughout multiple encounters.

Does that mean casters suck? Does that mean melees suck? If the DM is allowing one encounter a day, then, yes the casters can dominate, but if they are enforcing 3-4 encounters a day, the casters will either conserve some resources or go nova, and then sit as a backrow player the following encounters.

4E is definitely going the route of evening out all the classes, equally distributing damage amongst all the classes. I'm not interested in that sort of system.

You commented that the melees should be ignored by the monsters who should instead go splat the wizard. True. I'd like to see the system worked on where the fighter, the paladin and the barbarian have skills and feats that permit them to prevent just that. Similar to the ability of the Knight in the PHBII, where all terrain around him is difficult terrain, other abilities can be bestowed upon the melees that make it more difficult to ignore. Damage does not have to be the only mitigating factor to determine who is to be ignored or not.

Personally, I think the hitpoint per level doesnt have the right flavor.

I'm starting to like the idea of an additional skill point that can only be spent on that favored class skills.

The classes are getting a bit much in the way of hps as it is.

Maybe give the fighter/barb/paladin +1 hp/ level... but why should my wizard get 1 additional hp per level? Increased wizard-ninja training from the mage academy?

Im a diehard wizard fan and I was happy with wixxors at 4hp/level... now suddenly im at d6+1 and it seems too much, for no real justified purpose.

\

Swordslinger wrote:

Squirrelloid wrote:

I'm sorry I chose good spells. Are you sad I didn't purposefully gimp the wizard to increase the Barbarian's ego? Seriously, combat magic at all levels is save or lose, and all wizards in any playtest i run will use such magic, and supplement it with magic that improves their mobility and survival. Its how the game works.

Well, the thing is that you've chose your load out of spells specifically to fight fighters. Like the wizard knows he's oging against a fighter. What happens if he's against another wizard or a wraith? Then stuff like web and flight doesn't help him much. Specifically the load out was designed to slay a fighter, and yeah obviously if your entire spell load out for the day is dedicated to doing that, you'll win. But what happens when you've got fly, protection from arrows, web and stinking cloud and you run into a wraith or another caster? You're basically screwed.

Save or lose spells (1) tend to target will, (2) are good against the vast majority of potential opponents at low levels, and (3) work against even will favored enemies by spamming them. They are also wins when they work. This means they are an efficient use of resources.

What spells would you take? Seriously?

Elf Wizard 7

It's pretty doggone rare to see a wizard without a single damage spell. No Fireball, Scorching Ray, Lightning Bolt, Ice Storm, etc. No Magic Missile? That wizard would be completely uneffective against the first decent undead he came up against. Further he has no utility spells, no Dispel Magic, Protection from or Resist Energy, Globe of Invulnerability, Knock, etc, just conveniently chosen non-fortitude save spells. I guess no wizard in his right mind would ever use Blindness/Deafness on any regular day.

It just seems like the fight against the wizard, given both terrain, and spell selection is an automatic and forgone conclusion. A rogue would also likely get creamed in this test, FYI.

Many puzzle monsters. Notably, the spectre just utterly hoses him. Its not that he can't damage an incorporeal monster - that just requires a magic weapon, but a monster who will seriously surprise him by coming out of a wall or the floor and drain 4 levels before he does anything? That's a real problem and he has no answer (and no possible answer at that level).

And a wizard jumped by a spectre coming out the floor and will lose 2 entire spell levels when drained 4 levels will be able to do anything against it either?

Spectres 1-1 are a completely nasty fight against anyone... even perhaps a cleric, though with the turn undead they stand a chance.

I just find the whole 1-1 thing rather unconvincing. There are lots of creatures that are nasty when faced 1-1 but with a group... say 4 against 4 would be a completely different fight.

A group of 4 spectres vs a cleric, rogue, barbarian and wizard, for example.
The cleric would likely turn and damage quite a bit of the undead... does that make him too powerful? Against undead he's strong (The new turn undead is too powerful IMO but its the niche of the cleric to be good against undead) The rogue should not be able to sneak attack a spectre like ghost (PF new sneak attack rules be damned) so he's severely weakened in this, does that mean he's weak?

D&D is meant to be a group game, not a solo encounter fest. My barbarian supports the rest of my party when I play, and likewise, they support me. I keep the stuff off my wizard that wants to splat him, and he and the cleric keep me from being charmed and turned against the party, does that mean my barbarian sucks? The party needs me, and I need them. When my barbarian goes off alone, I can reasonably expect to die, just like the wizard who goes off alone, and so forth.

For me, D&D is a team effort, and when it stops being that,is when I lose interest and just go off and play Diablo.

Now let us consider evil clerics we might face in the future. The battle goes badly? All your troops are down and you're 7th level? Start dropping a channel for 3 rounds in a row. That's 12d6 for a party to try to take and or recover from. You essentially cannot chase an evil cleric unless you've enough hp's to avoid being massacred or an excellent will save, every time (let's say a 14 for this 7th level guy). Keep the rogue, ranger, fighter, barbarian and paladin away while we chase...

The feel of the mechanic seems right, but in practice, every cleric that channels negative energy is now essentially a bomb.

I will say one thing, that the evil necromancer with undead minions is going to be an absolute nightmare for alot of parties now! Heal my minons? Hurt the goody two shoe adventurers? Wooo!

Worse, imagine a party of 4-5 clerics around 10th level.... Take the extra turn ability and heal 6d6 in waves..... bring out yer dead!!! Wheres that draco lich at? Add in Quicken turning for more healing madness.

I understand the reasoning behind the change of the turn undead mechanic, but thats one thing about the new PF system that I see large problems with.

I do have a potential problem with the 1/2 GP cost vs the former XP cost.

When I start a mid level or high level game (rather than at the start) its important to note that if you give players X amount of gold to buy equipment with, (say 10,000 GP) a character can effectively double that gold total by taking an item creation feat. Multiply this by multiple players taking different feats and most of your players will have vastly increased their wealth.

Maybe not allow them to use any starting cash on creating any items when they first create the character?

I like the idea of merging skills, though certain things will likely open balance issues with the rogue since he is having so many skills merged together.

The following make sense:

Perception: Spot + Listen (Wisdom)
Stealth: Hide + Move Silently (Dexterity)
Athletics: Climb + Jump (Strength)
Disable Device: Pick Locks + Disable Device (Dex or possibly even Int)
Agility: Balance + Jump (Dexterity)
Knowledge Religion: Religion + Spellcraft Divine (Int)
Knowledge Arcana: Arcana + Spellcraft Arcane (Int)
Handle Animal: Ride + Handle Animal (Wisdom)
Deception: Disguise + Forgery (Int)
Persuasion: Bluff + Intimidate (Charisma)
Diplomacy: Diplomacy + Gather Information (Charisma)

Suggestions:
Some may argue to put Bluff and Diplomacy together, however being diplomatic does not always give someone skill with lying, likewise I would not merge Bluff with Sense Motive for the same reason.

People frequently want to put Strength as the main stat for Intimidate, but I would argue that Strength has little or no bearing on intimidating someone. Kings are very intimidating, but they likely would never even step up from their throne or use an ounce of their physical prowess to intimidate you. Likewise the Godfather.

You could even make an argument to merge Diplomacy with Gather Information. Both are CHA based skills and can be easily merged together.

I think you need to try to keep from merging too many eggs in one basket, if you have 3+ skills merged into one it makes it too generic, and almost unrealistic. (Lots of people who can jump well cant swim) Putting 3+skills into one makes taking the skill an automatic for most classes.

I do not like Linguistics with Forgery at all.
I do not think that Search should be put in with Perception: For one it is a different skill set, merges a wisdom skill set with a int skill set, and makes perception a must have for all classes. (If all classes are going to take it then remove it and assume it is a built in ability of all characters.)
Concentration is not necessarily the best fit with Spell craft... one is knowledge, the other is more or less a mental fortitude skill.

DeadDMWalking wrote:

If clerics are kept at 2 skill points, but if they take the knowledge domain and gain all knowledges as class skills +2 skills/level, that would not be game breaking at all. Same with the Trickery Domain.

Nice! DeadDM, you and I talked about compromises earlier on the skill points thread, and you've just hit on one I'd back without reservation. Keep the 2/level classes (except fighter, who we all agree needs 4), but give the wizard and cleric an extra 2/level for knowledge or domain-related skills only. Great thinking.

Also, I agree as to the comparative "lameness" of the new domain powers, as compared with the 3.5e mechanic (our playtest cleric is in the dumps as well, and there's simply no rousing him yet).

I agree with the sentiment, the domains have initially been nerfed quite a bit from 3.5. However, the biggest impact is at lower levels. At higher levels the domains even themselves out with more additional spells/day than the old domains would grant. The Domains are not front loaded anymore, so they are attacking the power-dipping which I always disliked in 3.5. No more taking 1 level of cleric just for the domain powers/abilities, which were quite powerful, expecially at the starting levels IMO. (See Celerity Domain, +10 movement for my Monk, Ranger or Scout wooo!)

Further, with Turn Undead getting a HUGE HUGE HUGE boost the class has to be brought back to earth. I wanted to play test a game with 4-5 clerics around level 10 to see what it would be like to heal 6d6 hp 3-4x per day in a 30' radius. Add in Extra Turning feat and each cleric is healing 6d6 to the group 8x per day. -Dragon breath to the group? No prob... lets just have 2-3 of us use our turn undead ability to heal us back. (Rinse repeat as necessary).

I'd like to see Detect Evil revamped to help the paladin be less of a "Detect-Thump" class. I don't know how to do this without weakening Detect Evil (which is too generic and lacking thought for me anyway) and would indicate that the Paladin receive another ability in compensation.

Random brainstorming rather than in-depth thought process:

Smite Evil (Su): Per opponent, rather than melee attack.

On first glance, I really like this idea.... except that at higher levels, smite evil is extremely potent. Adding the paladins level to damage for the duration of an entire fight against a really tough monster for a 15+ paladin would be pretty extreme, considering multiple attacks. I still like the idea, it makes more sense, but I think you need to nerf Smite if you do this.

Lay on Hands (Su): The paladin is able to "push" the total amount of HP healed or damage caused by channeling his own life force into the target at a one for one exchange.
** spoiler omitted **
As per the first line posted - these are random...

I also really like this idea, however it reminds me quite abit of a necromancy type of feel to it... something a Paladin would not be likely to be dabbling with. For mechanics I think it would work reasonably well, but flavor-wise it seems out of place.

The biggest problem for my group and I is search being rolled into perception, especially since wisdom is the key ability for perception while intelligence is the key ability for search. We had to make them separate so our rogue could actually find traps. It's difficult to have good ability scores in Dex, Int, AND Wis. Of course, Cha can also be important for a rogue (bluff, use magic device), so things get even worse.

Another thing one of my players noticed is the rules do not address taking time to search an area over a period of time. For instance, what if a party needs to search to look for clues at a crime scene, uncover secrets in an ancient tomb, find a needle in a haystack, etc. From our point of view, perception is about observation and awareness, while search is about looking close at something for details. For instance, I can walk into a room and not notice anything is wrong even if it right in front of me, but if I take the time to look closely and study the details, I can put things together.

For my group, we will play Pathfinder RPG, but we will always have search as a seperate skill from perception.

I guess my biggest problem is merging 3 skills into one skill; period. It makes it too automatic to take that skill over a straight up skill that only provides a very limited focus.

A possible answer to your dilemma of the unwise rogue being unable to search would be to allow INT or WIS to determine Perception.

Practiced Spellcaster anyone? Or something akin to it. I see no reason to make multi-classing casters gain spell caster levels while they are taking fighter levels.

Heck, if I have a 19th level fighter, 1st level sorcerer my 1 level of sorcerer grants me the ability to cast as long as a 7th level sorcerer with this model.

Heck why not! I'll just take 1 level of cleric, and 1 level of arcane and cast as with a duration of 7th level cleric and 7th level arcanist with my 18th level fighter.

Woooo mystic-headbashing-theurge here I come!

As a big fan of the rogue, I'd say the rogue needs very little boosting to be an enjoyable class.

I see no reason to make sneak attack work on everything.

I always liked sneak attack hitting vital areas of my opponents, but some creatures, golems, blobs, undead, etc, I just think remove flavor and believability when sneak attack becomes mere EXTRA DAMAGE rather than a good thrust between my opponents ribs.

Fighters on the other hand, need cool abilities that allow them to step up to the role they are meant to be, a character that can truly intervene to defend the rest of the group.

I hate the PHB2 balance, but I love the ability of the Knight that makes all terrain he threatens difficult terrain. I would like to see fighter abilities that allow him to use things like grapple, to walk up to a foe and pull him back, taking the creature away from the wizard or cleric and switching places with him. (Allowing the fighter to put himself between the creature and his friend). Other abilities, like feints and sweeps of the legs, would help with flavor in combat.

I typically play the wizard and the rogue, and before in 3.5, I only took 2 levels of fighter for the first 2 feats. Personally I'd like to see more things like the armor training and weapon training, but rather than making them mundane +1 increases, make it more flavorful, like the ability to move better with the armor, either by reducing the dex penalty or allowing more movement in the armor.

Classes like the rogue and the wizard do not need major increases in abilities, but classes like the fighter, and paladin do, particularly in the role of being able to defend their party, (more than just a HP soaking Damage cushion).

And this would help with backwards compatibility with older 3.5 products how?

Heck, if you implement this idea, <lifts glass to every 2 weapon style fighter in the game>

Just off the top of my head a 20th level fighter with this system under the pathfinder setting with weapon specialization and then greater weapon specialization would have +7d6 damage per attack, just off off the 2 feats and his weapon training abilities. Im sure there are other feats or abilities we can throw in here for more carnage.

Screw playing the wizard... just play the 20th level fighter using the bow and as many rapid shot abilities as you can muster.

How would +1 weapons relate to this? 1d6 as well? the +2 weapon is now +2d6? wooohoo, I'm gonna need more six siders!

I might go for this, however a part of me fears the character taking 1 skill point in a lot of skills, then trying to see if they get lucky and get a good roll, passing the DC check to pass for the synergy in another skill they want.

That would both slow the game down and irritate me considerably.

The critical hit tables from 4E are one of the things I actually like. It's simple, and it keeps the munchkin Improved critical + keen weapon + mercurial weapon oh I was power attacking and look I just did 60+ damage with my x3 weapon.

I made a character like this using a Falchion years ago, and after tossing the character I vowed to not allow that breed of character in any of my games. To each his own, my groups used to play with modified Rolemaster crit tables, and while it was fun to get a lucky crit removing your opponents spleen, it was more gritty than most of my players liked, especially when they were on the receiving side of the crit.

The max damage averages out almost exactly the same as doubling the damage (save the doubling of the strength bonus I guess) and saves a lot of extra rolling that just adds to the monotonous drawl that 3.5 and 3.e combat becomes sometimes. Finding ways to speed up combat is good in my opinion.

Know Remorse wrote:

For some reason, I can create an alternate profile on this account that has an avatar image, but cannot find the option to have an avatar with this account.

Go to your messageboards settings page and you should be able to pick an image. If you can't from there, that's a bug I need to know about.

That worked, but I just find it wierd it wouldnt let me select one for that account. My alternate profile had no trouble selecting an avatar. I was only able to select the avatar on my main profile because your link routed me to the spot to do it.

My main profile just did not show an option to select a profile at all. Such as now, I can't edit this profile to change this avatar or find where to do that. On my alias I have no trouble doing that.

For some reason, I can create an alternate profile on this account that has an avatar image, but cannot find the option to have an avatar with this account.

I dont mind seeing Druids being decent spot healers but unable to heal as well as the cleric. The Druid's strengths definitely lie in other areas.

In 3.5 however, it was pretty easy to make a functional healing druid. The feat to spontaneously cast cure spells, the divine vigor line of spells, the summon the unicorn trick at level 7 that definitely boosted healing for the party.

One of my favorite chars was a Druid in a 3 man party, an offensive fighter/swashbuckler, a wizard and a Druid. Since we were short handed and the tank had next to no AC, we decided an offensive group was best. We quickly dispatched our foes by teaming up on the same creature, and I let the fighter know that in a pinch I could heal in a fight but that if at all possible I would heal him up fully after the fight with vigor spells (wands of lesser vigor heal 550 hp) and teamed up with the wizard and fighter to quickly kill our enemies. (A foe that dies 1-2 rounds quicker deals that much less damage).

It is possible to not have a cleric, but the party just needs to alter its playstyle and be willing to live life on the edge during combat, more so than the standard cleric that heals periodically throughout the fight.

I like what I see. Being a wizard who is in love with memorization of his spells, I always disliked the sorcerer for its lack of versatility.

The 3.5 Sorcerer was extremely limited and I refused to play them (I still wont play a sorcerer, but this class looks so much better that its almost tempting! It's not that I think the sorcerer is weak, its just not my style, I would play a wizard with 1/2 the spells to cast per day over the <yawn> sorcerer).

Balance wise, the flavor is nice and so are the abilities, good job in picking out the drab boring taste of the "nuker" and giving it some life and even a nice option for roleplaying flavor.

I really like the alternative choices of the bloodlines.... way to go!

Where do I find the updates? I downloaded the original PDF for alpha, but I cant seem to locate the latest 1.2 changes people keep talking about.

The new 4th ed introduced in D&D an idea for characters to heal themselves a bit without the need of a Cleric or potions/wands, etc.. This is a concept with witch I have toyed a while at my game table in different forms: Characters making Con tests to heal a little bit after battle, Fortitude saves, Heal skill checks, some magical energy that heals them once in a while, etc...

Anyway, I thought this improved my gaming a lot, it actually gave the character a lot more of a "battle-hard-hero-struggling-to-go-on" look; taking a time to catch a breath and tending to the fresh wounds after a strenuous battle; or just getting themselves motivated, inspired to go on again (and in that way a little HP back), or just a magical energy in the place that healed them once in a while; all that made the game flow much more briskly. They didn't have to stop the course of game only coz one of them got hit too badly, and since they went on for longer, it made the sorcerer plan a lot more on its spells.

So, personally, from my playtesting, I´d really like to see Paizo add something like that to their Pathfinder RPG, it would make me consider it a lot better. Second Winds, Heal checks, Con tests, Fort checks, Action Points, etc... whatever sounds better, that can be discussed. The point is that the ability for characters to heal up a bit by themselves should be in the game in some way... at least for me...

Dear God no. If I wanted that I would go play 4th.... they seem to be making the all classes are equal thing and no one class is necessary as their central focus, centered around the healing surge and the daily and encounter powers thing.

I'm throwing my interest that I should be having for 4th edition towards this project instead, as 4th edition is clearly not the direction I want my table top experience to go.

I'd rather see spells along the lines of the Vigor line of spells (complete divine I think) that healed a lot, over a longer period of time. It was more efficient than a cure light wounds, (healed 1 hit per round per caster level + 10 rounds.) Spells like this allowed me to play full time healer with my Druid. (well that and a spontaneous casting of heal spells feat) I wasnt as good a dedicated healer as a cleric but it worked, and worked well.

I'd much rather see a line of very efficient healing spells that work well after the battle. Heck a wand of lesser vigor heals 550 hit points, not bad for 750 gp.

Non Magical heals just dont strike me as that appealing. Personally more effective heals that don't trivialize the battle would accomplish the same thing.

Swordslinger wrote:

And yeah if your PCs yell "OH LOOK A RAT!!!" and blow a bunch of spells because it could be some kind of vorpal paragon pseudonatural rat of doom (or maybe an epic druid in wildshape with natural spell). Then yeah, they deserve to get punished for poor resource management. Players have fought giant spiders and scorpions before. It's a pretty reasonable assumption to go by difficulty = size until proven otherwise.

Here's a quiz. Your players all rolled up the characters they wanted to play, and there's a cleric, a fighter, a warlock, and a wizard. Should the dungeon have traps? If you answered "yes, because they should have known better than to not have a rogue", please relinquish your DM screen. If nobody wants to play a rogue, make sure your party isn't punished for that. If your party feels the need to rest frequently because, for whatever reason, they don't feel comfortable with adventuring at half strength, make sure they aren't punished for that.

The problem with the 15 minute adventuring day isn't that it exists; the problem is that some people think it's a problem, instead of recognizing it as a way people like to play the game.

I see no real reason to differ that much because the party elected to not have a rogue. In my most recent game that I actually got to play (I usually am the DM) my party consisted of a Swashbuckling-Fighter, Wizard and myself as a Druid.

The wizard and I got rid of traps typically with low level summon spells, mage hand, etc. Locked doors were bypassed with Knock. Because we didn't have the ability to search very well we ended up using summon-I spells as both search and triggering traps. And those traps that we missed I healed up afterwards.

Because we had no cleric, our party decided that full offense (not healing the tank during the battle) was the best way to overcome the opposition.

We still averaged 3 encounters a day, if not 4. Both the wizard and druid focused on taking out the same opponent, the druid pet, and summon spells and the fighter held off other foes from getting to the spell casting squishies. It worked very well, but both the wizard and myself usually made sure to keep some of our high level resources (spells) in reserve rather than wasting them.

Our small party devised our group around a core of tactics we knew we had to use to stay alive. If we played like I was the cleric, and the low armor swashbuckler was a fighter, we would lose. I couldn't heal him enough in combat and his AC blew snot. Instead we focused on inflicting more damage quickly to single foes than our opponents could dish out. But we still never squandered our resources on the first fight unless we got really unlucky or the fight was extremely tough.

The DM didn't need to dumb down the game because our group didn't have all 4 of the main classes, and I would have been offended if he had. Frankly, I really enjoyed the challenge and I miss playing in that game quite abit.

Where does cheating come into it?

Any adventure where I have to come up with a crazy plan counts as cheating to me. I've had many adventures where the opposition was CRed badly and the only way to survive was by some elaborate plan (which sometimes literally involved ropes and pulleys).

Basically, if you are successfully fighting well outside of your character level and EL, then on some level you are cheating.

Here is an example I strongly disagree with. One of the most memorable fights I have ever had in D&D, came during 2.0 when our group of 2-3rd level characters found out about a den with trolls marked on a map.

After a lot of discussion, the party decided to try and go after the trolls... we prepared greek oil flasks, and fire trapped bags with rabbits inside after casting invisibility and silence on the thief to scout, we found the area we elected to do the ambush, and then setup the ambush for the following day.

It was an extremely fun fight, and was cool to see a well thought out plan come to fruition, fighting much stronger foes that we shouldnt have been able to tackle.

There have been other cases where my players have surprised me by going to great lengths to make sure that they knew what was coming up ahead, and several times that saved my players lives while they went through the return to the temple of elemental evil. Where they probably would have suffered multiple deaths, through a use of a rogue and silence spells the party was able to ambush foes that would normally be ambushing them.

It gets assumed too frequently that every encounter in a dungeon is always meant to be 100% winnable, 100% of the time, and many groups of players seem to expect this. After getting their teeth kicked in because they barge into an encounter unprepared a couple times, my party in my RTTOEE game surprised the hell out of me and began to handle extremely difficult encounters with far less hassles than I had expected.