LupinXXXIV's page

Honestly, it sounds to me like the simplest way to model how guns actually work would be to give each gun an Armor Pen stat that applies a simple flat penalty to the opponent's AC, but can never take it below 0. Don't bother with "Well this only works on armor and shields" or anything like that, because guns are both more difficult to dodge than normal weapons (Due to having a faster-moving projectile, and it being a little more obvious when the guy with the longbow is aiming at you than when the guy with the pistol is) and will punch through armor to some degree (But not through an AC 40 dragon's hide. That's just silly), and would thus logically make any source of AC less effective.

MAYBE have said penalty not apply to magical deflection, since that's only one thing to check, and would come up less often than other forms of armor. Probably not even that, though.

I'd just like to mention that this sounds like an unbelievably awesome character.

Y'know, now that I look at it again, I think I may actually be able to do something with the basic idea behind E6. Maybe stop at level 8 or 10, with whichever higher level abilities I happen to like or the players really want available as feats or feat chains.

I'll have to think on it. Thanks for the link, Brosmodeus.

Players have more of an influence on things than the class does, and things are normally about even until level 15-17 depending on the group. I would help the player that is falling behind instead of trying to make up new rules.

It's only very slightly about balance. It's more about making magic behave the way I want it to in the setting I came up with.

Is this a normal occurrence in your games where you have an entire party flying?

It's happened several times, and it was annoying and goofy.

Then why just have a dimensional space not shaped like a house. I am sure understanding how to create demiplanes is harder than understanding mansions. I could care less about the mansion itself as long as I got the benefits that came with it even if I was in an extradimensional cave.

That would probably be fairly reasonable, and not offend my sensibilities quite so much.

Though I have to say that which is "Harder" is utterly irrelevant. They're different kinds of knowledge. I can know how to program a video game, which is certainly harder than baking a cake, but that doesn't mean I know how to bake that cake.

It is not that easy. There are certain spells that are assumed to be available. This will vary from group to group though so it may or may not be an issue.

Then I don't use or houserule monsters that can't be beaten unless the party knows a specific spell? I generally tend to avoid those anyways.

If you mean the rule system then yes. If you mean Golarion then I think it would depend on how you brought it over. I have...

I did in fact mean the rule system. I do not intend to play a game in Golarion, as I have a custom setting that I've been fleshing out for the past few months that I intend to use.

EDIT:

The WoP words of power are confusing to some with respect to duration. If you are good are reading them it may not be an issue. I don't remember the what else came up.

I was under the understanding that they were all standard actions, unless stated otherwise. That was exactly what I intended to house rule with them.

I would give my players a list of all banned spells if I were to do this. I am sure they can recreate some of these spells anyway with words of power though so if you switch over completely you may have to say no spells that do _____ are allowed.

I doubt I'd do a list. I'd just have Words they try to learn and Wordspells they try to cast be at DM approval, and look over any Bloodline/Mystery spells they happen to get. Which his something I always did with spells anyways.

Well, our definitions of sensible are different then.

I suppose. I just don't see anything wrong with "I can hit a guy with a sword a bunch of times per round", but do with "I can create a small alternate universe full of whatever I want."

This is, of course, assuming reasonably specced Fighters, and not horrible minmaxed monstrosities.

Have you considered E6?

Eh. There are all kinds of cool things that classes can do past level 6 that are still appropriate for a less high-magic game. I can't think of a single thing that a Fighter does that would be inappropriate for the kind of game I want to run. I just want to make mid-to-high level play still be sensible, not remove it altogether.

First are you basing this on experience are online theory craft? The way people say things should work, and how they pan out don't often match up. If they did nobody would play melee types.

A little of A and a little of B. I've noticed, in play, on multiple occasions, that casters tend to be at least a bit better than noncasters. I've read quite a bit online about how they can potentially be far, far better.

Why should the fighter not fly if it is available? Flight is generally not available across the board until level 10, and by D&D standards you are one level away form legendary anyway.

Because flying seems pretty silly to me, and I'm trying to run a game that isn't silly. Honestly, I'd prefer it if even at 15th-20th level, very few characters are regularly flying around.

What makes you think the wizard does not understand the mansion. They are geniuses by our standards. The sorcerer is so in tune with the universe he just commands it.

Probably the fact that very few Wizards take ranks in Craft: Architecture. Sure, standard D&D Sorcerers can do that, but that's not how magic works in my setting. I'm hoping that WoP (Words of Power) will make magic work a little more in the way that it's supposed to work in the world that I've created.

What is WoP, and why do I feel like I am asking a question I should know the answer to?

See previous response.

Decreasing magic jacks up the CR system. Tread lightly.

Yeah, that's not really an issue at all. I'll just start off with slightly below standard CR monsters, and slowly ramp up until the enemies are on par with the players. Easy.

The closest thing to Steampunk is Eberron, but it is not really steampunk. It just has magic used to duplicate modern things like trains.

I do know of Eberron, and actually have a couple of the 3.5 books for it. Do its various magitech devices port over to Pathfinder well?

It handles gestalt as good as 3.5 did. Not all combinations are equal though.

Awesome, thanks.

PS:Words of power themselves are kind of shaky. I am seeing issues with them now(on the boards), and for someone to try to use an altered version of them is not something I would recommend.

I don't plan on it being altered TOO much, just I would probably say that the Summoning words have a longer casting time (Or the summoned creature doesn't appear until your next turn or something, so as to avoid it taking a full round to say a word), and maybe add in some more powerful healing Words. Probably cut or move the caster level up on various flight spells. Nothing huge.

What's shaky about them? I know I remember reading about a Magus exploit that gave 20 full attacks, but that was easy enough to remedy.

PS:What exactly do you consider to be pointless and silly other than the mansion?

Man, that's a longer list than I want to type up. Generally, spells that emulate extremely complex activities, or that make certain skills obsolete are SILLY, and spells that don't actually do anything useful are POINTLESS. I'd give examples, but honestly I don't really see how I would need to. Not all that hard to understand, really.

So hey, Paizo forums. I'm planning on running a Pathfinder game soon. I generally like the system, but do plan on changing a few things to make it more of the sort of game I want to run. Some of these things seem, however, like they could potentially break the living hell out of the system if I screw them up, so hopefully some of you guys can give me some advice.

First off, the whole "lol everyone flies" DBZ nonsense needs to go, so I'm going to severely restrict spells and items that allow flight. It just seems silly for the Fighter to be flitting about the sky, clashing blades like an anime character, when I'm trying to make a game with a grittier, more down-to-earth (Tee-hee) feel. Now, from what I've been reading, apparently the system is balanced around people being able to fly by like fifth level or something. Will me restricting flight break things? If so, what else will I need to change to keep things working?

Second, while magic certainly should be capable of doing things that mundane activity can't, some spells just get goofy. The setting is meant to be not quite "Low Magic", but not quite "Casters can do anything in six seconds with no downside" either. So to remedy this, I'm planning on using Words of Power (probably with a few specific Words changed up a bit, and possibly some custom ones added in to fill gaps in caster ability). This is because, honestly, it removes a bunch of ridiculous spells that do things that are either pointless, or so complex as to be silly. Not trying to destroy casters or anything, I just want to make their abilities a bit more straightforward, and a bit less Batman (EX:Buffing/Debuffing=Good: Direct damage=Good:Creating a magical mansion that exists outside of reality/demiplane/complex item that the wizard doesn't actually understand in any way=Bad). Does WoP do this, or does it just look like it does? I'm sure someone has tried it out at this point, so hopefully they can help me avoid any pitfalls that may be inherent in the system.

Third, due to magic generally being less common and less overpowered, things like guns and other technological devices will be comparatively common. Are there any good Pathfinder books, first party or otherwise, that have reasonable rules for a vaguely steampunkish sort of setting?

Finally, I plan on using the gestalt rules from Unearthed Arcana, partly because a certain part of the setting justifies some characters being significantly more powerful than others, and partly because I've played in several gestalt games that were extremely fun. Does Pathfinder handle gestalt well?

Thanks in advance. I mean unless no one replies to this, in which case we aren't friends any more, and I'm not giving back those PS3 games you let me borrow.