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Can the true dragons serve as balanced PCs and advance in age categories instead of levels? Maybe! How does this look?

It seems dragon CRs go up by 1 if they don't grow or 2 if they do. I'm considering making a same-size age category equivalent to a level. In the case of the categories where dragons grow a size, I'd give them the Giant simple template the first time they level up and the rest of the age category the next time.

This would allow for pure dragon PCs starting from levels equal to the CRs of the various wyrmlings all the way up to CR 20, or even beyond.

I'd allow players of true dragon characters to pick out their own feats and spells, place their own skill ranks and tweak their ability score totals, but I'd leave them on the same point-buy totals as the Bestiary wyrmlings.

Obviously this has true dragons growing up very quickly unless the campaign has abnormal amounts of downtime, but I'm happy to change their life cycle to accommodate something like this.

This is a very simple rule to achieve a very complex end that the game was not designed to cope with, so I'm sure that it will mess things up dreadfully somewhere along the line. Can you name any specific problems with this? I'd love to know.

If there was a tick box somewhere that allowed us to mirror our avatars it would be slightly easier to tell people apart, effectively doubling the number of unique images. If we were told how many accounts used the flipped image vs the original, we could deliberately choose the less popular direction to help distinguish ourselves.

It's always mildly irritating to read a conversation between two people with the same avatar or to encounter anybody with the same avatar as me, and flipping seems like a good way to halve that problem.

There's a lots these guys, so here is a link to the document.

This is a new approach to the gods, with one deity for each of the 54 Pathfinder domains.

You can use it as a cast of pre-made gods for your homebrew world, a jumping-off point for inventing your own one-domain deities, or a toolkit for adding colour to priests, communities and encounters.

It should open up build and role playing options for Clerics, give lesser-known domains, inquisitions and weapons some time in the sun, and make deities feel more unique.

It's got a little timeline, some simple mechanics and a guideline for adapting it to your campaign.

Thanks for reading. Do let me know what you make of it.

This is house rule designed to move enhancement bonuses off items and on to characters. It changes the role of magic items in your game, making each one a nifty extra tool rather than a necessity for keeping up with the monsters.

Character enhancements should be helpful for low magic games, but they're intended for every kind of game.

If you're using a published adventure, simply remove all the items and bonuses that this rule replaces and do not replace them. Run NPCs are written in their statblocks, but remove the enhancement bonuses from their weapons once they drop and don't have them drop other big 6 items at all.

You might have seen this kind of rule before. If so, you're probably wondering why I'm reinventing the wheel. Here's a few ways in which character enhancements are different:

Here's a link to the rules document. It's less than 3 pages, so don't run away.

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THE RULE

Instead of gaining feats every odd level (including 1st) and ability scores every 4th level, heroic characters gain 2 Character Points every level (again, including 1st).

Feats can be bought for 2 CP. Traits can be bought for 1 CP.

Base ability scores can be raised by paying CP as if they were extra points for buying scores using the purchase method, (see Core Rulebook p16 for costs). Your base ability scores are your ability score values BEFORE racial modifiers, magic, class features, mythic abilities and all other increases and penalties are applied.

At 3rd level and every 4 levels thereafter, the maximum value to which you can raise your base scores increases by 1. Each value beyond 18 costs 4 points.

Points cannot be saved between levels, but they can be used to buy part of a feat or ability score increase for which you qualify. This has no immediate benefit, but the feat or ability score increase is gained as soon as the rest of the price is paid at a later level.

THE ANTICIPATED FAQ

Why do this?
It reduces concept delay, it lets you simplify characters by giving them fewer abilities if you're so inclined, it helps balance M.A.D. characters and low rolls and most of all, more freedom is a good thing.

Why do characters qualify for higher ability scores a level early?
Because it takes two levels of points to buy the increase and you can't save towards it until you qualify, so in practice you get it the level after it opens up.

How does this affect balance?
It makes character's stronger in three ways:

Thoughts, everyone?

Ever wanted a Magus without the melee focus, or more options for magical gunfighting? The Spellshot archetype might be for you.
I've put it in a googledoc for better formatting and editing.

You can ignore the spontaneous charisma variant at the bottom if you like. It's by no means a vital part of the archetype.

Any and all feedback is welcome, but I'm hoping for answers to these questions in particular:

Ok, I know this is a potentially very contentious topic, so I'm going to start by clarifying what this thread is NOT about.

This isn't about who could beat who in a fight, DPR or build comparisons.
This isn't about whether Pathfinder or any given class is broken or unbalanced.
This is not about judging the overall worth or design merit of classes.

What it IS about is building a tool for players and GMs. They can choose what to do with the information themselves.

The tiers are ordered based on ability to progress through the story:

A high tier character is one who might trivialise encounters, sequence break or be difficult to challenge within the guidelines. A low tier character is more likely to get stuck, or have a hard time with a task that was meant to be simple.
Compensating for that is part of being a good Pathfinder GM, but even the best GM can't prepare for things they don't know are coming (unless they're a spontaneous caster with Paragon Surge).

Here are the tier definitions:

Where do you think the various classes fall? Your opinion on any base, npc, alternate or prestige class would be valued. Please say why, even it's only a few words.

I think we should list archetypes separately from the base classes, but only if adding the archetype changes the tier. The same goes for other particularly potent or limiting character options.

Once we have a few probable tiers assigned, I'll post a list of what we've got. If this takes off, maybe I'll start a googledoc with the up-to-date list and the thinking behind it all.

This is inspired by the old and well known 3.5 effort, which I think was masterminded by Lord of Procrastination. I've not directly copied it, but my tier definitions are probably about the same. Please don't suggest a tier just because the class was in it back in the day. Times have changed.

Hey guys. I have linked this googledoc before, but I have added new archetypes since then.

The main new one is Spellstar Magus, which combines elements of the spellblade and the myrmidarch with new abilities to create a ranged version of the magus which shoots force attacks and can use spell combat with a gun. It's by far the biggest archetype in the document and I'm particularly curious to know what you guys think of it.

The other is the Pulp Archaeologist, a variant on the archaeologist bard designed to leave the bardic elements behind completely. It uses Wisdom to cast its spells and has new class skills and a variant spell list.

Some feedback on those would be great. If you have any comments on the other archetypes in the document, that's good too.

Take a look here.

The Ovate is an Oracle who casts from the druid list, effectively giving us our spontaneous Charisma druid without causing base class bloat.

There rest are Magus archetypes, each of which starts with an existing archetype but makes far more significant changes.

The Hexblade is a spontaneous Charisma Magus working from the Hexcrafter. Thematically, they're a tradition of ambitious warriors who turn their desires into magical effects.

The Ascetic is a very different take on the spontaneous Magus. Its a martial artist with Wisdom-based casting, Kensi abilities and monk weapons.

The Bonded Blade is a modification of the Blade Bound Magus which stores its spells in the black blade.
Since you cast your spells using the blade, I included the option of taking a black staff instead. Staff Magi and Ascetic Magi should appreciate that.

Been thinking a lot about Gestalt recently, so I put together this document for a slightly different way of handling it, where you get the average progressions of your two classes.
Somebody suggested the averaging approach on this forum before, so it's not entirely original, but I've set it up a little differently and included a lot more stuff.

The document also has my character points rule, which replaces the standard feat and ability score progressions, and my multiclassing rules, which smooth things out a lot and eliminate the need for the Mystic Theurge, Eldrich Knight and Arcane Trickster.

Finally, I've included some archetypes, all of which are designed to stand on their own, but also help their classes to fit together better into gestalt combinations.
They are the Ovate Oracle (a Charisma-based spontaneous caster which uses the Druid spell list), the Hexblade Magus (a Charisma-based spontaneous caster based on the Hexcrafter), and the Ascetic Magus (a Wisdom-based magical martial artist based on the Kensai).
If your only interested in those, go ahead and scroll down to them.

Here is the document. Let me know what you think of it and please, if you have a question, ask it!

I am usually a point-buy person, but I think random score generation has it's uses and advantages, so this is my attempt to make it work for me. If you dislike the randomness, check below for a new way of choosing your scores.

One thing I never liked about rolling is it churns out characters who have no place in a dungeon. Every table allows people to re-roll scores that are too low, but I hate that kind of thing unless there's a formal rule. And I've never seen a formal definition of "too low" I didn't hate.

Here's a system to generate random scores without any characters being super powered or feeble.

The System

Ability scores are created in pairs. To create a pair:

That out of the way, I want to talk about those gamer manifestos I described. I want to see them spelled out and celebrated, rather than argued over.
Get up on the soap box and tell us why you tinker with pathfinder!
What parts of the game are you passionate about? What do you think about balance, tone, complexity? What's sacred or abhorrent to you?

I hope talking about this will help us see where each other are coming from, but I bet it'll be an interesting read in itself.

I'll probably throw in my own thoughts if and when we see a couple of other replies. I don't want this to be the Mort's An Opinionated Guy Thread. I'll save that for all my OTHER threads :p

It's that time again, ladies and gentlemen.

I've made a couple of these threads before, presenting attempts to make alignment better.
Previously, all of them have been flawed. They've been unclear, non-intuitive or just not aesthetically pleasing.

This time I think I've cracked it.

These are the goals of the new system:

So my group finally got ready to play Wrath of Nature. We were using the pre-update mythic rules, I'm afraid. Here's how it went so far.

Overall, I'd say it worked pretty well.
The players had fun and were able to deal with very high powered encounters without seeming out of place.

They might even be too strong in a fight, but I'm not really sure. I'll reserve judgement until we finish the adventure.

I'm not convinced the party should have been able to beat the chasm at all, but I was pleased with their solution when they did.

Interestingly, the old amazing initiative ability, while incredibly powerful, didn't hog mythic power at all.
I'd say it made the tier 1 path abilities of the martial characters nearly pointless, but everything else was used about as much as I would expect.
When we switch to the newer rules for the final encounter, I can confidently predict that the players will stop spending on amazing initiative completely in favour of their tier 1 path abilities.

Here's a variant alignment system I've been thinking about.

These are the components:
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Liberty- "People should be free" (friendly with Order, doesn't like Tyranny or Chaos)

Order- "People should be protected" (friendly with Liberty, doesn't like Tyranny or Chaos)

Chaos- "No right, no responsibilities, no rules" (friendly with Liberty, doesn't like Order or Tyranny)

Tyranny- "People should do as they're told" (friendly with Order, doesn't like Liberty or Chaos)
(Note that being aligned with tyranny is not the same as being a tyrant! Believing in and supporting tyranny counts too.)

Liberty and Order are moderate alignments, so they define good as "harmony" and don't play well with extremes.
Tyranny and Chaos are extreme alignments, defining good as "law" or "lawlessness" respectively, so they don't play well with alignments which oppose their beliefs.

A person's alignment is written in the format "XvsY", like LvsC or TvsL, telling us first what a character stands for, then what they stand against.
It also tells us how they might compromise: an OvsC knight would sooner sacrifice people's liberty or even support a tyrant than see his kingdom collapse into chaos, though he wouldn't be happy about it. More on that below.

Each character defines morality in terms of their own beliefs: Treat characters as a step closer to good for the purposes of your abilities for each alignment component they share with you. Treat them as a step closer to evil if they oppose what you stand for or stand for what you oppose.
Items use the beliefs of their creator.

Law and Chaos stay absolute.
Everyone counts as a step closer to lawful if they stand for Order/Tyranny or oppose Liberty/Chaos, and a step closer to chaotic if they stand for Liberty/Chaos or oppose Order/Tyranny.

There's one last component to this alignment system: Characters are Grim, Noble or Balanced.
This is a measure of how much they're willing to compromise to get things done, like the knight in the example above. It's often the difference between a shining champion and a feared anti-hero.
In terms of mechanics, this dictates which moral alignment characters are for the purposes of their own abilities: A Grim cleric channels negative energy, while a paladin must always be Noble. Balanced characters count as neutral.
Using spells with the Evil descriptor is now a Grim act, while using spells with the Good descriptor is not an aligned act at all.

Grim characters focus on supporting the alignment they stand for. They're willing to ignore its' friendly alignment if that helps them achieve their goals.
They also focus on fighting the alignment they oppose, accepting or even supporting acts they believe to be wrong if that helps. It may not be pretty, but it gets the job done.

Noble characters will not sacrifice their friendly alignment nor use the methods of alignments they dislike in any but the most extreme situations. To the Noble, the ends cannot justify the means.

Obviously Balanced characters seek a balance between these two extremes.

Your position on the Grim/Noble axis is denoted as a letter after the rest of your alignment, ie. OvsT -N

Ever wish there was a place to put your suggestions, houserules and homebrew other than the Monk Forum? What's that you say? Yes? Yes you do? Well my friend, this might just be the thread for you!

Here's how it works: We post and discuss all those simple little changes we've made to the system, or that we're thinking of making. Things that might not merit a thread of their own, but are worth sharing even so.

And please, don't use the M Word here. Think of the children.

I'll start.

First thing's first: This is NOT a "How to fix the monk" thread!

That said, reading all the stuff on this board about the monk's mechanics and theme did give me these ideas. Sorry if you guys have heard them before.

Here's what I have so far:

There could be an archetype/alternate class for the magus which uses wisdom for magic and class features.
It gets a limited form of spellcasting: Most of its spells must either be used on itself or the target of a spellstrike made with a monk weapon. It's possible that a few ranged touch attacks might be included to, but that would be the exception, not the rule.
The spell list would need revising. It would focus on flashy punches, subtle self buffs and the kind of supernatural tricks the monk base class can do. You'd be able to Cure, Haste or Magic Fang yourself, use Dimension Door, make shocking punches etc.

As for changes to proficiencies and class features, I'd give it d6 unarmed strikes, monk proficiencies and something to keep it standing without armour.

I'm not yet sure what its arcana list might look like or what it would get in place of the heavy and medium armour abilities.

What do you guys think of this? Does anybody have any suggestions?

This is a house rule I've been considering trying out some time. It leaves races and classes exactly as they are, but it gives players some more choices when it comes to the details.

The rule is designed to add a little more freedom to character creation and advancement, smooth out the game's progressions and help characters who depend on multiple ability scores, or get terrible ability score rolls.

Character Points

• Characters lose their natural feat and ability score progressions. They don't even get the feat at 1st level.
• Ignore the normal benefits for taking a level in a favoured class.
• Characters get 4 CP every level, including 1st. They get a 5th CP if it's a level in a favoured class. They must spend them immediately. CP cannot be saved up. CP can buy the following:

For 1CP

• A Hit Point. You may take this a number of times up to your character level.
• A Skill Rank. You may take this a number of times up to your character level.
• One of your Race's Alternate Favoured Class Benefits. You may take this a number of times up to your class level.

For 2 CP

• A Trait.
• A Training Point. Training points can be saved up and spent to increase your ability scores. They're the same currency used to buy abilities in the point-buy generation method. To spend them, first remove your character's racial modifiers, pay the points, then put the racial modifiers back. Ability scores never cost more than 4 training points to raise, but natural ability scores cap out at 23 before racial modifiers.

For 4 CP

• A Feat.

If you were to buy a feat at every odd level, a couple of training points every even level and spend the leftover points from levelling your favoured class on hit points, skill ranks and racial favoured class benefits, your character would work out exactly as normal, except for a significant discount on raising low ability scores.

What does everybody think? Can anybody think of a scary way to abuse this?

EDIT: Oh, forgot to mention that this doesn't affect feats, traits or score increases from any other source. Humans still get a feat at 1st level, characters still get traits in campaigns with free traits, etc etc.

This is based on Mockingbard, Kirth Gersen and Dragonmann’s non-generic cleric for 3.5. It came up in a thread somewhere on this site and I thought it was interesting, so I went to work on it. This version is updated to pathfinder, expanded and tweaked.

This class turns many of the cleric's compulsory features in to options and adds new things you can take in their places.
The idea is that you can use it to play a wise priest with divinely inspired magic without being an armoured head-smasher, play a quick, skilful character as easily as a tough one, or even be a heavy armoured warrior, if that's your thing, all while being recognisable as a Pathfinder cleric.

Don't worry about the low-looking stats! You can use the menu to re-build the normal cleric with ease.

The Non-Generic Cleric

Clerics function just as they do in the books, except for the following changes:

• d6 Hit die
• Poor Base Attack Bonus
• Poor Fortitude save
• You're only proficient with light maces, heavy maces, clubs, quarterstaves, slings and light armour.
• Choose only 1 domain from your deity’s list.
• You get a choice of spontaneously casting cure spells, inflict spells, or spells from one of your domains. You must be non-evil to spontaneously cast cure spells and non-good to spontaneously cast inflict spells. Once you make this choice, it cannot be changed.

Pick five options from the list below. Unless otherwise stated, each option may only be selected once.

If you choose an additional domain that’s not from your deity’s list, channel the wrong kind of energy or spontaneously cast the wrong kind of spells, you interpret the will and nature of your deity in radically different ways to most of his or her followers. Mainstream followers of your deity tend to think you're mad, heretical or at the very least misguided. How they react to you depends greatly on the church in question and the manner in which you deviate from their expectations.
You cannot be a member of the church in good standing, but there are no associated mechanical penalties.

How balanced does this look to you? Can you use it to build your ideal cleric yet? If you have any suggestions for changes or new options, I'd love to hear them.

I'm considering a rule allowing players to start as monsters or experienced characters at the cost of using a lower point-buy setting than normal level 1 PCs.
Since they'd theoretically be of equal power to everyone else, I'd allow them to level quickly, as though they had started at 1st level.

My first instinct is -5 ability points per CR, but I'm not at all sure if that will work or not. It seems too good a deal.

Has anybody tried something similar? What was the rule? How did it work?

This archetype is designed to let you play a much more effective unarmed barbarian, whether he's a bestial wild-man, a street thug or a professional pit-fighter.
This archetype should work well mechanically and thematically with the Breaker, Brutal Pugilist and Savage archetypes. You might even combine it with Superstitious, using the Sixth Sense ability to represent a finely honed instinct for trouble.

The new Bolt of Fury rage power won't suit everybody's character or campaign, which is one reason why it's only a rage power and not a compulsory feature.
It allows you to play a street-fighter style energy ball throwing martial artist, but the main reason it exists is so you don't have to struggle quite so much to hurt enemies you can't reach.
Since it seemed appropriate for them, I've put a new monk class feature here that lets them do the same thing in a different way. It's a freebie, but I'm sure it won't overpower them.

The Bare-Fisted Barbarian

Barbarians are infamous for wielding the largest weapons available. You're an exception. Sometimes, you wonder if that guy with the greatsword isn't compensating for something.

Weapons and armour proficiencies: A bare-fisted barbarian is only proficient with unarmed strike, gauntlets, daggers, spiked gauntlets, light maces, clubs, heavy maces, staves, padded armour, quilted cloth armour, leather armour and studded leather armour.
This replaces the normal barbarian weapon and armour proficiencies.

Class Skills: You MAY remove Knowledge (Nature), Survival, Handle Animal and Ride from your list of class skills.
If you do, add Knowledge (Local), Profession, Sense Motive and Sleight of Hand to your list of class skills. It’s all or none.

Unarmed Strike: At 1st level you gain the monk's unarmed strike class feature, substituting your barbarian level for your monk level.

Versatile Improvisation: At 1st level, you may treat any improvised weapon as though it were a double weapon. Treat each end of an improvised weapon used in this way as though it had the weapon's normal stat-line.

Weapon Focus (Unarmed Strike): At 1st level, you gain Weapon Focus (Unarmed Strike) as a bonus feat.

The Ol' One-Two: At 1st level you gain Two-Weapon Fighting as a bonus feat, but you may only use it with unarmed strikes and improvised weapons unless you also gain it from another source.
At 6th level, you gain Improved Two-Weapon Fighting with the same restrictions.
At 11th level you gain Greater Two-Weapon Fighting with the same restrictions.

Other Class Features: Any barbarian class feature that normally does not function while you wear heavy armour doesn't work for you while you wear medium armour or a shield either.

Because you can never have enough alignment threads!

This is an expansion on the standard pathfinder/D&D alignment system. It replaces the morality axis with two new ones representing ends and means, tightens the definitions for lawful, chaotic and neutral and adds a new element called Polarity, which doesn't describe a characters personality, but changes their effective alignment.

It's designed to create a slightly deeper, more useful and internally consistent measure of who's a good guy and who's a bad guy, but without messing up the rules of the game or leaving the paladin unable to smite the right things.

The System

There are 3 axes of alignment and all creatures with an intelligence of 3 or above have one alignment element from each. Creatures with an intelligence of 2 or below have no alignment at all. They aren't even neutral.

Alignment is all about what you do and why you do it. If you are generally inclined to commit villainous acts and not to commit heroic acts, you are a considered a villain. Being neutral on any particular axis means different things depending on the axis, but it's always down to your actions and intentions.

In case it needs saying: if it isn't intentional, it doesn't count as an aligned act. This doesn't mean that your barbarian isn't being a jerk when he stomps on little girls' pets if he thinks it's acceptable behaviour, only that he's not being a jerk if he steps on them by accident.

I typed up most of this a while ago. At the time, I called it an expanded archetype, but it’s more like the alternate classes from Ultimate Combat. Recently, I’ve neatened it up and changed a couple of things, so I thought I‘d post it here and see what people think.

It’s a combination of the Savage Skald archetype from the APG, the Savage Bard from Unearthed Arcana, bits from the other bard archetypes and a small amount of creativity, which serves mostly to hold the thing together
The class features are all from the APG or the Core Rulebook, with the exception of the bonus combat feats, but they’re available here in new combinations to represent different character types. There are also a few other changes that make the skald different from any kind of bard.

The Skald

If the bard is a magical performer who can also fight, the skald is an inspiringe warrior who can also cast spells.
You’re far more likely to find one beating the drum on a longship, blowing a bugle to start the charge or telling epic tales to a barbarian thane than you are to see one set foot on a stage or busk in the street.
Many who see them in action never guess that they are kin to bards at all, because a skald’s performances are just as likely to involve screaming and hitting a shield with an axe as they are to involve singing or instruments.

A Skald is a Bard, with the following exceptions:

Weapon Proficiencies: A skald is proficient with warhammers, battleaxes and handaxes, but not with saps or whips.

Class skills: At 1st level, a skald adds Survival, Swim, Ride and Handle Animal to his list of class skills and removes Linguistics, Acrobatics, Sleight of Hand and Escape Artist from his list of class skills

Saves: A skald has a good fortitude save, a poor reflex save and a good will save.

Spell list: A skald adds the following spells to his spell list:
1st- calm animals, magic weapon, endure elements, summon natures ally I
2nd- bull’s strength, bear’s endurance, pass without trace, summon nature’s ally II
3rd- summon nature’s ally III, beast shape I
4th- greater magic weapon, summon nature’s ally IV
5th- commune with nature, summon nature’s ally V
6th- mass bull’s strength, mass bear’s endurance, summon nature’s ally VI

And removes the following spells from his spell list:
calm emotions, cat’s grace, mass cat’s grace, comprehend languages, share language, detect secret doors, erase, illusory script, prestidigitation, sepia snake sigil, summon monster I-IV

Class Features:

At 1st level a skald chooses either Rallying Cry (as the Arcane Duelist performance) or Sea Shanty (as the Sea Singer performance.
This replaces Countersong.
Many skalds of a military bent call their Sea Shanty performance Marching Song, but the effects are the same.

A skald gains Inspiring Blow (as the Savage Skald performance).
This replaces Fascinate.

A skald may take Demoralise (mechanically identical to the Court Bard’s Satire) in place of Inspire Courage if he wishes.

At 2nd level a skald learns to mix martial might with his songs and spells. He gains Combat Casting as a bonus feat and gains a bonus combat feat every 4 levels thereafter.
This replaces Versatile Performance and Well Versed.

At 3rd level a skald may take Still Water (As the Sea Singer performance) in place of Inspire Competence if he wishes.

At 5th level a skald must choose between the Arcane Duelist’s Arcane Bond feature, a hawk, raven, viper, fox or spider familiar (using his Skald level as his Wizard level), or 1d6 sneak attack + another d6 every 5 levels thereafter.
This replaces Lore Master.

At 6th level a skald must choose between Incite Rage (As the Savage Skald performance) and Whistle in the Wind (as the Sea singer Performance).
This replaces suggestion.

At 10th level a skald must choose between Arcane Armour (as the Arcane Duelist class feature) and Song of the Fallen(as the Savage Skald performance).
This replaces Jack of All Trades.

At 12th level a skald gains Berserkergang (as the Savage Skald performance).
This replaces Soothing Performance.

At 15th level a skald may take Show Yourselves (as the Detective performance) in place if Inspire Heroics if he wishes.

At 18th level a skald gains Call the Storm (as the Sea Singer performance) if he chose Whistle in the Wind at 6th level, or Battlesong (as the Savage Skald performance) if he chose Incite Rage.

What does everyone think? See any balance issues or missed opportunities? How do you feel about the spell list? I’m not sure pass without trace belongs, for one thing.
Should the familiar option treat his bard BAB as his wizard level? That would reduce its power by about the same amount as the bonded object is limited by his slower casting progression.

Ok, so on the one hand, I was pleased to see the advanced guns and the option to make them cost a tenth of their listed price. I understand why guns should be rare in a normal campaign, but if you ask me, a primitive gun for the kind of money you're normally expected to pay is a terrible weapon. I'd much rather see rarity encouraged by something other than bad value, so I'd probably want to use that option even in a campaign with very few guns.

However, I don't see how the gunslinger can be balanced across the whole spectrum of cost and availability. Guns are what he does, exclusively, and now you're telling me that the slow reloads, misfires and high price of owning and loading a gun are all optional?

Comparing the two most extreme versions of the firearms rules which allow gunslingers, the differences are dramatic:
The 1st level "emerging guns" gunslinger gets a free gun which he can fire every other round (slightly less if he misfires) at a cost of 11gp, or, if he uses cartridges, he can shoot a pistol 9 rounds in every 10 at the cost of an extra gold piece per shot. If he spends a feat, he gets to shoot every round without paying the extra gp.
Meanwhile, in a parallel world with guns everywhere, the same gunslinger's bearded evil duplicate pays 75gp for a revolver and fires it every round for 1.2gp. That initial expenditure is pretty big for a 1st level character, but not having to pay so much for ammunition will make up for that within 36 seconds of combat. On top of the better gun and cheap ammo, this goatee wearing villain gets to add his dexterity modifier to damage every time he hits. He's not just better, he's wildly better.
Once the gunslingers reach 5th level, things even out a little, because both of them have gun training, but there's still a big difference there and at 6th, the gap widens again with the arrival of the first iterative attack.
Can both gunslingers be balanced? Well, they certainly don't seem balanced against each other, so its hard to see can both be balanced against longbow users.

Obviously, the other classes can also benefit from guns being affordable and usable without a feat, but really, that just means guns become a good option for them, comparable in power to other weapons they already have. The 'slinger uses guns whatever kind of campaign he's in, so his options barely change at all. Instead, it's his power that changes. He can't help but gain much more than the others if his weapons are improved.

Another factor affecting gunslinger balance is the Daring Act optional rule. Clearly the class is strictly better when it's allowed, but better by how much? I'd say it depends on the GM. It could easily come up only four times in a whole campaign, or as many times in every session. Should that much of a class's effectiveness really be left to GM whim and interpretation?

In campaigns in which both options are combined, we have a faster, richer, grittier, more reliable and more damaging gunslinger who can find new equipment much more easily and who ignores the downsides of a whole category of special gear which enhances his attacks. Something's not right there.

Please understand that I'm not arguing for the removal of the guns everywhere option. I actually think it looks really good. In fact, I'd call it the solution to most of the stuff people still don't like about the class.
I'm also not saying that the standard gunslinger is too weak or the more powerful gunslinger is too strong, just that I don't understand how both can be right at once.

What happens if we ditch the old rules for two weapon fighting and replace them with something like the following?

Dual Weapon Attack

You can attack with two weapons at the same time in place of any normal attack.
When you do, make a single attack roll. On a hit, you deal damage with both weapons, adding your strength modifier to damage for your primary hand weapon and half your strength modifier to damage for your off-hand weapon as normal. This counts as a single hit, so don't stack typed bonuses to damage from the different weapons or apply precision damage more than once.

It's difficult to apply as much force when attacking with two weapons unless the weapons are light. Unless the weapon in your primary hand is a light weapon, take a -1 penalty to damage when attacking with both weapons. If your off-hand weapon or both of your weapons are not light, take a -2 penalty instead.

When you use power attack, add both the full bonus to damage from the weapon in your primary hand and the halved bonus to damage from the weapon in your off-hand.

If you score a critical hit, multiply the damage from each weapon by its critical multiplier as normal.
If you threaten a critical hit for one weapon, but not the other, roll to confirm the threat for that weapon alone and do not multiply the damage from the other if you succeed. If you threaten a critical hit with both weapons, make a single confirmation roll for both.

If it's unclear which weapon is dealing extra damage, but it still makes a difference, (such as when you sneak attack with a lethal weapon in one hand and a non-lethal weapon in the other), the extra damage is dealt with the weapon in your primary hand.

Anybody can attempt a dual weapon attack, but unless they have Dual Weapon Attack Proficiency, the roll is made at a -4 penalty, as though they were non-proficient with one or both of the weapons. Classes that start out proficient with all martial weapons are considered proficient with dual weapon attacks. For everybody else, it costs a feat.

Crossbows

Conjoined Weapons

Paired Magic Weapons

This is my second attempt to balance multiclass casters. You can still read the first on this very forum, if you harbour deep-seated masochistic tendencies.

These much simpler house rules add a new option to the existing system without changing anything that was already there. Hopefully they make much more sense too.

It looks to me like this should all work nicely, but it would be great to have your feedback and questions.

What’s the Problem Anyway?

Why Not Just Be a Theurge or Something?

How Is This Different?

The Add-On: Simultaneous Casting

Multiclass spellcasters can cast multiple spells at the same time, as long as each comes from a different class. This is called Simultaneous Casting.

The action time for simultaneous casting is the same as the longest casting time among the simultaneous spells.

When multiple simultaneous spells affect the same creature, add their spell levels together for the purpose of calculating their save DCs for that creature.

You cannot cast level 0 spells simultaneously.

The maximum number of levels of spells you can cast simultaneously is dictated by your total Magic Ranks from all your classes:

Ranks / Maximum Simultaneous Spell Levels
1-2 / 1
3-4 / 2
5-6 / 3
7-8 / 4
9-10 / 5
11-12 / 6
13-14 / 7
15-16 / 8
17+ / 9
Casters gain one rank at every level unless otherwise noted. If you aren’t multiclass, ignore magic ranks. They don’t affect you.

Sorcerers and Oracles skip a rank at 2nd level.

Bards Inquisitors and Summoners skip a rank at 2nd level and every 3 levels thereafter.

Adepts skip a rank at 2nd level, 6th level and every 3 levels after both.

Paladins and Rangers don’t start getting ranks until 4th level, when they get spells. They skip a rank at their 2nd spellcasting level and every 3 levels thereafter.

When your class says to skip a rank, but you have already skipped a rank at the same class level in another class, you get the rank anyway.
Paladins and Rangers subtract 3 from their class level for this purpose.
e.g. If a Sorcerer 1/Paladin 6 decides to take a second level of Sorcerer, he gains a rank, because he already skipped one at his second Paladin spellcasting level.

When a prestige class gives you a level of another class’ spells, that includes its magic rank progression.

Note

You probably shouldn’t use the Mystic Theurge with this system. You don’t really need him, his capstone feature is redundant and he’s almost certainly over powered. If you really want to use him, for the love of God, don’t give him more than one Magic Rank per level. Otherwise, just alternate levels between an arcane class and a divine class.

This variant is designed to make multiclass spellcasters viable. It makes the mystic theurge pointless, since you can now just alternate levels of any two spellcasting classes and get a similar but slightly better character.

To that end, the spells per day progression of all classes is replaced with a single table which different classes climb at different rates and a few bonus spell slots which some classes gain at particular levels. It may sound complicated, but Spells/level/day should end up exactly the same unless you play a sorcerer, oracle or multiclass spellcaster.

You’ll find no Vancian casting here, but don’t worry, if you want to keep it, you could very easily ignore that side or it. Just have the sorcerer and oracle gain no magic rank one level and push their bonus spell slots back a level, then only use the readied spells mechanic for spontaneous casters.

The spell readying and ritual casting systems here are designed to simplify preparation, let spontaneous casters get a little more out of metamagic and stop casters from having to rest for 8 hours just because they prepared the wrong spell, all without disregarding the restrictions designed to keep these classes distinct from each other and under control.

You’ll notice I have changed the action for spontaneous metamagic. Again, if you dislike that, it’s easy enough to remove.

Paladins and rangers get access to the full cleric/druid lists. Again, this can easily be removed by restoring their old spell lists.

I’m aware that something similar was done in Trailblazer. I’m not sure how close the final product is, but I saw a preview version a while ago and there are some significant differences between this and that.

Any suggestions, glaring flaws pointed out or similar things are welcome. Sorry if it’s a little hard to read. I had trouble wording things and finding the right names for new concepts.

Mortuum’s Variant Magic System.

Casting classes get a Magic Rank progression. Add up all your magic ranks from all your classes to get your total magic rank. Your total rank shows you which level on the Spell Table to use.

If you don’t do magic, you don’t have a Magic Rank at all. Not having a magic rank is not the same as having Magic Rank 0.

The Spell Table is identical to the wizard’s spells per day table, except with a level 0 marked on it. Level 0 gives you 3 level 0 spells and nothing else. The numbers for each spell level aren’t just your spells per day; they are also your spells readied.

You can cast your readied spells spontaneously.

If you are a multiclass spellcaster, it often matters which class you use to ready a spell, (for example, wizards and sorcerers have the same spell list, but they use different ability scores), so make sure you write which classes you have used to ready each spell. You can ready the same spell multiple times from different classes, if you like.

You can ready and cast any spell you know, provided your casting stat for it is equal or greater than the spell’s level -10, you have a readied spell of that level and its spell level is no higher than the number of magic ranks you have from the class you use to ready and cast the spell.

You no longer have a separate caster level for each class. Add up all your caster levels and use the total for all spells you cast.

All spell slots are refreshed after 8 hours of rest.

All bonus spells for high ability scores are based on Constitution.

A caster can use a ritual to cast any spell he knows, even if he does not have it readied.
The ritual lasts for [10 x the spell’s level] minutes (level 0 spells take 2 minutes). At the end of that time, the ritualist must cast the spell immediately or waste the time. If the ritual is interrupted, it must be started again from scratch. Spellcraft can be used to identify which spell the caster is preparing to cast as though he is already casting it. Casting in this way costs the same as casting a readied spell.

Spells can be readied with metamagic already applied to them. This costs no extra action. Spells with this “built-in” metamagic count as spells of their modified level for the purposes of determining how many spells of each level you can ready. You can’t apply metamagic spontainiously unless you have a class feature for it.

If you use a spell slot to cast a lower level spell, you don’t expend it. Instead, you reduce its level by the level of the spell. When a spell slot is refreshed, it is restored to its original level.

Readying all your spells takes an hour, no matter how many you know or from how many classes you take them.

Classes

Feats
Spontaneous Metamage
Prerequisite: Ability to spontaneously apply metamagic to spells from one class you have magic ranks in, magic ranks in another class which does not allow spontaneous metamagic.
Effect: You can apply spontaneous metamagic to any spell you can cast.