Orion Anderson's page

Some folks like a lot of mechanical rules to prevent abuses by min/maxers. To them the joy of the game is well-written consistent mathematics and statistical analysis. It annoys them to no end when someone discovers a way to 'break' the game. They desire classes, feats, skills and races that are balanced so people will not construct gawdawful abortions like Pun-pun the Kobold. Rules interpreted as a closed system (RAW).

Note that neither I, nor Psychic or Squirreloid actually *play* by the rules as written. I publish extensive house rules before each campaign, and make some up as I go. I don't have players binding pit fiends or extracting wishes (my player's aren't generally rules-savvy/power-hungry enough that it would even come up).

The point is that this is how I operate as a player; it is not how game designers operate. Their job, by definition, is to worry about the rules as written, since they are the ones who write them. Similarly, if you or I are going to have a meaningful convrsation about Pathfinder, we need to discuss it as it is actually written.

Some folks like to freeform interpret the rules to fit their own game table. They don't get worked up about the math, they feel that 'Rule 0' is the Holy Grail, and the DM can rule any way they damn well please, and to Hades what some book or min/max munchkin says. They dwell on the character, the story, not the math. Rules interpreted as an open system (RAI).

I don't understand why these people would object to reformulating the rules to satisfy the "RAW crowd." How does it impinge on thier interests?

Ie, any high level playtests I try to run will assume casters chain-binding efreets, using infinite wealth exploits via Wall of Iron and similar, and so forth - because the rules actually allow that. Until the rules don't allow that, it would be negligent of me to arbitrarily decide it isn't allowed. Of course it is. The rules say so in black and white. That's where the edge of the system is, and that's where it needs to be playtested.

I respectfully disagree with this. Working around known bugs seems pretty reasonable.

Why not just preface your report with, "We elected not to use PLanar Binding, on account of established brokenness. If we had, the following encoutners would have been triviially easy: (here's why)"

The first night, we would run into ** spoiler omitted ** and I would make the determination that they had a 63% chance of winning using the brilliant reasoning that Phsychic_Robot provided, so I would just tell them what the treasure was. Oh, *rats*, I forgot that player Z was playing the wizard and he statistically rolls very low damage. Back to the analysis. Oops, sorry guys you only have a 36% chance, so you all die. Roll up new characters and make sure the Z doesn't play the wizard or you will never get past this encounter.

Weeks later, after they have rolled up new characters many times, we all decide to play chess instead.

-- david
Papa.DRB

Because clearly it would be preferably to spend an entire session on the party's horrible, but entirely predictable death...

I tire of hearing about the value of a certain feat, or that this class is inferior. This is a roleplaying game, quit assessing the absolute value of every aspect to determine what the "best" character is.

Orcface, why are you even participating in this enterprise if you aren't interested in the substance of design. I'm not saying perfect balance is everything (there are games that are balanced but not fun and vice versa), but... why participate in the desing process if you don't care about it?

Yes, when *playing* a game, one does what appeals to them; when *playtesting* a game, one explores the possibilities of the system. Two different things.

Look, obviously there are some types of problems , especially more nebulous ones involving group dynamics or "fun" that are harder to do without sitting your friends down at the table.

However, is jury-rigging an encounter specifically designed to illustrate the flaws in the system is acceptable-- why on earth should I bother actually rolling dice? Shouldn't I instead crunch probability numbers? See how many rounds one team needs o eliminate the other, and compare? Etc.?

Seriously, I argue that "A Wizard with this build will affect a Marilith 65% of the time" is *more* useful than "I played a wizard, and my spell worked."

I, too, want to know what constitutes a valid playtest. Obviously, if I run a game for my friends in which they run a party through a Path of Worms adventure and a given monster kills them, that's valid under this rubric.

What if I run the character's myself as a solo exercise? What if I don't run an actual adventure, just a one-shot encoutner with said monster? What if I don't bother rolling all the dice, as I can already see that the party's chance ot win is less than 10%?

Look, saying "I house rule this to work like X; I recommend that Pathfinder do the same" is valid.

Saying, "I house rule it to work like X, so let's leave the printed rule as is"... is not.

And the test of an exploit is *not* if everybody will use it, it's if *anybody* will use it. Any rules abuse that can be fixed without destroying the rule's less abusive purposes should be fixed.

I'm not sure that a DM not wanting to take the time to figure out additional plot-lines means the spell is broken. I think it means that the using the spell is game changing.

This is true of many of the powerful spells. I'm not sure that nerfing them all is the answer. Perhaps just the recognition that certain spells will absolutely affect the game-play is enough so that people can make informed choices about whether they want them in their game.

In fact, this point, or variations thereof, is made in most of the Planar Books regarding Plane Traveling spells. Individual DMs have to decide how their cosmology works and what is allowed and what is not. This is just a feature of certain elements of the game.

The problem is that the solution many call for, the elimination or nerfing of these spells, removes the option for those DMs and Players who do want to take their games in that direction.

I greatly agree that we cannot and should not nerf all powerful, game-altering spells. Therefore, I have proposed that we establish criteria by which to judge the value of a highly exploitable spell. I proposed three earlier:

How many players will want the things exploiting the spell can give them?
How much DM effort does it take to prevent the spell from unbalancing his game?
How interesting is a game defiend by the use and abuse of the spell?

In my opinion, Animate Dead meets these tests; Even Fabricate probably does; Planar Binding fails.

(Fabricate would fail a fourth test, which would be something like: can the setting as presented exist if NPCs use this spell intelligently)

EDIT: A Solution like requiring Truenames, posted upthread, would preserve the functionality for groups that *want* to deal with the ramifications.

Again though, can you give specific examples of chain binding affecting a game?

I cannot. And if we change the rule, I never will.

I have, however played in playgroups where even learning spells like planar binding, polymorph any object, etc., was strongly discouraged or outright banned because the DM didn't want to go to the effort of figuring out what was and wasn't an acceptable use of the spell every single session.

It's a shame to me that many of these spells don't see play because of their potential brokenness.

Orion Anderson wrote:

3: The DM says, okay, this campaign is now about interplanar politics. I agree that this would be a fun campaign that I might some day want to run. However, the DM might jsut as easily have other things going on and not want to derail things. Or for that matter, the Barbarian player might be invested in a plot where he's trying to unseat a usurper, which has now been sidetracked for entire sessions because the wizard used one powerful spell. So for the majority of campaigns to work, the player will need to voluntarily refrain from the tactic, which stills counts as a FAIL.

This can happen with almost any player and any power.

Yes and no. Obviously, there are a number of powers in the game that provoke this situation. The wizard could just as easily have said, "I want to raise an undead army" or "I'm going to Fabricate consumer goods." Heck, even the Fighter can do stuff like "I want to train a company of mercenary soldiers."

In fact, you *want* the game to have a certain number of such abilities. It's a big part of what makes D&D more fun than Final Fantasy. (Though I do love Final Fantasy)

However, I believe that D&D casters have too many. A Wizard who tries to apply even a fraction of the tools available to him will bend the plot so thoroughly that the input of any noncasters is completely overshadowed. To a certain degree this problem is inherent to the 3.X system, and is I think beyond the scope of Pathfinder to fix. But I'm certainly not going to cry if a few of them go away.

I feel that Chain-binding is a *bad* plot ability for a game to include, for several reasons.

1: The rewards are too appealing. While there are a number of ways of, say, stockpiling minions, the fact is that commanding minions is something only some players or characters will be interested in. Nercomancy, in particular, will not be appropriate to most concepts and party types, so most player's won't think of going the undead army route. Chain-Binding on the other hand boots your stats, which pretty much everybody wants.

2: The rewards are too universally applicable. For many plot abilities, their relevanc is conditional on the type of campaign and goals the GM provides. Either they can be made irrelevant (necromancy) or they require GM itnervention to be made relevant (mercenaries).

Hiring troops and becoming a commander is only relevant if the GM plays along. He has to provide things for your horde of level 1 guys to do. If the campaign is focused on something other than lordship, such as high-end dungeon crawling, it's not even an aissue. Having an army of peasants matters not a bit if your goals are "raid this crypt and fight the CR 7-10 monsters therein."

Necromancy is applicable more often, as out fo the box is can provide your with monsters that contribute to level-appropriate combat. However, undead minions have lots of limitations: mindlessness, poor mobility, special vulnerabilities, large size for the good ones, etc. These limitations make it fairly trivial to design adventures where undead minions arenot particularly helpful.

Chain-binding directly increases your stats and equipment, the core abilities of your character. There is literally no campaign in which a +5 to all stats isn't going to be useful. So there's always an incentive for players to turn to it.

3: The countermeasures are not mainstream enough.

Basically, I think the number of players and GMs who would want to play a campaign about necromantic armies is much greater than the number who would want to play City of brass/mafia politics. Therefore Necromancy is less disruptive to the average playgroup. And those groups who want to play interplanar politics and wishmongering can easily run those game sthrough plot devicium.

For all these reason, I think chain-binding is a poor plot ability to include.

Guys, even if you're right that the limitations of chain-binding make for an interesting adventure, I would argue that this is still too powerful.

See, this gets to the root of my complaint with high-level casters. Not only are they too good at killing monsters, they're too good at dictating the flow of the story. A good DM can stop a Wizard PC from completely dictating the plot, but usually only by obliterating any hope the Paladin or Rogue had of plot relevance.

Seriously, you're proposing allowing a tactic into the game which is so good that the only counter is not a simple other rule or counter tactic, but an entire adventure, even campaign arc.

Most players won't try for infinite wishes, but when one does, there are only three possible outcomes:

1: The DM says, okay, you have infinite wishes. Game balance is upset. FAIL.

2: The DM says, no way, that is not going to happen. Rule Zero'd, b!$%*. In this case the game goes on and everyone is happy. However, as game designers, our job is to minimize the frequency with which a GM has to ban apparently legal tactics, so this still counts as a FAIL.

3: The DM says, okay, this campaign is now about interplanar politics. I agree that this would be a fun campaign that I might some day want to run. However, the DM might jsut as easily have other things going on and not want to derail things. Or for that matter, the Barbarian player might be invested in a plot where he's trying to unseat a usurper, which has now been sidetracked for entire sessions because the wizard used one powerful spell. So for the majority of campaigns to work, the player will need to voluntarily refrain from the tactic, which stills counts as a FAIL.

I kind of like the mageslayer monk idea. I've long set them up in my games as demonslayers-- similar to wizards, and good antagonistic flavor.

Mechanically, though, the Monk's abilities don't go far enough. While most of their abilities are much better than human standard, almost all of them can be overruled by magic. What needs to happen is that we need to compare monk abilities to spells, in two critical ways:

First, Monk Abilities need to be as good as comparable spells. One of my big beefs with the Monk is that many of his class features are worse than, and do not stack with, spell effects.

Monk Speed: Monks are fast, right? right? Not really. A Monk is not even *as fast* as a full plate dwarf with boots of striding until level 6, about when the dwarf could pick them up if so inclined. More distubringly, if the party sorcerer hastest everybody, they all become as fast as level 8 monks, and the monk doesn't get any faster.

Slow Fall: This is totally cool and flavorful, yet for an ability with a dozen levels of progression still manages to be worse than Feather Fall.

That Jump Ability: Good, but remember that D&D characters event4a3ly learn to *fly*.

I've played with a lot of monks in my time, and I noticed a curious dynamic: monks rarely sought out spells or items that overlapped with their class features, making them often worse than other PCs at thier ostensible strengths. A Full Plate Dwarf with winged boots has more vertical mobility than a Monk.

Second, compare to the enemies. A Monk needs a set of abilities that lets him actually fight the things he's edisgned to fight. I would recommend starting with the monster manual, picking a set of monsters, then designing features to beat them.

If they're designed to fight casters and magical monsters, then the following come up:

Invisibility: Lots of casters and demons go invisible. The monk is supposed to be preternaturally aware, so they should get See Invisibility at some point in their progression.

Flight: Anything magic might fly. Monks currently are the least likely characters to fly, since they already have other movement powers. There are three ways to deal with this. My favorite would be to just give monks a fly s*eed, but I can already hear the screams from the realism lobby. The alternatives are to give Monks a useful ki missile ability or Pounce, so they can jump up and pummel somebody.

Teleportation/Walls: Many casters do these. Eventually Monks can Dim Door, but more than once per day might be nice.

---

Less Critical:

Incorporeality: I personally like the idea of ghost-hunting monks, and it's a niche they could have without needing huge numbers. They already have good touch ACs, make their hands Ghost Touch and you're good.

DR: Many demons, etc, have DR and many casters can get it. Monks already beat stoneskin, but you might consider giving them access to Ki Strike Good or Ki Strike Silver. (incidentally, while flavorful,Ki Strike Lawful is incredibly unhelpful. I looked through the entire monster manual, and AFAIK it only helps against Gray Slaad)

---

If, on ther other hand, you want Monks to continue in their role as debuffers, things look a little different. A Rogue can jump out from the shadows and *kill* things*, so a Monk needs to jump out and reliably disable one or more opponents.

Combat Maneuvers are nice, but at high levels become insufficient. You can't effectively trip giants (huge) Dragons (legs) Demons (flight) or Casters (flight, teleportation, prone casting). High-end monsters have very large grapple numbers, and few high-level threats need weapons to kill you.

Stunning Fist works okay against actual wizards, but not against undead, golems, or huge guys.

I haven't exhaustively studied the options availble to a pathfinder Monk, but someone needs to sit down and make sure that at every level 1-20 Monks have debuffs that their enemies are not immune to and will stop their enemies from killing them.

Actually, I'd like to defend Jason's methodology, if not the Monk as he has it currently formulated. It's entirely possible and goo for back-compatibility of rhte Monk to retain clerical BAB if its class features are impressive enough. Rogues and Clerics are effective frontline combatants without needing full BAB.

The Monk currently doesn't have anything that makes up for the BAB hit, but they could be given something.

The Bard gets some powerful offensive abilities, allowing him to contribute even in smaller, less melee-heavy teams!

Monks get to make combat maneuvers work at all!

Sorcerers get depserately-needed extra spells!

One point of contention. FOr many fo these creatures, especially the Nagas, you're starting really far away. I know it's the DMG guidelines, but in eveyr game I've ever played the DM uses a convenient ridge or something to start almost all enocunters within 100 feet, and often within 40 feet. And a Naga being an intellignet spellcaster creature wiht a name that implies guaridng thigns, ought to be inclose quarters. Simlarly, I still believe that you can beat the troll pack easily, but I'd be more itnerested ins eeing how you do it if they jump you.

I've wondered for a while now why the people who want to see a major revision don't just put together a group to do just that?

Some of us *have*. The infamous Frank Trollman and K have an extensive alternate system that plays very well. You can find it pretty easily by searching for "Tome of Fiends" or "Races of War."

So why do we care about Pathfinder? Two reasons:

First, personal convenience. Even though I honestly prefer Trollman's revisions to Pathfinder and will almost certainly continue to use his preferentially (Trollman's rules aren't for everyone, but they happen to suit my groups needs perfectly) I am likely at some point to join a game run by someone else using the published rules, and I'd like that to minimize the frustration.

More importantly, in my mind, a sense of protectiveness towards fledgeling gamers. You and I and most of us on these boards know the rules, know our gaming tastes and know what we want. We can beg borrow or steal the systems we need to run the games we want. Pathfinder is important to me because if Paizo succeeds, a generation of new gamers will grow up with Pathfinder as their game of choice. You and I both know the score, and we're both capable of adjusting the rules to make fighters work the way we want them to. We're both capable of fixing broken spells.

We're also capable of throwing artifact swords at our fighters, of choosing to have monsters attack him to make him useful, of scaling down the CRs until the monsters are appropriate.

Those new gamers, though? Some of them will probably read the flavortext and think that an eleventh level fighter sounds really *badass* and they'll roll one, expecting to be able to put a smackdown on dragons and demons. And thats a tragedy that can and should be prevented.

I like auto-scaling.

On Rogues:

Away from books at the moment, so going off memory of lawful

But can't a dishonest person respect order? value stability? obey laws? follow a code of honor?

Actually, under the pathfinder ruleset, there's no reason not to pick up teleport. You can forgo energy resistance for a day when you need to cross the continent.

It might, but I think the fault lies with them, not with Devotion.

Honestly, all of these abilities are way too limited in use. You give most of these out *way* after they've stopped being cutting0edge tech, so why limit them to once/day?

I also think the class would be readable and possibly more interesting with fewer talents that require other talents.

Quivering Palm sucked. And Cobra strike sucks more, because it *doesn't* kill things, just bruise them a bit.

She may not have slowed enemies down with wall off fire, or hasted everyone, but she did something even better. She killed the enemies before they killed us. In the end, what else matters in combat?

Pretty much anything else actually. Anyone can do damage, including clerics, warmages, animal companions, summoned monsters, cohorts, hirelings, and skeletal minions.

Giants do a lot of damage and have a lot of hit points. If that was enough to be powerful, giants would rule the world.

Donovan Vig wrote:

IMO, one of the most criminally underused splat material has been the asian themed stuff. The Samurai, Wu-jen, Shugenja, and all the other cool cats from the far east are excellent examples of how to mix your crunch and fluff while keeping it from getting soggy in milk.

What say the incredible Paizo community?

As an aside...I don't feel this opens the door too wide, I, for the life of me, cannot think of any iconic "classes" that could come from, say South american or african cultures...it's just that the asian theme has always been...unique.

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Ninja = rogue.
Samurai = fighter.
Wu jen = crap.

The Complete Warrior samurai makes everyone cry. It's mechanical identity -- full plate TWFer-- makes no sense. There's no customizability. And they're more gimped than even other fighters in power level.

The Wu Jen is actually, I think, the asian class that added the most to 3.5. In a lower-powered campaign where the DM undrtands not to kill you with monsters of your own CR, a Wu Jen provides an arcanist that doesn't make the party barbarian and bard cry.

My apologies. I can't keep track fo which camp you're in. From one of the rogue threads, I thought you were one of the fighter optimists. I really want to make sure we remember that Paizo's fighter changes do not constitute a fighter *fix*. I shall endeavor to do that without pouncing on individuals in the future.

Orion Anderson wrote:

I agree with the OP or Owen -- changeable enemies are a good thing.

Name the ability something like "Hunter's Mark" and the flavor takes care of itself.

too much like a videogame, really...

favored eenmyt akes time to train, elarn and master, why would a ranger change each night WHO he HATES more?

Like I said, you have to reflavor it from a favored enemy to a mark, bounty, or whatever.

Instead "I really hate/fear this type of monster, so I've devoted my life to killing them." It's "Oh, we're hunting mind flayers this time? Let me review my hunter's handbook."

Orion Anderson wrote:

Trust me, with my players it would be a nightmare. Especially once that had three or more attacks. Seriously, taking your movement, dividing by three, rounding, then counting squares to every enemy to decide if I'd rather get 2 swings on my real target or three swings on a different guy? Way, way to complex.

I like the double attack feat though.

Where did you get dividing your movement by 3? The rule I proposed is giving up 1 attack to move 1/2 your movement.

My pardon, halved then tripled. Still teetering on the edge of too complex.

Review of the talents

Abundant Step (Su): You must have 12 monk levels to take this ability.
A monk with this ability can slip magically between spaces, as if using the spell dimension door, once per day. Her caster level for this effect is one–half her monk level (rounded down).

This is kind of unexciting (see Devotion)

Charm Strike (Su): You must have the Diamond Body ability to take Charm Strike.
Declare you are using the charm strike before you make an attack roll. If you hit with a unarmed strike you do not deal damage but instead the victim must make a Will DC 10 + 1/2 monk level + Wis modifier save or fall under the effects of a Charm Person spell that lasts 1 minute/level. You can only attempt a charm strike on an individual once per day.

This is pretty cool, although at level 12 there are fewer "persons" around. A solid utility power, though I'm not sure it's worth investing three talents.

Cobra Fang (Su): You must have 15 monk levels and the Flurry of Blows ability to take Cobra Fang.
As a full–attack action, you can make a single unarmed strike that poisons the target. Cobra Fang (Touch; Fort DC 10 + ½ monk levels + Wis modifier; Init: 1d10 Con; Sec: 1d10 Con).
This ability may be used once per day.

At level 15, you're giving up at least two extra attacks, more if you have haste or flurry of blows. Further, the poison, although dangerous, will fail to work against many level 15 enemies. (constructs, demons, giant monsters with huge FORT) Given all that, there's no reason for this to be once/day.

Damage Reduction (Ex): You must have a base Fort save of +4 or higher.
The monk gains DR 1/–. This increases by 1 every 5 levels.

Worth picking up at level 1 or 3, probably. DR 5/- isn't exactly powerful, but it does help. It will depend on how many pre-reqs the typical monk build has. If you're blowing your first two talents on disease immunity and still mind, you'll never want this.

Defensive Stance (Ex): You must have a Base Attack Bonus of +1 or higher and the Stability ability to take Defensive Stance.
When a monk adopts a defensive stance, she gains phenomenal strength and durability, but he cannot move from the spot she is defending. He gains +2 to Strength, +4 to Constitution, a +2 resistance bonus on all saves, and a +4 dodge bonus to AC. The increase in Constitution increases the defender’s hit points by 2 points per level, but these hit points go away at the end of the defensive stance when the Constitution score drops back 4 points. These extra hit points are not lost first the way temporary hit points are. While in a defensive stance, a defender cannot use skills or abilities that would require her to shift his position. A defensive stance lasts for a number of rounds equal to 3 + the character’s (newly improved) Constitution modifier. A monk may end her defensive stance voluntarily prior to this limit. At the end of the defensive stance, the monk is winded and takes a –2 penalty to Strength for the duration of that encounter. A monk can only use his defensive stance once a day. For every 4 monk levels, and never more than once in a given encounter. Using the defensive stance takes no time itself, but a monk can only do so during her action.

Haven't thought through this one yet.

Devotion: You must have a Will save of +4 or better and the Still Mind Ability.
The monk can cast a handful of divine spells, as shown on the table below. To cast a spell, a monk must have a Wisdom of 10 + Spell level. The spells are chosen from the Sun, Travel, Law and Protection domains. The monk’s caster level is equal to ½ his monk level.

<insert Paladin spell progression chart here>

This is a nice ability; most monks will probably pick it up for item use. Notice that this blows Abundant Steps right out of the water, since you get dimension door as a spell.

Diamond Body (Su): You must have the Purity of Body ability to take Diamond Body and have a base Fortitude save of +7.
The monk gains immunity to poisons of all kinds.

Reasonable, as a prerequisite.

Diamond Soul (Su): You must have the Diamond Body ability and the Still Mind ability to take Diamond Soul.
A monk with this ability gains spell resistance equal to her current monk level + 10. In order to affect the monk with a spell, a spellcaster must get a result on a caster level check (1d20 + caster level) that equals or exceeds the monk’s spell resistance.

This is quality, and the requirements aren't *too* onerous.

Dragon Punch (Su): You must have the Ki Strike, Focus Ki and a BAB of +6 or better to take Dragon Punch.
As a full attack action, you make a single unarmed attack at your highest BAB. If you hit, you deal your normal unarmed attack damage plus +1d4 elemental damage (acid, cold, fire or sonic) per 2 monk levels you possess. This ability can be used once per day per 5 levels of monk you possess.

This is really unexciting. Give up at least one attack for a few extra damage dice. I'd always want Flurry more than this. Given how exciting the benefit isn't, make it a standard action, take off the usage limits, or both.

Elemental Granduer (Su): You must have the Elemental Affinty ability, the Elemental Temperance ability and a base Fortitude save of +11.
One of the resistance you have with Elemental Temperance is upgraded to energy resistance 15. You may select this ability multiple times, once for each Elemental Temperance you have.

Neither this, nor any of its prerequisites is ever going to see play. If you made this one available at lower level without pre-reqs, someone *might* want it.

Empty Body (Su): You must have the Diamond Soul ability to take this ability.
A monk with this ability can assume an ethereal state for 1 round per monk level per day, as though using the spell etherealness. She may go ethereal on a number of different occasions during any single day, as long as the total number of rounds spent in an ethereal state does not exceed her monk level.

Essence of the Wind (Su): You must have the Diamond Soul ability to take Essence of the Wind.
A monk with this ability can blink as per the spell, once per day.

Evasion (Ex): You must have a base Reflex save of +3 to take this ability.
If a monk makes a successful Reflex saving throw against an attack that normally deals half damage on a successful save, she instead takes no damage. Evasion can be used only if a monk is wearing light armor or no armor. A helpless monk does not gain the benefit of evasion.

Focus Ki (Su): You must have the Ki strike ability.
By taking a full–round action to focus your “inner breath”, you gain a +2 competence bonus to any one ability score, skill roll, saving throw or to your Base attack bonus. The bonus lasts for one minute. Once you have chosen which attribute will gain the bonus, you cannot change it for the remainder of the enhancement. You may use this ability once per day per 5 levels.

Fast Movement (Ex): You must have at least 3 levels of monk to take this ability. At every level divisable by 3, the fast movement bonus increases by +10 feet. (Thus, you gain +10 at 3rd, +20 ft. at 6th, +30 ft. at 9th, +40 ft. at 12th, +50 ft. at 15th and +60 ft. at 18th)

Flow Like Water (Su): You must have the Still Mind, Slow Fall and Flurry of Blows ability to take Flow Like Water.
Once per day, for up to 1 round/2 levels, you act as if under a Haste spell. This is a haste effect.

Flurry of Blows (Ex): When unarmored, a monk may strike with a flurry of blows at the expense of accuracy.
When doing so, she may make one extra attack in a round at her highest base attack bonus, but this attack takes a –2 penalty, as does each other attack made that round. The resulting modified base attack bonuses are shown in the Flurry of Blows Attack Bonus column on Table: The Monk. This penalty applies for 1 round, so it also affects attacks of opportunity the monk might make before her next action. When a monk reaches 5th level, the penalty lessens to –1, and at 9th level it disappears. A monk must use a full attack action to strike with a flurry of blows.
When using flurry of blows, a monk may attack only with unarmed strikes or with special monk weapons (kama, nunchaku, quarterstaff, sai, shuriken, and siangham). She may attack with unarmed strikes and special monk weapons interchangeably as desired. When using weapons as part of a flurry of blows, a monk applies her Strength bonus (not Str bonus x 1–1/2 or x 1/2) to her damage rolls for all successful attacks, whether she wields a weapon in one or both hands. The monk can’t use any weapon other than a special monk weapon as part of a flurry of blows.
In the case of the quarterstaff, each end counts as a separate weapon for the purpose of using the flurry of blows ability. Even though the quarterstaff requires two hands to use, a monk may still intersperse unarmed strikes with quarterstaff strikes, assuming that she has enough attacks in her flurry of blows routine to do so.
When a monk reaches 11th level, her flurry of blows ability improves. In addition to the standard single extra attack she gets from flurry of blows, she gets a second extra attack at her full base attack bonus.

<insert flurry of blows chart and unarmed damage chart here>

Improved Evasion (Ex): The monk must have the Evasion ability and a Reflex base save of +6. The monks evasion ability improves. She still takes no damage on a successful Reflex saving throw against attacks, but henceforth she takes only half damage on a failed save. A helpless monk does not gain the benefit of improved evasion.

Improved Uncanny Dodge (Ex): You must have the Uncanny Dodge ability to take Improved Uncanny Dodge.
With this ability, the monk can no longer be flanked. This defense denies a rogue the ability to sneak attack the barbarian by flanking him, unless the attacker has at least four more rogue levels than the target has monk levels. If a character already has uncanny dodge (see above) from a second class, the character automatically gains improved uncanny dodge instead, and the levels from the classes that grant uncanny dodge stack to determine the minimum level a rogue must be to flank the character.

Iron Body (Su): Once per day, you can use the wizard spell Iron Body as a supernatural ability.

Ki Strike (Adamantine): You must have the Ki Strike (magic), Ki Strike (Lawful) and a base Fortitude save of +10 or better to take this ability.
The monk’s unarmed attacks are treated as adamantine weapons for the purpose of dealing damage to creatures with damage reduction and bypassing hardness.

Ki Strike (Cold Iron): You must have the Ki strike (magic) ability to take Ki Strike (Cold Iron).
The monk’s unarmed attacks are treated as cold iron weapons for the purpose of dealing damage to creatures with damage reduction.

Ki Strike (Energy): You must have the Ki strike (magic) ability and a base Fortitude save of +10 to take this ability.
Half of the monk’s unarmed damage from attacks are treated as a form of energy (acid, cold, fire or sonic). The energy type must be selected when this ability is taken and cannot be changed.

Ki Strike (Magic): The monk’s unarmed attacks are empowered with ki. Her unarmed attacks are treated as magic weapons for the purpose of dealing damage to creatures with damage reduction. You may only have one Ki strike active at a time. At 15th level, you may have up to two Ki strike abilities active at one time.

Ki Strike (Lawful): You must have the Ki strike (magic) ability to take Ki Strike (Lawful).
The monk’s unarmed attacks are also treated as lawful weapons for the purpose of dealing damage to creatures with damage reduction.

Ki Strike (Silver): You must have the Ki strike (magic) ability to take Ki Strike (Silver).
The monk’s unarmed attacks are also treated as silver weapons for the purpose of dealing damage to creatures with damage reduction.

Natural Avoidance (Ex): You gain a dodge bonus to AC of +1. This increases by +1 every 4 levels thereafter.
Rend: You must have a Base Attack Bonus of +6 or more to take this ability.
A monk with this ability who hits with two or more unarmed strikes on a single opponent rends that opponent, dealing additional damage to twice her unarmed damage plus 1 ½ her Strength bonus.
This ability cannot be used in a round in which the monk flurries.

Repel the Earth (Su): You must have the Diamond Soul ability to take this ability.
Once per day, the monk can use overland flight on himself and his gear as a supernatural ability.

Purity of Body (Su): You must have a base Fortitude saving throw of +4 to take this ability.
A monk with this ability gains immunity to all diseases except for supernatural and magical diseases

Quivering Palm (Su): You must have 15 monk levels and the Flurry of Blows ability to take Quivering Palm.
With this ability, a monk can set up vibrations within the body of another creature that can thereafter be fatal if the monk so desires. She can use this quivering palm attack once a day, and she must announce her intent before making her attack roll. Constructs, oozes, plants, undead, incorporeal creatures, and creatures immune to critical hits cannot be affected. Otherwise, if the monk strikes successfully and the target takes damage from the blow, the quivering palm attack succeeds. Thereafter the monk can try to slay the victim at any later time, as long as the attempt is made within a number of hours equal to her monk level. To make such an attempt, the monk merely wills the target to die (a free action), and unless the target makes a Fortitude saving throw (DC 10 + 1/2 the monk’s level + the monk’s Wis modifier), it dies. If the saving throw is successful, the target is no longer in danger from that particular quivering palm attack, but it may still be affected by another one at a later time.

Timeless Body (Ex): You must have the Diamond Body ability to take Timeless Body.
With this ability, a monk no longer takes penalties to her ability scores for aging and cannot be magically aged. Any such penalties that she has already taken, however, remain in place.
Bonuses still accrue, and the monk still dies of old age when her time is up.

Tongue of the Sun and Moon (Ex): You must have Linguistics as a trained skill and have at least 10 ranks in the skill.
A monk with this ability can speak with any living creature that knows a language.

Slow Fall (Ex): You must be trained in the Acrobatics (Tumble) skill to take this ability and have a base Reflex save of +4 or better.
If the monk is within arm’s reach of a wall can use it to slow her descent.
When first using this ability, she takes damage as if the fall were 20 feet shorter than it actually is. The monk’s ability to slow her fall (that is, to reduce the effective distance of the fall when next to a wall) improves by 10 feet with every other monk level until at 20th level she can use a nearby wall to slow her descent and fall any distance without harm.

Stability: The monk gains a +4 bonus on ability checks made to resist being bull rushed or tripped when standing on the ground (but not when climbing, flying, riding, or otherwise not standing firmly on the ground).

Stamina: You gain +2 hit points each level

Still Mind: The monk gains a +2 bonus on saving throws against spells and effects from the school of enchantment.

A pre-req; nothing to see here.

Uncanny Dodge (Ex): You must have a Will save of +3 or better to take Uncanny Dodge.
A monk with this ability retains her Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) even if he is caught flat–footed or struck by an invisible attacker. However, he still loses his Dexterity bonus to AC if immobilized. If a monk already has uncanny dodge from a different class, she automatically gains improved uncanny dodge instead.

A solid filler.

Undetectable (Su): You must have the Still Mind ability a base Will save of +10 or better.
The monk acts as if under a constant nondetection spell with a caster level equal to his monk level.

Why is this so late? At this level, the standard is Mind Blank.

Wallwalking (Su): You must have the Fast Movement ability and Focus Ki ability.
As part of a move action, you can run up a vertical surface. If you do not reach a horizontal surface at the end of your movement, you fall.

Waterwalking (Su): You must have the Fast Movement ability, Focus Ki ability and Wallwalking ability.
As part of a move action, you can walk on the surface of water at up to ½ your normal movement rate. If you end your movement while still on the surface of water, you fall in and cannot use this ability again until you leave the water’s confines.

Walk Unseen (Su): You must have the Diamond Soul ability to take Walk Unseen.
Once per day, the monk can make himself invisible. This otherwise acts like an improved invisibility spell cast at the monk’s level.

Warrior’s Heart (Ex): This ability must be taken at 1st level.
The monk’s base attack bonus advances as a fighter (+1 each level) instead of the normal progression.

Wholeness of Body (Su): You must have the Wholeness of Body ability to take this ability.
A monk with this ability can heal her own wounds. She can heal 1d4 hit points per monk level to herself each day, and she can spread this healing out among several uses.

Didn't finish reviewing them all; will edit later.

This is definitely a step in the right direction. I think very few monks will fight unarmed very often, but they will for special attacks, which may be all it takes. I can't give a thorough review until I've playtested, or at least sat down and read through everything carefully, so I don't know if you went far enough in terms of giving the monk worthwhile thigns to do, but I hope so.

I would lobby for Ki Strike (Good) and (Evil) to be included as well, since I like the idea of a monastic whose purity drives off demons.

I'll second this.

At the least, experts should have access to it as well.

All classes should be able to study/use it, but I can see why casters would be especially good at alchemy.

Thirded. I get that some alchemy is supernatural, and not appropriate for totally mundane concepts, so don't give mundane characters Alchemy!

But there's no reason a fighter, rogue, or expert who wanted to couldn't brew up some alchemist fire.

ETA: Making Brew Potion available to noncasters would also be awesome.

Epic Meepo wrote:

With the new feat progression, bonus feats are less valuable than they were before.

Yes; in essence, Paizo powered up the fighter, but also powered up everyone else as well, leaving the fighter in the dust again.

No. You still don't get it. Paizo didn't power up the fighter, not in any significant fashion. Fighters still don't have ANY ability that lets them even play the game in high level D&D. They have bigger numbers now. but that doesn't make them good.

giving a monk the ability to cast mage armor for one hour due to a 1 level dip into wizard is ok but under the system presented here that would be mage armor for 11 hours which might as well be all day. low level spells can be very versatile especialy if they last a long time; sticking with the monk consider chill touch (lasting 11 rounds) shield, cure light wounds, magic weapon, etc. sure there not game breaking but what about a fighter who takes a level in wizard for true strike just think of the potential damage he could dish out with power attack and great cleave. And just to take this thread into the non SRD classes by selecting warlock 1/fighter 19 would have a 6d6 ranged touch attack at will!

A 6d6 Ranged Touch deals 21 damage. Nothing you fight at level 20 cares. Plus, anythign with SR will still be immune because the caster level is still mad low.

Mage Armor, while nice, doesn't stack with the Bracers of Armor that a level 20 monk should be toting. Chill Touch IIRC does cold damage, which everyone and thier mother will avoid with cold resistance or spell resistance. And you'd be giving up monk progression, in this specific case DR. Cure Light Wounds? are you kidding me?

Seriously, people, *think* about what level 20 play is like before you post level 20 examples.

Even if you wanted to give a Fighter that ability (which I disagree with, you're no longer training as a wizard when you take that class level), it should be less than 1/2 progression, since that is what some prestiges related to spellcasting get.

One of the stated goals of Pathfinder design is reducing the need for prestige classes.

It's in the definition of empowered.

fliprushman wrote:

It's still useful to have the feats, I think, since the rod gives you (only) 3 uses per day. I just think the rod is essential to an Evoker who can afford it. Instant max or empowering is too useful to ignore, i.m.o.

And good reminder about the crit possibility.

The feats? It depends. If you're using the rod to empower your highest-level spells, then you've used up your high-end slots already. you could, I supposed, fill your higher slots with empower fireballs or whatever, and then your mid-level slots with fireballs empowered by rod.

And no, it's not a good reminder about the crits. There's seriously no reason at all to be tossing around the number 100 when this is something that occurs in less than one in four hunred cases. It seriously doesn't matter at all.

No. Just no.

BAB is a common theme amongst the classes because it represents your ability to target something, whether through martial skills ala Fighter, or aiming as a Wizard. It represents your ability to get past the opponent's defenses, something all classes share. Allowing all classes to have some multi-class caster capability is not needed, nor desired. Like other posters have said, there would be no reason NOT to have one level of caster, especially with the experience penalties gone.

A nice suggestion, but bad in execution.

I suggest you read the suggestion again, bearing in mind that caster level here really just means caster level, not spell progression.

Trust me, with my players it would be a nightmare. Especially once that had three or more attacks. Seriously, taking your movement, dividing by three, rounding, then counting squares to every enemy to decide if I'd rather get 2 swings on my real target or three swings on a different guy? Way, way to complex.

I like the double attack feat though.

The thing about the whole "the fighter is useless" bandwagon is that it became a life of it's own. It has altered people's perceptions of the class to the point that it has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

You have people like Frank ... I don't mean to bash Frank, but I think the very existance of this thread points out that I am right.

Yes, let's take advantage of Frank's absence to bash him on his own thread. And how is the prophecy self-fulfilling?

Last year, I finished up playing through the Red Hand of Doom. Guess who was the most consistant damage dealer in the group? ... A lowly fighter was one of the most important members of the party.

Were you actually the most important, or just dealing the most damage? A lot of the best wizard spells just hold enemies down for the fighters to mince. Fighter does the damage, but we know where credit is due. Other spells kill stuff without damaging.

The power disparity doesn't have anyting to do with the weakness of the fighter or other classes. It has to do with the fact that spells increase in power exponentially, or at least to a much greater degree than hp, BAB, feats, and melee class abilities. If they flatten out the power curve of spells and higher level monsters, the "fighter is useless" arguement would disappear. If the designers had done their job properly 6 years ago, and did enough palytesting to realize the curve was off and fix it, we wouldn't be having this discussion right now.

So your argument is seriously that if wizards weren't better than fighters, people would stop saying that fighters were worse than wizards? Yeah, I guess that's true.

Incidentally, I'm not saying that fighters can't ever contribute to the game at high levels. It just demands a certain playstyle. the DM has to not use monsters and tactics that invalidate fighters-- if he just refuses to throw around the walls of force and invisibility and so on, if he just has his necromancer stand there and take it, fighters can be good. It helps if the DM hands out awesome artifact swords. And if the wizard uses his spells on buffs and setting up the fighters kills, instead of killing things and making his own fighters (summon, animate, etc.).
Believe me, I've played a high-level game where the fighters had fun. And even if the party ends up unable to take on the CR it's actually supposed to fight, a good DM will pick appropriate challenges.

Still, there are problems that crop up, like when either the DM or the casters don't play along, or when a preset adventure depends on optimized characters to get through it. That's why fighters should be fixed.

Eric Tillemans wrote:

I would like to see the option for any character to give up an iterative attack for an extra move of 1/2 their normal movement and peform a full attack minus the one iterative attack given up.

Balance- and flavor- wise this is pretty good, and in a video game would play great. I fear that it's unplayably complicated for a tabletop game.

Agreed that we need to keep rules simple but functional, but can we do that without endorsing, or ideally without mentioning prostitution? Thanks.

Game designers shouldn't obsess players with their math either.

What does this even mean? I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. the goal of design, especially of a tweak like this to an existing system, isn't to make people play a certain way, but to make the game work as well as possible for whatever style of play people do play. A designer can't really make a player obsessed with anything, because designers and players don't really interact.

I had a thought for the issue of a 12th level fighter taking a level of wizard and suddenly casting spells as a 7th level caster. It's a bit more work to keep track of, but what about only counting other classes as 1/2 level for levels taken AFTER you have a spellcasting class. This will still let a 12th Ftr/1 Wiz cast spells as a 7th level wizard, but only if you take your 1st level as wizard.

If you take wizard at level 13, you're a 1st level caster - if you then add 6 more fighter levels, you're a 4th level caster.

Thoughts?

No, no, a thousand times no. Let's look at some of the glaring flaws in this proposal.

1: Needless complexity. My biggest complaint with this multiclassing proposal is already that it's too complicated. I run a lot of games for players who don't know their rules very well, maybe have never read the rules, and I want character stuff to be as easy to explain as possible. Simplicity doesn't override balance or fun, but it's important. Your proposal adds an extra step to the CL-calculating process, one which the OP already complicates. Boo.

2: Subverts reverse-engineering. As often as possible, design should make characters reverse engineerable. That is, all that should matter is what they are now, not what they were at every intermediate stage. D&D doesn't have perfect reverse engineerability, but it comes close. There's no reason for some Fighter12/Wizard1 characters to be randomly worse than others, and many reasons not to. Making NPCs, playing NPCs from published adventures, and reconstructing PCs when a character sheet goes missing are all way easier If I don't need to ask what levels you got when.

3: Solves a non-problem. I know you don't like the idea of a fighter suddenly becoming a powerful caster, but two points. First, remember how the CR system works. Every 2 levels you fight an EL which potentially includes fighting twice the same thing you used to fight two levels ago. This means that every 2 levels a D&D character is supposed to *double* his power, and adding 1 level should increase it roughly half again. Does getting a few first-level spells make a fighter 50% stronger? Flavor-wise, look at the first-level spells. There's nothing there inappropriate for a newly minted mage. That fighter probably isn't using Magic Missile anyway, so all giving him the caster level does is give his spells reasonable duration and make them not get auto-dispelled.

I don't mean to lay into your personally; it's just that this proposal is a good example of problems that I see a lot, and have been meaning to address. There are a lot of proposed "fixes" here that don't follow the rules of good game design, and their proliferation can make it hard to get anything done.

EDIT: As to the OPs proposal, sure. I'm ambivalent about the proposal. It helps multiclassed casters, which is a step in the right direction, but it does it in a complicated way. It's fine as a house rule, but may not belong in the published set, because it adds complexity while not going far enough to make multiclassed casters actually attractive. Honestly you could just run with Caster Level = Character Level and have no issues.

Sadly, all I got from following that last link is a rant about how game design should be purely mathematical, and that "flavor opinions" are totally irrelevant.

If that were the case, I'd be playing Go, not D&D.

Game designers should be obsessed with math, so that players don't have to be.

I agree with the OP or Owen -- changeable enemies are a good thing.

Name the ability something like "Hunter's Mark" and the flavor takes care of itself.

No, they don't get any extra spells. Same thing for domains. The SLAs replace the bonus slots. Okay, Universalists get the SLAs for free, but you know what I mean. ;-)

What I find curios, too: Diviners only had to choose one prohibited school in standard 3.5, to make up for their somewhat lacking bonus spell selection.
If this is seen to be balanced, then in PRPG, Diviners should get some sugar, too:
- either buff divination spells or
- or give them only one prohibited school
- or buff their powers (except for two first level powers, they're are even substandard, I think).

The third option would be best, I think, as option a.) is difficult to implement and option b.) always felt like an admission of design failure.

Bear in mind that there's no longer a requirement for Diviners to prepare divination spells, ever, or even know any. So it just comes down to their school abilitieis versus everyone elses. I think their specialist power is very good, as is their 1st-level ability.

Why 32 point buy? The standard seems to be 25 or 28 points. Maybe with that kind of point buy, the barbarian would be on target rather than slightly too powerful.

If you generate stats by 4>3 the average point value of the result is close to 32. Of course, that's partially because you roll suboptimal 15s and 17s. But I tend to use 32 point buy for playtests because I use it for my games, which is because it gives MAD classes a fighting chance.

Some of the latter discussion (thanks, Russell) hits the nail nicely on the head. To revise the monk, there needs to be a consensus as to what the monk actually does. Do we keep the 3/4 BAB, but give them trapfinding and uncanny dodge and more skill points? If so, why not play a rogue instead? Do we give them full BAB and d10's? If so, why not play a fighter instead? The monk needs a niche to call his own, and not just be muscling in on someone else's. We just need to figure out what that niche is.

Joshua James Gervais wrote:

I'd also like to see a little more support for Monks that fight with martial arts weapons. A Monk that focuses on the staff or spear should be different than an equivalent fighter, but at the same time should still be a valid character.

I totally agree, but unfortunately am at a loss as to how to go about doing that.

I disagree. While it would be *nice* if Monks had their own unique niche, they have unique flavor which justifies their existence. It's awesome to have a "martial arts" class that can fight without equipment, even if they're similar to rogues or fighters.

Furthermore, giving monks better skills in no way threatens the rogue. Yes, the rogue has skills--but so does an expert. Really, a huge portion of the rogue's mechanical identity is about stabbing fools for mad damage, something which the monk does not do now and probably never will. UMd is another classic rogue ability I don't predict monks usurping.

Assuming that the monk gets new, good combat abilities based on stunning, tripping, and disarming, then we can have monk and rogue as two options for skills monkey-- damage guy and juggling guy.

WotC's Nightmare wrote:

The monk is supposed to be a combatant, but his poor bab and hit dice hinder him greatly in combat. He doesn't have the spells of a cleric or the sneak attack of a rogue, so give him full BAB and d10's for hit dice. This seems like a no-brainer to me.

I admit I'm biased because I don't really get the monk as a core class, but monks are described as combatants focused on personal abilities. They're not as strong as a fighter, and they're not supposed to be... but they do have a lot of special abilities that enable them to do things fighters can't.

Every class shouldn't get everything plus the kitchen sink. In other words, a monk should only get the BAB and HD of a fighter... if he gave up his redonculous saves, slow fall, a few other things, and lowered his skill points to 2, as well.

Classes should be balanced, but they should be unique, too. Otherwise, as someone else said, make an agile fighter, give him unarmed feats, and let him go to town, fist-style.

Problem, Phaerie -- D10s and full BAB aren't some special, unique fighter trick. In fact, they're neither unique nor particularly special.

Take a look at the monster manual and you'll see that it takes a lot mroe than BAB and HD to keep up. Bigger monsters hit hard, and you need to be powerful class features that let you fight back. To the extent that BAB and Hit Dice define fighters, fighter is a bad class. Fighters have better weapons and armor than monks, and more feats, and whatever Pathfinder ends up giving them. If that's not enough to get them through the day (which I think it isn't) that's thier lookout, not the monk's problem.

They did. Look at your download again, under the "Arcane Bond" class feature.

It depends-- making Empower and Maximize more attractive would make *some* damage spells viable, but only the best ones. If you set it to the level that makes fireball good, that's cool, but polar ray still sucks.

One advantage to changing the spell levels is that we can salvage some of the terrible spells no one uses.

Jason-- would it be okay with you if I started a new CR thread in which I explained the stengths and weaknesses of CR as I see it, and possible design paradigms?

3. Here's where we disagree -- and certainly without any animosity. I personally don't feel that both classes should be "equally good in combat." Because combat is what the fighter does. It's his whole reason for existence; he does nothing outside of it, really. The rogue does -- he disables traps, and/or bluffs the guards, and/or forges notes, etc. A meaningful balance, to my mind, would make the rogue LESS effective in combat to make up for his greater abilities outside of it.

If we consider just these two classes, it could theoretically work ot have one better at combat and one better out of combat.

But remember that casters have extremely powerful abilities inside and outside of combat. You *need* the fighting of a rogue andthe skills of a rogue to keep up with them; the fighter is a hobo, and pulling the rogue down to his level will make them both unplayable. Furthermore--although this is merely personal preference--I don't think *any* character should be allowed to be as useless out of combat as the fighter. Everyone needs to have some kind fo shtick that makes the game more interesting than "Fighter bored. Can we kill something now?"

But if Rogues, Wizards, and Clerics all pass the 50% test and fighters fail horribly, doesn't that suggest something is wrong with fighters. Look, I'm not ideologically comitted to the 50% number. If you determine that some other number would work better, then we can maybe use that. But everyone needs to be working off the same number.

Except, of course, characters who bring a *lot* to a group but have notable solo failings. If someone did the test, got 35% for fighters, but convinced me that in a group they were way better, that would be acceptable. Or used a fighter and another character of level X-2. But there's not currently any evidence that a fighter brings much fo anything to a group, or an reason a beholder would want to kill the fighter before the rogue, even ignoring the fact that beholders can kill both at once.

Edit: Trollman's analogy is spot-on. Some genuine flaws in the system have been pointed out, but Lich-loved doesn't seem interested in working past them; he'd rather appeal ot irrducible complexity.

It also attempted to show that terrain and environment actually make a difference even within the CR system, despite the fact that terrain and environment are expressly the domain of the EL system per the DMG. It is another failing of the CR/EL system that is has this kind of cross-pollination of independent variables.

Here's how I would deal with this -- assume that a monster is encountered in its home terrain, with a reasonable degree of set-up. Charge EL for anything extra. For instance, it's in the nature of oozes to inhabit dungeones, so the CR of an ooze assumes open space, not an open field. But a room full of mist or magical darkness is not something the ooze would necessarily have access to, so it increases EL.

Lich-loved:

It is conceivably true that a Fighter/Rogue/Cleric/Wizard team, when the fighter has been upgraded, will be so powerful that it breaks the CR system. However, I find this unlikely. First of all, if you give the extensions of the system toward smaller parties any weight at all, you can clearly see that the fighter does not carry his weight. I suspect that an unoptimized fighter/rogue/cleric/wizard team actually does *not* fight as effectively as the CR system demands, and improving the fighter might help get them on track.

But even if that's not true, you have to deal with the fact that the El system is the same for ANY 4-person party. We can exclude certain obviously determental groupings-- the four-bard party doesn't, and shouldn't, measure up. But I really want to have a game where a fighter/cleric/rogue/wizard party is as good as a cleric/cleric/rogue/wizard party. If we have to sacrifice the specific numerics fo teh CR system to make that hapen, I think it's worth it--although I do concede that there's room for informed disagreement on that point.

Sam Weiss

While the PC/NPC nonequivalence is a perplexing problem. Indeed, I've asked how Frank Trollman accounts for it and not yet received a satisfactory answer. I don't agree with him about everything. That said, I'd like to point out that this problem actually supports the title argument, that a level 8 PC (of any class) should go at least 50/50 with CR 8 monsters.