Peter Overton's page

I had a barbarian/scout character who specialised in mobile, hit & run combat. He used skirmish, leap attack and power attack to great effect on many occasions - darting in to deal a mighty flying blow with his greatsword and the nipping off to do it all again next round.
On the fateful occasion we were exploring a ruined castle when out of the main doors of the keep loomed a blue dragon, not an enormous one but large enough to be a problem.
I rolled good initiative and decided to charge the beast, going beserk and leaping at it in an attempt to get a nice shot in before the creature fired up.
If failed to take account of the reach of the creature and, as I charged, leaping through the air, it attacked. Suffice to say I now hate the "Swallow Whole" special attack....
Leaped straight down the darn things gullet - I laughed for half an hour and the PC's death is now legendary.

The players seem keen - or at least they did when I suggested it. I know the guys pretty well (We've been playing D&D since 1979!) and I think they are looking forward to the change.
I must say the Pathfinder rules seem great and it's largely the depth of the modules that have lead me down this path.
I picked up Souls for Smugglers Shiv last week and I am very, very pleased by the style and writing of the book.

The guys do know about it. I'm interested to get them to try other solutions to problems than "stick a sword in it".
I figure making the awards individual will encourage it too as you can advance your own PC by trying stuff out.

Hi all,

This is my first post here!

I'm starting a Pathfinder campaign in the new year (once my current 3.5 campaign winds up).
Over the past year or so our D&D campaigns have been rather combat focused and I'd like to switch that around a bit given the terrific story lines the Pathfinder Campaign paths seem to have.

What I'm intending to do is use the medium level progression table and give XP for non-combat events (diplomacy, bluff, great skill checks etc).
Has anyone tried this before and, if so, what sort of XP awards would be appropriate without unbalancing the XP progression?

I was thinking around 50XP for a successful skill check where the effect of the check was important or done under pressure and ramping up from there for more dramatic events to around 200XP. These awards are given ONLY to the PC that made the check - not the whole party so it's an individual reward for effort.

Would I be best setting a kind of CR for each challenge or developing a DC to CR table vs Lvl (i.e. a DC 25 skill check might get 100XP at 3rd level but only 50XP at 10th).

Any help or advice would be appreciated.

Cheers