i cant tell you how much my players have been looking forward to the Beta version. Weve already worn out the two copies i made of the Alpha version and are looking forward to putting this new one through it's paces. Keep up the good work.
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sold out? at Gen Con? ah frell... *hurries off to order a Beta copy through the mail* congratz you magnificent bastiches! now excuse me, i need to wait anxiously by the mailbox.
Too be honest I've always missed the +2 bonus Spell Focus and Great SF gave in 3.0. Ditto, and IMC, ive brought those two feats back as they were listed in 3.0. Ive also thought the idea of increasing caster strength as the spellcaster increases in their class level would be a good idea. Nothing too big, but enough to offset some of the disparity ive seen. Basically a +1 to the base spell save DC per 5 caster levels. starting at the base of 10 at level 1. So the base by 20th level is 14. Seems to have worked so far IMC.
Do you have a link to that thread? Because i hit the wall just a bit in my last adventure when the question of attacks against flatfooted characters CMB came up. Id like to see what some other folks have suggested. On the fly what i ended up doing was applying a flat +2 bonus, but i was thinking of denying the Strength modifier instead.
New rules about no cross class will make it easier for you to build a fighter that way plus I think they should give fighter 4 + int skills just because you are a fighter does no mean you are stupid also they kinda get shafted in the power department. At higher levelss that is. they're not less good at it, but they spend more time on their class abilities as opposed to being very knowledgeable otherwise. A fighter can be great at intimidation IF he puts the points into it, clerics can know a great deal of lore IF they put points into it, and theyre always guaranteed at least 2 pts. every level to do so. But that isnt the drive of the class. Rogues? Bards? Rangers OTOH? Skill selection are part of what make those classes more versatile and useful. (at least IMO) though i do agree the wizard should be bumped to 4+INT for skill points, and have been IMC since i was playing 3.0 :p
good to hear the CMB isnt going anywhere, i like the mechanic and does speed up things a bit. though i do wonder if perhaps a base of 15 is a bit high, gonna take some more playtesting with my group to figure that one out. got a player who designed his monk to be a grappler, who holds the enemies while the rest of the group beats the guy he's holding :p
flavorwise, adding stealth to the fighter skill list is a mistake. fighters are a step above normal warriors(the npc class) in that theyre attention is devoted to martial training. however, perception i might have thought differently on were the game still using the class/cross-class ranks system. Fighters are trained to be aware of their immediate surroundings, since anything you arent paying attention to during a fight will end up killing you, and during 3.0/3.5, i was a big defender of the idea of Spot and Listen being available as class skills for ALL classes. But with spot, listen, and search rolled into perception and no class/cross-class nonsense with Pathfinder, i see no need to make it a class skill, since they can choose to put a rank into the skill every level. they are still observant, but not nearly so much as folks who are paranoid and specifically meant to be sneaky bastiches.
In North America, there is not a lot of languages used, mostly English, wtih French in Quebec and Spanish in California (and a few other southern states). In Europe, it is not uncommon for kids to speak 5 or 6 languages. Not a lot of languages used in North Am? i take it youve never worked retail or in government? In both instances there are several times when ive had to deal with folks who didnt speak English, or Spanish. (and im barely coherent in THAT as is) That being said, luckily most fantasy worlds are limited in that dialects arent usually regional, they're racial. I like that they keep it simple, and for the most part i tend to have no issue with the 1 rank = 1 language idea. Changing that doesnt in any way diminish the Linguistics skill since they lumped Decipher Script and Forgery into it as well, and neither of those are useless skills.
I think the idea of having separate skills for Arcane and Divine spellcasting would be a bit redundant. There are more than a few spells that can be cast from either side, and then there's the Bard who tends to be capable of grabbing both divine and arcane spells. Perhaps another approach would be to grant those with ranks in the appropriate knowledge skill, a synergy bonus on identifying spells as they're being cast. (its easier to ID a divine spell with ranks in knowledge(religion), but youre still using Spellcraft to make the check since, for the most part, DnD spellcasting is rote anyway.) as for bringing Concentration back as its own skill and perhaps stacking one or two uses that can be applied to any class? sounds good. though again, substituting a Concentration check to see if you can take 10 or 20 with another check goes beyond a bit redundant.
i liked the conjuring energy creatures from Arcana Evolved personally, allowed a bit more freedom with what you could summon up and think that might work well in place of the normal summoning lists. just one geek's opinion though.
not particularly no. with the ability to channel positive energy already being fairly potent, and the extra powers granted the clerics as is, id rather not add to their considerable abilities by stacking an extra turn/charge with each divine or turning feat. since it would also make taking Extra turning pretty worthless, and little more than a throwaway feat to get other turning feats.
It gives to much healing, is my only problem but to do that means affecting only one target, and takes five minutes of game time to burn out the wand. whereas with the turning attempt, you can heal better than through use of the mass cure spells, which dont become available until level 9 (?) and themselves cap at 1d8+25. a little unbalancing.
while i do like the Channeling positive energy in theory, since it removes only being able to turn once an encounter, and has the side effect of potentially healing your enemies. ATM im running through a game holding both a Cleric and a Paladin, and it feels that in order to really be a nasty challenge with all the healing is to throw more combat at the group more often. that and the cleric was going to focus on being an undead turning/killing machine, so he was a bit letdown seeing that the feat tree he was looking is kinda meh after 'extra turning'.
i wasnt fond of having the 3-in-1 skill either in Perception, so i kept Search separate from Perception (which, IMC is actually Notice from M&M). Thus far the biggest "gripe" ive got is the Scorpion Style tree. I play with a larger group and inevitably someone plays a monk, i allowed the Scorpion Style for ONE game. As is i keep it as a general rule never to only throw one creature at my group, but it just seems that particular group of feats is a beat overpowered without allowing for a Fort save similar to what Stunning Fist allows. Trust me, after watching one player reduce an enemy to a 5ft movement or dazing him for a round, its scary to watch the rest of the group fall upon that one foe like a pack of wild dogs. *shudder*
i like setting the DC back down to 15, but otherwise i like how the Treat Deadly Wounds skill is set up. 1hp/level of the wounded creature + a possible bonus of the healer's wisdom modifier seems pretty fair in lieu of magical healing. Though i think burning through half of a healing kit is a bit much, i dont see any reason it should take more than one use of a kit. The penalty without it should stay as is however.
put me down as another person who simply loves the Artificer class. Running one currently and its fun playing the DnD equivalent of MacGyver, heh. At the moment, im slowly incorporating PFRPG into my ongoing campaign as it comes out and one of my players has been playing as an Artificer. He was real happy about getting the bump in HD. The only real changes i made were to drop the Reserve Points and the Retain Essence ability, though i modified it so that he could still "destroy" magic items after spending 24 hours with them, if he has prerequisite crafting feats. Also, unless you use action points in your game the Artificer is at a bit of disadvantage given that most of his Infusions take at least minute to cast on any items he has. Ive included a 1/day rapid infusion ability in place of action points since i dont have them in my current campaign. Hope my longwinded rambling helps. |