Samurai's page

Darrington Press isn't the same as CR. Tal'Dorei Reborn is 5e compatible but not printed under the D&D brand. I'd be shocked if they were foolish enough to lock it in with some exclusive license*.

*Especially because they didn't even get to use the D&D brand on it!

Actually, page 280 of Tal'Dorei Reborn is the Open Game License v1.0a. This book may have needed to be done that way because much of the book is the same as the Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting book that was released by Green Ronin back in 2017, and pg 143 of that book is the 1.0a Open Game License. If something was once released under 1.0a, I don't think you can legally do a "2nd edition" that is closed or not part of the Open Game Licensed.

Or maybe people were done with the era of "casters win games, everyone else need not apply".

...which leads to the "Thank goodness the casters were kneecapped so hard, that's a feature of 2e, not a problem" vibe that is so prevalent on these forums.

It's not a matter of "casters win games" that we all want, it's "casters actually matter for more than buffing and healing the martials."

Ruzza wrote:

I would pay actual money to not have this thread again.

IMHO, until this problem is actually addressed and fixed (and it's definitely a real problem), you will continue to see thread after thread about this same topic. That's the cost of not fixing it during the playtesting (either because not enough playtesters mentioned the issue, or maybe too many of the loudest responses were "Kneecap the spellcasters even harder!")

As a house rule, you could say that the animal keeps doing the last command as long as it's able to and doing so is not suicidal. So if you gave the order to chase/attack an enemy and you are running along right beside it, it makes sense that it keeps doing as you commanded as long as you are still there.

Samurai wrote:

ShadowFighter88 wrote:

I suppose one way to help out, at least the bomber, would be more ways for bombs to still do stuff on a miss. Like if the Alchemist got a bunch of class feats that rode along on miss effects (unless all those additive feats for bombs already do affect target just hit with the splash damage, in which case nevermind).

The way I do all splash damage is 1 degree less damage than the main hit. So if the main target suffers 2d8+2 in a failed save, anyone in the blast area would suffer half that damage on a failed save, and nothing on a successful one. This goes for spells with splash effects, alchemist bombs, etc.

Why would you nerf bombs by giving splash damage a save?

Edit: I ask because that limits the utility of any suggestion you make, as at that point your numbers are aimed at a completely different mechanic. I'm not surprised you increased splash damage so much; I haven't done the math, but I assume you'd almost have to just to keep up with the CRB alchemical bombs after you nerfed bombs that hard.

Because I treat bombs like a more focused fireball. There is no attack roll, the Alchemist just chooses a target in range and throws it. When you attack with a thrown alchemical bomb, there is no attack roll; instead, the main target must make a Dex save: double damage on a crit fail, full damage on a fail, half on a success; any targets in the splash area take full damage on a crit fail, half damage on a fail and no damage on a success. Furthermore, as a bomber you add your Int mod to the damage, and you can choose to deal damage to only your primary target, with no splash area.

Yes, if you typically play that targets in the splash area get no save or way to avoid the damage, it is a bit more lenient because they have a chance to avoid the damage, but they also have a chance to take the full bomb's damage on a crit fail, so it's not entirely dependent on hitting a target's vulnerability in order to do more than a few points of damage (if they even have any vulnerability, which many enemies don't.)

I suppose one way to help out, at least the bomber, would be more ways for bombs to still do stuff on a miss. Like if the Alchemist got a bunch of class feats that rode along on miss effects (unless all those additive feats for bombs already do affect target just hit with the splash damage, in which case nevermind).

The way I do all splash damage is 1 degree less damage than the main hit. So if the main target suffers 2d8+2 in a failed save, anyone in the blast area would suffer half that damage on a failed save, and nothing on a successful one. This goes for spells with splash effects, alchemist bombs, etc.

snip

In my House rules doc, it only takes 1 action to cast (now standard for most spells), it begins with a 15' r, and can grow from there. It also gains the Flourish trait because it received the -1 action from RAW modifier.

Hero points.

Then, if Hero Points are meant to provide a Heroic Moment when needed/desired by the player, it could maybe provide not just a re-roll on an attack, skill, or save, but also provide a bonus to it. Maybe "Reroll with a +5 or +10 bonus". Then it feels more "Heroic"...

Guess I'll have to choose another spell. Casters really are lacking, I suppose.

(Also, Fireball was made strong because of player expectations in D&D5e, it falls under baseline math in PF2e.)

EDIT: Also Telekinetic Projectile is still... a cantrip. It's not at all limited in use. It compares favorably to a bow. Samurai is just making up points.

If you want more examples of spells being wonderful, I suppose we could do that? But at least I'm citing actual examples and not making up points like "a limited-use spell that deals 1d4 damage and gives -10 Speed on a crit" when you're making a point about limited use abilities - carefully ignoring the fact that that spell is a cantrip.

I didn't try to use actual spells because then replies would be "yeah, but Ray of Frost goes 120' and is only a cantrip", thus making it harder to compare to a martial's thrown weapon. However, here are some better example Level 1 spells since you asked for them: Chilling Spray and Pummeling Rubble"yeah, but they both affect a 15' cone!", you say.

There, now you have some real examples of first level spells to compare to the hypothetical martial's "thrown dagger" attack...

Doing almost as much damage as a not that focused ranged martial a few times per day isn't some great feat we've all not noticed, it's terrible.

Limited resources are meant to produce better effects, not worse.

Right. Imagine if the martial character was able to, only 3 or 4 times per day, throw a dagger at an enemy within 30'. It does 1d4 + Str mod damage, and on a critical hit, a specific minor debuff (like -10 move, or no reaction) for 1 round.

In exchange for this impressive ability, he doesn't have any armor proficiency, can only use a few specific Simple Weapons, only has 1d6 hit points/level, and can't ever get any magic items to help with that "thrown dagger" attack or damage rolls (It's an innate ability, not a weapon, so it slowly increases on it's own and can be used a few more times per day at higher levels).

Plenty of people think magic is working as intended and is as accurate as it needs to be

There are also plenty of others who disagree and feel that some classes (especially certain casters) need a lot of help as written, but that's just my opinion.

I think the big disconnect comes from the fact that 2E operates opposite to how you expect the fiction to work in this regard.

Fiction: "It seems my foe is coming in for a devastating attack... I have no choice but to sacrifice my trusty shield if I want to remain standing"

2E: "It seems my foe is coming in for a devastating attack... Now is the time to intentionally not block with my shield, taking the attack head on and dropping unconscious. Falling in combat is just a temporary setback, while losing my shield would be near-permanent damage"

Yes, and also combine that dichotomy with the fact that armor never takes damage, no matter how many hits it takes, and weapons take no damage either, even if it's a wooden weapon smashing a metal shield to bits. In fact, there are no rules for any of your equipment being damaged or destroyed, even from multiple Fireballs, or when swallowed by a purple worm. Your wizard robes, backpack, and 50' rope will survive it all, just don't ever try to use your shield to block (it's intended purpose)...

The rule "You always know how much damage a hit does before deciding whether to block or not" is another strange aspect of this system.

Weapons and armor are effectively indestructible (no sundering rules or real damage to them), but shields can very easily be broken or destroyed in a hit. To preserve your shield, you must choose to take the most deadly and painful hits to your face instead. And to do that, you must know how damaging the hit will be before deciding whether or not to block!

That just seems wrong to me... characters should have to decide whether to block or not as soon as they are hit, not after all the damage is rolled and they then have to ret-con whether they blocked or not (with the answer being a yes on only relatively weak hits, and a no on the hardest hits, which is counter-intuitive IMHO).

Here are the basics of my homebrew rule (No Endgame-level time jumps needed here): If you are wielding a shield, you can use the Raise a Shield action to increase your AC by it’s AC bonus until the start of your next round. If you have the Shield Block class ability or feat, you can also use the raised shield to try to prevent some damage if an attack hits you. Make a Fortitude save vs a DC of 10 + the foe’s attack bonus. If the shield has any special abilities, the Fort save activates them on a Success or better roll. For the Shield spell, the caster makes a Will save instead of Fort, using the same results below.

Crit Fail: Block ½ the Shield’s Hardness in dmg, loose the shield bonus to AC until Raised again
Fail: Block the Shield’s Hardness in damage, loose the shield bonus to AC until Raised again
Success: Block the Shield’s Hardness in damage, shield remains Raised
Crit Success: Block the Shield’s Hardness x2 in damage, shield remains Raised

There are a few other notes for specific feats and cases, but that is the general idea. The character decides whether to try blocking the instant he's hit. It is a contest as to how much damage he can block, and whether or not the shield remains raised or the bonus is lost until next round, but the shield isn't broken or destroyed any more than his armor is. He doesn't get to wait to see if the attack only does 1 or 2 points of damage (thus it may be better not to risk loosing his shield bonus for it on a bad dice roll) or a devastating hit where he needs the shield to survive.

Samurai, I wonder what you'd think of the Harnmaster Gold ruleset, or Columbia Games' Harnmaster 3 ruleset (I'd link the latter, but the website seems to be broken at the moment).

I've played and read a ton of RPGs in my 40 years as a gamer, but I've never read or played Harnmaster. I've only vaguely heard about it, it's not something I've ever seen on store shelves in my area. Looking up Columbia Games online , it seems they focus more on miniature wargaming, and while I know D&D grew from that base, I've always preferred creating and playing unique and interesting character with personalities rather than strategically maneuvering armies around a battlefield. It's 1 reason I didn't care so much for D&D 4e, where position was very important, and moving an enemy or ally 1 square could make a big difference (Which is a similarity I also see with PF2e btw, where you may have to spend 1 of your 3 actions just to step 1 square in order to attack in melee. That 5' adjust used to be a free action back in 1e.)

With respect, the fact that you disagree with the rules doesn't make them wrong. In this case, dividing the damage between user/shield is mathematically incredibly strong, to the point where everyone should be running a shield-user. For example, a level 1 shield vs a level 4 High-damage enemy will take 3 hits to destroy, saving the user 15 HP on average. You might note that's worth their entire health pool, and absolutely nothing stops the player from just pulling out another shield.

(PS: Warpriest with this ruleset is functionally unkillable.)

True, my disagreement with some/many of the rules in 2e doesn't make me "correct" and the game "wrong". It's mostly a matter of opinion. But the entire game is a matter of opinion, as is "which game/RPG should we play tonight?" But if "too many" people have "too many" issues with the rules and decide to just play a different game instead, that's a problem, and it's why Paizo tried to get feedback on 2e before it was finalized.

I ordered a copy of the playtest rules, planning to give plenty of feedback for it. Unfortunately, for much of that year I was in the hospital after a major heart attack and stroke that left me in a coma and very nearly killed me. I had to relearn a lot of things, including how to walk again (still not where I used to be, but I'm getting better slowly.)

So the playtest book arrived and just sat in my apartment instead of being read, played, and analyzed. By the time I came home from the hospital, the playtest was over and the actual book was on it's way to me. So, in a lot of ways, I looked at my "house rules doc" as the changes I would have made to PF2e, had I the opportunity to do so.

As far as shields, I personally would not have made them destructible at all, any more than armor is (yeah, in downtime you can melt it in a forge, but in battle, no damage is suffered from blows). I gave my "Indestructible Shields" optional rule in my house rules doc too, as a choice for others that may feel similarly.

Again, not saying my way is the only correct way, just "the version I prefer..."

Samurai wrote:

Ruzza wrote:

Samurai wrote:

So, I'll be waiting until Pathfinder 3e, when I suspect they will look toward 5e for inspiration. Like 4e, I feel PF2e is a failed experiment that has a few interesting ideas worth scavenging for the next edition, but that's about it... I've tried fixing it with house rules, but there is just too much that needs fixing to really be worthwhile.

Have you tried playing it without 5+ pages of houserule/homebrew?

Yes, I wasn't the GM when we played, but the actual GM, after saying he didn't want to use any house rules, still made one of his own on day 1 because he felt the shield rules were broken. He made a few more before the game fell apart at level 3, but it was mostly RAW.

So... Basically you have never played system without houserules because you assumed your GM knew what they were talking about?

No, that's not the reason. I didn't assume anything, my GM assumed that Paizo had created a well-thought out set of game rules for the second edition. He had read the rules, but had never run or played before our game, and he didn't understand the 2e shield rules as written. He thought that you first subtract Hardness, and then divide the remaining damage between the shield and user. When he learned that, no, both the shield AND user take the remaining damage, he didn't agree with that. He also didn't like the fact that the attack hits and the damage is rolled before you must choose whether or not to shield block.

However, those rules didn't affect me personally. I didn't use a shield, my character was an Ancient Elf Ranger/Wizard. The change was for our party Champion. So my character was played RAW.

You statement about 2e needing lot of houserule fixes sounds absurd when that description is what 1e is like(5e is so simple that house rules won't fix it, you'd need to actually write completely new rules :P). Though granted, not lot of house rules for 1e are "necessary to fix broken system", making power attack free feat is more of quality of life ;P

Meanwhile I've run stuff on levels 1-7(no single continous campaign unfortunately, just Plaguestone and Slithering and various PFS scenarios) and your experience of system so broken that gm "had" to house rule it sounds alien to me.

We very seldom used house rules in our long-running Pathfinder 1e campaigns. (The most I can think of was that you got a minimum of half your die type in new HP when you leveled up, so if your class gets 1d8 HP, you instead got 1d4+4).

I have a few house rules for D&D5e, but not NEARLY as many as PF2e, and they are mostly optional additions that the players are free to choose if they want to use them, like new backgrounds, new sub-class options, racial ability tweaks, etc. That is vastly different from a ream of rules fixes needed to play the game. The list of "changes that affect everyone" is small, such as "If you drop to 0HP/dying and you are brought back, you suffer 1 temporary level of Exhaustion each time from that experience (each level requires a nights sleep/long rest to get rid of)." That's to help prevent the "up/down/up/down/up" comedy of errors that some players have talked about in 5e. You can do that, but you are hurt a bit more each time it happens, and after a while you will actually die at Exhaustion level 6, so it's never been a problem in any game I've run.

Samurai wrote:

So, I'll be waiting until Pathfinder 3e, when I suspect they will look toward 5e for inspiration. Like 4e, I feel PF2e is a failed experiment that has a few interesting ideas worth scavenging for the next edition, but that's about it... I've tried fixing it with house rules, but there is just too much that needs fixing to really be worthwhile.

Have you tried playing it without 5+ pages of houserule/homebrew?

Yes, I wasn't the GM when we played, but the actual GM, after saying he didn't want to use any house rules, still made one of his own on day 1 because he felt the shield rules were broken. He made a few more before the game fell apart at level 3, but it was mostly RAW.

Dargath wrote:

You know I expected people to adamantly disagree with me, partly because 4E is the edition everyone hates (except me, it’s still my favorite) and doubly so because the reason Pathfinder exists at all is due to people hating 4E so much they wanted 3.x to go on forever seemingly. Yet here we are agreeing and everyone being like “yeah it IS the 4E spiritual successor and it is very great” :o

It's not that suprising that after years of wrestling with the 3.x framework, Paizo devs and WotC devs came to many similar conclusions.

True, but I think they would have been MUCH better served if they instead decided to create a "successor" for the far more popular 5e rather than the failed 4e. Unlike 3.5, where fans clamored for someone to keep publishing for it (which Paizo did successfully), very few gamers have fond, loving memories of 4e games and are asking for more...

So, I'll be waiting until Pathfinder 3e, when I suspect they will look toward 5e for inspiration. Like 4e, I feel PF2e is a failed experiment that has a few interesting ideas worth scavenging for the next edition, but that's about it... I've tried fixing it with house rules, but there is just too much that needs fixing to really be worthwhile.

I strongly agree with the point dmerciless is making with this thread. How popular do you think D&D would have been if the very first module released along-side AD&D1e was the deadly Tomb of Horrors? Sure, any players and DMs that actually stuck with it could eventually learn to reduce the lethality of it, and create their own less deadly dungeons themselves, but as a "welcome to a whole new game you are just learning!" module, I think it would have turned many people off from ever playing D&D again.

Another problem with the 1 action Metamagics is that Concentrating on a previously cast spell also takes an action. If you have to concentrate on a spell, that only leaves you 2 actions to actually do anything else, like being persistent Slowed 1 after casting any ongoing concentration spell. That is crippling for casters.

5e solved the problem by allowing casters to maintain 1 Concentration effect per round as a free action that can still be interfered with by damage or situational/environmental disturbances. Why didn't Pathfinder 2e do the same?

That sounds like a feat tax for something that should just be an item.

Or an innate ability...

Samurai wrote:

That's why the Wizard School Specialists should have their proficiency in their school bumped to Expert. So, an Evoker, for example, would be Expert at all Evocation spells, and Trained in the rest. This mirrors how Fighters specialize in 1 weapon type, and become better with it.

Wouldn't that just make the problem worse. I have to be honest if a Wizard was one step above all casters I am pretty sure everyone would just play a Wizard for an offensive spellcaster.

Fighter "kind of" works because every other martial has "something" that makes them better than Fighters while attacking like Rage/Hunt Prey etc.

Like I said I am not sure if Fighters are actually the strongest but they can 100% feel that way when you as a player a whiffing your attacks and the Fighter just wallops them with crits/hits.

Spell casters just don't have the oomph from being a spellcaster class like martials. For the most part a Wizard cast a Fireball just like a Sorcerer with a few exceptions. Nothing like Rage/Hunt Prey though.

I do hope Secrets of magic they add some sort of cool spell specializing, doesn't have to be raw numbers but I 100% want to make characters specialize in schools and have some sort of advantage. Wizards get a very small advantage.

They only get Expert in their 1 school, being only Trained in the other schools. (If you wanted to limit school specialists even further, say that they are also unable to cast any spells at all from 1 school of their choice). They only eventually gain Legendary in their 1 school, the others only reaching Master at the highest. The only Wizard that eventually gains Legendary in all the schools is the Universalist. So if you enjoy the "start weaker but eventually become a legend" style of Wizards, then choose the Universalist. With the Specialist school Expert bump, they gain an extra feat at the point that the Universalists gain Legendary (thus reversing the trade off paid for upfront by Universalists of getting +1 feat in exchange for not specializing).

By contrast, the Fighter starts at Expert in all Simple, Martial, and Unarmed attacks, so why would you play any other class if you wanted to attack with weapons? (or even Unarmed... Monks are only Trained in Unarmed attacks!) At 5th level they advance to Master with 1 weapon of their choice... FAR earlier than even other martial classes, who need to wait till 13th level to become Masters (at which point the Fighter gains Legendary in his chosen weapon group)!

I'm just saying that it's very easy to create a Wizard with a special, unique ability, really emphasizing their magical power. I don't know why they didn't do it, when they created Fighters with different proficiency levels depending upon the weapon they are using, and they felt they were able to balance that with Barbarian Rage, Paladin Focus Spells and armor prof, etc. So, buff the other casters a little bit if needed, but just like Fighters are the "weapon masters", Wizards should be the "arcane magic masters." Druids have their wild shape, Clerics get their Healing/Harming fonts, Bards get their Focus cantrips, etc. to balance it all out.

For those like me that have issues with Pathfinder 2nd edition but still want to play in Golarion, I wanted to point you to the Pathfinder for Savage Worlds Kickstarter that is going on currently here. It is far past $200,000 right now (day 2) and breaking stretch goals daily (The new Deadlands KS finished at over $568,000). The main book includes the new Savage Worlds Adventure edition rules, modified for Pathfinder, so there are no additional books needed to buy or reference.

Savage Worlds is a "fast, furious, fun" system that has been around for many years now, and there are already setting books for a wide variety of genres and worlds, from Deadlands (horror-western) to the Last Parsec (sci-fi space adventures), Space 1889 (steampulp space adventure) to Necessary Evil (Earth's super villains vs alien invades), Flash Gordon to Lakhmar, Rifts, Solomon Kane, and even Pirates of the Spanish Main! The rules are very adaptable, and you can usually port something from 1 setting to another easily because they all use the same base rules!

If you've never played Savage Worlds, there are free "Test Drive" rules you can downlead on their website here. Basically, your stats and skills are all die types, progressing from a 1d4 up to 1d12+. If your die rolls the max possible for that die, it "explodes", and you can roll it again and add to your total.

Check it out!

Sporkedup wrote:

Frankly, any game without a fighter has happy casters. The stack up really well against rangers and rogues and monks and champions and all that so far in our games. It's just the fighter that's so much more effective than any other class that's making casters (or rogues and rangers and champions and monks and so on) feel like they aren't contributing well.

I did want to say I do feel the game is completely different when our player switched from a Ranger to a Fighter. Fighter's hit chance / crit rates make everyone feel indirectly worse imo.

Of course if someone compared classes damage in combat Fighter might not always be on top but it sure does feel that way when I see one in PFS and our campaign.

It might just be because they are so easy to build though, you can pretty much take any feats since +2 attack and attack of opportunity are amazing.

I pretty much have just played casters in PFS and overall have felt most classes felt good. When a Fighter joins things just feel so different.

That's why the Wizard School Specialists should have their proficiency in their school bumped to Expert. So, an Evoker, for example, would be Expert at all Evocation spells, and Trained in the rest. This mirrors how Fighters specialize in 1 weapon type, and become better with it.

Pathfinder for Savage Worlds is now live on Kickstarter, and already well over $160,000 on day 1 as I type this! It is scheduled to end February 15th.

Here is the latest version of my House Rules document: Samurai's House Rules

I never got around to tweaking all the stuff in the APG. My Pathfinder 2e gaming group fell apart because the GM and all the other platers decided to go back to playing Pathfinder 1e instead, so this may be the final version of my rules for quite a while.

This version, 1.62, includes adjustments for the spellcaster's class DC to increase at 5th and 13th levels, to match the martial classes advancement pace. In many cases, I also pushed something they normally got at those levels (like a saving throw bump or weapon specialization) back to 7th and 15th levels so that they still get something at those levels too. (I hate "dead levels", and those are not typically "class defining abilities" for casters the way their spell attacks and DCs are.)

Thanks to everyone who gave me advice, ideas, and feedback on the rules since I started writing them!

Is that strange looking Goblin Dog included too? ;)

If you want to do pay-to-play games, I suggest going to a site specifically for it, like link: start plating games

Oh great thanks! I'll probably start reading now, but won't jump into it yet then, especially because Magus and Summoner are two of my favorite classes! Any DM's running exclusively 2e right now? If so, anything I should be aware of should I start switching over?

The Magus and Summoner playtest versions are so different from their 1e versions you may not even recognize them. I liked and played a 1e magus too, but at this point, I'm not sure I'll even buy the 2e Ultimate Magic at this point.

I agree with Meatshed, it should be based on armor proficiency, not weapon proficiency, if you want to do it this way.

I agree with giving shields the shove trait though.

Important new information about Savage Worlds Pathfinder!

Official Pathfinder for Savage Worlds Kickstarter
Starting mid-January 2021, Pinnacle will launch the official Pathfinder for Savage Worlds rulebook along with the entire Rise of the Runelords adventure path converted as a box set!

I for one am really looking forward to this. I already love the Savage Worlds rules, and the new Adventure Edition is a nice improvement.

Yeah, RPGnoremac, I knew Suggestion had Incapacitate, but didn't remember that Fear didn't. That seems pretty inconsistent to me.

And yes, it is hard to remember and use it properly. I'd prefer if the trait were either removed or changed in some way. Fireballs don't suddenly become much easier to save against just because the target is a certain level. A higher level target can't get a +1 step bonus on saves against your illusions, etc.

I am confused how you say PF2 character don't feel heroic.

Just this week I had 2 great examples.

In my current campaign I used suggestion as a Bard to stop a caster from killing our entire team while riding his dinosaur. I admit it was a gamble since I had no idea what level the monster was and he failed the save.

In PFS my level 3 sorcerer cast fear and the main boss rolled a one so he was frightened 3 and fleeing. I also could have tripped him and the ENTIRE party could have got a net gain of 5 from a level 1 spell...

There are just crazy amount of examples I could mention. Yes hit rates in general are lower but characters still feel quite heroic.

Also in PF2E clerics can decimate whole rooms of undead at level 1 too while healing the party.

Honestly, it sounds like your GM wasn't using (or didn't know) the Incapacitation trait in 2e. A boss riding a dinosaur that was "killing your whole party" was not high level enough for Incapacitate to kick in and change the Failed save into a Success?

And a "main boss" at 3rd level wasn't at least 2nd level, turning the Crit Fail into just a Fail? (or did you Heighten the Fear spell, meaning he could have been as high as Level 4?)

In our games, the party is very afraid of using Incapacitate spells on anyone but obvious mooks, because almost all the bosses are higher levels than we are, sometimes significantly higher.

Does this document include all the crb errata, and are they all in green?

Yes, I believe everything I wanted to use is there. I think there were a few things I decided to do differently, and those are not in green. But they have been changing thing without declaring it, without listing the changes that are new, so I might have missed some things.

Only playing PbP at the moment, the one face to face game I am involved with is a PF1e game of Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh converted that I run for my family (son, brother, nieces, nephew) when we get together.

Are you converting the original module? Do have/know about the Ghosts of Saltmarsh? Ghosts of Saltmarsh pretty much turns Saltmarsh into a 12 level campaign, though you can also break apart the adventures and run them individually. Even if you don't care for 5e, you can turn them into PF1e adventures, if you don't have all the older modules.

I too have been looking at D&D5e much more lately, after being almost entirely PF1e for Pathfinder's history. My long-time group, after buying the PF2e books and reading them, had far too many issues with the game and refused to even play it once.

But 1 player in that long-running PF1e group, missing gaming during the pandemic, finally decided to give 2e a shot and run a few games of PF2e. So I created my character (An Elf Ranger/Wizard), as did 2 other newer players We've played for a while now, through 3rd level so far. There is a lot of dissatisfaction with some of the 2e rules as written. The DM made his first house rule change in the very first session (he hated the way shields work), and a few more changes since.

But, to get to the point of this thread, one of the players in that game, who knows and loves PF1e much better than the 2nd edition, has agreed to DM a new PF1e game for our group, to give the dissatisfied 2e DM a chance to be a player again (which I think he honestly prefers). So we have all created our new 1e characters (I'm a Tiefling Occultist!) It's homebrew setting of her own design, and I'm really looking forward to game 1 next week!

Here is the latest version of my house rules, now including the new second edition Errata: Samurai's House Rules 1.6+ w/Errata 2

I'm still slowly working on the APG. There are a few early notes in here, but I'll update it more as I go.

Hope the errata is helpful to everyone! :)

Before folks start talking about the errata in detail in this thread, I just want to take a moment to tell everyone how amazing the work of Katina Davis, Maryssa Lagervall, and Andrew White was to get all of these coordinated and up. We hadn't realized Humble Bundle orders were coming out until a few hours ago, and they managed to get this all up and running at lightning speed. They are the heroes who got you this information tonight!

Thanks for finally releasing it. It doesn't contain everything I was hoping for, but it's still nice to have.

Also, why didn't you release a pdf version? Just reading it on screen is much harder than downloading it as a pdf.

Arakasius wrote:

Temperans wrote:

Martials in PF1 are not 100% worse, that is something spouted by people who cant see eveything martials can do. Usually because they are too busy comparing them to Casters.

Yes a martial is a 100% worse in PF1 to a well built wizard, druid or cleric. There is no debate at all to this.

I do not agree with this. play pathfinder 10 years. and fighters and barbarians blew up for encounters and caused more headaches than any caster. This is not to say that casters when built properly werent also broken.

there were quite a few classes in PF1 that when built properly overwhelm the game. Casters have been nerfed, but martials were also nerfed a great deal.

The issue i think is that vancian magic does not fit well into PF2 game system.

I think when the promised non vancian system of magic gets released in mysteries of magic, people will like wizards a lot better.

I totally agree. When I GMed a campaign of PF1, the party Barbarian was by FAR the most difficult. The Wizard was nothing compared to him. He once did well over 300 points of damage in the 1st round of combat, killing the Ancient Dragon that was the big final party boss of the adventure before most other party members even got to their initiative!!

Well, I have done a variety of things to help Wizards (as well as other classes).

1) Casting Time: If a spell takes 2 or more actions to cast, you can reduce the casting time by 1 action by adding the Flourish trait.

2) Arcane Schools: In addition to the Focus spell, belonging to an Arcane school increases the Wizard’s Proficiency bonus with that school by 1 step, but they are unable to learn or cast any spells from another school of your choice. So a 1st level Evoker is Trained in most spells, except 1 school of your choice, and Expert with Evocation spells. This benefit is carried as their proficiency increases, so at 7th level, he becomes Expert at most spells, and Master at Evocation, and at 15th level, the Master Spellcaster ability makes them Legendary with their school. At 19th level, they don’t get the Legendary Spellcaster ability, only Universalists get that it 19th level. Instead, they may choose a free Wizard class feat ay 19th level.

3) Amulet of Spell Power (new Item): These magical amulets come in 4 main varieties: Arcane, Divine, Occult, and Primal. They need to be Invested and worn to function, and they provide an Item bonus to the wearer’s spell attack rolls and spell DCs of the appropriate magical tradition. A Lesser amulet (lvl 2 item) gives a +1 bonus, costs 35 gp, and requires expert in Crafting to make it. The Greater amulet (lvl 10 item) gives a +2 bonus, costs 935 gp, and requires master in Crafting to make it. The Major amulet (lvl 16 item) provides a +3 bonus, costs 8,935 gp, and requires legendary Crafting to make it.

4) Universalist Wizards: Only Universalist Wizards get a free feat at 1st level. Instead of getting multiple Drain Bonded Item uses each day, they get 1 spell slot of each level they can cast that does not need to be prepared during the daily prep. That slot can be used to cast any spell in their spellbook of the appropriate level. The Wizard must be holding or carrying his spellbook on his person in order to select and cast the spell. Each variable slot can only be filled once per day, but once chosen the spell counts as prepared for that day, so you may be able to cast the spell again, either because it's a cantrip or you use your Bonded Item.

5) Sustain a Spell: Sustain can be done 2 ways: as an action or a free action. If you use the Sustained spell to attack, move, or change the spell's diameter in this round, the Sustain costs an action, and the action performed is included with the Sustain. If you just maintain the spell as it is for 1 more round, you can Sustain it as a Free action.

6) Metamagic: To apply a Metamagic effect, a caster may choose to either spend 1 action or his Reaction for the round in which he casts the spell to be modified.

Those are my biggest changes. I also made a number of spell changes for balance reasons, but if they just did these things, I'd be very happy! (If they have to choose some but not others, I ranked them in my opinion of their order of importance, from #1 (most important) to #6 (least important).)

Yeah, many of them could possibly physically try it, but the PC needs to spend 1 action to command the familiar's 2 actions, so RAW, most of them would just sit stupidly ignorant of their master's (and their own) impending deaths, though unable to do nothing about it...

Samurai wrote:

Intoxicated Illithid wrote:

You nerfed Heal into the ground. This makes me very sad.

I don't think so. It applies the caster's casting stat mod no matter how many actions are used to cast.

So, yeah, a 2-action Heal is a bit weaker, only getting about a +3 or +4 point bonus instead of an automatic +8. But that is applied to the 1 action Heal and 3 action Heals as well as the 2 action heal. So, if you do a 3 action heal, everyone in your party gets 1d8+4, or more with Heightening, instead of just 1d8.

Using RAW, the 2 action Heal is the only one anyone ever uses if they have a choice because of the huge bonus, unless the whole rest of the party is gathered around and are all injured. In all our games the Cleric only used a 3-action Heal once, other than that, only the 2 action version.

Does the casting stat get multiplied with heightening on the two action heightening though?

As in does a 2nd level 2 action heal do 2d8+Double casting stat?

Yes, the same rules apply. If it would have provided 2d8+16, it now gives 2d8+2x casting mod, and so on, no matter how many actions are used to cast. Heightened adds +1d8+ casting mod per level heightened. The only changes are that it replaces the flat +8 with casting mod, and it applies no matter how many actions used to cast the spell.

And the same rules apply to Harm, to keep positive energy clerics and negative energy clerics equal. So a level 1 Harm spell does 1d8+ casting mod negative damage (or healing to undead) no matter the number of actions, and if Heightened it adds another 1d8+mod per level. It's just 1 action = touch, 2 actions = 1 target 30' rng, and 3 actions = all targets in 30'

RAW, yea it looks like you cant use them. RAI I think it means you can't use them in general, except for those two actions. They gave them the manipulate trait so that they would trigger reactions.

Yeah, because a Fighter needs to be able to Opportunity Attack a raging whirlwind to prevent it from blowing wind or creating electricity! Can't forbid that!

Archives of Nethys has the errata entered on the spell description, so no Attack trait.

Yeah, but if I buy the book, I don't bother looking it up on AoN, or checking what has changed or not throughout the game...

You nerfed Heal into the ground. This makes me very sad.

I don't think so. It applies the caster's casting stat mod no matter how many actions are used to cast.

So, yeah, a 2-action Heal is a bit weaker, only getting about a +3 or +4 point bonus instead of an automatic +8. But that is applied to the 1 action Heal and 3 action Heals as well as the 2 action heal. So, if you do a 3 action heal, everyone in your party gets 1d8+4, or more with Heightening, instead of just 1d8.

Using RAW, the 2 action Heal is the only one anyone ever uses if they have a choice because of the huge bonus, unless the whole rest of the party is gathered around and are all injured. In all our games the Cleric only used a 3-action Heal once, other than that, only the 2 action version.

What about an idea like this: Keep the AC bonus as is, but the armor also provides some DR based on your proficiency rank tier x1 for light armor, x2 for medium armor, and x3 for heavy armor. So if you are only Trained in each armor, it just provides 2/4/6 DR. If you are an Expert, you have 4/8/12 DR, Master is 6/12/18 DR, and Legendary is 8/16/24 DR.

Now all this free bonus DR brings up the question of how to compensate Unarmored characters in some way (maybe apply the rank value as an +2/+4/+6/+8 AC bonus to better avoid being hit at all, or just treat Unarmored the same as Light Armor?

Lastly, if you are still using the "Damage to Shields" rules from the CRB RAW, does this now rule damage your armor just like it does shields? Wouldn't that cause you to go through suits of armor like they are toilet paper? (If you don't know about it, you can look up my rules for indestructible shields in my house rules doc)

Samurai wrote:

kripdenn wrote:

Samurai wrote:

Intoxicated Illithid wrote:

I love quite a bit of your changes, but out of curiosity, why the changes to Chilling Darkness?

I made a change to Chill Touch (It now only requires a Fort save, not an attack roll + a Fort save. I felt 2 ways to avoid the spell, a missed attack and a successful save, was too much for a regular damage touch range cantrip), but I don't see any change I made to the Chilling Darkness spell just below it on that page in the CRB.

Chill touch doesn't require an attack roll. You automatically touch a target with a spell when it has a range of touch unless the spell specifically states otherwise.

Is that a general rule in the game or something? If so, where is it stated?

The "Attack" trait and the fact that spells that require attack rolls specifically call it out.

https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=35

Versus

https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=236

But the Chill Touch spell in the book has the Attack trait right in the list under it's name. Apparently they removed it in the errata v1, along with many other spells where its wrongly had the tag.

I can make a more general listing in my notes to cover all of them instead of specifically calling out not to make an attack roll for Chill Touch.

I think I made the more specific note before the Errata was made and didn't remember to remove it. Thanks everyone for pointing it out to me.

Edit: There, made the change, you can DL at the same link above.

The document im looking at states that you've changed the scaling on Chilling Darkness from 2d6/2d6 to 1d6/1d6.

As far as alchemist I like your changes but I feel they fail to answer the primary issue with Alchemist. A lack of resources early. Bombers simply outright run out of ammo.

What is the version number of my house rules you are looking at? My current version # is 1.61. It includes a fix for the number of Alchemist reagents (In my rules it now says that Alchemists get 10 + Int mod + 1/2 their level in infusions each day. This means a lvl 1 Alc. will go from about 5 or less infusions each day at 1st lvl up to about 15 in my rules. I added 1/2 level instead of level because the benefit is mostly needed at earlier levels, and Perpetual Infusions at 7th level+ don't require Infused Reagents at all)

As for the Chilling Darkness, maybe at some point I had changed the scaling because Fireball increases by +2d6 per level heightening, and C.D. scales by +4d6 per level heightened. I think I removed the change because upon further thought, it only applies the Evil damage to Celestials (which PCs should not typically be fighting anyway) If it worked against any good aligned creature, that would be too much damage, but since this is pretty much only a single target, Good-aligned Celestial killing spell, I must have removed the change at some point.

Anyway, so you don't need to search for the link, here is the latest version: HERE

Samurai wrote:

Intoxicated Illithid wrote:

I love quite a bit of your changes, but out of curiosity, why the changes to Chilling Darkness?

I made a change to Chill Touch (It now only requires a Fort save, not an attack roll + a Fort save. I felt 2 ways to avoid the spell, a missed attack and a successful save, was too much for a regular damage touch range cantrip), but I don't see any change I made to the Chilling Darkness spell just below it on that page in the CRB.

Chill touch doesn't require an attack roll. You automatically touch a target with a spell when it has a range of touch unless the spell specifically states otherwise.

Is that a general rule in the game or something? If so, where is it stated?

The fact that Paizo has moved on to a second edition of PF should not stop anyone from continuing to play with first edition rules. After all, if the idea is that it doesn't matter which ruleset you use, which is something Paizo has pretty much said since they started with PF2E, then why not continue playing with the 1E ruleset?

That's true, and for more than a year my group did keep playing our 1e campaign, until the Covid lockdown hit. Not sure what will happen once the lockdown is lifted here in CA, but right up to the end the group said "no way" to PF2e, even though most of them bought the core book just to see what it was like. We are an older gaming group, all of us in our 40's and 50's, with decades of experience in many other systems. Maybe this rules set appeals more toward younger players? I don't know. But I've kept all my PF1e books, and I think we will probably be going back to using it after the pandemic passes.