Scrape's page

Thanks so much guys, this completely answers my question. I guess I just wasn't expecting to calculate everything from scratch. But now that I know, it seems really obvious.

Big help, thanks guys!

My Ranger just hit level 4, gained a Hawk companion, and I'm super confused about its stats. I was all ready with the 3.5 stats but the PFRPG core book came out just in time (and I love it!), so now we're going by official non-beta rules.

So... I'm looking at pg. 53 and I feel a little dumb. Some of these numbers seem to coincide with old rules and others leave me in the dark. I understand the simple stuff (Ability Scores changed, that's easy), but some entries have me scratching my head (the new Skill rules). Here's the three main issues:

It says AC: +1 natural armor. But without the Bestiary, how do I know what his base AC is?

My hawk used to have +5 Talons as a single attack. Now he gets Bite/Talon/Talon, all at BAB + Ability bonuses, is that correct?

Now, on to skills. This confuses me to no end- do animals still have 'base' skills from their template, or do Companions start without that? Hawks used to have crazy Perception bonuses (well, Spot, but you get it). Does my hawk now only get a single rank for Perception? Or do Animal Companion skill points stack with their natural abilities?

I realize that some of these questions will get answered when the Bestiary arrives, but in the meantime I've got a band of Lizardfolk to defeat, and they're not waiting 'til September!

See, to me, PRPG is/should be a generic rule set that replaces 3.5/OGL. Golarion is/should be one world crated by Paizo that uses the PRPG rule-set, but I don't really want to see other companies detailing Golarion. I want to see Necromancer producing generic stuff that I can stick into Golarion if I want to, or creating other Pathfinder rule-set worlds.

You have a good point here, but in all honesty I think Golarion is one of the most interesting parts of PF. The core book is more of 3.5 tweak than a new ruleset, and I was under the impression that it was around mostly to extend the shelf life of the hundreds of books already out for 3.5.

Most of us buy an interesting city guide even if it's technically in another setting, right?

I think the power level of the Rogue is spot-on right now. This is a class that has always been marked by tremendous damage output in certain situations only. You have to play smart to be a good rogue. Without Sneak Attack, her damage output drops significantly. The fun and challenge of a Rogue is maneuvering yourself into beneficial positions (and that's not limited to combat!).

Letting sneak attack affect constructs and undead allows the Rogue to play smart instead of forcing her into standby mode.

The Rogue Talents don't overpower the class, based on my group's experience. They allow the Rogue to stand tall next to some pretty hefty abilities that other classes start receiving as their levels go up. All a Rogue used to see was more Sneak Attack dice and more skill points. Now they get cool little tricks that further add to their versatility. You can always come up with worst-case-scenario type characters that have an overpowering combination of abilities. But most players don't do that. Most players will find much more versatile and useful spells than True Strike, because the whole game isn't a combat encounter.

All the Talents in the book will never let a Rogue tank a big boss, or mow down swathes of baddies with a fireball, or disable foes nearly as well as a simple Hold Monster spell. But added together, they make her a pretty intimidating foe in her own right.

dude1 "Look over there, it's a dead horse"

dude2 "Hey check out this convenient pile of sticks!!"

dude1 "Why don't we take the sticks and go beat the hell out of that dead horse some more"

dude2 "Awesome!!!"

Yeah, I'm also sick of people bringing up the same old problems with the 3.5 ruleset. If only there were a dedicated forum for discussing our views on the current rules and changes we would like to see.

OH WAIT, THAT'S WHERE WE ARE RIGHT NOW. What do you think the point of this playtest is, exactly?

I just want to reiterate the idea that the Skill list is NOT meant to be an all-encompassing list of every separate action your character can take.

It's there to round out your character and customize her a little, adding focus to certain areas and further describing her abilities. Are you a particularly stealthy ranger? Is your Cleric more of a church diplomat than a holy avenger? A quick glance at their skill lists allows you to see their strengths and weaknesses.

D20 games are more about heroic action than pure simulation. Having all five senses encompassed by Perception isn't exactly realistic, but it makes it much easier to play the game. Simply put, it's not fun for most people to micromanage a bunch of stats like Climb, Jump, and Swim. That's why Forgery got cut, that's why Jump is gone, and that's why Climb and Swim should be put into one skill that makes them worth the points.

Combining Climb and Swim is the only thing that makes sense.

I understand that climbing and swimming are two different things. That's obvious. But if this was meant to be a game of realism, we wouldn't be shooting fireballs at goblins.

Of course not every good climber is like a fish in the water. But we're not trying to simulate real life, we're trying to make heroes. I want to simplify the mechanic so that we can stop micromanaging different 'modes of movement' and start having cool cinematic fights without worrying about precious skill points.

From a game design standpoint, hardly anyone wastes valuable ranks in Swim. Just give us Athletics already!

So... many... enemies...

Monstrous realms aside, isn't Cheliax pretty awful? I guess my real question here is: Is there a purpose to Cheliax besides evil? They are meant to be bad guys, right?

Can a Chelish PC not be evil?

As soon as I read the Gazetteer I picked Cheliax as the bad guys. Then I picked up the Campaign setting and again find myself drawn to evil Chelish plots.

Can a Good PC be from Cheliax? Is the whole country meant to be the nemesis?

But why? What's the point of separating two very similar physical skills that get used much less than most others? Wouldn't it make it more valuable and worth the precious points?

I've always been confused about exactly which Knowledge skill covers exactly which creatures. Some races covered under "Dungeoneering" are found outside of a "dungeon" pretty often.

I realize having one skill to identify ALL creatures is overpowering, but I think they need to be revamped. Arcana pretty clearly covers magical beasts, but why does Religion cover undead? You don't have to know the holy texts to tell a ghoul from a vampire.

Could we get rid of some specialty skills like Engineering and instead make room for a couple different categories of creatures? Like Knowledge: Humanoids, Outsider, Fey, and Construct? Or a new category like Fantastic that covers oozes, elementals, constructs, et cetera?

Does anyone else get confused by these Knowledge rolls?

Why not Knowledge: General or Knowledge: Common ? I also really hate the idea that it's called "Local" and yet it lets you recognize customs in faraway lands. Knowledge: Culture isn't bad either.

I house-ruled it as soon as we started our Pathfinder campaign. The consolidated skills are brilliant and long overdue, but honestly... Swim and Climb? Fighters are the most likely to put points into the physical skills and they have few enough points already. Skill points are valuable and no one has the spare points to max out a skill like Swim, that gets used a fraction of, say... Perception, or even Acrobatics.

Please give us Athletics to roll Swim and Climb together at last!

Personally, I'm all for Rangers having TWF- in fact, I think they should be better at it. I think it further draws a class distinction. It makes them more of a martial class than druids (the other "nature" class) and it reinforces the idea of the quick-moving loner.

Honestly, I like the 4ed idea of rangers alone specializing in TWF. No, I don't think it should be denied to other classes. But I think it's another trick up the Ranger's sleeve and an easy way to define a class that's sort of nebulous under 3.5. Most classes can be easily summed up by a glance at their page- but the Ranger really requires a lot of reading to "get" what she's about.

Cool. I was confused, thanks for clearing that up.

I was under the impression that when I bought a print copy of a book, I got the PDF download for free. Is that for subscribers only, though? If I do get a free PDF, where do I go to get it? It doesn't show up in the Downloads section.

Sorry if this is a dumb question, I just wanna be clarify.

@Scrape: is there a possibility of posting your changes? It would really interest me because i was intending to to something similar.

Well, for one thing, we made spells an attack roll instead of a save. It's a pretty simple conversion to make, and it adds a big element of interaction to combat.

Another thing I'm doing is changing monsters to make them more fun. In 3.5, it seems that harder = deadlier, meaning that the creatures' damage goes up signifigantly with their CR. Instead, I lowered their damage and increased their hit points, so that fights tend to last longer and be more tactical by nature- one or two hits is no longer deciding the battle.

Also, Action Points, of course. Love 'em.

Those are the big changes, I think.

I think it's really strange that everyone hates 4ed combat so much. I hated everything except the combat. My group found fighting in 4ed to be faster, more involved, and more tactical and interesting. Obviously, a lot of the powers are ridiculous and some break immersion, but in terms of playing out a brawl, 4ed really stood out for us.

In fact, I house-ruled a lot of concepts from 4ed into my PFRPG campaign because it was more fun- there was more movement, more varied attacks, more interesting powers and effects. Every class can use different attacks and powers each round and it really keeps things interesting. Just our opinion.

I understand what you're all saying, but I think that my problem is actually that Rangers aren't masters of their chosen fighting styles. The way I see it, if you're choosing between two main focuses for your character, shouldn't she be mastering them? Isn't that the point?

I just feel like character classes should be specialized exemplars of their territory- you want to disable complex traps and attack from hiding? Sure, anyone can put ranks in Disable and anyone can get a flanking bonus, but what you really want is a Rogue. You want a brute who attacks with sheer force? Sure, Fighters can take Power Attack and all that, but they simply can't replace Rage.

I want to dual-wield. And I want a class that is focused on it. Considering that there is an entire branch of the Ranger class devoted to 2WF, shouldn't they be the best at it?

I like the idea of Rangers being the dual-wielding specialists, but currently, I don't see that really happening. Maybe I'm wrong; if so, please correct me.

Here's the core of my problem: The only benefit to the Two-Weapon path is that you can take the Feats even if you don't otherwise qualify. What this boils down to is their Dexterity requirements. But Rangers wear medium armor and use bows regularly (even the dual wielders), so they tend to have a high Dex as a result of that. And that means that disabling the Dex requirements is a little underwhelming.

Every Ranger I have GM'd for, played, or played with has had a high Dexterity as a matter of course. Can anything be done to make Rangers the true "Dual-Wielding Specialists" that they claim to be? Or am I missing something?

That might be true, but I don't want to play a Halfling slave!

I just feel that, overall, the racial bonuses and favored class combos are railroading us into certain class choices. If you want to play a Halfling that fights, you are pretty much stuck playing a Rogue, because they've made Ranger just out of reach.

Maybe I'm over-thinking it, but when I rolled up a Rogue and a Ranger, the Ranger was so much weaker because of racial stats and lack of favored class. I understand the concept behind "favored class" and I don't disagree with racial stat modifiers. I just don't want to feel like I'm being penalized for making an uncommon combination.

I want to play the exceptions, not the typical!

When I picture a halfling adventurer, I see the little guy sneaking, scouting, hiding, and ambushing. To me, that says Ranger or Rogue.

BUT maybe other people see them differently. Either way, I really feel like the game is penalizing players heavily for thinking outside the box. Halfling Rogue? Sure, you get favored class bonuses, stat bonuses, and even your size works in your favor!

Halfling Ranger? Nope, sorry. You're missing out on the favored class, you get a -2 STR, and a +2 CHA that you don't need. It makes it very hard to play that character, in my opinion.

We use Class Max + full CON Score and the group LOVES it.

More HP = longer battles, more encounters, and more interesting enemies. It's one of the few things I really liked in 4Ed: it makes the heroes feel heroic, right off the bat.

I want to play a Halfling Ranger SO badly, but no matter what I do, I can't seem to pull it off.

Wisdom might go a long way towards fixing that. I really feel, flavor-wise, that Ranger or Druid should be favored classes for Halflings in Golarion.

The key mechanical problem I have with Rage points in general is that mechanics that use points or pools, such as Psions, almost inevitable gain more expensive power options that allow the class to 'shoot their wad' doing some sort of 'nova'

I think that this is a strange opinion to hold, honestly. The new rage mechanic allows you to spread it throughout an adventuring day, whereas the old 3.5 option kinda forced Barbarians to blow it all at once.

I'm a big fan of the new Rage. It's made me want to play a Barbarian for the first time ever. I feel like most other classes get cool goodies (skills, feats, spells) to choose from as they level up, but Barbarians just get tougher. Now they get cool choices, too.

This is really well-written and you obviously put a lot of work into it, but I have to say that I disagree almost completely.

I love the Sorcerer bloodlines and can't wait to make my own- just reading them inspires character concepts. I love the way Rage works and it makes me want to play a Barbarian for the first time ever.

And as for capstone abilities, you gotta realize that level 20 is very, very high. At that level, the characters are fighting demigods. For me, it's hard to imagine an ability being "overpowered" at that point.

Cool, thanks guys. Is Deft Shield taken from a different supplement or something? Where can I find it?

I'm really eager to try out the Pathfinder Ranger...

(I'm not sure if this is the right forum for this, so if it belongs in Playtest, can a mod move it? Thanks!)

In the Ranger class description (p.36), it lists Deft Shield as an available combat feat for a two-weapon Ranger. This feat is not listed anywhere in the book.

Also, in the master list of Feats (p.80), it lists Double Slice as giving a +2 bonus to attacks with your offhand. On page 85, Double Slice lets you add your full Strength bonus to off-hand damage rolls. Which is correct?