Spyderz's page

I like the variety of changes I'm seeing in magic items. I don't think I like anything about resonance however. I don't see how it adds anything to the game. Sure, it's likely to stop wand spam. But that's about it. Wand spam happens to be one of the things that actually reduces the 10 minute adventuring day. Resonance seems like it's almost certainly going to increase it. Why? Because with limited resonance, generally I would say a permanent item is greater than a limited use item that requires burning resonance. Just like in P1 that having a permanent item usually trumps having a consumable item if I have limited money to spend. Then, with some resources, people tend to have some healing items like potions/wands. Except now if I have limited resonance, they're going to start not working (possibly quite quickly if I have all or most of my resonance spent on permanent items). I can already predict my players being ready to rest when they don't think their healing items are going to work anymore. So now I'm back to creating stories that force time restrictions so they have to go on without the healing items.

Beyond that, the wording of pretty much every single item listed was cludgy and unclear and I would recommend a thorough reworking of how they are listed for clarity of use (and which parts cost resonance). There were several good examples prior to my post.

Think as I understand it, staffs as written will be something I won't ever want. You have limited resonance, and you have to spend 1 to invest the staff..and then 1 each time you cast a spell using a charge (instead of using your own spell slots...which is pretty much always been the point of having a staff), so to get much benefit from a staff, you either need limited numbers of permanent items (so as to have lots of free resonance points) which seems a poor choice or you don't worry about it and use the staff by overspending, in which case the staff barely works.

Ultimately so far, I see nothing about this system that works in any way to positively impact my gaming experience and it comes with a bunch of extra bookkeeping and though it will end wand and potion spam, I find it likely that when the playtest drops, I'll find it makes my parties 10 minute adventuring day come back with a vengeance.

Inner Sea races has a spell called Murderous Crow which sounds pretty cool...except that there are no stats for a crow that I can find anywhere. I'm tempted to use stats for Eagle...but I was curious if I was blind and just missed it...and if anyone else thinks that's a good choice?

You were asking about abuses. In the RAW, there's a second level spell (name escapes me at the moment...Heroic Fortune maybe) that grants the caster a hero point. They then have 1 round per level to use it before it goes away. In the RAW, they can use that hero point to recast any spell they've already cast. The abuse is memorizing every spell in 2nd level with that so that they can recast all their higher level spells. Sure...it uses an extra round to do it...but when they might have only 1 5th level spell...and they can blow 4 or 5 2nds to cast it 5 or 6 times. You get the point.

I don't mind most of the feats that affect hero points...but I banned the spell as written.

There's a 3rd party supplement called Trailblazer for 3.5 that has 2 things I use with regularity...though they only had 2 things in it I really liked...and you might find at least 1 of them (maybe both) helpful. I especially find them helpful in large or strong groups or with very skilled players.

They had rules for Elite and Solo monsters. They were intended to be added and subtracted on the fly so that you could make fights more challenging/less anticlimactic.

The Elite template is pretty straight forward. Double it's listed hit points and give it a hero point. I don't always use the hero point for it. If the PCs are having too easy of a time with a fight that you'd intended to be challenging...ta da...they have twice the HP and a hero point to spend. If the fight goes south...you take it back off and the monster is back to the normal HP...and dies..or from the next hit...whichever works for you.

The Solo is same idea...more dangerous. I've only used it 4 times...all as BBEG for a campaign where the party didn't need to kill a bunch of stuff to get to him so they were fresh for the fight. In this case, you multiply it's HP by the number of PCs (dangerous no?) facing it. Give it 1 hero point per PC. Also for the Solo...if a PC goes down...drop it's hp by that fraction (or not...depends on how evil you are)

The other thing that was part of these rules were extra hero points. If you think an extra hero point for the monster might make the fight more memorable for the players, give it one...plus give one of the PCs a hero point (I usually give to either whoever has the least or whoever is the most heroic...depending.)

The purpose is to add dramatic tension...not to make the players crazy at every turn. I find these couple things work really well to make certain fights more fun.