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Hmm...I wonder if something could be cooked up where the % of HP remaining gives you a bonus or penalty on the saving throw.

Fer instance, if you (or the big bad) are at full hit points, you get, like a +4 to your saving throw. At 1/4 HP you'd get -4 to your save. That would encourage players and DMs to hold off the insta-kill powers until the battle has progressed a bit, in effect making them "finishing moves", and rewarding the successes of your teammates.

I like this option the best. Takes a bite out of the SoD effects power at the annoying full hit points stage where bad luck can snuff a PC/BBEG in one roll before anything gets done. But characters close to death or BBEG are increasingly vulnerable as they sustain damage.

Have the wizard hang on to that Phantasmal Killer until the party takes a couple bites out of the bad guy. Then when he's looking a little ragged "FINISH HIM!"

Also adds some new uses for the deathwatch spell.

I just now got my computer browbeat into letting me read the newest release of the pathfinder rules.

I decided to roll up a couple of characters in order to playtest them. I created an orc barbarian and an elven monk. Both at sixth level and both possessing impressive ability scores. Before I created anything else I decided to pit them against one another in a duel.

The monk starts the scenario 150ft behind the barbarian. It is given that the barbarian doesn't know of the monk's presence, and the monk has sufficient cover to use stealth to close the distance. It is also assumed that the monk has no knowledge of how big a threat the orc is. Otherwise I doubt he would attempt to take him down alone.

The first two rounds the monk sneaks up to within 50ft of the orc and opens the surprize round with a charge/stunning fist attempt.

In the first round the attack hits but the orc makes it's save. The monk wins initiative and uses a flurry of blows and a ki point for an extra attack, missing with the stun attempt but hitting with two other attacks. So far the monk has caused 22 points of damage before the orc has a chance to react.

Then the orc raged and power attacked the monk into negative hit points with a greataxe.

Not a bad show for the monk in my opinion. I wasn't actually expecting him to win, but his armor class and hit points were petty good but the barbarian had two good rolls. And since the barbarians entire class revolves around dealing melee damage two good rolls should be enough to get rid of a monk.

I reset the scenario and the monk fared much better with a bit more luck. The surprise attack hit and the orc was actually stunned, dropping his weapon and taking a serious hit to his AC. The monk won initiative again.

However the rules state that a stunned opponent remains stunned until just before your next turn, but since the monk won the initiative roll it's next turn started immediately after the stun succeeded. Since the monk needed some sort of break if he was going to survive I reasoned that a stunned opponent must lose at least one round worth of actions so I kept the orc stunned until just after it's turn ended. Meaning the monk took a full round beating on him in a stunned state. (what is the official rule on this?)

Also, later in the mock battle I wanted to try some combat maneuvers since the monk had improved trip and his snazzy maneuver training and the barbarian had improved grapple and the animal fury rage power.

I ran into a couple of problems.

Grapple is listed as taking a standard action to perform. If the barbarian attacks with animal fury, (which I'm not positive but I assumed this was a bonus attack used during a full attack action like the monks ki based bonus attack. That's how I treated it anyway) then he started a full attack action and can't actually attempt a grapple this turn since he would need a standard action.

I wanted to bite the monk and start a grapple to take advantage of the +2 grapple bonus from the bite, but I wasn't clear on how the rules worked.

Next I wanted to try tripping the orc with the monk. So on a flurry of blows attack I stunned the orc with the first attack and tried to trip him with the second.

First does a stunned opponent take any kind of penalties to its CMB? Also I wasn't sure what bonus the monk was rolling with to trip. Normal CMB was 9 because of his maneuver training and +3 str mod, improved trip raised it to an 11. But with a flurry of blows the monk was attacking with an accuracy based penalty. For the purposes of the trip I just applied the flurry of blow penalty (-1) to the monks CMB bonus so that he attempted the trip with a +10.

Are their still any bonuses/penalties on jumping for having a speed different than 30ft? I was curious when I was making the monk but I didn't see anything under the new acrobatics skill.

Also the pathfinder character sheets I printed out for them seem to have dex listed as the relevant ability modifier for the spellcraft skill.

I would like an official ruling on what to do for the problematic snags I came across if at all possible.

Other than the few odd bumps on the road I was fairly pleased with the augmented rules. I ran the scenario several times. The monk never really approached victory during the combat but with a small amount of luck he was normally able to live long enough to realize how outmatched he was and easily escape. And by downing a mage armor potion and spending ki points to boost his AC the unarmored monk was able to thwart even the massive attack bonus of the barbarian. In a group I'm sure the monk would have done just fine holding the barbarian off but on his lonesome he still managed ok for my tastes.

Generalist, Necromacy, Enchanter, Abjurer, Transmuter ,or Conjuer (I ask just out of curiosity, I'm mainly a Conjurer myself)

Generalist as I hated being denied access to any schools of magic. My favorite spells were typically conjurations, illusions, and transmutations though.

Cloudkill followed by ottolukes resilient sphere to trap an enemy in a magic gas chamber. Heh, good times....

Well if the Wizard was just using Damage spells thats just not smart, there are tons more useful spells for the wizard that do more than do damage (Though playing a blaster can be alot of fun).

Our casters rarely used damage spells like fireball and lightningbolt. Partially because of how much better the fighters dropped enemies hp.

Its not even that, fighters can be highly effective its just to get there you have to concentrate only on one gimic whether thats Power Attack/Charging, Spiked Chain/Guirsame tripper, a Spiked chain AoO user,or a Grappler (Which other classes do better) it gets very boring. And thats the core problem of the fighter with me, he is so damn boring to play. Hell the Knight, Warlock, Bard, Paladin ,and Dragon Shaman are all pretty weak classes but seeing how they have options there fun to play.

I agree. In fact I rarely play fighters for just that reason. I prefer monks, or druids, or rogues. The last one I did play was a mobile two weapon fighter that specialized in grappling. (Enlarge person and I became great friends).

But that is personal taste, not the class itself. My friends that were inclined to fighters loved nothing more than shouting "double Jeapordy!" (their self coined term for using all their BAB into a power attack) and rolling a D20 with childlike anticipation. I know that they wouldn't change a thing.

Also Improved critical as a worthless feat is debatable. Fighters have many feats to spend and enchanting both weapons (for TWF) with an additional +1 bonus can become more of a pain than spending the feat. It also has the added bonus of applying to any weapon of that type, even the backup scimitar in case one gets sundered or when you fight in anti-magic fields.

Obviously your millage has varied from mine significantly. Our fighters were the cornerstone of the party usually. We slapped him with buffs and unleashed him upon the enemy. The party focused on keeping him alive and secondary targets and objectives while he trounced the biggest threat on the field. He used two weapon fighting styles and Two handed combat and put out damage that put the wizards spells to shame. We liked rogues a lot too. They do great damage, but only under sneak attack conditions, against vulnerable targets, and if their attack missed it was the fighters job to bail them out before they got eaten.

If your gaming style has led to fighters feeling slighted then I agree, you might wanna help 'em out with a boost. I'm just trying to point out that fighters (at least in my campaigns) have plenty of shining moments even at high levels.

And if you are going to disagree with me please provide evidence as to why what I said was wrong.

"Two weapon fighting sucks if you aren't a rogue." for example. A fighter with two wounding scimitars, greater weapon specialization, and improved critical. Is a combination a rogue would have trouble using effectively and can do loads of harm without needing a flank or flatfooted opponent.

Also you made a good point about combat expertise. We house ruled away the "only up to +5 to armor class" limitation in my games and I completely forgot the RAW when I was writing my post.

I think monks are great AND plenty powerful in 3.5. They're like special teams. Sneak in, move to the key target, immobilize and eliminate. If you fail you've got a bazillion ways to escape and resist any form of capture and no one's gonna catch you if you make a break for it. Super specialized and nearly unstoppable in decisive strike or chasedown operations.

I think monks are one of the most fun classes to play they are my favorite.

The problem is that D&D doesn't need special teams, the party is supposed to work together and pool their strengths into a whole to overcome obstacles. The flaw I have with the monk is that there is nothing they can offer the party that another class can't do better.

Their coolest abilities and strengths are their resistances (great for them but it isn't something that directly benefits teamates), speed (does no good in most encounters since leaving party members 100ft behind you in a single round will just get one of the two groups killed), and number of attacks (are cool and I'd argue that they are useful in combat but with few monk specific items or feats the damage potential stays dissapointingly low).

Ki strike (lawful) is just difficult to get excited about.

What the monk needs most is a single defining ability that the party can come to rely on. Something that a monkless party can routinely lament and say "Oh how I wish we had a monk right now"

I'm not sure giving the monk more defensive abilities is the answer. The problem is that they are supposed to be part of a team. They are great at avoiding being disabled, but that only indirectly aids the party.

Monks are already all about deflecting attacks and resisting magical assaults. Perhaps we can upgrade "deflecting" (an ability that only helps themselves survive) to "reflecting". Let a monks resistance to magical attacks turn a hold person spell back on the caster. Use those magical hands of theirs smack a beholder with its own ray of disintegration. It still seems to fit their style and it's a unique ability no other class brings to the table.

What do you think?

Two handed weapons with power attack can deal truely horrendous damage

so can Spirited charge (if you want a fighter to be as baddass as the mage nothing screams, "I rock rarder than Rod Stewart" like a dragon for a mount")

cleaving after either attack spreads the misery to other opponents and I've seen a few good roles from a fighter clear out plenty of challenging opponents the party was struggling to bring down.

Two weapon fighting with sword and shield or with two weapons does moderate damage but also adds enough attacks for multiple attempts at disarming, tripping ect. A well thought out weapon selection (wounding weapons for example) increase the deadlyness of multiple hits regardless off low damage output.

Combat expertise lets a fighter dodge and weave away from creatures with truely horrendous attack modifiers if they are wounded or don't have the tools to be effective, absorbing hits, conserving party resources, and buying time.

The only limit a fighter has on these tricks is the number of enemies foolish enough to remain in his path.
These are all from the PHB. A core rules, unsupplimented fighter has access to these feats and many more. A high level fighter has access to all of them at once.

A high level fighter is capable of fending off moderate CR threats completely naked and unarmed. With an aresenal of magical mojo appropriate to his level he can storm a city state alone and uncork the ass whuppin of a lifetime all over their army.

If you have a high level fighter, with appropriate equipment, AND high level buffs put on him from his magically adept allies, you have a warrior menacing enough to make Thor drop an epic level deuce in his high and mighty tighty whiteys.

If you want to juice up fighters, make sure to take into account what happens to a fighter mark II when his buddies give him an epic level supercharge.

Mind Blank, polymorph, improved invisiblity, spell resistance, ect

Might as well try out the new skin.

Hi yall it's the poster formerly known as sexi golem. Been awhile.

I am not a fan of psionics. I'm not interested in their balance (our group did not find them to be balanced) because balance seems to be pretty relative to the type of game you run and the type of people you play with.

Thus resulting in the large gap of people with differing opinions. I'd like to suggest that "Bad DMing" or "munchkanism" doesn't have to be the cause of the balance issue.

Many groups can contain wonderful players and DM's but differ wildly in type of enemies encountered, amount of wealth and down time, availability and use of cohorts and allies, teamwork dynamics between PCs and a many variables that define what concepts will strive and which will strugle. A new system like psionics might not mesh well with the type of game you run. And if your system is working and you and your friends are having fun, then it isn't a sign of smallmindedness or laziness to not want to redrill your square hole so that the round peg can fit. Much the same way as no one is betraying the soul of D&D (a game that has always spoken to me as one of defying conventional entertainment and supplying the players all the tools they needed to reinvent the game in the name of fun) for wanting to include a fairly unconventional component. Yes I consider it non-core. The small psionic components of D&D like the mind flayer and gith abilities always worked the same as normal magic for all intensive purposes. They were a nice edition and made those monsters more special in my opinion and more connected. But psionics in the core rules to me seem like a vestigial, if interesting, throwback to the monsters origins.

And I really don't like psionics. They don't sit right with me. I don't like the races. Half Giants being mental savants strikes me as ludicrous. My campaigns are shaped by the the world I know and trying to see how different it would be with the addition of magic and monters and other dominant races. My D&D perspective wasn't quite roomy enough to fit a world with magic, monsters, races, psionic magic and psionic races. I never felt the need to work them in either since I was so comfortable with what I had and was so happy with arcane magic that psionics looked more annoying than interesting. The few times we tried playing them in our gamer group did little to bolster psionic love.

I would prefer that psionics stay out of the core rules. I'm not sure I quite understand the crusade to get them into the rules so that more people will respect and like them more or see them as more vital. I don't think psionics are stupid or a terrible idea. I'm fine with them being around in official adventures as well. But mage acadamies, Wizard's towers, and dragons made of teeth and scales instead of crystals or gems will always resonate with me as the quintessence of fantasy roleplaying. So I'd find it more enjoyable the a "core" rulebook would remain traditional and have the workings and classes and races of psionics in a different sourcebook.

That said if many people are excited to see psionics integrated more completely, I won't be throwing a hissy fit in defeat. If it's what the people want and it's doable then that is what should be done. I'll simply whittle psions out of my version of the world where I desire.
But if only a small majority of people want psionics in the core then please don't use space in the core to placate. You could do it with an expansion handbook that won't interfere with me and the others who don't prefer them and do not wish to spend money on them.

Is it possible to raise a voting system to help resolve this or at least get a more accurate feel for public opinion?