Syltorian's page

I too remember the days when WotC presented 4E, telling us, more or less outright, that the 3.5 system was rubbish and that we were stupid for buying it, whilst still trying to make the final sales. It was insulting, and it made me feel betrayed.

Fortunately, Paizo seems to have a different mode of communication with its customer base, and I don’t get that feeling. While they are obviously telling us how great the new edition is going to be, I don’t sense even underlying belittlement against those who are not welcoming it thus far, and therefore, kudos to them.

With that said, I do not welcome the news at all. I changed to PF precisely because I loved 3.5, and while the two systems have their differences, these are not insurmountable.

I love the wealth of options, which some critics call ‘bloat’: I accept that this seems staggering to newcomers, casual gamers, and people with different inclinations than myself. But for me, it’s an important, even essential part of the game.

Also, I’ve created my beloved characters in that system, and do not wish to see them changed by the need to adapt to the a new system - where they will be different, where defining characteristics will have changed. To avoid that ‘need’, I might be forced to stay with PF as it is, and say ‘pass’ to the 2nd edition PF.

I know it is early days, and I will not abandon PF before 2E actually shows up. I’ll complete the collection. But as it stands, I am more likely to cancel any and all subscriptions after the last new releases for 1E. There is a chance that the changes will not be so major as I fear: time will tell. But that is my situation for the moment.

Some previous posters argue that Paizo has to remain competitive against WotC with 5E, which seems to be doing well. That is certainly true, and I would not want to see Paizo sink below the surface in an ocean of competitive sharks.

But I cannot help but wonder. Paizo carved out a niche for itself: the grognards, the 3.5 refugees as someone called them above. It did not seek to confront 4E directly, but to cater to a different audience, one that wanted no part of 4E.

Granted, that was 10 years ago. The audience has grown older. Some may have left the game, some may be ready now, when they weren’t a decade ago. Others have joined the Pathfinder community afterwards, and have not experienced the Great Edition War of ‘08.

Is it wise for Paizo to abandon this (shrinking?) niche and confront 5E in the open? To challenge WotC, which is backed by the full power and money of Hasbro? If Paizo changes their system, they risk having previously loyal customers take a look at 5E - if you are going to play a new game, you might as well have a look at all the options - and decide to give their custom to WotC. People who might never have bothered if they could stay in their comfort zone with PF.

In short: Paizo will lose the ‘grognards’. That is certain. It will carry over those who are ready for change, or embrace it. That is certain, too. But people not yet invested in any system, or people pushed into deciding whether to change to PF2 or 5E will be up for grabs for any company out there, and there WotC has several financial advantages.

I don’t have access to the numbers or statistics, but I wonder whether this move is quite risk-free for Paizo.

As for myself, I don’t believe I have the time, energy, or will to change in what is a hobby. I’ll stay in my comfort zone, and invest any resources into other areas of my life.

A Wizard in 3.5 got an extra spell per day per level of their choice, and this spell had a DC based on Int.

In Alpha, the Wizard gets a spell like ability that is not open to what the Wizard wants to have, but is a forced choice. That's the first strike against this approach. Then we're telling wizards that that spell like ability they are getting is going to have save DCs based on their Cha. So, a spell like ability that you may not even want or intend to use gets a lower save DC.

As a Wizard... why would I bother using the spell like ability? Wouldn't using Acid splash at will be more effective (no save!) rather than do something you know the save will be made?

How high will a Wizard in this system make their charisma? 12? 14? Maybe. Is that +2 v. a +6 for Int. going to make the save even a challenge for most monsters? As it is, I tend to not cast spells with saves because most monsters will make their saves. It's a waste, even going off my highest ability score. Going off of a mediocre ability score is just a wasted action.

Then there's the simplification question. I know going into a game session that all my level 1 spells have a save DC of X, or if I have spell Focus, I can bump certain spells up one or two. Using charisma for the spell like ability is just one more different save DC to keep track of. This will slow gameplay.

Then there's the fact that in game it doesn't make sense. Wizards gain spell casting abilities through study. spells per day is based on Int.! The Archmage gets spell like abilities... the saves aren't based upon Cha., but are based upon Int. Why? 'cause the Wizard gained the ability through study and learning and practice. It's not a natural force of will thing. Charisma just doesn't fit.

I completely agree with this on all points. My vote is to make the saves Intelligence based.

I'd have Column B be 3/4 lvl and Column C be 1/2 lvl or Column B be 2/3 lvl and Column C be 1/3 lvl perhaps. I'd also have a Martial Rating for Martial special abilities and perhaps certain abilities. For instance if you have levels in a class with Uncanny Dodge, you'd use you're Martial Rating to determine if you'd have it and Improved Uncanny Dodge or not.

Thanks for the clarification. The Martial Rating sounds intriguing. To me, it sounds like it will require a lot more work than caster-levels (as it will involve a lot of different abilities), but it sounds most certainly worth a shot!

I've suggested some thing like this before, except they're would be three different ratings, Arcane, Divine and Martial, and the B and C Columns would progress faster.

I quite like the magic rating with Arcane, Divine and Psionics separate, although I would propose that this should be introduced as an option or sidebar to a unified magic rating system. Separating the ratings might be a bit complicated as a base rule, although I would use it myself.

Regarding faster progress for B and C Columns, I'm intrigued. Do you have any suggestions for how much faster this would increase? Would Rangers and Paladins (assuming they do not undergo too many changes in Alpha 2 and 3) get more than 1/2 level caster level? Would that be a bad thing?

That's exactly what I was thinking about! (the last one about the 3.5 simplification).

1) no cross-class extra cost.
2) cross-class rank cap at (level+3)/2
3) Multiclass characters tread ALL class skills as class skills

And the system is improved without the need of big changes!

While personally I treat all skills as in-class skills (1:1 cost, cap level +3) and allow retroactive Intelligence bonuses, I'm happy to have these remain houserules. It will be easier for people who like them to add such elements rather than for people who dislike them to get rid of them.

Thus I vote in favour of DracoDruid's system, and for keeping 3.5 skill points with these improvements.

Part of the thing with the v3.5 skill point system, is you could specialize the way Pathfinder is forcing you to, or you could generalize if you wanted that more well-rounded character.

Ditto Otto and ditto OP. This is the reason why I am still strongly in favour of the skill-point system. I agree the Alpha system is easier, faster to use, and less confusing for new players. But I cherish the ability to create versatile characters without either having to use skills completely untrained (even if the chance of success there is enhanced) or suddenly being a master at them.

The OP's example of a character with some across the board knowledge skills and a few specialisations is just the type of character I like to play, and Alpha is causing problems creating them. In short, what many people who are in favour of the Alpha system seem to dislike is one of my favourite things about 3.5: fiddling around and micromanagement.

Ideally, of course, the system would allow both systems; given that with the Alpha many skill modifiers tend to be higher from what I have seen, I wonder how balanced that would be. Perhaps that is something they are working on, rather than deciding which 50% (or 52/48 split) they want to go with at the risk of causing a headache to the other half - if pleasing everyone is possible at all.

I believe that the skill grouping of certain things, like Hide and Move Silently, make sense. However, the degree of skill-grouping that happens in Pathfinder 1.1 leaves a LOT less skills, meaning that skill points go a lot further. To far, in my opinion.

This is something else I quite agree with. I've been briefly trying to convert a character of mine into a skill point using version with the consolidated skills... and ended up with way too many points that I had no use for given the concept. Or rather, I put them all into Craft skills. True, there are some groups that make sense; Stealth, Perception, amongst other; but I would (for example) keep Concentration and add Autohypnosis to it.

Assessing how much problems this causes is not an immediate concern, however. We will first have to see whether they use slots or points for skills; the implications will be much different. Still, as someone who, at this point, will be using skill points, I'd be interested in a solution to this problem eventually.

Thanks for the answer. That's what I suspected, but I had held on to hope that Paizo could also mine some of it.

I'm not sure whether this belongs here or not, so apologise if it doesn't.

I have been wondering who owns the copyright to material (classes, class variants, feats, spells, magic items, etc) published in Dragon Magazine while it was under Paizo's tenure? Can Paizo copy ideas (verbatim or otherwise) from the magazines, or has the copyright (together with the license) reverted to Wizards?

To reiterate what I said in another thread:

I love paladin/ranger spell-casting, for some of my characters. I hate it for other characters. But I think it should be 'easy' enough to accommodate both sides of the debate. Just go for options.

DO NOT get rid of spell-casting for these classes, but DO provide viable and interesting alternatives.

I'm usually on the side of the fence that has the smaller voice. A LG paladin is the only paladin. He is the champion of Good and upholder of Law. Just because he is LG doesn't mean that he can't worship a Deity that is not. Some Deities just don't use Paladins and would not support such training in their churches. I really dislike the UA's different Paladins. It makes the Paladin in the PHB less unique. If you wanted to play an Evil Paladin, go for the Blackguard. It is Evil's "Paladin". As for a Chaotic Good, they wouldn't train something as rigorous as a Paladin to protect good and uphold Chaos, that's counter productive. Leave the Paladin as is.

The Blackguard (and other non-LG champion PrCs) is a prestige class, so more difficult to reach for players than the standard paladin. A campaign at low-levels would have to exclude them - but why? Either make all these champions PrCs (something I don't like), or make them all base classes.

Regarding the Paladin of Freedom, I see your argument, but I am working from a different premise. To me, the paladin is not trained (true, the lawful paladin will be trained - that's one aspect of being lawful). He is called. Thus the chaotic paladin would have received no training whatsoever, but he is a champion for good called by his deity.

Overall, I hate alignment restrictions, whether it's bards, barbarians, assassins or paladins. Classes based on association with fiends I can see, and even to some extent monks given the focus on their strong discipline. I don't care much whether PRPG removes these limits though, as it's fairly easily houseruled.

Besides, I never liked those "substitution" levels or variants (i.e. paladins of slaughter and whatever) because while they added more versatility and options, it was a head-ache (as a DM) to pour through all sorts of class variants in a dozen splat books each time I was creating an NPC *or* someone wanted to add versatility to his PC.

If you are creating an NPC and do not want to go through the chore of browsing through 30 books and magazines, why do you do it? There is no requirement to add a moonwarded ranger of totemic barbarians to your campaign.

And if a player wants to add versatility, you can either say no (and restrict what books are allowed in your campaign), or tell him to provide you with the material, so the browsing and compiling is his chore. Granted, you still have to read that and consider adjustments to the campaign, which, depending on the option, might be a headache.

But IMO, options are always better than no options. You can always ignore them, but it is much more difficult to come up with them in the first place. Also, if the options are all in the core PRPG book, you do not need to browse through all the splat books/magazines, just the one book (until they bring out more books, which you can chose to ignore). I'd agree, though, that some of the more controversial options (non-LG paladins, for example) should perhaps be clearly marked as options, so DMs who do not want them and want to stick to the traditional paladin can ignore them more easily.

To address the OP: I'm all for variants. I liked the substitution class levels and alternative class features. Versatility is one of the best things of the game as it is now, to me. So I am fully in support of the OP. I do hope that the changes they make to the classes still allow for backwards compatibility with the substitution levels that already exist, without too many balancing problems.

The dwarf/elf (or any race/elf) animosity is encapulated in this - they don't start neutral, they start Hostile.

You and Shisumo bring up a good point. It's true that the racial dislike (and, in the case of pre-Tolkien elves, superstitious fear) will cause an unfriendly or hostile starting point, and thus remain unaffected by the ability. It still feels strange (to me), but at least this factor alleviates my problems with this ability to a considerable extent.

What I do still have problems with is how this would interact with elves whose body is hidden by, say, full-plate or a mask, or who are scarred - or conversely, whether this ability, if kept, should be made available to other races that are supposed to be beautiful, such as Eberron's kalashtar and some fey-touched.

Also, for the record, I do think Diplomacy (as per the PHB) is problematic, unless the DM rules that some NPCs simply will not do some things no matter what. A sufficiently min/maxed character could talk Sauron into redemption (provided you survive the minute it takes to make your Diplomacy check).

Of course, no rule is safe from really maxing out on the ability...

Not that this is something Paizo can easily use due to copyright reasons, but I have for some time now used Track (along with the Eberron Campaign Setting's Research and Investigate feats and a few other feats) as Skill Tricks. That way they still have a cost, but not as great a cost as a feat slot... which I agree is way too much for Track & co.

Syltorian, if you're in a game where bad blood is created over the DM's interpretation of how appearance and racial bias affects interactions, I don't think there's a system that would help.

Asking for rule set that elegantly reflects the nuances of psychology and sociology is insanely ambitious. At some point you have to defer to the DM's common sense.

I quite agree - and that is why I don't like the Unnatural Beauty ability.

To me, this ability tries to establish just such a system. What I am asking for is not an elegant solution. On the contrary, I agree that it is impossible to provide one. So I would prefer if the system left this completely to the DM's common sense and the circumstances of the campaign, rather than have the written material attempt to create such a rule for interaction while at the same time admitting that it doesn't work. (I see this admission in the need for the DM's discretion rule, which you don't need with, say, stonecunning).

To clarify my opinion on possible player-DM conflict: My meaning was not that bad blood is created over the DM's interpretation of social interaction, but over the DM actively negating an specific, existing ability that the player might have chosen the race for. And one that is meant to be balanced against other races (i.e. the elves get this ability instead of another one which the DM does not negate). If this ability did not exist in the first place, I don't think there would be any bad blood about what the DM decides happens in a social encounter - at least, none that the system can do anything about as you say.

So, (IMO, of course) the most elegant solution is simply to leave the rules out of this completely, and get rid of Unnatural Beauty (in the current form).

I'd like to see paladins and rangers (and monks) get to choose from a list of 'paths' the way clerics choose domains and wizards choose specialties. And only one path is a spellcasting path. (And yes, I think there should be a spellcasting - or psionic - path for monks. Not all monks should be martial artists.)

Psionic monks in the style of spell-casting paladins and rangers? I'd like that!

I like the not sleeping bit, though I do not care if it goes away or stays in. It's easy enough, and I believe minor enough to rule back in; most of the effects I like (makes an elven community run differently, creates different hobbies and lifestyles) are cosmetic, as far as I see, so it's not a big issue for me.

However, the 'unnatural beauty' seems off to me. Not because elves are not beautiful. Traditionally, they are. But for the following reasons:

1) The ability is subject to DM discretion. I assume that is due to the fact that the DM might not want a character to gain some specific NPCs as allies too easily. But any ability that is subject to DM discretion seems to me to lead to discord amongst the group. A player choosing an elf under this system may do so because he wants to make friends easily; if the DM negates this too often, that's going to cause bad blood. Of course, this is true of any ability to an extend (and Diplomacy skills), but this ability could cause some problems on this front.

2) Traditionally, elves are beautiful. But traditionally, a person meeting an elf (in myth, of course) tries to run away, touch iron or make warding signs. They refuse to give in to their offers, or they are lost. They do not react to them in friendly ways: Elves are attractive, but above all they are scary. Not in Tolkien, maybe, but in those myths and songs of Germanic folklore (Erlkonig, etc) I know. So, by that reasoning, the reaction might go down a level, rather than up.

3) Unnatural beauty creates some problems... in D&D, as far as I am aware, elves do not get on with dwarves. Yet now, the dwarves are suddenly friendly, unless they start out less than indifferent? So, as a DM in a classic campaign, I either have to use the 'DM arbitration' and tell the player his ability does not work, or I have the dwarves suddenly appreciate the flighty elves. Dwarves are merely an example; this goes for everyone from logging communities that do not appreciate the defenders of the forest to human nations that are simply xenophobic.

4) What happens if a character gets scarred, undergoes mortification (e.g. Eberron elves), contracts a visible disease, etc? Okay, one example is setting-specific, and there are no strict rules for the others. So let's say the elf runs around in full plate armour with the visor down. Is he still unnaturally beautiful? Do I have to use DM arbitration at every time? I guess I may be putting too much into the word 'beauty' here, and the elf may have supernatural charm rather than physical beauty... but then, does an elf with Cha 5 get this too?

Despite the lengthy post, I'm not vehemently against this ability. The DM arbitration gives me enough leeway to make it apply only when I feel like it, but as I said, if those situations do not coincide with the player's opinions, some bad blood could be created.

As someone who loves paladin/ranger spells for some of my characters, and hates them for others, depending on the concept, I could not agree more. Having the alternative to cast spells or do something else (beyond simply choosing bonus feats) would be great.

Regarding class variants and substitution levels, I must say that I love them. Not all of them, of course, but I hope that those I like stay compatible with the Pathfinder system (considering Paizo cannot include them as options without copyright issues).

There are a lot f things I like and a lot of things I dislike in Pathfinder. The handling of skills is one I certainly dislike. My games (since 1979) have always emphasized Role Playing over Roll Playing, 4e's trend towards what I see as the latter is one reason I am not excited about it.

The revamp of skills presented here effectively deprived PCs and NPC of one very easy route of true customization. The allocation of skill points in the original SRD gives versatility and character that the reboot lacks. Even if I like the final Pathfinder product enough to purchase, which I really hope I do, I will be keeping skills.

This is another symptom of why I worry about the touted "backwards compatibility" which was my main reason for downloading the Alpha.

Come on guys, this is a fantastic move and could be really wonderful, but please do not reboot so that you invalidate the compatibility you espouse. How could I use skill tricks from Complete Adventurer, a favorite rule of mine, under this framework?

Simply Put: Please keep skill points!

I could not agree more with this. Backwards compatibility is a big issue, and one reason why I do not like 4E. Getting rid of skill points would be a big headache for PrCs, feats, (skill tricks, as mentioned above), and, considering I tend to spread some of my skill points around rather a lot with my characters, for converting my own characters without changing bits of their history or description.

I can see where the Alpha system is easier, but is maxing out a number of skills equal to skill points per level difficult, if one wants to speed up NPC creation? This may not completely replicate the Alpha system, of course, but the way I view it, the skill points allow for such quick creation (provided one does not go into prerequisites for feats and PrCs, of course); yet they also allow for customisation. The alpha system does not allow for the latter to the same extent.

By all means, include the option for an alpha-like system or similar streamlining to speed up creation. But please allow customisation for those of us who like micromanagement and versatility - and include skill points.

I'd like to add my voice to the "please keep skill points!" petitioners.

I hated the similar system introduced in Unearthed Arcana, and the change to a skill point-less system is one of the points why I am uncomfortable with 4E (next to many other things) and refuse to change. Fortunately, the UA rule is an optional rule, and fortunately, Paizo may yet come in to the rescue!

Like other people on this thread, I like customisation. I like micromanagement. I like characters who are, (completely random example here) great in History, dabble in the Religion, but have no knowledge about the Planes beyond the basics.

I am also in the ranks of those who like to be able to spend skill-points on a 'hobby' without becoming masters at the art (on that note, thanks Paizo for not ditching Profession, Craft, e.a.).

So please, let us keep skill-points - or at least, the option to have skill points.

I also have to agree with those who do not want class-skills/cross-class-skills distinction. I find it rather restricting if the book tells me my fighter cannot also be a good musician (not practical, perhaps, with 2+Int points to spend them on perform, but it should be allowed).