Thank you for the responses, they help immensely, especially that "weird corner-case threatened to wreck the game" guideline. Now to come up with less ambiguous naming for attribute score increases. Maybe Owner for one and Minion for the other.
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6. Does the Expanded Arcana feat work with Ki Powers and Skill Tricks? Between being built off of the same Spell Capacity table, and having their own mechanics differences from normal spellcasting, I can see this being ruled either way.
5. Is there a difference between "Attribute score" and "User attribute score" I'm missing, or is this just a typo?
When placed into an item, an amplified spell functions at the activator’s caster level, rather than at the item’s. In addition, the save DC (if applicable) is calculated using the activator’s Charisma modifier. you may use your Wisdom modifier in place of your Charisma modifier when calculating saving throw DCs of your spells and extraordinary, supernatural, and spell-like abilities that rely on Charisma. 3. Can Amplify Spell and Serenity work together? It would make sense, but how they're written makes me feel like I'm making an assumption. Mind Blade (Su): any weapon-specific feats (e.g., Weapon Specialization) that apply to your mind blade in one form also apply to the mind blade in all other forms. 4. Does this include Proficiency level gained via class or racial properties? I'm not certain whether Proficiencies count as feats themselves, or if they count as properties that the actual Proficiency feats bestow upon the character.
2. Whips seem to be missing the "In addition, unlike most other weapons with reach, you can use it against foes anywhere within your reach (including adjacent foes)." clause it has in Pathfinder. Is this intentional?
A Reach weapon can be used to make attacks at greater range. 1. This is in 5ft. increments, not Reach Spell increments i.e. first increment being 25ft + 5ft/2Lv, right? Because that'd be silly.
Thank you for your responses, they help quite a bit. I figured out the Grimoire and Table of Contents parts in the meantime. I had a list in an earlier draft, got rid of it, and now I'm kind of torn.Spellcasting: ...You must spend 1 hour per day in quiet meditation to regain your daily allotment of spells. You may prepare and cast any spell on the ranger spell list, provided that you can cast spells of that level, but you must choose which spells to prepare during your daily meditation.I should move the class list thing into one of the bullets, and/or clarify that it means the ranger versions of those spells (since rangers no longer have a specific list).What spell list does Ranger use? I was under the assumption this list was the one being referred to. An earlier draft, you say? Guess I'll use the 2014 spell list for now.
7. Brass dragon and Steel dragon in the Sorcerer's Draconic Bloodlines table refer to the Blast Spell feat, which seems to have been subsumed into the Channel Spell feat.
Spellcasting: ...You must spend 1 hour per day in quiet meditation to regain your daily allotment of spells. You may prepare and cast any spell on the ranger spell list, provided that you can cast spells of that level, but you must choose which spells to prepare during your daily meditation. I should move the class list thing into one of the bullets, and/or clarify that it means the ranger versions of those spells (since rangers no longer have a specific list). 6. What spell list does Ranger use? I was under the assumption this list was the one being referred to.
1. Under Designing Custom Items: Spell Effects, what kind of action does it take to use a Command Word Activated item? The description doesn't say, and the best I can find in the Combat chapter is phrases and commands each counting as Free Actions. My best guess is there's a separation between activating and directing the spell effect: Free Action to activate the magic item, default Partial Action to direct the spell effect. Mind Blade (Su): ...You can use feats in conjunction with the mind blade just as if it were a normal weapon; any weapon-specific feats (e.g., Weapon Specialization) that apply to your mind blade in one form also apply to the mind blade in all other forms. 2. Does this allow weapon-specific feats to apply to a form that normally wouldn't qualify (e.g., Crushing Blow feat with a greatsword form)? Theurgy and Bonus Spells: When racial spell-like abilities are given up in favor of spellcasting synergy (as described for each race in Chapter 2), the racial spell-like abilities listed can be used in place of the standard bonus feats for the primary casting progression. 3. Is this supposed to say "in place of the standard bonus spells"? 4. Is the Spells Grimoire acting up for anyone else? It'll work if I download it, but it's refusing to load within Google Drive. 5. How do you make the table of contents links in the beginning of the Feats chapter, and can this be used to link to specific sections of other documents? I would appreciate help on any of these. Thank you.
Under Designing Custom Items: Spell Effects, what kind of action does it take to use a Command Word Activated item? The description doesn't say, and the best I can find in the Combat chapter is phrases and commands each counting as Free Actions. My best guess is there's a separation between activating and directing the spell effect: Free Action to activate the magic item, a Partial Action to direct the spell effect, Swift Action to direct if the spell effect is Quickened.
Whenever a Monk gives up their ki power progression in exchange for theurgy towards another class' spellcasting progression, do they retain the ability to meditate mid-day to regain spell levels of spell slots, or do they give that up in the process? Ranger Mage is a tad confusing. Since it says "Add all sorcerer/wizard spells of the appropriate levels to your class spells list. You also gain the following multiclassing benefits:" before the bullet points, but has the last bullet point say "If you have no levels in any arcane spellcasting class, you instead gain a suite of racial spell-like abilities," does the last bullet point count against only the other bullet points? Can a Mind Blade take the form of an Unarmed Attack? What would that even look like, a momentary visual manifestation on whatever body part is used in the attack roll, or would the Soulknife have a full body glow like they're a Diablo 3 Archon?
The Advanced Monk Sutra: Improved Ki Attack mentions "fist of the forest". Where can I find that?
Is there any way to make a Soulknife have access to the Monk's list of Ki Powers? The only opening I can find is to use Ranger lore to commit a hop-scotch violation.That's a great idea! Wait, so performing hop-scotch for numerical bonuses isn't allowed, but performing hop-scotch for non-numerical benefits is legal? Neat.
Is there any way to make a Soulknife have access to the Monk's list of Ki Powers? The only opening I can find is to use Ranger lore to commit a hop-scotch violation.
Talonhawke, for your first question, there should be a 'Saving Throws by Creature Type' table under Ch.1-Intro -> Character Creation -> Saving Throws
Kirthfinder has a metamagic feat called Numbing Cold Evocation. Is that close to what you're looking for?
I'd like to be clever or graceful as I ask the inevitable question, it feels appropriate to do so. I simply don't think I can. I've agonized over it ever since I've read the contents of Kirthfinder, as linked to in the very first post, several months ago. I cannot wait any longer for that creative spark of genius. The pressure to perform built up to the point, now, where I realized that if I didn't act on it, soon I wouldn't be able to express it at all, my desire to possess having reduced me to a gibbering, confusing shell of a man. I can feel it coming, closing in on me. I need salvation, peace of mind, desperately, now, before it is too late. Please, I beg of you, will you save me from myself? Will you send me an updated version? May you find salvation in the email sent. I have a question about Type-less penalties, are they a thing? I know bonuses must have a type but i'm not sure if this also extends to penalties as well. IIRC, all penalties listed in Kirthfinder are typed as well. If I'm wrong, please post the type-less entry.
Can I get a copy of the rules please? Sent.
Sent
Alright, it's more like I use the Leadership feat as a guideline for juggling NPC CRs from encounter to encounter. I'm still trying to find the challenge level sweet spot between tedious steamrolling and horrific TPK.
I second giving a free Leadership feat to every major villain. And I like that the 5th ed. DMG provides a good outline for morale saves. I'll be using that for figuring out when the cohorts would run towards their boss. I'd finally have an excuse to nail down rules for chase scenes. I would love an update too. Sent.
Sent.
Arrius, that sounds like you want to bundle Concentration Spell with Reduce Spell.
Could I get an updated copy of the ruleset? My most recent version is from 2013! I'd like an up to date copy, sounds like Kirth has been doing some awesome stuff. :D Sent.
A normal character sheet would depend on what your definition of 'normal' is. :P Last time I printed off sheets for this, I opened up the Excel character sheet and deleted all the zero's. Would that suffice?
My group prefers pencils and paper character sheets too. If I were to use a digital format, it'd be for Fantasy Grounds on Steam. I'm fairly certain the file types for that simulator aren't compatible with Google Drive. As for Excel formulas, my own personal number crunching (I'm looking at you, Leadership feat.) has taught me
Could I have an updated copy of Kirthfinder? Sent.
This sounds absolutely intriguing. If possible I'd love to see the rules please. Sent.
Sent.
Hello I'd appreciate a copy of the "final" rule set Sent
I was only worried about how weapon proficiency applied to spells when a class feature actually checks for proficiency level, and I think only the Monk has such features. Making a weapon category just for that would've been a formality. I wasn't aware Orb spells all had splash damage. For iterative attack spells, I've been using Eldritch Blast premodified with Measured Spell [-1 level] + Quicken Spell [Standard to Swift; +2 levels, -1 synergy]. 1d6 + 1/2 level seemed reasonable for what would be a bloodline-specific weapon.
The grenade stuff is my handiwork. My DM challenged me to make a holy grenade launcher. He didn't think I'd find a way without munchkining. Firearms could utilize multiple attacks if you add on either Ray Splitting or Quicken Spell [Attack action]. As for firearms utilizing [Strike] feats... Would it be reasonable to take the Eldritch Blast's 'Because it requires an attack roll, you can apply feats such as Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, and ranged [Strike] feats' clause and apply it to Ray of Frost?
Firearms have been integrated, but I forget what the formula is for ammo magazines.
I would help if I actually checked my PMs every so often. Sent.
Sent.
If someone kind enough to send the rules to me I will be very thankful. Sent.
This ruleset isn't really meant for widespread online distribution, so... Ask nicely and provide an email address. :)
From the Introduction chapter:
These house rules are not intended for general use. Indeed, for most groups, the Core rules are far superior in many respects. In creating these house rules, there were several design goals which, if not actually achieved, were at least strived for; any failure to attain them is mine. The major goals, and cautions for use, are summarized below. Character Building:
Base classes are more versatile, filling a variety of concepts, making prestige classes or “archetypes” less important. Multiclass options (see “Class Synergy Features” below) are intended to allow multiclassing of casters as well as martial characters, in nearly limitless combinations. Finally, the rules are extremely mechanically “crunchy,” geared towards players who especially enjoy the various tasks associated with creating or “leveling up” a character. If your group just wants to roll up characters and play, then these house rules are not for you; sticking with the core Pathfinder game (or some other system) is recommended. Likewise, if you consider multiclassing to be “cheesy,” you will doubtless intensely dislike these house rules. Class Rebalancing:
Not only in combat (e.g., changing of casting rules), but in terms of narrative power: fighters, rogues, etc. are more versatile, and receive class features enabling them to do more than simply fight and disarm traps. The ranger regains his “schtick” as a tracker, scout, locator, and guide―even across the planes. As long as high-level casters can travel to Heaven at will and stop time, there will never be a total balance, but our hope is that the number of levels of which all classes are playable has been expanded upwards a bit. If you, personally, believe that there is no martial-caster disparity in the core rules, then these house rules are not for you; please delete and/or shred your copy. Fewer “Timmy” Cards:
As much as possible, obviously good or extremely substandard options are obtained automatically, without needing to decide whether to spend a limited resource (feat, talent, etc.) on a “tax” option or on something interesting but sub-par. That means providing bonus skill ranks (to avoid “skill taxes”) and expanded bundling of skills; selective “beefing up” or “nerfing” of talents and feats, and so on. In addition, many feats scale with skill ranks or base attack bonus, so as to remain useful throughout the character’s career rather than becoming obsolescent at some point. Nostalgia:
In a number of cases, a seemingly bizarre rules change has been implemented as a “nod” to previous editions, especially 1e AD&D. Overall, those rules were mechanically a mess, but they did provide a certain type of experience that these rules use as a reference. Player Involvement:
Considerable creative power is intentionally shifted from the hands of the “DM” or “GM” to those of the players. Accordingly, the person running the game is now termed a “referee” instead, in order to focus on this shift in role. Custom races, design of personal magic items, expanded leadership options in these rules all very intentionally contribute to player empowerment. If you believe the “GM” should wield absolute authority and exercise sole creative power, stop reading now and delete/burn/shred your copy of these rules. These rules assume that the referee’s job is to design and run encounters, and to impartially facilitate the rules during play. His or her job is not to railroad the adventure, “fix” the rules by fiat, and so on. This implies a correspondingly high level of responsibility required of the players not to intentionally disrupt play or “break the game.” Rebalanced Attributes:
Uses have been rebalanced so that there are fewer obvious “dump stats” (particularly Charisma). Rock-Paper-Scissors:
In many ways, a d20 + modifier task resolution system breaks down very quickly when the disparity of modifiers becomes too great. However, abandoning the core d20 mechanic is beyond the scope of these house rules, so the problem noted above becomes a something of a necessary evil. In order to ameliorate this, some “full stop” options are included in order to nullify part of a numerically overwhelming advantage. For example, at low levels AC can be “jacked up” to the point where a target is essentially impervious to attacks except on a natural 20; however, a number of feats and talents are included that potentially allow an attacker to ignore armor bonuses, insight bonuses, deflection bonuses, etc. This in no way eliminates potential disparities, but it re-introduces an element of risk to investing in any “obviously overpowered” ability or feature. My personal favorite change is characters are allowed to re-flavor any mechanics/abilities they make use of in order to fit their character concept. Earlier in this thread, either Kirth or TriOmegaZero mentioned a duelist character and a holy warrior character who both used Barbarian Rage for their 'battle focus' or 'divine empowerment.'
I would greatly appreciate a copy of the final rule set. Sent.
A base spell with caster level equal to the dragon's HD, d10 damage, and pretty far range? I'm more keen on using a solution similar to what the ruleset already has for players begging to play as a Lich at level 1. "A level 1 Lich? Sure. I'll allow it, but all the abilities get toned down so that they're appropriate for a level 1 character. *Points them to the Deathwalker Specialist Wizard.* So in the case of breath weapons, I'd start with finding all the metamagics needed to turn an Eldritch Blast into your ideal breath weapon (at least Quicken Spell [attack action], Magnify Spell, and Reach Spell by my understanding). And either add them to the list of available bonus feats for Draconic bloodline (less likely to disrupt game balance), or somehow work them into Improved/Greater Blast (more likely to disrupt game balance). On a somewhat related note, after reading through the "What are your favorite things in 5th edition?" thread, I've been pondering the implications of converting all the Reserve feats into cantrips, and then having all cantrips scale to the caster's highest spell level with no cap. Heightening Eldritch Blast would then result in the 'caster level equal to the HD' effect you're looking for.
I mean using a strike feat (for example) to modify a spell as if it was a metamagic feat. Or would it be better to use Cascade Spell to tack on a spell effect that's close enough?
Okay, sounds reasonable. Any thoughts on having Planar Channeling, a divine feat tacked onto a Cure Light Wounds to make Holy Water? It makes me curious about maybe modifying evocation spells with strike feats.
Earlier in this thread we went over examples of mundane items built using spells. Going over that bit again, I took note of this entry:
Holy Water: Cure light wounds (1st) + Planar Channeling (+0 levels) + Splash Evocation (+0 levels) = 1st level; damage on a hit is 1d8 + 1, rather than 2d4. What rules do/can we follow for adding feats onto the effects of spells? Also, if say a player wanted to replicate the X-Men character Magneto. Would it be reasonable for them to learn spells pre-modified with Creature-Specific Spell (metal; -2 levels)?
Since that entry says "(4 or fewer)," I'd say the cost should be multiplied by [uses per day/5], and have '5 uses per day' count as 'at-will.'
I believe the Walk in Shadow skill got turned into an Arcane feat called Power Over Shadow, which scales with ranks in Planar Sense.
As another tangent to reformatting/polishing the rule-set yet again, Kirth, at one point you mentioned wanting to make a classless system. Would it be feasible to turn Kirthfinder into such a system if we increased all the values on the numen table by X amount and gave appropriate numen values to all the various class features? I know all class features that aren't already replicated by feats should be more expensive than feats, but I have no idea what to do about class spell lists and racial abilities.
LolWhat? Spending a full round during an attack is called 'Full-Attack Action', and it uses the base attack granted for free, and any bonus attacks granted under the following conditions, consuming Standard and Move actions, allowing only for a Swift or 5-foot-step. Tactical Movement, also in the Introduction chapter, allows for a half-move action on the same round as a full-attack action.
It might be interesting to treat Iterative Blast as Innate Metamagic (Ray Splitting), and see where that leads us. That approach would hopefully keep anyone else from having similar confusion as I had pages ago on how Mystic Blast behaves in relation to SLAs and weapons. I'm not really a huge fan of the "spell level = 1 + 1/x levels" thing -- I'd rather have the spell level increase organically through innate metamagic, if that could be done. That's also my preference for Improved Blast/Innate Metamagic. Allow Innate Metamagic to increase the level of the spell/SLA for heightening spell effect caps, interacting with other spells, and DCs if it's applied to a spell (not SLA).
So if I'm reading that right, the given abilities would be organized as such?: I. Iterative Blast, Ray-Splitting +6
Gaining multiple [Strike] effects in a single round would be still a fourth tier, in a sense. Maybe fold that into the Striking Mastery feat? As a power gamer, if I was really wanting to get multiple [Strike] effects to go off in a single round, the character would be dual-wielding scimitars, flank with someone for the Sneak Attack synergy, and have the feats Two-Weapon Strike and Critical Focus just to be thorough.
Skill focus cannot help (due to the explicit limitation), though feat mastery could. Oh, Skill Focus' paragraph on 'virtual ranks' seems to have disappeared in this version. Well, this is embarrassing. It would be the same difference between directly applying metamagic feats to a spell while preparation and taking Innate Metamagic [Same spell; same effect]. Overlapping in the rules is something we unnecessarily shy away from. I guess that's enough of a difference. Though with that distinction, Improved Mystic Blast sounds like something I'd only use for sorcerer bloodlines. And since that was the whole point, good idea.
Note, Tahlreth, that in my version of Eldritch Blast, the applications of metamagic feats (without Innate Metamagic) are constantly active; a Boreal Bloodline sorcerer's Mystic (or Eldritch) Blast will always have the Flash Frost metamagic applied, and not have it as 3/day as the normal sorcerer would. A normal Boreal bloodline sorcerer gets Improved Blast [Evocation, Flash Frost] at level 8. The same level said sorcerer gains enough bonus ranks in Concentration for Innate Metamagic [Mystic Blast; Evocation, Flash Frost] to be usable at-will instead of only 3/day. I assumed that the maximum effective spell level limitation kept it from getting out of hand--but balance is a question we ask after we finish writing an ability, no? I'm pretty certain 3/day for 6th-9th-level SLAs, and at-will SLAs capping at 5th-level is perfectly reasonable. Now if the 9th-level ones should be restricted to 1/day, I'll accept a ref's judgement on that one. Worse case scenario, someone clever picks up Skill Focus [Concentration], raising their at-will SLA cap to 7th-level. Considering they'd reach that at level 19 at the earliest (level 18 if they pick up Feat Mastery [Skill Focus (Concentration)]), I'd treat it as a nifty multi-classing-compatible capstone feature. Very astute; such was my intention before. Should we introduce an [Improved Mystic Blast] feat, and [Greater Mystic Blast] feat? I'm curious to see what the differences would be between Improved Mystic Blast, and Innate Metamagic [Mystic Blast; (metamagic effect)].
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