Pathfinder has added capstone abilities for the classes, which discourages taking a dip in another class for a minor mechanical gain. I don't really see a Ranger 2/Fighter X build as any better mechanically than the equivalent Fighter level X+2 character who gets access to Weapon Specialization, Greater Weapon Specialization, etc. earlier.
I still haven't seen any clear example from a game balance perspective that shows why Ranger being able to use those feats in heavier armor is too powerful, or more powerful than a lightly armored Ranger (or multi-classed Ranger if you will) that has been built appropriately to exploit its class abilities.
Alex Woodrow, Lumberjack of Darkwyld. 10th level Ranger. Wields Battle Axe and Hand Axe (Ranger combat style of Two-Weapon combat). Skills: Climb, Craft (Woodworking), Handle Animal, Ride, Survival, Use Rope. His favored enemies are Dragon, Giant, and Humanoid (Goblinoid) as those are the main threats in the magical forest Darkwyld where he cuts down Darkwood, Ironwood, and other more exquisite varieties of wood. He wears Green Dragon Scale Armor, made from the hide of a large Green Dragon that he slew last year when it was planning to snack on his trust draft horse (his Animal Companion - stats as Heavy Horse).
Please explain to me why this character should be built as a Fighter who does not have the skills to represent such a woodsman.
I'm leaning more and more towards something similar to the 4E solution for the Weapon Finesse feat. i.e. Get rid of it. There is some class of weapons for which you can use your Dexterity bonus instead of your Strength bonus to attack. Say natural weapons, light weapons, Rapier, Whip, Spiked Chain - i.e. anything finessable.
This fixes the problems of all the small animals with low Strength and higher Dexterity needing Weapon Finesse as a bonus feat. It fixes Rangers and Rogues needing to take Weapon Finesse.
It would not be reasonable if Dexterity were to become the uber-ability as a result, but it is not. While Dexterity adds to AC, the actual benefits thereof are roughly even with fighters that choose a Strength-based build and heavier armor.
Why should taking a Ranger who has more Strength than Dexterity be more suboptimal?
Here's some examples.
I want a Ranger (Robin Hood) who wields Longsword (no benefit from Weapon Finesse) and Shortsword, because Rapiers are uncommon in the campaign setting.
Or maybe he's a lumberjack, wielding say Battle Axe (no benefit from Weapon Finesse) and Hand Axe. He goes out into the woods, cuts down trees, and brings back wood with the help of his trusty draft horse. He needs to be strong to lug around timber. He wants to wear Scale Armor (Medium Armor Proficiency) made from a large Green Dragon that he killed. Say he has Dex terity 16 and Strength 24 around middle levels.
Or maybe he is a Fighter 4/Ranger X who is a scout for a Heavy Cavalry group. He wears say Chainmail and rides a Light Warhorse.
Why are all of these builds penalized? It should be reasonable to build a non-Dexterity based Ranger who still has decent AC (having got the feats for Medium or Heavy Armor), decent attack bonus, and who still has the use of his armor feats.
None of these are necessarily min/maxing or not-roleplaying. They're just roleplaying a different character than the typical Ranger envisaged by the 3.5E D&D rules. What do we lose by allowing that versatility? Why do you want to force roleplayers of a Ranger to play only a narrow role that is enforced by game mechanics? Shouldn't game mechanics accommodate players as much as possible, while still maintaining balance? How do any of the above violate game balance?
I would prefer not to see someone wielding two weapons or a two-handed weapon getting a shield bonus, whether that be from an animated shield or say the Shield spell. I don't think the one weapon fighter necessarily needs extra damage to balance them, but the mechanics definitely need to maintain their edge in AC.
Agreed. It should be intelligence-based, and no armor penalty.
A Ranger who can use his feats in heavy armor is not significantly more powerful than one who cannot. In this case, removing the armor restriction costs nothing, and adds flexibility to the system.
The typical Ranger is still going to opt for lighter armor because he needs Heavy Armor Proficiency to not take an attack penalty from heavy armor, and because many of skills are penalized.
The atypical Ranger might just want to wear heavier armor. Why make him lose several feats by making this choice? What is the benefit to the mechanics? I know it forces the flavor in a certain direction (lightly armored rangers), but is that necessary above and beyond the skill penalties and need for Heavy Armor Proficiency?
It is perfectly reasonable for an underdark Dwarven Ranger to "stomp" around in mithril plate. Sure, he's taking some penalties for the armor, but he's a Dwarf, it is more iconic for him to have plate! I'd prefer to see the armor restrictions removed, so that the class is more versatile and works with more character concepts. It doesn't increase the power of the class significantly - the character will still need to do with the armor penalty on skills (but ooh now Fighter/Ranger might make sense for that Dwarf to reduce some of those armor penalties).
Why not allow Clerics to buy access to domain spells say for the cost of a feat (or two if you want the domain ability as well)? This would help preserve some backwards compatibility.
I would prefer to see something like Regional Lore combining Knowledge Local, Knowledge Geography, Knowledge History and Knowledge Nobility. They all essentially are relevant to a region, and they're relatively weak skills, so combining them in this manner would not be excessive.
Darrien wrote:
Full attack with Greater Two-Weapon Fighting, +20/+15/+10/+5/+20/+15/+10
Full attack with Epic Two-Weapon Fighting, +20/+15/+10/+5/+20/+15/+10/+5
The benefit of Epic Two-Weapon Fighting (an epic feat!) is an additional attack at +5? Not worth it.
Other than that, the first three would be fine - exact numbers can be tweaked, just the additional feats in the chain should give some significant benefit.
Another feat with this problem is Medium Armor Proficiency. It provides +1 AC and a movement penalty with the armors in the PHB. It only really provides more significant benefit if you can use it with say Mithril Plate. This is why I would combine Medium and Heavy Armor Proficiency.
My bad. I mis-read the Two-Weapon Fighting feat. Let me correct my values for using two shortswords then:
Full attack without two-weapon fighting, I get +20/+15/+10/+5.
Full attack with Two-Weapon Fighting (TWF), I get +18/+18/+13/+8/+3.
Full attack with TWF and Improved TWF, I get +18/+18/+13/+13/+8/+3.
Full attack with TWF, Improved TWF, and Greater TWF, I get +18/+18/+13/+13/+8/+8/+3.
So the additional feats are giving me less and less benefit. I would prefer to see something like this:
Full attack without two-weapon fighting, I get +20/+15/+10/+5.
Full attack with Two-Weapon Fighting (TWF), I get +17/+17/+12/+7/+2.
Full attack with TWF and Improved TWF, I get +18/+18/+13/+13/+8/+3.
Full attack with TWF, Improved TWF, and Greater TWF, I get +19/+19/+14/+14/+9/+9/+4.
Full attack with TWF, Improved TWF, and Greater TWF, and Super TWF, I get +20/+20/+15/+15/+10/+10/+5/+5.
Another example is Great Cleave. The 3E and 3.5E D&D version of Great Cleave is weaker than Cleave, because it is less often that you will have additional opportunities to use it over Cleave. For that reason, I would be inclined to just combine the two feats into a single Cleave feat along these lines:
"If you deal a creature enough damage to make it drop (typically by dropping it to below 0 hit points or killing it), you get an immediate, extra melee attack against another creature within reach. You cannot take a 5-foot step before making this extra attack. The extra attack is with the same weapon and at the same bonus as the attack that dropped the previous creature. You can use this ability once per round per 5 BAB rounding up (1/round at BAB 0-5, 2/round at BAB 6-10, 3/round at BAB 11-15, and 4/round at BAB 16-20)."
Let's look at the Two-Weapon fighting chain. Suppose I'm wielding two shortswords, and my normal attack bonus is +20.
Full attack without two-weapon fighting, I get +20/+15/+10/+5.
Full attack with Two-Weapon Fighting (TWF), I get +16/+14/+11/+6/+1.
Full attack with TWF and Improved TWF, I get +16/+14/+11/+9/+6/+1.
Full attack with TWF, Improved TWF, and Greater TWF, I get +16/+14/+11/+9/+6/+4/+1.
So the additional feats are giving me less and less benefit. I would prefer to see something like this:
Full attack without two-weapon fighting, I get +20/+15/+10/+5.
Full attack with Two-Weapon Fighting (TWF), I get +17/+12/+12/+7/+2.
Full attack with TWF and Improved TWF, I get +18/+13/+13/+8/+8/+3.
Full attack with TWF, Improved TWF, and Greater TWF, I get +19/+14/+14/+9/+9/+4/+4.
Full attack with TWF, Improved TWF, and Greater TWF, and Super TWF, I get +20/+15/+15/+10/+10/+5/+5/+0.
Or something along these lines, where those latter feats in the chain are giving some significant benefit to the attacks with the higher attack bonus.
Thoughts?
What about combining Knowledge (Religion) and Knowledge (Planes)? I'd actually favor getting rid of Concentration - it seems either a must have or a skill to be avoided if the spellcaster is going to try and avoid melee.
Doug Bragg 172 wrote: So... the party goes into the dungeon and comes across a locked door. The DC is just high enough that the Rogue needs to roll a 16 to pick the lock. He rolls a 15. The DC is now 21 above the Rogue's ability to pick the lock. If Knock is no longer auto-success, the party may as well call it a day.
If Knock is only an "aid another"... and gives the Rogue a +2... well, great, still not going to help for those times when the Rogue doesn't roll particularly well.
I would suggest that Knock give more than a +2 to the Rogue. Skill items scale up to +10, so I would suggest that is the maximum bonus. Maybe something like this:
"The knock spell helps opens stuck, barred, locked, held, or arcane locked doors. It gives a bonus of +1/level competence bonus (to a maximum of +10) to the Disable Device check to open the lock. In addition, the person attempting to open the lock may take 10 on the Disable Device roll if they wish."
Note that failing to open a lock does not prevent opening a door. You can always bash it down - takes a while due to hardness, but it is usually pretty easy with Power Attack - just noisy.
Samurai wrote: As was suggested before, a multiclass caster's other classes should count for 1/2 their level added to the Caster Level. So a Fighter 6/ Wizard 6 would have a CL of 9 instead of 6. This is extremely easy to implement because it doesn't add any new spells known, just the CL when figuring variables. Something like this would be a good fix. Multi-classing in 3E and 3.5E D&D did not work well for spellcasters, but was not too bad for skills, BAB, HP, etc. One question to ask is whether divine and arcane spellcaster level should stack, so that a Cleric 10/Wizard 10 has a caster level of 20.
I strongly agree. Spells automatically working where skill do not sucks. Find Traps, Comprehend Languages, Knock, Levitate and Fly replacing the Climb skill, etc. These spells should give some basic level of ability (more at higher levels), which does not increase too much with caster level - a high level Wizard should not be able to auto-replace a Rogue's Open Locks - not unless the Wizard had chosen to put some points in the appropriate skill. In that respect, I'd like to see Knock give some bonus to skill, and be something where the Wizard can help the Rogue by giving them a bonus, rather than just replacing them.
There's a similar problem with Monk's slow fall ability vs. Feather Fall. Feather Fall is a 1st level spell, and so much better. You don't have to be close to a wall. Why not just give Monk the equivalent of Feather Fall if within the required distance, and leave higher level abilities like Dimension Door for something more interesting. No need for Slow Fall to advance with level. Maybe just require the Monk to make a Climb skill check every additional 20 feet to continue using the ability.
In general, I'm in favor of making the rules as versatile as possible, and alignment restrictions just seem to rule out some character concepts, without being a good balance to game mechanics.
Any real reason why the Paladin class needs to be restricting to Lawful? i.e. Could the restriction be reduced to any Good alignment?
Reading through the Paladin class, the only thing that is actually Lawful-related is in the Code of Conduct and Associates limitations. Could we just drop the Lawful restriction, or make it an optional rule for backwards compatibility?
Barbarians are restricted to not being Lawful. What about say law abiding elite Dwarven Berserkers? Why not remove this restriction?
Similar question, why should a Druid be neutrally aligned? What about Elven Druids in a lawful society - couldn't they be lawful good and still be druidy?
Why should Monks have to be lawful? There's plenty of non-lawful martial arts characters in fiction. One can be a disciplined martial arts fighter without being law abiding. If this was relaxed, the 10th level ability to make unarmed attacks treated as lawful weapons would have to be modified - maybe they could choose between lawful and chaotic?
Thoughts?
One way to try and clean this up is to have good saves be 1/2, poor saves be 1/3, and if you choose a class with a good save you get the +2 in that save feat (or something equivalent non-stacking).
Bard should get Weapon Finesse too.
Rogue and Ranger should automatically get Weapon Finesse. It doesn't hurt a Strength-based build, and ties in well with the more common Dexterity-based build.
Druid should get Natural Spell when they get Wild Shape at 4th level.
One other suggestion here, give Bard the Arcane Armor Training feat instead of their ability to cast spells in light armor with shield. This way they can choose to work up to heavier armor if they want (say a Fighter/Bard) by taking Arcane Armor Mastery. Likewise, a Bard/Wizard would then make a little more sense as you can cast those other arcane spells with reduced arcane spell failure too.
A number of feats are on the weak side in 3.5E D&D. Here are some suggestions:
1. Combine Medium Armor Proficiency and Heavy Armor Proficiency. Medium Armor Proficiency only provides +1 AC benefit over Light Armor, at the cost of a movement speed penalty. Alternatively, consider making Chain Shirt a medium armor instead of a light armor.
2. The damage with Improved Unarmed Strike is very weak. It should be increased to make it a worthwhile feat to take. Something like: "The damage for your unarmed strike increases depending on your size, from d2 to d4 for Small, d3 to d6 for Medium, and d4 to d8 for Large."
3. Spell Focus rightly was reduced from +2 in 3E D&D to +1 in 3.5E D&D. +1 may be a little on the weak side, but is roughly comparable to Weapon Focus. It's not clear when spellcasters should take this versus say Spell Penetration. My suggestion is to wrap these feats together - I don't think the result is too powerful, but others may disagree: "+1 to save DC, +2 to dispel DC, and +2 to checks to overcome SR for a chosen school of magic". Similarly for Greater Spell Focus.
4. Make the Dodge feat give a flat +1 dodge AC bonus. No need to recalculate when it is being used (as a Combat Feat in Pathfinder) or who it is being used against (3E and 3.5E D&D).
5. Simplify the magic item creation feats. There are too many of them, and some of them provide redundant ability. e.g. Brew Potion/Scribe Scroll (single use items), Craft Rod/Staff/Wand, Craft Wondrous Item/Forge Ring, Craft Magic Arms and Armor.
6. Improve the weaker metamagic feats, giving them some limited use per day. e.g. Metamagic feats increasing spell level by 1 could be done for free on the fly say 3 times per day; those increasing spell level by 2 could be done for free on the fly say 2/day; anything higher 1 free use/day. The spell level of the adjusted spell not to exceed the maximum spell level you have access to - so a 5th level Wizard would not be able to Maximize or Empower a Fireball. The metamagic feats that do increase the spell level more might require other weaker metamagic feats as prerequisities (ala the prerequisites for the Sudden Metamagic feats).
7. Consider combining Quickdraw and Rapid Reload.
8. Maybe make Arcane Armor Training and Arcane Armor Mastery regular feats rather than combat feats, so that you don't need to decide when they are in effect and remember to roll arcane spell failure when they are not. (These feats help fix the need for a prestige class like Spellsword with reduced arcane spell failure, so I rather like them.
I like the change in Pathfinder to Mobility - makes it a much simpler mechanic.
Base attack bonus, skills, saves, and hit points all stack across the classes that you take. Spellcasting is one of the few things that was really kludgy in 3E and 3.5E D&D as far as stacking. They needed the Practiced Spellcaster feat, Mystic Theurge, Spellsword, Eldritch Knight, etc. I'd like to suggest that including some mechanics (could be an optional rule) for stacking of spellcaster level would be a good way to differentiate from 4E D&D and show that multi-classing can be factored in relatively cleanly to the rules. Unearthed Arcana had an optional rule for this (page 136, Table 5-1).
One question is whether divine and arcane spellcaster levels should stack? If they don't, you're favoring say Paladin/Cleric builds versus Paladin/Sorcerer for example.
Another question is whether non-spellcasting classes should get some limited progression? If say a Rogue gets one spellcaster level per four levels, then a Rogue 16/Wizard 1 has a spellcaster level of 5 - not great, but at least those 1st level Wizard spells make a bit more sense and last more than a round.
Stacked spellcaster level should not affect access to spells/day, only caster level. So if say arcane and divine spellcaster levels stack, a Cleric 10/Wizard 10 casts all spells as a 20th level caster, but still only has access to spells/day and spell levels as a Cleric 10 and Wizard 10.
Thoughts?
Pathos wrote: I'm against.. It would do two things...
1) Require the rogue to multiclass. Which is bad for a base class ability. It would be fine if it was part of a Prestige class, as it would be building upon the previous classes.
A Rogue could still take Minor Magic then Major Magic rogue talents to qualify, but likewise as you noted a Gnome would qualify.
I'd like to suggest that the requirement to pick Dispelling Attack be changed from "must have the Major Magic rogue talent" to "must be able to cast a 1st level arcane spell or use one as a spell-like ability".
With this change, a Rogue/Wizard for example would not have to take Minor Magic and Major Magic to qualify for Dispelling Attack.
Thanks.
John Robey summarized most of the changes that I think are needed. Adding some of my own comments and some ideas that are a little
different:
- don't make cross-class skills cost more than class skills
(sucks otherwise to put skill ranks in cross-class skill)
- still distinguish max rank in class and cross-class skills by class
(Rogue still better at Stealth than Fighter)
- get rid of skill synergies (Bluff too good for synergy)
- get rid of front loading, so that calculating skill points does not
depend on which class I took at first level (Rogue for skills is the
best option for 1st level in 3.5E if building say Fighter/Rogue)
- optional rule to have x many skills at max rank, rather than choosing
where to spend skill points is fine, but don't make this the default
(good for simplifying builds, but it reduces character build
diversity)
- simplify the skills by merging similar skills, and getting rid of weak
skills ... be careful with this: Stealth = Hide + Move Silently could
become overly cheap
- make Intelligence raises retroactive to simplify calculating skill
points
- limit the maximum bonus of Intelligence to skills (uber-Int at high
levels does not result in having every skill, though will be very
good in Int-based skills). I would almost prefer that the stat that
gives more skills be different from the one that improves magic, to
avoid this issue. Maybe just solve the whole problem by removing Int
affecting skill points, and giving say Int-based classes an extra
2 skill points/level to make up for it.
Regards merging skills, I handled the trade-off by making some skills cost more, with these all cost 2 skill points to increase 1 rank: Stealth (Hide + Move Silently), Occult (Knowledge Religion, Knowledge Arcana, Spellcraft, Use Magic Device), Nature (Knowledge Nature, Survival), and Perception (Listen, Search, Spot).
In the current list of Pathfinder skills, there are some skills that are much better than others - compare say Stealth to Knowledge Geography. You could easily merge Knowledge Local, Knowledge History, Knowledge Nobility and Knowledge Geography into a single skill: Regional Knowledge.
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