Thorzak's page

Yup. Pretty happy with it. Quite happy with all of the changes I've seen in class abilities. They've really done a good job of making things playable and useful - for the most part. There is the occasional thing like the underpowered ranger's animal companion, but there are so many options that involve not even having one, that the few things like this are really not a big deal.

For this specific issue, we gave the ranger full level for advancing the companion (instead of 1/2), and removed the spellcasting entirely. So far, everyone's happy, and happy is what matters after all.

I think you mean the magic domain gives him hand of the acolyte - not fire. And that's how we play it. it's a ranged attack within 30 feet, you get the bonus.

If he's got a high intelligence and you want to mess with people , consider giving him "focused shot" too :)

I've been playing a martial artist/ urban barbarian, now 2nd level. I'm using weapon finesse and plan on taking "dervish dance" at 3rd level so that my dex acts for both to hit and damage with the scimitar. Then, eventually, I'm going to go duelist. I took "wealthy parents" as one of my traits, so I could start with good equipment to make up for my lack of damage (strength 10). So far, the barbarian hitpoints and monk AC and saves have conspired to get me through. Starting at 3rd, I'll actually be able to cause some damage, too.

And here I thought all this time I was clever for finding the martial artist / urban barbarian synergy.

Good point. Combined with the "Gandalf is 5th level" stuff, and maybe the problem is that we're already epic, and just don't know it.

"Kill them ALL and then eat their brains!"

Not very diplomatic.

I actually saw the following rear-window sticker when I picked my ltitle girl up from school today:

KILL 'EM ALL - Let God sort it out.

Yes, there are some people who clearly should not be part of the power heirarchy

When I think of epic rules (and I agree that a better name would be a good idea) I think of characters evolving into something beyond what a mere mortal can do. This doesn't necessarily mean demigods though.

What really comes to mind is Pug and Thomas from the Raymond Fiest books. In the initial series, they are low level standard mortal adventurers. By the end of that series, Pug has mastered a level of magic beyond what other spellcasters can use, and Thomas has bonded with an artifact level suit of armor and tapped into the powers of an elder race. Later books in the series don't feature them as main characters, but when they are featured in their own adventures (as opposed to being mentors and setting new heroes on the right path, etc.) they face threats to the universe, full scale demonic invasions, travel to places beyond the normal scope of planar travel (such as planar nexuses that are shortcuts to all planes or the beginning of the universe.)

How I would interpret this mechanically is that 20th level is the upper limit of standard mortal characters. If a character advances to 21st level, then they have to select an epic prestige class that defines in which way they have broken through to a new level of consciousness. This could include bonding with an artifact, the demigod route, gaining insight into a new level of magical power, etc. After 21st level, they continue to develop powers associated with their chosen route and develop abilities beyond the standard set of powers 1-20th level characters can achieve. (BTW, if this has any resemblance to 4E epic destinies, I wouldn't know.)

I'd like to see an epic book detail how to make threats and locations that simply are beyond lower level characters from interacting with, finding, or being able to harm. One thing I definately don't want to see if magic items suddenly jump exponentially in price/creation costs. I don't want to see a +11 sword being 1 million gold more than a +10 sword (I don't think I want to see a +11 sword at all.)...

I was thinking of Fiest, too. In the latest book, they actually finally overcome the epochs-spanning force of evil that has been slowly destroying all of existance. THe thing they face is so alien, so powerful, and jsut so "other" that not even the gods have been able to do much about it, and it falls to the Epic heroes to transform and go off plane to learn about it, see it, and, eventually,

In the Fiest books, the really big guys all know that there is something seriously wrong with the universe, which is why good thigns never seem to last or work out properly, and why it's so easy to get foul, nasty, icky things to work just swell. It's why everybody has always been just a little more prone to be dark and nasty than you'd expect. It also pretty much defines the source of all insanity. Over 30 years or so, Fiest spins the yarn about how these people grow, meet each other, have kids, and slowly, ever so very slowly, gain enough of an understanding of the basis of reality that they can do something to change it for the better. One of the characters actually attempts divine ascension, and is stopped by two others who need him fairly early in the series. A few others turn out to be unknowing agnets of the gods from different universes, all helping to play out the "save the multivers" drama. Some of them are simply very talented folk who, for reasons never discovered, manage to not age for hundred of years.

Fiests' tale has been epic and Epic, and is what I think of when I say epic, with or without the capital E.

Perhaps level 20 is the normal limit imposed by the universe (gods?). It's like an impervious membrane. When you breach it, it's now semi-permeable, and you aren't the only one who can benefit. You may have been first, but now the hole is there, and things are GOING to follow you through - hence, once you do it(or someone in the campaign world does it), there is a gradual increase in the power of powerful entities like dragon and demons. Once they CAN increase their power, they will. This can explain why the leader of the church is level 18, the kings are level 12, etc.... Becasue 20+ wasn't an option until someone broke the universe.

There's your AP for you. Someone broke the universe, and now it's delfating. More and more creatures are slipping through the membrane, and you have to follow them and close the hole from the other side before it completely deflates and destroys everything left inside.

And once it's closed, just what's on the other side of the unversal membrane? Why, more AP's of course!!!

Oh, yeah. Deal Breaker: no support material. and AP that STARTS at level 16 and goes through 30 or so would be fantastic.

I've only read most of the first page, so forgive me if I'm rehashing something already brought up.

Level 20 is the pinnacle of mortal achievement in any particular skill set. Perhaps, instead of advancing spellcasting to level 10+. Bab to +25, saves to +16, etc.... Maybe what we can do is allow characters t oslowly fill in the week spots. Eventually, if the level 20 mage keeps adventuring and working on thigns, he will get tougher (better Fort save) and better in combat (Bab), even if his understanding of magic is already at the ceilign imposed by the laws of the universe.

Instead of getting better at your (already maxed out) core abilities, you get better at everything else, until it catches up.

I think the most seamless way to achieve this is probably through multiclassing. It's why all the deities are level 20 in 3 different things, instead of level 60 in just one. At level 20/20/20 fighter, cleric, wizard, they have maxed out Bab, Fort, Will, and both divine and arcane magic. They've improved their skill set from 2+int, to 2+ int 3 times over (perhaps you only get the "+ int" untl 20th level). They;ve picked up and maximized the key abilities for several different classes into one holistic power source.

Perhaps you get the best of the saves available to your various classes, maybe you get a small bonus as you advance a class that fills in your week spots, maybe HP get higher in tiny increments until you;ve reahed the max for the best class you have.

Essentially, you're going for a post-doctoral degree in multiple fields. An awful lot of the knowledge you picked up along the way will be useful pretty directly (lab protocals, computer use, brown-nosing the dean of the department, APA style for getting published, etc...), but you will clearly be getting new skills to compliment your old ones (like knowing everything anyone ever wrote about shakespeare and the fine minutiae about genetic research with fruit flies)

Of course, as you master more disciplines, the synergies of these divergent fields allow you to do some things normal people can't - like picking up a 5th iterative attack, or sliding in a 10th level spell slot with which to cast modified 9th level spells. But it takes a high degree of knowledge in multiple fields to get to where you can start breaking what other people see as the background laws of the uiverse (hello, blanacing on a cloud).

Every person that I've introduced to the game has made a Legolas clone as their first character. I've rarely seen anyone (new or veteran) play a dwarf.

I've played Dwarves regularly, and had others at my table do the same for the last 28 years. The group that we jsut retired (for a while) includes 6 PC's - 3 of them Dwarves.

As for flavor / in game logic behind the rule -

Strength: Kinetic intelligence

Dexterity: Kinetic and / or spatial intelligence

Constituion: you were healthier and required less sleep, hence, you could study more.

Int: well, you just tend to learn things well.

Wisdom makes it easier to make good choices and keep driving yourself to learn more, even if it doesn't come easy.

Chr: You're good with people. People train you in skills. Hence, you're good at finding good teachers.

CRAP! Just lost a bunch of work. Here's the short version. And yes, rediculous as it seems, this is the short version.

There are many types of intelligence: spatial (that kid who's not all that fast who always seems to be in the right place on the field), kinetic (the kid who's impossible to catch, even though he's not that fast either), interpersonal (that guy with the C average who became president), intrapersonal (the Dali Lama, the Pope). Anything people have a knack for (plants, animals, music, etc...) can be, and likely has been defined as a separate form of intelligence.

I myself have a knack for winning contests of power on the playing field against competitors who are stronger than me (one aspect of kinetic intelligence), but I'm not that hard to catch by people with equal speed (another portion of kinetic intelligence). I'm really good at applying force in short, straight line bursts, but not all that good at redirecting my momentum.

In 1e and 2e, PC's got an XP bonus for a high stat - which actually emulates the multiple-intelligences theories pretty nicely.

Perhaps 3.x / PF can do so by giving bonus skill points by averaging int and your highest stat. If you think of stats as being different forms of inteligence, this makes rather simple, elegant sense. And if Int is your highest stat, the math is really easy!

To allow this, you kinda have to assume that people will use these skill points on at least a couple skills that fit their highest stat. But then, not doing so is clearly a suboptimal choice anyway, and I'm all for allowing people to make suboptimal choices that fit their PC. Those choices increase the enjoyment at the table, and don't mess with the balance of the game very much.

I think I may have just invented a new house rule to try with my campaign.

There were never any hard and fast rules for two-weapon fighting in first edition. Some came out in a Dragon magazine, I don't remember what issue, I don't personally have it.

In first edition you had to use a smaller weapon in your off hand than in your primary. All were at -2 primary and -4 to hit off hand - but that penalty was offset by your dexterity bonus to hit with ranged weapons (remember, to hit and AC bonuses were different). Hence, anyone with an 18 dex was at no penalty primary, and -2 off hand. A 19 dex made it -0 / -1. No rules were ever mentioned for lesser damage from strength or anything until a Dragon article somewhere around the advent of 2e - and they were never official until 3e. In 1e, no mention was made of how to treat iterative attacks. Later in 1e, or perhaps it was 2e, they stated that it was 1 extra attack per round.

All our fighters, paladins, rangers, etc... used either two weapon or sword and board for the AC. And the only ones using shields had pretty powerful shields to convince them to lay down their second weapons. ALL OF THEM. And we ran parties of 8 PC's with a single thief, a single cleric, and everybody else a martial PC.

Nobody used two handed weapons because the d10 instead of a d8 simply didn't come close the the bonuses gained from the other styles.

Two Handed was so suboptimal that it was never seriously considered until 2e gave us the Fighters Handbook and two-handed style (which actually made a longsword do EXACTLY the same damage as a 2HS, and gave a -3 or -4 to initiative - which would be roughly equivalent to +6 or +8 today: talk about power creep!)

Also, in 1e, Rangers got +1 damage per level against "giant class creatures" which tended to include a bizare aray of medium and small humanoids, along with the obvious giants. That was their special gimmick. That and the 2d8 (both with con bonus) at first level, with d8's thereafter.

In 2e, sword and board got the short shrift, because really effective TWF was easy to achieve, you could even do it with a pair of longswords for the cheap cost of two weapon proficiencies. Two hander got a major boost from the style feat and a few other tweaks here and there. Sword and board - heck, it got so little that I cannot recall what it got. and I remember an awful lot from 2e. I spent probably 200 hours or so creating a homebrew PC creation system based on every rule from the PHB to the Handbooks to Darksun and the "Players Option" series near the end. With all that time, energy and expertise, I cannot tell you what the bonus was for sword and shield style, because nobody EVER used it.

In 3e, TWF got much more difficult, even pretty well nerfed at first. As the game matured, and we dumped ambidexterity, it got better. My wife runs a 16th level TWF Fighter who just mows things down - so clearly it can be done well. Two Hander got obviously better with the x1.5 strength bonus. Sword and Shield also works now, if you want to invest the feats to make it work.

And now that I've gone way, WAY too far down memory lane, I bid you adieu.

golem101 wrote:

Drizzt.

That's it? I always thought of him as being special; an exception to the rule in most every way. I still don't see what it has to do with being a ranger... why would you learn to use two scimitars because you're a guy who fights in the woods? Guess it's just me.

And before Drizzt, Legolas. I realize he was never called a ranger in the books, but clearly his fighting style is prototypical for what D&D rangers have become over the years.

I've never really seen a problem with this on the DM side of things.

Here's what I do as a DM:

I write down the number of spells the BBEG can cast each day and which level they are (and what powers) then I just keep using slots until all the spells are gone. Yes, Yes I know this makes a sorcerer out of them, but if you don't tell the players... they never know you didn't write out the exhaustive spell list.

I use this specifically when I'm running a high level caster at the party - I figure he's more intelligent / wise than I, and quite likely has a better idea what he'll need than I do. I generally pick a few spells to use in tandem, just to get the feel for the particualr bad guy, and then do the rest on the fly.

That's a good question and I'm not entirely sure how to best answer it. I used to be a big fan of FR, but I started to dislike it at about the midway point between 3.5 update and 4e release.

I think the thing that makes the biggest difference to me is the amount of luggage carried around by FR. Pathfinder (Golarion) has none of that. There is no Elminster, or Drizzt, or 7 Sisters. In other words, there are no big meta-characters running around. Also, the FR novels are problematic. Game designers were always haveing to come up with new game mechanics to justify what the meta-characters were doing in the novels, instead of making the characters conform to the standard game rules. Those were two of my biggest gripes.

But when you really get down to it, I think I like Pathfinder because it's new and fresh. Hope that helps.

-Skeld

My wife started losing interest in FR at about the same time - which also is when Ed Greenwood stopped doing the writing for their products. I suspect they lost a lot of people who were Greenwood fans (whether they knew it or not), and not really FR fans (like WOTC assumed everyone in the world was).

Pathfinder is different partially because it's run and created by people who do their playtesting out in the open where everyone can see and comment on the direction being proposed - instead of doing it all in secret with little teasers about how great it is, then release a product that is, frankly, immature.

Thanks for the link guys.

Also, I've been readign that some people have issues with the smite damage for Paladins being different for evil outsiders and undead. WHile clearly superior on average to the flat bonus, it can be lower (especially at low levels where the paucity of dice makes extreme results more likely). On critical hits, it actually averages otu slightly worse.

So here's what I'll be doign in my game. On any Smite of an evil outsider or undead, the Paladin can CHOOSE the flat bonus or the dice, after seeign how the to hit roll pans out. This will, every oncein a blue moon, result in a smidgeon more damage. Mostly what it does is remove some of the randomness (ie... chaos) from the class.

How's this as a variant: Whenever a Paladin uses smite on an evil outsider or undead, he can CHOOSE either the flat damage bonus or the d6 per 2 levels AFTER the to hit roll is made (including critical confirmation). In the end, this doesn;t really add any power at all to the Paladin, since the choice is really one of lowerign your damage or not except in very specific, rare circumstance. Flavor wise, it removes an element of chance (chaos) from a very lawful class, which also makes sense.

My wife jsut converted her Dwarven Warmage into a 14th level PF sorcerer with the earth elemental bloodline. Even though she has "scorching ray" as an acid spell, she went ahead and learned it as a fire spell. And made to learn blasting spells from all the other elements. Yes, taking scorhing ray a second time was a waste of resources, but it seemed like a smaller waste than spending a feat that increases spell levels.

The original Dragon Disciple ...ummm... created a vacume. The new version is still at least a half-way viable optino for a caster due to gaining caster levels instead of gaining more spells of known levels (ie... low level and of limited utility as you advance).

A melee version of the class would be awesome, but keep in mind that you have to build in 3 levels of gained template (assuming a capstone of draconic apotheosis) into your 5 or 10 levels of class. That means 3 lower Bab, fewer skill points, hit points, feats, and saves. All of which can be taken care of, but not all of them within accepted methods.

Using Fighter as a baseline:

Bab = 3/4. For 10 levels, it works out prefectly.

Hit points: D8's. Do not get the die increase upon apotheosis so you don't have to pay with fewer hit points along the way. By level 20, a PC with the template has 17 HD, each 1 higher than usual, for +17 HP - but at the cost of 3 HD and comensurate con bonus. The Half Dragon actually comes out behind on total HP (assuming any con bonus at all and average on 3d10 = 16.5)

Feats: any PC would lose 3/4 of a feat by losing 3 levels. A fighter also loses 3/2 more in bonus feats over three levels. So 2 and 1/4 feats worth of stuff should be lost.

Weapon/armor training: somewhere in those three levels, you likely lost a +1 on one of these two features.

Skills: need to lose 6 (+int) skill points.

Saves: instead of +7 / +3 / +3 it should be +5 / +2 / +2 for a total of 4 points less. If you make all three saves poor, you end up at +3 / +3 / +3, which is exactly 4 points less.

So Saves, Bab and and HP are easy to balance.

Then we would need to balance the +4 NA for AC, Claws, Breath, Bite, energy immunity, senses, stats, and immunity to sleep and paralysis.

Can we blaance that against 5 bonus feats, 2 and 1/2 "rugular" feats, fighter levels to qualify for high-level feats, and +2 to hit and damage for weapon training and +2 armor training?

The strength more than cancels the weapon training, the Natural armor more than comepensates for the armor training. I think the remaining 7 feats about balances those gains alone - maybe the feats are slightly better if tightly focused, but the Strength can get used with any weapon, and most of the feats that will help are more specific. That leaves trying to balance the immunities, senses, breathe weapon, skill points, claws, bite, and other stat bonuses with... what exactly?

Mosaic wrote:

Brilliant. Make every skill worth taking by merging them with some of the interesting-but-not-quite-worth-it feats.

No! You fools! Don't you realize -- if you make every skill worth taking, then EVERY SKILL BECOMES A SKILL TAX!!!1!!1!

;-)

AAAAGGHGHGHGHG!!!! NO!!!! THe HORROR!!! The Logic!!!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Selgard wrote that the only solution was a return to the old system. I disagree. How about this:

Return to x4 skill points at first level. Give no bonus to class skills. Allow class skills a maximum of HD + 3 ranks, and cross class skills max out at HD ranks. You have the multiple points at first level to allow a little more flavor, keep maximums the way they have always been, and allow corss-class skill tkaers to have a chance at success. You also can take cross class "fluff" type skills at later levels and don;t have to pay 2 points for 1 rank.

Under the old system, if it was cross-class, success was only possible at low levels. At 10th or above, the relative penalty was so severe that only the maxed-out, in-class PC had a realistic shot.

And in my game, perception adn stealth are nice, but they are hardly end-all, be-all skills for every PC. In the adventure we're in now, the PC's have been bemoaning their lack of knowledge: history much more often than the fact that nobody maxed out perception. 2 of the 6 PC's have pretty good scores, but not one maxed it out.

OK, now I;ve read it all, and something surprises me a little. Nobody has said a word about AoO. If I'm DMing, that Archer will fnd himself in melee frequently, and every shot he takes will give others AoO. Meanwhile, the archer himself doesn't threaten aything, and all the foes near him can act as if he's not even there in terms of casting spells, reading scrolls, drinking potions and the like.

Unless, of course, all this changed in PF and I missed it. Off to do a little research.

Nope, everything's still there. The archer provokes AoO and cannot make them. I'm stil impressed at how strong the archer archetype can actually be in PF, but this is definitely another blow to overall effectiveness.

One of my players has been saying for months that the problem with fighters is that they become more and more specialized - andlimited - as they advance. Other classes get the ability to do more and more different thigns, and a fighter mostly just gets better with one thing - to the point where making any other choice is so suboptimal that it's not even considered. Broadening the weapon training like this would help. If the bonuses were accelerated a little, and then sepcialization et. al. were dropped, suddenly the fighter is capable with more and more different weapons as he advances, AND he has room left over in his bag of feats to learn more exciting different tricks.

I am beginning to agree about the armor training being too much, also. The party is 16th level, and anything that has a decent chance of hitting the fighter cannot miss anyone else. Anything that has a chance to miss the others basically can't touch him. Giving both the AC bonus and raising the Dex limit seems to me to be a bit much. Perhpas they simply need to be slowed down a bit.

Meanwhile, all I have to do is send a reflex or will save his way and he's toast. He's a fighter, he has some dex, very little wisdom, and even with Lightning Reflexes and Iron Will he's pretty easy to take down magically. The addition of the improved (save boost) feats from the new list last week may help - but I'd give them the minor boost of allowing you to know if the save succeeded before deciding to spend your one daly reroll.

Havn't read the whole thread so perhaps this has been said - but makign al fighters proficient with medium and heavy armor is also a crock for the dex fighter. I realize that the new "armor training" rules help a bit, but if you trully want a dex-centered fighter, then you'll also want to be able to move around the battle field, which means light armor.

Why make all fighters learn how to use all armors and shields? If you're a light, dextrous guy planning on always usign two weapons, why in the world would you even bother training with shields and heavy armor - it's a waste of your time, and of the guy training you.

I suggest lettign fighters pick different builds: the heavy weapon / heavy armor standard version, and a version that gives some combination of weapon finesse, improved initiative, and/or two wepaon fighting instead of all those pesky medium and heavy armor and shield proficiencies.

Now the dex guy isn;t behind on feats, and hasn't put resources into learnign all kinds of things he never intends to use.

Not every lightly built warrior wants ot be a rogue or a ranger, y'know.

Long before 3.0, when I was running a 2.0 game so heavy in houserules that it was really a homebrew system that leaned on D&D, I created an out for the dex fighter.

In todays' terms, what I did was allow anyone to use Dex for to hit with a "finnesable" weapon, but if you do, you get no strength for damage. If you take "weapon finesse", now you get the strength damage back, and can use it with a few more weapons (katana, spear, staff, etc...). And the one feat allwoed you to use your technique with anything you knew how to use (unlike 3.0 where they tried to make you take it again for each individual weapon).

The book keepign is easier, but the bonuses in many cases are so low as to be largely meaningless. I'd rather have a significant bonus that actually costs me something (rage points) than an insignificant bonus I don't have to keep track of. As many others have said, change from +1 / 6 levels to 5 or (preferably) 4 levels. At +1 / 4 levels the bonuses are probably enough to bother with, at +1 per 5 levels, it's iffy.

BTW While I'm here for my once-a-month-or-so readathon, I just want to say how incredibly cool I think it is that after 28 years of playing D&D, I (and many, may like me) finally get a say in what the game includes and how it works. Thansk for giving us all a sense of ownership in the game.

Wow there's a lot to go through for someone who's late to the party :)

The new combat feat thread suggested that there's a PDF of the Paladin upgrades available around here somewhere. Could someone spare me an hour or so and point me in the right direction?

Thanks.

Since I just came up with it and it's my new pet idea, how about burning non-lethal hp for a host of fighter class abilities. Increase HD to d12, and have the fighter spend hp to move further, gain bonuses to saves and possible even to hit / damage bonuses. All of these have readily apparent in-game ties (to hit over extends you, leaving you vulnerbale, more damage causes minor muscle pulls, etc...). You could even make each ability a fighter-only feat. Not every fighter feels the need for speed, not every fighter is worried about charm spells, etc...

Clearly 5 hp at a time is too much for a martial PC, so lower it to 3 or something. Or perhaps different costs for different effects (but that's increasing the complexity).

The biggest problems I see with fighters are defensively. With the various overhand chop, vital strike, etc.... They come out OK for damage - but they still stink denfensively.

All fighters are good at basic AC. Brutes are good at Flat-footed, but horrible at touch AC. Dex-based fighters are good at Touch, but not so good at flat footed, and generally don't do as much damage as a high-str fighter (especially when they are not going "full attack" with two weapons).

All fighters will be pretty good at Fort. And if you play the rare one with a low con, everyone else in the universe will THINK you have a good fort, and avoid awasting resources by making you prove it. Effective camouflage.

Reflex and Will both rpetty much stink. For the high-dex fighter, this can be reasonably OK, sometimes. But unless you did something odd with your build and poured a big stat into Wisdom (thereby almsot certainly making you less effective in generic combat), your will save will stink.

Rogues get Evasion, Barbarians get "clear mind" as an option. Fighters, whio spend all their time and energy doing nothing but training to fight, can't fend off a simple charm spell or dive effectively for cover from a fireball? Clearly, any warrior worth the name in a fantasy settign will work on fending off magical attacks jsut like they would work on fending off swords and arrows.

THere are many possible fixes for this.

The simplest is probably to give fighters good saves for all three. But, this also makes it a HUGE class for cherry picking.

You can solve the issue through feats also, Perhaps a pair of feats that emulate evasion then improved evasion, and a pair like them for the metnal side of the game. These would require Lightning Reflexes or Iron Will as pre-req's. Maybe a feat that allows them to burn HP for a save bonus (Maybe 3 hp each +1, with a max bonus of 1/2 fighter level - that should limit the dippers), showing how the fighter is using his martial prowess and fighting will to overcome an obstacle. But if Fighters start spending feats for decent defense, then they probably need more feats than they currently get - because they need everything they have now to be competent combatants.

Maybe make the above "feat" into a class feature:

Martial Prowess: +1 to a save for each 3 hp spent, max of +1 per two fighter levels. The decision to use Martial Prowess can be the Player is aware that the save has failed. Once activated, the PC must spend enough hp to make the save, even if this results in the PC falling below 0 hp. The PC must make the decision without knowing how many hp he has to spend to make the roll.

Alternately, the Fighter picks an amount of hp to spend on any given roll and hoeps for the best. In this case, it should probably be 2 hp per +1 to the roll.

With this, the fighter clearly can't do it all day long, but he is using his knowledge of all things "combat" to fend off threats using the resources he has. And even a made save costs some hp, thereby offsetting the advantage of getting to make saves so freqently.

Maybe it's 5 hit points of non-lethal damage. This means he can use it less per encounter, but still use it effectively throughout the day.

I'm really just thinking out loud here, but the effect I'm going for is "Fighter's can shrug off the worst of what hit's them, no matter what it is." This would go a long way to making the fighter as effective as a caster - but he does it through consistent offense and defense, instead of sort-term magical boosts.

My group is just now beginning to convert to PF, and I am going to suggest this to them. Perhpas we'll have some use it, and others not so we can report on the difference. Or we could keep track of what the difference is and see how often that difference actually matters.

I too have been bothered by stackign good saves, and even more bothered by nerfed bab for anyone taking multiple classes with 3/4. One of my favorite PC's was a monk/cleric who constantly struggled with bab becuase both classes start with a 0. At 8th level, he had a +6 like he should, but it was 1 point low much of the time. And there was no way I could take a PrC because of how horribly it would mess with my bab.

This solves things in a simple, effecient, effective manner. I good friend of mine would call it "elegant."

Yes, an AC of 29 is up there for a 7th level PC - but's it's not exactly unprecedented. Your DM will probably get frustrated for a bit. If the DM seems annoyed at your PC, you can earn some serious gratitude (and probably a few beat downs) by reminding him/her that the mooks can always Aid-Another and set each other up so they can actually hit you now and then. They won;t do tons of damage, but they will connect fairly regularly.

And, of course, being a fighter you will alwyas lose hp to area affect spells, and are vulnerable to will-based attacks, too. Think just how nasty your whirlwind would be if used against your own party while "confused".

Seems like you;ve got it. The Hit Die / Level thing is probably there for people who play non-core races that have racial hit dice. In those cases, the PC may be 5th level but have 8 HD or something, and he would have +8 hp from Toughness.

Or, actually, it's 3 +1 per hit die, so your 5th level PC would get 3+5 = 8 hp, and my example above would actually receive +11 hp.

When I rewrote the martial classes for my game, one of the concerns I had was survivability against spellcasters. Even if you can threaten them, they can often get away.

I do like your idea of martial characters adding to a wizard's risk while casting. 10+BAB+ Weapon Training level for fighters, or 10+CMB would be an easy calculation to use. Of course, you would have to specify that this applies to ALL spellcasters being attacked in melee, not just wizards.

Naturally! Didn;t mention other classes because I had my head stuck in wizards for the moment.

Wait, that came out wrong...

But then, the wizard can render the Fighter completely out of it with a single failed save, and even most criticals won't do this to the wizard until round 2 or 3 (unless the fighter has something vorpal, andcan get in range to use it).

I've always liked the fact that magicis overpowering, and a single failed save can leave you completely screwed - but it is awfully hard to balance out.

While your idea sounds good in theory, the amount of "ammo" the wizard has handy can far outnumber his normal "spells per day." This is especially true at higher levels where the wizard has achieved his "Gandalf the game-smasher" status.

At an appropriate level, the wizard would invest in items of spell storing, scrolls, rod/staff/wand charges, and other goodies that greatly expand his uses/day of certain powers. He remained a threat, if well-planned, unless you threw a vast amount of enemies and/or tricky enemy magic-users at the party, and the 3.5 martial characters were likely to run out of hp (due to the necessity of putting themselves in danger to be effective) long before the wizard ran out of tricks.

Some good points, but I think an effective martial PC is just as likely to have items to aid his defense / offense / ability to leave / staying power as the wizard is.

Another easy fix for this is to make the cehck to cast defensively scale with the capability of the person who's in your face. Monte Cook did this in his "book of epiremental might." He uses 20 levels of spells, which changes the mechanic slightly, but translated it would be:

Opponents attack bonus (minimum 10) + spell level

Then it's reasonably likely at low level, but still not a sure thing. When you're 15th level and the bad guy of the moment has a +20 to hit (more like +26 or so for a fighter), and you cast a 5th level spell against him, you need a DC 25 check (or 31 vs. the fighter). You'll probably have about (level = 15) + (stat = 6) + (combat casting = 4) a +25 to the roll. Against foes without big attack bonuses, you're safe. Against that equal level fighter, your spells will fail 25% of the time.

And at range, the fighter prepares manyshot (a standard action)and waits for you to cast. Chances are he hits a couple times and does damage something in the neighboorhood of the above to hit bonus + or - 10 points. if it's -10, you likely get the shot off just fine. If it's +10, you're almsot certain to lose that spell.

I have not personally seen a wizard dominate the party like this. In my experience, this gets balanced by a few things:

1) relative frailty.
2) limited daily spells.

What makes spellcasters game-breakers is that the whole party stops every time the spellcaster goes through 1/4 - 1/2 of his daily spells. Of course the fighter, rogue, etc... aren't as effective as that, because they can;t front load all of their capacity for the day, and the DM isn't forcing the wizard to expend himself for more than a few minutes each day.

In our most recent campaign, the guy playign the wizard gave up after he died for the third time. One of those was a TPK, one half the party went down, and the last one the only person who went down at all was the (very dead) wizard. Yes, he did some freaksihly good things between deaths (touch of idiocy is a really gret thing if you can affect a Beholder with it), but so did the fighters (critical hits are fun!).

I think this is much more a resource management issue than anything else. And if you allow your party to have only one meaningful encounter per day, then the casters will wreak massive havok. But what real-world villain is going to sit around waiting for the PC's to come back into the next room tomorrow? Send a few mooks after them, and they can;t rest, and they don;t get back spells. Meanwhile, the fighter is still knocking heads.

Head to head the wizard wins ever time - assuming he has done nothing else that day, and doesn't have anything else to do later. After, say, two encounters appropriate to their level, and the wizard's resources are down enough that it is very much in question. Let a few more encounters happen before that F v W main card event happens, and the fighter mops the floor with the wizard's carcass.

Also, I just had this thought, and I hope it amuses some of you as much as it amused me: Currently, the rules do not specifically forbid several casters from all taking the same item as a bonded object. Which lead me to the hilarious mental image of a pair of wizards dashing about the battlefield, each holding one end of a staff. And possibly clotheslining an orc every so often.

Or a team of casters with one item, passing it back and forth like some insane relay race.

Thanks for the laugh :-)

Perhpas we should just rename ranger "mystic nature warrior" or someting similar. Then it's clear that he's essentially a martial Druid.

Personally, I think Scout comes a lot closer to what I think of for a Ranger. It emphasizes movement and skills over a pure "one with nature" feel that you get from the core ranger.

Heck, with his skill points, I think the Barbarian makes just as good a "ranger" as the current ranger does.

There's another hidden assumption here. For years, people have thought that Sorcerers have MORE firepower than Wizards. They don't. Lergely because they get higher level spells later, and partially due to wha I can only call bad design, they actually have fewer "spell levels" of magic to use than a wizard of comperable level pretty much from level 1 - 20 (I believe there may have been a minor hiccup or two at low levels, but by higher levels it holds true consistently).

Sorcerers are presented as wielding large amounts of flexible, raw power. Instead, they have less power and their spells known is so small that flexibility is often pretty moot. I've always thought it was a good concept poorly executed. In every group we've had, Wizards have always outperformed sorcerers in similar roles. I've long thought that if you simply pretend that the sorcere is one level higher for purposes of daily spells, that he then, and only then, becomes competitive with the wizard. I have yet to actually play that out, however, much as I have wanted to.

Gadzooks that was large. Sorry :-(

So give the Sorcerer/Bard special powers to go along with his spontaneous casting (already have them), and the prepared casters get a price break on the spells they prepare. Preparing allows you to maximize the efficiency of the energy by preloading it into set patterns. Spontaneous is more flexible, but less efficient, requiring more energy.

The "price break" should also give an overall-structure break for using the pyramid-like capacity already given in the current vancian system. In game logic would be easy to create: The old wizard says to his apprentice somethign like "The pyramid structure holds the magical energies in the most efficient manner, and preloading allows each spell to take up less energy upon release, thereby giving the wizard a substantial performance boost in daily energy output."

Heck, they don't even have to be exclusive classes from each other.

Or, perhaps better, it's a third class that can fluctuate between either system as needed. Sorcerers only use the spontaneous, Wizards only use the rigid structure of the vancian system, and (warlocks? spell-slingers? "Third Class"? Children of the Korn?) can go back and forth, as follows:

On a day when the arcane caster needs flexibility, he doesn't prep, and can cast any spell he knows whenever he feels like it. But it's ehausting work, and takes a great deal of personality, forcing the universe to bend to bend to your will on the spot like that, so he has to use Charisma to get his spells off that day.

The next day, he sits down and logically plots out how to use his resources that day, pouring energy into carefully crafted individual spells that also are balanced against each other to help maintain the laticework for the magical energies. On this day, he uses intelligence to slowly and carefully craft his magical container/conduit in his mind.

On day 3, he carefuuly prepares those spells, but, knowing the work he has cut out, has to use a less efficient container shape (a rectanglular prism, sphere, or even top heavy pyramid) and loses a little bit of his energy ti simply keeping things coherent in his mind.

Finally, on a 4th day, he preps a few spells into the pyramid structure for efficiency (uning int to cast them), and leaves energy just floating about. He can later prep that energy (using int) or just force it into spells on the spot (using chr).

Now, it'll be a rare caster who trully excells at both Int and Chr, so each will have their prefered method, but they will all know how to do it the other way, even if it's suboptimal for them to do so.

I've only just thought all this up, so now I have to go and come up with the costs. The "third" class should top out at slightly less capacity than a straight wizard, since he is consversant but not specialized in the structure system. Likewise, it'll cost more to cast on the fly, because his whole being isn't caught up in that system, either.

Another thing to look at is tweaking sorcerers to know just as many spells as a wizard - but they get less overall spell power because it's all spontaneous, which is more exhausting. It might be easier to balance, especially if the "third class" exists.