There are other parts i'm not really enthusiast about, i was just answering my personal opinion why specifically schools feel thematically weak, at least to me.
The one effect I'd probably keep an eye out for is the Field Research feat, which lets you commit spells you've recognized to memory and learn them without the need of a scroll or person: if you're planning on giving enemies uncommon or rare spells that you really don't want your... That makes a lot of sense, i will keep an eye out for that. As for the layout, I've seen this happen for different people on different browsers: which browser are you using? I edited my document in Chrome, and shortened a bit of the preceding feat's text so that Scroll Polymath hopefully doesn't cut off on your side Ok, that solved the issue, thank you very much. Thank you for all the answers as well. I'll let you know how it goes if one of my players choses to test this out.
Also unrelated, Theridax, i like your homebrew a lot, can i ask you a couple question about it? I've been coming back to PF after a very long hiatus (haven't played since 1e advanced class guide) and i like your wizard much more than the official, so i wanted to integrate as an option in a game i wanto to run.
All of them. Some of what inspired the wizard was like certain Eastern Orthodox priests and Kabbalah stuff. A lot of religious writing is in books, and a lot of academic institutions in the west were originally set up by the religious. Much fo the clergy in the real world were learned and spending time studying. I also need to stress in 1e if you lose your bonded item you lost the ability to cast spells. Wizards learn about magic, they don't have magic as part of their being in anyways, but the ability to actually use magic must comes from somewhere and while it is poorly explained for the wizard, the arcane bond in 1e gave us some insight Ok, now i don't understand if you are being voluntarily obtuse or i'm incapable of explaining myself. Which is the class that has a literal book as a class feature? Not a holy symbol, not a musical instrument, not a magical animal, a book? What is traditionally a symbol of knowledge: a musical instrument, a holy symbol, a magical animal or a book? Also, in 1e if you had a familiar you had 0 need for a bonded item, and losing the bonded item gave you a penalty to cast, but you could still do anything you could before. So, no, the bonded item has never been the source of a wizard magic. Then again, i'm not arguing for or against giving wizard more skills, but saying the wizard is not the iconic book knowledge class is flatly untrue.
I think the deal is that the theme of wizards is "studied so hard the laws of fantasy physics that i know the how to control them to my advantage, even though it is would be usually barred behind bloodline factors, subservience to higher entities or an innate psychic potential"... so, in that "i studied a lot" theme there falls a lot of knowledge.But it isn't "fantasy physics" it specifically just arcane magic. Bards study magic too, and so do Clerics even. I would even say Witches learn their magic, the patron is just the means by which they learn it. Still an Int caster. Leveling up and casting better spells is learning and practicing that magic, the source and kind is just different. Wizards are just specifically academic about it, which should probably mean that they actually would have the most narrow knowledge about things Being an intelligence caster doesn't make the theme though, the bard get's their magic because of artistry, the cleric gets their magic because of devotion, the witch get their magic because they make a communion with a supernatural patron... the wizard get their magic because they are a book nerd, that's their theme.
I think the deal is that the theme of wizards is "studied so hard the laws of fantasy physics that i know the how to control them to my advantage, even though it is would be usually barred behind bloodline factors, subservience to higher entities or an innate psychic potential"... so, in that "i studied a lot" theme there falls a lot of knowledge.
The Wizard in that brew is a 3-slot caster by default and every arcane thesis is dramatically more powerful, hence the above. If we were to bring this down to the level of other current arcane theses, being very good at RK in general could work as something to opt into, and sacrificing more generic power would allow the Wizard to make even better use of this. This is a cool homebrew. I frankly don't understand why they went with bonded item as a general wizard feature instead of spell substitution.
Where is it stated that 4 is 50 IQ? you mean that in real life the difference between an average IQ person and a 50 IQ person is 15% less things he remembers from what you both studied in college? Or, if college is too much of a stretch, elementary school? Stats are abstraction just like HP, you can't say int 4 = IQ 50 as an absolute rule, it's just arbitrary. Let's add the fact that in a medieval times people were a lot less educated also for what concerned "using" their brain to learn abstracts things (they we're mostly useless when you only needed to bring home the food), so the average should be a lot less than today. Let's not apply real (not yet perfected) science to an abstraction, only bad things can come from that.
I don't understand what's the fuss about low mental stats roleplay "you can't do that, full stop". The mechanical penalties are well enough to show a character limitation in this regard. Even with the limitation is a -3, nothing a class skill can't compensate, it's not ohmygodican'tevenhowdoiwalk? I'm not expected to roleplay low strenght. Nobody tells me "you do no damage because low strenght". I roll and the GM decides accordingly.
Why am i expected to make bad decision based on low mental stats? For starters, it should at least be required a roll... And second, how do you define "complex tactics"? Wolves use coordinated pack tactics to exhaust their prey and kill them easier. Crows let nuts fall on zebra crossings, let cars crush them and then wait for the green light to go and eat. To me those are quite complex tactics and both are performed by 2 intelligence animals. Low intelligence sounds more like the definition of being "slow": on equal skill ranks and bonuses (so equal effort on the topic), the character will have less chances to remember things they both studied. But you can still work in society, everybody knows "that dumb person" that got a college degree... Why should he not work fine in sosciety? To answer the OP: there was nothing in those tasks that required that high of an intelligence than what would you need to actually be alive up untill tha point, plus someone should be expected to know how his own spells work. Also it's always fun to see people bash on "minmaxer" when it's actually easier to get stats that low when you roll dices rather than with point buy.
Swarms of locusts... Ye' can talk all ye' want of scary things ye' met in darkeness, but try work'n a year on crops ye' need ta feed and watching as it vanishes 'n their creepy little maws...
Taku expressed perfectly what i would have suggested.
A natural 20 on a skill roll does nothing special. *player rolls a natural 20 on an impossible skill check* DM says: *bangs head against desk repeatedly*DM means: why on earth did i decide that treating 20 as an exceptional successes and 1 as a fumble on every skill roll would be fun?
You could get true strike from a wand for every character you will ever have. It's even cheaper than a potion because you can reuse the item 50 times.
6 two handed barbarians 3rd with power attack (A.K.A. the most common barbarian ever) can matematically one round anything with 7 HD a d10 and less than a +2 con modifier. Free of charge.
Yeah, why should 6 rogues be able to one-shot a squishy character? It's not like there are other classes can do the same against the tank alone with a single spell cast, right? Right???
I have too many from the most-often GM in my group of friends. I started GMing so he wouldn't have to. Natural 20 on a skill check is a perfect execution, no matter what. Disguise? No amount of perception will let you see through it. Bluff? You believe me when i tell you your brain is trying to kill you. Stealth? I basically become invisible, don't make any sound, lose any scent i could have, stop emitting vibration and there is absolutely NO WAY you will ever be able to find me. Then some pc (girls, and i would like to point out is not their fault) and other npc pop up with the ability to take automatic natural 20 on specific skill checks… for character background reasons. Every time we fight an npc prepared caster, he never needs to prepare spells, nor even has limited slots or needs components or casting time. The guy basically opens the manual and choses what he wants to cast turn by turn. One rapid spell and one normal. Also metamagic feats applied according to what is needed. In general, doesn't matter what modifiers you have, if your dice score is high, you succed, if it's low you fail. I can't even count how many time i lost track of a heavy armor no ranks in stealth antipaladin in our party with my +23 base perception. Also, world of darkness system, late game, no more that two session away from the final (fighting) encounter against the BBEGs, everybody high power, i was extremely over optimized for fighting: basically able to one-shot anything with a "standard sheet life-bar" and needed 5 times max damage to be stopped. I challenge to fight an ally NPC for story reason and my GM wants to roleplay the scene away from the table. Me: let me get the dices.
I follow him, confused. GM: everything you do is useless. He is better than you in every way: stronger, faster, more resilient. He beats you. I expected to lose, but… being humiliated at my own specialty with a maxed out character without even rolling dice? Why was even a final encounter needed? Why didn't he solve the story… like... yesterday?
The point is level 20 (mythic 10) is the physical cap according to rules. Not time cap, physical cap. And that's more obvious when consider you can have a 20 years old human wizard level 20 side by side with a 500 elf ranger 8. You can train to be the fastest man alive, but after a certain point you won't get any better even if you train for 500 years… and, if you train for something else and don't continue to maintain your skill, you loose focus and that's akin to retraining levels. If you join the army you won't have as much time to dedicate to studies, since you need time for training, and you will loose focus, most complex notions won't be as immediate as they were before. So once you hit 20 you physically can't get any better no matter what. The point of the magus is he effectively divides training and studies equally, that's why he gets 3/4 BAB and diminished spellcasting. Once he stops doing that he will either focus on training(fighter) or on his stusies (wizard) and he will get (or retrain) levels accordingly.
In that case, I would say yes, it is extremely prejudice, and borders on racism, to hold prejudice against individuals of those species, especially if they are encountered outside their race's homeland. If I encountered someone who was Russian in the U.S. or western Europe during the cold war, I wouldn't assume they were opposed to democracy just because their native country was (in fact, I would probably assume the opposite, because they left). To use an example from the game, in Golarion, if I encountered someone from Cheliax in Absalom, I would not assume they were Lawful Evil just because the government of their home country (which they left, potentially willingly, possibly BECAUSE they weren't LE) was. A drow or orc in human lands should be treated the same way. Again, a drow in human lands willingly left the evil civilization they grew up in (or were raised by another species, and hence were never part of the evil society in the first place). If anything, that's a reason to assume they are good. You can assume that as an educated gentleman, with a globalized mindset and living in a country with law that protects you even if you are not rich or an important asset to a society, high sanitary standards and so on. In a medieval mindset how can you be sure that guy you've never seen before (same race as you) that is walking around is trustworthy? How can you tell if he shares the same morals as you? He could be looking for (your) childs to sell them as slave. He could stab you and steal all your possessions leaving you there to bleed to death. Maybe is a spy from some nearby city that is plotting to conquer your county. Heck... he could even be a carrier of some illness you know nothing about. Now try to picture him with dark skin, pointed ears and in a world with magic... How can you be sure about anything?
I think part of the problem comes when we try to combine medieval morals with modern morals. If we read the alignment system with modern morals the entire system is bound to collapse on itself. We can notice it just by this assumption: a king giving some guys with big weapons who just arrived to town the right to track down and caputer/kill those outlaws who are causing a ruckus in town. Seriously? What would you say if your mayor gave the right to track down criminals to trigger-happy, heavy armed, crazy guys you know nothing about who just showed up in town instead of the local police force, who (should be) were selected, trained and had to study the rules? This is absolutely crazy. What about medieval morals? According to it, the right thing to do with thief was cutting their hands off and displaying them in a square, as a warning. With murderers? Kill them and display them in a square, as a warning. With rapist? Castrate them and displaying them... i think we've got it. You tortured the bad guys? You were the good guy. You abused the bad guys? You were the good guy. You killed the bad guys? You were the good guy. Jurors and executioners who brought criminals in front of justice and cut off their heads might be not socially liked cause the might have been pretty creepy (given also the life condition they lived in) or dangerous, but in the eyes of people they were the good guys and the heroes who freed the world of scum... If a paladin cuts off the hands and the tongue and lets the evil (low-level) spellcaster go, by medieval morals he has given him a fair judgement... Or he could give him to authorities... and they would do the exactly same thing if they wouldn't sentence him to death outright... It can be handwaved, sure, but when i read that "in D&D/PF allignment is an objective force" i have to ask "Objective according to what? Modern morals? Reinaissance morals? Medieval morals?". If you don't define that, there will always be discussions. Edit: Even today, if you think about it, Western morals are different from eastern.
When someone says "if god is so powerful, why does he let people suffer"... I can't help but think: what is the suffering of a weak and fragile mortal body to a god? Imagine you are trying to teach a child to ride a bicycle. He will fall. Maybe he will badly scratch his knee. And he will cry a lot. If you are a good teacher you will give him strenght and courage and hope and give him help to try and learn once more. If you are a bad teacher you will toss away the bicycle and will never teach him again. And what you just did was eliminating the source of the pain. Now, you are trying to teach a mortal the ways of the good. Sometimes he will fall. He will badly stain his soul and/or hurt his body. And he will suffer a lot. If you are a good god you will give him strenght and courage and hope and give him help to try and rise once more. If you are a bad god you will toss away the suffering source and will never let him make his choises again. And what you just did was eliminating the source of the pain. To a god a man tortured is not so much more than what a scratched knee is to a man... You can say that's sad, unfair, merciless... but, to gods, you are just a child making a tantrum because they force you to stop playing and go to school. You are just a child, you know nothing. That's what gods are... That's what makes them big. And they are big.
I'm inclined to think that's more wisdom, since he couldn't have "knowledge" (int) what the enemy had in store but he could "sense motive" (wis) the plan... ... you're right about eidetic memory not being necessarily perfect, though... Since we have no other information, it could work one way or the other.
3.5 homebrew.
We spent almost all the second part of the game protecting this child then it turns out she actually was the reincarnation of the goddess of death. When she betray us plunging the entire world in a miasma of death and rot, i couldn't help but comment: "So... At least, now we know her full name is Hope-You-Die..." Since then, we actually use that name to refer to her.
Skills. A lot of skills for a lot of strategy. My level 14 human rogue with intelligence as the second highest stat had like 18 skill points per level. I had so many skills maxed out or at high level that i was able to do anything. Lying, does he believes me? Check. I try to convince someone to do something, do i manage? Check. I throw a smokescreen and hide, does he lose me? Check. I move out of a treathened square, do i avoid his AoO? Check. There's someone hiding, do i see him? Check. He's lying, do i understand it? Check. I disguise myself. Check. I try to steal something. Check. Knowledge. Check. Check. Check. Check. Most of the time i didn't even have to roll a dice to succeed. And this happened in a campaign where almost everything we fought was immune to sneak attack. I was litterally useless in combat compared to our barbarian, our ranger, our monk or our bard. But nobody took a step without first asking me if it was a good choice. Felt like a lot of power without making a single HP damage directly. EDIT: (and don't let me start on UMD.)
Always i wanna be with you... Couldn't resist, sorry xD.
I'm prone to think the anti-paladin is the opposite of a paladin in every way, the fact that he doesn't have a real code but more like guidelines... If you read the anti-paladin "code" it can be summarized like this: "Do what you think is the most evil"... That's pretty different from a paladin, because (aside from specific situation where a fall or fall situation should be evaluated form the GM off game and from the god in game) a paladin can't choose what he think is the most good, he must choose to adhere the code, because he wants to of course, but he has no right to chose. The anti-paladin is not a paladin, he is the exct opposite and thus he doesn't have a real code as it is intended for the good guy.
It's just me or people seems to miss a single fundamental thing in the Code of Paladins? I mean, if a creature becomes a Paladin i suppose she firmly believes in the obligations contained in the code and would never break it willingly... They should be not "clothes too tight", the obbligations should be "the ideal of an example to others ANY paladin YEARN to reach"... And following this, i think, necessary condition for one becoming a paladin: According to what logic being forced, against your will, to put aside your highest ideals and feel forever tainted by the act of breaking your code for a greater good (risking to lose your benefit as a paladin), should not be a form self-sacrifice i should expect from a REAL paladin? |
