Xeriar's page

Damage goes up by a factor of 10. Hit points go up by a factor of 2. Somehow, that leads to everything dying in a single round. Go figure.

This is lies and balderdash. I don't know how you can end up getting a PC's hit points to go up by a factor of two with Mythic, and what sort of PCs are you running with that only multiply their damage output by ten?

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Are there any 'Making Mythic Actually Mythic' projects around? Shouldn't there be?

Pathfinder Downtime Spreadsheet

I saw that someone else just released an Excel sheet, but not having Excel, I'm not sure how it compares.

I've been thinking of redoing it to better handle e.g. custom room augmentations, as the current design is way too clunky to add more with impunity.

Let me know what you think!

One of my personal pet peeves about D&D and its derivatives in general is just how much equipment defines you.

If PFO replaced that nonsense with merit badges, I would not shed a tear.

As Xeriar has pointed out his first priority is getting rid of griefers.

Well, insofar as I'd be happy to join alliances that took care of nations/settlements/settlements that failed to revoke the charter of griefers.

I'd probably have some clear lines as to what qualifies, though.

While we all like to think griefers are all evil little kids or adult mouth-breathers in mom's basement, I have witnessed just as much griefing activity from the white-knight community as well.

White knights very often are after a prize. Rather than doing good for the sake of good, they're out to try and impress someone with their antics, on the one in a million chance they'll get some(thing) in return.

But yeah, it's bad enough to see Chaotic Neutral types going 'I was just playing my alignment!', we're going to see 'But I'm Lawful Good! Even my conduct says so!'

Because people will be able to stay within the bounds of conduct while managing to be epic jerks.

If this nation forms, though, individuals will probably get left for individual chartered companies to handle, individually.

I can really only go from my experience in Age of Conan when looking at FFA gaming. I played DFO but joined the game too late and didn't last long with their latency. Even though AoC was a themepark game it was amazing when looking into the fishbowl to see the player made factions, griefers, gankers, roleplayers, solo-pvers and white-knights mixed together. Some of the most skilled PvPers in that game were roleplayers and probably more ruthless when it came to retribution griefing.

I think anyone who actually has their eyes set on running a nation with a chance at achieving that goal is going to be a bit ruthless. Not necessarily evil, but I don't think any of the LN organizations are going to spare someone's watchtower in territory they otherwise dominate just because 'someone else put it up first'.

Which is actually what I'm afraid the initial bout of griefing will be - people putting up watchtowers and forts freaking everywhere, crying foul/victim, enjoying the shift of their targets to evil alignment, or both.

Screw that, I'll take the alignment hit. And do it for others, too, for a price. If our George is having problems with similar people, well, happy to help.

GW might have an initial grace period here, or something (i.e. declare that making/owning/defending a building on a hex you don't have a settlement on is not an innocent act), but they can still play victim, and addressing that annoyance in game might be plenty fun.

That is not what I am saying at all. I think we can have a system that has both, frankly, and if at the end, you disagree with some of the prerequisites we put on an ability, and choose to disregard them, I promise I'll never come to your house, point, and say, "you are doing it wrong!"

Does that sound fair?

You are selling us a book. Some of us want to buy legos. You are offering shoehorns.

I think the core issue with that sort of attitude - 'well you can change it on your own - is: Then why bother with the book? The whole point of material like this is to be able to ignore that in most situations and use it as a launching point for others - but there is no launching point, here. My friend wants to make a troll race, I'd like to make, say, a harpion race, etc.

So, some of us want legos - all of the individual components, as divorced from each other as possible, like I started with here. Most of the races are around ~15 points, there, Dwarves a little more, Half-Orcs a little less, and look - an easy way for GMs to balance different races in a party!

Legos are fun. Shoehorns are a pain.

Most GMs can use their own shoehorn where they need to - that is, after all, basically their job. Sell a lego kit, and GMs can do something much more enjoyable - design their own legos as needed to come up with custom racial abilities without worrying about arbitrary prerequisites and a Gordian knot of attribute assignments.

I hate to say this, especially as my first post (a friend just introduced me to Pathfinder), but I currently do not find the ARG useful. The entire purpose of purchasing such a manual would be to be able to make new, balanced races, sometimes from the get-go. Especially with the way the base stats are purchased, which are confusing and make little sense. The system presented is not useful for balancing races, and trying to figure out costs for new abilities to fit in line only creates more of a headache - I am literally better off just eyeballing race design.

It doesn't help that it doesn't segue well into e.g. template creation.

So, here would be my proposal: Base everything off of its point buy value. Judge the worth of a racial feature or penalty by how many attribute points you would trade it for at character creation.

It won't be perfect, but it makes it a lot easier for GMs who wish to balance their game. They can give the players the option to spend a number of attribute points to pick a new race.

In addition, I am not going to start with the notion that races are balanced. This was expressly not true in OD&D where elves could don armor and cast spells with impunity while swinging a sword just as well as their equivalent-leveled human friends in either arena. It was expressly stated that the reason for this lack of balance was to convince people to play the demihumans.

I think we're past that.

Major Caveat: This will end up being more balanced at lower point buy totals for standard races (~20 and under) than higher ones. GMs running 30 point and up games should be aware of this and consider compensating lower race point totals accordingly.

Stat allocation:

A single floating racial bonus, such as a human's, is weighted as if they spent nine points in that attribute - 6 points for a +2, 14 points for a +4, 24 points for a +6, 36 points for a +8, 50 points for +10, and so on.

An additional floating racial bonus, or a fixed physical bonus, is weighted as if they spent five points in that attribute, +1 for each +2. 5 points for +2, 12 points for a +4, 21 points for a +6, 32 points for a +8, 45 points for a +10, and so on.

A fixed mental bonus, or a fifth/sixth floating bonus, is worth as if five points were allocated. 4/10/18/28/40

A penalty to a physical attribute is worth a negative number of points equal to 1.5x said penalty. -3 points for -2, -6 points for -4, -9 points for -6.

A penalty to int or wis is worth the raw penalty - -2/-4/-6. This should be halved if a GM does not trust a given player to play these scores, however.

A penalty to charisma is worth half of this - -1 for a -2, -2 for a -4, -3 for a -6. This might not be worth anything at all in some games.

So, stat allocation points per race:

Dwarves: 8
Everyone else in core: 6

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Languages:
Standard 7-language array available, plus bonus racial tongue in addition to Trade Tongue (Common or undercommon): 0 points
Can learn any language, starts with only Common or undercommon: 0 points. GMs who wave the first limitation on other races should consider giving out national tongues.
Xenophobic race knows only its racial tongue, can't learn any others without spending skill points: -1 point
Additional fixed language: +1 point
Truespeech: 3 points
Telepathy (short range): 5 points, or 4 points if has truespeech already.

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Skills and proficiencies:
+2 bonus to perception in limited circumstances: 1 point
+2 fixed bonus to a skill: 1 point, 2 if Perception
+2 floating bonus to a single skill of a skill class (knowledge, craft, etc.): 1 point
Given skill is always considered a class skill: 1 point, 2 if Perception
Floating Skill focus or Sill Bonus (Negotiator, etc) feat: 3 points
Skilled racial trait (+1 skill point/level, raising minimum skill points per level by one): 3 points
Class of weapons are considered Martial: 1 point

A single +2 'racial flavor' bonus to a non-perception skill under limited circumstances (Dwarven Greed, Elven Magic Spellcraft, etc) is not worth any points.

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Base Land Speed:

40 feet: 5 points
30 feet: 0 points
20 feet: -5 points
Steady (Speed not affected by armor or encumbrance): +2 points

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Size: Size requires at least a given strength bonus or penalty, which must be purchased accordingly as part of the racial package - there is no 'discount' for getting more strength as Large.

Tiny: Requires -4 Str
Small: Requires -2 Str
Medium: -
Large: Requires +2 Str
Huge: Requires +4 Str

A GM may wish to double these. Regardless, size bonuses and penalties are not considered to cost or provide any points.

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Lifespan:
Half-orc and Human: 0 points
Halfling/Half-elf: 1 point
Dwarf/Gnome: 2 points
Elf: 3 points

Immortal/Immune to aging penalties: 4 points

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Spell-like Abilities:
1 point for Gnomish set

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Vision:
Low-Light Vision: 1 point
Enhanced low-light vision (four times as far as a human in dark): 2 points
Darkvision: 1 point per 30 feet
Sound-based blindsight: 1 point per 10 feet
Tremorsense: 1 point per 30 feet

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Miscellaneous:
+1 to DCs for a specific school: 1 point
+2 bonus to saves versus a specific school: 1 point
Immune to a limited type of magic (Sleep, etc): 1 point
+2 bonus to saves versus any spell or spell-like ability: 3 points
+2 bonus to saves versus poison -or- disease: 1 point
+2 bonus to penetrate SR: 1 point
Half-Blood - count as two races for all effects: 0 points (It's a blessing and a curse)
Bonus general feat: 5 points
Racial Hatred - +1 bonus to attacks versus two enemy types: 1 point
Defensive Training - +4 dodge bonus to AC versus a single enemy type: 1 point
Stability - +4 bonus to CMD versus Bull-rush or Trip attempts: 1 point
Additional Favored Class: 2 points
Half-orc ferocity: 1 point
Full-orc ferocity: 2 points

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Total racial breakdown
Dwarves: 18 points
Elves: 16 points
Gnomes: 14 points
Half-elves: 17 points
Half-orcs: 11 points
Humans: 14 points

Thoughts/criticism/whatever welcome, I didn't agonize over the numbers, exactly.