bk007dragon's page

On topic, this is a 6 level caster, not a 4 level caster. It is a 3/4 BaB class, not a full BaB class.

It won't be a full BaB class, the Devs said that ship has sailed. So looking at what we have we seem to generally agree it needs more offense.

Nor does it need to be a full BAB class, take a cue from the monks flurry of blows while keeping the flavor of the war priest and give the Full BAB with only their diety's weapon.

This is a roleplaying game. The idea is to play a role that sounds fun and interesting and to have fun playing it.

Which is better or not is largely a factor of who is DMing and what their DM style is. Some DM's are more caster friendly some less so.

I tend to run a dark age style game. That means limited magic item availibality. Much harder to make them. And no magic item shops. For the most part you have to find items in my games.

Ah yes, the days when your character had to use what you found . . . No magic emporiums where the players say "I buy X" and the GM says "ok, Y gold."

The days when the wizards of the world prized their spells and rarely just shared or wrote scrolls for absolutely no reason.

The days when leveling was done in a way that made a bit of senes instead of just happening when the party camped. Where there were no 18th level sixteen years olds.

Their are some things in pathfinder that are different from standard in the game I run.

I treat treasure differently in my games vs pathfinder standard. I never liked the Magic emporium concept. And I typically add rare ingredients to magic items in place of gold cost. That way you have to adventure to go locate the ingredients to make the item in question.

Wizards don't often share spells in my games either. They give their apprentice the first level spells then make them discover the rest on their own.

I also favor using the Starting ages from the old 1st edition DMG for wizards. I can see the 18th level 16 year old sorcerer, but not a wizard. Starting them at 26 - 40 solves the I went from 1st to 18th in 6 months and am still only 16 years old issue.

The big thing I like about 1st/2nd edition, which was tackled in pathfinder is rate of advancement. 3rd edition was way to fast after 4th level. Going with medium and slow tracks lets me have more story arcs over the life of a character. It also solves many relative power issues that develop after 12 - 14th level by being able to get more story in fewer levels. I think pathfinder, like its AD&D Anscesters was most balanced between 5th and 12 levels.

I started with First Edition AD&D also.

First Edition(And Second)was probably the best edition for a true role player. The less structured environment was nice for character ideas. Character creation was more about the character's concept and background and involved far less descision making with regards to actual mechanics. I think First and Second edition were far more new player friendly.

It also left a lot more open for a DM/GM to be inventive and improvise.

The only real things I would change about it are:
1) To make the casting system a Hybrid of Wizard and Sorcerer. Let a person spontaneous cast like a sorcerer but memorize what spells are available that day like a wizard. I would do this for all casters. No spell book means you can not reallocate what you have prepared.
2) Convert the basic mechanics to a d20 + bonus vs Target Number system like it is in pathfinder.
3) Maybe simplify the saving throws into 3 categories like 3.5/Pathfinder.

1st edition was all about making what you want using the existing materials. Weather you were making a witch, a Tolkien style Wizard, A monster summoner, or the next Elminster type. You used the magic user or illusionist.

Most new materials were meant to be campaign world supplements and adventures.

I don't see D&D/Pathfinder going back to this methodology completely ever. 3.5/Pathfinder are just to RPG developer friendly from the potential sales standpoint to make more options and rulebooks to sell.

*********************************************************************

Pathfinder was based on the 3rd edition model which is to sell more and more rulebooks and option book by making character creation more about mechanics. I don't think its better than 1st or 2nd edition, just different and not all in a good way. Some things are better in it though.

Having 3 saving throw catagories, Reflex, Fortitude, and Will is nicer.

D20 + bonus vs AC/Target Number is nice also.

But pathfinder/3rd edition also comes with a lot of baggage you just don't need. It also has many extra classes that don't really give that much extra to the game is one of them.

In all honesty, A barbarian could have been designed as a tree of feats that customize a fighter.

A sorcerer could have been designed as wizard that gives up the ability to memorize different spells to cast them more often. With bloodline powers being done as feats.

***********************************************************************
With Pathfinder Paizo is catering to moth mentalities by giving you both. Unfortunatly the Pathfinder, like 3rd edition, is not new player friendly due to character creation giving to many options for a new player to handle. This is mostly due to the feat system and a new player having no idea what feats are good and what ones are lemons.

bk007dragon wrote:

Pagan priest wrote:

A yeoman farmer, a peasant just wealthy enough to own enough land to feed himself, his wife and a couple of kids, will need about 25 acres of farmland. One acre of farmland is about 43,560 square feet or 1742 squares of 5' x 5'.

But the yeoman cant sell the land, its not actually his own property.

The yeoman's lord owns the land not the yeoman. The yeoman holds a mini-fief from his lord in exchange for military service as an archer or infantry depending on culture and era.

Technically, in the Middle Ages, the only one who had actual ownership of the land was the King. Everyone else was a vassal to either the king, or one of the kings vassals.

This is a vast overgeneralization.

That's classic theoretical feudalism, true.

But it didn't work so purely everywhere, even in Europe, or over the whole period.

And it's only vaguely applicable to Golarion. Much of which is definitely not feudal.

A yeoman is a feudal rank denoting a middle class vassal holding 30 to 120 acres of land from a knight in exchange for military service. Enough to be an infantry soldier but not enough to support oneself as a knight. If you are a yeoman it is because you are in a feudal society. Therefore a Yeoman can not sell their land, it would revert to their lord.

In a non-feudal society they would not be a yeoman.

hogarth wrote:

Kthulhu wrote:

Hey, the wealth rules don't work in a 3.x variant. That's unbelievable! I mean, it's been true for 13 years, but still! Unbelievable!

I actually don't have many problems with money in 3E/Pathfinder. Most "complaints" I see run along the lines of:

If you spend 8 hours a day doing something, people will pay you for it and you can make money FOREVER!!! (In modern terms, we call that "having a job".)

Some things in D&D are incredibly expensive and poor people would never be able to afford them!!! (I feel the same way when I pass a Bentley or Lamborghini dealership...)
However, I agree with the original poster that prices for land and buildings have always been on the high side in D&D. I imagine that's supposed to make it challenging for adventurers to buy real estate, but that makes no sense when you consider that by level 5 (or whatever), most adventurers are the equivalent of Bill Gates or Warren Buffett.

Not even close. At level 5 your WLB is 10.500 gp. My group dis some math, a gp is worth about 50 €, so we are speaking of about 50.000€ or about 65.000 $, nice but nothing more.

Even the WBL of a 20th level character isn't much. 880.000 gp. Less than 6.000.000 $.

I did some math my self. I compared known medieval costs of grain and alcohol from the actual middle ages to pathfinders costs and it comes out to about 1.7 silver pieces = 1 Pence.

1 quarter of grain costs 2 shillings and 2 pence in London.( A real medieval price) 1 Quarter = 8 Bushels = about 448 pounds weight = 448 copper pieces in pathfinder(1# grain = 1cp). 26 pence = 448 Copper Pieces.

17.230769230769 Coppers per pence.

10,500 GP at lvl 5 would make a character worth just under 254 Medieval Pounds.

A 20th level character would be worth about 21,280 medieval English pounds.

For Comparison the crown revenues of England in the reign of Edward I was about 30,000 pounds per year.

That would place a value of about 24 - 48 gold pieces to 1 Real Life Medieval Pound.

A yeoman farmer, a peasant just wealthy enough to own enough land to feed himself, his wife and a couple of kids, will need about 25 acres of farmland. One acre of farmland is about 43,560 square feet or 1742 squares of 5' x 5'.
/QUOTE]

But the yeoman cant sell the land, its not actually his own property.

The yeoman's lord owns the land not the yeoman. The yeoman holds a mini-fief from his lord in exchange for military service as an archer or infantry depending on culture and era.

Technically, in the Middle Ages, the only one who had actual ownership of the land was the King. Everyone else was a vassal to either the king, or one of the kings vassals.

Pagan priest wrote:

Historical notes:
It takes about 11 bushels of wheat to make the grain for a person to have their daily bread for a year. Wheat returns about 4 bushels of grain per acre, after you pull out next year's seed grain. Assuming 2 adults and several kids that eating like 2 more adults means that the family needs about 11 acres of wheat. Using the price given in the Core Rulebook, wheat costs 240cp per acre, or 26 gold and 4 silver for the family's initial seed grain.

Not a complaint, just an observation...

A yeoman in medieval England would hold between 30 and 120 acres.

A bushel is about 56 pounds. Yields of 4 bushels per bushel of seed were actually pretty low. But yields could vary considerably by the land used and some yields of as high as 8+:1 were reported on some church lands. Also some sources indicate they planted 2 Bushels seed per acre and got 8 per acre yield. Yield also varied considerably by the amount of land owned. They typically planted 2/3 of the fields each year. Also wheat was a cash crop. The Yeoman would eat Rye, barley, and/or oats.

Using your statistics:
56 pounds(the weight of a bushel of grain) x (4 - 1 bushels) x 30 acres x 2/3 = 3360 pounds of grain. That does not include the yeomans garden or his animals.

That means 33.6 gold pieces produced after setting aside next years seed. The cost of living of a Peasant is about 3 GP/month or 36 GP a year. Not really far off.

And once you account for the:
1) The Fact that smaller populations mean more land for the peasants
2) Yields would be higher in a fantasy words where gods blessing the crops of god-faring peasants has a measurable impact. (Church lands were getting yields closer to 8:1 or 10:1 historically.) The church tended to use state of the art techniques but the peasants were often not taught these new techniques.
3) Their is some indication that 2 Bushels were planted per acre for a yield of 8 Bushels making it 6 profit.

So that would make cash value of crops closer to 67.2 to 100.8 GP on 30 acres.

This would make the cost of living costs given by Paizo in the Core Book accuracy with regards to peasant income.

On a side note, 1 Pathfinder Silver Piece would be about the value of 1 real life Pence in medieval England. 1 medieval English pound would be roughly 24 Gold Pieces in pathfinder.