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Has anyone seen a class background generator like that found in Ultimate Campaign modified for the psionics classes and races? I've been looking and find it hard to believe someone hasn't cobbled it together yet or that there is no official table from the folks at Dreamscarred. Any links would be appreciated. Thanks!
I placed this order in november for the pdf/book combo and I have not received the book yet as it says it is not in stock. When will this product be in stock? If it is any longer, I would prefer a refund.
I came up with these just for fun and as a way to better justify the NPC classes' utility and make them more attractive, perhaps even almost desirable for a player character to take a level in them. Please let me know what you think. Adept: This class represents divine or arcane practitioners who are not quite powerful enough to be adventurers. The class does not progress past level 10 and does not gain the call familiar ability (but see below). At first level, the choice is made wether the adept will be arcane or divine.
Aristocrat: Maximum 20 levels. The main ability of the aristocrat is to grant honor and fame (see Ultimate Campaign). The aristocrat can grant +1d6 honor at first level to any person or allied group within a few minute of time. The bonus can be granted only once until the target has achieved a new level. The bonus increaes by an additional +1d6 at every odd level. Likewise, the aristocrat can increase fame in a similar manner by adding an amount of additional fame equal to 1/3 the aristocrat's level (minimum 1). Thi takes a few days of spreading fame and can be used once until the target gains a new level. In addition, aristocrats gain honor and fame at double the normal rate and spend fame in increments of 1d4 intead of 1d6. Commoner: Maximum 10 levels. This class is humble but works together well with other. At first level, a commoner can use aid another to grant a +3 bonu instead of a +2. This further increases to +4 at 5th level and +5 at 10th level. Expert: Maximum 20 levels. At first level, the expert chooses one of his class skills to gain a +5 competency bonus. At 5th level, and every 5 levels after, an additional skill gains this bonus and another increases by +5 which may the be same skill or the one just gained. Warrior: Maximum 10 levels. Warriors are not the most skilled but they are tough. Warriors gain +3 hit points per level. At 3rd level they gain endurance as a bonus feat and gain die hard as a bonus feat at 7th level. Just some ideas to make them more interesting.
I've seen a lot of talk here on the problem with rogues and I've thought long and hard about a simple solution to help bring them up to standards of at least some of the martial classes. Please let me know what you think on the suggestion below. Rogue Class Changes
Wits (Ex): At 1st level, a rogue gains a pool of points to represent his ability to accomplish amazing feats. The number of points in a rogue's wits pool is equal to 1/2 his rogue level + his Intelligence modifier (minimum of 1). As long as he has at least 1 point in his wits pool, he is treated as having the improved feint feat. Uses and costs are detailed below. 1 point – free action
The wits pool is replenished each morning after 8 hours of rest; these hours do not need to be consecutive.
I have been noting a lot of talk about the rogue needing something but there is a lot of difficulty in deciding what to do without wrecking everything else. I have tried to come up with a solution that changes nothing and adds just the right amount of extra flavor, power and versatility to this class. Feedback is much appreciated. I have included a googledocs link and the bulk of the file itself. At the end are the rogues from the NPC codex with their chosen focus and the results of that conversion. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZqnxjDDxkrIU1HzwsZsOxRS75xnu--Hy59M9-vH PmNk/edit?usp=sharing Additions to the Pathfinder rogue class. Sure Strike (Ex): At 2nd level all rogues gain the ability to focus their attacks for greater effect. As a swift action, the rogue can add +1d6 damage to any attack. The extra damage is not limited by range and it is not precision damage so creatures immune to critical hits are affected normally. The rogue can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 plus his intelligence modifier. By spending a feat or a rogue talent, the rogue can increase the number of daily uses by an additional 3. At 8th level, the rogue can spend two uses of sure strike as a swift action to deal +2d6 damage and this increases again at 15th to 3 uses for +3d6 damage. Sure Strike damage stacks with sneak attack extra damage. Roguish Knack
Brilliant Rogue -For brilliant rogues, their wits are as sharp or sharper than their blades.
Brutish Rogue - Subtlety is lost on these rogues who hit harder and delight in the pain of their enemies.
Charming Rogue - Charming and lucky, these rogues use their good looks and golden tongues to defeat foes.
Confounding Rogue - These rogues attack in strange manners to keep their opponents off balance.
Dastardly Rogue - These scoundrels use dirty tricks and take advantage even more than regular rogues.
Deceptive Rogue - The deceptive rogue is mysterious to the extreme and a master spy
Dread Rogue - Dread rogues give other rogues a bad name for inflicting the worst afflictions on their enemies.
Elusive Rogue - Defense is paramount for the elusive rogue who frustrates his enemies by avoiding all attacks.
Fast Rogue - A fast rogue is a blur on the battlefield and uses speed and quickness to overcome enemies.
Finesse Rogue - These rogues have learned to use agility and even small size to their advantage.
Sniper Rogue - Masters of ranged combat and unseen attacks. Snipers take down foes from a distance.
Thieving Rogue - Even in combat, the thieving rogue cannot resist separating foes from their possessions.
NPC Codex Rogues
I might need to find some new players for PF since I never know when my current group can play or self destruct. Does anyone have any advice on the best way or sites to drum up interested players?
I've got some suggestions to help bring the rogue class up to the standards of the many other classes. Sometimes I miss things so I wanted all of your opinions as well. My goals were to give the rogue something of its own (debuffing), to give it a little more "punch" without relying solely on sneak attack and to make sure not to tie it to a particular ability score. In doing this, I have borrowed some mechanics from the paladin and the fighter. All of the following are additions. Nothing has been removed. Deft Strike (Ex). At first level the rogue learns how to make a carefully planned, exceptionally brutal or amazingly precise strike for maximum effect on any type of opponent. Once a day, the rogue can declare a Deft strike before the attack roll is made on any opponent within 30 feet. If successful, the rogue adds double his sneak attack dice as extra damage to the target. For the purposes of Deft strike, this damage always applies even if the target is not currently vulnerable to sneak attack or precision damage. If the attack is unsuccessful, the use of Deft Strike is wasted. The extra damage from Deft Strike does not stack with normal sneak attack damage and like sneak attack damage dice, they are not multiplied on a critical hit.
Armor Class Bonus: Much like a monk, the rogue learns how to avoid getting hit whenever possible. The Rogue adds a bonus to his armor class equal to one-fifth of his level. This bonus applies to all attacks but is lost if the rogue loses his dexterity bonus because of being restrained or unconscious. Sapping (Ex): Rogues can be frustrating opponents and one of the reasons for this is their ability to hinder an opponents best efforts of defenses with their attacks. At 3rd level, the rogue chooses an target ability to affect with his sapping attacks. Therafter, as a standard action the rogue can make a melee or ranged attack and if successful that ability takes a circumstance penalty of -2. The target can spend a move action to rid himself of the penalty but otherwise it lasts until the end of the rogue’s next turn. Every three levels thereafter, a Rogue can select one additional area that the rogue’s sapping affects and can increase the penalty of any sapping by an additional -1 (even the one just selected). A rogue can only affect one ability with each attack and use of sapping though. Sapping can be combined with Sneak attack or Deft Strike. - At 3rd level, the rogue can select from the following abilitites: Armor class, Attack rolls, Speed (in feet, round down new speed to increments of 5.) - At 6th level, the rogue can select from the following abilitites: Ability checks, Dexterity, Intelligence, Skill checks, Strength, Wisdom. - At 9th level, the rogue can select from the following abilitites: Caster Level Checks, Charisma, Constitution, Damage reduction, Saving Throws, Spell resistance. The main concerns I have is with the sapping ability in the order that additional sapping targets are gained. I feel this could be a little more elegant but I'm not sure.
There is a lot of discussion about how the rogue is seen as rather lackluster. I think there are several reasons. I'm going to list a few then go into my suggestions to help the rogue. 1. The rogue used to be the main skill-based character. This is not so much the case now that the bard and many other classes have a lot of skill points and magic to make up the gap. 2. The rogue used to be seen as a heavy damage dealer. This has only ever bee partially true and with pathfinder's minor changes, it has become even less so. 3. The rogue is a challenging class to build and play. The rogue has some MAD problems and additionally, many feel that giving the rogue a huge dexterity will automatically make him great but this is far from the truth. To get the most out of your rogue, you need to really exploit all your options. With the above listed, I ask "if the rogue is no longer all about skills or all about damage or if traps just don't come up often in your game, then what can it be?" I have an idea. Y'know how the bard kind of helps the whole team by providing bonuses and healing and other boosts? What if we made the rogue to be an inverse of that? The rogue's job could be to hinder the opposition. Not just through damage, though that would be a way to do it, but just be being there some time. Think about it. The rogue could be there to help by making the opponents less effective instead of making his allies more effective. The end result is the same but the approach is different. Let's try by applying some minimal changes to the rogue by expanding two of its abilities. Trapfinding is now an aspect of an ability called Rogue Training and trap sense is an aspect of an ability called Rogue Senses Rogue Training: Rogues strive to learn a great deal about how to perceive and exploit weaknesses. This training manifests in two ways.
Rogue Senses: Life for a rogue is always full of danger and rogues make an effort to keep on their toes, get in the first hit and save their hides whenever possible.
The above two additions are small changes but could significantly alter the way the rogue is perceived. No longer being all about sneak attack or traps but being about making the monster's day so unbearable and being the nimble, hard to hit skirmisher they should be. I can see a lot of feats or items that further explore the rogue's abilities to basically find a way to make every obstacle less effective which is definitely a person you want in your party.
I like the hero point option from the APG but my guys are always spending them early so for several sessions, they don't even have the option. I came up with a similar system that gives some of the same options as the hero point but does so by the characters pushing their bodies and minds to the point of exhaustion. This limits its overuse but makes it more usable in some ways and gives some level of consequence. EXTRA EFFORT SYSTEM Extra Effort can be used by a player character at any time as a free action. It is something only heroes are truly capable of so it is not usable by NPCs or opponents. Extra Effort can be used for a physical or mental boost. Physical includes altering the roll or effect of anything other than a spell, spell-like ability or supernatural ability, making a fortitude or reflex saving throw, a skill roll that uses a physical attribute or other actions that are easily determined as physical. Using extra effort for a physical action will leave the character fatigued at the end of their turn. If used while the character is already fatigued (such as from using extra effort already) the character is left exhausted. Note that fatigue lasts until the character has a chance to rest for 8 hours and exhaustion lasts until the character can rest for one hour. A mental boost includes altering the roll or effect of a spell, spell-like ability or supernatural ability, a will saving throw or any skill or ability check that uses a mental ability and other actions that are determined by the GM to be "mental" in description. Using extra effort for a mental action leaves the character sickened until the character has had a chance to rest for 8 hours. If the character is already sickened from using extra effort, the character is instead nauseated until they can rest for 1 hour. Extra Effort can be used to do any of the following. GM and the text above determines if this constitutes a physical or mental exertion. Act Out of Turn: You can take your turn immediately. Treat this as a readied action, moving your initiative to just before the currently acting creature. You may only take a move or a standard action on this turn. Bonus: If used before a roll is made, extra effort grants you a +8 luck bonus to any one d20 roll. If used after a roll is made, this bonus is reduced to +4. You can use extra effort to grant this bonus to another character, as long as you are in the same location and your character can reasonably affect the outcome of the roll (such as distracting a monster, shouting words of encouragement, or otherwise aiding another with the check). Extra effort spent to aid another character grant only half the listed bonus (+4 before the roll, +2 after the roll). Extra Action: You can use extra effort on your turn to gain an additional standard or move action this turn. Heroic Feat: You can acquire a feat for the duration of the round you are using extra effort. You can bypass some prerequisites for the feat except for level, race or background requirements. GM has final determination as to what is allowable. Metamagic: You can apply a metamagic feat you know spontaneously without increasing the casting time (for spontaneous casters) and at a reduced level modification. This is obviously a mental application of extra effort. A reduction of -1 (to reduce the modifier for Enlarge spell to zero for example) will leave the character sickened and a reduction of -2 (to make empower spell's modifier +0 for example) will leave the character nauseated. Recall: You can use extra effort to recall a spell you have already cast or to gain another use of a special ability that is otherwise limited. This should only be used on spells and abilities possessed by your character that recharge on a daily basis. Reroll: You may use extra effort to reroll any one d20 roll you just made. You must take the results of the second roll, even if it is worse. Special: You can petition the GM to allow extra effort to be used to attempt nearly anything that would normally be almost impossible. Such uses are not guaranteed and should be considered carefully by the GM. Possibilities include casting a single spell that is one level higher than you could normally cast (or a 1st-level spell if you are not a spellcaster), making an attack that blinds a foe or bypasses its damage reduction entirely, or attempting to use Diplomacy to convince a raging dragon to give up its attack. Regardless of the desired action, the attempt should be accompanied by a difficult check or penalty on the attack roll. Cheat Death: A character can use extra effort to cheat death. How this plays out is up to the GM, but generally the character is left alive, with negative hit points but stable. For example, a character is about to be slain by a critical hit from an arrow. If the character spends 2 hero points, the GM decides that the arrow pierced the character's holy symbol, reducing the damage enough to prevent him from being killed, and that he made his stabilization roll at the end of his turn. Cheating death is the only way for a character to spend more than 1 hero point in a turn. The character can spend extra effort in this way to prevent the death of a familiar, animal companion, eidolon, or special mount, but not another character or NPC. Using extra effort in this way always leaves the character either exhausted or nauseated as if it had been used twice. Any suggestions or ideas?
I wanted to see what everyone thought about this. I have a player in my group with a Fighter that rarely if ever does any damage but he is often the most helpful member and frequently earns the unofficial MVP award from me. Here's the deal. He is a Dexterity focused, human fighter that uses whips in each hand (he takes all the penalties). He has feats like weapon finesse, Improved trip, improved disarm as well as two weapon fighting and improved two-weapon fighting once he got to 6th level. The average combat encounter goes something like this. 1. Monster approaches 2. Whip fighter moves to just within range of his whips and will either trip, disarm or blind the monster using the dirty trick maneuver from APG. If he only had to make a five foot step then he will do several of the above. He may even disarm the monster and then use steal (also from the APG book). 3. The rogue or barbarian hold their action to right after the whip fighter has gone, move in and annihilate the poor beast. They also hover around and wait for it to try and stand up or grab their weapon off the floor. 4. Rinse and repeat for subsequent rounds. Now, some monsters have it harder or easier than others. Armed humanoids of medium size have it the worst as they are subject to everything he can dish out. Unarmed monster of large size or with a lot of legs are resistant or immune to his stuff and some beasts are his nightmare such as anything bigger than large or an ooze though admittedly and ooze messes up any fighter and should be left to arcane casters. Am I complaining? No. He works with the group and makes their job easier so he contributes without outshining anyone and is a big team player. He has to be as he rarely inflicts any damage. He has a pair of sickles for backup but I've rarely seen him use them. I'm just wondering if anyone else has ever seen a martial controller that does no damage work or anything close to that and if you have any comments on his choice of character design. Dargath has not participated in any online campaigns. |
