strumbleduck's page

strumbleduck wrote:

By far the biggest problem with Pathfinder is how much effort it takes for GMs to make NPCs. This was a problem in 3.x also, but Pathfinder makes it so much worse by adding fiddly bits to all of the character classes.

For example, in 3.5 you could make an NPC sorcerer just by choosing spells, feats, and equipment, most of which you would already know. You could do the whole thing from memory, and it was simple enough that you could make up a sorcerer off the top of your head during play if the PCs happen to encounter one. In Pathfinder, you also have to choose a bloodline and then record all of the associated bloodline spells, powers, and feats. This needs to be looked up every time, even if you always go with the arcane bloodline, and it involves a bunch of extra powers that you don't want to keep track of.

This happens with most character classes. Every barbarian needs rage powers, every rogue needs rogue talents, every wizard gets extra powers from their specialty school, etc. Smart GMs might just ignore these things, but you shouldn't have to consistently ignore the rules just to play the game.

I understand that having so many options makes things fun for players--or at least experienced players--but for a GM making all of these choices every time is a huge pain.

I actually find gearing as the hardest part of NPC creation.

Gearing is a problem, too, which was present in 3.x as well. This isn't too hard to wing at low levels, but if you want to get it right you do have to look up NPC gear values, and at high levels things get absurdly complicated. Of course, 3.5 helped with this problem by having tables in the DM's Guide for gearing NPCs of each class by level, which disappeared in Pathfinder.

By far the biggest problem with Pathfinder is how much effort it takes for GMs to make NPCs. This was a problem in 3.x also, but Pathfinder makes it so much worse by adding fiddly bits to all of the character classes.

For example, in 3.5 you could make an NPC sorcerer just by choosing spells, feats, and equipment, most of which you would already know. You could do the whole thing from memory, and it was simple enough that you could make up a sorcerer off the top of your head during play if the PCs happen to encounter one. In Pathfinder, you also have to choose a bloodline and then record all of the associated bloodline spells, powers, and feats. This needs to be looked up every time, even if you always go with the arcane bloodline, and it involves a bunch of extra powers that you don't want to keep track of.

This happens with most character classes. Every barbarian needs rage powers, every rogue needs rogue talents, every wizard gets extra powers from their specialty school, etc. Smart GMs might just ignore these things, but you shouldn't have to consistently ignore the rules just to play the game.

I understand that having so many options makes things fun for players--or at least experienced players--but for a GM making all of these choices every time is a huge pain.

Can a warpriest use his fervor ability to cast spells that have no targets? Here is the relevant text:

As a swift action, a warpriest can expend one use of this ability to cast any one warpriest spell he has prepared with a casting time of 1 round or shorter. When cast in this way, the spell can target only the warpriest, even if it could normally affect other or multiple targets. Spells cast in this way ignore somatic components and do not provoke attacks of opportunity. The warpriest does not need to have a free hand to cast a spell in this way.

Clearly this disallows casting hold person on an enemy or bull's strength on an ally. But what about spells that have no "target" entry but instead have an "effect"? For example:

• Can a warpriest use fervor to conjure an obscuring mist?
  
• Can a warpriest use fervor to cast a summon monster spell?
  
• Can a warpriest use fervor to cast flame strike on an area of his choice?
  

strumbleduck wrote:

Stone shield is fantastic even at high levels. Having one or two of these memorized is almost as good as having a permanent +4 bonus to AC and a +2 bonus to Reflex saves. Note that the bonus is untyped, so it stacks with carrying a shield.

How is a 1-round spell tantamount to having a permanent bonus? It lasts for 1-round!

It's an immediate action to cast, so you can use it as soon as you find out that someone is attacking you. For wizards and other spellcasters who stay away from the front lines, this happens so rarely that you can use the spell almost every time you are attacked.

Liberating command is available at 1st level and is a huge game-changer. Never worry about grapples again!

Stone shield is fantastic even at high levels. Having one or two of these memorized is almost as good as having a permanent +4 bonus to AC and a +2 bonus to Reflex saves. Note that the bonus is untyped, so it stacks with carrying a shield.

Wartrain mount lets you train any friendly or indifferent animal for combat instantly. A druid can combine this with call animal to raise an army of animals for combat.

For large groups of identical enemies, it works okay to have them all go on the same initiative count. To avoid huge swings where all the bad guys go either first or last, I usually roll 3d6 for the group's initiative instead of 1d20, though it would also work fine to have them all take 10.

This might be the ideal campaign for the automatic bonus progression rules from Pathfinder Unchained. This would free the PC's from having to worry about the "big six" magic items, though the dwarven wizard craftsman would still be useful for scrolls, potions, and such, as well as weapon and armor special abilities.

You just need to adopt the following house rule:

All spells that deal damage deal an extra 2 points per damage die.

This would bring spell damage back in line with the damage that spells do in original D&D, and would make blast spells top tier spells for arcane casters, the way that they were in original D&D.*

Note that this change slightly increases the power of arcane casters, but not so much that you have to worry about it. Mostly the change just makes blast spells competitive with battlefield control spells. Wizards will now be casting magic missile instead of grease or enlarge person, and fireball instead of stinking cloud or black tentacles.

It won't particularly make enemy casters more threatening, but it will alter their tactics. Using the current rules, enemy arcane casters are extremely dangerous because they can hit the whole party with a stinking cloud or a black tentacles. If you adopt the house rule above, you'll be just as worried about enemy fireballs, but overall enemy arcane casters won't be significantly more dangerous.

Finally, if you adopt this rule, I would recommend removing the Empower Spell feat from the game. My opinion is that the other metamagic feats would remain reasonably balanced, but I can't guarantee it.

* Note: I've done the math on this. Monster hit points have increased by about 60% since original D&D (more at higher levels), and this house rule increases spell damage by about 60%.

I get the sense that you've recently switched from 3.5 to Pathfinder. If so, welcome to the game! I myself switched from 3.5 to Pathfinder about a year ago. (If you haven't switched to Pathfinder recently, feel free to disregard the rest of my post.)

As you point out, Pathfinder was originally designed to be 3.5 compatible, but it has since grown beyond that into its own game. It has its own line of supplements that fulfill the role of the Complete series, and I think you'll find that Pathfinder characters can be every bit as flexible as 3.5 characters.

Having played Pathfinder for a year or so, my experience is that Pathfinder stuff also tends to be better balanced than 3.5 stuff (including basically all of the Pathfinder supplements), so much so that I really do tend to view 3.5 stuff as suspect in the same way that 3rd-party material is suspect. This isn't a slam against 3.5, which was my game for many years, but the Paizo team has really done a fantastic job of improving and tightening the system.

Incidentally, one of the advantages of Pathfinder over 3.5 is that Paizo puts essentially all the rules online for free. Just in case you aren't aware of it, see this page for the very expansive list of Pathfinder feats. You might be particularly interested in the table of paladin feats on this other page.

3.5 and PF were suppose to be compatible but with the upgrade to Smite this ability seems WAY to powerful.

I wouldn't describe 3.5 and Pathfinder as compatible, exactly. If you want to run a 3.5 adventure in Pathfinder, it mostly works without too much trouble, though you might have to redo some of the NPC's.

But 3.5 feats are certainly not designed to work well with Pathfinder characters, and should only be allowed on a case-by-case basis. I tend to treat 3.5 stuff as similar to other third-party stuff -- potentially helpful but also potentially broken.

For me, it's mostly because I know how Google Hangouts works, so using it is easier than figuring out voice chat in Roll20.

Indeed, based on some of the comments here, it seems that switching might be a bad idea.

Rogar Stonebow wrote:

LazarX wrote:

felinoel wrote:

LazarX wrote:

strumbleduck wrote:

Dave Justus wrote:

It is well known that high level Paladins are just in it for the money.

In my campaign world, most large paladin orders are funded almost exclusively by selling wands, potions, and scrolls of lesser restoration to magic item shops. Of course, you don't need to be so high level to make those.

If that's the kind of story you wish to tell, more power to you. In my world Paladins who survive to that level, are so rare, they don't have time for such nonsense.

Saving a church of your deity is not nonsense to a paladin.

Cthulhudrew wrote:

felinoel wrote:

Then not FLOODING the market but the summoners would definitely be flooding the market like crazy nonstop.

To what end? The market for wands in general, much less specific wands like these, would be extremely limited in most fantasy worlds.

The ones where you can't throw a stone and hit a mid- to high-level adventurer.

To the end that they are as common as the others of the same level really.

_Ozy_ wrote:

Yeah, summoners have an insane list. Maybe there's a secret cabal of wizards who go around and threaten summoners to keep them out of the market. ;)

You jest but that is the only possible thing that could happen for the worlds run by the above people who don't permit summoner-made magic stuffs.

So your Paladins save their churches.... by wielding wands of plane shift???

No silly! Not wielding, but selling!

Like I said, if that's the kind of Paladin stories you want to tell, fine. To me, that's like Green Lantern saving the Corps and the universe, by opening up a Haberdashery.

That's a perfectly reasonable viewpoint, and I agree that it depends on what kind of stories you want to tell.

But I would like to point out that there's something of a tradition in comic-book-type fiction of heroes using their powers to pay the bills. Some examples:

1. In the Men in Black film franchise, the titular organization is funded by patents they own on certain technology (e.g. velcro) of an alien origin.

2. Tony Stark certainly uses his powers of invention to make money, which is required to fund his superpowers. Indeed, of all of the comic book superheroes, he seems to be the only one whose power is based almost entirely on crafting feats.

3. Peter Parker and Clark Kent both use their status as superheroes surreptitiously to get ahead in their mundane careers.

I'm sure there are other good examples. The point is that I think a clever and resourceful group of paladins would use all means at their disposal to increase their power. It doesn't fit into the classic heroic conception of paladins, but as you said, it depends on what type of stories you want to tell.

Sundering an ioun stone should use the normal rules for sundering a carried or worn object. That is, you make a combat maneuver check against the opponent's CMD. This represents the fact that the wearer of the stone can attempt to dodge the sunder, e.g. by moving his head, or deflecting your blow with his sword.

The text describing the AC of an ioun stone is just a holdover from 3.5, where attacks against carried or worn items (i.e. anything but a sword or a shield) used the AC of the item. If the designers had intended for sundering ioun stones to be possible without succeeding at a sunder combat maneuver, they would have been much more explicit about it.

It is well known that high level Paladins are just in it for the money.

In my campaign world, most large paladin orders are funded almost exclusively by selling wands, potions, and scrolls of lesser restoration to magic item shops. Of course, you don't need to be so high level to make those.

The slayer is just a rogue that works well mechanically. Almost everyone agrees that the Pathfinder rogue was poorly designed, and playing one is almost always a disappointment. People play slayers because they want to play a rogue-like character that contributes to the party in a significant way.

If your problem with the slayer is that it seems better than the rogue, well . . . that's by design. The designers don't feel comfortable just upgrading the rogue, so instead they gave us the slayer, which has basically the same flavor as a rogue, but actually works.

Incidentally, the upcoming Pathfinder Unchained is going to have a new, optional version of the rogue class, which will presumably make rogues viable again. The designers have specifically stated that they're unhappy with the design of certain classes, which is why they're publishing new versions of the rogue, barbarian, monk, and summoner in Pathfinder Unchained. Until then, the slayer is the closest thing we have to a functioning rogue.

The game works by assuming each fight will take its toll on your resources. Healing is the major resource of the game, requiring either expending precious daily abilities or items that cost you money and required you to prepare ahead of time. The gameplay of D&D/PF centers around mitigating the healing cost. If you play smart and work as a team, you lower the damage party members take and lower the healing cost of the fight.

Sorry, but this just isn't the way that Pathfinder works. The math doesn't support your argument.

Let's consider a 4-person party of 8th-level PC's fighting against a CR 8 encounter. Between the four characters, the party probably has something like 300 hit points. Depending on how they "manage" the battle, there are two extreme possibilities:

1. They take almost no damage.

2. They take an enormous amount of damage, requiring close to 300 hit points worth of healing.

In the second case, the party will use up essentially a whole wand of cure light wounds after the battle, costing 750 gp.

So how much does this difference matter?

Well, according to the Treasure Values per Encounter Table, the PC's are likely to net 3,350 gp worth of treasure for the encounter, which is more than four times the cost of the wand.

And in reality, it's very unlikely that different tactics or player choices would swing an encounter between "no damage" and "almost all dead". Realistically speaking, how efficiently the players dispatch the encounter is very unlikely to make more than 250 gp worth of difference, which is less than 10% of the expected income. So a party that consistently requires lots of healing ends up at most 10% poorer, which will hardly be noticeable given how fast wealth increases. Hit points and healing just aren't a significant long-term resource in this game.

Overall, Pathfinder just isn't a resource-management game -- it's a risk mitigation game. The danger in a Pathfinder campaign isn't that the PC's will spend too much on healing and end up bankrupt. The danger in Pathfinder is that the PC's will make poor choices in a tough encounter and end up with a character death or even a TPK. The danger is that they won't be able to make it through the dungeon in time to stop the BBEG's plan to destroy the world. You lose in Pathfinder because the bad guys kick your ass, not because you run out of money.

It seems to me that a 3rd-level greater magic missile spell that fired one missile per caster level (maximum ten missiles) would be reasonably balanced.

So my advice would be to treat a magic missile launcher that fires 10 missiles at once as a wand of a 3rd-level spell with a caster level of 10, which would have a market price of 22,500 gp for 50 charges. The base price for crafting would be half of this, or 11,250 gp.

I do not understand the meaning of your original post. What are you proposing?

There is nothing game changing at all about fast healing for a PC party.

Any Pathfinder party above level 3 or so should have enough wands of cure light wounds to heal up completely after every battle. Such wands are extremely cheap and are available for sale in most campaigns. They're so cheap that there's very little reason for a cleric to ever cast healing spells between combats, except perhaps for very low-level spells that the cleric wouldn't otherwise make use of.

The daily resource that Pathfinder characters run out of is spells. Adventuring parties don't decide to rest because they're out of healing -- they decide to rest because the casters are running out of good spells. Fast healing doesn't help with this at all, which means that it doesn't extend the adventuring day one bit.

The only effect that fast healing has it that it will let the party spend less gold on wands of curing. A typical party spends maybe 5% of its money on such wands, so this effect isn't really that big. Out-of-combat healing was an important resource to be managed in original D&D, but starting in 3rd edition it became a cheap commodity, and it remains so in Pathfinder.

Fast healing is good for monsters, but not PC's.

For monsters, fast healing lets a monster use hit-and-run tactics. The monster engages the PC's for a short time, withdraws to heal, and then comes back once it's at full health. Most monsters aren't otherwise capable of healing themselves, so fast healing can make a monster much more tactically interesting.

PC's, on the other hand, usually have enough wands of cure light wounds that they can completely heal between encounters, which makes fast healing redundant for out-of-combat healing. Also, as kestral287 pointed out, it's basically impossible to get enough fast healing to matter significantly during combat, so fast healing is overall not very helpful for PC's.

The NPC gear table is only intended for human NPC's (and NPC's of races with similar power to humans).

For other NPC's, you need to use the rules for gear listed under Add Class Levels under Monster Advancement:

A monster with class levels always possesses treasure equal to an NPC of a level equal to the monster's final CR (as calculated in Step 3, below). To determine the value of this gear, use the value listed for a heroic NPC of that level, as listed in Table NPC Gear. Once a total GP value is determined, follow the rules for outfitting an NPC as outlined in that section. Gear should help a monster with class levels remain challenging and retain statistics close to those presented on Table: Monster Statistics by CR.

Since a 4th-level NPC class kobold has CR 1, it should get the same gear as a 1st-level character, i.e. 390 gp worth of gear.

But, if PF was written without iteratives, would anyone miss them?

Yes. There are a few good reasons that iterative attacks were included in D&D 3.0 (and, by extension, Pathfinder). They solve three different problems:

1. The Damage Problem: Some mechanic is needed to significantly increase the damage that martial characters can do at higher levels.

2. The Mooks Problem: Some mechanic is needed to make it possible for high-level martial characters to kill multiple weak foes in a round.

3. The Attack Bonus Problem: Some mechanic is needed to make attack bonus continue to matter at higher levels, particularly in the case where your attack bonus is high enough that you automatically hit.

Getting multiple attacks solves the damage problem and the mooks problem, and having the attack bonus decrease for later attacks solves the attack bonus problem.

That being said, there's not really any good reason that iterative attacks were tied to full-round actions. I suppose the designers thought that it would be interesting for martial characters to have to choose each round between attacking at full strength and moving. It also gives an important advantage to archers, since archers can full attack every round without moving. But if you want to get rid of this and simply let characters pounce, it wouldn't particularly break the game. (Note: Be careful with giving monsters the pounce ability. This significantly increases the power of certain monsters.)

Looking at the Summon Nature's Ally list why are giants listed? What do they have to do with nature? They weren't on the 3.5e summon list, why did Paizo add them?

Summoning in general was buffed between 3.5e and Pathfinder. In 3.5e, the summon nature's ally list was much better than the summon monster list, but in Pathfinder most of the animals available in summon nature's ally are available at the same level for summon monster.

Since animals summoned using summon monster also get the celestial or fiendish template and summon monster can also be used to summon angels or demons, this leaves druids at a bit of a disadvantage. To compensate, they added some extra magical beasts and giants to the summon nature's ally lists.

Also, why are Druids capable of summoning elementals, fey, magical beasts, and animals but can't summon plants?

I'm not sure that there's any particular reason. Maybe they thought summoning a giant was just cooler than summoning a plant creature. Also, the giants are mostly used to fill in the higher-level lists (which were pretty short in 3.5e), and most plant creatures aren't powerful enough for the high-level lists.

So what stops someone giving themselves 1,000,000 HP and +20 to all saves at level 1 if nobody is reviewing the sheets?

Uh, a desire not to cheat?

If you're playing with people who would cheat at the game without GM oversight then you need to find a new group.

In my experience, the main problem with most "priest" homebrews is that the cleric spell list is just a bit too narrow for an exclusive caster, especially at low levels.

My suggestion would be to give a priest access to both cleric spells and spells on the shaman spell list. This rounds out the cleric spell list with a nice mix of attack and utility spells that have a divine theme.

I think it's very reasonable for a PC to take a feat for the purpose of increasing the character's wealth. For the most part, this is what item creation feats are for.

The question is how to balance it as a GM.

Assuming the player doesn't use the Leadership feat for any other purpose (i.e. to have a cohort), I think it would be very reasonable for the feat to improve the PC's wealth gain by 25% or so. That is, however much gold the PC makes from adventuring, they should earn about 25% extra from the thieves' guild. This is just for the PC who took the feat -- don't let the guild increase the party's wealth by 25%.

By the way, don't reveal this amount to the player. Handle everything in-game. Also, make sure to vary the amounts in an unpredictable way -- the player should never get the sense that this income is particularly reliable.

The leadership feat also grants a cohort, but my suggestion would be to make the cohort someone who's integral to the functioning of the thieves' guild. If the PC has the cohort accompany them on an adventure, the guild should be considerably less effective at making money during that time, e.g. something like a 10% income enhancement instead of 25%.

You also shouldn't let the PC simply hang around in town and make money from the guild, unless you feel like the PC is behind on wealth. If the PC tries to do this, just drop an adventure hook related to the guild, e.g. another guild is threatening to end the operations, or the guild gets in trouble with the law, or a powerful monster or NPC has sworn revenge on the guild. It should be something that basically shuts down the guild's moneymaking until the PC gets back into the game.

Vital strike is one of my favorite feats to use for monsters and NPC's, because it helps me accomplish my goals during combat.

One of a GM's primary goals during combat is to make the monsters seem as formidable as possible. Note that this is very different from making the monsters actually formidable -- you want the players to be scared of the monsters, but mechanically you don't want the monsters to really have any chance of winning the battle (unless it's a major boss fight).

The reason you want the monsters to seem scary, of course, is that it's fun for the players to be briefly worried about the battle. It makes the battle interesting, and it sweetens the victory the following round when they clobber the monsters to death. The game is always stacked in the PC's favor, so much so that most fights in Pathfinder aren't really that challenging, but as a GM one of your main goals is to provide the illusion of challenge.

Vital Strike fits right into this goal. It's something a monster can use during the first round of battle to do impressive damage on a single attack. This makes a monster seem scary right off the bat, and should make the players worried about what will happen if the monster gets to full attack the following round. It provides the illusion of challenge, which is exactly what a GM wants from most monsters.

As far as Power Attack goes, I wish that stat blocks for monsters with Power Attack just included the feat in the listed attack and damage. Most monsters with Power Attack should use it all the time, and it's really necessary for the monster to do a decent amount of damage. If you notice that a monster has Power Attack, just start using it.

Maybe you have a different list of feats than the rest of us. I won't argue overmuch with your assessment of Strength, but your Int assessment is way off.

The trouble with your argument is that "feat" isn't a standard unit of power, since some feats are good and some feats suck for a given character.

The standard unit of power should be "feat choice", i.e. the power of a bonus feat that a character would get to choose. You're giving a character 1 feat choice worth of power if the character would actually choose to take that power as a feat.

1 +1 to all spell DCs is 8 instances of Spell Focus. Which is an OK feat for those schools where it matters, mediocre for others.

This is a good example. You would need 8 instances of Spell Focus to get +1 to all save DC's, but it would be insane for any wizard to spend 8 feat choices on this power. Even if a flat +1 to save DC's were a possible feat, I don't think that many wizards would choose it, since specialist wizards nowadays don't tend to go for Spell Focus. Thus, a flat +1 to save DC's is worth at most 1 feat choice.

3 is 1/4 of Combat Casting but it applies to all concentration, not just in combat

That's true, but the difference is minor. Maybe #3 is worth more like 1/3 of a feat choice, since a flat +3 to concentration checks would be competitive with Combat Casting.

4 is 1/3 (or 1/6th) of Skill Focus for all 10 Knowledges, Spellcraft, Appraise, Linguistics and Craft, ie 14 skills. Sometimes that's good, sometimes it's junk.

Yeah, but nobody wants this. Skill Focus is a very weak feat in general, but especially for wizards. Most wizards would rather have an extra bonus feat than +5 to all Intelligence-based skill checks, so getting a +1 to all Intelligence-based skill checks is worth at most 20% of a bonus feat.

5 is 20 skill points over 20 levels, or 3 x Skill Focus. OTOH, Wizards aren't short of skill points, so this is essentially equivalent to Toughness. It's much better for a dwarf fighter.

I may be underestimating skills here, but my impression is that most wizards would rather have an extra bonus feat than an extra three skill points per level. So one extra skill point per skill level is worth at most 1/3 of a bonus feat.

Otherwise, you posit that +2 to a top stat is 2 feats and a trait, so +1 to a stat is 1 feat. Demonstrably false again, especially if the stat starts as an odd number, where it's as good as +2.

Right, but if a stat is already an even number, then +1 to the stat isn't worth anything. It balances out so that +1 to a stat is, on average, worth about half of +2 to a stat.

I stand by my claim that +1 to an ability score is worth about 1 bonus feat. In fact, I think it would be a reasonably balanced house rule to let characters choose a bonus feat in place of an ability score increase at the appropriate levels (4th, 8th, etc.), or to choose an ability score increase in place of a bonus feat at each odd-numbered level. Under this system, I think most barbarians would opt for feats, wizards would choose a mix of feats and Intelligence increases, and fighters would probably go for ability score increases.

My opinion is that many of the responses so far vastly overestimate the value of an ability score increase. As far as I can tell, for most characters, the following rule applies:

A +2 increase to your most important ability score is worth slightly less than 2 feat choices.

An important exception might be fighters, for whom feats are really a dime a dozen. But the rule seems to work fairly well for most other characters. As a consequence:

A +1 increase to an ability score is worth slightly less than a feat choice.

In particular, if the next Pathfinder supplement were to have six new feats, each of which granted +1 to an ability score, these wouldn't be "must-have" feats for most characters. In fact, I think they would be relatively unpopular for PC's, on par with Great Fortitude or Lightning Reflexes. They would be marked green in class guides, because they're obviously decent choices, but they would be slightly sub-optimal for most characters.

Note that I'm comparing ability score increases to feat choices, not feats. A top-of-the-line feat like Improved Initiative is about as powerful as a feat choice, but most feats are worth much less than a feat choice to most characters.

Here's an analysis for a few different types of characters:

Barbarian

The most important ability score for a barbarian is Strength. A +2 bonus to Strength has the following benefits:

1. +1 to all melee attack rolls
2. +1.5 to damage (assuming a two-handed weapon)
3. +1 on all Strength-based skill and ability checks, and a slight increase in carrying capacity

Let's analyze this:

#1 is really very comparable to Weapon Focus, which some barbarians take and some don't. So #1 is worth about 1 feat choice.

#2 is worth about 3/4 as much as Weapon Specialization. This feat isn't available to barbarians, but if it were it would be solid but not an obvious choice, so #2 is worth about 3/4 of a feat choice.

#3 is worth at most 10% of a feat choice. To see this, observe that a feat that doubles carrying capacity and adds +10 to all Strength-based skill and ability checks would be decent, but most barbarians probably wouldn't take it.

Adding this together, we see that +2 Strength is worth slightly less than 2 feat choices for most barbarians.

Wizard

The most important ability score for a wizard is Intelligence. A +2 bonus to Intelligence has the following benefits for a typical wizard:

1. +1 to spell save DC's
2. One extra low-level bonus spell
3. +1 to concentration checks
4. +1 to Intelligence-based skill checks
5. 1 extra skill point per level

Note that I'm assuming you don't get a high-level bonus spell from an intelligence increase. If you do, an intelligence bonus becomes much better.

So how much is all of this worth? Let's break it down:

#1 is worth somewhat less than a feat choice. If there were a feat that granted +1 to all spell save DC's, most wizards wouldn't find this worth taking, but a feat that granted +2 to all spell save DC's would be worth it for almost everybody. I estimate #1 to be worth about 75% of a feat choice.

#2 is worth hardly anything. Something like 15% of a feat choice.

#3 is worth maybe 25% of a feat choice, in the sense that a feat that granted +4 to concentration checks would be pretty good.

#4 is worth less than 20% of a feat choice. In my estimation, a feat that granted a +5 bonus to all Intelligence-based skill checks would actually be kind of weak, but some wizards would take it.

#5 is worth maybe 1/3 of a feat choice for a wizard. That is, if there were a feat that granted 3 extra skill points per level, I think that some wizards would take this feat, but not all.

Adding this up, a +2 to Intelligence is again worth slightly less than two feat choices for a wizard.

Conclusion

So my conclusion is that a +1 ability score increase is worth slightly less than a feat choice for most characters. I think it would be fairly balanced to offer a bonus feat in place of a +1 ability score increase, though this might lead to some slightly more powerful characters. So whatever "talents" you'd like to offer, they really shouldn't be more powerful than a single good feat.

I'd like to throw hordes of rampaging baboons against the players in my current game. Looking over the rules, the swarm subtype doesn't allow Small creatures, but the troop subtype seems to fulfill a similar role.

Some of the mechanics here are inspired by gibberlings from the Forgotten Realms.

My biggest question is whether CR 8 seems appropriate. The hit points are a little high, but the AC and damage are low, and a baboon horde doesn't have any magical abilities.

Screeching Baboon Horde (CR 8)
XP 4,800
N Small animal (troop)
Init +6; Senses low-light vision; Perception +17

DEFENSE

AC 15, touch 14, flat-footed 12 (+1 natural, +2 Dex, +1 dodge, +1 size)
hp 121 (22d8+22)
Fort +16, Ref +17, Will +10
Immune troop traits, mind-influencing effects
Weaknesses troop traits, fear of fire

OFFENSE

Speed 30 ft.
Melee troop (5d6 plus grab and trip)
Space 20 ft.; Reach 5 ft.
Special Attacks screech, grab (Gargantuan)

STATISTICS

Str 12, Dex 15, Con 12, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 5
Base Atk +16; CMB +16 (+20 grapple); CMD 28
Feats Alertness, Blind-Fight, Dodge, Great Fortitude, Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Mobility, Skill Focus (Climb, Perception, Acrobatics)
Skills Acrobatics +15, Climb +14, Perception +17

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Screech (Ex)

A horde of screeching baboons makes a tremendous cacophony of screams, wails, hoots, and other sounds. Any creature who can hear this noise automatically takes a –2 penalty on all concentration checks.

In addition, all creatures who hear the screaming must make a Will save (DC 18) or become shaken for as long as the noise continues. Creatures who make their Will save are immune to this effect for 24 hours. The save DC is Charisma-based.

Fear of Fire (Ex)

A horde of screeching baboons that takes damage from fire must make a Will save (DC 20) or cower for 1 round.

ECOLOGY

Environment warm forest
Organization solitary, mob (2–4), or frenzy (5–15)
Treasure none

Sometimes baboons will congregate into huge herds tearing across the landscape and devouring everything in their path. Baboons in such a horde work themselves into a frenzy, and attack any living creature they see. Only magic or a barrier of fire can stop the advance of a screeching baboon horde.

A single screeching baboon horde consists of 30-40 individual creatures, but they move and attack as a unit.

There is a chart that give bonuses to BAB, saves, and stats plus extra skills , special abilities and feats for each level. It is in the Druid section.

Here's the chart on the SRD.

Looking through the magic items, it seems like a bigger problem with 1000 gp/level is that at 9th level the witch would be able to summon a bane weapon of the appropriate type for basically every encounter. Not only is this probably too much extra damage for a 4th-level spell, but the barbarian almost wouldn't need an expensive weapon of his own anymore. Really, the biggest problem here is that having the witch summon a weapon for the barbarian every battle just comes off as kind of silly.

I'm not quite as concerned about the players bypassing DR, which would still be a problem at 500 gp/level. Giving players the ability to bypass virtually any DR isn't exactly game-wrecking -- only a small percentage of encounters involve significant DR, and I could either steer clear of those or send them against the party on purpose to make them feel powerful.

The quick casting spell seems to have more serious issues, and I'll need to think about how to rework this spell to be significantly more balanced while still retaining the flavor I want. (I haven't included the actual flavor I'll be using in either of the spell descriptions above, just the mechanics.)

Okay, I clearly have to rethink all of this.

Thanks for your comments! Looking it over again, I think I agree with you on decreasing the gp limit for summon item.

Quick Casting is borked. Its closest companion is Contingency, which is a 6th level spell. Contingency lasts longer, but Quick Casting is far more flexible. 6th is much more balanced spot for it than 4th.

That's a good comparison with contingency, but I'd rather not increase the level so much, since the PC's won't gain access to 6th-level spells for a while.

Do you think quick casting would be more balanced if I restricted it to 1st-level spells?

For campaign-specific reasons, I'm considering giving one of the PC's in my current game (an 8th-level witch) access to the following spells. The players in the campaign are very good optimizers, so if there's a way to break the game with these spells they'll find it.

My questions are:

1. Do the spell levels of these spells seem appropriate? I'd like for these spells to be powerful (i.e. top tier) for their levels, but not overpowered.

2. Will these spells break my game? That is, are they so good that I'll need to nerf them later to keep the game balanced?

Here are the spells:

Summon Item
Level: Witch 2
Casting Time: 1 round
Components: V, S, M
Duration: 1 round/level

This spell summons any one item (mundane or magical) with a value of up to 1000 gp/level. The item appears in your hand, and must be small and light enough for you to carry.

Though these are the only restrictions on the summoned item, the item must be in exactly the same condition when the spell expires as it was when it was summoned. Swords must be wiped clean of blood, shields must not be dented, and so forth. Consumable items cannot be consumed, no power with a limited number of uses per day may be used, and charged items must not have any charges expended. Failure to adhere to these guidelines will lead to [extremely negative campaign-specific consequences].

Quick Casting
Level: Witch 4
Casting Time: 1 round
Components: V, S, M
Range: personal
Target: you
Duration: 1 round/level

Once during the duration of this spell, you may cast any one spell you have memorized as a free action, even if it is not your turn. This spell must have a casting time of 1 round or less, and cannot be enhanced with any metamagic feats or other effects. A single spellcaster cannot make use of quick casting more than once in a 24-hour period.

Also, one great trick with a Saurian shaman is to take the Feather subdomain of the Animal domain. You get your animal companion anyway at level 4, and at the cost of one feat (Boon Companion) it's full-leveled, PLUS you get domain spells and a scaling boost to Perception, among other things. You'll have to go a couple levels without your spinosaurus, but they payoff is very much worth it.

Wow, that's cool! I couldn't take Boon Companion until 7th level (since Natural Spell is so important at 5th), but the whole Feather Domain is certainly better than my planned 7th-level feat.

It seems like the best thing would be to start with the build I have and then retrain around 7th level to use the Feather Domain. I'll have to ask my GM what he thinks about retraining!

The only thing I question is the 8 Int. I guess being human makes up for it somewhat, and you can use your FCB on skills, but even just 3 skill ranks/level is pretty rough if you want to participate outside of combat. I would personally drop Str to boost your Int for the skill ranks, but that's just my personal preference.

Thanks for the suggestion! Are there any skills in particular that you would recommend? I'd been planning to max Handle Animal, Knowledge (nature), Survival, and Perception, but I could get an extra one or two maxed skills by spending my FCB and/or decreasing my Strength to 15.

I'm playing a druid for the first time in a new campaign. We're starting at level 2 with a 19 point buy and 4300 gp, and we probably won't play past level 8 or 9.

The rest of the party is an oracle of life, a melee-focused investigator, and a TWF ranger. I really want to play a dinosaur-focused druid, and those seem to be best at melee, but I'm going for a hybrid approach since we don't otherwise have a controller. Please critique my build!

Note: The GM has a house rule that all PC's get a number of traits equal to 2 + Cha modifier, which means Charisma doesn't make a good dump stat. Just about anything "loose core" (CRB, APG, ARG, UC, UM, UE, ACG, all bestiaries) is allowed, except for certain restrictions on arcane magic.

Druid Build

Human druid 2 (saurian shaman)
Str 16, Dex 12, Con 14, Int 8, Wis 15 (+1 at 4th level), Cha 12

Feats: Spell Focus (conjuration), Augment Summoning, Power Attack (3rd), Natural Spell (5th), Superior Summoning (7th)

Traits: Dirty Fighter (+1 damage when flanking), Reactionary (+2 initiative), Missionary (+1 DC/CL for euphoric cloud, aqueous orb, slowing mud)

Animal Companion: Spinosaurus with Light Armor Proficiency & Power Attack

Gear: Horn lamellar armor (dragonhide is disallowed), masterwork scythe, chain shirt barding for spinosaurus, cloak of resistance +1, Dire Collar, Armbands of the Brawler, various mundane items, alchemical items, and scrolls

The spinosaurus is a melee beast at 2nd level with 1d4+5 claws/1d6+5 bite (including Power Attack), and the dire collar ups this to 1d6+6 claws/1d8+6 bite when active. I figure in most battles I'll cast for a round or two (including activating the dire collar or my totem transformation) and then wade into melee.

Yeah, looking at the stats for this thing, it seems it was actually a little smaller than allosaurus, so maybe the thing to do is to scale down the bite damage, the hit dice, and the challenge rating.

Carnotaurus (CR 5)

XP 3200
N Huge animal
Init +5; Senses low-light vision, scent; Perception +24

DEFENSE
AC 19, touch 9, flat-footed 18 (+1 Dex, +10 natural, –2 size)
hp 67 (9d8+27)
Fort +9, Ref +7, Will +7

OFFENSE
Speed 50 ft.
Melee bite +10 (2d8+9 plus grab) or slam + 10 (1d8+9)
Space 15 ft.; Reach 15 ft.
Special Attacks rushing charge

STATISTICS
Str 22, Dex 13, Con 17, Int 2, Wis 15, Cha 10
Base Atk +6; CMB +15; CMD 26
Feats Alertness, Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Nimble Moves, Run
Skills Perception +24; Racial Modifiers +8 Perception

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Rushing Charge (Ex)
When a carnotaurus hits a target with its slam attack at the end of a charge, it can initiate a bull rush as a free action to move the struck target back in the same direction as the dinosaur's charge.

ECOLOGY
Environment warm forests and plains
Organization solitary, pair, or pack (3–6)
Treasure none

I gave it 2d8 base damage on its bite (one higher than is typical for a huge monster -- the tyrannosaurus is the same way) but lowered its Strength to 22 because of the weak jaw. I also took away the rake attacks. The attack and damage are now pretty much in line with the monster creation guidelines for a CR 5 creature, and the hit points are slightly higher, which seems to be typical for dinosaurs.

You also mention that its bites caused bleeding, but was there anything special about its bites or teeth that caused its opponents to bleed more than usual? Some monsters in Pathfinder do bleed damage, but it seems to be pretty rare for normal animals.

This is an interesting dinosaur -- it's like a smaller tyrannosaurus, but it had a small pair of horns on top of its head that may have helped to absorb the shock of head-butting opponents.

Here's my take. It's mostly a variation on an allosaurus, with a bigger bite attack and an ability to head butt.

Carnotaurus (CR 7)

XP 3200
N Huge animal
Init +5; Senses low-light vision, scent; Perception +28

DEFENSE
AC 19, touch 9, flat-footed 18 (+1 Dex, +10 natural, –2 size)
hp 93 (11d8+44)
Fort +11, Ref +8, Will +7

OFFENSE
Speed 50 ft.
Melee bite +16 (2d8+15/19–20 plus grab) or slam + 16 (1d8+15)
Space 15 ft.; Reach 15 ft.
Special Attacks rushing charge, rake (2 talons +16, 1d8+10)

STATISTICS
Str 30, Dex 13, Con 19, Int 2, Wis 15, Cha 10
Base Atk +8; CMB +20; CMD 31
Feats Alertness, Improved Critical (bite), Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Nimble Moves, Run
Skills Perception +28; Racial Modifiers +8 Perception

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Rushing Charge (Ex)
When a carnotaurus hits a target with its slam attack at the end of a charge, it can initiate a bull rush as a free action to move the struck target back in the same direction as the dinosaur's charge.

ECOLOGY
Environment warm forests and plains
Organization solitary, pair, or pack (3–6)
Treasure none

The Pathfinder fly rules work pretty well for winged creatures, but the fly spell is essentially unplayable as written. Instead of reverting to the 3.5 rules, just modify the spell description for fly:

The subject can fly at a speed of 60 feet (or 40 feet if it wears medium or heavy armor, or if it carries a medium or heavy load). It can ascend at half speed and descend at double speed, and its maneuverability is good.

Using a fly spell requires only as much concentration as walking, so the subject can attack or cast spells normally. The subject of a fly spell can charge but not run, and it cannot carry aloft more weight than its maximum load, plus any armor it wears. The subject gains a bonus on Fly skill checks equal to 1/2 your caster level.

A subject of the fly spell can hover as a free action without making a Fly check, and is subject to an ongoing feather fall effect for the duration of the spell. The subject can ascend at any angle (including straight up) at half speed without making a Fly check.

Should the spell duration expire while the subject is still aloft, the magic fails slowly. The subject floats downward 60 feet per round for 1d6 rounds. If it reaches the ground in that amount of time, it lands safely. If not, it falls the rest of the distance, taking 1d6 points of damage per 10 feet of fall. Since dispelling a spell effectively ends it, the subject also descends safely in this way if the fly spell is dispelled, but not if it is negated by an antimagic field.

I would suggest similar rules for all monsters that use a magical form of flight (e.g. anything with a fly speed but no wings).

It seems to me that the Mythic Fighter vs. Wizard thread contained the kernel of a good idea, but was derailed by the "who would win in a fight" focus.

My question is: As a campaign approaches high levels, would it make sense for a GM to give martial characters (and only martial characters) mythic tiers?

The goal would be to mitigate the caster/non-caster discrepancy that shows up in high levels, where the fighter in the party sometimes feels like they aren't contributing relative to the wizard or the cleric. Perhaps if, say, the fighter was getting roughly one mythic tier per level starting at 11th level, it would help them to keep up.

This came up in my current campaign. Near the beginning of the campaign, all of the PC's were transported to another plane, where things work somewhat differently (different humanoid races are common, all dwarves are duergar, etc.). Two of the PC's had Knowledge (local), so it became an issue whether they had any knowledge of the local plane.

What happened is that I initially suspended the effectiveness of that skill -- every answer was along the lines of "Well, they way it works back home is . . ." But after two sessions or so, I provided an opportunity for those PC's to have a long conversation with a local trader named Tamok who was wise in the ways of the world. At that point, I declared that they could now use their Knowledge (local) skill to recall information about the current world, although I always try to remind them of the source of their knowledge. ("Well, you remember Tamok mentioning that . . .")

As their skill bonuses continue to increase, I assume that those PC's are having background conversations with various other NPC's that they meet. When (and if) the PC's make it back to their world of origin, I will probably nerf their skill again temporarily until they can consult with local sources.

So I suppose the point is that I treat Knowledge (local) as the skill of *being able to find out* things about the local area. It stops working temporarily when you move to a new place, but all you need is a little time to chat with the locals to bring your skill up to par.

I'd say my main rule is:

Figure out what kind of campaign your players want to play, and provide it.

There are many different ways to play Pathfinder, and the only way to be a good DM is to figure out what kind of game your players want to play. Are they looking for a "beer & pretzels" game? Immersive storytelling? Character-driven improvisation? Interesting tactical combats? High adventure? Comedy? Horror?

99% of the time that a game doesn't work it's because the players and the DM aren't on the same page. For example, a DM will try to play a city-based campaign based on interactions with NPC's, when the players really just want a hack-and-slash dungeon crawl. Or the DM will run a lighthearted campaign when the players would respond better to something dark and epic.

Along these lines, you might want to take a look at The Same Page Tool.

I agree that it's not a very powerful spell, but frankly that's how 90% of the spells in the game are. It's part of what's fun about the game to figure out which spells are good and which spells aren't so good.

I don't think the change that you suggest would be game-breaking, but it would make Arcane Disruption a fairly strong 2nd-level spell. A DM could make the change you suggest, but I don't see any particular reason to improve this spell instead of one of the many other weak 2nd-level spells.

LN duregar are as rare as good drow.

That hasn't been my impression. I don't know much about Golarion's deurgar, but in Faerûn non-evil duergar are reasonably common. The 3.5 Underdark supplement has the following to say on the alignment of duergar:

Most gray dwarves are evil, placing little value on the lives and property of others. They are consumed by envy of anyone better off than themselves, and they display not a trace of pity for those who are not as fortunate. A fair number of duergar, wanting nothing more than to be left alone, lean toward hardhearted neutrality, but few ever become truly good.

Later in the same supplement, the descriptions of the duergar cities of Drik Hargunen and Gracklstugh and the town of Fraaszummdin include several non-evil duergar NPC's. Of the nine listed NPC for these locations, two of them are LN, and one is N.