the secret fire's page

Here it is:

First, base Will save on the highest of the bonuses between Int, Wis and Cha.

Next, assign bonus skill ranks/level on the following formula:

Int: bonus skill ranks in Int-based skills only
Wis: bonus skill ranks in Wis-based skills only
Cha: bonus skill ranks in Cha-based skills only
Dex: bonus skill ranks in Dex-based skills only
Str: bonus skill ranks in Str-based skills, as well as Acrobatics, Intimidate, and Ride

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What does this accomplish?

1) it gives the PCs more skill ranks, overall, which I think is generally a good thing. Low-Int PCs (especially Fighters and Sorcerers) often feel shockingly incompetent going by standard rules.

2) it advantages martial classes in terms of Will saves, giving them more freedom to seek out maybe a high Int or Cha score for flavor (or other) reasons without having to grind their teeth and worry so much about being dominated AGAIN.

3) it gets rid of the "my Wizard is a better swimmer/climber/rider/etc. than your fighter" scenario, which I think almost everyone agrees is silly. The classes end up being pretty much automatically good at what they're supposed to be good at, with some number of skill ranks to spread around on other stuff.

4) it helps MAD classes somewhat, and they generally needed help.

5) it makes Int, Wis and Cha all of roughly equal value, as opposed to the current situation where Cha is so often an absolute dump stat, even when the player doesn't really want to play another smelly curmudgeon.

6) It makes Con slightly weaker relative to the other stats, which is probably a good thing because Con is probably the "strongest" stat, overall, in the game.

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I think this is a pretty good idea and will probably try it with my tabletop group. What do you all think? Are there any major problems with this that I am overlooking (besides the fact that Str has nothing much to do with riding a horse)?

So I'm curious how the community views stat generation in Pathfinder. I still hear the phrase "roll up a character" pretty often, but I get the impression that in many cases the only thing being rolled is hit points. Perhaps I am wrong about that. It seems to me that there are two poles to stat generation, and frankly, I don't care for either one of them.

Dice Rolling:

There are various flavors of this. True old school stat generation was straight 3d6, which could feel terribly un-heroic, could grossly restrict class choices for the players, and could lead to huge power imbalances within the party. More generous dice rolling methods can make the PCs feel more heroic and reduce imbalances, but none of them guarantee that a character's stats will match up with player class preference. I see this as a problem.

Point Buy:

On the other end, we have straight point buy systems, which I gather are quite common these days. These have the virtue of engendering player freedom and achieving intra-party balance. The problems in this case arise from the powerful temptation to optimize, which is well illustrated in the various class guides floating around out there in the internets. Wanting a Wizard with an 18 INT is normal...everybody wants their PC to feel special, at least at his particular schtick. Constantly building Wizards with an 18 INT, plus CON and DEX as secondary stats and everything else dumped is, in my opinion, crap. Pure point buy leads, in my experience, to cookie-cutter uniformity among the PCs, and sucks a good deal of the flavor out of the game. Simply put, the PCs cease feeling like individuals.

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For my part, I started with the dice-rolling methods of OD&D, and was thrilled when point buy alternatives came out because I feel straight dice rolling is a poor method. Then I played exclusively point buy systems for a good while before getting frustrated with that, as well, for the reasons mentioned above. For about the last four years, I've been using a sort of mélange of the two which I find satisfies the need for player preference while avoiding the pitfalls of assembly-line optimization.

My players get the following options at character creation:

1) 18 in a single stat (before racial adjustment), and everything else 3d6, in order (8 minimum before racial adjustment)

2) 16 in two stats (before racial adjustment), and everything else 3d6, in order (8 minimum before racial adjustment)

3) 14 in three stats (before racial adjustment), and everything else 3d6, in order (8 minimum before racial adjustment)

4) Full stat line generated with 4D6, drop lowest, in order (8 minimum before racial adjustment)

This has led to some very interesting and diverse characters in my games - the clumsy but incredibly charming wizard, the wise rogue, the whip-smart fighter, etc. without putting the players in a straightjacket of limited choice. All-in-all, I'm quite happy with how the system works.

*side note: I always just assign max HP at every level, for PCs and monsters. I find that it cuts down on rocket tag.*

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So, two questions now:

- What method do you typically use to generate stats in your games?

- How would you like to play in a game that uses the above method of stat generation?

So I've gone through the list of new arcane spells in the ACG (sorry, haven't done the divine ones yet). My initial impressions about the ones that I would actually use:

- Heightened Awareness: hell of a 1st level spell. Strictly better than Anticipate Peril whilst fishing for an initiative bonus because of the 10 min/level duration and the fact that the +4 comes online at 1st level. The fact that it gives a +2 bonus to Perception and all Knowledge skills is just gravy. Great spell, and almost certainly the 1st level memorization of every Diviner from now until eternity.

- Molten Orb: stupidly useful in the hands of a magician specializing in Dazing Spell shenanigans. Otherwise, meh...but a dazing molten orb is teh win!!1! It's that Reflex half (not Reflex negates) and the additional damage in following rounds (because I know munchkins will argue that this forces enemies to make multiple saves vs the dazing effect...I just know they will) that will make this spell a staple of the Dazed and Confused Mage. Bah!

- Wall of Blindness/Deafness: Ignore the deafness option as it would only be viable in very rare cases. As a straight Wall of Blindness, this spell is awesome. Excellent size and flexibility (same size as Wall of Fire - also offering ring mode) and translucent, so your party can exchange ranged fire through it with the enemy, which is almost always advantageous, in my experience.

This will end up being one of the premier battlefield control spells for holding off/separating mooks who are susceptible to the blindness effect (which is most of them), rather than a pure defensive spell like the other beloved 4th level wall spell, the "of ice" variant. It targets Fort, which is less than ideal, but will still get a good chunk of the mooks, and permanent blindness is a terrific effect, even better than death because blind mooks can be rounded up and interrogated after the fight.

Better yet (for the necromancer, at least), undead are immune to effects which target Fort, so if you've got a small army of undead minions shambling along in front of you, they can ignore the wall completely and just go about their business. For non-necromancers, it's a bit trickier to summon pets immune to the effect. Oozes and constructs are immune, but they aren't exactly easy to summon, and creatures with blindsight (which includes oozes) are immune, but they're also uncommon. Summon Black Pudding (6th level spell) will do the trick as the pudding has blindsight. Jeez...that's an awful combination, actually. I shall have to use it against my PCs soon. You could also take the feat Summon Neutral Monster (which is pretty good on its own merits) in order to be able to summon Proteans (nasty, awful things) which heal the blindness effect in a single round.

tl;dr - strong battlefield control spell with some really interesting synergy possibilities involving pets.

Contingent Action: rape the action economy for the cost of a 2nd level spell. Cast this on your archer on the condition "any spellcaster other than me and x, y cast a spell within 100' of you" and the effect "fire an arrow into his ass" as a sort of aggressive dispel magic. Loads of possibilities and loads of win.

Contingent Scroll: more expensive, but still tons of fun if you're not a miser. Off the top of my head, a contingent scroll of Mirror Image would cost you 250 gold plus a 4th level spell to scribe and then cast, and would essentially reproduce the effects of Greater Mirror Image, one of 3.5's most broken spells, at a GP cost...and better yet, the contingent effect won't cost you your immediate action...it just happens automatically.

Is a "ha-ha, you can't hit me" button in a big fight worth 250 GP? Yeah, probably. You could do the same thing with resist energy for the same price, and I believe you'd get to pick the energy type when the scroll went off (since the scroll effect hasn't really been "cast" yet when the spell is cast). Tons of potential and again, win.