xman720's page

I have a homebrew which attempts to address 3 issues some players have with pathfinder. I like the rules how they are now, and don't have interest in changing them in my own games, but I do think the gripes have some legitimacy, find this fun to think about, and wanted to give an option for people to try if they like.

Problem 1: Slowed/stunned is too powerful. That is, the slow spell is an optimal choice in too many situations and too many combat decisions flows from whether or not the slow spell procs.

Problem 2: There is no mechanical difference between slowed and stunned.

Problem 3: Slowed and stunned don't stack. This doesn't come up a lot but can happen with monks for example, who might score a stunning strike on a critical hit which can leave an opponent both slowed and stunned, but nothing mechanical to show for it.

My proposed homebrew involves nerfing the slowed and stunned conditions in different ways in order to differentiate them, in a way so that being afflicted by both also causes a unique worse effect.

Homebrew slow
Slowed 1: Your body is slowed down by magical or biological means, preventing you from doing too many things. Every activity beyond the first activity on your turn takes one additional action. (This is identical to slowed 1, except the target can still dedicate their turn to a 3 action activity).
Slowed 2: Identical.
Homebrew stunned
Stunned 1: Your mind is faltering and you can't focus. Any activity which takes two or more actions takes an additional action. You recover at the end of your turn. (This is identical to stunned 1, except the target can take 3 single-action activities on their turn.)
Stunned 2+: Identical

There may be some obscure rules interaction problems with stunned 1 recovering at the end of your turn instead of when you regain actions as it happens right now (like being stunned during your turn by a reactive strike?)... but I think the rules as intended is clear. As a result of these rules, homebrew slowed 1 + stunned 1 then means the target cannot take 3 single actions due to slow and cannot take a 3 action activity due to stunned. So the target effectively has 2 actions, same as slowed or stunned now.

Another rules interaction is quickened. I would have these things not affect the quickened action or consume the quickened action, for both simplicity and to maintain the power of being quickened.

This makes slowed and stunned much less universally good-maybe too weak. But if you or your table are frustrated by how powerful the effects are maybe you could have fun with this.

Currently, zombies are permanently slowed 1, making them lose an action at the start of their turns. Combined with the minion trait, this means summoning zombies as minions makes them only gain one action when you command them. Paizo has confirmed this is the correct interpretation of these rules interactions and says that one action zombie summons is RAW.

First, I want to say that I think running it this way as a DM totally makes sense and I support Paizo for making this call. If the choice is between giving zombie summons one actions or two actions, giving them one action is better as they are still useful in some situations but not overpowered like they would be if they got their two actions as normal. So this homebrew is not made out of frustration or as a "fix" for something "broken", but just as an alternative if you want to get more power from zombie summons in a way that changes the rules a bit.

The homebrew consists of two changes:
- Instead of slow all zombies get that rule replaced with zombie slowness which states: Zombies cannot use reactions and the first activity they do on their turn takes an additional action, if available. (So the first activity a zombie does on its turn can either be a 3-action activity, or if it's a 1-action or 2-action activity, it takes an additional action. This rule can be stated more robustly to account for more edge cases but I think this statements gets the intention across.)
- All zombies get a 2-action activity called zombie shamble, which let's them stride and then strike or strike and then stride.

With these two changes, let's examine the difference between RAW zombies and homebrew zombies in each case.

Standard circumstances
This is identical. Any zombie that acts uses at least one activity, which means it loses one action to zombie slowness, which is identical to being slowed 1. The only difference is homebrew zombies can use a 3-action activity wherewas RAW zombies can't. But since no zombie has been written with a 3-action activity, nothing changes.

Slowed 1
Homebrew zombies are weaker. RAW zombies ignored slowed 1. Homebrew zombies which are slowed 1 effectively have one action. However, they can also do a single two-action activity. This means a slowed 1 zombie dragon can still use its breath weapon, and every zombie can still zombie shamble to stride and then strike, but it can't stride-stride or strike-strike

Slowed 2
This is identical. RAW zombies and homebrew zombies are both limited to a single action.

As a minion
Homebrew zombies are stronger. RAW zombies can only take one action. Homebrew zombies effectively get one action, but also could do a two-action activity, so a zombie dragon can use its breath-weapon and all zombies can zombie shamble to stride and strike.

As a slowed 1 minion
This is identical. Homebrew and RAW zombies both get a single action.

Quickened
Personally I would run this simple so that the quickened action can't contribute to any other activity and can never be taken away by zombie slowness. If you do that then nothing changes between the homebrew and RAW. If you allow the quickened action to be eaten up by zombie slowness things get more complicated.

In my opinion, this is a way to make zombie summons a bit stronger and makes slowing zombies work which I think is nice. But this is acknowledges that zombies tend to have more health and damage compared to creatures of equal level to compensate for the two actions making them pretty strong as two-action summons.

I am a GM. I love how well pathfinder runs solo bosses, but my favorite video game boss of all time is Ornstein and Smough from Dark Souls.

What are your favorite combinations of two creatures to serve as a good boss fight?

I'm especially looking for synergy, fun, clear weaknesses to exploit, and strong aesthetic/themes. But even just "This creature has an ability that synergies in an evil way with this creature's ability" motivates the imagination!

Like Ornstein and Smough, I would prefer two creatures that work as a duo, not just a boss with a synergetic sidekick (neither Ornstein nor Smough are the sidekick).

It's hard for me to put stuff together just by browsing AoN so I thought pathfinder vets might have some ideas.