Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Pathfinder Unchained (OGL)

Another question which comes up with the whole "you only get one skill point per two points of intelligence" is "how do we handly headbands of vast intelligence"? They normally have one maxed out skill associated them per +2 INT. Since you can't know when that +2 is going to get a full +4 on the character, I guess the solution would be to associate a skill only tentatively, in the vein of "If this enhancement bonus raises the intelligence of the character so that the he is entitled to another skill point, the character gets the full ranks for his level for skill X"?

Well, let me add to the 2K plus posts here with my own :-)

I just picked up the PDF (like it enough I may get the hardback), but I already see in just the first few pages one thing I like (and was already using): The change to how the hit point bonus for Barbarians is applied (never liked the 'base' system, where it typically meant the barbarian would instantly die after combat unless a healer was directly on hand).

Think I'm going to like this book, and since I'm between campaigns at the moment, I can now carefully pick and choose what I want to use for any new campaign I may run in the future ^_^

The Uncanny Dodge class feature now does different things, depending upon which class it comes from. To wit:

Unchained Barbarian: "Uncanny Dodge (Ex): At 2nd level, a barbarian gains the ability to react to danger before her senses would normally allow her to do so. She cannot be caught flat-footed, nor does she lose her Dexterity bonus to AC if immobilized."

vs.

Unchained Rogue: "Uncanny Dodge (Ex): At 4th level, a rogue can react to danger before her senses would normally allow her to do so. She cannot be caught flat-footed, nor does she lose her Dexterity bonus to AC if the attacker is invisible. She still loses her Dexterity bonus to AC if immobilized."

(In both cases: the Feint action can by-pass the Dex bonus to AC and two different sources of Uncanny Dodge combine to become Improved Uncanny Dodge.)

... So, an Unchained Barbarian 2+ keeps her Dex bonus to AC even if subjected to Hold Person, while an Unchained Rogue 4+ keeps her Dex bonus to AC even if attacked by an invisible foe.

Was this difference intended?

What happens if a character is Barbarian 2/Rogue 4 ... does she get to keep her Dex bonus to AC both when immobilised and when attacked by an invisible foe, as well as count as having Improved Uncanny Dodge?

... It looks as though we now have to keep track of "Barbarian Dodge" and "Rogue Dodge", as they do different things by RAW.

Has anyone figured out which, if any, existing archetypes will work with the unchained versions of the classes? I'm considering an underfoot adept / manoeuvre master for a potential upcoming giantslayer game, and I'm curious if I can do that with the unchained monk.

The default assumption for Monk is that previous archetypes do not work. House ruling would be required, so talk to your GM.

I've had to house rule for one of my player's choosing to switch over to Unchained Monk but have his Drunken Master still be viable. We had to switch around when the Drunken Master abilities would kick in and what Ki powers they replaced.

ZanThrax wrote:

Has anyone figured out which, if any, existing archetypes will work with the unchained versions of the classes? I'm considering an underfoot adept / manoeuvre master for a potential upcoming giantslayer game, and I'm curious if I can do that with the unchained monk.

The default assumption for Monk is that previous archetypes do not work. House ruling would be required, so talk to your GM.

The Monk is the most radically altered of all of the UnChained! classes right down to it's base chassis. I can't think of any of the archetypes that would work with this new incarnation.

LORE Skill
Not a fan of this ruling

If Lore involves a common, broad category of race or monster, it needs to be more specific. Lore (elves) would be too broad, as would Lore (dragons).

I always thought it was extremely silly that, for my Fighter (as an example) to be knowledgeable about the Dragons he is hunting, he had to take ranks in Knowledge (arcana) and be exposed to knowing things about magical beasts, constructs, arcane crap etc.

Which is not something I care for my Fighter to have knowledge of at all.

The Lore skill is a wonderful addition but this ruling above is ruining what it should have been intended to do. I want my Fighter to have Lore (Dragons), not Lore (Green Dragon), Lore (Red Dragon), etc. That is too extreme. (Just like how extreme it was on the other end by taking Arcana ranks)

Wow! Lots of really interesting ideas in here.

I just realized last night that androids make perfectly decent Unchained barbarians.

LORE Skill

Not a fan of this ruling

If Lore involves a common, broad category of race or monster, it needs to be more specific. Lore (elves) would be too broad, as would Lore (dragons).

I always thought it was extremely silly that, for my Fighter (as an example) to be knowledgeable about the Dragons he is hunting, he had to take ranks in Knowledge (arcana) and be exposed to knowing things about magical beasts, constructs, arcane crap etc.

Which is not something I care for my Fighter to have knowledge of at all.

The Lore skill is a wonderful addition but this ruling above is ruining what it should have been intended to do. I want my Fighter to have Lore (Dragons), not Lore (Green Dragon), Lore (Red Dragon), etc. That is too extreme. (Just like how extreme it was on the other end by taking Arcana ranks)

I would allow, say, Lore (Chromatic Dragons). There are a lot of types of dragons, so narrowing it down to their category seems fair. Red vs. green would be too specific, though, I agree.

Joe M. wrote:

ZanThrax wrote:

Has anyone figured out which, if any, existing archetypes will work with the unchained versions of the classes? I'm considering an underfoot adept / manoeuvre master for a potential upcoming giantslayer game, and I'm curious if I can do that with the unchained monk.

The default assumption for Monk is that previous archetypes do not work. House ruling would be required, so talk to your GM.

The Monk is the most radically altered of all of the UnChained! classes right down to it's base chassis. I can't think of any of the archetypes that would work with this new incarnation.

There are a few that could work, if you allow the swap of "ability that is now a ki power that was normally gained at level X" in place of the ki power for that level. The Human Wanderer archetype just swaps out Still Mind and 4 things that are now Ki Powers, so I could see it as pretty easy to house rule for.

Joe M. wrote:

ZanThrax wrote:

Has anyone figured out which, if any, existing archetypes will work with the unchained versions of the classes? I'm considering an underfoot adept / manoeuvre master for a potential upcoming giantslayer game, and I'm curious if I can do that with the unchained monk.

The default assumption for Monk is that previous archetypes do not work. House ruling would be required, so talk to your GM.

The Monk is the most radically altered of all of the UnChained! classes right down to it's base chassis. I can't think of any of the archetypes that would work with this new incarnation.

While this may be true, it is worth mentioning that the opening of the classes chapter states that the revised classes don't necessarily need to subsume the existing classes. For example, if somebody wanted to play the standard barbarian instead of the Unchained version, they could if their GM allowed it.

With that in mind, it seems that a game could feature two types of monks - the standard monk that can be used with archetypes and the Unchained monk for those who don't want to use an archetype.

Empty Body (Su): A monk with this ki power gains the
ability to assume an ethereal state for 1 minute as though
using the spell etherealness, using his monk level as his caster
level. Using this ability is a move action that consumes
3 points from the monk’s ki pool. This ability affects only the
monk and cannot be used to make other creatures ethereal.

No minimum level or prerequisites?

Quote:

Empty Body (Su): A monk with this ki power gains the
ability to assume an ethereal state for 1 minute as though
using the spell etherealness, using his monk level as his caster
level. Using this ability is a move action that consumes
3 points from the monk’s ki pool. This ability affects only the
monk and cannot be used to make other creatures ethereal.

No minimum level or prerequisites?

This was mentioned earlier. Jason has confirmed its supposed to be 18.

I'm not sure about the monk only having one stock use for ki points at 3rd level, and it is only usable when taking a full attack action to flurry. This leaves the ki pool feeling way boring at first. Also it seems like the majority of the ki powers require the monk to be high level -- I guess the quiggong powers fill in more space here, but at first blush it seems like all of the really interesting stuff is level 10+.

The monk LOOKS a lot better, and the new options are an improvement, but I think there might have been some erring on the side of caution with the power curve. The body is more aerodynamic, and the engine is newer, but I feel like the horsepower is going to be overall the same. Time will tell.

The rogue looks amazing and I can't wait to see it in action. Debilitating Injury is so elegant in its design that I literally can't unfixate on how awesome it is to critique the rest of the class. The Dex to damage is neither here nor there for me.

The VMC rules are underwhelming to me, but it is interesting that they thought about how it would interact with regular multiclassing. I expect some surprise builds from this section, though.

I'm going to get a hardcopy of this at the FLGS (SUPPORT LOCAL BUSINESSES!) because for practical purposes you just can't beat the actual product, and I will prefer using it for testing out some of the monster building stuff. Can't be bothered to try it with the digital copy, too much scrolling and loading and whatnot.

How about a book like this but less crunch and more fluff? Wouldn't have to be a hardcover, but something that supplies ideas for re-skinning monster stat blocks, re-skinning class mechanics, environment design and atmosphere, etc. That would be awesome for players and DMs who want to spice things up without adding new rules.

Ok, repost: simplified spelcasting: in the example it seems that the necro 13th with 26 int has 5+2 spell slots in total for casting spells of 4th lev or lower, but in the spontaneous casters paragraph: "Though spontaneous casters can use this system, they gain relatively little, since they already don’t need to select which spells to prepare in advance, and their spell slots are comparable in number to those they would have if they used a spell pool".... ehm. ... WTHF? How in the world a, let's say, 30 cha 20th sorc that have something like 30-35 slots from 1st to 6th level could gain about the same number of slots if he gain just 7 slots?

Inner Sea Combat rogue talents are also not eligible for the unchained rogue, right?

I read most of the thread and I don't recall seeing any real mentions of the new disease and poisons.

I just want to say that these things nasty, terrifying, and dear god I can't to use them as either a DM or a player. I mean, Dex poisons are now a rogues best friend! Mental poisons can totally shut a caster down and with their fort saves it's not even hard.

And then there's the Pernicious Poison spell. Oh dear god the Pernicious Poison spell... god forbid you have a mythic game with it's mythic variant.

But I have a question. Is there any class feature or spell that can force diseases along faster besides the Drakainia's gestation aura? Because maaaan do I wanna take advantage of some of these.

I read most of the thread and I don't recall seeing any real mentions of the new disease and poisons.

I just want to say that these things nasty, terrifying, and dear god I can't to use them as either a DM or a player. I mean, Dex poisons are now a rogues best friend! Mental poisons can totally shut a caster down and with their fort saves it's not even hard.

And then there's the Pernicious Poison spell. Oh dear god the Pernicious Poison spell... god forbid you have a mythic game with it's mythic variant.

But I have a question. Is there any class feature or spell that can force diseases along faster besides the Drakainia's gestation aura? Because maaaan do I wanna take advantage of some of these.

As the designer of the disease and poison variant system, I highly support the use of leukodaemons...all the leukodaemons. Available now with your friendly planar binding/ally. Go get 'em Myrryr!

Myrryr wrote:

I read most of the thread and I don't recall seeing any real mentions of the new disease and poisons.

I just want to say that these things nasty, terrifying, and dear god I can't to use them as either a DM or a player. I mean, Dex poisons are now a rogues best friend! Mental poisons can totally shut a caster down and with their fort saves it's not even hard.

And then there's the Pernicious Poison spell. Oh dear god the Pernicious Poison spell... god forbid you have a mythic game with it's mythic variant.

But I have a question. Is there any class feature or spell that can force diseases along faster besides the Drakainia's gestation aura? Because maaaan do I wanna take advantage of some of these.

As the designer of the disease and poison variant system, I highly support the use of leukodaemons...all the leukodaemons. Available now with your friendly planar binding/ally. Go get 'em Myrryr!

Yeah the poison system is really awesome. Didn´t fully chew it through yet, but i think i will definately use that one as well as diseases in my home campaigns. Also writing a blog post in german about it soon, since i was asked to^^

Has anyone figured out which, if any, existing archetypes will work with the unchained versions of the classes? I'm considering an underfoot adept / manoeuvre master for a potential upcoming giantslayer game, and I'm curious if I can do that with the unchained monk.

According to Alexander Augunas, the only archetypes that work without modification for the unchained monk are the Master of Many Styles and the Sensei, since the unchained monk does not modify or replace any of the class features that are modified or replaced in those archetypes. For all other archetypes, more work is needed -- see Everyman Unchained: Monk Archetypes for Alex's take on the needed work.

Myrryr wrote:

I read most of the thread and I don't recall seeing any real mentions of the new disease and poisons.

I just want to say that these things nasty, terrifying, and dear god I can't to use them as either a DM or a player. I mean, Dex poisons are now a rogues best friend! Mental poisons can totally shut a caster down and with their fort saves it's not even hard.

And then there's the Pernicious Poison spell. Oh dear god the Pernicious Poison spell... god forbid you have a mythic game with it's mythic variant.

But I have a question. Is there any class feature or spell that can force diseases along faster besides the Drakainia's gestation aura? Because maaaan do I wanna take advantage of some of these.

As the designer of the disease and poison variant system, I highly support the use of leukodaemons...all the leukodaemons. Available now with your friendly planar binding/ally. Go get 'em Myrryr!

Luekodaemons, Pairaka, ratfolk plague bringers, and then anti-paladins... oooh, anti-paladin of Apollyon... Hey Mark, there needs to be an anti-paladin disease and/or poison archetype that can make diseases 'tick' faster. Should do that. Urgathoa, Apollyon, like 10 demon lords... they'd love ya for it.

As it is, diseases are still solidly DM only because PC's just kill their targets, they don't wait days except in the odd plague evil campaign.

Mark Seifter wrote:

Myrryr wrote:

I read most of the thread and I don't recall seeing any real mentions of the new disease and poisons.

I just want to say that these things nasty, terrifying, and dear god I can't to use them as either a DM or a player. I mean, Dex poisons are now a rogues best friend! Mental poisons can totally shut a caster down and with their fort saves it's not even hard.

And then there's the Pernicious Poison spell. Oh dear god the Pernicious Poison spell... god forbid you have a mythic game with it's mythic variant.

But I have a question. Is there any class feature or spell that can force diseases along faster besides the Drakainia's gestation aura? Because maaaan do I wanna take advantage of some of these.

As the designer of the disease and poison variant system, I highly support the use of leukodaemons...all the leukodaemons. Available now with your friendly planar binding/ally. Go get 'em Myrryr!

Luekodaemons, Pairaka, ratfolk plague bringers, and then anti-paladins... oooh, anti-paladin of Apollyon... Hey Mark, there needs to be an anti-paladin disease and/or poison archetype that can make diseases 'tick' faster. Should do that. Urgathoa, Apollyon, like 10 demon lords... they'd love ya for it.

Seems like it would be much more useful to have disease-focused abilities now, from a gameplay perspective. For a story, diseases were vaguely OK as a background element, but in a real adventure, they were just mostly pretty irrelevant except maybe mummy rot. They just took so long to do anything meaningful. Now...well, should be much scarier, and much less fiddly than the whole ability damage thing.

Oh agreed. Mummies weren't exactly harmless, but now I can see my big bad melee players going "But I don't wanna go up and hit it! It might hit me back!"

Out of curiousity, will future diseases and poisons published in new books have entries for this system? I intend to go back and 'update' the diseases and poisons that aren't in the book, notably say, the disease in Curse of the Crimson Throne, but having to do it with future ones makes me feel iffy.

Oh. You also realize you made it so there's no actual way to fix conditions from disease/poison beyond bed rest? Besides the 25k gold miracle/wish which is a bit overkill imo. They're scary enough without needing to say 'ok you failed a single save against a poison, you can adventure in 2 days or cough up a lvl 17 caster and 25k gold'.

I think making it so lesser restoration can move you up one step on the disease/poison condition track (but not from death obviously), and not curing something like say, the blinding sickness' blinding, would be quite useful. Make it so restoration and greater restoration bring you back to fully healthy (not rezzing you).
However, still needs Remove disease/poison to cure the cause, those just treat the symptoms. Additionally, you'd need to cure any body before you could rez it also.

and unchained is now up and running for Hero LAbs.

Just an FYI

ZanThrax wrote:

Has anyone figured out which, if any, existing archetypes will work with the unchained versions of the classes? I'm considering an underfoot adept / manoeuvre master for a potential upcoming giantslayer game, and I'm curious if I can do that with the unchained monk.

According to Alexander Augunas, the only archetypes that work without modification for the unchained monk are the Master of Many Styles and the Sensei, since the unchained monk does not modify or replace any of the class features that are modified or replaced in those archetypes. For all other archetypes, more work is needed -- see Everyman Unchained: Monk Archetypes for Alex's take on the needed work.

Weapon adept is also compatible. And sensei is a little weird, since it appears to potentially allow the PC to grant ki powers the PC might not actually possess himself...

So this book isn't half bad.

I mean I don't agree with some things, but that's not really a knock.

Can anyone find a way for Barbs to enter stances as a swift action or as part of entering Rage?

Why were the Oracle mysteries from Ultimate Magic not included in the Variant Multi-Classing lists? For example, I am particularly fond of Metal and Time, and was disappointed not to see them listed. :(

Are there plans to include them in a later product? They are part of the setting-neutral rulebook line (not Golarion-specific), so they should be covered at some point.

Also, to re-iterate my questions from the top of this page ...

Were the differences between Barbarian Uncanny Dodge and Rogue Uncanny Dodge really intended as such?

Has anyone converted Ghoul Fever, Vorel's Phage, or Blood Veil to their Unchained versions?

Two questions: Can we get confirmation that the Rogue's Edge ability only counts for a specific subset of Artistry, Craft, Knowledge or Profession? I assume so, but just checking.

Can someone clarify how the Rank 5 skill unlock for Craft is supposed to work with the new crafting rules? If examples are needed, assume human rogue 6, Int 16, 6 ranks in craft (traps), masterwork craft (traps) tools, but no feat, trait, magical item etc relating crafting.

Thanks.

Has anyone converted Ghoul Fever, Vorel's Phage, or Blood Veil to their Unchained versions?

I was actually thinking of changing Blood Veil a bit, yeah. It's primary goal is

Bellona wrote:

Has anyone converted Ghoul Fever, Vorel's Phage, or Blood Veil to their Unchained versions?

I was actually thinking of changing Blood Veil a bit, yeah. It's primary goal is

** spoiler omitted **...

Myrryr wrote:

Bellona wrote:

Has anyone converted Ghoul Fever, Vorel's Phage, or Blood Veil to their Unchained versions?

I was actually thinking of changing Blood Veil a bit, yeah. It's primary goal is

** spoiler omitted **...

** spoiler omitted **

Read the rogue talents of the unchained rogue. Seriously underwhelmed. I had been led to think that the restrictions on daily uses of most talents would be gone. In fact, almost all of them are still there. Very sad. Thought I'd be able to get rid of several pages of house rules, now I'll seriously have to consider keeping them.

Edit: They even cut the best rogue talents, such as Hard Minded. Giving with one hand and taking away with the other. I'll not pass judgement on the unchained rogue at 2 am, but still underwhelmed so far.

Can anyone find a way for Barbs to enter stances as a swift action or as part of entering Rage?

Not seen any of this. And the implication is that when you leave a rage, your rage power stances drop and have to be restarted as a new move action in the new rage. Serious cut for rage cyclers. I don't have a problem with this, but others might have.

Also, the beast totem powers have not been cut back. :( I really thought that would be a given.

... it seems that a game could feature two types of monks - the standard monk that can be used with archetypes and the Unchained monk for those who don't want to use an archetype.

This is how it used to be back in 1E, when there were one monk in the player's handbook and another in Dragon magazine (later published in some book IIR). We had both in the same campaign back then. The original monk was worse at most things, but WAY faster!

... So, an Unchained Barbarian 2+ keeps her Dex bonus to AC even if subjected to Hold Person, while an Unchained Rogue 4+ keeps her Dex bonus to AC even if attacked by an invisible foe.

I believe a barbarian held by Hold Person is still helpless, so immobilized must be referring to something other than paralysis. I couldn't think of anything like that tough. Perhaps immobilized now means unable to move around? Or this is just a brain fart?

Read the rogue talents of the unchained rogue. Seriously underwhelmed. I had been led to think that the restrictions on daily uses of most talents would be gone. In fact, almost all of them are still there. Very sad. Thought I'd be able to get rid of several pages of house rules, now I'll seriously have to consider keeping them.

Edit: They even cut the best rogue talents, such as Hard Minded. Giving with one hand and taking away with the other. I'll not pass judgement on the unchained rogue at 2 am, but still underwhelmed so far.

Ummm...talents not in the book can still be used. What's stopping Unchained Rogue from taking Hard Minded exactly?

Starfox wrote:

Read the rogue talents of the unchained rogue. Seriously underwhelmed. I had been led to think that the restrictions on daily uses of most talents would be gone. In fact, almost all of them are still there. Very sad. Thought I'd be able to get rid of several pages of house rules, now I'll seriously have to consider keeping them.

Edit: They even cut the best rogue talents, such as Hard Minded. Giving with one hand and taking away with the other. I'll not pass judgement on the unchained rogue at 2 am, but still underwhelmed so far.

Ummm...talents not in the book can still be used. What's stopping Unchained Rogue from taking Hard Minded exactly?

I think it will probably have to do with the PFS blog saying that they can only access the rogue talents this book.

That's an issue for PFS and that blog, not the class itself.

Ummm...talents not in the book can still be used. What's stopping Unchained Rogue from taking Hard Minded exactly?

There's a list of rogue powers that remain unchanged (and thus ok to use). This list does not include Hard Minded, nor is that ability converted. Presumably it is not a part of the unchained rogue's palette.

OK, hard minded was a bit overpowered. I can see that they want to harmonize talents in power. But they harmonized towards the upper middle, not towards the top. Which is sad because rogue talents were (and still are) weak. They have gone form having a few good and many bad ones to all being mediocre. They really don't make up for the bard's spells or the investigator's extracts. Perhaps along with the skill edges, they will? About to start reading edges now.

Looking at Skill Edges. For the level you get them, they are all pretty weaksauce, again not a replacement for bard or investigator spells/extracts. Some particular notables:

Overall, the penalties are too harsh. A skill you could have any chance to fail at becomes impossible with the outlined penalties. This makes the edges only usable in trivial situations. Trivial situations are just that, trivial, and you generally don't need any edges there.

Acrobatics 5: Substitute Acrobatics check -10 or CMD. These are both values that improve up to 1/level. Is the penalty really supposed to be there?

In other acrobatics abilities, you use your skill check -10 to replace a saving throw. As saves increase 1/2 levels at best, this is potentially useful at high levels.

Bluff: Retry penalties are reduced unless you fail by 5 or more. The chance to fail by 4 or less is always 20%. This is some help to a rogue who originally had a very good chance of success, but wont help much at all on the hard stuff.

Craft 20: You can make some magic items using the normal Craft rules. Since there is no Craft feat or rule, this by RAW refers to the Craft skill rules, the one where the cost is 1/3 of the item's final worth rather than the 1/2 from craft magic item feats. However, this is hardly usable as progress in item creation would be so very slow. I suppose RAI is to use the item crafting feat rules.

Diplomacy: Actually useful.

Disable Device: "when attempting to disable magic traps, you never trigger them, even if you perform the trigger action (such as looking at a symbol)." Is this a situation that would ever come up? If you spot a trap, you presumably know how not to trigger it.

Intimidate: Actually quite powerful.

Knowledge: Useful, bonuses a bit on the weak side. Do you get an edge with all knowledge skills if you pick this? If not, basically useless.

My feelings now is that these edges should be available to all who have the skill as a class skill, and that the rogue ability and feat offers advantages with them; Rogues get to add their level to the skill ranks to see what abilities they can use, while both the rogue class ability and the feat reduce all penalties by your number of skill ranks. I have always run a skill-intense game where skills have high utility, and this will not be a huge change for my games.

Let's see:

Acrobatics: CMD scales with level only for full BAB classes. Of course, a Rogue only falls 5 points behind over 20 levels, so I am not sure what combination would make this useful -- maybe low strength, maxed out Acrobatic ranks, and skill boosting feats and magic items in the right combination?

Disable Device: Failing a Disable Device by 5 or more sets off the trap. Also, you could get useful information if you are able to study the symbol on a trap that would otherwise be set off by you just looking at it.

Let's see:

Disable Device: Failing a Disable Device by 5 or more sets off the trap. [...]

I thought so too, until I read "If you fail the check, you can still trigger the trap, and you can’t use this ability to bypass it."

David knott 242 wrote:

Let's see:

Disable Device: Failing a Disable Device by 5 or more sets off the trap. [...]

I thought so too, until I read "If you fail the check, you can still trigger the trap, and you can’t use this ability to bypass it."

Yeah, that's weird -- the last two sentences in the 10 skill rank section for Disable Device appear to contradict each other -- that, or the ability is useful only in a highly detailed scenario where you can get useful information by playing around with a trap without actually attempting to disable it.

Been reading about the variant combat system. My head hurts. :-)

I don't understand how the alternate Craft skill rules help make item creation process any faster.

One of my player's 13th-level Fighter with +15 to his Craft (weaponsmithing) for his Adamantine Greatsword has to beat DC 25, which he can Take 10 on daily. Meaning he is only making 8gp worth of the sword per day.

3,350gp/8gp means he still is taking over a year and change to craft his sword. How is this any faster than before?

EDIT: Unless the rules mean you need to reach the GP cost of the 1/4 price and not the full price? In that case he can finish the sword in 104 days, which is 3 months and change...faster than a year but not as fast as I would normally expect.