Observations so far


Alpha Release 1 General Discussion

Liberty's Edge

First, as noted elsewhere, there is still a trend toward the '15 minute adventuring day'. There are a number of proposed solutions, but the one I like best is doing away with the 8 hours of rest needed to refresh spells; keep the hour, but do away with the camping. Let the wizard spend an hour reading his spellbook, the cleric (and paladin, etc) an hour of prayer and ritual, the sorcerer an hour of meditation or pipeweed smoking or whatever, and the bard might be strumming some simple tunes or the like. If the hour gets interrupted by something like a fight it has to be restarted, but it can be done 'on the move' if the character can sit still - riding a horse, sitting in a wagon, or the like, as long as conditions are reasonably favorable. This should only refresh spells; daily powers such as cleric turning, barbarian rage, wildshape, and the like shouldn't refresh.

Second, differentiate the sorcerers and wizards. Give them distinct spell lists; sorcerers are innate spellcasters, wizards are learned. Sorcerers should have a primal feel to them, because they're tapping the raw wellspring of magic. I'm not sure exactly how to do this, but something between clerical domains (sorcerer bloodlines?) and spontaneous casting might do the trick.

Third, skills: I can definitely see how the changes dramatically speed up character creation and take the fiddly work out of tallying different skills at each level. I personally think that Open Lock belongs with Disable Device, but I can see the arguments for it as a part of Theft. Perhaps it could be used by either skill. I would honestly prefer to keep class/crossclass skills, but if each class gets to choose a skill or two 'extra' as Class Skills at the beginning, it could allow some wider range of character concepts - a fighter with Spellcraft to represent someone trained as either a Mageslayer ("Fall back, he's preparing a fireball!") or a wizard's bodyguard ("Best move to the side, the boss is setting up a Lightning Bolt..."), a necromancer with Stealth ("The better that no one see me in this graveyard, of course."), or other oddball ideas that strike a person's interest. That said, seriously consider removing the Fly skill; while it's a good concept, it adds paperwork that we really don't need; instead, if need be, add a maneuverability chart to the spells, and limit the flying creatures based on their maneuverability.

Fourth, magic; I really like the way the specialist wizards have been differentiated, and I like the domain powers. However, both Wish and Miracle have no business being involved in a 'granted ability' chart, particularly not once per day. Based on the universalist trait, I'd actually expect to see things along the lines of the 'artificer feats' from Eberron, letting the universal mages develop the ability to make magic items for a bit less time, XP, and gold than specialist mages; failing that, I could see them developing more free metamagic feats or item-creation feats (actually, while we're at it, can we ditch that absurd plethora of feats? Why do we need specialized feats for multiple item types? Shouldn't Knowledge (arcana) and Spellcraft suffice if you know the spells you need?)

Fifth, the feats: I sincerely agree with those who advocate dropping the array of skill feats and just creating a single Skill Affinity that lets the player choose any two skills to get a +2, or maybe make it a first-level feat that lets people gets CC skills as class skills, which would solve the idea mentioned in #3 above. If the one-hour-reset idea isn't viable, then maybe develop the idea of 'reserve feats' for casters - let them have lesser at-will magic as long as there's a more potent kind of magic prepared (or have a sorcerer sacrifice a spell slot in order to 'charge' the ability for the day).

These are just the ideas I've had since reading the book; make of them what you will.

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