Well, one of the reasons I've become interested in the Pathfinder RPG is the fact that its goal is to fix the 3.5 problems without going to the extreme of throwing everything out the window that 4e is doing. And so far, I'm impressed. One thing though. The whole calculation for cover vs missle weapons, with counting the number of blocked bars and referencing the table seems overly complicated. Honestly, I do not see a reason for missle and melee cover to have two different calculations. I say, keep cover the way it is in the SRD. Simple and easy.
Well, one of the reasons I've become interested in the Pathfinder RPG is the fact that its goal is to fix the 3.5 problems without going to the extreme of throwing everything out the window that 4e is doing. And so far, I'm impressed. One thing though. The whole calculation for cover vs missle weapons, with counting the number of blocked bars and referencing the table seems overly complicated. Honestly, I do not see a reason for missle and melee cover to have two different calculations. I say, keep cover the way it is in the SRD. Simple and easy.
I may be wrong, but i think they removed the Block-Thing in 1.1...Have to reread it...
I just looked through the notes (gonna DL the full version 1.1 when I get home) and didn;t see it changed there.
I just looked through the notes (gonna DL the full version 1.1 when I get home) and didn;t see it changed there.
Yeah. You're right. Just reread the passage. Not there. I though of the passage on page 3 - combat - second dot - cover - but apparently was something other i had in mind...
I just looked through the notes (gonna DL the full version 1.1 when I get home) and didn;t see it changed there.Yeah. You're right. Just reread the passage. Not there. I though of the passage on page 3 - combat - second dot - cover - but apparently was something other i had in mind...
Last night one of my players and I ran through some cover scenarios based on the 1.1 rules and it's really not too bad. You don't even need the chart if you can remember the cover bonuses go +1, +2, +4, and +6. With the new changes, I like the cover rules.
To make it even easier to remember maybe the cover bonus should be +1 per blocked line? Or maybe progress with double bonus each time like +1, +2, +4, +8?
Even though I think 3 or 4 blocked lines is pretty darn good cover, the +1 AC bonus per blocked line would be MUCH easier to remember.
Thinking it over, I feel that it's a pretty good system.. if playing with a battle mat. What about all the people who don't play with a mat? I think it'd be helpful if there was a sidebar or something that describes what should be done about ranged cover if playing without a battle mat.
Thinking it over, I feel that it's a pretty good system.. if playing with a battle mat. What about all the people who don't play with a mat? I think it'd be helpful if there was a sidebar or something that describes what should be done about ranged cover if playing without a battle mat.
Good point. Without a mat I'd so something like 3.0 did where they estimated cover %. Something like: 25% is +1, 50% is +2, 75% is +4, 90% is +6.
A sidebar explaining something like this would be good.
Thinking it over, I feel that it's a pretty good system.. if playing with a battle mat. What about all the people who don't play with a mat? I think it'd be helpful if there was a sidebar or something that describes what should be done about ranged cover if playing without a battle mat.Good point. Without a mat I'd so something like 3.0 did where they estimated cover %. Something like: 25% is +1, 50% is +2, 75% is +4, 90% is +6.
A sidebar explaining something like this would be good.
I think it would be far easier for all concerned to just stick with the % of cover. Let the DM decide how much cover a target has and roll with it from there.
As a GM, I think having to track % might slow me down a bit. Is it 50% or 75%? And the Fighter in full-plate is bigger than the Elven Sorceress, so same cover for both does not give same %...
With the 3.0/3.5 system, we all use to work with size categorie. A GM could just give a size categorie to the cover and goes with something like this:
one or more size categorie smaller: light cover (+2)
same size categorie: heavy cover (+5)
one or more size categorie bigger: full cover
And I will remove adjacent cover penalty (but not total cover) to allow sniping (Throwing shurikens from around a corner)
A Halfling behind a Small Rock would have heavy cover, while a Human would have light cover and her pet weasel would benefit from total cover. Both the Human and the Halfling could fire arrows without penalty from their cover. (the weasel could not because it has total cover... and it can't fire arrows anyway...)
I playtested the cover rules(page 40/41) tonight, and they worked fine. However my group agreed to use a simpler version as a house rule.
The simpler version is , rather than the table on page 41 , we decided to use ,+1 ac bonus or reflex bonus per blocked line. Anybody can quickly work out the bonus, rather than lookup/remember the table.