There's no concentration, and now casting defensively doesn't work

[tadkil]

Disciple of Sakura wrote:

Which is exactly why Spellcraft should be rolled into Knowledges and Concentration should be retained as a skill. It's a much better idea, since Concentration is tied to several "non-core" mechanics (Psionics, Diamond Mind maneuvers, etc), and it's keyed off CON, which doesn't favor only one main caster (Wizards) over all the others.

excellent point

[tadkil]

DeadDMWalking wrote:

I also agree with Disciple of Sakura (and have proposed the same).

For me, I could not play Pathfinder without houseruling it. I think as far as skill combinations go, that is the hardest to 'detangle', and remains the single most likely thing to keep me from converting.

What I've done is build a playtest table and I am putting the mechanics through the ringer. Atlanta has a huge gaming community so I am able to recruit newbies and veterans and build a good focus group.

[player42]

I'm not that keen on concentration. I can't think of a time I've ever seen it used aside from spellcasting, so it always just seemed like a means of soaking up a caster's skill points.

There's always the gotcha aspect of defensive casting, too: as in "aha, you didn't say 'I defensively cast' you take an attack of opportunity!" Instead, I might favor a spell failure chance for casting in melee, maybe 5% per spell level or something, cumulative with armor misfire chances.

Another option would be to use Will save in place of concentration. Maintaining your concentration in the face of distraction sounds like an act of will to me, and doesn't require more skills or skill points.

[Keldarth]

I like the new system for spellcraft/knowledge arcana, it makes more sense from a logical point of view (I like the "theory/technique" disparity). I still think that Combat Casting should do more than give a +4 to cast defensively and while grappling, perhaps giving the option to cast defensively only if you have the feat... That would make a huge difference between combat-trained casters (clerics, druids, fighter/mages, etc.) and purely "librarian", "academic" or non-melee wizards and sorcerers.

Only problem I see is that could make the Combat Casting a much more powerful feat than before, and it would be probably seen as an "must-have" feat, something I don't like at all.

[hmarcbower]

Keldarth wrote:

I like the new system for spellcraft/knowledge arcana, it makes more sense from a logical point of view (I like the "theory/technique" disparity). I still think that Combat Casting should do more than give a +4 to cast defensively and while grappling, perhaps giving the option to cast defensively only if you have the feat... That would make a huge difference between combat-trained casters (clerics, druids, fighter/mages, etc.) and purely "librarian", "academic" or non-melee wizards and sorcerers.

Only problem I see is that could make the Combat Casting a much more powerful feat than before, and it would be probably seen as an "must-have" feat, something I don't like at all.

It becoming a "must-have" feat would be analogous to how Improved Sunder, Improved Trip, Improved Unarmed Strike etc are all "must-have" feats for combatants who want to Sunder, Trip, or Punch.

As I noted before, I think making Combat Casting into a similar feat to those above would be great. Combat Casting means you don't draw attacks of opportunity when casting a 1 Standard Action (or less) spell while in a threatened area. If you cast a spell that takes longer, then you have to roll your Spellcraft check (with a +4) to avoid losing the spell. If you don't have the feat you can still Cast on the Defensive, but you just make a straight Spellcraft roll to determine if you lose the spell or not.

[Castimirr]

Jason,

Thanks for all your work on this. However, I have to agree with most of the rest of the posters. We need Concentration as a skill. I regularly make use of it for situations other then casting defensively.

I also agree that this change heavily favours wizards over all of the other classes. Given that the other classes are more likely to be in melee, this seems less then optimal.

One of my rules I use to determine what I allow in my games is based on enjoyment. Will this make the game more or less enjoyable for the player, for the rest of the group and for me as the DM. While this might have a minor impact on overall fun, it is still a negative one. It shifts the balance unnecessarily, takes away fun from some players, and adds nothing to anyone else's enjoyment.

If you want to kill a skill, kill Spellcraft. Personally, I don't see a need to get rid of any of them, but if something needs to go, get rid of the one that has heavy overlap with another skill. While it has always been my understanding that K: Arcana was theoretical while Spellcraft was practical, I could easily live with rolling them into one for the sake of simplification. I so far can't see a solid reason to take a skill with no overlap and roll it into an unrelated skill.

My other question, and I am genuinely curious, what skill do I use in place of Concentration for all of the other situations it comes up in? I regularly use it for situations where a character has to focus on a task over an extended period of time, usually in the face of either extreme distraction or extreme boredom. I find that adds something my group likes to the game, and I don't see a clear replacement for it.

Overall I can't tell you how happy I am to see what you are doing here. I have high hopes for this system and look forward to supporting it for years. I would just prefer to not have to make a house rule before the book goes to press. I've largely been able to play 3.5 without them, and I have no desire to go back to the notebook we kept under second edition.

Thanks for listening.

[hmarcbower]

Castimirr wrote:

I would just prefer to not have to make a house rule before the book goes to press. I've largely been able to play 3.5 without them, and I have no desire to go back to the notebook we kept under second edition.

It's going to be almost inevitable if you want to continue playing with things that are being eliminated for Pathfinder... not just the Concentration skill. We're in a fairly unique position in that we're seeing the system built from the ground up (well, the high ground that the OGL allows for a starting altitude, anyway :). Any change from 3.5 that worked in 3.5 the way we liked it will cause us to make a house rule if we want to keep that old 3.5 rule in play. I doubt that, after Pathfinder comes out, anyone will play pure 3.5 or pure Pathfinder RPG (short of Pathfinder Society) - the former obviously needed tweaks, but there is no way that everyone is going to agree with all of the changes being made for Pathfinder. Enter House Rules.

Warm up that old notebook... but contemporize - put it into a nice computer document so you can print it out like a Rules Supplement. :)

[TarkisFlux]

There's at least one example of theory vs practice that's still built into the skill system: Survival and Know(Nature). I don't particularly want to see those skills merged, and am very happy with the split.

That said, I don't even see the same split with Know(Arcana/whatever) and Spellcraft. Here are the uses of Spellcraft currently:
1) Spellcraft gets used to ID spells as it's being cast. In most cases you have significantly less than 6 seconds to figure out what they're doing. That strikes me as something you either know or you don't, which sounds like theory, and thus a knowledge check.
2) It's used to Learn/Prepare a spell from a borrowed spell book. There is zero practical ability in this. You have to decipher their notes, and recontruct it in a way that is personal and sensical to you. That's the whole idea behind making every spellbook unique to the wizard who writes it. Then, when you cast the spell, you do it in your personal manner. You're not trying to cast the spell in their fashion, you're trying to understand their fashion so you can cast the spell your way. Sounds like theory, and thus a knowledge check.
3) All the casting while distracted stuff that Concentration was used for previously. That is certainly a practical use.

3.5 had a couple of other uses for Spellcraft that seem to have vanished, but could be assumed to still be here...

4) Drawing a diagram for a magic circle. Definately a practical use, but one that could still be rolled into knowledge easily. Or even just a CL check.
5) Identifying a potion without Detect Magic. This is probably rolled into the appraise ability, and so moot, but it's not clear. If it is still here, I'm on the fence about it being a practical use or not.
6) Decipher a written spell without Detect Magic. Very similar to learn/prepare a spell from a borrowed book. Sounds like theory to me.

So if we want to split the theory from the practice, it looks to me like we'll be moving uses away from Spellcraft. All I've got left are the old concentration uses and some orphaned uses from 3.5. The orphaned ones are minor, and may have already been reassigned; the circle drawing could just as easily be a CL check, but even rolling into the old Concentration skill doesn't sound bad.

I get wanting to keep a split between theory and practice, but I just don't see that split in the way things are written.