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Okay, I ran a specific playtest today to test-drive some of the Pathfinder rules at a higher level. I ran a modified version of the Crucible of Chaos, and my players created 8th level characters. I changed a lot of monsters and plot to fit my home-brew campaign, although a lot of elements fit beautifully (I have flying cities in my campaign, so a fallen one is a good fit).
I allowed other WOTC books, so they used the Magic Item Compendium and the Spell Compendium, and a couple of outside feats from the Complete XXX books.
They were:
Giann, a human sorcerer 8 with the abyssal bloodline
Thavalus, an elven ranger 8 with the archery style feats
Sybella, a human bard 8
Jaddo, a halfling rogue 8
Degaro, a human paladin 8
Elisia, a half-elf druid 8 with a dire wolf animal companion
PLAYTEST NOTES: we went through character creation and made a number of discoveries.
First, why would anyone play a tiefling? Sure, the LA +1 isn’t what it used to be, but if a character instead took 1 level of sorcerer with the abyssal bloodline gets natural claws, Intimidate as a class skill, skill points, hit points, +2 to will save, and the ability to cast 4 0-level spells at will, and 2 1st level spells of your choice per day. Sure beats 5 points of resistance to fire, and darkness 1/day
Secondly, the sorcerer bloodlines are certainly not all equal. The player considered a few other bloodlines, but abyssal clearly one out.
As well, the favored class bonus hit points made a huge difference – we had an 8th level sorcerer with 61 hit points, a halfling rogue with 61 hit points, and a human paladin with 81 hit points – only the halfling rogue took Toughness.
As well, the bard was truly a knowledge monkey with the bonus ranks. Clarification that these bardic knowledge ranks stack over regular ranks would help – perhaps not referring to them as ranks, but simply a class bonus would help.
Next, we had them adventure through the valley in which the fallen githyanki city of Zan-Ulduvai was reputed to be found. They fought an invisible stalker at the gate.
PLAYTEST NOTES: The sorcerer and the bard had taken see invisibility, which worked wonders for them, and the druid wild shaped into a dire bat to gain blindsight, which was a good plan. However, in looking at the beast form I-IV spells, a couple of questions came up from my players:
1) Why does beast shape grant web, but only vermin have that ability?
2) Can beast shape be used to turn into magical beasts like fiendish dire weasels or celestial porpoises? I house-ruled no, but this is a gray area
3) Since wild shaping into a dire bat gets you good maneuverability and thus a +4 to Fly checks, why don’t beast shapes grant their racial skill bonuses, to make the polymorphed caster more animal-like in their abilities? I mean, a porpoise that isn’t good at swimming, or a monkey that can’t climb easily?
Then, the party continued into the valley, and fought a pair of bulettes in a twisted wasteland forest. They drove off one, and slew the other.
PLAYTEST NOTES: In this combat, Power Attack and Deadly Aim came into play, and through the session, the changes to Power Attack got mixed reviews – certainly, it was easier to use without the sliding option of hit/damage, and it prevented metagaming, but the lack of fine control bothered my players, and one of my players rightfully pointed out that capping the Power Attack feat by Strength or Base Attack Bonus, it ultimately stops improving/changing based on Strength, about 8th level – the paladin had a BAB of +8, and a Str modifier of +5, so he was ultimately limited to +5. However, Deadly Aim was popularly received by the ranger, who did a good deal of damage.
Bleed attack came up as well, and certainly, everything that has been said on the message boards thus far is true – it’s a no-brainer to take the talent, and even the player noted that unlimited bleeding is very powerful. We had no suggestions on how to modify it, but limiting it’s duration is a good idea.
After a brief encounter with the grimlock tribesmen and their pet destrachans in the valley, they crossed the river and approached the fallen gith city. Once inside, they were attacked by 6 wights, and they were quickly defeated.
PLAYTEST NOTES: The paladin channeled positive energy, and while it did some damage, the changed effect isn’t as interesting or dramatic as the old turn undead, although it isn’t as clunky. The collateral damage to undead and the backwash of healing was great, but the save and the fear effect is still clunky, since fleeing undead isn’t easy to manage or fight, and the save by the monster isn’t as interesting as the original 3.5 d20 roll by the cleric/paladin. I’d recommend some sort of magic circle of protection/sanctuary effect would work better to keep undead at bay.
At that point, they made their way into the Indefandulum and retrieved the Staff of Rightful Rule. They then started exploring the invisible bridges, and encountered Yakmar and his efreeti servant (driving off Yakmar and slaying his servant), and then the clutch of 5 spider eaters.
PLAYTEST NOTES: During the spider eater fight, the players were on the invisible bridge, while the spider eaters rushed them. Something we discovered and ran with was the need for Fly checks to see if the spider eaters lost altitude whenever they got hit. It was a bit complicating, as it was an extra Fly check any time they took damage. However, the DC of 10 was a bit simplistic. I ran DC 10 + damage taken, and the spider eaters with +4 plus their Dex made their saves about 30% of the time. The druid also attempted to hover, and with 5 ranks, +2 from Dex, +4 for her good maneuverability meant she could cover if she rolled a 4+ on d20. Pretty easy (maybe too easy).
As well, I couldn’t run poison of the spider-eaters round by round as per Alpha 3, or even wing it, since the effect was nothing/paralysis.
At this point, the party clued into the idea of riding the druid in wild shape as a dire bat – however, with the changes to wild shape, the already weak druid with a Str 10 modified to Str 14 couldn’t carry the paladin, but only the halfling. Not a complaint, just an observation.
They then fought the pair of the invisible stalkers in the eastern tower. I tried to have the stalkers grapple the party, to test out the grapple rules.
PLAYTEST NOTES: The sorcerer with his natural claws fended off the first two grapple attacks, the third attempt got him. But before I could have the stalkers rise into the air with the sorcerer, they took it out. Even at 8th level, fighting evenly matched opponents such as a CR 7 invisible stalker, grapple was pretty hard with DC 15 – not horribly hard, but not viable as a tactical option. The changes make grapple smooth, but less likely to enter into play as optimal tactics.
They then made their way back to the ground level of the city, and started exploring buildings. The final encounter we got done this weekend was a fight with Banderak in the library, who they defeated with some effort.
PLAYTEST NOTES: My overall impressions at 8th level are the game is very little different at even 8th level. The biggest impact was felt in character creation and the resulting extra options to the players with their characters, not so much in actual play. The Fly skill is a welcome addition, as was wild shape/beast shape, although they may need tweaking for optimal use in the game. Grapple, as I have said in playtests from my regular 1st-3rd level campaign, is beautifully streamlined. Most changes beyond that were cosmetic and insignificantly different from 3.5 games.
Random replies:
-I think the bard ability means that the bard gets one maxed-out knowledge skill for free, rather than getting an unnamed bonus on one knowledge skill. I.e. they really are skill ranks, not a bonus.
-The aranea is a magical beast with the special ability Web.
-Dire bats get blindsense, not blindsight.
-Any creature with a swim or climb speed gets a +8 bonus; I assume that means a polymorphed PC does as well.
-I'd allow polymorphing into a fiendish/celestial animal; it doesn't seem overpowered to me.
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Something else I forgot to mention ...
During an encounter with the Grimlocks, and their tribal elders (instead of the saurian centaur Zothians, I used grimlock-shaped gargoyles with burrow instead of fly), we used the PF Diplomacy rules, and I have to say I like the revision! Diplomacy is now more challenging and results in 2-3 rolls rather than one, which adds tension and makes a diplomacy encounter run in a more enjoyable manner. However, a couple areas could be covered in the rules as written ...
- if one party member blows the diplomacy roll, can another person step in and try again? I said yes, at a -5
- what if the party doesn't speak the same language? When trying to calm down the grimlocks, I allowed a diplomacy at -5, which took them from hostile to unfriendly.
Oh, and when things didn't go amazingly well in the first encounter, the sorcerer used Intimidate, and it worked like a charm. The grimlocks parted and let them pass, common language, or not.
Great job in revising those non-combat skills!
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PLAYTEST NOTES: The paladin channeled positive energy, and while it did some damage, the changed effect isn’t as interesting or dramatic as the old turn undead, although it isn’t as clunky. The collateral damage to undead and the backwash of healing was great, but the save and the fear effect is still clunky, since fleeing undead isn’t easy to manage or fight, and the save by the monster isn’t as interesting as the original 3.5 d20 roll by the cleric/paladin. I’d recommend some sort of magic circle of protection/sanctuary effect would work better to keep undead at bay.
Hi, the paladin playtest here. Personally, I thought the new channel positive energy rule was a useful and elegant way to do it. All I had to do was roll a few d6's and that was it. The DM applied damage, and rolled a few saves to see who ran away. It was simple IMO and the healing energy helped too, but I agree with the point that fleeing undead are hard to deal with (the turn duration runs out, they come back, how to you keep track of who's running etc...). I would recommend that the turned undead just cower or are stunned instead of acting frightened. It's a lot easier than working out some sort of protection field.
As for the paladin class itself, I didn't feel that nerfed compared to the other classes (unlimited cantrips are good, bleeding sneak attack needs to be limited to 1 bleeding attack per target, neat new wild shape rules that rock IMO). I do think that the smite evil ability is a little weak for a class's signature ability. 3/day for a hit that might miss and be lost is kinda lame, so I suggest increasing the number of smites per day to be either equal to level or x/day +Cha bonus. The other option would be to make the smite be in effect for any attacks made in a given round (ie a full-round attack).
My other concern is regarding the auras. While cool and useful (the aura against fear helped in our fight against the undead spellcaster), I'm concerned that the radius is too small and bunching up makes the group vulnerable to area effects. Increasing the aura radius to 20' would go a long way to fixing this and wouldn't be game breaking.
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bleeding sneak attack needs to be limited to 1 bleeding attack per targetBleed doesn't stack with itself, so this is more or less already the case.
So six sneak attacks doesn't mean six bleeding wounds? That's good to hear, otherwise there would be a balance issue. The other thing I see as a problem here is that the wound won't close on its own. If you even did one point of sneak attack damage to an animal or similar beast, it would just die of blood loss. Seems wrong to me. Maybe it should bleed for a number of rounds equal to levels of rogue .
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Either that, or run bleeding like someone on fire ... each round the target makes a DC 15 Fortitude save. If they make it, they aren't bleeding, if they fail, they continue to take 1 point per 1d6 sneak attack in bloodloss ...
The problem with that is that you get diminishing returns as you go up in level. How often is even a lowly ogre going to fail a DC 15 Fort save? Now picture a 15th level barbarian. This makes the talent next to useless.
If you raise the DC based on character level that furhter complicates a simple mechanic by adding not only a save to it, but having to calculate that save every level (say 10 + half level + dex). I think a bleed for a fixed duration based on level is a simpler mechanic.
So six sneak attacks doesn't mean six bleeding wounds? That's good to hear, otherwise there would be a balance issue. The other thing I see as a problem here is that the wound won't close on its own. If you even did one point of sneak attack damage to an animal or similar beast, it would just die of blood loss. Seems wrong to me. Maybe it should bleed for a number of rounds equal to levels of rogue .bleeding sneak attack needs to be limited to 1 bleeding attack per targetBleed doesn't stack with itself, so this is more or less already the case.
I can understand how you could see this as a problem as a balance issue, it's pretty solid as a logic issue IMO.
The ability does 1 pt./SA dice/round. Now an injury that's doing that kind of bleeding and not stopping without attention indicates to me that it nicked an artery or a vein pretty good. And a wound that nicks an artery or a vein pretty good will, if left alone, bleed you out.Also, you pointed this out rather correctly:
Either that, or run bleeding like someone on fire ... each round the target makes a DC 15 Fortitude save. If they make it, they aren't bleeding, if they fail, they continue to take 1 point per 1d6 sneak attack in bloodloss ...The problem with that is that you get diminishing returns as you go up in level. How often is even a lowly ogre going to fail a DC 15 Fort save? Now picture a 15th level barbarian. This makes the talent next to useless.
Exactly, you get diminishing returns. Now, the way it's structured currently, the amount of HD (and thus, HP) the opponent has, the longer it's going to take them to bleed out if they don't address the bleeder. This is offset by the fact that SA damage scales up with the Rogue's level. Thus, the higher the Rogue's level, (presumably) the higher the CR of the opponents (granted, this could happen as a larger number of opponents as easily as higher HR opponents, but run with me here). So you've got the Rogue (often) facing stronger, tougher opponents to whom he's doing more SA damage (and thus more bleeding damage - I don't see anything in the SA description that states that SA damage caps). Which means ideally a victim of bleeding attack should bleed out at a relatively similar speed whether the Rogue is low, medium, or high level (although this argument is based solely on projection and expectation, and playtesting could obviously prove it wrong).
But, it seems to me that the ability is intended to simulate a viciously precise attack that inflicts a wound that could lead to the target bleeding to death unless some form of (magical or mundane) first aid is applied. It looks like it does a pretty good job of that. It also stands to (as opposed to necessarily Does) balance itself against the Rogue's opponents as the Rogue rises in level vs. the opponents' HPs, which is good too.
The only problem (unless my projecting is incorrect or just too optimistic) is whether or not you want the possibility for something to bleed to death or not.
Agree? Disagree? Or did I only manage to ramble for a page or so? :)
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Well said Wolvorine ...
You are absolutely right, and I agree the bleed attack scales against opponents -- obviously some opponents suffer more than others (a 15th level wizard with an 8 Constitution is in BIG trouble, no matter what).
However, I don't believe someone should *automatically* bleed to death. Otherwise, a 1st level rogue could sneak attack an elephant, and then back off. The elephant will *automatically* die (after some time and suffering).
People burn to death in real life, but D&D allows a Reflex save to stop burning. I'd allow a Fortitude save to stop bleeding (what the save is, is a lesser issue for me).
I guess the biggest *game* problem is that when choosing rogue talents, the bleed attack is such a no-brainer, either it is over-powered, or the rest of the talents are underpowered. There's no variety here, because the choice is one-sided.
My 2 farthings...
Well said Wolvorine ...
You are absolutely right, and I agree the bleed attack scales against opponents -- obviously some opponents suffer more than others (a 15th level wizard with an 8 Constitution is in BIG trouble, no matter what).
However, I don't believe someone should *automatically* bleed to death. Otherwise, a 1st level rogue could sneak attack an elephant, and then back off. The elephant will *automatically* die (after some time and suffering).
People burn to death in real life, but D&D allows a Reflex save to stop burning. I'd allow a Fortitude save to stop bleeding (what the save is, is a lesser issue for me).
I guess the biggest *game* problem is that when choosing rogue talents, the bleed attack is such a no-brainer, either it is over-powered, or the rest of the talents are underpowered. There's no variety here, because the choice is one-sided.
My 2 farthings...
Oh definitely, like I said right up front I can understand seeing it as being a problem as a Balance issue, and it very likely is. When I'm designing I'm always torn between trying to make things "good and right and stuff" and my own personal gaming tenets of "All things/creature are NOT created equal" "Life isn't fair" and "Does it make Sense?". Sometimes those two sides of me don't mesh, and one has to suffer. :)
Kind of like the burning thing, I'd happily give a character a save to stop burning... if the character did something to try to put themselves out. Otherwise they'd friggin' burn. But, I'm kind of a evil bugger like that. At least I'm fair about it, and apply the same rules to myself when I'm playing. "Aw man, I should have had more brains than a tick, and pulled a drop and roll instead of attacking last round. I'm still on friggin' fire!" lolBut yeah, whoah I wandered there (lack of sleep, sorry). Anyway, it makes Sense the way it works. You pop an artery on an elephant, an elephant's going to walk around until it drops over dead. But it does pose a mechanical unbalance that (possibly many) people will find unacceptable.
((*Shuts up now before he keeps rambling*... sleep at least once every 48 hours or so kids, it keeps you from sounding like an idiot. hehe))
Actually, this has been covered before. The Heal skill is a skill that can be performed untrained, and thus mechanically the elephant is capable of making it. If you want to provide an in-game justification for this, state that it is licking the wound somehow (presuming a non-elephant animal), or using its trunk to apply water and dirt (in the case of an actual elephant).
-Steve
First, why would anyone play a tiefling? Sure, the LA +1 isn’t what it used to be...
In my playtests, I reduced level adjustment by one point for all 3.x races so that tieflings and genasi became LA+0. The guy playing the tiefling rogue didn't stand out as unbalanced when he was the same level as the humans and half-elf. Tieflings already have the +2/+2/-2 stat adjustment.