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PF Beta just got released and the game is pretty good. Several 3e issues have been dealt with. They still need to tackle multi-classing which is not in the book. Beyond that there are several niggles that I have with some of the things. Some of them are long standing 3.5 problems and others are newly created. So here we go…
Races
Races with the small size racial feature should also have their CMB modifier listed there as well.
Half-Elf should have a +2 to Dex or +2 to Int, and not +2 to any
Half-Orc should have a +2 Str, and not +2 Str, +2 Wis, -2 Int
Classes
Bard songs should be selectable similar to the rogue talents or barbarian rages. If that means that some of the more powerful ones need to have scaling in them so be it. Every 10th level bard should have had choices in which songs they invested in.
Monk class features also need to be selected from a monk talents list just like the rogue and barbarian.
Paladin class features need to be selected from just like rogue and barbarian, finding a theme here?
Cleric should not have a static number of channel energy from first through 20th level. I suggest something like Cha + 1 and then +1 more every 4 levels or something. Also, the cleric’s channel energy powers should be removed from the combat section and placed in the class features section. It is no longer overly long and complicated and can easily be accommodated in that section.
Skills
Overall I concur with many of the skill combinations. However I think more can be done.
Some of the skills are capital letters and others are not. Reason???
Craft skills should be made trained only and when looking at them they could stand to be merged a bit. For instance, I think that the various craft skills should be broken out on table 5-4 and different craft skills should be assigned to the various classes. I don’t think every class should have access to craft alchemy for instance. The following is how I would merge the craft skills:
Craft (Alchemy) (same)
Craft (Arms and Armor) (combines armorer, weaponsmith, and boyer)
Craft (Building) (building structures, siege engines etc.)
Craft (Devices) (traps, clockworks and other engineering feats)
Craft (Finery) (art objects, gems, wands, forgery, and other forms of finery)
Appraise skill, this is a more controversial change but one that I personally like very much. I would axe the appraise skill and combine that skill to each of the various craft skills. Want to appraise art objects? Finery check. Want to appraise armor and weapons? Arms and Armor check.
Profession skill should be removed. What it actually does by the rules is allow a character to earn a living (a few gold a week) with his “other” skills, too often this skill is confused to be so much more. It is often used to be sort of a yeah I know how to sail a ship or do some other thing that is not covered in the rules. Get rid of this skill and use fair market value for what ever profession a character wants to do and don’t use this meta-crutch skill to accomplish that end.
Pilot skill, a new skill, would take care of any vehicles that pop up in a D&D game. The most important one would be pilot(ship). This would give the game system to use a skill to do that rather than wrongly using profession skill in this capacity. Again, profession skill allows you to use your *other* skills to make money on a weekly basis.
Escape artist needs to be combined with Acrobatics. This is one of the most sub par skills that I have almost never seen taken and even less called for.
Fly, Climb and Swim need to be combined together for game mechanic reasons. I know that there is an idea floating around that all of the “modes” of movement need to be a separate skill. Hogwash, this needs to be done because there are characters that have 2 skill points.
Bluff skill is a skill that allows your character to: lie, cheat, con, and maybe seduce. But one of my long standing dislikes that could get addressed with this skill is the create diversion. This should not be a bluff check. Possibly make it a CMB check, but not a bluff check. Also, feinting in combat is a little odd too, but a little more believable than using bluff to create a distraction.
Feats
Improved and greater feats should be in the format: Two-weapon fighting, greater. That way you are not flipping back and forth looking at feats that should have been right next to each other.
The +2 to two skills feats need to be removed they were a waste of space in 3.5 and they are a waste of space in PF. Make a side bar note on how to convert the feat from other books (not they were selected by anybody – even in other books with sub-par characters) then create a feat called Skill Synergy that gives +2 to two chosen skills.
Arcane strike is this feat meant to replace the overly powerful complete warrior feat? This underpowered feat does not do that. Some middle ground could be found?
Table 6-1 seems to be using the format of: weapons focus gives +1 to hit, greater weapon focus gives +1 to hit which is meant to stack to give +2 total. This is not always consistent. Greater weapon specialization is meant to be +4 or +6?
Combat
Concealment, Stabilize, and Arcane Spell Failure are all percentile rolls. These could be easily cleaned up to be d20 rolls. It is a d20 game after all. This will actually speed up the game by a tiny fraction on these rolls. No searching for/fishing out the little used % dice just roll the d20 that is already in your hand.
Make Coupe de Grace a standard action so that it will actually be better to use that action than just doing a full attack.
Remove the “critical failure” roll a “1” on a save item destruction rules. Table 10-1 “the funky chart” needs to just be removed along with its corresponding rule. I have rarely seen the rule in play but when it is the players often feal cheated when it happens to them. There are no critical misses for a reason and this is a hidden critical miss rule that is just antiquated game design at its best. Please remove this rule.
One last thing about what has not been tackled yet
I really like the 3e multi-classing system (about a billion times better than 4e) it gives an almost limitless number of possibilities. However, it does have several problems. Primarily saves, BAB and spell casting progression could use the fix. In addition to spell casting progression there are a lot of other progressions (familiars, animal companions, unarmed strike, sneak attack etc.) that could do with a general rule to keep them competitive as a character levels up. Some attempt at dealing with this would make the game better as a whole.
This is pretty much a deal breaker for me. If PF is creative enough to put some thought into how to address the 3e multi-classing problem I will be pleased but if it is left to stand as is I won’t. The 3e band aids such as Eldritch Knight and other similar PrCs. I don’t want to wait until 6th level to actually do what I want with my character. I want to wait until 2nd level and be a fighter 1/wizard 1 and not be completely sub-par until I can place the band aid on my character. Anyway, here are a couple of ideas on how to address the most glaring multi-class problems.
Caster level and class feature progression fix
Caster level is equal to the spell casting class level plus 1/2 of all your other levels up to a max of double. This would also cover all of the scalable class features such as animal companions. The class features that would scale by half your other levels would have to be written into the class features themselves.
Saves fix
your saves are 1/2 your overall character level. Classes give a non-stackable +2 bonus in certain saves (Fighter FORT, Rogue REF, Wizard WILL, Cleric FORT and WILL etc.)
It might be nice to give everyone a +3 total rather than have some with a +4 and others with a +2 and only a few with +6.
BAB fix
Full gets BAB +4/level
3/4 gets BAB +3/level
1/2 gets BAB +2/level
Add all your BABs up and divide by 4. This is simpler than adding fractions.
Put it all together
So, if you had a fighter 2/cleric 8/wizard 4
BAB +10 ((8+24+8)/4=10)
Base FORT would be +9 (14/2=7 fighter gives +2 cleric gives +2 -> don't stack)
Base REF would be +7 (14/2=7)
Base WILL would be +9 (14/2=7 cleric gives +2, wizard gives +2 -> don't stack)
Wizard Caster level would be 8 (4+(10/2)=9 but can only get a max of double original level so 8)
Cleric Caster level would be 11 (8+(6/2)=11)
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PF Beta just got released and the game is pretty good. Several 3e issues have been dealt with. They still need to tackle multi-classing which is not in the book. Beyond that there are several niggles that I have with some of the things. Some of them are long standing 3.5 problems and others are newly created. So here we go…
Races
Races with the small size racial feature should also have their CMB modifier listed there as well.
Half-Elf should have a +2 to Dex or +2 to Int, and not +2 to any
Half-Orc should have a +2 Str, and not +2 Str, +2 Wis, -2 IntClasses
Bard songs should be selectable similar to the rogue talents or barbarian rages. If that means that some of the more powerful ones need to have scaling in them so be it. Every 10th level bard should have had choices in which songs they invested in.
Monk class features also need to be selected from a monk talents list just like the rogue and barbarian.
Paladin class features need to be selected from just like rogue and barbarian, finding a theme here?
Cleric should not have a static number of channel energy from first through 20th level. I suggest something like Cha + 1 and then +1 more every 4 levels or something. Also, the cleric’s channel energy powers should be removed from the combat section and placed in the class features section. It is no longer overly long and complicated and can easily be accommodated in that section.Skills
Overall I concur with many of the skill combinations. However I think more can be done.Some of the skills are capital letters and others are not. Reason???
Craft skills should be made trained only and when looking at them they could stand to be merged a bit. For instance, I think that the various craft skills should be broken out on table 5-4 and different craft skills should be assigned to the various classes. I don’t think every class should have access to craft alchemy for instance. The following is how I would merge the craft skills:
Craft (Alchemy) (same)
Craft (Arms and Armor) (combines armorer,...
A lot of your proposed changes are not backwards compatible it seems.
I am disappointed that Jason didn't take a single suggestion from the Monk Think Tank...
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A lot of your proposed changes are not backwards compatible it seems.
I am disappointed that Jason didn't take a single suggestion from the Monk Think Tank...
Actually, as I look through it - very few changes were made at all based off the major threads.
Search skills, Athletics, or Jump discluded from Acrobatics at the least, Concentration skill, monk, changes, etc. These are all very vehemently supported and discussed to be changed.
Some of them I agree with. I'm not so arrogant to believe my way is right - neither way is technically wrong - but what I would like is for an explanation (from the designers) explaining their thought-process as to WHY these guns were stuck to and no changes based off the outpouring requests to do so were utilized.
Perhaps with an explanation and understanding into the mind-set and methods of madness as to why these things are as they are, others (including myself) may see something that we hadn't seen before and could perhaps accept it a little more.
None of these are 'game breakers' as I do love most of what has been done - but some of these were really vehemently supported for being changed, with no discussion or responses made for justifying why it's not going to be changed. Most of the items that I do vehemently disagree with (concentration, and Jump are the largest of those) I simply intend to add back in anyways.
I agree with some of what A T suggested - but I have to say as devil's advocate, the way you presented the observations was a bit on the bully and draconian sounding side. "this SHOULD be this and this." It comes across as you sounding like you think your way is the only right way without debate. Just an observation on my part.
I'm all for opening dialogue and discussing possible changes or varying viewpoints, but insisting something without question should be a certain way just sounds a bit hostile.
That being said, I especially like the idea of the bard choosing their songs like "talents."
My biggest beef with bards - and has been all along - is their marriage to the Perform skill. They're listed as getting 6 skills per level - but in truth they only get 5 to allocate as the player chooses; because without having that skil maxed out, the character loses out on their very class features.
Imagine a Paladin not being able to use Smite Evil unless he has a maxed out Diplomacy. Or a cleric not being able to chanel energy unless he has a maxed out Knowledge Religion, or a Barbarian not able to rage without a maxed out Intimidate, or a rogues sneak attack only able to be used if acrobatics was maxed out.
Its simply silly (and always has been - its not Paizo's fault); the bard is the ONLY class whose very class features are hamstrung by having to have a skill be maxed out!
I can see allowing perform to allow some sort of benefit, or synergizing bonus to the abilities of a bard if he/she WANTS to be truly well-trained in that skill, but I still totally disagree in making it imperative skill to be max trained in to use the class skills you gain at each level.
As an alternative, bards can gain 6 skill points AND be understood that they automatically have a perform score ranks equal to their class level.
OR just remove perform all together as a skill - make it a bard ability. It doesn't really serve a purpose other than bards for their class features; if you need to have a "performer - Actor" Or "singer" or whatever, just have that be a "profession" skill to earn you money. OTher than that - its really a wasted skill that is unfair that it is forced on to a bard.
This is one of the reasons I've never seen people play bards in my groups. Its just such a red-headed stepchild of a class that is way underpowered.
Robert
Appraise skill, this is a more controversial change but one that I personally like very much. I would axe the appraise skill and combine that skill to each of the various craft skills. Want to appraise art objects? Finery check. Want to appraise armor and weapons? Arms and Armor check.
I think this could present many problems. First of all, this idea works with the assumption that being able to judge the quality of something is equated with the ability to create or craft something. This is not true for many reasons. The best reason is to consider those who judge the quality of antiques, fine art, etc.-- they know what makes something of great quality, but that does not mean they could create one or even any of those objects. Just because they know that that is finely crafted cabinet does mean they know how to craft one or have the talent to do so. I guess this means that every antique or art dealer would know how to make 50 different crafts in order to be proficient in judging the quality of the items so he or she could set prices.
This is also where this breaks down in game mechanics. First of all, you would have PCs that would need four (or more) craft skills just so they could identify the treasure they found. More than likely, however, players would ignore these and take the skills they need to function as a member of their class (survival, acrobatics, spellcraft, perception, etc.) and chose to rely on NPCs for identification. The PCs would have to find a craftsman for every item that they need appraised, or even worse, the DM would have to make an NPC that has ranks in several crafts, when artisans specializing in specific crafts is what happened in history.
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None of these are 'game breakers' as I do love most of what has been done - but some of these were really vehemently supported for being changed, with no discussion or responses made for justifying why it's not going to be changed. Most of the items that I do vehemently disagree with (concentration, and Jump are the largest of those) I simply intend to add back in anyways.
A lot of good things have been done. I concur and I don't actually have any problems with the system as of yet. They are just little niggles. The only thing as I see it, that is a major potential problem is the multi-classing rules which we have not seen what they think yet.
I agree with some of what A T suggested - but I have to say as devil's advocate, the way you presented the observations was a bit on the bully and draconian sounding side. "this SHOULD be this and this."
I wanted to be heard and I think that beating around the bush on what I think may be a bit unassuming. I don't have the answers, I only have a version of the answers. Some people don't even try to answer the question.
That being said, I especially like the idea of the bard choosing their songs like "talents."
I agree and the bard has to pay a concentration like skill point fee, but rightly so is even more important to the bard if they want to get their bard class features. I also like the idea of simply removing the perform skill. Fighters or any other class is not going to realistically invest anything into perform when they get so few to begin with anyway. Another thing that *should* get investigated is the relative power level of each skill. -------------------> they vary wildly.
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Appraise skill, this is a more controversial change but one that I personally like very much. I would axe the appraise skill and combine that skill to each of the various craft skills. Want to appraise art objects? Finery check. Want to appraise armor and weapons? Arms and Armor check.I think this could present many problems. First of all, this idea works with the assumption that being able to judge the quality of something is equated with the ability to create or craft something. This is not true for many reasons. The best reason is to consider those who judge the quality of antiques, fine art, etc.-- they know what makes something of great quality, but that does not mean they could create one or even any of those objects. Just because they know that that is finely crafted cabinet does mean they know how to craft one or have the talent to do so. I guess this means that every antique or art dealer would know how to make 50 different crafts in order to be proficient in judging the quality of the items so he or she could set prices.
This is also where this breaks down in game mechanics. First of all, you would have PCs that would need four (or more) craft skills just so they could identify the treasure they found. More than likely, however, players would ignore these and take the skills they need to function as a member of their class (survival, acrobatics, spellcraft, perception, etc.) and chose to rely on NPCs for identification. The PCs would have to find a craftsman for every item that they need appraised, or even worse, the DM would have to make an NPC that has ranks in several crafts, when artisans specializing in specific crafts is what happened in history.
Ah, but I don't think so, somebody good at crafting masterwork, cabinetry is probably also good at identifying and appreciate what good quality craftsmanship is. So it is sort of both ways, the chicken and the egg. Do you have to have a macro skill that encapsulates appraising everything (highly unrealistic - if you want to get into realism) or do you have a skill that is specific to the task at hand and make a focused roll in that area?
Now getting into the idea that is it fair that I make my PC's take this many skill points in this so that they can identify these items. If it were me I would make a DC table look like this for craft.
identify value of common item 10
identify value of uncommon item 15
identify value of rare item 20
identify value of unique item 25+
craft common item 15
craft uncommon item 20
craft rare item 25
craft unique item 30+
Anyway something along those lines, that way the craft dabbler is now mostly just a purveyor of the craft and a true master is one who actually invests in the skill and makes things and are also purveyors of their own craft as well. Do you want a gem cutter to appraise your stone or some guy on the street who says he knows about stone. I'll take the gem-cutter.
The skill point problem is one to consider though because 5 craft skills is quite a bit, but think about the openendedness of the craft skill I have actually limited it to five. I have combined the armor/weapon/bows into one skill and the myriad of individual skills are limited to just 5.
And as far as appraise goes really only craft Finery is an important one for determining art objects and stuff. So it pretty much carries directly over verbatim.
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Some of my own niggles (and comments concerning those raised prior).
1. Concentration? Why does this remain missing? I remain perplexed as Concentration was not exclusively spell-related. If anything, Spellcraft and Knowledge (arcana) should have been merged.
2. Perform (and the Bard). Actually, I'd expand this to Craft and Knowledge as well. I like the OP's simplified craft collection. Not the same as my simplified set, but why have so many subparts? As for Perform, my PBP group took the 9 subparts and condensed everything down to three: (1) Oratory, (2) Instruments, and (3) Physical.
3. Separate and apart from the skills above, I remain perplexed why certain skills were condensed and others left alone. I understand that we have essentially two camps here: (1) DON'T CONDENSE and (2) CONDENSE MORE! But in either case, I concur with the prior post in that it would be nice to actually hear WHY Paizo did what it did (and did nothing more), e.g., why didn't Disguise and Bluff get condensed into Deception?
4. Regarding the Monk - one critical element was the odd situation of unarmed attacks. My PBP group's suggestion: Make the Monk (and ALL classes) proficient with simple weapons. THEN, the Monk could take one weapon group to be trained in for monk fighting, i.e., we used the Fighter Weapon Groups, and likewise added as a Bonus Feat, Weapon Group Proficiency, tying back to those Fighter Bonuses.
The problem my PBP group now has is whether to (A) Playtest Beta as it is or (B) incorporate the House Rules that we've been using and simply MAKE Beta our game system with House Rules. We're split, with my preference being B ... seeing that Paizo hasn't addressed a variety of things needing addressed.
Director of Brand Strategy
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Not to pick apart your suggestions, but I think you have the best chance of getting these issues addressed if they are presented in the proper stage of playtesting, Throwing everything into one email may get it all off your chest, but it works against the systematic approach that is being used on the Beta. The Alphas were handled differently, but I think that all suggestions will have a lot more time to be discussed and considered by the design team 1) after GenCon and 2) if they are presented concisely in their proper place and time.
Actually, as I look through it - very few changes were made at all based off the major threads.
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Here, here. I agree with you Robert. There were many great suggestions on fixes to feats, classes, and skills which were widely supported in these threads and very little changed.
I have my biggest problem with the Universalist Wizard, which is by far the most powerful option for a wizard..there may as well not even be any of the specializations options in Pathfinder.
Actually, at this point I'm more apt to apply some of the great suggestions I saw on those threads into a house ruled version of 3.5 than to try and play the beta rules.
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My biggest beef with bards - and has been all along - is their marriage to the Perform skill. They're listed as getting 6 skills per level - but in truth they only get 5 to allocate as the player chooses; because without having that skil maxed out, the character loses out on their very class features.
Imagine a Paladin not being able to use Smite Evil unless he has a maxed out Diplomacy. Or a cleric not being able to chanel energy unless he has a maxed out Knowledge Religion, or a Barbarian not able to rage without a maxed out Intimidate, or a rogues sneak attack only able to be used if acrobatics was maxed out.
Its simply silly (and always has been - its not Paizo's fault); the bard is the ONLY class whose very class features are hamstrung by having to have a skill be maxed out!
Well a Bard's "Song" is magic that requires the component of doing a dance, singing a song, playing an instrument. All of which require specific skill to dance, sing or play. I think that that is why they are married to the perform skill.
A Paladin doesn't NEED a special skill for Smite Evil to work...he mystically senses that something is evil and due to faith in his Deity is able to channel holy energy into his strike. A Cleric doesn't NEED a skill to hold up her holy symbol and channel her faith and energy through. The Barbarian doesn't NEED a skill to dig deep and tap into his internal Barbarian Rage.
Now the Rogue, the way that Sneak Attack works now, you could argue needs some Knowledge (Anatomy) to recognize the vital points of their opponent.
But the Bard is a performing artist able to channel magical energies through their performance. But you can't just pick up any old instrument or sing the correct range of tones. You have to be trained in the performing arts as well. Thus needing the Perform skill. To me it makes sense.
I guess to an extent the Wizard needs specialized skills in order to pull off his spells. He needs to know the correct words, tones, hand gestures, and able to identify and appraise material components. Probably why we now have Spellcraft and have had Knowledge Arcane etc. in the past.
I'm just saying that perhaps that is exactly why the Bard is attached to the Perform skill. For realism sake I think it should stay.
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Since we were talking about skills I thought I would throw out my preferred version of the skill list.
Skill list for PF grouped
Acrobatics -> escape artist
Athletics -> climb, fly, swim
Ride
Sleight of Hand -> feint (from bluff)
Stealth
Bluff -> disguise
Diplomacy
Intimidate
Sense Motive
Perception
Alchemy -> appraise
Arms and Armor -> appraise, craft armor, craft weapons, craft bows
Building -> appraise, knowledge engineering
Devices -> appraise, craft traps
Finery -> appraise, forgery
Disable Device
Arcana -> Use Magic Device
Spellcraft
Handle Animal
Heal
History -> knowledge local, knowledge geography, knowledge nobility
Religion -> knowledge planes
Linguistics
Dungeoneering -> survival, knowledge geography
Nature -> survival, knowledge geography
New skill
Pilot
Deleted skills
Perform
Profession
My comments.
Races
If you make the Half-Elf worse than it is now no body will want to play it, save those folks who play half-elves regardless of their mechanics.
Classes
Whole heartedly agree in talent trees. The barbarian opened my eyes in what was possible, and rogues were more than happy to have this method. Monks need it as well: Feats are nice, but specific class abilities would be much more appreciated.
Move all the bloodlines, specializations and domains straight into the class sections, as well as channel descriptions. This is one thing WoTC got right with 4e.
Skills
Get rid of fly. Maneuverability is fine.
Difficulty Checks
These have got to be based on your level, whether class or character I leave up to the designers. Static spell saves mean static characters. A wizard who casts fireball, never mind what level the spell is, should cast it at his full potential. That's what level simulates!
The same goes for all DCs. 10 + Half Level + Ability. Fourth Ed got this very right, and so should 3.5 and Pathfinder. This should also go for AC and Saves to an extent.
Action Points/Hero Points
Why doesn't Pathfinder have any?
Multiclassing
3.5 has got this mostly right. The only issue is power scale, as AT said. If you have two 10 level classes then you are two half characters meshed into one. You have horizontal power, but not much punch. People who specialize almost always have better methods then those who generalize.
This is a bad notion. I whole heartedly agree that half of all your other classes should count towards your other class in all ways. Sneak Attack, Caster Levels, and Class Abilities.
For instance, a level 5 Wizard/5 Rogue would have,
Caster Level 7 Wizard (Wizard 5 + Rogue 2)
Sneak Attack 4d6 (Rogue 5 + Wizard 2)
etc...
The whole concept must be focused on character level and less on class level in order to maintain stability through all levels of play. BAB, saves and AC must be stabilized across all levels, with classes giving specific bonuses to their strong points, as AT said.
This would make a great D&D without sacrificing any backwards compatibility.
Good saves give a +2, Everyone gets half level in BAB, with warrior classes giving half their level again as a bonus to hit, 3/4 classes getting a strait +2 or +3, and caster classes getting no bonus.
It can go on. It needs to be fleshed out, but I'd be happy to brain storm with those who want it.
-Neceros
I love 99% of it, except for:
- The changes to Power Attack and Expertise (making it totally useless for 99% of fighters - do you REALLY expect fighters not to keep their intelligence reasonably low? Do they now need to keep that high too? Or do only the smart guys get to raise their CA now?).
- More generally, the feats that say "Take the lower of your BAB or your bonus in the xxx stat".
- Changes to Cleave and Great Cleave. Made both feats rubbish now.
I didn't mention feats because those are easy to not use. My group is using 3.5 core feats mostly. So, I'll agree that the current feats are underwhelming.
I love 99% of it, except for:
- The changes to Power Attack and Expertise (making it totally useless for 99% of fighters - do you REALLY expect fighters not to keep their intelligence reasonably low? Do they now need to keep that high too? Or do only the smart guys get to raise their CA now?).
- More generally, the feats that say "Take the lower of your BAB or your bonus in the xxx stat".
- Changes to Cleave and Great Cleave. Made both feats rubbish now.
What makes cleave and great cleave rubbish? That they are full-round actions? Only thing I don't like is that great cleave is actually the same feat as whirwind attack, but only a little worse. But I still think that Great cleave is quite effective feat... I agree with you on Combat expertise though. Never had a fighter with Int better than 12.
I agree with you on Combat expertise though. Never had a fighter with Int better than 12.
So you are not qualified to judge on Combat Expertise for fighters at all, since even in 3.5e it has Int 13 as a prerequisite.
Bards are a lot of things but if they're anything they're PERFORMERS. And the type of perform skill they practise whether it's string, oratory, or dance defines what kind of Bard they're in.Perform defines the bard, you're either a singer, dancer, maybe a mix between them. It's also an occaisional flavor skill for a rogue who's got a point or two to spare. I once had a wizard who had a whole 2 points in Perform (storytelling) he told stories to entertain children and they weren't that discriminating an audience.
So while this has become true, I think that the bard has not always been that - the 1e historical-Celt-inspired bard was not necessarily Beethoven-in-training. Their role was more historian with music and meter/rhyme being used as a memorization tool. High Perform is one take on a bard but not the other, just as high Heal is one take on a cleric but not exclusively.
I agree with you on Combat expertise though. Never had a fighter with Int better than 12.So you are not qualified to judge on Combat Expertise for fighters at all, since even in 3.5e it has Int 13 as a prerequisite.
Oh, I never meant to judge it for everyone, just to agree that it useless to many fighters, including all of mine. I have no problem with Expertise staing the way it is in PFRPG. My main point was to point out that great cleave isn't really so different from whirwind attack. Just wanted to agree in something =)
Some of my own niggles (and comments concerning those raised prior).
1. Concentration? Why does this remain missing? I remain perplexed as Concentration was not exclusively spell-related. If anything, Spellcraft and Knowledge (arcana) should have been merged.
At some recording of a conference at Origins I heard, Jason talked about his issue. He considered doing exactly that, but decided there was less use for concentration. In most of the gaming that I have done, I don't think GM or players have used concentration for anything but spell related issue, so I see his point. He also talked about maybe inventing a new way to handle the non-spell related concentration checks. While I see both sides of this issue, since my experience with concentration has personally be more in line with Jason's observations, I have no personal issue with it getting merged.
3. Separate and apart from the skills above, I remain perplexed why certain skills were condensed and others left alone. I understand that we have essentially two camps here: (1) DON'T CONDENSE and (2) CONDENSE MORE! But in either case, I concur with the prior post in that it would be nice to actually hear WHY Paizo did what it did (and did nothing more), e.g., why didn't Disguise and Bluff get condensed into Deception?
I do agree it would be interesting to hear why certain things were done. That said, I'm sure explaining everything would be as big a project as making the changes.
The problem my PBP group now has is whether to (A) Playtest Beta as it is or (B) incorporate the House Rules that we've been using and simply MAKE Beta our game system with House Rules. We're split, with my preference being B ... seeing that Paizo hasn't addressed a variety of things needing addressed.
I think you hit an issue I think everyone forgets about. To put it simply, "It your game do what you want". There will be those say, you need to play as written or it will move you further from the core game. I don't think this is so. It has been a tradition in RPGs as far back as I remember. Hell, if you look at games in general this true. Take Good old Monopoly, I think everyone has a some sort of 'House' rule that they use with it. When you play it with a different group you have to use their change. I don't think any expects to play Monopoly as written. RPGs are no different, we all use things from a variety of resources. We usually have to make some changes to suit "our" needs. In this case this would be that things that you though needed to be addressed and were not. I'm not saying things didn't need to be addressed. I'm just saying that not all things can be addressed to everyone satisfaction. (Sadly another thing that most people forget about)
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They may not have been Beethoven but they were orators, verbal keepers of history, in essence Performers. (Beethoven by comparison was not a performer but a composer) Especially in societies like the old Celts which were largly verbal, performance was a MUST for a Celtic Bard. Performance defines a Bard like Belief defines a Cleric (and now I'm not going to accept the argument for agnostic/atheistic Clerics)
I think the discussion of the Perform requirement for Bardic songs is getting a bit off track, here.
I don't think most people argue that a sound simulationist based argument can't be made for requiring that perform be at a certain level in order to allow bards to use certain bardic music powers.
I think the issue is the mechanical effects of this requirement - namely, one of the bard's few advantages - high skill points and skill access - is severely nerfed in order to have access to class abilities.
This is a mechanical balance concern.
Bards have lower level spellcasting (as spell level power increases are closer to exponential than linear, this is a larger nerf than 2/3 spellcasting progression might first appear), average to low battle capabilities, and a spell list that is mostly limited to buffs and mind affecting spells.
Their big advantages are skills and skill access (second only to rogue), a great ability in altering attitudes of others, and a lack of serious weaknesses.
Nerfing the skills of a bard by requiring full investment in at least one, and likely two skills that are useful pretty much only for access to their class abilities effectively turns a bard into a 4 skill point character.
I think it would be fair to change Bardic Knowledge so it only allows bards to add 1/2 their level as an enhancement to knowledge checks, and allows them to make these checks untrained. Then remove the perform skill entirely. The bard will "gain" one skill point per level, maybe two...that he can then invest in a knowledge skill if desired...or maybe in Fly. Whatever.
eh...this got longer than I intended. Apologies.
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Bards are party buffers. If you have a melee-oriented party, with a buffing bard, its efficiency will increase many, many, many times over.
I would amend this slightly to say that Bards are party buffers and jacks of all trades.
Bards in 3.5, and thus probably in PFRPG, should not really outshine anyone in combat, spellcasting or skills...because they can do all three reasonably well. The bard can't outfight the fighter, or out spell-sling the wizard, or out-skill the rogue. I'm cool with that.
But perform can only be used to:
- Earn money as the profession skill
- Act as a pale shadow of Diplomacy
- Provide an alternate saving throw result upon use of Countersong or Distraction.
I don't really see the purpose of the perform skill. Nobody needs access to it except bards. A Profession(Musician) or Profession(dancer) or Profession(storyteller) rank serves the same purpose mechanically for everyone except Bards. To me that means it's a pointless skill.
If you wish, force Bards to choose one of the two Bardic Music options available on those levels where two become available. But Perform ranks are completely superfluous now, in my opinion.
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Bards stink for a number of reasons flavor and mechanics. However, both of those can be debated endlessly and I don't want to go there. What I would like to do is draw the conversation towards getting them to a place where they are at least mechanically interesting. How do you do that? You make a their class features into a several groups and allow them to pick the "songs" or other class features that they want. Using the class features I think you can actually broaden their scope a bit and allow the player to decide the angle of their bard.
Here are the Bards areas of expertise
Performance "bardic songs"
Knowledge "bardic lore"
Swashbuckler "daring fighter and gallantry"
*Spellcasting "function of performance and knowledge"
Really the most focus is on the first area - performance.
The list of bards selectable talents could get spread out a bit into the other areas.
They get 16 different songs
They get 4 other abilities:
Bardic knowledge: +1 skill point/level in a knowledge
Well versed: +4 vs sonic or songs effects
Lore master: take 10 on knowledge checks, take 20 1/day
Jack of all trades: all skills become class skills
The rogue gets 10 rogue talents of which 6 can be advanced ones. The rogue also gets their regular stuff too: trapfinding, evasion, trapsense, and uncanny dodge. Something similar can be done with the bard, since they spell cast this is in my mind comparable to the rogues sneak attack feature. This opens them up to having them select a bard feature every even level.
Split the bard songs into 2 groups basic and advanced, add in a couple of non-song bard features based on the other bard areas of expertise and walla you have a very interesting character that gives the player a lot of choices on what their bard looks like. I might even be tempted to play one if it looked like this. :p
Some example features:
Basic
Add a sorcerer/wizard spell to your spells known
Add a cleric or druid spell to your spells known
Evasion
+8 or so songs
All together 8 basic performance/8 basic knowledge/8 basic swashbuckler
Advanced
Precise strike add +1d6 damage when attacking with a light weapon
Skill Mastery (as rogue talent)
+8 or so songs
All together 8 Advanced performance/8 Advanced knowledge/8 Advanced swashbuckler
Now do this for the Monk, Paladin and Ranger and you will have very interesting and varied set of classes where the player will decide the flow of their character. It will make them as interesting as the wizard, cleric, druid, sorcerer, barbarian, rogue and fighter (all of who get to make a lot of decisions during their advancement.
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I don't really see the purpose of the perform skill. Nobody needs access to it except bards. A Profession(Musician) or Profession(dancer) or Profession(storyteller) rank serves the same purpose mechanically for everyone except Bards. To me that means it's a pointless skill.
I totally agree, the perform skill is just a skill tax, similar to concentration for a spell caster. Want to have your character be effective? You had better take this superfluous skill!
Concentration is better handled as simply a CL check - (I noticed the skill is gone what did they do with it>)
Perform is better handled as simply hand wave, yeah bards know how to do that.
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With the cleric and paladin's class feature list, when I said remove the channel energy power from the combat section and put it as a class feature, that also means that their tables would indicate exactly how much healing and harming they would have listed by level. So at first level it should say, "channel energy 1d6" and at 3rd it should say, "channel energy 2d6" and then go on from there. This to me is like putting the sneak attack feature in the combat section. It needs to be added to the class features of the cleric and paladin.
good call, disassociate ALL skills from class abilities. It is unfair. No "balance" about it.
Appraise...no opinion, there are two opposing and very good arguments.
as to skill consolidation...tough call. I wouldn't mind fewer, more broad skills, as long as there still remains a decent variety.
I too am curious about the Beta. It doesn't seem that much really changed from the Alpha III. I haven't fine-toothed it yet, but nothing has jumped out yet.
Simple House rule for the Bard. They get "Perform" for free. Always equal to their level+3+Attribute Modifier.
The Perform skill is for other classes.
Worked just fine for the last year I ran 3E.
so, somebody good at crafting masterwork, cabinetry is probably also good at identifying and appreciate what good quality craftsmanship is. So it is sort of both ways, the chicken and the egg. Do you have to have a macro skill that encapsulates appraising...
I think you misunderstood what I was saying. Of course someone who is a good at crafting something can identify good craftsmanship--I assumed that was just common logic. I am arguing that people do not need to know how to craft something or be experts at crafting in order to make reasonable judgements about the quality of something. So, yes, someone with a craft (whatever) can appraise the quality of the whatever they are good at crafting. However, this does not mean that someone who cannot craft whatever or has no talent for it cannot make judgements. I have always allowed characters with craft (whatever) to make appraise checks, but they are not the only ones who can make these judgements. This is like saying that because an art dealer is not a good painter he cannot judge the quality of a pianting.
As "for the guy on the street" comment, a person would be stupid to just trust some guy on the street over the expert gem cutter, etc. I am not saying general experts in the quality of goods are the better choice, but they have to have some skill in order to know what price to buy things and what to sell things for...otherwise they will be taken by gem cutters, etc. And of course, if someone goes with the "guy on the street" as you say, he'll probably have skill at appraising the objects he sells, especially if he is planning to pull a fast one!
Do you have to have a macro skill that encapsulates appraising everything (highly unrealistic - if you want to get into realism) or do you have a skill that is specific to the task at hand and make a focused roll in that area?
Yes, but the task at hand is CRAFT (whatever). You are making the assumption that the thief who steals a necklace also knows how to make one--and since he doesn't, he has no skill at identifying whether it is real, fake, low or high quality, etc. If I took my wedding band to be appraised, I really don't think that all jewelers could make me another one, but the jeweler definately knows what he is talking about when it comes to the quality.
However, I do agree that appraise (everything) is unrealistic. The jeweler for instance, specializes in identifying jewelery. It makes sense for craft to be more specialized, but appraise more general (but still broken down into reasonable catergories).
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PF Beta just got released and the game is pretty good. Several 3e issues have been dealt with. They still need to tackle multi-classing which is not in the book. Beyond that there are several niggles that I have with some of the things. Some of them are long standing 3.5 problems and others are newly created. So here we go…
Races
Races with the small size racial feature should also have their CMB modifier listed there as well.
Half-Elf should have a +2 to Dex or +2 to Int, and not +2 to any
Half-Orc should have a +2 Str, and not +2 Str, +2 Wis, -2 Int
I'm completely in agreement with these suggestions -- they're thematically and mechanically very "sound" and reasonable. Elven heritage should be part of the half-elven ability scores, and also make them stand apart a bit from humans (you probably don't pick half-elf for your race anyway just to freely slot that +2 into any stat). And the half-orc... that +2 to STR and WIS makes them practically the *ONLY* choice for melee-oriented clerics -- or as one of my players put it: "Wow, seems like the number of half-orcs just multiplied in every church's ranks!" (can you guess which race he picked for his cleric?). +2 to STR would make them mechanically viable and stand apart from every other race, except the humans. If half-orcs will get something "extra" in PF RPG, I don't think that'll be a problem -- otherwise it may make them "subpar" to humans, at least.
Maybe the real "distinction" and "feel" of each race will be best realized with the Racial Feats (which should be available in PF Companions)?
Classes
Bard songs should be selectable similar to the rogue talents or barbarian rages. If that means that some of the more powerful ones need to have scaling in them so be it. Every 10th level bard should have had choices in which songs they invested in.
Monk class features also need to be selected from a monk talents list just like the rogue and barbarian.
Paladin class features need to be selected from just like rogue and barbarian, finding a theme here?
Cleric should not have a static number of channel energy from first through 20th level. I suggest something like Cha + 1 and then +1 more every 4 levels or something. Also, the cleric’s channel energy powers should be removed from the combat section and placed in the class features section. It is no longer overly long and complicated and can easily be accommodated in that section.
I'm also completely in agreement with these suggestions, too. I find it a bit odd, that some classes have "point-based" abilities (e.g. barbarian) that they can pick as they progress in levels, while others have "static" class features. In fact, I think we had pretty good "Smite Power" suggestions in one of the Alpha '[Think Tank]'-threads.
Skills
Overall I concur with many of the skill combinations. However I think more can be done.Some of the skills are capital letters and others are not. Reason???
I think this was due to an editing error?
Craft skills should be made trained only and when looking at them they could stand to be merged a bit. For instance, I think that the various craft skills should be broken out on table 5-4 and different craft skills should be assigned to the various classes. I don’t think every class should have access to craft alchemy for instance. The following is how I would merge the craft skills:
Craft (Alchemy) (same)
Craft (Arms and Armor) (combines armorer, weaponsmith, and boyer)
Craft (Building) (building structures, siege engines etc.)
Craft (Devices) (traps, clockworks and other engineering feats)
Craft (Finery) (art objects, gems, wands, forgery, and other forms of finery)
Appraise skill, this is a more controversial change but one that I personally like very much. I would axe the appraise skill and combine that skill to each of the various craft skills. Want to appraise art objects? Finery check. Want to appraise armor and weapons? Arms and Armor check.
Profession skill should be removed. What it actually does by the rules is allow a character to earn a living (a few gold a week) with his “other” skills, too often this skill is confused to be so much more. It is often used to be sort of a yeah I know how to sail a ship or do some other thing that is not covered in the rules. Get rid of this skill and use fair market value for what ever profession a character wants to do and don’t use this meta-crutch skill to accomplish that end.
Hmmm... interesting... not a bad way to “tweak” Craft skills, but what about Craft (Poetry), Craft (Calligraphy) and Craft (Poisonmaking), for example? My personal preference would be to keep Craft “subskills” as they are, except for adding Craft (Forgery) – which should IMO *not* be part of Linguistics, even though Linguistics should be a requirement for using it -- *AND* removing Craft (Trapmaking), Craft (Poisonmaking) and Craft (Alchemy) and making them *FEATS* (i.e. ‘Craft Mechanical Traps’ and ‘Craft Alchemical Items’) .
I think Appraise is a good skill for evaluating treasure, so I would keep it. However, why is appraising Magical Items part of this skill, when to me it would be way more logical to put it under Knowledge (Arcana)? Now your wizard or sorcerer has to spend their all-too-few ranks in *Appraise*.
I disagree with you on Profession – it’s a good skill for NPCs, and I’ve seen many PCs investing a rank or two in Profession occasionally. Of course, it’s mostly a “role-playing skill”, but I think it should exist.
Pilot skill, a new skill, would take care of any vehicles that pop up in a D&D game. The most important one would be pilot(ship). This would give the game system to use a skill to do that rather than wrongly using profession skill in this capacity. Again, profession skill allows you to use your *other* skills to make money on a weekly basis.
Escape artist needs to be combined with Acrobatics. This is one of the most sub par skills that I have almost never seen taken and even less called for.
Fly, Climb and Swim need to be combined together for game mechanic reasons. I know that there is an idea floating around that all of the “modes” of movement need to be a separate skill. Hogwash, this needs to be done because there are characters that have 2 skill points.
Bluff skill is a skill that allows your character to: lie, cheat, con, and maybe seduce. But one of my long standing dislikes that could get addressed with this skill is the create diversion. This should not be a bluff check. Possibly make it a CMB check, but not a bluff check. Also, feinting in combat is a little odd too, but a little more believable than using bluff to create a distraction.
I liked the original Alpha 1 skill ‘Deception’, and I think it is logical that you could use Bluff to create a distraction (“look out, everyone – the baron’s knights are soon here! Flee for your lives!”) – especially to give you bonuses on Sleight of Hand, at least (sort of “legerdemain”).
I agree with you on Escape Artist – to this day NO rogue in my group has invested ranks in it, and it would only be logical that if it were folded into Acrobatics. Personally, I think that Fly should be under Acrobatics, too.
I think a new skill called Athletics would be a nice “superskill” for Climb, Swim and Jump. Now, I know that some people have said that this would be problematic for their desert-born nomad fighters who should not be able to swim – well, the problem already existed in 3E, since nothing in the rules would stop you from investing ranks in a class skill, and there are no “culturally-exclusive” skills in D&D. I think the most elegant solution would be to include a text that says: “If your character’s background would not allow you to use a skill in certain situations, such as using Athletics for swimming for a character who has never seen large bodies of water, then your DM may tell you so.” (or something like that).
Feats
Improved and greater feats should be in the format: Two-weapon fighting, greater. That way you are not flipping back and forth looking at feats that should have been right next to each other.
The +2 to two skills feats need to be removed they were a waste of space in 3.5 and they are a waste of space in PF. Make a side bar note on how to convert the feat from other books (not they were selected by anybody – even in other books with sub-par characters) then create a feat called Skill Synergy that gives +2 to two chosen skills.
Arcane strike is this feat meant to replace the overly powerful complete warrior feat? This underpowered feat does not do that. Some middle ground could be found?
Table 6-1 seems to be using the format of: weapons focus gives +1 to hit, greater weapon focus gives +1 to hit which is meant to stack to give +2 total. This is not always consistent. Greater weapon specialization is meant to be +4 or +6?
I agree that something like ‘Skill Synergy’, or, preferably, ‘Talented’ (as was already suggested by a number of posters) would be better than having an X number of +2/+2 skills taking up space in the book (especially as some of them are just plain odd combinations and way less useful than others). However, I *LOVE* that you now get +4/+4 or +6 (with Skill Focus) as you gain 10 ranks in a skill – the same with Dodge, Arcane Strike and other similar feats. A very elegant solution, which, in my opinion, emphasizes the meaning of these Feats and make them a lot better in the eyes of players. I think Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization – plus Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, and Great Fortitude – should do so as well, eliminating the need for ‘Improved/Epic Will’or ‘Greater Weapon Focus’ and so on.
Combat
Concealment, Stabilize, and Arcane Spell Failure are all percentile rolls. These could be easily cleaned up to be d20 rolls. It is a d20 game after all. This will actually speed up the game by a tiny fraction on these rolls. No searching for/fishing out the little used % dice just roll the d20 that is already in your hand.
Make Coupe de Grace a standard action so that it will actually be better to use that action than just doing a full attack.
Yep, I agree that all rolls should be D20 instead of percentiles – it isn’t even hard to do that, since you basically just diving everything with 5.
Remove the “critical failure” roll a “1” on a save item destruction rules. Table 10-1 “the funky chart” needs to just be removed along with its corresponding rule. I have rarely seen the rule in play but when it is the players often feal cheated when it happens to them. There are no critical misses for a reason and this is a hidden critical miss rule that is just antiquated game design at its best. Please remove this rule.
Critical failures remind me that there’s one thing that I would like to see tweaked – Critical Hits. Why not have one of the dice/damage multipliers be maximized, and roll the rest of the damage? That way you would *ALWAYS* inflict more than your maximum damage with a normal hit. I hate to see crits that inflict, say, 4 or 6 points of damage, just because you roll a double 1 with you long sword. And I wouldn’t mind to see half your level added to the total damage bonus, so that your 10th level fighter would inflict extra +5 damage with a crit. For example, using a non-magical greatsword, a 20th level fighter with STR 22 could inflict 2D6 + 30 (1 X “maximized” dice for 12 plus 18 for STR) + 10 (for level, ½*20). I think this wouldn’t throw off balance too much, and those 1st level “minions” wouldn’t add any “level bonuses” to crits at all.
I also would like to see more “weapon qualities”, such as “checking” your enemies with polearms and spears, and getting bonuses to tripping with staves, for example. I have even thought about making Trip, Disarm, Bull Rush and Overrun Full Attacks, and introducing Dazing/Stunning/Staggering/Bleeding effects on a natural 20 (“Special Hits”) for certain weapons (maybe you could also pick them as Feats?).
* * *
Anyway, I don’t think we should give too much feedback until GenCon is over, and the Paizo guys have rested a bit. In any case, I think they’ll open new threads for Beta, so maybe we’re posting way too early? I may use some houserules (which I have posted here), but I also want to test them properly in Beta before giving actual suggestions or feedback. And we have to try to do it in a more constructed form than before, because, frankly, the Alpha Forums are so messy to read and analyze that often I just get frustrated. Some people have already suggested a very nice format to use, so I’ll guess we’ll soon get an announcement about using it or some other “more orderly” way to post feedback.
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Hmmm... interesting... not a bad way to “tweak” Craft skills, but what about Craft (Poetry), Craft (Calligraphy) and Craft (Poisonmaking), for example?
Craft (Poetry and Calligraphy) = Craft (Finery)
Craft (Poisonmaking) = Craft (Alchemy)
Had an idea for the following two skills.
Linguistics - every 2 skill points gets you a new language
Profession - every 2 points gets you a new profession
Both of these skills - there is no need to have a skill check. If you have one of these as a class skill it is only 1 point to get the new profession or skill. Since Profession is primarily a RP skill why make people invest more than 2 points in it anyway. Profession (poet), Profession (singer), profession (cook), profession (musician) all examples of a primarily RP need in the system to express that a character is one of these things. No need to make a check to do that. You just are or know the language - how well you do it is a matter of debate. You might have an accent, you might not be the best laborer however you still get paid fair market value. Easy and caters to the RP need to mechanically show the character has invested in something. I don't want to see another character with profession (investigator) and think he can take that and be competent at investigating when he has no skills in search or any knowledge skills.
By the way thanks for the review of my niggles Asgetrion.
Oh, and I agree, Arcana should be used to ID magic items! Magic weapons and armor should be Arms and Armor,
When they get back they can review... No need to wait imho.
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Yes, but the task at hand is CRAFT (whatever). However, I do agree that appraise (everything) is unrealistic. The jeweler for instance, specializes in identifying jewelery. It makes sense for craft to be more specialized, but appraise more general (but still broken down into reasonable catergories).
I see what you mean. Possibly since the skills are being broken down to a finite 5 skills, it might simply make sense to just cut the "craft" word off of the front so that it will make more sense. Possibly simply reserving that word for the "craft" feats.
For instance, people who know a bit about armor and weapons and how to appraise them and possibly make low end simple weapons if they tried would have a relatively low skill rank in Arms and Armor and those who knew how to craft uncommon, rare and exotic arms and armor would would have a high rank in the skill.
Actually, as I look through it - very few changes were made at all based off the major threads.
Agreed! There needs to be several critical changes to the PRG before the final version is made. I too was hoping BETA would reflect those, but it hasn't. I am hoping that many of these critical changes will addressed in the final version.
Actually, as I look through it - very few changes were made at all based off the major threads.Agreed! There needs to be several critical changes to the PRG before the final version is made. I too was hoping BETA would reflect those, but it hasn't. I am hoping that many of these critical changes will addressed in the final version.
I'm sure we're all looking forward to the Playtest Results thread filling up with valuable playtest data (including yours, I hope!).
I see what you mean. Possibly since the skills are being broken down to a finite 5 skills, it might simply make sense to just cut the "craft" word off of the front so that it will make more sense. Possibly simply reserving that word for the "craft" feats.For instance, people who know a bit about armor and weapons and how to appraise them and possibly make low end simple weapons if they tried would have a relatively low skill rank in Arms and Armor and those who knew how to craft uncommon, rare and exotic arms and armor would would have a high rank in the skill.
Yes, I like this! This could work for me.
They may not have been Beethoven but they were orators, verbal keepers of history, in essence Performers. (Beethoven by comparison was not a performer but a composer) Especially in societies like the old Celts which were largly verbal, performance was a MUST for a Celtic Bard. Performance defines a Bard like Belief defines a Cleric (and now I'm not going to accept the argument for agnostic/atheistic Clerics)
So while this has become true, I think that the bard has not always been that - the 1e historical-Celt-inspired bard was not necessarily Beethoven-in-training. Their role was more historian with music and meter/rhyme being used as a memorization tool. High Perform is one take on a bard but not the other, just as high Heal is one take on a cleric but not exclusively.
Which is why they have Perform as a class skill. But should they have to be Beethoven to use their class powers, is the question at hand. I say no. (just as clerics have knowledge: religion as a class skill but don't have to roll it to use their powers.)
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2. Perform (and the Bard). Actually, I'd expand this to Craft and Knowledge as well. I like the OP's simplified craft collection. Not the same as my simplified set, but why have so many subparts? As for Perform, my PBP group took the 9 subparts and condensed everything down to three: (1) Oratory, (2) Instruments, and (3) Physical.
3. Separate and apart from the skills above, I remain perplexed why certain skills were condensed and others left alone. I understand that we have essentially two camps here: (1) DON'T CONDENSE and (2) CONDENSE MORE! But in either case, I concur with the prior post in that it would be nice to actually hear WHY Paizo did what it did (and did nothing more), e.g., why didn't Disguise and Bluff get condensed into Deception?
Since Alpha Rules was released I had argued that the Perform skill needs to be one of the things changed from 3.5 - so that it no longer is the benchmark needed to use their class features. So our group did this from the get-go during our platesting; making perform an OPTION instead of mandatory and based their songs off of level of character. One incarnation of a house rule we played with during the Alpha playtesting was to allow the bard to use their Perform skill to substitute as their "concentration" skill, and Diplomacy; for no other reason than to still give the skill a purpose to take. Then later, we realized that Perform wasn't even needed; we instead made it a Profession for anyone who wanted it, and wrote that Bards are natural performers and choose from the beginning one type of performer that they excel in (just for the roleplaying diferrence), which are similar to your three. Mine are: Music (includes singing and instruments), Acting (includes comedy, skits, dramatic, mime, oration, etc), Writing (includes creative writing stories, plays, poetry, etc).
As for Deception - we too have rolled Disguise into Bluff - its still Bluff - but disguise is part of it.
Here, here. I agree with you Robert. There were many great suggestions on fixes to feats, classes, and skills which were widely supported in these threads and very little changed.I have my biggest problem with the Universalist Wizard, which is by far the most powerful option for a wizard..there may as well not even be any of the specializations options in Pathfinder.
Actually, at this point I'm more apt to apply some of the great suggestions I saw on those threads into a house ruled version of 3.5 than to try and play the beta rules.
Thats another one that was discussed ad naseum on many threads.
I'm doing exactly that, Eric, I'll share mine with you when I'm done.....
Well a Bard's "Song" is magic that requires the component of doing a dance, singing a song, playing an instrument. All of which require specific skill to dance, sing or play. I think that that is why they are married to the perform skill.
A Paladin doesn't NEED a special skill for Smite Evil to work...he mystically senses that something is evil and due to faith in his Deity is able to channel holy energy into his strike. A Cleric doesn't NEED a skill to hold up her holy symbol and channel her faith and energy through. The Barbarian doesn't NEED a skill to dig deep and tap into his internal Barbarian Rage.
Thank you Big Daddy, you made my arguement for me. If a cleric's magic requires the use of divine intervention and therefore knows how to do it because he's a cleric, then a bard, who needs to know how to dance/sing to use his magic, he too should 'know how to do it'!
Perform should simply be something that a bard does. If its needed to make his class features useable, then it should be part of the class.
A barbarian doens't NEED a skill to dig deep, true enough. A bard should not NEED a skill to perform his magical songs. He either knows how to do it and is a bard, or doesn't know how to do it....and is a different class.
My comments.
Races
If you make the Half-Elf worse than it is now no body will want to play it, save those folks who play half-elves regardless of their mechanics.
My group agrees that half-elves are already the red-headed stepchildren and rarely played. This is what we're doing for half-elves to make them a more viable option. Taking a card from 2nd edition - half-elves due to their diversity are the "natural multi-classers." Instead of ONE favored class to add an extra hit point or skill point, they get TWO chosen at first level. So a half-elf fighter/rogue would get an extra skill or hit point every time he advances in either fighter OR Rogue.
Difficulty Checks
These have got to be based on your level, whether class or character I leave up to the designers. Static spell saves mean static characters. A wizard who casts fireball, never mind what level the spell is, should cast it at his full potential. That's what level simulates!The same goes for all DCs. 10 + Half Level + Ability. Fourth Ed got this very right, and so should 3.5 and Pathfinder. This should also go for AC and Saves to an extent.
This is where I disagree; and i see it moving too close to what 4e is; not that I dont think 4e has any merit to any of their features, just that I feel this goes too far to blur the distinction and make one feel too close to the other to simply defeat the purpose of having two distinct versions of the game.
I love 99% of it, except for:
- The changes to Power Attack and Expertise (making it totally useless for 99% of fighters - do you REALLY expect fighters not to keep their intelligence reasonably low? Do they now need to keep that high too? Or do only the smart guys get to raise their CA now?).
- More generally, the feats that say "Take the lower of your BAB or your bonus in the xxx stat".
- Changes to Cleave and Great Cleave. Made both feats rubbish now.
Both PA and CE were argued and lobbied vehemently for change. I'm not totally opposed to the way they are, but I dont love them as they are, either; and I did see a lot of negativity towards them as written in Alpha. I DO like Cleave and Great Cleave. GC is not the same as Whirlwind. GC is much easier to attain and harder to implement as all creatures have to be adjacent, and your attack sequence ends as soon as you miss a creature; where as Whirlwind you can attack ANY creature within your reach regardless if they're adjacent to each other or not, and you can attack all of them even if you miss some.
Perform defines the bard, you're either a singer, dancer, maybe a mix between them. It's also an occaisional flavor skill for a rogue who's got a point or two to spare. I once had a wizard who had a whole 2 points in Perform (storytelling) he told stories to entertain children and they weren't that discriminating an audience.If you're upset about the points you spend in Perform... specialise, if you want more skill points for things like Disable Device, Search, and Spot.... play a rogue.
I dont think it defines the bard - sure it makes them more colorful. IF its that important, my point is, to make it part of the base class - not a skill you're forced to invest points in. If its understood that bards are natural performers, they should naturally be able to perform and choose the style at creation.
As for the "play a rogue" comment; thats just a ridiculous sentiment. Instead of trying to fix what might be a little off, simply ignore it, pretend it doesnt exist, and do something else. That would be like me telling you not to complain about the air quality - grow gills and swim in the ocean instead.
That's one way to look at it. Another is that a surprising amount of changes that were made DO reflect the exchanges on these boards, the favored class mechanic comes to mind. The message boards were basically a place to winnow the chaff, which is what 99 plus percent of the "My great idea for class/feat/skill X/Y/Z" fell into. Those few that actually made it into Beta represent the Darwinian survivors of a very careful choosing process.
Did you really expect the messageboards to dictate the design of the game? If so, you already had a place setting at your table with Disappointment's name written on it.
Aren't you just a ray of sunshine.
So while this has become true, I think that the bard has not always been that - the 1e historical-Celt-inspired bard was not necessarily Beethoven-in-training. Their role was more historian with music and meter/rhyme being used as a memorization tool. High Perform is one take on a bard but not the other, just as high Heal is one take on a cleric but not exclusively.Which is why they have Perform as a class skill. But should they have to be Beethoven to use their class powers, is the question at hand. I say no. (just as clerics have knowledge: religion as a class skill but don't have to roll it to use their powers.)
That is PRECISELY what I am talking about.
They may not have been Beethoven but they were orators, verbal keepers of history, in essence Performers. (Beethoven by comparison was not a performer but a composer) Especially in societies like the old Celts which were largly verbal, performance was a MUST for a Celtic Bard. Performance defines a Bard like Belief defines a Cleric (and now I'm not going to accept the argument for agnostic/atheistic Clerics)
once again, this makes my arguement for me - a cleric is assumed to have belief simply because of its class, so if a bard is just as assumed to know how to perfom, it should be assumed to know how and be part of the class itself.
I think the discussion of the Perform requirement for Bardic songs is getting a bit off track, here.I don't think most people argue that a sound simulationist based argument can't be made for requiring that perform be at a certain level in order to allow bards to use certain bardic music powers.
I think the issue is the mechanical effects of this requirement - namely, one of the bard's few advantages - high skill points and skill access - is severely nerfed in order to have access to class abilities.
This is a mechanical balance concern.
But perform can only be used to:
To force a bard to max this skill out to simply gain access to his most iconic class skills is, in essence, removing at least one (and two skill points is required if they want access to all class abilities!) per level.
- Earn money as the profession skill
- Act as a pale shadow of Diplomacy
- Provide an alternate saving throw result upon use of Countersong or Distraction.
I don't really see the purpose of the perform skill. Nobody needs access to it except bards. A Profession(Musician) or Profession(dancer) or Profession(storyteller) rank serves the same purpose mechanically for everyone except Bards. To me that means it's a pointless skill.
Yes, exactly - and thank you for articulating that.
Really the most focus is on the first area - performance.
The list of bards selectable talents could get spread out a bit into the other areas.
They get 16 different songs
They get 4 other abilities:
This sounds very promising - I would be interested to see what you've come up with as potential "talents" as they relate to the bard - similar to those with the rogue.
Simple House rule for the Bard. They get "Perform" for free. Always equal to their level+3+Attribute Modifier.
The Perform skill is for other classes.
Worked just fine for the last year I ran 3E.
Thats what we did for a while - then we just removed the skill altogther as a wasted skill, and made perform be part of the bard's class feature - while others can take Profession Singer use it to make money - as making money is the ONLY think you can do with the skill (based on the mechanics) if you're not a rogue.
Robert
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Here is a recap of rules that were presented in this thread:
Races
Races with the small size racial feature should also have their CMB modifier listed there as well.
Half-Elf should have a +2 to Dex or +2 to Int, and not +2 to any
Half-Orc should have a +2 Str, and not +2 Str, +2 Wis, -2 Int
Make Half-orcs and Half-elves dual heritage give a multi-class bonus. Pick two classes and have them be favored classes.
Classes
Bard songs should be selectable similar to the rogue talents or barbarian rages. If that means that some of the more powerful ones need to have scaling in them so be it. Every 10th level bard should have had choices in which songs they invested in. Bards should have talents that are selectable in their three areas of interest: performance (songs), knowledge (bardic knowledge), swashbuckler (combat talents). Perform skill should be deleted.
Monk class features also need to be selected from a monk talents list just like the rogue and barbarian.
Cleric should not have a static number of channel energy from first through 20th level. I suggest something like Cha + 1 and then +1 more every 4 levels or something. Also, the cleric’s channel energy powers should be removed from the combat section and placed in the class features section and included on their summary table “channel energy 1d6” etc. It is no longer overly long and complicated and can easily be accommodated in that section.
Paladin class features need to be selected from just like rogue and barbarian. Channel energy should be included as a class feature.
Skills
Overall I concur with many of the skill combinations. However I think more can be done.
Some of the skills are capital letters and others are not. Reason???
Prefered skill list for PF (grouped)
Acrobatics -> escape artist
Athletics -> climb, fly, swim
Ride
Sleight of Hand -> feint (from bluff)
Stealth
Bluff -> disguise
Diplomacy
Intimidate
Sense Motive
Perception
Alchemy -> appraise
Arms and Armor -> appraise, craft armor, craft weapons, craft bows
Building -> appraise, knowledge engineering
Devices -> appraise, craft traps
Finery -> appraise, forgery
Disable Device
Arcana -> Use Magic Device
Spellcraft
Handle Animal
Heal
History -> knowledge local, knowledge geography, knowledge nobility
Religion -> knowledge planes
Linguistics -> 2 points gets you a language (no check needed)
Profession -> 2 points gets you a profession (no check needed)
Dungeoneering -> survival, knowledge geography
Nature -> survival, knowledge geography
New skill
Pilot -> used for any vehicles, most notably ships
Deleted skill
Perform -> could be included as a profession (musician) etc.
Concentration skill should simply be a caster level check, instead of adding it to spellcraft. This would be included in either the combat section or magic section. This would require the DCs to lower.
Craft skills should be made trained only and when looking at them they could stand to be merged a bit. For instance, I think that the various craft skills should be broken out on table 5-4 and different craft skills should be assigned to the various classes. I don’t think every class should have access to craft alchemy for instance.
The following is how I would merge the craft skills:
Craft (Alchemy) (same + poisonmaking)
Craft (Arms and Armor) (combines armorer, weaponsmith, and bowyer)
Craft (Building) (building structures, siege engines etc.)
Craft (Devices) (traps, clockworks and other engineering feats)
Craft (Finery) (art, art objects, gems, wands, forgery, and other forms of finery)
I would make a DC table look like this for craft.
identify value of common/simple item 10
identify value of uncommon/martial item 15
identify value of rare/exotic item 20
identify value of unique item 25+
craft common/simple item 15
craft uncommon/martial item 20
craft rare/exotic item 25
craft unique item 30+
Appraise skill, this is a more controversial change but one that I personally like very much. I would axe the appraise skill and combine that skill to each of the various craft skills. Want to appraise art objects? Finery check. Want to appraise armor and weapons? Arms and Armor check.
Profession skill should be removed. What it actually does by the rules is allow a character to earn a living (a few gold a week) with his “other” skills, too often this skill is confused to be so much more. It is often used to be sort of a yeah I know how to sail a ship or do some other thing that is not covered in the rules. Get rid of this skill and use fair market value for what ever profession a character wants to do and don’t use this meta-crutch skill to accomplish that end.
Pilot skill, a new skill, would take care of any vehicles that pop up in a D&D game. The most important one would be pilot(ship). This would give the game system to use a skill to do that rather than wrongly using profession skill in this capacity. Again, profession skill allows you to use your *other* skills to make money on a weekly basis.
Escape artist needs to be combined with Acrobatics. This is one of the most sub par skills that I have almost never seen taken and even less called for.
Fly, Climb and Swim need to be combined together for game mechanic reasons. I know that there is an idea floating around that all of the “modes” of movement need to be a separate skill. Hogwash, this needs to be done because there are characters that have 2 skill points.
Bluff skill is a skill that allows your character to: lie, cheat, con, and maybe seduce. But one of my long standing dislikes that could get addressed with this skill is the create diversion. This should not be a bluff check. Possibly make it a CMB check, but not a bluff check. Also, feinting in combat is a little odd too, but a little more believable than using bluff to create a distraction. But place disguise in the skill.
Profession and Linguistics - there is no need to have a skill check. If you have one of these as a class skill it is only 1 point to get the new profession or skill. Since Profession is primarily a RP skill why make people invest more than 2 points in it anyway. Profession (poet), Profession (singer), profession (cook), profession (musician) all examples of a primarily RP need in the system to express that a character is one of these things. No need to make a check to do that. You just are or know the language - how well you do it is a matter of debate. You might have an accent, you might not be the best laborer, however, you still get paid fair market value. Easy and caters to the RP need to mechanically show the character has invested in something. I don't want to see another character with profession (investigator) and think he can take that and be competent at investigating when he has no skills in search or any knowledge skills.
Craft and Knowledge – Both skills could stand to simply remove the “craft and knowledge” tags from the front of the skills. Change them to a finite number of skills. Open ended number of skills and skills that are so specific are not good. Especially when you have a finite number of skill points.
Feats
Improved and greater feats should be in the format: Two-weapon fighting, greater. That way you are not flipping back and forth looking at feats that should have been right next to each other.
The +2 to two skills feats need to be removed they were a waste of space in 3.5 and they are a waste of space in PF. Make a side bar note on how to convert the feat from other books (not they were selected by anybody – even in other books with sub-par characters) then create a feat called Skill Synergy that gives +2 to two chosen skills.
Arcane strike is this feat meant to replace the overly powerful complete warrior feat? This underpowered feat does not do that. Some middle ground could be found?
Table 6-1 seems to be using the format of: weapons focus gives +1 to hit, greater weapon focus gives +1 to hit which is meant to stack to give +2 total. This is not always consistent. Greater weapon specialization is meant to be +4 or +6?
Combat
Concealment, Stabilize, and Arcane Spell Failure are all percentile rolls. These could be easily cleaned up to be d20 rolls. It is a d20 game after all. This will actually speed up the game by a tiny fraction on these rolls. No searching for/fishing out the little used % dice just roll the d20 that is already in your hand.
Make Coupe de Grace a standard action so that it will actually be better to use that action than just doing a full attack.
Remove the “critical failure” roll a “1” on a save item destruction rules. Table 10-1 “the funky chart” needs to just be removed along with its corresponding rule. I have rarely seen the rule in play but when it is the players often feal cheated when it happens to them. There are no critical misses for a reason and this is a hidden critical miss rule that is just antiquated game design at its best. Please remove this rule.
One last thing about what has not been tackled yet
I really like the 3e multi-classing system (about a billion times better than 4e) it gives an almost limitless number of possibilities. However, it does have several problems. Primarily saves, BAB and spell casting progression could use the fix. In addition to spell casting progression there are a lot of other progressions (familiars, animal companions, unarmed strike, sneak attack etc.) that could do with a general rule to keep them competitive as a character levels up. Some attempt at dealing with this would make the game better as a whole.
This is pretty much a deal breaker for me. If PF is creative enough to put some thought into how to address the 3e multi-classing problem I will be pleased but if it is left to stand as is I won’t. The 3e band aids such as Eldritch Knight and other similar PrCs. I don’t want to wait until 6th level to actually do what I want with my character. I want to wait until 2nd level and be a fighter 1/wizard 1 and not be completely sub-par until I can place the band aid on my character. Anyway, here are a couple of ideas on how to address the most glaring multi-class problems.
Caster level and class feature progression fix
Caster level is equal to the spell casting class level plus 1/2 of all your other levels up to a max of double. This would also cover all of the scalable class features such as animal companions. The class features that would scale by half your other levels would have to be written into the class features themselves.
Saves fix
your saves are 1/2 your overall character level. Classes give a non-stackable +2 bonus in certain saves (Fighter FORT, Rogue REF, Wizard WILL, Cleric FORT and WILL etc.)
It might be nice to give everyone a +3 total rather than have some with a +4 and others with a +2 and only a few with +6.
BAB fix
Full gets BAB +4/level
3/4 gets BAB +3/level
1/2 gets BAB +2/level
Add all your BABs up and divide by 4. This is simpler than adding fractions.
Put it all together
So, if you had a fighter 2/cleric 8/wizard 4
BAB +10 ((8+24+8)/4=10)
Base FORT would be +9 (14/2=7 fighter gives +2 cleric gives +2 -> don't stack)
Base REF would be +7 (14/2=7)
Base WILL would be +9 (14/2=7 cleric gives +2, wizard gives +2 -> don't stack)
Wizard Caster level would be 8 (4+(10/2)=9 but can only get a max of double original level so 8)
Cleric Caster level would be 11 (8+(6/2)=11)
I have no problem with spellcraft (sick of Constitution being the second most important stat for all spellcasters)
I do have a problem with Acrobatics, why can my Barbarian cartwheel across a highwire while my ranger cant jump over a creek and always looses his balance while sitting in trees?
The change is SO simple, you have two skills:Acrobatics and Athletics
Acrobatics covers tumble and balance, and Athletics covers jump and climb (if you want to add Escape artist to acrobatics and swim to athletics that just matters how much combining you want to do, at least do theses two skills) Acrobatics uses DEX and Athletics uses STR
If you want to combines swim and fly more power to you. both follow similiar principles of how they are done.
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I have no problem with spellcraft (sick of Constitution being the second most important stat for all spellcasters)
I do have a problem with Acrobatics, why can my Barbarian cartwheel across a highwire while my ranger cant jump over a creek and always looses his balance while sitting in trees?
The change is SO simple, you have two skills:Acrobatics and Athletics
Acrobatics covers tumble and balance, and Athletics covers jump and climb (if you want to add Escape artist to acrobatics and swim to athletics that just matters how much combining you want to do, at least do theses two skills) Acrobatics uses DEX and Athletics uses STRIf you want to combines swim and fly more power to you. both follow similiar principles of how they are done.
Totally agree.
My niggle is that I spent $20+ on a softcover beta, that basicly is saying"hey, we want you to pay us to test this system for us, and maybe over the next year we may change it, and then you can pay us 39.99 for the gold version." Then what, if I want to see a Pathfinder Psionic version, I am gonna have to pay $20+ for a beta, than buy a gold version? If thats the case, I should just stick with WOTC, at least with them I know what I am getting myself into.
My niggle is that I spent $20+ on a softcover beta, that basicly is saying"hey, we want you to pay us to test this system for us, and maybe over the next year we may change it, and then you can pay us 39.99 for the gold version."
So you just stood by helplessly as the money fell out of your wallet and into a cash register? :)
Actually, I think I was swept into the hysteria of it, to be totally honest with you. My 2 gaming groups went into 2 diretions, 4ed and now Pathfinder. I, like alot of ppl, pre ordered both. Now looking back, I wish I had not. I cannot blame anyone but myself, but I can honestly say I was not overly impressed with the "fixes" in this 3.68 version, and am now starting to lean a bit toward a housebrew of sorts, though I wish I wouln not have to because of the amount of rules lawyers who love to quote in the middle of a game:)
Anyway, this was a post on niggles, and was just expressing mine:)
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My niggle is that I spent $20+ on a softcover beta, that basicly is saying"hey, we want you to pay us to test this system for us, and maybe over the next year we may change it, and then you can pay us 39.99 for the gold version." Then what, if I want to see a Pathfinder Psionic version, I am gonna have to pay $20+ for a beta, than buy a gold version? If thats the case, I should just stick with WOTC, at least with them I know what I am getting myself into.
But the Beta is free. You didn't have to pay for it. Paizo is giving out the PDF for free. The softcover Beta was provided for those who didn't want to print it up themselves. No one has to buy it. Including you. The PDF is free. You have no complaint.
Edit: Ninja'd