This is only partially playtest related, but I think it still belongs here.
I just started playing Hunting Wolf, a half-orc druid in a beta rules Shackled City campaign. ONe of his quirks is that he's stupid - real stupid. Int 6 stupid.
The concept rocks (Stupid druid in the city? Sitcom writers would kill for that premise!), but there's one problem: Despite being quite tough, he totally stinks when it comes to casting spells on the defensive, since concentration is now part of spellcraft, which is tied to intelligence.
In my opinion, it doesn't work right: Smarts won't let you withstand punishment and keep working, and wizards shouldn't be better at casting under stress than clerics.
Any thoughts? Ideas to handle this?
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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I think that concentration is more a mental skill than physical - it's a case of mind over body. However, there's also a place for being physically tough and begin better able to ignore the punnishment. I'd suggest adding a feat similar to intimidating prowress, that lets you add your Con modifier to your spellcraft checks to cast spells, either on the defensive or when taking damage or distrations. Maybe call it Body Over Mind. This would be a good idea for the final PRPG rules as well.
I think that concentration is more a mental skill than physical - it's a case of mind over body. However, there's also a place for being physically tough and begin better able to ignore the punnishment. I'd suggest adding a feat similar to intimidating prowress, that lets you add your Con modifier to your spellcraft checks to cast spells, either on the defensive or when taking damage or distrations. Maybe call it Body Over Mind. This would be a good idea for the final PRPG rules as well.
If you say that concentration is a mental skill, then you should at least see what ability it should be tied to then. It should actually be pretty much impossible to concentrate, if you don't have enough wisdom to even keep your attention on one single thing. So yes, wisdom is the ability you need to have to be able to concentrate, if any mental ability.
Maybe it would be advisable that casters get the feature to use their casting ability (Sorcerers, Bards: Charisma; Wizards: Intelligence; Druids, Clerics, Paladins and Rangers: Wisdom) for spellcraft checks rolled in order to concentrate. That would put them all on equal level, and I think it even makes sense, since that ability is the part of their mentality they have to focus on.
Don't sweat it, this will last for a couple levels at best. The mostly-flat DCs of Concentration mean that you'll be behind for a while but will make the rolls easily at L10+. You could take Combat Casting if you really wanted help with it, but that's a wasted feat at higher level.
since concentration is now part of spellcraft, which is tied to intelligence.
...
Any thoughts? Ideas to handle this?
I'd have left concentration as its own skill.
If I were to change it, I'd do it off of the Will bonus to saving throws. Full casters have generally good will saves. I'd make it a Will save to cast defensively against a Difficulty Class of 10+ the attack bonus of the threatening attacker. And, I'd keep the Combat Casting Feat as a situational modifier to the Will Save in this situation (in other words, not modifying other types of Will saves).
I don't see a problem. Before a wizard might have the same problem if he was "too wimpy to concentrate", which clearly doesn't make any more sense. You could take skill focus: spellcraft, which is decently good.
Give it time. With the number of people complaining, its probably going to go to Jason's plan B and become a straight Will save, which I personally hate, but hey, most people seem to really hate spellcraft as the concentration skill.
. . . at least until people start to complain that rangers and paladins suck at casting in combat because of their will saves ;)
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Don't sweat it, this will last for a couple levels at best. The mostly-flat DCs of Concentration mean that you'll be behind for a while but will make the rolls easily at L10+. You could take Combat Casting if you really wanted help with it, but that's a wasted feat at higher level.
Actually, Skill focus(spellcraft) would return better dividends at 10+ and the loss of the extra +1 for the first 9 levels is more then made up for in the gain of +3 in all of spellcraft's features and then that bonus jumping to +6 at level 10 (assuming you put in 10 skill points by level 10) versus the limited nature of combat casting. +19 (10 ranks, +3 for class skill, +6 for skill focus) at level 10 before stat mods.. so the druid in question would be +17. Seems more then reasonable gain for one feat. The real limiting factor of playing a low Int druid is that your only getting 2 skill points per level. The -2 on int based skills is absorbed quickly as you level.. the -2 on skill ranks per level is going to affect the character at each and every level.
As an aside, the cost to craft a +5 competence bonus item for spellcraft would be 1250gp (base price of 2500gp). Not sure of spell requirements a gm would set for this. Anyway, it is yet another option to overcome a limiting intelligence without breaking character concept.
I personally, like the combining of spellcraft and concentration, much as I like many of the combined skills. For a low int character, it is just more bang for the buck.
Maybe it would be advisable that casters get the feature to use their casting ability (Sorcerers, Bards: Charisma; Wizards: Intelligence; Druids, Clerics, Paladins and Rangers: Wisdom) for spellcraft checks rolled in order to concentrate. That would put them all on equal level, and I think it even makes sense, since that ability is the part of their mentality they have to focus on.
Not to mention there is plenty of precedence set in 3E, which Pathfinder is part of, for DM's to make a call based on what makes sense to them. So your DM is more than within his rights to look at your situation and character concept and allow you to base your Concentration checks off of whatever attribute makes sense. However it is your DM's call, not yours, and if they say that you should have to deal with this short coming then thats what you have to do.
I remember reading plenty of stuff in Dragon where if CHA for a half orc trying to intimidate didn't make sense a DM could allow STR to be used instead. Dragon was/is considered "canon", correct?
I remember reading plenty of stuff in Dragon where if CHA for a half orc trying to intimidate didn't make sense a DM could allow STR to be used instead. Dragon was/is considered "canon", correct?
It was simply a suggestion for DMs. A DM can houserule private games as much as they want.
However that very concept was officialized in 3.5, stating a character can make STR based intimidate checks but only against small numbers of characters, as a whole army would probably not even fear someone of the size of the Incredible Hulk (unless they know that he even has the power of the Hulk, which is highly unlikely)|
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The fact concentration has been removed from the game remains one of three things that I think make the Pathfinder RPG unacceptable game to me for the reasons you mentioned.
I can 'add it back in', but it is extra work, especially when so many NPCs in the published modules are casters of some kind. I look forward to the debate when it comes to discussing the skills chapter.
Don't sweat it, this will last for a couple levels at best. The mostly-flat DCs of Concentration mean that you'll be behind for a while but will make the rolls easily at L10+.
Those couple of levels can be quite long.
I agree that concentration can be as much mental as it can be physical, but Int is still the wrong stat. Wis would work, as it represents willpower.
A will save instead of a skill check could work, too, or maybe a choice between will and fort. It would certainly be better than starting to introduce different ability scores for different uses of a single skill.
I don't mind such a system per se, but I think it would be a bit much for a revision, which Pathfinder RPG is supposed to be. Maybe for Pathfinder Second Edition.
Any thoughts? Ideas to handle this?
The ELH has an optional rule, use a casters' spell casting attribute, instead of always int, for their spellcraft skill checks attribute modifier. We've played with this one for years to avoid problems like the one you mentioned.
:D
Peace,
tfad
The ability to retain a spell while taking damage should be removed from the skills chapter entirely.
To cast defensively, I can see INT as being the driving stat, so leave it as-is.
To keep casting when taking damage is another story. Put this in the Combat chapter. Use Caster Level + CON modifier against the normal DCs for damage dealt. This gives all casters an even chance to maintain casting or concentration. Another option would be to use Character Level + CON, giving gish characters much more of an advantage with this, and also being able to adjudicate various other things (picking locks, disarming traps, etc.) with the exact same rules mechanic.
This debate is over two different things:
1) The ability to ignore the effects of damage and keep on doing a task. I think this should be based on CON, and not INT, and it should also be an innate ability rather than a skill.
2) The ability to cast a spell in such a way as to avoid an AoO. I think this is more a function of INT and skill, as you're learning to do something new with your spellcasting, which lends itself to being a skill and not a class feature. Additionally, INT is the driving ability behind Combat Expertese, which is learning to improve your defense in a tactical situation, so it makes sense that an INT-based skill should be used to avoid AoOs while casting.
-Scott
Now, really, just my opinion from some games I played last week.
The concentration going into spellcraft sucked. Really hard.
The female sorcerer's player was happy to have one less skill to spend her points, but then I had to look at every monster and give them one more skill point, and then we hea the normal int but high con dwarf cleric complaining, but the sorcerer liking, and my head was going to explode.
Just got it back into Concentration. At least on my games I try to give some other uses to concentration, like ignoring injury, meditating and some other things, to make it a more "worldly" skill.
We played with Spellcraft as the "concentration" skill from the time the first Alpha came out, and no one really said much negative about it once, and as a DM, I had a few NPCs that used it as well, and it seemed to work fine.
I'm actually really surprised by how many people are reacting negatively to this change.
I'm wondering if this is one of those "only the really passionate people are posting issues," and if it works fine, most people aren't passionate enough to post and say, "yup, works fine."
In which case there might be a few surprised people that end up seeing that this got changed because they never thought it would be an issue.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out when the skills section opens up. Also, I'm not saying this to downplay what anyone feels about this skill. I really am interested to see if this is representative or if its just something that people who like it don't react to that emphatically.
That got me thinking...
I tend to post on every single post I enter, to tell if I agree or disagree. If I find it good or bad, if it worked or not... but then, I really know people that if it works they don't post, and that only post if there is a problem...
...it really got me thinking...
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Mutants & Masterminds bases Concentration off of Wisdom, which I like better. I tend to think of Concentration as more of a focus or meditation style skill, and wouldn't mind if it had a few of the Autohypnosis skill features from the Psionics Handbook rolled into it.
IMO, Concentration was only based off of Constitution in 3.0 because otherwise, Constitution would have had no skills based off it.
We played with Spellcraft as the "concentration" skill from the time the first Alpha came out, and no one really said much negative about it once, and as a DM, I had a few NPCs that used it as well, and it seemed to work fine.
I'm actually really surprised by how many people are reacting negatively to this change.
I'm wondering if this is one of those "only the really passionate people are posting issues," and if it works fine, most people aren't passionate enough to post and say, "yup, works fine."
In which case there might be a few surprised people that end up seeing that this got changed because they never thought it would be an issue.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out when the skills section opens up. Also, I'm not saying this to downplay what anyone feels about this skill. I really am interested to see if this is representative or if its just something that people who like it don't react to that emphatically.
I have to say I agree with you most spell caster I know are happy one less skill they must take since it always made since to me that they would train as part of spell craft to over come interruptions and such.
I just started playing Hunting Wolf, a half-orc druid in a beta rules Shackled City campaign. ONe of his quirks is that he's stupid - real stupid. Int 6 stupid.
The concept rocks (Stupid druid in the city? Sitcom writers would kill for that premise!), but there's one problem: Despite being quite tough, he totally stinks when it comes to casting spells on the defensive, since concentration is now part of spellcraft, which is tied to intelligence.
In my opinion, it doesn't work right: Smarts won't let you withstand punishment and keep working, and wizards shouldn't be better at casting under stress than clerics.
Any thoughts? Ideas to handle this?
In terms of making changes to Beta, one instance of a problem for a character with an extreme stat may not be a problem with the rules.
In terms of this character, In local games, when a particular character has a problem reconciling cool concept and rules effectiveness, we can usually come up with a custom Feat that bridges the gap. Perhaps your GM would allow you to use one of your feat slots for something like: 'Balls over Brains' - substitute Con for Int when rolling spellcraft to successfully cast or cast defensively.
Of course, we have occasionally house ruled that a skill is used with different stats, depending on the circumstance. Example: Perform with Int to know something about a particular instrument or dance style. Disable Device with Int to remember a particular type of trap from a previous adventure.
I have to side with the Will Save crowd on this one. The rules should build on simple principles to create a consistent system for simulating events and determining outcomes. That's really the beauty of the D20 mechanic. Avoiding an effect from taking damage sounds like a saving throw to me. The throw also covers all classes consistently and simply. A Will save sounds logical, and favors spellcasters. Rangers and Paladins will be slightly disadvantaged but aren't supposed to be primary spellcasters. They can improve their odds by taking feats (maybe a feat that allows them to take a fortitude save?) or by higher wisdom scores. Save DC = 10 + Base Attack Bonus. Doesn't create alot of new rules. Stays consistent. Perfect. That'll be my house rule from now till Computers replace dice altogether.