Hi there!
I can by no means claim to be an expert concerning Pathfinder or even D&D 3 in general, but still I have thoughts on various house rules for PF. Some of this stuff is inspired by topics on this forum, as I have been lurking here for some time. I would really appreciate the thoughts and opinions of people who are more knowledgeable than me on the matter of balance and impact on the game. So, here goes.
When making an attack as a standard action, you can make as many attacks as your BAB gives you. Essentially, full attack becomes a standard action. This would probably have a huge impact on the game, but it might make playing a martial character more rewarding.
Another thought I had was that you should not only be able to attack using dex with a light weapon without getting a feat, but should actually be forced to do so. The question is how to handle bonus damage with light weapons. Dex bonus to damage, with or without a feat, or nothing at all? Or something else altogether? Of course, this might make dex way too good.
I also have a sort of idée fixe concerning multiclassing. A multiclassed character would get something I call “bonus class levels” for want of a better name. It works like this: For each class C, you add together the levels in all your other classes and divide by two, yielding a number n. You then count as n levels higher in class C for the purpose of class features, i.e. everything that is listed in the rightmost column of the class's progression table. Good lord, that sounds complicated :)
To give an example: Rasha is a Ftr6/Wiz6. He gets half his wizard levels as a bonus to his fighter levels for the purpose of class features, and vice versa for wizard. Thus, he would have the saves, skills, BAB, hp and regular feats of a Ftr6/Wiz6, but the bonus feats, weapon and armour training etc. of a Ftr9 as well as the spellcasting ability of a Wiz9.
I think this would give multiclassing a nice bump (I am a fan of MC), but it might be overpowered. I honestly can't say where this character would stand compared to a straight Ftr12 or Wiz12.
One problem is that bonus class levels get better the more different classes you take. If a character took 1 level of each PHB class, he would be a lvl 6 everything. That is not to say that such a build would not be totally gimped (I have no idea whether it would), but the potential for abuse is there. One possible fix for this is to divide the sum total of your “other” class levels by your total number of classes instead of a flat two. That would mean that the more classes you have, the lower the bonus you get from each one, which offsets the fact that you have more classes that profit from the bonus levels. This approach seemed great, until I realised that it is possible to lose bonus levels when adding classes, which sucks. Consider a Ftr10/Wiz9. With bonus levels, she would count as a Ftr14/Wiz14 for class features. If she now added a level of rogue to the mix, she'd count as a Ftr13/Wiz12/Rog7. Losing bonus levels after you add a class is not something I would want to occur. Thus, I am at a loss. Maybe somebody has a suggestion on how to implement something similar to this idea.
There is also the question of what to do with prestige classes. The problem is that with bonus levels, a character's level in a prestige class could effectively exceed ten. One possibility is simply to never give bonus levels to prestige classes.
This has gotten rather long. I realise that these changes might come across as pretty radical and I hop that I am not showered with too much derision ;) That being said, please – as the phrase goes – evaluate and criticise honestly.
On a side note, I am not completely happy with the formatting of this post. Does anyone have suggestions in that regard?
Vanday wrote: Hi there!
I can by no means claim to be an expert concerning Pathfinder or even D&D 3 in general, but still I have thoughts on various house rules for PF. Some of this stuff is inspired by topics on this forum, as I have been lurking here for some time. I would really appreciate the thoughts and opinions of people who are more knowledgeable than me on the matter of balance and impact on the game. So, here goes.
When making an attack as a standard action, you can make as many attacks as your BAB gives you. Essentially, full attack becomes a standard action. This would probably have a huge impact on the game, but it might make playing a martial character more rewarding.
Well impact, here are my thoughts on this. It will make melee characters much more mobile, this counts for monsters AND pcs. Things like dragons with a butload of attacks become MUCH more dangerous. Dragon flys in and takes it's standard attack full attack. Player gets one round back, Dragon standard full attacks, and flys away. Mobility (the concept not the feat) becomes much more important. This is going to effect monster cr both up and down. Like i said, dragons get more dangerous, but it also decrease the value of abilities like pounce. With this rule change, most of what can be done with pounce will be done by any character, this impacts the relative power of a creature with pounce or a similar ability.
In terms of balance, your best point of comparison is Tome of Battle. Tome of battle manuevers were all designed to be slightly less powerful then a full attack. And most are done as a standard action. Ignore some of the more insane combos and just look at the individual manuevers (particularly strikes) in the Book of Nine Swords. There are wide opinions on its degree of balance with pathfinder. Decide for yourself where the balance lies and it will give you a starting point for what kind of balance impact this change will have on your game.
Vanday wrote:
Another thought I had was that you should not only be able to attack using dex with a light weapon without getting a feat, but should actually be forced to do so. The question is how to handle bonus damage with light weapons. Dex bonus to damage, with or without a feat, or nothing at all? Or something else altogether? Of course, this might make dex way too good.
I dont think dex to damage should be available in anything short of a class feature. Dex is already more valuable then strength, allowing dex to damage easily means a dex based character doesnt have to spread out his ability scores much and will be more powerful then a strength based character. In addition, archery is already the most effective method of dealing damage in the game, allowing dex to damage will further increase that difference. Personally I think weapon finese should remain as it is, as well as dex not effecting damage unless you wish to remove strength based characters from your game.
Vanday wrote:
I also have a sort of idée fixe concerning multiclassing. A multiclassed character would get something I call “bonus class levels” for want of a better name. It works like this: For each class C, you add together the levels in all your other classes and divide by two, yielding a number n. You then count as n levels higher in class C for the purpose of class features, i.e. everything that is listed in the rightmost column of the class's progression table. Good lord, that sounds complicated :)
To give an example: Rasha is a Ftr6/Wiz6. He gets half his wizard levels as a bonus to his fighter levels for the purpose of class features, and vice versa for wizard. Thus, he would have the saves, skills, BAB, hp and regular feats of a Ftr6/Wiz6, but the bonus feats, weapon and armour training etc. of a Ftr9 as well as the spellcasting ability of a Wiz9.
I think this would give multiclassing a nice bump (I am a fan of MC), but it might be overpowered. I honestly can't say where this character would stand compared to a straight Ftr12 or Wiz12.
I think in general this isnt (in the long run) more powerful then the multiclass perstige classes. For instance figther1/wizard5/eldritch knight6 (under the normal system) is going to be pretty close in power to a fighter 6/wizard 6 in your system. If you do this you should DEFINATELY remove the hybrid prestige classes from your game (eldritch knight, dragon disciple, arcane trickster, mystic theruge etc). I also think you should put some limit on the number of times you can benefit from this. Capt it at 2 or 3 classes maximum and you should be ok.
Vanday wrote:
One problem is that bonus class levels get better the more different classes you take. If a character took 1 level of each PHB class, he would be a lvl 6 everything. That is not to say that such a build would not be totally gimped (I have no idea whether it would), but the potential for abuse is there. One possible fix for this is to divide the sum total of your “other” class levels by your total number of classes instead of a flat two. That would mean that the more classes you have, the lower the bonus you get from each one, which offsets the fact that you have more classes that profit from the bonus levels. This approach seemed great, until I realised that it is possible to lose bonus levels when adding classes, which sucks. Consider a Ftr10/Wiz9. With bonus levels, she would count as a Ftr14/Wiz14 for class features. If she now added a level of rogue to the mix, she'd count as a Ftr13/Wiz12/Rog7. Losing bonus levels after you add a class is not something I would want to occur. Thus, I am at a loss. Maybe somebody has a suggestion on how to implement something similar to this idea.
Like i said i think this is easier accomplished by caping it. For instance you can gain these 'bonus levels' to your favored class and one or two others.
Vanday wrote:
There is also the question of what to do with prestige classes. The problem is that with bonus levels, a character's level in a prestige class could effectively exceed ten. One possibility is simply to never give bonus levels to prestige classes.
I would say that if your bonus levels exceed the maximum level, you simply dont gain any additional benefit.
Kolokotroni wrote: Well impact, here are my thoughts on this. It will make melee characters much more mobile, this counts for monsters AND pcs. Things like dragons with a butload of attacks become MUCH more dangerous. Dragon flys in and takes it's standard attack full attack. Player gets one round back, Dragon standard full attacks, and flys away. Mobility (the concept not the feat) becomes much more important. This is going to effect monster cr both up and down. Like i said, dragons get more dangerous, but it also decrease the value of abilities like pounce. With this rule change, most of what can be done with pounce will be done by any character, this impacts the relative power of a creature with pounce or a similar ability.
In terms of balance, your best point of comparison is Tome of Battle. Tome of battle manuevers were all designed to be slightly less powerful then a full attack. And most are done as a standard action. Ignore some of the more insane combos and just look at the individual manuevers (particularly strikes) in the Book of Nine Swords. There are wide opinions on its degree of balance with pathfinder. Decide for yourself where the balance lies and it will give you a starting point for what kind of balance impact this change will have on your game.
Increasing the value of mobility sounds good to me. I might yet check out the ToB to get some inspiration, but overall, this sounds rather encouraging.
Kolokotroni wrote:
I dont think dex to damage should be available in anything short of a class feature. Dex is already more valuable then strength, allowing dex to damage easily means a dex based character doesnt have to spread out his ability scores much and will be more powerful then a strength based character. In addition, archery is already the most effective method of dealing damage in the game, allowing dex to damage will further increase that difference. Personally I think weapon finese should remain as it is, as well as dex not effecting damage unless you wish to remove strength based characters from your game.
I think I wouldn't want to have dex to damage as a class feature, although I cannot quite put the reason for that into words. Also, I was not aware of the value of the abilities relative to each other, so thanks for giving me some perspective on this!
Kolokotroni wrote:
I think in general this isnt (in the long run) more powerful then the multiclass perstige classes. For instance figther1/wizard5/eldritch knight6 (under the normal system) is going to be pretty close in power to a fighter 6/wizard 6 in your system. If you do this you should DEFINATELY remove the hybrid prestige classes from your game (eldritch knight, dragon disciple, arcane trickster, mystic theruge etc). I also think you should put some limit on the number of times you can benefit from this. Capt it at 2 or 3 classes maximum and you should be ok.
Maybe I'll redesign the hybrid classes in such a way that they enhance the synergy between their intended base classes, instead of advancing them both, as that would be taken care of by the bonus level mechanic. Also, capping the number of classes that can benefit sounds like a very nice and easy idea, which is probably why it didn't occur to me ;)
Thank you kindly for your input!
After thinking about the bonus level rules some more, I have come to some conclusions. The basis for these has mostly been the eldritch knight. First, I don't think that prestige classes should be able to profit from bonus levels, for the simple reason that there would be little incentive to continue progressing in a prestige class if you have already gained all the class features.
Furthermore, something needs to be done about the hybrid prestige classes. In my system, a Ftr10/Wiz10 would have the class features of a Ftr15 and a Wiz15, whereas a Ftr5/Wiz5/EK10 would only cast as a 12th level wizard if I remove the spellcasting progression from eldritch knight. On the other hand, if I don't remove it, the spellcasting ability would rise to level 21. Both of these options are unsatisfactory.
Thus, I have designed a new eldritch knight prestige class that integrates better into this system. (This is not a straight "conversion". I just make the class do what I'd like it to.) The features (including numbers) have mostly been pulled from a place I don't feel inclined to describe in detail. This might be anywhere from slightly goofy to ridiculous, so criticise away.
Vanday's Eldritch Knight
Prerequisites:
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Must be proficient with all martial weapons.
BAB: +3
Spells: Able to cast 2nd-level arcane spells.
Feats: Arcane Strike, Arcane Armor Training
Class Features:
Good BAB, Good Fort + Will Saves
Lvl Features
1 Dual Training, Attuned Weapon
2 Armored Casting 10%, Elemental Strike 1d6
3 Imbue Weapon
4 Armored Casting 20%
5 Spell Critical
Dual Training: When you gain your first Eldritch Knight level, choose an arcane spellcasting class and a class with high BAB. Your Eldritch Knight levels count as two bonus levels for each of these classes.
Attuned Weapon: An eldritch knight of 1st level can attune her arcane arts to a specific meelee weapon (or a pair of weapons) by training with and meditating over these weapons for at least four hours per day for three cosecutive days. The eldritch knight thereby gains the ability to activate the arcane strike feat as a free action rather than a swift action with the attuned weapon or weapons. This ability diappears if the character does not spend at least two hours per day training or fighting with the attuned weapons.
Armored Casting: An eldritch knight of 2nd level can ignore up to 10% of arcane spell failure chance from armor. This reduction stacks with the one from arcane armor training and arcane armor mastery. At 4th level, this reduction improves to 20%.
Imbue Weapon: An eldritch knight of 2nd level can use a move action to imbue an attuned weapon with a spell she can cast (and has prepared, if she prepares spells). The spell is thereby expended as if it hat been cast. The next time the eldritch knight hits a target with the weapon while using arcane strike, the spell gets discharged and affects the target of the attack and only the target, regardless of the spell's usual targets. If the weapon becomes unattuned, any spell stored in it is lost. Each attuned weapon can hold only one spell in this way.
Elemental Strike: By spending an additional move action when activating arcane strike with an attuned weapon, a 3rd-level eldritch knight can add 1d6 points of elemental damage of her choosing (fire, frost or lightning) to the weapon (or weapons) for the duration of arcane strike.
Spell Critical: At 10th level, whenever an eldritch knight successfully confirms a critical hit with an attuned weapon, she can cast a spell as a swift action. The spell must include the target of the attack as one of its targets or in its area of effect. Casting this spell does not provoke an attack of opportunity. The caster must still meet all of the spell's components and must roll for arcane spell failure if necessary.
Actually, this looks really powerful. I might have been a little overenthusiastic in designing my very first PF prestige class (and my second one overall). I hope the intention behind the wording of the abilities is clear. Obviously, this is way more melee-focused than the PRD eldritch knight. Looking forward to constructive criticism! But keep in mind that this class is intended to be used in conjunction with my bonus level system.
Oh, and about the "full attack as a standard action" thing: I guess that that would mean returning cleave to what it was in 3.5, as its current incarnation is pretty redundant with what I intend.
Recent threads in Homebrew and House Rules
|
