There has been a little bit of talk lately about Paizo someday doing a basic Pathfinder set. But it doesn't seem like it's gonna happen any time soon.
So I would like to make my own version. I have a few ideas but I also would like for anyone who has some good ideas to post here so we can discuss the pros and cons.
To get the conversation started. Here are a few things that I think would make the biggest impact on making the game a little more rules light:
* remove skills
* remove feats
* remove Attacks of Opportunity
There are probably some repercussions from removing these kind of things (like removing feats takes away a big part of the fighter class), but I believe it's necessary to accomplish the goal of rules light.
So what are some other cons of taking these out? What would be a good way to fix the issue?
it can be done, and be done well. I would recomend only 3 classes, the Fighter, Mage, and Cleric. Since Fighter is a feat class, everyone would want to play the barbarian, ranger, or paladin. Thief is an all skill class. Remember original D&D only had the Fighter, Wizard, and Cleric, and it was a great game.
Look at the basic D&D Rules compendium from the late 80s (i think), it is still a great game. I would take that book and just modify it.
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I'm not sure about removing skills. Take the rogue for example....it's basically the skill monkey class. If you take away skills, you have to provide it with other abilities to replace them. And they need to do the same thing as some of the skills if you want the class to stay a rogue. Skills are a pretty major part of the d20 system. You could remove the ROgue like Arnwolf recommends, but it's become such an iconic part of D&D/PFRPG that I would recommend against it.
I would pare the classes down to Warrior, Priest, Mage, and Rogue. I wouldn't go as far retro as to declare demihumans as their own character classes, though.
I fully agree with Attacks of Opportunity. It probably does more to slow down combat than anything else in the game.
Feats, I dunno how to balance removing it. Possibly you could just remove feats gained for leveling, but leave in class bonus feats.
How light do you want to go?
* remove combat maneuvers
* remove critical hits
* remove cover and concealment
Or we could go really light:
* remove races
* remove spells
* remove weapons and armor
* remove monsters
I guess it's just a matter of how 'light' is just light enough?
Me, I would only get rid of the tricky stuff. I wouldn't remove all feats or all skills. But I might get rid of the strange ones, or those that nobody takes anyway, or the skills nobody uses on a regular basis.
I wouldn't get rid of all apells, but I would strip the list down to only a half-dozen spells each level, give or take.
I wouldn't get rid of all magic items, but I sure would reduce the number of them. Nobody needs ioun stones or horns of blasting, etc.
I wouldn't get rid of every class, but get rid of the awkward ones. Barbarians with rage, bards with, well, all their bard stuff, druids with spells and that tricky wildshape, rangers and paladins with their fighting and spellcasting and companions and such. I would pick either sorcerer or wizard and get rid of the other one. And monk has definitely got to go.
So I guess that gets us back to Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, and Sorcerer/Wizard.
Then I would simplify those classes. Fighter is already simple but we could simplify or remove the armor and weapon training, clerics don't need domains, rogues could simplify those talents (pick the good ones and just stick them right on the chart - no choices), and your mage class doesn't need schools/bloodlines.
Still want all 7 races?
Get rid of favored class and get rid of all prestige classes.
Get rid of multiclassing rules - just don't allow it.
Get rid of the tricky combat rules (charging, maneuvers, maybe even AoO).
Then see what's left.
Or is that too light?
I would leave monsters in, but some of them would have to be modified. I might get rid of DR, and SR. My reason for keeping monsters is that it is easier to grab a monster out of a book than create your own NPC. I would give classes some version of self-healing like the Star Wars system has. It helps survivability. I would drop a lot of the "option" feats that allow the player to make a choice such as power attack. Feats that are always on could stay. Spells that are similar in nature such as displacement, blur, and mirror image could be dropped for only one of them.
Just thinking of what to drop is becoming a big list. I think even with a lite version the book would a decent size.
PS: I did not run out of ideas, but I got tired of writing. I am sure there are enough people with opinions here that someone will pickup where I left off. :)
I would remove all FEATS, but keep skills, although I would remove skill points.
I'd just have selected skills grow up with your level, like BAB.
not all the skills at the same time, only those you have "selected", and of course Rogues would have more available skills.
I'd keep the 4 iconic races (human, elf, dwarf, halfling) and the 4 iconic classes (fighter, rogue, cleric, wizard)
mh... actually, I might just do this... some kind of ADnD 3rd edition...
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Makes me think of the Blue Box/Red Box D&D games. Easy to learn as a kid, and then I gradually got into the more rules-heavy "advanced" D&D. Love the concept but don't know if the market would support it.
Can see a version that has 4 classes, maybe 3 races (human, elf, dwarf), no rules beyond "you hit, you miss" and saving throws. Rather than feats or skills, each class has just their core abilities (rogues disable traps, clerics heal, fighter wears heavy armor, wizard casts spells). If you're keeping skills, might give everyone 3 skills total (Perception, Knowledge, Athletics) and assign points each level based on your class (e.g. fighters get 1 point of athletics every level, and every 3rd level a point in another skill, something like that).
Magic items get boiled down to simplest form. If they can't be described with 1-2 lines, don't use em. Equipment boiled down as well to a few weapons and armor, nothing exotic.
Spells need to be simple. No summon monsters (just one more complex thing to keep track of). Like magic items, if they can't be adjudicated with 1-2 lines of text, don't use em.
Anyhoo, ambitious task, wouldn't be looking for "combat balance", because that's what the "advanced" rules are doing. Rather, looking for "easy to grasp" concepts.
Can see a version that has 4 classes, maybe 3 races (human, elf, dwarf), no rules beyond "you hit, you miss" and saving throws.
Yes, for instance Microlite D20.
I'm not sure what advantages a "Pathfinderized" version of Microlite or Castles & Crusades would be, frankly.
I did something similar a few years ago. Originally I stuck with 4 classes Fighter Cleric Rogue Wizard and only up to 5 levels. Later we started adding in other classes and levels up to 10th.
For skills we just preassigned a number of skills equal to the class' skill points per level. SO for a fighter it said something like this "The fighter adds his level to ability checks involving climbing and jumping" "the rogue add her level to ability checks involving climbing, hiding, moving silently, Opening locks, picking pockets, disabling devices, Searching, and listening.
Feat we did the same thing, you only got feats as part of your class and preassigned. So a fighter got dodge, weapon focus, and weapon spec.
We cut the spell list down to only a hand full per level.
etc.
Prestiges would have to go. Difficulty isn't hard to understand, it is just so scttered in the books. No classes, only races with either the ability to use magic or not. And magic would be based on five paths with specific spells for each path at each level. Alignment would also have to be either Chaos or Law. I would also have to say go back to the days of Artifacts and Intelligences, it would make the game worl more simple by controlling the magic item population.
How light do you want to go?
I would like it to end up playing fast like the old editions of D&D. Combat should flow smoothly and quickly.
But I would also like everything else to flow smooth as well. So cutting back on anything that adds more math than absolutely needed should probably be removed.
So something like Microlite 20 is going too far. There doesn't seem to really be a stripped down version of d20 anywhere out there. Every body that tried it either took too much out or changed it too much.
I'm not sure about removing skills. Take the rogue for example....it's basically the skill monkey class.
Ok, so how about leaving just the skills that the rogue uses in the game? So keep all the skills that relate to the traditional rogue skills from previous editions and cut everything else out.
It would kind of remind me how in 2nd edition rogues had access to their abilities by a percentage roll. No other character had access to all of them. Well, classes like the Ranger had access to Move Silently and Hide in Shadows but that's about it.
So we could do the same thing with the skill system from PF. Limit it only to the Rogue.
I'm thinking about only adding the Fighter, Rogue, Cleric and Wizard. So wouldn't have to worry about what skills the Ranger would have.
I consider the Pathfinder rules light rules. I've played much more complex games with much higher terms of realism. Some game have rules set the size of an encyclopedia. PF is so simple. Now of course it could be cut down even more to a WOD level or simpler I suppose but what would you lose? what would you gain?
I consider the Pathfinder rules light rules.
If you can crack open a coconut with the rule book, it doesn't count. :-)
I did play a game with rules book that was one page long. The rest of the book was on interactive story telling. It was diceless game and very open imagination.
It was fun to play. We used to play that game as we hiked through the mountains. You didn't need anything really except an understanding of how it worked. I wish I could remember what that game was. It was back in the mid 80s.
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I've been tinkering with something recently. Anyone interested that likes the direction/concepts thus far is free to get involved. Its just something I'm messing with on the side when I get tired of working on d20pfsrd.com lol
Its pretty bare-bones at the moment but there's some skeletal ideas forming. It may be a bit too much of a direction away from standard d20 so not sure if others would like the approach or not.
Oh, you can see what I have so far here.
Oh, you can see what I have so far here.
This would fall under the "changes it too much" approach. Well at least for me.
I would still like the game to resemble D&D. So it has to have all the archtypes.
Krazz,
I have done several things that make the game go faster. The main one is removing the opportunity for people to look stuff up. Everything has to be on the character sheet......
Playing a Summoner and lost the E. (then you can't summon him).....
Take away the books and looking things up and DM the game in a more 1.0/2.0 style......
Ie adjudicate and assign bonuses/penalties........
This may go with not looking stuff up, but no rules mongering, rules discussion in game.
Did this really make that much of a difference? I would think over the course of a single combat encounter this would only trim off minutes. I'm looking for changes that would drastically cut down combat time. So for example if under the full PF rules combat maybe took 1 1/2 hours, I would prefer to cut that in half, down to about 45 mintues.
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16
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If I were going to work on a rules light version I would begin with the old red box D&D as a starting point and rework as Pathfinder.
Off the top of my head:
- Start with the races and classes from the Red Box: Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, Elf (Fighter-Wizard), Dwarf (Alternate Fighter)
- I dropped halflings intentionally from my list above to be a little different. Instead I would add Gnomes [Sorcerers with fey bloodline.]
- Kill most of the feats roll a few of the very core feats into the fighter and Dwarf Classes
- Kill skills make many of them class abilities or make them things that any one can attempt as ability checks perhaps modified by level.
- remove many of the technical tactical qualities making the game less reliant on minis...remove flanking or make it more like the Gang-up rules discussed here on the boards.
- Reduce the number of levels the rules covers at first from 20 to maybe 5 (If I remember correctly the red box only covered 1-3.) Additional elements can be added in the next "expansion" or the players can be be transitioned to the full PRPG.
That was a brilliant post on my part. It expired :( Play Savage Coast if you can find it. At Companion level it wasn't that the game was truly "easy" it was how it was introduced.
Instead of taking too much out, just concetrate on putting in everything you need to play from 1st to 3rd or 4th level. Pare down the feats to a small handful of choices for each class, If it is to be an 'introductory' book, then the goal is to get new players hooked, so they then graduate to the core books. So you don't want to actually 'change' anything, just give smaller amounts of what is available in the core book. like a limited spell list containing only 1st and 2nd level spells. And what about including some short introductory adventures with it?
the game is already out there. It's called Castles and Crusades. it uses the d20 system and the old basic system. Really a great game.
Instead of taking too much out, just concetrate on putting in everything you need to play from 1st to 3rd or 4th level. Pare down the feats to a small handful of choices for each class, If it is to be an 'introductory' book, then the goal is to get new players hooked, so they then graduate to the core books. So you don't want to actually 'change' anything, just give smaller amounts of what is available in the core book. like a limited spell list containing only 1st and 2nd level spells. And what about including some short introductory adventures with it?
Making it easy for beginners would just be one goal. Cause one of our players is new. He expressed some concerns about the learning curve.
But the primary focus is to just make a rules light Pathfinder. So the game runs fast.
the game is already out there. It's called Castles and Crusades. it uses the d20 system and the old basic system. Really a great game.
Agreed. I own and have read C&C and like it a lot. However, my group still has buyers shock from going 3.0 to 3.5 and then Pathfinder. They don't want to buy anymore books.
We tried a free retro-clone and found out they are too addicted to the 3rd edition character power level.
So there are only 2 options left...
Make a rules light, old school style game out of PF
OR
..... go back to playing 2nd edition.
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I was a big fan of Castles & Crusades for a bit, even ran it at a local Michigan Con and ran it for friends several times. Then I finally decided the Siege system just plain didn't work so I moved on. I was going to try to fix it, even started on a derivative work, but then threw my hands in the air after realizing I had gutted 95% of what was in the books. I gave up on that one lol
I would go with Warrior (Good BAB, good Fort), Mage (Poor BAB, Good Will), Thief (Medium BAB, Good Reflex). Mages can be wizards, clerics, etc. Maybe let the player choose the good save for their class.
Warrior (Good BAB, Bad Traits, Bad Magic)
Mage (Bad BAB, Bad Traits, Good Magic)
Thief (Bad BAB, Good Traits, Bad Magic)
Combine Feats and Skills into Traits. Traits would be used to make paladins, rangers, druids, clerics, sorcerers, wizards, rogues, bards, monks, etc., out of the basic Fighter, Mage, and Thief classes. Maybe a Trait to increase BAB, Magic (and one to even begin to use magic), and a save?
I would keep the races, but really simplify them, like combine LLV and darkvision, give each one a bonus trait or two, and maybe the stat bonuses.
Maybe get rid of ability scores and just use the bonuses. Maybe roll 1d6-3 for beginning ability bonuses.
Get rid of iterative attacks. Just increase the damage at certain levels based on BAB (like free vital strike feat chain).
Auto-success crits.
Static saves (10 + level + stat for good and 10 + 1/2 level + stat for bad) and attack roll-like spells.
Maybe combine AC, Saves, and CMD into 1 set of defenses.
Definitely keep combat manuvers, but keep them real simple.
Definitely keep 3.5-type multi-classing.
I'm kind of liking the idea of Bad being 1/2 level and Good being full level. And maybe add an "Impossible" which is just a flat +0.
For example, Wizard Magic is "Impossible" with 0 traits in it, "Bad" with 1 trait in it (+1/2 level on Caster Attacks, Spell Damage, etc.), and "Good" with 2 traits in it (+1 level on Caster Attacks, etc.). Maybe give out Melee Fighting Trait, Ranged Fighting Trait, Unarmed Fighting Trait, etc.
Traits would be "always on" bonuses or abilities, like the ability to use Martial Weapons, Martial Arts, Armor Use, use monk-like AC, Toughness, +4 on ALL combat maneuvers, Full Character Level to Trait Checks (Acrobatics, Athletics, Craft, Deception, Heal, Hunting, Knowledge, Perception, Perform, Prescence, Scholar, Stealth, Spellcraft, Thievery, etc.), Toughness, +2 to Saves, Dodge, Shield, Arcane Spells, Druid Spells, Priest Spells, Shadow Spells, Rituals, etc. etc.