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Just as the title says, which rules do you think need to be clarified or completely reworked? These are the rules that are either too complex or badly explained and which could do with either clarifications or a total rewrite.
Please note this is not a thread for criticisms of rules that you don't like. It is for rules that you think don't fulfil the purpose for which they are written or are overly complex and difficult to understand.
I'll start with three of my bugbears:
1) Crafting rules: Overly complicated, costly, maths intensive and worthless. I would like to see a complete reworking of these rules.
2) Magic item creation rules: So some prerequisites can be bypassed but not others and opinion is divided on which ones? Confusing and messy at the moment with need of at least a major errata or a complete reworking.
3) Grapple: Far too complicated. Needs a broom sweeping through these rules to make them far less complicated.
Anything else need clarification or change?
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Rays. At a glance, it seems like every spell or SLA that requires a ranged touch attack is intended to function the same way (for instance, compare Acid Splash with Ray of Frost). But if you look closely, only a few are specified as being "rays" (Ray of Frost is, but Acid Splash is not), so if you choose "ray" for Weapon Focus or somesuch, RAW seems to say that you'll only get your bonus on effects that use the word "ray", while I can't help thinking that the intent must have been that WF: Ray would equally affect Ray of Frost, Acid Splash, and the ranged SLAs from some of the Cleric's domains (fire, air, water, etc).
Getting clarification/errata to make it perfectly clear what is and is not supposed to be considered a "ray" would be FANTASTIC.
| 3 people marked this as FAQ candidate. |
Charging rules. You need to run directly at your opponent and can't joust them or clothesline them with your weapon. It makes it harder for melee to get into.. well.. the melee.
The way the RAW charging rules work with ride by attack, most of the time you would technically be required to charge INTO your opponent rather than by them.
Grapple: can you cast a spell or not? The rules specifically call out spell casting with one free hand, but the magic section says you can't.
-What difference is there between the grappelER and the graplEE.
Stealth: are you functionally invisible on a successful check or not?
Iterative attacks are an awful lot of work for what you get out of 'em.
-TG
As has been said, stealth rules, and grapple rules. I'm fine with the other combat maneuvers.
Attacks of Opportunity. Too complicated and too mechanical.
1) Crafting rules: Overly complicated, costly, maths intensive and worthless. I would like to see a complete reworking of these rules.
this. Lots, and lots, and lots of this. I'm actually fine with all the other rules you mention, but crafting sux.
And Stealth. We need all the rules on stealth to be in one place!
1. All Combat Maneuvers need to be reworked to fit into the d20 abstract combat system. The current rules, and the legacy 3.5 rules they are based on, are not abstract they are simulation. Grapples, charges, disarms, etc, all these things should be as simple to resolve in combat as a melee attack. They don't need special conditions or complex step by step instructions. They do not need to remain viable combat options through all 20 levels. At some point grappling, tripping and the like should be an ineffective strategy. Simple melee based rules can accomplish this.
2. As a specific suggestion for magic item fixes: Variable level wands should be removed. A wand should have a fixed caster level equal to the minimum level required to cast the spell. That's it. If you want something more powerful use a scroll or a staff.
I disagree throwing your self bodily on to an enemy spell caster and punching him in his mouth while twisting his arm will be sweet at any level.
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Grapples, charges, disarms, etc, all these things should be as simple to resolve in combat as a melee attack.
You might want to read up before suggesting revision:
Bull Rush, Disarm, Overrun, Sunder, Trip, Dirty Trick, Drag, Reposition and Steal (so... every combat maneuver except Grapple) is resolved by a single d20 roll (plus damage for Sunder). This means that every combat maneuver except Grapple is already just as simple as an attack, if not simpler.You're asking for what already is the case.
That's fine, but to me, that should just be an unarmed strike: roll to hit, roll unarmed damage, put whatever flavor you want around it. Done. Next one up in initiative. Forget about all the goofy grapple stuff.I disagree throwing your self bodily on to an enemy spell caster and punching him in his mouth while twisting his arm will be sweet at any level.1. All Combat Maneuvers need to be reworked to fit into the d20 abstract combat system. The current rules, and the legacy 3.5 rules they are based on, are not abstract they are simulation. Grapples, charges, disarms, etc, all these things should be as simple to resolve in combat as a melee attack. They don't need special conditions or complex step by step instructions. They do not need to remain viable combat options through all 20 levels. At some point grappling, tripping and the like should be an ineffective strategy. Simple melee based rules can accomplish this.
2. As a specific suggestion for magic item fixes: Variable level wands should be removed. A wand should have a fixed caster level equal to the minimum level required to cast the spell. That's it. If you want something more powerful use a scroll or a staff.
see i want it to go another way make grapple a recognized attack style with its own sets of feats and maneuvers.
so people who love to grapple like me can do more than 7pts of damage when i hit and when i say i want to pick up the kobold and thrown him my dm doesnt get the look of panic in his eyes like i want him to calculate pi with a abacus|
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I have read it, and played it. You might want to look around the forums for the various threads demanding clarification on Grapple, Bull Rush, Disarm, Overrun, etc. From what I recall there are a few of them...Grapples, charges, disarms, etc, all these things should be as simple to resolve in combat as a melee attack.You might want to read up before suggesting revision:
Bull Rush, Disarm, Overrun, Sunder, Trip, Dirty Trick, Drag, Reposition and Steal (so... every combat maneuver except Grapple) is resolved by a single d20 roll (plus damage for Sunder). This means that every combat maneuver except Grapple is already just as simple as an attack, if not simpler.You're asking for what already is the case.
From your earlier post, it sounded like you thought the actual execution was a convoluted, multi-step process (whereas in reality, with the exception I already noted of Grapple, it's a matter of a simple d20 roll). The threads you're referencing are mostly about "can I use this maneuver in situation X?". That's an entirely different issue than what your original post sounded like. If that's what you were meaning, you might consider re-wording for clarity.
Relatedly, some of your complaints about Combat Maneuvers are applicable to Grapple (like needing "step-by-step" processes, as you put it) but not to others, though you seem to be implying that the complications of Grapple apply to all of them. You might wish to clarify that as well.
I am not sure if this counts as a rule but i would say Eidolon creation rules are overly complicated. Not to mention the Synthesis archetype.
I have read it, and played it. You might want to look around the forums for the various threads demanding clarification on Grapple, Bull Rush, Disarm, Overrun, etc. From what I recall there are a few of them...Grapples, charges, disarms, etc, all these things should be as simple to resolve in combat as a melee attack.You might want to read up before suggesting revision:
Bull Rush, Disarm, Overrun, Sunder, Trip, Dirty Trick, Drag, Reposition and Steal (so... every combat maneuver except Grapple) is resolved by a single d20 roll (plus damage for Sunder). This means that every combat maneuver except Grapple is already just as simple as an attack, if not simpler.You're asking for what already is the case.
I have a few threads, on grappling feats that i have created
They do not need to remain viable combat options through all 20 levels. At some point grappling, tripping and the like should be an ineffective strategy. Simple melee based rules can accomplish this.
I couldn't disagree more, expecially since barring fighters you cannot retrain feats.
An I want high level Pcs do awesome things.
Requiring melee classes to hold still to get iterative attacks. The stated purpose was for less die rolling. Its consequence is that melee looses a LOT of the damage it was intended to do in actual games due to everyone moving around. Terrain that is supposed to be interesting for the melee to traverse is, instead, a means of gimping them.
Requiring melee classes to hold still to get iterative attacks. The stated purpose was for less die rolling. Its consequence is that melee looses a LOT of the damage it was intended to do in actual games due to everyone moving around. Terrain that is supposed to be interesting for the melee to traverse is, instead, a means of gimping them.
my feats for grappling are here
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathfinderR PG/houseRules/grappleFeats&page=1#1i think it should expand
Requiring melee classes to hold still to get iterative attacks. The stated purpose was for less die rolling. Its consequence is that melee looses a LOT of the damage it was intended to do in actual games due to everyone moving around. Terrain that is supposed to be interesting for the melee to traverse is, instead, a means of gimping them.
I see this come up a lot, and every time, I have the same thought. It sounds real great for the Fighter to always get his full attack, or the Monk to be able to Flurry anytime. Right up until they realize that dragons and demons are also always getting their full attacks...
Requiring melee classes to hold still to get iterative attacks. The stated purpose was for less die rolling. Its consequence is that melee looses a LOT of the damage it was intended to do in actual games due to everyone moving around. Terrain that is supposed to be interesting for the melee to traverse is, instead, a means of gimping them.I see this come up a lot, and every time, I have the same thought. It sounds real great for the Fighter to always get his full attack, or the Monk to be able to Flurry anytime. Right up until they realize that dragons and demons are also always getting their full attacks...
The dragons and demons usually DO.
The party is almost always on the offensive. Its pretty rare that the party is the defenders. The party must attack the dragon/ogre/ demon and for the melee that means going up to the big bad and STAYING there (since many creatures have reach, you don't want to dance in an out)
Requiring melee classes to hold still to get iterative attacks. The stated purpose was for less die rolling. Its consequence is that melee looses a LOT of the damage it was intended to do in actual games due to everyone moving around. Terrain that is supposed to be interesting for the melee to traverse is, instead, a means of gimping them.I see this come up a lot, and every time, I have the same thought. It sounds real great for the Fighter to always get his full attack, or the Monk to be able to Flurry anytime. Right up until they realize that dragons and demons are also always getting their full attacks...
See this implies that the dragons and demons are using their full attacks, rather then flying and teleporting out of reach, spamming spells, summons, and at-will save-or-bleh abilities.
Spell resistance.
"Hm, he fails to resist your spell, but then he manages to resist your spell."
Give something the ability to save twice and take the best effect, make them immune to some spells that are thematically appropriate, or just give them a bonus to saves in general.
It's a clunky throwback mechanic.
*The intimidate skill. The skill description is way to vague and easily abused.
*The craft skill. As the OP said, to complicated and time consuming.
*Magic item creation (and magical items in general). The rules are to open to abuse, magical items have lost all flavor and the few that are interesting will always loose out to bland +x to x items. The magic mart syndrome has to go.
*The stealth skill. Very confusing and contradictory in its description.
*The grapple maneuver. To complicated and confusing. Its also almost never a viable tactic since you also get the grappled condition and the grab ability is useless.
*The monk and rogue classes. Not nearly on par with the other martial classes. i can't remember the last time anyone played either of them.
*Familiars. Still to little bang for your buck.
*To easy to fix adverse conditions including death. No consequences if you have enough money.
*A fix to make solo monsters viable.
*The paladin class. You really went a bit overboard with its abilities. The smite ability makes evil boss monsters cry and makes for anticlimactic encounters (even my paladin player thinks it was a bit much).
*Combat maneuvers should be easier to use to make them more viable. It shouldn't require two or more feats to even have a chance to make them work. 90% of the time a normal attack is better.
*Iterative attacks. They bog down the game and makes combats more static.
*Area of effect spells. They should require an attack roll and scatter like grenade like weapons on a miss (just a personal preference not really a needed change but it would add some fun into encounters IMO).
*Magic shouldn't replace skills or feats but enhance them.
*Weapon finesse should be a property of the weapon not a feat tax and should also add dex to damage instead of strength.
*Lightly or unarmored martial characters needs something to allow them to compete with heavily armored fighters.
Requiring melee classes to hold still to get iterative attacks. The stated purpose was for less die rolling. Its consequence is that melee looses a LOT of the damage it was intended to do in actual games due to everyone moving around. Terrain that is supposed to be interesting for the melee to traverse is, instead, a means of gimping them.I see this come up a lot, and every time, I have the same thought. It sounds real great for the Fighter to always get his full attack, or the Monk to be able to Flurry anytime. Right up until they realize that dragons and demons are also always getting their full attacks...The dragons and demons usually DO.
The party is almost always on the offensive. Its pretty rare that the party is the defenders. The party must attack the dragon/ogre/ demon and for the melee that means going up to the big bad and STAYING there (since many creatures have reach, you don't want to dance in an out)
In 90% of the dragon fights I've experienced, on both sides of the screen, one of the parties' major concerns has been keeping the dragon from throwing its full attack around. That's precisely why the drop in melee damage due to mobility is an issue. Part of it is monstrous ability to play keep-away, yes, but even if the dragon is willing to stand still, the fighter can't afford to stand next to it, because it hits back harder.
Spell resistance.
"Hm, he fails to resist your spell, but then he manages to resist your spell."
Give something the ability to save twice and take the best effect, make them immune to some spells that are thematically appropriate, or just give them a bonus to saves in general.
It's a clunky throwback mechanic.
Absolutely!
Not only is it a clunky throwback, but it's existence leads to an arms race where everyone strives to have (drow PCs were a nightmare in 3.5) and then all the spell casters want/need penetration to pierce it.
Do as JR says!
See this implies that the dragons and demons are using their full attacks, rather then flying and teleporting out of reach, spamming spells, summons, and at-will save-or-bleh abilities.
Thats the warm up. When you go in for the KILL then you get to taste the blood on your fangs.
Spell resistance.
"Hm, he fails to resist your spell, but then he manages to resist your spell."
Give something the ability to save twice and take the best effect, make them immune to some spells that are thematically appropriate, or just give them a bonus to saves in general.
It's a clunky throwback mechanic.
Absolutely!
Not only is it a clunky throwback, but it's existence leads to an arms race where everyone strives to have (drow PCs were a nightmare in 3.5) and then all the spell casters want/need penetration to pierce it.
Do as JR says!
I just got an idea. How about making SR like an instinctive counterspell ability.
That's kind of how I was seeing it from the days of 1st Edition: that some creatures just had the ability to disrupt your spells. This would be a lot more powerful, and thus would be worth an extra CR, but would apply to any spell in an area that the creature threatened.
Then "SR: No" would not exist because even if you were casting a spell to create a pit underneath the Balor, he could just say "No pit!" and you'd have to get past his spell resistance.
Alter NPC Attitude: I seem to always be at a loss when it comes to using intimidate/diplomacy/or some other skill to try and affect an NPCs' attitude. I don't know... I see the table with the DCs next to the attitudes, but somehow, I always get confused when the situation happens.
The AID ANOTHER rule: So you're pulling a rope to hoist up a piano and have 16 strength (pretty strong)... the DC is 24... Roll d20+3. Oh wait, here comes a second guy to help you. He's also pretty strong (16 Str also)... Add a bleak +2 to your roll (?!?). I would change that to +3 (for the first 16) +3 (for the second 16) and +2 (for the number of people doing the task) for a total of +8. C'mon, let's get that piano up there!
Wands: I think wands shouldn't have just one spell attached to it. A wand should instead boost the caster level of the spell cast through it. Wizards would use the wands to amplify/concentrate their casting power. They could be attached to certain schools of magic though. The fables Wand of Illusions, gives +2 caster levels to any illusion spell cast through it. Get that all powerful Wand of the Archmage and cast ALL of your spells at +5 caster levels. This would mimic what we see in movies/stories that have wands in them (Harry Potter, etc...).
Ultradan
Wands: I think wands shouldn't have just one spell attached to it. A wand should instead boost the caster level of the spell cast through it. Wizards would use the wands to amplify/concentrate their casting power. They could be attached to certain schools of magic though. The fables Wand of Illusions, gives +2 caster levels to any illusion spell cast through it. Get that all powerful Wand of the Archmage and cast ALL of your spells at +5 caster levels. This would mimic what we see in movies/stories that have wands in them (Harry Potter, etc...).
Ultradan
I think that this purpose is served by rods.
Spell resistance.
"Hm, he fails to resist your spell, but then he manages to resist your spell."
Give something the ability to save twice and take the best effect, make them immune to some spells that are thematically appropriate, or just give them a bonus to saves in general.
It's a clunky throwback mechanic.
GOD YES THIS. I like your replacement mechanic suggestions too.
Not to mention that at least high levels, casters--not even optimized ones--can almost always beat it anyway, so it just slows down combat while they roll a check they will inevitably succeed on as long as they don't roll 2 or less. The only thing it becomes useful for is determining what kind of spells a golem is immune to.
DR while we're at it. The fact that enhancement bonuses can replace material requirements gets confusing. "Wait, so does +4 weapons also bypass adamantine or do I need +5 for that?" And then how you have to subtract the damage from each hit when you have iterative hits slows things down. And again, it's just something that eventually the PCs will be able to bypass easily, so it's just a speedbump anyway.
Polymorph spells. You have to read the section on polymorph in the magic chapter to get the general gist of what changes and what doesn't. Then you read your spell, which will inevitably cross reference you to three previous shapechanging spells on the tree, and it takes a half hour just to determine what you can turn into and what you can't or can do once you've changed.
And any spell whose description you can't easily fit on a 3x5 index card.
DR while we're at it. The fact that enhancement bonuses can replace material requirements gets confusing. "Wait, so does +4 weapons also bypass adamantine or do I need +5 for that?" And then how you have to subtract the damage from each hit when you have iterative hits slows things down. And again, it's just something that eventually the PCs will be able to bypass easily, so it's just a speedbump anyway.Polymorph spells. You have to read the section on polymorph in the magic chapter to get the general gist of what changes and what doesn't. Then you read your spell, which will inevitably cross reference you to three previous shapechanging spells on the tree, and it takes a half hour just to determine what you can turn into and what you can't or can do once you've changed.
And any spell whose description you can't easily fit on a 3x5 index card.
Yes this as well. It would be nice if DR meant something all of the time. I don't know how, I'm thinking about it. But reverting to "+5 cuts everything" was a disappointment. Regardless of how it works, it needs clearer writing. ESPECIALLY the part about "sometimes its Ex, and sometimes its Su"; that's always been gibberish.
Also, needlessly, uselessly verbose spell descriptions with no bullet points to call out the effects have always been a sore spot with me in any edition. Must change. Paizo seemed to make strides with the spell stat blocks in PF, but they left too many confusing artifacts of 3.5 and most spell descriptions untouched.
I hate 4E, but it's format rocks.
Regarding the text descriptions in general, today the accepted rule interpretation (I believe) is that the "verbose text" portion of a rule (spell description, feat, skill, whatever) takes precedence over any stat block or table summation. I think this philosophy should be reversed. The easy to find and read stuff (like tables and stat blocks) should be the authority on a rule and the verbose text portion should be an expansion of the stat block, not a replacement in case of discrepancy.Paizo seemed to make strides with the spell stat blocks in PF, but they left too many confusing artifacts of 3.5 and most spell descriptions untouched.
Yes tabkle good.
The Summoner. In it's entirety.
Full-class replacement archetypes (like the Ninja)
Yes tabkle good.Quote of the day. ;)
Hahahahahahahahahahhaha
I think it's pretty clear i meant table right?