Houserule Suggestions

[Ryuko]

In an effort to address some issues with the Pathfinder system. I've decided to cosolidate a set of house rules, and I'm looking for suggestions. What do you think is wrong with the system? And what do you think will fix it? My rules so far will follow.

Tradeoffs:

All trade-off feats (Power Attack, Combat Expertise, Lunge) will be folded into combat options within the system. Any character who meets the prerequisites for these feats will gain these feats as soon as they qualify. The reason for this is to eliminate these often taxed feats and because I feel that spending a feat slot should always gain a pure benefit.

Scaling Feats:

Scaling feats (any feat listed as Improved X or Greater X) will be awarded to a character with the base feat as soon as thet meet the prerequisites. If the Scaled feat has no prerequisite except the previous feat, the Improved/Greater version will be awarded next time the character gains a feat. This reduces long feat chains, particularly for Combat Maneuvers and Vital Strike lines, making them far more attractive to characters other than fighters.

Defence:

I will be instituting a class based defence bonus, likely tied to BAB progression. This one I'm uncertain on and will take all input.

Those are what I have on the brain ATM, but there's far more I've left unlisted. So what do you say folks? What's worked for you?

P.S.: I'd love to work Kirthfinder's Proficiency rules and Fighter Talents into the system somehow if anyone has advice on those.

[Kydeem de'Morcaine]

I think you will greatly increase combat types over spell casters. There much fewer of the both classes of feats for the spell casters than there are for the weapon dudes.

And will greatly increase fighters over the rest of the weapon types. A fighter will be able to take almost all of the scaling feat chains.

I'm not necessarily saying that is a bad thing. You just need to be aware of it. I can almost gaurantee that most of the people I have played with would pick fighters of multiclass fighters with these house rules.

[mplindustries]

Wow, with all those free feats flying around, what are Fighters going to take?

GM: Why do you have Shield Specialization in all four kinds of shields?

Fighter: Eh, it was that or Crossbow Mastery

GM: But you use a two-handed weapon--you've never picked up a shield in your life!

Fighter: Well, I didn't have any caster level so I couldn't take Arcane Armor Mastery, what else is there?!

A bit more serious of a question:
If you give feats that have only a single prerequisite for free, does that mean everyone with 13+ Int will eventually get Greater Trip for free, since the only prerequisite for Improved Trip is Combat Expertise and that's free?

[Helaman]

mplindustries wrote:

Wow, with all those free feats flying around, what are Fighters going to take?

There are a tonne of them including Teamwork Feats (which even fighters couldn't really afford before), SKILL FOCUS, those cutesy dual skill feats that give +2 to two skills, Endurance, Dodge, being able to invest in more combat feats like drag and dirty trick (rather than having to focus on one chain), Improved Unarmed Combat (wish more fighters took that), martial arts stances are just SOME of the ways that warriors can use those feat investments.

Mages may not get the most use out of it but a fully buffed mage can always try to double hand bash with a power attack or benefit from combat expertise.

[Ryuko]

mplindustries wrote:

Wow, with all those free feats flying around, what are Fighters going to take?

GM: Why do you have Shield Specialization in all four kinds of shields?

Fighter: Eh, it was that or Crossbow Mastery

GM: But you use a two-handed weapon--you've never picked up a shield in your life!

Fighter: Well, I didn't have any caster level so I couldn't take Arcane Armor Mastery, what else is there?!

A bit more serious of a question:
If you give feats that have only a single prerequisite for free, does that mean everyone with 13+ Int will eventually get Greater Trip for free, since the only prerequisite for Improved Trip is Combat Expertise and that's free?

Helaman quite handily answered "what other feats?" So I'll clear up otherwise.

CE, PA and lunge wouldn't be feats, but sinply manuevers for everyone. However, any character over Int (or Dex, under my houserules) 13 would be able to take Improved Trip, which would then grant them Greater Trip next time they got a feat, in addition to their chosen next feat. Simpler/

[98pointsix]

I do something like this in my game, but not quite as far. I make combat expertise, and power attack innate feats as long as you have a BAB of +1 or higher and a corrosponding ability score of 13 ( Int for expertise, Str for power attack). I also run them more oldschool, +1/-1 to a max of BAB set by the player. Example a lvl 8 fighter with a str and int of atleast 13 could choose to move the bonuses around resulting in a +3 to hit, +1 dodge AC, +4/+6 damage 1handed/2handed ( I did keep the 1.5 application for power attacking damage 2handed). I also removed the prereq of combat expertise and power attack from all feats. It seemed to me that the amount of precision you give up for power, or how defensive you are being should be more fluid and part of basic combat training (BAB). I feel like things cleave, lunge, pushing strike, and all the improved and greaters are an example of more specialized training and should require a feat.

In that same respect I also made all metamagic feats innate,you just have to be able to cast spells of the level of the increase, if you want to power up a spell by blowing a higher slot thats all just part of mastering magic, and I allow casters to take any spell based feat and the extraX feats at levels where they could take a metamagic feat.

My players really like it and I havent had any issues with PC's being over powered as a result.

[Tim4488]

Would this apply to Greater Spell Focus as well? Just a thought, since we usually focus on the effects of these rules on martial types.