You could collapse it down to two bonus categories:
Then declare bonuses from the same category don't stack, with the exception of shields to AC. Therefore, a monster with +5 natural armor, +5 Dex, and +3 from a ring of deflection would be AC 18, not 23. A fighter with BAB +10, Str 18, and a +2 sword would be +12 to hit, not +16. Saves would be craaaaazy difficult to succeed at, because all you'd get would be one class bonus or attribute bonus, plus resistance (if any). And there would be no save boost feats, Weapon Focus, Dodge, Combat Expertise, etc. -- you'd have to get rid of all those. But that would sure simplify things.
Simpler still: No bonuses stack. For melee attacks, you'd use 1d20+BAB or 1d20+Str mod, whichever is higher. That's it. For AC, you'd use Dex mod or armor or natural armor, never all of the above.
Of course, just whacking the miniatures against each other until someone's breaks is even simpler. Or just making up a story as you go, with no rules at all to "get in the way of the fun."
You really can't grasp the concept of a game that isn't leashed and controlled by a rulebook, can you?
Sure, it's called "story hour." Without rules, it's not really a game so much as telling stories around a campfire (or kitchen table). Which is a lot of fun, but it's not what I'd personally consider a "game."
The other option is to make up the rules as you go, a la "Calvinball." That can also be a lot of fun when you're running around outside... but is significantly less fun for tabletop games.
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You could collapse it down to two bonus categories:
Innate (from attribute mods, BAB, insight, competence, or whatever); and
External (armor, circumstance, and so on). Then declare bonuses from the same category don't stack, with the exception of shields to AC. Therefore, a monster with +5 natural armor, +5 Dex, and +3 from a ring of deflection would be AC 18, not 23. A fighter with BAB +10, Str 18, and a +2 sword would be +12 to hit, not +16. Saves would be craaaaazy difficult to succeed at, because all you'd get would be one class bonus or attribute bonus, plus resistance (if any). And there would be no save boost feats, Weapon Focus, Dodge, Combat Expertise, etc. -- you'd have to get rid of all those. But that would sure simplify things.
Simpler still: No bonuses stack. For melee attacks, you'd use 1d20+BAB or 1d20+Str mod, whichever is higher. That's it. For AC, you'd use Dex mod or armor or natural armor, never all of the above.
Of course, just whacking the miniatures against each other until someone's breaks is even simpler. Or just making up a story as you go, with no rules at all to "get in the way of the fun."
Kirth Gersen: 0-60 in 100 words or less. ;)
I actually kind of like the first suggestion in terms of simplicity, but I might add a category of *magical* bonuses, which would allow for some more interesting situations (such as beholders) and still give mages some buffing value.
Another random idea: equate shield bonus with Dex bonus. Even outside this Frankenstein system, it would work nicely with touch/flat-footed AC and give warriors more incentive to use shields. Would probably require boosting all the shield ACs by at least +1.
<*Sigh*>
Helic pretty much nailed it. The issue isn't so much the system, but the lack of preparation on the group's part bogging down play.
Also, read Calibrating Your Expectations and The Many Games Inside the World's Most Popular RPG. If you prefer a specific style/"power level" of play, then target that character level range when setting up the campaign and use the slow advancement on Tables 3-1 and 12-5 to extend the amount of time spent in those levels.
One of the main strengths of D&D/AD&D/3.x/Pathfinder is that it can be used for gritty/"realistic" fantasy, heroic/"high" fantasy, mythic/"wild" fantasy, and superheroic/"demigod" fantasy within the same ruleset. It is not designed to replicate a "flat" playstyle as characters advance, with the only difference being "bigger numbers" or marginal gains, but rather that characters migrate from one playstyle to another as their power improves.
This.
PERSONALLY I like 2E the best. It's what I started with, and it's what I've had the most fun with. Pathfinder is fine for what it is... and it fixed a LOT of things I didn't like about 2E...
But really there is NO perfect system. EVERY one has bonuses, and flaws.. that's why MOST of our games have gone home rules... We're still trying to play Pathfinder RAW... but I get VERY frustrated with the bazillion of rules for every possible option that USED to be handled with a little creativity on the players part and a snap judgement on the DM's part...
However, it sounds like the OP's problam isn't with the system... He's complaining about the multiclassing... the prestige classes... the archtypes...
Don't USE them...
You can STILL play an old school Fighter/Cleric/rogue/wizard group if you want... Nothing in the rules makes these options MANDATORY... If the players long for the classic fantasy... then no dragonmen with laser breath allowed this time...
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You can STILL play an old school Fighter/Cleric/rogue/wizard group if you want... Nothing in the rules makes these options MANDATORY... If the players long for the classic fantasy... then no dragonmen with laser breath allowed this time...
Possible, to a point. But there is a huge difference between a cleric with a couple of spells at every spell level (possibly using spheres) and turn undead and one with 2 domains, 4 domain powers, 5-6 spells per spell level, channel energy, plus a feat for every other level.
If you strip too much away, the characters will not function properly given the assumptions of the game without serious DM adjustments.
...there is a huge difference between a cleric with a couple of spells at every spell level (possibly using spheres) and turn undead and one with 2 domains, 4 domain powers, 5-6 spells per spell level, channel energy, plus a feat for every other level.
Yes, the character is now fun to play and is useful outside of tossing a Bless, Turning Undead, and being a healbot.
Kirth, if I'm not mistaken you are arguing that things ought to remain complex because if they were simplified/cleaned up, they might get too simple?
There's a fine balance, obviously. I would like to see the game retain most, if not all of its complexity, but it should have more orthogonality (in the computer science sense); if a creature has a special ability, it should give the GM broad powers to interpret that ability and seek only to define the absolutely necessary consequences. The game, as it stands, is not like that.
Any given ability, when referenced, tends to cascade out into cross references, and in some cases double- or triple-cross-references. All of the spells are written as though the GM is unimaginative, incompetent, and untrustworthy. Certainly such GMs exist, but they will do harm whether or not the rules rein them in.
The result of this style of design is a "house of cards", a gap in knowledge for any part of the system puts the brakes on gameplay, because the game creates an expectation that there is a rules clause answer for every question. Even if the goal is to have an answer for every question, it could be vastly better organized to that purpose.
</rant>
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Kirth, if I'm not mistaken you are arguing that things ought to remain complex because if they were simplified/cleaned up, they might get too simple?
There's a fine balance, obviously. I would like to see the game retain most, if not all of its complexity, but it should have more orthogonality (in the computer science sense); if a creature has a special ability, it should give the GM broad powers to interpret that ability and seek only to define the absolutely necessary consequences. The game, as it stands, is not like that.
Any given ability, when referenced, tends to cascade out into cross references, and in some cases double- or triple-cross-references. All of the spells are written as though the GM is unimaginative, incompetent, and untrustworthy. Certainly such GMs exist, but they will do harm whether or not the rules rein them in.
The result of this style of design is a "house of cards", a gap in knowledge for any part of the system puts the brakes on gameplay, because the game creates an expectation that there is a rules clause answer for every question. Even if the goal is to have an answer for every question, it could be vastly better organized to that purpose.
</rant>
Agreed; charm person is a good example of over-complexity. What about "the target is your friend and ally" implies them being an automaton, suicidal, or being able to communicate telepathically? Yet the spell description goes out of its way to mention such things.
Obviously, such language developed over time as misinterpretations spread and a decision was made to eliminate radical house-rules. But for our purposes, it's just unnecessary density.
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Yes, the character is now fun to play and is useful outside of tossing a Bless, Turning Undead, and being a healbot....there is a huge difference between a cleric with a couple of spells at every spell level (possibly using spheres) and turn undead and one with 2 domains, 4 domain powers, 5-6 spells per spell level, channel energy, plus a feat for every other level.
One makes their own fun. For someone who is less focused on combat actions and/or happy to be the warrior-priest, the Pathfinder cleric is needlessly complex.
Kirth, if I'm not mistaken you are arguing that things ought to remain complex because if they were simplified/cleaned up, they might get too simple?
No; I'm just wondering where people draw the line. "The game is needlessly complex" can mean anything from "there are too many buffs and bonus types and durations to track" to "I don't want to deal with rules and numbers and stuff; let's just make stuff up as we go." Everyone draws the line in a different place, but if one group's preference is closer to the latter, I sure as hell wouldn't start with Pathfinder as a base -- I'd start with a much simpler system to begin with.
All of the spells are written as though the GM is unimaginative, incompetent, and untrustworthy. Certainly such GMs exist, but they will do harm whether or not the rules rein them in.
A real immersion-breaker for me in 1e was the number of things left undefined, forcing the DM to make up arbitrary ad hoc rules on the spot all the time, for really common things. For example, we'd be trying to swim through a tunnel, and of course there were no defined skills, and the swimming rules in the DMG covered some areas but not others. So the DM was forced to stop play to come up with some kind of applicable resolution system. And then he'd say, "Wait! In Module A4 they spelled out a system to use! Let's reference that!" (rummages through game collection) "Hold on; I just found Module S2, and I think it's got a different system! Which one is better?" I personally wouldn't care to go back to all that.
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The fact is, GM fiat is much, much faster than looking up a rule or rolling a die everytime someone does something in a game. As a GM you just decide if something's possible or not, based on common sense.
Your ideal system consists of DM fiat? How exactly is that different from story hour, then -- or, at best, "Mother May I"? To me, that's not really a "game" as much as a storytelling exercise. If that's what you're after, more power to you, but again, there's no reason in the world to use a complex system like Pathfinder as a base for that.
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I don't need my players to roll to make sure their shoes are tied. By GM fiat, I can decide without looking things up or rolling a die that my players have the ability to dress themselves.
The thing is, if their characters live or die based on tied shoes or buttoned trousers, at some point they're going to get fed up with you just declaring "You can't tie your shoes, so you die. Roll up a new character." Conversely, you just saying "Oh, you can always tie them, so you never die from that" eliminates whole classes of potential challenges from the game. Back to concrete examples: Holding your breath and swimming through a water-filled tunnel is a life-or-death scenario, in which DM fiat, for most people, doesn't really cut it.
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IF the players were trapped in a cavern with rapidly rising water, and had to swim into the next chamber to escape drowning, it would be pointless and stupid to require the players to make a series of rolls to avoid drowning.
If there is no risk of drowning, then there is no functional difference between the PCs having to swim and the PCs having to walk to the next room.
You may be alright with just the narrative differences. Others are not.
GM fiat says that save-or-die situations are foolish
There goes the challenge.
EDIT: TriOmegaNinja'd.
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Jerry, an honest question here, if I may: If DM fiat is your preferred solution for most out-of-combat situations (as your examples -- tracking, swimming and drowning, opening doors, etc. -- seem to imply), then why isn't it applicable to combat as well?
It seems to me that if fiat also applies equally to combat, then you are indeed having story hour. If fiat is not applicable to combat, you're having story hour, but interrupting it periodically to have small combat-simulation games as well. Some people might prefer that. I personally wouldn't.
EDIT: TriOmegaNinja'd.
WOPAH!
@Orthos: As far as save-or-die situations go, if a suituation occurs for one character , that's fine; make the roll. But a whole party? I don't think so. That's irresponsible GMing. At least one of them is probably going to fail. You might as well choose one of them randomly and say, "You're dead, give me your sheet."
I like letting the dice fall where they may. People might get lucky. People might get unlucky. I don't think it irresponsible at all, I think it random, which is what it's supposed to be. Otherwise why use the dice at all?
Mostly I'm sitting here laughing at the whole thread but that's cause I like my high-power games, I gave my two cents on that a few pages back and was content to remain a silent observer since. It's this silliness of "just don't bother rolling" that actually made me bother to post.
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It's mostly that I can't see this equality you claim between "GM says you lose, sucks to be you" and "a bad roll came up on the die, sorry for the bad luck, you lose". One is straight-up no chances game over man game over (not to mention MUCH more likely to spark player complaint), the other at least gives an opportunity to surpass the challenge, slim as it may be, and leaves it up to luck. No way the two are equivalent.
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I dunno, all those attack rolls that miss slow combat down a lot. Can't we just fiat who wins?Now you're being obtuse. :)
I'm always obtuse. ;)
However, I use the hell out of fiat. I just know that having rules to refer to is way more consistent than making up a ruling every time. And players like consistency, otherwise they'd just play freeform.
However, I use the hell out of fiat. I just know that having rules to refer to is way more consistent than making up a ruling every time. And players like consistency, otherwise they'd just play freeform.
This.
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On the issue of stacking bonuses and the number of bonuses in general I will give my pov on the subject* – the perspective of someone who wants to change things to "fix" the game of course.
(Warning, may induce cranial implosions in 3rd ed loyalist, also a bit long but I would love to hear thoughts on the subject)
So, why the wide variety of bonus types in 3rd ed?
As a DM from a play/mechanic/game philosophy perspective it's a good thing to break down which bonuses do or do not stack, that's just practical gaming. Also in the vein of game play/philosophy a bigger question is why are there so many different types of bonuses? This design approach is the opposite of the condensing that was done with the 3rd edition Saving Throw categories from 2nd ed - instead of having a few clean bonus categories types we instead have multiple types of stacking bonuses. Why?
Without sounding overly conspiratorial I will offer this up as motivation and design consideration: Product.
Multiple bonus types that do not stack allow a developer to make more spells that do not step on each other and lays down the groundwork for more player options. More spells/player options = more books. One can argue that it makes things more open ended with more player options and variety but if I was a DM designing my own game it wouldn't be to sell it (at first). My intent would be to have the best functional game I could design, and not focusing on creating future option design endpoints, re: multiple bonus types. I would instead focus on functionality and fun, and if the need arose for multiple bonus types I would create them. Let's think about this for a moment. If you're creating a game (and the number ranges based on design goals) then you should then be deciding what you would need in that game to make it work. 3rd ed does not need the amount of bonus types that currently exist and in fact I will pose why they hurt the game. In my opinion the reason why multiple bonus types were designed into the game was to create open ended ports for future options.
Right now in PF we have 12 different bonus types (I could be wrong on that), I will bold the core/common ones: Attribute, Armor, Shield, Circumstance, Competence, Deflection, Dodge, Insight, Luck, Morale, Profane and Sacred. If the bonuses were to be narrowed down to say: Attribute, Armor & Shield (could be combined yet again as Defense), Circumstance, Magic & Divine (could be combined as Magic) it would cut out a large number of bonuses - from 12 to 6, or if you parse it down even more 12 to 4. That in turn would reduce tracking bonus types, and stackable bonus types -which in turn would eliminate a ton of redundant spells that try to do X result, while using Y or Z bonus/type to get the same results– i.e. more spells.
Now I’ll go one deeper – by reducing the amount of stackable bonus types you (as a designer) are now reducing the range at which any given power, attack, DC, etc is going to be set at – and this goes a great length to managing (play) expectations by reigning in the numbers.
Wotc did the opposite, they in fact built into the system an ease of wildly going out of level or class ability expectations and this has caused a tremendous amount of play expectation issues throughout their system. I'll go on record here of stating that their (WotC) number ranges - based on their own CR design considerations and expected class roles at level - are wrong.
Thought: If you limit the bonus types you then limit the power of abilities that are available to work within a level appropriate range. This is a good thing.
So after my proposed change (reducing 12 bonus types to 6 or 4) a 3rd level cleric now only has access to a few spells which affect attacks (his or others) and DCs for abilities/effects (his or others). At the end of it all he may net a +2 to +3 on attacks for himself or a +2 for his whole party when most of the existing bonuses are lumped together and several spells are phased out (due to redundancy). By making this change I am creating a numerical expectation of a given classes ability based on level .
Again, I think this is a good thing.
The standard PF edition level 3rd ed cleric could casually give a total +7 (Bless: Morale, Guidance: Competence, Divine Favor: Luck, Magic Weapon: Enhancement, Moment of Greatness (x2 morale bonus), Bull Strength: Attribute) to one attack/attacker and then after that net the group a +2 on attacks while he is at +6 for the rest of the fight. Higher if I dredged through books looking for level appropriate stackable spells.
To me this is an unacceptable range of numbers – worse so for the Cleric if he cast most of the spells on himself since now not only is he out of the expected number range for his level but he is also stepping on the toes of another class. This also goes towards creating a series of other problems: NOVAS and destroying CR expectations. And all of this is not counting the widening number range increases for the negatives – the DeBuffs. Pile that on and you make an encounter fall further out of range and operate lower than CR vs. the party by reduced to-hits and damage.
This is all brought to you by the design philosophy of having a wide variety of bonus types which basically do the same thing – provide a +1 to hit 12 different ways.
TL;DR version-
Multiple Bonuses: different name same value
Throws numbers way out of level expected range (critical game breakdown)
Overly complicates/tracking/stacking issues
Sorry for the long post.
Anyway
*(sorry, I was at my game last night so I couldn't jump in when the subject was hot)
What slows the game down is insisting there be a rule and a die roll for everything--you give a perfect example of how it is in 3E+ in your objection to the way things were played "in 1e".
I've been reading about Burning Wheel a lot lately. One of the most impressive parts of that game is that they give you a heuristic for determining when a roll "matters":
If it has any relevance to one of the character's listed beliefs, then it's an exciting obstacle that the player wanted to have challenged. If not, it's not really relevant and you're supposed to gloss over it. This is a really interesting way to constrain an xp-for-every-roll system, since you can't really take time out to climb if it has nothing to do with your character's goals.
It's a really direct way of agreeing on what's important enough to roll for, but it leaves the direction almost entirely in the hands of the players. A neat approach!
EDIT: TriO, I love your irreverence possibly more than others, but try not to stymy a decent conversation when one rolls around... they're rare enough! ...reductio ad absurdum... blah blah... rhetoric lecture...
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I am going to publish an RPG called Story Hour and cash in on all Kirth's free advertising.
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The 3.5 Player's Handbook stated that you don't have to roll a skill check for simple things; like climbing a rope if there is no real danger involved (page 62, "Character Skills" sidebar - example mine)...
I run a 2nd edition game (which tends to rely upon DM Fiat), and I hand-wave things that don't tend to be dangerous activities (like swimming across a slow moving river). However, if there IS a clear and present danger, then I WILL have the players roll dice when I otherwise would not have them do so...
This isn't "GM says you lose". This is "mathematics says you lose". You can argue with the GM. But the math is the math.
If it makes you feel better, go ahead and make the roll. But a foregone conclusion is a foregone conclusion.
Sort of like waiting until the crashing airplane is six inches from hitting the ground and jumping up in the air. You're still dead, but at least you tried. :)
Your earlier posts didn't make this clarification, and if it was implied it went well over my head. Yay text as a communication medium.
Take Kirth's swimming example. I wasn't thinking it was either of the impossible to fail/succeed extremes of "the tunnel is short and the water is calm, a kid could swim this" or "the tunnel is filled with rushing rapid jet stream that a hammerhead couldn't swim through", but something in the middle along the lines of "there's a slight current pushing back against you but a strong, endurant, or lucky swimmer could make it, but a cramp at a bad time or getting unlucky and getting caught on something could make it problematic". In such a case rules and dice rolls are necessary, IMO, for the element of chance.
IF the players were trapped in a cavern with rapidly rising water, and had to swim into the next chamber to escape drowning, it would be pointless and stupid to require the players to make a series of rolls to avoid drowning.
If you make the saving throw for half damage, and half damage kills you outright, there's no point in making the saving throw. This isn't "GM says you lose". This is "mathematics says you lose".
This looks as if you've changed your mind, Jerry -- if so, I salute you for it. See, in the first case, you've got PCs trapped in a cavern, the water is rapidly rising, some of them are no doubt in heavy armor, some are encumbered with other gear; some or all of them may be injured. Using the rules, the result is not at all a foregone conclusion either way; some of those PCs probably have close to even odds -- which would have been shifted a bit one way or the other had they invested more skill ranks in Swim, for example, or had they been wearing banded mail instead of studded leather. But you originally claimed that fiat was the correct solution for that example as well, as quoted above -- despite the fact that the conclusion is anything but certain.
What I was saying is that there are times when it's better for the game to overlook certain things, to avoid unnecessary character death or damage over what isn't supposed to be a real challenge.
That's certainly a personal preference issue; some people use wandering monsters, others don't. I personally dislike "plot immunity" -- you might prefer it. But that's a far cry from using fiat to determine the results of challenges that form a major part of an adventure (e.g., escaping flooding caves).
Not a bad rule to have.
One of mine is relevant to this discussion: There are no foregone conclusions. There is always a chance - albeit sometimes slim - for the party to succeed or fail, regardless how far the scales are tipped toward or against them. A poor roll or sudden stupid decision can screw up an all-but-guaranteed victory, and a lucky roll or brilliant idea can salvage a hopeless-looking situation.
And, Kirth, I never changed my mind.
The two quotes from you I pasted back-to-back are mutually incompatible. One of them has to be incorrect for the other to be correct. Either you've changed your mind, or one of them is saying something other than what you're thinking.
Either you use fiat when metahematical certainty exists, or you use fiat whenever you feel like it (as you put it, when "common sense" dictates -- bearing in mind that there is no such thing as "common sense," so an appeal to it is the same as saying "when I feel like it").
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bearing in mind that there is no such thing as "common sense," so an appeal to it is the same as saying "when I feel like it".
The more I hear this phrase, the more I think it's supposed to be code for "what's painfully obvious to me and should be to everyone else" with an implied "but isn't for some reason" tacked onto the end.
*shrug*
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Speaking of DM Fiat:
Inescapable Death
There are occasions when death is unavoidable, no matter how many hit points a character has.
A character could be locked in a room with no exits, with a 50-ton ceiling descending to crush him. He could be trapped in an escape-proof box filled completely with acid. These examples are extreme (and extremely grisly), but they could happen in a fantasy world.
I know I'm in an extreme minority here, but my game worlds are dangerous places, and in my 30 years of gaming, this "rule" has always applied (though it is used sparingly)...
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... metahematical...
Mistook this for smarty pants science talk for about 20 seconds. Meta-what? Hematical? Something to do with blood? C'mon Kirth, we're not all PhD's... oh.. s*$#, it's a typo.
Speaking of DM Fiat:
I know I'm in an extreme minority here, but my game worlds are dangerous places, and this "rule" has always applied (though it is used sparingly)...Inescapable Death
There are occasions when death is unavoidable, no matter how many hit points a character has.
A character could be locked in a room with no exits, with a 50-ton ceiling descending to crush him. He could be trapped in an escape-proof box filled completely with acid. These examples are extreme (and extremely grisly), but they could happen in a fantasy world.
See my personal DMing rule above. I don't like situations like this. I may tip the odds very heavily against my players, but I despise DMs who put them in situations that are unwinnable.
Now if the players were given every opportunity to avoid getting stuck in this falling-ceiling room and either got very unlucky in the requisite rolls or did something stupid that earned them their fate, that's another thing entirely.
Fiat applies when common sense tells you that die rolls won't help.
Stop.
Just stop.
Now define what you mean by "common sense". Because it means fifty bazillion different things depending on who you ask. To Kirth it means "whenever I feel like it". To me it means "when I think it's obvious, even if no one else gets it". I can't tell if you mean his, my, both, or neither definition.
Then stop using it and start using what you mean. Please, for the love of God.