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I'm thinking of starting a new campaign (Probably Anniversary RotRL) and I'm trying to decide on what materials to allow for the game. When I was introduced to Pathfinder, I was brought into a CRB only group and it was only somewhat recently that I've been in games and started PFS that the rest of the materials have been available to me.
While I really enjoy some of the freedom allowed by the new books, I'm not a huge fan of some of the classes (Summoner, Magus, Gunslinger) and I'm DEFINITELY not a fan of the overall power creep.
I know that I'm not going to allow any of the tiny splat books, like Player Companions. I'm probably also going to restrict Inner Seas World Guide, since I don't terribly consider it a player resource.
That leaves me with the CRB, APG, ARG, UM, and UC.
I don't really know whether I want to go with JUST the CRB, because I really do like a lot of the options in the APG like Alchemist and Inquisitor.
I'm also open to suggestions about any feat restrictions or anything of that nature (I'm already pretty sure I'm going to restrict Leadership and Crafting).
Inner Sea Guide is a good one to keep. Might want to check out the player options in the back, but if I recall correctly, none of them have much power creep.
Other than that, though, you probably want to keep it as close as possible to the CRB. Maybe allow the APG for traits. And keep UE for equipment. Oh, and of course, the ROTRL Player Guide. :)
Just about anything by super genius games. The developer is a d20 god.
If you want to reign in the XMas Tree effect and are willing to tailor the treasure, I suggest Relics of the Godlings. Each PC picks/works with you to tailor one or two of these puppies, you cut the loot by 1/3rd or 2/3rds respectively. It's a win-win.
Cheapy, are you saying to avoid those or recommend including them?
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That's kinda funny, since neither Leadership nor Item Crafting Feats sprang up out of the new books: they were there in the CRB all along...
...sounds like you want to restrict "Power," not just "Power Creep."
Just sayin'.
I'm aware that they're both CRB, I'm still restricting them.
My thing is this: I don't really want to run a game with ridiculously powerful characters that are picking and choosing from all over the wealth of material Paizo has published.
to limit power creep and to prevent our GM from having to do hours and hours of extra homework, when we first switched over from 3.5 we only used what was in the PRD:
CRB
APG
UM
UC
GMG
pretty much everything you'll need is in there for a comprehensive game, minus a few traits for particular skills, but i'd play that by ear
Ridiculously powerful is primarily a matter of the point buy/ability score generation method and permitted races.
Before you yank the reigns, take a close look at the tome you have and note the Pathfinder books/resources it taps to present everything within. Having done so, you know the fair range of restrictions.
Recommend strongly. One main designer / developer means more consistent quality, and he's very good at what he does. I believe that many of the issues with power creep is due to how Paizo utilizes many free lancers (they kind of need to due to their size).
I will gladly gift any one SGG pdf to Elamdri to give him a taste. Just browse their page here and let me know.
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Right now, If I had to decided:
I'd do a 20 point buy and Allow CRB, APG, and UE. I would restrict the summoner class, the leadership feat, and possibly the magic crafting feats.
What I'm on the fence about is whether to include UC, UM, and ARG outright, include them with restrictions, or just restrict them entirely.
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Recommend strongly. One main designer / developer means more consistent quality, and he's very good at what he does. I believe that many of the issues with power creep is due to how Paizo utilizes many free lancers (they kind of need to due to their size).
I will gladly gift any one SGG pdf to Elamdri to give him a taste. Just browse their page here and let me know.
I'll take a look at it Cheapy if you are willing, I respect your opinion a lot on the forums.
I know, but there's a lot more too and I wasnt going to gift anything on d20pfsrd.com
http://paizo.com/store/byCompany/s/superGeniusGames/pathfinderRPG that's their store. The hellion is super interesting, and their Runestaves and Wyrd Wand product is very interesting. Their loot 4 less: weapons and armor offers a pretty cool fractional value enhancement bonus system. The best part (OK not really) is their designers sidebar that explains why things are designed that way, something I wish Paizo did in some places. The best description I've seen for SGG is that they make things that seem overpowered but frustrate your inner munchkin, and the dragonrider class is one of the best examples of that. (Although I disagree about giving flight at 1st level)
AAARHG!
I KNEW I was forgetting something.
freaking Rich Parents. Every game I have ever played in where that trait is allowed has always turned into a party of random rich noblemen running around in the forest fighting goblins for some reason.
My group doesn't ban anything from the books, and I've only seen that trait used once. Two of the characters were brothers, one of them got the trait and they split the money between them to represent the "rich parents." GM thought it was a nifty idea and allowed it. They weren't noblemen, though. Just the sons of some wealthy merchants - and neither of them wanted anything to do with the family business.
I haven't seen anyone else get that trait. Always seemed like a waste just for a little extra cash at level 1. You're quickly going to get more cash, so the benefit of it will wain quickly. I'd rather get a trait that gives me a class skill or something that will last throughout the campaign.
I say hi back to the rich parents.
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Well, more importantly, every character with Rich Parents has access to the wealth of a 2nd level character at 1st level.
While it's power wanes afterwards, at 1st level, there is a noticeable disparity between characters that have the trait and those that don't. At the same time, it's a rather boring trait I think.
its a boring trait that i find one character in a group always taking so they can afford a wand of CLW
more often than not, it has to be me....
i tend to play paladins that come from noble families tho, so i make it work
I would be ok with a trait or something called "Family Heriloom" where you got a free Masterwork weapon or Armor, as that's not nearly as bad.
900 gold however is enough for any huge combo of masterwork gear for martial characters or a wand and MANY scrolls for a caster.
Heirloom Weapon actually did that, it gave you a free masterwork weapon (you still had to pay the cost for the non masterwork item) and it gave you free proficiency and +1 to hit/damage(I think?), so you could pick up something like exotic weapon proficiency for free
it got errata's tho and it sucks now
Just run 15 point buy, low to no wealth by level, and no traits. After that I would open up and let them use anything they wanted from Paizo. I find that the choices in race and class don't really matter when their dirt poor and their starting ability scores are only slightly better then Heroic NPCs.
From what others here have told me, it's best to just stick to the following to avoid too much power creep: Core, the Advanced Race Guide, Advanced Player's Guide (minus the Summoner), Ultimate Equipment, the 3 Bestiaries, Gamemastery Guide. I personally don't like the Oracle, Monk and Alchemist thematically, same goes for the Samurai and Ninja from the UC.
That means no Ultimate Combat, no Ultimate Magic. And I use 3.5's Forgotten Realms for my gameworld, so most of the Paizo gameworld is out. I have been running Dungeon Crawl Classics for the adventures, once the monsters have been switched out so as to maintain game balance.
I also think the Goblins, Orcs booklets are pretty well balanced, but skip the Aasimar and Tiefling booklets. Orcs have a crappy race, but nice feats.
Honestly, traits seem to be mostly very harmless. As someone that doesn't like cheese in my games, I've been over them, and while they DO make things more complicated, they also aren't all that potent. I do like the ability to use traits to create a themed PC group, like making sure everyone can Stealth via Armor Expert and Highlander, and I like the ARG so everyone can have darkvision (great for dungeon crawls).
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The only power creep element in Pathfinder I can think of is Ninja > Rogue. Unless someone is crazy enough to consider all the long-lost Monk love found in UC "creep" - I see it as making that class actually comparable to the other core classes. For the rest, it's all sidegrades or "yeah, still not as powerful as core Wizard" material.
You can pretty much allow everything and not worry about it blowing the game up. In fact, I'd be actually more wary of people taking options that are *too weak* (Heart of Jungle, hello!) than *too strong*.
I would suggest only using the Core Book and APG, minus the archetypes and coupled with a 15 point buy.
Just my $.02.
Enjoy your Runelords!
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The only power creep element in Pathfinder I can think of is Ninja > Rogue. Unless someone is crazy enough to consider all the long-lost Monk love found in UC "creep" - I see it as making that class actually comparable to the other core classes. For the rest, it's all sidegrades or "yeah, still not as powerful as core Wizard" material.
You can pretty much allow everything and not worry about it blowing the game up. In fact, I'd be actually more wary of people taking options that are *too weak* (Heart of Jungle, hello!) than *too strong*.
You wouldn't call things like Clustered Shots power creep?
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You wouldn't call things like Clustered Shots power creep?The only power creep element in Pathfinder I can think of is Ninja > Rogue. Unless someone is crazy enough to consider all the long-lost Monk love found in UC "creep" - I see it as making that class actually comparable to the other core classes. For the rest, it's all sidegrades or "yeah, still not as powerful as core Wizard" material.
You can pretty much allow everything and not worry about it blowing the game up. In fact, I'd be actually more wary of people taking options that are *too weak* (Heart of Jungle, hello!) than *too strong*.
No, I wouldn't. Ranged full martials can drop things dead without it, so and what this feat does is makes dropping things that have DR slightly easier. Sure, there are corner cases when this feat makes a big difference ... but it's situational, and when I pick a situational feat I expect it to make a bigger difference in that situation than a non-situational feat (eg. Deadly Aim) does in every instance. That's what the appeal of situational feats should be.
It's not like a core smiting Paladin can't go even better than this without blowing a feat. So if my character can, on a rare occasion, having spent a feat, do damage comparable to what Paladins could do using just their class feature, it's all fine.
And a LOT of the stunts with the Summoner, Ninja, and Alchemist classes seem like a big jump in power. Heck, the Summoner, even without anything special, can outshine the party warrior, AND still cast spells etc. Meanwhile, the Alchemist tosses super bombs that can get through just about any defense, and that's not including those Master Chymist and Synthesist stunts.
As for Wizards being all powerful, I disagree. Even in the upper levels, they remain vulnerable without time to cast their spells, and while they CAN temporarily assume the roles of other classes, it is rare when they do because of the extremely short term nature of it, can't keep it up for long.
This is why I look suspiciously on the Ultimate Combat, Ultimate Magic, and some of the Advanced Player's Guide material. I want EVERY member of the party to have fun, and uber combos not only unbalance the game, they create highly fragile and limited range of powers PC's.
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Well, let me put it to you this way, I used to run an fighter archer that could reliably put down about 5-6 arrows a round. If I ran up against a DR that I couldn't pierce, like DR 10/-, I was losing some like 50-60 damage a round.
With Clustered Shots, that's an increase of about 40-50 damage for that character. Heck, it's almost not worth it to take the Penetrating Strike feats anymore for an archer because Clustered Shots is just mechanically better.
Ninja>Rogue, as you said, is also a big one for me. That's such a slap to the face of Rogues everywhere.
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And a LOT of the stunts with the Summoner, Ninja, and Alchemist classes seem like a big jump in power. Heck, the Summoner, even without anything special, can outshine the party warrior, AND still cast spells etc. Meanwhile, the Alchemist tosses super bombs that can get through just about any defense, and that's not including those Master Chymist and Synthesist stunts.
As for Wizards being all powerful, I disagree. Even in the upper levels, they remain vulnerable without time to cast their spells, and while they CAN temporarily assume the roles of other classes, it is rare when they do because of the extremely short term nature of it, can't keep it up for long.
This is why I look suspiciously on the Ultimate Combat, Ultimate Magic, and some of the Advanced Player's Guide material. I want EVERY member of the party to have fun, and uber combos not only unbalance the game, they create highly fragile and limited range of powers PC's.
Wake me up when somebody competent plays a full caster at your table.
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The Ninja > Rogue thing isn't so much creep as a stealth-fix anyway. I haven't actually SEEN a rogue in play in Pathfinder yet (or a Ninja really, though there has been some interest in my circles.)The only power creep element in Pathfinder I can think of is Ninja > Rogue. Unless someone is crazy enough to consider all the long-lost Monk love found in UC "creep" - I see it as making that class actually comparable to the other core classes. For the rest, it's all sidegrades or "yeah, still not as powerful as core Wizard" material.
You can pretty much allow everything and not worry about it blowing the game up. In fact, I'd be actually more wary of people taking options that are *too weak* (Heart of Jungle, hello!) than *too strong*.
Because Sneak Attack is freaking awful. It's defeated by a 1st level spell. An entire class ability is completely shut down by someone with a wand of obscuring mist.
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Well, let me put it to you this way, I used to run an fighter archer that could reliably put down about 5-6 arrows a round. If I ran up against a DR that I couldn't pierce, like DR 10/-, I was losing some like 50-60 damage a round.
With Clustered Shots, that's an increase of about 40-50 damage for that character. Heck, it's almost not worth it to take the Penetrating Strike feats anymore for an archer because Clustered Shots is just mechanically better.
Ninja>Rogue, as you said, is also a big one for me. That's such a slap to the face of Rogues everywhere.
How many monsters with DR 10/- there are between the 1000 in Bestiaries?
Also, by the time you are shooting 5-6 arrows per round, your weapon is at least +3 (so it's overcoming several types of DR anyway), your buddies have align weapon ready (because the entire party needs that if somebody with DR 20/good pops up) and hey you're ranged, surely you have those emergency cold iron arrows just in case?
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How many monsters with DR 10/- there are between the 1000 in Bestiaries?Well, let me put it to you this way, I used to run an fighter archer that could reliably put down about 5-6 arrows a round. If I ran up against a DR that I couldn't pierce, like DR 10/-, I was losing some like 50-60 damage a round.
With Clustered Shots, that's an increase of about 40-50 damage for that character. Heck, it's almost not worth it to take the Penetrating Strike feats anymore for an archer because Clustered Shots is just mechanically better.
Ninja>Rogue, as you said, is also a big one for me. That's such a slap to the face of Rogues everywhere.
I don't know off the top of my head, my point was that as you increase in level, you start to run into DR more frequently, and for archers who rely on multiple hits that do less damage than for example Greatsword fighters, you need to be more worried about enemy damage reduction.
Having Clustered Shots means I never have to worry about having an efficient quiver full of all sorts of different arrows and worry about making sure I have a +5 enhancement bonus on my bow to bypass DR. The caster never has to worry about wasting an action aligning my weapon.
I just pickup one feat and DR is a laughable speed bump on the road to rolling faces.
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And the problem is, DR is an unfair mechanic. It shafts Monks, Rogues and ranged characters, and anybody who relies on multiple weaker attacks . Anything that alleviates that unfairness is good, don't you think?
Also, you're going to have that +5 weapon ASAP anyway, so that's not really an argument.
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Well, the problem is that if you alleviate the "unfairness" to some classes, then suddenly those classes are now just better than classes for whom the unfairness WASN'T lifted. Ranged characters especially are just flat BETTER in my opinion than big stupid 2H warriors because they deal more damage and have better survivability because they deal their damage from afar.
Regardless, I don't really want to get into a debate on whether not Clustered Shots and stuff like that IS in fact overpowered.
The point was that I think it's overpowered, and I don't want that sort of stuff in the game, so I was using it as an example. Rogue>Ninja is also a good example; I dislike any archetype that completely invalidates another class.
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Well, the problem is that if you alleviate the "unfairness" to some classes, then suddenly those classes are now just better than classes for whom the unfairness WASN'T lifted. Ranged characters especially are just flat BETTER in my opinion than big stupid 2H warriors because they deal more damage and have better survivability because they deal their damage from afar.
Regardless, I don't really want to get into a debate on whether not Clustered Shots and stuff like that IS in fact overpowered.
The point was that I think it's overpowered, and I don't want that sort of stuff in the game, so I was using it as an example. Rogue>Ninja is also a good example; I dislike any archetype that completely invalidates another class.
If Clustered Shots is overpowered for you, I'd suggest you start with banning Paladins, looking very hard at Ranger and Fighter math, removing greatswords, nerfing archery, doing something about Improved Critical and once you're done with all that you might want to start looking at supplemental material.
But that's few months away, you've got a hell of work with the Core Rulebook first :)