So, I'm trying to create a list of rules of changes to the game that will help to balance the game for all people playing. To me this mostly means trying to bring casters back in line to an extent so that they don't over shadow everyone else so much. I've created a list of rules that I'm going to use for the next campaign I run, but I wanted to hear people's ideas and opinions on my rules and any additional rules that may also be usefult to add. I don't want to completely revamp the system, but bridge that teribble gap so that even at high levels everyone enjoys playing the game, all the PCs and the GM as well.
My Home Brew Rules
1. The GM has the final word at all times. The rules are subject to change at will, and will be arbitrated by the DM in whatever manner is necessary to preserve balance and fun for everyone at the table, including all players and the GM.
2. Books you may use:
a. Core Rulebook
b. Advanced Players Guide
c. Advanced Race Guide – without Race Builder
d. Ultimate Magic
e. Ultimate Combat
f. Ultimate Equipment
Anything from any other source requires explicit approval.
3. No psionics.
4. No 1001 Spells either.
5. No non-Paizo material. No “Pathfinder Compatible” material either.
6. No templates.
7. Undead are always without question, evil.
8. No evil characters. Neutral characters who commit too much evil will become DM characters.
9. Limited magic item creation. Limited to items available in the rulebooks. If there is a specific combination you may ask for the DM’s approval to commission such an item to be built. You may not have such items without explicit approval. Potions, scrolls, and wands are the only items that can be crafted. They are done so using normal rules. To make up for the lack of crafting, owned items can be sold for full price, but remember to pay full price for whatever you purchase.
10. Guns in Golarion are limited to emerging firearms only, no advanced firearms are available. Burrowing bullet is modified to function like Staggering Critical, except it does not require a critical hit. A greater burrowing bullet has the duration increased to 1d4+2.
11. You may not use age rules to increase your stats. If you ask, you will not be allowed to play a class with spell casting abilities.
12. Everyone gets a stat array of 18, 16, 14, 12, 12, 10 as base to be modified by race as normal. If this is unsuitable you may use 25 points and the point buy system in the CRB.
13. No Guided Weapon Enchant.
14. Perception, sense motive, bluff, diplomacy, disguise, intimidate checks will all be rolled by the DM. I will need copies of your character sheet. You can take 20 on a perception check per the rules for normal take 20, but each 5 ft square takes 2 minutes to search.
15. No metamagic rods.
16. No autosuccess or failure. A 20 is a roll of 30, a 1 is a roll of -10.
17. Monk and Rogue get full BAB progression. Monk still follows the Flurry of Blows BAB progression listed in the CRB.
18. No Synthesist Summoners.
19. Two Weapon Fighting, Improved Two Weapon Fighting, and Greater Two Weapon Fighting feats are free. You must meet the conditions for the feats normally, but you receive them for free when you do so. If you would receive these feats for free you can replace them with another combat feat.
20. You cannot use stealth to hide in the same round if you have made an attack of any kind, including attacks of opportunity.
21. If you try to break the game I will lie to you. Rob you. Drive you mad. I will Concoct impossible scenarios where the only outcome is death. And then, when your eyes glisten with shame and rage, I will drink your tears.
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"11. You may not use age rules to increase your stats. If you ask, you will not be allowed to play a class with spell casting abilities."
So if I ask a question then I'm banned from playing a spellcasting class? That rule alone would make me not want to touch this campaign.
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This belongs in the House Rules forum.
Very little of this seems to limit casters as your initial premise says you want to do.
Rule #11 is too draconic, it makes you sound like a jerk. I get it that you're trying to stop people from gaming the system for higher caster ability scores (and I'll assume you're not actually a jerk), so it should be enough to simply disallow it without breaking the fun of your player by forcing him to play a class he doesn't want.
Hopefully you'll give some warnings on rule #8 or else you're probably getting too draconic again.
Rule #20 contradicts recent errata - were you aware of the errata? This rule actually hurts stealth-users which is more or less the opposite of your initial premise of limiting casters.
Rule #21 seems to be a joke, but it's a joke with an underlying threat that doesn't seem to be a joke, which makes the whole thing seem rather draconic again.
I have used rule #16 for a decade. I love it. One of my favorite house rules ever.
Disclaimer: I'm using the English definition of "draconic", not the RPG one...
Would you ask me a dozen times to let you use the aging rules if I told you know each time? I have a player who has done that. Who has used various methods to try and get around the age penalties. This rule is pretty much for him, but applies to everyone.
I think it's fair that if you know in advance not to ask to use the aging rules, and then do, that its fair for me to say you shouldn't play a spellcaster. At that point to me its clear that you are trying to game the system and obtain bonus with penalties that are irrelevant to you.
And clearly the case is not you are banned from spellcasting if you ask any question, just the specific question of, "Can I use aging rules?"
In regards to rule 8, I would provide warnings when something is evil and how far they can get along with commiting some evil before they're "too evil". I don't want to take away their characters, but I also have (2) players who like to game the system hard and stab other players in the back (unexpectedly). They often treat the game as an adversarial competition to be won rather than a game to enjoy, which is why I take a draconian stances on them.
I am aware rule 20 contradicts errata. I don't like the way stealth now works in conjunction with abilities like Hell Cat Stealth and Hide in Plain sight and this rule is to prevent potential abuse. It doesn't really affect what characters without those abilities could do (i.e. move from stealth and attack, receiving sneak attack where applicable).
21 is 99% joke, but I also have players who try to do ridiculous thing and expect to get away with it. This again is basically a warning of don't try to break the game. In all honesty, before I put that effort into it I'd probably just tell everyone I'm quitting as GM.
I agree that very little of my rules do much to limit caster power, but I don't have great ideas on how to do that.
Personal note:
Rule 12 is a bad idea. You give spellcasters the only thing they want (an 18), and at the same time you prevent anything that needs 4 decent ability scores (anything that wants to do melee and casting, basically, plus monks) from getting that 4th 14 (or at least a 13). Yes, you also give a 25 point buy option, but that's way less powerful, so you're kinda screwing with the really mad classes without hindering the SAD casters. If you want to hinder casters, make the array something like 16, 14, 14, 13, 10, 8. That has 13 as it's 4th highest score, which is a lot better than 12 for a MAD class, and it's a lot worse for a SAD class.
Finally, I'd totally play a rogue. Full BAB and free TWF? Take that fighter!
I realize I'm giving SAD spellcasters exactly what they want, but they will take it either with the given array or pointbuy. I will probably give 18,16,14,14,12,10 instead though, to help out the MAD guys a little more.
I really wanted to encourage rogue and monk builds which is why I gave full BAB and free TWF. Mechanically TWF often looses out to a 2 handed weapon with a high strength score, this way at least you don't have to pay a 3 feat penalty to do it, and since everyone can do it I think it balances (beyond the fact that 2 handed users will probably still do more damage because of better to hit).
I don't have a problem with those house rules (except for #21, which is just dumb), but as everyone else has said, they seem to have little to do with "bringing casters back in line".
I should note that the fact that you seem to be worried about age bonuses (which are pretty puny in the grand scheme of spellcaster imbalances) makes your list feel like it was created by a "Whack-A-Mole" GM (i.e., a GM who tries to bring the banhammer down on one particular issue without noticing that there are a dozen other issues waiting in the wings).
except for #21, which is just dumb,
Man I really need a sarcasm/joke font.
I should note that the fact that you seem to be worried about age bonuses which are pretty puny in the grand scheme of spellcaster imbalances makes your list feel like it was created by a "Whack-A-Mole" GM (i.e., a GM who tries to bring the banhammer down on one particular issue without noticing that there are a dozen other issues waiting in the wings).
This is why I'm asking for advice. I don't play spellcasters, so I don't know what in particular their strengths are (with regards to actual mechanics, i.e. where they can combine things to make themselves unbalancing). The rules that I have placed here are in response to specific events that have reared themselves again and again at our gaming table. It is basically a game a whack-a-mole where a player finds a new way to break something. I don't GM often, but I do enjoy doing it when my players don't try to break it.
Im pretty new. But Magic tends to draw all sorts of attention. You deal with Wizards and sorcerers by playing the NPCs correctly. Give them ranged mooks. Oh that guy is shooting fiery death lasers/iceballs/fireballs/lightning bolts. Those things tend to draw attention. If hes not blasting you still draw attention. Some guy speaking some strange language is altering reality around him? GIB THAT BASTARD. As many hypothetical wizard defnses there are there will be times when they are vulnerable. Very your encounters/day. Sometimes have hordes of mooks and see if any can draw the wizard into popping his big spells off.
I agree with what DM Blake is saying. It doesn't seem like you are really limiting spell casters the way you wanted to, in fact some of your rules (#20) are limiting the ability of characters who traditionally are not casters. I also think some of the terminology you're using makes you sound overly harsh, but I also don't know the players you are dealing with.
My former GM also used rule #16, it's great and I have used it in my games from then on.
...
Other than that:
I would like to know how rule #17 turns out in your game. I never really thought a full BAB was necessary for my Rogues, but I have wondered if a full BAB wouldn't solve most of the complaints I have heard about Rogues.
#19: What if someone doesn't want to be a two weapon fighter? What if someone wants to focus on a single weapon style or a two-handed weapon style? Is rule #19 flexable for different Melee styles?
#20: If you are really worried about the Stealthers, as you seemed to be in the HCS thread, you could limit it in another way. Instead of saying no Stealth with an attack, which is against RAW, you could just say "Only one Stealth roll per combat turn." That way the player knows they can only Stealth once in a turn and must make the decision of using Stealth before an attack to gain some offensive advantages or using it after the attack for defensive benifits. I still don't think that would be RAW, because Stealth is no action, or part of another movement, but I think it's probably a more balanced way of handling your fear of super stealthers.
For beefing up Melee you could use the critical hit/fumble decks by PF. My former GM used them and they are pretty brutal.
Additionally I liked the 3.5 alt-rule that if you roll a 20 on an attack, then roll another 20 on the confirmation, a second confirmation roll is rolled. If this third roll also confirms the attack is an auto-kill. It happens very rarely but is pretty epic when it does. It won't be affected by Improved Critical because it only triggers by rolling 20s. The only time it gets you into trouble is with main bad guy fights that are supposed to be challenging.
I would have to look through my old archives, but I had seen some homebrew spell casting systems add things that would help to achieve your desire of limiting casters. It was also pretty interesting from a Role-Playing perspective. I never used them but they seemed solid. If you're interested I will try to dig them up.
This is why I'm asking for advice. I don't play spellcasters, so I don't know what in particular their strengths are (with regards to actual mechanics, i.e. where they can combine things to make themselves unbalancing). The rules that I have placed here are in response to specific events that have reared themselves again and again at our gaming table. It is basically a game a whack-a-mole where a player finds a new way to break something. I don't GM often, but I do enjoy doing it when my players don't try to break it.
Oh, I see; that makes sense. My personal policy is allow anything from the Core Rulebook or the Advanced Player's Guide by default, and anything else has to get nominal approval from me (although I'm pretty lenient). To be honest, I'd prefer to play without age modifiers as well, even though I don't think they're game-breaking per se.
I think 90% of avoiding game balance problems is getting on the same page with your players in terms of what power level you'd all like to play at.
#19: What if someone doesn't want to be a two weapon fighter? What if someone wants to focus on a single weapon style or a two-handed weapon style? Is rule #19 flexable for different Melee styles?
Well I think of TWF feats as a feat tax to be able to do something that is already mechanically inferior (under most cases) in comparison to just 2 handed fighting. If I find that this unbalances in comparison to 2 handed users I might consider adding free feats for them, mayeb the vital strike chain for free. This is really just an encouragement for melee characters to use something other than 2 handed weapons.
#20: If you are really worried about the Stealthers, as you seemed to be in the HCS thread, you could limit it in another way. Instead of saying no Stealth with an attack, which is against RAW, you could just say "Only one Stealth roll per combat turn." That way the player knows they can only Stealth once in a turn and must make the decision of using Stealth before an attack to gain some offensive advantages or using it after the attack for defensive benifits. I still don't think that would be RAW, because Stealth is no action, or part of another movement, but I think it's probably a more balanced way of handling your fear of super stealthers.
I feel like maybe I've just worded my statement poorly in the initial rules. Basically if you move from stealth and attack yes you will still be considered in stealth for that first attack. However, if you have some ability that would allow you to stealth without moving or without having to have concealment you cannot use stealth after performing your attack to hide again during that turn.
For beefing up Melee you could use the critical hit/fumble decks by PF. My former GM used them and they are pretty brutal.
I've never messed with the critical hits deck much, are they really that good? What is the standard rule with it, do you get regular damage and the card effect on a x2 weapon? Could you still choose to just do double damage? What about if you draw a card that deal ability damage but its against an undead or something that would be immune the affects of the critical hit card?
Additionally I liked the 3.5 alt-rule that if you roll a 20 on an attack, then roll another 20 on the confirmation, a second confirmation roll is rolled. If this third roll also confirms the attack is an auto-kill. It happens very rarely but is pretty epic when it does. It won't be affected by Improved Critical because it only triggers by rolling 20s. The only time it gets you into trouble is with main bad guy fights that are supposed to be challenging.
Actually, this is funny, we totally play with a rule and we've played with it so long I have forgotten that it is a houserule. I'd add it to my list, but it kind of goes against the spirit of rule 16. Though, if you roll 3 natural 20s in a row you do deserve some reward. Hrmmm.
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If I understand you correctly, your problem seems to be you are having trouble with hi-level spellcasters BTW what do you consider hi-level? and you have 2 immature players.
In my humble opinion as a player who likes spellcasters. They deserve to blow off a little steam after being pretty pathetic early on.
I dont see many problems with your rules. I like rule 3, 10 only I dont like guns period. as far as rule 12, our group does 4d6 9 times and goes with the best 6.
How about you either dont game with your 2 problem children or have 1 of them gm maybe breaking them up will mellow them out and finally I get the joke with 21.
If I understand you correctly, your problem seems to be you are having trouble with hi-level spellcasters BTW what do you consider hi-level? and you have 2 immature players.
In my humble opinion as a player who likes spellcasters. They deserve to blow off a little steam after being pretty pathetic early on.
I dont see many problems with your rules. I like rule 3, 10 only I dont like guns period. as far as rule 12, our group does 4d6 9 times and goes with the best 6.
How about you either dont game with your 2 problem children or have 1 of them gm maybe breaking them up will mellow them out and finally I get the joke with 21.
Caster shenanigans set in around level 13, by 15 they're full steam. In the campaign we are playing now we are level 19. The most problematic player is playing as an Aranea Lich Sorceror with a Charisma in the 50s. Yeah...lets combine your hit points and your caster stat into one. Oh, and somehow you have a Paladin only spell that lets you add your charisma to all your saves and your AC? Perfect. Blowing off steam is one thing...these guys are something else.
Well I think of TWF feats as a feat tax to be able to do something that is already mechanically inferior (under most cases) in comparison to just 2 handed fighting. If I find that this unbalances in comparison to 2 handed users I might consider adding free feats for them, mayeb the vital strike chain for free. This is really just an encouragement for melee characters to use something other than 2 handed weapons.
Fair enough. I only like TWF for Fighters and Rangers. I think TWF is a terrible mistake for 90% of Rogue builds and useless for any other medium/low BAB character. But since you are giving Rogues a full BAB you may run into some balance issues. Maybe not though.
I feel like maybe I've just worded my statement poorly in the initial rules. Basically if you move from stealth and attack yes you will still be considered in stealth for that first attack. However, if you have some ability that would allow you to stealth without moving or without having to have concealment you cannot use stealth after performing your attack to hide again during that turn.
That is actually a super easy fix. Just say, "IN COMBAT, Stealth is required to be part of a 5' step or move." It might not seem like it on first glace, but I think that will solve your issue.
You can't move and 5' step in the same round. If you have a guy planning to get close under stealth in one round then in the next round take a full attack and 5' step back into stealth, all it takes to foil that tactic is for their target to make it's own 5' step or withdrawl action. If you think about how often eveyone is moving at least 5' during combat it's almost impossible to get into possition, under Stealth, for a full attack on the next round. The only time someone would effectively be able to pull off a full attack then 5' step back into Stealth would be in the first round of combat if they start their turn adjacent to their target. Also, depending on your interpretation, it solves the Spring Attack tactic as well. I feel like a 3 feat investment is worth letting someone Spring in under Stealth, Attack, then Spring back out under Stealth. If you don't then just say, "Spring Attack is still only allowing you ONE move action, therefore you get ONE Stealth roll."
I've never messed with the critical hits deck much, are they really that good? What is the standard rule with it, do you get regular damage and the card effect on a x2 weapon? Could you still choose to just do double damage? What about if you draw a card that deal ability damage but its against an undead or something that would be immune the affects of the critical hit card?
It's been a while since I used them, I don't remember exact rules. I BELIEVE you can always choose to just do regular critical weapon damage if you don't want the card. Also if you get a card that is not relevant to a certain creature... maybe draw another, or just do normal crit damage. I suppose that would be up to GM, not sure there are specific rules. But we did use them for a few games and they were very fun and very brutal. I don't own them though so I haven't been able to use them lately. It will probably be one of my next purchases though.
Actually, this is funny, we totally play with a rule and we've played with it so long I have forgotten that it is a houserule. I'd add it to my list, but it kind of goes against the spirit of rule 16. Though, if you roll 3 natural 20s in a row you do deserve some reward. Hrmmm.
It's just 2x natural 20s and a normal Confirmation roll, but I agree. Also it doesn't strictly go against #16. My games used #16 for Skill rolls and this other rule for attack rolls. Also we used the Massive Damage = Death rules. Basically if you take enough damage from a single strike, you roll a Fort Save vs. death. I would have to look up specifics on that rule though. I think it's in CRB too.
I know Skill rolls usually don't get anything for a 20 or 1, but this makes it a little more chaotic and fun. It makes it possible for someone to have a stroke of luck or moment of savant skill and do something they could "not repeat in 100 years" and it also allows for someone to have a stroke of bad luck and your "super stealthers" to botch a roll so badly that the local malita guard spots him. It's fun.
Caster shenanigans set in around level 13, by 15 they're full steam. In the campaign we are playing now we are level 19. The most problematic player is playing as an Aranea Lich Sorceror with a Charisma in the 50s. Yeah...lets combine your hit points and your caster stat into one. Oh, and somehow you have a Paladin only spell that lets you add your charisma to all your saves and your AC? Perfect. Blowing off steam is one thing...these guys are something else.
Well that's disgusting. Anyway, maybe you should just UNLEASH the Super Stealthers. Especially since Sneak Attack affects undead now. Build an ambush encounter and have an Assassin start off combat by Sneak Attacking the litch, then HOPE he beats the litch's initiative, turn on boots of speed, and T off on that poor guy. Done right I bet you could drop him in round one. Just to remind him he's still mortal-ish.
Note: I rarely condone mercilessly slaughtering your players... but it's been known to happen.
Well that's disgusting. Anyway, maybe you should just UNLEASH the Super Stealthers. Especially since Sneak Attack affects undead now. Build an ambush encounter and have an Assassin start off combat by Sneak Attacking the litch, then HOPE he beats the litch's initiative, turn on boots of speed, and T off on that poor guy. Done right I bet you could drop him in round one. Just to remind him he's still mortal-ish.
Note: I rarely condone mercilessly slaughtering your players... but it's been known to happen.
This is not a campaign I'm GMing, I'm a fellow player. But this thread may be the result of anger and resentment at the aforementioned player.
As far assassinating him with super stealth...the GM tried that. 20th level Ninja with their perfect invisibility thing. The player managed to find some sort of area of effect sleep spell and the ninja got unlucky and rolled a 1 (the only way it could fail). I was disappointed. Is it telling when you want the enemy to kill off your party to humble other players?
I'm a little uncertain as to the point of rule no. 7. Exactly what circumstance would cause you to enforce such a rule (I have nothing wrong with it, just seems a little random)? Was it to work in conjunction with 8 in order to prevent undead PC races, or something I've overlooked entirely?
Multiple things inspired this. If you look at some of my previous posts there is the lich sorcerer who inspires part of it. There is also the fact that I was in a game playing paladin and someone joined a campaign and started playing a necromancer. My paladin was obligated by his God to destroy undead, and so the situation caused lots of problems. Especially when the other player tried to argue that not all undead were evil and should be destoryed. These events are what led to undead being evil, and a prohibition against playing evil.
Also, the cannon setting for Golarion is 99.99% of Undead are evil, with a very rare ghost not being evil.
So, I'm trying to create a list of rules of changes to the game that will help to balance the game for all people playing. To me this mostly means trying to bring casters back in line to an extent so that they don't over shadow everyone else so much. I've created a list of rules that I'm going to use for the next campaign I run, but I wanted to hear people's ideas and opinions on my rules and any additional rules that may also be usefult to add. I don't want to completely revamp the system, but bridge that teribble gap so that even at high levels everyone enjoys playing the game, all the PCs and the GM as well.
My Home Brew Rules
** spoiler omitted **...
I dont have an issue with it until around level 15, and the issue at that point is not that the martials are useless. It is that the opposing NPC caster has so many ways to shut them down.
What are you specific problems?
So, I'm trying to create a list of rules of changes to the game that will help to balance the game for all people playing. To me this mostly means trying to bring casters back in line to an extent so that they don't over shadow everyone else so much. I've created a list of rules that I'm going to use for the next campaign I run, but I wanted to hear people's ideas and opinions on my rules and any additional rules that may also be usefult to add. I don't want to completely revamp the system, but bridge that teribble gap so that even at high levels everyone enjoys playing the game, all the PCs and the GM as well.
My Home Brew Rules
** spoiler omitted **...
8 and 11 are red flags for me. I would be very concern playing for a DM who does things like this. The ability to "fall" into an NPC class, plus ability to lose the current class you're playing if you do 11.
I would not play for you.
I suggest you do a bit more lawyer-ing and create less draconian rules. Draconian law stems from being to lazy/emotional to solve a problem correctly.
If Sith Lord or North Korea Dictator is the kind of DM you're going for, then I retract all of my statements.
The second half of number 8 is not cool at all. Just have the player deal with the consequences in game. If he goes around killing NPC; have people come look for him, and not they don't have to be APL appropriate. If the party chooses to help him escape that is on them. Of course this all assumes he can be found.
I never had an issue with 9, but I dont give unlimited downtime either.
I just don't allow for the advanced age categories to be used. Now if you are in a game like Kingmaker and you happen to live that long then you get the benefits of not dying.
For 14 I disagree because the rule allow you to account for distance with a penalty. All this does is slow the game down.
17 can cause ridiculous damage for a rogue. Why play a fighter? You can get decent AC with a rogue and kill things fast enough that your less than top notch AC would bother you too much, and that is with core only.
20 Stealth has enough issues. This one is not helping.
21. Its better to kick the player out. Such players just keep trying to get over normally.
PS: By saying no advanced age categories a playing starting off as old, and taking a level in fighter, and then going wizard won't ever be an issue.
If the player claims it is for fluff, then give him the age with out the stat changes for that age.
I read about the sorcerer Lich, it's all kinds of disgusting.
I won't get into the morality of being/using undead, especially in a fantasy world where there a literal embodiments of good who say no to such things - but to me it sounds like your issue is more to do with undead mages, rather than undeath itself, and you're using your character's alignment & class feature restriction to enforce it.
Don't get me wrong though, I agree with your stance on it, especially when it leads to monstrous +20 bonuses to all saves, AC, and 20 extra hp per hit-die (shudders), I'm just worried you're approaching it the wrong way.
It can just as easily come across as "My character is x, therefore nobody else may play y type of character." A campaign setting point of view is better, and it's easier to justify.
It wasn't about no one can y type of character. We were in an establish campaign and I had been playing a paladin for weeks. Everyone in the party was neutral besides me (IIRC). Then the player who wanted to play the necromancer joined. If role played properly I don't think there is anyways these characters can really work together, especially when the paladin is dedicated to destroying undead. It was more an issue of a character being made deliberately that wouldn't work well with existing characters.
I also agree with James Jacob's view of the world of Golarion where Undead are all inherently evil and non-evil Undead should be even more rare than adventurers or heros.
Heck, I also get annoyed with how many non-core races get used around the table because I feel like if the human population represent 80% of the population of Golarion then adventurers should reflect that too. I also don't want to be restrictive like that and tell people that can't choose a valid race.
I dont have an issue with it until around level 15, and the issue at that point is not that the martials are useless. It is that the opposing NPC caster has so many ways to shut them down.What are you specific problems?
No, the problem is PC spellcaster trivializing every encounter to the verge of pointlessness.
8 and 11 are red flags for me. I would be very concern playing for a DM who does things like this. The ability to "fall" into an NPC class, plus ability to lose the current class you're playing if you do 11.I would not play for you.
I suggest you do a bit more lawyer-ing and create less draconian rules. Draconian law stems from being to lazy/emotional to solve a problem correctly.
If Sith Lord or North Korea Dictator is the kind of DM you're going for, then I retract all of my statements.
I'm already planning to reword 8 and 11. I have realized (and everyone can stop mentioning) that they are worded too confrontationally.
There is no falling into an NPC class, you're character will still exist but will become an NPC with their existing stats. I will provide adequate warning before removing a character, but if a player continues to commit overtly evil acts you get a new character, and the old one will be run as an NPC.
Honestly I didn't expect people to be so worried about me removing evil characters. I actually got the idea from Pathfinder Society. Really, I want a game closer to society games, but with more customization available (by it not being an actual society game).
No, the problem is PC spellcaster trivializing every encounter to the verge of pointlessness.
I am guessing they are using SoD or SoS abilities, but those are normally single creature encounters which dont go well anyway.
If you mean they make them a lot easier, that can be done below level 10 if the player knows what he is doing.
You may want to consider adding the advanced template to monsters also. The game does not assume super optimized characters, and it is easier than keeping track of a lot of houserules.
This is not a campaign I'm GMing, I'm a fellow player. But this thread may be the result of anger and resentment at the aforementioned player.
What is the power level of the other players? This is not JUST that player's fault, the current GM allowed everything he did to become so completely overpowered. If the entire party is full of power players, and the GM can still challenge them, it's not such a big deal. However, if he is the only one playing this way it would probably be better for the GM to address it with that one player rather than set down a new set of blanket rules for the whole group. Just a thought.
As far assassinating him with super stealth...the GM tried that. 20th level Ninja with their perfect invisibility thing. The player managed to find some sort of area of effect sleep spell and the ninja got unlucky and rolled a 1 (the only way it could fail). I was disappointed. Is it telling when you want the enemy to kill off your party to humble other players?
Should have sent an Elf Ninja. In all seriousness, ONE ninja amidst a party was not enough. Still, if you're going to be alone you should be prepared, he should have had some kind of anti-magic field or silence effects. How do you hunt a caster without preparing for magic? At lvl 20 punches should not be pulled. And if he really was just trying to kill that single player, in an obvious manner, was a coupe de grace out of the question?
It's only telling if you make it look like the GM is intentionally trying to kill that player. You're GM may not run games this way but my former GM kept track of enemies we had made in our campaign. And, especially as we got higher in level, some of them would try to have us killed. We routinely had assassins and groups of bounty hunters sent after us, courtesy of people we had angered. We had an NPC party sent after us that studied us for months and designed tactics specifically to fight our typical combat tactics. Their casters even had specifically researched spells for handling some of our choice tactics. That was a particularly rough encounter. I believe this was all before lvl 13 to 15. By lvl 20, as a lich sorcerer with that kind of power, he should have made enemies that can put together teams of bounty hunters and assassins to chase him down... that doesn't have to look like an intentional assassination. If a group like that was studying your party, it sounds like good tactics to try and eliminate that caster first. And he IS a LITCH. There is no reason there couldn't be "adventuring parties" of NPCs that are on "quests" to destroy this "vile" creature.
I think what could be going on is a mixture of powergamers with casual gamers and/or players that know the system a lot better than the GM does.
In that case he should ask them to tone it down.
Our ROTRL GM is one of these 'how to nerf the wizard' kinda guys. He says things like 'this would be so much more fun if it were core book only and casters were less powerful.'
At the moment everyone in the team is a gestalt, where everyone is a blend of one funky class and one 'core class'... (This was our solution to our GM's unbending belief that the 'core 4' should be in every party... Truth be told I think he was trying to sell us on the idea that we had to have the 4 core so that nobody would play a funky class.... Instead we said hey. Everyone wants to play something more 'funky', so the only way we can get the core 4 in here is to stack them on top of what we actually want to play. We get what we want. You get what you want.) Personally I'd rather he just let the party have a few holes in it. I think that would make the game more fun for him because he'd have more weaknesses to exploit... It is what it is. Contrariwise....
Recently our healer finally formally bowed out after three months of 'I'll definitely be there' followed by no call no show, so we bring in a new player.
That player makes a non gestalt dwarven waraxe fighter, who, unlike the rest of the party of interesting, gestalted, less single-mindedly combat focused 'funkillers' quickly and handily rendered the combat portion of the campaign a laughable travesty.
One player at the table developed sparkles in his eyes as he witnessed the pure unadulterated power of singleminded murderhoboing, and none of us would put it past him to 'accidentally' get his very interesting but far less combat effective gestalt character die so that he can roll up a waraxe fighter dwarf himself.
For once the gm has one of us at the table who might agree with his policy that 'less casty is better', but when I put it to him that our table could quite easily become 3 dwarven waraxe fighters and sayyyy... a cleric... He got a very strong impression from the other side of the issue that healing and 3 properly built fighters would ruin his fun worse than what we've been up to so far.
With this in mind, my only recommendation to the OP is 'Be careful what you wish for'
Discard 'Weak' saves, progress saves as 1/2 level and have them stack for multi-class characters, this will prevent some obvious weak save abuse casters are fond of.
Change your initial scores to : 16, 16, 15, 14, 13, 11 or a 25 point buy, specialized characters will have to suffer a significant setback in all round effectiveness, you can also not allow them to take scores of 7 when using point buy, allowing them scores of 18, 14, 14, 10, 8, 8 typically.
I gave any class weapon finesse, made TWF chain cost a single feat, allowed rogues to pick any general feat instead of a rogue talent to heighten appeal to other characters as well.
You guys have convinced me to change the stat array the more you talk about it.
I think 16,16,15,14,13,11 actually looks pretty reasonable. I kind of like the odd numbers because a single ability point increase from a level bonus can raise it meaningfully if you want to spend it there, theres not too much high end on one score. I like it, I think that is more balanced. If anyone chooses to buy, I will disallowing selling down stats below 8.
I think I will also get rid of poor save progression. Thats a fun idea I hadn't considered before that will really affect casters more so than others. Now all saves will be medium(+9) progression or good(+12) (for both monsters and PCs).
I also kind of like the idea of giving everyone weapon finesse for free, and then you purchase TWF as a feat, but it only takes 1 becasue it grows along with you rather than having to it another two times.
I think I've also decided to give fighters the vital strike feat chain but just taking the first feat (they "grow" into the others, but only get this if they decide not to take TWF). For Monks, I will go ahead and add all the style feats onto the bonus feat list using the progression suggested by soup turtle. I also like banning Spell Perfection and Dazing Spell.
These have been some great ideas. Keep it up!
Here is an updated version of my rules:
I agree that Guided gurts Monks too, but with guided their attack bonus, damage, and AC bonus all start to get wrapped up into one stat too easily, and that is something I also want to avoid.
@Drake, for rule 14 I actually plan to just give them 10 on anything that is passive (90% of stuff). I mostly want to do this to avoid the metagame aspect of, I rolled a 1 on my perception check something must be around us, you know like this.
Also, after more consideration I think I agree that giving full BAB with the free feats is too good for the Rogue. I've eliminated that. I think the changes in feats I've made without the increase to BAB is still a nice boon. I'm still considering giving the Monk full BAB progression (because they effectively have it with flurry), but still don't qualify for feats as early as they could with actual full BAB progression.
Edit: I think I may just say that monks qualify for feats that normally have BAB requirements by using their level in place of BAB (because level=BAB for full BAB classes).
What is his issue with stealth? It is actually not that good.
What is his issue with stealth? It is actually not that good.
I'm just afraid of potential abuse, but without Hellcat Stealth (which would be unavailable since it's not it the sources I'm permitting its less of an issue) only Rangers, Rogues, Shadowdancers, and Sorcerers of the Shadow Bloodline would have access to something like Hide in Plain sight. Hide in Plain Sight (and abilities like it) could cause shenanigans, but hopefully it wont be made into an issue. Also, shenanigans also really only occur with feats like Dampen Prescene and the others that let you ignore Scent, Tremorsense, Blindscene, and Blindsight.
I see. I thought you were not the GM, but I misread an earlier post.
I think you should outline what "abuse" is for the players, or at least any new players, even if you don't specify for those of us on the boards.
You can also just ban certain things so it wont be an issue for your table. That is better than saying "You are breaking my game, so now I will kill your character(s)."
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Or you know, just tell the offending players that you will not take that style of play. Apply the no caster, break the game rule to them but not the entire table. If you have two powergaming disruptive munchkins that your can't ban from the table because they're your powergaming disruptive munchkins, that's your choice. But don't punish everyone when everyone isn't trying to abuse the system. The great thing about being GM is you don't have to be fair.
I see. I thought you were not the GM, but I misread an earlier post.
I think you should outline what "abuse" is for the players, or at least any new players, even if you don't specify for those of us on the boards.
You can also just ban certain things so it wont be an issue for your table. That is better than saying "You are breaking my game, so now I will kill your character(s)."
This is one of those instances where, I don't have great examples but I know it when I see it. And if I could forsee all possible bad combinations I would ban them, unfortunately while I have decent system mastery I don't know everything. I actually do try to avoid character death, I want PCs to survive, but just barely (so it feels like a true challenge). Sometimes I think the best way to illustrate what is fair or unfair is not use certain tactics unless the PCs choose to use them. Like Mage's Disjunction. I wont use it, unless the PCs do so first.
Caster shenanigans set in around level 13, by 15 they're full steam. In the campaign we are playing now we are level 19. The most problematic player is playing as an Aranea Lich Sorceror with a Charisma in the 50s. Yeah...lets combine your hit points and your caster stat into one. Oh, and somehow you have a Paladin only spell that lets you add your charisma to all your saves and your AC? Perfect. Blowing off steam is one thing...these guys are something else.If I understand you correctly, your problem seems to be you are having trouble with hi-level spellcasters BTW what do you consider hi-level? and you have 2 immature players.
In my humble opinion as a player who likes spellcasters. They deserve to blow off a little steam after being pretty pathetic early on.
I dont see many problems with your rules. I like rule 3, 10 only I dont like guns period. as far as rule 12, our group does 4d6 9 times and goes with the best 6.
How about you either dont game with your 2 problem children or have 1 of them gm maybe breaking them up will mellow them out and finally I get the joke with 21.
There is a lot of issues in your post :
1/ Does that sorcerer is level 15 ? If not, your fellow player (and your DM) does not play with standard rules (-4 levels for Aranea, -2 levels for lich, -1 for normal equipment instead of NPC equipment, +3 for compensation from levels). (EDIT : I forgot that the aranea begins with 5 sorcerer levels, so he normally should be 20th level by now...)2/ Lich is Evil only. Too bad.
3/ Paladin + lich = at least one dead (one or the other), not even accounting for other party members and every single law members in cities and towns.
4/ What is his WBL in comparison to standard WBL for your level ?
Just to clarify, these rules that I am working on are because of the shenanigans that have occurredin the game iI am currently a player in. I want to codify some rules so things don't getas out of hand as they are now.
As for the lich arena he does count as 20 caster level so his level is right using old buy back rules. This campaign isn't non-evil. My paladin is dead, I'm now playing a barbarian. The macdaddy of problems, everyone has pretty much double wealth by level.
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Caster shenanigans set in around level 13, by 15 they're full steam. In the campaign we are playing now we are level 19. The most problematic player is playing as an Aranea Lich Sorceror with a Charisma in the 50s. Yeah...lets combine your hit points and your caster stat into one. Oh, and somehow you have a Paladin only spell that lets you add your charisma to all your saves and your AC? Perfect. Blowing off steam is one thing...these guys are something else. [/
At this point your best option may be to "shut it down" at 20th level and start over. The highest level character I have ever had was a 9/21 fighter mage, but for the most part we shut it down around 18th to 20th level.
Perhaps, it's time to expand your gaming circle and drop those 2 yahoo's. I've met everyone I game with at cons and my local gaming store(Black Diamond Games In Concord CA.) Shameless plug! Yeah you have to search through a little trash to to find some good players but it's worth it.
Good Luck!
I was tinkering with the idea of caping spell lvls at 6, but doubling the spells per day for full casters. Saves are based off of 10 + 1/2 lvl + mod which keeps low lvl spells viable a lot longer.
I was tinkering with the idea of caping spell lvls at 6, but doubling the spells per day for full casters. Saves are based off of 10 + 1/2 lvl + mod which keeps low lvl spells viable a lot longer.
weird i was contemplating something similar, but keep the higher spell slots and add an extra spell known for every spell level. This would occur every time they would learn a new level of spell.
Meta magic would consume a comparable number of equivalent lvl spells lots...