I want to create a low magic game. I will be removing all the pathfinder full casters, and creating noncasting versions of the pathfinder casting classes with Full BAB casters such as rangers and paladin.
I know about the issues with trying to overcome DR and making sure saves are still high enough so that players will be ok, along with other issues. I plan on doing the math* to make sure number that are close(+ or - 2) are possible.
I don't know if the archetypes are enough to make up for several variant classes. If not I may have to create something new. The problem is that I don't know what to create.
What martial or skill based character concept would you like to see that is not covered currently?
*In other words more bonuses based on character and class levels will be given out. I have read other post on the subject at times, and I will revisit them to see if they have things done well enough to save me some time.
PS:This is inspired by Iron Heroes so there will be one spell casting class that will be considered to be optional. For my own games people won't like you if they know you can cast magic, and if you go to a very superstitious they may think you traffic with demons and maybe even attack you on sight.
I did change Stand Still so that the "adjacent" requirement was gone, but that is for my pathfinder game as well. I am thinking of letting CMB rolls for bull rushes, and trips also do damage.
Why doesn't the ranger fill in for the fighter without heavy armor and more skills?
I am also considering something similar to the Tome of Secrets Warlord class, which did not do as much damage, had x4 skills and give buffs to the other players such as better initiative, temporary hp, and bonus to attacks IIRC.
E6 may be what you are looking for - when a caster tops out at level 6 (E7 and E8 are also options) it limits magical ability.
(http://esix.pbworks.com/f/E6v041.pdf)
Other people have taken the step of mandating that spell casters are treated like a PrC...
I am in the process of writing my own campaign world that is 'low magic' that requires a Feat to gain entry to spell casting classes (and requires a feat for each caster class after the first to hold down on multiclass casters) - it won't stop people wanting to play casters but it will temper it some.
E6 would not work because I do plan to play to high levels. My group won't mind dropping casters, and this is not permanent. It is just for one campaign.
I'm pretty confident that the Duelist PRC will work fine as a base class with very minimal changes. Obviously, it's missing level 11-20, but until then it could be the class you're looking for.
Urban ranger+guide seems like another potential route to a skilful fighter with lighter armour and his own unique flavour. You'd need minimal tweaking and creativity to work the two archetypes together and get rid of the urban ranger's high level supernatural features.
If you ask me, the ranger's combat tricks make for an excellent non-magical ranger. If I were you, I'd consider adding more combat tricks, rather than reworking the non-casting ranger rules.
Some kind of dedicated brawler who's not a pseudo-oriental, mystical monk who works best when he doesn't use his plethora of mobility based class features would be great. I don't dislike the monk, but it's a little bit weird and not designed to represent a boxer or pit-fighter.
I have my own suggestion archetype that does that somewhere on these boards, but anything that fits the description would do.
While it's technically possible to make a bare-knuckle fighter or barb in the normal rules, such characters have to choose between wearing armour that feels out of place and being constantly beaten to death. They also need to pay a feat to be allowed to use an inferior weapon.
Have you considered introducing the tome of battle?
The swordsage sounds largely inappropriate to your game, but the warblade is basically a fighter in lighter armour with more skills and a greater variety of combat abilities, which will help fill the gaps left by the casters. He get's no mystical powers, but some of his moves have funny names.
The other class, the crusader, is pretty much a paladin, but more focused on defence over attack and without spells or anything much in the way of non-combat abilities.
Many people rage over the TOB, often because its classes are much more powerful than other 3.5 melee classes, but I think they fit into pathfinder pretty well, balance-wise.
By curiosity Wraithstrike, will you be addressing/houseruling healing, both mundane (natural healing) and supernatural (including magical)?
'findel
By curiosity Wraithstrike, will you be addressing/houseruling healing, both mundane (natural healing) and supernatural (including magical)?
'findel
Seems like a good place to try out Kirth Gersen's suggestion that Cha Mod adds to healing magical and mundane.
The ranger has too many abilities that have to do with handling wild animals and living in the woods. The guy I'm thinking of would have the Paladin's mount, acrobatics, maybe even a few rogue talents.
What you want is essentially completely covered by the spell less ranger from kobold quarterlly 11. It has talents like the rogue (though they vary in theme but you could create more or allow them to choose from the rogue list), they obviously have acrobatics and if you take the additional animal companion talent you can take an companion at full level (instead of -3) and choose something suitable to being a mount.
Yeah, urban ranger obviously gets rid of the living in the woods stuff too. The skirmisher variant gets rid of the spells and they're compatible. House rule the urban ranger's level 17 Invisibility Trick back to hide in plain sight and you're set, so that's two ways to turn the ranger into a sneakier, more skilled fighter with an optional mount.
By curiosity Wraithstrike, will you be addressing/houseruling healing, both mundane (natural healing) and supernatural (including magical)?
'findel
There will be one magic class, but it won't be any better than a bard.
As for natural healing I will use the iron heroes idea of having a reserve pool of hp. I will have to read over it again to see exactly how it works to be sure I read it correctly. I am also thinking of using something similar to SW Saga's idea of recovering 25 to 50% of your max hp as a swift action x/day.
You might consider A Fistful of Denarii which is 11 non-caster base classes of both martial and skill variety.
I read the reviews for this. Thanks.
PS:Now I have to worry about Super Genius and these guys taking my money if I like their other stuff.
By curiosity Wraithstrike, will you be addressing/houseruling healing, both mundane (natural healing) and supernatural (including magical)?
'findel
There will be one magic class, but it won't be any better than a bard.
As for natural healing I will use the iron heroes idea of having a reserve pool of hp. I will have to read over it again to see exactly how it works to be sure I read it correctly. I am also thinking of using something similar to SW Saga's idea of recovering 25 to 50% of your max hp as a swift action x/day.
I actually have many ideas on how to handle hp recovery. Once I narrow things down I will post them here. As of now recovering HP, other than when resting requires an action. Allowing the heal skill to activate someone's healing mechanic for them when they are unconscious is something I have been considering.
It's not PF but we have found warlock to be a perfectly acceptable substitute for full casting in the home-brew game I play in. You could try that?
I never really liked the warlock class, but it could work. I would just have to change the invocations if I did. I am still trying to decide if I want to make one general spell list or if I want to make disciplines a caster would have to focus in, which is more work for me, and probably what will not happen.
I think the Defender class from Midnight could work very well, with a bit of adaptation (to bring it in line with PF classes in terms of power). The same goes for the Wildlander class from Midnight.
Things could certainly also be adapted from Iron Heroes. Although the classes there have a general tendency to be unbalanced (amongst themselves, even). Is there any kind of update to them to bring them in line with each other and PF?
Not to discount all of your ideas here, but why not just use the Iron Heroes system as-is? You seem to be taking a lot of ideas from it, anyway :)
Iron Heroes is horribly broken and unbalanced. It had some great elements in it, but it needs a lot of balancing and fixing.
Not to discount all of your ideas here, but why not just use the Iron Heroes system as-is? You seem to be taking a lot of ideas from it, anyway :)
As is it won't match up with pathfinder, and I don't want my players to learn a completely new system. Elrostar is basically correct. It does not account for a lot of things, and that means the DM has to do it. It is enough work that I figured I might as well try to figure out everything. I am borrowing a lot from it, but a lot will be left behind also.
I think the Defender class from Midnight could work very well, with a bit of adaptation (to bring it in line with PF classes in terms of power). The same goes for the Wildlander class from Midnight.
Things could certainly also be adapted from Iron Heroes. Although the classes there have a general tendency to be unbalanced (amongst themselves, even). Is there any kind of update to them to bring them in line with each other and PF?
A 2nd version is being worked on, but from what I understand it is all being done by one person, and he is not doing an open playtest or anything so I have no idea how it will turn out. I am hoping he finishes before I do.
PS: I could not find the midnight company or any or their products. Do you have a link?
PS: I could not find the midnight company or any or their products. Do you have a link?
Actually, Paizo has some of the products listed as on back order but i think a second hand seller or similar would be your best bet.
It is a great setting and has an interesting magic system.
The first thing I want to tackle is the HP issue.
I will be using the reserve pool but with a difference, players will be able to transfer 5 hit points a minute from the reserve pool to their regular hit point pool.
Another character with the heal skill can increase this to a number of hit points per minute equal to their heal check roll, but they must at least get a 25 on the heal check, and it can only be done once per day.
A character can only benefit from this 1/day.
Example
Fighter: 20/100 hp (100 reserve hp)
Healing PC: <gets a 30 on the heal skill check.>
For the first minute the fighter gets 30 hit points back, but for the rest of the time he only gets 5 hp back per minute.
I am thinking that allowing a feat that allows them to benefit from the heal skill in this manner more than one time per day might help.
The goal is to avoid the 15 minute work day, and to avoid quasi-magical type healing where you get 100 hp back after a few seconds.
Darkness Falls has all the OGL-stuff from the Midnight campaign setting. Midnight has a very 3.0-feel to it, though. And a lot of stuff is seriously unbalanced when simply combined with Pathfinder.
http://www.againsttheshadow.org/ is a discussion board for Midnight. There's a lot of material there of various sorts, although it's a little hard to access much of it because it was attacked by some hackers recently.
I want to create a low magic game. I will be removing all the pathfinder full casters, and creating noncasting versions of the pathfinder casting classes with Full BAB casters such as rangers and paladin.
I know about the issues with trying to overcome DR and making sure saves are still high enough so that players will be ok, along with other issues. I plan on doing the math* to make sure number that are close(+ or - 2) are possible.
I don't know if the archetypes are enough to make up for several variant classes. If not I may have to create something new. The problem is that I don't know what to create.
What martial or skill based character concept would you like to see that is not covered currently?*In other words more bonuses based on character and class levels will be given out. I have read other post on the subject at times, and I will revisit them to see if they have things done well enough to save me some time.
PS:This is inspired by Iron Heroes so there will be one spell casting class that will be considered to be optional. For my own games people won't like you if they know you can cast magic, and if you go to a very superstitious they may think you traffic with demons and maybe even attack you on sight.
So would magic be more powerful? Since it's not commonplace.
So would magic be more powerful? Since it's not commonplace.I want to create a low magic game. I will be removing all the pathfinder full casters, and creating noncasting versions of the pathfinder casting classes with Full BAB casters such as rangers and paladin.
I know about the issues with trying to overcome DR and making sure saves are still high enough so that players will be ok, along with other issues. I plan on doing the math* to make sure number that are close(+ or - 2) are possible.
I don't know if the archetypes are enough to make up for several variant classes. If not I may have to create something new. The problem is that I don't know what to create.
What martial or skill based character concept would you like to see that is not covered currently?*In other words more bonuses based on character and class levels will be given out. I have read other post on the subject at times, and I will revisit them to see if they have things done well enough to save me some time.
PS:This is inspired by Iron Heroes so there will be one spell casting class that will be considered to be optional. For my own games people won't like you if they know you can cast magic, and if you go to a very superstitious they may think you traffic with demons and maybe even attack you on sight.
It is more powerful in the sense that there are less people that can counter magic, but it will not be as powerful as it is in pathfinder. Right now as a general rule there won't be any spells above 6th level. The actual spell list will be created later.
So would magic be more powerful? Since it's not commonplace.I want to create a low magic game. I will be removing all the pathfinder full casters, and creating noncasting versions of the pathfinder casting classes with Full BAB casters such as rangers and paladin.
I know about the issues with trying to overcome DR and making sure saves are still high enough so that players will be ok, along with other issues. I plan on doing the math* to make sure number that are close(+ or - 2) are possible.
I don't know if the archetypes are enough to make up for several variant classes. If not I may have to create something new. The problem is that I don't know what to create.
What martial or skill based character concept would you like to see that is not covered currently?*In other words more bonuses based on character and class levels will be given out. I have read other post on the subject at times, and I will revisit them to see if they have things done well enough to save me some time.
PS:This is inspired by Iron Heroes so there will be one spell casting class that will be considered to be optional. For my own games people won't like you if they know you can cast magic, and if you go to a very superstitious they may think you traffic with demons and maybe even attack you on sight.
It is more powerful in the sense that there are less people that can counter magic, but it will not be as powerful as it is in pathfinder. Right now as a general rule there won't be any spells above 6th level. The actual spell list will be created later.
Ok. I really like the concept. My initial impression is a world that is more gritty, less polish and shine which magic makes very easy.
In addition to eleven classes, A Fistful of Denarii also has a few feats that may serve your purposes, such as Minor Medical Miracle (ported over from d20 Modern) which allows you to revive fallen characters, and another that grants a small healing reserve.
There is also the Scholar class, which fills a nice support role, and can optionally have minor magical abilities. Primarily, though, the Scholar is the mostly non-magical answer to the bard or cleric.
The variants, like the Corsair, Hunter, Scout and so forth, are all built Pathfinder-strong; no one should feel like a sucker for playing a Hunter instead of a Ranger. The classes range from the unique (Scholar, Corbie) to the only-slightly-removed-from-being-an archetype (Gladiator, Spy).
You can get the PDF for $2.39 here, or you can spend a few bucks more and get a copy from Lulu.
It probably won't solve all your problems, but it will give you a nice place to start in terms of having enough classes to cover non-magical roles.
In addition to eleven classes, A Fistful of Denarii also has a few feats that may serve your purposes, such as Minor Medical Miracle (ported over from d20 Modern) which allows you to revive fallen characters, and another that grants a small healing reserve.
There is also the Scholar class, which fills a nice support role, and can optionally have minor magical abilities. Primarily, though, the Scholar is the mostly non-magical answer to the bard or cleric.
The variants, like the Corsair, Hunter, Scout and so forth, are all built Pathfinder-strong; no one should feel like a sucker for playing a Hunter instead of a Ranger. The classes range from the unique (Scholar, Corbie) to the only-slightly-removed-from-being-an archetype (Gladiator, Spy).
You can get the PDF for $2.39 here, or you can spend a few bucks more and get a copy from Lulu.
It probably won't solve all your problems, but it will give you a nice place to start in terms of having enough classes to cover non-magical roles.
I have the pdf. Someone recommended it up thread. I have skimmed it, but not really read it yet. It seem good so far though. Once I read it I will give it a review.
Healing—As of now the idea is recover 25% of your maximum hp as a move action.
There will be a feat to make it into a swift action
There will also be a feat to allow you to do it an additional time per day. Every time you take this feat you can do this an additional time.
You may use the heal skill to heal someone a number of hp equal to what you roll – 15 with a full round action. You may also use this skill with a time of 1 minute. This way you don't risk doing negative hp damage since you are not rushing.
As an example if you heal check is 20 then you would heal the recipient only 5 points. If you roll less than a 15 then it actually does hp damage. This is a result of trying to administer combat first aid.
A recipient can only benefit from this use of the skill once per day.
I will probably make a feat that allows someone to heal someone this way with the skill an additional time, but it won't stack.
Version 1:You may heal one person an additional time using the heal skill.
Version 2: You may heal any number of people one additional time using the heal skill.
*Even though the word people is used it replies to any creature with a biology similar to a humanoid such as giants or monstrous humanoids.
From 3.5 there's the spell-less ranger and paladin from Complete Warrior, those worked well for my low magic games. If you don't like them they might at least give you an idea to go off of.