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But the haters don't want that. They don't want just the option to be able to play without HP, they want NO ONE to be able to use that system. They hate HP- thereby no one gets to use it.
Can you back this assertion up with any sort of evidence?
For myself, I don't like many aspects of Pathfinder and would far rather use a different system. However, the thought of stopping others from playing the game the way that they prefer has never crossed my mind.
Changing the intent of a post that says 'I don't like X' into one that implies 'I don't think anyone should have access to X' is disingenuous and ridiculous.
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I'm not trying to convince you you're wrong: Some people just don't like Vancian mechanics. But I find a lot of people get hung up on the 'memorize' wording from 1st & 2nd edition instead of the mechanics themselves or the modern fluff of them.
I hear what you are saying that the spell is 'prepared' ahead of time and the cast as a fast action, but it rather seems like putting lipstick on a pig - the limitation was already there and the developers/writers had to come up with a way to make it appear somewhat less unattractive.
I prefer a mana system, but I accept that Pathfinder/D&D uses a Vancian system thanks to its historical roots. Whether you call it memorising a spell or pre-preparing a spell, the mechanics are the same.
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Mounted combat. I wish it was more simplified the whole who is charging, what actions you can take, what constitutes the penalties and bonuses of a charge stuff makes it rather unappealing.Definitely my current #1 most aggravating subsystem currently. I just want a way to have my character charge while mounted. Not my mount charge, and the rider goes along for the ride. Streamline the entire mounted mechanics, even so far as merging the action economies of the rider and mount.
Have to agree there. It doesn't help that the efforts at FAQ and errata have just broken the system even more, since you get stuff like mounted combat feats saying they work when the player charges, while errata insists that the mount charges, not the player. Sure, they can be house-ruled into functionality pretty easily, but the RAW is broken.
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I hear what you are saying that the spell is 'prepared' ahead of time and the cast as a fast action, but it rather seems like putting lipstick on a pig - the limitation was already there and the developers/writers had to come up with a way to make it appear somewhat less unattractive.
I'm not going to claim to know what the 3rd edition designers were thinking, but I know that Roger Zelazny used the 'prepared spell' idea in the Merlin half of the Chronicles of Amber, without being shackled to a legacy mechanic.
It's not a terrible way to reconcile 'magic is complicated and difficult' with 'magic fights should be fast paced'.
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So, why is it that WE have to houserule instead of YOU? Why can't YOU use an optional system?
If your answer is 'tradition', then you have no answer.
Because the burden of proof should reasonably fall on the case for change rather than on the mechanic that works reasonably well for the game's purposes. It's not like you didn't know about hit points when you chose the game. If it's not working for you, the burden is yours to change it so that it does or find a better fitting game.
Armor as Damage Reduction. I just.. can't see why it would be useful, and it seems clunky.
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I'm not trying to convince you you're wrong: Some people just don't like Vancian mechanics. But I find a lot of people get hung up on the 'memorize' wording from 1st & 2nd edition instead of the mechanics themselves or the modern fluff of them.I hear what you are saying that the spell is 'prepared' ahead of time and the cast as a fast action, but it rather seems like putting lipstick on a pig - the limitation was already there and the developers/writers had to come up with a way to make it appear somewhat less unattractive.
I prefer a mana system, but I accept that Pathfinder/D&D uses a Vancian system thanks to its historical roots. Whether you call it memorising a spell or pre-preparing a spell, the mechanics are the same.
I still really like the Wizard preparing spells system. If you don't like it, play a sorcerer-- can cast any spell you know and you just expend the power slot when you do.
The challenge of preparing the right mixture of spells is what makes Wizards particularly enjoyable for me to play. If I want a system where spells are just skills that do unusual things I would play that kind of system (say, Shadowrun with the exhaustion rules, ect).
I loathe the PF concept of regeneration.
Fortunately, plugging the 3E version back in is trivial.
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Money & Treasure & Encumberance and anything else that resembles book keeping that slows down the game.
I'd like to see wealth bonuses, or a resources skill replace such.
Encumberance should be simplified. "Carry as much as your slots allow, +1 item per point of strength".
Oh! And ability scores should be scrapped: the only thing they're used for is determining modifiers. Just use the modifiers.
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I don't like the social combat system, because there isn't one.
We don't resolve combat with a single roll of the fight skill, so why would we resolve negotiations with a single roll of the diplomacy skill?
For something that claims to be a role-playing game, there's surprisingly little about how to do that.
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We don't resolve combat with a single roll of the fight skill, so why would we resolve negotiations with a single roll of the diplomacy skill?
The answer to both is that it would be boring to do it any other way ;)
Combat would be a silly chore if you rolled once and were done. However, talking would become a chore because you couldn't just, you know, talk naturally and then roll afterwards to see how it worked. You'd have to talk in arbitrary chunks and determine the outcome of each line and think less about the actual conversation and more about speaking tactically and whatnot.
To piggyback on your question and my previous comment, though, we don't resolve combat with a single roll of the "kill stuff" skill, so why do we handle traps that way? Traps have a single DC, and the only way to interact with it is to roll against the DC. There are no choices to make, no roleplaying to do--you just roll once and it works or it doesn't based entirely on the numbers on your page instead of the actions you take. Then, even if you fail the roll, you can just try again without consequence unless you failed really badly, in which case you are either minorly inconvenienced by damage that just costs you charges from your wand of CLW because there's no such thing as attrition with magic marts around, or you're totally ruined by some other effect you can't remove without abandoning your quest or possibly even directly kills you. BOOOOOORING.
I loathe the PF concept of regeneration.
Fortunately, plugging the 3E version back in is trivial.
I've yet to see a satisfactory regeneration mechanic. The 3rd edition one made sense narratively, but was ultimately meaningless in combat. The Pathfinder one is a little better in combat, but makes little narrative sense.
I don't like the social combat system, because there isn't one.
We don't resolve combat with a single roll of the fight skill, so why would we resolve negotiations with a single roll of the diplomacy skill?
For something that claims to be a role-playing game, there's surprisingly little about how to do that.
Grittier Rules has a social combat mechanic.
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Seriously. I entered the thread expecting it to the the first thing with everyone agreeing with it. Why did this take till the second page?Alignment. Because it's pointless. It adds nothing but restrictions to the game. It doesn't allow you to role play anything that couldn't be role played without it.
It's a obsolete holy cow that should be turned into minced meat.
I hate alignment too.
Or, to elaborate, I hate alignment as it interacts with the mechanics.
Alignment based mechanics are the perfect reason why fluff and gameplay should be kept separate, with neither stopping the other from doing their job.
Pointless, arbitrary restrictions are not any less pointless or arbitrary just because they're tied to a larger mechanic.
Don't even get me started on the weird and somewhat contradictory nature of many "Always Evil" actions.
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I hate alignment too.
Or, to elaborate, I hate alignment as it interacts with the mechanics.
Alignment based mechanics are the perfect reason why fluff and gameplay should be kept separate, with neither stopping the other from doing their job.
Pointless, arbitrary restrictions are not any less pointless or arbitrary just because they're tied to a larger mechanic.
Don't even get me started on the weird and somewhat contradictory nature of many "Always Evil" actions.
If alignment was nothing but a general description of a character's moral instead of something with actual mechanical impact in the game, I'd have zero problems with it.
Unfortunately, it has a severe impact on the rules. Adding nothing but pointless restrictions to the mechanics and role play aspect of the game.
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Only a Rogue (or archetype with trapfinding) can detect a magical trap. Garbage.
Assumes all magic traps have some magical permanent means of not giving off a magical aura. Gives rogues some supernatural sense to detect these that cannot be rationally be explained. ie, why can't a highly perceptive elven sorcerer using detect magic have at least a chance to find a magic trap?
I feel this abilities overrated utility and inability to be duplicated through other class features (save very poor options like Find Traps) has done massive damage to the rogue class; this is the core feature that has lead to the rogues imbalance in my mind.
ANYONE can detect a magical trap.
Only rogues are specifically trained to disarm magical traps.
I do think this should be a feat available to anyone with, say, 8 Ranks in Disable Device.
Spell Resistance.
Creatures already have saving throws and already have energy resistance, just as creatures already have arcmor class and damage resistance. Spell Resistance is an additional layer of unneccessary complication that does nothing to improve balance or game experience. We've re-worked Spell Resistance as an SLA that grants +4 to saves vs. Spells and spell-like abilities.
Finesse.
So many problems/unrealistic options can be traced to Finesse. We've made Finesse a weapon trait rather than a feat and have applied it to all light and ranged weapons as well as a few select others like whips and rapiers - weapons with the Finesse trait automatically use Dexterity for attack and damage bonuses instead of Strength.
For the record, I hate everything about Gunslingers too. I could accept the inclusion of guns in my campaign - grudgingly - but only as you describe them above. They should be a weapon to be fired and then sheathed/dropped/used as a melee weapon until you get a full round to reload them. Some of the gun-juggling cheese the Gunslinger class has led to is as terrible as it was inevitable. People who are going to base an entire class around guns don't want flintlocks, they want revolvers and automatics... and if they want that, then there are plenty of game settings where its appropriate.
SR is not a problem for me. I don't like that it requires a standard action to lower, and I dont like how much it cost to get it from a magical item. It is way overpriced.
PS: I am not saying you are wrong, just presenting how I would have tried to make it work.
Challenge Rating. It's based on an assumption of a party of four versus a single monster, which is very unrealistic and very limiting. It also assumes four encounters per day, which is also very limiting.
I would love to see Pathfinder Second Edition adopt a system where Challenge Rating had a "squad versus squad" assumption instead of the "squad versus solo" assumption that's there now. Instead of a party of four Level 7 PCs going up against a CR 7 monster, Challenge Rating could be reworked to be intended for a party of X Level 7 PCs going up against X CR 7 monsters.
That way, it would be much easier to scale encounters based on the number of players. Fifth player for a Level 3 party? Add another CR 3 monster. Only three people showed up tonight with their Level 6 characters? Drop down to three CR 6 monsters.
The current version of Challenge Rating is needlessly limiting due to its unnecessary assumptions, and I don't like it.
I also don't like how Challenge Rating doesn't account for whether the monster makes use of its allotted treasure, but that's a side issue.
-Matt
It is more of an art than a science, much like the magic item rules. With all of variations in monsters and PC the CR's will never be a science.
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So, why is it that WE have to houserule instead of YOU? Why can't YOU use an optional system?
If your answer is 'tradition', then you have no answer.
As one of the 'WE', I'm quite happy using optional systems (and frequently do.) The entire game is one giant collection of optional systems, anyway.
Changing base concepts when the product is selling as well as it does is an unwarranted gamble. There isn't just the matter of whether people will like the change or not, there's the somewhat more important matter of backwards compatibility - something Pathfinder's very existence is based upon.
I wouldn't want those changes made just to meet my personal preferences, I'd rather the game as a whole was more successful and I'll just change the bits I don't like.
Attacks of opportunity.
I have hated that rule since 3.5. It doesn't make sense that in the middle of a fight, you get a free lick on someone for just getting within arms reach. Or that me walking up to you provokes one, but taking a 5 foot step doesn't. What?
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I hate feats. That's mostly because they are barely ever proofread/edited before published. Simple things which a character ought to be able to do without a feat will eventually require a feat to do.
That has been one of the problems with Pathfinder feats in general. Strike Back is one of the especially infamous examples of a feat that takes away an option martials should logically have, them charges them a feat to get it back. Antagonize too, if you don't incorporate it's more broken applications. It's why Antagonize is one of those really hated feats; it's mechanics are dodgy at best, and it makes no sense why it takes a feat just to shout an insult at an Orc.
SR is not a problem for me. I don't like that it requires a standard action to lower, and I dont like how much it cost to get it from a magical item. It is way overpriced.
Have to agree there. The cost on most SR items is so ridiculously high that by the time you can actually afford the item, most of your enemies will have a trivial time bypassing that spell resistance. SR 13 doesn't do much good if you only get it once you're facing 11th level casters.
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I like feats. It shows special abilities/training such as manyshot, but I do think some feats such as Power Attack should not be feats. Weapon Finesse should also not be a feat, and IIRC it requires a +1 BAB. I actually understand strikeback, since the core rules of the game assume you have to be able to hit the space the creature is occupying, and not one of its limbs, but they could allow it as an exception if you ready an action so you can stop AoO's or make them more risky.
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ANYONE can detect a magical trap.
Only rogues are specifically trained to disarm magical traps.
I do think this should be a feat available to anyone with, say, 8 Ranks in Disable Device.
That seems to be a really common misconception about Trapfinding. Hell look at the description for Spike Growth and Spike Stones, two spells that essentially let you make magical traps. Both of them mention that for some reason only a Rogue can spot those spells, which means that whoever wrote those didn't actually know what Trapfinding did.
Strangely enough the wording only says that being a Rogue is required to find it, not Trapfinding, so any Rogue, even one that traded out Trapfinding, can find Spike Stones/Growth.
That aside, worthless feats or feats that have nothing mechanically in common as prerequisites irritate me. Oh wow I can spend 4 feats to do something kinda cool? Guess my non-Fighter is just going to to two hander and Power Attack again.
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Feats and every book published after the Core Rulebook.
That seems to be a really common misconception about Trapfinding. Hell look at the description for Spike Growth and Spike Stones, two spells that essentially let you make magical traps. Both of them mention that for some reason only a Rogue can spot those spells, which means that whoever wrote those didn't actually know what Trapfinding did.
Nope, the person that wrote those knew exactly what Trapfinding did. Because when they were written, they were correct. In 3.5, you couldn't spot a magical trap without trapfinding (thus the name). The entire purpose of the class feature was to spot and disarm magical traps.
The change to allow everyone to do this in PF required the feature be modified, and thus the bonus to perception to spot the traps, thus keeping the flavor of the name in tact.
The problem occurs because of a copy/paste error when converting 3.5 to PF.
So, why is it that WE have to houserule instead of YOU? Why can't YOU use an optional system?
If your answer is 'tradition', then you have no answer.
Who said anything about "houserule"? Pathfinder itself supplies you with OPTIONAL rules for damage. I choose traditional, you can choose optional. They're both in the rules. Your pick, your choice.
Yeah I figured it was a 3.5 to PF conversion error. My point was even the rules at times seem to forget what Pathfinder Trapfinding does and doesn't do.
Armor as Damage Reduction. I just.. can't see why it would be useful, and it seems clunky.
T&T uses it. It works OK until you get armor where the "DR" is higher than their possible damage. Then you just kill them, and they can't touch you (and with a warrior who gets double DR from any armor that's not hard). That's the problem. Of course, there are various ways to fix that too, but....
It's not a terrible system, but it's not better either.
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HP, specifically the 100% combat-effective until suddenly unconscious mechanic.
Armor Class, and the manner in which armor makes one more difficult to hit, rather than increasing durability.
Most skills, in the way they --
I am sensing a trend here. I suppose I just dislike all-or-nothing mechanics, rather than a sliding scale, or degrees of success and failure. HP, AC, most Saves, and most of the Skill system suffer from this malady.
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I hate everyone and everything. That includes rules!
But some rules I hate more or less than others.
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Resurrection. I hates it. I feel like it takes away stakes from death and I've had games where players were non-plussed about out their characters dying since the cleric could just revive them. And i know there are drawbacks to the system, losing a level and so on, but that doesn't make it better for me, now I just have a player whose character is behind everyone else and they feel like they were cheated. There isn't really a great solution to this problem, since the alternative is just 'role a new character who just happens to be the same level as everyone else.
I've taken now to allowing Breath of Life (Which i like for its immediacy and flavor) and that a expensive ritual that needs several cleric working in unison is needed to revive a dead character. But resurrection and reincarnation as spells- noooope.
You do know negative levels can be removed, right?
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The split between natural attacks and iterative attacks. G*!*#@n would things like the Summoner have been easier if they dropped that stupid system from 3.5
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You do know negative levels can be removed, right?
Yeah, to me its more about the feeling of. "i'm dead!" Spell, spell, spell- I'm alive and all better! i feel like death should be bigger in a sense. Have some more impact. Gather some g$!##!n dragon balls or somethin...
Armor as Damage Reduction. I just.. can't see why it would be useful, and it seems clunky.T&T uses it. It works OK until you get armor where the "DR" is higher than their possible damage. Then you just kill them, and they can't touch you (and with a warrior who gets double DR from any armor that's not hard). That's the problem. Of course, there are various ways to fix that too, but....
It's not a terrible system, but it's not better either.
I've seen armor as DR used in a way that works in two games with two different rules.
One game had random DR from armor, you rolled with a dice. It worked, but there was much extra rolling.The other game had DR and hit points of the armor so it got worn down as you used it. This was a game where combat wasn't the main focus, so it worked quite well, but in a dungeon crawl it'd just be a really stupid system.
That said, we ourselves let armor give a little bit of DR. 1 for medium, 2 for heavy. It rarely matters that much but we thought hey why not.
Grappling
Grappling is far too too complex. A friend of mine played a grapple monk and ended up having to download a flow chart to explain what he could and could not do. That is a sign that it needs to change. Just make it simple.
Attacks of Opportunity.
AoO's are the bane of my combats. Anytime I have a monster or NPC do anything in combat I get cries of "Attack of opportunity?" Everytime I just want to bang my head on the table and scream **** ***! It has turned combat into a chess game of optimal placing.
Under 1st and 2nd edition AD&D all we did for this was say that if you fled combat, cast a spell, used a wand/scroll/potion in close combat then the opponent/s got a free swing. We didn't have to keep looking up what does and doesn't provoke.
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Grappling
Grappling is far too too complex. A friend of mine played a grapple monk and ended up having to download a flow chart to explain what he could and could not do. That is a sign that it needs to change. Just make it simple.Attacks of Opportunity.
AoO's are the bane of my combats. Anytime I have a monster or NPC do anything in combat I get cries of "Attack of opportunity?" Everytime I just want to bang my head on the table and scream **** ***! It has turned combat into a chess game of optimal placing.
Under 1st and 2nd edition AD&D all we did for this was say that if you fled combat, cast a spell, used a wand/scroll/potion in close combat then the opponent/s got a free swing. We didn't have to keep looking up what does and doesn't provoke.
The AoO is like a lot of things that came in with 3.0...a decent concept that got taken way way WAY too far. To the point where the annoyance it causes far outweighs any good the original idea might have had.
Grappling has never worked in any version of D&D, and I can't think of an RPG where it has worked off the top of my head.
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Bring back the 10 foot exception for medium pole arms.
"Attack them from the north west!
"Why's that captain?
"Pole arms don't work in any direction but due north due south due east or due west!
You either need to write in an exception to how a pole arm threatens, OR you need to write in an exception changing threatened squares to a threatened "Area" that doesn't show up well on the grid.
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Personally, I think the biggest issue here is that most melee characters can't move without taking a huge hit to their offensive potential.
I wrote some stuff in Pathways 31 (free, btw) which, among other things, can let a character keep up their offensive potential after having moved. Maybe it'll tickle your fancy. :)
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To those complaining about the "you're 100% fine until your HP hit 0" thing, I'm curious:
Have you ever played another RPG with a death spiral of wound penalties in it? And I mean, really played it, not just read it and thought "hey, that makes more sense than D&D!"
Because, well, they're called Death Spirals for a reason. If being hurt gives you more and more penalties, one hit basically seals your fate. The more damage you take, the less you are able to avoid further damage. Most games with death spirals also have you move slower after taking wounds, so once you're hurt, you also can't escape anymore.
There's nothing quite like losing a fight on the first round, but then having to sit and play through 4 or 5 more rounds while you slowly die because everything you do is less and less effective.
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The whole idea of threatened spaces promotes the need for "grid mastery" which makes the game feel more like chess and less like a roleplaying game.
I like chess. Taking out the tactical elements just feels like -MOAR NUMBERS!- I think it says more about a character when rushing past people to heal a comrade or snag a macguffin comes at a cost.
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Lthougt I do not have much problems with aligment, I do dislike detect "x" spells.
I like more the 2e version, where the spell can only detect evil intentions (unless the target is aparticulary evil being).
That's how the Pathfinder version works: under 5HD, it only detects outsiders, undead, [Evil] spells/magic items, cleric/antipaladins, and immediate evil intent.
Above 5HD, I think the assumption is you're powerful enough that it is hard to be a passive evil.
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I see that a lot of people don't like guns as flavor, but I don't see what's so terrible about them. It's a personal choice thing, really, but it just seems like there's plenty out there that say that it breaks the immersion for them. I just can't wrap my head around that. Maybe it's from people who love the sort of generic fantasy of old, but what's wrong with having magic work with technology in RPGs? My best campaign was a homebrew that involved guns, high magic, and trains and it worked fine.
Maybe this is a gripe more about players and the Golarion campaign setting than the game mechanics, but there should be ways to make stories of high fantasy where you have more modern day elements. By it's definition, fantasy means that whatever your imagination come up with, yet the genre and settings are all filled with the same vaguely Middle Ages sort of shtick. I know that it has to be at least somewhat popular to sell that well, but to me, I always saw it as people going "Yeah, King Arthur and wizards and stuff. That is the extent of imagination that my brain can come up with." You don't know the extents I would go to in order to play in a game where the setting were fresh and original to me. Personally, My holy grail would be a setting where you play a setting with, say, a magic touched 1920's New York expy and your opponents are all mafia-styled bootleggers or the cops and feds, depending on your standing with the law. Yet in all my friends who play RPGs, this idea blows their minds beyond reason since it's not sufficiently Tolkien-esque.
I'm sorry, I needed that rant. Some settings just, ugh.
The sad part is that mechanically I know firearms in Pathfinder are relatively broken. The only way to balance them out is throw high touch AC monsters at PCs, such as incorporeal undead or Dex-based characters. And even then, it's only so effective. I'd recommend balancing this out in a campaign, along with ranged combat in general, by making magic ammo harder to come by. Or more expensive. Maybe it's hard to write the proper runes on such a tiny surface to enchant a single bullet/arrow/what-have-you. Flavor text stuff, but keeps people from adding plenty of damage to the plenty of damage they're already doing in general.
The Amulet of Bullet Protection certainly helps mitigate things, but it's far too expensive for what it is. If it raised touch AC in general or even against ranged attacks, I could see it being worth it, but for being only useful (and one of the only items useful) for firearm protection, it's just too expensive. I'd consider effectively treating that item as half price tops, especially in a more gun heavy campaign.
Plus, even though Gunslingers are such a cool class to me, I feel like they could've gotten away with 3/4 BAB instead of full BAB. Make players think twice about picking up Deadly Aim instead of having them know they can still hit everything three times over even after picking it up. Though some feats like Snap Shot and it's family would be much harder to get if that were the case. It would require a great deal of thought to retool that class into being something a bit more fair, despite the feat tax of Dodge and Mobility being nearly mandatory for it.
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Have you ever played another RPG with a death spiral of wound penalties in it? And I mean, really played it, not just read it and thought "hey, that makes more sense than D&D!"
Both GURPS and Runequest 2ed have ablative penalties for taking damage. Those are the systems I cut my teeth on and are still my favourites.
GURPS uses two primary methods to model taking damage - you are at a penalty immediately after taking damage (to simulate the pain and physical shock), and at half max HP and below you are at a permanent penalty until healed. GURPS can be deadly - you only have around 10-20 hit points and these are easily whittled away when swords generally do something like 1d6+3. This makes combats more intense and smaller in scale - if you are facing 10 competent opponents then you need to think about giving up or running away, not charging in with a battle-cry.
GURPS also has hit locations and limb damage, although most melee hits are assumed to hit the torso.
Runequest 2ed uses hit locations and also exceptional damage rules. If you are hit for the HP in a location, it is disabled or even permanently destroyed. In the head, chest or abdomen this is deadly. Again, the trick is to pick your fights and buy decent armour.
What such systems do not provide is the 'super-heroic' feel of throwing yourself into a whole army of orcs and wiping them out singlehandedly in the style of John Norman's 'Gor' series, but I'm more of a fan of the 'gritty-thoughtful-heroic' genre so this is not a problem for me.