Name one Pathfinder rule or subsystem that you dislike, and say why:


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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Yeah, 3.5 and PF are not realistic... And thank Odin, Zeus, Ra and all other gods for that!

Realism should never be more of a priority than layer fun, character viability & variety and game balance, IMHO.

Unfortunately it does...

Well, mostly a misguided notion of realism than actual realism, really.


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Chengar Qordath wrote:
TriOmegaZero wrote:


A 20th level Fighter should be able to break the rules too.
Exactly. If one character is allowed to casually rewrite the laws of the universe, while the other is strictly bound by what an ordinary human being could realistically accomplish, the guy who's stuck being realistic won't be accomplishing much.

Whenever I see statements like these I have to wonder just what unrealistic things some players think normal people can do. Because high level fighters seem to me to be able to accomplish some things that are well beyond what a normal person could do.


Bill Dunn wrote:

Whenever I see statements like these I have to wonder just what unrealistic things some players think normal people can do. Because high level fighters seem to me to be able to accomplish some things that are well beyond what a normal person could do.

But normal people can't cast spells!

(actually I agree with you, but if I don't say it someone else is bound to)

Shadow Lodge

Actually, in Pathfinder normal people totally cast spells.


TOZ wrote:
Actually, in Pathfinder normal people totally cast spells.

...

...
...
Dammit :)

Shadow Lodge

Plenty of abnormal spellcasters out there too.

I guess it depends on what your definition of 'normal' is.


137ben wrote:
JTibbs wrote:
Umbranus wrote:
JTibbs wrote:
It also has specklings of unbelievable crap through it, like giving fighters starting at 3rd level Ant Haul, where you add your fighter level to your carrying capacity, ignore encumberence from medium and heavy loads,and can retrieve anything from your massive pile of junk on your back as a free action...
Seems you are one of those "magic can do everything but martials have to be realistic" guys.

I'm one of those 'Magic can do anything, but if YOU DON'T HAVE ANY MAGIC you can't do blatant magic at will'

You want your fighter to be able to magically carry an SUV on his back like it was a loaf of bread in a backpack?

Buy a magic item, or take a level in a class that can cast a relevant spell.

What, so raw strength is now magic in your world?

Oooh, I get it, anything you can't do is magic. Cool. Well, since barbarians aren't magic, you should be able to do whatever they can do, to, right?
Okay, so find a 2000 foot cliff and dive off it, head first, onto solid stone. A high level barbarian can do this, and
a)not faint
b)suffer no permanent injuries, mental or physical
c)stand up after landing on his head and immediately continue fighting at full strength and speed

Can you do that? Can ANY real human do that? Is the barbarian magic? What about every other class with high hit-dice?

raw strength to the point where the act of walking under such a load would likely snap the fighters legs like twigs. Such a load, even if it DIDNT turn the fighter to paste, would make it so that in 90% of terrain the fighters legs would sink into the landscape.

yes its freaking magic. If the fighter explicitly doesnt KNOW any magic, then he can't DO magic...


JTibbs wrote:
raw strength to the point where the act of walking under such a load would likely snap the fighters legs like twigs. Such a load, even if it DIDNT turn the fighter to paste, would make it so that in 90% of terrain the fighters legs would sink into the landscape.

OGRE AM RAW STRONG NO-MAGICALLY WALKING FINE!


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Kthulhu wrote:
Nicos wrote:
I think SKR once said that the WBl is basically a rule.

Pretty sure he has. Which is ridiculous.

I'm fairly sure that the WBL in 3.0 was just there as an estimate for how much money to let new characters starting at higher than 1st level to have.

What's ridiculous?

DM: Oh sorry you guys are already too rich, the dragon you just killed only has 4 coppers.

The next week.

DM: Hey you guys leveled. As you come around the bend in the road, there is a pile of unguarded treasure just sitting there.


Vod Canockers wrote:
Kthulhu wrote:
Nicos wrote:
I think SKR once said that the WBl is basically a rule.

Pretty sure he has. Which is ridiculous.

I'm fairly sure that the WBL in 3.0 was just there as an estimate for how much money to let new characters starting at higher than 1st level to have.

What's ridiculous?

DM: Oh sorry you guys are already too rich, the dragon you just killed only has 4 coppers.

The next week.

DM: Hey you guys leveled. As you come around the bend in the road, there is a pile of unguarded treasure just sitting there.

Yeah, that's a ridiculously bad DM.

Shadow Lodge

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Yeah, everyone knows that the proper way to enforce WBL is by using WBL fairies...invisible, intangible socialist fey that redistribute wealth while characters are sleeping.


Kthulhu wrote:
Yeah, everyone knows that the proper way to enforce WBL is by using WBL fairies...invisible, intangible socialist fey that redistribute wealth while characters are sleeping.

Santa Claus?


TriOmegaZero wrote:
SAMAS wrote:
Ever see a fight in ''Naruto''?
He doesn't watch anime.

Didn't expect him to, really. Hence the description.

Quote:
SAMAS wrote:
Because swinging a stick in someone's face can only do so much, period.
It obviously can disrupt a spell.

Yes, but after a certain point, you're not exactly gonna get any better at it. The ceiling for that is much lower than "dealing with somebody waving a stick in your face"

Quote:
SAMAS wrote:
Yes, how dare spellcasting break the rules?! What does it think it is, magic or someth- ...oh. ^_^
A 20th level Fighter should be able to break the rules too.

Oh, absolutely. But that wasn't the point (also, they should be breaking it in mostly different ways than mages).

Half the point of magic is doing things that would take buttloads of time and/or effort to do mundanely (the other half is doing things that are impossible to do mundanely).


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Pathfinder Adventure, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Laric wrote:

Off the top of my head: How PF gets bogged down in Book-keeping: Entire sessions spent on crafting magic items, buying magic items, etc... (i.e. Not Adventuring!!!)

And probably most of all: HIGH LEVEL PLAY (meaning Level 10 and greater) due to ridiculous buffs, sessions slowing down to a crawl due to constant rules checking and even trivial combats that take an entire session to play out.

Bookeeping

umm this is more a play-style thing than a game system issue. All our (my home games) crafting is done and accounted for out of sessions - allowing for dicing rolling. You need to prioritise your time better or avoid crafting.
Bookkeeping for us is, planning what happens between adventures and takes up about 1/2 session at the end of a chapter or so.

High-level combat (and 10 isn't that high) needs more concentration and focus from each of the players involved. You really need to pay attention to the other PC's actions at the table and how this will impact on your own actions. The only allowances really are Wizards and Clerics, each of whom has to be reactive in their selections when luck goes the wrong way and they need to adapt their turns may tale a little longer.

Shadow Lodge

chaoseffect wrote:
Kthulhu wrote:
Yeah, everyone knows that the proper way to enforce WBL is by using WBL fairies...invisible, intangible socialist fey that redistribute wealth while characters are sleeping.
Santa Claus?

Sorta. Only they are just as likely to take away stuff as give it.

Also, they aren't nearly as lazy. They work EVERY night, as opposed to just once per year.


Bill Dunn wrote:
Chengar Qordath wrote:
TriOmegaZero wrote:


A 20th level Fighter should be able to break the rules too.
Exactly. If one character is allowed to casually rewrite the laws of the universe, while the other is strictly bound by what an ordinary human being could realistically accomplish, the guy who's stuck being realistic won't be accomplishing much.
Whenever I see statements like these I have to wonder just what unrealistic things some players think normal people can do. Because high level fighters seem to me to be able to accomplish some things that are well beyond what a normal person could do.

Oh, a level 20 fighter is superhumanly good at surviving physical damage and hitting things with sharp pieces of metal. Aside from that, they seem pretty limited to what people think is "realistic."


Well, they also make superhumanly good pack mules.


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Lemmy wrote:

Yeah, 3.5 and PF are not realistic... And thank Odin, Zeus, Ra and all other gods for that!

Realism should never be more of a priority than layer fun, character viability & variety and game balance, IMHO.

Unfortunately it does...

Well, mostly a misguided notion of realism than actual realism, really.

Amen. In our group, House Rule #2 is Realism Is Bad.

(If you're curious, House Rule #1 is "The GM gets the comfy chair.")


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Just an interjection about one or two people who seem to thrive on responding to someone's post with "Well why don't you play some other character," or "Why don't you houserule it then".

This is a thread listing what people dislike about the current Pathfinder rules system.

It is not a thread about "OMG, I don't like that rule but can't find a way around it". I'm sure people here have enough common sense to be able to skirt those rules they feel do not make sense without having clumsy and patronising suggestions of "Why not do it another way then?"

The very best way to avoid all the problems in the Pathfinder rules is to play another system entirely or not play RPGs at all. That is not what is being suggested or asked for when posters write about what they dislike, it is simply a thread for highlighting how, despite liking the Pathfinder game enough to play it regularly, the poster dislikes some aspects of the rules.

Let's assume that the people here are clever and inventive enough to not require being spoonfed ways around 'bad' rules.


Ability drain, damage, and penalties.

It shouldn't take a freaking flow chart to drop someone's stats.


mplindustries wrote:

Two examples of rules flaws of SR3

Every RPG system has it's flaws. And the two you mentioned are not even among the worst when it comes to SR3. But still, I like the system and for years it has been my most played roleplaying game.

more rules bugs:

1) The dwarf cripple arm syndrome: A dwarf can fire assault rifles just fine. but they can't use polearms because of their short arms.
Now a bayonet is a polearm by the rules.
So if a dwarf using an assault rifle is fine as long as no body gets into melee range. One someone manages to close the poor dwarves arms suddenly shrink, making it impossible to use his trusted weapon effectively. Should something remove this dire thread the arms return to normal length and the dwarf can resume cover fire.

2) If you outfit several guys with two burst fire shotguns each they can kill nearly everything that hasn't hardened or vehicle armor. They don't even need to be good at shooting those things.
By setting the choke to wide you reduce your target number to 2 regardless of modifiers. So nearly every die is a success. Now the target number of the soak roll will be 2, too. But to suffer no damage the victim needs to have 8 successes plus those rolled by the attacker. For each shot. And as this is an area attack everyone in the blast is hit. So 2-3 guys with two such guns each means autokill after 1 round for nearly everything.

SR2: All falling damage was deadly damage just with a low target number to resist. But little kids with a body stat of 1 would have been dead after falling for the first time. From any height.

PF: Any child playing in the snow on a normal winter day would be unconscious after 1 hour and dead soon after.


Umbranus wrote:
mplindustries wrote:

Two examples of rules flaws of SR3

Every RPG system has it's flaws. And the two you mentioned are not even among the worst when it comes to SR3. But still, I like the system and for years it has been my most played roleplaying game.

** spoiler omitted **

Obviously children need to be minmaxed. Maybe even reprinted in the Advanced Class Guide.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

What Billzabub said about creatures with multiple attacks with grab getting the short end of the stick.. I don't see anything that says a creature can't finish its full attack after grabbing. Just because maintaining a grapple is a standard action. I could be wrong, but I can't see anything that says establishing a hold means you have to stop attacking for the rest of the round.
Of course, I guess in subsequent rounds some might consider it a waste. But that's where constrict and other abilities come in.
The hit point system is an abstraction. Many things in the game are an abstraction. The combat isn't actually turn-based. It's just a way to get things done.
The rules are just a way to move the story (the most important part) along. Bang! I shot you! No, you didn't, you missed! No, I got you!
A lot of the rules are just ways to move it along. I try not to get caught up in the little things.

RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32

How about Adamantine weapons? A rule intended to make sure that your ultra-hard sword will win in a sundering contest against a steel sword has lead to frankly bizarre arguments where one side has to assume that an (essentially) indestructible dagger can't even chip through stone, and the other asserts that adamantine weapons are lightsabers.

DR/Adamantine isn't any better: Needing a weapon a notch above a steel sword makes sense for Iron or even stone golems, but makes no sense at all for flesh golems and a number of other lesser constructs.

Scarab Sages

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When I find a rule or subsystem I don't like, I rewrite it and then republish it. :)

Shadow Lodge

Smite the necromancer!


Full Attack Actions

Because they take a full-round-action and the attacks yield diminishing returns.


Funny, between now and the time I wrote in this tread, what I like and dislike about a RPG seems to have changed.

I've made my peace with hit points, but tight economy of action now bothers me. I seem to have move away from the more tactical type of game to something looser.

RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32

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TOZ wrote:
Smite the necromancer!

Speaking of necromancy, there are plenty of healing or other life-force manipulating spells stuck in Transmutation and Conjuration(Healing) that should be Necromancy.

Scarab Sages

Scaling enhancement bonuses built into the system. WBL only exists because the game assumes that you have X Enhancement bonus to your AC, Saves, etc. I'm currently working on my homebrew house rules, and they're getting ditched. Magic items would be so much cooler, and less restrictive, without WBL being required.

Paizo Employee Design Manager

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Wiggz wrote:

The impossibility of multiple swift actions.

We made one minor change to an existing feat (Quicken Spell reduces casting time to a move action) and now our rounds allow the following options, where any action can be exchanged for a lesser one.

A character can make the following actions in a round:

Full round action, swift action.
Standard action, move action, swift action
Standard action, swift action, swift action
Move action, move action, swift action
Move action, swift action, swift action
Swift action, swift action, swift action

Given that swift actions are actually more powerful and valuable than move actions, I definitely wouldn't allow or use the suggested conversions, though I could see allowing a standard to be traded for a swift.

The subsystem I most hate is mounted combat. It doesn't work RAW, every FAQ they release that interacts with it makes a bigger mess of it, and it's the system I most want to work consistently so that I can use it outside of my own home games.


Personally, I hate that channeling heals everything within the radius, including the bad guys. It's ridiculous to me that the channeler can't control who gets healed. That forces players to either be very careful with their positioning when channeling, or spend a feat on Selective Channeling, which rivals Combat Expertise for the title of most ludicrous feat tax.


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Combat

I hate the full-attack action. With a blinding hot passion. I find it unfathomable that a highly trained warrior that can survive dragon fire, liches spells, takes on giants and trolls, and can be an overall awesome warrior cannot move and swing his weapon 2, 3, 4 times. Completely ridiculous.


Diffan wrote:

Combat

I hate the full-attack action. With a blinding hot passion. I find it unfathomable that a highly trained warrior that can survive dragon fire, liches spells, takes on giants and trolls, and can be an overall awesome warrior cannot move and swing his weapon 2, 3, 4 times. Completely ridiculous.

Simply roleplay at your table that one attack is 2 or 3 swings. A full attack with "3 attacks" = 6-9 full flourishy combo


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Guess I'll add to this oldy and say, I "hate" (it's really more of a "I really don't like") the class skill rules. At early levels those 3 extra points you get from a class skill matter a lot, it can be the difference between "mediocre" and "great". They still matter in later levels in some skills. What I really don't like about it is that the choice of class governs what skills you'll be good at.

The Shaman class has Diplomacy as a class skill, but not Intimidate. So my Shaman will be as good in Intimidate as it was in Diplomacy at level 1, by level 4. I will never be as good at intimidating people as I would be using diplomacy. Why? Why don't I get to choose what skills my character should be best in? Because arbitrary reason, the book says that "this class is just better at doing 'this' than 'this'".

Usually you pick a class because of its' abilities: You want a character who can fight, pick a fighter. You want a character that casts spells, pick a wizard. etc. But with the class skill rules, this also affects what skills the character will be good at. "You want to be a Shaman? Well then you can't be as good at intimidating people as you would be trying to reason with them".

Personaly, I really don't see why a Shaman who is equaly trained in Diplomacy and Intimidate should get a +3 in difference between the two. And I really don't see why a Shaman and a Druid (with equal Cha score and ranks put into Diplomacy) won't be as good as each other with Diplomacy.

Sure, there are traits to add skills as class skills. But should I really have to pick traits that grants me Perception, Intimidate and UMD as a class skill so that I can build the character I want instead of fall 3 points behind everyone else? The traits don't let me build a character that is a bit better at certain things, they let me build a character that doesn't fall behind.

Bottom line: I really don't think the class skill rules are needed. They're not there for any balance, they just arbitrary decides that your character is better at some things than others.


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The DC mechanics. Either you suck or you're totally fine.


Diffan wrote:

Combat

I hate the full-attack action. With a blinding hot passion. I find it unfathomable that a highly trained warrior that can survive dragon fire, liches spells, takes on giants and trolls, and can be an overall awesome warrior cannot move and swing his weapon 2, 3, 4 times. Completely ridiculous.

And this, Unchained is a little better in general.


Rub-Eta wrote:

Guess I'll add to this oldy and say, I "hate" (it's really more of a "I really don't like") the class skill rules. At early levels those 3 extra points you get from a class skill matter a lot, it can be the difference between "mediocre" and "great". They still matter in later levels in some skills. What I really don't like about it is that the choice of class governs what skills you'll be good at.

The Shaman class has Diplomacy as a class skill, but not Intimidate. So my Shaman will be as good in Intimidate as it was in Diplomacy at level 1, by level 4. I will never be as good at intimidating people as I would be using diplomacy. Why? Why don't I get to choose what skills my character should be best in? Because arbitrary reason, the book says that "this class is just better at doing 'this' than 'this'".

Usually you pick a class because of its' abilities: You want a character who can fight, pick a fighter. You want a character that casts spells, pick a wizard. etc. But with the class skill rules, this also affects what skills the character will be good at. "You want to be a Shaman? Well then you can't be as good at intimidating people as you would be trying to reason with them".

Personaly, I really don't see why a Shaman who is equaly trained in Diplomacy and Intimidate should get a +3 in difference between the two. And I really don't see why a Shaman and a Druid (with equal Cha score and ranks put into Diplomacy) won't be as good as each other with Diplomacy.

Sure, there are traits to add skills as class skills. But should I really have to pick traits that grants me Perception, Intimidate and UMD as a class skill so that I can build the character I want instead of fall 3 points behind everyone else? The traits don't let me build a character that is a bit better at certain things, they let me build a character that doesn't fall behind.

Bottom line: I really don't think the class skill rules are needed. They're not there for any balance, they just arbitrary decides that your character is...

Usually I'll allow one or two swap outs for a class skills as long as it makes some sort of sense for the characters described. House rules I know but it works for me.


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BURN
The fact that it's clunky just adds insult to injury given it's on a class that really doesn't need the penalties any more than that.

Psychic Power Points
This may sound strange coming from me but, REALLY guys? The whole psychics book comes out as a completely full-vancian-caster-style debacle, and someone has the balls to do a normal power-point system for the *MONSTERS*?

GRIT
Low capacity, slightly hard to recover (crits and kills are the only reliable way, the other crap's too vague for GMs to hand it over), and screws classes that would probably not rise higher than to tier 4 if it were infinite. And then the "errata" making sure that some of the better moves can't be made infinite anymore despite doing so needing 11 levels in a class you'd be better off being anything else past 5th (or if 'guns everywhere' shouldn't have touched past 1st).

Finally, the complete lack of realism in this game:
We have giant armored beasts swimming through the earth
We have flying reality-altering lizards that spew various forms of energy from their mouths in devastating swaths
We have giant clockwork mechs running on a perpetual motion wind-up gnome clock
We have people who can with just a few formulae and a little waggle or a dance, bend over reality and won't stop until it cries for them to stop because every hole is ragged and bleeding
We have people with implanted plasma cannons powered by wifi from nearby graviton generators
We have people who can literally walk off being dropped down from orbit
We have people and things who can breathe water
We have things that regenerate being ground into a paste and salted for good measure
NANOMACHINES, SON
We have HUMANS with such inhuman agility and unnaturally flexible weapon materials that they can fire 7 arrows in 6 seconds - not from a tiny plastic self-bow at paper targets, but from a 200lb war-bow designed for giants at full draw against things five hundred yards away with total accuracy and penetrating power.
We have gods. as in "deities". as in those things in all those hardcover or paperback books that talk about souls and afterlives and all that stuff.

And then some <letsomit that but there are many adjectives meant for this place, none of them remotely nonoffensive> looks us in the eye and tells us you can't juggle having two things in your hands when they're attached with cords so you never actually drop them -because its hard-, or that a crossbow can't have an automatic reloading mechanism or use advanced materials, or that it's completely unnatural for someone normal on that world to have abilities like flying or recovering health on their own or any other number of the abilities listed above, because APPARENTLY, SOMEHOW, everything on this world is completely normal and mundane and only wizards and other magic casters can do all of the above things for you (directly or by an item).

Despite all of the earlier list being the actual reality of things on Golarion.

THAT. THAT complete disconnect from the reality of the setting is the rule that I hate most.


Hate is a strong word but some things that bother me which I would like to see addressed at some future time:

1) Lack of exciting or challenging travel rules including environmental hazards and mundane challenges that can effect even high-level characters. For example, a travel fatigue system that isn't nullified by cure light wounds.

2) The skill system could be streamlined to narrows gaps for challenges related to skills. Ad the system stands now, the typical 1st level NPC simply cannot even cope with the basic needs of life in Pathfinder world.

3) At death door rules. Right now, as the rules stand it is virtually impossible to kill even a 1st level commoner outright with a sword thrust (4 hp and a Con of 10 and it would take at least a crit from most low-level people to kill a commoner outright.

4) Disintegrate spell that leaves gear intact. Nothing hammers home the fact that magic items are baked into a character's power progression more than this spell which can completely destroy your character but leave all stuff nice and shiny for the replacement character.


Wildblooded sorcerer. Why can't Mutated Bloodlines be like Subdomains?


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber

Prepared Spellcasting.

It ruins my immersion. Admittedly, I like fairly mainstream fantasy (I describe the campaign I run as trying to emulate superhero fantasy ala Hercules: The Legendary Journeys or Xena). However, I just can't see Gandalf forgetting how to cast a fireball.

Toss in the fact that it is also why the most powerful character classes are the most powerful character classes, and... well, there are no Wizards, Clerics, Druids, or Witches in my campaign anymore.

Scarab Sages

Swarm AC being based on the size of the constituent creatures, not the size of the swarm. A swarm is a massive blob. It shouldn't be as hard to hit a swarm of fine creatures as a single fine creature.

Sovereign Court

After reading the thread, there is a rule that I really don't like, and I have not seen it mentioned here : CORNERS !!! (And the rules for cover of concealment in general, but corners are the worse case IMO).

Corners give you basically +4 AC cover from all kind of attacks, and negate AOOs, and give you a +2 bonus to reflex saves.

This seems really unrealistic, but also it rewards idiot behaviour, like the mage putting itself in the front of the party, but in a corner, because he does not get AOOs.

This slows combat on both sides, as people do not always compute well the variations in AC.

And also, the corner cover punishes BOTH sides of the fight : it could make sense for some defenders to establish a bottleneck in a room at the end of a corridor, where they can block the mobility of the enemy, and stall them, and benefit from the fact they are more numerous than the attackers, but no, they are as handicapped as the attackers when they want to roll their attack.

I will grant that it makes sense to seek cover against missile weapons, but against melee attack, I do not think so, especially as the fights occur over an abstract grid with an already large size for the squares.

It also hardly seems heroic to win a fight by hiding in a corner, but then that's me. Sorry for the rant.

RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32

HeHateMe wrote:
Personally, I hate that channeling heals everything within the radius, including the bad guys. It's ridiculous to me that the channeler can't control who gets healed. That forces players to either be very careful with their positioning when channeling, or spend a feat on Selective Channeling, which rivals Combat Expertise for the title of most ludicrous feat tax.

I don't really like channeling at all. The 'present your holy symbol and affect a radius' thing makes sense for turning undead (and therefore to some degree for harming undead), but it isn't really a visual that I associate with healing. (It also makes the mass cure spells really underwhelming. Mass cure light wounds is a 5th level spell. But level 1 clerics basically have it multiple times per day.)

And don't get me started on negative energy channeling. It's an albatross on PCs and a weird suicide-bomber effect for NPCs.


I may have missed if anyone mentioned this, but something that continues to bother me is that 1 full round < 1 round.

By that I mean, there are actions that take "1 full round" (full attack, withdraw, etc.) and then there are spells that have a casting time of "1 round" (summon monster, for example). It sounds like a "full round" should take from your initiative count in a round to right before your initiative count in the next round, but that's what "1 round" means. Why is "1 round" fuller than "1 full round"?!?

I know that this is a holdover from 3e, but it still irks me sometimes. It took me a long time to realize that a Sorcerer using a metamagic feat is a full round not a round, and I had to convince a friend that a spell with a round casting time means you are still casting until the beginning of your next initiative, whereas a sorcerer casting a metamagicked spell is only casting on their turn.

Scarab Sages

Ross Byers wrote:
HeHateMe wrote:
Personally, I hate that channeling heals everything within the radius, including the bad guys. It's ridiculous to me that the channeler can't control who gets healed. That forces players to either be very careful with their positioning when channeling, or spend a feat on Selective Channeling, which rivals Combat Expertise for the title of most ludicrous feat tax.

I don't really like channeling at all. The 'present your holy symbol and affect a radius' thing makes sense for turning undead (and therefore to some degree for harming undead), but it isn't really a visual that I associate with healing. (It also makes the mass cure spells really underwhelming. Mass cure light wounds is a 5th level spell. But level 1 clerics basically have it multiple times per day.)

And don't get me started on negative energy channeling. It's an albatross on PCs and a weird suicide-bomber effect for NPCs.

Selective Channeling is a thing. Yes it's a feat tax, but it can be worthwhile if you build for it.

RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32

haremlord wrote:

I may have missed if anyone mentioned this, but something that continues to bother me is that 1 full round < 1 round.

By that I mean, there are actions that take "1 full round" (full attack, withdraw, etc.) and then there are spells that have a casting time of "1 round" (summon monster, for example). It sounds like a "full round" should take from your initiative count in a round to right before your initiative count in the next round, but that's what "1 round" means. Why is "1 round" fuller than "1 full round"?!?

I know that this is a holdover from 3e, but it still irks me sometimes. It took me a long time to realize that a Sorcerer using a metamagic feat is a full round not a round, and I had to convince a friend that a spell with a round casting time means you are still casting until the beginning of your next initiative, whereas a sorcerer casting a metamagicked spell is only casting on their turn.

I think the issue there might be semantics. If a 'full round action' was instead a 'full turn action' or just a 'full action', it becomes much more clear that it's taking the entirety of your turn not the entire round.

Scarab Sages

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"Armour makes you harder to hit."

No it doesn't. Armour makes you harder to hurt. Armour should reduce damage. Not reduce the chance of taking damage at all in some all or nothing roll. Unfortunately it's so ingrained into the system that rejigging it would involve changing so many other things (like attack bonuses) that it would prove a plain nightmare.

As a system it works.

As a concept it's simply aberrant.

RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32

Balgin wrote:

"Armour makes you harder to hit."

No it doesn't. Armour makes you harder to hurt. Armour should reduce damage. Not reduce the chance of taking damage at all in some all or nothing roll. Unfortunately it's so ingrained into the system that rejigging it would involve changing so many other things (like attack bonuses) that it would prove a plain nightmare.

As a system it works.

As a concept it's simply aberrant.

It makes a certain amount of sense in combat between (for instance) medium humanoids: you're measuring if the bad guys sword made it through the armor. Properly designed armor is in fact as much about deflecting attacks, rather than stopping them.

But it ignore the cumulative damage the armor incurs (dented armor with holes in it is much less protected.) And your armor shouldn't really do much against a Frost Giant's greataxe that's bigger than you are.

So, yeah, I see where you're coming from here, but I also see why fixing it for 'realism' would not be good for the game.

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