What would happen if you re-tooled the game to nerf down the insane amounts of damage that you can do with high level abilities, and eradicated hit die so that your HP was simply your Constitution score? The idea here is to make a gritty feeling system that makes you seriously weigh the situational pros and cons of getting into combat, because a critical hit can be an instant kill. A game where a lowly goblin thug can kill an experienced knight if he lets his guard down.
But mostly this is just a thought experiment, so let's hear your thoughts.
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What would happen if you re-tooled the game to nerf down the insane amounts of damage that you can do with high level abilities, and eradicated hit die so that your HP was simply your Constitution score? The idea here is to make a gritty feeling system that makes you seriously weigh the situational pros and cons of getting into combat, because a critical hit can be an instant kill. A game where a lowly goblin thug can kill an experienced knight if he lets his guard down.
But mostly this is just a thought experiment, so let's hear your thoughts.
As I see it, you aren't suggesting a re-skin of pathfinder. You are suggesting a different game.
Making it work would require you to rewrite the entire game. Changing the hp, would require you to change the damage score of everything, included any spells that deal damage directly or indirectly.
Making these changes to hp and damage, puts an altogether different importance on AC and to-hit bonusses, which need to be adjusted as well.
My suggestion, is that you take a look at Savage Worlds as an alternate system. Having a set amount of HP (3 for main characters, 1 for minor characters), and exploding dice, so the lowly goblin might just succeed against all odds, sums up to a system that might give you what you want. Being simple and easy-to-learn as well as relatively cheap, makes it something you could try out without to great an investment on you and your players.
It would either seriously overpower giant monsters or open up for the possibility of a lucky commoner killing an ancient dragon with their pitchfork.
How is this minimalist re-skinning. Or even re-skinning at all?
As I see it, you aren't suggesting a re-skin of pathfinder. You are suggesting a different game.
Making it work would require you to rewrite the entire game. Changing the hp, would require you to change the damage score of everything, included any spells that deal damage directly or indirectly.
Making these changes to hp and damage, puts an altogether different importance on AC and to-hit bonusses, which need to be adjusted as well.My suggestion, is that you take a look at Savage Worlds as an alternate system. Having a set amount of HP (3 for main characters, 1 for minor characters), and exploding dice, so the lowly goblin might just succeed against all odds, sums up to a system that might give you what you want. Being simple and easy-to-learn as well as relatively cheap, makes it something you could try out without to great an investment on you and your players.
Like I said, thought experiment. Let's say we took the monumental amount of time to adjust all those things. Is that a system you'd be interested in playing? Why or why not?
Also, I've been meaning to look into Savage Worlds for some time now. Might as well do it today...
It would either seriously overpower giant monsters or open up for the possibility of a lucky commoner killing an ancient dragon with their pitchfork.
How is this minimalist re-skinning. Or even re-skinning at all?
A commoner would have to be really lucky to kill a dragon with a pitchfork, as the dragon would have a Constitution in the 40's and up, as well as Damage Resistance. It would, however, overpower giant monsters, requiring players to put a lot of thought and planning into taking them down.
Play Whitewolf, pathfinder isn't made for this.
The Whitewolf system is over-customizable (It can be used in any setting with minimal work) and provide the kind of realistic play you are looking for.
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I don't see much point in such a monumental overhaul of PF. If what you really want is something very different, it might be better to either
A) start with a different game that's closer in the direction you want to play than PF; there's quite a few.
B) build something from the ground up to your taste, rather than trying to force PF into a shape it's not going to fit in comfortably.
What would happen if you re-tooled the game to nerf down the insane amounts of damage that you can do with high level abilities, and eradicated hit die so that your HP was simply your Constitution score?
That would be a big change, more than just a re-skin IMO. You'd have to identify what contributes to damage, which in itself grows exponentially with levels. It would be easier to houserule something about critical hits, if the intent is to make combat more "swingy".
I'm surprise no one has proposed E6 yet...