I came across a few interesting house rules recently in (a certain forum that ends with "...Chan") and I thought they were interesting. Tell me what you think of them for Pathfinder, please.
(Paraphrased and rewritten from memory):
Shields Will Be Splintered A player wielding a shield can choose to allow his shield to receive the destroyed condition rather than take the damage from a single attack.
[I would consider allowing Vital Strike to be an exception to this to boost that feat and given its nature]
Eye for an Eye When receiving damage that would put a character at 0 HP or less, the player may opt instead to lose a body part, such as an eye or an arm or leg (with commensurate loss of ability), and is reduced instead to 1 HP.
Training Montage During downtime of 3 days or more, a martial character may opt to train his abilities, receiving a Natural Combat Bonus of +1 until the next time she chooses to activate her Natural Training Bonus as follows:
- Constitution Training: Take a +2 on your next Fort save
- Strength Training: Take a +2 on your next Strength check or +3 damage on a single attack
- Dexterity Training: Take a +2 on your next Reflex save, or +2 to hit on your next ranged attack
When the Training Bonus is expended, the +1 Natural Combat Bonus is as well.
A player engaging in Training Montage may not retrain abilities during this time. It is assumed the character is engaging in a regimen of combat training and physical fitness and rest.
I'm not saying the training montage doesn't have merit, but all I could think of when I read that was this You Need A Montage.
Edit: Shields Shall Be Splintered is a pretty common house rule and I use a variant of eye for an eye; they all have merit.
I use "Training Montage" for a homebrew RPG of mine where a character can gain proficiencies by hiring a trainer and learning how to use a weapon for a week or so.
So any shield can be sacrificed to negate a single attack, it doesn't matter if it's a basic slab of wood or a +5 Aegis of awesomeness or how much damage the attack would otherwise hit for?
No workarounds, Mr. Bond. This is about a cinematic sacrifice to save your skin from one critical hit.
Surely a +5 Aegis is worth your life...?
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No workarounds, Mr. Bond. This is about a cinematic sacrifice to save your skin from one critical hit.
Surely a +5 Aegis is worth your life...?
+5 Shield: 25k
Raise Dead +2 Restorations: 7k
Raise Dead + Greater Restoration: 10k
Reincarnate +2 Restorations: 3k
Reincarnate + Greater Restoration: 7k
Resurrection + Restoration: 11k
Seems like most any way you slice it (barring True Resurrection...kinda a gyp in most cases) the shield is worth a lot more than your life...
=)
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Hehe.
One can easily take advantage of the shield rule. As written, I would totally have a shield warrior charge into a horde of dangerous enemies and do this:
-Gets hit almost to death, chooses to break the shield instead
-Pulls out spare shield as a free action via quick draw
-Another lethal hit breaks this new shield, I then pull out another, ect ect
You could carry a ton of shields on you and as long as you've got the quick draw feat you're invincible. Would be an awesome Captain America type of dude.
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One can easily take advantage of the shield rule. As written, I would totally have a shield warrior charge into a horde of dangerous enemies and do this:
-Gets hit almost to death, chooses to break the shield instead
-Pulls out spare shield as a free action via quick draw
-Another lethal hit breaks this new shield, I then pull out another, ect ectYou could carry a ton of shields on you and as long as you've got the quick draw feat you're invincible. Would be an awesome Captain America type of dude.
How does one carry more than say two or three shields?
One strapped to your arm? Okay.
One strapped to your other arm? Alright.
One strapped to your back? Little bit silly, but okay.
One strapped to your front? NOPE.
Improved Familiar (Imp) + Bag of Holding (full of shields). The imp hides from sight, retrieves a shield, and hands it to his boss whenever needed?
While this looks good on paper, in practice not so much. As a few have pointed it, it's full of exploits. I suppose you can just say that a player can't do this or do that, but that just shows that it's not a good feat.
And yeah, that +5 shield is worth more than your life. Ever seen a someone play a character who had obviously less character wealth than the other people in the group due to stuff like this? I'm sure there are people who just think of it as character growth or a challenge, but for most people it just plain sucks. Not to mention the whole resurrection cost thing that Rynjin pointed out.
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And yeah, that +5 shield is worth more than your life. Ever seen a someone play a character who had obviously less character wealth than the other people in the group due to stuff like this?
Magical WBL fairies drop the 25K gp on your head immediately, though.
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Possibly doing more damage than the attack you avoided by sacrificing the shield.
Agreed Valfen. I use a variant of the rule, but only in duel scenarios, ie with the Northmen of my setting, for example (3 shields, one breaks they pause to grab the second, etc.)
Makes for good tension building. Granted, for these combats, I also remove plot armor (hit points) and use a wound system - very lethal and very quick. No one is stuck sitting around at the table bored while a long duel is carried out.
Thanks for the link, Valfen.
One of the rules in my game is "The gods hate cheese." meaning if you had an imp supplying you with shields from a bag of holding while you cheesed out some weird defense scene by exploiting the "Shields Shall Be Splintered" houserule, you would get away with it ONCE and then never again.
Also, I don't believe a bag of holding can hold a shield. Try putting a trashcan lid in a potato sack. The bag of holding is extradimensional inside, but I don't see any indication that it opens to admit anything of any size. It's not a cartoon bag.
(It might as well be a cartoon bag.)
*shrugs* People keep saying this more or less but I will agree:
This scales very very poorly. At low levels, all you will have is a wooden shield so it is a really powerful ability because you can replace wooden shields easily. And that is good news! A new reason to actually use a shield! The shield is a generally underpowered option that requires a lot of feats to be combat viable compared to holding a weapon in two hands or dual wielding.
At high levels though, it gets weaker and weaker, though, because you either keep getting cheap shields (and thus never enchant up the shield properly, denying the main benefit of a shield late game) or you never use the ability, because resurrecting your dumb ass is way cheaper than replacing you god-shield.
Solution: an enchanted shield is knocked lose from your arm instead, flying 1d6 5-foot increments in a random direction.
I don't think the "quick shield imp" problem is really a problem. A man can only carry so many shields and imps can be killed. At higher levels, the disarmed shield will result in a lower AC in rounds thereafter anyways (since extra shields will likely be of a much lower enchantment level) so things will still come at a cost.
This could actually work out pretty well if you just made the automatic condition broken (as Valfen already alluded to), and the shield is destroyed only if the total damage of the attack would be enough to actually destroy the shield (or if you try this trick with a shield that's already broken). Then you'd need to allow mundane guys with Craft (armorsmith) to repair broken magic shields.
You'd be sacrificing a bunch of your AC to negate that hit, but given some down time, you could repair it. This also prevents the need for a "1/day" mechanic. Granted, the imp and a bag of holding full of shields thing might still work, but not if you said "no" to that up front and made up a halfway reasonable reason why not.
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Why is it so bad that this option doesn't scale? What's so bad about abandoning a free option at some point? You've already gotten other things by then.
See, it doesn't scale because there's no where higher for it to go. It's not an option that should ever be abandoned.
It blocks the damage of any one attack no matter what. 5 damage or 500, it doesn't matter, your basic 3 gold light wooden shield can absorb it all.
Carry around a 3 gold light wooden shield, negate the first attack against you, then switch to a two handed grip on your weapon and keep going. After the battle you grab another shield out of your bag of holding.
Even wizards should be toting around a cheap shield in case they get caught by an ambush or lose initiative.
It's a tactic that starts out great and stays great, it's only a lesser option if you have someone who actually wants to carry around a cool magic shield rather than viewing them as cheap, disposable damage soak items that won't survive the first round of combat.
It would sit a lot better with me if there was some limit to the amount of damage a shield could absorb, based on its AC bonus or HP/Hardness.
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Comparable pre-existing feat:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/fortified-armor-training-combat
Fortified Armor Training (Combat)
You have learned to let your armor bear the brunt of the worst attacks.
Prerequisite: Proficient with armor or shield.
Benefit: If an opponent scores a critical hit against you, you can turn the critical hit into a normal hit. If you do, either your armor or your shield gains the broken condition (your choice).
Thats too complex i think. A better idea might be to tie it in with the hero point system. Spend a hero point, prevent an attack, shield gets Broken unless 1. Weapon was for sameize or smaller and 2. Shield had larger enhancement bonus. So a human with magic shield vs orc with mundane weapon, shield holds. If the orc has a magic weapon or if it was an ogre shield gets broken.
Why is it so bad that this option doesn't scale? What's so bad about abandoning a free option at some point? You've already gotten other things by then.
If you don't want shield builds to be better then don't make them a trap by making them good early on.
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Why is it so bad that this option doesn't scale? What's so bad about abandoning a free option at some point? You've already gotten other things by then.If you don't want shield builds to be better then don't make them a trap by making them good early on.
By level 6 you can start playing around with advanced shield slamming. It's okay to have evolving tactics.
By level 6 you can start playing around with advanced shield slamming. It's okay to have evolving tactics.Why is it so bad that this option doesn't scale? What's so bad about abandoning a free option at some point? You've already gotten other things by then.If you don't want shield builds to be better then don't make them a trap by making them good early on.
But it is not okay for shields to remain a good choice without two weapon fighting?
How is it a trap option even then? Shields are not bad. In fact, shields are _REALLY GOOD_ as is. They are great for TWF'ers, they are great for spellcasters, they are great for characters who just want a little extra defense and who's not very strength focused (paladins, rangers etc). What isn't good, is making a completely melee focused character wearing a shield but refusing to train with utilizing it as a weapon.
Much like a fighter that focuses completely on daggers but refuses to throw them will be weak. Shields being usable as weapon is a major part of what makes them good. Both in game and in real life.
Daggers are still one of the absolute best simple weapons and on par with most martial weapons, and shields are still an incredibly good choice for many, many characters.
Also, it's not like it isn't useful at higher levels. Because, you know, Make Whole is a thing. Your +2 Shield will be fine after a 10-minute rest with a single spell from a 6th level caster.
I don't think the goal of the house rule is to make shields notably better in the long run but rather to provide the odd cinematic scene.
And, to Rynjin's Math, I bring Make Whole cast by a 15th level caster:
10*2*15=300 gp. Restores 15d6 of hit points to the object.
Heck, getting it on a _scroll_ is cheaper than even the cheapest raising the dead options.
Well, it's going to take more than one tidbit like this to do that, if you're unsatisfied by the current paradigm.
I agree. However, I still would prefer that the situation be improved here when it can be.
@Ilja
Why do I need to be dexterous to be good at fighting with a shield? Why can't I just be strong or tough? Or even use my strength of arm to make up for my lack of speed by using a shield? (you know: like shields actually work and why they are good)
And, to Rynjin's Math, I bring Make Whole cast by a 15th level caster:
10*2*15=300 gp. Restores 15d6 of hit points to the object.Heck, getting it on a scroll is cheaper than even the cheapest raising the dead options.
My assumption was that since he said "no workarounds" and such, the shield was broken irreparably.
There's "destroyed" and there's DESTROYED.
Like, Make Whole won't repair a Destroyed artifact. The way you were talking made me assume something similar to "your shield is splintered into a gajillion pieces, ain't no fixin' that s+!+".
@Ilja
Why do I need to be dexterous to be good at fighting with a shield? Why can't I just be strong or tough? Or even use my strength of arm to make up for my lack of speed by using a shield? (you know: like shields actually work and why they are good)
Uhm... You don't? Just take six levels of ranger. Or buy a belt/ioun stone/whatever. You only need the first TWF to get Shield Master, so only 15 dex, which is like... Not at all high for a melee person in pathfinder. If you're high level enough that this isn't a useful thing to do, you're high level enough to afford a +2 to your dex to qualify for it.
Now, if your argument is that shields need to be boosted for those that are 1. clumsy and 2. lack special training and 3. refuse to put any effort into getting good with them and 4. want to deal massive damage then I just have to disagree.
Not that they're useless anyway, far from.
You can very easily build a character that is completely viable using shields. You don't even need to optimize much. You can do it from any full-BAB class and be effective (at least as effective as that class will ever be, hint hint fighter).
If you are really determined to not take any of the options that make them good for you (decent dex, or ranger, or magic gear) then that's your problem, honestly, not a game design one.
There's "destroyed" and there's DESTROYED.
Like, Make Whole won't repair a Destroyed artifact. The way you were talking made me assume something similar to "your shield is splintered into a gajillion pieces, ain't no fixin' that s&&@".
Actually I realized I'm wrong. You cannot use Make Whole to repair a +5 shield. I am sorry about that. You cannot use Make Whole on a shield with an enhancement bonus above +3, which costs 360 gp.
I misremembered Make Whole and thought it fixed items if CL>=ICL, but it's 2*CL>=ICL to fix it.
Yar. Level 30 caster wut wut. I forgot that it was 2*CL as well, so no worries. I was trying to think of why my first instinct was "That's impossibru".
I like the 2nd option a lot and am actually going to suggest it to my GM now. A legitimate way to physically disable characters!
What happens with half-orcs, though, since they can enter a rage when taken to 0 HP?
Da'ath : The wound idea for duels is a very interesting one ! Is it the second part of the Vitality/Wounds system, the Injury one, or something custom you made ?
At the moment, it's a version of the Vitality/Wounds, which I'm unhappy with.
I'm experimenting with something else that uses a Damage Threshold (10 + Con modifier + class Fort bonus) and each time normal damage exceededs it, you take (critical multiplier) wounds. Total wounds are around 6-7 (still fiddling with it). Shields can absorb a number of wounds = to shield bonus (a version of the shields shall be splintered). Toughness feat adds +3 wounds, etc.
Edit: Frankly, I have a more than a few Divas in my group and other duel rules still take way too long. I've found more lethal rules discourage showboat dueling; interesting, people who normally don't duel have been stepping up to duel based on RP. It's win-win in my book.
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I don't really like rules for Wounds and such, because it tends to lead into the "Spiral of Death" syndrome...you get hit once, you can less effectively fight, meaning you'll get hit more, suck worse at fighting, etc.
It makes many battles almost a foregone conclusion. He who strikes first wins. Which might be realistic in a certain way, but certainly isn't fun.
I don't really like rules for Wounds and such, because it tends to lead into the "Spiral of Death" syndrome...you get hit once, you can less effectively fight, meaning you'll get hit more, suck worse at fighting, etc.
It makes many battles almost a foregone conclusion. He who strikes first wins. Which might be realistic in a certain way, but certainly isn't fun.
I agree. Perhaps I should use another term to avoid confusion. In the system I'm experimenting with, think of wounds as just hit points - but much less than the norm (and this mechanic only applies specifically to duels). I don't associate any penalties with the level of wounds, etc or use a DS Mechanic.
In essence, I'm taking the Hit Points & Damage down to a much smaller numerical value.
@Ilja
Why do I need to be dexterous to be good at fighting with a shield? Why can't I just be strong or tough? Or even use my strength of arm to make up for my lack of speed by using a shield? (you know: like shields actually work and why they are good)Uhm... You don't? Just take six levels of ranger. Or buy a belt/ioun stone/whatever. You only need the first TWF to get Shield Master, so only 15 dex, which is like... Not at all high for a melee person in pathfinder. If you're high level enough that this isn't a useful thing to do, you're high level enough to afford a +2 to your dex to qualify for it.
Now, if your argument is that shields need to be boosted for those that are 1. clumsy and 2. lack special training and 3. refuse to put any effort into getting good with them and 4. want to deal massive damage then I just have to disagree.
Not that they're useless anyway, far from.
You can very easily build a character that is completely viable using shields. You don't even need to optimize much. You can do it from any full-BAB class and be effective (at least as effective as that class will ever be, hint hint fighter).
If you are really determined to not take any of the options that make them good for you (decent dex, or ranger, or magic gear) then that's your problem, honestly, not a game design one.
Uhm... You don't? Just take six levels of ranger. Or buy a belt/ioun stone/whatever. You only need the first TWF to get Shield Master, so only 15 dex, which is like... Not at all high for a melee person in pathfinder. If you're high level enough that this isn't a useful thing to do, you're high level enough to afford a +2 to your dex to qualify for it.
Uhm... You don't? Just take six levels of ranger.
only 15 dex only 15 dex ONLY 15 dex
Bad arguments, Ilja. Bad bad arguments.
I don't really like rules for Wounds and such, because it tends to lead into the "Spiral of Death" syndrome...you get hit once, you can less effectively fight, meaning you'll get hit more, suck worse at fighting, etc.
It makes many battles almost a foregone conclusion. He who strikes first wins. Which might be realistic in a certain way, but certainly isn't fun.
I use them, and there's an element of that, but there are ways to mitigate the problems and make it work, too.
1. Make sure the penalties aren't overwhelming. Tacking on the "fatigued" condition for bloodied guys gets their attention, but doesn't invalidate their efforts.
2. Make sure the penalties apply equally. I changed "fatigued" to be a penalty to all stats, so the wizard is at -1 to his save DCs, and the gorgon is at -1 to the DC of its breath weapon, and so on. If only the martial guys suffer from wounds, then the end result is that it's stupid to ever fight, which makes us sad in a fighty game like D&D.
3. Make sure the heroes can be heroes. I added an Endurance skill that lets you temporarily ignore wound penalties. Fighters, rangers, and barbarians get free ranks; most monsters don't have the skill points to max it out -- intentionally, because their HD and Con scores scale faster than the PCs' do.
Uhm... You don't? Just take six levels of ranger. Or buy a belt/ioun stone/whatever. You only need the first TWF to get Shield Master, so only 15 dex, which is like... Not at all high for a melee person in pathfinder. If you're high level enough that this isn't a useful thing to do, you're high level enough to afford a +2 to your dex to qualify for it.Uhm... You don't? Just take six levels of ranger.only 15 dex only 15 dex ONLY 15 dexBad arguments, Ilja. Bad bad arguments.
No, not bad arguments. What you're aiming to do is like wanting to play a wizard focused on Enchantment spells, but refusing to take a decent intelligence, refusing to take Spell Focus, refusing to take Persistant Spell and Spell Penetration, and refusing to even buy a simple headband.
This ability starts losing potency once +4 shields are in the picture and a relevant option. That's around level 8, a bit before Shield Master comes into play.
If you're at that point, buying a simple +2 dex item is dirt cheap. Heck, even the ioun stone costs half of what the +4 shield costs, and gives better bonuses!
So instead of having a +4 shield and a +2 strength belt (20k) you can have a +3 shield, a +2 str/dex belt (19k) and will end up with the same AC, +1 reflex and +1 initiative. Or, if you aim to have a +4 strength belt, your options are +4 str belt and +4 shield (32k) or +4 str belt, +3 shield and ioun stone +2 dex (33k) for the same bonuses.
This all of course assumes custom items aren't allowed at all, not even the "add ability to a similar item".
And if you can't afford a 13 dex and aim to be heavily invested in melee, you're a cleric or paladin and really don't need the buff.
And note that getting the items at level 8 means you can take TWF at level 9 and Shield Master at level 11, which is the earliest for any non-ranger.
Not that I get why you're against taking a bunch of levels in ranger if you're intent on being a melee character. Ranger has many different flavors and is easy to incorporate in most martial builds, especially since urban ranger. A fighter 5/ranger 6 will almost always be stronger without losing notable flavor features than a fighter 11. Unless your goal is actively to play a stupid, clumsy character. Which is fine, but just don't expect to be as efficient.
I don't really like rules for Wounds and such, because it tends to lead into the "Spiral of Death" syndrome...you get hit once, you can less effectively fight, meaning you'll get hit more, suck worse at fighting, etc.
It makes many battles almost a foregone conclusion. He who strikes first wins. Which might be realistic in a certain way, but certainly isn't fun.
agreed. This system lead to a lot of bad times in combat heavy white wolf games.
Uhm... You don't? Just take six levels of ranger. Or buy a belt/ioun stone/whatever. You only need the first TWF to get Shield Master, so only 15 dex, which is like... Not at all high for a melee person in pathfinder. If you're high level enough that this isn't a useful thing to do, you're high level enough to afford a +2 to your dex to qualify for it.Uhm... You don't? Just take six levels of ranger.only 15 dex only 15 dex ONLY 15 dexBad arguments, Ilja. Bad bad arguments.No, not bad arguments. What you're aiming to do is like wanting to play a wizard focused on Enchantment spells, but refusing to take a decent intelligence, refusing to take Spell Focus, refusing to take Persistant Spell and Spell Penetration, and refusing to even buy a simple headband.
This ability starts losing potency once +4 shields are in the picture and a relevant option. That's around level 8, a bit before Shield Master comes into play.
If you're at that point, buying a simple +2 dex item is dirt cheap. Heck, even the ioun stone costs half of what the +4 shield costs, and gives better bonuses!
So instead of having a +4 shield and a +2 strength belt (20k) you can have a +3 shield, a +2 str/dex belt (19k) and will end up with the same AC, +1 reflex and +1 initiative. Or, if you aim to have a +4 strength belt, your options are +4 str belt and +4 shield (32k) or +4 str belt, +3 shield and ioun stone +2 dex (33k) for the same bonuses.
This all of course assumes custom items aren't allowed at all, not even the "add ability to a similar item".
And if you can't afford a 13 dex and aim to be heavily invested in melee, you're a cleric or paladin and really don't need the buff.
And note that getting the items at level 8 means you can take TWF at level 9 and Shield Master at level 11, which is the earliest for any non-ranger.
Not that I get why you're against taking a bunch of levels in ranger if...
I keep forgetting how much you hate fighters.
I keep forgetting how much you hate fighters.
I don't hate fighters. I think they're lacking, especially at higher levels, but in no way do I hate them. I've actually defended the class as having very useful and relevant abilities, last time here and here.
But usually you're building towards a concept, and I don't see how you couldn't make any martial concept of "high strength but clumsy shield user" and make it a fighter 5/ranger 6. The only thing they don't get that even adds to thematics is armor training 2 for full speed in heavy armor, but at 11th level it's about time to get a mithral armor if you want heavy armor.
I mean, Excaliburproxy is dead set on making a low-dex martial character that uses shields as one of the main features of their combat style and that doesn't have any good way to add to damage like smite evil or challenge or similar. And ze wants to keep a high level of efficiency - not only being viable, because that's very possible regardless, but ze wants to keep up with more optimal concepts. That is a very very specific concepts, and if you also want to add "single classed fighter" then well, I think you have yourself to blame (general you).
It's kind of like wanting to make a melee sorcerer, but refusing to take high strength, refusing to take a bloodline that adds natural weapons, and refusing to dip into paladin or similar class. And then complaining that melee casters need to be buffed and are underwhelming because that very very specific build with lots of arbitrary restrictions is weak.
Shield of veneers. With 3, 5, or 7 layers, it will absorb an otherwise fatal attack, losing one layer. It can be repaired only by spending a mundane shield of at least equal size, and a make whole spell.
As for the 15 dex, there are topics about giving stat boost by levels and ditching stat boost items, freeing up your headband slot for more useful items.