Tweaking Pathfinder Beginners Box to add some 4e style rules

[Adam Page]

Let me begin this post by saying that the Pathfinder Beginner’s box is probably the best starter set for an rpg ever produced. It strips away all the complex rules from Pathfinder, leaving a wonderful streamlined system that’s fun, fast and simple. It packs the box full of stuff, and then gives you even more online.

Whatever you think of my comments later, please remember, I think the PFBB is an amazing product!

I feel I should introduce myself, since I don't think i've posted at the Paizo forums before. I'm a 32 year old UK gamer, partially sighted, who started with Basic D&D in the late 80's and have played a lot of systems since. I run an annual event here in the UK, the UK D&D Tweetups, where we support D&D by getting some of the best DM's and players together for a day of gaming, and recently ran out 5th major event which involved a lot of 13th Age.
I was heavily into 4e, I love its innovative changes to D&D, it's big darn heroes style of play, and ease of DM'ing. Through the Tweetups, I have been involved in the playtesting of D&D Next for over 2 years now, and recently reviewed 13th Age following my third game of it.
I'm fairly edition neautral, I LOVE GAMING, but whenever I stray to other systems, I always come back to some version of D&D.

In terms of my exposure to Pathfinder... I'm afraid to say its not been positive. I find the games massive vocal fanbase is often aggressive against non players and even amongst its own ranks, and I unfortunately was exposed to several such fans via my FLGS who gave the game such a bad image it would be enough to put me off.
That is, if it wasn't for the quality of product Paizo puts out. They churn out lots of incredibly illustrated and detailed source books. Their iconic characters are cool, their goblins are cool, they have an organised play system, minis, card games, even audio dramas. Put simply, Paizo is a power house.

I pick up pathfinder stuff now and again because of the detail they contain, but I don’t play it, I find the rules, with cmb’s and cmd’s and bab’s and a thousand other acronyms a barrier against entry. And despite all their books being detailed and illustrated, their layout sucks for a partially sighted person like me.

So, when a couple of years ago they put out the beginners set, saying it was pathfinder with the complex rules removed, I jumped at it, got the pdfs and played it. It was ok, but at the time, I was still heavily into 4e. Time has passed and with a work colleague wanting to game, and the tweetup due, I decided to pick the beginners set up in physical form. This is where this product excels, it is a sturdy box, absolutely jam packed, and it has a totally different layout to the core pathfinder books, a layout that for my broken eyes is excellent. It’s world’s apart from the 4e starter sets, and is supported, not only by paizo, but the fans, with people using the ogl nature to make beginners box set versions of all the Pathfinder classes. Given you can get this box for £19 and it has 5 levels of play and so much support, it’s almost a crime to pay so little for it.

I've played the intro adventure again now several times, to remind myself of the Pathfinder rules, for my family, and for my work colleagues family, and every time, the game has gone smoothly and has been really fun to play.

However...

Pathfinder doesn't feel modern. It's now what? 6 years old? with no major changes to the rules, and they themselves are built on stuff thats nearly 15 years old. It’s missing so many little things that other modern rules systems like 4e, Next and 13th Age have, such as in combat healing, extra actions, simple movement, class balance... none of this is essential, it just feels a bit incomplete to me. While the box sets rules are perfect for someone trying to learn pathfinder or rpg's in general, to someone like me, with 20+ years of experience in its rivals, I can see areas which make me pull my hair out and go “why, oh why, that’s so early 2000's”.

In particular...
Healing
Single action per round
Spell choice
Two weapon fighting
Movement
Critical hits
Dying
Fighters
Rogues
12+ stats
Cantrips

So not too much then!

These are how I cam considering tweaking the Pathfinder Beginners Box rules to give it aspects of other modern systems and to make the game work for my style of play:

12+ Stats Bonuses
Let’s start with the 12+ stat bonus. This is often used for granting an additional use of a class feature per day or an extra skill. I actually really like this, it simplifies the extra benefits so much, and I can see how in multiclassing it can help restrict people from gaining too much power/help people gain more power.

All I’m considering here is to up this benefit from a 12+ to a 13+, which brings it more in line with feat prerequisites and will help with some of the stuff I’m going to suggest later...

Movement
The beginners box set still uses the Pathfinder idea of counting diagonals, so the first counts as 5' of movement, the second as 10', the third as 5' and so on. Yawn, old fashioned, and boo, too much hassle. Let’s just simply take the 4e approach of diagonals are 5' of movement.

Critical Hits
I suggested this on facebook to my friends and got an screenful of ‘it’s overpowered’, ironically from people who AFAIK aren’t pathfinder players and are generally the same people who tell me that 13th Age isn’t D&D. The ones who did however support this idea where the regular pathfinder players.

So what did I suggest? Simple, get rid of confirming critical hits, so a 20 is always a critical hit doing double or triple damage. And I would do this as a literal double like 13th age, i.e. two times the damage die roll plus mod, rather than rolling two damage dice.

It does bring up an issue in that some weapons score criticals on 18 or 19 as well, but I’m actually ok with how deadly this makes the game. It makes weapon choice important, and speeds up play, while adding an element of risk.

Healing
The term healing covers a multitude of issues, and some of these might address themselves at higher levels but at level 1, Pathfinder characters are fragile.

In the beginners box, beyond sleeping it off, the cleric using spells/channels to heal you, and potions, there is no inbuilt way to keep yourself alive. And this is to me where pathfinder shows its age. Next, 4e, 13th Age etc all have rests and self healing. I don’t want to break pathfinder totally, so here are my minor suggestions…

Rests; short, extended and long.
A short rest is a 5 minute breather at the end of combat, you calm your heart rate, bind up wounds, readjust armour, loosen tired muscles. In that 5 minutes, you regain 1 hp, and you don’t break a time sensitive quest.

It’s not much, but remember hp don’t just represent cuts and bruises, they represent exhaustion, being winded, headaches etc. Think of it like carrying a heavy bag of shopping home from the shops, you stop for a minute to change hands, and wiggle your fingers to regain sensation in them, that’s that 1 hp...

An extended rest is what it sounds like, a longer rest, proper binding of wounds, bashing armour back into shape, sharpening swords, praying etc. It requires the characters to hole up somewhere safe for an hour, but let’s them regain 1 + CONS mod hp (minimum of 1). Again, it’s not much, but at level one the 2 or 3 hp regain is easily a quarter of a characters hp, and it puts pressure on time sensitive quests, without breaking them.

Finally, you have long rests, which are several hours long, and in a dungeon require a safe place and a watch. The way I would do this is to differentiate in dungeon resting and at home/tavern resting. In a dungeon, a long rest should let you regain up to half of your maximum hp (and to break tradition, we’ll round that up like Next does), while in a tavern a long rest regains all hp. That way there’s a reason to travel back to their home base.

In Combat Healing; 4e had second wind, 13th Age has rally, Next has [REDACTED]. ;)

Second Wind was a bold move, healing that didn’t need a cleric, in combat, at the expense of an attack, which in the combat focused 4e was a big deal. And dwarves got it as a minor action, and with the right magic items, it could even be a free action.

I like the idea, but I don’t want it to be the be all and end all of healing and make the cleric defunct. So let’s say... all characters have one Recovery Surge action per day. It’s a standard action, and heals 1 + CONS mod hp (minimum of 1) i.e. It’s like taking an extended rest in combat.

But let’s revisit that 12+ change. Since Next was revealed, I always try and get a constitution score of 12, because the extra 1 hp can make a real difference. The pregens the beginners box set comes with have a similar idea, with all of them having at least a 12 cons score. I don’t want too many recovery surges, hence suggesting that it is now a 13+ change.

So let’s say, if a character has a constitution of 13+ they gain an extra Recovery Surge per day. So two 2 to 3 hp heals in a day, not going to break it too much.

Hit Dice: I don’t actually think the beginners box ever calls them hit dice, but we all know that what they are. Each class gains say 1d6 hp per level when they level up. I’ve hated rolling for hp ever since Basic D&D and was pleased when 4e did away with it and Next brought it back with a suggested amount. It’s a very minor change, but let’s copy Next. So the Wizard gains 1d6 (or 4) + CONS mod hp when they level up.

Bloodied: it’s a really simple thing, but I liked that in 4e there was a name for when you were wounded below half your maximum hp. I’m going to re-add it, with no immediate mechanical benefit, but simply because I like putting red elastic bands round minis!

Dying: I know I kept it separate in the original list but truthfully it belongs as part of healing. To be honest, I’ve yet to find a system that does dying well. I think what I’d like to see here is a mix of Pathfinder’s increasing difficulty as you bleed out, and Nexts critical success/fail and massive damage, something along these lines:

At 0 hp, you are disabled. You can still take actions, but at the end of a round in which you take n action, you drop to -1 hp
At -1 hp you are down and dying, and can no longer take actions. Each round you lose 1 hp and must make. DC10 + negative hp amount (so -2 hp is dc12) Fortitude save.
If you fail 3 times you are dead dead. If you reach a negative hit point total equal to your cons score, you are dead dead.
If you succeed 3 times you are stabilised. You are unconscious but at 0 hp.
A roll of 1 counts as 2 failures, a roll if 20 is instant 3 successes.
Magical healing stabilises you instantly and heals you from 0hp.
If you exceed a negative hit point total equal to your cons score in a single hit, you are dead dead.

Single Action Per Round
The section title is misleading, because you get a standard action to attack/cast, a move, a swift (in which you can move if you didn’t move) and free actions. But thanks to the games simplicity, it’s very easy to ignore these action choices, especially when you compare it to 4e, where everybody agonised for hours over every action in a round to make sure they maximised their potential.

I actually quite like the choice per round pathfinder gives, but what I feel is missing is that extra push; you hit someone hard and want to follow it up with what you hope is a killing blow. In other words, I want 4e’s action points.

Except I don’t, because to speed up 4e combat I gave everyone an action point per encounter. What I’m suggesting is that everyone gets a new, once per day Action Surge action, which let’s them take an additional standard action that round. And then as per the other features, if your constitution is 13+ plus, you get an extra action surge per day.

Fighters
I always think that fighters should be the best at fighting. They should be proficient with everything, have the most hp, be capable of fighting multiple foes with ease, and capable of delivering devastating blows to deadly beasts.

Pathfinder, with the options in the box actually ticks most of these issues straight away, but... it has some flaws... the wizard can fling his staff with about as much accuracy and damage, the cleric gets funky weapons, and the fighter suffers so much penalty for medium/heavy armour that it ends up being as lightly armoured as a thief.

I therefore propose:

1) Move the fighters armour/movement bonus in medium armour from level 3 to level 1, and instead make that level 3 bonus a heavy armour one.

2) Give the fighter a new ability, a once per day Heavy Strike free action, that deals +1d6 damage on an attack. And then in keeping with other features, if their strength is 13+ they get an extra Heavy Strike per day. It’s not making them uber damage dealers that rogues are, but gives them an option to really hurt something and end combat quickly.

3) To improve its ability to deal with multiple foes, I’d like to suggest that the fighter does not grant enemies a flanking bonus until it’s Bloodied. It gives you a reason to target the fighter and then surround him!

Rogues
Why is it, in every rpg, rogues have a bit if an identity crisis. They are the uber damage dealers, the skill monkeys, the trapfinders... If it wasn’t for an NDA, I could regal you with tales about the number of different rogues I tested in D&D Next, trying to find one with a niche of its own.

My major issue is that a rogue should be sneaky, but to gain the benefit of sneak attack, basically has to flank it’s target.

There is a nice simple tweak. If the rogue is hidden and attacks (melee or ranged), then it can deal sneak attack damage, and if the rogue makes a ranged attack against an enemy flanked by his allies, it can deal sneak attack damage.

Spell Choice
My god, they really did cut down the amount of spells for the beginners bix. Luckily, it’s not too difficult to add more, and using the template for the extra PFBB classes that you can find online, I added some more iconic level one spells that I felt were missing.

Cantrips deserve a mention here. 4e and PFBB took a similar route, you get a very simple list and you get them all. And then 4e essentials came along and made people choose cantrips and added more cantrips to the mix. I like this idea myself, so I’ve added some missing cantrips and now, if you get the cantrips feature, you get to choose 4 out of the available ones.

Feats
I was actually surprised at how many they did include, but there’s some, especially with regards two-weapon fighting that are missing. Again, I’ve added these in.

Two-weapon fighting
Ug, another thing common to rpgs that none of them seem to agree on. In 4e it was a feat that gave +1 damage, and some classes could make a second attack, 13th Age has a funky “it makes no difference unless you roll a 2" rule. In pathfinder proper, it’s a full action, i.e. a standard and move to make two attacks, and you don’t deal your full strength modifier bonus on the second attack.

I actually quite like this, you give up maneuverability to deal more damage, but your less accurate and less powerful. Let’s keep it and add in the feats, with one tiny exception, absolutely no strength mod bonus damage on the second attack without another feat.

[Touc]

I borrowed a version of 4E's "ritual" for raising the dead to give lower-level characters a shot at coming back (500gp per hit die if you can find a cleric capable of casting Raise Dead and 8 hours).

Beyond that, if I mix and match too much, I may forget my own system! But so long as you give your players a "cheat sheet" for creating characters with house rules, you'll generally be fine. Just be careful adding too much; much of the appeal of the BB is that it strips away a ton of rules.

[EdOWar]

I've considered implementing a few of these suggestions myself, in particular getting rid of confirming critical hits (actually, I'm surprised Paizo didn't do this for the BB to begin with) and using 5' for all diagonal moves. I'd also like to add 4E's square-shaped AoE's...less realistic perhaps, but then it is a game, not a real-life simulator.

[MurphysParadox]

I'm not sure, from the post, if you are making comments against full Pathfinder or just against Pathfinder Beginner's Box. Since you're comparing it to 4E and Next, I'll assume you mean full Pathfinder (since otherwise it isn't exactly a fair comparison).

I'm generally against changes that give the players more expendables to track. When we played 4E, my group would sit on dailies and action surges and potions and magic items and so many other things. Heck, even encounter level powers were unused because of a fear of needing it more later than they do now.

Now, Pathfinder has optional rules for things like Hero Points, which have a lot of uses and are gained at GM's discretion. See Hero Points for details, but one option is to gain an extra standard action, another is to turn a death into not a death. This would address your points on Dying and Actions Per Round.

I would also move away from having so many feats. If anything, I'm considering house ruling a reduction in feats that are always taken; for example, Weapon Focus for melee characters. Why would a melee character ever not want this? I'll be putting into place a system where, if you miss a target number by 1 then you can give a short description on how it was a 'near miss that actually hit'. For example, "As my fingers release the arrow, a fleck of dust flies into my eye and causes me to flinch. However, my arrow still flies true and strikes, albeit in a different position than desired)." I stole this idea from another poster and I like it.

Critical hits are... complex. Auto-confirmation is fine for early play, but it would absolutely ruin things for the high-crit builds. Once you get down to a 16+ (or better) crit range, you basically need the confirmation roll. Now, I'd consider it alright if the original weapon crit range was auto (19+ or 20 depending on weapon) but any improved steps still required confirmation (via keen or improved critical for example).

Everyone's idea of a fighter is not the same. They aren't, from the day they kill their first rat, armored hulks who are not bothered by wandering around encased in metal. Nor are they to score #1 on damage dealing. They provide a balance of offense and defense. They are the only class to natively ignore armor penalties is already notable; it doesn't have to all come at level 1 (if it did, imagine the dips that would happen). I also don't like heavy strike partly because dailies are bad, but also because it doesn't scale well, and it looks basically like smite evil or sneak attack but with less restrictions.

Rogues. Yes, there's a problem with rogues. I've never played one so I can't say how bad the problem is or provide ways to fix it, but I figure there must be something given the number of posts per week we get on the topic. Maybe you only get half sneak attack damage in cases where the target is distracted by others (flanked by teammates, for example, or if you ready an action for when they make an attack).

Healing. Second Wind was neat. The entire shift of healing to "make others use their surges" was horrible. The game would grind to a medically necessary overnight camping whenever the Avenger ran out of surges. The fighter would still have 15 and the Avenger would have 0 and thus entirely useless because there was simply no way to heal him.

As for resting, sure, you could do something kind of like that. However, it doesn't scale. CON modifiers rarely change (since most builds don't require that stat) while HP totals go up and up. So by the time the Barbarian has 127 hit points, a single 1 point back after a fight isn't... useful. Even 7 points back because he did pump his Con score isn't useful. With a level 10 wizard rocking 60 health, a single 2d6+14 hit will basically invalidate any form of resting. Sure, every little bit can help, but by this level you're party will have a few wands of CLW (averaging, hmm, 2.7 gold a hit point recovered, average, I think).

Full game has all kinds of spells and feats.

The game was a branch from D&D 3.5, as you probably know. And compared to that system, it is a vast improvement. Things like CMD/CMB greatly simplified the combat maneuvers system (no more contested rolls!) and are not complicated; no more so than Attack Bonus and AC.

D&D 4e was a step forward in a lot of ways, but it completely blew it in others. The action cards were neat early on; sure beat simply saying to attack. But they were also restrictive. A player couldn't make up a cool attack stunt involving rebounding off walls or dropping from on high because the cards very explicitly described the situation at hand. It also muddied the waters with 30 expansion books to the point where every level offered two dozen power choices but only one actually worked with your flavor of whatever class. And once you got into the teens, that game became impossible to manage as a DM; everyone had like 15 things they could do and you just had to trust that they could add a 1d4 to their save or give that guy a heal while also healing this person and providing that guy a new save.

Though I did like switching saves to a system like AC. That made things easier.

I've played a bit of Next and liked parts of it (Though this was... round 2 maybe?) I'm sure it'll have neat and innovative systems along side things that don't make sense. Like every table top RPG ever. Of course, I'm also afraid of Hasbro's desire to sell a thousand expansion books, but we'll see how it goes.

The best thing in all of this, though, is that you can sit down and house rule all kinds of neat things. As Touc says, as long as you have a cheat sheet and can ensure clean arbitration, it'll go smoothly. In fact, I'd encourage every GM to do it as necessary to increase fun and speed the game up.

[Adam Page]

Thanks for the comments guys.

The comment re: scaling hp from the rests is one i'd been wondering about myself. I'm only intending to use the Beginners set and thus go upto level 5, so i'm not sure the scaling is too much of an issue.

Would it be better as:
Short rest - CONS mod hp (minimum 1) regained
Extended Rest/Recovery Surge - 1 + Level + CONS mod hp regained (minimum 1)

Having looked through the fighter again, I agree re: the fighters armour bonus.

MurphysParadox: I'm not really trying to compare Pathfinder to any system, Pathfinder is great, and i'm not an edition warrior, I love D&D in all its forms. However, the layout and acronyms in the full core rules are difficult for me to parse thanks to my eyesight.
(this is what a page of the core rulebook looks like to me: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11072793/PFTextWithMyEyesight.jpg)

The beginners box on the other hand uses a really nice big font, colorful layout etc, which is a lot easier on my eyes. As such my ideas were based on tweaking the beginners box to a style of play i'm more used to and that I feel is a little more modern.

[Jeanmiwan]

Congratulations, Adam !
You just invented a brand-new way to play role-playing games.
You just have to find some name for your style.
I propose everyone here to call that "home rules" or "home ruling", as you wish.

Adam Page wrote:

I'm afraid to say its not been positive. I find the games massive vocal fanbase is often aggressive against non players and even amongst its own ranks, and I unfortunately was exposed to several such fans via my FLGS who gave the game such a bad image it would be enough to put me off.

It's about the same with every fanbase. It's a shame, but I guess it's human nature. I met the same problem with many rings (gaming rings, musical fans, more adult groups I shouldn't talk about... worst of all : many of these groups claim to be "open minded")

Adam Page wrote:

with cmb’s and cmd’s and bab’s and a thousand other acronyms a barrier against entry. And despite all their books being detailed and illustrated, their layout sucks for a partially sighted person like me.

I' believe it's made to shrink printed characters and by the way having lighter and cheaper books. I remember old AD&D having some HP, HD, THAC0, PP, OL, FT/RT, MS, HS, HN, CW, RL... I may miss some of them.

Adam Page wrote:

Pathfinder doesn't feel modern. It's now what? 6 years old? with no major changes to the rules, and they themselves are built on stuff thats nearly 15 years old.

That's what keep its fanbase : not having to buy the same core rulebooks again and again every two or three years like other products, even some that don't change that much from edition to edition (thinking about a "G", a "W" and a great number like 40.000 ?)

Adam Page wrote:

(...) I cam considering tweaking the Pathfinder Beginners Box rules to give it aspects of other modern systems and to make the game work for my style of play (...)

So you're using house rules and it's allright, you don't have to feel sorry for that. Many of us do that, too.

Adam Page wrote:

Movement

The beginners box set still uses the Pathfinder idea of counting diagonals, so the first counts as 5' of movement, the second as 10', the third as 5' and so on. Yawn, old fashioned, and boo, too much hassle. Let’s just simply take the 4e approach of diagonals are 5' of movement.

I do prefer using hexes rather than squares. It's so more realistic to me. Squares are used in Chess, I don't see anything modern in it.

Adam Page wrote:

Critical Hits

(...)get rid of confirming critical hits, so a 20 is always a critical hit doing double or triple damage. And I would do this as a literal double like 13th age, i.e. two times the damage die roll plus mod, rather than rolling two damage dice.

scimitar threat range : 18-20

keen scimitar threat range : 16-20
keen scimitar with improved critical feat threat range : 14-20
With your rule, every opponent with an AC of 14 or more gets a critical strike anytime it's hit.
The "confirmation roll" is made to avoid having all fighter in the world fighting with scimitars (or rapiers, same thing) : ùore damage than a greatsword (thanks to the critical's doubled STR mod) AND carrying a shield.
Moreover : since in most encounters, monsters are in greater number than PCs, no confirming roll makes the game far more dealy to PCs than to NPCs.

Adam Page wrote:

Healing

The term healing covers a multitude of issues, and some of these might address themselves at higher levels but at level 1, Pathfinder characters are fragile.

Especially if monsters don't need to confirm-roll a critical threat.

Adam Page wrote:

A short rest is a 5 minute breather at the end of combat, you calm your heart rate, bind up wounds, readjust armour, loosen tired muscles. In that 5 minutes, you regain 1 hp, and you don’t break a time sensitive quest.

When the average fighter (STR 16, longsword, power attack) inflicts 10 damage, I don't see the point of recovering 1 HP

Adam Page wrote:

An extended rest is what it sounds like, a longer rest, proper binding of wounds, bashing armour back into shape, sharpening swords, praying etc. It requires the characters to hole up somewhere safe for an hour, but let’s them regain 1 + CONS mod hp (minimum of 1).

Not sure, but that's what gives back a full day of resting, in the rules. Keep playing "Neverwinter Nights" and clicking "rest" after every fight. (I must admit I love this game, excepted for that rest button)

Why not giving a second hid die at first level, if durability is your concern ? Pathfinder beta version was suggesting this, if I remember well (a D6 more HP for every 1st level character, whatever their class)

Adam Page wrote:

Finally, you have long rests, which are several hours long, and in a dungeon require a safe place and a watch. The way I would do this is to differentiate in dungeon resting and at home/tavern resting. In a dungeon, a long rest should let you regain up to half of your maximum hp (and to break tradition, we’ll round that up like Next does), while in a tavern a long rest regains all hp. That way there’s a reason to travel back to their home base.

I remember having to think about an adventure strategically and fights tactically not to give up on too many hit points before facing the "boss" in the end of the adventure.

Giving back HP this easily will just make the player bashing their way straight ahead and change dungeon crawling from strategic planning to endless dice rolling.
You may play "Descent", it will save you plenty of time. (I like this game, but it's definitely no RPG at all, it's board game)

Adam Page wrote:

So let’s say... all characters have one Recovery Surge action per day. It’s a standard action, and heals 1 + CONS mod hp (minimum of 1) i.e. It’s like taking an extended rest in combat.

Elf : Hff... Hff... Hff... (breathing with difficulty in the middle of a fight in the end of the afternoon)

Human : I cover you ! take a breather while I occupy those damn Orcs !
Elf : Hff... Hff... can't... Hff... alread... Hff... took one... Hff... this mornin... Hff... just aft... Hff... breakfast... Hff... Hff...

Adam Page wrote:

So let’s say, if a character has a constitution of 13+ they gain an extra Recovery Surge per day. So two 2 to 3 hp heals in a day, not going to break it too much.

Dwarf : Hff... Hff... Hff... (breathing with difficulty in the middle of a fight in the end of the afternoon)

Human : I cover you ! take a breather while I occupy those damn Orcs !
Dwarf : Hff... Hff... can't... Hff... alread... Hff... took one... Hff... this mornin... Hff... just aft... Hff... breakfast... Hff... Hff...
Human : But you can take two a day !
Dwarf : Hff... Hff... took anoth... Hff... after lunch... Hff... Hff...

Adam Page wrote:

I’ve hated rolling for hp ever since Basic D&D (...). So the Wizard gains 1d6 (or 4) + CONS mod hp when they level up.

That's an idea I love ! (no kidding)

I'm used to give everyone (even monsters and NPC) a full HD+CON modifier at first level and then 1HP/level from 2nd level (I don't like how too many HP every creature has from the very firs AD&D)
That makes the fights deadly, not only for the PCs, it speeds up combat encounters and makes players more akin to diplomacy and negotiations.

Adam Page wrote:

everyone gets a new, once per day Action Surge action, which let’s them take an additional standard action that round. And then as per the other features, if your constitution is 13+ plus, you get an extra action surge per day.

Chatting after the fight, beginning of the evening.

Human : You did really well against that Ogre while I was disabled, but why didn't you finish it sooner, as he staggered under you critical strike ?
Dwarf : Yeah... but remember : I already caught my chance as we were training with each other, this morning...

Adam Page wrote:

Give the fighter a new ability, a once per day Heavy Strike free action, that deals +1d6 damage on an attack. And then in keeping with other features, if their strength is 13+ they get an extra Heavy Strike per day.

Dwarf : But you could hit it harder before getting disabled, that would make this fight easier for both of us.

Human : You know I already hit hard this Troll and this Gnoll before lunch. I won't do it again before tomorrow.

Adam Page wrote:

Rogues

Why is it, in every rpg, rogues have a bit if an identity crisis. They are the uber damage dealers, the skill monkeys, the trapfinders...

Fighter are more varied. There are swordmen, axemen, hammermen, spearmen, flailmen...

Wizards are more varied. There are spell user, charm users, magic users...
Clerics are more varied. There are good gods followers, neutral gods followers, evil gods followers, mysterious gods followers, fallen gods followers.
So you're right : rogues should be varied, too...
Er... never heard about ROLE playing ? never thought that two fighters could be different in other things than the weapon they wield in battle ? the wizards different in other things than their spellbooks ? the clerics different in other things than the gods they worship ? the rogues different in other things that their skill lists ?
Haven't you ever tried to play in character ? I started playing RPG in 1989 (later than you, if I understand well) and It happened to me some times. And it was really enjoyable.
I can tell you that among those numerous AD&D longsword-and shield-wielding, plate mail-wearing fighters in our adventuring parties, they were all different. Not by equipment or by ability scores (no skills and no feats, back then) but by the life their players put in them.

Adam Page wrote:

My major issue is that a rogue should be sneaky, but to gain the benefit of sneak attack, basically has to flank it’s target.

Or benefit from surprise, or strike an helpless/sleeping/paralyzed opponent (choose according to events), or feint to deprive the opponent from its DEX bonus... By thinking a little, I may give you other occurences.

Adam Page wrote:

There is a nice simple tweak. If the rogue is hidden and attacks (melee or ranged), then it can deal sneak attack damage, and if the rogue makes a ranged attack against an enemy flanked by his allies, it can deal sneak attack damage.

I may be wrong, but that's already like this.

Everytime the target is denied its DEX bonus and/or unaware of the sneak attack. Surprise (while hidden, for example) is part of it.

You might have noticed : I HATE things like "daily abilities".
IRL, I know how to mend a puncture, I can do it anytime and as often as I need, I'm not limited to one bike wheel per day.
I know it's all about "game balance" and I feel I have to stick to the rules because of that, but adding more and more things-you-can-do-only-once-a-day seems stupide to me.
Moreover since it adds to the record-keeping a player must do and breaks the flow of the game.
To my mind.

Anyway, take my answer easy.
There's only one good way to play a RPG : the one that fits YOU.
So if you enjoy playing with all those house rules you gave us here, go on ! it's all right !

[Woo Flaxman]

I'm with you here. I used to run 3rd Edition and Pathfinder Core and greatly prefer the Beginner's Box and have added more stuff as and when needed. I have ported over 4th Edition's skill set and per encounter/day idea. I also love 5th Edition's advantage/disadvantage die mechanic and use it for Combat Maneuvers (as does WHFRP 1st Ed!). Ed o'War has an excellent blog and his extra class conversions are worth a look. I use the extra core classes in my campaign. Below is a link:-

http://edowarsblog.wordpress.com/2012/05/24/another-pfbb-correction/

And to finish here's my house rules if you fancy a look.

http://www.4shared.com/office/9Ks2K49_ce/Solpertaine_v2.html