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Okay, here's my challenge to the Pathfinder community:
Using the least amount of new rules possible, what would you change about the existing classes to fix them? Keep in mind, "fixing" could mean nerfing, buffing, or altering a class's focus. Optimally, such modifications would be cut-and-paste features from other classes, if only to reduce the potential for strange interactions with other parts of the game. For example, here's my idea on how to fix rogues.
Ambush: For purposes of sneak attacks, the rogue's base attack bonus from rogue levels is equal to his rogue level. For all other purposes, such as qualifying for a feat or a prestige class, the rogue uses his normal base attack bonus.
Canny Defense: When wearing light or no armor and not using a shield, a rogue adds 1 point of Intelligence bonus (if any) per rogue class level as a dodge bonus to his Armor Class while wielding a melee weapon. If a rogue is caught flat-footed or otherwise denied his Dexterity bonus, he also loses this bonus.
There, two little additions that I think would go a long way toward making the rogue class more attractive. Most of the complaints we see have to do with the fact that rogues, while skilled out of combat, are way behind the curve on the battlefield due to their medium base attack bonus and low armor class. So, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, we've simply brought over effective mechanics from the monk and duelist to fill those gaps.
Anyone want to give this a shot for the other classes?
Well, the only one I've been thinking about is combining rogue and fighter. Full BAB, every level it gets a bonus combat feat alternating with a rogue talent and one more d6 of sneak attack. 6 skill points per level.
Full Attack: When making a full attack, a character can move up to his speed, and may make his attacks at any point during this movement. This movement provokes attacks of opportunity as normal.
Good for all the martial characters.
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Well, the only one I've been thinking about is combining rogue and fighter. Full BAB, every level it gets a bonus combat feat alternating with a rogue talent and one more d6 of sneak attack. 6 skill points per level.
Careful, or you'll go so far in fixing the rogue that you make the fighter obsolete.
For example, here's my idea on how to fix rogues.
Ambush: For purposes of sneak attacks, the rogue's base attack bonus from rogue levels is equal to his rogue level. For all other purposes, such as qualifying for a feat or a prestige class, the rogue uses his normal base attack bonus.
Canny Defense: When wearing light or no armor and not using a shield, a rogue adds 1 point of Intelligence bonus (if any) per rogue class level as a dodge bonus to his Armor Class while wielding a melee weapon. If a rogue is caught flat-footed or otherwise denied his Dexterity bonus, he also loses this bonus.
One of my players suggested the following house-rule and it worked out just fine.
Stab them in the Squishy bits: All attacks involving sneak-attack get a bonus to attack and damage equal to the number of sneak attack die being rolled.
Functionally it's the same what you have suggested and very easy to implement.
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Stab them in the Squishy bits: All attacks involving sneak-attack get a bonus to attack and damage equal to the number of sneak attack die being rolled.
Great suggestions! Now how about the fighter?
I think the class would benefit from some super simple changes: 4 skill points per level, add heal and perception as class skills, give them the brawler's ability to spontaneously retrain their latest fighter bonus feat as a move action, and add a new ability that negates the usual AoO on attempted combat maneuvers as long as the fighter succeeds.
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Well, the only one I've been thinking about is combining rogue and fighter. Full BAB, every level it gets a bonus combat feat alternating with a rogue talent and one more d6 of sneak attack. 6 skill points per level.Careful, or you'll go so far in fixing the rogue that you make the fighter obsolete.
The fighter is already obsolete. See barbarian. And rubbish out of combat. I merely see an opportunity to fix both fighter and rogue simultaneously. I have a more in depth version, which is slightly less good, but this thread asked for simple fixes.
Fighters and rogues are broken? Not in my games.
If the martial vs. mage difference is an issue, you have a couple options:
Damn, some of these are great!
I'm about to try out this one for an upcoming campaign:
Tax:
Magic is taxing on its users. Every spell cast deals 1 x (spell level) points of nonlethal damage to the caster. (Alchemical infusions deal .5 x (spell level) points of nonlethal damage.) Material components are required to cast spells or prepare infusions. Spell-like abilities are not considered spells for these purposes.
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play E6 or E8, keeps the martails very relevant to combat.
I wish I had more than two thumbs to give this post. My group has been doing an E6 campaign for over a year now and there's a great balance between martial characters and casters.
Okay, next challenge: Based on abundant complaints here in the forums, general consensus is that the summoner is overpowered. I'll kick this off with my simple fix ideas:
1. Add a new base form that has good mental attributes and average physical ones. Being able to build a real skill monkey might encourage more summoners to abandon the standard pounce and multi-weapon builds. It might look something like this:
Size Medium; Speed 30 ft., AC +2 natural armor; Saves Fort (bad), Ref (good), Will (good); Ability Scores Str 10, Dex 11, Con 10, Int 14, Wis 14, Cha 15, Free Evolutions: Arms, Legs, Skilled
2. Replace the usual spells the summoner gets earlier than other arcane casters with summoner-specific variants. For example, it's ridiculous that summoners get haste a level sooner than wizards, so replace the haste spell on the summoner list with "hasten eidolon." Works just like haste, but only affects the summoner's eidolon (and maybe himself). Still useful? Yes. Overpowered? Not nearly as much!
3. Every evolution that can be taken more than once costs 1 extra evolution point each time it's taken beyond the first. For example, taking a slam attack costs 1 point. If I want another slam attack, it costs 2 points. The third would be 3 points. If I want an eidolon with three slam attacks, that's a total cost of 6 (plus even more for all those extra arms)! This encourages summoners to spread their points around to make more unique, multi-talented eidolons instead of just min-maxing the system for tons of slams, claws, or wielded weapons.
Thoughts?
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A very simple fix would be to vary the number of experience points required to advance in different classes. After the first few adventures, the fighters and rogues will be higher level than the casters. To multiclass, pay an xp "fee" to gain level 1 in a new class, and then all future xp earned is divided between classes any way the player wants.
If you remember older versions of D&D, this turned out to be a real pain in the ass. One of the best things 3rd Edition did was to standardize experience advancement, attribute bonuses, and skill ranks, all of which had varying values before that point.
Also, few people use the "thousands" of experience points system anymore, with most home games having moved on to an "okay, everyone level up now" system or the Pathfinder Society "one point per game, three points to level up" system. In each of those more common cases, different advancement between classes breaks down.
QUOTE="Headfirst"] Okay, here's my challenge to the Pathfinder community:
Using the least amount of new rules possible, what would you change about the existing classes to fix them? Keep in mind, "fixing" could mean nerfing, buffing, or altering a class's focus. Optimally, such modifications would be cut-and-paste features from other classes, if only to reduce the potential for strange interactions with other parts of the game. For example, here's my idea on how to fix rogues.
Ambush: For purposes of sneak attacks, the rogue's base attack bonus from rogue levels is equal to his rogue level. For all other purposes, such as qualifying for a feat or a prestige class, the rogue uses his normal base attack bonus.
Canny Defense: When wearing light or no armor and not using a shield, a rogue adds 1 point of Intelligence bonus (if any) per rogue class level as a dodge bonus to his Armor Class while wielding a melee weapon. If a rogue is caught flat-footed or otherwise denied his Dexterity bonus, he also loses this bonus.
There, two little additions that I think would go a long way toward making the rogue class more attractive. Most of the complaints we see have to do with the fact that rogues, while skilled out of combat, are way behind the curve on the battlefield due to their medium base attack bonus and low armor class. So, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, we've simply brought over effective mechanics from the monk and duelist to fill those gaps.
Anyone want to give this a shot for the other classes?
I could see letting ambush work if was only in surprised rounds. As a Rouge Talent. Also I would make be Situational bonus equal to 1/2 you rogue level. This would net you +5 above full BaB PC for one shot per fight at 20th level. IF you can set up the Ambush....Hell still my say no to that one because it would be more likely be used by GM than PC. Since How often do PC get to act in the Surprised round vs GM Minions.
For Canny Defense add if you are not encumber more than light load. Also make it swift action that effect last for a round. Also can be used #time per day equal to 3+INT Modifier. This could be a rogue talent.
This way rogue can save his but some of the time when dose not drop someone with this Sneak attack Dice. But not all the time that it eat in to coolness of Duelist. It all so make the PC suffer from MAD that will keep the power balanced some. This also mean the rogue dose not ned to take to hit penalty to raise thier AC.
Anyone have any other ideas on how to fix the summoner?
I do like the idea of a skill monkey base form; that would be really nice, with lower physical stats but better mental ones.
Eidolons cannot gain an armor bonus (even with mage armor). It's too easy to get your eidolon's AC really high, and mage armor is the biggest reason in my experience. They're already forbidden from wearing armor, this would just be a minor expansion on that mechanic.
Pounce is a three-point evolution that you have to be at least 7th level to take. Nobody else gets pounce nearly as early as the summoner, who can trivially have it at 1st level.
Skilled gives a +4 to a skill for one EP; at 5th level you can take it twice in the same skill, for a total of +8.
The alternative way, and what I think will likely happen in Pathfinder Unchained, is that you'll have a series of base forms, with an advance at 4th or 7th like the druid's animal companion. I hope they don't do this, but from hearing the designers on a podcast or two, I think it's likely what will happen. The druid animal companions are so poorly balanced that I don't have a lot of faith in that kind of a system - I'd rather be able to figure out my own eidolon, but would prefer some tweaks to the current druid setup of "everyone has one of two or three animals, and the rest are ignored, and if you pick one for flavor you feel like an idiot on the mechanics side."
I do remember, which is why I suggested it. I certainly don't recall it creating any problems. Not only did it help balance classes, but it also meant that PCs were leveling up at different times, which I think feels more like real people and less like a video game.
Bards in 2nd ed were better at spellcasting than wizards...and had more hit points, better armour, weapons, some thieving skills, plus their actual bard song abilities. All because they levelled faster than wizards.
It wasn't a good system. Making it work in a balanced fashion would take some very complicated number crunching.
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Anyone have any other ideas on how to fix the summoner?
Paper shredder would be the first idea that come to my mind.
Second would be take away the huge flex abilty of the eidolon and make more like the animal companion of the druid ie you get snake, horse,wolf ect that got better. You have hell hound, small element, small dragon, ect stuff that was CR 1-3 set of advancemet for each individual pet one not one massive customizable list for all.
They did that way to save page space and make it easy to update ie make new evoalution write small paragraph instead of same of same paragraph and list what monster that cold take it. Book keep nightmare.
Speaking of "Book keep nightmare" that is why do not want to keep track of EXP. It makes my life easyer and It get more play time in a night. We would loss anywhere form 20-40 minutes per night traking exp then some one would level and rest us would have to wait while thay leveled or play with out them which mean miss some of the game. It also made it easyer to GM because I would know what level everyone was and therefor what abiltys they had. So I could set fight to challenge them acrodingly. Instead of Bob just level so now this fight of x is now useless because PC has abilty y. PC know a week in advanced to bring level PC with them because they level after the first fight ect. It let me GM and PCs do book keeping at home and not in game time. I mean look at all thing you have to track is now HP, Spell use, Spell duration, Spell effects, Channel, Ki, Arcana, Smites, Lay on of Hands, School abitly, Domain abilty, bloodline abilty, bombs per day, wild shape, rage rounds, bard song, Bane, ect... and list gose on and on. As it now I have sheet with all my dayly abilty that keep what have use or not use. If it was all computerised that track it all for me fine. But I want more game time not more book keeping time.
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Yeah, I think fixing the summoner isn't going to be a neat clean operation like you're hoping for. But it'll be basically this:
- Clean up the spell list. Raise the level of spells that the summoner gets too early. Haste, I'm looking at you. It's fine that the summoner is on the fast track for summon spells, but not for general-purpose good spells that aren't actually about summoning. Making Haste a level 3 spell for summoners and likewise fixing a few other spells would help.
- The eidolon is too complicated and can be overpowered. It's complexity means that a lot of mistakes get make, often by overlooking obscure restrictions. This adds to the OP potential, but some of that OP is just RAW. The solution is to rebuild the eidolon rules like the AC rules. People manage to build ACs according to the rules all the time, and they're still powerful and flexible enough. The thing most likely to trip up new players with the AC is tricks, and that's not an issue with eidolons because they're more intelligent.
Summoners spell list fix:
Each summoner chooses a school of magic other than conjuration. The summoner's spell list consists of the wizard/sorcerer spells of 6th level or lower from that school, the wizard/sorcerer spells of 6th level or lower from the conjuration school, and any spell which deals explicitly and directly with Eidolons or evolution points.
Fixing the Monk:
Full BaB and d10 hit points.
Ki points are fully replenished by 15 minutes of meditation, at any time (no per day limit).
Fixing the Monk:
Full BaB and d10 hit points.
Ki points are fully replenished by 15 minutes of meditation, at any time (no per day limit).
I support the full BAB, but not the easily replenished ki points. Otherwise, a qinggong monk is going to have a field day with that. I'd rather give the monk more things to do with the ki points than giving them more.
Suggestion for rogue fix: The rogue can add his/her sneak attack dice roll to Combat Maneuver checks.
Simple monk fixes:
Full BAB, D10, and altered Ki powers.
Some suggestions that we've tried:
Stunning Ki:
You can use your focused ki to up the DC of your stunning fist. Each ki point you spend in this manner raises the DC by +1. You can not spend more than 1/2 your monk level in ki points in this manner.
I was afraid that this would get too powerful but when we tried it out the monk had a 3/4 BAB so he never hit with it and when he did he never dumped all his ki into it.
Ki Dash:
At 5th level you may spend 2 ki points to move 20ft as a swift action. This movement invokes attacks of opportunities.
This is one that we stole from Dabblers thread on Monk ideas. It made sense to have the character that thrives on mobility be able to be mobile and effective in combat. Again it was hardly game breaking.
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From my houserules:
Add the following text to the Monk’s Fast Movement class feature:A monk with Fast Movement and the Flurry of Blows class features can forego his 5ft step to move up to his Fast Movement speed before or after a flurry as a free action. This is normal movement and subject to Attacks of Opportunity. If the monk is using Ki to enhance his speed for the round this extra speed is added to the Fast Movement rate. (Base speed and other bonuses to speed in general do not add to this.)
I'm seriously considering making them Full BAB as well, because they're really almost there already with Flurry. Might as well make things simpler.
I support the full BAB, but not the easily replenished ki points. Otherwise, a qinggong monk is going to have a field day with that. I'd rather give the monk more things to do with the ki points than giving them more.Fixing the Monk:
Full BaB and d10 hit points.
Ki points are fully replenished by 15 minutes of meditation, at any time (no per day limit).
Are there any specific qinggong powers you feel are problematic? The amount you get are quite limited, and I don't really mind that a 12th level monk can now use Discordant Blast and Shadow Walk basically at will. At least they can then do something that others can't.
Are there any specific qinggong powers you feel are problematic? The amount you get are quite limited, and I don't really mind that a 12th level monk can now use Discordant Blast and Shadow Walk basically at will. At least they can then do something that others can't.I support the full BAB, but not the easily replenished ki points. Otherwise, a qinggong monk is going to have a field day with that. I'd rather give the monk more things to do with the ki points than giving them more.Fixing the Monk:
Full BaB and d10 hit points.
Ki points are fully replenished by 15 minutes of meditation, at any time (no per day limit).
At-will teleportation and nuke spells strike me as problematic. It may sound like nothing at the surface, but giving at-will spell-like abilities of almost any kind can be a major balancing issue. Besides, the monk has the easiest time replenishing his points than any other class or mage because he doesn't need to meditate for consecutive hours.
At-will teleportation and nuke spells strike me as problematic.
The nukes will generally do less damage than just punching them in the face would, especially with the low save DC. It can allow a monk to add a Hadoken option in addition to it's melee strikes, but that's a feature for me, not a bug. At-will short-range single-person teleportation is cool and all but hardly something that'll break the game more than the several times per day long-range multi-person teleportation that full casters have at that point. And I mean, if monks should be good at anything it's mobility. Also remember that the full casters at that point can call assistants that have at-will personal greater teleport (which beats at-will dimension door by a mile, and the monk one isn't even fully at will).
but giving at-will spell-like abilities of almost any kind can be a major balancing issue.
The limiting part of at-will is the "will". How often will you find a use for it? At will short-distance teleport can sure bypass some obstacles, but that's just what the monk needs: An actual way to bypass obstacles. It needs to be able to solve things out of combat, especially since it's quite limited in combat.
Besides, the monk has the easiest time replenishing his points than any other class or mage because he doesn't need to meditate for consecutive hours.
"Easiest time" is very subjective in this case, as the actual need for healing is usually much more dependant on situation. Out of combat the monk can be the fastest self-healer without expending any resources if the party has at least 16 minutes, but in-combat a Heal or Lay on Hands will always be more effective than spending a standard action to heal like 30 hp. And out of combat, if you need to heal say 100 hp, spending 15 minutes for that is far less effective than the 2 minutes it takes to heal it with a happystick (for the low price of 300 gp).
And I'm fine with the monk having unlimited personal healing. I mean, seeing as it has mediocre AC and is to MAD to pump Con, it really needs to enter every fight at as high HP as possible. It generally won't have the AC of a fighter or the HP+DR of a barbarian or the swift-action self-heal which heals about as much as wholeness of body.(BTW, while cheesy, a half-orc barbarian can heal 2d8+Con damage every round unlimited times per day at 10th level with the aid of someone else who can provide an AoO for Blessing of the Destroyer - and that beats out of combat healing for the monk by a long shot).
@Gaberlunzie
I completely disagree with you on pretty much every front. I've had many, very long discussions about the in-combat, out-of-combat, roleplaying, and dramatic scenario consequences of granting powerful (or even moderately useful) at-will supernatural/spell-like abilities. I engaged in many conversations about the subject when playtesting Spheres of Power (which I recommend, by the way), and even had a Paizo designer chime in on the subject. I've heard and countered many of the same arguments you give here.
- "At-wills won't unbalance anything!"
- "So what if X can cast this spell at-will? Wizards can cast that spell several levels before."
- "X class NEEDS to be able to do Y so they can solve a problem effortlessly anytime they need to."
- "This isn't game breaking on this class because the class is already underpowered."
- "It's not anymore broken than this particular min-max build."
The fact that the monk could get infinite free healing is a major issue in itself.
Generally, the problem with at-will SLA/SUA is that every encounter acts as a "resource waster," (keep in mind hitpoints is a resource). An adventure uses every encounter as attrition to raise dramatic tension. In reality, a party's goal isn't simply to beat a challenge, but do so in a way that uses up minimal resources. This also serves as the major balancing mechanic between using supernatural and mundane solutions to problems. Most of a spellcaster's gameplay revolves around the player determining the efficiency of using a valuable spell slot over a mundane solution. It also makes the Spherical Cow Argument a fallacy. The economy of resources drives the entire game, even at high levels. It also makes the game fun -- players feel awesome when they come up with clever solutions to end a battle quickly or use up a valuable spell for a worthy cause.
Adding good or even moderately useful at-will SLA abilities throws a monkey wrench into the entire system. Giving any character a resourceless ability to effortlessly solve problems severely undermines tension in an adventure. Even the decision to make cantrips at-will did not come lightly for the Paizo's designers. I don't even need to think hard to find a problem with an at-will abundant steps. A huge part of the monk's flavor and abilities revolve around using awesome monk-like athletics to overcome obstacles. An at-will teleport throws all of that under the bus. Why would a monk ever do cool ninja stuff to overcome a dangerous obstacle when he can just snap his fingers and immediately bypass the encounter whenever he wants with no risk or cost to himself? In fact, he could literally do it blindfolded. And no, don't give me a Spherical Cow Argument by saying a wizard could do the same. If the wizard wastes a spell slot to solve a problem that a martial can with a couple of skill checks, he's doing it wrong.
As a result, I would not want to play/GM a game where the monk essentially gets infinite ki points, and doing so is not a simple "fix" because it has potentially gamebreaking consequences that require careful consideration. Giving characters the ability to solve problems with no effort, risk, or cost is boring. Stop making the game boring!
Speaking of "Book keep nightmare" that is why do not want to keep track of EXP. It makes my life easyer and It get more play time in a night. We would loss anywhere form 20-40 minutes per night traking exp then some one would level and rest us would have to wait while thay leveled or play with out them which mean miss some of the game. It also made it easyer to GM because I would know what level everyone was and therefor what abiltys they had. So I could set fight to challenge them acrodingly. Instead of Bob just level so now this fight of x is now useless because PC has abilty y. PC know a week in advanced to bring level PC with them because they level after the first fight ect. It let me GM and PCs do book keeping at home and not in game time. I mean look at all thing you have to track is now HP, Spell use, Spell duration, Spell effects, Channel, Ki, Arcana, Smites, Lay on of Hands, School abitly, Domain abilty, bloodline abilty, bombs per day, wild shape, rage rounds, bard song, Bane, ect... and list gose on and on. As it now I have sheet with all my dayly abilty that keep what have use or not use. If it was all computerised that track it all for me fine. But I want more game time not more book keeping time.In the groups I played with, experience was given at the end of the adventure. The bookkeeping involved with leveling up was always done at home, between games.
Where it happen in the night is not the point. The fact give up game time is.
Okay, here's my challenge to the Pathfinder community:
Using the least amount of new rules possible, what would you change about the existing classes to fix them? Keep in mind, "fixing" could mean nerfing, buffing, or altering a class's focus. Optimally, such modifications would be cut-and-paste features from other classes, if only to reduce the potential for strange interactions with other parts of the game. For example, here's my idea on how to fix rogues.
Ambush: For purposes of sneak attacks, the rogue's base attack bonus from rogue levels is equal to his rogue level. For all other purposes, such as qualifying for a feat or a prestige class, the rogue uses his normal base attack bonus.
Canny Defense: When wearing light or no armor and not using a shield, a rogue adds 1 point of Intelligence bonus (if any) per rogue class level as a dodge bonus to his Armor Class while wielding a melee weapon. If a rogue is caught flat-footed or otherwise denied his Dexterity bonus, he also loses this bonus.
There, two little additions that I think would go a long way toward making the rogue class more attractive. Most of the complaints we see have to do with the fact that rogues, while skilled out of combat, are way behind the curve on the battlefield due to their medium base attack bonus and low armor class. So, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, we've simply brought over effective mechanics from the monk and duelist to fill those gaps.
Anyone want to give this a shot for the other classes?
I can do less intrusive than that.
New combat feats:
-Provoke
As a Standard action you can try to influence one creature in a way that they will try to attack you with an intimidate check. This last for one round only. The DC of this check is equal to 10 + the target’s Hit Dice + the target’s Wisdom modifier or their sense motive bonus whichever is the greater. This only works on intelligent creatures that can understand you, subject to DM discretion.
-Not me, him!
As a Standard action you can try to influence one creature in a way that they will try to attack an ally within their reach with a bluff check. This last for one round only. The DC of this check is equal to 10 + the target’s Hit Dice + the target’s Wisdom modifier or their sense motive bonus whichever is the greater. This only works on intelligent creatures that can understand you, subject to DM discretion. This definition of reach in this specific case is any spells,abilities or attacks that can reach the designated ally.
This feat can be use to designate a neutral creature as a target ally but take a -10 penalty on the bluff check.
-Combat mastery
You treat your total Hit Dice as your base attack bonus to meet prerequisite for feats.
-Restless assault
You can move up to 1/4 of your move speed rounded down and still be able to perform a full attack action using a melee attack. This feat cannot be used with ANY sort of ranged attacks but can be combined with reach weapon and the feat lunge. This consume your standard action, move action and swift action for this turn, you cannot take a 5 foot step until your next turn.
-Restless assault, Improved
Prerequisites: Restless assault, BAB +6
You can move up to 1/2 of your move speed rounded down and still be able to perform a full attack action using a melee attack. This feat cannot be used with ANY sort of ranged attacks but can be combined with reach weapon and the feat lunge. This consume your standard action, move action and swift action for this turn, you cannot take a 5 foot step until your next turn.
-Restless assault, Greater
Prerequisites: Improved Restless assault, BAB +11
You can move to your of your move speed rounded down and still be able to perform a full attack action using a melee attack. This feat cannot be used with ANY sort of ranged attacks but can be combined with reach weapon and the feat lunge. This consume your standard action, move action and swift action for this turn, you cannot take a 5 foot step until your next turn.
New Rogue talents:
-Better than nothing (Ex)
Prerequisites: 2d6 sneak attack dices
If an opponent as a condition that inflict any sorts of penalty to their dexterity score you can apply half your sneak attack dices to your regular attacks against that target.
-Quicker than the eyes (Ex)
If you can act before a creature in combat (higher initiative order). You can perform a single attack action as a swift action. This can be your only attack action this round.
-Trapfinding
You regain the rogue ability Trapfinding, you can only get this talent if you lost the Trapfinding ability due to a class archetype or selecting the Ninja Rogue alternate class.
New Advanced rogue talents:
-Nothing than Better (Ex)
Prerequisites: Better than nothing
If an opponent as a condition that inflict any sorts of penalty to their dexterity score you can apply your sneak attack dices to your regular attacks against that target.
-Roguish revenge (Ex)
Opponent that attempted any attack action against you and failed to harm you are considered flat-footed against you for one round. Spells you save against but have partial effect on you does not trigger this ability.
-Maximize pain (Ex)
If you are about to deliver a sneak attack you can forgo all damage sources except the sneak attack dices. The sneak attack dices are considered to have rolled maximum damage.This ability can only be used once per round.
-Too slow! (Ex)
Requisite: Defensive Roll (Ex), Lighting reflexes
Once per round you can attempt to avoid any attack requiring an attack roll against you by rolling a reflex save versus the attack roll, you can trigger this ability after knowing that the attack hit you but before damage are rolled.
A 4th-level monk with unlimited true strike would be quite broken. A 4th-level monk/X-level gunslinger (or rogue sniper) with unlimited true strike would be even more broken.Are there any specific qinggong powers you feel are problematic?Ki points are fully replenished by 15 minutes of meditation, at any time (no per day limit).I support the full BAB, but not the easily replenished ki points. Otherwise, a qinggong monk is going to have a field day with that.
It would be nice, but I don't think it would be broken. The standard action to use it between each attack is a major factor. There are a few characters in parties I play with that have wands of true strike, but only rarely use them since making another attack or spell is better than guaranteeing a hit the next round.
It would be nice, but I don't think it would be broken. The standard action to use it between each attack is a major factor. There are a few characters in parties I play with that have wands of true strike, but only rarely use them since making another attack or spell is better than guaranteeing a hit the next round.A 4th-level monk with unlimited true strike would be quite broken. A 4th-level monk/X-level gunslinger (or rogue sniper) with unlimited true strike would be even more broken.Are there any specific qinggong powers you feel are problematic?Ki points are fully replenished by 15 minutes of meditation, at any time (no per day limit).I support the full BAB, but not the easily replenished ki points. Otherwise, a qinggong monk is going to have a field day with that.
Just because it's not worth the action economy in some situations does not mean having an at-will of the ability isn't broken. Getting an automatic hit whenever you want is an insanely powerful boon, even if it takes one standard action of prep time.
Even a cursory look through the monk's abilities shows that Gaberlunzie's suggestion to make all ki points replenish after 15 minutes has many easy abuse cases. Can fully heal up after every fight. Can fire at-will scorching rays. At-will dimension door. Oh, and don't forget monk of the four winds's slow time, which grants the monk two extra standard actions. All ki abilities assume the monk cannot replenish his ki points until the next day. Messing with that assumption is a dangerous design decision that ultimately makes the class broken rather than more fun.
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Okay, let's not get carried away with run-on posts debating individual ideas. Let's move on to fixing the next class. Some of you have already suggested ideas, but let's focus on the monk for a second. Here's what I think it needs:
Pounce: So long as the monk uses only unarmed attacks or monk weapons, he may make a full attack at the end of a charge.
I would also front-load the monk AC bonus a bit more. It would start at +1 at first level, then advance according to this chart:
1 : +1
2 : +2
3 :
4 : +3
5 :
6 :
7 : +4
8 :
9 :
10:
11: +5
12:
13:
14:
15:
16: +6
17:
18:
19:
20:
Here is a thought for "rebalancing" wizards.
Occult Training(Ex): At first level, and every level thereafter, the wizard may choose two spell schools(or two plus the specialized school if the wizard is a specialist, ) from which he may learn spells. Each time this choice is made, the wizard gains access to a higher spell level of the school chosen, up to level 9. A specialist wizard may choose to learn a spell level of a barred school, but must spend two of his school choices to access that spell level.
I'm not sure if the wording is crystal clear, but the intent is to push wizards(and other full casters) to either focus their attention on a handful of schools of magic, or have access to all of them up to a lower level. If your choose the second route, you would have to heighten spells to use your higher level slots.
On the monk front, just change the ki movement thingy to a swift action and base the additional movement off the monks enhanced move speed. It isn't identical to pounce, but I think that's a good thing.
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Simple as possible, eh?
Rogue: Full BAB progression.
Fighter: Good will save progression, remove Bravery.
Monk: At 6th level, can do first two attacks from a flurry as a standard action.
Just because it's not worth the action economy in some situations does not mean having an at-will of the ability isn't broken. Getting an automatic hit whenever you want is an insanely powerful boon, even if it takes one standard action of prep time.
Even a cursory look through the monk's abilities shows that Gaberlunzie's suggestion to make all ki points replenish after 15 minutes has many easy abuse cases. Can fully heal up after every fight. Can fire at-will scorching rays. At-will dimension door. Oh, and don't forget monk of the four winds's slow time, which grants the monk two extra standard actions. All ki abilities assume the monk cannot replenish his ki points until the next day. Messing with that assumption is a dangerous design decision that ultimately makes the class broken rather than more fun.
Based upon my experience with the warlock as well as low level wands along with the levels at which the monk gets those abilities, I don't think most of those are as bad as you make them out to be. There are a few though that I can see being problems as you say and it would just take one to make the recharge broken.
I think Trogdar's extra movement as a swift action idea is more interesting than Pounce. In particular it would improve mobility, allowing you to flank and flurry. This would also improve the Monk's BAB in most cases unless you had to move really far to get into position (in which case the extra movement to get into position at all would be its own benefit)
For Fighters I agree that 4 skill points and a good Will save would make them more fun.
Generally, the problem with at-will SLA/SUA is that every encounter acts as a "resource waster," (keep in mind hitpoints is a resource). An adventure uses every encounter as attrition to raise dramatic tension.
Yes, this is certainly true, but the number of encounters per day is usually quite limited, and the number of encounters where the problem is solved by a specific at-will power with a very limited usage (such as dimension door, as opposed to say limited wish or summon monster V) is usually limited enough that there's no difference between "5/day" and "at will" in terms of auto-solving an issue.
And note, it isn't even at will. A 12th level a monk will usually have around 10-12 ki points, which means at most 6 dimension doors per 15 minutes, or 24 per hour. A sorcerer with the spell can at that point move 5 people per casting of DD, and cast it 17 times per day.
Even if you against all odds had a day full of just teleporting around, it'll take the monk three and a half hour to out-teleport the sorcerer with dimension door. And the sorcerer will have made the made the same amount of body-moves in under two minutes.
Yes, some powers shouldn't be granted at will. And yes, one has to really consider what a certain at-will power will result in, not only for party dynamics but for world building too (especially if it's gained at low levels).
But being able to short-distance single-body teleport 6 times in 15 minutes isn't going to break anything.
In what scenarios can you think of that this would autosolve problems more than a sorcerer that just knows Dimension Door, Teleport and Planar Binding (and Magic Circle)? And how convoluted would they be?
Because if you need to go a long way, Teleport is far more useful. If you need to get over a chasm, true DD is far more useful as you can bring the whole party. And if you really need to jump around many times in quick succession for a long time, you can't really beat planar binding a barbed devil.
Sure, in some situations this will be more useful, and it certainly saves on the sorcerer's resources. But it won't autosolve many things that the party couldn't autosolve before, and it won't save notable resources. Mostly it's going to just be the monk's answer to Overland Flight (which is also basically at-will move wherever you want, and while it has less burst potential it is by far quicker in the long run).
In reality, a party's goal isn't simply to beat a challenge, but do so in a way that uses up minimal resources. This also serves as the major balancing mechanic between using supernatural and mundane solutions to problems. Most of a spellcaster's gameplay revolves around the player determining the efficiency of using a valuable spell slot over a mundane solution.
And that balancing mechanic has failed, as we can see from the game. The mechanic only works to balance the highest two spell levels of casters, because those are the only ones that are precious, unless you have a real marathon dungeon with like 12 encounters with no rest inbetween. But those aren't the assumptions of the game, which are more like usually 2-6 encounters in a given day. At 12th level, Dimension Door is already available nearly anytime you want it, because it's one of the absolutely most popular spells in the game, because a multitude of bindable creatures has a much better version of it, and because it's (at that point) a low-level spell.
It also makes the Spherical Cow Argument a fallacy.
The spherical cow article is interesting at all but doesn't support your argument. If anything is an Extremely Implausible Hypothetical Scenario it's where 6/15 minutes personal-only dimension door will "solve a problem effortlessly anytime they need to".
At 12th level, at-will powered-down dimension door is about as powerful as at-will Create Water is at 1st. Yes, once in a blue moon it might save the party - but that's the point of making weak classes stronger. And again, this isn't even at-will, it's 6 times per 15 minutes.
The economy of resources drives the entire game, even at high levels.
Yes. If I had argued to give full-scale Teleport, or at-will Planar Binding, or at-will Summon Monster VI to monks at will, I'd agree with you, because at that point those are still powers that will change the outcome of encounters and the way the game is played.
It also makes the game fun -- players feel awesome when they come up with clever solutions to end a battle quickly or use up a valuable spell for a worthy...
This can be said for exactly any power given. How is this any different for making cantrips at will, or for increasing lower-level slot access for higher-level casters?
Look, if what amounts to a very weak 4th level spell (since it's personal only) was actually a resource at 12th level you'd have a point. Maybe if we remade the sorcerer's spells/day to something like this?
Highest level, just gained: 2/day
Highest level, one level after: 3/day
Not-highest level: 5/day total
Then a 4th level spell at 12th level would be an actual relevant resource and you'd have to consider if you wanted to use it or not, since using two dimension doors to make 10 body moves means you only have three spells to use for stuff like Baleful Polymorph or Persistant Image, or even to get up defensive spells like Mirror Image.
Granted, we'd have to do that for all the casters, it'd be a big revamp of the game as a whole and I generally prefer to buff rather than to nerf.
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I know totally off subject but now I want to use that monk archetype as a base for the 3.5 lock. Also we all know that the warlock was toats op with it's at-wills.
One of the things I've tried with the fighter was to make their extra combat feat ability work more like the rangers and allow them to ignore prerequisites.
It needed a bit of tweaking. BAB/Level prerequisites remained as it was easier than going through all the combat feats and listing which are available at specific levels like the ranger bonus feats, also things like class prerequisites remained to avoid some very silly combinations.
Along with granting 4+ skill points, it really helped the fighter's versatility as they weren't left needing to pick up the low value feats in some feat chains which meant they could have a wider variety of combat options and use some of their standard feats on things outside combat.
Merging some feats also helped but that goes a bit beyond the quick fix concept suggested by the OP.
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Okay, here's my challenge to the Pathfinder community:
Using the least amount of new rules possible, what would you change about the existing classes to fix them? Keep in mind, "fixing" could mean nerfing, buffing, or altering a class's focus. Optimally, such modifications would be cut-and-paste features from other classes, if only to reduce the potential for strange interactions with other parts of the game. For example, here's my idea on how to fix rogues.
Ambush: For purposes of sneak attacks, the rogue's base attack bonus from rogue levels is equal to his rogue level. For all other purposes, such as qualifying for a feat or a prestige class, the rogue uses his normal base attack bonus.
Canny Defense: When wearing light or no armor and not using a shield, a rogue adds 1 point of Intelligence bonus (if any) per rogue class level as a dodge bonus to his Armor Class while wielding a melee weapon. If a rogue is caught flat-footed or otherwise denied his Dexterity bonus, he also loses this bonus.
There, two little additions that I think would go a long way toward making the rogue class more attractive. Most of the complaints we see have to do with the fact that rogues, while skilled out of combat, are way behind the curve on the battlefield due to their medium base attack bonus and low armor class. So, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, we've simply brought over effective mechanics from the monk and duelist to fill those gaps.
Anyone want to give this a shot for the other classes?
I could see letting ambush work if was only in surprised rounds. As a Rouge Talent. Also I would make be Situational bonus equal to 1/2 you rogue level. This would net you +5 above full BaB PC for one shot per fight at 20th level. IF you can set up the Ambush....Hell still my say no to that one because it would be more likely be used by GM than PC. Since How often do PC get to act in the Surprised round vs GM Minions.
For Canny Defense add if you are not encumber...
You're kidding, right? That would hardly be a rogue fix at all. The problem is he already has to work to be situationally useful. Other classes aside from the Duelist get a version of Canny Defense (like the Kensai, for example) and it doesn't hurt the Duelist at all. And make it a rogue talent? You may as well not change the class at all.
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You're kidding, right? That would hardly be a rogue fix at all. The problem is he already has to work to be situationally useful. Other classes aside from the Duelist get a version of Canny Defense (like the Kensai, for example) and it doesn't hurt the Duelist at all. And make it a rogue talent? You may as well not change the class at all.
I have to agree. Setting up a sneak attack is hard enough that the rogue should really be rewarded for it.