This slightly older thread posed an interesting question, of whether any concepts cannot be done with existing Pathfinder rules, but got derailed into various types of largely pointless arguments.
So I'll try to rephrase the original question: What fantasy concepts (preferably ones introduced by the system itself) are difficult to impossible to make into usable player character options in Pathfinder? Temporarily leave out most things from different genres, such as superheroes (we can revisit this when the Wrath of the Transcendentals Adventure Path is announced or leaked). Also temporarily leave out things that are way beyond mid-level player characters, such as Hercules (we can revisit this when the Epic Player's Guide is announced or leaked, or a revision to the Mythic Rules tailors itself to the same kind of thing in a more widely acceptable way than the current Mythic Rules). Things that are overpowered compared to low-level characters but reasonable compared to mid-level characters are still on the table for now, because Pathfinder actually has a precedent for a mid-powered race to upgrade itself into a high-powered race, namely the Drow and the Drow Nobility feat chain (for which the feat tax is high enough that it may actually be a bit underpowered).
The idea of this thread is not to argue about whether something is totally impossible or becomes possible just by flat DM fiat, but to try to think of how to implement a concept with a minimum of DM handwaving, and what kind of rules additions would be needed to make something workable. (With respect to rules additions, what would REALLY be needed would be for Paizo and Green Ronin to team up to make a hybrid of Pathfinder with Mutants and Masterminds, with all the Pathfinder stuff converted into Mutants and Masterminds examples so that nothing breaks in existing sourcebooks, including Adventure Paths, or at least no more breaks than broke going from D&D 3.5 to Pathfinder, and yet new much more flexible options become available. This would be awesome when finished, but represents a huge up-front investment, and so would not arrive for several years even if both companies heartily approved of the idea. So lets think of rules additions short of that: Evolutionary, not Revolutionary.)
So here are my 2 examples, one small and one big:
First, the small one: Normally I wouldn't want to play a character of a race that doesn't yet have its backstory, but I saw that Kasatha are available in Iron Gods, and they have 4 arms, and I just couldn't resist the idea of a 4 armed organist (to be a Bard). To get around the lack of race backstory while depowering the racial abilities to close to Core Race levels, I would have the character be adopted and brought up by Humans or some other Core Race (problem: I don't know their lifespan/maturation rate, so can't match them up with appropriate adoptive parents), and thus not even know his own race's backstory, and also be missing the Kathasa potentially overpowered abilities due to lack of Kasatha upbringing. To upgrade to full Kathasa racial capabilities later, if desired, Defensive training, greater (4 RP) could be available as a Feat; Desert runner (2 RP), Stalker (1 RP), Jumper (2 RP), and Terrain stride (desert) (1 RP) could all be available as Traits that could be picked up by way of the Additional Traits Feat (DM handwave required: make a specific set of exceptions to the rule that doesn't let you pick 2 Traits from the same list). Removing all those capabilities at the start actually gets the Kasatha down from 20 RP to 10 RP, in Core Race territory -- not saying that the Advanced Race Guide (which is used to build the races) is balanced ([url=http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2r9m8?Adv-Race-Guide-Race-Builder-Reduced-stats]it isn't[/u4l]), but it's something (although not good enough for the big example below). I think I can get this with just the minimum DM handwaving listed above, and honestly I probably wouldn't even use most or all of the removed capabilities, so the only DM handwaving really needed for my purposes is in the character origin (and could somebody please tell me Kasatha lifespan/maturation, if this is known?).
Second, the big one: Pathfinder currently doesn't have any equivalent to WotC's Savage Species for letting you play monsters and similar things. (Savage Species left something to be desired in its implementation, but the basic idea was a noble one.) So Pathfinder doesn't have any obvious way to play (let alone balance) a full-blooded Fiend/Celestial/Fey/Giant/Monstrous Humanoid etc. (as opposed to just Tiefling/Aasimar/Whatever, which probably need minor updates/errata but are currently quite usable overall). So here's the highly incomplete thought I had for this, inspired by Curse of the Crimson Throne: the Summoner Switch.
Start with a Summoner that is doomed to die early in the Adventure Path while (or shortly after) aiding a certain legendary freedom fighter in preventing a certain travesty of justice, and be replaced by the newly Unfettered Eidolon, which is a heretical (from Hell's point of view) Devil which the Summoner had accidentally rescued from punitive reconstitution and reprogramming. After the Summoner is executed (and the Eidolon is banished), in gratitude the freedom fighter helps the other PCs attempt a resurrection of the Summoner, but something goes wrong with the attempt, and instead of the Summoner, the Eidolon is brought back, now as an independent character.
Problems with a Summoner Switch that would currently require a BIG DM handwave or a rules supplement (not just errata) include the fact that Eidolon stats are just about set in stone. I'll figure out the point buy equivalent later, but basically you only get to make Eidolons that are melee combatants or Rogue stand-ins, in either case dumping Intelligence and not doing too great on the other mental stats; even with a fair number of Summoner levels, options for changing this are quite limited. Related to this, Eidolons don't get much in the way of out-of-combat options other than spying and some wimpy spell-like abilities. For the Summoner Switch itself, I'd like to see some Story Feats that help tie it together (something like an Unfulfilled Mission Story Feat taken by an Eidolon or other companion that ties to a Story Feat that the master had unfulfilled). So right now, I have this concept in mind, but I don't feel like I have a viable implementation. The Advanced Race Guide just doesn't cut it in this territory (and is already rather wobbly on its feet for the above smaller example with the Kasatha).
So, having said that, I'll temporarily stop talking and open the floor.
That's pretty easily done.
1) Take the design of the Eidolon
2) Deconstruct it part-by-part
3) Match up those parts with the rules for Race Creation from the ARG via RP.
4) Determine the final RP, and adjust CL so that it's balanced for the APL.
Keep in mind that gaining xp as normal will, in time, make the new Eidolon character all-but catch up to the Party so that at high levels his CL will match the party's.
You can do example 1 by using the rules at the end of bastards of Golarion. You can make a 1/2 Kasatha, replacing the 4 arms with human abilities that add up to the same RP points. No hand-waving needed for a 4 armed character.
a dextrous, intelligent and charismatic Assassin capable of reliably dissapearing on a dime mid attack, fooling most exotic monsters senses by virtue of being that sneaky, and capable of nearly effortless short range body flicker type rapid movement to set up immediate full attacks and uses very little blatant magic beyond those few superhuman purely physical talents, but is otherwise good enough at melee combat to drop a level appropriate foe reliably with merely a single dagger, without relying on coup de grace, has decent social skills, makes a keen infiltrator, is a trained scout and highly skilled trap disabler, while being mostly mundane and not really relying on magic items and is perfectly valid inside an anti magic field
in other words. something resembling the assassin Altiar but slightly more fantastic
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
a dextrous, intelligent and charismatic Assassin capable of reliably dissapearing on a dime mid attack, fooling most exotic monsters senses by virtue of being that sneaky, and capable of nearly effortless short range body flicker type rapid movement to set up immediate full attacks and uses very little blatant magic beyond those few superhuman purely physical talents, but is otherwise good enough at melee combat to drop a level appropriate foe reliably with merely a single dagger, without relying on coup de grace, has decent social skills, makes a keen infiltrator, is a trained scout and highly skilled trap disabler, while being mostly mundane and not really relying on magic items and is perfectly valid inside an anti magic field
in other words. something resembling the assassin Altiar but slightly more fantastic
I think you just described a Ninja. Like... EXACTLY a Ninja. A Social Ninja, but a Ninja.
Vanishing Trick + Invisible Blade. The Flicker-when-attacking can just be chalked up to fluff for coolness' sake.
the Assassinate Advanced Trick is the "single attack kill" you're looking for.
The last bit about dimensional bouncing is Abundant Step.
It'd be simple to take a lv10 Ninja, lv12 Monk, but that's going into Epic levels.
Trying to keep it to under lv20, or better yet lv15 will require a bit more digging...
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
@graystone: Replacing the 4 arms sort of defeats the reason why I wanted a Kasatha character in the first place . . . .
@Auren "Rin" Cloudstrider & chbgraphicarts: Rogue and especially Ninja seem to do a better job in the long run of being assassins than the Assassin Prestige Class -- you just have to wait longer for full gratification.
For trying to reconstruct an Eidolon with the Advanced Race Guide, it already doesn't work very well, but here's a small start. Closest thing I can get to match the Ability Scores is Specialized (+2 Str, +2 Dex, -2 Int) and then use an 8 point buy for Aquatic and Biped Base Forms (concentrate points on Str) or the Serpentine Base Form (concentrate points on Dex) or a 7 point buy for Quadruped Base Form (distribute points equally between Str and Dex). Ick. Some kind of DM handwave is already needed just to get Ability Scores up into PC range, unless PCs are being forced to use a REALLY STINGY point buy. Which brings up another thing: With Rules Exactly As Written, Summoners are better relative to other classes at lower point buy than at higher point buy (and one of the Summoner Guides I read linked from the Zenith Games meta-guide reported that you can make a viable Summoner with 0 point buy) -- seems Eidolons should have gotten their own ability score point buy, which would be part of the rules supplement I was referring to as needed in my original post.
Before going further with deconstructing the Eidolon using the Advanced Race Guide, let me point out that the Advanced Race Guide already has problems even with non-monstrous races (see this link that somehow got hosed in my original post (thought I fixed that).
UnArcaneElection, you misunderstood me. The rules I was talking about let you swap out other racial traits for your human traits. So you swap out your extra feat and skilled for 4 armed. You where looking for a way to get a lower RP point 4 armed race right? This way gets you a RP 9 4 armed race.
The biggest thing that leaps out at me is that making a Magus - but Ranged is unbelievably clumsy with the existing ruleset. Arcane Archers are cool, but much like the Eldritch Knight, they don't feel like they integrate magic and martial skills so much as they have both.
Myrmidarch does that pretty decently.
are we limiting the discussion to official Paizo products, or including 3pp as well. I do find in general that 3pp material often has a solution for a lot of problems involving implementing fantasy concepts
The biggest thing that leaps out at me is that making a Magus - but Ranged is unbelievably clumsy with the existing ruleset. Arcane Archers are cool, but much like the Eldritch Knight, they don't feel like they integrate magic and martial skills so much as they have both.Myrmidarch does that pretty decently.
Not really. IF he could use Spell combat with a bow and IF he could "hold the charge" like a melee magus, or target touch AC, he would be good.
Not really. IF he could use Spell combat with a bow and IF he could "hold the charge" like a melee magus, or target touch AC, he would be good.The biggest thing that leaps out at me is that making a Magus - but Ranged is unbelievably clumsy with the existing ruleset. Arcane Archers are cool, but much like the Eldritch Knight, they don't feel like they integrate magic and martial skills so much as they have both.Myrmidarch does that pretty decently.
The new tech guns target touch ac. :)
Myrmidarch will also run out of spells really fast . . . .
Even read the guide to the Myrmidarch linked from Zenith Games (this one), and it basically says that it is trying to make the best of a bad situation with this archetype.
I generally find that we do a better job of giving someone a character they will like when we first focus on what they generally want the character to accomplish.
So instead of starting with, "I want to make an archer magus work."
We start with, "I want to mix offensive magic and ranged combat to kill the bad guys before they get close enough to be a threat."
The first one has already eliminated most of the possibilities from consideration.
The second has eliminated almost nothing except unarmed combat, no magic, and melee only builds. Most of the stuff is still at least open for consideration.
If I can keep the player from getting bogged down in the mechanics long enough to give me the general feel for how he wants the character to behave. Instead of "I want a rogue/wizard/arcane archer to sneak attack with ray spells," try "I want to be sneaky and hit people with magic unexpectedly."
A couple years ago, a friend was bound and determined he wanted to play an Ebberon Artificer. He had a lot of fun playing one many years ago and wanted to do that again.
I am not totally against the idea of making a new class or archtype, but when he described why he liked it, I couldn't see any reason to create anything new. And some of the artificer mechanics are just difficult to deal with in PF.
We made a list of the type of general things he wanted to be able to do and the approximate level he wanted to be able to do them. It wasn't what I would call a standard build, but we were able to come up with a character that accomplished everything he said he wanted. PLUS it was significantly more powerful magic wise than his artificer ever would have been. iirc it was kinda awkward at about level 3-4, but most casters are.
We created a small in-game Artificer's guild. The members of which gradually progressed through an odd collection of skills (multi-classed). If that campaign had lasted long enough, we might have made a specific PrC for the guild. But it really wasn't needed.
Actually eldritch heritage and/or the hybrid classes in the ACG fit a lot of what people have been asking for. But again, those could be fairly closely approximated with their parent classes before the ACG came out.
Won't say it always works, but usually.