Blending some 5e with Pathfinder


Homebrew and House Rules


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I debated on where to post this, and thought it most appropriate to place it here as I'm interested in how others think this may fit with the existing PF rules.

Some friends were telling me about 5e and I'm thinking of house-ruling a couple items.

1. All iterative attacks are just full attacks. In other words, once a PC has gained an iterative attack, use your full attack bonus rather than -5 on the 2nd attack.
2. Alter the movement rules to allow full attacks within the standard base movement. In other words, if your base speed is 20, you can move 20 feet and get a full attack.
3. In addition, one can move during a full attack up to their base speed. For example, a paladin with a base speed of 20 could move 10 feet, hit someone, and then move another 10 feet and attack another opponent. Movement would still provoke AOOs.
4. No more than 4 spells active on a PC at a time.

I'm not a fan of house rules, but I'd like this attempt at simplifying the math while adding some dynamics to combat as our group goes into 12th level and beyond.


1, I think making iterative attacks using your full attack bonus is not going to work out well. Despite the various martial/caster threads going on one thing that's pretty agreed upon is that full BAB classes can pile on a ton of damage. giving a +5,+10/+15 boost to those attacks would just make things more lethal than they need to be when already an optimized fighter can pretty much murder anything within his APL with one full attack. The game's math just doesn't support it without changing a ton of other things.

2. If you do this there's the issue of how to deal with the Dwarf and the Fighter that have abilities that bypass armor hampering your movement.

3. At this point I think you want to take a look at the Alternate Action Economy from Pathfinder Unchained. Despite it being unfriendly to the Magus it overall seems to work and its way easier for newer and younger players to grasp it. Plus it makes characters about 50% more mobile and has similarities to the 5e action economy.

4. Personally I'd just go with making all duration spells 'swift action to concentrate. Its simpler to not have to track more than one thing, and 4 spells isn't much of a cap.

Overall I think you should really look at Pathfinder Unchained if you want to incorporate some of the upsides of 5th edition. Particularly the Revised action economy, the consolidated skill list (paring down the skill list to 12 skills) and automatic bonus progression.


Gray wrote:


1. All iterative attacks are just full attacks. In other words, once a PC has gained an iterative attack, use your full attack bonus rather than -5 on the 2nd attack.
2. Alter the movement rules to allow full attacks within the standard base movement. In other words, if your base speed is 20, you can move 20 feet and get a full attack.
3. In addition, one can move during a full attack up to their base speed. For example, a paladin with a base speed of 20 could move 10 feet, hit someone, and then move another 10 feet and attack another opponent. Movement would still provoke AOOs.
4. No more than 4 spells active on a PC at a time.

5. Con mod bonus to AC for unarmored barbarian

6. Backgrounds (so, 2 traits, 2 tools or languages. profession skill could work with those tools).


Malwing wrote:

Despite the various martial/caster threads going on one thing that's pretty agreed upon is that full BAB classes can pile on a ton of damage. giving a +5,+10/+15 boost to those attacks would just make things more lethal than they need to be when already an optimized fighter can pretty much murder anything within his APL with one full attack. The game's math just doesn't support it without changing a ton of other things.

No, the game's math doesn't support taking a 3/4 of the RNG penalty on attacks.

I'll agree that 4 attacks at full BAB (iteratives not counting bonus from haste and such) is a bit too good, but +20/+15/+15/+15 or +20/+18+/+16/+14 (only about 1/4 of the RNG) is considered acceptable (good enough for natural attacks).

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16

Homebrew most likely is the place for this, I'm sure a mod will scoot it over.

There's actually a few topics already on trying to have the best of both worlds that may be of interest to you.


Unchained's new Action Economy essentially turns the edition into 5e, but with some caveats.

Anyone can take up to 3 attacks in a turn, at first level. Secondary and tertiary attacks just take a -5 and -10 penalty, respectively. I personally would like to play test nixing the penalty and allowing everyone to make attacks at full bonus all the time.

Moving is a single act, as are all swift actions. This means you can either have multiple swift actions, or multiple move actions where you used to be limited. This is where it is both different and better than 5e where you are still constrained within your action types.

As for moving in between attacks, it's not so bad, there are alternate ruled in Unchained that allow for this by taking a -5 penalty on the attack roll for moving in between attacks.

Putting caps on the number of spells you can have on creates problems for enemies who attempt to debuff you or put curses on you. Unless you want to create a double standard where the DM gets to cherry pick effects specifically to screw with the player, I would leave this one alone.


Thanks for all the input. Looks like I need to check out / purchase Unchained sooner rather than later. I also missed some of those threads when I did my search.

Another alternate to #1 was to reduce the number of extra attacks to the levels listed in 5e, so martials would only see 3 extra attacks in their progression, but I'll check out Unchained first.

I normally wouldn't mind playing around with something like this, but this particular campaign has been going very well, and everyone has expressed interest in continuing to 20th, so I don't want to throw rules experiments in either.


Gray wrote:

Thanks for all the input. Looks like I need to check out / purchase Unchained sooner rather than later. I also missed some of those threads when I did my search.

Another alternate to #1 was to reduce the number of extra attacks to the levels listed in 5e, so martials would only see 3 extra attacks in their progression, but I'll check out Unchained first.

I normally wouldn't mind playing around with something like this, but this particular campaign has been going very well, and everyone has expressed interest in continuing to 20th, so I don't want to throw rules experiments in either.

The rules from unchained are on d20pfsrd.com but they are rather scattered.

Quote:

No, the game's math doesn't support taking a 3/4 of the RNG penalty on attacks.

I'll agree that 4 attacks at full BAB (iteratives not counting bonus from haste and such) is a bit too good, but +20/+15/+15/+15 or +20/+18+/+16/+14 (only about 1/4 of the RNG) is considered acceptable (good enough for natural attacks).

I very much disagree. In 5th ed extra attacks work out(Well I've been abusing the crap out of it personally.) because your attack bonus isn't going to change radically and neither is your damage. Also your static bonus doesn't double on crits, access to increased crit multipliers and crit ranges are limited and your ability scores are capped. Meanwhile in Pathfinder having a +15 on all your attacks past the first one is going to amount to auto-hits all around when it already means near-certain death when it's not like that.

For example look at the Infernal Champion from the NPC Codex and keep in mind that he's not a terribly good fighter. He's swinging around 2d4+23/15-20/x3. Imagine if his to-hit was 40/35/35/35. Against a creature who's CR is his his level, a Pit Fiend the AC is 38. You need 3 or higher to hit him and you have a 30% chance of dealing doubling your damage. That's almost always going to be 10d4+115 and given the NPC we're talking about this comes with the poor pit fiend being blinded, bleeding, exhausted, staggered, and stunned. And that's a poorly made fighter.


master_marshmallow wrote:

Unchained's new Action Economy essentially turns the edition into 5e, but with some caveats.

Read that rule again, it offers nothing new at all, you can do all of this already without spending or counting stupid points.

If this ammount of actions were modified... dont know, by dexterity bonus and/or level bonus other thing would result. But this rule tells you that you can spend points in the same way as always has been (is much like words of power: a lot of new rule and points to spend to create the same spells and effects... Fail)


master_marshmallow wrote:

Anyone can take up to 3 attacks in a turn, at first level. Secondary and tertiary attacks just take a -5 and -10 penalty, respectively. I personally would like to play test nixing the penalty and allowing everyone to make attacks at full bonus all the time.

Ok, so, im a lvl 1 Fighter, my feats are weapon focus bastard, two weapon fighting and exotic weapon bastard.

I attack with my 2 swords at full BAB. which would be my penalties? -2/-2/-4?
so, -1/-1/-3 TWF
focus and bab +1/+1/-1
Str 16 +3: +2/+2/+1

3d10+9 is a huge damage for a level 1... now you are using a caster.


If your Strength is 16, with weapon focus at level one your BAB and attacks would be +5/+0/-5. With TWF it would bed +3/+3/+0/-5, since its not a light weapon. (disregarding that I don't remember a Bastard sword being a double weapon)

This doesn't mean that first level didn't get twice as lethal, but it didn't get 3 times as lethal.


The one set of rules I've been thinking about incorporating from 5e were the resting rules, where you can rest for one hour and recover a certain number of spells, hit points, and special abilities. I love this idea simply because adventurers having to take 8 hour breaks constantly in the middle of dungeons feels a bit off to me. This gives them options to take short breaks--especially during more time sensitive situations--and keep the ball rolling.


Sub-Creator wrote:
The one set of rules I've been thinking about incorporating from 5e were the resting rules, where you can rest for one hour and recover a certain number of spells, hit points, and special abilities. I love this idea simply because adventurers having to take 8 hour breaks constantly in the middle of dungeons feels a bit off to me. This gives them options to take short breaks--especially during more time sensitive situations--and keep the ball rolling.

I still find short rests annoying from the perspective of playing a fighter that's conservative with resources. But I wouldn't argue too hard against having short rest rules although I'm biased because, as I said, I'm a very resource conservative player so I've almost never have a situation where I'm deperate to rest in either game unless I'm at like 10% HP or something.


Malwing wrote:
Sub-Creator wrote:
The one set of rules I've been thinking about incorporating from 5e were the resting rules, where you can rest for one hour and recover a certain number of spells, hit points, and special abilities. I love this idea simply because adventurers having to take 8 hour breaks constantly in the middle of dungeons feels a bit off to me. This gives them options to take short breaks--especially during more time sensitive situations--and keep the ball rolling.
I still find short rests annoying from the perspective of playing a fighter that's conservative with resources. But I wouldn't argue too hard against having short rest rules although I'm biased because, as I said, I'm a very resource conservative player so I've almost never have a situation where I'm deperate to rest in either game unless I'm at like 10% HP or something.

Conserving resources isn't terribly difficult when you're a martial class. It's those characters that need to keep the martials alive via healing and whatnot that tend to need such breaks. However, as a martial, it can be useful for both you and them if you can regain a bit of those hit points without magical healing (via spell or potion).

Regardless, I thought the idea of quick breaks a useful one.

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Petty Alchemy wrote:
Homebrew most likely is the place for this, I'm sure a mod will scoot it over.

Scooted.


Malwing wrote:
4. Personally I'd just go with making all duration spells 'swift action to concentrate. Its simpler to not have to track more than one thing

Wow, maybe this belongs in the "fix martials" thread (or some other "nerf casters" thread), but really? Have you tried this or are you just spitballing here?

No way for a mage to cast Invisibility on himself without dropping Mage Armor? Can't have Mage Armor and Mirror Image? What about having to lose any of those each time we want to cast Darkness or Silence or Hold Person or Summon Monster or Fly or, well, sooooooooo very many examples?

I'd love to hear how this worked out for you if you actually did it!

Alternatively, what about a softer limit without the Swift Action, say, capping the duration spells to one spell on one target per caster level? So a 6th level mage could have Mage Armor, Mirror Image, and still be able to cast Haste on his 4-man party, but then couldn't summon a monster or silence an enemy caster without dismissing something on himself or one of his allies.

We'd probably have to alter the Dismissing rule too - having to burn a standard action this round to lose my Mage Armor so I can try to Silence an enemy caster NEXT round (after he nukes us, or whatever) would just make it extremely unlikely that I would ever risk having Mage Armor active in the first place.


DM_Blake wrote:
Malwing wrote:
4. Personally I'd just go with making all duration spells 'swift action to concentrate. Its simpler to not have to track more than one thing

Wow, maybe this belongs in the "fix martials" thread (or some other "nerf casters" thread), but really? Have you tried this or are you just spitballing here?

No way for a mage to cast Invisibility on himself without dropping Mage Armor? Can't have Mage Armor and Mirror Image? What about having to lose any of those each time we want to cast Darkness or Silence or Hold Person or Summon Monster or Fly or, well, sooooooooo very many examples?

I'd love to hear how this worked out for you if you actually did it!

Alternatively, what about a softer limit without the Swift Action, say, capping the duration spells to one spell on one target per caster level? So a 6th level mage could have Mage Armor, Mirror Image, and still be able to cast Haste on his 4-man party, but then couldn't summon a monster or silence an enemy caster without dismissing something on himself or one of his allies.

We'd probably have to alter the Dismissing rule too - having to burn a standard action this round to lose my Mage Armor so I can try to Silence an enemy caster NEXT round (after he nukes us, or whatever) would just make it extremely unlikely that I would ever risk having Mage Armor active in the first place.

Spitballing. Mostly since this is a 5e-related thread and 5th edition has a lot of spells function by concentration. Its not as bad as applying to every duration spell but its prevalent enough that a lot of things can't stack from one caster. Although in 5e concentrating takes no action.


Malwing wrote:

If your Strength is 16, with weapon focus at level one your BAB and attacks would be +5/+0/-5. With TWF it would bed +3/+3/+0/-5, since its not a light weapon. (disregarding that I don't remember a Bastard sword being a double weapon)

This doesn't mean that first level didn't get twice as lethal, but it didn't get 3 times as lethal.

Yes i agreed, but turn and watch how spellcasters will manage this rule... did they will have more spells per round too or just bonus for martials?

Sub-Creator wrote:
The one set of rules I've been thinking about incorporating from 5e were the resting rules, where you can rest for one hour and recover a certain number of spells, hit points, and special abilities. I love this idea simply because adventurers having to take 8 hour breaks constantly in the middle of dungeons feels a bit off to me. This gives them options to take short breaks--especially during more time sensitive situations--and keep the ball rolling.

Here, take my version:

Short Rest = Con mod + lvl. You can use short rest 1/day per level

Long rest you get 1dHD+con mod+lvl to restore your total hit points. and get anither hd per every level you get (at 20 you will get 20dHD + con mod +20) per long rest.


Juda de Kerioth wrote:
Malwing wrote:

If your Strength is 16, with weapon focus at level one your BAB and attacks would be +5/+0/-5. With TWF it would bed +3/+3/+0/-5, since its not a light weapon. (disregarding that I don't remember a Bastard sword being a double weapon)

This doesn't mean that first level didn't get twice as lethal, but it didn't get 3 times as lethal.

Yes i agreed, but turn and watch how spellcasters will manage this rule... did they will have more spells per round too or just bonus for martials?

Spells are 2 acts so if they cast a spell and move they function pretty much as normal except for the loss of a swift action.

Basically it goes like this:

You get 3 acts and 1 reaction.

Most things that are a swift action are now 1 act, as are things that are move actions. 5ft step is also one act.

Most Standard action things, like spells, are 2 acts. This renders Vital Strike useless but makes Cleave effectively gain a +5 bonus to the second attack.

Full round actions are mostly 3 acts.

TWF and similar abilities add a second attack to one attack action with the same penalties. Improved TWF gives you a second attack on another attack action with the same penalties and so on.

Each time you make an attack action your next attack action gets a cumulative -5. So if your attack bonus is 20 and you make three attack actions in a round it you're making them at +20/+15/+10. If you're doing so with TWF, Improved TWF, and Greater TWF you'll make six attacks at +18/+18/+13/+13/+8/+8.


Malwing wrote:
Juda de Kerioth wrote:
Malwing wrote:

If your Strength is 16, with weapon focus at level one your BAB and attacks would be +5/+0/-5. With TWF it would bed +3/+3/+0/-5, since its not a light weapon. (disregarding that I don't remember a Bastard sword being a double weapon)

This doesn't mean that first level didn't get twice as lethal, but it didn't get 3 times as lethal.

Yes i agreed, but turn and watch how spellcasters will manage this rule... did they will have more spells per round too or just bonus for martials?

Spells are 2 acts so if they cast a spell and move they function pretty much as normal except for the loss of a swift action.

Basically it goes like this:

You get 3 acts and 1 reaction.

Most things that are a swift action are now 1 act, as are things that are move actions. 5ft step is also one act.

Most Standard action things, like spells, are 2 acts. This renders Vital Strike useless but makes Cleave effectively gain a +5 bonus to the second attack.

Full round actions are mostly 3 acts.

TWF and similar abilities add a second attack to one attack action with the same penalties. Improved TWF gives you a second attack on another attack action with the same penalties and so on.

Each time you make an attack action your next attack action gets a cumulative -5. So if your attack bonus is 20 and you make three attack actions in a round it you're making them at +20/+15/+10. If you're doing so with TWF, Improved TWF, and Greater TWF you'll make six attacks at +18/+18/+13/+13/+8/+8.

i realy see this action rule useless at all.


Juda de Kerioth wrote:
Malwing wrote:
Juda de Kerioth wrote:
Malwing wrote:

If your Strength is 16, with weapon focus at level one your BAB and attacks would be +5/+0/-5. With TWF it would bed +3/+3/+0/-5, since its not a light weapon. (disregarding that I don't remember a Bastard sword being a double weapon)

This doesn't mean that first level didn't get twice as lethal, but it didn't get 3 times as lethal.

Yes i agreed, but turn and watch how spellcasters will manage this rule... did they will have more spells per round too or just bonus for martials?

Spells are 2 acts so if they cast a spell and move they function pretty much as normal except for the loss of a swift action.

Basically it goes like this:

You get 3 acts and 1 reaction.

Most things that are a swift action are now 1 act, as are things that are move actions. 5ft step is also one act.

Most Standard action things, like spells, are 2 acts. This renders Vital Strike useless but makes Cleave effectively gain a +5 bonus to the second attack.

Full round actions are mostly 3 acts.

TWF and similar abilities add a second attack to one attack action with the same penalties. Improved TWF gives you a second attack on another attack action with the same penalties and so on.

Each time you make an attack action your next attack action gets a cumulative -5. So if your attack bonus is 20 and you make three attack actions in a round it you're making them at +20/+15/+10. If you're doing so with TWF, Improved TWF, and Greater TWF you'll make six attacks at +18/+18/+13/+13/+8/+8.

i realy see this action rule useless at all.

? Dude what?


hahahaha dont know what happen... but i see this action rule useless at all


Juda de Kerioth wrote:

hahahaha dont know what happen... but i see this action rule useless at all

I don't understand what you are trying to say either. I can guess but even if I did you aren't specific which is important because I listed a lot of rules.


I mean, that economy system is worthless unless you get extra action per level at all.

Reaction is the same as Ready action (i.e I let one swift action ready)

the economy system from unchained is just another way to make slower the game.

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