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FOr me Pathfinder kept the seat warm due to a certain edition WoTC released a few years ago. I was an early adopter of 3.0 more or less as soon as I could get my hands on the books in 2000.
By 2012 3.x was not looking that appealing and after 10 years of supporting Paizo I more or less stopped getting stuff. After trying out 2E agian after a 10 year hiatus (2002-2012) I found I enjoyed certain things from AD&D the main appeal of 3.x over 2E at the time was things like ascending ACs, no level limits or racial restrictions.
Now I will quite happily play OD&D,BECMI, 1E,2E, 3.0/3.5/PF or 5E and I own all 7 editions of D&D, Pathfinder, Castles and Crusades, ACKs, DCC, Basic Fantasy and a few other clones I forget the name of.
Suffice to say I have my preferences but very few sacred cows as such. I prefer no racial restrictions of level limits but if I am playing AD&D 1E or 2E I can live with them.
So after 6 years of Pathfinder being around and perhaps up to 15 years of 3.x games I was wondering what peoples opinion here is on sacred cows? How many of the following things do you regard as essential to your enjoyment of Pathfinder in particular or 3.x gaming in general.
1. Disparity of 6 points between a good and bad save.
2. Sacking spell DCs with the level of the spell and then adding the spellcaster modifier to the DC (when you require XYZ amount of ability score to cast the spell in the 1st place).
3. Being able to easily buy magical items.
4. Wands of Cure Ligth Wounds and similar wands existing enabling very cheap healing.
5. Multiple attacks decreasing in accuracy eg. +16/+11/+6/+1
6. The natural spell feat existing.
7. Disparity of +/- 6 skill points between the classes eg 2 for fighters, 8 for rogues.
8. Auto scaling buff spells you can stack together eg divine power, divine favor, righteous might etc.
9. Feats existing full stop. Would you play a 3.x/d20 game with no feats?
10. Ability scores scaling up as you level and uncapped limits on ability scores.
1. Disparity of 6 points between a good and bad save.
Bad, I tend to reduce this disparity to 4 points at 20th level in my games.
2. Sacking spell DCs with the level of the spell and then adding the spellcaster modifier to the DC (when you require XYZ amount of ability score to cast the spell in the 1st place).
Complicated but not inherently bad. I haven't seen a better system to be honest.
3. Being able to easily buy magical items.
Weird. But required when there is such an exponential wealth curve.
4. Wands of Cure Ligth Wounds and similar wands existing enabling very cheap healing.
I like healing being as available as possible, so I tend to enjoy such things.
5. Multiple attacks decreasing in accuracy eg. +16/+11/+6/+1
Always felt this was a weird thing.
6. The natural spell feat existing.
Tends to be required when it exists, so it should be built into the class. (Or preferably the class should be split into more since it's being drawn in two separate directions).
7. Disparity of +/- 6 skill points between the classes eg 2 for fighters, 8 for rogues.
A weird mix of bad, and required because of scaling intelligence.
8. Auto scaling buff spells you can stack together eg divine power, divine favor, righteous might etc.
I like buff spells. I wish they were faster to cast. I also wish they didn't stack.
9. Feats existing full stop. Would you play a 3.x/d20 game with no feats?
Optional.
10. Ability scores scaling up as you level and uncapped limits on ability scores.
I actually strongly dislike both of these things.
1. Disparity of 6 points between a good and bad save.Bad, I tend to reduce this disparity to 4 points at 20th level in my games.
2. Sacking spell DCs with the level of the spell and then adding the spellcaster modifier to the DC (when you require XYZ amount of ability score to cast the spell in the 1st place).Complicated but not inherently bad. I haven't seen a better system to be honest.
3. Being able to easily buy magical items.Weird. But required when there is such an exponential wealth curve.
4. Wands of Cure Ligth Wounds and similar wands existing enabling very cheap healing.I like healing being as available as possible, so I tend to enjoy such things.
5. Multiple attacks decreasing in accuracy eg. +16/+11/+6/+1Always felt this was a weird thing.
6. The natural spell feat existing.Tends to be required when it exists, so it should be built into the class. (Or preferably the class should be split into more since it's being drawn in two separate directions).
7. Disparity of +/- 6 skill points between the classes eg 2 for fighters, 8 for rogues.A weird mix of bad, and required because of scaling intelligence.
8. Auto scaling buff spells you can stack together eg divine power, divine favor, righteous might etc.I like buff spells. I wish they were faster to cast. I also wish they didn't stack.
9. Feats existing full stop. Would you play a 3.x/d20 game with no feats?Optional.
10. Ability scores scaling up as you level and uncapped limits on ability scores.I actually strongly dislike both of these things.
Thanks for the good reply. There is no right and wrong answer to my OP BTW. Not trying to play gotcha with anyone here.
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Pretty much nothing there is something I would be opposed to losing...if the system was adjusted adequately to make it work.
I will say that the entire Pathfinder system is filled with dodgy design choices and a whole bunch of other design choices would be dodgy if they weren't acting as patches for other parts of the system. I would be totally ok if the patches went so long as the underlying issue that made them necessary was also fixed.
Lets take a few from your list.
2. DCs scaling the way they do need to scale that way because monster saves (and skill rank based save DCs) scale at about the same rate, so changing this makes the system even more screwy unless you go fix the majority of monsters and a whole bunch of other mechanics.
3. Most classes lack inbuilt ways of getting most magic item benefits, and the benefits are necessary to keep up with monster numbers. Again, revamp the system so that the magic items aren't absolutely necessary for half the classes to be able to take on CR appropriate foes and the ease of getting magic items ceases being nigh-mandatory unless the GM is happy hand tweaking everything they throw at the party and constantly dealing with even more intraparty balance issues than normal.
4. Characters have to heal somehow, because it is far too easy to start a fight at high health and end up near death by the end without another character expending large amounts of resources on heals. Since most players don't enjoy playing a walking band-aid(playing a healer is fine, but making it a mandatory role is not), the game needs to either give players an easy way to heal up out of combat (whether by using inbuilt abilities or cheap magic) or make it so characters can go the entire day without running out of HP most of the time. At the moment, the game is solving the issue with CLW wands. Getting rid of them means adding something else for healing or revamping the system to allow for gradual HP attrition.
5. Adding in another attack at full BAB is a massive spike in damage. A character's DPR will increase to twice as much when they go from 1 attack to 2. This isn't really acceptable when other parts of the system have a gradual increase instead. However the system handles the issue, that spike can't be there if character levels are supposed to be a reliable indication of power.
10. Again, numbers need to keep up with monsters. Changing this means changing the monsters.
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1. Disparity of 6 points between a good and bad save.
I don't see anything wrong with this - although it would be nice if we saw more flexibility rather than this implicit mind-binding that drives all published classes to be this way. Why can't we have a class that features all poor saves, or a schema of +6/+3/+15 or something by 20th level? Creeping conservatism and groovethought has set in, and is shriveling our minds and the game tragically needlessly.
2. Sacking spell DCs with the level of the spell and then adding the spellcaster modifier to the DC (when you require XYZ amount of ability score to cast the spell in the 1st place).
I don't particularly mind this.
3. Being able to easily buy magical items.
This isn't an integral part of the game at all - it varies with the campaign setting. Too many of the "problems" harped on on these boards and prompting b*+$%y demands for World of Warcraft-evoking "fixes" only exist if people play a certain way, not realizing they don't have to do that at all. I'm personally a big fan of "you find cool stuff in your adventures, but that's what you have to use rather than ordering your pipedream from McMagewright's."
4. Wands of Cure Ligth Wounds and similar wands existing enabling very cheap healing.
Those things seem to get taken for granted. It's probably not a good idea.
5. Multiple attacks decreasing in accuracy eg. +16/+11/+6/+1
No complaints. There are alternate methods, but no complaints here.
6. The natural spell feat existing.
Good enough for me - if you're implying it gets abused somehow, maybe alter it a little.
7. Disparity of +/- 6 skill points between the classes eg 2 for fighters, 8 for rogues.
I wouldn't mind seeing a greater potential disparity (like Rogues and their ilk getting 10+). Again, things have gotten too conservative and stiff-minded around here.
8. Auto scaling buff spells you can stack together eg divine power, divine favor, righteous might etc.
You have a point; maybe there should be a limit to this - or a way to funnel all these things into one round at the expense of some of the cumulative potency.
9. Feats existing full stop. Would you play a 3.x/d20 game with no feats?
I like feats just fine - one idea I heard was something to the extent of placing more restrictions on some of them, though (like "Combat" feats only being available to classes with full BAB or something like that).
10. Ability scores scaling up as you level and uncapped limits on ability scores.
I think this is more of a hypothetical problem than a genuine one. Maybe a way to handle it would be to impose "glass ceilings" at certain milestones for the different scores that have special and formidable requirements other than level and wealth before they can be exceeded (things like class, size, creature type, age, divine status, etc).
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1. Disparity of 6 points between a good and bad save.
Not necessary and doesn't scale well. At 1st level you have a 10% better chance of saving at your main save (or you could see it as a 10% worse chance with your off saves). This scales to a 30% difference at 20th level. There's no real reason to be an extra 20% stronger/weaker to level-appropriate challenges at 20th than at 1st.
2. Sacking spell DCs with the level of the spell and then adding the spellcaster modifier to the DC (when you require XYZ amount of ability score to cast the spell in the 1st place).
The ability score requirements are mostly for buffers and summoner sorts like bards, many divine casters, and some odd arcanists where saving throw DCs are less important. If not for the minimum ability scores, clerics could function 100% fine with no investment into Wisdom, as could most summoning/dispelling/battlefield arcane-types, as well as most bards.
The spell level + ability score modifier provides a fairly smooth saving throw progression based on typical ability scores of NPCs and expected PC options and provides the obvious benefit of "stronger spells are harder to resist". It also means that even though your resource pool is becoming greater the number of spells you have with level-appropriate DCs is still relatively limited.
3. Being able to easily buy magical items.
In virtually every campaign I've ever seen where you could not, the acquisition of money was uninspiring or not worth the effort to get it. It pretty much shoots the classic dungeon crawling benefits in the head which might be fine for people who don't want players to enjoy that aspect of the game but the only way for money to have value to the PC is for it to be usable in a tangible way. Since most players are interested in playing an adventure game rather than some sort of economy-sim, you need to be able to convert obtained wealth into more goodies.
4. Wands of Cure Light Wounds and similar wands existing enabling very cheap healing.
It's far from a sacred cow but it does serve a purpose that would need to be dealt with if you remove it. Essentially you want to avoid falling into the trope where you have to have X class. Having to have a healer to progress in an adventure creates unfun situations where someone may be required or at least expected to play a role they are not personally interested in. It's the same problem with making only rogues able to handle traps.
Having cheap healing consumables that are usable by most classes (roughly half the core rulebook classes can use wands of cure light wounds without a UMD check - and more than half if you don't consider Fighter, Monk, and Rogue classes) means that a group can convert treasures into healing between combats which means that you can continue to push on in an adventure in a timely fashion.
5. Multiple attacks decreasing in accuracy eg. +16/+11/+6/+1
This has several purposes but the main one is the ability to rapidly slaughter lower level enemies without being as much of a threat to equal or higher level enemies without excessive hit point scaling. It also rewards martially oriented characters by giving them a benefit for pressing beyond the hit-% cap (because excess accuracy is not wasted, it equates to additional secondary hits).
I'm including a variant of this mechanic in the RPG I'm working on though it is not the same mechanically.
6. The natural spell feat existing.
The natural spell feat doesn't actually affect how a druid plays very much in the hands of a skilled player. One can make due without it. It's actually more of a convenience to the rest of the party who don't have to hear their druid whining that he doesn't want to turn back into a druid to heal the fighter because he won't have any more wildshapes left today.
7. Disparity of +/- 6 skill points between the classes eg 2 for fighters, 8 for rogues.
I've recently realized it's not needed. Nor are bonus skill points for high Int scores.
8. Auto scaling buff spells you can stack together eg divine power, divine favor, righteous might etc.
I love buffs. Buffs are good. I actually wish more buffs lasted longer. Contrastingly, I wish Paizo hadn't nerfed dispel spells so that it was easier to strip lots of buffs at once (which made overbuffing great but a counterable strategy).
9. Feats existing full stop. Would you play a 3.x/d20 game with no feats?
Feats are at their core selectable talents that aren't tied to class. It's definitely a big draw to the system. The quality of the talents is important as well but it gives players something shared across classes.
10. Ability scores scaling up as you level and uncapped limits on ability scores.
This is important for power scaling. It's much easier to fine tune the relative strength of everything when you're not limited to a certain range. Likewise, in a level-based system where level = power scale, you need to be able to advance your overall ability unless all of your progress is statistically artificial.
In the RPG system I'm working on, all ability scores scale more smoothly with level.
When dealing with sacred cows, I feel it's important to understand what purpose that cow serves. If you do, you can understand whether to milk it or throw it on the grill.
My sacred cows are as follows:
1 freedom - I need to be able to just do things and have the rules/DM be able to handle it.
2 spell casting needs to be cool and effective. I can actually live with martial sucking if casting was weak too then the game would just be boring.
3 I need my abilities to pretend like they exist in a world not a game. "Encounter power" or things like it is an immediate turn off. I actually avoid the inquisitor for having abilities that last "during combat".
Edit: if I wasn't clear that means "no" to all the sacred cows you listed.
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I'm actually pretty sure none of those are sacred cows... especially not 6.
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1. Disparity of 6 points between a good and bad save.
Perhaps a bit much - but I rarely play high levels anyway, so its usually only 4 at most for me.
2. Sacking spell DCs with the level of the spell and then adding the spellcaster modifier to the DC (when you require XYZ amount of ability score to cast the spell in the 1st place).
Not a bad system, and to remove it you'd have to revamp large chunks of the system. Perhaps have some spells have max DCs - it'd keep them from being so HD based.
3. Being able to easily buy magical items.
Pretty much a necessity considering how integral items are to power level. Again - system would need to be largely revamped to change.
Also - as Ashiel said above - you need something game based to spend your gold on. In a sci-fi game you could avoid the need for better items by being able to save for a spaceship or some such - but such isn't really viable in a fantasy game.
4. Wands of Cure Light Wounds and similar wands existing enabling very cheap healing.
Actually - the whole healing mechanic was one thing I really liked from 4e. I liked that you were healed as a % (because why should the same spell heal a commoner from the verge of death, but only heal a paper-cut on a high level barbarian?) and that your surges were limited per day. It also made lesser encounters worth actually playing through - as they might use up significant resources, and made getting through a fight less injured mean something past level 4.
5. Multiple attacks decreasing in accuracy eg. +16/+11/+6/+1
I kinda like it. It makes it so that AC matters even if you're in the middling area, where you know that first swing will hit you. In the same way, it makes accuracy matter more since even if your first swing is a sure thing - using PA etc may make an iterative miss.
It's why PA becomes far less effective on full attacks for martials at 11, and again at 16.
I DON'T like how it makes moving into melee first a bad tactical move.
6. The natural spell feat existing.
Silliness. Or - at the least it should be limited to lesser spells.
7. Disparity of +/- 6 skill points between the classes eg 2 for fighters, 8 for rogues.
Doesn't bother me - though skills shouldn't be outmoded by spells - that's an entirely different ball of wax.
8. Auto scaling buff spells you can stack together eg divine power, divine favor, righteous might etc.
Fine - though I think they should do away with all of the self-only buffs. That'd go a long way towards caster/martial disparity, as casters would still have more raw power, but wouldn't be stepping on martial toes.
9. Feats existing full stop. Would you play a 3.x/d20 game with no feats?
I like the feat system. Adds a lot of character customization to the system - which is a good thing. I want MY level 6 monk to be significantly different from YOUR level 6 monk.
10. Ability scores scaling up as you level and uncapped limits on ability scores.
Seems fine to me, though I wouldn't mind if instead of adding +1 stat point every 4 levels, you instead got 1 point of stat buying power each level, to be spent per character creation stat costs. (or some such)
For me it's the feats.
That is where you get the ability to take a predefined class/archetype and add the final layer of customization.
Wanna specialize in summoning, and have your critters be more powerful? You can do that.
Same class could instead focus on blasting...
For martials, TONS of options, a lot of them good.
Defensive build with Dodge, Toughness and Shield based feats? YUP!
Offensive build using two handed swords? SURE!
For me, it's the feats. The more, the merrier!
:D
Although not mentioned, but in my mind related, Traits are cool too.
1. Disparity of 6 points between a good and bad save.
Not a fan of this. Lots of other D20 systems included a third save progression in-between the two we have now. Honestly, I'm kind of inclined to just scrap the current saving throw system as it makes three attributes more valuable than others.
2. Sacking spell DCs with the level of the spell and then adding the spellcaster modifier to the DC (when you require XYZ amount of ability score to cast the spell in the 1st place).
I've had no real issues with this.
3. Being able to easily buy magical items.
I have no basic issue with this OPTION since it can be easily tailored to the campaign. What I have a huge issue with is the assumption of magic items. That needs to be stripped out.
4. Wands of Cure Ligth Wounds and similar wands existing enabling very cheap healing.
I don't have an issue with this. It is just one option among many (spells, skills, natural healing, potions, etc).
I think the bigger issue is with healing in general. Magical healing makes no sense in context of the rest of the HP and healing rules. It is odd that a healing spell becomes less effective on someone as that person levels.
5. Multiple attacks decreasing in accuracy eg. +16/+11/+6/+1
I hate this. I really do. Along with the Full Attack option. In 2E my fighter could move and make three attacks in a round at full accuracy. I move to 3rd/Pathfinder and now he can't move if he wants to make multiple attacks and if he does make multiple attacks they start to progressively suck? That is moving backwards. This needs to go.
6. The natural spell feat existing.
I think this is stupid and needs to go. I don't understand why this feat exists. Lets remove the ONE limitation the Druid's wildshape ability has. I don't see why we need it and it should go.
7. Disparity of +/- 6 skill points between the classes eg 2 for fighters, 8 for rogues.
I think the entire skill system needs an overhaul but this one is terrible. There is no reason for any class to have only 2+ skills. Skills aren't that powerful. I think that across the board classes should have more skills.
8. Auto scaling buff spells you can stack together eg divine power, divine favor, righteous might etc.
No issues with buffs but I have significant issues with the bonuses. Why do we have 12+ bonus types? It's like they made the rule that same-typed bonuses don't stack to try and limit the power of buffs but then promptly created dozens of types to get around it. I'm all for chopping most of the types down to either Arcane or Divine. That's it.
9. Feats existing full stop. Would you play a 3.x/d20 game with no feats?
I hate feats. I really do. Get rid of them. All of them. They are one of the worst parts of 3.X/Pathfinder. Neat idea but terribly executed in pretty much every iteration of them.
10. Ability scores scaling up as you level and uncapped limits on ability scores.
No issues here. I just wish we would get rid of the attribute numbers. Not sure why we generate a value only to use it to generate another value. Why not just cut the first step out and generate the second value directly? If we never care about our actual attribute score beyond the bonus that it determines, why not just determine the actual bonus and skip rolling for attributes?
Overall I would be okay with gutting or changing most of this but it would require a massive overhaul to monsters in particular but large sections of the game. The entire math of the system gets changed if you reduce the number of bonus types to just two or three. Same for removing the magic item requirements.
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Martials being tethered to mundane.
Frankly - the easiest way to fix that without giving that 'anime' vibe which many dislike, would be to give martial classes some sort of inherent way to resist magic beyond just saves. (Fluff is that their martial prowess is so great and tied to this world, that otherworldly powers have trouble affecting them. So.. they're TOO mundane to mess with magically. :P)
Perhaps a limited pool, or way to spend HP to have something similar to Spell Turning, only just absorbing the magic instead of actually making it rebound. And this pool could be used AFTER any saves were either passed or failed, at the martial's discretion.
Spellcasters could try to chew through the martial's pool, attack them indirectly with AOEs, or perhaps most effectively, they could buff their own martial buddies to go and more effectively beat the snot out of them.
I started with AD&D, so sacred cows are more things like the six core races, the basic classes, some of the classic spells (FIREBALL! - Where is Benign Fascist these days?) some of the classic treasure, etc. But even among these, none are really that sacred. I really don't care that magic-users are now wizards, bards are not a prestige class, and assassins are no longer a core class, yet barbarians are.
I don't want to bring 4th Edition into this, but when I looked at the 4e players handbook, and saw some dragon race, assimar, and categories like "striker", it felt like something totally different then AD&D.
I'm more concerned that the game has the sim-fantasy world aspect where you feel like you could stat up whole functioning towns full of NPCs, rather then feeling like a construction kit for an MMORPG.
EDIT: I do feel like unlimited ability scores, (and the option to start with a 20, causes many imbalances in the game. I think the game would function much better if your abilities went up, but you still had to pay a point buy type system. For example, at first level, you get 20pts to spend. Every four levels, you get 2 more pts to spend. I'm also not a huge fan of the "Christmas Tree Effect", but I do like having something to spend gold on. Perhaps just having less gold, and reducing the power of some of the numeric boosting items.
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None of those are sacred cows for me, mechanically I could live with changing any of them. When I think sacred cow its usually alignment, LG paladins, and combat as war.
Martials being tethered to mundane.
It's a cow that needs to be slaughtered decades ago, but today will have to do.
Na, maybe tomorrow
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Celestial Herd Animals.
FOr me Pathfinder kept the seat warm due to a certain edition WoTC released a few years ago. I was an early adopter of 3.0 more or less as soon as I could get my hands on the books in 2000.By 2012 3.x was not looking that appealing and after 10 years of supporting Paizo I more or less stopped getting stuff. After trying out 2E agian after a 10 year hiatus (2002-2012) I found I enjoyed certain things from AD&D the main appeal of 3.x over 2E at the time was things like ascending ACs, no level limits or racial restrictions.
Now I will quite happily play OD&D,BECMI, 1E,2E, 3.0/3.5/PF or 5E and I own all 7 editions of D&D, Pathfinder, Castles and Crusades, ACKs, DCC, Basic Fantasy and a few other clones I forget the name of.
Suffice to say I have my preferences but very few sacred cows as such. I prefer no racial restrictions of level limits but if I am playing AD&D 1E or 2E I can live with them.
So after 6 years of Pathfinder being around and perhaps up to 15 years of 3.x games I was wondering what peoples opinion here is on sacred cows? How many of the following things do you regard as essential to your enjoyment of Pathfinder in particular or 3.x gaming in general.
1. Disparity of 6 points between a good and bad save.
This doesn't bother me much, as most of the time players in my games have saves through the damn roof. YMMV as I don't play Point Buy and as such rarely have players forced to dump important stats. By my own admission, my opinion on this is anecdotal.
2. Sacking spell DCs with the level of the spell and then adding the spellcaster modifier to the DC (when you require XYZ amount of ability score to cast the spell in the 1st place).
Mixed bag of feelings on this. On one hand, I understand wanting Heighten Spell to be a thing, on the other I do feel the game is better off without it existing as a feat tax, which is the #2 complaint 3.x has in general. 5e DCs are interesting, as there is one DC for all your spells based on your own level progression. Unchained also has rules where saves are turned backwards and the caster has to roll a sort of attack roll against an "AC" based off the character's save. Mathematically it's about equal, but it is still interesting to note.
3. Being able to easily buy magical items.
Not to well versed in many APs, but this is mostly table variance. In my experience, this can be very difficult and players can be wildly over taxed for high meta items, or even have no items available outside of crafting it yourself. Definitely not a sacred cow, again anecdotal.
4. Wands of Cure Ligth Wounds and similar wands existing enabling very cheap healing.
This is one of those gamist things that only bothers certain tables. I am not bothered by it personally, but this is tied directly to the 'ye ole magic shoppe' paradigm.
5. Multiple attacks decreasing in accuracy eg. +16/+11/+6/+1
Absolutely this bugs me. Best thing about 5e is the action economy, and the ability to make all attacks at this modifier.
6. The natural spell feat existing.
Again, feat tax being the #2 complaint about the edition as a whole. Some of them are good, some of them are bad. I mind this one less, but I can agree that mechanics like this and other "must have" feats are sacred cows of the system.
7. Disparity of +/- 6 skill points between the classes eg 2 for fighters, 8 for rogues.
The skill system in general is a sacred cow for most editions. Generally everyone wants to be able to do more stuff, but there is a design flaw in letting other classes get more skills like the rogue. It's not bad per se to give away more skills, if the other classes received some sort of boon to balance it out. Also if skills weren't inherently flawed by design that would also help. Recently with Skill Unlocks and in the past with Skill Tricks that is less of a problem. Overall though I will agree that 2+INT skill classes oughta all fall in the category of "this class has INT as a primary skill and by serendipitous and synergistic game mechanics have more skills inherently."
8. Auto scaling buff spells you can stack together eg divine power, divine favor, righteous might etc.
Disingenuous, as most of these do not actually stack. This was one of the big fixes in Pathfinder that a lot of buff spells are much more defined in what kind of bonus they grant. Divine Power is essentially just a better Divine Favor. In 5e, Divine Power would just be a higher level version of the former. No sacred cow.
9. Feats existing full stop. Would you play a 3.x/d20 game with no feats?
Love feats, have been playing 5e without them and I hate it because all builds are cookie cutter. Granted 5e essentially builds your character for you past 1st level, but the point remains that there is very little variance in builds and experiences past the first few levels. Feat taxes are an issue, for sure, but something like 5e where you get one full set of "Combat Style" feats and nothing else isn't better by default. If you only ever intend to focus on one style of combat for 20 levels sure, it can work, but for switch hitter characters or anyone else who likes different kinds of feats it severely limits choice. Is it a sacred cow? Yes, most likely. Not one that I can do without personally.
10. Ability scores scaling up as you level and uncapped limits on ability scores.
I think ability scores existing in general is more of the sacred cow than how you go about them. I like not having a cap, and I like that character growth improves your actual character.
...
I think the bigger issue is with healing in general. Magical healing makes no sense in context of the rest of the HP and healing rules. It is odd that a healing spell becomes less effective on someone as that person levels.This is an example of what I was talking about. People seeing levels as something less than 'becoming more powerful,' wherein of course a more powerful being who can endure more damage is going to require greater magic to heal that damage.
In a game without levels you scrap the whole cure line and are left with 'Cure', 'Cure Mass' and 'Cure Fatal/Breath of Life'
I think it's more than that though. Why is CLW (1d8+1 at first level) more effective when cast on a wizard than a barbarian? Assuming it heals 4 points on average that's half a first level wizard's hit points (assuming 6 to start plus 2 from Con) but less than a third of a barbarian's hit points (assuming 12 to start plus at least 2 from Con). That seems strange to me.
Now compare that 4 hit points of healing to natural healing. At first level it is 4 days worth of natural healing or 2 days of full bed rest. At 4th level it is 1 day of healing or 1/2 day of full bed rest. Why the change?
My inclination would be to fix the healing spells to make them better match with the rest of the HP system. Either make them 1DX+1 where X is the hit die type of the recipient, which gets wonky and complicated with multi-classing, or make it provide 1d8+1 days of natural healing.
I like the idea that more powerful characters require more powerful magic but it would be nice if the spells were a little more consistent with other types of healing.
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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I think it's more than that though. Why is CLW (1d8+1 at first level) more effective when cast on a wizard than a barbarian? Assuming it heals 4 points on average that's half a first level wizard's hit points (assuming 6 to start plus 2 from Con) but less than a third of a barbarian's hit points (assuming 12 to start plus at least 2 from Con). That seems strange to me....
I think the bigger issue is with healing in general. Magical healing makes no sense in context of the rest of the HP and healing rules. It is odd that a healing spell becomes less effective on someone as that person levels.This is an example of what I was talking about. People seeing levels as something less than 'becoming more powerful,' wherein of course a more powerful being who can endure more damage is going to require greater magic to heal that damage.
In a game without levels you scrap the whole cure line and are left with 'Cure', 'Cure Mass' and 'Cure Fatal/Breath of Life'
I realize I'm adding to a bit of a derail here, but maybe I can be helpful.
Isn't asking "why is 4 points of healing less effective on a 14HP creature than on an 8HP creature" kind of like asking "why is raise dead less effective on a 10-man party than on a 4-man party"?If the 6HP wizard and the 12HP fighter each take a 5-damage longsword stab, they both have the same injury. It's just that the fighter could take it again and still be fighting, while the wizard couldn't. Then, when someone comes along and heals them for 5HP each, the healing was equally effective: they both had their identical stab-wounds removed. The only difference is that the fighter might have a second stab-wound that also needs healing.
The healing was not more effective on one than the other: the same amount of injury got healed. There is no inconsistency.
Now compare that 4 hit points of healing to natural healing. At first level it is 4 days worth of natural healing or 2 days of full bed rest. At 4th level it is 1 day of healing or 1/2 day of full bed rest. Why the change?
Because a higher-level character is so tough they can heal from the same stab-wound faster than a lower-level character? I honestly don't see the issue here.
Yeah, that is an odd bit.
In my own houserules I've tweaked the cure line into being a single Cure spell with limitations on how many 'hit dice' it can heal relative to the spell level it is cast from, and different classes heal different amounts.
It works in my houserules because I've destroyed the purpose of multiclassing and therefore felt no shame in banning it. A character chooses to either be a Hero [warrior/assassin style archetype] a Dabbler [Bard/Inquisitor/Alchemist style archetype] or a Mage [Wizard/Cleric style archetype] and everybody gets enough feats and flexible character options to pursue any theme they could want that their Archetype can support.
Yeah, that was the direction I was heading in as well except I realized I didn't want to rewrite a whole bunch of the system and just went with the number rolled representing the number of days of natural healing you receive.
Hit points are an abstraction.
Hit points are an abstraction signifying how robust and healthy a creature is at the current moment. To determine a creature's hit points, roll the dice indicated by its Hit Dice. A creature gains maximum hit points if its first Hit Die roll is for a character class level. Creatures whose first Hit Die comes from an NPC class or from his race roll their first Hit Die normally. Wounds subtract hit points, while healing (both natural and magical) restores hit points. Some abilities and spells grant temporary hit points that disappear after a specific duration. When a creature's hit points drop below 0, it becomes unconscious. When a creature's hit points reach a negative total equal to its Constitution score, it dies.
It is my interpretation, that healthy could relate to any number of things including stamina, physical damage, and even things like hampering due to physical strain or stress on the body. This is why you stop moving at lower HP (0) even though you aren't dying.
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So after 6 years of Pathfinder being around and perhaps up to 15 years of 3.x games I was wondering what peoples opinion here is on sacred cows? How many of the following things do you regard as essential to your enjoyment of Pathfinder in particular or 3.x gaming in general.
None of those things rise to the level of sacred cow. For sacred cows, I'd be looking more at:
1. Vancian casting model
2. 6 stats, ranged 3-18 on a bell curve
3. healing is divine magic, not arcane
4. paladins are primarily designed around their LG model and fight evil
5. humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, half-elves, and half-orcs are core PC races
6. level based advancement
7. class based abilities
8. fighters fight, rangers track, rogues find traps, wizards use spells, clerics heal, monks use martial arts styles - each of these may do a bit more than those options, but those options are core features to those classes
9. Dragons come in good metallic and evil chromatic varieties
10. Characters have saving throws as last-ditch defenses against things that would normally have no defense
And so on...
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If the 6HP wizard and the 12HP fighter each take a 5-damage longsword stab, they both have the same injury. It's just that the fighter could take it again and still be fighting, while the wizard couldn't.
That's not actually what HP represents in d20.
A level 10 fighter can't be stabbed a dozen times through the neck and walk away smiling. HP is your heroic awesomeness allowing you to dodge at the last second getting merely scratched/bruised etc.
I remember a FAQ for Star Wars Revised d20 which explained it better to answer why a bantha, a hover tank, and a mid level character all had the same basic hp. For the tank - it was actually getting hit. For the character - it was near-misses etc. For the bantha it was a mix of the two.
I realize I'm adding to a bit of a derail here, but maybe I can be helpful.
Isn't asking "why is 4 points of healing less effective on a 14HP creature than on an 8HP creature" kind of like asking "why is raise dead less effective on a 10-man party than on a 4-man party"?
Maybe I'm an idiot but I'm not seeing the comparison.
If the 6HP wizard and the 12HP fighter each take a 5-damage longsword stab, they both have the same injury. It's just that the fighter could take it again and still be fighting, while the wizard couldn't. Then, when someone comes along and heals them for 5HP each, the healing was equally effective: they both had their identical stab-wounds removed. The only difference is that the fighter might have a second stab-wound that also needs healing.The healing was not more effective on one than the other: the same amount of injury got healed. There is no inconsistency.
Are we assuming they are receiving the exact same physical injury? If so why? That 5 HP hit on a wizard is 5/6 of his HP while on the fighter it is 5/12. I don't think I would consider them the exact same injury. It also doesn't make sense to me since the HP loss could be from multiple attacks.
Because a higher-level character is so tough they can heal from the same stab-wound faster than a lower-level character? I honestly don't see the issue here.
I don't have an issue with higher level characters healing more hit points than a lower level character its that the healing spell becomes less effective compared to bed rest as you go up in level.
Mostly this is due to the abstraction of what HP represent.
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If the 6HP wizard and the 12HP fighter each take a 5-damage longsword stab, they both have the same injury. It's just that the fighter could take it again and still be fighting, while the wizard couldn't.That's not actually what HP represents in d20.
A level 10 fighter can't be stabbed a dozen times through the neck and walk away smiling. HP is your heroic awesomeness allowing you to dodge at the last second getting merely scratched/bruised etc.
I remember a FAQ for Star Wars Revised d20 which explained it better to answer why a bantha, a hover tank, and a mid level character all had the same basic hp. For the tank - it was actually getting hit. For the character - it was near-misses etc. For the bantha it was a mix of the two.
Because "d20" is a single game system which regardless of publisher, genre, etc always has the exact same meaning for any given term, and therefore an explanation of how the Star Wars version of "d20" treats HP is really what HP means in every d20 game ever?
Sorry, but just because two games use overlapping rulesets doesn't mean that HP represents the same concept in each. HP means what that individual game's rules/FAQs say it mean. Heck, the HP of AD&D and 5E could mean different things, let alone Pathfinder and Star Wars.
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Maybe I'm an idiot but I'm not seeing the comparison.
I realize I'm adding to a bit of a derail here, but maybe I can be helpful.
Isn't asking "why is 4 points of healing less effective on a 14HP creature than on an 8HP creature" kind of like asking "why is raise dead less effective on a 10-man party than on a 4-man party"?
The raise dead only heals 10% of a 10-man party, but it heals 25% of a 4-man party. Just like how you've been describing a CLW spell healing ~30% of a fighter but healing ~80% of a wizard.
Are we assuming they are receiving the exact same physical injury? If so why?
If the 6HP wizard and the 12HP fighter each take a 5-damage longsword stab, they both have the same injury. It's just that the fighter could take it again and still be fighting, while the wizard couldn't. Then, when someone comes along and heals them for 5HP each, the healing was equally effective: they both had their identical stab-wounds removed. The only difference is that the fighter might have a second stab-wound that also needs healing.The healing was not more effective on one than the other: the same amount of injury got healed. There is no inconsistency.
We're not "assuming" anything; rather, the two injuries are equal by definition. A greater or lesser amount of injury is represented by a higher or lower damage value. Five points of damage is the same as five points of damage because that's what "the same" means.
That 5 HP hit on a wizard is 5/6 of his HP while on the fighter it is 5/12. I don't think I would consider them the exact same injury.
Why not? It sounds like your issue is not with the actual HP and damage rules Pathfinder uses, but rather with the "injury based on percentage of HP remaining" houserule that you forced upon yourself. You've decided that every character has exactly 100 points of actual health/injury, and you're doing math to convert damage/HP back and forth from the given values to the ratios that you've decided yourself are the true descriptions of injury levels.
Which, I mean, is fine if you want to do that, but it sounds like you're not fine with it; so I'm offering you the alternative of abandoning the paradigms you've set up for yourself and simply taking the HP/damage system at face value.
Isn't that a significant buff to Cure spells?
Not that I'm complaining, healing desperately needs a buff if it's going to be something people want to do mid-battle.
[It does kind of sideline the bonus points from caster level though. And it's a LOT of healing if the party gets access to wands of CLW.]
Yes it is a significant boost to healing, which I don't have a problem with.
That said, that change doesn't stand alone as I've made several others.
First, I reduced the dice rolled from d8 to d6 which seems to work a little better.
Two, I've reduced the number of healing spells down to three: CLW, CMW, and Heal. Heal is updated to work more like the 2E version of the spell. This change I could probably scrap due to the change below.
Three, clerics do not spontaneously cast cure spells but domain spells instead. If you want to play a cleric who is about healing you take the healing domain.
My main reason for wanting to boost healing is that my friends NEVER play clerics. Over the last 20 years I've seen my friends play 2 clerics and only grudgingly because they felt someone needed to heal. Most of the clerics in the party have been NPCs. So boosting healing means someone who plays a bard or druid can provide adequate healing without having to dedicate themselves to it.
It also allowed me to introduce alchemical potions that heal 1d8+1 or 2d8+1 which helped to make Alchemy a more interesting skill.
Any conversation about what hitpoints are and how damage is represented (when described other than as '5 points') is of great interest to me.
To me, Fighters and Barbarians are just TOUGHER and can take the hits. Dodging out of the way is silly, that's what AC is!
Sure, the rules on natural healing don't make sense this way, but by the time you have 30+hp, you probably have magical healing anyway, so it's not something we have seen enough of a problem with to address it.
If I was gonna houserule it, I would say you heal a percentage per day... say, ten percent. That's with bedrest/full care etc.
If in negatives, you heal 1% per day, or 2% with bedrest/help.
Probably not final numbers, but something like that.
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The idea that damage has a static value or representation is pretty thinly supported by any form of rules. For that to work, any damage value of..what, 14 or more (8 CON, d6 hd, level 1) has to automatically describe a wound that is instantly fatal. Not potentially fatal. Not 'might die in a few seconds to bleed out', but instantly fatal to any PC.
No, instantly fatal to that PC. "Fatal" is just a description of whether or not the damage killed the creature, because that's what "fatal" means. An attack that deals 20 damage might be fatal to one character but not another, all while being an identical amount of damage.
And now you've got to make up stories about how your uber hero shrugged off having a sword stuck through his heart or had his head removed, because that's what the same means, isn't it?
If you can explain why taking a lethal amount of damage automatically means decapitation, then yeah, I'll have to defend why decapitation doesn't kill someone with more HP. Until then, though, all I have to defend is the notion that the same quantity of flesh-harming can be lethal for one person but not for another.
I don't think that the game works in the fashion in which you are describing, but Pathfinder itself is pretty vague on the subject, isn't it?
The proportional damage model is lifted pretty much straight out of the 3.0 (3.5?) players handbook which included a paragraph describing how a wizard who had lost half his hit points was about as hurt as a fighter who had lost half of his. 'Damage', for 3.x-based games, has pretty much always been defined as proportional to
the overall health of the target.
Until Pathfinder was published with no such description. I mean, you're welcome to do it that way, if that's what works for you. Just please don't claim some kind of universal, system-transcendant definition of HP that even applies to games which don't mention it.
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The irony here is that there are real world comparisons that actually make sense for this:
Great big soldier man, 250lbs of meat, gets slashed with a switchblade across his gut.
Ouch.
Might not drop him, he may continue fighting and destroy his 160lb attacker.
100lb female librarian, same situation. Gets slashed by same switchblade across her gut.
Spills guts into street. Dies.
Both wounds did 4 points of damage.
Big guy didn't dodge it, he just HAD MORE HITPOINTS.
Now the natural healing rules, THOSE are silly.
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Full Attacking being a full round action instead of a scaling standard action attack.
Martial classes being constrained to silly (and often incorrect - see dual shield welding arguments of yonder years) notions of "realism" in a game where casters can create demiplanes or stop time etc. "Extraordinary" shouldn't mean "extra ordinary"
The raise dead only heals 10% of a 10-man party, but it heals 25% of a 4-man party. Just like how you've been describing a CLW spell healing ~30% of a fighter but healing ~80% of a wizard.
Ahhhhh. Gotcha.
Ultimately my biggest concern with healing isn't whether it makes sense in the great abstraction that is HP, but how its effectiveness and availability.
I'd like magical healing to be more effective and for there to be more sources (mundane and otherwise) for healing that are flavorful and interesting.
Full Attacking being a full round action instead of a scaling standard action attack.
Martial classes being constrained to silly (and often incorrect - see dual shield welding arguments of yonder years) notions of "realism" in a game where casters can create demiplanes or stop time etc. "Extraordinary" shouldn't mean "extra ordinary"
We don't need your weaboo fightin' nonsense here. We like our men to be men, not sissies dancing around waving two shields in the air while they kick people with their stabbing shoes. Move and attack...the nerve of some people.
Now excuse me while my wizard blows up a large structure by hurling bat poop at it.
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No, instantly fatal to that PC. "Fatal" is just a description of whether or not the damage killed the creature, because that's what "fatal" means. An attack that deals 20 damage might be fatal to one character but not another, all while being an identical amount of damage.It seems to me that you're changing your story now. You started with ' the two injuries are equal by definition', and now you're saying they aren't.
Please explain you position more fully, because I feel like you're conflating the concepts 'injury' and 'damage amount' in a confusing fashion, or I have -completely- missed the point.
I included a bit of additional description later in the same post; does that help? If not, let me know.
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Anyway, back to the thread at hand!
I think Bill Dunn hits the sacred cows as I would see them.
None of those things rise to the level of sacred cow. For sacred cows, I'd be looking more at:1. Vancian casting model
2. 6 stats, ranged 3-18 on a bell curve
3. healing is divine magic, not arcane
4. paladins are primarily designed around their LG model and fight evil
5. humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, half-elves, and half-orcs are core PC races
6. level based advancement
7. class based abilities
8. fighters fight, rangers track, rogues find traps, wizards use spells, clerics heal, monks use martial arts styles - each of these may do a bit more than those options, but those options are core features to those classes
9. Dragons come in good metallic and evil chromatic varieties
10. Characters have saving throws as last-ditch defenses against things that would normally have no defenseAnd so on...
Of this list about half of them I wouldn't mind if they change and for the rest I would want them to be the base option with other options available.
