(I'm hoping I'm posting this in the right party of the message boards)
I'm in the planning stages of a Pathfinder campaign. I consider myself a fairly experienced role-player and gamemaster, but since only a fraction of those experiences come from Pathfinder or D&D-types of games, I turn to your wisdom for help.
This thread is mostly concerned with rules, not in specifics but in a broader perspective. As I said, I'm not overtly familiar with Pathfinder and although I don't struggle with understanding and memorising rules I truly suck at what I suppose is called rules mastery. Seeing combinations, how different parts of the system interacts (and then using or exploiting it) is simply hard for me.
So, consider me a beginner GM. What choices can I make, should I make, regarding the system, crunch, when setting up my campaign? Both in question of inclusion/exclusion of system parts and specific rules and how those rules are interpreted.
Should I limit myself and my intended players to specific products, eg. core only? When we played before, we pretty much went with allowing everything Paizo and excluding everything 3pp. That might not be a good way to go, but to some degree it's at least simple.
I'm a bit concerned with martial/spellcaster power disparity. Since we've only reached around level 6 before, it hasn’t been that much of a problem but this time I aim to at least make it to somewhere beyond level 10. This issue can be handled without considering the system, I known, by for example designing encounters playing with the strength of martial party members but playing against the strengths of spell caster party members. And outside of combat, give the martial characters more NPC contacts to interact with to compensate a bit for spellcaster versatility etc. But this is about system. What consequences do choices regarding rules and their interpretation have for the martial powerlessness? Are there any simple house rules to consider?
I have found that limiting the books is the easiest way to avoid headaches...
CRB, ultimate combat/magic, advanced class guide, advanced players, advanced race...
Inner Sea Gods is awesome, and should be used :D
Best thing to do is have the party make their characters together... most people will have a hook, or trick that their character has (like a tripping monk, or summoning caster etc).
make sure YOU know about this, as well as all the players.
If someone wants to build a super awesome caster with crazy summoning, make sure it fits the overall power of the game.
don't be afraid to say no.
You can't restrict this with rules unless you write a book on what is and is not allowed, open and honest communication will lead to far more rewarding characters (and may even result in some taking teamwork feats!).
I find that having the party share a common history/background works really well, as it encourage things like the family traits, and teamwork feats.
Ruleswise, keep an eye on Leadership (it can be okay in small groups, but if allowed, sit down and help them build the NPC).
I would also ask the part to limit the number of miniatures on the board. If everyone wants to play a summoner, that's gonna get crazy. We allow one permanent companion as a maximum, so no druids with leadership (unless they don't have an AC).
I only allow stuff i can see myself using as npcs as well. For me everything else always runs into the special snowflake problem. Why is there only one psionic in golarion? I know i will not build psionic npcs, as i hadn't had the opportunity to play one even get a full grasp of the classes.
As for martial/caster disparity:
My last campaign went all the way up to level 14 and the problem wasnt that big. In my opinion this heavily varies from table to table. I wouldnt nerf casters, but i would keep a close look on your full martials every level and think about specific equipment that the group can find to give the martials an edge.
I have found that limiting the books is the easiest way to avoid headaches...
CRB, ultimate combat/magic, advanced class guide, advanced players, advanced race...
Inner Sea Gods is awesome, and should be used :D
Could you tell me what headaches I might run into otherwise?
Oh, and are you suggesting I allow all the above mentioned books? Have you deliberately left any large splat books out of that list?
Best thing to do is have the party make their characters together... most people will have a hook, or trick that their character has (like a tripping monk, or summoning caster etc).
/.../
I find that having the party share a common history/background works really well, as it encourage things like the family traits, and teamwork feats.
make sure YOU know about this, as well as all the players.
Yes, this is common GM practice outside of Pathfinder too. You don't have to tell me ;)
But, on that note. Obviously this is something I'm going to discuss with my players, but one of the ideas I had to bring the party together is having them run an embassy for a (not necessarily so) far-away country. For this, I'm thinking of bringing in the downtime rules. Any thoughts about those?
If someone wants to build a super awesome caster with crazy summoning, make sure it fits the overall power of the game.
I'll have trouble anticipating a character build ruining the game. If one of my players say »I'm gonna build a summoning wizard with these feats and spells« I wont know if that build is overpowered or not.
Ruleswise, keep an eye on Leadership (it can be okay in small groups, but if allowed, sit down and help them build the NPC).
I'm thinking of allowing Leadership, but requiring that it makes sense in game. They'll have to recruit their cohort, it wont just appear, etc.
I would also ask the part to limit the number of miniatures on the board. If everyone wants to play a summoner, that's gonna get crazy. We allow one permanent companion as a maximum, so no druids with leadership (unless they don't have an AC).
Good advice.
_____
I only allow stuff i can see myself using as npcs as well. For me everything else always runs into the special snowflake problem. Why is there only one psionic in golarion? I know i will not build psionic npcs, as i hadn't had the opportunity to play one even get a full grasp of the classes.
I'll do that for classes and races, that ain't hard. But archetypes, feats, spells etc. I'm going to struggle.
As for martial/caster disparity:
My last campaign went all the way up to level 14 and the problem wasnt that big. In my opinion this heavily varies from table to table. I wouldnt nerf casters, but i would keep a close look on your full martials every level and think about specific equipment that the group can find to give the martials an edge.
I'll have to ask the player what her martial charachter needs, as I'll probably get it wrong otherwise. But good advice.
That reminds me of another consideration. I'm not a fan of the Christmas tree effect and have a proven ability to award to little treasure to PCs. As a remedy, I'm thinking of using the automatic bouns progression rules. Any thoughts on that?
I'm basically suggesting keeping the number of books to a minimum... as options expand, potential power gets multiplied...
We just use the Advanced and Ultimate books... also Inner Sea Gods (and other Inner Sea content, but I haven't read it too much).
We also have the add-on supplements to the above books, example:
Advanced Class Origins
We call them the 'origins' books.
Talking to your players is important, especially if you don't possess the level of system mastery some of them do.
Get them to explain how powerful their character CAN be, in their own words, and warn them that unexpected surprises will be treated as cheating.
If the player lies about how powerful their character is, you aren't obligated to treat them fairly, after all, you asked them to describe their best 'Nova' situation.
Example: I had a player suddenly having his character start summoning hordes of monsters that seemed indestructible, they had damage reduction, increased stats and there were lots of them.
He had built the character this way, but hadn't used the ability until about halfway through the campaign. We had talked previously about him making a summoner (Wizard summoner, not a Summoner class) and I had strong reservations about it... he had assured me that his focus would be on blasting, not buffing his summoned creatures.
He had lied to me, and I had grown accustomed to running encounters for the group based on months of a typical level of gameplay.
My response to his sudden boost in power was to remind him of the conversation we had during his characters creation, and I informed him that what he had told me was what he was going to have to play.
I allowed him to swap out the feats he had taken to boost his power to that (previously undisclosed) level, and we carried on.
He grumbled a bit, but overall it was best for the game, as he was still contributing, without dominating the table.
You don't NEED to know all the rules inside out, as long as you are up front about your desires as a GM.
Express your concern for balance right at the start, get the players to work with each other. Get them to review each others characters, if everyone is ok with that.
This is a team game, not a bunch of individuals competing for some kind of prize.
Automatic Bonus Progression would certainly be a good idea if you want to avoid the WBL, Christmas tree effect.
Staying with CRB only at the start would help you because it has more than enough rules to master as it is. Especially if you are concerned over martial/caster disparity. The additional books only exacerbated that issue - even though there are those who dispute it even exists. Ditto races. You certainly can go beyond that, but if you want to stay on top of things, better to start Core and slowly expand from there as your system mastery improves. (I jumped in blindly and have been struggling to roll things back ever since by not restricting options at the start.)
Also: Have others at the table help out. Have someone track initiative, and have another with a CRB or internet access to look up rules when needed. Have a "gentleman's agreement" that you may rule one way during the game, and are free to retcon things after the game if it turns out the rules, FAQ, etc, don't support you. This helps the group if they know that you are willing to admit when you may have been "wrong" rules-wise.
It depends on the group, really. Some players are mature and intelligent and can bring you some non-Core classes, archetypes, races, &/or Feat and be perfectly fine with them. Others are looking to optimize and "beat the GM", which isn't fun - for you, or others at the table. Unchained Summoner is more balanced than the standard - and avoid a Master Summoner, unless you only have 1 or 2 players at your table.
Good luck to you!
Do not listen to the person who said that Core Rulebook only means no martial/caster disparity.
Dude, that wasn't what anyone said. What I said was that the additional books exacerbated the issue.
But if his game stays below lvl 10, it won't be as bad as it could get, so it may be a non-issue.
Oh, just so you know, since I'm fairly new to Pathfinder I struggle with abbreviations. If you could avoid them or explain them as you use them, I would be grateful.
What level of ABP were you thinking? Because the base level only cuts treasure in half, doing nothing to stop the christmas tree effect. You have to go up to the two levels higher version if you want to cut out almost all magic items. As for whether you want to do it, it all depends. Do your players like shopping? Do they like flipping through books to find some new interesting magic item toy to play with? If so, don't do it. If not (or they don't have much system mastery and don't know what to buy) go for it. But it really depends on the players.
I did not know you could vary the level of the automatic bonus progression. Is this done just by bumping you the bonuses two levels, so a 3rd level character get bonuses as if 5th level?
Regarding my player’s preferences (which ties into many answers in this thread, not just to treasure), I think I'll have more than one that really enjoys choices. While I don't actually think they are that good at mastering the rules (since we haven't played Pathfinder that much), but they sure try. Limiting them to say only core books would probably not be met with a warm embrace, although it is highly unlikely that such a choice would turn them away from the campaign. Therefore, I'm inclined to be liberal as to which books are included.
The thing I thought automatic bonus progression would do is to reduce the number of necessary items. The game, as I've been told, pretty much assumes you are going to have a Belt of Strength and Amulet of Natural Armour. That means I have to supply them to the players, either via treasure or shops. And I'll risk forgetting that, since it comes rather a long way down on my list of GM duties. Sure, that's a worst case scenario, but I figured automatic bonus progression would relive me of a particular duty. Or could I expect that my players solve it via crafting their own items? That is a whole subsystem I have very little experience with ...
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In my own humble opinion, I would allow anything (EXCEPT non-unchained summoners) that is easily accessed and that you have a modicum of knowledge about.
Core book only= AN INCREASE in Caster>Martial discrepancy because all of the nifty martial bonuses are lost.
Core book only= Horrid monk, Horrid Rogue, Mediocre Fighter. This is even WITH system mastery.
While a complete new plyer playing, say, a cleric/druid from Core would probably have a MUCH stronger character around level 6+ just because of design.
my suggestion is- CRB+APG+ACG+UC+UE+UM+(importantly) Unchained.
This gives PLENTY of options, but limits it to what I consider "true pathfinder" (because lets be honest, PF is bloated as hell even more so than 3.5 now) (this limits 3pp, which, while a lot of it is AWESOME, a lot of it has classes that have a metric TON of crap to learn/read through (Lookin' at you path of war and Psionics)
but be open to player desire, if they REALLY want to play one of the occult classes, I, as a GM, would say let them.
Honestly, anyone that thinks core only= no caster/martial discrepancy either hasn't made characters from core only, or understands something I cannot grasp.
EDIT: ALSO
For limiting the "magic item problem" that Pathfinder has (assuming X items at X levels) I have a nifty houserule that provides the same power level, but does away with that. It's not mine, and I learned about it from a GM, that took from a GM, that took from a GM. This gives you the ability to make magic weapons flavorful (IE, keen, fire, etc) and not worry about static bonuses, it also allows continual progression IE. no saving up for 3 levels to buy a item.)
At every even level, your character will receive a +1 enhancement bonus to an ability score of your choice. You cannot choose to apply this bonus to the same ability score twice in a row. Ability score raises that come every 4 levels are unchanged from core rules, and therefore are not considered enhancement bonuses. This means that a character could raise his Strength at 4th level per the normal rules, and apply a +1 enhancement bonus to Strength at the same level, for example.
Every level (including first) you can choose from one of the following six categories: melee, ranged, armour, shield, spells, and saves. You will get a +1 bonus to that category every time it is chosen. You can choose any one of the six once every block of 4 levels (1-4, 5-8, 9-12, 13-16, 17-20). So you cannot choose +1 to saves at 3rd and 4th level, but can choose them 4th and 5th level.) And yes, this starts at 1st level.
The six bonus types work as follows:
Melee (enhancement): +1 to attack and damage with manufactured melee weapons, natural attacks, and unarmed strikes. +1 to CMB checks and to CMD. +1 to attack (but not damage) to melee touch attacks (but not those used as part of a spell). For purposes of bypassing damage reduction, any weapon you wield counts as a magical weapon with a straight bonus equal to your melee bonus – 1 (e.g, when you reach a +4 melee bonus, your melee weapons count as +3 (magical) and silver for purposes of overcoming damage reduction, damaging incorporeal creatures, etc.).
Ranged (enhancement): +1 to attack and damage with manufactured ranged weapons. +1 to attack (but not damage) with splash weapons. +1 to attack (but not damage) to range touch attacks (but not those used as part of a spell). For purpose of bypassing damage reduction, these bonuses work the same as the melee bonuses indicated above.
Armour (enhancement): +1 bonus to AC (regular AC, touch AC, and flat-footed AC). You do not have to wear or use armour to receive this bonus.
Shield (enhancement): +1 bonus to AC (regular AC only, not touch AC or flat-footed AC), but only if you are wielding or wearing a shield (or a special weapon like a klarr which provides a shield bonus). A shield spell doesn’t count. Not all characters will make use of this bonus.
Spells (enhancement): +1 to attack and damage with spells. For spells that target multiple creatures independently (magic missile, scorching ray) the damage bonus applies once per spell to one target of the caster’s choice. For spells that affect multiple creatures simultaneously (fireball) the damage bonus applies to all. The damage bonus only applies to spells which deal hit point damage, not ability damage, or spells which do not deal damage at all. Cure spells used to heal are not affected by this bonus (though the attack bonus would apply if it were required), but cure spells used to harm undead creatures would be affected.
Saves (resistance): +1 bonus to all saving throws
Downtime rules work as long as the players aren't too clever. If they are, they're ripe for abuse and churning out magic items. If you just want the players to all be together and working for an embassy... why not just say that? You're already forcing it on them, it's not like you need a rules subsystem to do that. Give them a stipend every set time period, paid to the group as a whole (also possibly sets up a nice party loot pool for condition removal, raise dead, etc.).
Well, thought the downtime system would allow them to run the embassy. I imagine the embassy being run-down, without funds and ignored by the ruling elite which it aims to influence. The player characters then would be able to expand it - both the physical building and its importance - as they see fit. That is, if my players find that angle on the campaign interesting. And while I can run that without the help of Downtime rules or similar system, I figured it would be nice to have that rules framework. I don't know, though.
In my own humble opinion, I would allow anything (EXCEPT non-unchained summoners) that is easily accessed and that you have a modicum of knowledge about.
Yeah, but I'm not beyond gaining that modicum of knowledge in order to allow something.
my suggestion is- CRB+APG+ACG+UC+UE+UM+(importantly) Unchained.
Unchained is, if I've understood it correctly, new takes on old classes and new designs for old rules?
How does that work? Can I just pick the pieces I like? I suppose I'm doing that if I use automatic bonus progression ...
Should I limit the game to only include the unchained variants of barbarian, monk etc. or can they be mixed? Do the unchained classes assume you are using other parts of Unchained, like the revised combat rules with stamina?
This gives PLENTY of options, but limits it to what I consider "true pathfinder" (because lets be honest, PF is bloated as hell even more so than 3.5 now) (this limits 3pp, which, while a lot of it is AWESOME, a lot of it has classes that have a metric TON of crap to learn/read through (Lookin' at you path of war and Psionics)
I'm not beyond including 3pp, but I'm not going to allow players to suggest (beg) for specific 3pp products. If I'm including 3pp, it's from the start of the game and on my initiative. So, this awesome stuff you're referring to, what is that? Is there any particular work that adds well designed and interesting stuff?
Downtime rules work as long as the players aren't too clever. If they are, they're ripe for abuse and churning out magic items. If you just want the players to all be together and working for an embassy... why not just say that? You're already forcing it on them, it's not like you need a rules subsystem to do that. Give them a stipend every set time period, paid to the group as a whole (also possibly sets up a nice party loot pool for condition removal, raise dead, etc.).Well, thought the downtime system would allow them to run the embassy. I imagine the embassy being run-down, without funds and ignored by the ruling elite which it aims to influence. The player characters then would be able to expand it - both the physical building and its importance - as they see fit. That is, if my players find that angle on the campaign interesting. And while I can run that without the help of Downtime rules or similar system, I figured it would be nice to have that rules framework. I don't know, though.
In my own humble opinion, I would allow anything (EXCEPT non-unchained summoners) that is easily accessed and that you have a modicum of knowledge about.Yeah, but I'm not beyond gaining that modicum of knowledge in order to allow something.
my suggestion is- CRB+APG+ACG+UC+UE+UM+(importantly) Unchained.Unchained is, if I've understood it correctly, new takes on old classes and new designs for old rules?
How does that work? Can I just pick the pieces I like? I suppose I'm doing that if I use automatic bonus progression ...
Should I limit the game to only include the unchained variants of barbarian, monk etc. or can they be mixed? Do the unchained classes assume you are using other parts of Unchained, like the revised combat rules with stamina?
This gives PLENTY of options, but limits it to what I consider "true pathfinder" (because lets be honest, PF is bloated as hell even more so than...
Whatever books you do use, I do NOT advise adding to them mid-campaign. People will ask to redesign characters, and craziness ensures.
^ this, don't accept new stuff into the campaign mid-way.
Yeah, that seems pretty obvious even to be. But, I did ask for beginner advice so I'll take it.
Unchained classes are designed to be playable with, or without, any other unchained rules. Although I do like the new skill rules for unchained.
Okey, thanks.
Oh, and on another note: ability scores. We have only ever used point buy and I think we had 15 points to spend. While personally I am attracted to a bit of random, I have nothing but sympathy for those who don't like it and realise that even 4d6 drop lowest can give you 11 high on six abilities (I just tried, it did). Arrays, more »controlled« ways of randomizing, points - I'd welcome any wisdom on the subject.
^ this, don't accept new stuff into the campaign mid-way.Yeah, that seems pretty obvious even to be. But, I did ask for beginner advice so I'll take it.
Unchained classes are designed to be playable with, or without, any other unchained rules. Although I do like the new skill rules for unchained.Okey, thanks.
Oh, and on another note: ability scores. We have only ever used point buy and I think we had 15 points to spend. While personally I am attracted to a bit of random, I have nothing but sympathy for those who don't like it and realise that even 4d6 drop lowest can give you 11 high on six abilities (I just tried, it did). Arrays, more »controlled« ways of randomizing, points - I'd welcome any wisdom on the subject.
Random rolls rarely result in exactly equal character points. I like 20 point buy.
Same here re: attributes. 20-pt buy is a good way to go.
My group doesn't roll HP's either. (I get to assign everything else to my character, but my health is totally random?) We do max HP's at all levels. (We started with max for first 5 levels, then decided to just stick with it. It allows more freedom for them to do things.)
But you may have meant "Magic Item Treadmill" when you said "Christmas Tree Effect".
You're absolutely right, it was the treadmill I meant.
With HP, we've previously went with player choosing between rolling and getting half (rounded down) each time they gained a level. Worked fairly well, but I'll consider your alternatives too.
I feel like I've gotten quite a lot out of this thread. Thanks! If anyone has any more too add, you're of course welcome to do so.