* The favored class bonuses are actually a simplification. They look huge first, but he decided against race specific bonuses which results in an implosion of options - so a player can rather pick the race he likes. Though I feel they are quite focused on martial combat and there are some imbalances (e.g. 1 rank in Linguistics already adds 1 language, and helps with checks).Saw this a couple times in this thread.
See that he's folded linguistics into Society, and 1 rank in Society does NOT give a language; you only gain languages via Favored Class bonus.
Yeah that's correct. Somewhat of a GM metagaming situation. There aren't that many relevant languages in the campaign since it's set in a specific geographical location so I wanted to make it a hard choice. I'm not entirely sure if that was the right move because comprehend languages is a spell.
But it is true that I hate race specific favored class bonuses. They choke on third party classes, makes new races a burden and inherently less interesting than core races. Also some are outright really good. If you're a human Warpriest you get almost as many feats as a human fighter with your favored class bonus. I've been struggling with deciding how to handle a universal favored class bonus list that doesn't implode the game. Caster rules make this difficult so it leans towards martials because combat rules are more stable.
Core rogue is banned. I think he has no advantage over the Unchained one - given that all tricks are available to any version here. But, why restrict players here, perhaps they don't want to be pushed into the Dex corner etc..
Core Rogue still 'exists'. Glory Rogue is a Core Rogue with more weapon proficiencies and a Guile Pool. Since one of the Rogues is literally the same thing with a scaling bonus to attack I thought I might as well make the old Rogue a non-option.
I'd like the Int bonus (and penalty!) to skill ranks to stay. Fighters etc. should have the chance to get 4 or 5 ranks per level, and dumping Int shouldn't be a no-brainer. You may not like 'MAD' fighters, but some players don't mind spending some stat points on secondary scores.
I'd be here all day if I explained all the reasons why INT to skills was a bad from the start and why its still useful here. I am however looking into applying INT to the number of class skills that you get since that isn't fixed from the start so that I don't have to recreate a class skill list for the (literally) 187 classes that I have books for.
With free Power Attack and Piranha Strike you favor certain combat styles. Shield users and one-hand warriors gain less than the others, despite being not the greatest choices anyway. And two-weapon fighters gain practically nothing, if they can't afford the reduced attack bonus.
Yes. I saw this house rule running around a lot. I was originally against it but they eat up so much room feat-wise. Not noted here however is This document (Not complete) that is meant to make room for a lot of third party feats that favors unusual combat options.
But it is true that I hate race specific favored class bonuses. They choke on third party classes, makes new races a burden and inherently less interesting than core races. Also some are outright really good. If you're a human Warpriest you get almost as many feats as a human fighter with your favored class bonus.
+1.
Also there is NEVER any reason to play anything other than a Human if you're playing a spontaneous caster of any sort - Sorcerer, Oracle, Bard, the list goes on. The Human Favored Class ability is almost always "learn a free spell of anything less than your max level". For a spont-caster that is HUGE.
Given how many homebrew and 3rd-party races I have in my group's games, I ultimately just ruled that unless a racial feat, trait, favored class bonus, or other feature is based heavily on a part of the race's anatomy (the go-to example being the Toothy trait for Half-Orcs), it's open to ALL races. And any races that DOES possess the necessary anatomy can also take traits that build on it - for example, I'm 100% okay with a Kobold or Catfolk taking Toothy.
But it is true that I hate race specific favored class bonuses. They choke on third party classes, makes new races a burden and inherently less interesting than core races. Also some are outright really good. If you're a human Warpriest you get almost as many feats as a human fighter with your favored class bonus.+1.
Also there is NEVER any reason to play anything other than a Human if you're playing a spontaneous caster of any sort - Sorcerer, Oracle, Bard, the list goes on. The Human Favored Class ability is almost always "learn a free spell of anything less than your max level". For a spont-caster that is HUGE.
Given how many homebrew and 3rd-party races I have in my group's games, I ultimately just ruled that unless a racial feat, trait, favored class bonus, or other feature is based heavily on a part of the race's anatomy (the go-to example being the Toothy trait for Half-Orcs), it's open to ALL races. And any races that DOES possess the necessary anatomy can also take traits that build on it - for example, I'm 100% okay with a Kobold or Catfolk taking Toothy.
Half-Elves have a really good case for them, since they get access to human racial traits & favored class bonuses, and as of Inner Sea Races they now have a racial variant that gives up Skill Focus in favor of getting +2 CHA and +2 to another stat, meaning that half-elves are the potentially best race for Bards, Oracles, or Sorcerers.
I did not know Half-Elves could take Human racial favored class bonuses, I thought that was limited to Human feats and traits.
Either way, when the core seven races (well, six, we don't allow Half-Orcs, though we do have full Orcs with different-than-standard stats) are only a small fraction of the primary races in your world, you still end up having to either open those favored class options up to other races, or make a bunch of new ones for each new race. The former is just simpler.
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The key point is that favored class bonuses tied to race is not good for me. For example; I'm running a scifi campaign. I have two dozen alien races involved and almost nothing but third party classes. Favored class bonuses are just terrible for this. Each class needs to account for every race that may or may not exist to make the bonus work for everyone but they can't do that so they have to focus on the races in the Advanced Race Guide. Each new race needs a list of favored class bonuses for each of the 30 something classes and third party classes aren't normally accounted for. What should have happened is that each class has a short list of favored class bonuses that apply to any race and each race has a short list of favored class bonuses that aren't tied to classes.
I have a few relevant questions;
Would it be too powerful to have +1/4 BAB as a favored class bonus?
What about +1/3 to a save?
I ignored armor proficiencies as a FCB because I had ruled that proficiency bypasses armor failure with spheres. Should armor proficiencies be up there?
On that note, are the shield proficiencies too powerful?
I'm working out making INT bonus apply to your number of class skills. The math is somewhat complicated. I'm wondering whether to give players INT to number of class skills or skill ranks+INT. Above I mentioned that with the automatic bonus progression its reasonable for a wizard to wind up with 26 INT by the end of the game. This means that with INT to class skills he'd have 8 class skills and with skill ranks+INT, 10 class skills. Meanwhile a Rogue would have 0-5 class skills or 8-16 class skills. The way I see it having full Int mod to class skills would mean that you'd have to have high INT if you have a lot of skills per level or specialize hard. Meanwhile if you have high INT and a few number of class skills you may be incensed to diversify to get all your numbers. At ranks per level + INT you'd have as many class skills as you have ranks making you be able to max out that many skills or spend some time dabbling if you have high INT. Fighters get it good in the latter and rough in the former. For a typical 10 INT fighter he'd get two skill ranks per level but they'd both be at 3 less than normal if its just class INT to class skills, but if it's he'd get two skills that can max out hard otherwise. Dumping INT means that he'd have no class skills either way but with one he'd have 0-2 class skills between INT 10 and 7 or just zero.
See that he's folded linguistics into Society, and 1 rank in Society does NOT give a language; you only gain languages via Favored Class bonus.
Oh, missed that, thanks.
Glory Rogue is a Core Rogue with more weapon proficiencies and a Guile Pool.
Ah interesting, should dive into this 3pp stuff more...
I am however looking into applying INT to the number of class skills that you get since that isn't fixed from the start
So, if I understand it correctly, at level 1 high Int would be actually more powerful than in the normal system: Roughly +3 for one skill compared to +1. At level 3 it would be even, and later it would be at a disadvantage - but then skill check results already matter less.
Yes. I saw this house rule running around a lot. I was originally against it but they eat up so much room feat-wise. Not noted here however is This document (Not complete) that is meant to make room for a lot of third party feats that favors unusual combat options.
Ah, TWF in one feat, nice. 17 Dex is a bit steep at level 1, but doable (or I'd go for early Dex belt, if possible). I also like the change to Weapon Focus.
Finally, about favored class bonuses: You could pick a few reasonable alternative FCBs per class and offer them to ANY race. It's some effort, but as a player, I'd probably enjoy that more than the official system.
I am however looking into applying INT to the number of class skills that you get since that isn't fixed from the startSo, if I understand it correctly, at level 1 high Int would be actually more powerful than in the normal system: Roughly +3 for one skill compared to +1. At level 3 it would be even, and later it would be at a disadvantage - but then skill check results already matter less.
It depends on how I go about it.
If its Int to class skills, a wizard with a static 20 Int for this purpose would have, at level 1, 2 ranks and 5 class skills. By level 10 he could have 2 ranks in each of those skills coming up with a +5 bonus before stats or have 10 ranks in two of those skills for +13 before stats and bonuses.
If it's Int+ranks per level to class skills, the same wizard would be in a similar boat only he'd have 7 class skills.
In some cases where people would spread skills around he'd be pretty weak in those skills. But he has only two ranks per level so maxing out is probably best for him unless there's a lot of low knowledge DCs in the campaign. The main advantage he'd have is that if he took the skill favored class bonus or got skill ranks anywhere else he'd have more places to invest.
Rogue on the other hand, with a reasonable 16 INT for this purpose would have 8 ranks per level and 3 class skills or 8 ranks per level and 11 class skills, which is a huge difference because he'd have more ranks than he does class skills so he could max out on 8 skills but 3 would be ahead by +3 or be able to max out all 6 skills and spread it around to get a few other bonuses. All completely depends on the difference between maxing out and spreading out which would depend on the campaign and how much everything escalates.
Fighters are in a weird space where they don't have a reason to have Int other than skills so having Int to class skills would leave a 10 Int Fighter with no class skills and 2 ranks per level. If it were ranks per level + Int he'd have two class skills and probably max out those two.
So the dilemmas I have to deal with are:
1) How often will people max skills vs how often people will spread out skills.
2) How many opportunities to get bonus ranks per level will be around to make it worth having High Int to take advantage of your bonus class skills.
3) Whether or not I will offer class skills as a favored class bonus.
Because basically making it Int to class skills screws over anyone that doesn't need Int for any other reason including the Rogue that gets the most skill ranks. Making it Int+ranks per level makes it basically useless unless you get more skill ranks from another source or you really like spreading skills out.
Or I can just leave it to where I put it where you get class skills equal to your ranks, more than likely max out those skills since you get ranks per level equal to your ranks per level
I'm leaning towards Ranks per level + Int to class skills because at the very least I have a favored class bonus that gets extra skill ranks and humans would get extra skill ranks, so it's not far-fetched for someone to extend their skills so players have room to grow and no one is screwed over.
BTW if you are looking for some solid alt rules, the alternate paths PDFs from little red goblin games are quite good.
Admittedly biased since I worked on them.
BTW if you are looking for some solid alt rules, the alternate paths PDFs from little red goblin games are quite good.
Admittedly biased since I worked on them.
I'm still going through that product. I was disappointed that it was not something that I could just hand to players. I misunderstood the product so right now I'm sorting out what to use for what campaign as I don't want all the book to apply at the same time.
I'm still going through that product. I was disappointed that it was not something that I could just hand to players. I misunderstood the product so right now I'm sorting out what to use for what campaign as I don't want all the book to apply at the same time.BTW if you are looking for some solid alt rules, the alternate paths PDFs from little red goblin games are quite good.
Admittedly biased since I worked on them.
well I hope the revised feats are enough to your liking, I would love to know that other people used them.
I'm leaning towards Ranks per level + Int to class skills because at the very least I have a favored class bonus that gets extra skill ranks and humans would get extra skill ranks, so it's not far-fetched for someone to extend their skills so players have room to grow and no one is screwed over.
This is probably the best approach. I've played a number of classes that give class level bonuses to some skills, which means I can put less ranks and still be competitive. Lets the ranks spread far.
Things like bard's knowledge, ranger's survival, inquisitor's intimidate/sense motive/survival bonuses.. etc.