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>banned Permanency
>banned Feeblemind (which is really just another save-or-die)
>whitelist of classes instead of a blacklist or a simple tier cut-off
>almost only core races (so, nothing like Fetchlings or Aasimar)
>banned Cacophonous Call... just because?
>I reserve the right to veto overly quirky character decisions (such as dual wielding shields, etc).
>Antagonise and Additional traits are banned
>Sacred Geometry actually isn't banned even though it's the most absurdly overpowered feat in the game
I vehemently dislike all of these.
Now, onto things I actually like and approve:
Feat merging is neat, though free Agile Maneuvers is going a bit too far IMO.
Some actually ban-worthy things like Leadership, Blood Money and Paragon Surge are banned.
As you can see, I dislike more than I like here.
Though on some moments your houserules are similar to mine.
You can check out mine here. Absolutely tyrannical. A large portion of rules is devoted to Psionics alone since it's the first game with Psionics and PoW for our group.
Also, this is quite unnecessarily limiting IMO:
No score below 9 before racial adjustments. No Evil or Chaotic Neutral alignments. No multiclassing, prestige classes or favored class bonus.
Stinking Cloud, a 3rd level Sorcerer spell, is massively, almost incomparably better than Cacophonous Call, while the caster level when they get it is similar.
Cacophonous Call is also Bard-exclusive and their spell list is otherwise weak.
I think it's entirely fair.
As for Feeblemind, there are plenty other Save-or-Die's at that level, I'm not sure what do you have against that one in particular. Even Dominate Person or Icy Prison are much scarier.
And as for #3 - just say "T2-4 minus summoners", that feels less oppressive IMO.
And I have no idea what kind of cheese you're talking about in regards to Permanency. It includes only a limited set of allowed spells and they can even be simply dispelled away, making the money spent a waste.
Ya, I just HATE systems like 3.5, where players build a character through dips and such. It promotes cheezy characters rather than picking a class and accepting its strengths AND weaknesses.
Similarly, I also think that many players would rather pick a class and play without feeling outshined by the powergamer who kows how to cherry pick this many class levels of x and that many of y.
Eh what? Multiclassing allows otherwise difficult to accomplish character concepts which don't fit any particular class.
Multiclassing is life, multiclassing is love.
You can exit a stinking cloud and the cloud requires saves every round. C. Call cannot be exited and once you fail the save, you are screwed for the duration. Totally different spells.
Stinking Cloud's saves are to get poisoned again, not to stop nauseation.
If you're nauseated by a Stinking Cloud, you're screwed. No additional saves to stop. AND it's AoE and has other features like concealment over Cacophonous Call.Seriously, Cacophonous Call isn't that strong of a spell.
Annoyances:
No Kineticist or Psychic
Goblins are in, lots of other races are out
Antagonize is actually a reasonable feat: trade your turn for a chance at ten rounds of 10% failure chance. Oh, and it doesn't count against yourself. It's less than a round-for-round trade.
Stat limits applied before racial modifiers. I hate this. If you don't want a five-stat running around, then stop that. Otherwise the -2 stat is meaningless in terms of point buy on a dump stat because I get to dump it further.
What the heck:
Fighter and Brawler have to take certain archetypes? Why? What was wrong with them?
Conclusion:
You restricted my races. No problem, I've got a human Wizard- oh wait, nope. Too high tier, reasonable. My human Kineticist- nope, not there. Half-elf Unchained Summoner? No dice. Human Vigilante, then. Aaand... banned.
Firstly, I don't like banning stuff, so that plays a role in the following.
No evil or chaotic naughty:
A common houserule but try asking your players to not make jerk characters, plenty of LG and LN selfrightous murder hobos out there, alignment isn't really a restriction.
Class restrictions; not my thing, I like T1 and sometimes versatility is required.
EDIT to add: fighter/brawler types: why?
no multiclassing; unacceptable
no prestige classes; bah, see multiclassing
no favored class bonus; why? it's a nice little bonus that never hurt anybody.
Races:
If it suits the campaign, fine. If it's about power level, less fine - adventurers are a weird bunch from all over the world and that is part of their terror-inspiring charm.
Spells:
I understand blood money, but I don't ban any of these. Simulacrum is one of my favorite spells.
Feats:
I like the feat changes
- I collapse the two weapon fighting tree into one feat requiring dex 13
- I allow fighters to ignore ability score requirements for bonus combat feats.
- Banned feats, not my thing - but I don't see item creation or at least Craft Construct.
- and you didn't adjust martial weapon prof. ??? intentional?
I don't see a reason for restricting traits that much? Like races, it's fine if it's required for the campaign.
Overly quirky characters are the ones most likely to risk their lives to help strangers in order to advance the plot, and the most memorable for the players.
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Finally: If this is to create some sort of balance between new players and power gamers/builders, it won't work. Talk to your players.
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Overall, I don't see much of a problem with what you have set up. There is plenty of content remaining in the game...but here is my take:
>banned Permanency
I don't have a problem with this, but you should also watch for your own Permanency affects within your own stories. It's ok if you use it sparingly, but if players see the affect too often, they may feel a little cheated. On the other hand, you could come up with alternate ways to allow for it, such as rituals that use specific recipes that have a specific outcome (that way you can control how it is used by the players).
>banned Feeblemind (which is really just another save-or-die)
Some spells are better than others. I think it's ok, but it's not a huge loss if you ban it.
>whitelist of classes instead of a blacklist or a simple tier cut-off
That's fine. I assume your class selction goes with a world concept. It sounds like it will have some survivalist undertones
>almost only core races (so, nothing like Fetchlings or Aasimar)
That's ok too. I personally like the core races myself.
>banned Cacophonous Call
As a level 2 spell, I don't see this as overtly bad. Look at spells like color spray and sleep. If it still bothers you, put a HD limit on it.
>I reserve the right to veto overly quirky character decisions (such as dual wielding shields, etc).
Of course, as you should.
>Antagonise and Additional traits are banned
I don't care for Antagonize myself. It sounds too MMO to me. However, I woudl let a player roleplay it out to try and get the same affect. Additional Traits is no big loss.
>Sacred Geometry actually isn't banned even though it's the most absurdly overpowered feat in the game
This feat should not even exist. It feels so much like Paizo just ran out of ideas for feats and started spewing trash.
> Weapon Finesse, Agile Maneuvers for free
I am not a big fan of giving these feats for free, but this has been debated a lot on this forum by both sides. This one is completely up to GM preference and since your preference is to give them for free, so be it.
> Exotic Weapon Proficiency
If I take an exotic weapon, I usually only want THAT weapon. For the feat to give me two weapons won't be of much worth to most people. then again, I don't have a suggestion for you to compensate. Sorry.
> Merging Improved feats into one feat
I think this is a bad idea. Too much is gained by combat maneuver builds by taking one feat. Also, your split on what improved feats go into "Powerful Maneuvers" and "Deft Maneuvers" feels unbalanced.
Alright, made the archetypes recommended on Brawler and Fighter and added in Vigilante. I see Kinitecist as T5, so its out. Additional traits is back in.
I didnt allow the favored class bonus since due to some races giving bonus spells known to Sorcerer and Oracle. Didnt seem balanced in the slightest. I may allow base bonus (+1 skill or hp) instead. That seems fine
Why are they recommended? Just curious.
Kineticist isn't T5. It's decent low-investment damage (with your houserules, they only need one feat for the entire game for physical blasts), with some fun utility added on.
Sure, just ban alternate racial favored class bonuses. Balances races better.
Alright added back feeblemind. Seems a bit too good with that -4 but most folks seem to think its fine
It's one I only allow with a good "Are you sure you want things escalated there?", so it's nearly banned for me.
Anyway, with the broader class selection, that's my last real reservation gone.
I wanted to make sure that whoever makes a Brawler or Fighter feels good with what they made at later levels. There are several trap archetypes for those classes and the vanilla versions of those classes don't seem to have enough oomph. So I recommended archetypes that would still feel competitive later on.Alright, made the archetypes recommended on Brawler and Fighter and added in Vigilante. I see Kinitecist as T5, so its out. Additional traits is back in.
I didnt allow the favored class bonus since due to some races giving bonus spells known to Sorcerer and Oracle. Didnt seem balanced in the slightest. I may allow base bonus (+1 skill or hp) instead. That seems fine
Why are they recommended? Just curious.
Kineticist isn't T5. It's decent low-investment damage (with your houserules, they only need one feat for the entire game for physical blasts), with some fun utility added on.
Sure, just ban alternate racial favored class bonuses. Balances races better.
Vanilla Fighter is a lot stronger now thanks to advanced weapons training (good will saves and more) and advanced armor training (free bonus attack with a 1d3 weapon and more), so just point those out.
Have you considered giving exotic weapon proficiency as a trait?
It seems weird you have a whitelist for classes. Your decision looks more like you borrowed some tier list or something. if you know your players well enough, you don't really need all this.
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If this is to create some sort of balance between new players and power gamers/builders, it won't work. Talk to your players.
I'd like to echo this comment. I've been all around the table in the past decade of playing tabletop games, and almost entirely with d20 systems (mostly just because I can't get a group together long enough for them to try anything else), and I've found that short of restricting everything to just the core book, minus a few other things (Leadership, etc.), mechanics-based restrictions just don't work. A dedicated powergamer will find ways to break the game, and any given party will find ways to disrupt your plans, if they are so inclined. There's no stopping it, and trying to will only cause the players who would want to take those options purely for the flavour and fun to resent you for it.
If you've restricted multiclassing to prevent players from creating builds centered around dipping into a dozen classes, that's a very 3e mentality. Favoured class bonuses, archetypes, a lack of empty levels, and basically everything about classes and leveling in Pathfinder actually makes single classes - as a general rule - more viable than any mutliclass build. Prestige classes in Pathfinder are pretty much a joke to munchkins, even with the removal of 3e's XP penalty for multiclassing.
Really, laying out ground rules for restrictions only make sense for flavour-based concerns. If you're running a campaign where arcane magic doesn't exist, then ban all the arcane casters, for example. But if arcane magic does exist, let your players play the class they want. Same for races (although, yeah, those you can cut out driders, centaurs, and so on for). For everything else, just talk to your players. Start by having them explain the concept they're going for - in-universe, no reference to mechanics - then work with them to figure out the mechanics that would best reflect their concept. If that's a vanilla fighter, so be it. I've honestly never found class tiers to really mean much in any of my groups.
I'd also like to make a case to defend evil alignments. First off, if the player wants to be evil so they can cause havoc and distress in the (IRL) group, they're probably going to do that regardless of what alignment restrictions you put on them. But even Chaotic Evil isn't necessarily synonymous with omnicidal maniac. One of the most memorable characters I've had the pleasure of running a game with was essentially Greed from Fullmetal Alchemist in terms of alignment and motivation. Clearly on the evil side of the spectrum, but he considered the party to be his "possessions", and almost doted on them. He never had much personal investment in any adventure that didn't promise power or wealth, but went along just the same because he found the group's paladin adorable and basically appointed himself to be his personal bodyguard. Great party cohesion, tons of RP fun, and all with both a LG and a NE character in the party.
But back to mechanics, in another game, I had a player who really wanted to play a trox. Obviously, I pretty much blanched at the thought, but after talking to them, I realized that they really just wanted to play their character concept - a big, hulking, gentle-giant Int 8 bug-person. The trox race wouldn't be too out-of-place in my campaign world, so I made a deal with the player to shrink them down from Large to Medium-size (but a really big Medium, and tacking on a Powerful Build racial trait that allowed the character to be treated as Large for the purposes of bull rush attempts and a few other situational cases), removed the burrow speed and frenzy, and knocked +2 off of the racial Strength bonus, slapping together a set of feats that could add back each of those removed traits (with the +2 Str being bundled in with the Large feat). The whole thing took maybe half an hour of work, and we didn't even get to a high enough level for him to take more than one of those feats, but he had a blast, and my girlfriend absolutely loved the interplay between her bubbly, small human character and the quiet brute.
And as for "crazy" builds, that can be a very difficult concept to suss out. Sure, fighting with a pair of shields sounds silly if you're picturing typical fantasy-Medieval shields, but I could easily picture a school of dwarven fighters who teach that the best offense is a good defense, and wear thick plate mail, and bash their enemies with a pair of heavy shields that are crafted to fit together to form a virtually impenetrable turtle shell-like barrier. From which the explode to flatten orc faces. And one of my oldest character concepts - inspired by Donnie Yen's character from the film Hero - was only just made possible in Pathfinder (not counting homebrew or 3e conversions) with the release of, I believe, Melee Tactics Toolbox, and requires using basically every available feat slot a monk gets just in order to allow him to use a longspear as a monk weapon (which, in that scene, it clearly is).
On a similar note, monk is not generally considered a great class, power-wise, in the best of circumstances, and spending every possible feat just to be able to use your main class feature with one specific weapon does it no favours. But if you're concerned about trap archetypes and options, just be sure to point out the option's shortcomings to a player who's about to choose it rather than outright banning it (or worse, restricting all but a few select options). I've got an entire orphanage of character concepts I'm dying to try out, plenty of whom I have knowingly given "trap" options to because they, like in the case of my Osiriani Donnie, best fit the character concept I'm trying to realize. Make sure they know what they're getting into, but if they're willing to go through with it anyway, by all means, let them. And if it really turns out to be that much of a problem later on, let them exchange it for another option. But don't make them formally retrain it - you should never punish a player for just trying to remain loyal to their character concept.
And that's basically how all of this goes. If you're getting bogged down in the balance and mechanics beyond the most token consideration for balance (which, for the most part, is already done for you by the publishers), then frankly, you're just not playing a tabletop RPG. At best, you're playing a tactical wargame with really wonky mechanics.
TL;DR: Don't bother banning stuff unless it's just not right, in-universe, for the setting (wizards in Dark Sun for example). Outside of that, talk to and work with your players to build memorable characters for everyone to have fun with.
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1. Fair enough, it's all a matter of taste. I'm just saying that evil doesn't necessarily mean psychotic. There's tons of variety that rarely gets explored with how often evil gets banned, and it's generally just because GMs are afraid of PvP conflict.
2. But banning material is such a... crude and inelegant solution. I offered plenty of examples of house-ruled alternatives to simply banning things. I would hope someone in a "House Rule" forum would have recognized that.
...Honestly, I'm rather put out that all that work I put into my reply is being so summarily dismissed. Which, incidentally, is also what you're doing with your players for just laying down blanket bans.
I do not like the "no-multiclassing rule" some builds are just better with dips, but as long as you and your players all have no objections. *shrug*
If you would like more classes, I would recommend Ultimate Psionics form Dreamscarred Press, very balanced and all are T2-T4. You do not need it however as long as your players are happy with your current assortment.
I personally like allowing almost all non-monstrous races but if you are your players are happy again, have fun! :-)
I would recommend also banning Leadership, Arithmancy, and Dazing Spell for feats.
My big recommendation is to simply openly talk to your players and make sure this is making the game funner for both them and you. If you have already done this then all is good, if not then do so and adjust so all can have fun.
Hope this helps, Happy gaming!
Dazing spell is one of the top three most powerful feats in the game. Nothing is immune to the dazed condition as daze is not mind effecting. Daze rod or feat plus fireball is crazy good.
Do you actually know your players?
The best way to make sure no one creates disruptive characters is to game with people you know and take an active part in character creation.
When I see a strict whitelist of acceptable content, rules, and character concepts, I personally see a GM that's too lazy to actively get involved with players when they make characters. I'm not accusing you of that, but that's how it makes me feel when I see a houserules document like this.
Besides, players can make disruptive characters even if they're playing non-evil PCs that are balanced. Heck, the most disruptive players I ever had to game with used underpowered characters. One player killed a 2-year campaign while playing a lawful good core rogue.
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Restricting things to Core only is to make the game more manageable for new players and GMs. Ruling out races and classes in a setting that doesn't have them is to maintain consistency and setting flavour. Running an E6 game is to create a more down-to-earth, gritty feel. Restricting options based on power level is a lazy and ineffective way to ward against power gamers and other disruptive player types while punishing players who just want the opportunity to realize their character concept.
If you want to ban wizards, for example, do so because arcane magic doesn't exist in your setting or something, but keep it consistent and also ban other arcane casters, unless, perhaps, arcane magic is accessible to those who have inherently magical creatures in their ancestry (sorcerers). But then you'll have to explain why a player couldn't just refluff the wizard class to fit in with that bit of lore. Basically, if you want all of us who are on your back about banning things to get off of it, provide some in-universe explanations for why players can't pick those options (especially multi-classing, since this isn't 5e, which was built from the ground up with a lack of multi-classing in mind).
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If the rules are out there ahead of time, the players can choose whether or not to play.
Okay, I was working from the apparently mistaken assumption that you had a single, recurring group of players who you'd be playing with - a situation which, I think I'm right in saying, most would consider to be the ideal. This statement implies that perhaps you live in a high population center with lots of prospective players that you can meet with, and if so then you're pretty much right. Players can choose whether or not they want you to be their GM. But many groups are in smaller towns or cities where if they don't like the GM's rules, then they're up the proverbial creek without a paddle. But if you're fortunate enough to have dozens of potential players and those who don't like your rules are, indeed, readily able to find another group to join, then by all means feel free to ignore my comments as the irrelevant bleats about sour grapes that they aren't entirely distinct from.
P.S. A technical quibble, but in my mind a "house rule" is merely a variation on how something in a particular local (or "house", if you will) game will be arbitrated (or "ruled") on - i.e. your modifications to feats; good job there, incidentally - not merely limitations and restrictions. Those are a category of their own. But this is just quirk of vocabulary, and hardly expected to be universal. You'll be as petty as I am if you respond to this particular aside.
Multiclassing is suboptimal and inefficient about 95% of the time in Pathfinder (with rare exceptions). Calling it munchkin is just silly.
As for the prepared spellcaster change: ...you do realise it's a buff? You literally made all prepared casters like Arcanists, who are arguably one of the most hilariously overpowered classes ever published.
Free Natural Spell to Druids is an unwarranted buff to an already exceedingly strong class.
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A half-decent powergamer just needs one school to break the game. Limiting such an ability to just one school is about as restrictive as Power Attack's BAB prereq.
Seriously, all hostility aside, consider E6. It's a simple enough variant that is already well known among the community. All it does is stop PC level advancement at 6th-level (or, optionally, 7th- or 8th-level, depending on whatever your preference is), and after that point, every so many XP (say, 10,000 or so - up to you), instead of a level, players get a bonus feat that they qualify for. Just that sentence accomplishes pretty much every goal your house rules imply. Bonus points, between 6th- and 8th-level, pretty much every class is on even footing, from fighters to summoners - even the arcanist is, at worst, noticeably powerful rather than shamefully powerful. Combined with the fact that sequence-breaking magic (teleportation, divinations, etc.), and save-or-die spells are either inaccessible or only usable for a few rounds a day, there's pretty much no reason to ban anything beyond that which the rules wouldn't already let a 6th- to 8th-level character already do or qualify for. And you don't even have to sacrifice epic combat, because such a group can, with the right preparations, actually take on a CR 15 dragon and win. It won't be an easy fight, but then, it's not supposed to be.