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Rather than have a million threads (and end up spamming the homebrew section) I figured I'd limit myself to one forum. The collected revisions I've made thus far are available here.
I've made some fairly significant changes from what was being discussed in this thread (earlier versions are in the Archive folder in the above google drive link).
The changes I've made have essentially cleaved closer to normal Pathfinder. The reason I've made so many changes is I was trying to address how I wanted to handle sorcerers and monks.
Originally saves were level based but I've now moved them to class based instead. Instead of getting +2 to one or more saves whenever you take 1st level in a class, you now only get +1 to a save. The proficiencies section now has a +1 to a specific save.
The proficiencies section is only available to 1st leve characters. The reason it exists is to avoid mutliclassing handing out too many benefits. Going from "simple weapons and no armor" to "martial weapons, heavy armor and tower shields" with a single level in fighter is a pretty big boost to the right class (wizards might not get much benefit, but a rogue gets a significant one). It also helps emphasis your first class. In standard Pathfinder if you plan on mutliclassing within the first couple of levels, you almost always make sure to pick the class with the highest hit dice as your first level class. That isn't the case with my revision. Each class has significant abilities that are only received if you take your 1st level in the class. A quick summary are:
* Clerics: Domain training and toughness (to mitigate the d6 hit die I've downgraded them to)
* Fighters: Martial weapon proficiency, medium armor proficiency and a bonus feat.
* Rogue: Either Ninja weapon proficiency or martial weapon proficiency. In addition they get either a bonus feat from a specific list (which includes evasion and uncanny dodge) or +2 skill points per level.
* Wizard: 6 schools of magic and 2 extra skill points every level.
Given the above multiclassing is less of an obvious choice and instead more of a payoff. Some classes will still have good synergy, in fact some combinations (e.g. fighter and rogue) might have even MORE synergy then they otherwise would have had. But overall multiclassing should have some limited benefits while single classing also has comparable benefits.
I've removed the "basic training" abilities and instead given each class specific abilities under the proficiency heading. These were a cludge fix because I was working out how to gate off access to different abilities. Most of these have now been converted back to feats (with some classes getting to ignore the feat prerequisites at 1st level). Although Advanced Training options still exist that are taken at character level 6, 11 and 15.
Clerics in particular have had a downgrade. In my experience when they're not the primary healer they can be one of the most powerful non-wizard classes (excluding stupidly broken stuff from other classes). So they've been downgraded a bit. I do still have the iconic abilities though of channel energy and domains (although domains are restricted at this point to characters who choose cleric at 1st level). They can select a number of "spells known" drawn from all of their religion/deity's domains and then spontaneously replace prepared spells for their domain spells. This is drawn from the work I'm doing on the sorcerer (although the sorcerer only has spontaneous spells). In this way a cleric can get the "best" spells from their deity's domains and can ignore the rest.
If an 8th level cleric with domain training takes the "Improved Cantrips" feat (which is exclusive to sorcerers, bards, oracles and other characters who have spontaneous casting), then they gain the ability to cast 1st level spells at-will (with the limitation of 1 buff from a cantrip being active at one time) and eventually can cast 3rd level spells at-will. This is designed to help the sorcerer keep up with the wizard (who typically exceeds sorcerers in power in standard Pathfinder in my experience). Also by the time you get to such a high level you'll typically have enough high level spell slots that you don't need to rely on your low level spell slots for anything except buffs. So this helps give sorcerers something a way to cast more powerful spells all day long without significantly impacting the balance of the game. It also has a side-benefit of allowing clerics to cast cure light wounds at-will and thus remove the need for a wand of cure light wounds.
Lastly for classes I've added arcanist as a wizard archetype.
For races and backgrounds everything is mostly the same, however I've removed Favoured Class Bonuses completely. With the above rules in place there is already enough disincentive to not multiclass and so I don't think the favoured class bonuses are needed anymore.
I'll post up my revised sorcerer (and update the Paladin to fit the new revision) soon.
I've posted up the Sorcerer. In order to emphasise the fact that magic is innate the sorcerer gets bloodline points which can be used to apply a metamagic feat without increasing the spell level. This is roughly the equivalent of a wizard's arcane reserve, except that the sorcerer is a bit more bursty whereas the wizard is more reliable over a day.
I've removed bloodline spells from the sorcerer. Instead each bloodline grants 1 bonus metamagic feat and they get a number of talents equal to the wizard which they can select either generic sorcerer talents or specific bloodline talents. I've taken about 1 talent for each of the bloodlines included, with one of them granting the wizard's arcane reservoir while another grants a cleric's domain spells (so you could have a sorcerer casting healing spells if you wanted).
The sorcerer gets 6 feats and powers vs the 8 feats and powers a standard Pathfinder sorcerer gets. However everything is modular (as the other classes are) and so you don't get rubbishy ones like growing claws. If a sorcerer chooses not to, they can avoid taking anything related to their bloodline. Alternatively they can play up their bloodline by selecting bloodline specific talents.
Finally I've given the sorcerer the same progression of spells as other 9th level casters. IMO the limitation of not being able to prepare spells is a big enough penalty that delaying their spell slots by a level just isn't necessary. Standard Pathfinder balances it by giving them more lower level spell slots. But with Improved Cantrip that's no longer a good payoff.
Lastly spells known is just a flat 1-2 spells of your highest spell level (depending if you're multiclassed or not) or 2-4 spells of any lower spell level. No table required. Compeltely in the player's hands how they develop their spells known.
More updates have come. I've bumped up the cleric's hit die and the sorcerer has gotten his bloodline spells back, taking up the sorcerer's "expertise" class feature. This means he doesn't get 1st level spells, however he does get 2nd level spells at 3rd level (a pretty decent trade off IMO).
I've also posted up the monk. This is taken fairly straight from the CRB. Monks are still 3/4 BAB. They're d8 hit die and they get 4 skill points per level and consider all saves good saves.
1st level monks (who aren't multiclassed) get both the monk AC bonus and evasion. They can choose between eastern weapon proficiencies (standard CRB and Ultimate Combat monk weapons) OR if you just want to use a quarterstaff (which I have for one of my monks) then you can choose to forgo any weapon proficiencies beyond simple weapons and get 2 bonus skill points per level. Finally you get a bonus monk feat (dodge, fast movement, toughness, stunning fist, perfect strike, etc).
In addition to the above 1st level monks (including multiclassed ones) get flurry of blows (or a bonus combat feat if you want to swap out flurry of blows) and weapon focus. Weapon focus is designed to take up the slot that the standard monk gets with using his level in place of bab for flurry of blows. That feature is gone.
The above is a good demonstration of what you can get when you have zero armor and weapon proficiencies and 3/4 BAB.
Like the Unchained monk a lot of the monk's class features are now monk talents. Unlike the Unchained monk you don't have to spend a ki point to use an ability unless the ability originally required you to spend a ki point. Purity of Body and Diamond Body have been bumped up a couple of levels to be gotten sooner. Timeless body also gives you an inherent +2 bonus to a physical ability score of your choice.
All of the above is just stock-standard monk class features. I've tweaked when you get specific class features and made some things a bit more modular (you only get monk AC bonus if you choose monk at level 1. If you want to play an armoured monk, you can, just choose Fighter at level 1 and then multiclass into monk at level 2). The monk is overall considered a weak class. In order to boost it's power level I've increased it's ki pool from 1/2 level + wis mod to level + wis mod.
Once I math out the monk I may tweak the ki pool or how much specific ki powers cost. But that's the monk overall. I've included two monk archetypes: Drunken Master (a favourite amongst my group) and Sohei. Sohei differs from the Ultimate Combat version in that you get a mount as an animal companion.
Finally for fun I've included the Mystic Theurge prestige class. It's a bit delayed in spells, but it does have some significant class features to make up for it. You can freely use any spell slot for any spell that you want. If you take the relevant talent you can use either Intelligence or Wisdom to determine the DC's of your spells (so you can have a wizard with cleric spells using INT for his DCs) and you can take any cleric or wizard talent that you meet the prerequisites for letting you mix and match to get the best talents from both classes.
[EDIT]: I forgot to include requirements for Mystic Theurge. I've added those now.
My take on the Ranger has been posted.
My Ranger is a significantly reduced in potency Ranger. At 1st level the Ranger is pretty much a copy paste from the CRB and is comparable to the fighter. The combat style feats have been traded in for Ranger talents of which "bonus combat feat" is one option. Otherwise they progress the same. However evasion, improved evasion, improved quarry and woodland stride have been made talents, so they compete with a ranger's bonus combat feats. Some of these abilities have been boosted to help make them more attractive.
The biggest power boost for a Ranger is his favoured enemy and terrain is always at max (and favoured enemy goes up to +12) regardless of which level he picked a particular favoured enemy option.
His animal companion is also no longer part of the base ranger class. Instead an archetype has been introduced that gives the ranger a full druid animal companion by lowering his skill ranks per level and his hit dice.
There's a compatible hunter archetype that gives him 6th level spellcasting for a reduced BAB. You could combine both archetypes to recreate the ACG "Hunter" class. Or you could use either one.
Finally there's a slayer archetype that straight up replaces spellcasting for up to 4d6 sneak attack.
So within 1 class entry there's now 4 different classes through the use of archetypes. I haven't mathed out any of it of course (I'd need spells to be completed to get a clearer picture of potency. I suspect the Hunter gets too many spell slots, but I'd have to be sure). But that's the current draft for the ranger.
[EDIT]: Just saw the class introduction was the old one. This is now updated to the current draft.
Why would you make the ranger weaker? Buffing the martial classes in Pathfinder was sorely needed.
Why would you make the ranger weaker? Buffing the martial classes in Pathfinder was sorely needed.
I'm working to bring the ranger more in line with the revised fighter with the wizard also being brought down to the revised fighter's level.
In my experience fighters are not underpowered. They're not versatile. They're very one-dimensional. But they're not underpowered. I've also buffed the fighter considerably by providing feats that give the fighter different ways to get his full attack off (depending on their playstyle) allowing their damage to be much more consistent. Rangers also get the full benefit of those feats.
While it might look like the Ranger has lost 5 feats, he actually hsan't. A standard TWFing Ranger will get the following feats at the following levels:
Level 2) Two-Weapon Fighting
Level 6) Improved Two-Weapon Fighting
Level 10) Greater Two-Weapon Fighting
Level 14) Two-Weapon Rend
Level 18) Double Slice
In my version (and I just realise now this isn't explicitly stated anywhere in the PDFs or this thread. I'll have to fix that) the Ranger doesn't need the first 3 of these feats. He can be a completely effective TWFing Ranger with none of that chain of feats. Anyone can TWF without a single feat to their name. So the Ranger can either use those bonus feat slots on ANY combat feat. Or they could use it for the class features I've merged into talents. Finally have another reread of those talents. Some of them (e.g. woodland stride) have been boosted to give a better benefit that's worth a feat.
The only way in which you could argue there's a downgrade is in Two-Weapon Rend and Double Slice being gone as well as the animal companion. Now you could put either of those two feats back into the list of feats. Or you could require the Ranger to take alternative feats that provide the same oomph. As for animal companions, he's lost it in the base class in return for getting a proper animal companion using his full ranger level as his druid level.
I think it's also safe to say that +12 damage to the ranger's 5 favored enemies (should be 6, there's an extra favored enemy selection missing for 19th level) is a significant upgrade from +10 to one favored enemy, +8 to a second favored enemy, +6 to a third favored enemy, +4 to a fourth and +2 to a fifth.
Finally if you allow retraining rules (I would) those favored enemies of the ranger can be changed between adventures depending on how much information you have on your likely upcoming foes.
I will admit the spell progression at the moment is a placeholder. It could be increased or decreased as necessary.
Is there any specific thing you feel is a substantial downgrade?
Well, I was wondering why you decided to make the monk abilities Slow Fall, High Jump and Still Mind exclusionary choices by including them all as the monk's single expertise option - unless of course you can take feats to gain further expertises.
Well, I was wondering why you decided to make the monk abilities Slow Fall, High Jump and Still Mind exclusionary choices by including them all as the monk's single expertise option - unless of course you can take feats to gain further expertises.
Because (in my experience) they're the most worthless of all the monk's abilities and also the most commonly swapped out. In my experience slow fall will always be swapped out for barkskin, high jump for power attack and still mind for drunken ki (which makes the barkskin a total no brainer choice). That's why I give the monk one of them for free.
I had considered a feat for an extra expertise. I just figured it wouldn't actually be desirable. 1 feat for 2 expertises?
It might be worth a try. I'm only giving my impressions based on simply reading your PDFs, after all.
Fair enough. I appreciate the questions. Helps me flesh out exactly why I've done things :)
I may be missing something, but what are the basic training options? Several instances in the Class introduction page, as well as in the class write-ups, reference it.
From the OP:
I've removed the "basic training" abilities and instead given each class specific abilities under the proficiency heading. These were a cludge fix because I was working out how to gate off access to different abilities. Most of these have now been converted back to feats (with some classes getting to ignore the feat prerequisites at 1st level). Although Advanced Training options still exist that are taken at character level 6, 11 and 15.
What Arakhor said. Originally the proficiencies listed under classes were going to be even more modular than they currently are. I eventually decided against it and went with the current writeup. I still need to update the paladin and give the rest a clean up to get the wording consistent.
I may be missing something, but what are the basic training options? Several instances in the Class introduction page, as well as in the class write-ups, reference it.
Alright, they should all be updated now to have removed references (except for the Paladin entry).
In the update I've now included something I was considering which was removing medium armor and simply having light armor and heavy armor. The reason for that is that having an entire feat that grants medium armor proficiency and a second feat that grants heavy armour proficiency simply wasn't worth it (IMO). So I've merged medium armor into light and heavy armor. This means that you only need 1 feat to get full plate if you're already proficient in light armor.
This means that Fighters get heavy armor proficiency (so will Paladins). Rangers don't get it and are now restricted only to light armor proficiency. In compensation they get a second good save.
In the simplified armor table I've removed the arcane spell failure chance. Now if you're proficient in heavy armor (which wizards and sorcerers aren't, they're not even proficient in light armor) you just get to cast spells in that armor (so an Eldritch Knight would be able to cast spells in heavy armor).
Something else I've also included in the initial table is to have dexterity modifiers become a deflection modifier. Anyone who wears armor they're proficient in (or has the serene grace feat) automatically gets an AC bonus based on their character level (as shown in the character creation chapter). I'm not completely sold on the idea (and I've got it being discussed here with the pros and cons). But I figured I'd include it at this point and then change it back to standard dex mods later on if I decide to revert back.
Something I've experienced in past games is the problem that AC specialists can have in unbalancing the game. When there's more than a difference of 20 AC between your lowest (non wizard) character and the highest armored character you're either going to be able to auto-hit the lower AC character or auto-miss the highest AC character. Something the "inherent AC bonus" change brings in (along with changing dex to deflection) is that you can lower the range in which a character's AC is likely to fall. In addition I've changed Dodge to also be a deflection bonus. Dodge tends to be a "goto" feat for characters looking to boost AC, and my revised version of dodge is even better than standard dodge because it scales as you level up. So by changing it to deflection I instead make it a choice. If you're a non-dex based character, you can either get a dex belt or take the dodge feat (or both depending if you're using light armor or heavy armor).
The feats section has been reworked. Each class (except Paladin which still hasn't been reworked) now has a "Bonus talent" feat (or in fighter's case as a class feature) that let's them choose a bonus feat from 3 categories (from general, combat, magic or skill as dictated by their class's inclinations).
I've also redone the math on spells. With the exception of fireball (which is overpowered for it's level) and the high level slots (which has fairly weak evocation spells, although I could approximate what they should be through the empower metamagic feat) evocationist Wizards and my revised fighters are actually fairly on-par as far as damage output goes, so long as the wizard targets the PC's best save (which they wouldn't). So I've revised their spell slots to give them more low level to compensate for the fact that having a high spellcasting score only gives you 1 extra spell slot per level (to help balance against classes that do and don't have that extra spell slot).
However I've needed to remove the potency of targeting a character's bad save, so I have significantly reduced the poor saves so that at 20th level there is only a difference of +4 between a character's best save and their worst save (with ability score modifiers either increasing the gap or decreasing the gap). I've also baked Cloaks of Resistance directly into the saving throw progression (seeings how I was modifying them anyway). So this now means that cloaks of resistance, rings of protection and now cloaks of resistance are removed from the game's math.
With this revamp of saving throws I've changed belts and headbands to simply be +2 to an actual stat (with the other belts also existing, although not yet stated up). With the improved saves it doesn't matter casters can afford to add their headband to the DC of spells.
Overall this is a gigantic boost to non-casters and their ability to defend against spells. However by giving non-casters the boosted defence, casters can now keep the potency of their spells (and in some cases even get more powerful spells at some spell levels). Fireball is the only most egregious evocation spell.
So I'm fairly happy with how things are shaping up at this point.
[EDIT]: Forgot to add that wizards have had their school specialisation revised. An entire extra spell slot at each level is just too good compared to other casters. So their school specialisation now just gives them an extra use of their arcane reservoir. However with bonus spells for high Int, their standard spell slot progression and their ability to invest in a medallion of magical might, I think this still leaves them with a fairly hefty and significant number of spells at each level.
I've restarted work on spells and I've got a good idea of what each spell slot should be able to do when it comes to damage. I've uploaded what I've done so far.
I'm removing the idea of touch attacks in my revision. Casters instead target against a creature's normal AC. To help compensate the spellcaster gets to use their spellcasting ability modifier instead of strength or dex. A pure spellcaster who concentrates on pumping their casting stat will be able to hit enemies between 50% to 70% of the time (it fluctuates from level to level).
I won't deny removing touch AC is a pretty drastic change to the game that results in spells being less unique. The problem I have with touch AC is that it's a mess. Gunslingers are broken because they target it and spellcasters and martials were punished more than pure spellcasters because pure spellcasters typically had a higher touch AC. Given I couldn't think of a way to make it more balanced I'm just removing it instead.
What this means is that these spells can now do substantially more damage than they would under standard Pathfinder. I've done a couple of spells before I got sidetracked with the cure spells. I've determined how much damage the cure spells should do based on how much damage would be required to make them competitive with other spells of their level when used to attack an undead creature. I've then used that same damage to determine how much healing a spell does.
What the end result is you have a 14th level spellcaster healing 16d8 HP with a 1st level spell slot for an average of 72 healing. Considering a rogue would typically have 88 HP at 14th level, this means that even low level spell slots can be extroadinarily potent when providing healing. The mass forms of these spells also become substantially more potent as well (with an 18th level cleric being able to cast Mass Cure Critical Wounds and affect 3 creatures as a 9th level spell, dealing a total of 129 healing per creature).
This means that wands of cure light wounds suddenly lose their charm as healing actually scales adequately with level and so a spellcaster or two can heal their party between fights with their spell slots. Thanks to the fact that every spellcaster in the game (except wizards) gets cure spells (or in the case of a sorcerer can choose to get cure spells) the cleric isn't stuck in being the healstick either. Of course, the less damage the party takes the longer they can fight and the less healing they need.
For this reason, I'm planning on removing wands of cure light wounds and rethink how wands work in my revised rules. Outside of low levels and CLW wands, wands don't actually see much use in my group. I'd like to change that without giving the caster an extra 50 spell slots per day per wand.
I've included some new spells. I've tweaked the levels for some spells and removed Analyze Dweomer. My group has never actually used it and I can't say I'm a fan of it.
I've also taken inspiration from PF2e and tweaked the layout of the armor. I wanted to do this initially but wasn't willing to tweak the bonuses enough to do so. Now I have. With the tweaks I've been able to add medium armor back into the game.
Light Armor will give you a max AC of 19 (20 with a shield), medium will give you a max of 20 (22 with a shield) while Heavy Armor will give you a max AC of 21 (25 with a tower shield). The way I've done this is reducing the dex bonus by 1 for every increase of AC by 1 (with a jump occurring between light, medium and heavy armor).
I did have to remove padded armor to get this to work and move hide to light. But in my opinion it's worth it.
I'll now have to go back and give fighters and rangers medium armor proficiency again. Although to help compensate I will give the heavy armor proficiency feat tower shields for free.
[edit]: Oh. I forgot to mention. Armor bonus is now a property of class level rather than character level. With classes not getting any bonus until level 4 (at which point they get +4) there is no penalty to multiclassing, so long as you take 4 levels in each class. However if you want to dip then your AC bonus will start to lag behind. That's a neat way of enabling multiclassing while promoting single-classing.
I've also replaced Improved Healing "specialist feat" (what was called advanced training) with extra channel instead. This is no longer a standard feat. The specialist feat version of extra channel also scales with level. Although as a result I have removed Ritualised Channeling for now (you can find it in the archive folder though). I may bring it back at a later point.
I was thinking about haste. 1 whole extra attack is mandatory for martials to keep up with casters. I didn't want to include a "haste specialist feat" because I don't have enough room with the specialist feats (I've already converted all of the iterative attacks into specialist feats) plus it will just give casters the option to get something equally powerful when they don't need it. When players buy a pair of boots of speed also differs depending on build. So I've looked at how much an extra attack helps fighters in dealing damage and built it into the Extra Attack feat by removing the cumulative penalty. So now extra attacks use your full BAB for your secondary and tertiary attacks. Your fourth extra attack (which can only be chosen by full BAB classes) does have a penalty, but it's only a -5 penalty.
I did want to provide some design space for the haste spell and boots of speed. So the spell haste can allow someone to make an extra attack with their off-hand weapon when two-weapon fighting as a full attack. Alternatively they can move their speed as a swift action. Boots of speed get the standard bonuses (+1 AC, reflex and attack) all day with no limit for the price of 20,000 gp. A balancing factor is they're insight bonuses so they don't stack with other insight bonuses. In addition boots of speed can only be used to move your speed as a swift action 10 times per day. A "speed" weapon will let you use a swift action when applied to a light weapon and wielded in your off-hand. This keeps the same thematic abilities while decreasing their power and making them more of a choice rather than a mandatory selection.
All of the spells that start with the letter A have been added. I've simplified animate plant to instead just create shambling mounds while animate object has been rebalanced. Either spell at the level they're achieved don't actually create viable threats. But they do provide a delaying tactic to allow a party to retreat or to stop melee bound monsters from getting into melee with the PCs while the PC's ranged characters can shoot at them.
Antipathy has been kept at the level it is. Although once it successfully activates the antipathy effect is suppressed for all other creatures (unless the creature who is affected by it somehow stops being affected by it). This helps rebalance the spell. Also why the hell have no wizards in my party ever cast this spell before?
Bear's Endurance has been boosted to 10 mins/level to help compensate for how massive cure spells are in the revised rules. To help simplify their application it also generates temporary hit points and grants a +2 bonus to fort saves.
Bestow Curse has also been subtly nerfed. It's been reduced to a 2nd level spell instead of a 3rd level spell. As a 3rd level spell it's not quite good enough despite the fact I've seen it used to good effect. By doing so I've reduced it's DC as well though by 1-2 meaning it will stop being useful at higher levels a little bit sooner (unless you use the heighten spell metamagic feat).
One big change is Awaken which has been made a Specialist feat. If you don't have an animal companion then you can gain access to the awaken spell at 15th level. It doesn't expend a spell slot (which IMO isn't necessary given it's a 24 hour ritual). It otherwise works the same way as the standard awaken spell.
I've updated the spells so that the cure spells now deal half as much healing. This helps make it a lot less gonzo then before. It is still a dramatic difference with Cure Light Wounds healing 30 HP per casting (vs 9 healing in standard Pathfinder). Every cure spell now adds +caster level and there is no cap on caster level (so a 20th level caster heals more with Cure Light Wounds than a 15th level caster, although only by +5).
In reading the (IMO) fairly atrocious background article for PF2e I had an idea of changing how races, backgrounds and universal background traits were being handled in my revised rules. I've rebalanced each of the traits so that they're all fairly balanced against each other with each trait equaling a half feat. Races get 3 racial traits of their choice, with the exception of gnomes who get 4 (due to their reduced speed which is now 25 feet instead of 20 feet). They don't need to select specific ones, they can select ANY racial trait they want (with the exception of low-light vision and darkvision being mutually exclusive and minesight having darkvision as a prerequisite). In addition each character gets to choose 5 cultural traits. This is a combination of the traits that were from the backgrounds chapter and the traits that I was calling universal traits. There are no restrictions on which trait a character can choose. They just get 5. If a GM wants to use campaign specific traits then the players get 4 cultural traits + 1 campaign trait. This has allowed me to consolidate more traits and remove the overpowered ones.
By rebalancing the traits across the board in this way most skills which grant a bonus to skills now provide a +2 bonus to a single skill which becomes +4 if the character puts 10 or more ranks in it. This replaces the Skill Synergy feat. Because Skill Synergy and Skill Focus were both feat bonuses the two feats couldn't stack anyway. So this is just a clean up of mutually exclusive options to allow the same amount of choices with less space. So I've replaced the Skill Synergy feat with the Additional Traits feat (this feat can be chosen multiple times).
Humans have had their traits reduced to 2 human specific traits: One bonus cultural trait (can be selected multiple times) and quick learner (gain 1 bonus skill rank per level). They still get their 3 racial traits. So a full blooded human would have to select "bonus cultural trait" multiple times.
However I've removed half-elves and half-orcs from the race writeups. Humans can select one or more elven traits and one or more orcish traits. If a player really wanted to they could be half-elf/orc/human with nothing to stop them except for their GM saying that's stupid. Humans also get a special "Dual Minded" trait, but they have to be either a half-elf or half-orc to qualify for that trait.
In order to enable the above there is now a writeup for orcs. I've given them a context which COULD be interpreted as explaining why they became the brutal savages that we know them as. But I've kept it vague enough that a GM could say "historically orcs were once non-evil and there are one or two tribes that still cleave to those values" but I've also got a sidebar saying "In some games orcs are just plain evil and so aren't playable. These traits can be used by half-orcs raised among humans though." I'd go the latter route myself.
The races section now take up 14 pages (which incorporates both races and what were backgrounds). That's 1 less page than the races section in the Advanced Player's Guide and includes a whole slew of traits as well.
I've reworked Paladins and some feats.
The earlier version of the paladin is in the Archived folder. This new revision has lay on hands at 1st level and gets channel positive energy at 4th level. This ability has been rebalanced to not make it better than a cleric's channel energy. Effectively they're very similar in terms of power. Single classed paladins get a unique bonus to their fortitude saves that let them mimic having a good fort save. Divine grace also applies to 1 saving throw each time it's taken instead of all 3 at once. That should cut down on oracles dipping into paladin.
Mercy is now a core part of the class (unlike my earlier draft) and is obtained at 3rd level and improves as the standard paladin mercy class feature does.
Smite foe is no longer a core ability. It, along with any other class feature that relies on alignment, have been made paladin talents. Aura of faith is still a core ability but has been reworked to apply to any type of DR (choosable by the Paladin).
Additional ways the paladin have been improved is to have the Paladin's full level determine their spellcaster level. They still don't get spells until 5th level, but they do get improved spell effects when they finally do get them. They also get 2 1st level spells at 5th level instead of 1 (although they don't get bonus spells for a high charisma score).
The paladin oaths have minimal effect on the Paladin except for letting the paladin select certain talents. Even swearing an oath is voluntary. Although without an oath many of the iconic paladin abilities (several aura, smite foe and abilities modifying smite foe) are locked away. I've got the standard paladin code and a paladin of freedom code (CG).
I've reworked the archetypes I originally had. Some of the abilities are now standard paladin talents. Others I'm leaving out for now due to not wanting to step on the cleric's toes. There is the Holy Knight talent which gives the Paladin a bonded mount at 1st level in return for less skill points and a reduced lay on hands. Another archetype is Low Templar which completely removes the paladin oath class feature (it's also compatible with holy knight). In return for losing spells a low templar gains sneak attack and can select a handful of rogue talents in place of a paladin talent.
Divine Bond is not a core part of the class. Instead it's a specialist feat which can be obtained in place of an extra attack. The divine bond grants a +3 enhancement bonus to a paladin's weapon or her armor (or both if both divine bonds are taken). Holy Knights (or Paladins who multiclass into Fighter) can also choose Celestial Steed (exact details haven't yet been worked out. I'm holding off until I do the Druid before I tackle that). Which means a paladin could have celestial steed, weapon divine bond and armor divine bond and not get a single extra attack if that's what they really wanted.
Vital Strike and Cleave have been tweaked to operate better with how extra attacks and BAB now behave. Improved Vital Strike also lets you use Vital Strike for your AoOs. I have included a feat called Ritualised Prayer. It lets anyone spontaneously cast certain spells from the cleric spell list, so long as they have the spell scribed in a special spellbook and expend a number of material components equal to half the cost of scribing a scroll of the spell level. The aim is to help reduce the reliance on a cleric, however the feat also helps clerics who decide to take it as they can spontaneously cast any of the listed spells by simply spending enough gold.
May I offer a suggestion? I found the easiest way to balance martial classes was also one of the simplest: the full attack action is a STANDARD action.
Now before anyone goes freaking out or anything, just hear me out on this one. Ranged martial classes, stand in one spot (normally) and rain death upon their enemies far removed from harm. They can deal damage to anyone on the field and rarely need to move much, thus allowing for full round attack actions. Casters classes such as a mage, cleric, etc are in largely the same boat. In the case of casters, they do their full damage (or other effect) and still move.
So, to balance the martial melee types a very simply rule change is needed: Full round attack actions are standard actions. It is simple, easy to implement, and best of all if you group simply hates the rule it is super easy to revert back.
I've effectively done the same thing by including a number of feats that allow the character to move and full attack in the same round. I prefer a more diverse form though which allows different ways of letting a martial character move (if you want to be the most mobile you're better off being a two-weapon fighter and nimble moves. If all you care about is getting to the bad guy and full attacking then swift charge and two-handed is the way to go).
Thanks for looking at my stuff! :) I'm going to respond to each point quoted separately (I know a lot of people don't like that style but I want to make it clear which point I'm referring to).
you took away flurry of blows AND stunning fist
Single classed monks get 2 feats at 1st level that someone multiclassing into monk don't get: Martial Style and Improved Unarmed Strike. You get to choose between knowing all of the special monk weapons (whatever ones aren't simple weapons because all characters get simple weapon proficiency). If you don't want either of those (I played a quarterstaff wielding monk so I got no benefit from improved unarmed strike and special monk weapon proficiency) you can get 2 bonus skill points per level instead.
Flurry of blows was always just TWFing with double slice built in. I have removed those penalties and kept the fact double slice is built into flurry of blows (in fact, no-one else is ever going to be able to equal a monk when it comes to TWFing as I'm not allowing double slice as a feat).
In addition monks get flexible training with which they can select stunning fist.
I have replaced the Level 1 feat with Weapon Focus. As a monk I'd much prefer to get weapon focus at level 1 then any of the other bonus monk feats. Any of these feats though are on par with each other.
you didn't give them full BABPaizo and I are in agreement on this. When Paizo moved monks up to full BAB and higher hit die, they reduced the number of saves a monk gets. I decided to keep the saves instead. Which leads into...
the way you attributed saves they have more but a lot less of a difference between 12/12/12 and 12/6/6
This was to debuff the wizard rather than debuff the monk. I can see why you'd be unsatisified with that as a monk player though. Especially when the monk has given up full BAB and a higher hit die to get that.
you doubled their natural armor to 10 but then you gave fighters 9 (wtf?), no unarmed dmg increase
Single classed monks get the Serene Grace feat which replicates their monk AC bonus. They can also gain unarmed dmg increase by taking the Unarmed Mastery monk talent at 4th level. The reason to hide it away in a monk talent is so that weapon wielding monks aren't forced to get a boost that they otherwise don't want.
no fast movement??
They can get it as a feat if they really want it. I expect most people won't bother because it's not exactly an important part of their monk builds.
being able to resurrect is interesting but at the same time overpowered on any class even one as underpowered as this.
Is it though? All it's doing is saving you some gold that a party at that level would otherwise be able to afford.
You give choice but the choices are fake and you even point that out in this thread. For example at level 3 you combined all the weak choices added one good option, what will everyone select oh i know more initiative the same way everyone picks reactionary as a trait.
That's up to people. I've maybe picked reactionary once myself. It's not a staple at my table and that largely seems to be an internet phenomenon in my experience (your experience may differ of course if every player at your table always chooses reactionary).
All in all you hamstring the classes early abilities broke them down into "choices" when a monk got all of those for free or a simple feat.
So let's make 2 monks and compare them. One from the core rulebook and the other from my revised rules. Let's go for a 12th level power level (it's the cap for PFS and that's the only reason I chose it). But let's not include feats for race or level and give the core monk his highest flurry of blows bonus to every attack to make them equitable:
DEX 12 12 (2)
INT 10 10 (0)
WIS 14 13+1 (3)
CHA 8 8 (0)
Unarmed Strike: +15/+15/+15/+15/+15
Ki Pool (free action) 8/day: +15 (2d6+5)
Feats and Class Features ignoring those gained from level and race:
Level 1) Unarmored Monk Bonus
Level 1) Stunning Fist
Level 1) Improved Unarmed Strike
Level 1) Flurry of Blows
Level 1) Dodge
Level 2) Evasion
Level 2) Combat Reflexes
Level 3) Fast Movement
Level 3) Maneuver Training
Level 3) Still Mind
Level 4) Ki Pool (1/2 monk level + wis mod)
Level 4) Slow Fall
Level 5) High Jump
Level 5) Purity of Body
Level 6) Improved Trip
Level 7) Wholeness of Body
Level 9) Improved Evasion
Level 10) Improved Critical
Level 11) Diamond Body
Level 12) Abundant Steps
CON 14 14 (5)
DEX 12 12 (2)
INT 10 10 (0)
WIS 14 13+1 (3)
CHA 8 8 (0)
Unarmed Strike: +14/+14/+14/+14/+14/+14 (3d4+5)
Ki Pool (free action) 14/day: +14 (3d4+5)
Feats and Class Features ignoring those gained from level and race:
Level 1) Serene Grace (unarmored monk bonus)
Level 1) Evasion
Level 1) Stunning Fist
Level 1) Improved Unarmed Strike
Level 1) Weapon Focus
Level 1) Flurry of Blows (full strength damage on your off-hand attack)
Level 2) Dodge
Level 3) Ki Pool: Monk level + Wisdom modifier
Level 3) Monk Expertise: Still Mind
Level 4) Ki Strike
Level 5) Purity of Body
Level 6) Ancient Healing Hand (full round action and 2 ki points for +level wounds healed)
Level 8) Improved Evasion
Level 11) Diamond Body
Level 12) Abundant Steps
In return it gets: +6 extra ki points per day AND 1 extra attack every round.
I personally would happily trade out Improved Trip (which stops being functional at higher levels unless you keep investing in it, which means you'll have to take Combat Expertise and have Int 13 because otherwise you don't qualify for any of the additional trip feats), fast movement, maneuver training (which only comes up if you invest in maneuvers), slow fall, high jump and +1 to attack rolls for 1 whole extra attack every round.
Improved Critical is lost and it is worth having, but in return you get 6 extra ki points per day which means 6 extra attacks. Is that worth it? Or would you prefer to have improved critical?
Sidenote: I've not counted the Armor Bonus because that is replacing rings of deflection and amulets of natural armor (although as a consequence the monk can afford amulet of mighty fists AND still get to "keep" their amulet of natural armor).
I've done some work on feats.
I've done the math and I'm keeping Weapon Finesse as a feat. The initiative and reflex boost is sufficient to warrant a feat. I have combined agile maneuvers into the weapon finesse feat so that you only have to take 1 feat. I won't be allowing dex to damage though. I think the bonus granted for weapon finesse is high enough.
I've rebalanced Improved Critical so it doubles the critical range without a penalty to attack rolls. I've got Arcane Strike as well (scales for 4 levels instead of 5), Augment Summoning (only grants extra HP). I've removed the movement limitation on Step Up.
Finally I've got a new feat called Theurgy. It lets you increase your spell level for at least 2 classes by +1 when determining what spell slots you get. This ties in with caster level. By default you add all of your caster levels together to determine your total caster level (so a a wizard 10/cleric 10 has a caster level of 20), but you determine the spell slots you get from each class individually. So if you were to be a wizard 1/cleric 19 you would be caster level 20, however you would only be able to learn and prepare 1st level wizard spells so the rest of your spell slots would either have cleric spells prepared in them OR you'd have wizard spells that have been affected by metamagic feats to boost their spell level.
What this Theurgy feat effectively does is remove the need for a Mystic Theurge prestige class. It also provides a continued incentive for multiclassed spellcasters to scale both classes equally.
So to address the monk issues, I've made some changes:
Monks no longer have 3 good saves. They now only get 1, however Improved Unarmed Strike no longer exists as a feat. Now it simply is an inherent property on unarmed strikes. In return for these elements single classed monks now get 3 bonus feats to choose from, so a monk could have Stunning Fist, Elemental Fist and Toughness. And they don't need to meet the prerequisites for these feats if they take them at 1st level.
Monks no longer get weapon focus at 1st level. But they do get to treat their BAB as being equal to their monk level at 1st level, meaning they qualify for weapon focus at level 1 and can take the extra attack feats at the correct levels. I've also added special clauses onto Stunning Fist and Elemental Fist which allows a monk to spend ki to get free uses of them. I've also boosted stunning fist to last a number of rounds equal to the monk's level.
I've got an "Inner Fortitude" monk talent which lets them swap out Con for STR when it comes to HP and Fort saves (which can be taken as early as 2nd level) which makes the monk less MAD. Finally monks now get 6+Int mod skill points per level, putting them above what a fighter gets.
Overall I think this is a good boost and rearrangement of the monk that brings them more in line with the CRB monk's abilities while giving them stealth boosts (e.g. barkskin power is gone and in it's place is Iron Monk which gives them a natural armor bonus which actually stacks with barkskin). The most obvious boost being Wis mod+level ki points per day.
I'm planning on reducing the ki to become Wis mod+1/2 level and give the monk some of the abilities he lost back (slow fall, high jump) and then have drunken master get what would effectively be +level ki points per day through drunken ki by swapping out the extra abilities. In this way there's a design space for the concept of the drunken master and you can have either a "traditional" monk or a "lots and lots of ki" monk instead.
I've done some significant changes to the wizard and fighter.
Fighters: I wanted to make the weapon training really obvious for newer players so it doesn't get overlooked. As such I've reduced the number of fighter talents a fighter gets and instead give them a Specialisation at 4th level. They can choose to get the Weapon Training as a specialisation (which is essentially +1 weapon training bonus), they can choose to be a duelist and get the challenge ability (no longer a feat) or they can choose to be a generalist and instead get extra fighter talents.
Wizards: I've removed Arcane Reservoir. Getting that + an extra spell slot for specialising in a school were simply too good. Instead wizards have to wait until 4th level before they get to specialise. Specialisation is essentially the arcane reservoir, but they have to keep investing in the specialisation to increase the spell level it provides (at 4th level you get a bonus 2nd level spell slot that can be spontaneously used for any school spell, at 8th level it can be used for 4th level spells, at 12th level it can be used for 6th level spells and at 16th level it can be used for 8th level spells). In order to make 20th level better wizards now get a capstone which lets them cast 2 7th level spells (or lower) at the same time twice a day.
Instead of getting the scaling arcane reservoir, universalist wizards get to instead cast a 1st level spell as a swift action. At 8th level it becomes a 3rd level spell, at 12th level it becomes a 5th level spell and at 16th level it becomes a 7th level spell.
I plan on reworking each of the classes to give them all a specialisation that is fairly on par. The reason for that is I have a new feat: Extra Specialisation. This feat gives you an extra apecialisation and any time you'd gain a specialisation improvement you can choose to improve any of your specialisations. So if someone goes Fighter 4/Wizard 16 then they can improve their weapon training at Wizard 4, Wizard 8, Wizard 12 and Wizard 16. Likewise there's another new feat called Versatile Talent. You get a bonus talent and then when a class grants you a talent you can choose any talent that you qualify for (aimed specifically at multiclassed characters). Each class will get a capstone that rewards single classed characters. Many talents also have a level requirement that you'll still need to meet as well. However it does help boost multiclassed characters a bit by letting them pick and choose which class they want a talent from.
Finally I'm still doing some work on the monk. I haven't updated the PDF yet, but here's a subtle but small boost to the monk: If the monk has a Wisdom modifier of 12 or higher then he also gains a number of bonus ki points each day equal to his wisdom modifier.
This means that if a monk isn't particularly interested in his Wisdom modifier and would rather boost other ability scores in place of Wisdom, then he can. He won't be penalised with the number of ki points he gets, he just won't get bonus ki points.
I've updated the Paladin to now have a specialisation. As a result their lay on hands is only +1d6 at 1st level and they get 2 uses of it. If they take the hospitalist specialisation then they gain 2 extra uses of lay on hands and increase the benefit by +1d6. Alternatively they can take the Holy Champion ability and gain a divine bond with their weapon. Or they can take the Divine Defender specialisation and gain a divine bond with their armor.
Rangers have also been updated. Their favoured enemy only increases if they take the Hunter specialisation.
Rogue's have also been updated. A player can double-down on Sneak Attack and take the Assassin specialisation and get as many as 15d6 sneak attack dice, or they can gain a ki pool which makes them qualify for ki talents (this has killed the ninja archetype). Alternatively they can be a generalist and keep the standard number of talents.
Sorcerer has finally been worked out to have his spells delayed by 1 level for 2nd level spells onwards. His specialisation has been boosted a bit at 4th level to compensate. He also gets 2 extra spells at each spell level to compensate. His capstone is getting to maximise 3 spells of his choice (these can be ANY spell he casts).
I've made some big updates for the monk, fighter and paladin. In addition I've added the barbarian.
When I was working on the barbarian I realised that I had 4 different classes, each with a way of gaining damage resistance and each with different requirements and different values of DR. So I've rebalanced things and normalised the abilities (fighters no longer get the same DR levels as barbarians but have a requirement of wearing armor whereas barbarians get the same DR but just get it regardless of what they're wearing).
This means that some class abilities have been renamed and tweaked to be more similar across each other. For example Wholeness of Body and Ancient Healing Hands have just been replaced with lay on hands.
Monks I've finally bitten the bullet and just made them a full BAB class. I had enough monk class features to try to cheat around that and I've just finally given up on trying to keep them from being a full BAB class. This means their ki points have been reduced to only being 1/2 level. They've also lost some of their class features. Compared with a normal monk they've lost 2 bonus feats. However they have much more modular abilities. Some have also been improved a bit (timeless body grants +2 to a physical ability score for example). I've also renamed their ki pool to spiritual reserve. It works exactly the same, however it makes the monk a bit more flexible in terms of flavour (it could be ki or it could be divinely bestowed). I've also given them a class talent called priestly ascetic which lets them cast spells with ki points. I did this because I realised that ki sacrifice was effectively spending a number of ki points equal to the spell level to cast the spell. Rather than require a talent per spell I've just given them one talent that they can choose the spells they want. Of course not all class features follow this pattern so there are exceptions (Empty Body and Abundant Step).
As I mentioned I've added barbarians. I've removed rounds of rage and instead gone back to the 3.5e method of having rages per day. I've gone the Unchained Barbarian route and just have flat bonuses added and temporary hit points added (this has the benefit of no longer needing a feat to simply avoid dying when you lose consciousness while raging) and also helps avoiding having to recalculate ability scores both in and out of a rage. However to avoid the problem of barbarians being better with sword and board I've doubled the damage bonus when wielding a two-handed weapon (which on the face of it is a slight boost to the standard barbarian, but enough of the barbarian abilities have changed to not make that the case). Many of the rage powers have also been changed. Those that were "once per rage" now end the rage when used. A barbarian can load up on as many of these abilities as he wants. If he takes the extra rage specialisation he'll get to use them more often, but he can only use one per rage (effectively making extra rage a pool of times that these can be used per day). Tireless rage has also been kept as a 17th level class feature. As much as possible the "only during a rage" rage powers have just been made a constantly on talent.
Fighters no longer get bonus feats. Now they only get class talents (although any class can choose a feat in place of a talent).
So that's the rules where they currently stand. I still need to update the other classes. I did briefly consider making class talents be class feats instead (and there may be vestigial references to class feats) and go in the direction PF2e is going. But I decided against it. It made dipping into other classes too rewarding (you can only choose a class talent when you gain a level in that class). The only reason to place the class talents in their own chapter is to help cut down on having too many of the same ability that do things ever so slightly differently (and so at different power levels).
I've reworked the balance on the two-handed fighting style, archery and sword and board. Power Attack has been reduced in power to make it less “must have”. But I have introduced greater weapon specialisation to offset it for fighters. I’ve also introduced the fencer feat which lets you add half your dexterity bonus to damage rolls with finesse weapons (weapon finesse doesn’t exist. If you use a weapon finesse weapon then you can use dexterity to attack rolls).
Power attack applies to both melee and ranged weapons. This way switch hitters can more freely switch between fighting styles. Ranged attackers gain access to both rapid shot and manyshot. On the one hand many shot has been improved as it applies to every attack you make. On the other hand you don’t get to apply favoured enemy bonuses or strength damage to it. Rapid shot is largely the same, however it’s a -3 penalty to the attack roll instead of -2. Precise shot has been kept as a feat tax (as it applies to both weapon users and spellcasters), although it no longer has point blank shot as a tax feat (which is also not included).
Shields have been reduced to three types: bucklers are the same, light shields are gone, heavy shields have been renamed shields and tower shields have a -1 penalty to AC instead of -2. However they are back to being their own proficiency (with the exception of bucklers which are granted with light armor proficiency).
Magic armor is also reworked. Light armor has a maximum of +4 enhancement bonus before special properties start being applied (maximum of +9 in total). Medium and heavy armor have +5 and +10 as normal.
I am also not allowing enhancement bonuses on shields. I've played in games with tanks and it can be not very enjoyable (either as a player or a GM) where the enemies can't hit the PCs because they've specialised in AC and are thus unhittable. Specific shields (say animated shield) would exist without allowing enhancement bonuses on them.
I've continued consolidating the class talents. I also consolidated the archetypes. I realised I had 3 archetypes, each with a way to gain a mount in identical ways. What this means is that Cavalier is now available to clerics, druids, fighters, monks, paladins and rangers. It also means that both monks and rogues can apply the Shadowdancer archetype now.
In working on making sure things like bless and mage armor were of the correct value range, I had a rethink on how wizards gain spell slots. I've now dramatically reduced the number of spell slots wizards get, and also the number of wizard talents they get. This is to avoid having the caster step too much on the non-caster toes by being able to easily replicate what they've dedicated feats and 20 levels worth of skill points into doing. As such wizards only get 5 1st level spells, 4 2nd level spells, 3 3rd level - 8th level spells and 1 9th level spell.
I realise this is a very PF2e/5e approach to spell slots. However it is done with the aim of having spells be quite powerful and to help balance clerics and druids.
There are ways to get more spell slots as well. For wizards the most obvious way is to specialise in a school. At 4th level you can specialise and gain 2 extra 2nd level spell slots that you can use to spontaneously cast any spell of your specialist school. At 8th level these spell slots upgrade to 4th level spell slots, at 12th level these spell spell slots upgrade to 6th level spell slots and at 16th level not only do they upgrade to 8th level spell slots, but you get 3 of them instead of 2.
Another way for a wizard to gain extra spell slots is to take metamagic feats (either as a generalist or using their normal level-based feats). Empower for example lets you empower 2 spells a day without needing to increase the spell slot consumed. At 20th level this is effectively a feat that allows you to trade 2 7th level spells for 2 9th level spells. In this way wizards are encouraged and rewarded to take magic feats just like fighters are encouraged and rewarded to take power attack or weapon focus. In standard Pathfinder metamagic feats simply make you more diverse. In this revised version they directly increase your power potency (twice a day) as well as make you more diverse.
Finally I've given wizards the weapon specialist specialisation. This is designed to help allow them to be a eldritch knight if they so desire. This means they get less spell slots, but they can more easily enable the eldritch knight concept (although they'd still be advised to multiclass into fighter).
With this new version of wizard, I now need to rework the balance and math of spells.
I've finally finished consolidating all of the class talents into one chapter along with the archetypes. So I've updated all of the documents to reflect this. I've also moved specialisations from level 4 to level 1.
The reason for moving specialisations was for a few reasons. One of them was to give wizards the ability to specialise at level 1. It also means that wizards get bonus spells for specialising at level 1 and ultimately gain bonus 9th level spell slots at level 17. The biggest part was it had to do with how clerics got spells and when they got specialisations.
Specialisations are handed out at 1st level, 5th level, 9th level, 13th level and 17th level. These are the precise levels that 3/4 BAB classes do NOT get a BAB increase. So it means they can get a specialisation plus another class feature (either spells or something else). This was the primary reason for it. It also helps reduce feats (gives weapon specialists an extra +1 which means I can remove weapon focus from the rules and rename greater weapon focus into weapon focus).
I've added a couple of feats that grant bonus spell slots. This can be taken multiple times.
Sorcerers have been reworked to now be a 3/4 BAB class. What that means is that ranged touch attack spells will be balanced against the caster having 3/4 BAB which means wizards will be less likely to use them and more likely to use DC based spells. This helps differentiate the two classes a bit more (side effect is that only wizards have 1/2 BAB. Although wizards are also the only class to get bonus spell slots).
I've also been able to reduce the Oracle into a sorcerer archetype. They get a curse (it doesn't replace anything) which never improves (because having a curse that improves means it's not really a curse. This has to be the biggest point of contention in my group). If I really wanted I could provide a class talent that essentially negated the curse. I don't want to though. In return for getting a curse, they get toughness (which essentially makes them a d8 class instead of a d6 class). In place of selecting a bloodline oracles get to select a single domain. I seriously looked closely at the oracle mysteries and they all seem to be able to get mapped onto cleric domains. So rather than have a separate mystery list I'm just reusing the cleric domain list. Finally oracles get to choose cleric talents instead of sorcerer talents. What that means is I get to now look at the various oracle talents and give them to clerics instead (which turns oracle from being the most popular class in my group to making clerics equally viable to oracles).
Thanks to specialisations now being gained at 1st level, the Knight doesn't need to grant early access to it. All the knight archetype does is require that you pick the duelist specialisation and then it gives you benefits to your challenge.
Finally looking at magic items and how to help non-casters get the most benefit from them:
* Scrolls work as they do in standard Pathfinder. They're designed to be used by casters.
* Staves are effectively a free spontaneous spell list for casters.
* Rods work pretty close as they do in standard Pathfinder. Again, specifically designed for casters.
* Potions work like scrolls do, but anyone can use them.
* Wands work differently. They'll still have charges, but instead of being a set caster level (like scrolls are), they instead use the caster level of the wielder. If the wielder doesn't have a caster level, then they can approximate one by using UMD vs DC 20 to pretend to have a caster level of 1. For every point they beat DC 20 they increase their caster level by +1. So a roll of UMD 30 gives you caster level 10 (up to a maximum equal to your character level). This way anyone can be a spellcaster just by investing 1 rank per level into UMD.
Finally got around to the bard. Now that I have decided on how spells will be balanced against each other vs class features and feats, I've been able to tackle the bard.
The bard gets 10 class talents which is quite a lot. Bardic Knowledge grants Innate Knowledge as a bonus talent (use Charisma instead of Intelligence for knowledge checks) as well as allowing you to treat all knowledge skills as class skills. This and a bonus class talent of the player's choice are only available to characters who take bard at first level.
For weapon proficiencies I've gone ahead and just given the bard full martial weapon proficiency, although they only get 1 good save as a consequence.
Versatile performance is a class talent that otherwise works the same way as the class feature. It can be taken multiple times. Jack of all trades also works the same way and is a class talent.
Bards still only get up to 6th level spells (I'm not going the way of 5e and making them 9th level casters). Like other casters their spell slots per level have decreased. However if they choose to specialise in spellcasting they'll get 2 bonus 1st level spell slots. This level of these bonus spell slots gets upgraded by +1 with each improvement and they also get +1 extra bonus spell slot as well (although they cap out at 5 bonus 5th level spell slots). If that's not enough they can gain 1 additional bonus spell slot that upgrades to a 4th level spell slot by spending their bardic expertise on it. Finally they can spend feats or class talents on getting bonus 1st level spell slots and bonus 4th level spell slots.
The reason for having so many ways to get extra spell slots for a bard that wants to dedicate themselves to spellcasting is because their bardic performance has been converted over to spells with the exception of deadly performance which is a capstone at-will ability.
Fascinate is now a 1st level spell called Fascinating performance. It's duration is concentration +1d4 rounds, otherwise it's identical to the fascinate ability. Inspire competence is a 1st level that grants a creature a +6 bonus to one skill for 1 min/bard level. Bless has been renamed to inspire courage and is available to bards, clerics and paladins. These were otherwise identical abilities so it made sense to combine the two spells.
Dirge of Doom is a 4th level spell and has a duration of 1 round/level.
Inspire Greatness is a 5th level spell and only grants temporary points now (which means it stacks with Inspire Courage), but affects everyone within the area of the spell. Inspire heroics works the same way but instead grants a +4 dodge bonus to AC (which is a BIG bonus in my revised rules).
Suggestion and mass suggestion are still spells that bards get access to.
Overall most of the bard's useful abilities have been ported over to the new chassis. It's up to the player if they want a bard that concentrates on performance/spells. With 10 class talents someone who went all in could end up with 23 1st level spells, 12 4th level spells and 7 5th level spells by 19th level. Alternatively they can take minimal spellcasting and go all in on skills and have their charisma modifier to 8 knowledge skills by spending only 2 class talents with the rest going into other ridiculous skills. Or they could go full martial and take combat feats and combat related talents.
Bard is one of my favourite classes due to a halfling bard I made. From memory only half of his class levels were bard because I had to go multiclass and take prestige classes to make the concept viable (this was using APG only era resources). With this revised bard I could just go straight bard.
Later on I'll pour over the skald and bard archetypes to create some more talents and archetypes for my revised bard.
I've incorporated the shaman as an archetype for the cleric. The defining features of the shaman appear to be: spirit spells (effectively domain/mystery spells), hexes, spirit companion and a vaguely druidic/clerical spell list. So the archetype replaces channel energy with a hex. It's required to choose the domain specialisation for clerics and it gains an spirit companion at 3rd level.
I've also taken another stab at replacing belts and headbands as "must have" items. I've bumped up the ability boosts at 4th level, 8th level, 12th level, 16th level and 20th level from +1 to +2 (or +1 to 2 scores). I've also introduced a cap on the maximum score an ability can have from a belt or headband. For +2 it's a maximum of 14, and it goes up to 16 and 18 for +4 and +6. What this enables is for an archer to have a belt of strength and still get the required dex boosts. It also allows a strength based fighter to have a belt of dexterity for AC, reflex and initiative boosting purposes. Clerics and other gishes are a bit screwed over by this. But given only wizards get bonus spells the other classes really only care about a high casting score for spell attacks and DCs of spells. So a cleric that chooses to be a support caster/healer they can have low wisdom as much as they want.
Magic armor has also been revised to be the same price as weapons. However to compensate I've increased the AC bonus classes get by +1 at 8th level, 16th level and 20th level. This has finally killed any plans I might have had for keeping favored bonuses. There are now enough reasons to want to single-class that I think a favored class bonus would simply be too much.
I've made some big changes since I last posted.
I've reduced the number of cultural traits character's get by 2 and given all races a bonus racial feat (all humans get skilled instead and can choose any feat or talent they meet the prerequisites for). This has let me boost up some of the traits in terms of power. I've also given the hatred feats back to the races via taking the favoured enemy feat as a bonus feat.
The abilities smite foe, challenge (from the samurai) and the inquisitor's judgement were giving me trouble. So were hexes for witches and shamans. How I've fixed this is by changing how smite foe, challenge and judgement work. These are all different types of challenges. They grant different bonuses and the fighter's challenge (which is now called duel) can be done at will. The reason duel is at-will is because it comes with penalties baked in to compensate for the benefits it gives. You can have different types of challenges (so you could have duel, smite foe and judgement). But you can only have 1 challenge active at any time.
Hexes have also been changed. They are now just feats and when you take 1 hex you gain a pool of 4 points with the hex costing a certain number of points. Each new hex you take increases the pool by +4. Anyone whose a spellcaster can take the hex feats. With different hexes having different costs I've been able to play with the effect of the hex. For example flight costs 4 points but grants a flight speed for the remainder of the day. That flight speed is normally 30 feet. However if you have a broom between your legs and hold the broom in one hand your flight speed increases to 40 feet. Alas the DCs used by the hexes is stuck at DC 11 + spellcasting modifier unless you take the Improved Hex feat (at which point you add half your level to the DC).
In addition to the above change I've also created a magic feat called Witchcraft. It grants you 2 domains of your choice by swearing a pact with an otherworldly entity. You can then spontaneously cast these domain spells by expending an appropriate spell slot.
Finally cleric's can now have spirit companions as their expertise (which functions same as a shaman's spirit familiar).
The above changes mean that I've been able to remove the shaman and witch archetype. It does mean that wizard's who take the witchcraft feat still have spellbooks, but that's okay. It's quite thematic for witches and warlocks to have a grimoire containing their spells.
I've also removed the inquisitor archetype due to how judgement now works. I was going to give it to the cleric, but they get so few class talents that I've decided that Inquisitor will remain it's own class and will retain 6th level spellcasting like the bard.
I've finally put together a set of rules for the druid. It's pretty similar to the original druid class. It gets an animal companion OR 4 extra skill points per level. It also selects a philosophy which is where the domains it can get are specified. This takes the totems and environments from APG and puts them into the base class.
Unlike the standard druid, a druid must choose between wild shape and domain training. If they get domain training then they get the same version that clerics do (so they can spontaneously cast any domain spell they learn and they gain 1 domain spell per level along with extra spell slots that can only be used for domain spells).
Wild shape has a set of specific traits the druid gets based on the creature it is wild shaping into. The traits it gets does not improve automatically as the druid levels. Instead you have to spend either feats or talents on wild shape to improve it's effects (currently I haven't worked out any such feats or talents yet).
The other standard druid class features can be taken with either the Skill Expertise feat or as a specific class talent which I've added the druid to (renaming Diamond Body to Venom Immunity for monks). They do get favoured terrain to mimic the trackless step class feature.
Animal Companion statistics and the specific wild shape traits are at the back of the druid section. Animal companions use a druid's skill ranks in specific skills in place of their own. They also automatically get certain feats if the druid has them. This represents the fact that the druid is training them.
Animal companions will get their own actions in combat, but a druid must use a standard action to direct their animal companion to attack an enemy (at which point the animal companion will continue attacking the enemy until it dies). Costing the druid an entire turn to do this allows the animal companion's damage to be high enough that it feels like the animal companion is meaningfully contributing without overpowering the druid. As with wild shape, animal companions do not automatically improve as they increase in level (besides gaining HP, BAB, Saving Throw Bonuses and Armor Class bonuses). Instead a druid must spend feats or talents to improve their animal companion (currently none exist).
Overall it's really just a skeleton at this point to demonstrate how the druid works. I have yet to go in and give all of the animal companions full write ups or extend the list of wild shape traits a druid can gain.
My first glance at the new PF2e playtest rules have "inspired" me to go back to these houserules and work harder.
I tried building a fighter using these homebrewed rules. While I like it, I dislike not getting armor boosts on my fighter as well as weapon boosts. So I've made some feats to address that.
Secondary Specialisation (Feat)
Benefit: You gain an additional specialisation from one of your classes as a secondary specialisation. It cannot be a specialisation you've already chosen.
Secondary Specialisation, Improved (Feat)
Prerequisite: 5th level, secondary specialisation.
Benefit: You improve your secondary specialisation.
Special: You can take this feat an additional time at 9th level, 13th level and 17th level.
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I also really want to give more narrative power to non-casters. Casters can build demiplanes, non-casters should get SOMETHING. So here's what I've got.
STORY FEATS
Story feats are special abilities that can be purchased throughout the length of a campaign. All characters gain one at 2nd level, 6th level, 10th level, 14th level, 18th level and 20th level. A GM may also hand out story talents as part of treasure.
A GM can change, add or remove prerequisites for story feats and is highly encouraged to do so to help tailor the prerequisites to their campaign. Some story feats may also not be appropriate in all campaigns.
Fort
Prerequisite: Base attack bonus +9 or higher.
Benefit: You gain a stronghold in the form of a fort and the resources to build it. In addition you gain a retinue of men-at-arms to serve as guards for your stronghold. A fort typically takes X number of days to build, although this can be lessened if you are given one or find an abandoned one.
Special: You cannot gain more than one stronghold.
Wizard's Tower
Prerequisite: Can cast 5th level or higher arcane spells.
Benefit: Your expertise in arcane spellcasting allows you to construct a stronghold in the form of a tower. This typically takes X number of days to build, although this can be lessened if you are given one or find an abandoned one.
Special: You cannot gain more than one stronghold.
Hideout
Benefit: You gain a stronghold in the form of a hideout along with a crew to help spruce it up and operate it. This typically takes X number of days to build, although this can be lessened if you are given one or find an abandoned one.
Special: You cannot gain more than one stronghold.
Temple
Prerequisite: Can cast divine spells; and is character level 9th or more.
Benefit: You gain a stronghold in the form of a temple along with a group of acolytes to operate it. This typically takes X number of days to build, although this can be lessened if you are given one or find an abandoned one.
Special: You cannot gain more than one stronghold.
Sacred Home
Prerequisites: Can cast natural spells; and is character level 9th or more.
Benefit: You gain a strong affinity to a specific area of land that acts as a stronghold for you. You befriend any natural beasts and fey native to the area who help guard it.
Special: You cannot gain more than one stronghold.
Followers
Prerequisite: Fort or Hideout.
Benefit: You gain a set of followers equal to 100 plus an additional 10 for every point of Charisma you have above 10. These followers either serve you or work for you in some way. People who are of a similar standing as your followers judge you depending on the quality of life your followers have.
Community
Prerequisite: Has a stronghold.
Benefit: You either gain a community of 300 people around your stronghold, or increase the population of the community that already exists by 300 (or whatever the area can reasonably support). This community does not serve you, however it has formed as a result of you. People who are of a similar standing as the community judge you depending on the quality of how well you treat the community.
Special: If the area cannot support 300 people then the community is capped at whatever the area can reasonably support. If the conditions of the area improve, the community increases up to a maximum of 300 as a result of this feat.
Immortality
Prerequisite: 20th level sorcerer or wizard.
Benefit: You discover ancient arcane secrets that over the span of 1 year that allows you to change the basic structure of your body and grant you immortality. You continue to age at a reduced rate of 1 year for every 10 years until you reach venerable at which time you stop aging. If you are already venerable then you simply stop aging.
Agelessness
Prerequisite: 20th level monk or druid.
Benefit: You gain enlightenment to such a point where you are no longer affected by time. At the start of each year you can choose the age you appear to be for that year. You can also choose at any time to reincarnate. If you do so, you lose all of your memories and abilities and are born into a new body within the year. You have a birthmark on your new body that grants you a +2 bonus to your worst ability score and that ties you to your previous life.
Legendary Liege
Prerequisites: 20th level barbarian, fighter, ranger or paladin.
Benefit: Your years of toil and fighting has earned you the respect and trust of an entire nation and through circumstances of fate or your own deliberate hardwork, you have become a king or queen whose adventures will be retold for centuries to come.
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These are obviously grabbed from AD&D 2nd edition (or earlier) in terms of scope. I'll also get ideas from PFS vanities and Ultimate Campaign story feats. I've also got a feat inspired by King Arthur and Conan the barbarian.
Unlike Ultimate Campaign's story feats, these are additive so they don't need to come with a mechanical boost and can purely be on a narrative level. Some have small boosts (agelessness if a GM was willing to let you play your old character reincarnated, community and followers) but are almost entirely on a narrative scale.
While it wouldn't be mechanically recommended, a character could spend a "REAL" feat on a story feat as well.
I do like the story feats you've presented. I assume that the exact nature and contents of the stronghold is for discussion with the GM?
Just stumbled upon your work - very impressed. Keep going!
Is this intended for eventual publication, or for use in your home campaign?