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If you could translate high Int into more expert/master/legendary skills instead of just trained skills that might help make Int better. Maybe something like at 14 and 18 int designate one skill which you are trained in as a signature skill you get a free boost at 2nd 7th and 13th levels in that skill.
I love this idea in theory, I just worry that it makes Wizards too good at being skill monkeys. That's not necessarily a negative, but it's something to bear in mind.
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But playing a Wizard does not mean I want to be Gandalf, playing a Barbarian does not mean I want to be Conan, playing a Ranger does not mean I want to be Robin Hood. Sure, those are examples of a high charisma representative of that class but maybe I want my Barbarian to be Logen Ninefingers, or maybe I want my Wizard to have a caustic personality like Harry Dresden, or maybe I want my Ranger to be prickly and guileless like Rayla from "the Dragon Prince."
A class is supposed to represent a wide variety of fictional archetypes that it could cover, built and played in different ways, not exclusively the one which inspired it.
If you could translate high Int into more expert/master/legendary skills instead of just trained skills that might help make Int better. Maybe something like at 14 and 18 int designate one skill which you are trained in as a signature skill you get a free boost at 2nd 7th and 13th levels in that skill.I love this idea in theory, I just worry that it makes Wizards too good at being skill monkeys. That's not necessarily a negative, but it's something to bear in mind.
Yah I know though if it is limited to two a max Int Wizard still has one less legendary skill than an Int 10 Rogue at lvl 20. It's a major boost at lvls 2, 7, 15 when the boosts become available. Maybe the second signature skill is at a delayed progression or something.
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I wonder what the design idea was behind removing extra languages (except one).
It would be a minor boon to have them back, but a boon nonetheless.
Harry Dresden has a HIGH Charisma.
I read the defining characteristic of Harry Dresden is that he is an enormous jerk to basically everyone he meets, but others might read him differently.
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Being a successful jerk is by itself a high charisma ability.
Starfinder has a general feat Antagonize: Make a diplomacy or intimidate check to enrage a foe. That foe gets penalties when attacking anyone except you.
Someone with low charisma is either forgettable or inept at social tasks.
I agree with people here that Int needs more uses. With the Focus change Cha is finally useful for everyone. Now Int is the de facto dump-stat for most classes. I don't like the idea of a dump stat, especially when you get four skill boosts at every 5th level.
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The benefit of having a bunch of additional trained skills, ones which you don't have the stats to back up and couldn't afford the items to support, is completely lost on me. Choosing between that and being able to carry much more than fullplate and a bag of holding seems like a pretty easy choice.
As for the weapon difference between supporting your weapon with strength over dex, the +4-7 lost from strength, +1 per die size lower than you'd have with a strength weapon, is always going to be a big chunk of your damage. Even assuming that our finesse user has access to elven curve blades, that's a loss of +6-9 or about 2 weapon dice for our finesse user. Three if they're stuck with a d6 weapon.
Given the level of power of most spell point abilities and focus abilities, I actually don't think this changes all too much for charisma. These powers are simply not impactful enough to be worth investing in what would otherwise be a dump stat. It's a nice bonus if you're already charisma-based, or if you're in a position to dump both Str and Int, but I don't see charisma breaking the stranglehold that Dex/Con/Wis currently have as the most generally useful ability scores. You'd need radically more powerful abilities to convince people to actively invest in charisma for the purposes of focus.
As others have already touched on, Intelligence is in an even worse shape than Charisma. The simple fact is that you can only ever obtain master or better proficiency in three skills, and every class gets at least three free skill picks. This means that you're only ever going to be picking marginal secondary skills with those you get from intelligence. This is just not very valuable.
Certainly I do expect to see a complete rebalancing of affected classes if this change becomes permanent. Certainly wizard schools will need to be looked at, as right now the universalist is already the best of the bunch and making school powers charisma-based will be a huge nerf to specialists so the wizard will need some heavy internal rebalancing.
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Given the level of power of most spell point abilities and focus abilities, I actually don't think this changes all too much for charisma.
Part of this change is upping the power level of such abilities. They've nearly doubled the damage on Fire Ray, for example (it goes up 2d6 per spell level instead of 1d6).
They've also explicitly noted that non-Cha Classes will get bonus Focus if grabbing Powers.
Part of this change is upping the power level of such abilities. They've nearly doubled the damage on Fire Ray, for example (it goes up 2d6 per spell level instead of 1d6).
Fire Ray still isn't a particularly strong power, though I do appreciate that it's at least better than cantrips now. I would also note that they dramatically nerfed Healer's Blessing.
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Fire Ray still isn't a particularly strong power, though I do appreciate that it's at least better than cantrips now. I would also note that they dramatically nerfed Healer's Blessing.
They've explicitly stated that increasing their power is a design goal. Healer's Blessing appears to be an exception (for whatever reason...and mostly only in terms of action economy), but that doesn't change the basic design goal.
Also, cantrips are way worse than even the first version of Fire Ray. They start without an Ability Mod, get it at 3rd, and go up 1dX every two spell levels (capping at 4dX + Ability). even before this, Fire Ray did notably more damage than that. It's now easily on par with actual spells.
You can be a charismatic jerk. The fact that people put up with him despite first impressions is due to his charismatic personality.
Plus his ginormous magical power, and the fact for some of those people he's the only person who can and will help them, or who had helped them.
No, I'm not sure I'd call Dresden high charisma. Bob would laugh at you if you did.
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Charisma is force of personality so it could also you being very scary. Batman: high charisma. The guy is Scary AF.
I look at it more like a hammer then a shield. Wisdom being the shield.
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You can be a charismatic jerk. The fact that people put up with him despite first impressions is due to his charismatic personality.Plus his ginormous magical power, and the fact for some of those people he's the only person who can and will help them, or who had helped them.
No, I'm not sure I'd call Dresden high charisma. Bob would laugh at you if you did.
Harry Dresden has successfully intimidated people who could kill him with their eyes closed, and pulled cons on millennia old beings who basically lie for a living.
In PF2 terms, he's an excellent example of what someone with high Charisma (for Deception and Intimidate) but Untrained Diplomacy looks like.
The only part of Charisma he's mediocre at is being likable, and even there he's mediocre rather than actively bad (new people like him upon occasion, and his friends are very loyal to him for the most part).
4. Intelligence deals with all lore skills.This is a good point in Intelligence's favor that I shouldn't underestimate either. Before the -4 untrained update, the wizard and alchemist were rocking the Influence system in War for the Crown as much or more than the Cha characters because they could roll obscure lores untrained that were the best skill for any given NPC (much lower DC), take a -2, and still be excellent at it (compared to using a harder skill anyway). With the -4 now, multiclassing bard for Bardic Lore could still be a powerful move for an "Int Influencer."
As for Strength defenses, we had an initial build idea that called for basically a Might save (handling all the knocked prone and combat maneuvers that got moved to Fort saves). The problem with using Athletics as a direct defense, especially with the change to -4, is that the other saves travel together, both in terms of trained or better and the armor potency rune improving them, so PCs that need to defend with their Athletics DC get wrecked unless they raise Athletics as a new "mandatory" skill (this I know because I tried it after we put a kibosh on the Might save idea, and that happened even with -2). Having saves based on all 6 ability scores was also on the early drawing board in terms of having each stat matter in different circumstances (Cha for mind-affecting, Wis for curses and soul-affecting, Int for illusions which wound up getting Perception instead, Str for might-based and combat maneuver stuff and taking Fort stuff that isn't about health, and Dex and Con the same). But of course, that is a pretty big departure (and 5e wound up doing something very very similar too).
I'm running an AP with a military genius monster, and I realized that her Diadem of Intellect is actually an amazing get, even for a party with no Intelligence based classes. (At least until other potent items become available.) Taking the crafting fighter from 10 intelligence to 18 is huge, and training in 4 more skills and a +3 to Recall Knowledge... Pick the four magic skills and he's suddenly gained a +11 to all of them. Yowza!
I look at it more like a hammer then a shield. Wisdom being the shield.So, Cha should be used for spell attacks, and Wis for saves?
Actually I kind of like that. but it might be a bit of needles complication. It kind of reminds me of the 1st edition D&D psionics rules however.
Ha, I actually took the time to figure those out, back in the day; Attack Mode B vs. Defence D and all that. The original Id insinuation, Intellect Fortress, etc, classic.Actually I kind of like that. but it might be a bit of needles complication. It kind of reminds me of the 1st edition D&D psionics rules however.I look at it more like a hammer then a shield. Wisdom being the shield.So, Cha should be used for spell attacks, and Wis for saves?
Yeah it was complex for sure. Did you ever try the 3.0 rules for it? better but still not easy.
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You can be a charismatic jerk. The fact that people put up with him despite first impressions is due to his charismatic personality.Plus his ginormous magical power, and the fact for some of those people he's the only person who can and will help them, or who had helped them.
No, I'm not sure I'd call Dresden high charisma. Bob would laugh at you if you did.
Harry Dresden has successfully intimidated people who could kill him with their eyes closed, and pulled cons on millennia old beings who basically lie for a living.
In PF2 terms, he's an excellent example of what someone with high Charisma (for Deception and Intimidate) but Untrained Diplomacy looks like.
The only part of Charisma he's mediocre at is being likable, and even there he's mediocre rather than actively bad (new people like him upon occasion, and his friends are very loyal to him for the most part).
I do not know Dresden, but this reminded me A LOT of John Constantine. Maybe he took Inept at Diplomacy :-D
Houserule : Inept is something like Untrained but worse because no full level to the roll ;-)
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Ideas to keep STR important :
DEX + STR to damage rather than DEX instead of STR
STR modifier affects your Speed, or maybe Athletics modifier (without +lvl) affects your Speed
In addition to the STR lowers ACP mentioned above
BTW, why measure Speed in ft rather than in Squares ? Would be much simpler as Speed is always a multiple of 5ft because squares are 5ft.
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BTW, why measure Speed in ft rather than in Squares ? Would be much simpler as Speed is always a multiple of 5ft because squares are 5ft.
A lot of people find that overly 'gamey' and thus unpleasant and damaging to their verisimilitude. That's pretty much the whole reason, but it's a fairly good one.
It would also make diagonal movement weirder seeming, IMO.
It isn't too late to introduce the strength-based caster. I am pretty sure a fireball created when you throw a gnome dipped in guano at the enemies should be worth way more damage than just a regular ball o' guano fireball. Also seems like a perfect place for a rune caster--the harder you chisel the runes on a piece of metal, the stronger the magic...
Bring back CON casters.
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It isn't too late to introduce the strength-based caster. I am pretty sure a fireball created when you throw a gnome dipped in guano at the enemies should be worth way more damage than just a regular ball o' guano fireball. Also seems like a perfect place for a rune caster--the harder you chisel the runes on a piece of metal, the stronger the magic...Bring back CON casters.
Not sure how that will strenghten the role of STR ;-)
I mean, there is that str-based kineticist archetype where instead of putting strain on your own body to fuel your stuff, you drain the life force indiscriminately from everything around you...
So we can do both.