What would you change about P1e?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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Diffan wrote:

As for alignment, I don't have a problem with them being elements in a game. Certainly continuing the trend of L/C - G/E axis is something I'd like to see, but it's the forcing of this forced behavior that I really don't think adds to the game, especially when it's often used as a cudgel to enforce Catch-22 scenarios or simply make it all the more difficult on a party of varying people's ethos.

That's exactly what I see as the strong point of it, though. Enabling role-playing challenges, requiring people to play a character's worldview consistently to derive the benefits of that worldview (and incidentally, strongly encouraging people to get inside the head of moral and ethical perspectives different from their own seems a positive thing to me.)

Quote:


For example, if I paladin were to say he's going to torture a captured demon with holy water and religious relics to obtain information, I'd probably say "OK". I believe that such creature is the embodiment of evil and immortal, thus no quarter or mercy is applicable. Some DM's would out-right rule that as a violation of a Paladin's code. Who's right? Who's wrong?

In-game, whoever the rules say is right or wrong. End of discussion. (My own preference would be to rule that example as making a paladin fall, for what that is worth, because I do not view a commitment to Lawful Good behaviour as flexible based on whether the entity one would be behaving badly towards deserves it or not.)

In contexts other than in-game, it doesn't matter. Tying in-game alignment rules to real-world morality issues misses the fairly fundamental aspect of role-playing that your character isn't you.

Quote:


If a DM feels really strongly about such aspect, make them put them in the game, thus holding strong to their convictions, don't let them justify their decisions because they point to the rule book and say "well it IS the rules *shrugs*".

Asking the DM to justify their decisions based on anything other than an objectively specified ruling is pulling directly against the potential benefits of alignment as a system, because it goes right back into making it an issue of individual perspective. If you don't like alignment, don't play a game with alignment, but if you are going to play one with alignment, agreeing to a consistent and coherent basis beforehand is definitely more practical than allowing for ongoing debate.


In regards to quantity of spells, I prefer to have more spells than I need than not having enough.

Diffan wrote:

Practical Metamagic (quicken spell) -1 to spell adjustment

Arcane Thesis (enervation) -1 to any Metamagic feat used for the spell.

Slaymate (Libris Mortis) -1 to Metamagic spell adjustment for all Necromancy spells.

So split, empowered, and fell drain are all now at 0 and quickened is now 1.

I haven't heard of many these. This is one of the things I dislike about DND/Pathfinder. So many little things you need to learn to compete with the big players.

I think your problem is allowing so many things affect the effective level of spells. Wait! Do all of those belong to the same version of the game? I think I see a bit of DND 3.5 in your pathfinder game.


OmniMage wrote:

In regards to quantity of spells, I prefer to have more spells than I need than not having enough.

Diffan wrote:

Practical Metamagic (quicken spell) -1 to spell adjustment

Arcane Thesis (enervation) -1 to any Metamagic feat used for the spell.

Slaymate (Libris Mortis) -1 to Metamagic spell adjustment for all Necromancy spells.

So split, empowered, and fell drain are all now at 0 and quickened is now 1.

I haven't heard of many these. This is one of the things I dislike about DND/Pathfinder. So many little things you need to learn to compete with the big players.

I think your problem is allowing so many things affect the effective level of spells. Wait! Do all of those belong to the same version of the game? I think I see a bit of DND 3.5 in your pathfinder game.

This was a 3.5 game (the forgotten realms super adventure path) and we were already at 16th level. Of course I said no to the character but it easily expressed one way that the mechanics were really ridiculous


Diffan wrote:
OmniMage wrote:

In regards to quantity of spells, I prefer to have more spells than I need than not having enough.

Diffan wrote:

Practical Metamagic (quicken spell) -1 to spell adjustment

Arcane Thesis (enervation) -1 to any Metamagic feat used for the spell.

Slaymate (Libris Mortis) -1 to Metamagic spell adjustment for all Necromancy spells.

So split, empowered, and fell drain are all now at 0 and quickened is now 1.

I haven't heard of many these. This is one of the things I dislike about DND/Pathfinder. So many little things you need to learn to compete with the big players.

I think your problem is allowing so many things affect the effective level of spells. Wait! Do all of those belong to the same version of the game? I think I see a bit of DND 3.5 in your pathfinder game.

This was a 3.5 game (the forgotten realms super adventure path) and we were already at 16th level. Of course I said no to the character but it easily expressed one way that the mechanics were really ridiculous

Why did you decide not to allow it? It's perfectly legitimate, and intelligent of the player. Granted, it wouldn't work on a lot of foes like undead, constructs etc, which you could then use against the necromancer. But them's the breaks if you are a one trick pony, Pc's like that have huge weaknesses.


the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh wrote:
Diffan wrote:

As for alignment, I don't have a problem with them being elements in a game. Certainly continuing the trend of L/C - G/E axis is something I'd like to see, but it's the forcing of this forced behavior that I really don't think adds to the game, especially when it's often used as a cudgel to enforce Catch-22 scenarios or simply make it all the more difficult on a party of varying people's ethos.

That's exactly what I see as the strong point of it, though. Enabling role-playing challenges, requiring people to play a character's worldview consistently to derive the benefits of that worldview (and incidentally, strongly encouraging people to get inside the head of moral and ethical perspectives different from their own seems a positive thing to me.)

Ok but then why not enforce that across the board? All of what yiu said is fine and definitely can be fun but if only a few PCs are affected by it, I think that's where the problem is. Like I said, all in or all out.

the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh wrote:
Quote:


For example, if I paladin were to say he's going to torture a captured demon with holy water and religious relics to obtain information, I'd probably say "OK". I believe that such creature is the embodiment of evil and immortal, thus no quarter or mercy is applicable. Some DM's would out-right rule that as a violation of a Paladin's code. Who's right? Who's wrong?

In-game, whoever the rules say is right or wrong. End of discussion. (My own preference would be to rule that example as making a paladin fall, for what that is worth, because I do not view a commitment to Lawful Good behaviour as flexible based on whether the entity one would be behaving badly towards deserves it or not.)

In contexts other than in-game, it doesn't matter. Tying in-game alignment rules to real-world morality issues misses the fairly fundamental aspect of role-playing that your character isn't you.

What determines morality is specifically what people pull from their own experiences. Your preference is the Paladin falls. Mine is he wouldn't is a good example of why this matters.

the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh wrote:
Quote:


If a DM feels really strongly about such aspect, make them put them in the game, thus holding strong to their convictions, don't let them justify their decisions because they point to the rule book and say "well it IS the rules *shrugs*".

Asking the DM to justify their decisions based on anything other than an objectively specified ruling is pulling directly against the potential benefits of alignment as a system, because it goes right back into making it an issue of individual perspective. If you don't like alignment, don't play a game with alignment, but if you are going to play one with alignment, agreeing to a consistent and coherent basis beforehand is definitely more practical than allowing for ongoing debate.

I disagree. In our 5e games we certainly kept all the alignment aspects of previous editions but dont have hard-coded requirements or "falls" for special classes and it works just fine, we have moral dilemmas and morality tests but failing them doesn't turn just one PC into a pile of empty waste.

For example if a Paladin in our 5e game decided to do something against his oath and deity - based on severity - he might be forced into the Oathbreaker path instead of the one he's currently on. Maybe it's gradual, maybe it's a full change. Its up to the DM to decide. But he doesn't become a pretty useless tag-along to the group.


Piccolo wrote:
Diffan wrote:
OmniMage wrote:

In regards to quantity of spells, I prefer to have more spells than I need than not having enough.

Diffan wrote:

Practical Metamagic (quicken spell) -1 to spell adjustment

Arcane Thesis (enervation) -1 to any Metamagic feat used for the spell.

Slaymate (Libris Mortis) -1 to Metamagic spell adjustment for all Necromancy spells.

So split, empowered, and fell drain are all now at 0 and quickened is now 1.

I haven't heard of many these. This is one of the things I dislike about DND/Pathfinder. So many little things you need to learn to compete with the big players.

I think your problem is allowing so many things affect the effective level of spells. Wait! Do all of those belong to the same version of the game? I think I see a bit of DND 3.5 in your pathfinder game.

This was a 3.5 game (the forgotten realms super adventure path) and we were already at 16th level. Of course I said no to the character but it easily expressed one way that the mechanics were really ridiculous

Why did you decide not to allow it? It's perfectly legitimate, and intelligent of the player. Granted, it wouldn't work on a lot of foes like undead, constructs etc, which you could then use against the necromancer. But them's the breaks if you are a one trick pony, Pc's like that have huge weaknesses.

I didn't allow it because I read the rest of the adventure and out of the remaining 12 or so encounters there were only 2 that heavily involved constructs and undead (one of which included both). And there are other gimmicks that he had besides a suped up Enervate spell. He's a pretty smart guy.

The party make-up consisted of a scout/ranger, duskblade, a fighter/crusader/purple dragon knight, and another Fighter. Not exceedingly optimized but has held their own through the adventure. By allowing the DN in, he most likely would've dominated all but a few encounters, making their presence all but needless.

And yes as the DM it's my job to change - alter - fix - challenge the PCs based on the party makeup, but with a premade adventure I simply didnt want to. Plus the other players weren't too keen on simply sitting back while another player runs rough-shod over most of the challenges. So I said no.


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Another big change that I'd make (in addition to those proposed upthread), is to reprice magic items.

Basically, a lot of magic items, even those in the core rulebook, are grossly overpriced.

What I'd do is set price benchmarks, and then rate every other item against them.

To pick a random Core Rulebook item, the Amulet of Proof Against Detection and Location has a list price of 35000gp. However, when compared against a +4 weapon (36000gp), a +6 stat-booster (36000gp), or even a +5 armour (25000gp), it's unusable. If a PC picks it up, they'll sell it.

The Core Rulebook, p549, explains that:

Core Rulebook wrote:

The easiest way to come up with a price

is to compare the new item to an item that is already priced,
using that price as a guide.

This guide should be reapplied to all items.


Diffan wrote:
the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh wrote:
Diffan wrote:

As for alignment, I don't have a problem with them being elements in a game. Certainly continuing the trend of L/C - G/E axis is something I'd like to see, but it's the forcing of this forced behavior that I really don't think adds to the game, especially when it's often used as a cudgel to enforce Catch-22 scenarios or simply make it all the more difficult on a party of varying people's ethos.

That's exactly what I see as the strong point of it, though. Enabling role-playing challenges, requiring people to play a character's worldview consistently to derive the benefits of that worldview (and incidentally, strongly encouraging people to get inside the head of moral and ethical perspectives different from their own seems a positive thing to me.)

Ok but then why not enforce that across the board? All of what yiu said is fine and definitely can be fun but if only a few PCs are affected by it, I think that's where the problem is. Like I said, all in or all out.

OK, I misunderstood you here; I am all for much wider use of alignment-based restrictions class restrictions.


I never really noticed a pricing problem with most magic items, but if you honestly think that many are overpriced, fine by me.

As for me, I think all magic items should be priced in platinum, NOT GOLD. No rational person would carry that kind of weight around with them if possible. I'd be paying in gems and platinum, but never gold.

What does annoy me is that Pathfinder never takes into account the influx of TONS of gold into a given economy by adventurer types.


Piccolo wrote:


What does annoy me is that Pathfinder never takes into account the influx of TONS of gold into a given economy by adventurer types.

No more than it takes into account the logical impact of high-level magic on societies; I count both of those under "we need these assumptions to get this genre flavour that large numbers of people are interested in" design choices ather than flaws or mistakes.


Diffan wrote:
CMD will always be a thing where Martialss will never compete with the likes of Wish or Miracle or Gate.

I mean, point. But at the same time I wouldn't expect any of those spells to be used more than once or twice per campaign. Usually.

Piccolo wrote:

As for me, I think all magic items should be priced in platinum, NOT GOLD. No rational person would carry that kind of weight around with them if possible. I'd be paying in gems and platinum, but never gold.

What does annoy me is that Pathfinder never takes into account the influx of TONS of gold into a given economy by adventurer types.

Actually, that's kinda something my group does. Still in testing.

Silver and Gold are the more common exchanged pieces, Platinum being more expensive but each region we're kinda testing a personal currency for it. This was semi inspired by silverdisks from Iron gods and are basically a Platinum coin(Silverdisks are exchanged for 10gp).

So we're kinda playing around with the idea of an extra local coin/gem/bill, but nothing really concrete enough to actually add it to the list of "Things you've changed". That and exchange rates might be a nightmare to math out.


Piccolo wrote:
What does annoy me is that Pathfinder never takes into account the influx of TONS of gold into a given economy by adventurer types.

Mummy's Mask module 2 does. It's promptly forgotten about as the city goes to hell.


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deuxhero wrote:
Piccolo wrote:
What does annoy me is that Pathfinder never takes into account the influx of TONS of gold into a given economy by adventurer types.
Mummy's Mask module 2 does. It's promptly forgotten about as the city goes to hell.

Quick bit from the book;

Quote:

The PCs are likely interested in exchanging their hard-won treasures for gold, but this has become a difficult prospect when so

many local vendors have been flooded with priceless relics recovered from the necropolis. In fact, the price of historical artifacts and art objects has dropped so sharply form their sudden availability that merchants in Wati are currently paying only 25% of the value of most items (instead of the normal 50%), and 75% of the value for trade goods and other valuable items (rather than the usual full value).

This was actually my 'running clock'. I had an NPC inform them that yes, they could go slow, steady and if they wanted to take a room each day, flee and rest.

BUT it was a matter of time before the market dove/crashed so maybe don't take TOO long.


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No dump stats. I've always hated them. Stats should not go below 10 unless they are racially modified.

And if racial modifiers were altered so that there were no -2s, that would be good. I understand that 2e starts everyone at all stats=10, then goes through a lengthy process of adding to the base; good!


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Absolutely nothing. I love it just how it is, RAW. It cleaned up 3.5 to make playing the game easier, while retaining the massive amount of customization possible. PF1E is a great example of a game system that did everything right.


Sir Belmont the Valiant wrote:

No dump stats. I've always hated them. Stats should not go below 10 unless they are racially modified.

And if racial modifiers were altered so that there were no -2s, that would be good. I understand that 2e starts everyone at all stats=10, then goes through a lengthy process of adding to the base; good!

Yep, I've started to really dislike dump stats (particularly when a character has two or more sub-10 attributes*), and making them an optional rule in the PF2e playtest was one of the few things that I liked about it.

*The sole exception to this is there is some folks that I play with who have a party of dwarves which all have Cha 5. They always play together as a group and are usually good fun to watch.


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Sir Belmont the Valiant wrote:
No dump stats. I've always hated them. Stats should not go below 10 unless they are racially modified.

Meeeh. Stats should be rolled with a bunch of d6s as God and Gary intended. Point buys just encourage minmaxing, and the expectation that characters should start off some abstract value of evenly matched, both of which IME cut against interesting directions of roleplaying.

I can see the point of 4d6 and pick your favourite three, but I would be absolutely opposed to anything that meant you can't ever have any stat below average.


Diffan wrote:
What determines morality is specifically what people pull from their own experiences. Your preference is the Paladin falls. Mine is he wouldn't is a good example of why this matters.

And that, to my mind, is exactly why the rules should specify this; so that players will have a consistent framework of expectation on alignment from table to table.

I would far rather have an established system within that game that was utterly at variance to my personal morality, than have it vary depending on DM whim. Because personal experience and real-world morality does not matter in this context, any more than Macbeth's personal morality is any reflection on the beliefs of any actor who has ever played him, and reliable consistency within the game does.


the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh wrote:
Diffan wrote:
What determines morality is specifically what people pull from their own experiences. Your preference is the Paladin falls. Mine is he wouldn't is a good example of why this matters.

And that, to my mind, is exactly why the rules should specify this; so that players will have a consistent framework of expectation on alignment from table to table.

I would far rather have an established system within that game that was utterly at variance to my personal morality, than have it vary depending on DM whim. Because personal experience and real-world morality does not matter in this context, any more than Macbeth's personal morality is any reflection on the beliefs of any actor who has ever played him, and reliable consistency within the game does.

Except the rules are pretty ambiguous in terms of specific actions as they relate to particular circumstances. In my Paladin - demon example is there a specific rule in the game that says this is an evil act?


the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh wrote:
Diffan wrote:
the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh wrote:

I'm strongly in disagreement here. The way to address CMD is to make martials more awesome, not to nerf casters. (People who object to martials being too unrealistic/anime can always play E6 in a system that makes martials awesome at higher levels.)

While I'm not in total disagreement here, HOW do you achieve that? 4e did a great job but people didn't like that approach.

Really not, no.

aWhat do you mean, that 4ed failed in making martials as awesome as spellcasters? If that's that, I must state disagreement, 4e is one of the few versions of D&D where I'll gladly play a martial whereas in other versions I'm strongly spellcaster oriented.

If I misunderstood you, could you please be more clear?


OmniMage wrote:

In regards to quantity of spells, I prefer to have more spells than I need than not having enough.

can't disagree with that... I recently renounced making a sorcerer for a 5 ed game because the bumber of spells known by that class is just too few... the metamagic and whatnot just don't compensate for sheer lack of versatility...if I want a guy with no versatility, I'll make a warlock and use eldritch blast every opportunity I get... oh, and choose hellish rebuke to use the first two times I get damaged and voilà, one dimensional character achieved.


Diffan wrote:
the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh wrote:
Diffan wrote:
What determines morality is specifically what people pull from their own experiences. Your preference is the Paladin falls. Mine is he wouldn't is a good example of why this matters.

And that, to my mind, is exactly why the rules should specify this; so that players will have a consistent framework of expectation on alignment from table to table.

I would far rather have an established system within that game that was utterly at variance to my personal morality, than have it vary depending on DM whim. Because personal experience and real-world morality does not matter in this context, any more than Macbeth's personal morality is any reflection on the beliefs of any actor who has ever played him, and reliable consistency within the game does.

Except the rules are pretty ambiguous in terms of specific actions as they relate to particular circumstances. In my Paladin - demon example is there a specific rule in the game that says this is an evil act?

There isn't. I am arguing that there should be.


Klorox wrote:

What do you mean, that 4ed failed in making martials as awesome as spellcasters? If that's that, I must state disagreement, 4e is one of the few versions of D&D where I'll gladly play a martial whereas in other versions I'm strongly spellcaster oriented.

If I misunderstood you, could you please be more clear?

In my, admittedly quite limited, experience of 4e, it failed on making martials as awesome as spellcasters by making them way too much like spellcasters.


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I'd not end it. : (


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You know all those feats and class features that let you do things that any person could reasonably try? I'd delete them.


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Barathos wrote:
You know all those feats and class features that let you do things that any person could reasonably try? I'd delete them.

I can disagree with this at all, lol. Mundane feats that basically let you not get punched in the face for trying a "maneuver" yea ditch those things OR at least let one feat cover them all under one umbrella.


Most of all, remove a lot of useless rules that do nothing but make things unnecessarily complicated. A lot of rules are basically legacy 3.5 rules that should've been done away with (or at the very least improved upon), but kept in as either an homage, or because of "realism." Yeah, some of those rules make sense, but simply just bog the game down. For instance, a while ago I had a caster who wanted to deliver a touch attack to a creature grappling it. Oh, and it had a blur effect on. So first, arcane spell failure chance, concentration check for casting in combat, concentration check for grappling, touch attack, then miss chance. That's five die rolls, mixing d100s and d20s, for very little gain. I mean, each and every one of those rolls makes sense in a vacuum, but not when combined. If more than one condition applies at a time, I would've just given one roll at the highest difficulty and be done with it (or hell, to make it easier, just a certain DC based on level or something). I hate how things keep stacking, both for and against the player. Players can get insane bonuses, but so too can enemies. I also hate when I'm playing PFS and a newer player wants to do something that seems very logical, but has to jump through several hoops because of rules. For the most basic example, drawing a weapon while moving and needing at least a +1 BAB. It literally only matters for one level, why bother? Or juggling items in hand because of somatic components, shields, and so on. I get that Pathfinder wants to be realistic and rules complex, but that can still happen without bogging the game down, or having to say, "well, actually, you're forgetting this obscure rule..." (for example, damaging your own items when you roll a nat 1 on a save vs a damaging effect. No one uses that rule, most of the time it's irrelevant, and still it pauses the game because we have to play by the rules in PFS). I'm running a rules-light game system every so often, and having the freedom to say "yeah, that makes sense. Go do it!" is fantastic.
In a similar vein, feat taxes and other ease-of-play bug fixes. Just streamline the whole lot of it. I wanna see as few restrictions as possible. It makes things needlessly complicated and bogs down understanding and play. Through a combination of things, I once had to wade through triple difficult terrain (and yes, it stacked. We checked). Each square was actually 15 feet (or 20, I dunno). That was not a fun fight, for both sides of the GM screen.
As a followup to that: clearer language. So many things can be avoided if we understood the original intent. So many things interact with each other while clearly they shouldn't, but do due to unclear wording. It drives me crazy.

the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh wrote:
Sir Belmont the Valiant wrote:
No dump stats. I've always hated them. Stats should not go below 10 unless they are racially modified.
Meeeh. Stats should be rolled with a bunch of d6s as God and Gary intended. Point buys just encourage minmaxing, and the expectation that characters should start off some abstract value of evenly matched, both of which IME cut against interesting directions of roleplaying.

I so, so want to agree with you, but I can't (or at least, I agree with you in theory, but not in practice). The idea of "balance" in Pathfinder is ridiculous; classes are inherently imbalanced. I also really like living with the results of a dice roll. It makes for interesting choices. BUT. I've been on the receiving end of imbalanced parties before, and they're just not interesting. When the campaign flopped, we converted our stats to point-buy. Two of us had about point-buy 17, two others had point-buy 32. That was simply not fun. so my main argument against dice rolling is that things can too easily become frustrating for players due to bad luck. I agree, not everyone starts on equal foot in real life, but that doesn't mean it has to be like that in a fantasy game that's designed to make you feel badass. I'd like some controlled randomness, where some party members aren't clearly better than others. I've seen lots of examples of stat generation that are much more controlled, and I'm dying to try those out.


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Honestly ? Not much. There are places I can see need adjusting.....but for the most part....it's exactly what I want.

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