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Howdy All,
My Players all over the way combat roles out in Pathfinder, so I'm trying to adapt it to more areas. Here was the formulae I have come up with, using a social situation was the example:
Social Combat:
AC = 10 + Sense Motive
AB = 1d20 + Knowledge/Appraise/Linguistics/Perform (choose one)
Damage = Ranks in (AB Skill)
HP = 10 + Bluff + Diplomacy + Intimidate + Sense Motive
Once defeated, a character will be "out" without being dead. In the example above, they'll have been so humiliated/shamed/disgraced that they resign from further interactions. I'm hoping to use this format for a series of situations, some serious some silly: A dance-off, an intellectual debate, a wilderness survival challenge.
What do you all think? What would you adjust? Any suggestions for other ways to use this, both situations and combinations? Thanks!
-Jhaosmire
So... basically your looking to deal non-lethal damage to their ego? Sounds like a fun idea.
"Spirit of the Century", which I believe was a reskinning of another system, had a similar idea.
When it comes to adding and changing stuff to a system, I think it's safe to say that you should always strive for the smallest change you can; the bigger the change, the more significantly it could damage your game.
Once you hit mid to high level, for example, you'll have characters that will be removed from the action after 1-2 rounds.
And allowing a player to use linguistics for every social situation because it's their high number will lead to some very odd confrontations indeed.
All in all, though, it's a fairly elegant and streamline design.
I think the only change I’d make would be to enforce some restrictions on what skills can be rolled when. For example, perform dance wouldn’t be an appropriate skill to roll for an intellectual debate. Knowledge (nobility) wouldn’t provide any useful details for succeeding at a wilderness survival challenge.
For a bit more clarity, utilize some sort of rebuttal system. Each round have a main theme for the rounds action that limits their roll choices. This keeps the players from just endlessly rolling their highest skill check.
"Spirit of the Century", which I believe was a reskinning of another system, had a similar idea.
When it comes to adding and changing stuff to a system, I think it's safe to say that you should always strive for the smallest change you can; the bigger the change, the more significantly it could damage your game.
Once you hit mid to high level, for example, you'll have characters that will be removed from the action after 1-2 rounds.
And allowing a player to use linguistics for every social situation because it's their high number will lead to some very odd confrontations indeed.All in all, though, it's a fairly elegant and streamline design.
Using my PC's existing stats, it's obvious that Rogues have an advantage, and some characters are not suited for this. But from an RP perspective, it does make sense. The Paladin and Fighter are low in all stats, the knowledgeable Wizard can hit hard with his smarts but not take it, and the Rogue is versatile. I often use the Pathfinder Cards (Chase, Social Combat, Tides of Battle) to do the same, just planning some of my own systems.
So... basically your looking to deal non-lethal damage to their ego? Sounds like a fun idea.
Thanks! Yep, non-lethal, very expositional.
I think the only change I’d make would be to enforce some restrictions on what skills can be rolled when. For example, perform dance wouldn’t be an appropriate skill to roll for an intellectual debate. Knowledge (nobility) wouldn’t provide any useful details for succeeding at a wilderness survival challenge.
For a bit more clarity, utilize some sort of rebuttal system. Each round have a main theme for the rounds action that limits their roll choices. This keeps the players from just endlessly rolling their highest skill check.
Definitely this would not be an option throughout most of the campaign, just a one-shot for this or that level, to break up any monotony they may come across. And no out-of-place skills could be used (dancing for debating, a great example).
Do you think I should reduce the number of skill options then? I thought four or so would allow some versatility among the PC's, so they don't rely on the one player who put ranks into the one necessary skill. Instead, they could approach from a few angles.
The Pathfinder Social Combat deck is a great way to handle this, in my opinion.
For social interactions that have consequences it's a great way to run it. An important thing is to not let players opt out, so that characters without at least some relevant skills actively hurt the chances of success.
My group also used to run it as you didn't use anything but your skill ranks (so no magical bonuses) to the checks, because the DCs were a bit low. But otherwise I'm a big fan of the system.