Stuff That You Wish Paizo Had Done For Pathfinder 1E?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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So what are the classes, class options, race options, feats , spells, archetypes, etc. that you wished Paizo had done before 1e ended?

The first is obvious, more of the same, more classes, more racial feats and alternate racial options, more kineticist wild talents, more bloodrager/sorcerer bloodlines, rogue talents, witch hexes, oracle curses./revelations, etc.

More classes would have been cool, especially more occult/psychic ones(especially some martial ones). A martial class that used witch hexes. More alternate versions of existing classes would have been cool. They are so many other ideas but lets move on.

More dex to damage options. Yes I know this is "controversial".

More unarmored options.

A feat that lets you use your casting stat to hit for spells, spell like abilities, and supernatural abilities. That would be really fun for kineticist.


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Spontaneous druid alternative nature caster.

Liberty's Edge

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Unified the swarm / troop / army types with detailed rules for going from a single creature to treating a mass of such creatures as a single entity.

Jon Brazer Enterprises

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Dragon78 wrote:
So what are the classes, class options, race options, feats , spells, archetypes, etc. that you wished Paizo had done before 1e ended?

Thank you for asking. I appreciate it.


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Kineticist archetype that trades out blasts for breath weapons a la the dragonfire shaman from 3.5
Spontaneous casting druid
more non-setting-tied prestige classes that help advancing two classes at the same time like battle herald and mystic theurge
d10 hd, full bab, 4th level prepared arcane caster
Shifter that actually works
draconic pc race
More mountless cavalier archetypes


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Unchained Brawler, Cavalier, Samurai, Ninja, Gunslinger, Swashbuckler, and Shifter.

Give them actual choices to make during their level up progression, its going to take me forever to finish designing "house" versions of these seven classes.


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Darigaaz the Igniter, everything you just said.;)

Aasimar/tiefling style dragon, fey, and giant touched races.

Some more playable animal races like rabbit, turtle, squirrel(anyone remember the Kercpa?), hawk/falcon, etc.

Some more playable alien races.

Also wish many races that didn't get much love(if any), did get some(more). Especially the Lashunta, Rougarou, Grippli, Merfolk, Naiad, Gilmen, Strix, and Syrinx.

Also if your going to take the plant immunities away from plant based races, at least let them having racial saves vs those effects.


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I agree, more unchained classes especially the Ninja, Samurai, and Shifter. Speaking of the Shifter, the Adaptive Shifter archetype(with some tweaking) would be a great version of the Shifter. Forget about wild shape, just let them alter part of their body to create interesting effects. I would have made the adaptive changes always active until changed it and make your Shifter level to determine how many you can have active at a time(one at 1st, 2 at 5th, 3 at 10th, 4 at 15th, and 5 at 20th). Also an adaptive immunity(poison, disease, stunning, paralysis, etc.) that you change at will, an adaptive defense(evasion, uncanny dodge, natural armor bonus, etc.) would be cool.

Jon Brazer Enterprises

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Dragon78 wrote:
... Merfolk, ... Gilmen, ...

Well it's a start on that list atleast...

Advanced Merfolk

Advanced Gillmen

And if you want both of these both 10 more, check this out.


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More magic trick feats to cover all the weird things you want to do with spells but that aren't quite inline with the spell's intent; such as dropping summons on people or gaining specific weird traits from polymorph effects.

Unification of ability types such that any polymorph effect would qualify as wildshape for feats and abilities, and kineticist could make use of ranged combat feats.

Condensing the feat list so that you didn't have 15 different versions of the same feat with a few minor tweaks, but instead gained those minor tweaks through a character theme from your class or a theme feat.

A pass on feat quality, moving some feats down to traits and making others less specific so that they are more broadly applicable across game types.


A feat that increases the power of damage dealing cantrips. Examples would be ones that do a 1d3 would do 1d6 to 2d4 and ones that do 1d6 would do 2d4 to 2d8. Also a feat that increases the damage(and healing) of 1st level sorcerer bloodline powers. So it would increase by 1 dice when you take the feat and again two more times based on level(maybe 8th and 16th).

For the classes that use Wis for AC, an option where you can Int or Cha instead.

An archetype for rogues that give them martial weapon prof, medium armor prof., good Fort save instead of Ref, and some Str based abilities/focus. Well since we already have a Bandit, maybe call them a "Brigand".

A Mesmerist archetype that becomes a medusa/gorgon(with snakes for hair, stunning/petrifying gaze, power over snakes, poison resistance/immunity, etc.).


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I wish they had established a consistent way to describe feats and abilities, so the wording and terminology were the same throughout.


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Some kind of compilation book for the best softcover mechanical stuff with the known errors patched and stuff made to work with newer stuff (like early spells added to Hybrid and Occult class lists). I think something like this could still be done for the 20th anniversary of 3E's core+the d20 system in August.

Rogue that gets light pick, light hammer and handaxe instead of shortsword, and rapier. Weapons that resemble tools and provide each damage type instead of obvious bladed weapons. This comes at the cost of them being worse weapons overall.


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An Aerial Adventures core line rulebook that, among other things, details the best ways to run combat once the majority of combatants have flight.


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Continued to support it and produce new material for it.
Also a Gunslinger Sorcerer hybrid class would have been cool.


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An Aerial Adventures rulebook would get my dollar in a heartbeat. The perfect opportunity to explore the skies, and to provide sensible rules not just for individual flight, but also for the whole spectrum of flying vehicles and vessels.


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A serious review/revision of the witch. Major points :
1) better balanced hexes - a the high end, slumber is pushing at the limits... but too many of the others are of the Child Scent variety...
2) fix the spell list - too much stuff not on it, that should be. It makes it very difficult to fulfill a role in a party eg. too lacking in condition removal to act as party healer (without specific patrons/archetypes) / lacking the support spells to fill a wizards role (eg. haste). A ton of flavorful stuff that should be on it, that isn't eg. Murderous command.


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Rules/options for modern world, cyberpunk, wild west, steam punk, fairy tale, etc.

Rules/options for more real world deities like Greek, Japanese, Aztec, Norse, etc. At least we got the Egyptian ones.

Playable ooze race and more non-humanoid(and non-native outsider) races such as aberrations, constructs, fey, monstrous humanoids, and plants. Too bad the Faun was a monster, it would have made a great playable race.

A vampire slayer archetype for the Slayer class. Also lycanthrope, giant, and dragon slayer ones as well.

A Bestiary 7 with stats for the remaining creatures from King Maker, Jade Regent, remaining playable races, remaining planar dragons, mountain troll, etc.

Paizo Employee

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blahpers wrote:
An Aerial Adventures core line rulebook that, among other things, details the best ways to run combat once the majority of combatants have flight.

You might check out the 3pp book Companions of the Firmament. One of the things it does is collect all the various flight-related rules from across numerous 1pp products and put them in one easily referenced chapter at the beginning of the book, followed by new aerial options and rules for making flight a more integrated and natural part of the campaign. I bought it six or seven years ago and used it enough that I bought a second copy once the first one started falling apart from frequent use.


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D6 HD, 1/2 BAB divine caster.... ALL DAY LONG

Nothing short of criminal that one was never done! It was THE absolute glaring mechanical gap in PF1. The fact that many were successfully homewbrewed or 3PPed makes it even more bizarre/ridiculous.

They could have put it in a book release and surrounded it with complete junk and it still would have sold a bombload.

Dark Archive

Dragon78 wrote:
A feat that increases the power of damage dealing cantrips. Examples would be ones that do a 1d3 would do 1d6 to 2d4 and ones that do 1d6 would do 2d4 to 2d8. Also a feat that increases the damage(and healing) of 1st level sorcerer bloodline powers. So it would increase by 1 dice when you take the feat and again two more times based on level(maybe 8th and 16th).

An entire class based around buffing up cantrips with your higher level spell slots (which aren't usable for anything else, because your magical growth is stunted, and cantrips is as good as you get), spending those slots to increase damage or range or duration or # of targets affected, could be fun. Start with, say, daze, and spend a spell level to give it an area, and another to give it a round/level duration, and now it's counting as a 2nd level spell for save DC purposes (and can only be cast if you could cast 2nd level spells), and fire! Start with ray of frost, and spend a spell level to fire multiple rays like scorching ray, another for a lingering effect like acid arrow and a few more to increase the damage dice and make it level based, so your 'arctic blasts' are a 5th level spell affecting multiple targets for 1d6/level and doing lingering damage.

Could be fun. I was inspired by some 3rd party 'Master of Small Magics' prestige class I saw, from EN Worlds Press, IIRC, back in the day, and wanted to make a kind of warlock-y build, but starting with cantrips, and using the higher level spell slots to enhance them. (And eventually getting one or two levels worth of enhancements for free, so being able to fling 1d6/level rays of frost, or multiple target dazes, albeit with low level save DCs, sadly, all day long.)

Paizo Employee

doc roc wrote:

D6 HD, 1/2 BAB divine caster.... ALL DAY LONG

Nothing short of criminal that one was never done! It was THE absolute glaring mechanical gap in PF1. The fact that many were successfully homewbrewed or 3PPed makes it even more bizarre/ridiculous.

They could have put it in a book release and surrounded it with complete junk and it still would have sold a bombload.

They did a couple different archetypes for this, like the ecclesitheurge and the cardinal.

There's not as much value to a class that exists only for mechanics reasons like "the divine wizard" as there is to a class that does a thing you can't already do in the system, so it's not super surprising that we never saw this.

I was always much more surprised that Pathfinder didn't bring in a full class to fill the warlord / martial leader niche since it's a super popular theme and the closest you could really get in PF1 was the cavalier, which was more about being really good at mounted combat with a splash of leadership and limited buffing.


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Artist Class(possible Bard variant) uses art as a weapon/tool such as explosive pottery, sculptures that animate, paintings of creatures and objects that become real, etc.

Dancer(possible Bard variant) magical dances that buff and/or debuff, monk-like AC that uses Cha, martial weapon prof., combat skill using dances(yes actual "dance fighting").

Jester(possible Bard variant)- instead of performance, uses a variety of luck based abilities and uses jokes/taunts to debuff.

All three are 6th level casters(bard list).

Guardian- A martial class(fighter HD/BA) that is focused on defense with armor and sheild, good Fort and Will saves, variety of defensive abilities, abjuration based spell powers and supernatural effects.

Engineer/Inventor- class that uses bombs, guns, "autocrossbows", gadgets, traps, and other gizmos. No spell casting or alchemy.

Paladin alignment variants like Anarchist(CN), Crusader(LN), Overlord(LE), etc.


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Ssalarn wrote:
blahpers wrote:
An Aerial Adventures core line rulebook that, among other things, details the best ways to run combat once the majority of combatants have flight.
You might check out the 3pp book Companions of the Firmament. One of the things it does is collect all the various flight-related rules from across numerous 1pp products and put them in one easily referenced chapter at the beginning of the book, followed by new aerial options and rules for making flight a more integrated and natural part of the campaign. I bought it six or seven years ago and used it enough that I bought a second copy once the first one started falling apart from frequent use.

Bookmarked. Thanks!


+1 thanks for the link to Companions of the Firmament. Consolidating the flight rules is excellent in itself.


Kept selling the Goblin d20 T-shirts. Wear one, get a free re-roll once per session.

...ah, those were the salad days of PFS....

Silver Crusade

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Dragon78 wrote:
Dancer(possible Bard variant) magical dances that buff and/or debuff, monk-like AC that uses Cha, martial weapon prof., combat skill using dances(yes actual "dance fighting").

They're Break-dance fighting! :)


Raical feats for Dhampirs that give them various vampire related abilities such at will bat form, at will wolf form, constant spider climb, fast healing 1, full immunity to energy drain, cold resistance 5, DR2/silver, summon swarm(bats and rats only), charm ability, minor telekinesis, etc.


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Ssalarn wrote:


They did a couple different archetypes for this, like the ecclesitheurge and the cardinal.

And both of these received widespread criticism as to "not properly filling the pure caster cleric role"

The Cardinal in particular was put into the same category of bin as the Cloistered Cleric, which is about as damning as is possible.

The Ecclesitheurge when really analysed heavily can just about scrape into the pure caster role..... but to analogise its like hammering a square brick through a round hole.... yes you did it but its made a real mess, was very hard work and far simpler approaches were available.

Not only was the D6 divine, the most glaring mechanical gap, but it was a glaring thematic gap, since in reality 'Holy men/prophets' in history are overwhelmingly unarmoured and dont walk around with a mace and shield!

Some of the biggest selling 3PP classes of all were ones dealing with D6 1/2 BAB variants.... that by itself is proof enough of the demand.

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
doc roc wrote:
Some of the biggest selling 3PP classes of all were ones dealing with D6 1/2 BAB variants

Got any data on this?


Gorbacz wrote:


Got any data on this?

I remember reading posts by some of the 3PP authors on which of their books/compendiums were selling well. Nothing more complicated than that!


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Dragon78, when you mentioned "dance-fighting," did you mean capoeira?

Paizo Employee

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doc roc wrote:
Gorbacz wrote:


Got any data on this?

I remember reading posts by some of the 3PP authors on which of their books/compendiums were selling well. Nothing more complicated than that!

The only big "divine cloth caster" I can think of from the 3pp market is the priest, which to be fair is a really fun class, but it's in the same sales tier as the luchador and non-class expansions to the 3pp PF1 incarnum materials. Those are great numbers for a 3pp, but they represent like .001% of the total Pathfinder market; you can't really make any solid conclusions based off those numbers.

Oh, related, I saw the OP really wanted a different shifter, they might consider checking out Legendary Shifters from Legendary Games. Endzeitgeist had some good things to say about it.

And of course I'll always recommend Spheres of Might to anyone looking for martial concepts, Spheres of Power to folks looking for more caster options, and Champions of the Spheres to anyone looking for gish concepts (and not just because I worked on all three systems, I use them all regularly in my PF1 games).

One of the nice things about the OGL is that there's so much quality 3pp content out there that sometimes the answer to "why didn't Paizo do X" is "because there was already a quality version of it tailor-made for the people who really want it." The needs of Paizo's consumer base can be pretty different than the needs of smaller groups within that consumer base, so sometimes having a 3pp that's catering directly to those needs is much more likely to give someone what they're looking for than an option that needs to appeal to a vastly larger market. Case in point, the ecclesitheurge and cardinal are actually relatively popular archetypes, but they don't fit the desire a lot of people have for the concept, while Kobold Press's priest does. Would you rather get "the shifter" of cloth casters or a custom-tailored class that's packing pretty much exactly what you want? Because 3pp products shine the best when they get to tackle relatively niche concepts, but core products by their very nature have to appeal to such a significantly larger number of people that you're pretty much guaranteed to have some element of it you're not happy with.


Ssalarn wrote:


The only big "divine cloth caster" I can think of from the 3pp market is the priest, which to be fair is a really fun class,

In fairness, I wasn't just talking about standalone 3pp products, dealing with a specific class only but also 3pp products that amongst other things contained a "divine cloth caster".

Over the years several publishers (eg Rogue Genius, Kobold Press..etc) have written up cloth caster variants.

And that's leaving aside the many homebrewed versions that have been put out.

That there is a commerical, mechanical and thematic gap to fill is beyond any doubt.


What do people mean by "cloth caster"?

I assume this isn't referring to the silksworn.


J. A. wrote:

What do people mean by "cloth caster"?

I assume this isn't referring to the silksworn.

Divine magic wizard, basically. Trade in the mediocre Hit Dice, BAB, and weapon and armor usage in favor of more caster-friendly class features than the cleric receives.

Paizo Employee

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doc roc wrote:


In fairness, I wasn't just talking about standalone 3pp products, dealing with a specific class only but also 3pp products that amongst other things contained a "divine cloth caster".

Over the years several publishers (eg Rogue Genius, Kobold Press..etc) have written up cloth caster variants.

And that's leaving aside the many homebrewed versions that have been put out.

That there is a commerical, mechanical and thematic gap to fill is beyond any doubt.

I would hazard that if companies like Rogue Genius and Kobold Press both supported the idea, then calling it a "gap" is kind of unfair to them, since a gap means there's an absence. The options and support are there! As a 3pp author myself, I always quite appreciate that Paizo generally focuses on new mechanics and options for PF1 rather than cribbing territory that was well supported by prominent 3p publishers. In fact, literally the only time I'm aware of that Paizo did a concept that was well supported by the 3pp market (the shifter), it was met with an overwhelming wave of vitriol and numerous people suggesting that players use the 3pp variants from Legendary Games or Drop Dead Studios instead. Why pick a pointless fight when the market already has what they want?

Which reminds me....

Dragon78 wrote:

[...]

Guardian- A martial class(fighter HD/BA) that is focused on defense with armor and sheild, good Fort and Will saves, variety of defensive abilities, abjuration based spell powers and supernatural effects.

Engineer/Inventor- class that uses bombs, guns, "autocrossbows", gadgets, traps, and other gizmos. No spell casting or alchemy.

Paladin alignment variants like Anarchist(CN), Crusader(LN), Overlord(LE), etc.

I just wanted to mention that in case you weren't already aware, all of the above concepts have explicit support in Spheres of Might and Spheres of Power, just in case you're really jonesing for them in your game.

Oh, and more directly to the OP's question:

I would have loved it if Paizo did an Ultimate Magic 2 and expanded significantly on the Words of Power system, which I thought was a really cool take on spellcasting.


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Racial feats for Lashunta that improve their telepathy, add additional spell like abilities, psychic empathy related to their saurian mounts(and other creatures), psychic/force armor(constant mage armor effect), etc. Also could have used more creatures from their planet.

That we got a campaign setting hardcover book for Distant Worlds.

A distant Worlds AP.

Rules for bio-tech, living weapons, living armor, organic constructs, etc.

Sovereign Court

Dragon78 wrote:

Racial feats for Lashunta that improve their telepathy, add additional spell like abilities, psychic empathy related to their saurian mounts(and other creatures), psychic/force armor(constant mage armor effect), etc. Also could have used more creatures from their planet.

That we got a campaign setting hardcover book for Distant Worlds.

A distant Worlds AP.

Rules for bio-tech, living weapons, living armor, organic constructs, etc.

Wrong forum.

Although, a Lost Omens era sourcebook for Castrovel would be awesome :)


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Dragon78 wrote:

That we got a campaign setting hardcover book for Distant Worlds.

A distant Worlds AP.

Holy crap, these!

And no, Starfinder doesn't count. That's a massively different game.


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More Magical Beast and Dragon "animal" companions and mount options with classes/archetypes built around them. The drake ones are okay and there a few magical beast options. Also a full martial class with an animal companion or at least a spell-less hunter archetype that gives them fighter HD/BA. Speaking of spell-less archetypes but would have liked more options to get rid of 4th and 6th level spell casting for many classes.

Bard- trade spells for more bardic performance abilities and uses per days.

Hunter- trade spells for fighter HD/BA or trade spells for a magical beast companion or even dragon companion.

Investigator- trade alchemy for more combat and skill focused abilities.

Paladin- trade spells for blood that acts like holy water, extra uses of channel/lay on hands, some useful spell like abilities, etc.

Ranger- really would have liked a lot more options for this one.


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Distant Worlds hardcover and AP would also be an automatic purchase for me. And this is long after I've decided I'm done buying Pathfinder products.

But Distant Worlds is hands-down one of my favorite supplements in the entire PF1 line, and a hardcover would have been glorious.

Is that something that a 3PP could do? I don't know how the licensing works, and whether or not another company could expand on the build stubs (so to speak) of the planets in the Golarion system.


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Definitely more support for racial options and nonstandard races.


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I wish they'd made a cleaned up, PF 1.5 ruleset. Failing that more support for different settings or adventure ideas; the heist, the military campaign, exploration.


Would have loved to have gotten the gem dragons(Diamond, Emerald, Pearl, Ruby, and Sapphire) with psychic spells and abilities.

Would have loved more oni, especially ones based on catfolk, cyclopes, dwarf, goblin, ratfolk, and troll.


I really liked some of the feat in the splat books, such as Equipment Tricks and Flawed feats. Wish we got more support for those.


Sorcerer bloodlines- Giant, Vampire, Lycanthrope, Medusa, and Sphinx.

Bloodrager- all the bloodlines the sorcerer has.

Oracle- would have loved a finished version of the mute curse.

Shifter- the dragon and fey archetypes let you use Cha for AC and other class features.

Jon Brazer Enterprises

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FaerieGodfather wrote:
Definitely more support for racial options and nonstandard races.

You should check out the Book of Heroic Races: Advanced Compendium. It covers 12 non-core book races in solid detail. Plus it has a 4.5-Star rating from Endzeitgeist.


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ShroudedInLight wrote:

Unchained Brawler, Cavalier, Samurai, Ninja, Gunslinger, Swashbuckler, and Shifter.

Give them actual choices to make during their level up progression, its going to take me forever to finish designing "house" versions of these seven classes.

Legendary Games has got you covered on... all those fronts, actually! I think Legendary Brawler is more "additional options" admittedly, same with Swash and Ninja, but the rest of their stuff is just delicious. Legendary Samurai is on the SRD if you want to browse. (it's perhaps a little high on the power level, but it's the only one among their class remakes that is egregious like that).

On topic: I also would have liked a spontaneous "nature" caster.


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A hardcover book of options and alternate class features. I would love the option to exchange a class feature for another. So say you like the bard and every class feature except one, you really don't want to have to take an archetype, so the option to exchange that one class ability for another one from a list of abilities would be awesome. Rules for changing your casting/special ability stat. rules for unarmored AC options for every class stuff like force armor(constant mage armor effect that increases as you level), monk like AC bonuses, high natural armor(like +5 and up, but can't benefit from armor), etc. Also alternate versions of classes and class features. A simpler version of the Medium, a Swashbuckler with built in Dex to damage and a good fort save, alternate version of Investigator, etc.

Speaking of the investigator I would love a version that...
-Studied combat is just a static bonus to damage with melee attacks based on his Int mod.
-Studied Strike instead of sneak attack, you can do stuff like bypass(or reduce) DR, reduce SR, reduce energy resistance, more options for debuffs and status effects. Also maybe success of it's use would grant you more info about the target and it's weaknesses.

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