highintlowwis-blog

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With the release of the 5th edition rules at the end of the summer, my partners at OrcLabs and I started a podcast to review the changes to the game, comparing and contrasting it with older versions like 3.5 and Pathfinder.  Check it out at: https://orclabs.wordpress.com/

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WHEN YOU ROLL A 1 ON YOUR KNOWLEDGE (GEOGRAPHY) CHECK:

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After a backpacking trip in the White Mountains in New Hampshire last week (that's Bond Mountain behind me in the picture), I have decided that survival check DCs, encumberance rules, and constitution checks to make forced marches are very generous in the rules of d&d / pathfinder.  Or my stats are just low.  Either way, I'm going to be tougher on my players from now on when they travel on foot.

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Is Everybody Clear by 6kart

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Rougish Summoner

I'm 3 sessions into a new campaign, and I decided to try something new. I'm playing a summoner (pathfinder, 15 pt buy, just hit level 5) and I decided to build my eidilon to fill the role of the party rouge, as inspired by this guide: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?625677-PF-Guides-to-the-Roguish-Summoner-and-Monster-Summoning Of course I had to make some serious modifications, since there are 2 paladins in my party and I decided to play my character as a prolific thief. The way I deal with that is by having sleight of hand be my eidilons best skill (he has a +24 at the moment) and I have bluff as my best skill (+22). between the two of us we have very respectable bonuses to :  the aforementioned Bluff & sleightof hand, as well as perception, stealth, disable device, sense motive (eidilon), and I have spellcraft, use magic device, diplomacy, and disguise. Because I'm paranoid, I don't ever keep anything I steal - my DM has allowed me to use spellcraft to disenchant stolen goods (a la World of warcraft) to reclaim a percentage of their value as enchanting materials.  Thus, I have a way to launder money.   Then I just craft whatever I need for the party.   It's going great.  I already have 2.5 times my wealth by level, the paladins have no idea I'm anything other than a helpful, crafting utility caster, and the party is decked out with magical gear.  It's fantastic! Being absurdly good at skills and crafting has to be the most gratifying thing I've ever done in this game.

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Pathfinder Arcane spellcasting classes

I think the Summoner should be an int-based, prepared caster.  I also think the Witch should be a Charisma-based, spontaneous caster.

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Hey, I've been gone for a while. Here's a picture I drew.

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In addition to DMing, theory-crafting builds, and home-brewing variant rules, classes, and spells, I'm also involved in making an attack roll app to help make combat faster and easier. We did a kickstarter over the summer, ( http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/orclabs/rpg-attack )   Hired a programmer, and got to work.  It's not quite done yet, but hopefully it won't be too much longer until we release it.  I'm really excited! Here's our website http://orclabs.com/

Testing the Feats and Conditional mod screens!

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This is a base class for pathfinder that I created. It is intended to play a bit like a paladin, but has a nature-y theme to it.  I tried to do a very thorough job with it, and I think it came out really well.  I think I did an especially good job mimicking the language of actual class descriptions for published classes. I would love some feedback if anybody would check out the google document I linked and read through it - or better yet, play one in a campaign if they can get their DM to allow 3rd party material.  I did my best to keep it balanced - that was probably the hardest part of making it.  Trying to create something genuinely new, that was competitive with the other classes, but not overpowered either. I borrowed from magus and monk mechanics, took a dash of non-core spells and feats, and made a hybrid version of the paladins smite evil and the cavaliers challenge.  I threw it altogether and went through several drafts and revisions.  I even made a few new spells specifically for the class.

Thanks in advance to anyone who takes a few minutes to read it and comment!

Ok, here’s an idea I had that’s actually original, although I did try to work within the precedents set by Paizo, so hopefully many of the mechanics will be familiar. A buddy of mine asked me to make a druidy-paladin, sort of like a fighter-druid hybrid, but he wanted it to play more like a paladin and less like a ranger.  Here’s what I came up with. As always, any feedback is welcome (even criticism)!

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I agree with you.  This won't work in 3.5 at all, but could work for pathfinder. As for making it work in pathfinder, since you brought up low levels; Full plate is not actually affordable with starting wealth at 1st level.  For that matter, according to the wealth by level chart (only a guideline, true, but most DMs I've seen tend to skimp here in practice) full plate doesn't realistically become available until 3rd or 4th level.  Similarly the absolute earliest you would expect to see NPCs with F plate is 3rd (they get 1,650 gp under the heroic progession, which is exactly the cost for MW full plate - not even enough for a dagger after that). Since you brought up some really good points in our earlier discussion I got to thinking about enhancement bonuses.  Perhaps they should give +2 to damage, but no bonus to hit. . .   (and MW weapons would simply add +1 to damage).  You pointed out that it might be too easy to hit monsters, but too hard to damage them.  Tweaking magic weapons in that way might be a nice, neat fix.  It also makes power attack less of a mandatory feat.  I don't like when feats feel like taxes, rather than extra special abilities you can choose.  If you simply always have to take a feat or suck, it's not really a choice, and that's sort of the whole point of feats.  They are a guaranteed resource your character gets from levels (unlike loot) which allow for customization.  If you have to take a feat to be viable, there's no choice, so that's no fun. Making enhancement bonuses only add damage (and doubling that damage) solves the same problem of changing strength in that way.  Quadratic scaling is better than linear scaling.   Also, I'm sort of sick of all of the interesting enchantments getting trumped by the almost always superior +1.  That bonus to hit is usually more valuable than anything else you could add, even before the small damage bonus that comes with it.  now you choose between +2 physical damage or +d6 fire damage, for example.  The draw for the enhancement will mostly be that it multiplies on a crit.  I guess it's a little better for sundering, too, but then it will be harder to actually land the sunder, so that sort of balances out. One last thing that occurred to me, since you got the juices flowing, is that the game pretty much universally favors weapons with high threat ranges over weapons with high multipliers.  It does so in two ways:  first, there is the simple math side of things:  many small crits are good against many weak opponents or single tough opponents, while rare but large crits are usually wasted on hordes of weak monsters, even though they are good against single tough opponents.  Also, since you don't choose when you get your critical hits, there is a greater chance for your crit to end up overkilling even a big tough monster if you have a scythe rather than a falchion.  Assume you have to land 20 average hits on a dragon with either weapon to bring it down.  On average, the falchion will cause double damage on 3 of those strikes and reduce the hits needed to kill it to 17 (or 18 if your last hit overkills it), but the scythe will cause quadruple damage on one of them.  The scythe wastes some or all of the extra damage 3/20 times (so ir might take 18, 19, or even all 20 hits to kill it), but the falchion almost never wastes those crits.  The math just favors high threat range. If that weren't bad enough, in pathfinder, they compound this problem by introducing a myriad of critical feats, which cause extra effects (usually status ailments) when you score a critical hit.  There's no save, and no increased effect if the crit is large (let's not even talk about the fact that if you get a x4 crit, your target is likely dead, and the status effect wasted anyway).  You simply get 3 times as many procs for these crit feats if you use high threat range weapons . . . and since there wasn't any advantage to using a big multiplier weapon anyway (aside from cup de graces), those weapons simply become second-rate. This means that you end up with a series of strictly optimal or strictly sub-optimal choices. . . not really choices at all. Where am I going with this?  Well, with armor providing DR instead instead of avoidance, lumping damage together into one massive hit becomes the order of the day, so now big crits have a useful contribution to make, and I'm honestly not sure which type of weapon would come out on top.  To me, that's an improvement.  Now you get a legitimate choice:  wear down tough mobs with a lot of small crits, which don't pack that much punch after armor, but cause crippling status effects, or swing away until you get that one lucky shot that makes the targets armor a joke, and might just end the fight out-right.  Different styles, neither is flat-out better.  I like that.

Ok, so this has been bothering me for a while. A super strong … . I don’t know - half-dragon troll let’s say … has an easy time hitting a pixie using the total defense action … because he has a 29 str? I mean, I guess you could justify it by saying that with that much strength he can swing faster…

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Ok, here's an idea I had that's actually original, although I did try to work within the precedents set by Paizo, so hopefully many of the mechanics will be familiar. A buddy of mine asked me to make a druidy-paladin, sort of like a fighter-druid hybrid, but he wanted it to play more like a paladin and less like a ranger.  Here's what I came up with. As always, any feedback is welcome (even criticism)!

[highintlowwis-blog]

Remember the ultimate magus from 3.5's complete mage?  It inspired me to make a prestige class for pathfinder based on being a sorcerer/wizard and using a lot of metamagic.  Here you go.  Feel free to use in your campaigns!  Any feedback is welcome. Edit:  I hadn't looked at the ultimate magus in like 2 years - just reread it.  I didn't realize just how similar my prestige class is to the Wizards of the Coast one.  Still a couple of interesting twists, though in my opinion. At least the drawing is original - like all of the other pencil-and-paper sketches I post - I drew it.

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To be perfectly honest, this variant rule doesn't really work in 3.5 One of the primary reasons for this are the changes to power attack and the addition of deadly aim in pathfinder.  These feats work so differently in 3.P and 3.5 that the variant rule - as you point out - will be completely broken in 3.5 and make both TWF and ranged attacks essentially worthless, while using a big 2-hander becomes totally OP. I stopped playing 3.5 for the most part about 2 years ago.  (except for a 5-way battle royale I played in about a year ago.  I only found out I was playing about 20 minutes before hand - wrote up my character on the car-ride over.  lvl 20, 20 pt buy, 1,000,000 gold budget.  I won.  ahhh. . . good times.)

. . . . but I digress.  In pathfinder, power attack works with light weapons, but you don't pick how much attack bonus you sacrifice.  It scales with BAB.  The base penalty/bonus is -1 to hit, +2 to damage.  For an offhand attack, you only add +1 to damage.  For a 2-handed weapon you instead add +3.   Then every 4 BAB you have increases the bonus & penalty by the same amount.  so at 8 BAB for example, you get -3 to hit and +6 to dmg (or +9 with a 2-handed weapon). Deadly aim is basically power attack for ranged weapons, except it's always -1 to hit, +2 to dmg.  Scales with BAB the same way. So even at lvl 20 on a full BAB class,  you get -6 to hit, + 12 to damage (or +18 with a 2-hander). This change is significant enough that the issues you mention shouldn't be a problem in pathfinder, although admittedly, they will make the rule essentially unusable in 3.5. Also, in 3.P  all of the martial classes get a pretty big boost.  Smite is a mode, rather than a single attack, which lasts until the target is dead or until you rest, rangers get +2 to hit and to dmg against favored enemies (among other boosts), and fighters get weapon training every 4 levels (starting at lvl 5), adding an extra +1 to hit & dmg for a group of weapons, and each time the previously chosen weapon groups get another +1.  Barbarians get rage powers, although they're still weaker than other classes before splat material (except at lvl 1, of course).  Even bards can take advantage of arcane strike, which can add +1 to all weapon dmg rolls for a round by spending a swift action and another +1 for every 5 caster levels.  It's not much, but it adds up. in 3.P there are lots of options for stacking damage bonuses, which should help overcome the DR provided by armor, and power attack isn't able to give -10 to hit +20 to damage . . . ever, let alone at level 10. ok, so this variant rule is officially for pathfinder only, not 3.5.  That said, whaddya think?

Ok, so this has been bothering me for a while. A super strong … . I don’t know - half-dragon troll let’s say … has an easy time hitting a pixie using the total defense action … because he has a 29 str? I mean, I guess you could justify it by saying that with that much strength he can swing faster…

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Thanks for the feedback everyone! Yes, this is for 3.5 (sort of) and pathfinder (it's really for pathfinder).  It would not affect poison or elemental damage.     Interesting side-note, I was discussing this variant rule with a friend in the context of a new adventure/campaign I'm planning for the summer where wights will be a constant threat.  The question about the energy drain from the slams 'hitting' came up . . . if it's super easy to 'hit', even if the slams piddly d4+1 damage doesn't get through armor, what about the energy drain?  That's a story for another time . . .  Shaddy24 - you bring up a very good point.  two-weapon fighting does effectively get nerfed, and it was already arguably weaker.  I was hoping that the 1/2 non-lethal thing would make it so that the DR isn't insurmountably high, especially considering that strength contributes more to damage.  If you had a fighter, say . . .lvl 6, with two short swords, and weapon training, spec, focus, etc. . .  He needs 15 dex to even pick up improved two weapon fighting.  Let's say he's only got a 14 strength.  That's a +2 mod.  So under the variant rules it adds 4 to damage on the main hand and 2 on the off-hand (or 4 with double slice, which he'd probably take). He's got training and spec, for another +3 to damage.  Let's say he's got a +1 sword in his main hand. He attacks:  d6+8 for his main hand, d6 +7 for his offhand. That's an average of 11.5/hit or 10.5/hit with the offhand. I just randomly picked 2 tough-sounding CR 6 monsters:  Half-fiend minotaur and ankylosaurus.  The dino has Nat AC 14, so that's 7 dmg negated and the rest turned non-lethal.  The minotaur only has Nat AC 6, but he's got DR 5/magic from his template.  The minotaur is basically ignoring the off-hand attacks (because the poor fighter can't afford 2 magic weapons), but is taking 5.5 dmg + 3 non-lethal from the main hand.  The same fighter under the standard rules is still not affecting the monster with his off-hand weapon much, and will do d6 + 6 with the main hand, which is 9.5 on average.  The minotaur is going to lose consciousness at about the same time under either set of rules. The ankylosaurus on the other hand is harder to damage but much easier to hit.  So power attack does, pretty much, become mandatory. If he does use power attack, he get's to add +4 damage for his main hand and a paltry +2 for his off-hand (anyone else think double-slice should change that?) Now he's doing d6 + 12 for his main hand attacks, less for his off-hand.  He's usually going to do all 7 nonlethal damage and sometimes he'll do a bit of lethal damage as well. Two important points now: #1)  because the dino's defense score is 8, whereas his AC (under the standard rules) was 22, many more attacks (including those iteratives - even after the 2-weapon fighting and power attack penalties) will actually land.  So all that non-lethal damage will eventually wear the big guy down.  Maybe not eventually - maybe really soon.  He's basically going to hit with every attack.  Sure, another 6th level fighter wailing away with a great sword will do damage faster, but under the standard rules a two-weapon fighter might not realistically be able to hit the ankylosaurus at all.   I don't think 2 weapon fighting is doing great, but I'm not sure it's doing worse than under the standard rules, either. #2)  I'm ok with dual short swords being somewhat ineffective against a huge, armor plated, dinosaur.  I mean seriously.  Just picture it in your head right now. . . . are you picturing it?. . . . it's just silly, right?   Here's a picture of an ankylosaurus: http://dinosauriaonline.com/Dinosaurs/A/ankylosaurus.jpg

Ok, so this has been bothering me for a while. A super strong … . I don’t know - half-dragon troll let’s say … has an easy time hitting a pixie using the total defense action … because he has a 29 str? I mean, I guess you could justify it by saying that with that much strength he can swing faster…

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A Guide to Roleplaying Systems

Player: Can I do the thing?

Mutants and Masterminds: Yes you can do the thing.

GURPS: Fill out these forms in triplicate.

Dungeons and Dragons: Yes, but it's really not worth it unless you are a Dream Elf with the Godblooded feat and at least five levels in the Thingomancer Prestige class from Complete Thing. Or you could just play a Wizard, they get The Thing as a 3rd level spell.

Call of Cthulu: You can do the thing, but you REALLY don't want to.

FATE: That depends, can you bullshit the GM into believing that one of your vaguely-worded aspects supports you doing The thing?

7th Sea: Only if the thing is properly dramatic!

Shadowrun: Yes, but you'll need a bathtub full of D6s.

Paranoia: The thing is treason.

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More loose ends in variant armor rule...

So I thought of some more loose ends in my variant rule for armor 

Combat Maneuvers!  What to do about combat maneuvers?

well some combat maneuvers still make sense to use strength for:

bull rush and overrun, for example.

I think these should still be done the old way (standard Pathfinder rules for CMB vs CMD)  -->  str + BAB + size  VS  10 + str + dex + BAB + size. Other combat maneuvers make more sense the new way, where you use dexterity to determine success, and strength contributes more heavily to damage (in the case of sunder).

disarm, trip, and sunder

should all work like attacks do under the variant rule:  dex + BAB + size  VS  10 + str + dex + BAB + size

what about grappling?  Grappling has always been a sticky wicket.  I remember my group largely ignored grappling in 3.5, because we just thought it was too complicated and slowed down the fights.  Also, with lots of large monsters getting a +4 size bonus (to say nothing of their prodigious strength), it was usually more effective to just bash it in the face.

grapple. . . . 

There's a part of me that wants to go back to the 3.5 way of doing it, touch attack first, then opposed rolls . . . but then I remember that under my variant rules, most attacks are essentially touch attacks to begin with.

Here I think the only way that makes sense is to use dex to initiate the grapple:

dex + BAB + size to intiate. . . VS  10 + str + dex + BAB + size

and then all follow up rolls after a grapple has been established should use strength: to break out / gain control should be STR + BAB + size . . etc. .  I'm really not sure about any of this, though.  It's a work in progress.  It feels clunky to me.  You shouldn't need 3 rules to replace 1 rule.  One of the great aspects of pathfinder is that they simplified and streamlined combat maneuvers, and I worry about taking a step backwards. I suppose I could just make them all based on dexterity, as all the other attack rolls under my variant rules are, but that doesn't make sense for bull rushing or overrunning an opponent.  Ok, well maybe overrun - anybody see Ong Bak?  Tony Jaa runs over like 5 people - just leaps up and runs over their shoulders like it's nothing.   Here's someone attempting to duplicate it:

Anyway, the point is that this is a feat of agility and coordination (Dex, not strength).  So I could see a case being made for overrun to be made using dex, but bullrush?  I mean, seriously.  Bull rushing is something you do with mass, strength, and keeping your center of gravity low. Mostly size, though.  Honestly I want to bring back the +4 size modifier from 3.5 for this one.  +1 just seems silly.  I'm sorry, but if a bear wants to bull rush a hobbit . . . it's going to happen.  +8. All that said, the simplification that Paizo achieved was a real coup, and I hate to change it unless I'm absolutely sure I'm improving it.  At the moment, I'm not sure. What are your thoughts?

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Duelist & the armor as DR variant rules

So I got a lot of great feedback on my armor as DR idea and it got me thinking more about the consequences of altering the rules that way.

I haven't run the numbers yet, but I think the duelist might actually be worth playing now for more than RP flavor.  If this turns out to be true, I would be really happy about that.  I I love the duelist.  I love the concept.  I liked the swashbuckler back in 3.5 from complete warrior, and I love the improvements they made to the duelist in pathfinder.

Let's face it though, the duelist isn't about the mechanics, it's about the style.  Who doesn't love Syrio Forel, from GoT?  Or Inigo Montoya (or the man in black for that matter) from the Princess Bride?  Or Cyrano Debergerac?  The quit-witted graceful swordsman who uses agility rather than brute strength is a classic trope and one which, I personally, am very fond of.

That said, I am an optimizer.  I usually pick something that I want my character to be able to do and then comb through the books to look for the best way to achieve that effect.  After I've found something that works well, and isn't too cheesy, I look at all the different sources that lead up to the final result and try to imagine what sort of personal story would have led a person to make those choices and a character starts to emerge.

I know this seems backwards to the more serious role-players, but I find it gives me inspiration.  Sometimes I even find a character concept along the way that I like more than the original mechanical inspiration, and I scrap the original build and go with the character.  This method just gives me more direction.  It works for me.  Different strokes for different folks, though.

All that aside, though, I have a real hard time choosing the duelist as is.  You're almost universally better off doing. . . . just about anything else.  Fighter is going to have more damage, accuracy, and AC, with similar restrictions on weapon choices.  What are the real selling points for the PrC?  You pay a few feats to enter and you get . . . what?  Limitations to your armor, limitations to your weapon choices, no shield . . . for . . .a few points of extra damage and riposte?  Think about it.  With one more level of weapon training you can afford to power attack with a two-hander and get 3 more points of damage - oh wait - 4 . . . the weapon training adds to damage, too.  Then there's greater weapon specialization.  And you can wear heavier armor, get extra damage from using a second weapon or 2-hander, or use a shield.  The Duelist is just worse.  Until now. . . . 

And here we come, full circle back to the variant armor rules.  Now it's much harder for the traditional martial classes to stack AC in the traditional sense.  If you wear full plate and an amulet of Nat AC you're going to take hits, they'll just hurt less.  The duelist gets elaborate parry and canny defense - which, under the traditional rules is just worse than using beefier armor.  But now, it may give him a way to push his defense score above what would be possible for a comparably geared/levelled fighter, ranger, barbarian, etc. . . .

Now there is actually something that the duelist can do better than anyone else.  He still may be a weaker option overall - which is fine - but he has a specialty that he's actually special with.  To me that's . . . what's the opposite of a deal-breaker?

Now, consider also that most monsters are going to be a little less accurate but hit significantly harder, because they tend to be built around high strength scores.  This is mostly cancelled out for most front-line PCs because they have lower defense scores but now have some DR.  It's usually going to be a wash, or close to it.  Late game, it might actually get scarier for the melee types, because their DR may not keep up with the sheer amount of damage coming their way.  And it's harder to stack avoidance, because the easiest traditional method (full-plate) doesn't help them avoid $h!t anymore.

Under the variant rules the Duelist will shine, because he can push his defense score higher than the fighter, even with equal rings of protection, belts of dexterity, and dusty rose prism ioun stones.  That may be the difference that makes the class.

Being able to bank on just not getting hit may be more viable for the duelist under the variant rules and less viable for anyone else.  This may be a niche class, but at least it has a niche now.