Pathfinder 1E Anyone using Trailblazer with Pathfinder?

[ThatGuyThere]

I didn't remove crit immunity (frankly, if you did, you'd really have to give the nonliving creatures Con).

I agree; and note, Pathfinder (in a manner of speaking; Cha, not Con) did.

It'll be interesting to see how the TB Monster Book handles their "undead & constructs can be sneak-attack'd" rules.

 

[mrswing]

Perhaps a bit OT, but I think solid nonliving creatures SHOULD have Con (and perhaps no HP so they only get hurt on a crit instead of being immune to them). I find it bizarre that Con = blood, rather than Con = the structured body. The creatures who shouldn't have Con are the insubstantial, gaseous ones, IMO.

Back to the scheduled transmission...

 

[Soramain]

This topic is a branch off the thread on making Pathfinder a bit more like 4E with house rules, streamlining iterative attacks, etc. I picked up Trailblazer based on that thread and am digesting it now. I like a lot of what I see, and I can see how some of those concepts made it into Pathfinder, yet I have a few questions for ENWorlders.

Is anyone currently using Trailblazer rules in their PF game? If so what parts?

I'm a little late to the party.

I've been using some TB rules (action points, simplified iteratives, treasure parcels), but TB revolutionized my GMing style with its first principles. I'm talking about "the Spine," where the book breaks down the math for encounter difficulty in terms of averages.

It led me to realize something that should have been obvious - the game is all made up of numbers. I can make any monster I want fitting any description, and there's this handy chart in TB that if it is CR 4, it usually has a base attack bonus of X, saving throws of Y, etc.

This, in turn, led to a realization that the player character classes are similarly all numbers. When I was writing the rules for my current campaign, I approached the classes not as concepts (a ranger is a woodsman; a cleric is a devotee of a faith) but as packages of abilities that can be re-flavored as needed. A druid can easily be used as a shape-shifting spy, for example, eventually being immune to poison and being able to look like anyone he wants. A bard can be re-flavored as a priest who specializes in perform: oratory and wows his audience with the beauty of his sermons.

Writing it down here makes it seem incredibly obvious, but it gives me so much flexibility. I'm running a game with almost no magic items that is nevertheless a high-magic game, and the TB spine helped me devise an advancement chart that replaces magic item bonuses as character abilities. As a result, some 9 months into my campaign, my players are still discovering new and cool things about the campaign world because they can't just look in the DMG and deck out their Christmas tree when planning their character.

 

[Stormrazor2000]

Your thoughts on it certainly were not obvious to me until you pointed them out. I really like your ideas.

I think I have settled on trying the following:

- 10 minute resting with XP penalty if they rest more frequently then every 3rd encounter.
- Combat reactions
- Solo and elite monster rules.
- Scaling to hit and AC without relying on standard +x items (though I still need to figure out how to handle DR bypass with Pathfinder's enchanted weapon rules. Maybe figure a plus equivalent?)
- Iterative attacks. (Though I am hesitant on this since the character builder software we use does not support it that I know of - Hero Lab)
- Substituting Hero points in for Action points.

I'll let folks know how it goes.

 

[ThatGuyThere]

I think I have settled on trying the following:

- 10 minute resting with XP penalty if they rest more frequently then every 3rd encounter.

"XP Penalty" - I'd like suggest using some incentive to keep going instead. It leads to the "low-on-gas" fights that are so tense and interesting, and let the Martial characters really shine in that "extra" fight. Plus, like, flies and honey, sticks and carrots, and what-not.

 

[Stormrazor2000]

"XP Penalty" - I'd like suggest using some incentive to keep going instead. It leads to the "low-on-gas" fights that are so tense and interesting, and let the Martial characters really shine in that "extra" fight. Plus, like, flies and honey, sticks and carrots, and what-not.

Yeah, I meant the XP penalty/reward system mentioned earlier in the thread.

 

[ThatGuyThere]

Yeah, I meant the XP penalty/reward system mentioned earlier in the thread.

'kay, awesome. You have my full support.

Which, I know, means so much to you.

 

[Soramain]

- Scaling to hit and AC without relying on standard +x items (though I still need to figure out how to handle DR bypass with Pathfinder's enchanted weapon rules. Maybe figure a plus equivalent?)

There is already a rule in PF that does this for you.

 

[ThatGuyThere]

There is already a rule in PF that does this for you.

I do not think he means what you think he means.

I think he's concerned about weapons overcoming, f'instance, "DR 10 / +2", and when weapons are considered "+2" for that purpose.

...which, OTOH, doesn't exist in Pathfinder, so is somewhat of a nonsensical worry, so I'm probably wrong there, too.

But until I typed this response out, I was totally sure that's what he meant.

 

[Stormrazor2000]

There is already a rule in PF that does this for you.

Yep those are the ones I am referring to. What I was getting at is if I get rid of +x weapons, then I'm right back to the old 3.5 way of needing a golf bag of different weapons to bypass DR.

So as an example, the group is facing a vampire which has a DR 10/silver & magic. If they don't have a +3 sword (as such things don't exist) they would have to have an actual silver sword to bypass the creature's SR. One of the things I liked about Pathfinder is that they simplified it to say a +3 weapon can bypass the requirement that the weapon be silver.