Pathfinder 1E I have been asked to try this again

[GMforPowergamers]

Ok, so I am pretty vocal about my lack of liking pathfinder, but one of my Saturday DMs wants to give it another try. He emailed me to see if these house rules would make me like the system better... He said he would work with me and another player since we are both not found of the game, so I am here getting some thoughts.


House rules proposed:
1)Different characters will use different xp advancement, FULL caster will use the slow chart, half caster the medium chart and non casters the fast chart. This will be based on your concept not changing every level. (So a cleric taking a level of fighter doesn't use the fast chart, still the slow one)

2) Saves can be calculated using the 4e best of 2 stat approach (so Will is wis or cha, Fort is Con or Str, and Reflex is Dex or Int)

3) 1st level everyone gets bonus HP equal to there Con score instead of Con bonus.

4) you can take 1 over average on hit point rolls as you level (so d6=4, d8=5, d10=6, d12=7) instead of rolling if you want.

I already emailed him back with my preference to play 3.5 with using the 2-4 house rules and adding the pathfinder skill system and the CMD/CMB system... but I doubt he will go for it and I asked about using and modifying some of my fav classes from 3.5 when he says no...(Scout, Warlock, Bo9s classes)...

SO based on these house rules what do you people who play pathfinder think the effect of them would be?

 

[Cadence]

Ok, so I am pretty vocal about my lack of liking pathfinder, but one of my Saturday DMs wants to give it another try. He emailed me to see if these house rules would make me like the system better... He said he would work with me and another player since we are both not found of the game, so I am here getting some thoughts.
<snip>
SO based on these house rules what do you people who play pathfinder think the effect of them would be?

What levels are you playing from and to?

(1) Seems like it would gimp the full casters at really low levels and bards a lot in general. I'm not in favor of it at lower levels. Maybe you could apply it as the levels went by? So at level 6 the full-casters move to medium, at level 12 the full-casters move to slow and the part casters move to medium?

(2) Doesn't seem horrible. Was that one causing lots of trouble before?

(3) Why not just start at 2nd level? Doesn't 3.5 have the same issues that would lead to this?

(4) That's the way Pathfinder Society does it, right? I like this one because it cuts down on swinginess.

Why the big dislike of PF relative to 3.5? Is it mostly the lack of those favorite classes? If so, what part of them do you like best (relative power level? flavor?) and what do you do if those don't fit the campaign world even back in 3.5?

 

[DMZ2112]

House rules proposed:
1)Different characters will use different xp advancement, FULL caster will use the slow chart, half caster the medium chart and non casters the fast chart. This will be based on your concept not changing every level. (So a cleric taking a level of fighter doesn't use the fast chart, still the slow one)

It really depends on the level of the campaign. At the low end your non-casters will be 4th level while your casters are still 2nd level. I know as a DM I wouldn't want to try to figure out a balanced encounter for that party. On the other hand, at the high end, your non-casters are 20th level and your casters are 17th level. At that point average party level will probably work out okay.

2) Saves can be calculated using the 4e best of 2 stat approach (so Will is wis or cha, Fort is Con or Str, and Reflex is Dex or Int)

This shouldn't have any impact on play at all except to make things easier for the players.

3) 1st level everyone gets bonus HP equal to there Con score instead of Con bonus.

At 1st level this is going to mean custom encounters all the way, or else a complete lack of challenge. At 20th level, it's a drop in the bucket.

4) you can take 1 over average on hit point rolls as you level (so d6=4, d8=5, d10=6, d12=7) instead of rolling if you want.

I do this in my Pathfinder games, both as a DM and when I used to play, because the dice hate me. I've never noticed an impact.

 

[Morrus]

SO based on these house rules what do you people who play pathfinder think the effect of them would be?

Well, let's turn it round a bit. He sent you those proposals, so they're presumably in response to things you told him you didn't like in the game?

So the question would be - what are the things you're trying to fix? (I say "fix"; of course, I mean "adjust to your taste").

 

[TwoSix]

3 and 4 are really minor. 3 makes 1st level a bit more palatable (almost all my 3.X/PF games have started at 3-5th level for the HP reason). 4 is a super-common house rule.

2 is minor at low levels. At high levels it will give classes that don't tend to need DEX, CON or WIS a fairly noticeable bump. It won't give warrior-types the Will save bump they usually need. I'd say the biggest change will be giving Int-based casters a better Reflex, since they tend to focus the most on increasing their main stat.

1 is ....eh. Honestly, caster dominance doesn't tend to come into play in PF until the double-digit levels, due to the strengthening of mundane damage. I'd see if he would just disallow full casters. The half-casters have more than enough spells to pull the caster weight if needed.

 

[moxcamel]

1) I personally don't like this because it infringes on my personal belief that players should play what they want to play. Under this system, yes, players are still allowed to play a caster, but at an unfair (imho) penalty. I think a better solution to overpowered casters is that the DM write adventures to even the playing field. If your casters are overshadowing your non-casters, then design encounters to mitigate that imbalance. Don't penalize a player for playing something they enjoy.


2) I don't see any problem with this. Saves will succeed more often. Monsters and NPCs also use this house rule, yes?


3) This seems a tad much to me, but its effect will dissipate as they gain levels, so it's not a horrible way to ensure survival at lower levels I suppose. I've always just gone with max hp at 1st and 2nd level, this seems to work well enough.


4) This is what I do also, it works well. If a player opts to roll, I allow them to re-roll 1s and 2s.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Well, let's turn it round a bit. He sent you those proposals, so they're presumably in response to things you told him you didn't like in the game?

So the question would be - what are the things you're trying to fix? (I say "fix"; of course, I mean "adjust to your taste").

that is the problem, it doesn't address me...

1) I don't want to buy new books, I have 3.5
2) I don't like that they upped casters with more features
3) I think the spells need to be revamped
4) fighters are still boreing

 

[Jester David]

1)Different characters will use different xp advancement, FULL caster will use the slow chart, half caster the medium chart and non casters the fast chart. This will be based on your concept not changing every level. (So a cleric taking a level of fighter doesn't use the fast chart, still the slow one)

This is pretty huge. A fast character will be level 3 around the same time a slow character is hitting level 2. The fast character is always a level ahead, becoming two levels ahead when they hit 6th. The gap stabilizes at that point.

Casters having the slow chart does slow the quadratic nature at high levels but means they suck more at low levels. So for levels 1-5 the wizard will suck and suck longer.
Unless you're planning on playing long enough to reach level 14+ casters don't need the nerf.

It might be easier to swap tracks part way through the game. Start spellcasters on Fast. They move the Medium at level 5 and Slow at level 10. Non-casters start at slow, move to Medium, and then move to fast.

2) Saves can be calculated using the 4e best of 2 stat approach (so Will is wis or cha, Fort is Con or Str, and Reflex is Dex or Int)

This sounds larger than it is. It might be handy but will likely just mean a +1 to +3 bonus to saving throws. Which is nice but isn't going to save you from a bad roll.
On paper anyway; from my experiences with 4e, it does make it easier for people to dump stat. The bard can have a 6 Wisdom and really boost other stats. However it should be less problematic in Pathfinder as Dex is still useful for Initiative and AC, Int for skills, and carrying capacity is less forgiving. So other factors keep you from just dumping half your stats.

3) 1st level everyone gets bonus HP equal to there Con score instead of Con bonus.

That will certainly add to first level survivability. Do monsters get that as well?
However, given the low accuracy of monsters this will greatly reduce the threat.

4) you can take 1 over average on hit point rolls as you level (so d6=4, d8=5, d10=6, d12=7) instead of rolling if you want.

Average rounded up is fairly standard. Pathfinder Society uses it. Not sure it even counts as a house rule.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

We will be level 1 characters and his email said a home brews setting
1 part forgotten realms 1 part ebberon with large themes like Star Wars and the third iron man movie

He said he had a full pitch written up for this saterday

 

[Cadence]

that is the problem, it doesn't address me...

1) I don't want to buy new books, I have 3.5
2) I don't like that they upped casters with more features
3) I think the spells need to be revamped
4) fighters are still boreing

So, is it more that you already have 3.5 and don't feel PF fixed enough, rather than particularly disliking PF as a game?

1) Does everyone in your group have a full collection of 3.5 stuff or is that part of their argument against 3.5? Just went through this with our group wanting to try 13th age and I didn't really want to fork over the dough. (Luckily they just had a 40% off sale and I got the pdf for $14.95). PF is bit nicer in that the srd and prd are extremely complete and include a lot of the classes in the supplements and the pdfs are only $9.95 pdfs.

2) What were the big changes beyond the low levels? (Weren't casters too under-powered at the low levels in 3.5?)

3) Back towards 3.5 or in new ways? (The former being an argument for 3.5, the latter being an argument against both).

4) An argument against 3.5 too.