Pathfinder 1E Pathbreaker - musings of an amateur game designer

[Lord Mhoram]

The last half week or so I worked on finalizing two "chapters" I guess you could call them. Two classes. I have been working on this project by just fiddling with it for years, so I have lots of stuff collated, organized to be collated, copied into files, classes 90% built, but I had not formally finalized any one thing. When I decided to work on it recently, I decided to get stuff finished, and printed.

That involves waves of copy editing, grammer checking, spell checking. Then formatting the text.. which I am doing in a word processor and not layout software (I don't know how to use any, and don't have any --- recomendations for cheap or free stuff welcome). Makes sure things are bolded, indented and formatted, then adding artwork. I have said this is never planned for publication (heck, I'm copy and pasting text from other books) so this art I get from a couple of places. Google image searches, and art pulled out of other game books. I have a nifty little program that pulls art of out pdfs, so I'll grab a whole books worth of artwork.

The two classes I finished were the Magister, and the Godling. The two totaled a little over 70 pages (listing all options, including things that work with archetypes, and all direct feats and mythic abilities takes a lot of space. I'm mostly done with 2 classes that overlap - one is a aegis/soulknife/Akashic class that drives it's power from akashic stuff (even for suit and knife). But I limited the choices for blade and suit to only one chosen at character creation, and limited blade skills and customizations. I also made a Psionic combo of those two, but basically based it power level on the Soulforge prestige class combo, so there is more flexibility, and some minor psi powers (Gifted blade as in High Psionics games). The akashic add ons are generally much more powerful than the psionic abilities; so that was the reason for which got the most restrictions. The two overlap in abilities a fair amount (you could make very similar builds) but thematically and feel they are vastly apart. Those are likely my next two classes done.
After that I am putting together a Psionic Summoner, original form (I tend toward more powerful classes). Basically it looses all the summon monster, adds in psi crystal enhancements, and the Psi abilities are going to be culled from Cryptic, the Voyager and maybe a little from Psi warrior, to replace spell use. The theme of the eidolon is that it is an "unlocked" form of the psicrystal.. so you don't summon something inherently in the ether you are using the psicrystal to attach stuff to. I thought it made a great flavor. Planning on the powers to be infomational, situational and useful for utility with the main combat being the Psicrystal summoned.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

Figured out how to handle a class that has been bugging me for years. I've wanted a skill based class that wasn't bard or rogue. Archeologist came close. Then third party options - a number that basically had a mechanic that you built multiple mini characters and swapped them - again didn't like the flavor.
I liked the factotum from 3rd D&D, aside from the fact I hate that the main power of a class can run out (points). So I tried various classes called Dilettante, and few others like it. I liked the idea of borrowing a few abilities (or a lot of smaller one) from other classes - to sort of help fill in weaknesses in Party (if used in normal gameplay) or character (for gestalt use for solo play.

I tried mixing and matching pieces from all the stuff above, and kludged together something - I called it dabbler, then JOT then Lore Master (but that was taken) and so on. I just never got a cohesive flavor I liked and a theme I liked. I tried Eternal student, but that didn't work. The basics of the later iterations I had abilities that you borrowed from other classes and that went up slowish, so as not to overpower the actual classes. And for the skill side, I used a lot of "extra skill, skill focus, jack of trades, bardic knowledge" kind of abilities - great for flavor and for some things, but even with the borrowed abilities, both too weak an to powerful. For this I borrowed template type concept (or school sorcerers bloodline, Psion discipline) or 5E subclasses, and made a choice that would give more meat to he class.

Trouble was I did that, and some were to powerful, especially with other class abilities. Some were too weak. So it sat for days, weeks, months, longer. I kept tinkering trying to make it fit... but it didn't. And today I realized why - I didn't have a clear vision of what I wanted the class to be, just pieces of ideas that kept banging into each other. I also never found a flavor I liked.

That changed this morning. What does Vizzinni say? Go back to the beginning! So that is what I did. I wrote down what I wanted the class to encompass. 1) Lots of skills and high skill rolls. That won't be a huge part of the class mechanically, but that is first and foremost what I wanted, so all else had to support that. 2) The Specialty - this is the subclass, and it was very broad. I had like about 5 I looked to focus on. 2 Types of spell using (Prepared and spontaneous, each had a different amount of spells). Combat dude, Total Skill monkey, Psi. 3) borrowing from other classes as to fill in corners (to quote Tolkien).

The other problem I had was balancing the abilities chosen from other classes as some are very useful and powerful and some are just there. The biggest differences were from Abilities that leveled up with you, and one and ability known (Channel Energy vs Evasion). Once I realized that the solution was obvious. Split them apart and have them run on separate mechanics.

The third aspect was mechanically the easiest. I gathered up a number of skill based class skills (skill mastery, bardic knowledge and the like) and the class got one every other level.. I layed out until level 10 then I put in a choice with about 10 possible choices for the latter half of the class. The player gets to choose a primary ability, and choose other class abilities so waiting until that point to give the player choice isn't really a drawback, plenty of other ways to customise... and I wanted to make sure certain things were in the class for sure. The fact that specific skills are not a big deal in this campaign made that easier - after all we used both grouped and consolidated skills from Pathfinder Unchained so a lot of "high skill rolls, make it easy to roll, here have more skills" worked just fine.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

Long post, splitting it up.

I then went after the class abilities from other classes. Once that split was figured out it was just going through and deciding how many and what levels each of them were. I ended up with 3 raising with level, at 1,3,5 and 2nd and every even level gaining basic abilities. Early on, you can only get 1st level abilities, then it moves up in level, and then you have access to prestige class abilities and such, so even though there are a lot of them, they aren't going to overwhelm the class.

I had a huge part of the class set aside for the definitional choices. Only 1, only at first. I mentioned them last post - Psi, Prepared Magic, Spontaneous magic, Combat and skill. I can always add more if I like - utilizing the Spheres system for example.
Each of these choices got something to seriously define it. Spell use, Full BAB and fighter talents, More skills, and more skill related feats, Psi use. But I decided to make the capstone be given by your choice here. So someone that chooses that path can have something appropriate. I also gave them a skill or two. Also which saves they got for the good and bad saves. The more powerful of these choices ended up with only 1 good save, and not as much skills. The less powerful got more. And the fighter type uses Path of War Maneuvers. So physically the weakest is the skill dude, but as I plan to have the class take that role for gestalt it works for me.

Next came flavor.. well not next, as it came up as I was doing all that other stuff, but it will be the last stuff I talk about. Before today I went through 4 or 5 names but never really liked one (Dabbler, skill dude, eternal student and the best of them - Polymath. I was thinking "Eternal Student" but that gives the connotation of not having mastered your skills, so out that went. Then thoughts turned to one of my favorite books of all time - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (well maybe favorite when I was much younger) where he talks about Chautauqua. So I went with Chatauquan, nice old timey feel to it. The stuff that I had called dabbling or thinking of student, seminars and main study.. with the old time feel of Chautauqua I ended up with using Forte, I used Pursuit for the leveling ones, and Knack for the singles. At this point, the structure is fleshed out, the Fortes are set up, and it looks pretty good.

That was today's work - done a lot... all because I listened to Vizzini.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

Today I will be discussing a class I call The Armsman. This ties into something I mentioned in passing upthread - I LOVE the Path of War System - although being been a hardcore immersionist I didn't really like it early on - same issues with Bo9S (with Path of War was a re-implementation of) and 4th edition D&D and the idea of encounter powers.

Be that as it may, I love the thing now. For those not away fighter types get per encounter combat maneuvers that are level ranked like spells. this gives martial classes nice things, and gives them more options in combat than "I full attack again". Much more vibrant, and helps the martial / caster imbalance. Now part of why I loved 3.PF is I love spellcasters so that issue (if it happened to actual be an issue at your table) I could live with.

The books have a problem (one shared by the akashic book too, but that is a post for another day) is that all of the classes have a very strong flavor. Too much flavor? How could that be? But it was missing something I wanted. A "generic" Initiator. It would be like having D&D/Pathfinder and you had Ranges, Paladins and Barbarians, even Monks, but no Fighter. There wasn't a choice for someone who just wanted to play a soldier/warrior type that just "fought good".

So I came up with the armsman. And fairly early on, I made a mistake. Being blinded by the way you could sort of make a generic talented class that covered monk, rogue or fighter I thought I could do that. Well as evidenced by the title of this thread, I am not that good a designer. It was, with the terminology from software development, feature creep. I was trying to make it that you could make a Mystic, a Warlord or a Stalker just with that class. Ooops.

When I was working on stuff this week (mostly organizing Mythic stuff the way I like it, and pulling in stuff from multiple books) I got tired of what I was working on and looked to do something else, and I pulled up the Armsman as it stood, and though "No this is way too much to deal with right now".

And I went to work on other things, but apparently my subconscious decided to fix it. I woke up this morning, stumbled to my desk and thought "Feature creep" and set to work with my digital knife - I excises about half of what I had from the class is a few swift strokes (the replicate original class stuff) and took all the abilities I'd borrowed/stole from them and trimmed them down.

I had also had previously pulled stuff from ranger, barbarian, fighter, monk, and a little stuff from bard and rogue. I started fine tuning that list. This class has maneuvers as the base identity, and variety and choice in the class, but I wanted a fairly generic frame you could build many character concepts on. I had already decided to use the Edge/Talent system and then decided what fits my concept and what does.

Now while I like the flavor of the fighter - a sort of generic fighter you can fill in background for - I hate it's mechanics, it is weak, and most importantly it is boring to play. The Unchained fighter helped a lot with some of that, and Legendary Games' Legendary Fighter did too. But by the time I had those, I had discovered Path of War and fell in love with the system. So in a lot of ways the armsman killed the fighter and took his stuff for my games.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

Not much to talk about in the last week and for a bit forward - been organizing all my resources: Adventure modules for PF, 3.5, 3.0; Dungeon and Dragon Magazines; and hundreds of rule PDFs I got for both systems over the years (and that was a lot of money, still cheaper than the books though).
Getting all that organized will make working on everything easier in the future.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

Got most everything organized. What started all that, is that my wife is currently running me through our normal 1 player game, and were coming to the end of the adventure, so needed to look at what comes next.. and they were such a mess, so when I got that done, I looked at the rest and though, that can't be to hard, comparitively - and it wasn't.

Next up on the design table.. the warlock. A class I have a love hate relationship with. I've generally loved most of the mechanics (I like blasting all day), but I've never got into the super creepy vibe. And I was never completely comfortable with any version I've seen. In my mind they have all been missing something - so my mission is to do something about that. I have a fair amount of source material:
Eldritch Sorcerer - Warlock in mechanics, but bloodline not pact for other stuff. Has a pool to enhance blasts rather than making permanent changes like just about every other warlock out there.
Strange Brew Warlock - didn't like the damage scaling
The Warlock from Genius Games - pact heavy, nice spell list choice. No link, it was on his patreon.
Then there are warlock type classes in the New Path Compendium, Tome of Secrets and the Book of many things.

I've just got them all together - for next few days compare, contracts, see what I like, start putting it back together - and report back here.

 

[glass]

The initial idea for this came to me years ago - as we use "triple gestalt" to make sure solo characters cover all the necessary roles in the party

Funnily enough, I went with a similar approach for solo games, although from the other direction - I started with four, but that was too much to manage (although instead of the fourth class, I gave free, simplified spellcasting in addition to whatever was granted by the classes).

Regarding the only wanting two classes (or only one in normal gestalt), I had a different approach to that too: "Wide classes", which take up both sides of a gestalt progression. If you are interested, I can attach my gestalt-focussed homebrew.

The books have a problem (one shared by the akashic book too, but that is a post for another day) is that all of the classes have a very strong flavor. Too much flavor? How could that be? But it was missing something I wanted. A "generic" Initiator. It would be like having D&D/Pathfinder and you had Ranges, Paladins and Barbarians, even Monks, but no Fighter. There wasn't a choice for someone who just wanted to play a soldier/warrior type that just "fought good".

I agree with you that Path of War lacks a "generic fighter" equivalent, although the Warblade from the original Bo9S would seem to be closer. How does the finished Armsman compare with that?

_
glass.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

Funnily enough, I went with a similar approach for solo games, although from the other direction - I started with four, but that was too much to manage (although instead of the fourth class, I gave free, simplified spellcasting in addition to whatever was granted by the classes).

Regarding the only wanting three classes (or only one in normal gestalt), I had a different approach to that too: "Wide classes", which take up both sides of a gestalt progression. If you are interested, I can attach my gestalt-focussed homebrew.


I agree with you that Path of War lacks a "generic fighter" equivalent, although the Warblade from the original Bo9S would seem to be closer. How does the finished Armsman compare with that?

_
glass.

I'd love to see it, if you don't mind. I did a few of those too. I just never found a balance I liked with them, so I went the other way.

To be honest I never really read the Bo9S that much, when it came out I had issues with per encounter mechanics for martials - looked it over and thought "interesting but not for me". It wasn't until I saw the Path of War stuff that I was able to let that go, and actually enjoy what was there, I never really went back to the original.

 

[glass]

I'd love to see it, if you don't mind. I did a few of those too. I just never found a balance I liked with them, so I went the other way.

Your wish, my command. TBH, none of these have really been tested so I am not sure of the balance myself (neither of the players in my smaller group has been interested so far, and I have not had a literal solo game since they were created).

_
glass.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

So I went back to the 3.5 (or 3.0) version of the Warlock. Later versions made the pact and bond so important, but when reviewing this version, it's implied all over in the flavor but nothing in mechanics. So as the creepy side with those was a flavor I have issues with I tossed them (I play to make a variant class that has them built on the chassis I came up with this).

So no pact, no bond with a Grimoire or similar, no darkness. The new name Thauamaturge. The main focus of the class is the eldritch blase, modifications to it's damage type, shape and other enhancements (taking the "replace damage with effect" that was in the New Paths Compendium version) adding a pool of points - primary for shape and the replace damage abilities. This will remain unchanged in the Warlock version.

For utility and versatility - 6th level spontaneous caster. Having a mid bab 6th level arcane caster could really easily step on magus, with different specifics, I had the spells list be a combination of Sorcerer/Wizard and Psychic - but removed all Evocation and Necromancy spells. The Evocation is explained as any leaning towards that kind of magic was grabbed by the eldritch blase. Necromancy was flavor, so the Warlock version will get that back, and instead of Sor/Wiz they get the Witch list.

Lastly Invocations - these will be at will magical abilities - mostly sensory, movement or utility; nothing that is really an attack (they don't need it, as they have spells and Eldritch blast). The Warlock version will add (or replace with) Hexes. At this point the mechanics are worked out, I just need to pretty up the writing. - Instead of "Blast shape, burst 20'R", I have to do the "Once the Thaumaturge picks this blast trait she may spend a point to make her Eldritch Blast a Burst effect with a radius of 20' with a range of the normal blast." kind of thing. But the design work and bare bones are done.