Pathfinder 1E Commentary and philosophy concerning Pathfinder - feedback requested

[Treebore]

That is an interesting way to do things to be sure.

However to get the full impact of what I am saying you would have to understand how C&C works. There are no feats or skills selected. None. Anyone can try to do anything via a SIEGE check. Some do it better than others because when you create your PC you select two (non human) or 3 (human) attributes as Primes, which effectively gives you a +6 bonus to anything you try that is related to that attribute. So If you have DEX and STR as primes you can swim, jump, climb, balance, etc... with a +6 bonus to any roll, and if it is also part of your archetype class "skills" you also get to add your level to any rolls. Which is also an area that causes confusion in C&C, because anything that is a class skill, such as move silently, hiding, disguise, pick locks, remove traps, etc... can be tried by any other class, but may not add their class levels. They only get the Prime bonus of +6 and any attribute bonus they may have, etc... but never add their level.

Feats, with regard to feats you are not limited to one or two feats like you are in 3E, or 4E, or 20 feats at higher levels. Any feat, from Power Attack, to Maximize spell, to cleave, to Whirlwind, to making your next attack with a weapon not on your classes weapon list with no penalties (IE exotic weapon proficiency) you roll a SIEGE check, based on whichever attribute the game master thinks is most applicable. They also decide on a challenge level, I usually use the HD of whomever the opponent(s) is, and if you beat it you get the bonus, the maximized spell, etc... on your next action. The check itself is a free action.

So in C&C there is no tracking of feats or skills, you can try them all, either as very skilled (Prime, +6), or non Prime (no bonus, maybe no level added) for skill checks, or based on your level or BtH (Game MAsters choice) for any combat maneuver you wish to try (Cleave, Power Attack, Maximize Spell, etc...).

So in C&C you literally can try everything, where as in 3E you can only do it if you have the feat, otherwise not at all. Skills at least, you can try in 3E, and much like you can in C&C, at a severe penalty. However, because of the way things scale in 3E, players will rarely even bother trying. In C&C they will keep trying easy to difficult things forever. They will likely only shy away from very difficult to nearly impossible skill challenges.

So in C&C you don't have to choose and track feats or skills, you can literally attempt to do anything, much like you used to do in older editions of D&D. Plus the SIEGE system is so adaptable I get to use anything from any edition that strikes my fancy with great ease. So I get to be a "fan" of every edition, because I get to use their best rules ideas and their modules.

Which is tough on my wallet, because it also greatly expands my spending options, rather than limits them. So I cringe with every new release by Paizo, TLG, WOTC, Goodman, and everyone releasing old school OSRIC type products. Because they are all products I have to decide to buy, or not to buy, often because I cannot afford to buy so much.

 

[ruemere]

[...]Now, what do you think? (if you wish to let me have it, please do have your say. I want to hear your feedback - even if it is scathing or rebuking. Or, just tell me I am just plain wrong. But I *do* wish to hear what you have to say, concerning my approach.)

Yours Sincerely
Edena_of_Neith

Changing allotment of feats is unlikely to influence game balance much. As soon as you get a few similar feats together, you'll find out that the reasonable ones either do not stack or their use is limited by character actions. And the unbalanced ones should be weeded by GM before they enter play.

However, skill points are a different beast since reaching maximum number of ranks actually nullifies the reason for skill point system existence (just use character level instead of skill ranks to reflect this).
Of course, it would simplify game play a bit, however it would also turn everyone into an expert.

Pathfinder does a lot to decrease number of skills and increase influence of skill points expenditure. You are likley to be better off using PFRPG system.

----

There is a new mechanic introduced of late by Paizo guys, achievement feats.
Basically, if you do something meaningful numerous times, you might get a free feat reflecting your experiences (for example, die by fire a few times and you may learn how to resist heat).

You may want to add free feats and skill points (you sweep halls a few days and get a few skill points to invest into Profession (Sweeper)).

Regards,
Ruemere

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

I've heard of Castles and Crusades (C&D) and apparently it's a really good game. I've heard a lot of people talk about what a good game it is.

In Pathfinder, apparently though, they are following in the footsteps of 3rd Edition Dungeons and Dragons, and taking this particular approach (as opposed to C&C, which seems to favor an approach more similar to 1E and 2E D&D.)

Now, you have said that anyone can try anything, in C&C. And others have said that anyone can try anything, in 4E D&D. And a poster above points out that, if you had enough skill points in 3E D&D or in Pathfinder, you could try anything.
Or, in other words, Player Characters have the Jack of All Trades quality about them in these systems, right? Isn't that about right?

Now, you point out that characters could not try things in 3rd Edition D&D (and by extrapolation, Pathfinder) because of the limitations of feats.

-

I favor the idea of characters being closer to Jack of All Trades, and further from Specialists who can only do a couple of things, and literally cannot try anything else. That is my particular philosophy of what makes for a fun character (it is not necessarily anyone else's idea of fun, nor should it be ... it is merely mine.)
So I would support rulessets that encourage this. I would lean towards the D&D 1E and 2E, the C&C, and yes, a lot of skill points.

However, I *do not* think every character should, quite literally, be a Jack of All Trades. I said I *leaned towards* this, but that is not the same as saying *I'm solidly behind this.*
A character should have a wide range of abilities, but *not* be able to do everything, much less do everything well. (Just my opinion, of course.)

If an elven character has spent 5 decades trying to learn different skills, practicing intensively every single day, then that character (if she was a genius and a prodigy in numerous fields, with trainers in numerous fields) might be at a professional level in many fields ... and this would be very extraordinary, far beyond the normal limit (even the theoretical limit) of what a human could do (short of spending 50 years adventuring and/or learning.)
In short, the elven girl in question is going to be the exception (I hope.) Instead, characters - special as they are - are going to be professional level in only one or two things, and have a smattering of skills elsewhere, to varying degrees.

For example, nobody is going to be a concert pianist AND a concert violinist AND a concert flutist AND a professional violin craftsman AND a professional piano builder (not even that elven girl.) You're going to need more than a few Wish spells, before a character can pull this kind of stunt.
But the character may be able to fiddle, passably play the flute, play a bit on the piano, know a little about violin and piano construction, and the like ... assuming that the character has spent years practicing these things (in other words, spent a lot of skill points on them: 10 ranks in profession: violin (passable, but not professional), 8 ranks in flautist, 4 ranks in piano, 4 ranks in profession: violin craftsman, 2 ranks in profession: piano craftsman ... a total of 28 skill points spent (or 56, in 3E, perhaps) to obtain 2 passable skills and a smattering of other skills here. (This assumes these musical instruments existed in the campaign, of course.)

A character might be a passable cobbler (10 ranks, or 10 skill points spent), know some tailoring (5 ranks, 5 skill points spent), know beginner's leatherworking (2 ranks, 2 points), know a degree of metallurgy (knowledge: metallurgy, 5 ranks, 5 points), and even know a bit about blacksmithing (5 ranks, 5 skill points spent.)
Total points spent? 28. A lot of skill points, but by no means a game breaker. Could come in useful during adventuring, when the character's clothing and equipment gets damaged in combat.

These are the kind of things I would advocate as being good for Pathfinder characters.
They'd have some of that C&C and 1E flexibility, but not be total Jack of All Trade characters (that's the province of the Rogue, in my opinion ... the Rogue really *needs* to be such a character ... poor rogues!)
They wouldn't be stuck unable to do much of anything outside a few narrow fields, but on the other hand they couldn't Do Everything.

Max out on their class abilities?
Yeah, they could choose that option. But who says that their class abilities are everything they need?
Tailoring, cobbling, blacksmithing, armorsmithing, weaponsmithing, knowledge of metallurgy ... these are all things a character could use, but they are not generally considered class abilities (much less, violinist, pianist, flautist, or (pick your medieval musical instruments of choice.))

If I were creating a character, I'd put some of those extra skill points into skills like these. I would never rely on the notion that I could 'return to town' and have it all done for me. I'd want my character to be self sufficient, especially if he relied on armor, weapons, thieves' tools, wizard's robes (for spell components) and other specialized equipment and apparel of that sort.
Thus, the extra skill points. Max out on the class abilities? Not if it means my character is going to end up walking in his bare feet for 100 miles across rocky terrain, simply because he had no skill points in cobbler!
And I mean that.

Yeah, that's how I'd approach Pathfinder. Very much that approach. Can you see where I'm coming from?

 

[Remus Lupin]

I agree with the sentiment that Edna's plan results in too many feats. The question that I'd like to ask is "do I have enough feats to do with my character what I want?" In general, with the RAW, I usually do, eventually. I'd often like to have an extra feat here and there, mostly to advance me more quickly to the prestige class I want, but at a certain point, the availability of a large number of feats will lead to a point of diminishing returns. Already at high levels all the math and varations can bog down play. I can't imagine what an exponential increase in feats would do.

 

[Aus_Snow]

I'm kind of in agreement, in principle at least. But three feats every level, and quadruple skill points. . . is just too much, IMO.

I've done a feat per level before, and that worked fine. A feat every odd level was my house rule for quite a while, and that was also good. Another option: a feat at every level at which you don't gain an ability score increase.

I've also done double skill points, and before that +2 for all classes. The latter was better. However, I am a fan of either a) no class and cross-class skills, or b) choose your own set of class skills for each class you take. Again, the latter seemed to work slightly better.

Another thing I would do, for 3e, is boost the Fighter (e.g., a feat every level, and the inclusion of some specifically higher-level Fighter feats; maybe stunts/manoeuvres as well).

Regarding Pathfinder, am I right in reading that you are not familiar with the system, Edena? Well, if so, you can download the current rules from paizo.com - Paizo Publishing - for free! I strongly recommend doing so, even if you just pluck some ideas from it for 3e. It's very nicely done, if not to all tastes, naturally.

Just some thoughts that seemed pertinent to the issues raised.


edit --- Another interesting idea for boosting up starting characters, in terms of flexibility, is to assume that they have reached '1st Level' by going through three 0-levels, so to speak. Training, apprenticeship, little forays and journeyings, and so on. Anyway, if you look at skill points, the precedent is set. So, why not give a 'starting' character four feats, not one? You get quadruple SP at level 1; give 'em quadruple feats as well! Any thoughts on this approach (probably combined with, say, a feat per level, I suppose)?

 

[Kerrick]

I was going to quote a few passages, but other posters have pretty well covered what I wanted to say, so I'll just add a few comments of my own.

Firstly, you shouldn't assume things. We all know what assuming things does to you.

Second, the 1:1 skill system allows for PCs to have a broad(er) range of abilities without sacrificing as much. In 3E/3.5, all cross-class skills cost twice as much, which leads most players to not choose them - in effect, they're one-trick ponies. The new skill system let you be good at many things - you just get a +3 trained bonus for your class skills, so you're a little better at some things than others.

Third, if everyone's special, no one is. If everyone can do everything, what's the point of having a party?

And fourth, I still think the sheer number of feats you want is untenable. Why rely on largely useless feats and skills simply to "flesh out" a character? Who really takes ranks in Profession, besides NPCs? If you really want to go this route, make the players write up a biography, then give them a bonus feat or two and a few ranks in an appropriate skill, which can be a class skill for that PC. Bam - done. The feats can help flesh out their concept, and they can continue to gain ranks in the skill. A good DM will play to those feats and skills to reward the players for their imagination and forethought. I had a DM do this one time in a Ravenloft (2E) game - for several sessions, he focused on one of the PCs, making their abilities central to the group's success.

Oh yeah...

Youre talking character sheets with a table of contents.

This is the best line I've read in a long time. Classic.

 

[Treebore]

Being a "Jack of all Trades" implies a degree of Mastery to me, IE you can reliably expect to do a wide range of things. In my games, with one of my house rules, that is more or less achieved skill wise, however with things that equate to feats I only allow "mastery" to be achieved after 25 successes. So things like that are earned by "doing" in my games, rather than because you achieved the magic level. Meaning until they succeed on 25 SIEGE checks, they have to roll such checks, after 25 successful checks I award them with "mastery".


I also agree that skill options should be spread out/expanded, but if you also allow high levels of mastery in each area, thats where "belief" breaks down for me. To attain "true mastery" you do need to focus a lot. For instance I may have two degrees in two separate areas (Psychology and Biology) but that doesn't mean I am a "master" who is making ground breaking discoveries in either field, let alone both.

So if I were to increase the number of skill points I would also limit the number of skills I could achieve "mastery" levels of ranks in. Now there was one game I ran before quitting 3E where I did something like this, and I liked the overall results.

What I did was allow every skill allowed to the class to be advanced in, at one rank per level plus attribute bonus'. They were allowed to achieve "mastery" i 4, 6, or 8 areas, ie the number of skills allowed by the 3E rules, and advance them as per the rules. Any Int bonus could be used to select knowledge/profession/craft skills beyond those listed for the class, but not for Mastery purposes, unless those additional skills were specifically selected as one of the 4, 6, or 8 mastery skills allowed.

So maybe playing around with this idea would allow for the "Jack of all Trades" feel and allow "Mastery" in areas fitting of the class. The game in which I tried this only made it to about 9th level, and the only change I was thinking of making the next time was to only advance the non mastery skills once per 2 levels instead, to make a much clearer distinction between their mastery skills, and their "Jack of all Trades" skills.

 

[Kerrick]

Oh yeah - forgot about the TWF thing. There's a table on page 160 of the PHB (3.5) that shows all the various penalties for TWF. The lowest penalty is "Offhand weapon is light and TWF feat" - that's -2/-2. I'm sure there's a feat out there somewhere that negates this penalty, but I don't know of it.

As far as the 2E fighter vs. 3E fighter... they are inherently the same. The 2E fighter had to gain something like 14 levels to get 5/2 attacks (which, back then, was a LOT of work), and then get haste cast on him (which ages you a year - it doesn't take long for those aging penalties to kick in for humans), and then he gets 5 attacks/round for 1 round/level.

The 3.5 fighter can beat this at 11th level; he needs TWF, GTWF (L6), and ITWF (L11); this gives him 3 attacks/round with each hand, for a total of 6. And this is every round, without haste. All for the cost of a -2 to his highest attack and a -5 to each iterative. If we toss in haste, he gets an additional attack at his highest AB (-2, in this case). Considering how much easier it is to reach 11th level in 3.5 than 14th in 2E, I'd say they're pretty well on a par with each other, relatively speaking.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

Let me get to all the posts a little later (I'm only online a moment here!)

I was going under some assumptions concerning skill ranks:

1 rank = minor (but potentially significant) knowledge in the subject
2 ranks = minor (but potentially even more significant) knowledge in the subject
3 ranks = general beginner's knowledge in the subject
5 ranks = hobbyist in the subject
8 ranks = very dedicated hobbyist in the subject
10 ranks = able to function fully in the subject on the most basic of levels (they might or might not let you join the high school orchestra)
15 ranks = able to function as a quasi-professional in the subject (they might or might not let you join the local symphony orchestra)
20 ranks = able to function as a professional (they might or might not allow you to join a major symphony orchestra)
23 ranks = a very great professional (they might or might not let you join the London Symphony Orchestra)
25 ranks = a prodigidal level of ability in the subject (you could be first violinist in the London Symphony Orchestra, or a concert pianist who dazzled the world with your performances)

In short:

DC 5 = easy (no need to roll a check)
DC 8 = modest (no need to roll a check except under extraordinary circumstances)
DC 10 = moderately difficult (training and effort required for success long term)
DC 15 = very difficult (only a trained person can succeed long term, and they have to really try)
DC 20 = extraordinarily difficult (professional only, and they must practice for years to hope to achieve success in long term endeavors)
DC 25 = prodigal effort, incredible feat (prodigy only, a lifetime spent to be able to achieve long term success at this level)
DC 26 through 30: Olympic world records broken one by one, until you reach the limit of what humans have accomplished on the record books.
DC 31 through 40: Ripley's Believe It Or Not (someone lifting a 1,000 pound end of a car into the air, off her child), supernatural achievements drawing upon magical or psionic or extraordinary (not real life) capabilities, talent increasingly beyond anything achievable by humans
DC 41 through 50: Very incredible supernatural talent, reality defying feats of skill, the greatest of heroics from stories
DC 51+ : Epic ability, superheroic ability, this gets into the realm of comic books or duplicating magical spells (without magic.)
DC 70+ : Superheroic ability worthy of the Fantastic Four, duplicating the effect of mid-level magical spells (without magic)
DC 100+ : Great superheroic powers, duplicating the effects of high level spells up to 8th level (without magic)

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

Allow me to make some comments here.

But who can deal with that many feats. From a player and DM point of view, its overcumbersome.

Obviously, it could be. It wouldn't be for me, but I concede it might be for a lot of people (especially those who are DMing, and have a far greater workload.) I myself would enjoy such an array of feats, as a player or a DM.

Even the min/maxer would not have fun as there would be no challenge.

You don't know that. As DM, I feel I could create appropriate challenges against characters armed with such a wealth of feats and skills. In my opinion, at least, most other DMs could also, and many would enjoy doing so. (My opinion.)

They'd be able to do .. everything or figure out how to get the prereqs to.

Even under my system, even at 20th level, they would have fewer than 110 feats, or fewer than 1 feat per *page* in that list. They would not have everything!
Even a gestalt character, with double the feats, would have to reach 15th level or so to obtain 110 feats, or 1 feat per page on that list. And the gestalt are for high powered campaigns, for special circumstances.

As for skills, there are 45 in the PH alone, and about 10x that many more published. Even with a starting number of 8 (a fighter's 2, x4 for my system, + 8 per level) would be hard pressed to obtain 1 skill rank in every skill, even by 20th level. (At 20th level, he'd have - assuming an 18 Prime Requisite, 32 starting points + 352 points for 19 levels, or 384 points, divided by 45 skills, or 8 ranks per skill - 4 ranks per skill, for skills that are cross-classed, or - thus - he'd just be a dabbler in those skills. Of course, there are about 10x as many skills counting the other publications as compared to the base 45 in the PH, so our fighter has a lot more skills than these he must choose from.)

As one poster said, every d&d system from 2e to 3 to 4e and so one will suffer from supplement glut so long as a publically traded company needs to make money. There's no way around them.

Quite true. My answer to the Supplement Glut is ... simply ... to allow it. That's a personal philosophy, a personal thing, only. I'm not suggesting anyone else should have to do it that way. I'm saying it works for me, and it *might* work for others.

As a DM you control what books are used and not used at your table. Just because its there , doesn't mean it has to be used.

Well put.
But the players are, in the end, my friends. My job as DM, the point of my being DM, is to help faciliate them having fun. If they wish to use these feats and skills, if they consider this fun, I would not deny them such access. (I would caution them, though, that as a balancing mechanism I might give some of this Goodness to the Monsters, and they might thus be facing some serious nastiness in their encounters.)

I"d agree with Monte's assement that event 20 to 24 feats is too much, thus the invention of double and uberfeats to "retire" feats into more powerful affairs.

*** Monty Cook said this? Monte Cook said that 20 to 24 feats were 'too many' ?
I have the utmost respect for Monty Cook. Could you elaborate on what he said? Could you explain in detail everything he said? I wish to hear it. ***

REad experimental might 2 which is compatible with pathfinder. Not only can you replace feats and still meat prereqs you can swap out feats at every level (within your domain) which gives access to lots o feats without going crazy (and yes 68 feats is crazy.. that's 2 supplements worth of feats). Youre talking character sheets with a table of contents.

I would ... never ... use the word 'crazy' in the same sentence as any sentence in which I described any concept or any person in relation to anything related to gaming.

Yes, a player could eventually obtain your '2 supplements' worth of feats.
But whether this would be a disaster, or a blessing, is the question. I believe it could be both ... BUT I believe it could be a blessing, and for this reason I advocate such a system.
With Possibilities come pitfalls. The more Possibilities, the more potential pitfalls. This is my opinion. It is also my opinion that Possibility justifies the Risk.

By todays standards, not by mine or your own. Balance was not as important as the newness and creative actor, not saying there wasn't an attempt at balance, but the focus was on creating this new genre. So , whereas everyone has an opinion, a 1e approach to game design does not work in this millinium.

I do not agree.
I believe the 1E approach can still work. The spirit of that approach can still work. My opinion.
I would cite Castles and Crusades as proof that the spirit of 1E is still alive and well, to make my case.

AGain, u havn't read pathfinder (wierd to comment on it without reading it) so you only put in 1 skill point per level, giving u more.

I really do approve of this. Cheers to Pathfinder.

Easily You would be able to max out the 15 top skills useful skills in the game (everyone would). YOu're talking on average 16 skill points a level per character.

Since Pathfinder has fewer starting feats than 3rd Edition, and skills are cheaper to buy, perhaps my 4x starting point bonus (ala 8 for fighters x Prime Requisite, 32 for rogues x Prime Requisite) is not needed as badly.

But, as you kinda indicate, eventually these skills start trampling over one another. That or they become so one dimensional (professionals, crafts) that they would rarely be used.

I feel they are important from a roleplaying point of view. And from the point of view of creating a 'whole' character. This is a personal take on my part, a personal view.
Even if they are not used, the player knows his character has them.

Add in the realness factor (how does an adventure get soo good so fast in so many things) and u realize even the current allotment of skills now may be too much. Again i like th pathfinder system. 1 rank per level in a skill. YOur class skills get a +3 (My house rule has +5 at 10th level if you have 5 or more ranks).

Player Characters, in my opinion, are special. They may have once been ordinary, but they are now special.
Why? Mostly events beyond their control: background, training, experiences, exposure to special insights, exposure to magic, influenced by magic or psionics, extraordinary encounters and influences.
And because they have fought and suffered, trained and dedicated themselves, for years on end, to being special.
So, they have a range of talents (feats and skills) not seen in more ordinary beings, more ordinary people. (consider the 'generic classes' in the 3E DMG, which assumes lesser training, that these 'generic classes' are more ordinary, and they are considerably weaker versions of the main classes.)

That works better, if you want professions, knowledge and craft skills, there should be a separate allotment of skill points for this, kin toother RPGs. It makes no sense or a player to have more than 1 or 2 professions or crafts considering the realistic time it would take to even be an apprentice to someone.

Special point here.
I would not consider someone to be a 'professional' in anything, until they had 15 ranks in something (regardless of stat bonuses.) Thus, a person who wanted to be a 'professional' violinist AND a 'professional' flutist would have to spend 30 skill points (in Pathfinder) or up to 60 skill points cross class (in 3E) to pull off this stunt.
I AGREE with you on this. Being a *true professional* in multiple professions would be a truly astonishing feat, difficult to believe. A character could do it, but even a player character - as special as player characters ARE - would have to invest a lot of time and effort to do so (such as becoming a professional violinist and flutist.)
A 'true' professional, in my book, is one who has 20 skill ranks in a Profession. Thus, 40 skill points in Pathfinder, or up to 80 in 3E D&D. That's a lot of skill points. I don't believe in giving THIS kind of thing away for free!

In my system, the rogue, if she had an 18 dexterity, would start the game with an astounding 128 skill points (32 x 4.)
But she cannot spend 40 of these points to become a 'true professional' in multiple fields!! She can only take 4 ranks (her level +3) in each.
She may be 'good' at a lot of things (a rogue should be) and 'dabble' in a huge number of things (a rogue would) but a true professional in multiple fields?
Let's see how she spends her 32 points per level after 1st. If she insists on having multiple professions at 15th level, she is going to suffer in other skills she should have been good in.

I'll explain that point now.
Does she have Knowledge, Local, 15 ranks? She should.
Does she have Knowledge, Regional, 15 ranks? She should.
Knowledge, World, 15 ranks? She should, as a 15th level rogue!
Local history? Regional history? World history? Ancient history?
How about knowledge, flora? Fauna? Geography? World flora? World fauna? World geography? Hydrological flora? Hydrological fauna? What about other worlds and planes? What about Wildspace? Isn't she well travelled? What about Planar Knowledge? Outsider Knowledge? Undead Knowledge? 15 ranks in those? Faerie Lore? Magical Creature Lore? 15 ranks in those? A rogue of high level should know about all this stuff.

If the rogue has 15 ranks in spot, search, hide, and move silently, that's wonderful. But how is she to spot, search, hide, or move silently when she doesn't know what's out there? What's over that hill? What happened in this place long ago? What happened in that area recently? What monsters live in that area? What magical beings and monsters might (or might not) exist in this area? Whether that dungeon is reputedly full of treasure, or whether it was ransacked? Or whether it is there at all (since the King is hiding all traces of it's existence, and a few special loyalists of his maintain the secret by force.)
Moving silently is great, but what if the grimlocks off the path are completely harmless ... so long as the party stays *on* the path (because the druids command them, and the King and the druids reached a truce.) Will the party know this? Will the rogue know this? Or will she blunder her group into a deathtrap, because they were a hundred miles from home and did not know something known to the most simple person in the local area?
And if a carrion crawler is approaching at night, and it is accompanied by a swarm of others, and the rogue sees the first one appear in the torchlight while her party is sleeping, will she know what it is? Will she then do the appropriate thing (such as waking her party and telling them to RUN) ? Or wake them, while curiously watching the little critters, and finding out the hard way what they are and what they can do?

Knowledge is power, some say. I think the rogue would agree with me. But there are many knowledge skills, and it is expensive to take ranks in a lot of such skills. The rogue DOES need to place points in spot, search, hide, move silently, and other class skills, and if she wants to know about things, in these as well. It is a choice she must make. If she wishes to spend vast numbers of points on *professions* as well, she will have far fewer points to spend on *knowledge* skills.
It is a compromise the rogue - and everyone else - must make, whether they have a few skill points, or a lot of skill points, to spend.

Why not just start your game off at level 20? Go epic all the way out. It seems that this is what you're after.

(blinks) Irrelevant question to me. This is a discussion of low level characters. High level characters have transcendant powers and abilities that dwarf anything being discussed here, concerning a mere few feats and skills.

This is the focus of your arguement, letting players be the most powerful they can given the system's amount of choices. As is the charcters are complete and fleshed out. If you're looking from a fantasy point of view, most fiction characters have 4 or 5 signature moves. You're talking 68.

Can you explain a Signature Move more clearly? I'm vague on the concept.

Depends on the definition of "good". There are some players happy the game happens every week and they can play anything with theirriends. There are some that demand a level of effort by the DM to make a balanced fun game for all. I don't know a player who wants to deal with 30, 40, 50 feats. I've never heard a player clamar for it. Feats every level, maybe, but 3 or 4 a level, thats just silly.

I *do* know players who would love to deal with 30, or 40, or 50 feats. Or 100 feats.
I would not call it silly. Nor would they.

The game you described seems impossible to play, but if it could it would more be an ubber superhero campaign.

Not in my opinion.
A *superheroic* campaign assumes the characters, from the start, are capable of committing feats far beyond anything within human possibility, such as with the Fantastic Four.
The feat and skill system within Pathfinder and D&D, these concern themselves with merely human feats. You have to get to Epic Feats before you get into the Ripley's Believe It Or Not category, and way into them before you get into the Superheroic.
No matter *how many* feats you had in Pathfinder or D&D, at low level, you could not duplicate Superheroics. You could not do it, if you had every single feat available to 1st level characters out of all 110 pages in Crystalkeep. You could not even come close.

Or, in short, when your character has a Balance of 70 and can walk on water, as a Balance DC check, THEN you are into Superheroics.
But being able to balance on a tightrope, falls within mere normal human capabilities.

I havn't taken it to 20th level, but at 7th it works out great, with 2 fighters in the party who enjoy teh ability to retire a feat every now and then and swap out things they felt didn't work to begin with.

Can someone clarify this?
You 'swap out' as in, say, dropping Dodge from the feat path, and taking Whirlwind Attack (you already have Mobility and Spring Attack) and you just ... drop the Dodge, lose it's benefits, but keep all the later feats in the feat chain anyways, and can gain new ones?
Is this what you are saying can be done, in Pathfinder?

I"m sorry i still think this is an april fools joke (and since the gaming world seems devoid o them today (where is my little pony d20) what the heck. If it works or you more power to you, but his is the most ludicrous suggeston i've ever heard

It is not an April Fool's joke.
Nor is it ludicrious.
If I and my players use it, and we agree that it is fun and reasonable - and we all do - then it is reasonable.