Pathfinder 1E a real pathfinder fix thread... PF2e

[payn]

Steal and really implement bounded accuracy idea from 5E.
All classes MAD
re-imagine spells (some weak, some insanely powerful....)

 

[Ahnehnois]

All classes MAD

That's a big one to me. There's no good reason to have the spellcasters base their entire repertoire on one ability score. Splitting that up in some way would definitely be wise.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Wizard.- reinstate the forbidden school limits, no more casting spells from your banned schools. Reduce skill points to 0+int. Universalists don't have to ban schools, but they lose access to the strong versions of all spells and key feats which require specialization. No more UMD.

I'm following what you're saying, and I agree with a lot of it, but I hope you realize how silly it is to suggest that Wizards have a base of zero skills known.

At a practical level, it's a question of whether to design with an eye toward casual play or toward system masters. Can you assume that every wizard is going to end up with Int 20? Should the system be built to minimize the excesses of min-max-ing, by reducing the benefits and increasing the costs? Or should it be built to encourage those excesses, by accepting that as a baseline, and requiring players to go above and beyond that in order to see any real advantage?

We're seeing some of this with the design of Next, where you get leather armor that has a +1 bonus because obviously anyone wearing it is going to have high Dexterity, and they need to accommodate Dex 20 without letting that exceed the bonus from heavy armor. To the extent that you might as well not wear any armor, if you don't have the stats to back it up.

Going further, do you balance evocation spells (for example) around the assumption that anyone casting it is going to have all of the feats and other things that improve damage and saves, etc? Or do you balance them around the spells, such that any bonus is actually a bonus?

 

[MoonSong]

I'm following what you're saying, and I agree with a lot of it, but I hope you realize how silly it is to suggest that Wizards have a base of zero skills known.

At a practical level, it's a question of whether to design with an eye toward casual play or toward system masters. Can you assume that every wizard is going to end up with Int 20? Should the system be built to minimize the excesses of min-max-ing, by reducing the benefits and increasing the costs? Or should it be built to encourage those excesses, by accepting that as a baseline, and requiring players to go above and beyond that in order to see any real advantage?

We're seeing some of this with the design of Next, where you get leather armor that has a +1 bonus because obviously anyone wearing it is going to have high Dexterity, and they need to accommodate Dex 20 without letting that exceed the bonus from heavy armor. To the extent that you might as well not wear any armor, if you don't have the stats to back it up.

Going further, do you balance evocation spells (for example) around the assumption that anyone casting it is going to have all of the feats and other things that improve damage and saves, etc? Or do you balance them around the spells, such that any bonus is actually a bonus?

It was based on the fact the wizard class has a de facto 4 skill points per level just because it needs Int to work. I'm not expecting every single wizard to have Int 20 at first level, but we can expect them to start with a 14-15 just to work. (Because if you want to play a dumb spellcaster, let me introduce you to the sorcerer). Also normally I don't advocate for expecting the optimal or system mastered level of stats, but the class just attracts system masters (again if you are casual let me show you the sorcerer, the wizard class is just too complex for a casual player, just limiting it to be inline with the other classes when used with a moderate array sounds reasonable). Even on a worst case scenario when the wizard has an int 10 or less, it defaults to the minimum of 1 skill rank (needed for spellcraft), and in that case you have more to worry about than lacking customization options, like being actually capable of casting any spell.

 

[Ahnehnois]

It was based on the fact the wizard class has a de facto 4 skill points per level just because it needs Int to work.

One benefit of increasing MAD (@payn) for the wizard would be avoiding that dynamic. For example, what I do is have one ability score stand for stamina (spells/day) and another for DCs. It's unlikely that you can max them both and other ability scores haven't changed in importance; thus the numbers will tend to be lower.

but the class just attracts system masters (again if you are casual let me show you the sorcerer, the wizard class is just too complex for a casual player, just limiting it to be inline with the other classes when used with a moderate array sounds reasonable).

I've always found that wizard is more of a beginner class. That is somewhat paradoxical because of its obvious complexity, but I think it's because advanced players know better. And, by comparison, the PF sorcerer is bringing a lot to the table.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

It was based on the fact the wizard class has a de facto 4 skill points per level just because it needs Int to work.

But you've removed the ability for a wizard to devote more to Intelligence in order to gain more skill points. Every other class, from barbarian to sorcerer, can choose to put a 14 in Intelligence and get +2 skill points per level; with a base of 0, wizards don't have this anymore, and are instead penalized even more than a commoner​ for taking low Int.

Even worse, though, it violates the internal consistency of the Pathfinder laws of nature. I'm confident that much of the popularity of Pathfinder comes from the way it treats everything without bias, and trusts the math to sort everything out. If you change that, by allowing anyone to start with less than (2 + Int mod) skills per level - the minimum amount, guaranteed even to plants and vermin - then it sets bad precedent for other inconsistencies in the system.

 

[Noir le Lotus]

Possible changes for a Pathfinder 2nd Edition :

- First of all, take the guy writing the Pf FAQ, lock him the deepest dungeon on Earth, throw away the key ...
- reduce the gap between good & bad saves (like in 4th edition)
- MAD for casters : one stat to gain access to spells, another one (charisma like for SLA) to calculate DC
- Eliminate any archetype that make a base class useless (I'm looking at you archeologist)
- change the spells that bypass a skill (like Knock) so that they just give you a bonus to that skill (like Find Traps)
- cap the feat chains at 3 or 4 feats max
- change some feats (weapon finesse/power attack) into combat options
- I really like the idea to tone down spells with feats to get them better for one school

 

[Ahnehnois]

- reduce the gap between good & bad saves (like in 4th edition)

One one hand I can see the impetus to do this, but on the other, we need more granularity in this arena; "good" and "bad" is not enough.

- cap the feat chains at 3 or 4 feats max

I don't get the feat chain hate. What's the issue people have with them?

- change some feats (weapon finesse/power attack) into combat options

This is an important one; another thing that Trailblazer did but PF didn't. For one thing, those types of abilities are way to general to be restricted to one character and not the next. The feats then become to important and too wide in scope because of it.

 

[Noir le Lotus]

You can't put too much spread on ST. If you do, then if you want to challenge a PC with a good ST, you will screw PCs for whom the same ST is bad and who won't have a chance to make it (save for a 20).

People don't like feat chains because they want to have their super-combo-feat right now to pwn. But they don't realize that if they have their combo too fast, their character will always do the same trick for 20 levels, and then they will get bored of it.

 

[EnglishLanguage]

The problem with feat chains is that it takes too many feats to get benefits that usually aren't worth it in the first place for how long it takes and how many feats you need to take to get it.

For example, a grapple-based Fighter can indeed be very good at grappling...once he has the right feat chains taken at around level 9(and even then, CMB/CMD heavily favoring monsters over players means that grappling is still difficult by then, not counting monsters that can completely ignore being grappled in the first place).