Search results

What Shades of Green said above. Ditch the concept of divine magic vs. arcane magic, and certain spells only being available to certain types (such as healing). The 'generic classes' from Unearthed Arcana (or True20) seem like a good idea, with the bajillion Prestige Class abilities or...

Probably boring for you to draw, too. :) While the 'old guard,' orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears, kobolds, gnolls & lizardfolk, have pretty much crept into useful niches, every time I see a *new* humanoid race, like tasloi, flind, nycter, witchknives or whatever, I wonder if they are really...

One of the character concepts tossed about in discussion during last years RPG Superstar contest at Paizo was a completely insane dwarf that had killed a Giant Ant Queen, and made armor out of her carapace. Through some inexplicable circumstance, the other ants in the colony now think of him as...

Snakes, sharks, eagles, wolves, hyenas, vultures, spiders, wasps, lions, tigers, crocodiles, etc. all seem like appropriate animal cults.

I don't like platinum, so I replace it completely with mithril pennies. Coins start with copper pennies, silver pennies, golden pennies and then mithril pennies. Larger gold coins exist (the size you'd see in Pirates of the Carribean) and are called 'gold doubloons' or 'gold sovereigns.' (and...

Orcs can make some weapons, and seize others. They aren't rocket scientists, but the average orc isn't exactly Forrest Gump, either, and the smarter orc craftsmen are going to be able to function just fine, even if they won't be as cutting edge brilliant as the smartest human craftsmen...

One of the PCs awakens from a vivid dream that sticks with him; In the dream, you are in a classroom with a bunch of other students. Some are talking in accented voices about coming from a far-away land and how their own countrymen seem strange to them now, as if they have changed so much that...

There were optional rules that allowed members of races to get up to four levels over their 'soft cap' if their primary attribute was around 19 to 20-ish, and further optional rules that allowed races to go over their caps if they spent anywhere from two to four times as much experience. We...

At one point in a 2nd edition game, it got to the point where, when we encountered a Deck of Many Things, and my Wizard got a Wish, she wished for her spellbooks to be sorted, since she was carrying seven spellbooks, by that point. She used the Wish to put all of the spells she regularly used...

Seems like a perfectly reasonable story detail, and once you've got 300 gp or whatever, you can pay a 'master craftsman' to file off the burs and pound out the dents or use an alchemical mixture to fill in / replace the bits that were lost when the rust monster nearly destroyed it back in the...

You could give them weapons and / or armor with the Broken condition (like the scimitars the skeletons in the Pathfinder Bestiary are using). A broken weapon will have a -2 to hit and -2 to damage, as well as only scoring a critical on a 20 (regardless of it's normal threat range) and only...

I find Unearthed Arcana's Magic Rating concept to be right about in line with what I would want to use for this situation; Magic Rating :: d20srd.org The Fractional BAB and Fractional Saves concepts are also good for multi-classing issues, where BAB falls behind, or Saves fly ahead.

You could go the other way and make nobody a Cleric. Add a few Cure Wounds spells to the Wizards necromancy and / or transmutation lists (perhaps a level higher, or only turning lethal damage into nonlethal damage, or requiring the necromancer to rob Peter to heal Paul or something), and ditch...

I've only played two types of bards; One was a nobleman, an aristocrat who had been expensively tutored in fencing and swordplay, diplomacy, strategy and even tutored by arcane scholars until he had a smattering of magical power. He used oratory to inspire people, and provided both tactical...

A *totally safe* field trip to the former sanctum of a terrible evil wizard, where everything goes horribly, terribly wrong. The students blunder into an ancient trap and are transported to a dangerous place (right from in front of their helpless chaperones), where they must prevent an ancient...

Ditto. Critters that have been neglected (comparatively) are way more fun to use as a DM, because you can do whatever the hell you want with them. Sometimes a blank slate monster is fun. It's like a gift to the GM who has the time and inclination to put his own flesh on those bare bones and...

While there is a crapload of stuff I would love to see brought back from 2nd edition (pretty much the entire Al-Qadim setting, for instance, as well as Kara-Tur), I'd rather see it converted to 3rd edition (or whatever). 2nd edition was great in the day, but 3rd edition was a marked...

Point buy. I prefer 20 (using the Pathfinder numbers). 15 gets a little tight and 25 is a little too generous for me. I just about never take attributes below 10, and even if I'm playing a gnome or something, I buy strength back up to 10. At the other end, I see a lot of 'builds' that start...

Many leaders 'play favorites,' and devote more attention to whatever interest aligns with their own, such as the military, when his army will be forced to raid it's own citizenry (either directly, like those warlords whose men steal air-dropped emergency relief supplies for their own use, or...

Wierdest 'techno' race I had were Neo-Ants. Each Neo-Ant was a hive-mind, consisting of a queen that sat sessile somewhere in the ship / complex, being a 200 lb. man-sized critter, while her Drones, individually about the size of a small dog, scuttled around the ship / complex doing repairs and...