A Tournament of Cosmic Propotions! (Immortal's Handbook Rules)

[Buugipopuu]

Is monstrous humanoid actually a type in 3.5 or is it a subtype? If it is taken I couldn't tell you which combatant has that type/subtype right off the top of my head. I don't think it would hurt to have two if you have another combatant to suggest.

Types & Subtypes :: d20srd.org

Okay I think I'm done re-writing all of the divine abilities. To my surprise most of them were okay as published, with a few exceptions. The exceptions are in the attached RTF document.

You thought Bane effect was fine as written? It Deals four times the damage of Divine Effect and is actually of a better damage type (nothing resists bane damage), and the existence of Animus means that one DvA is all you need to make it apply against all enemies.

Just some of the other specific (rather than general) issues with the DvAs:

Similarly, Aligned Effect sucks, as +1 damage per die on average over the already weak Energy Effect doesn't justify an ability that does nothing two thirds of the time.

Blood Strike trades HP for damage 1:1, which is clearly not worth a DvA.

Disheartening Dodge, as written, doesn't do anything. It applies a morale penalty, but it doesn't say to what said penalty applies.

Dragon Companion needs to specify how it interacts with the Animal Companion ability. Does it reduce effective Druid level like other advanced animal companions (in which case it's useless, and by how much does it reduce it)?

Legendary Companion and the other similar abilities need to specify how they interact with bonus HD granted by class features. And if they can be applied to non-Animal companions. Dragons gained by Dragon Companion, for instance (and does this grant extra age categories to said dragon*?).

Spell Absorption doesn't actually do anything 90% of the time, since you can't use Free Actions when it's not your go, so you would need to ready an action to use it (making the free action part pointless, as it always takes a Standard action to ready an action).

Telelocation doesn't actually define 'creature you are hunting'. Does it let you arbitrarily decide to 'hunt' something, meaning you know the location of any creature whose existence of which you are aware? (I have it require the use of Track to locate tracks of a creature to be considered 'hunting' something, and you can't hunt more than one creature at once).

Theopoea is silly, as it doesn't define "Place of Worship", so you can just carry a portable shrine around (mounted on a Golem) and get a bunch of golems to tag along with you, which clearly isn't the intent of the ability.

Thieving effect is useless because nobody carries liquid assets, and there's no way you can get its damage high enough to steal artefacts. And if you could it would immediately become far too good.

X-Ray Vision really sucks. A DvA that lets you see through walls should not take considerable effort and several rounds to see through walls generated by low level magic spells.

*It shouldn't, but the ability doesn't say.

Lord of Blood and Lord of Bone have been banned.

Moonstruck has also been banned.

What's wrong with these? They're not really that good, compared to, say, Heavenly Mind and its ilk (not that that should be the standard by which DvAs are judged). And if you are banning them, why not ban Lord of Maggots and Lord of Spirit as well. Lord of Maggots is easily the best of the template DvAs (3,000 ft blindsight when on a deity, +20 Insight to AC, a suite of immunities, no loss of Con score and the ability to completely shut someone down with a touch attack) when you're not allowing Lord of Bone to grant Dry Lich. Well, it would be if Mutability is being played sensibly, rather than as written (which causes you to lose your Intelligence score and go blind).

Polymorph is okay... but seems underpowered in my opinion... suggestions anyone?

Polymorph sucks, but it has to suck, because it's basically a DvA tax on Shapechange, which is still too good even at a cost of 2 DvAs. Well, it would be, if it did anything, but as written you lose all your Su abilities when you change, and it itself is a Su ability, so either you can change and you can't change back, or you change and then immediately change back. It's good when taken with minimum HD deities (Lesser deities turning into Elder Quintessence Elementals. Intermediate deities turning into Cherubim.) But when taken by someone with lots of HD and a low-level divine template, things just get stupid. An extreme case would be an ECL 100 Prophet, with 90 HD, turning into one of the Seraphim, gaining Cosmic String, and the ability to instakill anything with 88HD or less (which is going to be most things at that level).

Regeneration seems like it should be stackable, but have a limit on how many times it should be stacked.

I made these in my DvA rewrite:

NEW. IMPROVED REGENERATION (SU)
Your regeneration becomes harder to penetrate.
Prerequisites: Con 50, Regeneration
Benefit: Your Regeneration improves, regenerating an additional number of hitpoints per round equal to half your hit dice. You may select one damage type that currently deals lethal damage to you, that damage type now deals nonlethal damage as normal.

NEW. SUPERIOR REGENERATION (SU)
Your regeneration becomes harder to penetrate.
Prerequisites: Con 50, Regeneration
Benefit: Your Regeneration improves, regenerating an additional number of hitpoints per round equal to half your hit dice. You may select alignment that currently deals lethal damage to you, effects affiliated with that alignment now deal nonlethal damage as normal.

Less clumsy than having an ability that can stack a limited number of times.

 

[Neoiceshroom]

You thought Bane effect was fine as written? It Deals four times the damage of Divine Effect and is actually of a better damage type (nothing resists bane damage), and the existence of Animus means that one DvA is all you need to make it apply against all enemies.

I agree that Bane Effect abilities should deal more damage than a standard divine ability, mainly because they are more specific. However, I also feel that quadruple the damage of a normal divine effect of the same power is a bit extreme. Maybe d6 damage per HD instead of d12?

Similarly, Aligned Effect sucks, as +1 damage per die on average over the already weak Energy Effect doesn't justify an ability that does nothing two thirds of the time.

I think the only reason why aligned effect really sucks is mainly because ALL the effect abilities suck as published. Remember that excel document Belzamus published? I honestly think he was on to something with that.

Blood Strike trades HP for damage 1:1, which is clearly not worth a DvA.

I concur. Power attack would be a better attack option. Perhaps 2 damage per 1 HP? and then have additional abilities to buff the ratio, but within reasonable limits.

Disheartening Dodge, as written, doesn't do anything. It applies a morale penalty, but it doesn't say to what said penalty applies.

Crap. Guess I'll have to re-write that one.

Dragon Companion needs to specify how it interacts with the Animal Companion ability. Does it reduce effective Druid level like other advanced animal companions (in which case it's useless, and by how much does it reduce it)?

Legendary Companion and the other similar abilities need to specify how they interact with bonus HD granted by class features. And if they can be applied to non-Animal companions. Dragons gained by Dragon Companion, for instance (and does this grant extra age categories to said dragon*?).

I'm glad you brought this to my attention. I'll see what I can do about re-writing them.

Spell Absorption doesn't actually do anything 90% of the time, since you can't use Free Actions when it's not your go, so you would need to ready an action to use it (making the free action part pointless, as it always takes a Standard action to ready an action).

Guess it would have to be changed from a free to an immediate to do anything at all, and you only get 1 immediate per rounds worth of actions so... hardly woth a DVA in my opinion.

Telelocation doesn't actually define 'creature you are hunting'. Does it let you arbitrarily decide to 'hunt' something, meaning you know the location of any creature whose existence of which you are aware? (I have it require the use of Track to locate tracks of a creature to be considered 'hunting' something, and you can't hunt more than one creature at once).

Theopoea is silly, as it doesn't define "Place of Worship", so you can just carry a portable shrine around (mounted on a Golem) and get a bunch of golems to tag along with you, which clearly isn't the intent of the ability.

Thieving effect is useless because nobody carries liquid assets, and there's no way you can get its damage high enough to steal artefacts. And if you could it would immediately become far too good.

I agree with all of the above observations, I'll see what I can do about re-writing these to to where they make more sense.

X-Ray Vision really sucks. A DvA that lets you see through walls should not take considerable effort and several rounds to see through walls generated by low level magic spells.

*It shouldn't, but the ability doesn't say.

I agree, permanent x-ray vision sounds more like an epic feat to me than a divine ability.

Polymorph sucks, but it has to suck, because it's basically a DvA tax on Shapechange, which is still too good even at a cost of 2 DvAs. Well, it would be, if it did anything, but as written you lose all your Su abilities when you change, and it itself is a Su ability, so either you can change and you can't change back, or you change and then immediately change back. It's good when taken with minimum HD deities (Lesser deities turning into Elder Quintessence Elementals. Intermediate deities turning into Cherubim.) But when taken by someone with lots of HD and a low-level divine template, things just get stupid. An extreme case would be an ECL 100 Prophet, with 90 HD, turning into one of the Seraphim, gaining Cosmic String, and the ability to instakill anything with 88HD or less (which is going to be most things at that level).

That just means it needs to be re-written and perhaps apply some HD limitations to the ability. It would have to scale well, but not TOO well or else it will quickly become OP.

NEW. IMPROVED REGENERATION (SU)
Your regeneration becomes harder to penetrate.
Prerequisites: Con 50, Regeneration
Benefit: Your Regeneration improves, regenerating an additional number of hitpoints per round equal to half your hit dice. You may select one damage type that currently deals lethal damage to you, that damage type now deals nonlethal damage as normal.

NEW. SUPERIOR REGENERATION (SU)
Your regeneration becomes harder to penetrate.
Prerequisites: Con 50, Regeneration
Benefit: Your Regeneration improves, regenerating an additional number of hitpoints per round equal to half your hit dice. You may select alignment that currently deals lethal damage to you, effects affiliated with that alignment now deal nonlethal damage as normal.

Less clumsy than having an ability that can stack a limited number of times.

I like the abilities more than the ones published in the IH. Mind if we use them for the tournament?

The reason why I banned the "Lord of Blood" and "Lord of Bone" lich templates is because I use the Dicefreaks templates, which are significantly more powerful and elegant than the ones posted in the MM 3.5.

 

[Buugipopuu]

I agree that Bane Effect abilities should deal more damage than a standard divine ability, mainly because they are more specific. However, I also feel that quadruple the damage of a normal divine effect of the same power is a bit extreme. Maybe d6 damage per HD instead of d12?

I made Bane Effect not an Effect on its own. Anti-Human Breath, or Giant Killing Beamz that fire pure Ranger-ness seemed dumb. I made it a single DvA that let you add your Favoured Enemy damage bonus to your effective HD when determining Effect damage dice, and your Favoured Enemy skill bonus to save DCs from your Effects.

I think the only reason why aligned effect really sucks is mainly because ALL the effect abilities suck as published. Remember that excel document Belzamus published? I honestly think he was on to something with that.

While I agree (in the case of non-Withering/Diseased/Negative Energy non-Strike Effects), it's still bad even compared to Energy Effect. I'd make it harm all non-coaligned creatures with a d4 damage die, so it at least does something 2/3rds of the time. And explicitly state that it counts as a spell of the relevant alignment descriptor for the purposes of overcoming Regeneration.

I concur. Power attack would be a better attack option. Perhaps 2 damage per 1 HP? and then have additional abilities to buff the ratio, but within reasonable limits.

Rather than making another ability tree, why not just let you take your Power Attack penalty to HP instead of attack, and add Power Attack to its prereqs? Then it's only 1:1 in the worst case of single-handed weapons with no Power Attack feats.

Guess it would have to be changed from a free to an immediate to do anything at all, and you only get 1 immediate per rounds worth of actions so... hardly woth a DVA in my opinion.

It's not terrible. Spell Abatement is still worth taking even though it's bypassed by someone appending Quickened Magic Missile to their spell routine. It's an extra Spell Abatement that lets you ignore crappy spells intended to only use up your Spell Abatement. I'd make it an Attack of Opportunity (still limited to 1/round, an Infinite Deflection equivalent is clearly Cosmic at least), because not enough abilities use AoOs for things other than hitting stuff. I think I planned on adding a feat that made Counterspelling an AoO, and I've already made Deflect Arrows go off AoOs (to the point where I'm renaming them Reactive Actions, since attacks are now only one of several things they can be used for).

I agree, permanent x-ray vision sounds more like an epic feat to me than a divine ability.

It seems a bit crazy even for a feat. Sure there are feats that let you fly and see Ethereal creatures (If it's to become a feat it should definitely have Etheric Vision as a Prerequisite), but I'm not totally sure about those either, they're on the borderline of 'too magical to be something you can just learn'. If you removed the Concentration requirement, and put the ranges up to something reasonable (say, five times the listed ones at least, or perhaps even Spot Ranks/5 times the listed ones, and an explicit mention that it doesn't stack with Divine Senses, maybe even allowing penetration of denser materials with concentration, since it clearly doesn't use actual X-Rays) it could be quite useful. Being able to ignore heavy rainfall, whiteout and sandstorm conditions is good, as if you're not prepared for it, someone dropping Dire Winter or Storm of Vengeance can ruin your day if you're not prepared for it. Even with divine senses, 50-foot visibility isn't really enough to stop you from being Spring Attacked to death, given high movement rates, and the size of epic battlefields means the chance of guessing where someone is at random is low. Blindsight can deal with this, but many classes won't be able to access it easily, and X-Ray Vision would negate all penalties to visibility caused by atmospheric effects. Not being completely destroyed by burrowing creatures with tremorsense (and having a better sense than tremorsense for when you're burrowing) is also pretty useful. Megadamage is good, but what really wins epic fights is the information battle.

I like the abilities more than the ones published in the IH. Mind if we use them for the tournament?

They're intended to supplement the one printed in the IH, so that with the IH Regeneration you can be harmed by opposed alignments (or extreme alignments, in the case of a TN Outsider) if you're an Outsider, and any two energy types (your choice, although not picking Fire if you've got the Cold subtype or other similar portfolio-related weaknesses is lame) and taking those abilities both improves your regeneration rate, and removes one of the things which penetrates your regeneration (you can qualify for them without the DvA named Regeneration, which means it may be possible to use them to gain impenetrable regeneration, but that's not too bad, since there are sources of damage that hurt even the Tarrasque). Assume that anything I post to this thread is up for grabs (and anything on my webspace, but you may want to ask first in that case, since a lot of that stuff isn't even remotely balanced and not intended for serious play. My write-ups of the Eldrazi, for instance.)

 

[Neoiceshroom]

I actually like the idea of "reactive actions" being separate from ordinary free or immediate actions. Would you be so kind as to define the exact rules on how a "reactive action" would work in combat? Limitations? Number of actions per round?

 

[Buugipopuu]

I actually like the idea of "reactive actions" being separate from ordinary free or immediate actions. Would you be so kind as to define the exact rules on how a "reactive action" would work in combat? Limitations? Number of actions per round?

By default you got one per round. If your Int bonus was at least +1 and your Dex bonus at least +1 you got 2. Taking Combat Reflexes replaces that with (Int Modifier/2+Dex Modifier/2) rounded up, and Improved Combat Reflexes increases it to Int Modifier+Dex Modifier. The change from simple Dex modifier to Dex to Dex+Int was both to reflect the fact that now the actions in question could be purely mental, and also to make Int suck less at Epic, where it replaces Cha as the dump stat. And there's no feat that gives infinite per round because that would be stupid.

Everyone (with an Int score, as creatures with Int - cannot use reactive actions unless specifically noted in their entries) has three basic options for reactive actions. They are Attack of Opportunity, Take Immediate Action and Complete Readied Action. Taking an Immediate Action uses up a Reactive Action if it's not currently your turn, but you may still not take more than one Immediate Action in a given round. You cannot take reactive actions while flat-footed unless you have Combat Reflexes. All other reactive actions take the form of "Under Conditions X, you may, as a reactive action, do Y", so Attack of Opportunity becomes "Whenever a creature provokes an attack of opportunity from you, you may make a single melee attack against them at your highest base attack bonus if you currently threaten them." and Complete Readied Action becomes "Upon the triggering of the specific condition defined when you readied this action, you may, as a reactive action, do whatever it was you'd specified you would do under that condition."

This also changes readied actions to take whatever action type the action is (so readying a Swift action is now only a Swift action, rather than a Standard action, as it would have been under the current rules), but activating it consumes a Reactive Action. A readied Full Round action takes two Reactive Actions to activate.

The following abilities from the SRD would use reactive actions:

Deflect Arrows
Opportunity Power (Normally uses an Immediate action to manifest the power. Now uses the same Reactive Action used to make the AoO)
Stand Still
Spell Opportunity
Reactive Countersong
Defensive Roll
Slow Fall (A Monk that uses a Reactive Action need not be within arm's reach of a wall to use this ability)

Most Counters from the Tome of Battle would use reactive actions, and in general any Immediate Action ability that only functions in specific circumstances should instead use Reactive Actions (things like Island in Time or Celerity which work whenever you want would still use Immediate actions). This should be reviewed on a case-by-case basis, as some powerful abilities should probably not be made Reactive Actions, even if they're only usable under certain circumstances.

New feats:

Magical Feedback
Prerequisites: Improved Counterspell
Benefit: Whenever you successfully counterspell without dispelling the spell in question, you may, as a Reactive Action, twist the magical energy of the spell back on the caster, causing the caster to take 1d6 points of damage per level of the spell counterspelled.

Salvage Casting
Prerequisites: Improved Counterspell
Benefit: As a reactive action, if a spell you cast is counter spelled by a caster of whom you are aware, you may choose to not complete casting the spell if you succeed on a Spellcraft check with a DC equal to the spell's level plus 15. Nothing happens, and your spell slot is not expended (however, the action you used to cast the spell is), but the spell expended to counterspell is expended to no effect (and your spell may not be twisted to nefarious ends).

Reactive Counterspell [Epic]
Prerequisites: Combat Reflexes, Combat Casting, Improved Counterspell
Benefit: You may counterspell as a reactive action without first having readied an action to counterspell. You still need to successfully identify the spell being cast to attempt to counterspell. You may also attempt to counter-counterspell another caster's counterspell attempt, as if they were attempting to cast the spell they are using to counterspell.
Normal: You must ready an action to attempt to counterspell.

New Divine Ability:

Hijack Spell
Prerequisites: Combat Casting, Improved Counterspell, Combat Reflexes, Reactive Counterspell, Magical Feedback, ability to cast 9th level spells, Spellcraft 40 ranks.
Benefit: Whenever you would be entitled to deal damage using your Magical Feedback feat, you may instead allow the original spell to be completed, but you choose the target(s) of the spell and any other specifics (however, the spell is still considered to have been cast by the original caster, and uses his or her ability scores and other abilities to determine its effects). If the spell requires an attack roll, the caster may voluntarily fail this roll, unless the target of the attack roll is the caster himself, in which case it automatically hits. You may choose to target creatures and objects you can see regardless of if the caster can see them or is even aware of them, however the original caster must still have line of effect to the new targets if the spell requires line of effect, and you may not target anything you cannot see if the spell requires line of sight. If a caster attempts to Salvage Casting after being counterspelled by you, increase the Spellcraft DC by the save DC of the spell you used to counterspell.
Special: It is technically possible, although usually suboptimal, to use this ability on allied spellcasters, in which case you automatically succeed on the Spellcraft check to identify the spell they are casting (if they wish you to). Since this expends both your spells and your ally's, this is only likely to be of use if you can detect a target that they cannot, but you lack the spells required to deal with it (or have so many spells per day that you don't care about efficiency). Also this gets really wonky with certain unlikely spell uses.

 

[Evilmonkeygod]

BOOYA!!

I'M BACK!!

However, I have one serious question to ask: This all seems to be done using 3.5 rules, which are nice and all, but I much prefer Pathfinder now, not only are all the classes better, but all sorts of changes were made, such as undead being able to be critically hit and sneak attacked, Save-or-Loss/Die spells being fixed or nerfed, etc..

If Pathfinder classes, archetypes, etc are not allowed, I am unsure I will enter. They are just so much better.

If they are allowed, I have two characters, the aforementioned Veldrin, and Gathroc, a Death Knight badass.

However, if I go with the Death Knight(Dicefreaks template of course) it needs some serious power boosting to bring it in line. My thoughts were to make a DK equivalent to the Akalich, which there's actually supposed to have been, but that UK never created..

Also,
Any chance the fighting domains and feats from Complete Book of Experimental Might be allowed??

 

[Buugipopuu]

Pathfinder characters are not compatible with 3.5 characters. Or 3.5 monsters, for that matter. ECL 20 in Pathfinder generally means a considerably stronger character than ECL 20 in 3.5. At Epic in Pathfinder, BAB and Saves increase at the pre-epic rate which further breaks compatibility. Casters are given Improved Spell Capacity every other level for free, and more bonus spell slots on levels which they don't get ISC, which is insane (as that's a progression that's better than the AMC/ISC progression I noted as being completely broken earlier in this thread). If you want to rewrite the IH and the ELH for Pathfinder, then go ahead. Note that the IH considers being able to critically hit Undead 100% of the time a Cosmic ability (with an Epic feat and DvA as prerequisites), while all Pathfinder characters get it for free. And Pre-Epic BAB progression is a Divine that all Pathfinder characters get for free. Supreme Toughness is also handed out to all Pathfinder characters for free. And they get 50% more feats than 3.5 characters. I'm not entirely sure whether the benefits of being a god are totally worth their LA in the IH (it's true most of the time, but with weak portfolios, I'm unsure), but with more powerful base classes and feats every other level, the IH deity templates are definitely not worth their LA, and would need to be buffed. This opens a whole new problem with balancing.

This isn't even getting into the huge quantity of non-OGL material that would need to be converted to Pathfinder. Between all the characters so far used, you'd be hard pressed to find a splatbook printed by WotC that doesn't have material in this thread.

 

[Evilmonkeygod]

You do realize that one of the major goals of Paizo was to make Pathfinder pretty much fully backwards compatible, right?? and from everything I've read on the Paizo forums, that is indeed the case.

As for the epic points you raised, your talking about the small list of place-holder rules in the Core Rulebook, which were added in to allow people to play past 20, since it is widely acknowledged that the ELH is a stinking pile of steam hot garbage.

Those rules can easily be ignored, as 1) they aren't the actual official post 20 rules of Pathfinder and 2) We're using a different set of rules than just ELH.

As for being able to critically hit undead 100% of the time, that's been something that's been discussed for as long as I can remember, back during the 3.x days. There was no real good reason why you couldn't do so, as in the vast majority of cases their physiology is pretty much the same as a human, and while they are tougher, if you land a particularly deadly and devastating strike, there's no reason why it shouldn't be a critical hit.

Now then, as I read this entire thread before my first post, I have noticed your already banning things, making sweeping changes, etc, especially to epic spellcasting. If your willing to do that, including the changes to critical hits with Pathfinder shouldn't be too big a deal.

Just look at page 407 of my Core Rulebook, wherein they lay out epic rules, and I see nothing about characters getting max hit points per hit die. And that certainly doesn't exist pre-epic, I should know as I am playing in over 6 PbPs using Pathfinder rules, and figuring how a DM does HP at each level for a new game is always an important question. Now, maybe your thinking of how at 1st level, your DM can allow you max hit points for level 1, but if so, that does not go beyond level 1, unless your DM says so.

Extra feats are really no big deal, you can pile them on to Artifacts at hardly any cost. Also, there's no particular reason to use that rule, as it is far more beneficial to leveling, than it would be here.

 

[Belzamus]

I will just note that Upper_Krust's intention, at least near the end of his 3.5 years, was to allow non-epic BaB to continue into epic, as evidenced by the revised classes on his website.

When I brought the issue of said divine ability to his attention, I believe he suggested ditching it and using True Strike in its place.

 

[Buugipopuu]

You do realize that one of the major goals of Paizo was to make Pathfinder pretty much fully backwards compatible, right?? and from everything I've read on the Paizo forums, that is indeed the case.

That's a lie. At best you can use 3.5 material with heavy conversion work. You can't import anyone with base classes without completely rewriting them. And any class that doesn't have a Pathfinder equivalent? Well, now it sucks, so either you gimp loads of characters or you rewrite loads of classes. Multiclass builds in 3.5 now have to be reevaluated due to Pathfinder's completely changed multiclass rules, and even single-class builds will need to pick favoured class benefits. Races and classes not in Pathfinder will need favoured class benefits adding unless they're to be at a disadvantage. Any non-Pathfinder races are now at a disadvantage because Pathfinder races are all more powerful, unless they're rewritten. CMB and CMD don't exist in 3.5, and being big was made less advantageous, which hurts quite a few builds and means a rewrite of the many, many abilities which refer to combat manoeuvres and grappling. Cleave is now a completely different ability, Power Attack is now different. And that's not even getting into class feature-feat interaction. Just dealing with Combat Manoeuvres, Cleave, and Power Attack involves rewriting dozens of abilities.

And now that you've made every player race and every class more powerful, all monsters are weaklings, so they'll all need buffing up too.

And the changes to wildshape mean that Epic wildshape builds, all the wildshape abilities, and the Master of Many Forms class are completely destroyed, and will need rebuilding from the ground up.

The changes to spells Pathfinder makes means another epic rewrite of every spell ever printed to bring them in line with the Pathfinder spells. Every Epic caster worth his Headband of Legendary Intellect +80 either knows every spell ever, or has Anyfeat Hax that lets him cast every spell ever, so the alternative is massively nerfing these classes.

As for being able to critically hit undead 100% of the time, that's been something that's been discussed for as long as I can remember, back during the 3.x days. There was no real good reason why you couldn't do so, as in the vast majority of cases their physiology is pretty much the same as a human, and while they are tougher, if you land a particularly deadly and devastating strike, there's no reason why it shouldn't be a critical hit.

Now then, as I read this entire thread before my first post, I have noticed your already banning things, making sweeping changes, etc, especially to epic spellcasting. If your willing to do that, including the changes to critical hits with Pathfinder shouldn't be too big a deal.

Regardless of if that's true or not, critical hit immunity is extremely powerful in the IH, because critical hits are more frequent and more dangerous. Being Undead just got a lot worse (sure Pathfinder gives out Unholy Toughness for free to all Undead (which itself means creatures that did get Unholy Toughness lose out and will need their CR looking at), but the assumption in the IH that being Undead or a Construct was worth a lot, mainly due to crit immunity). Being a Construct actually sucks now, since you end up with low HP and critical hit vulnerability. It also means being an Ooze or an Elemental (which is now a subtype, which means more conversion work) just got a lot better, since it does provide crit immunity, even in Pathfinder.

Also, it's spelled "you're".

Extra feats are really no big deal, you can pile them on to Artifacts at hardly any cost. Also, there's no particular reason to use that rule, as it is far more beneficial to leveling, than it would be here.

"No Big Deal"? Have you any idea how much it would change, say, Euthenasia's build if she had the 31 extra feats she'd be entitled to under the Pathfinder rules? Sacrifices were made to fit the build into a 'mere' hundred and ninety-ish hit dice. Class levels were taken purely to gain bonus feats. 31 extra feats means a bloody lot. And pretty much any caster build will go "50% more Improved Spell Capacity? Why that's not going to make me rape everyone. Oops, yes, yes it is."