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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Scurvy_Platypus" data-source="post: 5504138" data-attributes="member: 43283">Simplified Actions:Yeah, I can see simply having Standard, Move, and Free. I specify "free" because people are going to want to be able to do at least some stuff that would count as a free action. To keep things easy for everyone to keep track of, it should simply be one of each of those types of actions, no trading ("Can I move again in exchange for giving up my Standard Action?") by default but a sidebar or "advanced" note offering it up as an option perhaps.Attacks of Opportunity:Yeah, chop those suckers straight out. They form a "fundamental" role in Pathfinder because 3.5 (and by extension Pathfinder) has that strong focus on miniature combat. It's got a focus on _tactical_ combat too, but it's relying on miniatures in order to have tactical combat. AoO are one of those things that give people strongly focused on "game" aspects something to fiddle with.This means that some you'll probably have to sort through the Feats and Classes, pulling out references to AoO and maybe rejiggering some things as well. Yes, it means a whole series of character builds suddenly can't be done; I'd be fine with that, because we're talking a simplified game here. Someone wants to get into the character building game that so many folks like, they can go back to full-on ("advanced") Pathfinder.Attribute scores: I still say, skip the fiddly numbers and just focus on the bonus/penalty. The thing is, you don't actually have to change anything. You just don't bother talking about the 3-19+ attribute range. Go with the Point-Buy method, say "+1 costs 2 points, +2 costs 5 points, +3 costs 10 points, and +4 costs 17 points". Racial attributes simply provide a +1/-1; sure it's not 100% exactly the way Pathfinder does it, but it follows the basic rules and it's close enough. Again, it's a simplified version so the idea is to get up and running as quick as possible with minimum fuss.Feats:I still like my idea better, where a feat simply provides a bonus to doing something. What your idea for "feat trees" makes me think of though, is the idea of simply having pre-done builds. Let's face it, character optimisers have already sat down and figured out an awful lot of the combos and what's going to work. So we should leverage it. Just include some explicit character builds as part of the game. So for example, you provide the Fighter class which people can do their normal (though in this case simplified) build; but include in there 2 pre-selected builds. People that want it then have a character already mapped out for them and those that don't can do it the usual way.Skills:You're not going to be able to do it without "competing" against the parent game. 3.x skill system sucks and Pathfinder pretty much kept it intact. The closest you're going to be able to get to "not competing" with the parent system is to grab ths skill system initially offered up way back in the Pathfinder Alpha release and tweak it to match the current rule sensibilities.In general:One thing that's going to be a bit of a stumbling block is the "simple" vs "complicated" thing. Which is sort of a rehash of the "backwards compatibility" thing that Pathfinder struggled with in its design. In this particular case, it's trying to keep the "simple" game "backwards compatible" with the full-on Pathfinder game.It's a laudable goal, but it's also trying to serve 2 masters and means that you're going to wind up compromising. The question then has to become, "When making a compromise, which way do you go?" I'd argue for _breaking_ the compatibility. The reason being, that the "complicated" version is already tossing in new ways of doing things. Adding in AoOs isn't just "giving players more options"... it's fundamentally changing the way characters are built and what their focus is.Breaking the compatibility in favor of going simpler means you're more likely to wind up with a complete game, even if it is slightly different. Trying to keep the compatibility when there's a conflict means you're more likely to wind up with something that feels "incomplete" in my opinion.I could be wildly off base here as it's been a couple of decades, but I seem to recall there was actually a fair bit of difference between basic D&D and AD&D. Sure, the systems were related and you could see how AD&D went off in whatever particular direction, but... they _were_ seperate games. When 3.0 hit the scene, they dropped the idea of the basic game and dropped the "Advanced" part as well. Whether these were good moves or not is a personal sort of conclusion; however, I do think it's important to consciously decide what you're doing. 4E Essentials I believe is ostensibly an attempt to "simplify" the game, while still leaving it basically compatible with 4E standard. I don't know that Pathfinder has really followed that rigid a math system to allow for such a thing; given Pathfinder's focus on backwards compatibility and how loose 3.x design is in a number of respects, I'd argue it's not.But that's all just my opinion. Who you're designing the simplified game for is going to influence so many of these sorts of decisions.</blockquote>

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