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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Edena_of_Neith" data-source="post: 4736359" data-attributes="member: 2020">Hey there, Kerrick.  Good afternoon to you.  Just some thoughts on your post.  The usual ... just commenting on your comments.  :  )  Well put.  'The core rules were written with the core books only in mind - in that mindset, 1 feat/3 levels is plenty.'  Well put!!  And then, over the years, the supplementary material stacked up, and in the end we had ... 110 pages of feats!  What to do, now?  It is a problem.  I do not pretend to have the answers to it.  Heck, I don't even know where to begin, in most cases.  ('Hey, Mr. DM, I've got this new supplement from (somewhere out beyond Pluto) and I shall kill your monsters with it, and stomp the dungeon flat, and all in 5 rounds!!!')  (sheepish look)  I don't know what to do or say.  You are a DM.  A literal ton of supplementary material is dumped on you.  You'd have to be a genius with a photographic memory to hope to know it all.  And the players keep finding *more*, while they may or may not understand what they already *have.*  All I can say is, we just try to do our best, no?  Isn't that all we can do?  Our best?  And have fun?  That's the best answer I have.  Honestly, I don't have a better answer than that one.  I never did.  The point of the suggestion of extra skills and feats is merely my way of saying:  I, personally - this being my own opinion only - think this would be more fun.  But I don't know that.  I don't even know the Pathfinder game, except as it relates to 3E.  So, I can only suggest theoretically, and wonder if it would really work.  *I think it would work* or I wouldn't suggest it, but whether it would *actually* work is unknown to me.    It is Apples And Oranges, I know.  I appreciate it.  So, my comparison is pretty shaky.  I tried to 'duplicate' the 2E fighter using the 3E feats, to make a point about feats.  I tried to show that the 3E fighter should have had more feats, as a result, and the other classes should have had more feats also.  *I* feel my point has merit (or I would not have presented it.)  However, it is Apples and Oranges, and I concede that.    Well put.  And they could be much more easily destroyed, too.  Of course, some of them were much more powerful than the 3E equivalent, such as the Girdle of Giant Strength.  Magic items in 2E versus 3E are Apples and Oranges too, I think.  Pathfinder?  I do not know the approach they take to magic items.  But *I* would incorporate magic from the various editions of D&D (such as weightless magic armor) into Pathfinder.  Just me.  I think it would be fun for my players.  Just commenting.    Well put, and very true.  Ghost Touch is a 3E concept.  (LOL ... we all would have LOVED to 'ignore armor' with our attacks in 1E and 2E!!!!)  I'll do you even better:  In 3E, if you bring the 2E Haste forward, it would grant an extra *Full Round* to everyone.  It would age everyone a year, but what fighter wouldn't love TWO Full Round Attacks per round, or all the possible combinations of standard and move actions he could get in the time of 'two' full rounds?    It's Apples and Oranges (I think) with a Nightshade Twist!  It can become *extremely* messy, when you stack effects together!  (What ... my fighter gets 4 or 5 Attacks of Opportunity this round per person, against 3 or 4 targets, because of Haste and this feat and that skill, and this contingency and because he did that, and ...)    Well put, and I believe you.  I've seen it too.  Min/maxing can produce ghastly results.  And, of course, we have min/maxing (we have it, or the term wouldn't exist!  :  D  )  (muses)  My answer?  If the players can min/max, so can my monsters.  And they *will* do so, if the players do so.  Fair is fair.  So, let's say your fighter has 7 attacks with heavy bonuses and whatnot.  Well, that monster has special attacks too, and special Attacks of Opportunity, and it has Green Viper Style, and it has Improved Initiative AND Lightning Initiative, and it gets extra bonuses as it goes down in hit points.  If the party can bring in the 2E Haste, so can my monsters.  And they will.  If THAT doesn't make a group shudder (the idea of a powerful monster that already got many, many attacks, getting an extra Full Round Action each round, every round) then I don't know what will.    My bad here.  I allowed that you could eliminate all penalties for two weapon fighting, in 3E.  I am curious.  You've got my curiosity up:  where is the rule on this?  Where does it specify you must stick with the -2 / -2?  Just asking.  Is this a rule in Pathfinder?      Cheers for Pathfinder.  I approve.  I really DO approve.  Just me, but I think that's a really good thing they've done.  Even given that, however, I'd quadruple the skill points.  I would want my players to feel free to flesh out their characters, give them a wide range of skills here and there (or max out in some skills, while having a little skill in a lot of things.)    No.  If you combine the feats Irresistible Spell with Material Sacrifice, a 7th level wizard casts spells that allow no saves everytime.  Period.  If you allow Spellfire into the game, the characters are magical batteries (and Spellfire is supposed to be rare.)  Feats from Dark Sun aren't going to fit into the Forgotten Realms.  Feats unique to Birthright won't work in Greyhawk.  This is a matter of the DM and the players talking it out, from my point of view.  From my point of view, the DM is another *player* who has happened to volunteer to be the DM for this game (or campaign.)  He is sacrificing so his *friends* can have fun.  This is strictly a discussion between *friends* on how they are going to have the most *fun.*  If something is obviously going to wreck the fun, a good discussion concerning this matter, and careful consideration of it's implications, is warranted, don't you think?  It is just my opinion, but I'd sit and talk with my players concerning such things, concerning what rules we were using, before we started play!  It's a complicated subject, because it involves People Theory, but the point is for *friends* to have *fun*, and one of them - who has volunteered to be the DM and the others have concurred - is trying his best to enable this to happen.  Or so ... we can hope this is the situation.  In tournament or RPGA play, things are slightly different, of course.  But that is a different discussion.    Here's one for you, just as an idea.  I have access to Crystalkeep.  I tell this to my players.  They all have computers (fortune of fortunes!) and they all have access to Crystalkeep.  We - after a discussion - agree to use the feats at Crystalkeep.  All 110 pages of them.  But we also decide to *only* use the feats at Crystalkeep, not any others.  And so, we will be starting the game with those feats.  Since everyone has access to the site, it helps out greatly (although it does not fully address the problem of dealing with 110 pages of feats, obviously.  That's a given.)    If someone does not have computer access, cannot access Crystalkeep, we have a much more serious problem, but fortunately in this case everyone does.  So we go with it.  That's one possible (and in my opinion, workable) answer to the situation.  Since selecting 11 feats could involve mistakes (obviously) I'd allow the players, over the next several games, to 'take back' their choices and take new ones.  Why not?  It's all about experimenting and having fun doing so.  I'm not going to 'force' anyone to stick with a decision they are regretting.  That's not fun.    Demigods?  I doubt it.  The ability to do a lot of damage does not elevate one to demigod status.    When I was a kid, I witnessed a duel between a 75th level wizard and a 14th level assassin.  Except the 14th level assassin never showed up.  The super powerful wizard stood there waiting ... and the earwig the assassin had left climbed up, got in his ear, burrowed into his head, and killed him.  He proved very mortal after all.  : )  However, the matter of the game remaining fun at high level is another matter.  A lot of people, apparently, report that the game seems to stop being fun after around 10th to 12th level.  Why?  The reports vary, and I am not quite sure ... except it seems the DM can no longer challenge the players.  And that would kill a game for sure, obviously.  If more skill points and feats would make the group more unchallengable, and lessen the level at which the DM is no longer able to cope with their might, and offer a fun challenge to the group, that would be a very bad thing.  : (  I would merely hope that the extra feats and skills would be used to flesh out characters, improve roleplaying opportunities, grant some abilities the players cherish and want (characters should be special, in my opinion), and make the characters more fun to play.  But min/maxing until the DM is overwhelmed?  What's the point?  Yeah, that would be bad ... and I would hope that a good group would appreciate the danger, and avoid going down that path.  I would not FORCE the group to *not* have choices, because they *might* misuse them to min/max the DM into a ruined game.  I would OFFER the group a *lot* of choices, and hope they *would not* misuse the wealth of choice to min/max the DM into a ruined game.  Just my take.    Thanks much!  Will do that.    I cannot stress it too much:  I am not trying to discuss D&D here.  This is not the D&D Forum!  I am trying to discuss *Pathfinder.*  Unfortunately, I am *only* able to discuss Pathfinder from a D&D perspective for the good reason I know so little of Pathfinder (I am learning a lot about it from this thread!)  As I learn more about Pathfinder, I will shift into 'shop talk' about Pathfinder.  Because that's what this forum is for:  discussing Pathfinder.  Not D&D.  (sheepish look again)  Just trying to discuss Pathfinder in the few ways I know how.</blockquote>

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