Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder RPG Alpha 3 Now Ready for Download

[Wulf Ratbane]

I actually looked at the Survival skill again and I could have been adjudicating Survival wrong all along...

Welcome to the light.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

This just looks plain awesome! I like that they've given the Monk full BAB effectively concerning combat maneuvers. The class deserves it.

I agree, that is an AWESOME addition. CMB was just a bit of useful shorthand before; this leverages it into a really utile mechanic.

Very well done.

 

[GlassJaw]

Welcome to the light.

Less snark and more rules discussion would have settled this on page 1. En garde!

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Actually I'd be willing to bet that you've corrected me on Take 20 more than the opposite. If I caught it, it's thanks to you.

 

[GlassJaw]

Actually I'd be willing to bet that you've corrected me on Take 20 more than the opposite. If I caught it, it's thanks to you.

All good. Survival was one of the skills that I never really had a great handle on, probably because you can use it for so many things. I think I was always too willing to allow a player to use Take 20 with it, which certainly lessens its value.

 

[Kishin]

I love Paizo and I'll likely be playing Pathfinder (and 4E, I don't discriminate), but in terms of tweaking, they really haven't fixed that much. Fighters, Paladins Rangers have gotten some neat new abilities, but are still pretty weak single class options, and casters remain supreme beings. I don't dislike 3.5E enough to rob myself of what are and will continue to be the best damn adventures produced for D&D, but I guess I was just hoping for bigger strides when it comes to class balance at higher levels.

However, I really like the Bard changes, and the Rogue is *perfect*, IMO.

 

[Kaisoku]

The main problem Paizo faces with changes to Fighter, Paladins and Rangers is that they need to keep the things they have right now to retain most of the backward compatibility. A complete redesign (removal of spellcasting and redistributing the things they lost with new options, changing Favored Enemy too much, etc) will make it completely incompatible with the original stuff meant for those classes.

Basically, if it's so different from the original core class, then it can stand alone next to the core class and we are back to square one (a crappy core class that still needs fixing).

They have to work with what they have.


Now, I think it can still be done by adding unique things (like the Barbarian Rage Points, etc), but Fighters have always had the issue of no options that compare outside of combat, etc. It's hard to fix that without redesigning whole aspects of the class or game system.

 

[Treebore]

All good. Survival was one of the skills that I never really had a great handle on, probably because you can use it for so many things. I think I was always too willing to allow a player to use Take 20 with it, which certainly lessens its value.

Personally I hate the effects of "Take 20", and would take it out completely, or only have it apply to crafts and profession type rolls. I would definitely take it completely out of "adventuring" scenarios/situations.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Personally I hate the effects of "Take 20", and would take it out completely, or only have it apply to crafts and profession type rolls. I would definitely take it completely out of "adventuring" scenarios/situations.

So then you would disallow retries on skills?

Or would you allow re-rolls and actually make the players sit there and roll until they get a 20?

The only purpose of Take 20 is to hand-wave the process of sitting and rolling until you get a 20. You can't really drop Take 20 without dropping retries, unless you just want to delay your game.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

So then you would disallow retries on skills?

Or would you allow re-rolls and actually make the players sit there and roll until they get a 20?

The only purpose of Take 20 is to hand-wave the process of sitting and rolling until you get a 20. You can't really drop Take 20 without dropping retries, unless you just want to delay your game.

Generally, I like the take 20 rules. They follow a simple principle and I totally agree with it.

But if I was to tinker with it, I'd tinker it this way:
- Taking more time gets you better results.
- Calculate the base time the action would take, and multiply this by the bonus you want to get. The maximum bonus you can achieve is +10. You can take 10, but don't have to.
- Optional: You can retry, but each time, you must icnrease the time for the task again, so you can only repeat until you have reached a maximum bonus of +10.

This off course would allow people to "break" the regular expected maximums for their skills.