Pathfinder 1E "Pathfinderizing" Non-Core Classes and Races

[Presto2112]

Has anyone tried this? I have spent a bit of the past weekend doing this for my homebrew game for the classes found in Complete Warrior, Complete Divine, Complete Arcane, and Complete Adventurer, as well as Races of Stone, Races of the Wild, (to a degree) Races of Destiny, and Player's Handbook II. I didn't add any abilities to any of the classes;the document mostly consists of changing Skills and Hit Die where necessary. However, some classes and races do have a few significant changes. For example, I made some changes to the goliath to try to remove the LA +1, and the Dragon Shaman's Touch of Vitality now works quite similarly to the PF paladin's Lay On Hands.

I'm not finished with this project yet, but if you'd like to see what I've written email me at carg72.at.gmail.com and I can email you a copy of the rtf file.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

I have an artificer and a shugenja in my newly-converted-to-PF Eberron game. The shugenja needed literally no changes. (The player's happy with his abilities and power level. He was glad for the two extra feats, though, and of course the changes in skills applied.)

The artificer got the bump in HD to d8. Also, because the artificer has some abilities that rely on XP-cost, we changed that. Technically, we changed the main issue for the whole game, making magic item creation costs include a 5 gp/XP charge. He can now use Craft Reserve (at a 5-to-1 ratio) to pay that extra cost. He also has an infusion that costs XP to use, and he convinced me to leave that as-is. For this campaign I've left it alone, but in the future all former XP costs will be converted to gp-costs.

While i'm impressed by your seeming determination to convert all of the 3.5 non-core classes and races, I'm just going to do so as I need them. It is, in general, so simple to do on the fly that "need" is easily swamped by "laziness." But then, if Laziness were a feature for a prestige class, I'd be taking epic levels in it.

 

[Presto2112]

I have an artificer and a shugenja in my newly-converted-to-PF Eberron game. The shugenja needed literally no changes. (The player's happy with his abilities and power level. He was glad for the two extra feats, though, and of course the changes in skills applied.)

You're right about the Shugenja. The only changes I made to that class were some minor changes to the class skills (replaced some with the new amalgamated skills, and added Fly), and there was a reference changed from the PHB to the equivalent reference in the PFRPB.

While i'm impressed by your seeming determination to convert all of the 3.5 non-core classes and races, I'm just going to do so as I need them. It is, in general, so simple to do on the fly that "need" is easily swamped by "laziness." But then, if Laziness were a feature for a prestige class, I'd be taking epic levels in it.

It's just a matter of being prepared for me. I've been running my homebrew for closing in on two years, and in that time, I've had a grand total of three PCs that have been composed of purely core races and classes.

 

[Achan hiArusa]

Quite a few of them have alternate class abilities in PHII and other books, if you are looking for new class abilities. I redid the warlord and added Adrenaline Boost as a core ability and shifted it up one level.

 

[Presto2112]

I've actually covered the Expanded class abilities from the PHB2 in my change document. I haven't done anything with the Expanded Marshal from the PHB2 or the Illumians from RoD, simply because they don't appear in my homebrew.

I may next tackle the "Other Races" in the "Races of" series.

 

[Achan hiArusa]

This is an old version:

achan_hiarusa: The Marshal

I think by 20th I just gave them all the Epic feats from the Epic Miniatures Handbook article so they would have that pathfinder capstone ability.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ei/20031206a

 

[Aries_Omega]

I just got done reading the doc and I love this. When I get to use it I will let you know how well it works.

 

[FentonGib]

I'm finding that most of the non-core classes that I use in my game have only really required some skills re-assortment, (and Presto2112's document has helped on that) but I've taken the advantage to house-rule some things I wasn't too happy with, and have alternate versions of some classes - especially those that fit better with my Ravenloft game. For example Ravenloft Paladins don't get Detect Evil and Aura of Courage, since they'd run the essence of the game - so as per the rules they get Detect Chaos and the Courage feat. But I've made variants which follow along with the Complete Champion and dump the spells in lieu of extra bonus feats, or instead of Detect Evil (or Chaos) getting Detect Undead.

At the end of the day I'm fairly willing to let a player customise a class to a degree, if I think it fits with concept. I brought in "negative feats" which are basically flaws that negate feats (e.g. Armour Ineptitude - which removes an armour proficiency) that can be used to buy more feats and buy flavour.

For example a Fighter from a Culture Level 9 realm is supposed to get heavy armour proficiency, but in CL9 it says that heavy armour is frowned on, since they see them as barbaric and use light weapons and armour. So imo allowing a player to "remove" the armour proficiency and get weapon finesse instead is more in-keeping with the theme of the game. Of course that same character may realise later on that that Paladin with Plate armour takes a lot less damage than he does...

What I AM having trouble with is the Prestige classes - especially Wizards. If I have a class get to say Wizard 6, then carry on with a wizard class, do they carry on getting the bonus abilities? In the old system they'd lose the familiars and bonus feats, but carry on improving in spellcasting, including the +1 spell for specialty school per level. To me not allowing them access to the bonus spells/abilities is like denying them that +1... but is it now a class special quality?

The players in my game like to think of PrC as something to aspire to, but the new core classes feel so good that it seems almost pointless to dump the exra abilities for some of the usually lame-but-concept-feeling ones of Prestige classes.

Any opinions?

 

[Darrin Drader]

Just remember that one of the ideas behind Pathfinder was to bring the original core classes up to par with the prestige and later core classes. Since they're now balanced, there really shouldn't be a reason to give the other core classes a bump in power - just adjust the skills to that they match and call it good.

Of course this is all theoretical. My group decided not to pull in any of the later core classes and are instead getting reacquainted with the PHB core classes.

 

[FentonGib]

Oh I agree, I haven't actually bumped any core (non-PH) classes up in power with only one exception, and that was a change akin to the new rules for Rangers and Druids. But I have taken advantage to just smoothen things a bit to what I thought was preferable.

My house-rule on negative feats isn't designed to make a character more powerful, but more in-concept or give more depth. Some of the old classes imo had very generic abilities or dead levels, and this allowed a bit of smoothening. If a player wanted to take a negative feat that would never really hinder the character, in exchange for a great feat, as a DM I'd not allow it for game balance.

The only class I changed was the "Healer" class presented in the miniature's handbook. I always wanted to keep that class as the best possible healer there is, and Clerics (especially now) had an edge. If a player is choosing to take only a class dedicated to maxing the ability to heal others, I wanted them to be the best at it.

Healers get a Unicorn companion, so what I did was just give them a choice like Druids, where instead of getting a Unicorn companion they can instead take the Healing Domain (or use the Extra Domain feat to buy it). Still balanced imo but players can now choose to be good healers without being lumped with a Unicorn (that in a Ravenloft game can be more trouble than a benefit).

Anyone else done any house-rule modifications of classes? Would be interested in hearing your variants.