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Trailblazer Houserules
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AdmundfortGeographer
Getting lost in fantasy maps
I was inspired to go compare with the Pathfinder's fighter's 20th-level weapon mastery.
Makes me think about how the things Expert Weapon Proficiency is themed around. "Choose one weapon", damage multiplier increased for it.
How about as a way of not cluttering of the table more, implement it as part of the options for Expert Weapon Proficiency, which effectively makes it 3rd level minimum, consider the consequences of also allowing it to be taken more than once with a Fighter's EWP. Doing it as Fenris suggested, auto confirm 1/rest.
"At 20th level, a fighter chooses one wepaon, . . . . Any attacks made with that weapon automatically confirm all critical threats and have their damage multiplier increased by 1 . . . . In addition, he cannot be disarmed while wielding a weapon of this type."
Makes me think about how the things Expert Weapon Proficiency is themed around. "Choose one weapon", damage multiplier increased for it.
How about as a way of not cluttering of the table more, implement it as part of the options for Expert Weapon Proficiency, which effectively makes it 3rd level minimum, consider the consequences of also allowing it to be taken more than once with a Fighter's EWP. Doing it as Fenris suggested, auto confirm 1/rest.
GlassJaw
Hero
I have mixed feelings about autocrits.
I don't think it's a bad mechanic or unbalanced per se but it does seem to be a bit of overdesign.
A fighter already has a lot of options to augment his crits: Improved Critical, Power Critical feats, and Expert Weapon Prof being the primary sources.
But more importantly, an auto-crit mechanic would definitely give the fighter a boost in the action point department. In our 2+ years or playtesting and developing Trailblazer, auto-confirming crits was probably the biggest use of Action Points, especially for the melee characters.
So an fighter-only auto-crit mechanic would essentially be giving the fighter more APs. Not saying that's a bad thing but I'd probably want to see it in play for a while before I made a final decision.
Powering up the melee classes and powering down the spellcasters has always been a goal for any 3ed revision. While TB does give the melee classes a boost in class features, Action Points, especially in the hands of the DM, are an important balancing factor.
The DM can use APs to counter a spellcaster's save-or-die spells, which reigns in their power. An auto-crit mechanic for fighters means that the DM has one less way to reduce the PCs APs.
It might not be evident on paper but the AP balance is critical to the balance and style of TB.
I don't think it's a bad mechanic or unbalanced per se but it does seem to be a bit of overdesign.
A fighter already has a lot of options to augment his crits: Improved Critical, Power Critical feats, and Expert Weapon Prof being the primary sources.
But more importantly, an auto-crit mechanic would definitely give the fighter a boost in the action point department. In our 2+ years or playtesting and developing Trailblazer, auto-confirming crits was probably the biggest use of Action Points, especially for the melee characters.
So an fighter-only auto-crit mechanic would essentially be giving the fighter more APs. Not saying that's a bad thing but I'd probably want to see it in play for a while before I made a final decision.
Powering up the melee classes and powering down the spellcasters has always been a goal for any 3ed revision. While TB does give the melee classes a boost in class features, Action Points, especially in the hands of the DM, are an important balancing factor.
The DM can use APs to counter a spellcaster's save-or-die spells, which reigns in their power. An auto-crit mechanic for fighters means that the DM has one less way to reduce the PCs APs.
It might not be evident on paper but the AP balance is critical to the balance and style of TB.
AdmundfortGeographer
Getting lost in fantasy maps
Here's a house rule I was considering for the paladin.
I am a bit bored, so I 'm building a table comparing Pathfinder classes with their Trailblazer counterpart, ability by ability.
I was looking at the Pathfinder paladin's smite and my eyes sort of bugged out reading that it lasts until the target dies. Traditional smite was for a single attack.
Now, traditionally you would save that smite for the important encounter for that day's adventure. One swing, and if you missed, you shot your cool power and got a buzzkill.
Looks like Pathfinder's fix for it was to let you keep that smite bonus going until that important foe dies. Use it again and again and again. Battles being short (2-3 rounds), that may just be a few swings instead of just one. But still, every attack until target dies even AoOs!
Trailblazer changes the iterative attacks so that no character is getting more than 1 extra attack on a full attack (excluding monk's flurrying). But I was thinking of a way to get the TB paladin up to speed with more than a single normal attack. TB's renewed smite mitigates wasting the smite with a miss, so the TB paladin could just swing again until the smite strikes.
All that prelude to say I'm thinking of having for the TB paladin's 7th level divine weapon ability to also grant the imbued weapon the ability to smite with each attack until the paladin's next turn. If all smites miss, renewed smite kicks in and the smite is not expended. If one smite hits but the other(s) miss, renewed smites considers the smite used. If both smites miss, but the paladin successfully smites with a triggered AoO before his next turn, renewed smite considers the smite used.
Would allow the paladin to potentially get up to two smites on a full attack. Not nearly as crazy smite again and again until target dies.
I am a bit bored, so I 'm building a table comparing Pathfinder classes with their Trailblazer counterpart, ability by ability.
I was looking at the Pathfinder paladin's smite and my eyes sort of bugged out reading that it lasts until the target dies. Traditional smite was for a single attack.
Now, traditionally you would save that smite for the important encounter for that day's adventure. One swing, and if you missed, you shot your cool power and got a buzzkill.
Looks like Pathfinder's fix for it was to let you keep that smite bonus going until that important foe dies. Use it again and again and again. Battles being short (2-3 rounds), that may just be a few swings instead of just one. But still, every attack until target dies even AoOs!
Trailblazer changes the iterative attacks so that no character is getting more than 1 extra attack on a full attack (excluding monk's flurrying). But I was thinking of a way to get the TB paladin up to speed with more than a single normal attack. TB's renewed smite mitigates wasting the smite with a miss, so the TB paladin could just swing again until the smite strikes.
All that prelude to say I'm thinking of having for the TB paladin's 7th level divine weapon ability to also grant the imbued weapon the ability to smite with each attack until the paladin's next turn. If all smites miss, renewed smite kicks in and the smite is not expended. If one smite hits but the other(s) miss, renewed smites considers the smite used. If both smites miss, but the paladin successfully smites with a triggered AoO before his next turn, renewed smite considers the smite used.
Would allow the paladin to potentially get up to two smites on a full attack. Not nearly as crazy smite again and again until target dies.
Wulf Ratbane
Adventurer
You'd get nearly the same effect if you just double the number of smites the TB paladin gets from 7th level up, with a lot less bookkeeping.
The PF version is a lot more like rage-- only thematically, you kind of have to tie it to the "duration" of the enemy, rather than the encounter. I don't have a problem with their implementation either (off the top of my head). It would have to be balanced in the context of the rest of the abilities. But my eyes aren't bugging out.
I also don't have a problem with the 3.5 version either-- you just have to think of smite as "a cool little bonus sometimes" as opposed to "this is a major class feature and my class is balanced around it." The only problem with the 3.5 smite is managing the expectation of the player.
AdmundfortGeographer
Getting lost in fantasy maps
What I was hoping to accomplish was simply have smite go on every attack until the next round. Also simple bookkeeping, but renewed smite got in the way so I thought I had to account for it. Let me know if I'm missing something glaring.
I was comparing them side by side. Here is what I saw and felt like evening things out in disparity. My "eyes bugged out" when I compared the effect and duration together. Seems like a serious power-up in comparison.
Effect:
- Pathfinder smite, Cha to attack and level to damage. Extra damage if evil subtype, evil dragon, or undead. Also Cha to AC as deflection. Also, autobypass all target DR. Special: 11th level, expend 2 smites to grant paladin's smite evil effect to all allies within 10 feet for 1 minute. Special: 20th level, smites subject evil outsiders to banishment.
- Trailblazer smite, Cha to attack and level to damage.
Duration:
- Pathfinder smite, every attack against target until target dies.
- Trailblazer smite, single normal attack.
Frequency:
- Pathfinder smite, 1/day with +1/day every three levels. Though smite effect doesn't end until target dies.
- Trailblazer smite, 1/rest with +1/rest every 5 levels.
I know all this is not he be all and end all of the paladin. Here are some areas where I found other differences.
- Trailblazer gives more skill points per level, and with no cross class cost to skills other skills are cheaper to get. TB's Persuasion includes bluffing.
- Trailblazer opened up to four alignments for paladin. (not an ability boost here, just cool).
- Trailblazer adds tower shield to list of proficiencies.
- Trailblazer's unified spell chart means paladin's can cast spells a bit earlier than PF, ready a couple spells more at many levels, and at 19th and 20th levels cast 5th level spells. Drawing from the cleric spell list adds many many more spells to select from.
- There was significant overlap between Trailblazer's divine mercy and Pathfinder's mercy ability, yet each could do something the other couldn't.
- Pathfinder paladin chooses either the special mount or imbues his weapon. Trailblazer imbues the weapon, losing the special mount class feature all together.
- Pathfinder paladin doesn't turn undead but channels either healing to living creatures or damage to undead, but drains lay on hands usage to do it.
- Pathfinder paladin has increasingly better aura's some granting DR/evil and extra immunities (11th charm/17th compulsion)
Pathfinder has more immunities, grants DR, area effect healing bursts, and a boosted smite that does more damage to common smite targets, bypasses target DR, gains deflection to AC, and doesn't run out until target dies.
I just felt that smiting could bring a bit of a boost to the TB's smite in comparison.
You know, going through all the classes comparing them with each other, I think I've arrived an insight at some design choices to class power.
Pathfinder was informed by the 3.x power curve in books (like Complete Champion, the devils and demons monster books) at the final days of 3.x, and brought every 3.x class up to meet the power curve from those books.
Trailblazer was informed by the 3.x power curve in the core rules, and evened out the classes between each other mostly by bringing up the underpowered classes and bringing down the spellcasting classes.
That's pretty much summarizes my understanding as well. Also, the Pathfinder classes have been bolstered so there's less inclination to multi-class and take on prestige classes (especially if one wants the capstone abilities) while TB encourages multi-classing (especially spellcasters, which, due to the unified magic table, still retain some decent spellcasting capabilities even if multi-classing into a non-casting class like fighter, rogue, etc.)
AdmundfortGeographer
Getting lost in fantasy maps
Contemplating the possibilities of house rules, I was trying to come up with the areas that are ripe for house rule expansions (rather than mixing and patching). It seems like there are a two areas of Trailblazer taylor made for house rule expanding. Particularly,
Action Point Enhancements: Coming up with new action point capstones and the path of action point enhancements that lead up to it . . . sometimes it feels like this could offer the potential of taking the concept far down the road into a direction like kits or 4e themes. . . surely that's way beyond the design intent, but role of prestige classes morphed beyond Monte's orginal purpose too.
Combat Exploits: There are just three attack and two defense exploits. Surely more could be crafted . . . While I have put zero thought behind it, I wonder if there could be any room for spellcasting exploits? Hmm.
Combat Reaction: I love the ability to do more things when it isn't your turn. Anyone think there could be more combat reactions invented? Even if they are far too specialized and edge-situation in use, I'd love to see a long laundry list of more choices.
Action Point Enhancements: Coming up with new action point capstones and the path of action point enhancements that lead up to it . . . sometimes it feels like this could offer the potential of taking the concept far down the road into a direction like kits or 4e themes. . . surely that's way beyond the design intent, but role of prestige classes morphed beyond Monte's orginal purpose too.
Combat Exploits: There are just three attack and two defense exploits. Surely more could be crafted . . . While I have put zero thought behind it, I wonder if there could be any room for spellcasting exploits? Hmm.
Combat Reaction: I love the ability to do more things when it isn't your turn. Anyone think there could be more combat reactions invented? Even if they are far too specialized and edge-situation in use, I'd love to see a long laundry list of more choices.
jedavis
First Post
I kind of agree with you. On the one hand, keeping the list of reactions short means that people can actually remember most of them and what they do without looking things up, which is good. On the other hand, there are things (namely Counterspelling) that would make awesome sense as reactions. Personally, I think the best thing to do would be to build more feats like Mounted Combat that make some other function available as a reaction - that way, the people who really want a certain function as a reaction can have it for a price without bogging down the list for everyone else.
GlassJaw
Hero
Few things, in no particular order:
Counterspelling - Wulf and I (and others in this forum) discussed making counterspelling a reaction. The problem with counterspelling is that it's fairly weak as written but becomes way too powerful as a reaction. Because of that, we left it as-is. There's always a chance we would come back to it, maybe in the magic book.
Combat Exploits - There are more in Mythic Heroes (Wulf's original mythic enhancement pdf). A few other d20 books had them as well. Iron Heroes comes to mind. We pared down the list to what we felt was the most essential and most balanced.
Combat Reactions - The only other reaction we discussed I believe is counterspelling. We wanted to keep reactions fairly generic because it's a system that every character uses.
Action Point Enhancements - This is definitely ripe for expansion, as is the AP system in general. Again, Mythic Heroes might have a few variations on some of the enhancements that we didn't use. We also didn't include any feats that augment what you can do with APs. We were saving those for the Players' Option book...
Counterspelling - Wulf and I (and others in this forum) discussed making counterspelling a reaction. The problem with counterspelling is that it's fairly weak as written but becomes way too powerful as a reaction. Because of that, we left it as-is. There's always a chance we would come back to it, maybe in the magic book.
Combat Exploits - There are more in Mythic Heroes (Wulf's original mythic enhancement pdf). A few other d20 books had them as well. Iron Heroes comes to mind. We pared down the list to what we felt was the most essential and most balanced.
Combat Reactions - The only other reaction we discussed I believe is counterspelling. We wanted to keep reactions fairly generic because it's a system that every character uses.
Action Point Enhancements - This is definitely ripe for expansion, as is the AP system in general. Again, Mythic Heroes might have a few variations on some of the enhancements that we didn't use. We also didn't include any feats that augment what you can do with APs. We were saving those for the Players' Option book...
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