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Duke of URL
2010-08-30, 08:53 PM
Errata (as of 28 Sep 2010) (http://victoriouspress.com/forum/download/file.php?id=221)

Boundless Horizons is a full replacement for the 3.5 OGL fantasy system, focusing on balance, simplicity, and player choice. It is now available from Victorious Press as an open alpha.

You can make a direct download of the entire archive as individual files (5.6 MB) (http://www.victoriouspress.com/forum/download/file.php?id=213), in a three-volume set (book form, 4.2 MB) (http://victoriouspress.com/forum/download/file.php?id=217), or download the individual document files below.

Update (21 Sep 2010): The Invocation Magic supplement (http://victoriouspress.com/forum/download/file.php?id=220) is now available for open alpha as well. This supplement is designed for Boundless Horizons, but can be adapted to any 3.x system with minimal changes.


Overview and Administrative
License (http://www.victoriouspress.com/upload/bh/license.pdf)
README (http://www.victoriouspress.com/upload/bh/readme.pdf)
Basics (http://www.victoriouspress.com/upload/bh/basics.pdf)
Design Notes (http://www.victoriouspress.com/upload/bh/design_notes.pdf)
Sample Builds (http://www.victoriouspress.com/upload/bh/sample_builds.pdf)

Characters
Character Creation and Advancement (http://www.victoriouspress.com/upload/bh/character.pdf)
Races (http://www.victoriouspress.com/upload/bh/races.pdf)
Base Classes (http://www.victoriouspress.com/upload/bh/base_classes.pdf)
Prestige Classes (http://www.victoriouspress.com/upload/bh/prestige_classes.pdf)
Bloodlines (http://www.victoriouspress.com/upload/bh/bloodlines.pdf)
Racial Paragon Classes (http://www.victoriouspress.com/upload/bh/paragons.pdf)
Feats (http://www.victoriouspress.com/upload/bh/feats.pdf)
Skills (http://www.victoriouspress.com/upload/bh/skills.pdf)

Equipment and Magic Items
Equipment (http://www.victoriouspress.com/upload/bh/equipment.pdf)
Magic Items (http://www.victoriouspress.com/upload/bh/magic_items.pdf)

Magic
Spell Lists and Domains (http://www.victoriouspress.com/upload/bh/spell_lists_and_domains.pdf)
Spells (http://www.victoriouspress.com/upload/bh/spells.pdf)

Referee's Handbook
For Referees (http://www.victoriouspress.com/upload/bh/referees.pdf)
Bestiary (http://www.victoriouspress.com/upload/bh/bestiary.pdf)
Combat (http://www.victoriouspress.com/upload/bh/combat.pdf)
Playing Beyond 20th Level (http://www.victoriouspress.com/upload/bh/beyond_20th.pdf)
Adaption Guidelines (http://www.victoriouspress.com/upload/bh/adaptation.pdf)

Visit our forums (http://victoriouspress.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=36) to leave feedback, or simply reply to this thread.

Since several of the character building mechanics seem to be a bit difficult to follow, the following example has been drafted to be added to the Alpha 2 documents, and I'm including the draft here:


Monk 1 [ECL 1]

The referee chooses to use a fixed array for ability scores: 17, 15, 14, 12, 10, 8.

The player decides to create Teresa, a dwarf monk. She arranges her ability scores as Strength 15, Dexterity 10, Constitution 14, Intelligence 8, Wisdom 17, and Charisma 12. She then modifies these by her intrinsic racial adjustments (Constitution +2, Charisma -2) to have final ability scores of Strength 15, Dexterity 10, Constitution 16, Intelligence 8, Wisdom 17, and Charisma 10.

Teresa gains all of the class features of a 1st-level monk (combat technique, enhanced strike, style training I, unarmored AC bonus, weapon and armor proficiencies). She chooses the Invisible Eye style, and gains a +2 style bonus to Listen skill checks, as well as Combat Reflexes as a bonus feat.

Since a monk has a d8 hit die, she starts with 8 hit points from her class and 3 more from her Constitution bonus, for a total of 11 hit points. She has a base attack bonus of +1 and a martial rank of 1. Her base saving throws are Fortitude +2, Reflex +2, and Will +2, since they are all high saves for a monk; after adding in ability score adjustments, her saving throw bonuses are Fortitude +5, Reflex +2, Will +5.

A monk gains 4 skill points to use when choosing class skills. However, Teresa has an intelligence penalty and therefore only has 3 skill points to use. She choose to make Concentration, Listen, and Tumble focused skills (4 skill ranks each). Her remaining class skills (Balance, Climb, Craft, Diplomacy, Escape Artist, Hide, Jump, Knowledge (arcana), Knowledge (religion), Move Silently , Perform, Profession, Sense Motive, Spot, and Swim ) are familiar skills, with 1 skill rank each. All remaining skills are foreign, and have no skill ranks.

Finally, Teresa may select a feat that she meets the prerequisites for. She chooses Improved Initiative, and gains +3 on her initiative checks.

Monk 2 [ECL 2]

Teresa gains a character level and advances her monk level to 2. She gains all of the class features of a 2nd-level monk (evasion, style training II). The Invisible Eye style provides Lightning Reflexes as a bonus feat, which adds +2 to Teresa's reflex saves.

Since level 2 is not evenly divisible by 4, Teresa does not gain an ability score increase.

Teresa rolls a d8 to determine her hit points, and gets a 4, to which she adds 3 more from her Constitution bonus, for a gain of 7 hit points, bringing her total to 18 hit points. Her base attack bonus increases to +2 and her martial rank to 2. Her base saving throws are Fortitude +3, Reflex +3, and Will +3; after adding in ability score adjustments and the benefits of the Lightning Reflexes feat, her saving throw bonuses are Fortitude +6, Reflex +5, Will +6.

Teresa has already chosen class skills as a monk, so she does not choose class skills again. Concentration, Listen, and Tumble are her focused skills, and increase to 5 skill ranks each. Her familiar skills (Balance, Climb, Craft, Diplomacy, Escape Artist, Hide, Jump, Knowledge (arcana), Knowledge (religion), Move Silently , Perform, Profession, Sense Motive, Spot, and Swim ) increase to 2 skill ranks each. Her foreign skills still have no skill ranks.

Since level 2 is not evenly divisible by 3, Teresa does not gain a feat choice.

Monk 2 / Cleric 1 (2) [ECL 3]

Teresa reaches level 3. She decides she wants to multiclass as a cleric. Since she does not have Multiclassed (cleric) or Multiclassed (monk) already, she uses her 3rd-level feat to select Multiclassed (cleric) so that she can qualify. (The Multiclassed feat provides an exception to the rule regarding character advancement order.)

Since level 3 is not evenly divisible by 4, Teresa does not gain an ability score increase.

Her cleric class feature level is 2 (1 class level plus 2 monk levels / 2), so she gains all of the class features of both a 1st-level and 2nd-level cleric (two domains, channel faith, aura, spellcasting). Her monk class feature level remains 2, so she does not gain any additional monk abilities.

Teresa rolls a d8 to determine her hit points, and gets a 5, to which she adds 3 more from her Constitution bonus, for a gain of 8 hit points, bringing her total to 26 hit points. Her base attack bonus remains at +2 (+2.75, rounded down to +2) and her martial rank remains 2 (2.5, rounded down to 2). She does not gain any one-time bonuses to her high save (Will) or her medium save (Fortitude), since she has already gotten those bonuses, so her base saving throws remain Fortitude +3 (+3.4, rounded down to +3), Reflex +3 (+3.33, rounded down to +3), and Will +3 (+3.5, rounded down to +3); after adding in ability score adjustments and the benefits of the Lightning Reflexes feat, her saving throw bonuses remain at Fortitude +6, Reflex +5, Will +6.

Since she has chosen a new class, Teresa may choose class skills for it. Again, her class provides 4 skill points, but Teresa only gets 3 due to her Intelligence penalty. She chooses Concentration, Heal, and Knowledge (religion) as her focused skills. Concentration was already a focused skill, so she does not gain the one-time +3 bonus again. Heal was a foreign skill, so she does gain the +3 bonus. Knowledge (religion) was a familiar skill previously, so the +1 bonus is upgraded to +3. Her total skill ranks for these skills are Concentration 6 (6.0), Heal 4 (4.5, rounded down to 4), Knowledge (religion) 5 (5.0).

Her remaining class skills are Craft, Diplomacy, Knowledge (arcana), Knowledge (history), Knowledge (the planes), Profession, and Spellcraft. Of these, Craft, Diplomacy, Knowledge (arcana), and Profession were formerly familiar skills, and gain no additional bonuses, remaining at 2 skill ranks (2.5, rounded down to 2). Knowledge (the planes) and Spellcraft gain the +1 bonus for becoming familiar, and have now have 2 skill ranks (2.0). Her other previous familiar skills all remain at 2 ranks (2.25, rounded down to 2) and all other skills still have 0 ranks (0.75, rounded down to 0).

Since level 3 is evenly divisible by 3, Teresa gains a feat at this level, but she already used it at the first step to take the Multiclassed (cleric) feat.

Monk 2 (3) / Cleric 2 (3) [ECL 4]

When she gains her 4th level, Teresa increases her cleric level to 2.

Since level 4 is evenly divisible by 4, Teresa gains an ability score increase, and increases her Wisdom to 18.

Her cleric class feature level is 3 (2 class levels plus 2 monk levels / 2), so she gains all of the class features of a 3rd-level cleric (2nd-level spells, possible improvements to domain abilities). Her monk class feature level also increases to 3, so she gains the abilities of a 3rd-level monk as well (still mind, unarmored speed bonus +10').

Teresa rolls a d8 to determine her hit points, and gets a 3, to which she adds 3 more from her Constitution bonus, for a gain of 6 hit points, bringing her total to 32 hit points. Her base attack bonus increases to +3 (+3.5, rounded down to +3) and her martial rank increases to 3 (3.0); note that the increase in martial rank means that her Improved Initiative feat now provides a +4 bonus instead of the default +3. Her base saving throws increase to Fortitude +3 (+3.8, rounded down to +3), Reflex +3 (+3.67, rounded down to +3), and Will +4 (+4.0); after adding in ability score adjustments and the benefits of the Lightning Reflexes feat, her saving throw bonuses are Fortitude +6, Reflex +5, Will +8.

Teresa has already chosen class skills as a cleric, so she does not choose class skills again. Her focused skill ranks increase to Concentration 7 (7.0), Heal 5 (5.5, rounded down to 5), Knowledge (religion) 6 (6.0). Her familiar skills increase to Craft 3 (3.0), Diplomacy 3 (3.0), Knowledge (arcana) 3 (3.0), Knowledge (the planes) 2 (2.5, rounded down to 2), Profession 3 (3.0), and Spellcraft 2 (2.5, rounded down to 2). Her other previous familiar skills all remain at 2 ranks (2.5, rounded down to 2) and all other skills have 1 rank (1.0).

Since level 4 is not evenly divisible by 3, Teresa does not gain a feat at this level.

Duke of URL
2010-08-31, 06:15 AM
Sorry, in my excitement to finally be ready to release the rule set to the public, I forgot to elaborate on "why Boundless Horizons?"

The overall objective of Boundless Horizons is to fix the 3.5 OGL system's biggest flaws, while staying as close to the original rules as possible. It is, therefore an upgrade from the existing system, not an entirely new one. Experienced 3.5 players should be able to get going with Boundless Horizons very quickly, though they should keep the rules handy for those things that don't work exactly the same.

The most significant change (and certainly the one that led to much of the revised design ethic on the whole) is that multiclassing now works. The mechanism may take a little while to get used to, but it's actually quite elegant and powerful once you get familiar with it.

As a side effect of the multiclassing changes, it became even more obvious that all classes and prestige classes really needed justification for staying with them through the end and that their class features should scale with class level whenever possible. At the same time, strategic use of "dipping" should also be a valid option.

Base classes, on the whole, are generally given a lot more customization with many class features turning into a set of choices rather than a fixed set of abilities by level. Between this customization and the improved multiclassing, it is hoped that a wide variety of archetypes can be created from the core rule set without having to rely on creating new classes for specific concepts. The non-full-spellcasting classes have been dramatically increased in power (bards rock, monks are effective, and even the humble fighter gains level-dependent class features) while the full spellcasters are slightly "nerfed", in terms of slower spell progression and dual attribute dependency, although they gain interesting and level-scaling class features instead.

Two major changes to feats: 1) Combat-oriented feats now scale by level (well, level-ish... but that's in the details that you can download) and most "feat chains" have been reduced to a single feat that improves as the character grows in power. 2) Less powerful or highly situational feats have been classified as "half feats", which allows a character to take two of them instead of a regular feat.

Combat maneuvers (trip, disarm, bull rush), etc., are simplified and converted to a single-roll mechanism. (Grapple has more complexity due to its sub-options, but each action regarding a grapple is still a single-roll resolution.)

This thread will be monitored for comments, as will, of course, our own forums, so please feel free to leave comments here if you prefer not to register at Victorious Press. If you are going to run a PbP game here on the forums using Boundless Horizons, we'd love to see a link posted here so we can observe!

Chambers
2010-09-03, 09:19 AM
First off, nicely presented. The pdf is clean and easy to read. :smallsmile:

Second, shouldn't this be in Homebrew?

Third - The fighter is usually my first stop when looking at d20 revisions. In any revision the spellcasters will probably be similar in function to other mages (i.e. cast spells, maybe have other flavorful abilities). I did glance at the Bard though, and the expanded array of Bardic Music is cool (something I did with my own revision). On to the Fighter.

How does he deal more damage? I like the defensive abilities he gets, like the combined Evasion & Mettle at level 3, the changeable weapon aptitude and the deflection abilities, but I don't see where in the base class it gives the fighter scalable damage output. It's something that the fighter needs. Spells scale in damage really fast and a wizard can drop fistfuls of d6's all over the place when he wants to damage an opponent, but a base fighter is still doing Weapon Dice + Strength + Magic + Power Attack or something else.

Now, that number can get pretty high at higher levels if you build for high strength or have a power attack trick, but it's the unchanging base wound damage that hurts the fighter. When the Wizard is dropping 10d6 Fireballs on crowds of people, the fighter should be able to attack someone for a similar amount, like they did in Tome of Battle.

FyreByrd
2010-09-03, 09:39 AM
Just a quick question...any possibility of it being published (whether now or later) as 1 pdf...not 21...tbh I downloaded, opened the zip, and started to lose interest very quickly

Duke of URL
2010-09-03, 09:56 AM
First off, nicely presented. The pdf is clean and easy to read. :smallsmile:

Thanks. I have to give a lot of credit to OpenOffice for makign it easy to generate PDFs, though.


Second, shouldn't this be in Homebrew?

Debatable. It's a full system revision, and not just a set of houserules, so I thought it would be more applicable to to roleplaying community.


Third - The fighter is usually my first stop when looking at d20 revisions. In any revision the spellcasters will probably be similar in function to other mages (i.e. cast spells, maybe have other flavorful abilities). I did glance at the Bard though, and the expanded array of Bardic Music is cool (something I did with my own revision). On to the Fighter.

How does he deal more damage? I like the defensive abilities he gets, like the combined Evasion & Mettle at level 3, the changeable weapon aptitude and the deflection abilities, but I don't see where in the base class it gives the fighter scalable damage output. It's something that the fighter needs. Spells scale in damage really fast and a wizard can drop fistfuls of d6's all over the place when he wants to damage an opponent, but a base fighter is still doing Weapon Dice + Strength + Magic + Power Attack or something else.

Now, that number can get pretty high at higher levels if you build for high strength or have a power attack trick, but it's the unchanging base wound damage that hurts the fighter. When the Wizard is dropping 10d6 Fireballs on crowds of people, the fighter should be able to attack someone for a similar amount, like they did in Tome of Battle.

At the highest levels, he gets Weapon Attunement (15th, works best with weapons with bonus damage), Critical Expertise (17th, insta-death), and Weapon Mastery (20th, well, a lot).

But the real boost is from feats, which scale with level (specifically, martial rank, which the Fighter advances at the highest rate), and especially the ones specifically designed for weapon damage output -- Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, Improved Critical (even Weapon Finesse, for Dex-based fighters). The fact that a fighter gets a bucketload of feats really does matter, because of the way combat-oriented feats have been improved. It's a class feature than can no longer be looked at as unimportant or non-scaling, because the feats themselves scale.

I don't know about dropping a 10d6 fireball, at say, level 10, but if going full Power Attack with a standard action, say with STR 20, Weapon Sepcialization, and a 2-handed weapon, I get weapon damage + 32 or so, which compares favorably to the 35 average damage from a fireball... of course, it comes down to being able to hit the target, too. On the other hand, he can do it all day long, and the wizard is limited in spells (more so than in vanilla 3.5).

A barbarian would would get most of the same benefits (sans Weapon Specialization), and add his rage benefits, so he would be in the same ballpark as well, possibly higher.


Just a quick question...any possibility of it being published (whether now or later) as 1 pdf...not 21...tbh I downloaded, opened the zip, and started to lose interest very quickly

I'm working on it -- actually 3 documents (Player Guide, Magic Guide, Referee Guide) -- but it's taking time to format into master documents and still turn out legible (plus with ensuring the proper headings are in place for easy PDF indexing). The current structure actually mimics the 3.5 SRD, and was easiest for development. Until then, I'd suggest just starting with "Character Creation and Advancement", "Base Classes", and "Feats", and refer to the other documents as necessary.

Duke of URL
2010-09-03, 02:44 PM
And... the book form (http://victoriouspress.com/forum/download/file.php?id=217) of the documents, as promised and noted above.

GoatToucher
2010-09-03, 05:09 PM
Interesting.

I am curious as to why you didn't shorten the skill list (stealth skills, search/notice skills) as many homebrewers have done.

Also, was there any balancing done for weapon and shield style?

Jolly
2010-09-03, 05:48 PM
Very interesting. I'll have to keep an eye on this.

Perhaps I overlooked it, but what exactly are the "bloodline" benefits that sorcerers get?

Draz74
2010-09-03, 06:11 PM
Have only barely been able to start looking into this so far, but I can already point out a couple things:


"it's" has been used when "its" would have been correct. Irks me. :smalltongue:
For Epic play rules, shouldn't a free Multiclassed feat come at Level 20 and each 10 thereafter, rather than Level 21 and thereafter? Because you have to select a class level before you select your feat for that level, so as-is, this rule doesn't provide any solution for a character who reaches 21st level without yet having a Multiclassed feat.

Duke of URL
2010-09-03, 08:12 PM
I am curious as to why you didn't shorten the skill list (stealth skills, search/notice skills) as many homebrewers have done.

Because that over-simplifies the skill system. Spot and Listen are distinct abilities, as are Hide and Move Silently. The richness of the skill system is a major asset in the 3.x series, but it needs an implementation change. The Focused, Familiar, and Foreign system (slightly derived from SAGA and 4e) gets around the problem of skills being all-or-nothing, while still providing a class-based means of specializing.


Also, was there any balancing done for weapon and shield style?

A little. Shields (except bucklers) now provide +1 AC over their previous values, and double the base (but not enhanced, if any) AC when fighting defensively or using Combat Expertise. For sword & board, I'd suggest looking into the Defender PrC, which will further improve their defensive posture -- S&B certainly isn't going to be the best damage dealer, but should be able to "tank" better.


Perhaps I overlooked it, but what exactly are the "bloodline" benefits that sorcerers get?

Sorcerers get a minor bloodline of their choice from the Bloodlines chapter, without having to take a bloodline level by CL 12 -- the only caveat is that the benefits are based on class feature level, not character level.


"it's" has been used when "its" would have been correct. Irks me. :smalltongue:

Irks me too. :smallbiggrin: Let me know where they are so they can be corrected. I just hope there are not "loose" in place of "lose" anywhere -- I'd never forgive myself for missing it on reviews.


For Epic play rules, shouldn't a free Multiclassed feat come at Level 20 and each 10 thereafter, rather than Level 21 and thereafter? Because you have to select a class level before you select your feat for that level, so as-is, this rule doesn't provide any solution for a character who reaches 21st level without yet having a Multiclassed feat.

No, it's fine as is. The character advancement rules point out that as an exception to the normal order, if you are entitled to a feat at any given level that you can take Multiclassed before choosing your class for that level. E.g., a gnome Ranger 2 can take Multiclassed (rogue) at level 3 to become Ranger 2 / Rogue 1 (2).

Draz74
2010-09-03, 10:13 PM
Irks me too. :smallbiggrin: Let me know where they are so they can be corrected. I just hope there are not "loose" in place of "lose" anywhere -- I'd never forgive myself for missing it on reviews.

Top of right column of Page 9, "Minimum Starting Level" paragraph. And Familiar "Backlash" section, middle of the left column of Page 50.


No, it's fine as is. The character advancement rules point out that as an exception to the normal order, if you are entitled to a feat at any given level that you can take Multiclassed before choosing your class for that level. E.g., a gnome Ranger 2 can take Multiclassed (rogue) at level 3 to become Ranger 2 / Rogue 1 (2).

Ah, ok. That works.

Duke of URL
2010-09-07, 06:55 AM
Errata updated, see post #1.

FyreByrd
2010-09-07, 06:58 AM
And... the book form (http://victoriouspress.com/forum/download/file.php?id=217) of the documents, as promised and noted above.

Thank-you...will get to reading it now!!

Duke of URL
2010-09-09, 08:15 AM
Another errata update. This one clears up issues using obsolete spells or spell names in the magic items section, as well as changes the wording for PrCs that advance spellcasting to be more explicit and consistent, as well as other minor changes.

Gravitron5000
2010-09-09, 01:15 PM
Page 61 of the players guide in the section regarding Champion Auras, the Preserver's aura is specified as affecting the Paladin ... I assume that's a typo :smallsmile:

Duke of URL
2010-09-09, 02:50 PM
Page 61 of the players guide in the section regarding Champion Auras, the Preserver's aura is specified as affecting the Paladin ... I assume that's a typo :smallsmile:

Yes, that would be a typo, thanks!

Anyone want to try doing some character builds to take advantage of the new multiclassing system?

Violet Octopus
2010-09-16, 06:16 AM
Haven't done more than skim through the pdfs yet, but reading through the races I didn't notice any obvious changes. Any reason why you opted not to improve them, either in terms of balancing against human or to make them more mechanically relevant/flavourful beyond low-levels?

Duke of URL
2010-09-16, 08:11 AM
To be honest, it really wasn't a high priority for us, compared to other systematic changes. Probably the biggest changes to the "basic" races are making half-elves and, to a lesser extent, half-orcs a little more on-par with the others; we also included a few new subraces. The more significant changes are with respect to monstrous races (racial HD, LA), allowing them to be more playable.

As odd as it may seem, the underlying 3.x mechanic doesn't place a lot of emphasis on races (at least the ECL 1 races) -- they provide benefits and drawbacks, but relatively little compared to what classes provide, especially at mid- to high-levels. Races can be extremely important for "fluff" consideration (racial requirements/restrictions on classes, feats, etc.), but these are generally removed from the Boundless Horizons core mechanic because those are setting constraints, and should be added as needed for a specific campaign/setting, not dictated by the core rules.

Draz74
2010-09-16, 10:52 AM
Anyone want to try doing some character builds to take advantage of the new multiclassing system?

Sorry, I would, but Real Life is very busy.

Duke of URL
2010-09-21, 07:00 AM
Just added: a supplement to Boundless Horizons called Invocation Magic, which (as the name suggests) focuses on invokers and invocations.

Duke of URL
2010-09-28, 06:20 AM
Minor errata updates (error in Champion entry noted above and corrections to the Rakshasa bestiary entry).

jebob
2010-11-02, 04:43 PM
I notice you used Rich Burlew's Diplomacy system (This old rule).

Duke of URL
2010-11-02, 06:30 PM
I notice you used Rich Burlew's Diplomacy system (This old rule).

Why reinvent the wheel? It's a good system (and credited in the legal section).

Tyndmyr
2010-11-02, 09:26 PM
Haven't done more than skim through the pdfs yet, but reading through the races I didn't notice any obvious changes. Any reason why you opted not to improve them, either in terms of balancing against human or to make them more mechanically relevant/flavourful beyond low-levels?

TBH, human is still the best choice of the races. In addition to the already well known advantages of human, the favored race(any) translates to an additional free multiclassed(any) feat, so you can easily stack the benefits of multiple classes together.

jebob
2010-11-06, 03:54 PM
How do monster skills work in the new system? I can find their skill points, but what are their favoured skills?

On page 334, the table for the CR of skeletons uses the old system for CRs.
Also: why does the kobold zombie (pg 381) have a smaller AB when using full attack?

Duke of URL
2010-11-07, 01:45 PM
How do monster skills work in the new system? I can find their skill points, but what are their favoured skills?

As in core 3.5 -- any skill listed that has a modifier due not solely to racial bonuses and feats is a class skill for racial HD.


On page 334, the table for the CR of skeletons uses the old system for CRs.

Good catch. The examples were correctly updated, but the actual reference table was missed.


Also: why does the kobold zombie (pg 381) have a smaller AB when using full attack?

Looks like a miscalculation. The attack bonus should be +1 melee or +2 ranged, just as for the standard action attack.

Duke of URL
2010-11-10, 09:03 AM
TBH, human is still the best choice of the races. In addition to the already well known advantages of human, the favored race(any) translates to an additional free multiclassed(any) feat, so you can easily stack the benefits of multiple classes together.

Humans are a bit OP, aren't they? What do you think about eliminating their racial bonus feat and instead allowing them to make one cross-class skill a class skill for each of their classes? It still emphasizes the human "versatility" without being quite as overpowering (and can be quite useful for PrC requirements...)

jebob
2010-11-16, 02:36 PM
Possibly, but they already get a bonus skill point which can be used to upgrade a foreign skill to a familiar one.
On page 146 of the magic guide, Table: Melee Weapon Special Abilities only goes up to 99 for minor melee weapons.

I hope you don't mind me picking up typos.

Tyndmyr
2010-11-16, 03:09 PM
Yes, that would be a typo, thanks!

Anyone want to try doing some character builds to take advantage of the new multiclassing system?

*cough* Any mystic theurge build.

Consider a generic wizard 3/cleric 3/mystic theurge 6.

He gains the class features of wizard 4, cleric 4, and MT 9.

Therefore, he actually casts as a level 13 wizard and a level 13 cleric, while at level 12.

Also, note that blooded is potentially exploitable. You get benefits before paying the price. Thus, like my character in the playtest campaign you're running, you have characters that have no tradeoff whatsoever for the additional power gained. Sure, this may fix itself eventually...but what about one shots, or campaigns that will never make it to the level where balance is restored?

Duke of URL
2010-11-16, 03:36 PM
*cough* Any mystic theurge build.

Consider a generic wizard 3/cleric 3/mystic theurge 6.

He gains the class features of wizard 4, cleric 4, and MT 9.

Therefore, he actually casts as a level 13 wizard and a level 13 cleric, while at level 12.

That's not correct. He gains the class features of wizard 4, cleric 4, and MT 6, casting at 10th level for wizard and cleric, at character level 12. Prestige class feature level always equals actual level in the prestige class. This is explicitly stated.



Also, note that blooded is potentially exploitable. You get benefits before paying the price. Thus, like my character in the playtest campaign you're running, you have characters that have no tradeoff whatsoever for the additional power gained.


Your near-death team-mate who is annoyed that you can't cast a healing spell while raging might beg to differ.

Duke of URL
2010-12-08, 12:30 PM
On re-reading, my previous post might have come across as more defensive and snippy than I intended.

There was a previous question about why multiclassing requires a feat. Tyndmyr notes just the opposite, which is that a feat might not be enough of a cost. Our internal development discussions were more in line with Tyndmyr's view.

When working over this design and building sample characters, we believe we struck a good and workable balance, but our biggest open question has always been whether or not the changes make multiclassing too good, and especially at lower levels.

The character in question is a Human Cleric 6 (7) / Barbarian 1 (2) / Fighter 1 (2) [ECL 8]. Since Humans get a free Multiclassed feat, this cost one extra Multiclassed feat to add Fighter to the mix, which gives back two (Fighter) bonus feats, along with the Fighter class features (and appropriate Cleric and Barbarian class features, of course).

So the question becomes did this character, by multiclassing out of Cleric into Barbarian and Fighter, get too much benefit for the cost? And it's a good question. Personally, I don't think the benefits significantly outweigh the costs, but I'm open to other opinions as well.

It helps to break it down into a list of benefits and costs compared to a pure Cleric...

Costs

* Lose 1 caster level, including spell slots
* New spell levels delayed by 1 character level
* Level-based domain abilities (if any) reduced by 1 level
* Turn/rebuke DC reduced by 1/2 (currently 13 + CHA instead of 14 + CHA)
* Lower ranks in key class skills (Concentration, Knowledge, Spellcraft, etc.)
* Lower Will save
* 1 general feat
* Cannot cast while raging

Benefits

* Rage 1/encounter, uncontrolled
* +10' movement (not in heavy armor or with heavy load)
* Uncanny dodge
* Weapon aptitude
* Martial weapon proficiency
* Heavy armor proficiency
* Martial rank +1
* Increased ranks in non-Clerical skills (Climb, Swim, Tumble, Ride, etc.)
* Increased Fortitude and Reflex saves
* Endurance bonus feat
* 2 Fighter bonus feats

Now, for a combat-oriented cleric who intends to use spells mainly for out-of-combat buffing and healing, that's probably a pretty good set of tradeoffs to make. But is it strictly more "powerful" that a straight-up Cleric 8, or is it just a more optimal fit for a specific character concept? If it's the former, then we need to look at what we can to rebalance things; if it's the latter, then the multiclassing system is working as intended, which is to allow players to create specific character concepts without losing character power and/or having to create a seemingly endless series of custom base classes to fit particular concepts.