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View Full Version : [PF] Remaking the base statistics and magic



Rentaromon
2011-10-19, 08:06 PM
I have always felt that their were some strange aspects of the stat system in pathfinder and dnd. charisma and wisdom always seemed to be dump stats unless you needed them to cast off of, and some feats would simply never be worth taking a feat slot because of how situational they were. This is an attempt to fix this, its still a rough idea so a critique would be useful.




Strength: carry weight, bonus to hit and damage, str skills.
Dexterity: dodge bonus to ac, reflex saves, bonus to hit for light and ranged weapons. All light weapons can use dexterity for bonus to hit as if the user had finesse.
Constitution: HP, fort save.
Intelligence: determines mana(or PP), and overuse limit. Will save is now based on intelligence.
Training: wisdom skills are now based off training. Training now grants bonus skill points instead of intelligence. Skill points can now be used to purchase feats. 8 points grant a feat, you can spend only a part of the cost at a level but you don’t gain the feat until you have totally paid for the feat.
Charisma: bonus to cha skills. Wisdom casters now cast off of charisma. Class abilities and feats that require a wisdom score now use charisma.

Statistical Bonuses: high stats in a skill can grant additional abilities. At 20 and every 10 levels after that you gain the bonus again.
STR: increase your normal weapon size by 1. (as powerful build)
DEX: increase speed by 10.
Con: increase natural armor by 1.
INT: increase Caster level by 1 for determining save and spell statistics like damage and duration.
TRA: increase BaB by 1.
CHA: increase all skills by 1.

Feats: certain feats require less skill points to gain, the list will increase when i have more time to scale the feats.
Single weapon proficiency: 3
Exotic weapon proficiency: 5

New Magic:
MANA: each spell requires an amount of mana, increasing for more powerful spells. Casting spells works like psionic classes with intelligence adding mana instead of additional powers, intelligence is always used for extra mana. Mana for 1-9 casters as psion, 1-6 casters as psionic warrior, 1-4 casters as marksman. Spells known as normal for class.
Overuse: Additionally a caster can only use a certain amount of his mana before he must rest. 1-9 casters can use int mod.+caster level in mana before they must take a 1d4 turn break from casting. 1-6 casters can use int mod.+caster level before they must take a 1d6 break. 1-4 casters can use int mod./2+caster level before they must take a 1d6 break.

Rituals: at the cost of a large amount of time and concentration a caster, or group of casters can perform a spell that none of them could normally cast, or they can greatly increase the caster level of a spell, or even a combination of both. The limits of casting a spell as part of a ritual is the Combined Caster Level (CCL) and time.

Note: to cast the spell the knowledge of the spell must be in a ritual book or scroll or available to everyone casting the spell in some form, a scroll is used up as normal. And the caster level of the spell is the minimum level required to cast the spell, the caster level can be augmented.

Casting time can not be lowered below the normal time of the spell.

Lvl 1 spell: normal casting time, 1 CCL.
Lvl 2 spell: 30 seconds, 3 CCL.
Lvl 3 spell: 1 minute, 5 CCL.
Lvl 4 spell: 5 minutes, 7 CCL.
Lvl 5 spell: 30 minutes, 9 CCL. Requires 1 caster able to cast a lvl 2 spell.
Lvl 6 spell: 1 hour, 11 CCL. Requires 1 caster able to cast a lvl 3 spell.
Lvl 7 spell: 12 hours, 13 CCL. Requires 1 caster able to cast a lvl 4 spell.
Lvl 8 spell: 1 day, 15 CCL. Requires 1 caster able to cast a lvl 5 spell.
Lvl 9 spell: 1 week, 17 CCL. Requires 1 caster able to cast a lvl 6 spell.

By increasing the time by 2 levels you can lower the combined caster level required by 2. By increasing the combined caster level by 4 you can lower the time required by 1 level. By increasing the combined caster level by 2 or time by 1 level the caster level of the spell is increased by 1.

gkathellar
2011-10-19, 08:20 PM
This makes casters completely useless in combat. Good job, you've managed to reduce everyone with spells to the dreaded "NPC back at base" position.

Edit: Misread completely. Sorry about that.

Zagaroth
2011-10-19, 08:38 PM
hmmm, I think I like opening that ritual magic for high level spells idea. Matches a lot of fantasy feel from novels and stories, so not every ritual spell means epic level magic. Good job on that. :)

Still thinking over your stat changes.

Rentaromon
2011-10-19, 08:40 PM
This makes casters completely useless in combat. Good job, you've managed to reduce everyone with spells to the dreaded "NPC back at base" position.

Edit: Misread completely. Sorry about that.

ok.....so is something wrong i didn't notice?

Rentaromon
2011-10-19, 08:42 PM
hmmm, I think I like opening that ritual magic for high level spells idea. Matches a lot of fantasy feel from novels and stories, so not every ritual spell means epic level magic. Good job on that. :)

Still thinking over your stat changes.

yes i felt rituals should even be useful for a small group of low level casters, and for larger groups to make epic effects. i feel i got the ritual thing down well, surprisingly.

take all the time you want and feel free to point out major problems bluntly.

Zagaroth
2011-10-19, 08:47 PM
ok.....so is something wrong i didn't notice?

I think he skimmed and thought your ritual table was for all spell casting times :)

Rentaromon
2011-10-20, 12:43 PM
bump, any other opinions???

Tanuki Tales
2011-10-20, 12:59 PM
Who honestly dumps Wisdom unless they have a ridiculously good Con score (and is playing 3.PF, not just PF) or a really good Intelligence score/skills per level?

That's just screaming for the DM to screw you over with Perception checks and Will saves.

Now, just looking at your changes to statistics...they looked borked unless you're really rewriting the system from the ground up:

Strength: The higher your strength, the larger the weapon you can carry? So if you go into amping up your strength score to insane levels you'll eventually be allowed to swing around skyscrapers?

Dexterity: So having a higher dexterity gives you not only the normal benefits but now you get it as a second time to AC as a dodge bonus, basically lowering the usefulness of flanking or invisibility or feinting or what have you? The speed increase is meh because speed doesn't matter in combat.

Constitution: No gripes with this, but I don't think that it translating as Natural Armor is the right direction. Maybe DR 1/-.

Intelligence: Seeing as you didn't actually change the borkedness of magic too much as far as I can see, this is just the most broken of your statistics. So the Wizard now can ramp up their spells by just pumping their main stat instead of needing items and prcs and feats and actual work?

And what does being smart have to do with having good will power?

Training: So... Are you going to be nerfing feats into the ground so that they're not more insanely good than they were in 3.5 or Pathfinder?

And skills too?

Because if you're going to give characters a glut of skill points, it can really throw everything out of whack.

And it's never a good idea to give free BaB increases. That's just screaming for shenanigans. Early PrC entry, uber gishes, etc....


Charisma: So Clerics and Druids are now meant to be party faces like the Sorcerer? Tying Charisma to formerly Wis casting just feels like its corrupting and ignoring the fluff of most of those classes.

And what do you mean by increasing the skills by 1? Do all skills get a +1 bonus or is their cap increased?



TL;DR: You need to rewrite the entirety of d20 from the ground up if you want this all to work and not create something even more unbalanced than 3.5 or Pathfinder was.

Chaos_Laicosin
2011-10-20, 07:32 PM
Wisdom and Charisma are really only dump stats if you are power gaming.

A true role playing adventure would have a charismatic leader type (sorcerer, bard, paladin, or possibly rogue) to get extra reward pay, sway people to your cause, make friends in high places, etc. There would also be a wilderness type (ranger, barbarian, druid) using intuitive knowledge (wisdom) to track enemies, sway animals, help the party survive on the road, etc. Someone learned to study ancient lore, examine enemies, craft useful items, etc. is also handy to have around. A party also needs a heavy hitter/tank (fighter, cleric, monk, barbarian, paladin) to act as a distraction during melee combat, haul the heavy gear, etc. Someone also has to do recon as well as ranged damage (ranger, rogue, spell casters).

Power gaming, on the other hand, is just run in and beat up the bad guys. Basically: Get XP, get better stats, kill bigger things. I have never seen a power gamer go bard as their starting class. I dislike DMing for power gamers because it gets really monotonous on my part. I try to add an open-ended story and it just ends up as me telling them when and what skill checks to make otherwise they will walk into a portcullis trap and be crushed or they won't be able to advance the story because they can't figure out how to bribe/bluff/diplomacy/disguise their way into an enemy fort.

*Sigh* But I digress from my rant...

Tanuki Tales
2011-10-20, 08:57 PM
Wisdom and Charisma are really only dump stats if you are power gaming.

A true role playing adventure would have a charismatic leader type (sorcerer, bard, paladin, or possibly rogue) to get extra reward pay, sway people to your cause, make friends in high places, etc. There would also be a wilderness type (ranger, barbarian, druid) using intuitive knowledge (wisdom) to track enemies, sway animals, help the party survive on the road, etc. Someone learned to study ancient lore, examine enemies, craft useful items, etc. is also handy to have around. A party also needs a heavy hitter/tank (fighter, cleric, monk, barbarian, paladin) to act as a distraction during melee combat, haul the heavy gear, etc. Someone also has to do recon as well as ranged damage (ranger, rogue, spell casters).

Power gaming, on the other hand, is just run in and beat up the bad guys. Basically: Get XP, get better stats, kill bigger things. I have never seen a power gamer go bard as their starting class. I dislike DMing for power gamers because it gets really monotonous on my part. I try to add an open-ended story and it just ends up as me telling them when and what skill checks to make otherwise they will walk into a portcullis trap and be crushed or they won't be able to advance the story because they can't figure out how to bribe/bluff/diplomacy/disguise their way into an enemy fort.

*Sigh* But I digress from my rant...

*cough* Stormwind Fallacy.

But this isn't the right thread or sub-forum for that line of discussion.