Rolling Back Flight

[Mendicant]

What would the consequences be if access to magical flight were pushed back a spell level? I've always hated how quickly so many skills become trivialized in 3.X, and possibly the biggest single offender on that count is Fly, along with fellow travelers like Levitate. I'm wondering how weird things would get if you just took those off the menu for a little while longer. You'd probably have to adjust some CR's upwards, and it'd push down the effective level cap on an e6 party, but for the base game, how much damage does it really do? Fly would still be a good use of a 4th-level slot if that's the earliest you got it.

ETA:
Off the top of my head, it seems like the class most harshly affected by this would be the sorcerer, since getting the ability to fly would eat up a really significant portion of his capabilities until ~12th or 13th level.

[Venger]

bad idea.

this does not hurt sorcerers at all. who it hurts is melee.

casters have many ways to fly starting midlvl, including allday buffs like overland flight. the party BSF sponges up magic usually in smaller doses with things like fly to affect aerial enemies.

pushing access back a level only makes it costlier for high-tier characters to help low-tier characters keep up, thus widening the gap between melee and casters, making this a bad houserule.

fly would absolutely not be a good use of a slot if it were a 4th, because you'd just use polymorph instead, which lets you fly and also use most of the monster's other useful superpowers.

why exactly would you want to impose this houserule? what are you looking to accomplish? you mention flight obviating skills. what exactly are you talking about? tumble? you still need to make checks to avoid AoOs. climb? no one uses that skill anyway.

[torrasque666]

climb? no one uses that skill anyway.
Exactly. No one uses it when the party caster can just cast Fly or Spider Climb on everybody who can't cast it themselves.

[Karl Aegis]

It already is a 4th level power for Psychoportation Psions and Air Mantle Ardents.

[Venger]

Exactly. No one uses it when the party caster can just cast Fly or Spider Climb on everybody who can't cast it themselves.

no, I said "no one uses that skill anyway" as in "even without taking spells into effect, no one cares about the climb skill."

skillmonkeys have a hard enough time maxing everything to stay relevant, they don't need some other random garbage thrown into the mix to make things harder for them. again, it penalizes the classes that need it least while leaving casters unaffected.

[Mendicant]

Just to clarify, I'm talking about theoretically kicking pretty much any flight-granting spell up a level, so that's going to include a lot more than just Fly specifically, and polymorph is already pretty broken, so addressing it is somewhat beyond the brief of this thread, though worth remembering, at least. I don't see a really compelling reason overland flight couldn't be made a group spell if you're pushing it up a level.

The skills I'm thinking about are climb, acrobatics/jump, and swim, with a lesser effect on ride and 3-3.5's tumble. Basically, any skill that opens up movement options is barely relevant by 8th-9th. There's no way I can see to keep those skills relevant forever, but I'd like to make the inflection point a bit higher.

I'm also a lot less worried about more situational spells like Spider Climb. Sure, a 2nd-level spell makes you extremely good at climbing stuff, but the opportunity cost is a lot higher than with levitate.

[Troacctid]

A lot of non-spell-based options for flight are balanced around the Fly/Overland Flight paradigm. Raptorans, for example, gain temporary flight at 5th level and permanent flight at 10th level, which is around the same level that Fly and Overland Flight come online, respectively. Totemists and Incarnates get all-day flight via chakra binds at 9th level, same as Overland Flight. Wild shape gives you flight at 5th level, as does the Shapeshift variant of the Druid. Warlocks and Dragonfire Adepts get their flight as a lesser invocation at 6th level. Etc.

[Venger]

Just to clarify, I'm talking about theoretically kicking pretty much any flight-granting spell up a level, so that's going to include a lot more than just Fly specifically, and polymorph is already pretty broken, so addressing it is somewhat beyond the brief of this thread, though worth remembering, at least.

I know that, but that makes the problems I've outlined worse, not better.

do you understand the points I've made? It's gonna make it a lot harder for people who can't fly by their own power to keep up, and they struggle enough already.

again, why do you want to do this? what are you trying to accomplish?

there are dozens of ways for people to fly without spells, so if this nerf were in place, they'd just do that instead.

you acknowledge that most monsters can fly after very low levels, which makes all encounters more difficult for melee characters, but boosting their CR won't make it any easier for melee characters to contribute if you forbid them from flying.

[Mendicant]

Venger:
Sorry, I edited an earlier post for too long.

I'm trying to keep movement skills relevant longer--climb, jump, and swim, and to a lesser extent tumble and ride (or their Pathfinder equivalents). The longer these skills are valuable, the longer characters with the skill points and ability scores to use them get out-of-combat utility from them, and actually contribute something with them. There is clearly an inflection point where the ability to fly is assumed; in my preferred world, flight would be an assumption no earlier than tenth, and an ahead of the curve benny from ~7th-9th.

I would prefer to do this as non-invasively as possible, working outward from core. This isn't a "finished" houserule so much as the theoretical starting point for a possible house rule.

If the main concern is making sure that non-spellcasters can fly at about the same level that spellcasters can, the obvious choice is to make sure that the vast majority of spells that grant flying are party-wide buffs, or can cover a couple people while the others use their winged boots or whatever. If the casters generally can't get flight without it being trivial to share the wealth, the imbalance is less of a problem. It certainly isn't uniquely worse than the status quo.

When you're talking about non-spell flight, what do you mean? If it's gear, I honestly don't care very much in re: how early flight comes online. Gear is available on a much more equal basis anyway, and extensive flight would still be a pretty expensive proposition at the levels I'm talking about. I do grant that on this end, it'd be hurting non-casters more, since they have more intense gear requirements. I think that's mitigated somewhat because
A: it is not a new problem.
B: if the expectations of both winning encounters and getting to those encounters don't assume you can fly before the casters can give that to everyone for free, not having flying boots isn't as much of a crisis anyway.

As for monsters, an encounter's worth of fly should push the CR up if they're below say, CR 9. If they rely on melee, push it up by 1 or 2, if they've got a good ranged option, 2 or 3. For every monster that you have to adjust this way, you'll have one whose CR is now suddenly more appropriate, because the PC's can't just hover over it and plink it to death.

[Extra Anchovies]

The issue is that even if climb/jump/swim are relevant for longer, they still become irrelevant eventually. Pushing back flight/water breathing/etc would only prolong the fate of those skills as eventually useless.

[Venger]

Venger:
Sorry, I edited an earlier post for too long.

I'm trying to keep movement skills relevant longer--climb, jump, and swim, and to a lesser extent tumble and ride (or their Pathfinder equivalents). The longer these skills are valuable, the longer characters with the skill points and ability scores to use them get out-of-combat utility from them, and actually contribute something with them. There is clearly an inflection point where the ability to fly is assumed; in my preferred world, flight would be an assumption no earlier than tenth, and an ahead of the curve benny from ~7th-9th.

ok.

why are you trying to do this?

forcing skillmonkeys to invest points into more stuff is penalizing them, not making them stronger.


I would prefer to do this as non-invasively as possible, working outward from core. This isn't a "finished" houserule so much as the theoretical starting point for a possible house rule.

oh, okay, so there's still time. I advise against this. are you playing 3.5 or pf? not that it'd change my advice, you just mentioned pf a couple of times.


If the main concern is making sure that non-spellcasters can fly at about the same level that spellcasters can, the obvious choice is to make sure that the vast majority of spells that grant flying are party-wide buffs, or can cover a couple people while the others use their winged boots or whatever. If the casters generally can't get flight without it being trivial to share the wealth, the imbalance is less of a problem. It certainly isn't uniquely worse than the status quo.

well, the system does very little to encourage this. a lot of good spells are personal only, like overland flight. the ones people use to fly, like fly are often touch so you can share them with party beatsticks.


When you're talking about non-spell flight, what do you mean? If it's gear, I honestly don't care very much in re: how early flight comes online. Gear is available on a much more equal basis anyway, and extensive flight would still be a pretty expensive proposition at the levels I'm talking about. I do grant that on this end, it'd be hurting non-casters more, since they have more intense gear requirements. I think that's mitigated somewhat because
A: it is not a new problem.
B: if the expectations of both winning encounters and getting to those encounters don't assume you can fly before the casters can give that to everyone for free, not having flying boots isn't as much of a crisis anyway.

I'm talking about a lot of stuff: templates, grafts, feats, infusions, soulmelds, items, etc.

gear is equally available, but casters do not need to spend money on it. melees do, because they don't have pells. it also takes money away from what they have to spend on weapons.

just because it's not a new problem doens't mean you should seek to make the gap between casters and melee wider.

I don't understand what you're saying in point B, there's too many negatives. can you rephrase please?


As for monsters, an encounter's worth of fly should push the CR up if they're below say, CR 9. If they rely on melee, push it up by 1 or 2, if they've got a good ranged option, 2 or 3. For every monster that you have to adjust this way, you'll have one whose CR is now suddenly more appropriate, because the PC's can't just hover over it and plink it to death.

as I said, nudging up the CR is irrelevant if the melees can't reach the enemies at all.


The issue is that even if climb/jump/swim are relevant for longer, they still become irrelevant eventually. Pushing back flight/water breathing/etc would only prolong the fate of those skills as eventually useless.

right. that penalizes skillmonkeys by making them buy garbage skills for several levels longer. that's bad, so don't do it.

[Hrugner]

Without removing flight, I don't think you're going to get much staying power out of those skills. You could crunch those skills together into a maneuvering skill so it maintained it's usefulness, but I can't say for sure how much that would help.

You'd be better off making anti-magic abilities more potent and accessible to both NPCs and PCs. That would be more likely to make mundane solutions useful as magic solutions wouldn't be as reliable.

[Mendicant]

The issue is that even if climb/jump/swim are relevant for longer, they still become irrelevant eventually. Pushing back flight/water breathing/etc would only prolong the fate of those skills as eventually useless.

Sure, which is a fundamental problem with skill monkeys period. Their core capability becomes worthless really quickly. Making their schtick valuable for longer increases the number of games and gaming sessions where they meaningfully contribute something the caster doesn't. I've played a lot of games that petered out before 10th anyway. If the game lasts from, say, 2nd to 9th level, the rogue and the fighter being the MVP's when certain obstacles show up for level 2 through 7 is a good thing.


ok.

why are you trying to do this?

forcing skillmonkeys to invest points into more stuff is penalizing them, not making them stronger.

Is it really? As the game progresses, the skill list gradually becomes a wasteland of useless skills. A class with a lot of ranks per level is not going to have a very difficult time keeping UMD and diplomacy level appropriate, and now they'll probably have a rank or two to spare on use rope and profession: bookbinder, too. Besides, it's not like you actually have to dump ranks into a skill every level just because it's still relevant. This isn't 4th edition; climb, swim, and jump/acrobatics have set DC's for the most part. You could remove flight from the game entirely and there'd still be diminishing returns on putting new ranks into climb.

Further, if you're penalizing the skillmonkey by making him do DC 20 climb checks at 6th level, your penalizing everyone. Since it's harder for the caster to trivialize the problem, the fact that he doesn't have a good climb skill actually means something, and if he didn't spend resources on spider climb, he's actually grateful there was a rogue or a ranger there to throw down a rope.


oh, okay, so there's still time. I advise against this. are you playing 3.5 or pf? not that it'd change my advice, you just mentioned pf a couple of times.

I'm currently DM'ing Pathfinder, with a lot of stuff houseruled back to 3.5. (Like combat feats.) This is not going to impact my current game in any way. You can calm down.


well, the system does very little to encourage this. a lot of good spells are personal only, like overland flight. the ones people use to fly, like fly are often touch so you can share them with party beatsticks.

Right. So make more spells like OF not personal only. Buffs which open up new areas of the game should be available to the whole team anyway.



I'm talking about a lot of stuff: templates, grafts, feats, infusions, soulmelds, items, etc.

Well, one step at a time. Deal with core and then maybe a couple major sourcebooks. If we're already talking about a houserule, I don't think it'd be that hard to get people willing to play with that houserule to talk about the graft or niche feat that lets them fly, and then maybe ask them hold off on it for a couple levels.


gear is equally available, but casters do not need to spend money on it. melees do, because they don't have pells. it also takes money away from what they have to spend on weapons.

just because it's not a new problem doens't mean you should seek to make the gap between casters and melee wider.

I don't think this makes the gap wider at all. Noncasters spend longer not needing flight gear, and they have more total wealth by the time they need it. Casters spend longer leaning on skillmonkeys to do a small handful of tasks (and frankly, a lot of non-skill monkey melees benefit here too, since they have the right abilities. If flight isn't personal only, by the time those casters can fly, they can still grant the flight to their allies and the gear issue isn't any more serious than it was before.


I don't understand what you're saying in point B, there's too many negatives. can you rephrase please?

as I said, nudging up the CR is irrelevant if the melees can't reach the enemies at all.

These things are related. Nudging up the CR means that you're nudging up the level at which you expect to encounter a flying monster that can stay out of reach of a non-flying melee indefinitely. It also nudges up the level where you can expect unclimbable pits and unleapable chasms. If you nudge a harpy's CR up by 3 because she's got a long range attack, her CR is 7 and she's a level-appropriate encounter for a party whose wizard just got fly, and her flight is even less of a problem than it would have been for a vanilla level 4 party. Once you're past level 10, fly is deep in the utility-only zone of the spell list regardless of the level bump, and the functional difference is pretty minimal.

This is obviously an oversimplification--that harpy is not going to be a CR 7 encounter without some more HD--but the problem is not that you've put stuff out of the melee's reach. If flight arrives two levels later, flying monsters are level appropriate two levels later. Meanwhile, the dire tiger might actually live up to its CR 8 sticker price.


right. that penalizes skillmonkeys by making them buy garbage skills for several levels longer. that's bad, so don't do it.

A:They are only garbage skills if the game goes past a certain level, at which point a skill monkey probably wasn't a great choice anyway, and the character playing him is due for a nice artifact sword. No unique harm. Meanwhile, if the game ended around 10th level, like so many do, climb was never a garbage skill, or was a garbage skill for such a short period of time that the total mileage still makes it a good investment.
B:The earlier investment isn't that harmful because it doesn't represent a significant opportunity cost--there are only so many skills available to a rogue that are useful at level 16 anyway, and the ranks she spent on swim have not meaningfully impacted her ability to keep UMD maxed out.
C: They don't need to spend ranks at every level. A ranger who gets good enough to take ten climbing DC 20 walls will be able to do that forever without further investment.

[Mendicant]

Without removing flight, I don't think you're going to get much staying power out of those skills. You could crunch those skills together into a maneuvering skill so it maintained it's usefulness, but I can't say for sure how much that would help.

You'd be better off making anti-magic abilities more potent and accessible to both NPCs and PCs. That would be more likely to make mundane solutions useful as magic solutions wouldn't be as reliable.

I don't like anti-magic as a go-to solution because I don't like regularly snatching my player's tricks away from them.

I'm resigned to higher-level play not really needing climb or jump; 3rd edition is functionally a couple of different games with the same core mechanics. I mainly want to slide 8th and 7th into the lower-tier game, since that still leaves more than half the game to the wacky world of mid to high-tier D&D.

[Karl Aegis]

Is there a situation that:

A) Doesn't split the party

or

B) Leads to something interesting on a failure

when using climb, swim or jump? If there isn't, you're just rolling for the sake of rolling. Extra rolls just slow down the game.

[Venger]

Is there a situation that:

A) Doesn't split the party

or

B) Leads to something interesting on a failure

when using climb, swim or jump? If there isn't, you're just rolling for the sake of rolling. Extra rolls just slow down the game.

yes, exactly.

[Hrugner]

I don't like anti-magic as a go-to solution because I don't like regularly snatching my player's tricks away from them.

I'm resigned to higher-level play not really needing climb or jump; 3rd edition is functionally a couple of different games with the same core mechanics. I mainly want to slide 8th and 7th into the lower-tier game, since that still leaves more than half the game to the wacky world of mid to high-tier D&D.

I sort of understand, but the mid game transition is essentially snatching away any non full caster's tricks from them. They can still do what they always did, but it lacks the scale, power or defensive ability of magic. In my opinion, the best way to make magic and mundane closer in power would be to give magic the same chance of being useless as mundane.

[Telok]

I got pretty decent results from a setting rule where flight magics were unstable. Essentially all non-mundane, non-artifact, effects that allowed someone to fly were capped at 1d6 minutes per caster level (rolled and tracked by the GM). All the wimpy "when this ends the caster floats gently to the ground" stuff was removed too. Not flying equals falling.

Everyone realized that this meant there was an in-setting trope that strategic magic flight was verboten and played along. The one guy who didn't understand wasn't competent enough to affect anything. If I do it again I'll cut it to something like 1d8 minutes per spell level or 1d6 minutes per two caster levels. And yes, it did affect shapechanging spells when those were used to fly.

Edit: Ah, pretty everyone also knows the tatical power of flight. The NPCs all had ranged weapons, anyone expecting to face casters usually packed nets or tanglefoot bolts, and casters almost always had a Dispel prepped each day.

[Red Fel]

I'm going to agree with Venger. Pushing back flight magic penalizes non-casters more than casters, and enemy engagements are the reason. Here's why. If the enemy is flying, in the default progression, the caster can use ranged attack spells or flight. As a rule, mundane ranged attacks are grossly inferior to magical ones; if the caster doesn't use flight spells to give the mundanes flight, they are limited to some rather ineffectual ranged attacks until and unless the caster brings the target down to earth.

By pushing back flight, and thus removing it, you place the mundanes in that position. The caster, however, still has the opportunity to use his magical abilities at range. He's still in the fight; removing flight has only particularly hurt the non-caster.

Climb and similar movement skills are not particularly relevant to this combat application. And given that combat comprises the majority of most games, this is the place where the divergence between caster and non-caster can be felt, particularly when you take this benefit away from non-casters by taking it away from casters.

[Eldaran]

A problem I see is if you have no one to cast flight on you, at the very least you can drink a potion of Fly and have the option of engaging otherwise unreachable enemies. Having Fly be a level 4 spells renders it ineligible for potions. Like others have said, this hurts non-casters more than anyone.

[jiriku]

Mendicant, this is a good idea, and I think you should run with it.

I know you're getting a lot of pushback on it, but I think there's something important that your critics are missing here: you're the DM. You're talking about delaying access to flight because you want PCs jumping and climbing for longer and you're not wild about turning every encounter into an aerial combat any sooner than you have to. Thus, there's no problem with flying monsters the PCs can't handle -- you're not going to use them. There's also no problem with polymorphs and teleports -- you're going to push them back a level too. And there's no problem with magical gear -- you decide which treasure shows up when. In a generic setting with a naive DM, there might be some balance issues here, but if you choose opponents who are appropriate to the movement capabilities of the PCs, there's no problem at all. Go for it.

Edit: Frankly, I think we fall into a weird sort of groupthink on this site where we say out of one side of the mouth that casters are too powerful, and then out of the other side that casters can't be nerfed because then they'd be unable to compensate for mundanes being weak by buffing them. An experienced DM builds encounters for the party he's gaming with -- shrinking the power band between the strongest and weakest character is GOOD, not bad, and makes encounter-building easier, not harder. You've got the right idea.

[Venger]

I know you're getting a lot of pushback on it, but I think there's something important that your critics are missing here: you're the DM.

if you're gonna say "groupthink," I'm gonna say "appeal to authority." him being the DM doesn't mean he's in any way infallible. he's aware of this, which is presumably why he asked for our advice.


You're talking about delaying access to flight because you want PCs jumping and climbing for longer and you're not wild about turning every encounter into an aerial combat any sooner than you have to. Thus, there's no problem with flying monsters the PCs can't handle -- you're not going to use them. There's also no problem with polymorphs and teleports -- you're going to push them back a level too. And there's no problem with magical gear -- you decide which treasure shows up when. In a generic setting with a naive DM, there might be some balance issues here, but if you choose opponents who are appropriate to the movement capabilities of the PCs, there's no problem at all. Go for it.

climbing doesn't make a flying enemy much easier for a melee character to reach most of the time. it's not like a harpy's going to politely hover next to a ladder so you can stab her in the cheek

if he's not using monsters that fly, then... there's no problem. if no one flies, then flight is obviously irrelevant. but he's not doing that. that's the problem. he said he's still going to use flying monsters.

sure, if he pushes polymorph back, that'd nerf casters too, but he said he wasn't doing that. that makes this nerf sort of a nonissue since casters will just fly through polymorph.

there are a ton of problems. that's what the thread's been this whole time.


Edit: Frankly, I think we fall into a weird sort of groupthink on this site where we say out of one side of the mouth that casters are too powerful, and then out of the other side that casters can't be nerfed because then they'd be unable to compensate for mundanes being weak by buffing them. An experienced DM builds encounters for the party he's gaming with -- shrinking the power band between the strongest and weakest character is GOOD, not bad, and makes encounter-building easier, not harder. You've got the right idea.

no one is saying casters can't be nerfed or are somehow sacrosanct. we are saying this specific nerf is more detrimental to melee than it is to casters for the reasons outlined above.

narrowing the gap is a good thing, but this isn't that. it's widening the gap. by making magical flight more expensive, it's harder to share with the party, which hurts characters who sponge up magic (melees)

[Ashtagon]

I once made the following changes to the fly spell:

speed as per normal land speed
duration ends if concentration ends
good maneuverability (not perfect)

My main issue with flight is that it fails to reflect traditional fantasy stories. In those, the heroes gain flight either through an item (broomstick, carpet, winged boots), a mount (pegasus, dragon), or polymorphing into a small harmless bird. The flight spell fails in that regard.

In a sense, it doesn't matter if the enemy can fly for melee heroes, if the enemy has no ranged weapons. Conversely, for a wizard, fly represents a "be out of range always" spell for enemy melee types.

Whether the party encounters flying monsters with ranged weapons is very much a DM-led decision. Any plan to delay fly spells must consider that.

[NichG]

If you apply the change 'push flight back a level' that should mean pushing all sources of flight back a level - Levitate, Polymorph, psionic abilities, Incarnum abilities, everything.

[Venger]

I once made the following changes to the fly spell:

speed as per normal land speed
duration ends if concentration ends
good maneuverability (not perfect)


It can ascend at half speed and descend at double speed, and its maneuverability is good


In a sense, it doesn't matter if the enemy can fly for melee heroes, if the enemy has no ranged weapons. Conversely, for a wizard, fly represents a "be out of range always" spell for enemy melee types.
what are you talking about? it absolutely matters. either the melee characters can participate in the game, or they sit around twiddling their thumbs. that's why them being able to fly is important.

[jiriku]

My main issue with flight is that it fails to reflect traditional fantasy stories. In those, the heroes gain flight either through an item (broomstick, carpet, winged boots), a mount (pegasus, dragon), or polymorphing into a small harmless bird. The flight spell fails in that regard.

You make a good point here -- wizardly flight has a lot more in common with comic book tropes than fantasy tropes. It fits better at higher levels (say 9-15) where PCs resemble superheroes more than fantasy heroes. A lot of those iconic magic items are overpriced, too, IMO. When the flight-granting spells are so low-level and common, and the flight-granting items are overpriced, players naturally tend to ignore the latter in favor of the former. You'd probably do your game a lot of good by increasing the level of flight and teleportation while holding the line or decreasing the cost of flight-granting items and exotic flying mounts.

[jiriku]

Venger, it doesn't matter because flying melee opponents must move adjacent to the nonflying melee PCs to attack -- thus exposing themselves to counterattack. This is why unarmed gargoyles are a better challenge than harpy archers for low-level PCs, for example.

[Ashtagon]

what are you talking about? it absolutely matters. either the melee characters can participate in the game, or they sit around twiddling their thumbs. that's why them being able to fly is important.

If the enemies' have flight but no ranged weapons, their only rational options are close to melee range or flee. It makes no sense at all for them to fly about outside of their own weapons' range while the party wizard plinks at them. They are enemies, not idiots.

[Honest Tiefling]

If you want the Climb and Swim skills to get some use, I'd steal from 4th edition. Wrap up Swim and Climb into a general Athletics skill (which also works well as a 'Smash stuff' skill, if you are so inclined), so skill monkeys don't have to spend as much to get some usage out of their skills. Also, combining other skills (I'm looking at you, Disable Device. What, is a lock not a device now?) will probably help more then nerfing a very powerful buff.

Also, let your players climb the monsters. People love that in my experience.

[Venger]

If you want the Climb and Swim skills to get some use, I'd steal from 4th edition. Wrap up Swim and Climb into a general Athletics skill (which also works well as a 'Smash stuff' skill, if you are so inclined), so skill monkeys don't have to spend as much to get some usage out of their skills. Also, combining other skills (I'm looking at you, Disable Device. What, is a lock not a device now?) will probably help more then nerfing a very powerful buff.

Also, let your players climb the monsters. People love that in my experience.

OP said something about pf, but seems to be using 3.5's skills.

that certainly takes care of the skillmonkey penalization problem I've mentioned. this way, while they are forced to max another skill, they get the point "back" by consolidation.

the example for DD is literally opening a lock. RAW, there is no reason to buy open lock ranks.

dude, climbing monsters is hilarious. there needs to be some kind of in-game incentive to doing so. check out dungeonscape's "hammer and piton" for inspiration if you want to incorporate this into the system like legolas executing the mumakil. as-is, you'd have to make a zillion checks, provoke a bunch of aoos, and be no better off than if you'd just stayed on the ground and poked his toenail til he died. if you're houseruling stuff to make melee feel more useful, this would certainly be a good place to start.

[Mendicant]

Is there a situation that:

A) Doesn't split the party

or

B) Leads to something interesting on a failure

when using climb, swim or jump? If there isn't, you're just rolling for the sake of rolling. Extra rolls just slow down the game.

There are two ways to make movement skills interesting and useful without rolling for the sake of rolling. The simplest are flat barriers that require an auto-succeed take 10. These should be used like a lower-tier version of Passwall, Teleport or Plane Shift--spells which give the party strategic flexibility in how they approach challenges without actually contributing much drama. Success in this case should lead to immediate or almost immediate success for the less physically capable specimens--you put in pitons, open a gate, whatever. This barely intrudes at all on playtime or flow, but it does let the party fighter contribute something outside of combat.

In combat, climb and acrobatics (FWIW, I'm using Pathfinder's skill list -fly, because screw the fly skill. I'm not making people invest skills into a movement type only available to them at another player's sufferage. I've referred to 3.5 skills like jump because I'd like this to be as broad a discussion as possible) should open up tactical options created by terrain. Two examples from my own game, which just hit 6th level and only has a (frequently absent) cleric in terms of full casters:

Last session, they had to fight their way through a graveyard built into several concentric, broken rings of low cliffs, with a wide staircase going through it. At the top of the hill is cleric who is the focal target of the encounter. Without flight, the terrain creates a layered challenge which affords skill-users the interesting choice of either trying to punch through the knot of enemies on the stairs or outflanking them and going after the cleric directly. With flight the encounter becomes a brawl in an empty football field, basically. As it turned out, the Ranger and Rogue stealthily took door number two and the rest of the party waited until the two were in position, then assaulted head-on to draw the cleric's defenders away from him.

Coming up either tomorrow or next session, the party is probably going to be fighting in the canopy of a forest with immense trees. The branches provide a bunch of snaky catwalks which require acrobatics to maneuver at any speed, and the foliage provides cover and concealment that makes ranged combat less effective. Climb lets the players maneuver between levels of the canopy, opening up new paths across the battlefield.

At too low of a level, the movement challenges in these encounters might be too difficult for even skillmonkeys to succeed at consistently enough, especially challenge 2. The fight would be either a slog or a swingy mess. By around 6th level though, characters who want to be acrobatic are really acrobatic, and can reliably auto succeed on most of these tasks. Getting into the thinner, higher branches is a higher-risk higher-reward proposition that the really talented can consider.

Or a wizard could just give everybody flight. The other side better have access to flight too then, or this is going to be an ugly rout. Expanding the level space where flight isn't available would expand the number of stories and encounters available by widening the band where a characters bonus to a movement skill is high and also useful.



Makes a very good point about ranged attacks.

This is a good point. Keep in mind though, if flight bumps a creature's CR anywhere from 1 to 3 points higher, there should be a very narrow range where the party is facing flying creatures without having access to flight itself. This doesn't perfectly solve the problem though, since the opportunity cost of casting flight relative to other ranged options has increased.



A problem I see is if you have no one to cast flight on you, at the very least you can drink a potion of Fly and have the option of engaging otherwise unreachable enemies. Having Fly be a level 4 spells renders it ineligible for potions. Like others have said, this hurts non-casters more than anyone.

This is a good point.


If you want the Climb and Swim skills to get some use, I'd steal from 4th edition. Wrap up Swim and Climb into a general Athletics skill (which also works well as a 'Smash stuff' skill, if you are so inclined), so skill monkeys don't have to spend as much to get some usage out of their skills. Also, combining other skills (I'm looking at you, Disable Device. What, is a lock not a device now?) will probably help more then nerfing a very powerful buff.

Also, let your players climb the monsters. People love that in my experience.

I considered it, but because I'm playing with Pathfinder's skill list, I feel like I've already got a pretty well condensed skill list--nobody weeps for you, use rope--too much skill consolidation and you cross back into hurting the skillmonkeys again. Climbing creatures sounds awesome, do you have any advice for making that a possibility? Like Venger says, looking at the available rules, it seems like it'd be a complicated mess. I'll have to scrounge around for "Hammer and Piton."

[Hrugner]

I think you'd be better off adding a grapple maneuver called "ride unwilling mount". Remove size modifiers, treat it like pinned with the exception that the creature can still move(unless you put it over it's encumberance) and you move with it. Maybe throw in a feat "improved ride unwilling mount" that lets you ride mounts of inappropriate size and shape and always land on top of the opponent when they fall out of the sky.

[Karl Aegis]

So failure to climb leads to the same encounter. That isn't very interesting.

I don't know if you know this, but I don't have time for the fighter to take off his pants every time I get to a small incline. Any advantage a fighter would have from high strength is canceled out by wearing armor. They aren't good at climbing.

[Venger]

So failure to climb leads to the same encounter. That isn't very interesting.

I don't know if you know this, but I don't have time for the fighter to take off his pants every time I get to a small incline. Any advantage a fighter would have from high strength is canceled out by wearing armor. They aren't good at climbing.

exactly. it penalizes the people who need it least.

[StreamOfTheSky]

The way I see it is: The main problem with pushing back flight magic further is that it would make the magic items based off those spells that allow the noncasters to keep up w/ the mages to become even more outrageously expensive.

I can understand not liking how easily available flight is. But on the other hand, if you went to the other extreme and everyone had it, it wouldn't be special anymore.

I think in general the game fails at the caster/martial paradigm. Martials should have slow/clumsy all day flight and the casters should have limited use tactical flight, if the two groups actually lived up to their "fight all day!" vs. "good at nova", it'd be that way. Instead...casters get both.


exactly. it penalizes the people who need it least.

You know, there are other martials in the world besides just fighters. We shouldn't decide things just based on what the generic dude in full plate wants. It's not the more thematic and balanced-designed (in terms of having social and combat roles) classes' fault if the full plate fighter sucks at climbing.

Monks, Rangers, and Rogues would do well if climbing were more useful. Paladins can just get a winged mount.

[Hrugner]

Heavy armor seems pretty much built for splitting the party. You can't sneak, climb, swim or even keep up at a run, hell you even suck at flying.

[nedz]

As other's have said — pushing back flying is only an issue if the DM makes it one. In a world where flight is delayed presumably the situations where it is required are delayed also ?

Most of the counter arguments would lead to the logical conclusion that everyone should have flight from level 1. Well you could have a game where everyone play Raptorians or similar I suppose ?

So this begs the question: at what level should flight be available. In the standard game this is level 5-6, though it tends to be common later than this anyway because of opportunity cost and the shortage of spell slots.

I don't think it's such a big deal to delay flight so long as the challenges presented reflect this. You could always just make your setting very windy, which would make it less useful anyway, as is the case on certain planes.

Incidental are you also going to nerf spells which boost climbing, or skills generally ?

[Mendicant]

So failure to climb leads to the same encounter. That isn't very interesting.

I don't know if you know this, but I don't have time for the fighter to take off his pants every time I get to a small incline. Any advantage a fighter would have from high strength is canceled out by wearing armor. They aren't good at climbing.

Oh whatever, mentioning the fighter was a throwaway comment and siezing on it like it means anything is obnoxious. Besides, in the context where I mentioned it the fighter is in a non-threat situation where he can take ten. He can take the gear off and put it back on in zero game time and everyone is fine. If you're unwilling to handwave his limitations in such a low-stakes situation he probably has much bigger problems anyway, being that he's a fighter and isn't very good at much of anything.

Personally, I'm playing a modified pathfinder and between MW agile breastplate, armor training, a high strength and the additional ranks per level I gave her, my party's fighter is just fine at climbing "small inclines."

In the combat application, choosing the climb option and failing leaves you out of position for a round, leaving the encounter's enemies still up differentrankly, the low DC barrier is interesting less because of the low probability of failure, but because you can't take the cleric with you. You can muscle up the path through the caster's minions, giving him more time to cast or escape, but keeping the party better able to cooperate and support each other directly. The flanking option has a different set of risks and rewardOh

SotS: What if you just didn't make the flying gear more expensive? Wands and scrolls would have to be, and potions would be out, but boots of flying or owlfeather armor could just stay the same price. At higher levels, I agree that flying shouldn't be special, or should at least be easy enough to come by that its not an undue burden, but I don't think that dynamic has to exist so early.

[Venger]

SotS: What if you just didn't make the flying gear more expensive? Wands and scrolls would have to be, and potions would be out, but boots of flying or owlfeather armor could just stay the same price. At higher levels, I agree that flying shouldn't be special, or should at least be easy enough to come by that its not an undue burden, but I don't think that dynamic has to exist so early.

if you want people to just fly by items/grafts/melds/etc instead of spells, then they'll just do that instead. if that's your goal... why bother with this at all? people won't use spells if they can just use items and they aren't specifically disallowed

[Mendicant]

Incidental are you also going to nerf spells which boost climbing, or skills generally ?

I mean, I'm not doing anything at all yet, this is more of a thinking out loud exercise at this point. To actually answer your question though: probably not. Spider climb, for instance, makes you good at climbing, but it is very situational, and (at the levels it'd be useful) represents a bigger opportunity cost than investing some ranks. Most skill boosting spells seem like that.

[Mendicant]

if you want people to just fly by items/grafts/melds/etc instead of spells, then they'll just do that instead. if that's your goal... why bother with this at all? people won't use spells if they can just use items and they aren't specifically disallowed

If flight doesn't come online as a spell until 7 or 8, and the challenges reflect that, anybody who wants to dump their 6th level WBL into a flying item is welcome to it.

[nedz]

I mean, I'm not doing anything at all yet, this is more of a thinking out loud exercise at this point. To actually answer your question though: probably not. Spider climb, for instance, makes you good at climbing, but it is very situational, and (at the levels it'd be useful) represents a bigger opportunity cost than investing some ranks. Most skill boosting spells seem like that.

It's just that a lot of spells trivialise skills.

[Mendicant]

It's just that a lot of spells trivialise skills.

Yeah, but a spell that only makes one skill irrelevant at a time is a lot less of an issue, and they don't alter the game as fundamentally as flight.

[Chronos]

Venger, are you seriously arguing that taking away spells hurts mundanes more than spellcasters? If that were true, then the way to fix balance would be to give casters more spells.

[Hrugner]

Venger, are you seriously arguing that taking away spells hurts mundanes more than spellcasters? If that were true, then the way to fix balance would be to give casters more spells.

Making more spells, and having each one do fewer things, is definitely one option. Right now the fly spell gives you good maneuverability, a good speed and lets you keep your dex bonus. Doing all those things makes it far better than mundane travel.

[Honest Tiefling]

Venger, are you seriously arguing that taking away spells hurts mundanes more than spellcasters? If that were true, then the way to fix balance would be to give casters more spells.

I think the point was that with the increase to spell level, the magical items to make mundanes be able to acquire such increase by a hefty amount, and increase the amount of resources the caster spends to make the mundane worthwhile, and could even make it so casting the spell to make the fighter be able to contribute might not be the best idea tactically. I mean, if you could end the combat or help Boris the Strong and Fair get in a few whacks, what option would YOU pick? Increasing the level of the spells that aids in making the mundanes useful, not feel overshadowed, and helps party cohesion is often a very bad idea. I don't even think any mundane would complain terribly if Haste became a 1st level spell for instance!

[Red Fel]

Venger, are you seriously arguing that taking away spells hurts mundanes more than spellcasters? If that were true, then the way to fix balance would be to give casters more spells.

If Venger isn't, I am. I'll say it explicitly.

Taking spells from spellcasters hurts mundanes. Here's why.

The entirety of D&D is built around spells. At higher levels, if your weapons are not magical, they are worthless. If you do not have magical items, your options are sorely limited. The most powerful effects, whether offensive or defensive, are magical. A party without magic will fail, absent a specific decision in the course of designing the campaign to make it low-magic.

Adding new spells doesn't make casters more powerful. They already have them in abundance. But removing any spell that helps mundanes as well as casters hurts mundanes more than it hurts casters. Casters have options. They have a plethora of options.

http://38.media.tumblr.com/1580c09dbd4f4aa9ae0210719e718ee7/tumblr_nkc2uz3OiW1qk7pano4_250.gif

Not now, El Guapo.

My point is, a mundane's options are limited by what a caster can do, while a caster always has alternatives. Remove one option, the caster can get by; the mundane, on the other hand, suffers.

That's the point. A caster's options are effectively NI; adding or subtracting one doesn't change them much. But a mundane's options are sorely limited, and removing even one hurts them tremendously.

[Venger]

Venger, are you seriously arguing that taking away spells hurts mundanes more than spellcasters? If that were true, then the way to fix balance would be to give casters more spells.

I'm saying taking away spells specifically used as a crutch to help mundanes hurts mundanes, since they are now forced to spend their WBL on some stuff to fly. they are already more item-dependent than casters, so that takes away money they could spend on weapon/armor enhancements or utility item like a cloak of displacement.


(stuff)

yeah, that's basically exactly the point I'm trying to convey. thanks.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Yes, you could keep the items the same price, if you're ok with not basing the price on the spell effect's level.



Adding new spells doesn't make casters more powerful. They already have them in abundance. But removing any spell that helps mundanes as well as casters hurts mundanes more than it hurts casters. Casters have options. They have a plethora of options.
My point is, a mundane's options are limited by what a caster can do, while a caster always has alternatives. Remove one option, the caster can get by; the mundane, on the other hand, suffers.

That's the point. A caster's options are effectively NI; adding or subtracting one doesn't change them much. But a mundane's options are sorely limited, and removing even one hurts them tremendously.

I couldn't disagree more strongly. And it's that attitude, "what's one more spell going to hurt?" repeated over and over and OVER and OVER that makes the power disparity as bad as it is. Even in "core," those spells didn't just magically appear. They're there as now-legacy sacred cows of the stupid bs that prior editions added to that "plethora" and became popular (usually because they were really strong...you think it's an accident that core is filled with broken spells?).

What matters is quality, not quantity, if that's what you're trying to say. I could do far more damage to the wizard's power level by banning (across core and all splats) 100 spells of my choosing than by banning 500 of them at random. But it absolutely does affect a caster's power if you add or remove spells, if those spells are at all useful.

Your argument only works when it's one spell and no more, now or in the future. It fails epically when regurgitated every time an issue is raised with a spell. The OP wasn't even talking about increasing the level cost of just one spell (and definitely not removing them entirely). He intended to increase ALL the flight-granting ones. Which when you include incidental options like Alter Self, is going to be a decent sized list.

[Honest Tiefling]

I think the argument also applies more when it is a buff spell that mundanes need in order to do anything in certain fights, like flight. Less so for the class of spells I will now dub 'Reality-Diddling' spells, which...Aren't as benefical to the party as a whole unless they wish to become the god-king's maid or something because he's fixed the problem of the world ending last week. Adding more of the latter is a bad, bad, bad, idea. Adding more of the former? Yeah, technically makes the wizard better, but in such a way that is more likely to increase the usefulness of mundanes, as well as their enjoyment in many cases.

Overall, I think what the spell does and how it affects the game is a big factor on if it mucks up balance to remove, or can be ditched without problem. Not spells in general, but what they do.

[Venger]

I think the argument also applies more when it is a buff spell that mundanes need in order to do anything in certain fights, like flight. Less so for the class of spells I will now dub 'Reality-Diddling' spells, which...Aren't as benefical to the party as a whole unless they wish to become the god-king's maid or something because he's fixed the problem of the world ending last week. Adding more of the latter is a bad, bad, bad, idea. Adding more of the former? Yeah, technically makes the wizard better, but in such a way that is more likely to increase the usefulness of mundanes, as well as their enjoyment in many cases.

Overall, I think what the spell does and how it affects the game is a big factor on if it mucks up balance to remove, or can be ditched without problem. Not spells in general, but what they do.

right, but no one's arguing that. no one in this thread is saying "casters need wish/miracle to support melee, they should have more spells in this vein"

what we're talking about is stuff like magic vestment or enlarge person. spells that basically only exist to give them a leg up.


Reality-Diddling
so that's why it's called "bend reality"

[Honest Tiefling]

right, but no one's arguing that. no one in this thread is saying "casters need wish/miracle to support melee, they should have more spells in this vein"

what we're talking about is stuff like magic vestment or enlarge person. spells that basically only exist to give them a leg up.

That was more in response to Stream of the Sky. Overall, giving Casters more spells is a typically bad idea, except in the case of buff spells, and some utility spells. There, you get to be an awesome caster without overshadowing Boris. It's not that it is one spell, it is what the spell IS and what it does in gameplay. Which is still why I would not recommend increasing the level of flight, because at that level it might be more efficient to go and whack the flying enemy yourself rather then relying on Boris to be useful because now he needs MORE investment from yourself to do his job. His ONLY job.

[Venger]

That was more in response to Stream of the Sky. Overall, giving Casters more spells is a typically bad idea, except in the case of buff spells, and some utility spells. There, you get to be an awesome caster without overshadowing Boris. It's not that it is one spell, it is what the spell IS and what it does in gameplay. Which is still why I would not recommend increasing the level of flight, because at that level it might be more efficient to go and whack the flying enemy yourself rather then relying on Boris to be useful because now he needs MORE investment from yourself to do his job. His ONLY job.

I know, I'm agreeing with you. I've been arguing against this idea from the beginning.

[Honest Tiefling]

Ah, sorry. Seemed like I didn't quite get something across...Again. Sometimes, I think I'm not good at communication. Other times, I know I'm not.

Through if you want skills to be relevant, maybe a wacky idea would be to have Acrobatics be relevant in controlling yourself? Like the Fly skill, but don't make it caster only and usable for a single type of spell and no other acrobatic feats.

Then again, I feel as if I just want a game of catapulting rogues into the sky to bounce around the head of a giant creature while the fighter climbs up their flank, preferably while hasted.

[jiriku]

If flight doesn't come online as a spell until 7 or 8, and the challenges reflect that, anybody who wants to dump their 6th level WBL into a flying item is welcome to it.

I wholeheartedly agree with you. When certain spells are overly powerful for their level, positioning them at a higher level puts them in their proper place. I play in a game where the party is currently at 10th level. Of 5 characters, two fly regularly but only recently gained the ability to do so, one can fly but is generally tanking and so chooses not to fly, and two others are completely unable to fly. The game runs fine. The DM doesn't much care for the complexity of aerial combat, so he chooses mostly combats in indoor and dungeon environments. Flying monsters appear occasionally in outdoor combats, but they are generally melee flyers and so getting to grips with them is rarely an issue. In other words, the DM builds encounters to challenge the players, and combat runs smoothly. He's not even having to work hard at it -- he's a busy guy and I know he doesn't spend much time on encounter prep. The game runs fine.

Now, our group doesn't fly much because of player and DM preference, but if our not-flying was a result of scarce access to flight resources, the effect would be exactly the same. The game would still run fine. I need to respectfully disagree with the consensus crowd here -- regardless of what abstract theorycrafting might seem to suggest, we've got a group that's gamed together from levels 1 to 10 with limited access to flight magic, mundane characters have had their day in the sun, and the DM hasn't had to kill himself holding it together. Now, can disparate access to flight cause problems? Sure, I bet we can imagine a group where it would. Can disparate access to flight be present without causing problems? Yes, we know for a fact that this occurs too.

Something I'd caution you about Mendicant is that flight access comes from diverse sources. There are warlock invocations, druid wild shape forms, racial feats, grafts, summoned monsters, animal companions, and other sources as well. You'll need to either come up with a simple blanket rule that affects everything at once (hard) or modify dozens of powers across dozens of sourcebooks (tedious and complicated). While I think your plan is good strategically, executing it tactically may prove a challenge.

[Honest Tiefling]

I don't know if that really fixes the problem. Your group does not need fly, as you do not encounter flying enemies. That doesn't make the skill more relevant, that means that encounters are geared to not need certain resources that most games do indeed demand. Flight can still be used to bypass climbing challenges or the like, because nothing has changed, these skills are annoying to take and often weaken skill-monkeys for bothering to do so, while casters zip around laughing at the puny mountain for thinking it was an obstacle.

Also, I don't think relying on Animal Companions, Warlock Invocations or Wildshape really helps the skill-monkeys as opposed to...Well, other casters. Warlocks aren't terribly powerful, I'll give you that, but they tend to be on the castery side of things regardless.

[jiriku]

I don't know if that really fixes the problem. Your group does not need fly, as you do not encounter flying enemies. That doesn't make the skill more relevant, that means that encounters are geared to not need certain resources that most games do indeed demand. Flight can still be used to bypass climbing challenges or the like, because nothing has changed, these skills are annoying to take and often weaken skill-monkeys for bothering to do so, while casters zip around laughing at the puny mountain for thinking it was an obstacle.

Also, I don't think relying on Animal Companions, Warlock Invocations or Wildshape really helps the skill-monkeys as opposed to...Well, other casters. Warlocks aren't terribly powerful, I'll give you that, but they tend to be on the castery side of things regardless.

Here's the point where I think we're talking past each other. It seems "the problem" is that mundanes can't fly while casters can. But if no one flies, "the problem" doesn't exist. You say that flight bypasses climbing challenges but the absence of flight doesn't make Climb more relevant. I'd respond that the absence of flight makes the Climb skill EXTREMELY relevant to a climbing challenge. You're concerned that "most games" demand flight. but the OP isn't trying to build rules that will function robustly in "most games." He wants rules that work in his game, which will be specifically geared to include challenges that are trivialized by flight but to exclude challenges that demand flight when flight is unavailable. You envision casters zipping around mountains -- but without access to the tools that obviate mountain-climbing, there is no zipping going on. Instead, the skills that are "annoying to take" because they will "weaken" a character are essential for success, and the character who has them gets his day in the sun.

Let me put it this way. Climb is a pistol. Flight is a gatling laser cannon. When no one has a gatling laser cannon and most make do with knives and clubs, the man with the gun is king.

[Honest Tiefling]

If you force a man with a gun to take a tennis racket because you have placed a tennis match challenge in front of him, you cannot blame him if he chooses to play the game with the Uzi instead and leave the annoying racket at home.

If climbing is so essential to success, all you've managed to force the Skill-Monkeys to take a skill that 1) they cannot fail at, else the game ends and 2) reduces their effectiveness in other tasks, and in 99% of cases, they didn't make a skill monkey to climb on stuff. They're probably not taking ranks in climbing because it isn't terribly useful in most cases and they have to weaken themselves to do it. So now you have the double punishment of no flight for mundanes AND you're expected to dump skill points into Climb else your progression won't continue. It is this type of situation that often leads to all Wizard parties in my experience.

[Mendicant]

The entirety of D&D is built around spells.
See, I think that's backwards. Not necessarily untrue, but backwards. Any game, and especially a cooperative game, should be built around the expected challenges, not expected capabilities. That's the core problem people keep raising with pushing back flight -- you need to be able to fly in order to contribute in certain challenges. Well, fine, but I would like to see those challenges pushed back two levels. Nobody with solid ranged options and flight should show up before 7th. Nobody with flight, good ranged weapons, and a way to attack while out of reach of arrows should show up before 10th. Dungeons and other adventure locations should be built in the same way--flight should never be a necessity below a certain level.

I also don't think you should need spells per se in order to get magic, but that's for a different thread.


Through if you want skills to be relevant, maybe a wacky idea would be to have Acrobatics be relevant in controlling yourself? Like the Fly skill, but don't make it caster only and usable for a single type of spell and no other acrobatic feats.

I've kicked this around in my head before too. A systemized way (not necessarily the skill system) to make a lot of buffs strictly better if they're cast on a "mundane" would really improve intraparty dynamics even if it didn't truly address the core balance. Some buffs obviously already work like this--enlarge person is something you cast on the beatstick--but I think you could expand the ambit of buffs that work this way quite a bit. It's not much of a stretch to imagine martial types with a lot of body awareness being better at throwing their weight around once they've been given wings or been turned into a bear. I've never actually sat down and tried to work out a system or edit the 1.5 billion spells though.

[Honest Tiefling]

Perhaps address the problem you see with your players and see if they'd be willing to cooperate, in that if they are interested in a certain option that falls within certain parameters, they bring it up with you? I mean, why bother with the warlock if you have no warlocks? If someone is interested in Polymorphing, get them on board and have them bring potential spells they'd like to take next level to you so you have far less work to do.

[jiriku]

If climbing is so essential to success, all you've managed to force the Skill-Monkeys to take a skill that 1) they cannot fail at, else the game ends and 2) reduces their effectiveness in other tasks, and in 99% of cases, they didn't make a skill monkey to climb on stuff. They're probably not taking ranks in climbing because it isn't terribly useful in most cases and they have to weaken themselves to do it. So now you have the double punishment of no flight for mundanes AND you're expected to dump skill points into Climb else your progression won't continue. It is this type of situation that often leads to all Wizard parties in my experience.

Your point is valid, but if you accept a number of assumptions. What if those assumptions aren't true?

Counterpoint: what if being able to maneuver freely increased your effectiveness, rather than weakening you? What if climbing was terribly useful in many cases? What if failing a Climb check didn't end the game? What if progression continued just fine without Climb, but characters who could climb well received regular, tangible benefits? This is not me making stuff up. This is exactly what the OP says he intends to do.

[Venger]

If you force a man with a gun to take a tennis racket because you have placed a tennis match challenge in front of him, you cannot blame him if he chooses to play the game with the Uzi instead and leave the annoying racket at home.

If climbing is so essential to success, all you've managed to force the Skill-Monkeys to take a skill that 1) they cannot fail at, else the game ends and 2) reduces their effectiveness in other tasks, and in 99% of cases, they didn't make a skill monkey to climb on stuff. They're probably not taking ranks in climbing because it isn't terribly useful in most cases and they have to weaken themselves to do it. So now you have the double punishment of no flight for mundanes AND you're expected to dump skill points into Climb else your progression won't continue. It is this type of situation that often leads to all Wizard parties in my experience.

let's uh... stop with the metaphors, they never help anything. we'll just go back and forth constructing more and more elaborate ones and forget what we're talking about.

right, exactly. if you make gameplay untenable for mundanes, no one is going to want to play them. so if your goal is to watch people roll climb checks, you're going to be sorely disappointed.


See, I think that's backwards. Not necessarily untrue, but backwards. Any game, and especially a cooperative game, should be built around the expected challenges, not expected capabilities. That's the core problem people keep raising with pushing back flight -- you need to be able to fly in order to contribute in certain challenges. Well, fine, but I would like to see those challenges pushed back two levels. Nobody with solid ranged options and flight should show up before 7th. Nobody with flight, good ranged weapons, and a way to attack while out of reach of arrows should show up before 10th. Dungeons and other adventure locations should be built in the same way--flight should never be a necessity below a certain level.

we're all in agreement about this. what we're trying to impress upon you is that it's really really hard to find very many monsters like that straight through 7th level and it will likely be a lot more effort than you think.


I also don't think you should need spells per se in order to get magic, but that's for a different thread.
what does this mean? are you talking about ToB?




I've kicked this around in my head before too. A systemized way (not necessarily the skill system) to make a lot of buffs strictly better if they're cast on a "mundane" would really improve intraparty dynamics even if it didn't truly address the core balance. Some buffs obviously already work like this--enlarge person is something you cast on the beatstick--but I think you could expand the ambit of buffs that work this way quite a bit. It's not much of a stretch to imagine martial types with a lot of body awareness being better at throwing their weight around once they've been given wings or been turned into a bear. I've never actually sat down and tried to work out a system or edit the 1.5 billion spells though.
what are you saying here? like, have a mundane character reap some more stat bonuses from enlarge person? that's a fine idea, but it will necessitate going through every single one of the ~5000 printed spells and trying to rebalance each one which will... take some time.

[StreamOfTheSky]

I think the argument also applies more when it is a buff spell that mundanes need in order to do anything in certain fights, like flight. Less so for the class of spells I will now dub 'Reality-Diddling' spells, which...Aren't as benefical to the party as a whole unless they wish to become the god-king's maid or something because he's fixed the problem of the world ending last week. Adding more of the latter is a bad, bad, bad, idea. Adding more of the former? Yeah, technically makes the wizard better, but in such a way that is more likely to increase the usefulness of mundanes, as well as their enjoyment in many cases.

Overall, I think what the spell does and how it affects the game is a big factor on if it mucks up balance to remove, or can be ditched without problem. Not spells in general, but what they do.

That I agree with. Buffs that can be used on others, and potentially synergize with them better than the wizard, are totally fine. It's (part of) the reason I always ban Alter Self and Shapechange but often allow Polymorph and Polymorph Any Objects, with some restrictions.
I think almost all buffs should be able to be cast on others, and the idea that "self only" makes a spell lower level needs to die quickly.

But any other spells, like save or die/suck/lose, solve-the-plot divinations, summons/pets/mentally-dominated-slaves that do the job of the mundanes, etc...? Those can have a hatchet taken to them for all I care. Actually, I do care, and will some day do an exhaustive nerfing of the core spells...

[jiriku]

what we're trying to impress upon you is that it's really really hard to find very many monsters like that straight through 7th level and it will likely be a lot more effort than you think.

Mmmm. Only 5% of the monsters of CR 10 or lower in MM1 are strong ranged flyers. I just counted them. Add to that the ability to customize the other 95% with templates, hit die advancement, and class levels, and I really don't see where you're coming from.

[Venger]

That I agree with. Buffs that can be used on others, and potentially synergize with them better than the wizard, are totally fine. It's (part of) the reason I always ban Alter Self and Shapechange but often allow Polymorph and Polymorph Any Objects, with some restrictions.
I think almost all buffs should be able to be cast on others, and the idea that "self only" makes a spell lower level needs to die quickly.

But any other spells, like save or die/suck/lose, solve-the-plot divinations, summons/pets/mentally-dominated-slaves that do the job of the mundanes, etc...? Those can have a hatchet taken to them for all I care. Actually, I do care, and will some day do an exhaustive nerfing of the core spells...
I agree with this philosophy. I really dislike how many of the best spells are personal only so you can't share them with your pals.

yeah, SoD are not fun. either they kill you or they make you stop playing the game.

if you do this, I'd love to see it (tried rephrasing that a million times, but I can't make it sound non-combative. I mean it as it's stated though, not like a 'I'd like to see you try')

[Honest Tiefling]

Your point is valid, but if you accept a number of assumptions. What if those assumptions aren't true?

Counterpoint: what if being able to maneuver freely increased your effectiveness, rather than weakening you? What if climbing was terribly useful in many cases? What if failing a Climb check didn't end the game? What if progression continued just fine without Climb, but characters who could climb well received regular, tangible benefits? This is not me making stuff up. This is exactly what the OP says he intends to do.

I see the OP wanting to make these skills useful, but not a lot about how they want to make a climbing focused game. I also don't see how it is particularly feasible for an RPG to have climbing challenges give regular prizes for those who have invested in climb make sense with the world. I cannot think of many situations where that is going to happen, outside of robbery. A climbing focused game would be rather nifty, I admit, but probably really hard to pull off. Not to mention, really dull for everyone else.

And taking ranks in climbs typically weakens characters, because they do not have infinite Skill Points and are not as versatile as spell casters. That's less ranks for UMD, Disable Device, Search, Spot, Listen, Sense Motive, Move Silently, Tumble, and Hide. Most of which are getting to get far more usage then climbing things and some screw over the party if he does not take them.

Also, gimme gimme gimme a list of spells to ban/change for 3.5 or Pathfinder. I think a DM for a group (that I was NOT a part of, but knew a few of the players) got annoyed with the party magus got bored of the dungeon, got the party to buff him up and then fought the entire rest of the dungeon by himself just to get it over with.

[Venger]

I see the OP wanting to make these skills useful, but not a lot about how they want to make a climbing focused game. I also don't see how it is particularly feasible for an RPG to have climbing challenges give regular prizes for those who have invested in climb make sense with the world. I cannot think of many situations where that is going to happen, outside of robbery. A climbing focused game would be rather nifty, I admit, but probably really hard to pull off. Not to mention, really dull for everyone else.
that's because it's not feasible (in 3.5 anyway) what's gonna happen, harpies will politely perch atop a rock wall while the mundanes crawl up to take a jab at them?


And taking ranks in climbs typically weakens characters, because they do not have infinite Skill Points and are not as versatile as spell casters. That's less ranks for UMD, Disable Device, Search, Spot, Listen, Sense Motive, Move Silently, Tumble, and Hide. Most of which are getting to get far more usage then climbing things and some screw over the party if he does not take them.
yes, and skillmonkeys have to max like a zillion things, they don't need another tax.


Also, gimme gimme gimme a list of spells to ban/change for 3.5 or Pathfinder. I think a DM for a group (that I was NOT a part of, but knew a few of the players) got annoyed with the party magus got bored of the dungeon, got the party to buff him up and then fought the entire rest of the dungeon by himself just to get it over with.
you lost me. what are you talking about here?


Mmmm. Only 5% of the monsters of CR 10 or lower in MM1 are strong ranged flyers. I just counted them. Add to that the ability to customize the other 95% with templates, hit die advancement, and class levels, and I really don't see where you're coming from.

I have no arguments with your math whatsoever, but OP never said he was playing core-only. there's a lot more monsters out there than that.

I never said that he couldn't do a game where his party only ever encounters earthbound foes. I just meant that it'd be something he'd always need to look out for if there was ever a generator or a module or anything. flight creeps up on you is all.

[Flickerdart]

There need to be some "other creature only" buffs. Wizards could still use them on familiars; druids on their companions; clerics could get summons but should probably be charitably focused anyway. I've always liked the "soft" implementation of this in Concentration duration buffs such as Control Body where the caster himself normally can't do anything while maintaining the spell, but it would be nice to be able to have multiples of these up.

It would really help if spells of this sort granted more options to the target. So the casters could spread their versatility around, less "bam, you got an extra attack" and more "bam, you now have a crazy vine arm, and whenever you get tired of hitting people with it you can end the spell to entangle everyone around you."

[Honest Tiefling]

you lost me. what are you talking about here?

Steam Of the Sky is talking about a massive ban list. I was providing a case of a caster going berserk and wrecking the plot to indicate why I desire such a list.

[jiriku]

I also don't see how it is particularly feasible for an RPG to have climbing challenges give regular prizes for those who have invested in climb make sense with the world. I cannot think of many situations where that is going to happen, outside of robbery. A climbing focused game would be rather nifty, I admit, but probably really hard to pull off.

I doubt you'd see a "climbing-focused" game, any more than regular d&d at levels 5-7 is considered a "flying-focused" game. But let's apply our imaginations.


Robbery is actually a pretty good idea. The trope could also be inverted -- use Climb to escape from a building without the loud noise and hit point damage normally associated with jumping out of a second-story window. Kidnappings and hostage rescues also fall into the same "one more option for how to get into or out of a building" scenario.
Buildings, trees, ravines, small cliffs, or very large boulders could be included in most battlefields. Perhaps ascending one takes one move action with a Climb check and two actions without Climb. Characters who attack from an elevation can receive the +1 bonus for higher ground and may be able to claim cover from foes at lower elevations. Foes may need to expend actions or make skill checks to be able to make melee attacks at all. Characters who are prone atop a height might be able to claim total cover from those below.
Pit traps on the battlefield could stick a character in a 10' hole. A character with ranks in Climb can more easily get out of the hole.
Chokepoints on the battlefield could be circumvented by characters with Climb, enabling group tactics like encirclement if some party members can climb.
Characters might begin on a higher level in combat but need Balance checks to avoid falling to a lower level. Those with ranks in Jump or Tumble would take less damage from the fall, and those with Climb would need to expend only one action to get back to the higher level, instead of two.



I came up with this stuff in two minutes. The key to all of these examples is that you don't NEED Climb in any of them, but having it is useful -- it enables you to use your actions more efficiently, grants you a bonus, or expands the number of options you have for dealing with a situation. I'm sure that any number of people who are better dungeon masters than me could sit down and brainstorm dozens more just like these, with no more than half an hour's effort. Am I making sense now? (Important question, it's getting late here and I am running mostly on coffee.)



And taking ranks in climbs typically weakens characters, because they do not have infinite Skill Points and are not as versatile as spell casters. That's less ranks for UMD, Disable Device, Search, Spot, Listen, Sense Motive, Move Silently, Tumble, and Hide.

This is only true if Climb is a bad option relative to those skills. What if it wasn't? I'll grant you, that's a tall order -- you've listed the five-star skills there, and most of those skills are useful over and over again. But I think the OP said he was using a consolidated skill system. Would an Athletics skill that encompassed Climb + Jump + Swim be worthwhile?

[Honest Tiefling]

Which is why I mentioned it a while ago. Climb by itself is annoying to take. A skill that can do Climb + Swim + Jump? Far more useful and in my opinion, actually tempting.

And the problem I see with your list is that they come up maybe...Once every encounter, but probably more like once every three encounters. If you used those tricks all of the time, well, know Boris the Strong and Fair is rendered useless because he's in a pit the entire fight. Others can be gotten around with far more necessary skills, like search for the pit traps. Running over to a tree in the midst of combat may not be the best idea because you are wasting actions you could be spending flanking or attacking. These are good ideas and would certainly lead to interesting encounters but I don't see any of them that could push out one of the more necessary skills out, given the lack of skill points a skill monkey actually has.

My point being, if you want Skill Monkeys to take these skills, really consider consolidating them to make it easier and less taxing, and then reward them for taking these skills.

[jiriku]

Which is why I mentioned it a while ago. Climb by itself is annoying to take. A skill that can do Climb + Swim + Jump? Far more useful and in my opinion, actually tempting.

My point being, if you want Skill Monkeys to take these skills, really consider consolidating them to make it easier and less taxing, and then reward them for taking these skills.

Ok, I could get behind that idea as well. Sorry, guess I overlooked your mention earlier -- the thread moved a lot while I was out this afternoon.

[Mendicant]

Something I'd caution you about Mendicant is that flight access comes from diverse sources. There are warlock invocations, druid wild shape forms, racial feats, grafts, summoned monsters, animal companions, and other sources as well. You'll need to either come up with a simple blanket rule that affects everything at once (hard) or modify dozens of powers across dozens of sourcebooks (tedious and complicated). While I think your plan is good strategically, executing it tactically may prove a challenge.


Yeah, that's no small part of why this whole conversation is largely theoretical. If I do ever get around to doing this, it won't happen in a vacuum. The first step, before any house rule, would be to run it by my players--"hey guys, I don't want flight to become a thing until somewhere around 8th level, for x reasons." If there's buy-in, I could start by rolling back access to the fly spell and the other spells that provide flight, and all the other sources of flight like the witch hex can be dealt with if they come up. Honestly, as a house rule, one way to avoid the most serious problems people have brought up would be to just make fly and its fellow travelers x-level spells that only become available at level x+1. You can't learn fly until 7th or 8th, but once you do, prep it in a 3rd level spell slot. It's a third-level spell, congratulations. This'd be an unwieldy kludge as a standardized rule for a lot of tables, but it wouldn't be too bad for just one where everybody knows the score.


Perhaps address the problem you see with your players and see if they'd be willing to cooperate, in that if they are interested in a certain option that falls within certain parameters, they bring it up with you? I mean, why bother with the warlock if you have no warlocks? If someone is interested in Polymorphing, get them on board and have them bring potential spells they'd like to take next level to you so you have far less work to do.

That's a good idea.


It is this type of situation that often leads to all Wizard parties in my experience.

See, if mountains are still expected to be a challenge at 6th level, which I frankly don't think is an unreasonable expectation design-wise for a game that owes so much of its DNA to Tolkien, Leiber, and Howard, then the party of wizards isn't zipping around laughing at anything because they don't know how to fly yet. If climb is necessary, not just for you but for everyone, your skill isn't a requirement for your advancement, it's a requirement for the party's advancement. An all-wizard party makes less sense there, not more, because a barbarian rock climber who can stick pitons in the cliff face is a much more efficient use of resources than 5 castings of spider climb. Maybe I've just been playing too long with Pathfinder's consolidated skill list, but I am not seeing the damage sticking a couple ranks in climb is supposedly doing to the skillmonkeys.

Also, you really don't see a lot of people who want to climb on stuff? I see it all the time, especially from new players who haven't become jaded by D&D not being super great at genre emulation. People want to be cliff-scaling barbarians, second-story cat burglers, and assassins who escape by bounding from rooftop to rooftop. They don't want to be somebody's attack dog who patiently waits to be let off the leash.

[jiriku]

People want to be cliff-scaling barbarians, second-story cat burglers, and assassins who escape by bounding from rooftop to rooftop. They don't want to be somebody's attack dog who patiently waits to be let off the leash.

My players bring these archetypes to the table ALL THE TIME, and I enjoy playing them as well. Heights are more thrilling when you have to worry about the consequences of a fall. Plus, "that time Bob's character fell off the roof and nearly died and brought the guards down on all of us" makes a great story that the players will love retelling for years, while "that time that Bob's character cast fly to get to the roof and had feather fall prepared just in case" gets forgotten right away.

[Honest Tiefling]

I'm a little confused at this point, I think you've played both 3.5 and Pathfinder. I'm a big fan of consolidated skill lists, so I still think the Pathfinder list is better in many ways. (OTHER then the lack of Forgery, that is) Are you playing a Pathfinder or a 3.5 game, because with Pathfinder skills I think a rogue could manage a bit more leeway with things (and if a rogue isn't a good enough skill money for this exercise, then I...Guess I cry in the corner.), but I am not entirely certain which game is being discussed here.

[Extra Anchovies]

(OTHER then the lack of Forgery, that is)

Linguistics is Forgery, Decipher Script, and Speak Language rolled into one.

[Venger]

Ok, I could get behind that idea as well. Sorry, guess I overlooked your mention earlier -- the thread moved a lot while I was out this afternoon.

glad we're all on the same page. :smallsmile:


See, if mountains are still expected to be a challenge at 6th level, which I frankly don't think is an unreasonable expectation design-wise for a game that owes so much of its DNA to Tolkien, Leiber, and Howard,


just because they're influenced by that aesthetic doesn't mean the mechanics are beholden to their narrative structures. just because frodo didn't drop the ring into the volcano from atop a giant eagle doesn't mean your players shouldn't be able to.


then the party of wizards isn't zipping around laughing at anything because they don't know how to fly yet. If climb is necessary, not just for you but for everyone, your skill isn't a requirement for your advancement, it's a requirement for the party's advancement. An all-wizard party makes less sense there, not more,

even if you make flight spells difficult to access, casters will bypass mundane obstacles in other ways (footsteps of the divine, spider climb, dimension


because a barbarian rock climber who can stick pitons in the cliff face is a much more efficient use of resources than 5 castings of spider climb. Maybe I've just been playing too long with Pathfinder's consolidated skill list, but I am not seeing the damage sticking a couple ranks in climb is supposedly doing to the skillmonkeys.

here's where I think the seed of our conflict stems from.

it's exactly like an example that's more well known and generally agreed upon.

by the same token of logic, you could say a rogue with open lock (assuming your dm is a grognard who won't let you use DD on locks) is a better use of resources than a wizard casting knock 5 times.

this isn't actually true. a wizard's (or other caster, whatever) spell slots are renewable resources. he gets new ones every day, and they can be whatever he likes: rope trick, baleful transposition, knock, etc.

a rogue's skill point are a nonrenewable resource. once he spends them at level-up, he's stuck with points in open lock (coming at the opportunity cost of points he could've spent on a good skill, like UMD) for life (barring psyref, doing the wight thing,or whatever, of course)

having a caster use knock to open some doors frees up more of the party's nonrenewable resources to spend on other stuff. that's a positive thing.

spiderclimb, like knock, is essentially CL-independent, so is a good wand. that means it won't even cost slots, just a few bucks.


I think that pf's skill list is clouding your judgement somewhat. the skills are a lot more fragmented in 3.5, the skill point system works differently (you need to buy them each level instead of autoleveling class skills) and you don't get that many more points to spread around:

acrobatics covers balance, tumble, jump and swim.

stealth is split up into hide/ms in 3.5, as is perception into spot/listen.

skillmonkeys need to put point into many of these (including dd/umd/knowledge/etc) so roping climb or whatever else in is making thing more difficult for them.



Also, you really don't see a lot of people who want to climb on stuff? I see it all the time, especially from new players who haven't become jaded by D&D not being super great at genre emulation. People want to be cliff-scaling barbarians, second-story cat burglers, and assassins who escape by bounding from rooftop to rooftop. They don't want to be somebody's attack dog who patiently waits to be let off the leash.
sure, if you want to put in some houserules letting people climb on the mumakil, more power to you. people love to do stuff like that. hammer and piton is a nice starting point to think about mechanics.

[jiriku]

glad we're all on the same page. :smallsmile:

Heh! Sorry, Venger, but I was agreeing on the topic of skill consolidation. :smallsmile: I still heartily believe that delaying access to flight is entirely practical and doable.



even if you make flight spells difficult to access, casters will bypass mundane obstacles in other ways (footsteps of the divine, spider climb, dimension

Since the OP is DM and is actively contemplating a broad system rewrite, why not challenge this assumption as well? What if, rather than merely delaying access to flight, he implements a houserule that all spells whose primary function is to bypass a skill check are learned at +1 level? This would sweep up jump, spider climb, dimension door, fly, knock etc etc etc. The result would be that the magic trivializing skill use becomes more expensive both to learn and to use (more gp and more valuable spell slots). Casters would be incentivized to ration such magic more carefully, and might prefer to lean more heavily on a skillful character. For example, rather than always preparing knock, a wizard might keep one scroll of knock handy and only use it if the party comes across a door that they absolutely can't bypass through lockpicking or brute force. Alternately, rather than learning both fly and suggestion, a caster might elect to learn only one and lean upon the party acrobat or bard in situations where the other spell would have been used.


by the same token of logic, you could say a rogue with open lock (assuming your dm is a grognard who won't let you use DD on locks) is a better use of resources than a wizard casting knock 5 times. this isn't actually true. spell slots are renewable resources. a rogue's skill point are a nonrenewable resource. spiderclimb, like knock, is essentially CL-independent, so is a good wand. that means it won't even cost slots, just a few bucks.

This is a false analogy. Yes, skill points are an allocated resource. Spell slots are not. But spells known are also an allocated resource, and gold spent purchasing spells or wands is also an allocated resource. Further, a renewable resource still needs to be managed -- hit points are a renewable resource, but if you could address a certain kind of challenge by sacrificing 95% of your hit points, you might consider carefully whether it was always a good idea to do so! Now, you could make an argument that the price of knowing how to cast knock is low relative to the price of knowing how to pick a lock, but that's a different argument entirely from the one that you're making. And if the price of knowing how to cast knock (or fly, or spell x, etc) goes up, there's a point at which the costs become competitive with one another -- cost is no reason to prefer one option over the other when choosing between the two.

[Venger]

Heh! Sorry, Venger, but I was agreeing on the topic of skill consolidation. :smallsmile: I still heartily believe that delaying access to flight is entirely practical and doable.
No, I know that's what you meant. No problem. I agree with you that consolidating skills is a good idea and helps skillmonkeys feel less sting if they can just buy acrobatics vs having to buy a bunch of different skills.




Since the OP is DM and is actively contemplating a broad system rewrite, why not challenge this assumption as well? What if, rather than merely delaying access to flight, he implements a houserule that all spells whose primary function is to bypass a skill check are learned at +1 level? This would sweep up jump, spider climb, dimension door, fly, knock etc etc etc. The result would be that the magic trivializing skill use becomes more expensive both to learn and to use (more gp and more valuable spell slots). Casters would be incentivized to ration such magic more carefully, and might prefer to lean more heavily on a skillful character. For example, rather than always preparing knock, a wizard might keep one scroll of knock handy and only use it if the party comes across a door that they absolutely can't bypass through lockpicking or brute force. Alternately, rather than learning both fly and suggestion, a caster might elect to learn only one and lean upon the party acrobat or bard in situations where the other spell would have been used.
since he says doing stuff beyond messing with flight spells is beyond the scope of what he's asking for, I'd interpreted that as him not wanting to rewrite the whole system, but I'm not 100% as to his intent either.

sure, they might ration it more carefully, but it's always gonna be cheaper than real actual skill points since those are not refreshed every day like slots are.




This is a false analogy. Yes, skill points are an allocated resource. Spell slots are not. But spells known are also an allocated resource, and gold spent purchasing spells or wands is also an allocated resource. Further, a renewable resource still needs to be managed -- hit points are a renewable resource, but if you could address a certain kind of challenge by sacrificing 95% of your hit points, you might consider carefully whether it was always a good idea to do so!

no, it's a perfect analogy. climb functions just like OL in that example. the wizard can expend a renewable resource (a slot) or the rogue can expend a nonrenewable resource (skills) how is it not the same when the skill's climb and not open lock?

if I knew I could win an encounter by sacrificing less than 100% of my hp? of course I would! there's no lasting penalties in a hp system, I'd be good as new after a couple lesser vigors. that's exactly what I'm saying about spells. if I knew I could bypass an encounter by casting knock, of course I'm gonna do it, especially if I wand it and it costs me the equivalent of a few gp.


Now, you could make an argument that the price of knowing how to cast knock is low relative to the price of knowing how to pick a lock, but that's a different argument entirely from the one that you're making. And if the price of knowing how to cast knock (or fly, or spell x, etc) goes up, there's a point at which the costs become competitive with one another -- cost is no reason to prefer one option over the other when choosing between the two.

since the hypothetical we've been using thus far is wizard, who can learn NI spells, there is no (nonrenewable) cost for learning the spell, like there would be if he were a sorcerer or something. that's exactly the argument I'm making, not a different one.

even if the caster were a sorcerer, he could just use a wand. money is a renewable resource because like xp, all you need to do to get more is kill some more people.

cost is how you choose between two options. you choose the one that' cheaper.

no matter how much gold it costs for a scroll to scribe something into your spellbook, it's not gonna be more expensive than skill points because you can't (normally) buy skill points.

[jiriku]

Every time I think I'm starting to see where you're coming from, you take a left turn and I'm wondering again. :smalltongue:

You said that gold is renewable, because, like xp, you can always get more of it. But skill points are obtained by gaining xp. I agree that the same activities that generate xp also tend generate gold and skill points. But this would mean that gold and xp are the same type of resource -- they are either both renewable or both nonrenewable. Gold is also convertible to skill points because you can spend it on items that enhance or bypass skill checks.

Further, you state that there are no lasting penalties for expending a renewable resource. This is not always true. For example, suppose you have one fly or one knock spell prepared. You burn this spell trivializing a skill challenge. Later that day, you defeat a villain who flees combat. A fly spell or knock spell would enable you to pursue him and capture or kill him. However, because you've expended the resource, the villain escapes. This is a lasting penalty. The specific example is not important, either -- we could postulate endless scenarios where a spellcaster who fails to carefully manage his highest level spell slots can find himself unable to succeed because he doesn't have the right tool for the job just when he needs it. In fact, d&d regularly presents challenges that require players to manage renewable resources, and offers long-lasting consequences for failing to do so.

I mean, I think we both agree on general principles. Skills should be roughly of equal value from one to the next, and should be meaningfully useful. However, some skills are inefficient and because of that a character who can cheaply use magic or gear to help with skill use can allocate his skill points more efficiently. Where we seem to differ is on the matter of whether the magic/gear has a meaningful cost at all. It seems to me that once you determine that everything has a price and you're willing to make skills more economical and spells less so, it's basic microeconomics to find a balance point where the tradeoffs involved are comparable or are weighted in favor of the skills.

[Honest Tiefling]

I dunno about you, but I never get experience for murdering rich but low level people. Almost as if my DM wanted to discourage random rampages in town or something...Nah.

I do have to wonder if after the consolidated skill list thing, if it doesn't come down to style. In a low WBL game, buying wands will be dang near impossible. Without gear for more spell slots or high OP giggle-worthy PO tricks, what few spell slots you have are a lot more valuable. I do have to wonder if Venger is more arguing in terms of a high PO game, with higher wealth and ways to generate it, should it not be more forthcoming, versus jiriku, who seems to be playing, and dare I say it, a more traditional dungeons and dragons game.

Oh, and please, please, please consider using Pathfinder Rogue and Fighter classes, even if you aren't going full Pathfinder. Having some extra class features will also make the Skill Money package a little more tempting without major rewrites.

[StreamOfTheSky]

I'm a little confused at this point, I think you've played both 3.5 and Pathfinder. I'm a big fan of consolidated skill lists, so I still think the Pathfinder list is better in many ways. (OTHER then the lack of Forgery, that is) Are you playing a Pathfinder or a 3.5 game, because with Pathfinder skills I think a rogue could manage a bit more leeway with things (and if a rogue isn't a good enough skill money for this exercise, then I...Guess I cry in the corner.), but I am not entirely certain which game is being discussed here.

PF created its own issues with the way they did skills. The TL;DR is rogues got screwed. The lengthy explanation is:

1. They made skills even more imbalanced if anything. Spot and Listen were already near must-have skills for anyone who had it in-class in 3E. PF combines them and adds in Search for good measure. Now everyone has max Perception. Always. But wait, what about if it's not a class skill...?
2. Which leads me to...removing the cross class ranks rules means everyone can max out the absolute best skills regardless of what their class actually gives them. So yes, literally everyone maxes Perception.
3. But, the +3 class bonus, you ask? Pfft, that's piddly ("homogenous" 4E at least gives a whole +5 separation for trained and untrained skills). Rogues being MAD means they'll be at least that much behind whatever class prioritize that stat. Plus, you can get the skill as a class skill via trait AND get a +1 on top of that, making you better than rogue.
4. Also, everyone can find all non-magical traps now with their maxed out SearchPerception and Detect Magic is infinite use, but enough with the nitty gritty of rogue-screwing, let's go back to #1 and 2. They really do tie together importantly. Since there's such disparity in the "tiers" of skills, and everyone can cherry pick the very best ones, having lots of skill points is near-meaningless. After the first 4-6, none of the remaining skills offer nearly as much (the amount of good skills narrows further if you dump an attribute and decide to pass on investing in skills using it -- except for Perception, even the Wis 5 Paladin maxes that).

EDIT: 2nd TL;DR. 3E Rogues were relevant due to niche protection. Most others just plain were not allowed to do stuff they could. You might think that's a terrible way to make a class appealing, and I won't argue with you. But, to TAKE AWAY that protection and give them basically nothing in return? You just made the class pointless.

[Honest Tiefling]

I said I liked the skill consolidation, not the other bits. I agree, having a class skill only equate to a +3 bonus gets...Meaningless, after a while. I wanted to try a house rule where that bonus went up with level, actually.

Some more skill boosting talents surely could help a scootch. I however, do not agree that rogues need niche protection in terms of detecting traps, since no one I have ever talked to has ever made a rogue to be a trap ***** unless they had a crush on another player. That shouldn't be their niche, their niche should be fun time stabby stabby agile combatant with some other skills that can be customized. Heck, if someone ELSE could find the dang magical traps, they could focus more on that cat burglar thing they have going on. I don't like niche protection at all, I like classes with some oomph to them that laugh in the face of niche protection because there are genuinely fun reasons to play them.

I don't think Pathfinder is perfect, but I think picking up some skill consolidations cannot hurt and are simple enough to do.

[jiriku]

I dunno about you, but I never get experience for murdering rich but low level people. Almost as if my DM wanted to discourage random rampages in town or something...Nah.

Your DM is kinder than mine. When I steal money from low-level people, the high-level opponents mysteriously have less treasure afterwards. :smalltongue:


I do have to wonder if after the consolidated skill list thing, if it doesn't come down to style. In a low WBL game, buying wands will be dang near impossible. Without gear for more spell slots or high OP giggle-worthy PO tricks, what few spell slots you have are a lot more valuable. I do have to wonder if Venger is more arguing in terms of a high PO game, with higher wealth and ways to generate it, should it not be more forthcoming, versus jiriku, who seems to be playing, and dare I say it, a more traditional dungeons and dragons game.

You know, that might be the source of the confusion. I guess for me, my gut response to the OP says "if he wants to delay flight, he's more comfortable with low-power, traditional, ground-based fantasy." In a setting with Magic Marts where WBL is a guideline or an afterthought, anything you can buy is fair game and you need every edge you can get to keep your character alive in combats against highly optimized foes. In that kind of environment, you want to hoard your skill points precisely because they're dribbled out so slowly compared to the firehose of gp rewards. It's precisely the environment where you'd be desperate to get flight as soon as possible and stingy about spending resources on anything that would eventually be replaced by flight.

[Mendicant]

Just to clear up a couple things: I do intend to slowly rewrite a lot of the system to suit my preferred playstyle, but that is a large, long-term project and includes a lot of things beyond what I'm looking for in this thread. Knowing what pushing back flight spells and class features like the witch's flight hex for two more levels would do in a vacuum is still useful to me, even if I would never do it, because it helps me anticipate problems and see places where the rules intersect in a way contrary to what I'm going for. I'm brainstorming at this point, and identifying all the possible pitfalls is super helpful.

I am playing Pathfinder, with some important modifications back towards 3.5 and a handful of fairly minor house rules. Those modifications do not include going back to the old skill list. I hated having to pay double to build a sneaky character when I was 15, and I have no intention of going back.

I'm using Pathfinder's broken up version of polymorph, fwiw, because I think it is one of the few definitive improvements Paizo made.

I am not playing core-only, and I build pretty much all of my encounters from scratch. I am not going to have any trouble finding enemies who don't fly from levels 4 to 8. I am living that reality right now, because I DM for a level 6 party with only one full caster.

I am not currently contemplating nerfing skill spells, for three reasons:

First, they don't alter the game as fundamentally as fly. Fly changes the game in a way that isn't matched even by a lot of higher-level spells--if I found myself in D&D world, I would rather know fly than a pretty big swathe of the fourth and even fifth level selection.


Second, those spells do not trivialize the skill list quite as badly as fly does. They duplicate things the climbers and swimmers of the party can do, but very often not in a good way. More in a "the rogue could have solved this problem for us, why didn't a prepare web?" way. Nobody is ever going to prepare jump as a 2nd level spell.


Third, keeping those skill spells at a lower level is valuable because it allows the party to stick together if it needs or wants to. If they're going to be a gang of daring second-story men, the wizard using spider climb to get to the same balcony the rogue and bard did with regular climb is not really a problem. He still sank a valuable resource into it, and maybe the heist taking more than 50 minutes means they have to go to plan B because he can't get down.

[Venger]

Every time I think I'm starting to see where you're coming from, you take a left turn and I'm wondering again. :smalltongue:

it's cool, man, don't worry about it. same here.


You said that gold is renewable, because, like xp, you can always get more of it. But skill points are obtained by gaining xp. I agree that the same activities that generate xp also tend generate gold and skill points. But this would mean that gold and xp are the same type of resource -- they are either both renewable or both nonrenewable. Gold is also convertible to skill points because you can spend it on items that enhance or bypass skill checks.
y'know, since you whipped out microeconomics, I'll rephrase, since we seem to be getting hung up on semantics:

gold and xp are fungible. skill points (again, barring weird tricks) are not. once you've got them, they're more or less set and you can't move them around.

I mean, you can do that in a generic game, but if OP wants to make everyone dependent on skillranks, I'm not sure how easy he'll make buying a +competence item.


Further, you state that there are no lasting penalties for expending a renewable resource. This is not always true. For example, suppose you have one fly or one knock spell prepared. You burn this spell trivializing a skill challenge. Later that day, you defeat a villain who flees combat. A fly spell or knock spell would enable you to pursue him and capture or kill him. However, because you've expended the resource, the villain escapes. This is a lasting penalty. The specific example is not important, either -- we could postulate endless scenarios where a spellcaster who fails to carefully manage his highest level spell slots can find himself unable to succeed because he doesn't have the right tool for the job just when he needs it. In fact, d&d regularly presents challenges that require players to manage renewable resources, and offers long-lasting consequences for failing to do so.
yeah, that makes sense.


I mean, I think we both agree on general principles. Skills should be roughly of equal value from one to the next, and should be meaningfully useful. However, some skills are inefficient and because of that a character who can cheaply use magic or gear to help with skill use can allocate his skill points more efficiently. Where we seem to differ is on the matter of whether the magic/gear has a meaningful cost at all. It seems to me that once you determine that everything has a price and you're willing to make skills more economical and spells less so, it's basic microeconomics to find a balance point where the tradeoffs involved are comparable or are weighted in favor of the skills.
yeah, I think so too.

obviously, it depends on how much pocketmoney your DM gives you.


I dunno about you, but I never get experience for murdering rich but low level people. Almost as if my DM wanted to discourage random rampages in town or something...Nah.
who said anything about that? I just said "people" as a catchall for monsters/golems/ppl with class levels/etc


I do have to wonder if after the consolidated skill list thing, if it doesn't come down to style. In a low WBL game, buying wands will be dang near impossible. Without gear for more spell slots or high OP giggle-worthy PO tricks, what few spell slots you have are a lot more valuable. I do have to wonder if Venger is more arguing in terms of a high PO game, with higher wealth and ways to generate it, should it not be more forthcoming, versus jiriku, who seems to be playing, and dare I say it, a more traditional dungeons and dragons game.

sure. if you don't have any money to buy things like wands or +competence items, and your DM prevents you from finding scrolls to put in your spellbook, of course you're gonna be forced to use naked skills.

huh? but I"m on your side. I haven't said anything about op tricks. just doing normal stuff. how'd you get high OP from that?

yeah, jiriku's philosophy seems more classical dungeoncrawl type thing than the sort of games I've played in.


Oh, and please, please, please consider using Pathfinder Rogue and Fighter classes, even if you aren't going full Pathfinder. Having some extra class features will also make the Skill Money package a little more tempting without major rewrites.
yeah, if you're doing an amalgam, giving the mundanes some new trinkets is a good idea.

[Honest Tiefling]

Consider making more spells buffable. Like Expeditious Retreat, sure, is one of the better spells anyway, but somehow, I like the idea of slapping this and Jump on the party rogue just to see how far he gets.

Also, I mean PO, as in, Practical Optimization, not that OP is a bad thing...Just I wonder if the ceiling is higher for certain parties then others. Nothing wrong with OP if everyone at the table is on board with it. Speaking of, what level of OP are we expecting here?

[jiriku]

gold and xp are fungible. skill points (again, barring weird tricks) are not.

Ok, I see what you mean by that.


yeah, jiriku's philosophy seems more classical dungeoncrawl type thing than the sort of games I've played in.

That's probably a fair assessment. I try to run very open-world sandbox games, but when I play, my DMs lean more heavily towards tactical games in low-magic settings. They're also slightly terrified of my optimization habits and in some cases have forbidden me from playing spellcasters. So I've got a lot of play experience in environments where access to magic is sharply curtailed and each spell known or magic item obtained is a hard-won, scarce resource.

[Venger]

Ok, I see what you mean by that.
cool. I knew we'd come to an understanding sooner or later




That's probably a fair assessment. I try to run very open-world sandbox games, but when I play, my DMs lean more heavily towards tactical games in low-magic settings. They're also slightly terrified of my optimization habits and in some cases have forbidden me from playing spellcasters. So I've got a lot of play experience in environments where access to magic is sharply curtailed and each spell known or magic item obtained is a hard-won, scarce resource.

I like sandbox games too, but I haven't had the chance to play in many. the system's not super well-suited for it. the ones I've played in also lean towards tactics. same. I usually play at a handicap in games too. no T1/T2 for this guy.

I can understand that. that's a little different from my experience, as you've sussed out. I don't really play in low-magic games, they're not really my style, but I can definitely understand how the dynamic would be reversed there.

[Endarire]

I prefer combining Climb, Swim, and Jump into one skill - Athletics (STR). I combine Balance and Tumble into Acrobatics (DEX). People still generally don't take Athletics due to the situations happening so rarely. I'd rather just give people flight, water breathing, shape altering abilities, etc.

Consider this real life comparison. Why use a sword in combat when you can use a fairly accurate, high-capacity rifle/gun? Athletics skills just outmoded as a function of 'tech tree progression.' Climb, Jump, and Swim are just low tech, usually high-cost abilities compared to flight spells, etc.

[torrasque666]

Consider this real life comparison. Why use a sword in combat when you can use a fairly accurate, high-capacity rifle/gun? Athletics skills just outmoded as a function of 'tech tree progression.' Climb, Jump, and Swim are just low tech, usually high-cost abilities compared to flight spells, etc.Sword keeps swinging when the gun runs out of ammo, just like the skills keep working when the caster runs out of slots. And not all DM's allow for the 15 minute adventuring day, so don't give me that excuse.

[Mendicant]

just because they're influenced by that aesthetic doesn't mean the mechanics are beholden to their narrative structures. just because frodo didn't drop the ring into the volcano from atop a giant eagle doesn't mean your players shouldn't be able to.

Sure. The problem isn't that the game needs to stay at Fafhrd level forever, it's that it really doesn't support Fafhrd at all. Spells come along and nuke a lot of the things that make him cool just when you start being able to play a character that actually feels like him. Flight is one of the worst offenders. When we get down to wands, we'll see more of this principle in action. In short, 3.X strangling so many mundane skills when you're only one-quarter of the way through its core level space makes it *less* flexible, not more.


even if you make flight spells difficult to access, casters will bypass mundane obstacles in other ways (footsteps of the divine, spider climb, dimension

Dimension door is fourth level. It shows up at the same time my version of fly does, and it is not a replacement for fly. This change would put more pressure on a caster's ability to use dimension door without doing anything to the spell at all. Spider climb I am not nearly as worried about for reasons I put down above. Footsteps of the divine is exactly the kind of late 3rd-edition bloat that I wouldn't want to import anyway. It also grants fly, kick it up a level.


here's where I think the seed of our conflict stems from.

it's exactly like an example that's more well known and generally agreed upon.

by the same token of logic, you could say a rogue with open lock (assuming your dm is a grognard who won't let you use DD on locks) is a better use of resources than a wizard casting knock 5 times.

this isn't actually true. a wizard's (or other caster, whatever) spell slots are renewable resources. he gets new ones every day, and they can be whatever he likes: rope trick, baleful transposition, knock, etc.

a rogue's skill point are a nonrenewable resource. once he spends them at level-up, he's stuck with points in open lock (coming at the opportunity cost of points he could've spent on a good skill, like UMD) for life (barring psyref, doing the wight thing,or whatever, of course)

having a caster use knock to open some doors frees up more of the party's nonrenewable resources to spend on other stuff. that's a positive thing.

spiderclimb, like knock, is essentially CL-independent, so is a good wand. that means it won't even cost slots, just a few bucks.

Well, first of all, the magic-mart assumption that you can just buy a wand for every season is out. Spells are powerful enough without assuming you can pretty much always have whichever utility ones you need. This assumption is part of what fuels UMD's status as the ultimate skill. One of 3.X's deepest pathologies is that someone playing a rogue should always avoid putting her character resources into making a character who plays like Altair, because the ability to play a third-rate wizard is so much more valuable.

"I want to build a cunning rogue, who picks locks, picks pockets, and steals hearts while running the rooftops at night. I should put ranks in climb, disable device and acrobatics, right?"
"Mmmm, that's ok, I guess, but we're starting at fourth level. None of that is going to be really relevant for very long. Just put your skills in use magic device and carry a bunch of magic wands that do all of that for you."
"Oh, well, now that you point it out, I'd be kind of a sucker to do anything else, huh? If I'm just gonna use wands all the time, why not play a wizard?"
"Well, now that you mention it, are you familiar with the word tier?

Second, if you *don't* assume the caster has a wand of knock, because a DM who introduces wands of knock is crapping all over an already marginal class's niche protection, the wizard (we know it's not gonna be the sorcerer) prepping knock or spider climb can have renewable resources as the day is long, but the opportunity cost is still higher. Even if UMD is as good as high-op assumes it is, it's only one skill rank per level. Your rogue is getting 8, your ranger gets 6 and doesn't have UMD anyway. None of the individual skills that climb or DD is "stealing" from represents the same opportunity cost that using up a spell slot does--especially since climb can stop getting invested in at all once ranks, magic, a skill kit and abilities get it to +10 or so.



I think that pf's skill list is clouding your judgement somewhat. the skills are a lot more fragmented in 3.5, the skill point system works differently (you need to buy them each level instead of autoleveling class skills) and you don't get that many more points to spread around:

Yeah, I remember now. Skill points are a lot more precious with the 3.5 list. Any final system I come up with is going to have some skill consolidation though, so it's not exactly clouding my judgement so much as clarifying it.


sure, if you want to put in some houserules letting people climb on the mumakil, more power to you. people love to do stuff like that. hammer and piton is a nice starting point to think about mechanics.

I'm gonna check that out, thanks.

PS. Without going to far off topic, when I say you shouldn't need spells to get magic, I mean a wide variety of things, including ToB type stuff. At the most basic, I don't think crafting a lot of magic items should require spellcasting, especially weapons and armor. Wands, Scrolls and Staffs, sure. But an amulet of natural armor or a potion of CLW? Nah, you should be able to take a feat and the right craft skill and just make it. Say you're weaving lyrium into it, or learning specific enchantments, or quenching it in the heart of your beloved wife if you want to do the GRRM "everything is awful forever" thing. Class features at mid to high levels should do a lot of clearly supernatural stuff without there being any spells involved--the monk is a great example of how this might be flavored, even if it's a really depressing failure in terms of actual usefulness.

[Venger]

Sure. The problem isn't that the game needs to stay at Fafhrd level forever, it's that it really doesn't support Fafhrd at all. Spells come along and nuke a lot of the things that make him cool just when you start being able to play a character that actually feels like him. Flight is one of the worst offenders. When we get down to wands, we'll see more of this principle in action. In short, 3.X strangling so many mundane skills when you're only one-quarter of the way through its core level space makes it *less* flexible, not more.

right. D&D is not a good system to support low-magic. you need magic to do everything in this game.




Dimension door is fourth level. It shows up at the same time my version of fly does, and it is not a replacement for fly. This change would put more pressure on a caster's ability to use dimension door without doing anything to the spell at all. Spider climb I am not nearly as worried about for reasons I put down above. Footsteps of the divine is exactly the kind of late 3rd-edition bloat that I wouldn't want to import anyway. It also grants fly, kick it up a level.
sorry, got cut off. I meant dimension hop, since it's a 2nd. I didn't mention dimdoor, but your point's the same.

you don't like footsteps of the divine? okay. I just like talking about it.




Well, first of all, the magic-mart assumption that you can just buy a wand for every season is out. Spells are powerful enough without assuming you can pretty much always have whichever utility ones you need. This assumption is part of what fuels UMD's status as the ultimate skill. One of 3.X's deepest pathologies is that someone playing a rogue should always avoid putting her character resources into making a character who plays like Altair, because the ability to play a third-rate wizard is so much more valuable.

UMD is the ultimate skill unless your DM prevents you from buying stuff. yeah, it is. having little wands of ray of frost and stuff is pretty helpful for precision damage users.


"I want to build a cunning rogue, who picks locks, picks pockets, and steals hearts while running the rooftops at night. I should put ranks in climb, disable device and acrobatics, right?"
"Mmmm, that's ok, I guess, but we're starting at fourth level. None of that is going to be really relevant for very long. Just put your skills in use magic device and carry a bunch of magic wands that do all of that for you."
"Oh, well, now that you point it out, I'd be kind of a sucker to do anything else, huh? If I'm just gonna use wands all the time, why not play a wizard?"
"Well, now that you mention it, are you familiar with the word tier?

you're saying this like it's disproving what it's saying, but it's not.


]Second, if you *don't* assume the caster has a wand of knock, because a DM who introduces wands of knock is crapping all over an already marginal class's niche protection, the wizard (we know it's not gonna be the sorcerer) prepping knock or spider climb can have renewable resources as the day is long, but the opportunity cost is still higher. Even if UMD is as good as high-op assumes it is, it's only one skill rank per level. Your rogue is getting 8, your ranger gets 6 and doesn't have UMD anyway. None of the individual skills that climb or DD is "stealing" from represents the same opportunity cost that using up a spell slot does--especially since climb can stop getting invested in at all once ranks, magic, a skill kit and abilities get it to +10 or so.

I just used it as an example because RAW assumes pcs are allowed to buy stuff. you're of course free to prevent that, but I didn't take it into account.




Yeah, I remember now. Skill points are a lot more precious with the 3.5 list. Any final system I come up with is going to have some skill consolidation though, so it's not exactly clouding my judgement so much as clarifying it.
ok.




I'm gonna check that out, thanks.

PS. Without going to far off topic, when I say you shouldn't need spells to get magic, I mean a wide variety of things, including ToB type stuff. At the most basic, I don't think crafting a lot of magic items should require spellcasting, especially weapons and armor. Wands, Scrolls and Staffs, sure. But an amulet of natural armor or a potion of CLW? Nah, you should be able to take a feat and the right craft skill and just make it. Say you're weaving lyrium into it, or learning specific enchantments, or quenching it in the heart of your beloved wife if you want to do the GRRM "everything is awful forever" thing. Class features at mid to high levels should do a lot of clearly supernatural stuff without there being any spells involved--the monk is a great example of how this might be flavored, even if it's a really depressing failure in terms of actual usefulness.
yeah, sure thing, man.

ok. I agree with that. check out those ritual things in DMG2. you do special things and beef up an item. you can invest items by running a lot or getting hit with a fire spell. it depends on the thing, but it might be a jumping off point if you wanna let mundane make their own toys.

[Mendicant]

right. D&D is not a good system to support low-magic. you need magic to do everything in this game.

Which is bad, because that is neither how a lot of people want it to work nor how the game seems intended to work. If that principle were really a fully-conscious design goal, the core books wouldn't have so many non-magical classes. Like I said earlier, the spell subsystem has devoured the rest of the game.


UMD is the ultimate skill unless your DM prevents you from buying stuff. yeah, it is. having little wands of ray of frost and stuff is pretty helpful for precision damage users.

Which is fine, as far as it goes, but how many new people show up at a table and want to sneak attack with cantrips?


you're saying this like it's disproving what it's saying, but it's not.
Well, that was less of an argument that UMD is bad in a mechanical sense than that UMD is bad in a more, I don't know, moral sense. It subverts the game's ability to tell stories people expect it to be able to tell. It's like if you invited someone to come play a gritty survival horror game and then made calling the police really effective.



I just used it as an example because RAW assumes pcs are allowed to buy stuff. you're of course free to prevent that, but I didn't take it into account.

RAW assumes PC's are able to buy stuff, but--and it's been a while since I read the 3.5 DMG--I remember it specifically assuming that most magic would come as loot, the loot would probably be largely random, and that ready cash would not necessarily be enough of the character's wealth to assume they'd be buying just the right item whenever they were in a town with a big enough spending cap. For PF, 4,500 GP is a lot if the assumed WBL is 16,000 at 6th level.

In any event, I don't think the wal-mart theory of magic item acquisition is very good for the game, but I also don't think it'd have a huge effect at the levels I'm talking about. Trivializing skills with 16,000 or even 23,000 GP is just too expensive to be worth it.

I'm curious, do you play much at low levels? If so, how does your party deal with locked doors and high walls? Do they just not?

[Venger]

Which is bad, because that is neither how a lot of people want it to work nor how the game seems intended to work. If that principle were really a fully-conscious design goal, the core books wouldn't have so many non-magical classes. Like I said earlier, the spell subsystem has devoured the rest of the game.
3.5 is not a good sim for low magic games.




Well, that was less of an argument that UMD is bad in a mechanical sense than that UMD is bad in a more, I don't know, moral sense. It subverts the game's ability to tell stories people expect it to be able to tell. It's like if you invited someone to come play a gritty survival horror game and then made calling the police really effective.

morally wrong? that seems excessive. again, if you want low magic, 3.5 is a poor fit.




RAW assumes PC's are able to buy stuff, but--and it's been a while since I read the 3.5 DMG--I remember it specifically assuming that most magic would come as loot, the loot would probably be largely random, and that ready cash would not necessarily be enough of the character's wealth to assume they'd be buying just the right item whenever they were in a town with a big enough spending cap. For PF, 4,500 GP is a lot if the assumed WBL is 16,000 at 6th level.
that philosophy is more from 1/2e where you could not sell items so were stuck with what you got. it's less true for 3.x, but it depend on what generator you use.


In any event, I don't think the wal-mart theory of magic item acquisition is very good for the game, but I also don't think it'd have a huge effect at the levels I'm talking about. Trivializing skills with 16,000 or even 23,000 GP is just too expensive to be worth it.

I'm curious, do you play much at low levels? If so, how does your party deal with locked doors and high walls? Do they just not?
why not? it lets you pick up spells to help your party specifically so you don't end up with say, a wand of water breathing in the desert.

yes. the same way you deal with anything, via application of spells, class features, items, or other similar abilities (e.g. blink shirt, dissolving spittle, abrupt jaunt, mountain hammer, shapesand, phase cloak, wild shape, etc.) there is no point in this or any game where a locked door should be an insurmountable obstacle.

[Honest Tiefling]

An odd idea, but what if utilizing the skills WAS the only way to get magical gear? Banning it outright really hurts mundanes, but what if there was an evil monopoly of casters that kidnapped anyone else capable of making magical goods, so the first task is to break into one of their warehouses or to ambush them in a small chasm to get magical goodies? Outright buying the items won't work, but you don't have to worry as much about a mundane needing items and failing to get them. The heists can be structured in such a way that finding the right items and acquiring them needs a bit of skill, such as Diplomacy, Sleight of Hand, Intimidate, Stealth, etc.

From my experience, some rogueish types (And I do NOT count Wizard/Rogues in this category) giggle like...Well, Haley Starshine does when they have new toys to harass their enemies with. I think it depends a lot upon the character/player. I'd also suggest less powerful but still amusing items like Grease (Okay, maybe powerful, but making people fall down is hilarious), Jump, and Prestidigitation. Heck, even that bag of tricks can be fun at times.

Hopefully, the skills are still useful as there is no reliable way to get the magical goodies (especially since the wizard WILL have problems scribing new spells into their spellbook...), and the skills lead to the magical goodies for everyone.

[Mendicant]

3.5 is not a good sim for low magic games.

Nobody is talking about a low-magic game here. LowER magic maybe, but expecting flight to be widely available halfway through is in no way a low magic expectation. You can have quite a bit of magic without making the power progression so steep that certain concepts never really work.


morally wrong? that seems excessive. again, if you want low magic, 3.5 is a poor fit.

Moral was the wrong word for what I was trying to convey. UMD is bad if it subsumes the rest of the skill list, not because that is a bad choice for a character to make, but because it is the only good one. Reducing the number of interesting choices is bad.


why not? it lets you pick up spells to help your party specifically so you don't end up with say, a wand of water breathing in the desert.

Because it feeds the vicious cycle of spells being the answer to every problem, and the ONLY answer to a majority of problems.

A cooperative game needs resource scarcity at some level in order to provide a challenge. DnD has scarcity of a few things built in--hit points, actions per round, etc. Easy to purchase wands, with an unlimited selection, takes a key part of a caster's scarcity--spells per day and especially spells known--and breaks it in half. There's still some limit if WBL is enforced, but between wands and scrolls casters can wiggle free of their limitations much more casually than noncasters. Noncasters with UMD can spend ranks to be not very good casters who fuel their spellcasting with money.

[Zordran]

You could always nerf flight itself into sort of a tactical superjump, where every move action has to end on a viable surface. This greatly simplifies combat with flying creatures and doesn't require you to look through every single potential mode of flight to see if you like it or not. This is a gamey choice for sure, and it's up to your table if they like the feel or not.

[endur]

What would the consequences be if access to magical flight were pushed back a spell level? I've always hated how quickly so many skills become trivialized in 3.X, and possibly the biggest single offender on that count is Fly, along with fellow travelers like Levitate

First question is what level is your party now and what level are you going to? i.e. are you just delaying flight, or are you basically eliminating it by never reaching the level at which flight will be?

World of Warcraft is trying to restrict/eliminate flight to make climbing/jumping more relevant, so the idea of restricting is not exactly a new one.

My recommendation is to try it and see what your group thinks.

I can think of plenty of fantasy novels where the protagonist rarely or never fly (unless hitching a ride from giant eagles, etc.).

[endur]

The entirety of D&D is built around spells. At higher levels, if your weapons are not magical, they are worthless. If you do not have magical items, your options are sorely limited. The most powerful effects, whether offensive or defensive, are magical. A party without magic will fail, absent a specific decision in the course of designing the campaign to make it low-magic.

Random party of 4 PCs ... 2 fighter types, 2 rogue types (wizard and priest didn't show up that day)

at low level: no impact from missing spell casters.

at mid level: lack of healing and utility spells, minor impact on combat (no save or suck spells)

at high level: lack of healing and utility, also high impact on combat (save or die, save or suck, etc.)

If the campaign is low or mid level, lack of magic shouldn't be a big deal ... if the campaign is high level, lacking magic will hurt

[Philistine]

@OP: Have you asked yourself whether maybe D&D 3.X is just plain the wrong system for what you want it to do? It might be that you can find an alternative system faster and easier than you can compile a list of houserules running to more than nine thousand pages (and which still won't fix everything that WotC broke).

[Mendicant]

I mean, to a a certain extent that is what I'm trying to do, since a house ruled game is no longer the same thing. Long-term, I want something that looks an awful lot like erd edition, but heavily customized to the needs of my particular table. Starting from a wholly different system just means I have to modify that system in the opposite direction.

D&D has a whole lot of things I do want, and 3rd especially has been picked at extensively by home brewers, optimizers and third-party publishers for a decade and a half now. It is a known quantity in a way that few systems are. That's very valuable as a starting point for customization.

[Philistine]

And yet, despite all the skull-sweat that's been dumped into 3.X over the years, there's still no consensus on how to turn it into the kind of game you want. Perhaps it's worth considering that most systems don't need fifteen years' worth of being picked and pried at just to function as intended (never mind still falling short of their original design goals even after that much work).

Out of curiosity, what is D&D bringing to the table that makes it such a trump card, even when it's clearly just ill-suited to your preferred play style?

[Mendicant]

Out of curiosity, what is D&D bringing to the table that makes it such a trump card, even when it's clearly just ill-suited to your preferred play style?

Well, first and foremost, it isn't actually that ill-suited for my preferred playstyle at all, so long as the levels cap out around 6th to 8th and I'm not chained to every single splat ever written. I'm playing an e6 campaign right now and I'm about 85% to 90% happy with it. Like I said above, you can think of D&D as two or three different games that share some core assumptions and mechanics between them. I want to expand the low-level game that I am actually quite happy with upwards a few levels.

As far as what D&D/Pathfinder brings to the table, there are all kinds of things, not least of which are personal familiarity and this website (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/). There is a large, established community available which is willing to evaluate and critique my proposed changes. I don't need there to be a perfect consensus on them, because I'm ultimately just working for one table. It's enough if I'm aware of the potential consequences of my design choices. d20 and 3rd edition has a deep ruleset which allows for a lot of simulation without relying on too much DM fiat and magical tea party. When that ruleset starts to break down or produce weird, silly outputs, there is almost always a menu of third-party and homebrew fixes to browse and incorporate. For instance, I have a couple players this time around who want to craft a fair amount of stuff, so I eventually landed on a 99 cent PDF that fixes pretty much everything I objected to about the core rule's borked crafting system.

I like class-based levelling and character building, and I like 3.X's a'la carte multiclassing. I like the theme. I like that there are thousands of available monsters available, and that the CR system, for all its faults, gives me a really handy way to eyeball encounters, especially since I have enough system mastery to recognize dangerously wonky enemies like shadows and night hags.

[P.F.]

It looks like you have thought through this really well. Easy access to tactical flight trivializes a lot of otherwise good challenges, and as you so aptly put it earlier, flying characters turn interesting battlefields into featureless football fields. The primary themes I have noticed and the solutions so far:



delayed capacity to fight flyers
... increase CR of flyers


diminished capacity to cast fly on the party
... make fly et al group spells


climb/swim/etc. still become useless once people can fly
... they remain useful longer after which nothing will have changed


climb/swim/tumble aren't terribly useful anyway
... include more terrain where they apply


players will use non-spell means to fly
... the equipments etc needed are already sufficiently expensive


if lazer-cannonss are banned, uzis will be used to play tennis
... gun metaphors will also be unavailable until higher levels


non-fly spells can mimic good climb/swim/athletics
... spells are used per day whilst skills can be used at will



This all seems really solid to me. If your players are game, I'd say go for it!

[Mendicant]

Yeah, I think I've got a pretty good idea of how this'd affect a game and what I should do to adjust to that. Thanks for the clear thread summary.


if lazer-cannonss are banned, uzis will be used to play tennis ... gun metaphors will also be unavailable until higher levels

Hahaha, yeah. Maybe make them higher-level bardic performances. "I torture this analogy until it is unrecognizable. Everyone who can hear me needs to make a will save or become nauseated."

[Endarire]

Mendicant: May I get a link to that 99 cent crafting system solution? (Not pirate stuff, but storefront stuff.)

[Mendicant]

Sure:
http://paizo.com/products/btpy8ffg?Making-Craft-Work

[daremetoidareyo]

It looks like you have thought through this really well. Easy access to tactical flight trivializes a lot of otherwise good challenges, and as you so aptly put it earlier, flying characters turn interesting battlefields into featureless football fields. The primary themes I have noticed and the solutions so far:



delayed capacity to fight flyers
... increase CR of flyers


diminished capacity to cast fly on the party
... make fly et al group spells


climb/swim/etc. still become useless once people can fly
... they remain useful longer after which nothing will have changed


climb/swim/tumble aren't terribly useful anyway
... include more terrain where they apply


players will use non-spell means to fly
... the equipments etc needed are already sufficiently expensive


if lazer-cannonss are banned, uzis will be used to play tennis
... gun metaphors will also be unavailable until higher levels


non-fly spells can mimic good climb/swim/athletics
... spells are used per day whilst skills can be used at will



This all seems really solid to me. If your players are game, I'd say go for it!

The OP can always go with a gentlepersons agreement about flight being delayed till eighth level also,while changing nothing. "Hey guys, here's the reasons I don't like flight, I promise not to abuse flight capable enemies if your main PCs don't access flight til then." Players tend to be pretty cool about requests like that, (except for one dude usually, and its the dude who struggles with social cues and ego simultaneously, and if its not flight, it'll be something else).