Talk to Ashiel About Anything Mark II

[Ashiel]

Using the WBL described in Gamemastering, cut in half with ABP, you end up with a budget as follows.

Natural
2nd 1000 gp
3rd 3000 gp
4th 6000 gp
5th 10,500 gp
6th 16,000 gp

Automatic
2nd 500 gp
3rd 1500 gp
4th 3000 gp
5th 5,250 gp
6th 8,000 gp

Using the natural system (players get loot and spend it themselves) you end up with much more flexibility. Players will naturally end up with more treasure than their WBL (because WBL already assumes you will use consumables and the like, and if you do not, you end up with more to bank).

At 2nd level, you can already afford your first +1 cloak of resistance to help defend vs sleep and colorspray spells.

At 3rd level, you can happily afford a +1 cloak of resistance AND a +1 armor and a +1 shield. Or you could buy none of that stuff and instead pick up more utility items (tokens, oils, haversacks, etc) or some combination thereof.

At 4th level, a martial character can happily afford a +1 cloak of resistance, a +1 suit of armor, a +1 shield, and three masterwork weapons, with some spare change left over for more consumables, or a caster could grab a few pearls of power to provide their party more buffs or throw around more magic missile spells.

At 5th level, you're really starting to feel the love, as now you've got some wiggle room to start buying expensive consumables on the regular or invest in things like natural armor and deflection bonuses (which are usually quite expensive for their benefits), or upgrade your cloak to a +2 cloak to shore your saves up even more to protect you against enemy mages and basilisks.

At 6th level you're starting to have money to burn and it's going to get better from there. If you haven't got them already, you can now grab up a +1 natural, +1 deflection, and +2 stat item immediately. Or skip those and keep an elemental gem or a stockpile of elixirs on hand for steamrolling an encounter you should have no business fighting in.

Using the Automatic Progression (players get 1/2 loot and are forced into specific effects), you are getting penalized all over the place. Firstly, you're receiving half the treasure that you're expected to (remember when I said that encounter values actually equate to extra treasure over the course of a game? Well, your consumable fund now takes a hit too), which means that you're getting screwed out of loot and options (especially for the first two levels when you get nothing for the loss since you don't even get a bonus of any sort until 3rd level).

On top of that, you're always forced into having less than you should or making bad purchase decisions (like effectively buying a +1 weapon at 4th level when you could have upgraded your armor, shield, and grabbed some masterwork weapons, or upgraded your armor and got a +1 deflection or natural item). It doesn't even leave you enough money to buy some nice utility items and you can't try to make up the difference since the system removes +x items (so you cannot for example decide to use your remaining 3,000 gp to upgrade your shield or resistance cloak).

Ugh, why oh why?

[Ashiel]

Eh... I dunno. While the ABP isn't perfect, it's really nice to have a game where you don't have to buy the same old tired items every time for every character... The flexibility lost isn't all that much... All you lose is the choice over in what order you buy the big 6, but you do gain the ability to actually use belts, headbands, cloaks, rings and amulets that... You know... Actually do stuff.

Besides, it makes the world far more interesting than one where nearly every half-decent character has pretty much the same items.

But like, you're not getting any benefits out of it. The big six are already pretty optional (again you can clear 20th level content with items worth 16k or less with a traditional party) and consumables and such already tend to be really strong, and this cuts into the money that you can use. Item slots don't really matter much because there's a ton of them and you can put item effects in different slots (see magic item creation rules).

Also the system removes inherent modifiers, so even if the mechanics weren't stealing from the players (which they are), it also nerfs their upper limits to boot (by 20th level, it's not even an issue to get +11 between enhancement and inherent) to your stats, and the loss of inherent modifiers hurts martials really badly since it makes it harder to shore up their saving throws.

[Ashiel]

Like, over the coarse of 1st to 2nd level, each player should collect about 1300 gp (1/4th of 260, multiplied by 20 encounters), though you will actually amass more if you're regularly fighting intelligent foes (classed NPCs or intelligent monsters typically have double treasure values or better; and as such if you face a CR 1 encounter of 1st level humanoids, you are usually looking at 390 gp per encounter if their gear is sold at 1/2 price, which results in a wealth gain of 1950 gp by 2nd level per player).

Which means you already have plenty of money to buy "neat" items as opposed to just stat items. I really don't understand why people have this morbid fascination with that next +1 anyway. A potion of protection from evil is 50 gp and shuts things like mind-control down in its tracks. Same with potions of resist energy which are only 50 gp as well (thanks rangers) or potions of lesser restoration (thanks paladins).

And why get rid of inherent bonuses? I baked them into my player's progressions (+1 at 2nd, +2 at 6th, +3 at 10th, +4 at 14th, +5 at 18th) so they still end up where they should be at 20th level (instead of being 5 points deficient). I mean, if you wanted to bake magic items into the character progress, why not at least give them a pool of X value that the player could purchase effects out of?

[Nicos]

The big six are already pretty optional

Do you see many palyers that, once that have enough money, constantly choose other items beside the big items?, I don't. At low level, maybe, but not after mid levels.

I do agree that you can play without them without any form of ABP. I think I did that in my first high level pbp in paizo**. It's just that ABP make life easier for having a feeling of how difficult a combat will be.


**Though we hit the wall of patfhinder having too many uninteresting and overpriced items.

[Lemmy]

The Big 6 are optional in the same way that Natural Spell is optional... Do you need Natural Spell to make a strong, even downright OP Druid? No. But is it much more effective and/or efficient than the alternatives? Yes. Would it really make any difference if Druids had 1 fewer feat but gained

Sure... If druids had 1 fewer feat but gained Natural Spell as a class feature, technically, there is less customization... But in practice, not really. Similarly, you don't need the Big 6. But unless you walk around with an alchemist's shopping cart with you... You're probably better off just buying the Big 6.

ABP makes things simpler and adds a little more variety to item selection. It also has the added effect of transferring power from items to characters. This is just personal taste, of course, but I much prefer my character's abilities to come from the character himself than from his loot. Remember well how you once said Fighters had to steal, buy or beg someone for their own class features? ABP attenuates that issue.

And all that said... I do agree that the attribute-booster progression in Paizo's version of ABP is... Well... Terrible.

Then again, I might be biased. Generally speaking, I just give players loot that I think is cool and they need, rather than following WBL too closely.

[Ashiel]

Do you see many palyers that, once that have enough money, constantly choose other items beside the big items?, I don't. At low level, maybe, but not after mid levels.

I do actually. Almost constantly in fact. It might be because we play together, but honestly the next +1 on a weapon is usually a very distant concern to my players if at all. Maybe I mutate and twist people who I come into contact with somehow.

I do agree that you can play without them without any form of ABP. I think I did that in my first high level pbp in paizo**. It's just that ABP make life easier for having a feeling of how difficult a combat will be.

How's that?

**Though we hit the wall of patfhinder having too many uninteresting and overpriced items.

Make some then. The item creation mechanics are very useful. Besides, since the APB mechanics cut your WBL in half you don't actually get any more interesting items, you just lose out on items.

[Ashiel]

The Big 6 are optional in the same way that Natural Spell is optional... Do you need Natural Spell to make a strong, even downright OP Druid? No. But is it much more effective and/or efficient than the alternatives? Yes. Would it really make any difference if Druids had 1 fewer feat but gained

They waaaay more optional than Natural spell.
I mean to put it into perspective, most of them are the equivalent of having a slightly higher ability score, and ability scores while helpful are rarely as important as "can do a thing".

ABP makes things simpler and adds a little more variety to item selection. It also has the added effect of transferring power from items to characters. This is just personal taste, of course, but I much prefer my character's abilities to come from the character himself than from his loot. Remember well how you once said Fighters had to steal, buy or beg someone for their own class features? ABP attenuates that issue.

I still don't understand this. You're not getting any more variety with item selection because you're still buying the same items but you have less wealth to devote to item selection, so not only are you forced into buying "big six" items (and not even very intelligently) but you've got less money to use as an alternative.

Like, in a regular campaign you can totally just decide to skip buying a better weapon and toss your party's wizard a pearl of power to cast greater magic weapon on your junk, or instead have the party pitch in a little gold to grab an elemental gem to let you steamroll an encounter you should have ran from (which in turn gets you more loot as a result as well as the experience points for it and very likely allowed you access to something special or a new route in the story).

I've got a PC that's 5th level right now in an online game and this is her current selection of permanent magic items at the moment. I haven't even cared about getting anything more advanced at the moment, and my next major purchase is probably actually going to be buying our party's other necromancer to cast some stuff for me (namely desecrate).



I'm exceedingly skeptical that the big six are must have items. All they are at the end of the day, is just always on buffs you get from common spells and items.

[Nicos]

Make some then. The item creation mechanics are very useful. Besides, since the APB mechanics cut your WBL in half you don't actually get any more interesting items, you just lose out on items.

In my current campaing, I'll letting the players make their own customized items without the need of any feat. They do need to go trhough some monster hunting for the ingredients.

=================

DISCLAIMER: I do heavily dislike the cloack, the rign, the amulet and the stat boosters. But Im Fine with magic weapon and magic armors as they are. (Except for the way of how the price scales, and that I homebrew that you can enchant arrows and armor without needing the first +1)

[Nicos]

How's that?

Because the stat boosters, the deflection and natural bonus to AC and the bonus to saving trhows are ingrained in the math of pathfinder CR and monster design. the ABP I use keep the math closely to the assumption of the game.

[Ashiel]

Because the stat boosters, the deflection and natural bonus to AC and the bonus to saving trhows are ingrained in the math of pathfinder CR and monster design. the ABP I use keep the math closely to the assumption of the game.

Which math of that do you mean exactly?

EDIT: Btw, I'm not being cheeky or anything. I'm just approaching this from a perspective that the game is no where being close to tight-mathed, and is far more generalized. Which is part of the reason I don't see a need to have exceptionally high ability scores or anything like that either. I mean, I play with standard 15 PB which is lower than PFS and I see a lot of players often scoff with disbelief and think 15 PB would be unplayable.

I've got a lot of reasons to be very skeptical of these things.

[Lemmy]

Well... Different strokes for different folk, I guess.

I prefer the simplicity of not having to buy stat-boosters or give specific amounts of WBL (as well as the possibility of using different cloaks, amulets and rings without having to resort to custom items) more than the versatility of maybe not buying the big six. I also prefer character abilities to be part of the actual character, rather than their gear. Therefore, I use (a different) ABP.

[Ashiel]

Therefore, I use (a different) ABP.

That would certainly make more sense to me. Baking in static effects to characters is quite a long standing habit for a lot of groups and variations. I just thought we were talking about the pathfinder one (and my criticisms of it have been of that one specifically because it's nothing but an awful deal for players and a complexity for the GM).

If it's just a matter of baking in stuff, I'm actually pretty on board for that. In fact, I spent an afternoon writing a thing for that very purpose (it's kinda old but it dusts off pretty decent). In my own campaigns to give a smoother progression I baked the inherent modifiers into character progression (so you get a stat increase every even level; specifically at 2nd you get +1 to all stats, at 4th you get +1 to your choice, at 6th you get +1 to all stats, repeat), which ends up with the same results at top-end as having your +5 inherent modifiers from things like wish but you don't get them all at once at 11th level when planar binding is a thing but rather spread over your career.

Systems like d20 modern and SWd20 also baked in things like armor increases too. You could actually remove all the +AC items and just add your level to your AC plus any armor modifiers, though you'd probably want to apply some sort of penalty to the modifier when caught flat-footed or vs touch attacks (such as losing half the bonus) to keep those as strong negative situations.

EDIT: I was just having a very hard time understanding how this system was giving players flexibility and freedom or helped to make interesting items more affordable because it actually just makes characters bad, takes away money that could have gone towards interesting items, and gives nothing back.

[Ashiel]

Actually on that note, if you wanted all the math to add up to being pretty much the same but remove all the static items entirely, it could be as simple as...

Ability Scores: Characters gain a +1 inherent modifier to their ability scores at 2nd, 6th, 10th, 14th, and 18th level. They receive their flexible +1 to any ability score at 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, and 20th as normal. The 2nd level animal affinity spells that provide enhancement bonuses to ability scores (such as bear's endurance or bull's strength) provide a +2 bonus to that score, increasing to +4 at caster level 8th and +6 at caster level 16th and their duration is increased to 24 hours.

AC: All characters add their level as a class bonus to Armor Class. This bonus is halved if the character is flat-footed or against touch attacks (and negated against a character that is flat-footed and subject to a touch attack). Spells such as magic vestment instead grant an equivalent amount of armor or shield special abilities (such as fortification or bashing).

Attacks: All characters get a +1 enhancement bonus to attack and damage rolls at 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, and 20th level. The spells magic weapon and greater magic weapon instead grant an equivalent amount of weapon special abilities (such as flaming) for their duration.

Saves: All characters get a +1 resistance bonus on saving throws at 2nd, 6th, 10th, 14th, and 18th level. Spells that provide a resistance bonus to saving throws (such as resistance or protection from evil) instead provide an enhancement bonus to resistance.

NPC Classes and Racial HD: Levels in NPC classes and racial HD are treated as only 1/2 a level for the purposes of these benefits. For example, an 8th level human Fighter would receive +2 to all ability scores, +2 to saving throws, +8 to armor class, +2 to attack and damage rolls, and +2 to all saving throws. An 8th level human Warrior would receive +1 to all ability scores, +1 to all saving throws, +4 to armor class, +1 to attack and damage rolls, and +1 to all saving throws.

I'd probably leave WBL alone even using this. If you remove all the +X items, it's not like they can abuse stuff by stacking more stuff on their numbers, and if the goal is to let players have more money to play around with things like flying carpets, let 'em go wild. I'd also have the natural enhancement bonus not bypass material DR like magic weapons normally do because that's lame.

[Ashiel]

It also doesn't help that it was my very first homebrewed campaign, so I didn't really have a knack for encounter balance.

Still don't, honestly.

Y'know, I was thinking of making a youtube video about building encounters. Want me to drop it here when I'm done?

[Tels]

The first character I ever really played in a table top game is one that I still revisit from time to time when my old group can get together. The GM of that group has royally screwed the party out of character wealth so we are had to, extensively, rely on caster support to pull through in even basic fights. My character, a female Half-orc ranger named Portia, had a +1/+1 orc double axe and a +2 composite longbow with a +3 strength rating, an admiral's bicorn, a +1 armor of the deep mithril breastplate (these two we stole from an admiral of the Luskan navy after we killed him) and a carpet of flying (given as a result of a Wish spell granted by Kelemvore for helping him stop a rogue God), as her only magic items of note until around 17th level or so.

But the party had something like 900k in gold hidden away because the GM would never let us spend any of it. Despite access to teleportation and planar magics, we could not find any one in any of the planes we had access to that was willing to sell us gear.

"Waterdeep is at war with Luskan, so all of the cities on the Sword Coast are committing all resources to the war effort."

"The blood war is flaring up in the planes, so everyone is hoarding magic items to gear their soldiers."

It's really damn hard to be an effective martial character when the GM is throwing you in against creatures that have DR 20 and require a +4 weapon to bypass it and all you is a 20 strength and power attack.

Our entire strategy as characters was that we fortified a location and made it as impervious to divination and transportation magic as we could, then we would nuke the hell out of things with magic and teleport away to recover. That was until we decided enough was enough and exploited a loop in the rules to seize some decent magical gear. No time passes on the Astral Plane (in the Forgotten Realms anyway, or at least 3.5 D&D when we did this), so we spent all our money on crafting resources, and the two Wizards ans the cleric spent the better part of two years forging magical items for everyone.

While they were doing this, my character lost her virginity and ended up pregnant, then the casters returned and she joined them in the Astral Plane for some 7 months while because the casters needed her to provide some spells (only one who has Barkskin). Then we waged interdimenaional war with a dwarven half dragon/half demon who was forging some artifact capable of controlling all fire type creatures. Stole his artifact, shattered his prototype, slagged his fortress to the ground, and also Temporal Stasis his pet Pit Fiend on accident. Then, literally 3 minutes after defeating the bastard she went into labor.

Anyway, got off track a little bit. But I ****ing hated not having magical items because my character was so ineffective against anything unless she was chock full to the brim of buff spells. Even still, the last time we played (over the most recent holidays), she was up to her gills in buff spells because she still has crippling weaknesses at this level. We have a whiteboard at the GMs house that we fill up with a list of all buff spells, when they are cast, and their remaining durations. Between the buff spells, and a few did in Barbados for Rage, she can buff herself up to a bare minimum threshold to be capable of standing toe to toe CR 17 - CR 22 threats. But you're talking about 3 full casters dedicating like a third of their spells just so everyone can achieve competency.

Is it doable to play without the Big Six? Yes. Is it fun? No, especially for a martial as you end up following the casters around like a drug addict desperate for the next high so you can feel powerful again.

[Ashiel]

Wow, that sounds like a nightmare. Though the party about your ranger taking time off to have a kid is awesome.

Not letting the party buy magic items is terrible. Big six or not, it's usually sort of assumed that if you aren't buying +stat items you're at least buying something that helps you succeed or be better at stuff. I wonder why the GM did that.

[Nicos]

Well, what Lemmy said.

And I guess I'm just used to the some sort of ABP that I have a feeling of how hard/easy an encounter will be. I don't like unchainded oficcial ABP by the way.

[Ashiel]

Well, what Lemmy said.

And I guess I'm just used to the some sort of ABP that I have a feeling of how hard/easy an encounter will be. I don't like unchainded oficcial ABP by the way.

Well that's pretty much the source of my total confusion. Someone mentioned ABP, and then said it was from Unchained, so I was readin the Unchained version, and I was not seeing why anyone would want to use that system (and was desperately hoping someone could make me see). When Lemmy said he was talking about integrated advancement in general but not that system, that makes waaaaaay more sense to me.

I just couldn't understand why anyone would use the unchained version. It's nothing but a hard nerf to players.

[Lemmy]

Well that's pretty much the source of my total confusion. Someone mentioned ABP, and then said it was from Unchained, so I was readin the Unchained version, and I was not seeing why anyone would want to use that system (and was desperately hoping someone could make me see). When Lemmy said he was talking about integrated advancement in general but not that system, that makes waaaaaay more sense to me.

I just couldn't understand why anyone would use the unchained version. It's nothing but a hard nerf to players.

Well... I still prefer Paizo's ABP over no ABP... "Hard nerf" or not. It just makes the game much simpler and more enjoyable, IMHO.

[Ashiel]

Well... I still prefer Paizo's ABP over no ABP... "Hard nerf" or not. It just makes the game much simpler and more enjoyable, IMHO.

Oh well. Maybe if we play together sometime, I'll include some sort of auto-scaling things for you.

EDIT: Would you be opposed to the method I presented earlier?

[Tels]

Wow, that sounds like a nightmare. Though the party about your ranger taking time off to have a kid is awesome.

Not letting the party buy magic items is terrible. Big six or not, it's usually sort of assumed that if you aren't buying +stat items you're at least buying something that helps you succeed or be better at stuff. I wonder why the GM did that.

Part of it was the GM is a grognard (most of the party was) and they have very fixed ideas on how the game "should" be and play the game based on those preconceived notions and get very grumpy when someone shows them it's not true.

The GM isn't the biggest fan of players being able to buy equipment with their money, unless hes the player. Like, honestly, my learning the game and playing with them was a huge wake up call in some ways, because they just had all these expectations of how the game is supposed to function. I took over the party Cleric because the player dropped out and we didn't want to replace the character.

The first time I used Divine Power, Divine Favor (in 3.5 when they stacked), Righteous Might and some other spell that I cant remember the name of... And suddenly she was the best warrior in the party and they were gobsmacked. They had no idea Clerics could be played that way.

I'd go into more detail, but I'm about to start running a game for my sister and her friends.

[Ashiel]

Part of it was the GM is a grognard (most of the party was) and they have very fixed ideas on how the game "should" be and play the game based on those preconceived notions and get very grumpy when someone shows them it's not true.

The GM isn't the biggest fan of players being able to buy equipment with their money, unless hes the player. Like, honestly, my learning the game and playing with them was a huge wake up call in some ways, because they just had all these expectations of how the game is supposed to function. I took over the party Cleric because the player dropped out and we didn't want to replace the character.

The first time I used Divine Power, Divine Favor (in 3.5 when they stacked), Righteous Might and some other spell that I cant remember the name of... And suddenly she was the best warrior in the party and they were gobsmacked. They had no idea Clerics could be played that way.

I'd go into more detail, but I'm about to start running a game for my sister and her friends.

Have fun with your game! :D

I'm a little surprised actually. I was pretty sure clerics were pretty beefy back in the days of yore. I know they were pretty good in Baldur's Gate at least.

[Nicos]

Well... I still prefer Paizo's ABP over no ABP... "Hard nerf" or not. It just makes the game much simpler and more enjoyable, IMHO.

I guess I prefer the same. I've just been Dming with some sort of ABP for too long.

[Ashiel]

I guess I prefer the same. I've just been Dming with some sort of ABP for too long.

What do you do for treasure hoards? I really do like treasure hoards.

[Nicos]

Have fun with your game! :D

I'm a little surprised actually. I was pretty sure clerics were pretty beefy back in the days of yore. I know they were pretty good in Baldur's Gate at least.

Ah baldurs's gate. Would it be that time of the year where I debate myself over the idea of playing Baldurs's gate II for the nth time?, time will tell.

Lately, I've pondering about making a campaing post BG II based in Athkatla where every location and surviving NPC from the game is cannon.

But nobody likes Faerun these days.

[Rynjin]

So I was just reading the Automatic Progression Bonus mechanics further, and upon further reading I super dislike that system. You don't get anything out of it as a player and only lose things, and it complicates things from a GMing perspective. It doesn't matter if you're getting static modifiers automatically because it cuts your treasure income in half, which means as a player you are forced into effectively buying +stat magic items (and not even allowed to buy them on your own terms), and as a GM you have extra work to do because you're now expected to adjust treasure values for all your encounters and adjust your loot pools.

From a GMing perspective, that doesn't sound appealing at all. Building neat treasure hordes already means being really thrifty with your item selection, and cutting your treasure budget in half would make that even tighter ("Crap, I can't even fit a masterwork club into this treasure pile!?"), for no discernible benefit (static item adjustments are much less important for success than options so you can't simply not worry about including treasure).

From a player perspective, you're essentially forced to buy items whether you want them or not. I mean, a martial not being able to upgrade any of their physical stats until 7th level and mages forced to buy magic weapons and armor!? What dark sorcery is this nonsense? Plus you're forced to upgrade to +4 stat items before getting any secondary or tertiary increases? You can have THREE +2 stat items for less than the cost of a single +4 stat items, so the distribution of automatic progression is downright wasteful.

Whyyyyyyy?

EDIT: OMFG, they removed inherent modifiers with this system? REEEEEEEE~!

We came up with a system before ABP existed, but recently I've been using the Unchined ABP system but boosting players' levels by 2-3. That seems to bring things better in line. Plus I don't remove inherent bonuses, and the +1 etc. doesn't count against the price of weapons/armor for special abilities added.

Which math of that do you mean exactly?

EDIT: Btw, I'm not being cheeky or anything. I'm just approaching this from a perspective that the game is no where being close to tight-mathed, and is far more generalized. Which is part of the reason I don't see a need to have exceptionally high ability scores or anything like that either. I mean, I play with standard 15 PB which is lower than PFS and I see a lot of players often scoff with disbelief and think 15 PB would be unplayable.

I've got a lot of reasons to be very skeptical of these things.

Mind that the Monster Creation Guidelines are just that, but they generally take the mean values there. So, for example, the average AC for a CR 10 creature is 24. Your average Fighter with no magic items is probably going to have a 20 Str, and 10 BaB, and a Masterwork weapon, for a +16 to-hit. Not too bad, until you keep in mind he's only doing, say, 2d6+9 damage without any of those numbers boosters. He hits on an 8 but only does an average of 16 damage vs an average HP of 130. His second attack only hits on a 13 at that point, but even assuming both hit you're taking 5 Rounds to Kill a CR 10 monster (something the game assumes you should be solo-ing in 3 rounds, since the average combat is meant to last 3-4 rounds). SO you're going to want to Power Attack. Power Attack at 10 drops you to an okay 50% to-hit with your first attack and an atrocious 20% chance to hit your second attack. This ups your POTENTIAL RTK (if both attacks hit) to 3 (2d6+18 per hit, or a potential average of 50 damage per round), but realistically tanks your DPR into the floor since to-hit percentages are such a huge modifier.

So then you take into account a 10th level Fighter probably has a +4 Str belt (maybe a +2, but probably +4 since they're not like a Paladin or something that needs a mental stat booster) and a +3 weapon. That alone more than DOUBLES your hit percentage with your iterative attack (you go from a 20% chance to hit to a 45% chance) and has a similarly dramatic effect on your primary attack, putting you far more comfortably in that 3-4 RTK range.

That's the quick napkin math version of things, and doesn't account for the bigger reason Big 6 items are so important: Saves. Save bonuses are pretty low by default for most classes, so you're looking at that primary ability DC of 19 for CR appropriate creature at 10 and realizing your Sorcerer only has a +4-5 Fort save by default and realizing save or dies are a pretty damn big deal at that point.

This also doesn't take into account Challenging/"Boss" encounters against a CR 13-14 creature, which wildly inflates the importance of those numbers.

Y'know, I was thinking of making a youtube video about building encounters. Want me to drop it here when I'm done?

Sure!

Oh well. Maybe if we play together sometime, I'll include some sort of auto-scaling things for you.

EDIT: Would you be opposed to the method I presented earlier?

The method you laid out looks a lot like Lemmy's, except easier to understand.

Also, you should deffo play with us sometime. We do live games over Roll20 on the weekends, and are still doing PbP on Paizo.

[Nicos]

What do you do for treasure hoards? I really do like treasure hoards.

I'm liberal about it, that's my way of saying I'm quite lazy. Money, gems, random magic items. Items that would be useful for the specific PC at hands.

Though in the current campaing they can also build their own magic items. Rynjin killed a winter wolf and from its skin he made a cloack that give +10 to stealth in snowy terrain plus cold resistance. Scavion killed a giant owl and from its feathers make a cloack that let him plymorph into an owl as a druid of equivalent level.

[Rynjin]

Oh! That reminds me. I need to roll that check to see if I can add the Shadow Demon properties to it.

[Zilrax]

I've been having to make my own items a lot more in this in a sense too. I sorta like the idea of incorporating the item math into leveling too mind, it was something I liked in 2e a bit when proposed but from the looks of it it's handled poorly again. I have yet to do it myself though because my reaction to the Unchained one was identical to Ashiel's basically.

And yeah I've had to play down items before. Not fun when you end up going against a freaking Solar with support.

And yeah I only DM now basically. The necromancer game exists but we play very infrequently and will be even less when the DM is shipped out for Basic. So I'll be back to only running again. Though my Starfinder game still exists at least, for now.

Also yeah, Cleric can shock a lot of people who are used to heal bots. Or wizards who don't just lob fireballs. Or know how to actually make fireball good for more than trash/swarm clearing.

Also as an aside, I really hate Swarm enemies. Like the design really really irks me.

[Ashiel]

We came up with a system before ABP existed, but recently I've been using the Unchined ABP system but boosting players' levels by 2-3. That seems to bring things better in line. Plus I don't remove inherent bonuses, and the +1 etc. doesn't count against the price of weapons/armor for special abilities added.

That makes it not as horrifying.

Mind that the Monster Creation Guidelines are just that, but they generally take the mean values there. So, for example, the average AC for a CR 10 creature is 24. Your average Fighter with no magic items is probably going to have a 20 Str, and 10 BaB, and a Masterwork weapon, for a +16 to-hit. Not too bad, until you keep in mind he's only doing, say, 2d6+9 damage without any of those numbers boosters. He hits on an 8 but only does an average of 16 damage vs an average HP of 130. His second attack only hits on a 13 at that point, but even assuming both hit you're taking 5 Rounds to Kill a CR 10 monster (something the game assumes you should be solo-ing in 3 rounds, since the average combat is meant to last 3-4 rounds). SO you're going to want to Power Attack. Power Attack at 10 drops you to an okay 50% to-hit with your first attack and an atrocious 20% chance to hit your second attack. This ups your POTENTIAL RTK (if both attacks hit) to 3 (2d6+18 per hit, or a potential average of 50 damage per round), but realistically tanks your DPR into the floor since to-hit percentages are such a huge modifier.

So then you take into account a 10th level Fighter probably has a +4 Str belt (maybe a +2, but probably +4 since they're not like a Paladin or something that needs a mental stat booster) and a +3 weapon. That alone more than DOUBLES your hit percentage with your iterative attack (you go from a 20% chance to hit to a 45% chance) and has a similarly dramatic effect on your primary attack, putting you far more comfortably in that 3-4 RTK range.

A few things I want to say regarding this...

1. Assuming a CR 10 fighter, this isn't a fair encounter btw. They're evenly matched. That means a CR 10 fighter vs CR 10 beastie is an APL+4 encounter for the solo-Fighter (beyond epic) so expecting the fighter to cleave through him in a few rounds isn't very fair at all, since he's not supposed to be able to do that. A party can surely tear through such a creature in short order, but you're at this point expecting the warrior to do it by himself.

2. Everyone mentioned buying "more interesting" items instead, or encouraging the use of consumables. So I assumed that's what you would be doing. Enlarge person brings that to a 3d6+11 before magic, haste nets you an extra +1 to hit and an extra attack per round. Power Attack if you chose to use it nets you another +9 damage at the cost of -3 to hit (offset slightly by haste), which is nothing but boots of speed and a 50 gp oil. I would also expect to see more "interesting" items being used, such as x/day effect items or things that the fighter will use to leverage the fight in his favor somehow (such as cracking an elemental gem to have a large elemental join the fight on your behalf).

In a similar vein, if you're getting more "interesting" items to do things with, that generally means you don't need a buffer buddy because you're getting your own buffs and spells (such as dimension door via cloak, haste from boots, flight from things like carpets or the myriad items that grant flying, etc). The one that really sort of hurts is resistance but resistance items are so cheap in core that they're not only easy to max out early but they are also affordable to dump on top of more interesting items (such as a minor cloak of displacement).

3. Just as an example though, take a CR 10 Fire Giant. In a duel with the giant, you'd probably start off doing something like charging into the giant and opening with a Trip maneuver (+10 BAB, +6 Strength, +1 enlarged, +1 haste, +2 charge, +4 feats = +24) which most likely trips the giant (CMD 31), then your Fighter immediately gets a free attack against the now prone target which you then use to attempt a Disarm with the same bonuses. Now the giant is knocked on his butt and also weaponless. If he wants to counter, he's doing so with a -4 to hit and without his weapon. When he tries to stand up you hit him. On your turn, you full attack, opening with a trip again and follow through with the next three attacks against the giant with a -4 to his AC. His AC is 24 tripped or not so you're basically in the auto-hit range for the most part. The giant absolutely must do something drastic or your fighter is going to tear him apart. If the fighter gets in a bad situation, he activates one of his neat items and short-range teleports away or something similar to re-orient himself. Since the Fighter is inflicting around 3d6+11 or more damage per round assuming a 2 hander (I would personally have gone with a longsword because it's more versatile at the cost of 3.5 damage), the Fighter will carve through the giant's 142 hit points in about 6-7 hits, not rounds, hits. Since our Fighter gets 3 attacks per round (1 haste, 1 regular, 1 secondary) he could easily kill this giant in 3-4 rounds all by himself, despite the fact the giant is a CR+4 encounter for the lone Fighter.

Does this make my skeptical-mindset make a little more sense?

That's the quick napkin math version of things, and doesn't account for the bigger reason Big 6 items are so important: Saves. Save bonuses are pretty low by default for most classes, so you're looking at that primary ability DC of 19 for CR appropriate creature at 10 and realizing your Sorcerer only has a +4-5 Fort save by default and realizing save or dies are a pretty damn big deal at that point.

I agree with the save's sentiment. That said, generally there's a hard counter to most of those things that you would presumably get if you decided to forgo "traditional" items. That said, resistance items are among the cheapest in the game, so cheap in fact that you can have a +5 resistance item early in your career and even afford to drop it on more exotic items like a minor cloak of displacement (which also makes you immune to sneak attack without a specific feat or revision). But this is actually one of the reasons I didn't like the Paizo version, because you can't shore up your saves as effectively.

For example, for the cost of a single +4 stat item, a regular character and purchase three +2 stat items and a +2 resistance item. Which means you could have a +3 bonus across all your saves and make your character long before 11th level. And that's just a fraction of the gold you would have by that level (even moreso if you're a Paladin or Ranger and can craft your own stuff).

This also doesn't take into account Challenging/"Boss" encounters against a CR 13-14 creature, which wildly inflates the importance of those numbers.

Well if it's a solo-encounter, you're now pushing it into APL +10 territory or worse, so you should probably expect to die. If you're a party, you've probably got this since with the traditional party you'll have things like magic circle vs evil (which blocks mind control and grants a bonus to AC and saves), greater magic weapon, and spells like stoneskin (which cast on your warriors is quite amusing I must say).

Mind you, I'm not trying to argue with you about it. More that I'm trying to explain how I would see it resolving. A party working together is very strong, and a decent classic party can handle most things well enough on meager resources. I also in my campaigns don't have markets for magic items beyond 16k (pretty much like the core rules) and even if the players never bother to craft their own items and/or rely on finding stuff that's more than enough to clear 20th level content (16k gives access to +2 weapons, +3 armors and shields, +4 stat items, +4 resistance items, +2 natural and deflection items), and since you're expected to amass around a million gold by 20th level, the majority of that extra wealth is funneled into utility and "do things" items (largely because even if they could buy better +X items, the quadratic nature of pricing makes it less appealing).

Sure!

Spiffy, I'll do it as soon as it's done. ^_^

The method you laid out looks a lot like Lemmy's, except easier to understand.

Also, you should deffo play with us sometime. We do live games over Roll20 on the weekends, and are still doing PbP on Paizo.

I work most weekends but late in the evening. Maybe I could join sometime early in the day perhaps? I'm an east coaster and gotta be at work at 5pm on most days.