Talk to Ashiel About Anything Mark II

[Ashiel]

My necromancer get's surrounded by ghosts rather obviously when she starts casting and anything she enchants also becomes so. Though she can do some overclocking too in the sense that she can exhaust herself for +2 cl.

But even the archetypes are fun. There's an archetype of the Armorist that let's you turn yourself into an intelligent magic weapon. you could wield yourself telekinetically or you could hand yourself to someone else and possibly possess them or not and gradually upgrade them to use your bab and such. Or even be in that form permanently.

That's really neat. I haven't finalized my necro so maybe I'll add some of those "look at this spooky stuff" drawbacks before I'm done, because I'm giving her various reasons to not spam her magic a bunch (mostly because it makes her sick and hurts her) but keeping a low profile is good for her too (the country she's from is very anti-necromancy and she already has a brand on her face from her first arrest).

[Zilrax]

Coy Caster might be the one you want to go then. If you're under observation you have trouble casting. In your ones case, possibly from the trauma. Or the brand could give painful casting. Risk being sickened whenever you cast. Or the Brand could be Witchmarked, which penalizes disguise and becomes more potent and obvious as you get more powerful.

[Ashiel]

Coy Caster might be the one you want to go then. If you're under observation you have trouble casting. In your ones case, possibly from the trauma. Or the brand could give painful casting. Risk being sickened whenever you cast. Or the Brand could be Witchmarked, which penalizes disguise and becomes more potent and obvious as you get more powerful.

Yeah, I thought about coy caster but figured it might ruin a potentially dramatic scene if my character has to play her Zuko card and animate some dead in front of the unwashed masses. Witchmarked is a nice idea to though...

[Florian]

In 5E, the pit fiend has as much reason to fear the town militia as he does a high level Fighter, because of "bounded accuracy". It's a game that claims to provide this grand scale that ranges from fighting goblins to gods, but it really doesn't.

I never understood this line of argument. The only thing that matters are the player characters and their current adventure. The rules are for us playing the game and not for simulating the setting as a fictional world - see cats vs. commoners for this. So, hurray, the village militia could fight a Pit Fiend. Great! This ain´t about the village militia, but rather about a bunch of adventurers facing the Pit Fiend instead.

[Lemmy]

I never understood this line of argument. The only thing that matters are the player characters and their current adventure. The rules are for us playing the game and not for simulating the setting as a fictional world - see cats vs. commoners for this. So, hurray, the village militia could fight a Pit Fiend. Great! This ain´t about the village militia, but rather about a bunch of adventurers facing the Pit Fiend instead.

The point Ashiel is making is that the variety of stories and adventures you can tell goes down (e.g.: You can't tell an epic Superman x Darkseid story if every character is limited to Green Arrow's power level). In 3.5 and Pathfinder you can tell stores with all kinds of different power levels... In 5e, you can only effectively tell stories about Green Arrow. For as much as people decried high level gameplay in 3.5 and PF1, they offered an unique option that is simply not present in 5e. And honestly... Having just a little bit of consideration for the GM and other players is enough to ensure that that all classes from tier 3 and up remained relevant.

Now... You may not like the kind of story/adventure/gameplay that takes place in a high level 3.5/PF1 game... And that's ok. But it was a possibility that simply isn't there anymore.

[Florian]

But it was a possibility that simply isn't there anymore.

It also was never really supported in the first place and is basically a side-effect of the 3E line being a direct continuation of AD&D.

Looking at all the Paizo APs and their modules, there's next to no trace found of it.

[Zilrax]

Says more about Paizo and premade adventures than it does about the game. It existed. The problem however is that it's very hard to do something preset at that level of power. You're at a point where casters have hit peak crazy and can get up to all sorts of insane shenanigans. It's an entirely different gaming style than earlier levels. It's the point where the gm has to be a lot more flexible and adventure paths are not able to be that. Because the adventurers can just bypass or circumvent so many things.

For example. Final book of Carrion Crown. The bad guys have a base in the middle of nowhere. Certainly promising all sorts of trouble. Pcs could kick the door in like every other level. Mine used control weather and leveled it with a tornado. Sure, the underground sections were fine, and they went in ahead then rather than pulling any other shenanigans, but that structure was just gone. the creatures that could teleport or were near the way down could get away. The rest were in a tornado. If they had decided to spam earthquake instead they could have leveled the whole thing honestly. And this isn't even the limits of the things they could have pulled.

And thats if they decide to stick to the script at all. They might just decide this is stupid. Let's go to the plane of earth now. And off they go. Maybe they decide, let's go become liches and build a moon base in a week. And they probably could. And the gm then has to either decide to go along with it or just go guys this is what I wanna do please stay to it. Because you're at the point that the pcs can craft their own narratives without asking permission.

And thats the crux. Paizo adventures operate on the assumption the pcs have lasted this long in, they're invested to see it through and not go off and do their own things. They cannot account for every possibility a high level caster might pull off. So they are built for those who are willing to or aren't aware they could choose not to play by the adventures assumptions with a few what ifs tossed in for corner cases and fail states, and they leave those who don't to the gms to manage.

Whether one likes this playstyle or not is irrelevant however, the point is that it existed and it wa an option for those who wished to use it. It wasn't quite as good as it could have been perhaps or as well supported overall. The entire thing with Mythic and Wrath of the Righteous is a good example of them sorta wanting it but more so but not really understanding how to do it or work with what they had created. Really the only thing I'd say that pathfinder failed at in regards to epic battles and such is that only casters really get to partake of them and the martials are almost totally reliant on them.

[Florian]

That's more of a problem with emergent properties, especially when it comes to complex systems. Keep in mind that we have a straight succession line from AD&D to 3E to PF and it shows, especially when 4E came out. We basically have to deal with a game system that partially stops supporting the game style it is made for at some point and you are forced to make a decision, stick to the style or stick to the rules.

Edit: To be clear, I don't have anything against people using emergent properties to create their own game style. I just get irritated when people expect a company to cater to their needs, when the company already told them clearly that they don't want to support emergent styles.

[Ashiel]

I never understood this line of argument. The only thing that matters are the player characters and their current adventure. The rules are for us playing the game and not for simulating the setting as a fictional world - see cats vs. commoners for this. So, hurray, the village militia could fight a Pit Fiend. Great! This ain´t about the village militia, but rather about a bunch of adventurers facing the Pit Fiend instead.

Party roves out and beats up Grrrglbrrrgle the world eater on Tuesday, gets there butts kicked by goblins in the mines of Moria on Thursday, kind of questions why they didn't have the town militia who's about as impressive as a bunch of snot nosed goblins just deal with the incarnation of death, destruction, and madness.

Or they don't, because the wizard's animated undead minions already defeated Grrrgle-boy because he and his simulacra compadres have tons of them and said minions are actually more threatening that the party's fighter because they also add their master's proficiency bonus to their swings or shots.

Or it could simply be the fact that Grrrglbrrrgle was a huge disappointment for the warrior because he deals a whole 1d8+5 damage a few times per round against a creature that has hundreds of hit points and no real incentive to even pay any attention to the warrior for very long as at all, because the warrior's still going to miss some of those attacks.

Or the players could have agency and be like "Hey militia, can you help us do the thing?" and when the militia says "Okay, we'll have fifty guys shoot arrows at it from a safe distance" and then they wreck the thing and the PCs go "Gee, were we really necessary?"

Whereas in 3.x/PF, as god-awful as the Fighter is, monsters do not have the luxury of simply ignoring him (because he will kill them if he gets ahold of them), and there comes a point where numbers don't much matter and you need some real heroes to step up and fight. Depending on the monster, that's not even a particularly high level sometimes (particularly as it relates to things like damage reduction and energy resistance. A single succubus will laugh at a typical town militia, and will also not care very much about a pile of animated undead minions because such things are quite literally beneath her.

5E describes its gameplay as previous editions in terms of scale but is frankly just lying.

[Ashiel]

Also, while I'm not going out of my way to rag on 5E (I don't go out of my way to rag on other editions either, except maybe 4th, but that's just wholesome fun to tease my 4E friends), I basically believe the "balance" that is often toted for 5E is a load of crap, and I'm not alone in this. At which point, I have to find some other compelling reasons to change systems other than "3.x/PF isn't balanced", and honestly they just aren't there.

Simplicity isn't really a draw because I can run simple 3.x/PF games.

Improved verisimilitude isn't really a draw because it has less than the edition I play.

Options aren't a draw because there's nothing as a GM I can do with 5E that I couldn't do equally as well or better with than 3.x/PF.

Further, rules-lite isn't exactly my cup of tea because I'd rather focus on telling a story and running exciting encounters rather than trying to figure out new mechanics for stuff that doesn't exist but the players interact with anyway (and as a player, I know it's going to be like 2E where every GM's table has a different way of handling anything that isn't attacking things with pointy sticks).

It isn't the flexibility because d20 is probably the most moddable system I've ever personally come across. It's incredibly easy to throw things out, add things in, or even change core mechanics around for different types of games (and of course because of it's flexibility, lots of that has already been done for you in a variety of different flavors, so finding mods is easy).

It surely isn't the adventure because there's more interesting things you can do in 3.x/PF than you can in 5E (because as people note, it's like stretched 6 levels over 20) which means that I really just can't have epic heroes doing epic things and have it make sense in the world, which requires metagaming and handwaving to even tell those sorts of stories because the system actively rails against it.

It's kind of the same in PF 2E. The fact Paizo mutated from a company I loved and praised to a company I sincerely want to see burn to the ground aside, I see no reason to go from PF1e to PF2e, because from what I see currently there is nothing I would gain from that change and much that I would lose.

[Nicos]

I'm not alone in this.

I, on the other hand, quite like the death of the horrible WBL. Moderately decent as a guideline in PF, attrocious as a rule. And about the balance, The power gap is far from as big as in 3.x, and the weak classes can always be improved via houserule.

Now, "it can be fixed via houserule" means the game have a weakness, but it's the same with PF.

I'm not alone in this.
Further, rules-lite isn't exactly my cup of tea because I'd rather focus on telling a story and running exciting encounters rather than trying to figure out new mechanics for stuff that doesn't exist but the players interact with anyway (and as a player, I know it's going to be like 2E where every GM's table has a different way of handling anything that isn't attacking things with pointy sticks).

I personally have tons of houserules for PF, and that is true for everyone I play with. Heck, lemmy have a housrule treatise of several tomes. So I don't have a problem with different games having a different feeling.

And about handling things, does anyone really pay attentions to all those minuscule and annoying to keep track rules PF have?

[Nicos]

The point Ashiel is making is that the variety of stories and adventures you can tell goes down (e.g.: You can't tell an epic Superman x Darkseid story if every character is limited to Green Arrow's power level). In 3.5 and Pathfinder you can tell stores with all kinds of different power levels... In 5e, you can only effectively tell stories about Green Arrow. For as much as people decried high level gameplay in 3.5 and PF1, they offered an unique option that is simply not present in 5e. And honestly... Having just a little bit of consideration for the GM and other players is enough to ensure that that all classes from tier 3 and up remained relevant.

Now... You may not like the kind of story/adventure/gameplay that takes place in a high level 3.5/PF1 game... And that's ok. But it was a possibility that simply isn't there anymore.

On the other hand, PF have a problem in the other side of the spectrum. PF turns too quickly into a superheroes game.

I remember Rynjin's Myrial, where we were some thieves but we basically destroyed everything in our path and Rynjin had problems in challenging us with things that were appropiated by the theme of the cmpaing.

[Ashiel]

I, on the other hand, quite like the death of the horrible WBL. Moderately decent as a guideline in PF, attrocious as a rule.

I'm not sure what you mean by "as a rule", exactly. I'm probably going to need you to explain it further so I understand better. To my current understanding, WBL is essentially a little less than the amount of wealth a party should have amassed over the course of their career towards that level had they been actually adventuring, sans about 15% or so because it's assumed parties will have probably used consumables and the like.

For example, the treasure value of a level 1 encounter on the medium XP track is 260 gp. It would take 20 of those encounters to reach 2nd level (2,000 XP) meaning divided equally the character actually amasses 1300 gp over the course of 1st level. Similarly, from 2nd to 3rd the character amasses another 2750 gp (bringing the total amassed from 1st-3rd to 4,050 gp). At this point through organic play you're actually going to be above WBL if your players have been pinching their pennies.

It helps GMs have a pretty good idea of when to know when their players are dangerously under-geared. There's nothing wrong with playing characters who are under WBL, but it's good for the GM to know that if they're grossly under geared it might be a better idea to use more lower-CR creatures and to lowball their encounters a bit (for the record, in my experience it's much worse for parties to be under WBL than over).

I personally have tons of houserules for PF, and that is true for everyone I play with. Heck, lemmy have a housrule treatise of several tomes. So I don't have a problem with different games having a different feeling.

And about handling things, does anyone really pay attentions to all those minuscule and annoying to keep track rules PF have?

Depends on which ones you mean. When I mentioned lack of rules, I was mostly talking about things like my favorite chapter in the core rulebook (the Environment chapter). It's remarkably great being able to dress up adventures with things like weather and terrain to make encounters and scenes more interesting, and it's nice not having to ad-hoc everything (which is great for players and GMs) or have to write new systems (which is great for GMs) because you wanted to have a battle, at night, in a cold swamp, in a storm.

[Ashiel]

On the other hand, PF have a problem in the other side of the spectrum. PF turns too quickly into a superheroes game.

Well, I know there's a lot of ways to have a low level d20 game with little modification necessary. E-# games are pretty popular for example (most famous being E6 but I've also seen E4-8 pop up with some frequency). You can also play NPC games if you want that more old-school flavor (warrior, expert, adept; maybe with stuff like variant multiclassing).

I like having options. The system I'm using now can do both. 5E only does one. Which is another reason I see no reason to make a jump towards it. It's easier for me to mod my current system that was build to be flexed and modded than it would be for me to have to write the missing elements into 5E.

I remember Rynjin's Myrial, where we were some thieves but we basically destroyed everything in our path and Rynjin had problems in challenging us with things that were appropiated by the theme of the cmpaing.

I'd be interested in hearing more about that. I don't know what you guys get up to when I'm not around.

[Nicos]

If my memory is not failng my, it was stated by paizo that the WBl was a hard rule.

Taken as a rule, It does create the expectative in some players that if hte DM is not giving them x amount of money the DM is cheating them.

Though, I don't really like the economy of PF as a whole. Overpriced and uninteresting magic items, the crhismast three effect, the big 6 4, Item creation, the way the wbl scale.
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I would have to take a second glance at the enviromental rules.

But PF is full of bad or annoying or unclear rules, like perception modifiers, perception vs stealth, intimidate DC, acrobatics vs CMD, etc...to the point that everyone is playing housrule PF (with the exception of PFS, maybe).

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

In the end, I think I would like a game in between 5e and PF, but such is life.

[Florian]

I'm not sure what you mean by "as a rule", exactly. I'm probably going to need you to explain it further so I understand better.

WBL is hard-coded into character development. Take a look at how the ABP table works and cross-reference that with the monster creation rules and you'll see the why of it quite easily.

[Ashiel]

If my memory is not failng my, it was stated by paizo that the WBl was a hard rule.

Paizo stated a lot of...things.

Taken as a rule, It does create the expectative in some players that if hte DM is not giving them x amount of money the DM is cheating them.

It can be frustrating if you're out adventuring and not getting the benefits of being an adventurer for sure. That said, it's certainly not necessary. A skilled traditional party (warrior/specialist/divine/arcane) can most certainly progress all the way to 20th level on nothing more than 16k magic items (potentially less even) by leveraging their abilities (using spells like greater magic weapon, resist energy, magic circle vs evil, etc) and using things like bane weapons, or using planar binding to raise the ability scores of your party (but you should be doing that for your friends anyway).

Though, I don't really like the economy of PF as a whole. Overpriced and uninteresting magic items, the crhismast three effect, the big 6 4, Item creation, the way the wbl scale.

That's fair. Though if you want some neat and cheap magic items, I should note that x/day and x/- items tend to be quite cheap and very amusing. I very frequently scattered items with x/day or charged effects through my games early and often. Here's a few items I've used in my games as an example. All of these were created with the core magic item creation rules.

+1 Heartseeker
A +1 longbow that 2/day casts inevitable strike (1st level psionic power granting +5 to hit and ignore concealment as a swift action, or a +20 on your next shot in the next round if you spend a standard action to charge it). A mere 800 gp more than a regular +1 longbow.

Shield of Flames
A +1 heavy steel shield that had 5d4 worth of burning hands sealed in it. The dragon crest on the shield could come to life to breath some combination of 5d4 fire damage (1d4 five times per day or 5d4 once per day). The whole thing was 2,800 gp and it saw a lot of use and quickly became one of the dwarf cleric's favorite items.

Giant's Buckle
A belt that lets you enlarge person yourself for up to 10 rounds per day, divided as you see fit. Also comes as a codpiece for the fashion-inclined. A mere 400 gp.

Pot of Pestilence
A clay pot inscribed with depictions of vermin, filled with a fine black sand. When opened and the sand scattered out (up to 25 ft. ft away) the sand transforms into a swarm of bats, rats, or spiders (your choice) that lasts as long as you concentrate on it and for 2 rounds thereafter. After the pot has been emptied its magic vanishes. A mere 109 gp.

Firefly Oil
A sticky oil that can be applied to ammunition as a standard action. Once applied the oil remains potent for about an hour, and causes the weapon to inflict +1d6 fire damage on contact. There's enough oil in a single bottle for up to 50 pieces of ammunition. A mere 270 gp.

Liquid Courage
This strong dwarven stout is good for what ails you. Drinking it suppresses any ongoing fear effects for 10 minutes and grants a +4 morale bonus on saving throws for any new fear effects for the duration. Cost 18 gp.

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

I would have to take a second glance at the enviromental rules.

But PF is full of bad or annoying or unclear rules, like perception modifiers, perception vs stealth, intimidate DC, acrobatics vs CMD, etc...to the point that everyone is playing housrule PF (with the exception of PFS, maybe).

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

The environmental rules are pretty neat. There's a ton of stuff in them that is great for making adventures more fun, exciting, and exotic.

In the end, I think I would like a game in between 5e and PF, but such is life.

Gimme a minute...

[Ashiel]

WBL is hard-coded into character development. Take a look at how the ABP table works and cross-reference that with the monster creation rules and you'll see the why of it quite easily.

ABP table?

[Nicos]

I'd be interested in hearing more about that. I don't know what you guys get up to when I'm not around.

Well, I might be exaggerating a little. We were using Rynjins point buy class creation + automatic bonus progression, so we probably were stronger than regular PC for the level, but not that much If you optimize in RAW PF.

[Ashiel]

Well, I might be exaggerating a little. We were using Rynjins point buy class creation + automatic bonus progression, so we probably were stronger than regular PC for the level, but not that much If you optimize in RAW PF.

Hmmmmmmm...

Well, I don't really know anything about that but it sounds pretty interesting.

[Lemmy]

It also was never really supported in the first place and is basically a side-effect of the 3E line being a direct continuation of AD&D.

Looking at all the Paizo APs and their modules, there's next to no trace found of it.

Precisely because the power levels were so insane, it was difficult to write APs for them... Just like it's difficult to write good Superman stories without making him hold the idiot ball or abusing cheap gimmicks (like kryptonite). But the potential was there. And many GMs used it.

Just because a writer (Paizo) can't or won't write good Superman stories, doesn't mean it can't be done.

When you embrace the absurd power tiers instead of fighting an impossible battle against them... High level games can be quite enjoyable! I've GM and played in games that ended in the high 20's or low 30's levels myself. And they were awesome! Those games simply aren't a possibility in a game where Darkseid can be defeated by a bunch of normal security guards.

[Nicos]

Hmmmmmmm...

Well, I don't really know anything about that but it sounds pretty interesting.

THe automatic bonus progression is there so the we can ban the stat boosters and hte other big 4.

The rules for poit buy cass system are this
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...y9jrVuqVA/edit

They can be broken, of course, But so is standard PF. I really like the system but nobody DM it.

[Ashiel]

THe automatic bonus progression is there so the we can ban the stat boosters and hte other big 4.

The rules for poit buy cass system are this
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...y9jrVuqVA/edit

They can be broken, of course, But so is standard PF. I really like the system but nobody DM it.

This looks pretty interesting. I would end up making kooky things. lol

[TOZ]

I got to test it out in a one-off game I ran with a bunch of European gamers. We went from levels 6-8 or so and it was pretty nice to not have to worry too much about loot.

[Rynjin]

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.

[Florian]

ABP table?

Automatic Bonus Progression from Pathfinder Unchained. Basically, it gets rid of all the pure functional "+" enhancements (weapons, armor, rings of protection, amulet of natural armor, stat boosters and so on) by hard-coding them into the normal level progression. This basically cuts WBL by half and allows to fool around with more specific items, consumables and such.

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.

Encounter balance is both, very easy and very tricky. Two important things to keep in mind are, that as GM, you can go all out and don't have to manage your resources, as well as being one person in charge of multiple creatures can have the negative side effect of you being too effective at running them, making them deadlier by way of synergy and tactics than they ought to be.

Honestly, the first thing is to teach your players that there's no shame in running away and coming back better prepared to face an encounter. I mean, we all know that certain kinds, like Swarms in 3E/PF can be a killer for a group not able to deal with them. Beyond that, it´s easier to go low and upgrade with with simple templates on the fly than to aim for the actually perceived challenge rating.

[Ashiel]

Automatic Bonus Progression from Pathfinder Unchained. Basically, it gets rid of all the pure functional "+" enhancements (weapons, armor, rings of protection, amulet of natural armor, stat boosters and so on) by hard-coding them into the normal level progression. This basically cuts WBL by half and allows to fool around with more specific items, consumables and such.

Hm, dunno. The monster creation stuff in Pathfinder actually lowballs critters pretty hard (it never includes things like their SLAs or buffs and such), but the pace you're expected to get treasure in the base game actually outpaces the expected WBL by a rather strong margin (so you should definitely be able to play around with things like consumables). Further, most +x things aren't needed at low levels or are luxury items. for example, you really do not need a +1 weapon early in your career, because it provides no appreciable benefit over a masterwork weapon unless you just happen to encounter a creature with DR or an incorporeal foe, in which case an oil of magic weapon or oil of bless weapon or simply using alchemical items (such as alchemist fire and holy water) will cover such things and gives you the luxury of deciding which weapon you are going to use (since you can of course apply the oils to whichever weapon would be ideal).

I just took a look at the Automatic Bonus Progression (I haven't really looked at Unchained much) and I'd probably want to avoid that as a player. Seems like it takes away your agency to choose your stuff, and it forces physical and mental increases at different rates (giving mental boosts earlier than physical ones), and their itemization seems pretty garbage, choosing things like upgrading weapons by +1 early and often.

Encounter balance is both, very easy and very tricky. Two important things to keep in mind are, that as GM, you can go all out and don't have to manage your resources,

What do you mean?

as well as being one person in charge of multiple creatures can have the negative side effect of you being too effective at running them

What's too effective running them mean?

making them deadlier by way of synergy and tactics than they ought to be.

How deadly ought they be?

Honestly, the first thing is to teach your players that there's no shame in running away and coming back better prepared to face an encounter. I mean, we all know that certain kinds, like Swarms in 3E/PF can be a killer for a group not able to deal with them. Beyond that, it´s easier to go low and upgrade with with simple templates on the fly than to aim for the actually perceived challenge rating.

Most of the simple templates are garbage though and produce very swingy results. I'd definitely advise against using them without careful consideration.

[Ashiel]

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~!

[Lemmy]

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.

I'll be first to admit that the way they do attribute bonus progression is... Flawed... To put it lightly. Which is why my campaigns use my own variation of ABP, which allows far greater customization, IMHO, but does have the disadvantage that AC scales a bit too fast and doesn't give free weapon/armor enhancements.

[Nicos]

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.

I/we use another automatic bonus progression that allows for more freedom since 2012, And, as GM, wbl is just a loose guideline I has not cause me any problem.