[D20 Legends Project] Ashiel's Crunchy but Approachable D20

[Tels]

How will stealthy spellcasting be handled? Some comments elsewhere reminded me Paizo did the whole, "this aspect of the gam renders this class or feat pointless, so we recon/nerf it to make it no longer viable" thing again with Ultimate Intrigue. They introduced a FAQ saying that all spell casting, including SLAs, is incredibly obvious, even a Stilled, Silent spell has obvious indicators unless you have X feat or X class ability to hide it.

[Ashiel]

How will stealthy spellcasting be handled? Some comments elsewhere reminded me Paizo did the whole, "this aspect of the gam renders this class or feat pointless, so we recon/nerf it to make it no longer viable" thing again with Ultimate Intrigue. They introduced a FAQ saying that all spell casting, including SLAs, is incredibly obvious, even a Stilled, Silent spell has obvious indicators unless you have X feat or X class ability to hide it.

That's a good question. One I've not got a solid answer for, but rather two possible routes.

The first route being making it a function of whatever skill seems appropriate.

For example, if you have to have a material component (which spells generally do) then you'd use Slight of Hand to conceal that, just as if you were trying to conceal anything else in the same fashion. A successful Deception check (renamed Bluff) would be useful if you intend to use vocal components without letting on that you're casting a spell as part of your words, similar to passing a false or hidden message.

The second would be adopting the option to make a Concentration check to suppress any signs of you being the source of the magic, which is something psionics has allowed since 3.5 (you can forgo the displays for powers with a Concentration check). The plus side here is that it would make it more universal across the different variations of magic (spellcasting, psionics, and spell-like abilities) and would just be a basic part of magic (hiding your spellcasting would simply make casting the spell harder).

I suppose there's a possible 3rd option such as combining aspects of both (such as making it a basic part of casting, but allowing investment in skills to open up avenues to conceal your casting without penalties). For example, if it normally increased the Concentration DC by +4 to conceal your vocal or somatic components, you might have a feat that reduces the penalty based on your ranks in the associated skill or something.

Honestly I'd be interested in hearing what people would prefer.

[Tels]

One of the biggest hurdles is how to handle the various aspects of spellcasting itself. I mean, you would need a Sleight of Hand check to withdraw the material component without anyone noticing, another Sleight of Hand check to disguise your somatic component, and a Bluff/Deception check to disguise your verbal component, and, as per Paizo's rules, some method of disguising or suppressing the "obvious display of magical energy." One method is to completely ignore the "obvious display" thing, and just go with multiple skill checks to pull it off, and give them the option of taking a feat that lets them automatically do it, along with some other bonus to make it not such a bad option; such as a bonus to caster level if the spell doesn't produce some effect that originates from you (such as how fireball or lightning bolt do).

This would mean that characters could invest in a few skills to disguise their spellcasting, while other characters simply opt to take a feat so they don't need to do so.

[Zilrax]

It also raises some balance issues too. We're talking about power that can edit minds, devastate cities and call up fiends from the darkest depths. A spellcaster in a crowd at this point is basically a nightmare for anyone involved if they've any subtlety. And since I've dealt with situations like that before it tends to raise certain emotions.

Spell-likes have no components at all. So a Succubus in a crowd just... Does whatever they want and you can do NOTHING about it. Being a shapeshifter, even if you figure out it's a succubus, good luck. And given it's a crowd, detect evil doesn't really help you that much. If you even had it prepared. Your only choice is leaving the situation.

Worse, if it's a situation where there's a crowd and the caster is just greater invisible above it and can silently cast forever, you're even more screwed. There's so many ways for spellcasters to be unfindable ALREADY that it almost feels unfair to let them be even more so. Yeah it kinda ****s enchanters though.

Perhaps the only fair way to do it is to make a subtype of enchantments that can be cast subtly, like language dependent spells?

[Ashiel]

It's funny you mentioned a succubus in a crowd. I've actually had that very scenario play out with a group of my old tabletop games. It ended up with the party's Paladin and Wizard trying to explain to the local authorities why they were carrying an enormous amount of highly illegal substances in their possession.

Spoiler: Silly Story

Show

The party had recently rescued some victims of a slave den, who were kept under control by being forcefully addicted to a potent drug. Recognizing that the drug was super illegal, but that just quitting them cold turkey might cause more harm than good, the party kept a large container full of the stuff from the den, so they could ween them off of it.

Meanwhile, a succubus who the party had unfortunately garnered the capricious attention of, was messing with them by making it seem like they were shoplifting in the market place, which she expected to be more embarrassing than damning. She didn't know they were toting around a pile of drugs. She found her foolery well rewarded when the scene resulted in them having to talk their way out of getting arrested, while also not admitting that they were engaging in some vigilante justice. Successfully wiggling out of the situation only spurred the succubus to take a greater interest in their shenanigans...

In normal D20, Psionic characters can manifest powers without the displays associated with the powers by making a Concentration check (DC 15 + level of the power). In D20 Legends, this would translate to making the spell or power harder to activate (+4 to the DC). I've always liked this mechanic and it would be pretty simple to adapt to casting.

[Axebird]

The main problem with that mechanic is similar to the issues with 3.x Tumble; the difficulty of denying opponent response is irrespective of their level or relative abilities. If you can hit the (relatively easy) DC, you can fool literally anyone. Even effects you'd think would help like arcane sight do little to help, since they only identify existing auras and don't show you their source.

A mechanic for covert casting should almost certainly include a level-scaled method for people to notice it. Whether you base that off of Perception scores, Spellcraft, or raw level ("6th sense") isn't super important, but people need a way to notice when spells are being cast secretly and identify their source.

[Ashiel]

The main problem with that mechanic is similar to the issues with 3.x Tumble; the difficulty of denying opponent response is irrespective of their level or relative abilities. If you can hit the (relatively easy) DC, you can fool literally anyone. Even effects you'd think would help like arcane sight do little to help, since they only identify existing auras and don't show you their source.

A mechanic for covert casting should almost certainly include a level-scaled method for people to notice it. Whether you base that off of Perception scores, Spellcraft, or raw level ("6th sense") isn't super important, but people need a way to notice when spells are being cast secretly and identify their source.

I must agree. I don't want to limit concealed casting mechanics to purely mental things, but I do want to strike a nice spot for gameplay. Incidentally, the suggestion to make it a part of spellcraft, possibly with the ability to be opposed by multiple skills could fit that shoe comfortably. I really need to weigh how much of an impact the cost/reward factor presents.

It's worth noting that dedicated spellcasters have fewer skill points to go into skills than non-casters do. One of the reasons I had originally considered tying concealed casting to associated skills such as Deception and Slight of Hand (possibly renaming this to Legerdemain) because it would force someone to tie up more of their limited resources into those skills to get the benefit, whereas a 3/4 or 1/1 BAB character would have enough points to invest more readily without having to worry about missing out on other skills they wanted.

[Ashiel]

Trying to pick up the pace with writing. Between the holidays and working, progress slowed immensely but I'm working on increasing my efforts. So I wanted to offer a thought concerning the auras that the champion class is going to have, and get some thoughts on whether or not folks feel this to be a good idea, a bad idea, and why.

The champion class will have a large number of auras that they can choose if desired. These auras cover the traditional paladin/blackguard auras such as courage and despair, as well as some new auras such as an elemental aura. Aura features in Pathfinder are more or less entirely passive, with the odd exception of the Aura of Justice, which has no passive effect and is entirely active. However, having considered it a bit, I was thinking that it would be fun to make at least most auras have both an active and passive effect.

For example.

Aura of Elements [Magic, Aura]
You project an aura that protects your allies from elemental damage, while making your enemies more vulnerable to it. Allies within 25 ft. of you gain resistance 5 to acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic damage, chosen when you activate the aura, or increase resistances to the chosen element by 5 if they already possess resistance. Enemies within the area reduce their resistances to the chosen element by 5. If this would reduce their resistance to less than 0, they also gain vulnerability to the chosen element (+50% damage). As a free action on your turn, you can change the chosen energy type. At 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, and 20th level, the radius of your aura extends 5 ft. (to 50 ft. at 20th level), and the increase and reduction to resistance improves by 5 (to +30 and -30 at 20th level).

As a major action, the champion can expend 2 divine power to deal 4 points of energy damage (matching the aura's current damage type) per level to all creatures within the aura with a successful special attack, or 2 points of damage per level on a failed special attack. The champion can choose to have this damage ignore allies affected by the aura if desired.

[Zilrax]

Might be fun. I find Paladin doesn't have too much to choose from in a fight. Do I smite or not? Do I lay on Hands or not? Do I cast a spell I didn't use previous or not. They;re effective but there's not much interaction or nuance to their features. So giving them more decisions to choose from may be fun.

[Ashiel]

Might be fun. I find Paladin doesn't have too much to choose from in a fight. Do I smite or not? Do I lay on Hands or not? Do I cast a spell I didn't use previous or not. They;re effective but there's not much interaction or nuance to their features. So giving them more decisions to choose from may be fun.

That's basically what I was thinking too. I figured by tying an active effect to a passive effect, you got a cool new thing to play with, but you wouldn't regret taking the option if you weren't actively using it. For example, if you have a limited number of abilities (which you do) and you get lots of things that you can "do", you increase the likelihood that your choices won't benefit you when you aren't actively using them.

For Example
If you have 5 abilities to choose from, you might pick up five different abilities: one that allows you to shoot fire, one that allows you to make a leap attack, one that makes you heal somebody, one that makes you debuff undead, and the last one allows you to buff your friends. Unless something very weird is on, you won't use most of these each round, and you'd be hard pressed to be certain you'd use each every battle.

Meanwhile, if you took 1-2 really general actions (say a special attack that works on most enemies and something that heals), and then used the rest of your abilities for passive "always on" things like stuff that increases your AC, resistances, saves, Hp, etc, you'd be much better off. Even if you don't have the actions to spare, it's still making you stronger in some way and isn't wasted. The downside is that you end up with only 1-2 things you'll ever do besides making basic attacks.

So the idea is to reach a compromise where some, not all, but at least some abilities provide passive perks so even if you aren't actively using the ability it's still giving you some benefit for having chosen it.

[Tels]

The only thing I'm concerned about is that some auras will be "no brainer" choices, in that they get picked every because they are so powerful. For example, your Elemental aura lets the Champion decrease an enemy's resistance by 30, and if it goes below 0, they gain vulnerability. That means the 80 point damage blast, becomes a 120 damage blast. Since he can change the aura's element each round, he could, conceivably, just cycle through the elements until he finds one that works and then just nuke with it. But you can offset that by giving auras with weak passive abilities, strong active abilities; the flip side is giving strong passive weak, or even no, active abilities.

That's my only real concern.... well, that and cookie cutter builds. I'd hate to see some choices are so good that you'd be stupid to choose anything else.

[Ashiel]

The only thing I'm concerned about is that some auras will be "no brainer" choices, in that they get picked every because they are so powerful. For example, your Elemental aura lets the Champion decrease an enemy's resistance by 30, and if it goes below 0, they gain vulnerability. That means the 80 point damage blast, becomes a 120 damage blast. Since he can change the aura's element each round, he could, conceivably, just cycle through the elements until he finds one that works and then just nuke with it. But you can offset that by giving auras with weak passive abilities, strong active abilities; the flip side is giving strong passive weak, or even no, active abilities.

That's my only real concern.... well, that and cookie cutter builds. I'd hate to see some choices are so good that you'd be stupid to choose anything else.

For sure. There's a pretty good chance I won't get it just right on the first try either, if only due to the sheer amount of content that will need to be written for everything. I'm trying to, in my spare time, get enough working for a functional public playtest to work out such bugs. The damage values of the aura can easily be tweaked or changed to another format (such as xd6 / y levels), but since I have so little time to devote to writing, I wanted to make sure whatever route I was going was unlikely to get scrapped (so I try to ask "What do you guys think of this thing?" when an idea for a new thing emerges).

[Tels]

Will arcane spell failure still be a thing or will Wizards get to wear armor, a la Elder Scrolls?

[Ashiel]

Will arcane spell failure still be a thing or will Wizards get to wear armor, a la Elder Scrolls?

Firstly, sorry for taking so long to respond to this question. Work has been really crazy lately with shifting schedules and stuff, but it seems to have mostly stabled out for a while. So sorry for being slow.

To answer the question, arcane spell failure doesn't exist anymore. Instead, armor/shields apply their ACP on your Concentration checks. ACP won't be easily reduced in D20 Legends, and currently the most effective method of mitigating the ACP on your Concentration check is a particular warrior stance that effectively halves your ACP to Concentration while in the stance.

Due to the way Concentration works, it means it makes casting spells harder and incentivizes casting lower level spells rather than higher level spells when you're heavily armored, which naturally works in the favor of Paladin-type characters.

For example, the DCs to cast spells looks something like this.
TIER I SPELL DCs
1st: 12
2nd: 14
3rd: 16

TIER II SPELL DCs
4th: 23
5th: 25

So if you're an 8th level character, you might be looking at +8 (level) + 6 (ability score) = +14 (not including feats or extra buffs). Which means that when taking 10, you could cast up to a 4th level spell with no troubles. However, if we stuck you in heavy armor (-6 ACP) and a heavy shield (-3 ACP), you'd only have a +5 modifier total. Now casting 3rd level spells is risky, and casting anything above that is extremely hard. If you're a full caster, your best bet is to spam low level spells using all your extra spell slots. If you're a martial caster, you only cast up to 3rd level spells at best, so you're not particularly hindered by wearing armor. But if your bread and butter is casting the highest level spells you can, you're not going to like wearing armor and shields much.

[Klara Meison]

Will spells such as "Resistance" and "Halo of Sand" make a comeback? In case you don't know, those are spells in 3.5 granting resistance bonus to saves and deflection bonus to AC respectively, and required for crafting the respective permanent items.

[Ashiel]

Will spells such as "Resistance" and "Halo of Sand" make a comeback? In case you don't know, those are spells in 3.5 granting resistance bonus to saves and deflection bonus to AC respectively, and required for crafting the respective permanent items.

Resistance likely will. Halo of sand, which I wasn't familiar with, would be redundant next to shield of faith which provides the same sort of bonus in core.

[Klara Meison]

Resistance likely will. Halo of sand, which I wasn't familiar with, would be redundant next to shield of faith which provides the same sort of bonus in core.

Halo of Sand is same thing, but on the Druid's spell list, and lasts longer.

[Ashiel]

Halo of Sand is same thing, but on the Druid's spell list, and lasts longer.

Lasting longer is something that you'll see a lot of in D20 Legends, particularly in terms of common buffs. In D20 Legends, spells that provide 'standard' buffs that work like magic items have much longer durations (usually 8 hours) so they are fire-and-forget spells. There are several reasons for this actually.

1. It makes spending resources to buff allies more attractive. Bull's strength, for example, has a minute/level duration in 3.x/Pathfinder, which means it's rarely good for more than one encounter. As a result, it's in great competition with other spells that are much stronger and are measured in rounds/level, while lasting a few of minutes means you probably won't get much extra use out of the spell (you couldn't cast it on your friend to help carry more treasure, nor would you be sure that you'll get more mileage out of it by squeezing the duration into an extra encounter).
2. It reduces the reliance on magic items for keeping basic things (enhancements, resistances, etc) on par. This can be helpful if a group wants to do different things with their gold, or are playing in a campaign with less emphasis on treasure. It's also helpful for lower-magic parties since it means things like buffing potions are decent replacements. Permanent magic items still have the advantage that you won't need to stop in the middle of combat and drink a handful of potions or cast a bunch of spells because you got targeted by dispel magic, so stuff like gauntlets of strength still have a tactical value.
3. It cuts down on a lot of the minute bookkeeping and makes certain playstyles easier from the get-go. For example, summoning spells have a flat 10 round duration, whether you're 1st or 20th level. So gone are the days of summoning a badger, it making one attack, missing, and then vanishing. Having set durations also means simplifying the little details that make tracking lots of effects a pain in the butt (especially when you're losing and gaining caster level buffs while casting, such as if you cast death knell or used a prayer bead of karma during an encounter, where spells you cast during that window now have different durations than the ones you cast outside of it.
4. It makes it clearer (especially to new players) what their spells are going to do and when the best time to use them will be.

Another thing that's going to make a regular appearance will be "investing" resources. The idea is that some classes that have resources will be able to invest those resources into an ability, effectively expending those resources and being unable to regain those resources until the ability is dismissed or they rest or something. Such abilities are basically always on until you recover the resource, and the resource cannot be regained until the ability stops, so your pool is effectively smaller while the ability remains active (which is relevant in the case that your class or race can regain a resource without resting).

It shares a basic concept similar to games like Dragon Age: Origins, or Tales of Maj'eyal. I'm also planning on making such abilities a central theme of the mage class (unless I can come up with a different direction to take the mage), where the mage can invest spell slots into powering their mage abilities.

[Tels]

Another thing that's going to make a regular appearance will be "investing" resources. The idea is that some classes that have resources will be able to invest those resources into an ability, effectively expending those resources and being unable to regain those resources until the ability is dismissed or they rest or something. Such abilities are basically always on until you recover the resource, and the resource cannot be regained until the ability stops, so your pool is effectively smaller while the ability remains active (which is relevant in the case that your class or race can regain a resource without resting).

It shares a basic concept similar to games like Dragon Age: Origins, or Tales of Maj'eyal. I'm also planning on making such abilities a central theme of the mage class (unless I can come up with a different direction to take the mage), where the mage can invest spell slots into powering their mage abilities.

Sounds kind of like what the Kineticist from Occult Adventures can do now. Kineticist can accept burn, which lowers his HP for the day, in exchange he can power up certain abilities, like her kinetic defense, or wild talents like Kinetic Form and they remain activated until the Kineticist recovers burn by resting. In addition, for every point of burn she takes, she can gain bonuses to attack and damage rolls, and, at different intervals of burn, she gains stat boosts to her physical ability scores; these remain active as long as she has burn.

Many Kineticists will start their day by accepting enough burn to charge their defense and a few other abilities, while also gain combat and ability increases to boot.

[Ashiel]

Sounds kind of like what the Kineticist from Occult Adventures can do now. Kineticist can accept burn, which lowers his HP for the day, in exchange he can power up certain abilities, like her kinetic defense, or wild talents like Kinetic Form and they remain activated until the Kineticist recovers burn by resting. In addition, for every point of burn she takes, she can gain bonuses to attack and damage rolls, and, at different intervals of burn, she gains stat boosts to her physical ability scores; these remain active as long as she has burn.

Many Kineticists will start their day by accepting enough burn to charge their defense and a few other abilities, while also gain combat and ability increases to boot.

At the moment, this is basically how the mage class is intended to work. Investing spell slots into class features to power them, and in some cases needing specific sorts of spells prepared/known. At least, that's the current idea.

EDIT: Which I'm planning to upload a preview pdf of the four primary classes (Champion, Mage, Rogue, and Warrior), which I'm going to use for some playtesting. Once those are fairly well-rounded, I intend to do Alchemist, Bard, Druid, and Ranger (fortunately there's already some notes made for a number of these from a very early proof of concept I wrote up for my brother). Currently trying to think of a new name for the sorcerer.

[Tels]

Currently trying to think of a new name for the sorcerer.

I had a weird, and maybe crazy thought: what if classes like the Sorcerer and Warlock didn't exist as a normal class at all, but as some sort of class template? Kind of like the Eldritch Heritage feats, except they would be templates and they would grant a certain amount of Sorcerer Points or Bloodline talents whatever you want to call it. They could spend these points/talents to unlock their bloodline powers, but from a selection of powers so not all Sorcerers of the same bloodline were exactly the same. The bloodline powers to choose from can do a variety of different things, so you can build them to augment your actual class. Like a power that augments spell related to your bloodline in various ways, boosting damage, boosting CL, boosting fire, frost, shock stacks, boosting spell attack rolls, boosting duration etc. Meanwhile, you could have powers that don't really interact with spells, but your martial abilities, adding elemental damage, adding movement options, natural weapons, supernatural abilities (breath weapons, energy resistance etc) and so on.

So, when they get their first talent, they might gain access to their bloodline and it grants them a number of points to spend on their bloodline, and the points scale with their level. They have access to the common aspects of their bloodline, and later on, when they get high enough level, they can unlock more powerful bloodline abilities. You could save up points to gain more higher level abilities, or play with lots of low level abilities if it suits your fancy. This lets you build your own bloodline, so to speak.

This would mean that a Wizard with a Fire Bloodline might have taken abilities to add +1 stack of burning to those caught in his fire spells, and fire spells add his Mind stat to damage, while Champion with the Fire Bloodline might add +1d6 fire damage to all of his attacks, and have access to 15 ft. cone breath weapon.

You could adapt this same thing for any sort of "class" whose flavor doesn't rely on training to unlock it's abilities. So a Warlock, Sorcerer Bloodline, Kineticist etc.

[Ashiel]

I had a weird, and maybe crazy thought: what if classes like the Sorcerer and Warlock didn't exist as a normal class at all, but as some sort of class template? Kind of like the Eldritch Heritage feats, except they would be templates and they would grant a certain amount of Sorcerer Points or Bloodline talents whatever you want to call it. They could spend these points/talents to unlock their bloodline powers, but from a selection of powers so not all Sorcerers of the same bloodline were exactly the same. The bloodline powers to choose from can do a variety of different things, so you can build them to augment your actual class. Like a power that augments spell related to your bloodline in various ways, boosting damage, boosting CL, boosting fire, frost, shock stacks, boosting spell attack rolls, boosting duration etc. Meanwhile, you could have powers that don't really interact with spells, but your martial abilities, adding elemental damage, adding movement options, natural weapons, supernatural abilities (breath weapons, energy resistance etc) and so on.

So, when they get their first talent, they might gain access to their bloodline and it grants them a number of points to spend on their bloodline, and the points scale with their level. They have access to the common aspects of their bloodline, and later on, when they get high enough level, they can unlock more powerful bloodline abilities. You could save up points to gain more higher level abilities, or play with lots of low level abilities if it suits your fancy. This lets you build your own bloodline, so to speak.

This would mean that a Wizard with a Fire Bloodline might have taken abilities to add +1 stack of burning to those caught in his fire spells, and fire spells add his Mind stat to damage, while Champion with the Fire Bloodline might add +1d6 fire damage to all of his attacks, and have access to 15 ft. cone breath weapon.

You could adapt this same thing for any sort of "class" whose flavor doesn't rely on training to unlock it's abilities. So a Warlock, Sorcerer Bloodline, Kineticist etc.

That could definitely be a thing. I was already intending on building a bunch of monster / advanced racial features as talents and such, so this would be along the same line. I've been trying to decide what to name the sorcerer, since it would definitely be based around bloodlines moreso than magic (the sorcerer as it is today is an amusing evolution of a class (note about that below), and wanted to make them A-OK for martial fellows with a "I got crazy bloodline powers" as well.

Spoiler: Evolution of Sorcerer

Show

So a funny thing about sorcerers is the whole bloodline thing. In 3.x, sorcerers were basically a new class that was trying out this spontaneous magic thing. Basically the idea was they were wizards that didn't prepare spells. The devs thought that was super powerful, so they got a delayed progression to 'compensate' for being 'better' than wizards. Haha.

So anyway, bloodlines weren't even a thing. The only reference to bloodline stuff was that sorcerers were theorized to maybe get their powers from having dragon blood or something, and even then it was just a theory people used to rationalize these mutant mages who just spontaneously start throwing magic missiles when they start growing facial hair or boobs.

Eventually, the idea was expanded on later and the sorcerer became more known for the bloodline idea than for being a "not-wizard", which isn't surprising since "not-wizard" is a bit less epic in the lore department. As a result, today sorcerers are more known for their bloodline stuff than they are for their spells, to the point that having bloodline powers is more important than actually having magic.

[Zilrax]

Kinda off topic, but I too love Tales of Maj'Eyal and look forward to seeing the Possessor in 1.5

[Ashiel]

Kinda off topic, but I too love Tales of Maj'Eyal and look forward to seeing the Possessor in 1.5

Yeah it's pretty great. There are some cool mods for it on Steam and the regular site. One of my favorites to play around with is the party mod, which makes the game a little more like a traditional RPG where you can create a party of characters of different races & classes to go do stuff. It even has a toggle skill that allows you to resolve each character's actions like an RPG turn when in battle.

Combining it with mods that let you do things like set experience rates and the like allows you to customize the game's difficulty for the extra party members. One of the more amusing things is that you end up with a lot less "junk" equipment, since you've got more characters you gotta gear up.

[Zilrax]

I've not used mods much yet. I might at some point. Distracted with Dominions 4. Nothing like being a god and fighting other gods to be the overgod, only to inevitably after eons disappear like the last one, thus causing a repeat in an endless cycle.

So, how's the rogue coming in this game? After recent events I find myself wanting to see one done in a way that seems fun.

[Ashiel]

I've not used mods much yet. I might at some point. Distracted with Dominions 4. Nothing like being a god and fighting other gods to be the overgod, only to inevitably after eons disappear like the last one, thus causing a repeat in an endless cycle.

So, how's the rogue coming in this game? After recent events I find myself wanting to see one done in a way that seems fun.

I haven't started on the rogue in the current class document (where I'm working on the Champion [Cleric/Paladin], Mage [Wizard], Rogue, and Warrior [not-ToB fighter]), but a lot from my earlier drafts is going to get copy-pasted since the early drafts proved to be really strong when my brother convinced me to run a duct-taped prototype a few times, so here's some of the highlights concerning the rogue from that.

Sneak Attack->Cunning Strike
The rogue's Sneak Attack has been replaced by the following ability.

Cunning Strike [Rogue Talent]
When making attacks with a light weapon, one-handed weapon, or a ranged weapon within 30 ft. of their target, the rogue gains a +1 class bonus on attack rolls and +1d6 class bonus on damage rolls with the attack. At 8th and 16th level, the bonus to attack rolls increases by +1 (to a total of +3 at 16th level) and the bonus to damage rolls increases by +1d6 (to a total of +3d6 at 16th level). When attacking an opponent that is flanked or flat-footed, you double the benefits of cunning strike (so +1/+1d6 becomes +2/+2d6) for that attack.

The bonus damage from cunning strike is not multiplied when making a heroic strike, but it is maximized on a successful critical hit.

Some talents allow you to modify your cunning strike damage to add in extra effects to your cunning strike. The use of such talents must be declared before you roll any cunning strike bonus damage for the round and the modification lasts until your next turn. When using multiple talents that add a special attack against your target's defenses, make a single special attack roll and use its result for each talent (rather than rolling for each talent individually). The special attack bonus of a cunning strike is equal to ½ your level plus the ability modifier used for the attack (such as Strength or Dexterity).

The first major change is that the rogue becomes deadly with weapons not wielded in two hands, and become excellent skirmishers with ranged weapons. Cunning strike improves your accuracy (an issue vanilla-rogue struggled with) and doubles all benefits in situations where you would have originally got a sneak attack off (encouraging players to go into those situations to receive a bonus rather than merely to be semi-competent).

It scales up to +3/+3d6 just for becoming a rogue but can be further specialized to bring the progression to +6d6 at top end (which turns into +12/+12d6 when ambushing a foe at top end). However, rogues have tricks other than turning people into clouds of blood, since they can get abilities that let them debuff targets fiercely by trading bonus damage dice.

Here's some examples.

Sinister Strike [Rogue Talent]
Requirements: Cunning Strike, 3 other rogue talents
You increase the attack and damage bonus from your cunning strike ability at 4th, 12th, and 20th level by +1/+1d6 (for a total of +6/+6d6 at 20th level).

Staggering Strike [Rogue Talent]
Requirements: Cunning Strike
When performing a cunning strike, you can reduce your bonus damage by 1d6 to attempt to stagger your target. On a successful hit, make a special attack roll against your target's Fortitude defense. If the special attack succeeds, the target is staggered for 1 round. At 8th level, you may reduce the bonus damage by 2d6, causing targets that would be staggered by your attack to also move at only half speed for the duration. At 16th level, you may reduce the bonus damage by 3d6, reducing the enemy's land speed to 5 ft. and halving all other movement speeds for the duration. These secondary effects are applied even if the target is immune to the staggered condition. Additionally, at 8th and 16th level, the duration of the staggered condition increases by 1 round (to a maximum of 3 rounds at 16th level).

Blinding Strike [Rogue Talent]
Requirements: Cunning Strike
When performing a cunning strike, you can reduce your bonus damage by 1d6 to attempt to dazzle your target. On a successful hit, make a special attack roll against your target's Reflex defense. If the special attack succeeds, the target is dazzled for 1 round. If your special attack roll exceeds the target's defense by 10, the target is blinded for the duration as well. At 8th and 16th level, the duration of blinding strike increases by 1 round (to a maximum of 3 rounds at 16th level).

Rending Strike [Rogue Talent]
Requirements: Cunning strike
When performing a cunning strike, you can reduce your bonus damage by 1d6 to attempt to cause your foe to begin bleeding out, suffering damage over multiple rounds. On a successful hit, make a special attack roll against your target's Fortitude defense. If the special attack succeeds, the target gains the bleeding condition for 1 round. At 8th and 16th level, the rogue increases their critical threat range against bleeding targets by +1 (to a maximum of +2 at 16th level). Additionally, at 8th and 16th level, the duration of the bleed increases by 1 round (to a maximum of 3 rounds at 16th level).

Blood Hunter [Rogue Talent]
You have a preternatural ability to track bleeding creatures. As a swift action, you can pinpoint the locations of any hidden or invisible creatures with the bleeding condition within 30 ft. of you for 1 round. At 8th and 16th level, you increase the distance you can pinpoint enemies by 30 ft. (to a maximum of 90 ft. at 16th level).
Special: You can select this talent twice. If you do, creatures you've pinpointed gain no benefits from hiding or being invisible while attacking you, and you ignore the effects of concealment and any sight or sound based effect that make it harder to strike them (such as blur and mirror image).

Basically rogues can be a source of constant pain for enemies, or they can focus on tearing down opponents with status ailments. If built with a martial bent they become superb anti-casters (status conditions make casting spells harder and rogues can easily stack status conditions on you in short order and then punish you for being debuffed). For example, a rogue could trade away a few D6s to stack dazzled and bleeding on someone (net +4 to Concentration check DCs), and dazzled makes you half-blinded in D20 Legends (so everything gains 20% concealment against you), and you start bleeding out. If the rogue has Blood Hunter, suddenly you can't hide from the rogue (and if he's got two talents invested in it she ignores concealment and magic evasion effects). Since the rogue has concealment vs you (due to being dazzled), the rogue can start dancing around you and opposing you with Stealth checks (think stepping to the side and repeatedly sucker punching you from your blind spot), and when she succeeds at her Stealth she explodes into you with bonus Cunning Strike dice again (because suddenly you just got ambushed again) and the cycle continues.

They'll get some rogue perks that round out their noncombat abilities as well but rogues tend to be very strait-forward and simple to play. Unlike a lot of the other classes that focus on managing resources, rogues only have to focus on destroying everything they touch (and focused they are) since the only resource questions you have to consider are A) Do I want to do damage, B) do I want to do MORE damage, C) do I want to trade damaging them for raining on their parade, and D) all of the above.

[Zilrax]

Tales of Maj Eyal 1.5 is here! Holy crap is it huge. So many changes to look through. Rogue got a total rewrite, what a coincidence eh?

[Ashiel]

Tales of Maj Eyal 1.5 is here! Holy crap is it huge. So many changes to look through. Rogue got a total rewrite, what a coincidence eh?

Nice. I'll hack to check it out soon. A coincidence indeed on the rogue as well.

At the moment, the rogue in D20 Legends is designed to be a class that doesn't rely on any sort of resource and is more direct, with there being rewards for you paying attention to things like positioning and circumstances (keeping in mind things like light levels, flanking, etc). They're a bit deceptive in how strong they are since being able to trade bonus damage for status ailments on attacks is huge (you're only limited in your attempts to disable by the number of attacks you're making during the combat), so rogues can fill both a damage and a support role and change between those two roles at a moment's notice.

Their to-hit and damage bonuses are class bonuses so they won't stack with the hit and damage bonuses from things like smite or rage (which also provide class bonuses to hit/damage), but you might decide to merge rogue with some of these classes to get status ailments on your attacks (for example, staggering strike is pretty nasty when combined with an ability the champion gets that makes their threatened area difficult terrain, or a sword & board warrior who doesn't get any class bonuses to hit and damage might decide to dip rogue to get cunning strike with their 1-handed weapons).

During the duct-tape tests, the rogue players preferred to build their rogues as martial characters (netting them the highest HP, BAB, and skill rank totals possible). The pair of rogues in the party went with a steampunk theme, with one being a pistol toting bounty hunter who spent most of his time making cunning strikes at a distance or using a combat knife, and an assassin-type character who dressed as a Victorian lady, who killed everything with a knitting needle, a pair of sewing scissors, and a parasol. The two melted foes, especially when they flanked with each other. Since cunning strike stacks with the bonus D6s from a high BAB, they were also remarkably dangerous with things like flasks of acid (they were 8th level, both took sinister strike, so when they chucked a flask of acid or alchemist fire they were adding +5d6 damage to the flasks).

[Zilrax]

Neat. Amusingly one of the ToME's Rogue trees is actually based around bleeding and status effects but now they've a ranged option in dagger tossing. I didn't do it the first time though to try the new traps. Regret it a bit now.

Trying the archer instead. Nasty thing now.

Possessor I'm gonna need a bit to wrap my head around how I'm supposed to be playing em.

[Lemmy]

Hey. Ash! How are you? Haven't talked much to each other lately, but I hope everything is awesome in your life... Hopefully, no more thousands of chicken corpses to bury, huh?

(No, I'm never letting that die out! )

Anyway... I've playing some (heavily-homebrewed) Pathfinder again lately (I really, really needed a break from it... Once I got, I was finally able to ahve fun with the game again )... And as my players reached higher levels, we got into the portion of the game where fights grow shorter (not necessarily bad), but turns take much longer (pretty bad) and SoL effects become much more common (very bad, IMHO).

So I was thinking of ways to make attacks go faster and SoL less all-or-nothing (I even opened up some old drafts for homebrew combat rules I had lying around in mu google drive)...

I came up with the idea of reducing the number of attacks, but making them more powerful depending on BAB... Characters don't gain extra attacks at BAB +11 and higher, but each attacks deal more damage dice based on the weapon (something like +1 base damage for every +4 in their BAB or something like that, which wouldn't be multiplied on a critical hit because criticals are deadly enough as they are). That, however, poses the problem of making "deflect one attack" mechanics considerably more powerful than normal... I think... I can't be sure, since the attacks using the highest 2 highest attack bonuses would still be there.

Then, I remembered you had already created a similar system for your game... Only probably much better and far more thought-through than what I had in mind. So I wanted to ask you:

- How would you go about reducing the number of attacks, but retaining similar damage output (or maybe a little lower) in Pathfinder? And with that in mind, would you change the attack deflection mechanics at all? If so, how?
- Assuming you get no more iterative attacks at BAB +11 and higher... What would ability, if any, would you give as a replacement to characters who reach that level?