Been thinking a lot about the Lord class, which is the new Charisma-based class I've been tinkering. It's going to have a medium base attack bonus, which relates to a d8 HD. Not a slouch in combat, but not its primary focus.
Instead the primary focus would be on practices. Practices are associated with spheres, and spheres are tied to one of the Charisma-based skills. Diplomacy, Intimidate, Perform, and the others (which for some reason I can't think of right now). I'm thinking the lord will have access to a certain number of practices based on level, and utilizing the practice will require a skill check of the appropriate sphere skill.
I'm thinking most of the practices will be support level, very similar to the bard abilities, but there should be focused attacks in there as well. With a sphere for the Perform skill I'm really thinking the lord will ENTIRELY replace the specific and focused bard base class. The bard would then become a prestige class, which has always felt more appropriate to me.
Just musings at this point, but I'm starting to come up with concrete details in a document. A good start, I think.
Showing posts with label RPGs - Pathfinder. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RPGs - Pathfinder. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
Working on New/Tweaked Classes
I'm going to start earnest work on developing the new classes that I see fulfill system niches in Pathfinder RPG. These include the filch, priest, lord, knight, shaper, and warlock. At the same time the following classes will need to be tweaked: cleric, wizard, sorcerer, and bard. The largest piece of this update is the brand new class based on Charisma - lord. I'm thinking its abilities will be based on the Star Wars noble but more useful, and based around spheres. Each sphere would be associated with a Charisma-based skill, giving each lord a focus.
Here are the specific tweaks to the existing classes I'm thinking about right now:
* The paladin goes away and the cleric steps up to replace it more or less. The cleric would have the good base attack bonus progression and higher hit dice, and fewer spells. I'm thinking a progression of every three levels instead of every other level. So 1st level spells from 1st through 3rd level, 2nd level spells from 4th to 6th, etc. This caps out at 7th level spells at 19th level. Also looking at the domains and building special abilities based off of those - Pathfinder RPG already started down this path.
* The wizard will be tweaked to include the overcast ability we played around with in the Age of Worms campaign along with the abilities from Pathfinder RPG. Not too much change, actually.
* The sorcerer is almost a new class. It'll be a wizard/fighter combo class, sort of, but I'll look at the other variants already presented in existing splatbooks - duskblade comes to mind out of the PHB2, but I know there were others (spellsword out of Complete Warrior?). Something along those lines.
* I'm thinking the bard loses arcane spellcasting abilities, and instead gains something similar to the lord's sphere focus. Not sure at this point, I think the details will fall out from the work done on the lord class.
Some of the new classes already exist in one form or another and I'll just be tweaking them to work with the Pathfinder RPG. This includes the knight, which appears in PHB2 - that might be a straight conversion to be honest. I'll need to give the class an overview to check.
Warlock is going to be pretty different from what's presented in Complete Arcane, and will be based more on the 4E warlock. Someone who trafficks in otherwordly powers, and gains their powers from pacts. Emphasis on summoning? Probably, maybe.
The shaper is going to be an interesting class, and will be more or less a flexi-class based on the polymorph spell and the psionic powers contained within the biokinesis discipline. More details to follow.
Here are the specific tweaks to the existing classes I'm thinking about right now:
* The paladin goes away and the cleric steps up to replace it more or less. The cleric would have the good base attack bonus progression and higher hit dice, and fewer spells. I'm thinking a progression of every three levels instead of every other level. So 1st level spells from 1st through 3rd level, 2nd level spells from 4th to 6th, etc. This caps out at 7th level spells at 19th level. Also looking at the domains and building special abilities based off of those - Pathfinder RPG already started down this path.
* The wizard will be tweaked to include the overcast ability we played around with in the Age of Worms campaign along with the abilities from Pathfinder RPG. Not too much change, actually.
* The sorcerer is almost a new class. It'll be a wizard/fighter combo class, sort of, but I'll look at the other variants already presented in existing splatbooks - duskblade comes to mind out of the PHB2, but I know there were others (spellsword out of Complete Warrior?). Something along those lines.
* I'm thinking the bard loses arcane spellcasting abilities, and instead gains something similar to the lord's sphere focus. Not sure at this point, I think the details will fall out from the work done on the lord class.
Some of the new classes already exist in one form or another and I'll just be tweaking them to work with the Pathfinder RPG. This includes the knight, which appears in PHB2 - that might be a straight conversion to be honest. I'll need to give the class an overview to check.
Warlock is going to be pretty different from what's presented in Complete Arcane, and will be based more on the 4E warlock. Someone who trafficks in otherwordly powers, and gains their powers from pacts. Emphasis on summoning? Probably, maybe.
The shaper is going to be an interesting class, and will be more or less a flexi-class based on the polymorph spell and the psionic powers contained within the biokinesis discipline. More details to follow.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
D&D? Done? I Think Not!
I love D&D, and I've got a lot of books on my shelf to prove it. I don't want to stop playing D&D just because the new edition is crap and the number of players have dwindled to smaller number. I say thee nay!
Although the title of this post is misleading. Instead of D&D 3.5 I'd like to go with Pathfinder RPG, which is also known as D&D 3.75. With the Age of Worms campaign I used a few of the ideas presented in Pathfinder, including the skill system which didn't really work, but for the new "thing" I'm going with Pathfinder completely. And not just with the system - the setting as well.
More details at www.paizo.com, but in essence I'm going to run a home game of the Pathfinder Society mega-campaign. This is similar to the RPGA, but it's organized by Paizo with fewer restrictions. There are still a few things I'd change, including using the Pathfinder RPG rules rather than the D&D 3.5 rules, but the changes aren't that major.
I'm going to pick up the Pathfinder Campaign Setting, which has more details in it on the world of Golarion, and sometime soon I'm going to start up a more or less free-for-all campaign. Probably on Mondays, maybe Sunday evenings ... ? The hook for the campaign will be the Pathfinder Society.
Gotta go. Bacon popcorn calls.
Although the title of this post is misleading. Instead of D&D 3.5 I'd like to go with Pathfinder RPG, which is also known as D&D 3.75. With the Age of Worms campaign I used a few of the ideas presented in Pathfinder, including the skill system which didn't really work, but for the new "thing" I'm going with Pathfinder completely. And not just with the system - the setting as well.
More details at www.paizo.com, but in essence I'm going to run a home game of the Pathfinder Society mega-campaign. This is similar to the RPGA, but it's organized by Paizo with fewer restrictions. There are still a few things I'd change, including using the Pathfinder RPG rules rather than the D&D 3.5 rules, but the changes aren't that major.
I'm going to pick up the Pathfinder Campaign Setting, which has more details in it on the world of Golarion, and sometime soon I'm going to start up a more or less free-for-all campaign. Probably on Mondays, maybe Sunday evenings ... ? The hook for the campaign will be the Pathfinder Society.
Gotta go. Bacon popcorn calls.
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