House rules discussion

[TheFred]

Eldritch Knight is specifically called out in the UA gestalt rules (the others are non-core). It’s definitely less problematic, but Ab Champ especially is a pretty easy boost.

Another option for those is to have them count as both your class choices at that level - which is typically worse than just progression both base classes, but does let you get those class features (for the ones that have them, like Ultimate Magus).

[dalamb]

That sounds like a great idea (occupying both sides of the gestalt). I will add it to my list of rules changes.

[Fallout_Monkey]

15 hours ago, dalamb said:

I'll try to stop waffling on initial point buy soon.

Good question about Spell Thief. The most consistent thing to do would be to allow at-will use for a stolen cantrip for the hour, but I've never been in a game with Spell Thieves. Could it cause a problem?

I've never played one so not sure. The only issue I see is there is the unlikely possibility of having too many cantrips available in at one time. But that is only if the spell thief faces more than one spell caster in an hour, can sneak attack them a bunch of times, and steals more cantrips than leveled spells from them. Though if that does happen and become a problem, a fix for that I think would be just limit it to six(same as a cleric or sorceror's max per day) and cycle out the oldest one.

What about my other question: Would I have to spend build points for the highest spell I can steal(4th) or just the ones known(2nd)? I would think just the ones known right? since I would have limited choice of the stolen spells as well as the uncertainty of being able to steal them in the first place.

[dalamb]

3 hours ago, Fallout_Monkey said:

What about my other question: Would I have to spend build points for the highest spell I can steal(4th) or just the ones known(2nd)? I would think just the ones known right? since I would have limited choice of the stolen spells as well as the uncertainty of being able to steal them in the first place.

Sorry I missed that. The spellthief can cast so few spells at higher level than their own that it would seem cruel to make them pay for the highest level spell they can steal. So my inclination is to say, pay for the highest level of spellthief spell they can cast, which in the case of SpellThief 9 is 2nd, 6 points. At that level they can steal up to 4th level spells.

Everyone: I think I've answered everything, but as this example shows, I could be wrong. Please remind me if I've missed something you posted.

[TheFred]

Did you catch my question about TWFing? Are the TWF bonus attacks still at incremental penalties?

Looking at full-attacks more generally... a full-BAB class, I can attack at +9/+9 right now. A L9 Fighter gets +11/+11/+11 (which feels like a big boost, actually - having the iterative attacks at full BAB means every extra attack is even more huge than normal so the difference between +10 and +11 BAB is kind of massive).

If you take TWF and get the whole chain, that Fighter could now be attacking at... +9/+9/+9 and +9/+4/-1? Or just six attacks at +9? Again, seems big - TWF need a little help, but that's a huge step up for just one feat (and having to buy two weapons, etc).

Also, does any of this extend to Multiweapon Fighting - for all the Sahuagin apps out there? 😇

4 hours ago, dalamb said:

That sounds like a great idea (occupying both sides of the gestalt). I will add it to my list of rules changes.

Mostly those classes are still not worth taking... personally I would at least upgrade them all to full progression then, too, though we're starting to get into bigger homebrew territory here. I could maybe envisage doing Wiz|Sorc 5 into Ultimate Magus rather than into Wiz|Sorc-PrC, if it gave full Wiz and Sorc progression, because UM actually gives relevant class features. I wouldn't be doing that with Mystic Theurge.

[dalamb]

@TheFred even with the big boost to TWF if I go with full BAB for the off-hand weapon, don't mages do even better at level 9?

[TheFred]

Eh... possibly, though with mages having to pay almost all of their points just to be mages, and everyone else getting free LA and feats, I'm not so sure. Perhaps more importantly, though, it's less a question of fighters vs mages and more TWFers vs regular fighters. In fact, giving martial characters +100 to damage or whatever still doesn't really solve the problem, it just kind of makes the game swingier; they still can't deal with invisibility, flight, teleportation, or the King ordering them to be executed because they were Dominated, nor can they solve any more of the myriad of problems that they can't hit, they just kill things very quickly when they are killable.

[Lord Foul]

I just want to check I'm understanding the extraordinary abilities from skills correctly.

To have this ability, one needs to take the feat Skill Focus on the relevant skill. Then have at least 7 ranks in that skill (assume this doesn't include the bonus on checks from the Skill Focus). That opens up the listed spells so long as one has sufficent ranks to hit the casting threshold for Rangers/Paladins (4th, 8th, 11th, 14th) +3 ranks.

So, at 9th level, we can have a max 12 ranks in a class skill and 6 ranks in a cross-class skill. Which means we can only achieve the extraordinary abilities in class skills, and then we can only manage 12-3=9 ranks for the casting level, restricting it to 1st and 2nd level spells.

3rd level spells will have to wait until we get to 11th level, and 4th level spells until we reach 14th level (and continue to max out the relevant skills).

The feat Skill Knowledge can be used to convert any 3 skills from cross-class to class skills, allowing those to be accessed.

Is that right?

Reason for checking is that there are some really good spells in there, but at our starting level we won't be able to get any of the really good ones, such as water breathing, fly, the big cures or greater invisibility. So... perhaps not worth the heavy investment in feats needed to access (mileage may vary).

 

[namo]

That's correct. Whether it's worth investment depends on the character, as you said.

 

Question for dalamb: if something has Alertness as a prerequisite, can we take Skill Focus: Spot instead?
Your rules allow it the other way around, taking Alertness when SF: Spot is mandated.

[dalamb]

Folks, I had hoped to be done today but I woke up with a lot of brain fog. I am hoping a few hours' more sleep is all I need. I will answer questions when I feel better.

[dalamb]

Four hours sleep did the trick, for now at least.

@TheFred: I have no illusions about making fighters be able to do much more than be meat-shields and do lots of damage, which is part of why I like adding gestalt. They will get a bit of being able to do more with the changes to skills. I recall earlier tboughts and comments about my not having got skill points quite right yet, and am still thinking about the details.

@Lord Foul: I am reconsidering exactly when characters get exactly what level of extraordinary ability, mostly because I’m a little unhappy about having given up something that was possible in the past. While talking things over with Shiv it occurred to me that the old campaign did give some higher-level extraordinary abilities at around level 17, and so I’m considering a different progression that would give some more interesting ones sooner. That’s one of the things I hope to post later today. It involves a little of what we mathematicians call “curve fitting” to figure out a simple linear formula to use.

@namo: It doesnt’t work the same way both ways. Alertness gives a small boost to two skills; Skill Focus boosts only one skill. So if Skill Focus: Spot substituted for Alertness as a prerequisite, you’d be getting the thing that requires it without having a boost to the other skill.

Whether this matters is another question to think about.

Which PrC are you thinking about?

[namo]

Master of Many Forms (Complete Adventurer)

[TheFred]

It’s worth bearing in mind that you’re charging less for 1 LA than for one spell level. There are lots of races and templates that grant meaningful SLAs, and whilst you might not match a tier 1 caster, a Half-Fey Phrenic character, say (not sure if Half-Fey is allowed but you get the point) gets quite the selection, for less cost than a Bard has to pay for L3 spells. The rate on feats of course we’ve already discussed.

[Fallout_Monkey]

Just to clarify, we get 13 feats to start without any build points correct? 9 bonus for each level plus the 4 standard ones(1st, 3rd, 6th, and 9th)

[dalamb]

@Fallout_Monkeyjust the 9. I will clarify the wording.

@TheFred you're reminding me that not all templates are created equal, nor are all monster manual player races. I need to look at this more carefully.

The day has gone fairly well and I might be able to post more in a couple of hours.