Creating a Character with an Animal Companion    

Having thought about animal companions and the problems that the pose in the game, let's first set up some design goals for how an Animal Companion component might work:

1.  Animal Companions should be as useful, and diversified, as other components.  If someone is going to use one of their components for their animal, it should be as valuable as another component of similar rank.  Secondary and Tertiary Animal Companions should improve at a regular rate throughout all 20 levels.

2.  The component should not require recreating the stats of an NPC animal.  By choosing to make this a component, we are deliberately following a strategy of making animals into class features, and not NPCs.

3.  Animal Companion actions should happen on the same initiative order as their owner.  This will prevent one character from getting multiple turns and will simplify combat.

4.  Animal Companions should only be killed if their owner dies.

5.  Animal Companions and their owner must stay relatively close together, to prevent a character from effectively being in two places at once.

Animal Companion

Requirements:  none

Hit Dice:  no change

Skills:  Characters with Animal Companions gain the following class skills:  Handle Animal, Knowledge (nature), and Ride.

Base Attack Bonus:  no change

Saving Throws:  no change

Additional Spells:  Characters with an Animal Companion learn the following spells, in addition to any spells they learn from the Spellcaster component.  They must still meet level requirements to cast these spells.

• 1st - calm animals, magic fang, speak with animals
• 2nd - bear's endurance, bull's strength, cat's grace
• 3rd - magic fang (greater), reduce animal
• 4th - animal growth

Special Abilities:  Characters with the Tertiary level of this component may choose any Tiny sized animal to be their companion.  That animal gains two abilities from the list below at first level, and one additional ability every four levels, starting at level four.  Characters with the Secondary level of this component may choose any Medium sized or smaller animal to be their companion.  That animal gains three abilities at first level, and one additional ability every three levels, starting at level three.  Characters with the Primary level of this component may choose any Large sized or smaller animal to be their companion.  That animal gains four abilities at first level, and one additional ability every two levels, starting at level two.

In addition, all characters with animal companions gain the following abilities:

Combat Action:  Instead of taking your own action, your animal companion takes an action.  If this action is an attack, your companion makes a single attack using your unarmed melee.  This does not provoke an attack of opportunity.  Tiny animals deal 1 point of damage, Small animals deal 1d4, Medium animals deal 1d6+1, Large animals deal 1d8+2, etc.

Empathic Link:  As the familiar ability.

Find The Way Home:  Animal companions have a supernatural ability to find their masters.  If the two are separated, the animal companion will attempt to rejoin the character, and will eventually succeed.  The GM should use reasonable discretion in adjudicating this ability.

Combat Move:  Instead of taking your own move, your animal companion takes a move action.  However, if both you and your animal companion remain in the same square, you may move together, using whichever's speed is higher.

Safeguard:  As an immediate action, a character may choose to safeguard their animal companion.  For a tiny animal, this means they hide in the character's clothing.  For a small or larger animal, they remain prone in the same square as the character.  If the character wishes to move, they must carry or drag the animal with them.  Any animal smaller or equal to the size of the character cannot be targeted by an attack or spell while safeguarded and cannot take any hit points of damage.  However, any condition that affects the character may also affect the animal companion.  For example, if the character fails a saving throw versus a sleep spell, the companion also falls asleep.  And if the character is killed, the companion may also be killed.  The safeguard will remain in effect until the end of combat, or until the character ends it, however the animal companion can take no further actions until the end of combat, regardless of whether the safeguard is ended.

Share Defenses:  Your animal companion has 1/2 the number of hit points as you, rounded down.  They have the same armor class, CMD, and saving throws as you.

Share Spells:  As the familiar ability.

Additional abilities:

• Breathe Water:  Your animal companion can breathe water (requires Swimmer).
• Boost Save:  Character gains a +2 on a single save type.
• Boost Skill:  Character gains a +3 on a single skill.
• Climber:  Your animal companion is an expert climber, and uses your Climb skill +20
• Deliver Touch Spells:  As the familiar ability.
• Fast Movement:  Your animal companion has a base speed of +10 feet.  This ability may be taken again to gain a total of +20 feet.
• Flight:  Your animal companion can fly, and uses your Fly skill +20.
• Independent Attack:  You do not need to give up your action to grant your animal companion an attack.
• Independent Move:  You do not need to give up your move to grant your animal companion a move, even if it moves into a different square than you.
• Low-Light Vision:  Your animal companion has low-light vision.
• Scent:  Your animal companion has the scent ability.
• Scry on Familiar:  As the familiar ability.
• Speak with Animals of Its Kind:  As the familiar ability.
• Speak with Master:  As the familiar ability.
• Swimmer:  Your animal companion is an expert swimmer, and uses your Swim skill +20. 

(As in other components, this is only a partial list of additional abilities that could be chosen, focusing on abilities within the Pathfinder Core Rules.)

Multiple Animals

Having more than one animal companion could be handled in a few different ways.  If the animals are small, you could simply treat two animals as if they were one unit.  If you remember the 1980s movie The Beastmaster, this is how the two ferrets were treated.  Another way might be to have secondary Animal Companion provide two animals at tertiary levels of ability (or primary provide two animals at secondary level of ability.  Lastly, there's no reason that a person with an animal companion cannot also have a normal mount or pet.  This would be treated as an NPC and not gain the special advantages listed above.

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Building a Spellcaster    

Spells and spellcasting take up an enormous portion of the rules of any D&D product.  It certainly isn't the only way to create a comprehensive magic system (see Ars Magica, for example), but D&D and Pathfinder insist on having each and every potential magical action described, in detail, each with its own rules.  This is not necessarily a bad thing!  D&D has at its core a tactical combat game.  Designing a magic system with the breadth of the entire fantasy genre, that can be applied to the very narrow focus of tactical combat, is a fairly astounding feat.  For those of us who love the D&D magic system, even the parts that we sometimes hate, it is an integral part of the game.

That said, it has become so incredibly huge that it is barely workable for experienced players, much less for new players.  Consider, for example, the number of charts in just the core Pathfinder rules that deal with the number of spells that a character either casts or learns per caster level:  there are ten of them.

In addition, spellcasting hasn't really caught up with the evolution of the rest of the system.  No where is that more clear than in the multiclass rules.  Once you decide to be a spellcaster, anything that you do that takes you away from that specific spellcasting class is going to make your character substantially less powerful.  A fighter/barbarian, or fighter/ranger is a perfectly acceptable path, but a sorcerer/wizard is simply not.  (As an aside, I had a player play a sorcerer/wizard in one of my campaigns, and he was an excellent character.  This is not to besmirch the concept at all, just the way that the rules support that concept.)

In case it wasn't clear by now, it is my intention for these house rules to eliminate the need for multiclassing.  And I believe that Pathfinder has made moves in that direction as well.  For example, the hybrid classes essentially do what I am doing, but in a much more limited way: they combine the components of two classes together, so that you can level up in both at the same time.  The Arcanist, for example, is Pathfinder's solution to the sorcerer/wizard problem.

Why is this important for story? The short answer is, it isn't directly important, but the ways that it indirectly impacts the story add up to a big difference.  First, simpler rules allow new players to feel more welcome.  Having new players feel welcome leads to a table with more diverse viewpoints and experiences, which leads to better story.  Second, having spellcasting be an addable (and removable) component allows the gamemaster to easily turn the dial on how much magic they want in their campaign.  Eventually, this blog will turn to the subject of gamemastering, and how class components can be set up for particular genres of fantasy.  It may be that you want spellcasting to be a rare, but powerful thing.  An easy way to accomplish this is to eliminate Secondary and Tertiary Spellcasting, and only allow it to be a Primary component.  Or, alternatively, you may want magic to be pervasive, but not as powerful.  Doing the opposite, and allowing Tertiary Spellcasting only will accomplish this.  Rules that support genre will, in turn, support good story.  Third, streamlined spellcasting rules make the game go faster.  It means that a larger amount of the time that you have to sit down and play the game can go toward advancing the story, rather than fiddling with rules and looking things up.

Spellcaster

Requirements:  none (but see restrictions below)

Hit Dice:  no change

Skills:  Spellcasters gain the following class skills:  Knowledge (arcana), Spellcraft, Use Magic Device

Base Attack Bonus:  no change

Saving Throws: Spellcasters advance quickly in Will saving throws.

Additional Spells:  see below

Special Abilities:  Spellcasters are able to prepare and cast magic spells.  Preparing spells requires the spellcaster to be well-rested (eight hours of rest), and to spend one hour of preparation time in a relatively peaceful environment.  Note that other class components may provide additional restrictions or advantages in preparing and casting spells.

Spells Per Day:  Spellcasters can generally cast at least two spells per day of the highest spell level that they can cast, at least three spells per day of the second highest spell level that they can cast, and four spells per day for all other spell levels.  They begin able to cast only first level spells or lower.  They gain access to a new level of spell every two character levels.  When they do not gain access to a new spell level (on even numbered levels), they instead gain an additional spell for every level that then can cast at, to a maximum of four.  Their progression thus looks like this (apologies, as Blogger doesn't seem to be able to do tables):

Character     Spell Level
Level           0             1st           2nd         3rd         4th

1                  3             2
2                  4             3
3                  4             3             2
4                  4             4             3
5                  4             4             3             2
6                  4             4             4             3
7                  4             4             4             3             2
8                  4             4             4             3             3

Spells Known:  Spellcasters know a number of spells equal to twice the number of spells that they can cast.  They can choose from this list when preparing their spells to cast.  For example, if a spellcaster can cast two second-level spells, three first-level spells, and four zero-level spells per day, they will have four second-level spells, six first-level spells, and eight zero-level spells in their repertoire to choose from.

Special Restrictions:  All Spellcasters must choose one of the following restrictions below.  Secondary Spellcasters must choose two restrictions, and Tertiary Spellcasters must choose three.

• Delayed Spellcasting:  Instead of being able to cast spells at first level, spellcasters with this restriction do not begin to learn to cast spells until they are fourth level.  At that point, they continue to learn at the normal rate, reducing their character level by three for the purposes of spells and spellcasting).
• Limited Spell List:  Initially, all spellcasters gain access to the same list of spells.  They will also gain access to additional spells through other class components.  However, spellcasters who take this restriction cannot learn some of the more powerful spells available.  A breakdown of individual spells and how to create spell lists for your campaign is the subject of a later post.
• Required Item:  In order to prepare and cast spells, the caster must have a particular unique item available.  Note that this restriction cannot be taken if the spellcaster does not have to prepare spells (due to an ability from another class component).  The eschew materials feat does not remove the requirement to have this item.
• Slow Learning:  Spellcasters with this restriction know half the number of spells that they can cast per day (rounded up), instead of twice that number.  Note that this restriction cannot be taken if the spellcaster has a way to learn more than the usual number of spells (due to an ability from another class component).
• Slow Progress:  Spellcasters with this restriction gain access to a new level of spell every three character levels, instead of every two character levels.  If desired, this restriction can be taken twice.  Spellcasters who do so gain access to a new level of spell every four character levels.

Existing Spellcasting Classes

How does this look for our existing spellcasting classes?  Currently, we have three Primary Spellcaster classes:  druid, wizard, and sorcerer.  While all have Primary Spellcaster, they are distinguished by their other components and also by the special restrictions that they have chosen.  Druids have the special restriction of Limited Spell List, which removes some of the traditional "wizard only" spells such as magic missile, but druids can still gain additional spells to add to their list from their other components.  Wizards will have Secondary Scholar component, which will give them access to many more potentially known spells, but at the cost of having to scribe them into their spellbook.  Their restriction is Required Item: Spellbook.  Sorcerers have a Secondary Bloodline component which will give them an increased number of spells per day, as well as giving them access to a more spells for their list based on their birthright.  They will also have a component that removes the requirement for preparing spells in advance, making them more versatile casters.  Their restriction could either by Slow Learning or Slow Progress, but I strongly prefer giving them Slow Learning.   In comparison to current Pathfinder rules, this will mean they have a few less spells to cast, but will gain new levels of spells at the same time as wizards do.

Our cleric and bard have Secondary Spellcaster components.  Clerics take the restrictions of Limited Spell List and Required Item, which is their holy symbol.  They can then gain additional spells from their Primary Healer component, as well as from their Domain component.  Bards currently have the restrictions Limited Spell List and Slow Progress.  They share a component with sorcerer that will enable them to not need to prepare spells in advance.

Finally paladins and rangers have Tertiary Spellcaster components.  Assuming they are not traded out for something else, they will have the limitations of Delayed Spellcasting, Limited Spell List, and Slow Progress.

Next up is the Jack-of-all-Trades, but Master-of-None, the Bard!

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Tackling Spellcasting     

Whenever I sit down to muck with whatever D&D rules have come out most recently (which is fairly often), I always say to myself:  "just leave the spells and magic section for later."  And, inevitably, I will immediately be drawn down into the rabbit hole of analyzing and rewriting the spells and magic section, and banging my head against the wall as to why mage armor is still a Conjuration spell (thank you Fifth Edition for fixing this!) and what exactly the point of the Transmutation school is (spells that change people or stuff, to make them better or worse, except not magic weapons, because that's Enchantment, and not cursing, because that's Necromancy, and who the heck knows why message is in here...)

See, even in that paragraph, I got drawn down the rabbit hole!  I cannot keep out of it.  But, in this post, I swear, I am not going to get into individual spells.  Instead, I'd just like to talk about spellcasting, generally, as a class ability.

Out of the eleven core classes in Pathfinder and Third Edition D&D, only four are non-spellcasters.  And one of those, the rogue, can actually cast a few spells through Rogue Talents.  Each class has its own spell list, gains spells at a different rate, prepares spells in different ways, casts a different number of spells each day, and requires different components to do so.

Compare this, for example, to the combat rules regarding fighting with weapons.  All but two of the eleven core classes can use crossbows, and they all use the same rules for doing so.  What makes a fighter better at firing a crossbow than a wizard is separate from the rules about how crossbows work.  This is what I would like to do with Spellcasting.  There would be only one class component for Spellcasting, because it would all work in the same basic way.  It would then be modified by other components of your character class.

Which Ability Score Should Spellcasting Use?

One way in which the different classes approach spellcasting is that they use different ability scores to do it.  Clerics, druids, and rangers use Wisdom; bards, paladins, and sorcerers use Charisma; and wizards use Intelligence.  There isn't, as far as I can tell, a reason why these particular ability scores are used.  Paladins cast divine magic, but sorcerers cast arcane magic.  Bards do not need to prepare their spells, but paladins do.  All three classes use Charisma as their ability score for casting spells.  Let's look at the sort of things that having a high ability score will give you, with respect to spellcasting:

• Determines whether or not you are able to cast spells of a particular level at all.
• Grants a number of bonus spells per day.
• Grants a bonus on the DC for opponents to save vs. your spells.

The first two rules are odd, to say the least.  Most other class abilities that are based on an ability score have a set number of uses per day, and then either add or subtract their ability modifier to that number of uses.  It would make more sense if low scores for spellcasters resulted in the opposite of bonus spells, i.e., you can cast fewer spells per day, instead of not being able to cast at all.  Moreover, ability scores do not grant a flat bonus of "plus however many spells per day."  Instead, there is a table that limits these bonus uses of spells by level, meaning that a first level character will have a maximum of "gain one bonus spell per day" and a minimum of "can't cast spells at all."

The third rule affects some, but not all of your spellcasting actions.  Specifically, it only affects spells that require a saving throw from your opponent.  These spells are offensive in nature, since spells that boost your abilities or the abilities of your allies do not require a saving throw.  Nor do spells that are cast on non-creature targets, generally speaking.  And many offensive spells do not having a saving throw, but are instead resolved with melee touch attacks or ranged touch attacks (making the relevant ability scores Strength or Dexterity, respectively).  Indeed, only about 26% of the Pathfinder Core Rules, first level cleric spells require a saving throw.  That number rises only slightly, to 27%, when considering first level wizard spells.

It is with this context in mind that I would like to propose the following:  eliminate ability requirements for accessing high level spells, and standardize what ability score determines save DCs with respect to all spell casting.  Other facets of spell casting, including number of spells per day, can be determined by whether your Spellcasting component is primary, secondary, or tertiary, and what other class components your character has.  The challenge will be keeping the distinct flavor of each major spell casting class, and keeping the ability scores balanced within the game.

Wisdom, Intelligence, and Charisma: a Brief History of the Dump Stats

In original versions of D&D, you did not always have control over where your ability scores were placed.  It was also fairly likely that you would have one or more ability scores that were below average.  So the concept of the "dump stat" started very early in D&D's history.  Charisma was the primary target, since the system didn't provide very much incentive to take a high Charisma, unless you were a paladin.  But Wisdom and Intelligence were not far behind, especially before the advent of a skill system and the all-important Perception skill.  Wisdom was important for clerics, and Intelligence for magic users, but neither was particularly important for any of the fighting types.

Second Edition added school specialization rules for wizards that required very high ability scores in something else other than Intelligence, presumably in an attempt to balance and differentiate them.  However, this approach was not particularly successful, and was dropped in Third Edition.  Third Edition's approach was to add a robust skill system based around Intelligence.  The Will saving throw and the Perception skill made Wisdom useful.  Charisma was used for several key skills and special abilities, as well as being the core of the new Sorcerer class.

Intelligence, however, suffered major setbacks when it came to Pathfinder.  Originally, the number of skills you received at first level was multiplied times four.  An 18 Intelligence score could translate, therefore, into twenty-four (!) additional skill points for a first level character (and an additional four per level).  Pathfinder changed this rule (for good reasons) so that instead you would only receive four extra skill points at first level (and an additional four per level).

These extra skill points from Intelligence were not bonuses, but rather ranks.  This is important, because in Third Edition you could spend up to your character's level +3 in ranks into a skill.  However, in Pathfinder, you can only spend up to your character's level.  This means that additional skill ranks will give a character more skills, but not higher skills.

In Third Edition, Intelligence added to the following skills:  Appraise, Craft, Decipher Script, Disable Device, Forgery, Knowledge, Search, and Spellcraft.  In Pathfinder, however, the Decipher Script and Forgery skills were eliminated.  Search was incorporated into Perception, which remained based on Wisdom.  And the important skill of Disable Device was made into a Dexterity skill.  This left only five skills (with the newly added Linguistics) for Intelligence in Pathfinder.

Intelligence as the Primary Spellcasting Ability Score

My house rules would make Intelligence the ability score used for calculating all spell saving throw DCs, regardless of class.  How would this impact the other spellcasting classes?

Bards are often already high Intelligence characters, since they have access to all Knowledge skills (as well as the other four Intelligence based skills).  Their Charisma will be less useful for spell casting, but will remain critical for their Perform-based abilities and bardic performances.

Clerics will be at somewhat of a disadvantage, since they are not generally high Intelligence characters.  However, their Domain abilities are often Wisdom based.  By standardizing that rule, that Domain components work off of Wisdom, it will remain an important score for clerics.  To further keep Wisdom as the primary ability score of clerics, it could be substituted with Charisma as the score which determines how many channel energy uses the cleric receives.  This will also serve to further distinguish clerics from druids, as clerics will be higher Wisdom whereas druids will be higher charisma.

Druids are also not generally high Intelligence characters.  However, the trade off from Wisdom to Intelligence is unlikely to affect druids very much.  Their abilities are generally Charisma based.  The advantages that a higher Wisdom brings are mostly in the area of skill bonuses, will be offset by additional skills in the form of higher Intelligence.

Paladin and ranger are tertiary spell casting classes.  Their spells are focused primary on buffing, and they will not be unduly hindered by having somewhat lower save DCs.

Similar to the cleric's domain being important for Wisdom, sorcerers will keep Charisma as a primary ability score by making it critical for their Bloodline abilities.  But Sorcerers will have to have a decent Intelligence score as well.  Currently, Sorcerers have less need for Intelligence than Fighters do (after all, fighters might want to take combat expertise).  This is a change that I think will enhance game balance, and to the extent that sorcerers are less accurate in their targeting of spell effects, I think that makes for good story as well.  Wizards are the spell experts, and sorcerers are the rogue talents who don't know nearly enough about the massive powers that they can wield.

It's a big change, but a change that I think makes for a better game system.  Next post, a breakdown of Spellcasting and how primary, secondary, and tertiary components differ!

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Cleric Domains Using Components     

In Second Edition D&D, clerics got a whole lot more customizable and interesting.  So it is only fitting that we use them to start our examples of how switching class components works.  As described in my last post, clerics break down into four components:  Primary Healer, Secondary Spellcaster, Secondary Armored Fighter, and Tertiary Community Leader.  This paints the picture of a fairly standard, good aligned cleric who follows a deity of healing, community, or goodness in general.

Domains, from Third Edition, introduced the idea of portfolios of special abilities that deities could grant to their clerics.  Each deity generally grants a number of domains (including up to two based on their alignment), and clerics choose two of these.  Each domain grants some special abilities and a small list of spells (some of which may not be normally on the cleric spell list).  Clerics then receive a special "domain" slot for their spell casting, usable only for spells from this particular list.  Looking at the total abilities granted by domains, they are probably closest to a Tertiary component.

Currently, clerics have the Tertiary component of Community Leader.  Which is fine for many NPC clerics, since that is generally the function that they will have in the story.  But adventuring clerics rarely have a community that they remain attached to and active in during the course of the story.  For these clerics, there should be an option for other callings.

Giving Each Deity Their Own Domain Component     

When I was in college, playing Second Edition D&D, I made a handwritten list of 100 things that a deity could have as their area of focus.  It was, of course, a chart so that you could roll percentile dice to select a portfolio item.  By rolling twice or three times on the chart, you would be able to randomly generate a unique deity, and the list would tell you what spheres of influence that cleric had access to for spell casting.  Sadly, I do not have a copy of that list anymore (along with many of my old D&D notes, it got lost somewhere along the line.)  Pathfinder has more than 100 potential domains (when you include all the subdomains).  But the world that Pathfinder uses, Golarion, has substantially fewer than 100 deities in it, as do most campaign worlds (Forgotten Realms may be the exception!)

Making a class component for each type of cleric in your campaign world has a number of advantages.  It takes the place of not only domains, but can also be used for archetypes that are specific to only a few deities in your world.  If you want to have only one deity with multiple orders of clerics, each can have their own component.  Finally, you can have class components that represent clerics that are more generalized than those who follow a single deity each, perhaps representing an entire pantheon, or representing philosophical concepts rather than gods.  In this way, domain class components become much like heritages: specific to the particular community that the cleric represents.

The Domain components, generally speaking, will replace Community Leader (as it is the default).  If you want your cleric to also be a community leader, you might consider replacing of the other components of cleric, and making your Domain that much more powerful as a result (making it a secondary or primary component).  Here is an example of a Domain component with three separate levels.  Since I have run many games in the Forgotten Realms, I've used one of those deities as an example:  Mystra, the goddess of magic.  (Note that this is for purposes of example only, as material for the Forgotten Realms is copyrighted by Wizards of the Coast.)

Follower of Mystra (a Domain Component)

Requirements:  Must be either Lawful or Good.

Hit Dice:  no change

Skills:  Followers of Mystra gain the following class skills:  Knowledge (arcana), Knowledge (religion), Spellcraft

Base Attack Bonus:  no change

Saving Throws:  no change

Additional Spells:  Followers of Mystra learn the following spells, in addition to any spells they learn from the Spellcaster component.  They must still meet level requirements to cast these spells.

• 1st - identify, magic aura, protection from evil
• 2nd - align weapon, bless water, magic mouth
• 3rd - dispel magic, glyph of warding, magic circle against evil
• 4th - arcane eye, holy smite, imbue with spell ability
• 5th - dispel evil, spell resistance, true seeing
• 6th - analyze dweamor, antimagic field, glyph of warding (greater)
• 7th - holy word, legend lore, spell turning
• 8th - holy aura, protection from spells, symbol of death
• 9th - foresight, mage's disjunction, miracle

Special Abilities:  Tertiary Followers of Mystra gain two special abilities at first level:  Arcane Beacon and Touch of Good.  Secondary Followers gain two abilities at first level, and one additional ability every three levels, starting at level three.  Primary Followers gain two abilities at first level, and one additional ability every two levels, starting at level two.

• Arcane Beacon: As the Arcane domain ability.
• Blast Rune:  As the Rune domain ability.
• Brew Potion:  As the feat, must meet level requirements.
• Craft Construct:  As the feat, must meet level requirements.
• Craft Magic Arms and Armor:  As the feat, must meet level requirements.
• Craft Rod:  As the feat, must meet level requirements.
• Craft Staff:  As the feat, must meet level requirements.
• Craft Wand:  As the feat, must meet level requirements.
• Craft Wondrous Item:  As the feat, must meet level requirements.
• Dispelling Touch:  When you cast dispel magic as targeting a single object or creature, you may do so as a melee touch attack.  If the attack succeeds, the highest level spell on the target is automatically dispelled.  (Secondary Follower only).
• Divine Boon:  As the Divine domain ability.
• Empower Spell:  As the feat.
• Enlarge Spell:  As the feat.
• Extend Spell:  As the feat.
• Forge Ring:  As the feat, must meet level requirements.
• Hand of the Acolyte:  As the Magic domain ability.
• Heighten Spell:  As the feat.
• Holy Lance:  As the Good domain ability, but using character level, rather than class level.  (Primary Follower only).
• Maximize Spell:  As the feat.
• Quicken Spell:  As the feat.
• Scribe Scroll:  As the feat, must meet level requirements.
• Silent Spell:  As the feat.
• Spell Rune:  As the Rune domain ability.
• Still Spell:  As the feat.
• Touch of Good:  As the Good domain ability, but using character level, rather than class level.
• Widen Spell:  As the feat.

Note that many of these abilities and feats may yet be modified, and this is a far from complete list (including mostly only Pathfinder Core Rules).  Next post I will tackle the huge subject of Spellcasting!

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Considering Clerics     

We are skipping over bards for the moment (we'll come back to them soon!) to talk about clerics, a truly unique character class.  Clerics are one of the "original four" standard classes, along with fighters, wizards (formerly magic users), and rogues (formerly thieves).  The cleric, sometimes known as a priest, was a little bit crusader, a little bit Friar Tuck, and a little bit Van Helsing.  Clerics could fight in melee combat, but with restrictions that made them subpar fighters.  They could cast spells, which were generally less powerful than wizards, and they were extremely effective at dealing with the undead.  They had two very important abilities that set them apart:  they could heal other characters and they could cast spells while wearing heavy armor.

Magical healing is an absolute necessity in most fantasy RPGs.  You can do without the fighter or the rogue, because there are lots of character classes that shares those skills.  You can even do without the wizard, although it will slow you down in higher level adventures.  But you need a healer, and this means someone has to play the cleric.  I'm not certain whether it is because the class is practically mandatory, or because of the religious background, but for whatever reason, I have found that many players hate playing clerics.  If you are lucky, there is that one person in your group who enjoys it (it's almost always a dwarven cleric for some reason), and they end up taking the role in every game.  More often, the cleric is the last character class chosen, by the person who doesn't really care what they play.  The game designers of D&D and Pathfinder, beginning with TSR, realized this.  There were three approaches that they could take to solve this problem:  make clerics more interesting, allow other character classes to heal, or change the way the hit point and damage rules work.  What we have ended up with is a bit of all three.

Second Edition D&D made clerics more powerful and flexible, dividing their spells into "spheres" of influence by their deity, and relaxing the weapon restrictions a bit.  This was greatly aided by one of the classic settings of Second Edition: the Forgotten Realms.  In this campaign world, created by Ed Greenwood, the gods and goddesses were major characters in the story.  Suddenly, playing a cleric or agent of one of these deities gave a character a whole lot of story potential.  Other settings also helped, such as Ravenloft.  The predominance of undead as an enemy meant that clerics would always have a lot to do.  So clerics were still mandatory, but they became more interesting to play.

Third Edition D&D made druids a more viable and interesting character class, and they had access to healing abilities, but druids never really caught on as healers.  Their other abilities, such as wild shape, were not well-suited to support roles.  Bards also gained healing spells, but they were so limited that they were rarely used as full-time healers.  Instead, the main solution of Third Edition and later Pathfinder, was to crank the cleric's healing power up to 11:  spontaneous casting of healing spells and channeling positive energy made healing incredibly easy, leaving the cleric to focus on other aspects of their character.  At the same time, hit points all got a significant boost, so that by Pathfinder, no one had d4 hit die any more.

In my house rules, I've also modified the hit point and damage system considerably, which helps make having a healer no longer a mandatory requirement.  Fourth and Fifth Edition D&D have taken similar approaches, although they use substantially different rules.

Clerics are now about as powerful as they can reasonably get (they are overpowered compared to other character classes), and they still get little respect.  But I suppose that means that folks who like playing clerics (I count myself among them) will always have the option and be welcomed at the table.

How Components Interact

My ulterior motive for skipping to cleric is to discuss how different components of a character's class can interact with each other.  Here's how one could break down the cleric into four components:

Primary Healer

• Heal skill
• spontaneous casting (cure spells)
• channel energy (positive)

Secondary Spellcaster

• fast Will save
• Knowledge (arcana), Knowledge (planes), Spellcraft skills
• divine spellcasting, beginning at first level

Secondary Armored Fighter

• 1d8 hit dice
• medium attack progression
• fast Fortitude save
• proficiency with medium armor and shields
• allows spell casting from Secondary Spellcaster with armor

Tertiary Community Leader

• Diplomacy, Knowledge (history), Knowledge (nobility), Knowledge (religion), Linguistics, Sense Motive skills

There are more things that are granted by these components in my house rules, but these are how the current Pathfinder cleric abilities break down.  Clerics also get a few things that don't fit within any of these four components, such as Appraise and Craft, and some things that are granted based on what deity they follow, such as Aura and Domains (more on that shortly).  Note that I've assumed that this cleric is channeling positive energy.  That is because healing through positive energy channel is such an essential part of the cleric, as it is played in the vast majority of games, as to make evil clerics into practically a different class entirely.  I'll talk about changes we can make to this "standard" cleric in the next post, but for now, assume that the cleric is good aligned and follows a deity of good, community, and/or healing.

There are two ways that these components interact, both with spell casting:  Healer grants the ability to spontaneously cast healing spells, which is useless without Spellcaster.  And Armored Fighter grants the ability to cast spells while wearing armor, which can only be used with Spellcaster.

Spellcasting While Wearing Armor

The Armored Fighter class component is designed to work together with Spellcaster in order to reproduce the effects of the wildly inconsistent and incomprehensible "spell casting while wearing armor" rules.  Currently, arcane spells cannot be cast while wearing armor without a) incurring a chance to fail in casting, b) taking a particular feat tree, c) having magical armor made specially for the purpose, d) having a particular racial bonus, or e) being a Magus.  And what qualifies as "arcane" spells is equally unpredictable (bard spells, including healing spells, are arcane, but ranger spells are divine).  Divine spells, on the other hand, are cast in the same way, often with the same somatic components, but can be cast while wearing any sort of armor.

The real reason for restricting wizards from wearing armor is story based.  Wizards wear robes in fantasy stories, and not armor.  That's it.  There is very little game balance justification.  Granted, if wizards could wear armor, they would be likely to wear as much of it as possible.  Wizards would become small tanks, like rooks on a chess board, hiding behind their metal walls and lobbing spells.  And this would be fine!  The system could totally support this sort of change.  Any resulting game imbalance could be easily fixed in other ways.  However, since very few fantasy stories have this sort of character in them, and the genre as a whole is moving away from heavily armored characters, toward more mobile characters, this is not done.

So, instead, here is an alternate solution that generally maintains the status quo, but does so in a more streamlined way:  Armored Fighter allows a character who also has Spellcaster to cast spells wearing armor, if and only if, the Spellcaster component is equal to or less than the Armored Fighter component.  Since a character can have only one primary component, Primary Spellcaster characters cannot cast while wearing armor.

The core classes break down about like this:

• Barbarian - not an Armored Fighter, not a Spellcaster, not applicable.
• Bard - not an Armored Fighter, Secondary Spellcaster, cannot cast spells while wearing armor.
• Cleric - Secondary Armored Fighter, Secondary Spellcaster, can cast spells while wearing armor.
• Druid - not an Armored Fighter, Primary Spellcaster, cannot cast spells while wearing armor.
• Fighter - Secondary Armored Fighter, not a Spellcaster, not applicable.
• Monk - not an Armored Fighter, not a Spellcaster, not applicable.
• Paladin - Secondary Armored Fighter, Tertiary Spellcaster, can cast spells while wearing armor.
• Ranger - not an Armored Fighter, Tertiary Spellcaster, cannot cast spells while wearing armor.
• Rogue - not an Armored Fighter, not a Spellcaster, not applicable.
• Sorcerer - not an Armored Fighter, Primary Spellcaster, cannot cast spells while wearing armor.
• Wizard - not an Armored Fighter, Primary Spellcaster, cannot cast spells while wearing armor.

If we added Magus to the list, they might have Secondary Armored Fighter, Secondary Spellcaster, and thus would be able to cast spells while wearing armor.  The only class that doesn't come out ahead in this equation is the ranger.  Sadly, the ranger loses the ability to cast spells while wearing armor.  However, as the spell casting ability of a ranger is of very low importance to the character class, that it isn't too great a sacrifice.  When I write about rangers, we can see whether we can make it up to them.  Druids also lose the ability to cast in armor, but other abilities and restrictions of druids highly mitigate against wearing much armor anyway.

If one of any of the above classes were to switch out Armored Fighter for a different component, they might lose their ability to cast spells while wearing armor.  And if a spellcasting class switched in the ability to wear armor, they might gain it!  More on switching out components, and how it is a highly useful way to make Domains more interesting, next post!

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Building an Agile Character     

Character creation in D&D starts from a very simple system: six ability scores.  In older versions of D&D, if you wanted your character to be agile, you would put your highest die roll (assuming you could place them as you wished) into Dexterity.  What does building an agile character look like in Pathfinder and Third Edition D&D?  And do the additional levels of complexity make for a better game?  This is, in many ways, the core difference in philosophies between "old school" and "new school" games.

In truth, there is nothing wrong with putting an 18 in Dexterity and calling it a day.  In the core rules of most versions of D&D and similar fantasy RPGs, this will make your character better able to dodge out of the way of attacks, which is certainly something an agile character would be able to do.  But when we think about agility, and the types of characters that demonstrate it, there is a lot missing.    Can my character jump and move around quickly?  Can I tumble and do acrobatics?  Earlier editions of D&D imagined a more heavily armored character, with a sword and a shield, on a relatively level battlefield.  But the cinematics of movies have introduced a less realistic, but more exciting kind of combat.  Adding the ability to emulate this cinematic style of combat adds excitement to a story and lets players make characters that are more like what they see in movies.

Agile characters will work best with little to no armor.  If you look at the abilities that go with agility, that has been built into the system in different ways.

• Wearing heavier armor reduces the AC bonus that you are able to gain from having a high Dexterity.
• Skills that rely on Dexterity have a penalty if the character is wearing heavier armor.
• More agile character classes do not begin play with proficiency in heavier armor.  And many of their abilities are limited if they wear heavier armor.
• Some abilities that relate to agility do not work at all if a character is wearing heavier armor (such as fast movement and evasion).

An easier way to work things than having to remember that fast movement will still work with medium armor if you are a barbarian, but requires no armor if you are a monk, and evasion won't work with medium armor (for either a monk or a rogue), is to standardize the Agile component as only functioning with no armor or light armor.

Another basic feature of the Agile component is a "fast" Reflex save.  All saving throws in Pathfinder can be divided in to those start at +2 and increase at a fast rate, and those that start at +0 and increase at a slow rate.

Taking the Agile component should give you access to certain class skills:  Acrobatics is the most obvious, but also Climb, Escape Artist, and Ride.

Just those features alone give us, essentially, a Tertiary version of the Agile component.  I'm using tertiary to indicate that it is of third-most importance, the way it is expressed in the bard class, for example (although we end up giving the bard an additional skill of Ride.)  What if we want Agile to be a more important part of our character?  Of Secondary importance, the way it is expressed in the barbarian class?  Or of Primary importance, for a monk or a rogue?

Here's a draft of how the component might look.  This version uses only material found in the Core Rules.  A more complete version would have additional material from other books.  Also, I have only sketched out the special abilities briefly, where in a more complete version they would have a more detailed description.

Agile

Requirements:  To use the special abilities of Agile, a character must be wearing only light armor or no armor.

Hit Dice:  no change

Skills:  Agile characters gain the following class skills:  Acrobatics, Climb, Escape Artist, and Ride.

Base Attack Bonus:  no change

Saving Throws:  Agile characters begin with a +2 Reflex save and advance quickly.

Additional Spells:  none

Special Abilities:  Tertiary Agile characters gain no special abilities.  Secondary Agile characters gain one ability at first level, and one additional ability every three levels, starting at level three.  Primary Agile characters gain one ability at first level, and one additional ability every two levels, starting at level two.

• Defensive Roll:  gain a Reflex save against damage that would result in loss of all hit points(Primary Agile only).
• Evasion:  successful Reflex saves for half damage result in no damage.
• Fast Movement:  gain +10 speed.  Primary Agile characters may take this ability again, for an additional +10, up to a maximum of +60.
• High Jump:  add character level to Acrobatics for jumping, always have a running start.
• Improved Evasion: half damage on a failed Reflex save (Primary Agile only, requires Evasion).
• Improved Uncanny Dodge:  cannot be flanked, except by a character of higher level (requires Uncanny Dodge).
• Ledge Walker:  use Acrobatics to move along narrow surfaces without penalty.
• Rogue Crawl:  move at half speed while prone.
• Slow Fall:  reduce falling damage by 20 feet.  Primary Agile characters may take this ability again, for an additional +10 feet, up to a maximum of 100 ft.
• Stand Up:  rise from prone as a free action.
• Trap Sense:  gain +1 Reflex to avoid traps and +1 dodge vs. attacks made by traps.  Characters may take this ability again for an additional +1, up to a maximum of +6.
• Uncanny Dodge:  cannot be flat-footed.
• Weapon Finesse:  as the feat (Primary Agile only).

How can we expect this to change character creation?  Well, first off, trap sense is going to be taken much less often.  This is because it is underpowered as compared to some of the other abilities.  Barbarians, for example, will likely want to replace their trap sense with evasion, stand up, and other useful abilities that they did not previously have access to.  If we felt that this was a major problem, we could address this by making trap sense more powerful.  We could also make abilities Primary Agile only, if they feel over-powered.

How does having an Agile component benefit the story?  There are several ways, two short-term benefits and a long-term benefit.  One short term benefit is that the rules are simplified, making it easier for new players to learn them.  There are fewer exceptions or specific rules depending on character class.  Making the game accessible to new players of D&D has a direct benefit to the story, because you will get players from more diverse perspectives and experiences.  Moreover, there is an adjective "Agile", that clearly describes a character, and abilities that back up that adjective.  This will help players to define their character and understand what they should be able to do in the story.  Having characters that can be defined in a descriptive way, instead of by numbers or rules references, will make them more interesting to role-play.

The long-term benefit is that, eventually, we want to be able replace archetypes and multi-classing with a component system.  This has a number of story benefits.  It allows us to customize the character classes to better fit the campaign.  For example, if you were running a seafaring adventure, you might take the component of ranger that includes tracking and swap it out for something else.  It also avoids the problems with multi-classing within the story.  For example, if you want to play a multi-classed cleric or wizard, it is not necessary to explain why you gain those powerful abilities at second level, midway through an adventure, when you had no story reason to gain them.  Instead, you can start with the necessary components to build your multi-class character from level one, and advance at a steady rate in all of your areas of focus. 

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Class Components:  Breaking Things Down Further     

Thus far, we have identified four components of the barbarian:  Berserker (a powerful and balanced component), Survivalist (a front-loaded component), Agile (a somewhat unbalanced component), and Tough (a balanced, but less powerful component).

Examining the barbarian archetypes reinforces these components.  Archetypes gain certain class abilities, while losing other, standard barbarian class abilities.  Looking over the various archetypes, we can see that when an archetype gives up fast movement, for example, they usually lose uncanny dodge and trap sense as well.  Berserker, as the primary component and the granter of the barbarian's rage powers, is rarely lost entirely  The other three, however, are often switched out as the player desires, to modify their barbarian and make it unique.

Because these components are not balanced against each other, they should not be treated in the same way.  However, instead of swapping components out one for one directly, and attempting to force them to become balanced when they are not, perhaps we can instead think about each component as having greater or lesser importance to the character concept.

For Barbarians, being a Berserker is of primary importance, and being Agile is less important.  But let's consider the other character classes that might have Agile as a component.

The Rogue's Agile Component

Certainly the rogue is the first class that comes to mind when we think about a character that is agile. The following class abilities granted by the Rogue fit within an Agile component:

• Acrobatics, Climb, and Escape Artist class skills (1)
• Increased Reflex save (all)
• evasion (2)
• uncanny dodge and improved uncanny dodge (4, 8)
• trap sense (3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18)

In addition, a number of Rogue Talents fit into Agile, including Acrobatic Stunt, Climbing Stunt, Escaping Stunt, Expert Leaper, Fast Getaway, Improved Evasion, Ledge Walker, Nimble Climber, and others.

The Monk's Agile Component

Monks are also very agile, having many class abilities that fit within this component:

• Acrobatics, Climb, Escape Artist, and Ride class skills (1)
• Increased Reflex save (all)
• evasion (2, 9)
• fast movement (3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18)
• slow fall (4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20)
• high jump (5)

The Bard's Agile Component

Finally, the bard, while certainly not as focused on agility as the rogue or the monk, has certain class abilities that fit within this component.  The bard's Agile component would be fairly front-loaded, and might look something like this:

• Acrobatics, Climb, and Escape Artist class skills (1)
• Increased Reflex save (all)

Standardizing Components

There is a lot of overlap between the way that different character classes get these same kinds of skills and abilities.  And yet, three general levels of components start to make themselves clear:  front-loaded, lower-powered components, such as the bard's Agile (as well as the barbarian's Survivalist), mid-level components, such as the barbarian's Agile and Tough, and high level components, such as the rogue or the monk's Agile (or the barbarian's Berserker).

Would the game benefit if we standardized these into three distinct levels?  Well, consider the rules as written that the players need to keep track of:

• Barbarians gain fast movement at level 1, which is a simple 10 foot bonus to their move.
• Monks gain fast movement at level 3, but this is a different ability of the same name, and increases every three levels.
• Monks and rogues both gain evasion at level 2, but Monks gain improved evasion automatically at level 9, while rogues have to take an advanced rogue talent in order to get improved evasion (which they cannot access until level 10).
• Rogues get uncanny dodge at level 4 and improved uncanny dodge at level 8.
• Barbarians get uncanny dodge at level 2 and improved uncanny dodge at level 5.
• However!  If a rogue or barbarian already had uncanny dodge from the other class, then when they would get uncanny dodge, they instead get improved uncanny dodge.
• Rogue and barbarian levels stack, somewhat, for purposes of when you can avoid sneak attacks, but the rules are complex, to say the least.

These rules are unreasonably, and unnecessarily, complex.  They do not add anything to the story.  Nor do they add that much to the game itself, since the only time you need to think about them, as a player, is when you are creating or leveling up a character.  In the meantime, the GM is the one who is likely to have to use them the most, and this becomes burdensome in terms of slowing down creation of NPCs and antagonists.

Next post I will try to set forth a version of a three-level Agile component that will easily fit into the four classes discussed, as well as being available in some form to other classes!

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Breaking Down Barbarians    

As I discussed in my last post, Skills & Powers was an attempt to break down ability scores, races, and character classes into component parts, so that players could customize their characters more easily.  I think that this was a good idea, but poorly executed.  My goal is to try to do this in a way that is easier for the player (especially new players), preserves game balance, and offers useful tools to the gamemaster.

Let's start with barbarians.  There was a piece of art in Second Edition D&D that started me on my love of barbarians, despite the many flaws inherent in the character type.  It's by Jeff Easley, but he doesn't have a copy of it on his website.  I don't have permission to use it, but you can see it here.  It shows a muscular female barbarian grabbing an ogre-like monster by its nose ring, with her sword drawn.  Beside it, you can see that she has already sliced up the ogre's spiked club and shield.  At the time, it was a relatively unprecedented gender-flip of a very traditional image, down to the Conan loincloth, the Rambo headband, and the curly mullet hairstyle.  Barbarian started out as just a kit in Second Edition, although it was later made into a full class.  But it wasn't until Third Edition that barbarians really started to shine.

In Third Edition, barbarians were designed to be front-line fighters whose Rage ability gave them temporary bonuses in combat.  From a game design point-of-view, this was the first fighter type of character to have time-limited abilities.  Whereas before you could divide the party into "people who can do things all the time" and "people who can do things a certain number of times a day," and all the fighters were in the first half, barbarians were now in the second half.  The reasoning behind this is that Third Edition used a system of encounter-based balance to track party resources.  A party's resources included each character's hit points, but also the spells and abilities that were limited in use to a certain number of times per day.  The Challenge Rating (CR) system would rate each encounter or monster with a number that could be directly translated into the percentage of party resources that encounter was expected to expend.  This was great for gamemasters, because they could plan out encounters, knowing at about what time the group was going to have to rest or go back to town to restore their resources.

In Pathfinder, barbarians are still focused around their rage abilities.  However, there are several barbarian archetypes who do not rage, replacing that ability with a different one.  And, of course, all of the other barbarian abilities are also replaced by alternate ones in the many archetypes available to barbarians.  One problem with the class archetype system is, it is very hard to guess which abilities will be replaced with which!  There is no point value set to each individual class ability (nor am I suggesting that there should be).  Instead, it is done on an more crafted basis.  What this means, in practice, is that I might have to read through many, many archetypes in order to get the combination of abilities that works for my character.  Even then, I might have to take an archetype that doesn't really fit, because it is the closest thing I can find.

What I would like to do is to break barbarians down into a few large core components that can be swapped out easily, and without disruption to game balance.  Part of the challenge will be to balance out starting abilities from those that the class only gains access to at later levels.  Otherwise it will be too easy to select only from components that are "front loaded."  Fortunately, this is a problem that Pathfinder has addressed, somewhat, based on feedback from Third Edition D&D.  Because you could multiclass freely, many folks took the opportunity to take a single level of a "front loaded" character, such as the rogue, in Third Edition, before taking all the rest of their levels in a different class.  Pathfinder was written with awareness of that problem, and this should help us in our goal.

Berserker

There are a lot of theories about historical berserkers, but they are generally associated with a warrior taking on the mystical aspect of an animal (a bear, a boar, or a wolf), and wearing the pelt of this animal instead of armor.  This signified that they were as a wild beast on the field, attacking anyone around them without mercy, and heedless of their own defense.  This inspiration is clearly at the forefront of the barbarian class.  Thus, berserker is the aspect of barbarians that focuses on rage in combat.

Features of the barbarian class that fit with the Berserker component (number indicates approximate levels at which it is gained):

• non-lawful class requirement
• Intimidate class skill (1)
• high base attack progression
• rage and associated rage powers and abilities (1-20)

As it stands, this component is very powerful, and fairly well spread out throughout levels one through twenty.

Survivalist

Barbarians are described as living out in the wild and being uncivilized.  This aspect follows the root of the word "barbarian" itself, as a cultural slur against a group that you believe is less civilized or worthy than your own culture.  Obviously, there are a lot of problematic things about using the word barbarian to describe people who, in the real world, would bear the most resemblance to indigenous tribes.  We can mitigate this a bit by focusing on barbarians as living apart from any culture.  Like someone from any sort of civilized society who abandons it to go and live in the forest, barbarians live alone in the wilderness by choice, not by nature or nurture (both of which are tied to heritage, and not character class). 

Features of the barbarian class that fit with the Survivalist component: 

• Climb, Craft, Handle Animal, Knowledge (nature), Perception, Ride, Survival, and Swim class skills (1)
• increased Fortitude save (1-20)

As it stands, this component is front loaded, and significantly less powerful over the course of time than Berserker.

Agile

Another focus of barbarians is their speed (fast movement), as well as their ability to move freely around the battlefield (acrobatics), and dodge out of the way of danger (uncanny dodge).  This fits the profile of a warrior who is likely going to be wearing little or no armor.  The Reflex and dodge bonuses granted by trap sense would also fit well into this component of barbarians.

Features of the barbarian class that fit with the Agile component: 

• Acrobatics, Climb, and Ride class skills (1)
• fast movement (1)
• uncanny dodge and improved uncanny dodge (2, 5)
• trap sense (3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18)

As it stands, this component is front loaded for the first levels, but tapers off in usefulness very quickly after level 5.

Tough

The fact that barbarians gain d12 hit points is a big part of their draw.  Other abilities also play up the nigh-invulnerable nature of these warriors.  Which is certainly something that they need, since they are often on the front-line and often unarmored.  In later levels, barbarians gain damage reduction to further increase their ability to ignore being damaged.

Features of the barbarian class that fit with the Tough component: 

• 1d12 hit dice (1-20)
• increased Fortitude save (1-20)
• damage reduction (7, 10, 13, 16, 19)

As it stands, this component is fairly well balanced throughout the levels, but still not as powerful as Berserker.  Also, it lacks the interest and specificity of the other three components.

In my next post, I'll talk more about how to use these components, what might need to be changed, and how components can be used to create archetypes more easily!

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