3.X Hack: Utility Tracks

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radthemad4
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3.X Hack: Utility Tracks

Post by radthemad4 »

So, we have a lot of classes here with a number of distinct themes and mechanics that and are fun to play and pull their weight in combat. That's awesome, but quite a few of them can do fuck all once the combat music stops playing.

A Track is sort of like a class except without BAB and Saving throws which you basically staple onto a class to give it some utility. e.g.
Healer

1:

Heal is a always class skill for Healers. They always have max ranks in it. They may use any Mental Ability Score for Heal checks.

Heal Injuries (Sp): With a one minute ritual, a MarshalHealer can heal a number of characters equal to their character level of a number of hit points of damage equal to their ranks in the Heal skill. This action may be taken a number of times per day equal to 3 + the Healer's Highest Mental Ability Score Modifier, and all affected characters must be within close range of the Healer for the entire period.

3:

Healing Rituals: With a one minute ritual, The Healer can replicate a number of healing spells. At 3rd level, they can replicate Delay Poison, Gentle Repose, Remove Paralysis or Lesser Restoration a number of times per day equal to their highest mental ability score modifier.

5: Healing Rituals: Remove Blindness/Deafness, Curse, Disease

7: Healing Rituals: Neutralize Poison, Restoration

9: Healing Rituals: Break Enchantment, Raise Dead

A healer may instead choose to use the table below to determine the number of times per day they can use their abilities (e.g. if they dumped all mental scores or something)
Level:Heal InjuriesHealing Rituals
015-
025-
0352
0474
0574
0674
0774
0874
0985
1085
11118
12118
13119
14129
15129
161310
171411
181411
191411
201512

No track should have abilities that increase a character's CR and/or make them better at combat. Other tracks that come to mind are stuff like Magic Item Crafter (no idea how to handle this), Landlord (Lots of low level minions, contacts, land, castles, ships, airships, etc. but not cohorts), Tracker (Track feat, free max survival ranks, makes party faster at long distance travel, maybe some divinations, teleport and planeshift at mid levels), Face, Scholar (Extra not monster related knowledge ranks, divinations) etc.

Classes that already have a decent number of out of combat schticks (e.g. Wizards, Druids, Clerics) don't get to take any tracks, whereas classes without any (e.g. Monk, Soulborn) get to take the highest possible number of tracks per class (not sure what that should be yet). Classes with some utility, or that could have utility at the price of being worse at combat get something in between (e.g. Sorcerers). Honestly I'm not sure about what the maximum number of tracks should be, how many distinct abilities each track should give, etc. Multiclassing involving classes of varying 'number of tracks' results in only advancing the number of tracks the respective classes have.

Eventual intent is that a party of four monks or whatever would be able to have a decent number of non combat schticks that's comparable to that of a party consisting entirely of prepared full casters and/or domain shuffling spontaneous full list casters.
Last edited by radthemad4 on Sat Sep 16, 2017 3:49 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Username17 »

Various attempts have been made to give people non-combat classes before. It runs into a couple of major issues.

The first is the very level system itself. Namely that there are types of challenges that take enytire evenings to deal with at low level but which are essentially meaningless after you attain specific hard counters available at higher levels. So at one level you could be the MVP of the mission by being able to find trails and identify edible berries, while at a higher level your entire team might teleport to the far side of the forest and never be more than an hour away from a comfy bed or face-stabbing the enemy leader. So things that are major abilities at one level might be essentially meaningless footnotes the next level, and having those specific abilities become "better" isn't always a solution.

There are things analogous to picking locks that still matters at higher levels, but it's not literally being better at lockpicking. Lockpicking ceases to matter as a thing when you can slice doors in half with vorpal blades, but there are still obstacles that you would want to shake a specialist at. But narratively it's hard to explain how piercing scry protection or opening planar gateways is an extension of your lockpicking non-combat class package after a level-up.

The second major issue is that unlike in a board game, no RPG can maintain clear and consistent lines between combat and non-combat. Movement abilities can get you across a chasm, but they can also get you into a favorable position in combat. Stealth abilities can get you info dumps via spying, but they can also let you make surprise attacks in combat. And so on. Combat shticks will very likely have differing synergy with different nominally non-combat shticks. Glass cannon characters obviously have a much higher incentive to have scouting, stealth, or movement abilities that allow them to strike first, while grindier brick characters don't care as much and would honestly benefit more from abilities like diplomacy where the payoff is large but you get punched in the face if it doesn't work.

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Post by JonSetanta »

How about a utility track that simply doesn't level up?

A level 1 kit that stays the same.
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

JonSetanta wrote:How about a utility track that simply doesn't level up?

A level 1 kit that stays the same.
Congratulations, you've avoided the design problems by abandoning the design goals.
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Post by Almaz »

FrankTrollman wrote:The second major issue is that unlike in a board game, no RPG can maintain clear and consistent lines between combat and non-combat. Movement abilities can get you across a chasm, but they can also get you into a favorable position in combat. Stealth abilities can get you info dumps via spying, but they can also let you make surprise attacks in combat. And so on. Combat shticks will very likely have differing synergy with different nominally non-combat shticks. Glass cannon characters obviously have a much higher incentive to have scouting, stealth, or movement abilities that allow them to strike first, while grindier brick characters don't care as much and would honestly benefit more from abilities like diplomacy where the payoff is large but you get punched in the face if it doesn't work.

-Username17
This is 95% of the problem with players acquiring Nightcrawler powers at an early level, a totally reasonable low-ish level combat ability, and bamfing around obstacles that are supposed to be at least slightly more resilient than say, whatever the local ogres got in terms of muscle.
Last edited by Almaz on Tue Sep 19, 2017 6:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by radthemad4 »

FrankTrollman wrote:Various attempts have been made to give people non-combat classes before. It runs into a couple of major issues.

The first is the very level system itself. Namely that there are types of challenges that take enytire evenings to deal with at low level but which are essentially meaningless after you attain specific hard counters available at higher levels. So at one level you could be the MVP of the mission by being able to find trails and identify edible berries, while at a higher level your entire team might teleport to the far side of the forest and never be more than an hour away from a comfy bed or face-stabbing the enemy leader. So things that are major abilities at one level might be essentially meaningless footnotes the next level, and having those specific abilities become "better" isn't always a solution.
That's fine. Tracks are intended to get new abilities later on so even if something specific doesn't scale, it'll get new schticks. If a track does have an expiry date, it can just stop and someone can just take a 'Prestige Track' or something.
There are things analogous to picking locks that still matters at higher levels, but it's not literally being better at lockpicking. Lockpicking ceases to matter as a thing when you can slice doors in half with vorpal blades, but there are still obstacles that you would want to shake a specialist at. But narratively it's hard to explain how piercing scry protection or opening planar gateways is an extension of your lockpicking non-combat class package after a level-up.
I don't think there has to be 'Lockpicker' track so much as there need to be tracks that happen to have lockpicking in them, e.g. Infiltrator (gets gather information, tongues, detect thoughts as well) or Crafter (gets crafting feats, disable device, fabricate and trap making too), so getting new distinct abilities later on is fine.
FrankTrollman wrote:The second major issue is that unlike in a board game, no RPG can maintain clear and consistent lines between combat and non-combat. Movement abilities can get you across a chasm, but they can also get you into a favorable position in combat. Stealth abilities can get you info dumps via spying, but they can also let you make surprise attacks in combat. And so on. Combat shticks will very likely have differing synergy with different nominally non-combat shticks. Glass cannon characters obviously have a much higher incentive to have scouting, stealth, or movement abilities that allow them to strike first, while grindier brick characters don't care as much and would honestly benefit more from abilities like diplomacy where the payoff is large but you get punched in the face if it doesn't work.

-Username17
Yeah... this is something that's been bothering me for some time. I've intended even at the start for 'Stealth' to not be a thing any track granted. Not because I don't think it's a cool ability, but because it's applicable directly in combat. There can be movement based abilities that don't help in combat, e.g. the Teleport/Planeshift spells where you end up 'somewhere nearby but random' like with Planeshift, The Traveler's Mount spell (Makes mounts faster, but takes away their ability to fight), being able to hustle/run for longer periods of time, etc. and any of these can just take a few rounds or a minute or something to cast and/or 'one round' actions to maintain so they're not usable in combat. The tanks being more likely to take diplomacy thing is something I've never considered. I don't know how to address that yet.

My main concern about giving out abilities that help with combat was buffing classes that're already good at combat since tracks are just a thing classes get for free for not having utility options. Do you guys think this is necessary, or is it okay for some track abilities to help out directly in combat?

This isn't complete and many of these need more and/or more level appropriate abilities, and I need to sort the abilities themselves by level, but I thought I'd spitball a bit:
Healer: Heal living, get unfucked spells

Necromancer: Heal Undead, Speak with Dead, Gentle Repose, Animate Dead, Tome of Necromancy feats

Tracker: Track Feat, Scent, Hustle/Run for longer, follow teleports/planeshifts, Stone Tell, Some divinations

Animal friend: Talk to Animals and Magical Beasts, Awaken Animals, Untradeable Familiar/Improved Familiar, Traveler's Mount spell, Phantom Steeds, Can teleport and/or planeshift by finding and talking to magical beasts that can, Animal Messenger, Chain of Eyes, Animal Scouts, Is a bag of tricks

Plant friend: Talk to Plants, Plant Growth, Goodberry, Awaken Plants, Teleport/planeshift to and from Foresty areas, Is a Decanter of Endless Water?

Face: Diplomancy, Gather Information, Tongues, Sending, Contacts, can form new contacts relatively easily, Telepathic Bond with Party Members and Contacts, Can teleport/planeshift 'near' bonded contacts

Infiltrator: Gather Information, Lockpicking, Disguise, Voice Alteration, Knock, Tongues, Telepathy, Detect Thoughts

Scholar: Bardic Knowledge, Bonus ranks to useless knowledges, Scholar's Touch, Divinations?

Chef: Brew Potion, Create Food and Water, Purify Food and Water, Delay/Neutralize Poison, Goodberry-like spell that can affect other foods too, Heroes' Feast

Builder: Is a Lyre of Building and becomes several Lyres of Building, Make Whole, Secure Shelter, Magnificent Mansion, Fabricate, Free Knowledge Architecture and Engineering ranks, Wood/Stone Shape, Wall of Stone/Iron, Craft Rune Circle, Sky Castle (dnd-wiki)

Crafter: All the crafting feats, Disable Device, Lockpicking, Trapmaking, Fabricate

Other possible tracks:
Medium/Channeler

Potential track abilities that should probably go somewhere:

Astral Projection, not the spell, but the idea of sending your 'spirit' or whatever out of your body to go scout something out
Trapfinding
Is a Decanter of Endless Water
Any suggestions for tracks or any non combat abilities that could be a part of a track would be immensely appreciated.
Last edited by radthemad4 on Tue Sep 26, 2017 5:20 am, edited 8 times in total.
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Post by Voss »

I'm boggling at that list, because honestly the number of heavy hitting combat abilities in terms of summons/pets, buffs and battlefield control is absolutely absurd.

Scholar stands out as the one of the worst, since you call out knowledges as useless (in which case, why have them at all?)


I'm not sure how 'talking to people' jumps to planeshifting, but whatever.

Astral Projection, not the spell, but the idea of sending your 'spirit' or whatever out of your body to go scout something out
Trapfinding
Is a Decanter of Endless Water
As for these... you've got scouting in several places already (Necro, tracker, animal/plant friends)

Trapfinding is a fairly ridiculous thing to exist at all. Its either part of searching or its part of devices.

I'm not sure why decanter of endless water is on the list. Beyond breaking the economy in extreme environment regions or terraforming, the practical version of this is a 1st level spell or cantrip.
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Post by radthemad4 »

All the battlefield control/summon effects are going to require multiple rounds/a minute or so to set up or use '1 round actions' to maintain (e.g. riding a phantom steed from the animal track). Sorry I didn't make that clearer. Assorted types of permanent minion making is a cool thing I want people to have but I don't want people to take their minions adventuring/dungeoncrawlng. Not sure how to make it so that they can use them to say set up fortifications somewhere, but not into the dungeon/traveling with them. At least until they've sort of 'cleared' an area of hostile things.

'Useless knowledge' is a term I sometimes use for non monster identifying knowledges, since they often just don't come up or only give you a tiny bit of trivia in many games. The tracks aren't complete, but yeah, at the moment scholar seems pretty lacking. I've been planning on adding more divinations to it. I might just toss monster identifying knowledges onto it, but I'm not sure if I should do that.

Endless water is just a thing I find cool, but yeah, maybe it's not an appropriate ability.

Need to go do a thing. Further responses later
Last edited by radthemad4 on Wed Sep 27, 2017 3:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by radthemad4 »

What buffs did I put in other than Heroes' Feast? Which... admittedly is purely a combat buff. The +1 to attack and will saves is not that big, and the fear immunity lets you play the game when high level monsters start showing up with fear auras. This does violate my 'no direct combat buffs' thing, but I'm sorta considering making an exception for certain long duration effects (so long as they're level appropriate and not just your average persistent spell like thing).

Yeah, trapfinding is dumb and should just come with those, but I'm putting it there anyway for compatibility (yes, the odds of anyone other than maybe one of my groups (just for the sake of humoring me) using this are almost non existent even if I finish this, but I can dream).

Hmm... I think I need to distribute some abilities that let people survive in other planes.
Last edited by radthemad4 on Wed Sep 27, 2017 4:18 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by Cervantes »

What's the benefit of a "Track" over something more like a Feat chain? Call them "Traits", make them not helpful in combat, hand them out every N levels. The chain aspect lets you build something like a Track, level requirements let you dole out more high-powered non-combat utility when teleportation makes the previous challenges trivial, and it increases player agency at the cost of adding another Feat-like subsystem.
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Post by Voss »

radthemad4 wrote:What buffs did I put in other than Heroes' Feast?
Well, Brew Potion. Which, assuming it's changed to be usable by non-casters at all, is just a way to get a pile of buffs.

As far as pets go... I can't really parse wanting people to have them, but not wanting them to actually use them. No idea how you'd prevent that, or why people would want them if you could.

All the battlefield control/summon effects are going to require multiple rounds/a minute or so to set up or use '1 round actions' to maintain (e.g. riding a phantom steed from the animal track).
So... you have to spend your round maintaining a steed... rather than riding it?

Slapping big casting times on these abilities is... a pretty clumsy solution. I'm honestly wondering what the point of all this is with so much effort going into making the abilities impractical or useless, or pre-combat alpha strike only. Like the arbitrary pet restriction, it feels like you don't actually want people to have these abilities, or feel the need to slap a badwrongfun sticker on them- which seems entirely based on something other than game balance.

The underlying message seems to be that if you'd taken a casting class in the first place, you wouldn't be slapped with arbitrary restrictions on the random pile of abilities that you're gaining for no apparent reason.
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Post by Mord »

Voss wrote:I'm not sure why decanter of endless water is on the list. Beyond breaking the economy in extreme environment regions or terraforming, the practical version of this is a 1st level spell or cantrip.
As long as it's not an unreasonably high rate of generation, a character being able to find water anywhere won't break a desert economy - the difference in scale between "keep 5 people hydrated" and "keep 500 people with livestock and agriculture hydrated" is very meaningful.
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Post by radthemad4 »

Cervantes wrote:What's the benefit of a "Track" over something more like a Feat chain? Call them "Traits", make them not helpful in combat, hand them out every N levels. The chain aspect lets you build something like a Track, level requirements let you dole out more high-powered non-combat utility when teleportation makes the previous challenges trivial, and it increases player agency at the cost of adding another Feat-like subsystem.
I don't know. Tracks were just what came to mind first. Something similar could be done with 'Utility Feats' I guess, but I wanted something sort of in between a 'subclass' and a 'feat'. I could maybe be convinced that that might be a better approach?
Voss wrote:
radthemad4 wrote:All the battlefield control/summon effects are going to require multiple rounds/a minute or so to set up or use '1 round actions' to maintain (e.g. riding a phantom steed from the animal track).
So... you have to spend your round maintaining a steed... rather than riding it?
Yeah, I derped really hard there. Intent was to be able to ride it for traveling, but not during combat, i.e. if you're riding it, you can't also do other things. Forgot riding required the rider's move action and thought the mount would just move on its own while you concentrate on it or whatever. Anyway,
Voss wrote:Slapping big casting times on these abilities is... a pretty clumsy solution. I'm honestly wondering what the point of all this is with so much effort going into making the abilities impractical or useless, or pre-combat alpha strike only. Like the arbitrary pet restriction, it feels like you don't actually want people to have these abilities, or feel the need to slap a badwrongfun sticker on them- which seems entirely based on something other than game balance.

The underlying message seems to be that if you'd taken a casting class in the first place, you wouldn't be slapped with arbitrary restrictions on the random pile of abilities that you're gaining for no apparent reason.
Casting classes wouldn't get any tracks.
radthemad4 wrote:Classes that already have a decent number of out of combat schticks (e.g. Wizards, Druids, Clerics) don't get to take any tracks
Tracks were intended to be for the folks who don't have anything to when not fighting. What I was trying to do was to give fighty types more things to do outside combat without also making them better at combat, and figured maybe long casting times could do that. I had 'Tome' noncasters in mind who are already good at combat and didn't want to accidentally power them up further.

On the other hand, maybe them tossing out the occasional wall or summon or whatever in combat would be okay? Do you think giving Tome Monks, Knights, Soulborns, etc. a bunch of abilities of these sorts and letting them use them normally in combat can be done without making the caster types feel bad? Heck, then I could maybe even toss in combat movement abilities and stealthish abilities.
Voss wrote:
radthemad4 wrote:What buffs did I put in other than Heroes' Feast?
Well, Brew Potion. Which, assuming it's changed to be usable by non-casters at all, is just a way to get a pile of buffs.

As far as pets go... I can't really parse wanting people to have them, but not wanting them to actually use them. No idea how you'd prevent that, or why people would want them if you could.
It's sort of like the appeal of having a homebase or headquarters or whatever. But maybe that should be left up to individual campaigns and GMs and I could cut down on the permanent minions other than certain types like scouts and/or mounts.
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Post by DrPraetor »

D&D works well if everyone works like 3.x wizards. The D&D variant Warlock understood this pretty well, and gave fighters abilities that fit in level-specific slots (the same thing it gave Magic Users, although Warlock Magic Users worked like 3.x D&D Sorcerers with magic points) rather than a much smaller number of feats.

So pick locks takes up a 1st-level non-combat-ability slot, and at higher levels when pick locks is no longer relevant, you can put fast talk, or run-while-hidden or some other low-level but still-relevant ability in that slot instead.

This doesn't achieve the stated goal of "solve this problem using tracks", but "solve this problem using tracks" has many weaknesses as a solution to non-combat abilities in a D&D-clone that have been mentioned.
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Post by Voss »

Mord wrote:
Voss wrote:I'm not sure why decanter of endless water is on the list. Beyond breaking the economy in extreme environment regions or terraforming, the practical version of this is a 1st level spell or cantrip.
As long as it's not an unreasonably high rate of generation, a character being able to find water anywhere won't break a desert economy - the difference in scale between "keep 5 people hydrated" and "keep 500 people with livestock and agriculture hydrated" is very meaningful.
Yeah. A Create water spell is the former, and a decanter of endless water is very much the latter.

It's quite capable of 30 gallons per round. Per six seconds. I live on a farm in a very temperate climate with modern tech- our water output isn't anywhere near that high, nor is it infinite. During the height of summer our 40-odd cattle can go through several hundred gallons in a day, and it can take up to half an hour to fill all of the 100 gallon water troughs. A decanter could do six such troughs in 2 minutes. So, at 30 times that in an hour, that's 18,000 gallons of water each goddamn hour of every fucking day.

Having a permanent, infinite clean water oasis that you can pick up and move? Yeah, that can create (or destroy) desert kingdoms.
readthemade4 wrote:Casting classes wouldn't get any tracks.
Yes, you said. But casting classes can do all these things as spells, without the limitations you're imposing. So the message is still 'be a caster,' so you won't have to put up with the petty restrictions on these tracks.
Tracks were intended to be for the folks who don't have anything to when not fighting. What I was trying to do was to give fighty types more things to do outside combat without also making them better at combat, and figured maybe long casting times could do that.
Right, but casters.. can still do these things in combat. And even outside combat, the long times and maintenance requirements still say 'just let the caster do it'.

If the party needs to block a passage full of monsters with wall of stone, everyone can hold their barrel full of dicks for 5 minutes so the fighter can feel big in the pants for doing something like a real grown-up, or the wizard can do it right fucking now and the party can move on.
It's sort of like the appeal of having a homebase or headquarters or whatever.
Not... really? People don't expect to bring their castle along with them when off on a crusade to kill the necromancer. They do expect to be able to bring their awakened wolf companion. It's kinda an established genre trope, and reasons why they wouldn't be able to are very transparently made of bullshit.
But maybe that should be left up to individual campaigns and GMs and I could cut down on the permanent minions other than certain types like scouts and/or mounts.
I'm not sure that is the correct takeaway. And I say that as someone who doesn't particularly like the menagerie of animal companions and summons in 3rd edition. Partly because it does fuck all to eliminate the existing menagerie.
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Post by EightWave »

angelfromanotherpin wrote:
JonSetanta wrote:How about a utility track that simply doesn't level up?

A level 1 kit that stays the same.
Congratulations, you've avoided the design problems by abandoning the design goals.
He also invented feats!
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Post by JonSetanta »

EightWave wrote:
angelfromanotherpin wrote:
JonSetanta wrote:How about a utility track that simply doesn't level up?

A level 1 kit that stays the same.
Congratulations, you've avoided the design problems by abandoning the design goals.
He also invented feats!
You could take a Track 1/feat and have it advance that way. Boom. Done.


Keep in mind, I'm still pushing for 1 feat per level.
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Post by deaddmwalking »

There's a bunch of issues with 3.x, but giving 1 feat/level doesn't cause any problems. Like, seriously, with 15 feats instead of 5 by 15th level, there will still be thousands that never see play. The main resource in 3.x is the number of actions per round. If you have 10 feats that all require an action to use, you only have 1 feat that matters at a given moment. It's only if all 10 feats combine into a single action that things can get wonky... But even then it's mostly still alright. More skill points and more feats are definitely a minor band-aid to some of the problems, but it's well worth doing especially if you're not making any other major changes.
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Post by radthemad4 »

'1 feat per level' is cool. One of my groups uses it in addition to tome feats (when you'd normally get feats, i.e. 1, human, 3, 6, etc.) because we feel that having two tiers of feats is handy.
Voss wrote:Having a permanent, infinite clean water oasis that you can pick up and move? Yeah, that can create (or destroy) desert kingdoms.
Yes, but you can already buy one for 9000 GP. There's a pretty good chance most kingdoms can afford to have a few. Could have it come online at a later level.
Voss wrote:If the party needs to block a passage full of monsters with wall of stone, everyone can hold their barrel full of dicks for 5 minutes so the fighter can feel big in the pants for doing something like a real grown-up, or the wizard can do it right fucking now and the party can move on.
Fair point. Inferior versions of stuff casters can do are lame. Either abilities should be as good, or be altogether different abilities of comparable effectiveness.
People don't expect to bring their castle along with them when off on a crusade to kill the necromancer. They do expect to be able to bring their awakened wolf companion. It's kinda an established genre trope, and reasons why they wouldn't be able to are very transparently made of bullshit.
But maybe that should be left up to individual campaigns and GMs and I could cut down on the permanent minions other than certain types like scouts and/or mounts.
I'm not sure that is the correct takeaway. And I say that as someone who doesn't particularly like the menagerie of animal companions and summons in 3rd edition. Partly because it does fuck all to eliminate the existing menagerie.
Minions are... in a weird place. The game already allows people to have a whole bunch via animate dead. IME people seem to sort of have a 'gentleman's agreement' to not go too crazy with it. But yeah, people should probably be able to have one or two that actually help out in combat.

Well, anyway, I'll get to work actually making the tracks without spell-ish abilities granted being gimped.
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Post by radthemad4 »

JonSetanta wrote:You could take a Track 1/feat and have it advance that way. Boom. Done.
Tying tracks (or at least how I've specified mine) to feats seems like terrible idea as you've essentially just made them feat chains. You could instead of making tracks at all, make a bunch of utility feats, e.g. one that lets you speak with dead at will, or whatever. If doing this, I'd recommend doing what Cervantes said and having a separate bunch of feats for this type of thing so you're not choosing between being better at punching and talking to dead people.
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Post by JonSetanta »

I thought "better at punching" was a class thing?
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radthemad4
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Post by radthemad4 »

It's also a feat thing, e.g. combat reflexes, whirlwind, knockdown, weapon focus (shudder)
EightWave
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Post by EightWave »

JonSetanta wrote:
EightWave wrote:
angelfromanotherpin wrote: Congratulations, you've avoided the design problems by abandoning the design goals.
He also invented feats!
You could take a Track 1/feat and have it advance that way. Boom. Done.


Keep in mind, I'm still pushing for 1 feat per level.
Now you've invented Tome feats! Well done!
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JonSetanta
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Post by JonSetanta »

EightWave wrote: Now you've invented Tome feats! Well done!
I believe you misunderstand. Or rather, which Tome feats?

Scaling or not?

Because fuck scaling feats, they are broken as shit.
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EightWave
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Post by EightWave »

Tome feats are feats that grant more abilities the higher your level is by being tied to either BAB or ranks in a skill.
Battlefield Surgeon [Skill]
You like to cut people open with a saw. But it's good for them. Seriously.

Benefits: This is a skill feat that scales with your ranks in Heal.

0 ranks: You gain +3 to your Heal checks.
4 ranks: You can make first aid, treat poison, and treat wound checks as move actions.
9 ranks: For every 5 points your Heal check exceeds the DC for long term care, your patients recover another +100% faster. For instance, if your Heal check result is 23, your patients would heal at thrice the normal rate.
14 ranks: If you operate on a patient for a minute, they regain hit points equal to your Heal check result. You also may, instead of healing hit point damage, cure any condition that heal could, reattach severed limbs, or repair ruined organs, if you succeed on a DC 30 check. Patients under your long-term care heal permanent ability drain as if it was ability damage.
19 ranks: With one hour of work, 25,000 gp worth of materials (which are consumed in the process), and a DC 40 Heal check, you can restore a creature that died within the last twenty-four hours to life. The subject's soul must be free and willing to return for the effect to work.
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