|

Pathfinder Readthrough – Chapter 7: Additional Rules

Bygamingballistic

A retroactive (and oft-repeated) introduction: After an actual-play hiatus where I was mostly writing and playtesting for GURPS. I was invited to play in a Pathfinder game, and after a few sessions, it was time to buy the book and learn the rules! I decided to try and read the Pathfinder rules cover-to-cover and see what inspiration strikes, for good or ill!

You can find the first installments here:

Prelude
Introduction
Races

Classes (Barbarian – Monk)
Classes (Paladin – Wizard)

Skills (Appraise – Heal)
Skills (Intimidate – Use Magic Device)

Feats

Equipment

Additional Rules

Chapter 7 is a bit of a hodge-podge. It includes a smorgasbord of rules that apparently don’t go well into any other chapter. A few round out character creation and capability. Overland travel and movement go here too, instead of in the Game-Mastering chapter (which is really about running games as opposed to playing games).

So, what’s contained in this a la carte menu of oddness?

Let’s start with everyone’s favorite:

Alignment

Many words have been penned, and electrons slain, discussing (mostly disparaging, really) the D&D alignment system. Somewhere between a useful help to roleplaying and a terrible crutch, users of which are doomed to roll-play rather than role-play and likely wind up eating kittens.

I know evil is bad, but come on! Eating kittens is just plain . . . plain wrong, and no one should do it! Ever!
       -The Tick, Armless but not Harmless

In any case, your alignment is more or less your moral compass. Sort of. Except when it’s not. Maybe it’s a crossroad of morals (good – neutral – evil) and ethics (lawful – neutral –chaotic). Maybe not. In any case, the rules define a 3×3 matrix that defines certain game aspects, especially in a world where gods, demons, devils, monsters, and outsiders are real, powerful, and interact and intervene directly with humanity. So like it or not, it matters in game. A key bit is “alignment steps,” which are the number of horizontal and vertical motions (only – no diagonals) on that 3×3 table from where you are to what you’re interacting with. A cleric’s alignment must be within one step of the alignment of his or her deity.

The game defines two orthogonal axes for alignment: the Law-Chaos axis and the Good-Evil one, with neutral as a center point for each. Thus the three-by-three matrix. The book notes that evil alignments are not usually good for PCs, at which point legions of those who love playing evil PCs will chime in and say “bulls**t.” One of the things that is true is that disparate alignments, properly played, can (and maybe should) cause intraparty conflict including harsh language and death. It gives a brief description of each of the nine possible alignments, for which I will reproduce the one-line summaries from the book.

  • Lawful Good: Lawful good combines honor with compassion.
  • Neutral Good: Neutral good means doing what is good and right without bias for or against order.
  • Chaotic Good: Chaotic good combines a good heart with a free spirit.
  • Lawful Neutral: Lawful neutral means you are reliable and honorable without being a zealot.
  • Neutral: Neutral means you act naturally in any situation, without prejudice or compulsion.
  • Chaotic Neutral: Chaotic neutral represents freedom from both society’s restrictions and a do-gooder’s zeal.
  • Lawful Evil: Lawful evil represents methodical, intentional, and organized evil.
  • Neutral Evil: Neutral evil represents pure evil without honor and without variation.
  • Chaotic Evil: Chaotic evil represents the destruction not only of beauty and life, but also of the order on which beauty and life depend.

I’m going to nitpick. I think Neutral should be phrased as “naturally, without prejudice or restraint.” Or possibly “act according to natural imperatives, without prejudice or restraint.” Since animals that are going about the business of obtaining food, mates, shelter, and survival are usually classed as neutral, that’s probably how it’s intended. An animal doesn’t eat you because he’s evil, he does it because he’s hungry. A dog doesn’t avoid pooping on the carpet because it’s wrong, or poop on the carpet as a rebellion against The Man (though he may do so as a show of anti-dominance) – he does it because he has to poop, and that carpet seemed a pretty good place to do it.


Secondly, both Lawful Evil and Neutral Evil re-use “evil” in the definition, which is lazy and doesn’t help much, though the “Good Versus Evil” section notes “Evil implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others.”

The alignment rules certainly don’t capture the complexities of human behavior in many ways. If a character will make tremendous sacrifices of wealth and personal injury or death for one group of humans, but will kill or enslave others without compunction or remorse, that probably makes you Lawful Neutral. I suspect a lot of human cultures would fall here. The samurai, as an example – rigorously adhering to law, tradition, and a code of honor, but capable and willing to kill without a second thought, up to and including him or herself! Maybe Buddhism would be Neutral Good. I’ll stop there before I get myself into trouble, if I haven’t already.

“All models are wrong; some are useful.” 

This statement by George Box probably is where I’ll leave the alignment discussion. To the extent that the 3×3 matrix helps guide behavior, it’s useful. To the extent it structures the various interrelations between gods, men, and squidzillas, it is useful.

Vital Statistics

The last few things needed or wanted to round out a character.

Height, Weight, and Age

The game lays out some random methods for generating age, height, and weight. The tables tell me I’m 15 pounds overweight and suffering -1 to STR, DEX, and CON as well as +1 to INT, WIS, and CHA. Hrpmh. Not wrong, but ‘Hrmph.’

Encumbrance

Encumbrance comes in two parts: that imparted by armor, and “everything else.” It notes that unless you’re weak and/or carrying a lot of gear (or loot!) only worry about the Armor Check penalties as well as modifiers from armor to movement speed.

If you are laden with stuff, you take the weight of all your gear, including armor, and compare it to the Carrying Capacity table. What does that tell you? At STR 10, you can lift 100 lbs. over your head, lift and stagger around at five feet per six seconds with 200 lbs., and under decent circumstances push or drag about 500 lbs. At STR 20, this is multiplied by four.

How would this compare to GURPS? Well, at 500-lbs, you can push or drag an object. GURPS sets this limit at 15xBasic Lift. If we set the two equal to each other (questionable), we’d decide that ST 10 in DnD is roughly ST 13 in GURPS. There have been arguments as to what “lift over the head” means for the GURPS usual 8xBasic Lift limit of things. If a STR 10 person in Pathfinder can press 100 lbs over his head, that might well be ST 10 or so in GURPS. At Pathfinder STR 20 (drag a freakin’ ton around, or press 400 lbs. over the head, that’s somewhere between ST 20 and ST 26). So the two aren’t that far off in that range, for what it’s worth.

It then gives the geometric progression for extending the table as well as how to modify height and weight for large and small critters.

Movement

The first paragraph is pretty key. It divides movement into Tactical, Local, and Overland, as well as defining movement rates at a Walk or Hustle, and two speeds of running (x3 and x4).

Tactical Movement
Much as I hate to say it, the movement rates are rather more inherently sensible than those assumed in GURPS. A walk is 3 yards per 2 seconds; a hustle is Move 3. Run x3 is for characters in heavy armor, and is about Move 3.5, while Run x4 is Move 6 in no armor, or about Move 4.5 in chainmail. I suppose you could just look at walking as using a “Step and . . . ” series of maneuvers (Move 1, or 2mph).
The book says that in combat, characters hustle or run instead. This is probably true, but it’s not realism, it’s fun/play that drives it. You want the kind of mobility that allows you to engage many foes in an interesting time frame. In a real fight, I don’t think you’d waste energy that way, but we’re not in a real fight, are we? That is, the reasons characters are not walking, but hustling or running are not obvious, as the book states – but that doesn’t prevent the statement from being true.
Local Movement
Pretty easy. You can walk or hustle as long as you want, but if you’re running, you can only run for as many rounds as your Con score without resting. At six seconds per round, that means you’re looking at a 1-2 minute interval. Hrm. Chapter 8 says it holds more about long-distance running.
Um, why not consolidate all the movement rules here? Or put them all into Combat? Weird.
Overland Movement
Mostly, this is about modifying your speed based on terrain, and lists it as mph or miles per day. Effective travel speeds in good terrain are:
  • Walk: 24 miles over an 8 hour period actually moving.
  • Hustle: You can hustle for an hour in between sleep periods, covering about 6 miles. Then if you don’t sleep, you take nonlethal damage in escalating amounts and become fatigued. Suck.
  • Run: You can’t. Tough noogies. Hustle instead.
Modifiers and other stuff? Sure:
  • Terrain: lowers movement rates. Check the chart.
  • Forced March: you can push yourself farther. Every hour, make a CON check at DC 10 +2 per hour, or take nonlethal damage. So with high CON, you can push yourself for a few more hours by default, which can make a big difference. I suspect Rangers rock here, as they should.
  • Mounted Movement: mounts take lethal damage for pushing at a hustle, and so can ride themselves to death. Forced march checks auto-fail. Ouch. Take care of your horses.
Evasion and Pursuit
Basically, “when it’s not obvious, make a CON check.”
Exploration
This really covers two special cases: vision and light, and breaking things.
Vision and Light
Important take-aways from this section seem to be
Maglite of Power, +10
  • Stealth can’t be used in areas of bright light, including direct sunshine and the daylight spell
  • Normal light includes under a forest canopy in the daytime, torchlight within 20′, and the light spell
  • Dim light throws down a new concept (Concealment, a 20% miss chance) without a reference to the underlying mechanic (maybe you miss automatically on a roll of 1-4? Dunno, we’ll see). You can use Stealth to conceal yourself. Moonlit night, 20-40′ from a torch, or bright starlight.
  • Darkness: 50% miss chance, total concealment, no DX bonus to AC (big deal for Rogues), -4 to Perception checks based on sight, including STR and DEX based skill checks. Unlit dungeons, moonless nights, and most caverns.
Breaking Stuff
Smashing a weapon is done with a sunder combat maneuver. Smashing an object is an opposed sunder with the object’s AC. That’s 10+Size Modifier, -5 for being DEX 0, and an additional -2 for being inanimate. So basically 3+Size Mod. Auto-hit if you can line it up, or +5 to hit for a ranged weapon. OK.
Ah, but you have to overcome its hardness, which subtracts points of damage. Basically GURPS’ DR.
There are then a bunch of special cases, such as objects taking half-damage from ranged weapons that aren’t siege engines. Some of these are GM’s call. 
Nonmagical objects never make saving throws. 
You can also try and break something suddenly by making a STR check vs. the object’s DC (13 for a simple door, 23 for rope bonds, 28 for an iron door) which is on a table.
* * *
And that’s the chapter. 

Similar Posts

Playing with DnD5 Characters – 6th level Monk of the Four Elements
|

Playing with DnD5 Characters – 6th level Monk of the Four Elements

Bygamingballistic

Moving on to the Monk, a character basically designed around Kwai Chang Caine. Monks are interesting to me because they seem to get something really cool every level. They have the power of ‘ki,’ expendable energy points that aren’t quite spell slots (or rather, they’re generic power points that might as well be slots). They…

Market Research: One Book or Multiple for RPGs?
| | |

Market Research: One Book or Multiple for RPGs?

Bygamingballistic

As part of the run-up to Dragon Heresy, I quickly realized that the book was going to be very large. My initial estimates of a single 250-300 page volume were crushed under the heels of 90,000 words of just monsters. And that’s after culling things down and eliminating many that are thematically inappropriate.  There are ways…

| |

You poured rules lawyer all over my fun

Bygamingballistic

Over on the SJG Forums, a thread started up that inspired next Thursday’s Melee Academy topic, a cross-blog event where anyone that wants to take a shot at it writes about their favorite way to tackle a given topic. This particular thread is named “unarmed vs. knife,” and the melee academy was broadened more or…

2 Comments

  1. I love the idea of alignment. I've just never seen it play out well when it's anything more than set dressing, just a couple letters on a character sheet that rarely get referenced except as it interacts with game mechanics.

  2. The one thing I like about alignment is that it gives your character at its creation a guide or moral compass to see how you envision the character being role-played. I like the idea of Drives in some GUMSHOE games for the same reason. When you get stuck in how you need to handle a situation, you have a guide to fall back on.

Comments are closed.