First off, the title isn't talking about trap music, but I want everyone to walk along that road with me to begin. The picture of a tall, lithe squid monster wearing gold chains and a do-rag, standing in front of a low-rider car and drinking cough syrup. You're welcome, because that's been in my head all week.
This is another semi-random discussion on design minutiae. I hope nobody's upset I haven't done a big overview in a while; these are way easier to write and hopefully, when the overview comes, you'll remember this little thing we discussed. Our semi-permanent elephant in the room is the RPG books themselves. On one hand I always say you should go with the book and its rules first and foremost. On the other hand...I make a habit out of pointing out everything that's stupid in them. The reason I try to drum it in your head that you ought to use the book and its rules is to combat people acting like armchair game developers. It creates a double standard that will, at BEST, trash your game's flow and make players second-guess themselves. At worst, it creates bickering and promotes the GM acting like the Lord High Master of Games. People need to be able to make decisions based on the rules of the game as they know them.
But.
You have to be able to identify problems with published source. Depending on the game you're playing (COUGH. 3.X D&D. COUGH.) there could even be a lot of them. Today we're talking specifically about monsters, since it's the absolute easiest thing for a GM to handle: Either don't use the monster or remove the offending ability. We'll be looking at the mind flayer so we can discuss how a published monster can end up being a big problem and what you need to look for. My discussion on "bottom line" philosophy is very relevant, so feel free to refresh yourself.
Before we begin. Some problems crop up due to interactions between two monsters, and that's also an easy problem to avoid. I need everyone to remember that they're running a pen and paper game, and not playing Magic: The Gathering. You should be creating a robust and interesting encounter, not looking for "combos". I've even seen these in Dragon Magazine and it made me want to vomit. A red dragon healing iron golem minions with his breath. Howlers reducing will saves to make a succubus's charm land easier. The list goes on. The short answer? Don't do this. It's okay for an encounter to have some interaction between the monsters. It's even okay for an encounter to have complex tactics to it. It's not okay for you to think in terms of making an "unbeatable" encounter or trying to "win". This isn't MTG.
A mind flayer is a CR 8 monster, so I'm going to whip up some quick stats for what a CR 8 party is likely to have. I'm not going class by class, since plenty of these stats are going to be interchangeable. 33k gold for level 8 means we can assume anyone in our party has a +2 cloak of Resistance, +2 armor and a +2 weapon.
Fighter has a will save of +4(+2 cloak, 2 base) and a grapple check of +14(8AB, 6STR). His AC is 21(8 full plate, 1 dex, 2 enhancement).
Wizard has a will save of +8(6 base) and a grapple check of +4. We'll be nice and give him a 16 dex and Bracers of Armor 4 for a total AC of 17.
Cleric has a will save of +14(6 base, 2 cloak, 22 wis for a +6) and a grapple check of +10. We'll assume he's got a STR of 18 and I'll go into his buffs later if I need to. We'll say his AC is 21 too.
On the surface the players sure do have a numbers advantage. I'll go over the relevant things a mind flayer does below.
Mind Blast: This is a DC 17 will save vs 3d4 rounds of stun. It's also a 60 foot cone. This seems mitigated by the low save DC: Cleric has a 10% chance to fail, Wizard has a 40% chance to fail, and fighter has a 60% chance to fail.
Improved Grab and Extract: the mind flayer gets 4 tentacle attacks at +8. They do minor damage and initiate a grapple check to attach a tentacle. I'm fairly sure this means he gets four improved grab procced grapple checks since the grapple is a free action. If, at any point, he's got all four tentacles attached, your brain is sucked out and you're instantly killed. If he begins a round with even one tentacle on, he can attach the others with a single grapple check. He gets +2 for every tentacle attached. Again this may seem mitigated by numbers: His grapple check ain't great, and only the wizard is likely to fail.
His spell-like abilities are detect thoughts, charm monster, levitate, plane shift, and suggestion. They're all at will.
But here's what's going to happen. He's going to open with mind blast. Right there, it's a good chance that any 'fighter' types are smoked and the wizards might be too. It's in his best interests to spam it until there's two or fewer people still up, and then try to lay charm monster on one of the remaining ones. He'll order the charmed person to protect him and start eating a stunned person's brain. In 3d4 rounds if everything goes well he's promised to kill at least one person. If not, he can plane shift away, possibly taking a victim with him. So that guy's probably going to die too.
Let's unpack the problems with that. If you've been watchin' da show you already know a 3d4 round stun is completely fucking ridiculous at any save DC and no self respecting designer should have let that slide. His preferred tactics leave everyone uninvolved with the fight if it goes well and look completely pointless if they fail. The average roll on 3d4 is going to be ABOUT 7 rounds, and even with a snappy, ultra-fast group it means anyone who fails might as well go order the pizza or something. In addition, he's not only got an instant kill attack, but it's one that synergizes with his abilities: A stunned monster is easier to grapple, and a charmed monster might even relent to it. After all that, the party's not even very likely to feel satisfied with the monster's death: Soon as the fight goes south, you can bet on a plane shift.
Before I go into what this means, I want to address the tactics the average mind flayer is going to be using. I feel these tactics are obvious and guided simply by his abilities, but if you disagree with me, I urge you to read page 188 of the 3.5 Monster Manual.
So why is the mind flayer a "trap" monster? First off, ask yourself if this fight is going to be enjoyable for the whole group. Notice that a lot of character types are going to be EITHER vulnerable to his mind blast OR his grapple. What's likely to happen is one or more people are uninvolved entirely by virtue of stun, one is uninvolved or worse from charm, and one guy(cleric or monk) is racing to beat the mind flayer's face in before he kills someone. BTW, he's got three rounds to deal about 44 damage at level 8. Any longer and someone is guaranteed to die. Adding minions or more mind flayers amplifies all of these problems.
When choosing challenges, always start with if it's going to be fun, interesting, or compelling to deal with. Most monsters you see, you're going to be able to say yes. Look for overly synergistic abilities, long crowd control, or instant kill attacks. See them as red flags regardless of any mitigating factor. An easily made save DC, low AC, low HP or time limits do not necessarily mitigate the impact of these abilities. Look for anything that will cause the players to feel cheated or uninvolved. I find that nobody likes being charmed or dominated, and using these as "punishment" for building a very strong character is asinine. Keep an eye on abilities that disable some or all of the party's cool tricks like anti-magic zone. Even golem immunities can feel like this sometimes, but immunities are often easier to swallow. Also try to keep in mind that you might need to give the party some kind of way to prepare for the fight if it's going to feel good. A lot of undead or outsiders are like this after CR 8 or so. Also look for any ability that doesn't involve the victim's defenses or actions: Be wary of effects with no save or simple, flat percentage chances.
Really though, all you need to do most of the time is put yourself in the player's shoes. It can be deceptively hard to do, so try to remind yourself how you felt the last time you were chain-stunned, charmed, died to a single D20 roll, or whatever else you need. Don't miss the forest for the trees: Your bottom line is FUN. Challenge is very important, but it's more important that the players feel involved and engaged.
Sunday, March 26, 2017
Sunday, March 19, 2017
The Jedi Problem
"Hey, kid. How're we doing?"
"Same as always."
"That bad, huh?"
I don't expect this one to be as long as our other class problem post. Paladin was a big can of worms, with problems steeped in its history and molded by previous editions of Dungeons and Dragons. It has its fair share of alternate media, but none of it did as much damage as the book descriptions did. I had a lot to talk about. Jedi, on the other hand, break games for wildly different reasons. I'm also not going to discuss, YET, any of the fixes Star Wars Saga Edition made. I'll do that when I have easy access to the book. If it's got to be a little shorty update in the middle of the week, so be it. In the spirit of full disclosure, we're working with a mild bias here. I hate jedi. I can't stand them. Part of it is because of problems I've got with the Star Wars movies, part of it is their general design and tone, but a lot of it is because of problems we're discussing here. So, here we fucking go.
Alright, first off, we've got to clear the air about something. Star Wars D20 was made in the late 90s. The days of class balance being wildly off because "that's how it should be" are long, long gone. I'm not going to entertain any defense of the jedi that includes the idea that they "should" be more powerful than the other classes. The reasoning is simple: in a system with completely unrestricted character concepts and ideas, all you're doing is ensuring that every single player picks Jedi. If you set a restriction on "how many" Jedi can be in the party, you're going to create N-X upset players, where N is the number of total players, and X is the amount of Jedi you've allowed.
I'm glad we got that out of the way. I'm going to focus on differences, meaning clear advantages, disadvantages, and things that affect Jedi more than other classes. This means something that both Guardian and Soldier(for example) can attain in similar ways isn't even going to get a mention. Lemme get something off my chest right now, though: Some of SWD20's classes really aren't very good. Outside of some fringe(HAH!) uses and archetype builds, I really can't recommend Fringer or Scout for anything. Fringer's key ability, its bonus to Jury Rig, may seem enticing, but really it's a check you're going to seek to AVOID making because jury rig repairs always fall apart eventually. They're quicker, but even in Star Wars a time crunch isn't going to come up every session. Scout has a few enticing abilities like evasion, but when you factor in the idea that evasion isn't going to be used for much except grenades...and grenades aren't really that great to begin with...then suddenly it seems a lot less enticing. The only thing Scout is good for is the mental image of Chewbacca wiping the fucking floor with Emperor Palpatine, because Force Lightning allows a reflex save. Wookie 4 life, bitches.
Force Skills. I'm going for the throat and discussing the biggest problem first. One of the Jedi's disadvantages is that force skills must be purchased with skill points, and it's dominant strategy to take many of them and leave your basic skills to rot. This is because the force skills are insanely useful at worst, and game-breaking at best. Obviously this means our first problem is that they get access to things no other class gets, not a huge problem here but a theme later, as you'll see. I'll go down by each skill that's relevant enough to mention.
Affect Mind. Good old jedi mind trick. You can use this skill once per scene per person, and you can bet that the jedi will do it every time there's a disagreement of any kind. Unlike diplomacy, this is straight up post hypnotic suggestion and functions as a psychic baseball bat to the temple of potentially every NPC you make. It's not EXACTLY overpowered, but as a GM, you're going to be sick of it by session two.
Battlemind and Enhance Ability. This is the first big problem. Battlemind is a move action to activate and gives a bonus to attack rolls. a +3 is a trivial DC of 15, and +4 is a 25, meaning the Jedi will be ahead on attacks as early as level one. This is compounded by Enhance Ability, which is an attack action to use, meaning the jedi can "power up" in a single round. a +4 is a moderately trivial DC 20. Even with the potentially lost round, the Jedi has a +6 lead on attacks and +2 on damage as early as level 7. These are even CON skills, meaning his bonus is always going to be good. The soldier has no way to make this up. Even if Mastercraft weapons didn't also apply to lightsabers(they do), their bonus only goes to +3, and they're expensive and rare.
Heal Self. Star Wars D20 uses a vitality and wounds system. This means your "HP" is counted by near misses and nonthreatening blows. Your "Wound points" cover actual wounds and are ticked off by critical hits, your vitality being out, or simply being a mook. Jedi spend their vitality on activating all of their powers. In other words, some dumb asshole thought it was acceptable to give Jedi a spell that can restore their spell slots. Unlike Treat Injury's vitality restoration(which they can also use) being once a day, Heal Self is once per hour.
This is, of course, in addition to getting force powers which do anything under the sun like Illusion, Fear, Force Strike, and Move Object. I hesitate to list them as problems because the jedi is intended as a spellcaster, however Consular has 3/4ths AB, and Guardian has 1:1 AB. This begins a trend of both classes being not just Jack of All Trades, but being as good or better at these things than the other classes. Guardian gets the same skill point number as Soldier, but also access to force skills, and things like deflect and scaling lightsaber damage. Soldier gets more feats, but Guardian still even GETS bonus feats: Just not as many. Consular trades a minor amount of damage and some of its AB for higher skill points and skill emphasis feats. Overall not the best decision, but the class is still head and shoulders above others, especially since force powers are pretty awesome and they've got more skill points for them.
Lightsaber Defense Feats. At 3, 7 and 11 a jedi(not a force user, a jedi) can take a feat that gives him +2 AC while wielding a lightsaber. Yes, they stack. They specifically say they stack. This is the biggest thing I found that's completely insane while researching for this. No, this isn't a catch-up Jedi use because they can't wear armor. They totally can wear armor, they just don't get the proficiencies for free. Even then, armor doesn't give defense bonus in this system, just damage reduction to wound points. It's not as important and most people don't bother. No, the Jedi is seriously just 6 defense ahead by level 11.
Lightsaber Damage. Before we move on from pure mechanics I need to mention this. So, the majority of damage sources in Dungeons and Dragons scale. Wizards get better spells, fighters get better weapons, the monk gets higher dice. Well, in SWD20, this basically doesn't happen. This is acceptable because of the Mook system where you're not intended to fight NPCs with vitality points very often. This keeps combat quick and lets soldiers capitalize on their scaling number of attacks via feats like autofire. Jedi lightsaber damage scales, though. Like, really high. At level 20, the Jedi is doing 6D8 as a guardian, or 5D8 as a consular. It's ALREADY a pretty awesome exotic weapon. This is the same system that has a dedicated unarmed combatant soldier still doing 3D4 damage and spending two feats on it, and with many combatants, they're still using the same 3D8 blaster rifle or 2D10 vibroaxe they used at level one. Vibro weapons require a special feat, by the way. Deflect isn't a particularly unbalanced ability on its own, but it ensures that you can't even pick the Jedi off at a range: Either you're rolling on an immense AC and having to dodge your own fucking blaster bolts, or you're stepping into the Jedi's 6D8 murderzone.
(|||||:|||=================
There's another problem, too. The Jedi is mechanically superior in many ways to the other classes, and the books certainly contain even more attainable powers, feats, new skills and even equipment for Jedi. Via feats just in the core book they can cause whirlwinds, group buff, FUCKING FLY, move at immense speeds, or other tricks. They can QUICKEN their force powers by level 7, removing that "buff round" I was talking about earlier. They can take double lightsabers(Thanks, Ray Park), short lightsabers for your offhand, TWO HANDED lightsabers, lightsabers that fucking change size, ones with reach, and all kinds of other crap. They even get prestige classes like Jedi Ace and Jedi Investigator, so there's not a single thing in the entire game a Jedi can't be better than you at, even piloting a starship.
Maybe you already caught on to what I'm saying. Source for Jedi dominates the game's supplements. It's everywhere. Light Side and Dark Side both have full supplements to themselves. In fact, despite the fact that it's pretty awesome, most GMs consider letting someone have Sith secrets verboten, so that's a full book of things the average player is never even going to fucking see. Non-Jedi can't get a single thing to themselves. The Hero's Guide is inarguably the system's best supplement and introduces some much needed concepts like Martial Arts forms. Unfortunately, it also has a handful of force powers and Lightsaber Form feats which...you guessed it, further improve the Jedi's defenses or damage. Like they needed the help.
But that's really the problem with Star Wars in a whole, isn't it? It's an immensely engaging and interesting world that we never see because a pseudo-intellectual spouting junk philosophy and waving a laser sword is constantly standing in front of it. The system(as well as the movies) constantly lay everything at the Jedi's feet in practical worship, to the point that many of the insane capabilities I listed above aren't restricted to force users, but specifically jedi. Dark Side Devotee and Sith Marauder are pointlessly bad even when compared to Force Adept, the actual balanced force class. Even the dark side is mechanically inferior to the all-mighty Jedi. And yes, before you say so, I know Yoda said it's not more powerful. I know he implied that the Light Side is a struggle, but it's worth it in the end. Do you see these mother fuckers struggling, though? This is what I meant when I said I hated jedi.
So. All that said, and all that bile burned off like jet fuel launching a rocket into space, what's the solution?
Isn't it obvious?
"Same as always."
"That bad, huh?"
I don't expect this one to be as long as our other class problem post. Paladin was a big can of worms, with problems steeped in its history and molded by previous editions of Dungeons and Dragons. It has its fair share of alternate media, but none of it did as much damage as the book descriptions did. I had a lot to talk about. Jedi, on the other hand, break games for wildly different reasons. I'm also not going to discuss, YET, any of the fixes Star Wars Saga Edition made. I'll do that when I have easy access to the book. If it's got to be a little shorty update in the middle of the week, so be it. In the spirit of full disclosure, we're working with a mild bias here. I hate jedi. I can't stand them. Part of it is because of problems I've got with the Star Wars movies, part of it is their general design and tone, but a lot of it is because of problems we're discussing here. So, here we fucking go.
Alright, first off, we've got to clear the air about something. Star Wars D20 was made in the late 90s. The days of class balance being wildly off because "that's how it should be" are long, long gone. I'm not going to entertain any defense of the jedi that includes the idea that they "should" be more powerful than the other classes. The reasoning is simple: in a system with completely unrestricted character concepts and ideas, all you're doing is ensuring that every single player picks Jedi. If you set a restriction on "how many" Jedi can be in the party, you're going to create N-X upset players, where N is the number of total players, and X is the amount of Jedi you've allowed.
I'm glad we got that out of the way. I'm going to focus on differences, meaning clear advantages, disadvantages, and things that affect Jedi more than other classes. This means something that both Guardian and Soldier(for example) can attain in similar ways isn't even going to get a mention. Lemme get something off my chest right now, though: Some of SWD20's classes really aren't very good. Outside of some fringe(HAH!) uses and archetype builds, I really can't recommend Fringer or Scout for anything. Fringer's key ability, its bonus to Jury Rig, may seem enticing, but really it's a check you're going to seek to AVOID making because jury rig repairs always fall apart eventually. They're quicker, but even in Star Wars a time crunch isn't going to come up every session. Scout has a few enticing abilities like evasion, but when you factor in the idea that evasion isn't going to be used for much except grenades...and grenades aren't really that great to begin with...then suddenly it seems a lot less enticing. The only thing Scout is good for is the mental image of Chewbacca wiping the fucking floor with Emperor Palpatine, because Force Lightning allows a reflex save. Wookie 4 life, bitches.
Force Skills. I'm going for the throat and discussing the biggest problem first. One of the Jedi's disadvantages is that force skills must be purchased with skill points, and it's dominant strategy to take many of them and leave your basic skills to rot. This is because the force skills are insanely useful at worst, and game-breaking at best. Obviously this means our first problem is that they get access to things no other class gets, not a huge problem here but a theme later, as you'll see. I'll go down by each skill that's relevant enough to mention.
Affect Mind. Good old jedi mind trick. You can use this skill once per scene per person, and you can bet that the jedi will do it every time there's a disagreement of any kind. Unlike diplomacy, this is straight up post hypnotic suggestion and functions as a psychic baseball bat to the temple of potentially every NPC you make. It's not EXACTLY overpowered, but as a GM, you're going to be sick of it by session two.
Battlemind and Enhance Ability. This is the first big problem. Battlemind is a move action to activate and gives a bonus to attack rolls. a +3 is a trivial DC of 15, and +4 is a 25, meaning the Jedi will be ahead on attacks as early as level one. This is compounded by Enhance Ability, which is an attack action to use, meaning the jedi can "power up" in a single round. a +4 is a moderately trivial DC 20. Even with the potentially lost round, the Jedi has a +6 lead on attacks and +2 on damage as early as level 7. These are even CON skills, meaning his bonus is always going to be good. The soldier has no way to make this up. Even if Mastercraft weapons didn't also apply to lightsabers(they do), their bonus only goes to +3, and they're expensive and rare.
Heal Self. Star Wars D20 uses a vitality and wounds system. This means your "HP" is counted by near misses and nonthreatening blows. Your "Wound points" cover actual wounds and are ticked off by critical hits, your vitality being out, or simply being a mook. Jedi spend their vitality on activating all of their powers. In other words, some dumb asshole thought it was acceptable to give Jedi a spell that can restore their spell slots. Unlike Treat Injury's vitality restoration(which they can also use) being once a day, Heal Self is once per hour.
This is, of course, in addition to getting force powers which do anything under the sun like Illusion, Fear, Force Strike, and Move Object. I hesitate to list them as problems because the jedi is intended as a spellcaster, however Consular has 3/4ths AB, and Guardian has 1:1 AB. This begins a trend of both classes being not just Jack of All Trades, but being as good or better at these things than the other classes. Guardian gets the same skill point number as Soldier, but also access to force skills, and things like deflect and scaling lightsaber damage. Soldier gets more feats, but Guardian still even GETS bonus feats: Just not as many. Consular trades a minor amount of damage and some of its AB for higher skill points and skill emphasis feats. Overall not the best decision, but the class is still head and shoulders above others, especially since force powers are pretty awesome and they've got more skill points for them.
Lightsaber Defense Feats. At 3, 7 and 11 a jedi(not a force user, a jedi) can take a feat that gives him +2 AC while wielding a lightsaber. Yes, they stack. They specifically say they stack. This is the biggest thing I found that's completely insane while researching for this. No, this isn't a catch-up Jedi use because they can't wear armor. They totally can wear armor, they just don't get the proficiencies for free. Even then, armor doesn't give defense bonus in this system, just damage reduction to wound points. It's not as important and most people don't bother. No, the Jedi is seriously just 6 defense ahead by level 11.
Lightsaber Damage. Before we move on from pure mechanics I need to mention this. So, the majority of damage sources in Dungeons and Dragons scale. Wizards get better spells, fighters get better weapons, the monk gets higher dice. Well, in SWD20, this basically doesn't happen. This is acceptable because of the Mook system where you're not intended to fight NPCs with vitality points very often. This keeps combat quick and lets soldiers capitalize on their scaling number of attacks via feats like autofire. Jedi lightsaber damage scales, though. Like, really high. At level 20, the Jedi is doing 6D8 as a guardian, or 5D8 as a consular. It's ALREADY a pretty awesome exotic weapon. This is the same system that has a dedicated unarmed combatant soldier still doing 3D4 damage and spending two feats on it, and with many combatants, they're still using the same 3D8 blaster rifle or 2D10 vibroaxe they used at level one. Vibro weapons require a special feat, by the way. Deflect isn't a particularly unbalanced ability on its own, but it ensures that you can't even pick the Jedi off at a range: Either you're rolling on an immense AC and having to dodge your own fucking blaster bolts, or you're stepping into the Jedi's 6D8 murderzone.
(|||||:|||=================
There's another problem, too. The Jedi is mechanically superior in many ways to the other classes, and the books certainly contain even more attainable powers, feats, new skills and even equipment for Jedi. Via feats just in the core book they can cause whirlwinds, group buff, FUCKING FLY, move at immense speeds, or other tricks. They can QUICKEN their force powers by level 7, removing that "buff round" I was talking about earlier. They can take double lightsabers(Thanks, Ray Park), short lightsabers for your offhand, TWO HANDED lightsabers, lightsabers that fucking change size, ones with reach, and all kinds of other crap. They even get prestige classes like Jedi Ace and Jedi Investigator, so there's not a single thing in the entire game a Jedi can't be better than you at, even piloting a starship.
Maybe you already caught on to what I'm saying. Source for Jedi dominates the game's supplements. It's everywhere. Light Side and Dark Side both have full supplements to themselves. In fact, despite the fact that it's pretty awesome, most GMs consider letting someone have Sith secrets verboten, so that's a full book of things the average player is never even going to fucking see. Non-Jedi can't get a single thing to themselves. The Hero's Guide is inarguably the system's best supplement and introduces some much needed concepts like Martial Arts forms. Unfortunately, it also has a handful of force powers and Lightsaber Form feats which...you guessed it, further improve the Jedi's defenses or damage. Like they needed the help.
But that's really the problem with Star Wars in a whole, isn't it? It's an immensely engaging and interesting world that we never see because a pseudo-intellectual spouting junk philosophy and waving a laser sword is constantly standing in front of it. The system(as well as the movies) constantly lay everything at the Jedi's feet in practical worship, to the point that many of the insane capabilities I listed above aren't restricted to force users, but specifically jedi. Dark Side Devotee and Sith Marauder are pointlessly bad even when compared to Force Adept, the actual balanced force class. Even the dark side is mechanically inferior to the all-mighty Jedi. And yes, before you say so, I know Yoda said it's not more powerful. I know he implied that the Light Side is a struggle, but it's worth it in the end. Do you see these mother fuckers struggling, though? This is what I meant when I said I hated jedi.
So. All that said, and all that bile burned off like jet fuel launching a rocket into space, what's the solution?
Isn't it obvious?
Sunday, March 12, 2017
Setting Creation (kind of): Inspiration
We're talking about bad habits again, because of a particular funny revelation I had this past week. More on that later. Inspiration isn't really just a pen and paper thing. It's everything, really. I'm sure we all have a half-written book or spec script sitting around somewhere. Maybe we've got a pointless ton of pen-and-paper inspired stories out there just because we felt like it. Inspiration is technically the most important anything ever, because without it...well, you can have a PNP game anyway, but it's probably not going to get very far. But, I haven't talked about it.
I haven't talked about it until now because it's kind of tough to talk about. I've heard that the most tragic thing about creative writing courses is that you simply can't teach creativity. Well, since I love trying to ice skate uphill(some motherfuckers are always trying), we're going to take a whack at it. I'm going to try and talk about it all generally, but like I said, we're doing all this because of a particular bad habit.
People argue constantly about what's an homage and what's a ripoff. Where the line between 'homage' and 'ripoff' lies. I didn't really know myself until listening to Chuck's opinion of it over at SF Debris. Here's that video, but I'm going to explain in my own words. Homage vs Ripoff is partially a question of intent, but really it's in what you did with the concept you used. It's okay to take inspiration from something if you, in layman's terms, add something of your own to it. A twist, a comment on the philosophy of the source, or even twisting the meaning of it. Characters are built upon cliches and tropes, and adding or removing a few of them often gives you a wholly new thing. Often a great thing can come from asking something as dumb as "What if it's like ____ but with ____". This doesn't mean you ripped something off. The best sequels often twist something from the original to convey a new meaning. In Pet Sematary, Jud says "Sometimes, dead is better." To try and convey to Louis that it's better to leave well enough alone. In the sequel, the same line is used to exact opposite effect: It's quoted by someone who's returned from the dead trying to justify their meddling decision. Sometimes, that's all it takes.
I sure am beating around the bush. We're going to get to some examples of building via inspiration using my own PCs and NPCs momentarily to help illustrate what I mean. Right now, however, we're going to strike at the heart of the negative habit that I mentioned above. I know a lot of people who deny themselves consumption of an entertainment product solely to keep their own ideas "pure" and free of influence. It's understandable where this comes from: You have an idea and find out there's a book, movie, game, or whatever else which somewhat resembles your idea. You worry that you'll accidentally(or purposefully) create something derivative of it if you allow yourself to consume the product. This has gone so far with some people that I hear of them denying themselves entire genres of movies or books.
I find this absurd for two reasons. The first is the more obvious one: If you deny yourself, you're in more danger of accidentally ripping it off than if you had just enjoyed the product. You can outline the product(NPC, game plot, book, fiction supplement, whatever!) afterward and ensure you either take proper inspiration by making the product your own, or avoid similarities entirely. Really ask yourself why it's okay to be inspired to make something after seeing a movie, but not okay to watch that same movie after you've had the idea similar to it. What if Rob Zombie had the idea to make a "psycho family trap" movie before seeing the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre as a young kid? What if he'd have completely denied himself watching the movie? Without lil' Zombie watching that movie in the 70s ...there might be no House of 1000 Corpses at all. Part of the fun of the movie is seeing the similarities and homages to the genre. Of course, some of you might be pleased with a universe that didn't have that movie in it, so just bear with me.
The other reason is a more philosophical one. If you see products as a congregated mass of ideas, you start to see individual ideas or concepts as little organisms of their own. They make something bigger sure, but even shuffling around their order and removing a few can make a wildly different product. The point my horrid analogy is getting at is that denying consumption of entertainment in the name of keeping your own ideas pure means, at best, you'll have fewer and fewer of those little guys at a time. At worst your inspiration grows stagnant and inbred due to lack of new exposure...the exact thing you were worried about.
That aside, I'm going to use a character of mine to illustrate exactly how many ideas can come from different "unoriginal" sources without making something completely derivative.
Here's Jackie Paper's whole backstory and the description of her minions, but you don't have to read the whole thing. Jackie is a power-suit wearing villain who's trying to give up the habit. So, right there inspirations include Iron Man, obviously. It also sees super-villainry as a metaphorical drug instead of Tony's literal drug, alcohol. I asked myself what a normal person would do if they had an iron-man suit of armor. Maybe it's cynical of me, but I reasoned that most people would use it for petty revenge or satisfying their anger. Thus, the idea of Jackie being a supervillain solely because she's got anger issues is born. It also partially creates her basic personality of being bitter, cynical and deadpan sarcastic. Her name is taken straight from the song Puff the Magic Dragon, a song essentially about a kid having to put away childish things. She took it as a pseudonym to protect the few family members she's got left, and the inspiration from the song is in-character. Her visual design comes from actress Tilda Swinton, sort of tall and androgynous. The suit of armor itself comes from the simple idea that you just don't see many tech characters who enjoy fantasy aesthetic and pastiche...even though that happens all the time in real life. Just like a "dumb" psychic, it's a combination I never see.
Pride is modeled after an archetypal gremlin, irritating little saboteur. Gluttony is really just a big dumb golem. Et cetera. I could go on but this is a lot like literary masturbation. The point is that, on paper, you could argue that Jackie Paper doesn't have a single unique idea to her. You might even be right, but that's hardly relevant. The collection of inspiration, the unique style I grant to her and how it all interacts makes her a good character, not some idea that something about her has to be completely unique and unheard of.
I kinda liked doing this kind of example. Obviously, since I did it with Terra Prime too. In fact, that's the silly little revelation I was talking about: Terra Prime shares inspiration with a popular, published setting. Yes, Gamma World actually lists Thundarr the Barbarian as a key influence. I even had Gamma World in mind without realizing that when I was creating Terra Prime. In particular, I remembered how all of Gamma World's cities are sort of...slang-warped into their base sounds, like Granrapidz, Nu Ork City and Nashvul. I thought of that and decided against doing anything similar, instead mostly pulling names inspired by their areas but being more honest to their origins. I did even do it a single time with Newark. Sort of. I don't know much about Gamma World, but I know some, and if I refused myself any knowledge of the product, I can tell you I probably would've ended up ripping it off by mistake. Other similarities I might have had were avoided by understanding the tone of various post-apocalyptic settings out there(Like Gamma World, but also like Rift, Apocalypse World, and whatever the heck Deadlands called theirs) and deliberately going in the other direction.
I haven't talked about it until now because it's kind of tough to talk about. I've heard that the most tragic thing about creative writing courses is that you simply can't teach creativity. Well, since I love trying to ice skate uphill(some motherfuckers are always trying), we're going to take a whack at it. I'm going to try and talk about it all generally, but like I said, we're doing all this because of a particular bad habit.
People argue constantly about what's an homage and what's a ripoff. Where the line between 'homage' and 'ripoff' lies. I didn't really know myself until listening to Chuck's opinion of it over at SF Debris. Here's that video, but I'm going to explain in my own words. Homage vs Ripoff is partially a question of intent, but really it's in what you did with the concept you used. It's okay to take inspiration from something if you, in layman's terms, add something of your own to it. A twist, a comment on the philosophy of the source, or even twisting the meaning of it. Characters are built upon cliches and tropes, and adding or removing a few of them often gives you a wholly new thing. Often a great thing can come from asking something as dumb as "What if it's like ____ but with ____". This doesn't mean you ripped something off. The best sequels often twist something from the original to convey a new meaning. In Pet Sematary, Jud says "Sometimes, dead is better." To try and convey to Louis that it's better to leave well enough alone. In the sequel, the same line is used to exact opposite effect: It's quoted by someone who's returned from the dead trying to justify their meddling decision. Sometimes, that's all it takes.
I sure am beating around the bush. We're going to get to some examples of building via inspiration using my own PCs and NPCs momentarily to help illustrate what I mean. Right now, however, we're going to strike at the heart of the negative habit that I mentioned above. I know a lot of people who deny themselves consumption of an entertainment product solely to keep their own ideas "pure" and free of influence. It's understandable where this comes from: You have an idea and find out there's a book, movie, game, or whatever else which somewhat resembles your idea. You worry that you'll accidentally(or purposefully) create something derivative of it if you allow yourself to consume the product. This has gone so far with some people that I hear of them denying themselves entire genres of movies or books.
I find this absurd for two reasons. The first is the more obvious one: If you deny yourself, you're in more danger of accidentally ripping it off than if you had just enjoyed the product. You can outline the product(NPC, game plot, book, fiction supplement, whatever!) afterward and ensure you either take proper inspiration by making the product your own, or avoid similarities entirely. Really ask yourself why it's okay to be inspired to make something after seeing a movie, but not okay to watch that same movie after you've had the idea similar to it. What if Rob Zombie had the idea to make a "psycho family trap" movie before seeing the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre as a young kid? What if he'd have completely denied himself watching the movie? Without lil' Zombie watching that movie in the 70s ...there might be no House of 1000 Corpses at all. Part of the fun of the movie is seeing the similarities and homages to the genre. Of course, some of you might be pleased with a universe that didn't have that movie in it, so just bear with me.
The other reason is a more philosophical one. If you see products as a congregated mass of ideas, you start to see individual ideas or concepts as little organisms of their own. They make something bigger sure, but even shuffling around their order and removing a few can make a wildly different product. The point my horrid analogy is getting at is that denying consumption of entertainment in the name of keeping your own ideas pure means, at best, you'll have fewer and fewer of those little guys at a time. At worst your inspiration grows stagnant and inbred due to lack of new exposure...the exact thing you were worried about.
That aside, I'm going to use a character of mine to illustrate exactly how many ideas can come from different "unoriginal" sources without making something completely derivative.
Here's Jackie Paper's whole backstory and the description of her minions, but you don't have to read the whole thing. Jackie is a power-suit wearing villain who's trying to give up the habit. So, right there inspirations include Iron Man, obviously. It also sees super-villainry as a metaphorical drug instead of Tony's literal drug, alcohol. I asked myself what a normal person would do if they had an iron-man suit of armor. Maybe it's cynical of me, but I reasoned that most people would use it for petty revenge or satisfying their anger. Thus, the idea of Jackie being a supervillain solely because she's got anger issues is born. It also partially creates her basic personality of being bitter, cynical and deadpan sarcastic. Her name is taken straight from the song Puff the Magic Dragon, a song essentially about a kid having to put away childish things. She took it as a pseudonym to protect the few family members she's got left, and the inspiration from the song is in-character. Her visual design comes from actress Tilda Swinton, sort of tall and androgynous. The suit of armor itself comes from the simple idea that you just don't see many tech characters who enjoy fantasy aesthetic and pastiche...even though that happens all the time in real life. Just like a "dumb" psychic, it's a combination I never see.
Pride is modeled after an archetypal gremlin, irritating little saboteur. Gluttony is really just a big dumb golem. Et cetera. I could go on but this is a lot like literary masturbation. The point is that, on paper, you could argue that Jackie Paper doesn't have a single unique idea to her. You might even be right, but that's hardly relevant. The collection of inspiration, the unique style I grant to her and how it all interacts makes her a good character, not some idea that something about her has to be completely unique and unheard of.
I kinda liked doing this kind of example. Obviously, since I did it with Terra Prime too. In fact, that's the silly little revelation I was talking about: Terra Prime shares inspiration with a popular, published setting. Yes, Gamma World actually lists Thundarr the Barbarian as a key influence. I even had Gamma World in mind without realizing that when I was creating Terra Prime. In particular, I remembered how all of Gamma World's cities are sort of...slang-warped into their base sounds, like Granrapidz, Nu Ork City and Nashvul. I thought of that and decided against doing anything similar, instead mostly pulling names inspired by their areas but being more honest to their origins. I did even do it a single time with Newark. Sort of. I don't know much about Gamma World, but I know some, and if I refused myself any knowledge of the product, I can tell you I probably would've ended up ripping it off by mistake. Other similarities I might have had were avoided by understanding the tone of various post-apocalyptic settings out there(Like Gamma World, but also like Rift, Apocalypse World, and whatever the heck Deadlands called theirs) and deliberately going in the other direction.
Sunday, March 5, 2017
Heal: The Loneliest Skill
"And you. You can't just put on a helmet and a cape and call yourself Doctor. Some of us went to medical school and earned our title. Now, please take this small girl out of my operating room, MISTER Fate."
More D20 talk. What can I say? It's my favorite system right now. I've been in more games of Dungeons and Dragons or Pathfinder than anything else. I've been in games with probably hundreds of different systems. I've even done a bunch of homebrews(Check out SeeD if you like Final Fantasy!), but everyone always seems to return to good old D&D. Really, it's the Pepperoni Pizza of the gaming world: it's some people's favorite, but not everyone. Most people can agree on it though, and the few who adamantly refuse it are often just being contrary on purpose. I'd like to take this time to do something completely unrelated to the topic and wave hello to a few of you.
It means you notice things. While there's really not THAT much difference between me and a newbie in terms of applicable system knowledge(I promise you that) I've been around so long that I've noticed where the cracks in design are. No system is perfect(Except for you, Shadowrun 3rd edition. I love you, babe.) but a lot of the problems you see in popular, hyper-playtested systems are little ones. Stuff everyone just lives with, and because everyone lives with them, they get passed down between editions.
When Dungeons and Dragons 3.0 came out, you have to understand it was a game-changer in a lot of ways. 2E used things called Non-Weapon Proficiencies. Basically, you only ever got a couple, and even then they weren't super impactful on an average game. In addition to that, fighters spent their NWPs on stuff involving weapons(pause for irony), AND a lot of the useful and sneaky stuff was strictly under the purview of rogue. If you wanted to be stealthy, acrobatic, or good at climbing things and you weren't a rogue? Rough luck, buddy. 3E introduced skill points and class skills. This meant that you got a certain amount of ability per level and you could put it wherever you wanted. If you were willing to sacrifice a bit or just take one level of a sneaky class, ANYONE could be sneaky. Compared to 2E, it was a lot of freedom and meant the game was overall more engaging.
One of the problems with this new system was that they sort of didn't know what should be a skill and what shouldn't. Some things were split just like they were in 2E like Hide and Move Silently. Others were just plain logical like Listen, Spot, and Search. There were frankly bizarre skills like Read Lips, Use Rope and Scrying. There was also a skill that still doesn't really seem to do anything USEFUL, Profession. Only Rogue really got a luxurious amount of skill points, so the large number of skills meant some just didn't see any use. If you knew someone with points in Scrying, it was probably because he was making a deliberate effort to try and make Scrying useful.
Later editions (and some other D20 properties like Mutants and Masterminds) would lump skills together to solve the issue. Listen and Spot became Perception. Move Silently and Hide became Stealth. Others had their incredibly thin uses lumped into other skills: Gather Information was rolled into Diplomacy, Read Lips just became perception, and I'm pretty sure Use Rope was just removed because nobody in the whole history of the game was ever justified in putting points into it.
So stuff like Use Rope and Scrying were removed, but I noticed a skill that really fell through the cracks. I'm not surprised, since problems that are passive tend to get overlooked. Heal has the same issues that skills like Scrying or Read Lips had, but isn't nearly as obvious. In fact, even if they'd defend Heal, I think most people already know how useless it is. I see people take Heal in one solitary situation: When they're playing an archetypal doctor and would logically be very good at it. Fluff, in other words.
I know some skills just aren't going to come up as much. That's okay, because they're often invaluable the times they DO come up: Decipher Script and its big brother Linguistics can save the players real-time hours of dicking around by providing valuable clues, or enrich the experience by rewarding a good check with some world or plot fluff. Heal just isn't one you're going to be rolling, though. Its primary use in games that don't have an Investigate skill is to find out what happened to a dead body, which is a pretty invaluable use, honestly.
It's also a house-rule. That use isn't actually in the books. Not in any supplement I ever saw, anyway.
So that clever but non-official use aside, Heal has a long list of things it does and some of them even sound pretty awesome. So let me do my favorite thing and go down da list and tell you why that's bullshit. To make this fun, I'm going to use a code word for a very common problem that plagues virtually every use of heal. I'll reveal what it means at the end of this section, so whenever you see the word "präst", try to guess. No peeking.
First Aid. This is the only use of the skill that's rolled very often. It can be helpful at low levels to save someone from death, but this drops off severely at higher levels. The thing is, negative hit points is ruled by your CON score, and it never goes up. Damage does, however, go up, so someone being at negative hit points instead of just stone dead happens less often. This is also the second biggest victim of präst simply by virtue of how often it comes up in a game.
Treat Wounds from Caltrops, Spike Growth, or Spike Stones. This use basically has to exist even though nobody in their right mind has used caltrops in the last twenty years. In addition to that, injuries from all three share the same method of removal: Ten minutes and a Heal check, 24 hours of time, or the barest amount of präst applied. The thing is, all three of these things are chiefly used to assist someone's escape, right? That means ten minutes may as well be 24 hours because it's a LOT of time the other person can use to get away. Ten minutes of a double move action each turn is 6,000 feet. So, over a mile. This makes präst the only way to remove the penalty and still keep chase.
Long Term Care. Useful really only for downtime with no access to präst. The fact that it's only a DC 15 and only ever happens on downtime means this skill is a prime candidate for always taking a ten. Heal isn't a trained only skill either, so this all means there's no reason to put points into the skill for this purpose.
Treat Deadly Wounds. I think this was added in pathfinder If not, it was buffed. Its arguably the only useful thing Heal can do, and even then, it's not very good. This ability is the only thing that Pathfinder Unchained's Skill Unlocks system buffs. Basically, make a heal check and give someone HP back. Combined with Skill Unlocks it's not even that bad. However, aside from the obvious fact that präst beats the shit out of it, it takes an hour to make the check, meaning that you can't use this at the end of the day to assist the entire party. Meaning it's far, far less useful than it seems.
Treat Poison and Treat Disease. These two got lumped together because they have the same problems. Simply put, even a successful check only gives a +4 to the next save the person makes. In addition, the check doesn't remain easy, and is going to rise as the PCs face bigger and nastier poisons or diseases. All still only for a +4. Aside from präst obviously being the far superior way to handle this, poisons will nearly always expend all their saves in combat. Thus the victim is stuck with a potentially huge amount of ability damage and all the heal user can do is shrug. Diseases will sometimes do the same, but if they do not, they leave ample time for the player to find outside help.
Did you guess? Präst is the Swedish word for Priest, and for our purposes has stood-in for divine magic. The fact is, there are so many sources of divine magic that even a party that doesn't have a cleric, oracle, bard, druid, alchemist, paladin, warpriest, or other divine caster is still going to have some sort of magic item to compensate. The problem is that Heal can not be used as a supplement to spells, unlike skills like disguise, perception, diplomacy or stealth. Spells overwrite all of heal's uses. Divine Casters will always have spell slots or uses of class abilities like Lay on Hands or Fervor to use at the end of the day, and even serious "I go hard in the paint" warcasters who never memorize things like Cure Disease can do so the next morning.
What would I do to fix it? I hate doing this, I really do. In my mind, it crosses the line from teaching to thinking I'm better than someone else. Still, this one has some easy fixes and that's the only reason we're doing this. First, make investigation and knowledge a core use of the skill. Easy. Most groups already do that. Second, make the Skill Unlock buff of Treat Deadly Wounds baseline. All it does is increase the number of HP returned based on your ranks. Tie it to a scaling skill check if you must. Then, make Treat Deadly Wounds take roughly ten minutes. It already has a "once every 24 hours" restriction, so this will not impact throughput. Ten minutes per use means a healer can roll it for everyone in an average sized party at the end of the night as a supplement to save their cleric some spell slots in a pinch. It still leaves the skill with many non-uses, but it'd finally be something you wanted to put points into outside of flavor.
Speaking of that, don't cry for Heal. No, it's got a brother we don't talk about. A skill so bad I can't even fill an entire post about it, so we're tacking this paragraph on to the end of another post. Profession claims to be skills relating to a particular job's basic tasks and knowledge about the job in question. However, outside of some very esoteric things, it can't actually do anything another skill doesn't already do. If your GM's even allowing you to roll Profession to accomplish things covered by other skills, he is being nice. Clerk? Scribe? Researcher? Librarian? Try Linguistics. Gardener? Herbalist? Fisherman? Butcher? Woodcutter? Isn't that Survival? Brewer. Tanner. Sounds like Craft to me. Literally, tell me what Profession(Shepard) would cover that Handle Animal wouldn't do better. No, outside of some ridiculously esoteric stuff the only thing Profession ever does, the only thing it's supposed to do is make you a pathetically small amount of gold. Remove Profession. Change its only book-listed use into a basic "Plying a trade" check any other skill can roll, or just fucking remove it entirely because nobody's ever actually going to roll it. It's never more than a pathetically small amount of gold and the only value it's ever had was that which was added by more complex downtime systems presented as alternate rules, like in Pathfinder Unchained. So, unless your GM brings those up, forget Profession exists. Unless you want a few ranks of flavor, I guess.
More D20 talk. What can I say? It's my favorite system right now. I've been in more games of Dungeons and Dragons or Pathfinder than anything else. I've been in games with probably hundreds of different systems. I've even done a bunch of homebrews(Check out SeeD if you like Final Fantasy!), but everyone always seems to return to good old D&D. Really, it's the Pepperoni Pizza of the gaming world: it's some people's favorite, but not everyone. Most people can agree on it though, and the few who adamantly refuse it are often just being contrary on purpose. I'd like to take this time to do something completely unrelated to the topic and wave hello to a few of you.
It means you notice things. While there's really not THAT much difference between me and a newbie in terms of applicable system knowledge(I promise you that) I've been around so long that I've noticed where the cracks in design are. No system is perfect(Except for you, Shadowrun 3rd edition. I love you, babe.) but a lot of the problems you see in popular, hyper-playtested systems are little ones. Stuff everyone just lives with, and because everyone lives with them, they get passed down between editions.
When Dungeons and Dragons 3.0 came out, you have to understand it was a game-changer in a lot of ways. 2E used things called Non-Weapon Proficiencies. Basically, you only ever got a couple, and even then they weren't super impactful on an average game. In addition to that, fighters spent their NWPs on stuff involving weapons(pause for irony), AND a lot of the useful and sneaky stuff was strictly under the purview of rogue. If you wanted to be stealthy, acrobatic, or good at climbing things and you weren't a rogue? Rough luck, buddy. 3E introduced skill points and class skills. This meant that you got a certain amount of ability per level and you could put it wherever you wanted. If you were willing to sacrifice a bit or just take one level of a sneaky class, ANYONE could be sneaky. Compared to 2E, it was a lot of freedom and meant the game was overall more engaging.
One of the problems with this new system was that they sort of didn't know what should be a skill and what shouldn't. Some things were split just like they were in 2E like Hide and Move Silently. Others were just plain logical like Listen, Spot, and Search. There were frankly bizarre skills like Read Lips, Use Rope and Scrying. There was also a skill that still doesn't really seem to do anything USEFUL, Profession. Only Rogue really got a luxurious amount of skill points, so the large number of skills meant some just didn't see any use. If you knew someone with points in Scrying, it was probably because he was making a deliberate effort to try and make Scrying useful.
Later editions (and some other D20 properties like Mutants and Masterminds) would lump skills together to solve the issue. Listen and Spot became Perception. Move Silently and Hide became Stealth. Others had their incredibly thin uses lumped into other skills: Gather Information was rolled into Diplomacy, Read Lips just became perception, and I'm pretty sure Use Rope was just removed because nobody in the whole history of the game was ever justified in putting points into it.
So stuff like Use Rope and Scrying were removed, but I noticed a skill that really fell through the cracks. I'm not surprised, since problems that are passive tend to get overlooked. Heal has the same issues that skills like Scrying or Read Lips had, but isn't nearly as obvious. In fact, even if they'd defend Heal, I think most people already know how useless it is. I see people take Heal in one solitary situation: When they're playing an archetypal doctor and would logically be very good at it. Fluff, in other words.
I know some skills just aren't going to come up as much. That's okay, because they're often invaluable the times they DO come up: Decipher Script and its big brother Linguistics can save the players real-time hours of dicking around by providing valuable clues, or enrich the experience by rewarding a good check with some world or plot fluff. Heal just isn't one you're going to be rolling, though. Its primary use in games that don't have an Investigate skill is to find out what happened to a dead body, which is a pretty invaluable use, honestly.
It's also a house-rule. That use isn't actually in the books. Not in any supplement I ever saw, anyway.
So that clever but non-official use aside, Heal has a long list of things it does and some of them even sound pretty awesome. So let me do my favorite thing and go down da list and tell you why that's bullshit. To make this fun, I'm going to use a code word for a very common problem that plagues virtually every use of heal. I'll reveal what it means at the end of this section, so whenever you see the word "präst", try to guess. No peeking.
First Aid. This is the only use of the skill that's rolled very often. It can be helpful at low levels to save someone from death, but this drops off severely at higher levels. The thing is, negative hit points is ruled by your CON score, and it never goes up. Damage does, however, go up, so someone being at negative hit points instead of just stone dead happens less often. This is also the second biggest victim of präst simply by virtue of how often it comes up in a game.
Treat Wounds from Caltrops, Spike Growth, or Spike Stones. This use basically has to exist even though nobody in their right mind has used caltrops in the last twenty years. In addition to that, injuries from all three share the same method of removal: Ten minutes and a Heal check, 24 hours of time, or the barest amount of präst applied. The thing is, all three of these things are chiefly used to assist someone's escape, right? That means ten minutes may as well be 24 hours because it's a LOT of time the other person can use to get away. Ten minutes of a double move action each turn is 6,000 feet. So, over a mile. This makes präst the only way to remove the penalty and still keep chase.
Long Term Care. Useful really only for downtime with no access to präst. The fact that it's only a DC 15 and only ever happens on downtime means this skill is a prime candidate for always taking a ten. Heal isn't a trained only skill either, so this all means there's no reason to put points into the skill for this purpose.
Treat Deadly Wounds. I think this was added in pathfinder If not, it was buffed. Its arguably the only useful thing Heal can do, and even then, it's not very good. This ability is the only thing that Pathfinder Unchained's Skill Unlocks system buffs. Basically, make a heal check and give someone HP back. Combined with Skill Unlocks it's not even that bad. However, aside from the obvious fact that präst beats the shit out of it, it takes an hour to make the check, meaning that you can't use this at the end of the day to assist the entire party. Meaning it's far, far less useful than it seems.
Treat Poison and Treat Disease. These two got lumped together because they have the same problems. Simply put, even a successful check only gives a +4 to the next save the person makes. In addition, the check doesn't remain easy, and is going to rise as the PCs face bigger and nastier poisons or diseases. All still only for a +4. Aside from präst obviously being the far superior way to handle this, poisons will nearly always expend all their saves in combat. Thus the victim is stuck with a potentially huge amount of ability damage and all the heal user can do is shrug. Diseases will sometimes do the same, but if they do not, they leave ample time for the player to find outside help.
Did you guess? Präst is the Swedish word for Priest, and for our purposes has stood-in for divine magic. The fact is, there are so many sources of divine magic that even a party that doesn't have a cleric, oracle, bard, druid, alchemist, paladin, warpriest, or other divine caster is still going to have some sort of magic item to compensate. The problem is that Heal can not be used as a supplement to spells, unlike skills like disguise, perception, diplomacy or stealth. Spells overwrite all of heal's uses. Divine Casters will always have spell slots or uses of class abilities like Lay on Hands or Fervor to use at the end of the day, and even serious "I go hard in the paint" warcasters who never memorize things like Cure Disease can do so the next morning.
What would I do to fix it? I hate doing this, I really do. In my mind, it crosses the line from teaching to thinking I'm better than someone else. Still, this one has some easy fixes and that's the only reason we're doing this. First, make investigation and knowledge a core use of the skill. Easy. Most groups already do that. Second, make the Skill Unlock buff of Treat Deadly Wounds baseline. All it does is increase the number of HP returned based on your ranks. Tie it to a scaling skill check if you must. Then, make Treat Deadly Wounds take roughly ten minutes. It already has a "once every 24 hours" restriction, so this will not impact throughput. Ten minutes per use means a healer can roll it for everyone in an average sized party at the end of the night as a supplement to save their cleric some spell slots in a pinch. It still leaves the skill with many non-uses, but it'd finally be something you wanted to put points into outside of flavor.
Speaking of that, don't cry for Heal. No, it's got a brother we don't talk about. A skill so bad I can't even fill an entire post about it, so we're tacking this paragraph on to the end of another post. Profession claims to be skills relating to a particular job's basic tasks and knowledge about the job in question. However, outside of some very esoteric things, it can't actually do anything another skill doesn't already do. If your GM's even allowing you to roll Profession to accomplish things covered by other skills, he is being nice. Clerk? Scribe? Researcher? Librarian? Try Linguistics. Gardener? Herbalist? Fisherman? Butcher? Woodcutter? Isn't that Survival? Brewer. Tanner. Sounds like Craft to me. Literally, tell me what Profession(Shepard) would cover that Handle Animal wouldn't do better. No, outside of some ridiculously esoteric stuff the only thing Profession ever does, the only thing it's supposed to do is make you a pathetically small amount of gold. Remove Profession. Change its only book-listed use into a basic "Plying a trade" check any other skill can roll, or just fucking remove it entirely because nobody's ever actually going to roll it. It's never more than a pathetically small amount of gold and the only value it's ever had was that which was added by more complex downtime systems presented as alternate rules, like in Pathfinder Unchained. So, unless your GM brings those up, forget Profession exists. Unless you want a few ranks of flavor, I guess.
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