The player has two power pools, one for encounter powers and one for daily powers. Each pool contains a number of power points. The power points can be used to fuel attack and utility powers. The encounter/daily power pool increases by one point when the character gains an encounter/daily attack power from gaining a level. At level 1, both pools have 1 power point each. When the player gains a utility power, he can increase either the encounter pool or the daily pool by one. The costs are as follows:

There are two restrictions to avoid overpowered characters.

1. The difference between the sizes of the two pools must be less than four
2. The highest level daily and encounter attack power cannot be used more often than the ordinary rules dictate

At-will powers have no cost and powers gained from feats (except power swap feats), race and items follow the normal rules.

Next we’ll give a list of fun things to do with action points (other than using it to get another action). Stay tuned

These simple rules let you trade in powers for other powers on the fly.
To avoid breaking the game, you can only trade downwards, meaning no trading encounter powers for daily powers
You can swap one encounter power you know for another one to use that power twice. Also, you can swap an encounter power for an action point. You can swap a daily power for two encounter powers. This gives you more options both in and out of combat, as you can use the powers that are best suited for the task at hand. This flexibility makes your character a bit more powerful, so you GM’s out there might want to impose this restriction: you can only trade a power for one of equal or lower level. You are also allowed to trade in your utility powers. This doesn’t affect the at-will powers.

You might have realized that this sounds like a simplified version of  memorizing spells for the day (like in previous D&D editions). We’re planning an extension of these rules based on that.  We’re also meditating on alternative uses of action points, on how to use them in new and awesome ways. If you have some ideas on this or other feedback, let us know!
Stay tuned, or subscribe to our RSS

In summary, you are at certain times allowed retries at a penalty, there may be a limit on how often you can retry or in some cases your character must know that he or she has failed in order to retry (disable trap), or you can only retry if you got close to making it. You can never retry knowledge-based skill checks.Strength-based skills like jump and climb you can retry without any restrictions. That also goes for linguistics checks. The perception skill’s retry is a bit surprising, it seems to say that you can retry indefinitely as long as the stimulus is still there. I guess it’s up to the GM to decide when your character is simply not able to notice the stimulus after failing the check the first time (think opposed checks, like to hide and spot, that is stealth and perception). That will work, but the rule as written should say so, I think.

The complete list of Pathfinder’s skill retries is shown below.

Perform:
Yes. Retries are allowed, but they don’t negate previous failures, and an audience that has been unimpressed in the past is likely to be prejudiced against future performances. (Increase the DC by 2 for each previous failure.)

Appraise:
Additional attempts to Appraise a non-magical item reveal the same result. When using detect magic or identify to Appraise magic items, you only attempt to ascertain the powers of an individual item once per day. Additional attempts during the same day reveal the same results.

Bluff:
If you fail to deceive someone, any further checks made to deceive them are made at a –10 penalty and may be impossible (GM discretion). You can attempt to feint against someone again if you fail. Secret messages can be relayed again if the first attempt fails.

Craft:
Yes, but each time you miss by 5 or more, you ruin half the raw materials and have to pay half the original raw material cost again.

Diplomacy:
You cannot use Diplomacy to influence a given creature’s attitude more than once in a 24 hour period. If a request is refused, the result does not change with additional checks, although other requests might be made. You can retry Diplomacy checks made to gather information.

Disable Device:
Varies. You can retry checks made to disable traps if you miss the check by 4 or less, though you must be aware that you fail in order to try again. You can retry checks made to open locks.

Disguise:
Yes. You may try to redo a failed disguise, but once others know that a disguise was attempted, they’ll be more suspicious.

Escape Artist:
Varies. You can make another check after a failed check if you’re squeezing your way through a tight space, making multiple checks. If the situation permits, you can make additional checks, or even take 20, as long as you’re not being actively opposed.

Intimidate:
You can attempt to Intimidate an opponent again, but each additional check increases the DC by +5. This increase resets after one hour has passed.

Heal:
Varies. Generally speaking, you can’t try a Heal check again without proof of the original check’s failure. You can always retry a check to provide first aid, assuming the target of the previous attempt is still alive

All knowledge skills:
No. The check represents what you know, and thinking about a topic a second time doesn’t let you know something that you never learned in the first place.

Linguistics:
Yes.

Perception:
Yes. You can try to sense something you missed the first time, so long as the stimulus is still present.

Perform:
Yes. Retries are allowed, but they don’t negate previous failures, and an audience that has been unimpressed in the past is likely to be prejudiced against future performances. (Increase the DC by 2 for each previous failure.)

Profession:
Varies. An attempt to use a Profession skill to earn an income cannot be retried. You are stuck with whatever weekly wage your check result brought you. Another check may be made after a week to determine a new income for the next period of time. An attempt to accomplish some specific task can usually be retried.

Sleight of Hand:
Yes, but after an initial failure, a second Sleight of Hand attempt against the same target (or while you are being watched by the same observer who noticed your previous attempt) increases the DC for the task by 10.

Spellcraft:
You cannot retry checks made to identify a spell. If you fail to learn a spell from a spellbook or scroll, you must wait at least 1 week before you can try again. If you fail to prepare a spell from a borrowed spellbook, you cannot try again until the next day. You cannot retry a Spellcraft check to cast a spell while distracted, as the spell is lost.

Survival:
Varies. For getting along in the wild or for gaining the Fortitude save bonus noted in the first table on page 69, you make a Survival check once every 24 hours. The result of that check applies until the next check is made. To avoid getting lost or avoid natural hazards, you make a Survival check whenever the situation calls for one. Retries to avoid getting lost in a specific situation or to avoid a specific natural hazard are not allowed. For finding tracks, you can retry a failed check after 1 hour (outdoors) or 10 minutes (indoors) of searching.

Use Magic Device:
Yes, but if you ever roll a natural 1 while attempting to activate an item and you fail, then you can’t try to activate that item again for 24 hours.

In third edition you could progress both as a wizard and as a blacksmith, or both as a fighter and as an engineer. You could be a ranger skilled in trap making and leather work. WotC explains that while these mundane skills are now removed, you are free to choose being trained as a blacksmith or anything else as part of your background (if your GM allows). I have made a list of mundane skills to choose among for your background. They also come with stats, but do not improve as a result of your adventuring career.

Take a look at the list and rule suggestions!

You might want to check out my rules for secondary skills as well.

Ideas for game play

• Joint character creation — the players create characters together and know about each others characters
• Players declare attacks — all attacks must be described, but not in detail (how do you attack that bugbear?)
• Players narrate their own failures — when a player fails a skill check he decides how he failed, and tells the group
• Flashbacks, flash forward, in media res and dream sequences for storytelling
• Players decide on character and party goals
• Strategic D&D — meta-gaming is encouraged, it’s all about doing max damage and getting through challenging combat encounters, with little time spent on other things

D&D campaign ideas

• Start at level 0 – the players are all peasants with minimal combat training and in over their heads trying to rescue their village
• Start at 4th level, use powers, classes, feats and so from the new books
• The players are all tribal characters
• The players are all gnomes
• The players are all monks
• A setting where religion doesn’t exist
• A setting where animals have rights, possibly all animals can talk
• Vampire hunters campaign
• A campaign where dreams are important, including dream combat like in Changeling: The Lost

Try campaigns in these RPGs

• Werewolf: The Forsaken
• Mage: The Awakening
• Vampire: The Requiem
• Changeling: The Lost
• Cthulhu (d20)
• Cthulhu (Chaosium)
• Pathfinder
• Warhammer Quest (a combination of board game and RPG)
• The GUMSHOE System

Other ideas

• Try some store-bought adventures
• Use the D&D Insider Encounter Builder Tool for building good combat encounters
• Do more playtests, and post reviews to rpgmonks.com
• Do a podcast, possibly with actual play recordings
• A game in the humor genre
• A courtroom drama
• D&D game in the horror genre
• D&D game in detective genre

On to the mechanics!

This is beautifully simple – choose one hybrid class and one “at-will” and “encounter” power. That’s basically it!
Round fractions up, so that 7.5 hit points become 8. Also, all your stats are at -1 (choose ability points like normal, then subtract 1 from each of them).
Suggested starting money: 50 gold. After 500 XP you level up and turn into a proper level 1 character of the same class, meaning your ability scores, hit points, healing surges, class features, powers, etc. all improve. You could also level up as a hybrid.

The example

Meet Jogeir, the level 0 human fighter:

Armor Proficiencies: Cloth, leather, hide, chainmail, scale; light shield, heavy shield
Weapon Proficiencies: Simple melee, military melee, simple ranged, military ranged
Bonus to Defense: +1 Fortitude
Hit Points: 9
Healing Surges per Day: 5
Trained Skills: Athletics, Heal, Streetwise
Class Features: Combat Challenge (hybrid)
Ability scores: 17,15,12,11,10,9
At-will: Cleave
Encounter power: Passing attack
Feat: Human perseverance

Less is more, want more?

A humorous twist might be to let the level 0 characters have 1 hitpoint, like minions do. Then you could go all the way, letting them play normal people – peasants, clerks and so, with only improvised weapons and no training at all

Back in the day

Remember multiclassing back in DnD 3.5e? It may seem like a long time ago, but it’s just one year ago. From my experience and reading posts on the Internet I can tell that many considered the multiclass ruleset back then limiting and ended up removing some of its restrictions in their campaigns (the XP penalty).
In 3.5e you had a bit bothersome rules for multiclassing when it came to calculating XP, you had to keep the all classes at about the same level or you would get a 20% penalty to XP. Still, you could multiclass to any class! And you would get the same powers and abilities like a normal character in that class would at level up. A fighter could decide “hey, I wanna sneak attack!” and gain a level in rogue to do so.
Each race had a “favored class”, that’s a class where your race is considered so prodigious that the XP penalty does not count. These were your stereotypical elven wizard, gnome bard, half-orc barbarian and so on. Multiclassing usually didn’t pay off very well other than at the first few levels when one of the two classes were your favored one, though, as when you’re high level you get more bang for your XP when taking the next level of your existing class instead of getting the benefits of being a level 1 monk or so (being level 5 in two classes was usually not as good as being level 10 in one).

Enter 4th edition

Multiclassing got nerfed. You pay a feat to multiclass and get.. almost nothing? I remember pouring through the multiclass feats to see if it made sense to use any of them, any at all, but no. The added benefit was at best minuscule. You could in theory multiclass to get a tiny payoff in flavor from the other class ["Look ma! My fighter is an amateur spellcaster because he can cast prestidigitation!"], but not enough to even tempt me. It was all very disappointing. Hybrid player characters sets out to fix this badness!

Be environmentally responsible, play a hybrid!

WOTC has succeeded in making it really easy to build hybrid characters. There are no calculations involved. You just have to make sure that you have at least one power of each type from both classes at all times. In the first few levels you’ll have only one daily and one encounter power, then you choose freely from the two classes’ powers. A hybrid player character chooses two classes from a special list of hybrid class specifications. You’re a hybrid character from level 1. There is a an additional feat, “Hybrid Talent” you can take to unlock more class features of each hybrid class.

You are allowed to mix and match powers from two classes, that may have different roles and power sources. This adds bang -and- flavor to your character!
WOTC warns that there is the possibility of creating both feeble and too powerful characters using this rule set. I call it flexibility.

The new multiclass mechanics

The hybrid classes are basically half the normal classes when it comes to bang. Numbers are halved and most class features are removed.
Two hybrid classes are combined into one using the following procedure:

• Use the armor proficiencies shared by both classes
• Add weapon proficiencies, bonus to defenses, class skills, implement options and class features together
• Average the hit points and healing surges (the numbers are already halved, so add them together and round down)
• You get training in three skills

That’s it!

Shameless plug

Next week we’ll build on the new hybrid character rules and introduce the level 0 character aka. the “not yet a hero” character, for interesting character building in your roleplaying game!

Knowing all this I still went ahead and bought them. Why? Because I badly want a miniature that looks right for my character. Ideally, it should be the correct race and class and look cool. A small number of the miniatures did look good, I’ll admit, so maybe you’ll have luck with “your character”. Odds are you won’t. My quest for decent player character miniatures continues!

I was looking forward to these miniatures and I got disappointed. They could have been great. My recommendation is to use your money on something else.

Update: The paint job and price has been improved in series 3!

I’ve tested the 4th edition bard by playing a gnome bard based on the “Players handbook 2″ excerpts. The bard plays the role of a leader, manipulating the battle field and providing healing. He is an arcane caster and rely on an implement (wand, songsword or musical instrument) to channel his powers.

It’s all in your mind

The bard is all about tweaking the minds of opponents and allies. From healing others by telling them how great they are, to killing opponents by mocking them. I actually ended two bosses by telling them how worthless they were.

What I liked

The bard fit the role of leader nicely. The playtest class gave him two ways to manipulate the battle field. An at will power that marks a monster on behalf of another player — at range 10 and an encounter power that slides an opponent on a successful melee hit. The major healing power, Majestic word, heals two characters per encounter. There’s also the ability to help people heal outside of combat (granting them a bonus when spending healing surges) and a daily granting 5 temporary hit points to allies when they hit a single target you’ve selected.

The +5 to diplomacy checks (encounter power) really made me the faceman of the group. I was able to make good deals with people and sway them to our way.

The daily powers both have an effect even on a miss, which is nice. It really sucks to blow a daily power and not get anything in return.

What I didn’t like

Killing people by verbally abusing them? Doesn’t fly with me.

Wrapup

It was good fun playing the bard. Figure I’ll pretend the “Vicious mockery” and similar powers isn’t about bullying people, but more like a silent mind affecting magic attack.
If you want to play a bard you should like being the faceman of the group and have fun helping others in combat instead of doing damage yourself. Also, you’ll have to hide behind others, as you’re no frontline fighter.

The rule? If you beat the targets armor class by leaps and bounds you automatically make a critical hit. Every player character should get this power for free.

Expert Strike: “You know where to strike to deal maximum damage. If a foe’s defenses is wide open to you, you hit him where it hurts the most.” If your to hit roll beats 10 + 3x the opponents AC bonus, you’ve made a critical hit.
For example: You’re fighting Fnords with an AC bonus of 4, making their AC total 14. You hit a Fnord for 22 (10 + 3 x 4). You deal critical damage. Simple as that.

Deadly Expert Strike: Like Expert Strike, but if your to hit roll beats 2x the opponents total AC, you instantly kill the target.
For example a 28 to hit kills the Fnord.

By the book: Daily Bard utility power level 3

“You are especially knowledgeable about the monster you are fighting, and know just where to hit to hurt it the most.”
Do a skill check of DC 20 + monster level on either Nature, Religion or Arcana, depending on the type of monster. If you make it, you grant a +1 knowledge bonus to the range for critical hits on the target for all allies within burst 5 for the rest of the encounter. The bonus does not stack with any other bonuses that increases critical hit range.
Paragon tier: the bonus increases to +2.
Epic tier: the bonus increases to +3.