Changelog

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27 April 2019

20 April 2019

  • IMPORTANT: We have removed Flat-Footed AC from the game. Flat-footed is now only a condition that inflicts a -4 penalty to AC and Maneuver Defense, as well as some other stuff. You can no longer lose your Dex bonus to AC from anything you do, or anything that is done to you. If you see things which refer to losing your Dex bonus to AC, please let us know so we can clean it up (we think we got it all, but it's a really big wiki).
  • As part of this change, Brawlers got a buff to their "Thick Skinned" class feature, which has a positive effect on their "Tempered" class feature, as well.
  • Implements are no longer a separate thing you have to buy and hold as a caster. Instead, there is a class feature, called an implement bonus, which improves your touch attacks (and ranged touch attacks) as long as you are wielding a rod, staff, or wand (or an instrument if you're a bard).

15 April 2019

  • The Magic Items pass is proceeding smoothly, as we've designed various pricing and damage models, as well as had extensive discussions about 'how items will work.' We expect that there are going to be lots of fun, cool, useful, and interesting things to buy, but any feedback or suggestions are cheerfully accepted.
  • The changes in Magic Items are, as expected, cascading into many other parts of the rules, and in particular, are affecting how character classes work. As a result, we've decided to implement a set of fairly large changes to all classes.
  • Negative BAB. Effective immediately, all classes may, by declaring a Full Attack Action, make multiple attacks in a single round even at first level. Now, the fact that BAB goes to negative values means that many of those attacks may not HIT anything, but you can certainly make them.
  • Combat Mobility. To increase the amount of dynamism in combats, we've added the ability to trade off attacks for five foot steps. To access this additional movement requires you to declare a Full Attack Action, but you can now forgo taking your least-accurate attacks in order to take additional 5-foot steps. We anticipate this will make combat a lot more fluid, and introduce a lot more options for players, so be sure to try this out and let us know.


1 April 2019

  • We at Epic Path are pleased to announce that we're introducing a brand new system of play, that will be included in all character classes as a class feature available at level one: Pony Power! This exciting enhancement to the upcoming Auramancy system is a potent ability to shapeshift at will into a form of peace, love, and power, that we're really excited to introduce. Stay tuned for details!
  • In other news, the edit pass for the new Spells is going smoothly, as thousands of edits and changes are re-molding the entire Spells system from top to bottom. All of these changes are mainly cosmetic, but we think presentation and polish are very important, so the work continues.
  • The next big project is Magic Items. We're well along into the planning stage of the upcoming magic items pass, and we've got over two hundred candidates for acculturated 'lines' of items. The new magic-item model is, that every item is actually a family of items, and as you invest more resources into upgrades for an item, it gets better and better. No more obsolete items! A lot of this magic-item work is going on 'behind the scenes' but expect big things in the upcoming months.
  • Wizards are now limited to either a "Generalist" school, or one of the seven schools of spells: Abjuration, Conjuration, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion, Necromancy, or Transmutation. Specialist wizards get bonuses for spells with their primary school, and get access to the two neighboring schools, and the universal spells. See Wizard#Arcane School for details.
  • Cleric domains are being removed (maybe only temporarily). Deities will still have domains that they care about, but functionally, Clerics seem interesting/complex enough without them. We improved their spontaneous casting ability so they can always swap in any 'cure' or 'inflict' spell in place of an existing memorized spell of equal or higher level. (This was mostly done because the domains pages were just a sea of red links, containing a lot of content we had removed. In addition, a number of the domains were absurdly specific. We may revisit domains in the future, but expect there to be far fewer of them.)

8 March 2019

  • All spells have now been updated to the new Epic Path standards. No legacy spells will be used any longer without GM permission, and we strongly recommend NOT using legacy write-ups, as the scaling is quite different now. That said, there is still quite a lot of work to do in the Spells system, and we encourage people to read over the new material. We wrote somewhere over 100,000 words of new text for this pass, and we're quite sure there's at least a few "speeling and grammer typo's" that we haven't caught yet. When you find something, please be kind, and let us know!
  • Over the next few weeks we'll be doing some background cleanup on the spell categories, tweaking some balance numbers, and getting ready to start working on lots and lots of cool magic items. If anyone has any suggestions or requests, let us know.

23 Feb 2019

17 Feb 2019

  • The entire Paladin Spells list is now fully converted to the new system. Go see what all the fuss is about.

20 Jan 2019

  • Updated all character classes to call out favored class, and increment BAB and saving throws as deltas (differences) rather than sums. This greatly simplifies how multi-classing and dual-classing characters advance these stats. The total bonuses provided by each class for these stats remains unchanged... for now. (* evil laugh *)
  • As a note, additional attacks during full attacks due to higher BAB (at +6, +11, and +16, but only if they occur before level 21) remain the same. I will be adding language into the rules to clarify this, since it is no longer obvious on the character class pages.
  • Class features which do not get added to other class' class features, such as the rogue's Sneak Attack dice, were not converted to deltas, since they don't get added to anything when dual- or multi-classing.

6 Jan 2019

  • Bard: no longer gets to choose between Spellcraft or Spycraft as their bailiwick skill... on review, without Spellcraft, the bard technically can't learn new spells, which makes Spycraft a poor choice. Bards now just get Spellcraft, and cannot take Spycraft via their class (there's always racial traits). This also makes the character sheet a bit easier to automate.

28 Dec 2018

  • Evasion now reduces damage against any attack which deals damage and permits a Reflex save (not just those that deal half damage on a Reflex save)
  • in addition, it only reduces the damage on a successful save to one-quarter (¼). On a failed save, it reduces the damage to three-quarters (¾).
  • evasion cannot be used if you are using a shield, wearing heavy armor, are unaware of the attack, are denied your DEX to your AC, or are carrying a medium or heavier load.
  • Improved Evasion applies in the same updated circumstances as the new Evasion, but its effects are the same as they were: no damage on successful Reflex save, half damage on a failed Reflex save.

12 Dec 2018

  • The Spells Pass is proceeding smoothly, with hundreds of new and old spells upgraded to the new Spellcasting rules.
  • New Systems: Spell Circles, Mana Burning, Variable Save DC's, Arcane, Divine, and Dual Charges, Synergies, Spell Research, Spell Levels 10-17, and much more!
  • The Spells Page has been fully updated to reflect the new systems and rules.
  • The optional Environmental Effects rules have been fully updated and now auto-scale to all levels.
  • Alchemist mutagen ability completely overhauled.

29 Nov 2018

  • Updated Monk:
  • moved 'Versatile Attack' from level 2 to level 1
  • removed bonus feat at level 1

20 Nov 2018

  • IMPORTANT: .
  • Initiative checks are now a Movement skill check, instead of a (modified) DEX check. You'll want to update this, as the monsters will be going MUCH faster now.
  • Death Checks are now a Might skill check, instead of a CON check. The target DC is now a flat(-ish) 15 + double your character level, instead of anything to do with your negative hit points. You no longer lose 1 hp per round when dying, but instead have to make these might checks each round. If you fail 3 in a row, you die.

24 Oct 2018

  • Explicitly called out that non-lethal damage is not resistible with DR or ER, unless you have an ability that specifically states it can be applied to non-lethal damage.

13 Sep 2018

02 Sep 2018

  • Multi-class and dual-class characters now accrue Action Points at the same rate as Single Class characters.

11 Aug 2018

  • Many metamagic feats are being removed, to be installed as magic items (at some point in the future, when we have time)
  • Quelled, Prone, and Splayed now inflict a penalty to concentration checks.
  • Monsters cannot voluntarily inflict a status condition on themselves to overwrite an existing status condition; however, a clever monster ally can apply a weaker debuff on their fellow monsters to overwrite debuffs, if they think of it.
  • Bard Staccato and Harmony damage updated
  • Cleric channel divinity (as damage) updated
  • Alchemist bomb damage updated
  • Changed Selective Spell (Feat), Selective Channeling (Feat), Precise Bombs (Discovery) and Selective Symphony (Feat). Added a new feat: Selective Bomb (Feat).
  • Selective Spell is no longer a metamagic feat; it does not alter the spell level of a spell.
  • All of these feats now allow the caster to exclude one or more creatures from the area of effect of their respective effects, at the expense of reducing their effective character level by 1 per creature excluded. This allows pure AOE spells to be more balanced against limited-number-of-target spells. Now, pure-AOE's are more situationally useful -- if the field is (relatively) clear of allies, AOE's will nearly always be a better choice. However, once your allies get into melee range, the limited-number-of-target spells will usually be a better fit. Selective allows the AOE's to be used at any time, but it's not quite the no-brainer any more that a fireball is always better than a lightning bolt.

11 Jul 2018

  • NOTE: We will be changing the way DR and ER work in the coming days. Both DR and ER will work the way ER currently works. Namely, the thing listed is the thing it resists. (Currently, the thing listed with DR is the only thing that can bypass it).
  • We are consolidating all damage types down to 7 broad types: common, uncommon, or rare physical damage, and common, uncommon, or rare energy damage. The 7th type is Primal damage, which is neither physical, nor energy, and cannot be resisted by either ER or DR.
  • Characters who currently have some source of DR x/- or ER x/- will be unaffected by this change.
  • Characters who have more specific types of DR or ER should expect the value to change (especially if it's DR).

30 Jun 2018

  • Updated Sorcerer's "Forceful Presence" ability to apply to ANY spell or spell-like ability they cast which inflicts damage.
  • Added "Mana Burn" to Wizard class. Once we're happy with it, we'll be pushing this out to all casters and demi-casters as a 3rd level class feature. You have been WARNED!

26 Jun 2018

  • The Warlord's Marching Orders ability is no longer a stance.
  • The Brawler's Stick and Move ability is no longer a stance.
  • The Partisan's Intractable Ground ability is no longer a stance.
  • the abilities are unchanged, except that they aren't a stance any more. They can still be disrupted by being knocked prone (or getting a condition which reduces your number of actions for the round), and still require the same action to activate. This was done to open up more options for multi-classing and dual-classing.
  • note that bardic performances still require a stance, as does entering stealth.

9 Jun 2018

  • Updated Pulls to prevent traffic jams.

5 Jun 2018

  • New Rules:
  • Monsters can only have 1 condition on them at a time. If a new condition is introduced, you either replace the old one, or ignore the new one (inflicting player's choice).
  • Any damage is still resolved as normal, regardless of how the condition is resolved.
  • Metamagic rods can only be used on spells which require a standard action to cast
  • Metamagic rods turn the standard action spell into a full-round action to cast
  • Except a Quicken rod, which turns the standard action into a move action (yes, this is worse than the feat, a little).
  • Metamagic feats that you know no longer increase casting time; they only increase the spell level and/or spell slot required.

2 Jun 2018

1 Jun 2018

  • Updating Between Adventures (was Character Retraining) Rules - generally unchanged, just clarifying.
  • shopping will now be a downtime activity; you can only buy a limited number of magic items per day (due to traveling between shops, bartering, etc.)
  • a good Knowledge (Local) check can improve how many items you can buy in a given day (you know where to go, and how to get there faster).
  • this impacts the 'party designated shopper' phenomenon -- namely, if the high barter character wants to buy stuff for the party, it uses up their time to do so
  • open to conversations about whether this is fair or not. The question is 'should the high barter character be able to grant their buy/sell discounts to everyone without any cost to themselves or the party'? An auxiliary question is 'are the buy/sell bonuses from barter so good that barter is a mandatory skill?'
  • each downtime activity now costs different amount of days depending on the success category of the skill check.
  • included a transclusion of the Libraries page on the Between Adventures page, since it's highly relevant.
  • added rule for quitting a downtime activity before completion (because you hate the skill check result, for example) — you have to wait half the max time to try again (though you can do different downtime activities in the meantime).

15 May 2018

  • includes rules for making any creature into a mount, and advancing the CR of a mount.
  • includes costs for mounts at all CR's.
  • Updated rules for how mounted combat works on the Ride page:
  • Mounts now provide bonus melee damage to their riders only if their CR exceeds the minimum amount required for the movement speeds they provide.
  • essentially, you have to 'buy' their movement speed(s) with CR, and any leftover CR is applied as bonus to melee damage while mounted.
  • mounts also have special abilities which can be unlocked with one or more 'points' of CR.

4 May 2018

  • Removed Peerless Thieves' Tools and Peerless Musical Instrument. These got too close to being magic items, and should just be magic items.

28 Apr 2018

  • updated Haste (Sorcerer/Wizard Spell), please read.
  • Discussion Topic: (rephrase) we're getting rid of the school of divination, but any spells previously in that school that don't completely suck, or have the potential to break the story of a campaign (which is quite a lot of them), will be moved to a different school.

23 Apr 2018

  • Discussion Topic: only one debuff condition (that requires tracking) on a monster at a time. E.g. "rattled" and "stunned".
  • players applying the new debuff will get to choose whether to overwrite the existing one or not.
  • obviously any damage component would still be applied, whether the new debuff is applied or not.
  • would not apply to most class features, such as fighter's challenge, ranger's quarry, paladin's smite, prowler's encroaching jolt (?), etc.
  • would apply to spells that inflict a condition
  • might apply to combat maneuvers that inflict a condition other than forced movement (prone?).
  • only care about conditions that persist; forced movement is resolved instantaneously, so stacking is irrelevant.
  • this change would allow us to include significantly more variety of status conditions in spells, class abilities, etc., without fear of the 4e "giant stack of debuffs" making combats too trivial. Also, the giant stack of debuffs is a nightmare to track.

3 Apr 2018

  • Combat Reflexes (Feat) changed to grant a maximum of +4 bonus attacks of opportunity per round, based on half your DEX modifier.

31 Mar 2018

  • Please note: any red-linked (missing) spell entries you may find are spells we are planning to remove from the game. This is part of the spell review process, which is ongoing.
  • Added over 57 million new character class combinations to the game. Wow!
  • Updated Between Adventures to remove all gold costs. Some downtime activity times have also been adjusted downwards. You can thank us with donuts.

14 Mar 2018

  • increased number of poultices that rangers get by 1 at all levels.

13 Mar 2018

  • fixed an error with monster skill numbers.

27 Feb 2018

3 Feb 2018

  • Discussion topics:
  • the end of selective?
  • most aoe spells have a fixed number of targets within the aoe, and therefore do not require selective. They're selective for free!
  • some spells may still be non-selective aoe's (fields), but there will no longer be a way to selectively exclude allies from these spells.
  • such spells will also be marked with the 'aoe' descriptor to deal with swarms/troops. (as a note, perhaps AOE's do 150% dmg to swarms/troops, while fields do 200% dmg to swarms/troops)
  • may also want to talk about capping channel divinity, and removing the selective channel feat...
  • limitations on slotless items?
  • max 3 per character
  • question about whether lay magic counts (lightstones, water stones, etc.)
  • handy haversacks, bags of holding are already slotless, and would be affected by this limitation.

24 Jan 2018

  • added several new magic weapon properties at +3 and +4.

20 Jan 2018

  • removed Counterspell
  • removed the Universal Monster Rules page. Terms which remain in use have been moved to the Glossary of Terms page.
  • Updated all references to concentration (including caster level checks, combat casting, etc.), to make use of Caster Checks as the base mechanic (a bailiwick skill check).
  • if you find any references to this which don't point to a bailiwick skill check, please let me know so I can fix it.

14 Jan 2018

  • Added a list of player-purchasable Poisons, as well as rules for how they work. Player poisons are much simpler than monster poisons, having only an instantaneous damage effect and (potentially) a 1-round debuff.

13 Jan 2018

  • Added rules for voluntarily holding your breath. Updated the movement skill for swimming to incorporate these rules.
  • holding your breath outside of combat is very abstract. GM's can decide how long the party can do so, but generally a couple of minutes, regardless of CON.
  • in combat, holding your breath is quite hard.

8 Jan 2018

  • Updated Treasure and XP page to detail the Remnants system, which replaces Crafting Materials.
  • updated monster template to reflect these changes also.

3 Jan 2018

  • All characters now gain natural talents in their Bailiwick and one additional skill at level 1, and gain additional natural talents at 11th, 21st, and 31st levels. (Italicized text is unchanged.)
  • NOTE TO SUNDAY GAME: The party has already received a 'bonus' natural talent, which counts as the natural talent we would have received at level 11. That is, until level 21, this change will not affect characters in the Sunday party.
  • In addition, a rule has now been added to allow players to add a natural talent to a skill which is already a natural talent for them. Such double-natural-talent skills no longer automatically fail on a natural 1, and can never fail by 5 or more, regardless of the target DC or the suckiness of the roll. See Natural Talent for details. This is a boon for high-skill classes in particular, who may not want to remap very many of their skills, but is nice for any character that wants to deeply specialize in a skill.
  • Several fear status conditions re-written to make running away considerably less mandatory.
  • Epic bard feats (group inspiration, mass inspiration, colossal inspiration, epic inspiration) written, in light of recent changes to bard performances.

14 Dec 2017

Added a "Bribes and Tips" section to the Money and Merchants page.

4 Dec 2017

Fixed Rattling Fist Feat to remove references to old Brawler.

2 Dec 2017

  • Spells:
  • removed See Alignment spell - breaks stories, and steps on paladin ability.
  • changed Ant Haul - only 10 lbs per caster level increased carry capacity instead of "triple".
  • Note: this may affect magic items in the party! You can either cash them in for what you paid, or update them to the new rules.

30 Nov 2017

  • updated Blind - added sections for non-targeting senses and natural blindness.
  • updated the Bard's Soothing Performance song, which now provides a pool of healing, instead of a fixed amount of fast healing.
  • Renamed Monster Templates to Monster Patterns. This was done to de-duplicate the game system from the wiki software.