Agamon the Dark's page

I'd like to cancel my PFM subscription, please. Thanks ahead of time, Cosmo.

Pathfinder is great, I may subscribe again in the future, but for now I must ask that my subscription be canceled. Please keep my Game Mastery sub as is. Thanks.

1. Generating numbers for NPCs is like doing (really boring) homework.
True dat. I left my homebrew behind a few years ago for RttToEE and AoW pretty much because of this. Looking forward to the next campaign, which will be homebrew again.
2. The game seems to function best at about levels 5 to 12.
This, I don't personally agree with, though I've heard that it is consensus amongst most groups. My fav levels are 2 to 9.
3. High level games are cumbersome and difficult to run.
That's for sure. Watching players roll their d20 to see if they don't get a 1, then roll six or seven dice, add them up, add some modifiers, then do it all again 3 or four more times isn't my idea of fun.
4. Low level games are swingy.
Not so much. PCs under my watch don't often die below 6th level. After that, they they start dropping by the truckload. For examaple, my AoW game, 2 deaths before 7th level. Now, at 18th level, the toll is at 26 (closer to 40 if you count the revivifies).
5. The CR system is confusing and produces wonky results.
I thinks it's actually the EL/ECL/CR combo that some people find confusing. CR by itself isn't all that confusing. But wonky as hell, yes sirree.
6. Spellcasters outclass everyone else.
Only in two cases, 1) a lack of magic item christmas trees, 2) the spellcasters-blow-their-wad-in-one-encounter-and-then-want-to-rest-at-9:05 syndrome. Otherwise, that's not really the case.
7. Multiclassing works for only certain combinations. Classic tropes (warrior-wizards) need new core classes because the core system doesn't work.
Yeah, one of my players still doesn't get that. And then doesn't understand why he isn't very effective.
8. Characters have too few skill points.
That was a funny way to put it. We know that what they're doing is condensing the skill list, which is really good news.
9. Monsters are unnecessarily complicated.
Yep, most of them are. Not that I have much trouble running most monsters this side of a balor or ancient red dragon, I still have to sift through the chaff to get to the grain.
10. You don't get enough feats.
Um, okay. Before PHBII, fighters got too many feats. I think this point is more a problem with the 3.x feat structure than the actual number of feats you got.
11. Attacks of opportunity are confusing.
For newer players, for sure. And that's key, isn't it?
12. Magic items are really important, but it isn't equal. Some items are critical, others are complete chaff.
A big beef for me. If every 10th level PC had 1 or 2 cool (not necessarily powerful, but cool) magic items, with names and histories and secrets and such, that would be ideal. +1 sword, ring of protection, cloak of charisma, no thanks.
13. There are a number of weird little subsystems that introduce unnecessary complexity, like grappling.
Funny, that was the problem with 2E that 3E was to fix. Which it did for the most part, but yeah, simplifying mechanics helps me make the game more fun, personally, so I'm all for getting rid of the fiddly stuff.

Could someone clue me in on why alignment in D&D is a problem? I've heard this a number of times, and I just don't see it. Alignment is meant to be a guideline for how characters and NPC's should act in most situations. It's not the straightjacket that most people make it out to be.

If it's a guideline as to how you act, then why can someone cast a spell to detect it? Use a magic item or spell to hurt me more with it? It restricts my spell list, my class choices, magic items that I can use.

And the fact that one lists their alignment on the character sheet, but not necessarily character traits, that's what causes confusion when it comes to what alignment is and isn't. "Your sheet says, 'Lawful Good', so you can't do that," is way too easy an argument for a novice player. And the way the game treats it, it's hard to argue.

I'd be okay with dying only happening in a TPK. I personally have enough of those that dying wouldn't be all that rare. I'm getting tired of the PC death, personally. We're nearing the end of AoW, and I'm at a point where it's assumed there are still PCs left from the first adventure, lol. Hell, there isn't anyone left from the last adventure!

I didn't like the idea of action points when they showed up in UA and the Eberron, but I think I'm warming up to the idea quickly.

As for Mike's points, playing an entire AP rather than just staying in my comfort zone has opened my eyes. He's pretty much right on everything. and he didn't even mention alignment, a D&D problem that's gotten only worse, not better, through the editions.

Heh. Shelly's blog posts are great. I was looking at "Confessions" at the local book store. But flipping through it and seeing all the pink and stuff, I laughed and asked my buddy, "What would you say if I bought this?"

"For yourself?"

"Yeah."

"Gaaaaaaay..."

"Yup, my thoughts exactly."

It's a shame they did such a great job "girly"-ing it up (not trying to insult women there; in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if more than a few women found the look of the book distasteful).

I just read that the default world for D&D 4.0 will not have a name. It will just have one sun and one moon, so we don't confuse anyone. Also, it will include sites from other named worlds like the Isle of Dread (Mystara) and the Temple of Elemental Evil (Greyhawk). I am pretty sure that Waterdeep will be there too.

The 3.x books had no campaign world, either. You needed to get the LGG to really play in Greyhawk, or use some of the older stuff on the campaign world. There wasn't much info in the core books on Greyhawk, other than the deities, some spells names and some magic item names.

FR will get it's own book almost right away. Eberron (much to my chagrin, but I guess there are some that like it) will be getting a core book in 09.

Otherwise, the world is your to create as you see fit. I have no less than 3 great ideas for 4E worlds, plus I plan on using Golarion, too. It's all good.

Oh, hey, and Paizo already put the Isle of Dread into Greyhawk. So blame Erik and James for that. :p

No, this proves that 4e is only appealing to 50% of the people on the Paizo boards who bothered to answer the poll. These numbers mean nothing to WoTC or the overall success of 4e, and who knows if they accurately reflect anything to Paizo (I hope they don't because it means there's a really bad future for them if they alienate 50% of their audience either way).

Nothing..poll.............................................................. something almost meaningful.

DangerDwarf wrote:

Tobus Neth wrote:

Do they lay eggs or is it a live birth?

Eggs

They were discussing dragonborn on another thread I posted on. They were having a hard time with the creatures laying eggs and still having mammory glands as depicted in Races and Classes. Here is the answer...

Maybe somebody at WOTC likes the platypus. The following information came from Wikipedia:

When the Platypus was first discovered scientists were divided over whether the female laid eggs. This was not confirmed until 1884 when W.H. Caldwell was sent to Australia where, after extensive searching assisted by a team of 150 aborigines, he managed to discover a few eggs.

The newly hatched young are vulnerable, blind, and hairless, and are fed by the mother's milk.

Agamon the Dark wrote:

While I'm not crazy about some of the look of these races (tieflings' horns and tails are way too big and female dragonborn have boobies; the former looks stupid and the latter makes no sense)

Maybe somebody at WOTC likes the platypus. The following information came from Wikipedia:

When the Platypus was first discovered scientists were divided over whether the female laid eggs. This was not confirmed until 1884 when W.H. Caldwell was sent to Australia where, after extensive searching assisted by a team of 150 aborigines, he managed to discover a few eggs.

The newly hatched young are vulnerable, blind, and hairless, and are fed by the mother's milk.

Agamon the Dark wrote:

female dragonborn have boobies

Boobies > Logic

Good things about R&C? I gave mine to a friend to read, so let's see what I remember.

I like the take on halflings. The entire section on halflings made me want to run a halfling clan campaign. Tight-knit nomadic river travelers that aren't the size of 3 year olds. Nice.

Dragonborn and tieflings fought a huge war in the past. Now that would make a stupendous campaign. While I'm not crazy about some of the look of these races (tieflings' horns and tails are way too big and female dragonborn have boobies; the former looks stupid and the latter makes no sense), WotC shows you can include strange PC races if you back them up with a good back story.

The art is incredible. Leagues ahead of anything WotC's put out and more in line with Paizo's awesome art.

The trap news is good. Anyone can find traps, rogues are just better at it. Trapfinding is passive instead of active (thank you God).

Skill news is great, too. Finally, the 'salt and pepper' skills are combined. Every d20 game but D&D corrected this mistake long ago.

And, of course, the removal of that albatross in the mechanics of 3E, alignment. At least, removal from the mechanics. You can still call yourself good (or evil or whatever) if you truly believe and uphold the virtues of goodness (or evil or whatever), otherwise you're unaligned. Hip hip hooray!

There's more, but that's what's foremost on my mind. I went from unsure before reading to somewhere between cautiously optimistic and really looking forward to it afterwards.

At what I heard they've done and read what they WILL do to the Realms, there's really not much left to save.

The Realms is dead.

LOL, Razz, your online name is appropriate. :)

I won't make any scrying. I just think that this present situation might be turning out very differently from the 2E-to-3E switch or any previous edition switch for that matter.

I wonder how he feels about his old website, ENWorld, completely selling out to WotC?

I have a number of books I haven't read, mostly 3rd party and FR stuff, and way more books I don't use. Fluff splats and adventures are great, but too much crunch is a bad thing, a motto I'll carry with me into 4E.

All that I'm sure of is that my AoW games that's wrapping up right now will be my last 3.5 game. This high level crap is for the birds. And I'm tired of alignment being tied into the mechanics of the game. The prestige class idea isn't all it's cracked up to be and cleric spell lists makes me angry (they need a shorter list to pick from, both for my cleric player's sanity and my poor printer).

I voted the jury is still out, as I don't think anyone can generate a feasible opinion on what little we've seen so far, especially outside the context of the game as a whole. Fear of change and spite are understandable, however.

I'll be starting a M&M game after AoW, and after that I'm looking at WFRP. 4E will be firmly established by the time I consider playing it, I'm not too sure if that will be by the end of the year or not though.

I like what I've read so far in R&C, however. I'll be getting the 4E core books when they are released (and regardless of what I like or don't, just the core books, no more crunch splats for me, another lesson learned from 3.x) and save judgment for when I can properly form an opinion.

There are huge stretches of Golarion that would work as a points of light setting. The point was to create a world that will allow you to play whatever sort of campaign you want to play.

Wait, wait, no let me guess...um...Sinspawn! No, wait, giant space hamster!

(sorry, I just now read this entire thread, it was pretty funny :))

Pathfinder Chronicles will reflect the classic D&D style worldview. At this point, that means it's going to continue to be what it is; it's not going to transform into a Points of Light type setting. Golarion is very much a world inspired by 1st, 2nd, and 3rd edition traditions; we here at Paizo have been, in some cases, playing the game for well over two decades, and in that time we've developed a pretty good idea of what makes for an iconic and cool setting, with inspiration from Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun, Spelljammer, Ravenloft, 1st edition, 2nd edition, and 3rd edition.

While I'm not yet sold on 4E, per se, I was hoping to at least make parts of Golarion PoL-ish (as opposed to Polish, lol). I like the "you're in danger everywhere but the city" over "you're safe everywhere but the dungeon", there's more drama inherent in such a setting.

That said, I kinda thought that Darkmoon Vale was a point of light, no?

My beef has little to do with art, I think Kyle can do a good job. I do have a problem with the cards being tied in with alignment, though. Ick. Good to hear there's no words on them, I can hopefully ignore that aspect. Looking forward to the blog entries regarding this.

Look how many people ran out and bought Tome of Horrors and Book of Fiends because Pathfinder 1 used them once each and Advanced Beastiary because of the Dreads in Pathfinder 2.

I swore when Eberron came out and I missed the boat that the next campaign setting I saw coming I'd dive right into the deep end.

TPK - The Library of Last Resort, location: the titan's keep

I regrettably added the kenku assassin back into the evil party (not that it made a huge difference though) because a) the players skipped right from the pirate fight and flew to the portal, opening it with Use Magic Device, b) two PCs have permanent See Invisibility spells, and c) everything since The Spire of Long Shadows had been a complete pushover, so I wanted a memorable battle. Whoops, too memorable...

Having dispatched the Nightmare Beast, the wailing tree thing and the Titan (barely), the party decided to wait for the other party to bring the roc feather to them, knowing they'd want the belt. Big mistake. Next morning, the PC's scry attempt fails, but the NPC's scry works, giving the bad guys time to buff and attack on their own terms, whereas the PCs had no chance to really prepare anything, not knowing when the fight was going to take place.

Name: Relana, Human Sorcerer 5/ Wild mage 6/ Master of the Unseen Hand 5
Cause: Destruction spell in round 1 (badly botched save)

Name: Burr Gimblefoot, Halfling Cleric 7/ Radiant Servant of Pelor 10
Cause: Implosion spell in round 4 (another badly botched save)

Name: Locest, Human Sorcerer 16
Cause: Assassination in round 5 (failed save, but he only really had a 50/50 chance at it)

Name: William Deerborn, Human Wizard 4/ Cleric 3/ Mystic Theruge 10
Cause: Decapitated by the efreet's blade in round 5(-18 hp)

Name: Lathander (no, not the FR god), Human Fighter 17
Cause: The rest of the party dead, only one of the tieflings dispatched by a Banishment on the other side, and still stunned for two more rounds by the horned devil (terribly botched save)...we didn't even continue to see what happened.

My first PC death in AoW, and I'm getting a feeling...

Early June '05 is when we started. We're starting Kings of the Rift next weekend. It has been fun, despite the TPK last week at the hands of Vecna's little buddy and his friends. The players want to see it through, so they're a new party hired by Lashonna to go destroy the phylactery now that the info's been released.

Not a big fan of the high level stuff, so I'm looking forward to finishing this and moving on to a (much, much shorter) M&M game before moving back to D&D (3.5 or 4, not sure yet, but it'll be set in Golarion, for sure).

Heh, I knew if I complained yesterday, it would arrive today. Thanks for to you guys and your printers for setting this right!

Friggin Canada Post. I'm still waiting in wild, untamed, only recently explored reaches of southern Alberta. Really, I gotta be careful I don't trip and fall into the States, but with the mail I sometimes feel like I live in a Point of Light(TM).

That would be awesome. I know the coolest thing about first seeing the old World of Greyhawk map 25 years ago was seeing the locations of TSR's published modules and where everything was in relation to each other.

And it would be very useful, as I'd be doing this myself if it wasn't already done for me.

Why not multiple PCs? If every player has two characters (without paying the feat) why not have two characters? I have played campaigns like this when the player numbers are small. It even lets me get twice the gaming goodness out of a single session.

...three, three reasons why it's a cohort. NPCs at heart, no new charcters, no XP loss...plus they're considerably less powerful than PCs....four! Four reasons you wouldn't expect the Spanish Inquisition!

:p

russlilly wrote:

Sebastian wrote:

Hookers + blow + D&D = BIG AMERICAN DANCE PARTY!

Just to let you know, Sebastian, it's just "BIG AMERICAN PARTY," not "dance party." Interest of posterity and all that.

Doh!

That's why I should never quote from memory. Thanks.

As for what this is from, it starts with a C and rhymes with Jerks, created by a man whose initials are KS and rhymes with Eleven Fifths.

the hard-core thrash sound of VECNA!!!!

Any suggestions?

Seriously, though, just keep going with it. Don't give XP for the visions in SoLS, it's unnecessary. The adventure won't be a complete pushover, but it won't be really difficult either, I'm not sure that's a bad thing. Their level gains will be a lot slower and by the time they meet Kyuss they'll be around where they should.

Edit: and having read the rest of the thread, looks like you figured this out for yourself already. You artists really are smarter than you look. *ba-dump-ching!* :D

My group (I, being a player, not DM, in said group) is in the middle of STAP, about to reach Farshore. The AP's been tough, make no mistake, and I expected no less, as I'm running a different group through AoW and killed 3 PCs last session in SoLS (wicked crazy tough adventure!).

Anyhoo, I took the Leadership feat at 6th to acquire a cleric cohort. I'm the healer of the party (favored soul), but I'm planning on multiying to paly and eventually knight of the sliver chalice, the cohort would become the main healer with me being the back up (plus she's female, so she can keep my PC company during the long journeys...).

Okay, so to the point. The DM thinks the path is so tough, he's letting me switch out my Leadership feat and keep the cohort and is giving the other four PCs cohorts for free as well to make up for it (all through NPCs we've met along the way, so nothing cheesy). Is STAP really that tough (keep in mind I'm a player, and don't want to see spoilers...it's tough enough to not read my Dungeon mags)?

Oh, wow, I came here to see why I didn't get the poster map in my #259, and now I find out that I didn't get #258. I somehow thought the Demogorgon issue (#257) was #258. Probably because I was really looking forward to seeing #259.

Anyway, yeah, I'm a Canuck with this problem.

Ah, sí. Tonto mí, yo casi me olvidé que soy canadiense. :D

I didn't receive an email. I'm a subscriber, but I've got a converted sub working for me and I'm not sure I understand what it means...

Remaining converted volume: 1
Volume #2 ships September 2007
Your ongoing subscription
will begin with volume #3

I only had one converted volume coming to me, so I'm a bit confused....

Damn. I really don't care if they bring out a new edition, I haven't bought much from WotC lately anyway, so it's no biggie.

Unfortunately, it means my Pathfinder and GameMastery subscriptions only last as long a 3E does (assuming surely that Paizo makes the change to 4E when it comes out). That's sad. :(

Yup, I had the exact same problem. The whip-wielder kept tripping him and stole his weapon. Arrows weren't doing much. Eventually he got desperate and tried running through a gap to escape, Harming the whip-monkey on the way, killing him, but getting killed himself before he could escape. It was a lengthy siege, though, to be sure.

"The Bane of Darkness" became the tournament entry after "The Ivory Cudgels" were TPKed by dopplegangers before they got to the games...

I was afraid this thing was going to mop up my party without breaking a sweat. Turned out the exact opposite. In fact, Champion's Belt was pretty easy for them (a couple of deaths due to player stupidity, but it happens sometimes).

Ilthane, on the other hand...yikes.

Wow, I've had 3 near TPKs in the 3 previous adventures to this one. I may have to tone it down a bit if my players are going to have any chance at all.

Guns are better than psionics. Yep, I went there.

While it will be sad to see our comics go it is not the end. Trust me, I long ago cried over the loss of Knights of the Dinner Table. For those who don't know who they are, they were one of the first comics published in Dragon and they were hallarious. Anywho, onto my point.

Nodwick, Dork Tower and OotS will all likely live on outside of Dragon. Zogonia was on hiatus, which often means 'that's all folks' (Phil & Dixie was the only Dragon comic to end and come back for a 2nd stint), so as upsetting as losing Tony's excellent additions to the mags was, it had nothing to do with Paizo no longer publishing the mags.

St. Cuthbert was slated to be next (after Hextor), if I'm not mistaken. I was really looking forward to that one. Will it make the cut?

Am I upset that WotC screwed Paizo? No, I don't know that that's what happened (though I can speculate).

Am I upset that I'm losing access to two magazines every month? Disappointed, maybe, but not mad. Heck, I have so much stuff to read, that there is something of a silver lining in this black cloud from my point of view.

Am I upset that a tradition is ending? A little, but I'm not adverse to change.

What I'm upset about is WotC's decsion to take the content online, as part of what is being affectionately called their "electronic thingy". An apt term, I think. Almost every venture in software and online content that they've done has run from disaster to not worthy of mention.

If they had made Paizo do the mag in electronic form, that wouldn't be as bad. If they had taken back the license and put out the mags themselves, I'd have been okay with that.

But this decision smells like a stinker to me. A big mistake, I think. I wish they'd have risked something other than the Dragon and Dungeon brands on what will likely end up a failure.

Well, that would just be speculation, Ben, since 4E hasn't been announced yet. That said, I wouldn't bet against it, unfortunately.

Sweet. Me is happy camper. :)