Balabanto's page

Well, I've been running Rifts for years. (What the? You play 3.5 and Champions and you bother with Rifts? Surprise!)

The interesting thing is how many people accuse Rifts of being racist when in fact nothing could be further from the truth.

Rifts is largely a CINEMATIC game. Unfortunately, that means that a lot of the cinematic material comes with slightly racist overtones because of the age of the folks who write the system.

The combat system is really designed to mimic old Shaw Brothers movies. It's not as bad as it looks.

As for the Coalition? People LOVE to hate the Coalition. Nazis in skull helmets? What's not to want to beat up.

Yes, I realize there are a lot of freaky people in the midwest who are Coalition States apologists. I'm not one of them.

But now that Wizards has thrown the Forgotten Realms into the clunker, Golarion and Rifts have the best fluff. And I always like to play in the gameworlds that have the best fluff. :)

Balabanto wrote:

It feels wrong. Even though playing a fighter was massively powerful, I HATED it. It didn't feel like D+D. It felt like something else. I was making tactical decisions based on what my powers could do, and not on what the most in-character thing for my character to do was.

That is not the fault of the game. If you do not want to use a power because your character would not use it then don't use it. No one is forcing you. If you don't want to take the tactically optimal route for the sake of roleplaying then do it. The rules of the game do not force choices on you. The rules give you options and you still choose to act or not act on them.

Balabanto wrote:

I hate the feeling that my battle skills are based on the Wizard's ability to declare Prophecy of Doom, target one guy, and then if I hit him, I autocrit him. That really felt like something out of a bad video game. We used that ability on the lead monster in EVERY encounter.

You don't like teamwork? Huh? And how is this any different than 3e where a magic missile or fireball sets up the bad guys for the other party members to hack up?

Seriously. You make it sound like you opened the 4e PHB and a malevolent alien jumped into your brain and started firing neurons for you. Nothing in 4e is forcing you to make any particular tactical decision.

Actually, I do like teamwork when it's creative and clever. There was nothing creative going on here. It was point and click, point and click. I didn't feel like I was enjoying what was going on, because all of the stuff was described for me. I wasn't getting to define my maneuvers or abilities, they were all described for me by the PHB.

Systems like this only work, like in Hero, when I get to DEFINE how my martial strike works to my satisfaction.

But instead of "Genericizing" the powers, they made them very specific, with specific exceptions to the rules built into every power.

I really can't stand 4th edition for a number of other reasons, first of which on the list is this:

Nothing is standardized.

A 12th level monster is not the equivalent of a 12th level fighter. A 12th level Fighter is the equivalent of a 13th level solo elite. This is a radical disconnect. If the most dangerous opponents are parties of adventurers, then parties of adventurers should be built out the way the PC's are.

What's good for the goose should be good for the gander. I never got that feeling in any 4e mod I've ever played.

As for temporary hit points - they are no more or less abusable then they were in 3e.

I absolutely agree there.

My team took 3rd place in the D+D Open, which was 4e this year. I HATE this game. I cannot begin to express my disgust for it. It's great for TOURNAMENT play, where you have a brief number of fixed encounters.

But as far as real roleplaying and long term campaigning is concerned, I don't like this game at all.

It feels wrong. Even though playing a fighter was massively powerful, I HATED it. It didn't feel like D+D. It felt like something else. I was making tactical decisions based on what my powers could do, and not on what the most in-character thing for my character to do was.

I hate the feeling that my battle skills are based on the Wizard's ability to declare Prophecy of Doom, target one guy, and then if I hit him, I autocrit him. That really felt like something out of a bad video game. We used that ability on the lead monster in EVERY encounter.

In the last round, we spent 2 healing surges the whole time. Every POSSIBLE thing we could do to abuse temporary hit points, we did. The most powerful ability in the game is the ability to use temporary hit points to make sure your characters don't spend any surges.

I pledge on Goblins. Goblins RULE! (And that's from an old guy who shouldn't be using words in that sort of context.)

The Jade wrote:

Coridan wrote:

If I ever won the lottery I'd try and buy Paizo =p, there'd be Pathfinder novels and video games and underwear, it'd be awesome.

Well I suppose if that new iconic can carry a sword that ridiculously large, Pathfinder underwear might be able accomodate me. I'm in.

If properly funded, Erik Mona and I will ensure that dimensionally transcendental technology is created to ensure that your tighty-whities are bigger on the inside than on the outside.

Don't you understand?

In 4th edition THERE IS NO BLOOD WAR!

They took the entire cosmology and FLUSHED it.

I can't reconcile my 20+ year Forgotten Realms game with the crap they're doing. It's not possible. My game doesn't have a Feywild, or an Elemental Chaos.

So basically, Wizards is spitting in my face and throwing me out the door, regardless of how much money I spent on their hobby and would have continued to spend if the cosmology remained convertable.

Thanks, Hasbro!

Balabanto wrote:

You can't turn into a great Wyrm Gold Dragon at all. Your max HD is limited by your caster level. The highest HD you can shapechange into is 18.

We are talking about polymorph any object, which has no limits of any meaningful nature. You can turn "a creature or object" into "another creature or object" - the only thing that moves up and down is the duration, and you can game that even by casting it more than once (since the duration of the most recent casting is permanently set based on how different the new form is from your current form).

Rule One! NEVER, EVER turn something nonsentient into something sentient. It will likely be extremely angry with you. In order to game the system, you need to game people's personalities too, and in an RPG, that's just wrong. The prevent rests with the gamemaster to just say "I'm sorry. I'm not going to let you do that. It doesn't work that way, eat it." And if the player walks, then he walks.

You can't turn into a great Wyrm Gold Dragon at all. Your max HD is limited by your caster level. The highest HD you can shapechange into is 18.

Balabanto wrote:

JRM wrote:

If your campaign includes magic-crafters who can recycle the XP in magic items then the XP becomes a currency, which would cause your system to break down...

Well...YES! This is how you limit people from buying too much stuff. I remember one time, my players decided that they were going to have a whole bunch of stuff crafted in Silverymoon. And they did this.

And suddenly, the wizards told them "Lord Rakthis. You've engaged every item crafter in the city to the point where you can't make anymore items."

Don't think that's quite the point I was making, which was just that if the XP invested into a low-medium level magic item can be recycled into a high level item than Trollman's proposed Turnip/Gold/Wish economy breaks down since the three tiers are no longer separated.

If I interpret you alright, you're saying the local magic-crafters will have a maximum capacity for creating magic items - which is fair enough, but isn't it already covered by the rules on settlements GP limits?
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The answer to that would be no. Because settlement GP limits screw the players above level 12, and FORCE them into the largest cities in the world instead of dealing with the campaign theme and tone. Instead, I just figure out who has the feats and who doesn't, how much XP they had available, and when the PC's ran them out, they ran them out.

Also, I'd like to point out that not every game meets the same economic model. I actually have to GIVE my PC's items they need in one game because the game is very Robin Hood Style. Sure, they get a lot of money from the people they oppose, BUT...

That money is given back to the people who the PC's are fighting for. They don't keep their cash, they spend it on food, and clothing, and other necessities while the evil bad guys tax the population raw.

The issue is that not every game will have the same economic model. If I told the players in that game that they couldn't spend their money on food and clothing and medicine for the peasants, they'd flip! They've gotten to teleport/fabricate etc, level. They HAVE to teleport into people's homes with food and the like because otherwise, the bad guys will SEE them doing it at some point and stop it. The key to running a good game is knowing the resources of the players and the resources of their enemies. In general, the peasants of the city the PC's are fighting for loathe the evil sheriff and love them, because they spend their money on the peasantry.

Many people don't want to play in a game where your goal is not to trash the bad guys physically, but to win the hearts and minds of the people, and overthrow a government that is really powerful and smart, but the people in this game enjoy it, despite the fact that their wealth by level is not necessarily balanced.

If your campaign includes magic-crafters who can recycle the XP in magic items then the XP becomes a currency, which would cause your system to break down - if an arch-mage can create a major magic item by extracting & combining the XP in a few dozen minor magical items then those +1 swords become valuable to them.

And suddenly, the wizards told them "Lord Rakthis. You've engaged every item crafter in the city to the point where you can't make anymore items."

So he went to Waterdeep. And he burned their wizards guild out too. But he made a lot of people angry with him.

The solution to most of these problems is politics. If you set every crafter to work for you, then other adventurers aren't getting anything, and are getting turned away at the door. Let them spend it, come what may. If you do not respect those around you, there will always be problems.

Aaron Whitley wrote:

I say post some of this information as a web supplement but there is really no need for it in the actual rule books.

I've always thought a "Complete Civilian" supplement would be great for 3rd edition (and now for Pathfinder). Expand the roles of NPC classes, really flesh out what you can and should do with Leadership, cohorts and followers. Introduce better explanations for economic and social systems, like what Frank has offered.-----------------------

The campaign setting information may not be that useful, but everything else will be.

Pneumonica wrote:

Okay, let's look at this practically. If this were a "realistic" pseudomideval fantasy economy, then in many parts of the world zircon would be more valuable than diamond, silver more valuable than gold, and aluminium and mercury more valuable than all of those combined.

Frankly, I like a bit of escapism in my fantasy, and I didn't sign up to play Wizards of Wall Street.

And for those of you about to jump at my comment about aluminium, bear in mind I said "aluminium" and not "tin".

On more than one occassion I have been tempted to have my players find a valuable aluminimum necklace just for the doubletake effect. Ah, to think it was once more valuable than gold.

The only real problem with the "economy" on D&D is the amount of money moving around. This has cause a break in the suspension of disbelief on a few occassions with my players. of course, if the christmas tree effect of magic items can be adjusted, then these problems may take care of themselves for the most part.

The economy does function, it's just that people have to remember that merchants exist.

Precisely. The biggest obstacle to having a sensible economy in D&D is the fact that people are supposed to be able to purchase +4 swords with gold. Six hundred and forty seven pounds of gold. That's not only completely ridiculous just from the standpoint of the party halfling rogue carrying in the weight of four men in gold coin just to upgrade his dagger - but it also means that player characters can never get out of the stupid Diablo economics and into positions of real authority because they never have gold to throw around even when they are staggering a team of mules with the stuff.

The solution is dead simple. In 3rd edition rules, you can wish for any magic item of 15,000 gp or less. And we just accept that, and then we don't let people buy magic items that are more expensive than that for gold.

This kills lots of birds with one stone. It means that we get Out of the perpetual debt engine caused by people being literally incapable of even carrying sufficient wealth to purchase the magic items that they need to fight level appropriate challenges. It means that people don't have to constantly live like a damn hobo to save money while they have literal wagon trains full of gold and gems because beyond a certain point the gold and gems no longer translate directly into personal power and they can start spending the stuff. It means that you can put cool architecture and massive dragon hoards into scenarios without unbalancing the game or making the players do stupid crap to pry all the valuable materials off the walls.

The idea that you can purchase a +4 anything with stupid huge piles of gold has got to go. It hasn't worked since 3rd edition started and it's not going to start working any time soon.

-Frank

I have a game where the characters are currently entering the ranks of the "Desperately Needing Strongholds" and if you don't suddenly find a way to come up with a few hundred thousand gold pieces, then you have to make that tradeoff. And three out of four characters in the group need them.

Balabanto wrote:

Uh, except that Wish has an XP Cost of 5000. :)

In Pathfinder Alpha, the 18th level non-specialist wizard can use Wish 1/day as a spell-like ability. Spell-like abilities don't have an XP cost.

-Hyp.

My group is almost UNIVERSALLY in favor of keeping 3.5 skills as is. Even the people who are pro 4.0 in my group think the skill system for 4.0 is poor.

The issues with it are as follows:

We all would rather have the flexibility of 3.5 skills for a number of reasons.

1) Raw flexibility. The ability to say "Well, Fred just isn't any better than this at the Shaving Heads of Angry Giants skill" and only allocate a limited number of ranks is fine with us.

More fun.

2) Skill retraining: The rules in some of the later 3.5 sourcebooks make the overcomplication of INT irrelevant for NPCs. Just take their Int Mod and add it to their skill points for each level. Voila. Done.

Quicker and easier

3) What if I don't WANT max ranks in a skill? This is probably the most salient point, and the one that I keep trying to drive home to people again and again. If all of the problems with the skills are on the DMing end, then just max rank a few things and have done with it.

More fun.

4)There is absolutely no reason why a 15th level character who chose to sack a skill into Gemcutting or some other artisanal ability should be the best in the world at it just for going out there and slaying monsters.

And if you think this is more fun for the DM, you're nuts. That means that around that level, such a character effectively has the ability, during their downtime, to produce a wealth total far greater than any other character in the party. I would rather impress upon the PC that it may not be so wise to throw a rank into Gemcutting every level than it is to have them take the skill at first level, and then radically increase their wealth over the course of the entire game.

I love the Vancean magic system. I don't care what people say. It may be a better game if it's revamped, but if it's not the Vancean magic system, it's not D+D.

Uh, except that Wish has an XP Cost of 5000. :)

Unless your Wizard has infinite experience points, he cannot simply pay the costs and do this. He loses 5K XP every time.

Now, unless the GM is going to let the player go into XP Debt, he will run out of the ability to do this.

This means that a 17th level Wizard can, at most, cast 3 wishes in a single day. And then he's DONE. For a while.

So...how long do you want to stay 17th level while the party advances.

Wish is fine. Stupid dungeon mastering unbalances this, not the high XP cost, which you must pay in ADDITION to the cost of any items that you create.

Quite frankly, in our games, when someone memorizes Wish or Limited Wish, it's a reason to save the party's butt in a tight spot.

On the other hand, Create Spawn is broken. Period. This power needs to have fixed restrictions on the number of spawn, or the world would be covered in spawn in a few short weeks.

Well, actually, the problem with high level economics is this.

If you just want to adventure, that's not the way D+D has ever been designed to be played.

When you are playing Fardeeg Hobergundy, somewhere around 12th level, he becomes Knight of the Lower Hills, since the Duke knows Fardeeg is tough. Now he has to spend money on a stronghold and taming the surrounding Lower Hills. Should Fardeeg take Leadership as a feat? Probably, if he ever wants to go on adventures again, or keep his holdings and new castle safe. Furthermore, let's say his domain borders on the Suretmarsh, and a lot of unpleasant creatures live in the Suretmarsh.

Seeing that his lands are safe under Lord Hobergundy, somewhere around 15th level, the Duke appoints Fardeeg the additional position of Warden of the Suretmarsh. Now, he has to spend money containing the threats that live in the Suretmarsh, and the Duke doesn't have to grant Fardeeg any money, because hey, that's Feudalism.

People forget that doing these things (Building Strongholds, forming towns, etc) COST MONEY. And they cost A LOT of money.

And if the PC decides to tell the Duke !@#$!#$! you, the Duke has far more money than Fardeeg does. He can hire any number of adventurers, would be rogues, or unpleasant courtiers to harass, offend, and tax him. If Fardeeg continues to be a nuisance, the Duke can repossess his castle, and strip him of his lands, if not his titles.

I'm Michael Satran

I wrote the original Ressurrection article in Dragon #210, and I've published several articles in Digital Hero.

Is it enough to make me a technical game designer? Yeah.

It's funny that as you write this, Digital Hero bit the dust only a couple months ago, and Foxbat For President, my mighty latest submission which everyone was waiting for, got spontaneously canned by virtue of cancellation. Sad, really. I spent half a year on it.

Save or die is good. Keep it.

It either A) Forces players to devote spell slots to Death Ward, in which case you can do other things to them that are not Save or Die, or B) Suck the d20 roll.

The PC's knew they were going to fight people who threw a lot of Save or Die effects, so they cast Death Ward on everyone before going into combat. BUT...it hampered their combat effectiveness in other ways.

The people who don't like Save or Die are the same people who don't like tradeoffs. The tradeoff is that if you want to stop Save or Die, you likely won't have Freedom of Movement, or other similar effects.

That's the RISK inherent in D+D.

See, that is why joint ventures, properly designed, make money.

Well, truth be told, Paizo didn't lose anything by doing this. What they did was they made a smart business decision.

Through their joint venture with Necromancer Games, Necromancer IS going 4e.

SO! By definition, Paizo acquires access to all that stuff through the GSL anyway.

By waiting to either A) Convert or B) Stay with Pathfinder, Paizo loses nothing. It is the smartest business decision they could possibly make.

This is why I really like Paizo. They're smarter than your average game company.

I like ECL. The reason, I feel, why people DON'T like ECL, is that people felt a lot of ECLs in the early days of 3rd edition, with the exception of the Half Dragon, were inappropriate.

Avariel: Why is this a +3 when Winged Elf is a +2? I have an answer, but you folks won't like it.

Etc.

But not a lot of people run games to the levels where you can actually see the full effects of ECL across a 20 level range. Is the +3 for a Half Dragon balanced? Absolutely! I run a game called The Terrible Revenge of Roungouze Haballanter. One of the characters is a half dragon. At 12th level, that character is the equal of a level 15 character, AND it's a CLERIC, which is actually highly suboptimal. Is Lashakara, AKA Happy the Half Dragon, balanced for that level? Absolutely.

So why are some races possessed of a higher level adjustment than they actually should have?

Here is my GUESS as to why that happened. It is to enforce the rarity of these races. If Avariel has a +3 Level Adjustment, the DM can keep them rare, because few will wish to play them, and if the PC's need to encounter a few of them, it only raises the CR by 1.

Quite frankly, I think it's a brilliant, if under the table move. People who like to play exotic stuff get angry when they do this, but those of us who are simulationists and want our game to not have a million screwball races LOVE it. That way, the person who wants the exotic race can still have it, but there's a penalty for it.

Somehow, despite having over 70 active PC's in my Forgotten Realms game, there are two avariels, two Goliaths, and very little of anything else. There's a gloaming, and a TON of Genasi. There's multiple Earth Genasi and Air Genasi. Virtually no fire or water.

I believe that max HP at first level + con mod is enough. I run games tough. I don't think there's a need to change it. The reward for stupidity should be death.

to address your issues:

1: More Wishes: First you must enter a contract with the Efreet and perform your part before the wish can be granted. Second, the Efreet is free to say, "No." Third your deity is free to deny the spell. The Efreet is free to give you a Staff of Wishes with 1 charge while the spell requires 3 charges. Or even for giggles and grins the Efreet may give you a Cursed Staff of Wishes (it is still a Staff of Wishes) as it is evil. Like many high level spells, this has the potential to break a game IF the GM allows it o, but there is absolutely no reason of what-so-ever that he HAS to allow it to.

1) Efreet are LAWFUL creatures, but they are also evil creatures. The Staff of Wishes won't be cursed. It will just have the meanest interpretation possible. Second, the Efreet is bound by the laws of the Efreet, meaning he can't just grant extraneous wishes to whoever he wants, he has to obey the rules of Efreetdom, and if he screws up, the Efreet Sultan will be torturing him for centuries.

2) My players have learned over the years NEVER to wish for anything from an Efreet, and that the best thing that they can do when one shows up is to cast SILENCE on him as quickly as possible so he cannot grant anyone anything. Some groups are so careful that they won't even say "I wish" in front of an Efreet.

3) This is my favorite example of how to use an efreet. A character found an efreeti bottle, and the efreet was forced to grant the PC's three wishes. The PC who opened the bottle asked for a map to the location that they were going to go to. The Efreet burned off all his hair, and burned the treasure map into the back of his head. So not only could the PC not read the map, but his friend had to read it off the back of his head, which, as you might have guessed, might have been something of a problem.

The truth of the matter is, I really liked the skill points. I thought that was one of the best things about 3.5. If you wanted a hobby, you could get one.

I don't like it when characters are suddenly the best in the world at their hobby skill which they just threw a couple of ranks into. That's what this feels likel

How are those domain powers affected by PRCs? Do they suddenly cut off, or do you need to remain in the base cleric class to retain them?

My recommendation is that it's stay in cleric or lose it.

Oh, and one more thing: Can we expect a big book of Pathfinder PRCs at some point that are intrinsic to the world (as long as I'm on the subject)?

I like the sidebar for non battlemat options as well. I've run the game on a battlemat for many years now, and I have no intention of changing. I pay for painted minis so my players have good representations of their PCs. That makes them and me feel better about the game, but if all they do is sit on a shelf, that's kind of goofy.

I love iterative attacks. The one attack is the 4th edition way of doing things.

If you want that, go play it. But truthfully, removing iterative attacks in this edition radically eliminates the fighter from any sort of useful ability.

My problem is the six week gap between two of the major plot points. My PC's would go APE over that. They'd be all over that six weeks. They'd go out, do one or two adventures, and come home. They'd be massively overpowered for the next adventure, and be able to crush everything in it, assuming you don't use training rules, which I usually do.

Even if you do, at low levels, there's still about four weeks to run out to the countryside, beat up monsters, and come back. :)

The main flaw is rescaling every adventure after this one, not this adventure.

And the other flaw, is of course, the 800 pound Paladin in the room. If one of the PC's decides to be a paladin...you're done.

If the PC's decide to flee the city with Trinia, (A completely logical response), there's NO way to cover any of the events. The adventure completely derails, and your characters are running through the wilderness with a fugitive. How far will Ileosa go to catch them? What are her resources that she can use to do so? How powerful are these NPCs and what can she bring to bear?

THIS is the real flaw in the AP, IMHO. That the resources of the villain are not clearly listed in the initial section of the AP so that the DM can use them as he or she sees fit. I'm pretty sure that's Mary's real problem, and it's mine too. When I saw what Karzoug could actually do, and why he relied on minions, I was very pleased, because everything made sense, BUT...it was five modules too late for that info. Imagine starting before having the final installment and having the DM say "Trust me, this will make sense before the end."

I like my villain designed up front so I know exactly what resources, powers, and abilities the NPC can bring to bear, plus, the PC's can kill Ileosa right there. Level 3 party, properly prepared, vs. Expert 2/Bard 4? She dies in ONE round. And if they won't ressurrect the king, they won't ressurrect her either. AP over. The PC's may or may not be over, but they won't be friends with the local law. If they fail in that first round, they're screwed, but Blackjack's on their side.

The problem is that the path is too easy to derail. I love the STORY, but the path is too easy to derail.

Effectively, Paizo took the can of bud light and slammed it down. Necromancer, their partner, is going 4.0 and handling all of that. As a result, the results of their agreement with Necromancer allow them to do this because of the corporate logic of joint ventures.

Therefore, they can publish this and effectively force Wizards to keep printing 3.5 books. They WILL make money, wizards Will make money, and 4th edition will get whoever it gets.

In effect, this actually benefits Wizards, as wonky as that is to say, because they will profit if they reprint the Players Handbook, DMG, and Monster Manual for the old game.

I like this. I think it's a very smart move, because it forces Wizards into competition with itself.

Plus, it gives me a world I LIKE without breaking it.

I just want my Goblins Burning Down the Town Tee-Shirt. Heck, since Crosswired was converted to this, I'll pay for his Goblins Burning Down the Town Tee Shirt.

I see. So when will the Korvosa PDF appear so that it can be purchased in the event that the machine decides it wasn't part of my subscription?

The game does better at doing what Exalted does than Exalted.

Unfortunately, it's not Dungeons and Dragons. I get the wrong flavor off it. It doesn't feel like sword and sorcery. It feels like high anime fantasy, and the flavor is hardwired into the powers and abilities.

I strongly feel that Paizo should NOT switch to 4th edition. For me, there are a number of issues with 4.0 that I just don't like. You can read about them in other threads. Has Wizards, for me, ethically lost the right to call the game Dungeons and Dragons? Absolutely!

My main reasons are largely ethical. Revising the OGL into a GSL and then realizing that they need more time to work on it tells me that Wizards dropped the ball in the operations department.

I'm concerned that Paizo won't be able to tell the stories it likes to in a Good/Evil/Unaligned World.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing that Paizo is capitalizing on a customer base that Wizards is rejecting. If I had my absolute choice of what to do, and limitless capital, I would publish things in both rules systems.

But most importantly, at least psychologically, I'm frustrated by the idea that 4th edition breaks the core concepts of Golarion, and all the wonderful stuff Paizo has done with it over the past year. Are they going to be forced to create a new world again? That would be very aggravating, and unsatisfying. I still want to know what the Land of the Linnorm Kings looks like, and how merchant houses function. The magic of Golarion, as well as Dragons, completely break.

That being said, if Paizo does create a new world for 4th edition, what happens to Golarion? If it gets put on the shelf, there's still enough gaming material to play it until 5th edition comes out, if Wizards hasn't screwed the pooch with 4th edition.

What's best for the industry? In my opinion, OGL is best for the industry. I actually find it offensive that Wizards is setting up a D+D review board to determine what is and isn't D+D according to the GSL, and that the stories that you may be allowed to tell in published products will be limited by the Sorcerers of the Fjords or whatever they're calling themselves this week.

Well, that being said, I would happily pay for available PDFs of the Pathfinder products like Guide to Korvosa if I missed them in my subscription, but they don't seem to be offered.

I agree with GVD 95%. Thank you for the post.

My only disagreement is that while putting the genie back in the bottle may be nigh impossible I accept Paizos decision to request that the genie constrain it's behaviour somewhat. I do not follow the boards cloely enough to have seen examples of moderation and I note GVD says he/she is in favor of some level of moderation if necessary, just that the moderation seems to be a bit heavy handed - so I dont know if I even disagree here.

It'll be interesting to see how that works, since in 3e, the Elite Array isn't.

Balabanto wrote:

This feels like you can't get killed. At all.

*blink* Have you actually played it? It's pretty easy to kill people... heck, I made a 4E monster for someone at 2pm yesterday and by 5pm it had killed someone... in someone else's game ;)

The danger level is just a lot more customizable, and it's much easier to avoid death by playing well.

Damn hard to avoid being bloodied or knocked unconscious, however.

I don't like games that feel like a video game, and that's what this felt like. It felt like I was pressing a button and the character was repeating her little "Tide of Iron, Tide of Iron, Tide of Iron" mantra over and over again.

The lack of character generation options and point buy as standard would make sense, but I play a game like this already, it's called Hero System, and they have 99 percent backwards/forwards compatibility.

I have a 20 year game. We upgraded from 2 to 3. But there's no compatibility going forward, so there's going to be a big fight in my group.

And let me tell you, the opinions are just as savage there as they are here.

Yeah. I will never stop generating characters randomly. It produces characters that you wouldn't normally get.

In my game, one of the oldest characters is a Bard/Cleric with an 18 CON. He never would have put that stat there if he didn't HAVE to, but he was the best bard ever, in a lot of ways, because he could drink his competition under the table!

And sometimes, it makes the game more challenging, and changes the way you design your character. This is going to be tough to swallow.

I don't have a problem with the Aoe changes though.

That's intuitively an easy switch. But I CANNOT wrap my head around the idea that I can move 1.5 times as far if I move diagonally as if I move straight ahead.

THey're making the game more storytelling oriented, but...WHAT IF YOU DON'T LIKE THAT STYLE OF PLAY?

I LIKE it when the players derail my plot, unless they do it through their own clash of egoes and make each other feel uncomfortable.

I LIKE it when every so often, the unexpected happens. Not because someone spent an action point.

Yes, returning to life is a dime a dozen, but that's the game. That's the way it's played. This feels like you can't get killed. At all.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I really hate the idea of the square root of one equalling the square root of two.

It just irritates me.

Plus, it leads to interesting tactical choices that I don't like, such as charging creatures on the flanks to get to the leader more quickly. WHAT? How the heck does that function in map based combat?

Well, typically, you place your strongest fighters in the center, unless you have knowledge of the way the battlemap works out of character, so the PC's charge over, kill the guy on the flank, who's much weaker than the guy in the middle, then attack the leader.

WHAT?

Well, see, it's all about hit points. The guys on the outside have far less hit points, and the guy in the middle can either move to protect the leader on the flank, exposing him, or attack the defenses of the attackers. Either way, the leader is open.

This is no-win tactics. I don't like it.

I loathe this concept.

First of all, it's taken from Marshall, a class I hated to begin with.

Second, it doesn't matter how much or how little glory the character gains in a good RPG unless the PC's goal is to gain that glory.

Third, the powers are...well...to put it bluntly "Too videogamey." I really felt during the playtests that I was pushing a button while my character sat there every round with recycled VOltron-Style animation saying "Tiiiide of Ironnnnnnnnnnnnnn! Tiiiiiiiiiiide of Ironnnnnnnnnnnnnn!"

Did so. How long does the PDF take to show up in my files?

Only one thing stands the test though, as far as a TV show goes...they've only got one option. Drizzt doesn't cut it because it's too much makeup and CGI, and the novels were so bad they can just redo it from scratch....

And here's how they should pitch it...

It matters not how strait the gate...

How charged with punishments the scroll....

I am the master of my fate...

I am the Captain of my soul...

Baldur's Gate.

That would be VERY cool. Plus, everyone LOVED that game.

Yeah. If you really want to make diamonds valuble, create a type of weapon called Diamondforged, make it difficult to craft (Because it should be) and make it hurt people really badly.

Then people will line up to buy diamonds, because let's face it, if you make a weapon out of one of the hardest substances on earth, people WILL be hurt by it.

It's not realistic, but it's more realistic than assuming that for whatever reason, Diamonds are rare.

Well, mine did ship, but there's still no PDF of it, unlike the modules and Pathfinder copies. Is this going to be rectified? I would love to have this on my laptop with all the other Pathfinder stuff.

All I know is, The Ultimates is a hell of a lot more awesome than The Avengers ever were.

Could someone PLEASE explain to me how these people are "Superheroes?"

A superhero is a ROLE MODEL.

And likewise, D+D should be a role model for gaming. It should uplift, it should create a way that the game should be played. This edition clearly does NOT do that.

It's very gamist, and I'm a simulationist. So quite frankly, I don't want to play it.

I know that if I run an entire session with just roleplay, I'll be handing out story XP.

It's one of the downsides D&D has: XP is tied to combat (and traps). Easy to change, but many people seem to have the idea stuck in their head that if there's no chart for it in the DMG, you won't be rewarded for it.

I actually disagree. Story awards should be lower, and come less frequently. The reason that I say this is what I like to refer to as illogical level creep. I'm big on simulationism, and I can't stand it when my character goes from level one to level fifteen in seven game months. I didn't find that particularly rewarding, and I felt that it was completely unrealistic socially.

In the old days, we just roleplayed, however long it took. It didn't matter how much XP you got. It was playing the game for the sheer joy of playing the game.

This has gone out of a lot of people, I think. We need to return to a gaming environment where that kind of good sportsmanship matters. And I think that a large portion of that rests with the failure of many people as parents to instill those values so that they're no longer important. My father raised me on being a good sport, to shake people's hands, even if you lost, and all that other good stuff. You don't need experience points to play the game.

"It's not whether you win or lose. It's how you play the game."