Blazej's page

I think that the Orcs of Golarion book is better for GMs outfitting orcs with unique feats than players creating their own characters.

While a party of Half-orcs might go wild with the options provided, it is somewhat less useful for a standard party, or even any given half-orc in a party. Most of the feats are set up for barbarian orcs/half-orcs and little else. While it does push hard that orcs are barbarians first and foremost, it does limit what a half-orc fighter, ranger, rogue or such can take from this book.

Adept Channel and Amplfied Rage are both feats that I can really see using as a GM, but unlikely to really see a player using. Adept Channel seems intended for adepts. To get to without being an adept, you have to likely have to do some odd multi-classing to get the right set of abilities necessary to meet the feats prerequisites.

Amplfied Rage is much easier to qualify for, but requires a very odd set up. You have to have a pair of orc/half-orc barbarians in the same party that have this feat, then they have to be near each other and raging to get the bonuses. As a GM all I have to do is have two orc barbarians and this feat is easy to use, but it is much more unlikely that a pair of players would both make half-orc barbarians using this feat unless their entire goal was to just use this feat. I can see a barbarian/cavalier or a barbarian/inquisitor using this feat by granting it to raging allies (possibly through the rage spell), but overall, again, this feat seems to be more inclined for GMs outfitting their orcs than players outfitting their characters. That is fine, not all feats need to be for players, except this book is indicated to be targeted at players.

While the spells are more useful, there are a pair that are set up such that players will not ever use them. Enemy's heart and shield the banner seem to be just things the GM would use rather than the players.

I would prefer that later products in this line, if it is going to continue to be directed at players, have more content that players can use and that the NPC feats and spells appear in the other lines.

Is it just me or does anyone else think it would be easier if there was a forum that only allowed one post per thread, no followups or responses by anyone other than Paizo folks, and that was used as the FAQ system?

I think that the method Paizo set up will work out better than a one post per thread forum. It seems simple enough to be applied to building a FAQ without additional steps that would only hamper the system.

0gre wrote:

While I agree that it's not extremely obvious it's also not that difficult to grasp.

You have a good understanding of the game. I can already see the nonsense coming out of the rules forum in the months to come from others than don't understand so well.

Nonsense will come out of the rules forum no matter what. I find it doubtful that the wording on this particular ability is as confusing or game breaking as been indicated by some in this thread.

While I am sure the spell might benefit from a different wording, I am not really willing to argue for it while the discussion is here.

Caineach wrote:

Not true. The bard gets +1 to hit and damage every time he loses 1 BAB from his 3/4 casting. The summoner gets no such thing.

Really how?

I believe that is referring to inspire courage.

Blazej wrote:

Yes, but as far as I know other builds haven't really done things like "the way you use encounter powers is now different" (like it seems to be in the Wizard preview). Up till now, I believe they have been doing smaller things additions and subtractions rather than what I believe I am seeing in the Essential classes.

The Essentials classes definitely go farther than we've seen thus far. And we'll see what exactly is happening with Wizard encounter powers. But I do think we've seen pretty distinct builds that change the rules for a class - the Beastmaster Ranger, the Archer Warlord, things like that.

I haven't seen the Archer Warlord, but as for the Beastmaster Ranger, yes it is a quite a big addition, but I would say that that it messed with the Ranger rules less than the way the Essential Wizard seems to have her spells set up. I might have a better idea of how I feel when I actually see the class rather than a one page preview.

Sure, all of the errata has changed the game slightly. That's part of the growing pains of a new edition. Even Pathfinder has had 2 sets of errata since it's release 1 year ago, and that was based on an already refined rule set. I think overall Wizards has been quite responsive to their customers and provided a lot more support to existing products than they ever did for 3.X.

I would suggest that the exact goals Pathfinder errata is not equal to the those of the updates for 4th edition and that comparing them like that is like calling Essentials "4.5." An analogy that one thinks is apt and another does not. At least, Pathfinder has not yet added errata similar to the 4e magic missile or tiefling updates and the don't appear to be coming before the horizon.

Whichever Wizard sits down at the table, you'll generally know what they can do. Specific builds and powers might have their own advantages, but the differences between the two aren't breaking any "common understanding" of the game.

Yes, but as far as I know other builds haven't really done things like "the way you use encounter powers is now different" (like it seems to be in the Wizard preview). Up till now, I believe they have been doing smaller things additions and subtractions rather than what I believe I am seeing in the Essential classes.

In more seriousness - the 3.5 PHB was explicitly intended as a replacement for the 3.0 PHB. If you were a current player, and wanted to stay up to date with the rules, and be able to use future products, you need to purchase a new copy of a book you already had.

However, over the years of play, a couple of updates to the core rules have popped up. I believe that this updates will be incorporated into Essentials making them useful for players wanting to understand how such and such feat/power interacts with the stealth rules.

There are also a number of books with content that require you to have access to content from other books in the D&D to be able to get full use out of them. Things like drow and genasi racial feats in the Power book line. While they might not, they might just decide to throw a couple wizard specialization schools into another book with the expectation you have the Essentials book in order to use them.

If I played 3.0 I could certainly grab a 3.5 books and make sense out of 90% of the stuff was in there, similar to how I can grab Arcane Power and be able to make sense of 90% of the stuff in there.

I'm not trying to say that these are the same as the differences between 3.0 and 3.5. However, I believe that there are some similarities.

I still do not imagine that there is going to be people asking, "running 4e or 4e Essentials?" in the same way one would ask "running 3.0 or 3.5?" or "running 3.5 or 4e?" But, I am not really sure if stating "it is/isn't 4.5" makes any sense when it seems, to me, that people seem to have different definitions of what is necessary to make it ".5"

Xabulba wrote:

Galnörag wrote:

So guaranteed damage isn't foreign to the system.

Automatic hits are.

Not anymore ;)

I'm pretty still are because the updated magic missile is no more an auto-hit than the cloud of daggers at-will wizard power in the Player's Handbook.

Most of the really famous ones have only had fragments of them published. Others aren't really true mega-dungeons so much as they are just really big dungeons (such as World's Largest's Dungeon). There is a significant difference. Of actual megadungeons there's only a handful that actually qualify.

What is your definition of a mega-dungeon? I had been thinking that mega-dungeon was just a massive dungeon.

EDIT: It should be noted that there is a lot more errata then just this one file. They have separated all of the errata into different files so the changes that were made between each month could be focused on individually then collecting it all into one HUGE file.

Yeah. I made the error of assume just that last week when I opened the latest set of updates and thought that 20-ish pages for the pdf was pretty darn good for how much they published.

Majuba wrote:

Looking awesome so far!

Question: Bloatmage Bloat ability - the chart says it goes from 1d4 to 2d4 to 3d4. Text says 1d4 to 1d8 to 1d12. Text trumps by default, but I thought I'd ask (1d12 is much wickeder).

I'm a bit confused. Why would you say 1d12 is wickeder then 3d4 for this ability? It still caps at the same.

I believe it is because one is less likely to accidentally hit a 12 with the 3d4 than with the 1d12. The 3d4 is less likely to hit the extremes of very low and very high that could lead to a bloatmage raging.

Greedy player here... seeing as the book's already been leaked (greaat) any chance on an earlier release of the PDF to subscribers? It certainly didn't give me a warm fuzzy when I saw that.

I would think that it is quite unlikely that Paizo will, because a store broke the release date, move up their timetable for releasing the book.

While I think that the previous mechanic for the judgement was a neat idea, that just having a progressively increasing bonus isn't going to make a class find a unique position among all of the other base classes in the game. I would have been fine without an inquisitor, it wasn't something I didn't really think I was looking for.

Flavor-wise, it's niche is a role as a divinely-empowered being who is set towards removing corruption from and threats to their religion. I certainly could have played that with a number of other class choices, similar to how I could play a frenzying warrior as a fighter or ranger instead of a barbarian. I'm not sure if the role is important enough to it to need a class for it, but the role isn't one that I saw well covered by the other classes.

Mechanically, it covers the lightly armored divine-spellcasting warrior as well as a divine spellcaster that is between full (like a cleric) and minimal (like a paladin).

I believe that it's self-empowering abilities are better than pretty much every other class that comes to mind. I even still think they still have a bit of their progressively increasing bonus in the number of swift action options a higher level inquisitor gets.

I'm not entirely if I will like it, but I don't think that it was bad enough to deserve an exclusion from the book following testing.

Either way, Erastil continues to empower the patriarchalists and the fledgling matriarchalist in Seeker of Secrets, suggesting that he really doesn't care that much about this issue.

If I had to make this decision in my game right now, I would probably have the following to say on the matter for my version of the world.

That this was an event limited to the Ulfen communities in that area. Although other Erastil communities in the world might have had a female-dominated clerical hierarchy in the past or in the present, that Erastil didn't give a command for all of his followers to exchange places.

I would say that during some point in the history an event (increased war, orc invasions, etc.) causing a shift in power occurred (maybe clerics were more necessary on the battlefield, so warriors received clerical training just because warrior was more a male role in their culture) and then later on, to avoid power slipping away from their sons they obscured the history of their previous traditions.

Erastil is fine with male-dominant, female-dominant, or clergy with no gender dominant. It doesn't change his view on gender roles, but a motherly cleric is just as beneficial to a community as a fatherly cleric. He might even prefer male/female dominant just because it fits better as a tradition (or helps better define the role of the temple) than just letting all who wish to serving there. Despite how a switch was set up before, he doesn't want there to be an upheaval in his temples just change it back to the way it was before.

Those clerics are "right" to protect the traditions their community has had for generations when the resulting change would create suffering for the community. But the "heretic" is also within her bounds to explore the history of her people and reveal it. Just because knowledge is revealed doesn't mean the fabric of the community is too weak to support that knowledge. As his servant, he trusts her to handle the matter.

Or this is a matter that he expects his clergy to solve without his intervention. Or some godly reason that mortals can't understand.

All I was trying to say is that the explanation you gave above was excellent. I am a fan of the Paizo material and would never want to see any of the writers produce material with political correctness in mind to please a handful of readers. The setting has a lot of real world issues in it and the grit makes it all the more interesting (as you said above).

I am of the opinion that your explanation expanded on Erastil and would help someone like the OP's player see the god more clearly in the context of the setting. This would allow them to enjoy the roleplaying opportunities that are presented by the faith.

Thank you for the great work Sean!

I'm not as certain because, even after the explanation, the same complaints seem to shoot up. I doubt that there would be that much of a change in the reaction if the explanation were included in the article.

For me, the issue with 3.5 was that my previous books had to be replaced, and were likely to have compatibility issues with new products. Existing characters had significant updates to bring them in line with the new rules. Core design rules of the game were changed.

I don't see any of that here. Does '4.5' mean something differently to you? Or are you seeing something else that I am missing? I'm genuinely trying to understand here, because while I'm seeing some interesting products that provide cool new rules, I'm only seeing a few minor things that actually revise any existing content.

For me, it doesn't really matter. Looking back at 3.0 and 3.5 I can say, "Ehh, they are close enough. The rules weren't completely turned around so they are still mostly the same system."

If allowed by the GM, I could still play a 3.0 ranger in a 3.5 game without much revision. Similar things could be said of feats, spells, prestige classes, and magic items.

So, from my perspective, a 4.5 doesn't require that my previous books have to be replaced, changes in core design rules, or compatibility issues.

I even think that every update and product added increases the "version number" and don't consider that a bad thing.

The biggest part of why this sort of feels like a 4.5 to me is that it is releasing revised versions of the core classes*. Following this point, I think that, while new wizard/cleric/fighter/rogue powers will be usable by the classes in the Player's Handbook, that their focus will be on the essentials classes. More domains, more powers with a school of magic, and such things that the original classes might be able to take, but just weren't intended for them.

I don't really count any of these as bad things, I just think that this is a 4.5, a 4.1.2, or whatever rather than being permanently just 4th edition. To me, it would be like WoW updating the game with lots of stuff, and refusing to increase the stated version number just because people didn't have to buy the game disks all over again.

*It didn't matter if they call the classes Larry, Moe, and Curly, if they are intending to take the same role** as the other class, then I consider them to be revised versions of the other class.

**As in, studious mage that draws arcane power from intense study as opposed to controller, striker, etc.

Well, D&DI isn't required - the updates are free. But yeah, hunting them down and keepin track can be a hassle, and I agree about Magic Missile. I might like the new version better, but don't feel it was a necessary change. I really like having regular updates and errata, but I'd prefer if it was kept to the things that really needed it.

Still, that said... I don't think I've seen any place that enforces having the most current updates. Anywhere that does, likely just means they'll tell the new player how things work. And in the end, it is one power out of a very many - even with all the updates combined, 95% of the books remains accurate, so I don't think they are approaching anything resembling obsolesence.

Right, that is pretty much how I feel.

I didn't mean to say that the books are obsolete because of this, just that buying the book is less preferable to just subscribing to D&DI for a month to get the latest rules.

Note that in the last batch of Errata, the current Magic Missile was already updated to the same form as it is showing up in Essentials. It wasn't given to all Wizards for free, admittedly - but the power is the same.

Despite liking the newer magic missile power better, this irritates me. While this might be a very special case for such an iconic spell, I don't like updates of this magnitude because I feel like it puts someone who doesn't have a D&DI subscription at a disadvantage. Especially so if the venue they play at enforces playing with the current updates. It feels like buying the books is more pointless at this point.

I do like the way these classes are looking now. Schools of magic, prepared encounters, dailies, and utility powers, auto-hit magic missiles. Woo!

The At-Will powers look awesome. I really do favor the enchantment at-wills at the moment, but the arc lightning looks very appealing as well.

I agree with the guess that fighters might have weapon schools. Maybe it will have no daily powers and, instead, just have the ability to power up an attack a number of times per extended rest.

For the rogue, maybe they will reduce the restrictions on what weapons they have to wield or just reduce the penalties for wielding non-rogue weapons.

Blazej wrote:

"wife should defer to her husband"

Wait, that's the actual text that's gotten everyone upset? So, nowhere at all does it say that Erastil prefers women to defer to men? It just says he prefers wives to defer to husbands?

Alright, just to cover this, I believe this is the full offending section that this is all about:

He believes the strength of a man’s will makes him the center of a household, and while women can be strong, they should defer to and support their husbands, as their role is to look after the house and raise strong children (consequently, there are few female priests in his church). Independent-minded women, he believes, can be disruptive to communities, and it is best to marry them off quickly so their duties as wife and mother command their attention.

Aside from that bit I didn't notice anything else on the prefered interactions between men and women in general. He talks about marriage taming a person in reference to two deities, Cayden Cailean and Saerenrae.

In Cayden Cailean's case, Erastil seems to show not qualms about strong women as it seems that he believes such a woman would need to be determined to convince him to settle down.

For Saerenrae, Erastil suggested relationship seems to indicate that he doesn't expect her to be passive toward her spouse no matter what he did. Or at least that, if the husband's dedication to Saerenrae faultered, Erastil didn't seem to be sorry for whatever ire the man brought down upon himself.

You live in a land of absolutes Blazej and for a lot of us the world is varying shades of grey.

Huh? Which absolutes are in my land?

At the time when this was customary, woman still had less privileges, so that's a faulty metaphor.

I disagree that just because it was more common in a time where woman had less privileges, that it negates the fact that a people in a more modern setting could still have the opinion that woman should be treated better than others. I'm not saying that woman ever had more privileges because of this, just that there are levels of sexism one can experience and that they are not all equivalent to one another.

Believe it or not, I'm on your side here. I made a slightly extreme comparison, because it is my opinion that good is doing good things with no reward, and giving up good things if doing so is good for others. If a man did that, but didn't think women should vote because they're more 'delicate' or somesuch reason, would goodness be beyond his reach? How does that make sense?

Right, to actually answer your suggestion rather than rant about other things...

I would say that that it has to depend on their action or inaction rather than what they just believe. Like, for the man in your example, how does he react to women that try to obtain the right to vote?

Does he refuse to aid those people? Does he work with authorities to imprison and punish them? Does he work to harass/terrorize those groups?

Or does he offer as much aid to them as does others? Does he help them from being persecuted for their goal despite not agreeing with them? Does he not press them hard to agree with him?

Does he do these things out of the belief that it is right or out of the fear of being persecuted for being different?

For me, these factors are much more important than just stating what he believes should happen and present a better view of whether a person is really good or not.

It seems that the core of this argument is whether a clearly sexist god can truly be 'good'. So here's my question: If a man thinks black people (chosen at random)are inferior to white people, does that make him evil? What if he still cares about them, and would give up his life for some? What if he gives to every charity whenever he has the money? What if he's heroic in all other ways? Is he good, or merely neutral?

If a man opens doors for women and otherwise treats them more special that other men, does that make him evil? Because that is sexist as well, to give one group more privileges than another.

That feels like a similar jump from "wife should defer to her husband" to the question of "what if he thought some race was inferior?"

Can there be a good racial deity? I mean, if that dwarven deity worries about the dwarven race before all others, does that make him too racist to be good?

How about, if a woman cares for her own family before others, like if there is a drought and she makes sure that her husband and children have enough water to live before sharing it with neighbors, is she now not good for acting as if her children are more important than the children of her neighbor?

When there is a priest at a wedding and he says that the husband must love his wife and that the wife must respect and obey her husband, does that automatically make that priest not good and less important than other people?

I'm not sure where building stands. I know that a variety of cities have large sewer system (big enough to adventure in at least) and that buildings (on Golarion) rarely seem to have more than two floors and a basement.

There is not much I know about the transportation aside that caravans are the way most stuff is moved overland and boats are used across the coast. There isn't any airborne transportation or mechanical/magical vehicles (trains, cars, etc.).

The most powerful technology tends to meld magic with a tad of science, but those more ancient wonders from lost civilizations rather than things people understand how to create.

If there is a magical industry in the world it is pretty low key (while low level magic items aren't that rare or unexpected on the world, they are rarely treated as common. Most people, from what I can tell, will not use a magical item in their lifetime) or limited to a local area (like the golem works in Kaer Maga).

One factor that I’ve not seen brought up often enough is the fact that sexism is more covertly embedded and societally ‘acceptable’ than many other prejudices, so for me it has an additional status that does need to be recognised. I note that the Erastil article has a lot of gender-based ‘traditional values’ stuff – but not one word regarding homosexuals. One would assume that Erastil (as portrayed in the article) would be vehemently opposed to non-progeny producing relationships, yet there’s just no mention of this prejudice at all. I would lay even money that far fewer posters would feel comfortable ‘defending’ a write-up of an overtly ethnically racist or anti-homosexual LG god.

From my perspective, it seems that you are magnifying Erastil's reactions and then using that magnified reaction to explain why you are modifying the deity while I just don't choose think that Erastil, as described, would have that intense of a reaction so he doesn't really need to be altered.

I have no idea what is best for other games, so I can't say it is wrong that a group changes Erastil or any other thing to work better for them.

However, it has felt that some have been somewhat trying to push that it should be modified in other people's games as well. While I believe that Erastil's viewpoint is outdated, it seems to me that the reactions that come to him seem to be more intolerant of Erastil than he is of adventurers, homosexuals, strong women, and weak men.

From my viewpoint, The reaction of removing the distasteful opinion from him is pretty much the same as another group removing references to gay and lesbian couplings in the setting just because they don't feel that has a place in a game they are trying to have fun in. I neither can argue with them because I don't know their group, but I also would argue against the demand that Paizo should exclude such references in their products in the future. Both seem like they are trying to do the exact same thing.

I'm certain that I have to put all my enthusiasm for PathfinderWiki. It is not only an incredibly useful resource available, I do not feel I can say enough good things about the people that put so much effort into the site. I have no qualms putting my full support behind them for this award.

One thing that another thread popped into my head was the question of if any of the deities had any husbands or wifes (besides Torag). A few seem to be a definite no (Calistria, Cayden Cailean, Shelyn) while a others seem like they would have found some being to spend their lives with. Like Erastil, I find it odd that, given his beliefs, that he hasn't been married. If he is, are they still alive?

You have access to domain spells/powers in the regular 4E game if you use the divine power supplement or the character builder.

Blazej wrote:

One thing that I'm looking at is that I didn't notice in the preview how many skills the Essentials Cleric has trained (along with the already mentioned bit that religion isn't listed as automatically trained).

I like that Domains are coming back into the picture. I think that they helped a bit to define clerics of different deities and it makes me hopeful for this variant.

Overall, it looks interesting.

While I am still not getting Character Builder... yep, a nifty pair of feats for a number of domains. Pretty much the whole reason I bought Divine Power. The fact that domains come attached, rather than being options you might or might not get, to the Essentials Cleric just makes me happy.

I would say it is probably one of the more powerful traits that I have seen. I might even rank it as the most powerful trait that I have seen.

It was a campaign trait for the Legacy of Fire campaign from the Pathfinder Companion: Legacy of Fire Player's Guide. It was only intended for characters for that Adventure Path, it wasn't intended to be usable for any and all campaigns.

Overall, I can't say that it is going to destroy the game if that trait is used, but I would suggest that the GM work with the player to adjust the bonus to better match the abilities granted by the other campaign traits.

One thing that I'm looking at is that I didn't notice in the preview how many skills the Essentials Cleric has trained (along with the already mentioned bit that religion isn't listed as automatically trained).

I like that Domains are coming back into the picture. I think that they helped a bit to define clerics of different deities and it makes me hopeful for this variant.

Overall, it looks interesting.

Beyond the comment suggesting that sexism from a good deity is alright, but only if men are on the losing end...

I haven't really seen Erastil plotting to kill Iomedae. In fact it seems more like that, if he was present and she needed help, he would give her aid despite having different opinions on some matters. He doesn't even seem to say that she (or any of the other good gods) are not good because they don't hold the same beliefs that he does.

His representation seems willing to offer aid to those that need it and seems not completely prejudiced against those that live their lives differently than he believes is best. On the other hand, those who are arguing against this character seem to give him less than he offers.

There seems to be that assumption that, if one believes in the mentioned gender roles, your alignment can't be good (which has the side bonus of implying that a bunch of people in real life aren't really good as well no matter how kind they are because of one opinion they hold). The depiction of Erastil actually seems nicer to those who hold different opinions than a few of the posts set against the fictional character right now.

If someone doesn't want to purchase the adventure paths because of this, I'm sorry? Sadly I am moved by that decision just as much by someone deciding now to buy APs because they have homosexual characters in them.

To me, Erastil is good (as opposed to neutral) because, if I am recalling his dogma correctly, he doesn't just care the the community keeps on existing. Erastil wants people to not only be productive, but be happy and healthy as well.

If I had to imagine mortal personifications of Erastil and Abadar walking down a street past a starving begger, I can imagine Erastil actually going out of his way to try to get the begger a healthy place in the community. Hunting, farming, building something so that they can keep meals on the table, a home, and (some day) a loving relationship with a spouse (and a few children even). To me, Erastil not only cares that the community will continue, but that they people in the community are healthy and prospering.

aeglos wrote:

That is a sure way to lose female players.

If that is Lawfull Good in Golarion, my female players will not want to play in that world.

+1

I believe that sexism shouldn't be a LG trait any more than torture or slavery should be. Sure I'll change it in my campaign; just seems that I shouldn't have to conflict with the campaign setting as written to resolve issues that are otherwise self-evident.

Actually, from the quote, the thing that he was saying was the way to lose female players was your interpretation of the Erastil's actions.

To me, it is like saying that Cayden Cailean punishing a cleric for not promoting drinking contest among the villages youth is a major issue therefore you removed all references to drinking from Cayden Cailean. While you can do anything you want in your game, it seems more like you exacerbated/played-up the issue in order to give a reason why it was being altered for your game.

Removing the Summon Monster SLA completlely and replacing it with anything... Skill Focus... would have been better...

If one of my players asks to replace their ability to summon flying, swimming, earthgliding, and/or spellcasting creatures with various immunities/resistances as a standard action for Skill Focus, well, I will be happy to give it to them.

Because it prevents female characters from faithfully championing Erastil's portfolio while being "independent-minded" or while participating in regular adventuring duties without also conflicting directly with their god's tenets.

I would suggest that one doesn't have to completely agree with every thought a deity has in order to be able to serve them. If that were the case, clerics wouldn't be allowed to have a different alignment from their deity.

Should a cleric of Erastil, either male or female, who advocates that a wife leave her abusive husband loose his divine powers because it conflicts with the god's tenet that women "should defer to and support their husbands"? It's not just a fluffy tidbit; it can actually hinder players' enjoyment of the setting.

I have to say, in that case, it is 100% the GM's fault for interpreting "should defer to and support their husbands" as "if you help a wife leave her abusive husband, you are stripped of your divine powers."

As far as I can tell, Erastil would encourage one to step into a unhealthy relationship and fix it, even if fixing it means separating them so that one or both can form healthy relationships with other people.

I'm just wondering why those details are there in the first place.

I would say that it is there because it gives him a strong personality that makes him feel a lot different from many of the other deities even though they are similar in alignment. Also it sets it up that you don't have to agree with every good deity in order to be good yourself. It seems to fit his background, leaving it out would have a chance to make him seem less real. It makes the beliefs of deities such as Iomedae and Shelyn more special because now they have to combat some perception others have (even if it is limited) without getting to chop off the offenders head for being incredibly evil (like most worshipers of Asmodeus).

I don't agree with statements like Erastil's, but neither do I believe they should be swept under the rug just because they make some people uncomfortable any more than removing all gay and lesbian reference for the same reasons.

Last time I checked Iomedae didn't care about gender. Both could be priests.

What the Essentials do is try to broaden that center spectrum a bit by offering classes of different complexity levels. For some, that means providing a selection of classes that are simpler, faster, and more straightforward. For others, it means providing classes that scratch that druid/cleric/wizard player's itch.

Erk. This is killing me.

It is tempting me a lot to be ready to buy Essentials when it comes out. I thought I could just let it safely pass by and ignore it, now I want to take a better look.

I was all sad reading this thread.

Then I saw Rodney Thompson posting and that makes me much happier.

I don't think I've run a game day without coming up against this problem of not being able to describe the monster. Most of the time, I already have some idea of what they look like. I only hit a snag when they throw a monster that I don't know the appearance of or when I don't connect the name given to the creature I know. Stats sometimes help, but more often than not it just gives me their size and how many appendages they have around.

While the Monster Manuals are pretty good about giving pictures of all the monsters the adventures I've seen (especially the Game Day adventures) generally don't have labeled pictures of the monsters causing 99% obvious to nosedive and drop to a much bleaker percentage.

One example that comes to mind was an adventure that involved a grue appearing in the final battle. I knew of the grue, but that knowledge was pretty much limited to one eating you if you hang around the darkness too much. I believe that it wouldn't hurt and would really help if they described the monsters just like they described the powers. Just give a couple lines of brief description for me to work off of (or ignore in favor of my own ideas).

Blazej wrote:

It probably will have no effect as I expect the Magus already has a direction planned for it's abilities but I felt like throwing my concept of what I would like to see for magus abilities.

I like the idea of the magus being able to draw a number of magical runes on their equipment possibly granting small bonuses to the item. Then, when the magus casts certain spells, he would be able to use the spell to power the rune for an additional effect. For example, a magus has a rune of lightning on his scythe and when he casts lightning bolt, in addition to the effects of the spell, for some duration lighting arcs across the blade causing it to deal additional electricity damage every time it scores a hit.

This way the magus might be capable of buffing-then-fighting, spell-fight-spell-fight, and maybe even mixing his spells into his combat routine depending on how he is played.

Like this?

Charge Weapon
Requirements: BAB+1, Ability to cast spells with the electricity descriptor.
Benefit. As long as you have a spell with the electicity descriptor prepared (or, if you are a spontaneous caster, know a spell with the electricity descriptor and have spell slot of that level available), your weapons deal +1 point of electricity damage per spell level of the highest level spell with the electricity descriptor. After you cast a spell with the electricity descriptor, your weapon attacks deal +1d6 points of electricity of damage for a number of rounds equal to the spell level of the electricity spell cast.

For example, if the Magus has the spells lightning bolt prepared once and shocking grasp prepared twice, his weapons would cause +3 points of electricity damage. After the Magus cast shocking grasp, his weapon would cause 1d6+3 points of electricity damage for 1 round. After the Magus cast lightning bolt, his weapon would cause 1d6+1 points of additional electricity damage for 3 rounds. After that, his weapons would cause +1 point of electricity damage (from the remaining...

Yeah, one could work like that.

One concern I have though about making these abilities that any character can take is that the magus won't really have much to make himself stand out. I would like a magus to have as many unique abilities to separated from other mage/warrior combinations.

While I don't mind more options for mage/warrior, the magus should have many abilities that only he gets just like all the other classes and I would be worried that by granting these feats to power up all mage/warrior combinations, one reduces the ability to give the magus those unique powers.

It probably will have no effect as I expect the Magus already has a direction planned for it's abilities but I felt like throwing my concept of what I would like to see for magus abilities.

I like the idea of the magus being able to draw a number of magical runes on their equipment possibly granting small bonuses to the item. Then, when the magus casts certain spells, he would be able to use the spell to power the rune for an additional effect. For example, a magus has a rune of lightning on his scythe and when he casts lightning bolt, in addition to the effects of the spell, for some duration lighting arcs across the blade causing it to deal additional electricity damage every time it scores a hit.

This way the magus might be capable of buffing-then-fighting, spell-fight-spell-fight, and maybe even mixing his spells into his combat routine depending on how he is played.

Practically speaking, the publisher of FG2 may want a license to make and sell PF Adventures or other PF Rules using protected content as a precondition to completing work on a Pathfinder rules set. (Or not, I have absolutely no information on this whatsoever.)

I agree with this and the rest of your post. My issue was more with certain other posts that were almost making it seem as there was nothing that could be done Fantasy Grounds without a license to use Paizo Intellectual Property.

Well, it would be kind of silly for them to use the ruleset, but not call it Pathfinder. In order to use the word "Pathfinder" to describe the Pathfinder rules, they would need Paizo's permission. The Pathfinder name is a trademark.

Right and that would be a benefit from the license, but other products have existed without saying Dungeons & Dragons.

Just a note, I have nothing against Fantasy Grounds and would be happy to see them get the license. My reaction to this was just more because I perceived a number of posts on the thread (not from Eric Tillemans) that seemed to be close to equating Paizo with schoolyard bully if they don't hand over a license to do all the adventures or describing this decision as Paizo using their sandbox as a bathroom.

I agree with Raymond Lambert, this was a bad idea.

And I disagree.

Besides, it isn't like switching a class from d10 hit dice to d8 hit dice would be the thing that makes the class balanced or unbalanced. It would be approximately the same as being set with one less feat in terms of power.

Whether or not one is asking for d10 HD with 3/4 BAB or d8 HD with full BAB, it isn't that significant of a jump in power from the standardized system currently used.

Blazej wrote:

Eric Tillemans wrote:

As far as Fantasy Grounds goes, official support would allow the developers of FG to create and sell a Pathfinder RPG ruleset which would, in turn, make it easier to run Pathfinder RPG on Fantasy Grounds.

What do they need from Paizo to be able to create and sell the ruleset?

A license to sell Paizo's copyrighted material for profit. Or some kind of license at least.

Because Pathfinder's mechanics-of-play are largely covered by the OGL, there's very little restriction about the creation of a FG ruleset to be given away to support the Pathfinder mechanics. However, the Adventure Path stories and adventuring content, and all Golarion-setting-specific material is expressly not covered by the OGL, and most reproductions (excluding "fair use", a muddy concept at best) of that material is technically a violation of copyright law. Any sale of Pathfinder material that isn't authorized by Paizo in some way is a clear violation of copyright law.

I'd love to see APs released in FG format, it would make my gaming life exceptionally pleasant.

I understand why the adventures are unavailable as they are just loaded with material that is not OGC, but my question is why the ruleset needs Paizo's permission.

From the descriptions so far, it seems that people are trying to make it seem as if Paizo is trying to actually bar the use of Fantasy Grounds for Pathfinder as opposed to not giving them additional access to Paizo's copyrighted material.

As far as Fantasy Grounds goes, official support would allow the developers of FG to create and sell a Pathfinder RPG ruleset which would, in turn, make it easier to run Pathfinder RPG on Fantasy Grounds.

What do they need from Paizo to be able to create and sell the ruleset?

It was their decision, however, to make it unecessarily difficult for users of this software to run games of Pathfinder.

Sooooo... how are they making it unnecessarily difficult for users of Fantasy Grounds to run games of Pathfinder?

hogarth wrote:

Eric Tillemans wrote:

Ok, Paizo anncounced official support for Hero Lab at PaizoCon. Congratulations Hero Lab folks - you also got a new user out of me with your nice demo at PaizoCon.

Now, what about Fantasy Grounds?

What does "support" mean in the context of an OGL game?

What does Fantasy Grounds need from Paizo that they're not getting?

What does Hero Lab need from Paizo that they are getting?

These are great questions. I was too busy being a punk to notice them the first time around. Does anyone happen to know the answers?

The one thing I know that Hero Lab is getting is the Advanced Player's Guide (probably along with various other books) early so that they can be ready to release those update packages when the book is released.

Possibly they might be allowed to use the product identity names in their releases (in which case they wouldn't need to strip out proper names and such from feats, spells, etc.)

I'm not sure what Fantasy Grounds really needs that is being denied to them. bugleyman and others might know more than I do.

We don't know that the Magus would have all martial weapon proficiencies. It could have all simple, and any 3 martial, or something along those lines, so it wouldn't automatically qualify for an Eldritch Knight without multi-classing, just like any other character.

Right, it is just one of the many things that are not revealed at the moment. The point of my comment was that, even if a character qualifies for a prestige class, it is not a given that the prestige class will improve that character's power.

Mr.Fishy wrote:

Full caster and full BA is unnatural.

>drops Munchkin Grow Tabs tm<

I don't think anyone is advocating that. Let's assume he gets 3/4 base attack and bardlike casting. At 7th level, he'll just hit the ek wide open. Then you'll have something like: Magus8/EK10/F2 Base attack of 18, 6th level spells, greater weapon specialization by 20th level. If he has the option to cast spontaneously, you'll have Magus 7/DD4/ek9 Base attack 17, 6th level spells (with a few more per day and a caster level bump), weapon specialization, +4 strength, breath weapon, and +2 natural armor. Why make people jump through hoops? The existence of the ek will make it very hard to keep people in the magus class if he doesn't have full base attack. Which means he will have to have some broken class abilities to keep interest.

I would suggest that that broken class abilities would not be necessary to keep interest in the magus class in that case. If the bard had proficiency with all martial weapons, I don't imagine there would be a lot of people just jumping straight into Eldritch Knight/Dragon Disciple just because they qualify for them. I'm pretty sure that those characters would lose out on a good chunk of abilities if they did so, especially the greater amount of bardic performance, the improved inspired courage, and ability to begin a performance as a swift action.

I believe that in a perfect world, some magi should have some reason to become eldritch knights so that they can focus more on improving their attacks at the cost of their other class abilities. They gain one thing, but lose something else like they do with almost all other prestige classes.

I'm reasonably certain that the class could work with both a magus that cast spells like a bard along with a base attack bonus like a fighter or a bard (comparing it to existing combinations already in the game like the eldritch knight).

My preference for the bard base attack bonus comes from my belief that, in order to shoot for balance, a full base attack magus would receive minimal class abilities beyond spellcasting. I would rather have a class with more interesting and powerful class abilities than one that just has a better attack bonus.

If one feels it necessary the magus could get special abilities for using the staff of the magi and/or robes of the archmagi.