Cintra Bristol's page

I want a frozen rock from space to fall into the WotC headquarters.

Umm, guys, I realize you're not really advocating someone hitting WotC HQ with a kinetic bombardment from space, but I personally still feel that this statement is inappropriate. Any statement that you'd like to see a building (with people in it) destroyed is really over-the-top and, well, disturbing.

I hereby request that you discuss your anger/hatred without using statments that you'd like to see people harmed/killed.

And now I return you to your regularly-scheduled hate-fest...

If I might make a request, a zany, family-friendly adventure module might balance the scales for those customers who were upset. Perhaps it could be set in a country run by blink dogs?

Actually, I'd love it if Paizo produced a line of "family-friendly" adventures. I have a tough time coming up with something I'm willing to run for my husband's nephew (age 13), partly because his younger sister (age 10) had nightmares after a perfectly ordinary fight-the-goblins adventure I ran for them last year (and she was just listening in, not playing).

I would definitely buy a handful of adventures that take their inspiration from, for example, Americanized fairy tales (i.e. not the original, bloody versions, but more something that Disney could use).

I use my real name - I find it makes me rethink a few things before I post them.

Actually, my real name has a pretty funny origin. I was named after a friend of the family's ex-wife (yup, she was an ex-wife at the time), just because my mom liked the way the name sounded.

I've only once met another person named Cintra. I was in a Woolworths in my college town after summer break, and I said to a friend of mine, "Hey, look, they still have these same lollipops on sale."

A woman's voice right behind me said, "Cintra, get your hand out of those lollipops!"

I turned around, startled, to see that she was addressing a little girl, maybe three years old, with straight dark hair (like mine, and cut much as mine had been at a similar age). I asked if the little girl was really named Cintra, and she was, so I introduced myself to the little girl ("My name's Cintra, too"), but she just stared at me.

I don't know that "stifled" is the right word for me. I'm just feeling incredibly unmotivated. Actually, that isn't strong enough - is there a word for being anti-motivated?

The amount of work required to run 3.5 has just gotten to be too much for me. Knowing 4E is coming, and knowing it promises to make my most-hated tasks easier (NPC design and prep, mainly), I find I just can't stand to do the work now. I've been running D&D nonstop for over 2 years - maybe I would have been this tired even without the 4E announcement. I don't know.

We cut our latest campaign short, and starting this weekend, I get to be a Player! My husband is going to run a HERO game (superheroes). It's taken several days for me to create my character, and I'm really excited about it. I think this is the first time I've looked forward to a gaming session for a few months!

Although I did joke to my husband that he picked HERO because it's so darned complex, he figures we'll get sick of it sooner, and I'll agree to run the Rise of the Runelords path before we switch to 4E. (Me - I'm honestly feeling like it might be easier to switch that path over to 4E, than to get myself motivated to run it in 3.5; although I'll probably run the haunted house next October, regardless of what edition I need to use.)

Razz wrote:

I miss the days of TSR...when the game was made for the sake of the game, not profit...anyone else here feel the same?

I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. Thanks.

I had to scroll back up and see if the quote attributed to Razz was another "paraphrase." It was real.

I'm still in shock.

Funniest post of the year. I just read it to my husband, and he laughed so hard he scared the cat.

3e originated around the gaming table, whereas 4e originated around the boardroom table. 3e was designed by gamers to please gamers, whereas 4e was designed to please old men in grey suits who think "gaming" means the blackjack table at Mohegan Sun.

Y'know, I've met a few of the folks who are working on 4E. (You know, seen them at a seminar at conventions, that sort of thing.) And I have a hard time imagining any of them, the actual designers, as these corporate goons you implicate. Those designers are way too enthusiastic about their home campaigns, their favorite game worlds, and their cool new characters to be anti-gamers.

AND, I work for a major corporation. I have an even harder time imagining anyone on Hasbro's board of directors coming up with any part of the design approach we're seeing described in, say, messages from Mike Mearls. The board of directors may ask what a particular division is doing to stay profitable, but they're looking at everything as red or green cells on vast spreadsheets. They may not even know what happens when you pass Go.

---

It's all fine and good for the anti-4E crowd to get together and show solidarity in their 4E-hate. I won't tell anyone that they're wrong when they say, for example, that Saving Throws and Spell Resistance should have been treated as sacred cows rather than as disposable mechanics. That's a legitimate opinion.

But when your whole contribution is to attribute anti-gamer motives to the designers - to me, that just comes across as silly. (Or at least, lazy.)

Try to keep the anti-4E arguments on topic, folks. Actual mechanics they've mentioned, actual design changes they've told us about, fluff changes that mess with your campaign's assumptions, that sort of thing. Thanks.

I now return you to your regularly-scheduled rant.

Thanks, everybody. I'm feeling better now.

No, seriously - having folks reply to me and take me seriously (even if some can't completely see where I'm coming from) is really helpful. Because I'm well aware that if I'd posted something equivalent to this at ENWorld, or (gods forbid) at Gleemax, the signal-to-noise ratio I'd have gotten back would have been really, really bad.

Here, it's a two-way conversation. On a public messageboard. Amazing!

(Group hug!)

Sebastian, you mentioned that it would be nice to have more people posting from amidst the pro-4E community here. I'll admit, that's where I'm guilty. I've been feeling afraid to post for a long time because I felt that my "optimism" would just draw arguments/attacks. But that's no way to make other people like me feel welcome here, either, is it?

So I hereby promise that I'll try to grow a backbone and start contributing a bit of enthusiasm, rather than waiting until I'm all depressed and irritable and posting a diatribe again...

You have to go to ENWorld to find info on 4E, which should be freely available on WOTC own site?

Actually, I go to ENWorld because Wizards' site is blocked at my workplace. Also because since 3E was launching, they've been the "news" site rather than the manufacturer's own marketing site. Also because Wizards.com as a web site leaves much to be desired from a visuals-and-navigation perspective.

And I can't argue with anything you say. WotC has completely flubbed the marketing so far, and the online "magazines" are a joke. None of which invalidates my distaste for the ongoing anti-4E rhetoric, with (from some people) the attitude that if you disagree with me, you must be an idiot.

As for Paizo products, please don't let the posts drive you away from good products. I like Paizo, its staff, and their products. They have always treated me kindly/professionally. To my knowledge, Paizo has not expressed statements to which you objected earlier. To stop buying from them JUST because of the boards is the equivalent of me not buying from WOTC JUST because of Gleemax (instead of my other reasons). I think your husband has the right idea.

I absolutely agree with what you say here - and in fact, this is the exact conversation my husband and I had about this, and the exact conclusion we came to.

But my point still stands. My frustration with the boards was bleeding over into my ability to appreciate the products. And if that can happen to me, a person who has been a Paizo customer and messageboard-regular for a pretty long time now, it can certainly affect other people with less reason to shop Paizo.

Let me give another example. I was surfing both ENWorld and Gleemax a couple of months ago, I guess - around the time of Erik Mona's "4.0: PAIZO IS STILL UNDECIDED" post. There were threads actively mocking this community because (paraphrasing the message, not quoting a specific thread) "those guys on the Paizo Boards are on the warpath" and "Paizo's becoming the home for every 3.5-or-die grognard."

Here's the thing. If the OGL ever becomes available, and works, and Paizo switches - how many of the people who spend most of their time at ENWorld or Gleemax, instead of here, are going to have a negative reaction to the idea of Pathfinder, and not even look at it, because of exposure to those threads. There are going to be some people who just retain a general sense of negativity about Paizo as a company, and/or Paizo's products, because of that sort of message having been out there. There are also going to be some people who retain an impression of Paizo (not the community on these boards, but the company itself) as anti-4E. So those people aren't going to be as likely to look at 4E Pathfinder products because they'll retain that concept. Even if it is only a relative handful of people, say a few dozen or a couple of hundred, that's huge in this market. And that's a real disservice to the company that we all love.

Am I all alone when I say that I'm excited about 4th edition?

Yes. You're all alone.

And I'm all alone too. I realize it pretty much any day that I come to the Paizo forums and see anti-4th-edition folks try to explain to us 4th-edition-optimists that we're idiots, and we never played the game right anyway, and the new game is going to be so much worse...

It wears on me. I love Paizo, but the attitude here on the boards is tainting my ability to appreciate Paizo products.

I go over to ENWorld and they have the latest info on 4th Edition. They debunk the hysteria. People over there have strong opinions, but overall, it seems pretty balanced to me. I come back here, and feel like I'm under attack for my beliefs. I can't glance at the 10 most recent threads list without seeing at least one anti-4E topic - or worse, one like this where someone was trying to find 4E-optimists, and has hordes of folks coming it to tell him why he's wrong - why he's alone.

I feel like I don't belong here anymore. Like two thirds of the community here would much rather I go somewhere else and never return, rather than hang out here.

I was telling my husband last night that I'm not sure I want to keep getting Pathfinder after my "free credits" from our subscription transfer. He pointed out that I'm just exhausted from trying to stat up stuff to run 3.5 every week, and tired of the anti-4E crowd here, and that I'm still enjoying Pathfinder itself.

But folks, you need to realize, if you're spending all this time trying to convince the rest of us that your 4E-hatred is the only right way, you're probably driving customers away. Paizo doesn't need that. Paizo doesn't deserve that. They go out of their way to be welcoming to people, to remind everyone that the employees at Wizards aren't bad guys, that friendly is better than arch-superiority. Please, learn from their example, and trim back the rhetoric. Please.

Because I want to stay a part of this community - and right now, I can't say that I feel like I am.

After taking a closer look, it's possible that the gray-haired fellow in front of the otyugh is Ezren, and the unfortunate airborne one is Harsk. The similarities of their outfits are just enough to suggest so.

As for the bard and the paladin, the bard could be the elf in back, but the female doesn't seem armored enough to be a paladin - unless she has some nice items!

"Nice items" was a euphemism, right?

Here is an excerpt of the policy from warehouse23.com:

Warehouse 23 FAQ Page wrote:

If any item on your order is not available, the entire order will be held until we either obtain the item or discover that the item is out-of-print. If you do not want to wait for the rest of your order, you can contact us with your order number to have the item removed.

If we discover that the item is out-of-print, we will remove it from your order and notify you of the revised total by e-mail.

Steve Jackson Games, who runs Warehouse 23, has been doing this online store thing for quite a long time. This has been their policy from the beginning. They update their stock status at the close of each business day. They also pull all available items for an order on the business day after it is placed. That means that within 24 hours you will generally know if all your stuff is going to ship immediately.

I'm not trying to be argumentative here, but I don't draw the same conclusions from your quote as you drew. I'm on the Quality team in a pretty big warehouse, and when I see the words "entire order will be held," I read that as the "order" being held (instead of filled), rather than the "merchandise" being held.

In a warehouse, you don't have space to accumulate and store partial orders for customers. You can't place a customer's name on an individual item and leave it in the mainbin. In our case, we hold a group of orders until we're ready to draw them off the computer and release them for fulfillment. Then we fill the order and immediately ship it.

The only technical "solution" I can see is that when someone's order contains items that are "back-ordered," Paizo could send an auto-email that informs the customer of this fact, and allows them the option of requesting action (splitting the shipment or cancelling the item) or waiting for the back-ordered item. I don't really know that this would solve anything, however, as by definition, Paizo won't know if other items on the order are really at any risk - if they thought they weren't going to be able to get that product, they wouldn't have allowed the orders in the first place. Or so I understand what's been said to this point.

By the way, I'm one of the customers who lost an item because of this, and Vic, I really appreciate your willingness to explain what happened. I now understand a lot better what caused this, and it makes me feel better about it - and makes me feel much better about Paizo than I would have if no such answers had been given.

Kruelaid wrote:

Are you going to post an image on the blog for those of us WHO LIVE IN FRICKIN' CHINA????!?!?!?!?

Yes, but only because you used 8 question marks and 4 exclamation points, Kruelaid. :-)

Kruelaid: Thanks for figuring out the exact punctuation combo required - you're my hero!

Vote for me!

No, I'm not a candidate.

No, I didn't even enter the contest.

No, there's not a way to enter a write-in candidate.

Oh. Umm. Nevermind.

This order has been held up for a while because of one backordered item. Now it looks like a separate item became "cancelled" because inventory ran out. So now I'm worried that if I keep being patient, I'll lose even more items.

I'd like to have the rest of the order shipped ASAP, and send the backordered item separately (and I understand that I'll be charged the shipping on that separate shipment). Thanks.

I was rather shocked by the negativism from the judges on this entry. While this isn't my very favorite, it definitely ended up in my top 6. I think it would have been an automatic shoo-in for my top 5 if it hadn't been for the pall cast upon it by the judges.

So then I found myself looking back and forth between this one and one other entrant. And ultimately, I realized that I was trying to choose between a good choice of subject matter (which I have to admit, this probably wasn't) and a mastery of the written word.

Ultimately, this gets my vote. I see tremendous potential in this writer's skills that I don't see in a couple of my other favorites. If he can make me interested in a blink dog nation, he can probably make me interested in pretty much any actual adventure he is ever hired to write.

I do hope to see something a bit closer to the "mainstream" in the future, however. Obviously gaming the system in order to garner votes comes off as irritating, to me at least (I'm not personally a fan of the Survivor/Idol style shows this contest is based on). And Erik, I think that your writing skills and imagination will put you at or near the "head of the pack" (so to speak) without resorting to such extremes as this entry entailed. :)

My husband has tried playing a bard 3 times. The first one was fairly standard, and disappointing. To make up for it, the second was a Goliath (race from Races of Stone, I believe) - bonus on Strength, plus the Massive Build racial trait to let him use Large weapons. That one was pretty cool, and probably the best option, assuming your DM will let you play a Goliath.

His current bard (attempt #3) is a gnome, and he isn't having much fun with it. He feels like he spends all of his actions letting other people do cool stuff.

If we were planning to stick with these characters for much longer, I'd probably house-rule some changes to incorporate 4th-Edition-promo thinking. Let the bardic music be a swift action, for example. Basically, make sure that he can do his cool-bard-boosts-for-allies and still get to DO SOMETHING himself. But again, you'd have to get your DM to agree to something like that.

Hasn't the deadline passed already?

I imagine, given the clarification given above for how contestants would know if their entry submitted successfully, that there may be a question of how the technical submission works (i.e. contestants may have thought they submitted and not realized it didn't 'send'), rather than a cut-and-dry issue of whether contestants can stick to firm deadlines. Personally, I think it's reasonable that would fall under the category of "judges' discretion."

I like the concept. I think it's an imaginative, useful item, and something that I would want for a PC.

I think the word-choice is lacking. It doesn't affect "the squares you're in" ... "considered to not include your squares in the first place" ... "where you can still be affected by that spell if you move into it before its duration expires" and so forth. I realize there could be an element of stylistic preference here, but in my opinion, for someone to be a Superstar, they need to have language skills that this entry seems to lack.

Even so, I see why this one could make the final cut - creative ideas that grab the reader's attention are worth a lot more than perfect sentence structure. (So, I'm sorry for the negativism, and congrats on making it into the top 32!)

I thought this part was pretty intriguing:

Alertness
Tier: Heroic
Benefit: You don't grant enemies combat advantage in surprise rounds.
You also gain a +2 feat bonus to Perception checks.

It's the first part of the Benefit that I'm talking about. My interpretation is that this is the equivalent of (in 3.5) adding "You aren't considered to be flat-footed in the surprise round" as a benefit to the Alertness feat. Since the 3.5 Alertness feat was a fairly useless one, I think this is a pretty interesting iteration.

And I'm curious to see what "combat advantage" foes get during the surprise round, since this implies to me that it way well not be just the same as in 3.5. Something other than the 3.5 flat-footed mechanic (which punishes high-Dex people far more than low-Dex people) could be a good change.

And here I was, coming in to this thread to recommend the McWoD spell system.

I haven't actually run or played in a game that used it yet - but it's quite straightforward, and looks like it will work extremely well as an on-the-fly build-the-spell-you-want kind of spell system.

I expect to be playing 4E by the end of '08. If Pathfinder doesn't go 4E, I'll have to make a decision at that point whether to continue with Pathfinder or not - but it's too soon at this point for me to be sure of any of these decisions.

Cosmo - Thanks for the quick reply, and for the bonus savings. I still feel a bit guilty, but I guess I'll just have to get over it. :)

When it comes to "world class customer service," you guys don't come close. You're so far beyond that. Galaxy-class customer service? (Nah, that would be a starship.) Cosmos-class? (Too punny?) Anyway, something like that...

Order 723779 - I didn't see anything in the sale that explained why the shipping was free on this. The only thing I could think of was that your system calculated the full price of everything I bought and it was over $100 - but it was all on sale, so it really didn't cost me that much.

And I'd rather you guys stay in business, plus it says "Lawful Good" right here in the alignment block on my character sheet, so I figured if this was a mistake, I'd better let you know.

Assuming it was a mistake, let me know if I need to do something else to authorize a corrected charge...

The only thing that might cause your group a problem is if you don't allow the easy purchase of magic items.

For example, most decent-sized communities should have someone who can sell potions of Fly, and wands of Cure Light Wounds. And if a PC wants to get an item like Winged Boots, he should at least be able to find a spellcaster who can make them to order. If these options are available to your PCs, then the party mix you've got should be just fine.

If your group prefers a play-style where magic items are never bought and sold, on the other hand, then it becomes much, much harder to have a group that doesn't fill all the roles, and therefore, much more important that the remaining spellcasters divvy up the responsibilities of the PC that left the group. This means the druid needs to help out with Dispel Magic and with healing, the cleric needs to branch out beyond just healing, and all three spellcasters need to compare options to determine who is best able to help the team with things like flying.

Rock-a-bye, ogre, sleep through the night,
Morning brings rainbows of shiny bright light,
Morning brings bunnies and flowers and song,
So sleep, baby ogre, sleep the night long.

From Part Three: Down Comes The Rain

Raindrops and gumdrops and bright purple flowers,
Sunshine and rainbows and laughing for hours,
Running with arms out as if they were wings,
These are an ogre’s most favorite things.

Fluffy white kittens asleep on my lap,
Playing all morning, then stop for a nap,
Giving my best friend my favorite toy,
This makes an ogre feel all full of joy.

When there’s thunder, when there’s lightning,
When I’m filled with fright,
I think of the rainbows that I will soon see,
And everything is alright.

I dislike horror as a genre. In particular, I dislike the use of gore as a tool for showing something is bad. I don't watch any horror movies, and I dislike movies of other genres that use gore to make a point instead of finding another way (e.g. the version of Dune they made a couple of decades ago; or, the vast majority of the Book of Vile Darkness, which focused on gore rather than on evil acts). On the other hand, I like the more subtle "horror" of the old Alfred Hitchcock movies (Rear Window, Vertigo), where the frightening things are what you can't see or don't yet understand. Intelligent horror writing, as opposed to shock-horror.

I thought the Skinsaw Murders was very well done. I didn't find it offputting at all. Yes, it has some fairly violent content, but it was handled with a deft touch, and my recollection of it doesn't include anything that was gore-over-substance. It was classy horror, very intelligent.

The third adventure is well-written, but many of the scenes are gratuitous. They're not so overdone that I can't present them in an acceptable way (I run at a gaming store in the mid-south/bible belt, with young teens and pre-teens running around the game room, and I'm very careful about what I present in my games because of this). I think this adventure pushes about as far toward that sort of genre as I can tolerate, and while I find it far less engaging than it could have been otherwise, it's okay as a once-in-a-while sort of thing.

If James had told us that the level of gore and shock-horror would be increasing, I'd probably be deciding right now that I won't be running these adventures for my group after all. As it is, and with what we've been told to expect in the future, I'm still comfortable planning to run these in a couple of months.

But put me down as a vote for "less gore" in future adventures. Haunting-style horror is good. Lantern Man is good. Detailed gross-out descriptions are just distasteful and unnecessary. And if this means I'm not part of Paizo's target market, that'll eventually drive me away, I guess. I'd rather it not come to that, because nobody else does adventures the way Paizo does. So I choose to believe this is as far as it goes, and it won't be the predominent style of adventures in the future, but an occasional spice instead. And that would be okay.

One or more of the goblin commandos could instead stay up on the timbers (assuming they got the change to climb the pillars once the alarm was raised), and use their bows to shoot at PCs while the boss uses ride-by-attack amongst them.

Because goblins like to use terrain and improvised weapons, it's possible that they could have something hidden up top to throw, instead of just using bows. Maybe one of the goblins hurls a skull down on the floor between the throne and the PCs, and the warchanter uses the wand of Silent Image to make the appearance of a swarm of spiders scattering out from where the skull struck and shattered? (The intent would be to keep the PCs from closing with the warchanter.) Or does that require too much coordination for goblins?

::Nick sheds a rainbow gum-drop tear on his original manuscript for Love Mountain Sing-A-Long::

The Ogre Song

Ogres gather, ogres sing,
Ogres pretty flowers bring.
Dance in circles round and round,
Ogre song's a happy sound.

Climb in trees, braid flowers in hair,
Ogres always glad to share.
Have a party, bring a friend,
Ogre fun will never end.

Ogres laugh and ogres play
Out in the sun-shiney day.
Splash in streams and skip-to-lou,
Ogres play, you come play too!

Does any of the other code from last April still work? I want to talk like a Pirate Smurf!

Smaaarf!

I think part of the concept of the Savage Tide adventure path was minimizing the ability to trade money for stuff. However, by the time the PCs are 9th or 10th level, and assuming they feel they can spare the time, teleporting back to Sasserine (via Renkrue) should be allowable with no real problems.

Basically, it's up to the DM running the game - if you want them to be able to teleport back to Sasserine, then a two-step hop via Renkrue is possible. If you don't want them to buy and sell stuff, but to be stuck with what they've got, then don't let them remember Renkrue well enough.

By my reading of the RAW, Renkrue should fall into "seen casually" at worst - the PCs wandered around, interacted with folks, and so forth, during their layover there. "Seen once" would be more like a single room somewhere that they passed through once - the main "market" or dock area of the village they'd have seen more than that. And you can always say that the wizard who wants to do the teleport happens to remember a distinctive rock formation or something, if you feel it necessary to justify it more than that.

It's entirely up to you-as-DM to hand-waive away the problems if they reduce the fun, or increase the problems if you don't want something to be easy. Just decide what you want your group to be able to do, and then go with it.

As far as I can tell, the Pathfinder page doesn't include GameMastery items (adventures, item cards) that are set in the Pathfinder world. Assuming I'm not just missing them somehow, I, too, would like to request a listing of those items on the Pathfinder page.

Oh, c'mon folks, you're not really buying this "Oooh, Nick wrote something really, really ookey" routine, are you?

It looks to me like Nick and James are trying way too hard to sell this story. See, what I think happened is, Nick's manuscript arrived in James' in-box, and when he flipped through it, it had sunshine-and-happiness ogrekin and free-love ogres everywhere. Happy fey nymph friends of everyone. Love and plentiful gooey chocolate cookies.

And James realized two things:
1) This adventure was too "care-bears"-compatible to publish.
2) If anyone ever learned what Nick had written, they'd never be willing to buy anything the poor guy wrote, ever again.

So he took into account Nick's situation (marriage, cross-country move, et.al.) and he decided to re-write the whole thing (possibly with Pett's help, I mean, they may not get along, but even Pett is capable of feeling pity for the poor guy), and then convince everyone that Nick's version had been So-Much-Kewler!

And I feel sorry for the poor guy too, with all his care-bears-and-lollipops creativity, but I feel that the truth must come out. I'm sorry to have to be the one to reveal the horrible truth, but I just couldn't stay silent any longer.

(And as for Lilith and the others who pretend they've seen the uncut version - really, people, is even Paizo worth perjuring yourselves for? You should be ashamed...)

Campaign Setting! Thank you, everyone at Paizo!

And in case Paizo marketing-types are tallying for these things - I'm in the "I'm going 4.0 but I'll be buying this product regardless of editions" category.

I wouldn't buy an adventure path intended for evil PCs. I prefer for my groups to portray "heroic" PCs.

I have no problem with an AP that includes advice/consequences for groups where the PCs perform evil acts, so long as that isn't the assumed or required behavior.

It takes our group three to four game sessions, so nearly a month, per level gained. So a 15-level Adventure Path is still going to take us most of a year to run (I'm not sure if the Pathfinder ones play faster, we haven't started yet).

I can't imagine anything more boring than facing the same foes, the same threat, for that long. I'd much rather have "story arcs" that are somewhat self-contained, but that lead reasonably to one another and that move the PCs toward their destined role as heroes. I personally love the fact that earlier story elements turn out to be related, or to give important clues, but often only in retrospect. And I think that kind of story-arc-to-saga is what Paizo produces.

So my personal vote is, Paizo should keep going with its existing design trend for the Adventure Paths.

In my group, until quite recently, the party included both a Fighter (spiked-chain guy who got to Whirlwind Attack as fast as he could) and a Warblade.

We also had a warmage, a knight, a cleric and a bard.

The warblade consistently outshone everyone in damage output. But we experienced that in the last campaign with the barbarian, so it didn't seem like a big deal. And because the fighter had specialized in mobility, he was possibly the second-most capable member of the party for the first couple of levels. (Capable = able to do cool stuff in each encounter.)

Then the warblade's player decided he wanted to change from the cool flavor of the Tiger Claw style with clawed gauntlets, and instead use the uper Greatsword that the party had just found.

Then the warblade's player, on level-up, discovered the maneuver that let him Whirlwind Attack. Note that the Fighter had ONLY JUST gotten to that feat, after investing everything he had to get there. And then the warblade's player announced that the maneuver let him take a single move and still do his Whirlwind maneuver.

Shortly afterward, the Warblade and the Fighter both died at the Improved Grab/Puree/Swallow Whole attack of a fiendish behir. I promptly banned the ToB from my table (the warblade's player was all set to "try a Swordsage next").

I think the ToB is a cool book with a lot of interesting flavor. I think it lets a martial type do some interesting things. But in my experience, the martial types get a lot of spotlight time without all those extra options, and in the hands of a spotlight-hog, the ToB just gives too many ways to nullify the chance to shine for everyone else. So the only way I can let the book back in is if I restrict who's allowed to use it - and that looks too unfair, even if it's the only way to ensure fairness.

There aren't going to be any Orcs or Goblins!

(And I have a Source for this "fact" - there are no orc or goblin minis in the new Desert of Desolation minis set, which is supposed to be a minis "preview" of the new edition!)

I'M GOING 4TH: If 4th edition really does make the job of running adventures easier, I'm switching as soon as I can (i.e. at the end of whatever adventure path I'm currently running). I'm entering my second major burn-out phase as a 3.x DM, despite running exclusively Paizo adventures. The current rule-set is so cumbersome that I can't pay attention to everything going on at the table, and simultaneously do justice to even pre-written adventures. And the overwhelming focus on numbers in 3.x means that it's very hard to convince my group of players to role-play and interact with the world; a simpler rule-set will allow more focus on other things than just "what's my attack roll with all these buffs added in."

ON THE OTHER HAND, that probably won't keep me from buying the third Pathfinder AP. I figure that no matter how different the new rules are, it will still be possible to use the adventure path's story and just convert monsters etc. as needed. In fact, I imagine that this community will be involved in doing unofficial conversions of the existing Paizo adventure paths at some point. If nothing else, converting an existing adventure will be a useful activity for me to learn the ins and outs of the new rules.

I'm really not expecting 4th edition to fail. If Paizo creates a new edition (3.75) while Wizards is publishing 4th edition, I'm probably going to have to go with Wizards and 4.0 - even though I prefer Paizo's products, I desperately need a simpler rule set, and I just don't see any way to get to a simpler rule-set with 3.x rules.

FINAL TALLY:
- Switching to 4th edition
- Willing to buy 3.5 adventures for a while
- Willing to buy setting materials for even longer
- NOT interested in a "3.75 upgrade"

Some things that can help with depression:
1) Start an exercise routine (if you don't already have one) - going for a long walk at the same time every day, or anything else that gets you up and moving, can help a lot.
2) Someone mentioned breathing. It's no joke. Breathing exercises can help trigger mood changes.
3) Avoid things that make you depressed. Okay, that sounds pretty stupid - but for example, all the negative 4th edition threads have been making me pretty upset recently, and I've had to stop reading them. I just forbade myself to look at them (and figured out that if I browse the front page of EnWorld, with its news-format but no commentary, I can keep up with what's going on without joining everyone else's death spiral of despair over the changes they don't like).
4) Come up with some events that you can forward to. Create them as needed. They don't need to be big thinks - it's probably better if they're smaller and more frequent. For example, schedule a lunch with some friends each week, or think about your next D&D game session, or maybe it's even as basic as coming home to your pet dog each day (or whatever). Actively remind yourself of it; encourage yourself to substitute thoughts of looking forward to it, rather than being depressed about (whatever else).

Medication isn't always worth avoiding. If you're doing okay without it, great - but if it ever seems like things are just getting worse, or you're really struggling and you don't have the energy to face your day anymore, it may be worth a try.

LONG STORY:

I've been diagnosed with OCD and also with an anxiety disorder. The OCD is mild enough that it's only sometimes "diagnosable" (that is, most of the time, I probably wouldn't quite qualify for the diagnosis). The anxiety only developed in the past few years, and became quite severe before I got it dealt with (crying fits at work, panic attacks, making myself sick enough that I had to go to the emergency room, thousands of dollars worth of diagnostics over several months for stomach-related stuff that turned out to be triggered by the anxiety).

I have atypical responses to the usual categories of anti-anxiety and anti-depressant medications. This was only figured out after I tried several of those related medications, and had reactions ranging from super-charged anxiety to suicidal impulses. (I could tell within a few days, in every case, that the medication wasn't helping me.)

So then I went to a real diagnostician/psychiatrist, and he figured out the pattern of responses I'd had, rejected all the medications that mess with Seratonin levels, and put me on the medication I use now (Remeron). I could tell the difference within a day or two. It was like I was suddenly me again, and I hadn't realized just how not-me I'd been - for years. I've been on Remeron for almost a year now, and I'm very happy with it.

I still have higher anxiety levels than "average," I suppose. I take the lowest possible dose that maintains the effectiveness, because the one side effect of Remeron is it makes you hungry (all the time - when I was at a higher dose, I'd find myself eating something without making any conscious decision to go get food), and I can't afford to gain any more weight. I also have some tricks I've learned (e.g. interrupting "bad" thoughts with a silent, or a spoken, "NO"). And I'm resigned to the fact that I'll be taking Remeron for the foreseeable future.

On the other hand, the best "side effect" of being on the right medication is that some bad thought-habits that I've developed over years of being anxious are gradually undoing themselves. For example, I've been phobic about bugs my whole life - see bug, scream, can't get near it, can't crush it, can't get around it to escape the area. If it's already dead, I can't clean it up because I can't touch it, even with a broom. True phobia. The other day, a big beetle-thing was crawling across the floor of my cube at work, and before I knew what I was doing, I stomped on it with my shoe. Then, still marveling at my new-found courage, I grabbed a couple of tissues, PICKED UP the dead bug (and felt it crunch in between my fingers), and tossed it into the trash. I couldn't have done that a few months ago.

A good psychiatrist won't just medicate you because it's easy, he'll work with you to determine if medication is the right thing. He'll be able to answer questions about how likely various side effects are, and he'll want you back in for follow-up not too long after trying a new medication, to watch for problematic side effects.

One thing to be aware of with anti-depressants: the newest ones have shorter ramp-up times, and correspondingly shorter ramp-down times, but that can actually be a bad thing, because it takes a very short time indeed for some people to become dependent on those short-ramp-up medicines - even when the "official" info is that those anti-depressants don't cause dependency. There've been some interesting news stories about this in the past year or so. Find a prescriber who is on top of the latest research and who is willing to discuss your concerns with you - if they aren't capable of this, it's better to find someone else.

I can't access the Wizards (or the Gleemax) site from work. Someone want to repost the article (maybe behind a spoiler tag)?

I just took a look at the picture. Yeah, I think you're right - it's not just you that has the head-ridge and boobs.

(Isn't that what you meant?)

My players are sometimes a bit lax about the role-playing - it can be hard to get them to communicate with NPCs, develop relationships, or otherwise do stuff that would let me evaluate their "sinfulness." That is, I can mark up plenty of Wrath, but let's face it, how easy is it to find signs of Sloth or Gluttony in the behavior of a PC?

With that in mind, I created the following survey question (as part of a larger questionaire I intend to use to encourage them to develop their characters better). If anyone else wants to use it, feel free. (The associated sins are, in order: Gluttony, Lust, Wrath, Greed, Pride, Envy, and Sloth.)

- - - - -

Imagine that your PC has a day to spend, however he wants, between adventures. Rank in order (from 1 to 7, with 1 being the thing your PC would most want to do) which of the following would be your PC’s preferred way to spend the time.
(NOTE: This is what your PC would want to do during down-time, NOT what you would want to spend time on during the game session.)

___ Enjoying fine food and drink.

___ Enjoying the company of an attractive companion.

___ Getting into a fight.

___ Earning some extra money.

___ Telling stories of your achievements to an admiring audience.

___ Taking action to get an advantage over a rival (or to make them look bad).

___ Just relaxing somewhere.

Add me to the list of people who love this art. That picture of Ameiko is definitely something I can use.

For art styles in general, I think what I prefer is that the art actually be representative of the subject matter. For example, the reason I'm not so appreciative of WAR's character portraits is because I can never tell what race they're supposed to be. When I take a look at some of the big multi-character pieces inside the front covers of the Eberron books, I can't tell if some of those figures are Aerenal elves, humans, "furries," or something else. And if I can't tell what it is I'm looking at, how can I use it as something to show my players, to say "This is what you see"?

With all that said, the art in this thread so far is wonderful, and I'd love it if the character portraits in Pathfinder started going more to this style instead. (If not in this path, maybe in the 2nd one?)

It is the city that the dungeon is in for Seven Swords of Sin.

EDIT: LINK

Good to know. Thanks, Ungoded!

Okay, something I'd like to see - an online index of useful citations, as in what sources contain information on specific locations, important NPCs, and cultural details. The sort of thing we could use to figure out what items to buy/read if we want all the relevant info on a specific topic.

e.g. "Kaer Maga: Seven Swords of Sin (setting of)"
"Sandpoint: Pathfinder 1 (map, fully detailed); RotR Player's Guide (map), Pathfinder 2-? (setting of)"
"Thassilon, history of: Pathfinder 1"

Something like that, anyway. (Or even, permission for us to create this kind of index. No detailed entries, just an index. And by "us" I mean someone who can actually program something like this, which means not me, although I'd be glad to help fill it in if someone else builds the database.)

When will Pathfinder or GameMastery revisit Kaer Maga? This is my favourite place in Golarian (so far).

Where is there information about Kaer Maga (other than oblique references)? I seem to have missed it...

We used to run the game from our house, and having lots of books wasn't a problem. After our home gaming group fell apart a few years ago, we started running a group at our FLGS, so we have to cart everything to the store every Saturday. Not just the books, but any minis I need to use, pens for drawing the maps, illustrations, etc. We have two wheeled crates for carrying books (they're actually sewing maching totes), a big tackle box for the minis, and sometimes other stuff - for example, two PCs died last week, so I've got to bring a couple of large boxes of minis (the "humans, demi-humans, and unique characters" boxes from my extensive collection) for them to select the correct minis for their new PCs.

The store owners let us leave the huge pad of graph paper there, but I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving anything actually valuable there. As in, I'd never leave books there, but I've considered taking a cheap printer and keeping it (with a supply of paper) at the store. But then I'd have to cart my laptop with me every week, and that's a whole new issue. (Keeping it safe, finding space on the game table, etc.)

SO - any printed reference that really does consolidate needed information is very valuable. If enough of them were available as searchable text files to make toting the laptop worth it, that would be cool too, but just the SRD and my persoanlly-typed spells database aren't enough...

People see what they look for. If you look through everything the WotC people say, trying to find things that insult you, I guarantee you're going to find it. And if I read those same blogs and announcements, looking for signs that the WotC folks love the game and are trying to make changes that will improve the game, I guarantee I'll find that, too.

The problem is, when you come in here and insist that those guys are insulting you by stating certain things, or that they are idiots for believing gamers want the stuff they say gamers want - well, that means that you're insulting me for agreeing with them or looking forward to the changes being made. Meanwhile, you're not communicating these feelings to Dave Noonan or Mike Mearls, you're communicating your feelings to us. In effect, you're venting in a community where you feel safe, among friends - and if someone wants to call you for your negativism and say you're being a bit over the top about it, well, that's fair, because we (the whole Paizo community) are the ones you're venting to, and it's our airspace you're polluting. And we're all friends, and we want our friends to take a step back, and maybe try to be a bit more optimistic about life (or at least, less agressively pessimistic).

You're entitled to your feelings. The anger you feel is understandable. I've seen it with every edition change so far, and I know it's a very natural thing, and it lasts (usually) until shortly after the new edition comes out - so we can reasonably expect that between the announcement at GenCon, and next summer's release, people will be feeling this turmoil. But from my perspective, I've also seen that every edition change has been an improvement. AD&D was better than the little booklets. 2nd edition was mostly the same as 1st edition, but it cleaned up some stuff. 3rd edition was a great improvement over 2nd, and 3.5 (even though I fought it at first) made some real improvements over 3.0. But there's no denying that the current version of the game is very complicated, that it's easy for combat to bog everything down, and a whole host of other things that make the game less fun than it could be.

The idea that the game could use some improvement doesn't mean that everyone who enjoys it now is "wrong." Just as the fact that they're changing things about the game you love doesn't automatically make them "wrong." It's the knee-jerk reaction I protest - the casting everything "they" say in a bad light, just because you want to disagree with them so badly.

I'd be fine with "I feel" statements - "I feel like I'm losing something really important to me if they change the Great Wheel / Forgotten Realms / Succubi this way." But the overt inferences of evil intent, of stupidity, of malign attitudes ("they are just marketing drones" / "they don't know anything about the game because they got this obscure detail wrong" / "they say I'm having badfun because I spent all this money to play this game" are just getting really, really tiresome.

Or at least, that is how I feel.

When my group got within range of the Night Twist, I started humming. I kept it up throughout the encounter, as long as the thing was "singing." Only one PC (out of 6) made the save; he managed to help a couple of others with Magic Circle Against Evil, and that half of the group was able to finish it off fairly easily. But they were absolutely terrified of it.

That was most of a year ago now, and recently I was running a scene (new campaign, much lower level characters) where the PCs heard singing as they moved through a marsh. It was harpies in the distance, trying to lure them in - but three members of the group started talking about that tree, really worried, and massively relieved when it turned out to be "just harpies."

So ultimately, this scene is one of those that comes down to the initial saves. The more people who fail (short of the entire group, of course), the more memorable the scene.

4e will be the greatest game ever and anyone who says otherwise is an ignorant, whiny nay-sayer who should just keep playing that 3.5 garbage. Stop cluttering up my precious board with your incessant complaining. Only over-zealous fan boys should be allowed to post.

I'm offended. This is completely outrageous. It's discriminatory.

How dare you exclude the over-zealous fan girls. We're not allowed to post now, is that it?

I'm calling a lawyer.

(Hey, Sebastian! Over here!)