Craig Shackleton's page

Steerpike7 wrote:

I like minions as well, though when you're dealing with higher level monsters (oh, a Giant maybe) the whole 1hp idea doesn't work for me. I'd think about giving minions 1hp per level though.

really what you want is 'it dies when you thump it one'. I'd basically give them some kind of DR/Energy Resistance. What you want to do is make the players actually hit the minion - not take it out with the splash damage from Alchemists fire.

Saying it as 8 hps when their 13th level and its an 'Ogre Minion' does not really cover the desired effect - they'd kill them with secondary damage from various things. Essentially you need it so that the minion takes no damage unless the players actually go through the trouble of landing some kind of a real blow. At this point its just presumed that the players do enough damage to kill it.

There is already a rule in place much like this; Minions in 4E take no damage from effects that do damage on a miss, so if you fireball a bunch of them, only the ones that are 'hit' by the fireball are affected.

What you do with WIS is basically what we do with INT. As for INIT bonus and DEX, it makes sense, but both of those things are already figured into the initial die roll, so aren't you really counting them twice?

Sort of, but I don't mind throwing a bone to people who blew a feat on improved initiative and making the odd number stat value of Dexterity count for something once in a while.

BAB as a tie breaker is an excellent idea, and I may throw that into mix, possibly before wisdom.

BabbageUK and ArkadyV:

I'm not going to quote your entire discussion about cookie cutter characters and reduced connection to the character, but what you were discussing looks like exactly what I was trying to get at in my earlier post in this thread (on page 1).

I don't think that the characters are any less interesting to play, but the fact that they are less involved to create, gives the impression that they are less unique (even though I feel this impression is ultimately false). It also fails to engage the player in the same way as 3E character generation.

On the flip side, it's faster and easier, and less prone to weird combinations that destroy balance.

Call me #6 on the list (or back-up player if you prefer).

You think that's bad. Once James Jacobs pulled my ear off. Hard.

Weren't no dream neither.

Were you playing mig a mug tug at the time?

Nick you may remember me mentioning THIS artist at Origins last year. She does some excellent scifi stuff as well as fantasy.

Panda-s1 wrote:

By the way, good luck trying to do two five-foot-steps in one turn in 3.5.

You mean a move action with tumbling? Same effect, different way of doing it.

Meant to comment on this earlier. Your solution does not fix the problem of being able to move and multi-attack if you are a ranger, which I believe was part of the point.

Rambling Scribe wrote:

I had an interesting conversation with one of my friends about 3E, 4E and modularity. My assertion was (and is) that 4E is far more modular than 3E, because 3E is integrated where 4E is modular.

I'm not sure if I agree or disagree with this, based on the definition you have of modularity. How do you define "modularity", here?

That will help me understand. Thanks!

What I mean by modular is that the pieces are self-contained and easy to add on or take off, in this case specifically the various special effects of the game.

I'm very seriously considering it, but I haven't even looked at what would be involved yet.

Rambling Scribe wrote:

Nick, Funny thing. A friend of mine edits SFSite, and yesterday he gave me a postcard sent to him by a fantasy/scifi artist, very nice piece. Well, they don't use art or review artists, so he gave it to me in case I knew someone looking for an artist.

So I just went and checked the artist's website, and there was the art for Blood of the Gorgon!

So, I give a hearty recommendation to the artist you are already using! ;-P

Hey Craig! Which artist is this? Wolf is on point arranging the art for Gorgon. I know he's using James Keegan, but I don't know if he's using other artists too. Hook a cabbage up! :-)

It's McLean Kendree: LINK

I will play 4E as written for a goos while before I implement any changes, but the top of my shortlist right now is putting critical confirmation back in.

Since this thread is already off-topic, please excuse me for a moment while I add to that.

Anyone else have the issue where a new page of a thread fails to show up as a selectable option? I've seen this a few times now, when a new page has only a few posts on it. I can read the posts, but only by manually editing the address can I reach the page (or clicking on latest post from the main forum). Like right now, I see Scribe's post but no indication there is a page 1 and 2 ... only by getting rid of the page=2 in the address do I get back to the first page ...

Edit: Refreshing doesn't help, but everytime I've posted the page links have appeared afterwards, if that helps!

This happens to me all the time. I assume it's connected with the ongoing 'disappearing post' bug that Gary keeps trying to squash.

Getting a little tangental, but my current 3.5 AoW campaign has 2 elans, a warforged, a half-orc and one human. The half-orc and human both have rings of sustenance, so none of us need to eat, ever.

I have mixed feelings about the 1 hp thing. I agree that sometimes it just seems wrong, but

A) It's so much easier if you don't have to track it at all,

and

B) I think of minions as the nameless outlaws on the roof of the saloon in the cowboy movie. when you hit them, they die spectacularly, staggering backwards off of the roof and falling under the hooves of the stampeding cattle running by. They add colour and drama to an encounter that is greater than their threat value. Of course, this is because I've played other games with minions that spelled all of that out in that specific way, and I really liked it.

My brother has started using the bloodied description in our 3.5 game to deal with "How hurt does this guy look?"

I would steal minions. I like big fights with lots of guys. I like some of them to be effective but not overly tough. To adapt them to 3E, I think I'd give them 1/4 HP, 1/4 damage per attack, and 1/4 XP value. Or I might just give them 1 HP like 4E. Hard to say.

That does sound intriguing. Personally, I quite like the modularity of 3e (a lot) and see it as one of the great strengths. Without having seen the rules for 4e (a huge caveat) what is described sounds like it might be great for a month or two, but if the character classes do wind up being a bit generic would that excitement fade? I'm not sure if that is true, or if the 4e rules are really like that. I didn't really care too much for the earlier editions of D&D because the characters were not terribly variable. On the flip side, the system sounds quite elegant (if blandly described) and this could be a big, big plus. I would be interested in seeing the views of people who have actually seen the rules and played the, as to whether the above review is a good summary.

While not meaning to twist your words exactly, I'm going to probably twist your words! ;-)

I had an interesting conversation with one of my friends about 3E, 4E and modularity. My assertion was (and is) that 4E is far more modular than 3E, because 3E is integrated where 4E is modular.

Most class features, feats, spells, and even base ability scores in 3E interact with each other in a very complex way. They come together to create an overall effect, but if you make an adjustment in one place, it's repercussions trickle through the whole character. For example, if you cast Bull's Strength, your to hit, damage, carrying capacity and some skills are all affected, and this could have complex results. If you are a 2H weapon fighter, your damage increases differently. Not that anyone would use this, but if your increased carrying capacity put you in a lower load category, your move rate and max dex change. To go a step further, if you change size categories it increases your strength and adds a bunch of other effects, including changing the relative encumbrance of your equipment (again, most people ignore half of these effects).

The more bits you add on, the more complex these repercussions become, and every new feat, power, spell whatever needs to be assessed based on ever more complex combinations of results.

This makes game design incredibly difficult, but it also makes character design incredibly fun for those of us who like to sit and work out all of those complex combinations that will result in an unexpected benefit.

In 4E, almost all of the class features, powers and whatever are truly modular. They do something specific, that has little impact on any other part of your character. The effects are designed specifically to not trickle through to other parts of the character, at least not in any complex way. There are powers that let you increase the number of times you can use another power and things like that, but I think the most complex effects are the stat-ups when you go up levels (which don't happen on the fly).

This does make character generation less exciting, no doubt about it. But it doesn't make the character less fun to play in game. I'm not sure how to make up for this loss of design fun.

The benefit that it provides is that it makes design easier and safer. As long as all add-ons continue to follow the basic principal of modularity of integration, it will be hard to generate 'broken' material, and easier to simply exclude broken material without affecting some other part of the game in an unanticipated way.

Also, it is one of the things that speeds game play. There will be no more scrambling to recalculate every aspect of your character after Dispel Magic wiped out all of your buffs, or crazy things like that.

One other point: The modularity makes character design less exciting, which I think is what makes people think the characters are all cookie-cutter copies. The options are still there, they just don't interact with each other in the same way. It seems to matter less what you pick when all you get out of a choice is whatever that choice is. Of course, not as many options are there in just the core rules as are in the full range of 3E material as well, but that's a separate issue.

That said, they have put in some false integration that I think was intended to combat this impression, but instead in some ways it has exacerbated it. Several classes have a class-feature selection like the Warlord's inspiring presence/tactical presence. These give a flat benefit, and then certain powers act differently depending which you chose. Unfortunately, IMO, the net result is that once you've made your initial choice, it pretty much by default makes some of your power choices for you. Once you've chosen tactical presence, it's an obvious good choice to choose the powers that are improved by tactical presence. The exception is the ranger, whose powers work with either weapon style, they all just work better with the one you focus on.

[/ramble]

Alright, color me amused...

I just saw the "Sinister things await beneath the waves" header on the main Paizo page and thus discovered Nick Logue's "Indulgence" series. So I click-thru to view the products when what should I find but a $1.50 download called "Art of the Duel".

Well, since one of my favorite characters is a swashbuckling bard, I figured I'd buy it to check out his OGL treatment of rapiers and fencing.

It would seem that Nick Logue thought to use AoOs in concert with the act of parrying attacks, just like I'd suggested earlier...

Am I chagrinned that he thought of it first? Nah! It was actually kind of gratifying to see that a pro like him thought it could work too. :)

I could easily see how some of the feats in that PDF could be adapted to Sword & Board without too much trouble. It's Open Game Content too so it should work with PFRPG even if it doesn't get included directly. For $1.50, some of You other S&B guys might want to have a look for Yourselves...

Nick Logue is a brilliant game designer, but I feel obligated to mention that it was me who designed that puppy! Which just means that I get to be the one to say Thank you for your kind words.

And you'd be surprised at how many people had been/have been working on similar concepts to various parts of that little pdf.

Thanks!

Craig Shackleton,
The Rambling Scribe

EDIT: Personally, I'd love to write a sword and shield article like 'Art of the Duel.' My earliest experience with historical combat involved sword and shield, and it is still dear to my heart. I've been doing a lot of research and interpretation of a manual from ~1300 AD (RA manuscript I:33) that deals exclusively with sword and shield (technically buckler, but more like a D&D light shield).

Thanks Laithoron, and thanks for the review! Much appreciated, and I'm glad you enjoyed the indulgence.

If they can somehow turn down the uber-ness of 4e characters to make Dark Sun 4e a viable game, then I'd have to at least think about it, though I don't really know where I'd find a DM.

I find this statement a little baffling. It's been a while since I played Dark Sun, but my recollection was that the characters started ar 4th level minimum with Crazy high stats and abilities. I played a Mul; our party got lost in the desert with little food and water, so we built a palanquin with a canopy for shade, and my character carried the other 5 out of the desert without needing to rest. We conserved food and water because the rest of the party were resting in the shade. 4E is nowhere near that level of 'Uber.'

EDIT: This was our intro adventure to, so he was a starting character with no magic equipment or anything.

I will play both. Initially I want to try them both out and see what my players like. If we go with 4E mainly, I will be converting Pathfinder material quite a lot.

I have a secondary reason as well. I hope to write material for both games (as in, to be published). I don't feel it's really possible to write effectively for any game if you don't play it.

My third reason is that I suspect most of my players and I will want to stick with Pathfinder for our main games, but 4E will probably be what we choose for pick up games, and games at cons (although of course I will also be involved in PFS).

The only thing that's annoyed me so far is the martial classes having at-will powers. It would seem unfair if they didn't, but they've been absurd in actual play so far. Regular melee and ranged attacks no longer exist in actual play. Why would they when my characters can do special attacks every single round? It's kind of like seeing a lame fighting game where they call out their attack every single round. That's my only big pet peeve so far. My girlfriend thinks 4e is awesome though. :)

I just think of these as being something like feats, in fact quite a lot like the combat feats from the Pathfinder Alpha. Martial at will powers are combat techniques the character can perform, but they can't do more than one at a time. You can use the one that gives you a bonus to hit, or you can use the one that gives you a bonus to damage, but not both (example taken from the dragonborn paladin pregen from KotS). If you are doing an opportunity attack or something else like that, you can'y use any of them.

It doesn't bother me from that perspective.

Nick, Funny thing. A friend of mine edits SFSite, and yesterday he gave me a postcard sent to him by a fantasy/scifi artist, very nice piece. Well, they don't use art or review artists, so he gave it to me in case I knew someone looking for an artist.

So I just went and checked the artist's website, and there was the art for Blood of the Gorgon!

So, I give a hearty recommendation to the artist you are already using! ;-P

I break ties as follows:

1) Init bonus. This gives an advantage to PCs who take improved initiative, which makes the feat slightly better, which is good IMO. It also favors high Dex over lucky roll.

2) Dexterity Score. Two characters might have the same bonus, but one has a higher (odd) Dex.

3) Wisdom Score. I see Wisdom as being part of perception, which has a bigger impact on initiative than any of the other stats IMO.

I've only once had to go further, but it was between two PCs, so I just let them decide, figuring one essentially delayed his action.

How does the fact, or lack thereof, that any previous edition would encourage RP more or less than 4E discuss the merits of 4E itself? I just don't understand the eagerness to compare editions with regards to the arguments at hand.

This is a simple result of the fact that so many people on these boards (not you) are trashing 4E in comparison to 3E. There are multiple posts to the effect of "I'll stick with 3E because 4E removed all elements of role-play from D&D"

Not that this is a direct quote. I'm sure I wouldn't have to look far to find one if you want. My assumption has always been that this is essentially the false comparison that the OP was questioning.

For instance my wife recently got into playing, and has started gravitating towards the arcane magic user role. I can't go to the local game store anymore to pick up a copy of Complete Arcana for her. I also can't get it on ebay - a quick search provided me with a grand total of ONE copy for sale, and they've been going for far above retail.

I'm not trying to be snarky, honestly, just helpful. The problem is that the book is called Complete Arcane, not Complete Arcana. EBay has a boatload of them, and at a quick glance, the cheapest I saw was $8.

Ashavan, Steerpike, I'm with you guys. It's been a lot harder lately to enjoy these boards as a person who likes both 4E and Pathfinder. I've been sticking it out because I believe that things will calm down and improve. And actually, I think it's already starting to get better. I'm sure there will still be edition wars until the end of time, but I haven't felt insulted as often in the last two days as I did the two days before that. Maybe it's just because people are at work or I've gotten better at avoiding the threads that are most inflamed, but I'm holding out hope.

I recommend checking out the Pathfinder Iconic 4E conversion thread, that one made me feel better that there is room for us all here.

I want to convert an AP to 4E and run it... I may start with Savage Tide, since I've wanted to run it for a long time, but we'll see. Once I get going (which may be a little while) I'll post conversion notes here. Part of what I want to test is, can I convert it almost on the fly, with say, less than 2 hours of prep time per session.

But first we need to finish the Age of Worms...

Rambling Scribe wrote:

Under stealth skill, it also says that it is part of whatever action you are doing stealthily. This is at the beginning of the boxed text, where the other skills say what kind of action it is to use the skill in a given way.

Got it. So any idea what's up with the sidebar that says to make it at the end of your turn?

I hadn't seen that sidebar before, so I'll have to take a look. I've been trying to figure out how to interpret the 'part of the action' rule works if you are staying in a square with concealment and just hiding (if that's even possible). Perhaps the 'end of your turn' sidebar is for that scenario.

Under stealth skill, it also says that it is part of whatever action you are doing stealthily. This is at the beginning of the boxed text, where the other skills say what kind of action it is to use the skill in a given way.

I totally agree with Whimsy Chris, except about the Bella Sara players. Everyone knows that they are all curmudgeonly lawyers with hearts of obsidian.

Within two weeks we will have at least 6 4E character gen programs available on the net. We already have several free online game tables available. WotC had a chance to draw in a bunch of subscribers but by the time they get the DDI implemented, the people who haven't given up entirely will have found free software that they are happy with.

I'm pretty impressed with the 4E rules, but this is a monumental fumble. And the fact that the only communication about it is buried in their messageboards just makes it worse.

Wow its getting worse they seem to have created a new thread link in the origonal thread.

LINKED

I just want to say that I sincerely hope that the 4E forums stay up. Right now I expect I will be playing 4E and Pathfinder in the future, and wanting to discuss both. It's likely that I'll convert an AP to 4E (possibly the Savage Tide, maybe a Pathfinder Path). These are all things I want to discuss here.

Not only is this the best place to talk about Paizo adventures, I enjoy this community in general, and have a pretty good feel for a lot of people here. Even hearing the opinion of someone I disagree with is usually helpful if I know where that person is coming from.

I have no interest in moving to ENWorld or the WotC forums. I check them occasionally when I'm given a juicy link here, but that's it. I don't plan to stop posting at Paizo, and I don't need more messageboards to suck my time out.

I do hope folks can stop crapping on each other soon. It's a disservice to this fine company and community.

I've been wanting to play a character like the warlord class for a long long time, so I'[m pumped for that. I'll go tactical over inspiring. I haven't decided on race though. I'll probably end up with a human.

Mousey, I understand your point but I do have one counterpoint.

Of your three examples, the second one reads like a more fun roleplay experience than the second. The first one really is more or less what 3E supports in terms of what the rules give you. The second one is what 4E supports in terms of what the rules give you. I'm not saying that the second example is an in depth roleplay immersion or think outside the box scenario, but it's a big step up, which to me indicates that 4E does support roleplaying more than 3E. The third example is not really supported by either rules set, although it is by other games (7th Sea comes to mind).

So by your example 4E seems to support RP through its system more than 3E.

Even better! To clarify - have they done warforged as a PC race yet?

LINK

Tenser's Floating Disk is still Tenser's floating Disk.

I look forwad to kill..er..meeting you all.;-) I hope you think the scenarios are fun. I'm no Nick Logue, but I'll do my best to keep up with the flagrant casual in-game swearing.

Dude, don't even try. You'll just sprain your tongue or something. Honestly, if Nick had just skipped saying the F-bomb over the course of Origins last year, he probably wouldn't have lost his voice by the end.

I'll be running "Frozen Fingers at Midnight" in all four slots. I expect I will see some of you there.

I have to admit that when i played Keep on the Shadowfell, i really wanted to hate the 1-1-1-1 movement and square bursts, but my resolve broke in the first fight. It just didn't actually bother me all that much. There has been talk of importing it to our 3.5 game. I would have never chosen that beforehand.

I was just following up on Paul's Joke (and I agree with him). The problem is that a) no matter how unimportant a rule is to you, it has become apparent that someone on these boards thinks that rule is the core of what D&D 'really is' to them. and b) any suggestion of making Pathfinder resemble 4E will generate a slew of "If you like 4E go play 4E" and similar comments.

At its heart, your idea is a good one. I just think that it's likely to set a few people off.

I also made it to Wizard's Tower, but by the time I got there (~3:20), no other new players were arriving. I sat and watched a game for just the end (including a father and son... was that you Tarren? Last table on the right, game finished around 3:50 pm?) chatted to some people, etc. Nice digs, and I talked to the owner about setting up some PFS stuff after GenCon. He's pretty keen to support both Pathfinder and 4E. Sorry I missed you Armac! David (the owner) told me you had been in but had to leave.

But detect magic takes a few rounds to warm up to being useful. It's totally not worthwhile to sit there concentrating on detect magic when the fit hits the shan.

I've used this for a while, and I find it no problem

LINK
LINK
LINK
As can be seen on these two links, I support unlimited CmW. Some don't like it for sure, but I think it is a benefit to design.

EDIT: Make that 3 Links.

How about 1d4 + (maximum-4)?

Just an idea off the top of my head.

So wizards get d4
Rogues Get d4+2
Clerics get d4+4
Fighters get d4+6
Barbarians get d4+8

My brother uses a different system. Roll once. If it's above average, that's your roll. If it's less than average, roll a second time and take the better of the two.

Although in general I'm more and more in favour of fixed HP as time goes by.

Rambling Scribe wrote:

Well, they've said that they had a bigger initial print run than 3.5 and that 3.5 had a bigger initial print run than 3.0, and that 4E sold through faster than either.Unless they are outright lying (which I doubt) then it's pretty hard to deny that their sales are good.

Where have they said that 3.5 had a bigger run that 3.0E? I'd be surprised if this was the case, especially the initial print run (which is what they are talking about). I've seen some people posting it, but I imagine if it were so the marketingspeak for 4th would have trumpeted that too.

Edit: actually, over the life of the product I wouldn't be surprised, so it is just that first run I'm curious about.

Sorry I missed this earlier.

Mike Mearls said it in his blog, which was linked to from ENWorld.

EDIT: Although looking at it now, Mearls doesn't specifically say initial print run, but that seems to be what he's talking about.

Postal carrier brought mine about 45 minutes ago. Nice production value.

I'll probably be at Wizard's Tower (Barrhaven) from about 3:30 onwards.

I'm going to try and make Game Day at Wizard's Tower on Saturday, but no guarantee. I'm also definitely in for PFS stuff.

Another visitor. Stay a while. Stay forever!

Destroy him, my robots!

One more important thing; the Pathfinder RPG system is in development. All of the other products are currently being written for the standard 3.5 OGL rules, and will be until the final version of the Pathfinder RPG launches in August 2009.

The material will still be largely compatible however. The fluff won't change, and compatibility between standard 3.5 and Pathfinder RPG is an important design goal.

Rodney is the Shizzle!

I really am only familiar with him from his posts on these boards, but Finding out that he is writing an installment of the AP greatly increases my interest in it.