Dennis da Ogre's page

This is an area in which one rule doesn't necessarily make sense for all game worlds, though, and for which each DM already has a preferred rule (most of which are different). I personally would not add a mechanical rule to the core rulebook saying "dwarves cannot be wizards or sorcerers because that archetype doesn't work for my campaign world." Same deal with PrCs in general. I'll echo Robert's comment that, for novice DMs, some examples and the reasoning behind them would be better than trying to fit all possible worlds under one rule.

Indeed, and while I personally don't care for 'munchkins' I know there are groups who love it and try to outdo each other. Who are we to say that is any less legitimate a form of gaming? For that matter, maybe there is a non-munchkin reason for trying to do what you suggest doing. Heck maybe the guy with the paladin wanted to play a broken hero who was struggling against his baser nature and trying to redeem himself.

Ultimately D&D is NOT governed by a set of rules, it's governed by a DM. If that DM is not up to saying no when a player tries to pull a fast one then he's going to wind up with footprints all over his back in any case.

Dennis da Ogre wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

We'll be doing regular updates to the Beta though; I suspect that prestige classes will be among the first of those updates.

Are these regular updates to the beta going to be rolled out to the testers? In what format? Obviously you aren't going to be reprinting the book multiple times but will there be revisions to the Beta PDF or supplemental PDFs?

Updates will come in the form of PDF supplements. (We don't want to "penalize" anybody for buying the book.)

Awesome! You made my day.

Darned post eating monster I hate you!!!!

Checked out the BTP video and frankly it doesn't excite me, I can't really understand what the appeal of that is. Clearly Andrew finds it appeal so I'm not saying it's without merit, just personally it has little appeal. The only thing I really enjoyed about the video was checking out the minis they were working on. I'm not sure Paizo has something that visual to justify making videos.

On the other hand... a series of podcasts would definitely appeal to me. Maybe a weekly or bi-weekly interview about various changes coming in to the game. Some of the interviews could cover the Pathfinder Modules as well.

Also, looking at the quality and finish of the videos from BTP you are right that it wouldn't take very long to put together. The videos I've done have had much more editing than that.

@ Krome -- I've put together a few movies in iMovie on my Mac. Actually upgrading my mac just for that reason.

Saving throws really is a concern. But not in this build, because all this classes just have one good save.

You get F +4 R +2 W +2 wich is not really much more powerful than the standard +4 Good Save +1 +1 Bad Saves.

Well if you replace the one level of fighter with a level of ranger you get +4/+4/+2 or cleric would be +4/+2/+4.

You could tune your character just for great saves. Ranger/ Cleric/ Monk/ Druid would be +8/+4/+6. Only problem is he wouldn't be much good at anything in particular other than saving throws. You BAB would be +1. There is probably some crazy PrC that qualifies you for out there though.

I should have looked at that a little more closely, those saves aren't nearly as great as I figured it would be. Of course when he PrCs into Dragon Disciple he gets 2 more good saves at +2... but I don't think the DD is a very powerful PrC overall so having some great saves wouldn't really hurt too much.

We'll be doing regular updates to the Beta though; I suspect that prestige classes will be among the first of those updates.

Are these regular updates to the beta going to be rolled out to the testers? In what format? Obviously you aren't going to be reprinting the book multiple times but will there be revisions to the Beta PDF or supplemental PDFs?

mmmm I am using Internet Explorer 6 by the all powerful Microsoft. nope no spell check here.

I have no choice in the matter either.

IE spell

Never used it but I have heard it's decent.

What I need is a browser that handles BBCode tags for me :)

Millennium hand and shrimp!

Heh... I knew someone would catch the reference :) The sad part is... it's a true story and my plea for divine intervention with the drawer was completely spontaneous.

Coridan wrote:

If we wanted to instantly balance clerics we could just remove their armor proficiencies.

Wow. I like this idea!

It's quite intriguing for certain, let the paladin be the kick butt martial religious dude and the cleric be the robed holy man with awesome powers.

Nice thought but... ain't gonna happen, the armored to the teeth cleric is a sacred cow. People are already screaming about backwards compatibility.

I'm sure they could get a couple of volunteers to stalk/ I mean walk around the office and shoot/edit the video for them?

Well? Any takers?

Who lives in Washington? Isn't that where Paizo HQ is? Let me rephrase that, Who lives in Washington and has the expertise to put together a decent promotional video?

If you can keep this post updated with the most current/ accurate answers it would be very nice. Then you can point outsiders at this thread.

I'll take a stab at some of these:

Q: What are the goals of Pathfinder RPG?
Best expressed on the Pathfinder RPG page. Scroll down to "From the Lead Designer:" and "History and Design Goals".

Q: Some of the ideas in the Alpha rules are way out there. How "out there" are the final rules going to be?
Here I'm going to have to venture a guess and only by reading between the lines. Some of the changes made in the Alpha were deliberately 'out-there' to see what people were interested in seeing and push the development of the game. Some of those ideas have gotten a lot of resistance and will likely be dropped. I get the impression that the rules released in the beta will be very close to what will be released in the final product so your best bet might be to wait for the beta and see. Based on the comments from the developers there are still plenty of changes to come though, in particular they are very concerned about...

Q: High-level encounters (in 3.5) take too long because there is too much rolling going on. How are you going to speed things up?
The answer is they don't know yet. This is one of the top priorities of the Paizo's leadership though. You can read a lengthy thread about it here.

Try Fighter1/Barbarian1/Sorceror1/Rogue1. Buy enough CHA to use low-level spells.

+1d6 from sneak attack whenever flanking.
+1d6 and crit chance doubled if you learn the "Critical Strike" swift spell. -- note: Non-core spell
+Rage
+10ft movement

Intriguing combo but I'm not totally convinced it's stronger than just a sorcerer 4. For that matter a Barbarian 4.

Under the Alpha 3 rules:
Depending on your stats you combo can rage for 6-8 rounds per day before becoming fatigued... a dubious benefit, hope that one encounter is short and don't use your rage powers.

A PfRPG barbarian could rage for 22-26 rounds or bust into his rage powers. Same barbarian would be able to do actually use his rage powers.

Rogue would have 2 rogue talents and +2d6 damage. Not to mention a fistful of skill points so it's likely you wouldn't see her coming.

Sorcerer?? Sorcerer 4 would have 2nd level spells and a boatload more 1st level spells than you.

The combo you mention is definitely good from the saving throw perspective. I would like to see a fix for that. The flipside of that issue is multiclassing into similar classes seriously boost the high throws and seriously trashes the poor throws.

Fischkopp wrote:

As a DM I don't like to limit the choices of a player only because someone COULD abuse them.

As a designer trying to come up with something that will be used somewhat uniformly (god forbid they put the current mess into something called Living Pathfinder), you're better off adding in fixes and making a better-designed system that is less abusable from the get-go.

Then the first step would be "throw out all the crappy splat books you've collected over the last 5 years". While there are some abuses possible in core the bulk of the multi classing problems come in with mixing and matching base classes and PrCs from non-core sources. Heck, a lot of the PrCs are just flat broken without mixing and matching. The only way Paizo can fix stuff outside the PfRPG source book is by banning it.

I really don't like the idea of putting in a bunch of tweaks in the core system to fix problems introduced from outside.

Maybe it's a product of the dungeons we've played and the people I've DMed. Players that have characters that are ineffective in combat get frustrated. Sneak attack doesn't seem to be as common in my group as in some peoples, I'm not sure why. When the rogue in my group can't sneak attack she likes to snipe with the bow and that extra 1-2 points of damage per hit adds up at the levels our group tends to play.

Some of it has to do with the group you are in also. If you have a small group then almost evryone needs to help in combat, bigger groups rogues can hang back and wait for their chance to shine.

Personally when I create a rogue I make sure INT is at least 12 but generally not much higher than that.

There are a lot of rogue builds you can do. With the consolidated skills they are all now viable. The DEX/ INT rogue is even more effective than before. The DEX/ STR or the DEX/ CHA rogue are also viable options and potentially effective. Overall... I like, probably a bigger help to rogues than the rogue tricks.

I suspect that Pathfinder will have a lot less problems than 4e: We will get a year-long beta test. That's thousands of people getting the game a year early to test (since the PDF is free, there's no reason not to get that, and the PDF isn't exactly expensive, either). I think any glaring (or even minor) rules errors and problems will be found out. Add to that Paizo's high standards of quality, and I doubt there will be more than apage or three of errata.

Well... we'll see, I sure hope so and having such a huge playtest will certainly help. A few changes on a half dozen pages would not justify the expense of a new version but a significant amount of errata would justify it. In the case of D&D publishing a complete PHB would be worth it.

I liked what Monte Cook did with Arcana Unearthed and Arcana Unleashed not only did the second book contain bug fixes but it added some expansion material so existing players/ DMs would get some added value from the set.

The only thing that's a bit strange is the good saving throw accumulation.

Well good and bad. For example if you multiclass you could easily wind up with a 10th level character with a 0 Will save base. This is one thing I wouldn't mind seeing changed. I've seen a proposal where each level after first gave a fractional increase to saves which was rounded down. So if you added a level of rogue or fighter your will save increased by 1/3, adding a level of cleric or wizard would increase will saves by 1/2.

As a DM I don't like to limit the choices of a player only because someone COULD abuse them. That's why I'm there - to step in if someone abuses the rules to gain advantages from broken combos,

I couldn't agree more.

We've already been discussing this on another thread with regards to PrCs but I'll reiterate the main frustration on that thread. DMs reign in munchkins not rules. If a DM is not capable of managing a munchkin in the existing rules system then new rules will not help and will wind up punishing players who might want to do things like this for legitimate purposes.

A note regarding PrCs:
PrCs are an optional rule and the DMG clearly says that inclusion of them is at the DMs discretion. It is well within the discretion of the DM to say "The church says you must fulfill your obligations as a Holy Liberator before you can become a Divine Crusader".

I'd rather have them developing games than spending a bunch of times editing videos.

For a 5 minute video it takes about 5 hours of editing. They have all done podcast interviews.

If you want a gaming company that does good videos I can recommend one...

"I'm a monster Rawr!"

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.

.

Just kidding on that last part but I am serious about the marketing end. Videos are expensive and time consuming. I know videos can be effective marketing, maybe they can do some leading up to August of 2009 when they release the hard cover.

Several thousands of dollars of books later, I have learned that the most fun my one group has playing is Core Only Rules.

No confusion, no munchkin, no time lost over confusing abilities. Everyone knows where their PCs stand.

I do like a few outside sources but they wouldn't fill a single 400 page book. In general role playing is about what you put into it, not what you pull out of some book. If it were up to me I would say screw all the splat books and just worry about making it compatible with adventures.

Well first, rogues are not necessarily criminals. In the case of D&D they are doing about 90% of the same things as the rest of the party. Second, D&D is a poor simulation of fictitious works. The problem with forcing the rogue to have a high INT is that it fits poorly into the gaming system. Gord and Mouser both were Intelligent, Agile, AND strong. In D&D you really don't have that option. Generally you can expect a player to be very strong in one of the 3, decent in the other and average in the third and that's assuming you forgo charisma, wisdom, and constitution entirely.

While avoiding and disarming traps is cool and all, and opening locks is nice pretty much everyone wants their character to be effective in combat. For my group in any case what this meant is that the players put their stats in roughly this order for rogues: DEX-STR-CON-INT-CHA-WIS the effect is that in 3.5 their character generally sucked at everything that rogues were supposed to be good at.

I tend to agree with you that rogues should be smart. Unfortunately the game system does a poor job of rewarding intelligent characters who are not wizards.

While late to the discussion... my fix for "PRC Dipping" is to allow only 1 PRC to be taken. You can take a second only after you complete the PRC in question.

While I am in general against using rules to patch faulty PrCs this is the best of the bunch (and I know it's been mentioned before).

That said, if the DM isn't going to run the game then someone else is. Single levels are a problem with PrCs, there are plenty of others and if the DM doesn't pay attention to what's going in to his game he will pay for it regardless of the rules.

I'm guessing whatever it is will be announced at Origins.

Maybe in one of these seminars at the show?

Sticking with 3.5: the Pathfinder RPG and the Future of Paizo
Pathfinder RPG Lead Designer Jason Bulmahn talks about Paizo’s new direction. All ages / 75 seats. (n/a) Run by N/A.
Sponsored by Paizo Publishing, LLC

Introducing Pathfinder Society: Paizo’s Organized Play Mega-Campaign
Come chat with Nicolas Logue as he details Paizo’s organized play mega-campaign, Pathfinder Society. All ages / 75 seats.

well considering they already have rules corrections out I expect at the minimum a 4.5 by 2010. I know they say they won't do that, but I don't believe them. It will either be that or they will need a 5E.

To be honest I would prefer they released any updates/ bug fixes on their website them re-release an update of the game system every few years under a new point release. Heck something like Rules Compendium released every couple of years would have been great. Instead, new players introduced to the game 5 years after it's release get frustrated by the same stupid bugs that have been in the system since day 1.

Pathfinder in 2009 then Pathfinder 1.1 in 2011 with fixes based on the inevitable problems which ANY system will have. Sure, great. You don't have to buy the updated version but you can, or if someone new is buying it they are buying the most current version.

Personally, I feel there should be a rule in place (whatever that rule may be... you all know my preference), with a sidebar stating that it's the DM's perogative to explore other options and maybe listing what some of those options are. If the goal is to appeal to new gamers, and try and grow the 3P market, it's best to have a rule that won't be as likely to get a novice DM into trouble later on.

Well actually with regards to PrCs there is a rule which says it's the DM's responsibility to introduce PrCs into the game.

With regards to the game in general, I wouldn't be opposed to a sidebar saying that any sources outside the core book are optional and that the GM is the ultimate arbitrator of whether any additional sources are used and should be careful to introduce new material.

Weren't Drow part of the OGL?

Definitely yes.

Gith*, Beholder, Mind Flayer, plus a few others are not OGL. Drow are safe for better or for worse.

Now that I've thought more about this, I actually think moving Search into Perception (Wis) and making Disable Device Dex-based instead of Int has more to do with lessening the need of Int for rogues than the consolidation of skills.

Other than Appraise, which one could argue isn't a "core" rogue skill anyway, there are no rogue skills based on Int anymore. I think that's a problem.

Why? Seriously, why do rogues need INT based skills? Or for that matter why should they need a high INT at all? The great thing about this is that regular rogues are good at skills and INT based rogues are awesome at them which is IMO how it should be.

Munchkin player versus new DM is a no win situation. Rules are not going to help the DM out, the munchkin will overwhelm the new DM by sheer tonnage of books. The only defense a new DM could have is limiting the game to Core only and even then it's probably a one sided battle.

People seem to forget that in the DMG it's perfectly clear that PrCs are OPTIONAL at the DM's discretion (not the players).

Ok, take 1, Redbox Fighter... needs work.

What do you guys think of just eliminating the Max Dex and Armor check penalty from the Redbox version entirely which would change the armor training.

Also, I'm having a bit of trouble with formatting in Google Docs. This will apparently be a temporary home.

Incidentally I would prefer to make changes by consensus that means we would all have to compromise on some stuff or it won't go forward.

So to start things in the spirit of compromise I suggest the Gnomeling, or maybe it should be the Halfgnome?

Ok... so less compromise and more humor ;)

I believe it was Pathos (in another thread, about minimum ability score class prerequisites), who brought up the example of a player whose PC started with penalties in Wis and Cha, took 1st level as a Paladin, simply to have Knowledge (religion) as a class skill, then immediately changed alignment, lost his paladinhood, and went on to a prestige class (with that skill as a pre-req), 5 levels earlier than he otherwise could.

I think I would have to have a serious talking to with a character who did this, it's obviously a deliberate thing and for a player to plan a character based on an alignment change is IMO total roleplaying failure.

I suspect it's because a LARGE AMOUNT of the established D&D fan base likes the game they've been playing for the past 5, 10, or 30 years. Something doesn't last that long by accident, after all. But the fact of the matter remains that our sales have been more or less going up since we started Pathfinder, really... as have the number of people who are registering at paizo.com.

3rd edition is far from dead, in other words.

It's entirely possible that this is could just be the death throws of a dying RPG though :) Paizo got a lot of positive publicity from the PfRPG in the curmudgeon set and it's not entirely clear that this short term boon will become long term success. Curmudgeons don't tend to be a spendy lot... I know I am one.

Although... Paizo has been quite good at separating me from my money lately.

The real question now is what can we do to keep the game alive for as long as possible...

Have you pre-ordered the beta yet? What about the hardback?

I figure pre-orders are worth more than a personal commitment to buy at the time it's released because it helps them plan and budget.

Please people, try to convince me what good there is to this new method beyond just 'I like it and this is what the designers are trying to do so razz on you, go play 4E'. A lot of you are new to these boards but I was one of the guys leading the charge for the 3.75 I have a vested interest in this succeeding and being good. So telling me to go play 4e is a bit out of line.

This is an entirely different discussion.

Even so, I'll take a stab at it. First, much of the justification is based on the idea that
#1 the cleric is one of the most powerful core classes
#2 Domains are a big part of that power

If you don't agree with these ideas then it's likely you will not agree with any changes in the class. With those ideas in mind...

Not all domains are created equal but many domains grant the equivalent of multiple feats at first level. For example the war domain grants 2 feats to the cleric, some domains grant abilities which are even crazier than that.

The domain spells (and in particular non-core ones) often grant spells or abilities which were not typically on the cleric spell list. This was often used to shoehorn the cleric into PrCs that were not designed for the cleric. Many domain spells were just flat out not really suitable for a cleric to use.

My biggest gripe about domains and gameplay is that the domains often overshadowed the role-playing aspect of the game at early levels. Rather than picking a deity that the player thought would work well with his character concept often players would pick them based on what domains the offered access to. Class features are supposed to help role playing, not steer it.

While you have a point in regards to NPCs, you don't seem to mind foreclosing these abilities from player access.

I know I answered this but let me answer this from a slightly different point of view. A player character is a unique creation and though it's quite complex the number of times you chose class features and new class levels is fairly small... 20 times pre-epic to be precise. With player characters you have the luxury of being able to spend some time building them and the player and DM can make decisions about that character. Characters are built from the ground up and you have the luxury of time. Small changes in a PC class can have lasting impacts on the game.

A DM might come up with a dozen or even 20 NPCs in a single gaming session. If you are using a pre-made module then the NPCs are statted out ahead of time and converting them would take a significant amount of time for each gaming session. For longer term NPCs it's worth putting a little time into rebuilding them but for NPCs the players will encounter then kill in one session it's just not worth the effort and the impact on the game as a whole is quite small.

heck White Wolf... I am hoping Paizo is able to buy the D&D line from Hasbro!

Ehh... Wizards has quite a bit of momentum right now. There is a good bit of angst out there but there are also tons of people buying. 4e has the advantage of being 'new'. I think 4th edition will be profitable and plenty of people will keep putting money into the system to buy up all the supplements which will no doubt be cranking forth from WotC on a regular basis. Don't look for the D&D brand to be for sale anytime soon.

The big wildcard is whether Wizards can maintain the quality of product from the first release throughout the 4th edition. How soon will it become corrupted and bloated the way they let 3.5 become? Given their history of focusing on quantity of output rather than quality... I give it 2 years. Then maybe market share will start to dwindle.

4e did not kill gnomes. They're right in there in the MM and on page 277 you get the stat blocks to make a gnome character. :)

Except if you are going with the idea that the Players Handbook is for Player options and the other 2 books are DM references then this breaks down. Oh you want a Gnome PC? Just buy this other book. You want a gnome druid then you need 3 books. You want a gnome druid with a full spell list? Then you need 4 books... etc. One of the big things I REALLY like about PfRPG is the fact that one book gets you all the rules. Sure monsters will come later and you can certainly play other races out of it but the base races are covered and complete.

I'm a monster Rawr!...

I'm thinking Human, Elf, Dwarf, short guy for Redbox.

Ok, so how about default feats that players can swap out?

From my experience beginning players find it easier to play a sorcerer than a wizard so I was planning on using the sorcerer for the arcane class. I was thinking of doing a spontaneous cleric but now I'm not so sure I want to build a class so far removed from core.

I like the idea of Red Box and Blue Box but I think once you get past that point the characters are so complex you might as well just have a transition document for converting characters into full on PfRPG Characters.

I was thinking a PDF or series of PDFs. First one for each class that included the core class, plus spells if applicable, this way a player could have all the rules that apply to his class in hand. Then once the classes are fleshed out a set of simplified rules for combat, equipment, armor, and weapon lists.

That "Nope." doesn't strike you as being at all rude when applying to idea a person has devoted any significant amount of time on? Being, you know, a matter of opinion - something subjective. If you think so, I'll respectfully disagree. That said, I'll grant that my rebuttal could have been made more diplomatically.

Thus are flamewars born. It was a very direct statement but on the rude scale nowhere near as offensive as your comment.

FWIW, I agree with Kae. As for your comment, I have a player who has trouble with the barbarian rage mechanism in 3.5. It's not that she's stupid it's just that she wants to come to the table and have fun and learning a bunch of complex rules isn't part of her definition of fun.

I wouldn't object to an alternate martial class that had some sort of maneuvers but leave the core fighter alone. Actually introducing some fighter only feat trees which enable maneuvers would also be cool with me. But the core class needs to be easy to run.

I don't know if it's a good or bad thing that they're giving up more than they used to if they want a PrC...

A PrC should be equivalent to the core class in total power with different class features flavored for some role playing purpose. As such whatever class benefits they get should roughly equal one bonus feat per 5 levels plus whatever benefit the caster gets from familiar progression. Typically the benefits from PrCs seriously outweighed the little the wizard game up thus very few Wizard 20s out there. Now?? I don't think it's quite such an obvious choice which IMO is good.

One thing of note, PrCs lose the specialist spells but the arcane bonded item is a static class benefit, so it's just as good for a PrC wizard as it is for a Wizard 20.

I requested something like this a while ago, since the Alpha Forums and presumably the Beta Forum are temporary I was thinking something outside those forums would be good. No luck yet. You could post here: http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/community/gaming/dnd which is general OGL content. It's not PRPG specific but it is a permanent board.

I don't mean to be a broken record, but I had nothing to read while drinking my coffee this morning. Can I have a blog entry today, please?

You read them? I just like to look at the pictures :) Yeah I suppose I read them a little too. The problem isn't that they are at Origins, the problem is the BOSS is at origins. When the cats away... ;)

Ross Byers wrote:

So this is what happened to the free Player's Guide?

Yep. We will be sending a free copy along with subscriber copies of Pathfinder 13. So you're getting 32 pages instead of 16!

So if I subscribe to Pathfinder before August I get the 96 page Pathfinder plus the 32 page Companion?? Sweet. Gotta put this on my calendar. You need an option to delay the start of a subscription :)

While you have a point in regards to NPCs, you don't seem to mind foreclosing these abilities from player access.

The player is getting an alternate set of abilities so no I don't have a problem with that.

Nothing would stop you from making a cleric with the D&D 3.5 PHB. Of course then you should probably have turning would work the classic way also.

Yesterday I'm in the kitchen and looking for those little corn cob poker things. I try to open a drawer and the darned thing is stuck. "Grrr", I try the classic push it in fast pull it out... no luck. A couple wiggles and a few growls later and I cry out "Anoia!". Miraculously the drawer pops open and I am able to access it's contents.

Ahh... the man is a genius I tell you.

Well the idea I had in mind was releasing a classes that had fewer options, preselected feats, eliminate iterative attacks, limit spell selection, one page class descriptions, etc

As for whether it is Paizo's decision or not, if it were a Paizo branded product then yes. But making a modified version of the rules is simple because they are all OGL:

We leave for Origins on Tuesday so there may not be enough time to cook it up for a few more days, but we're making a "Pathfinder RPG Enabled" logo and drafting a couple short paragraphs of legal text that you have to include in order to use it. It'll say something about Paizo not being responsible for the content, that the logo is our trademark, etc.

Anyone will be able to use that logo. Of course, anyone can use our rules as they are already open under the OGL.

You don't need to ask permission because they have already granted it.

What is in the Gazetteer? Is it game content or just fluff?

Nevermind, bought, downloaded, browsing now.

Had me at Hello.

Well the Pathfinder rules are OGL which is a way of giving everyone permission to use them. We can't use their artwork or any of the Golorian stuff though. Even if the Pathfinder stuff is not free we can still do this using the SRD as the base instead.

So I propose "Redbox RPG -- Getting back to Basics"

Apparently not :(

If you go into your profile you can create an alias and post using that alias thus I am posting as Dennis da Ogre when my username is 0gre.

Unfortunately I what I haven't figured out is how to change my account so that it defaults to posting under that alias so I have to select it every post. :(