Devil of Roses's page

Devil of Roses wrote:

Wow, so kind of a random thought, but why do Apes only have a 15 strength? I was under the impression they were considerably stronger without being dire.

15 Strength IS pretty strong, when you consider that average human strength is 10. An ape's average strength being at 15 means that a really strong ape (built using the 15 point buy method) could easily be above 20 in Strength.

As to why we put the Strength at 15, it's all about balance. We didn't want to change monster CR scores from the 3.5 SRD unless we had no other choice, and for apes (and any monster with the rend ability), a high Strength score EXPLODED the damage they do in a round. The only way to maintain them as a CR 2 creature and not turn them into TPK machines was to lower their Strength.

Wow, so kind of a random thought, but why do Apes only have a 15 strength? I was under the impression they were considerably stronger without being dire.

Wow, one of the last cities in Varisia I expected to get it's own book, I'm surprised but pleasantly so. Look forward to seeing it.

As someone pointed out recently this is a lot of Adventure for free. Apparently the sequel is in the works and will cost a small sum of money. I haven't gotten too far in but this adventure of ancient ruins, dark cults and a region locked in the grip of an ancient demonic terror is already getting my wheels spinning. Rather reminiscent of a dungeon module dealing with the same Demon Lord but it is it's own story all the same. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if some enterprising DM's wove them into connecting plots.

Give this game a look through, can't hurt seeing as it's free right? :P

Alas my game actually wound up dying because of a rift between the group over the magic items. We eventually gave it up when one of our older gamers went on a rant about the Fortress of the Stone Giants not making any sense and being ridiculous. I think the mummy-monk was what tipped him over the edge, especially seeing as the art showed his hands and feet as being bound, and the fact that there was a mummy monk and nothing where that particular encounter took place was worth anything of any real value (they were quite insulted by the scroll case).

No, Rise of the Runelords was not exactly the best AP as far as magic items went. Many of the ones they had were useless to the PC's and unless the DM altered things so that there were some rather eccentric collectors of +1 Ogre Hooks in Magnimar selling a lot of the loot the PC's found required a little more suspension of disbelief than most D&D games when it comes to the buying and selling of magic items (i.e. how a PC can get a fully charged wand in a loot pile and still only sell it for half the market value per the rules).

The AP was good (though I found myself loathing FotSG, likely more due to events surrounding the module than the module it self, I usually love Wolfgang Bauers work) but if the PC's are fond of their loot the DM should do some homework and drop a few items here and there as well as a couple eccentric collectors of giant magic equipment or my personal favorite: a Rod of Resize. Which would readjust an item to the size of the wielder of the Rod. Unlimited charges because anything less was a pain in the arse :P

Hmmm, I know this is a little late in the game but I recently got into the Black Company stories and purchased the setting as well and began looking for forum posts on the topic. I thought it was newer than it was (the d20 setting that is), guess I was wrong. Anyway, I'm curious as to how this conversion might have gone. It would have required a lot of work on the GM's part I imagine but would have been doable all the same.

My personal opinion is simple, I can see the need to weaken some spells, but I think they went too far with some by cutting them off at the hip when they just needed to take them down at the knees. Change is good when it's needed, apparently the cleric needed change, though I think a lot of the problems are superficial at best (too many stacked buffs? Numerous solutions abound! Dispell Magic, don't give the PC's time to buff (quite easy actually), and many other options are open to DM's who want to deal with the pesky cleric) but getting rid of Heavy Armor just didn't seem like it was needed in light of everything else they did. It's just not that powerful of a feat in my opinion, even with the power creep, not even when combined with being able to wield your deity's favored weapon (which makes perfect sense in my not so humble opinion).

Thankfully, I'm the DM with my particular groups so it's easy enough to house rule that Clerics get Heavy Armor. The day I sweat that they have it is the day I put away my DM screen for good because frankly, if I can't handle that, I should either play something else or give up DMing.

Don't have time to give this thread a good read through but I would suggest, if you have the coin, that you hunt down a copy of the Black Company RPG from Green Ronin's Mystic Vistas line. Good rules for war and playing in a war torn land.

Setting, I'd have kept the setting even if I said "Screw d20 I'm going Savage Worlds!" and while I like most of the rules I'd have kept up my subscriptions even if Paizo stuck with 3.5 and did nothing with the rules. The adventures and the setting have everything I don't have the time to make up on my own. That and I'm still getting over my disappointment with some of the rules changes.

Although.... since people are mentioning low graphics and the OP mentioned "gold box games"... how about an actual "gold box" style game, with little 8 bit icons and all? :)

A)the human hasn't been nerfed at all. Nerfing can only happen with final editions. The BETA was a playtest ruleset that wasn't meant as a final ruleset. The Human lost absolutely nothing from 3.5 and the pathfinder RPG so there was no nerf. In fact the flat human gained a +2 to place in any ability score.

B) As for the rest of your post about an extra feat and a skill point not being enough. I will merely say that for every person you bring me that agrees with you I can find one who disagrees and many that think that humans are the *ONLY* class worth playing. I disagree with them as I disagree with you. I think the human class is balanced just fine amongst the rest of the classes. But there was no Nerf to the human.

As for people playing humans, I don't doubt it, I play humans most often myself even if they are weaker mechanically. Hell, I did so in 2nd edition when there was little doubt they were weaker.

Some stuff regarding Xorials post and WotC having made the OGL and thus allowing us to have the PRPG

As for the microsoft analogy, meh, Wizards had to pick a direction to keep RPG's viable, they were out of material to publish for 3.5 and in order to make money had to do something drastically different. I think one thing that is a far more apt comparison is big guy little guy. Wizards runs it's business with a corporate mentality, it's a large company compared to most gaming companies, is run by an even larger company, and serves the bottom line. Their decisions are largely business decisions. These recently involved making the rules simpler and easy to understand, there's a lot to keep track of sure, but all in all it was easier to understand than 3.5 was. It involved taking some inspiration from MMORPG's (there's no denying this, wizards even admitted to it, the key word being inspiration) and aiming the game at a younger target audience.

If you look at the videos from PaizoCon it's mentioned that the customer base for Paizo is on the older side, I believe 25-35 or 40 is where the big numbers lie. I imagine 4e has a larger younger fan base, well, it obviously does but I mean per capita.

Wizards went in a completely different direction than Paizo as far as the flavor of the game went. Though, as with many smaller companies, I will say I believe the PRPG shows more of a love of the game than does 4e. Not saying the people at Wizards don't love the game, but I believe it shows more in the PRPG, sort of a higher concentration sort of thing.

4e and the PRPG are two different beasts. Considering they both bear the legacy of the most popular RPG in the world at their heart in a few ways. WotC obviously has the license and the title, but both companies have members who have been around since TSR, in fact I'm almost willing to bet that Paizo has more Old Guard than Wizards but I'm unsure. Either way it's irrelevant, whatever captures the 'feel of D&D' is up to the player of the game. Not even owning the brand name or publishing a product that holds onto the games roots a little more can change that.

This is a result of me ranting at 5:30am without sleep. Yay :P

I think the changes to the classes will be the most useful thing for me. That and the Combat Maneuver system. The classes mean I'll see more players playing classes that had only been glossed over before, Bard, Paladin, Monk are all parts of these. My players had touched on them before but they were classes that were only played on a whim, only recently have I had any player look at the Paladin and go "Wow, I really want to play a Paladin now" I've even had a couple grudgingly look at the monk in approval. Then again when I was on vacation I stayed with some people among whom were a pair of power gamers that showed me some rather frightening monk builds which involved multiclassing and prestige classes but still made the DM in me shudder.

I love the Combat Maneuver system, my players have felt it's benefit, as they have it's down sides, but once one gets used to it's concept it's a lot easier to manage than the previous grapple rules.

I dislike a lot of the spell changes and will likely, sadly, be reverting to 3.5 or at least houseruling them to be a little less full of suck.

I like a lot of the feats but felt Power Attack really didn't need a change. It never slowed game down for me even when we had players who sucked at basic addition working with it. Honestly it was spellcasters who slowed the game down sifting through their spells trying to decide which ones to cast that slowed things down more than anything.

All in all I'm glad I have only one monster of a book to reference though I suppose once the Bestiary comes out the two manuals will weigh more and take up as much space as the core 3.5 set :P But at least I can use the PRPG Corebook as a bludgeoning weapon for when I walk alone late at night :D

Devil of Roses wrote:

On another note, I finally saw the changes for the Remove Curse/Poison/Disease spells and while I can see the reasoning behind it, well... it just seems too much. Or too little for a 3rd level spell. A caster level check against the poisons DC? It becomes far too easy to make that a wasted spell than anything.

The older versions (which automatically worked) in turn meant that, once the party had access to these spells, there was little point in using curses or diseases. The next day, the cleric would memorize the appropriate spells, cast them in the morning and the Dread Plague was solved. Now, if four members of your 5th level party are infected with a DC 20 disease, it's likely to be an ongoing problem likely to last several days (and possibly be life-threatening), rather than a 20 second "I memorize remove disease and we go on to the next plot point".

It's like saying the Empire State Building is too big and reducing it to a four story office building. At least in my not so humble opinion.

The changes to the fighter, the Combat Maneuver system, the changes to domains and blood lines (though I still consider sorcerers to be weak), the changes to barbarians, clerics (save for the spells, blech), wizards (again, save for the spell nerfs), thieves... I mean rogues, bards, druids (save for polymorph), ranger, monk, the combat maneuver system, rogue talents!, did I mention the combat maneuver system? While it's about the same size I love more about the system than I dislike and what I dislike is easily house rules.

Humans were commonly played in my 2nd edition games, not because they were powerful but because they were familiar, and their flexibility with classes was pretty much the only edge that made them worthwhile which is now commonly shared.

Most of the changes to spells, the fact that humans don't get Multitalented, most of the changes to spells, the lower 1st level saving throws for prestige classes, the power attack feat (I still say there was absolutely no reason to change it *shrug*), just about all the changes to the spells particularly the remove curse/poison/disease spells and polymorph, making turning undead a feat rather than simply letting it be an option.

I agree with Kor. Humans lost a bit of their versatility when Jason got rid of Racial favored classed, I could live with the feat thing but the favored class advantage has kind of been with humans since, well, technically before third edition. Now they lose that and half elves are now easily more powerful. I say either take Multitalented from humans or give it to them as well. Honestly I'm surprised this wasn't done in the first place.

Well that's what I'm referring to. It doesn't make sense to me that a horses bite would have a better chance of being felt through armor than it's hooves. It just seems that the bite *should* have that penalty while the hooves *shouldn't* or did I read you wrong.

I also noticed another disturbing change that has irked me. Apparently with getting rid of racial favored classes humans loose one perk and become that much weaker compared to the other races. Any idea what's up with that, no offense but while a feat and a skill point are nice shouldn't they get the half-elf ability "Multitalented" or something to make up for that nerfing?

This is just a couple odd things that have hit my mind since looking at the PRPG...

Alright, I have to say, I'm not an expert on horses. I worked with them a little when I was younger but I won't claim years of ranch hand experience with the beasts or anything like that. Still, I noticed something strange, apparently a horses hooves aren't it's primary attack... I'm sorry, but I have seen an upset horse and let me tell you something, their teeth are not their primary mode of attack. So I'm incredibly curious as to why on earth is their bite attack their primary and their hooves secondary?

On another note, I finally saw the changes for the Remove Curse/Poison/Disease spells and while I can see the reasoning behind it, well... it just seems too much. Or too little for a 3rd level spell. A caster level check against the poisons DC? It becomes far too easy to make that a wasted spell than anything. Wasted spells and conditions you cannot get rid of in such a manner do far more to encourage a 15 minute adventuring day than to move away from. What's done is done however so I ask this, what would you do to make those spells, well, not suck. Let's face it, they suck, I as a DM have no intention of making poisons, diseases, or curses a major part of my campaigns any time soon and if I wanted them to be more deadly I'd raise the DC to slightly more realistic levels (let's face it, a nip of arsenic will drop you be you a football star or a pocket protector wearing nerd).

One of my players suggested using it in such a fashion: have the spell allow the caster to make a heal check instead (much more likely to be higher than a level check) against the DC of the poison/disease/or curse and perhaps provide a bonus of some sort. Any thoughts?

d20 Modern was something I never wanted to shell out any money for. Perhaps I would do so for the Dark Matter supplement and just use the srd. If they did do a Pathfinder: Modern I would hope they wouldn't make it backwards compatible with d20 Modern, I'd rather it be their own d20 system. Though that's mainly because I loath the stat based class system so take that as you will.

Yay! Goodbye Clerics with no Heavy Armor, silly unnecessary changes to the Power Attack feat and %50 of the spell nerfs for *my* PRPG. :P

Personally. I don't like this change. The only time I've seen this mythical CoDzilla is when someone is blatantly powergaming and as that is easy enough to curb it never got out of hand to be a problem and therefor doesn't need spell nerfing or feat nerfing to balance. At least not in my game. The fun part though: I can house rule it out. I rank that up there with being as absolutely unnecessary as the changes to Power Attack but 'meh', Jason never claimed to be making a 'perfect' version of 3.5 and I can comfort myself with the knowledge that about %75 of the changes have been good and make the game better which is more than I can say for another 'improvement' on D&D...

I've begun reading the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series of late. I kept hearing about them as the iconic rogues of swords and sorcery stories and after reading Swords and Deviltry I have to say I'm hooked.

I've played the Skill Challenge system as written, rolling initiative and making the skill checks etc. I have to say it almost made me nix it altogether. However, I hear that some have adjusted it in a fashion that doesn't kill a potentially fun RP or chase scene, or what have you. I'm quite curious as to how others have handled it because it's probably the single most loathed mechanic I have seen in 4e as written.

I know it's not quite a question but...

After acquiring my copies of the book and hugging it and squeezing it and petting it I will begin a rigorous training regime with Eastern mistics (though I'm pretty sure they're just asian hippies high on pot or shrooms but who knows) and then will begin my campaign of terror against all who oppose freedome and right. With one book acting as my shield against the armor piercing rounds of my enemies and the other as a weapon I'll become judge, jury and executioner bringing a whole knew level or nerd rage to the phrase "throw the book at them".

At least until saturdays where I'll game like mad.

When's the next one? WHEN IS IT!?

*Tosses a tomatoe* Here you go. Making salsa or something?

I don't have immediate access to those modules but I'll make some suggestions when I get my mitts on them at home. The only thing I can think of is to avoid creatures and NPC's that are unlikely to be placed on the battle mat but that's obvious so um... need more tomatoes?

Compilations in general would be awesome. Something akin to what was done with the Shackled City AP would kick ass.

For me... well... I was really enjoying the Adventure Paths, with Age of Worms being my favorite. When I saw the advertisements for Rise of the Runelords I was apprehensive until I looked into it more. Then I was hooked. I set up my subscription first thing though I think what cemented the deal for me was reading that first issue, something about it screamed "Play me!" and I was hooked. The only published campaign I've wanted to run more was Legacy of Fire.

Well, I have to say, I can't think of anything I *don't* like about this one. All the changes seem to be improvements rather than not. I guess sometimes prayers are answered *shakes hands with Azmodeus and hands over a bag of dire tiger kittens*. With the proper encouragement of course. Glad magic items got a boost. I was afraid they'd go the way of the overly nerfed spells, guess Nethys decided not to slack on those :P

Cancel the replacement copies (as much as I'd love extras :P) they came in on monday. I guess living in Alaska and having the order ship so close to the 3rd and 4th kept them at bay.

I think that's how it's always been. Why would that be a glitch?

I'm still waiting on this order. Any news on when my delicious Dungeon Denizens Revisited and Impossible Eye might arrive? :-( *hopeful look*

Arrrrrgh!!!! Please get more Sinister!

I WANT! Hmmmm... any news on the other Sinister products? Have any of the big ones been published yet like that future sci-fi setting?

Hence, I'd love to see something akin to Magic of Incarnum: A new magic system, including suggestions for how to use it in pathfinder campaigns, as a complement to the existing or replacing it. It's also a way to add personality to a setting. It's no coincidence that one of the first Realms novels was Spellfire.

I would say I am on board with those who think the druids wild shape was an ability that needed adjusting but not as much nerfing as it has been given. I think one ability or feat I might offer those who play druids in my games will be something like:

Natures Spirit
Prerequisites: Wild Shape
Benefit: For the purposes of determining ones ability scores when in wild shape form one may add their Wisdom Bonus to their physical stats. (or if I suddenly feel squemish about that I might have it apply to one physical state and include the ability to take the feat twice)

Another option I might do is give the above 'feat' with it applying only to one stat of choice to my druids free at 8th level and they can simply buy one or two more as they desire. That way I think it could give them a boost when necessary. There are other ways to adjust it as well, perhaps it can only apply to the physical statistic that gets the highest boost. Still, might be fun to play with.

Another option might be a feat that allows the Wild Shape ability to be something like a "Form of Natures Fury" that sort of acts as a combat powerup for the druid wherein they get a boost to their stats and abilities as normal but are still humanoid (albeit altered to fit their adjustments). Either of these might help keep the druids signature ability from seeming... pathetic.

Love the changes to animal companions.

And, as usual, I hate just about every needless nerf to the spells made and am upset that they probably haven't even been lowered in level to make up for the nerfing and blah blah blah blah. :P

Kinkos is getting more money from me than ever. Which is to say they're getting money from me period. Normally I go to the university but, alas, they lack card stock. :P

Heh, awesome.

Gildern Stern Nobb - Human Two-Weapon Kukri Fighter, fought in underground gladiatorial fights for Claudius's father before befriending and being freend by him.

Rosencrans Nobb - Halfling Bard, specializing in the socrpion whip. With his dazzling voice and razor sharp wit, he was quickly befriended by Claudius who found his antics quite fun. He serves as comic relief for the group.

Hamlet Nobb - Human Cleric, servant of Sarenrae. "Working" under Claudius's father as a healer for his gladiatorial rings, Hamlet had been requisitioned from Solku's Church of Sarenrae in return for certain shady favors Claudius's father had performed for the churches hierarchs, allowing them to keep their hands clean.

My PC's loved the 1st audio file. I'm going to take your advice and wait until their first encounter with gnolls to bring up the 2nd file.

What did Boomer do?

Noice

Sifted through the primer a little bit. Pretty cool stuff. It's been awhile since I've played anything pre-3e and I'm glad they have something for people who just need to know they aren't playing the D&D they might be used to.

Right-click the link and select "Save Link As" They are MP3 format audio files so should play in Windows or WinAMP or iTunes.

Cheap PDFs do not trump the desire for printed books by a significant portion of the audience.

Perhaps if a special pdf/online book reader were to come out that was actually within my price range, color, didn't lag, and operated smoothly. (which to my knowledge doesn't exist yet, anyone mentioning Kindle will get hot cyber oil thrown on them, that is no where near 'reasonably priced' for my pocket book). Until then, PDF's will be a minor convenience rather than a replacement. Which means this customers buying him some print copies no matter what.

It's powerful like a smurf!

This has kind of made me want to run something old school. Either break out my second edition books (what can I say that was where I started) or dig up the older 1st edition stuff I picked up later in life. Or better yet, check out OSRIC and company and break out the 1st ed modules I have sitting on my shelf...

Though I'm curious, how would anyone here house rule the nixing of racial class level limits? Even when I first started playing I thought that that was just a weak rule to get people to play humans. Surely something could be done to give the humans a little oomph while allowing a Dwarven Fighter to hit level 20.