Gailbraithe's page

The system is rigged for the rich to get richer and for the poor to suck it. Its just a LOT more rigged in totalitarian regimes. Normally in the west the system has enough to spare so the poor get their bread and circuses. When too many people screw up the system to bad that it crashes, it doesn't, everyone looses money, and the poor drop into unacceptable living conditions.

They protest, and no one gives a damn. There's no representative democracy, only represented monied interests.

So they riot, and remind the rich that all the gold bullion they have stored in the safe isn't going to matter diddly squat if someone bashes their head in with a brick. The rich make some platitudes, crank up the bread and circuses a bit, and ride out the low tide till things change, ride the upswing as hard as they can, milk it for everything its worth, get richer, the system crashes, wash rinse repeat and pretend it won't happen next time.

Cas,

I beleive there's a Celtic ledgend where one of the heroes (Cu something or other) gets caught between two geas when he's offered stew by a crone (never refuse hospitality vs never eat dog meat IIRC). He was screwed through trickery.

That the druid is tricked through trickery and compulsion doesn't seem as much a strange glitch in the universe.

Think of it this way
** spoiler omitted **

Okay, at a certain point, I have to say that just because something is in a legend doesn't mean it can justify something. Not all legend applies..

I mean in Little Red Riding Hood, a wolf dresses up as Red's grandmother. Not sure what kind of disguise check that would require, but I believe it is probably outside the limits of the game. Doesn't mean a wolf should get a +20 to its disguise check for dressing up as someone's grandmother. And even as I write this, I can foresee someone coming in and saying "what if it was an awakened wolf with 20 levels of Rogue (Spy) and all of the disguise rogue talents?"

But I digress, the way you described the steel shield as essentially a traumatic experience for the druid is actually exactly why I find it silly. Because you described wearing a shield as a traumatic experience.

I'll say that again:

You described wearing a shield as a traumatic experience.

I don't care what sort of moral system a druid is supposed to have, I just can't take that seriously.

There is a spell which will cause you to pat your head and rub your belly. It is called suggestion. It is a second level compulsion spell.

And the game is rife with things which cause the divine "oath-based" casters to lose their powers against their will. It is what the atonement spell is for. It isn't silly unless you want it to be. Dominating the paladin and forcing him to murder orphans might be silly. Or it might be the climax of a terrible tragedy. It all depends on how you play it.

A sword fight be silly to. Or it can be epic. Or it can be kinda dull and overly long, but not particularly interesting either way. A duel of magic can last hours or seconds.

You don't like the spell? OK. That's fine. Ban it at your table. But this is the intent of the spell, and it is amazing for trickster type characters and subversive NPCs who would rather humiliate or weaken the party than kill them.

Okay, that was an admittedly bad example, but the difference between my proposed spell and Suggestion is that the sole effect of the spell would be the head patting, stomach rubbing action. Such a spell would be ridiculous in pretty much all situations. Something that is only ridiculous in some situations is fine. I think that forcing a druid to wear a shield in order to render him powerless, however, is ridiculous in all situations.

Again, I don't care about the power of the spell effect. Beguiling Gift is a really cool spell. It's the specific act of forcing someone to do something as trite as putting on a normal, unassuming steel shield in order to strip them of their powers that I find suspension breaking, in all situations (even your well written one).

To clarify, I m fine with something that is ridiculous in context. If a bar fight happens to be particularly funny, so be it. But something that is ridiculous even out of context is not okay.

IE, if I were explaining the rules of pathfinder to a friend, I would need to explain to them that even if a druid is forced to wear metal, they lose their powers. If your friend or enemy straps a steel shield to your arm, expect to be powerless for 24 hours.

The only response I can imagine from someone uninitiated in the idea that the game's rules are mutable is "Wow, that's dumb."

TriOmegaZero wrote:

Kais86 wrote:

Like I said earlier, he gets one cast, that's it.

Kais86 wrote:

Beat you on initiative, no you don't.

The contradictions in your dialogue are amusing.

After I said "He gets one cast" I remembered I could just hit the wizard hard enough to kill him outright.

Piece of advice.

Never get into a discussion of Wizard power unless you are dealing with people who will post builds.

A theoretical Wizard has all spells at all times, memorized as many times as they need it that day.

A practical wizard actually has to be built for what it thinks will happen and hope that it prepared properly.

Too many DMs have spoiled wizard players by not putting deadlines and timers, having a 15 minute combat day, being to predictable with enemies who don't adapt strategies or set traps and ambushes which don't allow casters prep time, not checking to see what the nerfs are in the spells, etc...

If you look at the modules and APs you will find these things, and you will notice the game plays out fine with the Wizard being very powerful sometimes and very weak other times.

It is the all win or all fail class. Either the most powerful or "Guys, I don't really have anything memorized that all that great for this one..."

And before anyone says it, they clarified that detect magic does detect the arcane bonded item so that little Achilles heal is exposed if they go that direction to have any spell available once a day...as if the fact that it is once a day wasn't enough of a limiting factor...

I've read a good bit of Ayn Rand (though despite multiple attempts, I've yet to make it all the way thorough Atlas Shrugged -- talk about verbose!). I understand the supply side argument. I get it. I probably understand it better than 75% of the tea party. As impossible as this may sound, I just don't agree.

There are two novels that can transform a bookish 14-year-kld’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish daydream that can lead to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood in which large chunks of the day are spent inventing ways to make real life more like a fantasy novel. The other is a book about orcs.

A note to any supply-side friends in this thread:

I've read a good bit of Ayn Rand (though despite multiple attempts, I've yet to make it all the way thorough Atlas Shrugged -- talk about verbose!). I understand the supply side argument. I get it. I probably understand it better than 75% of the tea party. As impossible as this may sound, I just don't agree.

I'm sure some of you feel the same about my convictions. Fair enough.

BUT if we can stop going around in circles, maybe we can focus on an actual compromise. I think cutting education and social programs is a bad idea. But I'm willing to do it. IF you are willing to budge on the revenue side and raise taxes. I know all about the Laffer curve. I understand this is abhorrent to you, but please understand gutting the safety net is abhorrent to me. BUT IF WE CAN"T COMPRISE THE PROBLEM WILL NEVER, EVER BE FIXED -- short of all out war. So let's swallow our medicine now, while there is still time.

Compromise as a dirty word will be the death of us all.

I removed some posts.

For f#@#’s sake people, grow up.

This should be a discussion about a very real, very current and very tragic series of events that have no one simple answer or cause and room for opposing but reasoned views.

It is not the time or place for Internet Oneupmanship 101.

The Mothman, he is wise.

This discussion makes me sad.

I am beyond stunned (what's beyond stunned? paralyzed? unconscious? anywho...) that WotC never came out with a coherent setting based on the Magic the Gathering universe.

I have zero interest in the card game, but the mythology behind the setting was pretty darn cool, and I think it could have made one hell of an evocative setting using the d20 rules.

ProfessorCirno wrote:

Ignoring Shifty who's continuing to just shout "BUT...BOOTSTRAPS!"

Convenient.

Once Ad Homs fail, and your meme reply is discounted, you can just move to /ignore.

Well done that man.

Ok. I'll respond.

Because you are entirely avoident, not commenting on any links or information about the riots themselves but rather leaning back in your armchair to comment on those awful thugs.

Because you're privileged, not understanding what disenfranchised means. You seem to think there's jobs just out there for the taking that anyone can scoop up with their fingers. YOu don't get what kind of roadblocks having bad health, having no income, having one parent, having no education, can put up.

Because you are disenfranchising them too with your desire for a great cuilling - for f&&$'s sake listen to yourself! You're all but asking every poor minority be rounded up and shot because they'll turn into gangsters! You don't understand that the criminal justice system is not there to rehabilitate criminals or reduce their numbers but to grow, or worse, you do realize this and support it anyways.

Because you don't comprehend what it's like to have a police force that does not see you as a citizen. You don't get why someone would carry a gun rather then go to a police officer because you don't get that the police aren't there to protect everyone, that some citizens are seen as crims by default and must prove their "citizenship" by being pulled over, by being searched, by being sent to court for even the slightest infractions, by being cast by what they wear - because it's cheap and that's all they can afford - or by their skin color.

Because you don't understand that gangs are about protection because there is no other protection. You don't understand that the guy who carried the gun did so because his brother was stabbed by someone who likely was malnourished and had no education, because their school is a pile of trash. You don't understand that gangs are all that's left when you tear down every youth center in the "poor neighborhood" because they cost just too darn much money.

Because you don't grasp where "bein' a gangster" comes from, and why they act like tough guys. Let me help you - it's because the rest of society declared that the poor minorites aren't fit to be anything else. They act tough because otherwise they're treated like garbage, and it's the only way they can get respect, and hell, the police are going to pull them over and search them anyways, looking for any little excuse to throw them behind bars, so why not?

Because you don't seem to get that having at least one family member in prison destroys that family. AT LEAST one, probably far more! And how that limits your money, your education, your health, your everything.

Because you don't understand what it means to not have a voice. To march two thousand strong and be ignored. To have your brother killed in cold blood and not be cared about. To have all of society view you as a nebulous "other" that doesn't count.

THAT. That is why I have troubles believing you had the little orphan Annie hard knock life you claim to have had, and you aren't anything but another middle class white collar Tory who throws around words like "multiculturalism" elsewhere.

And even if I'm wrong, that doesn't change the fact that you are factually wrong in just about everything you have said. You are wrong when you claim that "only criminals own guns." You are wrong when you claim that they can just "get a job," because that's real easy even without the awful economy when you're a poor black kid with no education, and I bet it's even easier now. You're wrong when you say it's alllll just the fault of dem poors. You're wrong when you say it's just about personal responsibility and nothing else.

And you're the wrongest person in the entire f&*$ing planet when you think all it takes is for dem poors to just pull themselves up by the bootstraps, as if all of society wasn't doing everything it could to push them down as far as they can go.

CJ, if you don't like the thread, don't read it.
I'm actually finding the discussion to be interesting, except for all the blue poop you're leaving in it.

Currently there is a debate going on about why sword canes were added if they were not mechanically better than X.

There was a huge thread about the Monk vow of poverty, and how horrible it was.

To which I slam my head repeatedly into my desk.

Crazy thought here, maybe every build isn't an optimal build.

Maybe, and I know I'm going to get a little nuts here but stay with me, maybe some people think flavor is more important that power because maybe they actually play the game to create a story with the DM, and they want to play an interesting character in that story.

Maybe, and this could just be crazy talk, some people think that your huge eideolon with 15 attacks would probably not be allowed in most major cities, or your Svirfneblin or Dhampir may cause some interaction problems in well lit rooms.

Maybe some DM actually ask the question "What do these characters look like when they walk in a room, and how would people react to them"

Maybe a sword cane is less conspicuous and that has value. Maybe as a player you want the challenge of trying to build a monk character without significant gear.

Maybe some of us are less worried that the new splat book didn't give you the broken option you were hoping for so you could show all your friends how awesome your broken combo is in a made up world for a little while until the Devs realize a mistake and errata it.

Maybe...just maybe...some of us like having more options, while still allowing old options to have value and not be obsolete.

Crazy, I know...

Fortunately, we don't have a time limit here. The game can be improved incrementally indefinitely.

Gorbacz wrote:

...

This approach intrigues me.

I believe that class power level should be set in Core, and if I want to build a fully functional representative of a class, Core is all I need.

That holds true for every class except the poor old Monk.

Splats should be there to allow me to mechanically represent some weirdo concept that just got in my head. And I'm fine with weirdo fiddly concepts being slightly below Core in power levels - after all, if somebody plays only using one book he shouldn't feel like he's missing POWER, he should miss VARIETY. If new splatbooks will be desired because they give you more ooomph, well the 3.5 madness lies that way.

My approach comes from playing with my groups, which have several players who never opened APG and won't open UM/UC. YES, players who don't want splats. I know, heresy! So, they build their PCs using Core only, and I'm perfectly happy with them not missing out anything vital. When they ask me "Does UC contain anything that would make me more powerful?" I would answer "Nah, it's great if you want to make a FFIV Dragoon, wake me up if you ever want to.".

That's followed by "What's a FFIV Dragoon", BTW. (sighs)

IOW: if Power Attack was a splatbook feat, something would be horribly wrong.

I was kinda hoping that Tom Welling would get his shot as Supes on the big screen.

There's a fundamental difference between ignorance and stupidity. Ignorance can be corrected. Stupidity, not so much. I never consider being told I'm ignorant of something as an insult, but rather an opportunity to expand my knowledge.

Sorry to keep dragging this into the realm of the serious.

I think everyone is missing the point, here. This is an ability that modifies a dice roll, between two NPCs, with no player present. Obviously, it is meant to make your GM go insane role-playing out scenes by himself! :D

It seems to me that we're arguing quite a bit about whether or not there is a universal morality. I grant you that's debatable in our world, but in the game in question, it is not. To quote the Book of Vile Darkness from 3.5, "Of course there's assumed to be an objective morality in most fantasy settings, otherwise spells like 'Detect Evil' wouldn't work."

Since that objective standard is set for the purposes of the game, whether it would be practical for the real world or not, we're given what defines "Evil" characters. A description of a Lawful Evil character from the PHB:

"A lawful evil villain methodically takes
what he wants within the limits of his code of conduct
without regard for whom it hurts. He cares about tradition,loyalty, and order, but not about freedom, dignity, or life.
He plays by the rules but without mercy or compassion. He
is comfortable in a hierarchy and would like to rule, but
is willing to serve. He condemns others not according to
their actions but according to race, religion, homeland, or
social rank. He is loath to break laws or promises." (Emphasis mine.)

Compare this to Lawful Good:

"Lawful Good: A lawful good character acts as a good
person is expected or required to act. She combines a
commitment to oppose evil with the discipline to fight
relentlessly. She tells the truth, keeps her word, helps
those in need, and speaks out against injustice. A lawful
good character hates to see the guilty go unpunished.
Lawful good combines honor with compassion."

The LG is a little less clear on this, but by the antithetical nature of the two alignments it can be reasonably assumed that if a LE character cares nothing for dignity or life, then a LG character MUST.

It has been mentioned in too many guides and books to count (You might compare/contrast with the guides Book of Vile Darkness and Book of Exalted Deeds) but not giving the dead what is considered 'proper respect'---i.e., killing of necessity, not displaying them, arranging proper burials when appropriate---is part of treating others with dignity.

In any case, I've never been a fan of the "This is a MEDIEVAL setting" justifications as if we were truly abiding by medieval standards of morality, all adventurers would be men and any woman who spoke or attempted to lead would be burned as a witch. Obviously the morality presented in most, if not all, campaign settings is meant to adhere to a post-Enlightenment philosophy of ethics. Hence why torture was okay (particularly in service to the church) in the dark ages, but is still considered an evil act by the standards of the game, even when performed against an evil creature in service of a good deity.

Hopefully you're playing with grown-ups - which means, it's not your role to educate them. It's the same like DMs who look for tricks to bash munchkins - if the DM (or someone else) has a problem with anyone (in this context, a minor problem: "you don't RP well"), he should talk directly to the person.
Players are not to be educated and especially they are no dogs of pavlov (exp triggers good role playing)
In some other systems (I grew up with The Dark Eye and in TDE 4e, levels are only a measure), level differencies aren't that big of a deal, in d20 only one level difference can be quite important (especially at low levels) and if the characters are at different levels, there'll be bad mood at the table

I just don't give out XP. Players level their characters when I tell them to.

+1

I know. Satire is dead. Even the Onion can't keep up.

Maybe comedians could sue politicians for infringing on their business.

Do you consider mid-90s entertainment to be 'recent entertainment'? That's all I was referring to.

Absolutely.

lol It makes me sad to think of the acres of forest that became copies of this book.

ProfessorCirno wrote:

And you're missing that if being able to feed your family constitutes as "incentive" and not the desired norm, then Capitalism is already morally bankrupt in every way.

I'm not missing anything. I don't have children becasue I can't afford to feed them. It's called being responsible, living within your means, etc. I don't think that's too much to ask.

If some people must live within their means by going hungry and having no family, then the system that fosters this is inherently wrong.

It isn't a matter of responsibility. Any society is rated by the lowest, not the highest.

That does not make you a demigod, not by 3.5 standards anyway. The human in fantasy land don't care for out piddly limitation. I am going by fantasy land standards. Most poster will agree that the best of us in a generation probably don't get past level 7. Fanatasy land has level 7's as mayors, and bodyguards instead of presidents, and elite commandors(such as the guy the created the Navy Seals). I am not saying he was level 7, but in Fantasy land he probably would not have the influence he does here.

Now if you want to use our world as the standard the game can probably cap at level 10 or 11.

In short I guess it depends on which world you want to go by.

The game assumes real world standards plus high fantasy. In 3.x the game assumed that people above level 1 were progressively rare, with PC-classed characters being a rare subset of those, and so forth. The majority of the world is assumed to be low-level and within the relative range of realism. It is entirely the GM's choice to have 7th level characters as mayors and such, and that's fine. However if they are 7th level mayors and bodyguards they are more likely to be NPC classed, which means their overall CR is actually far lower than their level comparatively in power (the MM/Bestiary suggests that every 2 NPC levels is +1 to CR). Following the Bestiary rules, a 7th level Warrior Bodyguard is CR 2 (+6 levels of warrior adds +3 CR, and a level 1 warrior is CR 1/3, so you go CR 1/3->1/2->1->2).

You can ignore the real-world standard, but everything in the core rules assumes it. The only thing I've seen that doesn't support it is Gamemastery Guide's premade NPCs, but they're kinda silly (they seem to think that your average barmaid is a higher CR than your typical orc raider).

Gods are fantastic. Believe in them or not in real life, mythologies of gods, monsters, and spirits are the driving force behind fantasy stories and games. If doing stuff like creating worlds, life, being immortal, parting oceans, and so forth doesn't qualify on the godlike scale, then I'm not sure what does. Or does it take having over the top abilities to which you have no defense against and 60+ Hit Dice to qualify you for the title of "godlike"?

EDIT: I'll put it another way. If everyone is in fact a super human by all reasonable conditions, then it makes the PCs far less fantastic, and actually very underwhelming. It doesn't really matter if you're a 1st level Fighter because the Innkeeper is probably a CR 5 fighter 1/expert 3/adept 2 and could easily have stopped all the CR 1/3 orcs rampaging through the valley using nothing more than his steely glare and his frying pan if he wanted to. Assuming of course he didn't let his minion the waitress slaughter them with her kitchen knife and throwing platter and blinding drinks.

So either a high level character is special and quickly approaching godlike, or you're just resetting the scale and weakening everything around humans (and I do mean everything, since stuff like hardness and hit points in objects is reflected here as well), and setting a lower bar than average for everyone and pushing the high bar farther away.

"Well the mayor of this tiny hamlet is a 7th level character, and the blacksmith is 5th. You guys are all 1st level, so you need to go risk life and limb and kill countless orcs to be as good as a paper pusher and a horseshoe maker. One day you might reach 11th level and be like a competent bodyguard. If the campaign goes on for a long time, you might hit level 70 and be godlike."

At the end of the day, D&D is about medieval knights wearing post-Rennassaince armor worshiping greek gods and fighting brain eating space aliens and sentient jello.

I mean, we left "medieval fantasy" long ago. Like, in OD&D long ago.

Invalid comparison. The 'institution of slavery' is not inherently evil. How it is organized and enforced certainly can be.

Herp-derp.

Don't know if Trolling...

Or Stupid.

Nekyia wrote:

Deathless from Book of Exalted Deeds/Eberron Campaign Setting. Baelnorns from Monsters of Faerun. Good Liches from Libris Mortis. Et cetera.

But, to be fair, all those monsters are fairly ridiculous and have no place in a serious game. :P

I guess what it comes down to for me is: in a game in which my good elf ranger who spots a drow before it spots him can't ever pre-emptively attack it because it might be good, I'm probably just going to play a neutral or evil character that doesn't care.

It's hard enough to play a character who tries to do the right thing even with a fair bit of GM help and encouragement; with circumstances conspiring to make my good alignment a lead weight tied to another lead weight tied around my neck, I'd just rather not play the good alignment. It doesn't seem fun to me.

I agree, but this is one of the caveats of playing a 'realistic' game. Being good is really hard! It's the same problem I had while playing Infamous on PS3 - if you're the good guy, you've constantly got to be aware of civilians, lest you blow them up with your crazy powers, while the evil guy can simply blow up everyone in town and not give it a second thought. This, I feel, is what makes a role-playing game a role-playing game - the capacity to take on a role where doing otherwise might not be beneficial.

However, it is indeed a pain, even in realistic games, if your GM makes playing a good guy an exercise in patience like "a lead weight tied to another lead weight tied around [your] neck". I enjoy playing the good guy, even when it leads to ethical dilemmas, but not if the game makes it profoundly unfun to do so. If your GM makes all the enemies evil then throws one random good guy in the bunch just to spring 'HA! You killed a good guy! Alignment shift!" on you, it becomes unrewarding to not be an evil character (eg. 'You killed an evil guy in this bunch of good guys! You are now... uh, more evil."). I don't mind, for instance, having to do some research on a potential villain before setting out to slay him, or even having to consider taking a villain's life if he can be somehow redeemed, but these moments should be few and far between if only for the sake of having fun.

In my utterly unasked-for opinion, I think a lot of people in this thread are bringing perceptual baggage into the discussion. Yes, dungeon-crawls can be mindless if done poorly, but then the same can be said about absolutely any other kind of campaign as well. Above all, a megadungeon is just a setting, in the same way that a little town, cosmopolitan city, or a desert, or a wilderness march, or a jungle, or a collection of spooky places, or pirate islands are just settings. It's possible to take any of the above settings and make a great, memorable campaign filled with fascinating characters, intriguing dilemmas, and deadly dangers. In the same way, it's just as possible to take any of the above settings, including your favorite one, whichever that is, and make a wearisome, tedious grind that can only be completed through sheer bloody-mindedness or the force of inertia. None of the settings listed are either easier or harder than any of the others to have a great campaign in, because they're all just settings, backdrops, scenery, and nothing more. Sure they all have their own tropes, but there's nothing inherently superior or inferior about the tropes of any one of them; they're just different.

E6 or E8, plus suppliment rules for things like Kingdom Building, founding a Guild, etc.

Then add on "epic only" feats that are things like "can walk on clouds" and "can drink a lake"

How about sitting down and spending some time coming up with some new original creatures.

I would suggest having art directors and writers at Paizo work as teams to come up with original creature creations. Or at the very least an RPG Superstar type creature contest with 1/3 of the Bestiary 3 containing winning entries.

Better yet how about hiring several concept artists like the video game companies do when they are developing new ideas/concepts/stories for games. The assignment is to generate 30 quick sketch creatures in two weeks. Then the Paizo staff reviews the sketches and starts developing original creatures based on the sketches.

I would like to see something other than the same-old same-old.

I would prefer to see new NPC races that my players will beg me to play as PCs. (ex: Dhampir, Agathion, Ulpinal, and Urdefhan)

I would like to see a race of creatures as powerful as dragons that are not dragons.

My point is this.

The Pathfinder RPG is about moving the ball forward while introducing and embracing new ideas.

3.5 material is plentiful and easy enough to update if it has not already been updated on the Paizo site or other GM and player sites.

There are already more dragons, demons, devils and fey than I can use, or will ever use.

Also, it's not called Dungeons & Dragons anymore. Its called Pathfinder now, which means exploring new paths and finding new creatures.

Do I understand this right? You think that rewarding outstanding work and punishing subpar results does not work? Really?

The day that Paizo starts talking about "punishing" employees is the day I find a new job. Rewarding good results, that's different. I find the notion of an employer having the power to "punish" a grown human being, like they were a child or a criminal, outright offensive.

By that metric, maybe the right thing to do is to fire editors who make mistakes, which then keeps the rest of the staff so frightened than they never make mistakes ever again.

FEAR will keep the star systems in line. Fear of this battle station!

The more you tighten your grip, Erik, the more editorial mistakes will slip through your fingers.

By that metric, maybe the right thing to do is to fire editors who make mistakes, which then keeps the rest of the staff so frightened than they never make mistakes ever again.

FEAR will keep the star systems in line. Fear of this battle station!

Moreover, the general message of pathfinder with regards to gender, as far as I can see is this 'Girls kick arse.'

Definitely. Who are the female iconics?

Let's make something very, very clear.

If you aren't following RAI as intended, I am unimpressed with your build.

Lawyering a loophole to make your Uber-build doesn't not impress me. It depresses me actually. And I don't think you are a rules genius, but rather I think it is a sad and pathetic person who feels the needs to subvert rules in an imaginary world in order to succeed.

Because really, is there anything more sad than having to cheat in a role playing game among friends?

When you are reading the rules, and you have two options: One that seems reasonable and one that seems broken, if you choose the broken one you are wrong.

Seriously, you are wrong.

Developers are trying to make a game that is challenging, balanced, and fair.

Don't be the jerk who is trying to break the game.

Please, I'm begging you. After reading some of the people who post on here ridiculous rules subversion (I am looking at you Eidelon threads) half of the problems could be solved by asking the simple questions "What is the rule as intended".

You don't win if you are subverting the rules, no matter what lawyering you do. You aren't smarter than the Devs or the system, you just have a weak DM. And in the same way a child who doesn't get punished isn't awesomely petulant, they are a spoiled brat, you aren't brilliant, you are just...well to quote the Dude, if you are that guy then "You're not wrong Walter, you're just an..."

Numeria, to me, is METAL. Not, like, copper, but like a dude in a loincloth swinging a technoaxe at a murder-bot cyborg bear, and he's got a sexy metal lady clinging to one leg while firing eye lasers at a pterodactyl covered in skull holograms. Wait, what were we taking about?

Anyway, I like the tech in DoG, and I would love to see more Numerian science. I think that making it similar (Use Magic Device to operate, ray guns that work like wands of scorching ray, etc.) or sub-systems of (excellent work with the robot subtype!) is a lot better than trying to integrate a whole new mechanics (such as creating new skills, or creature types).

Numeria, to me, is METAL. Not, like, copper, but like a dude in a loincloth swinging a technoaxe at a murder-bot cyborg bear, and he's got a sexy metal lady clinging to one leg while firing eye lasers at a pterodactyl covered in skull holograms. Wait, what were we taking about?

European power metal (Manowar and Hammerfall especially) is my inspiration for D&D in general. I feel like my Pathfinder games should be about the sorts of things metal bands sing about.

I was probably listening to a lot of Diamond Head when I invented Numeria, so yeah, there's a certain heavy metal vibe there. Heck, the place is best known for it's [sky[metal, anyway! :)

I won't steal Sean's thunder by relating the fact that, statistically speaking, most of our books are more dependable than the most common forms of birth control. (Wait... damn....)

What I will say is that the FDA has guidelines for how much rat poop can show up in your food. Same with hair, dangerous chemicals, etc. Those numbers are not zero, because they *can't* be zero. Rat poop happens. What they've done is set the bar as high as seems feasible (and, hopefully, safe).

Editing is a lot like that. We do the best we can, but things will inevitably slip through. Are we always trying to make things better? You bet. And when errors crop up, we're terribly embarrassed (you should see the look in Chris Carey's eyes when he sees something he was *sure* he fixed). But the willingness to risk imperfection--and in fact, to totally bomb on occasion--is necessary for any artist or entertainer. It's part of the job. (Terrifyingly, the same is also true of surgeons and other professions where the consequences are much, much greater.)

This is not an excuse, it's just how it is. We're going to keep doing our best, and if that's not enough, it's not enough. But I hope that the totally awesome content in the books will continue to outweigh the occasional "teh" or convoluted feat description.

Goblin wizards

Goblins believe that writing is dark magic that steals words out of your head. In the case of magical writing, this isn't far from the truth. Even among civilized races, it's common knowledge that scribing a magical scroll "steals" the prepared spell from the "mind" of the scribe, and casting a spell from a scroll "steals" the writing from the page. Even the dimmest goblin understands that there can be power in the written word.

A rare few goblins choose to dabble in this black magic of writing, and explore the power of the written arcane word. This is a dangerous, solitary path, because other goblins tend to torture and devour anyone found reading or writing. An aspiring goblin wizard has no peers to study with, and is surrounded by deadly enemies. Even if he did meet another aspirant wizard, they would never collaborate; after all, reading, even if it's someone else's spellbook, steals ideas from your head forever.

Once a goblin does finally master the basics of wizardry, his written spells are idiosyncratic, even by the standard of arcane writing. They more closely resemble code than any written language, and generally aren't written in a bound tome. Instead, they're scratched on debris, scribbled all over the insides of his clothing, or etched into walls or a even decently solid expanse of earth. While most goblins don't scribe scrolls, a goblin scroll is usually scribed on a flammable object, which is set on fire as part of activating the scroll's spell. Without the use of read magic, it's difficult to even identify these writings as magical: a DC 21 Perception or Spellcraft check is required to even identify the marks as meaningful, and any Spellcraft check to decipher a goblin's "spellbook" has a +2 DC modifier.

A goblin sneaky enough to conceal these self-directed studies and cunning enough to discover the basics of arcane magic on their own, however, can quickly rise to the head of a tribe. While goblins fear and hate writing, they are awed and inspired by fire, and wizards are masters of the elements. Any goblin who can project fire with Burning Hands or even the dreaded Fireball will be held in an almost religious awe by his peers... as long as they never find out where the power is coming from.

Not perfect, but what the hell, I just tossed it off anyway.

brassbaboon wrote:

Do people really put this tired old trope in games anymore? Seriously? Humans may not be at the "top of the food chain" but they are higher than deer. And if druids are going to stop humans from hunting because they aren't at the "top of the food chain" does that mean they would stop a fox or a weasel?

Probably. Sounds like a vegan druid. He'll try to teach lions to eat tofu. Attacks anyone who doesn't agree. Total douche. The only way to combat those is to kill more creatures than you're eating. Film yourself doing it, and send the films to him. Give the animals fake trials and make it clear that the judge in the scene is totally not impartial. Make the lawyers sock puppets and let them speak in a silly voice with two conflicting accents at once. And the court needs a half-time show. Make animals wear fur coats. Made out of their own fur. That ought to shatter their sanity after the third tape, and they'll die trying to eat themselves, convinced they're a kosher bean stalk.

The Aristocrats!!!

Greg

Believe what you like. I'm outta here.

Are you leaving the internet too?

Well, we should. If my favorite publisher publishes something i don't want to read, will i agonize over it? No. I will wait for them to publish something i would want to read.

I for instance despise psionics. I never use them in any of my games and am a very strong anti-psionics supporter. However, if Paizo asked if people wanted a psionics book and a lot of people said yes, i would not try to prevent that from happening. Not everybody plays as i do. Somebody likes psionics. It is wrong to prevent other people from having fun the way they like just because i selfishly want everything paizo churns out to target me specifically.

Nobody is forcing you to buy those books. Also, you won't die if a book or three that comes out of Paizo does not interest you. Live and let live.

I don't begrudge those who want epic rules, the right to argue for their case. Nor do I pass any judgement on those who want such sourcebooks/support even though I dont. In a perfect world Paizo would produce that too and everyone would be happy.

My reason for asking Paizo not to head in that direction is that we don't live in a perfect world and pursuing that line will (almost) necessarily result in less output that I am actually interested in. There is an opportunity cost to every decision they make and I'm expressing my view so that they can set their course with the most information available about what their customers want. After all, if we took your advice to heart then the only forum posts on this topic would be "We want high level sourcebooks" and it would appear to be a unanimous consensus.

I dont think lobbying a company as to how I'd like them to devote their scarce development resources should be taken to mean I think anyone else is wrong. They can argue for what they want and I'll argue for what I want.

Here's my problem with high-level play:

At low levels, you have three main ingredients -- investigation, travel/terrain, and encounters. They make a nice mix. By high level, as pointed out, PC abilities have rendered the first two non-functional, leaving you with only the third. We've talked about that, but haven't discussed why it's such a problem.

The issue is that the third one quickly gets absurd, to where there's no logical explanation possible. To challenge PCs, you end up seeing stuff like "this extraplanar city has armies of standard grunt guards who are 15th level fighters/10th level clerics." And one wonders why one of these 25th level mooks hasn't simply plane shifted to Golarion and taken the place over, living there like a god instead of serving as adventurer fodder in Superfriends City. Any one antagonist can depopulate a planet, and there are seemingly infinite numbers of them just standing around waiting to be sword fodder.

High level games should have LESS combat, because realistically, there shouldn't be a "top-heavy" universe full of godlike antagonists, and with only a few low-level threats. But that's EXACTLY how things get structured, because with no investigation or travel avalaible, a hiogh-level campaign is forced to resort to still more combat to fill the gap.

It all depends on the level of verisimilitude you want, and how much you want to limit the PCs abilities to ignore any needs they might have. This is the same fundamental question as "do you track arrows?"

I've done it both ways. Both have advantages and negatives. If I'm in a gritty, realistic, narrowly balanced campaign, I prefer tracking details. If it's a laid-back campaign or a hack and slash campaign or if the goal is just to be as awesomey as possible, then I don't like tracking details.

I do have an actual preference for gritty, realistic, narrowly balanced campaigns, but not everybody shares that preference.

- Group-based play breaks down. Will save DCs that are auto-pass for the Wizard and auto-fail for the Fighter. ACs are auto-hit for the Paladin and auto-miss for the Rogue. (Not counting nat 1s & 20s)

- For the GM, creating opponents takes too long. As a GM, it's really not worth my time to stat up an 18th level Fighter, pick all his feats, and learn all his tactics... so that I can use him in one encounter.

- Time at the table suffers. Someone has over 8 attacks, with some things doubling on crit and others not, adding up all the circumstantial modifiers, etc. It just takes for-flipping-ever. You can say "be prepared" but that one guy, he never will.

- The difference between "well-built" and "minmaxed to hell" grows. I'm not even talking about sub-par builds. I'm talking about the difference between a "softcore manmaxer" and a "hardcore minmaxer" - at low level, they have similar power. At high level, their power has significantly diverged. Then the arms race happens.

- Too many spells. Spells deal more damage than swords (esp when you throw in auto-kills). If the Wizard can do that only a handful of times a day, and the Fighter is the "steady damage dealer", then that's a cool differentiation. But once the Wizard has over 30-some spells per day (and enough wealth for wands&scrolls besides) then he can cast his uber-spells every round. Then the Fighter wonders why he tries.

- Too many weird rules. What happens why you're in the bottom of a Shadow Conjured Create Pit, and then you put up an Anti-Magic Field on yourself, but the range doesn't reach the lip? Here the forums, we can figure it out. In the middle of an initiative round? Kills the momentum.

- Impossible to write classic stories. Travelogue? Nope, got a Teleport spell. Save the King? Why bother, we'll just Raise him. Sure, you can come up with special rules and explanations as to why you can't do these things, but at that point, you've bent the world so much toward the Tippyverse, that it no longer resembles the classic fantasy world of Tolkien and King Arthur (or whomever) that you're trying to replicate.

And many, many more. There's just no point. I've run 4th level adventures where the PCs have traveled to Mt Celestia and slain the celestial that gaurds the enterance to the 7th Heaven. Just scale the numbers down, but keep the fluff epic. You don't need your sheet to say "level 35" in order to do Mythic Things (tm).

At the risk of mortgaging today's textspace for tomorrows...

Could you please not waste post-count with simple "Oooohs", "Aaahs", "Gimme!", "Like-button" and similar when a new release is posted? Please. It doesn't add to the conversation nor is it incentive for me to buy the product. To the contrary, if the post-count gets too high, it isn't a wise use of my time to try to get up to date with the thread.

Instead, perhaps you could nudge the publisher to release more details.
Or perhaps you could sway final editing with your wish list for inclusion. Whatever you choose, please be considerate of those of us who must wade through afterwards to get to the crux of the conversation.

Thank you.

[Reposted to general forum.]

Gailbraithe wrote:

Rocketmail1 wrote:

Hey, you're entitled to your beliefs, man. If you believe squirrels talk to you and the homeless are trying to eat you, fine. If it really bothers you that much to be wrong, and you feel like lashing out about amputation, then go right ahead.

How am I wrong? Are you seriously claiming that I am wrong about what I believe? Because that would be laughable.

I mean what the deuce, man? You say I'm entitled to my beliefs, but apparently I'm not entitled to know what they are? How does that make any kind of sense to you?

Um, you can totally be wrong about what you believe. I believe my examples above show how explicitly wrong someone's beliefs can be.

You can be wrong about the content of your beliefs.

You cannot be wrong about whether you believe them (though you can be in denial about unspoken beliefs).

You say he believes in amputation.
He says he does not believe in amputation.
You say he is wrong when he states he does not believe in amputation.

You are not arguing about the content of his beliefs (amputation, which is just a noun, not really a belief), which is something he could be wrong about; you are arguing WHETHER he believes them, which he could not be wrong about (apart from denial).

To use your talking squirrels and cannibal homeless examples, you could certainly argue that a person is wrong about those beliefs, in that they are untrue; however, you could not argue that is a person is wrong when they state that they HAVE those beliefs. Whether a belief is true or not is immaterial to whether a person HAS the belief.

He does not have the belief in amputation (unless you think he is lying or in denial).

You say he does.

He says, nope, I don't. The only person qualified to authoritatively state what beliefs he has is him. You can judge their wrongness if you like, but not their existence.

P.S. As far as the movie, I liked it and I thought the ending was fine as far as the locket goes. I liked the letting go metaphor and felt it was appropriate and in character (Joe's dad also was now able to see Joe and connect with him in a way that had been broken, so he didn't "need" that one memento of his dead mother in the same way he had before).

The monster does get away with murder, but Joe convinces it to leave without killing anyone else. The monster isn't the hero of the story or the object of our affection when watching it; Joe is. This isn't E.T., though it clearly homages it in many ways.

My recent foray into chemistry has brought me to a greater understanding of how the real world works, but has made certain aspects of PFRPG harder to handwave away.

Flap your hands harder or check your brain at the door. Drown it in alcohol first if you have to. You will loose either your hobby or your sanity if you head down that path.

For example, does the acid splash spell hurl a ball of sulfuric acid or nitric acid? Is acid fog a cloud of oleum or spiritus salis? Most breath weapons are probably hydrochloric acid simply due to biological compatibility, but a very wide range of potential acids could be at work when discussing living systems.

Its not nitric acid or hydrochloric acid its just acid. Bad burny liquid that does not fun things to living and unliving tissue.

And now that I think about it, electricity damage and fire damage are both just heat, right?

No to that one. Part of the damage from electricity is that it hyperstimilates your nerves , something fire apparently doesn't do.

(And in all fairness, the lightning bolt spell would probably deafen and temporarily blind everyone in the room, not just the two guys that were lined up right. Not as bad if you think of it that way.)

Its just a little lightning. Don't worry about it

KaeYoss wrote:

And why is that? I think it's because PrCs are pretty much dead and buried, at least as stocking stuffer.

And the world is a better place for it :)

(sniffs bait and walks away)

I gotta say, for folks who are supposedly so indifferent to prestige classes, you're spending a heck of a lot of time telling me how wrong I am :)