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 Recent Posts
True, but most of the sellers have somewhat dodgy overseas shipping prices, and one thing I love Paizo for is their reasonable international shipping rate (best I ever had in any US shop), and besides I would rather leave my money here (taking advantage of rather silly exchange rate between USD and EUR :P)
Here we go, I kicked off a RotRL game using Alpha. I kinda wished the players would take at least one core class but noooo, they had to go splatbook crazy. Which ended up as a good thing, because there was some major backwards compatibility testing thanks to that. So here we go, classes first: DUSKBLADE (PHB 2) - converts just fine. No issues with spell list, player was very glad for cantrip changes. He liked the high CMB and ability to pull off some combat manoeuvres without the 3.5 hassle. BEGUILER (PHB 2) - same as above. The player was new to D&D so he still doesn't use all Beguiler features, but he learns quickly. FAVOURED SOUL (CDiv) - pretty much a cleric without turning and with sorcerer-like spell casting, worked just fine. BINDER (ToM) - ouch. a brick wall with guns on in terms of compatibility. For example, one vestige allowed him pretty much unlimited undead turning. Fine and dandy in 3.5 , but here... unlimited healing ? I had to nerf that feature to 3 + Cha mod uses per day, much to the player's woes. As for the rest: SKILLS We kicked off with Alpha 1 system and we will stick with it until the end of AP to avoid hassle. The players liked the "compacted" skill list very much - Perception, for example. FEATS Power Attack and Cleave changes, yay ! A few feats seems underpowered - for example, the Duskblade took Arcane Strike and thinks the WotC version was better. I read somewhere it's going to be buffed and scale with levels - good news... COMBAT CMB rocks, the grapple changes rock, the players finally have a clear idea how the extra combat options work and they use them ! We switched to A3 grapple rules - A1 was just too hard to track. SPELLS Not much changes in effect yet, as the players are still before having access to Save-or-Die spells or Polymorphs. I love the Identify change, though. OTHERS For some reason, I'm in deep love with XP table, because the DMG one scared me away. The extra HP and Feats boost the PC survivability greatly, but makes some fights rather easy. Funnily enough, out of P1 and P2 the only 2 fights where things got hairy were Yeth Hounds and Shadows, both under Thistletop. Oh well, Shadow Clock is next, and I don't plan to tone Xanesha down, bruhahahahaha... ;)
Kostchtchie is quite obviously a play on the Slavic demon Koschei (Kosciej in Polish, my 1st language), so I would give it a shot: Kos-cheey-chee WTB more Slavic tongue-breakers in Pathfinder - yeah, Baba Yaga is old and everybody knows her, and Marzanna was featured in Frostburn, but how about likes of Swiatowid or Dadzbog ? :)
Darrkien, Human Duskblade, NG - An antisocial (Cha:6), impatient, wrathful (yay for Sins of the Saviors !), sometimes overtly sadistic, deeply religious (well, ever since I refused him a certain feat on grounds of the character's atheism), cantankerous guy who is basically the group's beatstick. He constantly tries to convince the group to explore Golarion's mysteries and background instead of kicking the monsters and cashing their loot. Harmin, Halfling Beguiler, NN - Looking like some sweet little kid with that fluffy rabbit on his shoulder, this is the scout/trap disabler of the group. Funnily enough, despite his prankster nature he is one of most serious and no-nonsense PCs. Loves to "liberate" items from their previous owners and spy on the rest of the team, especially on.. Magnus, Human Binder, CN - A Chelaxian ex-noble who conjures strange spirits and fills the role of Swiss Army Knife in the group. Due to his constant shifts of behavior thanks to vestiges, he is in a different mood every day. Almost died when a botched binding shifted his alignment to CE, promptly setting him on a plan to backstab the group and team up with The Skinsaw Man. That was one of most awesome gaming sessions ever :) Marius, Dwarf Favored Soul of Abadar, LN - The up-tight Mr. We Will Do This By The Book, who constantly attempts to tax everyone 10% of their income "for the benefit of Abadar's temples". Needless to say, he is not very liked for his greedy (yay....more Sins of the Saviors !) behavior, but since he is the group's healing man they put up with it. Also, loves to make practical jokes on the Duskblade, such as convincing him to go fishing which resulted in a pitched battle with a Boggard patrol (yay for rolling 1 on Survival checks...)
OK, so finally perhaps we have an opportunity to kill a certain archetype that annoys me to no end: The Plate Wearing Mace Swinging Priest o' Doom ! Really, why do all Clerics have access to full array of armor ? For me, it blurs the line between Paladin and Cleric. Both end up as Full Plate +3 combat machines. And between the spells and feats, current 3.5 Clergy ends up usually chewing the fighters for supper. OK, we have a strong buff of Fighters in Pathfinder Alpha, but the Clerics I know the "plate and mace" image is in our heads since the Red Box, but it never really caught with me. Clerics are supposed to be deity's font in the team... Perhaps, Clerics with War domain could potentially be inclined to don the metal and swing the steel, but as for Clerics of more pacifistic deities... The way I run 3.5 currently, I kicked the standard Cleric out of the class lineup, giving the players a choice between Cloistered Cleric variant and the Favored Soul (the later being one of better post-PHB class ideas out there). So my suggestion is, tie the armor/weapon choice to Domains, and perhaps the BAB too (med BAB for combative domains, poor for the non-combat ones). Let all Clerics keep the medium armor (OK, they're supposed to be adventuring type, so some protection is warranted).
Well, a funny thing happened. Today I got a package from Paizo and went "yay, the 4 or 5 of pathfinder finally !" Actually, it was Pathfinder, but no.6 ... meaning the 4 and 5 are somewhere there in the limbo. What do we do now ? :)
Actually Chessex is an american company. But I believe they manufacture in China, hence the low cost. Now, Q-W is from Poland and IIRC they manufacture in Poland too, so I think it's a choice between paying more and having some normal folks earn decent money or paying less and having some PRC Commie factory boss earn a new Lexus.... oh well, I'm drifting into politics :)
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