Great Guru's page

By which I mean...can it leave 3.5 too far behind and still remain viable as an independant rules system?

To further clarify...if PFRPG changes too much or the changed go to far and create a lot of work for DMs wanting to use all their 3.5 resources, will said DMs buy into it?

I love the Pathfinder world. I love the APs. I'm not so fond of some of the design decisions being proferred in the Beta Playtest.

This is a pretty open topic so dive right in. Politely, please.

LOL. That would be the best selling Pathfinder Chronicles issue ever.

Gnomes should get a Wisdom bonus. And their favored class should be gnija! You gnow it's true!

I'm hoping they'll be a little more unique than the aforementioned template. The template's not bad but...the Four Horesmen should be totally badass to the Nth degree.

yes

What he said. Totally.

I like everything except the bare midriff. The abdomen is the most vulnerable part of the human body and the quickest way to a long, agonizing death. Plus she's from an extremely cold environment (the Kodars).

However, she is very hawt.

If, of course, you have a much higher grapple modifier and a ring of protection +5.

I'm glad they got rid of the Charisma negative. It always bothered me that the most racially intimidating character suffered a deficiency in the stat governing the Intimidate skill. Not kosher.

This is a change that is far and away for the better, IMHO.

So Clark...do you have a backup plan if the GSL ends up being the screwjob for 3rd parties that some of us grognards believe it will be?

--Guru Grognard

1. I'm not interested in 4.0. Ever.

2. I won't buy anything 4.0. Ever.

3. I'll love you forever. And ever.

I think a fundamental starting place for modifying any NPC, especially Paizo-created ones, is to modify their ability scores. Paizo adventures mostly use the so-called elite array: 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, and 8. This array is equivalent to a 25-point buy. Lots of DMs, including me, use a 28-point buy for Player Characters or have some dice-rolling method with the option to generate several arrays and chose the best. Given the penchant for players to optimize their scores to the best of their ability, this gives PCs a big edge right at the basest level of character generation.

Simply put: an important NPC like Vanthus should be at least equal to the PCs in his abilities.

As an aside, giving a Wisdom of 8 to a long term employer like Lavinia is utterly ridiculous. How is any capable team of PCs supposed to respect someone they can manipulate without even trying?

If you're going to modify adventures to suit your campaign's needs, start right there and go through and identify your important NPCs who are in need of a pimping out.