|
|
||||||||||||||||||
| Paizo Pathfinder® GameMastery® Planet Stories® Paizo Games | |||||||||||||||||||
| About Paizo Messageboards News Paizo Blog Help/FAQ | |||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
|
 Recent Posts
I LOATHE the Salvatore drow. LOATHE. That being said, if I was to love the drow, they'd need to be different. An entire society based on spiders ought to be pretty demented. Bloated mother-queens who spawn thousands of young. Different species of drow, each suited for a certain purpose: assassin, soldier, builder, food collector, nursemaids, ritualists. Entire cities built of solid webs. Cities suspended over impossibly deep pits. Insects as food. Larders of nothing but living creatures webbed and left to "ripen". Amoral killers all, with no qualms about anything, as long as it leads to the end they seek. Maybe even something like a colossal living city to which they all cling, that crawls along the dark places of the earth. Relentless, undaunted and ever hateful. The perfect evil society: that which isn't evil, merely efficient and amoral. Just brainstorming. I'm sure whatever you come up with will be pretty darn cool.
Well, this is the 4e board. Shouldn't the board dedicated to 4e be a place where those that choose to play it can talk about it without the constant thread crapping and trolling from those that don't choose to play it? No this is the 4e board. It should be about discussing 4e. Maybe you should petition for a "4e Board for those who want to hear about how great 4e is?"
There's a tendency to think that because this does create a new product line and 'revenue stream' (if thats what you choose to call it), that this was the sole motivation, the sole reason for creating a new edition. Please don't imply that I said that this edition was created solely as a revenue stream, but also you cannot look at WotC as creating 4e purely for artistry either. Make no mistake: WotC is a company that exists to make money, as its first goal. A crafted game is a secondary concern, because if it doesn't make money, it doesn't stay around. It gets sold off, folded under or otherwise removed from consideration. It's not a dodge, hustle or scam: it's reality in the world of corporations and capitalism. If it's not making money, it doesn't get made.
I do have one thing to say before I fade away: D&D is not a game. Twister is a game. Crazy Eights is a game. Hell, even checkers is a game. D&D is a hobby. It does not simply entail a set of rules. It entails a certain way of looking at the world, a way of having fun that transcends beyond rules and written words and mere opinions. For me, D&D is the lifeline that I was not the only one who continued to love the old chivalric tales long after the other kids my age had moved onto monster trucks and explosions. It was the verification that there were others out there who thought, "Wouldn't it be cool to be a wizard? To wield the arcane fires that power reality? Wouldn't it be cool if dark things lurked in the deep places and dragons breathed smoky breath in hidden lairs? It gave me an outlet for the imagination that I couldn't express in the mundane, do your homework world of suburbia. For many people I've met, it's the only social interaction they get. It gives them a community, a place to belong, a way to relate to people they otherwise don't relate to. So don't demean D&D by dismissing it as merely a game. Don't demean the experiences of so many by condescendingly dismissing their concerns that WotC has changed their precious experience into something new and different that may not connect to their vision of this hobby. And don't be suprised when people react with anger, hatred or even vehemence when you suggest that they should just shut up and keep quietly to themselves. What 4e represents to those of us who grew to love 3.x isn't a new edition. It's a loss of a stream of creativity that fed the hobby that we love. It's the loss of magic entering the field, it's a drying up of new ideas and new concepts because some corporation made the decision to bring in a new revenue stream rather than nurture the one they had. It's the loss of what might have been, a loss of what could be, and I applaud Paizo for recognizing that and realizing that even us old trolls deserve a game that's alive and evolving and growing. That is all. Thank you for the floor.
Y'know, I don't post a lot online. I mostly cruise, lurk, occasionally posting, but one place I always used to feel at home was ENWorld. It used to be welcoming, friendly, inviting and open to new ideas and discussion. I say used to be. Ever since 4e was announced it's gotten less and less friendly to the point of outright hostility. I love the Mods there, they're great, but they're overwhelmed. The hate has risen and is plague like. What went wrong? Now every time I log on it's another thread about how terrible 3.x is, how terrible 4e is, how terrible I am if I don't agree with the poster's opinion, and most of all, how terrible so and so is if they don't parrot my opinion exactly. So I've given up. After six years posting I collapsed the message boards preview on the front page and stopped checking. I'll devote my time to Paizo now. Even if I'm not agreed with, I can always seem to count on good humor, polite conversation and general geniality. I'll miss you, ENWorld. You used to be a great place. Cheers.
Seeing that we have 6 artisans, we could always go with a few specialty items... Revised Proposal: Mules 8 gp x 6 = 48 gp
TOTAL: 998.2 gp Anyone see anything missing or want to raise or lower any totals?
I'm game. We'll need some mules, mining equipment, basic tools, rations, extra bolts, arrows... Let's see: Mules 8 gp each
The question is how many do we need of each? Proposal:
Total: 875 gp (125 gp left)
I have my copy up on eBay. Unfortunately, I have an 18th month old and he's getting into the tearing things up stage. And since I love the book, but really have no use for it since my gaming group has no interest in Ptolus, it must go. It's a signed and numbered copy, #762 I think. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=14023667737 3&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT&ih=004 James
I can honestly say no. Rationale: I have a limited budget: mortgage, car payment, 18 month old son, wife, cats, etc. All of which are of a higher priority than gaming. If I get to spend any money at all on gaming, it's not very much and not very often. Simple economics states that I need to make that dollar stretch and it stretches better with online retailers named after large South American rivers. Especially when I DM and need the extra DMG and MM. So all told, that's over a hundred dollar's worth of gear. So if I can get that gift set for $65, then I can't pass that up. HOWEVER: I do make it a point to spend money at my local game shop. Why? Because I appreciate the services it does provide and very few of those are selling stuff. They organize miniatures tournaments, have open gaming, are generally nice folks, do demos, etc. So in return for that, I spend what little money I have there as often as I can. Now, I also have a bit more respect for them because their brick and mortar store is not their primary business; that's their online store (www.scifigenre.com). Any FLGS that is not doing business online is dooming themselves to fail. Sorry to say, but thems the breaks. It's a new world of gaming and the future is online. The only B&M stores that will survive and thrive will have to learn to embrace new models, new roles and new services. Might I suggest selling food to those gaming geeks who show up, game at your store and never spend any money? I can almost guarantee that they'll buy Mountain Dew and Cheetos; it's in the blood.
Allarion the Urban Druid Spoiler:
Allarion, Half-Elf Urban Druid 1
http://invisiblecastle.com/stats/view/17055/ STR 12 (+1)
HP: 11
BAB +0
Attacks:
Skills: 20 pts, 4 ranks Max
Feats:
Class Features
Spells Memorized (3/2) (DC 12 + spell level)
1st Level:
Background Trait: Lamm killed Allarion’s wife, Melisandre. Equipment (80 gp)
Legs:
Two-Finger Joe grew up twitchy. Small and lean, he learned to be faster than the other kids, to throw better than them and to never stop moving. When he was 13 he was out hunting in the brush around town. He stumbled, and fell into a sinkhole that turned out to be a cache of weapons and stores. He fell in love with a Colt Python, the only working weapon still in the cache. He named it Bessie and carries it everywhere. Although he relies on a disc shooter for everyday defense and hunting, his true love is Bessie. One day, they'll go far, he knows it. One day.
Okay, I'm thinking of playing Gerr Herricksen, Paladin. Instead of the stalwart defender of evil in shiny armor, he's more of a dirty boots, dusty soul sort of paladin. Think closer to a detective in a pulp novel. The quiet type who's always sticking his nose where it doesn't belong. His god would be a god of justice for the common man. "The law covers everyone Eddie, even those who think it don't, see?" (I'll try to avoid the pompous jerk stereotype as much as I can, I swear!)
Hooray! Allarion grew up the son of a seamstress. Being half-elven, he was picked on a lot, but dealt with it through charm. When he was 13 he was apprenticed to a carpenter. Everything was pretty normal until he met Melisandre. Melisandre was beautiful, charming, smart and loved him. They were married shortly after, and moved into a small home together. Allarion thought his life was perfect, until the night. The Guard showed up at his door, took him into custody and marched him into a small room where the body of Melisandre was lying, her throat slashed. He was their prime suspect. Even after his alibi was established, his reputation was ruined. No one would hire him. He moved from his happy home into his shop, selling what small pieces and work he could. He retreated from the world, vowing to solve his wife's murder. And then one night, as he was endlessly prowling the alleys where her body was found, he heard something. The City spoke to him. It told him of secrets, of spells, of ways he could find her killer. Ever since then he's been following any lead, roughing up any thug or lowlife, all to find his wife's killer. He knows he's close, one name keeps coming up: Gaedran Lamm.
I'm thinking of a character called Two-Finger Joe, so called because he claims it's all he needs to kill what needs killin'. He'd be a Fast Hero, with an eye toward Gunslinger. Think a twitchy version of the villainous sidekick in 3:10 to Yuma. Deadeye shot with just about anything, but just a mite too jumpy to make people trust him.
Have you thought about doing something similar to Order of the Stick: publish a once a week online strip, build up your fanbase and then try to sell these volumes as a prequel sort of thing? I dug Downer, but it's been a while since I read it. If I wasn't a Dungeon subscriber way back when, I'd have never heard about it. You've got to build a new base of fans. And online has worked pretty well for Scott Kurtz, OotS, Penny Arcade, etc.
More importantly, if the folks at paizo, fans and employees alike, base your opinions solely on that quality, you may be missing out on the best fantasy role-playing system we've seen to date. Don't cut off your nose to spite your face. Indeed, the counter is also valid: by getting overly excited about something which we know 1-2% about, you may be getting excited about something that may be the worst disaster to hit the hobby to date. Let's all take a deep breath, stop speculating and get back to what the game's for: having fun.
Ha! I feel your pain... All the characters had slightly different things to do, although, of course, they're all pretty similiar. For example, my wizard had his trusty magic missile, or he had his column of fire that was a burst that did 1d6+5 damage within one square of the target, or he had a force orb that exploded like a grenade and did 2d8+5 to a primary target and 1d10+5 to any adjacent enemies or I had my sleep spell that slowed everyone and made them unconscious if they didn't save. I had a range of options for combat which satisfied me. I can only say what I saw of the others, which was that while each one was pretty much an attack of some kind, they seemed like different attacks. One did damage and gave the paladin 3 temp hit points. One did damage and knocked the guy back a square (great near chasms), one did damage and slowed the enemy. So, while they were variations on a theme, it was a pretty decent theme to start out with. I thought about this a bit when I was driving home from the demo. In 3e, at 1st level, what options do you have? Use your spell, trip, disarm, attack, heal, etc. In actual play at 1st level it comes down to attack, spell or ranged attack. So when compared with 4e, it's mostly the same, but you get a little more flavor to your melee, spell or ranged attacks. Without having seen higher level play, I can't be completely sure that it doesn't rapidly devolve into your description, but for the first level PCs we played, it was at least fun.
Let me preface this by stating my D&D history: I played maybe 2-3 games of second edition. It was fun, but the rules were near incompehensible to me. So, in college I mostly played GURPS and the various White Wolf products. Then I left the country for six months, which I spent in a mud hut in West Africa. When I got back my gaming buddies told me about this great new edition: 3rd! I got involved, started DMing it, and loved it. When 3.5 came around we reluctantly switched over, came to love it as well and I still am in a gaming group that primarily plays D&D 3.5. So a couple weeks ago, our FLGS owner offered to run a 4e demo for us, owing to the fact that one of our number is a prime revenue stream for the FLGS. We agreed and last night the five of us plus a nice bystander who happened by joined up to take on the Escape from Sembia demo game from WotC. I played the Tielfing Wizard. What We Wrought: The first few minutes were spent getting used to the character sheet. There were a few changes, of course, so we read over them, swapped sheets and oo'd and ah'd. Then we began. Our mission was to deliver a scroll to a cobbler who would pay us for the trouble. As we waited for the signal to approach him from a local bar across the way, a brigand and four guards walked up. The brigand stabbed the cobbler, who fell to the ground. We sprang into action, mainly since we hadn't yet been paid. The first combat consisted of us attempting to save the cobbler, who lay bleeding upon the ground from the predations of the obviously evil guards. This combat went a little slow, as we all got to know our capabilities. However, it was fun. Magic missiles flew, eldritch blasts cracked the air, healing words were spoken and smiting was had. We managed to kill two guards, but the brigand and remaining guards were able to flee like scared chickens. We healed the cobbler, who paid us and told us we had to get the scroll out of Sembia. So we took off. We ran straight into a dead end alley filled with crates. At this point we got to check out the skill encouter system, which I have to admit was pretty cool. We needed to get eight successes before we got four failures. We could have hidden, found another way out or climbed atop crates to get to the roof. My tiefling, being sneaky decided to hide. And rolled two 1s. In a row. So, while the others scrambled to find cover, I contented myself with hiding badly and pronouncing loudly in a russian accent that I was a a crate, nothing to see here, move along. Luckily the cleric had the presence of mind to drag me into the nearby hole in the warehouse wall he had discovered. As the guard tried the locks outside, we rolled again to see if we suceeded. And we failed. Again. Rather than get bogged down in endless guard attacks, the DM handwaved us out of town. Probably wise, as my tiefling still had some epic failures in him! We "procured" some horses outside of town and rode toward the border. Upon reaching a forest, we came across a ruined tower and some hobgoblins. Overhearing them planning evil, we attacked and managed to kill them all, in a much quicker fashion than before. COmbat really does speed up when you're not endlessly groping through rulebooks to find a suitable option. However, Skamos the Russian-accented tiefling wizard was slain in a most unpleasing fashion by an archer's cruel arrow. He died as he lived, cursing and threatening to drag souls screaming into hell. However, due to the DM's kind nature, another tiefling wizard, this time a Scottish accented stereotype happened to be wandering by and joined the party. Much rejoicing was had. Our third encounter was against some particularly nasty undead. Which is to say, normal undead, who are now particularly nasty. This made me happy, as wimpy undead aren't scary, but exploding undead who cause ongoing necrotic damage are downright creepy. Cue manic laughter. Our last encounter took place on a bridge, where bounty hunters stood waiting to deny us our rightful escape. Four beserkers, one wizard and chain-wielding roguish type who I rapidly dubbed Cheney. (Much shooting your friend in the face jokes ensued.) The berserkers were pretty tough, the wizard was less so, mainly due to the DM being unable to roll above a 9. The chain fighter was brutal. His Dance of Death ability allowed him to move five squares and attack anyone he could along the way. Ouch. We were hurting and ready to drop when the warlock managed to eldritchly blast the bugger into oblivion. Hooray! We escaped from Sembia. (Worst. Vacation. Ever.) The lowdown: Once we got our legs under us, combat DID go faster. In the last battle we went through about six rounds of combat with six players in the same time it usually takes a group of four to go through four rounds. Definitely an improvement. Critical hits now deal max damage with no confirm rolls. That was pretty awesome, and saved a lot of time. Static saves made things quicker and gave us less to worry about. The skills seemed pretty streamlined, though a better explanation of what you'd use each skill for would be nice. Racial abilities were neat and really gave the characters difference. Especially the halfing's forced reroll ability: that was awesome and saved him from at least two critcal hits. My take: I was skeptical about 4e. I wanted to wait until I had seen the rules before I made any decisions. After playing this demo, I'd pretty happy about what I've seen. I don't know if I'm completely ready to give up the ghost and drop 3.5/Pathfinder completely, but I think I'm a lot more excited about the release than I was. I'll definitely pick up the core books and read them through. If the game is this fun at higher levels, then I'll definitely play. And of course, if they don't screw up my beloved Bard when he finally gets released...
I am so psyched to see the new Bard. I loves me the Bard; it's a one-character adventuring party. And I would second the idea of song talents, maybe giving the old bard the chance to either diversify or focus on a certain aspect. I also once floated the idea that since the bard is such a jack-of-all-trades, giving him the option of taking lesser forms of other classes' talents, such as a bonus fighter feat, a wiz/sorc spell he can cast as a bard spell, a +1d6 sneak attack, some sort on monkly talent, lesser rage 1/day or the ability to take a clerical domain. it would give him the range to become whatever he needed to be. Oh, and for the love of Golarion, give the poor bugger some new Bard only spells or sonic damage spells. If he's the master of sound, he should be able to, I dunno, use them!
Anyone who played sunless Citadel knows how dangerous a Wyrmling White can be to an unsuspecting party. AMEN! That little bugger just about killed us, expecially since we were using non-lethal damage to try and subdue instead of kill! I'll take on a tribe of orcs before I tussle with another wyrmling. I think the key to running a wyrmling is to remember that while it's young, it's the young of a top predator that has clawed its way to that position for a reason. It's deadly, even when little. And it's wily, in the way that a cornered rat is wily.
I am so psyched to see the new Bard. I loves me the Bard; it's a one-character adventuring party. And I would second the idea of song talents, maybe giving the old bard the chance to either diversify or focus on a certain aspect. I also once floated the idea that since the bard is such a jack-of-all-trades, giving him the option of taking lesser forms of other classes' talents, such as a bonus fighter feat, a wiz/sorc spell he can cast as a bard spell, a +1d6 sneak attack, some sort on monkly talent, lesser rage 1/day or the ability to take a clerical domain. it would give him the range to become whatever he needed to be. Oh, and for the love of Golarion, give the poor bugger some new Bard only spells or sonic damage spells. If he's the master of sound, he should be able to, I dunno, use them!
I've only purchased and seen Burnt Offerings, but that one alone sold me. It was a GREAT module and one I'd dearly love to run if only we didn't have such a wealth of ideas to run already. Fear not, it will have its chance and it will be run, if only for the excellent chance to DM the goblins. I love me them goblins!
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
