As for the soldier unable to go to college, I think its crap that this happens when we are, also, giving illegal aliens in-state tuition.

LilithsThrall wrote:

Consequently, it is the origin of all inventiveness.

At this point you're either trolling or high. Seriously.

You use the term "random choice". Which is nonsensical as choice is DEFINITIONALLY not random. The wright brothers decision to build and fly an airplane wasn't random, an the very suggestion is a huge nonsequitur. They decided to build a big plane because they knew smaller scale ones were possible. Flying machines had been built on varying scales since ancient China.

They built a machine they thought could fly. Because smaller versions already had. Because people tried to build them because they were curious. When it didn't work quite right, they examined their invention and analyzed it, tweaked it, repeat, until finally it flew (a bit). More people built on their invention. Every step was not built on FAITH but DEMONSTRABLE ACTION. This is the essence of the scientific method.

People do not invent things because they KNOW it will work, they do so to SEE if it WILL work. And, as often as not (probably much moreso) they do not work. What of all the people who had faith in things that failed miserably?

The Wright brothers had no evidence that a flying machine could take off and land under its own power.

Argue against that all you want, its still the truth.

Gliders and hot air balloons are not airplanes.

The Wright brothers, despite having no evidence that a flying machine could take off and land under its own power, had faith that they could build such a machine. That's how faith works. Once you've gone as far as you can go with what's available, faith takes you further.

Lil,

Has anyone ever been able to correct you or are you as omniscient as you present yourself to be? I've never seen it here on the boards. That alone should tell you something. Though I doubt you'll get it.

Yet again I get sucked into your troll trap. I really should know better by now than to engage. Enjoy your delusion.

Since you've got no evidence for your position yet continue to cling to it like a child holding onto his mother's apron strings, the question you raise is one better asked of yourself.

When I've been presented with persuasive evidence, I've changed my position.

It's kinda like the Dalmer party. Yes, we can argue that cannibalism is wrong and that they shouldn't have tried to extend their lives - that they should have just died.

Yes, we can argue that, since America has reached peak oil, America shouldn't pursue additional oil resources - the American culture should just die.

But it's not gonna happen and, frankly, despite all it's warts, America has done a lot of good for the world. It has been a beacon of human rights. I don't think it would be a good thing for the world if America just died.

With all of the cross-pollination of RPG talent writing for WotC & Paizo, I am sure that anything mentioned in any product is on purpose, BUT is all in jest. The fans have an edition war. Ever notice that the writers are ignoring it?

I haven't seen any edition warring in a long time. What I do, occasionally, see is someone expressing their opinion about something and two or three posters having a soap opera meltdown in reply.

Th gold isn't the issue.

As for "get wrapped around the axle over the issue of who has the imaginary gold.", well that far more locical tha getting upset about a character raping another character since gold acctually affects power level of the game, unlike rape.

You did get get wrapped around the axle over the issue of an imaginary character commitingrapin another imaginary character, and the Rape it self was just imaginary.

The "it's only a game" argument is lame. People invest real time and real money in this game. And some of us even spend time on these messagboards.

Are you seriously claiming that adding rape to the game isn't as bad as adding looting because rape doesn't affect the power level of the game?

Honestly, that's pretty sick.

Gorbacz wrote:

I'm surprised this thread got to 20 posts before it became "LT vs. The World".

+1.

It would be easier to sort out peace in the Middle East than to convince LT that sorcerer isn't the strongest class.

Sorcerer isn't the strongest class. Wizard isn't either.

One of the reasons I like the Sorcerer is because optimizing it is a real art and a lot of its powers are overlooked by theorycrafters.

I think cha is the crappiest stat in dnd, and paizo did little to fix that.

If you don't care about charms, illusions, UMD, binding, Leadership, or social skills, then you're probably right.

A lot of reasons. Almost all of them have to do with bad theorycrafting (ie. the misguided claim that wizards can have any spell) and GMs playing softball on wizards (forex. never going after their spellbook). Also, advantages of the sorcerer class are handwaved away (forex. many GMs don't use Leadership).

All in all, when the GM isn't biased and bad theorycrafting is eliminated from the consideration, the two classes are pretty equal.

A still, silent spell (particularly an illusion or enchantment) should have a chance for the casting not to be detected.

Absolutely under no circumstances give them full BAB. The monk is not a martial class. He's like the Rogue. If you give the monk full BAB, then noob monk players will never learn how to use the monk's powers effectively. They'll get confused by the full BAB into thinking that the monk is a martial class. They'll start to play the monk like a fighter.

The monk class is fine as is, but if I were to give them anything, it would be the ability to make a half move for free at the cost of a ki point. Or, make the 20ft move they can make now at the cost of a ki point be free movement (ie. in no way impacts their ability to do a full attack).

Subpar? Should take?

Take a trait or two that that gives you a perform or knowledge skill.

Let someone else take ride, let the Ranger or Druid take survival.

It's sounds like every single one of your fighters comes out a cookie-cut of the previous one, perhaps you give them different names?

I have played fighters but each has been a concept in their own right. Most have had decent perception. But others can't swim, may know next to nothing about engineering. (All of them filled the role of meatshield i.e. filled the role in the party that was needed).

Just because a skill is a class skill does not mean you are required to have maximum ranks in it.

Have you ever had an idea of a character come to you? Try working backwards. Start with a name and 'know' who your character will be and then figure out what skills and class might be required to fit your role and idea. You might be pleasantly suprised. (Try it in PFS is you don't want to invest in the concept for an AP).

Back off the "I'm a better roleplayer than you" schtick. You don't know how I game. You've never seen my fighters. The whole "It's sounds like every single one of your fighters comes out a cookie-cut of the previous one, perhaps you give them different names?" is rude and belligerant.

If you've got a worthwhile point to make, then make it. I'm not gonna dig through all that ad hominem to find it.

Stealing/destroying a spellbook is a good way to get the Wizard to reroll a character.

And I presume you are going to rapidly replace that wealth by level you are destroying from sundering?

Stealing/destroying a spellbook is a good way to get a poorly designed/played Wizard player to reroll a character.

A well designed Wizard already has back up spellbooks and other risk mitigations so that getting a spellbook stolen/lost isn't such a great loss.

Make rules for determining attacks of opportunity and threatened spaces without a battle matt. The battle matt makes me feel like I'm playing chess, not roleplaying.

Prestige classes should be in the adventure paths, not the rule books.

They should be campaign specific.

They were originally designed to be a way for the GM to add a little extra color to the world by giving, for example, the elite guard of the king a specific set of abilities/powers, more powerful than feats. They need to return to those roots.

PrCs went off the rails when the later game designers started using them as a way to sell more books by offering munchkins pluggable power sets for optimization tricks.

I have to disagree. The Fighter ALWAYS has something to contribute to social encounters. This is a player issue, not a rules issue. Contributing to social encounters is something that should be dictated by creativity, not dice and stats.

You have, unintentionally, struck a nerve.

I HATE it when people confuse roleplay with social encounters. They are two different things. Roleplay occurs all the time. Social encounters occur when a party is roleplaying trying to gain something without combat. It includes things like diplomacy, intimidate, and bluff.

I have no doubt that you've got players who can roleplay. But that has got absolutely nothing to do with whether fighters can contribute in social encounters.

Its piss-poor design to have classes that are social classes and other classes that are combat classes.

Players want to feel that they can contribute at any time. To make the players playing fighters feel that its now time to make a taco bell run because the party is doing social stuff now is bad.

Likewise, the players playing bards shouldn't have to feel second class because the party is doing combat.

The fighter needs to have something to contribute in social situations and the bard needs a chance to become alpha in combat.

This reading means that the only purpose of the trip property is to be able to drop the weapon instead of being tripped back. This makes no sense, however, because logically you should be able to drop any weapon you would attempt to trip with that you can drop at all (such as longspear).

RAW is very clear. While any weapon can be used to trip, only weapons with the trip feature apply their enhancement bonus to the trip attempt.

One of the things I don't like about the fighter class is the archetypes. It seems the game designers want to push fighters into very narrowly defined fighting styles; archer, brawler, crossbowman, etc. It seems to me that any fighter (other than a kensai) should be well on their way to mastering many fighting styles by 10th level. So, these archetypes don't feel right to me.

It seems that a better collection of archetypes would be built around the attributes; brute (str), duelist (dex), juggernaut (con), tactician (int), kensai (wis), gladiator (cha).

People can't write down a character sheet for Chuch Norris. The paper can't contain it. It was tried once. We call it the Tanguska event.

Sexual orientation goes far beyond who is having sex with who. A celibate person is aware of their sexual orientation, it's party of their self-identity/part of their psyche/part of their view on the world.

RPGs are a form of theater. That is, it allows people a place of safety to explore aspects of their personality they wouldn't normally express. People old enough to play Pathfinder are old enough to be aware of sexual orientation, even their own. RPGs give them a place to explore it (especially if their characters aren't engaging in sex). Having an iconic who is gay gives players a sense of license to do such exploration. This is a healthy thing. I can tell you that, as I was growing up in a Religious Reich church, playing DnD with a friend who lived down the street gave me that sense of freedom where I could explore and come to terms with my sexual orientation.

With respect, man + woman = continued civilization. It has worked this way since the beginning. Every other type of association is deviant. Do I judge folks for living such a lifestyle? No. It's none of my business. We just happen to live in a time when "mixed families" are possible due to scientific intervention and the result of decades of social and cultural change (What brought about these social and cultural changes are beyond the scope of this venue).

Man + Woman is a biological fact. It is the way it was designed. There really just is no legitimate way to argue otherwise. If there is social engineering involved in recognition of this fact, it is merely to reinforce the correctness of this truth. To tell others that understand this basic truth that other ways are just as correct as what nature intended, is delusional.

Once again, this is exactly why discussions like this are political dynamite. Even in a respectful, reasoned response like this, there will be those offended that I cut directly to the chase and addressed the reality of the situation for what it is. In that spirit, if I have offended anyone with this post, I humbly and sincerely apologize.

Can we get back to gaming now? :)

If you're going to post psycho-babble nonsense which has zero academic merit, please point out that you're posting psycho-babble nonsense with zero academic merit.

I like the iconics to be fully 3 dimensional. Some of them will be left handed and some of them will be right handed. Some of them will like celery and others won't. Some of them will be gay and some won't.
I never play a character in DnD as if it's only what I rolled up in the character creation process. Rather, I give it all these features and more. I make characters which are cowardly, others that are proud. I make characters that are prone to anger and others that are wise beyond their years. I make characters that are cooking afficionados and others that couldn't make toast. Sexuality in any healthy individual goes far beyond who is sleeping with whom and ties into matters of self-security and self-identity, perception of law vs. chaos, etc.

In short, I make and roleplay characters, not just numbers on a character sheet.

And part of the fun of characters is their diversity. Everyone is unique. And living with and working with different characters with different values, perceptions, and motivations as we grow up and grow old is a big part of life as well. For that reason, I think that tossing sexual diversity out the window and just saying "everyone is bi" is cutting something significant out of the game.

I want to say that I'm extremely proud that Paizo did not use "children play this game" as an excuse to not include gay/les/bi characters or topics.

I do wish, however, that there was a gay/les/bi iconic (and, I hasten to add, one that wasn't stereotypical). Alain, for example, could come out of the closet, stop overcompensating with regards to proving his masculinity by constant conquests of women, and become the lgbt representative among the iconics.

If people commit crimes because they hear/read stories of people who commit crimes, than Shakespear must have been a menace because he gave London stories of teenage suicide, matricide, poisoning, serial killers, and a long list of other such crimes.

One of the most psychologically disturbing psychotic incidences I've ever read was written by Poe.

I don't think life is becoming cheap. It's always been cheap. The 'good 'ole days" never existed.

Enchanter Tom wrote:

Without, y'know, casting spells.

They should get to choose from among numerous over the top abilities which suit their character.

Basically like "mega-feats".

The kind of stuff Barbarians can get is a good example.
I'm thinking classic comic books, manga, and/or legendary mythical stuff.

Augean stable cleaning feat, here I come!

If I could rewrite the fighter class, I'd make feats like Improved Trip and Improved Disarm and Sunder, etc. part of the weapon itself.
Rather than take the feat Improved Disarm in, say, tonfa, you'd take master weapon proficiency in tonfa and, thereby, get Improved Disarm with that weapon for free.
Also, instead of having magic weapons, I'd give martial classes the bonuses. That way, instead of having a particular +5 long sword, they could pick up any weapon and it'd be +5. Don't have a weapon? Pick up a stick and you've got a +5 club.

A fighter would, especially at high levels, have master weapon proficiencies in a -lot- of weapons.

The fighter would get the same number of feats they get now, but wouldn't use them to learn stuff like Improved Disarm. They'd use them to learn weapon styles (two weapon fighting and 'sword and board', for example,) and stances. Both weapon styles and stances would scale with BAB.

Space requirements would be in the game, so that a person can't use a claymore in a tight area, but must use a dagger or the like instead. Since martial classes would have a ton of master weapon proficiencies and most current bonuses wouldn't be tied to a particular weapon, a martial class could easily use the best weapon for the job at hand.

Incidentally, in addition to Improved Disarm and Improved Trip and so forth being part of the weapon, weapon types might have additional abilities as well, like extra attacks (the rapier may grant extra attacks), bonuses to hit, and bonuses to initiative (which the dagger may get).

I've never really understood why they were supposed to be equal in the end. They certainly aren't equal in the beginning after all.

Why should a guy wielding two feet of steel be able to do the same amount of stuff as someone who can stop time, summon swarms of monsters and alter the way people thing should?

It's a game so I suppose there is an amount of balance assumed but I guess the tricks to 'turn off' a spell caster are kind of cheap if used all the time. "Okay, another anti-magic zone is in this room too? Great..."

I think a bit of the problem might be the change in how long it takes to prepare higher level spells from older editions. Preparing a ninth level spell used to be an effort, not just something you did with everything else. :)

A 20th level fighter isn't mundane, he's superhuman. He's Justice League Batman as compared to Zatana. He's Jason as compared to Medea. Yes, a wizard can stop time, if he's got the time available to cast the spell. The fighter should be able to skewer him with a javalin before the wizard gets the spell off.

And, again, even without doing anything hokey like putting anti-magic zones up everywhere, the wizard (at least when the GM isn't playing softball) isn't so much more powerful than the fighter. So, the fighter doesn't need all that much more of a power boost to put him where he needs to be.

well i did try to search, but the DM by virtue of Fiat said that i failed, no matter what i rolled. and he threatened to Dock me XP (i mean docking levels by the bunches) if i continued "pestering him" when my "pestering" was rolling search and gather information checks.

i initially omitted those details to make him feel better.

Weekly William is one of those old school jerk DMs who looks for methodss to be controlling. one of these is Fiat. he makes you have to "earn" (in his eyes) the pieces you gain. and his definition of "earn" is shut up and submit to his will for a set period of time.

Sounds like a dick. I'm surprised you play with him. You've always seemed like a nice person who wouldn't have to put up with that kind of crap.

Yes, your old. Yes realism is really really boring. If you want to play realistically then either dont play a fantasy game, or let me DM you so you can learn how bad an idea this is.

Specific discussion on the three points referenced is taking place in other threads, so I'll try not to discuss it here. This is intended more to be a respectful metadiscussion about the topics being discussed. Having said that..

The issue isn't realism. The issue is diversity across characters. Should a knife fighter be a valid choice for a fighter? Yes, even against monsters (an example of why none of these discussions are about realism). Should knife fighters and big two handed blade fighters have some diversity in their fighting styles so that a knife fighter, for example, gets the fun of trying to lure enemies into areas where the knife fighter has the advantage (due to the small size of his weeapom)? Yes, why not? The only possible answer to 'why not' is that it doesn't allow players to hyperspecialize their characters in one tightly narrow set of abilities (big weapons) in order to max kills with the minimum amount of mental effort. But, my god..

How boring is that?

As for having wizards take care of their spellbooks, yes, that's a challenge that some other classes don't have. But one of the significant reasons there are multiple classes is so that they can offer different challenges. The wizard's investment in protecting his spellbook can be an inspired act of creativity. Remember, in a lot of cases, the wizard towers that adventurers explore were created long ago to do the same thing the PC wizard is doing - protect magical power that could alter nations. Once the wizard reaches higher level, his effort to invest in security for his spell book and how he did it when he was a weaker mage, may be part of history taught in wizard school. There is a lot of potential shine time as the GM works with the Wizard as the Wizard explores different magical ways to protect his more powerful books - building constructs, formulating poisons, retrieving rare components for magical apparatuses. A good wizard PC can make the protections on his spell book a thing of art that the player and the people who play with the player can talk about for years afterwards. Or, the players could just whine that any character with exceptional power must take extra measures to protect his power. But then,

How boring is that?

In all three cases, the question is "how meaningful should the decisions which we make to create unique characters be and how unique should those characters be?"

there are three seperate topics in the forum right now which show that it's possible to optimize beyond min-maxing
Those topics are

1.) Allowing characters to take Charisma as a dump stat, but not penalizing them for it - after they use it as a dump stat, they ought to be able to say that their character is attractive and, thereby, gain positive modifiers to social encounters

2.) Allowing a Wizard to collect a god-like spell book without having to worry about keeping it safe

3.) Allowing a character to optimize towards big weapons and never have to worry about the down side of when those weapons shouldn't be usable (due to space requirements)

In all three cases, rather than min-maxing, the character maxes and then demands that the GM sweep the min under the rug where it will never be seen.

Am I simply old school? Does all the passion with which these things are argued influence the game designers? Does it indicate the future direction of the game?

Dark Sun has the struggle against the environment as a central feature and there are a lot of people who love it for that.

I do think that RPG societies have ruined DnD by taking decisions out of the hands of the GM and by focusing on the attainment of stuff rather than the progression of story.

It's not really complicated.

People shouldn't get mechanical differences for things they haven't paid.

That means that people will be penalized for dump stats (it is difficult for me to believe that anyone honestly has trouble understanding this)

It means that, while people can create handsome/pretty characters, they will get no mechanical advantages for that unless they pay for it.

The fact that this thread continues to go on despite the obviousness of these points makes me depressed about the quality of discussions on the Internet.

But, just to be contrary, I've never seen fire, water, air, or earth with a charisma score, let alone a charisma score above 8.

LilithsThrall wrote:

if you read the section on binding outsiders

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/outsider-categories

you'll see that several of the listed outsiders are okay with having planar binding being cast to summon them, provided certain conditions are met.

Well played. ;-)

yeah, I'm looking forward to having my good aligned character binding a Qlipoth and telling it to go have fun in Cheliax. It's up to the GM as to whether I'll keep my good alignment, but it's worth seeing the look on his face.

By the time my PCs are high enough to freely use Overland Flight and/or have flying mounts, I've usually upped my own game past "You are lost in the forest".

Being stuck on the ground is so 4th level.

As for the Invisible flying around.
Don't care.
That's a two-way street.
I consider it a tactic, and one the party will occasionally be rewarded by using.
But then again, so will my monsters.

I have 4 good levels to keep my players on the ground.
Another 4-6 levels to keep them pretty much on the ground with a few limited aerial tricks they can use.
At 9+, they're SUPERHEROES! (theme song to Justice League in background)

So I let them be Superheroes

fixed it for ya

I feel the same way about movement. Where's strolling, skipping, hopping, ambling, cantering, hiking, meandering, hoofing it, strutting, roaming, or traversing covered? The GM is forced to rely on house rules for all of it!

ShinHakkaider wrote:

You know what else is old? The fact that no one here seems to remember a time when leading right up to the release of 4th Edition where 4E proponents were enjoying the fact that 4E was coming but more so that 3x was on it's way out because it was "broken and unplayable".

You're right, we should continue this edition war that started literally years ago and is at this point based almost entirely around Pathfinder fans being pretty much obsessed with needing to knock down 4e. That's the right, logical, good path to take.

Incidentally, I've yet to see this. Like, at all. I've yet to see on 4e forums here anyone go into a big rant on how they hate Pathfinder. I've yet to see anyone do that on WotC's 4e forums (though god knows I see a lot of Pathfinder fans pop up to tell everyone how bad their game is). I have yet to see it in WotC's general RPG forums. I haven't seen it in EN World's general forums. Or their 4e forums.

The only place I've seen people attack Pathfinder are on forums still devoted to 3e.

The current edition war isn't about people who say they don't like 4e. That's just stating an opinion. Everybody has an opinion and we should respect opinions that are different from ours.

I cannot even begin to think of how depressing your life is when you define your tastes by what you hate, rather then what you enjoy. What a sad thread.

Fortunately, it's possible to not like something without defining your life by that dislike. I mean, I dislike cauliflour about as much as I dislike 4e. I can't imagine having my life defined by that dislike. It'd be about as ridiculous as berating someone into never expressing their dislike for cauliflour or 4e. Well, no. Attempting to berate someone into never expressing their dislike of cauliflour or 4e - to actually try to socially censor someone from expressing such dislike - is FAR, FAR more ridiculous.

Sorry bros, Gygax thought your game was awful.

Here's me not having an emotional crisis over what Gygax did and did not like. Here's me not saying "Gygax shouldn't have expressed his dislike for the game", instead I respect his right to express his opinion and I respect his right to have an opinion that disagrees with mine.

The thing I don't like is that, while there is a lot of cultural diversity (a good thing in a lot of ways), there's a rather small number of major deities.

What I'd like to see is a lot of regional deities (such deities going a long way to explain, for example, how stone age and pre-Industrial societies co-exist). I envision something like TORG high lords who directly influence the technological/magical/social/spiritual potential in a region.

It's not. Mental strength is a trait of magical talent. However, intelligence is the connection to wizard and witch talent (as well as psion talent), wisdom is druids, clerics, and rangers (and psychic warriors), and charisma is sorcerers and oracles (and wilders).

The fact of the matter is Intelligence is what witches are based on. Frankly, nothing outside of Intelligence matters for the witch's magic.

But one of the things we've been discussing is whether a witch's magic should be based on intelligence. Pointing out what the witch's magic -is- based on doesn't advance anything. The only way the connection between magic talent and intelligence would be relevant to this discussion is if that relationship was the general case.

LilithsThrall wrote:

Erato wrote:

It seems far more likely to me that the unknown entity chooses the witch based on magical talent (intelligence)

There's no RAW connection between magical talent and the intelligence score.

APG wrote:

To learn or cast a spell, a witch <b>must</b> have an Intelligence score equal to at least 10 + the spell level.

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

Yes, thank you. Now, how does that establish a RAW connection between magical talent and intelligence? For example, do Sorcerers have magical talent? (answer: yes) Are Sorcerers dependent on intelligence to cast magic? (answer: no)

It's frustrating to me because it seems all too obvious that sorcerers are crystal clear arguement of how there is no RAW connection between magical talent and intelligence. Did you really not notice that?

The point, OP, is that the role of monks is to have fun playing a character, not to get mindlocked into thinking that the only effective way to play a good monk is by sticking inside some tightly focused box/role.

Look at your tools; high dex, high wis, perception as a class skill, insane movement, insane saves, several combat manuevers, and the ability to be useful without gear.

There's a -lot- that you can do with those tools. If you really want to rip yourself off and nerf your character, then start thinking that you've got some 'role'. If you want to be effective and have lots of opportunity to shine, then stop thinking in terms of roles and start looking for opportunities to take advantage of your tools. Step out of the box.

I got rid of clerics. I then did the following

1.) boosted the Perform skill's effects to do healing (represents inspiration such as with Oratory)
2.) created a Priest feat that gives characters bonuses to social skills (including 1 above) against people who share the same religion
3.) enabled Knowledge(religion) to create the following effects
where the number on the right is the skill DC to achieve the effect

Knowledge (Religion)
Magic Circle \ 24
Dismissal \ 28
Dispel Chaos/Good/Evil/Law \ 32
Banishment \ 38

Priest feat and Knowledge (Religion)
Bless Water/Curse Water \ 20
Detect Evil/Good/Evil/Law \ 20*
Protectiom from Evil \ 20
Align Weapon \ 22
Consecrate/Desecrate \ 22
Atonement \ 32
Hallow/Unhallow \ 32

4.) Turned Paladin into a PrC with one of several specific codes of behavior enterable from any class

A priest of the god of rogues can now be a rogue with the priest feat and knowledge (religion). A priest of the god of storms can be a sorcerer. A cult leader is easy enough to create as well.

Gods may or may not exist.

I note that a 10th level Barbarian can lift >20 tons over his head. If that's not supernatural, I don't know what is.

I like that the person creating an area of effect rolls the die to compare against saving throw scores rather than having each target roll their own.

Seen from the outside (I am not a citizen of gods own country) the problem seems to be that the vast majority of the americans cling almost religiously to their respective believes despite many indications of them not working.

Prime examples are "guns for everyone cause more security", "unhindered capitalism is best for growth and prosperity", "deficite spending is no problem", "everyone can make it on her own in this great country", "lowering corporate/rich taxes is good for the whole country", "a strong government will choke our country" and so on.

Here in Germany a word of Winston Curchill was very popular these days: "You can trust in the USA to do the right things, after they tried all other alternatives."

Here's one "the same size fits all". For example, not everyone lives in the city - some live out away from the police and need guns to protect against wildlife and criminals, because it takes too long for cops to arrive.

In case you haven't seen this, take a look. Then try to tell me that the rioters are the victims.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Gex_ya4-Oo&feature=topvideos_mp

LilithsThrall wrote:

What's the problem with the 3PP solution (ie. just leaving psionics to Dreamscarred Press)?

OK. Fair enough question:

Although it's great what they (Dreamscarred Press) have done for psionics (backwards compatible with 3.5 -- to a degree), I DON'T LIKE the system they are using for psionics. It's just not for me. Hence the desire for someone else (e.g. Paizo) to make a different system (and, hence, another option for those who do like many options from which to pick and choose) that might be more to my liking as a "psionic" system.

And if the system developed by (e.g.) Paizo doesn't do it for me, then I'll look for another system/ developer that does or, failing that, continue with my own.

I prefer MORE options (crunch, fluff, etc.) to less: It's always easier to remove what you don't like from something than it is to add to it when there's nothing there to add.

This is just MY answer to your question. Other people will feel differently, and that's OK. It's a game, and games should be about having fun. So we should all try to have fun by using what works for us, right?

Carry on.

-- C.

If I were Paizo, your answer just convinced me to not risk real money developing this system.

One possible alternative system would have Psionics require a Concentration roll. The DC would be set to (the square of the level of the "spell")/2 + 10 and rolling 5 less than the DC results in one round of stun. 10 less than the DC results in 1d4 + 1 ability score drain for 24 hours, and all maintained powers cease. Otherwise, failing the roll means nothing happens and the action is wasted. Some powers can be set to be activated reflexively (on their own without consciously activating them) at a -15 to the roll.

No spell points. No slots. A character can attempt any known power as often as he wants, but must make the roll on each attempt.

There's no nova-ing and no spell points to track.