Neshari

Malaclypse's page

Organized Play Member. 707 posts (721 including aliases). No reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 1 alias.



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Quark Blast wrote:
Oooo... yeah, that's not great. Guess we'll see what the numbers say in another 3 months.

It hasn't been three months, but right now it's at #13, behind 'old' supplements for 5e such as Xanathars, Mordenkainen's and Volo's. Also behind preorders for the new Eberron campaign setting book and the Baldur's Gate adventure. Hmmmm.

Amazon Fantasy Gaming Bestsellers


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It's a bit worrisome that even with a 40% discount on release the PF2 core rulebook doesn't outsell the 5 year old 5e PHB on amazon.

Amzon.com Fantasy Gaming Bestsellers


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thejeff wrote:

If PF1 is still in the top 5 while about to relaunch in a new edition, it'll almost certainly jump to the number 2 spot at launch.

I'd say number one, but I'm pretty sure there's a huge gap between D&D and everything else.

I would assume it will rather split and fragment the pathfinder fan base and hurt the statistics. According to Roll20, 5e has ~50%of active campaigns and PF1 has around ~7%. Considering even D&D 3.5 still has 1.5%, that's .. not so good. Warhammer and Vampire are also around 1.5%, and Starfinder is below 1%.

Source: https://blog.roll20.net/post/186546450860/the-orr-group-industry-report-q2- 2019-back-and

Of course, the launch will have a sales peak where everyone buys the new core books, but in the mid- and longterm I think it will be more difficult to sustain PF's position.


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sunshadow21 wrote:
Baldur's Gate and early 3E is definitely one of the bigger entry periods; therefore, it's reasonable to expect a great many people will use that as a baseline of sorts. And it's a perspective that WotC has consistently ignored in important ways when developing both 4E and 5E. While appealing to pre 3rd edition players is fine, they can't really afford to act as if 3rd edition never happened, or pick and choose what parts of 3rd edition happened and which ones can easily be ignored.

Yes, they can.

Also, you seem to be unaware of it, but Baldur's Gate uses AD&D 2 rules; pre-3e by definition.

Therefore, you could actually make the argument that 5e appeals more to players of BG2 than 3e or Pf does...


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sunshadow21 wrote:
anyone who tries to tell me it's not fair is being lazy.

Wait, what? Your houserule is broken because it's unfair and easily abusable. It doesn't even solve the problem of the disparity in player stats. But if I tell you this I am lazy?


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sunshadow21 wrote:
...

Wait, so you have this elaborate and opaque system where players are treated differently by you because of how they rolled in the first few minutes before the game began, and players who rolled well get (seemingly) arbitrary punishments because of 'fame' and players who rolled badly get DM pity and can just like that achieve stuff without rolling because their stats suck.

That's certainly one way to do it.

Yet I fail to see the advantage of your approach.


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Flawed wrote:
The difference is in the power of the tools of each class. The problem is spells being too powerful or versatile and not the class that uses them. If a fighters weapon scaled like a monk's unarmed strike the fighter wouldn't have to max out his damage stat and could opt for other stats. They already gain enough bonuses to hit despite a +10 from strength. Or the ability to move and full attack even if it was just an extra 5 foot step as part of a full attack that didn't count towards movement or the ability to use a swift action to move up to 15 feet as part of a full attack and the fighters potential would exponentially increase.

No, it would not.

Their thing would still be "attack and do damage'. They would still miss out on flying, being invisible, plane-shifting, teleportation and other things are level-appropriate in higher levels.

Since that's exactly the problem. The wizard's thing is: Do everything (since there is a spell for everything).

The average fighter's thing is: Attack a non-flying, visible, non-etheral (etc) creature from a dangerously close distance.


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Fifo wrote:
It looks like we will play Mummy's Mask. I did roll 4d6 drop lowest, man. A 2 1 1 1, right off the bat. I can only think of int or cha, but both seem risky with Mummy's curses and such. I rolled my race, half orc, and I have a 15 high score, a 17 does sound nice with the +2. but should I raise up the 4 to a 6, or keep the 4 and just where would I put the thing.

I am surprised by how many people here just advise you to see it as a challenge or make the best of it...

For me, it just shows how broken rolling for stats is.

Because of a few seconds before the game even began, you will always be behind the rest of the party, they will have to carry you and you won't be able to contribute properly.

Does that sound like fun to you?

The grown-up response to rolling requirements is talking to the DM: "Look, this is not going to work. Can't we use the point-buy method so all players have the chance to contribute and do their part?"


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sunshadow21 wrote:
They have a a lot of ideas that look good on paper and that people seem to think work so far

Indeed. If we learned anything from Pathfinder we better be sceptical.

sunshadow21 wrote:
but only seeing the full product and seeing them at high level will show whether they actually work.

High level D&D never 'worked'. At least not in this century.


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Jacob Saltband wrote:

So far I've only got the Starter Box but I think it just might have potential.

I hear that some people might have pdf copies of the final playtest and have been playing.

Anyone have any pros and cons about the game they'd like to share?

I think they have a lot of good ideas and improvements over the previous editions. How casting works, or how they try to lessen the fighter/wizard gap. If you are tired of Pathfinder's buffing of casters and nerfing of non-casters even compared to 3.5, 5e might be worth a try for you.


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James Jacobs wrote:
magnuskn wrote:

I think Lochar's suggestion from early in the other discussion was the best.

I am still dismayed that this is now a part of "official" Iomedae's personality. And quite disappointed.

Also... we've ramped back or retconned or adjusted PLENTY of things before. Just because it gets into print doesn't mean it's carved in stone. Going forward, I suspect we'll NOT be trying to make Iomedae into a heartless sound torturer... that was NEVER the point or intent or goal of this adventure, as a matter of fact, so don't expect us to support that interpretation of her personality going forward.

That's ... too bad.

Just imagine what an amazing story the fall of Iomedae would make. A beacon of hope that becomes a dark spectre, a shadow of herself.

What was justice turns into revenge, what was valor becomes desperation, then a craving for violence.

Watch out, because Iomedae is making right, and the blood of those she deems wicked will turn the rivers red and wash over Golarion.


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DigitalMage wrote:
DropBearHunter wrote:

I'm actually wondering why they don't take Pathfinder (which is published under OGL) and dissect it into modules, add the "good" 4e stuff as a module

and instead of trying to put out yet another D&D edittion make an addition to what is there.
I really disagree, WotC need to start from the ground and build up, not try to unpick Pathfinder into discrete components that can then be used or omitted by players.

Because the 'good stuff' in the PF rule set is simply the 3.5 rule set. They have that already.


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Zmar wrote:
4E's WOW factor was ease of DMing and p. 42 table allowing ad-hoc action judication well within the rules. Powers were a major part of the game when it comes to the amount of pages taken, but really the game could have worked without them IMO.

Even if they only keep the improved language (shift instead of 5ft step, combat advantage instead of dexterity bonus if ... blabla, ... ) and the simple and easy to use monster blocks, it's already a win, and an improvement over both 3.5 and PF.


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Dale McCoy Jr wrote:
The real ultimate challenge though is making a bard that doesn't suck.

They already managed that in 4E, so.. :)


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The Gnomes.

Also, Cheliax. Almost as cool as Thay.


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The NPC wrote:
As the title says: What about Golarion bugs you?

Robots and guns - the wide gaps in tech level destroys the feeling that it's a single world.


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sieylianna wrote:
Malaclypse wrote:
It's much more important for Paizo to have happy designers than to completely satisfy the small subset of their fans that are hardcore rules lawyers.
Yes and no. A small number of Pathfinder players, probably including some hardcore rule lawyers, are responsible for spreading Pathfinder play to new customers. Part of the reason that Paizo has been so sucessful is that many long time D&D players feel that they were abandoned by WotC when 4e was released. Their enthusiasm and support for Pathfinder has been instrumental in allowing the new rule set to challenge the market leader.

But Paizo employees themselves stated multiple time that the put the emphasis on fun, not on balance.

And it's clear since the public playtest for the PFRPG that they would not fix the most glaring holes in 3.5. People still bought and buy their products in droves. I think their success shows that their strategy is good.

sieylianna wrote:
Happy designers and poor products have put a large number of companies out of business over the years. Paizo's biggest challenge will be holding their market share when D&D 5th edition is released (whenever that may be and assuming that WotC realized that they alienated a large portion of their player base with 4e and tries to make ammends).

I don't think that 5E is the biggest threat. I think it's much more their own success... with PFRPG, most people were happy to disallow 3.5 splatbooks with thousands of options. Now, with APG, UM and UC and the race guide next year, PF is nearing the kind of saturation that made people happy to drop 3.5 for PF. And once most of the basics are covered, where to go? How many variations on "guy with sword", "girl with magic wand" and "divinely inspired zealot" do you need rules for? More and more, new options will only appeal to a subset of fans, and that's a bad thing from a business point of view. I think the effect this has on sales is much stronger than dissatisfaction with the rules or editing quality.


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SlamEvil wrote:
In 4th edition all the classes have these ridiculous powers, the amount of paper work required is absurd

Adding actual facts to your statements might make them look less like edition warring.

SlamEvil wrote:
and every character you build feels like it could've been built by a noob who just watched Lord of the Rings for the first time.

In my experience, newbie players have a hard time building a character in PF. So you think that's a good thing?

I don't agree, at all. Accessibility is a plus.

SlamEvil wrote:
it's not the mechanics of 4th edition that make it good.

That's a very inflammatory statement. I disagree. The mechanics are part of what makes 4E good. And the mechanics were part of what made 3.5 good. But anyway, this thread is about the strengths of 4e, and how they might benefit PF.

I have another addition: no skill ranks. This prevents situations where one character has +18 on a skill while another has -2...the whole range of the d20. Or if you have skill ranks, they should be capped, at most at half of the RNG range, but probably below that.


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Charles Dunwoody wrote:
However, I will let the Wizards D&D forums speak for themselves.

I read those forums sometimes, and I feel that you are much more likely to get attacked on the forums here. Some fans here simply view anything critical of Paizo as a personal attack, and respond with attacks of their own.

It has been my experience that it's much harder to discuss anything related to Paizo or WotC here, unless it's praise (Paizo) or damnation (WotC). It doesn't help that there are a few 'usual suspects' who are self-confessed enemies of 4E and who again and again try to inflame threads with their broad statements denouncing 4E or WotC.

I'm a fan of both Paizo and WotC, but I feel that just because I like their work, I should still be able to have a critical discussion of some of the weaker points in their respective products or services. It's a sad thing that so many posters disagree, and overreact.


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It's quite an elaborate set of house rules. Luckily, you can buy a printed version of the d20 system including all their house rules in book form. They named it the Pathfinder RPG. :)


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Kerobelis wrote:
I am also tired of these threads, but for different reasons. The summoner is just a giant head ache. So many exceptions, rules, etc. There is a reason for the # of threads and that is that the class was, shall we say, "less well designed" than the others.

Why would you possibly think it's 'less well designed'?

Lots of people have lots of fun playing summoners. Power-wise its still quite a bit below an optimized wizard. And just because the rules are kind of messy and there are lots of small fiddly special rules and exceptions - it's supposed to be this way, it's D&D 3.5+something after all.

Paizo's own designers even stated that Fun > Balance during the PF RPG playtests.

And since the summoner is described in a book called .... wait for it... Advanced Players Guide, this might be taken as a hint that it's intended for advanced players, as in, those players with a basic understanding of addition and pf game mechanics :)


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Cartigan wrote:
Jeremiziah wrote:
Cartigan wrote:

Ridiculous! We should automatically try to think of as many ways as possible to DM fiat it into uselessness!

What you should do is have a purple worm swallow him whole and then prevent him from rolling a Wizard!
There are no Purple Worms in Kingmaker. I don't think they're indigenous to the Stolen Lands.
This requires a rimshot or a facepalm. I'm not sure which.

+1 funny.


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Munchkin/CO Bloodline:

Your parents were heavily optimized characters, a collection of random powers brought together only by the will to be better than everyone else. You might sometimes have urges to build a consistent, believable character for role-playing, but in the end, you always take the power option.

Class skill: Knowledge(Character Optimization) - not that it matters since you won't have any skill points for anything except Concentration.

Bonus Spells: At third level, you get Celerity from the 3.5 PHB II. Every 2 levels afterwards, you can choose any spell as bloodline spell, as long as the spell is ridiculously overpowered. The most likely source is the the 3.5 Spell Compendium, but non-WoTC Splatbook sources are also a possibility.

Bonus Feets: Twin Spell, Chain Spell, Sculpt Spell, Skill Focus(Knowledge(Character Optimization)), Extend Spell, Persistent Spell

Bloodline Arcana: Whenever you cast a spell, the DC of the spell is +2 higher than the DC of the second most heavily-optimized caster in the party. If you are the only or most heavily optimized caster already, you get a +5 bonus to your normal DC.

Bloodline Powers: Munchkin Sorcerers show increasing signs of their power-gaming heritage as they increase in level, although they are still sorcerers up until the end.

Mind-boggling optimization (Ex): Starting at level one, whenever you feel underpowered, the whole party and the DM have to wait for you to look up one more optimization in random splatbooks or CO forums.

Annoying optimization (Ex): At third level, you are already making any melee characters feel useless.

First victims (Ex): At ninth level, your optimized character takes up so much time in play that the players of the fighter and the ranger leave the group and don't want to talk to you anymore.

Incredibly naive DM (Ex): At 15th level, you can convince your DM to allow the use of chain-binding to get infinite gold.

Late realization (Ex): At 20th level, you realize that the game has not been fun for a long time. But your character is almost half as powerful as a wizard of the same level...