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 Recent Posts
Saying you have a favorite companion is like saying you have a favorite doctor. They all brought something different to the character, so the measure of a good companion was how well they meshed with the Doctor Du Jour. Jo Grant was always my favorite. Showing my age I think. Sarah Jane I liked, but mostly because she worked well with the TB Doctor. I actually preferred Romana I. I think I'm in the minority there. I found Romana II a bit lifeless at times, unless she happened to be under the mind control of an alien presence. Oh and definitely K-9, for his nuianced characterizations. That actor was amazing.
KRULL Even though it's quite cheesy (especially towards the end) it contains almost all of the genre elements of a fantasy, saving the princess quest, building up the party, fighter, rogue, wizard, multiple encounters, great death scenes along the way, showdown with the evil demon, etc., etc. It is still one of my favorite beer and popcorn movies. Love the Cyclops. And of course Ergo... Pete "I am Ergo the Magnificent! Short in stature, tall in power, narrow of purpose and wide of vision!"
One of the things that changed over time with DnD is the addition of more and more "battlemat" rules with the miniatures. Remember, there didn't use to be alot of those. To me this at times bogs down the role-playing aspect and turns a DnD session into a tactics war game. And because of those rules, players always want to know the layout of the room. I wouldn't mind a "battlemat-free" version where you simply say "I swing my scimitar with a mighty yell and charge the orc shaman!" that doesn't involve having to worry about the 3 Attacks of Opportunity et al to be worked out. Or at least a better ability to have that option. Other RPG's support this better. Feng Shui can be played pretty map free. The same for Microlite20, the rules lite version of D20 that was put together specifically for this purpose.
There seem to be a lot of threads about the problems with 4.0 edition, even though it actually hasn't even come out yet. I thought I'd start a thread to talk about the issues with 3.5. There are many, I believe. I recently switched from SWRPG to SWSaga and found the things fixed there to be great. Some of my common issues with 3.5 gameplay: Grapple Spell casters quickly run out of things to do at low levels Multiple-attacks become cumbersome at higher levels Save or Die The bloat of classes and prestige classes New classes/prestige that are so specialized they don't fill the "core" necessities of a balanced party Cleric's out of spells, time to go home ramp up of new players mapping is cumbersome and serial between GM and just one player Players/GM cannot begin to try to remember all the various supplements that have been released. Too much reading rules at the table, not enough playing. Skill points too watered down to mean anything since all the checks are broken down on +5 increments (DC10, 15, 20, 25, etc.) This is just a start off the top of my head. Please feel free to add.
There are a couple things to throw in for this thread I think. The first is that the 1st rule of marketing is you follow where the 800 pound gorilla takes you. Otherwise you've got spreadsheets for Windows 98 sitting on a shelf that no one will buy. So Paizo should do what makes sense for their market and I fully support that because it keeps them in business making gud stuf. The second is that after a few years of testing, any product can be improved upon. 3.5 certainly has flaws. The sweet spot of 4-12th level (or whatever) is that way because the other levels are hard to survive/play/balance. And Grapple? There are things to fix here. Third thing to throw out is that no matter how much you want to deny it, Hasbro/WOTC is about generating interest in product. They need younger blood to get interested in the game. They need to get the Intraweb Tubes thingys working. A monthly subscription model is sooo much better for them then the book a month club. Fourth is it needs to be simplier to learn/play so more people can pick it up quick and get involved. The PHB is a thick tome to someone who's never cracked it before. "I have to read all this to play this game??" It's daunting. Pete
See an excellent reply to this over at: Aroden
In the information I read so far the only things I've seen mentioned are Windows and DirectX. That might or might not also imply .NET. But by stating DirectX it means there is a downloadable client side component, it's not all web based. None of these technologies are restricted to Vista only, so I'd say no. Pete
In many pantheon's, deities of opposing interest have often been protrayed working together when there's a common enemy or goal. So, you need to be thinking what would worry a deity enough to cause him/her to work together with someone they dispise? How about Death? You know from the player's info that something recently (in deity terms) killed the deity Aroden. You don't have to know any of the details really. This gives you leave to have various groups from opposing faiths working together across the land, all trying to find info on "who wanted to kill a God". So your A-Team of Clerics has been Geas'd to work this issue. You can tie in the Pathfinders (ancient knowledge) and the Runelords (could challenge/kill a Deity). It will probably turn out that the Pathfinders/Runelords have absolutely nothing to do with the death of Aroden, but this gives you a hook anyway. I'm sure the B-Team of clerics over in Freedonia will figure out that other stuff. Pete
Thanks Mike. I was thinking about it a bit more this morning and realize what I'm really looking for is the knowledge check information that players would have for Aroden. DC 10, 15, 20, 25 Actually, a knowledge check tree for most of the dieties (and local cities) would be handy. I can already piece some of it together from the player's guide info. I think if you did that as a post here or download, it would answer a bunch of the questions that players will be throwing at your GM's for Pathfinder and the GameMastery modules. Plus it's a good teaser. Then you can still add-value$ in your full write-up's down the road. I can always make something up (a good GM is a master of BS after all) but figure it's already in someone's head just dying to be free.
I just added a new post to general, didn't see this poll until after that. But even so, the deity I want to find out about isn't even in the poll! Aroden! What happened to Aroden? What happened to his followers? Did any of them convert to another god? Who is most compatible? Did some of his/her followers end up in the north, if so, what area/city would be most likely? If a PC wants to play a former follower of Aroden who fled north, what's the backstory? Pete
In a number of spots the Pathfinder materials mention the dead deity Aroden, who was the patron god of Cheliax and Taldor. I've been unable to find much information about Aroden. What sort of deity was Aroden (alignment, philosophy, spheres of influence, etc.) What deity would former clerics of Aroden turn to if they did not agree with those devilish Thrune folks. If none of this matters, just say "make it up", that's an ok answer. But I'd rather not if there are answers in someone's head at Paizo. Pete
Domestic shipping began with UPS shipments (of which there were only a few dozen). Then we went to folks who have charter Pathfinder subscriptions shipping with GameMastery Modules subscriptions - they're getting Pathfinder 1, Player's Guides, and Module D2. Right now, we're working on the biggest group, which is charter subscribers without Modules subscriptions - so folks who are getting Pathfinder 1 and the Player's Guide. After that, we'll do the folks who chose Pathfinder as their transition option, but haven't yet signed up for ongoing subscriptions - they're getting only Pathfinder 1. In each group, shipments are sorted by zone, with the ones that have to travel the furthest going out first. The whole process, we estimate, will take around 13 hours of printing, so it won't be finished tonight. Fair enough. And that makes good business sense, reward the folks who signed up for the most stuff. I'm just transition right now, missed the charter offer by a day. Heavy Sigh.
Really the wrong thread for this question, but it segues from the last post--is there anyone who absolutely only plays with the three core books? No supplements whatsoever? I suppose you could even play without the MM, so long as you understand how to create your own monsters and don't plan on playing published modules. I'd say I'm pretty close. We play with the core 3.0 books + 2 prestige classes from the splat books (arcane trickster, knight of the chalice). In my game with my family we actually punted on the full rules and went with Microlite20. I have borrowed some of the other books from the King County library (www.kcls.org) (Can I just mention that if you live in the Seattle area, you should sign up and use www.kcls.org. It's like having a free amazon.com - and they deliver it to your local library!) So I read up on the "warlock" and "scout" and all that other "stuff" and I just never saw the need. Seemed like just variations on the same themes. Same went for the magazines. I subscribed to Dungeon (used tons from there!) but never to Dragon (more rules? I got enough rules already...) Btw, this was mostly just a matter of time/interest vs. money. The group I mainly play with are all professionals with kids, so it's hard enough to get them together, let alone expect them to buy/read a bunch of supplements. The core books have enough rules on their own for those guys to track. And we looked at the 3.5 books at the store and just didn't see that much different to warrant a change. I for one will be very interested in 4e since it sounds like it simplifies the *right* things like Saga did for our Star Wars campaign. I just spent a night and rebuilt everybody's character from the ground up. It was pretty easy actually. Playing the game is supposed to be about having fun and an excuse to get together with your buddies, not the latest min/max character class/book. IMHO.
Nope, can't be curmudgeon in your 30's. You have to be in your 40's like me. :-) You made my day! "kids" Har! Oh, and I was considering the PC races from the LOTR, since we were talking about PC races after all... Unless I missed that half-orc hanging in the back of the fellowship. :-)
No back door for that. However, as above (I did an edit on the original post), click on the link in the upper right corner of the "Main Page" and it will bring you to http://forums.gleemax.com/ddi/ to sign up for a Message Board ID. It has all the GleeMax disclosures so if you have one, I think you're in. Not a bad idea to try it anyway. interestingly, I found that it said that my forum id I already have works for ddi. when I tried to put in my username (fairly unique) it said I already existed.
A preview of things to come for the half-orc? Alternate race added as a web enhancement for SWSaga. So, based upon the youtube videos that talk about the core books being augmented by digtal content, I can certainly see the core books having only a few, core races, but the number of potential additional enhancements being increased. They'd no longer be constrained by page count and printing costs. Newbies can stick with the tried and true, you advanced players can throw in as many options as you want. And based upon their proposed digital model you can create and post your own race/class variations for others to use. This actually makes some sense if you think about it. Newbies don't want that many options, and they probably won't be reading every inch of the online digital content options like you scary people.
My wild speculation machine hints that Eberron will be the core setting for the 4e core books. My conjecture would be Gnome and Half-Orc. I.E. not in the LOTR. We're looking to hit the mass market here, so Gimli and Orlando Bloom have to stay. I, personally, would enjoy the Gnomes being put back into the MM as true Fey (see Pathfinder's treatment of them) to give them some flavor back. Instead of the default "oh I want to play a short illusionist". Similar for the half-orc. They're half-monster, by garsh, they ought to be in the MM! People aren't going to like you! I suspect though, that even though they aren't "core", there will be good details on "playable monster options" that cover a number of races. It always was odd to me that the half-orc showed up. Why not half-hobgoblin? half-gnoll? And kobold or goblin pc's can always be fun, although too many people play them as ferengi.
Hear Hear. Realize that just a few years ago DnD was not looking so healthy. Remember when the mags basically went silent for awhile and it looked like the end was nigh? Compare that to today. DnD is a big deal again. Big, scary suit people at Hasbro could have easily quashed the whole line if they didn't think the margins had a future. These are the same guys worrying about paint from China right now, right? So this is a big investement of Hasbro time/materials/effort (i.e. $$$) behind the core franchise. Long term this is great news for everyone involved in the game and producing materials for it (like Paizo) because any kind of big marketing push will trickle down. With this and Pathfinder/Gamemastery, things are looking pretty good for high quality products over the next while. Rack up those miles on your visa card! :-)
Go review the Star Wars Saga rules. I'm sure they mean "talents". The statements about "new powers at every level" fits in with the Saga rules, which give alternating feat/talent at each level. feat/talent/feat/talent/feat/talent So when they speak about the longsword having more "powers" that probably means it has more talent trees available. Similarly, they likely could have axe or spear talent trees that grant specific whizzy things you can do with those weapons. I'll also be interested to see if they've combined the AC & reflex saving throws into one like they did with SWSaga. That actually has worked out well in our playing so far.
Frankly, I'm encouraged by the SW reference. I really liked the Saga feats/talents/skills revamp, especially from a GM point of view. Makes it much easier to create NPC's quickly and easily. Also, I know some weren't in favor of it, but I really like the fewer hits higher damage system they put into Saga. High level stats like +22/+22/+17/+17/+12/+12/+7/+7/+2/+2 just make my head hurt, honestly.
Imagine a WOW or CoH Avatar page where you can choose the "look" of your character. Size, colorscheme, scars/hair/etc. Then it gets incorporated it into your character sheet. As opposed to the current system of searching on google for a picture that's "sorta close". Hmmm.. why didn't I think of this before?
I'll give you an example of this from my own experience. I'm the P&P gamer in the family. My wife played a reaalll long time ago. (I'm not going to say how long, she'd hit me). My son hasn't played much at all, he's mostly a vidgamer. So we decided we wanted to try Dad's game. Sounded great right? Started running them through SCAP (yah Paizo!). Rolled up 3.5 characters, threw a couple NPC's along with them, and off we went. About 8 sessions in, it became really clear they weren't having fun. My wife wanted to role play her dwarf taunting the elf, not calculate her power attack each time. My son just plain didn't have the time to read the 3.5 book nuiances with AP tests and the SAT. It soon became very clear that they weren't cracking the book between sessions and it was becoming "not fun". On top of that, Dad was running a couple NPC's as well as the bad guys, so was a bit busy to keep reminding them of things. SO we punted 3.5. I found Microlite20 on the web, and converted their characters. 1 page character sheet. 4 skills, simple combat (1 action, no AoO), simple spells (spend HP to cast), etc. etc. They loved it. They could play the game without having to be rule memorizers. I guess the point I want to make here is that there are multiple types of gaming experiences that should be available. Simple isn't always bad. Layers are better.
yes... true... if you know enough and are interested enough to track all those things down.. put them all together.. get all your friends setup with them properly... and coordinate it all yourself... Realize, not all people that play DnD love to read every book front to back and lurk on gaming forums reading every posting. (I know, what's wrong with those people?) Step back and look at this not as "something I can already do" as "consolidating digital gaming for the masses". If you equate Wizards with Microsoft, it makes much more sense. Yes, i could find lots of "free" tools that do the same thing as Microsoft Office, but most people use Microsoft Office cause they don't have the time/interest to track down the other stuff. They just want to write a letter.
In 20 years I'll be 61, so I won't be able to carry the books anymore anyway. So it better be on my wrist computer. In big type. :-)
Shoot, with a "digital initiative," I'd be amazed if the game doesn't just go binary. d2's rule! I rolled a natural 10100! Also note, that these days everyone uses Hex (which, now that you think on it, makes sense for the genre in other ways) so it would be: I rolled a natural 0x14! But, I digress greatly.
I'm pretty satisfied with 3.5. It took my group a while to switch over from 2nd so I don't see us even looking at 4 for a long time. There are so many cool 3.5 adventures I'm still waiting to run. I remember when the "advanced" edition came out and we all wondered if we should get rid of our basic and expert rulesets. :-)
Thanks for all this info, very informative. If it's all accurate, it actually makes some good sense. Let me speak as an old guy gamer who also has done alot of business stuff over the years. I don't know any of the numbers, but I'm sure their market hasn't been growing by leaps and bounds anymore. Part of being able to sustain a brand is to refresh it. See: A bazillion versions of Monopoly. That's a reality, you can't get away from it. They also can't shoot themselves in the foot here. They've got products still on the shelf and coming out in the next 18 months that are all 3.5 based. Whatever they're doing, it will have to be compatible with that. Now, the kids these days love that "interweb" thing, so tying into it makes alot of sense. Online playing, publishing your character(myspace) etc. It all fits with the demographic they want to reach. And if there is still OGL+SRD then all your old stuff and all the great content coming from Paizo should be fine. I, personally, think they've needed a refresh for a bit. I'm tired of the churn of books that are derivatives of previous material. The number of base classes and prestige classes is just silly. If you had the opportunity to check out the changes that were done from SWRPG to SWRPG Saga, you can see what they might be aiming for. I loved the simplification of the classes and skills in there. The skills especially. Perception vs. Listen/Spot/Search/Etc. Great! That makes it much more accesible for people who aren't hard core (which you must realize is not you, since you've just read the entire posting from a game forum messageboard geek)
Have you tried clicking the link to the sources? It denies me and my 8 WoTC forum nicknames. I did so yesterday and was able to access the site for awhile. It then got locked down. Obviously either a glitch or they were testing.
I used to use e-tools, but of course code monkey lost their license like everyone else. I've never used these other tools (RPGxplorer, Hero Labs). Any opinions on which has larger sales (and thus more likely to stick around) ? btw, the fact that pathfinder will have data avaialble for these tools adds another plus to the product. good call.
So, from a business standpoint, what is Paizo offereing on a subscription basis that's Player focused. As well, from a biz point of view, do you have plans to offer something at a lower price point? I'm just considering from a "poor college student" point of view the old subs for dungeon and dragon weren't too steep. These new offerings are. I (being 20-mumble-years from college) can afford it, but you seem to be cutting out a large segment of business and wondered if that was deliberate due to the market these days. Anything at a low pricepoint is pdf and/or online free?
I, personally, am ecstatic that this line of products is OGL if it means I'm not going to see any warforged psionic 1/2 tatooed warmage/warlocks/warmongers. I know many of us old-timers are a bit fed up with the creature feep that d20/wizards has become. Old people can only carry so many $24.95 books, our backs give out after awhile. We punted most all the extra bulk and are playing with the base 3 books again. And wonders, everyone is still having a good time, if not better! So woo-hoo! No monsters from Monster Manual XXVII? Great! Give me goblins, giants, and dragons! I am very interested in the reimagining of some of the OGL materials. The new Goblins are very entertaining and I can't wait to see the rest. Realize that the MM has at best a page on the classic monsters. So much to play with just from those. (Kobold Ninjas!) I honestly believe that the reimaging of some of the classic OGL materials will really help sell this product and if Paizo takes the lead there they'll be surprised by the response. Hey, if it worked for Battlestar Galactica, it can work for Goblins!
I want to 2nd this. With a group of married w/children gamers, I don't always have alot of time with them. online pictures and the like really help speed the game. The online information that was included for the SCAP, for example, was a godsend in trying to run that game. I would also strongly encourage whenever possible that you include a "players version" of any material. I will often print out a copy of the map and just dole out pieces parts to them as they discover it. It's really obvious though when you have to whiteout the secret doors... With limited time/availablity of my players, spending 1/2 the night wrestling with the cartographer over the map can be frustrating for all. (no, no, the 30' side is north/south, not east west...) Pete
So I received my last edition of Dungeon in the mail yesterday and it had "final issue" and all that. Heavy Sigh. Anyway, I then remembered that I had signed up to get this new Pathfinder thing since I had a bunch of issues still to go. 5 free Pathfinder issues, who could beat that. So I downloaded the players guide and it's pretty nice. Great artwork. A question (and sorry if it's been addressed, I don't have the energy to go read all these posts). A couple places in the players guide it says (in effect) "more details on this in Pathfinder #1" So, my understanding is that the Pathfinder issues are 50pages of adventure and then 40+ pages of "supplemental information". So how is it I can share this supplemental information with my players? I'd tell them to buy the Pathfinder book, but of course that's not going to work as it has the adventure in it... Seems like there's a missed opportunity for sales for Paizo if they'd separate out the supplemental info that's player safe into a pdf or something so I could make my players buy it, rather them me having to print out multiple copies of specific parts of the pdf file. Has someone already addressed this?
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