Phil. L's page

Phil. L wrote:

The only trouble with your feat Fatespinner is that it doesn't do much and the prerequisites are way too demanding. I really don't see any scout wasting their time on this feat unless you reduce the prerequisites. In the end this just gives you the benefits of a modified charge attack and a +1 to damage for the price of three feats. I'd put in more, but I have other design problems on my mind at the moment. ;-)

Well, most archery-based characters are going to have the prerequisite feats anyway. Being able to charge your opponent and fire from 30 feet away not only improves your battlefield mobility (since charging allows you to move up to DOUBLE your speed) but also improves your chance to hit (charging gives a +2 on the attack roll). Additionally, the attack must be made within 30 feet, so the +1 damage from this bonus will always stack with the +1 on damage rolls from Point Blank Shot as well. It doesn't seem so bad to me.

Remember that you must move in a straight line when making a charge (no turns) and must have line of sight to your foe before making a charge. Couple that with a -2 penalty to AC, and the fact that Shot on the Run (a prerequisite for this feat) requires the Dodge and Mobility feats, then you start having some issues. As I said, the prerequisites are too steep for what this feat does.

Hasn't Distracting Shot already been done? This seems very similar to an existing feat. Other than that its pretty good. That's a feat I would give my ranger/scout character.

The only trouble with your feat Fatespinner is that it doesn't do much and the prerequisites are way too demanding. I really don't see any scout wasting their time on this feat unless you reduce the prerequisites. In the end this just gives you the benefits of a modified charge attack and a +1 to damage for the price of three feats. I'd put in more, but I have other design problems on my mind at the moment. ;-)

The trouble with dismissing the EL system entirely is that it leaves DMs with no safety net they can fall back on if they hit a snag before or during the game. Instead of dismissing the EL system entirely it's better to use it as a gauge (instead of gospel) on how difficult an encounter is. It's by no means a perfect system, but it was put together and later refined by some good designers so it can't be complete rubbish.

Thanks for the info. Hopefully your players will appreciate the work you have put into this world (and the work yet to come).

Agree with Jeremy. EL 10 may be what the calculator says, but the calculator doesn't apply logic to this sort of equation (which is why I don't use it). Even a 10th-level party without an arcane spellcaster would waltz through these lizardfolk unless there were extenuating circumstances (which the calculator also doesn't take into account).

Knowing the level of the PCs might help us determine whether this encounter is too tough or not as well.

Anything below the belt get's that show's attention.

Not much hunting on this thread nowdays. I'm an ecologist anyway. We should be saving all the rare monstrous species not exterminating them.

Here lovely drop bear...

In no particular order...

Larry Elmore, Keith Parkinson, Clyde Caldwell, Tony DiTerlizzi, Brom, Wayne Reynolds, Todd Lockwood (I have this print in my dining room), Eva Wildermann, Andrew Hou.

I don't know if he's ever done anything "official D&D", but Frazetta is the king. John Zeleznik is a fav as well, though he does more sci-fi stuff.

Damn forgot to mention Lockwood. He is the best D&D artist of dragons I have seen.

I look at that print and my smile turns into a frown when I realize that paizo can't use mindflayers anymore. Damn, damn, damn!

Sorry for the swearing.

Phil. L wrote:

Are you sure the entire adventure isn't just made up of stat blocks?

;-)

Heh.

Yeah, I'm sure. I'm also sure it's the second-longest adventure Dungeon has ever printed, partially because of the stat blocks, but also because there's a LOT of awesome stuff BETWEEN the stat blocks.

I never doubted it. This adventure will rock supremely (unless you are a saintly goody two-shoes paladin who kills every demon he sees on sight regardless of the circumstances). For those guys the adventure might be one of their shortest!

Phil. L wrote:

How do you pronounce it?

We pronounce it to sound like "clarion" with an extra "o" sound near the beginning. So clarion -> colarion -> Golarion.

Does that help?

Thanks Mike.

By the way, I have to agree with some of the posters on the boards.
I'm not a huge fan of this name either (though I don't hate it either and its different), especially since it's going to have to creep into the ecologies of a lot of the monsters I'm writing for this setting (prepare to be hammered with Phil monsters by the way!) ;-)

You'll have to since Paizo isn't going to use them (even though they could).

I am ambivalent about a lot of these classes. I really like the concept of the akashic and it's a cool name for a class as well. It really has no officical equivalent, though the factotum class from Dungeonscape is very similar in some ways.

The mageblade is basically a wizard/fighter. They have better spells than a duskblade or hexblade, but their abilities aren't as good either.

The magister is superior to a wizard because he can alter the power level of his spells, though this is a mechanic of the entire system not just magisters.

Greenbond is inferior to a druid in combat, but superior in their healing ability. The problem with the greenbond is that it tries to be a druid and cleric at the same time.

Warmain and unfettered are good solid classes.

The totem warrior is boring (can do the same things with better prestige classes from the official books) while the champion is cool, but perhaps overly complex (though it craps all over paladins at higher levels).

The witch is interesting, but I'm biased since I like elemental classes.

Runethanes are okay, but not a favorite of mine. I do think (as someone has suggested) that they are perfect for dwarves.

I only have the original Arcana Unearthed. Can anyone tell me how the classes have been updated?

Kenzer's Villain Design Handbook. Best friend a DM ever had.

I wonder how WotC's own villain book is going to stack up against it?

Since we are talking about just D&D artists:

Wayne Reynolds is great. I also like Richard Sardhina, Raven Mimura, and Daarken. The recent DUNGEON artists have been pretty good to.

Baramay wrote:

Someone mentioned turning undead as being broken. In truth the turn undead table is exactly the same as 2nd edition. It is just presented differently. That said, the problem with undead and turning is the improving monsters by CR chart. Undead advance 1 CR every 4 HD.

The turning table wasn't modified by Charisma in 2nd ed...definitely not exactly the same. And that's not the least of the differences. Did you mean 3.0?

This is where that variant turning rule is superior. Turning causes damage to undead instead of turning them. The undead get a saving throw to reduce the damage by half and are not immediately destroyed by the turning. Since the turning check involves a Will save many undead are quite likely to save against it. WotC have played around with this variation of turning for a while now and it may very well end up being the way turning works in 4th Ed.

As for players not being superhuman. Count for me the number of humans on the planet that can kill a fully grown tiger just with their hands or a rampaging bull elephant with a longsword. You could probably count all the people on two hands (and that's out of a pop'n of 6 billion). Now think about making the tiger three times the size (as in dire tiger). Now how many people would be able to kill it? A high-level monk in D&D could do it with ease, but no one on earth could.

Also, when considering environmental hazards like boiling water it deals an average of 35 hit points of damage per round. You have to be pretty powerful to swim 30 feet through boiling water and come out the other side pretty much unscathed. Sure, there are characters who can swim through 30 feet of boiling water unscathed, but these same characters can survive being hit by a storm giant with a 20-foot long greatsword or a full-blown avalanche.

I'm sorry, but I wouldn't want to play with a DM that'd make you fall into a lake of boiling water and tell you that you have just been burned to death because no human could survive such an experience. Your chances of getting designers to change the rules like that is ZERO!

Are you sure the entire adventure isn't just made up of stat blocks?

;-)

Mmmm...

A half-dragon tibbit....

How do you pronounce it?

GHUL-arion?

gol-ARION?

GOLAR-ion?

??????

I just finished reading the 4th book, and I must say I really loved this series. I'm actually stealing tons of material for my game! But I'm kind of bummed out, thinking that it will be, like, 10 years or so before George manages to actually finish the whole series (based on the rate the existing books have come out). I'm dying to read the rest! Argghhh!

I share your pain.

This series is brilliant!

I haven't read a single word of this thread because I'm a big Doctor Who fan and enjoyed the last two series and it hasn't come to our shores yet (that's Aussie shores). I just want to ask one question:

Will I be disappointed with the new season or happy?

Rise of the Silver Surfer sounds like the title for a porno movie!

Anything run by me. It has to be great!

Does this make me a pompous self-congratulatory twit?

Dirk Gently wrote:

GAH!!! All those spoilers and NOTHING IN THEM!!!

Stop it Dragonmann! I'm not a masochist, I'm OCD!!!

Too...many...*sob*

Me too.

Like a vampire with OCD.

Must... show... every... spoilerrrrrrr..... GAH!!!

So that's the count's problem on Sesame Street! ;-)

Shubbulahahasshfttp!

Wow. That's some really, really great stuff. I'd like to read some more. It has a Spelljammer bouquet with just enough Gamma World and Dark Sun to give it a little spice and nuttiness . . . ;^) I like it. I'm going to copy & paste what you've posted.

Otherwise I think I think that's an awesome setting. If WotC ever does a contest, like they did with Eberron, you should enter this as a proposal.

- FM

The only problem is that the world is a highly specialized setting. I doubt Wizards would accept a proposal like this despite its quality. They would be looking for a more generic campaign world which didn't mess around quite so much with established facets of the D&D game (like changing dragons to the extent which wizardofowls is).

Moff and Fatespinner's ideas are both good. Moff's suggestion doesn't require any changes to the monster, though.

I still have a small problem with the spell not being under the caster's control with respects to setting it off, but it's a minor quibble.

I like Fatespinner's idea about making it a dual-spell (unless that stuffs up the PC of course).

The spell's very, very good otherwises.

Arcana Unearthed by Malhavoc and Iron Kingdoms by Privateer Press

Fizz

Agree. Malhavoc rocks and Privateer Press is cool!

Then again, I have stuff from companies everywhere, though I don't always separate the wheat from the chaff.

And Goodman Games is great because they publish me!

Actually, boiling water does 1d6 points of damage on contact and 10d6 points of damage if you are completely immersed in it. Neither allows a saving throw. Lava does 2d6 points of damage on contact and 20d6 points of damage if you are completely immersed in it (no save again). This can be found in the DMG and various other books.

PCs are superhuman characters at higher levels (as others have already mentioned) therefore they can perform feats of superhuman endurance, withstand inconcievable torments, and can make the impossible possible. No normal human could survive a fight with an ancient red dragon and no normal human could survive swimming through boiling water. Heroes are superior in every way and its the only way a game like D&D can function. of course Magdalena has got it right. D&D could include negative modifiers for swimming through boiling water.

As for language, Birthright had an interesting take on languages, but when we played Birthright everyone learnt everyone elses languages. We ended up with everyone (including the warriors) speaking five or six languages by 8th-level!

Ahhhrrr!

Tuh meny numbrs. Phil smash shiny box!

I think the caster should be able to choose when to activate the ward and fire off the magic missile so he doesn't target some low CR creature with the spell when he would rather use it against a more powerful opponent.

Moff's argument's also need to be looked at. He's right about invisible attackers voiding the spell.

I don't think a PC should have to keep a spell slot available or have magic missile prepared. You are holding up two spell slots for little effect there.

Perhaps the ward could provide the caster with DR 5/magic for 1 minute a level, then when the caster chooses he could expel the spell's energy to create the missile. Make the spell about 3rd-level and its really not that powerful. You could also increase the ward to DR 10/magic or increase its duration to 10 minutes a level, but that would probably make the spell 4th- or 5th-level.

Just some thoughts.

Uhm, wasn't wounding exactly as you describe this "bleeding" property in 3.0?

3.0? I can't remember back that far! ;-)

Perhaps you're right (and you probably are). Of course, that beggars another question. Why do you think they changed it?

Phil. L wrote:

I'm with the others on this. Wounding being +2 is not that bad considering that holy is +2 as well. A +1 wounding weapon would cost 18,000 gp + the weapon price, which is pretty fair.

By this reasoning, would it still be a +2 modifier to apply this effect to any of the other stats? What about enfeebling (STR), crippling (DEX), lobotomizing (INT), disorienting (WIS), or hazing (CHA)?

Mmmm...not sure. While some people might claim that Con is more important than Int or that Str is more important than Cha it's hard to justify this in the rules without people complaining. My belief is that they would all be +2.

Plus, I can almost picture an ogre wearing a college jersey and wielding a +2 hazing greatclub. That'd be worth the +2 price tag alone! ;-)

This is good stuff as far as shattered world type campaigns go. The whole Wizard's War is a bit Urza and Mishra if you ask me, but you have to start somewhere (I myself am going to steer clear of cataclysmic wars, events, blah, blah ruining the world in my next campaign).

I do wonder how the shard keys work. If they are so integral to a shard's survival how did they all get built before the shards were sucked into outer space? Plus, sabotaging one of these keys would be horrendous for one of main shards (though a great ready made idea for an adventure or three).

I'm not sure what stage of the campaign you are up to in terms of design, but a world like this forces a lot of changes on the rules (such as in the sort of spells that would exist, etc). I also wonder how you are going to treat clerics? Are they in any way blamed for what happened and have any new cults or gods arisen in the wake of the shattered world's formation?

I like your take on dragons, but obviously they would be far more common that regular chromatic and metallic dragons. It would be interesting to see other varieties of creatures in the game as well, such as the shard wyvern or something. Monsters whose ecologies and behaviors are tied to the shards would also be interesting to present to players. For example, you could give all kobolds wings (like the urds back in 2nd Ed.) and make them scavenging humanoids like intelligent evil seagulls.

Players might want to know if shards collide and what happens when they do. Is this something regulated by your wizard's guild or is the collision of shards what passes for earthquakes on your world? What about wind and rain? Is there regular rainfall, or is that the responsibility of druids (making them far more important characters)? Perhaps rainfall only occurs when a globe of water passes near the gravity field of another shard (salty rain?).

Are there still regular seasons and poles? is there an equatorial region and two arctic regions? I can almost picture a region of jagged floating circular icebergs. If you haven't decided upon this then its something to think about because it's important on several different levels. Also, without day and night how do they tell the time? Periods of darkfall?

Players might also want to know about what passes for an underdark and where it is? Have all the subterranean races been destroyed or have they all relocated to that shard that is perpetually in darkness? You have already changed dragons, so these races might have also changed as well.

Are there elves, dwarves, etc, or have you come up with your own races? Plus, as a player I would really want to play a flying PC. is this at all possible, because it would be one of the first questions I would ask?

Hoped some of this helps? :-)

Hi Fatespinner (and others). I actually think a weapon property similar to the one you have proposed already exists. I'm not sure its from WotC and is called bleeding or something. Its a +1 weapon quality.

I'm with the others on this. Wounding being +2 is not that bad considering that holy is +2 as well. A +1 wounding weapon would cost 18,000 gp + the weapon price, which is pretty fair.

In FR and Greyhawk most gods lose power when their followers all die off or stop following the god in question. The gods change portfolios constantly and are constantly being redefined. In Krynn and Eberron gods don't get their power from worshippers (though Krynn is a bit more complicated in this regard than Eberron), though their portfolios and powers they grant clerics are probably still highly mutable.

I'm not sure what the Pathfinder gods are going to be like in this regard, but the Paizo staff will probably go down the Greyhawk path given Eric Mona's love for the setting.

Man, I missed it! Damn other side of the world!

AND: Keep in mind that very few people have read the final draft of "Prince of Demons," and NO one has read what will be in Dungeon #150. Killing Demogorgon, for example, might not be the best way to solve the Savage Tide AP...

You old dog you... ;-)

I abhor ranting! All ranters should be flagellated!

Blast!

Where's has my cat-o-nine-tails gotten to?

I don't actually think any of the rules of the game are truly broken. To say something is broken is saying that it doesn't work. All the rules in the game work, but some don't work as well as others.

An armor system based on DR sounds great, but all WotC's attempts at a compromise between giving armor just a DR rating and actually having it provide protection against being struck have sucked. In reality, armor would protect a person from glancing blows (and thus provide an AC bonus) and would also absorb some of the damage from an impact (and thus provide DR). Working all this out with the combat system as it stands just doesn't work that well since many of the other rules of the game are based around it.

Other things, like using a spiked chain underwater and longswords doing piercing damage are all about common sense and not making the game unnecessarily complicated. You could have a list of all the combat variations someone could use with a longsword, and say that it does 1d8 slashing, 1d6 bludgeoning, and 1d4 piercing, but then you would have to do that for all the weapons and the weapon tables would end up being phenomenally long. It's bad enough with weapons of different sizes as it is.

Grappling isn't complicated once you read it properly. The mechanics themselves aren't the problem, but rather the way that it has been worded.

The trouble with changing one rule means that you have to change all the rules that rule effects and then all the rules those rules effect. A well-designed (for the most part) game like D&D is heavily interconnected. You just can't look at the rules in isolation.

Now disagree with me! ;-)

Sebastian wrote:

Phil - Give me your address. I'm sending you a satellite dish. You clearly need alternate sources of entertainment.

Either that or just start directing Phil to the topics that have already been covered dozens of times on previous threads...

As ever,
ACE

This from a beholder!

With all those word games out there I thought I'd try a different spin on things.

Everyone knows the game six degrees of separation (and its famous spin-off's like six degrees of Bacon) as well as the movie (great flick by the way), but what about six degrees of D&D?

Here are the rules of the game (my rules anyway)

You must link two different D&D characters such as Elminster and Dragotha by 5 or fewer other D&D characters. If the person knows the other person they are one degree separated (so Elminster and Khelbun are one degree separated). If they both know someone but haven't actually met they are two degrees separated (so Elminster and Raistlin are two degrees separated since they both know Dalamar but haven't actually met [at least I don't think so]}. I think that you get the drift. ;-)

So...

Elminster and Dragotha?

The rumor is going around that WotC might release the prelim stuff for 4th Ed. at Gen Con. If this is true, what do you want to see changed in the game? Do you want 4th Ed. to be a complete change from 3.5 or simply a further refinement of the current rules?

Of course, this line of questioning is probably mute since we can't change anything, but I think it's fun to think about anyway.

Others out there might not be so appreciative, but I can handle any abuse. ;-)

We all know that some people have issues with the races "I hate elves" and the classes "wizards suck" of D&D, but what about the rules or game mechanics themselves?

What do you consider to be the most broken or annoying rule or game mechanic in D&D and why do you feel/think this way about it?

A few people (like Lawgiver) might have an interesting take on this since they play a different edition of the game, so their input is still appreciated (and I can't stop them anyway).

Of course, if there is anyone out there who wants to say that I'm trying to start an argument, I'd say that perhaps you're right. ;-)

Thanks Nomad.

The magazines are 100% official and have all been 100% approved by Wizards of the Coast. Our assumption is that they would treat the information in the magazines as "canon," but I could understand leaving the specific resolutions of adventures and adventure paths up to the players to complete.

Basically, it's their call, but the 100% Official tag on the cover is there for a reason.

--Erik

I assumed as much.

Phil. L wrote:

Sorry if self promotion for another company is not allowed on this website but this is payback for Paizo for not bringing out their submission guidelines for Pathfinder yet when I've got mountains of monsters to throw at them!!!.

Not a problem... but you could have at least provided a link to the product in our store!

By the way, looks like they're spelling it "Genie."

Ooops...

I didn't know whether it was up yet. Sorry Vic.

Yeah, and I knew they changed the name. I was thinking in the past tense (back when that was the working title) when I wrote it and only realized my mistake later!

Sorry, I'm going to do a Steve Greer and tell you that I have a module coming out with Goodman Games next month. Its Called Tears of the Genie.

Sorry if self promotion for another company is not allowed on this website but this is payback for Paizo for not bringing out their submission guidelines for Pathfinder yet when I've got mountains of monsters to throw at them!!!

Whew, I'm sure there should have been a comma or period in that rant.

I just used my keyboard for the latest one.

qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnm

Is the material presented in the DUNGEON adventure paths canon? In other words, will WotC honor the fact that Kyuss has been destroyed in the previous AP or that Demogorgon may or may not be destroyed in the current one, or is what Paizo does with such characters irrelevant in their eyes?

Just a thought I'd like to throw out to the Paizo people.

I hate sticky threads!