Talion09's page

I hate to seem obtuse, but where is there information about a new module by James about Golarion's moon? This is news to me. :-(

And I also hope they handle this very delicately. While I liked Spelljammer, I definitely do not like Sci Fi in my Fantasy.* They are two great tastes that do not taste great together. Like, say, pizza and mint chocolate chip ice cream.

*Spelljammer involved ships in space, granted, but there was no attempt at robots or laser beams, no distopian society, no dungeonpunk chic, not even an attempt at advanced technology. It was all magic. And the ships looks like sailing ships (for the most part).

It was mentioned toward the end of yesterday's blog entry.

Klapperman wrote:

Any status updates available? With every positive review or comment that appears on the web my hunger for Pathfinder 1 increases... please feed meeee... :)

Sadly, you're part of a select group that fell afoul of not one but two different problems. We've solved them, and your order should be going out today. We appreciate your patience, and are really sorry for the delay. We expect things should go much more smoothly for international subscriptions for Pathfinder 2.

Vic, I just wanted to say that I too fell into the international subscriber problem... but I got my confirmation email and downloaded the PDFs last night, so its all good now.

I'd just like to say thanks to you and the rest of the Paizo staff for keeping us informed with updates like this one, and resolving the problem.

I LOVE when Shadowrun meets D&D!!! Awesome!

The Shadowrun meets DnD theme is one of the main reasons my group started Eberron a few years ago. Replace Seattle with Sharn, Megacorps with Dragonmarked Houses, etc and you can run Shadowrun style adventures instead of traditional high fantasy. Which allowed us to stop alternating Shadowrun and DnD campaigns, and instead just incorporate everything into one campaign and one system.

Its good to know that Golarion has room for elements like this as well. (Although I suspected it would given some of the early blog posts)

This was easily my favorite GameMastery Module so far, although they all have been excellent.

Talion09 wrote:

* Of course, maybe these comparisons just came to mind because I was flipping though some old SR2 sourcebooks on the weekend.

No, it was made that way by Sutter. Check out his blog post about it from yesterday.

Thanks Mike. I missed that blog post yesterday.

Kirk Douglas and Ernest Borgnine in The Vikings

Marc Singer in The Beastmaster
Bruce Campbell in Army of Darkness
Uma Thurman (er, Zoe Bell) in Kill Bill

With guns, but still inspirational:
Daniel Day-Lewis in The Last of the Mohicans
Clint Eastwood in Fistful of Dollars
Scott Glenn & Kevin Kline in Silverado

And essential if you play a lot of Nick Logue adventures:
Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon

If we are talking about Nick's Sharn trilogy, I'd also reccomend some Batman: The Animated Series from the 90's. Maybe its just me, but when I read Chimes at Midnight, that was totally the image I got.

On a sidenote, that issue of Dungeon rocked. As I recall, it had Chimes at Midnight AND the cool Viking/Greyhawk Adventure with the cursed Dragontooth.

My copies of Pathfinder #1 and D2 just shipped, so I was able to download the PDFs. (Yay!)

I just flipped through D2 (Pathfinder is big enough that I'll read it tonight after dinner) and I was struck by how much it seems like a Shadowrun adventure.

- The way you are hired at the beginning.

- The lawlessness of Kaer Maga and the street gangs.

- The magical research station gone haywire.

- The "Good Doctor" = Mad scientist run amok.

* Of course, maybe these comparisons just came to mind because I was flipping though some old SR2 sourcebooks on the weekend.

Malleon's math seems about right, maybe even a Elara is about 1.5 - 2 hours away, Camp is about 3 hours, and between the two is a bit under 4 hours. Of course this is a horses speed (considering encumberance) and does not take into account, running, hustling, etc.

Either way, Malleon has proposed and idea, I will await the groups decision before posting again. Oh and did everyone add their bonuses to their character sheets?

I assumed that at least some of the horses would be encumbered slightly (probably mine & Oso's?) I'm not sure if we can make the horses gallop faster the whole way, I thought the section in the PHB on movement assumed you were maintaining the best average pace. (But I could be wrong, I really just looked at the table briefly for the movement rate of a light horse)

And I added the Gather Information bonus ;-)

I'm pretty sure when the material quality vs price issue was brought up by Paizo staff during the transition, it was because someone compared the price per page in Dungeon/Dragon to Pathfinder. And since the materials in an actual book are higher quality than a magazine, they naturally are more expensive.

*And the lack of advertising is a huge chunk of the price difference as well, as others have noted.

Personally, I'm happy with the price. Obviously I wouldn't mind if it was cheaper, but for ~$20 including shipping, I'm getting an adventure that should take 6-8 weeks to play out (we play around 3 hours a week) along with supporting articles and background material. Plus the PDF.

When considering the cost vs how much time I'll spend reading and using it, Pathfinder probably ranks right up, right behind the core 3 books. (PHB, MM, DMG)

*And I consider the actual Pathfinder Player's Guide to be a steal at $2.

... Is that right? Huh. All right, Monday. Extremely busy on Friday.

Sounds good to me. I have Mon-Wed off next week, so I'll be available for lots of posting ;-)

Ok, now that I got the jokes out of my system with the last post...

Sect, any idea how close we are to starting the adventure?* I'm not sure how many characters still need to be finished (if any), or if you need time for prep, etc.

* I'm really just needing a DnD fix... I just found out that with a new shift bid taking effect at my work, I'm going to be on hiatus from my regular weekly game for the next couple of months. But at least I'm in 3 PbP games ;-)

Sorion Cerrulla wrote:

Done, took the Lone Wolf feat

Very nice. Fix up your Strength and Con, and you're good to go.

I dunno... I wouldn't mind having someone in the party with 112 Strength... that +51 to hit and damage would do wonders for clearing out the monsters so my Rogue doesn't get hit...

;-)

I just received my Map Pack: Sewers and Map Pack: Temples sets today, and I think they're great!

They're more like a heavy cardstock then the thicker Dungeon Tiles from WoTC, but the Map Packs are more creative and usable for specific situations. For example, in the Map Pack: Temples pack, there is a fantastic HEALING TEMPLE that will have great use as well as a very-well done CULTIST WAREHOUSE and SPIDER GOD CAVERN.

I have all 10 Map Packs that Paizo's published so far in two 5 x 8 memo-sized notebooks (in plastic sleeves from Century Business Solutions. I had to add 25 extra sheet protectors to each memo book so that each book would hold 5 sets of Map Packs (they're 18 5x8 sheets in each Map Pack but 20 sheets all together with the front and back cover sheets).

It's great fun to leaf through both memo books and pick out just the right tiles for use. And the latest ones, Temples and Sewers are a couple of Paizo's best so far!

Another option, if you happen to have access to a laminating machine, is to laminate them. That will protect them from wear and tear, and you can also draw on them with overhead felts, then erase afterwards.

*Of course, it took me the better part of an afternoon to laminate ~150 tiles and then organize them into convenient categories for easy availability during play... but it was worth it ;-)

Your W1 was shipped in an envelope, but this shouldn't affect the delivery time (Note: I said shouldn't, not won't).

Your W1 should be arriving any time now.

Thanks,
cos

Cosmo knows all ;-)

It arrived in the mail today. Odd that the other delivery that shipped ~10 days later arrived first, but I should just given up trying to figuring out the vagaries of cross-border mail, lol

Chimpman: You're still in the game! I've always counted you as part of it :) I just have now raised the number of people we're gonna play with.

Fatespinner: Yep, you can be an unmarked member of a House.
However, I've thought about it, and I'm going to allow everyone to take a background feat. Many of the feats in the ECS, Player's Guide to Eberron, and other Eberron books could be considered background feats, and Least Dragonmark can definitely be chosen.

Talion09: The alternate Monk styles are open to choose from, so go for it!

One more thing: I noticed Fatespinner's knight didn't have ID papers. Remember that they're pretty much necessary in Eberron unless you plan on being unable to prove your identity :)

I was thinking about taking the Investigate feat from the ECS. (Either as my bonus background feat, or I'd shift my Least Dragonmark or Favored in House over to the bonus feat slot, and use my 1st level feat to take it, etc) I'd also move my skill points around (probably removing them from Listen) to give myself some ranks in Search.

Is that ok?

If not, I'd probably take something like Weapon Focus:Unarmed Strike, Improved Initiative or something like that... or Dragonmarked Prodigy from the Dragonmark book.

Kaezen wrote:

Here is the Orien Monk, Kaezen.

I'll have to go in and fill in the background later on, but I've got some good ideas.

Hey check your email :P

Sorry, I didn't see your email, and it Sarah thought I had, so she didn't mention it, etc.

I just sent the information you wanted.

Talion09 wrote:

I went with Magnimar, because Elegost spent most of the last decade based out of Magnimar with his studies and then the Pathfinders, after fleeing Korvosa in exile.

If you feel it would be more appropriate to go with Korvosa, I can switch it around.

No, you're good; I had a feeling why, plus I imagine, with your character's background, you would try cutting ties with Korvosa.

Yeah, it made sense in my head, but I was writing up the background late at night, so some things could have been edited or explained better.

I'll probably clean it up and give a little more detail on my pathfinder years, ie. that I had been to Sandpoint many times in the past, as discussed on this thread, etc.

Elegost Taishar wrote:

I've updated the profile for Elegost, so I'm good to go. Pending DM approval of course ;-)

Good character.

As a Pathfinder initiate, you were instructed to go to Sandpoint to wait for an experienced explorer, to whom you were to assist in his next expedition. While you were there, your superior added, with a twinkle in his eye, you might as well enjoy the festival that was going on.

... Would you like to use that as to your reasoning to be in Sandpoint, or would you like to use a different approach?

EDIT: Wait. Just noticed that you used Magnimar as your City Born rather than Korvosa. Explain?

I went with Magnimar, because Elegost spent most of the last decade based out of Magnimar with his studies and then the Pathfinders, after fleeing Korvosa in exile.

If you feel it would be more appropriate to go with Korvosa, I can switch it around.

I've just about got the character done, I'll be posting him up in the next hour or so. (I just need to think of a good name... always the hardest part, lol)

I do have a question though: Would it be possible for me to take a Variant Monk Fighting Style (From Unearthed Arcana, and also in viewable in the Hypertext d20 SRD.)

Specifically, I'm thinking of the Passive Way Style, which would change my Monk 1 & Monk 2 bonus feats to Combat Expertise & Improved Trip respectively.

I'll write up the character as if this is ok, but if not, I'll switch up those bonus featings to be something more conventional, like Improved Grapple and Deflect Arrows.

Sebastian wrote:

I don't recall Charisma giving a discount for purchasing items, but like Stebehil said, that rule was disregarded by everyone except the designers of kits.

Maybe it was just a Baldur's Gate thing, then. Hmmm.

I do remember that rule too... but then again, I also played a lot of BG & BG II, so its quite possible that I'm not remembering properly.

Plus back then, my characters tended to be bad-asses with 18/00 strength. Or wizards with 18 Intelligence, etc.

Who cares how much people like you? I didn't play D&D to have a popular character, I played it to slay dragons and loot dungeons. ;-)

Evil Genius wrote:

Oooh, I love the knight class! And being in House Deneith is cool with me. Is your character a member of the Blademarks, or perhaps a bodyguard in the Defenders Guild? Either one could be used as a reason to be a part of the group. Being a Sentinel Marshal in this game wouldn't be as easy, though.

He'd be with the Defenders Guild. Lawful Neutral, very honor-bound to his House and, of course, his clients, but willing to do whatever he's assigned to do (obviously he will frown on blatantly illegal things).

Since I don't have my books at work with me, can someone tell me the power granted by the Least Mark of Sentinel? It's shield of faith, right?

Shield of Faith OR Mage Armor OR Protection from Arrows (My favorite choice) OR Shield Other. And you get a +2 to Sense Motive checks.

It probably is the most versatile Least Dragonmark, at least in terms of choices for the spell-like ability.

Talion09 wrote:

I'm thinking about playing a human monk with Orien dragonmark feats, who moves into the Blade of Orien PRC.

The Sun School tactical feat from Complete Warrior has some amazing synergy with Blade of Orien (and maybe Quicken Dragonmark if I can fit it in) so I'm intending on taking that as soon as we level up to 6th.

I won't be the hardest hitter, but that should be ok if we have another warrior type, and I'll be bouncing around the battlefield even more so than a traditional monk.

What is everyone else intending on playing?

*In case it matters, I'm not 100% on this concept, I also have a Deneith Wizard and a few other ideas up my sleeve. (I'm intrigued with the concept of a Rogue/Master Inquisitive with a ton of skill tricks from Complete Scoundrel... but I haven't tried to actually stat it out yet)

Your ideas all sound great! :)

Pretty curious to see what everyone else comes up with.

Oh, and welcome aboard Eadaro! We now have four players, one away from the five I wanted but a feasible number to play with.

Its actually an idea that I had when Magic of Eberron came out, you can make an Orien Monk/Dragonmark Heir that is the closest you can get to being the Flash without being a Quickling. Assuming that you describe the Dimension Leap ability as a blur as you move between locations ;-)

There was (maybe still is?) a thread on the WotC boards about Superhero equivalents in Eberron, specifically the JSA, with Sharn taking the place of New York, Breland being America, the Emerald Claw being Nazis, etc. I'm not tying the background for this character the backstory in that thread, but mechanically it still seems cool, I just never had a chance to run it in an Eberron campaign.

Anyways, once the Dragonmarked Book came out, the Blade of Orien was perfect for that character concept.

Hey Cosmo,

I just got a package from Paizo... but it was Order 674580, which shipped on August 16th. Which makes me a little worried about W1, as it was shipped on August 2nd.

This latest order was a box, where as I'm pretty sure that the order with only W1 would be one of those cardboard mailer envelope thingies.

Would that make a difference? (I'm pretty sure I would have picked the same option for shipping, as I don't get a lot of options as an International customer. However, I can't see any shipping info (other than date shipped) in my order history)

Joel

*And thanks for the extra pack of Relics of War cards in Order 674580!

I'm thinking about playing a human monk with Orien dragonmark feats, who moves into the Blade of Orien PRC.

The Sun School tactical feat from Complete Warrior has some amazing synergy with Blade of Orien (and maybe Quicken Dragonmark if I can fit it in) so I'm intending on taking that as soon as we level up to 6th.

I won't be the hardest hitter, but that should be ok if we have another warrior type, and I'll be bouncing around the battlefield even more so than a traditional monk.

What is everyone else intending on playing?

*In case it matters, I'm not 100% on this concept, I also have a Deneith Wizard and a few other ideas up my sleeve. (I'm intrigued with the concept of a Rogue/Master Inquisitive with a ton of skill tricks from Complete Scoundrel... but I haven't tried to actually stat it out yet)

... I'm friends with talion09 as well as we've been playing rl dnd together for as long as I can remember. ....

15 or 16 years. 3 editions of DnD, 4 editions of Shadowrun, various incarnations of Battletech and a few other RPGs.

But whose counting? ;-)

...

You start with 9000 gold, but you may only spend 1/4 of that (that is, 2250 g) on a single item.

Anyway we can push that 2250 gp limit on a single item to ~2300ish?

Otherwise, a +1 shortsword is 60gp out of reach, etc.

---

Also, when you said Complete X, you were including Champion, Scoundrel and Mage, right? (I'm toying with some character ideas, and reserve feats + skill tricks would give some more options.)

Talion, have you thought about the idea of your character being a Pathfinder?

Yep, Pathfinder sounds good. I'm working on the backstory for my character now, probably post it up tonight or tommorrow. But the rough version is already on this thread, just insert Pathfinder where I said treasure hunter

Upon further contemplation, I'm in ;-)

If this was mentioned already, my apologies for missing it...

Is the DI going to be Vista only?

- They day they announce 4e and give details on their big digital push, their servers are overloaded and go down. For over a day.

Yeah, that didn't exactly inspire confidence in me either, lol

Especially since they used the 4dventure countdown that replaced the normal site to try and build interest in the day or so before the announcement.

---

And for the record, Blizzard has always* released their games on Mac and PC simultaneously. At least as far back as my Warcraft II Tides of Darkness C & Diablo CDs.

Greetings everyone!

I am interested in running the Eberron super-adventure, Eyes of the Lich Queen, on these boards for a group of 5 players starting at 5th level. Knowledge of the Eberron Campaign Setting will be very useful for creating your characters and their backgrounds.

Character Creation:

Ability Scores: 32 point buy (+1 point for being beyond 4th level)

Available books are the PHB, PHB 2, DMG, ECS + other Eberron books, Complete X series, Magic Item Compendium, and Spell Compendium. When the time comes when you want to pick a prestige class, run your idea by me to make sure it will be allowed. The Frenzied Berserker will not be allowed, nor will PRCs that do not fit the flavor of Eberron, such as the Red Wizard of Thay and the Suel Arcanomach. The same is true for certain base classes from the Complete X series, such as the Asian-themed classes like the Shugenja and such.

You start with 9000 gold, but you may only spend 1/4 of that (that is, 2250 g) on a single item.

Info on the the starting bits of story needed to tie your character's backstory into the adventure will be forthcoming when I receive the adventure in the mail.. which will probably be on Friday.

Bump.

*I'm contemplating this, but I'm already in 2 pbp games at the moment, so I'm not sure if I have the time for a third (plus my normal weekly campaign).

uhm; am pretty busy today, but will try to get this done tomorrow; can someone post a list of what players and classes we have so far so i can fill any hole?; thanks much in advance.

So far we have a Gnome Druid, Human (Shoanti) Barbarian & Human (Chelaxian) Rogue. So an arcane caster would be nice, as would another warrior type. I believe we are going with 6 players, so that allows a fair bit of duplication.

I will look at the players guide first. I may buy it after that. But I still have so much 3.5 stuff that I really do not need to switch anytime soon. I am taking the wait and see approach.

Actually, if you just want to see what the new rules are before buying the core books, why buy the PHB?

Assuming that the new 4.0 SRD is available (and I think it will be), why not just look at that online for an hour or two first? Sure its missing the nice illustrations and some of the fluff, but you'll be able to see the new level system, what has changed, etc.

Talion09 wrote:

I'll throw up a more complete post tonight, but I came up with my character concept. (Nothing like thinking about DnD stuff to pass the time while doing yardwork, lol)

I'll be a human rogue (probably of Chelaxian heritage) from Magnimar. (I'm taking the City-Born background feat.) I'll have all the usual rogue skills, and style myself as a "treasure hunter" when speaking to other adventurers. Basically, he works freelance for antiquarians and other collectors in Magnimar, going out to find artifacts and trinkets. As such, he has been to Sandpoint multiple times in the past. And I'll probably though some sort of connection to one of the Magnimar thieves guilds as well.

On a more mechanical side, I'm thinking of going with 2-Weapon Fighting and Pointblank Shot. In melee, I'll tumble around to flanking positions and use a longsword/dagger combo to hopefuly double the sneak attack damage. But I'd prefer in most situations to use Tumble to maintain my distance, and throw a pair of daggers each round.

I'll have some social skills to go along with the usual Hide/Move Silently, Spot, Open Locks, etc. So I could be the "face" of the party when it comes to negotiating, but if we have a Bard or a high CHA cleric or sorceror, then they might be better at it than I. (I'm going to focus more on Bluff I think)

---
Question for SectIf I take Knowledge (Local) could I apply it to Sandpoint, seeing as how I've been there multiple times in the past?

For your Knowledge Local question, yes, I'll allow it.

Have you thought about being a junior member of the Pathfinders? They're basically a treasure hunter/historian guild.

<smacks forehead> Yes, I guess that would work. Now why it didn't occur to me while reader the PATHFINDER Player's Guide.... lol

I'll throw up a more complete post tonight, but I came up with my character concept. (Nothing like thinking about DnD stuff to pass the time while doing yardwork, lol)

I'll be a human rogue (probably of Chelaxian heritage) from Magnimar. (I'm taking the City-Born background feat.) I'll have all the usual rogue skills, and style myself as a "treasure hunter" when speaking to other adventurers. Basically, he works freelance for antiquarians and other collectors in Magnimar, going out to find artifacts and trinkets. As such, he has been to Sandpoint multiple times in the past. And I'll probably though some sort of connection to one of the Magnimar thieves guilds as well.

On a more mechanical side, I'm thinking of going with 2-Weapon Fighting and Pointblank Shot. In melee, I'll tumble around to flanking positions and use a longsword/dagger combo to hopefuly double the sneak attack damage. But I'd prefer in most situations to use Tumble to maintain my distance, and throw a pair of daggers each round.

I'll have some social skills to go along with the usual Hide/Move Silently, Spot, Open Locks, etc. So I could be the "face" of the party when it comes to negotiating, but if we have a Bard or a high CHA cleric or sorceror, then they might be better at it than I. (I'm going to focus more on Bluff I think)

---
Question for SectIf I take Knowledge (Local) could I apply it to Sandpoint, seeing as how I've been there multiple times in the past?

This is what Vic Wertz wrote in another thread:

Vic Wertz wrote:

We believe we've got all of the bugs worked out of the system, and fulfillment is proceeding as quickly as possible.

Fulfillment is broken into two categories: domestic and international.

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.

International shipments (including APO/FPO addresses) are a little trickier. While domestically, we can just print up a bunch of postage labels simultaneously, and then stick them on prepacked envelopes, international shipments all require customs forms, so we have to drop them into our standard fulfillment pipeline, which isn't as fast. So those will probably spread out over a few days as well.

We're expecting to learn from this, and will probably have some refinements for volume 2, but that's how it's working for volume 1.

:-( I'm in the last category (International)

...Basically, PHB races and classes, unless you can come up with something fun and interesting. ...

One more question. I'm contemplating making a two weapon fighter like Valeros (or maybe just tweaking his Pre-gen build in Pathfinder #1).

Any chance that Oversized Two Weapon Fighting from Complete Adventurer would be an option? I'm also thinking of building towards the Tempest PRC from that same book.

Sweet, I'm in. Thanks Sect.

Character creation will use elite array plus three. Max gold as per class. You can also choose one background feat for free.

Any questions? Comments? Concerns? The game will start when everyone is ready and comfortable, so take your time. I'll help you in any way I can.

Two questions:

1. Elite Array + 3? So we can add 3 more points anyway we want? ie. +3 to Str, or +1 to Str, Dex & Int?

2. Just to confirm, the bonus background feat is limited to those in the Player's Guide, right?

There's going to be an Iron Man movie! I'm hoping for the best, and bracing myself for the worse. Lets hope it turns out to be worth the movie ticket.

Fizz

Search Youtube for the "trailer" that they put out for it at Comicon. It wasn't really a trailer, more of just 2 minutes of cool scenes set with some music in the background.* But you get to see Tony Stark being an arrogant, alcoholic genius... like he should be ;-) And you get to see several forms of the armor, both in brief combat shots and flying around.

It was pretty cool.

* Of course, one of the songs was Iron Man :-)

Hi guys,

According to my order history, this shipped on August 2nd. I still haven't recieved it. Now this waiting time wouldn't have been unusual for my Dungeon subscription, but I'm fairly sure that my copies of D0 & D1 arrived ~2 weeks after shipping. (I could be wrong on that, but I know it was substantially quicker than the periodical class that Dungeon was shipped)

Any idea on what the shipping time is supposed to be between Paizo & British Columbia?*

*The irony is that I could drive to Seattle in 3 hours, but toss that US-Canada border in the way, and shipping takes weeks for anything I order from the US :-(

Our group embraced the Book of Nine Swords as something to try when we started a new campaign back around January, and we had a pair of warblades and a crusader. We also had a cleric, druid, barbarian/frenzied berserker, wizard and a rogue. (Not all at the same time, as a couple were replacement characters)

The campaign played for around 6 months before it concluded, and we just hit 9th level when we ended. (So we had access to 5th level manuevers and spells, albeit only for a few encounters and the BBEG.)

My overall thoughts? (I played one of the two warblades)

It wasn't overpowered*, and the mechanics weren't very difficult to learn, although the book itself was in serious need of a better index and/or some more organizational editing.

*Now while I say that the book itself wasn't overpowered, there still were some "broken" abilities. But there are broken spells for standard classes too, etc. Either houserule them or ban them or just live with it. (The Crusader in particular had a 4th level manuever that did an insane 8d8 extra damage. But that wasn't anymore "broken" than a wizard firing off Power Word:Pain every round, etc)

There were also some nice synergies between feats, manuevers, class abilities, etc. But the same can be said for pretty much everything. (See the CO board on WotC for more broken examples if necessary ;-) )

** When I said above the book wasn't overpowered, keep in mind that this campaign allowed pretty much any WotC sourcebook. So we had the Complete Series (including Mage & Scoundrel) as options, Dragon Compendium, Spell Compendiu, PHB II, etc

A Warblade would probably win 8 times out of 10 against an equivalent level Fighter built only using the SRD. But if you allow Complete Warrior, Complete Adventurer & PHB II into the mix, so the Fighter can do more with all his bonus feats, I think it would be far more even, with it coming down to individual tactics and dice luck... call it 6/10 for the Warblade.

The two weapon wielding, sneak attacking Rogue & the Barbarian built to take advantage of the other sourcebooks weren't overshadowed by the 3 martial adept characters from the book of Nine Swords. And once the Barbarian hit Frenzied Berserker, she was the best damage dealing warrior in the party most fights. (Of course, some of the massive damage that she dealt went to other PCs, but thats typical for a Frenzied Berserker)

*** Most importantly to me, playing a Warblade was fun. Granted that I'm a little jaded with playing standard warrior types, but I had more fun planning and using manuevers than I did in the previous campaign when I had a fighter/ranger/dread commando with a ton of tactical options from his huge list of feats.

In short, we essentially "play-tested" the book of Nine Swords for 6 months and 9 levels in our last campaign, and it was NOT any more overpowered than the other supplemental WotC books that we allowed in the campaign. We had fun with the characters, and they didn't overshadow the other "mundane" type characters like the Barbarian and Rogue, or the Cleric, Druid or Wizard.

Sean, Minister of KtSP wrote:

And believe me, I'm not about to turn down playing in a game of SR3 with you, either. Especially considering I have books for both editions.

Sweeeet! Mayhaps someday!

Nick, maybe you should run a Shadowrun Play-by-Post here on the boards for us <hint, hint> ;-)

hmm... now that I mentioned it jokingly, a Shadowrun pbp would probably work out pretty well, since you wouldn't need to know the relative distances between combatants nearly as much as you would with D&D. So you could just go with a nice cinematic description of the combat and the GM letting you know it was short range, etc.

---

Anyways, back to my original point in making this post.

One of the reasons I think Shadowrun stood up so well to multiple editions was the fluff. Tech/Magic theory/whatever was always changing, and you could see the forshadowing in the fluff, especially the Shadowland stuff.

I loved reading those Shadowland pieces and trying to make the connections to other sourcebooks, novels and adventures. (ex. I remember it being a really cool epiphany when I was halfway through reading the Tir Tanigire sourcebook and realized that the "laughing man" posting on Shadowland was actually Harlequin, from the adventures bearing his name)

I still go back and read some of the older sourcebooks just for the comments like that in the Shadowland sections. Shadowrun always had the coolest and most cohesive fluff/meta-plots out of any RPG at the time. (No insult to FR or WoD fans intended)

Crap. I made the first Player post in the thread, and then it took off while I was sleeping and at work.

I'll get to work on some more posts now, but out of general interest, when do you think you'll be making most of your posts?

Depending on how things are at work, I might be able to post during the day. But most of my posting will probably be between 7pm and midnight, Pacific time.

Daigle wrote:

In my opinion, I think we should lay off the 4e speculations until we see a product and do our gamers proud by working on quality stuff for our games in the interim.

To your point, I am not opposed to the game evolving. I am opposed to the way WotC has been handling it. As silly as it sounds, I'm hurt. Yes it is irrational. Yes I am still bitter over the Dragon and Dungeon debacle. "Trust us" doesn't make me feel better.

I fall into the same categoy.

I've got bookcases and boxes of D&D stuff, starting from back when it was actually called Dungeons and Dragons the first time, through AD&D, 2nd Ed, 3.0, 3.5.

I didn't throw up my arms and vow never to buy 3.0 when it came out, despite my large collection of 2nd edition books.

If its new, and overall better, then I'll buy it and be happy. I've also played Shadowrun through 4 editions, and I'm okay with new editions. It makes business sense for the publisher, and also makes me happy as a consumer that I get new shiny rules. And anyways, the most important stuff to me (the fluff) isn't going away or becoming obsolete.

I'm even ok with the "white lies" of not telling us 4th ed was coming. I understand that they weren't going to tell us in 2005 when they started on it, and I was expecting it to come sooner or later anyways.

But I am pissed over Wizards utterly incompetent PR efforts. As Sebastian said, you can seperate the PR from the designers... but given how bad the PR is, its not inspiring a lot of faith in me.

But I will look at the books, and most likely buy them. They already passed the most important test for me, which was the continuation of OGL.

I kicked off the Golarion Chronicles with the first PC post.

SR rocks. . . who can forget my buddy Marshall finally losing his mind and sending in his army of drug addicted/mind controlled prostitutes on a suicide mission to the local precint with a grenades and enough firearms to supply a war . . .yes, the police were dirty in case you are wondering.

Reading this thread makes me want to play some SR soon!

I actually thought about Shadowrun when I saw the Initiative = Dexterity + Intelligence houserule for our PbP campaign...

On a side note, Shadowrun is a big reason why I'm not that upset or anything about 4dventure... sometimes a system needs to be cleaned up and streamlined to replace "clunky" mechanics (ie. SR to SR2) and sometimes it needs to be re-focused on the core concept to make it more accessible to new gamers, or those that don't want to purchase 50 sourcebooks along with the core rules (SR2 to SR3). And sometimes a new edition just needs to come out because of business plans. (SR3 to SR4).

But in the end, its usually still the game you loved in the first place. And the important stuff (ie. fluff) doesn't change with the new addition usually, although timelines usually progress.