Tobrian's page

I read it as you can take whatever 2 benefit without repeate

1hp and 1 skill
or
1 hp and 1 alternate class reward
or
1 skill and alternate class reward.

NO. You read wrong.

I checked the Advanced Race Guide, page 77, for the racial feat, and the description of alternate class rewards on page 9

Fast Learner

Benefit: When you gain a level in a favored class,
you gain both +1 hit point and +1 skill rank instead
of choosing either one or the other benefit or you can
choose an alternate class reward.

As MurphysParadox and Avalon already wrote:

Normally, without the feat, a character gaining a level in a favored class can choose either +1 hp or +1 skill point as benefit.

With Feat Learner, you can choose:
take EITHER +1 hp plus +1 skill point,
OR take the alternate class reward.

I admit, putting an added Oxford comma in front of "or you can choose an alternate class reward" would have helped the sentence, as would have putting "instead of choosing either one or the other benefit" in brackets. But seriously, it's basic text comprehension, people!

Stop trying to greedily weasel in "alternate interpretations" to get more bonuses by misquoting the feat. It's the first feat in a feat tree. Suck it up.

This feat does not need an FAQ entry IMO.

That sucks. I'd love to see even a PDF collection, just to have them all in one place...

Dito. I bought Volume One, and still had a shred of hope we'd eventually get to see Volume Two, maybe even with some nice extras and with a reprint of Downer's character sheet and life story that had appeared in DUNGEON magazine. That should be included at the very least.

But if I can't get a print edition of the comic, I'd gladly take a PDF collection, at least then I can reread the comic without having to dig for the various pages scattered through my collection of both printed issues and PDF-versions of DUNGEON magazine issues. *sigh*

[Part 2 of 2]

Well, in my opinion (as a person who doesn't treat PC as a curse word) this is what political correctness is about: being polite and thinking about other people when you talk. Not everyone is male. Not everyone is Christian. Not everyone is white. Not everyone is heterosexual. Not everyone has two arms, legs, working eyes or ears. Etc.

Then again, I don't think about being politically correct as a binding dogma, it is just something to keep in mind: You are not the center of universe and not everyone is like you, nor do they all secretly want to be like you.

Quoted for truth.

I feel it's an important step of enlightenment, of growing up as a person, to come to that conclusion you summed up in that last sentence, and many people never make that step.

As a child, you start working from the assumption that everying is like you, because "you" is all you know. And so do societies as a whole.

(snip) the thing about languages: a) they mirror the society which uses them, and b) they can be changed. Using "he" as a gender-neutral pronoun and "men" as generic description of humans suggests that "she" and "women" are Others, being a woman is a strange and atypical condition, potentially an injury or a fault, nevertheless it suggests that women are not subjects, they are defined by men, through men, for men.

I have noticed some time ago that, when writing or speaking English, I keep referring to our species as "humans", instead of "men". Most people seem to think that's just a biologist's little quirk. It's easier in German, which offers the words "Menschen" (people, humans) and "Menschheit" (mankind), but "Mensch" means both sexes equally.

As for languages evolving: indeed even if something is a custom now, it does not mean that it is necessarily a good thing and should be kept as a rule for ever and ever. As I am writing this, I am not wearing a bulky dress which extends to the ground; even though men around me cannot actually see my legs, they can see that I have them and general whereabouts where they are. I have a university degree. I can vote. I have a right for possessions. All this has been gained by breaking the rules.

Very true. The difficulty lies in breaking the rules in such a way so as not to create a backlash. Too much conformity breeds rebellion, too much rebellion in turn breeds conservatism. If there is a grievance, you first have to address it to make the mass of people realize it exists, then convince them that change will actually be advantageous and preferable to the Status Quo. The political correctness movement has managed the first point, I think, but not the second, because people feel it's being rammed down their throats. We're already seeing the backlash.

[Part 1 of 2]

Tobrian wrote:

Unfortunately, English, in contrast to German, does not have a "gender-neutral" pronoun.

English has had gender neutral pronouns and many people do use 'they' as a gender neutral pronoun. (snip)

You're right, of course. That's a bit of a nonsense I've written up there. I shouldn't post when I'm tired. I suddenly noticed, but then I was in bed already and couldn't be bothered to get up again.

What I meant to say was, English has "it" as a neutral pronoun, but "it" is rarely used for actual persons (except for Terry Pratchett's Discworld elves). "They" works, but is plural. German has "man" in addition to "er" (he), "sie" (she) and "es" (it), as in "man sagt" (they say), but it's a very.... generic pronoun, used mostly in conversation, not written German. *sigh* Oh well, genders of German pronouns are crazy anyway. If "der Mann" (the man) is male and "die Frau" (the woman) is female, why is "das Kind" (the child) neural? Even "das Mädchen" (the girl) has a neutral pronoun, while the boy is properly male. *cough* Some sexism right there. On the other hand I think (I might be wrong) that German is the only European language where the moon is male, and the sun female. Quite reversed from standard mythology.

But I'm getting more and more off-topic, am I? Sorry.

Just have to point out that Planescape was rocking the female pronoun before 3.x came along. In fact, it was the primary pronoun of choice IIRC.

Of course there was probably an in-game reason for that.
[/PSfanboymode]

Heh, yes. After I sent my players through Sigil, their characters were the hell afraid of pissing off the Lady, and they hadn't even met her personally. Well, alright, one of them, the fighter, had been mazed by her, but that was a bit of a misunderstanding as the planar stuff he became inadvertendly involved in wasn't even his fault (it had been the fault of the party's bard, messing around with ancient mirror magic, tsk). Not that the Lady could care less. It was rather amusing to see the player of the group's paladin try to argue with the Lady's Dabus and getting annoyed when his "reasonable arguments" were ignored. Heh. I think the player hadn't quite gotten the message. "What part of 'She is a goddess' do you not understand?" The fighter was finally let off for good behaviour and kicked out of Sigil after the others had jumped through enough hoops. And that was a hole the players had dug themselves. Female authority figures.

As a female (married) GM, am I an authority figure? Would male players react differently to me if I was male? I think so, yes. It has its advantages and its disadvantages. *shrug*

Fantastic comments, Tobrian! You have a new fan :)

Thanks. :)

I just get this... twitch... when I am confronted with behaviorism, sorry. I'm an ecologist, and anthropology is one of my hobbies. The role of women in Western Society in the 20th century was massively influenced by 19th century sensibilities, which were the Dark Ages *cough* compared to the actual "Dark Ages".

To tell the truth, it might be amusing to write an essay on gender roles in a fictional fantasy universe, where shapeshifting races abound and polymorph spells allow gender-bending. Science Fiction authors have tackled that topic long before. I mean, D&D is full of interracial interbreeding, resulting in half-elf-half-dragons, half-demons, half-whatnots. That's a messed up identity crisis right there. *chuckles* How does the Campbellian Hero's Journey go if you're a sentient fungus-plant organism with sixteen genders, who's fallen in love with a dandelion?

As for inserting "politically correct" modern of law, morals, skin colour and gender ideas into the standard pseudo-medieval fantasy world, let's not kid outselves, D&D is the modern world dressed up in Ren-Fair garb (with lots of buckles). If I wanted to insert bizarre screwed-up customs into a campaign, I'd play Fading Suns or Vampire Dark Ages. D&D in my opinion shouldn't be turned into an "awareness" campaign. That's not what people are looking for when they play D&D.

I do believe though, that growing up as a child with things like Star Trek and fantasy/SF literature (the fun-house mirror of our society) has forever lodged the idea in my mind that things like shape or skin colour or gender or religion ultimately should not matter. Because once the alien overlords invade the Earth to lay eggs in our brains or something, all that matters is if they have properly updated their virus protection software. ;-)

The language of the game changing to make female pc's feel more welcome was one thing even though the druid in our party says she cant let her daughters read the books because they teach incorrect English, the male pronoun of he is the correct generalization in literary terms.

Unfortunately, English, in contrast to German, does not have a "gender-neutral" pronoun.

I'm female, and I find the whole "your character, she" shtick irritating like hell. Found it irritating when White Wolf did it in their World of Darkness rulebooks, and I still don't like it now. It's patronizing. It's not what feminism should be about. It feels like reverse-sexism, this time against the other ca. 50% of the population. Look, just stick to one damn pronoun and be done with it. Gender equality is not a matter of semantics.

If you want to cater to female gamers, publishers, go ahead, show more female paladins and male courtesans instead of enchantresses in battle-bikinis. Oh wait, it's D&D, forget the courtesans of any gender.

And that's just the can of worms of heterosexual social identities...

P.S. I think you meant to say "make female gamers more welcome", Steven. ;-) The status of female player characters depends on the game world's societies and the game master, and at least the latter thing is beyond the control of the gaming company.

Edited to add:

Funny thing about Political Correctness...

My momma always told me if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.

"Political Correctness" enables people to talk without being rude. Otherwise, just don't say anything at all.

If you think the pronoun he is "rude", then IMO you got a serious problem. It seems your "momma" was fond of tired old clichés.

The whole "politically correct talking" idea has been nonsense from the start, because it was based on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis from behaviorism, named after the linguists Edward Sapir (1884-1939) and Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897-1941). Also known as the thesis of linguistic determinism. A hypothesis holding that the structure of a language affects the perceptions of reality of its speakers and thus influences their thought patterns and worldviews. Ergo, if you delete "naughty" words from everyone's vocabulary, people will no longer be able to think the naughty thoughts. Scrub everyone's mind clean, hey presto, everyone's polite, because of course no-one can be mean, bigoted or sadistic without having a word for it, right? Tiny problem though, the whole thing was b~!*~$+s from the start. Behaviorism and its ideological underpinnings were very popular with sociologists in the 1960s/70s, when linguists and social engineers dreamed of a bloodless revolution of behavioral modification through linguistics. Feh. Today, no serious scientist, and few social philosophers, will touch behaviorism with a long stick.

Worse, the laudable idea because political correctness was hijacked by complete nutjobs who invent new "more polite" words or changed history to herstory, despite the fact that etymologically, the origin of the word is derived from the Greek "historia" meaning "a learning or knowing by inquiry, history, record, narrative." which was adapted into Latin, Old French/Norman, and later Middle English, and has nothing to do with the Middle-English male pronoun, thank you.

As for female gamers, funny, I always thought female gamers were bothered by the actual behaviour of actual gamers, and not trivial semantics. I don't need a gaming company to add female pronouns to tell me if I am allowed to be a gamer or not (What if I want to play a male character?). There are lots of female gamers in Germany.

Christina

The general D&D philosophy seems to be that raw power is the basis for effectiveness, and finesse is an option expressed in feats and add-ons. I propose this should be the same for Intimidate. In a sword and & sorcery world the threat of a strong fist should the most commonly understood form of intimidation. The inclusion of size modifiers suggests that strength is a factor, but it sidesteps the need for skill to be more primal. It’s the realm of the thug – and only feats should make it the realm of the courtier or the sly deceiver.

Sorry, but that is nonsense. Let's not go into real-world examples, but stick to fictional characters. Who is more intimidating:

The frail archmage Raistlin Majere from Dragonlance, or a brutish bugbear thug?
The ruthless but calm and well-spoken Exquisitor Vorbis from Pratchett's Discworld, or a guy who merely beats people to death at someone else's order?
Tall strong laconic Mr. Vandemar or small and chatty Mr. Croup from Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere? They were both equally menacing, they radiated palpable evil just standing there saying hello. They didn't need to beat someone up or pull a knife (although they did enjoy torturing and killing living things). Heck, the Marquis de Carabas from the same novel was intimidating, too, and he never raised a hand to anyone.
You can have both, of course... physical power AND an aura of menace and intimidation; for example Sauron before he became disembodied. That's not the point.

If you're a mere thug, people will be cautious (after all, you pose a threat of physical violence) but there's a good chance that without charisma you're not impressive, you're just ridiculous... a beast, a clown, an overgrown toddler banging his club on the ground and yelling.

The point to size modifiers is that many people tend to not take someone seriously who is a lot smaller than them. Similarly, small creatures are often seen as "cute" rather than threatening at first glance.

Allow me to pose the question from a different angle:
Why do people (players like you, Selk, and game designers of d20 D&D/Pathfinder) feel the need to arbitrarily tie skills like intimidation, or things like attack bonus modifier to one single attribute, and then want to punish players whose character concept does not fit this idea by forcing them to waste a feat just to get access to the other option? Seriously, why?

Why not offer a dual path, as alternatives to chose from:
Chose, at character creation, if you want your character to use CHA or STR for intimidation. (WotC already offered this as optional rule for barbarian characters in 3E.)
Chose, at character creation, if your character prefers brute Strength for melee combat (bashing through an enemies defenses), or if your character is lithe but moves like lightning (the swashbuckling or battledancer approach) and thus uses Dexterity to attack, slipping through a slower opponent's guard and sticking a blade into a vulnerable spot.
Damage would still be calculated using STR; that's why rogues get sneak attacks.

But right now, the standard option the game offers is entirely arbitrary. Dexterity-based fighters are forced to take Weapon Finesse. If the game designers had decided that both melee and ranged combat used Dexterity attribute to attack and Strength for damage, because brute strength alone doesn't help if your attack never connects in the first place, then our alternate-universe selves would demand that muscle-bound fighters take a feat called "Hulk Smash" just to be allowed to use STR to attack?

In closing, I'm simply tired of hearing people try to turn everything beyond the most basic actions into a feat.... forcing characters to take feats feats feats as if feats grow on trees. *sigh*

I'm all for giving the kobold a +2 CHA bonus, seeing how the race has favored class sorcerer.

(I've posted the following over in the "Pathfinder Goblins" thread, but it concerns kobolds as well, so I thought I'd repost the relevant parts here.)

I'm currently trying to persuade my group to have a look at the Pathfinder Beta rules as part of making new characters for a new campaign... where all player characters are goblins and kobolds.

Right now, I'm trying to come up with suitable attributes and traits for their characters, considering that all the other OGL player characters races that were adapted from the D&D PHB to Pathfinder now come out with a flat +2 bonus to attributes, mathematically speaking. But the standard goblin from the D&D 3.5 Monster Manual comes out as -2 (-2 STR, -2 CHA, +2 DEX), the kobold's even worse off, with -4 (-4 STR, -2 CON, +2 DEX). Instead of giving these little rascals a negative level adjustment compared to other +0 LA races, I'm trying to make them compatible with the other Pathfinder PC races, but in all fairness that means pushing their stats up.

So far my first draft looks like this:

Goblins as characters (Pathfinder)
[snip]

Kobolds as characters (Pathfinder)
Kobold characters possess the following racial traits.

* -2 Strength, +2 Dexterity, +2 Charisma (These reptiloid humanoids may be fragile like birds, but they're nimble and handsome creatures, who carry themselves proudly due to their kinship with the ancient dragons.)
* Small size: +1 bonus to Armor Class, +1 bonus on attack rolls, +4 bonus on Stealth checks
* A kobold’s base land speed is 30 feet. (Goblins are quick runners compared to their size.)
* Darkvision out to 60 feet
* +2 racial bonus on Perception checks
* +2 racial bonus on Craft (trapmaking) and Disable Device checks
* +2 racial bonus on Profession (miner) checks
* Racial Feats: A kobold character gains feats according to its character class.
* +1 natural armor bonus.
* Special Qualities: Light sensitivity.
* Automatic Languages: Draconic. Bonus Languages: Common, Undercommon.
* Favored Class: Sorcerer or Rogue.
* Level adjustment +0.

Just one question: I've been checking the Pathfinder Beta several times now, but can't seem to find it: What happened to the "-4 size penalty on grapple checks" and "lifting and carrying limits ¾ those of Medium characters" for Small-sized characters?

chavamana wrote:

They need a +2 to Charisma. In my groups words: "So ugly they're cute." And it makes sense with the singing and the bard-ly pursuits.

This. I've given goblins +2 Cha as part of a conversion to beta and I've also changed their favored class to bard.

Bard? I have a hard time picturing bards making up the majority of goblin society...

As for "cute", wasn't the original meaning of that term "adorable but ugly"? Somehow, my mental image of the goblins as sniveling but cunning toadies to the larger, more belligerent and better organized hobgoblins doesn't mesh with the idea of giving goblins a bonus to CHA. Sorry.

What about giving a +2 CHA bonus to another small race instead that has favored class: sorcerer? The kobold.

I'm currently trying to persuade my group to have a look at the Pathfinder Beta rules as part of making new characters for a new campaign... where all player characters are goblins and kobolds.

Right now, I'm trying to come up with suitable attributes and traits for their characters, considering that all the other OGL player characters races that were adapted from the D&D PHB to Pathfinder now come out with a flat +2 bonus to attributes, mathematically speaking. But the standard goblin from the D&D 3.5 Monster Manual comes out as -2 (-2 STR, -2 CHA, +2 DEX), the kobold's even worse off, with -4 (-4 STR, -2 CON, +2 DEX). Instead of giving these little rascals a negative level adjustment compared to other +0 LA races, I'm trying to make them compatible with the other Pathfinder PC races, but in all fairness that means pushing their stats up.

So far my first draft looks like this:

Goblins as characters (Pathfinder)
Goblin characters possess the following racial traits.

* -2 Strength, +2 Dexterity, +2 Constitution. (What Goblins lack in muscle strength they make up by being dextrous and nimble, always ready to dodge a blow thrown their way by a bigger creature. Their life in filth and squalor has made them resilient to diseases and deprevation.)
* Small size: +1 bonus to Armor Class, +1 bonus on attack rolls, +4 bonus on Stealth checks
* A goblin’s base land speed is 30 feet. (Goblins are quick runners compared to their size.)
* Darkvision out to 60 feet.
* +2 racial bonus on Stealth, Acrobatics, and Escape Artist checks.
* Automatic Languages: Common, Goblin.
* Bonus Languages: Draconic, Elven, Giant, Gnoll, Orc.
* Favored Classes: Rogue or Fighter.
* Level Adjustment: +0

Kobolds as characters (Pathfinder)
Kobold characters possess the following racial traits.

* -2 Strength, +2 Dexterity, +2 Charisma (These reptiloid humanoids may be fragile like birds, but they're nimble and handsome creatures, who carry themselves proudly due to their kinship with the ancient dragons.)
* Small size: +1 bonus to Armor Class, +1 bonus on attack rolls, +4 bonus on Stealth checks
* A kobold’s base land speed is 30 feet. (Goblins are quick runners compared to their size.)
* Darkvision out to 60 feet
* +2 racial bonus on Perception checks
* +2 racial bonus on Craft (trapmaking) and Disable Device checks
* +2 racial bonus on Profession (miner) checks
* Racial Feats: A kobold character gains feats according to its character class.
* +1 natural armor bonus.
* Special Qualities: Light sensitivity.
* Automatic Languages: Draconic. Bonus Languages: Common, Undercommon.
* Favored Class: Sorcerer or Rogue.
* Level adjustment +0.

Just one question: I've been checking the Pathfinder Beta several times now, but can't seem to find it: What happened to the "-4 size penalty on grapple checks" and "lifting and carrying limits ¾ those of Medium characters" for Small-sized characters?

Feedback appreciated, thanks.

Apparentlly Paizo & Wizards feel that elves aren't beuatiful if they're not tall. And they're catering to the present day generation, who's only vision of elves were the LOTRs movies. (note: they were tall but not taller than humans). (snip)

The present day generation of young gamers didn't grow up with LotR, they grew up with World of Warcraft. And that's what I see when I look at the elf on page 8 of the Pathfinder Beta: A seven foot tall muscular World of Warcraft blood elf with anime ears! *ack*

(And why are the races on page 8 presented in their underwear? Worse, wearing 21th century style underwear??)

I've seen the original design for the WoW blood elves, they were tall, but built more slender than the human characters. Then for some reason Blizzard bulked up the body matrix for the male elves, so now they're as massively muscled than the human characters. (Internet rumour has it Blizzard was afraid people would think that slender male elves would look too "gay". *eyeroll*) Somehow I get the feeling a similar dynamic was at work here.

Tolkein... The Lord of the Rings stories, which spawned the general outline of most of the type of fantasy that D&D is inspired by, described the Elves as being taller than humans... I've always disliked the "Keebler" approach to elves in previous editions. I was thrilled to see the elves taller in Pathfinder.

Normally, I wouldn't care what size the elves are in any given RPG world. But considering that the Pathfinder designers have stressed how "backwards compatible" to D&D 3.5 their game is supposed to be, I find their choice of radically changing the look of one of the oldest standard player character races rather... annoying. (What, an elf PC suddenly magically grows a foot taller upon conversion?)

Or perhaps Paizo wants to be "forward compatible", since 4E made the elves as tall or even taller than humans, too. (But Wizards of the coast changed elves and eladrin into fey creatures in 4E, so maybe I should be thankful for small blessings.)

Please note that the sweatshop-working "Keebler" elfs (can't really call them "elves") are an American invention along with jolly ol' pal Santa Clause and his reindeer cavorting at the North Pole. Outside the Anglo-American roleplaying communities, I'm not sure how many people would make that association.

My guess is that it is an aesthetic choice. There are already several PC races shorter than humans, but if humans are supposed to be "average" then why should they be the tallest? Making elves tall mixes things up a bit more.

Let's see, among the standard humanoid races we have humans and half-elves as the "average". We have goblins, halflings and gnomes being very small. Dwarves and elves slightly smaller than humans. Orcs, half-orcs, hobgoblins, bugbears, half-ogres and ogres taller than humans. (And that's not even counting Illumians, Goliaths and those other oddball humanoid races WotC introduced in various 3.5 supplements. All taller than humans, sometimes greatly so. But these races are not OGL.)

The only reason people think we have too many small races is that they're overrrepresented among the player character races in the PHB, because many of the taller races simply didn't make it into the PHB.

Elves in the Dark Sun setting were taller than humans; it was one of the interesting things that distinguished them apart from other settings, IMHO.

From the other D&D settings. Not from other RPG setting in other systems.

I see ancient, tall, pointy-eared "regal" races where-ever I look. Tolkien's elves: tall. The sidhe from Celtic myth and Changeling: the Dreaming RPG (World of Darkness): tall. Michael Moorcock's Melniboneans: tall. World of Warcraft elves: tall. Shadowrun metahuman elves: as tall as Shadowrun orks (and we're talking an average size of 6'3'' here). The elves in the recent Hellboy II movie: tall.

Yeah they look pretty... but as someone who is only 5'3'' herself, I guess I'm getting a bit tired of it.

I hate to say it, but there's a misprinted panel in the print edition, and it turns up even in the downloadable sample pages above. It's the center-left panel at the start of episode #17 (originally appeared in DUNGEON magazine #116), where Downer is lying on the ground unconscious.

Something must've gone wrong with the different layers prior to printing. The speech bubbles are still in the correct place, but the picture itself was flipped around left to right and up/down, so now the speech bubble with the comment by Loops in the upper left hand corner is covering Downer's head, while Downer's smaller speech bubble which used to be near his head is now near his knees. Bizarrely, the little arrow pointing from the speech bubble towards Downer has flipped, too, and it now pointing right instead of left, so that it is at least pointing towards Downer, not away from him. A printer mishap by someone who didn't know the original, perhaps?

Other than this, my print edition is flawless. Nice colours, sharp print. I hope that, should sales figures allow for a second printing, the error will be corrected then.

--Christina S.,
Germany

Great compilation (except for one slightly misprinted panel). Reading it all together instead of in parts in DUNGEON magazine reminded me again how fast the story moves. Having a map of Oubliette is nice for setting a D&D game there, in a not-so-typical Underdark city. I adore the colored sketches of Downer as a kid and adolescent.
I ordered Wandering Monster together with DUNGEON #150, because I couldn't bear to wait until Volume 2 for the finale. Bittersweet. I sincerely hope Mr. Hunter can be persuaded to continue Downer's adventures in some form, because... no more Downer? No! I especially would like to see prequels.
I know Mr. Hunter is concerned about Wizards of the Coast copyright on various D&D races and Planescape cosmology. But there is such a rich background story hinted at, it would be a shame to waste it, and it would give readers a chance to see more interaction between Downer and his evil younger brother, because their bickering in the first Volume is absolutely hilarious.
Looking forward to the second Volume, even though I already know how it ends.