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 Recent Posts
The party finished Hook Mountain Massacre last night, and are now 10th level. More observations! The Wizard, Spoiler:
formerly an evoker/ master specialist gunning for archmage, was rebuilt as a straight wizard. Still an evoker, though. The player was honestly surprised that his spell-like abilities' save DC's were close to his normal spell saves. He had a CHA of 14 (originally for Role-playing purposes), and school focus applies to both his spells and spell-like abilities. I guess going into it, that player kinda expected to rely on his spells, delegating the SA's as fit for mooks only. He was very pleased that they were more effective than he first assumed they'd be. The Rogue Spoiler:
was originally a rogue 3/ fighter 2/ invisible blade 1/ master thrower 2. With the extra feats she got in the upgrade, she was able to rebuild without the fighter levels. So now she's a rogue 6/ invisible blade 1/ master thrower 3. Not a whole lot simpler, but more focused. And she says the character still feels the same. Which is good, because she's put a lot of work into developing this character's back-story, I'd hate if halfway through the Adventure Path she had some kind of disconnect from the character.
The 3.5 prestige class levels were a piece of cake to convert over. HD=base attack progression, change skill list to meet the new condensed list, and you're pretty much set. The cleric is still diggin' on being an active offensive caster. The barbarian is still diggin' his rage powers. The druid is using wildshape more now. He wrote his stats out for his favored forms to keep book-flipping and on-the-fly math to a minimum.
Please do a "Test of Aroden" adventure. I don't think it would fit in just one module, and that's cool. I'll take a two- or three-part story. I just want to see how Aroden (and Cayden Cailean and Norgorber) became gods, and maybe let my epic level pc's become gods as a campaign climax. Test of Aroden. Soon. Please.
I agree completely. When I play barbarians, I don't want to count points either. So I don't. And if anyone asks how many Hit Points I have left, I coyly answer "Enough." Not to be snarky, but you can't get away from all math in a table-top RPG. You have to add dice results, combat modifiers, track HP. Rage points are no big deal. I usually write my Raging attack line in the weapon slot below my standard attack routine, and I'll probably use the ammunition boxes to tick off rage points.
Give the haunt a will save. Seriously. Turning does more than damage. The undead get a save to reduce the damage by half and avoid fleeing. So, if the haunt fails the save, it goes dormant for 24 hours. Each haunt has effective hit dice, and no wisdom score (no bonus or penalty). Undead get a good will save (1/2 HD +2). It should be pretty easy to calculate the bonus on the fly, roll, and see if the turning attempt aborted the haunt.
Since getting together a second time each week to run playtest characters wasn't really happening, and Alpha 2 had all of the classes currently used in our weekly Rise of the Runelords game, our group made the decision to just convert our RotRL characters over and make our weekly game a playtest. We're deep into Hook Mountain Massacre by this point, and after converting characters, managed to get through only Part 3: Down Comes the Rain. Specific player feedback: The druid Spoiler:
(a male gnome pyro named Fireblossom) was delighted with the fire domain. It fit his character very well, and let him sell the wand of produce flame that's been his signature ability for some time now. Shapechanging was more for movement and defenses, but he kept his wildshape usage to a minimum until he has the chance to pick a few favored forms and write down exactly what his stats are like while so transformed. The cleric Spoiler:
gets even better at these levels. The positive energy channeling finally heals a decent amount of HP per use, and she was able to use her own prepared spells as she prepared them, not dipping into them at all for spontaneous cures. She feels like she's a full-fledged caster, not a back-up caster holding onto spells she'd like to use in case someone needs the healing. The dwarf barbarian Spoiler:
burned through 39 of his 43 rage points during the adventure, so the formula for gaining rage points seems right on track to provide a degree of resource management without encouraging a 15 minute adventuring day. Power Attack plus Surprise Accuracy FTW! The wizard and rogue are still being tweaked, I'll have more firm observations later. GM observations: Still digging how easy XP is to award. Absolutely keep this system! Power Attack is a frequent combat option for the giants and ogres and trolls the party is facing right now, and I had to mentally calculate the Str bonus, atttack penalty, and damage bonus over and over again. Please include the power attack figures in the stat block, likely with the other combat options. It will make combats on my side of the screen much faster!
Personally, I want to see Paizo's take on the Mindflayer, Githyanki and Githzerai cultures and three way conflict.All three of these are not open content, so don't hold your breath. I think the problem is he's been holding his breath for too long already. Or he's cheesing. you know, cause it's fon to due.
Not to derail this thread too badly, but I thought I'd share my great love for Pathfinder's xp chart. Specifically, the static xp per CR and the "individual xp" chart. I can add up the xp awards for the challenges overcome that night quickly and easily, even if there are varied levels in the party. No more figuring xp out two or three times because one guy missed a couple sessions and is behind by a level and there's that one guy that never misses a session who's actually ahead... Fast, easy, no division required. I love it.
We played "Home Under the Range" and "Fiends Embrace" with Alpha 1, and are half-way done with "Fiendish Footprints" under Alpha 2. All so far have been Dungeon 3.5 adventures. We changed characters with Alpha 2, and will probably change again with Alpha 3, so I'm hoping to finish Fiendish Footprints and one more adventure before that happens. For Beta, we're planning on running Curse of the Crimson Throne. Wish us luck!
They took my idea. Oh I'm so proud... *wipes away a tear* Then again I plead, can we get bonus skill points at levels we don't get feats? Please? Pretty please? With sugar on top?
In my experience, find the path + wind walk = skip to the end of the adventure, and any adventures I made at levels those spells were available HAD TO take their effect into account. Adventure design would be a lot simpler if this spell just died. There are plenty of other divination spells to help stuck parties, this spell is just lazy. Again, let it die. Please.
I was under the impression that after you wore the stat booster for 24 hours, it became a permanent increase (until it's inevitably dispelled *evil DM grin*), so a party could invest in one item of each stat boost, take turns wearing it, and boost all of their stats. Is that incorrect? Cause if my reading was right, I was gonna have fun boosting hobgoblin raiding parties that all had worn their regiment's belt of giant strength.
I'm fine with the return to skill ranks, but I did like the ability to train a new skill every other level. Perhaps we can get +2 bonus skill ranks every other level instead? It's not as dramatic as training a new skill, but it does boost the skill point totals (most dramatically for the 2+int mod crowd). Besides, I liked getting stuff every level.
1. You need to fix that link, it points right back to these forums. 2. You started this thread last night. Despite the flurry of activity some threads receive, messageboards are not instant communications. 3. Since I subscribe to all things Pathfinder, I don't particularly need anything reviewed. Sorry, can't help ya out there, I'm too easy of a sell, apparently.
RE the novel thing: Those threads were toxic. Every thread turned into a flame-fest within two posts. I'm not kidding. The other banned topics were just over-talked about. Katanas, for instance, are available for discussion again, but were banned because too many heated katana threads were popping up.
In our play-tests, we found that the cleric domains really lose out to wizard schools (with a few exceptions). The different smite-like domain powers deal +1/2 levels extra damage, still need to hit and can only be used once/target/day. Compared to an Evoker's energy ray, which doesn't have any targeting restrictions and is made as a touch, these abilities just aren't that good. Since a cleric gets two domains and doesn't have to avoid certain schools to get his powers, I can understand each domain being a little weaker than a school, but these are drastically too weak. At the very least, the inane targeting rule should go. I'd like the damage to scale faster, too. The good domain powers are the ones that mimic school powers, such as hand of the apprentice/acolyte and the elemental domains (fire, etc). Those domains can remain as written.
Rings of blinking. None of my players ever bother with those when they play rogues. Probably because in our house-rules, miss-chances are the under-the-hood mechanic of concealment, and any mention of a miss chance (say, in the blink spell description) is a mistaken reference to concealment. Since Blink gives enemies a 20% miss chance (read: concealment) against your attacks, you can't sneak attack while blinking. Shuts that little loophole down quite nicely. Now, greater blinking is another story, but it's a much higher level spell (and thus a much more expensive ring) for a reason. It's also not in the SRD.
I'd suggest following James Jacobs' example: have good churches pay bounties for evil magic items. That way, players get wealth and know the evil magic items are being taken out of circulation. I started doing this myself after reading about it somewhere on these boards, and it's made my players happy. They used to hear "jeweled holy symbol of Lolth worth 100 gp" as "stuff to shatter that could have been worth money." An outlet for such items has provided a lift in player morale.
Nope. But thats because I outgrew TSR/WotC's novels about ten years ago, about when I graduated from high school. And to think I used to love DragonLance... Ah well, I've been having a blast reading classic fantasy lately. Robert Howard really was a great writer! There's a reason Conan is still part of our pop culture today.
The Pokemon Jr. Adventure Game. It's a baby RPG sold for 10 bucks at Sav-on back at the height of Pokemania. You and your friends play trainers, someone's Mom is the referee (the rulebook specifically calls for someone's Mom to fill this role), and you all try to win gym badges and protect your pokemon from Team Rocket. Rules-wise, it wasn't too bad. Very simple, by necessity. Your trainer couldn't ever even be hurt! It's just... too silly. We picked up a copy in high school as a gag, but couldn't ever bring ourselves to play it.
Maybe not that dramatic, but two of my group are unhappy with Overrun (and bull rush) sharing the CMB mechanic. This came up in playtest last night. We were playing Home Under the Range (Michael Kortes, Dungeon 134), and at one point, a giant scarab beetle got spooked during a fight and tried to bolt. The cleric (1/2 orc cleric of Gorum) tried to block the beetle, and we got to test out the overrun rules. The beetle overran (but didn't knock prone) the cleric. Fine and good, the rules seem to work O.K. But that player got to thinking, and talking, with the party fighter. And They decided that the DC is stacked too heavily against success for bull rush or overrun attempts. Their specific argument was that a lvl 1, str 16 human fighter (CMB +4) has to roll a 12 to overrun a housecat-sized imp (bab+3, -2 size, +0 str, CMB +1), and a 17 to knock said tiny outsider on his tuckus. And if it's that hard to overrun a tiny creature, how much harder will it be as levels go up? They want the movement-based combat actions (bull rush and overrun) to remove BAB from the equation. So it's just size and strength.
My group ran into an issue with this feat in playtest last night. I ran the group through Home Under The Range (Dungeon 134, written by Michael Kortes). The adventure has a band of tieflings as the main antagonists, and we had some questions how the feat works. -Tieflings lack an alignment subtype. To turn a tiefling, would the cleric need to select "native"? -How about a CE fallen Ghaele Eladrin. It retains the "good" subtype, so could it be turned by a cleric that chose to turn "evil" outsiders? -Are all outsiders in the area damaged, and only outsiders of the alignment subtype made fearful? Or does the turning only damage outsiders of the appropriate subtype? It's a cool, flavorful feat. I really dig the image of a cleric repulsing demon hordes. But it needs clearing up.
Wow, Ironbriar looks MUCH more dangerous in pewter form! Very cool! It's too bad we wrapped up Skinsaw Murders last week, but I did swap out Xanesha for the Lamia Matriarch rogue from PF3, so I may still need Xanesha if it's available at some point in April. I don't know, though. It'll be close. The rate that we're playing though, perhaps the mini's will get ahead of our game by PF4. I can only hope!
Check out the last page of the Alpha 1 doc. The next release will be in about three weeks, and will have the barbarian, druid, ranger and sorcerer, as well as some spells and skill revisions. Alpha 3 will be out a month after that, with the rest of the classes. Until then, we play with what's been presented and leave feedback on what works and what doesn't. And yes, we can play with just the four classes in Alpha 1, it is still a fair way to playtest the material we have right now.
My group kicked in the door and attacked before I could be mean, so at the first hit, he started whimpering and pleading "Why did you hurt me! I'm your friend!" That brought the group up short, and I got the chance to roleplay His Lordship's spilling the beans about, well, everything. Right up to when they started pushing about the Brothers of the Seven, and then the Skinsaw Man came out. With a group of six, I too maxed his HP, and I think I got 5 rounds out of him, and almost took out two pc's. All in all, a very satisfying fight.
I lost a game in 3.0 to archery and Persistent Spell. Archery from a ranger/arcane archer. Back then enhancement bonuses from ammunition stacked with weapons, so she was firing +5 arrows with her +5 bow, and was literrally dealing 100+ hp of damage each round, easily. Same party, different character, a cleric with the Persistent Spell feat. Back then, it was a metamagic feat that raised the spell level by +4. Currently, it raises spell levels by +6, and I haven't seen it abused nearly as much. Persistent Righteous Might, Divine Power, Spikes, the list went on and on. He had the highest AC, best attack and damage in melee, the most HP, the best saves, and he still had some spell slots left when he wanted to just blast stuff.
I think Mona mentioned a monster book for release after the Pathfinder core book comes out in a recent interview. Even if he hadn't there's ample evidence this'll be necessary. The MM will be going out of print. No question. It also has critters that aren't in Golarion in it. The core book is going to be huge as is, and it'll replace both the PHB and DMG. Not really any room for monsters. WotC may have put a lot of critters in the SRD, but their images are still WotC IP. That's one reason Golarion dragons look different than WotC dragons. They had to. Golarion art of the critters will also help brand Pathfinder as it's own game, and not just re-printing 3.5.
I've got my group playtesting the Alpha rules. We started at level 1, with the +6 hp option. One character of each class available so far (cleric, fighter, rogue and wizard). No multiclassing (since we haven't seen how multiclassing will work yet). I've run them through Siege of the Spider Eaters and half of Home Under the Range so far. We've made it to level 3.
I have a small playtest experience to add. Ran my group (now 3rd level) in Home Under The Range by Michael Kortes. The first actual fight of the night was against a choker adept 2. With the changes to size penalties and improved grab only giving a +2, I calculated her CMB for grappling at +7. Per the encounter tactics, she tried to grapple a foe from hiding to drag into an acid pool. I grabbed for the rogue. CMB of only +2. I couldn't do better than "grabbed," and she escaped before I could try again the next round with the extra +5, so I don't know if the results would have been any different. I'm fine with grappling being a little harder, but a monster that relies on grappling for it's CR (like the choker) really suffers under the current rules.
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