Weylin's page

I would like to see some intermediate prestige classes. By this, I mean 5-level prestige classes such as the Arcane Devotee and Shou Disciple from Forgotten Realms. I really feel these short prestige classes and the ease with which they could be qualified for easily. I think they added a great amount of flavor in the setting.

I wuld like to see them both for PFRPG and Pathfinder Chronicles.

-Weylin

So, after being blown away by the RPG for Song of Ice and Fire that Green Ronin published, I was eager to see what they did with Dragon Age RPG.

I am honestly a little disappointed by the second Design Diary.

This entrey by Chris Pramas outlines the core mechanic of the game.

I like the choice of dice. I like the probability the comes from using 3d6. It is far less random than D20 while still allowing for extremes.

I like the additive mechanic of Dice + Attribute instead of additive dice pool systems.

Where it all falls apart to me is the description of Skill Use and Level of Success.

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The skill system relies on foci off of attribute. A focus adds +2 to your roll. This is very similar to the Talents from Classic Marvel Superheroes where having a Talent increased your effective attribute by one step, possibly two steps if you specialized. That was the end of it.

I dislike this skill system for its very limited range of training. I dont think a skill system needs many levels (5 at the least), but it definitely needs more than untrained-trained that you get from the described Focus system.

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The level of success is based on the Dragon Die, which is one of the three d6 you roll. From the description it does not matter how much you beat your target number. The die total simply gives you pass/fail. The level of success is determined by the number on the single Dragon Die (1 is barely succeed and 6 is a phenomenal success).

My issue with this is that it means that attribute and skill have minimal impact on the level of success you achieve. This is extremely counter-intuitive to me.

It would be like rolling a total of 30 on a dice pool in West End Games D6 only to be told that since out of 8 dice your "Dragon Die" was a 1 that you barely succeded even though your target number 6. Meanwhile, someone with only 2 dice rolls a total of 7 but since their "Dragon Die" was a 6 they have a phenomenal success.

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I know it is the hope of Green Ronin to draw in new gamers with Dragon Age RPG, but they also said they want to sell to veteran gamers. As the system is now described I will not be buying this game myself, nor would I ever play in a session of it. Which is disappointing to me as I was looking forward to buying the game and seeing how it capture the feel of the Dragon Age Video Game as a setting.

-Weylin

This is a common debate among my group.

Which is the main factor for damage (with D&D connection):
1) the weapon itself? (die type)
2) the skill of the person using it? (BAB and amount over AC)
3) the strength of the wielder? (Str bonus)
4) a large amount of luck? (die roll)

I myself see skill as the largest factor.

-Weylin

My group and I are soon starting a Golarion game using the Pathfinder RPG.

After discussion about our collective views on priests we reached two views.

First is simple. Many priests are not actually clerics. They are a collection of Experts, Adepts and Aristocrats guarded by Warriors. Actual Clerics are the minority in churches.

Second is more complex. Our view on divine casters has for a long time been that of "pray for what is needed at the time" instead of the vancian "pray for your spells at the begining of the day".

To have divine casters match our view, we have transposted the Sorcerer's Spells/Day and Spell Known to the Cleric and Druid.

-Weylin

This may end up being more than a bit of a controversial thread.

I was reading through the campaign setting about Nex and Geb. Their wars and such. And in general when they have been mentioned in threads, Nex is usually seen in a better light than Geb from what I have seen.

My question is: How is necromancy and animation of the dead worse than Nex's fleshforges of Ecanus and the creatures they created in them (possibly from already living things)?

That sort of crafting is an example of the evil of the Drow after all.

-Weylin

Words of Support

Okay. I am fairly new to Pathfinder in general. My groups have never been much for using modules or adventure paths. So we never really bothered to pick much up from Paizo.

The Pathfinder RPG has changed that drastically. It has replaced D&D 3.5 for our group. We were never interested in 4th edition D&D, so were at a bit of a loss for a next evolution. Then I saw the press release about the Alpha and Beta tests for The Pathfinder RPG. I immediately joined the boards and posted my input and considered what the staff at Paizo and other customers were suggesting and saying about the evolution of the game that introduced me to gaming back in 1981.

The concept of the designers actually listening to what we the players and game masters had to say about the system was a novel and very welcome change from small group playtesting and input of previous games. Honestly, I wish more games were designed in this fashion. I stuck with the boards through the Alpha and Beta stages. While I did not always agree with what the designers and other customers were saying regarding the rules, I enjoyed the free exchange of information and when the Beta and Final editions of the game came out, I loved seeing where things mentioned on the boards were in the game. James, Jason, Erik and the rest did the heavy lifting, but the end is a community project that I feel has set a new standard for game design and has resulted in a superior roleplaying game…not just superior to 4th edition D&D in my opinion, but superior compared to roleplaying games in general.

This is made even better by the Paizo Staff taking time to not just skim the boards but take time from their busy schedules to actually read the posts, think about the comments and then respond.

As of late on the boards I have seen Paizo take a lot of battering, sometimes in demeaning and disrespectful words, for not including this and that in a given product. I was honestly surprised by some of the posts in various threads.

Having said all that, agree or disagree with what has been done in the Pathfinder lines. These people deserve our respect at the least and in my opinion our admiration. They stepped up to the challenge of competing with one of the gaming juggernauts and have succeeded in doing so.

I and my group would like to express our appreciation to the Paizo Staff for the long hours, hard work, tough decisions and responsive interaction that they have put into the Pathfinder product lines.

Thank you Paizo,
Weylin Stormcrowe

I finished reading through the Bestiary (which I am very happy with overall) and have a question about the Pit Fiends. Specifically the Infernal Dukes.

It mentions that they usually have either a few class levels. As if pit fiends werent enough of a bad day, now he might have a few levels fighter or sorcerer. It then mentions some simply have extra powers and gives three examples (I especially liked Master of Magic).

My question is what do these extra powers add to the CR of the Pit Fiend?

-Weylin

This has come up as my group is discussing starting a Golarion campaign.

There is several mentions of nationalist pride in the write-ups for many of the nations in the campaign setting. This makes sense that there would be overall strong nationalist sentiment.

The question is how does this interact with racial identity among the non-humans who live there? Does racial identity tend to take teleportation over nationality or does nationality tend to take teleportationover racial identity?

Does an elf born and rasied identify more as an elf who lives in Qadira or as a Qadiran who happens to be an elf? Does a dwarf who has lived in Andoran for 200 years identify as a dwarf first and an Andoran second (if at all)?

This came up discussing the "nation over race" aspect of the Eberron setting where "Yeah, you're a half-orc and i'm an elf, but at least were both from Breland and that elf over there is from Aundaire so I like him less than I like you."

I am looking for both in general opinions on this and for offical comment from any of the Paizo Staff.

-Weylin

Is my group one of the only ones that limits pre-Epic Ability Scores to 18 + racial bonus?

Am I the only one who actually misses the days from AD&D of Weapon Speed factoring into Initiative? When a pair of short swords could actually be an advantage against the body ripping might of a great sword?

First, this is not meant to be overly inflammatory. The subject is going to be inflammatory period. That is unavoidable.

I see a lot of threads on various boards about "character optimizing" and "builds". Am I the only one who sees this as a politically correct way of saying "power gaming/munchkinism"?

Many of the optomization/builds I see are not overly concerned with the character concept, just the character power. It seems more often to be about building a wrecking machine (in some aspect or another) character than what feats, class, race, traits would be used to build a character concept. In general, optimizing and builds threads often strike me as more something I would see on an MMORPG than a Pen and Paper Rpg board.

-Weylin

This may have been covered in another thread but I cannot find it.

In the Campaign Setting the Sorcerer class has the option to exchange their familiar with the ability to essentially push their magic.

How would this be handled with the Pathfinder RPG core rules? If covered in another thread please direct me to it.

-Weylin

Not sure if this has been covered elsewhere...

If you were doing an intuitive sorcerer, someone for whom the talent for magic just comes naturally without any of the connections that are detailed in the various bloodlines would you:

1) use the Arcane Bloodline and just alter the flavor text.

or

2) write-up a new 'bloodline'

I have just read the Cheliax Gazeteer and the chapter on tieflings from Bastards of Erebus. It is mentioned that tieflings are treated as second class citizens, on par it seems with african-americans before the civil rights movement. What I did not find answered was how they really fit into the society. It was mentioned in another product (i cannot recall which) that tielfings were reviled even in Cheliax but that they had some sort of status as ambassadors to the Hells.

Could someone from Paizo clear this up for me please?

-Weylin

Orinally posted this in the wrong are, then moved it here.

I have been looking through the various products I have bought from Paizo. I am very happy with them so far. I do however have an issue.

There seems to be quite a bit of information (feats, creatures, magic, etc) scattered through the various adventure paths. My group will never use the adventure paths and this presents my issue. There is a wealth of information that we just will not have for our games. FOr example, the information on tieflings and the six creatures from Bastards of Erebus. I have seen similar things in other adventure paths.

My questions is this: will this information ever be available in books outside the adventure paths? will there be compilations of monsters, spells, magic items, rules tweaks (feats and traits), important (world wise) NPCs?

-Weylin