lastknightleft's page

Would your cap be on natural stats and not including magic?

What kind of point buy are you allowing in your campaign to start with to be seeing so many 20+'s?

Are your players having fun?

I'm starting with rolls, but it's the SAD characters who then get a headband or belt, put every stat boost into it etc. The problem doesn't crop up with the MAD characters, although I'll typically see someone get to a 22-24 range pretty quickly by RAW.

So I'm thinking of making stats for humanoid creatures cap at 20 (something along the lines of their physiology just doesn't get any better), I'm tired of seeing int 28 humans and str 25 dwarves etc. Personally, if there's ever a new edition I want it to focus a lot less on pumping stats as high as they'll go. I was just hoping to get a discussion on what effects this will have on the game. I know that at higher level this means that there'll be more lost saving throws as the game expects players to use magic items to boost stats to blah blah blah. What else could I expect?

Thanks for all the advice guys, lots of options is a good thing.

thanks, my games tend towards darker themes though, so anyone know of serious tiles?

I'm a terrible artist so I don't want to draw these, and I'd like something a bit more visually interesting than a skull or something vague, but anybody know of a good resource for dead bodies, something I can print on construction paper and cut out, Hopefully with medium and large sized bodies?

lastknightleft wrote:

Mac Boyce wrote:

The game does fall into the classic JRPG trap, but I'm enjoying it and am having fun. That's all that matters.

okay out of curiosity what is the classic JRPG trap?

** spoiler omitted **

okay yeah, I see that

The game does fall into the classic JRPG trap, but I'm enjoying it and am having fun. That's all that matters.

okay out of curiosity what is the classic JRPG trap?

Yeah APs are built around 4 PCs with a 15 point buy, so you're running stronger characters than assumed and with more people. It's gonna take some work for you to actually make the AP challenging. Try just adding 1/3 extra monsters (so if they're fighting 6 creatures add two more), and give each solo boss two henchmen (some creature already established earlier in the AP).

I've heard terrible things about this game, that the plot is one dimensional and that the voice acting is terrible, but I haven't had a chance to try it myself. Personally I'm longing for some great RPGs on the Wii, I'm gonna get Arc Rise Fantasia simply so that Nintendo will keep putting out RPGs, but my personal hope is for a new Fire Emblem.

Tales of Symphonia is allright, but the pokemon aspect is weak (I leveled up a monster to evolution which resets its abilities, and all it turned into was the same monster only red WTF and the strategy guide doesn't come with a pokedex type guide that lets you know what you're doing with the monsters and what they'll evolve into) Fire Emblem was great but had a disappointing support system (it was awesome that they made every character able to support any other character, but they did so by making the conversations the same no matter who you joined with, so you got a lot less character development than previous games) Oopona is too kiddie for me to try, and I enjoyed Zelda but prefer non-action RPGs.

From what you say (and it's nice to hear from someone who likes it) that the game is good, just a bit linear and it's funny that even someone who likes the game thinks you have to ignore the voice acting.

You know, it's funny, at the start of this thread, I was in line with Lawful Neutral, after reading all the arguments I've gotta say, I've been convinced that he's lawful evil, and maybe at the end if we saw more he might have changed to lawful neutral, but we don't get any confirmation on that. So look at that, an alignment thread that actually changed someones mind.

on an unrelated note, bombers in WWII not evil.

Yeah, Jason, I love that you tried to clarify it, sorry that it's turned into a larger hassle.

For my home games, if you can raise an animals int via AnCo rules or familiar rules or whatever, then when it hits 3 int it is sentient and as long as it learns a language it doesn't need to be pushed using handle animal as it's your companion.

A great example of this is the old TV show Brisco County Jr. In that show I just imagine Brisco's horse Comet as an AnCo with Int of 3, the horse doesn't talk and only does horsey things, but it's clear that it understands people talking to it and has some level of intelligence.

Love that you tried to clarify this, but I prefer to run things my way and luckily this great game lets me do that. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a game starting tonight with a brand new group.

As for your 'not that hard' concept- I call that 'malarkey'
;) If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck- it's a duck.

except when it's a Pied-billed Grebe

I've been hoping to find one that hasn't already been filled but the rigors of reality make it not always possible to throw my name into the hat on time. Still keeping my eye out to play in one since I don't actually have the adventure. With 2 actual games a week, a work schedule and a family make it difficult to get into the mindset for DMing, but playing is easier.

at least you have a game, I live in BFE Florida and finding a game with adults is near impossible, then the economic collapse broke up my group (one had to move away another got really busy with school) so now I haven't gamed in almost a year and I can't get in on a pbp either.

If you're still recruiting I'd love to get in on a game of some sort, I lost my gaming group and haven't gamed in almost a year. I've only played play by post for a short while, so I'm not that familiar with them, but I'm pretty desperate to game, anywho here's the character made with this AP in mind. I applied to another pbp but didn't make the final cut.

I'd like to submit my character, Heraguv Meneskus
Half-Orc Paladin (eventually going to be a paladin/cavalier split possibly, still deciding)

Ouch, oh well, Cest la Vie, thanks for considering me.

Besides, it would kill the economy of most game worlds if adventures didn't come back with loads of stuff from their fallen adversaries. :)

ugh, I honestly can't tell you how much I hate when game worlds have economies built around adventuring. Nothing bothers me more than that concept. I can't stand it, whenever I hear the words adventuring economy or people talk about how the game world assumes a certain level of "adventuring" is taking place, I get hives. That includes Golarion, although I understand its need of the pathfinder society for organized play, that kind of thing always breaks my suspension of disbelief

In modern ethics, yeah, but it's a fantasy world with a society comparable to medieval culture (see it that way: the apokryph scripts tell the story about Jesus as a child who kills another child just for being in his way - no wonder modern christians despise the apokryph scripts)

For the record christians don't despise them, we consider them the same way liberals consider websites and literature that claim Obama is the anti-christ or wasn't born in the US.

thefishcometh wrote:

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Snakes on a Plane.

That movie was so dumb, that it was awesome. I saw it on opening day. I'm pretty sure I lost a good deal of brain cells. And it was totally worth it.

"Everybody listen! We have to put a barrier between us and the snakes!"

That was going to be the one I listed. Oh darn. I'll add Adaptation to the list. I've had arguments with people over the movie's "deeper qualities". No. It just sucked.

dude snakes on a plane was brilliant, and if you went in taking it seriously then you missed the point. It was supposed to be dumb fun and make no sense, that was the point. Question, how many people after they make a point of calling it an empty flight because it's a red eye suddenly appear after the snakes attack, and literally only appear in a scene where they're killed by snakes. It's advertising even let you know you were going to see a dumb movie before you went to see it. Snakes on a Plane is a great film man. It's not like they set out to make a great film that turned out to be stupid, they made a stupid film intentionally to be stupid, and it was hilarious.

forgive me if I'm just missing it, I've had a lot to deal with lately and to top it off I got sick again, so I haven't been on the sight much, I saw that the players guide is free to download I was just curious if there was a printed edition available to anyone and if so how do you get it?

Well I've given it a quick look through, I'll make a review in a day or two when I've had more time to peruse it.

Not to harp, but also looking at the poison chart for Minor Toxicity on page 36 it uses 3.5 poison rules instead of pathfinder poison rules, not a big deal, but it might harm your audience who didn't know 3.5 rules when they got this because it's pathfinder compatable.

also there is no point cost for Egg Layer is it free or just missing and if missing what is the cost.

I just got it to help build my shining force campaign, but I have a question. In my book the Order Xenomorphia has no game related stats, it skips from appearance to the customization section. Is this a misprint?

I just got it, one question, it looks like the order Xenomorphia is missing information, it skips from appearance to the customization section without listing the orders abilities or traits.

Asphesteros wrote:

Problem is - that still puts the person that should have the advantage at a disadvantage because the prone guy just attacks instead. -4 and he's still on the floor, true, but then no AoO and the ready doesn't trigger, effectivly wasting the readied guy's turn and he's back at square one with maybe a busted ankle for his trouble. Chump spearman can happily play that game against Jet Li all day. Again, I totally buy that with Jet Li on the floor using some sort of ground fighting kung fu, but doesn't make a good scene vice versa.

Now who's not satisfying the fiction? I cannot recall anyone EVER choosing to stay on the ground and fight someone standing over them, in movies or real life bouts.

I've seen movies where the hero was knocked to the ground and as the bad guy goes to finish him off with the killing blow the hero stabs him in the stomach from the ground. Hmm off the top of my head, Lord of the rings had the halfling stab the ringwraith from prone. I can't think of another specific example but I know I've seen it at least three times, often the villain then slumps over the blade and the hero rolls him off. You're telling me you've never seen that in a film or read it in a novel?

You know what movie I hated growing up, and still hate to this day.

Mortal Kombat II

I know that the first movie has some plot holes and doesn't age well, but it was fun and good for what it was.

Then that sequel came out and ruined absolutely everything. It is actually dumber to me than any other movie I have ever seen ever. When a young kid has to ask what happened to X because they just disappear with no explanation, you have a serious issue.

I wasn't saying dump constitution, more like, you could get away with a 10 for some characters.

I'll say it, you can dump con with quite a few classes and still have a character that survives to high level when played competently and with a good party. I wouldn't recomend it for a frontline fighter, but I've seen it done with an archery based ranger, a wizard, and I've heard of it being done with a summoner, although I haven't seen it myself in game.

EDIT: granted, I consider 12 high level since I've never had a campaign that got past that level, I can never get a group together for long enough in BFE Florida.

Crimson Jester wrote:

Crowheart wrote:

And Fifth Element?? Come on! That movie was all kinds of awesome!

There are Many who would disagree.

They are all wrong. The Fifth Element is objectively bad, and enjoying it or defending it is a character fault which should be corrected or medicated.

You know I disliked that movie as a bad sci-fi movie for a long time, then one day I watched it and realized that it's a commedy pulling every cliche out of the sci-fi book (cmon the enemies name is Zerg for goodness sake) then suddenly I found myself actually really enjoying it and it's nonsensical over the top goodness.

Well, doctor says she has to start leaving her feet open and unbandaged, it has been over a month and while the color has returned, they haven't really healed any. So he told her to keep them open so that they'll scab over. The problem is that this limits what she can do even more, and my wife is not the type to sit around doing nothing, like she probably should be doing. Even today she told me over the phone that they've gotten messed up a little while she was sweeping. Dear lord why was she sweeping, it's like if I'm not watching her 24/7 she'll start training for a marathon.

As for moral alignment: A society that employs waterboarding, sorry, "enhanced interrogation techniques", and invades countries at costs of tens of thousands of lives, where they can't even give a good explanation why, that push for abolishment of freedom of speech across the world by sneaking through international treaties, that chooses to destabilize countries so these countries will no longer become strong democratic societies that could become a threat, and so on, and so on, and so forth... that is not a good society. Not even a neutral one, except on the very best days. Sorry.

Except that America as a society didn't employ waterboarding, a subset of people in power used waterboarding and were opposed by another portion of society. In otherwords actions taken during a short period of time by a subset of the "ruling class" however you define it does not represent the society as a whole. Not to mention that your view is narrowly defined leaving out the wealth of positive things the country has done in the past and continues to do. I'll agree with you on lawful, but to claim that america isn't at the very least neutral on the moral axis is nothing short of silly.

I think the hardest part has been making ends meet while waiting for the settlement check. I know I've spent over $300 in bandages alone in the month of February and we were already living paycheck to paycheck. Luckily that will all be over in a day or two and we'll be ahead of our expenses, but dang, I swear I've been to CVS for something new every other day for a month.

Hey guys thanks for the cheers and well wishes. Things are going well for us, Tamiya has a doctors appointment today to look over her burns, if you hear nothing else from me, then assume that everything is A-okay, her arm is healing nicely, and I think her feet are as well, but it's harder to tell with them, as some of the burns go so deep that I'm not sure if the white in the center is just skin burned white, some strange puss, or possibly even exposed bone in her foot. I pray for the best though and know god would't protect her through all that to have something horrible happen now, plus she's walking and doing incredible she even helped me paint the house yesterday, so I'm more worried about the person who dropped out of our play than the results of this check up, still you know there's always a tinge of doubt.

yeah, I'm fairly regular on these boards, but last month was insane, and I just thought I'd share the kind of crazy that I've been dealing with.

On January 31st I go into work like any other day. Right as I'm walking through the door to my office, my phone is ringing. That's unusual, we usually don't start getting calls till around 9, but whatever. I answer it and it's my mother.

"Nathan, don't worry, deer are considered an act of god so your insurance should cover everything."

Now keep in mind, that's the first thing she says to me, and I have no idea what she's talking about. Turns out that my wife who was driving to my parents house to watch my grandmother while my parents work swerved to avoid a deer and ran head first into a power pole. The car was totaled, the engine compartment smashed all the way to the firewall and her momentum carried the vehicle into a ditch where it landed sideways. The road she was driving on was in the country so there were no lights and it was 6:30 in the morning. Miraculously she was completely unharmed in the wreck and got out of her vehicle so that she could flag down help in the road since she was worried that in the dark no one would see her vehicle in the ditch. When she got out of the car the power line that had been dislodged from the pole hit her arm and electrocuted her, knocking her across the ditch.

Amazingly she was okay. The emergency responders didn't even know she had been electrocuted, they thought the burns on her arm were road rash from the airbag. They checked her vitals and when she checked out okay they sent her home with my mother who came across the wreck when driving in to work. My mom took Tamiya (my wife) to her house and when she got there, she tried to clean up and that's when she discovered that the electricity had burned her feet, socks and shoes where it exited her body. At that point she decided to go to the hospital. They observed her overnight, but she was fine. They even tried to give her delotin (sp?) for the pain, but she refused because she wasn't having pain. She does have very bad third degree burns on her arm and her feet, but it's been a month in recovery and the most she's needed is IB profin for the pain. She talks daily about how blessed she is and I am so thankful to god for protecting her from something that doctor after doctor told horror stories about their experiences with electrocution deaths, and even injury which is always supposed to be a terribly painful recovery.

That was monday, then friday, my grandmother wound up in the hospital for a week with some stomach virus that was making it impossible for her to hold her waste. So for the first two weeks of February I was run ragged, exhausted daily trying to take care of my wife, while at the same time attending to my family and my normal responsibilities.

Thankfully the rest of February was a lot more manageable with my settlement for my accident coming through which ends my wife and I's financial worries at least for a while. We're a little stressed now because we're a one car household, and she is still in recovery (she lost half a toe to burns about three days after the accident she peeled off her toenail, but it's healing nicely, just slowly). My grandmother is also recovering, and I'm just posting all this to vent and get it out of my system.

Just want to add, god blessed us on January 31st in a way I cannot describe adequately nor express. The fact that I could have easily been a widow from not one but two separate incidents on the same day and instead have to nurse my wife's almost pain free recovery from 3rd degree burns which I've had before and can tell you hurt like a mother &#$#. I can't express how much joy I've been able to maintain despite the frantic mess this has been for me. Anywho, that's it for now, I'll post updates on her recovery here.

TriOmegaZero wrote:

lastknightleft wrote:

I couldn't find trident on your list? but I love what you've done with it, these are awesome rules.

I'm not sure if it falls under harpoon or ranseur. If you want to ask Kirth, we have a FAQ/errata thread here.

Trident is a spear (for a short one) or a ranseur (for a longer one).

Heh, only problem I would have with that is that a short trident can still be used to disarm, but the spear doesn't get that at exotic level, although I'm sure as DM you would have allowed it.

kyrt-ryder wrote:

(Also, I propose that we just have a chart somewhere discussing how exotic real world weapons align with current d20 weapons.)

Done.

:)

I couldn't find trident on your list? but I love what you've done with it, these are awesome rules.

Quote:

I absolutely would. Rogue/Ninja? Sure thing! Fighter/Fighter? Absolutely!

Great, now we can have Ranger/Rangers wielding four bows n' arrows at once.

Joking aside, I really like the idea of alternate classes. It changes the flavor and play style of a base class, but allows you to use all of the same support as the base version. This mitigates the usual rush of feats that follows the release of new classes - you don't need any new ones for the Samurai and Ninja.

Hence why the Gunslinger shouldn't be considered an alternate class. Not only does it already have a number of feats dedicated to it, but its class features are completely different from those of its supposed progenitor. At least for the Antipaladin it was just a matter of replacing every occurrence of the word "cure" with "inflict."

Forgive me but is that the case, if you have a gunslinger it automatically qualifies for all fighter feats. I figured that was the intention, but after reading the download wasn't 100% sure. So is that stated somewhere that I just missed, or a logical conclusion, or just speculation? I'm being serious, I haven't been following the playtest discussions because I currently don't have a group, so please let me know.

Thank you Eric, both for validating my concerns (like James earlier) and taking them seriously enough to respond. For the record I love Paizo and my biggest bummer is that Paizocon happens on my b-day almost every year and I can't afford to make the trip from FL to attend. You guys are awesome and I believe what you say. For the record, I am looking very much forward to ultimate combat, and actually would have picked it up without any new classes in it. I don't think that just because one book had classes another book in the line needs them as well. But I understand the thinking. I was just worried that that line of thought would permeate expansion books. "well, the last two books had new classes in them, people will feel jipped if we don't have one in this book." I may have titled the thread a bit bombastically, but I didn't really mean it, it was more of an attempt to get peoples attention with the thread title. I was concerned with the rate at which they are coming and like I said, you guys have done an awesome job of negating those concerns. Thank you for the welcome response, and the wonderful attitude that you guys continue to show.

lastknightleft wrote:

Mage Evolving wrote:

It's been said by others but I think that it bears repeating.

If you don't like the material being put out then you can choose not to use it. I think that is the very best way you can make clear to paizo that you are not happy with the "bloat". Personally, my group only uses the core rulebook and the APG. Throw in the beastiary and your imagination and you have everything you will ever need.

If you want flavor add it if not then don't.

and no the best way to tell paizo you don't like it, is to tell paizo you don't like it. The worst way is to just not use it and let paizo guess why it is that their sales are down.

You seem to think though that their sales will go down based on your own single opinion though. You have to speak for yourself when stating an opinion. Speaking for myself, I will say that I will buy the books, both Ultimate Magic and Ultimate Combat. This is my choice and because of that my vote seems to be in the positive :)

Oh for gods sake no I do not. I'm saying it's better for their customers to express their damn opinions, not saying that my opinion is right or that I drive their sales. People not buying a book/not using material in a book tells paizo nothing. The books do not come equipped with a friggen camera that monitors are games and tells them "this group isn't using this section of the book." You may not like that threads exist telling paizo I don't like this or that etc. but they do serve a purpose because if enough people don't like this or that, paizo can get a sense of it and stop releasing as much this or that. I may disagree with posters that think the words of power rules are terrible, but I want those people to come here and express their opinions, then I'm free to disagree. If enough people agree with them, then maybe there is something wrong with words of power, no matter how much I love it. If not, then the thread will die down and no harm no fowl. Dismissing people complaints and telling them that the best thing to do is ignore it and shut up is no more helpful then someone posting a post that says pathfinder sucks, stop making anything to do with it.

One upside to releasing many new classes early on, rather than trickling them out slowly, is that all of the new classes can receive virtually the same amount of support in future supplements.

If they're released one or two every year, then those that are released last will presumably receive less support from other supplements, since most of those supplements will have already been released.

Of course, this upside vanishes if new classes are released at the same speed every year, or if there is little support for the new classes.

If I remember correctly, one of the reasons WotC didn't provide much support for non-core material in supplements beyond the original one was because they couldn't expect buyers to have bought the original book (and since the material was non-OGL, they couldn't reference a website either).

Since Paizo makes almost everything available in the PRD, this won't affect them to the same degree, so they should be able to support all of their new classes and rules systems in future books.

This is the first post you've made that I can actually take seriously and doesn't come across as conflating our argument. In fact the bolded part is pretty much all I'm trying to get across as a worry. And yeah I titled the thread way more bombastically than I really feel, but that got people here and discussing. For the record 10 new classes isn't problematic, 10 in 2 years and right at the start however is worrysome. Honestly as far as I was concerned I was satisfied when James came in and said that they take peoples concerns about oversaturation seriously, and I hope that they don't release any new base classes after this till 2012 and even then only 1 or 2 at most.

but just because these arguments pop up every time paizo releases something is a good thing.

Where did Paizo give an iron clad promise to not release any new classes.

Probably around the same place where you see us claiming that we want there to never be a new class ever.

But I'm going to play it your way, your argument is that this new stuff is fine, so I'm going to take that and form this argument

How can you say you want them to produce 30 books a month with 18 new classes each and sit there and say that there will be no rules bloat, how can you make such a claim and why aren't you being productive and actually telling them what each 18 classes are to be in all thirty books. Why can't you understand that that level of saturation isn't attainable by paizo's current staff?

The thing is your also telling a company who produces rpg products not to produce them. How exactly is that being fair or constructive. The Paizo devs created this company because they love the game and one assumes to write about it. How is telling "you better not publish more rules or else" benefitting the company them and us as a whole.

That's not true, this thread deals with one portion of the ruleset. This is not a post saying "Paizo stop releasing new books and new content". I want new content as much as the next person, I just don't want a ton of new classes and I'm expressing that. You're the one who's, what's the expression, "creating a strawman"

It's been said by others but I think that it bears repeating.

If you don't like the material being put out then you can choose not to use it. I think that is the very best way you can make clear to paizo that you are not happy with the "bloat". Personally, my group only uses the core rulebook and the APG. Throw in the beastiary and your imagination and you have everything you will ever need.

If you want flavor add it if not then don't.

and no the best way to tell paizo you don't like it, is to tell paizo you don't like it. The worst way is to just not use it and let paizo guess why it is that their sales are down.

Stop ruining my fun, I'm tired of having your opinion shoved down my throat. I will play the game that I want to play. Don't ever assume you know what I want to play better then me. If the game stops producing the material I like I will move on to another game. This is really starting to become insipid, much like a small child whining after it realized it's not getting what it wants. Just let it end, your all ruining the fun.

Except for two things. 1) its not the same people who make threads again and again every time a book comes out. If you can find one other thread where I've complained about rules bloat or that paizo should slow down the release of a certain thing. What you're saying is that since collectively different people expressing what they don't like about something paizo is doing is ruining your fun, no one should get to express their negative opinion. Class bloat is a concern for me, if it's not a concern for you, then what you can do, is not go into a thread titled "class bloat, it's happening and i hate it" since you know it will be a detriment to your fun. I don't like the silly threads in OTD boards, I like going there to discuss current events and find out other gamers views on heated subjects, but I'm not going into silly OTD threads saying, you guys need to stop because collectively you're ruining my fun.

2) these threads do have an effect on what direction paizo takes, because the designers care what we think about their products and I love them for that. If I express a concern, but I get a ton of people saying that it's not the case then Paizo sees that I'm a lone gun and while they may consider my criticisms valid, they need to cater to their larger audience. But if enough people agree then they take a step back and say, ok we've heard you and we're making changes. I am a massively loyal paizite because of this. The fact that I know they take my concerns seriously and thoughtfully respond is what keeps me coming here. If I couldn't express my negative opinions here, when I express plenty of positive ones, then like 3.5 I would eventually start looking at other companies. I was here before the release of 4E and the PRPG because the feeling that WotC didn't listen to their loyal customers and just kept pushing out products when people were asking for things that weren't getting produced even though lots of people wanted them, drove me away and I found this place and haven't strayed since.

Of course I pick the dangerous thread to post on, but I wanted to take a chance to post some of my concerns as well, and since this one is fairly well traveled and my ramblings are related, it's as good as any.

My initial gut reaction towards the new playtest was similar to much of what I've seen here: not positive. I was excited about the APG classes, and even moderately interested in the Magus (although I don't particularly like the class mechanics) because to me they felt like they filled important missing niches. When I opened the new playtest I saw one new class (the gunslinger), what felt to me like a reprint of an existing class (the Samurai), and a weird multiclass class (the ninja). Honestly I was a bit stunned that I felt that two of the three "new" classes felt like they were "tacked on" to make Asian inspired campaigns more possible rather than fitting that criteria of "filling a niche". This lead to the inevitable initial gut reaction of, "wow, even Paizo is going to fall victim to the class bloat of 3.5".

It took me several hours of reading the playtest document and looking on the boards to realize that what was presented were not base classes at all, but rather alternate classes. The fact that this was not immediately obvious to me (an experienced player) is a problem. In fact, I'm beginning to see some common themes through all my reading. This misconception or confusion over their core/base/alternate/archetype status is not a minor issue and in fact to me seems to be a bit of a driving factor over the frustration over these classes. I love the archetype system and I think a lot of us believed that this was the way of the future for Paizo products; however, seeing the playtest shift from the archetype realm while not quite reaching the niche-filling base class realm but rather falling into the alternate-class realm is where I think the frustration lies. Essentially, it feels like the whole concept was sprung on us (although I know it was not). Now I realize that the Paizo folks...

Just wanted to say that this is a beautifully written post. and one that explains my feelings on this "alternate class" thing quite well. As well as expressing my feeling that archtypes are the way of the future. I want to see lots of new archetypes for these newer niche classes. I guess that's another part of what bothers me about this playtest, is that I honestly have been saying for a while that ninja and samurai are perfect examples of things that should be archtypes rather than base or alternate classes.

Not at all lkl, while I don't agree with all the people decrying the new classes, I believe they should be able to say so. However, they should not expect Paizo to do as they say anymore than the other side should. I learned that well in the original playtest.

What's funny is that I don't have a problem with new classes per se, as I've tried to get across from the begining, I have a problem with the rate at which they've been coming. Even though they encompass three years product lines, they release in a span that is less than two years. As I said in my OP thats 10 classes in less than 2 years added to the game. I don't necessarily think that 10 classes added to the game is a problem, but if every two years 5-10 classes comes out then IMO that's bloat. By expressing my concerns now there's a higher likelyhood that the pace of new classes slows, rather then just not buying products at all.

IdleMind wrote:

Probably you, because you have a much fancier name. Also because as I recall reading elsewhere, you buy products out of loyalty to the company and not necessarily out of the content inside. "This will probably be my last book", iirc was the quote.

-Idle

Fancy? I pulled it out of air when I was 14. :P

Interestingly enough, I'm probably less important because i already have a huge list of houserules I use in place of Pathfinder, and I don't play in Golarion for the most part. So I have no need of new fluff and only buy new crunch for inspiration.

But my original point was, neither of us are more important than the other. The company listens to all customers equally and judges their business choices from that.

Which is why I wanted to voice my opinion, I love the group of posters who come on here and say. SHUT UP and don't buy it. because what paizo wants is fewer sales with no idea why fewer people picked it up, so they start ignoring things that would otherwise have been great additions to the game but because the book they premiered in had low sales for a completely unrelated reason, they pick the wrong things as the reason.

those who posted such are completely right, I should never express my opinions about products to the makers of said products in hopes that there are enough people who agree with me to sway the company, no I should just never say anything negative. (keep in mind Tri that I'm not implying by quoting your post that you are one of those people).

lastknightleft wrote:

I appreciate that you aren't dismissive of my post as some posters…

It is not that I am dismissive of your post. You are just wrong. And being this is the interweb, it is my duty to inform you of just how wrong you are. :)

It's good to see that you still think that I'm talking about you when I in no way quoted or referenced you. After all courtfool you are the center of the universe in which all matter is directly influenced by your actions :)

The continued creation of classes is going to hit class bloat. Even if you call them "alternative" classes since that really doesn't address the problem with class bloat - a ton of classes without interchangeable class abilities so in order to support them you have to create a ton x a ton of content. Though I suppose you could vary from book to book in who is getting supported like what 4e is doing with the X Power books.

Wow cartigan and me on the same side of an argument, I must be slipping to the dark side (just messing cartigan, even though we tend to butt heads I still value your opinions on these boards)

The topic of "class bloat" is (and has been for some time) something we've been wrestling with and talking about for a while now. Feedback from the playtests is certainly going to help us come to terms with the question, and more to the point, inform us as to whether or not we've hit the saturation point for full classes (be they called base, core, or alternate... it's all the same).

Thank you, that's what I wanted to hear, I'm a faithful paizo supporter and I understand that my tastes don't run the same as others. I don't even have a problem with new base classes per se, but it's the speed at which they are coming at this point that is bothering me. Like I said, a unique class that can't be easily represented with the current rules every once in a while I'm fine with. I just wanted to point out an issue I'm seeing that I as a customer don't want. I thought it would be great if ultimate combat had more archetypes for the existing marshal classes and if you notice I was silent on the gunslinger because I think a gunsliger can be one of those niche classes. I also want to see cavalier archtypes. But like I said to me these "alternate classes" are different enough that they stray into the base class model. I appreciate that you aren't dismissive of my post as some posters are because I did say I intend to vote with my dollars and understand that not everyone feels the same way. I come here and post to make my feelings known. Because if I just stop spending cash here, there could be a million reasons I did so, but if I explain my issues with a post and then don't purchase the product, you know what it is that is driving away my dollars.

As it is, I still think I'll get the ultimate magic even though it has the magus in it. But as is right now, I'm leaning towards not picking up ultimate combat, even though I tend to favor marshal characters.

But they aren't base classes. You can't make a Rogue/Ninja or a Cavalier/Samurai.

I'm seeing the difference now, between an alternate class and a base class, and why their so similar to existing classes. I still don't like it. alternate class is still a base class, just one that is eerily similar to another class. I still say they should just make them archtypes instead of full 20 level progression "alternates"