Well, I searched the governments copyright web site, and as usual, they don't take a direct stand on "Fair Use", just that it can be done. I've snipped a couple of there questions from their FAQ.
The first is on Fair Use.
Spoiler:
"One of the rights accorded to the owner of copyright is the right to reproduce or to authorize others to reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords. This right is subject to certain limitations found in sections 107 through 118 of the Copyright Act (title 17, U. S. Code). One of the more important limitations is the doctrine of “fair use.” Although fair use was not mentioned in the previous copyright law, the doctrine has developed through a substantial number of court decisions over the years. This doctrine has been codified in section 107 of the copyright law.
Section 107 contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered “fair,” such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Section 107 also sets out four factors to be considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair:
1.
the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2.
the nature of the copyrighted work;
3.
amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
The distinction between “fair use” and infringement may be unclear and not easily defined. There is no specific number of words, lines, or notes that may safely be taken without permission. Acknowledging the source of the copyrighted material does not substitute for obtaining permission.
The 1961 Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law cites examples of activities that courts have regarded as fair use: “quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author's observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied; summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report; reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy; reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson; reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports; incidental and fortuitous reproduction, in a newsreel or broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being reported.”
Copyright protects the particular way an author has expressed himself; it does not extend to any ideas, systems, or factual information conveyed in the work.
The safest course is always to get permission from the copyright owner before using copyrighted material. The Copyright Office cannot give this permission.
When it is impracticable to obtain permission, use of copyrighted material should be avoided unless the doctrine of “fair use” would clearly apply to the situation. The Copyright Office can neither determine if a certain use may be considered “fair” nor advise on possible copyright violations. If there is any doubt, it is advisable to consult an attorney.
FL-102, Revised July 2006 "
The second is on the fines for copyright infringements.
Spoiler:
"Is it legal to download works from peer-to-peer networks and if not, what is the penalty for doing so?
Uploading or downloading works protected by copyright without the authority of the copyright owner is an infringement of the copyright owner's exclusive rights of reproduction and/or distribution. Anyone found to have infringed a copyrighted work may be liable for statutory damages up to $30,000 for each work infringed and, if willful infringement is proven by the copyright owner, that amount may be increased up to $150,000 for each work infringed. In addition, an infringer of a work may also be liable for the attorney's fees incurred by the copyright owner to enforce his or her rights.
Whether or not a particular work is being made available under the authority of the copyright owner is a question of fact. But since any original work of authorship fixed in a tangible medium (including a computer file) is protected by federal copyright law upon creation, in the absence of clear information to the contrary, most works may be assumed to be protected by federal copyright law.
Since the files distributed over peer-to-peer networks are primarily copyrighted works, there is a risk of liability for downloading material from these networks. To avoid these risks, there are currently many "authorized" services on the Internet that allow consumers to purchase copyrighted works online, whether music, ebooks, or motion pictures. By purchasing works through authorized services, consumers can avoid the risks of infringement liability and can limit their exposure to other potential risks, e.g., viruses, unexpected material, or spyware.
Both these and many other FAQ's can be found at the Copyright web site.
If anyone can find anything more, It would be much appreciated. I don't have a lot of money to spend, and can't get myself to pay for an electronic copy of a paper copy of something I already own (or vice versa).
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't an electronic or paper copy of something you already own legal? The only exception to this that I know of is some sheet music specifically states that you may not make copies of any kind and must order more originals to have more copies. Is there a statement in the Core books that says something to the same effect? If not, wouldn't I be within my legal rights to have copies of the books I have bought?
I'm not stating this rhetorically, I am trying to be serious for a moment because I do not know the legality of the subject and would like to know the answer. And if there is a legal mind out there, hopefully they can give a courteous answer. I can only go on what I have been told in the past.
The other question that comes to mind is that if I can have legal copies that I didn't pay for, do I have to make them myself? Does the copy have to be from my original or can it be from someone else's original?
I looked at the site, and am wondering if I was just seeing things. Does it really say that you are going to need a Intel p4 2.6 GHz or AMD XP 2400+ processor to run the DDI experience? That's a pretty large demand for the common user. I just bought a new laptop (first new computer in 8 years), and I upgraded to a 2.4 GHz processor.
I'm on the side of the fence that is going to wait and watch all the bugs get fixed before I crash my new computer on it.
Sorry if there was confusion about who was the OP.
Besides that, it would sure be nice to have some answers to the grappling questions mentioned. If there is another thread that talks about it, I apologize, but I haven't found one that talks specifically about the points I brought up.
IMO, "rage points" is needless bookkeeping. Just make Rage powers swift actions, at will, usable in rage, which is also at will except when fatigued. Rage induces fatigue for a number of rounds equal to the rounds spent in rage, so that is a balancing factor. Keep the 3.5 maximum rnds spent in a single rage.
This is fine, except then you need to balance the powers by offering them at different levels. Some are just too powerful to have a first level.
This last weekend I began the Rise of the Runelords campaign with our local group using the Alpha 3 Pathfinder rules. The group is made up of several seasoned RPG’ers, (most of which have been playing since basic) and a high school student who just started playing D&D 3 years ago. Everyone seemed excited to be playing, but that might be because we haven’t been getting together to play as often as we used.
Character creation was fun and exciting again, as players were looking at the future possibilities for their characters and what back stories they could come up with using the information on Sandpoint and the Players guide for RotR. For character creation, I made a couple of adjustments to the current Alpha 3 rules.
First, I gave all characters max hit points plus Con modifier plus Con score for first level. The group voted and decided to take LG average for future hit points instead of rolling, thus not allowing me to roll for the monster’s hit points as well.
Second, I allowed players who created a human to take a proficiency in any weapon of their choice. I had two players take advantage of this, one (a ranger) took Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Greatbow), the other (a rogue) took Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Spiked Chain). Thus far, neither character appears to have an advantage; however, the rogue didn’t roll very well on his attacks and missed a lot. This may become more advantageous as he gains levels. Other than the increased damage die, the ranger doesn’t gain a significant advantage. I believe that a better compromise, since I don’t like the way the human weapon proficiency feat works now, is to allow a human to gain weapon proficiency in a martial weapon (as it is currently written), unless they already have that from their first level class abilities, then they would be allowed to gain a weapon proficiency in one weapon of their choice.
As a side note, I did have players who decided to try new things they never have had a chance to do before, like make a Barbarian Sorcerer Gnome with the Fey Bloodline, or use new feats like the .
During the adventure the hardest thing we came across was the Combat Maneuver Grapple. We came to a conclusion in the ensuing discussion, but felt that maybe there should be a little better clarification of the rules for grappling. Here are a few questions that came out of our discussion.
How do you handle grappling when a group of creatures gang up on one character?
How do you decide who is in control of the grapple? And how do you gain control from the one who is in control?
Are all creatures who are participating (willing or not) in the grapple considered in control, or does the creature who was grappled have to make a CMB check to wrestle control of the grapple from the creature who initiated it? Or can the creature who was grappled just make a CMB check to move, damage, or pin the creature who initiated it? Do you only get one attack as a standard action in a grapple, even when you have multiple attacks available?
Can you fire a ranged weapon into a grapple without penalty to hitting your own party member? Or is there an even % chance that you will hit any one creature in the grapple?
I guess we would just like a little more clarification on the grapple rules, maybe an example or two. Even though we have all these questions about grapple, we still felt that having only the creature who’s turn it was rolling made it easier to run.
We also were wondering about using weapons you are not proficient with to attempt a Combat Maneuver. For example, if I use a whip and I am not proficient in its use, do I take a penalty to trip attempts? As I read the rules right now, there is your BAB + Strength + size modifier, nothing noted about weapons. We assumed that you would still get the bonus from the weapon for trip attempts and would take the penalty for not being proficient, but we just wanted a clarification.
The group also decided that they like the idea of one square of movement equal five (5) feet, whether you are traveling in a straight line or moving diagonally. It makes it much easier to count and even us seasoned RPG’ers have a hard time remember which diagonal we are on at the end of a 12 hour game session.
A question about cover bonus from ranged attacks came up. If you fire a ranged weapon down a line at a creature and the line goes between two characters/obstacles do all 4 lines to determine cover count or only 2? For example, if I am shooting a goblin in square 1 and I am 4 squares away in a straight line, and there is another character directly between us in that line of squares and a character next to that character and I choose the front corner of my square to shoot from, where two of the lines go directly down the crease between the squares, are they blocked or not. I will attempt an illustration to show what I mean.
|G|X|
|X|X|
|C|C|
|X|X|
|A|X|
Another question that came up was the description under Knowledge (arcane) talks about using it to determine the abilities of monsters. Has this changed, so that it is now the only Knowledge that allows this for all monsters, or is it still the same as before where Knowledge (nature) lets you know about animals, Knowledge (religion) lets you know about undead, etc…? And while discussing this, we thought that maybe, in an effort to decrease the number of knowledge’s (which we felt was too large, especially for a wizard who only gets 2 skill points), maybe you could get rid of Knowledge (dungeoneering) and possibly put more of them together, like Nobility and Royalty with History. Move the creatures (oozes) that you can learn about through dungeoneering into arcane, and the spelunking information into Survival. Just something we thought would help.
We also were playing an LG mod the next day and encountered a creature that could cast Meteor Swarm. After arguing about this spell for quite some time, we came up with a couple of things that may not have been covered yet. We were able to blind the creature before it was able to cast the spell, which is why we had a long argument. For spells like Meteor Swarm that do a ranged touch attack with a ray we didn’t see how it should still be allowed to pick a point/character to attack when it cannot see where it is aiming. However, since Meteor Swarm is a ray, and requires a ranged attack, which you can do blind, the creature was able to target a character. Perhaps we just missed something, but we would also like to see Meteor Swarm go back to the old style and be two different types of damage, ½ bludgeoning and ½ fire.
Finally, during the first encounter in Burnt Offerings, one player chimed in that it would sure be nice if he could get everyone to move out of his way so he could charge a goblin. So we came up with a spell that we would like to propose. Think Andre the Giant in “The Princess Bride”.
Clear the Path Enchantment (Compulsion) [Language-Dependent, Mind-Affecting] Level: Brd 1, Clr 1, Pal 1, Sor/Wiz 1
Components: V, S
Casting Time: Swift Action
Range: Up to a 60’ line
Target: All living creatures
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Will negates
Spell Resistance: Yes
You shout out a loud command and all creatures along the line feel compelled to move out of your way. Unless prohibited by an obstacle, terrain, or another creature, creatures along the line must immediately move 5 feet away from (perpendicular to) the line of effect and allow you to move through.
HP Color & B&W ink cartridges: $35.00
Ream of paper: $5.00
Printing and binding at the office: Free
Having a full color copy of the Alpha 3 Pathfinder: Priceless!!!
I'm keeping a list of where people are from if they post it. I'm not including names, just locations. I'll add it to another post before the 1 PM (1300) web frenzy starts.
Reading the messages posted here, I have come to realize that there are a lot of people outside of the US eagerly awaiting Alpha 3. Does anybody know percentages of where people are from that are playing/reading Pathfinder? Just curious what the demographics look like.
I'm from South Dakota, USA.
BTW you don't have to post where you are from, I was just curious. And thought that this may be a good topic to burn through three hours of waiting.
Does anyone else feel like a crack addict waiting for his dealer to show up?
Hello, my name is Mattias, and I am a Pathfinder addict. I just can't wait for that goody goodness called Alpha 3. I'm sure I will wear out my refresh button today, and won't get a lick of work done. Hopefully with the release of Alpha 3, the shaking and dice rolling urges will subside long enough for me to make it through the long weekend, where I will begin a Pathfinder playtest of Burnt Offerings. Not gonna get a lick of sleep for the next two days trying to read the entire product.
Time to hand out some lovin'.
Thank you Paizo, especially Jason, for bringing us this marvelous product. You guys are doing an amazing job. Love all the products you put out. Keep up the great work!
I've read through most of the posts and I think I agree with one of the first posters. Why not just make a template based on the difference between the EL of the encounter and the CR of the "minion". Minions should be something that is a credible threat, even if they die in one hit. That's how heroes are born, right?
The template could read something like - half the HP's of what is in the stat block, plus give them a +1 per CR different from the EL to attack and damage.
Yeah, they may drop in one hit, but if the PC's just ignore them, they will do damage to the PC. Hindering the PC against the main foe. Which IMHO is the reason for having minions/mooks to begin with. It also gives PCs a real reason to take feats like Whirlwind and Great Cleave.
This way a CR 1 creature used as a minion in a EL 5 fight would gain a +4 to attack and damage. Which should lower the die roll needed to hit from a natural 20 to a 18 or 19. Not the best odds, but gives a better chance and makes them more than just something to laugh at.
When can we expect to see Alpha 3 posted? Can you give me an estimated time table? Please?
I only ask because I am beginning a RotRL "Burnt Offerings" campaign on Memorial weekend and all of my players are waiting till then to make their characters. It would be great if we could have the Alpha 3 version available before the campaign starts.
Thanks for putting this out there for us to try. I downloaded it as soon as I saw it. I have a couple of concerns/reservations, but I will wait until we have a couple of adventures under our belt to comment on them.
Thanks again, for everything you are trying to do.
What I would like to see, is something more. If I play a human fighter, my racial feat does nothing for me. I would like to add Weapon Focus to the weapon of choice.
I guess what I am looking at is a human can choose any one weapon. They then gain Weapon Proficiency and Weapon Focus with that weapon. This would represent the human diversity of special training (either from an organization or parent/sibling) that they received as a youth growing up in a diverse world/culture. I am going to try this in my playtest group. If I change anything, I will not allow Exotic Weapons to be chosen, condensing the list to simple and martial only.
We are starting Memorial weekend and I'm running them through "Burnt Offerings". I've gone through the adventure and updated all of the NPC's and monsters to fit PRPG.
Right now there is very little that gives a human an advantage over a half-elf. And I would like to see a little more advantage for humans. They should be the most populous race and therefore the most common adventurer type.
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