zagnabbit's page

Aww man.,.,

Sad day.

He always has a rules interpretation for feats and they are always wrong.

That's just excellent.

There is no rule for roleplaying a stat.

I tend to discourage any stat below 7. This is as much mechanical as anything else. What you have is a common problem in point buy games. People dump stats especially an Off mental stat and basically behave as of the other 2 make up for it.

The above scenario is not that far fetched given the information. However the character is only average in the common sense department and extremely handicapped in intellect. I'm going to assume he has a stratospheric charisma.

Unless you have a specific and communally accepted house rule that institutes a disconnect between stats and Roleplay you will always have players that absolutely detest what this player has done.

It helps to have examples of what ultra low stats actually do for players to discuss and agree on ahead of time, just like alignment.

For me and my group an INT value that low is not just a crude understanding of Book Learnin'. This character would be illiterate, would have difficulty counting beyond maybe 10 and would have a vocabulary that was incredibly simplistic. Multi syllabic words and any complex concept beyond base emotional reactions would be suspect. That he's a spell caster using verbal components should probobly cut that base vocabulary down even further. Comparing PCs to animal stats is a mistake, animals have poor stats comparatively (look at the STR on bears and gorillas and compare that to observable YouTube film). A better analogue would be our concept of a Caveman. In the modern world an intellect that low would be on disability and likely unable to hold more complex jobs than sorting Recyclables by shape and color.

A STR, DEX or CON value of 4 are mathematically devastating in PF if the inherent penalties are actually applied. The mental stats should be no different.

Unless stats are just math and have nothing to do with the character beyond static bonuses and penalties. If that's the case everyone involved should be on board with that.

I have to disagree with Isger simply because Cheliax definitely wants to keep it due to the importance of it's strategic location between the mountains and the trade routes it gives access to. If you were sent in by House Thrune to bring order to Isger that would be another matter.

Iobaria seems like a good place to me though, the lack of population, vast stretches of land, eerie cyclops ruins, and a few detailed cities. The terrifying and reoccurring plaques seem like the only down side which could still be a great plot point for the campaign.

One place that hasn't been mentioned yet is the Whistling Plains which lies on the eastern edge of Taldor and stretches from the borders of Galt to the deserts of Qadira and then to the east, deep into the heart of the Padishah Empire of Kelesh. I could see Taldor setting up a group to create a vassal state as a border between it and these nations, particularly Qadria.

I have to disagree to disagree.

Cheliax has all but abandoned Isger, Molthune and Southern Varisia. They've virtually ignored Andoran, Northern Garund. They have kept an eye on Sargava, but I think that's a distance issue and a population that doesn't want to be Cheliaxian.

Isger is centrally located. Yet if Cheliax were really worried about a neighbor Molthune wouldn't be Molthune. I doubt Cheliax has ever "controlled" the trade routes here, the Kalistocracy has because that's their thing and Isger is right next door and weak. The Kalistocracy isn't militarily expansionist but can field an impressive army.
House Thrune seems to just be in consolidation mode. They control Cheliax but not even all of Cheliax is under their boot. That's prime time for Kingdom building next door since House Thrune is one of the setting's truly great BBEG candidates.

That Isger has precious little Campaign support could be an issue but there's not much more for Iobaria or even NW Varisia.

I do like Iobaria though.

I think when new rulesets get bandied about people get Myopia.

I imagine there are lots of games where people just use the CORE rulebook. Some people LOVE new rules, some don't. Some ignore all the capaign fluffy stuff that Paizo sort of excells at. RPG customers are actually really varied. There is no "sweet spot" demographically.
WotC likes new rulesets because it's incredibly profitable in the short term. If they can get everyone to switch, big IF. Paizo keeps doing New Rulebooks because lots of people like new rules. New rules though complicate everything. The more that gets published, the more stuff needs clarification, the more that stuff breaks down. I do not want a new edition to keep that cycle up. It's just not economically feasible for me to keep doing an Edition Rotation.

There is stuff that needs to be addressed in the longterm with PF.
*Mostly spells, and magic (the underlying concept of it), but mostly the spells.
*feats and scaling power metrics.
*stats and their various abuses.
*the underlying math at higher power levels.
*classes and class mechanics that just step all over other classes roles.

The basic mechanics are fine. It's just that the game isn't really streamlined to be mechanically balanced over a 20 level spread, it's pretty reliable for a 10 level spread though. Most of the "It's Broken!" complaints come up in groups that play higher up. This is not a widespread issue though, at least in my experience.

Balancing the high level math though is gonna be a power up for Beaters and a power down for casters. That's not gonna be extremely popular, especially with the rabid rules consumers. It's a catch 22 for Paizo.

I'd be dumbfounded that Jason doesn't have stuff written down for a new edition already, but he likes (and is good at) fluffy stuff too and I want Razmir stuff WAY WAY more than boring math tweaks.

There is a bunch of crunchy stuff left to do in the current PF edition.
*a simple mass combat system that doesn't go all Warhammer
**a cool naval subset to go with it
*** an even cooler aerial combat subset too
*space exploration rules
*Skill system buffs
*Item Crafting rules that actually make sense, are flexible, and don't grossly favor one group over another leading to wonky power disparities.
*more NPC "monster" books
*more alternate magic systems
*alternate weapon and armor systems

That's just stuff Paizo could do, not even scratching the stuff 3PP still have left.

*specialized campaign books

Kirth Gersen wrote:

You want to hear something really weird? I haven't run into the "CN is just an excuse to be evil without writing 'evil' on the sheet" since I was maybe 10 years old. I've seen a lot of CN as "doesn't worry too much about the future" and "isn't a really bad person, but puts too much effort into satisfying whims and thereby sometimes comes to grief" and so on.

What are the ages of those you play with? While not a sure-fire way to tell, in my experience the younger ones are the ones that play CN in that fashion. I wish I could be more choose-y in who I play with, but that's not up to me and a bit harder to do when playing over the internet with random strangers. And I know that's the biggest part of my problem.

That sound like adults.

I play with grownups, generally, but now those grownups have kids that are old enough to play with grownups. This changes a lot of things in a game group and the type of games that get played.

In my experience, the adults with children present will shy away from the evil tendencies that have dominated their character concepts for a couple of years. Some have restrictions that go in place for game content as well. One guy who is very experienced (Wisconsin native, 20 year military, life long gamer, FLGS owner), had his kids playing early but restricted any demon/devil content and most evil cleric stuff. This seemed limiting for very bright teenagers but it's understandable.
Some other adult players balked at kids in games and the inevitable content restrictions, but most will wander back for solid play group.

I've found that kids play good guys.
Late teens like bad guys. (and Chaotic Silly)
Early 20s are a mixed bag.
Mid toLate 20s are the group that balks at alignment. This is where I find the CN(E) group.
The early 30s are where it gets interesting. The LG characters are complex and even the CE characters are nuanced and far from caricatures.
Slowly they drift towards an alignment "comfort Zone". this isn't bad role playing, they just know where they want to be for an extended time and any shifts in alignment are deliberate, sub plot elements implemented carefully.

The older guys that are more RP oriented tend towards Heroic archetypes while the ladies get more treacherous. 8). The tactical simulation people (mostly male at this point) just ignore their alignment and check with the current GM on where they're at if needed.

I wonder if that's just a unique observation from a long standing group with frequent rotations?

MagusJanus wrote:

It doesn't help that, typically, the worst roleplaying I've seen has been of paladins. It's a good concept, but I've seen too many who turn it into something scary. And not the good kind of scary.

Rarely seen that. To me, the very worst comes from immature CN "murderhoboes' who do very little RPing at all, and what they do- is bad.

The murder hobos don't actually have alignments. They put CN on the sheet and assume they won't get blistered by Smite Evil. Because they are too childish to face the reality of their actions.

I tend to warn new players that alignment is a fundamental element of my game, but I don't force anything on anyone. I do however track their alignment in secret.

I'm still amazed at the LE people who are basically good guys save for the occasional atrocity. That doesn't happen with CN, they always shift to evil.

On Paladins.
Some classes aren't for rookies. I actively discourage new players from starting with Monks (for mechanical reasons) and Paladins (for RP and mechanical reasons). These are advanced classes.

EDIT: Lancelot is not the classic Knight in Shining armor hero. Gawain is, Roland and Orlando are. Lancelot is a tragic (head case) figure.

I actually think Isger is ripe for this.
*It's decentralized government.
*Recent goblinoid war.
* It's full of bandits.
*Molthune is your northern neighbor.
*Cheliax is nearby and there are probobly imperial sympathizers all around you.
*Nobody else seems to want it.

Somewhere, I forget which Campaign Setting book (Seeker of Secrets?) there is a reference to a "Proto-Kelid" people in Isger that are still living there. This is a great source stock for PCs to come from. The PCs don't need to be conquerors but instead folk heroes who have simply tired of Chelaxian indifference and incompetence in the Capitol. This let's you play up the snobby arrogant side of the "bad guys". Could be fun.

This thread got me thinking, so I revisited the maps and source material and did some topolographical comparisons with Earth.

One of the things that get seriously overlooked on Golarion is the Roof of the World. They have a landmass under the polar ice. That's important because it changes the global weather pattern. Also one of the neat things about our world and water is that virtually all river systems flow towards the South. There are notable exceptions but they are all exceptions. Hydrologically, on Earth, its theorized that all water makes it's way to Antartica every couple hundred years and goes through the primary recycling phase. This is where TV pundits argue with scientists about desalination and weather patterns. Antartica and the Arctic ocean have a push pull relationship.

The Roof of the World would produce a very different effect. As a massive landmass the size of Antartica would contain a significant portion of the planets fresh water. Unlike Antartica however, it is connected to 3 other large landmasses, Avistan, Casmarron (above the Castrovin) and Tien La. Those land masses would prevent what we call the "Antartic Curtain" which keeps that continent even colder than it would normally be. The Push/Pull effect would be Different since the oceanic currents would be forced along the giant Coast lines of those large Northern Continents.

On Avistan, the Sellen inherits all of the water that runs out East of Irrisen and North and West of Iobarria. Kind of like how the Amazon drains most of South America, just larger. It's safe to say that cannon sources tell us that Belkzen, the Kodars and the Storval Plateau are an unusual rise in elevation in Western Avistan. So everything East of that drains towards Lake Encarthan. Which actually explains it's size. Geologically Encarthan is big enough to be a "sealed system" with no outflow, relying on evaporation to cycle water. The Roof of the World however would strain that sealed system though, forcing ice South. The Age of Darkness would have been cold with little to no solar gain, this would explain the Lake of Mist and Veils as a glacial lake from that time period. As the world warmed up, the Roofs extended Icepack melted pushing South flooding the River Kingdoms and breaking through a low point in the eastern Five Kings Mountains.
Thus the Sellen gets an outflow and the largest fresh water system (that we've seen) floods into the Inner Sea. That's all speculative.

I think Paizo may have thought ahead on this one. The river system makes sense in that respect. We still need to see what Northern Casmarron looks like and the real shape of the Castrovin Sea. That the Castrovin effects the weather in Avistan is cannon and it could explain the wet nature of the River Kingdoms as a whole. Especially if the rain it produces is counter seasonal to the inevitable flooding of something that drains an entire continent. That would help explain the complete lack of floods in the written literature.

Congrats Mark on the new Job!
(You poor poor bastich.)

I don't think you have. When the other thread came up, I kinda thought about Preferred Spell as well, it being a feat cuts into it's relevance though. But this actually came up in a game awhile back.

We went with the relevant class getting the CL.
That interpretation actually softens the issue in the other thread since a CL of 1 and limited spell access (a CLW only in that case) would actually be a non issue.

It's not a bad choice for a FAQ but the stuff getting FAQ requests lately has become silly.

@K177y C47

The Original Cleric is based on the Knights Templar.
He wore Plate Mail and carried Big Heavy bludgeoning weapons, since his medieval precedent carried big heavy bludgeoning weapons. They wore Proscribed from using edged weapons since "spilling blood" was bad or something.

His original spell list was full of biblical stuff like making bushes burn, turning sticks into snakes and parting water.

The Cleric has never been the religious Wizard traditionally, that's actually a very modern interpretation relative to D&D.

Let's just start off with a caveat: The following is my opinion.

The paladin is not the champion of lawful good. The paladin is the champion of Good. It is the strict adherence to the Paladin's code that makes him lawful. The Paladin is Good and only Good, no exceptions. Chaotic and Neutral Good allow for exceptions.

I think a lot of the "Paladin Hate" comes from players who want to play a character how they want to (which is fine, not trying to present that as a negative), while a paladin has to be played as their code dictates.

So again (in my opinion), a Paladin is not Lawful Good. A Paladin is Good, lawfully.

This is the best OPINION ever posted on the board. 8)

He gets it.
The point of Codes of Conduct is that they require an internal discipline. The ability to put aside personal needs and desires to adhere to a structure that has a purpose.
This is not to say that Chaotic or Neutral characters cannot adhere to a code, however the defining trait of Chaotic is the personal takes precedence over the group. Neutrals choose the decision that best fits a situation or the default to the other Axis.

They're is already an EVIL counterpart to the Paladin.
So the desire to strip out the alignment restriction on Paladins is not so much an issue of "Mechanical Justice" it is an issue of not understanding Alignment as a Mechanic. If a player cannot Play a Paladin as LG, that player really can't play a Paladin. Not for Flavor; they can't play the character who places everyone and thing ahead of his own well being as a mechanic.

Alignment is a Mechanic in PFRPG. It's not flavor. If you don't understand the Alignment system then you don't understand the Mechanic. It means something. Understanding what the various combinations of the Alignment Permutations do is actually more than just the Devils of Hell want to subjugate and oppress or that the Axiomites want to impose "Pure" order. The alignment of these creatures determines their actions, determines how they play. The Paladin is closer to the Devils and Demons in this respect than they are to Wizards or Clerics. Even Clerics of their own faith are tied to dogma and church Politics, the Paladin is not a creature tied to an ideal or concept, the Paladin IS the ideal or concept.

Taking that away from the class is a waste. You might as well have Solars killing babies, Demons rescuing puppies from the streets and Devils letting mortals make mistakes as learning exercises for personal growth.

One of the true downsides to Alignment is that once you fully understand it, you might have to actually reflect on your own real world behavior and face the fact that you may not be one of the "Good Guys".
Gygax added alignment to prevent D&D from turning into a pre-pubescent S&M fantasy. At the time it was going down that road. With the Heroes doing some pretty awful things, even by our standards. We may play "Murder Hobos", but I doubt the players in this thread regularly indulge in Fictional Rapes, Fratricide, Infanticide and human sacrifice. That crap happened, not infrequently, once. Alignment was installed to dillineate the moral and ethical lines that get crossed in the game. It may seem quaint in the age of Grand Theft Auto and movies where villains are the protagonist but those mediums have limitations on behavior this medium does not.

Now see I'd fund Solar powered Ninja JediBots.
Practicality be damned.

Off topic, I pulled Aussie Constitutional outta my butt.

But maybe Dingo was kicking around in the back of my mind. I like his topics even if I can't really tell where he's going with it sometimes. He adds something special to OT.

What's funny about the whole of Paizo forums; is that the Rules forum probably requires more MoD attention than OT. Abortion may be a hot topic but it's nothing on Pallys Failing or Flurry of Blows interpretations.

When did it get weird?
I thought we still had Communist Goblins, Aussie Constitutionals, New England Liberals, Western Gun Lovers, Closet Conservatives and Economic Progressives all engaging in topics that would go nuclear anywhere else?

Have y'all been out on the interwebz? Those people are CRAZY.

I may not post but I lurk, oh I lurk. This is likely the most civil forum on the wide webs world.

I enjoyed the DL novels. It did not like the setting for games.

Once Hickman and Weiss turned it over to others it lost it's "magic".

I loved Planescape, I've never read The Module though. I think that the setting was abandoned was telling though. They didn't know what to do with it or they'd lost the people who did. The Fan Website Planewalker kept me entertained for a long time. The novels were weird and modules were just bad, but the setting stuff was awesome.

I loved the Forgotten Realms, the Grey Box did it.
The setting was brilliant. The Modules were good. The novels were decent to above average. They made a mistake early though, they let novels radically alter the setting. Evereska destroyed, etc. That was a mistake. Earth shattering alterations should be the province of players.
Then there was "Canon", the canon nazis got out of hand. They'd sit at your table and argue with you about you're own game. They'd argue with designers, heck they'd argue with Greenwood I'd wager if he didn't use that weird charm and just shut them down.

WotC wrecked that setting but it was inevitable.

The beauty of Greyhawk is stasis. It's always the same year until you play.

I liked Basic D&D
I wanted more so I bought Hardbacks.
I liked 2ed, it was a Realms system! Cleaned up the mess in AD&D.
I missed most of 3.0 but I bought it.
Then I bought 3.5, because I needed too. I bought a lot of 3.5. Too much.
I played 4.0. I got rooked into running the showcase at the FLGS. I bought the PHB. That's it.

I bought Pathfinder, when RotRL came out. The first really good module I'd read in a decade other than the Red Hand super module.
Then I bought some setting stuff.
Then I bought a campaign Hardcover.
Then I bought more setting stuff.
Then bought a CORE rulebook.
Then I bought some setting books.

What's important to note that with Paizo I'm buying more fluff than crunch.

With WotC it was Crunch over fluff. They got bad at fluff. They cranked out crunch. More Crunch than I ever used. I didn't need it.

They did it with 4e I'm told.

Crunch is not what I need. Nor what I really want.

D&D Next may be slick, simple and easy. But they are in the Rule Buisness.

Paizo is in the Game Buisness. Their approach is more natural.

For rules; I like the OGL. It's easy and I can look up ANYTHING that comes up without having to drop $40.

So far Golarion isn't perfect, but it's nice and adaptive and varied.

So far Paizo has avoided the missteps of WotC(Hasbro). They honestly engage with customers, even if it's me and SKR arguing and being snarky. They respond to the needs of customers instead of telling me what I want.

I played D&D Minitures Skirmish. I got burned there and the managers of the Mini line knew it, and there was nothing they could really do about it.
I've had a total of One problem in all my time with Paizo, and Vic fixed it himself in lime 30 minutes and Lisa was aware of it before I knew it was done.

Customer Service is a lost art in America.
Those who understand it, succeed.

Someone gave my daughter a "Bratz" doll. The thing was dressed like a hooker. The suggested age on the package was 6 and up.

Just saying'; This is not an RPG thing. Red Sonja's metal bikini may seem silly but it always fit her mood. She also killed anyone who disrespected her.
She wears more than Conan.

I'd rather my daughter had gotten a Red Sonja action figure than a Bratz (hooker) Doll.

There are back elements in Kingmaker that just don't make sense, politically.

The Aldori are world famous as warriors. Their only loss is to Choral, who conquerors Issia with an army of 200 Iobarian warriors. Then uses the Issians to conquer Rostland, which had been keeping the Issians at bay for 100s of years at minimum. So for Choral to pull this off he had to have more on his side than a couple of Dragons, 200 berserkers and a, finally unified, Issian army.

My conjecture is that the Aldori had started to become complacent and had adopted the Noble House system that the Issians had adopted and their Taldan forebears had so valued. This was one of the things that Sirian Aldori and his successors had avoided. Since even the best genetic line drops a bad apple and the real advantage to a system of hereditary nobility is the concentration of power in as few hands as possible. Thus the Aldori had allowed their numbers to drop, largely relying on their reputation and destabilized neighbors for security. Choral took advantage of that.

In a more contemporary fashion, the Swordlords of Restov make an unprecedented push for opening up new lands. The 4 expeditions move out over what is a huge area, nearly the size of Rostland proper. Noleski Surtova let's this happen without any direct involvement. In fact the entire AP can be played with almost no interference from Brevoy beyond the initial setup. So Surtova has to be busy in Issia for most of the campaign.

Also Mivon and Restov are the only places in all of Avistan with any significant population of Aldori, that we know of. Those cities are only separated by a few hundred miles, but there is no active route between them. That struck me as odd. There's even a river that runs from Mivon to Restov it's blocked from direct traffic because of waterfalls, but those falls are concentrated in a fairly small area. There's no portage set up in that spot. The Shrike could be one of the region's most important trade routes but it's not.

Fort Drelev is sitting in a strategically important spot but it's not as advantageous for the Aldori as it is for Brevoy and the Issians. Surtova may have been more interested in this spot than the Kamelands (which is the least farmable dry soil in the Stolen Lands).

Varnhold is clearly as escape route for the Restovi, if Surtova goes to crush the Aldori. It protects the pass across the Tors of Levenies, which would allow the Aldori to repeat the exodus of the Aldori after Choral's conquest. This is a last resort thing I'd guess.

The Iron Wraiths, the adventuring company sent towards Pitax as the 4th expedition is an awkward move for the Swordlords. Pitax has been in an on and off war with Mivon for 2 centuries(that's cannon), maybe longer. The Pitaxians aren't likely to be friendly with the Aldori even if those Aldori aren't friendly with the Mivoni. Pitax has a relatively new King though and he's an unknown for the Swordlords.
So my theory is that Baron Drelev is an Issian Noble, hand picked for his ties to the Issian Houses as an example of how the lands to the South and West are ripe for colonization. The Iron Wraiths are also largely Issian in outlook. In this, the Swordlords put the most important and experienced colonial leader out to the West, away from their real prize of an open Shrike River waterway. It also assuaged any Issian alarm at the colonial push and has the added benefit of keeping Pitax busy with matters closer to home.

None of that really impacts Kingmaker, as written, but it makes some things run smoother in my mind. Kingmaker is a very popular AP, and it has the advantage of running slow with lots of side quests and extras if the DM wants. That unfortunately means that it's one of the most likely APs to get recycled and new stuff on Brevoy while desired, will complicate ongoing campaigns. Kingmaker is set up to run Aldori characters without Aldori complications as it is currently and I have a feeling it will stay that way for the time being. So new stuff for Iobaria, Brevoy and the Aldori will probably wait for a new AP set in the region.

Thassilon was not a nation that would have fostered Paladins as we understand paladins. Paladins are generally more Good than Lawful. Thassilon was likely more Lawful than Evil but it was an inherently evil place.

Xanderghul could have pulled this off mechanically. I think he might have pulled this off thematically. Pride does not require publicity. He got plenty of publicity.

Imagine the Pride at becoming the Diety of your enemies armies. A pride you keep to yourself until you have fully transformed/ascended.

I don't think the Sin of Pride would have prevented this.

The Shifty Mongoose wrote:

"To this day, why people would make deals with the thing that invented betrayal is beyond me."

Is this a quote?

Because it is really the one loophole in the Book of the Damned creation myth as pro Asmodeus propaganda.

In my game.
The listed Houses are Issian. The Issian houses are varied in their outlooks however. They are also OLD. Theyve been around for a long time. Ethnically the Issians are a mix of Ulfen/Iobarian(a distinct ethnic group) with some proto Kellids mixed in.

The Aldori are NOT nobles. They are proud of that fact. The Aldori is a meritocracy. The best man wins, and they are incredibly competitive in a friendly rivals way among each other. This is not to say that hereditary structures don't exist but it's not how the Aldori as a whole operate. There is no hereditary transfer of title, and property that is clearly Aldori as opposed to personal can't be willed to an heir that hasn't earned it the hard way. The various "Schools" compete for prominence. The Swordlords encourage all of this rivalry as it leads to a stronger Sword Pact.

The Restovi Aldori are the heirs of the survivors of Chorals conquest. They rightly would have been hunted into extinction if it had not been for the cleaver politics of Choral's daughter Chaera, who offered the remnants of the Aldori peace on condition of obedience. With that peace came the requirement that they would aid in the new nation's defense but also continue to serve as the regional masters in old Rostland. So in effect they retained most of the privileges they had before but the lands that had once been the property of the Aldori were now the private estates of House Rogarvia, administered by Aldori in service to Rogarvia. The Restovi were given a carrot though, no Issian House would be awarded lands in Rostland and the Aldori would not be placed in a subservient role. This is why the fortress of Skywatch was manned by Aldori, House Rogarvia used the Aldori of Restov for most important functions, especially defense.

Under this structure the Restovi Aldori have spent the last 200 hears rebuilding their numbers, power and influence. They retain control over the lands of House Rogarvia and are keenly aware that with No heir to Rogarvia, House Surtova and the other Issian Houses would very much like to carve up old Rostland and it's fertile plains as new land holdings. This is where the Kingmaker AP starts off.

The Mivoni Aldori are similar but they do have hereditary structures in place. Effectively these are the Rostlandic Noble Houses in Exile. They fled when Choral the Conqueror had clearly won the war in Rostland. They took with them the youngest Aldori candidates and those older masters who could pass on the traditions. They took a large portion of the Aldori related population with them when they fled. The Mivoni still hold the old "House System" in place. Currently I have 17 houses of the Aldori in and around Mivon. They also operate Schools like the Restovi but these schools are frequently under a house's patronage. The Mivoni houses however are not lead by a Hereditary Master but by the most accomplished member of the House.

To some of the younger Restovi, the Mivoni exodus in front of Choral is considered cowardice. The Mivoni find that the surviving Restovi essentially became collaborators with House Rogarvia, which in turn prevented them from reconquerimg Rostland. This leads to the friction between these 2 groups. The various Swordlords in both regions have been working towards mending these old grievances, which with the passage of two centuries has become easier.

In our Kingmaker campaign it was soon clear that what the Swordlords wanted was not a buffer state but a protected trade route that the Aldori could use to ship the abundance of Rostland's agriculture South to Mivon where the Mivoni could use their large fleet of merchant vessels to distribute. House Surtova opposed this since it meant that the valuable Rostlandic grain was bypassing the Capitol at New Stetven and avoiding their own merchant fleets. It just wasn't practical for House Surtova to move on the Border Kingdom until they had cemented control of the throne in Issia first. The other Issian Houses were not exactly keen on a Surtovan monarch and not necessarily willing to go to war with the Aldori who were rightly only attempting to protect Rogarvian Holdings in the South.

The Tiger Nomads were relatively small groups during this, but with the Aldori pulled back from the Western Marches, New Stetven and it's environs became plush targets. They started actively raiding the West of Brevoy for the first time since Choral conquered the country.

Most of you are going to jail.

Endure Elements, no contest.

Alternatively you could have physical stats affect actual class features at high levels.

If fighters applied their STR bonus as a crit modifier.
Instead of 1d8/19-20 x2 +5
make it 1d8/19-20 x5 +5

Or adding the Dex mod as a minimum for each die of Backstabbing damage.

I could see this actually causing TPKs though if the same mechanic went for monsters.
This would skew the value of HP too. Making the d6 and d8 classes much less survivable. But it's commonly repeated on these forums that HP is a weak resource and HP damage is a suboptimal tactic in combat. Having Martials hit for 100 damage, like 3.5's Warblade, would alter that perception.

The issue with stats and ability dependency is that the stats are not equal.

Example.
CHA is less valuable than INT.

Cha dumps are offset by skill points.

To reign in SAD advantages would require the elimination of SAD in the basic design.

I haven't tried this but here is an option I've tossed around in my head.

Full progression spellcasters have a massive advantage in that one stat basically is all they need. That stat gives the spell access by level, adjusts the spell's DC, and provides bonus spells per day.

Break that up.

Spell level access could be determined by INT (so an int of 13 would allow access to lvl3 spells)

Bonus spells per day could be determined by WIS

Spell DC bonus comes from CHA.

Single stat dependency could just go away for casters. As an added benefit the current crop of Idiot Savant builds with a godlike Intelligence but the common sense of a house fly and the personality of a toaster oven would wander off.

Mental stats are far more valuable than physical stats after a certain point, clvl 6, so adjusting the values in point buy is of middling effect since it will actually penalize the MAD builds more than the SAD builds.

A score of 20 in STR only adds a +5 bonus to hit and DMG to a level 10 character. It also ups carrying capacity but at this point theres an extradimensional space which makes this useless.

A score of 20 in WIS provides a +5 will save bonus, a handful of bonus spells, acess to all spells available to the level and a +5 spell DC. To the caster at 10th level.

If point buy is retained, your game gets skewed the higher level it goes.

Static stat arrays offset this somewhat bit they don't address the real power advantage of mental stats at higher levels.

Old school rolling methods, just narrow character choice early on. They also create a power disparity, but this method spreads it around. If you roll like crap but pull a 17, it's a wizard; if you roll amazingly well, you skip the SAD builds and play that hard to build Monk or Paladin. If you roll like a zombie you get youself killed quick and start over. Easy to do if you pull 7s in me taps and CON, you just "roleplayed your stats"

Truth be told. Most RPG maps don't have nearly enough rivers. They just show the big ones. Most have 100s of miles at a stretch with no river basins. That's only viable in very arid climates.

Not to mention the total lack of flood tables.

The Mountain Ranges are wonky too. Mountains have nothing to do with Tectonic plates, they exist in places that seem convenient.

And for some reason, there is an obsession with giant crash water seas.
Nyr Dyv.
Sea of Fallen Stars
Lake Encarthan.

These make Lake Superior look like above ground swimming pools.

Of say it's safe to assume that the Sellen, between the Confluence and the Inner Sea, is more than 5 miles wide. The stretch from Lake Encarthan to the Confluence is likely as big too.

Somewhere, War of the River Kings (?), the feeder river for main Branch that Pitax is on, is mentioned as being particularly wide. Pitax has a huge harbor and it's pretty far upstream. That may seem wonky geographically but it's hard to imagine that the area doesn't get what we call Lake Effect Snow from the Lake of Mist and Veils. That's a lot of melt water.

It's not on the, big, map of Avistan but the Castrovin Sea is just East of Brevoy. Literally just off the map. Nothing actually drains into it though because of the unnamed range of mountains on the border where Skywatch is. Which likely runs farther South Basically all of central Avistan drains into the Sellen. We don't have a river system on Earth that really compares. The Great Lakes are weird in that they drain NE along the Border of Canada and the U.S. If the Great Lakes drained into the Mississippi that would be similar. But if you were to combine the water outflow of the Mississippi and the Saint Lawrence, 2 of the most heavily traveled waterways on Earth, that would be a massive volume of water, Hydrologically; the most significant fresh water system in existence.

The West Sellen flows out of Lake Encarthan, As well as draining out of Old Sarkoris (the World Wound) it flows South and Easterly until the confluence.

The East Sellen flows from Lake Reykal in Brevoy. It flows South.

The (Main) Sellen flows from the Lake of Mist and Veils, just South of Mendev and West of Brevoy. It flows South.

What's confusing you is that the entire river system is referenced to as "The Sellen". Even the small tributaries that are significant feeders. The Rivers in the Stolen Lands get names but even then one of them is "Little Sellen".
This is partly not to confuse people that aren't hardcore Golariophiles or just don't have a mind for geography. In game it can be a superstition or rivalry, with the inhabitants of each river basin claiming their branch is the "True Sellen".

Topographically Northern Avistan is a gradual slope moving South. Sarkoris and Numeria are like the American High Plains. The eastern border of Numeria is a low mountain range, the Branthlend. East of that the land dips into a low region that has the city of Pitax and a deep Marshy region called Hooktoungue Slough where the East Sellen gets deep and sluggish. Before it pushes South and turns hard to the East towards Mivon.

It's a huge system. The mouth of the Sellen, as it pours into the Inner Sea is likely massively wide, considering how much water actually runs through the system. Like the Mississippi but bigger.

Awhile ago, I realized that the game already sorts itself into tiers based on the available spells, roughly every 4 levels.

By which I mean, usually even-leveled spells pretty much do what the last level's spells do, but better. Odd numbered spell levels generally get the 'new' effects. 9-level spellcasters get a new spell level every 2 levels, so they get a new 'tier' of powers every 4 levels.

1st-4th level, spellcasters can do some weird stuff, but nothing that couldn't be done the old fashioned way.
5th level, wizards get fireball and fly. These are sort of the base things people think of when they think of wizards, so this might be the place that a relatively diligent wizard can expect to reach during his career. (Also, getting a score above 15 is rare in NPCs, so a lot of wizards pretty much cap out here, even if they have more levels.)
We stay in that 'better than ordinary, but not earth-shattering' groove until level 9, when wizards start to be able to teleport and clerics start raising the dead or visiting Hell in person. Any semblance of 'normal' pretty much ends here.
Above 9th level, you can call Outsiders, visit other planes, travel the world instantly, and have beaten death itself. You're very special. And you're also rare enough that these abilities aren't so available as to warp society.
At 13th level, you get 7th level spells, you can heal any malady, or raise the dead from a lock of hair. You can create your own demiplane.
And at 17th level, you get wish, which sort of says it all.

So to answer the question:

Matt Thomason wrote:

I'm quite happy, however, that those rare 17-18th level NPCs got there by doing something to tap into abilities they wouldn't normally have, while "normal" NPCs hit a firm-ish cap around 10th level (or 6th, or whatever!)

That depends on your personal taste. It really does. Think of the most powerful non-story NPCs (the BBEG cheats) around. The deans of wizard colleges, archbishops, barbarian kings, that kind...

I know I'm late addressing this, but this thread is moving fast.

Ross is absolutely right with this and it underscores one of the main issues that Martials face.

By the reasoning Ross has posted above spellcasters can literally change the world. But the player base has a very different objective experience than the NPCs.

The players can use Point Buy to dump stats and buy up their casting stat. Then they can get permanent boosts from a headband.

*THIS IS THE DEFAULT ASSUMPTION for all PC casters*

I have not seen a full caster start the game with less than a 16 ever in a point buy game. That value easily puts them in the top percentile group of the entire world population. Point buy skews the power levels of classes. This isn't an issue of SAD vs MAD. it is an issue of Mental stats having a much higher value than Physical stats. That the full casters are basically all SAD classes just makes that disparity worse.

Martials are not really SAD, and Physical stat values simply produce static bonuses. Mental stat values give static values and increases your potential access to Class Feature elements.

I've always felt like this was one of the basic failures in the system and it rears it's head at the very beginning. A lot of the game elements are "Legacy Components". Those elements get retained but the alterations to other subsystems in effect change all manner of things.

The day PF characters can boost strength the Hulk levels, I'm out.

They can meaningfully impact the world without throwing buildings into deep space.

The stats are abstractions.
But they have messed up some parts of the game. Once upon a time a Sphinx could pose a Riddle and players had to work it out. Int checks could give clues but that's it.

Now the int 30 wizzy just expects a check to give him an answer because he's smarter than a diety. And clues don't work because "riddles are dumb".

Based on regional geography, Cheliax is sitting in the perfect "Wine Zone", it also has the right Topography.
This would be analogous to the Pinot regions of France and Andalusia.

Nidal is well placed too, but that one isn't likely.

The area North of Sandpoint but South of Riddleport is not unlikely to grow hardier types while the area West and North of Riddleport might be a decent spot for "Ice Wines".
I'd say the Germanic grapes could be from here, Riesling and Gewurtztraminer.

The area directly between Mivon and Pitax is specifically called out as being a major wine producing region, it's one of the primary reasons they go to war with one another, control of the old vines located there. Currently the Aldori Houses in Exile have it and they do not relinquish control often. This is likely one of Mivon's major exports.

The River Kingdoms have the right conditions, but with the way land changes hands there, it's not unlikely that "Old Vines" are hard to tend. However farmers get high station and anyone who can hold a vineyard would get rich in this region.

Grapes will basically grow anywhere. Getting the "good" grapes to take hold is hard to do. Taldor, Qadira, Geb, Galt, Molthune and the Lake Encarthan states are good candidates for decent wine.

On Slings;
I have an uncle who runs a very high end Hunting Buisness, taking rich corporate types out for group events doing "unusual" hunts. When he hunts by himself he never uses a gun or a weapon be hasn't made with his own hands, it isn't sporting. He prefers the Javelin and atlatl for things like Turkey hunting or White tail. He is however, devastating with a sling. On open ground, like The plains in the Northwest Territories he can hit a kill shot at over 100 yards on a full grown Elk. I've seen this with my own eyes twice.
Slings don't just Hurt, they are Lethal. And unlike an arrow which takes time to kill, unless it hits the heart or brain, slings can drop quarry immediately. As a hunting implement it is top of the line.

It is very hard to use, I've tried and literally missed the broadside of a barn at 50 feet. But it is so simple to make that I can pull it off with almost no practice.

It's simple in the rules because poor people made due and this weapon worked well.

Interesting, and I see your point. But there is no reason that non casters can't get SU abilities right now other than that those abilities aren't being designed for them.

Also I don't think it's fair to call down AMF as the root of Martials not getting "nice things". AMF serves a purpose, it serves it well. Your argument could be misconstrued by some to just eliminating AMF which serves a necessary purpose.

As a guideline any character should be able to access SU abilities at some point in their carreer, easily by 5th or 6th character level.

The major downside to the 3.X magic system is that it operates without any fundamental rules or boundaries. Beyond a max level of 9, and a cap on spells per day, d20 spells can do ANYTHING. That leads to the "Muggle Doctrine", that those who can't cast spells can't do anything really worthwhile.

I find that limiting.

Seoni is the Most Iconic Iconic ever.

The first images of Valeros and Seoni converted me to Parhfinder. That first Seoni pose is very sexual without being gratuitous. Valeros's pose is sexual too, according to my wife.

Seoni is just one of those people who exudes sexual magnetism, it would not matter if she were dressed like a Ninja, hood and all, she would just convey that. Trying to remove that element of her depiction is just not possible.
I think that after this amount of time and the sheer volume of Seoni art that I'm immune to her "hawtness", but she is still one of the most compelling images in all of the RPG art I've amassed over the years. There may be an element of Cheescake to it, but I would be surprised to read the artists view her as a sexual object. She is just "more" than that.
Her tightly reigned personality, emotional fortitude, obsessive behavior and tremendous personal charisma combine into an enigmatic being. She's beautiful yes but she has been consistently portrayed as being far more than pretty.
She is also exotic, almost a Mythical Creature. No other Varisian looks like her, her skin tone, hair color, eyes and tattoos make her much more than unusual, she is truly unique. So the "she should be dressed more like this...." argument holds no water with me. Varisians stay with their nomadic family groups, Seoni does not. Varisian women are notoriously sensual yet Seoni is not sexually forward. Yet her mode of dress is guaranteed to put her at the center of attention in virtually every situation. She is the long term planner, the schemer, the enigma.
She can cast Endure Elements and Mage Armor every day. So practicality is right out the window.

Let her be who she is.

Amiri, is probably the single best depiction of a barbarian in all of RPG history. She's tough, poor, uncultured and maybe a little mean. The people who want her in armor are forgetting that the iconics don't live in the "Monty Haul" campaigns where every barby has a Mithral Breast Plate at level 5. The live in Golarion, where Kellids are analogs for Conan the Cimmarion's people. They are poor, superstitious and tough. They also sometimes probably fight naked, because that's what barbarians actually did in our real world source material.

She's perfect. And she's wearing as much as Geronimo or Crazy Horse might have.

The Oracle iconic, forget her name, is dressed in ceremonial regalia. She's a Garundi, people who live in the deserts and hot arid plains of the South. She is wrapped in a loose, flowing, white robe too which is practical. The art we have from ancient Egypt shows similar attire. I just don't get hating on this one. Other than having the biggest cup size of the iconics this one isn't even portrayed in a very sexual way much.

The Goth Witch, is a Goth Witch. She made a pact with a supernatural power to derive magical ability outside of the usual channels of learning magic. Go ahead and project your moral compass at her, that's a lose/lose. She's not like you or anyone else you know.
She also has Endure Elements, so whatever.

Seelah, Merisel, Lini, the Gunslinger and the Half Orc all cover up pretty well. Even when it's hot and that would be uncomfortable.

I don't mind changing the look of Iconics, but that destroys the point of iconics.

If you change Sajan, Seoni, Amiri or Seltiyel you're just stealing some of the best character art concepts ever.

So I repeat.
Please leave Seoni alone and let her do her thing.

Weapon speed was a cool idea, that was poorly implemented in the initiative system.

It was a 1st Ed thing too I thought.

If it existed today, in the dumbed down initiative system it would severly alter how 3e combats work.

Nobody would be suggesting greatsword rogues as an "only way to make that class work".
Spellcasters wouldn't be spamming Monster Summoning spells (this should come back I think).
Dagger fighters would be good.
Swashbuckler style combat might actually be viable both mechanically as well as thematically.
Huge monsters wouldn't be the default opponents at certain levels.
Some "Exotic Class" weapons would actually be worth the feat.

TBH, with all of the silly modifiers in d20 games, weapon speed and casting time modifiers are one of the things that would have ported over perfectly. We actually track more junk now than back then.

I understand the WS hate, but using it as a detraction between Ad&d and 3.x is kinda silly. 3.x scrapped weapon speed in favor of way more modifiers. It's actually just more.

The spellcaster players probably love that Magic Missle and Meteor Storm are identical casting time wise. This was one of the major issues leading to 3.X being the "Caster Edition".

All the pre-d20 editions were better balanced than 3.0, 3.5, and Pathfinder.

Yes and no.

Every time a spell gives a big plus to a skill check, the rogue gets shafted.

Every feat or spell for "Gishiness" shafts the Martials.

Every handicap that gets taken out for "Ease of Play", "versatility" or "verisimilitude" or to just remove another level of "accounting" from a class screws up balance.

I'm not sure that Game Balance was even a consideration by the middle point of 3.5, they just didn't care anymore.

Paizo tries, but there are some pretty glaring gaps there. It's not for lack of trying either. JB really does attempt to balance his stuff but any "combo" pulled from fringe elements of 3 different books can slip past and blow some weird thing up to crazy proportions.

Options>balance in the economics of game publishing. At least for d20.

4th Ed. Solved alot of that disparity but it was so neutral on power as to be meh. It was very accountant heavy too I felt, though my playtime was limited with it.

On Demi Human level Caps:
Gygax liked humans, so did some of the other early designers. They wanted an in game reason for Human dominant worlds.

But.

The game balance broke down early.
In Basic D&D, balance was done at level 9.
AD&D(1st), balance was done at level 12 or so.
AD&D(2nd), may have extended it to level 15.

BECMI may have done a better job than the other systems on the character power band, I can't remember really, I never played an Immortal and only perused that ruleset once. No one I knew used it.

Those caps were fine considering the challenges degraded around that time anyway.

D20 has attempted to lengthen the power curve. It has, but not very well. Game balance between classes and encounters is done around level 15. (Just like 2nd).

It was asumed that characters "retired" to keeps, towers, guilds and churches and that high level games would inevitably become political and maybe mass combat oriented at some point.
And that was OK.

"Optimized" characters at level 20, was kind of a joke back then. I worked at a game and Comics store in the mid to late 80s, and we had a little (too much) fun with people coming in talking about their Black Razor wielding, 25/25 Dual Class Fighter/Whatnots.

......,
So despite all the differences pointed out in this thread; the real difference between those older editions and now isn't really mechanical in my mind.

It's the Buisness model.

The older versions were products for DMs, that was the core consumer. Players got PHBs, various character sheets, maybe a supplement every few years.

The newer versions, are products for players, splat books, supplements, PrCs, archetypes , feats, spells, skill tricks, pets, magic items, mundane gear etc.

Both versions can be played with just the "Core Rules".

The second methodology is much more PROFITABLE.

WotC, went nuts with player stuff. To the point that they pretty much lost the "in house" ability to support DMs with viable gaming aids. The stuff that inexperienced and novice DMs needed to actually run games.

Paizo and PFRPG has been the first Big publisher to hit the happy medium between "Fluff and Crunch" for both the Player side and the DM side.

When people speak with reverence and awe about older editions; I feel that at least some of that is just the wistfull remembrance of simplicity. Not that the rules were necessarily simple but that the game, in play, was simpler. It was a cheaper ticket for admission and it was fun.

To the OP:

The main downside to 2nd Ed.
PCs actually died. Not because they did something stupid, not because the DM deliberately killed them, not because the storyline demanded it. PC death was just an accepted part of the game. It happened.

3.X and it successors have made death fully irrelevant. To the point that many players argue that "Death" is actually just a (poorly developed) Condition.

YMMV

I liked 2nd Ed. At the time I played it.

It was looser, faster and oddly more "balanced".
It was also more arbitrary.

It had a very narrow set of Base (Core) Rules and a lot of optional rules built in. On top of the near universal assumption that House Rules would be in place with most established groups.

D20 attempts to have a rule for everything and a system of unified mechanics that tie as many of those rules together as possible. For some reason this creates bloat and actually seems to cause even more rules arguements.

A lot of those early rules were convoluted. Yet they more or less worked even though the DM would have to wing it on occasion. But it was pretty easy to wing it.

It did suffer from Bloat, later on, with Kits and supplements. But at it's worst, 2nd Ed., was no where near 3.X or PFRPG.

It also suffered much less from power creep I think.

Unlike more modern games, you didn't play it to "Win". It did offer that sense of accomplishment when something was wrapped up. Even when you died.

YMMV.

Again, I find it very telling that the designers specifically listed small, piercing ranged weapons but not any small, bludgeoning ranged weapons.

Where real world versus Pathfinder is concerned, the argument you're proposing strikes as just a little deliberately obtuse. I put it that way because it's obvious that you're an intelligent individual who is more than capable of framing and expressing their throught succinctly.

What I mean by this, then, is that you're willing to deliberately disregard real-world references and examples (quilted armor was made in such a way as to provide protection against even heavy arrows, etc., at certain distances; by contrast, no armor provided any meaningful protection versus firearms until the 20th century) when it suits a specific argument. On the flip side, however, you are more than willing to accept real-world references and examples by default where many other facets of the game are concerned. For example, I don't imagine you question the understood effects that things ranging from torches to hand-axes have in the game.

I hope you don't take this post as a personal attack. It ties in to the question I asked you earlier, which basically boils down to RAW versus RAI.

This is a common misconception about early body armor and early firearms but the 3 Ed paragraph above is in error.

Plate armor was VERY effective against early firearms.

One of the anachronistic elements of roleplaying games is the common inclusion of Full and Field Plate armor in worlds where firearms don't exist or haven't developed. In truth the Gothic Plate Armors were partially a result of attempting to overcome the efficacy of early firearms.
Also the distinctive central "ridge" on the breastplates of the Spanish Conquistadores was developed to aid in the deflection of bullets away from the vital organs.

Firearms didn't force armor into obsolescence; Economics did. As nations moved from feudal levies to standing professional armies, the cost of outfitting large numbers of troops in expensive armor became economically prohibitive.

To the OP:
I see your point, and your interpretation is not invalid. I do not believe however that Quilted Armor was intended to provide DR against bullets.
But,
I also believe that having firearms target Touch Ac was a bad choice and one that reinforces, and probably is rooted in the above misconception. So from that stand point adding the DR vs Bullets is actually more "realistic" than the Touch AC property of Pathfinder Firearms.

MattR1986 wrote:

When you optimize you remove that choice of trying to play a 10 strength barbarian from your creative repetouire.

There are plenty of ways to play a 10 strength barbarian. A casting-oriented Druid, for example, makes an excellent 10 strength barbarian. Bard would be a good class for it as well. Or maybe a Magus who channels the power of his ancestors.

Now if you're looking to play a Strength 10 Barbarian classed character... I'm sorry, I can't see that being a legitimate option within the rules as written. Maybe a weapon-finesse based Barbarian including the Frenzy alternate rage from 3.5, with access to dex-based damage somehow?

Quote:

Really, how many ways can you hash out a story of why your orc barbarian has an 18 str and 5 charisma?

More ways than I will ever have time to play.

Quote:

Sure you can come up with interesting stories and rp but only after you've limited yourself to a mechanical box and chose optimized stats over where an unorthodox build may take you.

That's because we're playing in a system where mechanical choices determine success or failure and the degree thereof.

Quote:

When is the last time you saw a genius 18 str fighter?

Depends on how you're defining genius. If you mean high Int? Not very often, because the system doesn't give Fighters enough incentive to have a high intelligence. If you mean a brilliant tactician? Not only have I seen a few, I've played a few myself.

I am bolding the part where the fallacy is a fallacy.

The Stormwind Fallacy fails to account for how the roleplaying set applies the rules. It assumes that role-players have less "system mastery" than optimizers. That system mastery is in effect the road to victory.

To the role-player, the above example is tantamount to cheating. The genius tactician who dumped INT is not following the rules and is thus not that gifted in System mastery. He's no different than the wizard who dumped his STR down to something in the 5 or 6 range but never operates under a heavy load; despite his clothes, spellbook and a
dagger constituting a heavy load.

The term is overused. The concept is not all encompassing. The application of it in forum threads is often knee-jerk.
It also sounds pretentious and is off putting to new players.

I'm a better than average RPer, I am also a reasonably sound optimizer. Much like Kyrt I spend a Looong time "building" a character. I do however fall into the camp that believes you should "play your stats".

That's where the Stormwind Fallacy fails I think. It actually gets used as an excuse to only consider the 6 stats as math boosters and not as driving parameters of character design.

PS.
I'm not picking on Kyrt, he's smart and knows how to RP. He just gave the clearest example of what I see as the Stormwind Fallacy's failure.

I'm late to this.

He ONLY thing wrong with Crane Wing, was that it's a defensive tree that paid off.

This game hates defense.

That's why DMs hate monks.
It's why rogues are squishy.
It's why fighters only get 1 good save.
It why armor, as a sub system, is lacking.

It's why Power Attack is a foregone conclusion but Combat Expertise is derided.

The ONLY thing that matters is Offensive capacity and anything that deviates gets a healthy dose of Nerfium.

Stuff like this just shows the cracks in d20 system fundamentals.

I think preppers get a bad rap.

I'm a former boy scout, farm kid, recreational hiker.
I like the woods.

I live in a place that,most years, gets at least one hurricane. We are far enough South that 8 inches of snow shuts down everything for at least 24 hours. Twice in the last 5 years I've gone without household electricity for 5+ days.

My two closest major population centers have major military installations.

I keep some basic "need that" stuff on hand. Including a serious Water filtration system. A .410 shotgun (for squirrels and raccoons in an emergency). Some more than First Aid medical supplies. I have a well as well as a city water hookup. Space blankets, MREs, portable fuel etc.

Also some seed stock that is NOT genetically modified, self replenishes and is designed for long term storage.

I'm not even remotely worried about Zombies, space invaders, Al Qaeda or the seemingly overnight collapse of the entire National, State, County and Municipal governments.

I am aware that our infrastructure is susceptible to Environmental and possibly Viral and Bacteriological events. There's not much wrong with a "just in case" plan. Much like training my kids how to get out of the house if it's on fire. I've planned how to feed my kids if groceries and water aren't moving.

Now the guys who are stockpiling weapons and dry goods in underground bunkers, well they have a hobby, an expensive hobby. Maybe they really think the fit will hit the Shan, maybe they just need an excuse for being grown men who still like to build "forts" and collect weapons. I like both of those myself, but my Paizo budget precludes an underground fortress.
Most preppers are just planning out for inconvenient situations, they don't make for good television though. Just like most Jr Beauty Pageant contestants aren't Honey BooBoo.

Also these guys are rookies. A serious Preper would acquire either a decommissioned military or modern Luxury yacht Diesel/Electric Submarine.

I don't think Summoners are overpowered.
I do think they can SLOW DOWN COMBAT. I hate that at a table.

I also have an old 3.5 houserule where any form of summon spell is creature specific, where MSIV doesn't summon a variable critter, it summons a Bralani named Ted, Ted has a character sheet. If the summoner wants to summon something else he needs a different spell, with all the costs for a different spell, as well as slots and memorization requirements.
This solves a ton of Summoner Stupidity.

I allow Leadership.
I put restrictions on it. Spellcasters can get an apprentice with it. Warriors and Rogues can attract anything. Barbarians can get barbies, Druids, bards and Bats. Monks get monks. I roll up the cohort. No min/maxed point buy. I pick the feats, name etc. Cohorts who exist solely to craft/buff don't exist. Crafters are capitalists, they work for money not praise.

I do ban the Pit spells.
Not sure if they are overpowered I just dislike them.

I did ban Echo Spell.
It as to much at high levels.

No one has actually played a Gunslinger in a group I've participated in. I can't decide if I like the firearm mechanics. Touch AC is kinda odd to me since I know from a Principles of Engineering class in college that the Spaniards put that ridge along the centerline of their breastplates to deflect musket balls.

I lock out high level play by preference.
That's not a ban, but I hate running games with players over 15th level. Too much stat prep. I'll play as a PC, but I've got more important stuff to do with my free time.

I try to encourage E8 games, but that's not always an option.

I'm not a huge fan of Vancian Magic, yet I think it is a necessary "evil".

One of the great killers of spell point/mana systems is that there are no fundamental rules for magic beyond Spells Known/Slots per day. Anything is possible via magic in D&D. Scaling power levels are also "off" as some splashy abilities are available at relatively low levels.

Death/Gravity/the Vacuum of Space heck even the basic laws of Matter and Energy are only minor inconveniences in the face of a D&D spellcaster. That lack of limitations leads to an assumption that no barrier could be imposed and you get "Rocket Tag".

Spell Points/Mana systems just exacerbate relative power inequities in the system. There can be no balance between classes when you have characters that can just go nuts at every encounter. Up thread someone pointed out that in Dying Earth, Vance's spells were "auto wins"; this is true of D&D in most circumstances.

The Spells are to Powerful.

Most systems with a point system recognize this and power down the magic. Sadly these systems fail to capture the wider player base because they want the potency of D&D magic. It's just that some also want the handicap that goes with them to vanish. The true God Wizard.

I've played lots of variant systems. Some good, some not so great. Over and over I find that balanced systems where the Mage just spams "magic bolt" for 1d6 damage fails to capture the players sense of the dramatic nature of spells. very few of these systems have spell lists even 10% of the size of the standard d20 system, much less the add ons.

On the other end of the spectrum; Allowing players to spam Lord Voldemort's Death Curse or "Sectum Sempre" is a terrible idea in a game that requires some degree of challenge to keep players engaged.

I've yet to see a game where spamming spells is a good thing, story wise. The CLW Wand is a possible exception, yet without it, the "15 minute" adventuring day would be just the adventuring day. Everyone would be beat up enough in most campaigns to call it for a few days of rest. Rememorizing would be a non issue.

"The Blade is Faster than the Spell"
A Mechanic that has slowly disappeared with each iteration of D&D is casting times. In AD&D the best spells were often hampered by onerous casting times. That has changed. Now even Summon Monster can be performed as a Standard Action and sometimes even as a Free.
No one Spammed Summon Monster in AD&D, it was horribly inefficient at 1 minute to cast. It was great as a prep spell but not mid fight.

With the current action economy, most fights are over pretty quick. Would the spellcasters be satisfied only getting off 1 or 2 spells in a typical encounter and likey doing nothing but casting a spell for the first 3 rounds? If so great you can ditch the Vancian system and spontaneous casting all together. Everybody knows everything. The spellcaster auto wins and the rest of the party just blocks until he gets off his Wish or whatever. The other players become very important and melee is fundamental to most encounters which become capture the flag (enemy spellcaster).

None of my players want to be the wizard in that scenario. they want to "do something" every round. That's the essence of D&D, which is where the Spell Slinger comes from I think. Sure we have some literary battle mages but most of the rapid fire spellcasters are post D&D fantasy.

Just one old guys opinion but given the Standard Action casting time and Vancian Magic system D&D is sorta stuck. You can't ditch one without the other unless you want a game that's all spellcasters, players and monsters.

This can only end well...

I've said this before regarding other applications........

The DUNGEONS & DRAGONS brand name is only worth a nickle outside of the gaming hobby. In truth, I feel that putting D&D into the final title of any live action film is a bad decision on a studio's part.

It carries connotations of high cheese and pre- pubescent silliness. We may hold the name D&D dear, but we are a TINY minority.

It was a good deal, at the time, for TSR to let Soloman have a continual license to make films branded as D&D. In context; the company was failing, the hobby was flooded and the former player base were writing their own stories only slightly influenced by the game. Those stories were just as likely, even more likely to be turned into celluloid. There was a real chance for the brand name to be circulated and recirculated in a different medium at NO COST to the company other than having their brand name attached to yet another bad "B" film.

No, Hasbro would never allow such a deal. Which is why Hasbro still hasn't made a film or allowed a film to be cut of any serious work. They slacked off on Dragons of Autumn Twilight, which Should have been a money maker, they've yet to do a Drizzt movie or adapt a single one of their enormously successful novels into a feature film.

Prior to LotR (which is a D&D movie, since D&D is a LotR ripoff at it's core). The idea of a well produced, Oscar caliber, sword &sorcery film was a pipe dream. Now with the insane success of Jackson and Columbus with the Harry Potter films and Martin with GoT, the studios will greenlight anything for preproduction just to have something that could be a hit.
Sadly, too many of the properties are in the hands of less than competent or less than influential people because they were optioned out prior to the current film trends.
Martin held on to Game of Thrones, which his contemporaries thought was dumb. LotR has been held by every major studio in the last 30 years. It took that long to get it made, competently, which with that property even coked out, transient, mid level film execs knew would destroy their careers if they goofed it.

A film based on D&D is silly, since D&D has mined (or robbed) everything. I'm not sure that you couldn't make any generic fantasy film and use most of the basic elements without stepping on any legal toes. A film based on The Icewind Dale trilogy or Dragonlance maybe has merit though DL is probably too big in scope.

If Hasbro/Universal wants to make a movie let them. If WB/Soloman wants to make a movie, let them. Heck if Paramount wants to make a Blackmoor game movie let them. Let them all vet realeased at the same time ( like Armageddon/Deep Impact, Mars/Red Planet, or the 2 Snow White movies). No film is going to be good unless they take it seriously and the D&D name pretty much GUARANTEES that it won't get taken seriously, not even by Hasbro. Who hasn't learned from their mistakes and seems to think that their IP covers everything, it doesn't.

Thats not quite fair.
Many of us who played the older editions of the game have been less than comfortable with the Magic Big Box Store that the game has devolved into. Gygax called it the "Monty Haul" campaign and it was something that was frequently avoided by long term groups but really popular with the newbies and the munchkins.
Many of those same players are still using their old homebrew campaign worlds or one of the older Pub worlds like Greyhawk or FR. Neither of which was designed as a place where you could pick up a CL 17 magic item as easily as a sway backed horse.

Also not everyone is convinced that the component rules are "flavor text". They are mechanically grounded rules. That the M is handwaived but the S is not is part of the reason for the thread. With each edition of the game the spellcasters get more powerful. But how much of it is a lack of system balance and how much of it is player base laziness?

If players disagree with a relative magic level they are welcome to do so, but if they aren't volunteering to run games as a GM then they can only complain so far. I play with a guy who outright bans spellcasters in any form. I like wizards but I still play with him because his games are fun.

@theJeff,
When you find that dragon horde worth 12,000 gp; how do you get it to market? The RAW would indicate that if it's 12,000 gold coins, that weighs 1200 lbs. In the traditional 4 man party that's 300lbs a character.

This is the type of stuff that gets handwaived and drives me nuts. It may be tedious to keep track of a wagon full of loot, but getting a dragon horde to market, 100 miles from the lair is an adventure in and of itself.

Now it's pretty much assumed that Bags of Holding, Haversacks and even Portable Holes are ubiquitous. It's also not likely that said horde is all gold. The copper coins are exponentially more difficult to get home.

This stuff may be "unheroic", but it's not really heroic for there to be no real challenges to adventuring. Every year the game "abstracts" more of the mundane stuff that actually made up a lot of the old game.