Ambrosia Slaad |
Does anyone know of the race point breakdown of the races from Ultimate Psionics?
It's not official from Dreamscarred, but Purple Duck did some breakdowns on their blog for the dromites, blues, and elans.
...RP suck hardcore.
Nah. There are some problems with the point values with the still un-errated ARG, but overall I think I serves as a pretty good guide for race creation/modification by GMs with some experience under their belt.
137ben |
The biggest problem is that Paizo approached the ARG like creationists approach science. They began with what they considered the answer and then built a system around trying to make it fit that answer rather than actually building a system that works.
Nicely put.
What's disappointing is that it is a big missed opportunity: the RP system could (mostly) work as constructed if they had adjusted the RP values of each trait to be more in-line with their actual benefit. The system doesn't need to be redesigned from scratch, just refined without the assumption that the core races are near equal.The worst parts, IMO, is not the fact that the system as written doesn't work properly (since you can just not use it), it's that it has lead to
a)Fans who insist that it is utterly impossible to make a working point-based system for races, classes, or anything else in pathfinder. After all, Paizo tried it and failed. And since anything Paizo publishes is the Platonic ideal of divinely dictated game design, (or so the claims go,) any other point-based anything must be even worse.
b)People who are misguided into relying on the race-point values as written, and so, upon encountering a new (printed or homebrew) race, their first reaction is to calculate is RP value and declare it overpowered/underpowered based only on that value.
I mostly came to the conclusion that after the core rulebook, the playtests have mostly been to generate interest rather than change/fix stuff.
I felt like the developers listened to feedback in both the Path of War playtest and the In the Company of Dragons playtest. But those were the only two I followed closely so I can't really compare.
Insain Dragoon |
Insain Dragoon wrote:Also discarded a lot of feedback in it's playtest... But that's none of my buisness....I mostly came to the conclusion that after the core rulebook, the playtests have mostly been to generate interest rather than change/fix stuff.
I have my complaints about the core rule book playtest itself too, but I wont delve any further.
Let's just say that the horrible nerfing Rogues and Fighters got was no bueno. Also poor monks.
Anyway RP according to ARG standards is pretty borked and I think the best way to do a race is to eyeball it.
LMPjr007 |
The biggest problem is that Paizo approached the ARG like creationists approach science. They began with what they considered the answer and then built a system around trying to make it fit that answer rather than actually building a system that works.
You do know that the races in Pathfinder ARE NOT balanced and never will be. All there needs to be a "perception of balance".
Milo v3 |
I felt like the developers listened to feedback in both the Path of War playtest and the In the Company of Dragons playtest. But those were the only two I followed closely so I can't really compare.
Well, I don't think paizo had much to do with the PoW playtest. Still, it's probably a very good thing Dreamscarred Press just ignores the ARG's race point system.
Ashiel |
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Ashiel wrote:The biggest problem is that Paizo approached the ARG like creationists approach science. They began with what they considered the answer and then built a system around trying to make it fit that answer rather than actually building a system that works.You do know that the races in Pathfinder ARE NOT balanced and never will be. All there needs to be a "perception of balance".
Oh absolutely. Which is the problem. A number of the core races have pretty obvious advantages or disadvantages compared to one-another, but instead of making a system that actually works, Paizo instead made a system backwards (where they decided all the core races have to appear balanced) which results in a clunky and obviously unusable system.
While 100% perfect balance is theoretically unachievable, it's obvious from the ARG that they didn't even try.
Michael Sayre Design Manager |
137ben wrote:Well, I don't think paizo had much to do with the PoW playtest. Still, it's probably a very good thing Dreamscarred Press just ignores the ARG's race point system.I felt like the developers listened to feedback in both the Path of War playtest and the In the Company of Dragons playtest. But those were the only two I followed closely so I can't really compare.
Yeah, that was a company level decision for DSP. Because of the wonkiness of the RP system, it was decided that was a seal they just didn't want to crack.
@137ben
Those playtests were conducted by Dreamscarred Press and Rite Publishing, respectively. As 3PP companies, they're capable of a greater degree of responsiveness than Paizo is. By the time Paizo does a playtest, 80% of the work has already been done and they're just looking for a little stress-testing before putting the final coat of paint on it and shipping it out the door. For DSP, Path of War was more like 50% done and the playtest was specifically part of the design and development process. It's not like either Paizo or DSP is better at community involvement, but there are just certain realities of their much different business models that impact what they're looking for from a playtest and how reactive to the feedback they get they can be.
Insain Dragoon |
One can also look at it as a form of marketing.
Paizo, as the big publisher, can just release something and people will buy it.
3PP have to be a bit more careful about what they release. They have to release something that their fans will purchase, so a lot of them do public playtests to help tailor their work into a direction considered acceptable by their potential customers.
Michael Sayre Design Manager |
One can also look at it as a form of marketing.
Paizo, as the big publisher, can just release something and people will buy it.
3PP have to be a bit more careful about what they release. They have to release something that their fans will purchase, so a lot of them do public playtests to help tailor their work into a direction considered acceptable by their potential customers.
Yep. Paizo, as the industry leader, gets a certain amount of leeway. Even when they publish something really bad (and it happens), they'll probably still have a minimum threshold of sales thanks to their subscription program and their reputation. A 3pp company could never put out a hardcover book with as many issues as, for example, the ACG and still get a second print run though. Truthfully, it's really impressive if a 3pp company gets a 2nd print run period.
So, the goals of a playtest run by Paizo are generally very different than the goals of a 3pp playtest, as is the allotted responsiveness.
137ben |
But from my perspective as a consumer, there reason for ignoring or not ignoring my input is more or less irrelevant to me. If I am going to dedicate a big chunk of time into playtesting a product, I only want to do so if I think it will make a difference. Otherwise, why bother? It's not helping the developers for me to give feedback that they ignore, except (possibly) for the minor benefit of free advertising when I expose my gaming group to the material (which, again, is not a big deal for a company like Paizo which has an advertising budget, but IS a bigger deal for a one-person or two-person company like a lot of 3PP).
...
Back on topic, the UP races can all take an extra PP as their favored class bonus (Psionic Aptitude). If one were to break the psionic races down into RP, how many RP do you (general you) think this is worth? Mark Gedak (a.k.a. Purple Duck Games) pegged it at 1 RP, on the basis that it was weaker than the half-elf's Multitalented (2 RP). I'm not sure it's actually weaker, though, particularly for a single-class character where multitalented has no effect.
Michael Sayre Design Manager |