|
I've never actually analyzed it to that degree, to be honest with you. While a weapon may be listed as doing 1d6 damage, I assume that's based on a typical combat scenario. I don't assume that if someone said "Here, hit me right in the neck with your short sword," i.e., didn't defend the attack, that the attack would still do only 1d6 damage.
Exactly. Because it wouldn't -- it would be a Coup de Gras, which would require a Fort save vs death, no matter how many hp you had.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Pathfinder v2 needs to give the spell lists a through combing.
Practically every spell in the game needs to be modified to fit it's level, or it's level change to fit it's actual power. And a fairly large number just need to be cut altogether.
They also need to make the choice between prepared spellcasters and spontaneous spellcasters a real choice again. Strip away all the ways that prepared spellcasters have to cast spontaneously. Likewise, strip away all the ways that spontaneous spellcasters have to add extra spells known. Finally, boost spontaneous spellcasting up so it's progression is equal to prepared spellcasting.
If they don't massively rebuild the underlying system, then they need to make the Automatic Bonus Progression from Unchained into the standard, so that the characters themselves are actually heroic, not just the conduits through which a bunch of items save the world.
Yes, they must destroy and rebuild it all from scratch... Following the same winning strategy that WOTC did when they moved beyond 3.5.
"Somebody else failed at doing something while attempting to change something, that means nothing should ever change. Ever ever!"
This is especially weird since by all accounts 5th Edition is doing pretty damn well, which proves a game can be different, and still good, and is likely to be successful in the future.
|
|
Wizards tore it apart, reclaimed the lumber and rebuilt something else entirely.
Paizo needs to tear is apart and rebuild the same thing from new material and cleaned up blueprints.
Cleaning up the spell list and reigning in caster power is one part of that.
Exactly. I'm not talking about completely changing things from the d20/3.X system (that would be too good to hope for). But what I am talking about is basically actually making the attempt to have magic be not ridiculously overpowered. Hell, half the problem with magic in 3.x/PF isn't just that it's overpowered compared to what martial classes get, it's that by even the mid-levels, there are spells that completely render some of the more classic adventure tropes irrelevant. Those spells need to be pushed towards the higher levels (or better yet, eliminated).
|
|
Just because you don't get a lot of +1s to everything every time you level up, that doesn't mean that you don't get anything.
Let's take a look at the fighter, since I can just look right at the Player's Basic Rules (the PHB is all the way in the other room. Sue me, I'm on vacation, I get to be lazy).
Level 1, he starts out with a fighting style (chosen from Archery, Defense, Dueling, Great Weapon Fighting, Protection, and Two Weapon Fighting) and Second Wind (a bonus action that allows you to instantly regain 1d10 + fighter level hit points).
Level 2, he gets Action Surge, which allows him to take one additional action beyond his regular and bonus actions.
Level 3, he takes his Martial Archetype.
Level 4, he gets to improve one ability score by +2, or two scores by +1.
Level 5, he gets an extra attack per round.
Level 6, another ability score improvement.
Level 7, another martial archetype feature.
Level 8, another ability score improvement.
Level 9, he gets Indomitable, which lets him re-roll a savings throw he fails.
Level 10, another martial archetype feature.
Level 11, another extra attack.
Level 12, another ability score improvement.
Level 13, another use of Indomitable.
Level 14, another ability score improvement.
Level 15, another martial archetype feature.
Level 16, another ability score improvement.
Level 17, another use of Action Surge and another use of Indomitable.
Level 18, another martial archetype feature.
Level 19, another ability score improvement.
Level 20, another extra attack.
As you can see, there aren't any dead levels. And the really fun toys are the martial archetype features. And his numbers actually do inflate at a pretty decent rate.
Mogworld by Yahtzee Kroshaw
Often overlooked, very funny with a lot of interesting ideas.
Exactly. Because it wouldn't -- it would be a Coup de Gras, which would require a Fort save vs death, no matter how many hp you had.
Coup de Grace - yeah, that would be a fine way to rule it if you choose and inline with the rules as written. It just doesn't fit with how I view the game world. HP to me is the ability to shrug of injuries and turn deadly blows into glancing blows.
I don't care for the type of world where HP represents being able to be stabbed in the throat repeatedly and surviving.
I mean, if in one of your campaigns, a person is on the block, and an executioner is swinging to take their head off, do you have them roll a CdG? And if the person actually survives the strike, do you rule that then as a miss? Only partially cutting through the person's head?
If after two or three swings, the person is still alive, what does that mean? If you apply the "any HP between 1 and max means you're completely fine" thought, then the guy to be executed is no worse for the wear.
To each their own.
That which you label as "common sense", you attach a certain weight to. That is, by labeling something as "common sense", you effectively call anyone who disagrees with you an idiot. Sure, you technically give them room by saying that everyone's common sense is different, but I'd wager a guess that if you made a ruling at your table that one of your players contested, and (as with your own example) the ONLY rebuttal they could offer was that you were failing to "apply common sense", you'd be insulted.
Right, but I/my players would never say "Common sense, you're dumb, moving on." If someone disagrees with a ruling, I expect they can explain why.
In a recent session, the PCs were outside hunting game to stock up on their food supplies. After having successfully hunted the game, I stated a time frame for how long it would take to skin/clean/bag the animal.
The person in the group who is a hunter in real life pointed out that my time frame was way too long. He said it would only take a 3rd as long as I had initially suggested.
Seeing that my knowledge on the subject is limited (I don't hunt,) I went with his suggested amount of time.
People do have different expectations and can come to different conclusions. However, anyone who suggests that common sense supports falling 5000 feet and surviving to me is being disingenuous. I'd be more than happy to listen to their explanation though. If its simply "the book says so" - I don't find that to be a common sense argument, that's a mechanics overrules common sense argument.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'm 22. In terms of what I read before I was 12, which is about when I started on 3.5 (bolded are what I'd consider standard):
Chronicles of Narnia
The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings (most important pre-D&D influence)
Various fairy tale collections
Earthsea series
Lots of low fantasy YA books (think Harry Potter, Bartimaeus trilogy)
The Old Kingdom books (Garth Nix, who happened to also write for gaming magazines back in the day)
Eragon series (heavily steals borrows from LotR)
Princess Bride movie
Star Trek: Next Generation and Buffy reruns (fantasy and scifi tv shows in general)
Around my first year or two of 3.5 play, I did dip my feet into MMOs (Runescape), but I definitely don't expect video game-style shops in my RPGs. I also started reading old Dragon magazines my brother checked out from the library, and bought the Eberron Campaign Setting. The latter two were by far the biggest formative influence on my gaming tastes - I'm a huge fan of genre mashup games. I haven't noticed a predilection towards any power level but I'm certainly not averse to epic level games, because there were Dragon articles catering to those games and the articles were interesting to read.
|
|
I mean, if in one of your campaigns, a person is on the block, and an executioner is swinging to take their head off, do you have them roll a CdG? And if the person actually survives the strike, do you rule that then as a miss? Only partially cutting through the person's head?
If after two or three swings, the person is still alive, what does that mean? If you apply the "any HP between 1 and max means you're completely fine" thought, then the guy to be executed is no worse for the wear.
Cleanly slicing off someone's head is notoriously difficult. If someone survived the damage and made the Fortitude save (vs DC 10+3d12+3x1.5xSTR), then proceeded to roll two more natural 20s and made both their second and third Fortitude saves, then yes, it would be strange. The executioner might worry that the executionee is blessed by some luck deity, and refuse to swing any more. Or if they know the condemned is some sort of demigod, they'll keep hacking away, because some necks are just so ropey with muscle and that you need a half-dozen blows to cut through. This is hardly the worst case of rules falling short of verisimilitude.
This is hardly the worst case of rules falling short of verisimilitude.
Perhaps not, but what does it look like in the game? Generally when an executioner doesn't cleanly cut off someone's head, the person is still severely and usually mortally wounded.
Assuming we apply the thought that HP of at least 1 or more means "completely fine," then how do we describe this person that survived three swings of an executioner's axe?
If we read the rules in plain text without any extrapolation, we're left with a world where people can fall 5000 feet and land alive and "completely fine", swim around in lava, and potentially move around even though they're dead.
I would argue that these are examples of stretching the mechanics of the game beyond what they were intended to handle, but I wouldn't deride a person for wanting to play that way. Its just not the kind of game I'd want to play.
|
|
Have you checked out Kendle Unlimited? There are some good older books available sometimes.I haven't yet; isn't it a subscription service? That would keep me from using it at this point in my financial status.
I looked through what Amazon had for Edgar Rice Burroughs and found that several books are free for Kindle download without Kindle Unlimited
I don't see how arguing about how the game is "supposed" to work is germane to a discussion on what elements of fantasy art/literature influence the thematic aspects of your campaigns?
Yeah, definitely getting into derail territory at this point. I think it helps to explain people's expectations of a game system, though. Its definitely been very interesting, IMO.
Yes, they must destroy and rebuild it all from scratch... Following the same winning strategy that WOTC did when they moved beyond 3.5.Of course you ignore that they also used that strategy when they transitioned from 2e to 3.0.
Ninja'd on this already.
Obviously, changing the underlying system does not mean failure or bad sales necessarily when seeing these items.
On the otherhand, I think PF might actually LOSE a LOT of players if they did something like this.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Yes, they must destroy and rebuild it all from scratch... Following the same winning strategy that WOTC did when they moved beyond 3.5.Of course you ignore that they also used that strategy when they transitioned from 2e to 3.0.Ninja'd on this already.
Obviously, changing the underlying system does not mean failure or bad sales necessarily when seeing these items.
On the otherhand, I think PF might actually LOSE a LOT of players if they did something like this.
Honestly, a lot of the issues the system now has can be traced back to them not faithfully converting spells from 2e to 3e. They took out the drawbacks that reigned in the spam casting of a lot of spells, like haste aging you a year. This made sense from the perspective of people want to actually be able to use their toys, and made the game a lot more fun for casters. But they didn't pay enough attention to how those limitations affected the spell's perceived power. Most of the spells that are considered broken today either had expensive material components that are now trivial to find because of reworks to the economy or metagame drawbacks to reduce their usage.
I've noticed a more recent trend in where a lot of groups don't want to start at 1st level. I wonder if this could be traced back to some of the different standards people have for role playing games?
It seems like the farm boy turned hero was a well-known trope, not sure if it is as common today. If more recently the standard has the main characters start off as already quite skilled/competent, then it could explain this to some degree.
I've noticed a more recent trend in where a lot of groups don't want to start at 1st level. I wonder if this could be traced back to some of the different standards people have for role playing games?
It seems like the farm boy turned hero was a well-known trope, not sure if it is as common today. If more recently the standard has the main characters start off as already quite skilled/competent, then it could explain this to some degree.
That's a story telling trope that is independent of genre. You can do do zero-to-hero in sci-fi, modern military, sports, etc. Examples include:
Karate Kid
Batman Begins
Highlander
Ender's Game
Dr. Who (not the Doctor, but Rose Tyler and a couple other companions)
And there are plenty of fantasy stories that don't rely on this trope for characters:
The Princess Bride (Westley enters the story fully capable)
Lord of the Rings (Aragon and Gandalf don't need training montages)
Thieve's World (an old favorite of mine, but it's format was always dealing with characters in their current state)
Drizzt Do'Urden, it isn't until the second trilogy that his origin story is dealt with.
I've often found D&D a very limiting game in that it only does the zero-to-hero style of story. Starting at a higher level is the only way to really modify that.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Lots of low fantasy YA books (think...Bartimaeus
That was a damn good series. Wish there were more.
That's a story telling trope that is independent of genre. You can do do zero-to-hero in sci-fi, modern military, sports, etc. Examples include:Ender's Game
I would dispute that particular example. Ender doesn't really go from "zero to hero" he waltzes in, takes a very short time to get his bearings, then crushes everyone and everything that gets in his way up through the finale.
Honestly, a lot of the issues the system now has can be traced back to them not faithfully converting spells from 2e to 3e. They took out the drawbacks that reigned in the spam casting of a lot of spells, like haste aging you a year. This made sense from the perspective of people want to actually be able to use their toys, and made the game a lot more fun for casters. But they didn't pay enough attention to how those limitations affected the spell's perceived power. Most of the spells that are considered broken today either had expensive material components that are now trivial to find because of reworks to the economy or metagame drawbacks to reduce their usage.Yes, they must destroy and rebuild it all from scratch... Following the same winning strategy that WOTC did when they moved beyond 3.5.Of course you ignore that they also used that strategy when they transitioned from 2e to 3.0.Ninja'd on this already.
Obviously, changing the underlying system does not mean failure or bad sales necessarily when seeing these items.
On the otherhand, I think PF might actually LOSE a LOT of players if they did something like this.
I pretty much agree. 3.0 took away a lot of the baggage/problems with using magic in earlier editions, without considering the effect that has on the utility and power level of casters
"Fixing" the magic system/spell list doesn't require anything like a complete overhaul of the game. I think you could significantly bring down the caster-martial disparity of the game with a few mods to the more powerful spells, slight tweaking of spell lists, and overhaul of the 9 level casting classes. Restricting the number of schools a Wizard can cast from would for instance do wonders about the whole "I have a spell for that" problem.
Let me get this straight. You want discourage Haste use by spellcasters in order to "weaken" them in power. Do you have any idea how many players of martials will howl if that was done? Haste is one of the buffs most demanded by parties, who are you helping by eliminating it's use?
I didn't get that impression at all. I got the impression that Caineach believes that powerful spells in 2e were balanced based on other factors. When those spells were ported over to 3e, many of those other factors fell away.
That should not imply that bringing back those factors is the way to go in Pathfinder.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Aside from scrubbing out all the limitations like Haste aging and the like, the 3.0 developers basically just copy/pasted the spell descriptions, durations, etc from 2e. They didn't bother to take into account the (rather massive) change to a completely new system.
For example, durations got a MASSIVE buff in the transition. If something lasted 5 minutes in 2e, that was actually only 5 combat rounds. 5 minutes in 3.x/Pathfinder is 50 combat rounds. Essentially, a substantial number of spells got their duration multiplied x10.
3.0, and it's successors 3.5 and Pathfinder really are "Caster Editions" in almost every sense of the word.