Goblin Squad Member
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Can you list them? That would be constructive to discuss. If you are saying, "player-run" == gating content from you, it will be check/balanced by your social network and by market forces, I imagine? If that's what you're driving at...I'm just hope that I'm totally off on all the negative things I can see coming with this system.
Am I the only one here who has met every idiot in charge of anything player run in any game?
Nah what I believe he's fearing, is monopolies in the training department. I think this should be solved by the fact that there should be a large amount of settlements, each able to develop their own training.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm not sure I like the forced diversification. If I want to play a fighter, let me play a fighter.
Agreed. We definitely need to be able to access the next training with just the advancement from one traditional tabletop class, if that's the way we want to play our characters. Possibly two or three extra fighter feats to meet the prereq for the next fighter badge but egad why make us train things we don't want to get two Str like the example from the blog?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I really like what you are planning with attributes, and the xp buy system sounds great too. Overall a big thumbs up :)
It sounds good but wont this method of training penalize new/small settlements? How will you build in a trade off to make a new settlement worth the "player set" price of training?
Well if the more advanced training halls don't get increased numbers of training slots, you're not going to want all your valuable Elite Fighter University slots being used up by level 2 fighters training "how to hold a sword by the hilt rank 1". So low-level settlements can provide the easy training for relatively low cost.
the appropriate achievements/badges (we're not sure what name we'll settle on calling them)
The answer is staring you in the face out of your own blog. The exact word you're looking for is "Feat", as in "feats of derring-do", "feats of valour", etc. if you can disassociate that word from how you're currently using it in the blog and the normal Pathfinder connotations :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm not sure I like the forced diversification. If I want to play a fighter, let me play a fighter.Agreed. We definitely need to be able to access the next training with just the advancement from one traditional tabletop class, if that's the way we want to play our characters. Possibly two or three extra fighter feats to meet the prereq for the next fighter badge but egad why make us train things we don't want to get two Str like the example from the blog?
The example from the blog IS exactly "two or three [or however many] extra fighter feats to meet the prereq".
All it's saying is that if all you do is meet the MINIMUM skill requirements for each one you won't get enough Strength, you need to take more than the minimum of Fighter skills to qualify for the next Fighter rank. There will be plenty to choose from. The blog however gives you an alternative option which is to train other Strength-related stuff which isn't Fighter-specific. In this way, not all Level 8 Fighters are identical.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm not sure I like the forced diversification. If I want to play a fighter, let me play a fighter.Agreed. We definitely need to be able to access the next training with just the advancement from one traditional tabletop class, if that's the way we want to play our characters. Possibly two or three extra fighter feats to meet the prereq for the next fighter badge but egad why make us train things we don't want to get two Str like the example from the blog?
It could be worse, they could be talking about minimums in cross class abilities like DEX or even WISDOM to advance as well.
"Fighter 8 requires STR 17, WIS 11 and DEX 14" that sort of thing.
That said, I do not see your issue. The "other things" given as an example were things like the ability to use armor, something most fighters will want anyway.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would like more information on the "instructor" limitations.
Is it a set amount of instructors?
Is this amount a fairly large amount of instructors?
Can they be increased?
How long would they be occupied? If its just as long as it takes to purchase, then that seems like a non-issue, but if there is some set amount of time it takes or the instructors need to "rest" for a time then this seems annoying.
Im guessing its not as bad as it sounds, but I cant help but imagine the worst. Like trying to gain access every day for 2 weeks then finally getting it just to do what is basically a 2 min transaction from the instructor. Or like really long lines that take hours like Disney World or Communist bread lines.
Depensing on how bad or good the availibility is could be game breaking for me. It seems ridiculous to have this limitation, if there is no work around. You have in game money, ability score, prereq. skills, training time, and action requirements (kill 10 of x using a sword). And settlements could charge a high amount for high quality/rare training types. What is the point of having limited "instructors"?
Other than this issue, everything else in the blog sounds perfect to me. Id like to hear a dev response for the reasoning for this, as I doesnt make any sense to me. I dont understand the purpose.
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I don't really like the "Everyone starts out with the same ability scores" and "ability scores have no direct effect on game-play" either...but I understand perfectly well WHY they went that route.
Alot of people don't really know what they want to do on Day 1....and alot of people don't really want to end up permanently living with the consequences of the choices they made in initial character creation.
I'm more of a "you live with your choices good or bad" kinda guy...but that's a bit of a foriegn concept for many MMO players....so alot of people would absolutely hate being stuck with that kind of thing.
Ultimately the choice they made is probably a very practical one....even if it does take away some of the flavor/gameplay from character creation.
Actually it reduces the process of character creation down to "what style of hair will match my chainmail bikini".
There is no "skill gain". There is only "XP gain" over time. You won't set anything to train.
This is a major change. Instead of picking a skill to train, you'll simply earn XP. Occasionally, you'll go somewhere and spend the XP you've earned to buy skills.
Oh wow, ok I see. So they just removed skills, as we were thinking of them, from the game totally so now we just use the XP like coin to 'buy' feats or badges? I that what I'm seeing?
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Goblin Squad Member
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So they just removed skills...Not really. The Skills are still there.
Before, you would pick a Skill and wait for it to finish training.
Now, you'll just wait until you have enough XP accumulated, then you'll go buy the Skill.
Yep, which combined with the fact that character creation is merely a matter of picking the superficial appearance of your toon, means the best way to play if your not a crafter or just like fighting for the sake of it is probably log in, create your character and disappear again for a month.
You can then read up online on what skills work and what do not, log back in and spend a few days adventuring to meet other requirements and spend your points, log out again.
This, of course, is long term a good thing. Both for players who have a real life and for the devs as there is a reason to keep paying even when you are away for several months.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So they just removed skills...Not really. The Skills are still there.
Before, you would pick a Skill and wait for it to finish training.
Now, you'll just wait until you have enough XP accumulated, then you'll go buy the Skill.
Yep, which combined with the fact that character creation is merely a matter of picking the superficial appearance of your toon, means the best way to play if your not a crafter or just like fighting for the sake of it is probably log in, create your character and disappear again for a month.
You can then read up online on what skills work and what do not, log back in and spend a few days adventuring to meet other requirements and spend your points, log out again.
This, of course, is long term a good thing. Both for players who have a real life and for the devs as there is a reason to keep paying even when you are away for several months.
That's a good point on this nuanced change.
Hopefully in-game events will throw some cold water over players catching up on their beauty sleep, earning xp between zz for a whole month.
So they just removed skills...Not really. The Skills are still there.
Before, you would pick a Skill and wait for it to finish training.
Now, you'll just wait until you have enough XP accumulated, then you'll go buy the Skill.
Yep, which combined with the fact that character creation is merely a matter of picking the superficial appearance of your toon, means the best way to play if your not a crafter or just like fighting for the sake of it is probably log in, create your character and disappear again for a month.
You can then read up online on what skills work and what do not, log back in and spend a few days adventuring to meet other requirements and spend your points, log out again.
This, of course, is long term a good thing. Both for players who have a real life and for the devs as there is a reason to keep paying even when you are away for several months.
That's a good point on this nuanced change.
Hopefully in-game events will throw some cold water over players catching up on their beauty sleep, earning xp between zz for a whole month.
Seems like if they increased the physical requirements for each skills badge, they could offset any sort of feeling of inaction with this change. They might not need to, it's hard to say.
Onishi is right on the money! a monopoly is exactly what it will be
I'm concerned that unless we settle a hex ourselves, most of us will always be dependent on someone else to train. While some dependence on others is fine, being able to play shouldn't be dependent on the whim of someone else, and by denying a player access to training you can effectively stop a player from playing the game at peek ability until they cave to your demands or they can find a settlement that will allow them to train at a price they can afford.
Will settlement A, created on day one of early enrollment basically always be ahead of settlement X created a year down the road? One would think so unless the folks at settlement A are real slackers, this would give members of settlement A a huge advantage in construction of training facilities able to offer the highest levels of training.
If the members of settlement A decide to close or severely limit membership they now hold an advantage over a large portion of the player base that will be VERY hard to overcome.
Or I can see settlement A, large and powerful, but involved in a long drawn out war with several smaller neighbors offering the latest greatest training ONLY to those who agree to serve in their army.
Or how about this, I come along, I'm not a member of settlement A and I want to train, settlement A will not allow non-members to use up the "limited" training slots available at their training hall, however settlement A is the only one to offer that skill what do I do?
Or take that same scenario, however this time lets say I'm one of the founders of settlement X and need to train a skill. I travel to settlement A, who invite me to train ONLY IF I'll leave settlement X and pay 3x the going rate, or marry their ugly sister, etc...
It basically comes down to a case of the “haves vs. the have nots” where the “haves” are always in a position to demand whatever they choose.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Onishi is right on the money! a monopoly is exactly what it will be
I'm concerned that unless we settle a hex ourselves, most of us will always be dependent on someone else to train. While some dependence on others is fine, being able to play shouldn't be dependent on the whim of someone else, and by denying a player access to training you can effectively stop a player from playing the game at peek ability until they cave to your demands or they can find a settlement that will allow them to train at a price they can afford.
Will settlement A, created on day one of early enrollment basically always be ahead of settlement X created a year down the road? One would think so unless the folks at settlement A are real slackers, this would give members of settlement A a huge advantage in construction of training facilities able to offer the highest levels of training.
If the members of settlement A decide to close or severely limit membership they now hold an advantage over a large portion of the player base that will be VERY hard to overcome.
Or I can see settlement A, large and powerful, but involved in a long drawn out war with several smaller neighbors offering the latest greatest training ONLY to those who agree to serve in their army.
Or how about this, I come along, I'm not a member of settlement A and I want to train, settlement A will not allow non-members to use up the "limited" training slots available at their training hall, however settlement A is the only one to offer that skill what do I do?
Or take that same scenario, however this time lets say I'm one of the founders of settlement X and need to train a skill. I travel to settlement A, who invite me to train ONLY IF I'll leave settlement X and pay 3x the going rate, or marry their ugly sister, etc...
It basically comes down to a case of the “haves vs. the have nots” where the “haves” are always in a position to demand whatever they choose.
My impression is that no one settlement will be able to dominate all areas but may become advanced in a specialty and may choose if they wish to limit access to that.
Example:
The Stoof Yu Orl Settlement of Lawful Neutral monks specialising entirely in Monk skills only and eventually are able to train skills that no-one else has and chooses to limit the high level training to Settlement members only.
This may however result in other settlements banning their members for high level training in skills the Stuff you Orl Settlement cannot train. They then are faced with making a deal with these other settlements and allowing "exchange students" or sticking to their go-it-alone policy.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A bit concerned about the way settlements can hoard/control training.
Otherwise, very happy with what is being planned.
Its your settlement. You sacrificed a blacksmithshop and better marketplace to build a special and very expensive dojo for superior monk training for your members because that is your settlement specialty.
Why can't you restrict it to members and friends? Seems fair to me.
Onishi is right on the money! a monopoly is exactly what it will be
I'm concerned that unless we settle a hex ourselves, most of us will always be dependent on someone else to train. While some dependence on others is fine, being able to play shouldn't be dependent on the whim of someone else, and by denying a player access to training you can effectively stop a player from playing the game at peek ability until they cave to your demands or they can find a settlement that will allow them to train at a price they can afford.
Will settlement A, created on day one of early enrollment basically always be ahead of settlement X created a year down the road? One would think so unless the folks at settlement A are real slackers, this would give members of settlement A a huge advantage in construction of training facilities able to offer the highest levels of training.
If the members of settlement A decide to close or severely limit membership they now hold an advantage over a large portion of the player base that will be VERY hard to overcome.
Or I can see settlement A, large and powerful, but involved in a long drawn out war with several smaller neighbors offering the latest greatest training ONLY to those who agree to serve in their army.
Or how about this, I come along, I'm not a member of settlement A and I want to train, settlement A will not allow non-members to use up the "limited" training slots available at their training hall, however settlement A is the only one to offer that skill what do I do?
Or take that same scenario, however this time lets say I'm one of the founders of settlement X and need to train a skill. I travel to settlement A, who invite me to train ONLY IF I'll leave settlement X and pay 3x the going rate, or marry their ugly sister, etc...
It basically comes down to a case of the “haves vs. the have nots” where the “haves” are always in a position to demand whatever they choose.
An alternative would be.. If settlement A is hoarding their training facility not letting anyone train, then someone could get a large force together and go wrest settlement A from those in charge freeing up the training facility.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A bit concerned about the way settlements can hoard/control training.
Otherwise, very happy with what is being planned.
I don't know, I can see an organization existing that might put their effort into creating training facilities over anything else, and opening them up to the public and/or a large number of friendly allies.
I'm sure those allies would defend such an organization with great fervor.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A bit concerned about the way settlements can hoard/control training.
Otherwise, very happy with what is being planned.
Its your settlement. You sacrificed a blacksmithshop and better marketplace to build a special and very expensive dojo for superior monk training for your members because that is your settlement specialty.
Why can't you restrict it to members and friends? Seems fair to me.
It's not the fairness that concerns me. And I'm not convinced that it won't work, but I think it will need fine tuning.
I guess I'll need to see something like this in practice, and just how many options are available for each settlement to really settle my thoughts on the matter.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Awesome write up this week. The more I read, the more excited I get.
While I could see it being a problem in the early months, I like the idea of higher level traits being restricted to training at player settlements. This gives people an incentive to explore, to visit places they might not usually go, and bring traffic to your settlement. I see guilds (even smaller ones) specializing in a given training, and that giving them a place on the map, and making them a destination, not just a target. One of the things I remember most fondly about SWG was the need to visit player cities to train to make purchases, and how that opened up whole new areas to you that you might not have previously seen.
Now we just need to cross our fingers that settlements will have a high degree of personalization and customization, rather than just cookie-cutter make ups by tier (ala Age of Conan).
A++++ would read from again.
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Goblin Squad Member
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An alternative would be.. If settlement A is hoarding their training facility not letting anyone train, then someone could get a large force together and go wrest settlement A from those in charge freeing up the training facility.
Except that the only way you can gain ontrol of a settlement without destroying it is from within, moving the alignment of the town and then getting enough people two steps away to take it yet another alignment step forcing the original settlers out (incompatible alignment). The problem there besides all the time and effort is that you may lose the superior training wresting control of the town into an opposing alignment.
And all that while you are already a member of the town (because you would have to be a member to start shifting its alignment), so you could be training there yourself instead of going to all that trouble.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It is sort of sounding a lot like the most interesting way to play is go do something else for a month or two come back to a heap of XP and then spend a full weekend online doing the other stuff needed to rank up and get up to date then log off again for another month :D
Except without playing you are unlikely to be able to buy much of anything unless you sell off your horde of skymetal.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm not sure I like the forced diversification. If I want to play a fighter, let me play a fighter.Agreed. We definitely need to be able to access the next training with just the advancement from one traditional tabletop class, if that's the way we want to play our characters. Possibly two or three extra fighter feats to meet the prereq for the next fighter badge but egad why make us train things we don't want to get two Str like the example from the blog?
Heavy armor would surely give strength yet could also be cleric and paladin training, thus not exclusively fighter training.
Mining skills would likely give strength, and the armorer needs some ore to make your new half-plate.
swimming, climbing, athletics... all these would likely give strength, are non-fighter, and would be pretty useful in certain situations you will most likely find.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Is it a set amount of instructors?
Is this amount a fairly large amount of instructors?
Can they be increased?
How long would they be occupied?
I have absolutely nothing to back this up, but my guess is that a level 1 fighter training arena will have 1, maybe two trainers, and could train your fighter up to maybe level 3? Not much, but enough to give you the skills, confidence and chutzpah to leave town and explore far enough along the Crusader Road to find a settlement, a bit bigger, and Hey! There is a level 2 fighter training arena here! Awesome! I can train from one of the three instructors all the way to level 5! Swwt!
Moving on down the road......
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Goblin Squad Member
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It's the Char creation that sucks a lemon to me. It's counter intuitive, and all starting characters being tabula rasa clones is major anathema to role players. Characters should have flavor from day one.
Methinks characters will quickly (1 week or so) differentiate themselves in a mechanical sense. Moreover, "character" is going to be all about the player, and how they roleplay that character.
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Now correct me if I am wrong but wasn't it eluded to that evil settlements would not function as well as good settlements and may not have access to the same services that a well run good city would?
Yeah, you're wrong. Evil was never imputed to be worse in any way, CHAOS was, and GW have walked back from that a bit. Certain Alignment settlements will have better/exclusive access to certain things, like Necromancy, Assassination, Paladinhood, Barbarian Rage Powers, obvious stuff like that.
Otherwise, it's been stated that Chaotic settlements will have higher upkeep costs than Lawful settlements (for settlement buildings including training facilities). Along with the fact that training can be sold to 'outsiders', all you need to do is make sure that you are making money from your Chaotic activities to counter the difference. Some Chaotic characters/settlements will be able to counter difference and more, some won't.
Regardless if you end up somewhat behind on gold (due to higher upkeep costs), that shouldn't affect you TOO much in terms of character power from training? Why? Because we already know that the level advancement is relatively flat compared to the tabletop game, so newby characters aren't that much behind veterans. If that's the case, then not being able to afford the exact equal level of training (up to the amount enabled by your time in the game) is just not as big of a deal. Not that it isn't detrimental to some degree for those it affects, but I don't think GW is trying to push those alignments out of the game. Again, there is likely to be certain training facilities ONLY available in Chaotic or Evil settlements, which will be the unique advantages of those settlements.
And apart from gold costs, there are also 'merit badge' pre-reqs for Feats, which Chaotic characters should be just as able to acquire (albeit some may be Alignment-linked, same as Alignment-linked Class Abilities). In fact, for all the discussion about Alignment-exploitation (from previous Blogs), I can easily imagine 'merit badges' resulting from keeping a consistent alignment for long durations, or even not ever taking an "opposite aligned" action for a long period of time. (would you lose the merit badge as soon as you do?)
About the training building (along with other settlement buildings) upkeep cost, I imagine there will be some component that is 'fixed' per building (and non-payment of it would start to reduce the effectiveness of that building until the debt is payed, and eventually the building would become 'damaged' and 100% non-functional until the debt is payed, or even 'destroyed' completely and would need to be built again from scratch). But certainly for things like training, it seems that besides whatever base-line there is, there should be some 'scalable' cost for 'additional' training slots - certainly that makes sense when one considers that training may be sold by the settlement. This lets the baseline 'fixed' maintenance cost to be kept lower, but increased utilization will increase costs. The scaling doesn't have to be unlimited, past a certain point, you could well need to build another training facility, but some level in variability seems good here, if all of a sudden you have much less people wanting to train in something, it is nice to not have to pay the 'full' price for the 'full' capacity, although some fixed cost to cover having the basic capability seems more than reasonable.
Do not like the change on ability scores.
Agreed, although my concern is just that there really does seem room for things like ability scores to affect more events in combat. This is something that people expect coming from the Pathfinder game. Certainly, the mechanics are not going to be nowhere near the same, but that doesn't mean the Stats can't be used here, even if they have signifigantly LESS predominance over every mechanic of the game.
The Blog even says that DEX will affect Stealth, at least as an alternate minimum. Why not use the same for STR, CON, and every other score? This would have the effect of allowing an increasing competency in any area related to that stat, even if your training focused on specific skills, if they were all in a certain are (stat), that will translate over into increased overall competence in every area touched by that stat (although not much compared to actual training in those areas).
I'm not sure I like the forced diversification. If I want to play a fighter, let me play a fighter.
I read that line similarly to you at first, and while I think it's misleading, it doesn't actually mean what you think. I believe the Blog was just saying that beyond the explicit pre-reqs of a given Fighter ability (e.g. Weapon Focus, Spec), abilities may well have a requirement of '5 Fighter abilities' (it could be expressed in total, or as in addition to the explicit requirements). So it isn't anything about preventing you from playing a 100% fighter, the 'diversification' is WITHIN the fighter class itself, it's just that the ability in question doesn't care what aspects of fighter you have advanced besides the explicit pre-reqs. (Although I do think the door is left open for 'multiclass' pre-req abilities)
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The Blog seemed to be either conflating the terms 'Feat' and 'Trait', or wasn't explaining how it was implementing those terms differently... Those are distinct things in the game (Trait = 1/2 Feat, albeit Paizo also confusingly has similar names for Race Traits vs. Racial Traits which are entirely different things). Consistency helps comprehension here.
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About the XP thing, rather than 100XP/day, or any other numeric rate, I would rather just have everything presented in the 'currency' of DAYS. Or, to prevent conceptual confusion between the (faster) in-game days, and out-of-game days, have a specific term (Golarion lore derived, or something like 'Sigma'???) but that is MEASURING 1:1 out-of-game days of training. If certain things reduce the training time requirements for Feats by X%, it is easy enough to allow that regardless if 1 day = 1 unit or 100 units.
I don't see how inflating the numbers by 100x (much less something incoherent like 78) helps anybody. Having a distinct name (from days) is good, but if people can directly and easily correlate that with days (without needing to some division), it helps immediate comprehension. It sounds like this game is really going to be very complicated, so keeping complications to a minimum is a good thing to keep many players engaged.
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On the Commoner/Expert/Aristocrat thing, all I can say is that it should also be an option to start out not as a Commoner, but as an Expert/Aristocrat. I understand that it's intended that 100% newbies will have primary harvesting as an easy economic 'in', but why can't other newbies be doing the basic secondary processing for those other newbies? Starting out as an aristocrat could be even harder, but if one can still gain some wealth by farming low-level NPC/monsters, and then parlay that into trading profits (from usage of social skills?) or possibly some application of social skills for increasing efficiency of 'adventuring groups', then that could be viable also.
I just say this both for the variety in roles I just described, as well as for the role-playing potential: Aristocrats just don't have (any) Commoner levels. Having some bifurcation of player abilities, with some (probably the minority) who don't have any harvesting skills at all, already sets up a dynamic conducive to cooperation and specialized labor.
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Goblin Squad Member
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What is missing from the Blog is details of all the other things effected by abilities.
- Apparently saves will be ability based but will spell penetration (which determines the save) still be ability based or based on skill sets?
- There is no mention of how hitpoints will be calculated if they are not determined by CON.
- In PF you get extra spells based on ability scores are these now based on skills?
- there is no mention of how encumbrance will work if it is not STR based.
Not to mention running, jumping, spotting, climbing etc ... are these all going to be solely skill based with ability just limiting how many points you can spend?
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Goblin Squad Member
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An alternative would be.. If settlement A is hoarding their training facility not letting anyone train, then someone could get a large force together and go wrest settlement A from those in charge freeing up the training facility.Except that the only way you can gain ontrol of a settlement without destroying it is from within, moving the alignment of the town and then getting enough people two steps away to take it yet another alignment step forcing the original settlers out (incompatible alignment). The problem there besides all the time and effort is that you may lose the superior training wresting control of the town into an opposing alignment.
And all that while you are already a member of the town (because you would have to be a member to start shifting its alignment), so you could be training there yourself instead of going to all that trouble.
This is the real world politics of migration. I'm sure there are plenty of places in Texas that are getting a surge of new people from liberal, North Eastern states or California, who are shifting the voting pattern and electing politicians that think the exact opposite of the original inhabitants.
I'm thinking, one way a settlement can prevent this is to outlaw characters of alignments that are two far off from their settlements alignment. Easy enough for Lawful to outlaw chaotic or evil to outlaw good.
Reading that blog made me pretty damn happy.
I briefly skimmed through some of the posts in this thread and wanted to comment on the point raised about how new/late settlements will be able to compete or offer anything of relevance over much older settlements:
What happens when a settlement is attacked/over taken by enemies? If they lose all/some of their buildings, I imagine that keeps them on par with newer settlements. I figure there will be progress>lose>progress cycles with settlements. Also, with alignments and laws; I think you'll find large separations between settlements. Much like with characters spending a long time to train down 1 path, settlements should do the same.
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Cross-posting from here because it is relevant to this conversation as well:
After some thought on the ability score situation, I think I like that everyone starts at 10 + racial mods. It means that character creation isn't just when you are first going through the initial creation wizard, but it is actually the first few weeks of playing your character. As you gain exp and build your own experiences in game, your actions are creating your characters starting class and attributes. It also means racial modifiers matter. That -2 to STR will be much harder to buy off for a Halfling fighter, but if you do manage to build up to 18 it will be that much more impressive. The +2 to CON will make it much easier for Dwarves to get better Hit Points and resistances to damage or poisons, giving a bigger benefit than if you could just more cheaply buy CON points.
Since the attributes are just prerequisites for abilities then your first actions sculpt your character with more detail than using points to buy attributes. It also means you won't be penalized if you find you like melee combat more than spell casting, but you spent your points on int so now your are stuck or have to re-roll.
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Big thumbs up as well.
1) Love love love the Commoner/Expert/Aristocrat roles. Do I want to be the bestest, most evil-face-smashingest paladin I can be? Or do I want to be a good paladin who has ALSO learned to lead other good-hearted souls in combat? Meaningful choices, baby.
2) I agree with the choice to let your attributes spring organically from what you do. All the min-maxers who are crying in their soup right now because of a percieved loss of advantage would be boo-hoo-hooing way worse every time things changed and their perfect min/max choice at character creation was gimped.
3) But if you really, really, really want to min/max, or have some sort of flavor in your mechanics, you got your racial bonuses, and they are significant. Good compromise.
4) Making training a limited resource is brilliant. It means we will need to make meaningful political economy decisions about how we structure training access in our settlements. Even better, it means training trade. Our settlement will have to find a settlement that needs paladin and clerical training just as bad as we need druidic and ranger training. Seriously, brilliant.
2) I agree with the choice to let your attributes spring organically from what you do. All the min-maxers who are crying in their soup right now because of a percieved loss of advantage would be boo-hoo-hooing way worse every time things changed and their perfect min/max choice at character creation was gimped.
Come on, man. Try to keep the tone civil. You can cheer on things you like and advocate your preferences without resorting to characterizing anybody who has different preferences as only having the worst of motivations. I don't have a problem with training-raised stats, but don't start throwing mud at imaginary foes.
POSSIBLY, MAYBE there could be some people who like different approaches to stat mechanics, that has absolutely nothing to do with 'min maxing'.
Unless you're saying that every game company (including Paizo) who publishes game systems which allow for initial variances in stats is only doing that to somehow favor 'min maxing'. I mean, god forbid a game which pretends to model a world where every person, trained or not, tends to have variances in natural attributes like strength, dexterity, or intelligence.
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Goblin Squad Member
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4) Making training a limited resource is brilliant. It means we will need to make meaningful political economy decisions about how we structure training access in our settlements. Even better, it means training trade. Our settlement will have to find a settlement that needs paladin and clerical training just as bad as we need druidic and ranger training. Seriously, brilliant.
Agreed. That is exactly how I am seeing it. Love it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I mean, god forbid a game which pretends to model a world where every person, trained or not, tends to have variances in natural attributes like strength, dexterity, or intelligence.
I'd argue that every person living is trained constantly from birth to learn the skills needed for their life and if they learn those skills then their attributes increase naturally. You are taught basic reasoning skills in primary and secondary school and this raises your IQ. You lift weights, your STR is raised. If you play football or tennis, you raise your DEX and so on. Any difference in individual ability is due in part to natural ability, but working at is will make that difference up.
There will be differences in every individuals stats as each character grows. If it makes you feel better, remember that every player is cursed with a Mark of Pharasma that causes them to come back from the dead in the River Kingdoms. Perhaps the first death wipes all skills from the players minds and sets all attributes to 10. Subsequent deaths aren't so jarring and you are able to retain skills and attributes going forward, but that first step was hell.
Your argument there would seem to be AGAINST uniform starting stats, since characters are not started at infancy, but after reaching early adulthood, in which they can have had different experiences. But I'm not arguing pro/con, I don't really have a problem with the system as described, I am just addressing Mbando's strawman attack conflating anybody who disagrees with him as being a 'min maxer'. Make a rational pro/con argument (like you did), sure, but don't cut down anybody who disagrees with you (even if those people are hypothetical, it still lowers the tone of the forum). BTW, your Mark of Pharasma idea is a good in-game rationalization for the described set-up.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If it makes you feel better, remember that every player is cursed with a Mark of Pharasma that causes them to come back from the dead in the River Kingdoms.
Except some people have two ... whatever that portends.
Back on topic ... part of the fun of a new campaign is creating a character ... whether its too min/max or just for roleplay ... stats of all 10 does detract from that anticipation and fun. At least you can choose race. Hopefully it will not end up like 1st ed ... all wizards are elven etc.
Even giving people one or two points would make it more interesting.
If human still get to choose where they put +2 racial bonus I can see human being a very popular choice.
@Imbicatus:
Your argument there would seem to be AGAINST uniform starting stats, since characters are not started at infancy, but after reaching early adulthood, in which they can have had different experiences. Although your Mark of Pharasma idea is a good in-game rationalization for the described set-up. (As I wrote elsewhere, good in-setting rationalizations for PC-visible game mechanics is very preferable)
But I'm not arguing pro/con, I don't really have a problem with the system as described, I am just addressing Mbando's strawman attack conflating anybody who disagrees with him as being a 'min maxer'. Make a rational pro/con argument (like you did), sure, but don't cut down anybody who disagrees with you (even if those people are hypothetical, it still lowers the tone of the forum).
EDIT: Like Neadinil says, plenty of players just like the idea of playing an extra-X/less-Y characer from the get-go (early adulthood, not infancy). This is the default coming from a setting like Golarion/Pathfinder. GW can definitely make stats less crucial for effectiveness in many areas. That doesn't conflict initial stat variance, in fact it enables it, since the starting stats (and levelled up stats) are less centrally important, it isn't as big of a disruption to game balance if your starting stats are different. Likewise, having many Feats/Skills across ALL the 'Classes' have pre-reqs to most of the stats would give a signifigant downside to 'stat-dumping'. Inbicatus' Mark of Pharsma 'Zero'd Stats' idea is possible, but it does seem a bit out there and if there are alternative approaches, why not consider them? That's what these Blogs seem good at so far.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Questions:
I thought I understood something, but with the idea of trading/buying/selling training Im not so sure anymore.
I thought the limitation to what can be trained was based on personal alignment.....
But this blog has me wondering if the limitation was actually based on settlement alignment and therefore access.
Does this mean while I could never make my own LE/LG training facilities or be part of a LG/LE settlement as a CN player, that I could still purchase the training? And that the restiction is not me being blocked from training but whether or not I can find/buy the training? (This doesnt include things that have an obvious alignment interference, cause Id guess a Paladin would have to actually be LG)
Or when the dev blog talks about trading training, its talking about trading for 2 sides of the same coin. Like maybe both settlements are CE but they specialize in different types of evil training?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Greed I think you are on the right track with your questions, and your impressions are likely very close to correct as well.
Perhaps the term "trading" simply refers to the fact that a settlement can set the price of training and can even differentiate between members of the settlement and visitors.
I would imagine this will lead to free traing for members and much higher costs for outsiders. Training also becomes a source of income (tax) for the settlement.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Questions:
I thought I understood something, but with the idea of trading/buying/selling training Im not so sure anymore.
I thought the limitation to what can be trained was based on personal alignment.....
But this blog has me wondering if the limitation was actually based on settlement alignment and therefore access.
Does this mean while I could never make my own LE/LG training facilities or be part of a LG/LE settlement as a CN player, that I could still purchase the training? And that the restiction is not me being blocked from training but whether or not I can find/buy the training? (This doesnt include things that have an obvious alignment interference, cause Id guess a Paladin would have to actually be LG)
Or when the dev blog talks about trading training, its talking about trading for 2 sides of the same coin. Like maybe both settlements are CE but they specialize in different types of evil training?
If you are chaotic neutral you cannot join any of the Lawful Settlements.
However I am pretty sure if a LG settlement decided to sell you training it would be fine ... providing your personal alignment was compatible with the training.
For example if a LG settlement decided it was OK with selling training to non member visiting CN characters you are fine to try and train there - however training as Monk is still out because your personal alignment is not lawful.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm mixed about this blog. I like the way they're going with it, but what about the players/companies that don't plan on belonging to a settlement? Bluddwolf, if I remember correctly you planned on having your lovely band of thieves live out on the road, and in huts/hideouts if available (correct me if I'm wrong). I'm almost positive my company, The Bloody Hand also planned on being a "nomadic" group off assassins and cut-throats. Does this mean we have to either find a settlement to "piggyback" off of, or pay the higher costing settlements that allow outsiders to train?
I think aside from truly Alignment/Class-specific things (LG:Pally,C:Barb,E:Necro), the main point of Chaotic detriments re: training structures was that they have a higher maintenance cost like all settlement maintenance does for Chaotic settlements (due to poorer oversight or governance, i.e. Chaoticness). Whether they do so at a higher cost in their own settlement, or pay others at a higher cost to use their training structures really results in the same thing: higher costs, albeit one is going to another group (maybe their ally) and one is just going back to the server. The whole point of Chaotic alignment is that you did some things that Lawful types would not have done... presumably at least some of things resulted in $$$ that the Lawful type would not have gained, so at least potentially it all equals out. (EDIT: I believe the Chaotic-only Bandit PVP flag lets you loot more stuff than normal, and that still applies in 'Wars' as well as with the 'Stand and Deliver' mechanic)
@Tigari: The game seems structured around training to advance 'class abilities', not just new things you can magically do after killing so many monsters/people. If you or your group don't own your own training centers, then yes, you will have to arrange with the people who do run training centers on how to use them. Perhaps paying them (they do have a cost to maintain, so this is reasonable), perhaps arranging other deals.
From the blog, it seems certain that GW is forseeing settlements to 'sell' their training capabilities, and in fact forsees settlements to enter alliances with each other, to be able to take care of training resources that they do not all have themselves (which makes sense, instead of all replicated the same skill training, several small settlements can specialize and access the entire pool of training resources between all their allies).
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Goblin Squad Member
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@ Neadenil Edam
Yes. What you stated is pretty much what I was getting at but was not sure about. If this is the case, then anyone should be able to get more or less whatever training they want.
So most common skills would probably be non-alignment affiliated.
I guess my follow up question is what classes have alignment restrictions, and what are they? And which have no alignment restiction?