I don't know that I'll ever play as a kid, allow retraining, or get much traction out of the random tables (I've got older editions for that), but if I've got something to help mechanically incentivize my less-motivated roleplayers to 1. get involved in downtime, 2. use their downtime creations to enhance their power and then 3. build kingdoms of their own, then I ask one question: I already made the wish, why isn't the book in my hand yet?
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I feel the same for the most part. A friend of mine always used to comment on Harry Potter, wondering why in the world a parent would let their kids go to a school where the chance of death is an every year possibility.
Just so you know, the world-renowned Chinese Opera of Beijing takes in kids from the age of 7 or 8 to train as students, but only if the parents sign a document releasing the Opera from any responsibility if the kid is hurt or killed during his training.
Sumo wrestlers in Japan start to follow intensive studies, with real risks of getting seriously hurt, at age 7 too. Same for ballet dancers in the Opera de Paris or Shaolin monks.
In many parts of the RL world today, parents are willing to take the risk that their children get hurt if it means that the children are sure to lack for nothing and can hope for a lot of wealth and fame.
It might be different perception, but to me your sport example, would be an athlete that change from jump to 100m dash, is not retraining, but simply getting a new feat skill focus:run on top of his skill focus:jump. While not focusing anymore on the jump discipline, he still is way better than common people at jump. That's how I sea gaining experience, not be replacing something you've learn before with new stuff you need now.
Like I said, I'm looking foward to Paizo implementation and I believe that they came up with a good roleplaying way to explain retraining.
I don't see it that way. I'm pretty sure that if a long jumper stops training long jump, and starts dashing, and then suddenly try to long jump, he *won't* be as good as before.
I'm pretty sure that if Ussain Bolt starts training for the 400 dash, and stops training for the 100 dash, then he tries to run the 100 dash in a given meeting next year, Yohan Blake will beat him.
Same goes with every other sport. If tomorrow the world champion of fencing leaves that sport, and starts training boxing, if he go back to fencing in 2016 olympics, he won't win. He no longer has Weapon Focus with the rapier. Sure, he is still good, better than you and me. He has better DEX, and higher BAB. But he is no longer better than the guy that won silver medal in London. On the bright side, he is now able to beat the crap of that silver medal with his bare hands, because he traded Weapon Focus Rapier, with Unarmed Strike
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
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I feel the same for the most part. A friend of mine always used to comment on Harry Potter, wondering why in the world a parent would let their kids go to a school where the chance of death is an every year possibility.Just so you know, the world-renowned Chinese Opera of Beijing takes in kids from the age of 7 or 8 to train as students, but only if the parents sign a document releasing the Opera from any responsibility if the kid is hurt or killed during his training.
Sumo wrestlers in Japan start to follow intensive studies, with real risks of getting seriously hurt, at age 7 too. Same for ballet dancers in the Opera de Paris or Shaolin monks.
In many parts of the RL world today, parents are willing to take the risk that their children get hurt if it means that the children are sure to lack for nothing and can hope for a lot of wealth and fame.
Unfortunately, in the USA, we seem to have a mentality that children need to live in a padded world and protected from all danger. We remove historical park equipment that no one has been killed or permanently harmed by because in the last two years three kids sprained a hand or had a big bruise from playing on it wrong and a lack of supervision. We find bans on toys, zippers, and activities that people believe might kill a kid, but either never had or only did so because of a negligent parent.
Switching gears, the Spartans started a boys training at 7. They would be given clothes that barely protected them from the elements, put in horrible shacks, and given little food. Their training was brutal too, sometimes deadly. All this prepared and toughened them for battle, which they were famously amazing at.
I despise those types of Americans...
I am kind of like Gohan training Trunks (nerdy reference I know...). I throw them into the water to learn to swim and only save them if absolutely necessary.
No money now. Time for me to get my pumps and lipstick, and hit the streets to make some dough.
Leopard Street in Corpus is a goldmine for this.
Between the three campaigns I'm running and/or prepping right now, I can either put every single new rule option listed here to immediate use, or have already put some earlier version of it to use. Cannot wait!
I'm utterly ambivalent about being able to play children. I guess I just don't understand the appeal at all of sending a kid on a dangerous quest risking decapitation, disembowelment, and mind warping magic*.Which we address. :)
sending a kid on a dangerous quest? Quests like this (link to youtube)? ;-)
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And then there's the Goonies!Young Heroes from popular fiction:
Harry Potter, Aang (the last airbender), young Pug, Thomas, Jimmy the Hand (Magician by Raymond E. Feist), Spider-Man ("My name is Peter Parker and I was Spider-Man since I was fifteen years old"), X-Men (high schoolers), Link (the Legend of Zelda), the characters in The Chronicles of Narnia.
Young Adult fantasy fiction is full of awesome child/teen characters who get into all sorts of danger. Yeah they make mistakes, but that's the fun of those characters, getting in over your head but still coming out on top. Or making terrible mistakes and then trying to make up for them.
To be fair, even when I was a kid, I couldn't believe the X-Men were teenagers :p Too buff and tall!
If I recall correctly, in Ocarina of time, Link was only ten when he set out to save Hyrule.
Good enough for me.
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This thread got me back into playing Golden Sun.
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This thread got me back into playing Golden Sun.
It got me back into playing Final Fantasy and Fire Emblem games... Especially XIII for Hope.
In a world where people can make pacts with demons or dodge 20-foot-radius fireballs, I don't think it's weird for a person to be able to retrain a now-obsolete feat, archetype, or even a class level.I love hearing a Dev saying this, especially when it comes from you :-)
Thank you!Not being able to retrain feats is probably one of the main reasons I don’t like playing some of classes such as ranger and fighter (even though fighters can retrain some feats). Cleave is great at some levels but one of those feats that you might want to swap. And what if you pick a feat chain and the regret it?
This deserves an explanation. Mind that's a very personal explanation, so take it with a grain of salt and all the rest.
I come from an early era of RPGs, both PnP and CRPGs. Feats, skill points, retraining was something done only with command line cheats or third party "trainer" softwares (for videogames) or not at all (for tabletop RPGs).
Perhaps this has stuck as an unfair move. Don't know.
Moreover, I developed a simultaneous interest in tabletop wargames. The ones with a hex map full of symbols and two or three colors (not the fancy hand painted maps or high-definition renders), and small cardboard counters - games that actively tried to fry your brain, like Breakout Normandy.
In those games, an often explitly stated rule was that any counter moved during your turn coudn't be taken back later if you changed your mind - even if it was still your turn and you hadn't finished making movements/choices. That simulated the tactical mistakes made by HQ during a battle.
Choosing a feat (or devoting a bunch of skill points for Use Rope) is choosing a strategy. You may make mistakes. You survive and live with your mistakes. These are things that define your character as much (or sometimes, more) as your optimal choices.
You have fun playing a character that's succefull despite not having the optimal feat at the optimal level range.
You don't retrain your past. Not at my table.
I respect your opinion but I don’t agree.
A fighter can swap/retrain some feats. A sorcerer can retrain/relearn spells so why not let players at rare occasions retrain feats or skills?This game is all about having fun and giving inexperienced players or players that have a more organic approach to character builds the option to rebuild a character instead of creating a new on benefits the game. True, I would like players to rebuild their characters at will but forcing a player to play a character that has evolved to something different than he/she originally planed isn’t fun. Things may happen during a campaign that changes a character to go from path A to path B. Why not let him/her?
A fighter can pick cleave at level 2 or 4 and swap it later, but if he picks it at level 3 he can’t?
What about a Paladin that starts out as a sword and shield character and picks Shield Focus, then later find a two handed that she ‘bonds’ with? Perhaps it’s a holy weapon or whatever. So she should keep Shield Focus even thou she won’t be using a shield for the rest of the campaign? That isn’t fair, fun or even logical. She swings her two handed weapon for 10 levels and never uses a shield, but she still is more skilled with a shield that with hear weapon?
That actually happened in one of our games. A cleric found a +1 mace that could cast lightning bolt once per day. He found when he was level 5 or 6 and he kept it for the rest of the campaign that eventually ended when the party was level 16 or 17. It wasn’t really a great weapon and he couldn’t upgrade it because it was a special item, but he kept it. What if he had picked weapon focus morning star at level 3? Should he be punished just because he plays is character in character?
Again, I’m not saying players should be able to rebuild their characters every time they have downtime, but if needed, there should be a possibility and if this book can provide guidelines or help on how and when this could be done, I thank Paizo.
This could be the help the core bard needs to finally make Versatile Performance useful.
This thread got me back into playing Golden Sun.It got me back into playing Final Fantasy games... Especially XIII for Hope.
Idk, after 12 I got bored with them. Heard 13 was super linear and the characters weren't very inspired.
Idk, after 12 I got bored with them. Heard 13 was super linear and the characters weren't very inspired.This thread got me back into playing Golden Sun.It got me back into playing Final Fantasy games... Especially XIII for Hope.
I like the Story of 13 even though it is slightly linear. I like 12's Story as well... But hate how it would take forever to get places.
The characters were designed to get back to the classical Archetypes of the FF Characters. They are pretty unique. Their character archetypes at least aren't as Cliche as 12's. I mean you have the Dishonoured Knight/General (Basch), displaced Princess-In-Distress (Ashe), The Orphaned Rogue drug into the story (Vaan), etc.
Overall I am also looking forward to this book. Having some firm rules to expand on all the ideas I have for really running a sandbox type game. However....
I dont like the retraining thing. I don't want my players metagaming low levels to be op knowing that they will lose steam at later levels. Letting them do it knowing they can just swap things out for things that will make them op at higher levels. The only exception i might take would be to swap to an archetype that will better suit character development.
Young characters? REALLY? This will not be something I allow at my table without an exceptional reason from a very mature player with a really good concept to back it up. That or running the whole party thru a pre adventure fable style, and that would only be a very short term thing and has it's own little problems.
Everything else on the other hand I simply love the potential for it and can't wait for the book to come out.
Asta
PSY
I say wait to see what the Retraining is before saying no.
& Young Characters are niche regardless.
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I think this is either going to be an all win or an all fail book.
I've purchased all of the Ultimate books so far, and I don't regret any of the purchases. Paizo does good work.
But if there was an area of weakness in them it was in the alternate rules...which seems to be a large chunk of this book. If not the entire book.
That said, even if I didn't like some of the Alternate Rule sets, they were always interesting to read and clearly labeled as optional.
Which is what I am hoping for here.
It could be really good, or it could be the first book I ban from the table. Some of the comments about skill use in the downtime stuff expansion worries me if it becomes "This is the rule, I am entitled!" rather than "Hey if you want this, here is a framework we can look at!"
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9. There's a Table for That.
So I go through all the trouble of making up CP 2020 style background tables for Pathfinder only to have Paizo come up with their own and undoubtable better version. Damn you Paizo! *shakes fist in air* >.<
@Ciretose: I think this is more of Options that allow you to represent your characters non-adventuring lives. & I have to say that I love the Optional Rules.
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9. There's a Table for That.
So I go through all the trouble of making up CP 2020 style background tables for Pathfinder only to have Paizo come up with their own and undoubtable better version. Damn you Paizo! *shakes fist in air* >.<
I know that feel. I went through the trouble of creating guns for my game only to have the Ult Combat book do it so well. Oh we'll, at least I get to keep my modern and future guns because they didn't touch those.
Will there be anything on pre-first level play? Just how does one get to 0 XP to reach first level? Does someone retrain all their NPC levels when going from NPC to PC, resetting their XP?
That'd be so cool. I have SGG's Apprentice rules for that but I'd love to see what Paizo does.
@Ciretose: I think this is more of Options that allow you to represent your characters non-adventuring lives. & I have to say that I love the Optional Rules.I also like optional rules. So long as they are clearly labeled as optional.
I meant it in that I use most of the current ones... Really all but Words Of Power & Called Shots are standard in my game. Mainly do to them buffing Martials. Words Of Power I am inclined to allow or use for its simplicity. Called Shots I feel are to complicated to be worthwhile...
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Some of the comments about skill use in the downtime stuff expansion worries me if it becomes "This is the rule, I am entitled!" rather than "Hey if you want this, here is a framework we can look at!"
I believe the "I'm entitled" problem lies with a GM and his player. Not with the rules.
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I meant it in that I use most of the current ones... Really all but Words Of Power & Called Shots are standard in my game. Mainly do to them buffing Martials. Words Of Power I am inclined to allow or use for its simplicity. Called Shots I feel are to complicated to be worthwhile...@Ciretose: I think this is more of Options that allow you to represent your characters non-adventuring lives. & I have to say that I love the Optional Rules.I also like optional rules. So long as they are clearly labeled as optional.
Piecemeal armor, siege weaponry, custom race generator, Armor as Damage Reductions, Wounds and Vigor, Sanity rules, chase rules, addiction rules...
There are a lot of variant rules. Which isn't a bad thing. As long as they are variant rules.
My larger concern is with the comment about expanding uses of skills section. I'm reserving judgement until I read it, but that sounds like an area ripe for abuse...
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Some of the comments about skill use in the downtime stuff expansion worries me if it becomes "This is the rule, I am entitled!" rather than "Hey if you want this, here is a framework we can look at!"I believe the "I'm entitled" problem lies with a GM and his player. Not with the rules.
In my experience, it is much easier to deal with when the rules are labeled "optional"
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Good enough for me.
Never say die!
Now I want to put a Chelish ship named "Troy's Bucket" in a game just to justify someone quoting the speech. :)
Regarding not wanting to send children into harm's way in a grim, dark, grimdark game, keep in mind that there are a lot of other ranges in campaign tone other folks play with. Some folks might prefer something closer in feel to Avatar: The Last Airbender than Black Company, and they might actually shift gears between the two and any other sort of flavors.
For those folks, these rules may fit into their game perfectly. It's all about the feel they want out of their campaign. :)
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Oh dice gods... o.0
The rules for Young Characters... the first book of Curse of the Crimson Throne...
I think I may cry at all the awesome! Ex-Little Lamms that just escaped are going to be officially possible!
As much as this resonates with me, the one that's really sticking out in my head is a Five Years Earlier series of adventures before Rise of the Runelords. :D
I meant it in that I use most of the current ones... Really all but Words Of Power & Called Shots are standard in my game. Mainly do to them buffing Martials. Words Of Power I am inclined to allow or use for its simplicity. Called Shots I feel are to complicated to be worthwhile...@Ciretose: I think this is more of Options that allow you to represent your characters non-adventuring lives. & I have to say that I love the Optional Rules.I also like optional rules. So long as they are clearly labeled as optional.
Piecemeal armor, siege weaponry, custom race generator, Armor as Damage Reductions, Wounds and Vigor, Sanity rules, chase rules, addiction rules...
There are a lot of variant rules. Which isn't a bad thing. As long as they are variant rules.
My larger concern is with the comment about expanding uses of skills section. I'm reserving judgement until I read it, but that sounds like an area ripe for abuse...
Most of those add a lot to the game more than raise Player Abuse...
Though the Skills section sounds more like a way to actually make some skills more than a simple Roll the d20 and get XGP.
Piecemeal armor, siege weaponry, custom race generator, Armor as Damage Reductions, Wounds and Vigor, Sanity rules, chase rules, addiction rules...
There are a lot of variant rules. Which isn't a bad thing. As long as they are variant rules.
I agree. I am glad these variant rules exist (even if some of them I personally feel are better written than others).
And to comment on some of the conversation at large, from what I have seen so far, their existence has not caused major troubles--I haven't seen many players rant and rave if they aren't allowed to use Armor as DR for example. Even--usually--"no, this campaign does not allow firearms" goes down fine.
And for "that one guy" who whines because you refuse to use an optional rule printed in an optional rulebook--the problem isn't the rule. It's "that one guy." Who as far as I'm concerned can optionally shove his rulebook up his hindquarters if he's going to make that big a stink over pretendy funtimes.
I'll be honest, I don't always like the new stuff that shows up in some of the rulebooks. Some I think aren't well designed, some I think weren't playtested enough, some just aren't to my personal taste (which probably to a degree covers the previous two items as well). But it doesn't mean I think they should stop designing rules and publishing them. Yes, I do loathe the moment where I have to deal with the "can we use this?" bit, but 99% of the time, when I say, "No," my players suck it up and move on (as do I, when I am the player).
There are many reasons not to publish games or rulebooks, but "because some players are immature and self-entitled" is not one of them.
My larger concern is with the comment about expanding uses of skills section. I'm reserving judgement until I read it, but that sounds like an area ripe for abuse...
My only concern is creating systems where there don't need to be. I LIKE that I can wing some difficulties and use the skill system to fill in gaps as _I_ feel I need to in MY campaigns. Skills are one of those things that their use varies widely from campaign to campaign. While some might see this as a need to codify more rules around them, I like that this is an area where you can adapt to your personal playstyle and needs. If I've been running a scenario one way and the skills options actually reduce or restrict how I've been doing it, then I feel like a step backwards has been taken.
Now of course, I can choose to ignore those rules if I don't like them. :)
But I do hope they are well done because done right they can increase choices rather than restrict them.
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Will this book have material that's usable for Pathfinder Society play?I don't speak for Mike, but I'm sure they'll find ways to implement parts of this book in PFS. Off the top of my head: traits, story feats, retraining, some parts of downtime.Given that the overall trend has been to put the kibosh on rebuilds, I don't see where retraining is going to fit in. Downtime is going to be problematical as those four hour convention slots are tight for running scenarios as they are.
Vanity expansion I could see coming out of this.
If downtime and retraining can be accomplished between sessions with no dice rolling that has to be witnessed by a referee in real time, then it should work just fine. After all -- when you are awarded enough XPs in a PFS adventure, you don't have to advance your character on the spot, correct? I had always assumed that you show up at the next event with your character advanced to the next level -- or am I wrong there?
PFS would probably want to limit the retraining in some manner (probably allow replacement of feats but not whole class levels, for example). The general prohibition of magic item crafting is probably the main factor that would limit the use of downtime in PFS play -- there may not be that many PFS legal things that could be done with downtime.
By the way, my size Large serpentine eidolon is really looking forward to retraining away that Weapon Finesse feat she took at 1st level. It was vital to her for levels 1-7, but of course it is now generally useless.
And I could see retraining making some thematically appropriate character advancement decisions less painful. After all, which type of wizard would seem more likely to want to take a level of fighter -- one who already knows how to wield a sword (from a Martial Weapon Proficiency feat) or one who does not? Now, when he takes his first level of fighter, he can retrain that feat to Weapon Focus, thereby quite nicely reflecting the fact that he is more capable with a sword than with other martial weapons.
I am really looking forward to this book. Most everything mentioned I am really interested in.
On the discussion of children in fantasy; much has been mentioned of young heroes in fantasy as an example of it existing in fiction. People mentioned thier kids, and Harry Potter is also getting a lot of play in the discussion.
Something else to remember - in a lot of ways teen lit was sterile full of important books with messages in the years before Harry Potter. After those books were such a success there has been a flood of adolsecent fantasy and action. Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Twilight, and Percy Jackson to name the more easily called to mind (note I didn't say best, necessarily). This is a great time, from a market and publishing perspective to put those kind of rules out.
Reading last years blogs about the history of Paizo shows they are aware of thier position as leader of the industry, hence the Beginner's Box. Attracting younger players is a good thing for the industry, and if having rules for younger heroes helps that, because of the teen fantasty that we have had an abundance of in the last decade, then all power too them. I think it is a great idea.
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As much as this resonates with me, the one that's really sticking out in my head is a Five Years Earlier series of adventures before Rise of the Runelords. :DThere was such a series? Could you link that? A friend of mine is planning to run Rise and that sounds perfect!
Oh no, it just seemed like a good way to establish roots for PC(and players) in Sandpoint and the campaign's backstory. :)
Great now I want to get and run the Anniversary Edition of RotRL with a short prequel game...
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Ah, so it's not a published series, but an idea? I'll have to suggest it to my DM then. :)
And yes, that sounds awesome!
If your GM decides to run a prequel game, he might find this thread useful. It was the prequel I ran my players through before we started ROtRL. I ended up doing something similar in Kingmaker, where they had to try and stop a "red wedding" as teenagers.
These type of adventures are why I am looking forward to the rules for running children PCs.
Ah, so it's not a published series, but an idea? I'll have to suggest it to my DM then. :)
And yes, that sounds awesome!
If your GM decides to run a prequel game, he might find this thread useful. It was the prequel I ran my players through before we started ROtRL. I ended up doing something similar in Kingmaker, where they had to try and stop a "red wedding" as teenagers.
These type of adventures are why I am looking forward to the rules for running children PCs.
I love both of these! Don't suppose you would run them as a PbP?
9. There's a Table for That.
So I go through all the trouble of making up CP 2020 style background tables for Pathfinder only to have Paizo come up with their own and undoubtable better version. Damn you Paizo! *shakes fist in air* >.<
Really? I love to see that, actually!
There isn't a thing about this game that isn't optional. Everything is optional, depending on your GM.
Of course, but certain parts of the game are still assumed to be part of the core experience, such as skills, feats, spells, armor class, hit points, etc. A GM always has the option of removing or tweaking those rules but they're still considered to be part of the core game by the gaming community as a whole. Labeling something as optional removes any confusion that inclusion of the optional subsystem might result in.