Hmm...
Since you put it that way, I think my GM and I need to have a chat.
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Perhaps it is the nature of all of us being new to the system, or the GM having never GM'd anything before (I'm usually the group's primary GM), or perhaps because we're only level 3, but I find my character's survivability to be somewhat unnerving. He's the beefiest of the group and was very nearly one shot by force-choke. Plus, blasters doing 3d6 of damage when 3d6 is generally how much health the party actually has. I have a strong feeling the curve swoops significantly once we level a time or two more.
I'm quite excited for the race-building guidelines in here. Hopefully they'll help me tidy up my already extensive number of homebrew Pathfinder races to at least give me a sense of security that nothing I've done is too weak/broken. April is so very far away.
I don't really know that much about Fantasy Flight beyond Arkham Horror, are all their products "Hey, I'll start setting up, you guys come back in an hour so we can play."? I just started a Saga Edition game that is going...well. But the system is clunky as all heck and doesn't feel very heroic at times due to the MASSIVE DAMAGE the enemies put out and the total lack of real healing options. Plus the rules are spread out across SO MANY books. But we have all of them, so that's fun. Ultimately I think I prefer SWD6 from my 1 session I played of it (It was just easier to make my character concept work in d6 than it is in d20). I'll be interested to see how a new system changes things.
My group plays almost exclusively homebrew races I've come up with, except for one human and two elves. I have numerous homebrew monsters to call on and things of that sort. On the other side of the screen, my Oracle player is playing an oracle mystery he homebrewed and ran past me since there wasn't one fitting the theme he wanted.
Thanks for your suggestions! When you say, "bird folk", what exactly do you mean? Totally bird-like, similar to the kenku mentioned above? Otherwise humanish, but with wings, something like hawkman/girl? Humanoid, feathered, beaked, bird-legs below the knee, wings coming off the shoulder blades sort of like an Angel (easy enough to do with attachable wings). Those crocodile games minis are awesome/very close but not feathered. The Reaper Minis birdman is terrifying, but the closest to what I'm looking for I suppose. I had been considering the "Just add wings to a human, make a beak out of greenstuff" method and then trying to paint the feather texture on but...god I'm bad at painting.
My campaign world has 3 separate kinds of bird folk (4 if you count Tengu who, in this world, are a mutant offshoot of one of the other ones). Problem is, I have had a very hard time finding minis for my players who want to play those races. Feather humanoids with wings, any ideas where I can find some? I also have a race of less-powerful musteval, which the Reaper Mouslings are absolutely wonderful/precious for, which is unfortunately what got me on this kick to try and find minis for my other players.
Chitter Click Click Bzzz
Is adding your gun's enhancement bonus to a select few spells worth giving up your bonus spell slots for the day, your specialization, your arcane bond, your 0-level spells, and pretty much every class ability possessed by the wizard? Is everything in this game about the mechanical advantage it presents?
So Ultimate Magic was almost entirely magic-user specific things. Ultimate Combat is both magical class and "Mundane" class (as much as that can mean in this game) things, including quite a large number of spells. Are we going to get "Ultimate Mundane" or "Ultimate Not-A-Caster" to give the fighters, monks, and rogues a bit more love?
I am so excited for this.
I would love to have a hard cover copy to pass around the table since, as a general rule, my home group doesn't use anything we don't have physical copies of and I'm not a huge fan of floppy covers. So put me down for "OMGYes"
Didn't we just have a big my toy is better than your toy argument? Didn't it get locked? Sunshadow, again?
They are, but that's the beauty of living in a world where not everyone does things the same. Variety is a glorious thing. Except if I didn't like the word "Moist" I would not decide not to allow people who like it over my flat, nor would I make threads about it and argue with people over it for 6 to 7 pages.
Paizo and DnD are friends. That isn't how capitalism works at all.
I did not mean it to be "You're stupid but I won't say that", though I see how it comes off that way. I meant it more as a "You really shouldn't declare what is and is not harmful to the English language unless your grammar and spelling can't be called into question." Or, more typically the whole glass-houses and stone-throwing thing. The point about him being a foreigner doesn't really change the matter. How can someone who doesn't know the language claim what deserves to be in it and what does not? In fact, how can someone who DOES know the language do that? You did a wonderful job painting me to be an ass, but to be fair I was being an ass. :-P Declaring "The death of language" or claiming to be in a position that qualifies you to exclude certain words from other people's vocabulary is a pet peeve of mine. Feel free to pick apart my post for errors. If you'll pardon me, I'm off to tank some mobs on my main toon.
I'd go the "Find another GM" route, and I don't even use those terms in my games. You just sound like kind of a Nofun McKillsagame. As for "flimsy half-formed words that mangle the English language", I'd be tempted to rip your various posts apart for grammar, typographical, and usage errors, but that would make me a troll.
You're using rather loaded language here. There's nothing inherently more "abstract thinking" about 4e from what I've played, nor is it somehow more "fun for the whole family", though I'd argue those are slightly contradictory.
No argument here (though I disagree that 4e is superior to 3.x, I do understand and respect that you feel that way)
You said something similar earlier and I have to wonder: Such as? I have my own reasons for moving away from the Mage who lives by the Sea but I don't think it is directly related to anything they said. I'd love to know what offended people. I enjoy being offended as much as the next guy. :)
Hmm. This seems like a rather ridiculous accusation.I am a 3.x diehard, who currently runs 2 to 3 Pathfinder games a week and plays in one 4E game. I hate 4e. I play it because it's "the only game in town" available for me to be a player in, but I enjoy the PEOPLE I play with. As such, I am entirely unfamiliar with Essentials. Could someone fill me in as to what Essentials added that was specifically aimed at those of us who decided maybe "The Mages Who Lives by the Sea" wasn't really targetting us anymore? I'm never going to go back to being a regular Wizards customer, I think, because I'm quite happy with Pathfinder, but from a design perspective I'm very interested. I think it's silly to paint a group as "trying to stick it to the man", because that's silly. You're trying to make the other group look silly and strawmanning to do it. They are the largest company, they do have certain sway over the community, they did decide they were done with 3.5 and created a rather significant community rift (see: this thread), but I don't think they're "evil" just "Ever-present".
irregardless What does this word mean? I know "Regardless" means "Without regard to", ir- as a prefix generally means the opposite or without. "Irreverent" is the opposite of reverent for example. Does irregardless mean "without without regard to" thus meaning "with regard to"?
A brief summary of this thread: Post 1: Question
Honestly, what do any of you hope to accomplish here? The "lines" are drawn. The people who are arguing for/against 4th edition will not be convinced. In fact, even if you had absolute evidence clearly spelled out that your side was "right" the opposing view would simply become MORE attached to their belief thanks to the backfire effect.
Grim and Dark is cool with the kids these days. Magic is dead, there is no hope, everything is dark grim gritty grim dark brown and bloom. It's hip and now, dawg!
I don't understand why this thread is still going. It was answered in the SECOND POST, why 7 pages of discussion after that?
First off I see nothing discriminatiory about the action that the school took. Based on the way the story has been presented, and by all accounts the family was consulted or at least interviewed, this was not normal behavior for this young man. He is not cl;aiming to be transgendered or anything like that, and he is not an immigrant or minority that comes from a culture where men wearing clothing that we might term "a dress" is traditional. He is just a kid trying to prove his mom wrong. He was not asserting that he has a right to wear what he wants to school, and therefore there is no basis for a discrimination claim. You are right about there being more to the story, because the article left out the part where he was given a chance to go home and change with the only penalty being that he would miss part of his classes. Only when he refused did he get suspended, as is school policy. Since this happened last week and the final day of school for the school is June 22nd he would have recieved what amounted to a week suspension. So if he were transgendered he could wear it, but because he is not he can't. You're not sounding less discriminatory here, just sort of confused. Again, switch the genders on this story (Girl suspended for wearing pants to prove father wrong!) and where would it go?
So if this kid had not been trying to prove a point, you would be totally ok with this discriminatory course of action? This would be ok if instead he had gotten up this morning and decided "Hey, I'm gonna wear a dress because I feel like it" and got suspended? If the genders were switched about and a girl was suspended for wearing pants? Also, I don't know what things are like where other people went to school but I went to a very strict military catholic school and dress code violations meant you went home for the day and told to not do it again, not suspended for a few months and banned from school events. There is a lot more to this story than the "some kid violated school rules and got suspended" that it's made out to be.
Is the dress code different for men and women? If so, isn't that inherently sexist? I got into this argument over the length of my hair at an old job. My hair was no longer than any of the female employees, yet I was told it had to be cut. Amazingly the dress code was changed only a week after I asked for a copy to show my lawyer. I have since quit that company for a higher paying one, just so no one makes a "gee I wonder why you don't work there anymore hurr hurr" joke. A rule stating that women are not allowed to wear slacks and must wear skirts and heels would be in court so fast that the guy writing the rule would think his pen was The Flash, so why would this rule be ok? Local area lawyers should be making some phone calls, I hear cash machines ringing.
The Pokemon CCG died? AND the games? Jeese, all these cards I have must be zombies... As for the games: 200 Million lifetime sales and the best selling game of all time doesn't really sound "dead" to me.
I call every P&P RPG we play D&D because it is an amazingly convenient shorthand. Pathfinder takes longer to say. So does Mutants and Masterminds. Pretty much the only time I don't call our current RPG D&D is if we're playing more than one system, so I have to specify to avoid confusion, or when we're playing GURPS...because GURPS is really fun to say.
"Experience" Right in the name. If the player/character did not experience anything that session (ie were not there), they gain no experience. You guys are making it far more complicated than it is, the concept is fairly self explanatory.
Frank
The wedding day belongs to the bride. Give her what she wants. Because nothing says "A long lasting and equal partnership" like a completely unequal beginning. Yup yup.
I'm keeping my hero points rule from my old game/from deadlands. If a player acts very in-character, and roleplays well (especially if doing so is actually a detriment to themself/the party but is what their character would do) or they do something particularly impressive or clever to solve something that I did not think of, they get a hero point. This makes them very rare, and you can only have one at a time. My hero points let you do 1 of 2 things with them. 1) Reroll any roll once, before the result is announced.
I'm just grabbing this from my other thread to see how it works with your system, this is what I got: Murimus
# Small: As a Small creature, a Murimus gains a +1 size bonus to Armor Class, a +1 size bonus on attack rolls, and a +4 size bonus on Hide checks, but she uses smaller weapons than humans use, and her lifting and carrying limits are three-quarters of those of a Medium character. # Murimus base land speed is 20 feet. (-4)
# +2 racial bonus on Stealth and Disable Device checks. (+4) # Timid: -1 on saves vs fear affects (-1)
# Musteval Ancestry: A Murimu may cast disguse self as a spell like ability twice per day. The DC is 10 + Charisma Modifier + Spell Level. (+6? Really not sure. I sort of gave them 2 free spells.)
# Automatic Languages: Gnome and Murimus. Bonus Languages: Dwarven, Human, and Goblin So we're at 0-4+4-1+6+4= 9 Sound about right?
Alright, I took out the Favored Class lines, and paired down the Languages selection. Gnome is common, so each of the bird races is getting 2 non-common languages, 1 for their own race and 1 for a race they frequently interact with (Dwarf Neighbors for the Accipter and Elf neighbors for the Strygians.) I'll have to spend more time looking at the APG to get a feel for what those could be, though looking at the PRD it seems like the core races have more stuff to swap out than my 3 do, given their limited list of special abilities and modifiers. I'd like to try and come up with options for how to emphasize the fire and ice environments of the Accipter and Strygians.
Alright, I took out the Favored Class lines, and paired down the Languages selection. Gnome is common, so each of the bird races is getting 2 non-common languages, 1 for their own race and 1 for a race they frequently interact with (Dwarf Neighbors for the Accipter and Elf neighbors for the Strygians.)
I've got several homebrew races that my group has been using for some time. We just converted to Pathfinder from 3.5 and I want to make sure that my races are about even with the basic Pathfinder ones. Here's what I have for the first three: Murimus:
Spoiler:
Fluff:
Spoiler:
Appearence: Murimus look like Small Humanoid mice, with fur ranging in color in shades of white, brown, and black. They have long pink tails and able agile fingers. The Murimus are generally a shy race, keeping to their dens in the rolling hills of temperate climates. They can, however, survive just fine in an Urban setting, though their odd appearence often confuses people unfamiliar with them. They trace their lineage back to a far removed ancestor from the outer planes who was said to have many magical and amazing powers. Murimus are communal, with a life very centered around the family unit. Often a single family of Murimus will have two parents and many many children. They live in dens underground in hilly, grassy areas and tend toward a life of farming and subsistence living. They tend to be very curious, especially when in a new place, and ask many questions of people they view as reliable sources of knowledge. They can often be a bit too trusting though and have a tendency to take things literally. Religion: The Murimus practice a tradition of ancestor worship, with every family having their own traditions and practices. The culture as a whole also has some large celebrations for notable Murimus heroes as well as "The Ancestor", the legendary first Murimus. Combat: Murimus dislike combat, due to their small physical nature, and prefer to sneak around or hide in the presence of larger enemies. They are not, however, above taking a cheap shot or two to fell an opponent who would otherwise be too large for them. Adventuring: A sense of curiosity of the world outside the walls of their dens often sends a young Murimu out to the world in search of adventure. Because the Murimus mostly subsistence farm, any sort of drought or dryspell can send large families of Murimus seeking work and shelter in nearby cities until they can go back to farming again, often the sights and sounds of the Urban world excite and fascinate a Murimu, who will stay behind as his family returns to the farm life, in search of a whole new life of grand adventure amongst the city folk. Murimus Names: Due to the sheer number of siblings, Murimus families will often give their kids designations, rather than names. A child may be "B" or "M" or "4". This can become very confusing for outsiders, but never seems to bother the Murimus themselves. When integrating into a larger society a Murimus will often pick a more unique name for himself and include his homeland to further distinguish himself. Thus "M" the Murimus could, upon moving to the big city, become "Marrell of Whitefield". Accipter (Sons of Accipter)
Spoiler:
Strygian (Sons of Strygius)
Spoiler:
Fluff:
Spoiler:
The Creation Myth: Before Hivara had cooled her surface from the Chaos, there lived three brothers; Owl, Hawk, and Raven. They lived in a lush land full of beasts to hunt, adventures to find, and stories to be told. Owl, the eldest brother, was wise and well versed in the fabulous adventures of the world. He painted and sculpted, he practiced strategy with Hawk, and he always sought to know more. His most prescious possession was his infinite book of tales, which he had written himself, and each night he would lull his brothers to sleep by reading from the magic tome. Hawk, the middle brother, was strong and brave. He would go out each day and hunt food for his brothers. He was a brilliant strategist and would always defeat his brothers in wargames. His prized possession was his magic spear, which would always return when thrown and never veered from its course or splintered. Raven, the youngest brother, was clever and well spoken. Though his brothers would often quarrel, Raven was always able to diffuse the argument with a joke or a riddle. He loved his magical mask which allowed him to act out Owl's stories or play pranks on Hawk in the forest. One day Raven came up with a great prank. He stole both of his brother's magical artifacts while they slept and hid them, along with his, securely away. Upon waking Hawk and Owl, distraught to discover the loss of their items, and only just recovering from a great argument, immediately set to placing blame on each other. After some time Raven revealed his trick but, rather than being amused that they had been so fooled by his stealthiness, both brothers were infuriated. They lashed out at Raven and at each other, and in their haste to secure the return of their belonginges the tore the pages of the infinite book, snapped the magic spear, and cracked the delicate clay of the mask. The magical energies released blasted the three brothers back from each other and cast them out of their paradise. They fell, unconcious, through the fabric of the planes and landed on Hivara. Where their feathers scattered, tribes of their progeny sprang up. Owl, called Strygius by his sons, fell in the frozen north.
Wings!
Spoiler:
I'm doing 2 things for my group. First, for the player characters, I'm drawing a rough representation of each person's character in Inkscape, in the Order of the Stick art style. I'm then printing these on Shrinky Dinks and shrinking them, so they become hard plastic. I'm putting miniature binder clips on the bottom (with the silver parts removed) so that they stand on the mat. This requires some work, and a lot of measuring, but I think it should be fun for everyone. For NPCs, Monsters, etc. I'm doing the same thing with the binder clips, but using heavy card stock (so as to fit more per page, and be able to produce large numbers for cheap) Originally I was going to shrinky dink everything, but I can only get like 3 goblins per page doing that and shrinky dinks are about 11 dollars for 10 pages. Not really cost effective. Also: When the session is over each player can just binder clip their mini to their character sheet. |