Azrael Lukja's page

My PCs actually took a real liking to Orik for reason I fail to comprehend fully. I mean, I like him too and I might have portrayed him in a sympathetic way enough for them to care, but usually they are of the bloodlusting sort (and they didn't hesitate to kill off other major NPCs in Thistletop like poor Lyrie).
They even went as far as giving him control of the now-cleared Thistletop for him to manage his own mercenary company, something I really didn't expect, but it turned out pretty well for them: they had military help in dealing with the Skinsaw Men in Book 2, and are about to get a big reward at the beginning of Book 4.

Well, I'm already organizing a playtest of 5 classes out of the bunch, but for the moment I have to say this might be the biggest misstep in Paizo's path so far. And I quite love Paizo and their products, to the point that I'm probably partial even to bad decision-making, so this speaks volumes.

The first problem is the concept itself. It's true, many people here have reacted negatively within minutes, but isn't that weird on its own? There's something utterly uninspiring in the concept of these mixed classes. Some people might love them, of course, and other people simply won't use them... But a blunder is a blunder, and the signs are there.
When I proposed the playtest the general reaction, after reading the playtest document, was kinda "meh".
It has never been like that with previous playtests. I don't trust gut feelings, that's why we're doing the playtest after all, but there are things that don't look bad even on paper.

Take the Swashbuckler, for example. His Panache pool is equal to his Charisma modifier. His 1st level Deeds, Opportune Parry and Riposte, need 1 point each to be executed and 2 uses of Attacks of Opportunity.
This requires a Charisma of 14 and a Dexterity of no less than 12 (but any Swashbuckler will want a lot more than that). And at 1st level it needs Strength to hit and do damage, because Swashbuckler Finesse is at 2nd level, but doing so would gimp him even more so I'll suppose high Dex and low Str.
All of this for a nifty trick that probably won't work ("Wanna best my attack roll? Go ahead, make my day" said the Fighter) and that recharges on critical hits or enemy deaths. Which is to say: not often until higher levels, not in a reliable way.
On a Standard Point Buy that's simply not a viable option.
On a High Fantasy, it's a very low-powered alternative to Fighters.

But I digress. The point is not that these classes are low-powered when compared to Core classes: I understand that power creep is a legitimate concern and I wouldn't want classes that skyrocket either. The point is that the mechanics simply don't seem to work as intended, and that's because mixing classes is really tricky. Maybe even trickier than designing completely new ones (a feat, pun not intended, that so far has given us really interesting and fun stuff to play with).
I'll leave it as it stands for now and I'll comment after we've done the proper playtest, but for now I don't see this going anywhere and I understand the negativity floating around.

So, huh, I get to have Cthulhu on the cover of one of my Bestiaries.
Have I already told you how much I love you, guys?

The only evil thing you can do in such a situation is enforcing your point of view on others and treating them as "bad evil people" for playing the game in a way that's fundamentally different than yours.
In the end, it really boils down to the "nature vs nurture" argument. And as far as Golarion is concerned, I'd say that it's not even that easy because the setting has a bit of both. Those trying to advocate the absolutes of the spectrum as the only meaningful way to play the alignment dispute are willingly ignoring some important objections of the other side. Where Golarion as a setting falls on this spectrum is ultimately subjective (I, for one, think that it slightly tends towards the "nurture" argument, at least for Humanoid beings).
The most important fact to keep in mind, though, is that at the end of the day even if we were to solve the dispute and determine that Golarion is completely sided with "Evil by nature" or "Evil by nurture"...
It still wouldn't matter.
And that's because every gaming table is free to reinterpret the setting to meet the needs of the participants. Some people like to apply modern-day morality and values to fantasy settings, other people don't: they want to play in a world with little-to-no grey areas. They are looking for a different experience.
And that's fine. Because you *can* play a game in which you kill people without condoning murder. I'm a really peaceful and non-violent person, still, I grew up playing rpgs and video games. If this were to be true, I would be an assassin because I played Hitman, a mass murderer because I played as Arthas in Warcraft 3, a mutilator because I played Surgeon Simulator 2013 and a plumber because I played Mario. And I'm not falling for all the bad press that the entertainment industry gets, as much as I didn't fall for the "D&D is satanic" thing of the 80s.
Judging other people from the characters they interpret in a roleplaying game is... fundamentally flawed. At the right table, I can save all those goblin babies and raise them myself. At another, I can play a close-minded dwarven ranger and kill all of them with a glee, and make jokes about it too. It doesn't mean in the slightest that I condone baby murder and it should be obvious, but people here are reacting like it isn't.
I can certainly find Mikaze's point of view logic and understandable... In modern world. Still, the straight-up refusal that someone might enjoy things differently (or simply, with a differ variety) strikes me as odd.
It's a game, folks. It's meant to be entertaining, whether it's grimdark or noblebright.

It... might be too much, yeah. I mean, resurrection magic is available in your world, and it only seems fair if the PCs have it for the villains to have it too. Still, your players might feel cheated.
Recurring villains are cool, but you don't usually go out of your way to have them reappear. What people do is making them escape at the right time, and if the PCs allow that to happen then they can actually *expect* to see the villain again.
The only way I can see this working is to let the PCs know someone is trying to revive Nualia and putting them into a position from which they can actually do something to stop the thing from happening.

Actually, at low levels, the rules make much more sense than you think. In my opinion you're seriously underestimating how difficult it is to approach someone undheard and kill them in a single blow. You might seriously harm them, but cutting a throat with a clean slash? Not likely, unless you are a professional with some serious training on your back (eg. someone with the Sneak Attack class feature). In that case, a Rogue has just the right chance you're talking about to kill an unaware guard in one silent hit.
A wizard is someone who has spent much of his life... reading. Not exactly a killing machine with a dagger, right? And yet, if you were to stalk and kill the average person (a Commoner, 1st level, 4 HP on average), even the Wizard has a good chance of landing a killing blow unless his Strenght is under the human average. And even if he fails, he can seriously harm the unaware opponent.
Now, a Wizard against a guard, well... Aren't you asking too much for the weak, nerdy guy to be able to kill in one slash someone who is quite robust, probably bigger and well-protected? Yes, he will catch them unaware and he will be able to strike, but does a Wizard or any non-trained person know how to get past those layers of armor and reach the vitals in order to land a killing blow? Not that likely.
What you're basically asking for is PCs who are action heroes and can do everything. But Pathfinder isn't built around that assumption. The PCs are heroes, indeed, but they are focused, specialized, and a Wizard is better off conjuring a monster, dominating the mind of the guard or simply putting it to sleep. Everyone has options. Improvising and trying to mimick someone else who is highly trained in order to do something really difficult isn't the key to success.

This isn't valid at mid-high levels, though. But at those levels you're probably not attempting to one-shot a common guard, so a different set of rules applies.

Ansel is right and has been right since the beginning of the thread. Nothing to see/do here.

Same sex couples are in hiding, even if, by the strict text of the setting, they shouldn't necessarily have to be (such as the couple in Sandpoint, said to be an open secret to the townsfolk, and the only one who really seems to disapprove is the local sleazebag crimelord!).

Actually it's not the crimelord. The Scarnettis of Sandpoint are depicted as having some sort of "dark-grey" morality (what about setting fire to the other mills?), sometimes leaning strongly to the darker side of the spectrum (Alamon Scarnetti and his band killing the varisians). They are not Sczarni, though. The reason of the hate on the couple is that they cling to old Chelish traditions which seem to treat homosexuality as a scandal. And they're equally scandalized that no one in town cares anymore about such things.

This gives us two facts: Chelish traditions, in fact, do ostracize homosexuals. And those traditions are nowadays frowned upon by the majority of the common people living far from Chelish holds, but political reasons might make secrecy a necessity for some people.

Well, my best character in 15 years of gaming is probably Rasputin.

Rasputin, Kobold Wizard (transmuter)
Rasputin is a puny kobold. He's weak, he's near-sighted, he's frail. But he's a dreamer, and... he can run. That's how he survived the harsh life of his tribe. His true name was Griz'gnik, or "The small one who will be eaten first", and as such he has fond memories of his tribe bullying him constantly. His tribe venerated the burial site of an ancient red dragon, and Griz'gnik took to hiding there because the other kobolds were too afraid of the massive skeleton to go there. In the burial site he found a book with a name on it: Rasputin. It belonged to a wizard who had died a long time ago fighting the dragon. He also found the wizard's weary robes. So, he literally put a new mantle on. He dreamed of being a wizard, and in time he learned to read. He discovered that his blood had a strange affinity with magic when he accidentally wiped out his whole tribe with a fireball. The accident took place in front of the massive dragon skeleton, so the rest of the tribe ran away in fear thinking that their dead dragon-god had awakened in anger. Griz'gnik was alone, but he was now a Wizard. He took the name Rasputin for himself and went on an adventure. He had an even bigger dream: to become a full-fledged dragon.
And in time he managed to do just that. Now people respect and honor Rasputin the Red, Dragon-Wizard.

Of course, but INT and DEX can both be dump stats for Paladins, so in general it'll be harder for them to afford feats from those lines.

Hi guys, I'm currently playing a Paladin (Oath of Vengeance) in the Council of Thieves AP. We're on our way to level 3 and so far the adventure's been great. Now, I'm a big fan of the Pathfinder Paladin but I found something that I need to work around. That is, Feats.
An awful lot of combat feats have INT 13 or DEX 13 as a prerequisite, which I don't meet (and have no chance of meeting in the foreseeable future, as I'm going to raise my STR and CHA).
Can you recommend some good feats that are actually affordable for a Paladin?
I'm playing mine as a classic sword'n'board Paladin of Iomedae, he's more focused on defending others than dealing damage. My DM lets me use Lay On Hands with the shield hand, just so you know before someone points that out. But this isn't important, as we can make this thread into a general "Good Paladin Feats" instead of focusing it on my character.

Me, I found that Antagonize seems to be really good (I'm using it with Diplomacy and not Intimidate, so it's good but not completely broken).
Also, Shield Focus seems to give a nice little bonus.
I don't know how much shield bashing is worth it.

For the bucks I've paid, I'm already getting more than my fair share of use out of Ultimate Magic. Great job so far, giving players a lot of options and keeping down the power creep. Words of Power are just what I wanted them to be, and I especially love some new feats.
I'm not jumping into the Vow of Poverty discussion, I see too much badly misplaced rage around here.

Makes me wonder what kind of game play Italians favor...

I can try with this, but there are many italians here on the messageboards who can answer in different ways. Now, that's because this varies greatly. I'd say that 3.5 was really popular some years ago... White Wolf has a nice share of the market, but not that much. 4E is not doing as well as 3.5, afaik. Pathfinder goes pretty well in my area (central Italy)! Sadly, there's not much room for smaller publishers, but I don't think we should put Paizo with the small ones.

I'd also say that Pathfinder is really more known/played in Italy that in Ireland!

Awesome work, really. I love this.

So a person could steal a copy of a digital product and that would be ok, but stealing the installation disk of the same product would be wrong because one is physical and the other is digital?

I read all of Neverminding's posts and, to me, it looks pretty clear that he stated many times that both are wrong. The distinction he does is in the mindset of the people, and I think that's almost factual, so I see no point in contradicting him.

We should say: "I agree, but we should really work on kids' education", not "You are wrong because there's no such distinction". There is. It's not a matter of right or wrong, it's a matter of perception.

It *is* indeed compatible provided you do a little amount of conversion (or that you find that same conversion done by someone else). The real problem is not compatibility but power creep. Pathfinder is a great game but if you put it together with 3.5 you could end up with much more powerful heroes than in 3.5 alone.
I also think that switching from 3.5 to PF helps you get rid of all those silly loopholes 3.5 had.
So, it's compatible but my advice is to stop using 3.5 material and stick with Pathfinder.

I find the classes in the APG to be fairly balanced with core classes.
Sure, some of them can pull some nasty tricks, but that's true for many core classes too.

I partially agree with Erik, but while it's true that Skinsaw Murder "as is" doesn't have that many elements of true mistery, I also think it'd be really, really easy to tweak the adventure just a bit to introduce them.

Fighters in PF can have a great offensive potential. You should keep this in mind when designing/adapting encounters to challenge them. Usually having a group like this fight a solo monster is not a really good idea... You can do it, but you should tweak the monster a little.

That's like saying "For a good AP, you would need a Book of Exalted Deeds."

Noooot so fast...

First of all, I said "You would probably require some material like the one published in the Book of Vile Darkness", not the book itself. So, that's like saying: running a good-themed campaign would "probably require some material like the one published in the Book of Exalted Deeds". ;) And I don't think this is far from truth. In BoED you can find new creatures, particularly good-themed spells and a bunch of stuff like that. And that would be quite useful in running a good-themed campaign, but not *required*. And there's a reason for this. Pathfinder's core assumption is that the characters will be good or neutral aligned. This is *not* as strong as in (let's say, but no edition war please) D&D 4E, but the feeling is still there. You are given the *option* to create an evil character, but that's a "variant", not the main rule. E.g. the Paladin is the core class in the main book, the Antipaladin is a variant in another book. That's just the way it is.
So, the game already has enough implied material so that if you want to play a righteous character you can do it without anything else.
And... There's more to it, actually. When I say "an AP like that would probably require printing some not-so-friendly material like the etc etc" I'm saying "Hey, for that AP they'll need to print stuff who can be unappealing to some people. Like, let's say, the stuff on BoVD is not appealing to everyone. Yeah, stuff like that". Maybe it's not dark spells, maybe it's not rules for addiction (we already have them I think), maybe it's not blood-themed prestige classes... But writing an evil AP means that they'll have to write something with the same style. Maybe just fluff, maybe just the adventure, but you can't really write an adventure about "sacrificing young maidens" without gettin a lot of people mad at you. That's what I meant, and I don't think it was that obscure or unclear. BoVD was simply an example of the "style" they'd need to recreate and that same style could get them in troubles.

Another thing I'd like to underline: what would you define as a "good AP"? I'd say an AP where the PCs are required to be good and their "goodness" is a main theme of the AP itself. For example, I wouldn't call Second Darkness a "good AP", even if the PCs are supposed to save the world. They are also supposed to be running a betting hall, to pretend they're drows and things like that. I don't really think that we've seen a really "good AP" from Paizo so far, but I don't have them all so I'm not sure about this.

(on a side note: what's the deal with this boards? That's like the third time someone tries to counter-argument something I said with an apparently parallel example who, in reality, doesn't fit to what I'm saying and I have to explain WHY it's not fitting. Guys, try some other tactic from time to time!)

Thanks everyone. Mauril, I thought about that solution for 2handed weapons and I find it perfectly reasonable (a bit cheesy, maybe, but not that much). I really hoped for something with 2 weapons but eh, you can't really have everything, isn't it?
Also, I just noticed that this thread should be in Rules Questions. Sorry for that.

I do not and will not knowingly ever acquire such material, even if I am not happy with a given company. Piracy is wrong. I earn my money, and I decide what to spend that hard-earned entertainment budget on. The companies/artists/authors/etc that make the stuff - whatever it is - that I want to spend that budget on earn their money in turn. They really earn it with return/subscription business. Buying something once is a test - repeat business is commitment.

Piracy is wrong. I said it and I will say it again. I always buy my stuff from Amazon.com (...pdfs just aren't my thing, I guess) because it's cheaper, BUT...

Yep, there's a BUT. This is not really the case with Paizo products, because the whole ruleset is readily available from the SRD, but you'd be surprised to know how much piracy can contribute to give popularity to one product in one gamer area and invite many people into buying the actual books.
I'm from a country where piracy is widespread and a "common practice". And I know it's a sad thing. But I saw this happening too many times: someone pirates a product and start distributing it, people like it so much that they buy the actual product. If no one had pirated it in the first place, the product would have remained unknown and not a single copy would have been sold. Mind you, I'm still not saying that this is good for the producers. I don't know what this is, really. And I'm *not* defending piracy, I'd like this to be clear.
I guess that piracy is more or less like advertisement. Companies PAY for it (not receiving the due money = pay, basically), but they *do* have an income from that. Is this convenient from them? I don't know, really. I don't think so, either. But that's just speculation on my side. The most important thing is that this is "unwanted", uncontrolled advertisement, and this is not right.
Again, I repeat that this does not apply to Paizo products, or at least not to anything I know of.

So I take it no Eldritch Knight can use a two-handed weapon or two weapons at the same time (well, they can, but they couldn't use Spell Critical then), or am I missing something?

I have some questions on this matter, but before I begin: I'm talking about "casting spells as swift actions" and this can be obtained in different ways. Quicken Spell is certainly the most straightforward but there's also Spell Critical (Eldritch Knight 10°) and probably there's more. If you think that these ways of casting a spell as a swift actions are somehow different and should be treated accordingly, please point it out, because I don't think it's very clear. Now, the questions:
1 - Is having a free hand required when casting spells as a swift action? What I think: RAW it looks like it's required, but I seem to remember that in 3.5 this was not the case. Am I wrong?
2 - Does the arcane spell failure % for casting in armor apply when casting a swift spell? What I think: yes, it does. But if no somatic componente are required (see 1), why should this be?
Thank you very much.

Ahh the old "lets try an evil campaign" discussion. Every group eventually tries it and learns it just does not work. I won't go into the various problems with it but go ahead and give it a try, you'll see.

Aaaah, nice way to put your personal experience as a factual evidence.

Personally, the last evil campaign I ran lasted for 3 years before people wanted to try something new (and right now I'm running an all-good party). Also, I do enjoy playing evil characters in a "all evil" scenario and that would be a good half of the characters I played when I get to be a player. Still, you don't see me saying "Evil campaign are awesome and if you try you will never get back, that's valid for every group!"
That would be no less correct than your grossly incorrect statement.
OP asked how to use Paizo material to run an evil campaign, not if running an evil campaign is a good idea or not.

I also think that Power Attack has been nerfed. Not that much, but I definitely like the changes.

I thought about that, too.
While I think it's an awesome idea, I don't think we will see an EEEEVIL Adventure Path anytime soon. An AP like that would probably require printing some not-so-friendly material like the good old Book of Vile Darkness. I don't know if the moms of a part of the customers would be happy with that. ;)
Paizo is probably better off sticking to material everyone can purchase and enjoy.

Now, this doesn't change facts that you *can* do something about it with pre-existing Paizo APs.
Kingmaker is a great choice in this, if you can set the right mood. Ruling a kingdom can really be a nice motivator for evil characters, and some backstabbing to be *the king* is guaranteed. Your players should read The Prince by Macchiavelli and act accordingly. ;)
Anyways Kingmaker is not your only resource. If your players want less kingdom management and more low-level adventures in a "wretched hive of scum and villainy", you should definitely check out the first two modules from the Second Darkness adventure path. Don't let the bad reputation of that AP influence you: it is widely recognized that the first adventures are a blast. The problems, especially with an evil and presumably selfish group, show up only later. Riddleport is a real heaven for scoundrels of every kind, and evil players can really get engaged in the crime wars between criminal lords and in managing the Golden Goblin betting hall.

That's awesome.

Or, to put it another way, that the wizard is a Tier 1 class and the sorcerer is a Tier 2 class, on a scale from about 1 to 6.

I'm really curious about this. Even if it's OT, could you post a list of Tiers for the core classes?

MS your argument about Wotc being greedy with their business basically amounts to "their not giving me what I want and how I want it so they must be greedy"

Then I should read it again, because it didn't seem like that to me. ;)

Full respect to you! :)

Also, to reinforce this, I think there are also some cultural values at work here. Some cultures value honesty (sometimes blunt) and being direct, some others value the "politically correct". It would be helpful to know other posters' cultural background, but it's really difficult on the internet.
I just stick with the "no one's a prick here, we're on the Paizo boards after all!" and live with it.
But I think it's about time to stop the OT flow.

So if I were to say 'You are not a proper human being' I may not be an elitist? The attitude isn't enough?

That is not a proper example. ;)

Your logic falls when you do not consider (not because you don't understand what I mean, but simply because you want to create an hyperbolic example) that we are still talking about likes and dislikes, not the essence of human beings. I understand that this argument, as it is, may seem weak. Allow me to be more specific: with your example, you are comparing one's attitude in saying "4E is less than a roleplaying game" to another's attitude in saying "TriOmegaZero is less than a human". This is blatantly false, unless you guys take your discussions about RpGs *waaaay too far*.
So, the attitude behind a sentence *can* be enough, yes. And, in fact, I do not disagree when DigitalMage says:

It can however be indicative that you may potentially be elitist

It doesn't mean, however, that the implied attitude behind a sentence is always the same nor that it always carries the same weight. Pragmatics in linguistics teaches us that context is important. I do not feel that, talking about a light-hearted argument like roleplaying games, the attitude behind a certain expression of like/dislike *can* be enough.

And, to get back to what DM said at the beginning of this side-argument, it is a matter of how people read things, yes. For this reason I think we should stick to what is written. If someone says "Meh, 4E sucks" or "Meh, PF sucks", I do not jump immediately to conclusions about that person, regarding it as inferior/superior. I find this to be a reasonable reaction. I see that not everyone thinks the same, and someone feels entitled to say "Ehi, look at this guy here, he must be an elitist/a prick/an ass/a whatever!"
That's fine, I won't die because of someone's judgement on the internet, and I'm clearly not special in this. I was just warning people that no, usually what you read on a messageboard is *not* a clear indicator of that person's behaviour. Not like 5 minutes of real conversation can be.

@DigitalMage:
I think you may have missed the point.
I wasn't defending "me", I was defending the "fair number of Pathfinder fans who come off as elitists". I can be included in that group or not, but that's not important.

I also think that this bad impression is purely a problem of language, but I didn't choose my words without reason. I wanted to make an example, and I think that's the part you missed.
I mean that it *is* possible to strongly dislike something and it *is* possible to give factuality to that personal dislike (whether this factuality is, in reality, correct or not, mind you) without coming off as an elitist.
When I say "That's not a proper pizza", well, that's exactly what I mean. It can be inferred that I think a pizza with pineapple topping is not a real pizza, and that's exactly my intent. I could also say that 4E is not a proper roleplaying game (I don't think so... 4E is definitely a roleplaying game, I just think it's a *really bad* roleplaying game!) and, inferring the same thing, you would be correct.

The whole point of my reasoning is this: does this attitude make me an elitist? My answer is: no, it doesn't. It *can* be a part of elitism, of course, but alone it's not sufficient. Elitism means that I feel myself (or the group of people I belong to) superior to others, and I don't value other people opinions because they are inferior.
This is not something I have seen in this board.
Even if I sit here and say "I refuse to accept D&D 4E as a roleplaying game, it's nothing more than bad rules and game-ism!" it doesn't mean I'm feeling superior to people who enjoy it. They will probably not be the first ones I'll ask an opinion about a roleplaying game I'd enjoy, but otherwise they are perfectly fine people who only happen to have a different set of likes and dislikes. Does this change my opinion that "pineapple pizza" is not a real pizza? Nope. But they can go and eat it, whatever that thing is, and there's no reason why I shouldn't go with them while I enjoy my pepperoni pizza.

Thirded, seems a fair number of Pathfinder fans to come off as elitist at times heh.

Disliking a game doesn't make you an elitist.

While I feel that Pathfinder is a superior game compared to 4E, I do not feel superior to those who play 4E. That would be very stupid. They simply like different things.

It's like saying I'm elitist because I don't like my pizza with pineapples. Sure I think a proper pizza should never see a pineapple on the same table, but this doesn't mean I feel superior to the hundreds who seem to like that thing.

When thread go down to arguing about dictionary references for me it's a clear signal: time to close the whole thing. While I have no decisional power on this (...thanks God) I still hope there's someone with a Wisdom score of 10+ out there.
This started with our beloved troll launching his bait and soon evolved into people arguing with other people about how the way they're having fun is wrong. Someone here seriously needs to grow up.

I still don't, but nevermind.

I didn't get it.

...

....

*sigh*

I prefer listing my opinions here and let the others decide their value. I hope everyone sticks to this.

Fine, I didn't ask for this, you got me into it.

Point one: out of combat rules. We are discussing systems here, not house rulings. Even if I could easily believe that Digital Mage has the best 4E game of the world, it doesn't change anything about my argument against 4E lack of proper out-of-combat rulings.
So... The system lacks some skills. That's a fact. You can house rule them back into the game? Sure. Doesn't change the fact that the system lacks those skills. So, the system lacks something and you have to make up for it. Your solution works nice for you? Great! I'm happy for you. Is this supposed to be a counter argument? It isn't, it's more like "Hey, I have it this way and it works...". Everyone is royally fine with that, believe me. Also, that referred not only to the lack of some skills but to the whole mechanics of Skill Challenges. As I said before, that system sucks so much that there's no point in defending it. Aside from the math errors, which show an obvious lack of proper playtesting, I can just wholeheartedly agree with martryn here.
As you said, you can just ignore them. Well, there you have some well spent bucks! Rules so bad you should ignore them and do just like you did before! Now that's that make a good system! ;)
Point two: powers with no use outside of combat. The ritual system when 4E got published was nothing but a joke. I don't know if now, with so many supplements, you actually have a decent choice. I hope it's better. I know they have overhauled the costs of the ritual because out of the box it was plainly outrageous. Aside from this, I actually agree that 4E Rituals are one of the few good things the game has.
But it's not enough. When I say "lack of combat options" I mean this: your character can pull a particular trick and be awesome while he's fighting... Now he has no enemies and can't do that. Why? Because the target is "A creature", and you can't use that on the door to burst it open, because the door is not a creature.
Well, you could, if your DM were let you. And any good DM will let you, actually. But let's go back to point 1 and see how house rulings do not defend a poorly designed system.
This is not only a lack of options but also a lack of consistency, and this lack of consistency is what obstacles my player to roleplay. It just breaks the suspension of disbelief and suddenly the game feels like "chess" or "minis" or "WoW" or whatever you want to call it.
Also: At Will cantrips in 4E are awesome. That's why I'm very very very glad we have at will cantrips in Pathfinder too! Here I should be reminding you that we're talking PF vs 4E, not 3.5. Suffice to say that I actually switched to 4E when I was still playing 3.5.

I would argue that Pathfinder is a better system for roleplaying than D&D 4° Edition for the reason I've already stated. Consistency, proper rules support for every in game situation (both in combat and out of combat), and also *no clear division* between combat and non-combat situations. Also, it lacks some elements who are plainly gamists and those element break the suspension of disbelief for me and my group. The first ones to come up to my mind are: auto-leveling skills (why should a 20° level warrior who has never picked a lock in his whole life be better at it than a 5° level rogue who does it for a living? Also, numbers are just an example), applying different rules to PCs and NPCs, mechanics too unrealistic and PC-based like minions. There are others.
I could also say that Pathfinder intended setting, Golarion, is much better than everything has been pulling from this hat in the last few years, with the only notable exception consisting in Eberron. But that would be a moot point, because one can use both 4E and PF to run his own setting.
This is why I find Pathfinder a better system for roleplaying. I also find it more funny to play and to DM, especially because a lot of 4E combats drag along and take forever to finish, and to testify this many variants have been created to create a deadlier and faster combat in 4E. Are those variants good? Probably they are! But, again, houseruling doesn't defend a system. I would say it is, instead, a further proof of that system's holes.

When I played 3.5 I had to houserule something away. With PF I've yet to modify anything, I'm fully satisfied and I've players wanting for more. This simply couldn't happen with 4E. 3.5 was not a perfect system, Pathfinder is not either. While I think that overall core 3.5 was not a bad system (imbalanced as hell, but a good DM could keep up), I think that Pathfinder is currently the best system you can find if you want a fantasy game. After playing and defending 4E for more than a year I would not suggest it to anyone. Sure, something got better since day one... But many other things just kept getting worse. WotC should understand that a roleplaying game is not a computer game you can "patch" and call it a day. That's what they've been doing, and for this and many other reasons I gave (and I'm going to give) my money to the fine folks here at Paizo. In their products I can actually find good rules I can use instead of bloated rules I'd be better off ignoring for everyone's sake.

"Eidolons are treated as summoned creatures, except that they are not sent back to their home plane until reduced to a number of negative hit points equal"

um seems it works to me

I dare say it doesn't.

The problem is not whether an Eidolon is treated as a summoned creature or not. The feat Augment Summoning works on every creature you conjure with a summon spell. The status of "summoned creature" is only a logical consequence of being summoned, and the Eidolon has that status too because of the part you quoted. But the Eidolon is not, indeed, a creature conjured via a summon spell (except if you are using the spell Summon Eidolon, which works differently from normal summoning of a Eidolon).

I could go through the list of martyrn's complaints about 4E and disprove nearly every one of them. Basically, it comes down to personal preference.

I could also have done the same to your post (...and quite easily, considering that I "disproved" a part of it even BEFORE you wrote it ;) ) but I didn't. That would be edition war and we're really close to that right now. I prefer listing my opinions here and let the others decide their value. I hope everyone sticks to this.

Anyways, to be fair and honest there is one point out of martryn's 16 that is incorrect. I agree with all of the others, of course, but this one just has factual evidence that denies it:

4. Players feel they can't make a character without using character builder. Character builder allows too much access to feats and powers that really shouldn't be allowed in the game.

It is possible, for a DM, to open up the Character Builder and manually delete all of the options he doesn't want to include in his campaign. Then he can save this file and pass it to the players. This was one of my preferred features of all times and I'm willing to give Caesar what is Caesar's.

2) The idea that D&D 4E is a miniatures skirmish game and not a RPG is rubbish. You can roleplay and make a storybased game with any RPG system. (You can even do it with action figures or cap guns.) There are some rules for handling diplomatic encounters, sure (skill challenges). This is to give a DM a framework on how to run roleplaying situations - not to replace roleplaying.

It's funny how you take some time to write a rebuttal of a thesis just to see people jump in and propose the same idea without any changes.

Okay I see this argument about the word summon a lot. No, this is wrong. Look in a Role-playing game like D&D, you would know spell names are meaningless because you can call a spell anything and have the same effect. What makes the most sense here is the italicized word summon is referring to the summon sub school. Look up those summon spells and notice they say Conjuration (Summon) or summoning. The sub-school makes much more sense to base that feat off of rather than just what some wizard decided to name a spell. Like in Call of Cthulhu rpg, one spell can have many names but do the exact same thing. The name of the spell is meaningless. In character, it is just a generalization to make it easier to label spells. Like, I can call the magic missile spell "Seeking pulse of doom." Different name but does the same thing. So what it comes down to is simply, does the ability to summon an Eidolon fall into the Conjuration (Summon) specific school? Not what some wizard wrote the name to be to make it easier to work into conversation or lessons.

While I can see where you're coming from, your argument is invalid because the rules actually refer to the spell names on a regular basis. Maybe this was more valid in 3.5 than it still is, but we can't deny factual evidence like...

(a cure spell is any spell with “cure” in its name)

This makes you wrong. I agree with your interpretation of this particular rule, but the argument you are using to support it is incorrect. Does this mean you can't rename "Cure Light Wounds" into "Gentle Healing Hand of Light"? Well, of course you can, but you should remember what you just did and remember to apply Spontaneus Casting to your renamed spell even if the name is different. But ultimately the name is used as a perfectly valid identifier for a kind of spell.

Speaking about obscure tributes... Has anyone noticed Castle Odranto in Ustalav? The tribute to "The Castle of Otranto", the first gothic novel in english literature, is not that obscure. ;)

Sometimes I feel for the poor Reynolds.
Man, you've got your rules. One of the developers came here and posted exactly the info you wanted after months of bumping this thread, even if others had already been pretty clear (it's a mistake, text overrides table). Try asking for that on some other board.
Is it not in the errata yet? It will be.
Is it not on che Core Rulebook? It will be. Where's the hurry when you actually *have* the table right here?
Doesn't it work like in 3.5? Guess what, it's a different game. Different rulings happen.
The only thing I find useful in your post is pointing out the contradiction in the Invisibility spell, because maybe someone missed it.

A big group doesn't break the system. I managed to DM 9 players at once, and 6 was just regular some years ago.
A melee-heavy group with clerics doesn't break the system. Many good suggestions were given in this thread.

On the other hand, a DM who is unable AND unwilling to do the necessary adjustments to play with such a group can do a great deal to break the system. I don't mean to be snarky, but this is just how things are. It's not your group's fault, and it's not even you and your group's fault. Guess what remains? Now, if you changed your mind about your unwillingess to do a bit of work for everyone's entertainment (including yours), you can get some of the advice posted here and make good use of it. Otherwise I really fail to see the point of this thread. Again, sorry if this sounds snarky, but reading the whole thread I just got this sort of attitude from the OP: "Hey guys I have a problem I don't want to solve, but it's probably system's fault, there's no way my encounters could be too easy! I don't care if you want to help me, really, I don't have time to do what must be done and everyone else does! And even if I had time, I probably wouldn't do it anyways!"

Unsurprisingly, that thread got closed. But I read all of the seven pages and it gave me some interesting things to think about. One of the posters there said that in 4E you can have roleplaying like in every other game, because it depends on the system, not the players... And that's basically true. But it's not a well-thought argument to support one edition over another.
When someone says that 4E is "all about combat", they says so because out of combat rules in 4E... To say it plainly, they suck. Skill challenges? Come on. The system has been reworked like... 4 times, and that's because it didn't work well. Also, the PCs get a ton of powers, but the vast majority of them have no use outside of combat (aside from DM fiat, but I remember a video on YouTube where one of the game developers was playing 4E... "I blast the door with my Eldritch Blast!" "Sorry, you can't do it, it only works on creatures"... Or something like that).
Saying that you CAN roleplay in this system is true, but it doesn't mean it's a good system for roleplaying. Hell, I could (and in fact I have...) roleplay a game of HeroQuest. This doesn't mean that the game is well-suited for roleplaying. HeroQuest is a combat-focused dungeon crawl. 4E is not that different from "HeroQuest with roleplaying", I assure you.
We could say that roleplaying in 4E is really, really close to freeform roleplaying. If you're confortable with that, by all means go with it! If you feel that the rules hinder your roleplaying instead of encouraging it, go with it!

When 4E came out, I was pretty excited. I played it for a full year before switching to Pathfinder, and I still own the 3 core rulebooks. The reasons I switched? There are many.
- I don't think that rules hinder my roleplaying, for me rules give a mechanical structure to your roleplaying. They are a skeleton, you can use this skeleton to create a robust body. I'm confortable with PF rules, so they don't hinder me at all.
- I think that the handbook can influence players, especially new players, a lot. 4E can be easy to grab, but you have a handbook with combat options and that's it. A player will just think about combat options because combat is nearly the only thing that he's introduced to. With Pathfinder, but also 3.5, the whole approach is different. You have a Base Attack Bonus... That's used to hit things with your sword, sure, but you use it also to launch something somewhere. You have Save Bonuses... You use them to dodge the fireball in combat, but also to disbelieve the illusion placed on the royal throne. Even combat mechanics are not just combat-related.
- Aside from this, I don't think that the basic rules of d20 system are that hard to grasp. Sure, there are some difficult ones, and there's a lot of them. But a new player starting at level one doesn't have to worry about so many things.
- I don't like the gamist approach that much (e.g. you are heroes, different rules apply to you, guys!). I believe that simulationism makes for a better approach to a game where you act like a character in a fictional world. This works for me and my groups, of course. And while a certain degree of "super-human" is assumed in Pathfinder too, you can always *choose* not to be different, to start as a simple human with a level in Expert. I'm not going to do it, but I feel free to choose. With 4E I can't. You're a hero, that's a minion, it will go down in one shot no matter what. Not for me, thank you.

I fail to understand how is 4E supposed to be low magic.

It is true that it gives you exactly the same bonus. But it's the same bonus from different sources and, being a multiplier, it just adds up. It's not like a named static bonus where a +1 Deviation doesn't add up to a +3 Deviation... Every multiplier is unnamed and, if the right circumstance occours, it just gets added.

At 20th level, whenever the cavalier makes a charge attack while mounted, he deals double the normal amount of damage (or triple if using a lance).

Allow me to disagree with your reading. Not that this makes a big difference, but here's my reasoning:

Supreme Charge lets you deal double the normal amount of damage on a charge attack while mounted. That is easily read as a x2 multiplier.
Are you using a lance? That's x3. It looks pretty straightforward to me: Supreme Charge doubles your damage, but if you're using a lance the multiplier is x3.
Now, the "normal amount of damage" is probably not very clear, but I think that it's supposed to be read as: "the damage you would deal without Supreme Charge". I find this interpretation quite reasonable.
Now, what's the normal amount of damage you're dealing?
x3. Because you have Spirited Charge.
Now, that's x3 x3 = x5 as per multipliers rule.
Did you score a critical hit? That's x3 (Spirited Charge) x3 (Critical Hit) x3 (Supreme Charge). That's 3+2+2 = x7 Well, it doesn't have to be in that order because addition is commutative, but you get it.

I think your reading could be correct if it wasn't for the fact that if you're using a lance your damage is tripled, not doubled, as stated between the parenthesis.

Azrael Lukja wrote:

Well, they're just pictures from 4E Barbarian and Amiri, the iconic Pathfinder Barbarian.

Is Amri the woman holding that giant sized cricket bat of a sword? If so, yes, that is the type of artwork I find cartoony but I understand that others like that, it just not for me.

Aaaaand I'm royally fine with this! What I'm not so fine with is double standards. And while I agree that Pathfinder art could look "cartoony" (because it's really, really different from gritty realism, or realism at all) and I agree that everyone has different tastes in different things (I love diversity, really!) calling Pathfinder art "cartoony" and then claiming that 4E art is any way different in style... Well, that is the type of argument I find biased.

I think the difference is not so much in style but in quality. The only artworks I like from 4E are, guess what, Reynold's.