Brooks's page

I'm interested in checking out both Starfinder and Pathfinder 2ed at Gen Con, but don't have the 5 hours to invest in an actual game session. It's been a few years since I've attended the convention and was wondering if there will be shorter demos in either the exhibitor's hall or in/around the Sagamore ballroom for either of these.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Any new word on these seminars? I know I'll probably have to shift around my Gen Con schedule to attend some and, after June 17th, you won't be able to cancel any existing events that might conflict with a Paizo seminar until the convention itself starts.

Gen Con Pick up is generally a opt-in for subscribers and something we offer closer to the convention. Historically, you just go visit your My Subscription page and click the option for "Yes, I'd like to pick up my subscription items at Gen Con." Whatever you have listed as your address is overwritten by "picking up at Gen Con."

I was under the impression that you were considering revising the subscription only GenCon pickup. Is that still the case?

Can I pick up my pre-order at Gen Con?

While we previously have only offered product pick up for individuals who are subscribed to a product line with volumes releasing at Gen Con, we are revisiting our methodology and execution of pre-paid items at Gen Con. Stay tuned for more details!

If I preorder now, arranging to have the book shipped to my house, and you later opt to allow these books to be picked up at GenCon, will I be able to change my preorder to pick it up there instead?

It wasn't even Leroy Jenkins, it was the banshee opening a door and hammering the party when they weren't expecting it. Still I'd hoped that Pathfinder had gotten away from save or die situations, hence the question on hit points.

We had a level-appropriate summoner at full hit points fail a save against a banshee's wail and go from full to completely dead.

I like drama and I love rolling dice when it's important, but it seems that after few bad levels and you're in an extremely precarious situation. When you get into mid- to high-levels that hit point "deficit" can mean instant death on a single blow saving throw or enemy crit.

Some great advice and we've used the retraining rules, but I never noticed the hit point options under that system. Thanks to everyone.

Our gaming group is fairly generous when it comes to hit points; everyone gets maximum at first level and then you can re-roll when you level up, but have to take the second result even if it is lower. However we've had situations where, particularly with arcane spell casters, level after level they roll a 2 on a d6 followed by a 1 on the re-roll or something similar. Given that these classes tend not to have a high Constitutions it stacks up quickly when you have 3 or 4 bad rolls over a few consecutive levels.

Do any groups out there take a look at total hit points every once in a while and adjust for the characters that are severely behind or something similar. There's obviously a certain amount of randomness to the game, but missing four attack rolls in a row is a far cry from getting minimum or close to minimum hit points over three or four levels when you don't have that many to begin with. It just seems to me that players have complete control over every other aspect of the levelling process, but when it comes to hit points (arguably one of the most important parts of it) they're completely at the whim of the dice. I'd definitely like to see if any other groups have noticed this and/or how they handle it.

After having lurked for entirely too long and watched this project agonizingly hover just below the 50k level, I upped my pledge to the Swashbuckler level. We're now just above 66.666% funding which seems disturbingly appropriate so let's get this thing done.

Brooks it's a pretty cheap shot to counter someone's argument by reducing it to extremes. If I'm saying that American gamers tend towards the right in thier views, it's not the same thing as saying that they're all a bunch of Nazi loving Klu Klux Klanners. But I've gone to lots of conventions in my time and met and judged lots of gamers and while I will say that things have improved since the 80's, Gaming does seem to have a lot of incidents where local groups still cling to a "boys club" school of thought. And since Games Workshop was mentioned, I'd like to mention that Games Workshop is one of the two big gaming stores in Manhattan which is where I go to shop, the other being Compleat Strategist. The latter store gets a small amount of female visitation, the GW store practically none. I will say that compared to the American population at large, the gamer tends to be further to the right than most. (Yes, there are "pinko liberal" exceptions to the rule, but that varies strongly by region. :)

Antipope is evaluating the article secondhand as I'm pretty sure he didn't go out to the scene and did his own research. It's little more than cheap armchair criticism coupled with the tribal defensiveness fans get when their "precious" is criticized.

I think you may have misunderstood what I was saying. At no point was I addressing you or trying to counter any arguments. All I said was that, it seems to me, Antipope is not upset because there are conservative, liberal, extremists, or generally nice people playing 40K. He's saying that he's upset because the journalist writing the K Magazine article was going into it with her own preconceived notions and that she then "cherry picked" quotes and facts to support that preconceived notion. I'm saying that this is bad journalism and I think that's what has upset Antipope.

As far as whether this evaluation was secondhand or not, I have no idea. I clearly stated that I wasn't there and was merely going off what he reported. However, he was obviously there when at least the photographer was (he appeared in pictures that accompanied the article) and, from what he says, he directly talked to the people that were interviewed. At least in my mind, that lends him at least as much credence as the reporter who wrote the magazine article.

Again, I'm not arguing about what type of people play 40K, I'm merely saying that, from the information I have at hand, the Greek journalist that wrote this article was engaging in opinion, not reporting.

I'm only vaguely familiar with 40K and know next to nothing about its universe or backstory and don't personally know anyone that plays it.

With that said, I don't this this Antipope is arguing that his hobby doesn't have its share (however large or small) of political conservatives or that some extremeists may enjoy it. I think what his major problem is that the journalist writing the magazine article was practicing very bad journalism. Not being there and not reading Greek, I'm going to have to take the Antipope on his word, but it does sound like the journalist came into this story with preconceived notions and then made the story fit those stereotypes.

According to the Antipope, the journalist constantly asked players if they knew anyone in the extreme right who plays 40K. This seems to me that she wanted to find some extremeists and kept asking about them until someone gave her the answers that she was looking for. That is not good journalism, it's essentially writing an op-ed piece and should have been published as such if that's what she was doing.

It's like if I lined up a hundred Pathfinder players and started asking them, one after another, if they know any KKK members that play Pathfinder. The first 99 players say that they don't know any, but then the last guy says that he's heard that maybe, in some other country, there might be some. Then I write an article about how Pathfinder is a gateway game into racist, homophobic, anti-semitic groups. Obviously that's not true and it's an "out there" example, but this is the type of reporting that this journalist was undertaking.

I don't think that any would disagree that some rather unpleasant people probably do enjoy role-playing and war games of all types. However, for a journalist to preconceive that any of these games are "really bad" and then go out with the purpose of proving that preconception, isn't reporting. And unfortunately many people, particularly when they aren't personally familiar with the subject, take journalists at their face value, assuming that they are presenting well-researched and "fair-and-balanced" articles.

I've looked through all the books that I own, which is more than a few, yet a bit less than exists. I'm looking for a piece of gear that lets me store and draw potions, scrolls and wands from my belt, sash or bandoleer as a move or swift action. The iconic alchemist has potions all over him, so I know the idea is out there.

Which book would I find it in (preferably a Society-legal source)?

It's definitely not legal for Society play, but the 3.0 Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting had bandoleers and potion belts. I believe the masterwork versions of these allowed to you draw an item as a free action once or twice a round.

what i'm trying to get at if i use a Explosive bomb on a enemy twice would they now be takeing 2d6 or would it still just be 1d6...

Being on fire does not stack; once you are on fire, you're on fire, you cannot be even more on fire. Hitting an opponent with an explosive bomb who was already on fire (for whatever reason) would deal the normal bomb damage, but would not increase the 1d6 per round for being on fire.

My room was $179 per night for a King Bed, but the room was refundable. had I not chosen a refundable room it would have been $152 per night. I wanted a room at the Hyatt but they were booked by Friday, lamesauce!! I wanted to get my room early as I have done research and read many stories of woe when it came to getting a hotel room for GenCon. Maybe in a couple of years I will make a planned trip to PaizoCon.

Isn't it possible that rooms are not available because GenCon itself buys up huge chunks of rooms that are then only available through their housing website? It just seems awfully early that entire hotels would be sold out; I understand that it will be the 45th anniversary, but I find it hard to believe that we're still nearly a year out and that many people have already snapped up rooms.

In an upcoming campaign I have a player who is interested in the warlock base class from Adamant's Tome of Secrets. I've glanced over it, but was hoping to get opinions from anyone who has actually run one of these warlocks or seen one run. Would you consider it over/under-powered, easy/difficult to play, fun to have around, or whatever?

Thanks in advance.

I just thought it was amusing more than anything else, and I apologize for not being clearer about that. No edition of D&D with which I am familiar has contained any element that originated with modern Pagan religious practice unmediated by references in fiction, myth, or other games, and I know of no one who changed religious orientation based solely on exposure to D&D gaming materials. I know some who changed religious orientation based on exposure to gamers of that orientation, but that's something else entirely. By that definition, any social activity is a potential gateway drug to changes in religious orientation if engaged in with persons of that orientation.

Sorry if I jumped all over you for that post, I simply read into it in the wrong manner from which you had intended it. I think we're both coming from the same place and sometimes the Internet sucks for the more subtle nuances of human interaction.

Brooks wrote:

In my experience, there was not a great deal of connection between D&D and rituals, satanic or otherwise and, in all honesty, I didn't know who Jack Chick was until I was much, much older. I our community, D&D simply wasn't seen as a gateway drug to the black arts....

Not that I'm generalizing from this, but the owner of the only FLGS I knew of in Milwaukee in the mid- to late-70s also owned the local oddball pagan stuff store, Sanctum Regnum. They didn't advertise the connection, though.

I'm not certain what you're trying to illustrate here. Are you trying to state that in the mid-to-late 70's that, in your experience, the community did view D&D as a gateway to black arts?

My experience is a bit later, in the mid-80's up to present, but from somewhere around when I began to play until somewhere around the mid-90's, I don't think there was much of a thing FLGS. At least in Central Ohio and then Southeast Ohio during that time period, the only place to obtain RPG books was a tiny section at the back of the "Little Professor" or whatever other bookstore was in the local shopping mall. For anything beyond that, you'd have to special order the books. You could also get some RPG books from hobby stores that catered to model airplanes and so forth, but again that was like a dozen or so books and no indication whatsoever of actual arcane practices.

I apologize if I sound inflamatory, but stating that the guy who sold RPG books also owned a Pagan store simply feeds into the hysteria. Additionally, I think the Pagans would also be offended that their religious beliefs would be associated with a fantasy game.

I know its probably a sore subject, but I just can't imagine anyone more sane than Jack Chick really thinking that burning D&D books would produce howling demon voices.

I'd bet a lot of the hysteria was just bleed-over from the Satanic Ritual Abuse hoaxes, but it seems like fundies like Chick keep stirring the pot to this day, though with considerably less success.

Many of the folks who went all-in on 4e were too young to remember that stuff, so I figured the Paizo boards would be a good place to hunt for answers.

In your experience, has simply changing the name from Dungeons and Dragons to Pathfinder reduced the number of raised eyebrows among the fundamentalist community?

*crosses fingers that this thread doesn't become a trainwreck *

I've scrolled through the various responses and thought I'd weigh in. I was born in '75, and by the mid-80's was playing the Red Box with a few friends that I'd stumbled across in Central Ohio.

In my experience, there was not a great deal of connection between D&D and rituals, satanic or otherwise and, in all honesty, I didn't know who Jack Chick was until I was much, much older. I our community, D&D simply wasn't seen as a gateway drug to the black arts. However, with that said, geek culture and being a geek and having friends that were geeks was not at all where it is today. In my personal experience, stumbling through school was much more about being a "cool" kid than anything to do with Tunnels and Mazes.

When we would play in the cafeteria for 30 minutes or so, whenever anyone walked near, conversation would universally drop off to a whisper until that person had passed by. It wasn't because we were afraid of being considered devil-worshippers, it was because we didn't want to be considered un-cool. Since those halcyon days, we've seen the explosion of WoW, the popularity of Harry Potter, and the cinematically rendered glory of the Lord of the Rings. Hell, even Star Trek has been re-engineered into some degree of popularity.

So, as I remember it, the 80's were not so much as associating D&D (or roleplyaing in general) with evil as much as they were about being considered a nerd. Mind you, geeks and their relative counter-culture coolness had not yet been invented, and those of us whole played D&D were most certainly nerds, the absolute lowest rung of the social ladder.

Well, except for those poor bastards in Show Choir.

Then again, they've had their own resurgance with Glee.

Here's my favorite from yesterday:

scammer wrote:

From: African Union Anti-Fraud Unit

Attention,

To whom it may concern

This is from the African Union (AU) Anti-fraud team in collaboration with the United Nations (UN) and Economic and financial crimes commission (EFCC) in regards to the extensive raid (arrests) on Internet scammers here in Nigeria. Due to the high rate of complain we have been receiving from United Nations (UN) on the level of Scam artists/fraudsters with African nationalities. All the Internet Service Providers had noticed the increased email traffic originating from African to other continents.

In this raid, Five Hundred and seven (507) scammers were arrested so far and the raid is still on. We have recovered the total sum of US$3.2 Billion from them from both cash and assets confirmed to have come from their victims. As we have found hundreds of thousands of email addresses of victims from their address books. It is at this juncture that we are contacting you.

The African Union (AU) with the United Nation (UN) and economic and financial crimes commission (EFCC) are making refunds of US$750,000.00 each to victims whom his/her email address was listed on the scammer’s address books.

Please Contact Mr.Frank Sellers From Washington DC USA appointed by United Nations (UN)
His Email Address: [redacted] You are also require to reconfirm you full details to him so that he can know who to deal with.

He will let you know the modalities with which your refunds will get to you.

NOTE:You are hereby advice not to contact those scammers again

Dr.Darren Olabisi
(Safety & Security Minister)
African Union Anti-Fraud Unit.

Wow - it's like an M.C. Escher work, but instead of hands drawing hands, it's a scam built off the proliferation of a scam. I suppose you have to give them points for creativity at that point.

Why does this happen? First of all, many groups of experienced players have been playing together for some time. They have an established bond, culture, and traditions that an outsider might have a hard time adjusting to. Additionally, an outsider might be neglected and left to themselves.

That can be true regardless of whether the newcomer comes from a computer gaming background and this is their first tabletop game or if they have played pen-and-paper games since AD&D. Our current group has been together for somewhere around 6 years and during that time we've become friends as well as fellow gamers.

With all of that history I know that we have our own customs, inside jokes, and even language to some extent. I would imagine that someone joining our group would find that history very intimidating. If the new person is also new to tabletop role playing games, I'd think that the intimidation value would be ratcheted up even further.

As an existing player in the group, I think it's important make a concerted effort to reach out to a newcomer and try to make them feel welcome. If that involves ignoring some MMO terms and overlooking an inherent need to maximize characters, that's a relatively small price. If they're honestly interested in learning how to play and see the examples of how the existing players run their characters, things should adjust themselves over time.

Plus there may even be some things us experienced gamers can learn from the "kids."

Discrimination based on a name is still discrimination. Given how easy it is to sue people these days, and how eager some people are to do so, a human resources department is going to be careful to avoid the risk of being saddled with a discrimination suit.

I really think that the suggestion that someone's name being unusual is going to keep him from getting hired for a job is just not accurate. There are far too many people with unusual names who are doing just fine getting jobs so long as they have a decent resume. In fact, I'd bet seeing "Merlin Thompson" on a resume would make someone more likely to read it than not simply because it stands out.

I would respectfully disagree.

As far as I know, having an unusual name is not a protected status, at least in the U.S. As such, there would be no basis for a lawsuit, a judgement, or a settlment. You don't get hired because of your name and you're pretty much out of luck unless your name directly infers that you a member of a protected class. There is, quite simply, no discrimination, as far as the law is concerned.

I also maintain that corporate culture is such that having a name like Merlin, Blade, or Blaze could result in your resume going straight into the "not fitting into our corporate image" bin before even being considered. I realize that this is a fantasy gaming messageboard and, as such, my opinion may not be entirely popular. However, I still maintain that such abritrary decisions are made on a regular basis on a daily basis.

It's not fair, but I believe that it is reality.

More importantly, why risk it for your children?

As far as an above post regarding last names being unusual or humorous. I have no control over my last name, but I have absolute control over the name that I give my child.

Brooks wrote:

I could be entirely wrong on this, but, at least in the U.S., I don't believe that having an odd or unusual is considered a protected status.

It isn't, but race, ethnicity, and national origen are protected. If an HR person is discarding every Lakesha, Latoya, Mohammed,and Jamal, and only forwarding on the Jims, Bettys and Franks, that would be a potential problem for the company if it could be proven.

I believe that you are entirely correct. I want to say that it's Title VI or Title VII that prohibits employment discrimination against a finite list of protected classes. I also want to say that it even prohibits employment discrimination against someone who associates with the protected classes, but that I'm not as certain about that.

So if you can prove that you weren't hired because your name directly implied that you that you were a member of a protected class, then you may have a case.

However, that argument falls flat when we're talking about Aragorn, Merlin, Blade, and Blaze. As am employer I can refuse to hire anyone with an unusal name and there is, as far as I know, no legal recourse against that. Again, it comes back to why saddle your child with a name that may make it more difficult for them in life? We're supposed to give our children every opportunity to succeed and to make their lives more easy, not more difficult.

Is it fair that an unusal name may present them with obstacles? Of course not.

It is a reality that giving them an unusual name may, possibly make things more difficult? I believe the answer to that is absolutely yes.

Brooks wrote:

Having a unique name that may cause a child some grief in school is one thing, but you also have to consider the ramifications once they are in the working world and applying for a job. Although it's completely unfair, arbitrary, and may screw over the potentially best candidate, I am certain that if a hiring manager or HR professional has a stack of resumes and only a few minutes to go through them, the guy named Merlin is probably going to end up in the discard pile relatively quickly, perhaps with his resume not even having been read.

Technically, that's illegal. Granted, it'd be hard to prove that it's the case but if a hiring manager is going to be judging a resume based on a name such as Merlin, they're just as likely to judge one such as Shani'Qah, Hussain or Muhammed. No human resources manager in their right mind is going to allow a hiring manager to get away with that. That's opening the door to big lawsuits if it can be proved and companies are far more wary about that kind of thing than they used to be.

I could be entirely wrong on this, but, at least in the U.S., I don't believe that having an odd or unusual is considered a protected status.

Secondly, even were it illegal, which I don't think it is, I believe a conversation would go something like this:

HR Director - did you get through that stack of 100 resumes for the position?

Hiring Manager - yep, sure did. Here's the top 10 that I think are quality applicants that we should call in for interviews.

HR Director - good work, here's your next stack for the next position.

In most cases, those not chosen for interviews wouldn't even receive so much as an apologetic email. If they did receive some kind of communication, it would likely be a politely worded missive stating that they do not currently meet the needs of the company. If one of those 90 or 900 or whatever applicants that wasn't chosen for the next step raised any specter of a lawsuit, I think it would be very, very difficult to prove that they weren't chosen for any particular reason. There's a lot of qualified persons out there looking for jobs right now and even saying, "We don't think that applicant fit the corporate culture of this company or wasn't a good fit for the position," is pretty much all they would need to say.

Again, I'm not saying that this is right, fair, or whatever, but I believe these kinds of decisions happen every day in a corporate world. Why give your child a name that could be an obstacle?

And as far as Merlin, or Blade, or Blaze (yes I met a child two days ago named Blaze) being better off not working for a company that wouldn't choose them based on their name; in many cases a paying job easily trumps those concerns. Having a superior moral position doesn't pay the mortgage. I'm not trying to be offensive, but merely realistic.

"Merlin" might sound like a cool name on a Pathfinder message board, but do you really think his resume will be taken seriously in 25 years?

I think this is huge.

Having a unique name that may cause a child some grief in school is one thing, but you also have to consider the ramifications once they are in the working world and applying for a job. Although it's completely unfair, arbitrary, and may screw over the potentially best candidate, I am certain that if a hiring manager or HR professional has a stack of resumes and only a few minutes to go through them, the guy named Merlin is probably going to end up in the discard pile relatively quickly, perhaps with his resume not even having been read.

This may not happen every time or even very often, but as a parent, I want to give my children every advantage they can in the real world and not give them a name that furthers my personal amusement, but hinders their prospects even occasionally.

I had a sorcerer who was using quickened Hydraulic Pushes on himself for swift movement. If he becomes a vampire, is the spell enough to cause a third of his life go away every time he tries that?

I hate to do this, but I can't help but to suggest a metagame question. If your sorcerer using a quickened Hydraulic push is in immediate danger of suddenly being turned into a vampire, that particular spell is perhaps not his most pressing concern.

But since you have said you don't purchased my products due to the quality of them, how could you ever gauge if there was an improvement in the product's quality you would want? Like you said, you no longer purchase my products, so you are not a customer of mine.

Until now, I've followed, but not commented on the entire Razor Coast, April Fool's Day, Apology mess that's developed. However, the "you are not a customer of mine" comment really strikes me in the wrong manner. In order to stake out my own place, while I respect Nick Logue's work, I never pre-ordered Razor Coast nor any of his other products and I have purchased LPJ Design products in the past.

With that said, any publisher, third party or otherwise, that writes off a customer, former customer, or potential customer in such a cavalier manner bothers me. All of us (well the vast, vast majority of us) have a finite amount of available cash to spend of gaming products and when the producer of gaming products implies in a public forum that they don't particularly care about a customer... well that speaks for itself.

I also agree with Robert Hawkshaw that this whole thing should just die miserable death and be done with and with Hyperion-Sanctum that this whole "second apology" or whatever it is seems like a marketing ploy for NeoExodus. I think most of us understand that we've all made jokes that didn't translate well and sometimes it's best just to say "I screwed this up, sorry, I'll try not to do it again" and let it be done with that.

If AD&D modules are sketchy in detail, it may be because the authors trusted DMs to make the module their own. If 3x modules are deeper in detail (when, in reality, if you take away flavor boxed text and stat blocks, aren't much longer than old school modules, and I6 had more story in its little finger than most of the output I saw for 3x, ditto the omnibus editions of classics (T series, A series, GDQ - a fully fleshed out and interconnected "AP" if you will) released in the mid-80s), it's because, perhaps, modern DMs couldn't be bothered to add the little touches.

My opinion wasn't that the authors relied on GMs to flesh out their modules, but that the game system around the time of 1ED or early 2ED/AD&D wasn't designed nor intended to provide deeply immersive stories. Instead, I believe it was designed to provide a combat simulation.

I would also suggest that the authors of those modules didn't skimp on background and roleplaying because they counted on their audience to flesh in things, but because it simply wasn't a priority in the system.

Albeit, my experiences with 1ED were in middle school so my remembrance may be colored by my age group and demographic at the time, but revisiting some of these old books and modules more recently has not done a great deal to change my opinion.

Obviously my own experience is my own and others may have had radically different encounters with the rules.

But I do find it a challenge to characterization, in the sense that your proverbial "Bob the fighter" was much more easy to spot in the old days. After all, if you weren't working on backstory, what was there to work on? Now you can have a marvelously detailed character that someone's put hours into defining a very specific and interesting combat role for...but who has as much backstory as a limpet. It's a peril that just wasn't there before, and it closely relates to the importance of combat, player combat skill, and game.

That's an excellent point and one that I haven't fully considered. While Bob was very easy to locate in previous editions, he's now become something of a Combat Limpet concealing himself as a character with a much deeper background and so forth.

Re decades of gaming development well I play 3E/Pathfinder but certainly I think there is a greater emphasis on mechanics, builds than in 1 and 2E. The reason is that players have far more rules choices and standardization than they ever did (which would seem to be a good thing on the surface). But I'm not entirely convinced it is. A lot of it could be accomplished with imagination and a collaborative DM. One...

I would respectfully disagree with the greater emphasis on builds in 3x/Pathfinder than in previous editions.

Having taken a completely un-scientific and statistically irrelevant survey of my own bookcase, I have no fewer than 10 splat books for 2ED/AD&D (and I'm certain that I do not own them all). In my opinion, the system made an entire cottage industry out of the Complete... series of books as well as campaign-specific offerings. There has to be an entire softcover devoted to every class, every race, and so forth.

Given this proliferation, I find it difficult to believe that Pathfinder gives players access to more rules and so forth and previous editions.

Again, completely unscientifically, the Complete Book of Paladins that I randomly grabbed has 122 pages. This means that, only on my own bookshelf, there are over 1,000 pages of additional rules in 2ED/AD&D.

This is not necessarily or inherently a bad thing, but I do not think that we should let nostalgia blind us to the fact that old-school D&D was much more choked with rules than Pathfinder.

In all fairness many if not most of the 1st ed modules were original tournament run fare. Some even have tourney scoring charts printed with the adventure.

That being said even Against the Giants had a plot and story arc, if not a simplistic site based "mission" type adventure. Most of these early modules focused on site base exploration vs plot vehicle, considering their time I still find them superior to most material out there. Hell, even Paizo has made some efforts in replicating aspects of the classics.

I will completely agree with you that most of the 1ED modules were written for convention play as I stated above.

However, I completely disagree with you regarding the depth of the story arc in Against the Giants. I just pulled the G-1-2-3 booklet (TSR# 9058) out of my bookcase and it encompasses 30 typed pages (not including the cardstock maps that fit inside of the cover.) The "background" text is roughly 4 column inches encompassing less than 1/4 of the first page.

Following is some "Notes For The Dungeon Master" and then we jump straight into 33 encounters for the first section of the module. The following two modules are essentially identical and encompassed in the same 30 pages.

I would argue that the entire series, and many of the 1ED and 2ED, adventures were written as a series of combat encounters and subsequently encouraged simplistic character development and emphasized tactical combat.

This fact is not a bad thing, but it is still a fact. Different persons seek different things from a RPG, but to wax poetic about previous editions of the game has the risk of ignoring several decades of gaming development.

90% of the threads here deal with mechanics, not fluff. A majority of Forum entries in the old Dragon dealt with fluff, not mechanics. Yeah, there's a difference between edition expectations, but I think AD&D encouraged player driven experience, and 3x/Pf encourages character(sheet) driven experience.

I would suggest that the predominance of mechanics threads indicates that there is more to discuss, argue, clarify, and codify regarding the crunch of the rules. This doesn't indicate that character "fluff" hasn't gained increasing importance, but rather that there is less to discuss regarding backstories and so forth.

Anecdotal experience is what it is, but mine suggests that earlier editions focused much less on story than on combat. For example, if you've ever perused the Against the Giants or other classic module series, there is very, very little regarding the story or the character motivations or whatever. Instead, what you have is a series of encounters with stat blocks and some maps.

Again, I'm not saying that this style of gameplay is inferior, but I am saying that it is very different than what D&D has evolved into. Motivation, story, and so forth didn't really matter. You threw some characters into a dungeon and let them fight through it.

EDITED FOR CLARITY

I'm big on inverting expectations. The low CHA guy, is he ugly? No, he's amazingly attractive, but a total jerk who expects everything to do everything for him, because he's just that good looking. Low DEX? He's fast, but he's unlucky to the point of jinxed when it comes to things physical. Low INT? IQ-wise, he's a genus, but he just doesn't care.

I like this idea a lot and may just have to try it for my next character. You're entirely correct in that having a low intelligence (for example) does not necessarily mean that you are an idiot, but could also mean that you exhibit a great deal of "intellecutal laziness" despite a high IQ or whatever.

Thanks for the ideas.

My DM doesn't do all of the stuff on the list. just about half of it. i don't have a preference for his "Cheap" "Assinine" style, just that i got used to it. i know he is not a better DM, just different.

In that case, I believe that you may have confused many of the persons who responded to your initial posting, including myself. The rather exhaustive list in the original post seemed to indicate that your GM was, in fact, performing all of those actions during the game.

Additionally the title of the post led me, at least, to believe that you thought that list of actions were somehow "harder" or superior to other styles of running a game.

Finally, I'll repeat what others have already stated in this thread: you should not have to "get used to" a style of gaming that you do not enjoy.

There's been some discussion on this, and other, threads about 1ED and its "hardness / deadliness / agressiveness / purity" and so forth. I believe that what is important to realize is that this game (D&D/Pathfinder/etc.) and role-playing games in general have evolved a great deal since the late 1970s, early 1980s. After all, we're talking about nearly 30 years of gaming development. Something would be seriously amiss if things did not evolve over several decades.

In my experience, yes the game was much deadlier and much more GM vs. Player oriented in past editions. However, I also belive that there was much less focus on story development, character development, and story continuity in those games. For those that played during the 1ED / 2ED years, how many players ran "Bob the fighter with a sword". To further "flesh out" Bob's character concept, there might have been a line or two about how his family was slaughtered by orcs and that was about it.

Everything in those editions was focused on combat; after all the ruleset was directly extrapolated from Chainmail, which was a miniatures tactical combat game. Your character dies? No big deal, you can have another one in a few minutes to jump right back into the action. Skills in their current incarnation didn't even begin to be introduced until 2ED and at that point were considered completely voluntary and extremely limited. All that mattered was a character's ability scores, saving throws, and combat statistics.

Since that time, 3.5/Pathfinder has become much more focused on mutually developing a story/campaign between the GM and players. In my personal experience, the payers now spend much, much more time developing their character "concept", developing backstories, and so forth. Of course there are exceptions, but I think that the trend has been steadily moving in that direction.

Given that trend, I think it is a cheap-shot for the GM to actively gun for the characters, to exploit their every weakness, and to prevent them from using their class abilities and chosen skills or feats. I fully believe that the GM should challenge the players and if a character occasionally dies, such is the nature of the game. However, I also believe that the GM is no longer competing directly against the characters as they may have been in previous editions.

I realize that this post has rambled over a few topics without seeming to have gained any real purchase, but I don't think we should ignore several decades of gaming development and simply say things were harder/better or whatever back in 1ED. Things were obviously very different then, but better is a very subjective term. If you like that tactical combat oriented, "grinder" style dungeons of years past, more power to you. However, not all of us are as endeared to the past and we actually like how things have progressed.

In my opinion the issues raised by the OP are not GM's getting soft, but rather not being lazy. In particular I have issues with a GM regularly stealing spellbooks, destroying divine foci, sending rust monster after rust monster against the armored fighter, or specifically targeting the alchemist's supposedly glass vials time after time.

As the game is put together, there are more than ample ways to challenge a party without eliminating their simple ability to function. Used very sparingly, such tacticts on the GM's part can offer a new twist, something fresh to entertain the group. However, used consistently, all they do is breed frustration on the party of the players. Why create a wizard/cleric/fighter/alchemist/whatever if the GM is going to routinely prevent me from using the abilities of that class?

I also have a significant problem with the "you awake in a jail cell stripped down to your underwear." A while ago, I was in a group that ran through the 2ed Slave Lords campaign revised for 3.5. Not once, but twice, the party ended up imprisoned despite anything and everything we did to avoid it. In my mind, this is GM fiat taken to a ridiculous level. I understand that these modules were written for convention play, but it is ridiculous for the GM to assume that, despite any and all measures the players might take, they will be subdued and captured. Again, this smacks of laziness for me.

I have the same sentiment for vastly overpowering encounters being sent against the party. If the GM is forced to specifically send a much higher CR adversary against the party, there is something wrong going on. Realistic challenges are good, simply spanking the party with an encounter that is beyond their capabilities is not so good.

Finally, I'd like to weigh in on the Leadership feat, animal companions, and caster familiars. These are either class abilities or feats that a character has "purchased." Unless the GM is willing to exhibit a high degree of control over other class abilities or feat selections, they should use a very, very light hand on followers. As I see it, the GM attempting to control a cohort or animal companion to any significant degree is the exact same as a GM dictating when a character can choose to use their Power Attack feat or ordering a ranger as to which favored enemies they can choose. As with any other ability or feat, any rampant abuses should be adjudicated by the GM, but otherwise, let the player use the feat or class ability choices they have chosen.

Having played the game for a long time (much longer than I'd like to admit), I see it as having evolved from a highly adversarial system of GM vs. player to a collaborative effort to have a good time, experience some challenging encounters, progress the AP, story or whatever, and have a good time. Going out of your way to gimp your players is not the best way to go about these goals.

Challenge your players. Absolutley. Go out of your way to screw with your players. Not so much.

One of my current characters is a half-orc oracle with a very high charisma and a below-average intelligence (I believe it's 8, but don't have the character sheet handy). Thus far, my biggest challenge has been playing her as a bit slow without crossing the line into being a complete idiot. After all, if 10-11 is average intelligence, than an 8 is just a bit below average. She sometimes has trouble with extremely complex plans or ideas and sometimes I'll have her take just a bit longer than everyone else to have a moment of intellectual clarity.

Do you limit other classes in similar ways? Do wizards spell components get destroyed when they get wet? Are fighters limited to a realistic number of weapons? Do you drown them often because they can't make swim checks?

I would suggest this is a really bad idea.

I agree with this.

Unless you are specifically targeting the class abilities of other classes, it seems an unnessary burden to play an alchemist and relatively quickly no one will want to play one.

In my mind it would be the same as constantly trying to steal the wizard's compent pouch, destroy the cleric's divine focus, or have the plate-armored fighter routinely encountering rust monsters. This can be fun and interesting if used very rarely, but can quickly become an annoyance if used routinely.

There are probably better ways to challenge the characters than actively eliminating their basic class abilities.

So you can have a den mother but if Uncle Mike has a partner he's out....THAT'S WHALE CRAP!!! If the person in question behaves in an appropriate manner not letting him join the organization is discrimination. If He is acting in a way that is inappropriate that's different.

Mr. Fishy is pretty sure gay men are attracted to other men, straight men are attracted to women. Homosexual is not the same as a pedophile. Pedophiles touch children. Homosexuals touch other adults.

I agree completely with you and think that the BSA, and many other organizations for that matter, should seriously reconsider their positions on homosexuals, athiests, or whatever.

However, is it fair to sanction or hold animosity towards the members of an organization for the positions that their upper leadership takes? For example, the U.S. military currently has a contentious relationship with its homosexual members that has been dragged through high level inquiries, studies, and the courty system. Having served in that military, I personally have no problem with openly gay soliders/sailors/airmen serving their country and disagree with the military's current stance.

Despite those feelings, I am not going to hold that policy against junior enlisted, NCOs, or even junior officers. For the most part, these servicemen and women joined the military for a variety of reasons spanning patriotism, the chance for a better life, the assurance of paid college education, or whatever. They realistically do not have any ability to affect policy set forward by the Department of Defense or the Joint Chiefs of Staff or other high level entities.

I equate the same thing to the boys and young men that are members of the Boy Scouts. I'm certain that there are some of these members that are openly opposed to homosexuality and endorse the BSA's political/social positions, but I would suspect the vast majority simply like the organization's focus on camping, hiking, community service, comraderie, and many other beneficial aspects.

I also realize that these are contentious issues and many people cannot emotionally separate the membership of the Boy Scouts from the policies of the organization as a whole. In that case, I would encourage you to not simply boycott the membership, but to instead engage in letter-writing, public awareness, and other forms of positive social activism that make democracies so powerful. If you feel strongly enough to discuss the BSA's policies on a gaming message board, then please take that a step forward and raise your voice to influence the leadership of the organization to change those policies.

A1C Security Specialist here. Thank you to everyone else who served or is serving. Keep up the good work.

Nice to see another "blue beret" on these boards, I was in during the transition from SP to SF and still don't know what I should call myself :)

Thanks for serving and carrying on the tradition.

1993 - 2003 active
2003 - 2005 Air National Guard

Congratulations Kassil, it sounds like it was quite an event and that your win was well deserved!

Hey all, haven't been here for awhile . . . hope everything has been zany and weird in my absence.

Anyhow: I've been clearing out a lot of my books, DVDs, games, etc. and was wondering if anyone had any suggestions regarding selling books (some of which would be old 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th edition D&D books) online besides ebay. Any good on-stop shopping locale where I can get something approximating a fair price?

Althought this isn't an online vendor, I personally avoid selling to Half-Price Books if you eventually decide to go with a brick-and-mortar reseller. I've never received particularly good (or even remotely good) prices out of them and have kicked myself afterwards for selling to them the few times I did so out of laziness.

-Brooks

*sigh*...

...thank you for the thread, that actually felt pretty good.

1. Running out of bombs isn't a problem IF you're doing an exploring-type game. In any kind of a dungeon situation or mass combat situation with multiple encounters, though, you run out of them really fast.

I'm actually not sure if I would pick up Fast Bombs as a discovery, if only because the temptation would be too great to just keep throwing and throwing and you'd be out of ammo in a flash. I'll think about it, though, as being able to combo it with haste is pretty sweet.

Not picking up Fast Bombs is actually not a bad idea to avoid running dry. When starting to build my alchemist, I looked at some of the builds centered around Two-Weapon Fighting, Fast Bombs, and other ideas and I can easily see the character running out of what is arguably their most potent weapon in a single encounter, even at higher levels.

Also, I'm becoming increasingly convinced that you really do need a feasable back-up weapon. At 1st, 2nd level, a light crossbow has been working fine for my character, but I can see where the 1d8 points of damage will quickly fall behind the curve when it comes to the amount of hurt you need to inflict in a round. I'm with you on the INT damage feat, but I want to say that it has some prerequisites that I wasn't ready to dive into and decided that it might not be worth it in a cost/benefit situation.

If you have time to work, Brew Potion can make the "infusion" discovery superfluous. True, stuff costs money, but they're pretty cheap when you're making 1st level potions of things like shield and true strike (or even CLW). However, you are essentially trading money for spell slots, and you don't have all that many of those.

This is also a good idea. In all honesty, my character has not really used his extracts all that much (other than a daily Endure Elements) and I thought the infusion discovery might be a good way to get better use out of them. However, you're right in that there are a lot of good 1st level Alchemist formulas that can be crafted into potions relatively cheaply and easily. Keeps the party happy without sacrificing a precious discovery.

Good info. I really like the Alchemist and want it to be viable. I have some questions that maybe you can speak to:

Do you feel that the non-magic aspects of the class are worth it? The skill selection, d8 hd, two strong saves, 3/4 BAB, light armor prof, poison use, etc, compensate for the lack of high level spells?

Do you feel that the Alchemist is competitive with the Bard, to the point that they are more or less interchangeable in a party line-up?

Do you reap benefits from the Brew Potion feat and alchemy / poison creation aspect of the class?

Do you feel like you will take Alchemist all the way to 20, or are you eyeballing some multi-class options to branch out into other areas?

Are you competitive with other spell-casty PC's in the party (if any), or are you lagging behind and becoming irrelevant?

Do you have enough bombs to get through a full adventuring day, or do you run dry too soon?

I'm currently playing an Alchemist in the Serpent's Skull AP and, while we are only 2nd level, I believe that I can speak to some of these points.

1. Non-magical aspects - with bombs only have a 20-ft. range increment and other alchemicals having only a 10-ft. range increment, I've had to move my character closer to harm's way than I might have otherwise hoped. However, the d8 hit die has made this relatively feasable; I can take a solid hit or two and not worry about imediately going into negative hit points.

Light armor proficiency has largely been a wash. My character is wearing studded leather and either the DM is rolling particulary well or the creatures have a high enough BAB to chew through his AC with relative ease. Down the road, I can see this being more of a benefit with magical armor, special materials, and so forth.

I just picked up poison use at second level and am planning on taking full advantage of it. My character has used a light cross to good effect when it wasn't really worth throwing a bomb and I'm looking forward to adding poison to that mix.

Our party's ranger who focuses on a longbow (I think, or it may be a shortbow) is also looking forward to having my alchemist craft augmented arrows for her (there's a number in the Elves of Golarion, or something similar) as well as poisoning her arrows.

2. Bards - while it has been a very long time since I've played a bard, my experience with them has largely been relegated to augmenting the other memebers of the party. I feel that the alchemist fills an entirely different niche so It's hard for me to directly compare the two classes.

3. Brew Potion - as the party is relatively low level, I have a single Cure Light Wounds potion that my character created that may come in handy. However, I am focusing on bombs and am finding out that the discovery class feature is particularly precious. I'm thinking that as we progress, brewing potions will allow me to put off taking the discovery that allows others to use your extracts (I believe it is infusion or something similar, but don't have my book handy.)

4. Prestige Classes/Multi-Classing - having taken a look at the available prestige classes and having contemplated multi-classing, I am currently confident that I'm going to keep my character a straight-up alchemist for as long as the campaign runs. More discoveries, more bomb damage, more bombs, and so forth trump any other abilities my character might pick up with another class, however, that's probably dependent upon my specific build and my character concept.

5. Other spellcasters - we have a witch in the party as well as various NPC casters built into the AP and my alchemist has been effective and even decisive in a number of encounters. I'm not sure how my character might stack up versus a wizard or cleric, but again I think that the alchemist is filling a specific niche and a direct comparison is difficult.

6. Bombs Per Day - despite having 4 - 5 encounters per day so far, I have yet to run out of bombs. However, I am judicious on their use and don't lob them out there for the fun of it. When combat is winding down to the "mopping up" stage, I'm quick to switch to the light crossbow to conserve resources.

This may become more problematic at higher levels when bomb damage greatly outpaces what I can dish out with the crossbow, but for now, at least, it's not an issue. I can also see how, after I gain iterative attacks and pick up the Fast Bomb discovery, they could run out much more quickly. For that reason, I have every intention of picking up the Extra Bombs feat at least once to help out with the drain.

In summary, I was initially curious as to how effective the alchemist would be in a traditional party, but so far he's exceeded my expectations. Planning for down the road, I am thinking that the Extra Discovery Feat and Extra Bombs feat will be essential.

If you are focusing on bombs, I would also highly recommend the Precise Bombs discovery at second level; I've unfortunately fragged a number of party members in melee with a target and even reduced one of those to unconsiousness. Luckily, my party has been understanding, but the ability to exclude squares from the blast radius is essential.

Also speaking to bombs, Precise Shot is golden. As a bomb is simply a touch attack, I, incorrectly, assumed that the feat wouldn't be as essential. However, taking a -4 penalty to the attack simply "sucks" for lack of a better word. I'll be grabbing it as soon as we level to 3.

As a final thought, Intelligence is your friend, increase it however you possibly can.

Thanks for all the hard work you do, especially considering today is a Sunday.

I'll second that, or third or fourth it, however it works out.

Mistah Green wrote:

.... but discussing this in front of the trolls is really just feeding them.

Wow, talk about a pot meet kettle statement.

Selective perception.

I stand by my previous statement, "Wow... just, wow."

Is it bad to have an Alchemist bomb thrower named "Enola Ghey"?

Nice reference, but that Alchemist would probably need to have a cohort by the name of Tibbets.

-Brooks

...and you are wrong and either stupid or misinformed for doing it.

Wow... just, wow.

I'm sorry that you feel that way, but I still maintain that there is no wrong, stupid, flawed, or incorrect way to play the game as long as everyone involved is having a good time.

-Brooks

Mistah Green wrote:

* - Because you'd be stupid not to use a two handed weapon in 3.x.

Not that you meant it in that way, but that's exactly the type of statement that makes people dislike optimizers.

I definitely agree with this.

It always makes me a bit sad when I see a character option, feat selection, or playing style being described as "stupid" or "wrong." As many others have said, there is no "wrong" way to play Pathfinder or any other roleplaying game as long as all of those involved are having fun.

If you and your group enjoy optimization and and have fun doing so, great. If you and your group enjoy deep character immersion and couldn't care less about damage output or highly "tweaked" builds and have fun doing so, great. Just please don't try to impose your playing style on anyone else; what's stupid in one game most likely makes perfect sense in another one.

-Brooks