That was why I couldnt stay on the PFRPG wagon. For everything they did to make it simpler or more dynamic they added something clunky so that overall it felt no better. Just different.
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Usual range is 3 players + 1 GM, to 6 players +1 GM. Many people only seem to make about 2/3s of the game sessions.
I'm not taken with the PfRPG corebook rule previews and very doubtful I will pick it up. For every change I liked there were two I didnt, which adds up to more houserules. And has been said, why spend money to rewrite a book. There are other games that are less work and more play for me (especially if I am the one running it). I'm glad the PfRPG has enough similarities that I can continue using the Gamemastery series even as they come out post-Pf.
In New Zealand at the high schools D&D went crazy in the 80's. There were some reports and grumblings from the right-wing. But really nothing that caused any issues or book burnings. We use to have a "club day", actually 3 hours on a Wednesday afternoon. The D&D club drew so many (ok entirely males) that the soccer and football clubs had trouble getting the number together to make two teams to play! I can remember being told not to bring D&D books to school. They simply weren't allowed. The school teachers didnt say it was satanic or confiscate them. But we were told that it was too much of a disturbance and couldnt bring them. Sorry. No more horror stories. I promise. =)
My experience, in Toronto, was that the fear of 'Satans Game' was comparatively minor. I encountered it and lost the odd possible friend over it but nothing huge. I wish I grew up in Toronto then. Here in the midwest USA it was a big deal. I remember distinctly being forced by my friends parents (who were in charge of me until my own parents came back from wherever) to watch some kind of documentary that came on TV. It was about how satanic D&D was and how even the TSR logo was a symbol from the dark depths of historic devil worship. Afterwards my friend was forced to retrieve all his D&D books from his room and tear them up in front of his parents. And they knew how many he had. Since he was the only one who had D&D books this ended my gaming for a bit. Later, after I had gotten my own books and gamed for several years (losing my soul according to several dozen people, some of whom actually demonstrated outside a comic book store that sold D&D stuff.) my father remarried. When I left for Basic Training I left four cardboard boxes up in my father's attic. When I got back on leave I went to retrieve some of my things to take with me to my duty station. There was only half a box left. My step-mother's son (my step-brother) who was 14 years old had gone up and gotten into my boxes. He then read them and showed them to his mother. She was horrified that this sort of thing was even in the house much less where her son could get to them (I did tape the boxes shut and wrote my name all over them). So she went through my things and threw out all the "satanic stuff" which included not only an entire BECMI D&D boxed set collection but other RPG books, a first run deck of M:tG (this was just coming out), all my heavy metal concert Tees, and all my music tapes. All I had left was a half-dozen pairs of jeans.Some gamers still call those years "The Purge".
Okay. No hard feelings. You put more gravy on the stat bonus and extra feat and I put mine on vision enhancements. Yes, dwarves and orcs do have the best advantage there.Elves are not as good, but still far better then human dudes and halflings. (re: vision) Halflings have the worst of it. They cant see and get stuck with regular # of feats and a S move rate. I've not played many and neither do most teams I find myself on. I dont understand how you seemingly underrate vision enhancements but obviously I'm not going to convince you.
I never called you a name and I did apologise (in the post you quoted) if english is your second (or fourth) language. In english one can say "not ever" and it only means "not all the time". Not the same as "never" which was how you read it ...Are you always an arrogant, condescending jerk or only when you're losing an argument. Read the board rules. One of them is "don't be a jerk". Check the multiple meanings of the word "ever" and see that it means "continuously". So saying "not ever" means "not continuously" which wouldnt be the same as saying "never". Your only using the one definition of "ever" to mean "at any time" in whch case "not ever" would mean "not at any time".That was why I apologised if Kaeyoss didnt speak english primarily because there is no easy way to explain that sometimes words have multiple meanings. I might not have explained that too well when I said "that's the way it goes" but I meant that was the wacky way english works.
Great! At least your enjoying yourself. And when your done you can reread the posts you (mis)quoted and realise you lost the argument.
And here is he-who-cast-the-first-name-calling-stone. hmmm
Are you always an arrogant, condescending jerk or only when you're losing an argument. Read the board rules. One of them is "don't be a jerk". I never called you a name and I did apologise (in the post you quoted) if english is your second (or fourth) language. In english one can say "not ever" and it only means "not all the time". Not the same as "never" which was how you read it ...
No, sorry. "Not ever" and "never" are not the same thing. "Ever" meaning all the time and "never" meaning not at all then "not ever" simply means "not all the time".At least Kaeyoss only misunderstood the subject. You totally tried to teach me the definitions and got them wrong.
Don't forget the extra 30' shadowy illumination. You don't have to read the fine print beneath the armour's brand logo to notice that ther's something there. Proof of lax rules adherance regarding illumination. You would expect no less from a DM who handwaves rules but still wants to get up on a soapbox and tell players what is balanced.
Yes, and the debate seemed to hinge on me somehow saying that lowlight permanently prevented ambushes from ocurring when I did no such thing. I may have missed a contraction and a capital letter but at least I didnt misinterprete the whole subject and bang on it like it proved some point. (sort of like the guy who thought that common lamps provided over sixty feet of illumination sort of proves somebody has been handwaving visibility rules and yet thinks that no lowlight vision is a minimal disadvantage at best). Go ahead. Reread my post where I said it. Laugh if you like it that much.But it is still right.
First of all; learn english. The statement "At least your not ever one round away from being ambushed flat footed" means that the non-lowlight vision guys are constantly in danger. Not that lowlight is a constant protection. I hope english is your second language. If so, my apologies and that is just the way it goes.Your main argument hinges on the fact that if you make cookie-cutter characters and the DM runs the game so that everyone is ambushed from angled terrain then the human race is over-powered. You may be right there. But that is a hefty load of circumstances weighing your argument down.
If your going to base an argument on stereotyped clerics and a constant stream of "what if they hid behind a rock" scenario knowing full well they can do so in broad daylight as well then I rest my case.
Just people joke you play a barbarian or a fighter for simple. Oh, I see now ... that's actually pretty funny. =D Those classes are not so simple as theolden days.
A bonus to Dex is flat out awesome as well as improving your save against the Dragons' most iconic attack. The bonus to Int not only raises certain skill levels it also boosts your skill points (leveling out the skill point bonus with humans). And lowlight vision may not be the boon that darkvision is in tunnels and such. But at least your not ever one round away from being ambushed flat footed (since you can see out to 60' shadowy illumination with lowlight and a common lamp).
So balancing a race based on their supposed uberbility of an extra feat and a few skill points seems not thought out.Don't forget a free martial weapon proficiency and a free +2 to any one ability score and no -2 to anything. That makes them good at everything. Non-humans can equal, and sometimes surpass, humans in special cases, but humans are usually among the best choices, if not the best choice. The stat bonus is prett much balanced by the other races getting two attribute +2 bonuses. (and a -2 to nothing as well these days) And that is always the case. Lighting conditions can be a problem - depending on how where and when the players are adventuring - but +2 to the attribute of your choice, an extra feat and extra skill points are always an advantage. Lighting conditions are usually a problem in a game based on Dungeons & Dragons. Some people may never play a dungeon crawler campaign. But the game's strengths are focused on that variety of playing.
Also, any human worth his weight in salt owns potions of darkvision or goggles of the night, so lighting issues are irrelevant on all except the first few levels. You mean like the levels a PC is most likely to die?
Im not sure if that was suppossed to be sarcastic or serious. . .? Seriously. I dont see why that would have been a sarcastic statement I made (unless I am mistaken as to which comment you are refering to)I got into PF:Beta because I thought the design goal of PF was to make the D&D3.5 ruleset smoother while still remaining compatible to the latter. I havn't seen anything in PF that makes gameplay that much smoother that I should want to get it or play it. Thus, if the first character class in the book (or any other really) isnt easier to play then it was with 3.5 then I shall have to stick with 3.5. Why else make the switch? (i.e. The PF hardback is darned expensive and I already have a PHB)
In general, I like point buy systems better than level based systems. But by that I'm referring to systems like GURPS, HERO, Shadowrun (which switched completely to buy with 4th). I thought ShadowRun was point buy at first edition???
Barbarian, because if it isn't significantly easier to play then I'm not buying the game. (accomplishing this seemingly contradictory task by play-testing at the flgs)
As far as I know they were.
Yeah, obviously they're unplayable. And they deserve the niche they have in most game worlds, including Golarion. Now dont get me wrong. They are far from unplayable. It just gets me laughing everytime somebody says humans are too powerful. ("Really? Lemme hit the lights"). Especially since they did away with level caps for demi-humans long ago. (and that was the only real reason to play a human back then either). So balancing a race based on their supposed uberbility of an extra feat and a few skill points seems not thought out.
Well, with a name like Dungeons & Dragons you'd think subterranean scariness was somewhat common. Or at least not altogether unknown.
Belt of Magnificence +6. . . Yeah!
I can see that. I feel that way about monsters, they just are not as unknown as they used to be. I'm still not exactly sure, though, what sort of items you are talking about. Could you give an example? Well, every single magical item now is based on a spell and even has caster level and things. If you read the spell descriptions you pretty much know what any item is capable of.
This talk about darkness and darkvision and advantage reminds me of a combat encounter in my Beta playtest campaign. The PCs had just finished the adventure and returned to town to heal and sell loot. They were all wounded, and I was a bit worried about the whole encounter (I had assumed they would spend the rest of their healing resources for the day before returning), but decided to run it anyway. Basically, it was supposed to be an ambush at the shrine of the cleric PC's deity, and consisted of a elven swordsman plus several human "minions" (some were archers stationed on two balconies). Well, it wasn't challenging for long, because the cleric's player asked me (on his character's turn): "Elves don't have Darkvision, right?" and then proceeded to cast 'Darkness' on the whole chamber. None of the bad guys could see in darkness, but half the party could... what followed was an amusing (but ridiculously easy) fight for the PCs as the hapless "minions" mostly fought each other in the dark (the PCs slaughtered anyone trying to get out of the room). Talk about advantage and outwitting the GM... *sigh*. LoL, good one! Reminds me of the rl SWAT teams when they throw in those blinding flash bombs before charging in on the bad guys.
Um, that is the shadowy illumination radius. I see you have been handwaving the visibility rules.(edit: Just to make sure I looked it up. pg 165 PHB3.5. Common lamp bright illumination to 15' , shadowy only to 30'. Unless your just handwaving the rules in which case as long as the heroes have a 0-level spell they can see all night long as far as they want to.)
It is still a serious tactical consideration imo. A common lamp only allows a human to see out to 30'. Which is only a single movement for medium creatures costing humans initiative in many cases. A torch is only slightly better with visibility out to 40'. This is only a single move for large creatures and a double move (charge) for medium. And consider that these half-actions are all it takes for a creature to evade a humans' counterattack. Oh, sure! You could follow them down the darkened corridor. But dont blame me if they figured you would and set up ambush 60' or 80' down.So you see, simply doubling the visible range we have eliminated much of this tactical disadvantage. Opponents are not able to evade counterattack as easily (especially given the elvish propensity to carry longbows everywhere) nor are they as likely to successfully ambush advancing characters. I didnt hit on this racial disadvantage from an academic "lookit these numbers" standpoint. It comes from playing and seeing others play humans and the trouble they find themselves in. It is no surprise to me that we have played entirely non-human parties for several sessions at a time. And still groan when someone comes along with their brand new human whatever.
I never had a problem playing humans. Now that you can cast light all day and don't have to bother with torches, it's even less of a problem. You do know that light is a minutes/level spell. Yes you can recast it all day long. But are you going to stay up all night recasting it? If not, humans make less effective camp guards.Do you actually keep track of when it is supposed to be recast? A sufficiently maliscious DM can have it drop mid-fight on you. Even if you recast it before opening every door it can alert monsters beyond (same as torchlight). Having an unlimited supply of batteries is less appealing when you have to change them out every few minutes. That was what I meant by hand-waving the visibility limitations. Your DM is simply nodding and going "Yup, thems free spells" and the issue is solved. Not really. Not when you consider that most dungeon monsters dont need light, unless it is to show them where their next meal is in the corridors. Low-light is at least effective in wilderness hexes.
Mongoose came out with a hardback book , Ultimate NPCs.
When it comes to favored classes humans had the big advantage (and half-elves). Only in that aspect was I referring to. Your point (and similar from others) is well taken, but there are still big disadvantages and I feel this cost appeal for the race.Which doesnt strike me as a good move since humans (a.k.a. stumblers, bumblers, or PCs-that-go-bump-in-the-night) are a hassle to play already.
At least lowlight helps in wilderness hexes. Humans dont do so good there half the time.
Funny how we all look at these things differently... case in point: the thread labeled "Why play anything but a human?"That might be the extra Feat you're thinking about... Maybe because too many GMs handwave visibility handicaps.
Does order history contain preorders that have yet to ship?
Barbarian rage points.
That might be the extra Feat you're thinking about... Well currently there is a huge downside to playing humans (and halflings) in that they cannot see in any kind of darkness. Now the downside is ,in addition, that they have abilities that wont kick in at first level at all and more importantly to me that dilute their main class specialty.Multi-classing is a pain in the rear.
I find it hard to believe they would waste two pages for art (or even one). No other PF product has art between chapters, plus Jason's comments indicates they jammed just about every page they could with information. I could see a chart or charts, but not sure what. I like books with lots of art. Some books I buy just because I liked some of the illustrations (what caught my eye with C&C)
Someone else (Erik?) mentioned this a while ago and it would seem that humans and half-elves might get to pick two favored classes. Don't know if they can confirm that yet?I'm actually disappointed to see this gone... the revision to favored classes in Beta worked *really* well in my opinion (no XP penalties anymore). And, it helped with excessive multi-classing in my group, as people wanted to get that extra +1 HP or skill point. Not to mention that eliminating it makes humans and half-elves slightly less desirable to play, unless they get something extra to compensate for this. That's dumb. You get an advantage that only comes into effect if you multi-class??? And that's supposed to be your big advantage playing a human?
Besides Shadowrun, what other rpgs cover cyberpunk/fantasy crossover as the default setting? I would say Warhammer 40,000 features a default setting that is mixed dark sci-fi with fantasy. True most has to do with space travel but the example in my old GW book focused on a planet called "Logan's World" which spent 80-90% of it's time being cut off from the rest of the universe because of raging warp storms. This meant that most scenarios for Logan's World would involve only local (as in planet bound) elements.
A magazine shouldnt skimp on artwork though. Especially a fantasy magazine.
P.S. Creative people always think what they do is simple. I made the statement based on the example I used. Musicians. I've worked for a few and met quite a few more. All of them seemed to think they weren't doing anything special. More then a couple even asked me why I didnt play anything. Artists. ^^I guess that was an overly broad statement but I didnt mean for it to be all-inclusive.
okay, that seems pretty clear. I would've thought that more equivalent articles would be the norm.But then again it is amazing what some people dont know about my profession which seems a lot more straightforward then editing a magazine.
P.S. Creative people always think what they do is simple. Talk to a musician. Most think anybody can play music. I know I cant. I also know a great deal of people who followed that advice and should not have. So everybody that told me to write my own stuff must be the creative types. That means I want to see articles from each and every one of you. I hope we weren't being facetious. Am I to conclude that Mr. Baur published every single article submitted to him? Unless he did or does or plans to , then I honestly dont get the "write them in" stuff. Because when everybody sends their stuff in they are going to go through some sort of weeding out process and what happens when there are articles from different systems that are equivalent quality? No, I dont think that merely sending in articles will tilt KQ one way or the other. There is still a deciding process that unless it is just based on a percentage of what is submitted then somebody planned for there to be x amount of this and y amount of that.On the other hand writing in a ton of stuff may improve odds. But you cant expect me to think that Mr. Baur is sitting somewhere going "Oh, this 4e article was recieved too late, I've already decided what articles to print and it just wont fit." Unless that is what happens which just goes to show I really don't know squat about writing. LoL
as far as business models go, unless the 4e crowd is just way more wealthy I dont see how luring them away from all-4e print magazines is going to work unless you yourself dedicate the mag to 4e. If I played 4e and I was watching my budget I would not get a hybrid hands-across-D&D mag when I could get all-4e-all-the-time. (as in Level Up!) I take this part back. It appears the 4e crowd could easily afford to buy both magazines since Level Up! is 56 pages of $1.99. =Sdang!
What I meant with "why get articles if I write my own" could have been better explained.
I never subsribed to KQ because Mr.Baur said right up front awhile ago he was going to do 4E stuff. So I took it on a case by case basis. Still ended up buying every issue (including #9). I just wanted other people that felt like I did to know what they were buying. I hate buying books on the internet for this same reason. I felt if I could have seen the articles then I would have skipped it (am willing to sell my #9). as far as business models go, unless the 4e crowd is just way more wealthy I dont see how luring them away from all-4e print magazines is going to work unless you yourself dedicate the mag to 4e. If I played 4e and I was watching my budget I would not get a hybrid hands-across-D&D mag when I could get all-4e-all-the-time. (as in Level Up!) Unless you think the 4e players will just buy anything as long as it says "4e" on it. I have a little bit more respect for them then that. P.S. Creative people always think what they do is simple. Talk to a musician. Most think anybody can play music. I know I cant. I also know a great deal of people who followed that advice and should not have. So everybody that told me to write my own stuff must be the creative types. That means I want to see articles from each and every one of you. I hope we weren't being facetious. Edit: How in the world am I supposed to "convert" the 4e articles when I dont even have the 4e books?
Well there is an obvious conundrum there. If I could write my own articles why would I want somebody else's?
It's simple math, Mr. Baur. If I played 4E why would I want to pay full price for half a magazine when there are actually two alternatives that provide exclusive 4E. The e-zine Dragon (edit: And Dungeon) and the dead tree Level Up.If I didnt play 4E why would I want to buy any product for it. My alternatives there are the plethora pathfinder stuff (3.5 or 3.p , either works). Now only if I happened to play both would I want a magazine that covered both. I also do not play D&D:Online, AD&D, AD&D2, D&DCMG, or Chainmail. So I wont be purchasing things for those games either.
Is there a mag that does just that? http://www.goodmangames.com/9101preview.html
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