Chris Perkins 88's page

If half-orcs don't get a CHA penalty then neither should dwarves.

CHA should mean A LOT more than likability and attractiveness, which is the rationale behind dropping the half-orc CHA penalty (I supposed). It should represent one's force of personality and ability to influence others.

Dwarves, as depicted in D&D and its sources, have never been short on personality and, as such, shouldn't take a hit to CHA.

They are stocky, with short and stubby legs... DEX should be the stat that takes the -2 penalty.

Multiclassing in 3.X works well for non-caster and for multiclassed casters who take a 1 or 2-level dip into another class (usually in order to qualify for a PrC like the Arcane Trickster or Mystic Theurge).

Here is an alternate system that would grant you limited class features from a second class as you progress in your chosen character class. To make up for the Gestaltian features of the combined classes, you'd progress in levels more slowly (as if you were 1 level higher than your actual level):

SPLIT-CLASSING
Any character, at the beginning of their adventuring career, may choose to dabble in a second character class as they advance in their chosen, primary, class. Such character are called split-classed characters.

A player who split-classes must decide which class is his primary class and which is his secondary class at the start of play. Throughout the character's split-class career, the class features for his primary class are modified by that character's secondary class, though the character NEVER loses any features of his primary class.

Split-classed characters advance in level as if they were one character level higher than their actual character level (+1 LA) and may never change their secondary class (their secondary class modifications are ALWAYS applied to the character's primary class, even if their primary class changes). The character's primary class levels determine his character level in all instances... the secondary class only serves to modify the primary class's features.

So far I'm only including rules for taking one of the 4 "core" classes (Cleric, Fighter, Rogue and Wizard) as a secondary class.

Cleric:
The character gains simple weapon proficiency, as well as proficiency with light armor, medium armor proficiency and shields if they lack these.
Decrease the primary class's hit die type by 1 category if the primary class has a d10 or greater die type. The character gains clerical spellcasting ability as a cleric of 2/3 (rounding fractions down) of...

bump...

no takers for offering constructive criticism?

Yes, on the face of it, this is a stupid question. Paizo wants to sell its version of 3.X and wants it tied to their campaign setting. I get that and that is obviously their right...

At the same time I KNOW that I'd rather the Pathfinder RPG be a fairly generic set of rules that fine-tune 3.5 and leave the flavor (differing racial ability mods and flavor text, for example) to various setting supplements.

I'm finding that Pathfinder's racial norms fall outside of what I'd want for my D&Desque game and feel that a lot of these changes come from the need to make the races Golarion-ready when it should be the other way around. The Pathfinder rules should rock so hard that people will want to go out and buy the campaign supplements in order to fine-tune their game.

First and foremost I'd hope that the Pathfinder rules are 3.5 compatible, able to be used with any D&D setting (Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Scarred Lands, etc) without too much tweaking.

Getting off of my soapbox...

I plan to pick up my subscription after the full release of the Pathfinder RPG but, at this point, have more than enough materials to use (should I manage to get a Pathfinder game up and running).

Thanks again,
Chris Perkins

I understand the reasoning behind the +2 to both a physical ability score and mental ability score, -2 to one other ability score... to prevent the pigeon-holing of nonhuman characters into 1 character class.

Unfortunately, I don't dig the implementation of those bonuses and penalties. In particular, I don't get how dwarves get a CHA penalty while 1/2 Orcs don't and that gnomes and halflings get a CHA bonus. It doesn't gel with the representation of those races over the years or with the fact that CHA counts for MUCH more than how likeable a race is. CHA should encompass one's leadership abilities and force of presence.

My proposed changes (which are not too drastic and are in keeping with the +2/+2/-2 scheme):

Dwarves: +2 to CON, +2 to WIS (strong-willed and tough), -2 to DEX (short-legged and stoutly built).
Favored class: Fighter or Cleric.

Elves: +2 to DEX, +2 to INT (Graceful and learned), -2 to CON (slight of build).
Favored class: Ranger or Wizard.

Gnomes: +2 to CON, +2 to WIS (surprisingly tough and attuned to the surroundings... intuitive/perceptive), -2 to STR (their size limits their strength).
Favored class: Bard or Druid... like the Pathfinder iconic druid.
These changes are more in line with the fey background of gnomes in Pathfinder.

Half-Elves: +2 to any one ability score.
Favored class: Any

Half Orc: +2 to any one ability score (just like half-elves and humans).
Favored class: Barbarian or Druid.

Halflings: +2 to DEX, +2 to WIS (Nimble, perceptive and surprisingly strong-willed), -2 to STR (their size limits their strength).
Favored class: Rogue or Cleric. Rogues are well-suited to adventuring, nomadic halflings while clerics are a good fit for halflings who are strongly tied to their community... though clerics of trickster or merchant/travel-themed gods would be like itinerant priests (or charletans, gyspy fortune-tellers, etc).

Humans: +2 to any one ability score.
Favored class: Any

I understand that not everyone can be pleased with what's being done BUT really hope that the modifiers to ability scores get tweaked a bit.

Dwarves: The CON bonus and WIS bonus are fine. They are tough and strong-willed.
The CHA penalty, in the face of the 1/2 Orcs not taking a CHA penalty, doesn't make sense. Gruff and surly do not equate with a weak personality. Since they are short and stocky, please replace this with a DEX penalty.

Elves: No problems here.

Gnomes: The bonus to CON and penalty to STR are fine. They are short and, as such, lack the raw strength of taller races. They are also hardy folk.
The CHA bonus doesn't gel with me. Sure they are likeable or agreeable BUT that doesn't make them better leaders, commanders, inquisitors, orators or seducers. Since they are small and nimble-fingered (with their love of gemcraft, alchemy and other technical pursuits), a DEX bonus would make much more sense.

Half-Elves: No problems here.

Half-Orcs: No problems here (except in relation to Dwarves... see above).

Halfings: I have no problems with the DEX bonus or STR penalty as both have a long association with halflings.
My problem lies with the INT bonus. Halflings, in Tolkien (please don't flame me yet) and in AD&D, were surprisingly resilient in mind and body. In AD&D halflings got bonuses versus magic and poison. With this in mind, I'd rather halflings received a +2 to CON or WIS in place of intelligence. Based on the Pathfinder write-up, I'd lean towards WIS, as it would help them with perception checks and make them more intuitive.

Humans: No problems here.

I'm not gonna prattle on too much but I think it's time the 4th Edition boards were reset.

The "vibe" has become decidedly negative and I find myself posting less-and-less lately. Edition wars, censorship debates and other unpleasantness have infected this place much like a virus infects one's computer.

No disrespect to anyone on these boards but maybe a "do-over" would do the trick. A clean sweep and a fresh start (complete with ground rules for posting etiquette... but no moderation) seem to be in order.

Below are Chris Pramas's thoughts on the GSL and its effect on 3rd party publishers. It's interesting stuff to consider and I've marked some bits in bold-face because I found those bits to be of particular interest to me or thought that they got to the heart of the matter:
==================================================================
These are interesting times for companies that make use of the Open Game License. While many games have now been released under the OGL, the big one has always been Dungeons & Dragons. I had been pretty sure that WotC would just close off 4th edition, but was surprised to hear in August that they intended to release it under the OGL. Their specific plan was murky until last month, when they announced a two-stage rollout. Companies could publish starting in August if they bought a development kit for $5,000. Otherwise, no publishing for 4E by third parties until January of next year. The actual details of the new OGL remained unknown though. Green Ronin and many other companies signed NDAs and waited for WotC to deliver the new license for review.

That wait continues, but an interesting fact came out this week. This new license is not going to be called the Open Game License, but rather the Game System License. From previous discussions with WotC, it had already become clear that the new license would be more restrictive than the old one. This move confirms it. It sounds like the new license will not be the next iteration of the OGL but a completely new license. This makes it clear that WotC had some issues with the previous OGL and is trying to learn from previous experience. So what are those issues?

1. Stand Alone Games Don't Help WotC
In the early days of the OGL, everyone used the d20 logo and that prevented the creation of stand-alone products. If you wanted to use the d20 logo, you had to point back to the D&D Player's Handbook (or later, other WotC core books). At the time publishers thought you had to have the logo to make a successful product. Then variant games like Mutants & Masterminds and True20 Adventure Roleplaying began to appear. These games built off the SRD but became games in their own right. One of the stated goals of the OGL was to help WotC sell core rulebooks. If people are buying stand-alone games, that doesn't help to sell WotC's books. We've already heard that the new license won't allow such games any more, though it cannot prevent the continuation of games already on the market. This is an understandable move on their part, though one could argue that some of the most innovative design work of the d20 era happened in those very games and that GSL restrictions may not lead to the same advancement of the state of the art.

2. The License Should Be About D&D Support
When Ryan Dancey was selling the idea of the OGL at WotC in 1999, one of his points that was third party publishers could provide support for D&D in areas that WotC itself had difficulty doing so profitably (most notably adventures). There was indeed a wave of adventure products, led by Death in Freeport and Three Days to Kill. Soon third party companies started taking on bigger projects and expanding out into sourcebook territory. Then they ranged farther still, into genres that had little to do with swords and sorcery. Several years later Charles Ryan, then in charge of the D&D brand, said that WotC was going to start doing more adventures because the third party companies weren't providing the type of support WotC had originally envisioned. The GSL will thus be more explicitly about supporting D&D. There may be limits on the types of products allowed, similar to the "no miniatures" provision of the old d20 STL.

3. Strip Mining is Bad for the Environment
With the original OGL WotC put up something called the System Reference Document, which contained most of the rules for D&D. It could be copied or modified by use of the OGL. People asked if it could be republished as is, and in a FAQ WotC replied that those who thought they could make money doing so were welcome to try. I doubt anyone really thought that people would but naturally this is exactly what happened. There were "pocket" and various PDF versions of D&D core books published by other companies, and some companies saw their own books re-released by other publishers as well. An ex-Guardians of Order employee recently noted, for example, that "within days of d20 Mecha coming out and being released on SRD, other companies were selling clones of the product, sometimes with better production values..."

Another thing that happened was that some open game content was taken from its original products and given away for free on various websites. This is legal under the original OGL but it was a development that many publishers weren't so happy about. They were, of course, trying to make money from their work and someone else giving it away for nothing was not considered helpful. One example of this that has cropped up a lot in recent conversation is what happened with GR's True20 game. The True20 rules originally appeared in the Blue Rose game and we eventually decided to release them on their own as a more generic rule set. Before the True20 core book was even released, we were queried by someone who had taken all the rules out of Blue Rose and wanted to give them away on his website as a True20 SRD. We answered that if we wanted there to be a True20 SRD, we'd do one ourselves. With our core book not even out, we really were not hot on the rules being given out for free. He agreed not to make the site public for a year but since then the rules have indeed been available. We took no hostile action in this case. We were asked a question and we gave our opinion. We did not try to impede the effort, we sent no cease and desist letter, we didn't pillory the guy on the internet. Nonetheless, other folks have accused of all sorts of things, from working against "the spirit of open gaming" to being big bullies to benefiting from the OGL without giving back. One designer (ironically enough, a WotC employee) even accused us of using "ignorant and deceitful tactics". This despite the reams of OGC we've released, the sharing of content between us and other publishers, and the entire M&M Superlink program that lets companies publish branded material compatible with our best selling game for nothing.

I don't think it's too surprising then to hear that WotC has some different plans this time around. The SRD will more of a reference guide that lets you know what's open without putting text files of the rules up. They have said that the new license will be designed to encourage creative extensions of D&D rather than the wholesale reprinting of OGC. I will be curious to see if the GSL also has something to say about the giving away of open content on the internet.

4. Did We Say Perpetuity?
The original OGL is forever. It can be updated but it can't be revoked. I'm sure this is a big reason why the Game System License will be released as a brand new thing, rather than an update of the existing OGL. What sounds good now maybe doesn't sound so good 8 years down the line.

The thing I'm really interested to find out is whether the GSL will have a clause that forbids its use with the OGL. I think this is entirely possible. It would the mean that you couldn't take previously released OGC and use it in a book released under the GSL. A book like the already announced Tome of Horrors 4th edition would not be possible under this restriction. This would make things clean and easy for WotC, but would probably cause a lot of chaos in the world of third party publishing.

Clearly many changes are in the wind. Until we see the Game System License we won't know all of them for sure. No matter what I'm positive publishing under the original OGL will continue (that's how we'll do M&M and True20, for example). A year from now the publishing landscape will likely be quite different though. I think the big question is whether any of the prominent third party publishers will decide to just skip 4E and the GSL and continue to publish 3.5 material. I think Paizo is best positioned to pull this off but it would be a gamble for sure. As for WotC I guess I continue to be surprised they are making this attempt at all. I seriously wouldn't blame them for saying, "This is a huge headache with few tangible benefits for us, so 4E will not support 3rd party publishing."
========================================================

That last bit interested me the most!

For me, the ONLY thing that would get me to try 4th edition is if Paizo got the rights to Greyhawk and came up with a Player's Guide that included its take on gnomes, druids, bards, and all other classic races and classes left out of WotC's PHB.

At the same time, it would keep schools of magic and avoid use of warlocks, warlords, tieflings, dragonborn and other "new" elements that don't have a place in classic D&D.

I'd want the setting to be self-sufficient, other than requiring the use of the PHB, DMG and MM. Any further WotC supplements would not factor in, though Paizo would release their own supplementary material.

It would be 4th edition with a classic D&D feel to it.