Donovan Vig's page

Greetings Pathfinder Peoples,

Having just received both of my PFRPG betas, I immediately dove into them, and was a bit surprised to see that it looked almost exactly like the Alpha III.

While I understand that this could be a sign of percieved near perfection, as much as I am loving the new game, I am a bit concerned. You see, while the class reduxes are really cool and all with the low level play being much improved, the high level game still sucks the great wrinkled teat of lameness.

Despite all of the piddly complaints about VERY obscure and niggling rules fixes, the biggest problem in 3.5 is high level play. You folks have mentioned it a couple of times, but I see absolutely nothing that has changed enough to matter.

I would assert that one of the primary reasons that 4E was such a radical departure from the 3rd edition ruleset, is that they realized it was broken beyond the realm of an easy fix or errata update. Add the cash cow prospect of selling a whole new set of supplements and splatbooks and Voila! An edition is born.

You see, I hear complaints all over these boards (especially during the edition wars) about how "broken" the system was. Truth is, the game really does grind to a halt above level 15. I've found that even switching to a mainly cinematic/narrative doesn't help either, because THE RULES DON'T SUPPORT IT. This in turn leads to inconsistent gameplay, binders full of houserules, and I STILL spend hours doing prep and watching a battle go on for hours.

The biggest and most obvious example of this is multiclassing. Yes, multiclassing. I have seen dozens of complaints about how lame the "single and double dip" into rogue or fighter is. Personally, I don't agree, but I digress. You see, the rules do not support an even split multi-spellcaster. I refer to the Fighter/Wizard, Paladin/Sorcerer(personal favorite), and all other incarnations not involving druids.

Some would say that a fighter10/wizard10 should be a fairly badass character. You are pretty well versed in the martial as well as arcane arts. You can swing a sword, throw fireballs, buff yourself and others, etc. Problem is, this character is nearly worthless in a CR20 solo encounter. The average AC for a CR20 solo critter is near 40. With a BAB of 14, a (generous) strength of 22, and a +4 weapon = +25 to hit for primary attack. I hit on a 15 or better AT 20th level. Add DR, and spell resistance that I can never hope to breach on anything better than the same roll, and my "Warrior-Mage" becomes a cheerleader. It improves slightly if the encounter is skewed towards the lower end, that is, say a CR15 BBEG with 8 CR 13 Minions. But that is no fix, assuming you want a challenging solo opponent.

If I wanted to play a cheerleader, I would have played a stupid bard! Flame me all you want about "getting what I deserve" and "Broken builds" and all that crud, but I say that I am being punished by the rules for evenly progressing. Why do the rules tell me what kind of characters I cannot play effectively? I mean really, This isn't some stupid Monk/Druid/Bard randomness, this is a viable character concept. Am I now FORCED to find a flavored PrC to "fill in the gaps?" What if I don't want another class? Where are my choices?

I am trying not to rant or whine, but it just seems silly that Eldrich Knight and Practised spellcaster ar the only things ou there that support this kind of toon. Better yet, Anyone try playing a Ranger/Cleric or Monk/Sorcerer? They are just about as useless using an even split multiclass.

Am I stuck now with single or double dipping? Am I missing something? Help me Obi-Jason-Bulmahn-and-staff-Kenobi, you're my only hope!

Please help us! Sell us a fillable .PDF character sheet that crunches the numbers and looks really nice!

I only say this because I have 3 new and 2 old PFRPG players at my new game. The character creation process took nearly 3 hours! Still WAY too much back and forth through books.

IMO, this is one of 4E's biggest(and almost only)strengths - ease of prep and use.

While we're there, can/will Paizo show WotC the way, and have a good 3rd party make some decent e-tool apps? They are SO needed, and yet the only play they've seen has been embarassingly half-assed.

Hell, your fanbase has the skills, work something out! It just seems silly, that in this day and age, the only decent digital content (and by that I mean INTERACTIVE) is fan based stuff. Where's the beef!

Being as it IS the 21st century, would it be out of line to request that you wonderful people there @ Paizo consider a linked Blogroll? The blogging community has been growing, and requires a tad less moderation than the forums do.

I won't waste everyone's time by harping for 10 pages about it, but I feel there IS advantages that can be gained by assisting this up and coming community.

For reference sake, pn pg.140 of the PFRPG Alpha 3, there are several magical pieces of equipment. In their description, they state that the bonus is temporary until the item has been worn for 24 hours...

I can read that in several ways. Can I get a clarification? While I realize that a cool item that is only good for 24 total hours of use is ludicrous, the statement is pretty vague. Also, why does it matter at all that it is temporary for the first 24 hours? Am i missing something?

So...assuming that your campaign isn't using the cliche of the war college, why do both fighters in you group have the exact same skillsets?

Never mind that they grew up on opposite sides of the continent from each other. Never mind that one of them was a village hunter, and the other a farmer. Aside from their respective "professions" they still, oddly have the same. exact. skills.

Why? If we are keeping the skill ranks system, why not go all out on the customization end? That being the strength of the 3.X system. Why should every single character be a clone of the next?

My proposal, remove static skill sets from chatacter creation. Chuck them out along with cross class skills. The only differentiation should be trained/untrained.

Instead, allow every character to actually flavor his character by choosing 1 class skill per base skill point @ lvl. 1 + int bonus. (humans, half-elves, and half-orcs get +1) Doing this gives a player incentive to create a "unique" character with built in RP fodder.

Now, a fighter working as muscle for a thieve's guild should be able to "pick up" a few things without making a character developement blunder (cross class skills, I'm looking at you!) one cross class point is fine and all at levels 1-5, but they quickly become wasted ink after that, especially when you have a class that has been shafted on skill points to begin with.

Better yet, a wizard whom traffics in demons and undead piddles himself because a fighter 5 levels lower rolls an intimidate check? This guy feeds babies to bebiliths, why is he scared?

It hurts nothing, removes the silly issue of having class skills that you simply do not use, adds immense amounts of flavor, and is still within the realm of simple conversion for backwards compatibility.

This system has been a house rule for three years now, and has worked rather spectacularly. The first time the party encountered a tumbling non multiclass wizard was priceless ;)

Think about it and heap your criticisms here, I have yet to find a break or exploit. Some feedback would be cool. Thanks!

I have aquired a vintage 35mm film can containing the full feature with audio track for the Goonies. Remember that one? Geek porn if there ever was.

Anyways, I am having a devil of a time trying to figure out where to sell it, much less for how much. Any suggestions?

nobody in Solano / napa counties?

IMO, one of the most criminally underused splat material has been the asian themed stuff. The Samurai, Wu-jen, Shugenja, and all the other cool cats from the far east are excellent examples of how to mix your crunch and fluff while keeping it from getting soggy in milk.

What say the incredible Paizo community?

As an aside...I don't feel this opens the door too wide, I, for the life of me, cannot think of any iconic "classes" that could come from, say South american or african cultures...it's just that the asian theme has always been...unique.

Lets face it. Even 1st level characters take awhile to make...especially if they are twmplated/Level adjusted/or otherwise not 100% core. Even "normal" Characters can be time consuming to create. That said, a point is soon to be made.

To help "validate" the creation process, as well as the attachment most of us have with our characters, I "created" an...unorthodox houserule.

To help dull the sharp swingy point of sudden death full attack rolls, I allow the party a couple of rounds...determined semi randomly to use a very well rolled heal check to "resuscitate" a technically dead comrade.

I know, I know...it screams abuse and all that, but hear me out. I am a stingy bastard when it comes to gold and loot. Most of my players learn to be content with masterwork quality items until (usually) 7th level. There simply aren't the resources available to raise a character until the magic itself becomes available. The material component is generally VERY painfully felt as well.

To balance this I allowed CPR, or "the breath of life". The first time it happened, when the fighter took a devastating crit from an Orc barbarian, the whole table went quiet. I then explained that the cleric (with healing domain no less) knew of a way to save him, but every second counted. The tactical huddle was awesome. They worked damn hard to get the body away and stall the barbarian long enough to get the fighter back.

Cleric: I need bandages! Tear your cloak!
Sorceror: Uh...ok? What can I do?
Cleric: Hold this bandage...hold it tighter fool!
Sorceror: Why are you pushing on is chest?
Rogue: If this doesn't work, can I...?
Cleric: Do it...pump...pump...and I'll never heal you again.
Rogue: I was just sayin!

The whole aid another mechanic worked out beautifully. The result was a mostly dead fight becoming mostly alive. Mostly, because he was considered exhausted for 24 full hours. No exception. In town, this would be a simple matter of passing time. In the Direwood, it was a good reason to build a fortified camp and care for injured party member.

I realize CPR isn't really keeping with flavor, but it has worked VERY well for our group. The DC is based on the amount of negative HP. Typically, it begins @ 15, +2 for every 5 points of damage below 0. Obviously decapitation of dismemberment will render this technique useless, as will poison or disease without curing the underlying ailment.

Does this sound like a viable houserule? Not for me ;) for PFRPG?

Any thought or opinions will be welcome.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23903817/

whatcha all think?

Looking through my old Dragon magazines, I found an ecology article on the wormcrawl fissure. Issue #276 from 8 years ago. Brand spanking new 3.0 stuff.

Just thought I'd share that.

This is yet another 4E post. I couldn't help but notice we have several celebrity lurkers on these boards. That is, WotC staff from all over the company. So, I thought that since their boards won't host anything like this, I would try it out.

THE RULES:

1.)BE CIVIL! We all know how angry you are...really. You may express this anger or friendly concern, however, NO insults or foul language please.

2.)In the interests of diversity, this is not limited to 4E questions.

3.)R-E-S-P-E-C-T we are all cool, after all, we all play D&D, so lets keep that in mind.

Question #1

As stated many many times in the video and Game design posts, you state your reasons for "improving" D&D. Can you please explain why improving our game meant discontinuing several game worlds, and nuking the one you decided to keep to the point of making us wonder why you even kept the name in the first place?