Drow_Battlemind's page

Hobbun wrote:

I also like the paper, as it's thicker. I think it's cardstock? but not sure.

Not cardstock, I believe that it's the same stock they make "parchment paper" out of. Just bleached white.

Asgetrion wrote:

Jason, you managed to bring an old DM into the verge of tears with a lot of the stuff in Alpha 3! I did compliment you for the "new" classes on another thread, but there's so much goodness in there... for example, you managed to create a logical compromise for the DR system, the NPC creation rules look great, and you included the "NPC" classes in the game. THANK YOU! :)

No problem. Thank you for downloading it and reading my scribbles.

It sure is starting to look like a game.. :-)

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing

WOW...

Drow_Battlemind wrote:

Esmee Bethune wrote:

Well, thanks to this thread, I actually filled out my profile. Probably would have completely ignored it if this thread hadn't popped up. ;)

I didn't even realize we HAD a profile page, but I've fixed that!

Welcome to the future! :D

Thanks!

Actually that was addressed in the Rules Compendium - there is no "realistic" reason why acid damage is treated as energy damage, but as a damage type in terms of game effects it functions in largely the same way. As a consequence, it's balled in.

Personally, I think that if they're going to keep calling it an "energy" effect, it should be renamed something like ENTROPIC or CORROSIVE or something like that.

Mind you, I'm not going to stand on a large podium with a bullhorn and demand that WotC change the terminology, I'm just saying that this is my *opinion*, nothing more, nothing less.

Drow - Acid was never an energy available to psions using the Energy XXX powers.

I think that a few powers need erratas, that the races and feats might need to be brought "in line" with what Paizo is doing with the basic races and that the classes might need a small overhaul. However, the system is good, generally balanced and works well.

Not in the damaging powers, but it was included in *Energy* Adaptation. And again, my former ranks of A+ in science class leads me to wonder why WotC includes ACID as a form of energy???

Well, thanks to this thread, I actually filled out my profile. Probably would have completely ignored it if this thread hadn't popped up. ;)

I didn't even realize we HAD a profile page, but I've fixed that!

I was a kid when I read Xanth and I loved it. I was even infatuated with Irene.

Ogre Ogre is still one of my favorites. I keep a copy of it on the same shelf as my Conan and Elric novels.

What's wrong with 3.5 psionics. Its reasonably balanced, more so than arcane or divine spellcasting are by orders of magnitude.

I'd like to start by reminding folks that I'm a HUGE psionics fan. I mean, just look at my name, Battlemind is the D20 Modern merging of the Psychic Warrior and Soulknife classes.

There was only one beef I ever had with the damaging or psychokinetic/telekinetic powers was... why did the powers mimic Wizardly elemental effects so much?
It seemed to me that (with the exception of pyrokinetic and cryokinetic effects,) the remaining damage types that should be applicable to a psychokinetic attack power (such as Energy Ball, for example) should be Bludgeoning, Slashing, Piercing, and Force, instead of Sonic, Acid* (????), or Electricity.

*: and since when is Acid energy? Seems to me, IIRC, that acids are a function of the PH balance of matter. Or maybe (as the fundies keep claiming) that everything science tells us is wrong...

I agree whole heartedly... I feel Drow have been over played by the people who want to play the evil race turned good.. I'm one who would like to see them not allowed as a player character race.. they are the bad guys and one good one was wnough for me.. heck even Salvatore is tired of him.. that speaks volumes to me...

[rant]
Oh yeah.. the next one I see in a game, and I'm playing an elf... I'm gonna kill him.. because he's the big bad evil and they can't be trusted...
[/rant]

And I'm hereby glad I don't game in your gaming group.

...and that left me with an image of your avatar astride some co-ax cable grinding away with that silly grin on his face. Thanks for that image. I had to clean up the Vault I spit out all over my monitor and wait for my laughing to subside just to post this.

You're welcome!

Sorry, I can't seem to help it, I'm REALLY felling my alignment this week (Chaotic Neutral, cantcha tell?)

My personal favorites are Drow and Half-Ogres, with tieflings thrown in at a close second.

Unfortunately, my income is a tad iffy at the moment, so while I do plan on buying the final version, until then I'll have to rely on the free PDF's.

If the Alpha (and the Golarion world-setting) hadn't impressed me as much as it has so far, I probably wouldn't have bothered, but these guys (Paizo, that is) haven't disappointed me yet.

The Gazetteer already introduces Psionics into Golarion: In Jalmeray's entry, there is talk about powers that sound a lot like psionics:

"Within decades, they established great monasteries upon the island, spreading word to the followers of Irori throughout the world of a new form of physical and mental discipline from the distant East. (...) Those who thrived were accepted in one of three monasteries, there to develop physical mastery and an unusual magic of the mind."

Mental discipline from the East, unusual magic of the mind - That's our old friend psionics, if you ask me.

(SNIP)

I'd think that psions could work well for Golarion's equivalents of Asia - Tian Xia and Casmaron - or at least parts of it.

As I said above, Jalmeray is said to have imported Vudrani...

Sounds bloody great to me!

The Alpha 3 release has been laid out and is in final proofing this weekend. It will be posted during this upcoming week, probably on Wednesday.

Y'know, I'm finding it really difficult not to try to make love to my cable-modem right now...

Coolness!
Both me & the wife are waiting with baited breath! (Hers is mint-scented, while mine is more of an italian-food sort of scent right now!)
BWAH-HAH-HAH-HAH!!!!!!!

Great news about the stories, but even if that hadn't happened, remember, there's always fan-fiction...

Drow_Battlemind wrote:

Just adjust the Hit Points/Hit Dice to match the Pathfinder rules, and the Psychic Warrior will fit in right proper with the fighters and Barbarians! After all, what's the difference between Power Points and Rage Points, anyway?

The Psychic Warrior Hit Dice already follow the Pathfinder rules 1d8 and cleric BAB. Did you increase it to 1d10/fighter BAB? I think that would easily overpower the fighter.

I hadn't remembered that, thanks

The difference between Power Points and Rage points, is that Power Points are much more versatile and powerful. For 18 rage points a barbarian can gain DR 3/-- for one round. For 7 power points, a psychic warrior can gain DR 5/-- for 10 minutes/level. Admittedly the barbarian's is a free action, but with the longer duration PW can probably buff before combat.

That part was said tongue-in-cheek, sorry that I hadn't made that clear.

I had a lot of good experiences with PC drow, both from a DM's perspective and as a player. My favorite (still running) drow char is an assassin who stumbled per unfortunate happenstance into the role of a hero and wasn't all too thrilled about it. Traveling with the party and bound to their fate he began using the situation to his advantage and is slowly, slowly understanding what it means to be "good", without actually noticing it.

Change Drow Assassin to Drow Psychic Warrior/Elocator, and that's eerily similar to my character's experience...

Considering how popular they are as player characters (which is true, no matter how much this angers some people, for reasons I cannot fathom), it seems to be about time to add them permanently to the core races.

I think the problem that angers so many is the unimaginative players who read the Drizzt novels and blindly imitated the worst of Drizzt's angsty-excesses, without bothering to come up with an original character of their own. During 2nd Edition, especially, this was true. Drow Of The Underdark was a great supplement and book of source material, but it enabled *SO* many copycats it dazes even me.

Hmmm. I am not a fan of some of the things done by the Warlock class, which was part of the Arcana series.

On the other hand I *did* like some of the 2nd edition Planescape work such as the (to my mind) 'classic' Planescape anthologies The Great Modron March and Dead Gods. (The former was co-designed with Colin McComb, but the latter was solely Monte Cook's credit for design.)
I expect his knowledge of third edition rules will be a valuable resource to the Pathfinder team, and I hope that James Jacobs will be able to persuade him to write something for the Adventure Paths. :D
Interesting news, Paizo.

As a fan of Dead Gods and many of Monte's other stuff (as well as Jason and Eric Mona,) the only way this could be even more of a D&D "Dream Team" for me is if Bruce Cordell joined in for revamping the design of the psionic classes....

I just upgraded the psion (telepath) in the campaign I'm running to something like these rules. We'll see how it goes. He already considers the 1st level at-will ability totally worthless though.

I was considering requesting that Psychic Warriors get back the 3.0 versions ability to weapon specialize (since Fighters are now getting Weapon Training and Weapon Mastery now as class features on top of W.S.) but then I remembered the Psionic Weapon and Greater Psionic Weapon Feats (as well as its Archery and bare-handed equivalents, Psionic Shot and Psionic Fist,) and I've changed my mind.

Just adjust the Hit Points/Hit Dice to match the Pathfinder rules, and the Psychic Warrior will fit in right proper with the fighters and Barbarians! After all, what's the difference between Power Points and Rage Points, anyway?

NOW!!!!

Go to your My Downloads page and get all the Alpha 2 goodness!

See also the shiny new forums.

Woo-hoo!

I don't see any great need to have Drow be a core PC race, though we've been playing them since a few years before Driz'zt inspired legions of fanboys to make copycat PCs.

But I love to use Drow in the manner I feel they were appropriately designed... as adventure-driving enemies to the PCs. An evil, resentful race of elves that contrasts with surface haughty nature boys? Love it.

Unfortunately, the "legions of fanboys" gave those of us who were around during 1st ed's UA period (and RP'ed drow) a bad name later on...

or, as a motivator I have says "DRIZZT DO'URDEN: ANGST! ANGST NOW FOR XP!"

Excuse me, now I feel the need to cheerfully whistle Voltaire's "When You're Evil" as I saunter away...

Disenchanter wrote:

The fact that the details weren't ready, that Scott and Linea Foster were - essentially - caught off guard by the concern (backlash, if you will) over what their posts suggest, tells me not to expect too much from Monday's posts.

For the more sensitive readers, I am not bashing Scott Rouse or Linea Foster. I am not calling them names, or questioning their heritage. I am merely pointing out that the past performance does not instill confidence in me.

What I found confusing is that he mentions the time that he and Linea spent working on the GSL, but then mentions that he can't give specifics to some questions until he has it in front of him next week.

I guess it makes sense that others would have some work to do on it, but I guess I would assume that the non-lawyers working on it would get an idea of what they want to document to do, and then the lawyers' job would be to add any language needed to make it work the way the marketing/management types want it to.

In other words, why would it not work the way they wanted it to, and if that's the case, then why is it so hard to comment on exactly what the GSL was intended to do?

I guess to get back to your point, I agree, it doesn't make much sense to say anything if there is this degree of uncertainty about what the GSL actually does, unless they know exactly what it does, and were taken aback by people's reaction to it.

And if its this tricky to navigate the thing for the people that worked on it, is that a good endorsement for the third party folks that they want to adopt it?

Because when they handed it over to the lawyers to turn into legalese, the phrasing the lawyers gave it *may* end up doing something that they themselves (Scott &/or Linea) may not have intended, perhaps? It does happen, especially if one or more "legal counsels" have orders from higher authorities than Scott to slip something in that they don't want...

Here's the latest from Scott Rouse.

The answer is....

...we'll know more next Friday, maybe.

After all the uproar (and I personally feel that much of it *IS* justified), I'm not surprised that Scott is taking 2 weeks off from commenting on all this. I'm fairly certain that he is not responsible for this, that it is the orders from Hasbro's legal dept., but as WotC's D&D manager, he is going to be receiving the veritable s**t-storm that will be coming from the community. I feel sorry for him, especially since he's been incredibly helpful on the Star Wars board and other boards at their site.

Does it suck? Absolutely.

Is there anything Scott could do to change it? From the sounds of his posts on ENWorld, doubtful.

I, personally, am incredibly disappointed by the terms of the GSL, both in WotC and Hasbro.

Am I going to drop 4E for Pathfinder in its entirety because of this? Um, no, I've already stated both here and on WotC's boards that I intend to play both games. In fact, since I pre-paid for my 4E PHB-1, I'd be shooting myself in the foot if I didn't play a game I've already spent money on.

But still, I cannot help but shake my head at Hasbro's short-sightedness over this.

To play anything outside the races in the player's handbook you have to give my gamemaster a hard sell for it and she is not easy to convince. You need a solid backstory about where you are, why you are there and what you think the character being the race you want will add to the game. "Oh, i was just born different than the rest of my race." doesnt cut it with her.

And I see no reason why she should, if the excuse is that flimsy.

For that reason our drow and other rare races have been both rare and far from common gaming tropes usually. My githyanki tended to gross out his travelling companions since he still prefered his food like back home in the Astral...alive at the time of consumption. He just made accomodations for his travelling companions strange squeemishness about eating other sapient beings. So he chose not to eat them. It wasnt that he had a problem with it.

This is part of why I dont mind the more exotic races as playable options. The concept that there are some groups out there that allow players to choose any race just because they qualify within level restrictions is a bit mind-boggling to me everytime i talk to someone from one.

I say quit letting folks play Drizzt clones, period. There's no reason why Drow characters *should* be angsty "rebels against their people" types. I played a Drow Psychic Warrior in a Greyhawk campaign one of my friends was running (he was framed by another member of his House for treason and got out of his homeland with moments to spare), and it amused the other players to see this sardonic, nasty-tempered character having to visibly restrain himself from giving in to his darker urges (like fighting the urge to repeatedly kick the Dwarven Cleric awake when it was his turn for watch, or trying to avoid skewering surface-elves whenever their backs were turned, etc.) RP'ing a character turning his (or her) own evil tendencies towards helping the side of good can be a blast if done right.

Saurstalk wrote:

In the Star Wars Revised Core Edition (RCR), there was a twist for characters who multi-classed to fill certain roles. These were called archetypes. When you followed a developmental tree of multi-classing, doing so represented taking on an "archetype."

<SNIP>

Another company has already done that with 3.0/3.5 (Mongoose, w/their "Complete II" books.) The changes that Pathfinder is making to the classes complicates (but does not eliminate) the usage of those books, but you can look at them to get the basic ideas.

(Personally, I'm a little miffed that they canceled that line before they got around to the Complete Psion II and the Complete Psychic Warrior II books. *sigh*)

SQUEE!
I hug you and hump your leg! I love when things that I semi-predict come true. *Tosses old "Sorcerer Rewrite" and waits until the P20 version sees the light of the computer monitor.*

I'm having the same reaction over the teaser we got for the Barbarian...

fuji257 wrote:

If you REALLY insist on ignoring Psionics for core and MUST power up the Rouge, at least limit his spells (see how silly that sounds) to the "Mind Affecting" school instead of allowing Wizard spells carte blanche. Flavor - flavor - flavor.

I object to the philosophy that Psionics needs to be limited to Mind-effecting. If you are for this kind of gimping, I would suggest also limiting Divine "spells" to maters of faith, turning undead and banishing demons. and removing ALL mind effecting "spells" from both Arcane and Divine lists as they OBVIOUSLY are not mental classes.

(Charm person?, Hold Person? .... GONE!)

Oh and BTW, one of the most "Psionic" characters I have ever seen is Gandalf from LotR. No studing a book for 8 hours and flinging bat crap at his foes.

(Hmmmm... he even has his Psicrystal which he sets in his staff to manifest "My Light" through... or did you think it was a lightbulb?)

I agree. There seems to be a misconception among the anti-psi clique that for them to accept it at all, psi MUST equal telepathy, and ONLY telepathy (psi = telepathy/empathy). What of other classic fantasy psi abilities, as Telekinesis? Carrie White would be very angry at all these attempts to erase her, as would Charlie McGee (a pyrokinetic.)

As for the Psi = sci-fi, I must counter with the yogis and fakirs of India, who're classic fantasy psions. Psychometabolism, folks, along with TK.

Psi =/= sci-fi;
psi = psi, period, it can be used in fantasy just as easily as in sci-fi, and more believably, IMHO

Hmmm. Let me see if I understand the gist of this thread.
LillithsThrall dislikes the "general turn that Pathfinder is taking", and K. David Ladage dislikes the rigidity he perceives the general classes to be, am I correct?

While I respect your opinions, I am finding it difficult to agree with your (as I see them) assessments that the classes need to be even more customizable and modifiable then they appear at the moment. Having played D&D since the Expert blue-box and 1st Ed AD&D, I do rather clearly remember the bad-old days of the end of 2nd ed AD&D.

Does anybody here remember the mess that was the Players Option books? (Gods, the memory makes me want to headdesk, but I really can't afford to replace my keyboard at this time!) THAT was the ultimate in D&D class customization, and it was... really, REALLY wretched.

And since Pathfinder is D20 SRD-based, it is FAR more customizable than, say, Castles and Crusades, which eliminates the Feats mechanic (D20's biggest customization feature) in favor of old-school "all fighters are X (and only X), and all wizards can Y (and only Y)" school of thought.

SirUrza wrote:

I don't think I ever played a Barbarian that didn't take atleast 2 levels of fighter to get those extra feats. :)

Nice thing about feats every 2 levels is that's not really as necessary now.

I think Snorter's post sums up everything so eloquently that I can't really add anything to it...

...except a barbaric YAWP!

And it's Walt Whitman FOR THE WIN!!!!

Walt Whitman: Expert 3/ Barbarian 2/ Bard 8!