Elthbert's page

In Iron Gods,

Zombieneighbours wrote:

I don't think the 'asian is always better' thing exists, or rather its a made up complaint by people who don't like asian stuff.

I'd respectfully disagree, and point to the nodachi (the falchion is dead), four-mirror armour (chainmail is dead), and similar things as way of proof.

Now, I do like Asian/wuxia stuff... I just don't like it being automatically flat-out better than everything else.

Yes of course, just like all Katanas are masterwork.

Eastern swords cut through steel ibeams and stuff don't you know, western swords suck, they ae brutish sloppy weapons. I mean didn't you see the Highlander, Conner new that, thats why hekept the Katana and dumped the sword he had trained ith all his life.

Plus eastern hand to hand is much better than those silly Western skill, Talhoffers wrestling, all those silly greek Pankration specialist, boxing, they all are humbeled before the might of Kung Fu.

The fact that Medieval swords have better steel than virtually any Katana, or that these men were increadinble skilled, and that there were schools of marital arts all over the western world.

Ehh stupid europeans its a wonder they survived with their backword ways. Certianly they could have enever fought successful battles against the mighty easterners with their metal cutting swords and thier lightning fast light armour.

Sarcasm off.

This is a long standing problem in D&D, it is a function ofthe problem in western culture. It is annoying, but I don' see it going away anytime soon.

Cha is not Appearance

Wis works because they have a knack for knowing what their johns prefer, just like Sense Motive/Perception, it lets them read body language, tone, etc, so they can better match the desires and needs of their clients (as with any other profession)

from the PRD:

Charisma measures a character's personality, personal magnetism, ability to lead, and appearance.

Are you sure Cha isn't appearance?

Charisma isn't JUST appearance, but appearance IS charisma, if you have a low Cha you have a poor appearance. You have high CHA you LOOOK GOOOOD.

It also is a measure of your force of personality,among other things, but appearance is part of it, if you have a low cha you have a low appearance, I interpret that to mean you are not attractive.

Now, being attractive does not mean you are sexy, a Kraken is awesome to behold, it doesn't have to start talking, or even let ou know it can communicate, it doesn't have to be charming, looking at it is awesome.
A unicorn is not sexy, but it is stunning.

Can you be pretty and have a low CHA ? I might allow that, if you were playing a complete wallflower. I certainly would allow you to play a not so hot looking char with a high cha but, in that case you better try to play the silver tongue person that you must.

Most people with a low cha are physically unattractive, most with high cha are physically attractive. That is all.

My best optimizer is a fantastic roleplayer. However, he optimizess his concept, he does not develop his concept to be optimal. THat is where I think this problem lies. If you have played with the guy who poors over the books and trys to find the abcolute best combination that exist, and wants to take this combo, even if it makes no sense in the storyline, or for his character, then it gets old, I would rather have the guy who took skill focus brewing, becuase his PC's dad was a brewmaster than the guy who took a feat for purrely mechanical reasons when it has no logical sense with thier character.

* That the character can be trusted as much as any other PC.

This is the only nit I have to pick, I think that there should be NPC's the players trust implicitly, if you don't have NPC's that you can truel trust, maybe even more than some of the PC's, then the PC's will never truely trust anyone, and that is not good.

Artanthos wrote:

LazarX wrote:

AD&D had that built into the game in the form of weapon speed and pluss and minuses to hit versus specific armor type. The problem was that for most people it was complications that they refused to use so it was chucked out of the game at 3.0.

They should have kept weapon speed at the very least.

Why? the customer base en masse voted no on that in the feedback they gave to TSR. When maybe only 2 out of 10,000 players used it, it wasn't worth the page space it took.

Everybody I know used it. Every group I gamed with used it. This included groups I guest played with when visiting friends in other parts of the country.

I think a much higher number of people used them then those who did not use them seem to think. THis is fairly standard, people think ofthemselves as normal, if they didn't use them they think no one did, if thy did use them they assume their use was universal. However, all of the 4 groups I regularly palyed 1st edition D&D with used them, THe groups I sat in with also used them.

When I finally broke down an joined a group playing second edition, Well THey were easy enough to convince to "import" the weapon hit modifiers and we used them. That said, I did sit in with several 2nd edition groups who did not even use the P/B/S weapon modifiers.

Stefan Hill wrote:

Elthbert wrote:

I wonder what the people who got rid of it would think about all the modifiers of third edition.

You're preaching to the converted here!

Same question I had playing 1ed: which modifer do I use for bracers of armor AC 2?

it isn't srmour so you use 10.

This was for ARMOUR types, not total AC

So Ac 2 was plate mail and a shield, that was the only way to have that Ac with armour.

It was poorly explainened in the player book, but they clariied it either in the DMG or the Unearthed Arcana--- regardless, the AC rating was listed on pg 36 right before the list of weapons, it wasn't that hard to figure out.

Elthbert wrote:

ProfPotts wrote:

Well you can have a spear and shield fighter if you take the Phalanx Fighter archetype... but I find it hard to imagine that you could get enough of these guys to, you know, form an actual phalanx, considering PC classes are supposed to be the rare 'best of the best' and all that...

except that Archtype is weaker than a fighter. and any warrior whould be able to do this.

Save that not any warrior WAS able to do so. Phalanx fighting took specialised training of a group of warriors to act in sync and on command, something that the masses of barbarians that they fought couldn't just pick up.

BULL HOCKEY! I am not talking about fighting in a phalanx I am talking about using a spear and shield, THE most common weapon system combo in history. YES any warrior can do it.

Elthbert wrote:

Gygax chose the word Paladin, not knight, They come from the tales of Charlemagnes paladins not the knights of the round table. And Charlemagnes paladins were pargaons of Virtue, even unto death.

Gygax also envisioned DnD as a competitive game where the DM tries to screw over the players as much as possible. I have the same kind of feelings for him as I do for Gene Roddenberry. I respect him as the creator of the world, but strictly following his vision does nothing but hurt the franchise.

I disagree strongly, there is no competition between players and DM's and never was, Dm's can kill players at anytime, and Gygax of all people knew that, I also disagree that folliwing his vision has hurt the franchise, 2nd edition hurt the franchise, 3rd edition tried to restore some of the vision, ( though it departed from it in other ways, and I think it helped the franchise. Regardless, the portion of the discussion you are commenting on was what paladins were based on, they were not based on the knights of the round table. If they were, they would be knights, not paladins. Paladins are the perfect knight, good, honorable, devoted to honor and chivalry and rightousness, defenders of the True Faith (whatever that is in your world), of the weak and the innocent, they keep their word, they keep faith. THey are not inconstent, they are not chaotic. They are based on a major western literaty tradition, Charlemagnes Paladins.

Clerics represent the warrior priest already, the saint who wields miracles, the prophet who calls down fire, the High priest who summons angels to fight for his god, or the high preist of the death cult, who calls people to strangle the innocent in thir sleep, and pulls feinds from the depth of Hell to bring darkness to the land, and robs the dead of their rest.

THe paladin is not supposed to be the warrior priest, the paladin is the saint who wields steel and heart and bravery, but his miracles are personal, not dramatic, he cannot split the sea, or summon plagues, he can heal the wounded through the touch of his hand, can bless his sword and have it strike down the wicked. When the wall is breached, and the evil hordes swarm in it is the paladin who stands in the breach, and if needed dies in it.

He does not sleep around, nor drink too much, nor lie, nor insult his superiors no matter how stupid their superiors might be. They are Paladin's, not something else.

Now As for tradition being a stupid reason for doing things, I couldn't disagree more. Obviously there are plenty of others here who agree with me. Regardless, my point was precisely that the paladin was based on a particular western literary tradition, that that tradition was not the Knights of the Round Table, the the concept of a Paladin falling comes from this literary tradition, and that it is an essential to the nature of the class that they be LG.

You are free to disagree, I suspect that that is becuase you see a class as nothing more than a list of powers and skills, I do not. I have no problem with Assassins being required to be evil either, This is despite the fact that I can't thinkf any assassin class abilities that ould break the game in the hands of a good perosn. Yet Assassination is just not a Good thing, I am sure that moral relativist can argue that sometimes it is, but fortunatly, in D&D/ Pathfinder Good and Evil are not debateable they are tangable, real things. Society's devoted to good and order are given the paladin to defend them. Evil gets plenty of things all to itself, Chaos gets to be chaotic (which while not so ideal in the real world has some real advantages in an RPG, LG gets Paladins and not much else.

Let's see...

Bucklers that work like bucklers, not things strapped to your arm.

Spears and longspears you can use in one hand.

Tridents with reach.

... and, of course...

Falcatas which aren't better than every other possible weapon option.

This is my list, almost exactly. Except I would like the trident to have a x3 multiplier.

Oh and I don't understand why longswords are not Peircing and Slashing... apparantly I can't stab you with the pointy end of my sword.

Are Rutterkin gone? if so it should be fairly easy to convert them from 3.5.

The rutterkin are more powerful than dretches and not nearly as powerful as say a vrock.

I've been playing this game since 1982, I've seen enough goblins and ghouls, thanks.

Funny,I've been playing since 1979 and I haven't. Goblins and orcs and hobgoblins are the bread and butter of the game. Is it nice to have new things in it... sure, but everything should not be new. Maybe goblins are the white bread of D&D, so what. What about dragons? we aren't ever going to use dragons again? really?

No I like the old stuff made new, they really gave goblins and orcs thier own flavor in this world, I like it.