Erik Randall's page

I received an email for order #1464200, and it lists the entire Legacy of Fire bundle twice, once as individual items and then again as sub-items under the heading "1 x Legacy of Fire Super Bundle".

Just want to make sure I'm not getting two bundles when I only ordered one.

I'm looking at the kobold entry on the PRD and I'm thinking that its Hit Dice and Stealth are too low, so I want to make sure I'm not missing something.

HIT DICE

The PRD lists the kobold's hit dice as 1d8, which is the racial hit dice for humanoids. But the humanoid type says:

"Humanoids with 1 Hit Die exchange the features of their humanoid Hit Die for the class features of a PC or NPC class."

The "Kobold Characters" section also says they have no racial Hit Dice, and are defined by their class.

Since the entry says it is a kobold warrior, shouldn't its hit dice be 1d10?

STEALTH

The kobold's Stealth skill also appears to be too low. It has the following entry for skills:

Skills Craft (trapmaking) +6, Perception +4, Stealth +6; Racial Modifiers +2 Craft (trapmaking), +2 Perception, +2 Profession (miner)

As a first level warrior with an Intelligence of 10, it gets two skill points. Breaking it down, it appears its skills were determined like this:

Craft (trapmaking) +6 [+0 Int, +2 Race, +1 Rank, +3 Class Skill]
Perception +4 [-1 Wis, +2 Race, +3 Skill Focus]
Stealth +6 [+1 Dex, +4 Size, +1 Rank]

But kobolds have the "Crafty" special quality, so Stealth is always a class skill. So shouldn't it have a +3 bonus, giving it a total Stealth of +9?

Sin-Fallen Angel of Gluttony

Description: Sin-fallen angels are created when an angel, archon or similar celestial being is overcome by sin, either from its own failings or from relentless torment at the hands of evil creatures.

A sin-fallen angel of gluttony is a flying, emaciated humanoid with sharp teeth and brittle, gnawed stumps where a true angel's wings would be. Its bony fingers end in long white claws, which it favors for weapons.

These fallen angels spread the sin of gluttony by any means, including inflicting their powers on unwilling victims. Some pursue work they began before their fall, although in a more perverse fashion. A fallen archon, for example, may use ghouls under its command to kill those who disrupt a city’s lawful workings. Or it may side with a tyrant, devouring his rebellious enemies and – perhaps – persuading him to try a bite.

Powers and Abilities: No powers remain from the angel’s life as a divine being, but it possesses new abilities to further its cause. Its very presence can leave a well-fed man weak with starvation, and a strike with its claws inflicts not only injury, but may turn a target ravenous, forcing him to feast on the nearest food, including the flesh of comrades or loved ones. Any humanoids the angel kills rise as ghouls or ghasts under its command. The angel can also swallow any creature its size or smaller, trapping them in what becomes a freakishly bloated stomach. This tactic heals the angel while its prey is slowly crushed to death inside it.

Gloves of the Shortened Path
Aura moderate conjuration; CL 9th
Slot hands; Price 16,200 gp; Weight —
Description
Once per day, the wearer of these oxblood leather gloves can bend the fabric of space to touch a distant location. The wearer speaks the command word and chooses a five-foot square that is within line of sight. For the next five rounds, the wearer can touch anything in that square, so long as it remains within line of sight. Once per round, as a free action, she may change her targeted square.

When acting on the square, the wearer's hands and arms appear in the square, and can be the target of actions. She can use and manipulate objects in the square, but she cannot bring anything back to her square. Her own possessions land in her square if dropped or thrown.

The wearer can use her hands, hand-held items or melee weapons against anything in the square. She threatens from every direction, ignoring cover and causing targets to be flanked by other opponents who threaten them. Grapples, ranged attacks and attacks requiring movement are not possible.

Interacting with the distant location is distracting. If the wearer does so while her own square is threatened, she is treated as flanked.

If the wearer or a targeted square is subject to an effect that stops teleportation or dimensional travel, the gloves do not work.

Construction
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, teleport; Cost 8,100 gp

====================
The Stated Goal
====================

Firstly, the channel energy ability doesn't completely achieve the stated goal "...to give adventuring groups a ready supply of healing...".

It only achieves that goal for parties with good-aligned clerics and for parties with neutral clerics who chose to channel positive energy. Parties with evil clerics or with neutral clerics who choose to channel negative energy do not benefit from the stated goal of a ready supply of healing.

In addition, neutral clerics in 3.5 could chose to command undead with the intent of using them against enemies. That option is no longer available unless the cleric wants to stay at least 30 feet away from his companions or injure them when trying to take control of undead they are fighting. The only way to avoid this is to take the Selective Channeling Feat, which means spending a feat to get an option that was free in 3.5.

(Attempts to control undead also heal the undead -- even those the cleric fails to command -- which further limits the desirability of clerics trying to control undead attacking their party.)

Channeling energy weakens the ability of neutral and evil clerics to provide healing and buffs to allies, as they have to stay at least 30 feet away from their allies when trying to command undead, or when trying to channel to harm opponents. This becomes more problematic if they are wearing armor that limits them to a 20-foot movement rate.

This may mean that those parties will suffer from a less ready supply of healing, as their clerics will be out of range, and less able to aid their allies.

====================
Power Level
====================

Secondly, channel energy is too powerful. Clerics don't get area-of-effect cure or inflict spells until ninth level, but now they get those effects at first level -- and they don't have to use a spell slot for them.

The channel energy effect also heals more hit points on average than mass cure light wounds or mass cure moderate wounds. Even the traditional one-target, touch-based cure and inflict spells aren't that impressive outside of battle when compared to the channel energy ability.

Inside of battle, the fact that channeling energy doesn't provoke an attack of opportunity will likely prove another way that the channel ability beats the mass cure spells. It may lack the range of those spells, but that range matters less when you can cure while within reach of powerful undead (or creatures with long reach) without fear of injury or losing the spell.

From a compatibility perspective, channeling energy brings area-of-effect cure magic into the hands of characters at an earlier level, while the 3.5 game design and existing adventures likely assume the characters do not possess such effects.

By comparison, wizards don't get area of effect damage spells until fifth level. While playtesting would probably show that players like having even a 1d6 fireball at first level, I don't imagine many people suggesting that it should be a first-level spell.

====================
Thematic Consistency
====================

Third, there is a thematic problem when the feats for harming elementals and outsiders are taken into account. Suddenly the idea that you are channeling positive and negative energy is gone. It has been exchanged for the generic "divine energy" that harms a specific creature type. Unlike the base positive or negative channeling, the feats are also not linked to alignment in any way. Nor, for that matter, can you command the elementals or outsiders; you can only harm them.

The vagueness of the energy type, the sudden irrelevance of one's alignment, and the absence of the option to command is inconsistent. Why be so specific, and have multiple options for one creature (undead) and then be so vague and limited for the rest?

(I suspect the answer is that people expect those options for undead in D&D, but not for other creature types, but I think this is something that needs to be consistent.)

====================
Summary
====================

1) The channel ability only achieves its goals for good-inclined parties.
2) The ability limits the option of neutral and evil clerics to command undead without also risking injury to the party.
3) It is too powerful relative to other powers for the same class.
4) The game's design assumes area-of-effect cure spells will not be available until later levels.
5) The power is thematically inconsistent in the rules.

====================
Suggestions
====================

Separate turning from the availability of additional party healing.

Give clerics additional healing that is suitable for their level (i.e., no mass healing until higher levels) and that is not superior to the cure spells (so that the existing cure and inflict spells don't become a completely ignored option in spell selection).

Get rid of the positive/negative energy connotations for turning/rebuking in the flavor text so that turning outsiders and elementals makes thematic sense. Saying you "channel your god's divine will and power" is clear enough. The energy doesn't need a type.

In addition, why limit turning outsiders and elementals to a feat? Why not let the player choose the undead, an outsider type, or an elemental type at character creation and also make all of them available as additional options through feats. That way a PC in a game that will be heavy on outsiders can just pick evil outsiders at character creation instead of as a feat, but the standard of turning undead is still available later if the player should want it.

I posted before the idea of using a single number for advancement, and Krome brought it up again in another thread. I'd like to suggest it again, because I'm a fan of making an advancement process that uses simple, quick numbers.

I also think the current advancement tables are not all that user friendly, since they don't have a consistent pattern and they make the system appear to be more complex than it is.

I'm going to suggest two versions, one that is a tweaked version of my original suggestion (based in part on the encounters per level that Jason mentions here), and one that is based on that and the current Alpha rules.

The second is the new one, and I think I like it better.

=====================================================
Version One: One Path
=====================================================

=====================================================
Version Two: Three Paths
=====================================================

Thoughts?

I'm trying to figure out Lem's skills in Edge of Anarchy, as it seems he has too many. He should have 28 ranks, but I count 36. He also seems to have 6 ranks in Diplomacy, but shouldn't he be limited to 4?

Am I missing something, or are his skills just wrong?

Here's the breakdown as I see it:

I like most of what I see in my quick browsing of the Alpha. But the experience rules seem a bit messy to me. There are three columns of experience advancement and then a long chart of awards based on CR.

I say scrap it all and revise. Here's the suggestion:

1. It takes 1000 Experience Points to get to the next level.
2. Use Table 12-1 (Encounter Design) to decide how much experience each encounter is worth.

Easy: 50xp
Average: 75xp
Challenging: 100xp
Hard: 125xp
Epic: 150xp

This would mean 13 Average encounters per level.

For slower or faster advancement, shift everything over by 25xp.

Slower: Easy is 25xp, Average is 50xp, etc...
Faster: Easy is 75xp, Average is 100xp, etc...

(Using the above numbers, Slower becomes 20 Average encounters per level. Faster is 10 Average encounters per level.)

The result is less tables, an easy to remember goal for the players and the DM (it is always 1000xp to the next level), and the experience award is always relative to the challenge of the encounter regardless of how many PCs are in the party.

And all the math for how fast you advance is on the DM's side. Players don't need to check a column of numbers. No matter how fast or slow advancement is for your game, the players just need to know that it's 1000xp to the next level.

(Obviously, the exact numbers -- either the XP award or XP for Next Level -- can be tweaked based on what people think should be the number of encounters per level for slow, medium and fast advancement.)

Thoughts?

I got the first issue of Pathfinder in PDF today, and I had a little trouble unzipping it.

After it downloaded, I double-clicked the file and StuffIt tried to expanded it. But it only created the Pathfinder folder, and none of the PDF contents. I tried it again and got the same results. Then I tried downloading it again, and I still only got the folder.

Finally, I opened Terminal, and used the unzip command from there. That finally did the trick.

Has anyone else reported problems getting their zip files to open on a Mac (OS 10.3.9) or is it just me? I've never had StuffIt fail to properly expand a zip file before.