Jim Helbron's page

Am I the only one who thinks PF is being turned into a video game? It seems like everything that's been posted over the past month or so is making the game more complex with loads more to remember.

Sarenraes, on the other hand, is the gift that keeps on giving. 3 breath of lifes and heals per day, maximized healing. Even at high levels this is very powerful.

I'm pretty sure there's nothing in Sarenrae's description that says you get anything "per day." It's a one time invocation that lasts 24 hours. In that time you can use those spells 3 times each and gain the benefit of those maxed heals. The text above it says "they should only be handed out once per player per campaign."

Now you can still make the argument that's it's better than Phrasma's, but it's not an "I can do this everyday forever" thing otherwise no one would ever play a cleric of a different deity.

James Jacobs wrote:

…I doubt we'll have any opportunities to print more for the other gods and demigods before the edition change…

I am still really holding out hope that Paizo discovers there’s enough of a fan base for PF1e to publish an occasional “Pathfinder Legacy” supplement for us 1st-edition diehards…

Just tell us what my girl Desna's is please :D

Something like "float like a butterfly, sting like a...?"

This is the book I've been craving since PF1 started. But I have to agree with the posters who are saying the equivalent of "kinda late ain't it?"

Asking your player base to invest that much in another hardcover book and then a campaign setting so close to having the current edition rendered moot seems a bit odd.

On the plus side, it's got an astradaemon on the cover so my hopes are high.

It's a lot harder to assume exactly what a "generic martial character" is doing at a given moment than it is to determine the results of a specific spell. A 9th-level greatsword wielding character with 18 Strength, no special abilities whatsoever, and a solid magic greatsword who is thrown into this encounter is probably going to move up, hopefully into a flank, make an attack with a solid chance to crit the ogre, which will be in range to one-shot the ogre on a good damage roll, and then either move up to another ogre or swing again and deal solid damage to a second ogre if they're adjacent (or to the same ogre if it survived). An actual martial character could be doing something more complicated than that, though, also without spending resources. Either way, they are not going to outshine the wizard who threw a max level AoE spell into this AoE friendly fight, as it should be.

Can you say that part about the fighter again but replace "greatsword" with 2 weapons? I'm still interested in finding out if 2H is still grossly superior to 2WF or if the latter is viable now.

The point of a playtest is to throw a Whole Bunch of Things out there, and then see which ones 'stick' and which ones are 'burn before reading'.

Until that is attained, it will definitely seem like there's a lot of complicated stuff out there.

Complicated is one thing, needlessly complicated is another. As someone earlier on this blog mentioned, it seems way too much like Diablo. Every piece of gear now is going to be judged by whether or not it has the ideal prefix and suffix combination. "Man I just got a cool axe, but it's only a +3 of 'minor ass kicking' so I need to keep farming demons until I get a +3 axe of 'major ass kicking."

So this honestly comes off like you're adding a bunch of rules for the sake of adding a bunch of rules. To an excessive degree. To the point where it seems easier to just not use armor. So you need to either dial it back and make most of this optional. Or adjust it so that it doesn't make ThacO seem like a more appealing system. You really don't need much more then having it add a flat bonus to defense.

^ THIS. Just adding needlessly complex rules for no discernible purpose other than that they can.

I haven't read or heard anything about the test rules other than what's been posted on this blog, but I'll say this much: if Paizo's goal for PF2 is to streamline the game and make it smoother, it seems to be failing so far. I read the posts here and it seems like there's twice as much to do for combat alone than in PF1. It could take you 5 minutes to figure out how to take a swing at a goblin and have it strike back. X action for this, Y action for this, Z action for this.

And then the modifiers... OMG! It used to be you have "x" number of attacks at "y" BAB and then your modifiers like STR, enhancement, situational, etc. Now it's like "Ok I have an expert mace with a rune of ass kicking and a level bonus and then the defender has a DEX of whatever and a level difference of whatever and a situational bonus of whatever with runes of save my ass and... oh crap I've lost count!" I mean you cannot possibly tell me this isn't WAY more complex than it is currently.

It also still seems like there will be obviously superior gear set-ups and builds. In the armor example someone did (yes I know they were making up numbers), you could very likely end up with a situation where the fighter says screw the full plate, I'm wearing bracers and pumping DEX. Especially if armors have significant penalties to skills and whatnot.

I'm not a "the sky is falling" personality type and it's very early, but can't say I'm impressed with the armor blog.

Here's the one thing I want to know about fighters in PF 2.0: Will two-weapon fighting be viable or will 2H weapons still be far superior?

What kind of sword is the glowing green thing the girl has?

KnightErrantJR wrote:

I kind of like them, especially if they remain "guidelines" instead of "you can't use these until you are level X."

Oooh. Yuck. I just got that. When they say leveled items, I thought they meant that like an orc is a 1st level foe, then you give him, say a 2nd level potion and he becomes a 3rd level encounter.

I still think this is what they mean--but man I hope there's nothing like the video-gamey "red item you can't use yet" anywhere in 4e's book of tricks or I'm just gonna' cry...

I'm thinking that it will be your worst fears confirmed on this one. Does all of this not scream out "Diablo 2/Titan Quest" in its execution? Skill trees, level-blocked items, wizards who never run out of spells?

Now if you've always wanted "Titan Quest the role-playing game," then you're good, but if you want D&D, gonna have to stick with Paizo. I love games and I love D&D, but not as a hybrid fusion of one another. Long live the golem...

Actually, aren't all the changes to D&D that WOTC seem to believe are necessary a great opportunity for 3rd party publishers. It wouldn't be hard to envision a series of pdfs, Louis Porter Jr. style, that would detail a single class designed for 4E, but adhering to the more traditional wizard, fighter, etc.

Maybe instead of the idea of a 3.75, it might be more feasible to revise 4E once it's out. The Pathfinder Chronicles setting book provides the fluff, and a later supplement, or Pathfinder articles, provide the crunch...

Problem with that is: every piece of info that has come out about 4th editions is proving that it will be radically different from 3rd. So different in fact that it is doubtful it will be the same game. Paizo would have to thus radically restructure Golarion meaning lots of brilliant work is wasted. And have NO fear, there wil be a 4th edition revision within 2 years. Count on it.

DMcCoy1693 wrote:

Is it just me or does this kind of sound like the Wizard from Gauntlet (the old Atari videogame)?

BLUE WIZARD SHOT THE FOOD

Sounds a lot like a munchkin's wet dream <shudder>
The Schools did naught for me, but this seems to throw the Homunculus out with the bathwater.

No, WotC shot the game...

Sorry, I am sorry I even bothered replying to "I leave it to the ladies Jim". Seriously - you need to adjust that prophile before slamming the door on people...though I am sure with the civility and charisma you have shown (sorry, but WELL below that 21 mate), I am sure you have whitnessed quite a bit of that sort of behaviour.

I am laughing so hard I now give no credence to your witty cries on these boards.

And, yeah, now we are so far off topic, but I don't care, as I am out the door anyway :)

C

Waaaaa! Is that a baby crying somewhere? Oh wait, it's you? WOW! I thought you'd left like you said you were going to. Seriously, "mate," grow up. Did you really expect to comment on a sensitive topic and not inflame people's passions? People don't like things they have cherished for years being disrespected and dismantled. So you have to expect anger and resentment. If you've been around as long as you claim, you should know that...

As for giving "no credence" to me, you have defeated your own argument by responding not once, but twice to my replies. And returning to this particular forum after promising to be gone only further weakens your credibility. Thirdly, if I mean so little, why bother to look up my personal statistics page? Are you my new online stalker? LOL You've successfully defeated yourself without my lifting a finger; though I can think of one finger in particular to lift in your direction. :)

Last but not least, please learn to spell. "prophile" and "whitnessed" are grossly bungled. We all make mistakes, but when one is attempting to undermine the credibility of another, it helps immensely to look marginally competent. I do not seek, nor have I ever sought enmity with you, but your childish behavior (from a supposed adult) begs for critique. Civility is not yours to defend nor promote and charisma is entirely irrelevant. I could be much more charismatic with you, but I dont want to use larger, flowery words for fear you would not understand them. Sincerely, Jim :) :) :)

The final straw with FR for me was in a novel.

I think it was the more recent 'Realms of the Elves' I think. It was an anthology that was tied in somewhat with the Last Mythal Trilogy. In it was a story in which Larloch briefly confronted some of the Seven Sisters.
If you are a FR fan, you should know who Larloch is.

In dialogue with Ed Greenwood, he disclosed that Larloch was essentially his Vecna of FR. He guestimated that Larloch should be about 45th-46th level. Note this does not match with that horrible writeup they gave Larloch in Lords of Darkness. His items were sure cool though.

In this story it is stated point blank, that Larloch would be immediately destroyed if he were contacted by even the briefest wisp of Silver Fire.
WTF!? Greenwoods Vecna...taken out like a punk if he put a step out of line? Not in my game worlds. I had already been dissatisfied with the imbalance of power and that the good guys seem to be everywhere and nearly always win. This was the final straw for me.

I don't dislike the setting per se, but as more and more things have been expanded, I've just been more and more disheartened by it. My two cents.

Exactly. Why would you need 45th level good guys if the bad guys are so weak? All those epic NPC good guys would be very, very bored...

I just had a look at this. I mean: is there anyone out there who would buy it? Sure might be interesting reading, but for 20$??? Come on, for the price of a paperback 13$, fine, for 96 pages! But 20$, I guess reused artwork and again a lot of vague hot air about how cool 4th ed will be, but nothing substantial. Just my 2 cents.

Let the bashing begin ;-)

You beat me to the post. I was gonna put something here about just this. I couldn't agree more. To pay for this preview is insulting enough, but to pay $20 for what will amount to be no more than 2-3 chapters from the real PH which will retail for $30-$40 (we assume?) is even more insane that the last bit of insanity they spewed out.

It seems like WotC is testing us. Kind of a "Let's see how much we can get away with without actually doing it." sort of thing. Then they can dial it back for sanity's sake. We hope...

Lambast the ideas = fine. (I am unsure of this, though as I said, this really doesn't effect me. Just see the gods as egs for what you can use.)

Insult the writers. Well at least have the sand to do it directly. My whole point was a thread on gods should stay on gods without the snide general remarks at end.

But, whatever, I moving on to other boards...yeah, wher people 'worship everything Wizards does'....as if, whatever.

Out, C

Don't let the door hit you in the arse on the way out. :)

BTW for those above that said they would be happy with new gods or 'show me a new god' it makes it look like people didn;t even read the post, just saw the word Bane and forgot the fact that there ARE new gods.

As far as all that 'old cannon' etc. Here is a big deal...change the name.

Look I can understand some people not liking this. Fine, each to their own. I find it very interesting that this time around the designers were brave enough to change fluff that was poor or non-existant. Finally we are seeing a real background for elves and the different types...who cares what they are called. I bet a fair amount of people lambasting Wizards for all this fluff were some of the same complaining around the release of 3E they didn;t have the sand to change fluff that had little story to back it up.

For example what is your story for the existance of elves. Pretty ordinary in the 'cannon' of the game. I bet most DMs have their own story and subraces. Isn;t it good that Wizards is now creating stuff like this and setting up a core group of popular deities and new ones that CAN start with a lot of cool intereations? well I think it is and if it is not...As I said most create these themselves for their own CS as I do.

What I most dislike is using something like this thread (oh and the use of Bane?) as a lead in to more Wizards bashing. Express your opinion. Drop the snide remarks following it. That is what is annoying and giving these boards (and therefore Paizo) a bad rep elsewhere. And more importantly it ruins almost every 4E thread where the same people say the same thing about Wizards.

Speaking of repeating...I will too. Remember 3E. I have no doubt most people bagging 4E will play it. And I bet they enjoy it. ;)

Ah yes, another poster whining repeatedly about other people's whining... Paizo does not have a bad rep elsewhere, that's just you being incindiary. And, while you may be correct in disliking personal attacks on the stupid 4th edition writers (oops...), your whining about the whining loses you credibility.

Honestly my biggest complaint is that there is a core pantheon at all. Some people talk about breaking tradition, but 3.x was the first to break tradition with its core pantheon. Three editions did fine without it (Basic, AD&D, 2Ed). There is no tradition for core pantheons beyond 3.x

Now this mish mash of a pantheon is annoying to me. It combines a bunch of worthless deities from a bunch of useless settings. Like I said before, it is just several wasted pages.

Traditionally, when adventures were written they were written for settings if that was important. WOTCs claim to using this pantheon is to make things more uniform in their adventures. Except when the publish a FR adventure or lord forbid an Eberron adventure. If a deity is particularly important to an adventure let them make the adventure setting dependent. Just like they used to do. See, that is tradition.

I also dislike the lack of creativity in names. Bane was a placeholder but no one could come up with a better name. That does not bode well to me. They want a more fey elf so Eladrin is used... mmm if they want an elven race tied to good outsiders that works fine, but Eladrin have nothing to do with fey. If they want to make the elf more fey and the eladrin more traditionally elf-like then again I have a problem with creativity. Here they break strongly with tradition. Keep the elf as is, and introduce a new race to be your feylike elf. But don't use eladrin.

I see this mish mashing of names and pantheons and such as an example that WOTC is rushing forward blindly to get 4E out. It appears they have not really been working on this a long time but are throwing it together and pulling out of their back ends. They do not appear to have a plan at all. I guess that is what bothers me more than anything.

Remember way back when I told you there was gonna be something you didnt like? Anyway, you're dead on here about the recycled names. At least come up with a new name for your new ideas.

Aberzombie wrote:

Hey James, can you say what the next one will be, or maybe when?

At this point, I haven't been asked to write any more Demonomicons for the digital initiative or Dragon.

I suspect that Graz'zt will be the last one written by me, in any event. The changes to demons in 4th edition pretty much make the Demonomicon as I've envisioned it outdated and wrong. I'm certainly not interested in writing a Demonomicon entry that shoehorns the flavor into the new version of the Abyss (with no succubi and its ties to elementals among other things). In fact, unless they maintain the older, traditional history and setup for demons in some campaigns, I'd honestly rather not see any more Demonomicon articles, which is kind of depressing, since I was really, REALLY looking forward to some day writing Obox-ob's entry. And Pale Night. And Yeenoghu. And Orcus. And even Juiblex.

RATS! We were all looking forward to Obox-Ob... Freakin' WotC and their revisionist history. Next up: EXTRA, EXTRA! SOUTH WINS CIVIL WAR!

Are there any blond, blue-eyed humans in Golarion? What ethnicity would they be? Chelaxian?

To my mind, there is so little difference between the first three setting that, for all intents and purposes GH/FR/DL amount to the same medieval/tolkien fantasy standard so i'd pick just one. I'd throw in Spelljammer as a steampunk fantasy, as presented a few years back in Dungeon NOT the original. I'd also throw in a primative world setting, like Hollow world to make up the five

There is little difference between FR/GH and Dragonlance? Wow, me thinks you've been hitting something pretty hard there man.

A Frankenstein-like patchwork pantheon lurches forth from an equally homely and jumbled planar cosmology. Met the 4e flavor, a baby so ugly the doctor can't decide which end to slap. Its not a pantheon; its a train wreck.

Couldn't agree more.

SaintAnger wrote:

Well done...will there be a next entry...?

That's a good question.

One request though: if you're most likely not doing any more, can u please give what you would guess is the challenge rating according to your scale for Obox-Ob? He was the one I was most waiting for... :)

Jim Helbron wrote:

Awesome article, the best thing to come out from the online content. Anyone know if they are going to do more? Say... AMON, exiled duke of the 5th and his winter wolf? *cough, cough* :)

Evil in Hell, it all still boils down to a story about a boy and his dog. ;)

LOL, you got me. But Amon is just cool. And I want the stats and story for him. After all, he was in the origional Monster Manual 2...

Awesome article, the best thing to come out from the online content. Anyone know if they are going to do more? Say... AMON, exiled duke of the 5th and his winter wolf? *cough, cough* :)

Aberzombie wrote:

I wish them luck in trying to find mine. I'm pretty sure that spot may no longer exist after Hurricane Katrina. Still, the effort would make me angry...they wouldn't like me when I'm angry.

Well, failing that, the back up plan is to give you a cute puppy, wait for you to fall in love with it, and then cook it up in some chili and trick you into eating it.

"I knew my best friends Stan and Kyle would betray me. Let me taste your tears... mmm they taste soo sweet."

Scott Tenorman Must Die

I've heard a lot of complaints about 4e. Raging over the changes that are upcoming, seething over the contempt that folks are perceiving from WotC to their customer base, and the anger over the cancellation of Dungeon and Dragon magazines.

But this one just makes me go "Huh?" And here's why:

The product (4e) won't even start to hit the shelves until May 2008.

So how on earth are you not being allowed to make an informed decision? How can you possibly make an informed decision until sometime in or after May 2008? Consider, first off, that everything between now and May is most certainly going to be marketing spin. WotC is going to leak everything they can to make it sound cool and exciting and make you want to buy it, as best as they know how. But that isn't going to be much. It's certainly not going to be enough for you to make any kind of informed decision.

You cannot, and should not, hope to make an informed decision until you can hold the final product in your hands and view all the material for yourself.

Instead, you (you in specific, and you in the general sense) should take everything that comes out between now and May 2008 with a grain of salt. Understand that it can and may well change between now and then. Understand that you're /not/ going to get all that much data on what they're doing until the final product hits the shelves. I mean, it would kind of go against the purpose of trying to sell a product to put everything in your hands without having to buy it.

And really, WotC isn't doing anything, marketing wise, that I haven't seen with video games. They slowly leak out information about gameplay and what's 'new' in the 'sequel' to make us think that it's really going to be something awesome or cool (which some of us will -and have- certainly think sucks and just not for us). Only, with D&D, we have one very obvious advantage over buying a video game. We get to go into...

Disagree with much that you said, but in an attempt to be expedient, here's the chief reason why I disagree: When a video game company markets their sequel ie: Halo3, Final Fantasy "blank+1", etc..., they do tell you what's gonna be cool about it. What they DO NOT tell you is how much Halo, Halo 2 , Final Fantasy 1-100 (or whatever they are on now) SUCKED A** and why you should totally expunge all memories from your brain.

To do what the arrogant a-holes on the 4E design team are doing is basically to urinate on all the great work and effort of the previous designers. It's fine to say that "we never really liked how such-and-such worked," but to say it was all garbage (which if you read between the lines is what they are doing) is insulting to not just the previous designers, but the customer base and long-time fans as well.

Jim Helbron wrote:

While your ideas may make for an interesting non-D&D game, therein lies the key problem: it's not D&D. It's a video game. Diablo. Titan Quest, etc... All awesome games, but still not D&D.

Certainly it is, just like Arcana Evolved, Iron Heroes, Midnight, Conan and several others are 'D&D'. Just because you change the stats around and change the classes doesn't make it 'not D&D'. By that line of thinking, you're not playing D&D right now and possibly never have because you're not using races as classes, not all monsteres and classes have the same hit dice, and there are more than seven levels of cleric spells. Changing those were at least as sweeping as the changes I'd make.

Did I mention I'd get rid of spells entirely and just go with powers?

'It's like a video game' is the ultimate disingenous statement that really means simply 'I don't like it', simply because the statement itself makes no sense. It seems that people have the idea that video games are simplistic, or only for children, or some-such nonsense. They're not roleplaying games; if you're concerned about rules changes making D&D 'not a roleplaying game', then that's not going to happen. I could use FATE, Vampire, or Traveller rulesets and run a game that, except for the type of dice you were rolling and some mechanical aspects, would be exactly identical to D&D. In fact, I'd defy anyone to tell the difference. 'D&D' lies in how you convey the game, not in the details of rules or the fluff involved.

I've never run a D&D game with the Great Wheel, short elves, tubby hobbits/halflings, Asmodeus, or spells that started with 'Bigby'. In fact, I've never used almost anything from the 'implied setting' or the 'implied fluff'. Does this mean I've never run D&D?

It's not D&D. Period. No spells? Now that's ridiculous. Not D&D. Doesn't mean it would be a bad game, but NOT D&D. :)

And no, most video games are not for kids, they are for adults. But video games are video games, no matter how simple or complex. D&D is D&D. No spells... lol

trellian wrote:

That seems more like a completely new and different game, not exactly fixing a few bugs.

Nah, that's just the minimal stuff I'd do to fix some bugs. If I were really going for the 'whole new game' thing, I'd start with:

1. Have only Str, Dex, Con and Int as stats.
2. The only die used would be a d6.
3. The only classes would be Fighter, Spellcaster, Expert; feats, talent trees, class ability selections and skill packages would modify them from there.

While your ideas may make for an interesting non-D&D game, therein lies the key problem: it's not D&D. It's a video game. Diablo. Titan Quest, etc... All awesome games, but still not D&D. This is the core problem of the direction WotC is heading in. They want to appeal to the kids of today who only know video games. Make it like "Diablo the pen and paper" version and we can make $$$.

It's wise to simplify the rules from the over-complexity that 3.0/3.5 became, but your concepts take away almost all the "D&D-ness" of it and make it just another D&D-inspired video game. Might be very fun to play, but can't really call it D&D because it isn't.

The problem is James, they have systematically pissed on everything you did and seem to want to make it even worse. Sort of like taking the knife out of the surgeon's hands and giving it to the med-student

Does anyone have a list of what the new core classes are going to be?

Bah... talk about making magic even more powerful in order to satisfy the kidz. Well, if this is the case, I really hope they make a rule that says that the wizard has to make some sort of roll in order to safely position an area spell. It always bugged me that the wizard always, unerringly in six seconds could measure who would be hit by the fireball. He must have one hell of an eye!

I think that with every tidbit of 4E information I get, my desire for 4E shrinks by the minute. Now, it's slim to none.

And I really hope I'm not labeled a troll for saying so.

I'll read the 4E rules and give it the benefit of the doubt, but I'm with you on the "less and less by the minute" thing.

I still call it the Demonomicon of Iggwilv, and will continue to do so in the campaigns I run in which it appears. It's certianly still called the Demonomicon of Iggwilv in the upcoming online Dragon #360, which is all about Graz'zt.

It's unfortunate that the changes WotC is making in 4th Edition are rebuilding so much. I can only hope that in whatever form that Greyhawk may or may not take in the next edition of the game that these changes do not hold true, that succubi are still demons, eladrins are still chaotic good outsiders, and the Abyss is still 666 layers of chaotic evil.

I see no need to carry on the Demonomicon of Iggwilv as an in-game object (or, honestly, as a series of articles) if it doesn't continue to build upon the rich history it's already drawing from over the last 30 years of D&D. If there's a need for some sort of iconic Big Book of Evil in 4th edition that DOES speak to the new world order of the reorganized multiverse, it should be something equally new. Retconning something like the Demonomicon of Iggwilv so that it functions in the new setup and is treated as if it were always that way would be, in my opinion, foolish and disrespectful of Gygax's original vision for the book.

What an absolute ffing waste to all your hard work, James. The Demonomicon was my favorite article series about D&D and to see that it's likely we're gonna lose out is seriously depressing. Thanks for the great work in any case though...

swirler wrote:

ooh idf they are changing alignment maybe we could add in the "wheel of morality" from Animaniacs!!

"Wheel of morality turn turn turn, show us the lessont hat we should learn."

Today's lesson: chaotic evil is a good thing.

Tune in tomorrow kids!

*And here I thought no one remembered Animaniacs*

"They have pay for play contracts. They're totally insaney, Citizen Kaney, Animaniacs."

CourtFool wrote:

Krome wrote:

So all this is just to stir up anxiety and fears and a lot of what ifs... which of course serves no purpose other than make people anxious.

Do you have proof that 4e is not going to let the community down or that the OGL will be less restrictive?

People are already anxious and fearful. They are coming here to express those anxieties and fears. Are you suggesting we should not be allowed to express ourselves?

ummmm no... I am saying why do you have these anxieties and fears in the first place?

Are you just afraid of change in the first place and therefore anything that changes makes you afraid and anxious? In that case I would suggest therapy. I mean seriously, it's a game...

And how do I put this... no I do not need proof that it will not let down the community etc... I am not the one running around crying wolf and wringing my hands and hiding my head in the sand because I am terrified that change is coming. I mean after all 3.5 was the 4th variation of D&D- Basic D&D, Advanced D&D, 2nd Edition D&D, 3rd Edition D&D, 3.5 D&D... so why be so upset that yet another edition is coming out?

If someone is going to come into a public forum and claim all sorts of negative events are about to happen they had better be able to back that up. The OP pulls a lot of crap out his backside with no proof of whatsoever. I for one do not like people stirring up hysterics just for the sake of stirring up hysterics.

Prove your statements that 4E is going to ruin everything or else don't say it and don't worry about it.

Yep that's what it all comes down to...

Don't worry about it

It all boils down to this... my momma taught me if you don't have something good to say, don't say anything at all.

And yet u have put up more posts on this topic than anyone. Funny how those who hate complainers complain the most of all... LOL

The ancient greek afterlife was just a shadow realm where everyone wandered around doing nothing. Except for those who were punished. No reward, only punishment.

Not completely accurate. The Greek afterlife consisted of Hades (which is what you are referring to) which was wandering around "doing nothing" other than waiting for your soul to be judged, as well as Tartarus (the Hell equivalent) and Elysium where the "good" souls went. After all, where do you think the D&D NG plane came from? :)

Disenchanter wrote:

DangerDwarf wrote:

They are gaining fans (at least initially in my case)who haven't bought a product from them in years, by moving past an edition which is overly bloated and barely recognizable as D&D anymore except in name.

Let me see if I understand you correctly...

You appreciate WoTC moving past an edition that you felt was unrecognizable as D&D, to an edition that is even more unrecognizable as D&D?

Is that what you are saying?

Ayup. That sounds about right.

In my eyes they already killed D&D so whats the worst they can do now? They might even end up making a FRPG I like.

Besides, and this is very crummy of me I admit, after taking flack all these years for preferring AD&D over 3e it is finally pay back time.

I've said it on other threads and forums that after years of listening to smug 3e players talk down AD&D and proclaim their newer system better it finally comes full circle:

Catch up with the times folks! Its stupid to cling to a dead system! Newer = better, just look at the options! Far superior to your archaic and silly 3e rules. Modern gamers need more, the d20 ruleset is just so primitive. Hahahaha! You silly 3e grognards.

It's all about progress baby.

Ayup. I'm petty too. But I'm cool with it. =D

Well, this post explains everything. You are obviously a 3rd edition hater and are happy to see it changed. Fair enough, but you are STILL MISSING MY POINT. If you bothered to read what I wrote instead of assuming that my idea was automatically wrong, you might learn something.

It's not about the damn demons and devils and plane settings. It's about the radical and completely unnecessary changes to established lore/cannon. If you as a gamer/GM don't like them, don't use them. Fine. BUT (!) if you do like them (as many do) then there is no reason to have yourself alienated by WotC. You can have multiple campagin settings and such, but don't flit away 30+ years or history because you can.

And, DangerDwarf, here's my point since you missed it twice: If they are willing to destroy the evil outsiders/planes cannon, what else will they/can they easily swap out or change? It's very easy to do something a second or third or more time(s) when you get over doing it the first time. Look at the Eladrins/elves thing too. So before you go 'round telling people they're just plain wrong, at least know what point they are making. :)

And as for the crack about modern gamers needing more, who are you to say that? Are you some 13 yr old who has so much electronic gadegtry that you can't concentrate without flashing lights, loud noises and smoke? Don't speak for "modern gamers" as a whole. Speaking for yourself is fine and we will respect your opinion even if we don't agree. But don't claim you know what "modern gamers" want as if you represent the generation and then call people stupid because they like what they have and want to keep it recognizable. It's really, really arrogant.

Um. I thought they were pretty much portrayed that way in 1st Edition as well.

I'd have to pull out the MM and look again but I'm fairly certain in the original mm that there were more than 1 or 2 demons will low or semi intelligence. I think they were described as basically killers who fought to the death regardless types too.

Quoting from the article, "Even the mightiest demon lords manipulate other demons by using threats, direct violence, or the promise of more destruction through affiliation." Thats sounds about right to me as well.

Like I said, I am one of those guys who thinks Planscape and the Bloodwars was crap, so maybe thats why I don't mind the change and view it as an improvement though.

Well, if u think it's "crap," so be it. But you're missing the point entirely my friend. It's not about demons per se, but about the huge amount (whether you like it or not) of people who do like the history of the planes and the people who have worked hard to write it getting slapped in the face. Change is cool, but not if you alienate a huge portion of your fanbase. And it's not just the demon/devil thing, it's one thing after another with this 4th edition. Completely altering the core of the game (elves, classes, outsiders, etc...) takes it further and further from true D&D...

Ok folks, here's the deal: as someone who has actually done PR and lives in Los Angeles (the home of all things "spin"), i can tell you several things.

1) Not trying to be arrogant and saying "I know better than all," just giving the benefit (hopefully) of my experience.

2) If you are going to make a change to something popular and established, you do NOT go in with a chainsaw and massacre it. You try to use a scalpel and do precision work that will not be as dramatically noticable. That being said, you can use the chainsaw if you do not care about your established customers and want to market an entirely new product. Which, unfortunately, seems to be the case here.

3) As many here have said, you want to focus on the "good" changes you are making. Telling us silly stories with no relevance only serves to blow smoke. If that's your goal, so be it, but the goal should be selling the "new and improved" points and telling customers WHY it will be better. The smoke blowing only serves to foster doubt and questions like "what are they hiding and what are they not telling us?"

4) Opening up new markets and tailoring them to the new customers is totally acceptable, but NOT at the cost of your established base. This base, whether WoTC likes it or not, is going to be the top $$$ portion of sales. If you piss them off too much (as it seems is happening) you will lose sales. Some loss is acceptable and is even expected in the marketing strategy, but too great a loss nullifies the gains. Simple economics/business.

5) Change can be very good. Fixing things here and there, trying new things and experimenting all have their uses. Change for the sake of change, however, can often be disastrous. The demon/devil debaucle is a crystal clear illustration of that. Are there seriously people out there who couldn't tell the difference? FGS, the two sentences in FC2 explain it better than anything: Demons want to destroy the world. Devils want to own it. Now, was that hard for anyone out there? Didn't think so... This smacks of change for the sake of change - kind of an "I'm in charge now b****es and we're doing it my way because I can" attitude. Translated into PR/marketing it comes off as arrogant, selfish and, more importantly, it's off-putting and brings several negative vibes. Which, as anyone can imagine, is the LAST thing you want when launching/re-launching a product. No negative, all positive is the staple of PR. You spin away the bad. You DO NOT cultivate it.

Anyway, just my thoughts. And remember: I'f we've lost Sebastian, we've lost middle America..."

Well, at least it's Wayne Reynolds as the artist instead of some of the other "artists" they have on retainer. <shudders>

Anyone see the Exemplars of Evil book art? God it's atrocious. Worst artwork selection ever. Ever...

Well, either way, the skill system as it is now is terrible. One of the things about 3.0/3.5 that has always annoyed me. The whole concept of "cross-class" is just silly to me. Yes, some classes should be inherently better at things (rogue/stealth, wizard/lore, etc...), but why is it in a world where customization is encouraged do we have cross-class crap? If your fighter wants to learn knowledge (arcana), why not let him pump his points into it? It doesnt make as much sense as, say climb, but if he wants to spend his time going over arcane lore, why restrict him? Same for the paladin/disable device, wizard/heal or whatever combination u want to come up with. And while I'm on it, WTH is with "speak language" being cross class for all but the bard? No way is it any harder to learn for one person than another, yet the bard is the only one smart enough to do it?

In any case, the skills system needs a dramatic fix. Maybe certain classes get inherent bonuses to "related" types (ie: rogue classes get minor bonuses to stealth and such) to show that they are, IN GENERAL, better at them. But in no way should a 20th level fighter have to spend the same amount of points on "heal" as a cleric and be half as good. Hey, part of military training is combat medical stuff. Why should he not be able to staunch a wound or tie a tourniquet?

I was looking over at Wizards, and they're saying that's the possible monthly price range for the two mag's and the online stuff.

I think they oughtta,like, seriously reconsider lowering that. You don't pay for ink, paper, shipping, none of that. What's the margin on paying a few authors and a bunch of web stuff? Don't you suck more people in at say $5 a month?

I caught the same thing myself. And I wondered how they came up with the "fuzzy" math? A year subscription to both Dungeon and Dragon mags would have been about $78 ($38.95 apiece). Now call me crazy, but that works out to about $6.50 for both issues a month. So how they get $10-$15 is beyond me. Unless we are supposed to buy the idea that the extra $3.50-$8.50 is to cover the same WoC D&D articles that we get for free now (Character class, etc...)? And really are not that great...

Just wondering about the ethinic make up of the new world. It says that the majority of people in the realm are dark haired and dark eyed racially. Are there any areas where they have light hair and eyes?

Just wondering if there is any real possibility of there being a collected book/mag of the demonomicon articles. It's supposedly very popular so I think it would sell very well. Anyone "in the know" have any info?

In a releated story, I see that the first online issue of Dungeon will have a new entry (Graz'zt). Will the series continue after that, James? Would really love to see Obox-Ob and the other obyriths...
Any info would be great!

Well, it's finally happened... I don't wanna be one of those whiny "WoC sucks" people, but if the shoe fits...

WoC has now officially become Games Workshop. D&D is now becoming a miniatures based tabletop game that needs constant "revisions" every few years or so "in response to gamer's demands." Just who are these gamers anyway? I don't know too many people who are saying that current D&D sucks, our hundreds of $$$ of books and materials need to be completely scrapped, Dungeon and Dragon magazines needed to die in order to make way for ambiguous "online digital" formats and that we need dozens of crappy plastic miniatures to completely change the game.

Don't get me wrong, change is often good and keeps things fresh, but change for the sake of change (read: $$$) is not good. In fact, it's a slap in the face and an insult. If I want to do tabletop miniatures, I can play WH Fantasy or 40K (and buy new rules every 2 years or so - $$$), I don't need it here... I dont enjoy spending $500 or more on books only to have them be officially defunct after only 5 years. Yes, they can still be used and, yes, people still play AD&D 2nd, but come on, that's such a small minority. To have no support for your product = death. Period.

D&D used to be about imagination, a good DM, players who were about the fantasy. Now it seems to be getting dumbed down to "little kid level" (no offense to little kids intended) in order to create a new target audience and sell miniatures as well as new books...

And, if you think I'm just some idiot ranting away because he hates change, think again. Look at what WoC did to Paizo and the magazines. Look at how many "revisions" D&D went through in the 26 years before WoC as opposed to how many in the 8 years with them. Equal folks, equal. And suppose we buy into this 4th edition? How are we supposed to believe that in 2010 4.5 won't be coming? and 5th edition in 2012? Sounds like a long time, but not really if you think about it. After all WoC is basically GW, and you have only to look at them to see what they've done to their game and shudder as we wait for it to happen to D&D...

Trying to be my usual optimistic self and finding it very, very hard...

WOW! I'm literally amazed at how long this thread is (and I skipped most of it)! ELAzalin, you really need to grow up. I mean, FGS, how much time and energy and effort have you wasted on this tiny little issue? Even if you're correct, which is debatable, so what???

Are you such a sad, pathetic little man that you have nothing else to do with your life then b$&%+ at a possible printing error on a D&D magazine? You say you're "insulted?" Jesus Christ, I wish life's problems were as simple for me as they are for you... What I wouldn't give to have my only worry be a magazine cover.

I feel so very sorry for you and how miserable your life must be. Instead of focusing on how a great magazine is coming to an end and complimenting those responsible for its great content, you whine and moan like a little girl who didn't get the right tea at her tea party. And, as if that alone wasn't enough, you waste EVEN MORE TIME (!) arguing back and forth with people for something so trivial that its beyond laughable. I'm surprised as well that James Jacobs even bothered to respond to you, not once, but twice. What a testament to class.

Pay attention to him, jerkoff, you could learn a lot.
GROW THE HELL UP, CHILD!

Sincerly Jim Helbron

:)

Can you tell us (from the "coming next month box") what the final Demonomicon article will be about, or who its on? It would be appreciated.

Whoops... in the crazy flurry of the messageboard traffic we've been getting here lately... this one slipped by.

So!

Issue #357 will have a Demonomicon entry for Demogorgon. Then, in the last issue of Dragon, it looks like there's going to be another one. I'm not quite ready to reveal what's going to be in this one, but it'll be a different style from the ones previous. There won't be room to do full stats for the remaining demon lords from Fiendish Codex I, alas, but I've got an idea on how to do the next best thing...

If those Dragon folks are okay with it, I might say more...

Well, the beans have been spilled about stats for Iggwilv, so if that's not what your referring to, then we'll be in for a surprise...

anything?