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It's a good game. However, it left many of 3.5's dilemmas unsolved. Also, its major selling point for me would have been its compatibility with 3.5, but the power balance was so significantly altered, particularly at low levels, that 3.5 material still requires some modification to be viable in Pathfinder. Shame. Oh yeah, and I think the name's kinda goofy.
How ironic - the house-ruled 3.5 is itself getting house-ruled. I love it!It's not ironic at all, perhaps that word doesn't mean what you think it means? And every single version of every RPG that's played has house rules. Dear Mr. Snarky: Dictionary.com gives one of the definitions of "ironic" as "unexpected." So it seems it can mean precisely what I thought it meant.
At a minimum, I plan to house rule in the ability to "forget" spells from slots as a minor action to allow the use of those slots to prepare a new spell or to utilize an MM feat on an already prepared spell. I might go further an use a "spell slot" system similar to that used by Magisters in Arcana Evolved, but that will require further thought. How ironic - the house-ruled 3.5 is itself getting house-ruled. I love it!
Sure, but when has any movie been better than the book it was based on? Forrest Gump 12 Monkeys
The Thomas Crown Affair
Wow - what the heck happened? When I visited Victoria this summer, the loonie was worth about $1.10! Looks like I definitely should have put the trip off 'til next year.
Why? She's not a member of the Bush family, as far as I know. Or are you trying to associate her with everything ever done by members of the Republican party?
These 4e adventures from Dungeon magazine are all for much higher level characters. There are a couple of paragon-tier adventures and most of the rest seem to be high heroic tier. I'm left with "Keep on the Shadowfell," which half the players have a copy of already. Now this just doesn't seem to make any sense. Your complaint about KotS is that half the players have a copy, but you wish there were more available Dungeon adventures, which they could easily download for free. This may change, of course, once Wizards starts charging for DDI, though I suspect there are enough file sharers out there that the subscription price really won't be a barrier to folks that want the adventures.
The new monsters all started to run together in my mind, the confusion at the table was painful (I realize this will go away, but it sucked so much that I don't want to DM again), and it's so much work to prep encounters that it's just not worth it. These two points are interesting, since a.) 4E monsters are more distinct than in 3E. 3E monsters were all made from the same building blocks and had few, if any, unique abilities. b.) Prep time in 4E should be shorter with no skill points to calculate.
"Having ascertained that our latest shipment of Pathfinder books was not actually guns, drugs, or people, US Customs has finally cleared Pathfinder #14—Second Darkness Chapter 2: "Children of the Void"!" [Best Charlton Heston voice]It's made out of people! Soylent Pathfinder is made out of people...!
OK, I'll see if we can get 5 players and then I might look at running this.One. Two! I would love to play, and would even be willing to GM, though I've never had any PBP XP. I would need guidance.
McCain should not have picked the VP candidate that he wanted to screw the most; That would be contrary to the "drill here, drill now" philosophy;).
Nah. Let's talk about her boobies. Those man suits cover them all up!
I live in Arizona, so my state would go McCain if he chose Big Bird as his running mate. I have my doubts about that. Big Bird has been on PBS for a long time, but he has no experience off Sesame Street. If you were talking about Kermit, who has experience both on Sesame Street and the Muppet Show, not to mention the Muppet movies, it might be a different story. Not to mention the fact that Big Bird's "close" relationship with Snuffleupagus could alienate some of McCain's Republican supporters. I would have suggested the Swedish Chef as a running mate, if only he were a natural-born citizen.
I have some difficulty accepting that the attitude of the average reluctant 12 year-old towards D&D is representative of how much the average D&D player will enjoy playing D&D. No kidding. Using a 12-year-old's attention span as an indicator of a fight's length is plain silly. I played 4E with adults and we had no trouble focusing. I'd say our fights took no more or less time than in 3E.
Call a spade a spade. 3.75E.
Almost certainly, the core release of 4E has been amongst the most successful core releases ever, although, i am unaware of any press releases declaring they have reached 2nd or 3rd print runs(this does not mean they haven't ) reached such milestones, i just don't think they have gone so far as to issue press releases on it. http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/12654.html This link is just the first of many results from Google. The core 4E set sold out by preorder alone.
And if they had no clue on how to make a game...then why are they doing so well at the ENnies? This is not to insinuate that the Pathfinder folks can't design games, but if one is to judge by the ENnies as you suggest, they seem better at supplements. The awards for Best d20 Product, Best New Game and Best Rules went to WotC for Star Wars SE.
Personally, I think it looks fine. My 20th level alpha 3 game plays about as well as my 20th level 4e game. They both suck equally in that regard. Than again, I've never enjoyed high level play anyway. To each their own. Somehow, that doesn't strike me as a good endorsement. "Try Pathfinder - it sucks just as bad!"
While I don't believe the number of downloads is going to reflect actual sales, you're right that there are more factors to it than Amazon's stats. Most folks wishing to buy Pathfinder products online are probably more likely to do so directly from Paizo.com. Not to mention a good slice of them are bound to be subscribers anyway.
I liked part of the movie Never Say Never Again. What I didn't like is the introduction, the villain was redone from a former movie Thunderball. The whole movie was a remake of Thunderball - that's the only way it could get made. Fleming co-wrote the original novel with a screenwriter named Kevin McCrory, as it was the first Bond book intended for a screen adaptation. However, Fleming ended up in court with McCrory over the rights, and they ended up with joint rights to that story alone.
Despite both of his movies being on the "worst" list for me, I actually didn't think Timothy Dalton was a bad Bond. The problem was that Timothy Dalton inherited the "we don't know what to do with Bond" era scripts that marked the end of Roger Moore's tenure. Timothy Dalton was my second-favorite Bond, right after Connery, because I was a fan of the novels and he fits Bond's description in the novels better than anyone else so far. He's also a good actor. Unfortunately, as you mentioned, he was saddled with two of the worst Bond scripts ever. I actually liked The Living Daylights, but since that script was written before the producers knew who was going to play Bond, it didn't match Dalton's take on the character. I would have liked to see Dalton reprise the role in Goldeneye, but what actor is going to wait around five years while the producers resolve court battles? He had to get on with his career.
Since Pathfinder isn't truly backwards compatible anyway (CRs are completely thrown off and stat blocks require heavy modification), high-level play is probably more important.
I sheepishly admit that I'm one of the folks for whom WotC probably destroyed the Realms as we knew them. I was always intimidated to DM in that setting due to my lack of knowledge about the myriad famous NPCs and such. Now that we're starting over from scratch, so to speak, I'm eager to try the setting out. FR novels continue to be written, however, so I can only assume that in time, the setting will become as intimidating as it ever was, particularly with Living Forgotten Realms on the horizon. Maybe it'll blow up again for 5E. I will definitely buy the book, if only for the swordmage class.
Gotta wonder whether this is connected to last week's Gleemax announcement. If this guy was the backbone of both Gleemax and D&DI, maybe that's why Wizards has chosen to focus just on D&DI for now.
That’s really it. Compared to the 52 pages dedicated to a Paizo AP (each combat of which rarely ever takes up an entire page, especially two), along with 22 more pages of extra fluff and monsters, this is extremely pitiful. Wow. Talk about comparing apples to oranges. Need we be reminded that Rivenroar is currently free? Even when the subsciption fees do begin, it's supposed to be $15 all-inclusive. Pathfinder is $20 for one adventure. There's no way a free web document could measure up to that. It seems more reasonable to compare Rivenroar to the freebies Paizo offers. I can't think of any except the Player's Guides, which are essentially glorified advertisements for the Pathfinder APs, or the Pathfinder RPG playtest rules, which are made available so the game can get free playtesting. However, I must say that Paizo has excellent customer service.
Heh, by the time you get around to 4E, 5E might be out already:).
A lot of people have abandoned ENWorld. I recently came back after not posting there for a couple years. I'm thinking about mostly leaving again. It seems that anyone who says anything other than wonderful things about 4E is going to be attacked by somebody and the mods aren't doing much to stop it. It's kind of the polar opposite of this site in that respect, though the anti-4E sentiment at Paizo.com is understandable, since Pathfinder players naturally gravitate here. I found that ENWorld had intermittent technical issues. I find myself going there less and less since they've remodeled, however, simply because the layout is so inconvenient now.
As far as I know, that's all that's been published. Of course there are literally oodles of 3E adventures that can be converted, depending on what Rosey wants to do. The D&D Game Day Shadowhaunt adventure was called "Into the Shadowhaunt." The only thing I can think of that you left out was the Free RPG Day adventure, "Treasure of Talon Pass." Unless, of course, you count the other Game Day scenario, which was simply a fight with a white dragon, as an adventure. By the way, if there are any player spots left for this 4E PBP, I'd love to join you if you'll tolerate a noob.
Emaciated Chinese children are the only ones with fingers small enough to paint those tiny, tiny minis.
I want to applaud the decision of the designers to move away from the dead at -10 rule to the dead at -Constitution score rule (p.155 Alpha 3). The new rules are a definite improvement over the old system and this would hold even more strongly if they were coupled with extending the disabled condition from 0 to -Constitution bonus a la Monte Cook in Arcana Unearthed. I have played with these rules a while ago (though I no longer do for some time now), having taken them from the aforementioned Arcana Unearthed and they felt better than the standard 3.5E rules. First of all, both of these systems make Constitution more important than was intended, which can skew game balance, especially at lower levels. Secondly, whether the negative hit point barrier is a flat -10 or -Constitution, neither addresses the problem that either amount becomes insignificant at high levels anyway. They are very much in the Pathfinder spirit, however. For all its improvements, Pathfinder throws challenge ratings off at low levels with its hit point boosts, while doing nothing to alleviate 3.5's problems at high levels. So either disabled/dying system should fit right in.
I don't like the new site either. I liked having everything on one easy-to-navigate page. Hopefully Paizo will introduce their own version of ENWorld, perhaps called Linkfinder, that will let those of us unwilling to go over to the new layout continue to enjoy the old. Seriously, though, I'm frustrated too.
I agree with Stonechild. These are the worst things about 4e, in my opinion. Also, they would kill backward compatibility, which is a major design goal. The backward compatibility is something of a myth, anyway. To run any 3E adventure with Pathfinder, for example, you would have to go through it adjusting any monsters with class levels, not to mention the fact that the hit point bonus at 1st level skews challenge ratings. It's certainly easier than converting a 3E adventure to 4E, but still involves some work.
There is absolutely no reason for any 3rd party company to switch to 4e - most especially Paizo - WotC has made it abundantly clear that they want full control of anything produced under the 4e banner, and no company in its right mind will agree to that, considering that at least ½ the current fanbase intend on sticking with 3e. That's a bold claim. Do you have a source? I hope you're not just going by the results of Paizo's poll. Since that was a poll of Paizo customers, it was about as meaningful as the number of people that downloaded the Pathfinder RPG. That is to say, not meaningful at all.
My favorite part about the 4E Paladin...without clerics having a at-will cure-at-will ability, the lay on hand ability turns into the 4E "cure light wounds" and you'll spend half your fights running around the battlefield. At least that was my experience in both the games I participated in. Your paladin must have had a nice Wisdom modifier and you must not have been having a lot of fights per day, since lay on hands can only be used a number of times equal to their Wisdom modifier per day. For most parties, a cleric's healing word, which can be used twice per encounter (no matter how many encounters they have in a day), affects any ally within 5 squares of the cleric, and does not burn the cleric's healing surges, is much more optimal.
So far, everything has just been power creeped up and repackaged. I haven't seen any real solutions to anything yet, apart from the 3.5 fighter's front-heaviness.
I fail to see how D&D Insider can be considered a flop when it has yet to be released. Talk about your knee-jerk reactions. I was able to sample parts of it during D&D Game Day (the character visualizer and builder) and I was very impressed. I'm really looking forward to the D&D Game Table.
The online effort is pathetic. Nothing has even been posted since early may. I don't know what you're talking about. New articles are posted for each ezine about every other day. Maybe you're not looking hard enough (or don't want to).
Err... can they even call this an adventure path? I thought that term belonged to Paizo, but i might be mistaken, or there might be some arcane licensing involved (Paizo giving up all rights to the magazines to WoTC, this might affect the trademark? Not a lawyer...) I believe the term was first attributed to WotC's Sunless Citadel series of adventures.
Actually, it sounds like Star Wars Saga Edition. Pathfinder just ripped it off from there.
This is totally off-topic, but in the SW Expanded Universe, we learn Anakin was the result of an experiment to create the ultimate Sith by impregnating a woman with midichlorians alone. This is why there was "no father," and why Anakin's midichlorian count was so high. Palpatine alludes to this in RotS when he talks about his former master being able to "create life." He supposedly already knew who Anakin was when he first met him on Naboo and said he would be following his career with great interest. It was all part of his plan to recruit him to help destroy the Jedi. Convoluted, I know.
I was wondering if it would possible with PRPG to get dire animals to look more normal again? You know like they used to, before they became deformed parodies of the animals they are dire versions of, with inexplicable bumps, spikes, horns and tumorous growths. It looks like 4E is going that way, if the new Dire Wolf mini is any indicator.
So does this module use 3.5 rules or Pathfinder RPG rules? It's all getting so confusing...
It's a theatrical release to kick off the subsequent TV series.
Amen to that. Now if you like 4E, you play D&D. If you like 3.5, you play Pathfinder. I would be darkly amused if Pathfinder became the more popular game eventually, but with the talented writers on staff, I wouldn't be surprised.
I was surprised and dismayed to read the news that Pathfinder is sticking to 3.5. Having, until recently, been a Pathfinder superscriber, I had decided that converting all that Pathfinder material to 4E was just going to be too much work and I would cancel my supersciption and return to Pathfinder when it went 4E. I guess I can forget about that now. That said, most folks here on the Paizo boards seem to be firmly entrenched in the 3.5 camp, so the decision to publish a Pathfinder RPG might not be a bad one. I can't help wondering, however, if this decision is in some way a thumbing of Paizo's collective nose at WotC for the whole Dragon/Dungeon debacle. It seemed to me at the time that Wizards pulled the financial rug out from under Paizo by taking away what were almost certainly their two most popular products. Fortunately Paizo's talented writers came up with Pathfinder, a marvellous campaign setting that seems to really be taking off. And, having determined that most of its fans will stick with it no matter what, Paizo is in a position to raspberry 4E entirely. In short, it seems that while WotC decided they no longer need Paizo, so Paizo now no longer needs them. I'll miss Pathfinder, but I certainly wish Paizo the best of luck with it. Your thoughts?
Honestly, i think the old Star Frontiers had it right: there's a role-playing game, which takes place planetside or on board the corridors of a spaceship, and then there's a related but seperate ship-to-ship combat system. The current version of the Star Wars RPG has chosen to go the other direction by making starship combat rules even more like those for ground combat. It substitutes some verisimilitude (a funny word to use in regards to a universe of lightsaber, blasters, the Force, etc.) for ease of play. No longer to players have to learn a separate set of rules in order to take off in their freighter, and no longer do characters not specialized in flight skills have to sit around with nothing to do until the landing ramp opens. I enjoy this system. Its other advantage is that the player characters can use their own resources, such as Force points, to aid the ship overall, which definitely helps when one stray shot would otherwise wipe out the entire party.
The answer, of course, is Mint Chocolate Chip. Mmm... mint chocolate chip
I don't get the pro-4E threads. I don't get the anti-4E threads. It's coming. By the time such a large project is announced, there's absolutely nothing you could do or say to stop it. There's also nothing making 3.5, 3.0, 2.0, or 1.0 unplayable. Don't like 4E? Don't play it. Speak with your wallet and maybe, if enough folks agree with you, the things you dislike about 4E will be changed. In the meantime, use whatever edition you like - there's more than enough material out there for any of them. 4E isn't for everyone, no game is. As much as it pains me, roleplaying itself isn't for everyone. Calling people names because of it is just plain stupid. |
