Kobold Boots's page

I don't know if this will be heard by anyone from Paizo, but I purchased this pawn collection thinking that it will contain all the pawns I need to run the game. I'm finding that some of the scenarios have multiple pawns of the same type, i.e. Flame Drakes, and there isn't enough copies to use for the game. This is disappointing. If you are going to make a pawn set specifically for an adventure path, why aren't you including all copies? For the flame drakes scenario, it requires 2. Even if it requires 1 copy from your bestiary pawn collection, Paizo could have included 1 in this collection to complete total needed.

Is this the same for all adventure path pawns? If it is, I would re-consider buying them in the future. Yes I understand you can get the pdf version, but the whole point of the collection is to have them ready made for you.

This is a concern I have as well.

Just on first prep for Hellknight Hill, I purchased the module, pawn collection and started prep. First encounter of chapter 2 requires three goblin dogs. Ok, no goblin dogs in pawn pack so I buy the bestiary box to get the goblin dogs. How many in the bestiary pack.. 1.

I don't really have a desire to buy three bestiary packs at 40 bucks a pop so I can satisfy my OCD to run a module properly. However, because I have OCD, I'm exactly the type to do so.. until I think it's planned that way to soak my funds or due to negligence in planning on release of product.

It's just far more likely that it's a QA issue than a soak the customer issue, and this sort of QA issue with other vendors is what I choose Paizo to avoid in the first place. It's rather disappointing.

the issue isn't with the class having spells.
the issue is the class having spells and treating them like castings.

so if a paladin has spells use a focus to channel them. holy weapon/symbol etc. I'd say this also is appropriate for clerics with a heavy dose of ritual requirements or holy symbol or prayer for quick stuff.

if a bard has spells use the perform skill as the verbal and somatic component.

You don't have to kill spells to restore flavor and theme, you just have to houserule something properly or make some good suggestions here.

Regardless of what people want in this thread or what Paizo does with the rules, everyone is going to do whatever they want at their own table, so what's the point of trying to get your way with the rules draft?

Orthos wrote:

thejeff wrote:

Kobold Boots wrote:

I want to be able to sympathize with folks that are strongly opposed to a 2e. However, it's hard for me to do so because I feel like the opposition is tied to one of two things.

1. Investment in books
2. Hatred of change, specifically reworking things.

I don't know of any hobby that doesn't require an ongoing investment to partake in it for as long as you choose to do so.

I also don't know of any GM that runs a long term game and is good at it that doesn't rework his or her own writing regularly

I just don't get it. I mean, I own every 1e, 2e, 3e rules book, every 4e product period and I started to do that with PF1 (but stopped playing it) when an edition changes, it doesn't make me upset. I just get another bookcase.

If someone can explain to me why folks complain about this stuff (aside from not making enough money to spend on books in the first place, then complaining about making their own bad decisions..) let me know.

Hell, playing RPGs is a great hobby for little to no ongoing investment for as long as you want to do so. Collecting RPGs is not.

It's actually one of the big problems with RPGs as a business model: You really can get years of play for multiple people in nearly any RPG from just the Core rules. Everything else is extra. Sometimes very cool extra, but still extra.

I've played Basic, 1e, 2e, 3.0/3.5, 4e and 5e, along with Pathfinder and a dozen other systems. I know I don't have complete sets of any of them (unless there's one that only had the first book.:) I doubt I've got more than a dozen books for any, except maybe AD&D.

It's just a strange attitude for me.

It's only strange because you're coming at it from the opposite perspective.

If you've lived a longer life and gone through all those systems before, the, yeah it makes sense you would be more inclined to roll with yet more changes as the future unfolds.

I on the other hand am a younger player who has pretty much

...

Thanks Jeff and Orthos

Appreciate the perspective. I suppose I'm less venomous overall as I've made a personal choice to only regularly play the latest versions of things based on how the market works.

Still, when I was 19ish 1e converted to 2e and I didn't think anything of it. I just bought new stuff from Waldenbooks and that was the end of it. Maybe it's because I've spent a lot of time GMing in stores with randoms and built large groups.. dunno.

I want to be able to sympathize with folks that are strongly opposed to a 2e. However, it's hard for me to do so because I feel like the opposition is tied to one of two things.

1. Investment in books
2. Hatred of change, specifically reworking things.

I don't know of any hobby that doesn't require an ongoing investment to partake in it for as long as you choose to do so.

I also don't know of any GM that runs a long term game and is good at it that doesn't rework his or her own writing regularly

I just don't get it. I mean, I own every 1e, 2e, 3e rules book, every 4e product period and I started to do that with PF1 (but stopped playing it) when an edition changes, it doesn't make me upset. I just get another bookcase.

If someone can explain to me why folks complain about this stuff (aside from not making enough money to spend on books in the first place, then complaining about making their own bad decisions..) let me know.

I would not add it to a new core rules set.
I would add it to a tabletop combat expansion.

I'm not one to talk about other games on Paizo's forums but I really adored D&D 4e combat and I'm down with miniature use. I don't however want to force people who don't want to use such things to have to use them as part of core.

This is one of those things that if you care about it, it's important to you but it has no real gameplay impact unless you are the type to want to make it so.

Personal opinion is that if you don't know what something is, look it up. If it wasn't for D&D I wouldn't have become a history major in college or have good penmanship. Heck my entire academic career from grade school on would be entirely different.

Anyhoo, fix the game, not people. Most of these threads aren't rules problems.

I'm torn on this. I dislike how alignment has been used in the game but I don't think codes alone accomplish what is needed when you add lore.

If I had my preference the nature of someone's soul would be combined with as loose or as strict a code as the player desires.

Note that I am only using the term soul within the strictures of the cosmology, not the religion as it's another piece of lore that states that mortals can become immortal. Once mortals become gods that significantly changes the nature of faith and religion.

So the example I'd use is your character is either fundamentally good or evil and then you superimpose whatever lines you will or won't cross after that. I'd eliminate law and chaos as alignments and let codes determine rigidity one way or the other.

Just my preference. I run a game where order and chaos are more elemental and good and evil are more mortal concerns.

I think it's pretty clear that the folks actually doing the playtest properly and providing feedback will not be the folks that are complaining the loudest on the forums, so I don't see the correlation between the playtest and needing to have thick skin.

You've got to embrace something in order to have any hope of molding it in your image. If you approach it from the perspective of ridicule first you won't like what happens when it starts acting like you - basic parenting.

Eh, time for my opinion

Bias and Preference notice: I've liked the concept of paladin since I started playing in 1e. I've played paladins ever since, read most of the literature around them outside of the game and took the time to read every iteration of them since Chainmail. Along with Bard and Witch it's one of my favorite classes and I've spent a lot of time developing homebrew lore around them.

1. The most important thing for the core ruleset is to allow players options for the kinds of paladins that they might want to run, not to force things on people based on lore or what was done historically.

2. The responsibility of the DM is to take part in the narrative, take the rules and create something that agrees with his or her sensibilities AND allows his or her players to have fun. Asking the publisher to do things a certain way is unnecessary and lazy.

My sensibilities tell me that the concept of paladin transcends alignment once you take it away from its Christian Europe narrative. If you're running a game that holds on to that narrative strongly then keep it the way it was. If your campaign is different do what you will.

Note that it doesn't take much meta thought to argue that the idea of lawful good powers being the only ones that can empower martial paragons is flawed. If you can have evil priests, you can have evil paladins. The important thing though is making sure that they're just as rare in the world.

Last thought. Making something rare does not mean that you make it "player rare". Characters are supposed to be special. Doesn't mean that if your group is 50% paladins that the world is more than one tenth of one percent paladins. You just have to think it through and have your world be internally consistent with what you want.

Regardless, not a rules issue.

Being fair to the Paizo guys I don't think it's possible for them to give you a real answer because they've got no visibility to the amount of customization you've already done to your homebrew or how far it walks from the rules as written.

Best anyone could really say is.. if you did a lot of customization then at minimum you're going to have to go over the rules and make sure that stuff still flies. If you did minimal amounts of work you're still going to have to go over the rules and confirm you're ok.

End of day, you should have a good idea once you read through the rules completely, which we know that every GM does without fail, all the time as lack of systems mastery would be a horrible thing.

Seriously though, you shouldn't ever need to convert everything all at once. Just do the work needed to get through each session before you run it and eventually it'll all get done.

You just made my day. Thanks for the legwork, it's appreciated.

Aidan316 wrote:

It's also not instant death. Most enemies have minions that can wake them before the average party can get someone up to 30 feet away wait a full round to set up coup de grace and then execute it. Sure, there are ways to do it, but does your team have enough actions to do it in the same round and are your enemies stupid enough to not have backups like contingency spells and other things?

That's why you use teamwork to delay/ready to use it just before an ally's turn who's already within a 5 ft step of melee with said bad guy to use it (ditto for the sleep and Hold spells, and anything else that sets up a CDG but can be quickly negated). Requires patience and some coordination, but works much better. Best way for bad guy to protect against slumber CDGs is to have minions packed close enough that it's impossible to take a CDG w/o provoking AoOs. Which...just invites area spells. Ah, I love the tactical concept of combined arms. :)

My experience is that if you're a witch and get fancy with delaying your actions until later in a turn, you're a dead witch. Everything that a witch does requires high or preferable initiative to get a drop on someone else.

Now I'll be very fair and say that I'm playing in a campaign with a very good DM that knows the rules and the characters in the group. If the enemies are intelligent creatures, and they almost always are, they fight that way.

My ultimate point is, if a party needs a situation to roll a certain way or has to fight a certain way to get a certain effect they want, there's a tactical trade off in play that makes the overall rules situation acceptable and not broken. If we're then saying that only feats and abilities that work the same way all the time are broken.. I'd argue that there are other more broken things in the rules that no one chats about.

No...even with slumber and witch's weak spell list, the spells are still the most powerful class feature. They include all the will save or lose goodies the hexes do, and tons more utility stuff besides. There is no grand hex to create your own demiplane where time flows 2x as fast or as slow as normal (greater create demiplane).

Their other hexes (ie, without slumber) MIGHT be a bit stronger than the wizard's free feats + school bonuses. But not by nearly enough of a margin to make up for the spell list disparity. I guess Ice Tomb, which is in some ways even better than slumber but no one ever complains about it because it's level 10+ or something, is another big selling point. But by then you have enough spell slots to toss around save or lose spells at all the major threats as a wizard anyway.

This is a case where what level and how you play your witch makes all the difference in the world.

1. In a general sense - Spellcraft is always going to be the most powerful option for a standard action IF you have the exact spell you need memorized and you have the time to cast it before someone nerfs you AND someone doesn't nerf your familiar. I just walk into spell combat knowing that I'm tossing Feeblemind first round at the opposing caster. Moreover, I know that someone's going to toss it at me. That's just how our game rolls.

2. In a combat sense - hexes are very powerful options because they're SU abilities, provoke no AoO, and generally have higher utility than most spells in the list. Retribution can absolutely shut down a melee boss. Same with Ice Tomb.. In fact I'd place these two hexes at a premium over Slumber because there are fewer things immune. Want more range than you'll ever need.. Scar your teammates before a fight. If any of them get separated from you, you still have the ability to buff them and hex anything within 30 feet of them so long as they're less than a mile away. That's cool.

There are very strong options for hexes that make the Witch plenty useful even ignoring the spell list completely.

Misfortune is my staple. Use it all the time- and its not mind effecting. Works on anything that fails the save.

Evil Eye. it is mind effecting but still very nice.

Agony. (not mind effecting)

Retribution. (not mind effecting)

Heck unless it Is immune to mind effecting I rarely get around to using Retribution because I'm too busy using Misfortune and Evil Eye'ing all its combat abilities to mush. The spell list is just gravy or something to fall back on for a creature that is immune to mind effecting and you've already misfortuned, agonied and retributioned it.
(granted, agony and retri are both post 10th level)

Now I do admit not every person is for every clas.. but if the spell list of the witch is what you are using, you are neglecting your most powerful class ability.

-S

I agree with this post entirely but I will add that if you choose your spells wisely from the list provided you can crowd control with the best of em at low levels. The challenge of playing a witch in my opinion is making the most of your limited number of actions in any given combat.

@ Selgard -

The thing you're missing out on is that the game system doesn't live in a vacuum to be interpreted without the effects of players and GMs traversing within it. Any conversation that starts with "this part of the game is flawed and it's the designer's fault" is at least partially incorrect.

Rule 0 exists so the game can be balanced to meet the needs of the group playing the game. That's pretty much the only reason for it.

As for DMs not explaining rules changes I agree, as for DMs doing anything they have to to maintain the challenge of the game such that the rest of the party isn't screwed with.. that's different entirely.

I currently play an 11th level witch with the Slumber hex and have been playing with the hex since 1-2 level. My DC for the opponent's will save is 21. Granted that seems pretty good all things considered. There are problems though.

1. Elves and Half Elves
2. Undead
3. Constructs
4. Oozes and other foul things immune to sleep.
5. Casters, Clerics, Paladins, Anti-Paladins or others with high will saves or bonuses to saves.

I play with a pretty good GM and there have been times when Slumber has been an encounter ender. There have been times when it's been useless. It's evened out.

It's also not instant death. Most enemies have minions that can wake them before the average party can get someone up to 30 feet away wait a full round to set up coup de grace and then execute it. Sure, there are ways to do it, but does your team have enough actions to do it in the same round and are your enemies stupid enough to not have backups like contingency spells and other things?

It's easy to say something is overpowered. It's a lot harder to say any of the following and accept it.

DM: Man I wish I had read my player's character sheets before playing.
DM: Man I wish I had read the rules concerning my player's character.
DM: Man I wish I had thought about the intelligence of my villains and how they'd set themselves up just in case things went south.

or in the case of where an entire night's work went down the crapper and the players and DM were deflated:

DM: Man I could have done any of the above and avoided this while giving my players a better experience.. I sucked tonight. I'll need to do the above, apologize to my players, congratulate the one who pulled one off on me and be better next time.

In short, every DM has been there. Self included. It's part of becoming a better DM.

1. Thread necro stinks.
2. Witch sleep is not overpowered. In fact, no class ability is across the game system.

Reason: The GM has the right/ability to change rules on the fly to make things more difficult for the players, without needing to explain anything.

Thank you, much appreciated.

Hello

Three questions as a new customer of Paizo and player of Pathfinder.

1. Can I obtain a subscription for PDF content only?

Reason: While your books are works of art, I hate dead tree and keep everything on an iPad. There's no reason for me to own books and less to have to carry them about or store them.

2. Will my subscription offer me the opportunity to easily buy any content I've missed over the past two-three years by not having a subscription?

Reason: I'd like to not have to go through every entry on the Paizo store list and buy separately if I can avoid it. This is of course a "lazy man's question" and if I have to do things manually, so be it.

3. Can we buy PDF content without buying book content?

Thanks,
A316