Apologies for delayed response, but thank you both for your help. Chances are I'm misremembering the monster's name.
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I believe that it's a Kobold Press book, but I recall reading about a Nonicorn monster. It's meant to be the opposite of a unicorn in just about every way: ugly, bestial, and evil. I recall little else aside other than the fact that in keeping with the tone, the nonicorn preferred noticeably unchaste and adulterous riders as opposed to the traditional virgins of unicorns. Anybody recall what sourcebook this monster's from?
Thank you very much for your response. As for my own delayed reply, I don't often check Paizo as much as I should, although I'll try to rectify that when I can I'm about 3 sessions in and things are going well for me. I've been rather light on random encounters, too light in fact. Group is level 3 and beginning Vengeance of the Long Serpent; if you're wondering why, they only cleared out a section of the Ice Palace before it started falling apart after the battle with Prince Uth’ilopiq and didn't explore the whole place. They've been doing fine so far, so I'm not too concerned at the moment. I may get the stand-alones in the future, and given that Slumbering Tsar is my other campaign which is going fine too, I look forward to trying out more of your mega-adventures, even if it's a long ways down the line!
So I managed to get my players pumped up for this viking-style adventure path, which I will run this Sunday. I'm using the Pathfinder rules version. However, I noticed that the book does not have a recommended experience progression of slow, medium, or fast. I'd guess slow, as that's the personal preference expressed by some of Frog God Games' members in their own games, but was wondering which one closely matched up to the recommended levels for the adventures.
A sourcebook focused on the elves of Midgard might be cool, particularly on the extraplanar spaces of the Elflands and Shadow Realm.
Wow. I got a lot of new books to add to my reading lists. Thank you very much terraleon! :D
So in recent months I've become enamored of Kobold Press' Southlands setting, and am running a weekly game set in the world. While combing through the book, I noticed some clear influences to the Middle East and Africa, notably Nurian's obvious Egyptian influences. But I also noticed some less obvious things gleaned from Wikipedia articles. Such as Nurian cities having the "Per-" prefix like Per-Anu and Per-Bastet apparently have real connotations. Or cities named after local deities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wadjet Or that Egypt did have a cult of Aten, who was a monotheistic sun faith. Or the nomadic Tamasheq people's penchant for wearing blue garments, not unlike the real-world Tuareg tribes of Northern Africa: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuareg_people I mostly found this via Google and Wikipedia searches, which I found very cool because it shown that the writers were deriving inspiration from real world as well as fantasy elements to create an interesting blend. But as far as I can find, there's no internal listing of inspired works in the Southlands Campaign Setting, nor can I find any articles where Wolfgang Baur or other writers talked about the research material they used. I suppose it may seem niche, but I enjoy looking at the behind-the-scenes inspirations of RPG books and settings I'm enamored with, so as to see how various works came to shape as well as delving into more reading material to grab for my own games. Anybody got any knowledge of potential real-world inspirations and material for Southlands?
Realize that this is a month-old comment, but I think a large part of it is that message board chatter at best tends to be unrepresentative of the greater gaming market. Paradoxically, it's often an invaluable resource for advertising. I think that especially from the 4e D&D era, many fans learned to avoid negative and complaints threads. Instead of trying to argue against or convert people, they went off into their little communities or stay out of board culture entirely. There's also the factor that in some cases, people will complain but still fork over cash, especially if it's a publisher who they still respect and trust.
Does this book include a bibliography for gamers wishing to further look into the research material? I'd be interested in hearing the sources you used for this rulebook!
I don't think you can hijack the thread that you've been keeping alive for months.
I watched the first 6 episodes so far. I enjoyed it because a lot of these folks were new, and it reminded me of folks still getting into the game and making absurd schemes while occasionally playing well and straight.
Thanks for the recommendations. I take it that Enter Image is OGL, but is Mirror Sight as well? Was thinking of using something like this in an adventure I'm writing.
I remember there being a spell in one of the Paizo books; I believe it's Ultimate Magic or Advanced Player's Guide, but I can't find it in part due to not knowing its name. The spell in question allowed the caster to remotely see through statues, paintings, and other artwork depicting said caster's likeness. So a self-portrait can become a useful surveillance and spying tool. Anybody know its name and location?
So in recent times I've been rereading a lot of Frog God Games material, notably their chief setting. There's already a lot of material out there: Northlands Saga for Nordic themes, deadly megadungeons such as Rappan Athuk, and epic hex crawls such as the Sword of Air. The Sword of Air in particular intrigues me, enough that when at least one of my 4 current campaigns end I'm considering running it as the next big thing. However, I've been wondering how I can pitch it to prospective players. I've already talked about with a few players, but not all of them. There's a lot of Pathfinder settings out there with distinctive material which can be summed up in one sentence. Lost Lands is more traditional fantasy as a whole, but whose individual parts spread throughout the products are what make it unique. Idea #1: Gradual Ease I definitely want to do Sword of Air, but I feel that it may be sudden to just drop new players into it and working for Kayden. Starting out with a few starter adventures, which may tie into said later decision, may be good. The Stoneheart Valley adventures Wizard's Talisman and Crucible of Freya can be good ways of presenting an immediate plot and goal and revealing some aspects of the Gulf of Akados over time. The mini-locations and sidequests in Crucible can be good for showing off 'sandbox precursors.' I've also debated about using the Lost City of Barakus as a prequel. It has a sandbox environment and large dungeon to explore in a segment of the Lost Lands, plus it will have the benefit of letting me try out one of the books I bought. However I don't know how 'quick' it is to complete, and a central dungeon environment may be an odd thing to transition out of to Sword of Air which is a nonlinear sandbox with many locations. Not to mention Sword of Air has a different, more epic, vibe to it than the "dungeon raiders" aspect of Barakus. Idea #2: Immediate Start Make Sword of Air proper my first Lost Lands adventure for the party. I may still have Kayden use errands and tests before dumping the responsibility of finding the artifact blade on the PCs, as well as to make it not too jarring: "okay, some nobody adventures just got hired...by an archmage to find a legendary sword." There's also the fact that I may need to provide an immediate hook for adventures within the Sword of Air, and given that many areas are going to be rather high level for 2nd to 5th level PCs, I was thinking that presenting a hook at one of the "safer" locations initially may be good. From other readers and player experiences, which places in Sword of Air are the best "beginning areas?" The Howling Fortress seems a good place for lvl 4 PCs, provided they don't just go rushing in carelessly. As does the Tower of Bells. The encounter "They Come at Night, Mostly..." on page 29 may be suitable, but it's less a full adventure/dungeon and more an encounter which can lead up to more stuff. Thoughts?
Apologies if this has been asked before, but are there any plans to make the PDF version available to the general public? The only buying option I see is a Hardcover version on Frog God Games, and I'd really like to check the book out from what I heard of it. However, as 100% of my games take place online a purely physical copy will not be of much use unless I break the binding and scan the pages. Something I'm loathe to do to a $160 book.
So I've been playing quite a bit of the Witcher series lately, and somewhere I heard that the Paizo designers based several aspects of the alchemist class on elements from the video game. For one, both Witchers and Alchemists heavily rely upon concoctions to boost their fighting prowess, even both using the word "mutagen" for it. Both are quite skilled in melee combat, albeit in the Alchemist's case it requires the right build and tends to focus more on natural attacks than sword styles. Both also rely upon bombs as a ranged/area combat tactic, too. Is this mostly coincidence, or do the Paizo offices have more than a few Geralt of Rivia fans?
@Lorathorn: Plot & Poison is by far the one with the highest quality and most interesting options, such as Prestige Classes themed around the eight schools of magic, new equipment which is actually portable living vermin, a line of battle-dancing themed feats and a prestige class, etc. Rise of the Drow's a very cool-looking setting and adventure path from what I've read of it so far. It also includes some bonus notes on Underdark ecology, like special types of mushrooms and potential game effects for harvesters. Drow of the Underdark (3rd Edition) was pretty good, and had a sample city-setting with Erelhei-Cinlu. Also included stats for various drow enemies and slave-soldiers. Beyond this it's hard to say. Throne of Night had potential, but the whole project's in indefinite hiatus. Dragon Magazine #298 was a very popular copy. Queen of Lies is a Ptolus adventure, but although I don't own it I have nothing but praise for the main Ptolus books. The Complete Guide to Drow is a short book and had some cool ideas (like an Adamantine Soldier PrC who grafts adamantine limbs for power and a blood-powered druid), but I'd much prefer Plot & Poison as an idea factory. @LittleRedGoblinGames: I'd add it to the OP, but I can't seem to find an edit button. Do the Paizo boards disallow editing of posts after a certain time frame?
For me, my faves are: Path of War: Revolutionized things on both the player and GM side of things with martial characters. Were varied and fun to play to the point that 50% to 75% of noncaster PCs in my campaigns either has martial disciple levels or the Martial Training feat tree. Rule Zero: Underlings: A great resource for making quick mook enemies on the fly. Disregards current monster/NPC rules to allow for the creation of glass cannons, who can dish out enough damage to be threatening yet not having bloated hp so your Fighter really can cleave through a bunch of mooks like many action heroes. Spheres of Power: Although I have yet to use it, I love the system enough that I want to see more of it someday. I think it works better than the Vancian system in many areas. Way of the Wicked: A very cool and novel Adventure Path I'd like to run some day. New Paths Compendium: Most of the classes therein are cool and interesting enough to use. My faves are the white necromancer, the savant, and the theurge. Southlands Campaign Setting: Interesting worlds which explore a fantasy counterpart Africa and Middle East with integration of RPG tropes, an underused part of the world in many campaign settings. Path of Shadows: Cool fluff and mechanics of evocative shadow-themed stuff. The nightblade class in particular's a great sneaky gish with a lot of potential for various character concepts. Sword of Air: One of the other mega-adventures/adventure paths I wish to run. Open-world sandbox centered around the eponymous MacGuffin, with a bunch of side plots and places to explore so that the main quest can be done more or less on the PC's own time. The Adequate Commoner: Love it for the novelty of the campaign style. Part CharOps guide, part sourcebook for campaigns with all-Commoner parties.
WIP Or ones where dark elves are a major focus. Unsurprisingly, there's a huge amount of third-party sourcebooks out there for 3.X/PF, although with 5th Edition's SRD out we stand a chance of seeing more of that, too. Even then, counting the D20 ones alone I found a massive amount, prompting me to create a list. It's possible that I missed some out there, but decided to put it here in case anyone else has suggestions or comments. Pathfinder Ones: Amazing Races: Drow! Drow Hide: Dark Elves Reskinned (PFRPG) Drow of Porphyra - Karza, Children of the Loomqueen Drow of Porphyra - Nalbrezu, Devils in Disguise Drow of Porphyra - The Xelusine, Sirens of Sin Elves of Darkness Inhabitants of the Dark: Savage Drow (PFRPG) Masters of Midnight - Drow Archetypes Return of the Drow: Alternate Racial Traits and Race Traits Return of the Drow: Advanced Racial Handbook Rise of the Drow Rise of the Drow Prologue: The Darkness Arrives Rise of the Drow Epilogue: The Commander of Malice Rise of the Drow Player's Guide Second Darkness Adventure Path Throne of Night Book One: Dark Frontier Throne of Night Book Two: The Earth's Wound Underworld Classes: Masters of the Web Underworld Races: Drow 3.X/D20 Ones: Advanced Race Codex: Drow/Plot & Poison Blood & Shadows: the Dark Elves of Tellene City of the Spider Queen Complete Guide to Drow The Dark Elf City of Hosuth Dezzavold: Fortress of the Drow Dragon Magazine #298 Drow of the Underdark The Drow War Book 1: Gathering Storm The Drow War Book 2: The Dying of the Light The Drow War Book 3: The Darkest Hour Dungeon Crawl Classics #8: Mysteries of the Drow Encyclopedia Arcane: Drow Magic Expedition to the Demonweb Pits Fane of the Drow Monte Cook's Ptolus: Queen of Lies The Quintessential Drow Sheoloth: City of the Drow Tome of Drow Lore
Also, don't forget the DrowTales webcomic, which heavily models their dark elves off of the D&Desque standard yet is unaffiliated with Wizards of the Coast. They've been around long enough that I feel any potential legal trouble has been resolved/reached, but for a time it surprised me that a for-profit webcomic (they have merchandise and subscriptions) was using another's IP.
Why are you still sticking to the "McBride's waiting for Bestiary 5 to come out to finish up Throne of Night?" OGL content of released books are always going to be claimed by 3rd party folks if they're good enough. Doesn't automatically mean that someone's gonna base their whole product schedule around Paizo's release dates.
Mostly my use of 3PP has been in regards to player and character options on both sides of the GM Screen. I make heavy use of the Tome of Horrors Complete and Path of War, and it's a rare day when at least half the PCs aren't utilizing the maneuver system whether as classes or with the Martial Training feats. When it comes to adventures and settings they've primarily served more as reading and material to mine from for my own games. Most of the Pathfinder games I've run in the past were original adventures in homebrew worlds. As of now I'm getting a little burnt out on GMing Pathfinder (although I'm still involved in a bi-weekly game), so the material I use in the near future's going to be strongly geared towards the player side of things.
So in regards to Anaxagoras' above post, this is a common thing I've seen both in this thread and elsewhere about folk who are intrigued by Throne of Night only to be dismayed upon hearing its unlikely continuation and poor customer-service relations. Although this post may eventually get buried in a few months' time down the line, I'd like to link to a researched blog post I wrote on the subject. It's a compilation of most of what's been going on with Fire Mountain Games the past three years concerning Throne of Night and related projects.
Stalker (Path of War, Dreamscarred Press) Warlord (Path of War, Dreamscarred Press) Nightblade (Path of Shadows, Ascension Games) All of them are versatile classes which can replicate any number of character concepts. I also like the flavor associated with them, too.
I think I discovered a Longcat reference in the Southlands Campaign Setting: http://i.imgur.com/KlVP1KB.png Colossal. Feline. Eel-like. Winding around. There's no other cat who I know of which fits this description than our beloved Longcat.
937 on Tsar In the left-hand side of this picture are physical copies of Slumbering Tsar. There are other FGG and Paizo products on this table for size comparisons: http://i.imgur.com/hebl5eQ.jpg?1
Zeitgeist by EN Publishing gets rave reviews by a lot of folk. It is a 1-20 AP involving Victorianesque Steampunk, conspiracies, and investigation-style roleplay and encounters as the PCs start out as law enforcement agents. Currently it is undone, with 10 out of the 13 planned adventures released.
Path of War has the Steel Serpent discipline, which is geared around poison-themed attacks. One of its 1st-level stances is called Poisoner's Stance, which grants Poison Use and increases the Save DC of used poisons.
Yeah, personally I'm fine with Naked Fury as is. It's not all at once and scales with level, plus non-magical full plate grants a +9 AC right off the bat. Right now I'm playing a Path of War stalker, and she's filling the role as the party tank: not due to AC, but due to things such as a stance which grants blur, spending ki points to activate an ability where enemies roll twice and take the worse attack roll, etc. At middle-high levels, many monsters (especially huge ones such as dragons) have massive bonuses to attack rolls. What I'm trying to say is that AC becomes less important as the game progresses in comparison to other defensive options and saves. The main problem is when the berserker is flat-footed, in which he loses that sweet, sweet dodge bonus. On a semi-related note, this brings me to another question. Will berserkers in the Swords & Wizardry version have their own class, or will they be reflavored clerics/fighters? I understand that some old-school D&D retroclones had a barbarian class to represent the raging warrior archetype, but the three versions of S&W have no such class in their core books.
I suggest talking with the Frog God Games folks. Some of their biggest projects are available as both Pathfinder and Swords & Wizardry versions, such as the Tome of Horrors. The reason you might be interested is that they also released some products for 5th Edition, and Necromancer Games (its spiritual predecessor) became known for using 3rd Edition rules for old-school feel, and plan on doing the same for 5th Edition. One of their introductory adventures, the Wizard's Amulet, has been released for both 3rd and 5th Edition. So when it comes to experience with multiple Editions/retroclones and publishing them, Frog God folks are one of the most experienced in the biz.
Go into people's houses and smash pots in the hopes of finding money.
Do the pc's don extremely skimpy power armor? Only if they want to. :P I do plan on having a storm giant NPC with a size-category-changing ring in charge of student discipline if I ever get around to it.
I have more than a few unorthodox campaign ideas: X-Crawl Road Trip: The PCs are an internationally famous crew of gladiators in the Roman Empire's most popular reality television contest. Their next destination is a dungeon-crawl in Lawrence, Kansas, and they travel in a luxury entourage of limousines and summoned mounts. Unfortunately their magically-powered transportation runs out of gas smack-dab on a highway somewhere in Middle America. Celebrity status can only get them so far, and they need to get to Lawrence within 72 hours or else their position is forfeit! Do they go monster-hunting to raise gas money, hitch-hike with a bus full of demon-worshiping metalheads, or steal their rival crawlers' truck golem when they stop at the local bar and grill? Yes, I'm partially inspired by Final Fantasy XV for this. Sword of Levity: A campaign utilizing the Sword of Air sandbox adventure by Frog God Games, only this plays up some of the more whimsical and sillier elements. Red Dragon Inn: I actually played 2 sessions of this before, but I'd like to run it again someday. Basically I utilize the rules from Red Dragon Inn: Guide to Inns & Taverns. The PCs inherit an inn which has a statue dedicating to a goddess of hearth and home in the basement. Satisfied customers generate energy of positive feeling, which the statue can then convert into magical items and other things PCs enjoy. Meanwhile the surrounding lands contain room for adventure, such as a fabled magical icebox which can preserve perishable food for weeks. There are also potentially interesting encounters, such as a 1st-level destined hero who stops at the inn...while the demon lord's agents tasked with her destruction are also staying there! Slay la Slay: A Tome of Battle/Path of War-centric game where the PCs are students at a fabled Battle Academy, disciples of a monk's monastery, or some other environment heavily inspired by shounen/seinen fighting anime. And yes, it's expected that people will shout out the names of their maneuvers in combat.
I can't find the exact link, but on these boards a few players who went through both campaigns said that Tsar was overall harder and more dangerous than Rappan Athuk. I found this interesting, in that of all the FGG products Rappan Athuk has the biggest reputation of being a PC meatgrinder. To those who own/play both, is this an accurate estimate?
Also, the Tome of Horrors Complete by Frog God Games is chock-full of monsters to cover all levels of games, from 1st level to CR 30+ world-destroyers.
Frog God Games: Ewww! On page 60 under random encounters for the Barrier Hills, entry 74-76 on the dice is "something yucky from the Southern Wasteland." Cuddly and Deadly: The Stoneheart Valley is notable in that the genuine monsters of the world are mostly in dungeons and strange places, and not typical wilderness areas. Due to that, the most common random encounters tend to be mundane animals and humanoids. There are game stats provided for "Fuzzy Forest Creatures" such as deer, rabbits, and squirrels, while the "Still Fuzzy Forest Creatures, but Predatory" includes lions, badgers, bears, and wolves. That ain't Yogi Bear's Friend: a roving warband of Orcus on pages 62-64 are a vile assortment of folk said to be kicked out of Rappan Athuk for being too Chaotic and Evil. One of the villains among their number is Boo Boo the Ettin, an otherwise normal member of his species. Tastes great at 0 hp: On page 67 there is an entry for giant catfish: This encounter is with 1d4 giant catfish. As always the creatures are hungry, lazy, and delicious if deep fried in a skillet with some cornmeal and served with some hot sauce. Halfling Master Race: On page 69 there's an encounter location with a giant egg-shaped obelisk with an ancient language detailing the creation of the common races. Humans from clay, elves from grass, etc, yet no mention of halflings. There's some graffiti written in Halfling claiming that said race was made from the best parts of all the others.
Thank you for the information. Are you one of the backers? If not, do you have any links of backer discussion, KickStarter or otherwise, confirming this?
Hello folks. I've been keeping up and researching the news around this KickStarter in preparation for a blog post. As I am not a backer and the KickStarter page only allows backer comments, I wanted to ask here if any backers of Throne of Night received PDF copies of the released books, as well as copies of Way of the Wicked. It's clear to me that the physical copies have not shipped yet, but PDFs are typically faster and easier to provide. I'd also like to note that upon checking the Drive-Thru RPG/RPGNow pages for Books 1 and 2 of Throne of Night, the print-on-demand options for purchase are no longer available and it can be obtained only in PDF format now.
As part of my birthday, I decided to get (what else?) a bunch of RPG sourcebooks. I included some big releases on the wishlist, including some Frog God mega-projects such as Slumbering Tsar, Razor Coast, Rappan Athuk, and Sword of Air. I have yet to even approach a comprehensive read of them, but I've been skimming through them. And I spotted quite a few things one wouldn't ordinarily find in other sourcebooks. Although most of their adventures lean on the serious side, there are whimsical bits thrown in which raise a chuckle or arch an eyebrow. It happened often enough that I decided to start a list. Naturally this is a work in progress: Sword of Air: "I can be the monkey, but you have to drive the train:" the first picture in the book is a monkey on a runaway train, accompanied by a little essay on player agency vs. railroading. I like where this is going. Joe Platemail: Various FGG books made references to Joe Platemail, usually as an example of how heavy armor might be a liability in certain environments. Turns out that Joe was a real PC in the author's old group games. He was an extraordinarily lucky Fighter with abysmally low mental ability scores. He survived where many others failed by the luck of the dice, but finally met an ignoble end of the hands of his own armor, drowning to death as he found himself unable to swim in heavy metal. On page 47 of Sword of Air, Joe Platemail III has Pathfinder stats. He's a 20th level Fighter with an 18 in Str/Dex/Con and 3 in Int/Wis/Cha. The text points out that the GM is encouraged to make his legendary luck an actual thing, in that deadly attacks and traps always seem to affect people near him instead of the man himself. Hillbilly Dragons: On page 53 detailing the wilderness environs, there are two rival families of dragons, the Hatfields (green) and McCoys (blue), trying to claim territorial dominance. Slumbering Tsar Saga: There's a party in Orcus' pants and everyone's invited: The Hidden Citadel dungeon is a giant statue in the shape of the demon lord of death, with named portions separated by body parts. The Lap of Orcus had a financial and entertainment district, including many taverns and an S&M club among other things. Rappan Athuk: Here Lies drnate29, 762-813: The dungeon entrance proper has a large graveyard preceding it, many of them rather new. There's a one-page listing of obituaries bearing the names of players, backers and play-testers, including more than a few titles which can only be Internet handles. Banana of Holding: The Banana of Holding is one of several new magic items, which can be found as randomly-generated treasure in an underground jungle temple. It is much like its bag counterpart, except slippery when on the ground. 16 Trolls, 1 Jug: One of the encounter rooms is titled 16 Trolls and a Jug of Alchemy. The encounter is pretty much a horde of trolls with a buried Jug of Alchemy as one of the treasures. This very encounter is referenced in the introduction about the old days of whimsical dungeon design, when a dungeon's ecology didn't need to make sense. 2,000th time's the charm: the final and most dangerous level of Rappan Athuk, the sanctum of Orcus himself, has never been reached in 25 years of GMing and playtesting.
Rule Zero: Underlings is a great and quick way to build mook and minion NPCs to face your heroes without needing to spend laborious time building stat blocks and keeping track of myriad modifiers. I also recently bought the Genius Guide to Simple Class Templates for Monsters, which is also a good time-saving method of applying class features to monsters as templates instead of adding levels to them (and thus recalculation of all the monster's prime attributes).
Masquerade Reveler and Path of War now have front-page reviews on RPGnet. Go check them out!
Two years ago on Min-Max Boards I once reviewed the Genius Guide to Horrifically Overpowered Feats based solely on the judgment of its title. I found about half the feats do not live up to the title, and looking back I feel that I was a bit too critical in that a fair amount of them can actually be used to good effect in regular campaigns. So I decided to do a new review on Paizo, reviewing the parts I found genuinely overpowered vs. the ones which weren't and how they stack up.
You're that guy who makes all those CharOp Class Guides. I didn't know you wrote Masquerade Reveler until you mentioned it! I guess you learn something new everyday. As of now I'm waffling between continuing my Path of War review, or trying to start fresh with another product. This time I'm leaning towards Red Dragon Inn: Guide to Inns & Taverns.
Finished writing an in-depth review for Secrets of the Masquerade Reveler on Min-Max Boards, GiantITP, and RPGnet message boards.
Secrets of the Masquerade Reveler by Rite Publishing is a very cool Barbarian archetype who "rages" by entering a trance which grants them the abilities of certain archetypes, including but not limited to monsters and ideals such as "sage" or "Quickling." The Masquerade Reveler can wear Masks which grant them a limited pool of evolution points in line with said Masks' theme. It is totally feasible for this class to put on a Pixie Mask and be able to fly and turn invisible, get a +8 bonus on a lot of Knowledge skills with Sage's Mask, or gain a quadrupedal form with Dweomercat Mask and Pounce and Rake. There is also the War Dancer by Drop Dead Studios, who uses a rounds-per-day mechanic known as a Dance. They can learn unique Dances which grant them abilities for as long as they maintain it. Dance of Earth-Breaking can allow you to form tremors in the ground to trip opponents as a ranged attack and mold earth, while Unhindered Movement increases the class' base speed and the ability to continue moving through AoO squares even if they get hit. War Dancers also get limited 4th-level divine spellcasting, a per-day True Strike ability, replace their AC with Sense Motive result for one attack, among other things. Both products are good examples of martials getting nice things. And of course, there's always the Path of War, which is one of my favorite Pathfinder books.
For one, views of game balance as a good thing is a more modern innovation in table-top D&D fandom. You don't see folks in the OSR (old school revolution) trying to ensure that each class is equally relevant at all levels or making sure that monster stat blocks scale in line with PC abilities. 4th Edition is built around things scaling, not at an equal rate but there is still an attempt to make saves, skills, etc, better to avoid massive discrepancies in numbers. A "skill/magic system" for martials which grant special abilities beyond basic attacks, like what Tome of Battle or Path of War does, is also a modern convention for table-top D&D. Typically the only major resource fighters had was hit points. The whole role system of Striker/Controller/etc is similar to the "tank/sneak/healer/mage" model although it doesn't lock in class roles by the kinds of spells or weapons they use. Like how Swordmage is an arcane class, but a "defender" rather than a "controller/blaster" which is what D&D wizardry is best known for. Or the avenger, which was a striker with a divine power source. But that might be best served for another thread, considering that this topic mainly concerns Pathfinder martial/caster discussion. Back on topic, regarding the thread itself, it's a very interesting archive which will definitely help help people look through the arguments and debates used rather than data-mining or by word of mouth.
A now-defunct thread designed to examine the "balance-focused" mindset of WoW players and pointing out a basic "Hey, fighter, wizard, we're all on the same side here, bros". You can't discuss anything here, but feel free to examine the thread to see what points have been made before. I'm trying to be kind, and it might be best to be neutral for thread descriptions, but game balance has been a mainstream ideal in video games for a long time and more than a few table-top games as well. World of Warcraft has been a popular whipping boy in the Dungeons & Dragons community ever since 4th Edition's designers used video games as inspiration in addition to table-top RPGs. I mean, I get how a lot of people didn't like more modern changes wrought by 4th, but I think we can call a spade a spade and point out that that particular thread is less of a discussion and more akin to a partisan political screed.
Finished writing a review for the War Dancer on Paizo here, and finished the in-depth post on Min-Max Boards which I reposted to RPGnet and Giant in the Playground.
I finished reviewing You're Gonna Die Screaming by Misfit Studios. I want to get back into the swing of things, but I don't want to overwhelm myself again so I'm planning to review the Wardancer by Drop Dead Studios next. And probably either In the Company of Dragons or Secrets of the Masquerade Reveler after that.
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