Luka Kordić's page

Ok, first thing's first, me and a couple associates are starting an RPG producing company in a month's time, and since we will be, among other things, making adventures for both 3.5 and 4.0 editions of DnD, we would love to see Pathfinder as our 3.5 ruleset of choice. There is only one thing I would like from Pathfinder to do, and that is allow 3.5 or 3.75 games to give players both rewards but motivations and "excuses" not to fight their way through everything.

To explain. The skill challenge concept presented in the 4.0 edition DMG is pure genius and is similar to what we (a group of experienced DM's including me) have been doing with non-combat encounters for ages. It is not necessarily a 4.0 only thing as it is easily applied to 3.5 as is. It is a concept, not a mechanic, and an easily adaptable concept at that. You only have to present a goal or a problem and subtly guide the players toward appropriate skills with. insight and perception rolls, but let hem always figure their own way through a skill challenge with the skills they DO have.

Thing is, skill challenges work BETTER in 3.5 because there are more skills and more interesting ways different characters can contribute to a skill challenge. And the thing we would want from Paizo (since we are also playtesters of the PFRPG) is to give every class non-combat abilities in the form of a choice: the choice of a class related profession skill that would give a +2 synergy to, say 3 different skills for each 5 ranks invested. Have each class chose from 3 different class related professions or have 3 different class related professions be available to a class member. This would also help the fighter and the cleric gain non-combat skills.

It would work like this. For example (think mechanic, not fluff):

Fighter has 3 professions as class skills: Soldier, Brigand and Bodyguard. Putting 5 ranks in profession(soldier) makes heal, survival and knowledge(nobility) his class skills and also gives a +2 synergy bonus to them. (And all four of them can be used in non-combat or combat skill challenges). A profession(brigand) fighter would, for example get sense motive, appraise and knowledge(local) which would make him a bit of a rogue in fluff while still being a fighter in combat. A bodyguard would have a different set of new class skills. All three would be different in that their approaches to the same skill challenge would be different.

So, while a character will be good at his class skills (the +3 bonus), he will also be better with the skills of his particular profession. This is also a nice way to give characters more of a choice of class skills and character concepts that will not imbalance combat further, and do good for the PFRPG as it might draw the role play crowd who sometimes justly feel that 3.5 is all about powergaming.

Also, there should be a profession slot for non class related professions (such as sailor) which may or may not have any synergy bonuses attached.

I think the lizardman and the goblin should be core anyway, they most often are for me and adjusted so they don't have a level adjustment. Goblins are practicly a staple of my games since they provide the PC's of any city a relatively friendly and open shady or grey organisation to deal with (in good ways and bad).

Why is that? I think monsters with appropriate (and UNappropriate) class levels are a great boon to any DM. Making ready to use groups of monsters with (:gasp:) roles and tactics (:gasp:) (like they never had them in 3.5 - if you believe that shove an elbow up your ear) is immeasurably helpful to a DM.

I think every intelligent humanoid should get a basic template or the lvl 1 fighter/rogue/whatever specimen, and a few classed and equipped monsters so the DM doesn't have to bust his ass adjusting them.

lkordic86@gmail.com

please send the gestalt rules somebody :)

To tell some more of how 4ed feels degrading. Does anyone agree with me that these books feel like there was no effort at all invested in them? They feel and read like a 3ed starter set (with fixed hp and abilities and such) or even more accurate, like a D&D miniatures game dressed up in distasteful artwork? Cause i've had both of these, and the average 3.5 splatbook had more effort invested to make than any of these. It's like a cheezy supplement for children, like a bad 3rd party campaign setting or simplified rules variation then an edition basis.

There is something... sinister about the mindset of people who the 4th edition books are clearly aimed at. The alignment butchery, the only good gods in the handbook part, the incredibly cheesy and militant look of the PCs combined with eyewatering, garrish and distatefull colors and stylings of american superhero comics, the U.S. Army recruitment slogans as motivations to play a particular race... No gnome (an obviously non threatening creature), no half-orc (an obvious meatshield for "the other side"). I tell you, if this is aimed at kids, then kids aren't all right at all. Just a feeling I get, especially after going through the MM. A friend of mine called 4ed - "D&D Extreme!!!!" after leafing through that book. Not only everything is evil, but is also aparently mindlessly bloodthirsty and ever ready to tear your pancreas out through your nose.

Funny thing is, 4ed seems like somebody got all the chauvinists, the immature, the powergaming, the unimaginative, the rustic and the badly undereducated people i ever kicked out of my games for being ridiculous and offensive and let them make a system (ideologically) just to get on my nerves. I "recruited" at least a hundred people into d&d in my life, and most of them were educated, imaginative people who actually chose to play d&d from a myriad of things the could be doing. The decency, style and open endedness of 3.5 core stuff was one of the great hooks. I don't think i could get any of them interested wthe 4ed core. Not to mention i probably couldn't bear to play d&d with anyone who would get interested in d&d from seeing 4ed core. I think our tastes and perspectives in life differ too much.

So the stat blocks are terrific*, so its more streamlined, so it tries to compete with WOW. But there's a catch. You cant make a tabletop Diablo clone. You can, but it gets really old really fast, and the only reason it works for Diablo** is that the computer is really fast at throwing dice and adjudicating rules. D&D 4ed is not a perfect tabletop variant of WOW, it's a slower, blander and mildly to severely offensive*** variant of WOW. It can't compete, cause I'll always choose WOW over it. And I hope their precious target audience does too.

*yea, I'm a DM, and they are the best ever
**and WOW and the rest of the tactical arcade games we call RPGs for some reason
***to people who have to suspend disbelief

I believe having a lot of different abilities at different levels is a good thing as it can potentially reduce the Ftr2/Rog3/Bbn1 shennanigans. Having few abilities makes for boring characters (in some respect) and makes a player go looking for the benefits of dipping into somewhere else, or even, measuring the best time to "bail out of a class".

Can I get a copy of your gestalt rules? From anybody since everybody has them now?

Also, my group really liked the Pathfinder rules. Most f the stuff was recieved as welcome fixes, and I guess we would prefer it to core even without the advent of 4ed.