Missionary Man's page

Sure there are all sorts of reasons why it seems reasonable that Africa would be a blasted, backward waste land, with no interesting or developed societies found on it, but frankly on the part of the designers it just seemed like a throwback to the old racism of the 19th century.

I think you may also be getting hung up on a weak book. Africa is loaded with lots of stuff that has little relationship to the geographic setting. It has the normal load of OCCs -- probably part of your complaint, plus all the Egyptian Gods, and the Four Horsemen. The whole Rifts Africa section is more than 100 pages into the book. I guess I can see some complaints that there is about a page to the tribes of Africa while South Africa is just "once a center of modern technology....cities were obliterated" but in general they just skipped this entire section of the book. There is a bit on the Phoenix Empire but even that is pretty scant. That is before even considering the first printing of the book was incomplete.

grodog wrote:

Linky: http://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/temp/El_Raja_Key_maps-grodog_at_LGGC3_ 2007-06-15.pdf

linky not worky :-(

messy

For some reason when I copied and pasted it, extra characters where added. Make sure that the date is the same as it appears as written. Mine added a %20 which needed to be removed.

http://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/temp/El_Raja_Key_maps-grodog_at_LGGC3_ 2007-06-15.pdf

Awesome, makes customizing it way easier. That is great! I hope they get around to releasing 124 and 139 before they loose the license that way as well.

What PDF?

Well none of the edition changes seem to have been pointless for the game. I like 3.5 and find it to be superior in many ways to older editions. The inclusion of the battle map and the core integration of it in the rules has made combat much more detailed. I do hate that they choose squares for the map but that is the by far the largest of my complaints. The less specific problem is that the map has changed the game into being closer to a miniature game that uses the 'you go, I go' model. They included things like attacks of opportunity and held actions to try to prevent this from seeming overly wrong but it is really just a patch on the problem. The system works great for keeping things inside a strict rule set that is pretty simple but it also creates oddities as will always happen with actions being carried out in discrete sections which at times poorly simulates a continuous series of actions. This can be done away with with the occasional DM rulings but if you add those your back to the older system with the inclusion of the battle map and a violation of what the players often feel they deserve, as you would be violating the rules as written. I don't think there is a good solution, it is just a trade off of games and if you find the current system not to your liking there are any number of less miniature game like RPGs out there and easy access to old books on Ebay or as PDFs.

If you do want to see one more complaint with this edition, it is that it is difficult to convert OD&D and 1E AD&D modules to it. The older modules had so many more encounters in them that they would represent 4 or 5 levels which makes them pretty much impossible to convert directly, unless they are broken into zones in such a way that they can have areas prepared for all of those levels. This tends to leave you trying to strip those old modules down to their core and for some of them, The Lost City for instance, I just can never figure that out.

You can always do something to challenge peoples images of what the classes are. Change your setting and see what people do with the same classes. A rogue may be seen a bit differently in a campaign based around Native American cultures or a Barbarian in a campaign set in the Crusades.

Okay, then why not The Family Crypts.

Hi again, Allen! ;)

The "Family Crypts," for sure, as there are 2 entrances for it on the Statuary level; and then it is a toss up between the "Reliquary" and the "Outer Sanctum," but weighing more towards the Reliquary right now for the second one.

The Family Crypts will be a _nightmare_ for players... :)

RJK

I doubt it. At higher levels NPCs have to be very carefully planned out and prepared to deal a real threat I tend to find. Without that sort of preparations they don't tend to meet out the threat that they are supposed to be. If you really think they are so over powered toss a high CR 'monster' at them, these in my opinion are much tougher than a high CR NPC in most cases.

I am playing a Binder/Wizard/Anima Mage in a campaign and have noticed that in my opinion the vestige Buer seems to be game breaking. I have from self restraint decided not to use this vestige.

For those that do not know Buer is a vestige that gives you Fast Healing 1 and lets you heal 1 point of damage per round as a standard action (or a random amount every five rounds). It doesn't seem like much but unlike something like a Wand of Cure Light Wounds this is something that is not exhaustible. It means at the end of every battle the party spends a few minutes recharging and are off to the next battle undamaged. On a low level Binder, under 8th, this is a minor thing as the Binder will rarely select this vestige as it is the only one they have and gives them nothing else to do other than heal really. On a higher level Binder or an Anima Mage where they can have multiple vestiges or cast spells and bind vestiges it is a great choice. I would assume a high level your resources for healing are so great this is also no real big deal but in the midrange it is giant.

I was wondering if anyone else had seen this vestige used and had an opinion on the effect of it on game balance.

I do not care what they call a new class. I am interested in how it fits into the game. I frown on fighters introducing themselves as Ted the Fighter 4.

I am not all that impressed with the knight, as it does not seem likely to be choosen that often unless someone just wants to be a fighter who is not a fighter. I have though not found any reason to ban it. I do though like the addition of new base classes instead of prestige classes. The larger number of levels involved in a class has its good abilities hopefully spread out more than you see in prestige classes and the nature of the experience point penalties keeps down the urge to level dip that is far too common with PrCs.

The classes in the PHB2 don't seem to be overpowered, although I would like to experiment with the Dusk Blade a bit before putting my stamp of approval on it. They also don't tend to show one thing I dislike on some other base classes, like the Barbarian, that they rarely encourage someone to stick with them for 20 levels. The Dragon Shaman I was very pleased with as I have not found a point at which it seems a good time to leave for greener pastures. Even the Duskblade and Beguiler have abilites they continue to develop throughout their career,Cloaked Casting and pure BaB, that seem likely to keep them in their class and not moving to a PrC as soon as possible for some other features.

So far I have seen no reason to complain about these new classes and after a little more investigation into them I may add them to my list of permited non-PHB classes. These sort of new releases as long as they are well done offer me the hope to eventually have a game with no PrCs that still has the options that are currently expected by the DnD hobbyists I game with.

The party can develop in reaction to the gaps in their set-up. I've seen half the party take cross-class ranks in "Use Magic Device" so that a few cure wands can cover the lack of a cleric, or having clerics prepare their offensive spells to balance the lack of an arcane spellcaster (always able to swap for a cure spell when needed, right?) That seems to suit my gaming groups, as we like the more 'natural' feel of a character that develops according to what skills will be useful, not just what the player envisions. With the flexible potential to character creation in 3.X, I think that party balance is actually less of a factor now than it used to be in previous editions.

It sounds like your gaming group really has its act together. I think a larger problem is trying to explain to a party, that does not already realize it, that if they don't fill all the iconic roles that they are going to have broaden the scope of their own abilities. Instead I tend to see Cleric-less parties where the bard decides not to get healing spells, no one takes the heal skill or use magic device, and the party seems to think that they are just entitled to find large numbers of potions as they have no healer or even basic healing ability of their own. Then again I think it may be we are just over accustom to computer games which give you easy ways to do all the basic functions that you will need for the game and have come to expect the same in pen and paper RPGs.

Several people have mentioned that they have found that the warlock gets out of control. What part(s) of the class get out of control? Is it the blast, a few of the spell like abilities, or the easy magic item crafting and use?

Any chance that L3 might be made available via this route?