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I can dig the finesse thing. But at least they should be a slashing version of what they have as a bastard sword (which is its own issue but that is another place and time). It would at least allow for the image that is more constant to katana combat styles.
Indeed. I still have my first edition play test book on my gaming shelf. After the goblin thread I was concerned there were going to be changes both to be different and to appease the masses. At the time there were statements about a desire be true to the setting you created. I am fully convinced that that is the heading you have set and applaud you for sticking to it. You're going to have some difficult days ahead but regardless of a decision being popular or not, you have a loyal family here to support you.
Wanted to thank Paizo for the hard work they've done with the Paladin. I'm a fan of the alignment staying as a lawful good requirement and seriously good work on the adjustments with the code. If players want to annoy a GM with a paladin or GM wants to make a player suffer for being a paladin, it's gonna happen but at least prioritizing loosens the noose a bit. Having said that and as much as i like paladins, image as a whole, i still believe it is a niche class and i think that if you're only going to give one "armor master" class in the core book, it shouldn't be a niche class. I think you would be better served replacing the alchemist with the cavalier. Just my thoughts and thanks again.
I stand by using lego minifigures. You are not alone.
I'm kinda with Voodist on this. My brother and i have tried this off and on for years and it just doesn't seem to take very well. Starfinder's rule set might work better. Being said, there will be skills like computer use and various other sciences that will need to be added, as well as some skill mechanic for driving. There are more advanced firearms in one of the Pathfinder Adventure Path modules (the last one involving Baba Naga i believe) but those are only getting you to WWI level. To try this you have your work cut out for you. Good luck.
Just gonna say, not a fan of this. I'm a guy who like to play the "villain" races too. Set them up as heroes and the like, or at least even handed NPCs. But not as core options. Because I'm also the guy running the game. Giving an unlimited license for players to play the most destructive race to story is just asking for problems. And while evolving a setting can be a good thing, forcing an evolution to make an option viable becomes messy. Forgotten Relms had that problem too.
Yeah, this just doesn't bode well for my enthusiasm.
So just gonna say that I'd love to see paladins remain lawful good. But this is just personal preference. Love the alignment system too.
Less things that want to impregnate us. Xenomorphs are cool and terrifying and all, but every AP in Dead Suns so far has had something that wanted at least two of our party to have its children. I will include the Skreesires as part of that since it wanted to lay its eggs in our corpses.
Definitely agree with Arutema and Opsylum. Dhampirs, Tengu, and Kitsune especially. My group is fond of the Catfolk and (if you intend for them to play out as in Pathfinder) one player in our group would die for the Azlanti.
Though I am partial, an inquisitor looking to scrutinize and undermine might work well too.
Really? We always thought he was just a lich.
That's a very narrow view of it. I have witnessed many people hail a zealous view of their beliefs, but not religion, but politics. "you're a moron if you don't believe this", "down with those X wingers". They have no basis in faith, but their own codes. This is the law chaos axis and here in America, it is becoming a bigger hot button than religion. I work with a lot of blue collar people and man are they self righteous. While I like to rail on and support religions as much as the next guy, the subjective good/evil is only as bad as the subjective law/chaos. And walking into another sovereign country to instill your political beliefs sounds a lot like what Catholicism has done. Not mention the Communistic (law) suppression of faith. Going true neutral really, I think, can only be done in a naturalistic, hippy-like fashion living amongst the trees.
That also goes for the Society Organized play. BTW, I haven't yet seen the Inner Sea guide, does that have the firearms rules in it and if so, how advanced do they get.
And how does this help anyone in anyway? It made me giggle.
For image purposes a Bastard sword and a gauntlet (or unarmed strike). Versitile and damaging for when you have to move.
Having sympathy for goblins/orcs/hobgoblins etc. is silly. If they had their way, they would completely wipe out or enslave every human/dwarf/elf, man/woman/child in the world. There is no compromise here, no moral relativism. Just think how vile these creatures would be if they were real. It kind of reminds me of how some people wish they were vampires. Seriously, a vamp is a demonic CORPSE. I wouldn't mind their abilities, but I wouldn't want to be one. And frankly if they existed they would have to hunted down. Alignment conflicts are best left between the player races themselves. Just food for thought. +1 Besides, it would kill the economy of most game worlds if adventures didn't come back with loads of stuff from their fallen adversaries. :)And we need to begin a purge of the demonic corpses...
We have one going on now in a Krynn campange. Warlock, Inquisitor, Wizard, Druid, Sorcerer, and a Mystic Godling (eldrich). Stuff dies... fast.
The warlock invocation allowed as a full round action to create a glaive that worked on touch attacks, gave you all the attacks your base attack allowed for, and lasted until your next turn. You could actually use it for attacks of opportunity and if you crit, then you got quite the damage. The balancing factor of warlocks was that they used spell like abilities. Those provoked AoO. The gunslinger has an easy fix for that.
As long as some of the more iconic assassin abilities became rouge or ninja talents (as was suggested)I would never use the PrC.
If it were me, I'd just say that guns gain a flat +4 bonus to strike while within their effective range. Just like all the other abstractions in the system, a flat +4 takes care of all the different ways a gun is more dangerous than other weapons. +1 I don't think we needed a new mechanic. Even one of my group who is a gun nut (spent years coming to the conclusion they would never work in the abstract system the way he felt they truly should) thinks the touch attack is too much. Perhaps the greatest tragedy is that such a touchy and pivotal issue was introduced without doing play tests or feelers first. Now it is set in stone (for their game world anyway) and has divided the fanbase quite passionately.
I have to disagree. The fantasy world does not have the same widespread stigmas about killing as our western society does. Paladins for instance, kill habitually for their causes. Training to kill effectively and swiftly for the defense of one's allies doesn't seem to be such an issue, the marines do it all the time. I had a swordsage in 3.5 that opened with some of his strongest attacks all the time (as I am sure many open with greater vital strike now). The DM was debating on weather or not to shift his alignment to evil. I had to explain that it came to simple assessment of his allies wellfare, especially when he used it to draw the dragon's attacks, sacrificing himself to give his allies the chance to kill it. Worked great too. Poison use is kinda the same, especially when I have an alchemist concept built around the immediate action usage of it.
The book is black and white on the issue to avoid arguments at the table since what is good to one person is evil to another in real life.
Good aligned persons Dont Kill under any Condition. They believe in Arrest - incapacitation - Trial - imprisonment - even when no one else doesWhere are you getting that from? Trials are conventions of laws, not good. Good aligned adventurers wind up killing a LOT of things Sadly this gets back into that whole "good and evil are perceptions of a culture" thing. I prefer to stick with the standards of the book and popular fantasy culture. Yup, good guys kill. Especially evil guys. To the OP, I would (and do) just run neutral until the campaign shapes the alignment.
I think that while it would be easier to let the player fluff, I would rather have rules for getting a shield bonus on non shield weapons.
Our group has had a number of characters (particularly fighter and paladin types) whose image it is to be the indomitable tank and die. The first time it is weathered, but after that second the player wants to roll a new character. Same player however had a contest of sorts as to how many times our characters were killed. Mine pulled for an early lead but he beat me out as we hit double digits. The deaths weren't intentional, but still...
With our group you never know what will break the character so there is always that edge (when dealing with some players) as to "is this going to shatter the group's solidarity when we have to introduce yet another character". We have had to adapt the "you seem trustworthy" mentality in some cases.
Sure, your name says Ronin, but I see you're a ninja. ::Returns to the shadows::
The touch attacks are a compromise attempt to model armor penetration in a rules set where armor is binary. By binary I mean it either applies or it does not. I'd prefer it to go away myself, but I don't see that happening. This is primarily because it seems to be part of the firearms rules set in stone by a book already on it's way back from the printers when this playtest started.I don't remember the announcement saying that Ultimate Combat was on its way to the printers. I know Ultimate Magic was sent to print. I've seen it said that they may be in the Inner Sea World Guide that comes out this month.
But keep leverage in mind. If I am on stilts and my foot moves 5', do the stilts move 5'. No, they move along a larger arc. Same for the tip of a 3' sword vs a 5' sword. Same effort, but the speed of the tip of the 5' blade moves much faster. This scales the larger you are. I would totally give colossal creatures a larger range of free movement based on size. The only time this doesn't matter is when the larger creature is just slower to move it's limbs. That works in some cases but not all, and that should be reflected by the dex score.
I've gotta agree. They had such luck with Ebberon it was agreeable to everything they wanted. FR was born more of classic fantasy from a whole different era (was it the blessed 80's?). Modern gamming has gone a different direction. When I get a craving for classic, that's the world I went to. But now I just don't know. The spell plauge could have had a much better outcome though.
What becomes more troublesome is when two players use skills against each other. We had an intimidate against another player in a social encounter, the other player, apparently being intimidated, walked away from the encounter to sulk as that is what his character would apparently do if intimidated. The player switched out characters within a session or two. We thus took steps to ban certain skills to be used player vs player.
Again I have to agree with much of what you said. In our games we don't restrict dragon's alighnment by color, nor do we define one evil act as making a player evil. Everyone slides from time to time, everyone has the "moments of weakenes" or situational tendencies. Our players are free to play as they like, and alighnment doesn't seem to phase them as much as what are the other characters going to do to them if they find out (just like real people). No one calls "chaotic act" when someone breaks in, cheats a vendor, or disobeys orders. That is all role play. We use the descriptors to determine what energies flow more freely in a character and thus what types of magic hurt them as a result (like evil spells and outsiders). I also love playing (as npc and character) those who would be typed as evil (undead, demons, ninja, etc) who's actions say that they aren't, and have lost the evil descriptor as a result. Sadly Hitler is an example for both sides of the debate. He can only be defined by a cultural standard. Merely saying btw, why are undead automatically evil? Is it the negative energy. If so then why can neutral clerics wield it in channeling.
Obviously one would have to limit races, but probably also classes. Most all your divine classes would have to go, the ranger would be good but you may have to run with the non spellcasting ver. in the APG. The "master craftsman" feat or whatever it is called could be used for the non-caster classes to make magical items, but that is a specialzed disposition and thus fairly rare. With regards to the spellcasting, Dragonlace had a mechanic for spellcasting fatigue that may work. Modifiying the wizard so that the spells he "prepares" would be the only ones he has an option for casting in the day may help keep his spell diversity useful while falling back on his arcane bond to get out of tough spots, but that may take too much from the sorcerer.
We had that problem in our last campaign. Our 15th level psion spent half of his total PP for the day trying to kill one goblin with telekinesis just to max out what his powers can do. You get versatility but the auto leveling of spells is nice.
I want to make sure I understand what you are saying. It IS alright to define energies and types of beings as evil or good, but not to define characters and NPCs by their actions as good or evil? I'm not trying to be prickish, just want to understand your view. Stepping back into the "grey" again and the start of the thread, with that view can demons who repent by actions (like good ninjas and assassins) enter into such circles or are they forever doomed to be blocked by a spell that resonates to their past and not their present? This could lead to some interesting plot twists in my current campaign...
Exactly! As a person I couldn't agree with you more. The point that I was trying to make is that just as it changes between cultures, so too does it change between players. What you and I view as "just" or "right" is not what my DM, co-workers, or even wife would call it. We can all view ourselves as good, evil, or indifferent, but that won't just change from our criteria, but from our teammates criteria. Everyone has the right to decide for themselves what these mean (and oh do they) and everyone will make different definitions. I think that is the only reason to keep the standard. So when it comes to a circle of protection spell your teammates know if it will effect them as well.
Sadly the "silly and abstract" should probably stay. The problem with the whole alignment thing is that you can have the "concept" good and evil, but that is subjective to a culture, then you have debates on one society's evil vs another society's evils. Hence this board. Even giving a temple a strong aura of evil is actually subjective. The cold blooded killer might find it like home, all warm and fuzzy. We had a campainge in Ebberon about five years ago where we all worked for Argonessen. We all came from the barbarians, or had some degree of draconic ties and at the start we all were told alighnment was to go by a very draconic standard. Being elietist, they didn't veiw the harming lesser beings as quite so bad, more casualties of what was going on. This would have worked fine save for the one player who came from Khorivaire. The DM switched the standard of "good vs. evil" around without telling us saying later that it was nessesary because we had a traditional mortal mentality in the group. Without telling us that our actions were in violate, nearly all of us became neurtal and some closer to evil. The silly and absrtact exists as a standard put in place to give everyone a definition of society's dictates on the matter. In the game it is a universal dictate viewed by the players, not nessiarily the characters. I mean, really, what nation proudly claims to be the "evil capital of the world"? Simply put- if you don't like the established standard, change it or do away with it, but not everyone is ready (or willing) to give up on the concept of heroic (westernized) good vs. evil and traditional morality.
On that note, Inquisitor to two gets cunning initiative which adds your wisdom mod to your initiative, in addition to your dex.
In all the games my group has run (there's been about four alternating GM's now) it has been a diplomacy check. To set guidelines on the percentage off, set their attitude and every increase in it can be x percent off, but you only get one check. Sadly, my group members have never tried the bluff approach... if they did (or as my wizard may now) I would give the vendor a sense motive. Success means they know they're being hosed and their prices go up, their attitude goes down.
There's a trait in the APG called reactionary that gives an additional +2.
I think that I agree with most everyone here. I was against the samurai being based off the cavalier at first. Personally I like the romanticized ideal of the Tokugawa era samurai, and not so much the warring states era ones before it. After some time I got used to and enjoyed the thought of the earlier period concepts, but I do agree with Kyle that the whole of historic samurai is not truly represented here. After the advent of Bushido (which can be role played into any class as per my samurai inquisitor with his daisho) they focused on sword schools and the heritage of these. NOT exclusively, but it was indeed a very important facet. Yes there are ways to portray it with just feats, but I think that perhaps something can be done with that, which may also be used for fighters later on down the road (the UC writeup did say something about weapon styles). Likewise, samurai were noted by who they served and not just their banner, and in many cases the "mon" or crest was placed upon their clothing, which is a variation that the banner could receive, but many may complain as that may make the class more powerful.
Be careful of that. We had an awakened squirrel ninja for a while. That ended really badly...
Mounts/companions/cohorts/familiars/summons/whateverelse are a responsibility of the player. The DM has far too much job to run around doing PC stuff. +1 As a DM Running four or five NPCs in a social encounter is bad enough without worrying about what number six is doing. The other DMs in my group all allow us to run whatever cohorts/mounts/etc that we may aquire, which can be quite alot (a wizard, a druid, a cavalier, and someone with leadership just for grins).
This is my first post here and I want to start by saying kutos on the design. My fiend is contemplating playing a gunslinger and I think I'm gonna talk him into this one.
Since we are talking poison use and death attack I put this to you- The alchemist not only gets poison use, but gets it better than anyone else. Eventually they may apply it as an immediate action. Is using poison in and of itself in combat evil, or is it no worse then useing a better weapon. The same with death attack. All that is required is observation to recognize your opponent's weak point, and then strike at it, the essence of most combat. This just takes a bit longer and has a more immediate effect. I agree with Sleep-Walker. The constant acts of murder and violence are evil, regardless of class. If either of them did it they would be evil. It is the aplications of the training that make a character, not class evil.
As a DM I have enjoyed leadership. My group never really used it until a couple of players who would have multiple concepts realized that they could play different characters that way. The cohorts always seemed to float in and blend well with the group (we had about 5 players) and filled in any missing roles.
Actually the APG has the "deep drinker" feet which not only requires "monk 11" but also the "drunken Ki" class feature. Not only is it a class restricted but also an archetype restricted feat.
I have to agree. They already said the same type of thing for the ninja.
It is a matter of perspective only, and we both have ours. The cleric does it in short order, the anti-paladin took a bit more to say "all healing is harming, all bonuses are penalties, all cures inflict the conditions instead, sacred becomes profane". That was seventeen words. Leaves a lot of characters.
One of our players is contemplating this class. As a stand alone it, like all the other classes, has some issues. But one of the first things that is happening is a spellcaster with mending at the ready, a back-up basic weapon, and as soon as we can afford it, an item for him to do the mending with.
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