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Just to be pedantic, you need to add 1 year to the modern earth dates. When 1 BC ends, 1 AD begins. There is no year 0.
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I agree. Ad the point I was trying to make was that the continuous addition of feats to PF really didn't help. I don't want to have to look through a dozen different feat lists trying to find out if I need a feat to do an action or not ("I glower at the bandit." "Sorry, you can't. You didn't take the Glower feat.").
I was wondering how Androids perceive deities like Calistria (as the Goddess of Lust) or an incubus/succubus. I'm not sure what you're referring to when you say, "We don't know that." We know that they don't reproduce as that's mentioned multiple times. We know for a fact that they're immortal unless they choose to pass on as that is explicitly mentioned. We know that, unless destroyed, a body can end up housing multiple souls as that also is explicitly mentioned. What we don't know is how a race that doesn't (and can't) reproduce sexually views physical pleasure. As a result, it becomes hard to classify how such a race perceives a Goddess of Lust (in the sexual sense) or how they would respond to beings, such as an Inucubus/Succubus, that play off sexual desires. Which is why I brought it up in the first place and said: "The whole Android fluff raises, for me, a whole host of questions that aren't answered and some of the implications seem contradictory or just don't make sense." The easiest way around that is to say that they react the same as everyone else. For me though, that makes the least amount of sense and takes away what makes an android an android and not just a human with lights.
I'll take the +8 and not have to worry about AoO.
Well, the Negative Plane (where undead get their "power" from ) has almost always been portrayed as either/both utter destruction or some kind of corruptive influence. That's why free-willed undead are generally evil (I think Forgotten Realms tried to push some "good" undead at one point but I don't recall the idea ever catching on). Until I see a change to how the Negative Plane and undead are presented they're always going to be the "bad guys". We're talking about cosmological constants not just appearance. [EDIT] Also, I think the gods are just as important as they've ever been (if not more so). The difference is that there's no longer a Cleric or Paladin class mechanically tied to them.
Since they don't reproduce, the shape of an Androids body (chassis, frame, whatever) is no more relevant than the color of their hair; it's purely cosmetic. The Androids are effectively immortal. If they aren't killed then they only expire if the soul decides to "pass on" as some do at about 100 years. And one body could potentially house many many souls over the "life" of the body. The whole point of "passing on" is to let a new soul into the body (according to RAW) so the Android body certainly isn't aging in any appreciable way. The whole Android fluff raises, for me, a whole host of questions that aren't answered and some of the implications seem contradictory or just don't make sense.
Dropping the half-elf and half-orc. I'd rather see a system for merging any two races (within reason) rather than just a human elf and a human orc (I didn't like it in PF and I like it even less in a space setting). Not a big fan of The Gap. It's too much like the death of Aroden - something that should be important but never detailed enough for players to care about it. I'm going to wait to introduce new races until I see the Alien Archive. Not a fan of Androids either. Kinda sorta a construct and kinda sorta not.
I had been thinking on similar lines but a different topic. I was wondering how Androids perceive deities like Calistria (as the Goddess of Lust) or an incubus/succubus. I know that Androids can still feel emotion but it seems odd that a race that doesn't procreate would have the same reactions. Heck, over the course of a body's life there could be many Android souls. An Android body is really just a frame for the soul as there's no actual distinction between male and female in a species that doesn't procreate. For the sake of simplicity, I'll probably just run it as-is but it strikes me as incredible bizarre.
Hmm, I agree that "center of worship" implies at least one (if not many more) major temples there. All I can think of is maybe there are certain areas (however small) where the Pharasma-ites have established sort of a beachhead to wage war on the 'unholy' hordes.
Send an email to Paizo's customer support. If you didn't buy it through Paizo, you might want to send a copy of the receipt as well.
I don't want another game with martial-caster disparity.
I did find it odd; just like there minimal difference between being small and medium. I can live with it but it is odd.
Retailers are going to tell you to talk to the company. Unless you're talking Amazon, very few retailers have the means to replace things when they have no control over the issue in question. If a binding is bad then you need to contact the company unless you can prove that it was the retailers fault.
When I first saw the iterative attack system for 3.0 I thought it sounded neat. Once I started using it I couldn't wait to drop it. Whether playing an rpg that uses TotM or a grid, most systems don't use an iterative attack system. Having run a few combats in Starfinder I found that (unsurprisingly) I vastly prefer the "new" system. As an aside, I consider the non-iterative attack method to be the old-school way.
I don't do Society lay but I'm curious what it is about the legacy races that "breaks" Society play. They're obviously in the universe. Is there something about them that's OP? I'd take exocortex over drone as I don't care for familiars and such things.
I'll have to wait and see how bad the feat bloat gets in Starfinder. Not every possible action a player might think of needs to be turned into a feat. Since how many feats you get is already set, bringing in more feats doesn't give you more options it just restricts what you can do. If I get 8 feats out of 80 then I plan accordingly but when there's 800 feats then I have to pick what things I can no longer do (or I do it poorly enough to make the attempt largely pointless). Too often in Pathfinder, it seemed to me, feats were included in a book just to meet some arbitrary feat quota.
The death of Aroden was interesting the first time I read about but is completely pointless for me now. There's very little in the setting to engage players to care about how Aroden died or why. Once it became clear that Paizo wasn't going to go anywhere with it my players lost interest. While it sounds like an important piece of background fluff it doesn't have any real impact on what players do. While I could "make up" my reasons, if I'm going to do that level of cosmological change then I'll just run homebrew. The reason I play pre-made stuff is so I don't have to do that.
Also, depending on the deity, it might not be a case of going from 100% right to 100% fallen. The fact that he hasn't fallen yet doesn't mean that he won't.
I haven't as I'm not a big fan of the Verbal Duel feature. It reminds me too much of how hackers used to work in early editions of Shadowrun. There wasn't a lot for them to do until it came time to jack into something and then there wasn't a lot for anyone else to do. I don't think PF's system is as bad but it's still something that, for me at least, sounded better than it actually worked. Though, by that point, I realized that I didn't need Batman in my games and so just dropped the class entirely.
I could not agree more. In fact, and SKR even mentions this in the interview, is that some things that were put into 3.0/3.5 never achieved their intent. But all that stuff still got carried over to PF. As some have suggested, you could use Unchained as sort of the Core rulebook (I would do this as I don't like the action economy of iterative attacks and skills are overvalued in PF (IMO)) but the problem with that is that no books or AP's are written with that in mind.
You yourself state there is a dichotomy between PF at release and PF now. That is the difference between PF editions. Gradual, incremental change that doesn't invalidate rulebooks, only updated them. Paizo doesn't think rewriting the entire system at once is necessary to enact change. Oh come on, Tri. Taking one line out of my post and using it to change what I was saying is annoying. The dichotomy of PF "then" as opposed to PF "now" isn't one of rule changes. Adding more stuff to a game isn't a rule change, it's just adding more stuff. The dichotomy comes from the Core Rulebook, Bestiary, and Gamemastery Guide being designed specifically with the intent of continuing 3.5 (and thus why PF received the 3.75 moniker) but that is clearly not the design goal anymore (as I already stated) As I stated quite clearly in the very first line of my original post, I was attempting to address why so many threads and arguments just seem to go around in circles even when everyone seems to agree on the general philosophy. That I've now had to completely restate what I already mentioned (in under 24 hours) has pretty much validated my entire point. I will amend one thing from my original post: I would change "probably pointless" to "definitely pointless".
I don't see how I can view it as anything other than 3.75 when the entire foundation of the game is still rooted in the Core Rulebook, Bestiary, and Gamemastery Guide (EDIT: All of which are still, by design, rooted in 3.5). EDIT: Perhaps I'm misunderstanding. Are you advocating dumping those books?
Alright, I'm going to make a (probably pointless) attempt to address why "balance" is an issue and why most of our arguments about it seem to go in circles. I got into PF before it was PF; it was Golarion that fascinated me. When I got the Beta rules and the playtest stuff the goal was very clear: continue with 3.5 because a whole lot of people had no interest in 4E but fix the most egregious errors of it (e.g. dead levels, classes that had no value except for level dipping, etc.). The Core Rulebook, the Bestiary, and the Gamemastery Guide were all written with that focus in mind - a continuation of 3.5. Paizo themselves billed the game as that ("3.5 doesn't survive, it thrives!" posters are still hanging in every game store in my area). At the time, PF was just as often called edition 3.75. No one calls it that now; but why? We still have the Core rulebook, the Bestiary, and the Gamemastery Guide. Because ever since the APG came out, the game has quickly moved away from being 3.75 and quickly became it's own thing. Except that it hasn't because the entire foundation of the game is based on 3 books written specifically for the purpose of maintaining 3.5 (albeit to a higher standard). Pathfinder is the rpg equivalent of Stretch Armstrong and we have pulled and twisted the holy crap out of him. And every new book that has been released has injected more of that gooey stuff that makes ol' Strech work into him. The problem with that is that Stretch Armstrong is now Stretch Fat Albert. Yet, we continue to pull and twist the holy crap out of him. There's too much of a dichotomy between what PF originally was and what it has become. However, most people don't want a PF 2.0 (even though this would solve many problems) because it would require an update of an ungodly amount of material. Yet, until that happens, we will continue to have 20+ people on one thread who all share the same philosophy and yet agree on absolutely nothing despite sharing the exact same ruleset.
There aren't enough choices. Most of Golarion we have no information on. Even the kingdoms of the Inner Sea region have been covered in wildly varying levels of detail. I would expect that "fantasy superheroes" would be dealing with threats from the Great Beyond or master Aboleths with their galaxy spanning magic but there isn't enough information on any of that to get players invested in it. This has been my main complaint about Paizo over the last few years: they seem unwilling to expand on Golarion knowledge. Distant Shores was a neat read but raises more questions than it answers and gives too little information for me to invest my players in it. Occult Mysteries (the only Paizo book I've sold away) is nothing more than paying money to be told what you aren't going to be told. Golarion is what interested me in Pathfinder before Pathfinder was its own thing. It's sad to see that it's become nothing more than a reference point for AP placement.
I disagree with this (and the sentence that I put in bold is factually incorrect) because, as the Internet and social media have shown over the years, people have a terrible time understanding each other. When people aren't using the same rules, nor even making the same attempt to do so, you get miscommunication. The Internet and the various social medias are the poster children for miscommunication. When speaking, we're often very sloppy with our language because meaning is often made clear from context. Context is less clear, if not absent entirely, when writing/printing. In such cases, clarity comes from adherence to a common set of rules. When those rules are ignored to the degree that most people can't even remember what they are, not only are you engaging in miscommunication but you're actively encouraging it (deliberately or otherwise). That you might still be understood doesn't change that fact. No usage of irregardless is correct as irregardless is not a word (no more than kdbgxkjcflkds is a word). Adding a prefix or a suffix to a word does not necessarily create a new word; there's more to it than that.
While at first it seemed that the Metamorph did not quite fit, the archetype does fit better if you consider this book to also be for Pulp fiction mystery men type stuff. Where do people think "pulp" fits in the best in Golarion? When I think of horror: Ustalav. Guns: Mana Wastes. Androids: Numeria etc . etc When I think of pulp: uh...er...okay, I've got nothing. So what do you think?
I agree. Mysteries are only interesting when they're solvable; otherwise; players never get invested in them. There are still so many regions of the Inner Sea, despite multiple campaign book releases, that are little more than a blurb description in my head. And 'Distant Shore' really drove home that, even after all of this time, I don't know enough about most of Golarion to use it. I mean, I use it for the AP's but that's it. Too many holes in the setting (on my end) to use it for anything else.
The problem is, the system DOES reward or punish you based on what you are attempting - the DC goes up or down based on what you are trying to do. So, yes and yes? I find it astounding that people are still surprised that people make combat monster builds even if the campaign isn't described as that.
Out of curiosity, does anyone give players a bonus to attack if they describe how they're attacking really well? Does anyone give players a penalty to attack for just saying, "I attack"?Players can get combat advantages off of their own tactical abilities. Being smart enough to get flanks gets you the same +2, good maneuvering to set up and force AoOs will get you extra attacks, held action to blast the caster, keeping a few "no sr" spells in your back pocket because for a golem, remembering to buy a useful selection of scrolls before you leave town and having the right one for the situation... the player matters more in combat than just a +2. So, no and no?
Out of curiosity, does anyone give players a bonus to bluff if they describe how they're bluffing really well? Does anyone give players a penalty to bluff for just saying, "I bluff"?
Out of curiosity, does anyone give players a bonus to attack if they describe how they're attacking really well? Does anyone give players a penalty to attack for just saying, "I attack"?
Not for me, no but your group might be different. I'm the only GM and world-builder for our game so books that are just "interesting reads" are providing information that's too incidental for my players to acknowledge and money is getting too tight to buy hardbacks that don't have an immediately serviceable use. Most stuff that comes out now is just ported to my homebrew anyway. I've been buying PF since the beginning and I've still lost track of half of what has come and gone.
Any kingdom or continent that is essentially still a blank space on the map. I love Varisia but I really don't need to know any more about it. At the very least, I'd like to see some coverage of southern Garund since that's the continent that almost every game takes place on.
My changes started off small but grew quite extensive to the point that I stopped using Golarion completely. Part of the problem is that things that were interesting reads to me as a GM and worldbuilder mean nothing to my players (e.g. Aroden's death). Paizo refuses to detail much of the world and even many Inner Sea kingdoms are little more than a blank space on the map. Every re-release of the setting changed just enough to screw up how I had the world developing which made it increasingly difficult to run AP's as written or use sourcebooks. A book being an interesting read doesn't necessarily make it useful for my game. When Paizo doesn't seem invested in something it's hard for me to be as well ("We know all about Aroden but we aren't going to tell any body; neener, neener") and my players certainly won't care. Too many blank spaces on the map and too big of a "vagueness and lack of info is a feature, not a bug" attitude. It became far easier to go back to my homebrew where I can make stuff up without having to second guess Paizo's worldbuilding strategy (such as it is). I had thought about jumping ahead a few centuries and taking some of thw rost outcomes from the AP's and applying them (the north is a demon-infested wasteland, the computer AI becomes a god, there's a new pahroah with a flying city in Osirion, etc.) but, again, it was less time intensive to go back to my homebrew.
I have trouble believing that Norborger (or any god) sits around wistfully looking back on the good ol' days when they were a mythic mortal and could interfere more directly.
Also, I'm not seeing "divine balance" anywhere in anyone else's posts - I might be missing it, though. Who are you arguing with there? No one in particular; rather the notion of how the gods are presented as a whole I don't think any of the gods care about balance, except maybe Pharasma... maybe. I think they care about doing as much as they can get away with. Really? From everyone's post it seems to be the entire crux of why the gods do and don't do things. And the vibe I'm getting now is that the gods can't do much of anything except grant spells; and you don't even need to be a full god to do that.
This all seems to completely neuter the gods. What would the point of becoming a god even be if you can't take action even within your own spheres of influence without a bunch of other gods smacking you around for it. It seems like the gods just sit back and do nothing which seems counter to the relevance of having gods in the first place. In Iron Gods when spoiler:
Cassandalee ascends to godhood it seems like that should be a big deal but really, why? If she tries to do anything she's just going to get whacked upside the head by other gods; who cares what her portfolio is? It kind of turns the idea of the Mythic Journey on its head when gods can't interfere without screwing things up. It's hard to care that Aroden died when anything that he would have done would have just made things worse. In fact, what difference does it make that any god dies (except Pharasma)? This is partly why not a single player that I've ever GM'd in PF has given one hoot about Aroden's death. It's never going to be explained and has no impact on the players so no one cares; it's just a piece of background fluff that most players have forgotten or pay no attention to even if they remember. That's fairly lackluster for what's supposed to be one of the grand mysteries of the setting.
Eh, that's the excuse forgotten Realms use in 3.0 for why the plethora of epic levels wizards never killed each other. Elminster's line was, "Sure I could kill so-and-so, but they could do the same to me". My first thought when I read that was, "No, he couldn't, you just killed him!" I don't care for the notion that the gods can't really do anything major because of nuclear detente. It makes the gods seem as if their made of porcelain. Mortals can become gods (Cayden), they can die (Aroden), or become utterly corrupted to the point that their profile changes (Zon-Kuthon). Heck, even a computer AI can become a god. They can be ganged up on and sealed away (Rovagug). None of these things caused the apocalypse.
I have trouble believing that any of the Outer Gods or Great Old Ones cares one whit about "Divine balance". Divine balance makes sense in a cosmology where duality is perfectly maintained but Golarion's about as far from being divinely balanced as you can be; even before taking into account Empyreal Lords, First World gods, Devil/Demon Lords etc. etc.
I agree with Darkholme. While I understand that the specific outcomes of of an AP aren't canon (as different groups will have different outcomes) but the general events have to be considered canon-applicable otherwise there's no point in having them in Golarion. Maybe the events of Jade Regent never happen in my campaign because I never run it. Nevertheless, I have to assume that all the events that could happen fit within the logic of Golarion canon. So I have to believe, regardless of whether I actually run Wrath of the Righteous for my players or not, that deities can alter players alignments at will. One thing I can't do is assume that AP's are violating canon; that way lies madness. But having deities arbitrarily changing a person's alignment raises a lot of questions that need clarification. If not, then the whole issue seems to validate all the negative complaints about alignments that people make.
A lot of these arguments make sense if you've been buying since the beginning of PF and have had the 10+ years to digest the rules as they've been released. But every year that passes there are more and more gamers who haven't had that luxury. I don't want PF to become one of those "cliquish" games that only the long-term and/or wealthy are playing. GURPS is a horrible example. With the release of 4th ed. (back in 2004), Steve Jackson stopped doing the wave of both licensed and generic splatbooks. I don't see how you could continue buying AP's without buying the rulebooks. Looking at the Mummy's Mask AP and the books it expects you to have, out of the hardbacks you need a fairly up to date collection. Add in the softcovers and it's overwhelming. PF has more softcovers OOP than most games (successful or otherwise) will ever release. The cost of entry makes it very hard on the new gamer and every release makes it harder. As I said earlier, I can't get anyone to play PF; they'd rather play 13th Age. I could write an entire encyclopedia of why I think PF is better than 13th Age and it won't matter because they see PF as too big an investment.
The problem I have with PF is that I can't get anyone else to buy the game because people are too intimidated by the 15 hardcover books on the shelf and they don't feel like spending the time (and don't have the luxury) to achieve the system mastery that those of us who have had 10+ years to slowly digest the rules have had. And if I go to someone else's game I find they've banned half the material I've bought anyways. That makes me feel like I've wasted my money. So that's no new people coming into the game plus me who is now reluctant to buy anything, regardless of how high quality it is, because it's unlikely that I'll ever get to use it.
According to 'My Subscriptions', the Iron Gods #2: Lords of Rust book was shipped to me on the 19th. I haven't received it and I also never received the confirmation email telling me that an item has shipped (which is what led me to check My Subscriptions in the first place). While that's still within the 4-8 day window of delivery, I've never had a subscription take more than 3 days to arrive after receiving the confirmation email. However, I never got that email. This is the first time a product has ever been late and the first time I haven't received a confirmation email so I'm worried that something's fallen through the crack somewhere. I don't see an order # listed under My Subscriptions.
What's the actual problem? Is it: a) Women are hyper-sexualized or b) Men aren't hyper-sexualized enough If the problem is "a" then the solution is to stop doing it. Doing the same with men doesn't solve the problem nor does it "balance it out"; it just creates two problems where there was one. If the problem is "b" then artwork, especially on covers, needs to be planned ahead with far more care and thought. Both "a" and "b" can't be the problems though. Either hyper-sexualization is wrong or it's not. If it is then doing "b" is just as wrong and if it isn't then "a" isn't really the problem.
Yes, but that hardcover book would be useful when you add psychic related player races, monsters, magic/tech items, feats, archetypes, spells/abilities, places, and psychic phenomenon along with those classes, archetypes, and PrCs. But not needed. You could say the same for just about anything: gunsslingers, tian xia martial arts, Numerian super science, Mwangi animism/totemism, evocation specialists, etc., etc. All that stuff is interesting but you don't need a hardcover detailing every possible permutation of its use. That's what 3.5 did, bloat themselves into uselessness. We don't need a hardback for something that's only going to pop up in two or three places on the planet. To be honest, that's what I didn't care for about the Gunslinger. Not the mechanics but the notion of making a core class for something that's ultra-rare outside of one point in the world. Most gunslinging, outside of the Mana Wastes and what-not, is likely represented by the Amateur Gunslinger feat. But once you make it a core class you've made it as common as any fighter.
One set in a place that hasn't been touched yet. I like to see Golarion revealed (even if not necessarily explored ). Pathfinder is very crunchy and that makes it hard to just handwave content for spaces on the map that we have nothing for but a name. Orbots, unite!
Whatever book they do I doubt it will be a hardback. You don't need an entire corebook sized set of rules to cover psychics (or whatever). Three base classes with some archetypes and PrC's will be enough. A lot of psychic (or whatever) stuff can already be done with the existing rules so I doubt they're going to reinvent the wheel (plus, I'm assuming, they probably don't really feel like churning out 200+ pages of psychic "spells"). I'm sure they'll do something eventually because otherwise all those places where they've already mentioned that such things exist just become white blanks on the map; they might as well not even be there then. I highly doubt they'll use another companies system, not matter how good; especially for Society play. That can of worms is just too big.
I bought and read 13th Age when it came out and thought it looked really good but I haven't looked at it since. Glad to know they're coming out with more stuff. I'll need to go through the rules again though. I'm thinking maybe a rogue/thief type. Everyone complains about how bad they are in PF; maybe I'll give the 13th Age version a shot.
Based solely on the information given, you did the right thing. However, I'm not surprised to hear a story like this. Going through forums for a lot of "modern" games a common recurring theme seems to be that the GM isn't really a Game Master anymore but rather a circus performer present only for the sole benefit of the player's giggles.
It's not an issue if you only worry abour reprinting OOP modules. New players can't get any of that stuff except through vastly inflated secondary market prices (and Paizo doesn't see any of that money either). There wouldn't be a reprint if the original never sells out. Telling new players, "You can't have this, you should've gotten in earlier. Neener, neener." isn't a sound strategy. The amount of material, its cost, the level of system mastery needed, and lack of availability for current edition products are all blocks to new players coming in; that's lost money too. PDF's can be nice until you have to print them out in a durable format at which point you're paying more for the product than you would have buying the book; also not attractive to new players. Paizo has a loyal fanbase but selliing only those who are already playing is going to give diminishing returns over time unless all current players buy everything that comes out. To new players, PF is becoming an increasingly harder sell.
You would only do a compilation when the original is OOP; in whole or in part. If the AP is still fully available then there's no need to do a compilation but once even one module goes OOP the market for it is pretty dead if you aren't going to re-realease.. That's the problem I have with PF: if you've been following since the beginning (or close to it) it's great but new players kind of get the shaft. There are a lot of books, it's very expensive, and even if you're willing to pay all that there are still many things you just can't get. |