Steven Tindall's page

Hello and thanks for taking the time to read my post.

First if anyone has any of the 2/3rd edition books let me know how and where to purchase so I can build my collection without paying ebays exorbitant prices or Amazon's which are almost as bad.

Second I'd like to hear a little but about some of the heroes and or types that you guys have created. This thread if it gets any responses will be a discussion about DC Heroes before it became blood of heroes.

For example did your DM's bring in the Justice League as reoccurring characters or did your heroes and them never meet? Did you operate in a major city or wherever you happen to be at the time?

looking forward to hearing something.

OK I will try to keep this as brief as possible and still provide enough back ground to understand all the issue. Due warning Page numbers and rules will be cited this is a rules lawyer area.

During the latest game session my DM actually read the description of the clerics holy/unholy symbol under the equipment section on page 130 of the 3.5 players handbook. He is doggedly hanging onto the passage under unholy symbols where it says (or by neutral clerics who want to cast evil spells or command the undead)
Now by his reasoning any neutral cleric that chooses to command or rebuke the undead has alligned themselves with the forces of evil/darkness/kitten killers etc. and should not under ANY circumstances be allowed to cast spells with the Good descriptor.

I as the cleric in the party that is affected by this sudden rules change argue that on page 33 under the descriptions of chao/evil/Good/Law spells it says that a cleric can't cast any spells vs his or his deities alignment so I as a lawful neutral cleric can cast any seplls along the good/evil axis but am only stopped by the chaos vs law. Meaning I can never cast chaos spells.

My charecter is 14th lvl Lawful Neutral cleric of Wee Jas, naturally I have no choice but to command because it says so in the book again page 33 under turn/rebuke undead.

My DM is actually a very good friend and will be reading the responses here so lets please keep the discussion polite. I'm asking for rules clarification and opinions not insults.

I think that a neutral cleric should be able to cast spells like bless water, holy word, holy aura etc but because I use an UNHOLY symbol of a NEUTRAL deity my DM says they will no longer work.

I argue that the holy/unholy symbol is important for turn/rebuke NOT for general spell casting.

This is not a "please help me overrule my DM" type post.He and the rest of my group will be reading the responses so we can lay this to rest.

The solution of my charecter changeing alignment has come up but we are trying to avoid that if possible, if not, one quick attonment spell and he's brain washed to be as right thinking as a pelorite.

thanks in advance for your helpful responses.

Has any one besides me ever had a character morph into something that you as the player didn't intend for them to become?

Using storyline and role play I currently have a druid that is quickly becoming a business tycoon. We are playing Hollows Last Hope series as a pick-up game with only two players. The setting is in the Forgotten Realms in the area beside the silver marches literally just north of The High Forest and Turlangs woods. I play a druid of Silvanus since that area is very heavy for his worship the other player is a githzeri monk of selune with a vow of poverty.

After completing Hollows Last Hope and The Crown of the Kobold King. I find myself running a mining operation, several farms and a quarry. I have also bought up the rights to the land around the elder tree in a 20 mile radius to stop the lumber consortium from going any further and naturally I own the land for 20 miles around the iron mine after all dead kobolds don't need it any more.

The monk died at the end of the last adventure so all the treasure was mine to do with as I saw fit. That's how I afforded all my businesses.

All my decisions make sense as far as a druid goes, he wanted to stop the lumbering of the woods but in a way that still provided for the people a way to make a living. I created farms, reopened a mine and pay wages 50% above and beyond norm and still make roughly 1K profit every month. The quarry is used for building to reduce the need for wood in home building so no real profit there.

My question is this has anybody else ever had a character morph this way? You start out as A but through the course of the adventure you become something you never intended.

The title pretty much says it all but the background is thus.

Buddy got married and had a kid.
fast forward a year and a half to they now have a new home to raise shiney new daughter and life is grand.
heres the problem.
they moved 30 minutes away from the group to a small house that could not comfortably seat all of us.
We have been gameing at my place where 5 out of the 6 players live in the same town heck some of them are literally less than a half mile.

I have tried to child proof my home as best as possible and the place is always clean but the mother wants us to game at their house where child care stuff is readily available. We have as a group said no.

Then when they do come over even if were in the middle of combat or whatever they leave right at 6pm because of the childs sleep schedule! seriously? like WTF! put her on a blanet and let her nap on the floor.
or bring a play pen if you don't want her roaming.

When the parents do "play" they are too busy watching the child to be very active in the game so mostly their EXP sinks.

it has gotten to the point where I have been asked to tell them if they can't play longer at least until the agreed upon 9pm shut down to no longer show up. I really don't want to do that and lose a friend but we are all very frustrated by haveing to bend over backwards for a out of control grabby 1 and somethings months child.

Any constructive advice would be appreciated.

I keep reading from various sources about the trick the dems are pulling in their respective state houses because they know they can't stop the vote to limit union power from happening so they have effectivly "walked out"

In one source the vote I beilieve in Illinois is to stop people from being forced to pay union dues even when they themselves are not nor do they want to be union members.
I don't understand this as I have grown up in the south and union is a 4 letter word 'round here. If you don't want to be a part of the union then why should you be forced to pay?

Sorry I derailed my own thread, My question is should the legislators be held criminally liabel for this kind of underhanded and illegal action. My opinion is YES! How dare they hold up the work of the state government just because they know they are going to lose.

Discussion is what were here for folks but please lets keep it very civil because this is a very hot topic.

My DM is planning on running us through the SCAP as soon as our eberron campaign windes down.

I am trying to be as helpful as I can by giving him as much information as possible so I went looking for the web enhancments mentioned in the issues 97-98 and 102 but so far no luck. I have checked the wizards archives as well but saw nothing.

If someone could link or tell me where they are at I would appreciate it.

Hi all.

My request is can somebody please provide me with the name of the guy that was tricked by the midget chessmaster and ended up building a very basic computer as a result.

I remember reading something like this in a thread about 100 desicions that would have spawned an alternate history and now I can't find the thread.

I'm takeing basic programming logic and design this term and we have to do a report and slideshow presentation on famous computer scientists so I would like to do mine on this guy but can't remember his name or find the thread.

Thanks in advance.

Hi all,
My group is winding down on our current ebberon setting after haveing been TPK'd in Age of Worms.
I am trying to find another setting for my DM to run and thought of Savage Tide.
Can someone please give me a list of the Dungeon issues that it appears in so I can order them from Paizo, also is the Savage tide more easily run in the realms, eberron or homebrew? None of us are real fans of greyhawk.

also last question would the freeport material be of any use in this adventure, we have stormwrack but if this is a very nautaical themed adventure we can use some advice.
Thanks in advance.

Just read this on a movie site and I reread it to be sure but Jonny depp is playing tonto.
They havn't gotten a lead for the lone ranger as of yet but I'm just kindda floored that depp is playing tonto.
Here's an exerpt from the article:

Pirates of the Caribbean helmer Gore Verbinski and star Johnny Depp are reuniting for a new Disney feature film adaptation of the vintage radio property The Lone Ranger. Pirates producer Jerry Bruckheimer will oversee the new Lone Ranger film, which will star Johnny Depp, who will portray the masked man’s Indian sidekick Tonto

Now mind you maybe I am more racist than I thought but c'mon people can't they find a good looking YOUNG native american to reprise the silverheels role?
I went to a website dedicated to native actors and there are plenty of them. This IMO!!< please note opinion> is almnost as bad as the spanish guy from the village people running around in a cermonial headdress pretending to be native american just cause he's dark skinned.

Then again it's disney so they can pretty much do anything I guess.

Ok I'll try to be as brief as possible.

Setting 3.5 Forgotten Realms.

Classes, human rogue/swashbuckler,gnome wizard,dwarf paladin, human druid(me).

The situation: We as a group are hired to complete X mission, we get double crossed by the noble and beaten to a pulp. Wake up in a temple of Cyric(CE god of murder,lies,illusions)
NPC bad ass(ancient elven bladesinger) frees us and we fight our way out while rescueing kidnapped nobles,sacraficial peasents, breeding stock for half demons and various others.
All in all close to like 60-80 NPC's were counting on the 4 of us to free,feed and protect them.
We managed to do it with only some loses. I killed a babby because the paladin said he radiated evil so before anyone could stop me I bashed it against the cobble stone floor. It was a half demon.
The we got jumped by some bandits and lost 3 more npc's when the bandits carried out their threat and fired into the crowd.

Long story short we got back safe and sound and now we have found a mysterious map that will lead us on to the next part of the adventure.

My dilemma is: As a charecter and as a player that does like to roleplay and think in charecter MY duty and the paladins duty is rather clear.
We need to go back and bash that temple, destroy the slavers and make sure that the evil taint is removed from the land.
When I say evil taint I mean it. Any summoning spell I cast as far as natures ally summoned a feindish version of the creature due to the pervasive evil of the area, and this was outside the temple. No druid worth his title would let that cancer grow under his watch.

Should I just go along with what the DM has planned and ignore this obvious violation of my oath and the paladins duty IF we leave it alone OR should I request the DM flesh out what was supposed to be nothing more than a adventure hook before starting the "real" adventure?

I don't want to "over roleplay" something but I also don't want an alignment hit or loss of druid powers for failing to exact Silvanuses vengance on these despoilers of the forest.
Advice is appreciated.

I saw the upcomeing release and was really looking forward to it until I saw they had left out a major founding member.

Wonder Girl should have been in the starting line up but just like in the teen titans got cut.
Any body here know why?
Why did the animators that think the comics are great wanna change the entire make up of what made it great to begin with?

Are they afraid of the superboy/ wonder girl romance or is it the fact that they don't want a woman that can throw a truck around to give superboy any competion.
The Ms. Martian charecter didn't come along until way later in the series and the atremis/arowette charecter was second string at best. Cassie/wonder girl was the heart of the team, a reluctant leader but a very unique charecter. I suppose robin or superboy will end up being the team leader just cause.
I suppose this may sound like a rather feminist rant but I'm tired of the wonder line of charecters being ignored in film and TV. How many superman/batman and other super hero movies are out? No wonder woman project in the works. In the teen titans they had evey other charecter from the comic in the line up, but no wonder girl/troia. I guess cyborg needed to have the powerhouse role very securly in his hands rather than share. Maybe thats why the young justice cartoon creators did the same thing supers simply couldn't handle the competition to his biceps.

OK done ranting.

ok folks I don't know if this is old news or what but I have just encountered a new virus called ThinkPoint.
It shows up on your screen saying your PC has been infected and tells you to click on it to remove them, by doing so you infect your machine.
I know that it removes the .dat files in the anti-virus software so a full uninstall,reboot and reinstall is needed.

Sorry if this is the wrong forum but I didn't want anyone here to get hit when a little warning goes along way. Be warned this virus is nasty.
Good gameing everyone.

just saw it on the ic2 website. It's either going to be great or it's gonna tank like the horrible 80's crap where marylin dressed like cindy lauper( love ya cindy but your style is your own)

Anyone else excited about it or am I the only munster fan?

I just read from goodle that arizona is trying to pass legislation to deny anchor babies their rights as U.S.Citizens.

While their hearts may be in the right place in attempting to stop the flow of ILLEGAL immagrents this is NOT the right way to do it.
Our constituion is IMO<--- please note the IMO--> almost a sacred document that needs to be very carefully considered before changing in ANY way.

I am a full supporter of arizona's previous laws that mirrored federal law concerning ILLEGAL immigration but this I will vehimatly oppose.
There has to be another way. My solution is draconic but effective, if the child is born here and the parents are not citizens then they have the option of takeing the child with them and he can re-enter when he is 18 or the parents can leave the child here to be raised in an orphange. As I said it is harsh but effective.
This issue is not worth changeing our constituion over.

Ok folks my D.M. is running us through a home brew adventure cause we have already run through all other eberron adventures.

During the course of the session we found about 8 deactivated warforged. My charecter hates leaving things to go to waste so I was going to animate them as undead zombies.
The D.M. said no you can't do that because they arn't living creatures in that sense. According to all the rules I have read about warforged if spells such as raise dead and ressurection work on them why dosn't animate dead.
My question is simple. Can the warforged be raised as undead in any way shape or form? My charecter doesn't want them to have intellegence just be mindless slaves to his will.
I have scoured every eberron source book we have and havn't found anything to prevent the undead warforged template from happening and everything else I have read seems to support the idea. Any help as far as source books and citations would be appreciated.

I just read on IVC2 that a new thundercats series is being launched and they are giving it a more gritty feel. I have no idea how they are going to take snarf from any thing other than comic relief to gritty without just removeing the charecter entirly.
Any other thundercat fans out there?

When the DM askes so you've had 4 months of downtime to make stuff or do whatever what do you tell him.
This started because For most of my group the big strong burly fighter (played by a short pettite reheaded woman) answers "clang" meaning she's working on makeing masterwork armor or weapons. My wizard would be plane hopping all over the place and the theives would be running their legitimate business, cityscape is a great book. My druid in the current campaign is going all over the world to study the animals so he can honestly say "yes I know what a polar bear or dinasour looks like to shapechange into"

What do you other gamers come up with for PC downtime?

I just wanna bounce an idea off the community before I present it to my DM and he thinks I've hit the gameing crack pipe too hard again.

Feat: Expanded class weapon.
Restriction: proficient in limited weapons only not broad groups.
Benefit: Your list of weapons is expanded to include large and or two handed types of weapons you are proficient with.
Example: Druid proficient with scimitar becomes proficient with great scimitar/headsman’s blade/falchion.
Proficient with club becomes proficient with great club as well.
If no great form of weapon exists such as quarterstaff the character gets a +1 to damage rolls when wielding the regular version

This idea came to me after seeing the racial weapon feat and realizing humans didnt have any racial weapons plus wanting to have my druid be able to use a big large size two handed oak club but according to the list he's not proficient and suffers -4 penalties because of it.
Anyway thats my idea please let me know if there is a feat like this already out there or if it's a bad idea. Thanks.

This thread is is for 3.5 only although I suppose it could relate to any edition.

I'm wondering if MY group is the only one that suffers from charecters that are supposed to have a specific job/skill within the group and DON'T!

My prime example is a cleric with no knowlegde religion or a druid that has no ranks in knowledge nature. Mages that have no knowledge arcana or rouges that cant bluff.
Honestly it reminds me of second edition where you could pick and chose your racial abilities so that not every dwarf had stone cunning or not every elf was good with a bow. To me it just seems silly that if your charecter is supposed to focus on something and the rest of the group needs taht skill why wouldn't you?

Has anyone else encountered charecters like this?

I am a player in the age of worms adventure game my current DM is running.
We are all trying greyhawk for the first time so it's new for all of us.
I am thinking of takeing the landlord feat from the Stronghold builders guide and then getting the leadership feat to go with it.

My question is would these feats have any impact on the game? Can I use them to progress the story in a positve manner or would they be wasted?

As a unrelated question are the faithful of vecna open about their faith or not? My wizard is a follower of the lich lord and I need to know if the other churches in the area of diamond lake are able to do anything to me or not? I'm used to the realms where anything goes and dont know greyhawk.

We are starting a new campaign(Age of Worms) in a world(greyhawk) we have never played in and my DM is already having fits because of what we as players are trying to get away with.
For example HE dislikes psionics but he is now allowing it and having to learn the rules for it because he wants the players to enjoy themselves. He is loosening up on his house rule of no evil alignments so that my charecter can take demonic, psionic and feindish grafts.
All of this is alot of extra work and energy for running a "canned" module.
This thread is for any player that wants to say a public Thanks to their DM.

Jason, I appreciate all your efforts and time. I know you like running but our hack and slash evil minded, whats role-play group is not the easiest to deal with so thanks for doing it.

Can somebody please tell me all the source books that were used in the campaign because thats all my DM is allowing us to pull from.
So basically if Libris Mortis is used by the designers then we as players can use it for ourselves as far as spells feats and so forth. The reason I'm asking is because I need to know if the races books and the complete series can be used. Thanks.

I am playing a cleric in a newbie GM's game.
I came up with a great combo using the divine meta-magic feat and the sudden maximize feat. Mind you there is no lvl adjustment for SUDDEN anything because it's once per day; well divine metamagic says you can use your turns to get your feats lvl adjustment +1.
According to my math my cleric can now maximize his spells 8 times a day(3+1 for cha+4 extra turning)
The question is Would you let a player get away with something like this in YOUR game. The 3.5 rules state it's perfectly legal but it does break the spirit of +3 lvl adjustment for maximised spells.
I as a player think anything that lets me max my lower lvl cures is something to be used but I can see how it can be abused as well.

I got into a chat with a fellow player and he was wondering how both our charecters had the same strength but my cleric was carring 140lbs as a light load with a 15 str. score.
I pointed out that I found a feat in the planular guide that lets you have double your carrying cap. It's called Heavy Weight, it doesnt help with attack or damage but for a heavy armor wearing class it's an indispensable feat to have.
When I play a wizard I can't do a proper build without collegiate mage from complete arcane.

The question is, As either players or DM in the 3.5 version what feats are considered "must have" for what type of charecters.

OK heres my situation. I am not the DM for the current adventure but we havnt played it in over three months because of work schedule conflicts.
The one player that couldnt make it can make it for maybe one weekend every once and awhile. We have all moved on to other games, ebberon and a home brew, but now the ONE player can come back and wants to pick up where we left off.
Frankly there is no longer any intrest in the old game. The DM wants to shut it down because we are all 14th lvl and he hates running charecters that high.
My cleric is casting limited wish and saving party members from certain death on a regular basis and were basically walking through the dungeon that is set for 2-3 lvls above our current level. If any of you have played the forgotten realms adventuire anarouch you know the adventure I'm talking about.
My question is if your NOT the DM how do you bring up the subject or try to point out a game is dead?

I was hopeing someone could help me find a fan site for ebberon 3.5. We have just gone back to that system and are really excited about it but I want all the information I can find. I know and have fully explored the wizards website and archives but can anyone help with fan based or 3rd party sites?

Hi all. I would like some ideas that I can present to my DM or at least give him the link to here about ideas for a two person adventure.

I am playing a Half-orc rouge with the feats spell casting prodigy, collegiate wizard and dragon mark least at 1st levl. My stats are str18,dex 9,con17(18@4th)Int 16(prodigy gives me a +2 bump so its 18 for all spell casting)wis 9 and cha 11. I know the build seems crazy but I only cheery picked the rouge for the skills at 1st lvl, I personally would never play one as a class. I am going straight mage from 2nd lvl on but I need skills like spot, search and appraise as a mage. I picked the feats I did because two of them can ONLY be taken at first level.
This character is just as comfortable being in the courts of the noble houses or the royal courts as he is hacking through the untamed lands of xendrick or color spraying the attacking kobolds.
The only other player is a Halfling spirit shaman. He is beyond weak his strength is 6 but his dex is 20 and he has an ungodly AC @ 1st lvl of like 20 +. My AC is 12 so I get hit ALL the time. He stays at range and heals me.
So does anybody have any good ideas for a two person party where the main combat monkey is a wizard and a ranged combat spirit shaman?
I have looked on the wizard’s website and found some great ideas to give to my GM but the best ones come from other players so any serious attempts at help would be appreciated.

First let me start off by saying this is not an edition war, those things never made sense to me. Nor is this going to be a I hate WoTC/Hasbro or any other company for any sacred cows that may or may not have been slaughtered.
This thread was inspired by me reading some other posts and hearing the sentiment of "wait till I start my own OGL content company"
The question for this group discussion is.

If you could bring back or change any thing about any edition what would it be and why?

I'll start by saying I would keep the rules of 3/3.5 for everything else but I would implement the rules of second for the spells and overall feel of magic. The reason is I personally feel that having item creation feats you somehow cheapen the wonder of the magic items. My main example here is that under second you have to wait until your caster was at least 7th lvl for priests and 9th lvl for mages before you could even begin to brew potions. Then you got other scrolls at 10th and finally you could make all items by 12th. No feats needed you just could because you had reached "that" level of power. Now with potions only going to 3rd lvl spells it's never worth it to waste a feat when their simply cheaper to buy.
Another thing I would do is give the clerics back the turn the way it was originally. You use it against the undead,demons,deamons,devils but NOT against elementals or other crap I don’t care what your spheres are. That would also give evil clerics the chance to turn paladins again. Final thing Save-or-Die spells like Oh I don’t know maybe power word Kill! would go back to being save or die, the same with disintegration or slay living

I guess my companys tag line would be "3rd edition mechaniscs with second edition feel". No infrimgment intended to necro games.

What changes would you make?

Here's why I ask.

I was excited about pathfinder but after what they did to the cleric and the nerfed druid I dont care any more.

My idea is simple. I want to have the current 3/3.5 rules with all the feats and what not's in it but I want to give the spellcasters back their power. I am a firm beliver in the save-or-die type spell.
I want to use the spell descriptions from second edition and use the 3&3.5 rules for everything else.
Clerics and wizards only will also recieve free item creation feats the way they did in second. They wont get them until starting at 7th lvl or better and it wont replace the free feats a wizard gets as bonus. After all as a scholorlly type the wizard should get the most feats aside from the fighter.

Nothing else from previous editions will be used no "THAC0" or lvl limits on the short ineffectual races. The clerics will use the chart based on hit dice to determine turning effects and like in first and second they can also turn deamons and devils. I dont allow paladins in my campaigns so the rule of evil clerics turning paladins would apply but I stopped it because of the no pally rule.
The nature of the campaign simply does not allow for PC pally due to the fact the party will have to work with evil charecters, go to a city of necromancers(hollowfoust-Scarred Lands setting)and work with less than hero types and it's not possible with a captain_goody-goddy type.

I was wondering if anyone else had tried this type of game and what the results were like. I would value CONSTRUCTIVE,NON INSULTING critisim if someone else has tried this before.
Also if anyone cares I can give you camapign background so you'll know why certain race/class combo's arn't allowed.

I want to see the educated classes, wizard &cleric, brought up to at least 4 skill points + Int bonus per lvl.
My reason is simple they need more skills to do the job/role that they were designed for.
I will never understand how a illiterate barbarian or a daisy picking druid, classes not associated with scholarly pursuits, can get more skill points than a class noted for their knowledge or wisdom. If all knowledge skills are open to them shouldn’t they have the points to take advantage of the feature?
I'm not saying every skill has to be at max ranks but being able to keep up with the demand of "hey what’s that creature" would be nice.
My group uses knowledge skills the way the book says to. If it's undead know. Religion, Magical Beast know. arcanna but if the party doesn’t have a druid it's up to the mage to fill in on what a shambling mound or a treant can do. No Bard then hello cleric with a know. History lesson. But the skill points as it is do not support that.

My solution is simple. DO NOT penalize the other classes simply make the 2+int. go away for all(except peasant or adept) and increase the minimum to 4+int. for all.
Thank You
P.S. if this topic has been brought up before then I couldn't find it.

To sneaksy I understand that I took your comment the wrong way and I wanted you to know that before the thread was stopped I gladly accepted your apology because I was just as much at fault for taking it the wrong way instead of asking you first.

Second Again I agree with you that everybody should have the kind of game they want and I never meant to say otherwise but MY PERSONAL Opinion is that spellcasters are being robed of their flavor the more they are being underpowered.

To any Paizo type person that reads this I hated to have to start a new thread but I couldn't continue the previous thread and I didn't want sneaksy to think that I was being rude and not accepting his apology and be able to make one of my own.

That said on to the game.

I just want to rant for a quick moment about how sick I am of Politically correct D&D.
First it was Wizards are over powered and they make the butt hurt fighter class feel bad, then it was the clerics that were overpowered cause they could cast spells in armor(OMG!!) then so as not to leave well enough alone lets make sure the druid is nerfed as well cause they can shape change and they make fighters feel bad too.
Maybe it's just my group but we have players that enjoy playing johnny swing-stick and UGH-smash fighters simply because they do not have to have a complicated character such as a wizard or spell caster.
Now that the new Master craftsman feat has been introd. they are chomping at the bit to play a fighter that can do what brunar battlehammer did and make their own ageis-fang type weapon. I would like to say as a player of spellcasting charecters how nice it is to no longer have to take craft arms and armor to keep the fighter types happy.
The language of the game changing to make female pc's feel more welcome was one thing even though the druid in our party says she cant let her daughters read the books because they teach incorrect English, the male pronoun of he is the correct generalization in literary terms.
I can understand some modernization of the game,gone are the days of the bare breasted succubus in the game books or the fully anatomically correct incubus. I am just sick of the fantasy being co opted by political correctness that says everyone MUST be equal no matter what.
I want items that are class only again, with the right feat my mage is wielding a holy avenger and with the right feat the rouge is using the staff of power or the staff of the archmage.
I guess that I can sum up my rant by siting the old adage "if everybody's special, nobody's special" or something like that.
Anybody else wanna rant and rave about PC D&D go for it.

I started this thread because I wanted a forum where people could express the positive things they like about the wizard/universalist. I have made a separate thread so that it would not seem as though I am picking on or being impolite to anyone else on their thread.
I hope that this will help in developing a great game into something even greater.
I personally think that wizards/universalist are fine just the way they are and not "overpowered" the way other threads have stated. I also love he fact that necromancers are no longer lagging behind the cleric in the control the undead dept.
My main reason for wanting the universalist to remain unchanged is because it makes sense that it you don't specialize you learn more about all the schools of magic and thus can reduce the cost of metamagic feats. I played a few prestige classes that had that as an ability at higher levels and it was not overpowered or game breaking in the slightest. If you like the wizard the way he is now(Thanks Paizo!) then this is where you can express that.