The unscrupulous Dr. Pweent's page

On the one hand, man, their library defense is never going to fly.

On the other hand—I have finally read Phase IV of Grant Morrison's Zenith thanks to the site! Enjoy it while it lasts!

Before my friend('s wife) had his kid, my weekly group was seriously considering joining the playtest. I think the system will be something similar to the system used for Supernatural with different dice for different attributes, yes?

Not at all. It's based on FATE 3, the same as Spirit of the Century, Starblazer Adventures, Diaspora and other. Four FUDGE dice plus the appropriate skill, though there are some semi-official variants substituting 2d6 for the 4dF.

I'm also very much looking forward to this game, though with a bit of apprehension as the stack of different games I'd like to be playing grows.

Bearing in mind that the last time I seriously played Shadowrun was in college, and that was the first edition days...

We definitely found with time that combat turned into an initiative escalation race. You either cranked it up high enough via cyberware or spells that you could get into the 3 actions per round range, or you resigned yourself to sitting out for a while when combat broke out. It was pretty disheartening.

Towards the end of our Shadowrun days, we started up a new batch of characters, and we did as you suggest above and put some hard caps on what you could buy to bump up your reflexes. Suddenly, we had a street sammy with Boosted 1 who was an utter fragging nightmare... and yet the rest of us got to play, too. It was a great balance.

I know 3rd improved the initiative situation over 1st - acting every 10 initiative counts rather than 7, everyone gets a first round before the extra actions kick in - but I think the overall lesson is still applicable. I'd worry less about getting the mundanes reaction scores up, and really just cap they implants, possibly upping the cost of the lower end stuff. And don't forget to apply similar adjustments to physical adepts and spellcasters.

We found every broken corner of Shadowrun first edition the hard way and houseruled the hell out of it, but it still remains my favorite system ever. I may get a 3rd ed game going sometime, but I'll be houseruling the dice to fix the TN 6-7 step a bit... =)

Can it be that no one wants to play a controller? I'm someone who is gladly filling the gaps in a party and so far, I haven't had the chance to play anything else. Now I'm no friend of the 4E wizard, but I really like what they did with the invoker and the druid so I'm wondering if this is just my perception of a non-existing problem or if there's something to it.

Really, I think the controller is still the weakest and therefore most dispensable role. Not weakest as in "Not enough power!", but weakest thematically, even post PHB2. I can tell you pretty clearly what a leader, defender, striker brings to the table, but controllers... not so much. They're fun, but it's hard to say they are clearly necessary, unless you're fighting a gaggle of enemies in each fight.

Honestly, while I do love the 4e wizard, it's more for its non-combat capabilities than it is for what the Wiz brings to a fight.

A lot of what they did would never have been

possible in 3.5.

It works in reverse, too. For myself, I want Trip back ;-)

It's funny that tripping should be the example you use. When we made our own switch over to 4th Edition in Age of Worms, the player who was most wary of the change was playing a spiked-chain wielding Monk with one level each of Fighter and Rogue, built around tripping and disarming. The character, Shiann, was rebuilt as a 4e Rogue using the spiked chain specialist pseudo-multiclass from Dragon. Within a couple of sessions, said player had decided that Shiann felt way more like what he was going for in 4e than she had in 3e, even after abandoning the disarming aspect of the character.

3e required a real commitment to make tripping a viable tactic, and even then, it often felt like fighting against the system. In 4e, she had a reasonable number of trip attacks which were nicely effective and played to what were already her strengths (dex-based attacks). They were expendable encounter powers, true, but two or three good tripping attacks per fight that probably deal damage or perhaps drag the target around at the same time made for a lot more player satisfaction overall in this case.

The game itself is proceeding nicely. Next week, the players cross the obsidian ring to investigate the Spire of Long Shadows. And after that, I'm very much looking forward to Prince of Redhand, which should be fantastic in any edition.

Jib, I hope you're checking out the Kamandi serial that Dave Gibbons and Ryan Sook are doing in Wednesday Comics. It's one of the standout pieces in the series. Gibbons is playing it very much as a post-apocalypce Prince Valiant, and Sook's pages are gorgeous. They're making some of the best use of the full-page format of any of the strips in the book.

Not every strip works as well as it might, but it's a great experiment overall. Of course, I'm a sucker for anthologies.

They've made some real progress in figuring out how to make minions work. The pod demon (and pod spawn) mentioned above is a good example, though I haven't been able to use it myself. However, I tossed a couple of black puddings at my party last week, and it was every bit as fun as I had hoped. And I was certainly aided and abetted by our tempest fighter, who held onto his Dual Strike for dear life, even as it became clear it meant popping out twice as many black pudding minions per turn.

Monsters that make their own minions steadily throughout the encounter are great. It really allows for minions to be a problem that lasts for the entire fight, instead of being mopped up by the second round of combat.

Another issue with the PDF, both pre- and post-revision: it seems to be missing the title page, jumping straight from the Drow Runes to the Credits page. The problem with this is that if you're viewing the PDF in 2-page mode, it leaves the odd numbered pages on the left instead of the right, and our two-page spreads are broken up.

I'm running Preview on Mac, and this seems to be the first time this has happened - earlier chapters of Second Darkness all display correctly. Same behavior on Adobe Reader, although at least there you can toggle the "Show Cover in 2-Up" option to get the display correct.

This is the Single File edition, not the multiple PDF version.

Shortly after getting the Campaign Setting, I decided to set up a Chronicles subscription. I checked in for a while, but each time it wanted to start the subscription with a new copy of the Campaign Setting. Apparently I've waited too long to check again, because now the subscription in my cart wants to start with Into the Darklands, which appears not to be shipping yet (or just starting to ship?).

Any chance I can still get a subscription starting with Gods & Magic, or has that window closed?

Yeah, I found the season premiere pretty disappointing.

And that's setting aside that the whole plot thread feels out of character for Suresh. Rather than feeling like a natural progression, it feels like the Great Hand of Plot shoving pieces where it wants without reason.

Also, regarding our Sylar thread, they've just undermined the entire first season.

You don't want to go around jacking with the premises you've asked your audience to accept. Since you're already asking the audience to digest a pretty hefty set of ground rules, fantasy / SF stories are about the most important place this rule applies. Season 3 is already triggering my alarms that they're going to fall down on this point.

mom!"

"Honey, let him reroll

is a death machine, not

Gee, this would have been welcome news a year ago.

Now? Well, let's just wait and see what changes are in store.

To be cynical: "We're going to have an open license for third party partners Very Soon Now" WAS the news a year ago. Sigh.

Water under the burnt bridge, or whatever. I do hope that this re-opens the door to the previously planned fourth edition Necromancer material via Paizo, though. And I think that it is another testament to the strength of the OGL that the GSL is going to have to undergo yet more revision in order to compete with WotC's own license of eight years ago. If WotC wants partners rather than (more) competitors, their license needs to meet certain minimum expectations set by the OGL. Well played, Dancey.

For anyone wondering about our plans for Pathfinder: FULL SPEED AHEAD!

Oh, no doubt. </omar_little>

I see you got the e-mail that we've fixed the PDF!

Same here. Looks great, thanks. Did it turn out, as you suspected, to be an older PDF profile rather than a newer profile?

I disagree with the specific formulation "We can't tell the kind of stories we want to tell using Fourth Edition..."

I'd like to point out that that is *not* what we said...

Oh, sure, come in here with your facts and your direct quotations!

That's a a really good point, and one I'm glad to see made. It's very easy for what was actually said get subtly altered as it goes from party to party. The actual phrasing above is pretty compatible with what I posted way back in the dawn of this thread - they're not incompatible (as the subject phrases it), but it's a lot easier to stick with the work that's already been done rather than trying to bend 4th edition to what you've established or vice versa. And again, while it wasn't explicitly part of the original issue, the final text of the GSL pretty much completely validates your decision.

I did find a work around for making notes.

FIrst you must open the document in Preview. It won't work in Adobe. Go to Print and select save as PDF.

Open the new PDF copy in either Preview or Adobe and you can now make notes.

Krome's workaround is a good one, and one I've used myself from time to time. As advance warning to anyone trying it, though, you should know that doing this will strip the table of contents. If you have call to make extensive notes, though - say, you're converting an adventure to 4th edition or PFRPG - it may be worth the tradeoff.

To confirm; the problems are only occurring with the 32 page Player's Guide, correct?

Yes. The Player's Guide is affected, but Shadow in the Sky displays correctly.

Vic Werth and James Jacobs commented on the matter a bit in this thread on converting Curse of the Crimson Throne to 4e. I'll spoiler block my summary and response - some moderate spoilers for CotCT and Age of Worms await within.

I disagree with the specific formulation "We can't tell the kind of stories we want to tell using Fourth Edition," I agree with the broad point that it would require a lot of design work in an unfamiliar system, and a whole lot of learning onstage on the part of the Paizo crew. And that's setting aside the issue of the GSL.

Krome: going 4e doesn't mean there are no barbarians / sorcerers / bards / gnomes etc. in the world; it does mean, for now, that it is difficult-to-impossible for player characters to be those things. That certainly makes for a huge pain in the ass for Paizo. It wouldn't have required remaking Golarion, but it would have meant having to go back and revisit a bunch of design decisions they've already made once.

I was having the same problem using Preview on my mac also. Works fine on an up-to-date Adobe reader on the same computer though. In pPreview, the problem seems to be with background graphics appearing over the top of text. So on the contents page the "watermark" was on the top of the contents, rather than beneath.

I'm seeing the same - with Preview on Mac OS X 10.5.4 it looks as though some background images are being rendered in the foreground, or without the alpha channel being respected.

The PDF of Shadow in the Sky doesn't seem to have any such issues. There is something weird going on with the rendering of the text "Second Darkness" and "Shadow in the Sky" in the page headers, though. They appear to be alternating between bold and normal text from page to page - fine one page, bolded into semi-illegibility the next. Doesn't interfere with use of the book, thankfully.

Care to disclose your given first name Wes?

Nope!

My money is on Fhqwhgads. Everybody to the limit!

I've got Gailbraithe's back in this one. I had mixed feelings about the Ang Lee Hulk when I first saw it - parts of it were outstanding, and parts aggressively goofy. The new Hulk film was better than I was expecting - it managed to be a competent, traditional superhero film. But the big Abomination / Hulk climax was just dull, messy, and full of irritating cliches ("Is that all you've got??" Argh.) The best thing about the film was Mr. Blue - I was glad all traces of that plotline were kept out of the trailers.

Last night I rewatched the Ang Lee film... and all the goofiness was just part of the charm this time. And the awesomeness was magnified. Some points:

- Bana's Banner was just fantastic. I love Ed Norton, and he was fine, but the movie didn't have a lot to say about him. Bana brings some fantastic scenes, though, my favorite moment being coming down out of being the Hulk for the second time and nearly attacking Betty ("He... sent his dogs... but I killed them...!")

- The 2003 Hulk was just... hulkier. They had a substantially better model than the too human-looking Leterrier Hulk (though I wish have loved to see something that looked more like the early concept art as seen here), and better CGI performance - the Lee Hulk seems more out-of-control angry, whereas the Leterrier Hulk just appears to put on an angry act - lots of roaring at the camera to show you how much rage he has.

- For all the rep it has as slow and cerebral, the Ang Lee Hulk spends most of the tail end of the movie in a single huge action sequence that runs from the military base back to San Francisco, goes through a number of distinct phases, and just flows beautifully. And still manages to work in ANOTHER dream sequence, giving us our Hulk dialog for the film - sorry, Mr. Ferrigno, but I'll take the first film's "Puny human!" over the more recent "Leave me alone!" and "Hulk smash!", neither of which had much oomph.

- Jennifer Connelly over Liv Tyler? Any day, any time.

And in the end, I am no doubt a nerd of a whole 'nother magnitude for critiquing a superhero film with, "It didn't feel like it had a strong theme that carried through and informed the final physical conflict - there wasn't really anything at stake beyond who would lose the fight." But, well, there it is. The final conflict in the 2003 film may have been nigh-incomprehensible, but a) at least it's actually pretty short, and b) it felt like it was about something.

Oh, and Nick Nolte's over-the-top performance? An acquired taste, sure. But the second time around, I just embraced the craziness and dug it. Watched it with my 5- and 8-year-old, who also enjoyed the parts they understood. I'm looking forward to watching it with my wife.

(And for the complaints about fighting a mutant poodle - man, are you trying to prove right the snooty Europeans who claim American's don't get irony? =) )

COAST-chee-ay. With a pretty slurred, drawled stop between the first and second syllables.

Of course, since I pronounce "barfly" as "BARF-lee" if I'm not thinking about it, the above should be taken with a grain of salt.

Clay golem is missing as well

Of all the golems to leave out, this seems like the most bizarre choice. After all, in the original mythology, the "clay golem" was the ONLY golem...

Of course I suppose if I want to make arguments about deviating from the "original mythology," I ought to start with fourth edition's angels...!

Depending on how you want this build to go, you could give Valeros ranger multiclassing to better benefit from his two-weapon style.

I considered this, but I liked the design challenge of sticking with straight fighter. I think that between the two feats and focusing on fighter powers that provide multiple attacks, it's an interesting example of how you can make The Two-Weapon Guy who FEELS like one without actually going for the Ranger powers.

BONUS!
For our final entry, we have the one cross-class conversion I tried. Here's Seoni, fey pact warlock.

Notes
It should be no surprise that, lacking a Sorcerer class, Seoni took more adaptation than most. The most gratuitous change was that I eventually knuckled down and exchanged her Int and Wis scores, for solely mechanical reasons. I manage to sleep at night by rationalizing that if I were TRULY out to minmax her, I would have swapped her Int and Dex. Spell Focus is gone, replaced by Astral Fire for a focus on certain spell types.

She's different, no doubt, but she seems like a fine Varisian witch. Of all the conversions, I think she and Valeros were the two that surprised me most and made me want to play them myself.

Harsk, the crossbow-wielding dwarven ranger. An odd build, since so much of Harsk's character is that he is an atypical dwarf.

Notes
We have no equivalent to Rapid Reload for Harsk, but multishot powers include reload time, so he won't be too hard up for actions. We'll probably go with Dodge Giants at second, since the giant hatred is one of the more typically dwarven things about Harsk.

As Harsk advanced in 3e, he gained the Endurance feat. I wanted to get some Dungeoneering in for him, but Skil Training: Endurance would also not be inappropriate in his future.

From Curse of the Crimson Throne, Seelah, Paladin of Iomedae.

Notes
3e paladin abilities are mostly covered by Paladin class features that don't require decisions to be made. Iomedae's portfolio includes Sun and War, and the paladin's powers are focussed around combat and radiant energy enough that most choices fit. The Longbow proficiency was taken solely because Seelah has one in the artwork; like Ezren, we could probably leave her untrained in it and take some other feat, but it is a martial weapon, so Iomedae would probably approve.

Jumping ahead to Curse of the Crimson Throne, here is Ezren.

Third of the original four is Kyra, who demonstrates some of the speedbumps in conversion of clerics to the new edition.

Notes
I miss having the abstraction layer of domains between clerical powers and the associated gods. With 4e, we can either rename an appropriate feat, or roll our own feats for each god. Apart from that, the translation is fairly straightforward. Her lack of Str leaves her a little weak, but not particularly moreso than in 3e.

Next up is the genesis of this particular project, Merisiel. She's a tricky one, as her skill set was substantially rewritten for Pathfinder 2 and onward. I've gone with the original skills, because I like Intimidate for showing her as a little thug. And because I didn't notice her revised skills until later. =)

Notes
Merisiel has undergone mechanical changes to bring her closer to her original flavor text. A straight translation from 3e would give her skill choices as Acrobatics, Athletics, Intimidate, and Perception; but how can Streetwise not be on her list? Athletics might get a nod via Skill Training at a later date.

Merisiel's primary weapon, the rapier, is now a Superior weapon. It was just atypical enough a choice that I wanted to retain it for 4e, so that's where her feat goes.

Merisiel 3e had a +1 Str bonus, and a flat Cha modifier, so she goes the Brutal Scoundrel route - she's never been much of a thinker. Her new stats give a nod to this. Ranking her attributes from the highest, Merisiel had Dex, Wis, then Str and Con tied. This Merisiel has Dex, then Wis and Str tied, and then Con.

And, of course, Int 8. Always Int 8.

Starting from the original iconic, we present Valeros.

Notes
Valeros keeps Dex as his highest attribute before racial mods. Originally outfitted with chainmail, I have given him hide armor here. His stats are identical to what they would be in chain mail except, being light armor, his speed is 6 in hide rather than 5 in chain. Scale mail is also a good choice, raising his AC to 18 and negating his armor check penalty, again at a cost of reducing speed to 5. The armor in his art doesn't scream any particular type to me; I think hide is as good a choice as any.

Two-weapon fighting no longer provides extra attacks, but the Passing Attack power lets Valeros make multiple attacks as he wheels his way through a crowd. And Villain's Menace makes for a nice one-on-one daily capstone.

I was apprehensive about how Valeros would translate to 4e, but I was really pleased by the final results here. He seems like a swift, daring type, capable of buckling a few swashes. I look forward to stating him out at Paragon tier at a later date.

Back when the Rogue preview was released on Wizards' site last year, I started toying with creating a 4e version of Merisiel, but eventually concluded I didn't have enough information yet to do so satisfactorily. Well, with the full core rules release, that's no longer an issue. Here's my versions of the iconics at level 1. Let's start with design philosophy and guidelines.

The original Pathfinder iconics were not designed for mechanical effectiveness, but rather were inspired by the artwork. Therefore my goal is to translate the flavor first and the mechanics second. I want to respect the personalities as they've been described, and as the mechanics have informed them.

The original iconics were all built using the 3e standard array. However, unlike the 3e standard array, the 4e standard array has no ability with a negative modifier. In some cases, the negative modifier is an important aspect of the character - Merisiel doesn't seem like Merisiel without the Int 8. Therefore, the 22-point array I am using for all these characters is: 16, 15, 13, 12, 11, 8.

I've tried to keep the stat blocks recognizably similar to the 3e stats, while working reasonably well mechanically. Sometimes I've based my attribute assignments on the original rankings pre-racial modifiers, and sometimes on the final attributes post-modifiers. They all work out well enough in the end.

In this batch, I'm mostly sticking to concepts that directly translate into fourth edition - don't expect to see even a vague stab at Lem the bard. Conveniently, I'm also not going to touch the iconics we haven't seen stat blocks for yet pre-Second Darkness, so monk, barbarian, and druid are out. My one indulgence in 4e historical revisionism is an extra-apocryphal version of Seoni as Warlock. (Valeros passingly refers to her as "that witch", and it sounds as though the 4e sorcerer won't be terribly mechanically similar to the 3e version anyway. And while I could stat her out as a wizard, why step on Ezren's toes?)

Here we go. I welcome any feedback you have.

A few quick responses after one night of browsing the books:

• I'm rather surprised and a bit disappointed that so few skills have "Trained Only" uses.

• I hope someday to learn how the multiclass rules evolved, because the final implementation seems, charitably, to be pretty sub-optimal. In particular, paragon paths provide some pretty nifty benefits that you give up entirely by going for a multiclass instead of a paragon path. I suspect most multiclassing satisfaction will be gained by taking a paragon path of your minor class.

• I wish the Feats tables separated out at least Channel Divinity feats, possibly racial feats as well. It'd make browsing these enormous lists quite a bit easier.

• As an Eberron GM, I flipped straight to the entries on Shifters, Doppelgangers, and Warforged as PCs in the back of the MM. It's very odd that they called one of the two Shifter varieties Razorclaw when the abilities they gave it are CLEARLY Longstrider.  =)

• I'm not sure yet whether Rogue or Wizard will be the class of choice for my players who like at-will abilities. Both are pretty compelling on that front, though.

• I really like skill checks feeding into rituals. It gives a nice taste of the often requested skill-based magic system without requiring a bunch of spellcasting-specific skills.

• I love the Combat chapter. Really nice summary of how the various maneuvers work, with bullet-pointed highlights and a couple of sentences after each to clarify and elaborate. Very clear and well put together.

• On browsing through the MM and just the briefest skimming of the DMG, I've started to come up with a plan of attack for converting Curse of the Crimson Throne to 4e. 2010, baby!

I'll be playing the fighter in Keep on the Shadowfell tonight. My first shot at playing D&D after a year and a half as GM of Age of Worms and a brief side of Hook Mountain Massacre. I'm looking forward to actually putting all this stuff into practice.

In Pathfidner #1, the sheriff of Sandpoint's in a relationship with the owner of the local brothel. Alas... there's no art to show it...

Dang, Jacobs, what sort of publication are you putting out here??

but they're an example of an interracial couple.

Oh. I get it. Carry on.

(Dirty mind? I, uh, blame the ellipses.)

My wife and I took our two sons to see it on Sunday. The five year old is into cars and airplanes and is the one who really NEEDED to see it; the seven year old, who is more into dinosaurs and dragons, wasn't hugely excited about the prospect, but liked from the commercials that there would be a girlfriend who knows kung fu, and a chimp.

It was pretty hugely successful. Our five year old finished the movie with both hands raised over his head in triumph (spoiler? =) ). Pretty fun, some truly ridiculous ass-kicking, and I think the people who said, "All the jokes fell flat! And the dialog was terrible!" were rather missing the actual comedy.

When I hear complaints about a movie that features ninja assassins and Viking automobile racers, I say to myself, "That man is a Red, that man is a Communist." You never hear a real American talk like that!

It's no Iron Man (which is a problem, seeing as how another movie out right now is), but it is a nice summer spectacle. Not to damn with faint praise, but it was one hell of a lot better than Transformers.

Wow. This really is great news. It's hard to name someone who has more Third Edition game mechanics credibility than Monte Cook. That's a really nice adder to Paizo's already considerable reputation.

Congratulations. I hope this produces some great results, and is worth all the renewed "Hey, Monte, how do YOU spell 'retired'?" jibes that are no doubt coming. =) (Edit - make that "already rolling in"!)

Ten things that I dislike about Fourth Edition D&D:

1) I'm the freak who liked critical hit confirmation rolls. I don't expect to be able to continue to use my Critical Hit Deck with the new system.
2) Having to wait a year or so to get Barbarian, Druid, Monk. (sorry you didn't make my list, Bard!)
3) From a story perspective, I'm not crazy, about daily martial abilities.
4) From a gameplay perspective, I'm not fond of daily abilities, period.
5) In time, I am sure I will learn to stop worrying and love the short diagonal.
6) While I think Wayne Reynolds does fantastic work, the 4th Edition PHB cover has struck me as pretty mediocre in both its previewed incarnations.
7) The rumored "Doppelgangers and Changelings are merged into a single race" change would create some difficulties in my Eberron game, where doppelgangers create something of a PR problem for changelings.
8) Schroedinger's hit points. It's going to take some re-learning to describe injuries in a way that martial / morale-based healing powers won't seem completely unlikely.
9) Some elements of DDI are Windows-only, which means I won't be subscribing.
10) Fourth Edition makes mommy and daddy fight all the time.

Actually, I'm going to give a bonus entry, which is not directly about 4th Edition itself:
10.5) Schroedinger's GSL. If it does indeed have a per-company poison pill against OGL based publications, I shall be quite put out. [/Humperdinck] I'm disappointed that I'll have to translate any further Pathfinder I run to 4th Edition myself; if the GSL comes out in a form that prevents Paizo from creating any 4e adventures while they publish Pathfinder RPG products, or prevents Sinister Adventures from publishing material for fourth edition, then 4e may find it has a limited lifespan with me. I really want to see this license come out of limbo.

Ten things that I like about fourth edition D&D:

1) Per-encounter abilities. While I thought about making spells per-encounter a couple of years ago, I decided I'd have to pretty much rewrite and playtest the entire spell list, and that wasn't worth my time. Glad to have someone else do it for me!
2) Healing surges. Mearls' notes for Iron Heroes summed up nicely the need for characters to be able to take more damage per day than they can take in a singe fight. Healing Surges looks like the best implementation of this need I've seen in a hit point based system so far.
3) Minion monsters. One of my favorite elements of Feng Shui, Seventh Sea, and so many others.
4) Solo monsters. In particular, the attempt to address the economy of actions when you have a party of 4-5 PCs fighting a single tough opponent, allowing for the BBEG to wear the party down rather than simply going nova on a single character.
5) The promise of shorter combat rounds. When I was running The Whispering Cairn, combats went so fast! Tomorrow night I expect to run the final arena battle of The Champion's Belt, and I expect it'll only get slower and slower from here.
6) Magic items so far appear to all have an effect beyond a simple plus.
7) Simplified light vs. heavy armor distinction, with a big gap in the AC each provide. It's possible I might see players wear hide armor by choice!
8) Resolving many of my multiclassing woes: First level characters who can already be fighter-wizards. No more single-level dipping. No more character sheets with three base classes and two prestige classes. No more prestige classes, period - this brings me joy.
9) The yearly three-volume campaign setting model. Whether it works out this way or not, it ought to be an opportunity to have settings that deviate from D&D baseline more. I really hope to see Dark Sun 4e, and I hope it's a reboot.
10) Simpler rules with better guidelines for on-the-fly maneuvers and monsters.

We'll see how it all falls out. On paper, though, it continues to look really good.

I think it's pretty easy to tweak the setup slightly to ensure the PCs will get involved. I expect I'll have Cressida ask them not just to see if the body dump exists, but if they are, to figure out who is dumping the bodies there so that we can put an end to this public health hazard.

This should encourage the PCs either to investigate the bodies in an attempt to figure out what part of town they're coming from, or to set up a watch on the bodies and wait for those lazy corpse collectors to come drop off a new load. In the first case, they most likely notice the condition of the bodies. In the latter, come nightfall they'll get witness a little vampiric activity.

Heh. I think I just got my contrarian nature slapped in my face. Reading the above (and seeing the dreaded An*me complaint dragged out again), I popped open my PDF of EfOK so that I could come back here and defend the picture of Laori...

...and, boy, I just cannot. Anime, shmanime -- what has happened to that poor girl's SPINE?

Dear God
XTC

Screw Face
by Bob Marley

I'm interested in trying to convert the Curse of the Crimson Throne to 4th Edition. Has any one here started this conversion?

I've looked at it a bit, but very quickly concluded I'm going to want the full rules before I get into it. Spoilers, in case we've got players here:

Honestly, while I think we'll be able to use the rules pretty quickly once they come out, I think it'll take a little practice before we can use the rules well.

I'm not planning to buy the final at this time. Which doesn't mean I'm planning NOT to buy, either; it'll depend on how the product evolves.

I'm not really sure what its niche would be for me, honestly. I foresee 4e as filling my need for a substantial overhaul, and if I were planning to play a 3.5-like system again, I have a deep yearning to run a Dark Sun game using Iron Heroes. Pathfinder RPG has a weird mandate in wanting to stay close enough to 3.5 to maintain transparency, while needing (for my group, at least) to offer something distinct enough to encourage me not to just stick with 3.5 for future games.

The goblin shirt should really be just the Reynolds goblins and Pathfinder logo on front and unchanged 'we be' song on the back. As is, the design is too cluttered.

Wise man, that Taliesin. The above earns a "me too!"

Pledging for the Golem design, because it's nice, simple, and striking while uncluttered. I'd probably pledge on a revised goblin design.

Brainless Wonder
by NoMeansNo

PC Name: Workgroup D, a.k.a "Purity" (Fighter / Barbarian / Warforged Juggernaut)
Adventure: The Champion's Belt
Location of Death: The Arena, Day Four of the Champions' Games
Catalyst: Heedless Charge against Madtooth the Hungry

Full Description: Having wasted many of their buff spells earlier in the day when they were originally slated to fight Madtooth, the members of Hammer Time chose to conserve their resources until they knoew the fight would go on, casting only a single round of buffs as Madtooth's cage was opened. Purity charged in recklessly, leaving himself completely open as he swung at the enormous creature. In pain, Madtooth turned its full attention against the warforged, battering him with all four of its tentacles and ensnaring him with its tongue. His teammates stayed at range, hoping to damage the beast enough to free Purity without exposing themselves to certain death.

It wasn't enough. The tongue retracted, and Purity disappeared down the enormous gullet. His teammates saw a spikey shoulder puncture through the beast's stomach shortly afterwards, but the gap was not large enough to extract himself, and the warforged's struggling quickly subsided.

[Purity's player wants me to note that he attributes his death to metagaming, thinking that if the party was going to be expected to expend resources exploring the recently discovered under-arena that evening, they must not actually need them for this fight. Therefore he abstained from the Iron Construct infusion that would otherwise have been cast on him, giving him DR15 / Adamantine. Alas! But really, half the party is blaming themselves for this death. Everyone had something they might have done. So long, Purity. We look forward to seeing what you reincarnate as.]

The unscrupulous Dr. Pweent wrote:

Pitch Blade, as 10th level barbarians, should have 4 feats apiece. They have 5 listed. The simplest fix is to swap out the bastard swords for dwarven waraxes and dropping the exotic Weapon feat.

Also on Drusfan and Pharbol, they attack +11/+6 (or +13/+8 in rage). The atk calculation, however, tells us a very different thing:

BAB +10
Str +4
Potion of Bull's Strength +2
+1 sword +1
Weapon Focus +1
Power Atk -5
total: +13

The Potion of Bull's Strength is already accounted for in their stat block (their unmodified Str is 14). So the correct total is +11, as listed. Same for each of these other corrections you've listed.

"Down in the Park"
Gary Numan

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Thanks, Corey.