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TL;DR version: Skip down to "Now let's compare to PfO" section and then to "Final Word," below: DISCLAIMER: This thread is not intended for flames, or ranting, or rude/attacking comments of any kind. This thread is only for the open and thoughtful discussion of the reasons WHY making PfO "could be" a poor idea. Why? By examining the case AGAINST creating this game, the developers and community alike can ensure that a core set of principles are forged. Despite any scope creep or change in operating structure, these basic tenets can always be represented, all for the purpose of ensuring a fun and rewarding,SUSTAINABLE game experience. In the interest of full disclosure, I have been playing fantasy RP games since I was introduced to the "red box" basic D&D game on my 8th birthday. I started off playing halflings (that repeatedly died) in my uncle's campaign and after some time started DMing my own campaigns. I DMed basic D&D through Immortals set, played AD&D sparingly, played and DMed 2nd edition throughout its natural life, moved to 3rd edition, DMed 3rd edition through all iterations and books, moved to 4th edition, DMed through that for a year and abandoned it, and moved on to Pathfinder. I am a Pathfinder Society member and GM, own most of the books and campaign sets, and venture to GenCon every other year. I have GMed many other campaigns in other game system such as Star Wars: Saga Edition. In the computing world, I have been a tester for many MMOs. I was in beta 4 for EQ, played DAoC, beta-tested WoW and LoTRO, played Rift and a handful of other MMOs such as AC, DDO and Eve. I was an early tester for Star Wars the Old Republic (since July 2011), and I am the guildmaster of a powerful Sith guild on an RP server for SWTOR today. All in all, I was there for beta or at launch for nearly all the major MMOs to release since 1999, although I did miss AC2, EQ2, and Eve (which I joined 2 years ago for a while). THE ANTI-CASE for PfO: Initially I was excited at the prospect of Pathfinder Online. The concept of a Pathfinder MMO was shocking to me mostly because of an inherent bias I once had. When my players were talking about Pathfinder's origin, I was the only one that was not sold. As I had followed the various paths of Dungeons and Dragons throughout the years, I had firmly established TSR (and later, WoTC) as the holders of all intellectual property for "true" fantasy RP, or at least a game I would want to play. Sure, I had experimented in other systems, all the way back to the original Marvel Superheroes game to White Wolf and other systems, but at its core, I believed, and expected those systems to be derivatives at best and glorified board games at worst. Thus, when Paizo really started making a hard run at launching its own game with the release of the Pathfinder Core Rulebook, I had to examine my own set of ideals regarding fantasy roleplaying. At this critical point in Fantasy RP history, the giant that was D&D was essentially becoming fragmented, and very few could remain in the middle and stay neutral or favorable to both sides. I knew some of these people involved in the crossfire. I had the honor one time of playing as a player with Ed Greenwood (creator of the Forgotten Realms). I had many discussions with the creative teams of D&D over the years, and Sean Reynolds had become an iconic hero of sorts, to the point I had him autograph splatbooks in which he was the majority author. These guys were on my facebook, and the marriage was coming to an end. The point of this section is not to pontificate on my own life but to illustrate an example of what some hardcore fans were going through. This wasn't merely a new edition of the game they loved, such as when 3rd edition was released and people had to ask themselves whether they liked the changes or not. In some ways, this was taking a years' long journey through life merely to end at a doorstep: do I choose door 1 or door 2, and will I be able to come back to this point if I choose either? We are not making this journey alone. We have friends. They have their likes and dislikes and rare is the group that can shift and just start playing other games if certain players do not like it. I pushed them to 4th edition and we played for a year. I think the last half was merely to humor me. Although I really liked the changes, and some of my players did, the majority of them did not like the power band, the lack of magic item power, and how "easy" the game was compared to what they had played before. Regardless on anyone else's feelings on the matter, that is what THEY felt. Thus, we moved to Pathfinder, and we were awash in creative juices. These guys know what they are doing. We loved it, and with good reason: many of the creative people we had come to like with D&D were working with Pathfinder now. Obviously there was synergy here. Fast forward to modern day, and we are still playing Pathfinder, albeit we have run across the same adages that plagued 3.5e after significant gameplay time: *Published campaigns end at too low level for our taste. Why build *Rules to 20+ and not publish modules to 20+?
Now, let's compare this to what has been discussed for PfO: *Persistent, sandbox-style gameworld.
*PVE
*PVP
*Resource Management
I may be missing a few here or there, but for now let us establish these facets as 12 operating principles of the game. It can be collapsed even further to say that as envisioned, PfO is a fantasy roleplaying game set in Golarion with all of the wonders of the Eve Online economic engine mapped directly to fantasy RP counterparts. Further collapsed, the game boils down to PvE, PvP, and mining. What does Pathfinder, the role-playing game, represent? In the classic "4x" strategy games, you have the following classic gaming vectors: explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate. In Pathfinder, three of these are fairly strongly represented, but each has an asterisk: *Explore: Pathfinder takes the classic fantasy RP genre and overlays it with a popular Pathfinder Society entity, whose mission is to uncover new secrets and delve into lost knowledge. Many games tie into these themes of exploration for fun and profit. However, this "x" has an asterisk in that although the game world is presented with maps and culture to provide a layer of verisimilitude, actual games represent only a tiny portion of the game world in a more-or-less railroaded plot style: A happened to B. Visit B to learn about C, and kill or talk to everything in your path. Some of these adventurers are more railroad style, such as the Council of Thieves campaign, and other campaigns are more sandbox-style, such as Kingmaker. In PfO: This "x" is further expanded to include exploration for resource nodes to manage, a concept foreign to Pathfinder gamers and fantasy RP in general. *Exterminate: Defeating monsters and humanoid enemies is part-and-parcel to the fundamentals of the game. A significant portion of the game (75%??) revolves around the combat engine and combat experience in general, and role playing opportunities are overlaid to provide a theme and enjoyable background for the experience. Character building and design, "return to the home town" role playing experiences and other minor events round out the game experience. *Exploit: The only real exploitation that occurs in Pathfinder is the accumulation of wealth and magical resources for distribution in the immediate adventuring group. Recovered items are sold, rewards are given by quest "givers" and money is consumed as a resource to procure more powerful mundane and/or magical items to make the party stronger, such that they may begin the exploration/exterminate event again. Countries, economies, mines, and other resources in the game world are rarely, if ever, tampered with except in rare, usually one-time-only situations. *Expand: Expansion is not represented in the core Pathfinder game, and only through the use of optional books such as Kingmaker is the concept even touched upon. SUMMARY: Of the 12 facets I presented for PfO, only 2 of those facets are presented in the standard Pathfinder roleplaying game. One of those facets, wandering monsters, is nearly absent in many games, almost to the level of becoming an optional rule. Wandering monsters are rarely presented in Pathfinder Society sanctioned play, and I venture that these encounters may only represent 5% of all encounters ever presented to any player worldwide. More or less, wandering monsters is a semi-rare event and not core to the game. Even with expanded rules in the Kingmaker campaign, the most "audacious" attempt thus far to introduce Kingdom management, only 6 other facets are introduced to the game world, and most of them only in very high-level, barely noticeable level of detail. There are rarely mines or other nodes that, once absorbed into the kingdom, provide a barely noticeable bump in overall resources. Even in Kingmaker, resources are only somewhat "gathered" (more like "conquered") and only barely "managed." The levers or controls offered to the group is essentially through the construction of buildings. It is a spend-points, drop-in-instant-building type of fashion. It is more Warcraft (the very first game) than Age of Empires. So, even by adding the Kingmaker aspect to Pathfinder, only 6 of the 12 facets are strongly represented in the game:
Two other facets, wandering monsters and resource node exploitation, are barely noticeable, if at all. Thus, at its best, it could be said that even emulating the Kingmaker campaign series (a series of 6 adventure modules), Pathfinder Online is decidedly a different game, encompassing not only a significant expansion on what building construction is, but it also escalates the node management from a mini-game to a level equal in significance to PvE content. PvP is almost entirely a new invention on these tenets, and harkens more to other MMOs than has basis in Golarion, or even any Dungeons and Dragons-style pen and paper game. FINAL WORD: In short, the PfO design documents are incredibly ambitious but seem to steer away from the core of what encompasses Pathfinder RPG as a game. Pathfinder RPG is primarily a character-based RPG focusing on small parties of adventurers undertaking very risky missions for profit and/or intrinsic rewards. They are heroes, anti-heroes, or rarely villains, and they build a career on risky ventures as they gain power and magical items. Only by adding the elements of an optional campaign (Kingmaker) does one even come into the ballpark of what PfO claims: a sandbox-style MMO focused on PvE, resource management, and PvP. The core Pathfinder RPG, at best, only captures one of those elements (PvE), and only via addition of the Kingmaker campaign does it even venture into resource management. PvP is entirely alien to the Pathfinder genre. Thus, PfO as written becomes an incredibly risky venture. If the focus is placed too highly on resource management, node exploitation, guild/corporation accounting, and PvP, the game that has been released would be fantasy RP Eve Online instead of a Pathfinder MMO. The concepts are neat and refreshing while applied to the Fantasy RP genre, but entirely disassociates and separates itself from what Pathfinder actually represents. RECOMMENDATION: Despite all of this, I think that PfO is a terrific idea and should be created. However, instead of focusing so much on delivering the Eve experience to fantasy RP, the focus should instead be on the Pathfinder Society and the exploration/extermination avenue. If PfO had half of the economic engine that Eve had, it would be a terrific game. Pathfinder characters are generally not involved in the fluctuating prices of manufactured suits of chain mail armor, much less the value of trade goods, such that it begs the question of "why?"
I have seen some posts regarding the use of heavy armor and how in PFO you should sink like a rock. I want to clear the air and say that in Pathfinder, full plate is actually quite buoyant compared to armor in real life. Don't believe me? Basic Presumptions
Remember, these aren't minor nobles wearing armor for sport or war, typically these are trained, seasoned warriors that do this professionally without the middle-ages lack of proper diet & nutrition. These are heroic characters with special abilities above & beyond the average citizenry or even minor nobles. Remember, fighters can eventually offset all movement-related penalties to heavy armor, so by high level these guys could theoretically be doing Olympic-style backflips and somersaults in their 50lb suits of armor and carrying 150 pounds of other equipment. Regardless of what the real-life counterparts are, let's examine the game itself. 2nd level fighter example: A 2nd level fighter wearing masterwork full plate (AC penalty -5), with 2 ranks in swim and an easily believable 16 strength has a modified swim rating of +0, which means that he can easily swim in calm water by taking 10. To put it more succinctly, a 2nd level typical fighter trained in swim is able to do laps in swimming pools, dive, and otherwise move around in water without even trying hard. In fact, he could carry another 25 pounds in gear and swim 30' per round every 6 seconds. This is equivalent to 3.41 miles per hour. Our fighter takes on the 200m freestyle, which is the equivalent of swimming an Olympic pool back and forth two times (4 one-way trips). Here are his times: 2nd level fighter in 150lbs gear: 2:11.2 This actually would have beat the World record until 1927, when American Johnny Weissmuller beat his own prior two world records. Swimmers, especially past WWII have gotten much faster, so now the US World record is Michael Phelps: 1:42.96 But, suffice to say, this time posted by our 2nd level fighter is still fast enough to win some high school meets. He is quite an accomplished swimmer, but what turns him into a world-class swimmer is he does so with 75lbs of gear and heavy armor. Conclusion: Essentially, a couple ranks in swim and a good strength are enough to overcome the dangers of swimming in full plate. Since virtually anyone wearing full plate will be trained in using this armor, and typically will gave a good strength in order to carry the armor, it would not take long for a character to overcome any chance of sinking, and in fact will be such accomplished swimmers that they will be quite fast under normal circumstances. Even in combat, things aren't entirely grim, for fighter-types will be able to hold their breath, even under duress for 1/2*their constitution score before taking damage. They can make attempts to resurface during this time, which can be dangerous since they are not fighting the monsters but saving their own skin. Thus, it isn't the swimming that is so dangerous, it is going underwater while fighting that is dangerous. Thus, stronger characters (and trained characters with some experience) will be able to swim suitably in heavy armor under normal circumstances.
Hi all. What happens if you take a unicorn as a cohort and you keep gaining levels? Unicorns gain experience points too! What if you wanted to play a Unicorn in Pathfinder? Apologies in advance for any rules violations. This is created with the best intentions of the Open Source Games Licensing Agreement. Presenting the Unicorn Cavalier! Unicorn Characters:
Unicorn Effective Level: Unicorn characters with a heroic class begins play with 75,000 experience points and are considered for most purposes to be 9th level characters (including as use for cohorts). For special effects governing hit dice, unicorn characters possess four HD of magical beast in addition to any class levels. Unicorns do not receive any proficiency in weapons or armor due to racial hit dice. Ability Scores: Unicorns with heroic class levels are not built like other characters. Instead, their starting ability scores are Str 18, Dex 17, Con 16, Int 11, Wis 21, and Cha 24. Then, apply the following modifiers in any order, assigned in a manner that enhances the class abilities: +4, +4, +2, +2, 0, and -2. Unicorns with NPC class levels do not gain these modifications and begin play with the base scores. Large: Unicorns are large creatures, often standing 5' at the shoulder, 8' in length, and are approximately 1200 pounds. They take up a 10' square without squeezing. However, Unicorn characters only have a 5' reach. Unicorn characters have a -1 size penalty to armor class and to attack. They gain a +1 bonus to CMB and CMD. They suffer a -2 size penalty to fly skill checks and a -4 size modifier to stealth checks. Stable: Unicorns have four legs, and gain a +4 bonus to CMD versus tripping attacks. Racial feats: Unicorn characters begin play with two free feats. The unicorn must qualify for these feats normally. Racial hit dice: Unicorn characters begin play with 4 racial hit dice, calculated normally. They roll d10s for hit points. Racial BAB: Unicorns have a +4 BAB before any other modifiers. Languages: Unicorns can speak Common and Sylvan for free. Racial skills: Unicorn characters have (2 + Int mod) x 4 skill points from racial hit dice. Their racial class skills are Acrobatics (Dex), Climb (Str), Fly (Dex), Perception (Wis), Stealth (Dex), and Swim (Str). Unicorns have a racial bonus of +3 to Survival checks made in forests, and gain a +4 to all stealth checks. Unicorn vision: Unicorn characters possess both Darkvision 60' and Low-light vision. Racial saving throws: Unicorns possess a +4 racial bonus to fortitude and reflex saves. They also possess a +1 racial bonus to will saves. All of these bonuses are derived from their racial hit dice. Racial immunities: Unicorns are immune to charm and compulsion effects from evil creatures. They are also immune to poison. Racial natural attack forms: Unicorns are always considered armed and always threaten. A unicorn gains a gore attack with its horn at its BAB (base damage d8), and gains a secondary attack with two hooves at -5 to hit (base damage d3) when using a full attack option. Powerful charge: A unicorn does double damage on a charge attack with its horn. If another ability grants double damage on a charge, then the combined effect grants triple damage. Special Abilities
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 9th)
Unicorn Cavalier
Role: Unicorn cavaliers tend to marshal forces on the battlefield, using their great speed, talents and challenges to control the flow of the fight. Outside of battle, unicorn cavaliers can be
Alignment: CG. Hit Dice: d10. Class Skills
Skill Ranks per Level: 4 + Int modifier. Class Features
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Unicorn cavaliers are proficient with all types of armor and barding (heavy, light, and medium) and are considered combat trained in all cases. Unicorn cavaliers are also proficient with all simple and martial weapons as well as shields (except tower shields), but cannot wield most of them without powerful magic due to their lack of hands. Challenge (Ex): Once per day, a unicorn cavalier can challenge a foe to combat. As a swift action, the cavalier chooses one target within sight to challenge. The cavalier’s melee attacks deal extra damage whenever the attacks are made against the target of his challenge. This extra damage is equal to the cavalier’s level. The unicorn cavalier can use this ability once per day at 1st level, plus one additional time per day for every three levels beyond 1st, to a maximum of four times per day at 10th level. Challenging a foe requires much of the cavalier’s concentration. The unicorn cavalier takes a –2 penalty to his Armor Class, except against attacks made by the target of his challenge.
A unicorn cavalier does not take an armor check penalty when a rider uses a ride check while riding the unicorn cavalier. A unicorn cavalier’s mount does not gain the link or share spells special ability. The unicorn cavalier gains his HD, saves, skills, and feats from being a unicorn with cavalier levels, so the unicorn does not gain most of the bonus abilities from chart 3-8 of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook. The unicorn cavalier only gains the natural armor bonus and the Str/Dex bonus as listed in the chart, using his cavalier level as his class level. In addition, at 4th level, unicorn cavaliers advance, gaining a +2 advancement bonus to Strength and a +2 advancement bonus to Constitution. This is in addition to the Ability Score Increase benefit gained every four levels. Order (Ex): At 1st level, a unicorn cavalier must pledge himself to a specific order. The order grants the unicorn cavalier a number of bonuses, class skills, and special abilities. In
A cavalier cannot change his order without undertaking a lengthy process to dedicate himself to a new cause. When this choice is made, he immediately loses all of the benefits from his old order. He must then follow the edicts of his new order for one entire level without gaining any benefits from that order. Once accomplished, he gains all of the bonuses from his new order.
Wild Empathy (Su): This works like the druid’s wild empathy class feature, except all unicorns have a +6 racial bonus on the check. Unicorns with cavalier levels add this racial
Unicorn’s Charge (Ex): At 3rd level, a unicorn cavalier learns to make more accurate charge attacks. The unicorn cavalier receives a +4 bonus on melee attack rolls on a charge (instead of the normal +2). In addition, the unicorn cavalier does not suffer any penalty to his AC after making a charge attack. Banner (Ex): At 5th level, a unicorn cavalier’s banner becomes a symbol of inspiration to his allies and companions. As long as the unicorn cavalier’s banner is clearly visible, all allies within
Bonus Feat: At 6th level and at 12th level a unicorn cavalier gains a bonus feat in addition to those gained from normal advancement. These bonus feats must be selected from those listed as combat feats. The unicorn cavalier must meet the prerequisites of these bonus feats. Greater Tactician (Ex): At 9th level, the unicorn cavalier receives an additional teamwork feat as a bonus feat. He must meet the prerequisites for this feat. The unicorn cavalier can grant this feat to his allies using the tactician ability. Using the tactician ability is a swift action. Mighty Charge (Ex): At 11th level, a unicorn cavalier learns to make devastating charge attacks. Double the threat range of any attack during a charge. This increase does not stack with other
Demanding Challenge (Ex): At 12th level, whenever a unicorn cavalier declares a challenge, his target must pay attention to the threat he poses. As long as the target is within the threatened area of the cavalier, it takes a –2 penalty to its AC from attacks made by anyone other than the cavalier. Many unicorn cavaliers belong to the order of the lion. Sample benefits are provided here for completeness. A full list of orders may be found in the Advanced Player's Guide. Order of the Lion A unicorn who belongs to this order has pledged himself to a sovereign; be it a king, queen, or even the local warlord. Unicorns of this order are stalwart and dedicated to their cause, willing to go any length to ensure the safety of their masters and their domain. Edicts: The unicorn cavalier must protect the life and lands of his sovereign at all costs. He must obey the commands of his sovereign without question. He must strive to expand the power and prestige of his realm. Challenge: Whenever an order of the lion unicorn cavalier issues a challenge, he receives a +1 dodge bonus to his AC against attacks made by the target of his challenge. This bonus increases by +1 for every four cavalier levels the unicorn possesses. Skills: An order of the lion unicorn cavalier adds Knowledge (local) (Int) and Knowledge (nobility) (Int) to his list of class skills. An order of the lion unicorn cavalier can make Knowledge (nobility) skill checks untrained. If he has ranks in the skill, he receives a bonus on the check equal to 1/2 his cavalier level (minimum +1) as long as the check involves his sovereign. Order Abilities: A unicorn cavalier belonging to the order of the lion gains the following abilities as he increases in level. Lion’s Call (Ex): At 2nd level, an order of the lion unicorn cavalier gains the ability to rally his allies. As a standard action,
For the King (Ex): At 8th level, an order of the lion unicorn cavalier can call out to his allies, inspiring them to greatness. As a swift action, the unicorn cavalier can grant a competence bonus equal to his Charisma modifier on all attack and damage rolls to all allies within 30 feet. This bonus lasts for 1 round. This ability can be used once per combat.
Other than the DM going "Hold on Skipper, I don't care what the books say, you aren't making money," what is to stop 9th level wizards from ruling the world atop their piles of cash? Example character: Human 7 Wizard/2 Loremaster, point buy. Starts with 16 int. Raises to 18 with +2 racial bonus. +1 point to Int at 4th and 8th = 20. Crafts +4 Int headband by 9th level. Int = 24. +1 Lore secret to skills. Take 4 ranks of craft (jewelry) for instance. +12 Craft (Jewelry) skill (+4 ranks, + 7 int, +1 lore secret) Suddenly the Loremaster can purchase raw materials (corundrum, uncut rubies, for instance), and cast Fabricate as a standard action, making (taking 10) valuable rubies. Buy 2,000gp of raw materials, cast fabricate = 6,000gp of jewelry. Sell at full price. Rinse and repeat. Obviously this is just one example. It could be done out of anything, although weapons and armor would sell at half price, generally. But if you crafted anything that was effectively currency, you would break the game by 9th level. Some ideas: Craft (coinmaking)
Now that I've spent some real time looking through the core rulebook's list of magic items (I normally GM so I typically use it as reference), there are definitely some 3.5 things I consider nonsense that still made it through in to Pathfinder. I have adopted a rant-like style to poke some humor and hopefully you will see my viewpoint of what is silly. The "chakra" concept of 3.5 is still here as slots, and many of them are really just begging for abuse by high-level characters who craft magical items. Here are the slots: Armor: suits of armor.
Here are my thoughts: The Body slot should be removed and Druid's vestments should be Chest slot. The body slot drives me bonkers. There are 9 noncursed items in the book that fit in the body slot. Eight of them are Robes. 1 is Druid's Vestments, which give one more wild shape/day. I don't really understand why you should be able to wear Robes of the Archmagi and Hide Armor of Heavy Fortification, much less Full Plate. It would not be a big imbalance if robes took the armor spot, and keeping both invites abuse by high-level crafters stacking abilities into both spots. The Druid's Vestments, which clearly are clothes worn over the top of armor, is the only one that I think should go with armor. Make Druid's Vestments a chest slot item. Still not convinced? Look at this: 9 items in the core rulebook can fit in this slot. There are FOUR more that are cursed items. Two are robes. That makes sense. The other two? Full Plate. If you carefully read the rules, and look at Armor of Rage, I could have a character that would want that armor and another set of armor as well. Yes, my paladin could be wearing two sets of Full Plate. One set she thinks is Full Plate +2 (and it is), and the other is a set of Full Plate that she thinks is Armor of Command, but is actually Armor of Rage. MY PALADIN CAN WEAR TWO SETS OF FULL PLATE. Why is that not wrong? The Chest slot should be reworked. This thread started with looking at a Handy Haversack and I wondered why it was an unslotted item. It is a very useful item; I argue that it is a necessary item for mid- to high-level adventurers, and it does not occupy the chest slot? Pathfinder did away with a back slot and has shoulders instead. Where do back items go? Is that not the back of the chest? Are the TMNT Shells of Heavy Fortification unslotted items? Why is there an entire slot devoted to THREE items in the core rulebook? They are: Mantle of Faith, Mantle of Spell Resistance, and Vest of Escape. Mantles are described as being worn on the outside of normal clothing or armor, so perhaps this is similar to a heavy tabard or a religious person's ceremonial garb (think holy vestments). It sounds a whole lot like Druid's Vestments, but those, alas, are body slot, even though the description is nearly identical (worn over the armor). The list above says that Chest slot is for mantles, shirts, and vests, but only 2 mantles exist and 1 vest. Druid's Vestments isn't a vest, apparently, but more like a mantle, except it is not a mantle, even though it is religious (nature). What is a mantle again? Here you go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantle_%28clothing%29. OK, I understand now. Mantles aren't religious vestments, but an overcoat. Is that why it is a Body slot item? I bet NPCs get mad at me because when I have to pay for something, I have to push aside the folds of my cloak and my vestments and my robe to get to my Handy Haversack that's worn outside of my Armor(thank goodness). But somehow, I still manage to procure anything as a move action. OK I understand. Druid's Vestments aren't really vestments, they are like mantles, and mantles are clearly not cloaks because cloaks are shoulder items and mantles are not. Clearly, Druid's Vestments/Not Mantles are Body slot items. Mantles of Faith--which ARE Religious Vestments, are not Body slot vestments and are thus Chest slot items. I would have worn a shirt instead, but alas, there are no magical shirts in the core rulebook. At least I know what slot they are. CHEST. I emphasize that because you can't wear a shirt under your vest or mantle. Well, actually you can, but it loses its magic for some reason that only the developers of 3.0 understand while my Druid's Vestment/Mantle of Faith/Cloak of the Bat/Wildwood Fullplate-wearing druid gets off scott-free. General Helm confusion--perhaps Head and Headband should be the same slot. Perhaps game mechanics demand separate magical item slots for these items. I am still confused about helms and other head items though. Although suits of full plate and any heavy armor (even light armor) comes with some sort of helm, when you get a magical set, you can apparently throw it away because either: a) The magical helm does not stack with your Helm of Underwater Action, or
In any case, you do not lose armor class for taking off a helm, so I suppose that all helms are purely for ornamental reasons. Proof that helm does not offer protection: http://www.downloadmunkey.net/images/blood-raven-captain.jpg UR doing it wrong:
UR doing it right:
The Shoulders slot should be renamed Cloak slot and Wings of Flying should be changed to Chest slot. So, let's see if I have this straight: I can wear two sets of full plate along with my robes, mantle, and wings of flying, but I can't wear wings and a cloak? I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I had writing it. |
