Venn the Quick's page

It is heartening that many have come to realize that no nation has a monopoly on idealism. Only by throwing off the shackles of nationalism can we truly effect a change for the better.

Now it just needs to hurry up and ship.

Yes - "pending" too long.

Agreed - the Google earth lookup is fine, but it gives you events in the US (and not even the closest ones).

I love the Chronicles podcast, and Know Direction - each does things evry differently, without overlap. Way to go both of you! I just wish they came mroe often, but understand why they don't.

Actual play: Probably the best I've heard have been the Wizards/Penny Arcade ones (they have a Dark Sun adventure up right now). Icosohedrophilia had some good ones as well. Many others have food noise and chewing throughout the adventure - drives me nuts.

Were I directing such a thing with endless resources, the podcast would have video (or at least stills) of the battlemap during combat, and perhaps a second version with the GM overdubbing their comments like a "Director's Commentary" DVD. But that's a lot of work, so I'm not holding my breath.

You almost need to set up the game specifically for the podcast, and enforce table rules (like NO FOOD!) that make the game less enjoyable for the players. A recording or video shoot is an invasive procedure, it can be great for the viewer or the participant but rarely both at the same time.

(If anyone needs an audio editor for their podcast, drop me a line... )

If you do like this ides how would you do it ?

Hah! I just asked this same question last week. I figured that the sorcerer's magic should be more primal, destructive, and simpler, while the wizard can use anything given enough prep time. The question turned into a big mess of "who's weaker, wizard or sorcerer", "my optimized wizard is better than yours", and (for some odd reason) debate on the Leadership feat...

It's actually not a huge undertaking, I just went through the 3.5 PHB with a pencil and put a check mark beside every spell (arcane or divine) that fit with my sorcerer mental image. Now I'll do the same with my PFG core rulebook.

I think I will make some other changes, though - the slower spell progression many posters pointed to as something that should be changed to compensate for the reduced spell selection, but I' not sure I agree - realistically, sorcerers only pick a limited selection of spells anyway. The only real change to a reduced spell list is the need to use "Use Magic Device" to use wizard-but-not-sorcerer spells from scrolls or wands... which to me isn't that big a deal. I'll have to check out Book of Eldritch Might, though... I bet Monte came up with some good ideas!

Should have foreseen the effect of this thread's title, especially so soon after the "let's rank the classes" thread... to clarify my original question, I didn't think that there were power issues between the wizard and sorcerer - I thought that there *should* be more flavour differences between them other than just a slightly slower spell progression.

For the record, I'm working on a new spell list for the sorcerer for my game world that incorporates the more "primal"-feeling spells (arcane and divine) that I think works with the class. to compensate I'll remove the meta-magic delay and probably also throw in a few more skill points/class skills. Also, sorcerer has "Use Magic Device" as a a class skill, and so there is a way around the limitations of the reduced spell list that fits well with my concept for the sorcerer.

Thanks for all the great ideas, and sorry for the disagreements that seem to have com from this thread. (Still don't know how this moprhed into a thread about leadership...)

As expected, a wide variety of thoughts - thanks! Probably boils down to how each GM thinks magic works in their world - for example, I love the bloodlines, and don't really like the idea of charisma being "enough" to cast spells - but that's just me.

The point about the wizard being able to learn every spell is somewhat moot in this discussion, though - they have to spend money to do it, whereas the sorcerer just buys a scroll and casts it anyway. Sure, the wizard can do it repeatedly, but in most cases I find that specialized" spells don't get used very often anyway, so this advantage is largely theoretical.

Agree about meta-magic, though - I don't bother using them unless I want a villain who can engineer a situation to do something particularly nasty. Having to prepare spells as still or silent makes them so specialized, a wizard has to be fighting on his or her own terms to use them to full effect. if the wizard is surpirsed, those carefully-prepared meta-magic feats just make her spells use up higher spell slots without significant beneift. Again, another advantage that the wizard has that is largely theoretical.

"Evil" isn't only eating babies and summoning demons - the slum landlord getting rich off his immigrant tenants is NE, the city official using his power and influence for personal gain is NE or maybe LE. And evil doesn't even always mean bad behaviour - evil thoughts (and thus alignment) of a character who is kept in check by laws or social pressures doesn't have an "evil" effect on the community per se.

Controversial statement warning: if a 3.5 paladin walked through a shopping mall in most any city in modern day North America, he'd find something like 10-25% of the population had some level of evil aura - mostly Neutral Evil, or at least Neutral with evil tendencies. Everyone from the gangmembers to the bankers to the average guy on the street could have evil alignments among them... evil is everywhere, it's all a matter of degree.

See, this is why the alignment system is silly (except for fanatics and for outsiders who come from a plane of pure good/evil/law/chaos). In reality and in most game reality, PC's "alignment" will change with the circumstances, the need, their mood, and a host of other factors. This is where the "unaligned" category really was a good idea - it's where most of the world lives.

I love that sorcerers get the bonus feat "Eschew Materials" in Pathfinder, but this to me is just the tip of the iceberg in dealing with the differences between sorcerers and wizards. As it stands, the only practical spellcasting difference between wizards and sorcerers is how many spells they can learn and cast, yet they supposedly go about magic in a very different way. Wizards study musty tomes and learn the "proper" way to control and shape magic - sorcerers just *do* it. And yet, sorcerers can still cast spells like magic weapon, planar binding, permenancy, even identify - to me, these don't fit the idea of "you have this inate power to manifest magic", but are instead fairly complex rituals or effects that one wouldn't just "discover" they know how to do without at least some training.

I guess I think of sorcerers as more primal, using magic in a raw way, and wizards as being more controlled and therefor able to do complex things. (I realize this is a bias that others may not share, but bear with me. I also realize that maybe psionics were meant to model this, with sorcerers being a middle ground, but I don't use psionics in my games.)

Scrolls and wands pretty much let any reasonably-well-off character get around not "knowing" too many spells, so from day to day the wizard just has more spell choicess to split amongst their fewer spell slots than the sorcerer does. I think one of the benefits of a wizard's training would include the ability to learn and cast any spells includnig complicated ones, not just the raw, primal (and often desctrutvie) ones that sorcerers could manage.

So here's the question: has anyone experimented with different spell lists for wizards and sorcerers, and what effect has it had on game balance? I've thought about it for a while, but before try it I'd love to hear anyone else's experiences with this idea.

Your thoughts?

I wouldn't allow it - the printing press doesn't have "scribe scroll" and can't cast the spell in question, so nothing it makes works. The scroll doesn't just list the words and gestures the caster needs to say, the words actually take on the power of the spell, as if the creator were casting it into the scroll (they actually lose the spell slot or daily use when they scribe the scroll). So, something has to put the energy in there.

The idea of a magical press is interesting, but it looks like a slippery slope to me. Once you say a scroll is just a cookbook, you rob it of its power and anyone can make them.

Although, for spellbooks... which *are* cookbooks, essentially... hmm...

Would love to play or GM, but don't have the time right now to set up the whole thing myself... maybe someone's already done the work?

crossbows get automatic strength damage depending on the crossbow in question.

Yes, this was the point of the mechanical advatage of a crossbow: you got to shoot an arrow as hard as a longbowmen, without all that training and upper body strength. You could fiddle with reload times based on the strength of the bow or whatever, but frankly it's just not worth the game time unless you're a stickler for realism.

Any feat or BAB that allows you to shoot more than two arrows in six seconds is non-realistic anyway... second edition rounds were one *minute* long and yous till only got two arrows.

Dont' forget, though, the best advantage of a ranged weapon: it's used from range. That means the monster isn't eating your head on its action unless you're *way* too close! A longbow does the same damage at 99' as it does at 5', and very few creatures have a 20-hex reach or 100' charge. (For those that do, take the -2 and be 199' away!)

I would please like some clarification. The way it is worded it sounds like by doing 6 scenarios before the 20th that you qualify for all 11 lines of boons. Is this correct? And if not, what is the point of doubling the lines?

Thankies. ^.^