Vernacci's page

All of these ideas are great from a gaming rules perspective - each sines in slightly different ways. But do any of them actually present a "specialist"? It seems that by prohibiting two schools, it forces the player to actually choose more spells from their professed speciality.

By getting to choose spells from any school, the Universalist has a strong advantage as shown by all the comments here. I'd rather see a weakening of the Universalist's special abilities (as they're really powerful) than making the specialist stronger. The two school prohibition, seems like a perfectly good trade-off. Don't think of it as a punishment, try something like: "If I have the cake, I can't have the ice cream." Each day you choose to have the special ability OR you can choose to memorize a spell (or more) from those two schools.

I like flavor.

See, I think of it as the cleric channeling positive energy through a link with her deity; not that the deity itself is using the cleric's body as a funnel to heal/harm people in the vicinity. The cleric is expected to uphold her end of the contract and use this link according to the principles of her church.

In that way, the cleric just taps into the energy and it does what it does: harms undead and just so happens to heal living beings.

I see the fantasy pantheon as more akin to gods from the ancient world: neither omniscient nor omnipotent. The deity in question is not sitting around waitng for clerics to ask for things like some demented Santa Claus. No, the deities tend to wage battles on a cosmic level with their nemeses or work to further their own mega goals. Order of the Stick did a great strip involving this concept, with Thor having to stop in the middle of a battle with Loki to take a call from a cleric, granting spells for the day.

So - to summarize, I have no problems at all with the healing burst as written.

The reason I am totally jazzed up about the Pathfinder RPG is because I recognize the flaws in 3.5 and have little to no interest in 4.0.

I have all the official 3.5 books from WotC (yes, all). I even have multiple loaner PHBs just for people who join my game and don't have a copy. As far as I know, they won't spontaneously turn to dust when 4.0 launches. So if I want to play 3.5 "as is", that's not a problem for *a lot* of people.

What I don't want out of R-RPG is a reprint of the WotC book with a few sprinklings of Pathfinder Chronicle SettingBits(tm). I am extremely excited about the possibility of P-RPG being more of a 3.75.

While there have been huge differences between the existing versions of D&D (1st to 2nd to 3.0 to 3.5), there is a feeling of progression; that each successive edition has grown from the previous one. Much has been ballyhooed about 4.0 having a totally different feel; that it doesn't represent a progression, but a separate game altogether.

I'm hoping that P-RPG will be that missing link. That Paizo will take all the problems from 3.5 that were 'fixed' for 4.0 and find ways to address them within a 3.x framework. Yes, there may be some conversions neccessary - but at least the conversions will be possible.

Take a look at Jason's Intro to the alpha doc. He points out that he began a 3.5 update as a side project. A lot of people didn't like the direction of 4.0 (they saw it as a totally different game that has very little in common with the progression that 3.5 showed from 3.0, 2.0, and 1.0), so he did what a lot of people have done: 3.75

Paizo took some time to decide what they were going to do and happened to pick up Jason's version. They *may* have decided to go that route a little earlier than two days ago, but probably felt they needed to have something to actually show when they made their announcement.

I'd be totally fine with a "Divine Crusader" core class that has no alignment restrictions. But the actual term "paladin" has roots that are far too deep to disregard, IMO. As does the term "Anti-Paladin", which I miss.

It'd be like having a spell called "Magic Missile" but only having one missile and making the player roll to hit. Why even bother?

Scott?

@OP - Many of your questions simply do not apply in order to playtest the information we've been given. Our job is not to design a new book for them - Jason's doing that.

Our job is to playtest the content we've been given; this means to actually play it as written. Feedback posted on a reading of the material without actually playing it is theoretical, not playtesting.

Sure, your initial impressions may end up valid, but at that point you'll know it and can provide concrete examples of where problems occured.

This whole thing comes down to "Whom do you trust?"

I, for one, have absolute trust in Paizo. Lisa was with TSR/Wizards for years; she helped shepherd the changes from 2.0 to 3.0 (alongw ith Rayn Dancey and a staff of extremely talented people). She has overseen both Dragon and Dungeon when they were at their critically lauded best.

Eric has shown his incredible talent and respect for both setting & system time and time again.

The Pathfinder campaign world has been recognized by multitudes of people on this board as a bastion of quality and enjoyment. No, it's not a 100% perfect fit for my tastes, but in 30+ years of gaming, I've yet to find something that is. But the negatives I've seen are rather minor things given the large amount of usable material I get out of it.

Given their talent and focus, one need not stretch imagination to the breaking point to think that the new update of 3.5 will be rock solid.

I am confused. Why does the approach seem to be all or nothing? In my average gaming month I cover two D&D games, some larps, a Mutants/Masterminds game, and assorted console games. Doesn't there exist the concept that a given DM will get tired/burnt out and someone who picks up the screen for a few weeks might run a different system? Perhaps one for which most people already own a large number of books?

I admit the large possibility that many people only have one gaming group and there needs to be a consensus on which system to use. But the battle cry that Paizo is staying 3.5 is just false and doesn't help anyone.

*Pathfinder* is staying 3.5 as are its support materials. *Paizo* will probably make games for whatever system their customers and writers show viable interest in.

The Pathfinder world was created around a certain conceit based on 3.5 ruleset. WotC has quite clearly stated that a big chunk of their set up is based on the points of light in the darkness and they are revising their worlds to suit that new (I hate this word) paradigm. Paizo had a choice: change the world completely to fit in and revamp everything in the middle of the stream to a new ruleset, or slightly modify the existing ruleset and attempt to correct the current flaws.

No matter which way they chose - a certain number of people would rise up against them and shout "Foul!" They've decided and no amount of chest beating is going to alter that at this point. IMO, the best thing would be to join the playtest, help give constructive feedback, and have a hand in creating a new version of a ruleset that we've enjoyed for almost 8 years.