Vruskophile's page

I'm excited to see progress, having given up hope and decided that my pre-order was a sunk cost.

In the intervening many moons since the pre-order, I've moved on from Pathfinder; so, I wonder if WotA will be written with 3.5 compatibility explicitly addressed or if PFRPG will be the sole focus. I'm looking forward to the results of your work either way.

Bing Crosby's "I Wish You a Merry Christmas". Exceptionally smooth tunes from Der Bingle.

James May wrote:

Whatever you do, do not use dry erase markers on this! I picked up the wrong marker by accident and now mine has a huge ugly green boat drawn on the square side. My friends laugh at me each time I use it. Dry erase markers do not come off by any solvent I could get my hands on commerically. But I really loved it until I ruined it.

Have you tried an abrasive cleaner? That might help a little bit.

This last weekend I accidentally drew on my mat with a dry erase marker instead of my water-soluble mat markers. I immediately tried a variety of remedies with limited success. With this experience fresh in my mind, here's what I tried and the results I achived:

1) Alcohol - no effect
2) Draw on dry erase mark with water-soluble mat marker and erase - no effect
3) Clorox bleach pen - no effect
4) Bleach - no effect
5) Scrubbing with Scotch Brite abrasive pad - some success. Requires a lot of scrubbing and affects the mat's grid marks, but did diminish the marks I scubbed appreciably
6) Mr. Clean Magic Eraser - fair success. This diminished marks more than the Scotch Brite pad and with a LOT less effort. Like the abrasive pad, though, it does cause some fading of the mat grid.

After all of these efforts the marks are not gone, but they are significantly diminished and leave the mat in a usable state. I can mark over the areas previously stained with dry erase marker and there is confusion over which lines are in play.

Suggestion: Please make JPEGs of the maps, like those you have above, available to us map subscribers in our downloads.

Projectors are a GMs best friend and having ready images of your fine maps to project would delight me to an extent that most would find disconcerting.

The current plan is to release between 2-3 hardcover rulebooks per year, including additional Pathfinder Bestiaries.

I'll happily buy 2-3 books per year. Please keep the number at 2-4, tops, because while I am, fortunately, in a position to afford more books, I don't want bloat and garbage to flow into this new system that I'm so excited about. Please don't WotC me (yes, 'To WotC' is now an official verb; please don't ask me to give its synonyms on a family-friendly forum, though).

What form would you like these books to take? Would you be interested in subscribing to such a line, provided the books cost somewhere around $35 a pop?

Yes, I'll subscribe right now, looking forward to the books and PDFs.

What titles/ideas would you like to see us explore?

Psionics and alternative campaign settings. By alternative settings I don't mean minor variations to the standard medieval/dark ages sword & sorcery; rather, Vernesque settings, post-apocalyptic fantasy, etc. done in intriguing new ways

We're all worried about rules bloat. What is your opinion of new classes and races?

Additional classes and races are, far too often, pure fluff. Unless a class brings an entirely new experience to the game, please focus your immensely talented attention elsewhere

Are you as tired of prestige classes as I am?

Yes. 'Prestige' should come via compelling new content at a 'normal' class's higher levels, feats, skills, and in-game rep, not through new classes.

Jeremy Mac Donald wrote:

Mostly the splat books break things by allowing players to cherry pick to phenomenally enhance some aspect of their character. That can certainly lead to some broken characters.

However the core books are chalk full of stuff thats pretty busted in its own right. Its just overflowing with various kinds of save or die effects or even some really nasty, no save and your nerfed effects.

Y'see, this is something I don't consider "broken". IMHO, there *should* be things in a game that are 'save or die'. Hell, there should be things in the game that are 'you die'. Of course, it's all in commonality and how they are stumbled upon that make the real difference. I would say this is a personal preference and not a "broken rule" thing.

Well said, pming. Some of the best DM advice I've taken from the literature was from the D&D (not AD&D) line I owned many years ago. Of course, in that game at that time most saving throws were 'make or die' which could, for example, lead munchkins to coat every weapon they had with poison. The advice given to the new DM in the thin, paperback DM guide was simple, 'if characters start to use poison frequently, have monsters use poison more frequently'. Seems almost simplistic, but, in my view, this fundamental philosophy is the pragmatic answer to 99% of 'balance' questions in any RPG. If you're a DM and you find that a character, weapon, or rule is unbalanced in any situation, counterbalance. Make it up as you go. It's one of the reasons why P&P RPGing can always be better than MMO gaming.

There aren't nearly as many broken rules as there are broken DMs, in my view ;)