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I guess I haven't noticed if it's been missing previously, but it doesn't look like the Paizo Advantage Discount applied to my most recent order. Let me know if I should hit up CS via email, thanks!
I'd like to request the cancellation of the following subscriptions on my account: * Pathfinder Adventure Path
I believe I will lose one of my complimentary society subscriptions as part of this, and if this is accurate please remove the Pathfinder Society subscription. Thank you! Dave Coulson
I see the authorizations for my order (7493024) were just processed, and I see two authorizations - one for $208.63 and one for $15.00. It *looks* like the $15.00 authorization is a mistake, perhaps related to the $15.00 credit that's applied already to the order? Or maybe I'm missing something? I can't reconcile that $15.00 charge in any other way however. Thank you for your attention!
Yup that all looks great now. Thank you very much!
Hello, I see my new subscription order for the past two months generated. I see the Flap-Mat Multi-Pack: Forest product on the order (7493024) but I already picked that up at GenCon. Can you please remove that item? Also, it looks like the order is being split between the bulk of the items and Flip Tiles: Forest Starter Pack item. Can these orders be combined to save on shipping? Thank you! Dave Coulson
Some really interesting ways to think about how the classes are structured. I tried to make things work on the martial/magic/skill triad but the balance in D&D was never there for it. I was thinking that whatever class fell into the Charisma category would focus on skills, perhaps gaining skill tricks as they moved up in levels. Nothing really fit, and I still maintain that the sorcerer is a tack-on class. I liked classifying them by trained, experience, instinctive, and martial. That creates a lot of combinations. Perhaps just variations on each "base" class? I like D&D because it's easy to pick up for new players and easy to customize for experienced players. The addition of prestige classes in 3rd Edition opened this up immensely, but I really felt like the base classes should have been reviewed and reshuffled for the purpose of generalization. Keep up the ideas. I don't know why, but I really enjoy seeing other people's views on this kind of stuff.
I really like what Pathfinder did with the channel energy ability (replacing turn undead). However, I don't think they went far ENOUGH. Here are some of my suggestions for updating the channel energy ability of clerics and paladins: * Make channel energy a range of touch. This would would replace the paladin lay on hands ability entirely. * Add feats that would alter how channel energy works. Channel Energy Ray would focus the ability into a ray of some range. Channel Energy Burst would create a burst of energy with a range of personal. Channel Energy Cone would affect everyone in a 60 foot cone. Etc., etc. Create another feat that would allow a user to use positive or negative energy (at will? take up an extra slot?). I like the progression and the steady supply of healing. I like the fact that it harms undead, which makes the ability useful against undead but not useless against non-undead. It becomes a very usable ability of the cleric or paladin in most scenarios. Discussions welcome.
I really like what Pathfinder did with the channel energy ability (replacing turn undead). However, I don't think they went far ENOUGH. Here are some of my suggestions for updating the channel energy ability of clerics and paladins: * Make channel energy a range of touch. This would would replace the paladin lay on hands ability entirely. * Add feats that would alter how channel energy works. Channel Energy Ray would focus the ability into a ray of some range. Channel Energy Burst would create a burst of energy with a range of personal. Channel Energy Cone would affect everyone in a 60 foot cone. Etc., etc. Create another feat that would allow a user to use positive or negative energy (at will? take up an extra slot?). I like the progression and the steady supply of healing. I like the fact that it harms undead, which makes the ability useful against undead but not useless against non-undead. It becomes a very usable ability of the cleric or paladin in most scenarios. Discussions welcome.
The other thing to note (as others pointed out) is that basing the classes on ability scores is simply a starting point. You want the abilities of each class to benefit a character with a high primary ability score without penalizing someone with a mid or low primary ability score. Spellcasters are the obvious exception here - a low prime score means they can't cast their highest level spells. But a fighter with a low Strength still has a high base attack bonus, and a barbarian with an average Constitution still gets a solid bonus when he rages. I've mocked up both the Priest and Cleric in class form, with the distinction between them being the prime divine spellcaster (Priest) and the holy champion (Cleric). As written so far the Cleric spontaneously casts spells while the Priest prepares them, and I'm trying to come up with a benefit to preparing spells versus casting them on the fly. Hmm ... probably something for a different post. The Cleric I have so far gets spells starting at 1st level, but gets a new spell level every 3 levels (2nd level at 4th, 3rd level at 7th, 4th level at 10th, etc.) and caps out with 7th level spells. The Priest gains spells per the PHB cleric along with bonus feats. I'm trying to work the paladin abilities into the Cleric as well, specifially smite. Still working on the details.
That's the kind of discussions I wanted to spark! This was really just a starting point, some way to classify the classes. As each class gets fleshed out the abilities muddle the line about each class being stat based. Taking what exists already, the fighter is a Strength-based class but have no abilities based on Strength. They get feats, and in the PRPG armor and weapon trainings, but nothing based solely on Strength. You WANT a high Strength as a fighter, which I think is what the "stat-based" class boils down to. My biggest problems are in the Paladin, Sorcerer, and Druid (as stated above). If you get rid of these three classes (rolling Paladin and Druid into Cleric somehow) you are left with 8 base classes. I still really feel there needs to be a class that utilizes Charisma in a meaningful way. The Bard is the closest thing so far besides the Sorcerer, but the details of that class meant that you were really an entertainer. Not much room for a non-music variant. I wanted to make something that could contribute meaningfully to the party while still had a focus on Charisma while giving the player freedom to create a character different from other characters of the same class. I think that's pretty fundamental of a class-based system such as D&D. To have classes that are give the player options not restrictions. I love the idea of the Paladin, but c'mon - it's needlessly restrictive and contains no options for the player beyond a small spell list. The four base classes are pretty good - Fighters have their feats, Clerics have their domains and spells, Wizards have their spells and schools, and Rogues have their skills and (in PRPG) talents.
Seeing the changes implemented in Pathfinder to the classes has sparked my thought process, which boiled down to this: How the heck are classes in D&D defined? I don't think there is any rhyme or reason behind it beyond "hey this sounds cool" and "it's been in the game since the beginning." It's time to throw that thinking out the window, my friends. I wanted to start with by explaining my thought process behind this whole idea. I've struggled a lot with how to classify the classes (?). What separates them mechnically? How could they be grouped? 2nd Edition D&D broke the classes down into the following four categories Warrior - Fighter, Ranger, Paladin
Those were the base classes as presented in the 2nd Edition PHB. In 3rd Edition I started to break it down even further. Thoughts that came into mind included grouping by base attack bonus (low, middle, high), ability focus (feats, skills, magic), or traditional (warrior, priest, wizard, and rogue). Nothing really fit. Here are the 11 classes as presented in the 3rd Edition PHB: Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer, Wizard. Of these classes I've had problems with two specifically - Paladin and Sorcerer. The Paladin was too specific, and basically meant that all Paladins were the same beyond their personality (which with LG characters still tended to be the same). The Sorcerer was not different enough from the Wizard to justify a separate class. It had fewer spells and received new spells less often, which meant that a party with a Sorcerer instead of a Wizard would always lag behind in terms of spellpower. In addition, 3rd Edition took the approach that the party should be composed of four characters - Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, and Wizard. All of the encounters are based around the presence of these four classes, or at least classes that fulfilled their function. What did this requirement actually mean? You need a tank, a healer, a skill-user, and a spellcaster. That's the approach that 4th Edition is taking, and I don't really like identifying them as such. Too World of Warcraft-y. And then it hit me. There are six ability scores - Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. These abilities have been with the game since the beginning, and have persisted throughout each incarnation. Why not base the classes around the ability scores? Heck, 75% of that work's already been done! So you have the six ability scores, and you can divide them into two groups - Physical and Mental. That gives you six base classes. When you look at it like that you start to see how the classes came into being. Fighter? Strength. Wizard? Intelligence. Taking it a step further you can combine abilities between the two groups to create a few more. Bard? Dexterity + Charisma. While combining the aspects of two classes, these new classes took on a life of their own. With that in mind I started looking at the six ability scores and matching them up between the two groups. Strength, Constitution, and Dexterity VS. Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. Here's the list I came up with: Strength
Fifteen combinations. Looking at the list like that you can see some immediate corrollations between existing classes. Bard = Dexterity/Charisma. Barbarian = Constitution. Etc. D20 Modern took a similar approach to this but genericized it too much. They removed the classes and made Strength heroes and Intelligence heroes. Too generic for D&D. In comparing the list above to the clases there are still a few inconsistencies. As I stated earlier, the Paladin was a problem. What was the Paladin? A martial Cleric? Isn't the Cleric already martial? Isn't the Paladin really just a Cleric with less spells and a few specific abilities? The Paladin gets dropped to remove duplication. The problem then becomes what defines a Wisdom based class versus a Strength/Wisdom class. So I took a look at a niche that was missing - the pure divine spellcaster. Someone who eschews combat for spells, just like the Wizard. That relegates the Cleric to the Strength/Wisdom niche, which means their spells are going to get reduced (not much) in favor of more abilities. I'm thinking more specific abilities around Domains. The Wisdom class then becomes a pure divine spellcaster with no combat abilities. I'm going to call this class the Priest since that is what it is. Now things make sense - the paladin is now a Cleric of Heironeous (or other LG ideal) and the Cleric is now able to function as a fighting divine spellcaster. The Druid is also a problem. What is a Druid but a nature-themed Cleric who can shapechange? The Druid as written gets dropped and its abilities get absorbed into nature-themed Domains. The wild shape gets turned into something else, but I'll get to that in a moment. Taking the classes as presented in the 3rd Edition PHB here's what I came up with when applying them to the fifteen combos: Strength -- Fighter
Sorcerer is too much of a duplicate class to include, and both the Paladin and Druid get eliminated as discussed above. I think the matches make an eerie kind of sense actually - the Ranger is really a Dexterity and Wisdom based class, and the Monk combines Wisdom and Constitution. Now to fill in the gaps. Let's just populate Wisdom with Priest. It's abilities need to hammered out but getting the concept is the hardest part, which is already done. Charisma and Constitution are problems, and have been a problem in D&D for a long time. These two ability scores are pretty important for EVERYONE depending on how you view your character, Constitution more so because it governs hit points. Charisma is definitely a "throw away" ability score - few game mechanics are based around it. The fix for that is to create a game mechanic that is based on Charisma and to base a class around it. In 3rd Edition they tried this with Sorcerer, but failed to make it unique enough. So where to go from there? I toyed with the idea of making the Charisma-based class psionic in nature. It kind of makes sense - the force of your personality fuels mental powers. But the flavor never really felt altogether there and I abandoned it. One phrase that kept rolling around in my head surrounding this conundrum was "sphere of influence." I don't know why, but I've always associated Charisma with this phrase. Playing around with some naming conventions I decided to create a mechanic that this Charisma-based class would have access to surrounding the idea of "Spheres." Some of the names I considered for this class (since I think the name tells a lot about the thing) include the following: weaver, beguiler, psion, noble, wellborn, and patrician. Nothing jumped out at me, though I liked weaver (and Beguiler was a new class presented in PHB II). I've come around to the idea that this Charisma-based class was going to be an influencer of people and have abilities that make the party better, kind of like the Bard. After mulling the idea around I settled on Lord. The Lord is my Charisma-based class with abilities relating to spheres (like the Cleric/Priest has abilities surrounding domains and the Wizard has abilities surrounding schools). The name lord has kind of a noble connotation, but I think the name works - it's simple, it's direct, and it can apply to any number of character concepts. The Lord is someone who can stop a swordblow from landing, command men and women to do his bidding, and to control the situation from behind the scenes. That covers Charisma. With that in mind the Strength/Charisma class almost writes itself - Knight. This fulfills the honorable warrior role the Paladin previously occupied and creates a new class to incorporate more of the sphere based abilities. I'm going to start with the Knight as presented in the PHB II but take it in a different direction. Four left - Strength/Intelligence, Constitution/Intelligence, Constitution/Charisma, and Dexterity/Intelligence. You could make an argument that the Bard is really a Dexterity/Intelligence class, but I decided to focus it on Charisma instead. One idea I've always liked and haven't seen implemented well in 3rd Edition is the concept of the spellfilch - a thief/mage combo from 2nd Edition. Changing it slightly to be just Filch fills the role of the Dexterity/Intelligence class, which will have abilities akin to the Arcane Trickster prestige class from the DMG. The two Constitution classes took some thinking. I came up with the idea of a class who cavorts and deals with outerplanar entities, perhaps specializing in summoning or controlling. The Warlock falls out of this union (Constitution/Charisma). Not sure what its abilities will be at this point but the concept is there. Perhaps a focus on summoning (kind of like the World of Warcraft warlock). Still thinking on that one. To me, the idea of Constitution and Intelligence brings to mind someone who uses their body to change how they appear. With a little creative tweaking this becomes the Shaper - a classed based around the wild shape Druid ability but with expanded abilities. The Shaper could be a totem-based warrior or an avenger of nature. That leaves Strength/Intelligence. There are quite a few prestige classes that work to fill this niche (including Eldritch Knight and Spellsword) but nothing's really struck me as being the right fit for a base class. What about fitting the lame 3rd Edition Sorcerer into this role? Unearthed Arcana had alternate class abilities for all of the base classes, and one of them was the Battle Sorcerer - access to fewer spells but combat abilities to compensate. Why not turn the Sorcerer into this variant? I decided on that and thus the Strength/Intelligence-based Sorcerer class was born. Adding bloodline abilities from the Pathfinder RPG alpha release made sense. That rounds out the list, which looks like this now along with the classes primary focus: Strength -- Fighter (combat feats)
Fifteen classes. The new ones (Priest, Lord, Sorcerer, Knight, Warlock, Shaper, and Filch) I think fulfill existing roles and create interesting combinations that would otherwise have required multiclassing for lesser effect. Each class needs to stand on its own, and it also needs to make sense from a multi-class standpoint. So ... too much change? Does this alter what Dungeons & Dragons is on a fundamental level? And is it too hard to implement with existing sourcebooks? Thoughts are appreciated.
I've been following the Knights since about issue #17, but faded away from it around issue #104. Why ... ? I still don't know. I remember loving every issue, and now every time a new one comes out I look fondly at it and try to find the missing 20+ issues that I've missed. Local comic book shops here in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area don't carry much in the way of KoDT back issues, so I'm hoping to fill the gaps at GenCon. Hmmm ... I think what I was trying to say is that Knights of the Dinner Table is consisently the best gaming comic on the market that I've found (sure, they've had some lower points, but even those are manageable). I hope that the quality has not diminished in the last two years or so, but I also know that they went to new printing methods recently, so it looks just a little different than before.
Mmmm ... Shadowrun ... I own the 3rd Edition book and a few of the supplements, but the rule system hurt my brain (small though it is). I picked up 4th Edition once it came out and I absoluely love the streamlined rules. Currently I'm running an on-again/off-again campaign on Friday nights at midnight, with runs based on Metallica songs. So far we've gone through "Trapped Under Ice" and "Where the Wild Things Are", and I can't wait to run through such gems as "Stone Dead Forever" (takes place in the ruins of the Fort Snelling Cemetary in MSP'plex) and my trip down insanity lane trilogy - "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)", "Frayed Ends of Sanity", and "The Thing That Should Not Be". Mmmm ... Shadowrun AND Metallica ...
I like the per day spells as presented, as it feels more like D&D than anything else, but I also like flexibility. I say look at the Expanded Psionics Handbook for true guidance, and one of the things you would have to get rid of in a point/mana-based system for divine or arcane magic would be the increase spell power by level. For instance, take magic missile. Magic missile, as a 1st-level spell in the core rule books, is really good for a lot of reasons, one of which is that it gets better the higher you go up in levels. Introduce a point-based magic system and I think you would be better off dropping the increase in power over level, changing it to an increase in power based on point expenditure. If magic missile fires one missile at 1d4+1 points of damage, you can spend X more points to add more missiles, capping out an appropriate level. Same thing with all the level-variant spells - fireball, lightning bolt, scorching ray, etc. This seems like a lot of work, but it seems to be the only way I see a point-based system working for arcane/divine magic in D&D. Good luck, whichever option you choose.
Alas, you've found my weakness - slavish devotion to the rules which don't adequately cover situations like this. I wanted to make Copperbelt a cleric, but clerics don't have a lot of skill points, and I spared what I felt I could on the "non-combat" ones. But, as has been discussed in other posts, D&D as it is written in the core books doesn't really cover those bases so well. So what GGG suggested is the best, really, but I didn't want to just throw that in the adventure since it *technically* violates the rules (albeit in a small and non-game impacting way). I dared not risk the wrath of The Editor.
Now perhaps I'm just old fashioned, but I loved the Bloodstone modules. I converted H2, H3, and H4 to 3rd Edition (non-3.5) and ran characters that were close to 10 years old through them. I skipped H1 entirely due to my players' lack of interest in mass combat, but H3 had some nice military-ish maneuvering between the Witch King's forces and the forces of Damara. Also H4 (though it did have its flaws - such as the city of liches) contained my absolute favorite scene in gaming of all time. There were a total of twelve 17+ level characters who assaulted the palace of Orcus in a desperate gamble to steal the Wand of Orcus. While they managed to do just that, many characters fell in battle, including a one-armed man who became king of the dwarves (Axe of the Dwarvish Lords). The ramifications of this event are still being felt in my epic campaign, and we played four years ago. Freakin' awesome is what I say to that.
I wonder what that Gatekeeper inbox looks like, and if the editors poke their head into it once in a while just to see what it looks like. Must be scary, like the inside of a basement that hasn't been touched since 1968. People take a peek, just a little peek, and then flee in a mad panic upon seeing the carcasses of lost cats, stacks of old newspapers, piles upon piles of rat droppings, and a smell that would knock a pregnant elephant on its side. Hmm. Sounds like my basement.
It's been so long I almost forgot mine, but here's my current list: "The Dead of Night" (low level urban horror)
Most of them go back to September/October ("Face of the Devourer" was submitted on Halloween), but one must never give up hope. Never surrender! Fight the Render to your very last, 'til your body lies broken upon the blood-smeared flagstones leading up to Castle Dungeon. To arms, comrades! To arms! ... or not.
Well, I'll throw in my queries here. I'm waiting on ten of them, the oldest going back to early September. Here's the name list: "The Dead of Night"
At least one of these I am expecting to be returned in pieces ("Vault of the Lost Thane" is a little too similar to issue #142's "Bright Mountain King"), but for some of the others I've got high hopes. You know - high hopes ... I've got - hiiiiggggh hopes ...
Well, you know ... ummm, people ... they say it. And I think I heard it somewhere from ... umm .. you know, the THEM them ... I think. Or something like that.
Here's one more comment for the record. A lot of people say that high-level games require more work on the DM's part. I actually say ... yes and no. It really depends on the campaign and the style of the DM/players. For instance, I am currently running the World's Largest Dungeon for a group of 8 players, which we play about once every three weeks or so. I love the concept of the WLD, and the written material is great, but I hate the maps (stupid corridors going nowhere!). So, rather than having my players map the thing, I decided I was going to map out each individual room on a half-sheet of graph paper. Once they reach that room, they get the half-sheet, which they can make notes on and reference back to. This creates a ton more work for me, since I'm essentially trascribing all of the maps in the World's Largest Dungeon onto new pieces of graph paper. But the payout is worth it, and the work really isn't that bad (it helps me understand where things are in relation to one another for one). A lot of work - but that's the nature of the campaign, and I expect that amount of work to same the same throughout the levels (1st to 20th).
I guess the other comment I wanted to make was that D&D is fun across the board. Personally I find the higher levels the most enjoyable, but if I were to run a weekly game of PCs levels 15+ at that point I would be driven across that fine line of sanity. I've got a high-level campaign that's been going on for many years, but we only play about once every 3 or 4 months (if not longer). Playing that campaign any more than that would grind it into the ground, so we play other low-level campaigns in the meantime. In the end, high level and low level each have their pro's and con's. Epic, however, is where the game really starts to break down.
Personally, I really prefer high levels (10+). As a DM, it allows me the freedom to throw some really cool things at my players and expect them to come up with their own solutions. As a lazy DM this really appeals to me - I can just come up with memorable plots and scenarios that require the PCs to use their high level spells and abilities. In my own game we just finished up a beefed up version of "Heart of Hellfire Mountain," and the fight against the pit fiend Beltorius (who I gave eight extra fighter levels to) was one of my most memorable scenes in gaming history. There was a point where the half-ogre Ftr12/Dragon Slayer10 ran up to the pit fiend and was literally torn to pieces by Beltorius' furious attacks. The twisted broken body was casually tossed aside by the pit fiend's tail. The gloating roar that Beltorius let out gave the rest of the party pause to reconsider their foolish plan of attack! So, in ending - high level playing is cool, but it really needs to revolve around memorable scenes (the Hellfire Mountain adventure consisted of four memorable scenes which took a total of two 6 hour gaming sessions).
Thanks for the info everyone - I'll be sure to check out as much as possible while I'm in town!
Hey fellow Dungeon enthusiasts, Normally I'm a Minnesota man (western suburbs of Minneapolis, to be precise), but I find my feet a itchin' for the road. I'll be taking a trip with a few friends out to the Seattle area on Friday of this week and was wondering if there are any Friendly Local Game Stores in the Seattle area worth checking out. Thanks in advance for any information. "Weird" Dave Olson
Does anyone have any Eberron specific adventures they're waiting patiently to hear back on? I've got three that were submitted about a month ago: "The Hidden Well of Cazhaak Draal"
Just wondering what other competition is lurking out there in the tumbleweeds.
I'm hoping I just missed it, but I couldn't find the Standard Disclosure Form in the updated submission guidelines. Any ideas? (I've already saved over my previous copy of the submission guidelines!)
One other thing they mentioned at the Writing for Dungeon Magazine seminar (which was pretty frickin' awesome BTW) was that they are in need of Critical Threats and Campaign Workbook articles (1250 words NO MORE!). And just to reiterate, short low-level adventures (around 5,000 words) is what they are looking for now. |
