Werebat's page

Eberron is far more inclusive of race and culture than Golarion, regardless of "intent".

There is no question that Paizo really TRIED to be inclusive, or progressive, or whatever adjective you want to use to mean "accepting of and welcoming to people with traits outside of the mainstream".

That isn't what I asked about, though. I asked about which setting really WAS more inclusive, not which one TRIED to be more inclusive.

WRT the LGBTQ community, Golarion offers officially LGBTQ NPCs in positions of power and authority. WRT women, Golarion offers female NPCs in positions of power and authority.

But Eberron does that too. Changelings are by their very nature physically genderfluid, able to become male or female, cis-gender or trans-gender, or anything along a whole spectrum of sex and gender, at will. Warforged are asexual beings (and I am not certain that even Golarion has featured any overtly asexual beings in positions of power and authority) who (mostly) lack gender.

Meanwhile, Eberron's version of the Catholic Church is run by a young woman, the Blood of Vol was founded by a female, and there are several nations and Houses led by females.

So these are mostly a wash.

Now imagine that you are a foreigner, a non-White foreigner, sitting down to play an RPG.

Both campaign settings let you play humans of various ethnicities and cultures. While some of these may superficially resemble real-world ethnicities and cultures, none are exact matches, so this is a wash.

But look more closely. One of the campaign settings features humanoids -- people -- whose identity as people is so denigrated that they seem to exist simply to be killed by the heroes, their lives, land, and property forfeit to members of the PC races by virtue of their race. These people have little or no culture to speak of, no history of import, no contributions to the world they live in. They are "critters" who exist to be slain by their racial superiors.

The other setting has those same humanoids, but developed culturally and historically such that their personhood cannot be denied by simple virtue of their not being a part of the dominant race(s) and culture(s) of the world. In Eberron, goblins ruled the main continent once, and (together with orcs) they saved the world from alien monstrosities. Their cultures may be flawed, but so are those of the humans, gnomes, dwarves, and other PC races that share the world with them. While their cultures may tend towards violence, confrontation, slavery, and other "evil" (or at least unsavory) things, they are also worthy of respect and consideration in their own right, and have undeniably contributed to the history and growth of the world.

As a foreign national and member of a culture other than that of the USA/EU, I know which setting *I* would feel to be more of a comfortable "safe space" to game in.

And it may be that WotC was not aiming for this, while Paizo was -- but that is irrelevant. The fact remains.

Depends on how you define 'Progressive' [I am certainly not a fan of economic policies labeled such.]

I'd say Eberron's treatment of the gods as 'maybe yes maybe no' is pretty progressive.

Good point -- I had not even considered Eberron's treatment of religion.

I have a problem. One of my players has created a "broken" character, that is to say that she is ridiculously powerful.

There are no overpowered characters -- only insufficiently creative GMs.

(Annoying weasel noises and tittering, smarmy laughter)

Pathfinder is not a cookie.

If you're playing 3.5, you're playing 3.5.

If you're playing Pathfinder, you're playing Pathfinder.

And somewhere along the line, it became the case that if you are playing PF with all of the 3.5 stuff that doesn't directly contradict the PF rules, you are POSTING FLAMEBAIT IF YOU MENTION A PROBLEM YOU ARE HAVING IN YOUR CAMPAIGN!!!ii!111eleven1!!!onehundredandeleven!!11i1!

Edit: The local theory is that many of the people who have conniptions over this are either optimizers who never bought most of the 3.5 books, or have since disposed of them.

32. A length of rope threaded between a number of evenly spaced spheres, each about the size of a baseball (depending on the size of the giant)

33. The mangled skeleton of a goblin

34. Several mushrooms growing in the dung. If ingested, roll d%:
01-50: They taste disgusting (DC 12 Fort save to avoid filth fever)
51-70: Eater must make a DC 20 Fort save or lose 1d6 Con to poison
71-85: As above but eater Confused for 1d100 minutes on a failed save
86-98: Eater is under the effects of an Enlarge spell for 1d4 hours
99-00: Eater affected by Giant Form spell for 1d4 hours

I guess this is primarily a roleplaying question, about character backstories and how they're incorporated into your at-table play.

Getting somewhat back on topic, I'm working on a homebrew world that has a race in it that would be... Eh, not actually transgender now that I think of it, but... Well, you decide:

They're amphibians with a three-stage life cycle. They hatch from eggs in swamp pools, swim around as mostly animalistic pollywog things for a time, and then come out of the water when they grow limbs and dry-ish, warty skin (like a toad or eft).

They live for a time in this state, as intelligent beings in villages and other communities that have cultures, language, etc.

Eventually they undergo another transformation, this time returning to the water and degenerating into mindless floating sacs anchored to the bottoms of their pools by tough stalks. At this stage they are sexually mature, and pretty much don't do anything else other than breed and filter feed (ejecting sperm or eggs into the water around them).

It is in their second stage of life that they might interact with other intelligent races, and take up the adventuring life (although most wouldn't dream of doing this, as they are quite culturally tied to their breeding pools, which they naturally consider sacred, or at least very important).

As intelligent beings in their second life stage, these guys would either be considered asexual or maybe presexual. I suppose they might have gender identifications similar to those of human children, but then there are no sexually mature adults in their communities to model much in the way of gender roles for them.

So, not trans, but -- possessed of an alien sexuality, which may not even be a sexuality at all.

So -- I'm just making sure here -- it is the OFFICIAL ruling of the Paizo team that a gnome alchemist should be able to qualify for the Arcane Strike feat, using his alchemist (or other class) level as his caster level for purposes of the Arcane Strike feat. This is because of the Gnome Magic racial trait, which grants several cantrips as SLAs (or, alternatively, the Pyromaniac alternate gnome racial trait). Correct?

Of course I would assume that a gnome with insufficient charisma to have the SLAs granted by Gnome Magic or Pyromaniac would be unable to use those racials to qualify for Arcane Strike.

Werebat wrote:

pezlerpolychromatic wrote:

FuelDrop wrote:

You know, if you choose to play a Goblin Alchemist then you should probably expect to get killed.

I mean you're a Goblin! of course you're going to die.

Usually by self-conflagration.

Or when the team troll decides he's feeling peckish in the middle of a throw team-mate attempt -- oh, wait, this is the PATHFINDER message board!

Ah yes, and in a pinch goblins can be considered ammunition.

That they can, Jim -- that they can!

Hey, Paizo. You know I love you, but you have forgotten to represent us women gamers on your staff. You have zero women on your RPG design/dev team, so you are not even reaching the lowly three percent number of women designers in the video game industry. And your newest hire in editing, which is a field that women tend to dominate in general publishing, is a man. Please add some diversity in your staff. You are a leader in diversity in gaming in publishing, so please be a leader in diversity in hiring, as well.

We look to you to lead this industry against sexism.

OP, I tip my hat to you. That was well done. Well. Done.

<Applauds>

I don't mind players choosing to play something odd, but I do mind them insisting on playing something that in no way fits in with the campaign setting or game the GM wants to run.

So there's nothing inherently wrong with a player wanting to try out a ratfolk alchemist or something, so long as it fits (even if it requires a little bit of stretching) the campaign setting the GM has worked on creating.

But it's kind of irritating to have "That Guy" belly up to the table and insist on playing some improbable race/class combo that was most likely cribbed from an optimization board because it gave the most "plusses", and happens to have absolutely nothing to do with the campaign (or is in fact antithetical to the campaign -- a lizardman swashbuckler in a tribal arctic campaign, for example).

QQs about "stifled creativity" are sort of irritating when the player is exhibiting a complete disregard for the theme the GM is aiming for, especially when a bit of digging reveals the build in question to have come from an optimization thread.

If it helps make sense of things, keep in mind that "cis" is a Latin prefix that means the opposite of the Latin prefix "trans." So, a trans man, a cis man, a trans woman, a cis woman, transgender. cisgender.

Make sense?

That does help -- thanks.

New Zealand did in fact have an apex predator. It was a freaking dinosaur.

Now consider that New Zealand also had a giant eagle (the Haast's Eagle) that used to HUNT those things! Yikes!

That breakdown sounds a lot like Against the Giants. Good ols Snorri Ironbelly. :D

Yes, yes it does.

Considering the old school fantasy vibe, I reckon this one will steer clear of the pervasive Lovecraftian elements that have crept into the game in prior APs.

But what better to replace the "secret bosses" of G1-3?

So, you've moved the goalposts. Your initial point was "you need to *own* all these books!"

Um. Where did I say that? I don't remember saying it, and when I looked, I couldn't find it.

Gorbacz, have you actually taken the time to read the 5e stuff that's out there (available for free in the Basic book)?

I was surprised at how very similar to 3.X/PF it was.

All I've really been saying is that we've hit a point where at least some of the people who left 3.5 for Pathfinder (because sticking with 3.5 was always an option, even after WotC abandoned it) are becoming disillusioned with PF and looking to 5e D&D the same way they looked to PF when it first arrived on the scene.

Not everyone. Clearly many people here emphatically do NOT feel this way.

But some people besides myself have basically agreed with me here. They have expressed similar opinions to my own -- they left 3.5 for PF in part because they tired of rules bloat and the slew of OP combos that had become part of 3rd Edition.

And they're starting to feel the same way about PF.

You can howl all you want about it, you can make all the accusations of goalpost moving that you want, you can dismiss our feelings as invalid all you want -- but it's still going to be how we feel.

And that means something.

Some people are going to leave PF. Some people are going to leave PF for 5e. Some people are going to leave PF for 5e at least in part because they have grown weary of things like TWF gunslingers, synthesist summoners, magic item shops, and a slew of new options that seem to do more bogging down of the game for them than enhancement (and I *like* the gunslinger, at least in concept, as well as the alchemist and a lot of the other newer stuff). And yes, some of us will leave because of long-standing issues with things like CoDzilla and caster power levels that PF never really fixed to our satisfaction.

All of this means something.

I'm not saying that Paizo is going to go belly up -- I realize I've already pointed this out several times -- but I am saying that PF is approaching a stage of its life that looks very familiar to me, having played through several editions of D&D.

I could be dead wrong! But I don't think that I am. And I do think that I'm going to give 5e a shot, because I think that the way I feel about PF -- regardless of the way anyone else does -- is valid, at least for me.

I'm not telling you all to stop playing PF. I don't even want you to. I think this competition between Paizo and WotC is good for all of us. And I'll freely admit that Paizo seems to have the upper hand when it comes to business strategy -- although WotC seems to have taken some pages from their book (not nearly enough, if you ask me, but still). Like another person who commented here, my ideal would be 5e spurring Paizo to develop something new that incorporated everything good about 5e and improved on it. I wouldn't be surprised if that happened someday -- the Paizo people are smart.

But something has happened to PF, and for me, I feel it is time to get off this train and board another. I'm not alone.

And that means something.

Also, on a personal note, while I think Werebat has a point, it's a topic for another discussion.

Thanks, Lissa, and I agree -- it is a topic for another discussion.

In fact, I'm only posting here right now because, on the off chance that they are reading this thread, I'd like to make a personal apology to Distractedelf. This thread really is about something special that passed between you and some of the folks at Paizo, and that something was pretty damned cool.

For what it's worth, I know a young person going through FtM surgery right now -- I mostly knew them when they were very small, and they taught me pretty much everything I know about Pokemon (which isn't much, but still).

If you'd like, you can read about them here:

www.providencejournal.com/topics/special-reports/actually-andy/

In fact, I think I'll go and send them the link to YOUR story right now.

I mention all of this primarily just to let you know that even an irascible coot like myself, who tends to say the wrong things, can be basically on your side. Hang in there, take care of yourself, and I hope you have a good, happy life!

Werebat wrote:

Page 80 very clearly states that you cannot concentrate on more than one spell at a time. The majority of the buff spells (like Fly and Blur) require Concentration.

That's Concentration duration spells only. And, actually, true of Concentration spells in Pathfinder as well. The only difference is that several more (by no means all) buffs are Concentration in 5th Ed. Aid, Freedom of Movement, Heroes Feast, Mage Armor, Spiritual Weapon, are all rather definitively not, for example.

I think you are misrepresenting things more than a little (not as much as the person who claimed that the only spell affected by this was Magic Weapon, but still).

These spells in the Basic 5e rule set are Concentration spells (note that the Basic rule set available for free does not contain all of the spells that will be in the PHB):

Antimagic Field
Arcane Eye
Beacon of Hope
Blade Barrier
Bless
Blur
Dancing Lights
Darkness
Delayed Blast Fireball
Detect Magic
Dominate Monster
Dominate Person
Earthquake
Find the Path
Faerie Fire
Flaming Sphere
Fly
Gate
Globe of Invulnerability
Greater Invisibility
Guidance
Haste
Hold Person
Holy Aura
Invisibility
Levitate
Locate Creature
Magic Weapon
Major Image
Maze
Otto's Irresistible Dance
Protection From Energy
Shield of Faith
Silence
Silent Image
Spider Climb
Spirit Guardians
Stoneskin
Suggestion
Wall of Stone
Web

A 5e caster can only keep ONE of these spells up at a time. So, no Fly and Invisibility at the same time, for example.

That is slightly more of a significant change than losing Magic Weapon, I think.

Werebat wrote:

As I said before, 5e seems to have dealt with CoDzilla (and to a certain extent his Arcane cousin) by limiting casters to being able to focus on one buff at a time, and having those buffs "dispel" if they are hit in melee and fail a concentration check.

Huh? Where's that said? The only reference I can find (on p. 81) says that different magical effects stack fine, with only the same specific effect not stacking with itself. And most of them lack a Concentration duration as well.

Page 80 very clearly states that you cannot concentrate on more than one spell at a time. The majority of the buff spells (like Fly and Blur) require Concentration.

I'll be honest and say I've lightly skimmed over the 5th edition basic rules. My take is when WotC delivers a system solely for less 'rules bloat' that is the wrong approach. Who says rules bloat is a bad thing? Who says rules light is a good thing? It's all relative to us, the consumers. I honestly prefer as many options as possible and Pathfinder has so many already and more coming out.

Yes, and so did 3.5 when it (effectively) died. In large part because so many of the people who would have stuck with it moved to Pathfinder instead -- very often at least in part because it had less "rules bloat" and "power creep". I ought to know, I was one of those people, and those were two of the big reasons for me.

Seems to me 5th edition is nothing but a mash-up between editions for the sake of mashing them up just for something different and they can put new artwork and call it brand new. If I want a mash-up I could have tweaked 3.5 and 2nd editions together on my own, I don't need a new edition from WotC. So in another 6 years they'll most likely start winding down 5th edition and start up designs and release 6th edition for the bloody sake of doing it all over again.

5th Edition was created to make money for WotC. If they didn't think it would make them money, they wouldn't have created it. They're a business.

And provided they survive long enough, they WILL eventually release a 6th Edition. Just like Paizo (if THEY survive long enough) will eventually release "Pathfinder 2nd Edition" (or whatever they want to call it).

And there's nothing inherently wrong with any of that.

All I'm saying is that there is a pattern here, and I'm seeing the wheel turn one more time. And, yes, expecting it to turn again someday.

All in all I think it's a good thing that WotC and Paizo have such competition in each other -- good for us, the players and DM/GMs.

But still, the pattern shifts, the wheel turns, and sometimes -- it's just time.

All that said, I enjoy many different systems. I may just try 5th edition and get hooked, you never know. I do know I'll be playing Pathfinder for a loooong time.

I liked Pathfinder a lot, too. It introduced a lot of new takes on the original 3.X material -- some of the best of which have been incorporated into 5th Edition D&D. Which is a good thing.

Let's see how simple 5e is in a year, my guess not very.

I give it more than a year, but less than five.

And Mr. Mona, I don't see it as an edition war -- it's something different. I'd probably prefer original core Pathfinder to whatever 5th Edition D&D will become five years down the road, for example.

Sometimes, it's just time to move on. These rule sets have a life cycle, and sometimes -- it's just time.

EDIT: But, I think there is evolution of a sort. A kind of refinement. My suspicion is that the people who wrote 5E learned a lot from PF, and whoever writes the next incarnation of PF (for there will eventually be one) will have learned more than a little from 5E.

Limiting casters to being able to concentrate only on one buff spell at a time, for example -- good idea.

Werebat wrote:

OK, I'm confused. Why was a post I recently made pointing out how the use of a certain word was offensive to the differently abled? I see plenty of support for the GLBT community here on the Paizo fora, but when someone makes offensive comments about other groups that are discriminated against in our society it is verboten to call them out on it?

I had thought that Paizo strove to be respectful and inclusive of ALL groups, not just a select one or two favorites.

It was probably removed along with the post it referred to and the one that referred to.

The whole sequence got tossed at once.

No, what I am referring to was posted AFTER the sequence got removed.

I've already belabored the issue for too long, and for that I apologize. It has nothing to do with the existence of this thread, which is to discuss a "heartwarming message" Paizo apparently sent to a TG fan. Which was a good thing.

I just wrote a long explanation of what actually happened, and chose to delete it. I'll just repeat the important point -- which I sincerely hope Paizo sees fit to leave up, as it is both highly relevant to the situation and highly important to some of its customers:

The word "lame", used in a derogatory manner, is considered offensive to the differently abled. If a person is going to try to rebuke those who, accidentally or not, use words that are similarly offensive to the trans community (or any other group), they would do well not to use the word "lame" in a derogatory manner when they do so.

That is a truth, and if Paizo chooses to discard it as unfit for its message boards, it will tell me something about Paizo.

And that's the end of it from me.

So in about 4-5 years we will hear your thoughts on how 5E is "groaning under its own weight."

Probably, yes. Like Paizo, WotC must "publish or perish", and it must publish what sells. And what sells is power creep.

Although 5th Edition seems to have toned down CoDzilla quite a bit, what with the limit of one buff at a time. Even Pathfinder core can't boast that.

Not more balanced?

Look at the average Will saves of a level 20 Pathfinder Cleric and a level 20 Pathfinder Rogue.

Now look at the Wisdom saves of a level 20 5th Edition Cleric and a level 20 5th Edition Rogue.

What was that about balance again?

Pathfinder was great when it came out. A real relief from the madness that 3.X had descended into. I loved how game play seemed more balanced, and many of the optimization "tricks" were toned down in the core rules and even the first supplement or two.

And then came the APG. And with it, the gunslinger, the alchemist, and the summoner.

In the time since, Pathfinder has begun to groan under the weight of its own cheese. With the new class book coming out, I'm starting to feel just like I did with 3.X when Pathfinder first came out.

And now I see 5th Edition D&D, just about ready to bite into. Simplified. Less optimization-y. A lot like Pathfinder was, once.

Hear that creaking and groaning? Right around the structural supports?

Lormyr wrote:

I am less interested in seeing any options banned than I am in seeing problem mechanics revisited by the developers. So far Mark is doing a pretty good job addressing those. How about next we admit double-barrel firearms were a mistake and do something about that?

Firearms in general just need to be completely reworked. It's funny because you hear about the Gunslinger being OP/broken/what-have-you all the time, but the reality is that if he used crossbows instead of firearms, he'd be a great class. You could keep almost all of his abilities with very minor changes and no one would bat an eye. They'd just say "Cool, a Fighter alternate class that makes crossbows awesome!"

So to amend my earlier statement, there isn't really a class I'd want to see banned, just a poorly designed subsystem that one class is unfortunately chained to.

I tend to agree. Ditch the sketchy touch attack mechanic and the "E-Z Cheet" misfire rules, make all guns Dex to damage instead of having that be a class ability for the Gunslinger, and the class should work fine.

Or just have it work with crossbows instead. Also a good idea.

How about something akin to Powerful Build, but in reverse? Basically, they are Small, but can count as being Tiny when it suits them? That would be useful.

Regarding this adventure path, I'm not sure whether to say "Lords of Light!" or "Mathematical!"

Purple worms get tremorsense and burrow. So do graboids.

You might find this audio CD to be useful for theme music when designing and running these encounters:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=EassB5Tclpg&list=PL228C00BFA3C28445

It's Midnight Syndicate's "Carnival Arcane"

Edit: You can find the entire album all together in this video (but I think it's also available legit on iTunes):

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gua4vTBsBXE

I am curious, IF you took the Core rulebook as the zero point how would you rate the power creep in the later books?

Do you mean including all of the 3.5 stuff or not?

Remember that PF was originally pitched as being fully compatible with all of the 3.5 stuff.

My regular playing group has been playing with all of the 3.5 stuff since we started playing PF, so when I see these responses that are basically the equivalent of jumping up and down screaming "YOU *FOOL* YOU DO *NOT* MIX 3.5 AND PATHFINDER *EVARRRR*!!!11eleveni!!", I think it's sort of amusing.

My *suspicion* is that a lot of the people who pull this stunt when asked if PF option X, Y, or Z is overpowered (and the asker is mixing 3.5 with PF) do not actually own many or any of the 3.5 books. It's understandable that they don't want to hear about how their pet class, spell, or magic item doesn't play nice with a set of rules that they consider outmoded. So they jump up and down like rabid monkeys on the person asking the question -- the person with the *UNMITIGATED* *GALL* to be polluting the pure and pristine perfection of Pathfinder with the corrupt and polluted *FILTH* of *3.5* material.

All that aside, I see definite power creep since the core book. The new core classes (gunslinger, magus, alchemist, and summoner) have generated a LOT of discussion about how OP they are -- and not all of that discussion is unwarranted. I've seen it in the campaigns I run and play in to the point where some players (including myself, and I'm playing a sorceress who specializes in rainbow magic) have voluntarily nerfed our own characters because we could see how ridiculous things were getting.

Of course if you put all 3.5 stuff to the axe, there are less problems, but that's just it -- more material inevitably leads to more power. Looking at the rainbow themed spells I'm using for my sorceress that come from the 3.5 Spell Compendium (Rainbow Beam, Rainbow Blast, Prismatic Ray, etc), it would be sort of laughable to hear someone call them overpowered. But other stuff like mixing Magical Heritage with Arcane Thesis, eh... That can be a problem.

I can already hear the monkey swarm working itself into a fruit-flinging frenzy over the fact that I've admitted to using 3.5 material in my games, but the fact is that some of us were playing D&D from before 3.0, have huge libraries of material from that time period, and haven't really felt like burning it all just yet (although I would admit that it would certainly tone back some of the crazy munchkin stuff that players so inclined can come up with). It might be a lot easier to take the point of view that seems popular here in the forums if one didn't own many (or any) 3.5 books.

EDIT: To be clear, when I begin my next campaign, which looks like it will be Carrion Crown, I will be giving the players a choice between the campaign being E8 plus Mythic (3.5 stuff allowed) and straight up Pathfinder (not allowing any material published after to the first Carrion Crown path book came out). In the end I tend to AGREE that it may be time to leave 3.5 material in the past, but I find doing so to be problematic when the material in question really isn't "OP" and really does help round out a well-themed character (such as a gnome sorceress with rainbow spells). Also, as I said, some people are a bit... extreme... with their admonishments not to use 3.5 with Pathfinder.

And wow, talking apes remind you have Africans? That's harsh. Talking apes remind me of A) the Jungle Book, B) Tarzan, C) a villain from the superfriends, D) a sign language using gorilla from a 90s movie, E) planet of the apes, F) druids ('cause I've been influenced by RPGs! :O). Never once imagined a talking monkey and said "Hey, you know what this reminds me of? My friend I play Magic the Gathering with on the weekends!"

So what does that make lizardfolk?

As a Cajun, I am concerned with where this may be headed.

Raise Dead is a "healing" spell, and "healing" has a positive connotation -- it strongly implies "fixing" a "problem".

But what about necrophiliacs? Might they be offended by Paizo's inclusion of this spell in the Pathfinder game, and their use of the "healing" descriptor? The clear implication is that there is something "wrong" with being dead, which implies that there is something wrong with loving the dead as well.

When someone insists that there is something "wrong" with one's love, because of something that individual has no control over, isn't that offensive?

Should Paizo have been more sensitive?

The word "baleful" has certainly got many negative connotations -- "deadly", "pernicious", and "evil", to name a few.

But what about furries, and others with fantasies (sexual or not) about being permanently turned into animals? People who indeed feel that they are trapped in a body of the wrong species? Couldn't they find the label "baleful" to be offensive in this context?

Should Paizo have been more sensitive in naming this spell?

I don't think anyone has figured out how to make a bow that closely mimics what the Ranger did in that old D&D cartoon. That thing was basically a "because the author said he could" bow!

Ultimate Equipment took a stab at this one too, actually. Page 358, the "Lightning Bow".

I love that show.... ahhh flame princess.

AT is one of the great animated shows of our generation. It's pretty much the only TV I watch, to be honest.

After one round of having a dragon in melee with a gunslinger, he's dead. Lack of hit points compared with the damage output of a dragon.

With light armor and Dexterity as their prime stat, the gunslinger will have one of the best armor classes in the party. He'll also have some of the best hit points in the game (d10 and no reason NOT to put his second highest stat into Con).

He'll have the staying power of a fighter, at least.

I see nothing against scrying a location to determine teleportation there. If you're investing the spells and slots, you should be able to do that sort of thing.

HOWEVER, spells like Teleport Trap, Dimensional Anchor, and Forbiddence make me second guess using it as an actual tactic. Anyone who realizes they may be the victim of a "scry & fry" should shore up defenses to this sort of thing. If not, I feel no worse for them than I do for the dominated fighter or barbarian who didn't invest enough in Will saves.

The problem with this is twofold. First, it affects the flavor of every campaign to the point where NO villain of mid level or higher can be anything but a spellcaster (or have a high level spellcaster working for him). Second, it cuts into the budget of every villain of mid level or higher -- they ALL need to have spent a significant amount of their resources on fending off scry&fry.

Yes, and some of my Black friends call each other by the "n-word"

They literally call each other "n-word"?

As in, "What up, my n-words?"

That's hilarious.

As for the term "queer" itself, and its uses, since that seems to be under debate here at the moment, I'll add my three dollar bill and say I do self-identify as queer.

I see what you did there, KSF!

I'll only add that debating whether or not a term is "offensive" is always going to be a little silly, because it's always the intent behind the utterance that matters much, much more than what is actually said.

If homosexuals collectively decided that they wanted to be called "smoo", it wouldn't be five minutes before homophobes started using the term in a derogatory manner ("What are you, a SMOO?") and twisted it into something that could be called "offensive". But it wouldn't be the word "smoo" that means "we hate homosexuals", it would be the intent behind its use.

All of this is true, and none of it will resolve anything.

Guys, I really don't want to antagonize anyone here, but in the last few days, I think Nathanael is just being contrary for the heck of it. First the psionics thread, then the wild shape thread and now this.

If this post is not okay, I'm okay with its deletion, btw.

I'm OK with this post of yours, but I'm also OK with your being OK with its deletion. If that's OK with everyone.

What is the morality of poison use? If your character is any of the good alignments can you use poisons in/or out combat? What about neutral alignments?

I'd think that an evoker who regularly attacked enemies with Fireball and Acid Arrow would be a bit of a hypocrite if he admonished someone else against using poison because it was so evil.

Don't believe me? Go do a web search for what fire and acid do to people's bodies when they are unfortunate enough to get hurt by them. What they do to their faces.

How cheesy is it for a GM to give a monster a feat or special ability that makes their natural armor bonus count as a deflection bonus for the purposes of defending against firearm attacks?

Say, an ancient dragon?

What should a DM say when a monster like this is encountered and the gunslinger player begins howling about how his +1 Distance shotgun should be blowing right through the dragon's hide? "There may be things going on here that you don't know about"?

I can understand the point about it being kind of lame to tailor encounters around party configuration, but it would seem that in a world with firearms in it dragons would quickly go extinct unless they DID tend to take a "bulletproof skin" feat.

MMCJawa wrote:

Man...I loved the fate of Numeria if the PC's fail. That's campaign almost in itself

Also mentions cyborg demons!!!!

Doom: Pathfinder edition. ;)

No, John -- you ARE the demons.

This entire mincing thread makes me shed a tear for Usenet, and the days when the unmoderated rec.games.frp.dnd was pretty much the only place to go to discuss what was then the most popular fantasy role playing game in the world.

Those were grand days. Grand days.

The internet itself has changed. There was a time when, if you wanted to learn more about religion (for example), there were few places to discuss the matter other than a large unmoderated newsgroup filled with people who had all manner of different viewpoints and would end up having to defend them (or not). It was a place that a person who wanted to learn something had a vast wealth of argument to observe, untainted by the unavoidable bias of moderation. It was marvelous.

Sure, there were jerks, there were flame wars, there were even burned out areas. Those were part of the price paid for something that what we have today, in my opinion, can't hold a candle to.

Now people tend to congregate in whatever moderated clique suits them best, and subtly (or not so subtly) encourage only those of like minds to stay at the table. And those who are not of like minds find their own moderated (isolated?) cliques, where ideas and presentations deemed offensive can likewise be discouraged.

Our online conversations have become sanitized but also lacking in a certain richness. I miss it.

I know there will be a hundred voices rising in ululation to defend what we have now, the inevitability of it, the necessity of it in the context of these fora. But still, we lost something when we collectively chose moderation. There are good things about it, but they came with a price.

I found this to be pretty useful:

GM's Guide to Creating Challenging Encounters

Be aware that a small horde of relatively low-CR monsters will end up being terrain more than anything else, as they won't actually be able to hit most of the PCs.

I was wondering about playing an awakened wiwaxia with wuxia powers. I figure I'd go with monk because a wiwaxia cannot wield weapons and monks don't need limbs to make their attacks. Also the monk speed boost would enable a wiwaxia to walk about. Maybe it would use a wagon to wander the wide world with the rest of the party, wherever they want to go. Or they could just be carried about as a wiwaxia doesn't weigh much.

What do you think? Would you be willing to weave such a character into your campaign world? Or would you not wish to allow it because you'd worry that it might be too weak?

...strangely, from what I have seen, is you want to tone done casters, increase the amount of magic items. Run a high, high magic campaign. "Low magic" campaigns (not counting E6 and such) just make casters more powerful, because they are the only sources of magic. But there there are plenty of other magic items out there, then it takes the special away from casters.

"Oh, you can cast fireballs? That's nice. My hat does the same thing, except it has more hit points than you."

This is very interesting and my observation as well.

In the current campaign I am running, I had all of the PCs (as a result of being blessed by a dead nature god) acquire "spirit marks". The first level of these (least spirit marks) were in the form of a free feat granted by the dead god, and linked the PCs to animal spirits that allowed them to choose one spell of level 1-2 and use it as an SLA 3/day. Then at level 5 they could spend a feat to increase their spirit marks to "lesser" spirit marks, granting an additional spell of level 3-4 usable as an SLA 2/day. Finally, after level 8 (this is an E8 campaign) they could spent a feat to improve their spirit marks to "greater" spirit marks, granting one spell of level 5-6 usable as an SLA 1/day.

You don't have to be as extreme as I was (you could limit the marks to spell levels 1, 2, and 3 respectively in a strict E6 game), but I felt it was acceptable in the game I wanted to run. You could reskin them as "wild talent psionics" or whatever if you wanted. The point is that the non-magic users gained SLAs that tended to dovetail well with their abilities and helped them better compete with the casters. Meanwhile the casters had fun picking up spell abilities outside of their normal spell lists (for example the Flame Oracle chose Scorching Ray as her "least" spirit mark power).

For more fun you could open these up to NPCs or even monsters, allowing for (say) wyverns that could turn invisible 3/day or displacer beasts capable of dispelling magic. All of this does tend to make the wizards and their cousins less head and shoulders above everyone else, even more so in an E6/E8 game.

Some seem to be insisting that the number of sourcebooks allowed has nothing to so with the average power level of the party. I personally think this is silly.

Others are pointing out that allowing more sourcebooks won't NECESSARILY result in an increase in party power level, and are offering plausible examples of the allowance of more material actually resulting in a LOWER party power level. While I think this has some merit, it seems a case of trying to use an outlier to set policy -- not generally a good idea. I could provide any number of real world analogies, but shouldn't have to.

Some are saying that it's OK for a GM to artificially raise APL when dealing with a sufficiently min/maxed party. There is some disagreement on whether or not it would be OK to (for example) use APL+2 encounters and consider them to be APL encounters for the purpose of EXP awards. I think this boils down to personal taste and in the end is probably no more "wrong" than using the slower advancement table offered in the core rules.

The most level headed responses indicate that it really depends on party composition and the players involved. Fair enough.

I will maintain that -- all else being equal -- the greater the number of sourcebooks allowed, the higher the power level a party will tend to have. You can have your outliers -- they will not disprove this.

While I agree that allowing more source books can increase the power level of the party, there isn't any strong correlation between what is allowed and how powerful your party will be.

There is if your players are reasonably competent min/maxers.