![]()
![]()
![]() I'd really like to see the core pirate tropes supported. I'm running the Freeport Trilogy for my group, and it's kind of irritating how little piratical adventure is in the trilogy until part of the third adventure, and even then, it's still in the form of a dungeon crawl. In a pirate AP, I'd like to see: * Hunting for buried treasure, including a map with a big freakin' X on it, and having to DIG IT UP WITH SHOVELS
Beyond that, I'd take a few pages from Tim Powers' wonderful On Stranger Tides novel: * Voodoo zombies
And I echo the call for at least one subaquatic adventure. Really looking forward to this! ![]()
![]() It's amusing that the OP's group would view familiars as a waste of space. In the urban campaign I'm playing in, I view my character's thrush familiar (3E DMG, familiars for smaller races -- my character is a gnome illusionist) as arguably overpowered. She can fly and scout, she can speak Gnomish and she allows my character to see around walls, follow people in a crowd (at least, gives me a substantial bonus to same), deliver messages and more. It would be one thing if I had to give up a feat slot or two for her, but as it is, she was incredibly potent, right out of the gate. Obviously, it's all about matching the familiar to the expected milieu, but a creative player can do a whole hell of a lot with a familiar and a DM not determined to kill the little bugger the moment it appears. ![]()
![]() I would say it's the mirror image of what's happened here. 4E is a divisive issue, and like the (idiotic) video game wars, the loudest people have divided themselves into camps and have spent a lot of energy denigrating the choice (or even mere preferences) of those in the "enemy" camp. The situation at ENWorld was made worse by the well-meaning decision to move 4E discussion into its own forum, which allowed the two camps to have a hothouse environment where they tended to only hear from people they agreed with. And now, they've been dumped back into the same forum together, and, not surprisingly, everyone is acting like a bunch of cats in a sack, clawing and biting at each other. ENWorld has gone through cycles like this before, and it gets over it. Part of the issue is that there's a LOT of people who are either not regular posters or are new posters, neither of whom are socialized to the normally very aggressive standard of moderation, and the resulting chaos has meant a lot of scrambling for the mods. To be fair, though, the situation is worse at WotC's boards and there aren't a lot of 4E-friendly or even 4E-agnostic threads here at Paizo. Singling out ENWorld on this matter seems off-base to me: What's going on there is just indicative of how online fandom in general is reacting to 4E -- with slap fights. ![]()
![]() Lilith wrote: I could give a whit less about the flavor changes - if I don't like it, I'll just change it back to the way I like it. I am curious if their promises of easier to prep & run will come true. This is me as well. My campaign climax will feature, essentially, two (or more) armies crashing together in the middle of the PCs' hometown, with lots of combat with troops, several prominent NPCs and a big summoned apocalyptic monster. It will be a complete pain to do in 3E. If 4E really does make that easier, I'll be a happy camper indeed. ![]()
![]() DMcCoy1693 wrote: Well it would kind of help if the old school of magic existed. But ummm, ... WotC kind of ... dumped that, like completely, like nothing even similar remains. So Paizo is going to have to do a FR change to their setting if they want to use ... this. The runelords are monsters, not PCs. They can have non-standard abilities. It's not a big deal. ![]()
![]() While I don't love the loss of spell schools (it makes converting my illusionist a pain until the arcane book comes out, allegedly in late 2008), I agree that the Runelords using "old" magic is a pretty good fit, actually. As for my gnome illusionist/bard, I guess that's what retraining rules will be for. ![]()
![]() My name is one of the long list of contributors on the cover of the Koboldnomicon, which is published by Bards & Sages via Lulu. In most places, it's only available softcover (or as a PDF), but given that it's Lulu, there are hardcovers out there with my name on it. (I have one of them.) Am I ineligible? ![]()
![]() Talion09 wrote: Well I agree that its extremely doubtful that the 4.0 OGL would force 3rd party publishers to use WotC fluff... I can easily see them having a 200+ long list of monsters (and maybe playable races/class lists too) that 3rd parties are not allowed to use under the OGL, thereby reserving them for WotC use in future PHB/MM books. (ie. As Frost Giants, Gnomes and Barbarians are commonly assumed to not be in the launch books... they would be on a list that prohibited names that aren't allowed to be used) They're in the impossible-to-revoke 3E OGL. Anyone can use them, until the end of time. Besides, none of those are remotely WotC IP. ![]()
![]() There already are 3E alternatives out there. Instead of asking Green Ronin to support yet another system, why not go with True20? It's already out there, has good support, and has supplements that allow one to duplicate a whole lot of classic D&D elements. If not True20, C&C is also out there and well established and has classic D&D feel as its whole reason for being. ![]()
![]() Moff Rimmer wrote: Slaughtering "sacred cows" that aren't broke feels to people like they are arbitrary decisions. I don't believe that they are "arbitrary", but they are still a bit weak on their explanations of "why". And without adequate explanation, it feels "arbitrary" because none of us were included on the decision making and the default "reason" ends up being "change for its own sake". Which ones haven't they explained? They may be explanations you don't like -- certainly there are lots of people who don't like why WotC is redoing demons and devils -- but for the stuff they've officially announced (as opposed to rumored changes), they've pretty much stated their thinking as far as I can tell. Since those changes will apparently include nixing the gnome, the bard and even illusionists from the PHB, please don't read this as me saying I'm exactly cheering the sacred cow slaughterfest. But their track record makes me believe that Races & Classes in December will explain their apparent desire to make me personally cry, by making even reimagining my gnome illusionist/bard nigh-impossible for months or even years after 4E first hits shelves. ![]()
![]() Nicolas Logue wrote: Sometimes I just feel WotC doesn't care if it poops all over a large fraction of its older audience if it means they can push boxes and boxes of plastic nonsense on rich young kids whose parents will shell out 20 gp everytime the child needs a fix. Hey, if we can buy D&D stuff with gold pieces, sign me up! ![]()
![]() For what it's worth, a 4E Pathfinder adventure with the same page count will have more adventure in it than a 3.X one, simply because of the different stat blocks. (We've seen one stat block now, for one of the devils.) So the people saying they'll stop buying Pathfinder if it goes 4E might want to reconsider. While there will still be converting to do (although if the community is as passionate then as they are now, there should be no lack of people willing to post said conversions), you'll get more adventure overall this way. Just look at what the stat blocks look like in the final chapter of Savage Tide and imagine a large portion of that replaced with actual adventure content instead. (This isn't to say anything about 4E is good or bad, just that smaller stat blocks mean more room for other stuff in Pathfinder.) ![]()
![]() I think you're going to hear from a lot of diehard fans here who may not, ultimately, accurately represent your entire base of customers. If I were you, I'd plan on 4E. I know you're in regular contact with the Necromancer guys, and I think they have the right of it: Write for the Saga Edition, essentially, and odds are, you'll be pretty close to where you need to be when you finally get the rules. Worst case scenario, you issue a sincere (and understandable) mea culpa and put up errata online immediately. Because sticking with the old version isn't going to work, no matter how great your product is, no matter how the hardcore may say otherwise (unless they each vow to buy 100 books each). Just look at how poorly the truly outstanding Redhurst Academy of Magic did, as it came out as a 3E purchase the same week as 3.5 hit. All the oxygen is going of the room for 3E, whether or not anyone likes it. I think it's a bad idea to continue to sell to a market that won't really be there in sufficient numbers. ![]()
![]() I'm starting to plan out an adventure with ogres, and as a big, big fan of Paizo's goblins, and knowing there are ogres in the first Pathfinder AP, I was wondering if there was any chance we could get an ogre fluff preview on the blog. I've got some fluff I'm using -- going back to fairy tales and having the half-human daughter of an ogre be a beautiful, if tall, apparently human protagonist in an adventure -- but would love some more. ![]()
![]() Magic Eight-Ball says "outlook not so good." Creating a big honking hardcover book and getting it back in time from the printers in time to sell enough of them to a dwindling market of people who are still buying heavy-duty 3.5E crunch is a pretty big financial gamble, IMO. I wouldn't count on Necromancer/Paizo going for it, although they know the numbers better than I do, obviously. ![]()
![]() I've ordered this, but since I've got it bundled with The Pirate's Guide to Freeport, it won't be arriving for a week or two. In the interim, could someone give me the name and physical description -- but not the stats -- of the new spiked chain-like weapon detailed in this module? I've got a kobold champion about to put the smack down on a gnome player character. Thanks. ![]()
![]() Sect wrote: Maybe it's about why the heck there are EXPLODING COWS in Neverwinter Nights...? It's a reference to Diablo I. All the other NPCs in town could be clicked on to engage them, with Easter Eggs on some of them if you clicked on them X times. Cows, though, just exploded if you kept on clicking the poor creatures. Naturally, this did not dissuade people from doing it.
|