Good to hear from you Bod. I would not expect you to update the document for a single new monster entry; I posted the Silk Wyrm as a heads-up wish-list sort of thing in case you ever revisited the project.
Pet projects are fun too. I've been working hard on my own new RPG which I'm quite proud of - The game system takes PF/D&D theme concepts and meshes them with a more flexible dice system that empowers players with risk/reward mechanics, with an emphasis on meaningful choice.
(One of my least favorite parts of PF/D&D is rolling the same ol' d20 regardless of circumstances, regardless of how dire a situation is, regardless of how important a certain roll is. I created a system where you may opt to increase your chance for success for a cost or by using party-generated "fortune/momentum," akin to Modiphius' Conan 2d20 doom and momentum mechanic.)
Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays to you all. May your Christmas parties, pet projects, and adventures be filled with risk and reward!
The game described by OP doesn't sound fun to me either. An 'open world' style game can be excellent but it does require the GM to exercise some better judgment on how to properly set the stage. There needs to be some direction. The GM can provide avenues for adventure without railroading a particular path (which is another way of saying 'open world') by simply making clear a few guidelines of expectation and/or bread crumbs for the players to opt toward.
I have been running games for decades and I've been told I run a great game. I endeavor to constantly edit my methods for a better game, but that often required pondering a mistake in hindsight, a mistake like the poor framing of the game described by OP. Perhaps your GM has potential or perhaps not; only you can decide whether that game is worth continuing on in as a player.
Hello Bodhizen and Dark Sun fans! I was curious about this thread and I'm glad I popped over to see what was new.
Zedth wrote:
8/10/2016 If I might recommend -
You should probably add the Silk Worm to the bestiary list, as it is a fairly signature Athasian monster.
Bodhizen wrote:
I don't remember it being central to any literature or adventures.
------------------
It occurs to me that I misspelled monster as "Silk Worm" when I meant "Silk Wyrm,", which was a creature that appeared in the very first Dark Sun adventure "A Little Knowledge" from the original boxed set. If memory serves, it was one of the first creatures the PCs would encounter in the wastes after escaping their caravan.
I would love to see it added to the PDF's bestiary if you're up to it.
I am both astonished and saddened at the amount of snarky crap-posting, political shoe-horning, and general bad form that has erupted in this thread. MANY of you should be ashamed and plenty of you have arguably broken forum rules. Dial it back.
To RD - there is nothing at all wrong with pay to play. Consenting adults agreeing to an arrangement that harms no one should not be objectionable. Some people don't have a regular group of gaming buddies or live near a gaming store that hosts games, and so paying a fee for a game is worth every last penny. Objecting to or getting in the way of that person is what I find objectionable.
That is a neat idea but it might be more challenging that its worth. It would inevitably lead to people picking the "best" feats and leaving the lesser powered ones on a shelf. Having classes helps separate these feats into categories that make better thematic sense for each particular chassis, to help flesh out that person's role in the party. It would be fairly difficult to balance the hundreds of feats to make most/all of them appealing enough to actually get used.
I'm not saying it can't be done - it can, as Volkard said, the Hero System uses a system where you can build ANY kind of superhero character you can imagine. But at some point it wouldn't even resemble the fantasy tropes we've come to love and expect, the fantasy paradigms that grew out of D&D.
Also, as there is no odd scores in the game ATM, why dont we get rid of 3-18 spread and make average 10 with 11 being +1 bonus, 12 being +2 bonus etc...
An extension of that logic might be to completely discard the stat number system and replace it simply with bonuses. IE something like:
Str +3 (the old equivalent of a 16)
Dex -1 (the old equivalent of a 8)
Con +1 (the old equivalent of a 12)
Honestly I kinda like that :P It really keeps things tidy.
I sort of got the same impression when I first listened to a playtest video with Jason Bulmahn when he described the pregens to the players and each had an 18 in their primary stat. I've since pulled away from that impression mostly because I realized I'm going to have to recalibrate my expectations about nearly everything because I have so little working knowledge of how the game's math works.
The number 18 in and of itself is meaningless without context. It's possible the context that you (OP) are working off of is the old paradigm of 18 being a big-dog stat level which has been the case since old school D&D up through 3.x and 5e (I've never read the 4e rules so I can't comment). I am reserving judgment until I've read the playtest material more thoroughly and have played a game or two before I judge whether that '18' really feels like or is as meaningful as the old '18.'
I love the idea of switching to a silver standard because I've always hated how copper pieces are essentially a waste of space pragmatically and thematically in the current gold standard system. Even at level 1 copper pieces are trivial, and by the time you've reached level 2 they are an absolute waste of time to even mention as treasure.
"Your character has proficiency in shields just like she does with armor, and when using a shield, you use the lower proficiency rank of your armor or shield to calculate your Armor Class."
For the life of me I just don't understand what this sentence is supposed to mean. I feel like we're missing context.
This is the first playtest blog post that has me going "meh."
We don't have enough core system math info to draw many conclusions about the data presented here about AC, TAC, etc. I know the blog posts are meant to be teasers but this feels like an uninformative teaser.
I can't fathom why having Constitution-based skill checks is exciting anyone. 3.5's only Con skill was Concentration, which was a garbage idea that was an effective skill tax on all casters due to the (admittedly necessary for balance purposes) harsh rules for combat casting. Doing away with this was a great idea in Pathfinder.
Merging resist bonuses into armor is good.
I'm not seeing anything compelling, fun, or interesting about the differences between armors as presented in this blog. The approach in the weapons blog post was interesting but wonky, feeling like a ham-fisted and potentially complicating way to make weapon choice matter, but it definitely succeeded in making weapon choice matter. From the scant examples of armor given, I'm still seeing players taking the chain shirt over other light armors.
Charisma in Pathfinder isn't about being nice or likable (though it can go in that direction), it's about a character's ability to project their inner self. There are powerfully callous people who have great capacity and talent to make themselves heard, to control a crowd, to manipulate, to lead effectively, etc.
Visually they look similar but brigandine and studded leather are not the same thing. "Studded Leather" didn't exist in any historical records I've ever studied, as simply adding a few studs to the outside of leather wouldn't do a damn thing to increase the tenacity of boiled leather coat. I would hesitate to even place brigandine in the light armor category, but that's another discussion.
Most texts and historians I'm aware of refer to what Pathfinder/D&D call 2-handed swords/Greatswords as "Long swords."
My biggest issue with the hierarchy of armors is that padded armor provides less AC bonus than leather does, when in actuality padded armor provides better protection vs almost all forms of attack.
This sounds fantastic, can't wait to give it a try. Pathfinder has been my "main" game for years now but I've grown to love other games too and I'm more appreciative of differing game design strategies. I look forward to trying out this new flavor of fun!!
Not sure what all the complaining is about.
-Pathfinder has more material than anyone could use in a lifetime. Just because the game isn't receiving official support after next year doesn't mean the game won't have a huge player base. Nothing is stopping you from playing your favorite game.
-Your Pathfinder books will hold their value, so that's a non-issue. Anyone who has looked for ANY edition of D&D books on ebay can see that they are anything but cheapened due to them being out of print.
-Accept it, the only thing that doesn't change is change itself. You can't expect Paizo to keep it up forever. 10 years worth of material is a huge wealth of available material.
-PF 2nd is not D&D 5e. It sounds nothing like 5e.
"Because I've always done it that way" or "it's always been that way" are terrible justifications for bad policy. Tell your friend he should run for US congress.
Given that some of those third party sites are just shy of openly hostile towards Pathfinder, the transfer of forum discussion to them would not be beneficial.
I seldom game in groups with less than 50% women at the table. I'm usually GMing, and I see no problem whatsoever (and neither do my players) with putting sexist themes and characters in the game. We like a dose of historical fiction in our fantasy world, and obviously men were the dominant sex throughout most of Earth's history. Having these tropes exist in game gives the players a chance to stand up to the status quo.
I set em up, they knock em down! The players love kicking their asses, and so it's a bit cathartic to see the neanderthals get what's coming to them.
That's the dynamic we have, so I won't pretend it would work with everyone. I game with my wife and close, dear friends who we've known for years. They as players know that respect is ironclad at our table, and anything that happens in-game is there for story development and not a jab at women.
(note - I acknowledge there is a difference between in-game themes and uncouth behavior by the players around the table.)
It seems the topic has shifted from "moderation and trolling" to general discussion of forum value/implications. Continuing with that flow -
Forums will exist for Pathfinder/Paizo products regardless of whether Paizo opted to discontinue them here. There are lots of 3rd party sites that get plenty of traffic for game discussion, and that alone demonstrates that there remains interest and investment. I don't think forums are going anywhere anytime soon, regardless of who hosts them.
I would imagine Paizo finds value in the direct feedback, but as stated correctly above - most forumers are diehards and do not represent the community at large. True feedback for businesses is how far from the red each endeavor brings them, regardless of some more vocal opinions on a forum.
Personally I find a degree of comfort in these forums hosted by the company who's products and practices we discuss therein. Maybe that's an intangible, but it's something.
Some of its abilities are awesome! It trades out the normal bard song for a song that grants the party magic bonuses to their weapons, meaning it can stack with other bards'/skalds' songs if you went that route.
But half of its archetype powers focus on counterspelling, which is garbagio. Admittedly in the higher levels it makes counterspelling almost viable but considering taking nearly any other action is probably a better idea, it still doesn't cut the mustard for me.
I would pay good money to see a "Archetypes: Unchained" book that revamps a ton of them into better-thought-out versions!
It'd be neat to see some a la carte "Archetype Traits" that one could swap out individual class abilities for alternatives without having to fully invest in an archetype. This is essentially what I offer my players in my home games as a fix for some of the archetypes that have some fun options mixed with bad options.
I think I can safely say that we PF fans love PF in part because of its huge variety of character options. I'm relieved to see that I'm not the only one who sees so many of the archetypes as crummy options, but I'm saddened to read this thread and see that the issue is so widespread.
I'm wondering how aware Paizo is about these concerns. Obviously game design is not simple, and there is often a fine line between a lateral-power level option and something overpowered, but it appears they err too often on the side of caution by making the archetype options subpar.
I think a lot of those things are just repeating the same thing, rather than all adding them together.
.....
TL;DR - an invisible creature not trying to stealth takes a DC 20 or 40 Perception check to spot, depending on whether it's moving or not. If the creature is actually trying to hide, the DC is [stealth check]+20 for mobile, or [stealth check]+40 for immobile.
FAQ'd. Wraith is right to FAQ this because this constantly comes up on the forums and at tables I play at.
That said, I agree 100% with Ascalaphus' analysis about the numbers correlating to other rules texts and when to assume a stealth roll is/is not applicable. It stands to reason that many of the modifiers are repeated in those different contexts while they aren't explicitly referring to other portions of the rules. They probably should have been explicit to dispel this confusion.
A piece of advice I would offer is to look through a good number of active Play-by-Post games and see what is going on. Pay close attention to the way the GM and players word their posts. You will quickly discover a few things - you'll see which styles you like and which ones you don't. You'll see there are very skilled writers and other less so. You'll discover clever phrasings and formatting techniques to make your posts more evocative and expressive.
Find yourself a game or two where you're really digging the GM's postings and the players' responses and banter. You can learn a lot from games like that.
Wanted to chime in with this, but I don't want to threadcrap or steer away from the recruitment/interest check.
Thoughts on the conversion:
FWIW Pterrans and Aarokocra are not that hard to whip up based on the race creation rules in the ARG. As one who helped a little bit with the Dark Sun Pathfinder conversion by Bodhizen, I seem to remember he deliberately left those 2 races out because they weren't in the original source materials, at least not for some time. They definitely weren't introduced as player options initially; they were just another race in the fabric of Athasian life.
I really like the conversion though I've made a couple of changes that I felt were necessary to preserving the flavor of Dark Sun -
1) Cold Iron costs x100 just like steel (instead of x20 per the conversion rules. In Bodhizen's first draft he had steel at x20 but some of us persuaded him to raise the cost to x100 per the original D&D 2e rules. I believe leaving Cold Iron at x20 was an oversight, in that context.)
2) Spells that create food and water out of thin air do not exist, or at the very least should be bumped up a level or two to make them more costly. (example - Create Water is far, far too powerful a spell in the Dark Sun setting. As a spammable 0-level spell it single-handedly trumps the significant and meaningful challenge of finding water, which is quintessential to the setting.)
Bodhizen,
I know this project is essentially done and/or on the back burner, but I had a couple more thoughts now that I've had some time to look through the PDF.
1) I'm finding that I'm not a fan of cold iron being only 20x cost vs the 100x cost for steel. It seems like an easier way for players to get a similarly powerful weapon (with the bonuses of cold iron to boot) without nearly the drawback of price. It seems like the two should be closer in value to maintain the rarity/scarcity/value of iron.
2) I believe it could be beneficial to notate some spell updates. For example, Create Water is just too damn powerful for Dark Sun. It should at the very least be changed to a level 1 or 2 spell to make it a finite costly resource, or removed completely. Other spells that create water/food should be similarly penalized or removed in my opinion, as they undermine Athas' draining energies and scarce resources. Endure Elements also seems a bit powerful in its ability to trivialize the heat of the Athasian sun.
Note- I have little issue with the mid-to-high level spells that create food and drink since by that time you have endured the hardships of the campaign and have several tools to deal with them.
So, with the x100 cost for steel weapons, and looking at the Armed with Steel trait, you can get...Brass Knuckles? I mean, even a Dagger is more than 100 Ceramic Pieces, right? Or am I missing something? Just curious how the trait is supposed to work.
The trait is meant to offer you a rare treat (steel!) but not to give you something game-breaking at level 1. It essentially limits you to a free short spear, light hammer, or handful of arrows/bolts made of steel.
That is a great point. Laborer slaves sell for a few ceramic coins. Steel sells for hundreds. That says a lot about how life is valued, and about how quickly a level 1 with such a flashy weapon would become a target for looting.
As I initially suspected. One thing, the arrows would not work. For starters because the trait only allows a single weapon but also because arrows aren't weapons. They are ammunition.
It does make the trait completely pointless though and a waste of text.
I think most GMs wouldn't be too harsh on that verbiage. I see little difference between allowing five steel bolts and allowing a short spear with a steel spearhead.
Pointless? If you think getting a +1 equivalent weapon that won't break on natural 1s (when everyone else's bone or obsidian weapon will break) at level 1 is pointless, I would have to disagree with you. Aside from its nice functionality it has strong RP potential. People you encounter will gaze at your wondrous weapon in awe. You could play that up if you chose to.
As someone who helped with the conversion, I felt compelled to chime in.
The "Armed with Steel" trait is very specific - the value of the weapon is no more than 100 ceramic pieces. You can't buy a longsword, much less a large-sized longsword which would be a kings-ransom worth of steel, requiring a master smith - who are ultra rare - to have the know-how to make such a large craft. Scarcity and hardship and keystones to Dark Sun, and starting play with steel trivializes those notions. You may as well play a gnome paladin of Desna in a suit of plate.
The trait allows for a 100 cp (1 gp equivalent) steel weapon - something like a short spear, light hammer, or handful of arrowheads/bolts, medium sized.
I've got a son on the way (my first child, due in about a month) and my free time to play Warhammer and role play with friends is already diminished to a fraction of what it once was. When the baby arrives it'll be next to no free time.
I'm hoping that I can jump back into a PbP game in the relatively near future, after the first few months have gone by and the baby actually learns to sleep through much of the night! I, likewise, will be more thankful than ever for a community of players and the technology freely available to facilitate the enjoyment of our favorite hobby!!
Haladir - you are of course very correct. 3.x and 5e do not mix in most ways, however I don't think that bounded accuracy plays much of a role here. In 5e the attack bonuses/ACs stay low; in PF they grow high. If anything I think the notion of iterative attack penalties is a bigger indictment of PF problems in this light, due to the ever-growing ACs of opponents in Pathfinder. This is at the heart of why I don't like the notion of -5/-10/-15 penalties. That last roll or two are basically shots in the dark with little chance to actually hit.
Claxon - Very neat idea. *scratches chin in contemplation*
I don't disagree with anything you said, but I guess what I'm getting at is - what would be the consequence of just allowing iterative attacks with no -5/-10/-15 penalties, and movement freedom with your full attack? Why dillydally with it being unlocked at a certain level?
Is this throwing out the baby with the bathwater? I want to throw out the bathwater.
I'm aware of those optional rules but it doesn't really address my concerns. I like the notion of gaining more attacks; I just don't like the idea of taking penalties on these new attack rolls. It feels unintuitive to me.
Hey congrats on leveling up! You've earned the ability to attack twice in a round!...but take a -5 penalty on that new attack because...reasons.
Furthermore the Unchained option seems like an even more convoluted mess of rules to remember, with the ranges of hit ACs causing a multitude of results... not my cup of tea.
I've played 3.x since 2000, played 2e long before that, and play a handful of RPGs nowadays including PF, 5e, and more. I have tons of PF books and this game is near and dear to my heart, I have every intention of continuing to play PF for many years to come, but after many years of experience I find myself strongly disliking certain aspects of our favorite RPG.
Primarily I hate how restrictive movement is on the 'Full Attack' action. Secondarily I dislike how lame it is to take a -5 cumulative penalty on each successive iterative attack.
What do you guys think are the reasons for the designers putting these punitive measures on melee combatants? Other than nullifying the purpose of some feats (such as Spring Attack) what would be the result of allowing players in a Pathfinder game to:
A) attack at their full attack bonus for each level-based iterative extra attack (at 6th, 11th, 16th)
B) allowing PCs to use all of those attacks while also retaining their 'move' action?
In 5th edition D&D you can attack at any point in your move - before, during, and/or after. This 'attack' can includes multiple attack rolls, meaning you could attack and kill the goblin adjacent to you, move 10 feet, kill another goblin, then finish your remaining 20 feet of movement. This is baked into the normal combat rules and requires no special feats to achieve. To me this feels more organic, more intuitive, and frankly more conducive to fun.
I'm curious to try this in my next PF campaign, as a profound house-rule change experiment. What pitfalls do you predict that I may not be seeing?
I hope this isn't unwelcome but I wanted to share a Pathfinder-Dark Sun conversion that fellow forumer Bodhizen worked on last year. It is a really neat comprehensive approach that endeavors to stay close to the original source material while making the necessary changes to PF rules.
Here is a link to the thread where Bodhizen launched his conversion and sought feedback from some of us old Dark Sun fans.
GM - I'm not sure if you had your own conversion or just planned on winging it, but I wanted to share this with you because I think it is a great adaptation worthy of the campaign setting.
The Church of Asmodeus in the Pathfinder setting is generally one of the good guys, emphasizing Law, maintaining order, etc.
LOL!
You were making good points until I read this line. One of the good guys?? Hitler, Stalin, and Mao also heavily emphasized law and maintaining order while collectively being responsible for nearly 100 million dead.
Asmodeus is by definition one of the bad guys. His church spreads order in the most evil ways possible, and stands in direct contravention to the good guys.
Wait, people/creatures are only deserving of punishment WHILE they are doing evil things?
That's not really what I said or implied but I can see how you gathered that from my ill-worded thought.
Glorf Fei-Hung wrote:
I think this person would not deserve to die, but that has nothing to do with his good/evil alignment, but because what you discribe is a lack of obedience to laws, not evil acts. This would be a Chaotic Character, nothing here describes anything even partially evil.
Stealing is evil. Taking the fruits of someone else's labor is evil. That shouldn't be up for debate, but alas...
Glorf Fei-Hung wrote:
In this system to be "Evil" you have to generally have done more evil than good. Thus to kill an evil character would be to remove a creature that generally tends to do evil things.
While anytime you kill a creature you take away their future. An evil Creature could very well spend the rest of its life doing good to make amends for it's past. Thus they could eventually reach a good alignment. This of course would not be possible had it been killed for being evil. But as that action could be morally acceptable because it was killing/punishing a creature for what it had already done, not for what it may do in the future. There really is no mechanic in place to say that, generally a good creature killing an evil one did anything wrong.
Your first paragraph illustrates well the silliness of how we are forced to gauge good/evil in our games. It also demonstrates how silly the very idea of a rigid "alignment" is, but it is a time-honored game mechanic and thus here we are talking about it.
Your second paragraph is spot on. It is a much better way to explaining what I poorly explained when I said "Evil-aligned people/creatures aren't necessarily doing evil things all the time and by extension they're not guilty-and-deserving-of-punishment at all times."
There should be no moral quandary with "Mercilessly killing hundreds of evil creatures" if those creatures are intrinsically evil (such as devils/demons) but there needs to be a distinction between those and sentient beings with choices.
Evil-aligned people/creatures aren't necessarily doing evil things all the time and by extension they're not guilty-and-deserving-of-punishment at all times. You can be a hardened street rat who steals for a living but would never kill, and yet be "evil"...
Not in D&D. Evil Monsters are there to be killed. That's the game.
There are other games with shades of grey. This isnt one of them.
and that "hardened street rat" wouldnt detect as evil, and in most medieval societies the penalty for repeated theft is death. Or worse.
Yes we are playing a game, and yes many games turn to "murder-hobo theatre" from time to time, but for me - killing everything because it got in my way or because they're of a "bad" race is the way we RPd when we were 12. I disagree with your assessment. You are not the arbiter of "what D&D is." Like me, you're entitled to your opinion on in-game morality, but it is silly dismiss others' desire to address morality in their/our games as "NOT in D&D".
Knight who says Meh- That's like asking if killing a demon is an evil act, and then someone saying "well, switch that to an angel and ask again." Mercilessly killing hundreds of evil creatures is usually accepted as a good act. Neutral or good? You've firmly changed both the parameters of the question.
So it's okay to bad things if you do them to bad people?
Pretty much.
There should be no moral quandary with "Mercilessly killing hundreds of evil creatures" if those creatures are intrinsically evil (such as devils/demons) but there needs to be a distinction between those and sentient beings with choices.
Evil-aligned people/creatures aren't necessarily doing evil things all the time and by extension they're not guilty-and-deserving-of-punishment at all times. There are different degrees of "evil". You can be a hardened street rat who steals for a living but would never kill, and yet be "evil". Does that person deserve to die? Is it okay for someone to murder them because they're evilly-aligned? IMO - absolutely not.
TL;DR You can't just boil down complex moral issues by saying its okay to do bad things to bad people.
With that said, the OP's example is not evil. It's scandalous, chaotic and troublesome... but he didn't commit an act of evil. (Also it could be argued that a cleric of an evil god is akin to an intrinsically evil being, and thus is fair game!)
2, it brings in swinginess, some character that goes last and then next round goes first gets 2 turns in without anyone able to react.
3, Also it kinda really messes with readied and delayed actions.
1) I would say yes, but see my previous post for commentary.
2) True. However that might be part of the fun and a predictable result of the more chaotic rolling system.
3) Indeed it does... I'll have to think on that! Good catch.
