Mike!
Good to hear from you. Hope all is well.
Search Posts
Rock and Rule.
Hardware.
And to the original poster, I could have guaranteed you that Amazon wouldn't be able to fulfill their all of their initial orders, it is not even a concern for them. As long as more people get their orders on time than don't, they know that the lowest price is the biggest attraction for customers. Even if someone gets burned by them and their flgs has always been 100% on time, there is still a good chance that the burned customer will order through them again if the difference in price is big enough. (And irate customers aren't as bad when you're dealing with them over the phone or through email). Also, don't be shocked when that long anticipated book you've been waiting for is not available on the date that Amazon quotes you ;)
Hell yeah. I never had many problems until the last few years when the economy got tougher, and it got steadily worse. I am no longer in the business and my ulcers don't hurt nearly as much now that I don't have to deal with shoplifters. The worse was a couple who put 3 books in their kid's stroller. Not a good idea if you don't want child services to take your kids away. It also hurt because I considered people interested in roleplaying games as "my people".And financially, it was the biggest killer in making the roleplaying portion of my business a profitable one. Basically, my discounts mirrored the numbers Vic Wertz mentioned above. This means on a $50 book, I would pay my distributor $30 for it. If I was selling them at 10% off, I would make $15 on the sale. When someone steals one, the profit from the next two books I sold would go to pay my distributor for the stolen item, leaving me with nothing to pay rent, utilities, my employees, shipping cost etc. Shoplifters f$@)#g suck. Thanks for letting me rant.
Jeremy, now tell them what happens if someone shoplifts one of your books. Especially an expensive one, like a role-playing book. It still makes me sick to my stomach.
Just as a point of interest. In my copy of B1, under background notes, it says: In the mythical WORLD OF GREYHAWK (available from TSR) the stronghold can be considered within any one of the following lands- the Barony of Ratik, the Duchy of Tenh, or the Theocracy of the Pale. I know I bought my boxed set in March of 1979.
He wrote some of my all-time favorite stories in dark fantasy and also in comedic fantasy. A truly versatile, gifted entertainer.
With the dex-based skills all taking armor check penalties, I don't see how a paladin is expected to ride his/her mount. Paladins need charisma, strength, constitution and wisdom, so dexterity and intelligence aren't typically big bonus abilities for them. Low dexterity and/or intelligence, heavy armor, and only 2 base skill points per level=really bad ride scores. Am I missing something? A simple solution would be a class feature that says paladins don't take armor penalties on ride checks. There may already be one somewhere but I couldn't find it.
I agree with druid. Below is a repost of my post on this thread where several more people agree (and disagree) about the druid as a favored class. Dark Druid. The savage kind that read entrails of sacrifices to fortell the future. Not (necessarily) evil, but primal. Survival of the fittest.
Dark Druid. The savage kind that read entrails of sacrifices to fortell the future. Not (necessarily) evil, but primal. Survival of the fittest. I was waiting to see what Golarian/Pathfinder backstory for Half-Orcs favoring Cleric is going to be. Often their story is cool enough to make me change my mind. Otherwise I am going to go with Druid instead of Cleric as a favored-class also.
Yeah, and I've seen way too many Cloaks of Resistance to see anything "magical" about them anymore. But without the boost, trying to make a Saving Throw in an off-category just sucks. A more frequent increase in Ability Boosts and Saving Throws, would go along way towards making the PCs more "self-sufficient".
However, I doubt it this would fit backward compatibility, so it seems relegated to house-rule or optional-rule status. But I'm with you, brother.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. You guys at Paizo give us so much, what can we give you? How about more compliments, less scepticisms on speculation, promising to at least try to read through old threads before starting a new one and lots of good feedback from playtest results. ...or maybe Lilith can bake some cookies?
p23-Survival is listed as a Rogue class skill. p38-Table 5-4: Survival is not listed as a Rogue class skill.
I had just started playing around with the idea of combining Craft and Profession. Very early stages, nothing definite yet, but the basic premise was that every couple of levels in Profession you possessed, would give you some skill levels in two Crafts and/or Skills. For example, Profession (Apothecary): Craft Alchemy + Heal
You would gain skill levels in these Skills/Crafts half as fast as whatever is normal for the system you are using because Profession still gives you other benefits not necessarily represented just by Skills & Crafts. A sailor would know knot tying, how to raise and lower sails, and alot of other things about shipboard life that a character with the Balance + Climb skills would not. So for 3.5 you would only get 1 skill point in the 2 skills/crafts for every 4 levels you had in Profession. A system where the skills have been condensed may allow you to gain 1 skill point for every 2 or 3 levels in Profession. Too much complication for most probably, just something I was messing around with for myself. *Edit* Oops, sorry. Somehow I missed a whole page plus alot of other posts when I was reading this thread. I think I changed pages when I wasn't looking. Anyway, this thread was in response to Anry and Troy Paceilli's response to Dorje's post: *edit* You know thinking about there is a KISS answer to boost both Craft and Profession. Why not just merge them into a single skill?
Don't worry Sebastian, that was just some crazy felgercarb I was talking back there. Heathy sat down and explained it all to me. He isn't a cylon. *eye twitch*
*from the shadows* Starbuck? Starbuck is one of them too. *nervously shaking now empty blaster* They're all cylons man, frak me. The whole ship is cylons.... ... the ship is a cylon!
AIEE SUMB!@# !!! A CYLON!!! ZZT ZZT ZAP
I'm not a cylon!!! Hey, hey, hey podna take 'er easy, no problems here. We believe you. We're all pals right? Spoiler: *while loosening blaster in holster*
All I know is I'm not a cylon. So you say... *squints eyes*
My outline above should also include the following subsets under the first two choices. 1 & 2 a) Keep Sleight of Hand by itself.
I think we can keep discussing which of the above system is better, but I think a better use of our time would be to design the rest of the system and see how the whole skill system fits together. When you are all done you can look at your system and see what skills seem too weak or too strong and what classes need more or less class-skills. I would like to say everyone’s system is well thought out. I am always amazed at the level of intelligence and creativity these boards are capable of achieving. I have had a blast considering everyone’s suggestions and I apologize to anyone who doesn’t like this part of gameplay and has been overwhelmed by our enthusiasm.
To summarize this thread, if I may. Most people want to combine Disable Device and Open Locks. A few don't. I am included in the smaller group. I feel Disable Device and Open Lock suffer from titles that don't accurately descripe their intentions. Would you still want to combine the two skills if they were called Solving Traps and Using Tools? Maybe. I can see people coming up with arguments for it. Basically, the community seems to have come up with 3 options. All of which, have their merits. Any of which, I would play. 1) Combine the two skills, decide which ability score to assign to it. I guess I have an easier time convincing myself that picking a lock is Intelligence based than convincing myself that figuring out how to bypass, sabotage, and disable devices should be Dexterity based. 2) Combine the two skills, no longer assign only one ability to a skill. Disable Device (int/dex) +5/+8. I am ready to see the "beta" version of this option. I think it could work, I would like to see it written up to see how all the details play out to make sure some big problem doesn't arise. 3) Keep them separate. Find different skills that do use the same ability score to perform and combine them instead.
Read the Search description in the rulebook. Doesn't it sound like it could be part of Trap Solving/Deciphering Devices? Plus pulling Search back out of Perception has the added bonus of not making us go back and jack up older editon Rogue's Wisdom scores so they can actually find traps and secret doors. So, that's it. One thing about skill-folding is it's like solving a Rubik's cube. You get one part done, but you end up having to mess it up again to get the whole thing solved. You have to see the whole list, plus the class-skills list to see if your skill combinations will work in gameplay. Otherwise you may get done and find the Fighter has 6 class skills and the Rogue has 5! In under two weeks, we will hopefully have Alpha 1.2 and the playtesting can really start taking off.
Yeah, don't get me wrong, when I read 3E, BAB was probably my favorite "whoa, that is cool" moments. I just meant I got a kick out the fact that players that were never really comfortable with THAC0, immediately understood BAB. Some brilliant person made a difficult calculation into an easy one just by basically doing this:
Turning it into a math problem for Sebastian: Dice Roll >= THAC0-AC ***was too difficult.
I found it funny (weird) how much easier it made the problem.
I do like the new system better, it's more intuitive, but I never had a problem with THAC0 either.
In the old system, to hit someone in chainmail (ac5) and you had a THAC0=19, you needed a (19-5) 14 to hit. Under the new system your character would have a BAB +1 so you get to add 1 to whatever your roll is, which means to hit someone in chainmail (ac 15) you would need a (15-1) 14 to hit.
4th Edition seems (from the designers admission) to have been a design-up philosophy (make up good rules, then watch the outcome). I am very much a live and let live type of guy, but I do want to say I agree with Jal's original post of design-up vs design-down. "We've gathered feedback from as many people who have played D&D as we could. We've talked to you at conventions, examined countless message boards devoted to the game, and collected information from a variety of customer-response outlets including our customer service department. We used all of this data to retool the game from the ground up and incorporate everyone's suggestions. We listened to what you had to say, and we responded enthusiastically to improve the game and this product."
I am not saying 4E didn't do some of this, I am not saying one way is better than the other, or one way will produce a better game than the other. What I am saying is yes Jal, I agree that it "felt" like 3E had a design-down approach and 4E "feels" like it has a design-up approach.
Mosiac, 1) I really like putting Disable Magical Traps with Use magic Device. Those two tricks fit together verry nicely. I applaud you and anyone else who thought of that.
2) INT score ability increase/retro skill points. I think this is a must-do for math simplicity. Plus it can be explained just as you have done. I had house-ruled it with a similar description. Basically, a)The character had to be doing something in their off hours to increase their Intelligence, such as studying at a library. b) In their studies they read up on the things of interest to them, and by doing so, learned ways to improve their skill in those areas.
The [CON Score + max HP] method of starting HPs suffers, to a lesser extent, from the INT ability score increase-skill points problem. Just a small addition problem, but I predict it would be a common mistake when statting up creatures/characters higher than 3rd level.
When he arrived, he took off his chainmail and crawled into his bedroll. It was warm and comfortable. It should be, he thought to himself, he paid five gold to have it custom-made. Clyhpso could afford such luxury, he was rich. Most adventurers who lived as long as he had were. A lot more were dead already. He realized he couldn’t sleep, so he tried to think of something less depressing.
City of Wrath Clyhpso put another log on the campfire, then went back to his task of keeping watch over the camp. He didn’t like it here, there were no crickets chirping, no wolves baying at the moons. He laughed quietly to himself, stroking his beard. What moons? There were no moons showing overhead, only the glowing green dots that somewhat resembled stars on the ceiling of the cave some one thousand feet above. One singularly large glow resembled a moon and that bothered his thinking because it reminded him where he was. He hadn’t seen the real moons, or for that matter, the sun for around twelve months now. He thought about his home in Calbut. He wished he were home again, enjoying the sub-zero temperatures, and the daily snow fall of a few inches- the kind of weather typical in the Duchy of Tenh this time of year. He smiled and snickered, he realized he didn’t even know what day it was anymore. With a sigh, his thoughts wandered to his lady. How he wished to be back home enjoying the nice weather with her.
One of my players recently found an English paper he wrote back in the day. Considering he was only fourteen when he wrote it, it was remarkably entertaining. Since it dealt with our D&D campaign I decided to post it here. I cleaned up the grammar as best as I could and added some extra scenes to flesh it out (probably to the detriment of the story).
Quick note from rolling up characters for playtest.
It isn't a concern if one of the non-standard methods is used, but if Pathfinder uses the standard method [max HP+CON mod] for starting HPs, they should lower the HP gained from the Toughness Feat. Gaining 4HP at first level makes a character class have the same starting HPs as a character class two dice-types higher them theirs. In other words a wizard with toughness has the same starting HPs as a fighter without it, a cleric or rogue has the same starting HPs as a barbarian, etc. And if the weaker class is a racial favorite, then they will have more starting HPs than a class two "degrees tougher" than them. The elf wizard will have more starting HPs than an elf fighter and a halfling rogue will have more starting Hps than a halfling barbarian. It looks like their is a good chance that the starting HP method will change, and this makes this point moot, if not our group felt Toughness was a little too good.
Thank you for taking time to post on this and other posts, Jason. And I would like to apologize for misspelling your last name every time I have used it. My only defense is my longest running campaign is set in the Duchy of Tenh.
I wouldn't be suprised to see the Pathfinder Paladin and Ranger have non-spellcasting options when they are presented.
Ah, I feel like I'm stirring things up today. I still think combining Open Locks and Disable Device suffers the same problem as Handle Animal and Ride.
DeadDMWalking had started a thread on this already, too. You can find it here. (see DracoDruid, I told you other people had started new threads without seeing the old ones) :) The crazy dissenter on that board is saying sabotaging and figuring out how to disable a trap are Intelligence based and using tools to pick apart a hidden mechanism is a Dexterity based one.
He then goes on to show how you can still combine several skills into two skills by slightly rewriting the Open Locks, Disable Device, Search, and Sleight of Hands skills. It is on page 2 of the thread.
Kirth- I didn't mean to say if you want to do those things, that you have to take the Ride skill. They are still a part of Handle Animal skill set. I meant they were so basic of skills if they were listed on the Handle Animal DC list they would be listed as a DC of -5 for anybody with the Ride skill. You wouldn't have to take any skill ranks in Handle Animal to do them. Anyway, you do make a good point that it seems ridiculous to think a trainer wouldn't know how to ride the animal he is training. Ferret not necessarily included. So I will say the same thing I have said before, if you combined these skills, I would respect your decision and play in your campaign. Let's get to playing! But since we are waiting around for the next skills update, I will continue with my analogy and state my other concern. By folding those two skills, you make no distinction between the pit crew and the car driver. Depending on how you want to run your campaign you could just have Handle Vehicle, or you could have Mechanic and Driver. Either way is just a matter of personal preference.
Snorter- I don't have the rule books here, but I do remember looking at and liking the idea of Charisma modifying Will scores on Charm based spells. I used a similar option in 1 ed from an old Dragon mag. Your idea intrigues me, I would still like to see how the bookkeeping would work. A small part of the appeal of skill-folding for me is so that it would take up less room on the sheets and in statblocks. I know some people can just do this part in their head, but for clarity I would want to see it written down. Perhaps, the rules' writers could specify which ability would modify the skill check under the skill's description. Or you could record the two different numbers on the character sheet, such as Handle Animal (CHA/DEX) +6/+7.
One last concern I will address in my next post.
DracoDruid and/or Snorter- If you wrote up a system for this, I would read it.I tried coming up with a new skill called Vocation which would have rolled Craft, Profession and Perform into one, with specific checks based on Int, Wis, and Cha. Then I changed it into a Feat, then I scrapped it. My point with Handle Animal is that is should change its name, it is not about handling an animal as you ride, it's about training them, the same point SeekerofShadowLight made. A modern analogy would be driving a car. Most people know how to wash it, put gas in it and maybe change the oil or a flat tire. That's the Ride skill. Handle Animal is building the engine.
DracoDruid- I won't flame you for offering your suggestions. I may boo you for not looking through the threads first where you would have seen DeadDMWalking had already started a thread you could have posted it in -here-. But hey, we have all done that before ;) Your system and most other systems I have seen would all work in gameplay, it is balanced that way. If it makes you happy, go for it, right?
Kerth, you are correct that the phrase Handle Animal is another way to say Ride, but if you fold Handle Animal and Ride together, someday a PC is going to ask you why training a dog is a dex-based skill; or the act of riding is a cha-based one. I hope this comes across as friendly banter because that is the spirit I have written it in, I enjoy reading everyone's ideas. I have definitely had fun putting together different skill lists, but when all is said and done, the alpha version has stated it isn't complete yet and the next update will have more skills changes in them. I am confident enough in Jason's abilities to go with his final version--probably :)
I was just going through the Planet Stories recommendations post the other day to see if anybody had suggested him yet. What a coincedence. (One of the first posters did recommend him).
The names used below are just placeholder names to distinguish them from earlier editions. You can use Disable Device and Sleight of Hand if you want or come up with better ones. Descriptions are summaries only, not full definitions. The parts I left out can be assumed to be the same as they are written in the PHB. (Like hiding a small object under observation). Deft Hands (DEX; trained) or Nimble Fingers
DC 10 palm a coin-sized object, make a coin disappear
Try Again:
Analyze (INT, trained) or Deduction or Decipher Devices
DC 10 Ransack a chest full of junk to find a certain item, jam a simple lock.
* Dwarves (even if they are not rogues) can use Analyze find traps built into or out of stone.
Examples of Devices and Traps: These DCs replace the old Search, Open Lock and Disable Device DCs shown in the traps section of the DMG. (DCs shown are for illustration purposes only and actual numbers may need to be changed). Simple padlock Analyze DC 0 Disable (Deft Hands) DC 20
Deft Hands and Analyze replace the Disable Device, Open Lock, Search, and Sleight of Hand skills in the 3.5 PHB.
I've got triangles!
As mention elsewhere, I consider these posts as "mental exercise". Not that something good can't come out of them, but if Jason Buhlman is looking through them, I hope to God he is just skimming! I have no problem with moving them out out the Feedback forums. I would suggest moving them into the Word Games forum. :)
I like moving Search out of the WIS-based Perception. Folding it into Appraise, as defined in 3.5 is a viable solution. However (and there is always a however, isn't there) Mr. Buhlman has changed the definition of Appraise in the Alpha version to give it enough juice to stand on its own. It might still be able to combine the new version of Appraise with Search, I don't know, but I feel leaving it on its own would be better for now. If you have read the definition of the new Appraise and feel Search can fold into it, then I say go for it. I think your solution would work in gameplay just fine, and I like the name Examine. If you are interested, here is what I did:
Khartan- The Decipher Device, Deft Hands skills I outlined above fix this problem too. Search is moved out of Perception. I'm just saying... :-)
Love the LotR scenario, that's funny. Just to nitpick, the archer in your example would only get to fire each arrow once if all 137 of them hit, in 3.5 arrows that miss have a 50% chance of not breaking. As mentioned in the bottom of this thread, I use basically the same house rule as Taliesin, except I don't worry about what sided die I use. I might try his even/odd thing instead of high/low just to try something new.
Yeah, but I'm turning four skills into two.
Looking back through the post I think we are saying the same thing but coming at it from different directions. I'll admit I'm not a lockpick, if picking a lock doesn't use any manual dexterity than yeah it should go in the Disable Device (mental) aspect in my example above. Then our skills are exactly the same, and my argument would be that some parts of Disable Device require physical dexterity and those aspects should be put with Sleight of Hand. Deft Hands (DEX) Disable Device(physical) + Sleight of Hand
How this would in gameplay is as follows:
Basically the same with that one added component.
This is just the skill list, no class skill lists or synergies, and I will wait to see what Pathfinder does about skill points. It is mostly the same as the alpha version, the changes are:
Acrobatics (DEX) Balance + Jump + Tumble
Vocation Skills
I haven’t done anything with Knowledge checks yet.
Sorry, I know you said Complete Skill system, but it is late here and I should be in bed. I have a touch of insomnia, this seems to have helped that.
Yeah, I treat the whole skills thing as a game. It's just a practice in mental gymnastics without a clear-cut answer. Based on the number of different opinions shown here, I don't think you can come up with a system that will please everyone. It's a system that will always invite much house-ruling.
Yes either of those would be quite good names and would avoid any confusion between there being old and new versions of Sleight of Hand.
|