kickedoffagain's page

More like pre-Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and the Million Victim March. In his day, it was still okay to tell minorities that they could do anything they set their mind to without special handouts from the government. These days that is defined as racism.

Unless your skin is the right color, anyway. Obama got away with some pointed commentary on Father's Day about responsibility to children and not just walking away from that commitment.

I like hearing a cry for personal responsibility and not waiting for a handout or someone else to come clean up your messes. I'm fairly stunned to be hearing it coming from the left side of the aisle, 'though.

Then again, the right is so busy giving handouts to the irresponsible welfare queens on Wall Street that it's just yet more evidence that the world has gone topsy-turvy.

Cats and dogs, sleeping together! Total chaos!

DMs should be actively discouraging players from trying to mess with the game's monetary system in any way, and if it becomes a problem the DM's job is to take the player aside and make it clear that everyone is there to adventure, not sit in town while someone tries to squeeze a few gold out of the market.

If the DM has to actively discourage players from what they want to do, and take them aside and make it clear to them that they can't do anything other than what he says they are there to do, I think he's missed the entire point of the game, which is to *have fun.*

If 'having fun' entails setting up a trading house, stewarding a sacred grove, negotiating a tricky alliance, navigating the streets of Sharn looking for a story to publish in the Inquisitive or wrangling a herd of temperamental rothe through the wild underdark while trying to stay ahead of them durn no-good Derro cattle-russlers, then that's not wrong.

If the DM has to take players aside, he's already made an awful mistake, in that he forgot to ask his players, his *friends,* in many cases, what kind of game they wanted to play.

If the game can't support more than one style of play, a style quite similar to that of Warhammer Quest (a damn fun game, I must admit!), then this is a *huge* downgrade from what it grew into back in 2nd edition, when they started introducing settings like Birthright, Dark Sun, Al-Qadim, Kara-Tur, Council of Wyrms, Ravenloft, Planescape, etc. where 'enter room, kill goblin, collect XP' became only a *part* of the game-playing experience.

Preordered awhile back.

I tend to go for it when I choose a setting, and just as I bought every darn 1e and 2e Realms product, every Al-Qadim product, all of the Kara-Tur/OA adventures, all of the Greyhawk stuff, all of the Scarred Lands stuff, all of the Freeport stuff, so too will I start picking up this Golarion stuff, as finances permit.

(I bought tons of other stuff, too, but I'm just listing off the settings that I still pillage ideas from occasionally.)

A good multiclass option. I prefer using Sorcerer to nab magic missile and either mage armor or shield (usually shield). Leaves your wizard levels for the interesting spells.

If you're gonna go that route, better to take spells like Color Spray that don't have any level-based variables. Mage Armor, Shield and Magic Missile are all kinda gimp at 1st level (well, Mage Armor isn't bad, with the Sorcerer spell slots to make up for having to cast it over and over).

But really, if I was taking the Sorcerer level just to allow me to use items that my Specialist Wizard couldn't otherwise use, I'd take instead a single level of Cleric with the Magic Domain and some other random Domain that helps what I'm doing, such as Planning for Extend Spell or Elf for Point-Blank Shot or whatever (which would allow me to use Wizard items *and* Cleric items!).

Yes, of course. That's 95% of the problems most of us have with our games... but where's the fun in a quick and simple solution? :)

But what would we argue about if everybody just made a commonsense ruling whenever they saw something they didn't like and didn't bother to post to a messageboard about it?

Where's the DRAMA?

Because they present it as a quantum evolution in game design (it is not), that is mechanically superior to all previous editions (highly subjective), while constantly contradicting themselves in its application (by saying gamism is about consistent rules then suggesting you can ignore any of the rules at whim).

They want to have their hype and ignore it too.

This strikes me funny when I hear it. The post from crosswiredmind above mine suggests a similar tactic, that if I don't care for the rules mechanical changes, I should just not use them. (Same logic I would get from diehard Realms fans when I would state that some of the uberNPCs bugged me. 'Don't use them!')

This logic, to me, leads to an inescapable conclusion;

If I'm not supposed to use it, why should I pay for it?

I think it's safe to say that, as D&D games go, yours is a unique case.

Nope x3. We had several games that involved that sort of stuff, including a memorable Spelljammer campaign that involved interplanetary shipping and a few 'guard the caravan' Al-Qadim games that got into mercantile matters. Our first Kara-Tur game got pretty political as well, and this was back in 1st edition, IIRC (perhaps 2nd? It's been a long time...). We did this sort of thing in Star Fleet Battles, even, making a huge campaign map and controlling territories that would give a certain amount of resources we could use to build new ships and stations, while negotiating with other players and NPC races to form (usually short-lived...) alliances and the like.

I personally don't care for business stuff or 'god games' or micro-management of resources, being about the least mercantile / materialistic / 'stuff-oriented' person in the world, but most of the gamers I've played with have enjoyed that sort of thing and I don't *dislike* that style of play, and can certainly enjoy when it gets all political and tense negotiations (and sabotage of the rivals, my favorite part!) come into play.

Obviously, my gaming friends were happy when games like Civilization came out, as those sorts of resource-management / empire-building games directly catered to their interests. Speaking of Civilization, I suspect that if people who liked that sort of thing were, as you say, unique, it probably wouldn't have sold more than one copy. :)

Because I am not a hypocrite,

Then don't claim to be all about respecting all different kinds of people after stating that you can't respect a certain type of people, 'cause that's kinda a defining characteristic of hyprocrisy.

and I consider that a personal attack on my character. If your comment is "mindless sarcasm" then it's no matter, as you are just being intentionally stupid and ridiculous.

Personal attacks. Boring.

It's one thing to have strong moral principles. It's another to be a jerk to those who don't share them.

I agree with your politics. Just not your tone.

I want one of the iconics to be a Humanoid. Preferably a Gnoll Druid with a Dire Hyena companion. Although a Hobgoblin chain-fighting Monk or a Bugbear Rogue could be neat, as well...

I wonder if the 5th AP will have *new* Iconics, or just convert / update the current twelve? 'Cause some fresh blood after two years might be cool.

It also seems to me that it was done to rebalance things so that the core races are more on par with some of the level-adjusted races that were popping up.

I see that as a major plus. A lot of LA+1 races (Hobgoblins, Tieflings, Genasi) were hardly worth a level-adjustment, and this brings a bunch of 'coulda been contenders' into LA+0 range.

On the other hand, I also like that giving each race two stat bonuses doubles the amount of 'optimal' classes available. Instead of *all* Halflings being optimized Rogues, and getting stared at if they take a different path, they now have another set of class options available that aren't 'sub-optimal.'

Freeing up some mental ability score bonuses is also nice. 3.0/3.5 was awful stingy on them, and it was feast (Aasimar, with *two* mental score bonuses) or famine (the core races, with three mental score *penalties,* two of them in a single race!).

Longbow then? Shortbow maybe?

I do realize backstories may have to be changed. I also realize this may already set in stone. It is just my observation that clerics of artistic,love, music like portfolio may not want to be the up front in your face kind of melee characters. Then again, the gliave is a reach kind of weapon...

Elegance may be better suited as a rapier as a weapon than the glaive.

If you want to keep the background, Shelyn could take some form of Spiked Chain or Whip as her favored weapon, and have it said that she stole a chain-weapon from her brother, but that her worshippers are more likely to use silk scarves (with weighted tips, treat as whips) as weapons, singing sinuously through the air to wrap around an unsuspecting foe who didn't recognize that she was armed...

If you want to just ditch the background, any weapon that could be seen as musical or graceful could work. A quarterstaff could be used with many graceful styles, and also serve as a percussion instrument (even an impromptu one, as the priest raps it against the ground as he spins it around in a battle display). Rapier, as you mention, and they could even customize their rapiers to have fluted hilts that whistle as they whip them around, giving them their own kung-fu movie special effects soundtrack as they show off their swordplay.

The bow, as you mention above, fits with the goddess of love schtick, hearkening to Cupid, 'striking the heart' of the victim.

But, for the most part, while I'm good with weapons that can be tweaked to make some keen noises during combat, it's part of the Bards class that he isn't supposed to be meleeing and making music at the same time. Singing is as good as it gets, and even then, the song starts to fade once he starts the stabby stab.

A *magic item* that can be used as a weapon + instrument, on the other hand, is tres cool, and the Magic Item Compendium has a few singing bow / singing sword type items that allow you to maintain Bardic Music whilst slaying your critics.

Then again, you could go all Aborigine and have Shelyn's faithful use a bull-roarer / sling combination weapon... Vooom, vooom, vooom, swish, CRACK. "ow!"

I've changed my mind slightly, after seeing the effects of +1 Natural Armor and Small size (with full 30' movement) at low levels.

I'd go with -2 Str, +2 Dex and that's it for stat adjustments. The -4 Str is just over the top mean, IMO, and the -2 Con isn't needed to balance anything at this point. There's been good arguments for and against bonuses to Int, Wis and / or Cha, and I'm just gonna average them out and say that Kobolds have +0 to all mental stats, just like humans. Some will be smart, perceptive or commanding, others will be flaky, absent-minded or annoying.

The standard PC races have a net +2 in Pathfinder, and I'm gonna house-rule that the +1 Natural Armor compensates them adequately for only having a net +0 to their stats.

I'll also give them the perks mentioned in the
WotC website article, feeble claw/bite attacks and a 'Slight Build' feature useful mainly for 'squeezing' through tight spaces and Hide bonuses.

The country with the largest porn production of the world falls unconscious if they see a nipple on TV.

Ya think there's a connection? :)

Sex. Everybody wants it. Nobody wants to *admit* they want it.

Our most breathtaking talent is our endless capacity for self-deception.

Plus, add in you could make a nice elementalist druid using call lightning in combination with produce flame. Very dramatic.

Creating a nice 'Tim the Enchanter' feel and making any Evokers or Warlocks in the party frown at the niche invasion. :)

"I thought *I* was the blowing-stuff-up specialist?"
"I thought *I* was the one who could fire stuff every round?"

Produce Flame is one of my favorite spells, ever.

Dragon Magic was an example of this IIRC. Marketing realized that "Dragon" and "Magic" are their two biggest selling keywords. They just crammed a bunch of stull into Dragon Magic and put out a book.

Much to my surprise, it was a good book if you had bought the various Complete books.

Agreed. I kinda groaned at the thought of it, but then ended up liking it. The new Warlock Invocations were neat, the idea of Dragon Pacts (if not the execution, which I would change a bit), etc. were pretty cool. Dragonfire Adepts felt a bit overspecialized and unworthy of being a core class in it's own right, like perhaps the Warlock and DA should be merged somehow with each being a branching path of the other, but it certainly wasn't a bad class (like some say the Samurai and Hexblade are), or one of those classes that nobody ever takes more than a few levels of (like the Swashbuckler seemed to be in my own experience).

To drag the discussion back in a Realms-y direction, when I first saw the Warlock in Complete Arcane, I thought to myself, 'THIS is what a Spellfire Channeler should have looked like...'

do you have any suggestions on how I should present the class? ( as in wizard variant vs stand-alone base). I'm leaning towards trying to make it work simply as a wizard variant, but it seems to powerful to label that way.

[posting under another login, this is Set]

The Dustform creature and Ice Beast spells were designed to be balanced with the Summon Monster spells, and the paperfolding replacing the other material/somatic components is just cosmetic, so I'd consider this perfectly suitable to just call a variant spell line, and play a base Wizard (or Sorcerer, whichever). Use your spells known / spells learned class features to pick up the next level of 'Summon Paperform Creature X' and it's good to go.

If you later want to customize Scribed Scrolls or Wondrous Items as Origami constructs, that also is more a cosmetic thing than a game mechanical change, and, as long as your DM is cool with it, you're good to go.

A stand-alone 20 level class based on Paperfolding would likely be a much more complicated beastie, with a much smaller spell selection and perhaps some Monk abilities? In any case, I'd avoid that.

Wizard (or Sorcerer) with some tweaked Summon Monster spells. Usable right out of the box, really. You could also have some of your other spells follow the theme as well. Color Spray could resemble brightly colored streamers and ribbons of paper flying from your sleeve and perplexing your foes. A Fireball could appear as a small red origami flower that spins through the air lazily to it's target and then unfolds and unfolds and unfolds, filling the entire 20' radius with red paper 'flames' that burn for very real damage. Your Mount spell might create a full-sized horse made of folded paper that you ride.

So long as there are no mechanical effects, and it's all cosmetic, or, as with the Summon Paperform Critter spells, any changes are balanced against pre-existing content (and I'd really advise against tweaking any other spells, changing the Summon Monster spells is *more* than adequate for a dramatic change!), I wouldn't have any problem allowing such a character into a standard 3.5 game.

Actually, I'd probably prefer it to someone who took those Conjure Ice Beast / etc. spells from Frostburn / Sandstorm, since combining various features of those books (Feats that enhance cold / fire spells, the spells themselves, and then PrCs that further enhance cold / fire spells) they tend to get pretty scary.

Same here, kicked off and logged out mid-post.

Now it won't take my password either, so I had to create another account. (At work, so changing my password won't help, since the new password will be mailed to my home email.)

Grr.