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Will there be an option to simulate actual RPG game play in which every once in a while you get to an area of the rules that aren't very clear and you get to debate with the GM on how the rules are supposed to work for that situation? Haha. All kidding aside, good luck. Probably not for me but glad you are trying to think of new ways of delivering your product.
I can't tell you how useful a tool the Global Bestiary Indices is for a GM. I hope this tool makes the transition. It is there in the new site. * The link "Monster Index" has the monsters.
I do have to add (for the benefit of everyone complaining about the change) that I personally liked the old PRD site better but from someone who works in the IT field as a Chief Information Officer ... Change is inevitable and most people don't like change. Rather than fighting it, it's far less stressful to embrace change. Give it a try. I'm sure you will get used to it. Even though the legacy version is up on the site (thanks for that), I have personally been avoiding using it, trying to force myself to get used to the "new" format (for me, anyway). My advice to those of you like me that need to get used to it is to give it an honest try. Pretend like the old version was never there and this is a new service that you never had before. Your experience with it will get better in time. If you wish a change in functionality, ask for it nicely. Perhaps it will happen and most of all remember that stressing about the change will likely just affect your health.
I sometimes use AoN for some information but I did like some aspects of the old PRD. For instance, the whole spell list for sorcerer/wizards (like the core rulebook does). I liked seeing all the spells categorized by level and then by school. In the default of AoN, it just seems to be one gigantic list by level. The utility of seeing what is what by school as well seems to have disappeared. Will this feature be added (or is it there in some other fashion, by selecting toggles and such)?
Thank you for your efforts in helping the community, Joey. I would appreciate a copy of the Word file, as well. sciencephile(at)yahoo.com Thanks.
... The changes made in this edition of the PDF will be incorporated into the second printing of the book ... I failed my Will Save and got the book today. It's awesome. I can't wait until a few more game sessions (for when me and my players officially move the campaign to Pathfinder RPG).
... The changes made in this edition of the PDF will be incorporated into the second printing of the book ... Nevermind, I see that James just answered the question in another thread - November. Thanks, James. Must ... make ... Will Save to see if I want to wait.
... The changes made in this edition of the PDF will be incorporated into the second printing of the book ... Vic, When will the second printing be available? I want to purchase a printed version of the PFRPG and switch my campaign to it in the near future but I also hate keeping track of errata pages if I can avoid it. Thanks, -Danny
That's precisely what I was going for, thanks.Heh, well, you're welcome, though I think a neutral paladin would be just fine as a concept. Especially LN. It'd be...Judge Dredd, basically. I play in a Rise of the Runelords game with a fellow that has a LG paladin named Judge Dredd. Our party is called Homeland Security and the paladin often threatens to "water-board" bad guys he interrogates. His paladin mount is named "Ashcroft". The rest of the party is taking side bets on what level he will be when he gets "elected" president and totally becomes a blackguard, LOL.
They should have also gotten at least an honorable mention for the category of Best Goblin Song in an Adventure for the "We are goblins, you are food" song in Rise of the Runelords. :-P I too have thoroughly enjoyed every Paizo product that I have come across.
Isn't the point of this thread just to keep giving lastknight somewhere to post?*poof* Yes, I think that's it. If we can, he won't contaminate other threads. It's like quarantining a disease. Oh, and by the way, this is not me but my roommate :P
*statement congradulating sciencephile for pointing out something that was obvious from the first page and asking him if there were any other stunning revelations he felt he should drop on us* * answer to lastknightleft letting him know that he misspelled congratulating*
*observation that lastknightleft has to be the center of attention*
Honestly, like it's been suggested, Sense Motive is how you resolve this. With a Sense Motive, you can tell if someone is lying. There is NO way (even in real life) to know if someone is telling the truth. You know that someone is untruthful by certain body language (thus the Sense Motive). The main problem is that many players tend to metagame at least a little (if not a whole lot). They assume that the bad guys are untruthful or that a particular NPC is holding information back because the story must continue. I have had players that even when their Sense Motive check doesn't reveal that someone is untruthful, they just automatically assume that the person is untruthful anyway (regardless of their roll). It's the same logic that explains that if an NPC has a diabolical sounding name, he *MUST* be evil (in the mind of players). As long as players make correlations in games based on their past gaming experience, this will continue to happen. There is just no solution to this.
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I don't think my problem is so much that summoning can happen and that the summoned creatures are quite powerful (relatively speaking anyway). My problem is that I have played in a game where a druid summoned a bunch of creatures and then next round summoned more, then next round summoned more. This mentality led to some of us getting bored because the druid player was obviously hogging the spotlight and wanted to become a one-man army and not let us help do our jobs. I have seen this same mentality as a DM, as well and have seen the fighter roll his eyes when it happens. My house rule now is that a caster can only have 1 summoned creature out at a time. This lets summoners be summoners without unnecessarily hogging the spotlight.
My humble suggestion would be for Paizo to have a special web page under the Pathfinder RPG section that acknowledges the names. It is less expensive and far easier to implement, yet no less meaningful. I know that the "Thanks to Jason" is in another thread but I would like to personally thank you Jason for your efforts regardless of the outcome of the playtest credits go. And I would like to also state how jealous I am. I would far rather be working in the RPG industry than writing computer programs for whiny and ungrateful Ph.Ds, but alas my talents are towards the latter. I did co-author an RPGA module once (which was a lot more fun than playing in RPGA :-P )
Yeah, I really like the avatar of all the dwarf ones available. Dwarf ranger though? I would have to see it in action to believe it. He is only one step away from wearing sandals, dying his hair green, and wanting to become a "doodad".
Yeah. Some of the ideas that you (and others) came up with are cool. Of course, I think seeing them in action would be better. Too bad the powers that be are trying to destroy D&D by raising the cost of gas (therefore preventing some folks from attending games). <cf_end_threadjack>
... Sciencephile on here can attest - I have been using the BAB mechanic for both tumble and casting defensive for years now. There is still plenty of tumbling and such being done - and lots of casting defensively. Yeah, that Robert is a jerk about his acrobatics/casting defensively and the BAB. Freakin' good for nothing DM $@#! Just kidding. Yeah, we still casted spells and tumbled and it worked out pretty well. No complaints here other than the fact that I agree that 15 is too high for casting defensively since it effectively scales because of the increase in spell levels that are used later.
I disagree. Having to have 6 different weapons in order to fight creatures with differing vulnerabilities gets really old, really fast.I agree, it needs to be changed back, this vastly weakens the 2k gold I spent with every enhancement on my cold iron jovar. I'm really on the fence with this. I see both sides - yes it is a pain to have a golf bag of weapons. It's not so bad for the fighter because that's what a fighter does but other classes get hosed on this. At the same time, having a +2 weapon negate so many types of DR seems a bit much. For monsters that have an unusual DR type (having 2 components such as silver and magic), having it be bundled up under one +2 weapon seems a bit unfair. I would think that a +2 would be good enough to substitute for silver but not stack with the magic. Perhaps if the weapon counted for negating 2 types, then you would have to increase the +1 for each. For instance, a +2 weapon would negate the DR for silver. A +3 would negate the DR if it was silver AND magic. I think it has been also proposed in other threads that the level of magic required for each bypassing of DR type be increased slightly. I think this would be a good compromise, as well. I have a feeling that the DR issue will be house-ruled a lot. I don't think there is a single way that Jason (or anyone else for that matter) could fix this to make most people happy. I'm sure there will alway be a lot of folks on each side of the fence with this one.
YULDM, I think everyone DOES appreciate you caring enough to make a suggestion about changing a rule you think is broken and a potential abuse factor. That being said, please consider me in the camp of keeping the sneak attack abilities as is (no change). I have played a two-weapon fighting rogue myself before and believe me, you hardly ever hit enough to get the amount of sneak attack damage you think you're going to get. Even with the addition of undead and constructs to the list of sneak attackable creatures, many creatures have high AC. Iterative attacks at lower to hit rolls get negated by high AC since it takes rolling a 20 to actually hit. I think we can all argue about theoretical situations regarding the rules but until they are truly play-tested though a series of modules or an entire adventure path, that's all we are doing - arguing about theoretical possibilities. I doubt that most folks will find the sneak attack issue a problem during actual play. I sure didn't. My two-weapon fighting rogue died twice (and nearly died a dozen other times). Ultimately he didn't make it to the end of the campaign. The fighter and wizard did. The cleric did. So don't think that having a lot of attacks and sneak attack can make a rogue *that* powerful. I agree with Robert in that a DM should just adjust the adventure if a player is reaping too much from cheese. The goal is for the entire table to have fun. It may take some encounter adjusting or removal of a player if that player is spoiling all the fun of the other players. This is an extreme but as a DM I have a rule that the table can vote someone off the island. This leaves the door open for the players to remove a problematic player who is sucking all the fun out of the game. And face it, would you rather remove one player who is problematic or lose 2 other players who stop having fun because of that player? My point is that the DM has a lot of power to fix the problem via a number of possible solutions (including house rules - see below). Remember that anyone can utilize house rules. If you want to decrease the effectiveness of sneak attack, you can do so in house rules. It looks like to me that there are enough folks that want to keep sneak attack as is and I am adding my name to the list.
Nice reference to the South Park underpants gnomes episode :-)
At the risk of being classified as a "wizard hater", maybe the simple solution would be to make ray of enfeeblement more of an "anti-bull's strength" spell. Perhaps it would subtract a straight 4 points of strength just the way that bull's strength gives a straight 4 points of strength. This would also pave the way for similar spells to deal with other stats (such as anti-dexterity, con, int, etc.). This concept would make it similiar to the shrink person/enlarge person or haste/slow concept. It would give a way to counter, a way to be effective (lowering the strength of a creature), yet not being so overly powerful as to be a game breaker.
Orcs ARE vermin (thankfully). They are the perfect practice dummies for our dwarven young when they are learning to fight. This is seriously a pointless discussion but I like it nonetheless.
I agree with both sides. I think that Ray of Enfeeblement is broken but I can see how it would be suboptimal if a save was made in addition to range touch to avoid the effect. I think adding a save for 1/2 effect would be a good compromise.
Shrink Item: Potential abuse factor - I heard this from a former player. Wizard shrinks a ballista bolt into the size of a crossbow bolt, fires it, and then dismisses the effect, effectively hurling a ballista bolt at a creature. Some wording that would help prevent such abuse would be good. Spells that affect opponents: As mentioned in another post, spells that affect opponents should have SR. Spells like Glitterdust shouldn't be immune to SR. Rogues and spells: Having the unlimited cantrips and being a level of rogue is too abusive. Potential for players to take rogue at 1st level (for sneak attack) and then go wizard/sorcerer for unlimited orisons so he can use them as sneak attack weapons (acid orb/ray of frost). Seems rather silly. Summoning spells: I have had problems as a DM and as a player with folks who litter the battleground with lots and lots of summoned creaturs. Druids especially abuse this and as a fighter, I don't like sitting around while the druid's 12 creatures do all the work. Perhaps limiting the number of summoning spells that a character can do to 1 would be nice. Maybe bump the level of the creature up in return so there are less summoned creatures out at once but the one that is out is more powerful.
I think that the point has been lost. My point in pointing this out was that the list of skills chart listed Profession as an untrained skill. The Pathfinder book does not detail Profession so we must take what is in the SRD. The SRD lists that it is a trained only skill. The problem is a consistency issue - do we take what the feat describes or what the chart says. Either way it needs to be clarified upon the Beta, I believe. This is the main issue. As to which way this goes, I don't think it matters too much as long as the chart and the description are consistent. Personally, I think it should still be trained. Otherwise, you can say that you can take on any profession without having ANY trained skill in that profession. Er ... that doesn't make a lot of sense. How many people are proficient at accounting, bowmaking, sailoring, etc., etc. (includes every profession out there). Just because you show up for a job the first day doesn't mean that you are trained in it. After you have worked it for a while, then you would gain your rank to represent the knowledge in the profession you have gained. Ultimately it is not a gamebreaker, just a minor issue.
Some of the general feats listed in alpha 3 (such as power attack) do not explicitly say that they can be used as fighter bonus feats. The could be taken as fighter bonus feats in 3.5. Did this change or is it just not apparent (or did I just overlook something)? Thanks.
Back on topic, I really don't think that complete character re-tooling option would be good for the game. At best it could be an optional rule for those that want/need it. Otherwise it would be best for the DM to house rule it. Honestly, with more thought I am not even sure it should be an optional rule for reincarnate. I think addressing the problem of players needing a re-tool would work best in the DMG part of the book. In a section that would be advice on how to run the game and deal with certain problems that come up. The advice section could mention that one of the roles of the DM is to make sure that the game runs smoothly and that both the DM and the players should be enjoying the game. If a player has made a bad choice and wants to change his character, he/she can let the player do so if it will mean a more fun experience for the player and the group. Putting it into a "running the game" section would address the problem as a whole and not tie it directly to a certain spell. I agree that if it were allowed for a certain spell, some players would run their characters too haphazardly because they would want a re-tool. Unfortunately, this behavior is likely to take another player's character down with him/her. It would be far better to address outside of a combat situation. If there was some insistence that a spell do it, perhaps a high-level costly spell could accommodate it. Something like Mind Transfer
This would allow the re-tooled character to retain story knowledge and re-tool. It would also focus it to a non-combat situation (they don't have to die to make it happen). Thus they will not be suicidal in combat. Still, I think the optimal solution is to have the character re-tooling under an advice for DMs section.
... Paizo must offer us a digital avenue so we can simplify the work load and enjoy everything that computers allow us to accomplish. If I were them, I would look to Code Monkey and Smite Works for some real partnership. Afterall, it is these vary companies that were affected most by the faithful WotC decision..... They do provide a digital avenue - they allow you to download the content via PDF even when you have a hard copy. This allows folks to move the content to the computer programs without strictly re-typing it. As far as providing software, I don't think that is Paizo's job at all. They can allow licensing but I think they need to focus on what they are best at - creating excellent gaming adventures. It will be up to the individual companies to take on the role of providing the character generator updates, etc. Even just as likely will be the community itself taking initiative to update the data in their existing systems and passing it on. When 3.0 came out I created a web-based character generator. I was told by many that it was one of the best character generators they ever saw. Unfortunately, I have a real computer programming job all day and I could not keep up with all the updates to the books that WofC published on a monthly basis to support the gaming system so I gave up. So I understand why Paizo would need to focus on their core business and not dabble into computer software. When you have a successful business model, you have to stick with it and not dabble outside it. It would be the same as McDonald's beginning to sell a clothing line - it would most definitely fail. I really think that you will see the software updates eventually. Pathfinder RPG is in the alpha playtest so no company really wants to waste their time updating rules that will likely change in a couple of months. They *may* be more willing in Beta but I suspect they will be highly motivated come full release. All the same, the RPG community will adapt by providing datasets, etc. for their favorite programs. I myself am getting ready to run Age of Worms using Pathfinder RPG. I just spent the weekend moving the new skills and feats, as well as a few monsters and traps into a software program called DM Familiar. Eventually when things settle down with the rules, I will share my data with others. Long story short ... be patient. You will see the software updates :-)
In my gaming group, players are so anxious to try out new builds, their characters usually refuse to come back from the dead, even when offered free true resurrection spells. So I'd like to see even the normal reincarnate spell allow a total character rebuild. That'd be about the only way to keep the same characters around at my table.While I am sure that Jason's whole purpose of creating Pathfinder RPG is to make *your* gaming group happy, I don't think that this would benefit the gaming community as a whole. Many other groups DO pay for raise dead and the like and want to continue their characters. If you have characters who care nothing of roleplaying their characters to completion, it sounds like you need to have a house rule that allows the total character rebuild upon a reincarnate or raise dead. Meepo, I apologize if my earlier comments seemed a bit snarky. My frustration wasn't really at you but in the mentality of your players. I had a couple of players in the past that could care less of the campaign and only wanted to playtest character concepts. It stole the fun out of the game both for me and the other players at the table. I ended up re-tooling the players instead and moved them out and others in. That made the remaining players very happy because they could focus on the campaign and the adventuring team (rather than the offending players). You might need to do a similar thing, I believe. Back on topic, I really don't think that complete character re-tooling option would be good for the game. At best it could be an optional rule for those that want/need it. Otherwise it would be best for the DM to house rule it.
Looking on the skills chart on page 54 of alpha 3, it shows that Profession is an untrained skill. Unless this is undergoing a drastic overhaul as part of beta, I don' think that Profession should be an untrained skill. The SRD/PHB shows Profession as a Trained only skill. My PHB says "You are trained in a livelihood or a professional role ...". Even with the wording it says that it is a trained skill. Are you changing this skill or was this just an oversight? Thanks, -Danny
In my gaming group, players are so anxious to try out new builds, their characters usually refuse to come back from the dead, even when offered free true resurrection spells. So I'd like to see even the normal reincarnate spell allow a total character rebuild. That'd be about the only way to keep the same characters around at my table. While I am sure that Jason's whole purpose of creating Pathfinder RPG is to make *your* gaming group happy, I don't think that this would benefit the gaming community as a whole. Many other groups DO pay for raise dead and the like and want to continue their characters. If you have characters who care nothing of roleplaying their characters to completion, it sounds like you need to have a house rule that allows the total character rebuild upon a reincarnate or raise dead.
I guess my real question is to why we have to perceive a disease in food/drink at all. I admit that I have not read the entire alpha 3 rules yet but in the past you don't perceive being diseased when a creature diseases you (not instantly from a taste or smell or even a feel or spot). When you get diseased by creatures you generally don't know it until the incubation period has passed. Why would that be any different for food/drink? With poisons it is more obvious because poisons are caustic, acidic, or otherwise detectable because of their bitterness, etc. (although there are some that aren't). Diseases however generally don't have a smell or taste (beyond a small few). So wouldn't it make more sense to know about the diseased food after we ingested it and the incubation period passed (therefore giving us symptoms)?
Diseases do not have a smell, but by-products of bacterial infections as a result of disease usually do. When flesh decays, it isn't the flesh that smells bad, but rather the gases produced by the bacteria that begin eating the flesh after it has died that smells bad. Justifying the ability to taste disease (tasting actually being a subsidiary sense to smell) doesn't seem all that far-fetched. Actually, I don't think so. If this were the case, why would medical autopsies be needed? Wouldn't the medical examiner just be able to smell a person to determine that the person died of a particular disease? If a person has a disease and dies of some other circumstance (stabbed to death, let's say) and his body left out to decompose, is it the disease that makes him stink or is it the process of decomposition? I'm not going to argue the point beyond this because I don't think it helps the game design - I just wanted to put some reasonable doubt into the argument that one can smell a disease. I think that in some VERY limited situations you can detect by smell. In most cases you could not and that is the common factor that you have to design a game around (unless you want to make it too complex to play).
Seriously, there's already a DC for tasting spoiled food. Does anyone really know what polio (say) tastes like? Where did that idea come from? I hear Salmonella tastes like chicken, LOL. I agree that there shouldn't be DCs for tasting or smelling diseases.
To further the argument that basing the DC off the opponent's BAB is not a bad thing, consider the following example... If the DC was set to a straight DC 15, the mid-level acrobat can tumble around an ancient dragon just as easily as a common kobold? The tumbler's experience tumbling past kobolds and goblins makes him/her automatically successful against ancient dragons? Does this even make sense? Not many enemies you face actually have the acrobatics skill. It is *mainly* a player-only skill. If the game suddenly gave a majority of the creatures acrobatics, I have no doubt that there would be a lot of arguments by players as to why the creatures can tumble past them just as easily when the PCs were 1st level as they are now at 15th level. I can almost guarantee that with the shoe on the other foot, more people would be begging for acrobatics to be based off of BAB or similar mechanism.
I am continuing my Age of Worms game with Pathfinder alpha 3 ... woo hoo. That being said, when I instructed my players on ability generation, I told them to use the point buy system with a 25 point build (epic fantasy). I did this because I too thought that the points were a bit low. Of course, playtesting is the true test so in a couple of weeks I will get to see what the characters look like with their 25 point build. I was actually trying to be somewhat equivalent to a 3.5 ed 32 point build (which I think is close enough - erring on the side of the players). I did notice in testing score arrays that it did vary quite a bit depending on whether I wanted a 16 with a couple of 14s, etc. or just a bunch of 14s. It will definitely be interesting to see what the players do with their 25 points. My only beef with the point buy section is that is is not clear what is low fantasy, standard fantasy, high fantasy, or epic fantasy. It might be beneficial to newer DMs that state that they can adjust the points as needed to suit their campaign and they don't necessarily have to use these values (but they are guidelines only). Most of us already understand that but I would guess that newer players/DMs may not.
While playing a current Paizo adventure path with 3.5 rules, the following occurred that I need clarification on. It seems like there could be better wording (corrected in Pathfinder RPG to make it more clear than 3.5) so that is why I am brining it up here. I was playing a cleric/fighter. I was currently threatened in hindering terrain (thus no 5 foot step allowed). I wanted to cast a spell. I sacrificed an attack of opportunity to move away from the creature (thus drawing an attack of opportunity, which is what I expected). I moved out of the threatened area with the move action. I then tried to cast a spell (a standard action while not being threatened). I was told that since the creature had combat reflexes, it was taking another attack of opportunity because of my casting the spell - even though I was now casting it beyond its range. I understand getting an AoO for the spell if I was casting it in the threatened area. What I don't understand is why I would get one for casting it outside the threatened area just because I provoked an AoO earlier by moving. I was told that the grabbing the components, holy symbol, and thinking about how to cast the spell happened during the move and therefore distracted me and caused me another AoO. I still don't understand this concept as I believed that spells were standard actions, not standard actions plus part of a move action. Is this just a fluke and a misunderstanding with one of us or should Pathfinder RPG rules be written to make attacks of opportunity more clear than it was in 3.5? Thanks.
Even funnier is the fact that US Army doctrine (at least when I was in) for a nuclear explosion was for the soldier to lay on the ground protecting his weapon under him. I guess the US Army plays 2nd edition too.
I agree. This should be an opposed skill check just like acrobatics to avoid AoOs. Casting defensively has the same problem with static DCs - it leads to auto-success regardless of the competence of the opponent. It should be set against the opponent's BAB or similar mechanism.
An idea that I think could help clarify and somewhat limit polymorphing would be to bring back the monster frequency listings when Paizo does the Pathfinder Monster Manual. Prior to 3rd edition, monsters were listed as common, uncommon, rare, or very rare. Adding some indicator like that could help GMs figure out whether a PC has easy access to a piece of that creature. Things listed as common or uncommon might have no material cost, while things listed as rare might cost a bit of gold and very rare creatures would be quite difficult to obtain. That way, a PC could easily transform into most mundane or dire creatures, for example, but would have significant difficulty in transforming into a beholder or something more exotic. This seems like a step in the right direction. I personally like the fact that the caster has to have a bit of the creature in order to cast polymorph into that creature. Unless the creature is very common, I think that a gold piece cost should be applied. How is a caster supposed to turn into a nergenwoofer if he doesn't know what a nergenwoofer is? "I don't know what a 'nergenwoofer' is but I'm going to turn myself into one!!!" This seems quite silly. Personally, I think eschew materials should be eliminated as a feat anyway because nobody I know really tracks spell component materials to make sure that the caster is taking time to remove the proper materials. In a sense, a large number of people seem to have eschew materials on by default. Having the feat just makes it official.
Sorry for the confusion. When I mean opposed roll based on BAB, I meant this to mean acrobats vs. BAB with exactly how you stated it above (vs. a DC 10 (or other reasonable number) + BAB). It would have been technically correct if I had left the word "roll" from my sentence.
Could you please make the Acrobatics skill an opposed check for a person trying to move through threatened squares and through an enemy's space? A fixed DC is really not all that great. The reason: With a fixed DC, a person can use acrobatics to avoid the attack of opportunity from a 20th level fighter exactly the same as a 1st level wizard (or from a dragon just as easily as a simple goblin). Sure, the consequences of failure may be different, but a simple goblin should be easier to tumble past than a dragon. By having a fixed DC, people get to the point of auto-success regardless of the creature he/she is trying to tumble past. The solution: A solution that a DM of mine uses (and I now use) is to make the acrobatics check an opposed roll versus the creature's base attack bonus. This makes the dragon tougher than the simple goblin. If you have a better solution, by all means, but the check should be opposed in some way rather than a fixed DC. Thank you.
I do see differences in the two games based on the Alpha release, but I'm still not convinced the game itself is going to contain enough changes to justify its purchase. The world of Pathfinder seems generic so far as well... so I'd like to see more reasons from Paizo that show me that PF RPG will be a unique product and gameworld. Basically what's the hook for this game and line of products, other than it basically continues 3.5? It gives us something to look forward to that doesn't have the Wizards of the Coast trademark. That's a definite selling point in my book.
I'm really not sure what the problem is here. I think that Detect Magic does have some usefulness and shouldn't be removed. While it is true that some items should be seen as magical, a wizard shouldn't just look at any item and automatically know that it is magical. The fact is that some items are obviously magical - wands, potions, and scrolls (when read by a caster). Other items, such as weapons can have a glow to them or other obvious effect that would let the person know inherently that they are magical. Other items, such as a ring or even a weapon or armor could look just like a masterwork item and would only be known to be magical with Detect Magic. The wizard equivalent to elf-dar is a possible solution that is an in between. Unfortunately, it really doesn't have any effect for many adventuring parties. I can almost guarantee that the typical wizard will either perceive or not perceive a magical item amongst some treasure, be usure whether he got all of them, and then just cast Detect Magic anyway. So why not just skip the middle man and just leave in Detect Magic.
First of all, so you don't think I am being completely negative, let me say that I think that you all at Paizo make great adventure paths! My question involves what we are getting for our money: Currently, Dungeon is about 96 pages and costs $7.99 per issue (about $3.50 for subscribers who subscribe by the year or longer). Each adventure path takes 12 magazines to complete the advenutre path story. How many Pathfinders will it take to complete an adventure path? I guess my only problem is that what I am now paying $3.50 for, I will be paying $19.99 for with no *obvious* return on investment based on what I was getting with Dungeon. Every person that I know that plays the game that has talked about Pathfinder has made this same observation so it really isn't just me being cheap. Also, will there be a discounted yearly subscription and is the $19.99 just a "feeler" price? If it doesn't sell as well as you expect, will you likely lower the price or drop the product line? Thanks, Danny
Yeah, I am running a new group through Age of Worms and the acid beetles gave my group a bit of trouble, as well. I suspect that they give a lot of parties trouble (that is, those not prepared with alchemist fire, etc.). Most 1st level parties don't have these and if the spellcasters blew their spells against the wolves, oh well...
My group actually did quite well. They had a scout (instead of a rogue) and hit a lot of the traps. The traps aren't exactly that deadly, however. My group are all experienced players and play really good as a team, however. They complement each other and use good tactics. I once had another group go through it and they didn't do too well at all, but that group couldn't spell tactics and tended to be more chaotic neutral (as both characters and as players). You could interject Drakkar's Way (as it was suggested). Parts of that can be done simultaneously with Life's Bazaar. One thing I did was to leave the game Greyhawk but add a bit of Eberron into it in that I allow the players Action Points. This gives them a bit of help in making skill checks, saves, and help stabilizing from bleeding to death. I know I have been doing my job correctly for I have been causing my players to burn through their action points quickly.
I think it is common in all of Dungeon's adventure paths to not be right on track for the level. The idea is to run side adventures. I think that Piazo is hoping for you to run some of their other Dungeon magazine adventures as filler quests between actual adventure path storylines.
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