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So, because I have way too much free time, I decided to have some fun in Photoshop, and provide a handy tool for fellow GMs: Status Condition cards. Check it out here: Image Madness Grab them from the site and distribute them as you see fit. I find that printing them in a 3x3 array with Windows Photo Gallery (Windows Picture and Fax Viewer in XP) yields some good results. I also suggest laminating them, so players can write on them then wipe them off easily, though any numeric values can be dealt with using dice. Put those D12s to use! Don't forget to reduce the size on them. They are by default pretty big. Each card has a color version (sort of?) for those who like copy stores or buying new ink, and a black and white version for those who like cheap or happen to have reams and reams of ivory colored cardstock sitting around their apartments because a certain relation thought it would be a great idea to purchase heaping piles of it. Anyways, I hope people like these. I'll try to work up some more quick reference cards later.
Who owns the content of the previously printed Dungeon and Dragon magazines? Are all the gameplay mechanics introduced therein owned by Wizards? Does Paizo retain any rights to content as publisher/ editorial staff? I'm looking for places to mine content that has a chance of becoming officially parts of pathfinder, and seeing how they can adapt ahead of time. Dragon and Dungeon magazines were a treasure trove of wonderful ways to make and break the game. I'm hoping that some of that content can enter in to the core book rather than wallow in back issues. Has this been addressed yet? Does anybody know?
As an addendum to the above, some of the aspects of Autohypnosis could be included as well. -Ignore Caltrop Wound (DC 18 to ignore the movement penalty)
More stuff for me to try out. Looks like I'm going to have to take bigger steps towards kill my party. Hooray!
Warforged are the first race I've ever seen without a level adjustment that GMs will flat out refuse to allow in to their games. Personally, I love the metal guys. However, with the increase in over all racial power, do they deserve a little more love? Or are they good enough as is? How do they work with the revamped classes? This is what I'm out to discuss. With the new racial ability adjustments, I think that, despite their powers as living constructs, warforged score penalties are a little unbalanced compared to the other races. I think that removing the Wisdom penalty would fix this rather nicely. Wisdom is, arguably, a more important score than charisma, but just about every casting class uses charisma in some way now, so it's still a good hit to balance against the constitution bonus. As far as removing the wisdom penalty goes, this allows warforged clerics and druids to be, well, viable. And, for melee classes, it helps improve their will saves a bit. Since they are by nature constructs, but don't have the mind affecting immunity, it's sort more fair for them to NOT have the wisdom penalty. Barbarian: With the changes to rage, Warforged previous Tireless Rage at level 0 is no longer anywhere near as awesome as it was before. This is actually an excellent fix on the race/ class combination that I think was somewhat inadvertant. Bard: Nothing particularly good or bad here. If warforged keep the charisma penalty, they are less effective bards. Though, with bards being more melee capable now, this is something that could be fun to see. A character who plays his metal abs? Washboard stomache taken too far? Cleric: Divine Conduits are always nice to have around. Especially now that the cleric isn't the walking pile of cure spells any more. Clerics have always had a lot of potential in melee, and now they have the potential to main tank for the party. Removing the wisdom penalty ensures that the warforged cleric can still cast some of those later game useful spells. Like Ressurection. Sort of handy to have, is all I'm saying. Fighter: My question here is if Warforged should benefit from the Armor Training. I say that they should, as long as they are utilizing feated armor. Either Mithril Body, Ironwood Body, or Admantite Body. Composite Plating imposes no max dex bonus or armor check penalty. As such, it's the characters skin. You don't get better at being you. The feat armors are more armorlike (carapace, maybe?), and as such, deserve to benefit from the class ability. As it stands, Mithril Body is still technically worse from the getgo than a Mithril shirt (5 armor/ 5 max dex -2 check penalty (effectively) vs 4 armor/ 6 max dex no check penalty), and Admantite Body is strictly worse than a full plate, since it CAN'T be made if any special materials. I view it as the warforged getting increasingly used to moving about in his armored body. And, don't forget, warfored CAN'T improve their base armor outside of enancement bonuses. Also, Fighter is their favored class. Let's show some favoritism. Monk: Warforged monks are comedy gold. Officially, in 3.5, warforged composite plating AC stacks with the monk bonuses. Never saw that as game breaking, and see it as less hugetacular now. Still good, but with some of the perks of other races, eh, not the best thing in the whole world. Paladin: I think the Warforged Paladin Substitution Levels from Races of Eberron fixed this issue pretty good. Not enough sweeping paladin changes to make this one much of an issue with that material around. Rangers: With the changes to the ranger that make it a class people might actually want to play, a Warforged Ranger would be a fun character. A literally tireless tracker, built to hunt down particular foes. Conceptually, it's pretty cool. He doesn't get quite as much usage out of Survial as other races (hooray for not eating!), but the race class combination is just sort of cool now. Rogue: Charisma penalty tends to keep warforged rogues in the front lines, or in deep cover. Less diplomacy, more stabby here. At most, they'd take Mithril Body, if they really were hard up to stand next to the fighter, but the check penalty might put that off a bit. Combat race, combat class, good match. Sorcerer: This one's a little strange. With the Cha penalty, this isn't overly appealing, but some of the bloodlines could make for a very neat character. As a GM, I'd rule carefully which ones a warforged could take. Abyssal, Arcane, Celestial, Destined, Elemental, and Infernal all make some sense. Short answer: parts used to create the warfored are from those planes, or in the case of Destined, he's just meant to be a hero. The ones that don't really fly (Abberant, Draconic, Fey, and Undead), really require a character to be descended from something. Eww. Grandpappy was a zombie. Built in spell failure still hurts. Thank goodness for Combat feats. Wizard: Probably the better Arcane option for Warforged. Play off the thinking machine aspect for EZRP. With the improved Hit Die, the nifty class features, and the fact that ANYBODY can be a wizard, this is a nice match. The Arcane Bond over the Familiar would be a great path to follow as well. The magical pet would be less appealing for a race that is inherently somewhat of loners. I can see a warfored relating to his things more than to a magical critter.
One of the features of the Alpha 3 book I liked the most was the Designer Notes boxes. I would actually like to see some of these, or something like these in the final release of the game. Insight in to the design process of a game can enhance play experience. Knowing why a certain decision was made, or in may cases, what options were considered can give a better understanding of the game, and grant new ways to look at different abilities and rules. My favorite part about the designer notes are the ones that list different options for a given mechanic, and the request to try them out, and see which works best. Why only pick one to be in the book? If different ways create a different feel to the game, but don't drastically alter mechanics, why not let players and GMs pick the one they want? Starting and level up HP have always been a headache for players and GMs alike. How many campaigns has everyone here been in that started at level 3, because nobody likes being a squishy for the 30ish encounters it takes to get to a hit point total that isn't laughable? Well, we now have 5 different ways of generating starting hit points. Each of them plays to a differnt feel in a campaign. I like the racial HP bonus, because I think it's flavorfull. A munchkin in my group like the Constitution method, because he gets to be a small tank at level 1. The skill revision notes give an excellent insight in to what has been an ongoing issue with the game system. This is good example where a descision had to be made, because so much relies on skills. The justification for the choice, and the adaption for prestige classes offered are also a great help to players and GMs converting their campaigns or using non Pathfinder source material. Using the Designer Note within the rules themselves places these things in a nice sidebar for quick reference, and has some insight attatched to it. I'd like to see some of the designer notes left in the finished product. They wouldn't need to be labled as such; call them something like Worldbuilder Notes. Whatever. The important thing is they are a good way to include clarifications, adaptions, examples, insight, and general information that wouldn't fit in with the normal flow of the book. |
