Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Ultimate Wilderness

This got brought up elsewhere, but what exactly does "a natural attack augmented by your claws" mean in the Shifter's Edge feat? Does that apply to all natural attacks a Shifter has, since the Shifter Claws ability grants the ability to bypass DR to all of its attacks, or does that apply to only natural attacks that have their damage improved by Shifter Claws, which would typically just be two of them?

Probably to cover the statements in the specific Forms available...like the Deinonychus whose front claws do NOT qualify for the Shifter claw effect, but the main talons do.

Upon further contemplation, I have decided that if Paizo addresses the situation, and the feedback therein, and puts together an action plan for a solution to the matter, I will eagerly purchase this book in order to support good positive business practices.

If they choose to stay silent on the matter, or offer only conciliatory regards with no plan of resolution or redevelopment, that will likely draw to a close my 8 year relationship with Paizo and Pathfinder.

I have always celebrated this company for its openness and willingness to converse with its playerbase (especially via forum interactions), but if they ultimately prove unwilling to address things of this nature, it might constitute a shift in company practices to a direction that would deem my future support unwarranted. I hope the opposite will prove true.

This ultimately may mean very little, as I stated in my last post I haven't played Pathfinder in a while, and the last Pathfinder product I purchased was a roughly a year ago. Perhaps the resolution to this and my subsequent purchase of the book would reinvigorate my Pathfinder spirit, after all blazing infernos start from the smallest kindling. But I figured it best to proverbially put my money where my mouth is.

Good day all.

Upon further contemplation, I have decided that if Paizo addresses the situation, and the feedback therein, and puts together an action plan for a solution to the matter, I will eagerly purchase this book in order to support good positive business practices.

If they choose to stay silent on the matter, or offer only conciliatory regards with no plan of resolution or redevelopment, that will likely draw to a close my 8 year relationship with Paizo and Pathfinder.

I have always celebrated this company for its openness and willingness to converse with its playerbase (especially via forum interactions), but if they ultimately prove unwilling to address things of this nature, it might constitute a shift in company practices to a direction that would deem my future support unwarranted. I hope the opposite will prove true.

This ultimately may mean very little, as I stated in my last post I haven't played Pathfinder in a while, and the last Pathfinder product I purchased was a roughly a year ago. Perhaps the resolution to this and my subsequent purchase of the book would reinvigorate my Pathfinder spirit, after all blazing infernos start from the smallest kindling. But I figured it best to proverbially put my money where my mouth is.

Good day all.

Well said! Although I already purchased the book.:(

It comes down to the devs not wanting to find the proper middle ground imo. We are not asking for broken overpowered options. Neither are we asking for options that underpowered and not worth taking. Or worse the fluff does not match the crunch. The last product where I did see a good balance was the APG imo. Next to the core and if it's allowed at a gaming table it's the second book I always use when making characters. The later releases especially the player companions have just been gathering dust.

I'm not saying they have to listen and cater to our ever whim. It's been clearly shown to them we don't like reprints. That's gets ignored well they can't exactly be surprised if newer products that contain reprints receive negative feedback. It's hard because on one hand I enjoy Pathfinder on the other Paizo keeps making the same mistakes yet surprised that by doing so they get negative feedback from some of the fanbase. Speaking for myself I will not and do not give praise to any company that keeps repeating the same mistakes.

If they do nothing and maintain radio silence it's not going to make the problem go away. If anything as some have said it makes it worse as it seems they hope that with time it will go away. Then repeat the same mistakes in say Planar Adventures and wonder why some fans are unhappy with that book.

Personally the ARG and OA are just as awesome as APG. With the exception of UE I have found all the ultimate books to be disappointing. I was hoping this one would be different but it is what it is. Though this book is hardly a total lost.

It's not a totally write off a book by far. BUT it could have been so much better imo.

One of the reasons I think the fans are being much more harder on Paizo is that they have been around publishing Pathfinder since 2009. It's been eight years into the development cycle of the rpg. These type of books and repeated mistakes should not be happening. Not a this point.

Some of us don't have problems with Ultimate Wilderness the way it is, also. I bought the PDF the first day I could, spend a few weeks reading over it and digesting it, and loved the amount of flavor in it. I bought it just a few days ago.

I am a little frustrated with this thread, because some people are mentioning reasons they dislike the book, and then saying 'well, it's clear everyone dislikes this, so Paizo needs to fix it.' I don't think that is an accurate statement. Some people dislike it, and some like it. There are probably many more people who like it than are posting here, because this thread is negative enough to discourage such posting.

Some of us don't have problems with Ultimate Wilderness the way it is, also. I bought the PDF the first day I could, spend a few weeks reading over it and digesting it, and loved the amount of flavor in it. I bought it just a few days ago.

I am a little frustrated with this thread, because some people are mentioning reasons they dislike the book, and then saying 'well, it's clear everyone dislikes this, so Paizo needs to fix it.' I don't think that is an accurate statement. Some people dislike it, and some like it. There are probably many more people who like it than are posting here, because this thread is negative enough to discourage such posting.

Agree 100%. I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other about the Shifter... but then I didn't buy the book looking for a new class. I like a lot of the new systems, especially for exploration, and I'm fine with it. Look, I've been buying Pathfinder since the beginning. Really, I only need the CRB and a Bestiary. I get he new books to mine for ideas, this and that, but I don't expect to use or even like 100% of it. I'm sorry for everyone who is disappointed by UW, and you are totally withing your rights to unhappy and even not buy anymore Paizo stuff if you don't want to. But don't assume your opinion is shared by everyone or that you can speak for all of us.

'well, it's clear everyone dislikes this, so Paizo needs to fix it.'

You are overlooking the MANY things that don't make sense or are confusing do to loose language.

For instance, can YOU tell me what the speed if for an oozemorph base form? Can you tell me how you stabilize a poison you collect when it goes bad in 24hrs but it takes longer than that to stabilize? This book needs help, so the thing to say is "so Paizo needs to fix it"... :P

And this isn't even touching on controversial items like the new class. For better or worse, the shifter isn't the class a lot of people wanted or what they thought they'd get from what paizo told them it was meant to be. At this point, I doubt we'll see a true 'fix', but maybe we can get a rebalancing? Is it too soon to ask for an unchained shifter?

The reprint issue isn't a mistake - it's a genuine point of disagreement among the fanbase.

I can agree with this. For as many people that hate it, an equal amount seem to like it. For myself, I don't. Reprints tend to deter people that get the soft back book as they have the info and attracts those tend to just get the hardbacks, as they don't have the info.

For myself, I would be nice to know going in how much reprint is in a book before hand, as a lot of people seem to like/hate it.

And that a lot of those people who don't like it don't like it because of those errors?

If folks are not supposed to raise their concerns about a product in the thread discussing the product, where ARE concerned parties supposed to raise them so other people who want to know about the product can see them?

If there are good points to a given product, why aren't people bringing them forth unconditionally, rather than couching them in terms like "Well, EXCEPT FOR..."

That hasn't come up a lot in the product thread.

So yes, it does seem a bit negative.

However, instead of pointing the finger at folks that have concerns about the product, perhaps instead we should look at how much expectation there was for the product, and where it didn't meet that expectation.

If folks are not supposed to raise their concerns about a product in the thread discussing the product, where ARE concerned parties supposed to raise them so other people who want to know about the product can see them?

They should definitely post them here.

"I don't like..." is better than "Nobody likes...." that's all.

If there are good points to a given product, why aren't people bringing them forth unconditionally, rather than couching them in terms like "Well, EXCEPT FOR..."

I like the book - one of my top three currently (although that does change over time). I have developed the habit of not posting contrary views when there's several posters making the same negative points over and over. Historically it has resulted in challenges to defend my preferences - usually from people far more invested in proving why I'm wrong. Now I just don't bother.

There are several things i liked in this book. (Really i don't care much for player options here, i wanted DM ideas and content/subsystems.) My favorite is the idea behind monster parts for crafting requirement bypass.

Springboarding from that in my home game, and i now have a perfectly (for me) viable way to assign treasure values to creatures that don't always have loot. Also restores a tried and true staple of many fantasy games and literature bits. (for me)

If a creature has a magic ability or SU/SLA, i can run with that. Even staples like 'troll blood', 'basilisk eyes', and 'every part of a dragon' can add a ton more mechanically supported flavor to me.

Thanks for this one paizo, it hit my sweet spot. (i'll be generally pricing bits as if crafting a scroll of an appropriate CR/CL equivalent, with multiple bits available in the case of 'dm fiat'-i'm looking at you dragons!)

graystone wrote:

Redelia wrote:

'well, it's clear everyone dislikes this, so Paizo needs to fix it.'

You are overlooking the MANY things that don't make sense or are confusing do to loose language.

No, Redelia is pointing out that 'everyone dislikes it' is not a valid reason for it needing fixed due to the bias of the reporting. There being actual problems with the content is a separate issue.

Oh I understood her point but I'm pretty sure NO ONE likes errors or confusing/loose text that makes part of the book unusable. I think that those are parts that need fixed so the book because 100% usable. I'd like other parts of the book reworked too but that's a separate issue.

So I'm disagreeing that there are parts that anyone SHOULD like as they aren't currently usable without houseruling. So, IMO, 'no one likes it' can be a valid argument: it just needs better defined as to what everyone dislikes. And please don't get me wrong: I know some people liked the book overall. I'm not arguing that, just that there are clearly parts that everyone should dislike in their current forms.

Some of us don't have a huge issue with """houseruling""", either. Like, I'm prepared to assume that an oozemorph shifter can eat, even though the book doesn't explicitly say that they can.

I personally would rather have a bit of ambiguity than a hundred extra words in every ability to cover every situation and interaction - I found Occult Adventures difficult to read because of how much of that there seemed to be.