|
Sorry, dear folks at Paizo, but I have to test your patience a little bit in order to explain a general concern about this project as a whole - and of course proposing means to fix it.
The first draft is out and as could be expected a flood of well intended feed back is arriving on these boards. Everyone has her/ his own take on the proposed changes and therefore the feedback wildly varies. Like several other posters here I can hardly imagine how all of this feedback could possibly be considered (especially when taking into account that you probably already busily work on A2!)..
After letting myself be dragged into some discussions of personal rp preferences (those discussions which can never be resolved to everyone's liking), I wonder if you at Paizo can't provide some more insight on your design decisions.
From my point of view you fired the result of your (especially Jason's) months lasting secret project at us and are now gauging the response. The problem is that we are not in the know of which aims PRPG is supposed to fulfill in total (apart from the generals: strengthening of base classes, more fun at all levels, backwards compatibility).
You already included some background information in A1 and on these boards, but usually I'd expect some more information for tasks like this one ("Test A1 and give feed back!"):
Paizo info for testers:
A) What are the specific goals of the rule changes? Which 3.5 issues will not be addressed?
B) Which proposed change in A1 is supposed to address which problem in 3.5?
Our part:
C) Do the changes fulfill their purpose?
Are there any unwished side effects?
D) Total assessment of the A1 changes
E) Proposals for improvement
In the best of all worlds we (the fans) had a word in deciding which aims PRPG is supposed to fulfill. Ok, that could have turned into quite some discussion and flames and so it''s probably better that you decided the matter by publishing A1. ;-)
Unfortunately this still leaves us somehow guessing about the goals.
How are we to satisfyingly do C) through E) without info on A) and B)?
Sure, everyone already does so somehow in these threads, everyone to her/ his best knowledge and with best intentions. Most found their individual answer which goals A1 is to follow and which problems in 3.5 to solve. But will all these different interpretations be combinable into one single product? How to reach a consensus this way and not appear like an autocrat playing with fan emotions? How to agree on something if all parties involved have different assumptions about the goal? ;-)
I kindly ask you guys at Paizo to give some kind of mission statement: Which problems with 3.5 does PRPG address, which ones not? (E.g.: no word yet about how to facilitate handling of high level PCs - will this be addressed in a later release or is this out of scope of PRPG?)
I am sure some people will know anyway which kind of product PRPG has to be in order to not immediately make them cancel all of their subscriptions. :-p But the rest of us would like to get to know more about "A)" and "B)"
Thank you for letting us participate, and thanks in advance for your input!!
Cheers,
Guenther
In general your post sums up my root questions very well.
Elsewhere on these boards I posted a similar message asking: Why?
Not "Why make a change?" but "Why for EACH change?"
I'll use the same example I used there.
Theft combines Pick Pockets & Open Locks - Why? What was the issue or problem that suggested or mandated that change?
It is important to know why so we, as playtesters, can capture the data that confirms or denies the validity of that change.
Assume, for example, the change was done because Rogues took the Open Locks skill but rarely wasted skill points on Pick Pockets. You wanted to restore the iconic rogue skill of pick pockets, so grouped it with the more popular Open Locks.
On to the testing.
Since rogues now have pick pockets, a valid testing question may be - how often is the pick pockets skill used?
If the results are that rogues see more opportunities and use it, then perhaps the change is worthwhile.
On the other hand, the result may be they still never use the pick pockets skill. That could indicate more of a problem with adventure design (no opportunities for pick pockets to be useful) than a preference for one skill over another.
If, over time, there have been NO opportunities presented for the Pick Pockets skill, then one could see why it was not a popular choice.
But, in this case - the skill merger would have taken place not because of a flaw in the game system, but due to a lack of creativity on the part of DMs, module designers and players to include such opportunities.
A long message right? and this was just for a theoretical reason postulated for a single change you've made.
I hope this illustrates that, as the first poster here suggested, if we are given the background for EACH change, we are told what you are trying to accomplish and understand the objectives - we can offer better playtesting feedback.
I am really curious as to why they redesigned the fighter the way they did. I know that they wanted players to have a reason to stick with the fighter for 20 levels and not feel sub-optimal.
But all the math I have been doing seems to reveal the fighter to still be a sub-optimal choice for 20 levels of play. Really after 5th level there are very few reasons to stay as a fighter.
Is this intentional so that players can still utilize 3.5 material or is it just to hard to balance the fighter so that he doesn't become to powerful.
I would really like to know.
Thank you,
Rzach
I would actually love to hear rationales for changes, simply because designer discussions like that get me to see things in the rules that I never saw before, or look at a rule in a different light. I am a total junkie for 'how/why we did this' boxes in books that say how and why a particular rule or system works the way it does.
A bit off-topic for this thread, but that perception of ToB is largely unfair and I think it's partly the fault of, of all things, the order in which the alphabet happens to go. The first discipline most people see is Desert Wind, which is admittedly full of powers that makes flames shoot out your butt and so on, since it happens to be the first one listed. What they *don't* see is that none of the other eight disciplines are anywhere near as overtly magical as that one, and it's also not obvious if you're not looking carefully that those disciplines that *are* overtly magical are pretty much confined to the Swordsage with a splash of them given to the Crusader. You can build a Warblade with no overtly magical abilities at all; in fact it's hard to build a Warblade any *other* way. And the Warblade is the book's Fighter replacement; the other two are Monk and Paladin replacements, so of course they have some more supernatural stuff going on.
|
|
Bringing the thread back on topic (sorry, Jeff: ToB is one of the few 3.5 books I don't own) ;-) : Unfortunately still noone from Paizo volunteered to explain their exact design goals with PRPG. :-( Too busy with absorbing the direct rules feedback? Or just having an off weekend for a change? ;-)
Actually I am unwilling to raise my voice in the "I want it done differently" crowd before knowing if my wishes are in project scope at all. I also start to feel slightly irritated. It is very "un-paizonianlike" to just drop something and not providing their own point of view. Call me spoiled...
Cheers,
Guenther