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I don't mean to shoot you down, I agree with a lot of what you're saying. But the point of PRPG is to stick with a backwards compatible system.
I can agree with the idea what we've gotten too attached to a Tolkienesque viewpoint of the various races. I've spent a lot of time researching the mythological bases of our beloved elves, etc and working to undo the stereotypes in my own campaign setting.
But... any changes we make to improve 3.5 should be minor and require as little conversion as possible.
I'm all for adding new races/classes, and even making small editing changes (such as armor and weapon mastery) to the ones we do have, but we should definitely avoid throwing stuff on the chopping block if we don't have to. Otherwise, Pathfinder just becomes just another 4E
Is it true d20? Nope - but in the end, it might be something much much better!!!
While I'm sure that would be very interesting for you, it would be guaranteed to keep me as far away from Pathfinder/Paizo as possible. If I wanted wildly different, I'd buy 4e.
In the end, if I can't play the Pathfinder adventures with all my 3.5 books, I'm done.
Creative Director
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If the mechanics stay the same, you can still play the adventures with your 3.5 books. What's wrong with having actually new, original material, rather than 3.5 races and classes with neat extras added on to them?Is it true d20? Nope - but in the end, it might be something much much better!!!While I'm sure that would be very interesting for you, it would be guaranteed to keep me as far away from Pathfinder/Paizo as possible. If I wanted wildly different, I'd buy 4e.
In the end, if I can't play the Pathfinder adventures with all my 3.5 books, I'm done.
New, original material like entirely new races and new classes are certainly an option... for an expansion book. There's simply no room to add them to the Pathfinder RPG, nor do we have a desire to diverge that wildly from the 3.5 SRD.
But a few months later/years later, in some sort of rules supplement (akin to the Complete Warrior/Complete Divine/etc. line of books)? Certainly a possibility.
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I was thinking about the drow - or lack of them in PRPG. I propose something like this: Two main elven deities - Lord and Lady. The godess of the moon, magic and dreams and god of hunt, growth and wild things. Third diety - Morigu the Crone, the storm crow, goddess of war and death. Than we could have three subraces: Dawn Elves, described in the main rules, Twilight Elves and Midnight Elves (so not to confuse them with Warcraft Night Elves). Dawn Elves could be first created, highborn, lords of magic and wielders of the sword; Twilight Elves can be Pathfinder's version of Wood Elves, but not an stone age culture, like presented in 2nd. Ed. More like the Warcraft Night Elves. More neutral and nature-oriented, with lots of druids and no wizards, but with special relationship with treants and such. Midnight Elves - evil followers of Morigu, with crow as their totem. They live in dense rotting forests, cloaked in dark clouds to obscure the sunlight, and have vampire-like fangs. They dress all in black, wear ravenfeather cloaks, have crow companions and they are pale as death. What do you think?
We've actually got the role of the drow in Golarion/Pathfinder pretty much all worked out, actually; they play a pretty important role in the Second Darkness Adventure Path, in fact...
Excellent! And I thought that might be the case ...
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Yes, well, I thought that Drow are IP of WotC. Or Loth at least. And you can't have the Drow without the Spider Goddess. And you can't have her without Corellon Larethian. But, ok... I'm more than happy to wait and see what will become of them. I have full confidence in Paizo's collective creativity. I don't have any Pathfinder products other than Alpha 2, but I've ordered them from Canada, and they should arrive very soon, so I'll have a better picture of the world of Pathfinder.
And you can't have the Drow without the Spider Goddess. And you can't have her without Corellon Larethian.
You can perfectly have drow - or dark elves - without Lolth.
Despite the common thought, the drow were not invented by Gary Gygax (RIP) for D&D.
In many legends you can find dark elves. For exeample the dark elves (svartalfar) of Loki in the norse mythology.
It's easy to imagine a marginal subrace of elves : Shadow elves of Mystara, drow of Eberron (in the jungle), or the example with Morigu in the post above.
If a deity is needed, there are many options, but the drow society doesn't need to be always theocratic. More than religious, it can follow different paths :
- magic (moon & shadow)
- martial (last survivors of an elite warrior race)
- nature (dark sylvans, closer to feys)
- crafting (rare alloys and gems, unique items, competing with dwarves & gnomes)
- trading (merchant houses, dark renaissance Venice)
Of course, they don't need to be evil or corrupted. They can just be exiled or xenophobic, like the grugach.
Drow don't need Lolth. As a matter of fact, they are often better without her...
In my opinion, the main problems with drow are Lolth and Drizzt, they brought too much stereotypes, spoiling a great race with a great potential.
If the mechanics stay the same, you can still play the adventures with your 3.5 books. What's wrong with having actually new, original material, rather than 3.5 races and classes with neat extras added on to them?
Because I'm not interested in them? Because one of the points of 3.P is backwards compatibility? Because I still want the Pathfinder adventures (the reason why I still purchase from Paizo) to include the things I actually like?
In any case, I was certainly clear enough that I was speaking only for myself. And, as James Jacobs noted, that sounds like great stuff... for an expansion.
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Creative Director
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You can have dark elves - but not drow. Svartalfar were not dark skinned, etc.
Actually, drow are in the SRD. And if not there, we can use the open content of Green Ronin's drow book, Plot and Poison. The name "Lolth" is indeed Wizards' intellectual property, but most of the rest of what makes drow "Drow" is fair game. We'll be changing and expanding on it, but the core value of what makes a Pathfinder drow can be summarized by the following key phrases:
• Matriarchal society
• Dwell deep underground
• Dark skin, white eyes
• Demon worshipers
• Very evil. Probably chaotic or neutral evil.
We'll be doing a fair amount with drow in the second half of 2008.
While at times i enjoyed playing various new races and classes. Part of the problem I had with 3.5 towards the end was the sudden proliferation of new races and new base classes..especially the new base classes whose game balance was questionable.
If new races or base classes are added I have several strong opinions on them:
1) They should be in supplemental books no the core book. I dont want to be staring at a $70 core book because of all the new races and classes adding to page count.
2) They should be better balanced than was the case in some 3.5 books. The game balance of classes such as the Warlock and Scout were rather dubious.
3) For classes, they should be brought in because they bring something new to the game that is not already covered by a pre-existing class. Too many of the added base classes in various 3.5 books seemed to be more based on "I have this cool idea and think it should be its own class", even when that idea either basically a multi-classed character without having to multiclass or a minor variation on a core class.
4) I would rather see most potential new base classes included as options for pre-existing classes than become their own class themself. I think this has a great deal of potential and was overlooked largely in 3.5.
5) Regarding races, more thought needs to go into how to introduce more powerful races since ECL never worked all that well especially when it came to HP, BAB and Saves. If one ECL race arbitrarily received racial hit dice and from it saves and BAB, then all should have.
-Weylin Stormcrowe
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• Matriarchal society
• Dwell deep underground
• Dark skin, white eyes
• Demon worshipers
• Very evil. Probably chaotic or neutral evil.We'll be doing a fair amount with drow in the second half of 2008.
Very good this is what I was hoping for; I have always loved underdark especially the drow. But I think I would not be the only one to appreciate a spider theme, Drow and Spiders were and still are very creepy and effective combo.
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Creative Director
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Very good this is what I was hoping for; I have always loved underdark especially the drow. But I think I would not be the only one to appreciate a spider theme, Drow and Spiders were and still are very creepy and effective combo.
Driders are also in the SRD. And they're also in Golarion's Darklands along with the drow. Therefore... spiders WILL still be associated with the drow... but not to the overwhelming extent that they are in the Forgotten Realms. Along with spiders there'll be other deep underground crawlies like scorpions, centipedes, and other critters as well.
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OK, so you'll in fact reimagine the drow, like they did in Eberron. That's fine by me. I just thought that our bellowed dark elves are IP of WotC. The Underdark and Drow of the Underdark were very useful products - in fact, I'm using them a lot in my new Underdark campaign (in fact, with my laptop gone, and with it my build of Dungeon #143 cover wizardess AND my complete notes, those two books were indispensible). So, ok, we'll have the drow (yey!); that's great! I believe that Paizo team will do the honor to DnD's iconic villains. How about other Underdark races? Duergar, Derro, Quagoths? (I have a PC "deep bear" in my campaign...)