I havent checked the Licence info of 4th Edition so I dont know how that works.
But What I would like to ask people is this.
Even though I like the Pathfinder Universe more than the 4th Edition,
that doesnt mean that everything in 4th Edition is crap.
Post something you think are good in 4th Edition or what were bad about 3/3.5 Edition and
what would you like maybe to see from those in Pathfinder? Or what you like that Pathfinder changed from that in 3/3.5?
1. I for one Like the new race Dragonborn in 4th, so awesome!!. x)
Maybe somewhere in the future we will see a variant of Dragonmen in Pathfinder universe.
2. From the previews I like the new Alignment system in 4th Ed., dont know if it works better than current, but maybe..
3. Goblins from First Adventure of Runelords!! I never used goblins in my DnD games, I always liked kobolds better.
But Goblins in Pathfinder were great!.
Post something you think are good in 4th Edition or what were bad about 3/3.5 Edition and
what would you like maybe to see from those in Pathfinder? Or what you like that Pathfinder changed from that in 3/3.5?
I can't say much about 4E yet really because I haven't read it. Yeah, there's a lot of information out there but I feel like its too small a piece of the picture. I have the books on pre-order but am not excited about them. So ...
1) Something I like about 4E. Yay warforged. Bringing in some new classes and races to mix up the idea of what is a 'core' level of fantasy. I find it silly that there has to be such a limited scope to shared imagination and while that is rarely, if ever, a publisher's intent even gamers paint themselves into that box all the time.
2) Something I don't like about 4E. No 1/2 Orcs? WTF? Don't get me started. This is the inverse of #1. Selectively trimming I understand but I think there's a new feel and vibe to 4E that is in many ways actually more restrictive. Just adding new content isn't enough to mix it up, you need to create diversity of play options.
3) Diversity. This is something I think Jason is doing a good job with. And, frankly, sometimes its small things but the rage points, sorcerer bloodlines, a paladin's divine bond, etc... These things encourage diversity in characters and the ability to play them in various game styles.
Well this is both easy and tough. The tough being 4th as I haven't seen the rules, and will not be going 4th in any way. That being said.
1. I don't know if this is true or not, but as I understand it 4th will have a type of saving throw for attacks that is, in effect, a dodge. Being an old Palladium player honestly myself, an some the old paladium players had the hardest time getting over no dodge roll, just AC incress. If true thats very good for the game. That was the tough part.
Much as I like 3.5, D20, or OGL (Not sure what we are calling it today)I had my fair share of issues. I will seperate them to what I'm talking about. Also I will focus on fluff as I am more a fluffer then a cruncher (dear lord that sounds bad. More to come up with a new name for Fluff!).
2. 3.5, by which I mean WOTC went too far with Dragon themed everything.
The old joke was Humans slept with anything, now it has to be Dragons. Part of this was simply because the Sor. was such a great concept but wasn't done right. So 3PP came up with cool concepts, but people wanted offical. WoTC came up with an offical Dragon Blood concept/race/magic, per book. It really got out of control. Until finely the Dragonborn race in 4th. Ironicly at the same time they got rid of the Sor. which started most of this.
3. Power Creep in 3.5. I never had a problem with Powercreep itself, but I did see it as a way to undermine 3PP. The people most guilty of power creep was WotC. many 3pp material ( in terms of classes) have a lot of blank levels (ablity wise) which is fine and good no problem with that, but Wizards books classes really did began to, not outshine becuse some concepts were bad, but outclass core classes. The exception to this, and not always, was some setting books which had very powerful classes at times. Like I said don't have a problem with powercreep itself, but an Archer form "3 Arrows for the King" or Knight forme "R&R Ecaliber" couldn't keep up with say a Scout or Knight from WotC. Maybe this is the prob. between high and low fantasy.
4. OGL too much sorcery and steam products came out in the last five years. Worst part was I like all the takes on them. WOW rules, IK setting and Dragonmech setting. Not enough stuff for OA Rokugon being the exception. Nor India and everytime I mention meso-america I get "yeah but look at what happaned with Meztcha". Didn't paly 2nd so was Meztcha really such a bomb. IN any case it was odd, the best high fantasy stuff was 3PP of older D&D settings (Dragonlance, Ravenloft) the best other settings were few and far between. Like African Adventures, but I don't know of anwyone else whose even touched that except for Eygpt type of settings.
I could come up with more but I gotta go earn some copper in reality 1.0.
I havent checked the Licence info of 4th Edition so I dont know how that works.
No product line may use both OGL (3.5e) and GSL (4e), so Pathfinder will probably never get official 4e support (because Wizards doesn't want that)
1. I for one Like the new race Dragonborn in 4th, so awesome!!. x)
Maybe somewhere in the future we will see a variant of Dragonmen in Pathfinder universe.
Note that Dragonborn aren't new in 4e. The fact that they're a standard race now, and being force-fed into everything, is new.
There's still half-orcs, and a draconig/ dragontouched race isn't that farfetched (you just extrapolate from fiend/half-fiend/tiefling), but I doubt that it will be a major part in Golarion.
We do have Kobolds in Golarion, who claim that they're dragonlings.
Something I like about 4e: XP isn't a resource any more. But I'd hardly say that they got that idea all on their own. This has annoyed people since shortly after it was known. And pathfinder does this, too, so no reason to change to 4e for this (and I houseruled this long ago)
Something I don't like in 3e: There's still a couple of absolutes/fixed rules in there, like the 10% recovery chance for stabilising or teleport's off chances. 3e made a great job of making things dependable on those involved, but it should go all the way.
Pathfinder: Some thing I still haven't seen in Pathfinder but would love to: Weapon Finesse being a general choice you don't need a feat for.
D&D 4th... D&D for the mentally challenged.
That said nothing more to add.
everything in 4th Edition is crap
The OP asked some very interesting questions, there is no need to threadcrap your opinions on 4th Edition. If you can't contribute anything to a thread without resorting to insults to people who might be interested in it, or to insult those that worked on it, then maybe you are better off posting elsewhere.
You tell em Lilith. GUYS there is no call for threadcrapping .
I DM'd the first night of Keep on the Shadowlands last night, and, honestly, I really enjoyed it. It is a NEW game. But, after 8 years of 3.0 and 3.5 (or however long it's been), I think I realized last night that I'm READY for a new game. It is fun exploring a new game system.
It does still feel like D&D.
Things I like about it (i.e. I prefer over 3.5):
- I like the new encounter presentation. For the DM, it's pretty neat.
- I like the battle maps.
- I like Minions. Red-shirts that drop with one hit, no matter how lame the hit... great idea.
- I like the new attack rolls for Fort, Reflex, and Will versus saving throws and DCs.
- I like that you save against ongoing effects using a 50-50 roll.
- I like the movement powers. They really added a whole new tactical element to the game. The rogue being able to make a foe slide 3 squares is pretty cool, especially when spiced up with some flavor like, "I tangle my sword into his legs and trip him up, then give him a shove and he stumbles away, ending up over there by the dwarf."
- I like the idea of rituals.
In fact, I think I was sold.
Oh, not to forget about Paizo - things I love about Paizo:
- The art
- The stories
- The writing
I was all for Paizo sticking with 3.5, until I realized that I am ready for a new game and how cool the 4E stuff looks. I think I'm sold on 4E, and it is a shame that Paizo won't be supporting it.
I know, most of you will think I'm nuts. Why do I want to buy all new books and spend all that money? Why do I want to have to learn a new system? Well, like I said, it's the allure of the new, and it does seem to really work well.
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D&D 4th... D&D for the mentally challenged.
That said nothing more to add.
everything in 4th Edition is crapThe OP asked some very interesting questions, there is no need to threadcrap your opinions on 4th Edition. If you can't contribute anything to a thread without resorting to insults to people who might be interested in it, or to insult those that worked on it, then maybe you are better off posting elsewhere.
I was actually enjoying this thread until the Threadcrapping. I won't play 4E because I don't like most of what I've seen of it, but there are some things that are interesting about all the systems mentioned. I would like to hear some of what others find interesting/cool about 4E in addition to PRPG and 3.5. Open minds have a wider view of the world.
Having seen 4th ed in the Keep on the Shadowfell preview, my opinion of 4E has changed from “going to steal some 4E ideas to use in my 3.5 game” into “going to steal some 3.5 ideas to put in my 4E game.”
I was looking at 4th edition for ideas on how to solve some of my own 3.5 troubles, but with just the preview I’m seeing a great new game that I’m looking forward to hitting full tilt.
To answer the question, though:
What I like about 4th Edition: It reduces the reliance on gear and makes the actual character himself the root of that character's abilities. It also did a good job at eliminating the “15-minute adventuring day” while still keeping a feel of diminishing resources as you delve deeper and deeper.
What I like about 3.5 Edition: Everyone followed the same rules. While 4th ed. monsters default to combat roles like “slinger” or “minion”, the monsters and NPCs in 3.5 were defined by the same traits as the PCs – they were the same classes, used the same spells, etc. That made for a more objective game world to me. It also meant that, just as NPCs could be described in character class terms, the PCs had the options of taking non-adventuring related skills and open up new options for the game to include non-adventuring aspects. Also, I and my group were just learning to reduce our reliance on maps and minis and take the game back to its roots in our imaginations. 4th Edition starts that learning curve all over again.
House Rule of Choice: 4th edition goes even farther into the idea of very generalized “hit points”. I was a big fan of the optional 3.5 rule of Wound and Vitality Points to differentiate between battle weariness and actual physical injuries and am looking into a way to recreate that in 4th edition. It really really bothers me that there’s no way to simulate a 12th level rogue dying from getting stabbed through the heart (fer instance).
For what it's worth, I mention 3.5 edition rather than Pathfinder because I'm not really following that development. There were more rule changes that I didn't like than those that I liked so I just stepped aside and let it move on without me.
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There are some good ideas in 4E that I like:
The Bloodied condition is nice. Its never sat right with me that a character could go from 99 to 1 hit points with no effect on effectiveness, but from 1 to 0 was a huge crippling effect. I may end up house-ruling this into Pathfinder, and wouldn't mind seeing it become an official rule.
The Defenses are a nice idea, and I really liked them in Star Wars Saga Edition. Fireballing 40 orcs is a lot less onerous when the mage makes an single attack roll against their collective Reflex saves, rather than them making 40 individual saves. I don't think this can be adopted in Pathfinder while maintaining backwards compatibility though.
That's all I can think of right now. There's a lot more I dislike, like the dragonborn, than I like.
Some of the bad things in 3.5 I'd like to see fixed:
The Craft and Profession skills are almost completely useless. Either make them useful, or drop them from the game.
How Tumbling affects movement was unclear. I've frequently wished that 3.5 had made it clear whether tumbling reduced your speed to half for the entirety of the move or only movement through threatened spaces. I like that in Pathfinder tumbling has no affect on your movement (as far as I can tell, that's how we've been playing it at least). I'd like it even more if Tumbling could be used to prevent ANY move action from provoking, such as standing from prone. I also like that Acrobatics is now an untrained skill.
The polymorph spells were broken and easy to abuse. 4E has apparently ditched them. I much prefer Jason's tact of clearly specifying what powers and advantages could be gained by taking different forms, and like the expanded list of shapeshifting spells.
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Not to bash either system, but this is the closest I could find to relevant thread to tell people in. My favorite part of 4E so far is when my most 'pro 4E' player called me after reading his Buy.com copies, and
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The Defenses are a nice idea, and I really liked them in Star Wars Saga Edition. Fireballing 40 orcs is a lot less onerous when the mage makes an single attack roll against their collective Reflex saves, rather than them making 40 individual saves. I don't think this can be adopted in Pathfinder while maintaining backwards compatibility though.
This system can be used in standard 3.5 too, it just takes a quick addition and subtraction to accomplish, which adds one more step to any conversion.
Basically, the set save 'defenses' are assuming that the person rolled 10 on their check, while in normal 3.5 it assumes that you rolled 10 on the casting roll.
To reverse that and set the targets defenses, just add 10 to their saves. For the caster you are doing the opposite, subtract 10 from save DC and instead roll a d20 to add to it.
So if someone has a fort save of 5, then their fort defense is 15.
And if a wizard who normally has a 2nd level spell save of 15(3int + 2nd level spell), instead has a 2nd level spell attack roll of 1d20+5. Obviously this attack roll is modified by anything that would normally raise the DC of the save.
-Tarlane
I really am worried about the supposed defocus on role playing and emphasis on tactical simulation that those who have seen 4E are claiming. Clearly, Paizo has a MAJOR leg up on WOTC when it comes to art, story, and creativity.
But, I'm not sure I'm thrilled with Pathfinder RPG. I like a lot of what I'm seeing in 4E, as I listed above. I fear that what I might end up playing is a outrageously house-ruled combination of the two... which will be pretty hard to deal with.
That or I'll end up playing both for the next year until Eberron and the 4E PHBII come out, as well as PRPG Final comes out, and then make a choice between the two.
Does my answer have to be a, "What did 4th do better than 3rd" thing? Because I've skimmed the books, and I like about 70-80% of what's in there. But I can't really point to a place where I think it is clearly better than the 3rd edition rules.
Oh, except for the layout. The books are laid out much better, and there's more useful information for beginning DMs. That was a pretty glaring weakness in 3rd edition, and I think the simplified layout and writing style is one reason I've seen so many people compare it to the red box.
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This system can be used in standard 3.5 too, it just takes a quick addition and subtraction to accomplish, which adds one more step to any conversion.
Basically, the set save 'defenses' are assuming that the person rolled 10 on their check, while in normal 3.5 it assumes that you rolled 10 on the casting roll.
To reverse that and set the targets defenses, just add 10 to their saves. For the caster you are doing the opposite, subtract 10 from save DC and instead roll a d20 to add to it.
So if someone has a fort save of 5, then their fort defense is 15.
And if a wizard who normally has a 2nd level spell save of 15(3int + 2nd level spell), instead has a 2nd level spell attack roll of 1d20+5. Obviously this attack roll is modified by anything that would normally raise the DC of the save.
Cool beans, thanks!
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Although I pretty much loathe 4E, there were a couple things that stood out as positives.
Action Points:
Far clearer in implementation than those presented in any of the other D20 products. I like the idea of giving characters a method of dealing with those "oh crap!" situations in a very clean, easy to implement manner.
Bloodied:
This one is actually being borrowed. All too often things degenerate to "how bad off does he look?" Normally as a DM I'm thinking "he looks pretty bad", or "you've been beating him with a stick, he's bruised, but it's hard to tell". Now it's as simple as "mostly alive" vs. "mostly dead" and the pros/cons that come with it. Besides, I'm imagining 3.5E feats that can use the bloodied property such as Bloody Rage: "You get an extra rage attempt when bloodied" or Bloody Mess: "All attempts to grapple you will act as if you are greased when bloodied".
That's about it. Most everything else I'm all for chucking out the window.
Note that Dragonborn aren't new in 4e. The fact that they're a standard race now, and being force-fed into everything, is new.
and really really annoying
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3.5 - The feats system. Tons of great material out there and with the 4E release, prices of 3.5 material is great. Paizo continuing to support my investment.
Pathfinder - I like the direction the classes are going. The skill system is great. Haven't made up my mind about a few of the skills themselves but nothing stands out as a deal breaker for me. Although I like the new domain system, I wonder about domains detailed in other books and conversion.
4E - I do kind of like what I had seen of the weapons system but I haven't looked at it for several months so I am not sure if it stayed the same or not.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Hmm,
1) Skill challenges. While it's a popular rule, it's nice to see it codified.
2)power creep, I've vented at length in other places why I wish there was more prestige in a prestige class.
3) Pathfinders nice pulpy flavour. It comes through clearer than Eberron's.
4th Edition:
The books are nice. Layout is easy to use and intuitive, though I'd be remiss to say I'm a complete fan of the layout though (at least the way class abilities are presented). Much of the art-work is beautiful. It looks to be a solid game overall and will probably be a blast to play.
3rd Edition:
Cohesion and flexibility in the rules. The rules lend themselves to a lot of different play styles, which I think is obvious from all the rule variants out there.
Pathfinder:
Fixes a lot of things that bothered me about 3rd: CMB, classes, turn undead. It continues the tradition of 3rd edition.
No game systems perfect (I've heard that many times on these very boards, and of course it's true), I'm not switching to 4th any time in the near future. Though 5 or 6 years down the road I might. I do have issues with 3rd edition, even still. I play, and am willing to play, a myriad of games though: Word of Darkness, Ars Magica, Castles & Crusades (which I absolutely love by the way), Shadowrun... hell, I'll even play Palladium. I think most games have their goods and their bads.
Anyway, I ramble, I have a tendency to do that.
Pathfinder's 9 alignment Outer Planes. The number of plot hooks in the Gazeteer along with the wide variety of races and cultures that are draw on RL without being clones. The Runelords and the idea of sin magic - I spent hours thinking about what each sin really meant, not to mention trying to fit illusion with pride in my mind.
That the depth of the game's thoughtful aspects are kept are what I loved about the pre-4E material and keeping the deeper elements of the game intact makes Pathfinder the real D&D imo.
WOTC has Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, and Eberron.
wotc ignores GreyHawk, slaughters Forgotten Realms, and who knows what Eberron will have to go through?
Soap-opera (bad soap opera, to be precise) quality writing in the justifications to change the worlds according to the new game doesn't speak well for them and their plans with that heritage.
As for the defocus on roleplaying and emphasis on tatics, I've judged a lot of tables at my time and I can say that movement has been entirely player driven. It's the players that are choosing to forego the roleplay in order to concentrate on "winning the game" as it were. Companies like WOTC and Paizo ultimately must follow the trends of their customers. And that tendency is here to, if you take a look at the bulk of the rants that you've seen on the boards here it's almost all about tactics and combat power levels. Pathfinder is no more safe from that attitude than 3.5/4
Sure, there's talk about balance and tactics here, but there's a truckload of discussion about the flavour parts of Paizo's work, too. Quite enthusiastic discussion and praise on it, too.
You can see how Paizo follows their customers: Instead of ignoring 30 years of D&D and make a new game from scratch, they promise to improve the game their fans love, and they're dedicated to bringing us top-notch campaign supplements, too.
Take a look at the phenomenal reception of books like Classic Monsters Revisited, Guide to Korvosa, or the Gazetteer. Then go and look how much crunch those books have.
If you're too lazy, let me give you the short version:
Classic Monsters Revisited: One stat block per monster (that's 10 monsters), a couple of monsters get another for a prominent variants, and the occasional feat or other morsel. All in all, I'd say the hard crunch makes up less than 10 pages (the stat block takes up about half a page, the rest is a picture and some flavour text)
Guide to Korvosa: With the exception of the city stats (population, gold piece limit, that stuff), which takes up 1/8 page, the book itself is free of any rules. All the rules stuff shows up in the appendix, which is 3 pages.
Gazetteer: Each of the eleven classes gets an alternate class ability. Let's say that's one page (probably less). Beyond that, all there is in the way of rules information is the general information for each nation (and beyond the alignment, that's basically rules neutral), and the domains and so on for the deities (which make up a small part of the write-up, and also take up half a page as a table). All in all, it's about 1-2 pages, most of it not really hard crunch.
And apparently, those books do very well. For me, that means that Paizo can do well indeed without focussing on rollplaying and tactics, or combat, or however you want to call it.
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Note that Dragonborn aren't new in 4e. The fact that they're a standard race now, and being force-fed into everything, is new.
IIRC, the 3.5 Dragonborn are the result of a transformation ritual, and the resulting creature is sterile (a safety feature, to ensure that only good, adult creatures can become one, through a concious decision).
Can anyone confirm if this is still the case in 4E, or are they a race that breeds (and breeds true)?
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I've judged a lot of tables at my time and I can say that movement has been entirely player driven. It's the players that are choosing to forego the roleplay in order to concentrate on "winning the game" as it were.
From the way you used the word 'judged', rather than 'DM'ed' or somesuch; is it really indicative of a change in the grass-roots players, or (more likely) in the type of players who go to conventions and tournaments?
Let's face it; at a con, you often get a pre-gen PC, and are put through a scenario with a real-life time limit. If only one group gets to the end, they win, even if their play-style is dull as dirt. Roleplaying points (assuming they're even given out) are more of a tie-breaker. If you don't get a quarter of the way through, no-one's going to care that you swept the barmaid off her feet back in town, even if you gave her a soliloquy that would make Shakespeare cry.
I like the new racial Write-Ups, though Elf is my favorite. maybe Pathfinder could take some...hints when they write up Wood and High Elves, hmmm?
Honestly, the Elf Write-Up for D&D 4E is perfect and exactly what I imagine and Elf to be. I really dislike the Elf Stats in 3.0 and 3.5.
No favored classes.
No chance for spell failure, armored Mages can exist.
Proficiency gives a bonus to weapon use, rather than non-proficiency a penalty.
I like the skill list. It's short, sweet, and makes sense. I like Athletics and Acrobatics and Stealth and Perception (Maybe Initiative as a skill too) and etc. Though I think it's a bit shallow, should be able to spend a feat to become an expert at the skill, get another +5 bonus.
I like the different tiers of armor, and the shortened weapon list.
I like how attribute and feat gains are more frequent. That's the biggest thing for me, really. I don't like 4E's mechanics at all and think it feels like playing Magic: The Gathering, but I like the fact that your attributes go up 2 at a time, or all at a time, constantly, and that you get feats every two levels. (Even if 4E feats are pretty lame.)
Note that Dragonborn aren't new in 4e. The fact that they're a standard race now, and being force-fed into everything, is new.IIRC, the 3.5 Dragonborn are the result of a transformation ritual, and the resulting creature is sterile (a safety feature, to ensure that only good, adult creatures can become one, through a concious decision).
Can anyone confirm if this is still the case in 4E, or are they a race that breeds (and breeds true)?
Dragonborn are a true breeding species in 4e... much different background than the 3.5 version
Can somebody explain the "bloodied" condition to me?
Can somebody explain the "bloodied" condition to me?
In 4e, a creature is 'bloodied' at half hit points (rnd down).
There are certain racial abilities, class abilities and feats that work off bloodied (ie Dragonborn Fury which gives a +1to hit when bloodied or Slaying Strike which adds an additional str mod + dex mod +x2weapon dmg over it's base damage if the target is bloodied ).
Thx....so what are the game effects? Penalties to hit, AC, ???
Thx....so what are the game effects? Penalties to hit, AC, ???
The person who is bloodied has no effects per say... that is he fights and saves just the same as when he is not bloodied. However, there are various features that work because you are bloodied:
If you are a Dragonborn for example, you gain a +1 to hit when you are bloodied.
If you are thief with the Slaying Strike Attack which can only be used once per day, you'll save it until a real tough opponent is bloodied because that particular attack does (assuming a rapier/16str/16dex) 3d8+3 against an unbloddied opponnent but 5d8+6 against a bloodied one.
There are also some feats revolving around bloodied (Dragonborn can take a feat that adds +2 dmg when they are bloodied in addition to the +1 attack bonus they get as a racial ability).
So, "bloodied" isn't the debilitating condition it sounds like, unless you are on the business end of a Slaying Strike attack.
So, "bloodied" isn't the debilitating condition it sounds like, unless you are on the business end of a Slaying Strike attack.
mostly it gives bonuses to the bloodied creature's opponents if they have feature that work better or sometimes only work against bloodied creature.
in the case of Dragonborn, bloodied gives you a minor benefit (+1 to hit)
Of course 3.5 versions of similiar ideas usually go the route of penelty to the person with the condition rather than bonuses to thier opponents.
To be honest, I am not sure what to think about 4e. Most of my opposition stems from the extensive 3/3.5e library I have accumulated over the years. I love my 3e books, and it sounds like 4e is a MUCH different game. At least with 3e, conversions from 1e or 2e were pretty painless.
Yes, there are things in 3e that were broken, but house rules have fixed those for me.
I also love the myriad of options for 3e (presitge classes, spells, races, new core classes). You could custon design any hero you wanted. From what I've heard, that customizability has suffered in 4e.
For me, personally, I will not be purchasing any 4e books. I am saddened by this, because I was VERY excited about the "online tools" that WOTC were going to make available for 4e players.
Nope, 3/3.5e will always be my game. I run an after school club for a group of my Grade 6 students, and we will always play the 3e version. Hopefully, I won't be making them miss out on 4e.
I just spent the weekend crash reading the 4e books -- without running a game yet -- I'm pretty excited about giving it a try. My 3.5 game was stuck in a rut with all my players gravitating to the same roles and way too much reliance on items. Combat at higher levels was getting unplayable.
I'm not sure they fixed all of the things I didnt like in 3.5 -- but they did seem to focus on all of my pet peeves. For example:
first level not being a one hit and down encounter
Rangers might be cool again
Thieves finally have something to do
low level MU's arnt waiting around and saving spells
Clerics arent there just to be the party medic
Grapple may even make sense ( need to try this to be sure )
No more fight - rest - fight - rest -- which as a DM, really annoyed me.
Rituals for spells no one wanted to memorize
Locked doors meaning something once the party mu has knock
lots of ways to hit things that arent just getting past AC -- at high level our thief could never hit a thing - now the thief will be a big damage dealer at any level ( and not just be the party chest opener )
Artifacts that you can use without screwing up your game
Lots more cool stuff -- people should give it a read before slamming it. This was clearly put together by people that love the game and want it to continue to grow.
I look for pathfinder to bring me great modules -- and opportunities for role play -- I look for the rule system to make it fun and make some sense. My best possible world would be for the next series of adventure paths to be 4e based -- I know that may be hard to make happen with the licensing model, but that is what will work well at my gaming table. My group ran through 2 of the adventure paths when they were in Dungeon and it was some of the funnest playing we did.
...Thieves...
...MU's...
4e = Old School.
4e = Old School....Thieves...
...MU's...
And not the good kind.
For me, personally, I will not be purchasing any 4e books. I am saddened by this, because I was VERY excited about the "online tools" that WOTC were going to make available for 4e players.
Nothing more than spin. Just look around at what is available right now. I'm sure you'll find something that doesn't cost you 10 bucks a month. Plus another 10 bucks for each of your players, or a fee per game. Plus money for 3e models of creatures beyond a basic set.
After a year, you're out 100 bucks or so, even with a whole-year-subscription (if they still offer that). I'm sure you can get some kick-ass applications for that kind of money.
Fantasy grounds is quite a good application. There is a trial version you can download also.
Nothing more than spin. Just look around at what is available right now. I'm sure you'll find something that doesn't cost you 10 bucks a month. Plus another 10 bucks for each of your players, or a fee per game. Plus money for 3e models of creatures beyond a basic set.
I tried FG but found MapTool even better. And it's free!
I tried FG but found MapTool even better. And it's free!
I use them, too, but not necessarily as intended:
I start it twice, put one instance on the second monitor hooked up to my laptop. Start a server on the version that stays on the laptop screen, and join with the other version.
Now, I just put the maps from Pathfinder in there, enable fog of war, and show the players on "their" monitor the map.
Much easier, faster, and prettier than letting them draw maps.
It seems as if one of our players will have to be "outsourced" for some time (got surgery done on his heart and won't be able to make the trip to my house for quite some time), so I'll probably look into the other features, too.