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To be honest, Asgetrion, I think the problem there is that 3E's emphasis on heroics makes most player forget that running away is an actual option. I was big fan of 3.0's DR (.0, not .5's water down version), which really showed that having the right weapon mattered. 3.5 made it a minor annoyance at worst until the highest levels. I also just saw the PF change, and not a fan. As Ryu's pupil said, I want my DR/silver to mean something.
Having open magic shops at the PC's disposal is not at all mandatory. What is is that the players not think they are invinsable and to think and plan around their weaknesses.
Owner - D20 Hobbies
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What you may be confussing here isn't that say DR 5/Silver + Dr 10/Siler = DR 15/Silver. But rather DR 5/Siler + DR 5/Good + DR 5/Magic can mean DR 5/Silver, Magic, AND Good, or DR 5/Silver OR Magic OR Good.
That is a completely separate issue. DR 3/- and DR 5/- would be DR 5/- and nothing more except when one of the DR's explicitly says it would stack with the other.
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To be honest, Asgetrion, I think the problem there is that 3E's emphasis on heroics makes most player forget that running away is an actual option. I was big fan of 3.0's DR (.0, not .5's water down version), which really showed that having the right weapon mattered. 3.5 made it a minor annoyance at worst until the highest levels. I also just saw the PF change, and not a fan. As Ryu's pupil said, I want my DR/silver to mean something.
Having open magic shops at the PC's disposal is not at all mandatory. What is is that the players not think they are invinsable and to think and plan around their weaknesses.
I'm not saying that the game falls apart, if the players are not rules lawyers or tactical geniuses or have a free access to magic items anytime, anywhere -- the GM can always adjust the numbers in relation to PC abilities. I've even played in low magic campaigns and everything worked really well. However, it takes experience and understanding of the math underlying the mechanics.
What I *am* saying is that the math is brutal if the expectations conflict between the players and the GM. For example, I cannot participate in a random Joe GM's campaign and rely on the fact that my not-so-optimized halfling paladin would confirm to the "norm" in his campaign. For example, in the fight against that vampire fighter I mentioned above, a player (whose elven two-weapon wielder fighter had something like +13 damage adjustment without any "buffs") asked the DM: "So, for all practical purposes my attacks inflict 1D8-2 points of damage, and he regerates that on his next turn? Sheesh..." (note: we could not escape this fight, because we lost two PCs on round 1, and we were not going to let them loot and animate their bodies).
While DR was very brutal in 3.0 if you didn't have enough plusses, it only took *one* spell to correct that ('Greater Magic Weapon'). It was also easier for the DM/GM to estimate how a fight would go ("Alright, everyone except for the rogue have weapons that bypass this creature's DR"). In 3.5, I found that consistenty getting -10 or -15 to my damage rolls due to alignment and/or material requirements in DR; and it is really frustrating for a melee type (especially a fighter). No wonder everyone (in the groups I game with) started lugging around Handy Haversacks or Bags of Holding filled with a dozen or so magical weapons. And DMs I've played under were all having a headache keeping up with DR vs. all the weapons the PCs possessed ("What? Nobody has a Holy and Adamantine weapon? Okay, that makes this fight pretty one-sided...").
Let me repeat: I like the material requirements in principle, but I'd rather see them as a vulnerability than "-X to damage unless you have a silver weapon, in which case you inflict normal damage". That's just my opinion, though. I also think that the most powerful magical weapons in the world *should* punch through anything; I feel it's rather silly if someone has to ditch, for example, Excalibur or Anduril in favor of a +1 Good and Holy "nameless" heavy mace "because it's more effective against vampires".
In my eyes Jason gave us the best qualities of both, i.e. the alignment and material requirements are still there, but the truly powerful weapons (such as Excalibur) will harm all creatures equally well -- no swapping for nameless backup weapons needed.
And, again, since it's easy to ignore the '+X equals Y and Z' part of the rule, you can still maintain the 3.5 version without any conversion to monster stats.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Here's the thing: if you're unhappy with how it works, just ignore the '+X equals...'-part of the rules, and you're fine, right?
Well, yes, but this is the thread for "changes I'm going to house-rule back to the D&D 3.5 version."
As I rummage through Pathfinder, I find more and more rules that are not to my taste. I'm sure that Jason had a reason for replacing the wonderful D&D "I know a little bit about legendary things" bardic knowledge, with a small bonus to all the Knowledge skills, but I don't think that's a good choice. D&D bards know the most lore about famous and powerful people, creatures, and events. Pathfinder bards know the most about common, low-level subjects, just like everybody else.
It's a minor part of the game, but it's just today's example of regrettable choices.
Here's the thing: if you're unhappy with how it works, just ignore the '+X equals...'-part of the rules, and you're fine, right?
Yes, I even said I would. But I'm lucky in that I'm not a player. But the point is that there's even more of the PFRPG rules that I'll be ignoring than I recall doing to the core book in 3.5. So it's a rule change I don't like. Another one. So it's just up there on my list.
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Owner - D20 Hobbies
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D&D bards know the most lore about famous and powerful people, creatures, and events. Pathfinder bards know the most about common, low-level subjects, just like everybody else.
It's a minor part of the game, but it's just today's example of regrettable choices.
Wait until you DM a 15th+ level game with Bards rolling 40 to 50 on Bardic Knowledge and wanting to be told every little detail about everything they run into ...
You will be thrilled with the 3.p treatment of Bardic Knowledge.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Hi, James. You may not like the D&D Bard's abilities. I do.
Ryan Dancey put forth that D&D has four quartiles:
Levels 1-5: Gritty fantasy
Levels 6-10: Heroic fantasy
Levels 11-15: Wuxia
Levels 16-20: Superheroes
This squares with my understanding. By the time a party reaches 15th level, they should be doing incredible things on a regular basis. Bardic knowledge at this level should be like asking Taliesin --or Batman-- about a notable character, object, or event.
A bard may make a special bardic knowledge check with a bonus equal to his bard level + his Intelligence modifier to see whether he knows some relevant information about local notable people, legendary items, or noteworthy places. (If the bard has 5 or more ranks in Knowledge (history), he gains a +2 bonus on this check.)
So, a 15th-Level Bard with, say, an 20 Intelligence (Bards need Charisma and Dexterity, as well, so 20 seems generous to me) rolls 1d20+15+5. (Five ranks in Knowledge (history) gives a +2 synergy bonus to this, but I can't think of anything else off the top of my head that might give it a bonus. (It's not a skill roll, for example.)) This delivers a pretty good chance to know obscure facts about important subjects, and a fair chance to know extremely obscure facts. (The chart tops out at DC 30; there's no difference between rolling a total of 30 and 50.)
But this applies only for legendary, noteworthy, important things. A bard of that level should be able to realize that the zombie kelp is attacking the boat in the same stretch of sea cost where the Mantled King Rhys III vanished centuries ago, and the bard might recognize the bosun's mate as a distant cousin of Asgeir, High Jarl of the Blizzard Provinces, but bardic knowledge isn't intended to identify simple items like a wand of fireballs or a ring of resistance +2, although he might recognize the ring as being from a notable dwarven jewelry-smith.
In Pathfinder, the analogous Bard with appropriate ranks in the knowledge rolls 1d20 + 7 (bardic power) + 10 (ranks; there's still a lot of knowledge skills, and we can't expect our bard to maximize all of them) + 3 (class skill) + 5 (attribute) + 3 (from skill boosters or other common sources) = 1d20+ 28. I don't see how this is any improvement. Indeed, the Pathfinder bard no longer specializes in the legendary and renowned. Like everyone else, the bard is best at finding information about the common and simple.
"It's a dragon!" gasps one Pathfinder party. "Good minstrel, know you anything about it?"
"Certes, I do not! No one writes songs about dragons, or tells stories about Excalibur. Those are far too lofty. We tell stories of pigs and fiendish wolves, and write great epics about skeletons and the riches they guard."
I have grave doubts that I would be thrilled. Recalling great legends and rumors is a good niche for the bard. It's not there in Pathfinder. But he sure is better at combat than his 3.5 counterpart, and maybe that's what's important?
The only two things I didnt care for was the nerfing of the Handfull of decent exotic weapons ( see spiked chain ) down to the level off all the other crap ones, and the exclusion of the Earthbreaker from core.
I feel all the exotics should be worth using a feat to wield and now frankly none of them are, and the Earthbreaker finally brought bludgeoning damage equal two hander love.
Can we have the next poll be about the pace of the Pathfinder release schedule?
What I *am* saying is that the math is brutal if the expectations conflict between the players and the GM. For example, I cannot participate in a random Joe GM's campaign and rely on the fact that my not-so-optimized halfling paladin would confirm to the "norm" in his campaign. For example, in the fight against that vampire fighter I mentioned above, a player (whose elven two-weapon wielder fighter had something like +13 damage adjustment without any "buffs") asked the DM: "So, for all practical purposes my attacks inflict 1D8-2 points of damage, and he regerates that on his next turn? Sheesh..." (note: we could not escape this fight, because we lost two PCs on round 1, and we were not going to let them loot and animate their bodies).
Random Joe GM is a myth. Every GM I've played does his own thing. I would say I've played in more groups which are unprepared for various types of DR than the other way around so your group is far from uncommon.
From what I recall in the beta channel energy was changed to:
Fix the turning rules which were a mess
Give clerics an alternate use for a class ability that went largely unused in some modules or adventures (one group I play in has seen exactly 1 undead creature in 6 sessions)
Free up clerics from having to burn spells for healing which benefited other party members. It did all of these things fairly well. I never heard it suggested the goal was to make the class less healing focused.
It does more or less cements the cleric class as the ultimate healing class and I am not entirely happy with that.
The turning rules were a mess, but your second and third point make no sense to me at all.
There was plenty of ways to make turning more useful (in fact, some of those ideas even exist in feat form in PF), adding a "healing" element wasn't needed to make it more useful. In fact, granting the ability to turn outsiders or other appropraite creatures (deteremined by domains) would actually go further to make cleric domains even more unique and allow the cleric to fill sutible roles within their church more easily.
And quite frankly I don't think it "frees up" the cleric from healing. It's another means of healing, so it does nothing to make the cleric less healing focused. Before, I could've used the PHB 2 varient and suddenly never have to worry about being pushed into a healbot role (unless, heaven forefend, I actually take the healing domain), but now even with that domain I need houseruling to stop myself being pushed into such a role.
The healing aspect of it was just plain not needed, but they added it anyway to "make them less healing focused" in such a round-about manner which quite frankly is just plain poor.
If I grant the barbarian a bonus to attack and damage rolls equal to his level, is he less combat focused? No, he's still going to take combat feats. If you grant a cleric healing powers, is he going to stop using healing spells? I don't see why. What's more, it's another kick to the healing domain, which rarely got taken before and still isn't likely to, even by "healing" clerics, simply because so much healing is avaliable anyway.
Also, not using healing magic was already a viable option for the cleric. In fact, the non-healing options were so powerful that non-healer clerics are usally dubbed "Clericzilla". Look up any cleric power build, not a single one will include healing.
I don't have a problem with a reduction of the golf-bag effect, but we've gone back to plain old "nothing beats rock" with the terribly ironic exception of the /slashing and /bludgeoning DR enjoyed by zombies and skeletons.
Greater Magic Weapon got changed to explicitly not overcome additional DR types, but one party member with Craft Magic Arms and Armor can make the entire mechanic essentially meaningless as of 15th level. Why even print something in the stat block if it's going to have no effect on play? At least with the golf bag, the backup weapons probably had suboptimal enchantments, so there was some effect from the DR.
To be honest, I don't even mind the alignment-bypass. It's just the special materials which I think should remain special.
And quite frankly I don't think it "frees up" the cleric from healing.
Free up clerics from having to burn spells for healing which benefited other party members.
To steal a quip from my Magic-playing friends: reading is tech.
Free up clerics from for healing which benefited other party members. And quite frankly I don't think it "frees up" the cleric from healing. It's another means of healing, so it does nothing to make the cleric less healing focused.
The healing aspect of it was just plain not needed, but they added it anyway to "make them less healing focused" in such a round-about manner which quite frankly is just plain poor.
Note my bolding in Dennis' quote.
He's *not saying* it was intended to make clerics less healing focused.Claiming this was the intent is a strawman argument.
The intent was their healing focus shouldn't detract from however they want to use their spell slots, i.e. a 100% Healing Cleric, a Trickster Cleric, a Buffing War Cleric now all have a baseline of Healing/Turning available without making demands on their spell slots.
You can say "Frees up from burning spells" instead all you like, the effect is still the same. Players unable to see the cleric as anything other than a "healer" are still going to convert spells, especially since only high level spells like "Heal" can even compete for effectivness in high level combat.
It doesn't "save spells", since anyone willing to use the spells for stuff other than healing are still going to do so, whilst unimaginative players are still going to be stuck restoring hit points.
Stuff your "Reading is Tech". I'm perfectly aware of the wording, my point is still just as valid. You don't agree? Fine, but attacking how I word my arguments is just plain poor and does nothing to prove your point.
This isn't english class, you're not a teacher with far more years of education than me, you have no reason to beleive that you are actually have more experience than me in any department, so don't treat me like some child because my wording didn't match the exact words of the person I was debating.
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Random Joe GM is a myth. Every GM I've played does his own thing. I would say I've played in more groups which are unprepared for various types of DR than the other way around so your group is far from uncommon.
Exactly; that is kind of my point -- every GM has his/her own houserules, expectations and views; my halfling's meager 1D6+2 damage bonus might be in line what is considered "the norm" for a low-level "melee" PC, or it might be totally "underpowered" ("gimped") in some groups. I cannot know that before I sit down at the table.
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Ryan Dancey put forth that D&D has four quartiles:
Levels 1-5: Gritty fantasy
Levels 6-10: Heroic fantasy
Levels 11-15: Wuxia
Levels 16-20: SuperheroesWow, no wonder none of my 3x games go over 11th or 12th level.
I want to play D&D, not Exalted or M&M.
+1. This is also why I likely wouldn't feel comfortable playing 4E.
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Ryan Dancey put forth that D&D has four quartiles:
Levels 1-5: Gritty fantasy
Levels 6-10: Heroic fantasy
Levels 11-15: Wuxia
Levels 16-20: SuperheroesWow, no wonder none of my 3x games go over 11th or 12th level.
I want to play D&D, not Exalted or M&M.
Wow, no wonder I always look forward to hitting the higher levels.
I want to play Epic fantasy, not some scrungy backwoods kids pretending to be adventurers.
Generational thing. We were much less affected by "instant gratification" than the modern gamer seems to be. It took me five years of constant gaming to achieve 18th level with a paladin character back then. If I games with the frequency I did back then now, it would take four months to gain 18th level in 3x.
I'm glad Kirth is using (very) slow advancement in our game, makes leveling more special.
As to the "scrungy kids", part of the fun of AD&D was just that: "normal" people eventually becoming heroes and leaders in the world, after (in game) years of struggle and sacrifice in the face of overwhelming odds.
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Ryan Dancey put forth that D&D has four quartiles:
Levels 1-5: Gritty fantasy
Levels 6-10: Heroic fantasy
Levels 11-15: Wuxia
Levels 16-20: SuperheroesWow, no wonder none of my 3x games go over 11th or 12th level.
I want to play D&D, not Exalted or M&M.
Wow, no wonder I always look forward to hitting the higher levels.
I want to play Epic fantasy, not some scrungy backwoods kids pretending to be adventurers.
Generational thing. We were much less affected by "instant gratification" than the modern gamer seems to be. It took me five years of constant gaming to achieve 18th level with a paladin character back then. If I games with the frequency I did back then now, it would take four months to gain 18th level in 3x.
I'm glad Kirth is using (very) slow advancement in our game, makes leveling more special.
As to the "scrungy kids", part of the fun of AD&D was just that: "normal" people eventually becoming heroes and leaders in the world, after (in game) years of struggle and sacrifice in the face of overwhelming odds.
The normal people bit is fine to be Derek, I think you misunderstand my position.
When I think Epic fantasy, I look at lord of the rings, or Wuxia, etc, people capable of incredible feats that are the things dreams are made of.
I never said I don't enjoy the lower levels, just that I personally look forward to getting up to the more... fantasy parts ya get what I'm saying?
I feel ya, man. I'm just kind of a "genre snob", and don't like getting Asian Kung Fu Theater or X-Men mixed in my western ancient/medieval fantasy trip. And I dislike, intensely, the rapid leveling in modern D&D. Doesn't give you a chance to savor the character development and really grow into the role, so to speak (imo and all that).
And, frankly, it's possible to emulate Legolas without having to go all Jet Li with it ;)
From what I recall in the beta channel energy was changed to:
Fix the turning rules which were a mess
Give clerics an alternate use for a class ability that went largely unused in some modules or adventures (one group I play in has seen exactly 1 undead creature in 6 sessions)
Free up clerics from having to burn spells for healing which benefited other party members. The turning rules were a mess, but your second and third point make no sense to me at all.
There was plenty of ways to make turning more useful (in fact, some of those ideas even exist in feat form in PF), adding a "healing" element wasn't needed to make it more useful.
That is another alternate use which you can enable by taking a feat. But those alternate abilities suffer from the same issue turning had, they are specific to one set of targets. The power would still only have a small role in the orc/ drow adventure I'm currently playing in.
I appreciate that you don't like the healing aspect of it. I am honestly not in love with it but it is highly useful. It would be interesting to see some domain focused uses for the power.
And quite frankly I don't think it "frees up" the cleric from healing. It's another means of healing, so it does nothing to make the cleric less healing focused.
Please go back and re-read what I posted. I've never suggested it makes them less healing focused, I actually said exactly the opposite. If you are going to go all agro and jump on me please do it for what I actually say.
Stuff your "Reading is Tech". I'm perfectly aware of the wording, my point is still just as valid. You don't agree? Fine, but attacking how I word my arguments is just plain poor and does nothing to prove your point.
This isn't english class, you're not a teacher with far more years of education than me, you have no reason to beleive that you are actually have more experience than me in any department, so don't treat me like some child because my wording didn't match the exact words of the person I was debating.
No one is nitpicking your grammar, you completely misread what I said and went off the deep end about something I didn't say and ignored half my post. If your comments above are right then I guess you deliberately misread it. Apparently you are just super anxious to refire a flame war. Good luck with that.
From what I recall in the beta channel energy was changed to:
Fix the turning rules which were a mess
Give clerics an alternate use for a class ability that went largely unused in some modules or adventures (one group I play in has seen exactly 1 undead creature in 6 sessions)
Free up clerics from having to burn spells for healing which benefited other party members. The turning rules were a mess, but your second and third point make no sense to me at all.
There was plenty of ways to make turning more useful (in fact, some of those ideas even exist in feat form in PF), adding a "healing" element wasn't needed to make it more useful.
That is another alternate use which you can enable by taking a feat. But those alternate abilities suffer from the same issue turning had, they are specific to one set of targets. The power would still only have a small role in the orc/ drow adventure I'm currently playing in.
I appreciate that you don't like the healing aspect of it. I am honestly not in love with it but it is highly useful. It would be interesting to see some domain focused uses for the power.
I dislike the healing aspect as well. The cleric is certainly now more healing focused then ever before, but also what it has done for the paladin seems a bit too much, making him argueably the second best healer, prehaps better then the druid, almost certainly better then the bard.
Channel energy as is, to me, is way too powerful and way to heavy handed a way to force all clerics into the roll of healer. No real flexibility, your cleric is a healer whether you want to be one or not. You can never use a healing spell and if you cha is over 13 your likely still a better healer then any other class could be. I don't even want to think of what it would make an all cleric and paladin party into, could you imagine the non-stop healing of that group.
Anyway I think it's too much. Turning might not have been great and the mechanic kind of clunky in 3.x but I always saw it more as power meant to give the cleric/paladin a chance to shine and stand out not as a way to give him great power. This makes him a battery of healing power, and yes it's always useful and yes it's powerful, but I don't think the cleric needed more power, I think he was a bit too powerful in 3.x and this new power doesn't help bring him in line with others. While the spell changes did help this seems to me to be going against the goal of balance between the classes. Let me explain it this way, every party wants a healer, is there any debate now though over which class is head and shoulders better at it then others? In 3.x the cleric was better thanks to spontanious casting but the druid could beef up and healing spells with the option to change them to summon spells, in Pathfidner there is nothing any class can do to complete with a cleric, even one only half trying to be a good healer.
Slight tangent, but I house ruled that any cleric could select either positive or negative channeling regardless of alignment, and additionally can channel the opposite sort for the cost of 2 uses. After four sessions with two positive-channeling clerics (11 total daily channels in the party), the negative effect has been used once. (In that one instance, it was tremendously effective.)
I'm really happy with this outcome. It changes very little in the overall class balance; in general, the clerics are still healbots. But having the option to make a tactical decision which totally breaks that box, really makes it seem less constraining... even if it's only used once a month!
Are yu saying that each cleric can channel both at any given time?
To be clear it's either one or the other, not both at once! You still pick a primary energy type, which works as usual. Versatile Channel is a separate class feature which allows you to channel the opposite energy type at double cost. This means a primarily positive cleric still does not qualify for Command Undead: they don't actually have the Channel Negative Energy class feature. Paladins lack Versatile Channel, so they can't do this at all.
The feat Improved Versatile Channel makes both types primary, so you pay normal cost for either and qualify for derivative feats. (Prereq: Channel Focus [which is a renamed Improved Channel {because my Improved Channel gives you d8's <and requires Channel Focus>}].)