Very nice, makes me wish I still had a group to DM.
Very nice, makes me wish I still had a group to DM.
Looks very slick. I can't really slide it into what I am working on now, but I may well in the future.
I'm a bit surprised there's not a bit more buzz about this over here. I haven't had a chance to read through the free adventure, but skimming it feels very Avatar: Fire Nation to me, which is 100% awesome sauce.
Any thoughts from the crowd?
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I'm a bit surprised there's not a bit more buzz about this over here. I haven't had a chance to read through the free adventure, but skimming it feels very Avatar: Fire Nation to me, which is 100% awesome sauce.
Any thoughts from the crowd?
Never watched the cartoon or anima, plus I am so far behind in review right now, that I haven't even done more than glanced at the art really. Be awhile before I do get to it.
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Isn't the Avatar thing based on a anime? The one with the bald kid that can control elements? I know they recently did a movie about it.I've no idea about Avatar, but ZEITGEIST has nothing to do with it, or with bald kids who can control elements, or with any kind of cartoon or anime. It's a D&D/Pathfinder fantasy adventure path with hints of steampunk (there are some guns and a steam ship).
Yeah i was commenting on Qualidar's comment that it reminded him of the fire nation from Avatar.
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The Good:
Zeitgeist overall has an interesting lay-out and art direction, I find reminiscent of DC's Blackhawk comic from the early 90's.
Although it's doubtful that I fit into the their target audience for this adventure path, there are elements of the design that could easily grow on me.
The Bad:
I knew this product was originally written for 4e and 'ported' for Pathfinder, but I found this conversion to be lacking.
It is very crunch-lite and soft on PF. If the rest of the series continues in this fashion, I suspect that PF fans (like myself) will find it unpalatable.
Azmyth, if you'd be willing, I'm curious in what way you found the conversion lacking. I want to provide the best product possible, and the more precise the feedback we receive, the better we can achieve that.
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Azmyth, if you'd be willing, I'm curious in what way you found the conversion lacking. I want to provide the best product possible, and the more precise the feedback we receive, the better we can achieve that.
I have only given it a general once over and then read the first section. I will comment on the first section just to offer feedback to you. This is the Act one the crowd security part so far. I will comment on each section below
1) I honestly don't know why there is a roll for the PC's to get the information on the type of people to look for. Since it is their job to me that says it should be a given they have that information.
2) Canvass the crowd I thought was pretty well done.
3) Find the suspects, this part mentions if the PC's antagonize the workers a fight might break out. But since it is a skill check it doesn't say how that can happen. Is it on a failed check or two in a row? I am guessing it is GM fiat, but it just seems odd it would be that when the success is based on a skill challenge roll.
4) See 3 above.
5) The possible fight seemed pretty well done. As far as giving enough information to run the fight well if it comes to that.
Azmyth, if you'd be willing, I'm curious in what way you found the conversion lacking. I want to provide the best product possible, and the more precise the feedback we receive, the better we can achieve that.
I'm not to familiar with 4th edition, but I did notice that the way skill checks was used was very similar to the skill challenge systems used in 4th edition (this may of course have been a deliberate choice on the devs. side).
There is also quite a few mentions of minor actions, I assume these are suppossed to be swift actions but it's never exactly clear.
The adventure seems a bit epic in scope for 1st level characters, but that's probably intentional to make the pc's feel like their part of something big from the get go.
But all in all I found the adventure to be really original and well written, especially the many faceted npc's. And the plot of this AP with it's Steampunk meets X-files meets Final Fantasy feel is showing great promise, and I can't wait to see how it all plays out.
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I'm curious how this adventure will handle several things that are hard to translate between 4e and PF. Example - a tall tower full of encounters is a perfectly valid challenge for a party of 5th level chars in 4e (because they have to ascend it via stairs anyway), but becomes rather silly for a 3.5/PF party if they can cast fly. And that's just off the top of my head...
I'm curious how this adventure will handle several things that are hard to translate between 4e and PF. Example - a tall tower full of encounters is a perfectly valid challenge for a party of 5th level chars in 4e (because they have to ascend it via stairs anyway), but becomes rather silly for a 3.5/PF party if they can cast fly. And that's just off the top of my head...
You may actually want to take a glance at the free Players Guide then, because the background planar/elements issues address your example specifically. In fact, in the section on Magic the first sentence says:
"Only two types of magic are wholly off-limits: long-duration flight,
and long-duration planar travel."
Read up on the material, your concerns about translation might already be addressed.
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I'm curious how this adventure will handle several things that are hard to translate between 4e and PF. Example - a tall tower full of encounters is a perfectly valid challenge for a party of 5th level chars in 4e (because they have to ascend it via stairs anyway), but becomes rather silly for a 3.5/PF party if they can cast fly. And that's just off the top of my head...You may actually want to take a glance at the free Players Guide then, because the background planar/elements issues address your example specifically. In fact, in the section on Magic the first sentence says:
"Only two types of magic are wholly off-limits: long-duration flight,
and long-duration planar travel."Read up on the material, your concerns about translation might already be addressed.
Fly isn't a long-duration spell. Unless you consider it so, but I can't find any definition of that in Player's Guide.
"Well let's just handwave things that don't translate well between editions" doesn't exactly sound reassuring about the product. It doesn't say "We designed this product for both editions", it says "We did it for 4e but hey, let's do a quick hack to sell more of it!". The fact that magic items in the first adventure don't conform with PF rules reinforces that, I'm afraid.
They have made the effort to make it easy to learn about their setting right now. They are providing a free downloadable content that addresses your concerns. I'd suggest spending a few minutes to go read it and proactively address your own concerns.
They did a similar thing in the War of the Burning Sky (in 3.5, so there was no 4e conversion concerns) with teleporting. From my perspective (knowing some people involved, etc), they are very much about flavour and story, rather than rules changes to make things "easy".
I might not agree with all the Pathfinderizations being made, but I see it more as two design paradigms clashing and trying to resolve themselves rather than "a quick hack" being made.
Your comments are coming across as very abrasive/rude, and ultimately uninformed.
At least read the material and proselytize with informed criticism.
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They have made the effort to make it easy to learn about their setting right now. They are providing a free downloadable content that addresses your concerns. I'd suggest spending a few minutes to go read it and proactively address your own concerns.
They did a similar thing in the War of the Burning Sky (in 3.5, so there was no 4e conversion concerns) with teleporting. From my perspective (knowing some people involved, etc), they are very much about flavour and story, rather than rules changes to make things "easy".
I might not agree with all the Pathfinderizations being made, but I see it more as two design paradigms clashing and trying to resolve themselves rather than "a quick hack" being made.
Your comments are coming across as very abrasive/rude, and ultimately uninformed.At least read the material and proselytize with informed criticism.
So, is fly a long-duration spell or not? The guide says five minutes, does that mean that a level 5 Wizard can cast fly, and a level 6th cannot? I won't even get started about how flying gets thrown out and teleportation stays, because it makes a little sense from design perspective as possible.
I'm pretty certain there are more instances where PF characters can easily perform stunts not available to 4e chars (and vice versa), and considering that PF is backwards compatible, the list can be rather long.
And what's up with the ad hominem, really? I understand you might not like my point of view, it's fine, but I haven't even begun being abrasive and rude.
No sale here. I'd much prefer this to be just 4e with a free conversion guide.
I felt the comment about the Pathfinder conversion being nothing more than a cash grab was fairly mean-spirited, but if you didn't mean it that way then I apologize for taking it that way.
And it wasn't an ad hominem, as it wasn't part of my argument about whether what they are doing is good or not. I was specifically commenting on the negative attitude I was getting from your post, nothing more.
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Thanks for the free download. The adventure seems very interesting and flavorful, and I love the steampunk elements.
I do think that as you convert the various chapters to Pathfinder, you'll need to watch the skill challenges. You might be better off creating short tables for each relevant skill, and listing what information or advantage can be obtained at various DCs, instead of doing the multiple successes with a variety of skills thing.
Also, thanks for making so much supplemental material available.
Any idea of when the next Pathfinder version chapter will be available for purchase?
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I felt the comment about the Pathfinder conversion being nothing more than a cash grab was fairly mean-spirited, but if you didn't mean it that way then I apologize for taking it that way.
And it wasn't an ad hominem, as it wasn't part of my argument about whether what they are doing is good or not. I was specifically commenting on the negative attitude I was getting from your post, nothing more.
Well, he's not the only one with that concern. Having downloaded the first volume of the AP, and the campaign guide, and the player's guide, I have to admit that it all just reads exactly like what it seems to me to be: a 4e AP, designed with, around, and for the 4e conventions, with a conversion attempt made (to whatever degree of success) so that they might increase sales by getting Pathfinder fans to buy into it as well.
Now, based on the (success or failure, depending on your PoV) of War of the Burning Skies, you might be very interested in the Pathfinder conversion of Zeitgeist, and if you are, hey, more power to you, but there are those of us who feel it is just that: a conversion, from its original material, not a truly original work, or one truly meant and designed to be played under Pathfinder mechanics.
Well that's sad news. The players guide didn't feel overly put on as a conversion, but it didn't have that much crunch to it.
I haven't had a chance to check out the first adventure yet, but if it's that bad, I might end up only mining it for ideas instead of running it directly. I prefer my Pathfinder APs made form whole cloth (using pathfinder rules to create encounters, etc).
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Well that's sad news. The players guide didn't feel overly put on as a conversion, but it didn't have that much crunch to it.
I haven't had a chance to check out the first adventure yet, but if it's that bad, I might end up only mining it for ideas instead of running it directly. I prefer my Pathfinder APs made form whole cloth (using pathfinder rules to create encounters, etc).
It depends on how many limitations and changes you're willing to make to the default assumptions of Pathfinder. There are several made to the world of Zeitgeist that are just flat out (or at the very least all but absolute) required to really be able to run it. If you're willing to deal with that, what it says about races, classes, and the functionality of magic, then it might be a really good fit for you. I know it's not for me, but then again, YMMV.
Well, the gold blocking teleport sounded like a really neat campaign setting specific thing, one I would not be adverse to adding to my normal games.
It feels very similar to lead blocking scrying. And as has been displayed in a number of threads on this very board (talking about scry-n-fry in various context), teleporting seems like it could use a good, reasonable, non-magical limiter like this (over and above the normal magical redirect/forbiddance methods).
The planes no longer interacting the same as before felt like campaign setting stuff too (Eberron has the moons, War of the Burning Sky had the plane of fire/astral plane problems and it went fine).
To me, it can be a setting specific thing more than a "make it work like 4e" type of thing.
I had thought (hoped?) they were going to rewrite the encounters to work in a Pathfinder ruleset.
In other words, using encounter/monster guidelines and skill/combat mechanics from Pathfinder to build a similar encounter but with Pathfinder rules as the basis.
In talking with some friends about the first adventure now, it's sounding like a copy/paste/word replace type of thing.
*Edit* Not to say that that's outright "bad", but it's not what I was expecting, unfortunately.
I found the way it was formatted or type set (ie the way it looked on the page)made it hard to read at first glance. But due to time commitments I have only had a first glance so that may be an unfair comment, and with a bit of effort I may get past that.
On the plus side I loved reading War of the Burning Sky and rate it as probably one of my top 5 adventure paths (no time to actually play or run it until at least 2013 at my current pace)to such an extent that I have faith in the authors and I will subscribe to get this -- though it may take me a few weeks to get round to it.
edit: I have no issue with the conversion type stuff- I dont consider it to be crucial to my game if fly is nerfed a bit - especially if it is for a good campaign reason (as teleport was in WoTBS)
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I found the way it was formatted or type set (ie the way it looked on the page)made it hard to read at first glance. But due to time commitments I have only had a first glance so that may be an unfair comment, and with a bit of effort I may get past that.
The layout is very pretty, but I prefer a more minimalistic approach. Fortunately, that is not a problem as you can go into the "layers" part of the PDF and turn off all the layers apart from the one that has the text.* Do that, and you get plenty of white space (reminds me a bit of the way Monte Cook lays out his books), which is more to my taste.
You can also set it to a printer friendly version the same way.
*Technically, you can turn off the text layer as well, but that kind of defeats the object of reading the PDF ...
Thanks for the feedback Dark_Mistress and others. I'm replying right before I head off to a game, so I'll have to get to some of your posts tomorrow. I hope I can clear some stuff up.
1) I honestly don't know why there is a roll for the PC's to get the information on the type of people to look for. Since it is their job to me that says it should be a given they have that information.
I think of it more as a "you know the basics, but how well do you explain that information to the officers who are aiding you, and how clearly can you discern random noise from actual clues."
3) Find the suspects, this part mentions if the PC's antagonize the workers a fight might break out.
My hope is that most groups don't just roll skill checks and skip the roleplaying. Even if the PCs find the workers with successful checks, if the party decides to insult them or shove them around, the guys might still try to fight.
I'm not to familiar with 4th edition, but I did notice that the way skill checks was used was very similar to the skill challenge systems used in 4th edition (this may of course have been a deliberate choice on the devs. side).
There is also quite a few mentions of minor actions, I assume these are suppossed to be swift actions but it's never exactly clear.
First off, we figured out we had some sort of confusion in the layout stage of the conversion. I'm frustrated that the problem cropped up, because we went through the Word document with a comb to fine 4e-isms and clear them out. But we'll make sure the problem doesn't happen again. I know it's hard to have a glitch-free start, but I'm sorry for the mistake.
As for skill challenges . . . well actually, Russ and I hate 4e's skill challenges, at least how they're normally implemented. Basically they're just dice rolling almost completely divorced from actual events.
Our philosophy for ZEITGEIST skill challenges, both PF and 4e, is to provide a mechanical guide that's flexible, but which has the right DCs and necessary number of skill checks to make the encounter actually be statistically challenging.
Now, that's an easier thing to pull off in 4e, because the range of skill modifiers is narrower. A poster at EN World, Stalker0, came up with a really excellent analysis of skill DCs and probabilities; our challenge is to take the math skeleton and give it interesting and intuitive flesh.
I'm curious how this adventure will handle several things that are hard to translate between 4e and PF. Example - a tall tower full of encounters is a perfectly valid challenge for a party of 5th level chars in 4e (because they have to ascend it via stairs anyway), but becomes rather silly for a 3.5/PF party if they can cast fly. And that's just off the top of my head...
Quick clarification. Spells like fly and such work fine, but then peter out after about 5 minutes. I personally love flying PCs, and my first cop-themed campaign took place in Sharn in Eberron, so I think I've got a clear sense of how to challenge PCs who have access to easy flight. And, of course, how to let those folks show off their powers, since every PC deserves a chance to have the spotlight.
Really, the one thing that's proven difficult for the 4e/PF conversion is that 1st level 4e PCs are more resilient, so it's easier to have several encounters in a row. I made sure early on in the 1st adventure to have an NPC encourage the PCs to pick up a wand of cure light wounds. Otherwise it'd be hard to keep the action going on a timeline.
Ultimately, I'm not trying to make adventures that are 'good for 4e.' I'm trying to make adventures that are 'good adventures.' I know there's a bit of displeasure among some folks over the 4e/PF divide, and I recognize that it's not possible to please everybody, but I hope people give ZEITGEIST a fair shake.
Gotta run now. Good gaming to you all!
I realize this is off topic but is there a Savage Worlds conversion for Wotbs anywhere or is one likely for zeitgeist?
It honestly sounds more like Complex Skill Checks, rather than skill challenges.
As the Alexandrian put it, 4e skill challenges tried to do something like this, but missed the target a long way off.
I'm glad that the AP seems to be following a more normal "complex skill checks" concept at the very least.
That was one of the best rules I found in Unearthed Arcana, and used quite often until Pathfinder. Not sure why I stopped...
Thanks for pointing out some of the verbiage imprecision. We're compiling a list of things we want to fix so we can update the pdfs.
The theme feats often refer to once per combat. As far as I know, there are no abilities in the core rule set that function like that. I don't even think once per combat is a defined frequency in pathfinder and I have been unable to find it's definition in the player's guide.
I'd rule it as 'use it whenever you want, but you can't use it again until you get 5 minutes or so to rest.'
I'll freely admit, it's a conceit taken from 4th edition, where you have some abilities that can be used once per 'encounter.' Yeah, it's a tad arbitrary, but not much more so than only being able to use a particular ability X times per day (especially non-supernatural ones like barbarian rage, or ranger's focus from the advanced player's guide).
And since some of the ZEITGEIST adventures have multiple encounters in one day (like when you're out on a mission) and sometimes just one per day (usually when you're in a city and safety is just a couple blocks away), I think it's simpler to balance their utility by making them 'every once in a while' abilities.
If that doesn't fit your play style, by all means, make them usable 3 times per day.
The Docker’s Jank theme feat seems very similar to Swift Aid (a Combat feat) though it includes the character itself (ihmo, this is not the idea of the aid an other action) and is restricted to 4 other characters (and to once per combat).
As far as I know, the rangers Hunter's Bond is the only ability that is restricted to 'your companions' though it does not have a maximum number of characters it can affect. The Docker’s Jank theme feat seems to screw over parties larger than 5 people.
The limit was put in so that you don't have the PCs recruit 20 mooks, and then have everyone tossing around tons of bonuses. And the wording of "each ally may, as swift action, attempt the aid another action, granting another ally (or yourself) a bonus..." is meant to mean that your allies can choose to aid you, not that you can aid yourself.
Again, by all means let it apply to whatever size party you have, just give it some reasonable limit.
Icy End of the Earth Theme Feat speaks about stabilising a dead character. Exactly what is meant by this? The closest thing I'm aware of that has functionality somewhat similar to the feat is Breath of Life (a 5th level cleric spell which btw probably makes the feat severely overpowered). Though the amount of healing is specifically mentioned in the spell description.
Icy End of the Earth Theme Feat indicated the possibility to be stable at -100 hit points. I don't think the core rules cover this.
Our error. It's supposed to say that if the ally is dead, it is stabilized at just above its death threshold. Obviously this only fixes hit point damage; if the PC was dusted by disintegrate, or decapitated by a vorpal weapon, increasing their HP a tad won't help.
Yes, it can theoretically be more powerful than Breath of Life. I think the ability to undo a death at the last instant is cool, and REALLY handy if you're planning to run a 20-level campaign. If you cut out the healing ability of Breath of Life (and its attendant ability to hurt undead), I think it deserves to be maybe a level 1 spell.
If you want a deadlier game, though, cut out the ability to un-kill the recently dead, and maybe change it to a swift action to stabilize an ally.
The Man with Two Guns is God: It offers quick draw and two weapon fighting with guns. Though it does not offer proficiency with guns. So your druid can quick draw guns and fire 2 weapons though can only shoot in his own foot because of the lack of proficiency?
Well, -4 to hit isn't necessarily shooting yourself in the foot. Usually when you're using it, you're at point blank range, and so will be making touch attacks with the guns. And if a druid is cruising around with pistols (if only we could find a way for him to use them in animal form! bears with shotguns!), he should spend a feat for proficiency. Considering that druids don't even get any sort of bow or crossbow proficiency out of the gate, I think it would be a good investment.
Again, thanks for the interest and feedback. If you spot anything else that concerns you (or, y'know, that you think is awesome; we accept praise too), let us know.
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Thanks for pointing out some of the verbiage imprecision. We're compiling a list of things we want to fix so we can update the pdfs.
The theme feats often refer to once per combat. As far as I know, there are no abilities in the core rule set that function like that. I don't even think once per combat is a defined frequency in pathfinder and I have been unable to find it's definition in the player's guide.I'd rule it as 'use it whenever you want, but you can't use it again until you get 5 minutes or so to rest.'
I'll freely admit, it's a conceit taken from 4th edition, where you have some abilities that can be used once per 'encounter.' Yeah, it's a tad arbitrary, but not much more so than only being able to use a particular ability X times per day (especially non-supernatural ones like barbarian rage, or ranger's focus from the advanced player's guide).
And since some of the ZEITGEIST adventures have multiple encounters in one day (like when you're out on a mission) and sometimes just one per day (usually when you're in a city and safety is just a couple blocks away), I think it's simpler to balance their utility by making them 'every once in a while' abilities.
If that doesn't fit your play style, by all means, make them usable 3 times per day.
If you are making an update to the books, for this issue may i recommend changing it from 'once per encounter' or '3 times per day' to '# of rounds per day'. Many of PF's abilities work like that now, like rage for example.
Also i've downloaded the player's guide, campaign guide, and 1st adventure. Very, very well thought out, and as probably one of the few DM's (that I know of) that ran WOTBS from 1st to 12th book straight, i'm just as excited for this as well. Though i think one of the things that confused me was the continued use of the term 'high elf'. To cause less confusion amongst PF players, may i suggest just using the term 'elf' and if its necessary then say 'elves from here'. Cause apparently, in the PF version, there are at least 2 seperate regions that elves are from. The 4e version has one being eladrin and the other regular elves. But something happened to the eladrin (High Elves in PF)in one region but not the Elves (also High Elves?) the other....it was confusing because i thought it happened to all elves, the setting didn't differentiate between the two. I only learned it is actually two different High Elves from reading the EN boards. If reading this confused you, you aren't alone. I only think I understand it.
Another thing that was confusing was that there is no mention of either halflings or gnomes that i could find. Do these races exist in Zeitgeist, where are they, what do they do, what can a player of one of these races expect, ect? I have more than one player that play almost excusively the small races. Half-orcs are mentioned in the campaign setting, as are half-dragons (4e dragonborn) and minotaurs (allowed in 4e...really?)....doubt many DMs will let their players play a half-dragon or a minotaur, but maybe they will. I won't.
And I completely understood the limitations on fly and planar magic. I thought that was very cool, but it is setting specific.
Also, did anyone else catch the name of the steamship in the 1st book? "Coaltongue" Hahaha....