Congrats and enjoy! Black 8 on Roulette, if you are planning on gambling.
Beautiful up there. Bring a good raincoat on the maid of the mist!
Bummer to hear that, Aidan. My problem is that my group has grown to 7, and it is difficult to coordinate a night when the group can all meet each week. I fear that we may have to split the group into two.
Ack, I hate that. I've been shedding members in my RL game myself -- down to the "stable" core of 3 players.
Spam healing is one of the things I hate about PF/3.x
My home group has never liked spam-heals. In fact, we have a couple of house rules to keep it to a minimum:
1)Clerics spontaneously cast spells from their domain list. They don't get a domain spell slot. If they take Healing, they get cure spells. Death, they get inflict.2)Clerics will select an appropriate alternative channel, where possible. Channel is not "positive" and "negative" energy, it is simply divine energy. Some gods heal undead, some heal living, some damage chaos, some repair items, some light stuff on fire.
3)If at any time you take damage equal to or greater than half your CURRENT hit points, you are staggered for one round. Diehard eliminates this penalty. (This makes combat healing not-stupid, and incentivizes keeping everyone in top health throughout the day, not just spamming)
We generally play with the "flavor" that a cure light spell isn't a ball of heal-light, it's basically a first aid heal check that auto-succeeds and also heals damage through divine providence. We're thinking of changing the spell description, so that it just empowers a heal check, but we haven't done the math yet.
Spamming heal-touch-wands devalues hit point damage, the heal skill, and verisimilitude.
I find this approach interesting, but if you limit the healing, then the challenges should also be appropriately addressed, no?
It actually seems to work out. Instead of sacrificing spells after combat or before bed, clerics sacrifice spells mid-combat to protect allies or hinder enemies, meaning PCs take less damage and need less healing. The same is true of channel, to some degree, although at high levels it becomes harder to heal up after a hard fight.
As for the staggered, it generally works both in favor of and in opposition to PCs at the same time. While, yeah, the barbarian can't hang out at low hp anymore, he can stagger the giant with power attack.
It does tend to make combats longer since, as everything gets low on hit points, they can't take full-attacks. We've thought about reducing the penalty to a static -2, like shaken but not the condition, to alleviate this but keep the flavor.
I don't mind so much if a player is using their own spell slots (although the channel energy healing is pretty potent). It's the backpack full of wands of cure light that bother me - the consequence is that there's no attritional effect from a series of fairly light fights. If an encounter isn't potentially lethal there's not much point in running it as at the end of it the players zip right back up to full hit points. Ah well, I guess I'm just old and when I started out people weren't used to MMORPGs.
Anyone else looking at the new Elite?
Eh, a backpack full of wands costs gold. Gold is a depletable resource, after all. If you do wand-of-cure everyone after a fight, you're giving up a lot of the minute-per-level buffs at low level, and all the round-per-level ones at high level. There is a tradeoff, it's just subtle... Still, it does irk me. There should be identifiable consequences to be being hit in combat. Pathfinder just doesn't exactly work that way, since hit points aren't always deducted from a wound.
I have yet to try the optional wound and vigor system, but it looks intriguing for that reason.
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I'm no computer game bod, except maybe Baldurs Gate and Icewind Dale. And I do remember how hard docking was in Elite.
As for healing, my last campaign including no channeling magic for that very reason. Something Sigil did well in that town of undead was use attrition to get us down to our last spells and abilities.
But nothing seems to match the feel of a first edition level one wizard with one whole spell and a measly four hits.
cheers
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I'm looking forward to Elite and Galactic Civ...
As far as healing - Healing in general is a big pet peeve of mine. I don't mind magical healing (although as a DM, I try to limit items that can heal) what I hate is that HP's now represent 'near misses'. It's a 4e thing that has creeped it's way into everything now. You aren't really getting hit by that arrow...it represents near missses and energy spent dodging... :( I was cool that as you increased in level, than the same cut meant less to you...but in my mind it's always about damage to flesh. Magical healing was required to keep going but it was rare-ish or something you had to parse out with careful judgement. Now, clerics just 'pulse' and everyone around heals. /sigh
I have started looking at 5e, and it is very well put together. If they bring back Greyhawk as a setting, as they say, then I am totally on board!
Wow Bryn I totally disagree, the same cut meaning less is so... cheesy. Energy expended dodging, your "luck" running out, etc. is so much more intriguing to me.
I've been checking out 5e, and it does look nice. It's not nearly as intricate, and I doubt it will fill my need to design complicated and awesome things. On the other hand, simpler is sometimes better. I'll probably get the books and have a monthly game.
Still, pathfinder unchained looks very promising.
The 'hit point = some kind of abstract measure of how hard you are to kill' is a very old flange to explain why a high level fighter can take as much physical punishment as four cart horses - dates back to at least the AD&D Players Handbook. It's gone in and out of fashion as an explanation with Hackmaster parodying it by saying that a high level fighter absolutely can take as much physical punishment as four cart horses. An old White Dwarf (like, really old, issue four or so) suggested that characters have as many *actual* hit points as their Con, but they didn't start losing them till all their 'abstract' hit points were used up, or if their opponent got a critical hit, or something like that.
Mine and Sigil's pbem GM a couple years ago limited healing to the barest minimum - any time a player tried it the GM decided if the god they worshipped felt like doing any healing. Usually they didn't. Needless to say, TPK was a such a regular event in his campaigns he had special rules for "if half or more of the party are killed".
I'm actually a huge fan of the 5th edition rest rules, which let you recover some hit points over the course of a one-hour rest. It quasi-officially confirms that "hit points" do not indicate getting hit in the actual face.
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Aidan - I really liked the Star Wars Saga edition (and other RPG's) choice of Wounds and <insert another pool here>. Most times, you'd reduce from the other pool which represented the exhaustion, near misses, and then there were rules on when you'd get hit with a wound. THAT I can buy into.
D&D doesn't use that. They have arrows and fireballs hitting you all the time. It makes no sense to me to have near misses coming out of a pool called Hit Points. If you don't mean "HIT" points, then call it something else.
But since you did call it "HIT" points (you as in TSR/WOTC), I needed to come up with something that would help "MY" sensibilities. I actually wrote an article that I submitted (didn't get picked up) to Dragon eons ago.
It went something like this.
At first level, you are a fighter with 10 HP's and take a sword swipe for 5 HP's. This represents 1/2 your total HP's. You are in dire straits because another hit of the same magnitude can kill you. What happened? That sword probably cut a deep gash somewhere. (Remember, they are "HIT" points...you got hit.)
At 10th level, you are that same fighter, but with 100 HP's. That SAME sword swipe, doing 5 points of damage, is no where near as critical as the one the level 1 incarnation took. Why? Well, this is where luck, experience, dodging, etc comes into play. You, with your ten levels of combat experience know how to handle these things. You can minimize the damage with a last minute side step. You can suck in your gut at the last minute to take the tip of a rapier instead of the length. You've done something (in undefined terms) to be able to take a sword swipe that does the same amount of damage to the human body.
I like this rationalization much better, because Damage is still being done - you didn't avoid that arrow or fireball (had you, you wouldn't have taken "HIT" points of damage. But you mitigated it. There is blood on your surcoat. It requires healing.
In my worlds, extended my thinking to healing. In the old days, everyone healed at some abysmal rate overnight. (1 hp + con mod??? I can't remember) regardless of level. This didn't make any more sense to me than HP's did. So, I changed it to 1 HP per level + Con Modifier. So, at 1st level, our fighter would heal his wound (assuming no con mod) in 5 days, whereas it would take a fighter of 10th level the same five days to heal (again assuming no con mod) from 50% of his hit points (or 50 HP's).
Using this method (before the advent of cure light wound wands that are so ubiquitous now), my groups had reasonable downtimes when cleric or potion healing weren't available. (Potions were more rare then then now as well.)
I don't "hate" the rest rules but I would change them as they stand in 5e. I would change hit points to HP's and Energy Points. (for lack of a better term). I'd figure out some way to reduce both by easy percentage and allow the energy points to regenerate via catching one's breath, short rests, etc... and the HP's to only come back via long rests and magic. Let's say 3/10 of your HP's are these wound HP's and the rest are my Energy Points. so, our first level fighter has 3 wound point and 7 energy points. (our 10th level fighter will have 30/70). Each "hit" will do 1 Wound + energy. You can quick rest the energy back, but that wound isn't knitting up just because you had milk and cookies and a power nap. you need magical healing...or long rest.
Obviously this is a quick and dirty.... but if you are going to call something 'HIT' points, then by god characters are getting hit. after 40 years of DnD, that mindset isn't going to change for me. 5e could have broken that trope..but didn't, so now I have to dislike it. Call me a grognard.
My problem with any abstraction of HP as luck, making major hits minor, fatigue, what have you (really, anything other than gaining supernatural toughness) is that the healing system doesn't back it up.
If a level 1 commoner (who has no such reflexes) takes an orcish blade to the throat or torso and goes down, a (level 1) cure light wounds spell (assuming near-max) takes him from the brink of death (he was probably bleeding out, small hit die and all) and puts him pretty much to full health.
However, a level 10 fighter (who is lousy with luck, fatigue, or the ability to modify or mitigate wounds by taking minor hits) arrives and kills the whole band of orcs, taking 3 or 4 of these now-minor hits (they flanked him). He's not in any risk of death, he's fully conscious, he can walk and talk and run and do everything under the sun -- he's got more than half his hp remaining -- but the same spell that knits the flesh back together of the commoner doesn't pull it off here.
This is made even worse when the system allows sleep to fully restore hp, like the 5e playtest originally did... You reach a point where formerly-miraculous healing spells are now less effective than naps -- and why on earth would I ever need to use a "make me awake" spell that's the same level as a spell that, literally, brings the dead back to life?
At the end of it all, I rather liked the Earthdawn system for all of this -- your body was able to recover based on your con -- magic boosted natural healing, and, more importantly, if you got hit, hard, you took a wound -- which reduced your body's ability to heal -- and your ability to fight as effectively.... Wounds were harder to just magic away, healing wounds naturally took days... and, in the end, and you really did get supernaturally tougher as you grew in power..
Honestly there are a great many things that are done in this game because "tradition".
That's a great theme for a musical, but not a wonderful game design philosophy.
I will rebut by saying there are a lot of things that are not very aptly named, like "armor class" even when you're not wearing any armor. It's not a "dodge class", is it? How is that different than a "hit point" that isn't exactly a "hit" point?
The mechanics allow every GM to decide for themselves. The unwritten guideline in PFS is that anything above 1/3 its hit points is bruised, maybe scratched; anything below 1/3 hit points is visibly beaten and injured. You could decide every 1-hit point scratch is just that, a scratch(The rules support this with injury poison). You could even decide that heroes are not actually hit until the final, deciding blow - as long as the mechanics balance, it's not a big deal.
As for the 5e rest rules, your health doesn't return in some strange way. First of all, healing is based on your level, which means that the more hit points you have, in general, the more you heal. That actually supports the suck-gut rapier tip philosophy, as you're essentially dealing with small wounds. You're wrapping ankles, stuffing bleeds, righting dislocations, what have you.
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For all my hot air, I am looking forward to playing 5e and won't be making any changes to healing. (for now) ;)
I'm all for fair test periods.
PS - I did run it once already and actually had a character die. I rarely kill characters, but it was a tough situation and the player didn't cast the right spell (he cast burning hands instead of sleep which would have been more effective.) His burning hands spell killed one, but three others saved and took 1/2 damage. I subsequently knocked out/down 3 of the 5 PC's and the group couldn't get to the wizard to stabalize him. 4 death rolls later (1 save, 3 fail) he passed on. It felt...right.
I played Earthdawn once I think. I had some sort of fire mage and was totally outclassed by someone who had rolled the random chance of being a major psionic and took the class "Mind Mage". This meant that they were as good at fire magic as I (a specialist fire user) was and had the same level of power in about four other areas of magic. Because they rolled less than 14% on the first die roll of the campaign. Totally unbalanced towards psionics.
Obviously, I may be recalling another game system and am still feeling aggrieved at the wrong game.
Random generation of character's power level is pretty much the antithesis to a good gaming experience. The chance to feel slighted, or superior, is just too high.
This is why I love mechanics like point-buy.
Earthdawn's a point-buy class (er, "discipline") system, so I think you're confusing games.
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The 'hit point = some kind of abstract measure of how hard you are to kill' is a very old flange to explain why a high level fighter can take as much physical punishment as four cart horses - dates back to at least the AD&D Players Handbook. It's gone in and out of fashion as an explanation with Hackmaster parodying it by saying that a high level fighter absolutely can take as much physical punishment as four cart horses. An old White Dwarf (like, really old, issue four or so) suggested that characters have as many *actual* hit points as their Con, but they didn't start losing them till all their 'abstract' hit points were used up, or if their opponent got a critical hit, or something like that.Mine and Sigil's pbem GM a couple years ago limited healing to the barest minimum - any time a player tried it the GM decided if the god they worshipped felt like doing any healing. Usually they didn't. Needless to say, TPK was a such a regular event in his campaigns he had special rules for "if half or more of the party are killed".
Deadly was one thing... Being killed while playing in character will happen... For me the maddening thing about that set-up was "start with a character the same level as the average. Get chewed up and have to restart? That has to be a 1st level character." You can imagine what was consistently extremely dangerous for a 4th level character was almost insurmountable for a 1st. :)
We played temple of elemental evil on "hard mode" or what my GM called "Ironman". Roll 3d6 for stats, in order, and 1d6 for race. You get to pick your gender, your +2 ability score for humans, and your class, that's it.
Every time someone died, they could rez if they had the money, otherwise it was back to level one.
That was a frustrating and harrowing game, to be sure.
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I've never been one to limit character stats. I figure that these folks are hero's of the story and are going to be impressive. I allow 4d6 dice rolled with 1's and 2's usually rerolled. Take highest 3, roll six times and apply where you like. (for 5e though I only allowed 1's rerolled).
I'm too damn old to be making new characters after each session... (or have my PC's do it). This has been popular through the years. You'd think you'd end up with lots of 18s...but it isn't true. my players kinda suck at rolling ;)
We just rolled 5e Characters (I did not wait for Greyhawk, obviously), and we rolled 4d6s, keep the best three - no re-rolls. It worked out pretty well.
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I am truly torn by my excitement for 5E. Its hard to forgive what Wizards did to Dragon and Dungeon, even harder not to forget the way they forced Paizo to cancel all my old pdfs of original and first edition DnD in the space of 24 hours but it is so much more elegant than Pathfinder.
That character deaths game sounds like a bit of an ego trip.
Cheers
I do like 5e, and the "return to the roots". Even the book art is more old-school.
Still, a lot of players I've spent my time rolling dice with have a passion for the numbers - all the rules and nuances in PFRPG. I think that Pathfinder is pretty safe as a system, simply because it will continue to iterate itself.
It feels sooo much like "old school"...I am hooked.
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For me I will not be trying 5th edition. Paizo has been good to me. Their customer service has been second to none. And I like the game.
TSR/WOTC/Hasbro has insulted me indirectly time and time again. I do not like their business practices, and I already have a game I love so I see little point in even trying the other.
And practically speaking I have a GREAT Pathfinder library (just got the new Barakus, with the Rappan Athuk expansion [I love you guys too much to put you through Rappan Athuk]) and financially do not think I could keep up at current level if I pursued another game with anything more than casual interest.
I'm in a similar place to Sigil -- I'm in no rush to try out 5e -- both because of having so much invested in Paizo and because of being considerably less impressed with Hasbro.... (And that was only reinforced by being less than impressed with the playtest cycles for 5e and Mearls' posts about it).
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I haven't followed any of that playtest so I'm not yet jaded by the marketing. My gripes with Wotc show me again how cyclical this game is. I had the same experience being a regional director for TSR, filled with ups and downs.
And as for my investment in PF, I've kept my favourite first and second edition books in the past. Same with third ed. I'm sure it will be the same with Pathfinder. Things like the Gamemastery Guide are timeless, same with many of the early adventure paths such as Rise of the Runelords. So it seems a bit churlish of me to stick to my 2007 guns when this set of rules is so good. Its simplicity will mean more time for roleplay and so many less arguments over trivia in combat. I play a ninth level cleric of Erastil on Monday evenings and the sheer multitude of options in spells in Pathfinder is not enjoyable. Its becoming all about the numbers.
I'll never forget what WotC did but the old school rules of fifth harken back to a far more fun game. Last night I was asked to run something at the eleventh hour and we made characters in an hour and had a laugh for two.
Hey, I'm not here to argue or side against Paizo but these discussions convince me a little more of what truly matters to me.
So thanks folks.
I am with you, Frenchie! I still love PFRPG, but I was never a min/maxer, and the more complex the rule system gets, the more prevalant such an approach becomes, even to the extent that it is almost a necessity. I really have enjoyed playing 5E because of the similarities to Advanced 2nd Edition and the lack of complexity. It does offer so much more for those players that are more into the storyline and RPGing than simply crunching numbers. Most importantly, it really made the Rogue (my favorite class) a viable choice as a PC with plenty of utility.
You know I'm not even 100% sure anymore, but I know that Levy, with the bears and his stone circle, gave us some info on where to look for clues as to what's causing the undead crisis; and Lady at the tower gave us a task as well. It's all in the 17 pages here and god knows how many on the other thread xP
Yeah, I am a bit confused on our most likely paths, as well.
I'm on page 30 of my read-through of our earlier adventures. It's actually pretty fascinating.
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I always want to hang back on the recap question... I am afraid I will over direct or distract and I really do want you guys to figure this one out. This should be your win, or loss. :) I wonder what insights Aidan will have from this reread.
As a philosophical point... As you know, this is my first PbP experience as a GM. In person I like to leave things very open to the characters, while having a general plot for them to follow. I wonder if such an open ended GM style is sub-optimal for this format.
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When we do not post quickly and with frequency, then we lose track just like during a long fight. It can takes weeks of real time.
Maybe whatever we learn should go into campaign info for the brighter pcs to "remember". Abbas typically will not remember much apart from the horrible bears. That should create less leading by the nose since you can add in more than we need to know. Does that help?
cheers
Sounds about right to me. Let's scout the cemetery, then.