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More like a Storytelling experience that reaches into depths of your perception of humanity ... oh wait, wrong RPG of yore.Meh, you can play Magical Tea Party and Mother May I, but they aren't really what you could call 'games'.
Nor is 3.X...it's more like homework. We're playing some Pathfinder tonight, got your spreadsheets ready, kids?
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Nor is 3.X...it's more like homework. We're playing some Pathfinder tonight, got your spreadsheets ready, kids?More like a Storytelling experience that reaches into depths of your perception of humanity ... oh wait, wrong RPG of yore.Meh, you can play Magical Tea Party and Mother May I, but they aren't really what you could call 'games'.
Actually, I got my laptop with HeroLab, tablet with crit/fumble decks and PRD, calculator with automatic Thac0 function... wait, wrong edition.
One of the greatest strengths of 3.5e is that both players, NPCs and monsters are all built from the same set of Lego bricks. Stats, feats, skills, mechanics - you name it, you got it.
I agree with you and the others that adding feats, spells and the like is bloat. And I hope few of them, or none at all are presented, since there are more than enough already.
But would it be a bloat problem if a feat requires that you are a Nightshade? There's little you can do to take it with your Gnome Barbarian, except casting Insanity on your GM in real life.The monster builder I suggested, at least as I have it in mind, more or less follows the same line. I mean, the abilities you give to a monster you create are inaccessible for PCs not because it's different bricks, but because it's a racial feature of that creature, and unless you are allowed to play that monster, you won't get it, as much as you can't get a Ghaele's Light Rays in any normal game. If you can achieve something similar via feats, spells, class features or whatever, good for you, it'll work under the same rules (as they are the same bricks), but a monster's specific abilities stay in the sole possession of that monster.
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My two cents from the peanut gallery:
Both d20 and pre-d20 are GAMES with different rulesets with their own strengths and weaknesses. The only objective difference is the degree of rigidity with the rest coming down to subjective opinion. I will gladly and happily play in either with a creative and excellent GM and open and honest players without a munchkin, entitlement, or god complex. In the grand scheme of RPGs, it all comes down to the quality of the players, not the differences in the ruleset. Arguing about "a ruleset" as "the ruleset" is a pointless exercise that only leads to hurt feelings.
I'm sure that there's somewhere a feat (or a spell, or a class ability, or a combo of them) that will allow you to count as a Nightshade and pick that feat. If we're talking Paizo material we would have to ask Ravingdork or Blackbloodtroll, if we're talking 3PP chances are 99%.
You know, even if that was the case, sometimes the GM has to do his job and say NO to b%+&$%*~-craving players.
The fact that 3rd parties release pure madness on paper or that Paizo developers (as any human being) are unable to write the "ultimate, flawless, perfect and uncontradictory rules who satisfy each and every player" doesn't mean everything on paper is legit and rightful.
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If the rules don't matter, why are you showing such disdain for pre-d20 rulesets?
I don't know what his answer is, but I will tell you that mine is:
1st Edition was an overly simple and restrictive set of game rules. I stopped playing D&D for over 16 years. I did not like the game and I wasn't alone.
The OSR movement puts on such rose colored glasses, it's amazing. You do recall that there were five major alternative FRPGs which arose to cater to those who were disenchanted with 1st ed, right? All of them made money. While they still barely scrape by today, until the release of 3.0 most were still quite profitable and all featured large contingents of fans and events at Gencon throughout the 80s and 90s.
There was RuneQuest, which had been around for a while if course, but it had its adherents on the 70s for that matter. And of course there was DragonQuest. That one got cancelled when TSR bought SPI and buried it unceremoniously as unwelcomed competition.
The Big Three to rise as a reaction to 1st ed in the early 80s were Rolemaster, GURPS and Palladium. All had followings and a lot of traction for well over 15 years. It was not until 3rd edition that most of these players returned to D&D - because it added the things you apparently don't like.
And we'll leave aside both of Gygax's alternative systems which arose a the time, too, or V:TM and CoC.
My point: there is a reason that 3.0 added skills and feats to the game. It did it because the 2nd ed rules set had bottomed out so low that the publisher of it was going to go BANKRUPT. There were a number of triggers to the game's failure, but it wasn't just novels or expensive settings and boxed sets which caused TSR to bleed red ink. The game was no longer selling well at all and players had left the game in droves. And they weren't coming back.
I'm not saying you have to like something if you don't like it, but 3rd ed saved Dungeons and Dragons. If it had not been successful, 3rd edition would have been the LAST edition of D&D.
Do try and keep that in mind, if you could.
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If the rules don't matter, why are you showing such disdain for pre-d20 rulesets?I don't know what his answer is, but I will tell you that mine is:
1st Edition was an overly simple and restrictive set of game rules. I stopped playing D&D for over 16 years. I did not like the game and I wasn't alone.
The OSR movement puts on such rose colored glasses, it's amazing. You do recall that there were five major alternative FRPGs which arose to cater to those who were disenchanted with 1st ed, right? All of them made money. While they still barely scrape by today, until the release of 3.0 most were still quite profitable and all featured large contingents of fans and events at Gencon throughout the 80s and 90s.
There was RuneQuest, which had been around for a while if course, but it had its adherents on the 70s for that matter. And of course there was DragonQuest. That one got cancelled when TSR bought SPI and buried it unceremoniously as unwelcomed competition.
The Big Three to rise as a reaction to 1st ed in the early 80s were Rolemaster, GURPS and Palladium. All had followings and a lot of traction for well over 15 years. It was not until 3rd edition that most of these players returned to D&D - because it added the things you apparently don't like.
And we'll leave aside both of Gygax's alternative systems which arose a the time, too, or V:TM and CoC.
My point: there is a reason that 3.0 added skills and feats to the game. It did it because the 2nd ed rules set had bottomed out so low that the publisher of it was going to go BANKRUPT. There were a number of triggers to the game's failure, but it wasn't just novels or expensive settings and boxed sets which caused TSR to bleed red ink. The game was no longer selling well at all and players had left the game in droves. And they weren't coming back.
I'm not saying you have to like something if you don't like it, but 3rd ed saved Dungeons and Dragons. If it had not been successful,...
Heck, one could argue that 3E saved the RPG industry, because it was at the verge of being rolled over by CCGs and the industry leader was errr, dead. White Wolf was no longer The New Cool Thing, Warhammer Fantasy was in a limbo and with all great respect to Steve Jackson and Sandy Petersen, GURPS and CoC alone couldn't carry the banner through.
Last time I checked, Lorraine Williams managed to drive said industry leader into the ground, and Monte Cook managed to co-write a game that revitalized the genre, so I'm not really sure if we're talking about the same plane of existence here.
Heck, why are all* 1E/2E holdouts so hard to deal with?
* OK OK Houstonderek isn't. Maybe it's because he's, erm, "reformed" :P
I think a book that helps construct rules for making dire animals, weres, and kaiju would be great!
I think a few archetypes like Monster Hunter (Fighter), Beast Rider (Barbarian), Serpent Caller (summoner), and Wyrm Skin Scholar (Alchemist) that deal directly with the monstrous would be great. Options for certain sorcerer bloodlines should be included too.
Primarily, it should be a GM tool to make challenging beasts, but information on monstrous races, feats, items should be included and special archetypes and probably a list of 20 new monsters.
Heck, one could argue that 3E saved the RPG industry...
Heck, one could argue that 3e saved the entire human race, because the laws of thermodynamics dictate that the stars will eventually burn out, yet no one wants to play some lame game of "Mother May I" by praying to God that humans somehow survive that eventuality. So it falls to humans and humans alone to save their ultimate descendants from universal annihilation.
But escaping the limits of known reality requires imagination, and as we all know, as of Loraine Williams, the human race was on the brink of an insurmountable imagination gap. If we were going to out imagine all those aliens who built monuments on Mars to show up the Egyptians and lay the foundation for an elaborate pyramid scheme, we needed to produce generation after generation of super-imaginative offspring.
And as we all know, roleplaying games are the best way to foster imagination. Further, we know from empirical evidence that 3e is the best RPG that could ever exist. So it follows that 3e is our only hope for saving future generations of humanity from the inevitable heat death of the Universe, and anyone who advocates or plays other games is only helping to create an inescapable apocalypse of cosmological proportions.
Quark!
Quark!
Ah... the majestic space duck...
ooh, Ultimate Challenges, I like the sound of that, I'd accept a simple template, monster builder section in a book full of traps, haunts, and hazards, and rules for creating new ones of those
Ultimate Challenges sounds like a good idea too.
Monstrous Feats sounds like a good idea too. They can be super-specialized for specific encounters, which would be fun.
Oh hey, remember when this thread was about Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla?Nope!
Topic!? We don't need no stinking topic!
That said, I'm still all for a book chock full of monster feats and the like, just like many of the 3.5e books were. And yeah, I think the feats (when it makes sense) should have prerequisites that preclude PCs from taking the feats. But only when it makes sense.
Heck, even a judiciously used [MONSTER] feat type would not be out of the question. In the case of Improved Natural Attack, for example, it would be entirely reasonable - in my mind the justification for an improved attack is a monster with physical changes - its claws are bigger and sharper, it's fangs are larger, etc. It makes perfect sense to me to bar this one from monks. But, for example, what reason is there to bar Flyby Attack and Improved Flyby Attack from PCs? None that I can see - if that's where you want to put your training, fine. Feats are a limited resource, and thus you're always making a tradeoff when you choose one.
What I don't want to see is arbitrary stuff. I'll note that the ARG treads awfully close to this line with its racial feats (perhaps, one might say, close to the other side of the line), as many of the racial feats seem to have a racial prerequisite tacked on for no other reason than to make it a racial feat. I mean really, what exactly about about a tengu's beak makes it the only creature in the universe that can cause bleed damage with its beak? Are tieflings really the only things that can learn to use their tail?
In any event, I think a monster toolkit book would be an invaluable addition to the GM's repetoire. Look at how many people out there still use Green Ronin's Advanced Bestiary and you'll see what I mean. In addition, there are 3.5e feats (Rapidstrike and Improved Rapidstrike spring to mind) that are sorely missing in Pathfinder, and I'd love to have a set of feats that I can give to monsters that make them unique, interesting, and definitely more deadly.
We'll have no more of this "my players have memorized the bestiary" garbage after that :)
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In any event, I think a monster toolkit book would be an invaluable addition to the GM's repetoire. Look at how many people out there still use Green Ronin's Advanced Bestiary and you'll see what I mean. In addition, there are 3.5e feats (Rapidstrike and Improved Rapidstrike spring to mind) that are sorely missing in Pathfinder, and I'd love to have a set...
I agree with you on the subject of the book. (Rapidstrike? Not so much). I think that Ultimate Foes as a monster design book, replete with a bevy of new monsters and new monster feats and abilities would be a very interesting book. FAR more interesting than Bestiary 4. (Though it could serve the same purpose and with a few hundred monser examples in the book, could even be called Bestiary 4 if that was something they wanted to do.)
One thing such a book could do would be to examine the creation of interesting encounters using different types of monsters and different terrain to present interesting challenges to PCs. Too often, we just see a group of monsters, with maybe one "leader" type presented in an encounter. An Ultimate Foes book could also examine and analyze encounter design from the ground up, using the original monster design rules within an encounter to provide a great variety of challenges. That would be a DAMNED fine resource for GMs.
My only concern is that when monster feats are assessed for suitability, the power creep level can go up -- way up. Because these feats exclude PC use, the same rigorousness in assessing power level and degrees of broketastic seems not to be applied to monster feats. For example, I consider Fly-By Attack to be the most broken feat in the game (give your flying monster with this feat a significant reach and the brokenness of the feat soon becomes obvious). It is WAY worse than the worst Spring Attack combo ever devised.
While the system can withstand a few broketastic feats on the monster side, too many and you start to wonder why we are bothering with symmetrical design architecture inherent in 3.xx when we are only paying it lip service. I don't happen to be a strong supporter of symmetrical design (namely, that the foes MUST be subject to the same design rules the PCs are). I'm perfectly fine with the suggestion that there can be assymetry in monster design. But I also understand that there are a LOT of people who don't share my opinion. For their sake, it is best not to cast that principle away casually - in theory or in practice.
Lastly, if something like this was to be written, I would like to see such a book (if produced and released in late 2013, (a very tall order at this stage) to become a central feature in subsequent RPG Superstar competitions.
Here's the book - now use it and impress the hell out of us. Seems like a fine idea to me.
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1st Edition was an overly simple and restrictive set of game rules.
3.X/d20/PFRPG is an overly complex and restrictive set of game rules.
The OSR movement puts on such rose colored glasses, it's amazing. You do recall that there were five major alternative FRPGs which arose to cater to those who were disenchanted with 1st ed, right?
Oh g$%%#*n. More choices and an expansion of the industry. How f&#*ing horrible.
Meanwhile, Monte "One-Trick-Pony" Cook nearly flushed any diversity in the industry down the drain by making incredibly generic d20 editions of games popular. Call of Cthulhu, World of Darkness, BESM, Talislanta...all these were far better in their original systems than in their generic d20 editions. But you seem to be dedicated to stamping out any variety and creativity in RPG systems, as you make perfectly clear in the rest of your post.
Luckily, you don't seem to realize that d20 still didn't stamp out quite as much as you seem to think it did. New systems still arose during the d20 era as well...which using your logic, says that d20 is a crap system as well.
My point: there is a reason that 3.0 added skills and feats to the game. It did it because the 2nd ed rules set had bottomed out so low that the publisher of it was going to go BANKRUPT.
The fault of trying to support too many different subdivisions of the game rather than the rule implementation. 0E vs 1E vs BECMI vs 2E and Greyhawk vs Forgotten Realms vs Dragonlance vs Ravenloft vs Dark Sun vs Birthright vs Blackmoor vs Mystara / Hollow World vs Planescape vs Spelljammer...
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Meanwhile, Monte "One-Trick-Pony" Cook nearly flushed any diversity in the industry down the drain by making incredibly generic d20 editions of games popular. Call of Cthulhu, World of Darkness, BESM, Talislanta...all these were far better in their original systems than in their generic d20 editions. But you seem to be dedicated to stamping out any variety and creativity in RPG systems, as you make perfectly clear in the rest of your post.
Clearly, that was what my post was; I'm all about that.
Dude, you're a long-time poster on these boards and I don't recall you being so antognistic and, well, deliberately trollish in the past. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention, but...
Can you just stop please? RPG.net loves this kind of discussion and there is no moderation there. You can post as much of this over there as you want. Stuff your pockets with it; fill your boots, even.
But here(or ENWorld)? It's just obnoxious. Please stop.
I think Ultimate Monster would also be a good way to provide more in depth rules for monstrous PCs. I'm personally not a fan of monster PCs, but a lot of other folks are. I DO like the idea of alternate races, though.
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Well I am a fan of monster PCs, more so then the core races. I always will be. Though I do try to figure ways to make certain monsters equal to a core race to start. As I read this back and forth between player and DM centric philosophies, may I take the middle of the road and say make it cater to both? You can have new races, weapons (seriously can never, ever, ever, ever have too many choices), armor (same here too), materials for said weapons and armor, and all of it tied to the monsters and pcs. Region locations for a lot of this new races ARG has put out would help DMs. Like for me I place the majority of Catfolk and Tengu in far west places like Varisia and far east like Tian Xia, but very very sparse in the middle. But that's just me.
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One thing such a book could do would be to examine the creation of interesting encounters using different types of monsters and different terrain to present interesting challenges to PCs... An Ultimate Foes book could also examine and analyze encounter design from the ground up, using the original monster design rules within an encounter to provide a great variety of challenges.That book should be called Ultimate Encounters. It could have chapters about hazards, monsters, NPCs, social conflict, terrain, traps...
I agree with you Eric. But I think the two subjects dovetail well with one another so it seems a natural fit.
Or it may be that some of that will be featured in Ultimate Campaign. Either way, I would like to see it.
ULTIMATE BLOAT.I'd consider something like this to be far less bloat than yet another book dedicated to options for players. Hell, I'd trade in both Ultimate Combat and Ultimate Magic for an Ultimate Monsters book any day.
I'd want it to have a sizable template section for more advanced templates (akin to those in the Advanced Bestiary or the Book of Templates Deluxe Edition 3.5).
So if it's bloat for the players it's bad but bloat for the DMs is good? Btw I was kidding. ;P
I'd be down for some specific way to customize monsters- por ejemplo, (going back to the prewar section of the thread), the idea of dragons that lose any and all spellcasting, so you can have a straight-up Smaug type beastie. Of course, speaking of "what's good is the goose is good for the gander," isn't it interesting that a simple swap would be trading in a dragon's sorcerer levels for the equivalent bonuses from a non-spellcasting class? Meet Killmaim Headripper, Great Red Wyrm and 19th-level Barbarian. Don't make him angry. You wouldn't like him when he's angry.
I would personally like to see a series of books like this focusing on types... then on subtypes.
But I'm crazy like that.
Well, if you want to know, it's the fact that previous editions don't offer me anything that I can't already do with my current one.
Roll up a character in under two minutes? (granted you might not want to do that, but still).
I like this idea, except I think it fits within the "Advanced" sub-division of rulebooks rather than "Ultimate".
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Well, if you want to know, it's the fact that previous editions don't offer me anything that I can't already do with my current one.Roll up a character in under two minutes? (granted you might not want to do that, but still).
What level? 1st? Done.
20th? Well I coud cheat and make him a commoner, but to be fair, crafting a 20th level Fighter wouldn't be too hard as long as you weren't picky. (Greatsword, heavy armor, put all feats into sword.)
I'm all for the Original Poster's Ultimate Monsters (didn't feel right putting "OP's Ultimate Monsters").
I want Ultimate "Monsters" not "Foes" because:
I want summoning and animal companion table tweaks.
I want monster-themed archetypes.
I want themed summoning ("oozy summoning", "zombie summoning" etc) ala Skeletal Summoning feat as SmiloDan suggested.
I want a book useful to Players of summoners, druids, wizards, rangers, witches, paladins, cavaliers and any other Class that summons or calls animals or monsters, or has a familiar, animal companion or mount.
Having said that, I also:
want a book useful to GMs for building monsters with a Monster Builder iterating Universal Monster rules in the same way ARG had a Race builder.
Ultimate Monsters could do all of that AND have a wicked Wayne Reynolds cover! ;)
Not so interested in traps and hazards mixed with Monsters, though very happy for Ultimate Hazards/Traps/Unfortunate Events. The more options for GMs the merrier.
I don't believe bloat is a definite occurence with every new "Ultimate" or "Advanced" book. "Bloat" as I understand it refers to the tendency for the rules and balance of said rulest to be stretched and overpowered with each new release. I do however believe in more choices = great and versatile game. If the creation of more choices means a lack of attention to details like stratospheric power-curves, well that is bad. But not a prerequisite of choice. If an OP option had occurred in the Core Rulebook (andI'm sure someone somewhere can point to a glaring example of that) that would have been "bloat."
Oh, one tiny request that might fit into a creature-building book? Another Eidolon shape: Avian. Because right now, shrinking bipeds and giving them wings is a long way to go to make a crappy raven/phoenix/simurgh themed eidolon...
What level? 1st? Done.Well, if you want to know, it's the fact that previous editions don't offer me anything that I can't already do with my current one.Roll up a character in under two minutes? (granted you might not want to do that, but still).
You can roll up a 1st level PF character in under two minutes? I cant imagine being able to do that.
You can roll up a 1st level PF character in under two minutes? I cant imagine being able to do that.What level? 1st? Done.Well, if you want to know, it's the fact that previous editions don't offer me anything that I can't already do with my current one.Roll up a character in under two minutes? (granted you might not want to do that, but still).
If you know the rules well enough, it's easy. Especially with point buy.
The only trouble might be gear (and therefore AC). Unless there are starting packages or kits of gear you can buy.Pick race and class.
Pick alignment.
Assign abililty scores.
Hit Points are maxed.
Skills are just 1 rank each, so pick however many you get, and add 1 or 4 + ability score modifier.
Pick a feat (2 if you're human or fighter or wizard, 3 if you're human and fighter or wizard).
Pick spells or variable class features, if any.
Figure out Saving throws from class and ability score.
Figure our melee, ranged, CMB and CMD
Figure out initiative.
Buy gear.
Assign attack and damage of main attack(s).
Figure out AC.
Yeah, I know what's involved. I just cant imagine being able to do it in under two minutes.
Yeah, I know what's involved. I just cant imagine being able to do it in under two minutes.
Depends if you count filling character sheet completely as part of creation or not.