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Golarion is successful because it's a good setting, not because 4E Forgotten Realms was a "mockery".
Golarion is successful because it hit several points long neglected by other settings:
- Greyhawk's human-centrism and "low frequency of high magic"
- Echoes of our world in a fantasy setting
- Kitchen sink structure
- Focus on mythology and cryptids instead of wholly made up elements (just so we can copyright them nyah nyah nyah!)
- Sword and Planet/scifi elements
- Planescape-style cosmology
- PugwampisNone of the above was ever present in Forgotten Realms since day one in any major degree, perhaps except the cosmology. Different strokes, different settings. Folks who prefer FR stayed with 3.5/2E FR, they didn't jump to Golarion just because 4E FR didn't float their boat.
Agreed and seconded. The irony about those who accuse Fr of being a mockery were the same ones who:
-Complained that FR had too many gods
-Complained that FR had too many high level npcs.
-Complained that the realms were tied too much too the novels and any changes were a direct result of the novels..
When Wotc took that feedback into account when making the 4E realms the same fans then acted all "shocked" and "dismayed". As if they never ever said anything negative about the realms. Kind of a revisonist "we may had issues with 4E. We nevr were serious about the complainsts". Which is why I'm glad I do not own develop or design rpgs. The fanbase does not have a clue to what they truly want. When one of the main complaints about a setting is too many high level npcs the developers take away those high level npcs as asked by the fanbase and the still complain. It's like they wanted to see a difference yet not see a difference at the same time. Sometimes I'm just embarassed to be part of a the gaming community with a galaxy sized sense of entitlement.
And since 5E is obviously aimed at 1E/2E fans (No grid and minis? Let's empower the GM? Gygaxian dungeon crawl as playtest adventure?), there's little Paizo has to worry from 5E.
I see I'm not the only one who sees that 5E is not really being marketed to 3E fans let alone 4E. If it was not so obvious a attempt to make a stealth edition of 2E with 3E and 4E style writing I would be interested. Yet beyond the promise of being able to play all editions with 5E. Which is the only remaining selling point for me. Even then just tired of the edition train and the fact that if I want to lay 2E I already can play 2E.
And since 5E is obviously aimed at 1E/2E fans (No grid and minis? Let's empower the GM? Gygaxian dungeon crawl as playtest adventure?), there's little Paizo has to worry from 5E.
If this is true, ill buy it.
Edit*** I'm dying to run something, at least PbP even. The constant stops for the tactical stuff stops me. :)
I'll look into it when it's released even though I'm not a fan of WotC.
Folks who prefer FR stayed with 3.5/2E FR, they didn't jump to Golarion just because 4E FR didn't float their boat.
Uh, wrong? In my case I totally jumped boat from the 4E FR, because I couldn't believe the wretched writing and disrespect to the fans the developers at WotC were displaying.
I couldn't mentally separate the updated FR from the prior edition ( in the sense of "what does it matter what we do, if the setting will go to hell anyway?" ) and thus "settled", reluctantly at first, in Golarion. And I am still skeptical about a few aspects of this particular setting, foremost the decision by the developer to keep it as stagnant as possible to any permanent story advancement.
Agreed and seconded. The irony about those who accuse Fr of being a mockery were the same ones who:-Complained that FR had too many gods
-Complained that FR had too many high level npcs.
-Complained that the realms were tied too much too the novels and any changes were a direct result of the novels..When Wotc took that feedback into account when making the 4E realms the same fans then acted all "shocked" and "dismayed". As if they never ever said anything negative about the realms. Kind of a revisonist "we may had issues with 4E. We nevr were serious about the complainsts". Which is why I'm glad I do not own develop or design rpgs. The fanbase does not have a clue to what they truly want. When one of the main complaints about a setting is too many high level npcs the developers take away those high level npcs as asked by the fanbase and the still complain. It's like they wanted to see a difference yet not see a difference at the same time. Sometimes I'm just embarassed to be part of a the gaming community with a galaxy sized sense of entitlement.
Yeah, that is BS. I was quite active on the WOTC FR forums back then, and the people who were regulars were not the ones making most of those complaints about their setting, those were the types who'd drop in for one post to complain how the setting still was not to their liking because of the things you mentioned.
I don't know where you hung out back then, but I can tell you that the regulars of back then mostly did like the setting as it was.
Magnuskn, advancement should be done on the user's end. Golarion is fine as is, all the sourcebooks are still valid canon-wise, etc. You and your crew will shape your own Golarion through deeds and adventures.
Magnuskn, advancement should be done on the user's end. Golarion is fine as is, all the sourcebooks are still valid canon-wise, etc. You and your crew will shape your own Golarion through deeds and adventures.
A stagnant setting works fine for a few years, but at some time in the future Paizo will have to update their campaign world to reflect the changes which have happened in the AP's. It already happened with Jade Regent and Shattered Star, because the developers want to keep writing in regions they like. It will happen with other APs which revisit regions where other APs had their story occur.
If their novel program moves forward, there is another factor which will necessitate updates to Golarion over time.
And at the latest with the next edition of Pathfinder there will be a new campaign guide, so there's that, too.
In my opinion, "The campaign timeline never moves forward" is problematic over the long haul.
In my opinion, "The campaign timeline never moves forward" is problematic over the long haul.
Personally, I agree. People who have both the time and inclination to make radical changes to a world based on their characters actions are often playing in a homebrew already because they have the time and inclination to do so (though, certainly, this isn't always the case).
The reason many people buy published settings is so they don't have to do all that work. Some people just don't have the time to keep track of the sensical changes that should be occuring and also might be timid of making a change which might conflict with an upcoming AP or story. Also, not everyone is a great worldbuilder and so they look to the company to provide it for them. Keeping that world in a frozen point of time is, imo, a mistake.
As for the original topic: Eventually, love it or hate it, PF 2.0 (or whatever they choose to call it) will come out. It may be sooner and it may be later but it's going to happen. How big a change that edition will be we'll just have to wait and see.
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Folks who prefer FR stayed with 3.5/2E FR, they didn't jump to Golarion just because 4E FR didn't float their boat.Uh, wrong? In my case I totally jumped boat from the 4E FR, because I couldn't believe the wretched writing and disrespect to the fans the developers at WotC were displaying.
I couldn't mentally separate the updated FR from the prior edition ( in the sense of "what does it matter what we do, if the setting will go to hell anyway?" ) and thus "settled", reluctantly at first, in Golarion. And I am still skeptical about a few aspects of this particular setting, foremost the decision by the developer to keep it as stagnant as possible to any permanent story advancement.
Yeah, that is BS. I was quite active on the WOTC FR forums back then, and the people who were regulars were not the ones making most of those complaints about their setting, those were the types who'd drop in for one...
Agreed and seconded. The irony about those who accuse Fr of being a mockery were the same ones who:-Complained that FR had too many gods
-Complained that FR had too many high level npcs.
-Complained that the realms were tied too much too the novels and any changes were a direct result of the novels..When Wotc took that feedback into account when making the 4E realms the same fans then acted all "shocked" and "dismayed". As if they never ever said anything negative about the realms. Kind of a revisonist "we may had issues with 4E. We nevr were serious about the complainsts". Which is why I'm glad I do not own develop or design rpgs. The fanbase does not have a clue to what they truly want. When one of the main complaints about a setting is too many high level npcs the developers take away those high level npcs as asked by the fanbase and the still complain. It's like they wanted to see a difference yet not see a difference at the same time. Sometimes I'm just embarassed to be part of a the gaming community with a galaxy sized sense of entitlement.
Agreed about FR. I was a regular on the Wotc boards and it seems they listened to the minority instead of the majority. The FR forums became a ghost town after 4th edition screwed up the Realms.
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In terms of crunching the numbers, this is demonstrably not so. Is there some other way in which it could be considered too powerful?
I don't think it's too powerful per se; I allow keen and Improved Critical to stack in my own campaigns.
However, in terms of analyzing numbers, just looking at averages overlooks the impact of the higher values when they occur. A critical for ×4 damage has a much higher potential to swing the outcome of a fight than two for ×2. In terms of game dynamics, elements like this works against players. Since player characters are usually favored to win, more random elements in fights are to their disfavor.
I think this is also why they opted to change the default orc weapon from a battleaxe that did ×3 on a crit to falchions.
I don't necessarily think that's a legitimate reason for nerfing critical stacking either, but it's definitely more destabilizing for a game when used by NPCs than by PCs. PCs winning due to criticals is fine, but getting randomly murdered by criticals isn't necessarily a fun time. (And given that PCs will get a lot of attacks against them, it will happen. Only with less critical threats it happens a little less often.)
Ultimately, I don't think the nerfing took place because of balance concerns as much as perhaps a feeling that it devalued the impact of criticals if they occurred too frequently. As SKR's rant alludes to. If crunching numbers and making for numeric balance had truly been an overriding concern, the changes made in 3.5 should have looked different overall.
Of course, Paizo's record with regards to feats involving criticals is also annoying. In spite of SKR's rant about numbers, the various critical feats favor weapons with high crit ranges over those with high multipliers. Similarly, effects like the fighter's weapon mastery feature, which increases the critical multiplier by +1 favors weapons with higher threat ranges over those with higher multipliers. While the idea may be to avoid excessive swinginess in battle, the fact that they work the way they do means that overall balance between weapon types for certain characters is actually less under Pathfinder rules in the long run than they were under 3.5 rules. A 20th-level fighter with a keen longsword and a critical feat will do better on average than a 20th-level fighter with a keen battleaxe and a critical feat. Not to mention that scimitars or other 18-20 weapons benefit most of all from those combinations. It depends on which end you view the system from (it's not a low-level issue), but overall, balance between weapon types has gotten worse due to issue relating to critical hits rather than better under Pathfinder.
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Uh, wrong? In my case I totally jumped boat from the 4E FR, because I couldn't believe the wretched writing and disrespect to the fans the developers at WotC were displaying.
And just because you jumped ship does not mean everyone jumped ship. Seriouly people need to stop thinking that because they decide to change their gmaing habits everyone follows what they do. im not saying no one decided to go elsewhere because of the changes of 4E FR. Yet as much as gamers like to think it was a mass migaration it was not.
What disrespect. They had the stones to try and change the setting in a major way. It worked for some did not work for others. I felt absolutely no disrespect from the devs towards myself. Nor did my gaming group. If being angry at the changes in 4E FR puts food on my table, pays my bills or gets me a better job than im all for hating for 4E FR. Since it does not I have vastly better things to do. im not saying you have to like the changes or that one should not be unhappy. but the whole Wotc killed my puppy, burned my house down with the changes to 4E FR are laughable at best and getting really damn old.
Yeah, that is BS. I was quite active on the WOTC FR forums back then, and the people who were regulars were not the ones making most of those complaints about their setting, those were the types who'd drop in for one post to complain how the setting still was not to their liking because of the things you mentioned.
Possibly yet one of the reasons I stopped hanging out at the Wotc forums was because the vocal minority who seemed to find anything broken with the rules and setting were the ones that imo Wotc listened to. Take a look at 3.5. They added a few new things yet a bunch of stuff was nerfed in terms of spell durations and feats because a bunch of very vocal DMs had troulbe coming to grips with a spell of Mage armor that lasted 24 hours because a feat extended it to that length of time. Just like Paizo listened to a very vocal minority who wanted no major changes in Pathfinder. Which is why I boycotted the PF playtest or any further PF playtests
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Is Golarion in need of a revamp?
Because to me, it looks like it just need an update that would "include" all the Adventure Paths' lore and backstories, and update the rest of the setting accordingly.
What WotC did for FR and Dark Sun is rather odd... The settings were already written and in place, did it really need a revamped edition for each?
As for the rules, I could see a revision for the Pathfinder system, but not a complete revamp like 3.5 was to 3e. For instance, if they would rewrite the feats so some of them would be merged into a single one, it wouldn't need a complete reprint, just a booklet saying what are the major changes.
Yeah, long story short, I kinda wish that they would merge the Improved and Greater versions of feats into the standard feat to eliminate major feat trees. For instance:
Two-Weapon Fighting (combat)
You can fight with a weapon wielded in each of your hands. You can make one extra attack each round with the secondary weapon.
Prerequisite: Dex 15.
Benefit: Your penalties on attack rolls for fighting with two weapons are reduced. The penalty for your primary hand lessens by 2 and the one for your off hand lessens by 6. See Two-Weapon Fighting in Combat.
Normal: If you wield a second weapon in your off hand, you can get one extra attack per round with that weapon. When fighting in this way you suffer a –6 penalty with your regular attack or attacks with your primary hand and a –10 penalty to the attack with your off hand. If your off-hand weapon is light, the penalties are reduced by 2 each. An unarmed strike is always considered light.
Advancements: If you have Dex 17 and base attack bonus +6, in addition to the standard single extra attack you get with an off-hand weapon, you get a second attack with it, albeit at a –5 penalty. If you have Dex 19 and base attack bonus +11, you get a third attack with your off-hand weapon, albeit at a –10 penalty.
One feat, one option that gets stronger as you level up. Many feats could be compressed into a single feat so players wouldn't have to pick 3 or 4 feats to get the full benefits of an ability. Beside, if I'm taking Vital Strike, why WOULDN'T I take the Improved and Greater version? Give me one feat that gets stronger and call it a day.
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I would like to see them (if 2e was coming out) have a complete list of feats that they think work printed in the main rules. Then they NEVER write rules for another feat EVER. New classes are fine but the list of feats NEVER increases. If the feats in the main rules are play tested enough (from the ones we have in 1e PF all books) then unexpected silly combos can be reduced/eliminated. With no new feats then no unexpected combos can arise. Feats are most used & abused aspect of the d20 rule system I have found.
S.
I actually don't consider most of those feats - the ones that cause status effects - to really be part of the equation regarding the question of how much criticals balance weapons. This is because these apply a penalty to an enemy that all of the PCs benefit from, regardless of what weapon they're using.
Yes, all the PCs benefit. However, my point is that whereas the crit system as it stood in 3e/3.5 is generally balanced in terms of average damage (i.e. 19-20/×2 produces as much average damage as 20/×3, making a battleaxe and longsword similarly viable), many of the new feats and features introduced by Paizo are set up so that they favor one type of weapon over another. If a character wants to use the critical feats, he's much, much better off with a longsword or scimitar than with a battleaxe, since the effects would occur 2-3 times as often, and be the same effects anyway. This means that wielding those weapons is a much better choice if you plan to take those feats. And those weapons are also a better choice because of how the end-game fighter weapon mastery ability turns out (17-20/×3 with a longsword produces more damage on average than the 19-20/×4 of a battleaxe).
The group as a whole will benefit much more from critical feats if their effects happen more often as well. So that should really encourage other players to say "hey, if you're going to use critical feats, don't use axes; scimitars are better for the group."
It's not necessarily a bad thing that some options favor some weapons over others, as long as there are other options that favor the other weapons more. It's not even a big issue; mostly one that deals with elegance in design. I think Paizo has done some potentially elegant things, but in other areas, what they've done is pretty clunky. For some reason, effects related to critical hits tend to be clunky and not mathematically sound in precisely the kind of equality-based ways SKR was ranting about way back when.
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And just because you jumped ship does not mean everyone jumped ship. Seriouly people need to stop thinking that because they decide to change their gmaing habits everyone follows what they do. im not saying no one decided to go elsewhere because of the changes of 4E FR. Yet as much as gamers like to think it was a mass migaration it was not.
Sequence of events:
Gorbacz: NOBODY changed from FR to Golarion, because of dislike of the new setting.
Me: I did.
Memorax: You're not EVERYBODY.
Me: <facepalm>
What disrespect. They had the stones to try and change the setting in a major way. It worked for some did not work for others. I felt absolutely no disrespect from the devs towards myself. Nor did my gaming group. If being angry at the changes in 4E FR puts food on my table, pays my bills or gets me a better job than im all for hating for 4E FR. Since it does not I have vastly better things to do. im not saying you have to like the changes or that one should not be unhappy. but the whole Wotc killed my puppy, burned my house down with the changes to 4E FR are laughable at best and getting really damn old.
They chose to ignore the complaints of FR fans, while at the same time making changes to their planned Eberron update after protest from that fan side. They deliberately destroyed what the actual fans of the FR setting liked, in the hope of appealing to people who hated the FR.
I have absolutely no sympathy at all for those designers. If you want to fanboy them for their incompetence, be my guest.
Possibly yet one of the reasons I stopped hanging out at the Wotc forums was because the vocal minority who seemed to find anything broken with the rules and setting were the ones that imo Wotc listened to. Take a look at 3.5. They added a few new things yet a bunch of stuff was nerfed in terms of spell durations and feats because a bunch of very vocal DMs had troulbe coming to grips with a spell of Mage armor that lasted 24 hours because a feat extended it to that length of time. Just like Paizo listened to a very vocal minority who wanted no major changes in Pathfinder. Which is why I boycotted the PF playtest or any further PF playtests.
Oh, okay, so you hate every developer team equally. If that floats your boat.
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Gorbacz: NOBODY changed from FR to Golarion, because of dislike of the new setting.
Me: I did.
Memorax: You're not EVERYBODY.
Me: <facepalm>
Here the thing the way you make it look like when you post it comes across as if everyone hated 4E FR. And that simply is not the case. Thats like saying that because Paizo included guns in Glorian those who dont like guns are going to stay away from the setting. Some will some wont yet its not going to be everybody.
They chose to ignore the complaints of some FR fans, while at the same time making changes to their planned Eberron update after protest from that fan side. They deliberately destroyed what the actual fans of the FR setting liked, in the hope of appealing to people who hated the FR.
Fixed the first sentence for you. They choose to ignore the complaints of some FR fans. Not all FR fans. I agree that some of the changes were not to my liking. I would have been more unhappy if 4E FR was a rehahsh of 3E FR. I was in no mood to buy yet another rpg sourcebook with little to no changes. Sometimes developers have to take a risk. They will not please everybody. No matter what they do with a new edition it's a catch-22. Damned if you do and damned if yiu dont.
I have absolutely no sympathy at all for those designers. If you want to fanboy them for their incompetence, be my guest.
I have no sympathy with fans of the hobby who go around carrying galaxy sized chips on their shoulders. Or edition warriors. Moreto life than whining and crying over different versions of the same rpg. Beleive it or not we do have some like myself in the hobby who like and play many editions. If that makes me a fanboy so be it.
Oh, okay, so you hate every developer team equally. If that floats your boat.
I dont hate developers. Again more important things in life. If anyone here is showing a obvious hate for any developer its yourself.
Here the thing the way you make it look like when you post it comes across as if everyone hated 4E FR. And that simply is not the case. Thats like saying that because Paizo included guns in Glorian those who dont like guns are going to stay away from the setting. Some will some wont yet its not going to be everybody.
Apparently you lack reading comprehension. Take a look at my last post to see what actually happened.
Fixed the first sentence for you. They choose to ignore the complaints of some FR fans. Not all FR fans. I agree that some of the changes were not to my liking. I would have been more unhappy if 4E FR was a rehahsh of 3E FR. I was in no mood to buy yet another rpg sourcebook with little to no changes. Sometimes developers have to take a risk. They will not please everybody. No matter what they do with a new edition it's a catch-22. Damned if you do and damned if yiu dont.
They made a deliberate gambit to alienate their existing fans in hopes of getting new fans. The nature of the changes from 3E to 4E leaves no other conclusion. If you liked that, more power to you. I'd say most fans who were active back then did not, from the experiences I had on the FR boards.
I have no sympathy with fans of the hobby who go around carrying galaxy sized chips on their shoulders. Or edition warriors. Moreto life than whining and crying over different versions of the same rpg. Beleive it or not we do have some like myself in the hobby who like and play many editions. If that makes me a fanboy so be it.
Well, then we have no sympathy for each other. Fine by me.
I dont hate developers. Again more important things in life. If anyone here is showing a obvious hate for any developer its yourself.
Nah, I just vastly dislike them and hope that their projects fail, so that we can be rid of them, lest they get to propagate their incompetence to more products. Hate is something I reserve for people who actively harm other people by their actions in more physical ways than just destroying a favorite fictional setting.
In that case, do you think that feats like Power Attack, Cleave, etc., which seem to favor weapons with a higher damage die and/or high critical multiplier, serve to balance the "critical status effect" feats? Or are more/different feats needed?The group as a whole will benefit much more from critical feats if their effects happen more often as well. So that should really encourage other players to say "hey, if you're going to use critical feats, don't use axes; scimitars are better for the group."
It's not necessarily a bad thing that some options favor some weapons over others, as long as there are other options that favor the other weapons more.
Those options aren't really more favorable to one type of critical threat range than the other. Power Attack adds the same damage on average, for longswords and battleaxes. It could be possibly be argued that old school 3e Cleave might be slightly better with a ×3 crit, as that would perhaps slightly increase the odds of one-shotting a foe, yielding an additional attack. However, the opposite could also be argued; outputting additional damage more often would increase the odds of that damage occurring at a time when a foe was low enough that a critical hit for double damage would suffice to bring him down.
What I would rather see is that options were designed taking this balance into mind to begin with. The critical feats could either feature some element that would scale with the multiplier, or they could be made to always trigger off a set roll, regardless of the threat range (i.e. they would only trigger on a natural 20, 19-20 or something like that, regardless of their critical threat range). That would make those feats more agnostic with regards to what weapons the wielder chooses.
For a feature like the fighter's weapon mastery that increases the critical multiplier, I would rather see it apply proportionally (though the ×7 criticals generated with scythes would be a bit much) or they could state that the critical multiplier only increases by +1 on a natural roll of 20 (19-20 with Improved Critical, or 18-20 with Improved Critical if the base threat range is 18-20). The latter solution might be a bit clunky, but not much more so than the current solution, and making for variability in how powerful the critical hits you can score isn't necessarily opposed to the system, even if there's not much precedence for it. I think most people could be trusted to keep more than two distinct types of outcome clear.
As I stated, I don't think it's a big issue. It's just that it's not elegant design as far as I'm concerned.
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Mags you may wanna dial it down Abit. There's better ways to get ones point across.
Mags you may wanna dial it down Abit. There's better ways to get ones point across.
As far as my dislike for the 4E FR developers goes, that is just my own point of view. It's not as if I'd travel to WotC headquarters to berate the guys in person. I'm just not buying their products anymore and privately disliking them.
As for Memorax, it would really help if he would stop misrepresenting what I actually said ( which he has done now three times in a row), then I'd be more cordial.
I just always find it humorous when someone is like, "FR was the best thing ever. I wet my pants every time we played it. But then 4e came out and ruined everything. Now I only play Golarion."
Let's consider some possible choices the person had.
A)Hold their nose and just play the new version as is.
B)Ignore the new version and just stick with the older material.
C)Treat the new version as an alternate time line, taking "trips" to it when something is interesting, but for the most part sticking with the old stuff.
D)Abandoning the entire thing, and going with an entirely new setting.
Now, all are fine choices, but if you go with (D), I kind of have to question how much really did you like that setting. I mean, if it was so mind-blowingly awesome, then going with (A)-(C) would seem to make more sense. But if just happened to be the best thing out at the time, and you feel you need current material constantly, I could certainly see choosing (D).
Of course there is another option (E) I want to continue playing the older version but everyone I game with has moved on, and so in order to get any gaming, I have to go with a setting I feel is inferior.
Or maybe you can go with the explanation I already gave which is "I cannot separate the new and old setting mentally, which is why I felt disheartened to go on playing the old FR".
Yeah, when Phantom Menace came out it hurt me so bad that I totally never watched the original Trilogy again oh wait :)
PREquel.
SEquel.
Hm. I wonder what's the difference.
Although I admit that knowing that inside Vaders armor is that whiny bint Anakin kinda de-mystifies the character. ^^
Yeah, when Phantom Menace came out it hurt me so bad that I totally never watched the original Trilogy again oh wait :)Don't worry, soon there'll be a new trilogy that'll really ruin Darth Vader for us all!
We'll have to see about that. ;)
OTOH, I loved Star Wars: Legacy, so it's not as if I hate every sequel which blows the setting up and plays out a hundred years later. I guess the difference lies in the way the setting is blown up ( i.e. actively destroying most things fans loved about the setting vs. tweaking the levers to make the updated setting seem fresh and new while keeping most fundamentals ).
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Watch it in Machete Order, it is more tolerable then.
New Hope
Empire Strikes Back
Attack of the Clones
Revenge of the Sith
Return of the Jedi
Put the Phantom Menace with the Ewok Adventures.
Of course I'm used to ignoring stuff. Someone once told me that there was a TV spin off of Star Trek, called Enterprise. I don't believe it, what I saw wasn't Star Trek, so I think someone was making it up. Maybe it was a spin off of Andromeda.
Put the Phantom Menace with the Ewok Adventures.
OUCH....
I personally thought the Phantom menace was the BEST of the prequels. There was a LOT of crap in it... but we finally got to see FULLY trained Jedi being Jedi.... and the Greatest Lightsaber battle filmed yet!
Put the Phantom Menace with the Ewok Adventures.
OUCH....
I personally thought the Phantom menace was the BEST of the prequels. There was a LOT of crap in it... but we finally got to see FULLY trained Jedi being Jedi.... and the Greatest Lightsaber battle filmed yet!
Greatest ever... you mean Episode 3 Skywalker vs. Kenobi :) Phantom Menace isn't that bad -- if you skip the parts that deal with a certain alien character who definitely needed to be left out. I skipped those parts and it's not too bad. And yes, the Jedi vs. Darth Maul dual is the best part of the movie.
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I think that there are plenty of other conclusions you can draw, rather than to think WotC set out to alienate fans of Forgotten Realms. I think they felt it was time to make a significant update to the setting and it clicked with some and didn't click with others.
I actually really liked the 4E FR. I never really liked FR until then, to be honest, it was just too boring, generic, and uninspired, in my opinion.
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They made a deliberate gambit to alienate their existing fans in hopes of getting new fans. The nature of the changes from 3E to 4E leaves no other conclusion. If you liked that, more power to you. I'd say most fans who were active back then did not, from the experiences I had on the FR boards.
Again they way you make it sound everyone hated 4E FR and that simply is just not the case. I get it you hate 4E FR. I may disagree yet I can respect that. Except when you post stuff like "The nature of the changes from 3E to 4E leaves no other conclusion" that BS. A certain segment of the gaming population disliked the changes. Some did not. One cannot just say " I hated the changes and found them terrible and therefore everyone has to". Not everyone will.
Well, then we have no sympathy for each other. Fine by me.
I may disagree with you yet still have a measure of respect as a fellow poster. I am just sick and tired of the "woe is me" attitude of the 3E FR fans. Yes I get that you dislike some of the changes. Yes they were sweeping changes. Except if they had changed nothing than they would have been accused of either a money grab. Doing a rehash or both. I'm not saying you would. Yet I can see Wotc being caught in a Catch22 situation. The only issue I have with FR is too many gods. Way too many. so I was glad that the 4E FR removed some of them. I'm also not a fan of everything they did with 4E FR.
One thing I'm noticing here and on other forums. If you defend a rpg as well as the company that pulbishes it that many people on the forum dislike your a "fanboy". If people on the forum like the rpg and ocmpany and one criticizes it one is a hater. Since when did we as gamers have to start drawing lines in the sand.
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IF I were Paizo and if they plan to update the setting with a possible PF 2.0 I would first ask what level of change the fanbase would want in the setting and go with what the majority would want. They will not please everryone nor should they. As well be very skeptical of the willigness of the fanbase to actually see change in the background. Be very careful what they change.
I think that if any sort of major rule overhaul happens that requires revamping the setting, it's better to just start up a new setting. 4E might have gotten less flack had they tried that approach. For some people, it's better if a setting is left untended then made to undergo radical changes.
Personally, I'd wait until Golarion was feeling tired in a creative sense and then go to a new ruleset and a new campaign world. (in my view that's many years away).
I think there's a lot to be said for declaring a campaign setting "done" rather than rebooting it with every new edition.
That MMCJawa is a smart cookie.
I would start collecting data during society plan. What types of builds are you seeing. Are there some class feature choices that are always taken and some that are never. Same with feats. Same with skills. Same with gear. And classes. That will give you an idea with what is working and what is not. That is a good starting point to build a new system.
They made a deliberate gambit to alienate their existing fans in hopes of getting new fans. The nature of the changes from 3E to 4E leaves no other conclusion. If you liked that, more power to you. I'd say most fans who were active back then did not, from the experiences I had on the FR boards.I think that there are plenty of other conclusions you can draw, rather than to think WotC set out to alienate fans of Forgotten Realms. I think they felt it was time to make a significant update to the setting and it clicked with some and didn't click with others. Just because it didn't click with you it doesn't mean it was intended as a slap in the face. I've been a fan of Forgotten Realms for many years as well, I liked some changes in the 4E version, was ambivalent towards others and really disliked some more. But I'm quite certain that none of them were done to try and alienate me.
Eilistraee.
My first read through Pathfinder was complicated by my experience with 3.x. I focused attention to what was different, and my knowledge of 3.x filled out the rest. I've recently gone back through the book, trying to give incredible focus to every detail. And I'd have to say after an extremely close read, the organization of the CRB is atrocious.
The rules are great once you piecemeal them together from the various sections, charts, and appendices; and in a few places use your imagination to fill in the blanks. For instance, the shield bash rules are in the equipment section, but not in the combat section. Two-weapon fighting is split into at least three sections scattered around the book: two-weapon fighting, off-hand penalties, and the action chart rather than in one place. I read about something earlier in the book only to find expanded rules a few pages later. It makes it hard to read in a linear fashion and even harder to reference. The GM guide is fantastically superior to the D&D products, but makes at least one reference to a chart that doesn't exist in the Paizo books, but does in the DM guide.
So am I for a second edition? You bet. I love these rules and I don't want them to change much, but they need to devote the same level of attention to revising the current rules as they would if they were designing a new product.
And I think they should consider splitting the player's material and the GM material. It seemed like a great value when I first started, but now I'm screaming for a smaller, more focused set of books. My binding is tearing out while having to gopher around this book.
I think that if any sort of major rule overhaul happens that requires revamping the setting, it's better to just start up a new setting. 4E might have gotten less flack had they tried that approach. For some people, it's better if a setting is left untended then made to undergo radical changes.
This is what we wondered too. What's the point of continuing a setting, if they change everything about it?? Honestly, I could have handled the spellplague OR a 100 year jump... but tying both together killed all interest there. Sadly it didn't just kill interest in the GAME... but also the novels I'd been enjoying. The new drizzt books are the only ones I've read since that, and they just... don't feel the same.
And frankly, WoTC/TSR were NOT opposed to new settings. We already had Greyhawk, Dark Sun, FR, Dragonlance, Not to mention the planescape and Spelljammers that connected them...
Even when 3.0 came out, (IIRC) they focused their efforts on Ebberon. I know that's where DDO was set and there was a big push for that...
Breaking the realms was just a mindboggling decision to me. Why take an established world... and make it unrecognizable, when you could just MAKE a new setting exactly how you want it... as you've done MANY times in the past?
My first read through Pathfinder was complicated by my experience with 3.x. I focused attention to what was different, and my knowledge of 3.x filled out the rest. I've recently gone back through the book, trying to give incredible focus to every detail. And I'd have to say after an extremely close read, the organization of the CRB is atrocious.
The rules are great once you piecemeal them together from the various sections, charts, and appendices; and in a few places use your imagination to fill in the blanks. For instance, the shield bash rules are in the equipment section, but not in the combat section. Two-weapon fighting is split into at least three sections scattered around the book: two-weapon fighting, off-hand penalties, and the action chart rather than in one place. I read about something earlier in the book only to find expanded rules a few pages later. It makes it hard to read in a linear fashion and even harder to reference. The GM guide is fantastically superior to the D&D products, but makes at least one reference to a chart that doesn't exist in the Paizo books, but does in the DM guide.
LOL! Yeah... I guess it has it's issues. The last system I toyed with before Pathfinder.... was the New World of Darkness game. Compared that THAT Core... Pathfinder was a godsend!!! The game wasn't BAD perse.... but finding any SENSE in the RULEBOOK was nigh-impossible. The multiple fiction stories and eyestrain of a font did NOT help...
The first thing i did when I picked up Pathfinder's CRB was flip to see if htere was an index in the back and then did a happy dance.
Golarion is successful because it hit several points long neglected by other settings:
- Greyhawk's human-centrism and "low frequency of high magic"
- Echoes of our world in a fantasy settingAnd since 5E is obviously aimed at 1E/2E fans (No grid and minis? Let's empower the GM? Gygaxian dungeon crawl as playtest adventure?), there's little Paizo has to worry from 5E.
Here is the thing though Golarion is thankfully not human centric, and way too much fantasy and even sci-fi is glued to humans and it makes it boring. Need to stay away from human-centrism as much as possible. Yeah FR did get away from it 'thankfully' but to say Golarion is? I disagree. For every 5 humans in Absalom you should be able to find 1 of every PC playable race (including ARG examples) (IMHO and that's how MY Golarion works.)
As far as the 'echoes' thing, FR had that to so I might be missing your point but they did have 'smokepowder' for guns, airships, steam and clockwork stuff, etc.
As far as grid and minis, I will always prefer them over 'not' having them.
Golarion is successful because it hit several points long neglected by other settings:
- Greyhawk's human-centrism and "low frequency of high magic"
- Echoes of our world in a fantasy setting
I beleive the best thing about Golarion... is that it's all things to all people. When I look at Golarion, I see FR High Fantasy, Al-quadim Desert land, Ravenloft Horror, Sci-fi crashed spaceships, jungle of maztica... Basically every awesome setting rolled into one.
Regardless of WHAT kind of setting you want to put your game in... there's a spot in Golarion that can make it work.
My friends and I tried our hand at creating our own setting, and it was almost identical in concept.
There's a lot to love about Golarion
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Is Golarion in need of a revamp?
Because to me, it looks like it just need an update that would "include" all the Adventure Paths' lore and backstories, and update the rest of the setting accordingly.
What WotC did for FR and Dark Sun is rather odd... The settings were already written and in place, did it really need a revamped edition for each?
As for the rules, I could see a revision for the Pathfinder system, but not a complete revamp like 3.5 was to 3e. For instance, if they would rewrite the feats so some of them would be merged into a single one, it wouldn't need a complete reprint, just a booklet saying what are the major changes.
Yeah, long story short, I kinda wish that they would merge the Improved and Greater versions of feats into the standard feat to eliminate major feat trees. For instance:
Two-Weapon Fighting (combat)
You can fight with a weapon wielded in each of your hands. You can make one extra attack each round with the secondary weapon.Prerequisite: Dex 15.
Benefit: Your penalties on attack rolls for fighting with two weapons are reduced. The penalty for your primary hand lessens by 2 and the one for your off hand lessens by 6. See Two-Weapon Fighting in Combat.
Normal: If you wield a second weapon in your off hand, you can get one extra attack per round with that weapon. When fighting in this way you suffer a –6 penalty with your regular attack or attacks with your primary hand and a –10 penalty to the attack with your off hand. If your off-hand weapon is light, the penalties are reduced by 2 each. An unarmed strike is always considered light.
Advancements: If you have Dex 17 and base attack bonus +6, in addition to the standard single extra attack you get with an off-hand weapon, you get a second attack with it, albeit at a –5 penalty. If you have Dex 19 and base attack bonus +11, you get a third attack with your off-hand weapon, albeit at a –10 penalty.
One feat, one option that gets stronger as you level up. Many...
I would say that FR got a revamp more because of 4th edition and the mechanics. I mean theybbring in an entire hidden planet because of the Dragonborn which was stupid.
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Golarion is successful because it hit several points long neglected by other settings:
- Greyhawk's human-centrism and "low frequency of high magic"
- Echoes of our world in a fantasy settingAnd since 5E is obviously aimed at 1E/2E fans (No grid and minis? Let's empower the GM? Gygaxian dungeon crawl as playtest adventure?), there's little Paizo has to worry from 5E.
Here is the thing though Golarion is thankfully not human centric, and way too much fantasy and even sci-fi is glued to humans and it makes it boring. Need to stay away from human-centrism as much as possible. Yeah FR did get away from it 'thankfully' but to say Golarion is? I disagree. For every 5 humans in Absalom you should be able to find 1 of every PC playable race (including ARG examples) (IMHO and that's how MY Golarion works.)
As far as the 'echoes' thing, FR had that to so I might be missing your point but they did have 'smokepowder' for guns, airships, steam and clockwork stuff, etc.
As far as grid and minis, I will always prefer them over 'not' having them.
Aroden, Imodeae, Cayden, Norgorber, Runelords, Azlanti, Jatembe, Leaders of Andoran/Taldor/Cheliax/Osirion/Qadira...
Golarion is human-centric in the meaning that the biggest movers and shakers of its history were humans, most cities described fall into the "80% humans, 20% others" population composition, and the only two major non-human nations are pretty much isolated and keeping to themselves (5 Kings Mts. and Kyonin). Sure, the major demihuman races aren't rarity, elves, dwarves and gnomes aren't considered "alien" or "super-rare", but they aren't as profound as in several other settings.
Of course if that's not what you're after, there are plenty of places (Kaer Maga's population is 50% humans IIRC) that break away from that trend.
Eilistraee.That doesn't prove they were out to alienate anyone, just that they made what I also consider to be a poor choice there.
....
Never heard about Eilistraee? What did they do there? Kill her dead, or something worse?