In my happy place that will never exist it would be great if the dnd next rule set flopped horribly and wotc returned to producing content and rules for the d20 OGL. Super bonus awesome if they update previous d20 rulebooks to include the open rules changes from the PRD. Then everyone can be happy. Those who love Paizo and only Paizo can keep getting what they want. Those who want splat book after splat book every month will get that. Those who want an official pathfinder artificer or warlock will get that. Those who want pathfinder support for forgotten realms/greyhawk/ravenloft will get that.
I'm so warm and fuzzy right now. If only I could make it last....
And OMG what an effect that would have on describing what it means to be a 3rd party publisher.
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Also, D&D Next "flopping horribly" would be bad for the industry as a whole.
I dont want D&D Next to flop at all (unless they persist with that rediculous name), bur Im not really sure it would honestly matter too terribly much to the industry. They said similar things about 4E too. Didn't flopp too tertibly, and we are still here.
:)
From what I generally hear, thoughts on D&D Next are pretty much people shrugging their shoulders, might give it a chance, but mostly happy with their existing game(s) of choice.
My main concern with D&D Next "flopping horribly" would be for the people that work at WotC. Whatever anyone's opinion is of the direction of that game over the past few years, most of them had nothing to do with those decisions and just made what they were told to make.
As a player, it wouldn't affect me in the slightest, as I've already made that move to Pathfinder and don't see myself going back.
As a writer, I'm happy doing d20 and Pathfinder-compatible work and other games, and don't want to touch the more restrictive licenses of newer D&D editions.
As a human being, I don't want to see anyone made unemployed (except politicians.)
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I've removed a post (and the followup posts that quote it, as is standard practice for moderation here). Just because the boards have a profanity filter doesn't mean you should feel free to use profanity.
Do not insult other posters.
Remember the most important rule of the Paizo message boards.
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A don't want D&D Next to flop at all, (unless they persist with that ridiculous name) but I'm not really sure it would honestly matter too terribly much to the industry. They said similar things about 4E too. Didn't flopp too terribly, and we are still here.
:)
From what I generally hear, thoughts on D&D Next are pretty much shrugging there shoulders, might give it a chance, but mostly happy with their existing game(s) of choice."
Edit by Sean: I've removed the quoted part so that the gist of your post remains.
So from my point of view:
1. I was a pretty avid 3.x player and have two solid shelves of those products. I have slightly more Pathfinder products. In terms of raw publishing, they are putting out as much RPG content per month as WotC ever did.
2. Sure, a lot of that isn't "a player book!" But they all have player options; every AP chapter, every Pathfinder Player Companion... I have to say, I find the OP's complaint here confusing, it varies between "I want stuff not spread out in all these little books but in big hardbacks" to "Oh I don't want it concentrated too much in hardbacks, a couple pages of feats makes my brain hurt, I want it spread over a lot of books..."
3. My group finds the current rate of rules sprawl in PF to be unacceptable. We allow through APG only except by special request or the GM declaring "hey this pirate campaign, you can use things X and Y and this third party supplement Z." Even UC/UM is a bit too much and "build your own races" like the ARG goes way too far into goofy optimizer territory - we are all super burned out on that from 3.5.
Paizo is doubling down on Golarion, true, and their approach is to "inspire you to make new characters" via interesting in-world options, not a host of pretty much insane prestige classes (the 3.5e prestige classes from the Complete line were frequently so weird you had to ask yourself "who would ever do this..."). Try to find inspiration in the fictional world of the game, not in a new +1 to something. That's the direction Paizo is forging and it's quite welcome to lots of us.
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I'm mostly the opposite, I want more of the rules type stuff, and find most of the DM and Setting centric material fairly underwhelming. Not being a fan of Golarion doesn't help either.
The one thing that I do not need, (ever really) is inspiration to make my characters. That's the easiest part of gaming, and really nothing that Paizo or any company can do is really going to inspire me to build a character. Mechanics like Prestige Classes, Feats, Traits, and whatnot will help my to make a character actually be able to do what I want or am trying to build, but that's not inspiration. Typically I find a great deal of Paizo's flavor and setting material to be incredibly boring or just unappealing (which is just my opinion, not an insult to anone). In fact, a lot of their material sort of saps the inspiration in building characters rather than plants it, because they focus so much on the "No, but this instead" attitude of settings and flavor. "If I had wanted to play ________, I would have built _______ instead/at level 1. That doesn't help me."
Paizo also seems to do a lot of "Ok, here are some ideas and options for including the most obvious builds in a <lets say Pirate Game>". <facepalm>. I don't need anything at all about how to include say a Barbarian, a Rogue, a Ranger, Bard, or a Fighter. That's common sense. What I would like some ideas and options for are how to fit in a Paladin, Cleric, Druid, Monk, you know all those classes and concepts that are not automatically obviously in just by being their class. :)
3.5 tended to be much more careful and inclusive with those sorts of products. Adding in material or variants, Prestige Classes or something that would help all classes to find a place in all sorts of different campaigns.
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(I have yet to see a spreadsheet character sheet for sale).
You can make a copy of and use this Google Docs spreadsheet.
Although I've modified it, it's mostly written by somebody else (whose email address appears under the "character image" lines).
It does require you to pay a little bit of attention to what you're doing. One general heuristic is: if the background of the square is grey, it probably has a formula in it. Don't type anything in there without checking first! (My players who use this sheet make that mistake fairly often, and it can screw up stuff all over the place.)
(I have yet to see a spreadsheet character sheet for sale).You can make a copy of and use this Google Docs spreadsheet.
Although I've modified it, it's mostly written by somebody else (whose email address appears under the "character image" lines).
It does require you to pay a little bit of attention to what you're doing. One general heuristic is: if the background of the square is grey, it probably has a formula in it. Don't type anything in there without checking first! (My players who use this sheet make that mistake fairly often, and it can screw up stuff all over the place.)
Thanks for the link. When I have made them in the past, I have learned that literally hiding them works better.
I use a white background for if you fill something in. If it is to be filled in, it is a normal cell. It can also be a drop-down menu.
For stats and skill points, I use the up-down arrows that can be added as an object to the side of a cell that displays the value (which is actually hidden, see the next part). The cell that they see really is just an ="other cell". Messing with it does not change any actual value.
All of the calculations and data are actually in a section of the sheet that is hidden. I hide the rows, and then when that page is ready, I hide the row numbers and column headers.
Then I have a print-me page that collects the data from the other pages and is made to be printed. You do not need to touch it other than print it.
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In my happy place that will never exist it would be great if the dnd next rule set flopped horribly and wotc returned to producing content and rules for the d20 OGL. Super bonus awesome if they update previous d20 rulebooks to include the open rules changes from the PRD. Then everyone can be happy.
Not everyone! I don't want D&D Next to fail - I want it to be very successful even if it turns out that I still prefer 3.5 to it, because it will hopefully support Eberron and maybe Dark Sun and interest in those settings will increase and I will be willing to play in such a game.
The ideal would be that there would be a PFS-like organised campaign using Eberron or Dark Sun that would become popular at conventions - I would be on that like a fly on dog-doo :)
Those who want pathfinder support for forgotten realms/greyhawk/ravenloft will get that.
If D&D Next failed and WotC looked to an older system to support their settings I would prefer they return to 3.5 rather than go with Pathfinder. That way at least all my Eberron support would be for a single consistent ruleset, rather than two "largely, but not completely, compatible" rulesets (i.e 3.5 and PF) like Golarion is.
[Not everyone! I don't want D&D Next to fail - I want it to be very successful even if it turns out that I still prefer 3.5 to it, because it will hopefully support Eberron and maybe Dark Sun and interest in those settings will increase and I will be willing to play in such a game.
The ideal would be that there would be a PFS-like organised campaign using Eberron or Dark Sun that would become popular at conventions - I would be on that like a fly on dog-doo :)
Be careful what you wish for. On several occasions, WotC has brought back a setting with such horrible radical changes that it’s not the setting you once knew and loved. What’s worse is that then it become difficult to re-wind.
This may seem like a silly question, and also may have been asked and answered already, but... just how many characters are you guys making every year that you need a giant stack of books to pull options from?
I'm being serious here. It seems to me that there are enough permutations of races, classes, feats, skills, and other options that even just the Core Rules would be enough to last an entire campaign.
There’s two markets here, Gelion. One is the theorycrafter. They love to design new PC’s, dozens and even hundreds, even if they play only a couple. I understand this, and applaud their skills (they often find design faults) , but this is not a market that should drive the design.
The other is the “toon” campaign, where PC’s are killed off at a high rate, but every player has a stack of new “toons” ready to drop in at a moments notice. Clearly continuity and even roleplaying must take a back seat here. I can’t understand this school of playing at all.
Yea, there are theory-crafters, who design "theoretical" characters and imagine the capabilities of these fictional characters in adventurers, and then there are "experimental"-crafters, who build fictional characters and...oh...wait...they also only imagine what their character could theoretically do. The phrase "theoretical character design" is sort of a redundancy--there is no actual alternative to "theoretical" D&D characters. As often as you trumpet how much better your play-style is than the mystical notion of "theoretical" character building, that's really what you are doing unless you are actually creating real people and throwing them into dungeons to see if they survive.
Now, if you are talking about making characters who you don't necessarily have time to play...
well, I guess that in your definition, all novelists would be "theorycrafters", since they design characters for their novels without playing every character in every novel in a D&D game. Ooh, know who else is a...
Exactly how often does the average player play out a character?
I started Pathfinder about 2 years ago and I've actually played a: Bard, Cavalier and Inquisitor for PFS, an Alchemist, Magus, Barbarian and Summoner for campaigns.
Out of those the Bard, Cavalier, Alchemist and Magus have survived more than 5 levels before the game falls apart for one reason or another.
Since I'm often a Forever GM I've seen a number of classes in play, but what I can say about them is varied due to the varied level of experience of their players.
For many people just making characters can be an interesting way to pass a few hours. Sometimes you saw an interesting feat or class feature that you want to see what it would take to make it useful, sometimes you see a film or tv show and want to replicate a character in pathfinder, sometimes you are thinking about how a character died and want to figure out a way you could have prevented it, sometimes you put something together to see how something new works, sometimes you just want to build a dwarf sorcerer to see if it is possible without hating yourself for playing it.
These are the reasons people can burn through a splat book of options a month. That doesn't make them BADWRONGFUN ROLLPLAYERS. It justs makes them enthusiasts.
For many people just making characters can be an interesting way to pass a few hours. Sometimes you saw an interesting feat or class feature that you want to see what it would take to make it useful, sometimes you see a film or tv show and want to replicate a character in pathfinder, sometimes you are thinking about how a character died and want to figure out a way you could have prevented it, sometimes you put something together to see how something new works, sometimes you just want to build a dwarf sorcerer to see if it is possible without hating yourself for playing it.
These are the reasons people can burn through a splat book of options a month. That doesn't make them BADWRONGFUN ROLLPLAYERS. It justs makes them enthusiasts.
Indeed, and I said similar "One is the theorycrafter. They love to design new PC’s, dozens and even hundreds, even if they play only a couple. I understand this, and applaud their skills (they often find design faults) , but this is not a market that should drive the design. "
Nothing wrong with having fun being a theorycrafter. It's useful and fun. I often amuse myself by designing back up characters.
But one does not actually design a game for the theorycrafters, nor should it drive your new product release.
I theorycraft to shelve characters for future use so I understand just making characters
I also understand the people that claim Schrodinger's Wizard considering how vulnerable I've seen lvl 8-13 wizards can be when on the table.
The question was more of a serious inquiry because I don't know how many characters or levels people typically play in per year.
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@DrDeth
I'm really not advocating for a design change as much as I am responding to the downright vitriol coming from some posters (not you) directed at people who want to see more options. Somehow expressing a desire to have more options is being equated to someone coming to their house, breaking into their game, slamming down a stack of books on their table, and demanding to start playing in their e6 game with a 20th level gestalt with 12 different prc's and where's your dog so I can kick it?
Anyway, that's the level of response I'm seeing and quite frankly is a bit outrageous. So what if some else wants more choices? If you (again, not you specifically) don't, then don't use them. No reason to fall back on personal attacks against people you only know from the interwebs.
Sadly, fear of the different or new can snowball into viriol online. People just dont like change, and of course what is change to one person is "the same as the version i like" to another.
the CoC 7th edition, ( which i was involved with as a playtester) was not a big revamp, but some of the stuff posted pretty horrific (pun intended) ... And frequently speculative and highly inaccurate. I suspect the same will happen with d&d next and just about every other new edition of any game...sadly.
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One of the things I find most perplexing is that roleplaying gamers, who in general tend to be more socially progressive than many other interest groups, are so damned conservative when it comes to their hobby.
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@DrDeth
I'm really not advocating for a design change as much as I am responding to the downright vitriol coming from some posters (not you) directed at people who want to see more options. Somehow expressing a desire to have more options is being equated to someone coming to their house, breaking into their game, slamming down a stack of books on their table, and demanding to start playing in their e6 game with a 20th level gestalt with 12 different prc's and where's your dog so I can kick it?Anyway, that's the level of response I'm seeing and quite frankly is a bit outrageous. So what if some else wants more choices? If you (again, not you specifically) don't, then don't use them. No reason to fall back on personal attacks against people you only know from the interwebs.
I love options. I think Unearthed Arcana is a fabulous book (well, most of it, anyway). So, we agree. But a few odd things are what make D&D = D&D. Vancian casting (not as the ONLY casting, of course!)- a level based system, alignments (not that the system can't change- OD& had Chaos, Law & Neutral, 4th ed has different etc). Pretty much, if it's been part of the game since 1974, in all iterations, it needs to stay- as at least the primary system.
Like Vancian. I like Vancian, but I usually play Sorcs (which are not quite Vancian) , and Warlocks are fun too (actually i like the Dragonbreath adept). So yeah, as long as there are Wizards with Vancian, there is room for Sorc with modified Vancian and Warlocks with cast at will and even others. The one clamoring to get rid of Vancian are the ones who are against options, not I. They want you to have one & only one option- whatever it may be, but that's how EVERYONE should play. Why? Because they like it. It doesn;t matter that a lot of us like Vancian- they don't like it so they want it GONE! The ones yelling the loudest for OPTIONS!!! often don;t want option at all- they want EVERYONE to play their One True Way.
D&D is the grand-daddy of them all. It outsells them all. PF is the newest and best version.
Now, sure, we could change PF to be spell points, class-less, alignment-less, etc. But then it wouldn't be D&D and it would join all those other games languishing on the bottom shelf at your FLGS. (not that some of those things couldn't be an option of sorts)
I like PF, and I like the people at Paizo, some of them are my friends. I want the game to succeed.
Trying to change PF to be like all those other games languishing on the bottom shelf is basically saying you want Paizo to fail and Pathfinder to die.
That doesn't mean PF can't learn and grow. They should watch and learn, adapt and bring out options. But in order to be successful, they have to be a D&D version.
(and yeah, thanks for noticing that 'certain people" fall back on personal attacks)
One of the things I find most perplexing is that roleplaying gamers, who in general tend to be more socially progressive than many other interest groups, are so damned conservative when it comes to their hobby.
I think it's important to balance that against the fact they may have a sizable financial investment in a particular game or edition. Not everyone can afford to handwave $500+ of books and start collecting all over again, and even if they can the question is whether the changes are even worth it.
As I've posted elsewhere, I'm pretty much set with the 3.5 ruleset, and will follow whatever allows me to naturally evolve with that rather than starting with a clean slate. I'll happily accept revisions, alterations, expansions, and reorganizations of those rules, right down to redoing all of the base classes (which I see as extras that plug into the rules sitting at the core rather than an integral part of it) - I'm just no longer willing to accept that "start again from scratch" is a necessary part of rules evolution - my own viewpoint is that after three major versions we must be getting close to a usable core that can be modified rather than thrown away.
I have shelves creaking under the weight of 3.5 books, and a stack on the floor threatening to turn into a ceiling-supporting pillar if it gets much higher. I simply have no need to start collecting yet another major system all over again, and have decided to funnel my RPG budget towards publishers who want to add to my collection rather than replace it. Note that doesn't preclude me buying new games, but when I do I'll be limiting myself to 3-4 books rather than getting into something that'll fill a whole new set of shelves.
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So let me get this straight, you're upset that Pathfinder puts as much effort into making things as balanced as they do because that means you can't find as many ways to break the game. . . Personally, I'm thrilled that you aren't getting what you want, and I say to Paizo, keep it up.
Now if I misunderstood, if you're just tired of Golarion, or perhaps Pathfinder's release rate, I'd suggest looking into 3pp. There's a wealth of material there, and much of it is very high quality (and not a small amount written by people who also write for Paizo).
As an aside, I do find it telling that you miss digging through the books, but not the gameplay. Perhaps you and Paizo have different definitions of what 3.5 was all about.
Well said good sir, well said.
And at least Ravenloft had a reason for all the different cultures and technology levels to be on eachother's door steps. . .
PS Its also not the newest anymore, and never was the best. :)D&D 5e has not yet been released, so "for now" PF is newer than the newest edition of D&D.
Unless you count essentials as 4.5 in which case yea, 4e essentials is newer.
Does 13th Age count as D&D?
Paizo is a company that makes adventure paths, modules and campaign setting material as their primary products and source of income and rules as their secondary product. WotC got that the other way round. So as long as Paizo is operating under that paradigm, you'll never see them churning rules options at the same ratio as WotC did. That also means you'll see a new edition of the game far later (if at all), because the business model is not dependent on having people re-buy stuff every X years.
you are exactly right. Personally I think that's wonderful. I love the depth of the world they focus on and I love that I can play an AP every week without running out of material. I also love how well these things are done. I get my jollies from the game in a different way though I guess. I like to play the same class a lot, constantly playing new scenarios to test my abilities, cracking new jokes along the way. I am best at these things in a class that fits well, one I've worn alot
And at least Ravenloft had a reason for all the different cultures and technology levels to be on eachother's door steps. . .
PS Its also not the newest anymore, and never was the best. :)D&D 5e has not yet been released, so "for now" PF is newer than the newest edition of D&D.
Unless you count essentials as 4.5 in which case yea, 4e essentials is newer.
weren't 4e and PF released the same year?
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Be careful what you wish for. On several occasions, WotC has brought back a setting with such horrible radical changes that it’s not the setting you once knew and loved. What’s worse is that then it become difficult to re-wind.
Well for the settings I enjoy / like the look of WotC has done a good job so far.
Eberron didn't have the timeline moved on and the addition of 4e elements (Eladrin Feyspires, Dragonborn in Q'barra etc) were all done well with little disruption to the setting.
And with Dark Sun, WotC explicitly rewound the timeline that TSR introduced to just after the first novel and the death of King Kalak.
So yeah, I don't think I have too much to worry about.
In terms of FR - I read the 3.0 setting book and got bored reading Dale after Dale after Dale :( I may have actually preferred the 4e reboot but I never read it as I was already turned off FR.
To quote the great Hank Hill: "Dang it, Dale!"
In terms of FR - I read the 3.0 setting book and got bored reading Dale after Dale after Dale :(
Mmm, there's a reason I tend to base FR games around the Sword Coast area :)
D&D is the grand-daddy of them all. It outsells them all. PF is the newest and best version.Pathfinder stopped being D+D after the APG came out. It did the smart thing and kept most of the format of 3.5 for awhile to satisfy the grognard game luddites it drew in as it's initial core market. But once it had them settled in... they began to use their freedom to take Pathfinder in directions that neither Gygax, Anderson, nor WOTC would have envisaged, both in game and setting design.
D+D is not just the game crunch, it's also the settings that were created for it. and Golarion is more different from TSR/WOTC's game worlds than either were from each other.
Umm, no. We played D&D for years without a TSR game setting being available.
PF is D&D and the best & newest D&D.
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and Golarion is more different from TSR/WOTC's game worlds than either were from each other.
Nope. Nope, nope, nope.
Golarion is, while well done and very kitchen sink, not all that far from being pretty generic for a setting.
Starjammer is far FAR more different from Birthright than Golarion is from Greyhawk.
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D+D is not just the game crunch, it's also the settings that were created for it. and Golarion is more different from TSR/WOTC's game worlds than either were from each other.Umm, no. We played D&D for years without a TSR game setting being available.
PF is D&D and the best & newest D&D.
I think again this is one of those "It's different things to different people" things, and it depends what both Pathfinder and D&D mean to the individual.
D&D to me is the trademarked game output by TSR and then WotC. I stopped playing D&D and started playing Pathfinder instead (and I did that precisely because it gave me a game derived from the one I was losing.)
I don't expect everyone else to feel the same, as for some people D&D means "STR INT WIS DEX CON CHA, Saving Throws, and d20s." For others, they still call it D&D because they feel Pathfinder deserves the name better. Others still don't want the name D&D attached to Pathfinder because they feel the newer editions are better.
I'm not going to say any of those are wrong (because there really isn't a right and wrong to it), they just have different opinions to me, and they're entitled to them.
Having done that, they've evolved Pathfinder into something what it needs to be... a game that goes beyond the old static boundaries of 3.X.
Can you explain exactly how Pathfinder goes beyond the static boundaries of 3.X? With detail and examples?
Because honestly, I completely fail to see what you're getting at.
(For example, was a concept such as "master of whip fighting" REALLY so prevalent that it deserved an entire 10 level PrC? No, but such a thing could easily warrant an Archetype with just a few variant class abilties.)
Really want to play "devil's advocate" with this argument:
Okay, so which class gets the "Whip guy" archetype? The Fighter, the Rogue, or the Bard?And now that you've chosen which one gets it, that means it's unavailable to the other classes that could otherwise make that character (ie: if it's a Bard archetype, then how do you make the Rogue version? The answer - you can't.)
Prestige classing was a way to give an interesting option to anyone who could qualify rather than hog-tying unique roles to specific classes.
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(For example, was a concept such as "master of whip fighting" REALLY so prevalent that it deserved an entire 10 level PrC? No, but such a thing could easily warrant an Archetype with just a few variant class abilties.)Really want to play "devil's advocate" with this argument:
Okay, so which class gets the "Whip guy" archetype? The Fighter, the Rogue, or the Bard?
And now that you've chosen which one gets it, that means it's unavailable to the other classes that could otherwise make that character (ie: if it's a Bard archetype, then how do you make the Rogue version? The answer - you can't.)
Prestige classing was a way to give an interesting option to anyone who could qualify rather than hog-tying unique roles to specific classes.
Actually, theres another way, which I like better then the paizo archetypes. its the super genius games archetypes. In it, for example, the blacksnake, can add cool whip weilding goodness to any class in exchange for a standard suite of abilities from each class.
Edit: That or you can just create an archetype (paizo style) for each class. Either way, its better then a character having to wait untill halfway through his career to start getting good with his prefered combat style.