I think we're just going to get a book with optional rules, very much like the Arcana Unearthed books.I'm a little concerned. I've seen videos of convention panels and Dev chatter about what will be in Unchained, and I feel like some expectations on what it is is wildly beyond the scope of the product.Unfortunately that has been happening with hardcovers a lot lately. Anytime you give people time to speculate or think about something that covers a broad area but has little information, people start making decisions on what HAS to be in the book, and thus get mad when something isn't in the book (or worse, Paizo does the opposite).
It's even worse for this book, since all the talk of killing sacred cows has let people's imaginations going crazy on what is in the book...
You mean Unearthed Arcana? Arcana Unearthed is something else entirely (but can still give good ideas and inspirations).
There are two Unearthed Arcana books. Present in D&D (1e) and D&D (3.5).
The first Unearthed Arcana (1e) expanded the fantasy milieu, introducing the barbarian, cavalier and thief-acrobat classes. Similar to Pathfinder's APG.
The second Unearthed Arcana (3.5) is like you say, about options, gestalt characters and so forth.
I think Pathfinder Unchained will be options plus class re-writes, monk, rogue and summoner. And add-ons like rules for expensive spell material components.
I think we're just going to get a book with optional rules, very much like the Arcana Unearthed books.I'm a little concerned. I've seen videos of convention panels and Dev chatter about what will be in Unchained, and I feel like some expectations on what it is is wildly beyond the scope of the product.Unfortunately that has been happening with hardcovers a lot lately. Anytime you give people time to speculate or think about something that covers a broad area but has little information, people start making decisions on what HAS to be in the book, and thus get mad when something isn't in the book (or worse, Paizo does the opposite).
It's even worse for this book, since all the talk of killing sacred cows has let people's imaginations going crazy on what is in the book...
You mean Unearthed Arcana? Arcana Unearthed is something else entirely (but can still give good ideas and inspirations).
There are two Unearthed Arcana books. Present in D&D (1e) and D&D (3.5).
The first Unearthed Arcana (1e) expanded the fantasy milieu, introducing the barbarian, cavalier and thief-acrobat classes. Similar to Pathfinder's APG.
The second Unearthed Arcana (3.5) is about options, gestalt characters and so forth.
I think Pathfinder Unchained will be options plus class re-writes, monk, rogue and summoner. And add-ons like rules for expensive material components.
Don't forget Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed - the title of his alternate Player's Handbook for the Diamond Throne setting. It has a lot of 3.5 compatible stuff that is very well done. And I agree - I expect Unchained to be much like the 3.5 Unearthed Arcana.
Don't forget Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed - the title of his alternate Player's Handbook for the Diamond Throne setting. It has a lot of 3.5 compatible stuff that is very well done. And I agree - I expect Unchained to be much like the 3.5 Unearthed Arcana.I think we're just going to get a book with optional rules, very much like the Arcana Unearthed books.I'm a little concerned. I've seen videos of convention panels and Dev chatter about what will be in Unchained, and I feel like some expectations on what it is is wildly beyond the scope of the product.Unfortunately that has been happening with hardcovers a lot lately. Anytime you give people time to speculate or think about something that covers a broad area but has little information, people start making decisions on what HAS to be in the book, and thus get mad when something isn't in the book (or worse, Paizo does the opposite).
It's even worse for this book, since all the talk of killing sacred cows has let people's imaginations going crazy on what is in the book...
You mean Unearthed Arcana? Arcana Unearthed is something else entirely (but can still give good ideas and inspirations).
There are two Unearthed Arcana books. Present in D&D (1e) and D&D (3.5).
The first Unearthed Arcana (1e) expanded the fantasy milieu, introducing the barbarian, cavalier and thief-acrobat classes. Similar to Pathfinder's APG.
The second Unearthed Arcana (3.5) is about options, gestalt characters and so forth.
I think Pathfinder Unchained will be options plus class re-writes, monk, rogue and summoner. And add-ons like rules for expensive material components.
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Ok, not familiar with Monte Cooke's 3rd party stuff. Have to check it out.
Also I wouldn't discount Paizo's own ideas.
They have been slowly unshackling themselves from D&D 3.5.
Introduction of Prestige Classes have slowly diminished with each new book release. In favor of the better designed and more progressive gish concept (Magus, then Bloodrager and Skald) and the swapsies of class abilities through archetypes.
Don't think it will be major surgery of the core rules. People play Pathfinder, because they like Hit Points, Armour Class, the vivid nature of Adventure Paths, Vancian Casting etc.
There are alternatives to Pathfinder. D&D 5e being a high profile one.
And I hope Pathfinder Unchained (and future books) don't pander to popular consensus. Great roleplaying games aren't created through a committee or bend-the-knee to demographics. Great rpgs have innovative ideas and run with them, never looking back. The birth of D&D 3.0 was conceived by similar means.
Pathfinders biggest problem is melee turret syndrome on the martials and low skill ceiling.
Turn to turn your options as a martial involve deciding where to best plant your feat.
Turn to turn for a spell caster you decide which of your giant list of options is best.
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A set of Favored Class Bonus that are Class based, not Race based - for example, three equally tempting options for each class to pick. (An example would be Fighters of any race being able to pick either 1/6 of a combat feat, or 1/6 of extra attack and damage with Weapon Training, or increasing CMB and CMD of one maneuver by 1/2.)
A set of Favored Class Bonus that are Class based, not Race based - for example, three equally tempting options for each class to pick. (An example would be Fighters of any race being able to pick either 1/6 of a combat feat, or 1/6 of extra attack and damage with Weapon Training, or increasing CMB and CMD of one maneuver by 1/2.)
Favored class bonus has class options, hit point bonus or skill rank bonus. Do you mean to expand it
I think expanding the list would be hard because there is nothing for it to interact with. For example, Half-Orc interacts with Fighter= +2 stability roll.
Maybe character region (Taldor, Varisia etc.) could provide additional favored class options.
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I'd like options with the Familiars bestowed perks: Raven boost - Fly, or Appraise, or PER; etc. That way, no two familiars of the same type have to be the same. You can pick a familiar that fits your concept of the character, and still gain some perks that you may want that - by vanilla PF - are not an option. (I also hate that most spell-casters want the Compsognathus, even if it doesn't make sense for the world, area, or character, because it is such a good choice!)
Yeah, yeah - "You can always house rule it!" That's the problem I have with PF. There are so many things that I house rule because the "cannon" doesn't make sense.
An all-day, magic blaster.
Kind of like the 3.5 Warlock.
Just some simple "I blast it with magic!" abilities.
Based on comments from Devs, and fan reaction - the general assumption is that the Kineticist from the upcoming Occult Adventures will fill that mechanical niche.
Ok, not familiar with Monte Cooke's 3rd party stuff. Have to check it out.
In my opnion it's one of the very best 3PP books during the 3.x era. The classes are a bit more powerful than core D&D, but that made porting them to Pathfinder easier.
Had some great ideas for classes and the spell system is really nice. It's still Vancian but with some great solid changes.
It has a very solid and unique flavor as well.
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If Pathfinder Unchained isn't edited by Erik Mona and Lisa Stevens (fantastic editing work on APG), we will have another Advanced Class Guide disaster to look forward to.
Also Jason Buhlman, James Jacobs and Jason Nelson are great game designers and need to be hands on in every stage of the design process.
Outsourcing work is a recipe for another disaster.
Monk is suspected to be full BAB but that has no real grounds.
Not so. Jason Bulmahn specifically noted that point in the GenCon panel where they discussed Unchained. (At around 18:55 in the KnowDirection podcast of the panel.)
I like the idea of the monk having a full BA but I hope this version still has all good saves.
The Monk already has full BAB with his (or her) Flurry of Blows class feature.
With the Step Up line of feats, giving the monk fighter progression BAB, really is a non event.
If the monk has it or not it makes little difference.
What is more interesting (in the Gencon panel) is the Monk class will be getting alternative class features. And those class features will be re-assessed becoming more level appropriate.
RAW, the Monk class, is underwhelming and boring. The Archetypes and Style feats were a good start in making the Monk more appealing, more interesting.
I love the Monk class (it is my favourite class), yet if full BAB is the best thing Paizo designers can come up with, I'm afraid all my hopes will be set aflame, the monastery of promised innovative class design finally burnt to the ground. Left with just the ashes of what could of been.
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If Pathfinder Unchained isn't edited by Erik Mona and Lisa Stevens (fantastic editing work on APG), we will have another Advanced Class Guide disaster to look forward to.
We can't have "another Advanced Class Guide disaster " as there was no disaster in the first place.
Unless you are holding Paizo to such a high level that anything short of perfection is "a disaster".
If Pathfinder Unchained isn't edited by Erik Mona and Lisa Stevens (fantastic editing work on APG), we will have another Advanced Class Guide disaster to look forward to.
We can't have "another Advanced Class Guide disaster " as there was no disaster in the first place.
Unless you are holding Paizo to such a high level that anything short of perfection is "a disaster".
ACG has all sorts of balance issues, that wasn't evident in previous books.
And needing a bigger errata than previous books. House ruling is being implemented across the board. And in many cases not being allowed at all.
A million light years from being perfect.
I am happy you have not had the problems so many of us have experienced.
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If Pathfinder Unchained isn't edited by Erik Mona and Lisa Stevens (fantastic editing work on APG), we will have another Advanced Class Guide disaster to look forward to.
We can't have "another Advanced Class Guide disaster " as there was no disaster in the first place.
Unless you are holding Paizo to such a high level that anything short of perfection is "a disaster".
ACG has all sorts of balance issues, that wasn't evident in previous books.
And needing a bigger errata than previous books. House ruling is being implemented across the board. And in many cases not being allowed at all.
A million light years from being perfect.
I am happy you have not had the problems so many of us have experienced.
I think you are overstating the issue. Beware of using message boards as statistical samples. It tends to work as an echo chamber rather than giving you a true idea of most people's experiences.
Monk is suspected to be full BAB but that has no real grounds.Not so. Jason Bulmahn specifically noted that point in the GenCon panel where they discussed Unchained. (At around 18:55 in the KnowDirection podcast of the panel.)
Forgot about that. Either way my main point was that I was concerned by some of the hype because even though we don't know much about the product we know enough to not go crazy with our expectations.
I expect that from now on we won't really get much information on future rulebook releases until shortly before they release. Compare the Advanced Class Guide, where all but...3? of the new classes were released before the playtest. With Occult Adventurers, where a day before the playtest we only know about 2 of the classes, and not a whole lot of info on those.
If Pathfinder Unchained isn't edited by Erik Mona and Lisa Stevens (fantastic editing work on APG), we will have another Advanced Class Guide disaster to look forward to.
We can't have "another Advanced Class Guide disaster " as there was no disaster in the first place.
Unless you are holding Paizo to such a high level that anything short of perfection is "a disaster".
I dunno about you, but I've never seen another Pathfinder book get put down because of its cover. My friend has purchased every first printing Paizo core book, but when he saw the ACGs cover he just laughed and skipped it.
"If the front cover has that big an error I don't want to see what's inside!"
Later he looked over the PDF and became sorely disappointed by the terrible lack of editing, attempt to balance, and lack of cohesion.
Also do please check out Ultimate Psionics by Dreamscarred press. You will never find a PunPun in there and I consider it to be the overall best Pathfinder RPG Splatbook ever written.
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I dunno about you, but I've never seen another Pathfinder book get put down because of its cover. My friend has purchased every first printing Paizo core book, but when he saw the ACGs cover he just laughed and skipped it.
Wow, really? Even if it turned out this time, that seems silly.
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If Pathfinder Unchained isn't edited by Erik Mona and Lisa Stevens (fantastic editing work on APG), we will have another Advanced Class Guide disaster to look forward to.
We can't have "another Advanced Class Guide disaster " as there was no disaster in the first place.
Unless you are holding Paizo to such a high level that anything short of perfection is "a disaster".
I dunno about you, but I've never seen another Pathfinder book get put down because of its cover. My friend has purchased every first printing Paizo core book, but when he saw the ACGs cover he just laughed and skipped it.
"If the front cover has that big an error I don't want to see what's inside!"
http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/v5748dyo5lgcs?A-Tale-of-Two-Covers
"And to be clear, the misprint concerns about three square inches on the front cover. The logo on the spine is correct. The logo on the cover page is correct. The logo on the back is correct. The logo on every spread in the book is correct. One image link broke, to one logo. Yes, it's the most important one, and yes, that's very embarrassing, but ultimately it makes no difference to the book's content. Many folks I've shown the book to did not even notice the difference, as the logos are very similar."Wow, gee, gosh, that sure is a terrible, horrible error that stops that supplement from being enjoyed!
not.
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Also Jason Buhlman, James Jacobs and Jason Nelson are great game designers and need to be hands on in every stage of the design process.
Outsourcing work is a recipe for another disaster.
Jason Nelson isn't a Paizo employee. He's a freelancer.
Most of Paizo's products are partially or fully written by freelancers. You may like some of those products more than others, but please don't take that as some kind of evidence that the ones you like weren't written by freelancers.
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If Pathfinder Unchained isn't edited by Erik Mona and Lisa Stevens (fantastic editing work on APG), we will have another Advanced Class Guide disaster to look forward to.
We can't have "another Advanced Class Guide disaster " as there was no disaster in the first place.
Unless you are holding Paizo to such a high level that anything short of perfection is "a disaster".
I dunno about you, but I've never seen another Pathfinder book get put down because of its cover. My friend has purchased every first printing Paizo core book, but when he saw the ACGs cover he just laughed and skipped it.
"If the front cover has that big an error I don't want to see what's inside!"
http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/v5748dyo5lgcs?A-Tale-of-Two-Covers
"And to be clear, the misprint concerns about three square inches on the front cover. The logo on the spine is correct. The logo on the cover page is correct. The logo on the back is correct. The logo on every spread in the book is correct. One image link broke, to one logo. Yes, it's the most important one, and yes, that's very embarrassing, but ultimately it makes no difference to the book's content. Many folks I've shown the book to did not even notice the difference, as the logos are very similar."Wow, gee, gosh, that sure is a terrible, horrible error that stops that supplement from being enjoyed!
not.
It's more like "Gee that sure is a hilarious error that's representative of the effort that went into clearing this book for release."
ACG is a mess of errors, terrible balance choices, broken (in both ways) archetypes, broken feats, classes without clearly defined abilities (Hunter tricks?), an obvious lack of communication between freelancers and core devs, the removal of important abilities to clear space for artwork, and lots of unclear language. It having a jacked up cover is just the gravy.
My biggest hope for Occult Mysteries and PF Unchained is that they WONT be like the ACG.
ACG is a mess of errors, terrible balance choices, broken (in both ways) archetypes, broken feats, classes without clearly defined abilities (Hunter tricks?), an obvious lack of communication between freelancers and core devs, the removal of important abilities to clear space for artwork, and lots of unclear language. It having a jacked up cover is just the gravy.
None of which could be accurately inferred from the misprint on the cover. That it happens to be the case that those things are (imho) true doesn't make the reasoning ("the cover has an error, therefore the contents must include errors") any more sound.
There are plenty of legitimate issues with the ACG -- literally judging a book by its cover is a distraction.
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My friend is the only one I know who inferred that from viewing the cover. His words were something like
"This is the most viewed and important page in the book and it has a glaring error on it. How can I trust the insides to have more care taken than the front cover?"
That's actually a pretty fair and reasonable statement as a consumer. I would liken it to not dressing for the occasion for a Job interview. From the viewpoint of an employer giving interviews how the applications dress for their interview is an important indicator of how seriously they take the job.
Note that I was dumb enough to purchase the ACG PDF at 12:03AM its release date. Within 30 minutes I regretted that decision.
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My friend is the only one I know who inferred that from viewing the cover. His words were something like
"This is the most viewed and important page in the book and it has a glaring error on it. How can I trust the insides to have more care taken than the front cover?"
That's actually a pretty fair and reasonable statement as a consumer. I would liken it to not dressing for the occasion for a Job interview. From the viewpoint of an employer giving interviews how the applications dress for their interview is an important indicator of how seriously they take the job.
Note that I was dumb enough to purchase the ACG PDF at 12:03AM its release date. Within 30 minutes I regretted that decision.
Fair enough. I'll have to agree to disagree. Had the contents been up to par, I wouldn't have cared about the cover snafu.
And you weren't "dumb." You had every reason to expect the book would be up to the standard set by previous books.
Paizo has said they're unhappy about the errors in ACG and will strive to do better next time. Personally, they've got more than enough goodwill with me to take them at their word (and I say that as someone who doesn't like splatbooks).
10-4.
The Monk already has full BAB with his (or her) Flurry of Blows class feature.
With the Step Up line of feats, giving the monk fighter progression BAB, really is a non event.
If the monk has it or not it makes little difference.
What is more interesting (in the Gencon panel) is the Monk class will be getting alternative class features. And those class features will be re-assessed becoming more level appropriate.
RAW, the Monk class, is underwhelming and boring. The Archetypes and Style feats were a good start in making the Monk more appealing, more interesting.
I love the Monk class (it is my favourite class), yet if full BAB is the best thing Paizo designers can come up with, I'm afraid all my hopes will be set aflame, the monastery of promised innovative class design finally burnt to the ground. Left with just the ashes of what could of been.
Full BaB comes with bigger hit dice (d10, rarely d12). And I too hope it won't come with a loss of good saves or skill points.
? too many threads on the same subjects...