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Disclaimer: I am a manga/anime fan, currently halfway through Macross Delta and Seven Deadly Sins. So yeah, if you hope for some quality harping on how weaboo wuxia bullcrap killed Gary Gygax, not here.
Anyway. I've noticed a conjecture. Several of the most outspoken "martial-caster disparity/Fighters need to be more awesome/Failzo failed us again by failing" people are big on action anime. Either they profess it openly here, or a cursory glance at the Internet reveals their passionate presence on anime forums or their YouTube channels full of Ninja Scroll clips or their 18+ Sailor Moon tumblrs. Also, Book of Nine Swords was the bestest d20 supplement ever.
This got me thinking. Perhaps, after watching this, this and of course this, their expectations regarding sword-swinging characters are at a level which Pathfinder, a game designed mostly by non-anime-watching folks who apparently envision high level Fighters more something like this, cannot quite satisfy. Which leads to frustrations elaborated in all the locked threads.
Maybe there is a game out there which caters better to running barefoot on clouds, swinging your sword so that mountains are torn assunder, EXCEPT YOUR SWORD DOESN'T EVEN TOUCH THESE MOUNTAINS, IT'S THE SONIC WAVE OF MANA WHICH THE SWING GENERATES THAT TEARS THE WORLD APART?
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I think Path of War does a good job of increasing the cool and powerful options of martials without dipping into "Destroy mountains" territory, so it's not as if it's incompatible with Pathfinder.
The issue isn't that Fighters and so on aren't strong, it's that they can't do anything. A high level Fighter can be very "anime", depending on the anime you're watching. But it'd have to be a very limited, very "grounded" anime. I can't even really make Guts in this system, and he's hardly a wuxia mountain destroyer.
But in a game where casters can do almost literally ANYTHING given enough time, it kind of rankles that you're stuck playing Kenshin in a system where a lot of casters are playing Genie.
I don't think that Path of War style options are too much to ask for...and to be fair, neither does Paizo if the Weapon Master's Handbook and similar new releases are to be believed. It's just too bad it's kinda too late to make those things more core options than Feats.
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
Disclaimer: I am a manga/anime fan, currently halfway through Macross Delta and Seven Deadly Sins. So yeah, if you hope for some quality harping on how weaboo wuxia bullcrap killed Gary Gygax, not here.
Anyway. I've noticed a conjecture. Several of the most outspoken "martial-caster disparity/Fighters need to be more awesome/Failzo failed us again by failing" people are big on action anime. Either they profess it openly here, or a cursory glance at the Internet reveals their passionate presence on anime forums or their YouTube channels full of Ninja Scroll clips or their 18+ Sailor Moon tumblrs. Also, Book of Nine Swords was the bestest d20 supplement ever.
This got me thinking. Perhaps, after watching this, this and of course this, their expectations regarding sword-swinging characters are at a level which Pathfinder, a game designed mostly by non-anime-watching folks who apparently envision high level Fighters more something like this, cannot quite satisfy. Which leads to frustrations elaborated in all the locked threads.
Maybe there is a game out there which caters better to running barefoot on clouds, swinging your sword so that mountains are torn assunder, EXCEPT YOUR SWORD DOESN'T EVEN TOUCH THESE MOUNTAINS, IT'S THE SONIC WAVE OF MANA WHICH THE SWING GENERATES THAT TEARS THE WORLD APART?
Your perception is a bit off. Or at least, incomplete.
You see, Pathfinder is a game where some of the classes already can walk barefoot on clouds and tear mountains (or reality itself) asunder without touching them. But then other classes can't. Yet all of these classes are presented as being equal, both on the player side (same XP to level up, same stat allotments, etc) and on the GM side (same CR to encounter the guy who can walk on the clouds as to encounter the guy who can't).
You seem to think that the Pathfinder game exists in a quasi-realistic space where there's no high-anime craziness going on, and the people who want their fighters to really go nuts should probably be using a different game because that's not the kind of stuff Pathfinder supports.
But you're wrong. Pathfinder does support wacky anime stuff, just not for every class. Half the classes in Pathfinder are already playing super-wowza action-anime, including the very abilities you thought you were being hyperbolic with, while other classes don't get to participate in what the first half is doing. The folks you're (sort of) listening to are only asking that the rest of the classes get to play the same game that some of them already are, not asking for some of the classes to leap into territory that's outside the scope of what Pathfinder already deals with.
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or their 18+ Sailor Moon tumblrs.
I realize you are referring to 'adult' blogs, but for a moment I parsed it as saying someone had more than 18 Sailor Moon blogs.
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Go Exalted. 2nd edition has a charm that allows you to attack every enemy within a mile radius with your sword. Nuff said.
I'm not a fan of anime but I think martials are severely lacking as well. You don't need to be an anime fan to realize that, if you watch any action movie or tv show ever made, you'll realize that martials in PF are just a complete failure of the rule of cool.
Everyone has their own take on this of course, and my opinion doesn't trump anyone else's, but personally I feel like any character in PF that doesn't at least have 4 level casting is garbage.
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It's not about wanting martials to do super anime stuff... It's about:
A- Martials being able to do a greater variety of things. Martials lack options. They are pretty much locked into spamming full attacks. Even the most versatile non-casters are still prisoners to the Stand-Still-or-Suck-Syndrome because the game punishes them for trying to do anything other than full attacking.
Playing a non-caster archer in PF is one of the most boring game experiences I've ever had.
B- Martials being on par with their peers. A 20th level Fighter, even without gear, should be CR 18... And yet, that same Fighter is far behind what most CR 10 creatures can do! Even with the very recent WMH and AMH I have a hard time seeing a 20th level Fighter be worth the same CR of the creatures he fights... Creatures who can fly, teleport, summon demons, turn invisible, etc.
Why do casters get to scale in power and face these supernatural threats as equals while martials are doomed to be "warrior+"?
I don't mean to say I think Fighters should be as powerful as Wizards currently are... Ideally, both ends of the spectrum would meet somewhere in the middle. Somewhere around tier 3.
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Go Exalted. 2nd edition has a charm that allows you to attack every enemy within a mile radius with your sword. Nuff said.
There is third edition available now.
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But that has not yet overwhelmed itself with hugely powerful charms. :-)
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Disclaimer: I am a manga/anime fan, currently halfway through Macross Delta and Seven Deadly Sins. So yeah, if you hope for some quality harping on how weaboo wuxia bullcrap killed Gary Gygax, not here.
Anyway. I've noticed a conjecture. Several of the most outspoken "martial-caster disparity/Fighters need to be more awesome/Failzo failed us again by failing" people are big on action anime. Either they profess it openly here, or a cursory glance at the Internet reveals their passionate presence on anime forums or their YouTube channels full of Ninja Scroll clips or their 18+ Sailor Moon tumblrs. Also, Book of Nine Swords was the bestest d20 supplement ever.
This got me thinking. Perhaps, after watching this, this and of course this, their expectations regarding sword-swinging characters are at a level which Pathfinder, a game designed mostly by non-anime-watching folks who apparently envision high level Fighters more something like this, cannot quite satisfy. Which leads to frustrations elaborated in all the locked threads.
Maybe there is a game out there which caters better to running barefoot on clouds, swinging your sword so that mountains are torn assunder, EXCEPT YOUR SWORD DOESN'T EVEN TOUCH THESE MOUNTAINS, IT'S THE SONIC WAVE OF MANA WHICH THE SWING GENERATES THAT TEARS THE WORLD APART?
The Dragonball Z Roleplaying Forum is that way ------->
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The Dragonball Z Roleplaying Forum is that way ------->The only system with rules for approximating rolling thousands of d6.
No, I'm not joking.
How else are you going to split the Moon as a standard action?
And just for comparison, that's not even Goku.
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Stormbringer did not have rules for approximating them. And yet you would have to roll hundreds of d6es.
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Stormbringer did not have rules for approximating them. And yet you would have to roll hundreds of d6es.
That's because Michael Moorcock created it as a story device, not a wargaming mechanic.
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The magus with the right selection does a pretty good job of being rather anime in nature. Greater Bladed Dash is an excellent example of something that comes off as pure anime.
Of course that's the perfect blend of caster and martial.
Bust consider this. A 15th level fighter having the hp to fall into a vat of acid or a pool of lava, get up, walk out of it and beat a person to death while still smoldering is pretty anime. A barbarian whose rage has her surrounded by howling ghosts as she attacks is pretty damn anime too. A knifemaster rogue who stands in front of you empty handed, yet in the time it takes to to blink has gutted you with a sneak attack that maximizes their damage.....very anime.
You want an anime feel character, there are enough archetypes and feats to pull it off if your character craft is up to the challenge.
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No, Sissyl means the game.
I remember the game. The point of the game was to adventure in Elric's world, not be Elric himself. The game didnt' have rules for Stormbringer because none were needed. It's quite simple. If you as a PC engage Elric, you die. If you're particurlarly unlucky, your soul gets eaten by Stormbringer. His fate as the Eternal Champion is set, and it's not to die by your hands.
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High level mundanes are plenty epic, they just aren't as powerful as some of these shounen stories. You can do FotNS pretty well with PF out of the box, even if the game isn't designed to do DBZ or Bleach. Most importantly, the game is presented as flashily as lots of manga or anime.
Look at something like Beowulf or Gilgamesh: they did some pretty epic s%#* but it isn't presented blow by blow (and no speedlines or shounen screaming) because merely telling you what they did should be enough to point out how frickin' amazing they were, and their exploits are in almost every respect perfectly doable straight out of core.
...No, they're not. At least in respect to Beowulf, I'm not very familiar with the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Let's look at some exploits.
1.) Grappled Grendel and ripped his arm off.
This is an ability unavailable to a Pathfinder martial. In fact, it's only available to f!*+ing Grendel in the rules.
2.) Killed Grendel's Mother.
Granted, though mostly that was because she was stupid. Funnily enough, this one makes your point the best, if not in the way you probably want. Beowulf was basically helpless in an underwater fight against a water dwelling creature.
3.) Blocked dragon fire with a shield. Then died.
Can't happen. Except the dying part.
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Why exactly did we need this thread again? It's not like the original OP is unaware of the billions of martial vs caster disparity threads that exist.
Anyway, I guess the thing I find amusing about these lines of arguments is that Anime is a pretty broad topic covering multiple genres, ranging in tone, target demographic, and subject. It's no more useful than saying they want martials to emulate "TV". Okay, but "TV" covers everything from Gummi Bears to Xena: Warrior Princess to Game of Thrones. Clearly more specific references are needed.
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A great gaming philosophy I heard was that while system loyalty is good, sometimes the campaign you want to run would work better in a different one. Sometimes you need to modify a system (and there's an entire section on here full of people who might want to help). Sometimes you need to write your own (not as hard as it sounds). But if one thing isn't what you want, you shouldn't blame the people who are making it.
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A great gaming philosophy I heard was that while system loyalty is good, sometimes the campaign you want to run would work better in a different one. Sometimes you need to modify a system (and there's an entire section on here full of people who might want to help). Sometimes you need to write your own (not as hard as it sounds). But if one thing isn't what you want, you shouldn't blame the people who are making it.
Herein lies the problem, many folks want PF/D&D to do everything because they are the most popular. Who knows, maybe if Starfinder does well it will inspire more spin offs?
High level mundanes are plenty epic, they just aren't as powerful as some of these shounen stories. You can do FotNS pretty well with PF out of the box, even if the game isn't designed to do DBZ or Bleach. Most importantly, the game is presented as flashily as lots of manga or anime.
Look at something like Beowulf or Gilgamesh: they did some pretty epic s%#* but it isn't presented blow by blow (and no speedlines or shounen screaming) because merely telling you what they did should be enough to point out how frickin' amazing they were, and their exploits are in almost every respect perfectly doable straight out of core.
...No, they're not. At least in respect to Beowulf, I'm not very familiar with the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Let's look at some exploits.
1.) Grappled Grendel and ripped his arm off.
This is an ability unavailable to a Pathfinder martial. In fact, it's only available to f~&+ing Grendel in the rules.
2.) Killed Grendel's Mother.
Granted, though mostly that was because she was stupid. Funnily enough, this one makes your point the best, if not in the way you probably want. Beowulf was basically helpless in an underwater fight against a water dwelling creature.
3.) Blocked dragon fire with a shield. Then died.
Can't happen. Except the dying part.
1. player rolls well, dealing enough damage to put Grendel into negatives
DM: You struggle valiantly, finally ripping the monster's arm off. Injured, it flees into the night where it succumbs to its wounds3.
Successful saving throw, maybe evasion.Seriously, it's not that hard to do.
You're right, how silly of me. Forgot the golden rule that actually doing something and flavoring something completely different as being that thing are exactly the same.
Sure, Beowulf was a Rogue, and Grendel can run away while in the negatives, why the f+%& not.
It's responses like yours that so completely, hilariously miss the point, probably on purpose, that make these discussions go in tedious circles.
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"Playing as intended"... Can I have a citation on that?
The experience and CR systems treat a Fighter 20 the same as a Wizard 20, so it seems they are expected to have similar power levels... That's not what happens.
Why can the Wizard do a million different things while the martial can only swing a pointy stick and be content with giving different descriptions to the same action and pretending that somehow makes the game more varied?
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IT'S TOTALLY UNFAIR THAT I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, CAN'T GET IN TO THE ROYAL GUARD JUST BECAUSE I'M A MARTIAL AND SOME PEOPLE DON'T KNOW WHAT THE WORD ANIME MEANS. IT'S A STYLE OF ANIMATION, AND TALKING ABOUT AN 'ANIME PEN-AND-PAPER GAME' MAKES ABOUT AS MUCH SENSE AS A 'MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE GAME ON PAPER,' I.E., IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE AT ALL. OR THAT TEARING APART MOUNTAINS WITH YOUR BARE HANDS IS SOMETHING HERAKLES DID IN WESTERN LITERATURE THOUSANDS OF YEARS BEFORE ANIME. IF YOU DON'T SEE WHAT'S SILLY ABOUT COMPLAINING ABOUT 'ANIME' IN PATHFINDER, I'LL BE FORCED TO ASK UNDYNE FOR HELP!
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IT'S TOTALLY UNFAIR THAT I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, CAN'T GET IN TO THE ROYAL GUARD JUST BECAUSE I'M A MARTIAL AND SOME PEOPLE DON'T KNOW WHAT THE WORD ANIME MEANS. IT'S A STYLE OF ANIMATION, AND TALKING ABOUT AN 'ANIME PEN-AND-PAPER GAME' MAKES ABOUT AS MUCH SENSE AS A 'MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE GAME ON PAPER,' I.E., IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE AT ALL. OR THAT TEARING APART MOUNTAINS WITH YOUR BARE HANDS IS SOMETHING HERAKLES DID IN WESTERN LITERATURE THOUSANDS OF YEARS BEFORE ANIME. IF YOU DON'T SEE WHAT'S SILLY ABOUT COMPLAINING ABOUT 'ANIME' IN PATHFINDER, I'LL BE FORCED TO ASK UNDYNE FOR HELP!
Wait, what?!? You must be joking! Dr. Alphys was telling me about these cool documentaries called anime. Are you saying those aren't real? I don't know if I want to live in a world where anime isn't real!
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IT'S TOTALLY UNFAIR THAT I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, CAN'T GET IN TO THE ROYAL GUARD JUST BECAUSE I'M A MARTIAL AND SOME PEOPLE DON'T KNOW WHAT THE WORD ANIME MEANS. IT'S A STYLE OF ANIMATION, AND TALKING ABOUT AN 'ANIME PEN-AND-PAPER GAME' MAKES ABOUT AS MUCH SENSE AS A 'MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE GAME ON PAPER,' I.E., IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE AT ALL. OR THAT TEARING APART MOUNTAINS WITH YOUR BARE HANDS IS SOMETHING HERAKLES DID IN WESTERN LITERATURE THOUSANDS OF YEARS BEFORE ANIME. IF YOU DON'T SEE WHAT'S SILLY ABOUT COMPLAINING ABOUT 'ANIME' IN PATHFINDER, I'LL BE FORCED TO ASK UNDYNE FOR HELP!Wait, what?!? You must be joking! Dr. Alphys was telling me about these cool documentaries called anime. Are you saying those aren't real? I don't know if I want to live in a world where anime isn't real!
You don't want to live in this world? Good, then get on board with my plan to destroy the world. There is nothing left for us here.
Unless someone with a Frisk alias comes by and stops us!| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Disclaimer: I am a manga/anime fan, currently halfway through Macross Delta and Seven Deadly Sins. So yeah, if you hope for some quality harping on how weaboo wuxia bullcrap killed Gary Gygax, not here.
Anyway. I've noticed a conjecture. Several of the most outspoken "martial-caster disparity/Fighters need to be more awesome/Failzo failed us again by failing" people are big on action anime. Either they profess it openly here, or a cursory glance at the Internet reveals their passionate presence on anime forums or their YouTube channels full of Ninja Scroll clips or their 18+ Sailor Moon tumblrs. Also, Book of Nine Swords was the bestest d20 supplement ever.
This got me thinking. Perhaps, after watching this, this and of course this, their expectations regarding sword-swinging characters are at a level which Pathfinder, a game designed mostly by non-anime-watching folks who apparently envision high level Fighters more something like this, cannot quite satisfy. Which leads to frustrations elaborated in all the locked threads.
Maybe there is a game out there which caters better to running barefoot on clouds, swinging your sword so that mountains are torn assunder, EXCEPT YOUR SWORD DOESN'T EVEN TOUCH THESE MOUNTAINS, IT'S THE SONIC WAVE OF MANA WHICH THE SWING GENERATES THAT TEARS THE WORLD APART?
None of the Martial/Caster Disparity people are actually asking for anime abilities though. We are asking that a high level martial be equally as capable at posing a threat as a high level caster. The game treats them as equal in terms of how much experience each is worth to defeat, but a high level caster is a quadratic equation more dangerous of a threat than a same or even higher leveled martial. As the game presently treats martials, ie. randomly chaining them to what is "realistic" from the perspective our level 6 at absolute most world, this is not possible. Therefore without the changes we advocate for high level casters will always be superior to high level martials.
Some people apparently hate martial classes and want them to stay chained to reality and be useless at high levels. But a lot of us really like martial classes and want to see them be legitimate threats at high level on par with their caster counterparts. If you find the abilities that are required to make martials have something even vaguely resembling an effort at balancing martials to caster too "anime" (a term as meaningless as too "book"), that's the fault of your perceptions. Besides as anyone well versed in mythology can tell you, splitting mountains in half is a more of a Celtic mythology thing, than an "anime" thing.
So no, we don't need a different game. That won't solve the problem. It's the equivalent of saying "If you have a problem with the balance in Street Fighter V, you should play Street Fighter II." Playing another game will do nothing to fix a problem inherent in the game. A different game will not solve our problem, namely that we want *this* game to live up to it's own position that a high level martial and a level caster are equally threatening. And presently it continues to not live up to that promise.
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Notably absent from the list are any wizards or clerics. Interesting, don't ya think? Going by the source material, magic-users casting Plane Shift has no place in traditional fantasy. I guess that means Plane Shift (the spell) is too anime!
I think a big part of the problem with these kinds of discussions is that people talk about "traditional fantasy" as if it has a clearly understood and agreed definition, but it's really like talking about a "reasonable houserule" or an "acceptable power level".
Everyone has a more-or-less clear idea of what they mean but the people they're talking to don't share the same base assumption so disagreements appear to exist when it's really just an issue of terminology.
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...No, they're not. At least in respect to Beowulf, I'm not very familiar with the Epic of Gilgamesh.
In Greek and Roman myths, four non-deities demonstrate the capability to travel to another plane: Orpheus (a bard? He gets there by singing), Odysseus (a martial), Aeneas (another martial), and Herakles/Hercules, who is also a martial. And, Herakles (in many versions) gets to the underworld by cracking open a mountain with his bare fists. Is Herakles TOO ANIME?!?
Uh..the Greeks, at least the Greeks who first put down the original legends, didn't have any concept like the DnD concept of "Planes". The Underworld was literally just under the surface of the world, and could be reached if one traveled deep enough underground, The same with Olympus...it was located at the top of Mount Olympus, and if you could climb high enough and not get lightning bolted by Zeus, you could reach it. None of those martials needed to cast plane shift...they could just walk there.
Presumably if you were to do a straight up adaptation of Greek myth, Pathfinder martials wouldn't have any problem either reaching the Underworld or Olympus either.
Pathfinder mostly emulates DnD style fantasy, which is actually a pretty narrow category. It poorly fits almost every other type of fantasy or more specific setting in one way or another, so I don't actually think these arguments really go anywhere.
The Dragonball Z Roleplaying Forum is that way ------->Disclaimer: I am a manga/anime fan, currently halfway through Macross Delta and Seven Deadly Sins. So yeah, if you hope for some quality harping on how weaboo wuxia bullcrap killed Gary Gygax, not here.
Anyway. I've noticed a conjecture. Several of the most outspoken "martial-caster disparity/Fighters need to be more awesome/Failzo failed us again by failing" people are big on action anime. Either they profess it openly here, or a cursory glance at the Internet reveals their passionate presence on anime forums or their YouTube channels full of Ninja Scroll clips or their 18+ Sailor Moon tumblrs. Also, Book of Nine Swords was the bestest d20 supplement ever.
This got me thinking. Perhaps, after watching this, this and of course this, their expectations regarding sword-swinging characters are at a level which Pathfinder, a game designed mostly by non-anime-watching folks who apparently envision high level Fighters more something like this, cannot quite satisfy. Which leads to frustrations elaborated in all the locked threads.
Maybe there is a game out there which caters better to running barefoot on clouds, swinging your sword so that mountains are torn assunder, EXCEPT YOUR SWORD DOESN'T EVEN TOUCH THESE MOUNTAINS, IT'S THE SONIC WAVE OF MANA WHICH THE SWING GENERATES THAT TEARS THE WORLD APART?
Actually I would point here if you need something Shonen based.
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Anyway, I guess the thing I find amusing about these lines of arguments is that Anime is a pretty broad topic covering multiple genres, ranging in tone, target demographic, and subject. It's no more useful than saying they want martials to emulate "TV". Okay, but "TV" covers everything from Gummi Bears to Xena: Warrior Princess to Game of Thrones. Clearly more specific references are needed.
Yeah, generally they mean the type of Japanese action-anime that sometimes gets ported over to America, because they don't really have much of a concept of "anime" beyond their tiny perspective of Japan.
This is, of course, deeply racist.* But as long as the US has more extreme forms of racism against which gamers can contrast their own actions, it largely goes unacknowledged.
*Perfect example: when someone expresses a lack of interest in Avatar: the Last Airbender—a 100% American show with an eastern-flavored setting—because they're "not into anime". A cartoon with Asians? Must be that "anime" stuff from Japan, which of course I already fully understand.
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The Dragonball Z Roleplaying Forum is that way ------->
LINK'd that for ya.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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High level mundanes are plenty epic, they just aren't as powerful as some of these shounen stories. You can do FotNS pretty well with PF out of the box, even if the game isn't designed to do DBZ or Bleach. Most importantly, the game is presented as flashily as lots of manga or anime.
Look at something like Beowulf or Gilgamesh: they did some pretty epic s%#* but it isn't presented blow by blow (and no speedlines or shounen screaming) because merely telling you what they did should be enough to point out how frickin' amazing they were, and their exploits are in almost every respect perfectly doable straight out of core.
...No, they're not. At least in respect to Beowulf, I'm not very familiar with the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Let's look at some exploits.
1.) Grappled Grendel and ripped his arm off.
This is an ability unavailable to a Pathfinder martial. In fact, it's only available to f~&+ing Grendel in the rules.
2.) Killed Grendel's Mother.
Granted, though mostly that was because she was stupid. Funnily enough, this one makes your point the best, if not in the way you probably want. Beowulf was basically helpless in an underwater fight against a water dwelling creature.
3.) Blocked dragon fire with a shield. Then died.
Can't happen. Except the dying part.
1. player rolls well, dealing enough damage to put Grendel into negatives
DM: You struggle valiantly, finally ripping the monster's arm off. Injured, it flees into the night where it succumbs to its wounds3.
Successful saving throw, maybe evasion.Seriously, it's not that hard to do.
Out of curiosity, at what level do you picture this happening? You later mentioned ranger levels as a possible source for Evasion, which means at least 9th level, plus whatever other classes he might have. So what total character level do you picture for soloing Grendel and doing the block-fire-with-shield thing?
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Anyway, I guess the thing I find amusing about these lines of arguments is that Anime is a pretty broad topic covering multiple genres, ranging in tone, target demographic, and subject. It's no more useful than saying they want martials to emulate "TV". Okay, but "TV" covers everything from Gummi Bears to Xena: Warrior Princess to Game of Thrones. Clearly more specific references are needed.Yeah, generally they mean the type of Japanese action-anime that sometimes gets ported over to America, because they don't really have much of a concept of "anime" beyond their tiny perspective of Japan.
This is, of course, deeply racist.* But as long as the US has more extreme forms of racism against which gamers can contrast their own actions, it largely goes unacknowledged.
*Perfect example: when someone expresses a lack of interest in Avatar: the Last Airbender—a 100% American show with an eastern-flavored setting—because they're "not into anime". A cartoon with Asians? Must be that "anime" stuff from Japan, which of course I already fully understand.
I'd just like to point out that "Japanese" is not a race. Neither is "anime fan"... And that being uninformed and/or uninterested in one (or all) aspect of a different culture is not the same as racism.
(And to be fair, Avatar has an art style very similar to that commonly used in Japanese animation. I love the show, and I consider it anime... Only it's anime produced in the US.
I see "anime" as an art style, not the nationality of a certain media. If Akira Toryama was named Roberto Silva and was born and raised in Brazil when he created DBZ, would that mean DBZ is not "anime"?)
Other than that, I agree with Jiggy.
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If Akira Toryama was named Roberto Silva and was born and raised in Brazil when he created DBZ, would that mean DBZ is not "anime"?That's actually part of my point.But in which direction?
Since you were bashing people who think of Avatar as anime, I'd guess you'd say it wasn't. Anime being technically Japanese animation, you'd be correct.OTOH, someone who doesn't like anime isn't likely to like a show heavily influenced by the style of anime even if it's made somewhere else and thus not actually anime. So it makes sense to not be interested in Avatar because you're not into anime.
Or on the other side people may hate it so much they will insist a show that has been brought over to the US after being Anime isn't anime. I saw this a lot in college with shows like Transformers or Voltron.