Pathfinder D&D (aka 3.75)

Started by Brandon, June 21, 2008, 01:42:07 AM

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Brandon

For those that dont know what pathfinder is, I suggest going here http://paizo.com/store/games/roleplayingGames/p/pathfinder/pathfinderRPG and checking it out (the alpha download is free btw). Since the discontinuation of Dungeon and Dragon magazine Paizo publishing decided it would continue these great articles under a different name and eventually it turned into an entire new edition. Its still in its Alpha stage of development but Paizo's done an excellent job of listening to their player base and improving things that didnt work great in 3.5

The system has had a lot of tweaks to it, some good, some awesome, some not so good but I have yet to see a tweak that I absolutly dont like. Below is an account of our adventure tonight with some of the cooler things that happened in it.

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Tonight I got to play my first chat game of Pathfinder with several other friends who are spread around the world. Tonight was an exploritory night to check out new class features and try out a few combats to see how the updates of pathfinder compared to 3.5. For the first time in several years I put down my holy symbol (for those that dont know my favorite class is clerics) to try something new and after a quick look around the new Sorcerer really called out to me. The class was still an arcane magic powerhouse, sporting more spells per day then the wizard but less able to be known but the real thing that struck me was the idea of heritages that were built into the core class. Heritiages are nothing new, after 3.0 was released I remember seeing several articles on other magical bloodlines then dragons but even in books like complete arcane/mage, and dragon magazines these were always add ons. In Pathfinder your heritage is part of the core class and really shapes your character and their abilities. When I started reading through them I was like a kid in a candy store but eventually chose celestial, figuring that sometime thousands of years ago an angel bred with one of my characters ancestors to create a champion of good. As I went further into character creation i noticed they consolodated a lot of skills turning things like hide and move silently into stealth, or balance, jump, and tumble into acrobatics and that some race abilities have changed like everyone gets an additional +2 to a stat. Small characters still kind of get screwed when trying to be front line fighters though.

Anyway we started out and were recruited to enter a old crypt and put the undead creatures inside to rest. We had a group of five with a sorcerer (me), cleric, rogue, barbarian, and fighter all at level 3. When we got in we were killing skeletons and zombies when our cleric couldnt turn the entire groups. The first things I starting noticing was how useful it was to have cantrips and orisons as at will powers. Even though these were low powered spells having them usable at will really helped me kill things continuously and save my bigger spells for tougher creatures. One of the cooler aspects of the night was when our barbarian started using rage points to give himself supernatural abilities besides just the normal barbarian rage. There were several times in the night where he set his ax on fire just by spending rage points. Our fighter also had some bonuses to resisting fear and had bonuses because he had class abilities devoted to armor making him harder to hit and able to do certain skills easier (he said he didnt get weapon specialties till later though).

Eventually things got stepped up a notch where we stopped fighting hoards of skeletons and zombies and moved up to vampire spawn. The first time grapples came up I was amazed that they had simplified the system although Im not sure how I feel about them still provoking AoO's. We fought through the vampire's fairly easily and then crossed over into the third and lowest level of the crypt where we found the mastermind vampire/necromancer that had been causing the whole problem. I blew all my heavy hitting spells as quickly as I could and our fighter and barbarian kept the thing off me. However after a massive critical our barbarian fell and that got everyone worried...till I used my heavenly fire bloodline power to get him above 0 hit points and back into the fight. When I ran out of spells I just kept using heavenly fire against the undead (it heals good people and hurts evil ones) and eventually we killed the guy and the session ended.

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If you dont like 4th edition (I personally have played in it yet but Ive read everything and can see a lot of flaws) yet you want to continue playing 3.x with material coming out all the time I would check this out. Pathfinder is definatly an interesting game so far and I liked a lot of the tweaks that paizo has put in so far
Brandon: What makes him tick? - My on's and off's - My open games thread - My Away Thread
Limits: I do not, under any circumstances play out scenes involving M/M, non-con, or toilet play

Xillen

Sounds interesting. My group surely ain't planning on switching to 4.x yet, but there are indeed some things in 3.x that can use tweaks :)

*is downloading to check it out*

kongming

Quote from: Brandon on June 21, 2008, 01:42:07 AM
Paizo's done an excellent job of listening to their player base and improving things that didnt work great in 3.5

*collapses onto the floor in laughter*

I wish we had Spoiler tags so I could throw all of these quotes into one Spoiler box. Anyway, there are many more, but I hope this gets the message across.

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Yeah, seriously. People do a thread about the serious problems the monk has, and he interprets it as 'the only problem is that it costs too much to fake enhancement bonuses'.

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So I was bored, so I added some comments to the thread. I don't hold out much hope that jason will actually heed them, since his initial response to the thread as a whole was 'shut the fuck up'.

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And yet, his response is the same as before. 'Well, you haven't tested it, so you can't possibly know that its bad'. But really, we have, its been done, tested, and it fails.

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No, its true, you don't. But it helps if the designer isn't a blithering moron who can't even read the text he writes and realize its fucked up beyond belief.

Really, the man wrote up the bard ability, put the pdf up, someone immediately pointed out the obvious problems, and his reply?

'Oh, its at the top of my fix list'.

What the hell? The problem didn't even exist until he wrote it- why include it if its that fucked up?

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We aren't valued or wanted there. And while neither one of us is thin skinned enough to go off in a huff just because people hate us, we both have important things to work on and can't be bothered putting genuine effort into a project which won't benefit from that labor.

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I think you've got a perfect storm of three factors coming together in Pathfinder:

1. You've got one guy basically doing all the design work by himself (possibly as his first major game design, as opposed to adventure writing) project.

2. He didn't get the job because of his vast design resume, but rather because he happened to work at Paizo and have some 3.5 revision ideas scrawled down.

3. The lead designer is naive enough to expect to get things mostly right his first time out and is genuinely shocked when people point out major problems with his work.

I think Point 3 is the most interesting one here. Any time you try to do a big job like revising 3.5, you're going to get parts wrong no matter who you are (though I still wonder how he decided ki strike was so awesome its use needed to be limited). That's because you probably haven't had a chance to analyze or observe every element of the system in detail. Therefore, when you post your playtest pdf on the internet, somebody who's obsessed with some part of the system that you only have passing experience with (like the guy who really likes the monk concept and has made a million variants in an attempt to improve them) is going to pick that area apart. You need to expect that, and not accuse people of being antagonistic when somebody's thread title says your fix is like a bandaid on a mortal wound.

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If you present a concept to the internet, you shouldn't be at all surprised when someone stands up in another part of the world and says "We tried exactly that, it didn't work and I wouldn't suggest going that route." And what you really shouldn't be is offended when that happens. I mean sure, you should take what people say on the internet with a grain of salt, but automatically discounting people because they tell you that they have experience working on the problem you are working on and that your proposed angle of attack proved unfruitful is batshit insane.

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this thread is descending into Paizo-like circlejerkdom fast.

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When the Open Playtest was reported, I was very hopeful. It is after all an unprecedented attempt - it's something which could theoretically achieve the kinds of results that the distributed network of D&D fans can already achieve - breaking the system within hours of publication. Regressed repeatedly, that could make a system that was resilient enough to withstand the vast majority of campaigns - maybe even all of them. But it would take dedication to do that, and the Paizo management has refused to put that effort in.

Indeed, they've made it clear that they don't even want other people to put in that kind of effort. Jason Bulmahn straight up said that K and I were "making extra work for him" as if that was a bad thing. I've been on both sides of the development team / playtest group divide, and making more work for the dev team is the playtest group's actual job. Complaining seriously that they are doing that is disingenuous.

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And there's good solid reasons to not want to do things correctly in this case. Imagine for the moment that the success of the playtest is determined based on how many of the voices on the voluntary board are saying positive things. That's pretty easy to imagine actually, as superficially that sounds like a pretty reasonable way to do it. If lots of people are still complaining about stuff, it seems reasonable to conclude that there is more work to be done. If lots of people are saying it's the best thing ever and changing anything now would be a step backwards, then it seems likely that it's ready for publication.

The problem here is that the board is voluntary. People who like the project will post more and people who don't like the project will leave and then not post anything at all. In short, you can get the same effect on the playtest feedback by pissing off people who are critical to the point where they leave as by actually fixing perceived problems. And this is the strategy that the folks at Paizo are employing. Giving feedback about what needs to be fixed isn't helpful. It makes Jason hostile, because discussing flaws creates more work for him. Work that he can skive off of by just banning people who report problems.

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It's just a thread where people come in to felate each other and insult people with actual swearing that is auto-edited by the board software. It can't possibly not be against their code of conduct, but it continues because the thrust of it is pro mutual masturbation and anti science. And that's obviously what Jason wants out of the community. If it wasn't, they would have come down on the other side.

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for them to say, "We're going to carry the 3.X torch, but ignore the smartest people invovled," is just straight-up dumb.

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I'm actually surprised that Paizo is taking a page from WotC's book where they ignore playtest feedback and clear mechanical problems in favor of some sort of divine authority of "we are the publishers, so we know better" and they have forums just to give people something to play with rather than letting it be a incubator for a better game. It's this attitude that is going to make 4e DnD a failure, so Paizo's adherence to this model is disappointing.

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It's like a combination popularity contest and Oberoni Fallacy writ large. Paizo can & is riding on their success from their time as publishers for Dragon & Dungeon magazine so as to not have to try to improve the game at all, making the whole open playtest another form of advertisement.

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The important part is that anyone who isn't a blithering idiot can see through those kinds of charades and the Paizo designers side with him again and again despite his total lack of contribution of in-game insight.

So yeah, those guys are in-house character assassins. And they are set to go after anyone who advances the cause of truth, inquiry, or peer review.

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Honestly, I see no reason to even bother with Paizo. The environment there is identical to the one at WotC, which makes sense as it is in fact the same people, or at least the same sort of people.

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But he's also exactly what Paizo wants. He's going to write a long winded review of Pathfinder RPG that won't really say or analyze anything. And he'll give it 4 stars. If they can get 20 people just like him they can generate some real (if incomprehensible) buzz on Amazon and RPG.net that will sell real products.

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I think I found the funniest thing ever. Some guy tried to do an evaluation of some mechanics, and he immediately was accused of being Frank.

The bar has gotten quite low over there when people trying to address mechanics problems are immediately demonized by being accused of being someone known for being demonized.

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Since the only reason that anyone cares what they have to say about this or any other topic is that they promised to come in and fix problems, isn't this just a reason to walk away in disgust?

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I think this is the major problem they have. Based on his response to the sorcerer thread, Jason clearly wants people to tell him they like his shit. It does matter if a small number of people tell him that, no, 2+2 != 3, as long as other people tell him they like it.
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Xillen

Please select the text between the ( ) signs:

(How does this work for spoilers?)

kongming

That's not the kind I meant. I mean the box with "Click here to expand (may contain spoilers)". Because that was a long list of quotes.

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That being said, Paizo-attitude aside, there are many good things about Pathfinder. They made a start by taking "Save or Die" effects out (then added such effects to some other classes?), but they decided instant-death itself is the only problem. "Save or Lose" is still there (Hold Monster, Dominate Monster, Charm Monster, Sleep, Colour Spray). But it at least was a start.

Last I checked, the Monk was a bit of a mess, but they were moving in the right direction. They've looked at specific spells that cause problems and tackled them to fix them (rather than just one big "Because wizards can Gate/Bind genies for wishes, all casters are broken, MASS NERF!") - last I checked, anyway. The Bard was made more playable AND more interesting, skills were simplified a bit...

And it sounds like the Barbarian is now a lot more fun than before, too.

So although I have many bad things to say about Jason Bullman and Paizo, as well as many of their board members, at least Pathfinder itself looks pretty good.
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Brandon

I cant really speak for Paizo's attitude because frankly, I havnt seen an attitude. What I have seen is designers working hard to add flavor back into the game and I think thats a really good thing. Im sure Paizo's people has some assholes amoung them  but so does Elliquiy. You arent going to find a group of people on the internet where there isnt at least one person that bugs you.

Anyway, I want to get back to whats good about the game and what kind of changes they have made. Last night I just did a brief look over the party when we went on a short dungeon crawl but now Im gonna get more specific.

To start, lets talk about skills. We all know how useless it was to take a cross class skill in 3.5 unless you were staying low level. In Pathfinder skills still have a rank system but the idea of cross class skills was tossed out the window. You still have class skills but now when you put ranks into a class skill you get a +3 bonus to it. You can spend skill points in non-class skills without having to do that crappy 2 points for 1 rank rule that 3.5 had. 1 skill point equals 1 rank in Pathfinder. This IMO helps break the molds of each class and gets away from that pigeon holing crap that Ive hated so much about 3.5. Now I could make that stealthy barbarian who stalks their kill. That diplomatic and silver tongued fighter who solves things through talk first and his blade second. That scholorly sorcerer who's looking for answers in a book and in themselves. I can do all of that, and more, and not be penalized for wanting to be different (yeah thats what I felt 3.5s cross class system did). As I noted last night, another great thing is that they have consolodated a lot of skills. Stealth, linguistics, perception, and acrobatics are 4 of the new skills and they all have 2 or 3 other skills pulled into them giving more options when designing a character and I think more options are always a good thing

Brandon: What makes him tick? - My on's and off's - My open games thread - My Away Thread
Limits: I do not, under any circumstances play out scenes involving M/M, non-con, or toilet play

kongming

Quote from: Brandon on June 21, 2008, 07:55:41 PM
I cant really speak for Paizo's attitude because frankly, I havnt seen an attitude. What I have seen is designers working hard to add flavor back into the game and I think thats a really good thing. Im sure Paizo's people has some assholes amoung them  but so does Elliquiy. You arent going to find a group of people on the internet where there isnt at least one person that bugs you.

That was actually about Paizo themselves - the designers. It's similar to how Privateer Press are misogynistic dickheads who insult fans of "anything else", yet they also happen to produce good games as a completely different thing. So as long as you don't actually offer any criticism to them, you can just focus on Pathfinder itself.

I'm glad to hear about the change to skills. It's something I've always done as a DM - except for the bonus. I always just said "There are no cross-class skills. If something grants you a class skill as an ability, you get a +1 to it instead" But that way of handling it is possibly even better. I approve.

The adding of flavour is very much take-it-or-leave-it, as it's so easy to make new flavour for your own games that every single player could seriously make their own flavour for their own abilities, however, it doesn't hurt the game, and it's good that they did so. It helps provide a game world to play in right from the word go.

I look forward to hearing more good news from you.
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Chris Brady

Having downloaded all the Alpha's today, all I've seen is that it's more of the same.

The Fighter STILL sucks, the Cleric still has the major buffs, the Druid's Wildshape is still busted and Wizards can BE the entire party after level 7-9.

Nope, they ain't changing enough.

About 4e?  To be honest, I'm still on the fence on it.  I had fun on the game day, but...  I'm still not sure it's for me.
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Brandon

Chris keep in mind that it is still Alpha, theres still changes to be made, opinions to be listened to, clarifications to be made, and in no way is any system ever going to be perfect. However this still remains a viable update to the 3.5 rules for those people that do not want to switch to 4th edition

Speaking of, lets talk about fighters now. In 3.5 they got no respect with good reason for being just a feat hoarder. Now they continue to get a lot of bonus feats but also some new abilities. Namely weapon and armor training. Weapon training is an ability where you choose a type of weapon like axes. You then get +1 bonus to hit/damage rolls with all axes. As you get more weapon trainings your previous ones continue to grow. So by the time you get to level 20 your first weapon training group is +5 to hit and damage rolls. Also at 20 you can pick a specific type of weapon like a longsword in which you gain mastery over. Once you've mastered it you automaticly confirm criticals, increase the crit damage rating (from x2 to x3), and you can not be disarmed while holding it.

Armor training is a little different. Armor training applies to all kinds of armors and everytime you get it while you wear any kind of armor you gain a +1 bonus to ac, -1 to armor check penalties, and +1 to dexterity modifier per armor training. At 20 I think its only +4 to each but at level 19 you also get 5/- damage reduction when wearing armor. This combination of abilities gives the fighter the ability to be the best protected member of the party. A paladin or barbarian could still take blows but they just wont do it as well as a fighter.

This does a lot to bring the fighter up in the balance scales but IMO the class is still lagging behind.
Brandon: What makes him tick? - My on's and off's - My open games thread - My Away Thread
Limits: I do not, under any circumstances play out scenes involving M/M, non-con, or toilet play

kongming

Quote from: Brandon on June 21, 2008, 11:54:42 PM
opinions to be ignored

I fixed it for you.

Anyway, I'm not so sure I agree with you on the fighter abilities. Firstly, plain numbers are boring - the fighter isn't gaining actual abilities.

Secondly, +5 to hit and damage sounds an awful lot like "Polymorphing into something with 10 more strength than you" (actually, that works out better), or any number of other buffs. As for armour, I shall direct you to polymorph/shapechange, both of which grant way more than you'll ever get by wearing armour. And DR 5/- at level 20 is... well, a joke, actually. If a CR 20 Balor chooses the weakest option available and makes a full attack, it'll average at over 60 damage still, plus entanglement. If it actually casts a damaging spell, it ignores the DR completely.

I mean, it's nice that they made some kind of effort, but... unfortunately, they seem to almost be taking the approach of the WotC board members who claim there's nothing wrong with the fighter. I still direct people to the Tome "Races of War" to see what a real fighter fix should be.

Incidentally, I am indeed keeping in mind that nothing will ever be perfect. So far (from what I remember and you guys are telling me), it looks like it is at least improving on 3E, and that is something.
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Brandon

Thats another thing, they've cleaned up polymorph making the wording more exact in what you can and cant do with it. Its no longer a "OMG I PWNED THEM!1!1!!1" spell but a bunch of cool spells that can turn the tide of a fight or grant a quick escape if used right. Notice I said bunch here, what they did was turn it into a whole new subschool of magic having different levels granting different amounts of power. It still needs work though

Back to the fighter and armor mastery though. Lets say you are level 20 and you have a paladin and fighter in the group. Lets also assume they have the same gear of +5 full plate armor, a +5 large shield with, +5 amulet of natural armor, +5 ring of protection, and a dexterity of 18. This equals (10 base + 4 Dexterity bonus (reduced to +1 for the paladin because of max dex bonus) +5 natural armor bonus +5 deflection bonus + 13 armor bonus +7 shield bonus) = 48 ac for the fighter and 44 for the paladin. A balor with its main attack bonus at +31 will hit the fighter on a roll of 17 or higher and the paladin will get hit on a 13 or higher. Thats a almost 1/4 of the die which is a big thing in the grand scheme of things and IMO nothing to sneeze at. If the balor strikes with every attack and does 30 damage on each attack (120 damage total) the paladin is nailed with the whole 120 damage while the fighters DR brings it down to 100 total damage (25 damage per hit). Likewise, I dont think thats anything to sneeze at. The paladin is still able to soak up the damage and avoid some of the blows but the fighter does it better

Anyway, I agree that the fighter is still lagging behind but its definatly better off then he was.
Brandon: What makes him tick? - My on's and off's - My open games thread - My Away Thread
Limits: I do not, under any circumstances play out scenes involving M/M, non-con, or toilet play

kongming

True. I will take any improvement offered.

My warning sensors are being triggered by the multiple polymorph spells, though. The [Polymorph] subtype WotC did sucked majorly. It was awful, ensuring that people would never choose them, instead bullying their DM into allowing Polymorph as-is, and merely promising not to abuse it with specific forms.

Also, if they're multiple spells, the Sorcerer gets raped yet again (unless it's one spell that can be cast as a higher level spell slot to gain the greater effects). Now don't get me wrong, the Sorcerer is used to this happening - right from the word go, in 3.0, then in the book "Skip Williams Hates Sorcerers", then in 3.5 and still going, but it's likely just one more slap in the face to them.
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Brandon

#12
The multiple polymorph spells let you take the physical forms of elementals, plants, animals, magical beasts and so but they are made to give straight bonuses and penalties based on your choice. If your using elemental body 3 (a 6th level spell) and want to become an earth elemental for example I think its +6 strength -2 dex +6 natural armor or something like that. Beast shape 3 as a huge magical beast has similar bonuses as well. Even shapechange is limited by these lower level spells because it gives you access to all the lower shapechanging spells at once for a 10 min/level duration and still allows you to change at the beginning or end of the characters round. Even the druids wildshape class feature is limited by these shapechanging spells. What I like best about this system is you can still turn into the a huge magical beast or something just as fearsome looking but the bonuses of doing so are limited and not game breaking

You're right, sorcerers do kind of get screwed with multiple spells that are similar. I think there needs to be some way for them to forget past spells and learn new ones in their place or to simply upgrade. Although with their bloodline powers Sorcerers are pretty sweet now even with that problem

Edit: Edited to clarify look vs bonuses of said spells
Brandon: What makes him tick? - My on's and off's - My open games thread - My Away Thread
Limits: I do not, under any circumstances play out scenes involving M/M, non-con, or toilet play

Xillen

About the skills, does that mean that someone who multiclasses into 2 or 3 classes suddenly has a +3 bonus on a LOT of skills?

So does that make Sorcerors a little more into casters with special abilities instead of full casters (A la the Wilder) or am I seeing that wrong?

Also, Fighter VS Paladin, I always felt the paladin's abilities mostly as fluff, and could consider the fighter feats more interesting. Now if the fighter also receives general bonuses, does the Paladin receive anything to compare? (the 13 to hit as opposed to 17 to hit is a scary example. It means the paladin is receiving twice the hits already.)

shadowheart

*downloaded*

like the 3.5 derivative Basic Fantasy RPG.  Haven't liked 3.5 generally though ... will be interested to see how this compares.

Far eyes

Well I have bin following Paizos development over some time now, was disappointed with the Sorcerer I was expecting something a lot better, and more taught out.

Although they still make some of the more awesome modules
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Brandon

Quote from: Xillen on June 22, 2008, 04:22:27 AM
About the skills, does that mean that someone who multiclasses into 2 or 3 classes suddenly has a +3 bonus on a LOT of skills?

Im not 100% sure on that because they havnt really discussed multiclassing (or at least I havnt seen any changes to it) so the answer might be yes. If so its still the ranks invested +ability modifier +3

Quote from: Xillen on June 22, 2008, 04:22:27 AM
So does that make Sorcerors a little more into casters with special abilities instead of full casters (A la the Wilder) or am I seeing that wrong?

Sorcerers are still full casters the same as they were in 3.5. They still only know a limited number of spells and still have more spells per day then wizards. However the addition of bloodlines has changed their focus a bit and added a lot of flavor. Bloodlines can really turn the tide of certain situations like how I revived our barbarian after he fell in battle. I could only do that with the celestial bloodline's heavenly fire ability. Bloodlines also give you bonus spells known based on which one you choose (I got bless at 3rd level but if I continue playing him Ill get magic circle vs evil, remove curse, greater dispel magic, gate, and more as he progresses in levels). You also get bonus feats, another class skill, and special Extraordinary or supernatural abilities based on your chosen bloodline.

Like fighters I think sorcerers are still lagging behind a bit but they're way better off then they were too

Quote from: Xillen on June 22, 2008, 04:22:27 AM
Also, Fighter VS Paladin, I always felt the paladin's abilities mostly as fluff, and could consider the fighter feats more interesting. Now if the fighter also receives general bonuses, does the Paladin receive anything to compare? (the 13 to hit as opposed to 17 to hit is a scary example. It means the paladin is receiving twice the hits already.)

The short of it is, Paladins are a lot more badass now. Now I acctually miscalculated something about that armor example between the fighter and paladin. The paladin acctually gets hit on a 10 or higher because he's wearing full plate and I accidently added the full +4 dex bonus to his ac rather then the +1 he was supposed to have. Paladins have gotten some changes too though. Now Paladins become immune to a lot more then fear and give the party the same +4 bonuses with different aura's as they level (and to my understanding all these auras can be up simultaneously). Lay hands was changed too and does more then just heal. Its their cure disease, heal, remove curse, and break enchantment ability but requires you to use multiple uses to use those other abilities. They get 7 smites/day by 20th level and turn undead was also changed (its called channel energy now) so that it heals the party at the same time as damaging and frightening undead. Then at 20 they get the ability holy champion which is DR 10/evil, makes the smite evil ability banish evil outsiders, and maximizes the effects of channel energy.
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Chris Brady

The  problem with the Pathfider RPG is how far do they want to change the system?

Because as 3.5 stands right now, there's no point in taking the Fighter Class for more than 2 levels, most of the feats do not scale well if at all, magic is MANDATORY at higher levels, if not overpowering them, and Wildshape is still the nastiest beast of them all.

Also, a sense I'm getting is that a fair bit of the 'Pro-Pathfinder' people are MAJOR wizard fans, which means screw the rest of the classes as long as their babies get to keep their power.

So, are they going to change what?  Are they going to rebalance?  Wouldn't be better to just scrap the 3.5 base and go full OGL?

This is all my opinion, of course.
My O&Os Peruse at your doom.

So I make a A&A thread but do I put it here?  No.  Of course not.

Also, I now come with Kung-Fu Blog action.  Here:  Where I talk about comics and all sorts of gaming

shadowheart

Meh.

I will stick with Basic Fantasy and Mazes and Minotaurs for old school goodness (or 1st ed. AD&D if I can ever find the books again)  and GURPS and HERO for when I want tons of detail.

3.5 and this '3.75' both fail in that regard .. they are too complex in terms of rules, class options, and just plain 'glitz' for what is in essence a hack-and-slash RPG.

Granted, my opinion alone, but there it is. :)

Brandon

Chris did you acctually read what Ive posted? Ive already mentioned that wildshape/polymorph/shapechange has been massivly overhauled to be less game breaking as well as put the fighter and sorcerer up on a pedestal to show that they've gotten an overhaul to make them more powerful and more interesting. The days of a wizard transforming into a monster to out do the melee classes in every way are gone. Save or die spells have likewise been overhauled so its not just a make this save or die situation.

Wizards have pretty much stayed the same except that their school specilization choice now gives them a few supernatural aiblities (most in the form of cast X spell 1/day) and just like the sorcerer they got a hit point boost. Unlike the sorcerer their cantrips per day are limited too.

While we have the wizards up for discussion, how about telling me exactly how they can "be the entire group"? Ive never seen a wizard that can find/disable traps, get in the way of the most powerful opponents, be able to heal and buff the rest of the party, and continue his blasting and problem solving tradition all at the same time. I have seen wizards summon monsters and send them down the hall to trigger traps, or polymorph into a big monster to do/take lots of melee damage (which I already said has changed). Ive yet to see one use powers to heal outside of polymorphing into an angel or similar creature (which I will state agian, shapechanging spells have changed so you cant do that now) or turn undead. Sure they can buff themselves and the party but what magic class cant? Hell paladins and rangers can make decent buffers if they can spare the spell slots. Then theres their own archetype which I think they should keep. A cleverly placed grease spell or cone of cold to the enemys front line are the kinds of things that wizards are expected to do afterall. Help me understand where you're coming from and hopefully I can show you how the problems have gotten fixed
Brandon: What makes him tick? - My on's and off's - My open games thread - My Away Thread
Limits: I do not, under any circumstances play out scenes involving M/M, non-con, or toilet play

Far eyes

How about The Rainbow Servant + War mage a whacky build and you lose a couple of caster lvls but the end result is definitely nice
What a man says: "Through roleplaying, I want to explore the reality of the female experience and gain a better understanding of what it means to be a woman."

What he means: "I like lesbians".
A/A
https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=180557.0

Brandon

Im not sure what the plan is with non-core base classes like the warmage, favored soul, spirit shaman, etc. There may not be one yet for all I know. However prestige classes are still a possiblitiy. There are a few notes about skill requirment changes that mostly go into which skills have been cosolodated and another note on prestige classes that figured for cross class skills needing their required ranks raised. You can still enter prestige classes but now its not a waste if you stay with the same class for 20 levels unlike with 3.5. For example if youre an Elemental bloodline sorcerer you gain feats and bloodline powers as you level. If you class out of sorcerer and go, lets say Elemental savant you're still gaining the savants powers but loosing out on bloodline feats/powers as well as the progression of some powers you might already have
Brandon: What makes him tick? - My on's and off's - My open games thread - My Away Thread
Limits: I do not, under any circumstances play out scenes involving M/M, non-con, or toilet play

Far eyes

End of the line

If I play 3.5 I have enough house rules of my own. I don’t really need thairs, added to that some of their stuff is just plain bad. I say some I like most of it but not all so I read the AP picked my likes and just incorporated them in my 3e game

Now at the moment my group is playing 4e but I am fairly shore we will return to 3e once every so often. And I do mean The groups house ruled SP system, DR for armor class based AC, VP/WP custom version using edited skill system gaining version of it. And not paizos

But their modules are good
What a man says: "Through roleplaying, I want to explore the reality of the female experience and gain a better understanding of what it means to be a woman."

What he means: "I like lesbians".
A/A
https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=180557.0

Brandon

well thats fine, if Pathfinder isnt for you I fully support going to whatever system is. Keep in mind though this is just alpha. You may want to check out the final version when it comes out
Brandon: What makes him tick? - My on's and off's - My open games thread - My Away Thread
Limits: I do not, under any circumstances play out scenes involving M/M, non-con, or toilet play

NightBird

FWIW, I like the minis for Pathfinder, especially that they're not pre-painted plastic crap.

I have some friends that are going to try 4E, but if it turns out to be a bust, Pathfinder is high on my list to try.