http://paizo.com/pathfinderplaytest
Let the beatings begin!
JG
Paizo finally bowed to the inevitable - you can only print splatbooks for so long.
Doesn't sound too compelling. Alchemist in core I don't need. More Wayne Reynolds art I don't need.
What I wish is that Paizo duel stat their Adventure Paths for Pathfinder and 5e. That would be awesome.
http://paizo.com/pathfinderplaytest/faq
Sounds like 3e (D&D) is pretty much dead, 2e Pathfinder will be more like 5e. Maybe even 5e based, not 3e based.
QuoteAll of the varied systems and formulas for determining your character's bonuses and statistics, like saving throws, attack bonuses, and skills, have been unified in a single, easy-to-use proficiency system based on your choices and your character's level. You no longer need to collect a specific set of magic items to be a balanced character, relying on specific magical statistic bonuses. Instead, you get all of the bonuses you need from your regular armor and weapons, allowing the rest of your items to be truly wondrous.
Wait, the playtest rulebook comes in a deluxe foil-embossed collector's version? What the hell?
Quote from: JeremyR;1028228http://paizo.com/pathfinderplaytest/faq
Sounds like 3e (D&D) is pretty much dead, 2e Pathfinder will be more like 5e. Maybe even 5e based, not 3e based.
The impression I got (in reference to the FAQ regarding Starfinder) is that Starfinder's rules differences were part of what they were using for their 2nd Ed prototype, so in regard to whether SF is to be converted to the new edition, the new edition is already "baked in" to first edition Starfinder.
Not sure how I feel about that.
jg
Quote from: HappyDaze;1028232Wait, the playtest rulebook comes in a deluxe foil-embossed collector's version? What the hell?
Sad part is that people will buy it.
Quote from: James Gillen;1028233The impression I got (in reference to the FAQ regarding Starfinder) is that Starfinder's rules differences were part of what they were using for their 2nd Ed prototype, so in regard to whether SF is to be converted to the new edition, the new edition is already "baked in" to first edition Starfinder.
Not sure how I feel about that.
jg
Also known as "pulling a Star Wars Saga."
Quote from: Celestial;1028234Also known as "pulling a Star Wars Saga."
See - while I think 4e did pull from bits of Saga edition (which I like - when I dislike 4e) - I read from one of the Saga Edition designers that that wasn't the intention of Saga at all.
The only thing that bothers me about this playtest is "Goblin Player Characters" when one thing I liked about how Pathfinder changed the fluff from 3.5 was making goblins into crazy little mofos - where Eberron had made them evil leaning halflings. (though I enjoyed both in their own ways)
I just don't see how a Pathfinder goblin can be a decent PC out of silly modules like We Be Goblins without totally revising how they fit. Heck - in Paizo's fluff goblins think that writing is evil juju trying to get into their heads or something wacky - which makes them be fun enemies - but poor PCs.
Everyone is saying they're making 5e-finder now. I wonder if they'll be able to do to 5e what they did to 4e?
So far the amount of salt is outstanding.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1028255Everyone is saying they're making 5e-finder now. I wonder if they'll be able to do to 5e what they did to 4e?
So far the amount of salt is outstanding.
To be a similar situation, they'd have to make 2nd Edition Pathfinder like 4th Edition D&D. I don't see that happening.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1028255So far the amount of salt is outstanding.
What!? People on the internet hear about something and are instantly angry? Shocker!
Quote from: Ratman_tf;1028256To be a similar situation, they'd have to make 2nd Edition Pathfinder like 4th Edition D&D. I don't see that happening.
I see it more as, "A 5e for people who want more options." Since there are a lot of those probably.
I am not a Paizo fan, but if the playtest version is free, I'd check it out.
But...the announcement sounds more like 5.5e instead of 3.75e.
From what I read from the FAQ the are trying to implement some 5E style changes without saying they are. I did not realize that 5E had hurt their profits that much.
They are adding Backgrounds and the simplified proficiency bonus system and emphasizing streamlining and getting rid of magic item necessity. That's all like 5e.
But there's some other stuff that's new, like using skills for initiative and 3 actions per turn, with things taking different amounts of actions... spellcasting taking an action for each component required (verbal, somatic, material), only Fighters being able to do AOOs, etc.
Still, I wonder how it'll shake out with 5e.
3e delenda est
So it goes.
Quote from: Ratman_tf;1028256To be a similar situation, they'd have to make 2nd Edition Pathfinder like 4th Edition D&D. I don't see that happening.
Nah, I think what he means is that if Pazio embraces 5e then when WOTC inevitibly jumps back on the damn five year plan and screws 5e then Pazio will be there to kick WOTCs asses, AGAIN because WOTC hates winning with a passion and is compelled to steal defeat from the jaws of victory.
Pathfinder clearly met a large market demand for not-4e. There is not a demand for not-5e, so I think this will mostly sell to their legacy fan base from the 2000-2008 3e era. That is still a substantial market, of course. But I don't see it disrupting the primary, 5e-centric RPG market.
Quote from: RandyB;1028223Paizo finally bowed to the inevitable - you can only print splatbooks for so long.
In other news, water is still wet.
I think you could satisfy the points pickers and the just want to get going people at the same time with standardized allocation and an equal number of points as an option. Hand out maximum bonus in one skill and a lesser set figure in a fixed number of other skills. You can't go and make the standard allocation suboptimal or people won't use it.
What Paizo needs to do is improve the game without driving away existing fans. Personally my favorite form of new edition is one that fixes the errata and a minimal number of rules issues and moves forward. Like most gamers I love a big fat reference book that integrates the stuff from supplements but Path Finder was already one of those. I suspect the tenth level spells business is Paizo focussing on an aspect of their game that WotC has entirely abdicated: epic level play.
Oh well, not a fan, but I'm breaking out the popcorn and looking forward to the ridiculously recursive edition wars.
Quote from: David Johansen;1028290Oh well, not a fan, but I'm breaking out the popcorn and looking forward to the ridiculously recursive edition wars.
Sounds like the best plan to me. I plan to replace the popcorn with pizza, though;).
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1028281In other news, water is still wet.
And useful for cooking, drinking, cleaning, bathing, and as the medium for a number of healthy recreational activities.
3e has tons of issues that were only fixed in 4e and 5e (and sometimes not). Beyond the big ones like the martial/caster disparity, ability scores vs bonuses, saving throws, alignment, the christmas tree effect, etc (https://www.livingdice.com/7729/ten-dumb-things-dd-wont-change/) there are also minor issues like positive/negative energy and monster types which impede world building.
I am actually really, really glad that PF is making itself more like 5e. Mostly because it means that a lot of the cool stuff published for PF absent from 5e, like the awesome alternate magic systems by Dreamscarred Press and Drop Dead Studios, will likely be converted to it. The only reason I switched to 5e was because it fixed a lot of the stupid complicated rules issues that afflicted 3e.
Quote from: Omega;1028279Nah, I think what he means is that if Pazio embraces 5e then when WOTC inevitibly junps back on the damn five year plan and screws 5e then Pazio will be there to kick WOTCs asses, AGAIN because WOTC hates winning with a passion and is compelled to steal defeat from the jaws of victory.
And yet, all Paizo can seem to do is copy, not innovate. Note, I'm not even disagreeing about WotC's constant blundering, but it's not like Paizo came roaring out of the gate with a totally unique RPG that was a refutation of everything WotC was doing with D&D and totally rocked the gaming world (that crown goes to 1990s White Wolf). They took 3rd edition D&D, bolted on ridiculous, I mean approaching Role-Master levels of complexity, and called it a day while they ground out a decade's worth of splat-books. Now, they're scrambling to go 5e.
Translation: their last couple splats didn't even crack the top 10 on the Amazon Fantasy Gaming list (https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Books-Fantasy-Gaming/zgbs/books/16211#1) and fell out of the top 20 faster than they could print new ones, they're not attracting new customers to their shambling mess of a rules set, and Starfinder didn't make nearly as big a splash as they hoped, and 5e's breakout success has made it pretty obvious that spending 3 hours choosing feats isn't the main draw to a game.
I think this is where Paizo begins to fade. The next evolution of d20 is already here, and it's 5e. 5e's not a polarizing edition the way 4e was, so there's no big mass of dissatisfied gamers for Paizo to keep building on. They've got more marketing power than companies like Pelgrane Press do, but when a market-defining brand is doing well, it doesn't leave a lot of space for serious competitors.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;10283083e has tons of issues that were only fixed in 4e and 5e (and sometimes not). Beyond the big ones like the martial/caster disparity, ability scores vs bonuses, saving throws, alignment, the christmas tree effect, etc (https://www.livingdice.com/7729/ten-dumb-things-dd-wont-change/) there are also minor issues like positive/negative energy and monster types which impede world building.
I am actually really, really glad that PF is making itself more like 5e. Mostly because it means that a lot of the cool stuff published for PF absent from 5e, like the awesome alternate magic systems by Dreamscarred Press and Drop Dead Studios, will likely be converted to it. The only reason I switched to 5e was because it fixed a lot of the stupid complicated rules issues that afflicted 3e.
What's wrong with negative or positive energy? Also it actually is in 5e still in tiny amounts.
Quote from: HappyDaze;1028232Wait, the playtest rulebook comes in a deluxe foil-embossed collector's version? What the hell?
Quote from: Celestial;1028234Sad part is that people will buy it.
FFG Star Wars managed to get people to actually
pay for demo versions. Seems like Paizo is going to try how far you can stretch this business model...
Quote from: RandyB;1028305And useful for cooking, drinking, cleaning, bathing, and as the medium for a number of healthy recreational activities.
You forgot to specifically mention useful for brewing beer. This should have been mentioned first. :D
Does anyone find it unusual to have the playtest announced 5 months before it actually begins? That seems a rather lengthy period of time. I hear that 60 days, more or less, is about right for this sort of thing. People lose interest and wander off after that. Come August, if I remember, I'll download the PDF ruleset. There may something interesting to it.
There are to be demo games at GaryCon, according to the Paizo.
Quote from: 3rik;1028331FFG Star Wars managed to get people to actually pay for demo versions. Seems like Paizo is going to try how far you can stretch this business model...
Paizo sold hard copies of their 1st edition play test too. Some people really REALLY don't like PDFS.
Quote from: Franky;1028332You forgot to specifically mention useful for brewing beer. This should have been mentioned first. :D
I
did say "drinking". :D
Quote from: thedungeondelver;1028312And yet, all Paizo can seem to do is copy, not innovate. Note, I'm not even disagreeing about WotC's constant blundering, but it's not like Paizo came roaring out of the gate with a totally unique RPG that was a refutation of everything WotC was doing with D&D and totally rocked the gaming world (that crown goes to 1990s White Wolf). They took 3rd edition D&D, bolted on ridiculous, I mean approaching Role-Master levels of complexity, and called it a day while they ground out a decade's worth of splat-books. Now, they're scrambling to go 5e.
Right. Pazio is good at picking up the collateral damage in WOTCs wake. By chance or design they were perfectly in place to collect the huge loss in the fanbase WOTC effectively deliberately lost with 4e. And if they adopt 5e then they may well be in place to absorb the massive loss WOTC will take if they do return to the "5 year plan" blunder once again and 6e is some abysmal failure. Its WOTC so odds are it would be.
But. So far WOTC has not screwed up 5e. They are digging their holes elsewhere though. Who knows if the stupid will hit 5e hard later. WOTC is unpredictable and so hellbent on failure sometimes it is a wonder they have made it this far.
Quote from: Omega;1028343Right. Pazio is good at picking up the collateral damage in WOTCs wake. By chance or design they were perfectly in place to collect the huge loss in the fanbase WOTC effectively deliberately lost with 4e. And if they adopt 5e then they may well be in place to absorb the massive loss WOTC will take if they do return to the "5 year plan" blunder once again and 6e is some abysmal failure. Its WOTC so odds are it would be.
But. So far WOTC has not screwed up 5e. They are digging their holes elsewhere though. Who knows if the stupid will hit 5e hard later. WOTC is unpredictable and so hellbent on failure sometimes it is a wonder they have made it this far.
I think, though, that based on what I've heard despite the praise 5e has gotten and the good social cachet D&D has these days in the media with Stranger Things and so on that they're really down to their last defensive ring; if WotC blows a "6e" on the scale of 4e as far as optics...I could see Hasbro simply shuttering them.
of course I've also heard faint rumors that Hasbro is looking to sell WotC but I honestly can't back that up.
What do you mean "they are digging their holes elsewhere"? What have you heard or seen?
If WotC
do drop the ball with a 6e, a 5e based Pathfinder may be the best thing since sliced bread...although if they keep it as Math Finder, I doubt I'd bother with it.
If Paizo doesn't get on the 5e train, then they won't be the ones to keep 5e alive should WotC screw up again. Kobold press has made probably the biggest splash so far with the Tome of Beasts, but there really isn't an heir apparent yet as far as 3rd-party adventures go.
As someone who started with D&D 3.5 and actually enjoys Pathfinder as well, I am cautiously optimistic about this new edition of Pathfinder.
Hopefully they can lighten up the math and be more like 5E without having to be a total clone.
Starting out as a total clone of 3.5 actually worked for Pathfinder back in 2009 because of how badly 4E did, which allowed Paizo to gain a lot of the fans who felt alienated by WOTC's decisions back then. But now 5E is a very successful game and people love it, so it may be hard for Paizo to keep their mojo going.
After all, the original Pathfinder's success was like lightning in a bottle.
"Instead, most things, like moving, attacking, or drawing a weapon, take just one action, meaning that you can attack more than once in a single turn! Each attack after the first takes a penalty, but you still have a chance to score a hit."
nothing has changed, still shitting on the Martial characters by the looks of it.
Quote from: Omega;1028343Right. Pazio is good at picking up the collateral damage in WOTCs wake. By chance or design they were perfectly in place to collect the huge loss in the fanbase WOTC effectively deliberately lost with 4e.
There was no chance involved. The OGL let them know in advance that all they had to do was copy WoTC's previous work, and they had a built in audience to effectively steal. And because of the OGL, 4e was dead before it was even born.
Quote from: Batman;1028356"Instead, most things, like moving, attacking, or drawing a weapon, take just one action, meaning that you can attack more than once in a single turn! Each attack after the first takes a penalty, but you still have a chance to score a hit."
nothing has changed, still shitting on the Martial characters by the looks of it.
Ever since 3e, D&D is the only form of fantasy entertainment that actively tries to neuter the most common archetype of hero in it.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1028358Ever since 3e, D&D is the only form of fantasy entertainment that actively tries to neuter the most common archetype of hero in it.
This is sad, but true.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1028330What's wrong with negative or positive energy? Also it actually is in 5e still in tiny amounts.
The problem with positive/negative energy, prior to 4e/5e, was that they bundled healing and damage into a single package while justifying it with poor logic. This was only exacerbated in Pathfinder when they tried to stretch it beyond what WotC intended it for. 3e positive/negative energy is pointlessly and stupidly complicated compared to necrotic and radiant damage in 4e/5e. I grew to dislike the fluff's lack of logic so much that I am writing a blog post about how to depict positive and negative energy in a rational world building exercise.
In 3e (and earlier editions too), positive energy healed the living and harmed the undead while negative energy did the opposite. Where the logic breaks down (//www.campaignmastery.com/blog/something-about-undead/) is when undead creatures drain the level/hit points/ability scores/etc from the living ostensibly to sustain themselves. Trying to explain the metaphysics in a logical manner (http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2jwma&page=2?Why-do-evil-Gods-use-negative-energy#53) would require breaking the link between damage and healing.
4e/5e did not have positive and negative energy as such. 4e/5e separated the effects into healing magic, necrotic damage and radiant damage, which are all completely different things. This was easy to explain from a fluff perspective without requiring backwards world building (i.e. forcing the world building to conform to idiosyncratic rules rather than the other way around). Unsurprisingly, this made them so much easier to adjudicate than what Paizo did.
Paizo... oh god, they turned positive and negative energy into damage types and had to devise all sorts of weird rules and rules exceptions. Positive energy damage only affected the undead, negative energy damage only affected the living. Sometimes they healed too, sometimes not. They did not count as energy types, despite having "energy" in their names. Negative energy affinity made certain living creatures healed/harmed as undead. Attacks that dealt posi/nega damage did not affect living or undead creatures.
So I really hope Paizo learns something and adopts 5e's elegant damage mechanics instead.
What? There's no consistent metaphysical explanation for level drain? I'M QUITTING D&D FOREVER.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1028358Ever since 3e, D&D is the only form of fantasy entertainment that actively tries to neuter the most common archetype of hero in it.
I feel it's a problem specific to 3E and the OGL/SRD that Pathfinder is based off of. I felt pretty damn heroic in 4th Edition and in the one 5th Edition campaign I played a Fighter in (and Martials in general). I don't get what the penalty is supposed to represent? Or why they penalize moving more than 5 feet? OR why you need 3 different feats and 4th+ level just to move forward, make an attack, then step away while the robed guy behind you ports in a flaming elemental with the same amount of effort?
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1028357There was no chance involved. The OGL let them know in advance that all they had to do was copy WoTC's previous work, and they had a built in audience to effectively steal. And because of the OGL, 4e was dead before it was even born.
Have fun with your delusions. The problem was D&D 4th edition was its own RPG and shared little with its predecessors other than the same. In contrast Paizo embraced 3.X fully and dominated the market. The proper fix was to address the shortcoming of 3.X by using the mechanics that most consider to be part of D&D. Something D&D 5e was able to do quite well. And as it turns out the market was in the mood for the type of fix 5e represented.
Quote from: estar;1028367Have fun with your delusions. The problem was D&D 4th edition was its own RPG and shared little with its predecessors other than the same. In contrast Paizo embraced 3.X fully and dominated the market. The proper fix was to address the shortcoming of 3.X by using the mechanics that most consider to be part of D&D. Something D&D 5e was able to do quite well. And as it turns out the market was in the mood for the type of fix 5e represented.
The simple fact is, you're BOTH right. Before 4E's launch, before anyone but playtesters saw the mechanics the forums on both WotC and Paizo were rife with Edition Wars. WotC's treatment to older players (via a promotional video for 4e that bashed previous editions), the effective kill of the OGL/SRD, the pulling of ALL digital stuff from the stores, and cutting ties to Paizo with Dragon/Dungeon magazine was enough to make people exceptionally angry at WotC's decisions. Tack on their decisions and direction of the Forgotten Realms (something a LOT of people hated, system aside) and it would have to be a miracle for 4E to have succeeded as a system.
Then you get into the rapid changes the game made. They DID address a lot of the systemic issues 3.5 had. They did so in ways that were familiar with D&D players (it's called the Tome of Battle, and a smidge of Star Wars: Saga). Unfortunately they didn't listen to their playtesters. They didn't fix the math fast enough. They thought 2 hr long combat sessions were something people liked. They thought the best way to make characters balanced was to make them equal in terms of decisions and options at all levels. On one hand, they're right. An Epic level Fighter in 4E is a bad-ass warrior and is fun as hell to play. He isn't diminished by his magical counterparts and they work in a very awesome and cohesive unit. BUUUT on the other hand, they have the same resource expenditure. They're similar in many ways, too many ways for a lot of people. Not to mention how it
looks in the books. 4E's books are dreadfully boring to read. They're not very thought-image provoking.
4e fixed things by keeping a lot of 3.x innovations and dumping nearly everything it had in common with AD&D. Nearly every "Why the hell did they do that?" thing in 4e was about fixing something 3.5 broke by dumping the AD&D-ism that made the 3.x idea just plain not work. And then, for some reason, people felt it had lost something essential.
Quote from: 3rik;1028331FFG Star Wars managed to get people to actually pay for demo versions.
I actually found those to be a pretty good deal. They came with the specialty dice, maps, and tokens for PCs/NPCs/vehicles.
Quote from: RandyB;1028223Paizo finally bowed to the inevitable - you can only print splatbooks for so long.
Could be worse.
Could be Palladium.
jg
Quote from: KingCheops;1028372I actually found those to be a pretty good deal. They came with the specialty dice, maps, and tokens for PCs/NPCs/vehicles.
I think you're thinking of the Starter Sets; those are distinct from the Beta paperbacks that went on sale about a year or so before each game's 'formal' hardcover release.
Quote from: Batman;1028366I feel it's a problem specific to 3E and the OGL/SRD that Pathfinder is based off of. I felt pretty damn heroic in 4th Edition and in the one 5th Edition campaign I played a Fighter in (and Martials in general). I don't get what the penalty is supposed to represent? Or why they penalize moving more than 5 feet? OR why you need 3 different feats and 4th+ level just to move forward, make an attack, then step away while the robed guy behind you ports in a flaming elemental with the same amount of effort?
The issue I had with the 4e Fighter was that they effectively broke the class in two, one became an ambulatory roadblock (and a damn good one, I admit), and the other was misnamed as a Warlord, which everyone assumed that they were combat god as well as a commander of vast forces from the word go. You know the stuff that the 2e and previous editions gave the Fighter at level 10+. Not that a Warlord was pretty much a Bard/Cheerleader who shouted healing at you,k which is what the class was.
Quote from: estar;1028367Have fun with your delusions. The problem was D&D 4th edition was its own RPG and shared little with its predecessors other than the same. In contrast Paizo embraced 3.X fully and dominated the market. The proper fix was to address the shortcoming of 3.X by using the mechanics that most consider to be part of D&D. Something D&D 5e was able to do quite well. And as it turns out the market was in the mood for the type of fix 5e represented.
Here's the thing, it doesn't matter how good or bad 4e turned out to be. It was dead on arrival because of Pathfinder. The fact that there was an option to stay with the familiar split the fanbase harder than the usual 50% split. If 4e was actually good, or just wanted, it might have pulled back some more than it did. I didn't. But even if it did, it wouldn't have done well enough to save 4e.
Gamers, more than any other humans, in my experience hate change with an unmatched passion. And Pathfinder allowed them to resist with all their might. And so they did. Again, the fact that 4e was a better board game than an RPG doesn't change that fact. 4e was going to fail. Foregone conclusion. End of Line.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1028392Here's the thing, it doesn't matter how good or bad 4e turned out to be. It was dead on arrival because of Pathfinder. The fact that there was an option to stay with the familiar split the fanbase harder than the usual 50% split. If 4e was actually good, or just wanted, it might have pulled back some more than it did. I didn't. But even if it did, it wouldn't have done well enough to save 4e.
That wasn't the timeline. D&D 4th edition was announced in August of 2007 released in July of 2008. Pathfinder was announced in March of 2008 they were developing Pathfinder, and it as released a year later. I was involved in writing Judges Guild material for Necromancer Games and Goodman Games at the time. With the August 2007 announcement every 3.5 project was dead in the water. Everybody was wondering what the 3PP situation was going to be and Wizards wasn't talking. Nobody knew anything throughout the fall and winter which made planning extremely difficult. By the beginning of 2008, many people including Paizo was saying fuck it and started doing other things. Mongoose had Traveler and Runequest to focus on. Green Ronin had Mutants and Masterminds and so on. Paizo started to put together the plan for Pathfinder and announced it in March of 2008.
While publicly playtested it took over a year before the books were released and along the SRD. Even then D&D 4e was #1 with organized play at the stores and conventions humming along. It was not until 2011 that Pathfinder overtook D&D 4th edition.
The problems with D&D 4th edition were well known prior to the release of Pathfinder. Combat took way longer, it didn't share much with past editions so older adventures didn't work well. The GSL was an inferior license and so forth and so on. While Paizo took advantage of the situation, the blame and cause for what happens rests solely at the feet of the Wizards team at the time. Just as 5th edition success is a result of the Wizards team today.
4e was killed by dumbass decisions by Wizards.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1028392And Pathfinder allowed them to resist with all their might. And so they did.
You should be thanking them for that. Because without a competing rival with a D&D game the sales decline of 4e would have shrunk the hobby and industry. And dragged out over a longer period of time. We were lucky in that Paizo had a presence in all the same sales channel as Wizards due to their prior publication of Dragon and other 3.X support material. But with Paizo, Wizards got hit hard and more importantly fast compared to how these things normally go. So the "just try one more thing" syndrome was compressed into one cycle, Essential, and when that didn't work 4e was shot, dumped and the work on 5e began.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1028392...
Gamers, more than any other humans, in my experience hate change with an unmatched passion. ...
I don't know, "gamers" IME are just as often "cult of the new". When it comes to systems that involve a lot of investment (time and money) then yes a lot of people are likely to stick with a "good enough" game that they already know and or own but it is rare for an old edition to continue to thrive while the new one fails, which should be quite common if the base just hates change.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1028357There was no chance involved. The OGL let them know in advance that all they had to do was copy WoTC's previous work, and they had a built in audience to effectively steal. And because of the OGL, 4e was dead before it was even born.
Not really. Fans whould not have jumped ship to Pazio if WOTC hadnt rolled out 4e, or if 4e hadnt been effectively incompatible. Too many potential customers are sick and tired of the edition treadmill. The OGL opened the door though for someone to carry the flag when WOTC inevitably hosed themselves with rocket fuel then lit the match. They went out of their way to ensure 4e failed. Marketing especially.
So 4e wasnt dead before it started unless WOTC screwed up. They did and Hasbro really tightened their leash after that and other screwups around that time.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1028358Ever since 3e, D&D is the only form of fantasy entertainment that actively tries to neuter the most common archetype of hero in it.
Quote from: Doc Sammy;1028359This is sad, but true.
Then 5e fixed that. Fighters can and usually do deal out the most damage of any class. With the rogue coming up second IF they can team up with someone else. The rest fall way back dur to limitations or being situational.
Quote from: Omega;1028397Not really. Fans whould not have jumped ship to Pazio if WOTC hadnt rolled out 4e, or if 4e hadnt been effectively incompatible. Too many potential customers are sick and tired of the edition treadmill. The OGL opened the door though for someone to carry the flag when WOTC inevitably hosed themselves with rocket fuel then lit the match. They went out of their way to ensure 4e failed. Marketing especially.
So 4e wasnt dead before it started unless WOTC screwed up. They did and Hasbro really tightened their leash after that and other screwups around that time.
Also note that according to Ryan Dancey one of the points of putting out the d20 SRD under the Open Game License was
Link to Post (http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?1641-Ryan-Dancey-on-the-Goals-of-the-Open-Gaming-License)
QuoteI also had the goal that the release of the SRD would ensure that D&D in a format that I felt was true to its legacy could never be removed from the market by capricious decisions by its owners. I know just how close that came to happening. In 1997, TSR had pledged most of the copyright interests in D&D as collateral for loans it could not repay, and had Wizards of the Coast not rescued it I'm certain that it would have all gone into a lenghty bankruptcy struggle with a very real chance that D&D couldn't be published until the suits, appeals, countersuits, etc. had all been settled (i.e. maybe never). The OGL enabled that as a positive side effect.
Hobbyists forget how close we came to losing D&D during the collapse of TSR. In regards to Pathfinder versus D&D 4th edition, the OGL operated as intended. Ultimately forced a course correction on Wizards that resulted in 5th edition.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1028392Here's the thing, it doesn't matter how good or bad 4e turned out to be. It was dead on arrival because of Pathfinder. The fact that there was an option to stay with the familiar split the fanbase harder than the usual 50% split. If 4e was actually good, or just wanted, it might have pulled back some more than it did. I didn't. But even if it did, it wouldn't have done well enough to save 4e.
Gamers, more than any other humans, in my experience hate change with an unmatched passion. And Pathfinder allowed them to resist with all their might. And so they did. Again, the fact that 4e was a better board game than an RPG doesn't change that fact. 4e was going to fail. Foregone conclusion. End of Line.
Customers have a lot of options. In entertainment, your #1 competitor isn't somebody else's product. It's disinterest. If there was no Pathfinder, a lot of people probably would have just quit playing D&D, or stuck to their old books.
Because 4th ed was just awful.
What? People are buying Starfinder, that was based on Pathfinder 2.0? Oh, the humanity.
Just by the 2nd ed Stars without Number and use the appendix that details using magic in a Sci-Fi Fantasy campaign. If you need the fluff, just get Strange Stars. It's like ten dollars for the print version and less than half that for the PDF right now.
Makes me wonder if someone is going to clone Pathfinder 1e now.
Quote from: RunningLaser;1028436Makes me wonder if someone is going to clone Pathfinder 1e now.
Why bother? Just re-clone 3.5.
Quote from: RunningLaser;1028436Makes me wonder if someone is going to clone Pathfinder 1e now.
The Magic 8-ball is cloudy, check again when the playtest is released.
If it is a change like the difference between 5e and 3.5e, then I expect there will be some folks that will continue to write support for Pathfinder 1e maybe even a clone.
Part of what made it possible for Paizo to have the impact they did was their corporate setup. For example their experience with full color offset printing, they had an established presence in various distribution channels, etc. Most importantly all of this was up and running with Dragon magazine and Adventure Path before things went down with 4e.
Is there anybody in a equivalent position today?
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1028364What? There's no consistent metaphysical explanation for level drain? I'M QUITTING D&D FOREVER.
That is not remotely what I said. The +/- energy rules try to marry the logic of electrical charge with the mythology of the undead, which simply does not match if you think about it for a few seconds (Nephilim's black magic system is probably the best if not the only logical explanation of this in any RPG). That is just one entry in a long of issues that I gave, and a minor one in comparison to others such as the fact that martials suck.
Conan and Naruto do not belong in the same party. If you read any serious D&D fanfiction, you will notice very quickly that that the authors actually understand the rules. This results in settings with no resemblance to conventional fantasy, because the caster classes are reality warping super beings. Reading that stuff is an exercise in tedium as they spend whole books on clever tactics involving laundry lists of spells and unrelatable inhuman protagonists building their own personal universes. The only entertaining stories are the numerous OotS clones where the characters are vaguely aware they are pieces in a game, or the stories which use a low magic system instead.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1028445That is not remotely what I said. The +/- energy rules try to marry the logic of electrical charge with the mythology of the undead, which simply does not match if you think about it for a few seconds
A complete metaphysical explanation for why getting hit by a wight makes you lose a hit die and go up 1 point in THAC0 is the foundation of a good RPG.
QuoteIf you read any serious D&D fanfiction
:rolleyes:
Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1028375I think you're thinking of the Starter Sets; those are distinct from the Beta paperbacks that went on sale about a year or so before each game's 'formal' hardcover release.
For 30 dollars. Each.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1028445Conan and Naruto do not belong in the same party.
Sez you.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1028446A complete metaphysical explanation for why getting hit by a wight makes you lose a hit die and go up 1 point in THAC0 is the foundation of a good RPG.
Apparently, yes.
JG
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1028437Why bother? Just re-clone 3.5.
Because Paizo probably tripled the number of classes and races available to play in PF vs 3.5. Or at least made those classes and races open content. A big part of this is being able to keep on using your existing rulebooks, as opposed to waiting 4-5 years until Paizo puts out a 2e version of that class/race you liked.
This thread caused me to look through the Roll20 quarterly reports. I dropped the data in a spreadsheet and charted it.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]2284[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH=CONFIG]2285[/ATTACH]
5E overtakes Pathfinder + 3.5 games on Roll 20 in Q4 of 2015.
Some people may like to have this thread on hand. (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?622877-Pathfinder-2nd-Edition-Compiled-Info-Wiki-Thread)
AD&D, holding strong at 1%! :D
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1028446A complete metaphysical explanation for why getting hit by a wight makes you lose a hit die and go up 1 point in THAC0 is the foundation of a good RPG.
:rolleyes:
To be fair I still don't understand why level drain is a thing. Could you please not brush me off, though? I have prepared a few links which explain my POV in a more eloquent manner.
- Mike Bourke's essay on the topic: http://www.campaignmastery.com/blog/something-about-undead/
- Set's discussion on the topic: http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2jwma&page=2?Why-do-evil-Gods-use-negative-energy#53
This sort of problem does not exist in old school rules where you can trivially reverse
cure spells into
inflict spells. It is very easy to remove or redefine the positive/negative energy distinction in old school rules because it is largely a matter of fluff. Really, what is the difference if undead are healed by
cure spells and harmed by
inflict spells? In terms of rules it changes almost nothing, but in terms of fluff it obviates the "mummies are animated by positive energy because mummy rot is a disease" argument that showed up in
Van Richten's Guide to the Ancient Dead.
Not so for 3e.
I noticed that whenever someone brings up the topic of tweaking the PF rules for the better, even minor rules like the monster types or the positive/negative energy, the PF community seems to irrationally hate change of any kind or are fundamentally unable to understand different points of view or different game design philosophies beyond that of 3e.
For example, when someone brought up the topic of adopting a 5e-style monster type system (5e folded slaad into aberrations with aboleths and intellect devourers, and otherwise massively expanded the applicably of the monster types), some people interpreted this to mean that valkyries would become aberrations because in PF they are chaotic neutral. This shows you how most PF players seem to think: they are absurdly literal-minded, have absurdly rigid thought patterns, and completely lack any kind of creativity or critical thought. They're a real-life definition of the "autist" internet slur.
The entire reason I dumped PF, nay, the entire reason I joined the old school movement and developed such a fondness for
Risus, was because the 3e rules (the first I was introduced to) were arbitrary, bizarre, idiosyncratic and forced you to build your world around them rather than helping to support your campaign setting. Numerous assumptions are baked into the rules and it is impossible to house rule them away without rebuilding it from the ground up. It is easier to add rules than to remove them, which why 5e's simplified system is vastly superior to PF's over-complicated drivel even if martials still suck until Dreamscarred or Drop Dead decide to support 5e.
PF
Unchained had some good ideas, or less charitably developed basic common sense, like letting martials advance without relying on the Christmas tree effect or building monsters according to intended CR. Yet Paizo aren't adopting more intelligent changes like SAGA's rolling AC and Dex saves together, True20's dropping ability scores in favor of just ability bonuses, whatever good ideas came out of TrailBlazer, FantasyCraft and other d20 clones, or slaughtering any other dumb sacred cows (https://www.livingdice.com/7729/ten-dumb-things-dd-wont-change/). So I think I will stick with 5e, warts and all, rather than adopt PF 2e, since Paizo and their fans clearly haven't realized why 5e is outselling them. Hint: it is not because the rules are needlessly complicated and flawed on some basic level.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1028527AD&D, holding strong at 1%! :D
I have a feeling that the AD&D numbers are a bit askew due to the fact that I bet old chunks of coal are much more likely to play it live than through Roll20.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1028564To be fair I still don't understand why level drain is a thing.
Because Gary Gygax got a kick out of making players burst into tears.
QuoteI noticed that whenever someone brings up the topic of tweaking the PF rules for the better, even minor rules like the monster types or the positive/negative energy, the PF community seems to irrationally hate change of any kind or are fundamentally unable to understand different points of view or different game design philosophies beyond that of 3e.
Yep. Because the reason for PF's existence is being unwilling to give up on 3.x. There's another d20-based D&D-alike game that did its own thing, rather than just cloning an old version. I've never heard a negative thing about 13th Age, but it's just not the hit Pathfinder is. And if Paizo had gone that way, I doubt PF would be successful.
Quoteeven if martials still suck until Dreamscarred or Drop Dead decide to support 5e.
Really? I love the 5e martials, especially Barbarians.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1028571Yep. Because the reason for PF's existence is being unwilling to give up on 3.x
And what law of the universe says that a bad thing? And to desire further support for a game they like to play as a hobby?
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1028571Really? I love the 5e martials, especially Barbarians.
Me too - and in play they seem a bit ahead of the casters, if anything, especially when Feats are in use.
Quote from: RunningLaser;1028436Makes me wonder if someone is going to clone Pathfinder 1e now.
If Paizo is smart, they'll keep the DNA of Pathfinder 1e, making backwards (or forwards) compatibility as easy as possible.
I can't see them making changes big enough to make PF1e obsolete. (And they say as much in the FAQ)
Quote from: sureshot;1028265From what I read from the FAQ the are trying to implement some 5E style changes without saying they are. I did not realize that 5E had hurt their profits that much.
5E has not only won back most of the lapsed D&D-family players, it's drawing in huge numbers of new players. People who watch Critical Role streams, or see kids playing D&D in Stranger Things, aren't going to rush off to a store and buy Pathfinder.
Quote from: S'mon;1028280Pathfinder clearly met a large market demand for not-4e. There is not a demand for not-5e, so I think this will mostly sell to their legacy fan base from the 2000-2008 3e era. That is still a substantial market, of course. But I don't see it disrupting the primary, 5e-centric RPG market.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1028314I think this is where Paizo begins to fade. The next evolution of d20 is already here, and it's 5e. 5e's not a polarizing edition the way 4e was, so there's no big mass of dissatisfied gamers for Paizo to keep building on. They've got more marketing power than companies like Pelgrane Press do, but when a market-defining brand is doing well, it doesn't leave a lot of space for serious competitors.
Yes, at this point Pathfinder is left trying to hang on to existing players, and maybe drawing in some char op uber alles gamers - not exactly a huge population of tabletop gamers today. All of the fresh blood is going to 5E.
Quote from: Ratman_tf;1028588If Paizo is smart, they'll keep the DNA of Pathfinder 1e, making backwards (or forwards) compatibility as easy as possible.
I can't see them making changes big enough to make PF1e obsolete. (And they say as much in the FAQ)
Paizo's most valuable asset is their back catalogue of highly-regarded adventure paths. So unless they plan on updating and re-publishing their existing APs, they pretty much have to make PF 2E compatible with 1E.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1028571Yep. Because the reason for PF's existence is being unwilling to give up on 3.x. There's another d20-based D&D-alike game that did its own thing, rather than just cloning an old version. I've never heard a negative thing about 13th Age, but it's just not the hit Pathfinder is. And if Paizo had gone that way, I doubt PF would be successful.
I still think it's the unending stream of support and character options that really make the difference here, with gamer conservatism/backwards compatibility a secondary element. Pathfinder 2E may prove an interesting test case for this theory.
Quote from: estar;1028576And what law of the universe says that a bad thing? And to desire further support for a game they like to play as a hobby?
Never said it was. Simply pointing out that given PF was founded on keeping 3.5 alive, it is unsurprising that any nontrivial changes to the 3.5 framework are being met with hostility.
Quote from: S'mon;1028586Me too - and in play they seem a bit ahead of the casters, if anything, especially when Feats are in use.
The only thing martials can ever do is hit stuff with their weapon. They have no utility.
Casters, on the other hand, can terrify, enchant, fly, teleport, scry, and pretty much do whatever they want that isn't just hitting stuff.
That is the only thing that keeps me from really engaging with 5e. After growing up on Hollywood action movies, martials hold absolutely no allure for me.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1028599Never said it was. Simply pointing out that given PF was founded on keeping 3.5 alive, it is unsurprising that any nontrivial changes to the 3.5 framework are being met with hostility.
A number of the changes I suggested were trivial. Rules like monster types and positive/negative energy are only of concern to casters and then highly situational. Removing excessive complexity would only be a good thing. Yet the response I get is irrational dislike of change with no compelling reason behind it.
The only reason I dig old school is because it doesn't have all these stupid puzzle pieces to keep track of. Some of the best combat maneuver systems I've seen originated from old school, and they boiled down to "describe your stunts to the GM, add bonuses to attack."
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1028564This sort of problem does not exist in old school rules where you can trivially reverse cure spells into inflict spells. It is very easy to remove or redefine the positive/negative energy distinction in old school rules because it is largely a matter of fluff. Really, what is the difference if undead are healed by cure spells and harmed by inflict spells? In terms of rules it changes almost nothing, but in terms of fluff it obviates the "mummies are animated by positive energy because mummy rot is a disease" argument that showed up in Van Richten's Guide to the Ancient Dead.
Point of information:
Van Richten's Guide to the Ancient Dead said that mummies are animated by positive energy because that's what the monster books said, going back to the 1E Monster Manual. Gygax clarified in the early 2000s that that was an error, but apparently that information hadn't made it to Skip Williams back in 1994.
Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1028611Point of information: Van Richten's Guide to the Ancient Dead said that mummies are animated by positive energy because that's what the monster books said, going back to the 1E Monster Manual. Gygax clarified in the early 2000s that that was an error, but apparently that information hadn't made it to Skip Williams back in 1994.
Set addressed that in his discussions about negative energy. http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2jwma&page=2?Why-do-evil-Gods-use-negative-energy#53
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1028571...
Yep. Because the reason for PF's existence is being unwilling to give up on 3.x. There's another d20-based D&D-alike game that did its own thing, rather than just cloning an old version. I've never heard a negative thing about 13th Age, but it's just not the hit Pathfinder is. And if Paizo had gone that way, I doubt PF would be successful.
...
Worse, others have tried to either replace the engine in place (Goodman Games did something that rebalanced the math?), or just tried new different approaches - like Fantasy Craft. They didn't experience the same success. Hell, Castles & Crusades is going along well, yet is not as popular. It was doing "simpler" long before 5e... I see this as disappointing because I don't personally like the class/level/d20 platform in general (I have tried to like it! I tried a bunch of different ones!!).
I believe Paizo's success is more than a "core engine" desirability. I also believe the a) pace of releases b) quantity of releases and c) QUALITY of releases played a huge role in what appeals to their current fanbase.
Mimicking Paizo's model with 5e could net yet another company the "Paizo effect" with 5e... (IMHO).
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1028614Set addressed that in his discussions about negative energy. http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2jwma&page=2?Why-do-evil-Gods-use-negative-energy#53
With no supporting evidence, Set asserted that Gary Gygax connected the mummy to the positive material plane because it created life in the form of disease, and then suggested that Gygax's later claim that the connection was the result of a typo was a cover to support the game's "new shiny paradigm." He didn't address the issue so much as come up with a little conspiracy theory to avoid addressing it.
Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1028611Point of information: Van Richten's Guide to the Ancient Dead said that mummies are animated by positive energy because that's what the monster books said, going back to the 1E Monster Manual. Gygax clarified in the early 2000s that that was an error, but apparently that information hadn't made it to Skip Williams back in 1994.
We can't assume that. Skip very well may have decided to make lemons from lemonade regarding a typo which was by then well ingrained in a lot of gamer's minds.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1028608The only thing martials can ever do is hit stuff with their weapon. They have no utility.
Casters, on the other hand, can terrify, enchant, fly, teleport, scry, and pretty much do whatever they want that isn't just hitting stuff.
Sounds like you've only played 3e. There's lots of nice things you can do in 5e with an ability check, especially in combat. Without considering all the class & feat specific martial abilities. Out of combat an (eg) Persuasion or History check can often be more useful than a 5e spell.
Edit: BTW ts there really no way to teleport without error in 5e? I couldn't find any when searching recently.
Quote from: Manic Modron;1028521Some people may like to have this thread on hand. (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?622877-Pathfinder-2nd-Edition-Compiled-Info-Wiki-Thread)
Thanks. This is a useful resource.
RE: Ancestries
QuoteDeeper than just a new word for race. Choice you make at creation, then as you advance a series of decisions you make to make yourself, say, even more Dwarfy.
Pathfinder 2nd Edition: Even More Dwarfy!
JG
Quote from: Willie the Duck;1028620We can't assume that. Skip very well may have decided to make lemons from lemonade regarding a typo which was by then well ingrained in a lot of gamer's minds.
Entirely possible, which is why I said 'apparently'. OTOH, if the knowledge that it
was a mistake was around, why wasn't it corrected in 2E?
Quote from: S'mon;1028621Sounds like you've only played 3e. There's lots of nice things you can do in 5e with an ability check, especially in combat. Without considering all the class & feat specific martial abilities. Out of combat an (eg) Persuasion or History check can often be more useful than a 5e spell.
Edit: BTW ts there really no way to teleport without error in 5e? I couldn't find any when searching recently.
It's just called "Teleport." The way to teleport without error is either have a circle there or carry an object taken from the place you want to go to.
Quote from: 3rik;1028331FFG Star Wars managed to get people to actually pay for demo versions. Seems like Paizo is going to try how far you can stretch this business model...
I wonder if they'll also incorporate the FFG model of not giving a damn what the playtesters actually discover through play and just pushing through with what they already had in mind...
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1028426Customers have a lot of options. In entertainment, your #1 competitor isn't somebody else's product. It's disinterest. If there was no Pathfinder, a lot of people probably would have just quit playing D&D, or stuck to their old books.
Just like they did when Rules Cyclopedia came out? Or when AD&D came out? Or 2e, or 3e? I doubt it, a lot of the time people jumped to the new edition because they believed that to stay relevant was to go to the new version. And once they stopped whining and got into the game, it was just another game. With Pathfinder, they didn't have to.
Quote from: HappyDaze;1028634I wonder if they'll also incorporate the FFG model of not giving a damn what the playtesters actually discover through play and just pushing through with what they already had in mind...
That's what they did with Pathfinder. There was a serious contingent of players who wanted the Fighter class fixed from it's lackluster position as a playable in 3.x. Instead we got the first printing which focused on Sorcerers and their 'bloodlines' because one of the creators has a fetish for that class.
And actually, FFG did listen to its test players. Just not the one's that whined about the dice system. For example, did you know that Droids originally had to 'wear' armour? After some of us suggested changing the wording so that if you do buy armour, it's considered part of the chassis, same thing with weapons, if you wanted it built in. They also 'corrected' the Talents issue where originally, if you switched occupations (Say like a Smuggler going into a Hired Gun) you lost all access to previous talents. Instead now, they cost more in terms of XP.
They did listen. More than Paizo did.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1028654Just like they did when Rules Cyclopedia came out? Or when AD&D came out? Or 2e, or 3e?
Uh...the RPG market shrunk significantly during this period. This is pretty well-known.
Quote from: Omega;1028398Then 5e fixed that. Fighters can and usually do deal out the most damage of any class. With the rogue coming up second IF they can team up with someone else. The rest fall way back dur to limitations or being situational.
Funny thing is Pathfinder almost fixed the Fighter in playtesting...right up to the end when they pussied out and listened to the whiney portion of their fanbase that were simply appalled that the dude with the sword and no magic didn't suck.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1028671That's what they did with Pathfinder. There was a serious contingent of players who wanted the Fighter class fixed from it's lackluster position as a playable in 3.x. Instead we got the first printing which focused on Sorcerers and their 'bloodlines' because one of the creators has a fetish for that class.
And actually, FFG did listen to its test players. Just not the one's that whined about the dice system. For example, did you know that Droids originally had to 'wear' armour? After some of us suggested changing the wording so that if you do buy armour, it's considered part of the chassis, same thing with weapons, if you wanted it built in. They also 'corrected' the Talents issue where originally, if you switched occupations (Say like a Smuggler going into a Hired Gun) you lost all access to previous talents. Instead now, they cost more in terms of XP.
They did listen. More than Paizo did.
Also keep in mind that FFG legally can't put out pdfs of their star wars material, even for free, without a giant dick in the ass from EA.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1028671That's what they did with Pathfinder. There was a serious contingent of players who wanted the Fighter class fixed from it's lackluster position as a playable in 3.x. Instead we got the first printing which focused on Sorcerers and their 'bloodlines' because one of the creators has a fetish for that class.
And actually, FFG did listen to its test players. Just not the one's that whined about the dice system. For example, did you know that Droids originally had to 'wear' armour? After some of us suggested changing the wording so that if you do buy armour, it's considered part of the chassis, same thing with weapons, if you wanted it built in. They also 'corrected' the Talents issue where originally, if you switched occupations (Say like a Smuggler going into a Hired Gun) you lost all access to previous talents. Instead now, they cost more in terms of XP.
They did listen. More than Paizo did.
I Alpha tested F&D. Some of the issues in it were brought up repeatedly but FFG wasn't willing to change much of anything significant by that point as the lines had too much momenturm. I also playtested some of their adventures, and I can tell you that these were only really forums for praising the author's work even when the adventure was 10 kinds of awful (Friends Like These being the biggest offender I worked on).
Quote from: Warboss Squee;1028679Also keep in mind that FFG legally can't put out pdfs of their star wars material, even for free, without a giant dick in the ass from EA.
They can (and do) for their alpha playtesters.
Quote from: James Gillen;1028623Deeper than just a new word for race. Choice you make at creation, then as you advance a series of decisions you make to make yourself, say, even more Dwarfy.
Straight stolen from Shadow of the Demon Lord.
At this point, gamers should just play SOTDL since it's taken the best of 5e and WHFRP and merged them in a most glorious manner! It's obviously been an impactful influence on PF2e.
Quote from: PrometheanVigil;1028714Straight stolen from Shadow of the Demon Lord.
At this point, gamers should just play SOTDL since it's taken the best of 5e and WHFRP and merged them in a most glorious manner! It's obviously been an impactful influence on PF2e.
From everything I hear, it's a good system ... but its tone is far too dark and lurid for my tastes. Call me if they produce a 'genericized' version. :)
Quote from: PrometheanVigil;1028714Straight stolen from Shadow of the Demon Lord.
At this point, gamers should just play SOTDL since it's taken the best of 5e and WHFRP and merged them in a most glorious manner! It's obviously been an impactful influence on PF2e.
And that's taken from Torchbearer and other such games.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1028446A complete metaphysical explanation for why getting hit by a wight makes you lose a hit die and go up 1 point in THAC0 is the foundation of a good RPG.
:
I miss the original level drain; it was a clever way to induce a sense of horror into characters when facing a powerful undead creature. But the cunning mechanic was never going to be easily systematized and trying to do so seems to cause more problems than solutions.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1028728And that's taken from Torchbearer and other such games.
'Dis nigga...How you gonna take a game that took WOD Skill Specialty and mixed it up with 3.5 style skills and confuse that for ANCESTRIES from SOTDL? Seriously, how do you do that? Shit, it's near identical in execution to how they did it in EOTE with Char caps etc...
You don't choose your Ancestry and Path in Torchbearer. You get stuck with one and the other. In SOTDL, they have nothing to do with each other, not even coupled in the slightest. They level individually: I mean you start with just an Ancestry, yo. Come on son...
Leveling up Blog. (http://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo5lklr&page=4?Leveling-Up#172)
I'm not saying that the design team is aware of how Stars Without Number / Lion & Dragon do their advancement, but it is a sign of parallel development that I think is a good thing.
No mention of Pathfinder Online? Selling a big pile of money on fire certainly didn't help Paizo.
As for PF 2ed the one thing that Paizo has now is a big enough name that people will at least look at their playtests or read reviews/discussions about it, which is not a chance that many game companies have. So if the game's good it'll get sold. But it'll have to be good. They can't just take a version of WotC D&D and slap some extra bells and whistles on it. Not sure if they can do that but then I haven't followed Pathfinder since it became clear that it doubled down on all of the things I didn't like about 3.5ed.
Pathfinder Online was when Paizo got high on its own supply and thought the reason it was pulling ahead of D&D was because it was gaining serious brand recognition, not that WotC completely mishandling their IP meant the market was suffering so badly that the dedicated core had moved to an off-brand product.
IMO PF2 needs to be more than good, it needs to great and not be off-brand D&D. If, in your game, your a human paladin throws d20s at a mass of hobgoblins as a gnome wizard summons up a haste spell to turn him into a whirlwind of death, your game is D&D, end of story.
Paizo's bread and butter has always been its adventures paths, and the company bigwigs have come right out and acknowledged that. Their core books are there to support their AP subscriptions, not the other way around. As long as they keep putting out APs that people want to play, that create buzz and foster a sense of shared experience in the hobby, they'll be fine. In that light, it's probably more important that they get some prominent streamers out there playing those APs, than it is that the new edition is technically innovative.
Quote from: Daztur;1029067No mention of Pathfinder Online? Selling a big pile of money on fire certainly didn't help Paizo.
"Don't worry, I'm only burning my half."
Quote from: Manic Modron;1029014Leveling up Blog. (http://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo5lklr&page=4?Leveling-Up#172)
I'm not saying that the design team is aware of how Stars Without Number / Lion & Dragon do their advancement, but it is a sign of parallel development that I think is a good thing.
XP doesn't scale between levels. I'm not sure what I think of that.
JG
Sounds like they've got wild HP inflation in this. In the preview, the L1 paladin started with 17 hp. Clerics get 8+CON hp per level, wizards get 6, and I guess fighters get 10. I wonder how many hit points high-level monsters will have, or how much damage high-level characters will do. This seems like it is careening back toward "padded sumo" land.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1029196Sounds like they've got wild HP inflation in this. In the preview, the L1 paladin started with 17 hp. Clerics get 8+CON hp per level, wizards get 6, and I guess fighters get 10. I wonder how many hit points high-level monsters will have, or how much damage high-level characters will do. This seems like it is careening back toward "padded sumo" land.
Criticals are more consistent in this edition (natural 20s & hits by 10 or more), so a 1st level kicker and effectively max hit points per level might not be as much inflation as before. There are a few extra little bits like that, but HP inflation I think is the least of concerns.
The first iteration of magic item use from the Glass Cannon podcast is much more extreme. People have a resource called "Resonance" that binds and fuels magic items. It isn't a guarantee when you run out (after you spend your pool it is EDIT 50-50 that particular effort doesn't work and a nat 1 could mean the last effort of the day), but it still has people drawing very valid concerns.
So far, with having to track 'resonance' and shield HPs, it looks to me that there's going to be a lot more bookkeeping.
"Fixing" things by adding more resources and numbers to the sheet is a very amateurish design strategy, and very Paizo (PF's CRD, Starfinder's stamina, etc).
If the damage spikes are big enough to negate the inflated hp, why inflate the hp to begin with? Reminds me how by about level 10, you were adding 3 damage dice to a crit in 4e.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1029288"Fixing" things by adding more resources and numbers to the sheet is a very amateurish design strategy, and very Paizo (PF's CRD, Starfinder's stamina, etc).
If the damage spikes are big enough to negate the inflated hp, why inflate the hp to begin with? Reminds me how by about level 10, you were adding 3 damage dice to a crit in 4e.
AFAICT, it also looks like magic weapons do and additional amount of damage dice = to the + rather than an extra point; so a +3 Greataxe (in 3.5 +3 to hit and doing d12+3 damage) would now be +3 to hit and do 4d12 damage base.
Quote from: jadrax;1029290AFAICT, it also looks like magic weapons do and additional amount of damage dice = to the + rather than an extra point; so a +3 Greataxe (in 3.5 +3 to hit and doing d12+3 damage) would now be +3 to hit and do 4d12 damage base.
This game is going to be a dumpster fire.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1029325This game is going to be a dumpster fire.
I had a slow day at work so spent a lot of time browsing various forums, and it looks to me at this point that they have decided that there core audience are people who will not play 5th Ed due to Bounded Accuracy. Ergo, it's going to be a game of very big numbers.
Obviously., there is a group of gamers who really want that - how large a group they are I have no idea.
Quote from: jadrax;1029331I had a slow day at work so spent a lot of time browsing various forums, and it looks to me at this point that they have decided that there core audience are people who will not play 5th Ed due to Bounded Accuracy. Ergo, it's going to be a game of very big numbers.
Obviously., there is a group of gamers who really want that - how large a group they are I have no idea.
There's a market for people that only plant annuals, never do any weeding or pruning, and still manage to harvest something worth eating out of it. I don't know how big that market is, either. :)
Quote from: jadrax;1029290AFAICT, it also looks like magic weapons do and additional amount of damage dice = to the + rather than an extra point; so a +3 Greataxe (in 3.5 +3 to hit and doing d12+3 damage) would now be +3 to hit and do 4d12 damage base.
There's something to it if monster HP increase with CR.
Quote from: jadrax;1029331I had a slow day at work so spent a lot of time browsing various forums, and it looks to me at this point that they have decided that there core audience are people who will not play 5th Ed due to Bounded Accuracy. Ergo, it's going to be a game of very big numbers.
Obviously., there is a group of gamers who really want that - how large a group they are I have no idea.
The only reason I was interested in PF2e was for updated versions of Path of War, Spheres of Power and Spheres of Might. Now my interest has completely evaporated.
I might as well play Risus with various hacks to provide flavor and complexity.
Quote from: Ratman_tf;1029343There's something to it if monster HP increase with CR.
13th Age fixed that by adding dice as combat rounds continued. It's no fun if combat lasts for hours of real time.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1029196Sounds like they've got wild HP inflation in this. In the preview, the L1 paladin started with 17 hp. Clerics get 8+CON hp per level, wizards get 6, and I guess fighters get 10. I wonder how many hit points high-level monsters will have, or how much damage high-level characters will do. This seems like it is careening back toward "padded sumo" land.
Also, this resembles the new Starfinder standard where you have "Stamina" points in addition to hit points and you get a set amount per level based on both race and class. So again, SF is something of a preview for 2E.
jg
Quote from: Ratman_tf;1029343There's something to it if monster HP increase with CR.
My problem is that if the XP required per level remains constant, is there even such a thing as CR anymore?
JG
Quote from: Daztur;1029067No mention of Pathfinder Online? Selling a big pile of money on fire certainly didn't help Paizo.
But it was mostly other people's money, spent via a separate company to distance the shame from those who actually made the decisions. They were able to scapegoat the other company and even get sympathy since the Paizo gang also 'invested' money into it. That was an amazing recovery in itself.
Upon learning about resonance, shield hit points, and damage dice multipliers from +N weapons, I have downgraded my prediction from "doom" to "Jerusalem 70 AD."
Their own statements about Resonance tell me everything I need to know about how off-the-rails this design team is. In order to fix a dumb hack unique to 3.5, spamming wands of Cure Light Wounds, a hack that only existed because of dumb Magic Mart/item creation rules, they added an entire new resource to track rather than...uh...not having Magic Mart or limiting item creation. This is the Paizo-est way to do things, of course, reminiscent of how they added yet another defense to roll against to "fix" grappling rather than just writing a grapple rule that isn't so freaking complicated (5e makes me wonder why people hadn't been doing opposed ability checks the whole time).
There is no understanding whatsoever of improving a design by removing things. Instead they're just piling on new subsystems and adding calculations to try and mitigate the consequences of prior bad decisions. They don't even seem to understand who they want to buy their game. I guess it's "people who want a really complicated fantasy game with d20s," but they really are putting together something that is no more recognizable as D&D than 4e was.
Quote from: James Gillen;1029357Also, this resembles the new Starfinder standard where you have "Stamina" points in addition to hit points
Pretty sure they have confirmed that you do not have Starfinders Stamina/HP divide. The only similarity here is that hit points are essentially at max each level and you have an ancestry based bonus at 1st level.
Quote from: James Gillen;1029358My problem is that if the XP required per level remains constant, is there even such a thing as CR anymore?
CR is a thing so far, yes. Speculation says that XP awards are going to be based off of a APL:CR chart. CR=APL+0 then so many XP, CR=APL+1 then a bit more, CR=APL-1 then a bit less. That sort of thing. Like the old chart from 3.5 days, but with only two columns instead of a full spreadsheet.
I am not surprised that the Pathfinder team can't unfuck themselves. They say they know what their business is, then show by their actions that they lied and actually don't know their ass from a hole in the ground. You do NOT make a business about selling adventure modules and build it around a ruleset so top-heavy with mechanics that--if it were a woman--it'd have 99EEE tits. They need to strip shit out, not pile it on.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1029367Upon learning about resonance, shield hit points, and damage dice multipliers from +N weapons, I have downgraded my prediction from "doom" to "Jerusalem 70 AD.".
Which isn't so bad, as long as Paizo is the Romans, and not the inhabitants
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1029367This is the Paizo-est way to do things
Their Adventure Paths are full of horrible, unworkable mechanical sub-systems - learn a whole new rules system to adjudicate a rooftop chase or pig-catching match - Paizo-est indeed. I eventually learned to ignore these.
Their rules-fu has always been terrible, with the notable exception of the Beginner Box that did actually cut stuff from the core 3e/PF game.
Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;1029381I am not surprised that the Pathfinder team can't unfuck themselves. They say they know what their business is, then show by their actions that they lied and actually don't know their ass from a hole in the ground. You do NOT make a business about selling adventure modules and build it around a ruleset so top-heavy with mechanics that--if it were a woman--it'd have 99EEE tits. They need to strip shit out, not pile it on.
It works just fine as long as no one actually tries to
run those adventures rather than treat them purely as reading matter. It's the "look don't touch" principle. Paizo is running a literary strip club. :D
I think their view of their core demographic is a (SJW-inclined) socially isolated neckbeard who wiles away his lonely life reading their AP issues (to which he has a subsription) and building Pathfinder PCs he's never going to play in them - but he can
dream, dammit, he can
dream! :D
Paizo is in total denial that Pathfinder is just D&D. They constantly talk up "the Pathfinder RPG" as though it's a game system they designed rather than a bit of a numbers tweak to 3.5 with a few house rules splashed in. They're high on their own supply and seem to really believe this, which is why they're trying to make a successor that "keeps what's great about the Pathfinder RPG" instead "what's great about D&D." But there isn't really any defining feature to "the Pathfinder RPG" as such, since there is so little original in the Core Rule Book. So I guess they've picked "lots of feats" as their defining feature, which isn't even something they came up with, and has been discarded by WotC as very much resulting in not the best version of D&D.
The fundamental problem is that D&D is not theirs. The only way you can sell the best version of D&D is if the market has broadly rejected the WotC's version...which it hasn't, so Paizo has nowhere to go. They're gearing up to release a very not-D&D game, which the market doesn't really want.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1029367Upon learning about resonance, shield hit points, and damage dice multipliers from +N weapons, I have downgraded my prediction from "doom" to "Jerusalem 70 AD."
Quote from: Votan;1029392Which isn't so bad, as long as Paizo is the Romans, and not the inhabitants
Paizo is the inhabitants, and Pathfinder is the Temple.
Quote from: S'mon;1029405It works just fine as long as no one actually tries to run those adventures rather than treat them purely as reading matter. It's the "look don't touch" principle. Paizo is running a literary strip club. :D
I think their view of their core demographic is a (SJW-inclined) socially isolated neckbeard who wiles away his lonely life reading their AP issues (to which he has a subsription) and building Pathfinder PCs he's never going to play in them - but he can dream, dammit, he can dream! :D
So, those who don't actually
play, but still insist that they are members of the community nonetheless (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?38668-Are-CriticalRole-Fans-Gamers-Watch-me-Gatekeep!)...
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1029426Paizo is in total denial that Pathfinder is just D&D. They constantly talk up "the Pathfinder RPG" as though it's a game system they designed rather than a bit of a numbers tweak to 3.5 with a few house rules splashed in. They're high on their own supply and seem to really believe this, which is why they're trying to make a successor that "keeps what's great about the Pathfinder RPG" instead "what's great about D&D." But there isn't really any defining feature to "the Pathfinder RPG" as such, since there is so little original in the Core Rule Book. So I guess they've picked "lots of feats" as their defining feature, which isn't even something they came up with, and has been discarded by WotC as very much resulting in not the best version of D&D.
The fundamental problem is that D&D is not theirs. The only way you can sell the best version of D&D is if the market has broadly rejected the WotC's version...which it hasn't, so Paizo has nowhere to go. They're gearing up to release a very not-D&D game, which the market doesn't really want.
I do not understand why they cannot switch to 5e. It may be summed up as WotC trying to apologize for 4e and reverse the fracturing of the community created by the OGL. While far from perfect (https://mythcreants.com/blog/5th-edition-dungeons-and-dragons-hasnt-learned-from-its-mistakes/), it at least tries to solve the more glaring problems (https://www.therobotsvoice.com/2014/08/8_reasons_dungeons_and_dragons_5th_edition_is_better_than_pathfinder.php).
Pretty much the only good thing to come out of Pathfinder are third party products like
Path of War and
Spheres of Power.
There is a ton of stuff in that Mythcreants article that is flat out wrong, starting with how a CL1/W19 prepares spells and going from there. Not going to provide a catalog, since nearly everything was wrong.
The reason Paizo isn't switching to a 5e 3rd party is there's not nearly as much money in it, and they'll have to lay off a lot of people. You can't sustain the Pathfinder Society and the splat treadmill as an OGL 5e product. Has to be your rules, your game.
Quote from: S'mon;1029402Their Adventure Paths are full of horrible, unworkable mechanical sub-systems - learn a whole new rules system to adjudicate a rooftop chase or pig-catching match - Paizo-est indeed. I eventually learned to ignore these.
I played in a game run by one of their editors. In order to get into a key part of an adventure, we had to _fail_ saving throws when bitten by bats. Of course, those of us who didn't fail after the first bite died.
Quote from: S'mon;1029405I think their view of their core demographic is a (SJW-inclined) socially isolated neckbeard who wiles away his lonely life reading their AP issues (to which he has a subsription) and building Pathfinder PCs he's never going to play in them - but he can dream, dammit, he can dream! :D
What a mean thing to say. I suspect it's absolutely true. Jacobs let it slip in a forum post once that Paizo knows half the audience for their AP books don't actively playing, so the adventures have to be written in a way that's enjoyable to read.
Quote from: Lynn;1029464I played in a game run by one of their editors. In order to get into a key part of an adventure, we had to _fail_ saving throws when bitten by bats. Of course, those of us who didn't fail after the first bite died.
I sometimes wonder why debates about "failing forward" erupt on other forums, and then I remember that the #2 publisher in the industry puts out garbage like this.
This product is going to fail so hard. It's going to be great watching it explode.
I don't understand why they don't just publish their AP books for 5E/PF and when the PF slowly dies just become a large 5E OGL publisher.
I'm going to give it a chance. If they remove the LG aligment requirement from Paladins would be a big step towards buying it for me.
Quote from: Haffrung;1029492What a mean thing to say. I suspect it's absolutely true. Jacobs let it slip in a forum post once that Paizo knows half the audience for their AP books don't actively playing, so the adventures have to be written in a way that's enjoyable to read.
Though many of them play - just not at the rate that the APs are released. I have a buddy who used to be a subscriber and he did run them from time to time, but we couldn't get together often enough for how many various APs/modules he had piling up, and he eventually cancelled his membership.
I would subscribe if they offered converted ones. Some of the adventure paths look super cool. I would have run Iron Gods in a heartbeat. I bought the first two, but realized they would be too much work to convert to something playable.
Quote from: estar;1028424Also note that according to Ryan Dancey one of the points of putting out the d20 SRD under the Open Game License was.
Hobbyists forget how close we came to losing D&D during the collapse of TSR. In regards to Pathfinder versus D&D 4th edition, the OGL operated as intended. Ultimately forced a course correction on Wizards that resulted in 5th edition.
1: That is what he has said after the fact. But he has said other reasons as well so it is impossible to say if that was the intent or not.
2: The OGL though opened the door to rampant design and sometimes nigh whole game theft though and engendered a surge in parasite designers and worse. And in the end it was the OGL that prompted 3.5 and 4e to be made. And take note that according to Dancey and others have stated that WOTC was planning to replace 3e even as they released it due to their infatuation with the damn "5 year plan."
Quote from: Omega;10295931: That is what he has said after the fact. But he has said other reasons as well so it is impossible to say if that was the intent or not.
If he had said that at the time, he would and should have been fired immediately. As it is, the damage is done, and a whole lot of original D&D monsters are public domain.
A plus for Paizo with Pathfinder 2E is that they can release edited versions of all their adventures and maps for 2E and sell them again!
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1029456There is a ton of stuff in that Mythcreants article that is flat out wrong, starting with how a CL1/W19 prepares spells and going from there. Not going to provide a catalog, since nearly everything was wrong.
My complaints (//livingdice.com/7729/ten-dumb-things-dd-wont-change/)are generally limited to: There are separate ability scores and modifiers; Known spells vary from a fixed set to unlimited depending on class; The shaolin monk is a class but a brawler is not; Saving throws work completely differently from attack rolls; Armor class is separate from saving throws; Death is an annoyance that brings an adventure to a screeching halt until the dead character is revived; There are numerous casters with unique mechanics, probably more than we really need; Synergy between race and class discourages character concepts like elven barbarians.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1029510I sometimes wonder why debates about "failing forward" erupt on other forums, and then I remember that the #2 publisher in the industry puts out garbage like this.
The concept of pass/fail in task resolution mechanics is flawed. Whenever a task fails, or a PC dies, then the adventure comes to a screeching halt. Introducing a more complicated "yes/no and/but" mechanic does not change that. It makes vastly more sense to use a pass/pass system for task resolution. Whenever you encounter an obstacle it gets resolved either way, but one outcome may be less or more circuitous than the other. Of course, that may have more to do with rail-roading being fundamentally at odds with pass/fail task resolution, which fosters a "choose your own adventure" style of story, than pass/fail task resolution itself.
This works better if PCs are not allowed to die unless the GM wants them to, rather than because the dice rolled a certain way. The GM is god, so the GM can and should alter fate and destiny so that circumstances contrive to keep the PCs alive for as long as necessary to keep the adventure moving. This is, in fact, how all fiction operates: the writer does not let characters die unless the writer wants them to, because the writer is the god of the story. Would all of fiction be just as enjoyable if the cast repeatedly died due to a random die roll and the plot had to constantly take detours in order to revive them, trivializing the concept of death in the process?
Quote from: Omega;10295931: That is what he has said after the fact. But he has said other reasons as well so it is impossible to say if that was the intent or not.
2: The OGL though opened the door to rampant design and sometimes nigh whole game theft though and engendered a surge in parasite designers and worse. And in the end it was the OGL that prompted 3.5 and 4e to be made. And take note that according to Dancey and others have stated that WOTC was planning to replace 3e even as they released it due to their infatuation with the damn "5 year plan."
Without the OGL allowing for Pathfinder and the OSR, I doubt WotC would have gone in the direction that they did. 5e was made specifically to compete with the retroclone movement after the embarrassing failure of 4e. Why else would 5e throw out many of the genuine improvements from 4e, such as unified saving throws and armor class, but introduce bounded accuracy analogous to THAC0?
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1029689This works better if PCs are not allowed to die unless the GM wants them to, rather than because the dice rolled a certain way. The GM is god, so the GM can and should alter fate and destiny so that circumstances contrive to keep the PCs alive for as long as necessary to keep the adventure moving.
I thought it was impossible to be more wrong than Christopher Brady.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1029689Would all of fiction be just as enjoyable if the cast repeatedly died due to a random die roll and the plot had to constantly take detours in order to revive them, trivializing the concept of death in the process?
RPG are not books or movies, as the Game part of Role Playing Game indicates.
RPGs are fiction now? Is it 1999 again?
RPGs aren't fiction and the goal isn't to tell a story.
Quote from: Celestial;1029632A plus for Paizo with Pathfinder 2E is that they can release edited versions of all their adventures and maps for 2E and sell them again!
It works for the college textbook industry.
JG
Quote from: Ulairi;1029711RPGs aren't fiction and the goal isn't to tell a story.
It would make Pathfinder quite different than D&D 5th edition if they adopted this stance, however. Very, very different.
I wonder if this news has already screwed up production for anyone. I am sure there's a few kickstarters that won't happen now.
I backed Kobold's Midgard (I just got the books, so it's on my mind), and I got the 5e versions because Pathfinder isn't really my bag. I think I'd be a little miffed if I spent $200 on Pathfinder books that I know no one will want to play in a year or so.
Quote from: joewolz;1029811I think I'd be a little miffed if I spent $200 on Pathfinder books that I know no one will want to play in a year or so.
TBH, I don't see this as realistically being a killing blow to 3rd Ed D&D: I think there will continue to be a reasonable market for 3rd party products for some time to come. What will be interesting is if a smaller company decides to release there own 3rd edition based core books to cater to that market.
To myself at least rpg are to a certain extent fictional. It's a world of make believe where a bunch of people devote time to play and/or run as a hobby. It's important to separate reality with fiction because I have seen one too many friends forget to keepboth separate. Withdrawing too much into the world of rpgs and mmos because fiction and make believe is easier to handle than reality.
Quote from: jadrax;1029821TBH, I don't see this as realistically being a killing blow to 3rd Ed D&D: I think there will continue to be a reasonable market for 3rd party products for some time to come. What will be interesting is if a smaller company decides to release there own 3rd edition based core books to cater to that market.
I would not be surprised if Dreamscarred Press put out a core book.
Quote from: Manic Modron;1029861I would not be surprised if Dreamscarred Press put out a core book.
I think Mongoose did that before Pathfinder if I remember correctly.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1029702I thought it was impossible to be more wrong than Christopher Brady.
How am I wrong? Because I think death sucks (http://theangrygm.com/death-sucks/)? Because I do not enjoy it when adventures come to a screeching halt because a PC died in the middle of it?
I dislike it whenever I have to reload a complicated video game because the PC died. That is the entire reason I prefer nonstandard death mechanics, or even games where death is necessary to advance, like
Planescape: Torment,
Baroque or
Soul Reaver.
Quote from: Ratman_tf;1029708RPG are not books or movies, as the Game part of Role Playing Game indicates.
Yes; I did not say otherwise. RPGs are a combination of board game and party game.
Unlike many other games, an RPG campaign commonly last for many, many sessions. This can translate to weeks, months, or years of time in reality.
My point is that it is no fun whenever a game comes to a screeching halt because a PC died due to bad luck. The point of the game is to have fun while pretending to rescue princesses from dragons, so death detours suck all the fun out.
Quote from: Nerzenjäger;1029709RPGs are fiction now? Is it 1999 again?
About as fictional as children playing make-believe. I am not one of those crazy people who think it supposed to be a super serious art form.
I am the kind of person who considers the Dangerlands (https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/3lgvjx/map_i_made_a_very_superserious_fantasy_map/) and
Adventure Time the height of fun, and that the
Forgotten Realms and
Golarion are pretentious.
Quote from: Ulairi;1029711RPGs aren't fiction and the goal isn't to tell a story.
You are not the fun police! If I want to role play rescuing a princess from a dragon, only to discover that the princess eloped with the dragon, oh and it all takes place in candy land, then I can and I will have fun doing so.
Lighten up, I am not one of those lunatics in the Camarilla.
Death doesn't suck and the Angry GM is a moron who runs shitty games. He likes to run RPGs as a linear video game. That's shitty. He's shitty. Death is apart of the game. Your character dies? So what? Roll up a new one and get back to it.
Quote from: Ulairi;1030170Death doesn't suck and the Angry GM is a moron who runs shitty games. He likes to run RPGs as a linear video game. That's shitty. He's shitty. Death is apart of the game. Your character dies? So what? Roll up a new one and get back to it.
Are you seriously suggesting
Dorkness Rising-style piles of dead bards? What is even the point of dying in the first place if a character is replaced by another character, probably identical, who literally walks out of the woodwork?
Even
Adventure Time, literally a child's D&D campaign, does not have that level of absurdity.
You literally cannot force me to play games your way. So in my games nobody ever dies. Now go ahead and cry a river about me having bad wrong fun. I could use the canoe ride.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1030162How am I wrong? Because I think death sucks (http://theangrygm.com/death-sucks/)? Because I do not enjoy it when adventures come to a screeching halt because a PC died in the middle of it?
You're wrong because D&D is not a story game where the DM is there to guide the players through a plot he wrote. D&D has always had extensive
rules and
mechanics for death and dying, even the much-reviled 4e, because it is at its core a game about risks and rewards. The dice don't come out to determine which path you take through the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book; they come out because you're a gambler playing a high-stakes game. And you can lay out the table as optimally as possible, but you still gotta roll them bones, and there's always that chance they'll come up snake eyes.
Different editions have fiddled with how hard it is to die, but it's always been there. When you try to buck that fundamental structure and turn it into a story game, you're working against the structure the rules create. Whining that D&D's death rules ruined your railroaded story game is like whining that you ruined your hardwood floor when you tried to clean it with steel wool. The problem is not the tool. The tool does not need to be fixed. If everyone out there making steel wool "fixed" it so that you could clean your hardwood floor with it, what would be accomplished is that steel wool would be ruined.
The problem is that you are using the wrong tool for the job. If what you want to do is play Pretend Pony Time where nobody ever dies and the "randomness" comes down to whether you rescue Sparklehooves or Fluttershy, there are games out there to facilitate that. D&D isn't one of them.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1030173Are you seriously suggesting Dorkness Rising-style piles of dead bards? What is even the point of dying in the first place if a character is replaced by another character, probably identical, who literally walks out of the woodwork?
Even Adventure Time, literally a child's D&D campaign, does not have that level of absurdity.
You literally cannot force me to play games your way. So in my games nobody ever dies. Now go ahead and cry a river about me having bad wrong fun. I could use the canoe ride.
What is Dorkness Rising? The probability of having two identical D&D characters should be pretty low... I mean the chances of rolling 3d6 in order and getting the same stats and running the same character....I mean it's possible but not probable.
Of course I cannot force you to play D&D the way I feel it's better to be played. I'm not interested in playing through some shitty DM's shitty fantasy novel. I think what you don't understand is the story being told happens based on the characters actions and the results of those players decisions. When you remove consequences from the game you remove the player's agency to actually role-play.
Why are you playing a game at all? Why not just sit around and tell a story together where each of you takes a turn spinning what happens next. Or, why not just write the story you want to tell and not pretend to let players have any agency at all?
Your version of D&D is shitty. There is a reason why fewer people want to pretend to play your D&D and there is a reason why the Angry GM lives on hipster welfare.
If I had the sort of players who wouldn't tolerate rounding a corner and finding a fresh-faced level 1 wizard ready to go adventuring with some random folks he just met in LITERAL ACTUAL HELL, I'd find new players.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1030162How am I wrong? Because I think death sucks (http://theangrygm.com/death-sucks/)? Because I do not enjoy it when adventures come to a screeching halt because a PC died in the middle of it?
I think you need to read the whole article. For example-
"In general, the less common death is, the more disruptive it can – and should – be. And the more disruptive death is, the more impactful it is. So, how do you control the disruption and impact of death? Well, it comes down to how you deal with the various issues that come with it."
QuoteMy point is that it is no fun whenever a game comes to a screeching halt because a PC died due to bad luck.
My experience says differently.
QuoteYou are not the fun police!
Right back atcha.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1030162Unlike many other games, an RPG campaign commonly last for many, many sessions. This can translate to weeks, months, or years of time in reality.
An ongoing campaign does not necessarily have to involve the same characters. They can die, new characters join the group, and the campaign continues.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1030162My point is that it is no fun whenever a game comes to a screeching halt because a PC died due to bad luck. The point of the game is to have fun while pretending to rescue princesses from dragons, so death detours suck all the fun out.
Millions of people who have played and enjoyed D&D where death is on the table disagree. For many of us, a D&D session with no possibility of PC death lacks tension and engagement.
Quote from: Ulairi;1030175What is Dorkness Rising? The probability of having two identical D&D characters should be pretty low... I mean the chances of rolling 3d6 in order and getting the same stats and running the same character....I mean it's possible but not probable.
Of course I cannot force you to play D&D the way I feel it's better to be played. I'm not interested in playing through some shitty DM's shitty fantasy novel. I think what you don't understand is the story being told happens based on the characters actions and the results of those players decisions. When you remove consequences from the game you remove the player's agency to actually role-play.
Why are you playing a game at all? Why not just sit around and tell a story together where each of you takes a turn spinning what happens next. Or, why not just write the story you want to tell and not pretend to let players have any agency at all?
Your version of D&D is shitty. There is a reason why fewer people want to pretend to play your D&D and there is a reason why the Angry GM lives on hipster welfare.
What?
I write CYOA stories, or "quests", on the internet. I make the story up as I go along. I let anonymous commentators decide which direction to take the story based on the actions of the protagonist. I use chance to determine the outcome of actions with multiple outcomes.
If the protagonist died because of chance, then the entire adventure comes to a screeching halt. I have to contrive the possible outcomes so that death is not one of them, or show a death scene and then go back to the choices so a new one that does not lead to death may be selected, or have the protagonist come back to life (and write the CYOA about that). I cannot let the protagonist die (permanently) unless the story is resolved first, or I will get a bad reputation and nobody will be interested in my quests.
I take that same attitude into tabletop, because the point is to have fun. Unless the campaign is an afterlife romp or the PCs are spontaneously generated by the dungeon itself, characters are not going to die at random and force detours into the afterlife or replacements to come out of the woodwork. In a more comedic campaign where death really is trivial I'd probably let the PCs challenge each other to see who can die the coolest.
There are orders of magnitude more people playing free-form CYOA quests on the internet than people playing tabletop RPGs. I think that is for the better, really. You would not believe the crazy and creative stuff that goes on in the Anon-kun quests. Tabletop just feels so boring in comparison, which is why I added places like Candyland and Morteville to my campaign.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1030177If I had the sort of players who wouldn't tolerate rounding a corner and finding a fresh-faced level 1 wizard ready to go adventuring with some random folks he just met in LITERAL ACTUAL HELL, I'd find new players.
Maybe some context would help you understand my meaning. I was referring to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ohk5Swy-04
If characters randomly met a level 1 wizard in hell, I would need to contextualize that. Why are they in hell, anyway? Were they born there? Is that a real wizard or a ploy of the dungeon? I
am the sort of person who lets campaigns start in hell from level 1 and let dungeons spontaneously generate NPCs.
Quote from: Ratman_tf;1030185I think you need to read the whole article. For example-
"In general, the less common death is, the more disruptive it can – and should – be. And the more disruptive death is, the more impactful it is. So, how do you control the disruption and impact of death? Well, it comes down to how you deal with the various issues that come with it."
That is totally what I think. If death is common, then it is so trivial you might as well not have it. Going through PCs like tissues is just annoying. If death is rare, then it should be campaign changing when it does happen (even becoming the focus of the campaign).
Quote from: Ratman_tf;1030185My experience says differently.
Which version of death are you using (https://mythcreants.com/blog/six-ways-roleplaying-games-approach-death/)? The "tough luck" option is by far the most annoying. Particularly in my campaign, where I allow creative characters like a faceless dude trying to recover his face, a soul bound into a suit of armor, or an elf barbarian. Unceremoniously killing them off with dice is just mean-spirited.
If I wanted characters to drop like flies I would probably play
Call of Cthulhu.
Quote from: Haffrung;1030188An ongoing campaign does not necessarily have to involve the same characters. They can die, new characters join the group, and the campaign continues.
Millions of people who have played and enjoyed D&D where death is on the table disagree. For many of us, a D&D session with no possibility of PC death lacks tension and engagement.
That only works for me if the PCs are bland lifeless fantasy stereotypes. I cannot randomly kill off characters are actually interesting George Martin-style, like the soul bound armor or the faceless dude or the elf barbarian, without resolving their whatevers.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1030190That is totally what I think. If death is common, then it is so trivial you might as well not have it. Going through PCs like tissues is just annoying. If death is rare, then it should be campaign changing when it does happen (even becoming the focus of the campaign).
That is not what Angry GM is saying. You need to distinguish your conclusion from the text of the article, if you want to make your point clear.
QuoteWhich version of death are you using (https://mythcreants.com/blog/six-ways-roleplaying-games-approach-death/)? The "tough luck" option is by far the most annoying. Particularly in my campaign, where I allow creative characters like a faceless dude trying to recover his face, a soul bound into a suit of armor, or an elf barbarian. Unceremoniously killing them off with dice is just mean-spirited.
I have had frequent death (Dungeon Crawl Classics), consequence of death (Dark Sun, Cyberpunk 2020) and rare death (Earthdawn) Each has it's flavor of fun, and it's place in how the game is run. There is no "one size fits all" answer to the question of deadliness in RPGs.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1030190That only works for me if the PCs are bland lifeless fantasy stereotypes. I cannot randomly kill off characters are actually interesting George Martin-style, like the soul bound armor or the faceless dude or the elf barbarian, without resolving their whatevers.
I have no idea what this means.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1030190That only works for me if the PCs are bland lifeless fantasy stereotypes. I cannot randomly kill off characters are actually interesting George Martin-style, like the soul bound armor or the faceless dude or the elf barbarian, without resolving their whatevers.
D&D has no rules for creating a "soul bound armor," so the fact that's AngryGM's go-to example should tell you that he's going against D&D's design. Level 1 D&D characters are intentionally easy to set up because the D&D rules are explicitly lethal. If you come into a game with some dumb custom race, custom class, custom bullshit level 1 character that you wrote a ten page backstory for, it's not D&D's fault that you felt heartbroken when a goblin rolled boxcars on a crit and killed him in your first session. It's your fault. The game is not designed for that. You showed up ready to play a different game than what D&D is and cried when your character took an arrow to the eye.
QuoteI write CYOA stories, or "quests", on the internet. I make the story up as I go along. I let anonymous commentators decide which direction to take the story based on the actions of the protagonist. I use chance to determine the outcome of actions with multiple outcomes.
That's not D&D. In a thread about Pathfinder, your amateur forum fiction is completely irrelevant.
QuoteI take that same attitude into tabletop
which is dumb, because the D&D rules aren't conducive to creating amateur fiction, dumb like "using steel wool to clean hardwood floors" is dumb.
QuoteThere are orders of magnitude more people playing free-form CYOA quests on the internet than people playing tabletop RPGs
According to WotC, there are about 9 million people playing D&D, which is about 60% of the market...so maybe around 15 million people playing TTRPGs? Two orders of magnitude means...wait...you seriously think there are at least 1.5
billion people doing CYOA story hour online?
Quote from: Ratman_tf;1030191That is not what Angry GM is saying. You need to distinguish your conclusion from the text of the article, if you want to make your point clear.
I have had frequent death (Dungeon Crawl Classics), consequence of death (Dark Sun, Cyberpunk 2020) and rare death (Earthdawn) Each has it's flavor of fun, and it's place in how the game is run. There is no "one size fits all" answer to the question of deadliness in RPGs.
Right then. Thank you for the help. Articulation is one of many problems for me.
Quote from: Haffrung;1030208I have no idea what this means.
I don't play the game
just to kill giant spiders that bleed money and traverse living dungeons that want to eat the party, I play it to tell fanciful fairy tales and heroic myths and pulp fiction made on the fly. I need closure for the characters, so killing them off long before resolving their plot threads defeats the point of making them with any level of depth.
Or in other words, I'm more of a
King's Quest guy than a
Legend of Grimrock guy. Depending on my mood.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1030223You showed up ready to play a different game than what D&D is and cried when your character took an arrow to the eye.
D&D is not just one game. There are countless editions, variants and clones. Some of them support telling fanciful stories on the fly.
I mean, what is the point of having monster ecology if story telling is not a part of the game? I see none if there is no practical application for game play.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1030231I mean, what is the point of having monster ecology if story telling is not a part of the game? I see none if there is no practical application for game play.
What is the point of having hit points and death conditions if your character can't die?
Because context is cool. Nobody cares about your shitty fanfiction you write on some slashfic site that nobody reads.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1030190I write CYOA stories, or "quests", on the internet. I make the story up as I go along. I let anonymous commentators decide which direction to take the story based on the actions of the protagonist. I use chance to determine the outcome of actions with multiple outcomes.
If the protagonist died because of chance, then the entire adventure comes to a screeching halt. I have to contrive the possible outcomes so that death is not one of them, or show a death scene and then go back to the choices so a new one that does not lead to death may be selected, or have the protagonist come back to life (and write the CYOA about that). I cannot let the protagonist die (permanently) unless the story is resolved first, or I will get a bad reputation and nobody will be interested in my quests.
I take that same attitude into tabletop, because the point is to have fun. Unless the campaign is an afterlife romp or the PCs are spontaneously generated by the dungeon itself, characters are not going to die at random and force detours into the afterlife or replacements to come out of the woodwork. In a more comedic campaign where death really is trivial I'd probably let the PCs challenge each other to see who can die the coolest.
Which is fine for you and your needs. Do you understand how divergent those needs are from... well, pretty much anyone else on an RPG-centric forum?
QuoteThere are orders of magnitude more people playing free-form CYOA quests on the internet than people playing tabletop RPGs.
This is the first time I've ever heard of such things being a thing (CYOA, I knew existed, I mean a whole online-community and the like. Do they have somewhere where they reference how many people worldwide play, or is this just your personal impression?
QuoteI think that is for the better, really. You would not believe the crazy and creative stuff that goes on in the Anon-kun quests. Tabletop just feels so boring in comparison, which is why I added places like Candyland and Morteville to my campaign.
Good for them (and you) for finding their passion. Better has nothing to do with it. I'm happy for board game aficionados who have found their passion too. And people who like to host 'murder mystery' dinners. And people who like to dress up as superheroes and go to conventions. Divergent hobbies are all great and (aside from competing for attention-time amongst those with multiple interests) not in competition with each other.
QuoteThat is totally what I think. If death is common, then it is so trivial you might as well not have it. Going through PCs like tissues is just annoying. If death is rare, then it should be campaign changing when it does happen (even becoming the focus of the campaign).
Which version of death are you using (https://mythcreants.com/blog/six-ways-roleplaying-games-approach-death/)? The "tough luck" option is by far the most annoying. Particularly in my campaign, where I allow creative characters like a faceless dude trying to recover his face, a soul bound into a suit of armor, or an elf barbarian. Unceremoniously killing them off with dice is just mean-spirited.
It shouldn't be common because after an adjustment period, and the first few levels, characters are resilient. And honestly, death does not have to be the lose-state (see Ghostbusters RPG, where death isn't really on the table), but if the RP
G is to stay a
game, then there ought to be a lose-state. That's not mean-spirited, it is an even, fair, and reasonable method of meting out success.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1030223D&D has no rules for creating a "soul bound armor," so the fact that's AngryGM's go-to example should tell you that he's going against D&D's design.
There isn't any soul bound armor in the article. I think BoxCrayonTales is describing his own campaign.
Paizo has an article up about the Fighter:
http://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo5lkm9?Fighter-Class-Preview
Highlights (lowlights):
-Once again, pretty much everything you'd expect a fighter to be able to do, like be useful with a shield, move and attack
-They're loading up the action economy with exceptions and trip conditions and other bullshit
-Wayne Reynolds likes pointy things
I like what I see. Still better tha whst a PF1 Fighter can do imo. Thst being said it might change before the rules go to print.
Quote from: sureshot;1030351I like what I see. Still better tha whst a PF1 Fighter can do imo. Thst being said it might change before the rules go to print.
That still doesn't make the class a good combatant.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1030354That still doesn't make the class a good combatant.
At this point any extras given to the Fighter make the class better imo.
I like the fact they are sticking to the system's roots and are keeping in the super-hero-dnd-after-level-15 element.
We don't need another old schoolish dnd version we already have 5e and a plethora of systems for that.
They also are trying to fix the clw problem, the martial characters can't compete with spellcasters problem and this is admirable in my book, these are problems that have plagued 3rd edition (mind you not other older editions of dnd so much) for quite some time and this shows they are aware of them and trying to fix them.
They also seem to have an awareness of the scaling problems in dnd 3.0 and are trying to fix those too. (Dnd 3.0 every level counts much much more than in older editions so variance in CR is much more like to utterly destroy the party and also certain numbers go a bit too out of wack at high levels.)
In general I like what I am seeing and I have faith in certain developers like Mark Seifter.
All that said the problem with complex rpg's is that its very difficult to predict what going to happen once the tire hits the road. Pathfinder 2.0, even if streamlined and easier to play, will be complex enough that I doubt that paizo despite having many talented people will manage to avoid big pitfalls, but we shall see...
I predict that 2e will fail. The entire reason that PF got such traction was because it supported 3e when 4e alienated the community. Now that 5e is one giant apology for 4e, and tries to attract fans of OSR and 3e alike, there is no place for PF anymore.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1030333Paizo has an article up about the Fighter:
http://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo5lkm9?Fighter-Class-Preview
Highlights (lowlights):
-Once again, pretty much everything you'd expect a fighter to be able to do, like be useful with a shield, move and attack
-They're loading up the action economy with exceptions and trip conditions and other bullshit
-Wayne Reynolds likes pointy things
The main good thing about this is that attack of opportunity is only a class feature for the Fighter, not a general combat rule. I can see the rationale behind it, but if I were to GM later D&D or PF, I would just toss AoO. I can't tell you how many times one of my fellow players throws up her hands because the DM dicks her over with that thing.
Now that I think of it, I ran
Against the Giants for that group recently, and I don't think I used opportunity attack once.
JG
Quote from: James Gillen;1030477The main good thing about this is that attack of opportunity is only a class feature for the Fighter, not a general combat rule. I can see the rationale behind it, but if I were to GM later D&D or PF, I would just toss AoO. I can't tell you how many times one of my fellow players throws up her hands because the DM dicks her over with that thing.
As I currently understand it, every martial class can make AoO, its just what can trigger it depends on the class: So a Paladin can currently make an AoO on anyone who crits on someone they are defending. It basically sounds similar to 4ed Marking from what I can tell.
AoO was "solved" with the introduction of the disengage action (https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/5e_SRD:Disengage_Action). Very elegant and tactical.
I think on balance the whole idea of the opp att as a standard feature is a bit silly - I noticed this running Pathfinder Beginner Box, that not having it at all made for a better game. And as Lindybeige has pointed out, the opp att is pretty unrealistic too. IRL people get killed fleeing when chased and run down, not at the moment they flee. Readied actions handle the "stab him if he tries to run past me" tactic just fine.
I guess with 5e allowing move-attack-move it may be a necessary limiter on that tactic, but systems that only allow move+attack or attack+move don't need it. Especially 3e/PF with the "double move + attack" charge action, ideal for cutting down those fleeing the field.
Quote from: S'mon;1030530I guess with 5e allowing move-attack-move it may be a necessary limiter on that tactic, but systems that only allow move+attack or attack+move don't need it. Especially 3e/PF with the "double move + attack" charge action, ideal for cutting down those fleeing the field.
Unless they turn a corner or just drop something to make a square difficult terrain! :P
I agree that AOOs aren't a perfect solution that can get messy, but I do think that they do a decent job of solving a potential problem... so long as everyone remembers when they're triggered.
Quote from: Charon's Little Helper;1030531Unless they turn a corner or just drop something to make a square difficult terrain! :P
I agree that AOOs aren't a perfect solution that can get messy, but I do think that they do a decent job of solving a potential problem... so long as everyone remembers when they're triggered.
You need AoOs if you don't have a rule stopping movement once in melee range. Otherwise protecting the wizard becomes annoyingly difficult.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1030532You need AoOs if you don't have a rule stopping movement once in melee range. Otherwise protecting the wizard becomes annoyingly difficult.
That's what dungeon corridors are for!
I did kill a wizard on Sunday; the PCs sought out a fight with 4 bugbear muggers they knew were in a copse, in order to avoid paying a 50gp toll. The bugbears rolled well on init, one walked up to the wiz and critted him dead before he got a turn. It struck me how much deadlier a fight in the open could be, especially when the enemy have you surrounded.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1030532You need AoOs if you don't have a rule stopping movement once in melee range. Otherwise protecting the wizard becomes annoyingly difficult.
Quote from: S'mon;1030534That's what dungeon corridors are for!
I did kill a wizard on Sunday; the PCs sought out a fight with 4 bugbear muggers they knew were in a copse, in order to avoid paying a 50gp toll. The bugbears rolled well on init, one walked up to the wiz and critted him dead before he got a turn. It struck me how much deadlier a fight in the open could be, especially when the enemy have you surrounded.
And that's why in 3.x/PF I'm a fan of reach weapons for the tanky characters. (Or for tanky characters to pretend to be squishy - like a scrawny monk wearing cheesy moon & star robes.)
Again - I'm not a huge fan of how AOOs are executed, but you need something to allow beefier characters to block for the squishies when you're using a round-robin style initiative system.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1030333Paizo has an article up about the Fighter:
http://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo5lkm9?Fighter-Class-Preview
Highlights (lowlights):
-Once again, pretty much everything you'd expect a fighter to be able to do, like be useful with a shield, move and attack
-They're loading up the action economy with exceptions and trip conditions and other bullshit
-Wayne Reynolds likes pointy things
That sounds...really poor.
All the "good" things about being a Fighter, other than better bonii with weapons and a weakass AoO are feats. Which anyone can get.
Quote from: S'mon;1030534That's what dungeon corridors are for!
Yes, constrained environment does a great job of keeping the back line the back line (minus all the exceptions, of course). If we pretend that all games are going to take place in dungeons with 10' wide corridors and the party has two ranks of martial classes and followers to keep between the glass cannons and the enemies, then this is all unnecessary. These rules were added because people moved (at least partially*) (farther**) away from that play-style.
*Dungeon Crawling is still a vibrant part of many-to-most games. People just now want answers for the question of 'but what about when we're not in a dungeon?'
**overland travel has always been a part of the game, and it was pretty hazardous to MUs.QuoteI did kill a wizard on Sunday; the PCs sought out a fight with 4 bugbear muggers they knew were in a copse, in order to avoid paying a 50gp toll. The bugbears rolled well on init, one walked up to the wiz and critted him dead before he got a turn. It struck me how much deadlier a fight in the open could be, especially when the enemy have you surrounded.
Yes, but... in real life, zone defense works. SCA, paintball, etc., -- I can guard the flag (/MU). If I see you moving toward the flag such that you'll cross my line of scrimmage (yes I am hopeless mixing my analogy) 15' to my right, I can move to block, and likely be successful. You will not get by, I will get a 'kill' hit on you, and you won't successfully engage the flag. That of course unless you are miles away more competent, or you do the sensible thing and 'kill' me first instead. It doesn't work in a game where one person moves on their initiative, then effectively freezes on the next person's turn
unless you have
some form of zone of control rules, be they 'AoOs,' rules stopping movement once in melee range, or the like. Held action kind of works (although in practice all it really does is give up your action to instead act on the opponents turn), but is really just a special type of AoO (in which case we're just arguing about the name/implementation).
AoOs aren't a problem that needs solving. Ignore a fella with his club out, get clobbered. PF2 is just making them unnecessarily complicated. The governing philosophy of this upcoming edition seems to be "crunch for crunch's sake."
Quote from: Willie the Duck;1030548Yes, but... in real life, zone defense works. SCA, paintball, etc., -- I can guard the flag (/MU). If I see you moving toward the flag such that you'll cross my line of scrimmage (yes I am hopeless mixing my analogy) 15' to my right, I can move to block, and likely be successful. You will not get by, I will get a 'kill' hit on you, and you won't successfully engage the flag. That of course unless you are miles away more competent, or you do the sensible thing and 'kill' me first instead. It doesn't work in a game where one person moves on their initiative, then effectively freezes on the next person's turn unless you have some form of zone of control rules, be they 'AoOs,' rules stopping movement once in melee range, or the like. Held action kind of works (although in practice all it really does is give up your action to instead act on the opponents turn), but is really just a special type of AoO (in which case we're just arguing about the name/implementation).
This.
You need some method of area control when you're playing with round-robin initiative. Frankly - it's one of the main reasons that more complex initiatives are worth considering, because it can make moving around the battlefield far more dynamic, especially as it pertains to melee protecting and/or closing in on ranged squishies.
But if you stick with the KISS initiative system, you need something else to represent the dynamic. 3.x/PF chose AOOs. (My biggest gripe with it is being able to 5ft away and use ranged attacks/spells with no penalty unless the melee guy has reach.) For the most part it works.
OD&D and AD&D also have AoOs. They just don't call them that. Check the rules for fleeing. However, those rule sets seem based on the assumption of distinct battle lines and don't really comprehend the possibility of trying to walk past a fighter in a 10' hallway (the OD&D rules are pretty clear, though...your only legal movement direction is "away" if mini bases touching, no circling around to the other side). So 3.x takes what was already there and abstracts it so that rather than being written to deal with battle lines of infantry marching against each other, it can handle a small group of individuals wandering about with no obvious "toward" and "away" direction, i.e. what had become standard D&D adventuring by the late 1980s.
Fighting withdrawal -> 5-foot step
Fleeing -> full move within melee reach + AoO
So if you use 3.x's rules with formed battle lines of hirelings, you end up with results very similar to 0e and 1e. In fact, 3.0's rules about movement and AoOs are a refinement of what's in the 2e Combat & Tactics book. This has stuck with us through 4e and 5e, but its origins are classic.
Quote(My biggest gripe with it is being able to 5ft away and use ranged attacks/spells with no penalty unless the melee guy has reach.)
What? I don't understand what you're saying here. Why should ranged attackers have a penalty if they're at range?
Quote from: S'mon;1030530I think on balance the whole idea of the opp att as a standard feature is a bit silly - I noticed this running Pathfinder Beginner Box, that not having it at all made for a better game. And as Lindybeige has pointed out, the opp att is pretty unrealistic too. IRL people get killed fleeing when chased and run down, not at the moment they flee.
IRL people don't wait for their initiative count to attack... :D
---
Never had a problem with AoO in my games. I think they're a useful rule for a turn based combat system.
My problem with AoO is they make retreat suicidal. I don't like to have monster always fight to the death because A) losing your morale and fleeing is what intelligent monsters should do, and B) carrying out every combat to the bitter end of annihilation is time-consuming. The problem is that if I say the gnolls retreat when half their numbers are dead, AoOs mean that when three gnolls turn tail and run, they're probably going to get killed anyway. If they survive the initial melee AoO, a round of ranged attacks usually finishes them off.
D&D really needs better disengage/flee/retreat rules. I've gotten to the point with 5E that I'll probably end up house ruling something.
Quote from: Haffrung;1030563My problem with AoO is they make retreat suicidal. I don't like to have monster always fight to the death because A) losing your morale and fleeing is what intelligent monsters should do, and B) carrying out every combat to the bitter end of annihilation is time-consuming. The problem is that if I say the gnolls retreat when half their numbers are dead, AoOs mean that when three gnolls turn tail and run, they're probably going to get killed anyway. If they survive the initial melee AoO, a round of ranged attacks usually finishes them off.
This can be a problem even without AoO. Retreat from the average party, and they're likely going to pursue and run them down, or go spells/archery/thrown and gun them down.
QuoteD&D really needs better disengage/flee/retreat rules. I've gotten to the point with 5E that I'll probably end up house ruling something.
This I would agree with.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1030561What? I don't understand what you're saying here. Why should ranged attackers have a penalty if they're at range?
Because it's an exploitation of the initiative system which AOOs were designed to solve - but then they gave that one workaround. If the initiative system were more fluid the melee guy would likely remain in the archer/caster's face, making shooting/casting difficult for them.
Quote from: Haffrung;1030563My problem with AoO is they make retreat suicidal.
Retreat typically
is suicidal after Alexander the Great made annihilating resistance rather than resolving a border dispute the goal of Western warfare. Losing morale isn't an intelligent response; it's your panic reflex kicking in. During the conquest of Byzantium, invading Muslim armies hunted down and slaughtered Greek, Egyptian, and Levantine defenders down to the last man after they broke and fled. Despite knowing this, Byzantine infantry would still flee after the tide of battle turned. Pursuing fleeing infantry in order to kill them all was so common in the Middle Ages that William the Conqueror faked flights at Hastings in order to draw the English into pursuit.
Quote from: Charon's Little Helper;1030568Because it's an exploitation of the initiative system which AOOs were designed to solve - but then they gave that one workaround. If the initiative system were more fluid the melee guy would likely remain in the archer/caster's face, making shooting/casting difficult for them.
Do you have another initiative system in mind?
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1030569Pursuing fleeing infantry in order to kill them all was so common in the Middle Ages that William the Conqueror faked flights at Hastings in order to draw the English into pursuit.
You don't say... that's giving me ideas.
Quote from: Haffrung;1030563D&D really needs better disengage/flee/retreat rules. I've gotten to the point with 5E that I'll probably end up house ruling something.
I'd like to see them when you do. I've been using an ad hoc method, based on 5E saving throws. When the situation gets to the point where getting out of the fight seems important, I'll typically use a Wis save, with DC set based on how bad the situation is. Occasionally, I'll use an Int or Cha save instead, if the relevant "leader" is particularly analytical or emotional. I'll set the basic idea of pass fail based on the situation. Succeed when getting out now is important, then disengage while preserving lines. Succeed when hanging in there for another round or two is important, then start setting up retreat lines, if possible. Failure leads to something like disengage and run, maybe. If the roll is particularly high or low,
then consider the more extreme cases. Roll a 1, then sure, provoke the opportunity attacks in a panic while running in a poorly chosen direction. But even a 2-5 might lead to some bad choices. For a natural 20 (especially on an Int save), the creature(s) might recognize that their only real hope is to surrender. But they are going to do whatever I think gives them their best shot.
That doesn't do anything to address the mechanics of withdrawing, of course. Though I think the biggest fix is to stop using cyclic initiative, which I cut out early. Cyclic initiative causes more harm than anything it solves.
Quote from: Charon's Little Helper;1030568Because it's an exploitation of the initiative system which AOOs were designed to solve - but then they gave that one workaround. If the initiative system were more fluid the melee guy would likely remain in the archer/caster's face, making shooting/casting difficult for them.
AoOs weren't designed to solve problems with initiative. They were designed to prevent you from waltzing past the fighter to beat up somebody he's protecting (also to prevent you from doing anything cool you used to do in AD&D without taking feats :rolleyes:). The 5-foot step requires any sort of ranged attacker to move away from the fighter rather than past him, and moreover prevents him from moving far enough away to avoid a fighter's full attack.
Quote from: Ratman_tf;1030571You don't say... that's giving me ideas.
If you're wondering whether I've had kobolds drop their weapons and flee past a pit trap...yes, I have. :D
Fleeing is already covered by way of movement and disengagement.
Sometimes you just won't be able to retreat.
A creature that has a base movement of 60 ft will outpace you. You can hide if you have optimal terrain, you can try to use spells or other hindrances on them, but usually, they will get you.
That's why you have to scout.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1030579If you're wondering whether I've had kobolds drop their weapons and flee past a pit trap...yes, I have. :D
I wouldn't want to beat it into the ground, but the occasional planned retreat into an ambush or trap would give PCs pause in running down every single encounter. :)
In 5e:
Disengage + move = fighting withdrawal, no OA
Dodge + move = fighting withdrawal, OA and subsequent pursuit at a disadvantage
Move + dash = flee
Note that in the first case, the enemy can pursue at normal speed and continue attacking.
In the second case, you might take an OA, but the effectiveness of pursuit is hindered, especially if there are ranged allies.
In the 3rd case, the enemy has to sacrifice its ability to attack to maintain pursuit, which is risky.
Quote from: Ratman_tf;1030562IRL people don't wait for their initiative count to attack... :D
They wait for an opening. And they do have an OODA loop - it does take time for them to re-orient.
And kind of on topic, it doesn't seem like Paizo even understands why everyone gets AoO in 3rd edition! Despite its flaws, 3rd ed consciously revises D&D's movement & combat rules from the war-game it originated as to a proper skirmish game. If you play 3rd ed under AD&D-like assumption (i.e. forum culture has not yet discovered the ridiculous things you can do as CoDZilla), here's a pretty simple arrangement:
(https://i.imgur.com/FdE94dW.png)
Imagine if AoO was a special Fighter ability. Here, the monster can waltz up to the wizard and beat the crap out of him, and the Fighter just gets one measly attack. Even worse, the Fighter can't even get his full attack on his turn. But under 3.5 rules as written, if the monster tries to approach the wizard, when the fighter gets his AoO, the rogue immediately gets an additional AoO with sneak attack (because of flanking with the cleric). The cleric gets an AoO as well. 3 melee attacks, one of them a sneak attack, is a big risk to go put the hurt on the wizard.
AoOs are not only essential to protecting the back line, but the way they're structured as only one attack ensures that it's a joint effort. 3.x ultimately executed this badly due to insane charop making wizard defense irrelevant, but 5e brings this back. In 5e, as you level up, certain cleric subclasses add damage dice to their melee attacks, and it's easier for rogues to get sneak attacks, so this is still a very dangerous path for a monster to pursue.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1030578AoOs weren't designed to solve problems with initiative. They were designed to prevent you from waltzing past the fighter to beat up somebody he's protecting
Which is a result of the initiative system. In real time you could actively interpose yourself, but being a TTRPG there are turns and therefore you need a patch to be able to do it. AOOs are the patch - and they do a decent job.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1030578The 5-foot step requires any sort of ranged attacker to move away from the fighter rather than past him, and moreover prevents him from moving far enough away to avoid a fighter's full attack.
It also negates the advantage of closing into melee in the first place. It should be hard to cast a spell or shoot a bow while someone is actively trying to stick you with pointy metal.
Shooting from 5' away is a quirk of needing to give a specific boundary for reach. It is silly that exactly 5' away is the cutoff, but so is a character being unable to charge an opponent who is exactly 5' too far away for their movement that turn. This can either be resolved with it roughly advantaging each side equally (assuming both players and DM-controlled creatures routinely shoot and/or charge) so why worry about it, or go with a 'you know what they mean' kind of gatekeeping (i.e. ranged attacking is penalized when 'near to' any opponent bearing a melee weapon.
Quote from: Charon's Little Helper;1030595Which is a result of the initiative system. In real time you could actively interpose yourself, but being a TTRPG there are turns and therefore you need a patch to be able to do it. AOOs are the patch - and they do a decent job.
It has nothing to do with the round-robin system in 3rd edition because, as I pointed out, it's been around in one form or another since 0e.
QuoteIt also negates the advantage of closing into melee in the first place. It should be hard to cast a spell or shoot a bow while someone is actively trying to stick you with pointy metal.
No, it doesn't. The advantage of closing to melee in 3.x is being able to Full Attack. You're assuming that Cook et al. intended closing into melee to completely disrupt spell-casting and ranged attacks like in AD&D, with the 5' step accidentally breaking that in a way they didn't foresee, but there's no reason to assume that (there is a lot of rules gloss around this mechanic; it's explicitly comprehended and understood by the authors). It implicitly does, because monsters who use spells or ranged attacks tend to be squishy, so staying within 5' of a Fighter they can't incapacitate immediately is probably a very bad decision for them.
Quote from: Willie the Duck;1030600Shooting from 5' away is a quirk of needing to give a specific boundary for reach. It is silly that exactly 5' away is the cutoff, but so is a character being unable to charge an opponent who is exactly 5' too far away for their movement that turn. This can either be resolved with it roughly advantaging each side equally (assuming both players and DM-controlled creatures routinely shoot and/or charge) so why worry about it, or go with a 'you know what they mean' kind of gatekeeping (i.e. ranged attacking is penalized when 'near to' any opponent bearing a melee weapon.
5' away is the cutoff because 5' is the longest distance you can move and still take a Full Round Action (which is why it's also the farthest you can move and not take an AoO).
Frankly, trying to balance D&D 3.x by fiddling with attack modifiers on ranged attacks after taking a Five-Foot Step is ridiculous. The system is horribly broken, and has nothing to do with an orc archer being able to shoot your Fighter without penalty after 5' of movement. Doubling down on the complexity by giving people
even more dynamic modifiers to track isn't what 3.x needs.
Can't we just make an app to adjudicate combat? This is the age of iphones and ipads.
Yes, I know that it would be impossible for an app to account for things it wasn't programmed for. So rather than accounting for every spell or combat maneuver or whatever, I would suggest using a built-in toolkit to design maneuvers and spells. Pretty much every effect in the game may be boiled down to a few indivisible parts (e.g. advantage, disadvantage, move X squares, deal X damage of Y type, roll X against DC Y, etc). The app could track those, and treat combat maneuvers and spells as packages of those indivisible parts.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1030587And kind of on topic, it doesn't seem like Paizo even understands why everyone gets AoO in 3rd edition!
This point is valid, but the cleric and rogue in your example are hinted to have reactions that are undisclosed as yet. They might not get to punch the monster as it goes by, but there might still be something they can do in your situation.
Quote from: Haffrung;1030563D&D really needs better disengage/flee/retreat rules. I've gotten to the point with 5E that I'll probably end up house ruling something.
I usually just say, "They all run away" and that's that.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1030569Retreat typically is suicidal after Alexander the Great made annihilating resistance rather than resolving a border dispute the goal of Western warfare. Losing morale isn't an intelligent response; it's your panic reflex kicking in. During the conquest of Byzantium, invading Muslim armies hunted down and slaughtered Greek, Egyptian, and Levantine defenders down to the last man after they broke and fled. Despite knowing this, Byzantine infantry would still flee after the tide of battle turned. Pursuing fleeing infantry in order to kill them all was so common in the Middle Ages that William the Conqueror faked flights at Hastings in order to draw the English into pursuit.
Fair enough. But I still want some way of giving troglodytes a fighting chance to flee in a cavern complex, which is a different situation than infantry on a field of battle being chased down by cavalry or light troops.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1030573That doesn't do anything to address the mechanics of withdrawing, of course. Though I think the biggest fix is to stop using cyclic initiative, which I cut out early. Cyclic initiative causes more harm than anything it solves.
By cyclic initiative do you mean carrying over the initiative order from round to round? And by ditching it, do you mean re-rolling initiative each round?
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1030583In 5e:
Disengage + move = fighting withdrawal, no OA
Dodge + move = fighting withdrawal, OA and subsequent pursuit at a disadvantage
Move + dash = flee
Note that in the first case, the enemy can pursue at normal speed and continue attacking.
In the second case, you might take an OA, but the effectiveness of pursuit is hindered, especially if there are ranged allies.
In the 3rd case, the enemy has to sacrifice its ability to attack to maintain pursuit, which is risky.
In the 3rd case, doesn't an adjacent enemy get an OA as soon as you move?
I mean going to some version of side-by-side initiative, a part of which is rerolling each round.
The exact parameters can vary, as long as you get some variation in order of player actions, combined with distinct groups acting together. The base of my version is that the player all roll initiative against a target set based on 10 + typical monster initiative modifier. (Dex 14 monsters, +2, so player target is 12). This produces three groups--players that go before the monsters, the monsters, and players that go after the monsters. Occasionally, I split large or varied groups of monsters up into 2 or 3 different targets, which will produce more initiative groups. (3 is very rare. I think I've done it 3 or 4 times in as many years.)
The monsters acting in groups obviously simplifies several things related to small-group tactics, but the same is true of the varying player groups as well. I have other reasons (not related to opportunity attacks) for my particular slant, instead of, say, merely using the AD&D side initiative or the 5E DMG optional side initiative.
Quote from: Ratman_tf;1030570Do you have another initiative system in mind?
D&D style round-robin works fine - you just have to know the drawbacks and compensate for them.
I'm currently writing a system (Space Dogs RPG: A Swashbuckling Space Western) with a more dynamic initiative system, though I'm not going to claim that it doesn't have it's own drawbacks.
Each round -
1. Roll initiative (per side)
2. Movement Phase (in initiative order) & pick your Action (making going first not always beneficial)
3. Ranged Phase - act if you chose a ranged Action and weren't engaged in melee (in initiative order)
4. Melee Phase - act if you chose a melee Action or were engaged in melee (opposed rolls - so all at once)
Then start over with rolling initiative again - rinse & repeat
It makes the movement around the battlefield more dynamic - with the drawback of additional complexity, though having initiative per side helps. I had to make sure to streamline some other parts of the system to compensate to keep it from bogging down. I wouldn't try to adapt another system to it as I had to design everything with it in mind from the ground up.
Quote from: Haffrung;1030563My problem with AoO is they make retreat suicidal. I don't like to have monster always fight to the death because A) losing your morale and fleeing is what intelligent monsters should do, and B) carrying out every combat to the bitter end of annihilation is time-consuming. The problem is that if I say the gnolls retreat when half their numbers are dead, AoOs mean that when three gnolls turn tail and run, they're probably going to get killed anyway. If they survive the initial melee AoO, a round of ranged attacks usually finishes them off.
D&D really needs better disengage/flee/retreat rules. I've gotten to the point with 5E that I'll probably end up house ruling something.
this might assist: http://dndhackersguild.weebly.com/blog/party-retreat-rule
Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1030633I mean going to some version of side-by-side initiative, a part of which is rerolling each round.
The exact parameters can vary, as long as you get some variation in order of player actions, combined with distinct groups acting together. The base of my version is that the player all roll initiative against a target set based on 10 + typical monster initiative modifier. (Dex 14 monsters, +2, so player target is 12). This produces three groups--players that go before the monsters, the monsters, and players that go after the monsters. Occasionally, I split large or varied groups of monsters up into 2 or 3 different targets, which will produce more initiative groups. (3 is very rare. I think I've done it 3 or 4 times in as many years.)
The monsters acting in groups obviously simplifies several things related to small-group tactics, but the same is true of the varying player groups as well. I have other reasons (not related to opportunity attacks) for my particular slant, instead of, say, merely using the AD&D side initiative or the 5E DMG optional side initiative.
I like roll against Dex (equal or under). Just players roll, if they succeed, they go before the monsters, otherwise monsters go first. If there's a special boss monster the PC's roll needs to < half their Dex. PCs work out their own order amongst themselves. I've found it works pretty quick, no-one needs to ask for numbers, everyone knows what they need to roll up front, off they go. And if two or three players go first, whoever wants to jump in goes.
Quote from: Psikerlord;1030637this might assist: http://dndhackersguild.weebly.com/blog/party-retreat-rule
Exactly what I was looking for. Thanks.
Retreat - I've always gone with "if you're off the battlemat, you're out of combat". PCs and NPCs often flee IMCs; and getting hunted down tends to be reserved for exceptionally hated foes.
Yeah the automatic free attack when something turns to run is silly. If you're engaged in melee with someone or something. You're not body to body length or even arm to arm length away, you're probably weapon to weapon length away. Someone who's going to flee is going to probably step back even further or fake a move forward and then run like hell and there's not much you're going to be able to do about it except take up chase.
Quote from: S'mon;1030719Retreat - I've always gone with "if you're off the battlemat, you're out of combat". PCs and NPCs often flee IMCs; and getting hunted down tends to be reserved for exceptionally hated foes.
I've also seen over-eager PCs pursue fleeing monsters into a trap.
In 4e I quite like how the short rest mechanic discourages pursuit; the PCs are always looking for a chance to take a 5 minute breather before the next encounter. By conrast 3.5/PF has 1 minute per level spells that encourage pushing on; 5e's 1-minute spells are similar.
"Crunch for crunch's sake" could pretty much be Pathfinder's motto.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1030958"Crunch for crunch's sake" could pretty much be Pathfinder's motto.
Indeed. And there's a market for that. A lot of people love all the bells and whistles you can deck out a PF PC with. The problem is most of these people are the hardcore people who DM or spend hours creating characters, not the random people who just want to show up and kill shit.
PF benefited from having a large population of players who'd been trained for years in 3ed crunch and so could swallow PF's additional rules bloat since they already know 3ed core.
But now if they make a rules system that isn't so based on 3ed core then even if it isn't more complicated than PF 1ed they'll lose a lot of people who were only able to wrap their heads around PF 1ed rules bloat because they had played 3ed for years.
The same thing hurt 4ed, I felt like I had to learn a whole new game from scratch while 5ed was easy enough to pick up based on old DnD knowledge.
Quote from: CRKrueger;1030726Yeah the automatic free attack when something turns to run is silly. If you're engaged in melee with someone or something. You're not body to body length or even arm to arm length away, you're probably weapon to weapon length away. Someone who's going to flee is going to probably step back even further or fake a move forward and then run like hell and there's not much you're going to be able to do about it except take up chase.
I always thought that was what the Disengage action represented. Not using it means you just turn around or throw all caution to the wind and run, creating an opening.
Quote from: CRKrueger;1030726Yeah the automatic free attack when something turns to run is silly. If you're engaged in melee with someone or something. You're not body to body length or even arm to arm length away, you're probably weapon to weapon length away. Someone who's going to flee is going to probably step back even further or fake a move forward and then run like hell and there's not much you're going to be able to do about it except take up chase.
It's a game mechanic to give more meaning to positioning as opposed to realism. If there are no OAs, why cant all the PCs (or monsters) converge on a single target every round, focus fire until dead, then repeat (answer, terrain - but do you really want to fight every combat in a doorway or other choke point?)
Quote from: Psikerlord;1031096It's a game mechanic to give more meaning to positioning as opposed to realism. If there are no OAs, why cant all the PCs (or monsters) converge on a single target every round, focus fire until dead, then repeat (answer, terrain - but do you really want to fight every combat in a doorway or other choke point?)
It would be nice if the rules would distinguish between engaged and unengaged opponents. IRL combatants will pair off and (if armoured/shielded) pretty much neutralise each other, giving a big advantage to any remaining unengaged fighters. I think Runequest does this but D&D has always avoided it since (eg) giving the unengaged advantage vs the engaged would tip things towards weight of numbers, away from cleaving-through-mooks.
Owen Stephens recently re-posted a post I made 10 years ago where I predicted Pathfinder would fail.
So, I will make another prediction, since that first one went sooooo well :)
I predict PF2 will succeed. I don't think it will displace 5e as the leader. But I think it will sell well for Paizo and last a long time and make them plenty of money and grow over time.
Quote from: Daztur;1031055Indeed. And there's a market for that. A lot of people love all the bells and whistles you can deck out a PF PC with. The problem is most of these people are the hardcore people who DM or spend hours creating characters, not the random people who just want to show up and kill shit.
PF benefited from having a large population of players who'd been trained for years in 3ed crunch and so could swallow PF's additional rules bloat since they already know 3ed core.
But now if they make a rules system that isn't so based on 3ed core then even if it isn't more complicated than PF 1ed they'll lose a lot of people who were only able to wrap their heads around PF 1ed rules bloat because they had played 3ed for years.
The same thing hurt 4ed, I felt like I had to learn a whole new game from scratch while 5ed was easy enough to pick up based on old DnD knowledge.
Good points in terms of how all this plays out in practice.
jg
Quote from: Mistwell;1031116Owen Stephens recently re-posted a post I made 10 years ago where I predicted Pathfinder would fail.
So, I will make another prediction, since that first one went sooooo well :)
I predict PF2 will succeed. I don't think it will displace 5e as the leader. But I think it will sell well for Paizo and last a long time and make them plenty of money and grow over time.
Sounds like you just like being wrong.
Mistwell: the Bill Kristol of the gaming world.
Sorry Pundit I have to disagree with you on this one. We don't know that it will automatically fail imo. It may or may not. Assuming it will is just projecting one own bias into the argument. Player assumed 5E would fail before release and have been proven wrong.
Predictions of failure or success without criteria for judging that failure or success are useless.
For example, is this failure or success? Let's say that it sells moderately well for the first printing (compared to what they are selling now), reaches a second printing, and eventually much later a (small) third. It's got a long tail, which it begins fairly quick, maybe after about 18 months. Meanwhile, they are continuing to sell the modules built on top of it, on or about the same rate as before.
That's no kick in the pants to bring them up a notch, but if their goal is "keep selling adventures," I'm not sure it's a mistake, either.
I assumed Mistwell was going for the reverse whammy. He predicted it would fail but it then succeeded so he's hoping that his bad luck will result in it now failing as he "predicts" it will succeed.
I don't see them actually failing in the next five years but I do think they are going to see their customer base get eaten away.
Paizo came up with several different marketing schemes, like their 'subscription' discounts, and their adventure paths (and the various spin off products, the map packs, other splat books, etc), which were particularly clever. What they did was implement 'upsell' into their product marketing. Those worked really well when 3.5 was it for AD&D, and in a market where clever marketing isn't all that clever. But the world has changed since then. They aren't competing with a broken type of D&D like 4.
Here's where I see the problem for them:
- Now as with other products, they are competing against their own 1.x products; many will balk against buying new additions of old products
- P2 has a strong competitor in D&D 5, and a new edition of P2 means P1 users may take the time to look at D&D 5 (or even other products) instead
- Golorion (and its various assets) isn't that interesting a property by itself
- Management has reached the zenith of its competence, and at its heart, it is a corporation run as a sole proprietorship
Quote from: Lynn;1031637I don't see them actually failing in the next five years but I do think they are going to see their customer base get eaten away.
Paizo came up with several different marketing schemes, like their 'subscription' discounts, and their adventure paths (and the various spin off products, the map packs, other splat books, etc), which were particularly clever. What they did was implement 'upsell' into their product marketing. Those worked really well when 3.5 was it for AD&D, and in a market where clever marketing isn't all that clever. But the world has changed since then. They aren't competing with a broken type of D&D like 4.
Here's where I see the problem for them:
- Now as with other products, they are competing against their own 1.x products; many will balk against buying new additions of old products
- P2 has a strong competitor in D&D 5, and a new edition of P2 means P1 users may take the time to look at D&D 5 (or even other products) instead
- Golorion (and its various assets) isn't that interesting a property by itself
- Management has reached the zenith of its competence, and at its heart, it is a corporation run as a sole proprietorship
Emphasis added, because this cannot be overstated. Nothing in life scales linearly, especially organized and coordinated human activity. If an organization tries to "feel small" and "grow (revenues) big" at the same time, failure will come "gradually, then quickly".
Quote from: RPGPundit;1031378Sounds like you just like being wrong.
Mistwell: the Bill Kristol of the gaming world.
I'd be comfortable if I were wrong :) Though, I don't want any RPG company to fail really. Most of the Paizo people seem like pretty good people.
Wargames have had the equivalent of Attacks of Opportunity since the sixties. They're usually called "Zones of Control."
Typical ZoC rules are a paragraph or two. Star Wars d20 went on for 2 1/2 pages plus diagrams and STILL made no damn sense.
Too many RPG "designers" forget what the "G" in RPG stands for. If it doesn't work as a game, it's not going to work as an RPG.
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1031742Wargames have had the equivalent of Attacks of Opportunity since the sixties. They're usually called "Zones of Control."
Typical ZoC rules are a paragraph or two. Star Wars d20 went on for 2 1/2 pages plus diagrams and STILL made no damn sense.
Too many RPG "designers" forget what the "G" in RPG stands for. If it doesn't work as a game, it's not going to work as an RPG.
Most of the later games, it's less than a paragraph. In 5e D&D, it's leaving the 'zone of control', which the creature's reach. You leave their reach? They get an attack, if they have a 'Reaction' left (which everyone gets one base.)
Even in 3e, it's a single paragraph. Leave the creature's reach, or do certain actions (like range attacks in melee, if I remember correctly) and that's it. And you get to make only one a turn, unless you have a feat.
Quote from: RandyB;1031644Emphasis added, because this cannot be overstated. Nothing in life scales linearly, especially organized and coordinated human activity. If an organization tries to "feel small" and "grow (revenues) big" at the same time, failure will come "gradually, then quickly".
I think if they were going to go the sensible route and hire on real managers rather than scale up content people they would have already done so.
Though the whole debacle of their MMO strategy showed some foresight - they could make themselves look like victims even as they lead their user base to invest money in something even as it was spiraling down the bowl.
Quote from: Lynn;1031846I think if they were going to go the sensible route and hire on real managers rather than scale up content people they would have already done so.
Though the whole debacle of their MMO strategy showed some foresight - they could make themselves look like victims even as they lead their user base to invest money in something even as it was spiraling down the bowl.
Whatever
did happen with the MMO? I was watching the Kickstarter with morbid amusement that turned to astonishment when it actually succeeded, but I haven't kept any track of it since, not being a Pathfinder gamer, an MMO player, or a fan of Paizo or Ryan Dancey by any measure. :) I fully expected it to crash and burn, but I didn't expect Pathfinder itself to be as successful as it was, either.
Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1031855Whatever did happen with the MMO? I was watching the Kickstarter with morbid amusement that turned to astonishment when it actually succeeded, but I haven't kept any track of it since, not being a Pathfinder gamer, an MMO player, or a fan of Paizo or Ryan Dancey by any measure. :) I fully expected it to crash and burn, but I didn't expect Pathfinder itself to be as successful as it was, either.
Last I heard, it's actually up and running (http://massivelyop.com/2017/03/18/pathfinder-online-has-a-roadmap-forward-and-a-plan-for-completion/) and started charging monthly subscriptions around October 2016, with small updates since then (http://massivelyop.com/2017/11/11/pathfinder-online-perseveres-with-housing-and-ninjas/). It's very small and very niche. It doesn't help that the developers focus on player-versus-player for some strange reason. It has turned the MMOG into a gankbox, which is the antithesis of the tabletop RPG.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1030333Paizo has an article up about the Fighter:
http://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo5lkm9?Fighter-Class-Preview
Highlights (lowlights):
-Once again, pretty much everything you'd expect a fighter to be able to do, like be useful with a shield, move and attack
-They're loading up the action economy with exceptions and trip conditions and other bullshit
-Wayne Reynolds likes pointy things
Some more information has been released about the fighter.
"Compared to '3 or 4' class feats [in Pathfinder1], the fighter alone has more than 10 times that number (not going to be more specific because, as Jason has said, we aren't through with copyfitting, so we don't know how many are going to fit)." (Seifter)
Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1031855Whatever did happen with the MMO? I was watching the Kickstarter with morbid amusement that turned to astonishment when it actually succeeded, but I haven't kept any track of it since, not being a Pathfinder gamer, an MMO player, or a fan of Paizo or Ryan Dancey by any measure. :) I fully expected it to crash and burn, but I didn't expect Pathfinder itself to be as successful as it was, either.
I haven't been watching that closely either. As it is, it is sort of a kingdom building game, and looks to be about as sophisticated as some games developed by single developers on Steam. I am surprised that they've had any updates as they don't seem to understand that they should be updating their copyright notices since it isn't 2015 any longer. So long as they are able to cover their minimal costs of operation, they can probably go on indefinitely.
Game development is tough. While Ryan Dancey did a stint at CCP (the makers of EVE Online), I don't think he learned just how hard it is to bring a game to market, and he was likely saddled with many decisions foisted upon him by the folks at Paizo. I believe he had some tech background but game development is really a specialized market. I see game development much like pulling yourself out of a muddy hole. If you don't pull fast enough, you sink faster than you emerge (your $$$ burn is outrageous), and if you spend too long in the hole, you become too dirty to love (your look and technology become 'old' before you reach the market).
Quote from: jadrax;1032023Some more information has been released about the fighter.
"Compared to '3 or 4' class feats [in Pathfinder1], the fighter alone has more than 10 times that number (not going to be more specific because, as Jason has said, we aren't through with copyfitting, so we don't know how many are going to fit)." (Seifter)
"In order to better balance with the caster, the some of the feats give you different abilities: At-Will Maneuvers, Daily Maneuvers, and Encounter Maneuvers."
(this is a joke)
New blog post up:
http://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo5lkod?Critical-Hits-and-Critical-Failures
TL;DR -
Critical hits and failures are officially part of every d20 roll now. Because this is Paizo, of course it's complicated:
Nat 1: Crit fail if below DC, fail if not
Miss, not nat 1: Crit fail if miss by 10, fail if not
Hit, not nat 20: Crit success if beat by 10, success if not
Hit, nat 20: crit success if above DC, success if not
Some spells will have 4 different possible effects depending on which thing you roll. Fireball will be able to critical hit now, just like in 4e! Wheeeeeeeee.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1032171New blog post up:
http://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo5lkod?Critical-Hits-and-Critical-Failures
TL;DR -
Critical hits and failures are officially part of every d20 roll now. Because this is Paizo, of course it's complicated:
Nat 1: Crit fail if below DC, fail if not
Miss, not nat 1: Crit fail if miss by 10, fail if not
Hit, not nat 20: Crit success if beat by 10, success if not
Hit, nat 20: crit success if above DC, success if not
Some spells will have 4 different possible effects depending on which thing you roll. Fireball will be able to critical hit now, just like in 4e! Wheeeeeeeee.
Jesus, talk about "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink".
Well, it certainly is a lot of typing. One quote, "Let's unpack what this means." Hunh? Is this the sort of "English" that will pervade PF2? I do hope Paizo hires someone who is skilled at technical writing.
Quote from: Franky;1032235Well, it certainly is a lot of typing. One quote, "Let's unpack what this means." Hunh? Is this the sort of "English" that will pervade PF2? I do hope Paizo hires someone who is skilled at technical writing.
I know Green Ronin isn't too popular here, but Mutants & Masterminds 3 is essentially based on the concept of 5 point degrees of success (+5 over difficulty is first degree, etc.) and they certainly get it across more concisely.
JG
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1032171New blog post up:
http://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo5lkod?Critical-Hits-and-Critical-Failures
TL;DR -
Critical hits and failures are officially part of every d20 roll now. Because this is Paizo, of course it's complicated:
Nat 1: Crit fail if below DC, fail if not
Miss, not nat 1: Crit fail if miss by 10, fail if not
Hit, not nat 20: Crit success if beat by 10, success if not
Hit, nat 20: crit success if above DC, success if not
Some spells will have 4 different possible effects depending on which thing you roll. Fireball will be able to critical hit now, just like in 4e! Wheeeeeeeee.
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
"Games nowadays have too many rules." -- Dave Arneson, about two weeks before he died.
^^^So, Paizo killed Dave Arneson?
Just trying to "unpack" what you meant ;)
Degrees of success/failure in some form have been around a while. If nothing else, one could have viewed a hit as a success and a critical hit as a great success. Same for miss and critical miss. So four degrees right there. Paizo is not exploring new design space here, just doing some greeble work.
They're making every single die role a 2-step process. It adds granularity where none is needed, or, as I'm sure we're about to find, wanted. No doubt that now that everything must have a minimum four effects, they're going to really screw it up in a few places.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1032344They're making every single die role a 2-step process. It adds granularity where none is needed, or, as I'm sure we're about to find, wanted. No doubt that now that everything must have a minimum four effects, they're going to really screw it up in a few places.
Yeah, I feel like this is going to slow down the game when you have to do it for every step.
The comments posted to the article are, for the most part, quite approving. In general, do Pathfinder players like this amount of minutiae (a better word for it than "crunch", IMO)
Quote from: Franky;1032352The comments posted to the article are, for the most part, quite approving. In general, do Pathfinder players like this amount of minutiae (a better word for it than "crunch", IMO)
Yes. Pathfinder players live on minutiae. A few friends of mine play it exactly for this reason, as they find D&D 5E "too simple."
Quote from: Franky;1032352The comments posted to the article are, for the most part, quite approving. In general, do Pathfinder players like this amount of minutiae (a better word for it than "crunch", IMO)
Yes.
Also, it's not that hard to figure once you get in the habit of calculating it. In GURPS we state what we made it by or what we failed it by. Becomes habit.
Also, it does allow for some granularity in results. So, for example, save or suck can be reduced to critical fail and suck, otherwise, just a little suck. :D
Some people like a little crunch. I do (medium crunch if I can find it). So far, it sounds like some things are getting tuned up, which could be cool.
Quote from: Franky;1032352The comments posted to the article are, for the most part, quite approving. In general, do Pathfinder players like this amount of minutiae (a better word for it than "crunch", IMO)
Yes. The minutia creates a game-in-a-game that lets them "play" while they are away from the table. It makes a game of skill, like chess, where you can suss out the best options and create the "best" character. It also gives them a way to represent their character's tendencies with additional specificity.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1032171New blog post up:
http://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo5lkod?Critical-Hits-and-Critical-Failures
TL;DR -
Critical hits and failures are officially part of every d20 roll now. Because this is Paizo, of course it's complicated:
Nat 1: Crit fail if below DC, fail if not
Miss, not nat 1: Crit fail if miss by 10, fail if not
Hit, not nat 20: Crit success if beat by 10, success if not
Hit, nat 20: crit success if above DC, success if not
Some spells will have 4 different possible effects depending on which thing you roll. Fireball will be able to critical hit now, just like in 4e! Wheeeeeeeee.
I actually like this idea, varying spell effects, I mean. Reminds me of DCC's variable spell effects depending on what you roll. Less predictable spell results are good in my view. Not sure about the mechanics exactly, but the basic concept is good.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1032344No doubt that now that everything must have a minimum four effects, they're going to really screw it up in a few places.
Fortunately it looks pretty clear that not everything needs a minimum of four effects. Making sharp things go through soft things that scream and bleed still starts out with three, miss, hit, critical, just like before. Now you done need the extra confirmation roll, though. There is just a circumstancial slot open for number four.
A lot of spells have more gradients, which I'm happier about than the binary save-or-suck bit.
The whole picture might still come out poor, but I'm still having a half full glass at the moment.
Class blogs are lame and vague though, I wonder what lame and vague one we'll get today.
Quote from: Manic Modron;1032476Fortunately it looks pretty clear that not everything needs a minimum of four effects. Making sharp things go through soft things that scream and bleed still starts out with three, miss, hit, critical, just like before. Now you done need the extra confirmation roll, though. There is just a circumstancial slot open for number four.
Well, sure. But that's the easy one. Guarantee you that, this being Paizo, they are going to screw up Charm Person or Confusion or something that crit fails are practically game breaking and the wizard can take feats such that the enemies nearly always crit fail.
I think it is more likely that those feats will attach an affect onto successful saves, rather than force critical failures. There is a Mystic style in Starfinder, Overmind or something like that. It inflicts a small amount of damage on a target that saves vs compulsion spells.
Whether that is evidence for the defense or the prosecution is a different matter!
As a PF fan, I'm not liking the sound of 2e. Crunch for the sake of crunch and boring crunch on top of that is not what PF fans actually like.
They previewed the rogue getting a "cool" ability to spend a reaction to add plus 2 to her AC vs one attack.
Or in layman's terms, "The rogue can do something useless"
Quote from: Manic Modron;1032531I think it is more likely that those feats will attach an affect onto successful saves, rather than force critical failures.
Fail DC by 10 = crit fail
Feat to increase your save DC = increased likelihood on crit fail
If they can successfully avoid the temptation to let casters min/max their DCs to the moon, well, that'd be something. But if they're not careful or don't exercise restraint, they could easily end up in a place where the high-level game is beset with monsters crit-failing left and right and the game really suffering for it.
Here's what Pathfinder needs to do for 2e to be more successful:
1) focus on compatibility and consistency in 3PP materials which will make...
2) More fun awesome 3PP products that builds hype. RPG nerds are also NERD consumers. And we like a steady robust release schedule chock full of sexy useful stuff.
How to achieve #1?
Break down the system into a point buy framework. Everything balanced to Paizo's desire against every other thing. Attributes, skills, attacks, powers, spells, feats, special abilities, monster abilities, magical abilities, doohickies, and other traits. If it's in the game and has a game effect - it has a point cost.
Then, rebuild PF2 up using the framework. DO NOT include the framework. Just the game.
Create a series of online tools with the framework, so publishers, tinkerers, setting grognards, builders and creative types can create oodles of PF2 stuff to taste. Using the consistent framework that makes it all compatible. Without a need to oversight or checking. People that know the framework simply punch in your thing and verify it's legal.
Release the framework as a free SRD under the OGL.
Rebuild Starfinder on the framework.
Next, create a modern-genre game build on the framework.
Wash - rinse - repeat. Profit.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1032540Fail DC by 10 = crit fail
Feat to increase your save DC = increased likelihood on crit fail
While true and worth worrying about, what those numbers really look like isn't completely clear yet. We know that saves are using the proficiency bonus that hoveres nearby a characters current level, but have spell DCs been revealed yet? I'm pretty sure that spells aren't going to auto scale anymore and have to be slotted into the level of casting instead of the actual spell level. That could affect what save DCs wind up looking like.
I do think you are bringing up good points and holding these pictures up to PF1 shows a concerning picture. When August hits I hope Paizo is open to criticism like yours.
Quote from: trechriron;1032549Here's what Pathfinder needs to do for 2e to be more successful:
I think it is impossible for any game to be more successful than PF1 because the vacuum left by 4e is no more.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1032561I think it is impossible for any game to be more successful than PF1 because the vacuum left by 4e is no more.
At least as a market-share %. If the TTRPG market continues to expand it could potentially be more profitable. (I'm not saying that it WILL be - just that it COULD be.)
Ah. Todays blog is goblin PCs. Well... Some hints about ancestries at least.
Goblins are going to wind up as Pathfinder kender...if they aren't at some tables already.
Regarding PF 1e. I gave that up years ago once 5e came along.
I enjoyed PF 1e, but it got too cumbersome from level 11+
Regarding Starfinder.
It actually sounds really interesting, but I fairly recently got the Stars Without number 2nd ed book and I'm mostly into that for my Scifi fix and have been using SWN 1st ed previously for several years.
So a Pathfinder Scifi game is not something I'd buy atm, as I get my Scifi fix from SWN.
As to PF 2e, well I'm pretty happy with DnD 5e really, so don't see much point into buying into PF 2e.
As it turns out for me, I pretty much have all the 5e books I want or need for years now, so I probably won't be buying any more 5e books either.
Not because I'm tired of 5e, but because it's very good, easy to adapt other systems to and I have lots of the books already to keep me with material for years.
I expect if there's a DnD 6e at some stage in several years, I'd probably buy it if it sounds like something I'd be into though.
But a pf 2e released over the next year or so is too soon for me to buy into.
Quote from: Charon's Little Helper;1032562At least as a market-share %. If the TTRPG market continues to expand it could potentially be more profitable. (I'm not saying that it WILL be - just that it COULD be.)
I think the natural market share for a fantasy heartbreaker is 1% or less. If you want to make a splash, you need a better idea than "Greyhawk monsters and Vancian casting...but slightly more different than the last time!"
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1032561I think it is impossible for any game to be more successful than PF1 because the vacuum left by 4e is no more.
Pretty much, the OGL goblin was set loose, and now WoTC figured out how to make it work FOR them.
Quote from: sureshot;1031380Sorry Pundit I have to disagree with you on this one. We don't know that it will automatically fail imo. It may or may not. Assuming it will is just projecting one own bias into the argument. Player assumed 5E would fail before release and have been proven wrong.
There's a different set of data available here. 5e, before it came out, was an unknown quantity when 4e had been a disaster. It was logical for some people to imagine that maybe 5e would also suck.
On the other hand, Paizo is now competing with 5e which is a huge runaway success. Their company needs something that would also be a runaway success
to the degree that it would compete with 5e as well as Pathfinder competed with 4e. That's virtually impossible.
Quote from: Lynn;1031637I don't see them actually failing in the next five years but I do think they are going to see their customer base get eaten away.
Well, it took White Wolf about a decade to completely collapse.
Quote from: Mistwell;1031739I'd be comfortable if I were wrong :) Though, I don't want any RPG company to fail really. Most of the Paizo people seem like pretty good people.
Another point where we disagree.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1032699Pretty much, the OGL goblin was set loose, and now WoTC figured out how to make it work FOR them.
It seems to me it was already working for them 2000-2008, but they didn't realise this, and shutting it down with 4e hurt them much more than they expected, because there was little 3rd party support. Running 4e currently I'm using many of the 4e Dungeon Crawl Classics modules from ca 2008 because I don't much like most of the official stuff. 5e went back to embracing the OGL, but more than that they designed a game which is easy to use with WotC's own back catalogue, driving pdf sales of their old stuff.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1032699Pretty much, the OGL goblin was set loose, and now WoTC figured out how to make it work FOR them.
It seems to me it was already working for them 2000-2008, but they didn't realise this, and shutting it down with 4e hurt them much more than they expected, because there was little 3rd party support. Running 4e currently I'm using many of the 4e Dungeon Crawl Classics modules from ca 2008 because I don't much like most of the official stuff. 5e went back to embracing the OGL, but more than that they designed a game which is easy to use with WotC's own back catalogue, driving pdf sales of their old stuff.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1032914Another point where we disagree.
Maybe they'll calm down now their two most fanatic SJW witch-burners have left (and have attacked Paizo)? Most of them seem to be pretty typical goofy Seattle left-liberals, not truly malevolent?
Quote from: RPGPundit;1032914Another point where we disagree.
Maybe they'll calm down now their two most fanatic SJW witch-burners have left (and have attacked Paizo)? Most of them seem to be pretty typical goofy Seattle left-liberals, not truly malevolent?
My lack of hype for 2e stems from two areas: the mediocrity of Starfinder and abysmal Shifter class that Paizo released right before the announcement of 2e.
That's colored all my thoughts on the previews. What would have seemed cool to me before (resonance) now just reminds me of item levels. And I can't think they are getting class balance right after the release of the Shifter or the "12 levels of features stretched over 20 levels" classes of Starfinder.
Though the announcement did convince our group to try out 4e since it's as dead as PF 1e and one guy in our group has all the books. PF 2e is competing for the heavy crunch spot at our table. We're already got Savage Worlds for mid crunch and if we get tired of that there are OSR games to try out like DCC. What's tough for PF 2e at our table is:
Can they make it easier to run?
Can they make it so that building a trash character is hard?
Can it be palatable to the players that don't care for complexity?
Quote from: James Gillen;1032302I know Green Ronin isn't too popular here, but Mutants & Masterminds 3 is essentially based on the concept of 5 point degrees of success (+5 over difficulty is first degree, etc.) and they certainly get it across more concisely.
Talislanta/Omni did the same thing decades ago. IIRC, it's something like:
d20
1 or lower: Critical fail
2-5: Fail
6-10: Partial success
11-19: Full success
20+: Critical success
Quote from: S'mon;1032917It seems to me it was already working for them 2000-2008, but they didn't realise this, and shutting it down with 4e hurt them much more than they expected, because there was little 3rd party support. Running 4e currently I'm using many of the 4e Dungeon Crawl Classics modules from ca 2008 because I don't much like most of the official stuff. 5e went back to embracing the OGL, but more than that they designed a game which is easy to use with WotC's own back catalogue, driving pdf sales of their old stuff.
I'm not saying the OGL didn't work. I'm saying it HARMED WoTC. It effectively destroyed 4e. And yes, sticking with that, because when 2e to 3e happened, some stayed with the previous edition, but those who wanted to stay with a game that was supported 'officially' they had to switch, and often a lot of players did. The the OGL which allowed Pathfinder to exist legally. 4e was dead before it was even born.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1033032I'm not saying the OGL didn't work. I'm saying it HARMED WoTC. It effectively destroyed 4e. And yes, sticking with that, because when 2e to 3e happened, some stayed with the previous edition, but those who wanted to stay with a game that was supported 'officially' they had to switch, and often a lot of players did. The the OGL which allowed Pathfinder to exist legally. 4e was dead before it was even born.
But as estar (among others) has pointed out, one of the reasons for the OGL was so that there would be a rules base that could be used if "official" D&D didn't exist anymore. At the time it was a safeguard in case the copyright owner imploded the way TSR did. It turned out to be a safeguard when the copyright owner shot itself in the foot. ;)
JG
Quote from: James Gillen;1033034But as estar (among others) has pointed out, one of the reasons for the OGL was so that there would be a rules base that could be used if "official" D&D didn't exist anymore. At the time it was a safeguard in case the copyright owner imploded the way TSR did. It turned out to be a safeguard when the copyright owner shot itself in the foot. ;)
JG
Exactly, it harmed WoTC. I'm not saying 4e was good, or bad. I'm saying the OGL never let have it have a chance to even live. Thing is, if OGL didn't exist, would have 4e died as fast as it did? We'll never really know. No matter what the OSR crowd wants to believe.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1033058Thing is, if OGL didn't exist, would have 4e died as fast as it did?
I guess with no Pathfinder it would have died slower. A more drawn out death a la 2e might have been worse for WotC though.
Quote from: S'mon;1033075I guess with no Pathfinder it would have died slower. A more drawn out death a la 2e might have been worse for WotC though.
You could very well be right, but hindsight and all that.
But, as we have a system that's very much akin to the older games, I honestly don't think Pathfinder 2e stands much of a chance to succeed.
Quote from: Sara Marie[ooc]Removed some more posts and replies. When the conversation here on the forums regarding race/ancestry shifts to discussing if its "too PC", "too politically correct" or "caving to identity politics" posts inevitably stray towards discussing how the majority of gamers don't have a problem with the term "race" and therefore it should be kept as is. The implication of this argument, sometimes merely hinted at, sometimes stated outright, is that the majority of gamers are white and if they don't have a problem with it then it shouldn't be a problem. This creates a hostile environment for gamers who are not white. It dismisses them as irrelevant to the community and the conversations about gaming and allowing those conversations to stand on our forums creates an unwelcoming environment; a place on the internet where their feelings are dismissed rather than accepted. [/ooc]
This is a real Paizo community manger post in response to quibles about changing the term "Race" to "Ancestry"
Link: http://paizo.com/threads/gbir4580/favorites?Thank-you-Paizo-developers-for-replacing-race
Thought it was a nice insight into what the Paizo staff may be thinking about.
Actually, "Ancestry" was a term I was considering to replace "race" for design purposes several months before this. Part of it is that race is an unnecessarily hot-button term, part of it that ancestry's a broader term that enables more design space for 'human, but one of my ancestors was a fairy/wood spirit/water nymph/demon/Creature from Beyond' stuff for a more fairy-tale/folklore/legendary kind of game, part of it is that it enables a nice 'ABC' mnemonic--Ancestry, Background, Class. :)
Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1033137Actually, "Ancestry" was a term I was considering to replace "race" for design purposes several months before this. Part of it is that race is an unnecessarily hot-button term, part of it that ancestry's a broader term that enables more design space for 'human, but one of my ancestors was a fairy/wood spirit/water nymph/demon/Creature from Beyond' stuff for a more fairy-tale/folklore/legendary kind of game, part of it is that it enables a nice 'ABC' mnemonic--Ancestry, Background, Class. :)
I really don't care about the term used.
I find the implied "if you disagree with this you are racist" hilarious from a mod.
Quote from: Rhedyn;1033135This is a real Paizo community manger post in response to quibles about changing the term "Race" to "Ancestry"
Link: http://paizo.com/threads/gbir4580/favorites?Thank-you-Paizo-developers-for-replacing-race
Thought it was a nice insight into what the Paizo staff may be thinking about.
So Paizo is chasing that elusive mass of nonwhites who don't play Pathfinder now, but would if a few minor cosmetic and linguistic changes were made to the game. I wish them luck.
Quote from: Rhedyn;1033135This is a real Paizo community manger post in response to quibles about changing the term "Race" to "Ancestry"
I like 'partly outbred extended family' :p - but 'ancestry' means the same as traditional uses of 'race' - the Scots race, the English race, the Dwarven race - a member of that race has ancestors of that race.
Edit: But of course the word 'race' is not offensive to non-whites, that seems to be a trope recently invented by the Baizuo/White Left.
Re Political Correctness and player diversity, there are some traditional pulp fantasy tropes I would avoid now in case of offence to my black player(s). Thinking in particular of some 'savage native' tropes. Maybe my player(s) wouldn't care, but I don't fancy risking it.
I would have preferred the term species. Ancestry and race imply different groups within the species.
Paizo Community Manager response is nothing but a repetition of the usual mindless drivel of people who don't want to think about these things because it makes them feel icky and compels them to feel offended on behalf of others. A form of Noblesse Oblige. I think that is the term. :rolleyes:
Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1033137Actually, "Ancestry" was a term I was considering to replace "race" for design purposes several months before this. Part of it is that race is an unnecessarily hot-button term, part of it that ancestry's a broader term that enables more design space for 'human, but one of my ancestors was a fairy/wood spirit/water nymph/demon/Creature from Beyond' stuff for a more fairy-tale/folklore/legendary kind of game, part of it is that it enables a nice 'ABC' mnemonic--Ancestry, Background, Class. :)
That's cool, and changes the game in a way that isn't weird/unusual.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1033140So Paizo is chasing that elusive mass of nonwhites who don't play Pathfinder now, but would if a few minor cosmetic and linguistic changes were made to the game. I wish them luck.
I've seen it articulated more often like this: Chasing white males who, based on guilt they feel over their private discriminatory thoughts or past unacceptable behavior, want to signal their righteousness. Which can include buying a product they feel signals that righteousness as well.
I am not sure that's a genuine thing, but I've seen people mention that as a possibility. It's sort of the Coffee Table Book theory of consumption; you buy something to send a signal about how you want to be perceived.
Another blog post is up and is focusing on Ancestries again. (http://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo5lkoy?Big-Beards-and-Pointy-Ears)
It looks like the various species are still called races in game, but an Ancestry is the general bucket that you put racial and cultural traits and feats into. They also seem to be decoupling biological and social abilities, so while you can have a dwarf who has trained with all the weapons of his people, not every dwarf automatically knows how to swing an axe well.
Quote from: Rhedyn;1033135This is a real Paizo community manger post in response to quibles about changing the term "Race" to "Ancestry"
Link: http://paizo.com/threads/gbir4580/favorites?Thank-you-Paizo-developers-for-replacing-race
Thought it was a nice insight into what the Paizo staff may be thinking about.
Yeah, that's a problem.
Quote from: Manic Modron;1033158Another blog post is up and is focusing on Ancestries again. (http://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo5lkoy?Big-Beards-and-Pointy-Ears)
It looks like the various species are still called races in game, but an Ancestry is the general bucket that you put racial and cultural traits and feats into. They also seem to be decoupling biological and social abilities, so while you can have a dwarf who has trained with all the weapons of his people, not every dwarf automatically knows how to swing an axe well.
Well, this is the valid part of the change.
jg
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1028255Everyone is saying they're making 5e-finder now. I wonder if they'll be able to do to 5e what they did to 4e?
So far the amount of salt is outstanding.
Except 5e wasnt a mess so divergent from the core its nearly its own thing.
But.
If WOTC screws up and makes a 6e then if Pazio is using 5e for 2e PF then they will be in the position to again absorb everyone who refuses to jump on the 6e bandwagon. And that will be over 50% of WOTCs customer base lost once again depeneding on how badly they screw up.
And Pazio themselves have just screwed up and will lose a chunk of their customer base if 2e PF is too different.
I am hoping WOTC doesnt.
Pushing a 6e any time soon would be a colossal screw up. I doubt any C-level sort at WotC would be dumb enough to green light a 6e. Just checking 5e sales on Amazon: PHB is #30, ~3.5 years after first released. This is in overall book sales, not some niche sub-category. DMG is #48. By any reckoning that I hear about, 5e is raking in the cash. WotC is not going to do anything to stop the money train, at least until it starts to slow down a bit.
I don't see a PF2 slowing it either.
Quote from: Manic Modron;1033158Another blog post is up and is focusing on Ancestries again. (http://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo5lkoy?Big-Beards-and-Pointy-Ears)
It looks like the various species are still called races in game, but an Ancestry is the general bucket that you put racial and cultural traits and feats into. They also seem to be decoupling biological and social abilities, so while you can have a dwarf who has trained with all the weapons of his people, not every dwarf automatically knows how to swing an axe well.
Lol they edited some uses of the term "race" out of the blog. Still missing some last I checked.
Dev admits use of race was a mistake: http://paizo.com/threads/gbir49yf/favorites?Big-Beards-and-Pointy-Ears#discuss
Quote from: Rhedyn;1033213Dev admits use of race was a mistake: http://paizo.com/threads/gbir49yf/favorites?Big-Beards-and-Pointy-Ears#discuss
Once you start down the Social Justice path, forever it will dominate your destiny.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1033032I'm not saying the OGL didn't work. I'm saying it HARMED WoTC. It effectively destroyed 4e. And yes, sticking with that, because when 2e to 3e happened, some stayed with the previous edition, but those who wanted to stay with a game that was supported 'officially' they had to switch, and often a lot of players did. The the OGL which allowed Pathfinder to exist legally. 4e was dead before it was even born.
The OGL made WotC money hand over fist until...
1. Some idiots at Hasbro wondered why other people were making money from the WotC rules.
2. These same idiots didn't realize what the OGL actually was, did, or meant.
3. They
stepped away from the 3.0/3.5 ruleset in order to design a game so divergent from the current version of the game that it couldn't be reproduced with the OGL.
4. Foolishly thought a marketing campaign firing their existing customer base and the new forge-theory inspired design of 4e would bring them younger video game players.
5. Gave Paizo the kiss off.
6. Were actually surprised at the result.
Yes, the OGL was a double-edged sword for WotC. It guaranteed them a place as the market leader as long as they stayed with an OGL compatible ruleset. But...they had to actually keep putting out good product and accept minor competitors using their ruleset, and most importantly, they had to keep holding the tiger by the tail and not let go.
They let go.
Quote from: CRKrueger;1033292The OGL made WotC money hand over fist until...
1. Some idiots at Hasbro wondered why other people were making money from the WotC rules.
2. These same idiots didn't realize what the OGL actually was, did, or meant.
3. They stepped away from the 3.0/3.5 ruleset in order to design a game so divergent from the current version of the game that it couldn't be reproduced with the OGL.
4. Foolishly thought a marketing campaign firing their existing customer base and the new forge-theory inspired design of 4e would bring them younger video game players.
5. Gave Paizo the kiss off.
6. Were actually surprised at the result.
Yes, the OGL was a double-edged sword for WotC. It guaranteed them a place as the market leader as long as they stayed with an OGL compatible ruleset. But...they had to actually keep putting out good product and accept minor competitors using their ruleset, and most importantly, they had to keep holding the tiger by the tail and not let go.
They let go.
Bingo.
That said, they still gave away too much content with the OGL. The monster list should be about half as big as it is, there should have only been the Big Four classes (Fighter/Cleric/Rogue/Wizard) and Big Four races (Human/Dwarf/Elf/Halfling).
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1033319That said, they still gave away too much content with the OGL. The monster list should be about half as big as it is, there should have only been the Big Four classes (Fighter/Cleric/Rogue/Wizard) and Big Four races (Human/Dwarf/Elf/Halfling).
It would have been interesting to see what a Piazzo would have done for PF if that were the case. Like, what would they have done instead of paladin/bard/gnome/hal-elf, etc.?
Quote from: Willie the Duck;1033354It would have been interesting to see what a Piazzo would have done for PF if that were the case. Like, what would they have done instead of paladin/bard/gnome/hal-elf, etc.?
Same thing with a different name, like they and everybody else has done with Wizards' Product Identity.
Quote from: S'mon;1032920Maybe they'll calm down now their two most fanatic SJW witch-burners have left (and have attacked Paizo)? Most of them seem to be pretty typical goofy Seattle left-liberals, not truly malevolent?
Possibly. I don't follow Paizo very attentively, but it does seem like these last couple of months you've had more SJW idiocy coming out of WoTC than Paizo, which is quite the flip.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1033032I'm not saying the OGL didn't work. I'm saying it HARMED WoTC. It effectively destroyed 4e.
Pretty sure that 4e destroyed 4e, and harmed WoTC.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1033617Pretty sure that 4e destroyed 4e, and harmed WoTC.
No. It didn't keep it alive, but Pathfinder is what killed 4e, and the only reason why Pathfinder 1e was able to even exist (because although, technically you can't copyright rules, most people don't know that) was due to the OGL spelling out that they could. 4e died on the vine, it was stillborn. Simply because gamers could finally stick with an edition they knew, rather than try for some oh so scary CHANGE!
Quote from: RPGPundit;1033617Pretty sure that 4e destroyed 4e, and harmed WoTC.
Yes. I think without the OGL still many people would have stayed with 3e, many would have left the hobby (as happened during 2e era) and few new gamers would have been recruited. I don't believe 4e would have been a success just because it lacked an in-print alternative. It's too much of a niche market and bears too little resemblance to original D&D. In particular IME it lacks a viable Exploration play mode.
Quote from: S'mon;1033645Yes. I think without the OGL still many people would have stayed with 3e, many would have left the hobby (as happened during 2e era) and few new gamers would have been recruited.
Yep. Your #1 enemy in entertainment is disinterest. People don't have to play D&D. They can watch movies, read books, build model trains, or just go outside and throw sticks for the dog.
Although I'm pretty sure I saw somewhere that 4e did achieve its goal of bringing in new fans, it just lost old ones faster than it brought new ones in.
Quote from: S'mon;1033645Yes. I think without the OGL still many people would have stayed with 3e, many would have left the hobby (as happened during 2e era) and few new gamers would have been recruited. I don't believe 4e would have been a success just because it lacked an in-print alternative. It's too much of a niche market and bears too little resemblance to original D&D. In particular IME it lacks a viable Exploration play mode.
The RPG industry almost was dying regardless because of The Great Recession and other factors, and if brand-name D&D had gone down, it sure wouldn't have helped.
JG
Quote from: James Gillen;1033729The RPG industry almost was dying regardless because of The Great Recession and other factors, and if brand-name D&D had gone down, it sure wouldn't have helped.
JG
I still think everyone underestimates how badly that hitting just as 4E launched hurt things, especially since 4E gave the impression of needing a whole lot of additional material (maps/tiles, miniatures, etc.) And the
Essentials line being designed largely for mass-market bookstores and then hitting just when those more or less collapsed was probably the death blow.
Quote from: CRKrueger;1033292The OGL made WotC money hand over fist until...
1. Some idiots at Hasbro wondered why other people were making money from the WotC rules.
2. These same idiots didn't realize what the OGL actually was, did, or meant.
3. They stepped away from the 3.0/3.5 ruleset in order to design a game so divergent from the current version of the game that it couldn't be reproduced with the OGL.
4. Foolishly thought a marketing campaign firing their existing customer base and the new forge-theory inspired design of 4e would bring them younger video game players.
5. Gave Paizo the kiss off.
6. Were actually surprised at the result.
Yes, the OGL was a double-edged sword for WotC. It guaranteed them a place as the market leader as long as they stayed with an OGL compatible ruleset. But...they had to actually keep putting out good product and accept minor competitors using their ruleset, and most importantly, they had to keep holding the tiger by the tail and not let go.
They let go.
What was the alternative though? Come out with 3.75 that "fixed" 3.5 but somehow didn't come off as a giant ripoff?? Sure its what Paizo did but Paizo isn't WotC and didn't burn any bridges with a shotty 3.0 version. Not to mention how saturated, congested, and utterly mired in shit the 3.5 ruleset had become to the point that more supplements weren't the answer. Investment in more settings or adventures would've maybe bought them a year or two at most.
Besides, without 4th edition we wouldn't have learned the problems and worked out a system that is highly successful like 5th Edition has become.
I appreciate the irony of this thread at the Paizo boards (http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2uzmh?Pathfinder-2-Spiritual-Successor-to-DD-4th) where multiple people express the sentiment that PF2 is the spiritual successor of 4e.
Yes, the 4e that drove hordes to PF1 in the first place.
Quote from: Batman;1033784What was the alternative though? Come out with 3.75 that "fixed" 3.5 but somehow didn't come off as a giant ripoff??
Alternative: stick with OGL, make a simpler and better balanced system - 5e, basically, I guess probably minus the few 4e-isms in 5e. The Pathfinder Beginner Box shows in several areas how this could be done, with much simpler & better designed monster stat blocks, streamlined PC creation, and good class balance within its 1-5 range.
5e completed the solutions with eg the Proficiency Bonus/Bounded Accuracy design, the 3 Item Attunement Limit, and spell Concentration. There are some problems with the 5e MM monsters lacking offensive punch, but the core of 5e design is extremely robust - they got it right. And those elements didn't require 4e, even if 4e was the kick up the pants needed to motivate the design work.
Quote from: Batman;1033784What was the alternative though? Come out with 3.75 that "fixed" 3.5 but somehow didn't come off as a giant ripoff?? Sure its what Paizo did but Paizo isn't WotC and didn't burn any bridges with a shotty 3.0 version. Not to mention how saturated, congested, and utterly mired in shit the 3.5 ruleset had become to the point that more supplements weren't the answer. Investment in more settings or adventures would've maybe bought them a year or two at most.
Besides, without 4th edition we wouldn't have learned the problems and worked out a system that is highly successful like 5th Edition has become.
Here's what always got me, for all the bitching that people did when 3.5 came out about how WoTC is a money grubbing corporation, invalidating your books with a new edition, but close enough to the old one... Paizo turns around, effectively does the EXACT same thing, and gets praised for it.
Gamers...
Quote from: S'mon;1033812Alternative: stick with OGL, make a simpler and better balanced system - 5e, basically, I guess probably minus the few 4e-isms in 5e. The Pathfinder Beginner Box shows in several areas how this could be done, with much simpler & better designed monster stat blocks, streamlined PC creation, and good class balance within its 1-5 range.
5e completed the solutions with eg the Proficiency Bonus/Bounded Accuracy design, the 3 Item Attunement Limit, and spell Concentration. There are some problems with the 5e MM monsters lacking offensive punch, but the core of 5e design is extremely robust - they got it right. And those elements didn't require 4e, even if 4e was the kick up the pants needed to motivate the design work.
Short rest mechanics drive a lot of sub-path and class design, something that PF has practically nothing of.
Non-magical healing is something that PF has nothing of but (besides sleeping) and is a nod to 4E's surge system by utilizing Hit Die.
At-will magic, while being present in PF, doesn't hold the same weight in design because it's not supposed to maintain spell casters through most combats. Not only that, but it doesn't scale with character level, thus if you multi-class your Cantrips end up doing nothing.
Alignment based mechanics and restrictions haven't had a reason to exist in almost two decades but still persist, for some reason, because of nostalgia in PF.
Feat design is no longer exemption based, because of 4E. 5th edition carry this over by making Feats bigger and worth their salt through most levels of play. PF still continues to treat Feats as Band-Aids to penalties of doing stuff everybody should be able to do already.
Lastly, attack progression/ iterative attack penalties - for some reason PF still considers this old, outdated system worth using. A major flaw in why 3.5 / PF combat slows down so much is because the more attacks you make the more penalties you take and each roll has different math to calculate. Not only that, but if you're a spell caster you might as well forget about using any weapon ever because of the way AC scales. 4th edition introduced a flat bonus to attacks and saving throws that everyone utilizes at the same rate of progression, and now so does 5th edition.
All of these are huge systemic changes that 5e had adopted from 4E that don't seem to have any bearing to what PF does. And judging by the way 2nd edition Pathfinder is turning out, these concepts are still alien to their design team.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1033815Here's what always got me, for all the bitching that people did when 3.5 came out about how WoTC is a money grubbing corporation, invalidating your books with a new edition, but close enough to the old one... Paizo turns around, effectively does the EXACT same thing, and gets praised for it.
Gamers...
It sure is a head scratcher. I haven't purchased anything from Paizo but still play in an occasional PF campaign all 100% free due to the OGL. The classes, 3rd party base classes, and Prestige Classes are all spelled out, thus not needing any book to buy or reference.
But I'm not going to shell out hundreds of dollars for a homebrew 3.5 system. I'll buy 4E because I like it and its different. I'll buy 5E because its simpler and easier to convert older modules to and write content for. But PF.....nah man I got the OGL and I'm A-OK with that.
Quote from: S'mon;1033812There are some problems with the 5e MM monsters lacking offensive punch, but the core of 5e design is extremely robust - they got it right.
Robust?
Encounter pacing alone can make the combat system very wonky and unfun.
Not to mention "busting 5e" (in ways that are broken for 5e) is fairly easy with multiclassing or feats or large parties or levels with 2 numbers in them.
The combat can be long and boring, the skill system encourages the DM to ask for rolls for every little thing (I would much rather not have a skill system or have a very limited one like in RC D&D than what 5e did), the monsters are boring HP sacks, the spell system breaks down while being extra boring with cantrips and concentration so you are encouraged to find exploits to just not be bored.
Yeah you can get some magic going in 5e and actually have fun, for me it peters out around level 4 when the systematic problems start to accumulate, but I also prefer high level play in general and 5e offers a worse experience than PF.
We actually finish campaigns in PF while we've had to euthanize every single 5e one. Maybe that's because any GM willing to run PF is clearly willing to put in a lot of effort, but I think it has more to do with PF actually being a decently robust system (which it can be achieve that with just how versatile monsters are that the GM has tools beyond fiat to address PC shenanigans)
Quote from: Franky;1033183Pushing a 6e any time soon would be a colossal screw up. I doubt any C-level sort at WotC would be dumb enough to green light a 6e. Just checking 5e sales on Amazon: PHB is #30, ~3.5 years after first released. This is in overall book sales, not some niche sub-category. DMG is #48. By any reckoning that I hear about, 5e is raking in the cash. WotC is not going to do anything to stop the money train, at least until it starts to slow down a bit.
I don't see a PF2 slowing it either.
I'm sure they are already working on 6E. Doesn't mean it will be out soon but they are working on it. I have a feeling we will start hearing about the next edition around the end of next year for a 2020 or 2021 release.
Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1033137Actually, "Ancestry" was a term I was considering to replace "race" for design purposes several months before this. Part of it is that race is an unnecessarily hot-button term, part of it that ancestry's a broader term that enables more design space for 'human, but one of my ancestors was a fairy/wood spirit/water nymph/demon/Creature from Beyond' stuff for a more fairy-tale/folklore/legendary kind of game, part of it is that it enables a nice 'ABC' mnemonic--Ancestry, Background, Class. :)
Can you help me understand why "race" is a hot-button term? With whom? And where?
Dwarves are a race. Elves are a race. Humans are a race. I just don't understand how changing it to "ancestry" does anything when the common colloquial usage won't change. Who are you trying to talk off the edge with the change?
Quote from: Ulairi;1033827Who are you trying to talk off the edge with the change?
Well, to play devil's advocate, who are
you talking to? Who exactly is this excited person that is making this big deal? Because both 'sides' (as if there were two clearly delineated sides) are acting like it's the other that is making the big deal.
Honestly, if Gary had, between oD&D and AD&D changed 'race' to something like 'creature type'* and said something in a
Strategic Review or
Dragon like "Look, I don't know if anyone cares, but I'm changing this term so that no one ever mistakes the discussion for discussing real-world human-type Caucasian/Asian/Etc.-type races, just in case that were ever to be an issue" this whole thing would be over and done with a long time ago.
*Which has the advantage in that it works for monstrous characters or NPCs as well (sure, elf is a race, why not? But vampire?)I doubt, off the internet-- where people (on both sides of any issue) go out of their way to try to make-things-into-big-deals -- there really is much worry about it. OTOH, I have introduced new people to table top rpgs, and when I said, "and next you pick your 'race'--human, elf, dwarf, etc. ...' they have said, "really? They decided to call that race? No I'm not offended, but that was honestly what they landed on?" It was, in all honesty, a very-minorly-foolish decision that very-unlikely-but-not-impossibly could cause problems and/or misunderstandings. It makes all the sense in the world to ditch it. I just wish it had been done back sometime in the past when the very act of ditching it wasn't seen as a political action.
Quote from: Ulairi;1033827Can you help me understand why "race" is a hot-button term? With whom? And where?
Dwarves are a race. Elves are a race. Humans are a race. I just don't understand how changing it to "ancestry" does anything when the common colloquial usage won't change. Who are you trying to talk off the edge with the change?
No one in particular, I just don't see the need to hang on to an old term that carries some baggage (especially when 'race, class' sometimes feels like you're likely to follow up with 'gender' and start the Revolution :) ), when there's a broader term that does all the work and allows for 'human, but with something else in there' as well. And since this is not likely to get past idle daydreaming and at most a few online postings, don't worry that I'm part of some grand effort to subvert the hobby. :)
Quote from: Rhedyn;1033825Encounter pacing alone can make the combat system very wonky and unfun. QuoteIf you're trying to run on-rails APs, sure, but on-rails APs are stupid.
QuoteNot to mention "busting 5e" (in ways that are broken for 5e) is fairly easy with multiclassing or feats
Optional for this very reason.
Quoteor large parties or levels with 2 numbers in them.
Your #1 complaint this whole time is your DM let you kill a pit fiend, which apparently he should have run a TPK instead. Which was entirely possible, but you've got it into your head that a pit fiend dealing with invaders by hiding in a cave (or whatever it was "you" did to "ensure" that it never found you before you cornered it in the bathroom or whatever) is actually due to a total failure in RAW. Also that a pit fiend should be untouchable by a 9th-level character's attacks because that's how it worked in 3.5.
QuotePF actually being a decently robust system
:rolleyes:
Quote from: Willie the Duck;1033830Well, to play devil's advocate, who are you talking to? Who exactly is this excited person that is making this big deal? Because both 'sides' (as if there were two clearly delineated sides) are acting like it's the other that is making the big deal.
Honestly, if Gary had, between oD&D and AD&D changed 'race' to something like 'creature type'* and said something in a Strategic Review or Dragon like "Look, I don't know if anyone cares, but I'm changing this term so that no one ever mistakes the discussion for discussing real-world human-type Caucasian/Asian/Etc.-type races, just in case that were ever to be an issue" this whole thing would be over and done with a long time ago.
*Which has the advantage in that it works for monstrous characters or NPCs as well (sure, elf is a race, why not? But vampire?)
I doubt, off the internet-- where people (on both sides of any issue) go out of their way to try to make-things-into-big-deals -- there really is much worry about it. OTOH, I have introduced new people to table top rpgs, and when I said, "and next you pick your 'race'--human, elf, dwarf, etc. ...' they have said, "really? They decided to call that race? No I'm not offended, but that was honestly what they landed on?" It was, in all honesty, a very-minorly-foolish decision that very-unlikely-but-not-impossibly could cause problems and/or misunderstandings. It makes all the sense in the world to ditch it. I just wish it had been done back sometime in the past when the very act of ditching it wasn't seen as a political action.
It's cool that you're gaming with unicorns in Minnesota.
I'm glad I've never had the luck to play with somebody that when asked what race they want to play complains about the term race when talking about elf games.
Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1033832No one in particular, I just don't see the need to hang on to an old term that carries some baggage (especially when 'race, class' sometimes feels like you're likely to follow up with 'gender' and start the Revolution :) ), when there's a broader term that does all the work and allows for 'human, but with something else in there' as well. And since this is not likely to get past idle daydreaming and at most a few online postings, don't worry that I'm part of some grand effort to subvert the hobby. :)
Who does it carry baggage with? In the last year I've been gaming at GaryCon, GameHole Con, GenCon, Nexus Milwaukee, and ACEN Chicag with all sorts of different people talking about games at the bars and restaurants and not once has this come up as a thing. I didn't even know it was a thing until it popped up in this thread. When I was on Twitter up until last year I never saw it making the rounds.
I feel like this is a solution in search of a problem and before we start taking down fences we might as well ask why they are there. I think ancestry is far more confusing to new gamers than race. People that have never games know that an elf is a different race than a dwarf.
I see that both you and Willie are in Minnesota is this a Minnesota thing?
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1033815Here's what always got me, for all the bitching that people did when 3.5 came out about how WoTC is a money grubbing corporation, invalidating your books with a new edition, but close enough to the old one... Paizo turns around, effectively does the EXACT same thing, and gets praised for it.
Right, but there's an obvious psychology here that Paizo made a 'new' game better in a new format, that was compatible with your previous knowledge and had pretty new pictures. Perceived (rather than actual) value and emotional investment are real and something that WotC completely ignored.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1033834Quote from: Rhedyn;1033825Encounter pacing alone can make the combat system very wonky and unfun. QuoteIf you're trying to run on-rails APs, sure, but on-rails APs are stupid.
Optional for this very reason.
Your #1 complaint this whole time is your DM let you kill a pit fiend, which apparently he should have run a TPK instead. Which was entirely possible, but you've got it into your head that a pit fiend dealing with invaders by hiding in a cave (or whatever it was "you" did to "ensure" that it never found you before you cornered it in the bathroom or whatever) is actually due to a total failure in RAW. Also that a pit fiend should be untouchable by a 9th-level character's attacks because that's how it worked in 3.5 (I'm starting to get the impression that you think 3.5 is the authoritative version of D&D...which this is probably not the best forum on which to argue from that premise.)
:rolleyes:
Pfffff in RC D&D something like a Pitfiend would be an Immortal, so you are looking at fighting something equivalent to a max level character or other Immortals having an x% chance of stopping the fight per round if it's on the prime plane.
So the basic D&D version of a Pitfiend has way more abilities and tools than a 5e Pitfiend.
It's not only in 3.5 where killing such a thing at level 9 would be a laughable concept. 5e is the only edition I've seen so far that says a 7 person party is level 9s SHOULD be and to fight 3 separate Pitfiends.
Basic D&D does a better job curbing the absurd and it's last real update came in 1991.
Quote from: Ulairi;1033836It's cool that you're gaming with unicorns in Minnesota.
I'm glad I've never had the luck to play with somebody that when asked what race they want to play complains about the term race when talking about elf games.
So you completely missed how I said that this is barely a thing in the real world and mostly exists as a problem amongst self important stuffed shirts (on both sides) on the internet?
Quote from: Rhedyn;1033840Pfffff in RC D&D something like a Pitfiend would be an Immortal
And in AD&D they have 13 HD. RC isn't the One True D&D, either.
Quote5e is the only edition I've seen so far that says a 7 person party is level 9s SHOULD be and to fight 3 separate Pitfiends.
Pretty sure in 1e and 2e, 7 9th-level characters can handle more than one 13-HD monster per day, especially if the DM lets them get the drop on it alone and they win initiative in the first round. TBH you haven't convinced me that you did anything to kill a Pit Fiend in 5e that didn't involve a significant level of DM fiat (you've alluded to a brilliant strategy you had and never said what it is). Players often overestimate themselves in such situations.
Isn't Pathfinder the game with a table describing 50+ different situations of YES/NO is this an attack of opportunity?.. I guess removing race seem logical to them..
Pit Fiend (5e): Fly 60', At Will: Fireball (range: 150')
Counterspell: 60' range
Your DM wanted you guys to beat that thing. Or didn't plan how to use it at all. This is a problem between the dice and the chair -- not a problem with the edition.
Quote from: KingCheops;1033846Pit Fiend (5e): Fly 60', At Will: Fireball (range: 150')
Counterspell: 60' range
Your DM wanted you guys to beat that thing. Or didn't plan how to use it at all. This is a problem between the dice and the chair -- not a problem with the edition.
Oh man it's like we found it in a dungeon and the room we found it in had a big orb that it wanted.
The game itself says we should win that medium encounter. Either we can't win encounters that the game says we can or we do defeat 3 Pitfiends a day with level 9 characters.
Both options are dumb.
Was that AD&D Pitfiend just 13HD or 13HD plus lots of flat health from higher levels along with a slew of special abilities?
"flat health from higher levels?" What in the name of Crom's hairy nutsack does that even MEAN?
Well I wasn't at the table so didn't know the specifics. So you are bitching that you guys were able to defeat a creature in a contrived situation that neutered all of its in-game abilities and fluff and you are bitching there is something wrong with the game?
Ignored for being a total cunt.
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1033853"flat health from higher levels?" What in the name of Crom's hairy nutsack does that even MEAN?
Idk much about 1e and anything about 2e is fuzzy.
But in RC D&D you cap out in HD eventually and just gain a fixed amount of HP after that every level.
I was wondering if the Pit fiend was a monster that worked like that.
Quote from: Willie the Duck;1033841So you completely missed how I said that this is barely a thing in the real world and mostly exists as a problem amongst self important stuffed shirts (on both sides) on the internet?
I didn't miss that part. I'm just not believing the second part.
I don't think this is an issue at all in real life. Nobody that actually plays D&D gets offended that race is a character trait
Quote from: Ulairi;1033858I didn't miss that part. I'm just not believing the second part.
I don't think this is an issue at all in real life. Nobody that actually plays D&D gets offended that race is a character trait
Okay. Then we're basically in agreement. This is a tempest in a teapot (that doesn't even exist, it's a picture of a teapot posted on reddit or something).
Quote from: KingCheops;1033854Well I wasn't at the table so didn't know the specifics. So you are bitching that you guys were able to defeat a creature in a contrived situation that neutered all of its in-game abilities and fluff and you are bitching there is something wrong with the game?
Ignored for being a total cunt.
I don't need to get into nitty detail about a 5e combat in a PF thread.
The game (5e) says we should expect to win 3 Pitfiend fights like that per day with that party size at that level. If you think that fight should be impossible, you have a bigger problem with 5e than I do.
PF wouldn't let us do that. PF2e probably won't either. Couldn't do that in 4e. Idk about 2e or 1e, but good luck pulling that off in RC D&D (some non-immortal in BD&D splat might have the word Pitfiend in it's name but I haven't found it)
Quote from: Willie the Duck;1033859Okay. Then we're basically in agreement. This is a tempest in a teapot (that doesn't even exist, it's a picture of a teapot posted on reddit or something).
FWIW, I agree. Like I said, I was blue-skying ancestry mostly for being able to have 'humans' with a dryad, mermaid, elf, demon, or similar in their background with mechanical distinction.
Quote from: Rhedyn;1033825Yeah you can get some magic going in 5e and actually have fun, for me it peters out around level 4 when the systematic problems start to accumulate, but I also prefer high level play in general and 5e offers a worse experience than PF.
I guess our experiences are very different. I loathe running 3e/PF above 8th level, IME it's horrid.
Edit: 1e Pit Fiends have 13d8 hit points. They are about as threatening as 5e Pit Fiends, ie you probably want to be 8th or 9th level before taking one on. Unfortunately 5e calls them CR 20 which gives people the impression you should be eg 17th level to face one, but a large 5e party at 9th level is like a small 5e party at 18th level.
The Challenge Rating system, in Pathfinder and D&D, is a hot mess. Not just for rating Pit Fiends, but for pretty much anything that is more, or potentially more, than a bag of hit points. 5e Pit Fiends are mere shadows of what they were in OD&D/AD&D. No idea about 2e AD&D.
It will be interesting to see what Paizo does with the CR system, if anything.
Edit: 1e pit fiends could teleport without error. Killing one would be near impossible. It would just leave. Looking at them now, 2hp/round regeneration, Charm Person, Animate Dead, Gate in other demons... etc. Much more formidable than the 5e version.
Quote from: Rhedyn;1033847Oh man it's like we found it in a dungeon and the room we found it in had a big orb that it wanted.
Oh man, it's like your DM wanted you to have a fighting chance instead of leveraging all its strengths.
QuoteThe game itself says we should win that medium encounter. Either we can't win encounters that the game says we can or we do defeat 3 Pitfiends a day with level 9 characters.
Both options are dumb.
"Either we should be able to win, or we shouldn't...both options are dumb" is dumb. There aren't a lot of other choices. First you're whining that you were able to defeat a Pit Fiend. Now you're whining that if the DM had set up an encounter to maximally leverage its strength, you wouldn't have been able to win. Friend, D&D has long been a game where a sufficiently clever DM who hates you sufficiently much can wreck your 9th-level party with kobolds just to prove a point...and where a sufficiently clever player with a neato ring, a magic cape, and a coupla potions and scrolls can sneak through the Temple of Elemental Evil and unleash a fungus demon on an unsuspecting world just for lulz.
And yes, the CR system in 5e is pretty hand-wavy, but the only edition that really had a solid difficulty rating system was 4e. Which, uh, had some problems winning over the traditional D&D crowd.
QuoteWas that AD&D Pitfiend just 13HD or 13HD plus lots of flat health from higher levels along with a slew of special abilities?
You should probably lurk more and learn about what pre-3.x D&D was like.
QuotePF wouldn't let us do that. PF2e probably won't either. Couldn't do that in 4e.
You should probably lurk more if you think this is a winning argument among this crowd.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1033868You should probably lurk more if you think this is a winning argument among this crowd
The same crowd telling me how much stronger early AD&D Pitfiends are compared to 5e?
Also it's a PF thread, so I will go out of my way to inject something PF relevant. Like "Should 2e let you kill multiple Pitfiends a day regardless of size?"
Meanwhile an RC D&D Pitfiend equivalent would be a Sphere of Entropy Greater Immortal with -10 AC, 250 HP, at will casting of any spell, can only be hurt by +5 Weapons or greater, take minimum roll damage, immune to poison, immune to mortal spells, negates magic (including weapons) within 5ft 60% of the time each round, and that is just the RC rules not a more fleshed out wrath of the Immortals version.
Quote from: Rhedyn;1033871Meanwhile an RC D&D Pitfiend equivalent would be a Sphere of Entropy Greater Immortal with -10 AC, 250 HP, at will casting of any spell, can only be hurt by +5 Weapons or greater, take minimum roll damage, immune to poison, immune to mortal spells, negates magic (including weapons) within 5ft 60% of the time each round, and that is just the RC rules not a more fleshed out wrath of the Immortals version.
Rhedyn, I'm really glad you've discovered a version of D&D that you like, and that your arguments here aren't trivially disproved by opening the rulebook. But there is no way that throwing an immortal set monster at non-immortal level BECMI characters is the same situation as AD&D or 5e characters taking on a pit fiend. Pit fiends are monsters designed to be fought at some level by PCs. The immortal and non-immortal BECMI rules, while theoretically part of the same edition, just really aren't.
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1033853"flat health from higher levels?" What in the name of Crom's hairy nutsack does that even MEAN?
In older editions, but newer to you, after level 10, instead of rolling a die, classes got a set number of HP, like +1 or 2. I think the Fighter class got to add their Con bonus (if any) to it. I don't have my 1e (reprints) or my old 2e books on hand anymore, so I can't be more specific.
Quote from: Rhedyn;1033871The same crowd telling me how much stronger early AD&D Pitfiends are compared to 5e?
AD&D is generally regarded as having a bit more weight than 4e & PF around here when it comes to how D&D is "supposed" to work.
You're being almost intentionally obtuse. You have this idea of how D&D is "supposed" to work based mainly on your experience with prior WotC editions, where putting "20" next to a monster means it has bonuses so high that nothing with a "9" next to it can successfully roll against it, ergo such encounters should be automatic TPKs. You also seem to assume that the 3.PF version of a monster you know is the authoritative one. Neither of those are true.
There are some ways 5e is more like AD&D or even OD&D than 3.5 or 4e. There are some ways it's like 3.5. There are things it cribs from 4e. Overall, there is
very little that 5e does that is completely unprecedented in D&D history, including both a 9th-level fighter being able to stab a pit fiend
and the difficulty rating of a monster not being an ironclad rule you can plug into a calculator and get the expected number of rounds it will take N characters of Mth level to kill it.
QuoteAlso it's a PF thread
Every thread on this forum is actually an OD&D thread if you wait long enough.
Quote from: Willie the Duck;1033873Rhedyn, I'm really glad you've discovered a version of D&D that you like, and that your arguments here aren't trivially disproved by opening the rulebook. But there is no way that throwing an immortal set monster at non-immortal level BECMI characters is the same situation as AD&D or 5e characters taking on a pit fiend. Pit fiends are monsters designed to be fought at some level by PCs. The immortal and non-immortal BECMI rules, while theoretically part of the same edition, just really aren't.
Hmmmm a party of max level characters might have a shot at it if part of their path to Immortality was to slay one on its home plane.
A grandmaster of the two handed sword level 36 paladin could hit on a 2 and thus gets all 4 attacks. With 16 strength, he would do 16 damage a hit.
If the wizard or cleric could find a way to counter cure-all (either with a well timed anto magic field or something else) then the potential to win becomes a doable.
Overwise you would need 4 max level fighters to win and all get lucky (60% anti magic) in the same round before the Immortal kills them.
I could see a party of legendary near Immortals defeating one greater Immortal.
You are right that the comparison would be unfair if the fight wasn't doable and I didn't crunch numbers until this post. But this satisfies what I want even more than PF (Pitfiend should be doable at lvl15 in a 7 man party, which is oddly when that game starts to break down)
I still maintain - if you're going to do Pathfinder, why not go all the way and go Fantasycraft? I'm saying this strictly from the perspective that Pathfinder made no serious attempts at balancing the massive amount of mechanics it used. I have zero belief that PF2e will either.
So why not just use something that does, if you're looking for a ruleset in that taxonomical region of the Crunchosphere?
The race/ancestry thing is impossible to talk about without getting into politics, because it's completely a political motivation inserted into gaming.
Race, obviously, is "problematic" and the fact that everyone uses it when they really should be using species, just makes it even more so.
Moving to species for Elf, Dwarf, Lizardman, whatever, would be correct, but also doesn't allow Half-elf, Quarter Demon, one-sixteenth Yuan-Ti type characters that charop builders and snowflakes both crave.
Ancestry does the following:
- It's more correct than race, not as limiting as species as a game design term.
- It fulfills the political checkbox of eliminating the conflating of race and species.
- It fulfills the political checkbox of moving people to think that no one is 100% pure anything, we're all a mixture of ancestries.
Aside from a little bit of cynical eyerolling, I don't really have a problem with it. It's a better term, really, for all those reasons.
The irony that I don't think Paizo will see coming is, "Ancestry" is essentially Genetics, which opens up a whole nother can of worms if Ancestries affect Intelligence, Pathfinder 2.0 will become the game of choice for the "genetics is destiny" crowd.
Quote from: CRKrueger;1033886The irony that I don't think Paizo will see coming is, "Ancestry" is essentially Genetics, which opens up a whole nother can of worms if Ancestries affect Intelligence, Pathfinder 2.0 will become the game of choice for the "genetics is destiny" crowd.
The Left keeps getting co-opted by the Right, and they keep on not getting why. ;)
From the Paizo site, reviewing the new Elves: http://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo5lkoy?Big-Beards-and-Pointy-Ears
QuoteElves can see in dim light, and have the highest speed of all the ancestries at 30 feet. (Going to three actions per round brought the other ancestries that were as fast as elves in Pathfinder First Edition down to 25 feet from 30.)
Most D&D iterations have basic movement as 30 feet/6 5-foot squares. I'm not sure if this is warranted given the extra action (or if it doesn't compensate for the potential extra move enough), or if this is just more fiddliness for fiddliness' sake.
JG
Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1033137Actually, "Ancestry" was a term I was considering to replace "race" for design purposes several months before this. Part of it is that race is an unnecessarily hot-button term, part of it that ancestry's a broader term that enables more design space for 'human, but one of my ancestors was a fairy/wood spirit/water nymph/demon/Creature from Beyond' stuff for a more fairy-tale/folklore/legendary kind of game, part of it is that it enables a nice 'ABC' mnemonic--Ancestry, Background, Class. :)
For me I find it interesting because the game I am working on (when I am not being A lazy fuck) I have A Bunch of races I added like that Sylph / Vilas / Undine ect ect. That are sprites that gave up being sprites and have A fragment of there spirit powers yet and there descendants for A number of generations along with the occasional throw back to it. I called them races with out 2nd thought.
Quote from: S'mon;1033145I like 'partly outbred extended family' :p - but 'ancestry' means the same as traditional uses of 'race' - the Scots race, the English race, the Dwarven race - a member of that race has ancestors of that race.
Edit: But of course the word 'race' is not offensive to non-whites, that seems to be a trope recently invented by the Baizuo/White Left.
Re Political Correctness and player diversity, there are some traditional pulp fantasy tropes I would avoid now in case of offence to my black player(s). Thinking in particular of some 'savage native' tropes. Maybe my player(s) wouldn't care, but I don't fancy risking it.
I think the savage natives thing would have A lot more to do with how you handled it then any thing because so much of savage vs civilized is perspective take the klingon for example the klingons seem like savages but then as we find out about there culture we find out it's all about having proper manners and edicate .
Post Script edit: Another reaL life example would be the native American Indian the English called them savages but the had A very developed culture and edicate for there peoples.
I guess my players and I are more simplistic than the average bear. We don't transpose the real world into our elf games. We are far more concerned with achieving the next thing than how games reflect modern social and political dynamics.
After reading this thread and what seems to be Political correctness as part of the reasoning for these changes, PF2 sounds god awful and I'll almost certainly not bother with it.
Still, I'll take a look at it when it's released and decide for sure then.
Tolkien 'races' are arguably more like subspecies than species, given that most of them can interbreed.
The traditional meaning of 'race' can cover any ethnic group defined by ancestry, so Ancestry = Race; however D&D has "sub-races" for types of elf dwarf halfling etc, so getting rid of the r-word will cause some linguistic difficulties.
Pit Fiends - what the 1e MM Pit Fiend stats 'mean' depends a lot more on which rules the PCs are using - OD&D, 1e, or 1e+UA all have very different implications. When I ran 1e+UA a single high level Fighter with Weapon Spec could carve through a squadron of pit fiends, though there was an interesting escalating tension as their Wall of Fire damage kept increasing each round as they kept casting it & the earlier Walls stayed. 2e version with at will Fireball got rid of that dynamic.
I think Immortals Set Pit Fiends very rarely saw any play and aren't really part of mainstream D&D experience - do they even officially exist? I recall Demons in the Immortals Set, no Devils.
Quote from: S'mon;1033941I think Immortals Set Pit Fiends very rarely saw any play and aren't really part of mainstream D&D experience - do they even officially exist? I recall Demons in the Immortals Set, no Devils.
There are roaring lesser fiends in the box set (more like a Balor).
I just assumed greater Immortal from the RC stats.
I don't see anything about Pit Fiends in Ch. 15 of the RC. What page did you find them?
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1033957I don't see anything about Pit Fiends in Ch. 15 of the RC. What page did you find them?
I said "Pitfiend equivalent" which I took as a greater Immortal from the Immortals chapter.
I was looking around the internet to see if anyone knew where Basic D&D or oD&D Pitfiend might be. Someone floated the idea that since demons and devils are Immortal when not on their plane, they would be Immortals. And fair enough, there are some fiends in the Wrath of the Immortals box, but since I was talking about RC D&D, I used the rules in that book.
Quote from: Rhedyn;1033961I said "Pitfiend equivalent" which I took as a greater Immortal from the Immortals chapter.
I was looking around the internet to see if anyone knew where Basic D&D or oD&D Pitfiend might be. Someone floated the idea that since demons and devils are Immortal when not on their plane, they would be Immortals. And fair enough, there are some fiends in the Wrath of the Immortals box, but since I was talking about RC D&D, I used the rules in that book.
In other words, your super powerful "RC Pit Fiend" is just something you made up. Might as well argue about the 5e aurumvorax.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1033970In other words, your super powerful "RC Pit Fiend" is just something you made up. Might as well argue about the 5e aurumvorax.
The same one that could be killed by a large max level party without a miguffan?
And if your not willing to extrapolate things, then RC D&D is not for you.
"Rules light"/Mid-crunch means I have rules for everything but it's up to the DM how to apply them.
There are rules for Greater Immortal stats and the book is very clear on what they can do. Pitfiends are Immortal and near the top of the devil hierarchy. They aren't ultimate Immortals, and they are greater than imps (also immortal), therefore they would be a Greater Immortal.
Today I learned I want to play a 1/16th Yuan-ti Ancestral character
Quote from: Rhedyn;1033971And if your not willing to extrapolate things, then RC D&D is not for you.
And if you're willing to argue that a homebrew monster you made up is the standard by which the officially published version must be judged, nobody will pay attention to you, and you will keep getting added to ignore lists.
QuoteThere are rules for Greater Immortal stats
Nobody cares what rubric you used to make up a monster for an edition/setting that doesn't include it. It is completely irrelevant.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1033986Nobody cares what rubric you used to make up a monster for an edition/setting that doesn't include it. It is completely irrelevant.
Well maybe you don't, but others have already weighed in on how competent AD&D and other edition Pitfiends are.
I feel like you're just trying to harp on miscellaneous nonesense because the overall point runs counter to what you propositioned.
If you want something more statted out, the roaring friend lesser immortal from Wrath of the Immortals box set appears to be a proto Balor which is comparable to a Pitfiend.
You still aren't killing it with level 9s, but a max level party could probably manage (those use the complex Power Point rules from the box which I haven't dug into as much).
* stations archers to cover the exits *
* sets thread on fire *
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1033970In other words, your super powerful "RC Pit Fiend" is just something you made up. Might as well argue about the 5e aurumvorax.
He took the Greater Immortal stats - those are intended for eg Zeus, Odin, Hel & equivalent. The Roaring Demon is indeed a Type VI/Balor demon so somewhat better comparison. AIR the demons are actually Empyreals not full Immortals and so could be hacked up by mortal PCs.
Quote from: Ulairi;1033858I don't think this is an issue at all in real life. Nobody that actually plays D&D gets offended that race is a character trait
But this could be about the people who don't play D&D but might have ...
Quote from: Anselyn;1034036But this could be about the people who don't play D&D but might have ...
Nobody on the fucking planet is interested enough to play D&D and when they find out that there is a character trait of Race for Elves, Dwarves, Humans, and many other different RACES, decides they don't want to play. These people don't actually exist in the real world. The only people that can get offended about the character trait being called Race are fucking moronic white people that spend way too much time on social media or want to find problems to preen about on web forums.
Get real. There won't be one book sold because of this change. This is just Paizo trying to appease the leftist jacobins on social media. It's why anybody who isn't a leftwing nut should get off social media so they can devor themselves and we can just walk over the dead bodies when the war is over.
No doubt I'm in the minority around here, since I'm politically progressive, and have found something to like in every edition of D&D (including 4e).
But changing Race to Ancestry is so stupid and screaming of SJW, it makes me want to spew. Race is integral to the D&D experience. If I want to play an edition of D&D that upsets the apple cart as much as PF2 apparently wants to, I'll just play 4e. At least that system did it in the interest of gaming balance, not ideals based on white-privileged guilt.
Quote from: Robyo;1034046No doubt I'm in the minority around here, since I'm politically progressive, and have found something to like in every edition of D&D (including 4e).
But changing Race to Ancestry is so stupid and screaming of SJW, it makes me want to spew. Race is integral to the D&D experience. If I want to play an edition of D&D that upsets the apple cart as much as PF2 apparently wants to, I'll just play 4e. At least that system did it in the interest of gaming balance, not ideals based on white-privileged guilt.
Changing Race to Ancestry is more confusing for new players. People intuitively understand race. Most people, who are not from Seattle and love to take photos with their mouth agape, know that Elves are a difference Race than Dwarves. Why confuse things? If they wanted they could call races species but Ancestry is stupid and will bite them on the nose when the 4channers get ahold of it.
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1033995* stations archers to cover the exits *
* sets thread on fire *
*Casts protection from fire*
*casts protection from arrows*
Quote from: Ulairi;1034039Get real. There won't be one book sold because of this change.
Yeah - probably.
Quote from: kosmos1214;1034052*Casts protection from fire*
*casts protection from arrows*
Eh, it's Gronan, he's trying to be funny again. Just smile and nod.
To quote Eddie Murphy at the end of "Trading Places,"
"Eh, whadda you know from funny, ya bastards."
EDIT: Sorry, it's "Coming to America."
[video=youtube;N3jx4WIUYy4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3jx4WIUYy4[/youtube]
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1034054Eh, it's Gronan, he's trying to be funny again. Just smile and nod.
Eh, that's just Brady, he has to reply every time Gronan posts. Just smile and nod.
Quote from: CRKrueger;1034064Eh, that's just Brady, he has to reply every time Gronan posts. Just smile and nod.
It wouldn't be a good thread without Brady inventing a new way to be wrong.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1034071It wouldn't be a good thread without Brady inventing a new way to be wrong.
This is a good thread? Who knew? :p
I have no problem with Ancestry instead of Race as if its used as a catch-all for backgrounds.
In AiME they call it Cultures. That seems fitting enough.
Once Kosmos put up his defenses we came soooo close to making this thread a PbP.
That would have been fun.
Quote from: tenbones;1034141Once Kosmos put up his defenses we came soooo close to making this thread a PbP.
That would have been fun.
OD&D doesn't have "protection from fire," so he's burning merrily away.
* hands you a bratwurst on a toasting fork *
It does have the potion of fire resistance and the ring of fire resistance; both confer immunity from normal fires. Of course, one might also need some way to breathe...
Quote from: Willie the Duck;1034074This is a good thread? Who knew? :p
Sorry. :o
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1033620No. It didn't keep it alive, but Pathfinder is what killed 4e, and the only reason why Pathfinder 1e was able to even exist (because although, technically you can't copyright rules, most people don't know that) was due to the OGL spelling out that they could. 4e died on the vine, it was stillborn. Simply because gamers could finally stick with an edition they knew, rather than try for some oh so scary CHANGE!
I disagree. 3.5 was a bloated wreck by the time the new edition came along. The problem was that what they replaced it with was not D&D.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1034403I disagree. 3.5 was a bloated wreck by the time the new edition came along. The problem was that what they replaced it with was not D&D.
And Pathfinder just added to the bloat and people were OK with that. In fact, a lot of D&D 3.x fans actually claimed that PFRPG was the 'second coming'. Disagree all you like, evidence suggests otherwise.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1033620No. It didn't keep it alive, but Pathfinder is what killed 4e, and the only reason why Pathfinder 1e was able to even exist (because although, technically you can't copyright rules, most people don't know that) was due to the OGL spelling out that they could. 4e died on the vine, it was stillborn. Simply because gamers could finally stick with an edition they knew, rather than try for some oh so scary CHANGE!
You're correct in that the OGL made it impossible for WotC to shelve 3/3.5 without consequence.
Where you're full of shit due to your own mental issues is claiming that people didn't like 4e because it was "scary change". They didn't like 4e because...they didn't like 4e. 4venger fandom and idiotic marketing didn't help, but WotC chose to create a tactical miniatures RPG with cardgame and MMO sensibilities and pass it off as D&D 4th Edition instead of D&D Tactics.
If Cubicle 7 took WarhammerQuest and reskinned it as Warhammer 4th Edition, people would be upset and not because of "scary change".
No some gamers are scared of change imo. You can disagree with me on that all you like nothing anyone here or elsewhere will change my mind on that subject.
Wotc did themselves no favors with the terrible marketing for 4E. In terms of fanbase many on both sides PF and 4E did not do the hobbies a favor. Coming across as mere stereotypes and in some cases proving that that they never read either edition. Those who were anti-4E also came off as hypocrites with 5E as that edition borrowed many elements from 4E. So much for "never" playing anything that had 4E mechanics in it ever again. To be honest I think if they had written 4E in a more tradition format like 5E it would have gone over better imo. I admit I could be wrong on that.
I was able to roleplay in both 4E and Pathfinder. Neither set of rules was any hindrance to myself and the other members of the group ability to effectively roleplay our characters and as above don't waste your time trying to convince me otherwise.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1034404And Pathfinder just added to the bloat and people were OK with that. In fact, a lot of D&D 3.x fans actually claimed that PFRPG was the 'second coming'. Disagree all you like, evidence suggests otherwise.
Seconded.
Sorry Pundit yet I think your wrong. I admit to not being a fan of PF like I used to be. Yet when it was released and compared to 4E it was considered the second coming of D&D. Whether you like it or not some people like that kind of style of play.
Quote from: CRKrueger;1034434You're correct in that the OGL made it impossible for WotC to shelve 3/3.5 without consequence.
Where you're full of shit due to your own mental issues is claiming that people didn't like 4e because it was "scary change". They didn't like 4e because...they didn't like 4e. 4venger fandom and idiotic marketing didn't help, but WotC chose to create a tactical miniatures RPG with cardgame and MMO sensibilities and pass it off as D&D 4th Edition instead of D&D Tactics.
If Cubicle 7 took WarhammerQuest and reskinned it as Warhammer 4th Edition, people would be upset and not because of "scary change".
Look, I get it, you don't like it when I'm right, but you have to concede that sometimes, even I can be. Given all the chatter and hatred that 4e generated before it's launch, especially with the release of the Dragon Magazine contract from Paizo, 4e never had a chance to actually be anything more than a footnote.
The fact that Paizo was able to get the majority of D&D fans to rival WoTC's fanbase for not just one year, but at least two, if not more, and not to mention that a lot of 4e haters simply parroted a lot of incorrect information that ruminated on the internet, and the admission of a lot of people who never actually tried 4e, because 'they knew' it would suck, is yes, anecdotal, but I've seen the same behaviour for well over 20 years now:
Gamers absolutely despise change.
Thing is, I have my suspicions that 4e wasn't going to be long for this world anyway, because as you say, it
changed too much and likely wouldn't have liked it anyway. But I have no evidence of this. The OGL precluded that from ever happening.
How about something that isn't anecdotal?
Like that ever since OD&D, gamers purchased every new edition of the game, even when multiple versions were still selling.
11 versions of D&D, all selling, many bringing radical change. Nearly every version of D&D is available for sale now, and 5e is still a juggernaut.
5 versions of Shadowrun, all sold, even with three major mechanics changes. All 5 are available now and the new stuff still sells.
nWoD is still selling, even after oWoD became available again.
Yes, some people, oddly enough, actually like the game they have been playing and supporting for many years and want to keep playing that game.
You say "scary change" because of whatever your problem is, the reality is, not everyone needs or wants what the new edition is bringing (which might be nothing more than change for the sake of selling a new edition).
The actual facts however, are clear: most people just keep buying the new edition. Not exactly supportive of your histrionic "gamers hate change" nonsense.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1034446Thing is, I have my suspicions that 4e wasn't going to be long for this world anyway, because as you say, it changed too much and likely wouldn't have liked it anyway. But I have no evidence of this. The OGL precluded that from ever happening.
I run both 4e & 5e & have run Pathfinder. I've played & GM'd with many dozens of gamers over the last 10 years.
I think PF probably did hurt 4e, but there is IMO no doubt that 5e is more attractive than 4e to most gamers, particularly new gamers. There IS a market for 4e, there are definitely players who prefer 4e to either 3e or 5e. They are a pretty small minority IME. 5e IME & IMO is much better designed for growing the player base than 4e was.
It's human nature to be afraid of change imo. I had a friend who worked 15+ years in retail and simply moving say the science fiction section from the left side of a bookshelf to the right would cause customer to freak out. I wish I was joking yet one time I had to defend my friend from a customer laying into him because they dared to move over their favored section over a few shelves. Yes to be fair other factor are a issue too. From disliking the rules of the new edition. To not wanting to purchase a new edition. To dismiss being afraid of change out of hand because it does not fit the narrative is being naive imo. Humans as a species don't like change imo. Call it anecdotal as much as one wants it won't change the fact that our species for the most part hate change.
PF did take sales away from 4E. That was only to be expected as 4E was a major change. PF, 4E, whatever rpg it as long as I'm having fun I could care less about the version. Then again I consider myself a enlightened grognard. I don't like change for change sake yet it happens whether I want it or not so I adapt to the changing rpg landscape.
People aren't "afraid of change." The deal is that a brand carries with it certain expectations, and when you fail to meet them, you irritate the customer. The customer buys your brand because he wants needs/desires (they are the same as far as marketing cares) X, Y, and Z. D&D 4e should be taught in business school along with New Coke on what happens when you have a product that seems good according to focus testing and design theory, yet craps all over your customers' expectations.
Well many people perhaps too many are afraid to admit of being afraid of change. Almost no one wants to admit to that. I admit don't like change sometimes. People don't like change. We as a fandom refuse to admit that.
4E was too much of a change and yes their own ad campaign for it was terrible. The thing about rpg fans from what I see some or at least very vocal one want change or the ability to complain about flaws in a rpg yet at the same time they don't want to see any changes. The ones that complain that Paladins are LG in alignment yet also don't want the class to be anything but LG. Complaining for the sake of it yet don't you dare change their rpg.
4E was, in no particular order:
- A huge break from tradition (whatever you think of that pro or con, it was a break).
- Poorly marketed, including insulting part of the existing customer base.
- Written with at least two different design directions--tactical play and narrative play--which don't necessarily need to be in opposition, but were in this case.
- Incredibly bloated from the get go due to the sale plan for splats.
- Conflicting advice from some of the writers on how to run it, demonstrating fairly clearly that they didn't understand or accept the design.
- Launched in the middle of a recession with an attempt at a major splash (instead of "grow slow" approach that that might have given them time to correct course).
- An impossible brand plan imposed by unrealistic expectations at the Hasbro level.
- A drive to have a software component coupled with zero understanding of how to outsource it to someone that could do it.
To counter the negatives of the above, they had some thought put into the math, thought put into the tactics, some play testing (flawed though it apparently was), and some willingness to get a little fresh with the setting material (what could peek through from the bloat). They had some new stuff that hadn't worked quite that well before in D&D. There's elements of two different fun games in there, if you spend some time teasing them out.
It wasn't enough. It's a wonder it did as well as it did. Really, it's a testament to how well the good parts worked that it lasted at all. And I still say WotC was incapable of making 5E without trying 4E first. Of course, had Pathfinder been a system designed to clean up the problem in 3E (as opposed to slapping a coat of paint over them and hiding them in the closet), it might have run WotC out of the business and taken over for good. But when you build a company on using other peoples' designs, you don't have the background to do that.
Good post Steven.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1034560- Written with at least two different design directions--tactical play and narrative play--which don't necessarily need to be in opposition, but were in this case.
When the tactical play meets the narrative play, the narrative play is the dead play - to misquote The Good The Bad & the Ugly. :D
They made a nice setting for narrative play, but never really knew how to implement it - Pemerton over on ENW is about the only GM I've ever seen really make it work. Almost always the game becomes tactical-centred with all else as fluff/colour.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1034560- A drive to have a software component coupled with zero understanding of how to outsource it to someone that could do it.
What do you mean, Silverlight is here to stay!
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1034523People aren't "afraid of change." The deal is that a brand carries with it certain expectations, and when you fail to meet them, you irritate the customer. The customer buys your brand because he wants needs/desires (they are the same as far as marketing cares) X, Y, and Z. D&D 4e should be taught in business school along with New Coke on what happens when you have a product that seems good according to focus testing and design theory, yet craps all over your customers' expectations.
New Coke is exactly the analogy I use.
jg
Quote from: S'mon;1034593Good post Steven.
When the tactical play meets the narrative play, the narrative play is the dead play - to misquote The Good The Bad & the Ugly. :D
They made a nice setting for narrative play, but never really knew how to implement it - Pemerton over on ENW is about the only GM I've ever seen really make it work. Almost always the game becomes tactical-centred with all else as fluff/colour.
It works well enough for 13th Age. But then I think it helps people's expectations if a game that deviates so much from previous D&D standard isn't actually called D&D or in an official D&D universe, however much roots it has in the system.
JG
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1034404And Pathfinder just added to the bloat and people were OK with that. In fact, a lot of D&D 3.x fans actually claimed that PFRPG was the 'second coming'. Disagree all you like, evidence suggests otherwise.
Yep this is true if you are A fan of 3.x the bloat isn't A problem for you the bloat may be part of the attraction why because that bloat comes with options lots of them and that is likely why you like the system.
The new details on spells today are interesting...
Basically just 5e changes / martials being able to cast rituals with skill feats
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1034523People aren't "afraid of change."
Actually, yes they do. Simply because of our psychology. We're creatures of a patterns and habits, so when something deviates from it, we notice it. And given that disrupted routines were usually a sign of danger, humans don't like it. Hence, fear of change.
This is basic stuff, no degrees needed to know this.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1034523The deal is that a brand carries with it certain expectations, and when you fail to meet them, you irritate the customer.
Which is what CHANGE is. And they didn't like the change, because they thought it was too drastic. But Pathfinder, despite it's flaws (every game system has issues), was something familiar, or safe, so people flocked to it.
Ergo, basic deduction says "Gamers HATE change." Which has been my argument since the inception of this.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1034523The customer buys your brand because he wants needs/desires (they are the same as far as marketing cares) X, Y, and Z. D&D 4e should be taught in business school along with New Coke on what happens when you have a product that seems good according to focus testing and design theory, yet craps all over your customers' expectations.
No, customers buy the brand because they've been convinced they NEED it. And in this case, 4e didn't, because there was a competitor that did everything the customer was OK with, because it didn't change anything. If 4e had been the only game in town, then gamers would have been convinced that they 'needed' 4e to stay 'relevant'. It's why, for example, 4K TVs are a thing. The TV makers have pushed people into thinking that it's needed, thus people buy it.
But the OGL killed that option for D&D in general, by allowing a competitor to take over a previous, safe, edition and peddle it to gamers. And so gamers went with, as the saying goes, 'the Devil they knew'.
It's why 5e doesn't really take any chances with its design, by going backwards to older editions.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1034678Actually, yes they do. Simply because of our psychology. We're creatures of a patterns and habits, so when something deviates from it, we notice it. And given that disrupted routines were usually a sign of danger, humans don't like it. Hence, fear of change.
This is basic stuff, no degrees needed to know this.
Which is what CHANGE is. And they didn't like the change, because they thought it was too drastic. But Pathfinder, despite it's flaws (every game system has issues), was something familiar, or safe, so people flocked to it.
Ergo, basic deduction says "Gamers HATE change." Which has been my argument since the inception of this.
No, customers buy the brand because they've been convinced they NEED it. And in this case, 4e didn't, because there was a competitor that did everything the customer was OK with, because it didn't change anything. If 4e had been the only game in town, then gamers would have been convinced that they 'needed' 4e to stay 'relevant'. It's why, for example, 4K TVs are a thing. The TV makers have pushed people into thinking that it's needed, thus people buy it.
But the OGL killed that option for D&D in general, by allowing a competitor to take over a previous, safe, edition and peddle it to gamers. And so gamers went with, as the saying goes, 'the Devil they knew'.
It's why 5e doesn't really take any chances with its design, by going backwards to older editions.
Our group played 3.5 until we felt the need to switch. We looked at both 4e and Pathfinder and switched to Pathfinder.
In the grand scheme of things 4e didn't measure up especially after the years of anti-fan ranting about the system.
Half a decade later we are looking at 4e again.
Since when is change considered a virtue? Gamers don't fear change. That's bullshit. Gamers fear the wrong changes. 4E changed D&D but it did so the wrong way. It's not that we feared the change we just didn't like the change. Change in and of itself isn't good. Christopher Brady, customers purchased 4E because they bought the brand D&D, convinced, they NEEDED it. What Pathfinder and the OGL did was to let customers know that they actually don't need to be playing D&D and can play other games that tickle the itch that their favorite version of D&D did.
Gamers do not fear change. Gamers are suspicious of change. Especially, when the change is primarily driven by a company, for this example, WotC, to drive sales. In your world, you don't believe that D&D is an actual thing that people played for decades and have expectations of what D&D should be. I don't want to spoil the end but you're fucking wrong. You are the type of guy that would try to sell New Coke and when it fucking bombs in the market start blaming the customers for not wanting to drink your shitty sugar water. People had expectations of what D&D is. It just isn't a brand. The game has a tone, a feel, and way of doing things that people like and expect out of their D&D game. When 4E came out and from the get go their marketing strategy was the game you liked? It was total shit. And then the game comes out and it doesn't taste like the coke you've been drinking all of your life and you don't want to buy it. D&D 5E is the Coke a Cola Classic of the gaming world. It came out after New Coke almost ruined the company and said: We are sorry. Here is the product you actually like.
It is going backward in a sense. It's going backward to the path that actually leads to market success.
Change != Good. Change = Change.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1034678Ergo, basic deduction says "Gamers HATE change." Which has been my argument since the inception of this.
...and yet 4e went through multiple printings even though PF was available, and 5e sells even though nearly all of D&D is available now.
...and the same with Shadowrun.
...and the same with oWod, nWod, etc.
...and the same with Classic Deadlands vs. Savage, etc.
Ergo, you're completely full of shit because most gamers just move on to the current product even when legacy products are still being sold.
Paizo using 3.5 to beat 4e is the exception, not the rule, and even then 4e was still selling in volume that would have made anyone ecstatic except WotC.
Quote from: CRKrueger;1034685...and yet 4e went through multiple printings even though PF was available, and 5e sells even though nearly all of D&D is available now.
...and the same with Shadowrun.
...and the same with oWod, nWod, etc.
...and the same with Classic Deadlands vs. Savage, etc.
Ergo, you're completely full of shit because most gamers just move on to the current product even when legacy products are still being sold.
This is another true thing. But, it is also true that the D&D market shrunk a lot when 4E came out and Pathfinder was able to actually win the 'market share' battle for a few years. D&D is traditionally >90% of the market. We sometimes forget that outside of D&D there really isn't a hobby that makes money to support the business as a real going concern.
Numbers matter, though. 4e sold, but not terribly well. IIRC it actually succeeded in bringing in new customers, it just drove off a lot of old ones.
QuoteWe sometimes forget that outside of D&D there really isn't a hobby that makes money to support the business as a real going concern.
I have maintained for some time now that "the RPG industry" is really just "D&D's coattails."
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1034692Numbers matter, though. 4e sold, but not terribly well. IIRC it actually succeeded in bringing in new customers, it just drove off a lot of old ones.
I have maintained for some time now that "the RPG industry" is really just "D&D's coattails."
I think a lot of publishers agree with that. I've had many publishers say that they are the bottom feeders that feed on D&D's leftovers.
There used to be a larger 'hobby' and a smaller D&D market. Remember in the 90's? GURPS, WoD, Palladium, and others were selling tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of books. It was glorious. I miss those days.
The problem with CB's frequent tirades about change is you're pathologizing the customer. There's nothing unique to gaming here. When a brand has an identity, people associate the brand with something, so when they buy that product, they expect certain things. If you don't give them what they want from the brand, the problem isn't "customers are afraid of change," the problem is "you are managing your brand poorly and either misread or undervalued customer expectations."
One cannot claim that gamers don't hate change yet then in the same sentence then claim they hate certain types of change.
Sorry but you can't have it both ways imo. Fearing change even certain types of change is still being afraid of change. To me being suspicious of change and fear of it is the same to a certain extent. Their is nothing wrong with being scared of change because humans are creatures of habit. Then again typical of the rpg hobby everyone is a paragon of virtue with no flaws whatsoever. Except I'm not afraid to admit that I sometimes dislike change. No matter the scope of it. The difference between myself and CB is my position is that some not all hate change. Too damn often I have seen some in the hobby prove just that. Made worse when they think by starting a rant by going "it's not that I'm against change" then proceed to rant about exactly that. Fear of change in the hobby is just one of many factors that can ruin a new edition imo. Then again no wants to be told that let alone they might be afraid of change.
I'm fearful of bad change. Good changes I like.
I think most folks are like me.
Very true the problem is change being bad or good is extremely subjective imo.
Too often I have seen some in the hobby simply hate on a new edition simply because it's a new edition and nothing else. They never read the book, heard second or third hand information, hide behind years being in the hobby to justify both hating the new edition and not needing to read the book. It's not even a matter of good or bad change. They dared to change a beloved edition and by god they will hate it because it's different.
Quote from: Robyo;1034116In AiME they call it Cultures. That seems fitting enough.
The problem with the term culture in the context of Middle-Earth is that the difference between an hobbit and noldor elf is far more than that.
Quote from: sureshot;1034699One cannot claim that gamers don't hate change yet then in the same sentence then claim they hate certain types of change.
If McDonald's starts selling hot dogs and calling them Big Macs, people are going to be mad. It's not because they have a general hatred of "change" or, in an even more idiotic extreme, are
afraid of a world where the Big Mac is different. Most people who like Big Macs probably like hot dogs, too. But when you order a Big Mac, you expect 3 buns, two beef patties, and some weird-tasting orange slop.
Quote from: Ulairi;1034694There used to be a larger 'hobby' and a smaller D&D market. Remember in the 90's? GURPS, WoD, Palladium, and others were selling tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of books. It was glorious. I miss those days.
We got a taste of that during the 4e years, I think. Overall, the industry (such as it is) seems pretty healthy. I'm sure more people make a living at it than we think.
Quote from: Rhedyn;1034682Our group played 3.5 until we felt the need to switch. We looked at both 4e and Pathfinder and switched to Pathfinder.
In the grand scheme of things 4e didn't measure up especially after the years of anti-fan ranting about the system.
This is what killed 4e. And it started before 4e even came out. People were hating because it was rumoured to be different.
Quote from: Rhedyn;1034682Half a decade later we are looking at 4e again.
And it was so bad for you and your crew apparently that you had to stay away for 5 years to get that 'bad taste' out of your 'mouth'.
Quote from: sureshot;1034699One cannot claim that gamers don't hate change yet then in the same sentence then claim they hate certain types of change.
Sorry but you can't have it both ways imo. Fearing change even certain types of change is still being afraid of change.
Yeah, this is a binary. Either you fear change, or you don't. And most humans don't. Thing is, it's still, ironically, not an all or nothing thing it's degrees of 'fear', dislike is after all, is an expression of this fear.
Quote from: sureshot;1034699To me being suspicious of change and fear of it is the same to a certain extent. Their is nothing wrong with being scared of change because humans are creatures of habit. Then again typical of the rpg hobby everyone is a paragon of virtue with no flaws whatsoever. Except I'm not afraid to admit that I sometimes dislike change. No matter the scope of it. The difference between myself and CB is my position is that some not all hate change. Too damn often I have seen some in the hobby prove just that. Made worse when they think by starting a rant by going "it's not that I'm against change" then proceed to rant about exactly that. Fear of change in the hobby is just one of many factors that can ruin a new edition imo. Then again no wants to be told that let alone they might be afraid of change.
There will always be outliers and exceptions. I assumed, apparently incorrectly, that it was well, assumed. Because there are ALWAYS exceptions, but they're exceptions, not the rule.
Personally I like new things. I've collected at least a book from every D&D edition and supplement since '89, always curious about the newest choices and rules adaptations. I collect new games all the time (when I can afford it) because I want to see the new things. Will they be all good? Maybe. But I still wanna see!
Quote from: Ulairi;1034702I'm fearful of bad change. Good changes I like.
I think most folks are like me.
Define good and bad? Also, most people don't like change because they believe that ALL change is bad, hence the phrase: "Better the devil you know, than the devil you don't." It's often immediately assumed that the change is going to be a 'Devil'.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1034760Yeah, this is a binary. Either you fear change, or you don't. And most humans don't. Thing is, it's still, ironically, not an all or nothing thing it's degrees of 'fear', dislike is after all, is an expression of this fear.
ok sure yeah lol
Change is stress. Humans have a tendency to react poorly to change they dislike due to this stress. Gamers are (probably) humans. Gamers have a tendency to react poorly to change they dislike. The intensity of this varies.
Quote from: Teodrik;1034706The problem with the term culture in the context of Middle-Earth is that the difference between an hobbit and noldor elf is far more than that.
So, ancestry is a better distinction than culture? Apples and oranges.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1034760This is what killed 4e. And it started before 4e even came out. People were hating because it was rumoured to be different.
And it was so bad for you and your crew apparently that you had to stay away for 5 years to get that 'bad taste' out of your 'mouth'.
We thought the system looked pretty neat, but only heard terrible things about it. Years later most the people who actually played said they liked it.
Honestly, I would play anything not 5e. I'm not super thrilled about playing 4e, but facing down the prospect of another 5e trainwreck of a campaign, I'm thrilled at the idea of trying out 4e. It's like a breathe of fresh air. And I say that as a big fan of the very different RC/BECMI D&D. Not being 5e is a huge selling point of any system. I'd sooner play a freeform narrative game where every conflict resolution was decided by playing a game of Monopoly.
Surprisingly, the most common comparison I am seeing at the Paizo PF2 playtest forum is to 4e. A notable number of people are comparing PF2 to 4e, or 4e with a few 5e'isms tossed in.
Quote from: Mistwell;1034786Surprisingly, the most common comparison I am seeing at the Paizo PF2 playtest forum is to 4e. A notable number of people are comparing PF2 to 4e, or 4e with a few 5e'isms tossed in.
Honest question: Are they positive or negative comparisons?
I'm not going to Paizo's forum, because the last I was there, it was a terrible system and I could barely understand how it worked. I'm talking their forum software.
Whatever happened to "the burden of proof rests with the affirmative?" If somebody wants my money for another edition of D&D, they have to prove to my satisfaction that the gain will be worth the expenditure. I do not have to make a case for why I do NOT spend my money.
Quote from: Rhedyn;1034781Honestly, I would play anything not 5e. I'm not super thrilled about playing 4e, but facing down the prospect of another 5e trainwreck of a campaign, I'm thrilled at the idea of trying out 4e. It's like a breathe of fresh air. And I say that as a big fan of the very different RC/BECMI D&D. Not being 5e is a huge selling point of any system. I'd sooner play a freeform narrative game where every conflict resolution was decided by playing a game of Monopoly.
Are there actual mechanical problems with 5e you find, or is this an issue with the published 5e campaigns?
[QUwOTE=Robyo;1034777]So, ancestry is a better distinction than culture? Apples and oranges.[/QUOTE]
Yes and no. Ancestry would be much more appropriate and makes sense. But it is not interchangeable with culture. To differentiate a townsman from Lake Town and Woodsmen, sure, you could say culture. But it is not applicable when dealing with different creatures of men, elves, dwarves and hobbits. And it sound really lame.
Quote from: Robyo;1034777So, ancestry is a better distinction than culture? Apples and oranges.
Yes and no. Ancestry makes sense. But it is not interchangeable with culture. To differentiate a townsman from Lake Town and Woodsmen, sure, you could say culture. But it is not applicable when dealing with different creatures of men, elves, dwarves and hobbits. And it sounds really lame.
Quote from: S'mon;1034821Are there actual mechanical problems with 5e you find, or is this an issue with the published 5e campaigns?
An easier question is more the mechanical problems I don't have with 5e.
In order my problems:
1. Baked in encounter pacing into the balance assumptions that is but flexible at all with a large group.
2. Combat still takes forever. Oh sure rounds are shorter than 3.5/PF but you have more rounds per combat.
3. Various balance problems (spells, feats, class features) where PCs end up too strong in comparison to...
4. ...the sorry sacks of HP that are this edition's excuse for monsters and many of their problems stem from...
5. ...a terrible skill system that is both mechanically complex but focuses on rules light rulings rather than actual rules for setting DCs, making conflict resolution "DM picks undefined number from hat" rather than "consult table" or "consult DM".
The skills themselves are worded rather poorly in comparison to any other game I've played or even older editions like RC / BECMI D&D.
When I sit down to the prospect of making a 5e character, there is nothing I want to make because I don't have fun with any of these mechanics in the context of the system. Maybe 5e would seem nice in isolation of non D&D games and if literally every other RPG home brew or otherwise was somehow enforcibly illegal, I would probably find myself playing 5e rather than no ttRPGs.
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1034808Whatever happened to "the burden of proof rests with the affirmative?" If somebody wants my money for another edition of D&D, they have to prove to my satisfaction that the gain will be worth the expenditure. I do not have to make a case for why I do NOT spend my money.
Nope. We owe allegiance to corporations and if we don't like the widgets they are trying to sell us we just are afraid of change.
D&D is much more akin to a tool or a piece of furniture to me. If my lazy boy still works and is comfortable why do I need to buy a new one?
Quote from: Teodrik;1034837Yes and no. Ancestry makes sense. But it is not interchangeable with culture. To differentiate a townsman from Lake Town and Woodsmen, sure, you could say culture. But it is not applicable when dealing with different creatures of men, elves, dwarves and hobbits. And it sounds really lame.
Ancestry sounds really lame to me.
Quote from: Teodrik;1034837Yes and no. Ancestry makes sense. But it is not interchangeable with culture. To differentiate a townsman from Lake Town and Woodsmen, sure, you could say culture. But it is not applicable when dealing with different creatures of men, elves, dwarves and hobbits. And it sounds really lame.
Why not use species then? Humans are the same species and have different ancestries. Dwarves, Elves, Hobbits, and Men are not the same species.
Culture and ancestry overlap a whole lot prior to the advent of mass transportation and high demographic churn of postmodern society.
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1034808Whatever happened to "the burden of proof rests with the affirmative?" If somebody wants my money for another edition of D&D, they have to prove to my satisfaction that the gain will be worth the expenditure. I do not have to make a case for why I do NOT spend my money.
Nothing happened to it. Seriously, nothing. Just because the thread premise seems to have drifted into 'which of 3e, 4e, 5e. PF, or PF2 are you interested in picking up?,' that does not mean that
anyone is required to buy
anything, nor even really that the thread participants expect anyone to.
Quote from: Robyo;1034852Ancestry sounds really lame to me.
Honestly, though, if 'race' weren't what I was used to, I think it would also sound really lame, or at least misapplied. Trying to leave SJW-ism concerns aside, race to me does sound like 'black, white, etc.,' while ancestry sounds like 'Slovenian, Nigerian, Hmong,' and neither genuinely, to my ears, sounds like a good way to capture 'elf, dwarf, human.' They are all misapplied.
Quote from: Ulairi;1034853Why not use species then? Humans are the same species and have different ancestries. Dwarves, Elves, Hobbits, and Men are not the same species.
Feels too science for pseudomedeivalism, but on the right track. I think 'Creature Type' would be good as well. That way, if you need a separate stat block for your mounts or familiars, it can use the same format. Usually no one is playing a 'horse,' or, 'Cat, black,' but if the DM is telling you that one steps over the horizon, it's the same level of information I'm looking for as when they tell me that it is a dwarf or orc or whatnot that I am noticing.
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1034808Whatever happened to "the burden of proof rests with the affirmative?" If somebody wants my money for another edition of D&D, they have to prove to my satisfaction that the gain will be worth the expenditure. I do not have to make a case for why I do NOT spend my money.
That's exactly what marketing in a 'mature market' is all about, and a lot of marketing (along with it being reflected back into product development) in this industry is terrible and the assumptions are terrible. In a mature market, you have users and infrastructure that are happy with what they already have. For them, most responses are going to be "no", so anything new needs to understand what are going to be the top 'no's and resolve them.
And if you have a mature customer base, if you try to make them change their ways, you are in a dangerous position if there are viable alternatives. Companies like Microsoft have gotten away with it because most of the alternatives are simply previous versions of their own products.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1034678Actually, yes they do. Simply because of our psychology. We're creatures of a patterns and habits, so when something deviates from it, we notice it. And given that disrupted routines were usually a sign of danger, humans don't like it. Hence, fear of change.
This is basic stuff, no degrees needed to know this.
Openness to new experience varies dramatically by person, and to a significant extent is innate. Some people like to read the same kinds of books, eat the same kind of food, play the same kind of games at 40 as they did at 20. Some enjoy new experiences and are keen to participate in the latest trends and innovations. Some rarely leave their home town or state. Others relocate frequently and enjoy travelling to exotic locations.
What begins as innate tendency become even more pronounced as we self-segregate into communities of like-minded people. Towns and smaller cities tend to have people who grew up nearby, keep the same occupation for a long time, rarely change habits and preferences. Big cities attract those who seek out new experiences, change jobs often, are always looking for the latest cool restaurant. And people tend to be more open to experience when young, and less open as they get older.
In gaming terms, this means you can't make any generalization about gamers. Are there people who started playing D&D in 1983, dislike most of the edition changes since then, and aren't interested in trying new systems? Yes. Likely they're older, live in smaller communities, rarely change jobs, and don't like new books and music either. On the other hand, you have today's euro boardgame players, who typically have an endless appetite for new systems, new games, new trends. It's two to four sessions with a game, and then on to something new. Learning a hot new game is a big part of the appeal of gaming to them. Unsurprisingly, these gamers tend to be younger, live in growing cities, and seek out new experiences, such as restaurants, books, employers, etc.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1034787Honest question: Are they positive or negative comparisons?
Both.
QuoteI'm not going to Paizo's forum, because the last I was there, it was a terrible system and I could barely understand how it worked. I'm talking their forum software.
They finally fixed it, but I agree.
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1034808Whatever happened to "the burden of proof rests with the affirmative?" If somebody wants my money for another edition of D&D, they have to prove to my satisfaction that the gain will be worth the expenditure. I do not have to make a case for why I do NOT spend my money.
Who is forcing you to buy this? Honest question. We're just talking about it. SO far, I'm not impressed.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1034904Who is forcing you to buy this? Honest question. We're just talking about it. SO far, I'm not impressed.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1034678Ergo, basic deduction says "Gamers HATE change."
Apparently, I didn't buy later editions because I hate change, not because they didn't offer me anything worth my money.
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1034927Apparently, I didn't buy later editions because I hate change, not because they didn't offer me anything worth my money.
Why are you taking this personally? When I said Gamer's hate change, I'm talking in a generalization, which for the most part is accurate. For the most part, but I'm not singling anyone out. Not sure why you're offended by this... This is not about you. Never has been.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1034933Why are you taking this personally? When I said Gamer's hate change, I'm talking in a generalization, which for the most part is accurate. For the most part, but I'm not singling anyone out. Not sure why you're offended by this... This is not about you. Never has been.
Your conclusion is bad. Gamers don't hate change for the sake of hating change. Generally nor specifically.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1034933Why are you taking this personally? When I said Gamer's hate change, I'm talking in a generalization, which for the most part is accurate. For the most part, but I'm not singling anyone out. Not sure why you're offended by this... This is not about you. Never has been.
Come now, it should be obvious he hates change simply because if people play something different his social value drops tremendously. He can't be on-board with other versions/releases since he'd just be another gamer in that world.
Quote from: Rhedyn;1034935Your conclusion is bad. Gamers don't hate change for the sake of hating change. Generally nor specifically.
Bloody this.
Quote from: Ras Algethi;1034936Come now, it should be obvious he hates change simply because if people play something different his social value drops tremendously. He can't be on-board with other versions/releases since he'd just be another gamer in that world.
Oh, yes, it can't POSSIBLY be because I happen to enjoy the game I'm playing. :rolleyes:
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1034941Oh, yes, it can't POSSIBLY be because I happen to enjoy the game I'm playing. :rolleyes:
That's the difference between possible and probable.
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1034941Oh, yes, it can't POSSIBLY be because I happen to enjoy the game I'm playing. :rolleyes:
Ras is giving you shit, undoubtedly for the hell of it (with an accusation that's not inherently ludicrous, but pretty mean-spirited/suggests you are pretty petty).
I think Chris is being honest that his 'gamers hate change' thing was not targeted at you. I don't think he's backed up his assertion very well, and we've kinda landed at 'Some do. Some don't. It depends on what the change is. It's subjective.' which is nice and clear as mud, but that's beside the point.
No one (who is being serious) here is suggesting that you are not allowed to just like the game you like. You are extrapolating that from evidence which doesn't actually support that conclusion. If I'm going to call CB out on when I think he's wrong on his justifications of his persecution complex actions, I am going to do so with you as well. This is
not people telling you you only like oD&D for nostalgia reasons, or however you usually frame your own persecution perception.
If someone at the very least reads the a newer edition and dislikes what they see I may disagree with yet can respect and understand why they don't like rpg edition XYZ. It's when they can't be bothered to read let alone play the rpg where my opinion on some gamers not liking change comes from. They don't know anything about the newer edition of a rpg. Go off second or third hand information which can be misleading. Assume by virtue of it being a new edition that it must be crap. Hide behind years of gaming experience in the hobby to not read the new edition while some also claim to be experts on the new edition on the rpg which has happened to me one to many times at least. I don't care if you were gaming when primitive man was in caves and carving D20 from petrified wood. If you don't read a new edition of a rpg a stadium full of fresh manure at least has more value than your opinion on the subject.
As for the thread topic I like what I see with what they are planning to do with magic. I'm still not impressed with Goblins being core. The goblin art we have seen so far screams more " Me gonna carve youse face offa with my choppa and wear it" then " I'm here to help you trust me".
[video=youtube_share;Skl-yeCB-9I]https://youtu.be/Skl-yeCB-9I[/youtube]
If Captain Kirk says it is so, then it is so. :p
Quote from: Willie the Duck;1034944I don't think he's backed up his assertion very well,
I don't think he's backed it up at all. Of all the reasons various people haven't bought this or that edition, I think "hates change" is among the least likely of reasons.
The notion that somebody could actually be happy with the game they have seems deeply upsetting to a nonzero number of people online; I've gotten an amazing amount of shit for it in any number of venues. I don't know if 5th edition is good or bad. I frankly don't CARE about it one way or the other, because I'm
happy.I feel Happy! I feel Happy! * DONK! *
Happy? what is this thing you speak of?
I don't think people rationally do a lot of things. Those answers usually come out afterwards.
I fully believe a gamer can be happy with a version of a rpg they enjoy. I don't see the need to edition war on newer version of a rpg either. Which happens to often in our hobby. Not all gamer behave that way enough imo that it's noticeable and does the hobby no favors. I turned my back on 2E D&D for years once third came out and said some stupidly negatives about it. I grew up matured as a person and gamer and now I find myself reading my 2E books more than PF books sometimes.
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1034949I feel Happy! I feel Happy! * DONK! *
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6rZJe1Wsd4
Quote from: sureshot;1034945If someone at the very least reads the a newer edition and dislikes what they see I may disagree with yet can respect and understand why they don't like rpg edition XYZ. It's when they can't be bothered to read let alone play the rpg where my opinion on some gamers not liking change comes from. They don't know anything about the newer edition of a rpg.
I can rule out an rpg without reading it by asking three questions of those who play it.
1) How long does the average combat take? If the answer is longer than 10-12 minutes, I am unlikely to enjoy the game. If the answer is 20+ minutes, I know I will not not enjoy the game.
2) How long does it take for a new player who is not familiar with the rules to create a character, assuming a bit of guidance from the GM or another experienced player? If the answer is longer than 15-20 minutes, I am unlikely to enjoy the game. If it requires more than 30 minutes, I'm unlikely to be even willing to give it a try.
3) How important is system mastery? Can a player play well without knowing the rules and simply describing what he wants his character to do? If system mastery is needed to play well or worse to enjoy playing at all, I know the game will not interest me.
Why? Because I've played a lot of RPGs since I started playing in 1975 and those with time-consuming combats, complex, time consuming character creation and/or that stress system mastery have consistently turned me off. Why should I waste my times playing another such game? Its not disliking change, it is simply knowing from experience what I like and dislike in traditional RPGs and using that knowledge to avoid wasting the limited time I have available to play on games I am extremely unlikely to enjoy. However, as D&D is my "go to" game, I tend to try new editions of D&D. I've tried all the WOTC editions and they all fail on at least one of these points. Heck 3.x and 4e (and Pathfinder) failed on all three points.
Quote from: RandallS;1034965I can rule out an rpg without reading it by asking three questions of those who play it.
1) How long does the average combat take? If the answer is longer than 10-12 minutes, I am unlikely to enjoy the game. If the answer is 20+ minutes, I know I will not not enjoy the game.
2) How long does it take for a new player who is not familiar with the rules to create a character, assuming a bit of guidance from the GM or another experienced player? If the answer is longer than 15-20 minutes, I am unlikely to enjoy the game. If it requires more than 30 minutes, I'm unlikely to be even willing to give it a try.
3) How important is system mastery? Can a player play well without knowing the rules and simply describing what he wants his character to do? If system mastery is needed to play well or worse to enjoy playing at all, I know the game will not interest me.
Why? Because I've played a lot of RPGs since I started playing in 1975 and those with time-consuming combats, complex, time consuming character creation and/or that stress system mastery have consistently turned me off. Why should I waste my times playing another such game? Its not disliking change, it is simply knowing from experience what I like and dislike in traditional RPGs and using that knowledge to avoid wasting the limited time I have available to play on games I am extremely unlikely to enjoy. However, as D&D is my "go to" game, I tend to try new editions of D&D. I've tried all the WOTC editions and they all fail on at least one of these points. Heck 3.x and 4e (and Pathfinder) failed on all three points.
Serious question, how many game systems do you think succeed at at least two of the three points?
JG
Sorry RandallS I don't care how long you have been playing rpgs. I can respect a fellow gamer in the hobby. Your gaming pedigree is meaningless to me at least if you can't be bothered to at least read a rpg. Why should I listen when one might be going off factually incorrect second or third hand information on a rpg. Having read many rpgs does not suddenly make one immune to being mistaken about a rpg either.
If I believed everything told to me by fellow gamers about rpgs I would never be playing anything else. Some gamers if they hate a rpg can and will lie about how it runs or plays. They can and will purposefully try to sabotage a person interest in a rpg so that they don't try the rpg. It's not to say I don't trust anyone opinion on a rpg I can count them on one hand. You know how many times during the D20 boom how many times gamers said "rule/feat/class was broken". Once I actually read the supposed broken material it was anything but.
Quote from: sureshot;1034958I fully believe a gamer can be happy with a version of a rpg they enjoy. I don't see the need to edition war on newer version of a rpg either. Which happens to often in our hobby. Not all gamer behave that way enough imo that it's noticeable and does the hobby no favors. I turned my back on 2E D&D for years once third came out and said some stupidly negatives about it. I grew up matured as a person and gamer and now I find myself reading my 2E books more than PF books sometimes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6rZJe1Wsd4
My only opinion on 5E is that it has too many pages to interest me. I'm just not going to read a huge tome like that to play a game; this is a second-tier hobby for me, or perhaps third tier.
I don't happen to believe that my opinion counts as "edition warring."
I can respect that Gronan even if I don't agree with it.
To add more to my post I would still game with a person who never read or played a rpg. Show up with a willingness to learn and more importantly have fun. Don't edition war or compare what your playing to the previous edition constantly and we will get along fine. While behaving in mature responsible manner sad I have to add this but it needs to be said.
Quote from: sureshot;1034945If someone at the very least reads the a newer edition and dislikes what they see I may disagree with yet can respect and understand why they don't like rpg edition XYZ. It's when they can't be bothered to read let alone play the rpg where my opinion on some gamers not liking change comes from. They don't know anything about the newer edition of a rpg. Go off second or third hand information which can be misleading. Assume by virtue of it being a new edition that it must be crap. Hide behind years of gaming experience in the hobby to not read the new edition while some also claim to be experts on the new edition on the rpg which has happened to me one to many times at least. I don't care if you were gaming when primitive man was in caves and carving D20 from petrified wood. If you don't read a new edition of a rpg a stadium full of fresh manure at least has more value than your opinion on the subject.
As for the thread topic I like what I see with what they are planning to do with magic. I'm still not impressed with Goblins being core. The goblin art we have seen so far screams more " Me gonna carve youse face offa with my choppa and wear it" then " I'm here to help you trust me".
1. Not all systems have their rules available for free. Even if they do, important rules could be behind the paywall or changed later by lazy developers.
2. Getting people to read your system is the greatest hurdle for RPGs. I personally look through every edition of D&D, but by no means should anyone be expected too to decide whether or not a system is worth their time. This is where marketing comes in.
3. You won't know if an RPG system is good until you have played it for years because it takes that long to run multiple campaigns with multiple GMs throughout all the system has to offer.
4. Goblin race has been the most interesting thing so far about 2e, which is sad. Paizo has had a terrible time making their rules seem cool between Starfinder (which I read through, even though someone can craft a valid opinion without doing so) and these previews.
Paizo recently published a sneak peek (http://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo5lkpv?All-About-Spells) of its spell system, and hooooo boy is this going off the rails. Their replacement for Cure Light Wounds, Heal, is a number of different spells mashed together that does different things depending on how many actions you spend and what level you cast it at. What makes it even more fun is that the effect of heightening it depends on how many actions you spent to cast in the first place. The result is that the text for D&D -3.75's basic cure system is this spaghetti:
QuoteHeal Spell 1
Healing, Necromancy, Positive
Casting Somatic Casting or more
Range touch, Range 30 feet, or Area 30-foot aura (see text); Target one willing living creature or one undead creature
You channel positive energy to heal the living or damage the undead. You restore Hit Points equal to 1d8 + your spellcasting modifier to a willing living target, or deal that amount of positive damage to an undead target. The number of actions you spend when Casting this Spell determines its targets, range, area, and other parameters.
- Somatic Casting The spell has a range of touch. You must succeed at a melee touch attack to damage an undead target.
- Somatic Casting, Verbal Casting The spell has a range of 30 feet and doesn't require a touch attack when targeting an undead creature. An undead target must attempt a Fortitude save, taking half damage on a success, no damage on a critical success, or double damage on a critical failure.
- Material Casting, Somatic Casting, Verbal Casting You disperse positive energy in a 30-foot aura. This has the same effect as the two-action version of the spell, but it targets all living and undead creatures in the burst and reduces the amount of healing or damage to your spellcasting ability modifier.
Heightened (+1) Increase the amount of healing or damage by 1d8, or by 2d8 if you're using the one- or two-action version to heal the living.
Other things:
- Looks like cantrips get one damage die every two levels
- Casters are way more powerful when they don't move.
- Casters will also have Spell Points that they can spend to cast "Domain Powers"
- There will be rituals, which sound like a hybrid of 4e and 5e in implementation
- Most of the new critical effects seem reasonable, some sound asinine.
- There's no consistent rubric for heightening spell. Heal gains 1 or 2 dice every level, depending on action consumption. Vampiric Exsanguination gains 3 dice every 2 levels. Regenerate gains a flat bonus only when heightened to 9th level.
The other two spells they listed aren't as much of a mess as Heal. However, there is so much complexity and interaction in the spell system's design that I expect enterprising players will find ways to bust this system wide open.
Is it possible to make a game with all the worst aspects of 3.*/PF, 4E, and 5E mashed together? It appears they may be game for the prize. :)
Quote from: sureshot;1034975Sorry RandallS I don't care how long you have been playing rpgs. I can respect a fellow gamer in the hobby. Your gaming pedigree is meaningless to me at least if you can't be bothered to at least read a rpg. Why should I listen when one might be going off factually incorrect second or third hand information on a rpg. Having read many rpgs does not suddenly make one immune to being mistaken about a rpg either.
Sorry, but I neither have the time to read or the money to buy (to enable reading) every RPG out there. As you seem to consider this very important, I will be happy to do so if you will provide the games free of charge and pay me a living wage (with benefits) to read them all. If you are unwilling or unable to do this, I am going to ask questions of those who play games I hear about to see if they are likely worth spending my limited funds on buying so I can then spend some of my limited time reading them to see if I actually want to play them. If this means you don't respect me, so be it. I don't get why you think I should be willing to buy and read every RPG out there before deciding whether it is likely to interest me. If I was going to write reviews of games I had not read, let alone played, I could see where you would have a problem -- but I'm not. I'm simply prioritizing my limited supply of money for buying games and my even more limited time for reading games so don't waste either on games I am unlikely to even want to play once. Sure, it is remotely possible that one of the games I pass over because of the answers to my three questions might be an exception that I really want to play, but I think that's a 1 in 100 chance at best and I'm not willing to waste time and money buying and reading 100 games that don't appear to meet my basic needs just in case I might really like a single one of them.
Quote from: James Gillen;1034973Serious question, how many game systems do you think succeed at at least two of the three points?
Quite a few -- just not some of the current editions of better known games. For example, (limiting it to the D&D branch of the RPG family tree, which is what I am most familiar with), most OSR games, 0e, and B/X meet at least two of the three and a good number actually meet all three.
Quote from: Rhedyn;1034935Your conclusion is bad. Gamers don't hate change for the sake of hating change. Generally nor specifically.
They don't hate change for the sake of hating change. They hate change because it's something they're not used to. Humans are built around comfort, patterns and habits. Change disrupts this, thus humans in general do not like it, and often, yes fear it.
Gamers are worse, because a lot of us were pushed into a sub-section of 'humanity' that isn't often liked or even tolerated, it's not something we were invited to. After all, there's a reason unpleasant appellations were leveled at us during High School and often later, terms like Nerd or Geek. So gamers, especially of my generation had to find something within our new 'culture'/clique/tribe to enjoy, and make our own.
RPGs (and gaming in general) was it. So we now had OUR thing, and it was safe and we could ignore the other tribes of humanity, we had our 'thing'. Problem is, our thing needs money, and it needs to change with the times as generations and interests change, but there's a subset of us who never left our hobby, for various reasons.
But we're still human, and we still find change uncomfortable, unpleasant and scary. And like I said, in some ways, more so than the average person.
Quote from: Ras Algethi;1034936Come now, it should be obvious he hates change simply because if people play something different his social value drops tremendously. He can't be on-board with other versions/releases since he'd just be another gamer in that world.
I have to admit, in my more uncharitable moments, I do think this. My apologies.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1034984...
There's no consistent rubric for heightening spell. Heal gains 1 or 2 dice every level, depending on action consumption. ...
Except of course it doesn't apply to the damage option, because reasons. I've come to appreciate scaling cantrips and upcasting spells from 5e and I'm sure they could be done better even. I actually appreciate asymmetrical stuff more than ever these days, so I am almost primed to like this stuff, but when I break down and look at this PF2 material I just ... nope.
I guess I really am not the target market (at least one hopes so for their sake) so maybe this stuff looks waaay different to them. I honestly figured this new edition would just be a blip and they would keep chugging along in the #2 spot but this is almost starting to look like a potential crash and burn scenario for the company. I hope they at least are going to make some niche happy with this system, then again maybe I'm wrong and this will overtake 5e.
All this stuff about "gamers" hating change, how do people square that with the state of boardgames or other table top games? Not only is "cult of the new" a huge factor, games that you only play once or a limited amount of times have been a big hit.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1035006I have to admit, in my more uncharitable moments, I do think this. My apologies.
Pfft.
My social value with whom? Nobody on this site gives a shit what I play or who I am; the ODD74 board and Ruins of Murkhill are about the same 30 active people; and the GaryCon people I see once a year and in between talk about the next GaryCon. The couple of dozen people at GaryCon I consider friends don't give a shit what I play, and most of what I do at GaryCon is play old school wargames.
I HAVE no "social value."
Gronan doesn't hate change; he hates people. Big difference.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1034984Heal gains 1 or 2 dice every level, depending on action consumption.
I don't think this is right. I think it is one die per level if you are using it to hurt undead, or two dice per level if you are trying to heal the living, but the three action version remains a small, non-discriminating blast and doesn't get boosted.
Quote from: happyhermit;1035007Except of course it doesn't apply to the damage option, because reasons. I've come to appreciate scaling cantrips and upcasting spells from 5e and I'm sure they could be done better even. I actually appreciate asymmetrical stuff more than ever these days, so I am almost primed to like this stuff, but when I break down and look at this PF2 material I just ... nope.
5e's a well-designed game. If you look at the early playtest packets, they were significantly more complicated than what was finally published. For example, just about every class got "martial damage dice," "maneuvers," and a "martial damage bonus" that scaled at different rates for different classes, with Fighter getting the most of them. That "martial system" was somebody's baby, and while it lives on in truncated form in a Fighter subclass, I can guarantee you it was somebody's baby, and there were lots of arguments over it. It must have hurt to finally concede that it was too much fiddling, and relegate it to a corner of the game rather than its main martial mechanic.
Good design means throwing out stuff you like for the integrity of the whole. It doesn't seem like Paizo's doing that. There's no apparent rhyme or reason to their design choices; it just seems that whatever the developers think is cool makes it to the final cut if they like it enough. If you look at the blog posts, you see a lot of talk about "opening up the design space" (meaning giving developers more toys) and "cool mechanics," but nothing about
problems that anyone
solved. 5e's design talk has lots of problem-solving. Market research uncovered that most people who play fighters want the fighter class to be simple. The early iterations of the ghoul TPK'd way too easily. Even when they don't explicitly say so, you can see how most of their design choices were about problem-solving, not "cool mechanics."
Quote from: Manic Modron;1035018I don't think this is right. I think it is one die per level if you are using it to hurt undead, or two dice per level if you are trying to heal the living, but the three action version remains a small, non-discriminating blast and doesn't get boosted.
One die if you are using it to heal or hurt, unless you are using the 1 or 2 action version to heal. So I think this is how it works
[table=width: 500]
[tr]
[td]#Actions[/td]
[td]Healing[/td]
[td]Hurting[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]1[/td]
[td]+2d8[/td]
[td]+1d8[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2[/td]
[td]+2d8[/td]
[td]+1d8[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]3[/td]
[td]+1d8[/td]
[td]+1d8[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]
I think. Who the fuck knows.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1035020One die if you are using it to heal or hurt, unless you are using the 1 or 2 action version to heal. So I think this is how it works
[table=width: 550]
[tr]
[td]#Actions[/td]
[td]Healing[/td]
[td]Hurting[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]1[/td]
[td]+2d8[/td]
[td]+1d8[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2[/td]
[td]+2d8[/td]
[td]+1d8[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]3[/td]
[td]+1d8[/td]
[td]+1d8[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]
I think. Who the fuck knows.
Okay, I get what you are saying. I think we both had a little of the truth in that, let me try your table code.
[table=width: 650]
[tr]
[td] [/td]
[td]Healing Living[/td]
[td]Hurting Undead[/td]
[td]bonus Healing dice [/td]
[td]bonus Hurting dice [/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Somatic Casting (1 action)[/td]
[td]1d8+Wis Bonus at Touch range[/td]
[td]1d8+Wis Bonus by Touch attack, no save[/td]
[td]+2d8/level [/td]
[td]+1d8/level [/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Somatic & Verbal Casting (2 actions)[/td]
[td]1d8+Wis Bonus at 30' range[/td]
[td]1d8+Wis Bonus at 30' range w/ Fortitude save[/td]
[td]+2d8/level [/td]
[td]+1d8/level [/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Somatic, Verbal, and Material Casting (3 actions)[/td]
[td]Wis bonus healing to all within 30' AND[/td]
[td]Wis bonus damage to all within 30' w/ Fort save[/td]
[td]+1d8/level [/td]
[td]+1d8/level [/td]
[/tr]
[/table]
The table was fun to edit, thanks for doing the leg work on it.
I feel that any good RPG should have you writing tables to figure out how Cure Wounds works.
Quote from: Rhedyn;10349811. Not all systems have their rules available for free. Even if they do, important rules could be behind the paywall or changed later by lazy developers.
Quote from: RandallS;1034993Sorry, but I neither have the time to read or the money to buy (to enable reading) every RPG out there.
Both of these are fine, true statements. But again, no one is forcing or suggesting forcing anyone to do so. It simply means that having strong opinions on these games has less cachet. There is nothing wrong with saying, "Game XYZ? Oh, I haven't looked into it. Not really in the market for another (ex.) fantasy RPG at the moment."
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1035006They don't hate change for the sake of hating change. They hate change because it's something they're not used to. Humans are built around comfort, patterns and habits. Change disrupts this, thus humans in general do not like it, and often, yes fear it.
Generalizing this to all of change and all of humanity makes this both amazingly true and amazingly false. Most humans are both familiarity seeking and innovators. That's why as a species we're the ones that have done so much to completely reshape our environment, yet amazingly predictable at times.
QuoteGamers are worse, because a lot of us were pushed into a sub-section of 'humanity' that isn't often liked or even tolerated, it's not something we were invited to. After all, there's a reason unpleasant appellations were leveled at us during High School and often later, terms like Nerd or Geek. So gamers, especially of my generation had to find something within our new 'culture'/clique/tribe to enjoy, and make our own. RPGs (and gaming in general) was it.
I've been rather critical of the 'gamers/nerds as oppressed class' mentality as it applies to pubescent behavior. I'm even less sure of its' value now that comic book geeks and people into computers have grown up to become the upper 75-90 %-er income bracket, as well as the market to which Hollywood is catering their movies towards. But I guess I will agree that there could be a 'tribal protectionist' factor involved in whether the TTRPG community embraces change or not.
The thing is, I find the evidence one way or the other (on hate/embrace change, specific to TTRPG people) hopelessly mixed. People loved the change to WotC-D&D for a good 2.5-3 years before they started complaining about the balance issues (many of which were relatively obvious from first-look, so it wasn't a big deal until a critical mass of people started complaininng, or what...?), so that's pro-change. People rejected 4e (relatively speaking) in favor of 3rd edition attempt #3 (PF), so pro-status quo. People like 5e, which is a throwback edition if you turn your head and squint hard enough, which is... I really don't even know. Some people are embracing changes in gaming culture like the webcam gaming, others hate it (certainly not just Pundy). Gaming forums in general seem to be contracting as the audience is moving to FB and G+ and other social media. I just think that without some higher level analysis (survey research or the like, solid purchasing data, etc.), we can probably each tell whatever story we like and find evidence to support it.
It could be a decent spell set up to replace the entire Cure X range, but yeah, it really could use tighter language.
I'm not one to force a fellow gamer to read another rpg if they don't want too. Knowing now that some are talking about rpgs without actually reading them makes me wonder to a some extent if their opinion on said rpg can be trusted. At the very least going forward if I ask for a review or just to talk about a rpg a requirement would be that they have read the rpg. I want the best possible complete if possible factual information on a rpg. If it means not getting a response to my inquiry than so be it better no information than so be it better no information than wrong or biased information.
Quote from: Manic Modron;1035041It could be a decent spell set up to replace the entire Cure X range, but yeah, it really could use tighter language.
Which is not Paizo strong point imo.
Quote from: happyhermit;1035010All this stuff about "gamers" hating change, how do people square that with the state of boardgames or other table top games? Not only is "cult of the new" a huge factor, games that you only play once or a limited amount of times have been a big hit.
The people driving the boardgame hobby bus today are very different (and not just in their game tastes) from people who have been playing the same edition of D&D for 15 or 30 years. Boardgaming has its grognards too, the ones who play hex and counter wargames, still think Advanced Civilisation is the best game ever, or have a handful of games or systems they play almost exclusively. The boardgamers into the cult of new are open to experience, and keen to try new mechanics and participate in new trends. I'd wager even their eating habits tend to be more adventurous.
Some gamers welcome new experiences, some don't.
Quote from: sureshot;1035049Which is not Paizo strong point imo.
This is an unfortunate truth.
Quote from: Haffrung;1035067still think Advanced Civilisation is the best game ever
I mean, it is pretty awesome.
Quote from: Manic Modron;1035041It could be a decent spell set up to replace the entire Cure X range, but yeah, it really could use tighter language.
This isn't really an option, because they've boxed themselves into "keeping what makes the Pathfinder RPG special," i.e. 3.x-isms that 5e discarded. Applying the KISS principle is a 5e thing, so they have to do the opposite. Hence their version of the "streamlined" action economy is even more fiddly than the old Standard/Swift/Move -- Full Round system. Hence their condensation of Cure Wounds requires a 3x3 matrix to really understand.
As someone who basically loathes the arbitrary-seeming Standard/Swift/Move categories of activations and actions, getting three actions to spend on whatever you are doing that turn sounds less fiddly, not more. Granted when they presented it in Unchained it didn't mesh at all, but I'm optimistic it will be easier in a set up designed with it as a base assumption, not a patch job.
On the topic of the new Heal spell, while the above chart made things clearer, even I'm not convinced that it was required. I used it because you set it up and I wanted to toy with the format, but I think the confusion could be resolved by making the "Heightened" portion more clarity. The only question I had was whether or not heightening the spell added dice to the area affect use.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1035016Gronan doesn't hate change; he hates people. Big difference.
Yes, but change is caused by people.
jg
Quote from: Manic Modron;1035041It could be a decent spell set up to replace the entire Cure X range, but yeah, it really could use tighter language.
Again, you want to look at Starfinder as an example (or prototype) of what they're trying here. Heal effects are "Mystic Cure", Feather Fall is officially the 1st-level iteration of Flight, etc.
jg
Quote from: Manic Modron;1035119As someone who basically loathes the arbitrary-seeming Standard/Swift/Move categories of activations and actions, getting three actions to spend on whatever you are doing that turn sounds less fiddly, not more.
It is when implemented by a sane person. Not when you start loading up with switches, trips, exceptions, and combos, which is what they're doing.
Quotebut I think the confusion could be resolved by making the "Heightened" portion more clarity. The only question I had was whether or not heightening the spell added dice to the area affect use.
It's badly worded, but adding different numbers of dice depending on how many actions you spend and what the targets are is needless complexity. You don't
really need the chart, but it illustrates the complexity. Here's 5e's cure wounds:
[table=width: 500]
[tr]
[td]Actions Spent[/td]
[td]Extra Healing dice[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]1[/td]
[td]+1d8[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]
There are no conditions or exceptions on its behavior. It's easier to remember, write clearly, and interpret consistently. If you need something different (like curing at range), there's simply a different spell rather than putting additional "if...then..." statements in the spell. Accurately and quickly parsing "if/then" logic is actually pretty hard for humans.
I think that the main thing to do is be clear the dice bonus isn't by action. Heightening is still putting a low level spell in a higher level slot. It doesn't sound as if there is an extra action requirement in 5e either, it is all what level the spell is cast at. Assuming that the rule for Heightening is clear earlier in the magic chapter (a big assumption, apparently), the wording could tighten up a lot.
Heightened (+1) Increase the amount of healing or damage by 1d8, or by 2d8 if you're using the one- or two-action version to heal the living.
vs
Heightened (+1) Add an extra d8. If casting on a single target for healing, add 2d8 instead.
Quote from: Manic Modron;1035157I think that the main thing to do is be clear the dice bonus isn't by action.
There's no need for a varying dice bonus at all. If you feel the need to start doing that kind of thing as an engineer, software developer, or game designer, you need to reexamine your original design.
This design breaks down because of the 3 action option. It is too unlike the the previous two options to get the same bonus. Take it out and make it a different spell. Also, don't make the dice vary between healing and hurting; it solves no real problems.
Second is that having different kinds of heightening is dumb. It improves nothing and solves no problems. If you can't find something sensible to add per slot, don't have any heightening at all. At that point, write a new spell.
So now you can do this:
Heal:
1 action: touch, 1d8+MOD
2 actions: Ranged touch, 30 ft.
Heightened: Increase the amount of healing or damage by 2d8.
3 actions: Ranged touch, 30 ft, reroll 1s and 2s.
Mass Heal:
3 actions, aura 30 ft, MOD healing or damage
Heightened: Increase by 1d8
No if/then logic, it's clear, easy to write concisely, etc.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1034984Paizo recently published a sneak peek (http://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo5lkpv?All-About-Spells) of its spell system, and hooooo boy is this going off the rails. Their replacement for Cure Light Wounds, Heal, is a number of different spells mashed together that does different things depending on how many actions you spend and what level you cast it at. What makes it even more fun is that the effect of heightening it depends on how many actions you spent to cast in the first place. The result is that the text for D&D -3.75's basic cure system is this spaghetti:
Other things:
- Looks like cantrips get one damage die every two levels
- Casters are way more powerful when they don't move.
- Casters will also have Spell Points that they can spend to cast "Domain Powers"
- There will be rituals, which sound like a hybrid of 4e and 5e in implementation
- Most of the new critical effects seem reasonable, some sound asinine.
- There's no consistent rubric for heightening spell. Heal gains 1 or 2 dice every level, depending on action consumption. Vampiric Exsanguination gains 3 dice every 2 levels. Regenerate gains a flat bonus only when heightened to 9th level.
The other two spells they listed aren't as much of a mess as Heal. However, there is so much complexity and interaction in the spell system's design that I expect enterprising players will find ways to bust this system wide open.
What the actual fuck are they thinking? Is this now a game intended for accountants who like the flavor of Ikea furniture assembly instructions? My daughter's math homework is both more evocative and more clearly written than the mess you just posted from Paizo.
Quote from: Mistwell;1035244What the actual fuck are they thinking? Is this now a game intended for accountants who like the flavor of Ikea furniture assembly instructions? My daughter's math homework is both more evocative and more clearly written than the mess you just posted from Paizo.
Pathfinder: Common Core Edition
Paizo needs a decent technical writer. (yes, among other things, of course ;) ) I'm wondering how this, which reads like a brainstorm session rather than something coherent, will appear in the actual playtest documents. And how playtesting will affect it. Only 3.5 months to go.
Dear Paizo,
Please stop. It's apparent that your strength is bad thought out, regressive characters, not game mechanics. Might I suggest stealing 5e's basic mechanics? They're open and it's clearly your forte.
Thank you,
-Someone who doesn't want your Pathfinder line of books to go under.
This doesn't sound like my type of fun. :)
I hope it attracts those who prefer that type of fun... and away from my tables. :)
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1035279Dear Paizo,
Please stop. It's apparent that your strength is bad thought out, regressive characters, not game mechanics. Might I suggest stealing 5e's basic mechanics? They're open and it's clearly your forte.
Thank you,
-Someone who doesn't want your Pathfinder line of books to go under.
Their strong point is paying Wayne Reynolds to draw spikes on things to overcompensate for how busy his backgrounds are.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1035016Gronan doesn't hate change; he hates people. Big difference.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]2416[/ATTACH]
Meow.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1035290Their strong point is paying Wayne Reynolds to draw spikes on things to overcompensate for how busy his backgrounds are.
Oh, he's got a lot more issues than that. The only good about his art is the colours, he knows how to make things pop. Everything else, like perspective, body proportions, backgrounds and anything else you want to mention, he needs a LOT more practice to be any good.
Quote from: Franky;1035277Paizo needs a decent technical writer. (yes, among other things, of course ;) ) I'm wondering how this, which reads like a brainstorm session rather than something coherent, will appear in the actual playtest documents. And how playtesting will affect it. Only 3.5 months to go.
Very much agreed and seconded.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1035279Dear Paizo,
Please stop. It's apparent that your strength is bad thought out, regressive characters, not game mechanics. Might I suggest stealing 5e's basic mechanics? They're open and it's clearly your forte.
Thank you,
-Someone who doesn't want your Pathfinder line of books to go under.
Again agreed and seconded. They are known for not listening and doing their own thing even if it is detrimental to their rpg and by extension their rpg imo. Almost no liked the gun rules as they were written before the book they were in went to print. They left them in anyway and made guns so much more better than bows and crossbows as they target Touch AC. Fans asked for less reprinted material and less sub-par options in terms of feats and archetypes you guessed it they did the opposite. I hope some of the elements in the previews are revised before they go to print as I'm not sure how well it will do once the core goes to print. They also ruined Ogres as a iconic monster. They now act like a cross between the mutants from the Hills have eyes with a hefty dose of the hillbillies from deliverance mixed in and not in a good way. I do hope they come up with a good in game reason for Goblins not only being core yet suddenly being socially accepted by the average person on Golarion as how they are written as a race it makes no sense imo. Saying "well their was always a secret sect of good aligned Goblins hidden away in some secret corner" is bullshit. I get they want to capitalize on WOW popularity yet their own racial write-up for Goblins makes it hard to do imo.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1035290Their strong point is paying Wayne Reynolds to draw spikes on things to overcompensate for how busy his backgrounds are.
Wayne Reynolds is imo a decent artist they do need more than one artist drawing their stuff imo. WR style gets old and stale really fast imo. It's also not helped that they occasionally chose some really terrible art pieces. There is a picture of the iconic Bard that seems to be singing to a room full of people and they are all busy vomiting. I think it was supposed to showcasing their mass cacophonous call spell. I want to see adventurers facing danger and attacking enemies. Not a bunch of people throwing up in my art. They also need to redo their art for Goblins in the new edition especially if they are now to be considered a core race because it says anything but good aligned adventurer imo.
On thing I want to see removed or codified like PB does is the alignments. Too often their are too many dick DMs who screw players over with alignment especially with the Paladin class. The same applies to players who play Chaotic Neutrals as complete wackos or Lawful Good as Lawful Stupid.