Is it just me or did Pathfinder do away with the concept of an XP cost on certain spells?

I was rummaging around its high-level spells and even wish does not cost any XP.

Oh they got rid of it :D

> XP Cost. Item creation feats and spells no longer have XP costs; it's all gold now.

So magic item creation is just super-powerful?

I mean, more so.

Well, maybe. They changed various other things too, so it's important to take the change within the bigger picture.

It's probably just less crap due to no longer taking a commodity 3e should never have made a currency in the first place.

Does it still cut the cost in half?

Does what still?

Item creation feats.

Not sure but maybe

> Magic supplies for items are always half of the base price in gp. For many items, the market price equals the base price. Armor, shields, weapons, and items with value independent of their magically enhanced properties add their item cost to the market price. The item cost does not influence the base price (which determines the cost of magic supplies), but it does increase the final market price.

I don't know if that means the item always costs half the price though, especially since magic items incur additional costs.

(see the table)

@JonathanHobbs That looks the same as 3.5 base costs, at least as far as I remember.

I am ok with this

that is just me but I play in a group of people who are not buttholes to each other and would use the magic item crafting to empower each other given the opportunity.

@JonathanHobbs I really don't like the premise of "take a feat or two to double the amount of stuff you (really the whole party) are supposed to have."

I mean, wealth-by-level is kinda garbage.

But this doesn't make it better.

All depends on the style of your game though. As a DM, I'd consult my players on what they wanted to come across anyway (which removed a portion of my work). If they took up magic item creation, I'd just use it as a way to let them work out what they want and take it.

And if they're going to create an Arcane Mega-Cannon of Just Killing Everything And Making Everything Easy, I'd just ask them not to on the basis it would just kill everything and make everything easy, and they probably wouldn't.

and for everything else, we'd just run with it and have fun with it.

y'know, because it's a game

@JonathanHobbs [fangirls wildly]

@BESW XD over what?

What you just said, and how you said it.

It is reasonable, collaborative, blunt, and clear.

\o/

I've sometimes said that if a player thinks he needs to min/max in order to survive a GM's encounters, than one of them has misunderstood the other's game goals.

It's more that I don't see the point of offering a ton of guidelines about how to make the game play right and then undercutting them with basic options.

I think crafting gear is much cooler than buying it, and in like 80% of cases probably cooler than finding it.

@AlexP If the manuals don't describe how to respond in terms of loot allocation when your players are picking up magic item creation feats, that is very likely a missing, but oh well. I don't know how high quality the DM advice in Pathfinder's books is anyway, yet.

3.5e's are already quite wacky.

@AlexP I quite agree. (So what's the problem exactly? :P)

@JonathanHobbs The problem is the broken-ass resource system. :P

There's nothing quite like sitting down to stat up a level's worth of encounters, and finding that the creatures you chose tally up a vastly different loot:XP ratio than the tables say you should have.

"None of it is supposed to work like the book tells you it should, so let's remove more of the clumsy controls because they don't do enough anyway."

What I found worked, eventually, was just giving each NPC its level's worth of NPC wealth.

That's how 2nd Edition's mess became 3rd Edition's bigger mess in the first place.

Then 4e's bundles introduced an entirely different, but much less math-enraging, system.

@BESW which didn't have item crafting ;_;

@JonathanHobbs It did!

Enchant Magic Item is a ritual in PHB1. It takes one hour and costs ritual components equal to the price of the magic item you make.

It's basically "Take this ritual to convert wealth to items without visiting a shop."

Which is what the thing should be, in a wealth-based power system.

@BESW That's also the thing where you can deconstruct magic items to get their "essence" out of them, right?

Yup!

Although that operates at a loss, it's less of a loss than selling them.

It's all a bit anodyne but it works within what the rules say the resource limits should be.

...I think an analgesic is a pretty apt metaphor.

Also it's nice that you don't have to sit down for 5 months to make the really big fun stuff.

Well, the basic ritual doesn't let you make the big fun stuff at all.

Is there a limit on your output?

By level and by rarity, not by quantity.

So what do you need to make awesome amazing gear?

I think there are some feats/rituals to increase the rarity of things you can make, but the really exceptional stuff is GM fiat.

This is in line with the default setting's theme of "secrets lost and forgotten to the ages."

@BESW The exception stuff is, like, Blackrazor-level?

But a lot of mechanical pressure is put on the GM to make sure the right stuff drops.

There's common, uncommon, rare, and artifact.

@BESW Yeah, I noticed that about 4e.

Rare and artifact are basically only things you'll get if the GM wishes.

Even if you want to buy it outright, a rare item is going to be hard to find.

@BESW Oh that's true O: I forgot about that

need more bunkers & badasses material

more, more, more...

@JonathanHobbs this has inexplicably made me think of making a PC who retires, sells items for the market price, and as soon as his PC friends roll in, he can't seem to sell anything for more than 1/4 because he has suddenly turned back into a PC

@trogdor XD

it's pretty messed up I know

but it's true, being a PC suddenly cuts you off from owning a business

but it means you can supply the cheapest mead

"how can you afford to sell mead this cheap!?" "i kill goblins" "oh, you're one'a those PCs"

which is sorta ok for balance reasons, but hilariously inappropriate for an IRL translation

lol

I have Fate Dice!

They actually fit the box in mail mailbox so I didn't have to stand in line or anything.

Ursula Vernon reviews Riddick 3: You Are Not Manly Enough To Read This Review Of This Very Manly Movie.

@BESW Three weeks ahead of schedule

@AlexP breeding rust monsters is the right way to do it :)

Someone please talk me about what a D&D 4e Knight class does different from the standard warrior.

@Zachiel It's a basic attack oriented version of the fighter, but instead of marks it gets an aura and instead of immediate interrupt enforcement it gets Opportunity Action enforcement

it uses stances instead of attack powers

Thanks

@Aaron I don't know how you usually spend your week ends but if you happen to drop by, ping me.

This question reminds me just how annoyed I am at 3.x's idea of "balance." Really humdrum abilities have rather elevated costs (and niche benefits, like all those feats that only work with one weapon), while anything magic is just gobs and gobs of power for free. If you squished 20 bow-oriented feats into a single ability, it would still not really beat Natural Spell. :/

This speaks to the item-crafting conversation earlier.

So, game-rec.

I'm writing a meta post but I want to bring this up here first.

RPGs have fictional content. Like every other kind of fiction, sometimes that fictional content is racist, sexist, homophobic, biased against real-world cultures, &c. What's the best way for signposting that in game-rec?

Such discussions naturally get thorny and contentious.

But just outright not saying anything feels like a total failure. Since what's the point of game-rec if someone can recommend you a steampunk game and you buy it and then it turns out it's wall-to-wall Yellow Peril bullshit, for example?

(Ditto for games that have other kinds of potentially offensive stuff that pops up surprisingly. E.g. Lilun.)

@AlexP I'd just attach a content warning to the recommendation.

and ignore comments

Ditto if it's somebody else's recommendation?

@AlexP that's tougher

Well, that's the problem.

It's easy enough to just not recommend a game I think is problematic, altogether.

the problem I have is that content sensitivity is subjective

I feel like if you can't at least warn someone that you're buying this, game-rec is completely useless, is the thing.

@AlexP I largely agree. I'm interested to see what meta turns up

(but then I'm of the mind that game-rec is completely useless anyways)

I'd edit that in the answer.

Heya @Zachiel

Kill Puppies For Satan is all ABOUT being offensive. Everyone is John is just a little insensitive.

I know someone who likes the ideas behind Dogs in the Vineyard but finds its Mormon inspiration makes it impossible for him to play.

So while I strongly approve of the idea of content warnings, it would be very hard to decide what should or shouldn't be reasonable to warn of.

Well, let's talk about what prompted this:

@Aaron Hey

1. What happens if someone recommends Wolsung?

@AlexP Has this kind of thing happened on the site yet?

@mxyzplk I find your comment kind of confusing. It's clearly not a case of "doesn't need to be said" because this person asked the question. Is it obvious that the mount can't be on the other side of the battlefield? Yes. But that doesn't answer the question of just how close it does have to be. And while I'm sure no one would let you mount a hostile creature on a whim, the rules should indicate how that would work: provoking, Ride checks, etc., and they don't.

@mxyzplk Also, your strawman falls flat because the rules do indicate that there must be a creature to mount, and do give rules for how to handle riders of different size categories (i.e. mount must be a size category larger)

@KRyan What question is this on?

2. Someone just recommended Exalted, and specifically 2nd Edition. There is a particular thing in one of the splatbooks that's a horrible dealbreaker for a lot of people. Partly because it's an order of magnitude more graphic and abusive than anything else in the game line. So it's like, SURPRISE.

For other cases of "doesn't need to be said, until you encounter the situation where it does", there's stuff like what I asked about

@AlexP aside from that one thing that you've referenced before but I still don't know what it is, the game is not particularly offensive however. And I've never heard any other of these "lot of people" complain about any one thing in Exalted, so I suspect while it may easily be inappropriate, it's not well known and a lot of people play the game not knowing it exists.

@JonathanHobbs That is a beautiful deleted post down at the bottom.

@BESW ... my question has a deleted post in it?

Eeyup.

@AlexP Now I'm curious.

It was some strange WikiLeaks rant that lasted about an hour on 13 June before the community locked it.

@BESW oh yeah I remember that

So, instead of playing our Egypt Campaign, @trogdor and I designed a Fate setting/character for him to run me through!

Fine... one of the current Exalted authors explains Lilun. Note that the way this appears in the book is a full-page comic depicting the ritual.

@BESW ... what? xD

(I think I need to revisit the extra we designed, but only a little.)

@JonathanHobbs To most people Theodore "Teddy" Shane is just a stinking bum, and he is. But he's also a homeless ex-P.I. druid with friends in the City Watch.

@BESW Is... is this to do with your Fate setting/character or the WikiLeaks rant?

@JonathanHobbs The Fate game. I've moved on.

Don't go replying to messages on other topics, that's confusing! :P

Sorry.

But do go on

He lives in The City, a dark and wet late middle-ages/steampunk gothic city-state strongly inspired by the setting of the Thief video games. It's currently being fought over by the Hammerites (a technologically-obsessed religious organization dedicated to domination over nature) and the Pagans (forest-dwellers with connection to primal spirits, who are now living under the city and working to return it to nature), while the City Watch tries to keep order.

For an impending issue, we have one word: Ghosts.

So, any more input before I got make a meta post?

@AlexP Focus on what's happened on SE, not theoretical future problems.

You're damn straight that's when I should've burst in and explained how Core is the most unbalanced crap in the game.

@AlexP I can't imagine that you're going to get more than "make a comment to the answer; it will serve as the warning if others agree and upvote it, and if the answerer agrees it can be added to the answer itself."

@BESW Nature's domination or The City's domination over nature?

@JonathanHobbs Over.

if someone recommended, say, FATAL seriously, then something more should probably be done, but Exalted is not for the most part like this; everyone in the linked thread notes it is an aberration within the game and inappropriate

there's a good chance the answerer simply wasn't aware of it (I certainly wasn't)

which means the answerer might add it in

even failing that, all that really needs to be said is "be aware that one section of this one book is bizarrely disgusting and offensive, way out of line with the general tenor of the system"

which could easily just be a comment

We've created a Spirit stress track, and a special skill "Commune" which requires a Pagan ritual to access. It's strongly based on the "Lucas's Arts" extra from Core. Commune lets the user interact with spirits using the four actions, and grants three bonus aspect slots which are reserved for aspects describing one's relationship to specific spirits.

@BESW Lucas's Arts... that is a pun.

Yes.

@BESW That last bit about aspects for relationships to other spirits is... very neat. \o/

Everything's got a spirit. I'm close to the Spirit of Lonely Streets (because I spend so much time on them) and the Spirit of Justice is following me for reasons I'm leaving vague at the moment.

@BESW so is "Under the Bridge" your theme song?

And I've got a stunt which says I can use Commune to manipulate stone (the more worked the stone, the harder it is to Commune with).

@KRyan Hadn't given it much thought yet.

I'm a new-minted druid (I was going to be a Pagan blood sacrifice to feed the trees, but my friends in the City Watch showed up and turned it into a blood baptism; instead of being fed to the spirits, I got attuned to them).

"I drive on her streets / 'Cause she's my companion / I walk through her hills / 'Cause she knows who I am / She sees my good deeds / And she kisses me windy / I never worry / Now that is a lie"

@BESW awesome

(in case it's unclear, the 'she' in the lyric is the city of Los Angeles)

@BESW ooooh, Thief. I loved that game. Until it became too hard for me to play.

@Zachiel I played ~1/3 of Deadly Shadows about seven years ago.

It's the game where I learned the meaning of the word typo

@BESW @trogdor This sounds like a very cool setting you've come up with

The Commune extra needs some work.

@Zachiel What part of it taught you the meaning of the word?

@JonathanHobbs The typos?

It's got a lot of textblock exposition.

@KRyan Left that comment. I'll go through sys-rec later to see if anything else really pops up.

@AlexP by no means let that prevent you from making the meta post if you want to see if there are other ideas; people might think of things I haven't thought of

@JonathanHobbs telling a walkthrough writer that there was an error and suggesting him to fix it by e-mail. I used "check" instead of "fix or correct" because it's a false friend and he told me that people from some countries make that kind of mistake. He said "oh, it's a typo". He was pointing to the "error" I pointed out, I tought it meant it was "typical" for Italians to make mistakes like that.

@Zachiel That could have gone not very well :P

There's a TV ad here for a medication called Xeljanz. I think bad drug names have finally topped bad fantasy names in terms of outright badness.

Oh it was a really polite conversation. And none of us acknowledged the mismatch at first. Then he used the word again and it made no sense so I checked in my dictionary. And it stuck into my mind.

@Aaron so I was thinking we could use twiddla for the maps but we need a chat with dice so a separate room here could be a good idea.

@Zachiel Ok.

Anyone else wants a play by chat D&D 3.5 game, level one, non-optimized characters with balancing help from people on the chat, most details yet to be defined? I'll run Expedition to Undermountain, FR setting. Not much politics or drama. Time is... uhm. My afternoons (15-20 maximum) GMT+1, daylight saving time), working days mostly.

I'm free of the perfidious 3.5! Free at last! You'll never take me back alive!

/me shots BESW dead.

ok, now we're three (DM included) XD

I die... free.

[raises @BESW as a demilich and binds his phylactery into a 3.5 rulebook]

Fool! Now I am more powerful than you can possibly imagine! Unless I roll a natural 1.

@BESW (use a spell without ST or to hit roll)

5d20

Those are two crits (second one confirmed) and a miss. Roll for damage trhice.

@BESW I am now imagining an actual, real, very powerful lich, except he carries a set of dice in his pocket because he must actually physically roll for some of the things he does.

Also, for damage.

The dice spark and flare as they roll.

Yes! And then the knight punches him in the face whilst he's rolling. "No, you're meant to let me check my damage first!"

The punch deals no actual damage. Because nobody rolled for it.

So how do these stats sound for a druid? Str:8 Dex:8 Con:13 int:13 Wis:17 and Cha 10.

@Zachiel No, no, the Knight doesn't have to roll for damage. Just the Lich, because his phylactery is a D&D 3.5e manual.

@Aaron They sound hard to achieve for a Wood Elf

@Zachiel Oh yea what mods do I need to change due to being elf?

-2 con and +2 dex right?

If you want to go wood elf, wood elves have +2 Str and Dex and -2 Con, Int and Cha.

As I call them, the half-orc elves.

O.O I didn't see that in the book.

Crap.

I might change my race.

Or you might go with the variant druid. No casting while morphed, no animal companion but wildshape is available from leve one and gives +s to stats, instead of substituting them. (misses the point of being a two buddies team)

@Zachiel What section of the races tells what the stats changes are? I don't see them in the Races of Ferun book I am looking in.

I know it's in the Player's Guide to Faerun or in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting

Since it's there, probably Races of Faerun does not bother to state that again

@Aaron It doesn't, usually. Subtract 10 or 11 from the animal's stat to get the racial/size modifier, whichever makes the result even.

@BESW I think Aaron's talking about the elf, not the animal companion. Or are you convinced elves are animals and drows are aberrations like a friend of mine says?

@Zachiel The only drow that are aberrations are the ones dual-wielding apostrophes.

@BESW 'drow's?

I think I will just go with human.

@Zachiel Want to start the game or wait for the other?

I still have to find a use for +Str, -Con races in D&D 3.x

@Zachiel What do you mean?

@Zachiel shapeshifting druid is a nerf but a decent one; cuts down on complexity and bookkeeping massively and the druid needs a nerf anyway

@Zachiel Dockworkers?

+Str usually means the character wants to go melee. And -Con gives a big disadvantage at doing this.

@KRyan I fell like this isn't going to be a problem. Can't find other players and I'm not sure I want to run this with 1 or 2 PCs only.

@KRyan What's the nerf? No animal companions, basically?

@Zachiel I wasn't suggesting it was a problem, I was just giving an observation that seemed relevant to the variant you were considering

@AlexP no, the loss of wild shape is also a very big deal. Instead of being able to cherry-pick the best Animal-type monsters ever printed, you get a static set of bonuses

which is massively more balanced, hence nerf from the druid's imbalanced starting point

@KRyan Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to sound harsh

You also lose all means of getting spellcasting while morphed

@Zachiel Sense the leopard idea was originally for the wood elf I think I will just go with a riding dog animal companion.

the munuses don't stack with most common items or some druidic spells

@Aaron Have you considered being an halfling? There's the bonus feat variant - instead of getting bonus saves.

@Zachiel I have not looked into halflings. One second.

It's just for being able to ride your dog ^^

I have a halfling druid character who's pretty awesome

they have a pretty solid variant to enhance the animal companion

you lose wild shape, but eh

must be really solid

@Zachiel so the halfling just gets a bonus feat rather then the bonus to saves?

Be back in about an hour.)

It's the strongheart halfling.

@Zachiel the character is level 8 (gestalt), and has a creature that counts as an 8th-level Wizard's familiar, an 11th-level Druid's animal companion, and a 12th-level Paladin's special mount.

@KRyan that's not what the variant does, that's the effects of a full fledged build

I also think that ...thing must be really hard to hit and be beastly buffed. Is it a match for equal level creatures?

@Zachiel I'm well aware

@Zachiel it actually only has 7 HD, IIRC?

it takes all that to keep the thing up to speed with the character

@KRyan doesn't it get the HD of the mount, or the animal companion, or both (depending if they stack)?

@Zachiel non-stacking, but yeah, it gets the highest one

+6 HD

right, so 9 HD

which makes a difference certainly but it's still not like

crazy

considering that my character himself has very little ability to do his own stuff, as everything is invested in the mount

Druid 3/Wizard 3/Arcane Hierophant 2 is not exactly a powerhouse on his own terms

and Paladin 5/Beastkeeper 1/Fleshwarper 1/Harmonium Peacekeeper 1 doesn't offer anything to me personally aside from Divine Grace

One of the things I'm tempted to do when I have few players is to level them up. But that means never getting hit and always hitting

@Zachiel yeah, shrinking enemy parties works better

yes, and that's more work for me ç.ç

@Zachiel which is why I find the complaint about Legend that you have to build your own monsters so odd; you have to do it in 3.5 anyway

I never compared that with 3.5e. I compared that to 4e.

@Zachiel ah, yeah you have a point

hopefully Monster Guide will bring Legend closer to 4e in those terms

that's the goal, anyway

Anyway, my usual 3.5e take is to balance the power output and number of players to pre-done encounters.

don't think it can be done, personally, or involves more work than just redoing the monsters

@KRyan Unless it radically changes the way monsters are made I don't think so. It will be more like Monster Manual 4 for D&D 3.5, with pre-statted gnoll warlocks (IIRC) and the like

@Zachiel it will have pre-statted monsters but there will also be other improvements

@KRyan I hope they end maintenance on the nearby phone company node soon so I can be on IRC without crashing so often.

@Zachiel ew, yeah

crash count: 1

(for those who are not on #Legend: I tried logging in the same and I crashed already)

crash count: 2

RHAAAAAARGH! (3)

4, that's it! //slams Mibbit close//

Back

I might have found some players - it's all about getting all you in touch on a single platform, tryng to decide what to do and when... looking for compromise on frequency and times

Have to go shopping now. :/ Be back later again.

I have the shiniest meat bicycle!

FEEEEEEEDS.

Just finished BW. We had tons of fun.

The entire session was in dreams. There was some awesome dream-logicking.

Dream logic is spelled with a k, yes. Like magic.

My character figured out that she was in a frustrating interminable-stair-climb wasteland place because she felt frustrated and lost. So the very act of having that "Aha!" moment about the dream world put her in an all-the-options-are-open-before-you strategic-thinking place instead, like a war council room but with a map of the dream.