Also, some of their good solutions are only good in theory. For instance, they removed the many diferent procedures for combat maneuvers and replaced them with a single one, with bad math.
Sadly, the Pathfinder developers have some Very Strong Opinions about How To Play Their Game, and there's a culture on Paizo forums and in some groups which will mock and ridicule certain playstyles.
So Pathfinder culture splits into those who agree with the developers and have an active relationship with the company... and those who don't, and just buy the books to do their own thing with their heads hunkered down.
The devs strongly believe it's not needed to be an efficient character to have fun, and if you're not having fun because you're not strong, then you know nothing about what roleplaying is about
(which is one of my problems in the famous site I'm in)
There's a common dichotomy one runs into in RPG culture: that "role-play" and "roll-play" are not compatible, and the only way to role-play is to actively shun mechanical achievement.
Paizo seems to have drunk the kool-aid on that one.
@BESW Well, to be fair, D&D and derivatives have always had an unspoken culture of encouraging min-maxing. It was the only way to do tabletops for a while, until games started to realize that an entire game could be played just with the "roles" rather than the "rolls".
All the numbers and stat bonuses you can stack and such... it was for the crunchy types.
Now, Wizards' income from 4e is waning and they see an RPG culture that is increasingly turning toward specialized niche systems which cater to the specific game experience desires of a group, rather than sprawling RPGs which try to accommodate a wide variety of game experiences.
One thing I'm kind of wondering; why hasn't Hasbro/WotC tried to jump on the "Magic: the Gathering" expansion into an RPG, possibly even as a D&D setting?
So they're designing D&D Next, a system they hope to make so boringly generic at its core that you can snap on groups of modules to customize your own game experience inspired by whichever edition or set of editions you preferred.
@ProfessorLokiCaprion Yup. It's an attempt to create a generic D&D armature onto which players can sculpt their own version of the game, in an attempt to please everyone at once and call people back from the various other RPG systems they've started using because D&D doesn't meet their needs anymore.
4e Essentials is basically the same deal as 3.5: partway through the edition's lifespan they wanted to implement some relatively major changes.
And it's worth mentioning that some of the later 3.5 splat (especially "Tome of Battle") is obviously early experiments in 4e-like mechanics and philosophies.
On the other hand, 4e's content just sort of fizzled out.
With 4e it felt like the 3.5 designers were champing at the bit to do something new, and were already experimenting in 3.5.
But with D&D Next it feels like they just got bored with 4e and wanted to try something else, but they didn't know what.
@ProfessorLokiCaprion I'ma go ahead and state that this is not accurate. And besides, min-maxing isn't the poster's problem; it's having a concept that simply will not work.
@JonathanHobbs - A Pathfinder Society tag might not be bad, considering that it's a highly specific playstyle and known set of rules/houserule that crops up a lot.
@BESW It would be easier if they said something like: D&D 4.5: ESSENTIALS; THIS IS A TOTALLY MAJOR RULES CHANGE GUYS AND SO VERY NOT THE SAME THING HERE'S A TON OF ADVICE ON MIXING THIS WITH THE BASE GAME BUT SERIOUSLY DON'T DO IT or something
"guys there's a 4e feat here that lets me change my basic attack to eyebite so i hope you like getting hit by monsters whilst i be awesome at the same time as being invisible"
@BESW and considering the pace of 4e combat, you'll step out to see a full party of blades and arrows pointed at you, a clever guy will say "Hi!", and then you say "Oh" and cut scene.
@BESW it's making me laugh that you said that and i like it
Stand next to you, and use his AoE mind control dailies to get all your friends to attack each other. With ranged attacks. While standing next to his friends, for the opportunity attacks.
if he hides he's unattackable, but he doesn't need to hide, you've got a -5 to hit him, -2 to hit his friends...monsters with bursts and blasts become your friends...but then he just steps away and attacks you from range...very nice setup
@BESW Is that a metaphorical comment like how Mal says Wash can thread Serenity through the eye of a needle, or does that have some degree of literal truth
He had "take a guy for a ride" teleports, and "force a guy to teleport," and "switch places with a guy" teleports...
One common strategy was for the 'lock to run in first, aggro everyone, do a close burst AoE and then swap places with the (much slower) fighter who had been standing behind everyone else.
The fighter would then do a small AoE to mark everyone who'd been gathered around the squishy 'lock.
And this was the fighter whose every attack pushed at least 5 squares, knocked prone, and slowed.
It was like watching a terribly bloody circle dance.
@BESW (1) Force teleport someone through keyhole. (2) Take a ride with someone through keyhole. (3) Switch places with someone on the other side of keyhole. (4) Take a ride again with the last person. (5) Tell the one with teleportation sickness to get the vomiting over with because he'll feel better once he's gotten it over and done with. y/n?
The guy who was a desk jockey for the tiefling CIA before getting so dissatisfied that he made a pledge to an eladrin queen in a dream to get the powers he needed to sneak out with the latest invasion plans so he could defect to the enemy.
(This is all his pre-start-of-game backstory; the campaign started with the ragtag team of expendables assigned to chaperone him on a mission to confirm his intelligence was genuine.)
> Team Fortress 2 is the most realistic hat simulator created to date. There is absolutely no other simulator quite like this one. The first time you start the simulator, you join a server where you can play a minigame where you show off your hats and items.
2
> If you kill a person three times in a row in the minigame, you get your very first hat: the Gibus. This is where it really starts; To play the simulator correctly, you have to spend money in the market place, made by Valve. After that, while you play the minigame, you can find hats which you can trade for, or collect!
> There is many other people who wants to collect and trade hats, just like you! After you collect enough items and/or hats, try joining a trade server! There, the REAL fun begins! Good luck, and beware of ending up poor!
I'm going against long-ingrained traditions here, and instead taking the cool backstory for my character (and the relevant thoughts of the setting and its metaphysics) and keeping it to myself, I'm sharing it with the rest of the party before the campaign starts.
It's hard.
But it's the right think to do. Instead of sitting on my cool ideas and hoping to bring them up in play, I should share them, let others add to them, and thus make sure they come up in play, because they're interesting to everyone.
@lisardggY that's a good idea IMO, even if it's not character knowledge, it helps everyone else have the details needed to tell the story along with you and the DM
@lisardggY I do both and I think in tabletop games it works the best to take the approach of having the other players in on your character's background.
(I never retweet ads on twitter, but Newcastle's suggestion of giving a holiday 3 pack as a gift this holiday season was worthy of one. I am totally on board with this)
@Aaron indeed, not very productive so far, but I'm hoping to change that this afternoon so I don't really have anything to do tomorrow and can play with cleric builds all day
I have to work on our outfacing career center today. It's one of the things I had the biggest hand in designing/writing/working on. and It's the single feature I hate the most
@waxeagle I saw that, and kinda wanna play that game.
rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/30929/… This is actually tough; I allow players to do the OPPOSITE and roll if their characters are smarter than they are... but what about the opposite?
