@JoshuaAslanSmith they had a solid chip at it in 4e
and did pretty well for themselves, I think
initially I was horrified they'd removed lawful evil, chaotic good, and the non-neutral neutrals... but now I think that was an even better decision than decoupling alignment from the mechanics
Lawful neutral was... weird, chaotic neutral and chaotic good are among the most responsible for GMs weeping in the corner, and lawful evil characters can just be evil anyway.
"chaotic good" was kind of a free reign of "I can be a total shitknob but I'm still good, right?"
Well, D&D 3.5 makes it really hard to effectively argue for intent to count for much of anything: the alignments are not only quantifiable, they're also independent and self-sufficient abstract concepts with the power of creation.
Those are not qualities which lend themselves to non-objective definitions.
As for law and chaos, I always thought of them in terms of rule vs act utilitarianism. Philosophy 101 stuff.
The cause of the Great Alignment Debate, I think, is twofold: first, that the authors have never been consistent about their notions and implementations; second, that players want to apply real-life philosophy and morals to the alignment system, which just doesn't work, and then they get offended because debunking their vision of the alignment system feels like having their own real-life morality challenged.
I always tried to make alignment more of the game, to encourage players to play towards their alignment. But in the long run it usually ended up being to much for most and we just ignored it. And by that I mean that what was written on the page tended to be close to how the player felt about the game, but without getting into the details - when any alignment specific effect/item/monster made it relevant. I would often let the players retcon based on their recent role-play. (but not too often)
I love how secretly, the function of this site is to provide interesting topics of conversation for those who reside in the chat channel via the questions asked through the main portal.
My players found it challenging, but fun, to recognise that the shape they saw on the map wasn't following the same rules as it was for the characters who were also on the map.
Um, no, the questioner was doing visibility in a square too. Let's say you have a 5x5 square that moves one unit orthogonally. Your 5x5 square now covers five 1x1 squares it did not before. If it moves one unit diagonally, it now covers nine 1x1 squares it did not before.
If you have a horde of orcs, each standing in their own square with no gaps, and you have an aura that extends out into a 5x5 square, you should move diagonally through the horde in order to affect the most orcs possible.
Anyway, while I think there's elegance in the 1.5 rule for diagonal movement, especially for computer games where there's no human hassle in tracking it, I recognize that in tactical pen-and-paper combat, you don't lose much by going with chess-king movement.
(That said, I'm always a stickler for the 1.5 diagonal rule in my 3.5e game.)
@JoshuaAslanSmith Then I shall permit you to live, mortal. For now.
@JoshuaAslanSmith Not really. I really hate the alignment system. With that in mind, there are...subtleties...that many miss. I usually attempt to bring these forth so that it can be used more comprehensibly in people's games
@Lord_Gareth Isn't that sort of like saying "This egg tastes like it was cooked over a tire fire, but I should be sure the people eating it really appreciate the nuances of tire-fire cooking"?
@BESW It's very hard to extract from 3.PF, so if people insist on cooking over a tire fire anyway what I want to do is make it as painless as possible.
Since extraction involves more work than people think
I'm not sure the shadow classes are salvageable with errata; they look like they need more than a tune-up. New chassis, different engine, but we can keep the paint.
hope so, how else am I ever going to read, play, and watch respectively all the books, videogames, and films in by evergrowing backlog
yeah MMOs aren't even feasible to me as a responsible adult. you either have to be in school or neglecting some area of your life to be successful and playing mmos hardcore
@besw that cool, I've found like clans/guilds for FPS "for old timers" (aka over 25) to be very accommodating in the pickup and play sense without a lot of requirements
(Prior to that, I'd been a pick-up healer for a half-dozen guilds whose own healers didn't have the patience for running new members through raids the healers didn't need anything from anymore.)
I loved healing. Burning Crusade era priest heals in heroics and low/mid tier raids was a joy.
(I did 5SR dancing with a half/half Disc/Holy build, and seemed to be the only person on my server who even knew it was possible. It meant I had insane endurance for fights that went overlong--which rookie fights always do--and I used gear that nobody else ever wanted.)
...now most of my RPG players are permanently /afkbaby/work/drama. [sigh]
@waxeagle sadly no response from mike mearls or angry gm on the 4e encounter building question and sly flourish was like oh I just use 2 types at most if that and I dont worry about them (I only use mm3 monsters etc.)
@JoshuaAslanSmith probably, if you found something that would negate opportunity attacks while jumping you could get it down to monster (height - 2) * 10, which would be doable for most medium sized monsters and a moderate athletics check in mid paragon
figure your average monster is 7-8ft tall, and you're still looking at needing a check in the 60s...so early epic if you optimize for it
@Aaron I hate non-functional builds, of which most Monk builds are included.
There's some very small numbers of PF-viable monk options, most of which revolve around hungry ghost, zen archer, and that Q one that turns you into a weird sort-of-spellcaster
Pathfinder has yet to create a viable method of unarmed combat, @Aaron. Monk was their first huge failure, Brawler is now their second, and through it all the design team pats itself on the back and congratulates itself on how awesome their work it.
The designers think they did a good job
So chances are you're not going to get a viable, non-magical martial artist in PF ever
@ravn I mean its not a bigdeal to me that the website is no longer up, I just wanted to add the files so people still interested in fourthcore could get them
On top of that it penalizes non-damage builds because you don't have access to things like weapon size bonuses or, oh, tripping weapons, that kind of thing.
Side step - useless. Literally worse trash than Bravery, why is this even a thing? To keep those maneuvers viable you invest feats in them, and the first feat in the chain eliminates the AoO
One of my players was going through d20pfsrd last night and looking up options for her barbarian rage powers. Apparently one of the new player companions has a rage ability for disarming a foe, then immediately maing a ranged attack with that disarmed weapon as an improvised weapon into the target or another target within 20 feet and it doesn't provoke.
@Ravn poking around Ebay they have supplements, but the primary book doesn't seem to be for sale anywhere at anything approaching a reasonable price :(. (I've had this on my amazon wishlist since it was still in print, and just never bought it :()
I guess. I hadn't read up much on barbs, but good god there's a bizzare range of rage powers from useful all the time but minimal gain and super incredibly niche usage for insane damage.
That's another one my barb player was looking at. There's a rage power where a barb can ignore hardness when sundering or striking an unattended object.
This is the group that a year and a half ago took a look at the map layout of the first floor of the dungeon they were in and went, "Huh. This hall has raised steps, continues 15 feet, then goes down a small set of steps. There's no logical reason for this (Character has engineering skill). They crowbar up the stone floor tiles and find it's the top of an archway on the floor below, skipping half the traps on floor 2 and putting them 2 rooms away from the destination point.
@MadMAxJr You're paying a very valuable resource - feats - for something that isn't worth that resource. Ultimately, +2 attack and +4 damage just doesn't pay back the 12 levels and 4 feats you sunk into it, especially not when those things or better are available through spells or magical items.
Compare the cost and return on that feat chain to the cost and return on, say, Rage
@MadMAxJr Pretty much. There are some cases where the feat ends up being 'cheaper' than another option, but only because your starting point is removed from that option. For example, it's generally cheaper for a Warblade to go for the aberrant feat that grants him reach than it is for him to burn two feats on acquiring the expansion psionic power or the Psychic Warrior level to do the same
@Aaron That's gonna be difficult, primarily because 'barehanded' and 'combat maneuvers' don't play nice with each other. Hrm. 3pp acceptable?
Still trudging my group through Rise of the Runelords. Changing up our play format from text to DM on voice, players on text and using roll20 has really sped up the pace.
Paizo's plan, it appears, is to wait for WoTC to launch its campaign for 5th Edition, look for it to bring new people in and lapsed players back, then, when they start to lose interest in the new edition, steer them to Pathfinder, as happened with 4th Edition D&D. With the Pathfinder Society, Paizo has a great tool for doing this and I hope they have something in the works to leverage the group, but, if they are, neither I nor my local Pathfinder Society have heard it.
@MadMAxJr If this is their plan, it's poorly thought-out. Next doesn't have the tide of outrage and betrayal that 3.5 does - it simply doesn't. 4e was both shockingly new and came at the cost of all support to 3.5, leaving a huge base of players feeling betrayed and abandoned. Paizo welcomed them with open arms, promising backwards compatibility and a familiar experience.
"Anything you can possibly imagine has a historical precedent. I find that prospect absolutely thrilling..." http://medievalpoc.tumblr.com/post/83634850471/possibilities ME TOO.
You could easily make a 4e clone that cares less about balance.
I could, anyway.
Just lose a little self-control about adding things to the system: new conditions and power keywords that reflect "realistic" things, new items and powers with poorly worded mechanics, tweak the NPC number advancement just a tiny bit...
Heck, make a single feat which lets you cast rituals in one round and the whole system explodes.
I don't always downvote people for including Monk in their answers, but when I do it's because they've been a holier-than-thou ass in addition to being wrong.
