I get the feeling that most posters are idiots....

[Kaelik]

That is sad, I had mostly only been keeping track of Piazo because of your contributions.

But you are absolutely right about the constant: "But they shouldn't change those rules, because the problem can be solved by ignoring the rules." crap on every thread.

I had honestly really hoped you would get more of the real playtesting you do, like you did for the Monk and Paladin. That sort of thing is pretty awesome.

Out of curiosity, you wouldn't mind if I stole that method of playtesting and used it for something else would you?

[Maxus]

And I haven't ever seen anyone on these boards post a thread to outright flame or start a fight with someone else.

I hate you, Maxus! You're an idiot! And you stink! And you're funny-looking!

:twisted:

[K]

Heh. Looks like I'm banned too. Not surprising, considering I started name-calling.

That's actually fine. I didn't intend to go back (though I was too tempted...I had to check if I was banned).

[Voss]

There's actually a sticky about it. Apparently you guys were distracting Jason from the Great Work.

The tone of the playtest boards has taken a decidedly un-Paizo turn in the last month or so and we're locking a few threads and more actively reading these boards now from a moderating standpoint.

Several of the instigators of said behavior have been placed in a one week timeout. Please come back when you can post without resorting to "trollish", rude, or flame-intensive posting styles.

Disagree with each other, most assuredly, but do so in a manner that wouldn't get you removed from, say, a court room.

Ultimately, this behavior is a distraction. Jason is utilizing player and reader feedback here to build an awesome game that (hopefully) most everyone wants to play. The more time he spends sifting through ridiculous flame wars to get to substantive playtest feedback, the less time he spends making Pathfinder RPG awesome. *I* want Pathfinder RPG to be awesome. I could care less if the vocal minority wants to spend their time psychoanalyzing each other's mating habits.

Be nice. Or, at best, please be civil.

http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/pa ... al/timeout
He goes out of his way to call you both out. "trollish" behavior (including the quotes), and 'removed from a court room'.

CK raised the issue over here:
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/pa ... rankBanned

[Leress]

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

Yeah I saw that too.

Part of it is the 'Paizo is the saviour of the true D&D' complex and all the people WotC has alienated over the last year or two. They'll take whatever crap they're given at this point, even if it has failure written all over it in big red letters.

Which is funny to say since they are still under the OGL of 3.5. It like saying a company suck but you are still using their shit.

And, of course, I'd say at least half the gaming population will accept *anything* shiny and new if it catches their interest, regardless of quality. And then defend it to the death regardless of an argument put forth.

It's even worse since half of it isn't new. Some of it is just adding more number to parts they don't need to be added. They make a change that apparently was good (Skills) and changed it back because it was " a little too much work to convert"

Sidenote: The next time I see someone put Rules as Intended or "spirit" of the rules I am going to flip. 1 you don't know the intention of the rules unless you wrote the damn rule. 2 It's a rule, that mean it needs to be spelled out.

[Voss]

It's even worse since half of it isn't new. Some of it is just adding more number to parts they don't need to be added. They make a change that apparently was good (Skills) and changed it back because it was " a little too much work to convert"

The backwards compatibility thing is a joke anyway. You to change almost every single aspect of an NPCs statblock with the changes they have made. They might as well do it properly and make changes that work rather than fuck around with half-assed shit.

[K]

There's actually a sticky about it. Apparently you guys were distracting Jason from the Great Work.

The tone of the playtest boards has taken a decidedly un-Paizo turn in the last month or so and we're locking a few threads and more actively reading these boards now from a moderating standpoint.

Several of the instigators of said behavior have been placed in a one week timeout. Please come back when you can post without resorting to "trollish", rude, or flame-intensive posting styles.

Disagree with each other, most assuredly, but do so in a manner that wouldn't get you removed from, say, a court room.

Ultimately, this behavior is a distraction. Jason is utilizing player and reader feedback here to build an awesome game that (hopefully) most everyone wants to play. The more time he spends sifting through ridiculous flame wars to get to substantive playtest feedback, the less time he spends making Pathfinder RPG awesome. *I* want Pathfinder RPG to be awesome. I could care less if the vocal minority wants to spend their time psychoanalyzing each other's mating habits.

Be nice. Or, at best, please be civil.

http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/pa ... al/timeout
He goes out of his way to call you both out. "trollish" behavior (including the quotes), and 'removed from a court room'.

CK raised the issue over here:
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/pa ... rankBanned

Nice. I love the "feel free to come back."

I also like how I'm banned but Lich-loved and Aubrey stay. Considering I never replied to them until directly being called out and insulted, and this is acceptable to Paizo, I feel much better about my decision to not return.

That, and their latest Adventure Path blows.

[Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp]

There's actually a sticky about it. Apparently you guys were distracting Jason from the Great Work.

The tone of the playtest boards has taken a decidedly un-Paizo turn in the last month or so and we're locking a few threads and more actively reading these boards now from a moderating standpoint.

Several of the instigators of said behavior have been placed in a one week timeout. Please come back when you can post without resorting to "trollish", rude, or flame-intensive posting styles.

Disagree with each other, most assuredly, but do so in a manner that wouldn't get you removed from, say, a court room.

Ultimately, this behavior is a distraction. Jason is utilizing player and reader feedback here to build an awesome game that (hopefully) most everyone wants to play. The more time he spends sifting through ridiculous flame wars to get to substantive playtest feedback, the less time he spends making Pathfinder RPG awesome. *I* want Pathfinder RPG to be awesome. I could care less if the vocal minority wants to spend their time psychoanalyzing each other's mating habits.

Be nice. Or, at best, please be civil.

http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/pa ... al/timeout
He goes out of his way to call you both out. "trollish" behavior (including the quotes), and 'removed from a court room'.

CK raised the issue over here:
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/pa ... rankBanned

Nice. I love the "feel free to come back."

I also like how I'm banned but Lich-loved and Aubrey stay. Considering I never replied to them until directly being called out and insulted, and this is acceptable to Paizo, I feel much better about my decision to not return.

That, and their latest Adventure Path blows.

I feel like making a spirited retort of Paizo and it's handling of this situation and of it's lack of knowledge about game design and it's inability to understand what forum moderation means.

[Maxus]

Anyway, what the heck is the iconic 4-person party supposed to do? As I understand, they expect the four people to do this:

Wizard: I shoot it with lightning! 5d6 damage!

Fighter: I put myself between it and the wizard and attack with my greatsword! 2d6 + 1d6 + A bit damage!

Monster: Rarrr. I attack the fighter because he's the one wearing heavy armor and has a big shiny sword, and will ignore the Rogue behind me with his short sword! 3d6 damage!

Rogue: I shank the monster! 1d6 + 3d6 damage!

Cleric: I heal the fighter! Here you go, buddy!

Wizard: I shoot another lightning bolt! 5d6!

Fighter: I hit it again!

Monster: Erk. -ded- X_X

Party: Yay Team Classic!

When actually, combat can go something like:

Wizard: Hocus pocus. Will save.

Monster: Made my save, barely.

Cleric: I summon my own monster!

Summoned Monster: Haaar, I attack!

Rogue: I stand 25 feet away from the monster and throw two acid vials for 8d6 sneak attack!

Fighter: Er...I move in a vaguely tactically interesting way and then attack it with my greatsword?

Monster: Ouch. 2d6 plus some bonus damage. Such a fucking shame we're level five and that doesn't matter. Oh, well, I turn around, move 25 feet, and attack the Rogue!

Rogue: Eeep!

Wizard: Abracadbra. Fort save.

Monster: Does a 17 pass?

Wizard: No.

Monster: Shit. -ded-

Rogue: Some healing here? I'm at 3 HP

Cleric: -pulls out the Wand of Cure Light Wounds-

Wizard: Fighter?

Fighter: Yeah?

Wizard: You suck.

Fighter: I know.

Y'know, maybe we should just go ahead and make up a list of things that should be implemented in the game. The basics that we all run over again and again. The major ones won't be any surprise

1) Characters should be able to contribute equally usefully in combat.
2) Character should have something interesting to do out of combat, too.
3) Balance against the monsters

...


Something just occurred to me.

When analysis are done against the monsters of a certain CR to see how their chances stack up, the probable outcomes are tallied up to see if the character loses/wins to about the same number of monsters.

So why aren't we evaluating classes like that, too? I wouldn't expect a Bard to be able to have an even chance against every single class, but maybe he's able to come out okay against half of them, for example.

[K]

So why aren't we evaluating classes like that, too? I wouldn't expect a Bard to be able to have an even chance against every single class, but maybe he's able to come out okay against half of them, for example.

Bards do exactly one thing that's level-appropriate: Charm spells.

So, as long as his action is charm, charm, charm , charm....then he's OK.

[virgil]

I do believe Lich-Loved got banned too, and it seems to be everyone that partook in the slewing was banned for a week, according to the mods.

[Maxus]

So why aren't we evaluating classes like that, too? I wouldn't expect a Bard to be able to have an even chance against every single class, but maybe he's able to come out okay against half of them, for example.

Bards do exactly one thing that's level-appropriate: Charm spells.

So, as long as his action is charm, charm, charm , charm....then he's OK.

Well, my half-formed thought so far is:

Rogues, are of course, your best friend against anything but mindless undead and constructs.

A Bard, however, can do illusions or spells to tie them up by other means. So what one class is weak against, another can handle. And if the classes were designed with that in mind, then you might be able to get some sort of balance going here.

The idea of having a party is so you try to cover as many of your bases as possible and have someone who can do something useful, no matter what the situation is. So if we were to redesign the classes, they should be designed with the end of each one being able to contribute in different ways. Possibly by making a Pokemon-like chart and saying, "Bards hand out Will Saves and are good in social situations, Rogues are good against stuff subject to critical hits, Clerics are your man against undead, Barbarians are your heavy damage dealers and Fighters are your heroic improvisors/tactical men."

I probably haven't thought it out that well. But it's a possible approach.

[Username17]

If you were to divide monsters up into roles (like ranged striker and wobuffet) and types (like dragon and steel), you could potentially have a system where you could divide all the monsters up into groups that you could distribute character classes about as being good and bad against.

Neither WotC nor Paizo will ever do something like that though, both have cleanly rejected the idea of systematic approaches.

-Username17

[K]

4e is supposed to do that, but they've neutered the monsters so much that I don't think it really matters.

[Maxus]

If you were to divide monsters up into roles (like ranged striker and wobuffet) and types (like dragon and steel), you could potentially have a system where you could divide all the monsters up into groups that you could distribute character classes about as being good and bad against.

Neither WotC nor Paizo will ever do something like that though, both have cleanly rejected the idea of systematic approaches.

-Username17

The New Edition is still a possibility for the future, isn't it?

Just to carry the idea further, one would have to decide how many varieties of enemies, which is a hydra-headed task on its own (normal versus crit-immune; mindless or non-mindless; weird mobility options; attack-heavy or ability/spell-focused; incorporeal or not, big or small, subtyped with some element or alignment or what...) and then decide who should be good at taking on what.

[JonSetanta]

WOTC and Paizo designers don't play enough video games. To them, RPGs are a loose and organic process, which is evident in the final product.

For video gamers, there is order and planning. But it seems that there are people in this world that hate systems, proactivity, and things making sense.
Grognards can curse us all they want but when it comes to the process of structure they sabotage themselves for the sake of tradition.
And I don't think they'll give it up any time soon.

Anyway, I have this idea, and not sure if this is the right thread to propose it, but...
It goes like this; I hate class niches. You know, like as mentioned here about Rogues < Undead/Constructs, or Bards can only Charm (rendering them equally useless against the same). So you're left with Arcane casters or Druids against Constructs, and Divine casters (Clerics. natch.) against Undead.
Without that rock to the scissors or scissors to the paper, you lose.
If you come unprepared with the wrong set of spells, you lose.
If you play a warrior against, oh, incorporeals/swarms/flying/save-or-dies/sniper-monsters, you lose. Twice. Once for encountering your nightmare, and again for playing a warrior.

I'd like all classes to come to a moderate point of you barely survive when set up with "the wrong class vs. encounter matchup".
It would mean that, say, every class can do similar tasks.
Sure, only the Rogue can sneak the best and only the archer or blaster can shoot shit well, but when lined up against the niche-nemesis they would still survive.

So, ideally each class would only be about at least 50% as effective as a good pairing when in an encounter they can't handle due to archetype, if we could measure effectiveness in such a way.
They wouldn't be 'screwed' but it would hurt more than normal. An inefficiency of resources, if you will.

[Username17]

It occurred to me that all input over at Paizo will get shouted down and ignored unless it is phrased as the following:

"Jason, I luv the taste of your penis in my mouth.
But I don't know if I like the feces on it.
I suggest that the name of the feces be changed to 'delicious candy' because then it will taste good and be better going down."

Basically it comes down to the fact that they aren't really looking to solve problems or advance the project towards specific goals. It's literally Mr. Bulmahn doing 3.5 - complete with his versions of Andy's random nerfs and santa sacks full of cash to builds that don't need it. Just as Andy Collins nerfed two weapon fighting and whirlwind attack, Jason Bulmahn is trying to nerf Prestige Classes.

So if you come out and state anything with an air of authority or a methodology capable of getting actual results, they are angry. And I don't just mean the luddites they have on the board over there who oppose anyone who sounds "threatening," I mean the actual staff as well. I'm not bragging or ranting when I say that I'm more qualified than Jason is - that's just the honest truth. I understand both the specific subject matter (D&D) and the general methodology of investigation and playtesting better than he does. And while I don't care enough to stick through the entire project and thus can't possibly do his entire job for him, it's gotten quite obvious that he feels genuinely threatened when I disagree with him - something I would do more and more as he continued to thrash around randomly rather than destructively testing a set of genuine hypotheses.

They don't want a set of objective standards, because a set of objective standards could cause them to objectively fail. So long as their standards are simply "make the project be what we want it to be" they automatically achieve their goal. But unfortunately, that means that they've set their sights so low that they can't even see if they've accomplished anything worth doing - meaning that I'm fairly certain that they won't.

The New Edition is still a possibility for the future, isn't it?

Just to carry the idea further, one would have to decide how many varieties of enemies, which is a hydra-headed task on its own (normal versus crit-immune; mindless or non-mindless; weird mobility options; attack-heavy or ability/spell-focused; incorporeal or not, big or small, subtyped with some element or alignment or what...) and then decide who should be good at taking on what.

The basic division of monster types is into classes which determine how many of them are required to roughly equal one PC. This is important because frankly monsters from higher and lower levels end up getting pushed off the RNG a lot and you want to have the option of hordes of guys who have the kinds of ACs that make the PCs care.

But these numeric quantities also determine what kind of numbers you're best off with against them. For example, a Brute has a poor set of Armor Classes and a poor to-hit bonus for his level, but he does and can take a lot of damage. So against him you're better off with higher ACs and powerful, inaccurate attacks. That's just a numerical fact based on the way Random Number Generators work.

But I'd also like to see some solid monstrous role divisions based on what kind of tactics work best against them. Any melee monster is inherently vulnerable to kiting attacks, for example and a blaster monster surely is not. With some monstrous role protection you can carve out niches that characters can actually fill. Like more so than the D&D setup in which monsters like Giants are so big and bad ass that a sword attack is doomed forcing you to go for the Sorcery, and monsters like demons can only be fought with sorcery so you just want to use sorcery all the time.

And finally, elemental distinctions can set up simple Rock/Paper/Scissors distinctions which are wholly arbitrary in nature and they can divide up difficulties such that different characters shine in different situations without any real effort on your part.

-Username17

[SphereOfFeetMan]

It occurred to me that all input over at Paizo will get shouted down and ignored unless it is phrased as the following:

"Jason, I luv the taste of your penis in my mouth.
But I don't know if I like the feces on it.
I suggest that the name of the feces be changed to 'delicious candy' because then it will taste good and be better going down."

It's funny because it's true.

But I'd also like to see some solid monstrous role divisions based on what kind of tactics work best against them. Any melee monster is inherently vulnerable to kiting attacks, for example and a blaster monster surely is not. With some monstrous role protection you can carve out niches that characters can actually fill. Like more so than the D&D setup in which monsters like Giants are so big and bad ass that a sword attack is doomed forcing you to go for the Sorcery, and monsters like demons can only be fought with sorcery so you just want to use sorcery all the time.

By far, this option is the most fun. Characters with diverse abilities fighting and adapting to monsters with different tactical strengths create the most interesting and memorable games. My preference would have this as the core of monster design, augmented with "numeric quantities" like in the Brute example.

Elemental distinctions get a big thumbs down. In Dnd 3.x, juggling elemental damage and resistances, special weapon materials, alignment effect based spells, etc, just isn't fun. I don't want characters to be defined by what "team" of damage they do. That just leads to pigeonholed effectiveness, stale tactics, and boring gameplay.

[ckafrica]

Well with with frank and K gone I'll be saving time by not wasting it over there. About the only thing that has been done I mildly liked were some of the rogue talents, and then only a few. The barbarian idea might have been ok if it were not for the fact that they blow their wad in no time and its extra bookkeeping that makes it a less practical class for newbies.

[Voss]

The biggest problem with the rage points is they make no sense. You can either be attacking at the normal rage bonus all damn day (well, once you hit 3 or 4th level), or you can use the rage abilities for a crappy one shot ability at the cost of an entire encounter's worth of raging.

And then at 20th, they punish you for your rage getting marginally better. The cost quadruples for no apparent reason.

[Bigode]

Why in the world are moderators so useless!

No, they have an use. They timed out me and Frank for defending ourselves (in my case, not literally; the offense was against "merely" all optimizers, with emphasis on all Denizens) ...

That's rather unfair and offensive, sir. In my experience this forum almost always gives much more meaningful and nuanced critique than others, and our idea of game balance, while, I assume, mostly comes from hearing what Frank has to say, it does certainly make sense, or, at least more sense than others' ideas of game balance. What exactly makes you think we're idiots?

Pay attention, sir: do you think he'd post this here if thought that about us? And what Frank says comes from the books, it's not like our knowledge's something he made up (the fixes, of course, are another story).

Strangely enough, form what I experienced most posters aren't idiots. They may not have rules mastery but it is a very few number that actually constantly say idiotic things.

Perhaps "most" and "idiots" are too strong of words. Maybe I should say "many" and ......"have flawed reasoning and knowledge" (some better or worse than others).

Basically true; most posters seem in fact even a bit better than the average human (not that it's wonderful news); they just happen not to ever have paid attention to RPG mechanics (note: I can only suppose of any RPG; once you understood one, you should be able to analyze others fairly decently). But some are actual idiots; for example, it takes work to show lack of morals on a RPG mechanics forum ...

Seriously, for a lesbian, why do most things involving penises end up involving me?

Possibly because: a) you're among the ones that talks about sex the most; b) we agree on preferring women, and, for most of us, this involves penis use. BTW, I'm curious: which gender is the universe (at least ATM)?

I remember a guy in high school who, in a rare moment of adolescent male honesty, told me he knew four girls he could spend the rest of his life with and be completely happy.

Then in a span few weeks, they all came out of the closet. -resists awful lesbian joke about the speed and suddeness with which this happened- It gave him quite the complex, and he was wondering if it would happen to his buddies, too and, given his level of security in his masculinity, I'm pretty sure he was afraid that one of us would profess love to him or something.

I dunno, I consider myself pretty secure of mine, but still think I'd be more than a little disturbed if that happened. Though I don't think I'd particualrly suspicious of men getting interested; that's a bit more coincidence than I could expect.

My theory re: idiots on online forums is that there are four basic types of posters:
(...)
The idiots will probably be the most memorable, despite the fact that they represent 20% of the posts.

I'd call that mathematically wrong: note that, by your own example and the way it normally turns out in practice, the idiots are indeed the least number of posts, but the highest word count, and thus the longest time spent reading; after all, the typical "totally irrelevant" post and the typical "I agree"/"I wanna have your children" posts are both stuff you skim over in less than a second. The other group, as you said yourself, is the rarest; so, the idiots being remembered is at least as much a consequence of them having given more to be read as it is of any sort of subjective perception.

They keep saying that everyone's opinion is equally valid and that they want everyone to playtest the material with an open mind and put their ideas together.

QFT. "Everyone's equal" is a myth, and that's one of its derivations ...

If you give scientific and unscientific opinions equal weight, you can't move forward.

Pardon me, but I never expected them not to - I was just seeing how much insight could be fit in regardless; if you did, that's ... of a naïveté unbefitting your general awesomeness (and I'd find that actually worrying, to be honest) ...

Wait, you seriously got banned? WTF?

What forums have Frank not been banned from, besides this one?

Getting technical, we were timed out for a week, not banned. To my knowledge, Frank left EN World before getting banned, too. BTW: who was in charge of Nifty when TGD was born? IIRC, the history thread got chopped or something, and lacked stuff ...

Aww, man. There goes my at-work entertainment.

Crap. I wanted you to make Jason cry again.

Not that I had the intention specifically, but I might still have one attempt ahead: pointing out how the barbarian and fighter fail their own design intent (namely: the barbarian completly voids any simplicity criteria, while the fighter makes old stat blocks useless) - unfortunately, I think the barbarian especially got popular enough that it'll get defended enough despite being a step backwards ...

penis envy?

Sexism, much?

(I seriously didn't know we had lesbians on here other than crissa, and even her I only learned about like last week...)

Heh, I'm still waiting to hear that Essence (in case you don't know, Maj's spouse) is a woman - it'd be hilarious to know that all women here are lesbians ...

and some of the people here are, I get the impression, sleeping together.

Who, for example?

1 - you don't know the intention of the rules unless you wrote the damn rule.

Sometimes you do, thanks to design notes; and I honestly believe RPG books should have lots more of them than the few D&D does have (and the fact that D&D's approach to writing's better than anyone else in any little way's appaling to say the least).

Nice. I love the "feel free to come back."

I also like how I'm banned but Lich-loved and Aubrey stay. Considering I never replied to them until directly being called out and insulted, and this is acceptable to Paizo, I feel much better about my decision to not return.

The "feel free to come back", retarded as it is, isn't really hypocritical: the moderation wouldn't go outta its way to bother you, it just wouldn't do anything against the numerous idiots that will. Lich-Loved seemed timed-out to me, but Aubrey and Kirth Gersen (who caused my timeout by insulting all of us) aren't. BTW, is it my impression or the vast majority of the fuss came from just those 3?

[stuff on combat roles, and comparisons to Pokémon]

One important consideration's that going too near the Pokémon games route would make mixed-class parties absolutely mandatory, and that limits concepts more than it should.

And then at 20th, they punish you for your rage getting marginally better. The cost quadruples for no apparent reason.

How can't you see how it's obviously over 9,000 times better, so you're getting the best deal ever? Those barbarians are awesome, man; I'm almost afraid spellcasters are ceasing to have a purpose in their game!

Fvck. Well, guys, my new signature's one of the few interesting stuff I got from a non-Denizen there.

[Cielingcat]

(I seriously didn't know we had lesbians on here other than crissa, and even her I only learned about like last week...)

Heh, I'm still waiting to hear that Essence (in case you don't know, Maj's spouse) is a woman - it'd be hilarious to know that all women here are lesbians ...

I dunno how you'd count me, being a transsexual, but I at least know I'm not a lesbian.

[Bigode]

(I seriously didn't know we had lesbians on here other than crissa, and even her I only learned about like last week...)

Heh, I'm still waiting to hear that Essence (in case you don't know, Maj's spouse) is a woman - it'd be hilarious to know that all women here are lesbians ...

I dunno how you'd count me, being a transsexual, but I at least know I'm not a lesbian.

So you already went under surgery? Is it going well? And I thought you were bisexual, but yeah, if you count as a woman now, there's one that likes men. Dammit.

Note, guys, that I'm sad instead of happy with that because it's the humor value that matters when you're a couple countries away from any other posters.

[JonSetanta]

Bigode: Yes but at least you're in a similar time zone to myself. Hell, Calibron is in the same state.
But on the internet, none of that matters, since many of us geeks stay up late anyways.
International barriers are, for the most part, ignored (disregarding prejudices or language barriers!)
Humor is (ideally) universal.

[Cielingcat]

Haven't gone under surgery yet, as that takes a long time to get authorized, but I'd still like to count as a woman.