Still more Threads that make us Laugh, Cry, or Both

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Sat Jun 28, 2008 10:06 am

Psychic Robot wrote:Unfortunately, that poster is a moron. Perhaps he can be the new Halaster_Blackcloak.

Who?

Draco_Argentum · Post by **Draco_Argentum** » Sat Jun 28, 2008 11:42 am

Halaster is an old school role-player style tard from the WotC boards circa 2000.

About getting SoDs back, we don't want those back. They were shit and just because 3e is over and 4e in the new shit doesn't mean that everything from 3e was good.

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Sat Jun 28, 2008 4:36 pm

Draco_Argentum wrote:Halaster is an old school role-player style tard from the WotC boards circa 2000.

Oh, okay I wasn't on the boards then.

About getting SoDs back, we don't want those back. They were shit and just because 3e is over and 4e in the new shit doesn't mean that everything from 3e was good.

True.

Well the GSL has at least on company under it's belt.

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.ph ... st16214831

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Sat Jun 28, 2008 6:49 pm

Harlune wrote: And I have to admit, the idea of an armorless tank class that lives and dies by it's protection spells would be pretty novel by D&D standards. Hopefully it won't suffer from MAD, low hitpoints, poor scaling, or any other issue that leaves it a crippled worthless piece of shit like the monk or soulknife...

I don't really think MAD is going to be something you're going to care about much in 4E. I mean there's basically at most two stats that you care about as far as your attacks are concerned and that's only if you're not a specialist in one style.

About the only guy who might get screwed is someone who isn't int or dex based and who wears light armor. For instance, I have no clue how they're going to do a sorcerer in 4E. No dex, and no int and probably leather or hide armor. You'd pretty much have to give him chain.

Harlune · Post by **Harlune** » Sat Jun 28, 2008 8:19 pm

Draco_Argentum wrote:
About getting SoDs back, we don't want those back. They were shit and just because 3e is over and 4e in the new shit doesn't mean that everything from 3e was good.

*shrug* I simply would like spells/powers/abilities to actually have major effects again beyond you take off 0.3% of the target's hp, apply a -2 debuff that's a pain for the GM to keep track of without a dungeon mapping program, daze it for a round, and knock it back a square. (and don't even get me started on how miniatures are almost required now)

4e's 'stunlock a monster for twenty rounds while the entire group slowly pecks at it's hp' is a horrible combat mechanic for a tabletop game.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 3:25 am

Noooooooooo!

http://paizo.com/paizo/news/v5748eaic9l9j

Very nooooooooooo!

It's like a clown car. More ridiculousness just keeps coming out.

belkalra · Post by **belkalra** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 3:40 am

sorry to break the flow somewhat, but I found a review of a homebrew game

http://atrocities.primaryerror.net/fatal.html

its not so much the reviewers that made me half laugh, half cry, but rather the mental picture of this game that was slowly formed in my mind by their crying about how horrible it is.

you know in those old movies, back when they had to depict how horrid something was not with the scene itself, but with the expression of the people viewing it? It's something like that.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 5:19 am

I'm pretty sure FATAL is the most successful "so-blatant-it's-stealthy" troll ever created.

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 6:32 am

angelfromanotherpin wrote:Noooooooooo!

http://paizo.com/paizo/news/v5748eaic9l9j

Very nooooooooooo!

It's like a clown car. More ridiculousness just keeps coming out.

Pretty much everyone knew that was going to happen.

So let's look at this "dream team" we have for Pathfinder

Jason B. - Dumpster Diver (thanks, Voss)

Monte Cook - Well he is just an advisor so he doesn't really effect anything they just need the star power of his name

Sean K Reynolds - Either makes horridly overpower, incredibly insipid, just plain bloody unneeded.

Anyone I missed.

Absentminded_Wizard · Post by **Absentminded_Wizard** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 7:14 am

Psychic Robot wrote:I'm pretty sure FATAL is the most successful "so-blatant-it's-stealthy" troll ever created.

If that's the case, since it's supposedly 900 pages long, that was a lot of work just to piss people off.

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 1:40 pm

belkalra wrote:sorry to break the flow somewhat, but I found a review of a homebrew game

http://atrocities.primaryerror.net/fatal.html

its not so much the reviewers that made me half laugh, half cry, but rather the mental picture of this game that was slowly formed in my mind by their crying about how horrible it is.

you know in those old movies, back when they had to depict how horrid something was not with the scene itself, but with the expression of the people viewing it? It's something like that.

Have you read the rebuttal?

http://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/FATALReviewRebuttal

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 1:56 pm

Absentminded_Wizard wrote:
Psychic Robot wrote:I'm pretty sure FATAL is the most successful "so-blatant-it's-stealthy" troll ever created.
If that's the case, since it's supposedly 900 pages long, that was a lot of work just to piss people off.

I would totally do that. And then I would print out copies and hand them out at feminist conventions.

bosssmiley · Post by **bosssmiley** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 4:16 pm

angelfromanotherpin wrote:Noooooooooo!

http://paizo.com/paizo/news/v5748eaic9l9j

Very nooooooooooo!

It's like a clown car. More ridiculousness just keeps coming out.

And the paizo forums attempt to live up to the circus tradition.

http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/pa ... 4thEdition

Point #6 ("If given a choice, I will support a company which supports American families rather than the People's Liberation Army slave-labor sweatshop factories.") is especially full of wtf? and narm.

norms29 · Post by **norms29** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 8:15 pm

bosssmiley wrote:Point #6 ("If given a choice, I will support a company which supports American families rather than the People's Liberation Army slave-labor sweatshop factories.") is especially full of wtf? and narm.

What I find even more hilarious is that instead of mocking anything actually wrong with that statement, they're going through rounds of increasingly bizarre and strained attempts to plug in their own generic "America BAD, HULK SMASH" standup comedy routines

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 1:51 am

Ah yes, the SKR news. Wow. So, right. Paizo is in no way trying to make themselves into a real company with the 'True D&D'.

Somehow, while they're willing to make a buck distributing 4e, it seems pretty clear that they see themselves as a contender for the up and coming 'big name' in the biz. Which is kinda funny, but WotC has fumbled so badly this time that its actually possible.

Paizo Publishing, 'We have the real D&D designers. Neener, Neener.'

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 1:56 am

Yeah pathfinder is going to be a complete joke.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 2:17 am

It had potential, and that makes me sad.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 4:28 am

RandomCasualty2 wrote:Yeah pathfinder is going to be a complete joke.

Not really a complete joke, just 3.5 altered just enough for IP purposes. Having read through the alpha versions of both 4e and pathfinder, I can tell you which one is the funnier (or sadder) joke. Jason is doing some seriously dumbass shit, but he isn't ripping every last interesting thing out of the game.

If someone told me they were going to run either a pathfinder or a 4e campaign, I know which one I'd pick, without any hesitation.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 5:43 am

Psychic Robot wrote:It had potential, and that makes me sad.

I've been trying to sum up my opinion of the whole Pathfinder mess, and this just about describes it.

Which would you pick Voss? It's not obvious to me somehow.

Draco_Argentum · Post by **Draco_Argentum** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 8:55 am

Psychic Robot wrote:I would totally do that. And then I would print out copies and hand them out at feminist conventions.

I don't think a feminist convention is necessary, nearly anywhere will do.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 9:42 am

Yeah, just about anyone would take offence to FATAL, whether it's the racism, the sexism, the crappy game design...

Absentminded_Wizard · Mon Jun 30, 2008 11:02 am

Since he says that 4e sucks all the fun out of the game, my money's on Pathfinder as Voss' choice. The sad thing is that, despite its many shortcomings, it might still end up marginally better than 3.5.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 2:25 pm

That one. 4e has a bare handful of good ideas (most of which have been done elsewhere), but they're all buried in complete shit and every major system is literally made of fail.

It fails utterly a being an RPG. It almost succeeds at being a less interesting table-top skirmish game along the lines of Advanced Heroquest/Warhammer Quest, except I'd rather play that.

Pathfinder does have shortcomings, but it doesn't really change the game that much, and most of the systems are still usable. Some things are actually slight improvements (half-elves and half-orcs, though that isn't hard).

The fact that you can make an effective illusionist that isn't required to have a maxed out INT score strikes me as a clear indication that Pathfinder is a better RPG than 4e.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 5:56 pm

Voss wrote:
Not really a complete joke, just 3.5 altered just enough for IP purposes. Having read through the alpha versions of both 4e and pathfinder, I can tell you which one is the funnier (or sadder) joke. Jason is doing some seriously dumbass shit, but he isn't ripping every last interesting thing out of the game.

If someone told me they were going to run either a pathfinder or a 4e campaign, I know which one I'd pick, without any hesitation.

The thing with Pathfinder is that there's no real reason to buy it. It's so close to 3.5 that it's just not worth buying. It really fixes very little.

Seriously, Pathfinder may have been barely marketable if they made a quick and balanced NPC/monster creation system that used 4E style level based numbers instead of the 3E mess of a system.

Unfortunately, pathfinder didn't make DMing any easier, it gives casters even more options, does hardly anything for martial characters, and just proves to be a complete waste of time.

At the very least you can say 4E is a game worth buying if you like that style. I really can't even say the same about Pathfinder.

Seriously, it's like anything that was an option went to a spellcaster, and non-casters just got pure bonuses. Rogues in PF are pretty much combat gods, given they can sneak attack anything now. But they're just not interesting to play. You've got one option, sneak attack, that you use... over and over again. And again, outside of combat, you disarm traps, and that's it.

PF gives you interesting options, only if you're a spellcaster. Otherwise you just get kicked in the balls. I'd rather play 3.5 + ToB, rather than play pathfinder. Even 4E gives martial characters more interesting maneuvers than spamming the attack action every round.

If given the choice between 4E or PF, as far as DMing stuff goes, I'd probably rather DM 4E because encounters aren't a total bitch to create and things are a bit less swingy. If I was going to play a fighter or rogue, definitely 4E because I actually get some options. As a spellcaster, I'm not sure. 4E doesn't give spellcasters enough options, but in PF playing a spellcaster is like playing the game on easy mode. Playing a spellcaster in PF (or 3.5 for that matter) is just akin to having godlike power until your DM gets sick of it and slams down the nerfbat on you.

The fact that you can make an effective illusionist that isn't required to have a maxed out INT score strikes me as a clear indication that Pathfinder is a better RPG than 4e.

This statement just puzzles me. I mean, 4E certainly has its flaws.. but caster stat dependence compared to 3.5 isn't one of them. In 3.5, there was never any reason not to max your caster stat as a primary caster. Better Dcs and bonus spells. Given that spells protected you, emulated skills, attacked, gave you information and were just 10x better than anything else in the game, I fail to see why a 3.5 caster would ever not max his casting stat. At least in 4E, slightly lower caster stat means a -1 or -2 to attacks, which is bad but not completely crippling.

In 4E at the very least, the other stats are reasonably important, because you can't just rely entirely on displacement and greater invisibility to replace the need to have AC.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 11:30 pm

RandomCasualty2 wrote:This statement just puzzles me. I mean, 4E certainly has its flaws.. but caster stat dependence compared to 3.5 isn't one of them. In 3.5, there was never any reason not to max your caster stat as a primary caster. Better Dcs and bonus spells. Given that spells protected you, emulated skills, attacked, gave you information and were just 10x better than anything else in the game, I fail to see why a 3.5 caster would ever not max his casting stat. At least in 4E, slightly lower caster stat means a -1 or -2 to attacks, which is bad but not completely crippling.

In 4E at the very least, the other stats are reasonably important, because you can't just rely entirely on displacement and greater invisibility to replace the need to have AC.

He's talking about being able to make a Charisma based illusionist.