The Gaming Den

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Class Changes: A number of classes received a host of tweaks and changes based off playtester feedback. Here is just a taste of what you can expect to find. Barbarian mighty rage got a little bit cheaper to maintain (going from 4 points per round to 3). Cleric domains and wizard schools now grant bonus spells instead of spell-like abilities (although they maintain their supernatural abilities). Bardic performance DCs are now based off the bard's level, not his Perform skill check. Rangers now grant their favored enemy bonus to their animal companion, if they have one. Sorcerer bloodlines got a few refinements, such as Intimidate being changed to Knowledge (planes) for Abyssal sorcerers.

1. Barbarians: Did the energy power get fixed, or are you still sucking the donkey balls, Bulmahn?

2. Barbarians: Did the auto-scaling powers get fixed, or are you still sucking the donkey balls, Bulmahn?

3. Just get rid of the fucking rage point cost for raging. Only charging for the really good/shitty powers would make me much happier.

4. Wizards and clerics got better.

5. Bards: About fucking time you fixed the DCs, you stupid sack of fail. Now, would you mind telling me why bards get a save-or-die and the twentieth level necromancer gets a shitty 10 damage/level spell?

6. Rangers: Animal companions suck less. Did you consider upping their hitpoints, or would that be breaking BACKWARDS COMPATABILITY? A bonus on attack rolls isn't going to save it from a balor's full attack.

7. Sorcerers: Well, I'm assuming you managed to fuck the sorcerer up the ass with your moronitude. Intimidate was at least a mildly useful skill. Nobody is going to take Knowledge (the planes) except for the party wizard.

8. Monks: Did you give them full BAB yet, or did you continue to dance around that with clunky mechanics that don't address flurry of misses and the other shit-tacular features of the class?

Combat Feats: Combat feats, as you might know them from Alpha release 3, are a thing of the past. Now the term refers to any feat that can be selected as a fighter bonus feat. Of course, most of the great combat feats have been retooled to fit with this change. Some feats even got an upgrade, such as Dodge (whose bonus now increases to +2 if you have 10 or more ranks in Acrobatics) and Arcane Strike (whose bonus increases by +1 for every five caster levels you possess).

Good, you twat. Scaling feats are good.

Spells: Wizard arcane schools got revised for the Beta. The big change here is that wizards now choose the spells that they gain upon reaching 2nd, 4th, 6th, 10th, 12th, 14th, 16th, and 18th levels. These spells must be from their school and are set once selected. It should be noted again that these spells now act as bonus spells, not spell-like abilities. This change does not affect the supernatural abilities granted by arcane schools.

Again: Wizards and clerics got better.

Other Rules: There are dozens of other small changes to the rules as well. Favored Classes now grant a bonus hit point or a bonus skill point. Recharging staves now only uses up the highest-level spell slot used by the staff. Cover rules were simplified into something that is quite a bit easier to adjust.

1. Bonus skill point is good, but why the fuck not just dump favored classes and give everyone extra skill points?

2. Staves: Good.

3. Cover rules: I smell disaster.

Nearly every chapter received numerous changes based off your feedback and comments.

...but only if you swallowed. A lot.

Actually, it looks like wizards are getting more out of this update than clerics. I don't see anything that lets clerics choose their bonus domain spells. I just wonder if he's still giving some sorcerer bloodlines melee attack powers at 1st level. My bet is he probably is.

Also, I think they've previously stated that giving monks full BAB is a non-starter because it breaks backward compatibility so much more than adding all those bloodline abilities to NPC sorcerers.

And I totally agree with you about barbarian rage points. I'd rather see the actual rages usable a set number of times per day and a smaller pool of points to activate rage powers.

if only they'd give up that damn backwards compatiblity crap, make some major core changes here and there and maybe end up with a good and proper '3.75E' instead of just sticking frills, bows and a cute hat on old piles of shit.

Except that 'backwards compatability' doesn't matter except as a cop-out for when they don't feel like doing something. They've done several things that are by far not compatible with 3.5, so it's not even a real hindrance to them.

virgileso wrote:Except that 'backwards compatability' doesn't matter except as a cop-out for when they don't feel like doing something. They've done several things that are by far not compatible with 3.5, so it's not even a real hindrance to them.

So they're going to end up with an end product that is not actually compatible with 3.5, and yet still retains many of it's core flaws, because they don't have the balls to stick to one direction.

It's a shame really. Either path, be it continuing to support 3.5, or building a whole new '3.75' edition, actually has the potential to find a decent market. Trying to do both is just going to cause the project to crash and burn.

Harlune wrote:
It's a shame really. Either path, be it continuing to support 3.5, or building a whole new '3.75' edition, actually has the potential to find a decent market. Trying to do both is just going to cause the project to crash and burn.

THey have found a substantial market. SO i think you are quite wrong about that aspect of what paizo's doing. Game mechanics-wise, they are messing up hardcore.

I.e., they've managed to convince enough people that they're non-backwards-compatible stuff isn't really that much of a problem. It kind of looks like they've decided that adding things to stat blocks isn't as bad as changing things. Presumably, that's why you can add bloodlines to NPC sorcerers, but you can't change a monk's BAB and make DMs cross out the old one. Even though all this new stuff they're adding means there's a good likelihood that people are just going to end up making a new stat block on paper or a card anyway.

A_Cynic wrote: THey have found a substantial market.

I doubt it. The market just seems bigger than it is because the diehard games are more of a vocal internet group, but in reality I doubt the numbers of 4E haters are all that big. The majority of casual gamers I've played with love 4E. Even some hardcore gamers tend to like it. While some hate what's happened to the wizard, they get by by just not playing a wizard.

Honestly pathfinder would have been best cutting out the martial classes entirely and just leaving casters, because basically they're just catering to diehard spellcaster players at this point. So they might as well make pathfinder the natural evolution of 3.5 and that's just turning it into caster wars.

I already know of a group that's latching onto 3.P with open pants, and they consider this enough of an improvement to the martial classes that there isn't really a balance concern between them anymore; and any caster that still manages to do so...well, that's the player being a game-breaking munchkin with no fault on Paizo's part.

*Sigh*

If only paizo had a designer who could make rules even 1/10th as well as Wayne Reynolds could draw.

The Pathfinder art is beautiful. I like most of the new iconics, and the way they've portrayed giants, and so on and so forth. Unfortunately, this is completely ruined if you read any of the rules accompanying the art, which make you want to gouge your eyes out with a spork.

It's all fine since Wizards and Clerics got better. That's all that counts in 3.x, really.

sigma999 wrote:It's all fine since Wizards and Clerics got better. That's all that counts in 3.x, really.

Hey. Rogues and Druids count for something. So do Beguilers and Dread Necromancers.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:

sigma999 wrote:It's all fine since Wizards and Clerics got better. That's all that counts in 3.x, really.

Hey. Rogues and Druids count for something. So do Beguilers and Dread Necromancers.

-Username17

No archivists, binders, or anything else?

Ugh - just looked at Preview #4 over on the blog and for the life of me I don't give a shit about anything on it. Why the hell did they release this?
Everything on it is uninspired, boring or so close to the original SRD stuff I can't tell or care about the difference.

Except the Broom of Fucking Flying. Gah! If I could shapeshift or something cool like that, I'd make my ears bleed to emphasize how fucking many groups are going to make Harry Potter jokes and think they're being witty.

Why? Broom of flying has been in D&D since at least 1st edition, if not longer. It isn't a Harry Potter trope- the talentless bitch just flipped through 101 generic stereotypes about witches.

That is a pretty uninspired set of pages though. The only difference I can spot at a glance is Improved Disarm. Its... weaker. Hurrah.

why does the Pathfinder Beta playtest cost $24.99?

Wtf?

They realized that 4E had the right idea to charge for playtesting. Besides, it's already been well established that it's not a playtest, but a marketting technique; they've just now reached the stage where they can charge people twice for one book.

Bigode wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote: Hey. Rogues and Druids count for something. So do Beguilers and Dread Necromancers.

-Username17

No archivists, binders, or anything else?

Nope. Just Wizards and Godsuckers... I mean, Clerics.

I hold Clerics > Druids because they call in Outsiders, not animals.
Outsiders are usually better than animals of the same level, and therefore a Cleric's class abilities are better too.

virgileso wrote:They realized that 4E had the right idea to charge for playtesting. Besides, it's already been well established that it's not a playtest, but a marketting technique; they've just now reached the stage where they can charge people twice for one book.

I don't unerstand how people can be dumb enough to fall for this. I really don't. It's a concept I just can't wrap my brain around. How do these people survive?

Instant gratification is key here. They buy the book because 'Beta' means 'effectively finished' in their eyes, and they want to play it now.

With the way that Paizo has responded to suggestions on their boards so far, I honestly can't call this "letting people pay to playtest". "Pay to get an early and not definitive version" sure, but playtesting implies that the company actually cares what you think and might make adjustments based on that opinion. Besides, you can still download the beta pdf for free, so it's more like covering costs of printing a crappy book rolled into mediocre marketing technique.

Judging by the popular opinion at the Paizo boards, most of the people there would disagree with you. They think they're actually playtesting and giving feedback. I'm sure the developers feel like it's a playtest as well, thinking that opinion is the same as playtesting, especially since opinion is basically a way to see what's unpopular (rather than what works).

In fact, I'm beginning to think that the entire lot over there has taken a gross & fundamental misunderstanding of the definition of the word 'playtest', so fundamental that they'll disagree with proof otherwise.

No, they know exactly what it means: "playtester" equals "sycophant"! And most of the still active posters there are happy to serve in that capacity.