The Gaming Den

Only one of the 'designers' or 'developers,'* was commenting regularly on the shifter or the book in general. And he wasn't actually involved in the class, so whatever. I'm surprised they're letting him engage in pointless circular arguments with the disgruntled fanbase. It's Mark Seifter, isn't it...

Sure Paizo probably won't manage it but they might accidentally introduce a few things. Then nerf them a couple years later. The nice thing about the "Companion" line is it basically never gets errata or FAQs, only the main RPG books do. I swear there is a secret cabal of freelancers dete...

radthemad4 wrote:What's a good 'rule of thumb' of sorts regarding appropriate CR?

The written "rule of thumb" is CR + 1/2 MR.

An MR 1 creature might deal tiny damage when struck, or get an extra turn every round.

Yes, you have to eyeball it in every case.

I want to punch whoever wrote that and the guy who clearly does not work as a editor at Paizo. Alexander Augunas and Owen K.C. Stephens. Probably Owen's editing, he cranked out those "Horribly Overpowered Feat" books with all the entirely acceptable martial feats and I can't recall him ev...

Now, with overarching question is...in D&D, are alignments (Good, Evil, Neutral--remember, we're talking about that axis) actual benchmarks of moral fiber and character? Or are they teams you join until you join another team? The problem is that picking one of these as what alignment is would n...

Well, at least the reference for that rule isn't just hidden in the description of the Gray Paladin archetype any more. And it still ruins detection spells less than when Ultimate Intrigue] doubled down on the idea your current intentions matter, so you can avoid detection by constantly planning to ...

I'm not sure if anyone can actually make a coherent argument for it, but it is how it is done so it sure as hell is going to be how Paizo does it. It was long ago decided that every damn thing needs Weapon Focus as a prerequisite so Greataxe Guy never, ever uses a battleaxe (even a two-handed large ...

On this subject, I have to share my very favorite instance of Paizo's "We have always been at war with Eastasia" attitude. Golarion's deities are meant to be complex and challenging and in some ways "realistic." And that means that sometimes, the faiths of these deities will be p...

Jesus christ, James Jacobs. If an amulet that gives you a resistance bonus is a "power grab," you probably shouldn't have fucking written one . This is the problem with trying to link item slots to certain abilities: in the normal course of thinking up magic items you are going to want to ...

I quite like this idea, but you'd have to change how skill DCs are calculated, and probably other DCs as well since quite a few options build upon skills or modify them. But how many stages would a progression like this have, ideally? I've played a bit of Numenera/Cypher System where you can be unt...

The problem I have with big skills is the same one I have with big feats. I end up getting stuck with a bunch of crap I don't want to get to what I do, and people are proportionally more screwed when they insist on suboptimal choices. For example, given the above list, I'd think you'd want 1 each of...

Not only that, it is of the CR "or lower." So if you pick "Eight CR 1/8ths" you might get eight camels, and if you pick "One CR 2" you could get... one camel. Of course people say "the DM wouldn't do that," but given this rule is never even hinted at anywhere ...

Of course monster stats matter in 5e, because those are the only rules they actually wrote. They may not be able to pull of their fluff, but all the stuff for stabbing or being stabbed is set. Despite all their "DM is your God-King" bullshit they still give you not only specific attack bon...

Did anyone here read or play the Hell's Vengeance AP? It says it's 'Paizo's first Adventure Path designed for evil characters' on the tin... A bit late, but having paged through the two released volumes it it doesn't seem overly remarkable. I'll admit to liking the APs (at minimum as starting point...

The final version of the Vigilante changed a bit. It is now two standard class options (Avenger=Fighter, Stalker=Rogue) with Archetypes for Barbarian, Magus, Gunslinger, Summoner, Cavalier, Occultist, other Magus, Wildshaping Druid, and Inquisitor. Even when obviously based on certain heroes these a...

It isn't out yet, so I'm going to assume most of the hate is towards the leaked Vigilante and archetypes. With the Vigilante, it was always a terrible idea. The core concept is "1/2 normal class, 1/2 secret identity." Which, fundamentally, is a problem. "Secret Identity" isn't a ...

Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth, part 5 of Wrath of the Righteous. However, she is absolutely immune to stabbing. It states that "Deities exist beyond anything the rules say can or cannot happen." It also recommends additional lighting and choir music to emphasize and fantastic importance an...

The issue isn't really the type or amount of damage. "Being in the presence of a deity hurts" is something I could get behind. However, the issue is she blasts you for not saying what she wants. The first question is half trivia, like you need to make a History or Religion check. If you fa...

Alignments are a quagmire, but you'd think one thing everyone could agree in is that the alignments literally named "good," explicitly in opposition to evil, are not evil. Of course not, because people want "Objective Alignment." Despite the core rulebook treating alignments mos...

First, slight corrections: you can't ready an action to cast an extra spell, ready action says you need enough actions left to perform the action (which would be only 1 after a 2 act spell). Also, taking three attack actions is also +11/+6/+1, under "Attack Actions" it mentions the iterati...

I'm basically just disappointed since Eberron that neither Changelings nor Warforged were set up as "gender binary need not apply." And that there still isn't a good race with that as the canon fluff. Pathfinder has the Ghoran, who are somewhat like that. Ones that interact with other gro...

I think this might have gotten garbled at some point. All I could find is Crystal Frasier saying this: I, er… I actually touched on this in the upcoming Inner Sea Races hardcover, but I don’t know what has or hasn’t survived the editing process (either at Paizo, or in my own office before final turn...

So Paizo has the right idea? Not really. Like most things they only barely tweaked the existing paradigm of "medium feats." So you still have bullshit tiny feats that let you use a spear as a quarterstaff because you think spears are cooler, but you aren't getting anywhere near enough tha...

So, broad strokes, would you say the content is passable overall? Better, worse, or on par with your average splatbook? Better than what Paizo is putting out now? If you strip off the columns and plugs this really reminds me of their Player Companion line, just with prestige classes replaced with ar...

Pretty much, though we know the design lead was Mark Seifter (the guy who got SKR's old job). There aren't a lot of data points to go on of course, but given that his other class was the Medium and their problems are similar I'd be tempted to attribute the issues to him. They both have resource mech...