Product Review: Pathfinder GM Screen

Today I got around to doing my budget for the new month, and realized that I could afford a trip to my favorite Friendly Local Game Store; Fantasium. The owner, Paula, was there, so I got a chance to talk to her a little bit about my feelings on Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Dungeons & Dragons. Unfortunately she didn’t have Confessions of a Part Time Sorceress in stock, so that one will need to wait a little while. By the time I left, I had spent a great deal more money than I intended to, got a stock date for the Pathfinder Bestiary 3, and purchased the subject of tonight’s post: The Pathfinder Game Master Screen.

I know I have a few readers who are unfamiliar with the basics surrounding tabletop RPGs, so let me take this opportunity to explain what GM screens are, and why they’re awesome. In pop culture, the screen is possibly even more iconic than funny shaped dice as an indicator of role playing geekery. The benefits of the screen are many fold, but its purpose is actually quite simple: to allow the GM to do things ‘out of sight’ of the players. Behind the screen are game notes, maps, monster stats and abilities, all the sorts of things which a GM needs to reference, but which must be kept hidden from players. Two of the primary side-benefits are what is printed on each side of the screen. On the player side is normally some a dramatic piece of adventuresome artwork to help get the players into the mood. On the GM side of the screen is printed as many quick-reference game rules and cheat sheets as the printers can manage to fit on there.

And without further ado, here is Pathfinder’s game master screen:

Blogger kills the quality of images, but you can click them for a (much) higher resolution.

For the sake of this post, I’ll be comparing it with the trusty GM screen I’ve used for years, published by Wizards of the Coast for the Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 game.

I’d like to make a note first regarding how the two screens unfold. It may be difficult to see from the photographs, but both screens are composed of four segments separated by a fold. The D&D screen folds in such a way that the center of the screen is closest to the characters, and the edges of the screen curve back towards the GM, like a U shape. Whereas the Pathfinder screen’s segments are angled in-and-out in an M shape. At first this was quite a turnoff for me, but as I played with it a little more, I found that I much prefer the folding style of the Pathfinder screen. It may seem somewhat unimportant, but I think it looks better. And I’ve always been annoyed by how far back the sides of the D&D screen go, feels like they’re crowding me.

Regarding the art, I think Paizo rolled a critical failure. Take a look at the D&D screen I posted, or any number of other screens. They depict dynamic scenes of adventure. The kind of scenes which depict what should be going on at the table, and inspire the players to get into the adventure. Pathfinder, for some reason, chose to instead show static images of the characters who represent their core classes, as well as the Eldritch Knight for no explicable reason. And not only are these images bland and uninteresting, they’re re-used. These are the exact same illustrations which accompany each class description in the Pathfinder Core Rulebook. Honestly, that makes me a little upset. It’s easy enough to make a GM screen by propping up two binders and paper-clipping notes onto the inside of them. The draw to purchasing a professionally produced GM screen is the art. This failure is particularly disappointing because Paizo normally excels in getting fantastic artists for their products.

It’s not so much that I’m angry, Paizo. Just…disappointed.

The major selling point, for me, was the construction of this GM screen. This thing is as sturdy as a dwarven barstool.* My D&D screen is a very basic cardboard. It’s not quite paper, but it’s really only sturdy enough so it doesn’t flop over. The Pathfinder screen, however, is thicker than the covers of most hardback books. The Pathfinder screen also has a glossy coating which, I think, is somewhat water resistant. I’m not eager to try, but it’s certainly more durable than the D&D screen. This may seem like a minor thing, but I’ve often worried about damage to my GM screen during travel, or when a drink is spilled at the table. The higher quality of the construction for the Pathfinder screen is a big plus for me.

There’s not a whole lot to say about the differing sizes of the two screens. The D&D screen is longer, whilst the Pathfinder screen is higher. This really comes down to a matter of preference. Personally, I like the height of the Pathfinder screen, and I’ve never liked how wide the D&D screen is. My only concern is that I’ll be spending more of my game time standing. I already sometimes have trouble seeing things over the screen.

The final element to the screens is the GM side, with the quick-reference guide for the rules. First, the new Pathfinder screen…

…and then the old D&D screen.

Now, truth be told, I’ve never actually used the quick reference rules on the GM screen. I have a lot of respect for the utility of printing them there, but as a GM I prefer to simply make a ruling on the spot based on whatever seems most logical. That said, I think the D&D screen actually has much more useful information printed on it.

Here are some of the items on the D&D sheet which I think would be more useful than much of the information on the Pathfinder sheet.

DCs to break or burst an item.
Information & stats for common types of walls.
Information & stats for common types of doors.
Increasing weapon damage by size
Decreasing weapon damage by size
Graphic demonstrating what to do when a thrown weapon misses
Common types of actions (drink potion, prepare oil for throwing, drawing a weapon) and what type of action time they require, and whether they provoke an attack of opportunity.
Information on movement and distance both in tactical, and overland
Light sources and illumination

But at least the Pathfinder GM screen has information on how to calculate the DC for a longjump check. It’s difficult to remember that +1ft = +1DC.

I think it’s somewhat obvious that I’m disappointed in Paizo’s Pathfinder GM Screen. Aside from the construction, it really feels as though no work went into this. I’ll certainly use it, because I do like the construction so much. And bland as the art is, I’m sure my players have grown tired of looking at the same dragon for so many years.

Still, Paizo, come on. I’m deep in your camp, I am a believer, and I don’t like being in a position to speak ill of you, but this is not a good product. Step it up with the next GM screen.

*Yes, that was ridiculous. I decided to go with it, so you can just stfu Mr. or Ms. Critic! >.>

Book Review: The Worldwound Gambit

During the recent collapse of Boarders book stores, I went to find what deals I could find. This was during the final days of their liquidation, when most items were between 60 and 80 percent off, so the shelves were already pretty bare, but I did bring home quite a haul. Among the booty (books) I carried back to my stronghold (two room apartment), was The Worldwound Gambit, by Robin D. Laws. It’s part of the Pathfinder Tales collection which, for those unaware, is a label under which Paizo publishes novels set against the backdrop of Golarion, the official Pathfinder game world. Supporting genre fiction authors is one of my favorite ways in which tabletop gaming companies advertise their products. I’ve been a fan of Dungeons and Dragon’s fiction ever since a friend forced me to read The Dark Elf Trilogy. So as I’ve long since grown out of Drizzt, I was interested to know what my new gaming system had to offer.

The basic summary of the plot is that a group of less-than-heroic folks take exception to the demonic invasion which is threatening to overrun their homeland. Hoping to bring things closer to normal, the group ventures into the “worldwound,” a tiny segment of the Abyss which has merged with the material plane. Their goal is to find and steal the magic orb which is allowing the demons to pass freely in-and-out of the worldwound itself. The plot is simple, and Mr. Laws devotes much of his time to developing the characters. Something which I very much appreciate: genre fiction is at its best when it’s character driven.

But character driven storytelling is not enough to save this book from damnation. The writing is, at times, painfully bad. Far be it from me to claim any profound expertise as a writer, but what in the world drove Mr. Laws to write the entire story in present tense? (“Gad is running, and now he jumps.” instead of “Gad ran, then jumped.”) The senselessly unique perspective constantly pulled me out of the story as I tried to reconcile awkward phrasings. I was halfway through the book before I got used to it, and I still can’t think of anything it added to the experience. What’s more, some passages simply appear to be poorly constructed. For example, there’s one passage which details a single side of a conversation. No less than nineteen lines in a row begin with “Then:.” And on page 143, there’s this gem, emphasis mine:

“Do we go around the marsh?” Gad asks.
“We don’t know how far it extends,” says Vitta.”Whatever’s on either side of it might be worse.” She pulls a compass from her pack. Its dial spins crazily. “And the further we get from a straight line to your tower, the less confidence I have of staying on track. We could get turned around and wind up all the way down in the Shudderwood.” The Shudderwood is a haunt of twisted fey, far from their destination.

My exact response to this was to shout “ORLY!?” Pardon my exasperation, but are you kidding me!? The Shudderwood never becomes relevant to the story, nor is it even mentioned again in the entire book. The passage provides enough context for even the slowest of readers to know everything they need to know: The Shudderwood is a place very far away. It strikes me as offensively patronizing that more explanation was thought necessary. Either that, or Paizo was really insistent that the Shudderwood get some exposure for some reason.

Aside from the poor writing, The Worldwound Gambit suffers from “Book Based on an RPG Syndrome.” Everything about the characters and the world they live in is clearly constructed to tie in with the Pathfinder product. I’d bet $50 that Mr. Laws rolled character sheets for his characters before he started writing. Calliard is a bard and Hendregan is a sorcerer pretending to be a wizard (which is never explained), that much is said outright. Gad, Vitta, and Jerisa are all rogues specializing in diplomacy, lock picking, and combat respectively. Tiberio is the only one whose class is difficult to ascertain, but only because he swore off hurting people. Most likely he’s another rogue. I understand that these books are advertisements. That’s part of what I love about the fiction programs like Pathfinder Tales. They help companies push their product, they help people who read genre fiction, and most important, they help writers of genre fiction. But making the connection between the fiction and the game that fiction is advertising so on-the-nose only makes the game look bad.

The construction of the story seems sloppy as well. As I mentioned earlier, Hendragen is a sorcerer who tells everyone he’s a wizard. The author took the time to make this point clear, and the characters even have a discussion about it where one of them is quite indignant about the deception. Hendragen replies “When others ask, tell them I am a wizard.” That’s the last which is ever said on the matter. No explanation is ever given for this anomaly. It’s not the only one either, at one point Gad speaks with an old witch who apparently suffered rapid-aging due to a previous adventure which she accompanied Gad on. The entire encounter is not only melodramatic, but as far as I can tell, the only purpose the scene could possibly serve is to express to the reader that it’s possible something bad might happen. Hardly a shocking revelation when the characters are charging into the heart of the demon forces. Oh, and spoiler warning: nothing bad happens to the characters after all.

Aside from the questionable writing, the book is also quite sexist. There are three women which play central roles in the story: Vitta the locksmith, Jerisa the killer, and Isilda the villain. Isilda is a powerful leader of demons, certainly, but is defined almost entirely by her sexuality. The first glimpse of her the “party” gets includes the following:

“A white silk garment sheathes her alabaster torso. its cut is tauntingly revealing, forcing the gaze to a pair of small, imperiously conical breasts. A filmy skirt of uneven strips likewise confronts the viewer with flashes of long, unblemished thigh. “

As a fan of small breasts, I found the phrase “imperiously conical” rather delightful, and mentally cataloged it for future use, for the next time I write something…personal. But this character, Isilda, is not starring in a fantasy themed erotic novel. She’s a power mad woman who somehow rose to such high prominence that she–a mere mortal–commands demons within their own domain. But sure, we can talk about her breasts.

Her characterization only grows worse from there. Nearly every one of Isilda’s scenes is about her aggressively pursuing sex with Gad. And when she’s finally the focus of a scene where she isn’t trying to have sex with Gad, it’s only because she’s being murdered by another woman who loves Gad. Which brings us to Jerisa. Her character can be quickly summarized in three points. She is good at killing people, foolishly impulsive, and desperately in love with Gad, who does not care for her in return. If you drop the killing efficiency from that list, she becomes every 2-dimensional love interest in history.

Which leaves Vitta. Vitta is a badass. She’s got a slightly sharper tongue than she seems to realize, and it doesn’t take much for her to fly off the handle when she thinks someone else is being foolish or putting the rest of the group in danger. She’s intelligent as well. She critically analyzes each situation, and is often responsible for solving the group’s problems. She has no love interest in the story, but shares a camaraderie with Gad which can be heartwarming at times. She’s also a halfling. Excuse my crassness, but I can’t help but wonder if she would have been so well characterized if her hips were wide enough to fit a dick into. It seems too coincidental that the only good female character is also the only one the author wouldn’t be able to have sex with.

Despite all those failings, the book was compelling. Mr. Laws did an excellent job giving life to the world around his characters. Details, such as the blood of demons being used as an addictive drug, make me wonder what other curiosities this world holds. And wanting to know how things would turn out for Vitta had me turning pages furiously near the end. I must also admit that there were three or four other complaints which I was all riled up to make, only to have the author yank them out from under me near the end of the story. Bastard.

Easily the books greatest overall strength is the lack of combat. Fiction like this is normally characterized by lengthy descriptions of flashing swords, pooling blood, and clashing armor. It’s refreshing to read a book where the characters solve their problems primarily through skill and guile. What violence there is takes the form of quick strikes from the shadows. Most of the foes the party actually chooses to fight are dead too quickly to say that combat occurred. This is precisely what I loved so much about The Cleric Quintet, and genre fiction needs more of it.

Despite loving Vitta, and believing more books need to lay off combat the way this one does, I don’t think I can recommend The Worldwound Gambit. The poor writing and sexism are simply too much for me to accept. This is the first and only book in the Pathfinder Tales collection I’ve read so far, so I can only hope it’s the worst of the bunch. I see that Elaine Cunningham has a book in this collection titled Winter Witch. I always enjoy Ms. Cunningham’s Star Wars novels, so hopefully she can redeem Pathfinder fiction in my eyes.

If you do want something to read, try The Cleric Quintet. It’s also low combat, exciting, and Danica isn’t a cardboard cutout of a woman.

WEG Star Wars: What It Was, and Why You Should Play It

I am a Star Wars fan. I’ve read every book based off the original trilogy at least twice. Some of them I’ve read five or even ten times. I keep the audio books around as well, which I’ve probably listened to hundreds of times each. At the age of 11, I wrote the editors with omissions I had found in the Star Wars Encyclopedia When I was 12 years old when I attended the midnight showing of The Phantom Menace, and despite how terrible that and Attack of the Clones both were, I was still at the midnight showing for Revenge of the Sith. I cried over the death of Chewbacca, and I cried harder over the death of Anakin Solo. And when Jaina Solo was forced to kill Jacen? That haunted me for days. I still break down crying every time I try to read through that chapter.

Star Wars is my great, lifelong obsession. And “The Star Wars Roleplaying Game” Second Edition published by West End Games is among the greatest tabletop role playing games I’ve ever encountered. You really don’t even need to read the rest of this post. If you don’t have it, you need to find it, and buy it, now. Once you have it in your hands, you can read the rest of this post to learn why the choice to make that purchase was the right one.

The entire system is designed to keep game sessions fast paced and exciting. The rules are very simple, the character creation is minimalistic, and any actions which requires a roll are handled with one of two basic systems. If a player is attempting to do something to another player or NPC, the two make opposed dice checks (such as “shoot” and “dodge”) and whoever gets the highest succeeds. For any other kind of action, the GM just picks a difficulty number (based of a difficulty chart which GMs should memorize) and asks for a roll. Simply put, that’s it. Much as I love Pathfinder’s more complex rules, there’s something freeing about switching gears and running something with almost no rules at all. To put it in the words of the system’s designers:

Keep the Game Moving Quickly. Star Wars is supposed to be exciting. Laser bolts fly fast and furious, starships dodge around asteroids, and speeder bikes race through thick forests at frightening speeds. Keep the game moving as fast as the Star Wars movies!

Even the core rulebook is fast paced. Chapter 1 starts off with a solo adventure where the book plays the role of game master, and the reader takes on the role of a player. It plays out sort of like a ‘choose your own adventure’ book with dice occasionally thrown into the mix. In whole, the player’s portion of the rulebook is sixty six pages long, including the adventure at the beginning. In comparison, the D&D 3.5 Player’s Handbook has 317 pages. Pathfinder’s core rulebook doesn’t get past the player section until page 393! WEG Star Wars is a definitely a game which adheres to the old school role playing philosophy of keeping most of the mechanics away from the players to better simulate the fantasy.

Like Pathfinder, WEG Star Wars characters have six basic attributes; Dexterity, Knowledge, Perception, Strength, Mechanical, and Technical. Each of these has a certain number of six sided dice attached to it during character creation. (WEG Star Wars only uses six sided dice.) For example, a human character gets 18 dice total, and has a minimum of 2 dice and a maximum of 4 dice in each of the six attributes. After filling the minimum requirements, players have 6 dice to spread between their six abilities. Once in play, any action which requires a roll will be associated with one of the six abilities, and the player gets to roll however many dice they allocated for that attribute. For example, hitting something with a blaster requires the ability to aim the blaster accurately, so you would roll your dexterity. If you went ahead and maxed out your dexterity, then you’d be able to roll 4d6 against your opponent’s dodge. And if he or she rolls lower than you did, the blaster bolt hits! And given how dangerous combat is treated in this game, there’s a good chance getting hit by that blaster bolt killed them.

There’s also a skills system for more specific tasks. Each character starts out with 7 dice to apply to skills. So even though you have 4 dice in dexterity, you could put another 2 dice in the Blasters skill, and be able to roll a whopping 6 dice whenever you try to hit somebody. Dice can also be split up. Each die counts as 3 “pips,” which is WEG’s code for bonuses. Essentially, if you’ve put 2 skill die into blasters, 3 into medicine, and 1 into starfighter piloting, and can’t decide where to put your last die, you can just break it up. Add a +2 to starfighter piloting (making the skill 1d6 + 2) and a +1 to blasters.

All praise aside, there is one thing about West End Games’ masterpiece which I really don’t like. I can’t find anybody to play it. New players curious about the hobby are normally the most interested in playing Dungeons and Dragons. It’s probably the only game they’ve heard of, and it’s the one which drew their attention to the hobby in the first place. Others are wary of playing a Star Wars game, either because they don’t think they’re familiar enough with the mythos to keep up, or because they don’t like games based on movies/television/etcetera.

I did manage to play a few sessions of the game once. In the first session, my player (I only had one) managed to steal a ship, which he painted bright orange and christened “Stealth Ship.” He was too lazy to hire a crew for it, so I gave him a wookie communications officer. By the second session he had been hired by the rebellion to free some prisoners from an Imperial prison camp. One of them as it turned out, was his psychotic ex girlfriend, who shot him. By the time the second session ended, he had recovered, been chased around the corridors of an abandoned Star Destroyer by the same psychotic ex, and narrowly escaped form said Star Destroyer just before it exploded. We never got to session three, which is sad, because the rebellion was going to commission him to find them a new hiding place “now that the Yavin base has been compromised.” I was going to let him re-shape the original trilogy by becoming an incredibly important, off-screen character. It would have been glorious.

Buy the game. You will not regret it. And, once you have it, all you need to do is move to WA state so we can play it together…

…forever…

We Be Goblins! (You Be Food!)

“We Be Goblins!” is a charming little Pathfinder module which Paizo has made available as a free PDF through their online store. I printed out a copy a month or so ago, and thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Despite the short length of only 16 pages, there are some remarkably charming touches which make this module memorable for me. The adventure is well designed with a good mix of challenges for the players. The pregenerated characters are interesting, and developed well enough to give players a baseline to role play from without being constricting. There’s a good sense of humor throughout the adventure as well, with a number of catchy songs scribbled in the margins. I must admit, I’ve recited a few of them to myself while driving. They are quite catchy:

We be Licktoads! We Make Raid!
Put the longshanks to the blade!
Burn them up from feet to head,
Make them hurt, then make them dead!
Cut the parents into ham,
Smush the babies into Jam,
All the rest in pot get stewed,
We be Licktoads – YOU BE FOOD!

Which brings me to one of the biggest draws to this module: playing as evil goblins. Players have never been prevented from playing as evil characters, or from playing as goblins; the Monster Manuals and Bestiaries even have racial traits for goblins which players could use if they liked. But as I’ve discussed in the past, while not forbidden it’s certainly not encouraged. Despite that, something about Pathfinder’s version of goblins has caught hold of players. As any sensible company should, Paizo is cashing in on that with a number of products. The artist who designed Pathfinder’s Goblins can be thanked for that, I think. He or she somehow managed to take the most generic-of-the-generic fantasy monster, and reinvent them into something which is both classic and novel, adorable and terrifying all at once. The song above is a testament to all four seemingly contradictory traits.

On a lark last weekend, I decided I wanted to see how this adventure played at the table. What’s more, I wanted to do it with enough people for all four of the pregenerated characters to be in play. So during the week I conferred with the players from two of my gaming groups. Remarkably, each of them had Saturday free. Considering how difficult it can be to get either group together for a game, I thought it might be a titanic effort to get both together at once. But everybody was open to my first suggested date and time. So this morning I got up, cleaned my apartment, and was going over my notes just in time for people to start arriving.

The opening of the adventure is somewhat wordy for my tastes. My rule of thumb is three paragraphs. If I’ve got more than three paragraphs to read before the players get to start taking action and making choices, then I edit down. I may pride myself on my writing, but my friends didn’t make room in their busy schedules to listen to me read aloud. They came to play a game. All the same, the introduction didn’t go off too poorly. The players got a good sense of who and where they were. But to be honest, if I were to run it again I think I would cut a lot of the introductory crap and jump into the bonfire as quick as I could. That’s where the game really got moving.

After the goblin leader provides the PCs with their mission in the opening scene, the tribe has a bonfire celebration to, as cheif Gutwad says, “burn bad luck away from [the PCs].” Essentially it’s a big rowdy goblin party in honor of the PC’s upcoming quest. Here, I think, would have been a much better place for a lot of the exposition which happened at the start of the adventure. Rather than have the goblin chief tell the players to avoid the creature known as Lotslegs Eat Goblin Babies Many, the PCs could have overheard frightening stories about it from other goblins during the feast. But this is a minor nitpick at worst.

The content of the bonfire are four “dares,” as the goblins call them. To test the bravery of the PCs, the tribe presents them with challenges. If they succeed, they are rewarded with the right to borrow a few pieces of magical gear. If they fail, or refuse the challenge, they are mercilessly mocked. I must admit I was somewhat worried that this was the kind of thing which sounded good on paper, but wouldn’t work out in play, but I was wrong. It was during this more lighthearted, role-playing heavy activity that my players really started to get into their characters. I’m not often fortunate enough to have excited, in-character conversations going on between players. More on that later.

My players ended up succeeding at each of the four challenges without much incident. It was then that I began to realize that the pregenerated characters were extremely overpowered. I honestly cannot comprehend how the rogue managed to have a +16 to his stealth check at level 1. [Edit: Okay, I see. The Goblin size bonus, and the Goblin racial bonus, stack.] This ended up detracting from the game somewhat, as I never really felt the characters were in real danger. Though, in fairness, I did significantly reduce the difficulty of each of the challenges. Not to make things easier, but simply because I can’t make it seem exciting to ask players to make a DC 15 ride check three times in a row.

In the morning, the players set off on the grand one mile (1/6th of a hex) journey to the grounded ship marked on the treasure map, and the cache of fireworks it held. They were nearly there when they were accosted by Lotslegs Eat Goblin Babies Many, a giant spider who hungered for goblin flesh! Two of my cowardly players hid from the beast, the rogue succeeding at doing so despite the bells which another player had secretly attached to her clothes. The fight was brief, with minimal damage on the part of the players. Considering that this is probably the second most difficult fight in the adventure, I was somewhat disappointed in how quickly the spider was felled.

From there, the players moved on to reach the ship. And that is where things took a turn for the awesome. One of the four goblins is a cleric named Poog. According to his character sheet, Poog is ashamed of being one of the worst animal riders in the clan. The character sheet also says Poog is brave to the point of being overconfident. So when Poog was acting as a scout into the the muddy area surrounding the ship, and was charged by a rabid horse, Poog’s immediate response was:

“POOG WILL RIDE HORSE!” Complete with my player’s best goblin voice.

As it turned out, Poog failed to mount the charging beast, but managed to deal it a crushing blow by bracing his javelin in the mud when the horse came around for a second charge. From there on in, the events of the game took a back seat to the hilarious role playing exchanges between the characters. The woman playing the aforementioned rogue took it upon herself to goad Poog on. She heaped insults onto him, and quickly discovered that there was nothing she couldn’t get Poog to do by simply telling him that he wasn’t good enough to do it. And all of this simply goaded Poog onward, culminating “POOG CAN RIDE ANYTHING!” being shouted several times. In one combat, Poog and the Rogue actually took turns mounting and pushing each other off of a very confused dog which the other two party members were desperately trying to kill.

The climax of the adventure came when the four goblins were attempting to flee the ship with their firework booty. Just as they were about to escape, they were accosted by Vorka, the goblin cannibal whose fireworks they had just stolen. She had cast Spider Climb on herself before the party reached her, so her first action in combat was to walk up the vertical mast of the ship high enough so that melee attacks couldn’t reach her. Unfortunately, this prompted Poog to remember that he’d earned an Elixer of Dragon’s Breath during the bonfire challenges. Before the rest of the party knew what was happening, the mast was on fire, and Vorka was quickly jumping down onto the deck to avoid the flames.

The rest of the adventure proceded entirely without incident. Vorka’s rolls were so terrible that she was killed without much of a fuss. And despite my attempt to destroy the player’s fireworks by having the chest catch on fire, they were all dexterous enough to get the prized explosives to safety before they were ignited.

Having now played through it, “We Be Goblins!” is an entertaining way to spend four hours. It suffers significantly from lack of challenge, though. When I run a one-shot game such as this one, my expectation is to see one or more players lose their lives. Since they’re never going to play these characters again anyway, what’s the point of coddling them? This failing is particularly bad since the game comes with its own pregenerated characters. If they knew how powerful the PCs would be, why couldn’t they make the adventure a little tougher to give it the edge it was missing?

I must reiterate that it was fun, though. It brought my group together and gave them a situation which they had a lot of fun with. I’d be a little wary of starting up yet another campaign, but I’m pretty sure everyone agreed that it would be fun to return to those characters (and that group) again someday.

Maybe I’ll run them through an edited version of The Sunless Citadel next…

Book Review: Everything I Need To Know I Learned From Dungeons & Dragons

A few weeks back, whilst perusing the shelves at my local gaming/comic shop, Fantasium, I saw this book sitting next to the small selection of RPG-based fiction. “Everything I Need To Know I Learned From Dungeons & Dragons,” by Shelly Mazzanoble. Ostensibly, it’s a parody of self-help books. Everything I need to know… points to D&D as the source of “all the answers™.” I thought it was a pretty amusing idea, but being on something of a budget I wasn’t sure if it would deliver. The whimsical doodles of adventurers on the back cover, though, convinced me to give the book a shot.

I took it, along with my other purchases, up to the counter, and started chatting with the store’s owner. I learned that the book had only been released that very day. The owner mentioned that copies had been flying off the shelf so quickly, she was concerned she wasn’t going to have an opportunity to snag one for herself. Apparently the author’s previous book, Confessions of a Part Time Sorceress had been quite good. I also learned, to my delight, that the author was a woman. Women are so extremely underrepresented in this hobby that I was thrilled to find a book written by one. Since I wasn’t driving that day, I cracked it open as soon as we were on the road.

As is often the case, the back cover somewhat misrepresented the book. It becomes obvious within the first chapter that it is not a parody of self help books. Rather, it is a series of personal anecdotes from the author’s life in which Dungeons and Dragons helped her solve problems. None the less, the book gets off to a good start. Ms. Mazzanoble has a very conversational style of writing which serves her well. There was a paragraph in the first chapter where she describes her first encounter with D&D players, and the passion they have for their hobby. It was so well written as to be legitimately touching. Not only does she have the ability to be poignant, but the author is legitimately funny as well. The humor didn’t often make me laugh out loud, but it did keep me turning pages through the first few chapters. After that, though, the whole facade starts to wear thin.

Each of the stories contained within the book seem to fall into one of two, equally insulting categories. First, there are the stories which seem entirely contrived. For example, in one chapter Shelly decides to spend each day of the week ‘worshiping’ a different deity from the Dungeons and Dragons mythos. She writes that she did this to help herself explore spirituality. But if I had to guess, I’d say her motivation was to fill 181 pages. Second, there are the stories in which D&D’s involvement seems to have been added retroactively. Such as when she’s wondering if she should ask her boyfriend to move in with her. She asks herself “what would my character do.” When she decides that her character wouldn’t sweat the small stuff, she resolves to be more spontaneous. This culminates in a spur-of-the-moment day trip with her boyfriend, which goes just well enough for her to feel comfortable asking him to move in. I hate to call anybody a liar (honestly, I do) but that just reeks of retcon. The story functions perfectly well if you remove all mentions of D&D from it. And when your book is about D&D, that’s a problem.

Perhaps what bothers me most about the pervading aura of contrivance which surrounds these stories, is that I could actually write a book about how D&D changed my life. How it helped me see that the strict religious cult I was raised in was overly controlling. How it taught me the importance of establishing systems and impartial arbitration. How it made me a better writer, and gave me an outlet to explore my creativity before I had the confidence to write stories. I imagine many or most players would have similar experiences to share. In fact, an anthology of essays about how RPGs changed people’s lives is a fantastic idea…but I’m getting off track.

It is a slap in the face just how little D&D is actually present in this book. Each chapter generally contains two distinct parts. “The Problem,” which takes the form of an extended story from the author’s life, culminating in an obstacle which must be overcome. These are generally engaging tales, told in the author’s amusing style. The second part is “The (Attempted) Solution.” This is where D&D comes into the picture, with the author making a hair-brained attempt to use the game as a problem solving device. Generally the chapters are split about 50/50 between the two parts. That means that D&D is featured in about half of the book. This is despite the fact that D&D is almost certainly the reason people bought the book in the first place. If I had to identify the true subject matter of Everything I Need to Know…, it is really more about the Shelly Mazzanoble’s relationship with her mother than it is about Dungeons and Dragons.

I get that this book was not written for me, but I can’t for the life of me figure out who it was written for. It’s marketed to people who play tabletop RPGs, so whoever the target audience is, they must be some subset of tabletop gamers. Considering how infrequently D&D is actually talked about, and how every reference is explained in excessive detail, it must be aimed at very casual players, or perhaps potential players which Wizards of the Coast is hoping to ensnare with this book. Finally, add in the fact that the book includes more references to reality television than to gaming, and it becomes clear what this book actually is.

This book is marketing. Hell, Shely Mazzanoble even works in Wizards of the Coast’s marketing department. The idea is clearly for the book to be a handy gift for gamers to give their girlfriends, as a means of enticing them to play. And, honestly, I wouldn’t have a problem with that if not for how it was done. Women are underrepresented in our hobby. We’ve alienated them, and it’s good to reach out to them. But apparently, WotC thinks that women are some kind of mysterious creature which can only be coaxed into buying a product if the sales pitch contains numerous references to shoe shopping.

Since WotC doesn’t seem to understand this, allow me to spell it out: women gamers are gamers. When a woman buys a book about gaming, she’s looking for a book about gaming. She doesn’t need you to take the edge off of the “scary boy’s game” by interspersing it with references to Desperate Housewives and Sex in the City.

With all of that having been said, I want to add once more that Ms. Mazzanoble is not a bad writer. If the book were truly abysmal, I would not have finished it. The stories would have been very enjoyable had I not been tricked into purchasing the book under the pretense that it was about D&D. But that kind of thing is often a decision of the publisher, not the author. I’ll probably still read the author’s first book, Confessions of a Part Time Sorceress. Based on what I’ve read, it sounds like a far superior book.

I’d like to close this post by talking about my favorite part of the book: the last chapter. No, I’m not being glib. The last chapter is the only one which struck me as being real. The only chapter where I felt Dungeons and Dragons was essential to the story. If the rest of the book had been of the same quality as the last chapter, you would have read a very different review just now.

The final story in the book presents the problem of children. Shelly’s mother wants her to have some, whilst Shelly is downright opposed to the idea. None the less, when a minor emergency leaves Shelly in charge of her friend’s two kids, she needs to find a way to connect with them. Otherwise the entire evening will just be a lot of awkward staring. She suggests a few kid-friendly activities like watching a movie, but nothing engages the two until she recommends a game of Dungeons and Dragons. The experience is new and different, and the children excitedly play their roles and roll their dice. Shelly even lets them keep a D20, and learns from the children’s mother later on that she’s now their favorite person in the world. The whole experience leaves her feeling less terrified of children, and it wouldn’t have been possible without Dungeons and Dragons.

That’s a D&D story.

Vecna Lives!

As I mentioned in a recent post, I’m very interested in taking old modules and updating the mechanics to be compatible with Pathfinder. And given that I’m such a huge fan of Vecna as a villain, Vecna Lives! was at the top of my list to read. I finished reading it awhile ago, and there were a couple things about it which I felt worth pondering publicly.

The one thing which is giving me the most trouble is instant and unavoidable death. I’ve always known that this was something which showed up in Gygaxian D&D, but I’ve never seriously thought about including it in a game before. I always looked on death without a saving throw as an outdated idea, one which had a kind of oldschool, hardcore charm, but not one I’d want to subject my players to. After all, I was bred on D&D 3.5, where it is a well known unwritten rule that no matter what players must always be given a chance to survive, even if that chance is just a roll of the dice.

However, if I want to update Vecna Lives! for Pathfinder, then I’m faced with a choice. Either I can include the few examples of “instant death, no saving throw” which show up in the module, or I can deviate from my attempt to be faithful to the original experience of the game. On the face of things, the rule that players must always have a chance to survive seems like a very good rule; nobody likes a game which makes them feel as though they were not given a fair chance to win. However, a saving throw is rarely the only time a player is given the opportunity to avoid a particular fate. It is the last opportunity. Actually, opportunity is somewhat of a misnomer, a character whose life rides on the success or failure of a saving throw is Schrödinger’s PC. As the die rolls the character is in a state of being both alive and dead at the same time, and if the die lands on 1, then we open the box and learn that the PC was dead the whole time. And when that happens, is it really any different from a GM simply declaring that the PC has died?

Of course, quantum physics aside, a die roll is still a chance to survive, and players are right to feel they deserve a chance to survive. But as I mentioned above, the saving throw is often the last chance to survive, not the only chance. If the party encounters a statue of a dragon with a gem clenched in its marble teeth, and an ancient language swearing death to any who would disturb the monument is scrawled around the base; then perhaps the rogue who snatches the gem before the wizard finishes deciphering the warnings deserves to die. Even if nobody could read the script, the rogue could have at least used a stick to try and knock the gem out of the dragon’s maw. Not only does the rogue have the opportunity to avoid death, but some adventuring sense offers much better odds than a saving throw.

Though if your GM puts such a gem in a pile of random treasure at the end of a dungeon, and whoever gets it in their share of the loot is declared dead, then your GM is a dick.

Furthermore, denying saving throws is not an all or nothing deal. In Vecna Lives! instant death effects appear twice if I recall correctly. The first is during the opening scene, where the players take control of powerful characters which have the sole purpose of being killed by the GM within minutes, just to show that this module means business. Later, if the PC’s choose to attack Vecna himself during a moment of distraction on his part, the evil god snuffs them out of existence with a thought. The former is a very special and uncommon circumstance, and the latter seems to me like a justified punishment for impossible stupidity. Attacking a god is not something a non-epic character is going to get away with.I see no need to make it more complicated than “um…you’re dead.”

Aside from these two specific instances, there is a potential third opportunity for the players to face (or wield!) instant death. Much of the adventure revolves around the classic D&D artifacts, the Hand and Eye of Vecna. According to the information on these artifacts at the back of the book, anyone touched by the full palm of the Hand of Vecna is killed with no saving throw. Which means that if you’re fighting someone who has the hand of Vecna, you’re one successful touch attack away from death. Now, the module never puts the player characters in a position where they will face an opponent who wields this deadly artifact, but I’m uncomfortable even having it exist in the game.

The question, though, is how to make it fair without neutering it. It is, after all, the severed hand of a deity. It should have a fearsome and terrible power for the players to tremble before. So how about this:

Someone with the Hand of Vecna can instantly kill anyone with 10HD or less on a successful touch attack (no saving throw). Creatures with more than 10HD are entitled to a fortitude save DC 20. On a failed save, the character dies. On a successful save, the character is reduced to 1 hit point and knocked prone. If the character with the hand also possesses the eye of Vecna, the DC to resist is raised to 25. (Saving throws based on D&D 3.5 Dungeon Master’s Guide)

Using this rule, players will feel almost exactly the same way about the hand: they’ll want to avoid it at all costs. But even if they can’t avoid it, or don’t even know that their enemy has it, then they at least have a chance at achieving a near-death experience, as opposed to dying outright.

Moving on, Vecna Lives! is also the first module I’ve read which has such a strong focus on mystery, detective work, and role playing. A lot of adventures include some of that, but this is a ninety five page module which downplays combat encounters, and has no dungeon crawls. The adventure goes from the players trying to learn who the bad guys are, to trying to find out where the bad guys are, to trying to figure out how to stop the bad guys. And [spoiler alert] even the final solution is essentially a matter of role playing, with the PCs summoning The Old One to duke it out with Vecna, evil god to evil god.

Games like that have always been my weakness as a GM. I love to plan them, but they never quite work out the way I hope they will. It often feels as though I’m stuck nudging the players along, giving them every hint until it feels like their presence at the table is redundant because I’m playing my own adventure. Granted, my group has admitted in the past that they don’t think they’re very good at looking for clues, but I still feel like they might have an easier time if I took lessons from Vecna Lives!

First off, there should be a variety of ways to reach any of the conclusions necessary to move forward in the storyline. In my games I’ve done things such as sending the characters catch some smugglers red handed, hoping that they would take the time to interrogate one of the smugglers. This would allow them to learn the name of the smuggler’s contact within the city’s criminal element, and thus allow the players to come closer to finding the den of the crime boss. The problem is that my players would never think to question the smuggler, leaving me to wonder how to move the game forward without stealing their sense of accomplishment.

Vecna Lives! readily admits that players may be dense sometimes. In fact it frequently uses language like “if they still don’t get that they need to do X, you may need to slap them upside the head,” or my personal favorite “you may need to give up on them.” However, despite the auspicious author’s candid comments about players who aren’t able to detect well, he also provided many paths of investigations for the characters to follow to reach the same goal. You might say that while the example of my game which I gave above constructs detective work as a linear exercise, Vecna Lives! provides GMs with an entire web of interconnected information for the PCs to discover.

For example, in trying to determine what happened to their predecessors (the powerful characters killed by the GM which I mentioned earlier), the players have the options of inquiring with the victim’s colleagues and friends, or of looking into what books those characters checked out of the city’s libraries before they departed on their ill fated journey. Talking to some friends might lead to other friends, and those friends might lead to specific libraries which can be investigated, and a book found there might lead the PCs to consult an expert on the book’s subject matter to learn even more.

I’ve already got outlines for the next few games I’ll be running with all of my groups, but I’m already excited to give mystery based sessions another attempt.

As a final word, I’d like to give a nod to a nice role-playing helper the module provides.

The bulk of the adventure is meant to be played by 8 pre-generated characters detailed in the back of the book. The characters are a rag-tag group, banded together by their relationship to the more powerful characters killed off in the first few minutes of the adventure. Each character’s description is understandably short, but I was very pleased that they allocated the space in each of the 8 character descriptions to write seven paragraphs about that character’s relationships with the other seven PCs. Reading over those descriptions gave me a sense of how the characters will work as a group. And I noticed that more than a few characters had a relationship which could provide interesting role playing opportunities. Such as the half-elf who thought the paladin was standoffish, while the paladin was only distant because the half elf reminded him of his own son. A player playing the Half Elf might easily choose to forsake the highroad and lash out at the paladin, only to have the paladin’s player choose to break down crying. As a GM who often thinks about ways to better encourage my players to role play, I found this both simple, and potentially effective.

I don’t know when I’ll get around to updating this 95 page monster to Pathfinder, but I’ll be sure to post it when I do. Don’t be surprised if years pass.

Pathfinder: First Thoughts, Part 3 (Classes)

Earlier this week my assessment of the core classes presented in the Pathfinder Core Rulebook ended up running long, so I split it into two parts. The last six classes (From Monks to Wizards) are covered here. If you want to read about any of the other core classes, the previous post is just a click away.

Monk

Monks have received a lot of small buffs. Their flurry of blows now starts at -1/-1 and ends with the best attacks at 18/18, whereas in 3.5 it began at -2/-2 and ended at 15/15 for the best attacks. The AC bonus is also slightly improved, ending at +5 instead of +4. Some class abilities, such as fast movement, also come a level earlier than they did in 3.5.

Part of the improvements to monks are the large number of advanced unarmed combat feats. And while these feats are not monk exclusive, they’ve obviously been designed with monks in mind. Monks even receive a number of these feats for free as bonus feats while they level. As an example, at level 1, Monks get “Stunning Fist” as a bonus feat, which stuns the target for 1 round on a successful attack.

Not surprisingly, Monks also receive a number of bonuses to their Combat Maneuvers. Combat Maneuvers are one of the biggest improvements of pathfinder, replacing a number of more complicated systems in 3.5. Most notably, the justifiably loathed grapple rules.

Paladin

Without question, the largest improvement to the Paladin class is that the class’s character portrait no longer looks completely ridiculous. Seriously, compare the two:

I think there’s a reason Alhandra was never included in any other drawings, in any other D&D book that I’m aware of. What the fuck kind of armor is she wearing? It’s just hanging there on that piece of twine. And her hair is some kind of throwback to the 1980s. Shallow as it may be, this picture alone turned me off to paladins for a long time. Seelah really makes the class look good.

There’s actually a lot to talk about with paladins. In 3.5 they had 8 (out of 20) levels in which they received no class abilities. In Pathfinder, that number has been reduced to 0.

One of the big changes is the new class-defining ability, Mercy. A little bit like the Barbarian’s Rage Powers, Mercies are abilities which modify the Paladin’s Lay on Hands ability. They are selected from a list every few levels, and the paladin can add all of those effects (every one she has) anytime she lays on hands. Most of the mercies do things like remove fatigue & remove disease (replacing the “Remove Disease” ability which 3.5 paladins eventually got on a weekly basis.)

At the same level a 3.5 paladin received “turn undead,” Pathfinder paladins unsurprisingly receive “Channel Positive Energy” as a cleric does.

At 5th level, instead of getting a mount, the Paladin gets “Divine Bond.” This is another ability which gives players a choice between the classic 3.5 class skill, and a new ability of similar power. In this case, the choice is between a special mount, and the ability to call the upon the power of your god to empower your weapon–to greater and greater effect the more paladin levels you take.

Perhaps taking a page from Blizzard, Paladins also posses a number of “Auras” now. I won’t go into them in detail, but most of them are active simultaneously so long as the Paladin is conscious. As examples, Aura of Resolve grants +4 morale bonuses on saves to the Paladin, and anyone within 10 feet. And Aura of Justice allows the paladin to expend two uses of Smite Evil to instead grant Smite Evil to all allies within 10 ft.

At level 20, the Paladin can actually banish evil outsiders with the user of her smite evil. Which, to me, is a fantastically flavorful ability to give the class. The idea that my Paladin could knock a demon back into hell with her sword is just badass.

Ranger

Rangers received one of my favorite buffs of any of the pathfinder classes: favored terrain.

I’m sure anyone familiar with 3.5, upon hearing the name of the ability, has already figured out what it does, and realized just how much it was needed. But allow me to give the specifics.

At 3rd level, a ranger may select a type of terrain from the Favored Terrains table. The ranger gains a +2 bonus on initiative checks and Knowledge(Geography), Perception, Stealth, and Survival checks when he is in this terrain. A ranger traveling through his favored terrain normally leaves no trail and cannot be tracked (though he may leave a trail if he so chooses.)
At 8th level, and every five levels thereafter, the ranger may select an additional favored terrain. In addition, at each such interval, the skill bonus and initiative bonus in any one favored terrain (including the one just selected, if so desired) increases by +2.

Yes. Yes. Ten thousand times yes. A million times yes. This is perfect for rangers. Thank you, Paizo.

Ranger HD has been increased from 8 to 10, which I fully approve of. If Aragorn was a ranger, they deserve as much HD as a fighter gets for sure.

Rather than an animal companion, players can choose between an animal companion, or the ability to grant half their favored enemy bonus to allies within 30 feet. I do like the idea of Rangers having animal companions, but I like having options, so bravo on this one as well, Paizo.

The “Combat Style” paths available to Rangers in 3.5 (Dual Wielding, or Ranged) has been replaced by “Combat Style Feats.” Which is a small list of feats which the ranger can select from every few levels. Again, it would be possible to use this ability to do the same thing 3.5 offered, but you also have the option of doing something a little more personal for your character.

Rangers also have a cool new ability called “Quarry.” Essentially, it allows them to designate a target, and essentially swear to kill/capture/something that target. The ranger gains bonuses on tracking their Quarry, attacking their Quarry, and critting against their quarry.

At level 20, Rangers gain the ability to potentially one-shot a favored enemy once per day.

Rogue

Rogues are my favorite class, easily. I don’t get to be a player as often as I would like, but I can count the number of times I’ve played a non-rogue on my fingers. On one of my non-rogue characters, I even had to multiclass into Rogue, because the GM was having trouble designing challenges for me due to the break in pattern.

First change to the class is that it’s bumped up from D6 HD to a D8. Woo!

Rogues were already a class which got a new ability at very nearly every level, but Pathfinder has still mixed things up a bit.

The biggest change to the class are Rogue Talents. In 3.5, starting at level 10, and every 3 levels thereafter, the Rogue was able to choose from a list of special abilities which functioned a little bit like rogue-only feats.

In Pathfinder, the Special Abilities have been renamed Rogue Talents, you get your first one at level 2, and you get a new one every 2 levels after that. This is a massive boost for the class.

A few abilities which Rogues used to get as they leveled have been turned into Rogue Talents to balance out this buff. But, as with many other classes, it’s not hard to build a rogue based on the 3.5 progression model.

Sorcerer

As I mentioned with the Cleric, Spellcasters were the big problem in 3.5, with regards to class balance. After the first few levels, they simply outpaced the other classes. So for the most part, casters haven’t been buffed. Both Sorcerers and Wizards have had their HD increased to D6, and gotten a few more options for themselves. But beyond that, they are largely the same.

Sorcerers have lost the ability to summon familiars. They can, if they like, take a feat which would allow them to regain this talent.

The big change with Sorcerer’s is Bloodlines. In the 3.5 fluff for the class, it said “Some sorcerers claim that the blood of dragons courses through their veins.”

Paizo apparently thought that was a good idea, because every Sorcerer now selects a “Bloodline.” These indicate what kind of crazy creature fucked one of the sorcerer’s ancestors, thereby granting them their powers.

The bloodlines are extremely varied, and very cool. Everything from “Aberrant” to “Undead” is represented in the choices, and every one of those comes with a large variety of character options.

To discuss just one of those here, below is some information from the “Elemental” bloodline.

*Knowledge(Planes) is granted as a class spell.
*Bonus spells at odd numbered levels based on whatever type of element the sorcerer is related to.
*Bonus Feats (for scheduled bonus feat levels) include dodge, empower spell, improved initiative, lightning reflexes, and others.
*You can change elemental spells to match your chosen element. (ie. Fireball becomes Iceball)
*Bloodline Powers:
*–Elemental Ray: Starting at first level, you can release an elemental ray as a standard action. Deals 1d6 +1/2lvl damage of your element type.
*–Elemental Resistance: At 3rd level, you gain resist 10 against your energy type. At level 9, it becomes 20.
*–Elemental Blast: At 9th level, you can blast a 20ft radius with your elemental type, dealing 1d6 damage per level.
*–Elemental Movement: At level 15, you gain a type of movement based on your element. Air elementals, for example, get Fly(60)(Average)
*–Elemental Body: Immune to sneak attacks, crits, and any damage from your element type.

Now that I think about it, that’s actually a pretty huge buff compared to the 3.5 Sorcerer class. >.>

Wizards

Wizards are exactly the same, except for two small changes.

First, Wizards now get a choice. They can either have a familiar, or if they prefer, they can have a “Bonded Object,” such as a staff, talisman, or wand. If the wizard has a bonded object, then they MUST have that object in order to cast any spells. And, once per day, it can be used to cast a spell which the Wizard did not prepare.

The other small difference is school specialization. Wizards can still opt out of specializing in a school if they wish. The 3.5 bonus of specializing is retained, though the 2 sacrificed schools are no longer “banned.” They simply cost 2 spell slots to prepare.

Specialists also gain some small bonuses from specializing. Nothing on the level of a Sorcerer’s bloodlines. But, for example, an Abjurist gains 5 energy resist against an energy type chosen every morning, which increases to 10 resist at level 11, and a complete immunity at level 20. They can also create a protective shield in a 10 foot radius which lasts a number of rounds equal to their INT modifier, and they also eventually gain energy absorption 3.

And that’s it! That’s all the Pathfinder classes, and what I think of them when compared to their 3.5 counterparts. The improvements are, almost without exception, huge improvements. I cannot wait to switch over to Pathfinder for the next game I run.

I’ll be taking a small break from my Pathfinder: First Thoughts series. Soon, though, I’ll move on to the other chapters of the book.

Pathfinder: First Thoughts, Part 2 (Classes)

As promised, here are my thoughts on the alterations made to the various classes between D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder. Recurring themes will include: increased power, particularly to non caster classes; increased variability, allowing players more involvement in their own progression; and fewer boring levels.

Barbarian

The first thing I noticed is that Illiteracy has been removed. This is one change which I’m not particularly fond of. Being illiterate was an interesting bit of flavor for the barbarian which, in the end, hurt them very little if they were playing with a party. And if it was a problem for a player, then 2 skill points out of 4+Int every level is hardly the end of the world. But this is the kind of thing which can be houseruled in & out of a game easily.

“Rage Powers” are the big new thing for Barbarians in Pathfinder. They’re part of the increased versatility which is enjoyed by all of the core classes. Essentially, Rage Powers are similar to feats which can only be used while the Barbarian is in a rage. Abilities include automatically confirming critical hits, immunity to sickness, and battle cries terrifying enough to leave enemies shaken.

The amount that a Barbarian can rage has also been fiddled with. In 3.5, the number of times per day which a Barbarian could enter a rage was determined by level (1/day at 1st level, 2/day at 4th, 3/day at 6th, and so on.) The amount of time the Barbarian could rage was 3 + CON. Pathfinder has improved on this system thus:

Starting at 1st level, a barbarian can rage for a number of rounds per day equal to 4 + her Constitution modifier. At each level after 1st, she can rage for 2 additional rounds. […] A barbarian can enter rage as a free action. […] A barbarian can end her rage as a free action and is fatigued after rage for a number of rounds equal to 2 times the number of rounds spent in the rage.

So, simply put, you used to use this ability X times per day for a short amount of time. Now you have a large amount of time which you can start & stop using at will, but that time needs to last you the whole day.

Overall, the class has been improved.

Bard

Fuck you. I like Bards.

Bards, like all the classes which had either a D6 or a D4 HD in 3.5, have had their HD bumped up a notch. Which means bards now have D8 HD. To be honest, I wasn’t sure how I felt about this for awhile, fearing that the game had lost some flavor by making classes with low HP more beefy. However, when I consider the D8 HD classes which Rogues & Bards are joining with this change (such as clerics, and druids) I can’t honestly say that I feel they have any good reason to be beefier than Rogues and Bards.

So raised HD is tentatively approved.

The big bard change is the sheer number of bardic music abilities. The list took up less than 1 full page in 3.5, and now covers almost 3 pages. All of which a bard can access as he levels up.

Like all spellcasters, a Bard’s level 0 spells no longer have a daily limit, which is fun, though it really doesn’t significantly alter the power level of the class from what I’ve seen.

Bards have also received four completely new abilities. Versatile performance allows a bard to use a perform check in place of a related skill check (for example, he could use a Perform (acting) check in place of a Disguise check.) Well Versed helps resist other Bard’s music. Lore Master allows a bard to take a 10 or 20 on Knowledge checks. And finally, “Jack of All Trades” allows a bard to use any skill, even those which require training.

Cleric

As a spellcaster, Clerics were among the most overpowered classes in 3.5, eventually dwarfing other classes as levels progressed. As such, they’ve actually suffered from the noticeable nerf of no longer being proficient with heavy armor. Medium Armor and a shield is the best a cleric can do now, without taking additional feats.

One huge change for the cleric, which I absolutely love, is the removal of Turn / Rebuke undead. Those abilities have been turned into feats, and in their place, Clerics now have “Channel Energy.”

Just as before, clerics choose Positive or Negative energy. Only now, rather than being restricted to targeting that energy towards undead creatures, it comes out as a massive AoE which deals Xd6 points of energy damage/healing to a radius of 30ft. And there are a veritable truckload of feats which modify the ability so it can affect different alignments, elemental traits, or other miscellaneous things.

Additionally, cleric domains now have a much larger affect on the player. Instead of granting very limited abilities, and one aditional spell per level, a cleric’s selection of domains can now significantly alter the abilities of the character. For example, clerics of the Animal Domain can speak with animals, gain an animal companion as a druid would, and treat knowledge (nature) as a class skill. (class skills is another much improved system which I’ll talk about when I do the skills chapter.) And to top it off, they’ve retained the 3.5 “domain spell” system.

Druid

Druids were a class that I was almost entirely unfamiliar with in 3.5. None of my players ever played one, I never felt like playing one, and I never had need of an NPC druid. I will do my best to compare the two.

The Animal Companion class ability has been made into an option, with the other option being the player’s choice of one of several nature-related cleric domains. This is a theme repeated several times with other classes. Many of the defining class abilities of 3.5 have been made less important, with the player being able to select an alternative ability in its place.

The progression of Wild Shape has been modified. It now becomes available one level earlier than before, and uses-per-day increase at a more staggered rate. In the end, a Pathfinder Druid will be able to use Wild Shape more often than a 3.5 druid. And, at level 20, it becomes an at-will ability.

Other than that, the druid appears very much the same.

Fighter

Oh my goodness FIGHTERS! FIGHTERS! The forgotten child of 3.5, the class only fools would play due to how horribly underpowered they became compared to nearly every other class. It has been reborn in Pathfinder, and I can’t wait to roll one.

First off, Bonus Feat frequency has been increased significantly. When combined with the increased rate of standard feats, a fighter now receives feats at every single level.

Since bonus feats was the only thing available to fighters at all in 3.5, this change alone would be an improvement. But the wise men and women who designed Pathfinder didn’t stop there. They knew the Fighter needed more. And boy did they give fighters more:

Bravery – Every 2 levels, a fighter gains an additional +1 to saves against fear. They will look into the gullet of Cthulhu and just grit their teeth.

Armor Training – While wearing armor, the fighter reduces the armor check penalty, and increases the max dex bonus. Unlike most scrubs who wear armor, the Figher now knows how to look good doing it!

Weapon Training – Essentially this is the Favored Enemy system Rangers use, but for weapons instead. Pick a weapon, get +1 on attack and damage rolls with it. A few levels later, pick another weapon to get the bonus, and the previous weapon you picked goes up to +2 on attack and damage.

Armor Mastery – At level 19, fighters get Damage Reduction 5/-

Weapon Mastery – Pick a weapon type. All weapons of that type auto-confirm all crits, and their critical multiplier is increased by 1. Also, can no longer be disarmed.

Fighters are, by far, the most improved class in Pathfinder.

This post is really starting to get long, so I’m going to end on that high note of fighters. I *think* should be able to finish all the classes in the next part, and then finish the rest of the book in another 2 parts or so. But we’ll see…I keep writing far more than I intended.

Thanks so much for reading!

Pathfinder: First Thoughts, Part 1

For those not in the know, this is Pathfinder.

Pathfinder is a role playing much like Dungeons & Dragons. In fact, in many places, it is word-for-word exactly like the 3.5 edition of Dungeons and Dragons. For, you see, a few years ago, Wizards of the Coast (the Hasbro subsidiary which owns Dungeons and Dragons these days) decided to “improve and update” the classic role playing game, moving it from 3.5 to 4th Edition. And, to be blunt, a lot of us players think they did a shit job. But I’m not going to go into that.

Here’s where Pathfinder comes in, though. See, there is another company called Paizo which had been working closely with Wizards of the Coast on projects such as “Dungeon” and “Dragon” magazines. They decided to take advantage of D&D 3.5’s use of the Open Game License to make a game which would appeal to those of us aforementioned gamers who felt that D&D 4th Edition strayed too far from what we liked about 3.5.

To put it simply, Pathfinder is Dungeons and Dragons 3.75. Though perhaps “Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 3.5” might be somewhat more apt.

Pathfinder has been around for a few years now, but I only just picked up the Core Rulebook & Beastiary recently. (Though I did go over the rulebook when it was being beta tested back in 2008 or so.) The changes intrigued me right off of the bat, so I’ve been steadily and methodically pouring over ever page, committing the new rules to memory and thoroughly enjoying every minute of it.

To be honest I’m not quite done with the book at this point, but I’m through most of the interesting / important stuff, and I’d like to give some of my first impressions, before I start doing any playtesting. Below I’ve broken down my thoughts by chapter first, and by chapter subsection where appropriate.

Chapter 1: Getting Started

There’s not a lot to this chapter. It does include an introduction from Monte Cook (one of the people who did a lot of work on D&D 3.0/3.5) which I thought was a very nice gesture.

One thing mentioned in this chapter which I don’t recall seeing in other sources (though it may have been in Unearthed Arcana or something) is the “dice pool” method of ability score rolling. Essentially, you get a certain number of dice total, and assign a number of dice to each ability score (minimum 3). Using 24 dice, the character has no more available dice than a character using more traditional ability score rolling, but the player gets to direct the values a little better than they might get from a random roll.

For example, if you’re playing a barbarian, you might use 6 dice for Strength and Constitution (giving you a higher probability of getting high scores there) and use the minimum of 3 dice for widsom, charisma, intellect, and dexterity (since the player would deem those abilities less important to the character he wants to play.)

The best part, in my mind, is that there’s a small chance that barbarian might end up with an 18 Intellect by complete random chance, creating an interesting Role Playing opportunity.

Chapter 2: Races

This is where the differences in the game really start to shine through. In a lot of games, including D&D 3.5, choosing a race grants advantages certainly, but the impact of a race choice seems to be intentionally minimized so as not to force players of class A to select Race #4 in order to be effective. And while that’s all well and good, It’s almost always overdone.

The Pathfinder races have all been buffed significantly. Dwarfs, to use the first example provided, now receive a +2 to Constitution, a +2 to Wisdom, and a -2 to Charisma. This, I think, gives the Dwarfs a greater racial identity than the D&D 3.5 method of simply giving them +2 Con -2 Cha. They’re not just stalwart and gruff, they’re stalwart, gruff, and pragmatic.

Additionally, the choice to give an improvement to the race without forcing an additional penalty (which was done for all 7 basic races) means that players interested in optimizing their characters no longer look at Dwarfs as an option only for classes which focus on CON, and have no use for CHA.

I’d also like to give a special nod to the way Pathfinder handled Humans. They’ve always been the “jack-of-all-trades” race. Which, in D&D 3.5, meant they get no ability score bonuses or penalties. In Pathfinder, they’ve given humans a +2 to any ability score, chosen at character creation.

This theme of “buffing” is maintained all throughout pathfinder. It’s a controversial choice for a game based on a game which had already been criticized by some for leading to characters which became too powerful too quickly. But I, for one, feel that so long as the challenges scale to meet the abilities of the players (level 1 Kobolds might have 20 HP instead of 10 for example) then balanced buffs are perfectly justified.

I would also like to give props for the fantastic racial artwork. Of course, as a consumer, I would love to have more of it. But at least Pathfinder has full color artwork, as opposed to the rough sketches in the Hasbro-owned Dungeons and Dragons core books.

Chapter 3: Classes

The changes to the classes are some of the biggest in the game. It should be no surprise to anyone, particularly those who have played a game like World of Warcraft, that class balance is not a simple thing. And it’s not exactly easy to patch a game which comes in book form. So the changes to the classes in Pathfinder are meant to address a litany of balance issues which have come to light over the decade that Dungeons and Dragons 3.X reigned.

There are two things I’d like to point out right off the bat as huge improvements over 3.5.

First is the new Favored Class system. In 3.5, each race came with a predetermined “Favored Class.” To use Dwarfs as an example once again, the Dwarvish favored class was Fighter. This meant that if a Dwarf Fighter decided to multiclass, his levels of Fighter didn’t count towards his experience point penalty while multiclassing. This was part of the pointlessly complicated system which 3.5 used to punish players who wanted to level a character as more than one class (as if designing a multiclass build that doesn’t suck isn’t difficult enough.)

Pathfinder wisely avoids using punishment to discourage people from multiclassing. In Pathfinder, every time a character takes a level in their Favored Class, they get 1 bonus HP, or 1 bonus Skill Point. This pattern of using the carrot instead of the stick is repeated all throughout Pathfinder. And all I can say is Thank Vecna for that.

Oh, and the best part about the new favored class system? They dropped the race-based bullshit. Players now choose their character’s favored class at first level.

The second thing I want to mention before getting into the classes themselves is the new rate of feat acquisition. In 3.5 characters earned feats at a rate of one every three levels. And for the entire time I played 3.5, I complained that this was simply too slow. As I repeatedly put it: individual feats simply aren’t good enough for me to look forward to them for three levels.

In Pathfinder, the rate has been bumped up to one new feat every other level. And while this might not seem like much, it’s exactly what I think is needed to make feat acquisition move at a pace which doesn’t feel overly slow. A fact helped, I think, by the fact that feats have been buffed a little as well. But I’ll discuss that later.

I’ll discuss individual classes in Part 2.