Recent content by pauljathome

Pretty much exactly this. Usually used in the context of a military retreat from an enemy in a war. Often (but not always) the earth being scorched actually belongs to the homeland of the side retreating.

In general, Pathfinder is significantly more balanced than 3.5 and rewards system mastery less. Many (not all) of the most egregious problems in 3.5 have been fixed. Paizo has consciously tried to avoid power creep. All of that said, power creep most certainly HAS occurred. If you want to...

I actually found this part of the article the most interesting. And potentially disturbing. Building a product plan really shouldn't be the most challenging and exciting part of the business for the customer advocate. Its also interesting to see the misuse of Agile :-). Nice to see one buzz...

I'm not sure how true that is, actually. If you look at discussions of 13th Age or Hillfolk (2 games that have been announced and playtested but aren't quite available yet) the overall feeling is overwhelmingly positive. And my memory of the Pathfinder open playtests was that most people were...

Some people had lists of things that were necessary before they'd even consider switching back. I don't remember anybody saying that their lists were sufficient for them to switch back. And, of course, those lists were all different and frequently contradictory. 6 years ago the D&D brand was...

I haven't noticed anybody else mention this kickstarter. I have no association with these guys, I just like maps and hope this succeeds :-) http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1806414228/landescapes-rpg-and-miniature-fantasy-game-poster

Uh, no. Copyright exists for a reason. Authors deserve to get paid for their work. Or do you think that Rowling shouldn't be paid for the words that she put down on paper in a certain order? Now, there are some massive issues with the way that copyright law currently works. But that doesn't...

I haven't a clue what the answer to your question is. I suggest that you take it to the paizo forum specifically designed to answer questions of this sort. You're much more likely to get a quick answer there http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathfinderSociety/general

You should absolutely go with your instincts and change things up where you think appropriate. Adventure Paths work much better as a structure on which to build than as a straight jacket. Feel free to change anything and everything. Never having played that particular AP I have no specific...

An unfortunate fact of life is that companies (not just Hasbro) very often promise that they will support things for ever and ever (especially when they announce new products competing with their old products) but later cut support anyway. Its not even necessarily dishonesty. At the time the...

I don't think that "spoiled" is the right word. I've played lots of different versions of D&D. Right now my favourite version is Pathfinder. One of the (many) things that I LIKE about Pathfinder is the fact that wizards get free use cantrips that are actually of minor use in combat. At low...

One of my favourite changes in Pathfinder is the addition of channel energy to the clerics standard bag of tricks (for those who don't know what this means, clerics get a fair bit of healing from a different pool than their spells). This lets clerics be significantly more fun. Their primary...

In a thread asking about whether people are happy or unhappy with the playtesting progress it seems rather silly to insult people who have a different opinion of the process than you do. I agree with the criticism that far too much is changing every iteration and that there is no obvious...

At least this silly ability is only in the playtest. WOTC pretty routinely made insansely bad powers. And often argued at length that they were, in fact, quite balanced. The archetypical example from 4th ed is the Ranger Twin Strike ability vs whatever the heck that stupid one that added +2 was...

I'd suggest starting with one of the Paizo Adventure Paths. Pick an adventure path that takes your fancy. All of them have hooks to bring in characters. If that doesn't take your fancy, I highly recommend the Paizo book Players Guide to Varisia...