Orcus of Necromancer Games says "You were right, I was wrong"

[Vorput]

If "thinking outside the box" will get the job done, then fine, but, if the adventure is atop a floating cloud castle several thousand feet up, then no amount of creative thinking is going to solve the issue.

Unless you had a really long rope and the ability to talk to birds...

 

[Maggan]

So here I am. Ready to eat crow. Go ahead. Give it to me

Why should I? I've been wrong about so many things in my life that I'm not about to throw rocks in a glass gazebo.

Cool that you release the adventures!

To me, that is all that needs to be said. Keep on being positive and hoping for the best, that's all I wish from you.

/M

 

[BryonD]

If "thinking outside the box" will get the job done, then fine, but, if the adventure is atop a floating cloud castle several thousand feet up, then no amount of creative thinking is going to solve the issue.

Fair enough. Certainly you can't throw just any challenge at a 1st level party, for example, and assume they can come up with a creative solution.

And the fact that I use modules only a small portion of the time may certainly play into things.

A module can easily be designed badly with no good solutions.

But, I don't consider the specific assumption that a L7+ party is going to be able to find a way to get off the ground unreasonable.

 

[jmucchiello]

The one thing that seems to be off to me, is that Necromancer and Paizo are supposed to have a partnership.

Yet these aren't Pathfinder products.

Wasn't their partnership strictly a print partnership where Necro would do 4e and Paizo would do its own thing? Necro was never interested in Pathfinder. Didn't Clark state many times that while he could always do C&C or OSRIC or BF or Pathfinder he was more interested in sticking with D&D and that meant 4e. So before his epiphany about releasing these adventures, why would have cared to examine conversion to Pathfinder?

With a 'partnership. why wouldn't Necromancer have had access to the game system before it hit and use the benefit of the Pathfinder logo to snag extra noticibility and sell through the Paizo website as well?

Again, I'm sure he could call Jason any day of the week and ask him what's new in Pathfinder. But that's not D&D and that's what Clark wants. He's only now realized he can't have it. Hopefully he doesn't take his ball and go home.

 

[Hussar]

Fair enough. Certainly you can't throw just any challenge at a 1st level party, for example, and assume they can come up with a creative solution.

And the fact that I use modules only a small portion of the time may certainly play into things.

A module can easily be designed badly with no good solutions.

But, I don't consider the specific assumption that a L7+ party is going to be able to find a way to get off the ground unreasonable.

Like I said, that assumption wouldn't work in my group.

Savage Tide campaign - wizard had fly, but, that's only good for one person. At 7th level, it might be possible if the wizard rested, to cast enough fly spells to get everyone up, but, that adventure better have a nice built in break time.

Eberron Campaign - our party had no arcane caster and barely had a cleric. Not happening.

World's Largest Dungeon campaign - no arcane caster, no cleric - only favoured soul and later a bard. No fly.

Shackled City campaign - no arcane caster, no cleric. No fly. Healing was handled by a Binder.

Scarred Lands campaign - no arcane caster, did have a cleric. So, again, if there was resting time, the cleric might have been able to get two people up per day, maybe 3.

Now, I'm not saying my group was general at all. But, if you designed an adventure for my bunch assuming flight by 7th level, you'd be pretty much wrong. 15th? Sure, I'll buy that.

 

[jaerdaph]

You advocated for 4e and continue to carry a torch for the edition. You are wrong, again, and will eventually admit it. You have been a leading cheerleader for the most damaging (hence worst) edition of D&D, bar none, a fact that will be widely admitted, I think, once 4e is no longer the “current edition.” You have aided and abetted the tulip speculation edition of D&D. You will eventually have to admit and apologize for that to have any shred of credibility as a publisher/public figure.

I'm confused. Was this before or after he shot Kennedy from the grassy knoll?

 

[Raven Crowking]

That was a grassy gnoll, jaerdaph!

 

[BryonD]

Like I said, that assumption wouldn't work in my group.

Huh. ok.

 

[Remathilis]

Again, it depends on WHAT level you're talking about.

By 15th level, yeah, I think a module designer should be allowed to think that a party has both FLY and Waterbreathing solutions readily available.

However, I don't think a 9th level party should be expected to have FLY or Waterbreathing.

Then why make them 3rd level spells?

I mean, maybe we shouldn't have adventure's with hills to climb because not all PCs have ranks in climb? Nor should we have rope-bridges and narrow surfaces because PCs don't have balance ranks or good dex scores?

You're 9th level adventurers going into a dungeon to loot it (no other reason given in the module). Come prepared to fly, swim, and climb or go home and farm pigs on flat land.

(Oh, final one to blow your gasket: the main BBEG is a vampire. Guess how you get to his crypt? If you said "Gaseous Form" you win. Luckily, there are several potions of the stuff in the crypt, but finding them isn't easy...)

 

[keterys]

If you mean are Paizo PF products selling better than 3PP 3E stuff, I'd readily wager that the answer is yes, by a long way.
If you mean non-paizo PF vs 3PP 3E, I don't know.

Heh, I meant is non-paizo PF stuff selling better than 3pp 3e - and by 3e I mean any version of 3e. I mean, I realize that Paizo's got the slam dunk for themselves... and probably for any stuff that came out right at the beginning by any company.

But if I wanted to make an adventure or class, I do wonder how many people playing 3e would refuse to use a PF version and how many people playing PF wouldn't use a 3e version. I wouldn't be surprised if it depends on what you're doing - PF classes I think saw enough changes that I could see people not using 3e versions of such, but PF adventures... well, Paizo has scads of adventures so people who are really into PF will just go to Paizo _first_ then consider others if they still need them, whereas someone 3e oriented might be more open minded initially.

Anyhow, probably too much of a tangent, but again and again I wish we had actual #s for things like how many people are buying what, playing what, etc.

This is a point that should be remembered by anyone designing an adventure. Never presume that the party will have a given resource. One of my longest running groups in the World's Largest Dungeon had no wizard or arcane caster whatsoever, and used a Favoured Soul for a cleric because the player hated the whole memorization thing.

Meant that any challenge that required something like teleport or fly was pretty much right out.

Yep, I had a dnd group that would be unable to fly at 15th or so level when I wanted them able to fight a dragon... so I needed to be able to give them ways to fly and/or corner/crash the dragon if I wanted things to work. Needing to fly at 7th or 9th is just silly, from my perspective.

If "thinking outside the box" will get the job done, then fine, but, if the adventure is atop a floating cloud castle several thousand feet up, then no amount of creative thinking is going to solve the issue.

Well, that's actually easier in some ways - hire a pegasus taxi or something similar, get a ritual that specifically raises up in one area, etc. If you need to fly frequently it's tougher.

I think there's a level 8 ritual that makes an elevator effectively though (Tenser's Lifting Disc or somesuch)