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  1. Gorgon Zee

    Pathfinder 2E Is this a fair review of PF2?

    A bit of an aide, but a few years back I was a competitive martial artist. We had a guy come to our gym who regularly completed Iron Man competitions. Fantastically fit, honestly a bit intimidating. Now clearly he wasn't a trained fighter and we could hit him pretty much at will, but the really...
  2. Gorgon Zee

    Pathfinder 2E Is this a fair review of PF2?

    So ... a commoner has d8 hit points in AD&D. 3 hit points is therefore a very reasonable number to expect to have. If a commoner with three hit points takes an arrow doing 3 hit points they drop unconscious and have about a 50-50 chance of dying if unaided. So clearly 3 hit points of hit points...
  3. Gorgon Zee

    Pathfinder 2E Is this a fair review of PF2?

    Sadly, AD&D is no different from any other edition in being vague about what hit points represent. Gygax even spent a long, Rasputin-laden section describing how the game was not going to tell you what it represented. It starts: It is quite unreasonable to assume that as a character gains...
  4. Gorgon Zee

    Pathfinder 2E Is this a fair review of PF2?

    I think it's a bit extreme to write off all of D&D's combat mechanics as "worthless". D&D has always been cagey on what hit points represent -- presenting them as a mix of luck, physical and magic -- and so it's never been definitive about telling you if an arrow hits you. D&D lets you choose...
  5. Gorgon Zee

    Pathfinder 2E Is this a fair review of PF2?

    No worries. If you personally feel that D&D hit points model reality more accurately than Fate’s conditions, enjoy your game! For me, any rule-heavy system is guaranteed to fail because its rules will always come into conflict with reality. A rules-light system, however, doesn’t have this issue...
  6. Gorgon Zee

    Pathfinder 2E Is this a fair review of PF2?

    Yup, D&D hit points are simply not possible to reconcile with plausibility. If that's a huge sticking point for you, games with wound systems like Savage Worlds, Rolemaster or Fate are probably a better option. But they do make the game fantastically more playable, so I doubt we'll see any...
  7. Gorgon Zee

    The d2010 Era

    Aldarc, I picked an independent, object source and used it to create suggested dimensions of similarities. I defined the criteria I used to select from that outside source. I invited you to do something similar and you have declined to do so. I stated that my ratings were subjective and...
  8. Gorgon Zee

    The d2010 Era

    I think that's the first time I've had the OP of a thread chide me for thinking too much about their post! Is there badge for that? yeah, it took a set of particularly long and tedious work zoom meetings to go that deep into it. I understand that everyone has different vies of what are key...
  9. Gorgon Zee

    The d2010 Era

    As a professional numerics guy, I started getting interested in the underlying question here of "how close to D&D is game X". So I approached it as a machine learning problem. First, define the dimensions of similarity. That's a hard start, but I decided to read Wikipedia's article on D&D and...
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    1599595815089.png

  11. Gorgon Zee

    The d2010 Era

    I think there may be a difference of definition here over what "conflict resolution" means. For me, it's simply the resolution of an activity where there is active opposition. TASK RESOLUTION is "I want to climb a wall" or "I want to traverse Alaska". CONFLICT RESOLUTION is "I want to render the...
  12. Gorgon Zee

    The d2010 Era

    You can always tell people who have not played much numenéra by quotes like this. They see a d20 and monte cook and, well, that’s it — no need to think further. I’ve run a fair amount of numenéra and it was BY FAR the hardest for D&D players to wrap their heads around. Honestly, even Fate was...
  13. Gorgon Zee

    No Good Choices

    And this is why, with a great Fate-based campaign based on Morning Glories in my back pocket, brimming with death, evil and dark themes, I find myself running a Savage Worlds Flash Gordon campaign every friday night, with everyone having a ton of fun!
  14. Gorgon Zee

    Do you prefer your character to be connected or unconnected to the adventure hook?

    For an adventure hook, I’d say that generally I would not expect all characters to have a tie to the plot, nor as a player would I be surprised or expect to make one happen. In a normal campaign I’ll run 20-30 adventures and having each and every one linked to character backgrounds would end up...
  15. Gorgon Zee

    Where's the American Fantasy RPG?

    I have to agree here -- if I think of American Fantasy, it's not OZ I think off (and I haven't really seen any strong support for that position; even the OP simply cites his own post as support for this) it's Harry Dresden, Sandman, and, in general, Urban Fantasy that jumps to mind. Deadlands =-...
  16. Gorgon Zee

    Pathfinder 2E Is this a fair review of PF2?

    Ranged shooters definitely are penalized for being a safe distance from the action -- I'm the cleric in our team, and I rarely need to pay attention to her. So she doesn't cost me actions for her damage, unlike the front-line fighters who need constant attention! For DPS, the auto-splash damage...
  17. Gorgon Zee

    Pathfinder 2E Is this a fair review of PF2?

    On alchemist bombers: we have one in our party (currently level 15). It definitely was underpowered before the APG, so if you want to play one, I'd definitely use the APG. Some good points about it: It's not hard to get your miss damage up to 10 around level 10-12. At that point if you throw...
  18. Gorgon Zee

    Pathfinder 2E Is this a fair review of PF2?

    Also agree here. Like Celtavia, I actually have experience here. yes, +1 modifiers are nice, but they aren't game-changing. They could be the difference between a critical and not-a-critical, but that's the same in all D&D systems. I strongly agree that "The game does not require you remember...
  19. Gorgon Zee

    D&D 5E (2014) Is Intimidate the worse skill in the game?

    It's interesting to read these comments; I play more PF2 than 5E and in that system Intimidate is a fantastic skill. You can use it in combat to inflict -1 and -2 penalties against enemies; with some feats or classes you can cause enemies to run in fear or literally die of fright facing you...
  20. Gorgon Zee

    The Triumph and Tragedy of "Free"

    I'll echo MNblockhead's thought a little bit here: Everything costs something; even if it doesn't cost money, it costs time. For a lot of people (especially right now!) they have more time than money, and so will be biased towards free products because it's worth the effort searching for the...
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