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I have no doubt that Paizo can look at WotC's marketing purpose behind Essentials and then avoid WotC's mistakes. My only point was that Paizo seems to be following WotC's lead with this product. It looks like it's trying to accomplish the same goals-- to make the game more accessible to new...

There's been talk about Paizo becoming an industry leader. I guess I'm just disappointed that instead of doing something new and being that leader, they're basically copying the idea behind Essentials. To illustrate, here's Vic's quote with some substitutions in orange. First WotC passes up...

I just realized I have a bit of a conflict between two goals in my above rules: Decoupling the daily refresh from the extended rest by using a per encounter recharge mechanic AND: The removal of the tactical encounter as the defined way to encounter monsters. Oops. So if I get rid of...

Disappointing. But thanks for the info. I was hoping they would make a new self contained basic RPG boxed set rather than just a low level box for 3.x.

The Wight used to be a ridiculously powerful monster with it's immunity to normal weapons and the energy drain attack. It was horrendous to come across a Wight in a dungeon at lower levels. Wights can still be pretty impressive if you use them against PCs two levels lower than them. And in...

I hope this is a totally separate thing from regular Pathfinder. I'd like it to be like BECMI was to AD&D. I already bought a red box last year that was basically just an incomplete intro to a larger game. I don't really want another one of those.

This. I played a lot of BECMI and AD&D2E but 3.x left me utterly cold (though I still played and ran it some as I had some friends who liked it). During that time I played a ton of modern/indie RPGs. Sorcerer, My Life with Master, Dogs in the Vineyard, etc.,. I never really posted on The...

Shadar-Kai are already published in the Dragon Annual. Dark Ones are neat, but I'm not convinced they should be a PC race. Drow aren't a shadow race. They're tainted fey. Derro aren't a shadow race either. They were divinely altered by their god.

Fantastic link. Thanks! I haven't codified anything yet. It's certainly an interesting idea. There will be dungeon area refreshes, but I haven't thought about rates or what currency to attach that to. I may start the campaign before I figure that out and just go with what feels right until...

I actually see the distinction between town and the dungeon to be a real natural fit for 4E and the points of light setting concept. So wilderness could be dungeon too. I usually go with the player leveling up after the session in which they get enough experience points. It's just easier...

That's an awesome idea. Consider it totally stolen. :cool: They'd also make perfectly adequate knights, fighters, slayers, etc., for the less devout members of their vampric fraternity. My favorite thing about the Vampire class and the Vrylokas is that there's a vampire option for those who...

So I've been pretty inspired by what's going on at the Save Versus Death blog and I've been thinking of integrating various house rules I've tried into a cohesive attempt to make 4E work better for a campaign dungeon exploration type game (a campaign dungeon being distinct from a monster lair in...

The way I see it, there are two approaches to RPG design: 1) Make focused rules that deal with what the game is about 2) Make rules to determine if you succeed and how well. An example of the first type would be In A Wicked Age. The characters have stats like "With love," "Indirectly," "For...

If a DM can't use a variety of interesting situations because the players have access to "cancel situation" buttons for them, then yes, they are limited to a smaller subset of situations. I played a diviner from the moment 3.0 came out until he was quite high level. The DM quickly become...

These are excellent examples. What it does is limit the DM to situations where the bag guys must have access to these resources and know that they need to be used in advance. 3.x has a lot of "automatic challenge bypass" type spells. When a player has access to these, it means a DM can only...

I'm really impressed by this. It hits all the right notes. I'm definitley going to play one of these Vampires at one point or another.

Right. So let yourself be a good DM. Heinsoo specifically said that a sufficiently good DM can compensate for this issue. So let yourself be that sufficiently good DM. What I'm talking about is situation not plot (where a script might come into play). I'm not talking about rails or scripts...

I didn't get that from what he was saying at all. Not one bit. I think you might be reading that into it. What I thought he was talking about is that after around 6th level, certain characters gain abilities that can do so much in terms of solving problems and facing challenges that the...

Yep. I've had too many instances playing BECMI and AD&D where people said "No, I was over by the dwarf!" and "I thought the monster was over by the pool" to want to go back to describing everything audibly when I want them to see it visually.

I think I agree. Gamma World also does more to expose the math behind D&D. All the various stat increases, magic items, half level bonuses, feats, class features, etc., all amount to the equivalent of +1 per level. The primary stat of 18 and secondary of 16 also points to D&D based rules...