Excerpt: Paragon paths (merged)

[TwinBahamut]

My understanding is that most words stolen into Japanese are Chinese, followed by Ainu, then Korean, then English, then Portugese. Note also that Chinese/Ainu/Korean loan words tend not to use Katakana.

Yep. Around the time the people of Japan pretty much "borrowed" China's entire writing system, they ended up borrowing practically the entirety of the Chinese language along with it and merged it with the Japanese of the time. The result can be... interesting.

Meanwhile, you can pretty much make a clear distinction between Old English and Middle English simply by noticing the sudden and dramatic influence of French rule over England for a long time, when English finally starts showing up again in things like Chaucer's Canterbury Tales after the period of most writing from England being made in French. This all takes place after the massive scandinavian influence period (which gives us words like skirt and shirt, I believe), and before some people randomly decided to import a ridiculous amount of Latin into modern English. And then Shakespeare went off and made up enough words on his own that you can probably cite him as a significant shaper of the English language in his own right...

Heh... I am suddenly amused by the thought that a very large number of Shakespearisms like "bedroom" are the same kind of Noun-Noun combinations that people around here insult WotC for. And yes, I am pretty sure "Shakespearisms" is not the right word, but this is English and I am talking about The Bard here. I am allowed to make words up.

 

[hennebeck]

Each pack retails for $3.95 comes with 12 randomly assorted power cards:
6 at will
4 per encounter and
2 daily abilities.

Collect them all!

And 5 lands per pack.
/sarcasm

 

[VannATLC]

And 5 lands per pack.
/sarcasm

*giggle*

Don't forget Foils.

 

[Spatula]

If we're going to use tradition as a guide the kensai has existed in a similar form for 15 years (it initially appeared as a kit in Dragon 189 - The Other Orientals [January 1993]).

Kensei in D&D dates back to the 1e Oriental Adventures (1985, according to wiki).

 

[KidSnide]

I like the idea of paragon paths, and that they're putting a significant number of them in the initial PH. I think I'd prefer that they'd put a bit more power into the paragon path versus the heroic class (perhaps more abilities that could be selected from either, as opposed to only from one or the other), but my opinion may differ on play.

One of the things that I like about small paragon paths is that it seems like it should be pretty easy for GMs to write their own. Compare to 3E, where it was pretty hard to write balanced prestige classes (WotC designers seemed to routinely fail at the task).

In my experience, it doesn't take much custom crunch to turn a PC built with the basic rules into a character that really feels like it is a part of a particular game world. So, I think it's great that we can take small crunch and add to our games without throwing the whole balance out of whack.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

No, the worst part was when the Wizard character was describing how the two different kinds of magic, I just cringed ><

You think that's bad, consider the fact that the climax of the film involves the protagonist's wife rediscovering divine magic for the first time in ages, and using it to beat the dragon.

THEY HAD A CLERIC OF OBAD-HAI IN THE PARTY.

 

[Syunsuke]

Yep. Around the time the people of Japan pretty much "borrowed" China's entire writing system, they ended up borrowing practically the entirety of the Chinese language along with it and merged it with the Japanese of the time. The result can be... interesting.

We(I'm Japanese) killed Chinese language and take it's staff

...Once I asked to translate Chinese text into English by an English speaking guy who knew I'm Japanese.
I replyed "sorry, but this is Chinese."
He said "yep, so I thought you can read."
I said "you know, I'm Japanese. And I've not study Chinese."
He said "WTH? Being Japanese, why you have to study to read Chiniese?."
...Conversation went rather strange


As a native Japanese speaker, I want to ask about kawanaga, mysterious ninja's tool prevailing among English RPGs but no such word exist in Japanese. But this is WAY too off topic

 

[mhacdebhandia]

"They" was good enough for Shakespeare, so it's good enough for me.

 

[Lizard]

"They" was good enough for Shakespeare, so it's good enough for me.

They WERE good enough for Shakespeare.

 

[Ipissimus]

Cold Steel Hurricane Stormwarden Attack 20
You rush into the midst of your enemies and, like a freezing wind, flay them alive.

That's like saying...

Ultimate Rogue Power 20
You run up to someone and, like a camel, stab them in the face.

QFT.

Yeah, I don't want to live where the guy who wrote that lives. Either he or she must hang out on the dark side of Neptune or lives in the eye of an antarctic hurricane if they can compare being flayed by steel weapons to wind. And then I'd be hard pressed, even with the best British understatement, to describe such a gale as a 'freezing wind'.

"Bob! Don't go out..." TSHUCK! "Awww, shoot, Bob's gone and got himself flayed by the wind."

-groans- I can hear the jokes at my table already. "I decapitate him like a mild zephyr!" or "I execute my Leaping Panda Strike!"

EDIT: Actually, it's getting pretty bad when I'm wincing at some of this stuff. Usually I'm the anti-grammar nazi.