The official Bastion Press Q&A thread

[Teneb]

This is a straight-up conversation, as opposed to a rewrite. It brings A&H in line with 3.5. I'm hopeful that after the holidays the logjam will break up a little and you'll see a bit more from us. Lord knows I've got stuff on my plate for Oathbound that I'd like to do, but a recent job promotion is taking a lot of my time lately. It's all about the money and power baby

As others have mentioned, we're not dead.....just napping.

 

[DMH]

Then where did the extra 11 pages come from? Why are the no longer optional feats still optional?

I really wish I knew you were going to do this, Shannon- I have some info from Steve (the author) that should have been incorporated. Like the xp costs only apply to magic items created with the feats, the stones and tablet start with full charges, the costs of making an erlmantle, the list of fictional plants, the fact that aqua mellorium is not the most difficult of the aquas to create for a reason (making it is an important step to new alchemists) and the cost of a tablet is subtracted from a stone it is made into.

Create Erlcana. Here's a stat line to make an ermantle as an item (one step
above a Cocoon Swathe of Greengifting): Caster Level 16; Prerequisites:
Profession: Herbalist; Create Erlcana; DC 35; Market Price N/A (though they
might be sold by unscrupulous folk for 100K gp or more); Cost to Create:
55,000 gp.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Newsflash:

Alchemy & Herbalists 3.5 will be released in pdf this week...

Are the hit dice included with the classes this time? That was one of the more amusing missing typos I'd seen in a product at the time. Wasn't too hard to figure out approximate hit dice but haivng it in the book would be solid.

 

[DMH]

Yes, the HD are included.

 

[Teneb]

I really wish I knew you were going to do this, Shannon-

Bummer. Unfortunately, my part in this has been done for some time now. As for the extra 11 pages, I'm not entirely sure where they may have come from. I did a little light editing for clarity in a few places, but I'd be shocked if it amounted to 11 pages. I haven't actually looked at the PDF yet; maybe that'll shed some light on the subject.

 

[Psion]

A little bumpage here...

I know I asked and received an answer for this in this thread before, but it seems to have been washed away:

What is or where can I find the salient details of the Focus of the Mind prestige race, which seems to have been omitted from Wildwood?

 

[Steverooo]

Isn't that in one of the Previews, on Bastion Press' site?

 

[Teneb]

Yep, it was. Linky: http://www.oathbound.net/modules/mydownloads/visit.php?cid=16&lid=27

 

[Steverooo]

Improvements Needed:

Things that need to change with Oathbound (IMHO, of course!):

First of all, bad decisions/game design. Yes! There are some! As one example, any Prestige Class/Race which invalidates a large portion of a PC is bad, IMHO. The Stalker PrC's ability to disappear while in the city seems to do this... Regardless of the number of ranks in Spot, you can never see a Stalker? That sits very poorly, with me (especially since my PC has the skill maxed out, and feels emasculated enough)! You may disagree, but I call that bad game design! (Yeah, in the good ol', skill-less, 1e days, Invisibility only gave you a -4 to hit... none of this "+20 to Hide, and you must beat the DC by 20 or more to know exactly where the Invisible creature is located" BS!) Blindfighting reduced it to -2, as well... Paladins not being able to use their Detect Evil class ability without losing INT points is another example.

The Setting Disagrees with Itself: This is just sloppiness, boys! In the Oathbound hardback, Israfel punishes anyone causing a Sinking with instant death. In Wrack & Ruin, IIRC, she is "secretly pleased" with it! In the adventure in the same book, I believe, we see Colopitiron requiring a promise from the PCs to return his sword to him, and then they feel all tingly, and this is supposed to be an activation of a Binding Oath spell (whatever it's called), and yet... when we go and look that up, it requires a WRITTEN contract! Also, in that same book, I believe, the PCs are exploring the maze when they come upon a light, and encounter a time anomoly to Annoxus' time, before he slew Colopitiron... but wait! Isn't that supposed to be a setting secret?!? How are the PCs supposed to know what to do, here?!? There are many more similar situations spread out through the various books (and I have barely skimmed most of them)! Israfel, etc., being able to Teleport, while PCs risk INT Damage to do the same is yet another example.

Sodomy: Without getting into Grandma-unfriendly territory, here, I have often wondered who on the BP staff is the flaming gay (and not just when looking at Oathbound products, either - A&H gave me the same impression). While I'm sure that there is 1/2 of 1% of gamers that this actually attracts, I'm also sure that there is 50% or so that it turns OFF. Tone it down, at the very least!

Prestige Classes/Races: My Least-Favorite part of 3.xe! I want my PC classes to be pretigious,!!! Why do I have to give up a level of my class to gain prestige, and become weaker than any other PC for refusing to?!? This has long been a problem, for me. I thought the original "Buy The Numbers" prestige "races" were a kind of solution to that problem... but no more! Oh well! I guess that's going to remain my problem, as long as I play 3.xe!

The Whole "No One Can Know Their Alignment!" Thing: Boundy... and his Flock... C'mon, just admit that they have an Evil alignment, and get on with it. Unbelievable (to me) that the GM's book (OotF) doesn't even tell the GM! How is he supposed to know how to RP the eight?!?

I'm sure there are other problems, but those are the major ones that I can think of, right now... It would be nice if some, most, or all of them could be fixed in a 3.5e update, if there ever is one!

Good luck with the product line, and I hope to see Wi;dwood in print, soon (I have all the rest)!