Pathfinder RPG Advanced Players Guide.

Pathfinder recently announced the final playtest of their upcoming addition to the Pathfinder Role Playing Game (PFRPG): the Advanced Players Guide.

A few months back the fine folks at one of my favorite Role Playing Game distributor and publishers Paizo Publishing, released information and a playtest of the six ‘base’ classes they intended to introduce into the PFRPG world that would be included within this new supplement.

Before I go into what I think of the playtest .pdf that was released recently I should give a small review of Pathfinder and why I’m so excited about this release.

For starters Paizo has been in the RPG business for quite some time, among their claims to fame was publishing the print editions of Dragon and Dungeon magazine under license from Wizards of the Coast. These folks rarely made me unhappy with the content I found in their magazine publications, the editing was almost never a mess (unlike my own) and many of the adventures they included in the magazines created hours of fun for myself as a DM and my players at the table.

But not only did they publish a quality magazine, they also made dozens of great supplements for as it’s often now called “The Worlds oldest and most popular role playing game” (Dungeons & Dragons) these supplements, as well as modules, game aides, specialized dice, and all manner of well written and finely illustrated pieces that Paizo produced cemented them in my mind as one of the leaders of the RPG industry, even if they’re not quite as big and powerful as certain Hasbro owned companies I could mention.

After the announcement of Dungeons and Dragons 4.0 in 2007 not even a full year later Paizo made an announcement in March of 2008 that they would be releasing their own Role Playing Game called: Pathfinder the Role Playing Game, which not only would support the world of Golarion that the fine folks at Paizo had beautifully crafted, but was also promised to be completely backwards compatible with the 7 years worth of Open Game Content Third Edition works created by publishers every where during the hay days of the d20 open gaming license.

In a bold move the guys at Paizo began to release world wide fan based playtesting materials that would generate the types of feed back they would need to produce an outstanding product later in 2009.

Many gamers, including yours truly, followed this system from it’s alpha playtest, through the beta (I even shelled out the $25 for the soft cover printed edition of the playtest, which one of these days Ill have Jason Bulhman sign) and all the way up until it’s initial release in 2009, and we found ourselves gloriously heard by the folks at Paizo. The PFRPG was beyond any doubt, the best version of the worlds oldest role playing game that many of us had seen to date. With it’s simple mechanics for some of the most complicated rules created during 3rd editions tenure, to it’s beefed up classes, which made you want to continue beyond one of two levels of fighter or rogue; the PFRPG became a favorite at countless gaming tables as well as play by emails, play by posts (some supported even on the Paizo community forums as a matter of fact) and many other venues throughout the gaming community.

Now they’ve done it again.

The Pathfinder RPG Advanced Players guide has taken a page from it’s father book and run a global fan based playtest for the six “base” classes (called that to separate them from the core classes found in the PFRPG main book) as well as some new feats and other interesting teasers and tidbits that will be a fantastic edition to the final product and my own book collection when it is released.

As a fan, I admit that I’m biased, so I won’t just sit here and explain to you all the in’s and out’s of the classes and why they’re so fantastic.
What I will do is tell you to head to www.Paizo.com and open up a free account with them, when you’ve done this, I’ll also explain that you should search for the Advanced Players Guide .pdf and see for yourself why Paizo has proven to be a true Giant Golem in the industry.

Among the pure win that this book is gearing up to be made of, is the fact that the great folks at Paizo are among the only companies I’ve ever seen truly work for their fans, now maybe that is my biased talking, what with the beautiful artwork and the great writing that these guys have entranced me with, but I think that it’s far more true than many others, especially a specific Hasbro owned company who shall remain nameless.

So go on, go download the .pdf and read through it, give Paizo Publishing $10 of your money and buy yourself the .pdf of the PFRPG core rules.
If you’re a fan of 3.5 and found 4.0 lacking, or even if you didn’t you should check out any company that is so willing to put so much of their work into the hands of their audience.

Testing the Hills pt 3

Smyth and Morkd turned a bend in the corridor and discovered a door set into the left wall, the rogue began inspecting it while his companion kept a spell in his mind to deal with anything that might come for them from further up or from their previous path. He turned to his friend and snorted.

“Boggs man, can’t you search out faster? My arm is itching like crazy from the potions healing affects and I need to get it out of this cast if you want any sort of real defense.”

Smyth casually glanced back and grinned “Oh I’ve been done for a few minutes now, but this is hand carved mahogany and I just couldn’t help and appreciate the craftsmanship Nib’s carpenters have.”

Morkd looked as if he was going to throttle his friend and barreled past him into the room.
It couldn’t have been more than a ten foot by ten foot room but it was filled all along the walls with chests and barrels making it look that much smaller and that much more defensible when the rogue shut and locked the door behind them.

The half-orc mage tore the bandages off his arm and flexed it a little, the surging blue energy of healing magic still glowing on the cuts that were knitting themselves together like a thatch work roof he turned and glanced at each of the various containers, and then seeing a pile of grain sacks he crumpled into them with a sigh of relief.

“Well, we can rest up here then yeah?” He asked as he watched Smyth rig some rope and caltrops under and around the door as a makeshift defense/alarm.

Smyth admired his handiwork and then spun on his heels to look at his recuperating companion, he cocked his head and flashed a half-grin.
“Yeah, light willing, there shouldn’t be a problem keeping ourselves defended here, do you have anything in that brain of yours for alerting us to any dangers?”

The Half-orc nodded and held out his hands for a moment, he spoke out the language of the ancient texts and let the magic flow out from his body releasing in a bit of an anti-climatic shimmer.
Smyth looked at him and raised his eyebrow, Morkd just snorted and gave him a look that said ‘I’d like to see you do this.’

The rogue sat down next to his friend and threw his hands over his knees breathing out a sigh of relief and exhaustion. He looked up and realized that the store room was lit differently than the other corridors. He tapped Morkd on the elbow and pointed at the crystal.
“What is that? Some sort of light spell?”

Morkd looked up at where his friend was pointing to and studied it for a moment, then his eyes got a little wide with recollection. He jumped from the makeshift grain bed and pulled a wand out letting its arcane energies alight the tip and prepared for release.
“No, that’s a spell…But it’s not a light spell, it’s a variant on the alarm. One that keeps a creature in stasis until trespassers enter and don’t give the proper command word!”

Smyth performed a flip and was at his feet with a dagger in hand, he quickly scanned the room, but nothing stirred, no secret trap doors opened and no sounds could be heard. He turned to Morkd and cocked his head questioningly.
“Well?” He said, “Is it going to attack? What’s going on?”

Morkd lowered his wand slightly, but kept it ready, he turned around and did the same check that the rogue had just performed and came to the same conclusions. He breathed a sigh of relief and lowered the wand further, deactivating it.
“No, I don’t think they’ve prepped the creature yet, must have just put the spell up before assigning us. We’re-”

The light changed color and hummed once. “Safe…” Morkd suddenly frowned and brought his wand out again.

A trap door opened up and a creature that seemed to shimmer in and out of focus began crawling out, it’s eight legs raising it to the same height as the two adventurers and as Smyth hurled a dagger at the giant ethereal spider he grumbled. “I really hate that bogging gnome.”

Wow, oops

So it’s been several months since my last entry into this blog, and for that I apologize, tonight will see the part three of the Dungeon Co. Storyline.

going back to basics.

During an epiphany at work I stumbled across some blunders that I had made in my initial designs of the rolling mechanics, so I decided to go back and rework most of them.
I came to some conclusions after a bit of playtesting and decided to wipe the slate clean working on a new mechanic.
Something an old friend of mine had said at one point got me thinking about the percentile system.
Now, every game I’ve ever used that included it has been mindlessly conforming to consulting charts or any other number of rediculous tables and statistics for use of anything, and most of them seem to always include the mechanic of leveling up a skill after it’s been used successfully.
I hate this system, it smacks of downplaying the player characters abilities to me, if I want to play in a roleplaying game then by goodness Ill play a hero, not some schmuck who has to be thankful every single time he rolls a good check.

So currently I’m working on a new way to do the percentile mechanic, or I should say a way that dosn’t ever require that one consult a chart. I fail to see the necessity of them to be honest.
If a player rolls the score he’s looking to roll, I feel that it should be a success, not a leveled success, not a “you just barely made it” success, a good old fashioned “right on, you did it” success.

Thoughts?

Characteristics

One of the things I always enjoyed about FUDGE is that it assumed that player characters already were “the average” of player characters, they were already better than the normal person so there was no real “stat” to represent that.

I’ve decided that a route similar to this wouldn’t be a bad idea, though Im keeping the familiar Attributes because a) I like them and b) they play into what a persons skills are affected by.

To really show off the specialty of a player character, they’ll have Characteristics, special things that are selected at Character Creation or bought with XP to differentiate them from their fellows.

A good example of the Characteristic would be “Scientist” A player character who chooses this characteristic automatically raises his Intelligence Attribute level by 1, also when rolling a skill check that has to do with sciences, the player will be able to do something extra with his dice. But more on that later.

Characteristics are going to be important, but they should be something that helps a player get a feel for the type of character he or she is playing.

More examples of the Characteristic later.

The Role of the Roll of Ten

(say that 10 times fast…On second thought, it’s not that hard)

Ok so last we left off I was explaining the system I’d begun designing.
Now, as I pointed out, when a player rolls, his highest roll is limited to his Attribute level, this is to show that the power of an attribute SHOULD directly affect a players abilities with a skill, a greatly talented person can make some leaps and bounds, but the skilled person is going to be able to consistently handle the situation.

Now, when a player rolls his skill, he comes up with his numbers and adds them together, and gets his totals.
However, should a player roll a 10 (number comes up 0 on some) then that die is handled slightly differently.
The player adds the result as normal, counting his attribute limit, but then rolls again, this next roll counts NO MATTER what the die result comes up as, should it be another 10 that ten is counted, and another reroll is allowed.

Example: a player rolls and achieves the following 4,6,9,10
He adds like so 4+6+6+6 and then rolls another die (because one of the dice was a ten) and it comes up 8
so he adds the 8 to the final total regardless of attribute limit.
resulting in 4+6+6+6+8

other things will affect the outcome of the dice, mainly the characteristics which Ill get into another time

Update

Ok for those of you who might care, I’ve been sick for the last two weeks, which is why you haven’t seen any postings recently.

I should have part three of Count Fodths Dungeon done within the next few days and it shouldn’t be up any later than Saturday (I have a wedding to go to).

But a quick update on some other things that I’ve been doing.

Recently I’ve decided that along with whatever campaign setting ideas that I might be toying around with, I should come up with my own way of rolling those bones to achieve success and failure.
So I’ve started working on several dice engines.
I figured that I could talk about one of them today.

Currently the system is designed around the basic concept that natural talent and great skill should go hand in hand to limiting one another. Because let’s face it, no matter how talented you are at something, if you lack the skills you aren’t going to be as good as the person who studied whatever all their life, however in the reverse it’s also true that someone who is naturally talented may very well make leaps and bounds that a skilled person wouldn’t have because they’re not quite as “gifted” as the other.

So I came up with this system

An attribute has a rating 1-10 with the human average being somewhere around 5 and the above average being 6 with maximum human potential being around 7.

Player Characters have these statistics rated and then choose their skills, their skills are the things that they have studied over the years, things that they have enough practice at to consider actual skill and not just something they’ve picked up along the way.
All players can roll any skill with a single d10 but only those with points invested in them can roll more than this.
If a player has a skill rank in Academics, and wants to do research in a particular subject, this will be an intelligence based roll, his Intelligence score is a 6 and his Academics skill is a 4
Looking at the skill he knows he can roll 4d10
The player rolls the academics roll and scores the following 4,6,9,1
He then looks and sees that his Intelligence score is a 6, he knows that he can only count any roll as a 6 or lower so even though he rolled a nine his numbers will add like so: 4+6+6+1 = 17
The player lets the Game Master know what his total was and the Game master lets him know what he finds.

Now the basics of the skill roll might seem to be limiting, with high rolls not counting as much, but specializations and the roll of 10′s allow for high rolls to matter, but that’s something I’ll get into on another day.

Work In Progress

For those of you who aren’t aware, I’ve been currently working on trying to put an idea that I recently had into something workable in the RPG industry.

First off let me tell you, it’s not nearly as easy as one might think, while certainly there is plenty of room for all sorts of things in the gaming world, it’s easy to get lost amidst the big names, but I’ve decided that in spite of the big named companies (or maybe because of them) I’ve continued to work at the ideas.

A good guy by the name of Jamie Wallis from a small company called Greywood publishing gave me some ideas and suggestions and offered me a look at a system known as Quick Easy Role Play (QUERP) and it’s modern brother QUERP Modern.

Taking a look at these,  I wanted to offer my opinion on them.

It’s a shame that we don’t see more companies taking chances like these guys do, while certainly not the most innovative or amazingly new idea’s out there, they’ve taken a chance and gone ahead with systems and settings that are both familiar and original in their own right.  something I think that the RPG industry could take a lesson in trying a bit more often.

for those of you willing to take a look at the QUERP system I reccomend that you get on Drive Thru RPG http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com

and look up GreyWood Publishing and their materials, these guys have some interesting stuff, and for anyone wanting a quick and easy system to run a nice relaxing night of gaming, or maybe just a short jaunt through a dungeon/military operation this system is great for doing so.

With the help and encouragement of Jamie I intend to try to bring a QUERP Modern adventure together using some of the ideas that I’ve been playing with, and Ill be sure to post some of my ideas here.

Pt 2

Back in Dungeon Co. Main office.

Nib looked over the shoulder of the alchemist has he finished bonding the glyphs to the masonry and nodded his approval, smiling and gently patting the chemist on the back.
“Good, make sure that the over all look keeps anything from noticing the glyphs themselves, and let me know when you’re ready with installation, I want to have those set up for a Dungeon Crawl within the next three weeks if possible, especially if Smyth and Morkd have managed to make it through Count Fodth’s new purchase soon.”
The gnome looked at the clock suspended above and sighed “Speaking of which, I’d best check on their progress. If Perrin or anyone else needs me, I’ll be in the scryers offices checking on their progress.”

Spinning around on his heel Nib headed back towards the chambers of scrying, where the Dungeon Co. offices kept tabs on all “Dungeon Crawls” taking place.
The pool was radiating the faint aura that signified it being used, a small elderly man looked over it, resting against his cane as if it were a part of his bodies natural pose. He looked up as the gnome entered, his hood sliding back to reveal the worn face of a mage who’d been long in the world, he nodded his chin in the direction of the pool and spoke up, his voice cracking with age and lack of use.
“They’ve recently figured out the illusion in the hall of section 2 good sir, found the potions you promised them, and are looking for a place to rest and recover.”

Nib leaned over the pool, seeing them applying the potions he’d promised them, and hearing them muttering about the razor wire trap. He smiled mischievously to himself musing about their misfortune “Of course I didn’t tell you, you nit wits, I can’t be expected to give a gurantee that it was a true test if you know every single piece coming at you can I? Oh I’ll have to be sure to compensate them for it though I suppose, hm I’ll be sure to offer them some alterations to their weaponry or armor, that might make up for it…Of coruse Morkd could be bought off with a scroll or two from the library.”
The gnome shook himself from his pondering to see the two come up to a large door to the left of the new corridor.
“Heh, excellent, they reached the food stores, this should be interesting.”
The old magi shrugged a disregard for interest and looked down.
“Haven’t seen them ever really fail to notice much given the right incentive, do you think they’ll be fooled?”
Nib continued to watch with interest at the adventurers without looking up to answer.
“Oh I’m sure they’ll figure it out, we had several hunters go out and capture extras to replace the ones those two manage to slay, but it’s always funny watching them cringe and curse me for trying to kill them. Of course, if they’d just take the more simple job of hunting like I offered them last week they wouldn’t be down there now growling about me, would they? Oh here they go…”

New Skill Use: Knowledge: Dungeoneering

Some mechanics that I’ve been playing with since I started putting the Dungeon Co. idea  together, I figured I’d preview them as the ideas hit me and see what everyone else thought of them.

Knowledge Dungeoneering: With a successful skill check a person who’s trained in this particular knowledge may discern the original architect of a dungeon being tested, with further, more difficult checks made it is possible that the designs and architects particular style can give the party some insight into what they might expect to come across.

Example: Smyth the rogue makes a knowledge Dungeoneering check and scores a 20.

He knows now that the room they’re in bears a striking resemblence to the wererat lair they were in three months ago created by Mirric a halfling who’s a been known to add small secret compartments into the desgins of his rooms.