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2 years ago ::
Nov 24, 2010 - 11:29AM
#451
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- Forum Guide
- Hero Craftsman Gold Medalist
- Master Dungeon Master
Date Joined:
Jun 23, 2005
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so how do you knock a snake prone? since it is already "laying flat" 
In combat, snakes generally aren't prone. So knocking a snake prone in combat makes perfect sense.
Yes, I know you were joking. I couldn't help myself.
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2 years ago ::
Nov 24, 2010 - 11:57AM
#452
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Date Joined:
Dec 16, 2007
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after all weapons do not go dull, amour is not damaged after combat and and someone where plate armour can swim.
Needs more rust monsters.
I don't make the rules, I just think them up and write them down. - Eric Cartman
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2 years ago ::
Nov 24, 2010 - 12:32PM
#453
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Date Joined:
Mar 22, 2005
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after all weapons do not go dull, amour is not damaged after combat and and someone where plate armour can swim.
hush you, this is D&D!
the only sensible sense, in a sense, is one's sense.
my 
3rd ed SRD, character sheets, errata & free modules4th ed test drive - modules, starter rules, premade characters and character builder & character sheet, errata Free maps and portraits, dice, printable graph paper, campaign managing website, image manipulation program + token maker & zone markers"All right, I've been thinking. When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back. GET MAD! I DON'T WANT YOUR **** LEMONS! WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THESE?! DEMAND TO SEE LIFE'S MANAGER! Make life RUE the day it thought it could give CAVE JOHNSON LEMONS! DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?! I'M THE MAN WHO'S GONNA BURN YOUR HOUSE DOWN! WITH THE LEMONS! I'm gonna get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that's gonna BURN YOUR HOUSE DOWN!" -Cave Johnson, Portal 2
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2 years ago ::
Nov 24, 2010 - 2:31PM
#454
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Date Joined:
Feb 17, 2008
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They are both different games. You are asking everyone to compare a rhubarb with an orange.
- The magic system is different between the two.
- They say that the system (4e) is totally balanced.
- You can draw on thousands of OGL products for Pathfinder, while 4e only has 250 GSL products.
Of the top of my head, of course.
If you only play D&D then games are very different. If you have experience with a variety of other RPGs they're really very similar, especially from a player standpoint. Someone playing a mid-level Pathfinder sorcerer will notice very few differences in powers.
As I've said before, they're both Dungeons & Dragons. It's all a matter of taste and playing style. I like and play both equally.
The only thing similar between them is the Dungeons and Dragons logo, plus you didn't have to subscribe to DDI the first ten years of 3rd Edition to get D&D content. D&D 3e was vastly cheeper than D&D 4e is now. Plus, Pathfinder is very customizable with over 1k third party products. RPG.now sells 136 third party products for D&D 4e. So far, Mongoose Publishing has come out with 3 (count them, 3) products for 4e character generation [ www.rpgnow.com/index.php?cPath=4715 ]. The customizability (sans DDI) is catching up to 3e and Pathfinder; slowly.
When I was supervising the creation of characters with my D&D 4e group (online), I had to make some house rules up on the spot, though. I also told my players to do the best they could in generating their characters since their DM (me) doesn't do DDI. They were frustrated that I didn't have DDI, and therefore outlawed it. I was frustrated because there was too few options to work with in the main books. But if you need DDI to play D&D 4e, then something is terribly wrong. All you should need is the core 3 books.
I am running an RMFRP game, am waiting for the perfect opportunity to run a LUG Trek game, and have several other RPGs. Believe me, the difference between Pathfinder and D&D 4e is like that of a rhubarb and an orange. They are both plants, but they are utterly different families and species.
Author of Elementalism in Atlas Games' Occult Lore. 
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2 years ago ::
Nov 24, 2010 - 2:58PM
#455
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Date Joined:
Jun 28, 2005
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These discussions about re-fluffing game mechanics seem to run in circles like a dog chasing its tail.
It's important to remember that the game designers for 4e have made it clear that their goal was to balance game mechanics, first and foremost (after ease of entry).
The fluff has been described as malleable—a challenge to role-playing and creativity. In some cases (especially leader powers) the logical disconnect requires extreme creativity. The designers have said in multiple venues that they are ok with that. Fun (and rule consistency) trumps accuracy of simulation. This is their expressed design goal.
In many ways, one could argue that in previous versions of D&D, and PF today, the rules attempt to describe the fluff.
In 4e, the fluff just describes the rules. Any fluff that adheres strictly to the rules is still just as balanced from a game mechanics perspective.
As difficult as it is for some people to wrap their minds around, a full-blade is just a name for a set of statistics which could just as easily be described as a toothpick as far as the game mechanics are concerned.
There are issues outside of game mechanics that may cause trouble with suspension of disbelief. This is also true for many of the powers coming out of WotC—this is where role-playing and creativity come in.
However, consistency is important for suspension of disbelief, and if one of my players wants to describe his fullblade statistics as a toothpick, he'd need a really creative backstory that the group is willing to accept. After all, the goal is for everybody to have fun. Without consensus, he'd be just as annoying as those players whose character concept includes picking fights with the other party members.
If everyone agreed, the explicit game statistics (weapon group, damage, weight, proficiency, etc) would apply for the fullblade. Any extrapolated statistics (length, material, color, rarity, etc) would have to meet DM approval (would a 10 lb toothpick stay in a regular pocket? How easily could you retrieve such a tiny heavy thing from a sheath? Is such a deadly shiv outlawed in civilized regions?)
For fluff purposes, this would, of course, be a new item, neither a toothpick nor a fullblade. As others have pointed out, it would break consistency and therefore the suspension of disbelief to call it either of those things. As a new item, it would be up to the DM to allow.
The point is, if you wanted to create a super dense toothpick with the game statistics of the fullblade, it would fully integrate into the other components of the game provided that you did not alter the game statistics. Whether it would integrate into the world the the DM and other players are trying to create is a separate question, one that can only be answered by each group.
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2 years ago ::
Nov 24, 2010 - 3:25PM
#456
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Date Joined:
Sep 21, 2006
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The only thing similar between them is the Dungeons and Dragons logo, plus you didn't have to subscribe to DDI the first ten years of 3rd Edition to get D&D content. D&D 3e was vastly cheeper than D&D 4e is now. Plus, Pathfinder is very customizable with over 1k third party products. RPG.now sells 136 third party products for D&D 4e. So far, Mongoose Publishing has come out with 3 (count them, 3) products for 4e character generation [ www.rpgnow.com/index.php?cPath=4715 ]. The customizability (sans DDI) is catching up to 3e and Pathfinder; slowly.
When I was supervising the creation of characters with my D&D 4e group (online), I had to make some house rules up on the spot, though. I also told my players to do the best they could in generating their characters since their DM (me) doesn't do DDI. They were frustrated that I didn't have DDI, and therefore outlawed it. I was frustrated because there was too few options to work with in the main books. But if you need DDI to play D&D 4e, then something is terribly wrong. All you should need is the core 3 books.
I am running an RMFRP game, am waiting for the perfect opportunity to run a LUG Trek game, and have several other RPGs. Believe me, the difference between Pathfinder and D&D 4e is like that of a rhubarb and an orange. They are both plants, but they are utterly different families and species.
I'm a little confused by your point here.
I'm pretty sure buying 1k supplements for 3.x and then converting them to pathfinder is more expensive than buying all existing 4e materials.
And in any case, the PF public games and from what I hear many (most?) PF games in general don't allow any 3.x material: which seems a lot more restrictive to me than say LFR which uses all of the WotC 4e materials to date (with very limited exceptions).
4e doesn't require DDI, though DDi does offer some nice things which justifies the price for some people.
Dragon/Dungeon magazines are the only DDi exclusive materials, though DDi also offers some nice tools. D&D 4e is quite playable without any Dragon content (and Dungeon is DM oriented anyways). And Dragon/Dungeon material eventually finds its way into book form anyways.
And 4e books are generally better organized so that you can safely skip books if you have limited interests: for example if you only like martial human-like (human/elf/dwarf/etc.) characters you can safely skip Arcane Power, Divine Power, Psionic Power, and the tiefling and dragonborn race books. If you had no interest in DMing, you could skip the DMG (which has no PC rules like prestige classes or magic items in it), the MM (which doesn't have vital stats relevant to PC class features or summon spells in it), and just run with either PHB1 or HotFL/HotFK and be fine. If using PHB1, PHB2 is a highly recommended supplement, because there is too much power gap between having and not having one of the Expertise feats especially in paragon/epic, and it also fleshes out the race/class options in a very nice way. I'm also quite fond of PHB3 for the character option explosion that is hybrid classes.
DDi though is quite unnecessary.
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2 years ago ::
May 01, 2011 - 5:34PM
#457
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Please keep your posts polite, respectful, and on-topic.
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2 years ago ::
May 01, 2011 - 8:26PM
#458
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Now let's see who gets confused..
[sacasm]How helpful, informative and mature. This both genuinely proves al your previous points and refutes all who disagreed with you. I am thrilled you decided to contribute to the conversation in this way.[/sarcasm]
As I have said in earlier ignored posts, or ones that were not responded to, Pathfinder is a very well written setting with background that began before 3.5 ended. I look forward to the day it is adapted to the 4th edition standard.
Yes and no.
I do personally enjoy the Pathfinder default setting but I also find it to be pretty standard. On the other hand someone new to the game may well find it much more exciting than I do. That is not to say that it's poorly written or poorly described--I generally think that just the opposite is true. Paizo has done a wonderful job of describing a fantasy world very much in keeping with a whole boatload of fantasy worlds that came first.
I thought I would thread-port your post over here as well just to help all of those poor players perusing this board trying to figure out what version of D&D to play. HJS102 has obviously been trying to decide for some time now. Thank you for being so helpful and concerned. /sarcasm?
"If it's not a conjuration, how did the wizard
con·jure/ˈkänjər/Verb
1. Make (something) appear unexpectedly or seemingly from nowhere as if by magic.
it?"
-anon
"Why don't you read fire·ball / fī(-ə)r-ˌbȯl/ and see if you can find the key word con.jure /'kən-ˈju̇r/ anywhere in it."
- Maxperson
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