An RPG rant....
I've been looking through the details released in the Pathfinder previews, desperately trying to make sense of everything, in an effort to be ahead of the game with regard to Dance of Dice Productions and making our products compatible.
There's been one change, between Beta and Final, that I really cannot get behind. Characters now have a CMD - cmDEFENSE, giving each individual a sort of "second armor class". Granted, all of us outside of Paizo don't know exactly how this works yet, but it's something that I don't like as it removes some of the versatility of the previous CMB mechanic. There, if I want to make a monster that's really a tough beast to wrestle, I can do so by just adding a flat bonus to grappling. And so on. Now, since the beast would similarly also be good at defending from being grappled, I have to work this into the attributes that control CMD. Sure, I could just make the flat bonus apply to both CMB and CMD - but then that's twice as much math. Also, it removes some of the inherit versatility of the mechanic. Previously, with a static difficulty, I could just adjust that (if necessary), and have the players make their checks - and this can be used for anything. Want to pull the rug out from under your opponent? CMB check. Want to swing on a chandelier and kick that guy in the face? CMB uses one roll instead of several, e.g. climb and acrobatics skill checks, or perhaps 2 acrobatics checks, plus attack roll, etc. What's the CMD of a chandelier? Well, it has a Dexterity score of 0, so.... It just isn't as smooth.
A minor gripe, but a gripe non-the-less. However, it's worth taking a sarcastic look at the most recent offering from the competition; WotC and 4E. Seriously, bad writing and emo-character-heaven lie ahead. Ladies and gentlemen, 4E gives you: the Revenant!
"Most of the time, death is the end of the story, but sometimes, it's just the beginning. A revenant arises not as an aimless corpse of a life lost but as the embodiment of a lost soul given new purpose. Such a creature walks in two worlds. Though the revenant moves among the throngs of the living, it has a phantom life-a puppet mockery of the existence its soul once knew. The revenant is an echo haunted by the memory of itself."
Oh dear.
"The revenant is completely different from every other D&D race in many ways."
"In fact, the player who plays a revenant might be the only revenant in the world"
It gets worse.
"Revenants are souls re-embodied by the Raven Queen [...] The revenant's goal might be something the soul failed to accomplish in its previous life, but it's just as likely something the goddess of fate wants done."
"There's a ton of roleplaying potential in discovering who raised the PC as a revenant and why. A revenant might know why it has been returned to the world or it might not. It might doggedly pursue that goal or avoid it. Also, the revenant doesn't have a clear memory of the previous life. That complicates things too. As you'll see in the article, every member of the race has huge story potential."
Let me fix that for you: "every member of the race has huge angst potential".
"The origin of the revenant comes from the coolness of the basic concept."
"If you want to have been a dwarf paladin in your previous life, your revenant warlock can choose options that gives him some mechanics from his previous life."
"The article [about the revenant] offers a cool starting point for inspiration, and it's certainly what I'd use in my games."
"When the Raven Queen reincarnates souls, they exist as her special creations, and they have the bodies of her choosing."
I'm taking bets that that's not a feature that's going to be exploring transgendered and homosexual themes....
"Given their rarity, few people in the world should know what they're looking at"
"She [the Raven Queen] might have agents hunting the revenant to reclaim that lost soul. She might have raised the revenant PC for another god in exchange for some favor and not a give a wit about the PC. The PC's soul might be some kind of chess piece in a game between the Raven Queen and Orcus."
It's not just me, right? This is all just leading towards a world populated by unique snowflakes, right? Fuck - when was D&D about all this emo crap?
"The story possibilities are endless."
Another fix, coming right up, Sir. "The story possibilities are endless, providing they include at least a small amount of angst at being the only chosen one with a special soul."
"It's also interesting to think about creating a character with a predestined end point. If my revenant will give up the ghost when he's killed his brother's murderer, it provides a point where I know I'll be creating a new character and introducing it to the group."
'Cos, y'know, all the best characters are played with the next 'cool concept' in the back of your mind. It's this kind of AD&D or 'Attention Deficit and Dragons' that seems to have taken root, that really pisses me off so much.
"That said, I love the story possibilities of bringing folks back from the dead, and now that we have the revenant, I can play that concept from 1st level."
Because there was no way to do this with a decent story, was there?
I'm really sick of all this dual-wielding-chosen-soul-last-of-my-kind-bonded-weapon-wearing-black-emo-crap. Yesterday, I had two players make up some new characters. Fortunately, they were both over 21, in both age and maturity, so it went well. Neither of them suffered from this. But I guess this whole 'dual-emo' fad is another side effect of D&D going for a younger audience. It fucks me off so much, because, we played D&D when we were kids, but the people in charge (TSR at the time) didn't dumb everything down for us - we actually had to learn stuff about mythology and think for ourselves. And guess what? We're all smarter for it. I'm going to end this rant now, 'cos I could go on forever....
/rant
Yeah, we backed the right horse....
There's been one change, between Beta and Final, that I really cannot get behind. Characters now have a CMD - cmDEFENSE, giving each individual a sort of "second armor class". Granted, all of us outside of Paizo don't know exactly how this works yet, but it's something that I don't like as it removes some of the versatility of the previous CMB mechanic. There, if I want to make a monster that's really a tough beast to wrestle, I can do so by just adding a flat bonus to grappling. And so on. Now, since the beast would similarly also be good at defending from being grappled, I have to work this into the attributes that control CMD. Sure, I could just make the flat bonus apply to both CMB and CMD - but then that's twice as much math. Also, it removes some of the inherit versatility of the mechanic. Previously, with a static difficulty, I could just adjust that (if necessary), and have the players make their checks - and this can be used for anything. Want to pull the rug out from under your opponent? CMB check. Want to swing on a chandelier and kick that guy in the face? CMB uses one roll instead of several, e.g. climb and acrobatics skill checks, or perhaps 2 acrobatics checks, plus attack roll, etc. What's the CMD of a chandelier? Well, it has a Dexterity score of 0, so.... It just isn't as smooth.
A minor gripe, but a gripe non-the-less. However, it's worth taking a sarcastic look at the most recent offering from the competition; WotC and 4E. Seriously, bad writing and emo-character-heaven lie ahead. Ladies and gentlemen, 4E gives you: the Revenant!
"Most of the time, death is the end of the story, but sometimes, it's just the beginning. A revenant arises not as an aimless corpse of a life lost but as the embodiment of a lost soul given new purpose. Such a creature walks in two worlds. Though the revenant moves among the throngs of the living, it has a phantom life-a puppet mockery of the existence its soul once knew. The revenant is an echo haunted by the memory of itself."
Oh dear.
"The revenant is completely different from every other D&D race in many ways."
"In fact, the player who plays a revenant might be the only revenant in the world"
It gets worse.
"Revenants are souls re-embodied by the Raven Queen [...] The revenant's goal might be something the soul failed to accomplish in its previous life, but it's just as likely something the goddess of fate wants done."
"There's a ton of roleplaying potential in discovering who raised the PC as a revenant and why. A revenant might know why it has been returned to the world or it might not. It might doggedly pursue that goal or avoid it. Also, the revenant doesn't have a clear memory of the previous life. That complicates things too. As you'll see in the article, every member of the race has huge story potential."
Let me fix that for you: "every member of the race has huge angst potential".
"The origin of the revenant comes from the coolness of the basic concept."
"If you want to have been a dwarf paladin in your previous life, your revenant warlock can choose options that gives him some mechanics from his previous life."
"The article [about the revenant] offers a cool starting point for inspiration, and it's certainly what I'd use in my games."
"When the Raven Queen reincarnates souls, they exist as her special creations, and they have the bodies of her choosing."
I'm taking bets that that's not a feature that's going to be exploring transgendered and homosexual themes....
"Given their rarity, few people in the world should know what they're looking at"
"She [the Raven Queen] might have agents hunting the revenant to reclaim that lost soul. She might have raised the revenant PC for another god in exchange for some favor and not a give a wit about the PC. The PC's soul might be some kind of chess piece in a game between the Raven Queen and Orcus."
It's not just me, right? This is all just leading towards a world populated by unique snowflakes, right? Fuck - when was D&D about all this emo crap?
"The story possibilities are endless."
Another fix, coming right up, Sir. "The story possibilities are endless, providing they include at least a small amount of angst at being the only chosen one with a special soul."
"It's also interesting to think about creating a character with a predestined end point. If my revenant will give up the ghost when he's killed his brother's murderer, it provides a point where I know I'll be creating a new character and introducing it to the group."
'Cos, y'know, all the best characters are played with the next 'cool concept' in the back of your mind. It's this kind of AD&D or 'Attention Deficit and Dragons' that seems to have taken root, that really pisses me off so much.
"That said, I love the story possibilities of bringing folks back from the dead, and now that we have the revenant, I can play that concept from 1st level."
Because there was no way to do this with a decent story, was there?
I'm really sick of all this dual-wielding-chosen-soul-last-of-my-kind-bonded-weapon-wearing-black-emo-crap. Yesterday, I had two players make up some new characters. Fortunately, they were both over 21, in both age and maturity, so it went well. Neither of them suffered from this. But I guess this whole 'dual-emo' fad is another side effect of D&D going for a younger audience. It fucks me off so much, because, we played D&D when we were kids, but the people in charge (TSR at the time) didn't dumb everything down for us - we actually had to learn stuff about mythology and think for ourselves. And guess what? We're all smarter for it. I'm going to end this rant now, 'cos I could go on forever....
/rant
Yeah, we backed the right horse....