Talk to Ashiel About Anything Mark II

[Nicos]

But generally speaking, D&D 5e kicked PF's butt HARD.

Like how hard? what were the signs?

Though I have to say that In my city I have not seen any interest in pathfinder in a couple of years, all people looking for games look for 5e.

[Lemmy]

No offense but the Paizo mods are a bunch of crybabies.

I have no reason to be offended by this. I neither work at/for Paizo nor have any affiliation with them or any of their employees.

Though I have to say that In my city I have not seen any interest in pathfinder in a couple of years, all people looking for games look for 5e.

Exactly. Imagine the same thing happening... Well... Everywhere!

I'm not a fan of 5e, but it's a solid game. And this time, WotC didn't shoot itself in the foot by insulting their own audience... So instead of a crappy game with mind-blowingly horrible marketing, PF has to compete with a good product and good marketing... And while I believe PF1e is a far superior game, there's no denying that D&D 5e is much easier to get into and has much, much, MUCH bigger brand recognition (lots of people I know barely know the difference between "D&D" and "tabletop RPG").

Paizo just can't compete with that. My prediction is that they'll eventually have to downsize... I don't think PF2e is going to stop that. Apparently even Starfinder is selling more than PF1e, and I have honestly never even heard of anyone interested in playing this game.

[Rynjin]

It was not a good, year but noting to worry about. I tried to write something in paizo forum some months ago but I could't acces it, just yesterday I remembered, duh, giant in the playground.

Good to see you again man. We were all legit worried for you.

[Nicos]

Well, sorry to make you guys worried.

So what have you guys been doing?

[TOZ]

Entirely too many PbPs, but that's not a bad thing.

[Nicos]

Nice to see the mighty TOZ

[Tels]

On the Weeb front, the only series' I'm really looking forward to right now are Rising of the Shield Hero, and Mob Psycho 100 season 2. Boogiepop Phantom, Promised Neverland, and Kaguy-sama: Love is War are all supposed to be good, so I might check them out.

I'm continuing That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime and Black Clover (I'm continuing with this show out of pure stubbornness). Also Fairy Tail and SAO: Alicization.

I'm currently waiting for the next season of One Piece dubs to be released (sometime this quarter, rumor has it) before I transition over to the subs.

Slowly making my way through JoJo's Bizarre Adventures, and when I say slowly, I mean I started it a month ago and I've seen like 2 episodes.

At some point I'm going to finish watching Naruto: Shippuden and then make my way through Boruto.

I'm also working my way through finally Yu Yu Hakusho. I remember watching up through the beginning of the Demon World Tournament when I was a teenager at least twice, but never finished it. I hear there is supposed to be a new season or OVAs or something coming out soon, so I want to be all caught up for that.

I've been going fairly hard on anime this past year because I started riding an exercise bike in February of last year, and I watch anime while riding. I've lost nearly 100 pounds riding that bike, so I've spent a lot of time on it, and as such, watched a lot of anime as well.

[TOZ]

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime is just good wholesome fun. I like the comparison to Overlord, where they are the same story, just Paragon and Renegade routes.

Nice to see the mighty TOZ

Stop, you're making me blush!

[Ashiel]

So... Anyone excited for anything from the new anime season?
What?! Am I supposed to believe I'm the only weeb around?

Nah not the only one, but I've been AFK a while on a sort of spiritual retreat. Gotta crawl into the cocoon now and then.

That said, I don't really know what the lineup is like. Best anime I've seen recently was Castlevania, and I've come to the dread realization that I think I prefer western writing and direction with japanese animation styles, as (and maybe I've just been privy to too much crap anime and it's fogged my vision, but it was extraordinarily nice to see an anime that actually progressed stuff, didn't jump the rails after the 2nd episode, had characters acting like real people, and wasn't trying to check off a list of fetishes).

Oh, well... I suppose I could ask y'all what are your current gaming habits and plans? Are you staying with PF1? Switching to 5e? Tryng PF2? Something else entirely?

Personally... I think I'll stay with PF1 (and my majestic collection of house rules) and just poach some stuff from PF2. I'm not a fan of 5e, and while the last version of the PF2 playtest document gave me hope that it might... Just might... Turn out to be a decent game, it's still far more restrictive and far less fun than a customized PF1... Specially since it seems Paizo is not only keeping, but actually making worse the old "you can't do anything without a feat" problem. Most skill feats are back gate-locked options that should just be something you can so with that skill.

I too will (for now) be sticking with PF1 with a majestic collection of house rules (until I write something else) and probably won't even look at PF2 for anything except Wayne Reynolds art. I don't really like 5E because the mechanics and math are really bad (the last time I had a discussion with someone who played 5E, they kept saying I shouldn't do the math because it's a roleplaying game; but a Fighter has no presence on a battlefield at 20th level that can't be wholly replaced by a small menagerie of skeletons or an angry militia), and PF2 came out of the gate a dumpster-fire and I lost faith in Paizo as a company, designers, and as people some time ago, so I have less faith in what they're going to provide.

But of course, I should put up or shut up, so expect to see more RPG activity from me in the coming year.

can you give a little history class for the people that were not around at that time?

Welcome old friend.

Paizo just can't compete with that. My prediction is that they'll eventually have to downsize... I don't think PF2e is going to stop that. Apparently even Starfinder is selling more than PF1e, and I have honestly never even heard of anyone interested in playing this game.

I know where they should start...

I've been going fairly hard on anime this past year because I started riding an exercise bike in February of last year, and I watch anime while riding. I've lost nearly 100 pounds riding that bike, so I've spent a lot of time on it, and as such, watched a lot of anime as well.

This is genius. I should do something like this too. Maybe I can watch anime while lifting weights (I usually just watch lots of youtube stuff that the Paizo moderators would ban me for ).

Stop, you're making me blush!

You deserve it!

[Rynjin]

I was working out last year while watching Hajime no Ippo. That's a damn good workout anime.

[Ashiel]

I was working out last year while watching Hajime no Ippo. That's a damn good workout anime.

Because of this I watched most of the first episode before bed. Seems neat. I'm kind of a sap though, so I teared up at the knot tying scene.

[Rynjin]

It is an excellent series, and there's a lot of great emotional moments.

It is also MAXIMUM HYPE in a lot of the matches starting with Hayami.

[Nicos]

I don't really like 5E because the mechanics and math are really bad (the last time I had a discussion with someone who played 5E, they kept saying I shouldn't do the math because it's a roleplaying game; but a Fighter has no presence on a battlefield at 20th level that can't be wholly replaced by a small menagerie of skeletons or an angry militia)

There are several things I like about 5e but I agree that the mid-to-high level's math is off, but probably that can be solved with houserules. The PF games I enjoy are enjoy are heavily hoseruled anyways.

[Ashiel]

There are several things I like about 5e but I agree that the mid-to-high level's math is off, but probably that can be solved with houserules. The PF games I enjoy are enjoy are heavily hoseruled anyways.

In a nutshell, the problem I have with 5E is there is no epic adventure aspect, it lies about what it does, and it doesn't give me anything I can't have with what I've already got, and it doesn't provide the balance people insist it does. As much crap as Fighters get in Pathfinder, they still matter more than they do in 5E, because there's not really a darn thing that a thousand soldiers can do against a creature like a pit fiend, but the pit fiend would really like to avoid a full attack from he Fighter.

In 5E, the pit fiend has as much reason to fear the town militia as he does a high level Fighter, because of "bounded accuracy". It's a game that claims to provide this grand scale that ranges from fighting goblins to gods, but it really doesn't.

That's before you realize that mages were actually buffed. Spells like animate dead are even better in 5E because bounded accuracy promises that your minions will never lose any steam, even against godlike beings, and to add insult to injury you apply your proficiency to their damage rolls, so most of the time they will out damage the fighter when they do hit. Then you have stuff like simulacrum which now provides a 100% powered copy of a creature, and you can just chain simulacrum to have an army of one (a caster can only have 1 simulacrum in existence at once, but creates a 100% powered clone of himself, which then creates a 100% powerful clone of the original, and so on and so forth it keeps going; and while it costs some gold there's nothing that's really worth buying by comparison because of the changes to the rest of the system).

That's before you get into WotC and the 5E designers being scrubs. Mike Mearls implied that players complaining about the degeneration of game complexity to be a dog whistle for wanting to keep the women-folk out of gaming. Well screw you Mearls, I grew up GMing 3.x for an entirely female group. We didn't need it dumbed down.

[Nicos]

Well, yeah. I agreed that bounded accuracy at mid to high levels is conceptually irksome. I have never tried it, but it doesn't seem like a problem that can't be fixed with houserules. Fixing problems can't be harder than in Pathfinder.

[Ashiel]

Well, yeah. I agreed that bounded accuracy at mid to high levels is conceptually irksome. I have never tried it, but it doesn't seem like a problem that can't be fixed with houserules. Fixing problems can't be harder than in Pathfinder.

The thing that complicates it from my perspective is that the entire system is built around it. Might be able to make some hacky hotfixes but you'd probably need to rebuild it from the ground up for a lot of it.

[Lemmy]

That's before you get into WotC and the 5E designers being scrubs. Mike Mearls implied that players complaining about the degeneration of game complexity to be a dog whistle for wanting to keep the women-folk out of gaming. Well screw you Mearls, I grew up GMing 3.x for an entirely female group. We didn't need it dumbed down.

Of all the "you're just sexist!" accusations we see every day to excuse ****ty products/behavior... This has be in the top 3 dumbest ones! Mearls is an idiot.

And since I'm already here... I'll add that the reason I don't like 5e is because it offers very little character customization and feels like they just stretched levels 1~6 over 20 levels. The reduction in complexity is just the strawberry on top. I will say the game is way more balanced than 3.5. But that isn't exactly a high bar to overcome...

[Ashiel]

And since I'm already here... I'll add that the reason I don't like 5e is because it offers very little character customization and feels like they just stretched levels 1~6 over 20 levels. The reduction in complexity is just the strawberry on top. I will say the game is way more balanced than 3.5. But that isn't exactly a high bar to overcome...

Indeed. I don't really think that 3.x will ever be "balanced", even though I'm one of those crazies that will avidly (rabidly even) say it's more balanced than most people think it is (particularly Pathfinder with core-ish content), but most of the d20 cores (3.x/modern/PF/etc) tend to be leaps and bounds above other RPGs I've played in terms of flexibility and customization and is very self-contained and robust.

I think the game could be simpler without losing fidelity, but I think that involves approaching things like classes more like d20 modern or spheres did, where classes are sort of like a chassis and you build your own with your options. I'm of the mindset that whenever possible, make as many concepts with as few classes as possible.

And there is something to be said about simplifying some aspects of things. I've had very good games where players played NPC classes with some tack-on systems (such as psionic adepts and adding things like spheres or using variant multiclassing to add in "class features) which is a really neat way of making a sort of PF-lite system if you're looking for that retro-oldschool feel where you can make a character in 10 minutes and hit the ground running *. I feel like some things really throw the baby out with the bath however.

*: Incidentally, this is why I love NPC classes as a GM, because you can rather rapidly spew out decently charged characters with a calculator and not worry much with all the finicky subsystems that you do with PC classes and such. Just different combinations of NPC classes, feats, etc. Works pretty well. Especially with subsystems like variant multiclassing or spheres of power/might.

[Ashiel]

Of all the "you're just sexist!" accusations we see every day to excuse ****ty products/behavior... This has be in the top 3 dumbest ones! Mearls is an idiot.

The soft bigotry of low expectations and all that. At this point I've come to expect it. The last few years have really taught me who my friends are, and showed me that a lot of the things I used to believe in were but dust and sound. Kinda like with my situation, I live in the southern united states on the bible belt and I've been fortunate enough to have found nothing but love, acceptance, and tolerance from everyone. I've been welcomed to several churches (and if I can't make it due to work schedule, folks drop by to say hello). Got friends of all walks, all kinds of nations, all kinds of colors. It's wonderful. I mean, I confuse people now and then but it just means they want to ask questions and nothing anyone has asked or said was worse than I had already asked or said to myself over the years.

I guess what I'm saying is, what was real was an illusion. What is real is much more beautiful. Don't trust the hucksters who gotta shout out how tolerant and inclusive they are, 'cause there's always something else behind the curtain. They're just masking their hate. Rather, trust those who welcome you without making it a show, and without strings attached. And if someone can't laugh at crude jokes, stay the hell away from them, because you know their hearts are moldy even if their faces are smiling.

[Nicos]

I'll add that the reason I don't like 5e is because it offers very little character customization

PF have plenty of customization, it has lots and lots of horrible options from where to choose. I prefer fewer but more solid options.

... feels like they just stretched levels 1~6 over 20 levels.

Indeed. That's what I dislike about the game.

[Lemmy]

PF have plenty of customization, it has lots and lots of horrible options from where to choose. I prefer fewer but more solid options.

While PF would be a much better game if we removed bloat and simplified feat chains, I'd rather play a game with options that I have to scavenge to find than a game with almost no options or variety.

[Nicos]

Well, meh.

I don't Think Pf have much playing options compared to character building options.

PF is not a bad game, heck, I prefer a (houserule) PF over 5e, I'm just ranting because after the APG the game promised so much, but them the UM, UC and the ACG not to mention the minor books were decreasing and decreasing in quality (with some gems here and there, but still).

[Ashiel]

Well, meh.

I don't Think Pf have much playing options compared to character building options.

PF is not a bad game, heck, I prefer a (houserule) PF over 5e, I'm just ranting because after the APG the game promised so much, but them the UM, UC and the ACG not to mention the minor books were decreasing and decreasing in quality (with some gems here and there, but still).

Same. I actually stopped participating in the playtest forums during Ultimate Combat. Most of the things people were saying was wrong with the mechanics pretty much got shipped as is with little changes, and that was one of the places I got in a little spat with Sean K. (who I now think might have just been the company whipping boy at the time, and if so, I regret some of the spats we got into) about the fact the new UC was going to launch with a crapload of spells in it (despite it being the "martial" book).

He basically said that if his cleric should be able to "have fun too" by casting a spell and throwing down with the fighters and paladins. My response was basically "Can we expect feats that allow fighters to raise the dead and summon celestial superbeings?", and then he rage quit. After that, I realized that the playtests had nothing to do with playtesting or feedback and were just dumb marketing ploys.

The way that I handle things these days if I have a sort of "openly restricted" method for handling Pathfinder. The gist is pretty simple. The Core Rulebook plus most of the main supplements (APG, ACG, UC, UM), Psionics, Spheres of Power/Might. Anything else can be requested (including homebrew and I'll work with you to fill niches and keep the option competitive; even if it's something like "Hey I found this class on the d20pfsrd and I think it's neat but it's got problems, can we tweak it?"). Gives me a chance to veto or (more likely) revise any mechanics I think are crap before introducing them to my games (humorously this usually involves buffing a lot of things).

[Ashiel]

On a slightly different note, I've gotten more comfortable with spheres of power and you can do some pretty silly things with it if you know what you're doing. Mostly because there's a lot of ways to raise your caster level with given spheres and ways of getting lots of talents in a hurry, so I'm currently building a necromancer that doesn't really do a whole lot but can probably solo most APs by herself.

[Nicos]

I always wanted to give spheres of power a try but too lazy to learn the system. I would like to see the system in gameplay bya fellow player just to see how it works.

[Nicos]

...with Sean K. ...

Ah, the waterballoon times. So many memories.

I wonder what Sean is doing at the moment. I Like his Ad&d and 3.x forgotten realms works.

[Zilrax]

Yeah Ashiel did such a thing with necromancers. I went more balanced with my necromancer, dipping into enhancement for buffs and animated objects if there's no corpses around, Blood for a blood golem to possibly confuse clerics into wasting anti undead moves on it, and Life because I'm the only caster so we have some sort of healing option.

Though I like the fun of it. I built a literal vehicle Tank with a technician npc legally. Steampunk doom tank that a hobgoblin commander operates, much to the irritation of the technician who made it since it's not designed well for others to use but they insist on being the most effective and badass around, so the technician has to deal with it. If they survive the encounter, there might be a rematch in a few levels with an even deadlier tank with either the technician operating it or having fixed the UI to be more idiot proof.

[Ashiel]

I always wanted to give spheres of power a try but too lazy to learn the system. I would like to see the system in gameplay bya fellow player just to see how it works.

The system is actually really simple. It doesn't take very long to get used to it (it's extremely similar to picking up things like feats or rogue talents that get progressively better). As far as balance is concerned, you can do some really kooky stuff with it, often earlier than you can in core, but at the moment I'm not quite convinced it's over powered. I think in the hands of someone who knows what they're doing you can do some heavy overclocking, but the same is true for core classes.

If they really push down on the gas though, they could probably frighten a lot of GMs who aren't expecting certain things (like lots of undead minions sub-5th level) but I've honestly fallen in love with the system. Also, since it's largely like picking feats, I find it amazingly easy to drop on my NPCs (which is great because I was honestly a little bored throwing things like Toughness on everything when I was in a hurry).

It's also hyper fluffable. You get benefits for making your casting more restrictive or have peculiar drawbacks. For example, my necromancer risks becoming addicted (complete with withdraw symptoms) when she uses her magics but she can empower her magic by being closer to death (she get's +1 CL at 1/2 HP, +2 CL at 1/4 HP), so her magic is extraordinarily self destructive and so I'm encouraged to use it sparingly. Another caster might have no drawbacks or penalties. Someone else might have a completely different set of issues. Lots of drawbacks and perks mimic things like spell components, divine foci, etc.

[Rynjin]

Ah, the waterballoon times. So many memories.

I wonder what Sean is doing at the moment. I Like his Ad&d and 3.x forgotten realms works.

He's working on Numenera.

[Zilrax]

My necromancer get's surrounded by ghosts rather obviously when she starts casting and anything she enchants also becomes so. Though she can do some overclocking too in the sense that she can exhaust herself for +2 cl.

But even the archetypes are fun. There's an archetype of the Armorist that let's you turn yourself into an intelligent magic weapon. you could wield yourself telekinetically or you could hand yourself to someone else and possibly possess them or not and gradually upgrade them to use your bab and such. Or even be in that form permanently.