Magister Lajciak

I don't know where it came from, but it always made me rather sad, since I thought MotB was a stellar expansion. I guess I rationalized the allegedly poor sales by the supposedly 'unfun' Spirit Meter mechanic (which I actually liked a lot) that appeared to receive a number of complaints.

Great interviews - thanks for posting them!

The big deal is that now we are going to have a dozen or so sources of power, one for each class or 2 classes, and it will get to the point of ridiculousness. Why is it ridiculous? To me it makes sense that Psionicists tap their inner strength, while Wizards manipulate hidden energies of the universe, all the while Priests pray for their spells to powerful deities. These are all different sources of power and so they should be.

What does responsiveness mean in this context? Is it related to the fact that there is a pause between clicking somewhere and characters beginning to actually move to that location?

I am running two 3.5E campaigns at the moment and we are all really excited about them too. One group consists of 3 D&D veterans and the other has 1 veteran PnP player, 1 veteran 2nd edition player/DM, and 4 first time PnP RPG players (though one has played Baldur's gate before and read many FR novels). I am also gradually introducing Pathfinder RPG elements into the games with an eye towards possible eventual full conversion (I am undecided whether I should convert a current campaign fully or wait until I start a new one to fully implement the rules). I think 3/3.5 edition has brought more players into the game than any other (possibly apart from OD&D, which started from zero) and I keep on bringing new players to the game through this excellent edition and its variants (chiefly the Pathfinder RPG and my house rules). The alleged barriers to entry are just not there to the extent that they are made out to be by the WotC marketing department. The different resource management systems of different classes are an advantage, as players can start with playing a barbarian or a rogue or... and only know that they need to roll a d20 to determine the success of their actions, be they attacks or something else. The rest is handled by me as a DM or other players whom I assign for the first session or two to teach them which bonuses to apply to what rolls. Very quickly, they can do most things on their own. The alleged complexity putting off players just isn't a problem - I am not seeing it at least.

Whereas I agree with Mr. Sawyer on liking the explicit mention of power sources and their greater number in 4E, I think the 4th edition overall is a big step back from 3.5E not to mention the Pathfinder RPG. Just to be objective, though, I will mention what I do like about 4E from the previews (in no particular order): 1) The treatment of epic levels in 4E 2) Classification systems for: power sources, monster types and monster origins 3) The fact that every class gets something interesting every level There might be some more positive stuff, but nothing else springs to my mind immediately. I suppose the fact that they might revive many older settings would count as positive too, except that I fear that they might butcher them to fit 4E paradigms, though they might be careful - we just don't know yet. In any case, I have no doubt that 4E will be a huge commercial success, as most gamers will switch due to the sheer power of the D&D brand and others will switch because they will be unable to find groups that play other editions or games and simultaneously most new gamers that will join the game will inevitably join the newest edition. I think 5E might then mark a return to some 3.5E notions and draw back some of us, at whom 4E clearly was not targetted, but that is far away in the future.

BTW: Why all the hate against the romances? After all, nobody is forcing those who dislike them to play through them.

Things I would like to see implemented in the new expansion pack: 1) An interesting and lengthy storyline spanning many levels and with interesting companions 2) The combinational prestige classes (meaning those, like the Mystic Theurge, which combine the progressions of other classes) 3) Party formations Bonus: An opportunity to participate in the shaping of '4E FR' through the game Other assorted stuff too, of course, but the above are the priorities from my point of view.

I don't understand why all the hatred against romances. Nobody is forced to participate in them anyway, so why all the hate?

Actually, a better division of power sources is one of the things I do like about 4E. I have been ruling for a long time in my games that there are more power sources than arcane and divine and always considered nature (for example) its own power source, though I did not call them power sources of course and I did not have a 'martial' power source. Rather, psionics, nature, philosophy, arcane magic, divine magic and so on represented the varieties of supernatural that could be used to fuel various supernatural effects, each, of course, being particularly suited to different types of effects.

Things I would like to see implemented in the new expansion pack: 1) An interesting and lengthy storyline spanning many levels and with interesting companions 2) The combinational prestige classes (meaning those, like the Mystic Theurge, which combine the progressions of other classes) 3) Party formations Bonus: An opportunity to participate in the shaping of '4E FR' through the game Other assorted stuff too, of course, but the above are the priorities from my point of view.

This is great news! I am excited that there will be a new expansion pack to NWN 2 and that Obsidian is the company making it.

So, you can look at that however you want. And you could say that Erinyes are Succubi. You can probably make up whatever justification for the demonic Succubi of older editions you want. Right, but that is a design explanation, not a metastory explanation that you seemed to be asking for (as in, there is no continuity with the previous editions and no "in game reason" why they switched to devils - there is only a design reason).

I am wondering if the Storm of Zehir will deal with the events of the FR transition from 3.5E to 4E and if so, whether this thread perhaps helped inspire the direction of Storm of Zehir in this regard? That would be cool. Before posting it here, I also pitched the notion on the WotC boards and Rich Baker seemed to be open to the idea, so perhaps Storm of Zehir might go that route, but he was not responsible for computer-game stuff at WotC, so maybe not.

There is no accounting of the change in the metastory at all (and the Erinyes, I believe no longer exist in 4E). In fact, the whole 'old' metastory running over the previous editions is gone, as WotC decided to reimagine the game for the new generation of players.

arcana unearthed i think No, no... Arcana Unearthed and Unearthed Arcana are actually completely different books that are not related in any way. Arcana Unearthed is created by Monte Cook (who is also now a consultant for the Pathfinder RPG) and is a completely new game based on D&D, but different. Unearthed Arcana, by contrast, is published by WotC and is a book of options and house rules for 3.5E. Both of the books are very good, though, I must say.

Prestige classes indeed do not need to be less effective than base classes, but rather should overall be equally effective as base classes, but in a different way (e.g. through specialization, or through combination of features of other classes, or...). At the moment (in unmodified 3.5E), that is not the case as many prestige classes are clearly superior to the base classes, which makes further advancement in the relevant base classes pointless after the criteria of the prestige class are met.

I wasn't implying that you think art is more important than the rules - sorry if it came across that way. Ok, yes, of course they are. Among the goals stated for the race and class redesigns by the Paizo designers are the following that are relevant: 1) Bring the core races classes to par with the newer classes (such as the ones I mentioned in my examples) so that they are no longer sub-optimal choices mechanically and so that they can play in the same group on an equal footing 2) Ensure that core classes are worth taking for full 20 levels - as it stands the original core classes are not worth taking for full 20 levels due to prestige classes (e.g. many prestige classes grant full spellcasting progressions as well as extra abilities, which means no loss and all gain in taking them - the new core classes ensure that there is some loss for the gain) Fair enough. I do use the newer core classes though not all that frequently.

For me it is the opposite - I am excited by the project, but less so by the art. Luckily, it is the rules that are much more important for me than the art. Power is relative, so the classes, are overpowerd compared to what - each other? The new core classes and races are approximately at par with some of the later classes and races (e.g. archivist or warforged) using higher level adventures does the trick.

I am distinctly unimpressed by what I have seen of 4E thus far and unless some new info I haven't seen yet makes me change my mind, I won't be switching nor will I buy the books to poach stuff for my campaign (buying them would be like rewarding the designers for ignoring my concerns and swithing the target audience to other demographics). The nature and scale of the changes in 4E seem to be such (from what I have seen up to now), that they go beyond my threshold for D&D feel... As such, I will either remain with 3.5E or convert to the Pathfinder RPG, or most likely play some houseruled version of D&D (which is what I am playing now) based primarily on the Pathfinder RPG.

I've always believed that Athas is Abeir-Toril in the far future, anyway. So really, by sixth edition the Forgotten Realms will actually be 2nd Edition Dark Sun. Just be patient. Hahaha, that was a good one!

FR D&D games are fine too. You guys did brilliantly with MotB. You are completely correct. For example, I love the Dark Sun setting, but it is not currently supported by WotC, so computer games based on that IP are not really an option. Moreover, should WotC revive the setting, it would likely do to it what it did to the Forgotten Realms - 'reimagine it for the next generation'... with the consequence that it would likely lose its appeal to many of its fans. Glad to hear that it's coming along so well! Middleware is fine too - I don't see the problem with it - at least it speeds up design work and we get our hands on the games sooner than we would otherwise. BTW: I would love it if Obsidian tried its hand at a Pathfinder CRPG! (http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?showtopic=49650)

I don't want to spam this thread, but I keep on finding new big names attaching themselves to the Pathfinder project. This time, I found out that R.A. Salvator, the author of the best-selling books set in the Forgotten Realms and featuring Drizzt, may also contribute to Pathfinder, but that is as yet unclear: http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizo...80ic&page=4

This just keeps getting better and better. As my previous post mentioned, Monte Cook is now working on the Pathfinder RPG, but there are other big names working on the setting apart from the Paizo crew itself. I am sure most here will be familiar with Ed Greenwood, the creator of Forgotten Realms... well he is working on Pathfinder and surprisingly so is Keith Baker the creator of Eberron! So are some other big names formerly working on D&D, such as Sean Reynolds (3E FR, among his other RPG products). The details are in this thread (but you have to look for them): http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizo...80ic&page=3 I now think that this (the Pathfinder RPG) has the potential to turn into something pretty big.

I assume you are a DM. If so, the Monster Manual is really useful and so is the Player's Handbook. It is possible to run a game without them based on the SRD alone, but they really, really speed up play. The DMG, on the other hand, is an utterly useless book. It contains only three useful things, as far as I am concerned: 1) Condition Summary 2) Prestige Classes 3) Magic Items Condition Summary can be printed/copied ahead of time - it is only short. Presitige Classes are only needed when characters advance, which generally occurs in-between sessions and thus the SRD should suffice for that and ditto for Magic Items (and I often make up my own types of magic items anyway). I prefer Europe-based settings myself, but for Asian-themed settings it is a good investment.