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How well does Arcana Evolved hold up? I remember thinking it was really neat, but never really had any play time with it, past making a character.
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May 19, 2016 05:29
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LeSquide posted:How well does Arcana Evolved hold up? I remember thinking it was really neat, but never really had any play time with it, past making a character. There are other balance issues, too, like how some other classes are worthless. I ran a campaign for a few years. It fell apart big, and soured me on d20 as a whole. I can't recommend it except as a collection of neat concepts that take D&D and give it a half twist.
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May 19, 2016 05:49
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dwarf74 posted:It is awesome in a lot of ways, but if you thought wizards were strong in 3.x, hoo boy, wait until Monte makes his dream wizard. Imagine a 3.x wizard, but with a 5e wizard's flexibility. Yeah, it's this. Arcana Evolved is Monte Cook as gently caress in that it gives spellcasters a whole host of truly ridiculous abilities on top of, y'know, having spells. Meanwhile the martial classes are basically snooze city, and also the Monk analogue is so terrible that even diehard AE fans won't try and pretend it's actually good. It's a game whose best parts are essentially the elevator pitches for things which are in turn dragged down by Monte being unable to move on from designing everything through the lens of D&D.
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May 19, 2016 05:58
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Kai Tave posted:Yeah, it's this. Arcana Evolved is Monte Cook as gently caress in that it gives spellcasters a whole host of truly ridiculous abilities on top of, y'know, having spells. Meanwhile the martial classes are basically snooze city, and also the Monk analogue is so terrible that even diehard AE fans won't try and pretend it's actually good. It's a game whose best parts are essentially the elevator pitches for things which are in turn dragged down by Monte being unable to move on from designing everything through the lens of D&D. I remembered liking ritual warriors at the time, too, but their special mojo abilities are bad situational poo poo, too. It's sad because the ideas are awesome. I convinced myself it was great for a good long time because of that. That was until I took a long, hard look at the lengths I had to go to to challenge the party.
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May 19, 2016 06:24
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Yep, in college I was part of an abortive attempt to get an Arcana Evolved campaign off the ground and one of my friends wanted to make a Witch, and while I wasn't as intimately familiar with the foibles of 3.X's system at the time as I am now even I could tell then that she was getting a bum deal compared to someone going full Magister.
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May 19, 2016 06:31
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If I were to use Cook's books, I would go for Experimental Might as far as it implements a rudimentary healing surge system, tries to alleviate the healbot-ness of Clerics (/Druids/Paladins), restructures the spell system into a 1 to 20 schema so that you don't have this 1 to 9 range that isn't related to or intuitive against anything, and recognizes and attempts to fix some of the sharper edges of the d20 spell system like save-or-dies, pixel-perfect time tracking of buffs, and Wizard Lock/Knock. But yeah nothing's ever going to wash out the fact that Cook really likes spellcasters and spellcasters in his games are always going to be really powerful, and the Martial Ritual mechanics of Arcana Evolved is nowhere near as daring as Tome of Battle.
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May 19, 2016 09:32
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Covok posted:I never played it or read it, but Cartoon Action Hour(?) is all about 80s shows like He-Man. I've read the first two editions and they're pretty strong (though it's the kind of build-a-power system that you can cheese if you try.) Worked on a supplement for the first but I don't know if it's still available.
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May 19, 2016 15:27
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Let's go deeper into how insane the Arcana Evolved is for just a moment. In the run-up to Arcana Unearthed's release (this being the 3.0 version of these rules), Monte talked a good game about how well-balanced everything is, and how you could seamlessly use these classes with D&D. And how much better-balanced the spells and magic were, too! So there might have been few/no save-or-die spells, but there are plenty of save-or-suck spells. Killing something outright is unnecessary when you can turn them into glass and then shatter them, or stunlock them, etc. Let's talk about why. (1) Flexible spellcasting. You have X number of spells of every level prepared, and can cast Y spells of each level. Really dig your (2) Flexible spellcasting. Oh, you're out of spells of the level you want to cast? Why not trade 3 of a lower level slot for one? Or - better yet - trade in a higher-level slot for two castings of the level you want! (3) Save DCs. You know how in 3.5, optimal spellcasting was a race to unbeatably high DCs? It's worse here. You have new ways to improve your Intelligence, and new ways to make your spells harder to save against. With the right feats, you can even pierce spell resistance and/or dispel magical protections! Oh, and if you take a certain feat, you can force your enemy to use their Intelligence modifier instead of Con/Dex/Wis to save vs. your spell! (4) Feats? Yeah, feats. Was the basic spellcasting system not giving enough oomph to your wizard? Well, my friend, just take the right feats and you can cheaply add an unsaveable Stun rider onto your acid better-than-fireball spells! So here's the skinny. Spells are sorted into 3 tiers. Simple spells are pretty bad. Complex spells are good. Exotic spells are really good. Magisters get all Complex spells, Greenbonds get mostly Simple spells but all the way to Exotic in druidish stuff, and other casters mostly get stuck with Simple spells. There's a number of feats which give a spellcaster access to (a) higher-tier spells with certain keywords, and (b) a template they can add onto other spells they cast. For a Magister, who already gets the Complex spells, these are a really good deal. So let's talk about Templates. Acid - you can add this template to any spell that can inflict damage. If you're doing it against non-living stuff, you get to ignore its Hardness, which means you melt stuff real good. If you cast it against dudes, and the spell was already an Acid spell (like, say, the really good Acid super-fireball spell you get by taking the feat in the first place) you automatically stun your target 1 round for every 20 damage dealt. No save on that stun part. Eldritch - You can add this spell to anything. Add +1 to the save DC, or +2 if you use 2 spell slots to cast it. You get this basically for free by taking a feat you almost have to take. Electricity - Put it on a spell that does damage. Your target now needs to make a second save at the same DC or be stunned for a round. 2 if it's an Electric spell because of course. Giant - Yes, there's racial descriptors. Go ahead and increase your AoE by 50%, why not? Psionic - Just ignore those material, somatic, and verbal components, it's okay Runic - See the thing about using the target's Int modifier? Yeah. Downside? It's a full-round action. This is mixed in with really bad ones, because Monte knows about trap options.
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May 19, 2016 15:44
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One worst thing about fantasy is that nerds can never accept a trained warrior capable of killing / incapacitating anyone with a single strike. A thing that's literally happened for as long as humans have fought is somehow "less believable" than the mystical magical weird wizard show.
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May 19, 2016 16:08
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moths posted:One worst thing about fantasy is that nerds can never accept a trained warrior capable of killing / incapacitating anyone with a single strike. It's funny because every single time I've started any type of martial arts aimed at actually killing your opponent, the instructors always tell you that it's not like the movies and your fight is likely to end in a couple seconds if that. There's a lot of emphasis placed on the opening move from the very beginning. Even sport fencing places a lot of emphasis on this move. Meanwhile wizards have the time necessary to do the mental calculations and wizard-engineering needed to construct a carefully placed atomic bomb without killing their cohorts. 
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May 19, 2016 16:13
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Chill la Chill posted:It's funny because every single time I've started any type of martial arts aimed at actually killing your opponent, the instructors always tell you that it's not like the movies and your fight is likely to end in a couple seconds if that. There's a lot of emphasis placed on the opening move from the very beginning. Even sport fencing places a lot of emphasis on this move. And this is why GURPS has combat last in one second rounds and your average sword can totally at least incapacitate an average guy in one hit if used properly. Which is funny, because unless your wizard is really good, in GURPS most fights will be over before they even get a spell off (since it usually takes between 2-4 seconds to actually make magic happen if you use the default spell rules)..
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May 19, 2016 16:20
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LeSquide posted:How well does Arcana Evolved hold up? I remember thinking it was really neat, but never really had any play time with it, past making a character. Friends don't let friends play Oathbound  Yeah I ran two campaigns of it. Magisters and Greenbonds (the two 'Full Caster' classes) will wreck poo poo, but the fighter types (Unfettered, Warmain, Champion, Ritual Warrior, Totem Warrior) are all so much cooler than your typical 3-3.5 fighter. On to dwarf74's comments. Most of the classes have some kind of spell casting so pretty much all the characters will share in the spell system largesse. Magisters are the big dogs and they have access to some of the most ridiculous spells ever... "Some lunatic with the last name of Cook' posted:
Yeah... That spell takes a feat to cast though as it's an Exotic and doesn't have any template to feed off to reduce that feat tax. Still in the game I was in, I enjoyed the hell out of my Quickling Warmain and never felt overshadowed or like I wasn't contributing. Especially when we went up against Harrid (magic eating Vulture-men).
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May 19, 2016 17:27
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I think the "this is not like in the movies" comment kind of seals why armed combat has always been the weaker choice, because cinematic fights demand that they take FOREVER! Playing the old PlayStation game Bushido Blade (for as fun as it can be) sort of brings home why close-combat is not usually depicted realistically, because it is like "oh...that was all? Huh." In fact from Googin' it appears Bushido Blade 2 may have toned down the instant-kill likelihood for that very reason. Granted none of this explains why wizards are then always the badassiest badasses of all, given how the "low-power" magic is as common in D&D source material as the "world-destroying" kind.
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May 19, 2016 18:14
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I forgot to add that the max level is 25 in AE. 25 rounds of 10d6 damage (it doesn't state it in the spell block, but you get to choose the element or energy type of the damage) over a 4800m2 area, 760 meters tall.
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May 19, 2016 19:16
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Maxwell Lord posted:I've read the first two editions and they're pretty strong (though it's the kind of build-a-power system that you can cheese if you try.) Worked on a supplement for the first but I don't know if it's still available. A third one came out a little while ago. Might have fixed the problems with the build-a-power system.
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May 19, 2016 20:25
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The Gencon panel news has made Washington Post
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May 20, 2016 08:50
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dwarf74 posted:AE Spellcasters Fun fact: in 3.5 Quicken Spell requires a spell slot four levels above the level of the base spell. In AE, it takes two spell slots of the same level or a single slot one level higher, since you can do that trade whenever. In return, there's a 3/day limitation on how many quickened spells you can cast, but I'd still rather have the AE version. Meanwhile, Power Attack doesn't get a better multiplier when using a two-handed weapon. Monte Cook buffed Quicken Spell and nerfed Power Attack. Suck it,
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May 20, 2016 10:01
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https://twitter.com/KasimirUrbanski/status/730780490697998336
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May 20, 2016 10:04
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Why is it so hard to find the bloody list of who is going to be at this thing? I want to see what they've done so I can rub it in the face of idiots who refer to them as "hacks".
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May 20, 2016 10:50
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paradoxGentleman posted:Why is it so hard to find the bloody list of who is going to be at this thing? I want to see what they've done so I can rub it in the face of idiots who refer to them as "hacks". http://www.gencon.com/experience/industryinsiderfeaturedpresenters That might redirect you to the main page. Go to the top menu bar, under "Experience", then expand the "Industry Insider Program" menu item, then click on "Industry Insider Featured Presenters"  Emily Care Boss Brian Cortijo Katherine Cross Crystal Frasier Amanda Hamon Kunz Kenneth Hite Kathryn Hymes Renee Knipe Anna Kreider Christopher Lawrence Ryan Miller Joshua Morris Harrison Pink Brian Poel Marie Poole Jessica Price Donna Prior Alex Roberts Wes Schneider Hakan Seyalioglu Zachary Strebeck Elisa Teague Mark Truman Monica Valentinelli Eddy Webb
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May 20, 2016 11:00
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It's poo poo like this that really makes me hate the world. People are seriously bent out of shape in 2016 that women, which make up half the world's population, make up half the number of speakers at Gencon? Simple math would suggest that would be the case every year.
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May 20, 2016 11:20
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"Well if they're supposed to be so diverse, then why isn't there a single OSR designer on there?" is also an incredible talking point that's been taken up.
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May 20, 2016 11:25
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gradenko_2000 posted:"Well if they're supposed to be so diverse, then why isn't there a single OSR designer on there?" is also an incredible talking point that's been taken up. Isn't "OSR designer" a bit of an oxymoron since it's all about copy-pasting forty-year-old rulesets?
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May 20, 2016 11:26
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gradenko_2000 posted:http://www.gencon.com/experience/industryinsiderfeaturedpresenters I apologize for my incompetence.
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May 20, 2016 11:31
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I like how as morbid curiosity/poop-touching waned on his home turf, Pundit seems to have steadily expanded his use of social media to more directly poo poo the floor. What a coincidence!
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May 20, 2016 11:38
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Fuego Fish posted:Isn't "OSR designer" a bit of an oxymoron since it's all about copy-pasting forty-year-old rulesets? Yes, I agree with you. paradoxGentleman posted:I apologize for my incompetence. Nah, don't be, that website is not intuitive like, at all.
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May 20, 2016 11:49
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paradoxGentleman posted:I apologize for my incompetence. Nah, it's just a really unclear web page. (e: f, b) Fuego Fish posted:Isn't "OSR designer" a bit of an oxymoron since it's all about copy-pasting forty-year-old rulesets? To be fair to the OSR it follows Sturgeon's Law in about equal proportions to everything else under the sun. The real problem with the OSR is they've become a welcoming home for awful people, which is increasingly making their presence at any given event a net negative. Like, do you want to increase the chance that Pundit will show up to your con?
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May 20, 2016 11:55
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potatocubed posted:To be fair to the OSR it follows Sturgeon's Law in about equal proportions to everything else under the sun. All you'd have to do is put up a "No Smoking" sign and he'd stay away, though. (Also thanks to this thread I've had my best week of sustained sales to date, thank you for reading my books  )
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May 20, 2016 12:09
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gradenko_2000 posted:"Well if they're supposed to be so diverse, then why isn't there a single OSR designer on there?" is also an incredible talking point that's been taken up. Because Paizo does "pressing Ctrl+C on a copy of the Player's Handbook" better.
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May 20, 2016 12:10
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Women can't understand the elegance and comedic nuance of Lamentations of the Flame Princess.
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May 20, 2016 12:23
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I am outraged that Led Zeppelin tribute bands aren't represented at this composers symposium, and also at my increasingly apparent irrelevance.
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May 20, 2016 12:58
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jivjov posted:It's poo poo like this that really makes me hate the world.
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May 20, 2016 13:41
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I will never for the life of me understand why Tarnowski and the others like him dedicates themselves so much to hate. Not even specifically against women or storygames or whatever, but just hatred in general.
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May 20, 2016 14:06
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Evil Mastermind posted:I will never for the life of me understand why Tarnowski and the others like him dedicates themselves so much to hate. Not even specifically against women or storygames or whatever, but just hatred in general. Easier to hate then to self examine EDIT: Though it doesn't call his name out, that article also all but directly quotes Mearls and his conversation, so well done there.
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May 20, 2016 14:33
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potatocubed posted:The real problem with the OSR is they've become a welcoming home for awful people, which is increasingly making their presence at any given event a net negative. Like, do you want to increase the chance that Pundit will show up to your con? This would require that 1) he'd ever get invited to anything, and 2) he'd actually leave the relative safety and obscurity of Uruguay. Evil Mastermind posted:I will never for the life of me understand why Tarnowski and the others like him dedicates themselves so much to hate. Not even specifically against women or storygames or whatever, but just hatred in general. Because people like him have nothing but hate. They don't have any real talent or skills to make them a big success like other designers, so they wrap themselves in hate and controversy to make a name for themselves and be recognized in some manner. Without his vitriol, Tarnowski has nothing.
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May 20, 2016 14:34
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ProfessorCirno posted:EDIT: Though it doesn't call his name out, that article also all but directly quotes Mearls and his conversation, so well done there.
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May 20, 2016 14:49
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Fuego Fish posted:All you'd have to do is put up a "No Smoking" sign and he'd stay away, though. I would have bought it earlier if I'd known it was released dammit! Seriously, I loved it and my 11 year old niece thinks her Uncle Humbug is awesome for giving her a copy. She loves it too[ (This is the same niece I gave a copy of Golden Sky Stories to)
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May 20, 2016 16:00
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Dire Wombat posted:Fun fact: in 3.5 Quicken Spell requires a spell slot four levels above the level of the base spell. In AE, it takes two spell slots of the same level or a single slot one level higher, since you can do that trade whenever. In return, there's a 3/day limitation on how many quickened spells you can cast, but I'd still rather have the AE version. Meanwhile, Power Attack doesn't get a better multiplier when using a two-handed weapon.
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May 20, 2016 16:33
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:I would have bought it earlier if I'd known it was released dammit! Seriously, I loved it and my 11 year old niece thinks her Uncle Humbug is awesome for giving her a copy. She loves it too[ (This is the same niece I gave a copy of Golden Sky Stories to) Oh no, my heart  Tell me which one she loves and I'll prioritize the sequel for her 
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May 20, 2016 16:34
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dwarf74 posted:Yep. Also, even more importantly, you get to decide to quicken your spell when you cast it instead of when you prepare it. It's a major power-up. Yeah. There are ways to do this in 3.5 as well, but it generally requires a higher price (dual-classing, heavy feat investment, etc.).
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May 20, 2016 17:21
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