Rest in peace sir.

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

If you are a Metamorphosis Alpha fan and want a copy that you will not feel bad about losing in a tsunami of soda, then the Lulu Metamorphosis Alpha edition is a must-have item.

Trask, The Last Tyromancer.

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

Oh, in case you wonder why I keep posting about this topic is the hotel situation at Gen Con is was a nightmare. Either you fought like the devil for a room downtown or you stayed at some distant hotel that required a car or cabs. Distant hotels are cheaper, but whatever savings you get from staying outside downtown are probably offset by the extra hassle and expense to travel to and park downtown.

That and after a long day of gaming and shopping, a five minute walk back to your hotel is preferable than a long drive.

Trask

Trask

See you on the Warden!

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

The rationale in accusing 4th Edition of being a pariah is multi-layered and mostly unfounded. For many, the parakeet had fallen dead in its cage years ago. What’s distressing to me is that most of it has nothing to do with the system itself. Like the aforementioned politician, if 4th Edition was independent or a system married to an organization not compelled by factors out of its control to act against its better interest, it would have been lauded for its modern design. The failures of 4th Edition are not rooted in its mechanics but in the politics surrounding it.

Let me analyze the history of the system and offer some obvious and perhaps controversial statements based on experience and on the opinions offered by people are whose opinions I trust. The division within the community had nothing to do with the rules themselves—with the MMO-style presentation or the simplicity of its structure. It was rooted entirely within the fanatical fan bases of 3rd party companies who themselves were being alienated by the very company that helped them become a success. Ignoring accusations or false assumptions of rivalry imagine what would have occurred if, in 2008, WOTC had offered the 4th Edition rules with a more moderate system license and offered it in January when it was originally promised to 3rd party companies, allowing them the opportunity to develop products in time for GenCon that year. This would also assume another stipulation that WOTC would then renew certain contracts and not lock said companies out of DDI, and then later not revise the rules three times. Without Pathfinder, would the mass of disgruntled fans have finally embraced 4th Edition?

This utopia of robe-wearing hippies frolicking in tall grass didn’t occur, but the parting of 3rd party companies only began because of schizophrenic communications and hemorrhaging staff within WOTC. Two rules errata, a clumsy online service, no digital storefront, and the release of Essentials which divided the fan base further (despite me actually liking it) exasperated people’s opinion of this soon unpopular rule set.

However, the rules themselves were solid. Yes, a few things needed to be tweaked, but don’t look at 3.0—err, 3.5 as the holy grail of adamantium-forged rules. Was 4th Edition perfect? I found the restrictions of defining encounters abrasive to more role playing-centered campaigns. I thought Essentials was a far superior character-creation system over the intimidating 30-page character classes of classic 4E, but its timing was atrocious. There were not nearly enough conditions to cover every possible effect you could impose on an opponent. And I hated hated hated skill challenges and how 4th Edition handled treasure. That being said, there are many things I hope people don’t forget when moving into 5th Edition. It would be foolish to disregard everything learned from the previous system.

Take defense values. Having Fortitude, Reflex, and Will operate the same as AC was ingenious. The balancing of character classes at every level was another. I know readers will get upset at me praising the power system, but presenting abilities in bullet form is simply easier than clumping it together in a paragraph, something Pathfinder still hasn’t addressed. As a GM/DM, I will also state unequivocally that monsters were better in 4th Edition than in any other D&D related system. So many games are built for the players, assuming the game runner will simply abide by the thankless job of spending hours between sessions designing or adapting monsters for our heroes. Creating unique and interesting monster for 4th Edition was easy and I didn’t have to flip back and forth between books to do it. I always said that 4th Edition was more popular with GMs but less popular with players, but there are more players than GMs so the minority lost out.

In all the talk regarding 5th Edition, there has been little to no dialogue addressing the politics around this new system. Unless this is addressed and repaired, nothing 5th Edition offers mechanically will appease those that abandoned it. This will involve offering olive branches to 3rd party publishers, readdressing the application of online content, and creating a network which allows WOTC, 3rd party publisher, and all their respective fan bases to comingle (with or without conflict is optional). It has almost nothing to do with the rules themselves. I would also go about saying it would be a step backwards in the development of the “perfect” system if it ignored all the great contributions of 4th Edition.

So that is my plea…don’t erase 4th Edition from history. Learn what worked and what didn’t and restrain the compulsion to erase its mark from memory.

It’s Alien 3; not Highlander 2.

I had a couple of friends try it and they got the same results. Massive, free boosts to their Dropbox accounts.  It worked so well in fact I decided to put it into a document and publish it. Here is the result; “The Gratis Guide to Free Dropbox Space.”

Normally I sell the Gratis Guide for $2.99, but I am attending the Game manufacturers Trade Show in March in Las Vegas and need a fundraiser.  So, I am selling the Gratis Guide  for .99! Sorry, the sale is over, but the e-book on getting free dropbox space is still available.  If you enjoy my  GAMA Trade Show coverage, please consider picking up this e-book to help offset my expenses.

Oh, if you have a website and are willing to link put this link on your site (Guide to Free Dropbox  Space), drop me a line. I will be happy to send you a free copy.

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

For the past few months, we here at DEM have been developing an adaptation for Amethyst using the Pathfinder rule setting, called Renaissance. This adaptation is not an update of our original 2008 D20 book, rather a conversion of our 4th Edition Amethyst Foundations and its sequel, Evolution. However, recently, a few of our playtesters have questioned some of our design decisions regarding this update.

More than one tester has voiced a concern that our rules have a distinct “4th edition” feel to them. This is peculiar considering a humorous remark I made while being interviewed for the Gamers Haven podcast a few months ago. On it, I’d commented that our Amethyst Foundations had been accused of having a “3rd edition mentality” and that our Pathfinder book may be accused of having a “4th Edition mentality.” Little did I know that those would be the exact comments offered by my playtesters. So instead of walking blindly or ignorantly into the final product, I’ve decided to present all of our production concepts here and ask you, the gamers, what you think.

What I discuss below are not final decisions; the rules are still in their “alpha” phase and are due for more work, but responses will help us customize the gaming experience to the people who would be actually buying it. We want to make the product you want…well, a product we both will want.

NOTE: I wrote this article and these questions before the announcement of 5th Edition D&D, where they basically ask the same thing. Once again, WOTC steals my thunder (chuckle).

1. RACES
Our races, though following Pathfinder mostly, do deviate in one regard. Their ability adjustments are variable, a trend started with PLAYER’S HANDBOOK 3. Where a normal elf or dwarf is fixed, in our setting players have the option of where to take the penalty and where to accept the bonus.

Example
CHAPARRANS
Ability Scores: +2 Wisdom; +2 Constitution or +2 Strength; -2 Constitution or -2 Charisma

Question: Is this too confusing and would players prefer fixed adjustments? Just so you know, Amethyst’s canon setting has no outside races.

2. SPECIAL ABILITIES
In an effort to make our race and class features easier to read, we decided to present them in bullet form, not unlike powers from 4th Edition. The same information is imparted, just in a way which we believe is easier.

Example
Action: Swift
Attack of Opportunity: No
Requirement: You must be within 5 feet to a tree.
Uses per Day: As many as your Wisdom modifier.
Effect: You teleport up to 50 feet to another tree within range. You emerge within 5 feet of the targeted tree. The trees must be rooted in the Earth.

Question: Will readers react coldly to this unusual shift in presentation?

3. LIFEPATH
Carried over from Foundations, Renaissance introduces lifepaths, which can affect your character in minor or major ways. These have no class prerequisites and with more than 40 of them, should satisfy any player. But shouldn’t they be archetypes? Archetypes modify classes (like Amethyst’s class focus did in our 2008 book) while our lifepaths do more general changes and are not tied to one class. Two lifepaths are workaround to select classes not permitted in the canon setting.

Examples
BLOOD ROYAL
Natural Instinct: You gain a +1 bonus to any two Charisma- or Wisdom-based skills of your choice.
Aura of Admiration: You gain Diplomacy as a class skill and gain 1 rank in it.

DOPPELSHIDO
Double-Form: Select one one-handed melee weapon without the double or reach property. This is your selected weapon with Double-Form. If you wield your selected weapon with two hands, the weapon gains the double property. Both the primary and off-hand attacks inflict the same damage. You must be proficient with the chosen weapon. Your chosen weapon is the only type of weapon you can receive these bonuses from (you may purchase magical versions later, but the specific weapon type cannot change)

Question: With archetypes already established, should we shoehorn lifepaths into that, even considering that many lifepaths wouldn’t work as archetypes and would need to be removed?

4. DUAL CLASSES
We have this idea of creating dual classes—basically some of our classes are broken into two complete sub-classes. Each sub-class shares identical hit dice, saves, skill ranks, class skills, and base attack bonus, meaning they only differ with class abilities. Because both sub-classes are listed as one class, selecting one as your favored class will equate to both being a favored class; you will gain favored class bonuses gaining a level in either class. For example, you could multiclass either front grounder or heavy grounder and still gain favored class bonuses, but not if you multiclass in front grounder and marshal. These classes are still considered separate for the purposes of class abilities (e.g.: A 4th level front grounder / 2nd level heavy grounder character is not a 6th level grounder, nor is he a 4th level heavy grounder)

Question: Would such a mild alteration be accepted? We could always remove the rule outright and keep these classes separate. We’re just trying to be clever.

5. POWER-LIKE ABILITIES
We know that some 3rd edition class abilities act like powers without looking like powers. If a character can do something unique each round, how is that different from an at-will power? As a result, we’ve offered certain class abilities that, though balanced and written for 3.75, do resemble powers (this is related to point 2 above).

Example
Burst Fire: Starting at 2nd level, you can make a burst fire attack. As a full round-round action, you can apply the heavy auto property to a weapon you are wielding which has it and target all creatures in a 10 ft radius in weapon range. All attack rolls suffer a -2 penalty.
6th level: The area of effect increases to 15 ft radius.
11th level: The area of effect increases to 20 ft radius.
16th level: The area of effect increases to 25 ft radius.

Question: Would players accept this or should our classes not deviate from the accepted form?

6. MEDICAL EXPLOITS
In a moment of both genius and madness, we gave our medical operator class a spell list. These are not spells, mind you, but are gained and operate just as a cleric would gain and use spells. They are presented as spells, but are actually extraordinary abilities he can use at any time given his exploit/spell list.

Example
STANOZOLOL INJECTION
Level medic 1 Casting Time: 1 full-round action
Range: touch Target: one living creature
Duration: 1 hour
Effect: The target gains a +2 enhancement bonus to Dexterity (affecting attack bonuses, Reflex saves, Dexterity checks, etc). The target also receives a +10 ft bonus to speed.
Advancement: At 10th level, you can target up to 2 creatures, but each requires a full-round action.

Question: Is such a bizarre application of existing rules too weird to be accepted?

7. MONSTER LORE
Simply put, we’ve included our monster lore from Foundations. We don’t have a problem with this.

Question: Do you?

8. MULTIPLE MONSTERS
The Pathfinder bestiary offers one orc. We included five different pagus at different challenge ratings and weapon loadouts. Even though it isn’t hard to upgrade monsters in Pathfinder, we still wanted to remove the stress of designing different versions of the same creature.

Question: Should we bother?

9. MINIONS
I love minions from 4th Edition. I think they’re a little too much experience, but I really wanted them to remain in Amethyst. So we made them by adding the special ability “Minion”.

Minion: If the pagus strifebringer suffers more damage in a single hit as his hit dice, it is killed (8d6 = 8 damage or more in a single hit).
As a result, minions have reduced experience but do allow for larger battles. (One a side note, our puggs are actually weaker than kobolds if encountered alone; I thought that was funny).

Question: Should we include such an obvious homage to 4th Edition and is this unwise? Are you guys cool with it?

10. COMPLICATED CLASSES
Our classes offer a lot of customization, different abilities depending on your basic concept, and abilities trees similar to that in D20 Modern. Some of our playtesters have argued that we should attempt to make our classes similar to Pathfinder classes, borderline copies, altering the rules only when in regard to using firearms. I think that would taste of being unoriginal, but it would make the transition easier for those unaware of how D20 modern created their classes.
Question: Make the classes distinct or stay close to the mold of Pathfinder?

There you have it, ten questions. Answers may be posted here, on our facebook page, or at the forums at DiasExMachina.com

So, tomorrow Livingdice goes black. You can still get to the content by clicking through the black banner, but I hope you will at least take a moment to consider the value of the Internet in its current state. Get educated. Otherwise the freedoms we all enjoy on the net now will disappear in a swirl of copyright legislation favoring media conglomerates.

Anyone else care to join me? There is a handy WordPress plugin to get the job done with minimal effort.

Trask