As the Pathfinder RPG, Paizo Publishing‘s open gaming 3.5e based D&D variant, nears its open beta stage after a lively open alpha, some awesome news appears. Monte Cook has joined the team as a “rules consultant!” Monte’s been innovating great stuff with 3e-based mechanics well after 3.5e went into the weeds. This is great news and a real feather in Paizo’s cap. All indications are that the Pathfinder RPG is going to rock on ice!
Along the lines of the last ones… Weapons and Skill Challenges!
Weapons. They kept simple/martial/exotic categories but renamed them simple/military/superior because different is good in D&D 4e. Although I’d be hard pressed to call some of the exotic weapons that exist “superior” really… But let’s not pick nits. You can wield two weapons but that doesn’t give you any extra attacks unless you have a power for it. Weapons are broken up into groups, which is fine (e.g. axe, spear…). And what would it be like without a bunch of fiddly modifiers for each weapon, like reach, versatile, high crit, etc. They handle different sizes of characters and weapons as badly as every previous edition, by adding a “Small” descriptor to e.g. a shortbow indicating that though it’s two handed a Small character can use it. But does a normal longsword become “versatile” (you can use it two-handed if you want) to a small character? I suspect no. 3/5 just because D&D has always sucked in this arena and it doesn’t seem any worse than 3.5e.
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Wizards is printing more Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition excerpts leading up to the release. And they’re still suckin’. I’ll rate each from 1 (retarded) to 5 (good idea!) 3 means “not better or worse than 3e.” Let’s look at a long list – multiclassing, the warlord class, racial benefits, paragon paths, new monsters (the swordwing and the phane), customizing monsters, and powers.
Multiclassing. Summary: multiclassing is dead. You can’t multiclass, there’s just some feats that let you take one or two abilities from another class, and they’re heavily restricted. They say in the article itself that “this approach lacks the intuitive elegance of the 3e system.” No shit. Then why replace it? Answer: so that they don’t have to work too hard on the base classes and worry about “dipping” and all. 1/5.
The Warlord. Derived from the marshal of 3e, the marshal is more of a leader than a fighter. Actually, this one seems OK, besides the really wonky class design and power format, but that’s not unique to the warlord. 4/5.
Racial Benefits. They’ve added some racial feats, which is a good idea. They’ve done it by taking most of the benefits races used to get out, which is a horrible idea. Yes, you heard that right. So instead of a dwarf getting +4 AC vs giants, they can spend a feat to get +1 AC vs anything larger. And instead of them getting proficiency in dwarven weapons, they have to spend a feat to get that plus +2 damage. The redefinition of the power is fine, the practice of taking it out of the core and making you buy it sucks. 1/5.
I go away to Vegas for a week and suddenly Wizards decides to get right with God by talking about their GSL/OGL plans! Here’s the links.
The summary is that they’ve decided not to make their GSL license terms prohibit a company from publishing *any* open games under the OGL, only any open product in the same product line as any 4e D&D product, falling firmly between the previous “by individual product” and “by entire company” theories. As an example, Paizo Publishing has an OGL line of GameMastery adventures. So theoretically, Paizo could publish 4e adventures, but under a different product line (e.g. “NewFangledAdventurez”.) This is very good news! Not great news, but good news.
Wizards has published another D&D 4e preview of several angels. As usual, I’m underwhelmed.
On the rules side – I understand shaving down the special abilities of creatures to make them more manageable. But now even a high level angel or devil doesn’t have any real magical powers, just a couple special attacks. And those are pretty cheesable; the succubus’ charming kiss and angel of vengeance’s sign of vengeance are probably best used on an ally.
But my main problem is with the backstory change. Now in 4e, angels aren’t really servants of the gods of Good – they are just Astral mercenaries who sell their services to the highest bidder, of any alignment. This ties into several other changes – in 4e there is no Celestial or Infernal, just “Supernal,” and there’s no holy or unholy, just “radiant.”
Wired Magazine has published an excellent article on the life of the departed co-creator of D&D, Gary Gygax. His passing has generated a surprising amount of coverage from the media; just goes to show how far the influence of gaming has spread, really. (I just saw an animated Gygax in a Futurama episode last week!) For more, check out these older posts of mine:
The Savage Worlds Freeport Companion is now out in PDF from Green Ronin. Freeport, haven of pirates and every kind of scum and freak the D&D world has to offer, came to life at the launch of D&D 3rd Edition – the same day at Gen Con you could buy the Player’s Handbook, you could buy the adventure Death in Freeport. It grew into the premier 3e campaign setting for my money! Ah, the privateer crew Wulf’s Animals (Cpt. de Wulf, commanding) cut a crimson trail through the seas, stopping in Freeport frequently to sell their booty and buy some, too!
It’s a great setting because it was “Points of Light” before “Points of Light.” You could take most any generic d20 module and turn the “impassable wilderness” around it into sea and lo and behold, an island to sack!
Now, their approach to the line is modular – they have a setting neutral book, the Pirate’s Guide to Freeport, then you can get the Freeport Companion you want – True20, d20, or, now, Savage Worlds, and bring Freeport to other systems.
So some people think that the two-part interview that ICv2 did with Scott Rouse (D&D Brand Manager) answers some of the pending questions about the OGL/GSL debacle. But that’s only based on an uninformed reading of the interview. Not even WotC is claiming that this interview is an answer to the question, but it’s about licensing in general so some people are getting confused.
Part I is the part mentioning licensing; go read it then come on back.
In the face of increased publisher, customer, and public concern over the reports that the new license for the Fourth Edition of Dungeons & Dragons contains a “poison pill” provision that prevents any licensed company from also producing open source games under the Open Gaming License, Wizards is staying quiet. Scott Rouse, D&D Brand Manager, had originally promised clarification of the issue on Monday the 21st after the news broke. Then on the 21st they said “No…” and asked ENWorld to come up with a list of interview questions for them to answer. ENWorld got the list together (in the requested 1 hour span!) and sent them in, but Wizards upon seeing them said “Um… I think we’ll go with a Q&A on the Wizards site instead… We’ll send you some ‘exclusive’ answers of course, because what you care about is site hits, not the truth getting out…” Now, even that is stretching out. The Wizards community liaison indicates that a response will not come this week, and maybe not next week either.
Apparently independently of my Slashdotted “Wizards Declares War On Open Gaming” article, there’s a BoingBoinged article referencing, oddly enough, Network Performance Daily about Wizards’ plan to get rid of open licensed D&D for good with their new Fourth Edition licensing scheme. Fight the power!
Paizo Publishing has put out “Alpha Release 2” of their Pathfinder RPG today. For those of you who don’t know Paizo, they were the company that was producing Dragon Magazine and Dungeon Magazine for the last many years under license from Wizards. During that time they took the two magazines to their highest point ever, and their “Adventure Paths” in Dungeon were some of the best D&D adventures to ever see print.
And if you don’t know about Pathfinder, it’s an open game based on the open content from D&D 3.5e. Their goal is to take the game forward while maintaining back compatibility (D&D 4e is fundamentally different from 3.5e in many ways – no old rules content of any sort will port forward without substantial modification). It will be a fully open game, and they are conducting a fully open year-long playtest; the final Pathfinder will premiere at Gen Con 2009.
There’s quite a row about my article on WotC trying to get rid of open gaming using new licensing terms. I wanted to note that as of now (4/21) none of this is 100% confirmed as the GSL hasn’t been released to anyone outside WotC so there’s no way to tell for sure. Some people are griping about my reporting on this without the company confirming or denying it being only rumor and thus unfair to pass on to an august venue like Slashdot.
Unfortunately, this complaint is ignorant of the definition of “rumor.”
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