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Written by Robert Kendzie
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Thursday, 07 January 2010 |
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What's this?!? A new page update! IT LIVES!!!! Yes, we have now begun work on Chapter 4 of Dire Destiny. We apologize for the silence of the last couple of months, but both Mikolaj and I have been very busy with work and other projects in our non-cartooning lives. Most importantly, Mikolaj has successfully completed his architectural certification. Given the intense amount of study and hard work that he had to do in the last two months, despite family illness and lots of personal hardship, he is just a little bit excited by this . I can only assume that his new responsibilities will result in a number of whimsical Velagard-themed buildings popping up around Warsaw in the coming years. I also have been given a raft of new responsibilities at work, which of course has impinged on my own ability to devote time to the comic since September. However, with any luck I'll be announcing in the next few weeks the fruition of a couple of new projects . Of course, the next big job in my hopper is completing the proofing and formatting of the print edition of Dire Destiny Chapter 3, which we hope to have on sale over the summer. Wish us luck as we plunge headlong into 2010! |
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Written by Robert Kendzie
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Wednesday, 28 October 2009 |
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First and foremost, I want to assure everyone that Dire Destiny is still up and runnig, despite the fact that it looks like no one has been at the helm for a couple of weeks. Mikolaj and I are recovering from varioius afflictions and we should hopefully have a new page up soon. Mikolaj has had the worst of it, I fear: his children got a really bad strain of the flu and so he has been more often at the hospital than at the art table. As for myself, I've been dealing with "crunch time" at work, preparing for a business trip which I am currently on. Despite these setbacks, we soldier on. Chapter three is now complete, and I am already making preparations for the new book, which will be published next year. I am very much looking forward to moving ahead with Chapter four, which should bring lots of answers to readers' questions about our characters, their histories, and the world that they live in. We thank you for your patience. |
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Written by Robert Kendzie
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Monday, 14 September 2009 |
I have just spent the last couple of days paging through the new Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook . This is Paizo Publishing's attempt to continue supporting the 3.5 edition of Dungeons & Dragons, which is the system most of their existing catalog of supplements and adventure modules are written for. I was very happy to hear about this, as I was not overly enthusiastic about the advent of 4th edition D&D and its radical rethinking of the core mechanics of the game. At the same time, there are elements of the D&D 3.5 system which many people have had issues with, and I was curious to see what changes Paizo was going to make. In perusing the book, I found that the changes were generally conservative, and that while some of the perceived problems have been addressed, others have not. Some have labeled this new system D&D 3.75, but at the risk of straining the metaphor, I would say this is closer to 3.6.
First, the production values of this book are amazing, especially for the price. $50 may seem steep at first, but for 576 pages in full color with numerous illustrations, I'm surprised that it's so cheap. The pages are heavyweight glossy paper, and the binding feels solid and tough enough to stand up to some abuse. The layout in general is almost identical to the old 3.5 books, but is slightly cleaner and just as well organized. The charts and examples given are helpful. The artwork and illustrations are slightly more fanciful than in the old books from WOTC - there's a little more of a "comic book" sensibility to the proceedings, and it's generally brighter and more dynamic. I really liked the way that each section begins with a beautiful two-page art spread. The illustrations are plentiful as well, although like its 3.5 predecessors the book is still dominated by text.
As far as content is concerned, this book basically combines the equivalent of a Players' Handbook and a Dungeon Master's Guide in one volume. I have not had a chance to read the entire book in-depth, but I did linger over numerous sections, most notably the Classes and Combat sections, where most of the changes appear to have been made. The rules content of the books is very much in the same dry style as the original 3.5 books, and parts of it seem to be re-using text from the D20 System Reference Document verbatim (or close to it).
The biggest and most obvious differences from the old system are in the character races and classes, as most people would expect. The demi-human races all gain +2 to two of their ability scores and -2 to one score. (Elves, for example, gain +2 Intelligence, +2 Dexterity, and -2 Constitution.) Humans, Half-Elves, and Half-Orcs all gain a basic +2 to one score of the player's choice. This means that every playable race gets a free +2 to an ability score somewhere, which I found curious, since it strikes me as having more to do with managing player expectations than with real game balance. Most of the other elements of the racial packages remain unchanged.
A more radical overhaul takes place with the various classes. Monks seem to have let their patent lapse on the "more weird powers than you can shake a stick at" business plan, because every class now seems to be bursting at the seams with new class features, powers, and options. For a start, feats come more frequently for everyone: There seems to have been a concerted effort to eliminate the phenomenon of "dead levels" where a character doesn't gain any interesting new abilities. Barbarians get new abilities tied to their raging. Thieves have new and interesting options for their sneak-attacks (including the ability to inflict a bleed condition). Paladins gain a significant boost to their ability to lay on hands, and can gain the ability to cure or mitigate a number of conditions. Sorcerers have a myriad of Bloodlines that they can now choose from, each with its own set of abilities. I would like to take a moment, however, to look at three of the "basic" classes: Clerics, Fighters, and Wizards:
One of the things frequently noted about 3.5 was the common wisdom that Clerics were the most powerful class. With their combination of weapon and armor proficiencies, decent hit dice, domain powers, and copious spellcasting abilities, clerics are well rounded characters with a lot going for them. I was curious as to whether Clerics would be somehow "nerfed" in this book, but Paizo seems to have taken the opposite approach and beefed up all of the other classes with new options instead. As a result, clerics are pretty much the only class to remain unchanged. The biggest difference is in the way they channel positive or negative energy for healing and damaging the undead. "Turning" has now become an optional feat.
Fighters in 3.5 were considered a bit underpowered at higher levels and uninteresting to use in combat. I feel that this will change under the Pathfinder system, for a couple of reasons: fighters have new abilities which allow them to improve with various classes of weapons over time, both in ability to hit as well as damage. They also gain improved proficiencies with their armor, allowing them to retain higher Dexterity bonuses in medium and heavy armor, and significantly reducing their armor check penalties. Their bonus feats are also structured now so that, in combination with their regular feats, fighters get to pick a new feat at every single level... and there are numerous new combat feats for them to try out. As such, any given fighter is going to have roughly twice the number feats of any other character, in addition to receiving a couple of new class features.
Wizards look very similar on the surface, but there have been a number of subtle changes. First, along with Sorcerers and Rogues, they have received an improved hit die, so they are no longer quite so fragile. Second, there no longer appears to be an XP cost for making magic items, which means that it finally makes sense for wizards to create their own scrolls, potions, and wands on a regular basis. The most dramatic change has to do with specializations: as before, if a wizard chooses a specials school, he must also suffer having two "forbidden schools". In 3.5, this meant that he could not learn or cast spells from those schools at all. However, in the Pathfinder system spells from those schools merely become more difficult to manage, and preparing such a spell requires using two spell slots instead of one. This allows wizards to retain a degree of versatility and makes specialization a much more attractive option. In addition to this, every school of magic (including the default "universalist" school) comes with its own special abilities and powers. The end result is that while the wizard’s spells-per-level remains unchanged from the 3.5 edition, it is easier for the wizard to have access to a greater number of spells.
This brings us to two more major changes, both of which impact the spellcasting classes. The first is a change to 0-level spells. Cantrips and Orisons now function differently in that they are never considered "expended". They still need to be prepared, but once prepared they can be used over and over again, so that a spellcaster is never truly "out of spells". The other change has to do with animal companions and familiars.
Animal companions and familiars now fall under a new class feature heading called a "Bond". Every class that has this feature (Druids, Rangers, Wizards, etc) now has the option to choose either the animal companion or else to express the bond in a different fashion. Wizards, for example, can bond to an item like a wand, staff, amulet, etc, which grants them some minor additional spellcasting ability.
Getting away from classes, there have been a few changes to combat, but they are minor. The most notable is the addition of what are termed "Combat Maneuver Bonuses" and "Combat Maneuver Defense" to handle things like grappling, tripping, sundering, etc. The grappling rules of 3.5 were frequently complained about for their complexity. While I don't think the problem has been solved entirely, progress has been made. Almost all of these "combat maneuvers" are handled the same way. Every Character has a Combat Maneuver Bonus which functions rather like a "To Hit" bonus, and every character has a "Combat Maneuver Defense" bonus which functions very much like a new form of Armor Class. Since the combat maneuver bonus is modified by high strength and feat selection, I suspect that fancy combat maneuvers will be primarily the domain of dedicated Fighters, which not only makes sense, it also makes fighters more useful and encourages them to take new actions in combat other than swing/hit/roll damage.
As far as new background material is concerned, there are really only tantalizing hints in this book. The listing of deities for clerics comes from Paizo's own already developed properties, and any references to the old TSR/WOTC background are purged. There are a few interesting differences to note in the racial section: Elves are tall again (around 6 ft), dwarves are short again (around 4 ft), and Half-orcs (and presumably orcs) are Green again.
There are many other changes in the book too numerous to go into here. However, apart from the heavy work done on the classes section, this edition seems to be more of a fine-tuning of the 3.5 rules than a complete overhaul. Paizo hasn't really gone back to the drawing board, so much as they have simply re-framed a classic. Since that is what a lot of fans of 3.5 fans have been clamoring for, it's no wonder the first printing completely sold out.
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