FormCritic wrote:The Bestiary is the Pathfinder monster manual.
FormCritic wrote:Paizo is pumping out modules for the game...lots and lots.
FormCritic wrote:I have not read them all. The ones I am familiar with are good to brilliant. The Skinsaw Murders, which was the second Pathfinder Adventure Path module published, is the single best module I have read...both for its use of genuine horror themes in D&D and for the technical mastery of the writers.
FormCritic wrote:It would be nice if Pathfinder stayed a compact and accessible RPG. The reality is that Paizo must publish and sell or perish. There is already a rules expansion hardback out and more are on the way. The gamers at PaizoCon were buying everything in sight. Like the expansions to other versions of D&D, you don't need them to play...but...you know this tune.
Keith the Thief wrote:Really? Is this a general theme within Pathfinder? Horror?This would dovetail well with my interest in Lovecraft.
astenon wrote:James Jacobs - the Creative Director - is a big fan of Lovecraft. I attended Paizocon last month, and one of the seminars was about the adventure paths (AP). The AP that starts with #43 (in Jan or Feb) and goes through to #48 will be called The Carrion Crown, and is set in Ustalav, which is the gothic horror realm.When asked about the Lovecraft elements, he also said that he'd love to do a Lovecraftian-themed AP at some point.As to the APs themselves, the plots/stories vary but they are aimed at the fans (mostly 20-40) so the adventures are more for adults than kids. As someone else said, the haunted house in The Skinsaw Murders is awesome!If you like, I can ask a question there about which adventures have horror themes.
FormCritic wrote:Keith the Thief wrote:The Skinsaw Murders includes scenes that work well in a game mechanics sense that would be truly frightening in a horror movie. This is really the trick in using horror in Dungeons and Dragons. The players are seldom frightened because they are heavily armed and evil has hit points. (That is why gamers love the movie Army of Darkness...the most D&D movie ever made. "Good? Bad? I'm the guy with the gun.")
FormCritic wrote:I suspect that Pathfinder isn't perfect. D&D 3.5 breaks down somewhere around 12th-15th level. (Better than AD&D, which broke at 9th-11th level...or at 7th level after the publication of Unearthed Arcana.) Since Pathfinder is essentially 3.5 done slightly better, I suspect the breakdown must be roughly around 15th level. WOTC promised that 4th Edition won't break down at all...I wouldn't know about that. I doubt it.
Keith the Thief wrote:Would you mind elaborating? This is very interesting.We played AD&D up until about 8th or 9th level and then would usually cycle back to lower levels with different characters.What happens in D&D, or any RPG, that causes it to break down?
FormCritic wrote:"Breakdown": When the power level of the player-characters rises above the logic level of any sort of realistic campaign....snip...When WOTC was first presenting 4th Edition, they talked about extending the "sweet spot" in D&D all the way up to 20th level. I have no idea how they managed to accomplish this. I suspect they didn't.
ExTSR wrote:ALL of the above, of course, is based on the assumption that the only fun in the game comes from Killing Things or being physically threatened (or Stealing/Looting, the direct corollary).Such a shame that more people don't transcend that point to reach the potential that the FRPG has to offer (without devolving into mechanic-free storyteller pastimes/interactions, which are not really games imho). :/F
FormCritic wrote:Role-playing games work best when the game mechanics themselves create the desired situations.
Badmike wrote:I always think this is a fascinating subject so perhaps it should have it's own thread somewhere....!
Keith the Thief wrote:Back to Pathfinder: Does The Bestiary have good & unique monsters?