Month: March 2014

Ring Side Report- RPG Review of Animal Archive

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Product: Pathfinder Player Companion Animal Archive

Producer: Paizo

Price: ~$12

System: Pathfinder

TL;DR-If you have pets, then get this book. 91.25%

 

Basics: This book adds options, abilities, and types for any character who has a familiar or a animal companion.  The book starts off right away with the inner cover discussing the magic items that each type of animal can use.  After the standard Player Companion line pages discussing the book’s intent, the next section describes what types of animals each race typically works with.  Next the book introduces new class archetypes for the rogue, cavalier, and barbarian that use animal companions.  Following archetypes, the book add new animal tricks for your companion to learn and new ways to teach tricks to animals.  The book then presents new familiars, equipment, and animals to buy in Golarion.  The centerfold of the book is six new animals that a PC could take as a companion and the parts of the world where these creatures are found.  Following the centerfold, new animal feats and archetypes are discussed for your companions and familiars.  The book then presents a section on what happens after you awaken your animal.  Like all player pathfinder books, the book adds several spells and magic items, before ending by adding new familiars and animal companion statistics.

 

Fluff or Story: This book isn’t very story heavy.  It primary focus is to give you new animal options.  What it does have is interesting, but don’t look for it to carry the book on that alone. 4/5

 

Crunch or Mechanics:  You want animal crunch?  You got animal crunch!  Some of the crunch is interesting like the rogue who uses an animal to do sneak attack, but some is left out like what bonuses you get for using tools to train an animal.  It’s not bad, but some minor things were missing.   4.75/5

 

Art:  This book has a surprising amount of art for primarily being a mechanics book.  It’s new, and looks like it belongs and is well done. 5/5

 

Execution:  The book has a nice flow, reads quick, and isn’t difficult to read.  I didn’t like that the book repeats some of its mechanics as the book is less than 30 pages.  Also, some of the choices of where things were laid out were a bit strange as there are two item sections. 4.5/5

 

Summary:  If you run animals in Pathfinder, you need this book.  That’s it.  It won’t really convince you to take up an animal if you’re the type of player who doesn’t want that complication in his life.  If you want to have some fun with an animal companion/familiar, then this book will give you lots of options and makes sure the ideas you have fit into the larger world.  It’s worth a read for any class that gets an animal pet. 91.25%

Daily Punch 3-4-13 Scatter the Pieces spell for Pathfinder

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How about a Pathfinder Spell?

 

Scatter the Pieces

School evocation [Force]; Level sorcerer/wizard 1

CASTING

Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S

EFFECT

Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Targets one creature or object/ level in burst 20ft.
Duration instantaneous
Saving Throw Fort; Spell Resistance yes
DESCRIPTION

You call forth a burst of force that moves targets in an area.  You can target a number of creatures or objects equal to your level.  Each creature you choose to affect makes a fortitude saving throw.  Those that fail or choose to fail are moved 5 ft/2 levels out of the center of the blast.  This movement does not provoke attacks of opportunity.

 

Thoughts?

Daily Punch 3-3-14 One Unique Flaw (?/!) for 13th Age

~ fineyoungmisanthrope ~ 2 Comments

I like the one unique aspect of 13th Age.  I also like flaws for characters.  Do these two great tastes taste great together?

 

In many games like WitchHunter or Fate, acting like you have described your character gets you benefits.  It also give the GM ways to (semi)reliably move the story.  An example is if you said you character is a drunk, and you enter a bar, your character should most likely get some drinks.  This will lead to trouble and story.  When you do that in Fate or WitchHunter you get chips that let you brake the game later.  That I like.  I like the give and take of narrative control and it gives RPGs a bit more of the “Eurogame” aspect rather then randomness.  If you bank some story, you should get to control a bit of the story.

 

In 13th Age, your characters are the most impressive in the world!  You can’t just be a drunk who swings a sword, you should NEVER be able to turn down a drinking challenge!  You can’t just be afraid of water, but you should have to be knocked out to be put on a boat almost like the A-team.

 

What I propose is playing a bit more with the relationship dice.  If I as the GM compel your one unique flaw, you should automatically get a 5 in your worst relationship.  If I compel your flaw and you have a 5, it moves to a 6.  Since those either become treasure or options in the story, it serves the role of bonus for the game.  However, since you are a PC, you get to choose if you take the bonus.  If you have a 6 and I compel your flaw, it moves to a 5.  If you have a 5, you lose your bonus.  If you have no good relationship dice, then you lose narrative control of the situation.  That’s when things become interesting….

 

What do you think?  Would this make an interesting addition to 13th Age?

Ring Side Report- Board Game Review of Oh Gnome You Don’t!

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Product– Oh Gnome You Don’t!

Producer-Gut Bustin’ Games

Set-up/Play/Clean-up-90 Minutes

Price-$30

TL;DR– A simple, fun, roll-to-move game 87.5%

 

Basics– Time to beat the crap out of other gnomes for gems and profit!  Oh Gnome You Don’t is a simple roll to move based game with some additional decision making aspects.  Players take the roles of gnome as they move across the board trying to sell items at the most opportune times to earn gems.  Each turn a player rolls to move, can play one card, and finally draws one card.  Players can only move in one direction.  Cards are items, cards to attack other players, and cards that have beneficial effects like Oh Gnome You Don’t to prevent an attack.  Item cards have two prices.  The higher price is for a specific location on the board, while the lowers is a general sale location price.  When a player lands on another player, one person can fight the other.  Players have a deck of 10 cards each with an attack value.  Players select a card and play simultaneously.  The difference in the attack value is the number of gems the loser must pay the winner.  Play continues until all players cross the finish line with players who finish earlier gaining more gems.  Highest number of gems wins.

 

Mechanics-This is a roll to move game.  It’s not overly complex, but the cards and fight mechanics do add some fun.  Of the roll to move games I have played, this is one of the better ones.  This game does not rival some of the hard core Eurogames for complexity, but its goal is to be a simple, fun game.  And, it does that well. 4/5

 

Theme-The game has an interesting theme.  It’s not completely a gnome brawl, but it’s also not peaceful forest gnomes hugging either other either.  It’s fun, but I wouldn’t say I felt like I was a gnome while I played this. 4/5

 

Instructions-The instructions are well done.  They are much longer then you would suspect for a roll to move game, but that’s because of the additional mechanics in the game.  They are well but together though. 5/5

 

Execution/Art– The art is well done, but it does make some of the spaces difficult to spot.  It’s not game ending, but some spots are difficult to see if they are one spot or two.  The game is well done for the price with the gems being literal random shaped, plastic pieces.  This game could have easily just used cardboard tokens, but the plastic gems give this game a nice touch. 4.5/5

 

Summary-I liked this game.  It’s not a game that I would set aside just to play and make plans months in advance to play.  But, when the game day is winding down, and we want a simple game to play relatively quickly, this will hit the table.  It’s worth the price at $30 bucks. 87.5%

Daily Punch 2-28-14 ED 209 Design Challenge

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Recently on forums.shadowruntabletop.com a forum cropped up asking for the specs on ED 209 from Robocop.  Heres what I think…

 

HANDL SPEED ACCEL BOD ARMOR PILOT SENSOR SEATS AVAIL COST
ED-209 1 (old movie)/5 (new Movie) 1 1 15 15 8 8 0 24F 2,000,000  Y

 

Armaments

Hellfire Missile-Use Anti-vehicle rockets

twin Yamaha Raiden assault rifles

Has built in recoil compensation of 10.

Is piloted using pilot-walker

Blurbs from the Booth-An open letter to Wizards of the Coast regarding PDFs and the Open gaming License

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Dear Wizards of the Coast,

Hi, my name is Ed Kabara.  I know you’re really busy right now with DnD Next and as part of that you’re talking, at least internally, about PDF and licensing.  I’d like to throw my two gp into the conversation.  Now, I know I haven’t ever worked in the RPG industry, but I pay attention to the market, the gaming stores, and player needs.

I’d like to start this conversation with Nintendo.  I know that’s a strange segue, but hear me out.  Nintendo used to dominate the industry, they were virtually unrivaled until they basically made their biggest competitor, and they didn’t read the industry well leading to  major setbacks.  Nintendo killed any competition they had.  They destroyed Sega (or the argument could be made that Sega killed itself….).  Nintendo also made Sony enter the video games industry when Nintendo spurned Sony publically and left that company high and dry at a major event.  And finally, Nintendo was destroying the market, but then decided to make the Wii U system they thought would lead the market, but ultimately failed to appeal to their customer base.   Does any of that sound familiar?

WotC, I love you guys and 4e.  I do.  I have run more 4e than most people you can find.  If you guys had stars like Paizo’s GM, I’d have 5 starts.  But you need to learn from Nintendo.  Everything that has lead to the shot life of 4e and the birth of 5e/Next has its roots in Nintendo’s current straits.  Trust me as a DnD AND Nintendo fanboy, I know stuff is not looking good all around.

So the stuff above is in the past, what can we learn from the future?  Well, the most pressing thing is third party support.  Nintendo does not like to play nicely with others.  Heck, the Game Cube was a direct result of Nintendo NOT wanting to use CD/DVDs because those formats were not proprietary, thus Nintendo could not control their manufacture and licensing.  This has lead to a strange bible/Noah’s Ark/Doom hybrid illegal game for the Super Nintendo from angry third party developers leaking software.  More pressing, many of the AAA develop firms will not make games for Nintendo’s current consoles.  While the Wii U might not be the gaming machine the world wanted, the death blow to the system was EA announcing that it will not make any more games for the system.  This has to do with many factors, but one can suspect that Nintendo’s history of not working well with others has to at least figure in a bit.

The second thing we can learn from Nintendo is the failure to embrace the internet.  Nintendo doesn’t like to use technology it can’t fully control.  This fact has lead to Nintendo basically considering the internet a passing fad.  Nintendo doesn’t have accounts, they have consoles.  When you get a new console, you can rebuy all the old games you had!  Isn’t that nice!  Can’t wait to upgrade my Wii to a Wii U, so I can rebuy the Zelda game for the Nth time at $5-$10 a pop!  Besides the snark, there are other problems like a market place, buying media (music, TV, movies etc) and games.  Nintendo using mostly it older hits online and doesn’t have near the independent game database that other game studies have.  Sound familiar again?

Now, I am a self admitted Nintendo fanboy.  I want Nintendo to stay around.  I don’t think you understand how much it hurts for me to admit that that Nintendo might be a sinking ship.  Now, I want to turn my attention to another large company I love and hopefully tell them what I’ve seen.

WotC, you NEED to embrace the third parties!  You need to be OPEN!  Open is good!  Open gets you more than just in house design.  Open keeps a game alive!  Open is more software (modules, adventures, rules) for your console (RPG system).  Right now most successful gaming system ever created in the 3.X system and all its babies.  I don’t think that even arguable.  It worked well for you, and then Paizo ran with the ball and made ALL THE MONEY.  While 3.X is good, I think that open design of the system helped.  Sure, crap got made by not you and lots of people might have saturated the market back then, but if you had stayed with 3.X and designed more parts to 3.x, while keeping the system open, you might still be number 1.  When 5e comes out, keep it open.  Do the same rules as before with parts being open (standard crap, base system, standard classes/spells), and then carve out your own stuff (Umber Hulk et al).  I’ll still pay top dollar for the aberrant books with mind flayers.  That strategy above is paying out beautifully for Paizo.  If you want more evidence, look at Paizo and the Living Games that have grown around them.  I know I can name at least three.  You own D&D!  I promise if you let the third party play without threats, you will get double that. And the more people playing your system, the more base books you sell.  You will have people like me buy all the WotC official world books (i.e. anything Forgotten Realms etc), but you can get the people who don’t want that setting to play your game and buy your base books also!

Next, you need to embrace the future and technology.  I’ve mentioned before that Paizo doesn’t support the stores as much as you do with their business model.  I like your support of the friendly local game stores (FLGS), but you need more online presence.  Lately, you’ve put your greatest hits online.  That’s good, but I’ll only buy the Zelda games so many times!  You need to put the newest stuff up there also.  What I would love would be a scratch off code that gets you a free or reduced cost PDF when you buy the physical books.  The FLGS get money and support, I get a PDF with the book, and you look modern.  If I sell my book, the new person has to buy a PDF.  That’s ok.  You basically pull of the same trick Paizo’s doing with their online store, but with the physical stores.  You get less money, but the FLGS have some product to sell, and having product to sell means they support your stuff more.  If I get all my wishes, you will also put out a bunch of small, online only PDFs about your campaign worlds.  Paizo does this with their setting, Numenera does this with their setting, and even Catalyst does this with Shadowrun!  You should too.  I pay WAY too much for a short PDF compared to the price of the base book.  Heck, I’ve spent almost as much on Numenera PDFs as I’ve spent on the base book.  If you have more smaller stuff come out that the stores can’t keep up with like Paizo’s smaller books, and have a few hard covers come out each year to help the FLGS (with those nifty PDF codes inside).  Keep the magazine alive with freelancers (that you control), and I’ll give you lots of money.  Heck I kept my DDI subscription up for the 4e run AND bought lot of other products, I’ll do it again!

So that is my 2gp.  I know you’ve been waiting on pins and needles to hear what one random geek has to say, but I just wanted to put that out there.  Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Ed