Edit: Now that the final version is released, here is my second look.

I’ve had a chance to look a little closer at the Pathfiner RPG Beta. I then proceeded to write a review that was over a thousand words long. After looking it over I decided to start all over again. I realized that while I was examining the differences between it and 3^rd edition Dungeons and Dragons, the resulting review would only be useful to those who have a nuanced familiarity with the 3.5 rules. The target of this review shouldn’t be nearly so narrow. If you are that interested in the minute rules differences, go read the Beta rules yourself. What I took away from the exercise is that I really care about the Pathfinder RPG product, and know that I will purchase the final rules when they are out next year.

So I can’t write a review of the Pathfinder RPG without looking at a little history. Dungeons and Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game that has been around since 1977. The game has evolved quite a lot since then, and in the year 2000 the 3^rd edition was created. On the one hand it changed the way a lot of things worked from the earlier editions. It added a much needed skill system. There was a new method for playing multiple classes, allowing a character to mix and match its skills and abilities from different careers. Other things remained much the same. The structure of wizard spell casting, having to memorize spells from a list, isn’t much different from the original version. As always, there was some grumbling from older players that it was no longer the game they wanted to play. But for the most part it brought a new group of people into the game, and many players back. I myself had skipped over the entirety of 2^nd edition, having many years before moved on to other games like Palladium Fantasy Roleplay or Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. When 3^rd edition came out Dungeons and Dragons was great again and I, like many others, returned to it.

Another interesting experiment that Wizards of the Coast did was to create the Open Gaming License. The idea was to allow any company to produce material for Dungeons and Dragons. Anything that was created under this license could be reused in other products using the same license. This created a new industry of companies building supporting products. Quality of these products varied, but there are certainly some remarkable supplements and amazing adventures out there. When 4^th edition was released, and a much different licensing scheme was introduced, publishers of these products had a choice: Continue making products for the open version of Dungeons and Dragons, or try the new version with a more limited license. What I find interesting is that because of this license there will be some form of 3^rd edition available for as long as people are interested in playing it. So when Paizo decided that they would continue to produce content for the game they already love, they also decided to print a rulebook so that anyone interested in their products would have a source for those rules. The Pathfinder Role-playing Game was born.

Paizo has certainly put a lot of work into it. It weighs in at 410 pages, and is a complete fantasy adventure role-playing game system. It is an evolution of the d20 3.5 SRD, so I look at it as an off-shoot of Dungeons and Dragons. Many things are slightly different though, so the biggest difficulty existing players will have in learning it are the subtle changes. I will admit my players still surprise me sometimes with rules changes from 3.0 to 3.5, so there is no way I will find all the differences anytime soon. I do appreciate that all of the rules are in one book. It doesn’t include monsters, but you don’t have to hunt in another book for rules on traps, poison, magic items, creating monsters, or creating encounters.

First impression is that this is a well thought out product. This is written by people very familiar with original rules. They may not have made all the changes you were looking for, but the system they have created is designed to still be reasonably compatible with existing OGL 3.5 adventures and supplements. The first thing that stands out is that all of the basic classes and races have a little more power than they had before. The idea is that many of the existing supplements have made the base classes and races under-powered in comparison. This is probably the biggest change that might keep existing players using the original rules. I like the changes as they allow a little more freedom when creating new races. I am a fan of Planescape, and it would be relatively easy to convert many of the races from the planes into something more balanced with the new core races. I would move some of the more powerful abilities into racial specific feats, and build a set of playable races that way.

They also tried to make it more appealing to stay in the base classes longer. There is something new you get from each class at every level. Classes also have some very hefty abilities added at 20th. I’ve heard them described as ‘near epic’, but I can’t really judge as I’ve never played that high level. On the other hand, 20th level is fairly close to epic anyway, so I don’t think it really matters. One thing that is still being debated over at the Paizo boards is whether or not Fighters and Wizards are balanced. One of the common complaints about 3.5 is that at high levels, the wizard becomes extremely potent compared to the fighter. It is true that the fighter has always dominated at low levels, but eventually a wizard is able to use such powerful magic spells that the fighter becomes merely a bodyguard that gets in the way. So with all of the classes getting a little more power, the casters are no exception. The question of whether the casters still overshadow the melee characters is still debated.

I find myself liking the Pathfinder RPG. It isn’t a finished product yet, so I wouldn’t recommend it to beginners. If you are interested in being involved in the development of a game, or have ever liked the 3^rd edition of Dungeons and Dragons, I highly recommend you give it a look. Now is the perfect time as the rules are available for free. I realized that customizable characters is what I’m missing from 4^th edition. I expect I will continue to play both versions of the game for years to come. I definitely look forward to next year when I will likely be able to recommend the finished Pathfinder RPG to newcomers and old hands alike.

Apathy Rating: 3/5.

I know previously I promised a review of the Pathfinder RPG Beta. I still plan on reviewing it but it is a fairly large book (400 pages plus a 60 page web enhancement) and I want to do it justice. So instead I will start with another Paizo product: Pathfinder 13: Shadow in the Sky. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Paizo, they used to be the publishers of Dungeon and Dragon Magazines. When Wizards of the Coast decided to publish the magazines themselves in an online format, Paizo had to find a new direction for their business. They decided to continue doing what they do best: publish monthly material for Dungeons and Dragons. Every month they produce a 90+ page booklet that contains several adventures in a campaign series. Each campaign comes in 6 installments, and takes a party from level 1 to about 15. Shadows in the Sky marks the beginning of their third adventure path, Second Darkness. When 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons was announced Paizo decided to continue publishing adventures for 3.5 instead, and began developing Pathfinder RPG so that some form of 3rd edition would remain to allow anyone to play their adventures.

So first I must touch on the production value of the book. Each page is glossy and full color. It is much nicer quality than most adventure books I’ve seen. The price is a little high for such a slim book, but if you get a subscription you get 30% off and a free pdf of each book. I definitely appreciate the pdf, as I always like to print out copies of maps for reference during games. An active subscription also gets you 15% off all other Paizo products, which is a nice bonus if you plan on buying any quantity of Paizo products. They certainly put their experience in the magazine industry to produce a very nice product (actually now they have other complementary product lines as well) every month.

The first half of the book is the adventures for the story arc. Being the first adventure of the path, it takes characters from first level and leaves them just getting to 4th level at the end. The book takes place in Riddleport, an old pirate town turned trade hub that contains a mysterious runed archway across the harbor mouth. These beginning adventures begin by pitting the players against the criminal underworld of Riddleport, and end with them facing what will become the villains of the overall campaign, drow. The outline of adventures to come sounds very promising, as any epic quest against the drow is always a favorite of players.

I have only the first part to judge though, but it is a well thought out beginning adventure. It is almost entirely urban in nature, which I’ve always found to be both challenging and rewarding to run and play. They do a good job of making suggestions for alternatives for when the players inevitably deviate from the primary path. By the end they will have a number of enemies and allies in the city. I also appreciated that the adventure is well suited for both good and evil parties, even though they of course are slanted toward at least a modestly good group. The climactic end battle looks very fun to run, and should feel rather cinematic for the players.

The second half of the book includes supplemental material that would be useful for any game. There is a description of Riddleport and key important figures. A number of key locations are well detailed and can be added to any city. Four gambling games are described which can add flavor to any tavern encounters of any game. Included is a stand alone adventure, to be used if the group needs a little extra experience in the campaign, or just something to add to any existing game. There are four new monsters to add to your DM’s toolkit as well.

Overall I was impressed with the product. Even though I don’t know when I might be able to run the adventure, I am certainly glad I decided to purchase it. My only regret is that it took me a year before I got a subscription. Even if you don’t like running a scripted campaign, I recommend checking out their other product lines. If you plan on continuing to use 3rd edition, Paizo is the company to watch.

Apathy Rating: 3/5

Last week I mentioned True20 as a possible alternative to 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons. This week I took a closer look at True20, and I’m not certain if that really is the case. Not to say that True20 is a bad system, but it definitely doesn’t feel like D&D. I would say that it is a good system if you want a light rules set that is easily customizable to any setting. I will admit when I first glanced at it, I felt it didn’t have a lot of substance to it. I saw it as a set of rules that formed a solid basis, but needing a little more to make it feel complete. After closer examination however, I find that isn’t the case. It comes with four sample settings in the back of the book which help fill out the game. They are useful not only as settings in themselves, but as guidelines to help you tailor the rules to suit whichever setting you decide to use. Of course there are quite a few settings books also published for the system, so there is plenty of material to work with should you decide to invest in the system. I myself plan on examining Roma Imperious, an interesting alternate history setting which has also been published using the Iridium lite system.

One of the things that stands out about True20 are the Roles. The basic book has only three Roles, which take the place of the many classes of D&D. There are Adepts, which have a weak attack bonus progression, that can be customized to be any character that draws upon supernatural powers. If you want to be a psychic, wizard, alchemist, mad scientist, or shaman, Adept is the role for you. There are Experts, which have a moderate attack bonus progression, and can be anything from thieves, doctors, or priests. And of course there are Warriors, which have the best attack bonus, and are the soldiers, mercenaries, gladiators, or bounty hunters of the world. Each of these roles can be customized by different archetypes, which are usually setting specific, that open access to certain feats or skills. The intent is to have a simple core mechanic that can be styled for many different character types. It is a fairly elegant system, and keeps things rather balanced.

Combat is another thing that is quite a bit different from the game’s d20 roots. Instead of weapons doing a variable amount of dice worth of damage, everything is represented by a damage bonus. Characters don’t have a hit point total, they have a list of injury states. When someone is hit in combat, they roll a saving throw with the difficulty modified by the damage bonus. The amount they fail determines what injury state you receive. So if you just barely miss your save against a fist, you’ll just be bruised. If you fail by a lot against a laser pistol, you will be seriously injured. Since injury states have penalties attached to them, this can lead to a slow wearing down of a characters defenses. Extremely tough characters may be able to simply shrug of many light blows, coming away from a fight completely unscathed. I also noticed the removal of attacks of opportunity, which tends to make it easier to run combat without miniatures. This can be a pro or a con depending on your taste in gaming.

Overall, I like the system and think it holds a useful niche. If you want either a more gritty or a more cinematic game than D&D, True20 can work for you. If you are looking for a more skill based role-playing system, with a light rules set that emphasizes story over mechanics, this game is worth checking out. If you are mostly happy with 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons and simply want a refinement but not the complete overhaul that is 4th edition, I’ll be looking at the new Pathfinder RPG from Paizo next which may be more your style.

Apathy Rating: 3/5

So I wanted to wait a little while to really get a feel for 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons before writing a review of it. I know that many have mixed feelings about the new version, especially so soon after 3.5 came out. I do find it interesting that do to the Open Gaming License 3.x will live on in other companies through the likes of True 20, Pathfinder RPG, and other 3rd party projects. So if you decide that 4th Edition is not for you fear not, there will be plenty of d20 products for the foreseeable future. I also highly recommend anything by Monte Cook which you can read more about at his page.

Enough about other products though, you’d like to hear about Dungeons and Dragons. First off, the new edition definitely takes the game in a new direction. So how much you like the game will depend a lot on whether or not you like the new direction. While the transition from 2nd to 3rd edition felt like a natural progression from DnD’s roots, 4th edition feels very new. It has been streamlined and balanced so that everyone has roughly equal power during combat. It definitely feels as though most of the non-combat has been stripped from the game. Skills are trimmed down a lot, being more similar to 2nd edition proficiencies than 3rd edition skills. You have two to six skills, which have much broader definitions now, and the bonus is determined by your level and the associated attribute. Just about everything else has a direct bearing on combat.

Every class has the same progression of powers as each other. So I do worry how they will manage to keep expanding new classes and keep them feeling different. On the other hand, they do an excellent job of keeping every player involved during combat. There is also a definite teamwork feel to things. As we played we discovered that our actions interacted with each others turns a lot more than they used to. As an example, I once placed a storm cage around a dragon with my mage. The rogue then used a positioning strike to push one of the nearby minions into the cage instead of the sneak attack he planned on using.  You really get the sense of working together. I’m not sure how well it scales down to few players though, it is designed for groups between four and six. I know this isn’t usually a problem for my current group, but I remember the days when I would play with just one or two others.

From a game master’s perspective the game is certainly easier to manage. Monsters are a lot simpler to put together, even NPCs with class levels. Instead of fleshing out a full character, which is definitely a lot faster at higher levels than it used to be, you just pick one or two powers at close to the level of the npc. It is a great improvement over spending labourous hours building up an npc in 3.5, only to have it be killed in a few rounds of combat. Even if you want to spend time preparing fully fledged characters, the creation process is streamlined and a lot easier.

So as much as I’d like to gripe about how messed up things are in the new version, I have to say I’ve enjoyed playing it. It won’t be for everyone, because it definitely is a different game. But if someone else had published it and given it a different name, I’d have to recommend looking into it. It may not be what you are looking for, but it is definitely a fine game.

In an unrelated note, I have recently acquired a large collection of older games. Expect to see reviews of some old classics, plus updates on the latest versions of these, in the near future.

Apathy Rating: 3/5

Welcome to the first of my weekly game reviews. Before we take a closer look at Dark Heresy, I must begin by saying I intended on being very angry at Games Workshop (the publisher’s parent company.) Shortly after publication Black Industries announced that they would be closing down all of their lines except their novels. This seemed like a foolish move. They release a new line and sell out the initial print run. So why would the parent company tell them to close down? They have done a very good job with the new version of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WFRP). They recently reprinted Talisman, another classic Games Workshop game that had been out of print for years. How could GW be so foolish?

Let’s look a little at the history of GW. I’ve been playing their games for a long time. Warhammer FRP first came out in 1986. It had strong ties to Warhammer Fantasy Battle, such that you could take your character from the role-playing game and easily convert them into a champion for the battlefield. They produced a number of supplements, including a very well received Enemy Within campaign. So fans looked forward to the possibility of an rpg based on Warhammer 40k, the science fiction version of their war game. It never happened. They closed the fantasy rpg line. This isn’t the first, or the last off-shoot game they spawned and then abandoned. Hero Quest, Space Hulk, and Blood Bowl are just a few you may have heard of that come to mind.

Over the years I’ve talked to a number of game store owners who have dealt directly with GW. The consensus is GW has always been a company afraid of branching out too much. They fear dilution of their main brand, the table top war game. I used to be an avid fan, but as the rising price of miniatures and the focus of the games shifted away from tactical squad combat and more into super heroes so did I drifted away from playing it. The frequent version changes, and the removal of my favorite army, the obscure Eldar offshoot Harlequins, completed my departure from their main line. But I’ve always remained fond of their other games, the bastard children they would spawn and leave to wander the streets alone. Warhammer FRP has been licensed to a number of companies over the years. Some have done well, others not so well. But Black Industries have released more books for WFRP than all others combined. While the editing may have been a little rough at first, books like Realms of Sorcery and Tome of Corruption have been very satisfying.

So after they announced the end of a just released, and highly anticipated, rpg line, I was very angry. What were they doing to me? Since the first printing was sold out at the wholesale level, I ordered a copy for myself. I was going to have at least something to work with. But in the time between then and now, they have managed to satisfy me. How could they rectify such a grievous affront? The announcement that Fantasy Flight Games would be taking over the role-playing and board game lines. This was very good news indeed. Not only would the two rpgs have a future, but Talisman would be getting expansions. The future will not be as dark as once thought. GW wasn’t pulling one of their dumb moves. They were preparing for shift in the license.

Many of you may be wondering who FFG is, and why they would be a good home for these orphans from GW. First off, they produce one of my favorite games, Descent, a dungeon crawl that is similar to a more complicated version of Hero Quest of old. They have some of the best support for board games I’ve ever seen. Not only do they have the usual errata and FAQs, but when they print new versions the corrections are already in. As opposed to Avalon Hill (which used to be a great company but is now owned by Wizards of the Coast which is owned by Hasbro) which hasn’t made a revised version of Betrayal at House on the Hill which was released in 2004 and has major errata on 25 of the 50 scenarios. For those that have older versions, FFG will often include fixed cards with expansions as they come out. Or the fantastic scenario editor for Descent. While I don’t know how well they will handle a role-playing game, although I do know they have a few themselves, I have faith that they will be very good at providing support for the games they are making.

Enough about the companies, how is the game itself? Well, there are good and bad things about it. Mechanically, it takes a lot from WFRP, which is to be expected. However, they replaced the winding career paths that happened in the fantasy version with a career path. In WFRP a character would often start as something lowly. A rat catcher or grave robber are the first things that come to mind. As characters progress, they move from one career to another. So the rat catcher might move on to become a thief, then an outlaw and finally become and outlaw chief. In Dark Heresy you select a career path at character creation. There is still a lot of customization available, but you will always be limited by the career path chosen at the beginning.

The game also disappoints fans of the 40k universe in being limited to a very narrow scope. The premise of the 40k universe is that it is far in the future. Humans expanded throughout the galaxy, and have achieved great technical feats. But science has become shrouded in religion and occult. Many of the marvels that are used are left over from previous eras, the knowledge of their production lost to time. Many of the worlds of the Imperium are little more than feudal societies. Some are untamed wildernesses. The Emperor is a powerful psychic, able to project his mind throughout the Imperium with the aid of the mental powers of numerous initiates. He is worshiped as a God and this view is violently enforced by all manner of branches of the government, but most fervently by the Inquisition. You play as acolytes in the Inquisition, fighting heresy and chaos throughout the Imperium. No chance yet to play alien races such as Eldar, Orks, Tyranids, or any of the other staples from the table top game. Combat is focused on ranged more than the fantasy game, which is to be expected. The critical hit tables, a key component in combat, are expanded greatly to have different charts based on weapon type. Which reminds me a little of classic Rolemaster style, but isn’t quite as chart heavy as that.

So for all the focus is on a small part of the overall 40k universe, they do that area quite well. There are a lot of details to help set the mood of the game. The largest single section is the career path chapter, and each career gets a fairly sizable description. The sample adventure at the end gives a reasonable view of the game universe, but could have had a little more of the investigative theme that seems to be where this niche of the setting is headed.

Overall, if this was all we were getting, it would be fairly disheartening. It’s a good start, and we’d then have a bunch of fan created expansions on the internet to fill out all the parts that are missing. Depending on what else comes out, we may still get that. But it provides a very nice groundwork to start from. I can easily see books about Eldar or Orks similar to Tome of Corruption or Shadow of the Horned Rat for the fantasy game. The two are close enough that many of the demons and mutations from Tome of Corruption are easily transferable to the 40k setting. Already they released a pdf with vehicle rules. So as it is, I really like what I’ve seen so far and I’m looking forward to what comes in the future.

Apathy Rating: 4/5