# Opinion: better or worse encounter format?



## Morrus (Oct 28, 2011)

You've seen two 4E  adventures now, and as you can see we abandoned the encounter format we used in WotBS (which was the style WotC was using at the time).  

Better or worse?  I know I personally prefer it this way, but I'm curious about others' opinions.


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## Morrus (Oct 30, 2011)

69 views; no opinions?


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## Falkus (Oct 30, 2011)

Well, it's been a while since I ran anything fourth edition; and I haven't had a chance to actually run WotBS yet; but, in my humble opinion, I agree that the change in Zeitgeist 4e is for the better. Speaking as a DM, it's much easier for me in having the encounter stats in the same area as the story information; and it means less flipping back and forth through pages while running an actual session. I'm speaking from experience for that; as I've run Shadowrun adventures where the stats are all gathered at the back of the adventure; and it's not really my most favorite thing.

As a sidenote: I find myself highly amused by some of the flavor text in the creature powers in the encounters. Well done!


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## Morrus (Oct 31, 2011)

Falkus said:


> Well, it's been a while since I ran anything fourth edition; and I haven't had a chance to actually run WotBS yet; but, in my humble opinion, I agree that the change in Zeitgeist 4e is for the better. Speaking as a DM, it's much easier for me in having the encounter stats in the same area as the story information; and it means less flipping back and forth through pages while running an actual session. I'm speaking from experience for that; as I've run Shadowrun adventures where the stats are all gathered at the back of the adventure; and it's not really my most favorite thing.
> 
> As a sidenote: I find myself highly amused by some of the flavor text in the creature powers in the encounters. Well done!




I always feel that a lot of 4E powers don't make sense to me. You teleport and your ally heals and the next person to hit the third person in line to you gets +2 to hit. Why? It makes no sense!

So I felt every power had to justify its effects in the description. Ryan agreed, and we made it a policy.


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## ve4grm (Oct 31, 2011)

Morrus said:


> 69 views; no opinions?




I was trying to word my response, then got distracted. Sorry.

I greatly prefer the newer format (and I must say, like Falkus, the power flavour text has been a great help for running the game).

There are definitely some lessons to take from the old format, however. Particularly, I'd say that a large, complicated set-piece battle is easier to run when it is self-contained in its own 2-3 page spread, with nothing but the encounter on those pages. All of the text, tactics, environment first, monster stats on their own page, etc.

You guys do a great job in the new format, don't get me wrong, but it's occasionally wierd when text sections are split between pages, with a page of monster stat blocks in the middle. The Sea Gate encounter, for example, could have been two pages, rather than 1 full page, and 2 half pages.

Yeah, it would have required some different formatting to keep it in-line with the adventure, but I think the point stands.

So if given the two choices, I greatly prefer the new format. But if given free reign, my choice would be 99% new format, with the occasional 2-3 page spread for setpiece encounters where appropriate. (Note that these spreads would be best when in-line with the rest of the adventure, not split off like the old format did.)


Does that make sense to anybody but me?


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## nayrelgof (Oct 31, 2011)

In WotBS, I keep two copies of the pdf so I could keep my place easily in front and back. I won't miss that.

Lately, I've started printing out the encounter pages, which has worked much better. It doesn't seem like this would be as ideal in the Zeitgeist layout.

My feeling is that if you use the physical book or stay purely electronic, the Zeitgeist format is better. However, if you mix electronic and print the WotBS format seems better. Take that with a grain of salt since I haven't actually run any Zeitgeist encounters yet.


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## Noodle (Oct 31, 2011)

I'll chime in and say I vastly prefer the new format.  I've run 6 SoW (WOTC) adventures, and now the first 2 acts of Island.  I've been going all-PDF to date, and not printing anything out.  I find it a lot easier to only have to page up/page down to see everything, rather than having to jump back 20 pages to find the room description, etc.  I plan to get a physical copy of Skyseer, but I expect my reasoning will remain.


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## Falkus (Nov 10, 2011)

In regard to the flavor text, after having fully read through both the fourth edition and Pathfinder versions; and prepared for my session on Saturday; I have a query for future adventures: Would it be possible to get some of the more descriptive and/or entertaining flavor test descriptions of powers from the Fourth edition NPCs and monsters worked into the descriptions/combat tactics of the Pathfinder variant?

There's some really, really good stuff there that I intend to use word for word at my session on Saturday during combat.


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## Rugult (Nov 10, 2011)

Falkus said:


> In regard to the flavor text, after having fully read through both the fourth edition and Pathfinder versions; and prepared for my session on Saturday; I have a query for future adventures: Would it be possible to get some of the more descriptive and/or entertaining flavor test descriptions of powers from the Fourth edition NPCs and monsters worked into the descriptions/combat tactics of the Pathfinder variant?
> 
> There's some really, really good stuff there that I intend to use word for word at my session on Saturday during combat.




This is something RangerWickett and I have been interested in hearing about from the fans!

The original thought on the PF version was to keep it fairly streamlined in terms of rules, so that it kept most of the 4e NPCs intact, but stayed close to Pathfinder rules for what creatures could do.  This meant removing a lot of the wacky abilities that can be put into any NPC/Monster in 4e and generally reserving it for monsters/special NPCs in the PF version.

One of the big problems (especially in lower level adventures like the ones we have now) is that 4e style abilities that translate to grappling/bull rushing are difficult to work in to NPCs, who need a variety of feats / equipment to properly pull off. This turns our NPCs into one-trick ponies, where the 4e version may have 3-4 'cool things' the NPC can do.

If more people are interested in seeing more 4e style uniqueness with monsters/NPCs in the PF version, I know I can work that into the adventures!  Our concern up until now has been the reaction from hardline PF players who might not like the 'everything is special' approach that tends to come from 4e.

For those of you who've read the adventures, here are some examples on our thought process...



Spoiler



With adventure 1 we took a pretty hard approach to NPCs/Monsters.  The major exception in this would be Ghillie Dhu, who is a unique fey entity.

The Bleak Golem in adventure 2 is an example of something where the PF version took more of a 4e approach to creating a monster (with the stages of the fight).  We also gave some unique abilities to the gnomes Danisca and Blander that made them a pretty unique and (hopefully) memorable encounter.

One example of a dropped ability was the Kell-Guild's ability to grab someone to use as a human shield and then continue to make pistol attacks.  Since this merges a sort-of grappling rule, shooting, and maintaining a grapple, it seemed too clunky to work in without making some special rule / exception.  If we did introduce something like this, players would likely want to do the same ability, and we'd need to consider the impact for the remainder of the campaign...



Perhaps other people have suggestions/thoughts on this?  Would anyone here explode  in rage if we started giving level-based NPCs some wacky abilities to  spice up encounters that aren't necessarily found in the core rules?  Or, would you prefer if unique abilities were reserved only for the really important NPCs / specialty monsters?


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## Falkus (Nov 10, 2011)

Speaking for myself, I would love to see more esoteric abilities given to Pathfinder NPCs. It's one of the strong points of Fourth Edition; and I think it would be a benefit to the Pathfinder to system to at least partially port over elements of it to NPC design.

I definitely agree with you that caution is required when it might overlap with existing. Like the ones in the 



Spoiler



grapple and pistol shoot example you provided


. An example of one that I think would work for an NPC would be (more spoilers from Dying Skyseer) 



Spoiler



Deorn Feldman's deafening pistol shot


.

I'm going to run this by my group on Saturday, get their reaction and feedback on it and I'll post what they think Saturday evening.


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## Rugult (Nov 10, 2011)

Awesome!  Really appreciate it  

The plan is to start on Digging for Lies in the next week or so.  RangerWickett's away on vacation for a few days, but once he's back I will talk to him about this and see what we can do with the Adventure 3 draft.

If anyone else has thoughts on this, please let us know!


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## Morrus (Nov 10, 2011)

Rugult said:


> Perhaps other people have suggestions/thoughts on this?  Would anyone here explode  in rage if we started giving level-based NPCs some wacky abilities to  spice up encounters that aren't necessarily found in the core rules?




In the reviews and comments on the Pathfinder side, it does appear that Pathfinder folks aren't keen when we try to do anything clever with it.  Not sure why that is (heck, remember we were criticised for some of the basic world-defining elements regarding flight and such?)


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## Cheezmo Miner (Nov 11, 2011)

Well I wouldn't say I'd fly into a rage but, yeah, NPCs and PCs gotta play by the same rules in Pathfinder. It's the whole reason I choose to play Pathfinder instead of 4E, because the underlying "physics" of the game is the same on both sides of the screen. If an NPC doesn't seem to be playing by the rules, I have to remake said NPC. I already have to do this for a few guys in adventure 2.

For example (spoilertastic): 


Spoiler



Danisca doesn't need a unique class ability, just some additional substances she can attack with in addition to bombs. If Recklinghausen isn't going to use bombs and you want him to have sneak attack, well, he screams for the vivisectionist archetype as it is. And McBannin as a witch without a familiar breaks the class's defining feature. So I'll give him a familiar or just make him a different class.



As far as encounter format? I can go either way with the battle set-up being in the appendix or alongside the description. As long as it's consistent.


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## N'raac (Nov 11, 2011)

Rugult said:


> The original thought on the PF version was to keep it fairly streamlined in terms of rules, so that it kept most of the 4e NPCs intact, but stayed close to Pathfinder rules for what creatures could do.  This meant removing a lot of the wacky abilities that can be put into any NPC/Monster in 4e and generally reserving it for monsters/special NPCs in the PF version.
> 
> One of the big problems (especially in lower level adventures like the ones we have now) is that 4e style abilities that translate to grappling/bull rushing are difficult to work in to NPCs, who need a variety of feats / equipment to properly pull off. This turns our NPCs into one-trick ponies, where the 4e version may have 3-4 'cool things' the NPC can do.
> 
> ...






Cheezmo Miner said:


> Well I wouldn't say I'd fly into a rage but, yeah, NPCs and PCs gotta play by the same rules in Pathfinder.




OK, I'm at a bit of a disadvantage in not reading the spoilers as I plan on playing in Zeitgeist.  My view probably parallels Cheezmo's - we all play by the same rules.  Unusual creatures/monsters sometimes get abilities that PC's don't have access to, and that might even extend to some very special NPC's (likely ones that have somehow gone beyond the "Mere Mortal PC Race).

If it takes a four feat chain for a PC to accomplish a specific result, the NPC should not be granted extra feats nor given a "special feat" to accomplish it.  But, with that said, I see a few options for adding unusual abilities:

 - perhaps this is a variant class archetype, so the character gives up some abilities he would normally have to gain access to other abilities.   Especially for one off encounters, the NPC may have an array of class features that aren't as useful in the role he plays in the scenario, and can give up a lot of abilities a player would be reluctant to sacrifice in order to gain the abilities specially suited to this encounter.  I wouldn't want to see a ton of this, but the GM gets the out to indicate, say, "Yeah, your rogue could do that too if he sacrificed 6 skill points per level and  the ability to use Sneak Attack in melee to take this archetype".   A racial variant could also work.

 - more relevant at higher levels, maybe it's a prestige class (and one that's hard to qualify for), similarly sacrificing some class abilities for others.

- maybe it has some unsavoury requirements. There's a witch hex in Ultimate Magic that has some very powerful effects, but requires cooking and eating an intelligent creature, cited as "always an evil act".  Maybe a special ability of a Fey servant, or a specific PRC, requires swearing absolute loyalty to the Fey, or slows your learning process so you only gain half the xp of your teammates/only advance in level half as quickly (OK, that one is extreme enough to be the same as saying "no PC may take this ability").

  -maybe it's a new feat (or even chain).  Third party publishers can publish these, I believe.  

 - Perhaps any of these could be tagged as being unique to the Zeitgeist setting (sure, GM's can still allow them to be 'ported, but it's not mandatory).

 - maybe the ability comes from a Theme Feat not available to Risurians.  Do all major NPC's have, and use, a Zeitgeist Theme feat at present?

I'd avoid going hog wild with this - to paraphrase Cheezmo in a less politically sensitive manner, if we wanted to play 4e, most of us would play 4e.  We're playing Pathfinder.


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## RangerWickett (Nov 12, 2011)

I get the logic behind saying PCs and NPCs should use the same rules, but the rationale is not "Ha ha, look at all this stuff we're letting bad guys do that PCs can't." It's, "Hey, I have a fun idea for an adventure, but I don't have the time to write a whole rules supplement to justify a few different options." 

If you need an explanation for how it's possible, that's easy: Rule Zero. The NPC asked his GM, "Hey, can I use a weird suite of powers that would be fun for the players to encounter?" And the GM said, "Sure."

Plus, it's a well known fact that PCs and NPCs _shouldn't_ play by the same rules. Level Adjustment for a PC troll is huge, whereas an NPC troll with some class levels has a much lower CR.

Then again, if the feedback we get is that the majority of PF players value 'following the rules' over 'having unique scenarios,' we'll follow the rules. Unfortunately the budget of money and personal time keeps us from writing full rules to justify the stuff we want to put in the adventures.


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## N'raac (Nov 12, 2011)

RangerWickett said:


> Then again, if the feedback we get is that *the majority of PF players value 'following the rules' over 'having unique scenarios,'* we'll follow the rules. Unfortunately the budget of money and personal time keeps us from writing full rules to justify the stuff we want to put in the adventures.




I doubt that particular phrasing is any more fair a statement of anyone's position than suggesting some GM's 'value the story they're telling' over 'keeping things fair for the players', or even that he reserves the cool stuff for his favoured NPC's'.

I don't think it is unfair for players to say "hey, that NPC Ranger can do some really cool stuf- how does MY ranger get to do that?" and expect an answer other than "he can't - only an NPC gets to do that!".  The answer for making the character a Troll is "He can - at this cost".  

Not every ability of the opposition need be something the PC's can duplicate (how many can dissolve metal like a Black Pudding?), much less accomplish at their level (1 against 4 to 6 is hardly fair unless the '1' gets some advantage) or can accomplish easily (maybe that ability requires 4 Monk levels and an unbending devotion to the Rightful Ruler of Ber - lose that devotion and, just like an evil Paladin, you lose the ability - or maybe it comes from a Theme Feat only available to those loyal to Chryssiller - since this game focuses on Risur, you can't have it, so the full rules aren't really that important).

I don't expect the abilities the NPC's or adversaries have are overpowered for their own level, even if the precise rule must sometimes be left as an exercise for the reader (or even fodder for a future publication - maybe a Zeitgeist sequel or prequel set in Ber or Chryssiler).

At the same time, if a Wizard wants to research a spell to allow a party member to match that ability, whether for one encounter or for one action, and the answer is that it's a 7th level spell for you but possessed by a L2 opponent, that L2 opponent seems like he might be unreasonably overpowered.


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## Cheezmo Miner (Nov 13, 2011)

RangerWickett said:


> Then again, if the feedback we get is that the majority of PF players value 'following the rules' over 'having unique scenarios,' we'll follow the rules. Unfortunately the budget of money and personal time keeps us from writing full rules to justify the stuff we want to put in the adventures.






N'raac said:


> I doubt that particular phrasing is any more fair a  statement of anyone's position than suggesting some GM's 'value the  story they're telling' over 'keeping things fair for the players', or  even that he reserves the cool stuff for his favoured NPC's'.




This. I have to say that some of the language being used here to  describe us Pathfinder people is a little disconcerting. We're  "hardliners" who might "fly into a rage" if the creative staff adds weird stuff to NPCs. 

I truly appreciate the talent and creativity at work in this endeavor, obviously, or I wouldn't have invested the time and effort (and a few bucks so far) I have in signing on for the AP and getting a group of players together for it. So please try to understand we're not telling you: "don't be creative" or "don't be interesting." 

And I also appreciate you taking the time to convert your work to Pathfinder. Thank you. It seems that you guys prefer 4E, so you could have easily left us Pathfinder grognards out in the cold. 

That said, all I'm saying is that _my _preference is that a conversion to Pathfinder to be a conversion *to Pathfinder*. Whether or not anybody thinks the unique NPC abilities are fair, or game-breaking, or really really neat is irrelevant, because the abilities don't exist as part of the Pathfinder ruleset, or are outside its established perimeters. 

Wouldn't a simple, "please everyone" solution be to include the abilities as an optional replacements for the standard abilities? Then you can show off these neat things you invented to spice up encounters while allowing GMs the option to use standard versions of the NPCs out of the box.


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## Morrus (Nov 13, 2011)

Cheezmo Miner said:


> This. I have to say that some of the language being used here to  describe us Pathfinder people is a little disconcerting. We're  "hardliners" who might "fly into a rage" if the creative staff adds weird stuff to NPCs.




To be fair, those terms were folks describing themselves.  Nobody's calling anyone else names, I'm glad to say.


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## N'raac (Nov 13, 2011)

Cheezmo Miner said:


> That said, all I'm saying is that _my _preference is that a conversion to Pathfinder to be a conversion *to Pathfinder*. Whether or not anybody thinks the unique NPC abilities are fair, or game-breaking, or really really neat is irrelevant, because the abilities don't exist as part of the Pathfinder ruleset, or are outside its established perimeters.
> 
> Wouldn't a simple, "please everyone" solution be to include the abilities as an optional replacements for the standard abilities? Then you can show off these neat things you invented to spice up encounters while allowing GMs the option to use standard versions of the NPCs out of the box.




Seems reasonable, except that it requires the time investment discussed above to integrate the abilities into the Pathfinder rule set.  That said, I suspect most NPC's (especially one off encounters - not the long term ones) will have class abilities they never need or use.  Making their abilities an alternate archetype may make a lot of sense.

Other opponents, though, may well be unique.  I don't see a need for PC's to be able to duplicate the Fey abilities of the Unseen Court, or their followers, without becoming Fey themselves.  Just like PC's typically don't come from the ranks of the Demons, Dinosaurs or Undead, and don't have access to the same abilities those entities have.


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## Cheezmo Miner (Nov 13, 2011)

N'raac said:


> Seems reasonable, except that it requires the time investment discussed above to integrate the abilities into the Pathfinder rule set.




Does it, though? They already have the basic text of what these abilities do in 4E. My impression, which may be only that, as the authors want the freedom to put in these 4E-style, unique NPC abilities _without _justifying them according to the Pathfinder rules. I'd be fine with this, as long as it was clear which arbitrary abilities were ported from 4E and what standard abilities they replace, if any.

I'd like to say that Dying Skyseer does a good job of this, pointing out the wonky abilities that I can easily switch with standard ones by rebuilding the offender in Hero Lab. Even so, I would prefer a strait conversion.


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## N'raac (Nov 13, 2011)

Cheezmo Miner said:


> Does it, though?




Yes and no. The abilities are written up, but an ability which may be balanced for a one off battle may not be balanced for a full adventure or a full campaign. The example of the Troll above is a good one. Regenerating 3 hp a round is a powerful, but not overwhelming, power in an encounter. 

But the ability to fully recover all hp lost in between successive encounters is a massively powerful ability. It doesn't make the troll any more dangerous to the adventuring party, but it sure gives a troll PC a hefty advantage over his teammates.

As well, putting a power or ability on an NPC may not create an unbalancing situation, but combining it with certain skills, spells, feats or class abilities that the single NPC does not have may prove vastly overpowering.  Slapping it onto the one NPC requires only ensuring it is balanced with his or her abilities.  Allowing its general use requires its balance be evaluated in light of all of the Pathfinder rules (and even then, Pathfinder may later add something that makes this third party ability unbalanced - I doubt they will check every third party Pathfinder option when they write their next book).


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## Rugult (Nov 13, 2011)

Some very good points here!  I'd like to answer a few things and bring up some additional thoughts, as I do like how positive this discussion has been.

  1)  So far, every Zeitgeist adventure has been written in 4e first and later converted to Pathfinder after the 4e manuscript is completed.  In order to keep up with the release schedule of adventures, the PFization side is pretty short time wise.  I know with Dying Skyseer I had about a week to a week and a half with the 'final' manuscript (not including a couple extra weeks with some unfinished acts).  As Dying Skyseer had some 25+ statblocks in it that needed to be worked on, this is no small task, and requires a lot of time, even for a simple "create as Fighter" conversion.  Luckily, most of the encounters have something unique in them that makes them more than just a generic class X switchover, and as was pointed out, smart GMs should be able to adjust weird things on the fly.

  That being said, we're well ahead of schedule now with Adventure 3 and I'm likely going to start editing it next week.  This should keep us well on track for our December release schedule.  

  2)  While I'm not using it as an excuse, the time crunch does allow certain 'wonky' things into the final drafts. 
  I would love to write up tons of new feats/abilities/monsters that can justify some of the cool flavour-box 4e stuff, but our current timeline does not allow for that level of detail with the PF versions.  This is ESPECIALLY bad at the current lower-levels that we're working with.  As you may have noticed, there's a lot of human roguish opponents in the first few adventures and it's hard to make those encounters all unique and special without doing a fair amount of tweaking. 

  One situation that PF doesn't handle very well (again, at low-levels) is the 4e concept of minions.  I've been doing a lot with NPC classes to try and mitigate this, but PCs should only be fighting low-level warriors for so long.


  3) Wolfgang's class choice was a casualty of storytelling VS. rules.  Flavour wise he fit a vivisectionist very well, but there was actually another archetype that fit him better for story purposes (to be revealed later on).  This being said, if I gave him that archetype, then he would have seemed even more wonky at this stage in the campaign.  In retrospect, I should have put him in as a vivisectionist and changed him when he showed up later.  My bad.

  4)  I play Pathfinder.  While I do like a lot of the 4e mechanics that can be used by GMs, I know that my game of choice is PF.  Don't think everyone on the Z team are 4e only players (though, I may be the only PF loyalist...).  

  I chose my 'flying into a rage' comment as I know this can be a hot topic for a lot of people, it's not meant to offend, and was instead meant to be a little joke.  Stupid internet, not allowing humour to get through...  

  5)  I had several talks with Ryan during Adventure 1 about making sure that PF rules were adhered to, and we ensured 'everyone plays by the same hymnbook'.  We laxed up a bit on this in adventure 2 partially due to time and partially to see some reactions. We'll re-evaluate the position for adventure 3 - based on discussions like this!

  6)  Not sure if I'm allowed to say this... (but it's late and I just ran a bunch of mods at a local convention and am pretty tired).  

  As of now it is looking like Adventure 5 will be written in PF and ported over to 4e.  This will be a departure from the current 4e to PF system we have now, and (hopefully) will not be too visible to the reading audience.

  7)  Zeitgeist is not a standard campaign setting.  No matter the discussions here, there's going to be cases where some creatures/NPCs get special things that the PCs won't necessarily have access to.  Even published Pathfinder works will include odd variants like this, and we're far-flung from a fantasy settings like Golarion.  So trust me when I say, we'll do our best to fit things in with the core PF rules, but certain things will be well beyond that scope to make thematically work without tweaking.  
  GMs, check out the campaign guide adventure path synopsis and you'll understand why.  (Seriously, Ryan is crazy!)   

  8) I'm rambling and should probably get some sleep now.  I get to spend tomorrow GMing using nothing but my goblin voice...


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## ridingsloth (Nov 16, 2011)

I just wanted to chime in as another Pathfinder DM, I for one would prefer more of the uniqueness and "weirdness" from 4E in the Pathfinder version. I started reading Adventure 2 in 4E when it came out and was immediately struck by, frankly, how much more interesting the NPC abilities were. I muuuuch prefer "fun and surprising" to "strictly legal" myself.

From my perspective: my players won't care if the NPCs can do something they can't, and we all enjoy encounters more when there is plenty of cool unique stuff going on. I'm about to start running Adventure 2 and I'm thinking I'll dig through the 4E version just to pull some of the cool ideas (and flavor text) to use during combat. 

I'd love to see something like what Cheezmo suggested: a kind of "alternate abilities" box for some NPCs that gives suggestions for more unique abilities that might break strict PF rules. I know this might be a bit more work but it'd save me a ton of time cross-checking the other version to see if there's something cool there that I'd like to use.


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