The Dwarf Rant

"That's some fine axework, even if I do say so myself!"

"Fine?! You almost cut him to pieces!"

"Aah, well he wouldn't stand still, would he?"


I kinda love the irony of people getting upset over certain topics. So to start off, I'm warning you guys sexism is going to come up, and if you don't like reading about it, there was your trigger warning. This is also your trigger warning for if you think trigger warnings are upsetting. So, to recap, Trigger Warning: Sexism discussion, and Trigger Warnings.


People think I hate Dwarves. I think I've probably even said that in the past. No, I think what I hate about them is pretty complicated. First is the Dwarven absence paradox. I've seen a large amount of Dwarven PCs, more than a lot of other races. However, virtually all of them were prefaced with the statement that they chose the race because "Nobody ever plays a Dwarf". Thus creating a paradox where we've seen a huge amount of Dwarves(all men but one. Hello, Bira!) but everybody thinks they're rare. It's like watching a bad Christian movie, the kind that expects you to believe that white conservative Christians in the deep south are being oppressed in some way. Okay, buddy.

Ahem. Anyway. The treatment Dwarven females get from a lot of people annoys me too. "Dwarven women have beards" and "You can't tell the men from the women" crop up a lot. It's dumb and I hate it. Pathfinder makes no mention of Dwarven women having beards. I didn't check 3.X, but it probably does say they do because 3.X is fucking stupid. Every time I see badass female Dwarf artwork out there(there's a ton) I can't help but picture some jackass hurr-hurr giggling over how ugly or mannish he apparently thinks Dwarf women should be and it kind of ruins me on the whole thing.

There are two places this comes from and I'll tackle them one at a time. Tolkien's dwarven women have beards. They are also "incredibly rare" and also "disguise themselves as male" when "forced" to travel. So considering Tolkien is gospel in most places, the (incredibly dumb) idea has legs it's never gonna shed. I hate Tolkien, and no, it's not just because the reading is dry. He obviously wrote only for himself and on some level I can respect that. However, his books have regressive ideas and arbitrary plot points indicative of the time he grew up in. While some of that is understandable, it doesn't mean I have to like it. So the pedestal he's put on and his awful ideas irritate me greatly.

Was Tolkien sexist? I'm not gonna go into it here. You can find resources on why this debate happens yourself. I'll only say this: It's not a discussion that ends in "Of course not".

Being unable to tell Dwarven men from women actually crops up somewhere else too. Dwarves in Terry Pratchett's Discworld are fairly different from normal fantasy stock. The genetic line between Dwarves and Humans in Discworld is a little blurred, and "Dwarfishness" is seen as an important aspect of their culture. Both sexes have beards, and Dwarven men and women are nearly indistinguishable. The Dwarven language doesn't even have gendered pronouns in Discworld, just a single, gender neutral pronoun that translates to "He" in English.

The thing people may be missing is that Pratchett sure did love using Discworld for social commentary. I don't know HOW you'd miss something so obvious, but the possibility exists. On its face, his Dwarves are an homage to Tolkien's, but it quickly turns into some fairly clever commentary. Dwarven society in his setting is dominated by the idea that you don't openly express a feminine gender. You're not allowed to do feminine things or have feminine pursuits. You don't wear feminine clothing or call yourself a woman. They even have a vicious, hateful slur for openly feminine Dwarves: Ha'ak. It's never translated, but the meaning is clear. In several of the books, there is a subplot of a growing movement of gender expression in female Dwarves.

Funny how something that's meant as commentary on the LGBT community and Transgenderism can get taken at face value and create something negative. Maybe I'm the only one who read Discworld and I'm just mentioning Pratchett to hedge my bets and stop people from yelling BUT PRATCHETT! at me after this posts. Forgive me if I'm a little tired of counter-arguments being centered around trying to somehow prove I'm a hypocrite instead of discussion the information presented.

The females of fantasy races don't have to be conventionally pretty. That's not what this is about. Female orcs, goblins, ogres or dozens of other races aren't likely to have the same standards of beauty as us. They are, however, still feminine. As Pathfinder's flagship race, there's plenty of artwork out there of females of even the official big headed sharp tooth idiot goblins and way more from other games or artists.  Taking away or belittling their femininity by adding purely male traits is awful.

And no, this isn't the same thing as lizardlike races which may not be sexually dimorphic in the same way as a mammalian race like Dwarves. Put another gold star on your nerd card if you immediately thought to say this to me, you clowns.

There is more to gender than genitals. There are many traits associated with each gender, and pointing out what does and doesn't have a penis or vagina doesn't get you out of this discussion. The fact that Games Workshop Orks are plant spores doesn't mean they don't have gender: They all look, sound, and act male. They just don't have a biological sex. The fact that they don't have penises and reproduce through spores or some dumb shit like that is a technicality at best in terms of our discussion. I believe Tolkien used a similar loophole with Uruk'hai, didn't he? Huh, so that's two entire races of people in his books that didn't really have women at all.

Neither does it "work" to point out that it's okay that there are very few feminine Transformers because none of them have genitals. They may not, but they ARE gendered. They sound like men, they act like men, obviously think of each other as men and most(but not all) have bodies that remind one of men. If you want to see a legitimately agendered robot, I'll direct you to Overwatch's salt-powered gatling demon Bastion.

And I swear to god, if I hear a "did you just assume my gender" joke I'm gonna be real close to physical assault. It's not funny. You're not fucking funny.

The point is, saying "But they still have a vagina!" doesn't end this discussion about female dwarves. I think diminishing their femininity sucks, and "Because I think it's funny" is a really stupid reason to do it. Or to do anything, really. Shame that it's also the most common reason attached to this habit. "Because Papa Tolkien did it" is another really dumb reason to do anything too, and one day I'll get into enriching your world by carving new territory and not just relying on old, tired racial stereotypes from books or movies. Dwarves are victims of this so often it's got tropes named after them...but we're already tying a long tail on this post as it is.

This is probably a really long rant for something that, on the whole, doesn't matter that much. It just bothers me. I can't help it. I think maybe I'll go make a dwarf lady.

And she's not gonna have a fucking beard.

P.S. If you're saying you can't tell them apart because they're all wearing full plate...that's fair, but full plate is expensive, guys. A whole society of it is just plain unlikely.

End of Edition Counselling

"Here's your happily ever after!"



Well, Pathfinder 2e has been announced. It's been so long that I was starting to believe the rumor that they said they'd never do a second edition. Ten years. I guess it's about time, right? The new edition ostensibly fixes a lot of issues, and even makes some quality of life changes I think are positive. Alchemists and Goblins are in the core now, which I'm calling a win for me and all other Goblin players. In fact, I'm gonna go so far as to declare that the old Elven Alchemist icon, who's just plain gone now, was eaten by Goblins. Yum Yum. So, Ol' Mousetrap is going to rush out, buy the new edition, and press everyone into playing it, right?

Nah.

I know plenty of people who are excited, but at this point me and (most of) my friends are older. The days of jumping to a new edition immediately are gone and frankly, for some of us, they never existed in the first place. I mean, I'm gonna take a look at it. Might play some games of it. There's a lot of reasons I'm never too excited about switching editions. Not just Pathfinder, but any of them.

I guess I should just get the practical concerns out of the way. I own a very large amount of books. When we made the jump to Pathfinder, it was entirely because it's (mostly) compatible with D&D 3.5 source. It meant we could still use all that stuff. Really, if you were to add the two together, Pathfinder is going to be the lion's share of the game's power anyway. But, I digress. This isn't always the case, but D&D 3.0 meant we probably weren't ever going to play 2e again. Pathfinder meant we're never going to play 3.X alone again. Pathfinder 2e could very well mean that for Pathfinder. The more incompatibility there is, the higher that chance is. Nobody wants to start all over buying books, especially when we're not unhappy with the current edition. Hell, if Pathfinder weren't a D20 license game and easy to convert old content to...I doubt we would've made the jump. These books aren't cheap.

But there are plenty of games with fewer books, or work great with just the core. I don't think 3.X or PF fit that bill, but both Vampire games do(Hell, most White Wolf games) as well as Mutants and Masterminds, there's a ton. I certainly didn't refuse the switch to Mutants and Mastermind's third edition because of the cost. But...I did make that refusal. Why?

Well, don't take this as me making a stealth-bash against PF 2e...but the third edition of Mutants and Masterminds isn't a hundred percent better. It's got problems, ones I'll probably save for another post entirely. The point is, if a new edition fixes the problems of the old and delivers a universally better product...great! VTM Revised, Shadowrun 3rd, and Mutants and Masterminds 2e are great examples. But they don't always do that. Sometimes, they fix some problems and cause others. So if all I'm doing is shifting problems to new areas...tell me again why I'm changing editions? We've already fixed a lot of M&M 2e's issues with house rules and altering reward structures. A new edition would just feel like starting over: we noticed several new problems at a glance in M&M 3e and even Shadowrun 4e, so how many more do you think they have that we won't find until later? It took us years to notice Pathfinder's ridiculous and surely untested tie-up rules. Sometimes it can feel like looking back on a field we've cleared of land mines, then deciding to keep traveling into another field full of land mines instead of just camping here.

Every once in a while, though, the new edition may as well be a new game entirely. Dungeons and Dragons 4e is probably the elephant in this room, but it's hardly the only time this happened. Hell, sometimes it being a new game is a good thing.Werewolf: The Forsaken was much more grounded and faithful to werewolf myths than Werewolf: The Apocalypse. Other times, though, it's Shadowrun 4e which ruins the Cyberpunk feel of the game(So much so that it offended 5e's developers) or Vampire: The Requiem which...let's face it, has probably seen less support than the older, supposedly dead edition Masquerade. Masquerade is beloved for a lot of reasons, and without intending to make an inflammatory statement, I'd say it's a fairly well balanced game, presuming your GM knows that skills, subtlety and cleverness can and should sometimes trump disciplines. As for Requiem? I don't fuckin' know, dude. They're only superficially similar. It and Masquerade feel like two wildly different teams were handed the same concept pitch.

But, Pathfinder isn't going to get any more support after August of 2019. No more books. No more cool stuff. Most people would take this as sad, but I'm positive about it. Let me explain why. For one, a game like Pathfinder already has so much source that you can play it for the rest of your life and still find new things you want to do in it, to say nothing of characters always being unique in terms of personality or situation. The end of an edition also means the beginning of a better understanding of the system.

Do you remember when Ultimate Magic came out? I feel like everyone had a pretty good handle on how the game was going to go, then Magus showed up. Magus definitely felt like Vegeta when it was new. An undeniable signal that things have changed, and weren't ever going to be the same again. Maybe I'm exaggerating, but Magus was big. I'm not saying it's overpowered, but it definitely made waves. Then, later on, Arcanist and the other hybrid classes were added. And then, just if you thought it was over, Vitalist and Kineticist in the Occult guide.

I'm not calling this power creep, or even implying Paizo is bad at game balance. Let's leave that discussion for another day. Even if these classes, these feats or weapons are well balanced with the content in the core book, they fundamentally changed the game. They changed your decisions, they changed the advice you gave each other and the way you built. Maybe even the way you played. They made a big impact.

So what does the end of an edition mean? No more waves, no more meteoric impacts. Smooth sailing. Once there's no new content, you can take stock of everything the game has and begin to develop permanent opinions. Solid, permanent advice or house rules. Imagine deciding you want to play a support caster in your next game, a healer specifically. Imagine your group hadn't bought the Occult Guide. Maybe it's not even out yet. You'd make a Cleric, probably. Maybe an Oracle. Now imagine halfway through the game, someone brings over the Occult guide and you read Vitalist. You see its insane action economy and wonderful support spells and you'd probably feel like a sucker for being Cleric.

Edit: Vitalist isn't in Occult Guide. It's a 3rd party class. My point stands, though.

Maybe that's a really stupid example, but closing the book on a game edition means things like that never happening. I enjoy Shadowrun 3e vastly more now than I did when we were still getting new books, looking back on it. I even know enough about the game to speak with authority over its failings and suggest ways to fix it. Newer editions of the game even helped me do that. Thanks, SR 5e! Mutants and Masterminds and Vampire: The Masquerade were the same situation, and Pathfinder won't be any different.


Maybe I'm preaching to the choir. My point is that a new edition doesn't mean you have to switch. It doesn't mean the death of the old game. When something dies, it means all you have left of it is your memories. An edition closing its doors can actually mean the opposite: That your best years with it are ahead of you.

Sean K. Reynolds and the Art of Punching People

"Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth."


We're talking about minutiae today, so I don't blame you if you skip it. 3.5 and Pathfinder have a problem with monks. To explain pretty quickly, the class has historically been called underpowered. It brings less damage than fighter, but less skills than rogue. Normally being a middle-of-the-road class wouldn't be bad, but that's...not where it actually lies, only where it's supposed to. Instead, it ends up doing less damage than even the rogue. Part of this is due to equipment: Amulet of Mighty Fists is extremely expensive in both editions, even though Pathfinder has tried to fix this issue. It also only goes up to +5 equivalent. This means the monk is either stuck using substandard weapons like the Kama, taking an exotic weapon proficiency, or being down on attack bonus and damage. Pathfinder tried to help with Brawler and Unchained Monk, but it's not a hundred percent there yet and won't be until the issue of their weapons is fixed.

Put a pin in that idea for a second.


I hate running into ambiguousness. In my opinion, having it in your game means you failed in some way. Whether something is good or bad, unbalanced or even intended to suck, it should at least be clear how it works. The rules for three weapons in Pathfinder are ambiguous: Brass Knuckles, Cestus, and Rope Gauntlets. Normal gauntlets can even be lumped in here.

When Brass Knuckles were first introduced in the Advanced Player's Guide, they were explicitly unarmed attacks and even mentioned directly that monks could use their unarmed attack dice when using them. This was, essentially, the balancing factor monks needed to compete with other classes in terms of damage. So, you can imagine I wasn't surprised at all when a more recent book(the Equipment Guide) alters this wording to change Brass Knuckles into a regular light melee weapon, yet another thing in the weapons section nobody in their right mind would actually use. Just throw it on the pile of neat stuff we won't ever see in a PF game.

So no problem, right? I wish. First off, they forgot to change the wording of Cestus, Gauntlet, and even Brass Knuckles to remove any mention of unarmed attacks. So now they're explicitly unarmed attacks, but with their own damage dice, and it's left entirely up to interpretation what in the world that means. Am I considered armed or not? Do I use my unarmed attack dice, or not? Most people say no, I think. But, there's confusion.

There's confusion in part because of one of Paizo's designers at the time, Sean K Reynolds. He's a veteran of game design who's worked on things like the 3.0 Forgotten Realms books and a shitload of stuff for Pathfinder. Before the Paizo forums were declared too toxic to engage on, and before Reynolds left the company, he'd engage with Pathfinder fans about their questions and things. It's revealed through his posts(especially the stuff about Brass Knuckles, as you'll find out) that Paizo is just like any big company and full of people who don't know the whole story, don't CARE about the whole story, or aren't communicating with each other. However, Reynolds can't just post official clarifications or errata himself, so when he tried to explain that the wording for these weapons was dumb and reference to them being unarmed attacks at all should be removed, it was his opinion as a game designer. That's all probably true, anyway.

Apparently, things took a turn against Sean and he was declared the guy that killed monks.

He wasn't trying to 'nerf' monks, though. He worked on APG. The brass knuckles were his idea. He even helped with the books that declared flurry to work "the way everyone thought it did to begin with" with Brawler and Unchained Monk. He was just trying to explain where the problem is, not make a commentary on how things should be. So the guy who tried to fix monks took the heat for Jason Bulmahn, the actual guy who tried to kill monks...or at least destroy a deliberate attempt to assist them. Jason either convinced Sean to change Brass Knuckles, or used his position as Lead Designer to have it done.

But whoever made the change, the posts seemingly caused more confusion, because Sean was speaking as an expert but not an authority. He can't make rulings himself or officially clear up confusion. I hate confusion. Monk has either been the victim of a man named Bulmahn who saw no problem with the class(somehow) or of Paizo being a huge corporation with poor communications and slow reactions. Maybe both. Here's the fix I recommend.

• Brass Knuckles let you use your unarmed attack damage. 
• Gauntlets, Brass Knuckles, Cestus, and Rope Gauntlet count as unarmed attacks for purposes of feats and abilities, but are otherwise regular light melee weapons with their own weapon damage. 
• You are considered armed when wielding any of these weapons. 
• None of this has anything to do with natural attacks. People with natural attacks need to look elsewhere for enchantments.

This means the benefit of Brawler is that they can use Close Weapon Mastery to drop their attack damage by a die to get a 19-20 crit range on their unarmed attacks. I see that as fair.  You also keep away from literally every unarmed fighter using cestus and causing odd behavior. If it bothers you that monks are using brass knuckles, I urge you to re-flavor the items instead of removing them. This is the part that I remind you that something like Japanese tekko would be brass knuckles, mechanically. Arguably, early Greek Cestus, which were just a strip of leather bound under the palm, would be brass knuckles too. There's also the Indian Vajra-Mushti knuckle dusters used in Indian wrestling. Basically, if your problem is the modern-era image of the brass knuckle, then you may not be aware of how old this idea is.

As for making monks too strong? I don't think that's anything we have to worry about. They're getting the benefit of Two Weapon Fighting without having to buy two weapons...but TWF is historically low damage and highly feat intensive compared to two handed weapons anyway. Really, monk and brawler are the only places it works for damage in the first place. We're buffing something that's already kind've in the dog house. TWF in other places is best used for tossing things like dirty trick(using Quick Dirty Trick), disarm or trip out with your offhand attacks rather than actually trying to do it for raw damage. This means that TWF users are going to be skimping on their off hand enchants or even using gimmick weapons(ones with flags like disarm or trip) that have lower damage since they won't be dealing damage. After all, greater trip allows you to trip with your weaker offhand, then get a free AoO on your main hand weapon. The monk can also flurry with a two handed weapon...if he takes an exotic weapon proficiency. Even then, he's giving up his (usually) superior monk damage dice to do it, so the math is currently out on if that's even a good idea.

I dunno, guys. I just like punching things. Both monk and brawler are near and dear to my heart and it sucks seeing them lag behind. It was nice of Mr. Reynolds to try and fix them with brass knuckles, but it ended up causing confusion and ambiguity later. He'd probably tell you the game's too complex. While I don't agree, it was inevitable that something like this would happen. Luckily, it's pretty easy to fix. If you still don't like the idea of brass knuckles after all this, I urge you to let monks wear ki wraps on their glove slot that enchant like a weapon does. That way, they're using up a slot to do it, since it'd be gloves instead of technically a held weapon in terms of magic items. If you truly desire a compromise, I think that's not a bad one. Magic item slots aren't a big deal early in the game, but once you pass level 15 or so in a normal game, they become your restrictor more than gold does. This is also about when the monk would be feeling the blues due to weapon costs, so you've lessened the restriction, but not entirely.

Not that I think you need to compromise. Just let them use brass knuckles. Come up with a few contemporaries for knuckles. Hell, allow knuckles as well as ki wraps so people can choose the fantasy they want. Even after Unchained Monk, the class could still use a leg up.