Arcane Knowledge's page

"I don't know why you all want those things anyway -- don't you know they are... nevermind." -- dragon on the source of dragon diamonds.

LOL. Wow that is a great reference. I think the dragon says something like "I don't understand why you humans value such things, don't you know it's my sh... Oh never mind." I've yet to play that game however I am going to be doing so in the very near future. Again great reference, it made my day.

I think that something else that you should consider is that in the basic DnD system gems are considered trade items. <http://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment---final> This link goes to the equipment page of the Pathfinder System Reference Document. There right beneath the heading "Coins" is a heading called "Other Wealth". Under that heading it says exactly "Merchants commonly exchange trade goods without using currency. As a means of comparison, some trade goods are detailed on Table: Trade Goods."

What this means is that while certain items might cost more or less as a rule of supply and demand there are certain goods that retain there value not simply based on their supply but based on there usefulness or the items unending demand. Things like certain cloth goods, gems, spices, salt, grains, flour, livestock and metal. That means that these goods work just like coins for the purposes of buying and selling.

As for how these things keep their constant value, there are several different ways this might come about. It might be that certain goods like gems and metals have quality controls just like this world does. People who are specially trained to understand the financial significance of most gems and metals, this is easily done by even a 1st level expert. While other things like cloth, grain, spices, and livestock are likely regulated in price by the kingdom for purposes of trade with it's neighbors. Or if not that these items can be kept at constants to represent the wealth of the kingdom as a whole, rather like the wealth of the US is partially based on the amount of gold that we have in the treasuries. Technically the value of gold never changes (although television adds would have you believe otherwise), what changes is the economic value of a countries currency against the understood wealth of the gold kept in reserve.

I know I've typed too much as it is but I thought that this small explanation might help with your question or even improve your game play experience.

Peace and Good Gaming

And here is the post that I came to the boards to read! I actually play with Ashiel and I have personally played this monk fix. Allow me to introduce you to not failing at life as a monk. These powers go so well with the Monk that I'm not entirely sure that the Psychic Warrior wasn't designed as a monk fix in the first place. Powers like Grip of Iron is amazing for grappling buffs. Want your monk to seemingly appear out of no where and take the enemy by surprise? Then Chameleon is for you. Do you want your Monk to be able to shrug of the punches of mere mortals? Then cast Biofeedback gives you just enough DR to make the enemy wonder whether they hit a person or a brick wall. You want to jump off a roof top that would break a normal persons legs? Catfall has an answer. Empty Mind and Fortify allow you to use your meditative abilities in battles to protect yourself from harm. I mean these powers are so fluid that all scream INNER POWER from the roof tops. Not only that but these powers allow for in depth customization of a particular brand of Monk that you want to be.

I intend to use this for all intents and purposes as the essential Monk. I also intend to share this with whoever will listen. I've loved Monks even before this fix, I've probably played more monks than any other class, and I am happy to see a fix that drags them off of the bottom power rung.

Ok first off let me say to Ashiel. I've read your posts on other boards and this is not the stuff that I would have thought you would concern yourself with, but whatever floats your boat.

Now that that is out of the way. Lemme say that it is an interesting concept to think that Wisdom rather than Charisma would be the score of choice for... this sort of check. But if you really stop to consider the implications it begins to make more sense. What does Charisma really do in the game? Well skill wise a few things pop up right to start with. The first skills being bluff, diplomacy, gather information, and intimidate. These skills all deal specifically with changing someone else's point of view.

That doesn't really sound like something in itself that would make a whore better at her job, at least not directly. I could argue that in correlation it would work with the profession skill, but not alone.

Now Wisdom brings to mind sense motive, profession, survival, spot, and listen. Now for arguments sake lets leave spot and listen out of the conversation, while minor points might be made for each they don't really pertain to this discussion at all. Moving on we can look at survival, while not a skill for a whore it begins to give an idea of what the wisdom ability score does in a practical sense.

Survival is the ability to know through experience how to take care of yourself, and potentially other people while in hostile environments. The key word in this is through experience. But not only having experienced it, but being able to call up the experiences to preform a task. This makes perfect sense in the context presented. Not only have you been able to please the opposite sex/same sex/no sex/different species/different form of life/no signs of life, thought these last few are a bit difficult to imagine.

Moving on sense motive and profession. Well with a profession like prostitution, I'm using a word I understand fully so I hope no one minds, it should be easy to see how sensing your partners feelings would come in handy. Even if they didn't say what they liked, for instance, without them having to say a word. I don't think that this needs going over anymore, it's straight forward sense motive is good at sensing what isn't said.

Now lets see here. Profession. Well again straight forward. On the job training has made you good at what you do. Someone just starting out might use Charisma to get someone's attention on the street, but how well they are or aren't satisfied is directly equivalent to how well the person can perform the task. Quite simply it doesn't matter how awesome your car looks if you can't drive it.

Just something to think about. Again weird topic.

Except that sharpening with a whetstone, like you are supposed to, gives you +1 to your next attack. Adventurers armory, I believe.

That could very well be true, please excuse me for not looking it up this late at night, but that is basically a variant rule in a splat book and not a core rule. This is important to note seeing as how a whetstone is mentioned in the core book under equipment, but makes no mention of such a bonus in the core rules.

Also this would be a rather unfair to other weapons that did not have blades. I mean what would the equivalent for a bludgeoning weapons? If it's good for the goose it's good for the gander, as the saying goes. I could see this working for piercing weapons quite easily though. I could see it working for arrows and bolts. A whetstone could work like the spell greater magic weapon, and work on a certain number of projectiles, like twenty or so. But even then a whetstone would be more useful for projectiles than other weapons.

So I guess my question is where is the balance?

Arcane Knowledge,

Really I guess that is a really good thing for Pathfinder. It shows that people that are interested Pathfinder products are doing a complete switch over, which means more business for Paizo. It also shows that Paizo is doing a good job keeping it's fans happy, which is something that Wizards has been having a problem with for years.

I think that part of this success is due to Pathfinders direct connection with their customers, and the fact that they listen to their patrons and their incites to the game.

Congratulations Paizo, Currently you're all WIN!!

Arcane Knowledge

I'm writing a 3rd party adventure set in an ahistorical greek setting (i.e. it's predominately Greek City State culture, but with a lot of anachronisms). Is alpha testing of adventures customary, or is it just a playtest?

Elton Robb

Well I guess that depends on what you mean by customary. According to dictionary.com cutomary means:

1. According to the customs or usual practices associated with a particular society, place, or set of circumstances.
2. According to a person's habitual practice.
I would say that I believe that you should playtest the encounters that you aren't sure of, or if you aren't sure that you have the adventure running the way you want it to, give the unfinished version to an interested GM for them to run and give feed back. But I've not ever really heard that it is everyone's custom to playtest an adventure.

Also if you give this to a DM to Run on openrpg they can actually save the chat log of the game, allowing you to personally go through and see where the problems, if any, originated from.

so the party traveling around with the magic carpet, flaming swords and helms of brilliance dont look more intimidating than the commoner with the pitch forks?

Truly, I don't believe that is what Asphesteros is saying at all. Rather that in most situations monsters/npc's aren't going to take one look at a party, and realize that there doom is inevitable should they strike out at them. Not every npc walks around with detect magic or the like going, to do so for anyone without PC class levels would be difficult at best.

Also what you have to realize is that most campaign settings don't assume characters in the world higher than 6th-10th level. Now if the big bad is a newley awakened ancient evil or has been leveling up while the party has been trying to uncover their insidious plot then we can assume that epic proportions are taking place within the world. The kinds of things the world only see's once or twice a millennium. In other words most npc's between 6th to 10th level would likely, and rightly believe themselves to be the cream of the crop. Also greater numbers could attribute to their boldness.

Just a few thoughts, AI