Bengaijin's page

Bengaijin: I love the old series the most, but the korra stuff is great as well...particularly the probending. =) I have a version 9 below.

Thanks for v9. I'm going to build up a character for the next one-off module my DM runs and I'll let you know how it goes!

Hi,

I'd like to test-drive this class - I'm a big fan of the Airbender/Korra series and have been working to incorporate a bit more of their feel into my Tian Xia/Asia analog. Is version 8 still the most up-to-date, or is there a newer one out there?

Also, has anyone tried out some of the other 'bender' builds floating around the internet? How do they compare?

Thanks!

In fact, this would be a great place to put the original, uncensored version of Hook Mountain Massacre back in!

"Squeal like a dire boar!"

Will there be new encounters/"in-game" content, or will the new material likely be for support and clarification only (ie An NPC gallery, a magic item compendium, incorporated errata, etc)?

Axe that question - I should read more carefully. If I did, I would know the answer is 'yes'.

Back to the AP at hand, which I am delighted to see as a special edition...

What level span can we expect? Same as the original?

Will there be new encounters/"in-game" content, or will the new material likely be for support and clarification only (ie An NPC gallery, a magic item compendium, incorporated errata, etc)?

Definitely excited for this one.

APs I want to play/gm:

1) The Mendev/Worldwound 'war' campaign described in various places on the boards would be great - demons, celestials, a multi-ethnic and multi-faction crusade, spies, inquisitions, false prophets, betrayals, apocalyptic landscapes, 'special ops' tactical missions, and mass battles galore. How could this possibly be anything but awesome? I'd love to see it tied in with Steel Wind's 'Tome of Thrones' hardcover.

2) A Geb/Nex/Absalom AP that directly involves the Pathfinder society, who have discovered that Nex was the only man with the knowledge/artifact/other mcguffin to prevent some grave threat from wrecking house across golarion. The PCs must find this mcguffin, and to do so go on a quest heavy in investigation, scholarly politics, puzzle-solving, dungeon-crawling, and a bit of planar travel. I could see crypts in Geb, mage academies in Quantium, dusty libraries of Absalom, siege castles around the city, and mysterious pocket planes all coming into play here... Maybe this is a way to couch the Spire of Nex that Erik has mentioned recently?

3) Arcadia - A new world campaign that could support either/both native and colonial characters. Avistan nations jockey for power with one another and come into conflict with native peoples. Hateful forces on both sides seek the complete annihilation of the other, and seek to unleash some local supernatural phenomenon to accomplish this goal. The PCs have to work to prevent the carnage and establish some mutually acceptable detente between the powers of Arcadia. Politics, mini-quests, skirmishes, wilderness exploration, new peoples, types of magic, and crazy, native american-inspired monsters. Sweet.

4) Rise of the Runelords hardcover - brought back as fully Pathfinderized AP, and expanded and embellished to become the first Paizo release to take PCs all the way from levels 1 to 20.

These are my AP dreams.

Hi all,

I have a character concept for a kingmaker campaign a friend is starting, but am unsure how to build it. I'm quite excited about the prospect of focusing on exploration, settlement, and governance in this campaign and want to build a character focused on these issues. I'm picturing a dwarven explorer based a bit on the Victorian explorers/Indiana Jones types, but also on the early American settlers like John Smith. He should be comfortable in the wild, but with the attitude of taming it for settlement, a man with a technical and strategic mind. He should be a character with a fairly broad range of knowledge and skills - He should have knowledge of geography, local, history, nature, and engineering, maybe profession (architecture), definitely survival, maybe diplomacy.

In some ways rogue seems like a good base, but the whole stealth and sneak attack aspect seems a bit misplaced. Ranger seems like a good base too, but lacks a lot of the qualities I would put into a character who is such an overt agent of civilization. Bard has some appropriate characteristics, but is also a magical singer of magical songs, which seems oh so wrong for a map-drawing, tree-chopping, dam-building dwarf. Pathfinder seems like an appropriate prestige class thematically, but I've read some sharp criticisms of its in-game effectiveness.

So what do you think? Should I make him a rogue/ranger multiclass? Am I missing a great option elsewhere?

Thanks!

Very interesting, Steel Wind. I did not know any of that.

I think $120 would be the top limit, as that is what it would have cost to buy the original AP piecemeal. I think pricing it higher than that would turn off everybody except for the "I want it bound in dragon leather with a Sihedron rune in mithral pressed upon the front, so that my ancestors can gaze upon it in wonder" crowd. I think that's a smaller crowd than the "I want to read it, I want to play it, I want it to be a fairly nice hardcover" crowd.

Yeah, I know my 20-level dream is asking a lot, but what can I say? I know that if they reissue it, they'll only do it once, so I might as well throw in my two cents now...

I must say, a 600 page reissue doesn't sound that ridiculous to me, though. It's basically the same number of pages as the original AP, with 450 of the pages being pre-existing material. That means 150 pages of new stuff, which is only the equivalent of one and half AP chapters in raw page count. Mix it into the rest of the AP seamlessly and the whole thing will feel like a fresh new buy that no completionist or semi-completionist could refuse. Then you are selling the whole AP for the creative labor of one and a half (let's round up to two, because of the stat block conversion labor) AP chapters. I know there are plenty of other production costs to factor in, but still...Seems like it could turn a reasonable profit even with sales numbers lower than the average AP books, though I personally think it would sell like crazy hotcakes to Pathfinders new and old...

Maybe as two hardcovers, each priced at $49.99, like the core rulebooks? I apologize, as I know I am drifting WAY into the 'telling you how to do your job even though you obviously know how to do it perfectly well' territory, but I just think this is an interesting issue to think about. I love Rise of the Runelords like they were my own children and I only want the best for them...

Wow. Hello, world. Nice to finally meet you. You're even prettier than everyone says.

All I'm saying is that, as someone who owns all six RotRL adventures (probably a typical thing for a Pathfinder fan) and as someone who knows where to find well-done stat block conversions (also probably typical), a reprint for me would ideally contain something new to me other than just some improved art. And let me emphasize that I WANT to buy a compiled reissue, I just want it to be an improvement on the great work Paizo has already done on this AP. And the best thing I can imagine is for the AP to be expanded so that my PCs can experience the full level range of their classes within the story arc.

I very much hope a reissue is in the works and would readily buy it, but I hope that it would be more than just a straight-up exercise in stat-block conversion and art replacement.

I would like to see changes made for either story reasons or mechanical reasons anywhere that the Paizo folks, with years of retrospect at this point, see room for improvement. I would also love to see new encounters, side-treks, and maybe whole chapters throughout,(they did this to some extent with Shackled City, as I understand it) so that the overall level span of the AP could now go all the way up to level 20. I want my PCs to reach that culminating phase where they can hurl 9th level spells and use pinnacle abilities in their showdown with the campaign's big baddy.

Trying to tack on extra play at the end of an AP seems really difficult to me for two reasons. First, the narrative arc of the previous 16 levels of play is complete, so the investment in whatever new plot the GM creates is always a bit weak, comparatively. Second, high-level play is the most difficult to stat out and balance - I'd be delighted to leave it to the pros.

If a reissue solves that problem, I will pay plenty of money for it and will dedicate the next couple of years of my life to running Rise of the Runelords. Done deal.