Brodymeister Meisterbrody's page

I am thrilled that Paizo will produce "menial" NPC's. I have the Reaper Townsfolk I set, all of Mega Miniatures town folk and castle NPC's, the DCM townspeople, and even a set of educational medieval villagers I found. The cook looks spectacular and I am looking forward to the rest in future sets.
I must agree with the other posters about swarms however. Paizo listens to their customers, so I hope future sets will bring us flat swarms we can place miniatures upon.

I was not in a financial position to purchase D&D minis when they were all coming out. Now, however, I have been eating up the Pathfinder minis, though, with cases, singles, promos and encounter packs.

Like the army builder line, I think this direction for the encounter packs is fantastic.

And I might as well say that the sculpts and paint jobs keep getting better.

BTW, looking forward to the next Builder announcement...hoping for UNDEAD...

Piccolo wrote:

Inflation isn't THAT fast!

It is. According to here $60 in 1980 was about $150 by 2007, when the prices for AP issues were first set.

Compound interest moves fast, especially in the 80s/late 90s

First, I must say that calculator is pretty cool.

Anyway, my group is going on 2 years and we are halfway through Book 6. We play, on average, 4 times per month (only a couple hours per week though).

Perceived value is a tricky thing. I too liken it to video games or movie tickets. I know what my time is worth (based in part on my work salary), and if I am getting a couple hours of entertainment (movie at $12), 10-15 hours of entertainment (xbox game $60) or 2 years of entertainment (Carrion Crown AP, plus Rule of Fear, Undead Revisited, plastic figures, etc...$300), well that just makes a Paizo AP the best deal of all.

Plus its just fun to read. I appreciate the time the developers take with the additional backstory. It takes me 2 years to run an AP, but I get to read everything that I don't have time to run/play and I enjoy the stroytelling aspect of it all.

The company is Renaissance Miniatures and their stuff looks awesome. Last year they had the medieval village Kickstarter, this time it is east asian. For anyone running Jade Regent or anything set in Tian Xia this is a must have. I will be adding some of these models to Sandpoint myself.
Oh, and they funded on Day 1.
East Asian Village

2 people marked this as a favorite.

But seriously, I gave the new edition a try for a couple years. It wasn't for me or my players. I began running a 3.5 game again when I discovered Pathfinder. Made the switch and ever looked back.

It is absolutely helped by the constant development, but also because of the quality of Paizo products, the focus on Adventures and world building, and the passion of Paizo employees and the Paizo supporting gaming community. The OGL, and all of the third party development, is also good for everyone.

Just my 2cp.

2 people marked this as a favorite.

It's because of me. When I stop playing 3.X and its various mutations and offspring, the entire thing will come to an apocalyptic end.

You're welcome planet Earth!

Thanks Herbo!

I am teaching Pathfinder to 3 of my son's friends...My 17 year old son has been playing for almost 7 years, now he is taking the party lead and we are introducing tabletop RPG's to his friends. Thornkeep, in case you were wondering.

I just wanted to bring a Kickstarter to the Paizo Community's attention.

These are laser cut acrylic markers for blasts, cones, lines, etc...The Kickstarter has already reached its goal and there are still 14 days left. The person doing the Kickstarter has been very responsive and it seems like a really useful product.

Link here: What Did I Blow Up?

ADHD is not limited to your group, or the younger generation for that matter. I guess 20 years ago doodling on your character sheet was the diversion of choice.
I have banned all electronic devices. My group gets together once a week for about 2.5 hours of playing time. If they can turn off their device for a movie, then they sure as heck can shut it down during the game. (And if they can't, they don't need to play). With the exception of my 17 year old son, who has been playing for about 7 years, the rest of the group has been playing together for 3 decades. So they understand my rules and in some ways are grateful for them. (“Really honey, I have to turn off my phone.”)
Because we do not have a lot of time I also request that they know what their action will be when it is their turn and I call on them.
Paying attention is just common courtesy to the game master and the other players.
My group is in Book 6. The only original member to make it this far has been the Paladin, who swore an oath against undead early in Book 1. I am lucky in that respect as his pursuit of the Whispering Way was originally motivated by the Professor's murder, but then by the desire the halt the plans of the mastermind....
Other players: the 2 role-players in my group crafted various motivations depending on the situations they have been in or the NPC's they have interacted with. (example: The bard is a Sleepless Agent they picked up in Book 4 who is under contract to report on the party's activities).
The 2 non role-players are along for the ride. One is a monk who simply likes fighting, and the other is a sniper rogue with no real background. He simply enjoys the game for the game’s sake and understands what is needed to move the plot along.
Have you spoken directly to your players about your concerns? As a cooperative game, everyone should be on the same page.
Is it possible that the style of game your players want to actually play is something with a little less investigation/role play and more action?
How large is your group? How old are they? How long have they been playing? Is it always the same person/people?

Yes, it is a really fun addition to the campaign.
Plus, I did all of the updating for you, right here:
Carrion Hill Update
Enjoy!

For the short campaign you want to play, I would recommend Thornkeep.

It is situated in a semi-civilized area next to a huge forest. The section on the town itself contains a ton of adventure hooks for characters, as well as several fully crafted dungeons, including one suitable for the levels you wish to play.

Regarding stats: Currently I give them 16,14,14,13,12,10 before racial adjustments. There are a lot of threads on the forums discussing whether or not higher than average ability scores really affects the game, so you may want to browse around before deciding what method will work for you.

I will tally the xp after the session is over. If anyone achieves a new level, I will let them know that they have the xp for the next level. However, they may only level up if they have the opportunity to have a full rest.
For example, the group is currently exploring an old cathedral that is the heart of a foul cult. After defeating some creatures on the property, then getting past the gatekeeper and the door trap, the Paladin and Monk have enough xp to advance to 13th level.
Since they are in the middle of a "working day" then they do not level up. The next time they run off and hide/camp for the night, assuming they are not interrupted, then they can level up.
The actual act of rolling hit points and adjusting the character is always done between sessions, however.
Now, there is no true "storytelling" reason why I make them wait. It is more of a practical issue. While I like the idea of "Iomedae blesses you" after a fight, it is simply easier for me to do the tally after the session as well as not have to interrupt the session while a player levels up. With about 2 and a half hours of play time per week, the actual adventuring take priority over all else.

Years ago, during the time of D&D 1e and 2e the PC's would have to train to level up, but that went out a long time ago. I agree with Orthos on his sentiment.

I do like how MendedWall12 handled the new class feature though.

Oh, and the bonfire looks fantastic...as soon as I have some more disposable income I will be ordering....

We have now created quite a few new items, light up, pulsating crystals, and a huge bonfire, which also lights up like our campfire.

Also, we created a campfire from the same mold as our others, but we used orange dyed resin for the flames instead of painted flames.

I just checked out the website and I think the campfire 2.0 looks better. Nice job. Any thought given to a wall of fire piece?

Vague and unspoilery:
I am running Carrion Crown. The group in now into Book 6.
There are 5 PC's, one of which is a bard.
He sings, he has weird wyrds, and plays a very large support/buff role.
He has been a total asset to the party, and often a pain in the neck to me.
I highly recommend playing a bard.
Cheers!

iPad? GoodReader. Accept no substitutes.

Goodiware

Edit: Oh, and use the Lite PDFs of the core books as well, that should help.

I will give this a try. I use Adobe Reader on my iPad, and while I do not have too much lag with the lite versions of the books, the other PDFs such as Campaign Setting and AP volumes, are very slow to load/build.

I wish there were lite versions of everything.

Hint, hint....

While I do wish they had more and better pictures on the kickstarter page, I have purchased from their website. It is a great, low cost alternative to the other pre-painted terrain out there. My $350 is pledged, and my buddy is also in for the $350 level. Totally worth it.

I bought a campfire and 4 of the boards on eBay and l am very happy with the result. I am adding trees and static grass clumps to the boards and they are turning out well. Jim told me he is working on gridded hills. I have searched extensively for terrain with the grid and these guys are the only ones making a decent product suitable for outdoor settings.

A few months back I was listening to one of the Gen Con podcasts. In one of the sessions, the developers, or how to write for Paizo or something similar, this adventure path was being talked about. During discussion, James asked "how would you feel about visiting earth" and NO ONE jumped on that. There was a lot of discussion going on and James' comment was totally glossed over. I LOVED the idea, and I cannot wait for this AP.
So yes, I fully believe this will be THE Rasputin. Giggidy.

I always have music on in the background, though pretty low.
In addition to a lot of what was mentioned previously (Conan and LOTR are must haves), I really like the Epic Score volumes available in iTunes. There is a whole series (like 12 now I think) of volumes that are great for RPG's.

Also, you should check out the Sonic Legends track available on Paizo. I have a few and they are suitable as well.

I actually spend some time creating playlists for each part of each adventure because I like the variety.

Also, if you can get it, I highly recommend the soundtrack from the original Quake computer game (NIN Trent Reznor). It is great for anything and everything with any kind of horror theme.

I have also purchased ambient sounds for a variety of scenes, including seaside, towns, taverns, deep forest and more.

When my 17 year old son is over he is not allowed to trash talk or the game goes off.

With regards to campaign length, I am satisfied with 6 hours. $10 per hour seems fair to me in this day and age, though I would prefer about 12 hours, which is what I tend to get out of most FPS campaigns I play. I spent 60 hours in Dead Island though, which makes up for some of the shorter games I have played.

2 people marked this as a favorite.

I am a GM who runs APs and modules.

I find the most useful flip mats and map packs for me fall into 2 categories:
1. Specific adventure tie-in. As an example, I bought the Town Square for RotR AE, City Streets for Dawn of the Scarlett Sun, and Caravans for Jade Regent. I am really excited about the Thornkeep Flip-Mat pack. I like when an encounter in an adventure tells me to use a certain map. It really does make things easier.
2. Uber-generic maps. I have purchased a couple of the forest flip mats, the warehouse, urban tavern, things that can be used in any setting, anytime. I purchased the Bandit Lair mainly for the reverse side - a plain open green wilderness with some dirt that I could use for any generic outdoor location. Gamescapes Story Maps have some really great generic maps - like grassland, wasteland, and desert steppes - but they are not the same size as the Paizo maps, so Paizo flip mats are my map of choice for consistency’s sake. If you guys could produce those types of generic maps, that would be awesome.

About synergy:
I ordered the Shops pack to go with the City Streets. I was thrilled that the dockside pub crawl fits perfectly next to the dockside warehouse. What I would like is the best of both worlds…I wish the Flip-Mat: Dungeon was the dungeon under Kaer Maga. I wish all of the rural town type maps fit next to each other. I wish all of the city related maps fit next to each other like giant tiles. I would love to see the borders of each flip mat with a similar theme fit next to similarly themed counterparts with the exact same graphics. Forest blends with swamp, swamp blends with Bandit Lair, with deep forest, etc…Again, with the option of growing large sets.

Thanks

My core players are currently in Caliphas, Ustalav waiting for the gathering of the Esoteric Order of the Palatine Eye (Carrion Crown 5: Ashes at Dawn).

My character is preparing to depart the Grand Lodge in Absalom for Varisia (Pathfinder Society Scenarios).

In a couple of months I hope to have a new group of players in Thornkeep while my core group begins RotR AE in Sandpoint.

Bloody fantastic!
The details are amazing. You did a fantastic job. I hope your players really, really appreciate it.

Questions:
I recognized a lot of the dwarven forge pieces, but where are the docks from?
Buildings? (I do cardstock from Dave Graffam games, but yours look like resin...bought or built? Do they come painted?)
Where did you get the flames? (The ones around the sword, not the D&D mini flaming spheres..)

Again, awesome. I am going to point all my friends to this thread.

2009 was the year I came back to role-playing games after a 3 year hiatus. My best friend handed me the Pathfinder play test, and since it was much closer to the game I loved than the current iteration of "the world's oldest roleplaying game" we (as this is indeed a group activity and therefore a group decision) tried Pathfinder and have never looked back.
Thanks to Lisa, Erik, James, Jason and all of the staff at Paizo for producing quality products, including supplements, adventures, maps, cards, minis, comics, (OK, so the minis and comics are produced elsewhere, but they are guided by Paizo) and everything else I could hope for in a complete production line. I find myself spending much more time and money on this hobby (which my wife completely supports) than I thought I ever would.
I am expecting a continuation of great things just I am expecting to continue to spend all of my hard earned money on Paizo (and by extension Whiz Kid and Dynamite) products.
So anyway, thanks Paizo, happy anniversary, and I cannot wait to see what you have in store in the next ten years and beyond!

Dotting so I can check back if it does get posted. I am also in the pre-production stages of running RotR AE and would love the font. Thanks in advance!

While listening to the Gen Con Podcasts, it was briefly mentioned in the Mythic Rules discussions (I think it was the RPG Designer's panel) that the Mythic book would have rules for legacy weapons. Too bad we need to wait until next summer, but something to keep in mind.

From a player perspective:
Archetypes for multiclassed characters would be cool and useful to fully customize a concept from inception.

From a GM perspective:
Unique magic items from armor and weapons to ropes, gloves, amulets and everything in between, with a description and short history (fluff).

Additional weapon and armor magic abilities.

Scaled NPCs who can be used as recurring foes, friends, or just folks regularly encountered. For example, I had riverboat captain that was a recurring NPC. When the PCs were 1st, 4th, 6th, etc. and they needed to travel, he was usually there. During the adventures, the captain helped fight off goblin raiders, giants, NPC pirates, a dragon, and more. I scaled him each time the players gained a level. Having fully fleshed NPCs that are scaled would be a tremendous help to time strapped GMs. Preferably with a picture, but I can use face cards for that.

Archetypes and PrC for monsters. Or at least power swap outs or aditional quick ideas to change up the creatures and monsters. This would be especially helpful with modules or APs that have instances of multiple encounters with the same creatures. I use my PDFs of templates often, but l would like more options, and not just in the form of additional templates.

I would be interested in the cleric PDF.

Thanks!

There is an interesting thread on the topic here.

I agree with Are. If the target is not aware of the trap then they are flat-footed against the trap. If they are aware, then they use their normal AC. I find this quicker and easier then trying to apply "combat" rules to the trap and having to roll initiative, giving the trap a surprise round, etc... as suggested by others.