Chaotic_Blues's page

All,

<Snip>

Is an Elf Barbarian viable at all?

Thanks!

As someone who's currently playing an elven Berserker (yeah, I don't like to call them barbarians), yes it a viable combo. I found him to be a nasty opponent. I wish you luck on your speed build.

Got my Precious in today. And I promisis that I will take good care of my Precious. Oh yes we will. No nasty volcanoes for it, we says.

Cylerist wrote:

Thanks so much.What state are they shipping out from (Trying to guess when mine will arrive). :)

Same as Paizo, good ole Washington state. Washingtonians do not sunburn, we rust.

Hey that's for Origonians! Just kidding. You guys probably rust just as well as we do. :D

Now is the waiting time....

I will be patient, oh yes I will. (I don't have much choice.)

Chaotic_Blues wrote:

Bill Webb wrote:

Books will start to ship Tuesday morning--should have them all out of my warehouse and to you by Thursday..everyone say Thank You to Dawn and Skeet!

Thanks Dawn and Skeet! just ignore the screaming from behind me. It's just from the players.

One question though. I thought you were sending out an e-mail confirmation regarding the shipping address? I did send you an email with my new address, but I never got an email back confirming the address change.

One question, did you buy from Frog God Games or Paizo? If Paizo, then it is Paizo's issue not ours.

If from us, then the email you send will be available for us bright and early Tuesday morning. Bill is keeping careful track of those so we have the correct addresses.

I placed my order with Frog God Games, and sent my new address several weeks ago. Thanks again.

Books will start to ship Tuesday morning--should have them all out of my warehouse and to you by Thursday..everyone say Thank You to Dawn and Skeet!

Thanks Dawn and Skeet! just ignore the screaming from behind me. It's just from the players.

One question though. I thought you were sending out an e-mail confirmation regarding the shipping address? I did send you an email with my new address, but I never got an email back confirming the address change.

Elore--if you sent me an email bill@talesofthefroggod.com I got it--heck; send another if you moved!

Bill

Guss it's a good thing I decided to look in here today.

I got it just a few moments ago, and it's a thing of beauty.

BTW I love the ToH stat block on page 9. Just thinking about unleashing it on some poor unsuspecting party has put a smile on my face.

Quick Question Chuck how do I get my shipping address changed? I didn't realize until just a few minuets ago that Pay Pal's gave you my old address.

IIRC, those of us who preordered the hardcover got a link to the PDF a few days before the PDF waa put on sale seperately. Please realize though that this was months ago, so my recollection my not be perfect.

I can confirm this. Although the PDF is still not available as of yet.

Thankfully I put in my order mid June, so now I just need to wait. I hope this has turned into a huge success for you guys!

I just placed my order for ToH.

ronaldsf wrote:

Another addition to the list of monsters-created-to-torture-D&D-players would be the Mimic! A monster has evolved on the basis of adventurers looking for human-constructed receptacles for treasure? Not likely - more likely candidates evolution-wise would be to impersonate a magic item, or gold itself. But no... it's more entertaining for evil GMs to have a treasure chest eat an adventurer who has just fought a hard battle!

D&D is full of monsters like that. It's a time-honored tradition of D&D and one of the things that makes the game great.

The Lurker Above (It's a ceiling that eats you), the Trapper (and a matching floor!), and the Exectioner's Hood (it's a hood. It eats your head.) were all recently revised by paizo into one creature, and they did a fairly decent job of it.

But you know what they didn't try to do? Save the Spanner. The Spanner is one of those monsters that was so stupid people have literally forgotten it existed. It's a giant stone bridge. That Eats You. As Bill O'Reilly would say: You can't explain that!

There's also Stunjelly (It's a wall. That Eats You.), Cloakers (It's a cape. That Eats You.), the goldbug (It's a coin. That Eats You.), and while my desperate need to preserve my sanity says it ain't so, I know I've seen several attempts at It's a Sword. That Eats You.

But the best of them all is the Ragamoffyn. It's a pile of dirty laundry.

THAT EATS YOU!!!

You forgot the House horrors(2nd ed), the village that eats you! I still think it was a cool concept.

In one of my campaigns I came up with a few Ideas.

Firstly I declared the production of permanent magical Items was highly regulated by the governments. Anyone who wasn't a noble would require a special licence, and that magical item would also need to be registered.

Secondly, I declared that all full arcane casters were treated as bottom rank gentry. Roughly on par with Squires. While this mostly affected Wizards, it was also applied sorcerers as well.

thirdly I baned the Adept class.

Necro!
Nerco!!
Nerco!!!
Necro!!!!

Yea, I'm happy.

3. Avoid the FR Shadow/Weave problem. Don't nail it down.

I'll second this. FR had some interesting magic concepts, such as chaos magic, that I liked. However, the Shadow Weave was going overboard.

I think quality is the main concern. weather it's color, or b&w means little to me.

I'd like to a template for number of monsters that are more apt to use formations. The Swarm template, while useful for mobs of foes, seems too chaotic for more disciplined bands of foes.

I have always been a suc... umm... Fan(yes that the word) of spell books. ie - books that focus on a slew of new spells.

So yeah, I'm for it.

I always thought herbalism need more umph. I'm looking forward to this.

Fiction? I'm in!

New brainstorms: By Radical Taoist on the WotC forums:

* Silent Image over the portal to the Magnificent Mansion. Place the portal over an existing door in the building in which you are casting the spell. Use Silent Image to conceal the shimmering portal so it just looks like part of the building. Make the interior of the mansion identical to the rooms in the real building that your victim would be running into...at first. *evil laugh*

* Guards and Wards easily has the area and duration to protect the mansion. Combine with the previous effect for truly sadistic mindbending tactics to make the mark question their sanity and their tactical position.

Brainstorm modification: If your GM won't accept torture devices as furniture, simply improvise. After all, there is absolutely nothing keeping you from tying your victim down to your dining table with belts from the wardrobe and prying their fingernails off with a spork. The best part of it is you are guaranteed not to be interrupted and when you tell your victim that nobody will hear his screams, you really mean it.

Bah, I'd hang em upside down from the chandelier that's just to the side of a large open fire place. Spin him whenever you ask a question, and push him into the fire, or chimney whenever he refuses.

Kakarasa wrote:

Technically, couldn't you choose for 500 burning oil lamps as furnature items?

*facepalms* Of course!

Also many food items are flammable, or outright explosive in the right circumstances. Flour for instance.

I would like to see various books to help DMs and players when working on the finer details of the game:

-A book on non-magical treasures; what they cost, where they might be found, why they are expensive, etc. (Spices, finely woven tapestries/rugs, exotic pets, silks, certain foods...)
-A book on armor, all the bits and pieces of what makes up each type as well as how they were built and other equivalents like heavy armor for knights as well as samurai.
-A book on the medieval wardrobe. Seriously, no one even has a clue what was worn back then. Most people say a tunic, cloak and one or two other things but it's be nice to know what a doublet, wimples and chaperons were and more importantly, what they looked like with some good illustrations.
-A breakdown of common herbs, poultices, tinctures and other stuff that could be used by all classes but maybe plugged into the Witch class and possible the Alchemist.
-A book on the many types of castles or just medieval architecture in general. Merlons, bastions, and hoardings; what were they?

That's it for now I guess...

I'll second this list.

drop spells

I'm afraid I'm going to have to agree. Either drop the spells or reduce the number of class abilities they receive. Personally, I'd remove the Judgement powers if you were to keep the spell casting aspect.

However if you keep the Judgements, and drop spell casting, I'd like to see more of them. Say double the daily allotment.

It's a nice concept.

I've played both the D20, and Saga systems. Personally I think Saga is the better of the two. It's less wonky at mid to high levels, thanks to the disappearance of irritative attacks (they exist, but you need a feet to get them), and other changes.

that said, Saga dose have some weakness. Skills are very hard to attain after first level. Force powers start strong, but become week at higher levels.

Nice post, but I think you have the proportions off. I think it's more like 457% swamp. Anything that doesn't appear to be swamp is. It';s just taking a break between rain clouds. Or surface has solidified just enough for housing to be built on top.

Personally I like the idea of saying "epic stops here" and "godhood starts here" design philosophy. I mean look at the mistakes WOTC made in 3E.

There are 2 separate sets of epic rules.

1) The forgotten realms rules because epic rules weren't done yet.
2) The epic level handbook rules because they took longer to do.

Now sure the epic level handbook overwrites the realms rules and updated the NPCs, but it's still damn annoying.

Look at the god rules.

Does the construction of the gods in Faiths & Pantheons (Realms again) really match up to what was done in Deities & Demigods. Not really.

To make matters worse, BOTH book ignore epic rules when all the gods have epic levels. It's just sloppy. I like the idea of stopping at 36 and saying from there on you're no longer a mortal.

And let's not discuss how questionable the idea of giving deities stat blocks was anyways.

I'd also like to see epic magic being more contained. I still like the basic idea behind what they tried to create, but the execution was poor.

One thing I think they did right was to contain the number of attacks per round past level 20. But since they didn't add anything to make attacks better, it hurt epic level fighters, barbarians, ect. Perhaps a set damage bonus every five levels or so would help compensate.

The easiest fix for this I've found is separating supernatural alignment from regular alignment.

What this means is that a Paladin who has "Detect Evil" will have "Detect Supernatural Evil" which is basically "Detect the Powers of Hell" as opposed to "gonna find out who's naughty or nice."

Things that "Detect Evil" as "Detect Supernatural Evil" will ping on:

Fiends
Clerics and Blackguards of any Evil god
Mages with a Fiendish familiar
Anyone who's made a pact with a creature of the lower planes, even if they've since regretted this and realized it was stupid.
Anyone with enough fiendish ancestry to qualify as a warlock or fiendish sorcerer, even if they're not currently following that path.
Magic items that are empowered by fiends and evil gods, even if the effect of these things is neutral or even beneficial.
The Talisman of Ultimate Evil

Things that "Detect Evil" as "Detect Supernatural Evil" will not ping on:

Ordinary Mortals
Lay worshippers of evil gods, no matter how devout, who've failed to receive any infernal blessing or even recognition in this life
Other sinners including, but not limited to, liars, thieves, murderers, poisoners, adulterers, idolaters (meaning people who worship evil gods who are dead or otherwise don't exist), cannibals, people who talk in church or the theatre, children or adults who chew with their mouth open, blasphemers and people who wear white shoes after St. Cuthbert's Day
Crazy people, even the viciously psychotically axe-crazy
Supernatural things which may be Evil but whose Supernaturality is not composed of Evilness, including but not limited to dragons, undead, magical beast, fey, giants, etc.
Cursed items, which are basically traps or badly designed magic
Necromantic magic or necromantic items, no matter how deadly

Note, this interpretation goes with the assumption that the Negative Energy which powers undead is "Death Energy" as opposed to "Pure Evil" and that Death does not equal Evil. There's really not much difference between an ogre who...

Not bad, you could probably use the Taint rules from Unearthed Arcana (for normal folk) with this.

A level cap of 36 or 40 would sit well with me. 36 for historical reasons. 40 for just because.

Sill, how too keep the various class interesting, while maintain balance would be a good question.

Also Hit Points would be approaching ridiculous heights. Possibly a return to set Hp progression after 20th? It would certainly be one idea.

- Do necromancers have to choose whether to channel positive or negative energy at level 1 similar to a cleric?

- If yes, I take it this would then be alignment-restricted?

They can only either command or turn undead. So it'd probably fallow the usual restrictions for channelling energy.

Something similar to the Desdon Files could make an interesting setting.

I found a picture of it. Looks wicked.

My campaigns always end up Law V Chaos...Good v Evil. Pah!

My first ever character was a fighter.
30 years ago.
Everyone around the table said I should use a longsword and shield and wear plate.
I ended up in chain wielding the Boheimian Earspoon.
They thought I was being a jerk and the only comments were about not getting a magical weapon as "that one's not on the tables"
I thought they were jerks for all being one dimensional clones.

I'm almost afraid to ask, but what is a Boheimian Earspoon?

For me it's the gods. Most campings I've seen, either their are these large Polytheistic religions running things, or a handful of pantheons running things. And why do they all seem to get along anyways?

Good vs Evil too. Why cant we have honourable, vs dishonourable? Order vs Chaos?

Wow, I like. My hats off to you Set. these are cool as, an undead person(whose not on fire at least).

hmmm, I wonder if larger creatures should create more powerful versions of these. Just imagine what would happen if this was done to say an Oger, or a Firblog.

Love the nostalgic cover feel. Nice play on the AD&D title!

Agreed.

I haven't had a chance to delve too deep into it, but so far it seams very well thought out. Thanks, I'll be looking forward to your other realses.

Tom Baumbach wrote:

Ah the flaw, that's something I wasn't thinking about. (That probably means Aerith wouldn't count either, unless "death" counts as a flaw.)

The idea behind the flaw is what now? It's something the oracle takes in exchange for their power?

Yep. That's my understanding from reading Paizo Crew's comments on the class. Which is why I never understood their comment about Hercules being an 'Oracle of Strength', since, he really didn't have a flaw.

Aerith might still count, depending on the flaw. Unrequieted love (Zack, who died was her true love), or Naivete could also be a flaw, she was Naive in the extreme.

Actually, his did have a few flaws. He felt tremendous guilt for killing his own family in a fit of rage. So you've got two right there. I think he had one of two more, but my knowledge of Greek mythology is a tad rusty.

Garth, QUIT READING MY MIND!

Just this morning I was wondering if there was a mass combat system available.

Yes I'll per-order as soon as I can.

Interesting.

Whited Sepulcher wrote:

Wally then promptly runs afoul of the local thieve's guild protection services, whom the lamplighter's guild has been paying for years past,

That's not a solution, 'though, since, who is more likely to have valuable services to offer the thieves guild, a lamplighter or an apprentice sorcerer? If the *mages guild* has this contract in place, and they are *much* better situated to do so, it's going to be the mundane lamplighters who are set on fire as an example...

I guess it would depend on who's paying for protection. If Wally refused to pay, then they'd make an example out of him first. Nothing harmful, just a couple of gorillas to instruct him on the error of his ways. If he refuses again, well then they'd get nasty.

Also if there was a mages guild, my guess would be that either; A, they'd see such work as being beneath them. or B, They'd have an agreement with the other guilds to stop this kind of thing.

BTW salt was used as a preservative, and still is. Pepper on the other hand was used to disguise the taste of meat that was going bad.

James Jacobs wrote:

Vault of Souls and Great Beyond are both in print, with no real worries of going out of print anytime soon.

They are also both very good, so go buy them! It does help to have a copy of the Revised Tome of Horrors if you want to run Vault of Souls though, there are a few references to daemons from there. If you like daemons, you should buy that PDF anyway.

Green Ronins' The Book of Fiends has lots of Daemon.. err... Evilishness.

While I respect you views Stalchild, I have to disagree. As people work, they learn.

Besides, as i stated above, if you don't approve of the Ageing levelling chart then use the percentage chart above. Since I've received no further comment on that chart then I plan on leaving it where it stands. I believe it can be argued either way.

Chaotic_Blues wrote:

Actually, 3.0/3.5 only counts Adults in population figures. It dose note the number of non adults is 10-40% of the population figures.

I do see your point. Maybe it should look something like this?

Age % Level Range
Adult 60% 1-6
Middle Age 29% 5-10
Old 10% 9-10
Venerable 1% 10

What I don't get with this model, is why everyone that is old is automatically powerful. Sometimes in RL, or in fiction, the venerable old man is an awesome warrior/expert/sage/whatever. Usually, he's just an old man with some extra knowledge. But by this system, every warrior that lives a long time will be a great combatant, every crafter will be a master, and so on. After a while though, skills plateau and people move on to other things, or continue what they were doing without significant improvement. It just seems to me there isn't enough correlation between age and level, or that there needs to be some other set of factors that further influence things past the 1-6 point.

Okay then let's scale back the level ranges to 6-10 for Old and Venerable age ranges. Also, this table represents active members of a population. This was one of the factor in scaling back the middle, old and Venerable age %.

(edit)

Do not forget to include them in the total count of the population however. So that once children and the rest of the "inactive" population is taken into account, 40% would NOT equal 40 people out of a village of 100.

Alternatively, a population's breakdown could only count the ACTIVE population, at which case the % for middle age, old and venerable should be a lot less than what you stated. (i.e. only few venerable people would still be part of the active population).

'findel

Actually, 3.0/3.5 only counts Adults in population figures. It dose note the number of non adults is 10-40% of the population figures.

I do see your point. Maybe it should look something like this?

Age % Level Range
Adult 60% 1-6
Middle Age 29% 5-10
Old 10% 9-10
Venerable 1% 10

Apparently, I shouldn't take an hour to compose my post.

Now that's an Idea I haven't considered, nor encountered before. But, it seems a little complex for many to use. How about this instead.

Age Level Range % of pop.
Adulthood 1-7th 40%
Middle Age 5-10th 35%
Old 8-10th 25%
Venerable 10th 10%

Now, how dose that look. NPC's younger then Adults are not counted toward population totals. So they are not included in this chart.

The biggest modifiers I can see for this kind of chart are, what % of the population make it from one age group to the next? Lots of factors can come into play such as environment, technology/Magic, and stress.

Environment
Ideal -5% Adult +5% Venerable
Neutral No changes
Hostile +10 Adult -5 Old, and -5 Venerable
Tech/Magic
Low +10 Adult -5 Old, and -5 Venerable
Normal No changes
High -10 Adult +5 Old, and +5 Venerable
Other Stresses
War -20 Adult +10 Middle, +5Old, +5 Venerable
Plague/Famine -5 Adult, -5 Old, -5 Venerable, +15 Middle
Relative peace No change
other Up to GM.

Mind you I think there is room for both ways of thinking about NPC's. One GM may feel more comfortable with a pyramid system, while another might prefer the Ageing chart.

As with anything YMMV.

Granted, savage Humanoids would require a greater degree of specialization, just to survive. Given their lack of resources, and for the most part technology. However, it sounds as though your talking about a society made entirely of PC Classes.

The PC classes will not be using the same percentages as the NPC classes. Nor will they have the same base level. Given that in any race, very few NPCs having NPC classes should reach tenth level. What do you think should be the base level then?

Actually rydi123, I agree with many of the points you've raised. This was largely the reason I started working on this project.

On the other hand, vagrant-poet, also raised some valid points as well. If you place the base level too high, you can rob the impact of weaker monster types. Orc, and Goblin raids are no longer quite the threat they used to be. Also if the base NPC level is too high, why would a King call for adventurers? Especially, if sending an army of a few hundred level 5 or 6 warriors would do the job just as well, and at a lower cost?

What I'm working toward is a usable guide line. Something that can be applied at both the Mico (ie. individual town, village, or city), and the Macro (National, or regional level) without feeling broken.

Actually, whoops, you have over 100% there, at the point where it hits 5%, you have reached 100. Otherwise its working out about right.

Your right, The first number should be 30%.

Sorry, no helpful comments at this point but there is a discussion on population totals for countries going on in a thread up in General Discussion if you're interested and have the time to read it through: *link*

(I did post a link up there to this thread, but nobody seems to have followed it to chip in down here.)

Edit:
Sort of helpful, maybe, comment; I believe that James Jacobs has commented in a discussion on high level NPCs something along the line that there aren't that many around, and that 9th level is about the limit.

Further Edit:
(From another thread)

James Jacobs wrote:

Cpt_kirstov wrote:

Drakli wrote:

I think impressions on what percentage of the world is or should be high level (and not neutral) might be part of the disconnect between campaign-world-views here.

Yup... James has said in the "populations of countries" thread that (paraphrased)while the absolute cap for PCs is 20... the normal cap for most NPCs is 9. The PCs are made to represent those top 5-10% that achieve greater than normal deed and abilities. While there are NPCs higher than 9, they are spread pretty thinly, mostly retired adventurers that are now king's advisers or hermits or the like

Of course, this doesn't mean that we won't have characters above 20th level now and then... but yeah, for the most part characters above 9th level are going to be relatively rare overall, even if they "feel" more common in high level adventures (remember that a high-level adventure gives a skewed perspective)...

Interesting thread. (Starts taking notes). Thanks for pointing it out.