Chris Nehren's page

It's standard industry practice to not try to send a large number of emails all at once. That's the sort of thing spammers do, and it's one of the quickest ways to get one's email servers blacklisted. Given that, it's not surprising that there's been a delay in people receiving the message. All this means is that Paizo's sysadmins know what they're doing (I can't say I'm surprised).

Now, what I'm curious about is if everyone received the same message.

Anyone class can use any skill in 3.5 and Pathfinder. Do note that some of the skills are Trained Only, which requires at least 1 rank in the skill to use it.

Almost. You need a way to fly every day (or similar) to take ranks in Fly.

I mentioned this in another thread, but it appears as though this one would be more proper: all but the GMG and IWSG download and open fine on my iPad. The other two are over 100 MB and will not open/download.

Now that I've had time to play with these a little, I'd like to offer some stats for debugging / further optimizing purposes.

I have an iPad 3 64GB CDMA (Verizon) and it renders the ISWG without issue, along with the others. The non-lite PDFs were usable, but a little slow. These PDFs are zoom zoom fast. So now I have another reasonably zippy choice for reference on my tablet while playing.

Just for giggles, I put the lite PDFs on my iPhone 4 16GB CDMA (Verizon). They're just as zippy there, though I do need to zoom in to actually read things. :)

Both devices are running iOS 5.1.1.

I love you guys.

Mind sharing with the class, Crystal?

This forces me to ask the question of what the image search was.

Please ditch Comic Sans. :(

On losing weapons:

Right, if this is 3.5E FR and no Spellplague, I am beyond interested. I'm running a game today so won't have much time to get something together, but will try to do so tomorrow. Might go with a human fighter if I can resist the allure of a caster class.

You say FR 1375. Are you intending to follow Wizards' story with the Spellplague etc.?

Remains constant? You must have some pretty epic software devs if it's not increasing...

See also: entropy. Until we can prove that we can reduce the entropy in a software system, doing anything with it increases the bugs. I might be a bit too jaded at 28.

You'd get a lot more bites for that software dev position if you opened it to telecommuters. Just sayin'. <_<

No you're not.

I am having timeout issues reaching paizo.com from several points on the Internet. Here's the list of network points whence I cannot connect:

* Philadelphia, PA: Comcast
* San Mateo, CA: Comcast Business
* Fremont, CA: Hurricane Electric
* Dallas, TX: ThePlanet
* Manchester, UK: ByteMark
* Atlanta, GA suburbs: Comcast

Networks from which I or a friend can reach paizo.com:
* a friend in Raleigh-Durham on Roadrunner
* Verizon 3G
* Verizon 4G LTE
* Clear Wireless 4G

I can provide traceroute / mtr for all points of presence. My friend should be able to do that if I annoy him enough.

Heck, up in Asheville NC, the saying is "if you don't like the weather, wait 15 minutes."

Having staffed a technical conference there last year, I can verify that this is indeed the saying and is accurate.

Ooh, didn't know this was out. Think I'll wait 'til it's back to non-free so I can show my financial support.

There's a couple of useful posts on other fora that collect a large number of acronyms. There's one on the Giant in the Playground forums, and one on the Wizards forums.

Their forums are arguably more amenable to collecting this sort of data due to the restriction on post editing here. Most of what I've seen here is covered in those two threads—except for some of the Paizo-specific stuff, of course.

Everything that follows is, of course, my personal opinion. You don't have to read it, you don't have to agree with it.

Before I start, a bit of advice: yes, you're oldschool. Are your players? That's the important thing. You're running the game for them to have fun. If they don't want to roll abilities, it won't be fun for them. I'm not saying that you should let them have 35 or more pointbuy, but don't stifle their freedom just because of a personal opinion of yours. If their using point buy really ruins your fun, I would reconsider why you're running a game.

That said... I go with 20 point buy. I don't like the statistical irregularities of dice for character creation. PFS uses 20 point buy. It's a nice middle of the road. I don't play with people who want to start with especially powerful or weak characters. No one has complained about the 20 point buy yet. So I keep things simple in terms of stats and take the middle-of-the-road approach. My games are focused on roleplaying more than combat, so those high stats won't help you much anyway. For some, that makes me a boring GM. That's fine. There's plenty of other games out there.

I have created a character using traditional (2nd ed, even) 3d6 rolling. It created a character dramatically different from what I envisioned. I feel that having players roll stats is sort of like telling them to eat their vegetables: yes, it can be good for them in terms of character development (unless what you rolled doesn't let you select the class you want... too bad, maybe next game*). But they don't want to do it. Why not? Most folks who come to the table have a preconceived notion of the kind of character they want to play, either in terms of mechanics or backstory/personality. And why shouldn't they? This is a roleplaying game. It's all about pretending to be someone else. Having a preconceived notion of who you want to be is entirely the point. Random die rolls interfere with that. I wanted to be a charismatic silver-tongued rake. But the dice didn't let me. As has been said above, the game is supposed to be fun. To continue the vegetables analogy, it's supposed to be like the sweets at the top of the food pyramid: it's supposed to be fun. I see fun as the system not interfering with how I want to express the person I am pretending to be.

I am decidedly oldschool in my gaming. I let my players use any skill they can think of in a situation. Want to use Perception to have the guard not arrest you for murdering his buddy? Sure. Roleplay it. Battlemaps? Fooey (until my players asked for them, anyway). But I will not force rolled stats on my players. Forgive the heresy, but this is something I really think Dave and Gary got wrong.

* So glad 3E got rid of stat-based class restrictions.

Belle Mythix wrote:

Why? Sterility? Contraceptive measures? Necrophilia? Something that cannot be said here?

Well... most women can't knock you up, for one thing. So that like cuts my chances down by about 75% right there.

I was originally thinking along the lines of "in a reality where magic is real, surely contraceptive magic would be one of the first things devised", but that works, too.

... now I'm curious what the other 25% is.

This is my favorite book Paizo will publish in 2012 and I haven't even received it yet. I am a serious fan of gaming world history and so far this seems to be the best book for the subject.

Oh, and if it's not too late, I want NPCs! As I said elsewhere, history is the context for the present that guides us to shape the future. As a corollary, it is the hands of the people of ancient societies which shape that context. So, more NPCs please!

About bringing characters together and starting the story: taverns are boring and overdone. And what if one of your characters is a teetotaler? The Paizo modules and adventure paths I've looked through / played through have character traits that link the players into the story somehow. They're varied and specific to each story, but provide a lot more flavor (and storytelling hooks for you as a DM) than "so you're in a tavern one night and ...". Avoiding the tavern cliché is probably one of my favorite things about Paizo's adventures. It's a tough thing to do, and they do it well.

It sounds like your other players aren't really supporting you. Talk to them about this. Tell them that it isn't fun for you any more. If they're mature adults, this should be all you need. If they're not, find another group.

Chris, I hope you've perused the kotaku-male-entitlement thread!

I have, yes. I'm a software developer by trade, and the same sort of thing is extremely prevalent in the tech industry as well. It's something I'm familiar with from several aspects of my life.

If we are to use Star, Cosmo, or Women's Health as models for what women want to look at, it is pictures of attractive women. Who could blame them.

I just... wow. Seriously? There are so. many. things wrong with the media regarding how women should see themselves / behave that are utterly in contrast to reality. One Google search for something like 'magazines women photoshop' will show you just how insane it is to use the media as a guide here. Please talk to any female you know about how utterly and totally f@#$ed the media is in its depiction of women.

Stepping off the soapbox now...

That is true and intentional; our style is one of a few things we've held back to distinguish our own products from third-party products; we therefore don't have a lot of motivation to provide details about it.

See this thread for more info.

I think you failed a Knowledge: Webcomics check, Kelsey.

I am not the target audience of this thread, but I love what you're doing here and wish you the best.

... and just to be clear, some of us straight guys are bothered by scantily-clad women, too. I specifically don't want sexualized (and sexist) art in my RPG materials. I could rant for hours and hours about this, but I'll just say that I am happy to put money behind material that isn't sexist and womanizing as a means of supporting it and saying I want to see more. I am reminded of a certain webcomic.

Wait. Succubus? I'm a Tiefling Paladin/Magus/Sorcerer/Dragon Disciple.

Doesn't that strike you as needlessly complicated?

1. Golarion's past.

History is the context with which we inform the actions of the present for shaping the future. I would love to see a detailed history of Golarion, more than a timeline. More than anything else, that would help me set a game in Golarion.

But what if Hemingway bores your players to death? Some people want detail and verbal beauty. Going the Hemingway route is an extreme which will make them very, very unhappy.

I suppose what I'm saying here is to have balance. It sounds like John hates Tolkien's vivid, sweeping (and engrossing, in my so-not humble opinion) descriptions. I personally cannot stand Hemingway and wish he never took pen to paper. You're probably going to have both sorts of players at your table, as well as people in between (unless your group is comprised of people who affect a sampling bias, like English majors or MMO players). Going to any extreme, like Hemingway's sparseness or Tolkien's lushness, will disappoint someone. Seek the path of balance, and it will be the most enjoyable for most of your group. Unless you see reason to do otherwise, of course.

'taller' is an adjective. 'colour of fresh blood' is an adjectival phrase. I presume that you didn't mean "don't use adjectives", so can you clarify, please?

Arg. I knew I saw that before. Should've read all the comments instead of using the browser search. Yeah, I'll definitely want to pick up some of these for my PFS characters. Thank you!

Is this going to include a folder or something for me to store PFS chronicle sheets? I very well may order more than one if that's the case.

Making a +2 enhancement "Always Available" for any character that has reached an appropriate level, somewhere between 5 and 7, would be a good way to fix this.

Sounds like that requirement could be expressed with Fame. Unless there are scenarios in the 1-5 tier that grant disproportionate fame, I don't think that'd be a problem. And even if there were, if your character survived an especially tough scenario, maybe they've earned the right to carry around a +2 item. :)

Evidently you haven't actually looked at Mac app pricing. :) I don't mean the big names like Photoshop or Logic; I mean the everyday apps for non-professionals like iWork ($20/each app) or GarageBand ($15). Then, updates are always free. And App Store apps can be installed on as many Macs as you have; you just need to associate an Apple ID. In-app purchases tend to be much smaller than what's being asked here for what will be the equivalent, too.

I have three Macs and would like to run this on all of them. But there's no way I'm giving you $60 to run one app on three computers. That's not the way the Mac ecosystem works. Ditch that silly "one computer == one license" clause and I'll consider thinking about it. Put it on the App Store and I will think about it—provided a full-featured demo, of course.

What specific clarifications would people like on online games? For the most part we've left it open so people can do it however works best for them, using the programs and forums they're already using. I fear that too much clarification will result in people who feel their method of online play isn't covered simply not playing.

Okay, right. Fair point. But my questions are even simpler than that and are of a logistics nature. I want to run a PFS game as a PbP. How do I handle the chronicle sheets? Do I need to send them to my players, have them fill them out, return them, and then I sign and send them back? Is there an honor system? Basically, I'd appreciate some structure, or at least guidance, for making the record tracking work. Conversely, what should I expect as a player in a PbP game in terms of chronicle sheets?

Responded to russodrezden via PM; any other takers?

A vast majority of our subscribers benefit from the Pathfinder Advantage, which is already above 10%. Were we to do a subscription to Pathfinder Society Scenarios, we'd need to come up with another way to incentivize people to sign up. That said, I'll ask again:

If we offered a subscription for Pathfinder Society Scenarios with no benefits other than ease of use, would you subscribe?

Yes, please, considering I just searched for a thread for it :). They're $4/each; I'm okay with not getting my subscriber discount. Doing the math, they add up to, what, the price of a 320 page hardcover per year? Yeah, I'm fine with that. I'm thinking about running scenarios online, and just having them in my downloads as they're available makes it much easier. Further, if I want to submit a scenario concept, I have a good pool of prior art to look over to be sure I'm not duplicating anything.

The next guide should include information about session types, such as home games, convention games etc.

I raise the question since online PFS sessions are still on the gray and though the Pathfinder Society Online Collective exists, it remains unpromoted and secluded. How are Play By Post games managed? Should they happen exclusively on Paizo's messageboards? How about online gaming? Contacts, recommended software? Is the GM then required to print out, sign, scan, and then send all the chronicle sheets to the participants? (hint hint digital chronicle sheets would be awesome)

Yes, you could contact your nearest regional coordinator, but I doubt even he/she would know about all the possibilities that exist.

I too would like clarification about running play-by-post games, as I am interested in doing so myself. I see a lot of APs being run PbP, but not as much PFS as I would like. Some clarifications in the guide could make this more popular, which could mean more money for Paizo (more people running scenarios could mean more people buying scenarios).

Another option besides Orbitz is Expedia. I only went with Orbitz for my next big flight because at the time Orbitz was $3 cheaper (probably naught more than anecdata, and I'm sure Expedia beats Orbitz sometimes).

There's a saying that every software project expands until it eventually handles email

OLD school reference there. :D Is it possible to disclose where in the .plan sending email for notifications of posts/PMs is?

... or converting it all to Usenet? ;)

Interesting, the reason I ask is that Pathfinder was meant to be backwards compatible, and yet people still want official conversions; [...]

So I wonder whether Paizo were actually that successful with backwards compatibility, and if they knew conversions would still be wanted whether they may have decided to be less constrained by thoughts of compatibility and made more bold changes.

Gamers are oh so lazy. ;D

But I'd like to give Paizo money to do the work of converting them for me. And I'd like them to be in print still! :D

We are indeed lazy. And Paizo does awesome work. So, why not?

Except you could, you can replace Golarion with Faerun with out to much trouble. Just ignore a few pages and use the planets and what not in Faerun's setting fairly easily.

I already had that idea two hours ago. ;)

I'm standing by the argument that spelljamming will never work in Faerun again, as there will no longer be a goddess of arcane magic, nor an arcane weave. In an absurdly Monty Python-esque series of sackings, there are no applicants remaining to fill the post, as they sure to be murdered within a cat's lifetime. So much for being an eternal deity...

Faerun really needs the soap opera cliffhanger, where it wakes up, everything is back to 137x DR, and it realizes that Ao never existed, and that WotC was just a bad dream.

You know, there are games exactly like that...

Multiclass Ninja 10 / Inner Sea Pirate 10.

Where's your god now?

I find it amusing that this book (like other Pathfinder campaign setting books) says it's "suitable for play in any fantasy world" considering its focus. :)

There's no pirate class; however, there are archetypes for bard, fighter, ranger, and (shock!) rogue. Sort of what one would expect, as they all fit well with the pirate lifestyle—except the Ranger. What's that doing there? Basically, the archetype for the Ranger puts her in the position of a crew leader, trading a few land-oriented class features for things that help her allies win fights.The Ranger approach is interesting, something I may just have to play through for Skull and Shackles.

It's lighter than the plate options. It's cheaper than everything else in the heavy category. Those can both be reasons to use it.

I would like to amend my above posting to say that, to my shock, the local library does indeed stock some D&D stuff ... under "Children's Literature Research" =\. How the Fiend Folio (!) was categorized thusly I will never know.

Yes, Dark Sun is post-apocalyptic, an apocalypse (IIRC) caused by an abuse of arcane magic.

Megacorporations? In a non-Shadowrun setting? Fascinating. I will be interested to see how you manage that with what seems to be a pre-Internet level of technology without (much) magic.

So far things seem cohesive and interesting. Are you going to run this as a PbP? Can I join? :)

No. Wrongness and lies.

What 'most people' think of as witch can be traced back to Shakesepeare's Macbeth and involved women with pointy hats, broomsticks, odd skin and warts on their noses.

The Wiccan faith very obscure and unusual, it does not define the word witch for the vast majority of people.

Eep. I think you misread my post, specifically what 'that' was referencing. I was referencing that what is commonly referred to as 'wicca' was invented by Mr. Gardner--not what we think of as 'witch'. Yes, you are right with the common meaning of the word 'witch', and I am reminded of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Also, I only mentioned 'wicca' for the etymology (which was quoted back in the old thread), nothing to do with the faith itself. Sorry for the confusion, Geraint.

And... Warlock has meant 'male witch' for 500 years... 500 years as old as Columbus. The other meanings are earlier and have died out.

It has had that meaning for that time, yes. But that's not the only meaning it has had over that period of time. I don't think we're disagreeing, just that I am trying to espouse a modern descriptivist point of view to balance your traditional prescriptivist.

... how ironic, considering I was firmly in the traditional prescriptivist camp not even two years ago. But I digress.