Craig Shackleton's page

Thanks for doing the conversion. I was a little baffled that Combat Reflexes "didn't make sense," but I never noticed until now that Natalya's long spear was changed to a normal spear during development. It's funny how you don't see what something actually says when you have an idea in your head of what it is already!

(probably start with #4 - Frozen Fingers, cause it lingers in my mind like a bad smell).

Thanks for the clarification Josh!

And Doug, you are a PFS rock star!

The specific problem though, is what if players show up at a higher Tier game with no character or with a lower-level character?

Are they allowed to play with their weaker character?

Are they allowed to play with a Pre Gen of appropriate level? Should the DM be prepared with them? Can the player whip up an appropriate level character (which will take longer than whipping up a 1st level character)?

How do we deal with this? It seems likely to me that there could be some frustrated players if they have signed up higher tier adventure than they are ready for.

I'd assume that means DMs. Or actually, I guess I DO assume that. Some games use Story Teller as their term of choice for DM/GM/referee/keeper/marshal/whatever.

I do love that at CanGames, the bar is like 10 feet from the RPG tables, and you can use your volunteer credits to buy drinks (although I forgot to collect mine this year!)

I spoke to one of the organizers at the end of the con and he's very keen to have a stronger PFS presence next year.

I also killed my first PFS PC this weekend. Her first scenario, too, but she was a good sport and made up a new character for the next slot. Unfortunately, Zaresh the mongoose escaped my grasp!

I also enjoyed playing in the other games, and finally hit 3rd level.

I look forward to next year!

Thanks for the kind words Exploit! I had a good time running this for you guys, as well as playing alongside you in Black Waters!

Whight (sic) role-playing society also used to run cons at the Peterborough library, I believe.

Of course CanGames just had its 33rd annual convention in Ottawa, but I guess it isn't exclusively rpgs.

I'll look at my calendar. I might be available.

In addition, just to clarify, if an enemy has a potion of blur and you find it, you can drink it for free during the adventure, and everyone in the party can buy one at the end.

Kevin Andrew Murphy wrote:

If your game doesn't have changelings, Hats of Disguise are probably the best investment you can make for your brothel and will allow your girls to keep working long past regular retirement age.

OK, that's just...just...a truly admirable idea. My hat's off to you, sir.

Mal, I'm glad you're okay, and I do understand what you go through. Don't think I'd ever hold it against you, because I wouldn't. You've been a great DM, and I hope I get to play with you again.

EDIT: Ninja'd by the count. I echo his sentiments. Run it when you can, take a break when you need, and if you need more time we can manage.

Okay. I just thought it might be easier for you to pick up a CotCT game than LoF. I also had the impression that the GM over there was also a player in their game (as you are here) who might prefer to continue playing.

I have another suggestion...

Maybe we could organize a DM swap on Mal's other games. As in, one of us offers to fill in as DM on one of his other games, if one of them will fill in on this one. Thoughts?

I personally love the Savage Worlds system, and highly recommend it. I'm currently running the Savage Tide AP with it, more or less converting it on the fly.

I haven't had a chance to check out Winterweir yet, but I've heard good things.

Tom, my thoughts are with you and your family as well. Take the time you need. My condolences.

Seven Dibs, and Seven TORG products. If the synchronicity were any more perfect, one of us would surely weep.

Craig, my description that Martika 'fell down' was really just intended to be descriptive. There's no need to think of it in terms of game mechanics. The upshot is just that failed acrobatics rolls while marching through forests of cacti = prickly pain.

I have another question for clarification: This may sound a bit meta-gamey, but I want to make an informed choice. What are the specific consequences of failing a roll here? I fell down the first time, which is a cool descriptive effect, but will I fall down every time I fail a roll, or will I take damage only, or is there some other general hindrance?

Thanks!

EDIT: Also, I think your ruling is completely fair on taking 10/20. Even without the aura of unluck it's a reasonable call, and with it, even moreso. I also would agree that this is, in my experience, one of the most contested rules in 3.X. I hope JB figured out a fix or clarification!

From d20srd.org:

Taking 10

When your character is not being threatened or distracted, you may choose to take 10. Instead of rolling 1d20 for the skill check, calculate your result as if you had rolled a 10. For many routine tasks, taking 10 makes them automatically successful. Distractions or threats (such as combat) make it impossible for a character to take 10. In most cases, taking 10 is purely a safety measure —you know (or expect) that an average roll will succeed but fear that a poor roll might fail, so you elect to settle for the average roll (a 10). Taking 10 is especially useful in situations where a particularly high roll wouldn’t help.
Taking 20

When you have plenty of time (generally 2 minutes for a skill that can normally be checked in 1 round, one full-round action, or one standard action), you are faced with no threats or distractions, and the skill being attempted carries no penalties for failure, you can take 20. In other words, eventually you will get a 20 on 1d20 if you roll enough times. Instead of rolling 1d20 for the skill check, just calculate your result as if you had rolled a 20.

Taking 20 means you are trying until you get it right, and it assumes that you fail many times before succeeding. Taking 20 takes twenty times as long as making a single check would take.

Since taking 20 assumes that the character will fail many times before succeeding, if you did attempt to take 20 on a skill that carries penalties for failure, your character would automatically incur those penalties before he or she could complete the task. Common “take 20” skills include Escape Artist, Open Lock, and Search.

Both my rolls were nat 20s, and I still failed!

I blame Erik Mona! :-P

I realize that this isn't exactly what you want either, but you could go with Iomedae and use the longsword two-handed. You don't get the higher damage die, but you still get the other benefits of 2H if you have a high strength or whatever.

Or, you could carry a shield and use it when fighting more defensively, and drop the shield and use longsword in both hands when you need the increased damage output. My PFS character does that with a battle axe.

And my final option... get a size large longsword and use it two-handed. This does, though stray into the potential area of being cheesy optimization. I'd say though, if JJ can do it when writing up Amiri, well you can make it work if you want to. Plus, frankly, I'm not at all convinced that the benefits outweigh the costs. So it's more stretching to get the image than to optimize.

Shelyn is the only Golarion deity available to LG characters who uses a two handed weapon that I know of, and she uses a glaive. Glaive is not a bad weapon, really, and Shelyn is a common enough deity that they should be common weapons.

Glad to see you're feeling better Craig!

And wow. We can't see crap! :)

And Valkyrie, I've been thinking that you might be literally correct about what we can't see... ;-P

Hi folks,

After a busy, busy weekend, I came down with a stomach bug. I'm mostly okay now, but I'm honestly too tired to read on-screen with any comprehension. I'll be back on form tomorrow, I hope. Apologies for the delay on my part.

The campaign cons are beautiful, but honestly, you could get by cheaper with real coins.

I used to use poker chips, but now I use coloured bingo chips and mini poker chips (or rumolli chips). I use different colous for different denominations.

When I played Eberron, I also used monopoly money for letters of credit from House Kundarak. I stamped them with rubber stamps with funny symbols in glittery ink to represent House Sivis notarization arcane marks.

I really like coin props. They give the players a real connection with their finances, while simultaneously encouraging them to spend money arbitrarily on things like food and drinks and bribes and tips.

Edit: As an aside, I usually rescale all the money values to suit my tastes for whatever I'm running. It drives my players nuts, especially when I use non-metric value relationships, like 8 bits to a wheel, 6 wheels to a crown, etc.

Or you could probably just add a line about the chain shirt, if you've already printed it.

I see the chronicle sheet has now been updated!

Martika makes no secret of her purpose in being here, and it makes absolute sense that she and Ikethru would have talked a lot on the way here.

Turin the Mad wrote:

Why not use a pseudonym as a place holder?

I'm not really sure why we don't use placeholders. Though I'd use "Author(s) to be announced" instead of a fake name.

Maybe I'll do that starting with the next batch.

I know it happened at at least one table at Gen Con, although I'm having trouble remembering the details.

I originally had a pretty extensive note in the adventure that boiled down to: If a PC offers themself as a companion for Natalya, she accepts. I originally conceived that this would take the character out of the campaign, but really, there's no reason why the PC can't come back later (especially with access to the lantern).

One shot items found in a scenario may be used at no charge during the scenario, and then they may be purchased and kept at the end if the players want, at least as far as it was explained to me.

At Paizo you get to eat your cake and have it too!

Awesome news!

As an aside, I will be away this weekend, with only limited connectivity. I will probably not have a lot of time to finish up until Wednesday next week.

I'm guessing that that one is a typo: in my original I had him as lawful. I suppose his behaviour relative to his church could be considered chaotic, but I think his structured business benefiting the poor fits the lawful paradigm. Personally I'd still consider him overall lawful.

I prefer the term "Build Optimizer." ;-P

Sweet!

The armoured kilt adds +1 AC and reduces the max dex by one (and makes it into heavy armour).

The madu also has a -2 armour check penalty, giving me -6 total. :-(

Hey, I don't suppose that you'd give me madu as my human weapon training weapon, since I already get all of the martial weapons as a paladin? If not, no big deal, but it let's me get closer to my desired build goal (which is more fun than it is powerful). Of course, the madu is pretty cool as is. A fighter build could have fun with it, but I'm more interested in trying out the PF paladin.

The armoured kilt is a cool item, but has some weird unanswered questions, like what if it's masterwork, or better yet, mithral? None of those matter right now though.

About the pronunciation thing: it doesn't bother me either, but it's good to be aware that many of the folks who work at Paizo have commented that they don't like names that are difficult to pronounce or to know how to pronounce in submissions.

And yeah, tournament modules definitely lead people around, and should. Otherwise they wouldn't get done in time.

I'm working on my Paladin. Rambler and I are going to take the Looking for Haleen background trait if that's cool with everyone. I probably won't have the finished character up until tomorrow.

Thanks for the response and the insight. It's always fun comparing interpretations of fantasy elements based on different views on reality.

Here's a further comment that should be taken only as my personal feeling. The adventure is scripted as requiring the PCs to be fooled about certain things for a certain amount of time. That's difficult to pull off, and if you can do that, you need to tell us how. It's especially difficult in a tournament scenario where you can't just let the PCs flounder along being fooled for a bit longer. There's a time limit.

But typically players, unlike characters in books, are almost never fooled for exactly the dramatically appropriate amount of time. They either figure out what's going on right away, or they never get it until it's too late.

And in this case it can be fatal to the plot. If the PCs realize that their guide is a fake and doesn't know his way around the jungle, and has never been to the ruins he claims to have seen, they have no reason to go on the rest of the adventure. They just report back that the guy is a fraud, and go home.

The second mystery is less crucial, but I also am not sure I see how it forwards the plot. Maybe I need to read more carefully. Nevertheless, this is one that I see players never figuring out. So there's a Chellaxian coat of arms? These tribesmen must have met some Chellaxians.

So to me, I like your story, but it seems more like a story than an adventure for an RPG, especially one that will work within the limited structure of a tournament.

I hope this is helpful insight!

Awesome, Thanks!

I've just noticed some errors in the player's guide. I posted them in the product discussion for clarification, but I'll mention them here.

The Genie Blood trait seems to have the air and water benefits reversed.

The Madu information on the equipment chart seems to have the armor/shield bonus and the max dex reversed.

Malvoisin, can you confirm my interpretation, because both may have an impact on my choices (or Rambler's, or both). Thanks!

Okay, I have a few questions that may be errata.

The Genie Blood trait says that with the air trait you gain a bonus vs. cold and for water you gain a bonus vs. electricity. This is the opposite of everything in the beta. Is this intentional?

Also, the Madu is the equivalent of a spiked shield with a few exceptions, but is listed as having no armor/shield bonus and a max dex bonus of +1. the column headers are also in the reverse order of the standard equipment chart. Please tell me it's supposed to be +1 shield bonus and no max dex!

And don't get me wrong, the companion has got me more excited about an AP than I have been since RotRL premiered! The fact that I'm finding these inconsistencies only shows how much you've caught my interest!

Valkyrie: I'm good with our characters knowing each other, although I'm probably not going to take the missionary background (not that it really matters, I can still be supporting the missionary cause, and that doesn't have to be our direct connection anyways).

So so far we have a bard, a cleric, an arcane caster, and a paladin. looks like a good start!

I plan to play a paladin of Sarenrae. At least, I think that's what I'm going for. I'd like to have some extra fire trappings if that's okay, such as my lay on hands power looking and feeling like fire.

Rambler, in the first post it says max HP. Sheesh! ;-P

Are you allowing equipment from the PFCSHC?

EDIT: I have the LoF Player's Guide.

I'm completely willing to fill in any blanks in the party. I've got about 5 minute right now and then I won't be able to get back to this until tonight at the earliest. I am pretty pumped about the game though!