Davelozzi's page

I am pretty happy with the way the previous Player's Guides were released, especially the one for Curse of the Crimson Throne, which I just reread this morning. Slightly more information about the home town would have been fine if there was space.

As for giving away, more, I'd rather leave that to the individual DM, although I do in fact give away such info myself sometimes. For example, in my current Red Hand of Doom campaign (minor spoilers ahead)...

Ok, Alpha release 1 is 65 page, Pathfinder Beta currently listed as 300+ pages, while the final hardcover rulebook is projected to be 420 pages. With a page count hovering in the middle like that, I was curious, do you expect the Beta release to be a self-contained rulebook, or will it be more like the Alpha, in which you still use the D&D core books, substituting Pathfinder rules where applicable?

What did Davelozzi see as "over the top" about the specialists?

I don't know if I was referring to the specialists in particular with that comment, I think what I meant was more along the lines that in general Pathfinder includes some definite power ups, and that we wanted to review the various changes before adopting them full cloth. Its worth noting that although I did cross-post the conversation here, the context of the original post was that it was made on or own boards in reference to adopting rules in our own campaign.

As with the enchanter, a necromancer trying to use this ability is a dead necromancer. I understand that it's supposed to "finish off" wounded enemies, but a range on it would be nice (especially considering that enemies don't really have a chance to stabilize).

Assuming that you are talking about the grave touch ability, I think a range on it would be too much.

Anyhow, one of my players and I were just discussing the necromancer in particular, and specialists in general on our own messageboards. Rather than rehash it all, I'll just post the exchange:

I took a scan through the new rules for pathfinder wizards and specialists and generally I don't like them. They seem to turn specialists into mini prestige classes but take away a lot of flexibility. All wizards basically have to specialize (there is universal for those that don’t want to pick the others but you still have that as a specialty. Also you get a better hit die – d6, which should really make everyone want to be a wizard sine the d4 hit die is the worst thing about them.

Specifically for necromancer:

It seems like you lose the bonus necro spell/level/day but in exchange get

- Can control double the amount of undead as normal at any given time (This is the biggest benefit but to be fair might be a bit out of balance as I could basically have control over 8 melee NPCs of my level
- Gain some spell like abilities that are basically necromancer spells (this I don’t really like because it says I have to use these spells instead of picking my own extra necro spells per day
- Access to prohibited spells in exchange for giving up bonus powers for the day (this seems silly to me, I shouldn’t get access to prohibited schools at all) and I’d rather pick my own extra necromancy per day ability by picking my extra spells per day out each day rather than go by their pre-selected “school powers” that do the same thing with less fun for me
- No longer required to make one of your 2 free spells per level in your specialty (seems odd to me that this was dropped)

In the end, I think the new rules for wizards/specialist force you to give up some flexibility and in exchange (at least for necromancers) you get to be way more powerful than you should be.

Good analysis.

To counterpoint somewhat, I think part of this is because you are actually playing your 3.5 necromancer as a specialist (focusing on necromancy spells to a significant degree, using your undead schtick, etc.), whereas I think many people choose a specialty for the extra spells but then just play it as generalist wizard (i.e. other than the token domain spell, most other spells have just as much of a chance from being from any other school). So in that sense, the more tightly focused Pathfinder versions does a good job of making a necromancer feel much different than say, an enchanter.

At any rate, I agree that some of the stuff sounded a little over the top, which is why I suggested discussing the rules rather than just telling you to go ahead with them. And since you don't like them either, it's a no-brainer, we'll stick with the current version for the time being.

For the sake of perspective, my groups reception of other Pathfinder rules so far is as follows. My players all welcomed the new race rules with open arms (party includes humans, a half-elf, and an elf (played by Toocan, above). We tried the CMB grapple (only once so far, too soon for significant feedback). We discussed the new Turn Undead and the reaction was favorable, but it hasn't come up in play yet. Finally, we discussed the skill system briefly, but the players all prefer to spend points on their own (though I like the new system as potential NPC shortcut).

Some great names in the ring, surely, though there are a few I'd rather not see as well. However, the sheer numbers may be a little much...you know what they say about too many cooks.

My concern is that the flavor of the setting will be all over the place, rather than a fairly tight focus on the kind of style of D&D that I like and that Paizo has traditionally done such a good job presenting.

I'm sure I'll pick it up anyway, but I for one was more excited when it was just "by Erik Mona" as the cover illustration indicated.

I might not be in the majority here, but I don't believe that characters *need* more hit points at starting levels.

I strongly agree. In my games, we do use the maximum HP at first level variant, but I think that's just the type of thing best left to homeruling. Adding extra HD goes too far, first level characters should be somewhat fragile, and the beefed up HD of wizards and rogues already fixes things for the classes on the lower end of the spectrum.

After all, starting a campaign at 2nd, 3rd, or even 4th level is a perfectly viable solution for those that don't like to play through this period of your character first getting his dungeon feet wet, so to speak.

I think the point was to make Elves' favored class be sorcerer and make their bonus in line with that.

I can see that. The idea of magic coming naturally to elves seems to fit their nature quite well, while the idea of learning it from arcane tomes seems like more of a human concept to me.

Perhaps you could introduce a Feat called “Variant Training: Choose any two Cross-class Skills. These skills now count as Class Skills for you.”

I like it!

The seldom used Escape Artist Skill should probably be rolled into the Sleight of Hand skill(both involve flexibility of the hands/body) instead of how it is now for Theft. Instead, combine Open Lock and Disable Device together, as both skills are completely related and really do require Perception, Dexterity, and Intelligence to pull off, and not just good hand-eye coordination....

I agree with this analysis from a logic point of view, but the other side of the argument is that neither Escape Artist nor Sleight of Hand are widely used skills so I think the intent was to incorporate them with skills that are. Still I could be sold. What would you call this skill?

As for Fly, I feel strongly that it should not be a skill, it wouldn't come up enough and just isn't really necessary.

GM.

Cast my vote for "don't waste your time with epic rules, especially in the core book". High level is where this game breaks down, if the point is to be able to play the existing system, it makes sense to focus on the levels that the game has traditionally focused on (and for that matter that the Pathfinder Adventure Paths are focusing on).

Yeah I agree that powering up the core classes is not a wise move.

In particular, I am not a fan of the rogue's 20th level ability that allows an automatic kill on a crit. Granted, it is a 20th level ability, but it's just too much. An enemy that the players are facing at that point is likely to be pretty major, and having it go down with one blow is just disappointing, not fun.

I think that monster races as PCs is a bad idea for the core ruleset. It implies that these creatures can have a relatively easy time finding acceptance in traditional cities and towns, and that doesn't seem to mesh well with Golarion as presented, nor with the majority of D&D settings that have been published over the years.

I have no problem with something like this appearing as an option in a later supplement however (though I probably won't miss it if it's not, either).

Before I offer up comments and suggestions, I'm just wondering what sacred cows there are regarding the 3.5 rules? For instance, are Vancian magic and spell slots a sure thing, or is there wiggle room for a spell point system or something? Are you fixed on having only the core races & classes? Are alignments going to be the same? Will rangers be spellcasters as usual?

My personal opinion is that all of those things are sacred cows if the game is to remain as backward compatible as it aims to. The exception might be rangers, I can see a non-spellcasting ranger not being a dealbreaker (and in fact I prefer them). I do like spell point systems, but I think that'd be too big of a change.

I just wanted to chime in to agree with the general point of this thread. Well I wouldn't go as far as Alzrius and say "don't make ANY changes" I think they should be kept to a minimum.

Like others, I like (at first glance at least) the Combat Manuever changes and am open to the simplified skill system, but bumping up the power level of core classes is too much change (the races aren't quite as much of a big deal since it's a one time bump, not an incremental one).

And while I applaud Paizo for opening the playlist, I agree with others that a peril of this is that those with lots of changes to suggest are automatically going to drown out those who prefer very few changes, unless the latter category is constantly reposting their opinion (something which is very annoying and which I do not advocate). In the end, it's just going to come down to the Paizo guys really keeping their eye on the prize, and going with their gut. Good luck!

Ok, thanks for the response, I guess that's pretty much what I thought, just not what I hoped.

As the subject indicates, I'm a little confused about the various shipping options.

I've been an early adopter of both Pathfinder and GameMastery subscriptions. Originally I had selected the option to have my GM modules held to ship with Pathfinder. At some point in the fall, due to some delay in the printing schedule, I had a few items ship that shipped separately.

At that point, the "hold items for one monthly shipment" option appeared so I switched to that. However I still find things are shipping out separately. I received GM module Crucible of Chaos sometime last week and then Pathfinder Vol. 7 this weekend.

Why aren't things shipping once a month? I'm not clear on whether or not I should switch back to the first option. My top priority is not to waste money on multiple shipping charges, though given the choice I would rather have Pathfinder given priority over GM modules. So in an ideal world, there would be one monthly shipment, and it would happen whenever the new Pathfinder was ready.

Finally, I will probably purchase quite a few of the Pathfinders Chronicles line but maybe not every one, and considering the price differences between various items in the line, I would prefer not to subscribe and have everything shipped right away. Is it possible to hold non-subscription items held to ship when the next subscription item ships? Presently the added cost of shipping items separately is holding me up from placing orders, and unfortunately, I have yet to see any of the Chronicles line appear in local game stores.

I hope I'm not coming off as too demanding here, it just seems like these subscriptions options aren't working as smoothly as they could.

1) Do you plan to convert to the new edition of D&D?

2) If Paizo converts its RPG products to 4.0, how will that affect your purchasing patterns for our products?

3) If Paizo does not convert its RPG products to 4.0, how will that affect your purchasing patterns for our products?

First off, thanks for asking us. I appreciate how in touch Paizo is with their customer base (also thanks for the recently announced Paizo Advantage program...classy move).

On to the matter at hand...

1. At this point I am still undecided. In the past, I have moved ahead with every addition change, however the 4e previews have done more to make me wary than excited. However if the game actually proves to run a lot smoother as the designers claim, it could sway me despite my misgivings (especially about a lot of the IMO unnecessary changes to the games backstory and assumed world, etc). I will definitely at least pick up the new core books and check them out, run a session or two. Whether or not I make a permanent switch depends on what happens there, and more importantly what kind of campaign I decide to run (and that my players want to play).

2. & 3. At the moment, I plan to keep purchasing Pathfinder for at least a couple more campaign arcs regardless of edition. So there won't be any immediate effect, however in the long term if I move to one edition or the other permanently and Paizo goes in the other direction, my purchasing may die off, but that it somewhat unlikely, because...

You have something on your side in that these days I don't have time to write my own material, and with Paizo being the main provider of quality adventure path style content, odds are likely that I'll be choosing one of your paths as my campaign. And since the whole point in running an adventure path is to save myself extra work (not that they are not worthwhile campaigns regardless), I will not want to convert material, and so I will almost certainly use whichever edition said path was written for (though if I find one edition vastly superior to the other, that will be a factor in picking which campaign to run).

So in summary, although it is no guarantee, your choice of which edition to support is likely to affect my own.

My group had the same problem, and after about 3-4 sessions decided that, no it was not worth it, so we stopped using the deck and went back to doing crits the regular way. I liked the idea of having the random results, but when it came down to it they were more often than not disappointing to the players, so they did not add to our fun.

You might want to change the thread title to reflect the fact the major spoiler for J1.

I'm not sure what you are asking for? Stat blocks for the monsters and NPCs are in the adventure (except for those that are in the Monster Manual).

Sounds cool, I will definitely be picking this one up, regardless of edition.

That said, my preference would be a rules-neutral text with an appendix listing major NPCs in short-hand format as was suggested above. That way they could be listed for either edition without wasting more than a page or two. After all, you really don't need full stats for NPCs in the campaign setting book, that sort of detail is better saved for the relevant adventures and/or regional sourcebooks.

Yes, there were more details. It's a downloadable PDF. There are two pages, and if I remember correctly one is identical to the one in the book, but with the references corrected, while the second page adds some streets and specific locations (rather than just general neighborhoods).

Is this a website only module or will it be available (separate from the pack) in stores?

Interesting, I hadn't realized how much times have changed. That said, I guess haven't really bought much "d20" logo'd stuff in quite a while. I seem to have most of the rules I need now so most of my game spending over the past couple years has been on the magazines and the occasional WotC book. Anyhow, thanks for the answer.

More than likely because the rules for D20 are far too restrictive and don't allow for nearly as much creativity on the author's part. And not to be snipie (sp?) but Wizards are the ones that forced Paizo down this path to self expression.

Not all mistakes turn out to be tragic, eh?

Yeah, I guess I just figured that the restrictions were mostly against character generation rules (as far as I could remember) so it didn't really seem as much of a restriction for adventure modules. At any rate, no offense taken, and yes, I hope that this whole thing works out in Paizo's favor (though I will miss the incredible value of Dungeon).

I noticed that D0: Hollow's Last Hope was released as OGL compatible but without the d20 logo. As far as I can tell from the press announcements, it looks like this will be the case for the other modules and Pathfinder too. It doesn't bother me at all, but just out of curiosity, why not use the logo for these? I can't see what the advantage is that offsets the presumed sales hit you'd take by not having the logo.

Anyhow, just curious.

I already mentioned this in another thread, but since you seem to be gathering info here will reiterate my support for a Game Mastery subscription plan with combined shipping for Pathfinder subscribers. Given the choice, I would rather have Pathfinder ship on time and have the GM modules delayed until the next PF ships.

If the Game Mastery subscription does move forward, it would be awesome if it could be set up in such a fashion that the GM module ships at the same time as Pathfinder each month, so that we don't have to double up on S&H charges. A classy move like this would be just the kind of thing I'd expect from Paizo, and would of course make a GM subscription from me all the more likely.

Yes, it does not have an entry in the 3rd edition FRCS, but it's shown on the map. It's an island in the troanfle between Bladur's Gate, Waterdeep, and the Moonshaes.

If my memory serves me correctly, in earlier editions it was described as a shipbuilding center, possibly under the thumb of Waterdeep. Anyhow, it was never heavily developed and could serve as Alhaster quite easily.

Please post the conversion notes separately on the web, and bundle them later when you have time to get the maps and art formatted properly.

Getting on the staff's back about bonus material isn't my style, however if getting them laid out for the PDF really is the hold up here, I'd agree releasing them on the boards or elsewhere first is a great idea.

Cool, thanks for chiming in. As I mentioned above, I think you made the right choice in switching it.

I noticed in Eric Boyd's conversion notes for "A Gathering of Winds" (online supplment for issue # 129), the opening line states that "conversion notes for Mintarn (Alhaster and Redhand)...have already been mentioned in conversion sidebars for earlier adventures".

In the "Age of Worms Overload" download, Starmantle is identified as the Realms equivalent to Alhaster. Was this switched to Mintarn at some later point that I missed, or is this reference I mentioned above the first we've heard of it?

I kind of prefer Mintarn, since Starmantle is so far removed from Daggerford/Diamond Lake and Waterdeep/the Free City. What do other folks think?

I put off reading this adventure since I'm not particularly into Oriental Adventures, however it is quite good, so color me impressed. Nice work, Tito, and thanks for the missing text, Jeremy!

Are you guys talking about the action figures or regular minis on or near the 25mm scale?

If the action figures, I had Melf, and Warduke, and some guy that was released later that wore a suit of white armor, I don't remember his name.

Fletch, I'd have to say that I agree with Yamo on this one. Changing the countries around so that they "make sense" would turn Mystara into something that it's not and never has been. It'd be better not to touch it than to change it so drastically. Experience has shown that drastic changes to campaign worlds generally go over very poorly with the fan base, especially with the fans that are hard core enough to still care about the setting ten years after it went out of print.

Well, I just got issue # 120, earlier than I expected, as it seems like its only been a couple weeks since I received # 119.

At any rate, I'm loving this map. It's made me feel like a kid again -- as I've spread out the three pieces on the floor to look at all together, as I often did with the various maps from Forgotten Realms products back in the day. Very fun!

I've been waiting for these last two pieces to finally give a through read through to the web supplement Iuz the Evil that I downloaded many years ago. Unlike some, I love the From the Ashes era supplements, and though I've started on Iuz several times, I usually ended up trailing off because I didn't have a good enough map to reference, but no more. I have to say, I'm surprised at how much of the old Great Kingdom fits on this map, it goes clear up to the North Kingdom. I guess I just never realized how much the eastern half of the Flanaess was of a lower latitude than the western half.

At any rate, very cool map, keep up the great work!

However, for an Eberron DM to do this he would have to read THE ENTIRE ADVENTURE first to get a feel for the conversion. This takes more work than the conversion itself.

In my experience, reading the entire adventure is pretty much an essential part of deciding whether or not it fits in a campaign anyway, so I can't see that being a big deal. But if you can generally get by reading the synposis, I don't see why the situation here should be much different. Just about everything Alec talked about above in regards to "Throne of Iuz" is mentioned in the background, if I remember correctly.

Frankly, I though that adventure was fairly world-generic and was surprised to see it carry the Greyhawk tag, while the Istivin series (firmly set in the geographic and historical background of the Greyhawk campaign) was billed as generic.

But back to the main topic, I can see why conversion guidelines out of Eberron might be useful (i.e. using an Eberron adventure in another setting) but converting into Eberron should be no harder than adapting any module to the specifics of your individual campaign. After all, there's not any major monsters/class/rules etc. that are NOT supported by Eberron, so all you have to do is change places and names to fit what's currently happening in your campaign. I'd rather not see the magazine waste any space doing this, with the possible random exception on occasions in which there was a particularly noteworthy reason to do so.

Also, I'll second the question about what levels the new Eberron trilogy will be designed for. It'd be great if it picks up at level 7-8, whichever Grasp of the Emerald Claw ends off at.

I have a group that averages 8 players, and I've found that using the CR/EL system is very tricky. I haven't had good luck using encounter calculators (though I'm not sure whether or not the one I used to use is the same as either of the two linked above).

Also, back in Dungeon # 89, Jonathon Tweet wrote a sidebar giving some mechanics on how to refigure an effective party level for large parties. It appears somewhere in the adventure "Wedding Bells". I used that for a while but still had some problems.

Basically, if you're not working with a fairly standard party, the whole CR system is a poor enough crutch that it's generally not even worth using. By far the best plan is to just look at the monster's stats and abilities in comparison to the PCs, and make your own judgement. Knowing the character's BABs, ACs, and Damage dealing abilities, it's easy to see how likely it is for them and the monsters to hurt each other.

That said, Sean's article that Craig linked to above has some good advice, particularly the part about using more low level monsters and treating the large party as multiple smaller parties and designing encounters appropriately.

The advice in Sean's article that Craig linked to above is very sound, especially the part about treating the party as two smaller parties and desiging encounters appropriately.

These boards screwed up my link to SV Games, but google 'em and you'll find it.

WG7 Castle Greyhawk (a parody adventure by TSR) and WGR1 Greyhawk Ruins (TSR's serious take on the castle) are bot hout of print but may be available on ebay, and are definately available in .PDF form at svgames.

http://search.store.yahoo.com/cgi-bin/nsearch?catalog=svgames-store&que ry=greyhawk+castle&go.x=0&go.y=0&.autodone=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.svg ames.com%2Fnsearch.html

Both of the above modules came out after Ga.ry Gygax left TSR, so many don't consider them to be the "real Castle Greyhawk". However, Gygax is working on producing his version (renamed Castle Zagyg) with Troll Lords games. It's being written for the Castles & Crusades rules set and will be produced in volumes. The C&C rule books are coming out now, the first volume of Castle Zagyg will hopefully follow soon. For more details, check Troll Lord's website:
http://www.trolllord.com/zagyg.htm

Fagabeefe!

I love Midnight Madness. In high school, a friend and I set up a a Great Allnighter of our own across Boston and the south suburbs. It was tons of fun for everyone involved...except the team that got stuck on the first clue. :(

Back on topic, I'm loving the map, though I was very surprised not to see locations marked for the steading of Chief Nosnra, the glacial rift of Jarl Grugnur, and the halls of King Snurre. After all the homage to Agains the Giants in the recent "Istivin" mini-campaign was great, but I'm surprised that you'd include locations from it and not the original modules. But again, this is only a minor quibble, the map is excellent.

I'm using WOTC's Valenar commander for the dark stalker and Silent Wolf goblins for the dark stalkers.

That'd work. A better option for folks who don't mind doing the painting is Reaper's Dark Stalkers and Dark Creepers:

http://www.reapermini.com/store/customer/product.php?productid=2214&cat =0&page=1
http://www.reapermini.com/store/customer/product.php?productid=2467&cat =0&page=1

Wil Save doesn't do anything for me, nor does Downer. I'd be happy to see them both go but am not sweating it too much since they take up so little space.

Everything else about Dungeon since the relaunch is top notch. Keep up the good work!

Fair enough, but what about the reward? I'd probably have her not give them the full amount, but I'm curious as to what other people who are more concerned with adhering to recommend treasure levels might think.

First off, I haven't read the whole AP yet. I started with "Thirteen Cages" and "Strike on Shatterhorn" and then went back to the beginning and read "Life's Bazaar", "Floor Season", and "Zenith Trajectory", and have just started on "The Demonskar Legacy."

As the thread title indicates, my question relates to the end of "Zenith Trajectory". Spolers below...
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Okay, so Celeste and the dwarfleganger hire the party to rescue Zenith Splintershield, but he isn't really captured, he's gone bad. That's fine. The encounter with Zenith seems to assume that the PCs end up fighting him (which they most likely would do). Yet the wrap-up talks of rewards for the rescue and does not mention the possibility that Zenith might be dead.

So what do you think? Does it matter if he's killed? How would that effect the reward?

Is whether or not he dies relevant at all further into the campaign? I'm guessing not because I think I might have read something in one of the later modules that implied that as long as the Cagewrights had the Shackleborn, it didn't matter if they were dead or alive? Is that right?

Either way, it seems odd that Celeste would reward the PCs for a rescue when in fact they've killed the person that they were supposed to rescue and just dragged back his corpse. For that matter, even assuming that they haul his body back seems like a stretch. I bet my players would just kill him and then return and explain what happened, possibly relying on Zone of Truth or other spells to verify their story if necessary.

To me this seems like the first major point where things could break down in this campaign. Does anyone have any thoughts or experiences to share?

Davelozzi, here it is:

http://paizo.com/dungeon/resources/downloads

Thank you!

Are the web enhancements for Life's Bazaar and Flood Season still available? I've poked around a bit but can't seem to find them. I've just started getting around to reading the series now that it's almost complete, and it seems like there's plenty of good stuff there if I could just find it.

thanks!