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We homeschool. Wicht, your bunch sounds a lot like our bunch. If y'all were in Louisiana, we'd need to schedule a get-together or two.

Thanks for the work, TM! We're looking to start a PFRPG game Saturday and my wife - true to her style - wants to play a Ranger. I snagged your guide and slapped it into OpenOffice, so we'll see how it prints out. This should help her out a lot as we make the transition from 3.5 to PF.

Stuff like this adds a lot of flavor to a campaign.

GREAT character concept! Glad to hear your DM/GM/Referee is likin' the idea, too.

One of my main players was looking over the PFRPG conversion document (so nicely linked to earlier in this thread) and boy is he EXCITED! We haven't done any real gaming in, well, years. So now *I* gotta get crackin' and catch up on the changes. Especially since there's some rotten nastiness I want to pull in from CWar and Heroes of Battle.

This does throw a wrinkle into a project I was starting, but I'm still early in the efforts and can make the Pathfinder adjustments fairly easily.

I'm not beating a dead horse - but I'll poke it and *see* if it is dead...

Machiavelli's "The Prince"

Any given NPC is only as useless or useful as the DM makes them, regardless of class.

To get back to String's original thought - making NPC classes better at non-adventuring stuff than PCs are - the fastest thing I can think of off-hand is to strip Craft and Profession skills from PC classes. This makes Profession (farmer) a cross-class expense for the Fighter and puts him behind the Commoner on the power-curve.

Also, any PC class X who tries to be as good a Y as an NPC class will be the worst X on the planet. So, a Rogue who devotes himself to being a blacksmith may be as good as any expert blacksmith, but he'll be the worst Rogue.

I need to line up all my books by publisher and see what books of theirs I actually have. I know I grabbed at least one creature collection, but I'm pretty sure I have some of their other stuff, too. If Relics & Rituals was theirs, that's one I *still* want to work into a campaign.

Then you get Lucas and his bizarre notions of "mutable continuity." I used to love Star Wars. But with Lucas dinking about with retcons and telling his LucasFilm writers to ignore everything in existance other than what was seen onscreen... He pretty well killed my love for the setting.

How bad is it that I knew which spell they were using before I read the filename of the image?

I gave him points for creativity.

And this is why I came to the Paizo boards. :D

Thanks guys - I had totally forgotten Open Minded was in Psionics and thus might be in the SRD. Even worse, I had failed to look at the Pathfinder material to see what open content was there that I could use. SHAME ON ME!

You guys rock.

I'll be back later... I have a PRD to read. Again.

That's kinda where I was leaning, too.

Related question on feats. One of the OGC sources has a number of feats that allow a character to treat 5 thematically linked skills or 3 skills of their choice as class skills. Does the community at large find this to be acceptably balanced or no?

Right, those. As far as I can tell, they are not OGC. If I am publishing a project, can I use those names in the Feats list and attributes of the NPCs? That's the re-wording of my first question, I guess. If not, the two online resources I named have feats that accomplish pretty much the same thing mechanically with feats that *are* OGC.

(and I personally think it would be cool to have 'Short Haft' and 'Bounding Assault' et al. as 100% "legal" options in PF RPG, instead of being only allowed if your GM is okay with 3E splats).

So I guess using Dash and Open-minded are right out...

I'm not sure where else to post this, so if I need to move it, kindly point me in the right direction.

Some of the NPCs in a project I am working on would benefit nicely from some published feats that are not OGC (as far as I can tell). Can I safely use the names of the feats if I don't include their mechanics?

Also, while looking for OGC feats, I have found places like "The Grand OGL Wiki" and D&D Wiki, which houses the Netbook Of Feats. Is there any consensus on the suitability of material from sites such as these for balanced games?

Heh. Games are supposed to be fun. If he's having fun, he's doing it right. I think others should start noticing a greenish hue to his skin after quaffing one of his booster-brews, for sure.

I think he's building up a secret stash of tables to spring on jp et al later this year. I hear he's using the working title of "Son of the Toolbox" on the file-folder holding all his charts. These crumbs he's tossing out like beads at a Mardi Gras parade are just that - mere crumbs, just the physical manifestation of the distillation of sheer random geniusness.

...that's what the voices said...

hahahahaha!!! Almost like the Far Side cartoon sign that reads "Beware of Doug"!!

And you know what's sad? It wasn't until MUCH later I realized I'd made a Monsters Vs Aliens joke.

I dunno which I would prefer: being named Bob and occasionally called a Giant Slime or being a Giant Slime who gets called Bob...

Somehow, on the first read-thru, I missed the second "L" in "giant slime blob." I was wondering who actually *named* their ooze, much less named it "Bob!"

Very nice idea. The scary part, just knowing the product is being developed is inspiring an entire encounter in my head...

- Maps are the first thing I check on a new product. If the map fires me up, I'm likely to buy the product without even reading anything else. Does it look good? Can I obviously reuse it or expand it beyond the product's parameters? (Guildsport, from Dungeon's "Maps of Mystery" sold that issue to me off the rack, hands down.)

- It's wonderful to see Tim sharing his process! It is also reassuring to see my own meager efforts are following the same path as one of the masters. I'm a visual writer and always assumed maps started as the settings start and grew as the setting grew.

- Peer-review: it's not just for scientific journals! I'm working on a product designed for DMs, so I'm going to send it to some DMs I respect to find out if I hit my mark of easy usability.

I grew up on maps, literally, and can easily mentally overlay a map onto the reality around me. Or I can place myself on a map and "see" it in my mind's eye. The better the map, the easier I can achieve this. The easier I can achieve it, the better I can do my job as a DM in making the setting come alive for my players.

Boots2 with a nice dirk tucked in them.

In black.

So my wife is going to be gone to a weekend summer music camp this weekend - Thursday afternoon thru sometime Sunday afternoon. To help the kids not think about mom being gone, we'll be gaming. This is going to be the youngest girl's first game with a character of her own.

They have very little idea of what is going on. I told them I want equipment lists for 3rd-level characters, classes, and whatever feats/flaws/traits/class-variants they may want. I'll handle making the final characters myself. Looks like we'll have a Scout, a Fighter, and a Warlock. (I figure the few tricks a Warlock can pull off every time works well for a 4-year-old to remember.) All they know is "underground classic dungeon.

I'm going to put them thru an adventure I devised some time ago (ie: just about the time 4ed was announced) but never pursued. However, I'm going to rethink that and may well develop it into a retail adventure. Depends on how it plays this weekend.

Here's the intro:

Panic in the Pantry!

You are a Kobold, of the Moonscale tribe. Your tribe has worked hard all summer to be sure the tribe's pantry is well-stocked for the coming winter. Everything was going well until the chef happened to go into the lower pantries looking for pickled Goblin guts to make a meat pie for the chieftain. That's when the panic started.

Someone has pilfered the entire stock of Goblin guts! To make matters worse, almost all of the sacks, crates, and barrels the tribe spent the summer so assiduously filling with winter storage are EMPTY!! It has fallen to your small band to find out what has happened to the tribe's food-stores...

...the bad part is, you know exactly where some of them went, because you carried them off. Even worse, you can't tell anyone what you did or why. See, while exploring the tunnels one day, you encountered a very young red dragon who called himself Bristle. He asked you to help him stock his pantry by bringing him the occasional haul from the Kobold pantries and the occasional item to furnish his lair. In return, he promised to not make you or any others of the tribe part of his larder. He begged you to not tell anyone about him, or the entire tribe would never do anything but beg him for favors. He has promised to help the tribe out later, after he grows some. This made an enormous amount of sense, so you readily agreed. But now, someone is threatening the survival of your tribe, you, and your dragon friend...

So far, my outline is something like this:

"Room" One:
Goblin band intercepted roaming into the tribe's territory. This is, of course, an excellent short-term fix for the loss of the pickled Goblin guts. The entire tribe is ready to turn out and take on the Goblins in a fight a little less than the Kobold's norm. The tribe will win, but with many wounded and lots of Goblins to process into the pantries. I want to revisit something I did once, but this time with Goblins - the Phalanx. That was a naaaaaaasty time of a fight!! I want to see how they handle it this time. Maybe some of their own can form one, as well, for the PCs to hide behind.

I think I may sow the seeds of confusion here by having the Goblins yell things like "We'll feast from your kitchens tonight!" or "Winter won't be so hard with us living off the fruits of your labors!"

"Room" Two:
While helping with the rendering, they catch a fellow Kobold trying to slip away with either food or goods, heading to Bristle's lair. Since the party has a Scout, they may opt to track him to find out where he is going. I may suggest to at least one of the players that during this confusion, they might be able to slip some food or loot into one of Bristle's receiving areas. (He has taken to having them drop stuff off in certain areas "in case anyone follows you, they won't see me" - basically, he's reserving the last few charges in his wands for an emergency. I may also make sure one of the PCs sees another one stashing some extra food, just to increase the suspicions.

They may opt to confront the "skizzer," either publicly or privately, about his attempt to sneak away with loot. This should get interesting as he tries to wriggle off the hook without mentioning Bristle and with the PCs trying to pin him down without mentioning Bristle. I'll be brushing up on the Charm Person spell, to see how this should play out.

"Room" Three:
I may toss a Goblin raiding party into the tunnels, just for some dungeon combat, since the Scout wants to have the Dungeon Specialist variant feature from PHBII. Perhaps have them actually penetrate into the lower pantries that were looted so as to mess up any chance of an easy tracking check to discover that only Kobolds have been in there. Maybe a rat swarm in the pantries would be a better idea. With the Goblins taunting them in Enc-1 and ending up in the pantries here, they should be wondering if maybe someone else really is stealing their food. At any rate, they end up in the pantries and have to fight something there.

"Room" Four:
Dunno yet...

"Room" Five:
They finally end up in Bristle's lair. I'm not real sure yet how and why they get here. But - I do know I'd like for them to fight the Halfling thinking he has killed their beloved Bristle!! Something I want to work with is summoned monsters, with the PCs having to face them in waves (as was discussed in the BBEG thread this week) as the bad guy tries to make his escape.

So that's what I have so far. If anyone has any ideas for believable slapstick to use to connect the dots, I'm all ears. I'm trying to stick to a "5-room dungeon," partly so that we actually finish it, partly to try out a bunch of new ideas for how to prep a game session, partly so that it holds their attention and partly to see if I can do it. With a party of 3 Kobolds of 3rd level, I think I can justify throwing a 5th or 6th level Halfling Rogue at them as a bad guy. He doesn't want a fight, after all - he's LAZY and wants minions to serve him. He'd rather drink a potion of invis and sneak out while they fight 2 waves of 1d3 Fiendish Badgers, picking up his bug-out bag on the way out to start up the scheme somewhere else. Sure, he'll lose a chunk of goodies, but rather lose goodies than flesh.

So, given the Halfling propensity for gluttony, his larder is nowhere near equal to the sum of what the tribe "tithed" over the weeks. But they will manage to eke their way through the winter, earning the PCs a place in the tribe as heroes for having vanquished the foul beast that killed their beloved Bristle, whom the tribe all feel they can now talk about openly.

And hopefully, a great time will be had by all. Players are my kids - 15, 8, and 4. The older two already play and the younger normally falls asleep watching us play. Comments and suggestions welcome - flames, well... ;)

Try the march from Bridge over the River Kwai.

Per my main player, "Common sense would dictate you fall prone...but magic doesn't always equate to common sense."

Per my literal player, "You *fall* asleep, therefore you *fall* over - duh!" (she's 8, not blonde...but there isn't that much difference in practice...)

Per my teenage player who is learning how to DM, "I suppose it is DM discretion..."

Having discovered in boot-camp that I could sleep standing up - marching, actually - and again while working on pipelines, I can see the argument made that a Sleep spell doesn't make you fall over. As a DM, the target of a Sleep spell ends up prone...

but you're going to get all the same information for gaming purposes.

Yep, Vista with Acrobat Reader 8.something, and Firefox.

As for the tune, I haven't figured it out yet.

Looks like my gaming group needs to put purchasing sets of Q-dice at the top of the list once they can start shipping product again.

I'm going to go out on a limb and start with ... Frostburn. But that's just me.

What is...Antarctica!

It's all fun and games till someone gets devoured in public by invisible monsters all Abdul Alhazred style.

The Rogue Trader offering is Here...

Aldo, thanks for pushing the hobby *and* sticking your neck and shoulders out there! I didn't get to participate - look at the list of stores in Louisiana that participated compared to a map of the state and you'll see why. I wish I had known about it earlier and I would have gotten you contact info for at least two more stores in the north end of the state, plus one down in Baton Rouge.

I also really appreciate your showing us the otherwise hidden "mechanics" of how Free RPG Day works. Seems odd the distributors don't want to help increase orders that *they* benefit from...or maybe I'm missing something. That's usually the case.

Didn't Oriental Adventures for AD&D have a bunch of floorplans in the back? Anyway, this is another product I've considered making for 3.5 and now/or now Pathfinder - Fantasy Sites. Once, that is, I find a graphics program and images I can use to produce commercial maps.

Also, check the Map Packs for usable sets. I only own a couple of them, and they are outdoors ones at that, but I think you may find a couple that are what you want - specifically, Slums and Village.

Just wanted to chime in...

I would like anyone to confirm that clicking the above link opens up a new tab in your browser that is a direct link to the Fungus, Deathcap .pdf file. If so, please let me know.

Thanks!

I'd written the reply before noon, but forgot to hit submit before I dashed off to town. In the interest of encouragement, tho, I went ahead and posted the reply. :D

Gene is awesome. I'm saving off everything that gets posted. All you ppl who feed requests to Gene so that he has ample projects with which to occupy himself and benefit us are almost as awesome as Gene.

I love 'shrooms...

I had to tweak the link you posted slightly to get it to work, as the internal links in the pdf weren't working for me. I was likely screwing something up, who knows. The main drawback to House is how creepy it is. I'm not real sure the youngest could handle it. Beyond that, the other three would absolutely eat it *up*!

Ok, I got involved looking at CSP's offerings and almost forgot to come back here and finish my reply!! Goooooooooooooood stuff...

Crooked Staff Productions

I'm sure that site will contribute to melting a hard-drive and a printer sooner rather than later...

Are any of the other publishers being as consumer-friendly and providing free pdf's of their Free RPG Day goodies? Some of the listed goodies sound interesting and I'd like to give them a whirl...

How very interesting...thank you for the House! I think even without the note, I would have detected Lovecraft's hand in that adventure.

Here is a time saver tip, just a little too far:
"Plan the order of your stops in a clockwise direction, that way you avoid all the time-consuming left turns."

I was afraid you'd say that. My mags are all packed up and in storage at the moment, since I don;t have room for a decent library. One of my part-time gamers may have the Challenges book. I'll look into it.

But still, that always felt like a tournament or fair rather than an adventure to me...

Good stuff, man!

1. When you call for your players to roll Perception checks, do you pull those who succeed aside, or do you simply look at them and say, "You see/hear...?"

Depends on the player and what is perceived. If the PC is one who I know uses knowledge to their own benefit, I'll let just that one know what is going on. If someone notices something that an obvious reaction to would tip the party's hand, I'll tell just that player(s). Otherwise, it's a "Are you going to let the rest of the party know? If so, I'll just say it for everyone to hear."

2. When delivering the lines of NPCs, do you prefer in-character or third person?

I prefer in-character as much as possible, as I am a bit of a ham.

3. Do you encourage your players to create well-thought-out backgrounds complete with hooks that you can insert into your campaign?

I prefer and encourage it, especially from players I know can deliver. I like to use any tidbits anyone drops about their past in the games to make them fell connected. However, if someone wants to just bash monsters and take their stuff, I'm good with that too.

4. You have been playing a campaign for many months, and your group suffers a TPK. Do you fudge the rolls, contrive a reason for them to be brought back, have them create new characters and pick up where the others left off, or just scrap the campaign?

Wow. I'd like my gaming group to make it to the first comma in that question so that a campaign-ending TPK becomes a possibility!!

5. You have a scene where a large orc tribe is attacking a village. You have all of the orcs and various NPCs represented on the map. Do you roll for each and every orc and NPC, or do you, in the interest of saving time, just decide how many of each side dies each round?

My rule of thumb - any combat or other activity that doesn't involve the PCs will move at the speed of plot. If I need to village to take a beating, it will. If I need the Orcs to just bloody the village's nose, then there's gonna be more wounded than dead and very little of either as the Orcs set buildings on fire. If I need the PCs to impress the locals with their abilities to help, there'll be a lot of wounded to tend. If I need to PCs to show off their battle-smarts, etc etc.

During a recent discussion with the main two players of my gaming group, it came about that I should run a "5-room dungeon" for 3rd-level characters that is all non-combat. This is partly a reaction to some recent games with some other players that was rather combat-heavy as well as a desire to explore some of the less often used abilities out there. We may add in my youngest girl, who is four but has been around D&D pretty much her entire life.

So, with this in mind, I'm looking for ideas on what sort of adventure or encounters other DMs have run or would suggest running for a non-combat adventure.

There goes my first potential Pathfinder product...already planned by Paizo.

Ran into an oddity as I was working on some NPC charts. The five NPC classes (adept, aristocrat, commoner, expert, warrior) have starting gold listed. Hunh??!?? I thought they used the NPC gear value by level chart over on pg 127 at the end of the NPC chapter. How do other DMs handle 1st-level NPC gear?

The print product is now available to order. We are working on getting the PDF up.

I'd hate to see today's traffic report on the Paizo server...

I did get my PDF downloaded and along the way found the PDFs from the *last* two FreeRPGDay products. I got them, too. No sense in letting them sit there and rot, y'know. Thanks for making the PDFs available, guys. We appreciate it.

in a book that's supposed to be about giving the GM as many monsters to use as possible in a limited page count, I'm not interested in carving out a chunk of pages that big to try to make the Bestiary into something it's not supposed to be.

I was initially considering a Ranger/Rogue, especially since it allows me to fill two party roles nicely. I am also open to other suggestions and cool ideas though. Maybe a Warlock/something would be cool?

Excellent. Bloody marvelous work. You just codified what has been floating around in my head as half-formed ideas and vaguely-seen apparitions for a few years now. I don't play regularly, or I would have likely already nailed down in concrete a lot of what you presented here. Thanks for helping me figure out what I've been trying to tell myself.

The sages at Paizo now have empirical evidence that, unlike certain elf Wizards, preparing Explosive Runes would be a waste of a spell-slot pretty much any morning...

:D

I live in such a pit of utter abject lack of culture that my FLGS's are Paizo, RPGNow, and ebay.....

ONE STORE in Louisiana is participating and it is on the WRONG END OF THE STATE!! I was shocked to see no entry for Little Wars in BR, unless they've closed and I didn't know about it. Of course, they are on the wrong end of the state, as well.