I know, I've been watching my order for 4 blocks of dice and some card sleeves sitting stagnant for 10 days.
WTF!?
Does it really take 8 to 16 days to fulfill an order that small?
Search Posts
To My Players: If You Are Currently Playing In A Group That Includes Singara the Sorceress, The Green One, and Archimedes then you are NOT allowed to read this. To all others: Spoiler: I have upgraded the Dungeon Crawl Classic "Transmuter's Last Touch" to a 4th to 5th level dungeon for my players. One of the bits of treasure that have been stolen is a set of ledger books that Thurin Kreed has been using to keep track of his double book keeping as he has been embezzling money for himself from the Lumber consortium's profits. In any case, in the process of adding more difficulty to this adventure (which was originally designed for levels 1-2) I have added more traps, a few more rooms and FLUMPS The kolbolds store a few Flumps in one of the cells in the old jail. If attacked they release the Flumps and use large fans to blow the Flumps in the direction of the PCs. Is this enough for me to become a member of GoFY ?
I would only add that Jason and his team have worked on these new classes for weeks (or more likely months) and I'm sure the have play tested the classes themselves. I am a bit amazed that after all their hard work and effort people still start bashing the new classes within hours of them being released. My group is finishing off a series of adventures in the Falcon's Hollow story line so we really don't have time to playtest right now (and they'd rather not put one adventure on hold to start a 2nd one). But we've already talked about starting the Council of Thieves adventure path with a group made up entirely of the new classes. That will be fun. I'd also like to point out that every class isn't suppose to be perfectly balanced. That's part of the game. You can't get 18 on every ability score, you can't have every class casting spells. Some class are better at certain things than others. We shouldn't have a game system where every character has a 1d8 melee attack and a 1d6 range attack and all the stats balance but the actual role playing part goes away until we're just a game of fighting stat blocks. The imbalances of each class is what gives them character. I'd love to play a game where I have to figure out how to be effective using only my potions, my weapons and my wits. That sounds like a cool game.
Ah, I see my mistake. Also, the idea of drinking the potion and then casting the "bomb" like a spell clears up a lot of problems as opposed to making an actual bomb and throwing it (why not throw 2 vials, etc.)
The alchemist can produce bombs equal to his level + his int modifier (so let's assume 3 or 4 per day at 1st level. Let's say 4) But they "remain usable for years". So during a down time of say, a week long rest in a tavern an alchemist can produce 4 x 7 = 28 bombs which will last for years. Rest for a month and the guy is a walking nitro bomb. So the bombs can become 1d6 range attacks that the alchemist can throw them all day long. That seems pretty powerful.
Although it won't be in time for the playtest, when our group finishes their current story line we've already talked about doing Council of Thieves with a party made up entirely of the new character classes. Yeah, the new classes are really cool. I'm looking forward to playing them.
I've ruled out that the 28k feet is a mistake and cut it down to 8k ;)This is a good fix. The mountain as it appears on the map is way out of bounds in size as well. Except, if I remember correctly there was something in the guide to Darkmore Vale about the dangers of adventuring at high altitude. I seem to remember something about the "death zone" of 22,000 feet or higher. That would only be appropriate if the mountain was 22k+ in height. Or am I remembering that from the core rulebook? I've approached it with the "Dude, it's a game, mellow out" attitude and decided not to worry about it. :) By the way, I recently went fly fishing near Mount Shasta. Mount Shasta rises about 14,000 from a set of surrounding mountains that are only about 3000 feet high. It's really impressive to see a mountain that high from that perspective. You notice it as a massive mountain when you're still 40 miles away. It's amazing to be in the town of Mount Shasta and to see this leviathan of a mountain looming over you and to realize that it's still 15 miles away. Now, imagine something twice as high. The view of the mountains from Falcon's Hollow would be incredible.
I might recommend Hollow's Last Hope as a good introduction. It's written for 3.5, but as it's OGL. It's also a vicious little adventure, so I love it. I strongly agree. It's a fun module and it's free. So there ya go. There are references in the module to the 3.5 monster manual like (mm32) which would mean Monster Manual page 32. But you can just look up the monster in the Beastiary. However, I don't think I ever actually needed to go to the Monster Manual when we played it because the stat blocks were so well designed. Other than that, a few sets of dice (and some extra d6) and a general flip map are good tools. A couple of minis would be great but you could just make paper tokens as place holders instead of minis. Back in the old days (AD&D first edition) we didn't have no stinkin' minis and we LIKED IT! ;) Seriously though, just have fun with it and if you're having trouble finding a rule then just fake it and keep playing. The important thing is to have fun. A really BIG bit of advice I can give is to try to never say "No" to the player. Try saying "Yes and . . ." For example. Player: "I bet I could just jump over that 15' high wall" GM : "No you can't" Sorry try again: Player: "I bet I could just jump over that 15' high wall" GM : "Yes, and all you have to do is roll a d20 and add your climb skill. If you can beat a DC25 then you hopped right over. Now, if you want to try to simply climb the wall that would only be a DC 15." Or how about : Player : "Can I leap off of the staircase and grab the chandelier and swing across the room to escape the bad guy?" GM : "No, the chandelier is like, 20 feet away." How about this instead : Player : "Can I leap off of the staircase and grab the chandelier and swing across the room to escape the bad guy?" GM: "Yes, you can try to do that. It's a 20 foot gap but you can try it." [in your mind you quickly make up a DC for leaping a 20' gap. DC 30 sounds good] "Roll a d20 and add your acrobatics skill if you want to try it." And remember that it may provoke an attack of opportunity. Notice that rather than telling your players "No" you told them "Yes" but let them know that while they can try anything, it may not work. This is a lot more fun for everyone because it doesn't sound like you're shutting down their ideas.. If a player wants to use a spell or a device that I'm not familiar with I won't just say or think "Ah crap, now I have to look it up and come up with a rule for it." Instead I'll ask the player "Tell me about a tanglefoot bag (or whatever the item or spell is)" This keeps the players involved and keeps the game moving and fun.
Just wondering, how many of the kids in the play either have played ROTR before the play or are now playing it because of the play? Were RPGs a new concept to them? Were they more focused on the story of the play itself rather than where the story's inspiration came from?
I have to say I was also confused by the map. It wasn't obvious which 2x2 house went with which 2x2 dotted line on the map. I was able to figure out from the text which house was G6 G7 or G9 (no G8?) but a map shouldn't make the layout more confusing. But post like this really help with that confusion. Thank you for the information.
Every issue is the same length, in all of the Pathfinder APs... Not sure what you mean by this? Really? I thought they were 64 pages? Maybe I'm confusing the adventure paths with the modules. Well that's good to know. Now that I see the sticky Burnt Offerings thread I'm going to read through the whole thing. You're right, all my questions are answered there.
Nice catch about "releasing something from down below" being in Thistletop, not the catacombs. I missed that. I was also thinking that the sin spawns could bring the adventurers down to the catacombs provided I could give the players some sort of direction that the catacombs are where they're coming from. I think I'll have to make sure that Tsuto escapes because he's required to be alive later in the story. If I have him escape towards the catacombs BUT at the same time the party hears Ameiko's painful moans come from her cell then I can have them rescue her AND have a clue towards the catacombs. Oh, and did anyone else notice:
Two paragraphs later on page 19 : Tsuto was handed over to the Turandarok Academy to be raise outside of the Kaijitsu family. His older sister Ameiko . . . I think I'll make Ameiko the older one. Other than that, this adventure looks amazing. There are so many little story lines and so much information to work with. I know the rest of the adventure paths tend not to be 100 pages long, but what a great way to start out. There are several plot points that don't feel like a typical dungeon delve at all and I like that a lot.
Hi folks: As I'm reading ROTR I'm missing the link that will let the PCs know about the Catacombs of Wrath. I see that Tsuto's journal implies that Nulia wants to release something "from below", but I'm missing how the PCs will realize that the Catacombs exist or where they are or why they would think that this is where the something from below is. There's a lot of information in ROTR and I'm probably missing something among the vast amount of material (If this is the quality of the rest of the adventure paths then I'm hooked for sure). So what plot points am I missing? What leads the PCs to the catacombs? Thanks Greg
While Crypt of the Everflame is the first module that makes full use of the Pathfinder rules you may also enjoy "Hollow's Last Hope"
This is a FREE 1st level adventure which you can download immediately. It was the first adventure that my group played and we really enjoyed it. We're following it up with Crown of the Kolbold King
We're nearly done with that module. I'm going to try to fit in a quick self created module and then we'll move right into Revenge of the Kolbold King which is another free module
If everyone survives that then we're going to wrap it up with "Hungry are the Dead"
I have noticed that to run the older modules (everything before "Everflame") there are references to the 3.5 monster manual. Most of the stat blocks are there, but you may need to reference the 3.5 monster manual from time to time. In fact, in the stat blocks they make a reference to the page in the Monster Manual that references that monster. For example, this : (MM 72) means "Monster Manual page 72". So if you have the 3.5 books and you want to try out a very well written free module then "Hollow's Last Hope" is a great starting point. For many of us "Last Hope" has become "The Keep On The Borderlands" of Pathfinder. It's the first module that many of us ever ran and it holds that place in our memory the same way "Keep on the Borderlands" does for those of us who started with the Blue and Red boxes.
The owner of my local game store told me yesterday that the book will be officially available today (21st) which is also what I'm reading here. He does his ordering from his distributors on Thursdays. So even though he's reserved 4 of them he won't officially "ask" for it until tomorrow. He says they'll be delivered the next day on Friday. I get off work at 3. I have a one hour commute. I expect to have one in my hands by 4:02pm on Friday. I will be back home and in geek bliss by 4:20pm heh heh heh. I can't wait.
Hydro: I agree completely. D&D is now more of a brand name than a game. The game has changed so much in 4th edition that the consistency of the gaming experience from 1st edition to 2nd, to 3rd has been broken in 4th edition (in my opinion). Since D&D 4th edition represents such a different game than D&D pre-4th. I think we just allow ourselves to think of D&D as the product that WOTC has. But WE have PATHFINDER! It's not D&D version anything. It's Pathfinder. And it's our choice of RPG.
How can I describe how I feel about this book. Hmm . . . Me = little kid
Yep, that's about right.
Quick question: how much tweaking did 1st level modules require? We calculated CMB and used a base of 12 + CMB instead of 15. We created our characters giving them HP equal to Max Hit Dice for first level + con mod + racial bonus. When I have to reference a monster from the 3.5 monster manual I don't modify it at all. I just calculate the CMB if the player does something that requires it. So overall there wasn't much modification at all. Regarding CMB. My players are doing a lot more grappling, throwing, pushing, etc in their battles because it's so much easier to handle those rules. The only other thing we notice is that the players seem to level up sooner. I may move to the slower advancement table.
We're playing D1: Crown of the Kobold King right now (in fact, just last night) and it's a blast. We got there via D0: Hollow's last hope and I also bought Pathfinder Chronicles: Guide to Darkmoon Vale as a supplement. D1: is actually much bigger than I expected it to be. I have a small party of only two players and one NPC. But we picked up another in the storyline (No spoilers) and he's helping out a bit. D1.5 is a natural extension of D1 and in fact, it requires some plot points from D1. D4 is sick and twisted and really cool. It also wraps up the storyline while also allowing the possibility for a particular foe to return to haunt your party at a later date. I don't have E1: Carnival of Tears but I think my players will like it. However, I've read reviews that E1 is particularly violent and gruesome so be forewarned. But that series of PDFs along with the Class Monsters Revisited would be a really good selection. Since I have most of them already I'm going to start with the Burnt Offerings adventure path. I'm looking forward to seeing how they build a 1st level to 20th level story line continuity. And I'm REALLY looking forward to playing it.
I kind of wish my icon had a nose.
Aha! OK, it's in the final book. Cool. So the original is in the Monster Manual!? That would be why I couldn't find it in the PHB or DMG. The one place I didn't look and there it is. Oh well. Thanks for the help.
I was just searching the PFRPG Beta rules for the word "Slam" to find out how a slam attack differs from a standard attack and I only saw references to Slam Shield. Does anyone know where (what page) the slam attack is described? Or, is it only described in the 3.5 ruleset? If so, I couldn't find an index entry in the PHB or DMG for "Slam" either. Or, is there any difference at all? Maybe "Slam" is just a word that describes a standard attack that does it's 1dX damage by thumping you with something big. Thanks
Jason: I should say that right now the PFRPG Beta is the ONLY game system I'm playing. I'm so looking forward to the hardcover books. Thank you for all your work. And thank you as well to everyone else working on the project: The editors, the artist, the production team, Lisa, the folks who put product in boxes and ship out the orders every day, and so on.
I view it as : when you were adventuring you were too busy trying to grab some gold, battle the monsters, rescue the girl and not die in the process. ;) When you have "down time" then you have time to train, study new spells, etc. I think Gygax's original idea was to somehow explain the sudden jump in stats and new spells (which is much easier to handle from a game play perspective than a gradual, continuous growth of experience and is therefore easier to manage as a DM) by giving a story based reason on why you needed to take take time to train. It certainly gives an excuse for the sudden knowledge of new spells by spell casters (I almost said "Magic Users". I still keep forgetting and refer to "rogues" as "thieves".) But then again, that's just me and the way I play the game based on my initial experience with AD&D. I think it's kind of cool how different people can run different style games based on the same rules. It really shows how different people have different ways of telling a story and the game system can adapt to those different styles.
I had a question about levels in the adventure paths that I think this thread has answered, but I thought I'd better ask anyway. The first chapter says it's for levels 1 to 3. The 2nd chapter says it's for levels 4-6. Does that mean that the first chapter has enough battle, puzzles, role playing goals etc to bring 4 characters from 1st level all the way to 4th level? Or do I need to build home made side quest to bring their XP up to the correct number? As far as when we level up, I'm an old school D&D blue box and AD&D 1.0 guy and I still like the old Gygax concept that leveling up is what happens when you take time out to study, practice, and reflect on what you've learned. That just feels better than saying "OK, you have enough points so when you wake up this morning you suddenly feel stronger, tougher, faster, and you realize you can deal more damage than you did last night." The former process feels more real to me while the latter feels a bit like a video game. I really want to avoid having my game feeling like it has "power ups" and "save points". So I like to at least have a point in the story where I can say something like "It's been a quiet week at Falcon's Hollow and you've been able to spend time practicing with your sword. Back when you were battling the monsters at the Dwarven monastery you realized that your backhand slashes were feeling really awkward. So you decided to practice that move in order to become a better fighter with smoother transitions from forward slashes to backhand slashes. There's a small oak tree outside the town limits that you used as your practice dummy. It received the brunt of your practice blows and will likely never bear another acorn, much less remain standing after the next storm. You've gained one level."
The entire purpose of the First Ammendment, and indeed the entire Bill of Rights, was to place limits on government's... I'm saying that the government can not and should not force any religious dogma on anyone. And that also means that the people of America cannot use the law to force their religious dogma on anyone else. And that's exactly what the constitution supports and what the personal writings of the founding fathers support. The "no religious test" statement in article six clearly states that religion should be a non-issue in government. As I clearly stated, it doesn't mean you can't be religious, it means you can't make a hiring decision based on any sort of religious test. In both cases (article 6 and the 1st amendment) the purpose was not only to limit the government's power, but also to limit, to the point of exclusion, the power of religion in government. It was not intended to say that religion has no bearing on government, as has been suggested. I would say that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and other founding fathers clearly disagree with that point of view. Certainly Jefferson's statement that there should be a "wall of separation" seems to say that religion should have no bearing on government. John Adam's comment that the people of America should not be forced to pay even a "thruppence" in support of religion seems to say that religion should have no say in government. Moreover, the moment you bring religion into government you are excluding part of society. A secular government in inclusive because it means everyone has the same rights and nobody, including the Christians, can have somebody else's religious dogma forced upon them via the force of law.
I don't know what Constitution you're looking at or who's founding father's you're reading about, but America's founding fathers were profoundly secular. Fact: The word God is not mentioned in the Constitution even once. Religion is mentioned only twice and both time to limit it's power. First we have article 6 "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." Notice that it doesn't say that you can't be religious. It's saying that religion should have no bearing in the government. Fact: The first words of the first sentence of the first amendment say: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; Notice that the FIRST statement is to limit religion, only THEN do they say that everyone has the right to believe whatever they want. But the FIRST statement is that the government does not support religion. But what about the attitudes of the founding fathers? Let's look at Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptist. "I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State." Yes, the separation of church and state is real. It should be noted that this letter was in response to the Danbury Baptist who were afraid that the US would promote some other religion than theirs. It was the Baptist, the religious folks, who wanted the separation to exist. But maybe that's not clear enough. So let's continue to look at the writing of the founding fathers. How about the Treaty of Tripoli which was written by George Washington, signed by John Adams, and ratified unanimously. Article 11 of the treaty of Tripoli says: "As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries." Let's look closely at that first sentence: As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; The facts seem to contradict your assumption that "This country and it's laws were founded on Biblical Beliefs." But more importantly, a secular nation is a nation which guarantees the MOST freedom for all Americans. In a secular nation you are guaranteed the freedom to worship as you please. But you can't force that religion on others just as they cannot force their religion upon you. So the moment you start talking about how we should put the Bible into our laws and our political process should reflect your personal religious views you're out of the conversation. Done, That's it, gone. You have no right AT ALL to force any of your religious beliefs on anyone. I however, have every right to fight for the rights of ALL Americans because I believe in equal rights for everyone. As our 14th amendment put it: "no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws" If the state provides community property protection and the right to make medical decisions for my spouse then it should provide the same rights for ALL spouses. Notice that as an atheist I'm fighting for equal rights for EVERYONE because my morality comes from an empathy for other human beings. However, the religious sense of morality that is fighting against equal rights for gay people is saying "there is a subset of Americans who should not have the same rights as the rest of us". And that is the very definition of bigotry.
OK, trying again with the same photo but on Flickr
Wow, another long time player! I started way back in the blue box days and then played a LOT of 1st edition but I dropped out for 2nd and 3rd edition and only recently got back into RPGs because of Pathfinder. But you've been running a continuous campaign for 15 years! That's very cool. Do you have players who have been with you the whole time?
We use max HP + con modifier + racial bonus. As we level up we roll the dice to see how many points they gained while leveling up. If the player isn't happy with his roll he gets to re-roll ONCE but he MUST take whatever comes up on the 2nd roll.
I bought their "Chunky Dungeons" set and my goal is to use that kit plus the watchtower kit to build Droskar's Crucible, the dwarven monastery from the D), D1 and D1.5 modules. I think I may use their "Hinterlands" kit for the exterior meadow and the tall grass in the courtyard. If/When I finish it I'll post some photos here.
It didn't work. Hmmm, maybe I'm seeing the cached image. It should be at http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/output/motivator3539034.jpg
I can certainly see how if you've been playing for 15 years 4th edition might not float your boat. It's a good system, it's just very very different from the system we're use to playing. >I’m getting the book when it comes out, but I don’t think I can wait that long to play, and am getting ready to use the Beta Rules for the game. Oh absolutely get the free PDF. That's the way to go. The only down side is if you have several people creating characters at once and one of them needs to look for feats and the other wants to read about bloodlines. But then again, I have the softcover of the Beta rules and I have the same issue with having only one copy of the book when several people need to look up different things. As far as changes from the Beta, the only one we've incorporated is a change of the DC for Combat Maneuver Bonus from 15 + CMB to 12 + CMB. That seems to make the Combat Maneuvers a bit more useful without making them too deadly. Another thing that confused me was the Monk's flurry of blows. FOB replaces two weapon fighting feat instead of stacking with it. That confused me but the folks here cleared it up. The other thing that made me stumble coming from a 3.5 rule set mind set was skill points vs. skill ranks. In PF 1 point buys 1 rank. If you buy a rank in a class skill then you get a one time +3 bonus. That's it. Easy. But I was use to "in class: and "out of class" skills costing different amounts. In PF 1 skill point buys 1 rank. The guys I play with aren't rules fanatics so we don't get into deep discussions of how well balanced a specific rule is. I know there are people who can discuss why the leveling up of base attack bonus for such and such a class isn't as effective as the advancement of BAB for another class and so on. But we don't worry about that stuff. We just try to play and have fun. BTW, the Free module "D0 Hollow's Last Hope" is an awesome starting point. Once I downloaded that I had to buy D1, download the free D1.5 and then bought D4 "Hungry are the dead". I'll have to build a couple of home grown adventures in between some of those modules to give my players a chance to level up. But those are some very well written modules. You should at least check out the free ones. I hope that helps. Cheers.
>I view Pathfinder as a big set of houserules I find that opinion a bit odd. The vast majority of PFRPG is a restating of the 3.5 OGL rules with some fixes such as : d6 hit dice for Sorcerers and Wizards. This makes the low level survivability for those classes much better without giving an overwhelming advantage at higher levels. Sorcerer bloodlines: Fantastic. Once again, it makes a low level character vastly more playable and it gives us more background information for role playing those characters. Channeling energy: I see this as a nice compromise making a cleric more than the "heal me" guy without resorting to the overwhelmingly bad 4E healing surges mechanic. CMB: A better and easier mechanic than the 3.5 grapple and we all know that the basic CMB mechanic may change between the beta and the release. I'm using a DC of 12 + CMB instead of 15 + CMB and that seems to work fairly well. But there is one major reason why I'm still quite happy and interested in Pathfinder: 3.5 is no longer supported at Wizards. I'm not interested in playing 4E where 1st level wizards can cast a spell every single round of combat (no daily spell limits). Casting spells is suppose to be hard. It's suppose to take a lot out of you physically and mentally. In 4E a spell is just a gun with unlimited ammo. I don't like the 4E healing surges where even a fighter can cast a heal spell on himself. That really changes the dynamic of the game and it completely changes the role playing of the game. The 4E guys will tell you that a healing surge represents a rest. But can you normally heal 1/4 of your hit points simply by resting? And if it's a rest then what's happening when you use a healing surge in combat? A 1/4 of your total hit point heal up in a 6 second round? Sounds like a spell to me. In 4E saving throws are now just a timer telling you when an effect ends. The whole role playing aspect of a saving throw is gone. The stress of "Am I poisoned?" is gone. Now it's just "How long am I poisoned for? Still poisoned this round? Oh well, better luck next round". 4E just doesn't feel like D&D to me. It's a good system, but it's so different that it's not the system I want to play. I started with the blue box basic set and played most of my games with 1st edition AD&D rules. 3.5 feels like the same game, just more complete and generally easier to play. So if you want to play a 3.5 OGL game then what are your options? Well, you can buy the increasingly difficult to find 3.5 core rule books. I had a heck of a time finding a 3.5 PHB on EBay and I still don't have a hard cover version. And as time goes by those books will only get more expensive and harder to find. As we try to bring new players into our game the lack of newly printed 3.5 books will become a greater problem. But with Pathfinder we have a system that is alive and well. We'll have a single book with all the info in it for GMs and players (Wonderful! Try to find info for a critical hit in 3.5. Some of it is in the PHB, some of it is in the DMG on one page and the rest of it in the DMG in a sidebar) AND we have a company producing very high quality modules in that system. As far as I can tell there are far more PFRPG modules available than 4E modules. So while it's certainly possible to still play a 3.5 game using the original rule books, if you want a living, dynamic, well supported 3.5 game then Pathfinder is your game. I'm still excited.
Now, I don't want to get into it about Prop. 8, but does anyone think that calling a group of people Un-American simply for taking the opposite side of an issue from you is what the founders would have wanted? What if that point of view was "Black people shouldn't be allowed to vote"? Would it just be another opinion? This is not a case of people simply disagreeing with a point of view. This is a case of one group of people (primarily religious) applying a focused effort to deny another group of people equal protection of the law. Prop 8 was church inspired bigotry at it's worse. I wouldn't use the word "un-American" as much as I would use the word "Vile", "Disgusting", "Hateful" and "Bigoted". May I remind everyone that the 14th amendment of the U.S. Constitution says “no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Prop 8 is in direct violation of the 14th amendment and is a violation of the basic right to equality and fairness that we should be striving for in this country. I wrote about this topic at length on my blog here: http://www.brouelette.com/cgi-bin/blosxom.cgi/2008/10/18#noOn8
We were just rolling up some new characters. My step daughter and I both had +4 on our bluff skill. Me: My +4 bluff is better than your +4 bluff Her: No it isn't Me: [grabs a d20 and rolls a 14] Yes it is Her: [grabs another d20 and rolls a 3] Yep, it is. ------------ My favorite is from the penny arcade D&D podcast: "Would it help at all if I set the dwarf on fire? I'm just askin' "
For future reference how do you guys feel about numeric ciphers? ;) Fibonacci, it's as easy as 1, 1, 2, 3
I really locked into the idea that the lumber consortium imposes taxes on everything (sometimes even long after the purchase). So the ferry ride across the river was 1 GP each (plus a 10% lumber tax of 1 sp). Meals have a 10% lumber tax. Purchases at the store have a 10% to 20% lumber tax. Even the money that they receive from the herbalist for completing the quest gets taxed at 10%. If the characters gamble at the tavern their winnings get taxed, the cost to sleep on the floor of the inn get taxed, everything they do that causes a profit gets taxed. This way, the characters are instantly inserted into the world where the Lumber company runs everything and inserts itself into the lives of every person in Falcon's Hollow.
I admit I rather liked the illustrations of the 4th edition trolls, simply because it stepped them towards "giant/ogre/sasquatch" and away from "vine horror/swamp thing/shambling mound mk II". Trolls have seemed rather...planty to me, since 2nd edition. I found the 4th editon "ogre + regeneration = sucks to be you" version aesthetically pleasing. I have to agree. I've always thought of trolls as big, fat and dumb. More like and ogre than a swamp thing.
I like the idea of going in as a player instead of a DM. The idea of "less pressure" appeals to me. I discovered that on meetup.com you can email other people interested in playing without having to pay to start my own group. So I emailed a couple of folks locally to see if there's any interest. The tavern or coffee shop idea is also a good idea. I've played D&D with several really highly educated, interesting and intelligent people. But let's face it, RPGs also attract a certain fringe element that I'm not sure I want to invite to my house. The coffee shop meeting sounds like a great way to find a middle ground. I'll check out penandpaper.com as well. Also, my friends do enjoy board games and I just bought Settlers of Catan on ebay for $29 (Whoo hoo! Cheap). So maybe that will be a way in. There is a group of folks at work who play, several of them are in my department and are friends of mine. But they live down in Sacramento and I live way up in the mountains. It's a 45 mile drive to work each way for me. In any case, they play every other Saturday from 6 to midnight but it's in a town almost 50 miles away and I'd be driving back up into the mountain roads in (occasional) snow after midnight. But I like these folks as friends and I think I'll try a few of their games anyway. Thanks for the advice.
I'd love to run a pathfinder game. I thought I had a group of people who wanted to play. They're a family that I've been friends with for a couple of years. I went over there the other night and when we got to the part about how you can bee any type of character class like a bard, cleric, sorcerer or wizard when the mother stopped me saying : We're Christians, I can't have my kids playing a game that has magic in it. WTF!? What does playing a game that refers to magic have to do with Christianity? To be offended in any way you'd have to A) Believe that magic is real B) Think that it's somehow harmful C) Think that a game where a spell is essentially just another way to say "hit for X points of damage" is somehow an evil corrupting force. I was pretty surprised. I tend to live a rational, evidence based life and that just blew me away. There was no logic at all to her argument, but it's their family so I let it pass and we played a different game. In any case, I need to find some players. Meetup.com charges about $20 a month to create a meetup group and all the other D&D groups on the site are 40 to 50 miles away. I may have to just pay the money and build a meetup group for my town. There's also a very small game shop in town and I'll ask the owner if I could put a flyer up on his bulletin board. I'm just a little worried about inviting random people into my home. I should mention that I'm in my 40's and my wife and friends kind of think that the whole D&D thing is pretty geeky and weird. So it's a tough sell to try to get them to play. So how do you folks find new players that are compatible? How do you "screen" them?
Note: I had a similar problem when I asked for an email reminder of my password. It seems that copying the password from the email and pasting it into the password field does not work. The effect of that is that it "keeps asking for your password". This might be part of what you're experiencing. However, typing the password in rather than copy/pasting it does work and that solved my problem. I hope that helps.
Somewhere on this site is a Pathfinder Alpha character sheet PDF that's free. I have it on my hard drive but I can't find it on the site. It's exactly what you need, the PF character sheet with no background and the PF logo in the corner. I'll see if I can track it down for you. edit: I found this thread
There are several fan created sheets there. Still looking for the official sheet. Edit again: I cannot find the Alpha character sheet anywhere. Tell ya what. Go to my gbguitars dot com web site and go to the contact us page. Send me an email and I'll email you back the PDF that I have.
Did you have problems with your players due to: Spoiler:
I thought that the chain to get up and down the dungeon didn't make any sense. How did the gnomes get up the chain? If the controls are up on the 1st level (hidden as they are) then how do the gnomes raise the chain once they're at the bottom? More importantly, how do they lower it from the bottom? Also, when the final boss is defeated something happens with the water ( I'm hiding spoilers within spoilers) that makes it darn near impossible to find the big treasure. It seems that the only way to find the big treasure is to not kill the boss (who's trying to kill you) but who's going to say "let's ignore that big Wizard and her minions while we do search checks"? To me, it just felt like the dungeon was really illogical. Maybe a way to get around that is via the story line that: Spoiler:
Because of the collapse of the previous cave system the remaining caves are really fragmented and disconnected. In general, I had a tough time getting around the idea of "how the heck to the bad guys survive in this mess?" However, I may still try it on my players. For $1 you can't complain much unless the module kills off all your players.
I want it, But I'll just have to wait until July. Instead of pre-ordering I'm going to support my local game shop and buy it there. Oh, and if Goblin snakes will be missing does that leave room for Green Dragons AND Ice Weasels?
If there's more than one person in your group (there better be) can one person ride the disk and another person give him a push to float him across a pit? If you can shoot an arrow into a tree or wall or something on the other side of the pit and have a silk rope attached to that arrow then I think you could ride the disk and pull yourself across. But I wonder if you can be pushed and float across a chasm like you're riding an air hockey puck?
Hi folks. By browsing around the website I discovered the WorldWorks card stock dungeon models. They look amazing. But when I came back to the paizo site later the only way I could find them was via the company search. If I didn't remember that they were from World Works I couldn't have found them. I'd suggest putting them in the product tree under either store/gaming aids/gaming mats or store/gaming aids/terrain. They look like great products but I only knew about them by following a link from a message board. Searching the store didn't lead me to them. There seems to be a lot of Paizo product available that either isn't linked through the store or is not easily found via the "tree search". Lead us to the good stuff and we'll keep buying it ;-) Thanks. I hope that helps.
The foothills of the Sierra Mountains in California. We're about halfway between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe. It looks a lot like this
and this (That's my buddy "Thunder") http://www.brouelette.com/blog/images/snow08_4.jpg right now.
These 3 really make the point for me. 4th edition is such a massive change to the game system that it's (in my view) a completely different game. If you like the 3.5 style of play then you can either try to buy the increasingly more expensive and difficult to find 3.5 core books on Ebay, or you can move to Pathfinder and play a system that is alive and well and has a great company producing high quality modules and adventure paths for it. Honestly, look at the quality of their modules. Download D0 or D1.5 for a free example. I did and I went out and purchased D1 and D4 because the quality of the writing and design was so good. (Then I bought the guide to Darkmoon Vale as well. My local game shop now knows me by first name.) Plus, we have TONS of d20 material out there that's totally usable with Pathfinder. Sure, 4e says it's compatible with d20. But how compatible is a previous 3.5/d20 module with 4e when 4e characters have double the hit points, everyone has half a dozen or more healing surges , and wizards can cast magic missile spells every single round? Look at the Classic Dungeon Crawl series. There are dozens of classic AD&D style old school adventures that are completely Pathfinder compatible. So I see it this way: If you want to play a 3.5 type system instead of a 4e type of system then you'll want to play something that is well supported, alive and well. Pathfinder is your best choice in that situation. And as a nice side effect, you also get a cleaner system than the 3.5 core books. It's a win-win.
|