Fabius Maximus's page

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Set wrote:

I'm not sure I even want to see a 'D&D movie' any more, after the last few attempts.

Your Highness is the best "big screen" interpretation of D&D (as it is actually played) that we are likely to see.

Gods, that's a depressing thought.

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Or they could take an existing story that's actually well written: Paul Kemp's Erevis Cale trilogy.

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I don't mind Vancian spellcasting. It works.

However, I think one of the few things 4e did right was the distinction between rituals and quick and dirty magic. It's almost like in the Dresden files, which makes it better suited for roleplaying.

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This has been a quiet thread, considering this is one of the best shows on TV.

I wouldn't go quite that far. There are far better shows on and on hiatus at the moment (Hannibal, Game of Thrones, Justified, The Walking Dead, Vikings, Red Widow, etc.). Even Grimm and Supernatural are better.

However, Arrow is quite fun. It shouldn't work, especially because of all the soapy bits, but it does.

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I'd rather be wiser. More intelligence doesn't help if you can't apply it in a useful way.

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I really like* those people who do what a friend of mine once referred to as "island hopping": driving faster than everyone else, overtaking other vehicles and/or changing lanes into the smallest gap, only because they think they get a speed advantage by that.

Speeding in broad daylight within city limits is basically senseless. You have to stop at the next traffic light anyway.

*no, I don't

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You know I can't read anything by the new alias without the song Mac the Knife going through my head.

Mary Mack's father is making Mary Mack marry me

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Crime & Punishment by Keith Baker.

The rule material is 3.5, though.

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What a sequel to Argo might look like - Part III

A "short" documentation of the history of Iran's nuclear program. Be sure to read the other two parts first. They are linked at the head of part III and II, respectivly.

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My group typically makes use of the lower level pearls of power (4th and below) and usually as a recall for an ailment removal that having one prepared of just wasn't enough that day. As the DM I have my own house rule, that a given PC can only benefit from a given pearl/level once a day.

That is not a house rule. That's RAW.

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Maybe Snowball wasn't meant to resurrect the Orb spells, but that's exactly what it does. This spell is now an automatic no-brainer for any arcane spellcasting build from here on out.

That's bull. I'd hazard the guess that most player have considerations beyond powergaming.

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Boy, so many people actually wanting to work in customer service. Even if it's Paizo, I'd still cut off my left arm than to do that again.

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Caineach wrote:

Comrade Anklebiter wrote:

Just because you guys haven't argued in 18 or so hours doesn't mean I'm not going to still post country songs in here.

I will ignore your country songs and put up something worth listening to

I'm still waiting.

How about something revolutionary, even if it's about three months early?

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Fabius Maximus wrote:

IceniQueen wrote:

So those that say the "Laugh track" annoys them, does that mean other comedies annoy you as well? I ask because all comedies use them even when taped in front of a live audience.

Comedy series that don't use laugh tracks:

Community
The Office
Parks & Rec
30 Rock
Happy Endings
New Girl
Raising Hope
Action!
Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23
Suburgatory
Arrested Development
Scrubs
Curb Your Enthusiasm

I can find a few more if you like.

But a lot of these are bad.

That wasn't the point.

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So those that say the "Laugh track" annoys them, does that mean other comedies annoy you as well? I ask because all comedies use them even when taped in front of a live audience.

Comedy series that don't use laugh tracks:

Community
The Office
Parks & Rec
30 Rock
Happy Endings
New Girl
Raising Hope
Action!
Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23
Suburgatory
Arrested Development
Scrubs
Curb Your Enthusiasm

I can find a few more if you like.

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You had me at "Geomancer" and "deconstruction of the druid".

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Comrade Anklebiter wrote:

Fabius Maximus wrote:

Trying to stop the trend of appalling country music

I'm sorry, what? You want more country music?

More country music.

Both aren't appalling. This isn't so bad, either.

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Indeed it is.

The Great Bummer of Russia and the Reign of False Dmitry the First.

I recommend reading every article by Wojtek Góralczyk in the storyteller archive on the site. The man is an incredibly good and hilarious writer. The other authors aren't bad, either. The language used is often NSFW, though.

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I like that, Dudemeister.

Here's my idea for making dwarves more interesting:

** spoiler omitted **

Basically, I want to play up the interesting economic aspects of the classic dwarven stereotype.

You can expand the idea into the area of social interaction. Dwarves place a mark on those whom they call friend, ally, or family member. These marks can be non-permanent in the case of short-term allies, but family marks are always permanent. To be offered to share a permanent mark by a dwarf means he trusts you implicitly. Betray that trust, and he will insist on trying to remove the mark, forcibly if necessary. As a result, each dwarf as a certain amount of tattoos, scars, and paint on his skin. The most important marks - clan and allegiance and family membership - are tattooed on the forehead.

Thanks for the inspiration. Now to write that down somewhere...

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To clarify, I mean living cultures to explore in the PnP RPG format. From what I've seen of Mulhorand, it seemed sort of plugged in rather than weaved into the setting. Osirion fits in more organically, and is much more integrated into the setting rather than left off to the side. It feels like a part of Golarion rather than a part of Earth plugged into the map, basically.

See, that's where we differ. I feel like Osirion is just plugged in. Unther and Mulhorand fit FR, because Toril always was somewhat of a planar crossroads. Those were supposed to be actual Egyptians and Babylonians dragged there by a native civilization. I have no problems with that.

Given that Earth is supposed to be out in the Pathfinder verse, I find it very hard to believe that two civilizations developed along lines so similar, especially because the only ties to Earth are the Great Old Ones and Baba Yaga (who also is part of the FR). The existence of Osirion as it is cannot be explained.

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Re: Eberron

My problem with Eberron is that it's a setting that has spent an unearthly amount of pages and energy on making sure it's DIFFERENT for sake of being, em, different. From all those historical/mythological/fantasy/D&D tropes. Your Drow live underground and have a spider fetish? Well, our Drow live aboveground and have a scorpion kink! Your halflings are happy go lucky hobbits that hatch on to human communities? Well, our Halflings are dinosaur-riding barbarians! Your setting has t-rexes? Well, we have SHARDTOOTH SPINESLASHERS! Your settings have a thinly veiled Lovecraftian madness cosmic horror place? Well, ours has that too, except it's a different sort of thin veil. Take that Gygax! Screw you, Salvatore! Smell our donkeys, Tolkien! We're different! Vintage! We're Eberron, the hipster setting! Damn, I even have photos of Keith Baker twisting a moustache somewhere.

Now the problem was that at the very same time, there was the top-down requirement of "everything that exists in D&D exists in Eberron", so the setting existed in a perpetual schizophrenia of being forced to incorporate every D&D staple YET at the very same time trying to turn it all upside down.

And once you got through all this, there was little time and energy to actually have the setting live a life, and the amount of backpedalling and retconning was frustrating.

On the other hand, you have two different elf cultures, while maintaining the option to play your standard treehugger. You have a struggling hobgoblin nation that tries to reconnect with the leftovers of its imperial history. You have dwarves as mercantile powerhouses. A theocratic nation of supposedly lawful good alignment with quite a dark spot in their history. You have varied political players within a former unified country that vie for control, and who are deathly afraid of being the target of the next mourning. You have sea raiders/mercenaries/traders who are nothing like vikings. You have a new race of mechanical beings trying to find their way in the world. You have a nation of gnomes that is militarily weak, but has never been conquered by its neighbours, because they are scared to death of what the little buggers might know.

I am thankful that Eberron is different. I am also thankful that the world fits so well together. Unlike Golarion, where many parts feel out of place to me.

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Kydeem, it sounds like that group needs to learn the storytelling concept of "Show, Don't Tell".

Thank you. I wanted to say something along those lines.

I recently quit an online campaign where almost every non-combat posting of the other players was a f$#*ing wall of text filled with exposition. I mainly left because of time constraints, but trying to read that stuff every day was becoming a time issue, as well.

And they had the gall to criticize me for my short posts, which contained only my character's actions and spoken words.

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11. Terriers
12. Alcatraz (What? I liked it.)

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Saturday we bottled up our homebrew: The Dream Kölsch of Unknown Kadath. 5 gallons.

To be opened August 3rd, as refreshment for my final session of Rise of the Runelords.

Kölsch? You really are evil, aren't you?

I'm not much of a beer drinker. I'd rather have a pint of Bulmer's. The real stuff, of course, not that watered-down English swill.

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Sometimes, you want something familiar. Remember how Eberron set out to re-imagine *everything* and make sure that no stone is left unturned among tropes employed by D&D? Well, where's Eberron now?

Eberron's in a coma, along with the rest of the 4e settings, I guess. It's still my group's main campaign setting, because most of us were tired of the same old stuff (the rest don't care much). It's not that there are no evil barbaric orcs there, or tree-hugging elves, or grumpy dwarves. In fact, there are plenty.

The people of Eberron are just a bit more diverse. You know, like in the real world. It'd be nice to get something along that line for Golarion orcs.

Also, dwarves. Don't dismiss the dwarves.

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Fabius Maximus wrote:

It would be pretty silly to ban guns in Golarion, but keep Alkenstar as it is, wouldn't it? It's a matter of consistence.

As for the rest: Let's assume that I ban guns because I don't like them. You can't play a gunslinger. What now? Will you insist on playing a one?

I play elsewhere. Problem solved.

Really? You leave because you can't play that one particular class, despite there being plenty of others around? Doesn't that strike you as a bit childish?

That sounds to me what Jorin described: the "Special Snowflake Syndrome".

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Fabius Maximus wrote:

...The flexibility you ask from the GM is not a one-way street. I'd expect the same flexibility from you as a player when I tell you, no, you can't play that particular character, please change it so that it fits, or come up with different one.

Nobody (or almost nobody) in this thread is disagreeing with you. I can't remember a single post where someone said characters with concepts that don't fit the world should be played.

What people are saying is characters that do fit the world should be allowed to be played, even if that character uses a class whose traditional fluff does not fit the world.

Same difference. When does that question come up, usually? I would hazard the guess it's when the players tell the GM what they want to play.

The prevalent opinion I see here is that all of the "blame" is laid on the GM. Maybe he and the player simply disagree on what fits and what does not? Who should relent? The GM, who does all the work to come up with great campaign? Or one player, whose options are a bit more varied, and who may even have access to different options, now that the GM has altered the setting?

Or maybe the GM does not have fun when a player plays a certain class, despite changed fluff?

There can be any number of reasons to not allow something in game, from fluff over mechanics to real world constraints (time to alter something, for example). Squabbling over that is pointless and immature. The GM bans something? So what. Play something else. His decision is as legitimate as your desire to play a certain class.

Disclaimer: I usually don't ban anything, apart maybe from the gunslinger in Eberron. I'd probably have a problem with the samurai, but for the disconnect between fluff and mechanics rather than the fluff alone. I just don't get the hostility that is leveled at GMs who do not allow certain things.

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What if, What if, What if.

Okay, I'll play your game you rogue. What if that happens?

Although I also have fun thinking of this hypothetical conversation.
** spoiler omitted **

Hey, you started that game. Don't complain about it now.

And if I'd get rid of Alkenstar (or any other country on Golarion)? What's the problem? You can't play a gunslinger without it? Sorry, but where's your flexibility?

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Mikaze wrote:

I saw it as pulling from a lot of real life and fantasy fiction cults. The emphasis on the money flow tying into moving up to the next "step" of the religion does bring one particular RL group to mi-POSTER HAS BEEN SUED

Thats the Prophets of Kalistrade, silly.

No, it's really not. Those guys will sue you over business infractions, not over every perceived or real sleight of their cult they stumble upon.

For further information you should watch the movie "The Master" that's to be released this year.

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What The Block Knight said.

At this point I vote for Paizo to not fix the monk, lock all existing monk threads, and delete all new threads concerning the issue.

Every fix they are going to apply will get ripped apart, because the expectations are so high now, that they can't be satisfied anymore. It's just not worth the hassle.

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I really want to play a cleric, but every time I look at the class I struggle not to fall asleep. They are so <i>boring</i>.

It doesn't help that they have the worst selection of archetypes of all classes. The only acceptable one is the crusader, but the most interesting one, flavorwise (the cloistered cleric), gets stumped by diminished spellcasting.

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Somehow, that reminds me of the Baldur's Gate games. I just can't quite lay my finger on the reason, though...

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They're just shiny. Beware of goblins. And Giant Dire Magpies.

There's nothing official in Pathfinder about chrome equipment. Ask your DM what he meant. It's probably just a joke.

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TriOmegaZero wrote:

Orthos wrote:

I've always allowed memorizing lower-level spells in higher-level slots at no cost.

Well, that IS how the rules work...

Spell Slots wrote:

The various character class tables show how many spells of each level a character can cast per day. These openings for daily spells are called spell slots. A spellcaster always has the option to fill a higher-level spell slot with a lower-level spell. A spellcaster who lacks a high enough ability score to cast spells that would otherwise be his due still gets the slots but must fill them with spells of lower levels.

You'd be surprised how many people don't know that, or assume it requires a feat.

But then, it's you, you might not ;)

However, it does not change the spell's DCs.

Just wanted to mention that.

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Come to think of it, the Alchemist would fit Bane better than Batman.

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Rite
Super Genius Games
AdventureaWeek.com
TPK Games
Raging Swan

I, too, recommend Rite Publishing and Super Genius Games, as well as Open Design and Dreamscarred Press (if you are into psionics).

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He didn't say they were weak. He did say they are boring.

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My advice: Forget about the book. It is only worthwhile for the crunch, which can (legally) be found in the D20pfsrd.

The book's fluff is terrible. They expanded the dwarves' racial abilities to explain why dwarves are how they are, which makes for an incredibly boring write-up. Dwarven culture on Golarion is not different from the standard fantasy dwarf description: they are hard-working, hard-fighting, hard-assed drunks. The part about the Five Kind Mountains is nice, but hardly worth spending money on.

My recommendation would be to find a copy of "Races of Stone". It has a much more flavorful article about dwarves (plus great articles about gnomes and goliaths). It's rather cheap to get via Amazon, too.

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I fail to see the problem. They are enjoying the game as it is. Why can't you?

You can get your prepared spellcaster fix by throwing wizards and clerics at them. You might even challenge them by creating situations in-game where prepared spellcaster's versatility could come in handy. Or use an NPC to show them where the advantages are.

If that doesn't work, let it lie. You are just trying to create a problem where none exists.

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"Hipsters of Golarion"

You have to explain that one.

I'd rather see a "People of the Northeast". Mendev, Brevoy, Numeria, and the Worldwound are more interesting to me than vikings (although I'm mildly curious about Irrisen and the Snow Elves). I hope there are plans for such a book.

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Racial restrictions? Probably not going to happen in my games.

Also, I want to see plant familiars.

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Let explain it in a quote:

The Operative: I'm sorry. If your quarry goes to ground, leave no ground to go to. You should have taken my offer. Or did you think none of this was your fault?

Mal: I don't murder children.

The Operative: I do. If I have to.

Mal: Why? Do you even know why they sent you?

The Operative: It's not my place to ask. I believe in something greater than myself. A better world. A world without sin.

Mal: So me and mine gotta lay down and die... so you can live in your better world?

The Operative: I'm not going to live there. There's no place for me there... any more than there is for you. Malcolm... I'm a monster. What I do is evil. I have no illusions about it, but it must be done.

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Maybe the elf is really a dryad, and that's her tree?

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zagnabbit wrote:

The Slaadi are cool monsters, but I never got the frog/chaos connection.

They're the other half of the Egyptian Ogdoad mythology I used for inspiration in creating the proteans. ;)

Cool. I'll be bringing back Slaadi now as the males to the female Proteans. :D

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A usable artificer base class.

Nah. A usable artificier-like archetype for the Alchemist. (Enough with the new baseclasses already.)

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I've got my own "gypsy" analogue culture in my homebrew. This looks interesting. As for the whole Gypsy = thief discussion not every member of the culture would be this class and the real life culture suffers from stereotyping related to the actions of a few. Seems fairly typical of human reactions, especially in terms of reactions to outsider groups. In short we aren't always that nice...

But the class name implies the relation that gypsies (a denomination that is regared as racist as well) are thieves. The class should be renamed.