First Mate Alton Devers's page

Please cancel my remaining subscriptions.

While I like the character-building options in P2E, the dramatic way in which the math & numbers scale just isn't a good fit for the more ad hoc style of GMing that I do. I simply can't get an intuitive "feel" for the rolls/results anymore without looking at external references or doing lots of pre-planning, and that's just not how my brain (or group) works.

Thanks.

Been a while since I've frequented the site, but I was surprised to see that /PRD redirects to an outside site for 1E content now. Anyway, I was curious about if there are any plans to eventually host an official 2E PRD website. Will we see a site similar to the old one hosted and maintained by Paizo itself, is the preference to have a community-maintained site instead, or are there perhaps official apps planned for the Windows, Apple, and Android stores instead?

Given how the content of new 1E books was usually delayed from entry into the PRD for a release cycle or two (gotta eat & pay rent!), I'm assuming that if we do see a new PRD site, it may be a bit yet. Sill, I'm just wondering what timing we might expect, and/or what guidelines are relevant to any community go-getters who want to forge ahead with a wiki or other reference style site.

After some character generation and leveling exercises Monday and tonight, my group identified what we feel would be a HUGE time-saver when it comes to creating and leveling characters. It would also make UTEML a lot more intuitive.

Preview:
Here's a visual example of what we're proposing:
Preview Image

Suggestion:

1. First, make the Training Modifier for Untrained equal "0".
   Reasoning: If you are Untrained in a skill, then that means you have *zero* investment in it. If the modifier for Untrained becomes "0" instead of "-2", then not only is that more intuitive, but a lot of fill-ins and potential mistakes have been instantly eliminated.
   
2. Second, move the TEML labels into the circles and place the modifiers above them.
   Reasoning: We can now see the Training Modifier and know to add it. But what about the Proficiency Modifier box you ask?
   
3. Third, relabel the Proficiency field as "Level".
   Reasoning: Now that the Training Modifier is visible, calculating the Proficiency Mod is no longer a necessary step.
   
4. Lastly, it's usually pretty easy to remember what character level you are without having to rewrite it 30 times. What if we wrote the word "Level" in light-grey text inside our new Level field?
   Reasoning: Players who don't get the hint could still write their level in this box, but for the rest of us, it would save 30 erasures per level-up!

Benefit:
With these changes, we would go from this:

• Erase Proficiency Modifiers 30x
  
• Erase Skill/Attack/Whatever™ Modifiers 30x
  
• Recalculate & rewrite Proficiency Modifiers 30x
  
• Recalculate & rewrite Skill/Attack/Whatever™ Modifiers 30x

To this:

• Erase Skill/Attack/Whatever™ Modifiers 30x
  
• Recalculate & rewrite Skill/Attack/Whatever™ Modifiers 30x

That's a pretty significant savings in both time and erasers. Also, by eliminating fully half of the calculation steps, we've eliminated dozens of potential opportunities for mistakes and typos.

Furthermore, at those special times where we actually get to increase our level of training, it will be a lot easier to appreciate the change since we would no longer be rewriting a Proficiency Mod on that line the same as every other as we presently do. :)

Example:
Restating from the preview, here's what this formatting change would look like for the Acrobatics Skill: PNG Image

NOTE:
Even if Paizo doesn't want to tweak the math slightly by making Untrained "0" and bumping the others up by +2 each, the other suggestions can still be implemented without the use of houserules — they are merely formatting changes, after all, and wouldn't modify the rules or math one bit! In that event, we'd simply add a "U bubble" for Untrained and put "-2" above it. :)

Can you please cancel my Starfinder AP and Pathfinder AP subscriptions?

Thanks.

I ran my group thru our Session 0 last night (Aug 13), and since I'm concerned that we may not be able to complete Chapter 1 of Doomsday Dawn before the 26th, I at least want to give feedback on some pain points we encountered that should be relatively easy to remedy. These are chiefly in regards to rulebook layout for character creation (especially Ability Score generation), and to how existing fields on the Character Sheet can be tweaked to decrease complexity, and speed-up character creation/leveling...

For the sake of reference, I'll be spoilering how the actual session itself went in case you want to skip directly to our recommendations.

Ability Score Generation was Harrowing
Issue: Starting on page 11, the Character Creation Overview has partial info about how to create ability scores in far too many separate places. This actually confused my players more than if they'd simply leafed thru the book on their own. While I can understand the need to mention ability scores early on (since many steps influence these stats), it might be better to break out the "Ability Scores" subsection on page 12 into a sidebar rather than including them with the other fields to be filled-out under "orange bullet" #1. As it is now, since the "Character Sheet" instructions at the end of step #1 makes no mention of ability scores which leaves newbies scratching their heads rather than realizing your intended message of "plan ahead."

Suggestion 1: On pg 12, move "Ability Scores" out of Step #1 and into a sidebar.

Suggestion 2: On the reverse side of the 3rd page of the character sheet, include an ability score worksheet.
Example: Excel | PDF

Suggestion 3: Make Character Creation its own chapter, and revamp the Character Creation Overview from being a 6-page summary into 1-page outline.
Implementation:

1. Format the Overview as a full-page sidebar similar to the optional rolled ability scores rules on page 21. This will help it stand out from the narrative portion of the chapter.
   
2. Put a numbered list for the "orange-bullets" at the top, and the miniature annotated sheet at the bottom.
   
3. In the outline, rather than having several paragraphs explaining each step, allow each "orange bullet" a 1-2 line entry along with the page number for the relevant rules.

Suggestion 4: The ability score walkthru on pages 19-20 really needs to be printed on facing pages in the final rules.
Benefit: A walk-thru should have its totality in-view at once for ease of reference without having to flip the page.

Calculating Proficiency Bonuses Can Be Streamlined
Issue: To a person, everyone got turned around on how to factor their proficiency bonuses on skills, attacks, etc.

Suggestion: The whole group was in agreement that each line should simply have a box where you write your level, and let the bonus confered by your degree of training be assumed by the TEML bubbles rather than needing to be written down.

Thankfully, this is more of a formatting change to the character sheets moreso than a rule change. Here's how to accomplish this without requiring any additional formatting space on the character sheet...

Implementation pt1: Split the proficiency bonus into its constituent parts: separate character level from the training bonus.
Benefit: Your level will change frequently, while your bonuses from training will be much more static. This will make leveling-up a character much faster and more intuitive as you will simply be incrementing your Level in the 30 places it appears on the sheet rather than having to re-calculate 30 Proficiency boxes. Similarly, since one's level of training doesn't change nearly as frequently as one's level, if the training bonus is tallied seperately, it's that much less often that you need to erase and change that value, and it will be a lot easier to spot where and when to update a modifier for that reason.

Implementation pt 2: Set Untrained a +0, Trained as +2, Expert +3, etc.
Benefit: While subtracting 2 from a number is childsplay in a classroom, doing so repeatedly during character creation just introduces needless work and makes the game more complicated than it needs to be. Subtracting 2 from something that you probably didn't invest in anyway isn't intuitive; if you have zero investment in a skill, then your modifier from your level of training should be 0, not -2. This small change would save quite a lot of confusion.

Implementation pt 3: Make the TEML bubbles more useful. Rather than simply having a blank bubble with the training letter above it, place the letter inside the bubble and have the corresponding bonus above it.[/b]
Example: PNG
Benefit: Players no longer need to remember what their training bonus should be for each skill, and that eliminates another potential source of mistakes. Instead of having to add Level plus Training Bonus into a single field 30 times, Level and Training Bonus now each have their own easy-to-read, easy-to-update fields, and we've significantly reduced the number of steps someone has to perform in-their-head.

Other Stuff™
Familiar Sheets: This gang really loves their casters, and at least 2 players ended up with a pet of some sort. While I suppose I can just print out their critters' stat blocks from the Bestiary, the players still need a place to write those stats down when it comes time to apply the additional buffs such creatures get for being a familiar or animal companion.

Spells Known: Player #2 stated that page 3 of the character sheet (spells) didn't make much sense to them. They were confused that it has areas for both preparation and spontaneous casting, yet he didn't see anywhere to denote how many spells known he has. Can't say I felt the same way when I made a bard during my own tests, but then I'm primarily a P1 guy and they're a 5E player. This should be clear for someone regardless of past experience guiding their hand.

Senses: On the front side of the character sheet, players need a line to denote what sort of vision they have and it's range.

Ability Scores: The players are unanimous in wanting the ability scores grouped by whether they are physical or mental. Since this is presented in two columns on the character sheet, one column should be Str, Dex, Con, the other Int, Wis, Cha. It just doesn't flow well when they are grouped across columns like they are right now.

Armor Class It's awkward having the armor proficiencies located so far away from the AC section. Also, while it's obvious to returning players, you should probably note that the lower of the two values for Dex mod or Dex cap should be the one that's tallied into AC and TAC.

Summary

By and large Session 0 was a success. The players are all excited, and we did have fun for the most part. There were complaints that character generation was even more complicated than P1, and especially so in comparison to 5E, but they did seem to like the greater variety of options than 5E offers.

That said, I'm somewhat alarmed that Doomsday Dawn will require so much character creation. If it took everyone in my group 2-4 hours, to make a level 1 character, how long it will take when they have to make new characters at level higher levels? Perhaps if some of the advice above is incorporated into hotfixes before Chapter 3 that will help, though I may just go ahead and design my own character sheet to incorporate things that are mostly formatting issues rather than game-design issues.

Anyway, hope this helps!

Hi, can you please cancel my subscription to the Starfinder RPG rulebooks?

Thank you.

The new AP looks like a good fit for my group, could you please resume my Pathfinder AP subscription starting with the first installment (#121)?

Thanks!

Customer Service,

Last night I learned that one of my friends will be attending GenCon this year. I asked him if he'd be willing to save me some shipping costs by picking up my pre-orders for me, and (as you might guess) he was quite enthusiastic about the opportunity to peruse Starfinder before the rest of us! :)

So, would it be possible to nominate someone else to collect my preorders for me (rather than having to leave them in my sidecart until September)?

If so, his name is Scott Baughman, and my order includes a SF CRB, a SF GM Screen, and the SF Pawn Collection.

Thanks,

—Michael Darnell

So I'd really like to be able to experiment with mapping out my world by-hand on an actual spherical surface without having to use a computer. Unfortunately, all my searching on Google, Amazon, and Etsy has produced only frustration. The few "blank" globes I've found are either cheap household decor items, or they still have the outlines and/or bas-relief contours of Earth's continents.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00XQE0QBK
http://www.onlyglobes.com/Physiographic_Relief_Globe_p/610.htm

So does anyone know where a one might find or commission a truly blank globe? What I'm looking for would ideally have a dry-erase whiteboard finish, be completely smooth (i.e. no relief contours), and have permanent latitude and longitude markers.

Any advice would be appreciated.

I've been enjoying reading thru UI over the past few weeks, but today when I turned the page to the chapter on spells, I was confused that a full page of text appeared immediately after the spell lists began. That's when I noticed the page numbers on the bottom did not progress from 192 to 193 but from 192 to 161!

Flipping back thru the book, I have the following pages:
1-192, 161-192, 225-253

Photo

Any help would be appreciated.

Please cancel my subscriptions to Pathfinder Modules and Pawns.

Thank you.

So I was trying to use the Global Bestiary Indices today to view creatures by type when I noticed a problem.

Even after clicking "Uncheck All" under Filter by Creature Type, the page reads "22 results" and the following creatures are still displayed:
Celestial bat
Celestial cat
Celestial hawk
Celestial lizard
Celestial monkey
Celestial owl
Celestial rat
Celestial raven
Celestial toad
Celestial viper
Celestial weasel
Fiendish bat
Fiendish cat
Fiendish hawk
Fiendish lizard
Fiendish monkey
Fiendish owl
Fiendish rat
Fiendish raven
Fiendish toad
Fiendish viper
Fiendish weasel

Additionally, these creatures seem to remain displayed even when toggling specific creature types on and off. This makes it more difficult to tell what's what as the results are cluttered with what appears to be a bunch of low-level summons.

I've tried this in the following browsers on 2 different PCs with the same results:
Chrome 51.0.2704.103 m
Edge 25.10586.0.0
Firefox 47.0
Internet Explorer 11.420.10586.0

Since taking a new job a couple years ago, I haven't had much time to participate in PbPs, check out new products, or keep up with the boards in general. As such, if someone PMs me for something, there's a pretty good chance they won't get an answer for longer than would normally be considered polite.

Case in point: about 2 weeks ago, a GM on the boards PM'd me asking for a link to a map that I'd made of Windward Isle. They needed it rather quickly since their group was coming up on it. The only reason I even saw their message was because I wanted to login and update my mailing/billing address.

I'm rather mortified that I kept someone hanging for so long.

TLDR; Could we please have an option to receive an email notification when individuals we have not blocked PM us?

As my nigh negligible post count for the past year might suggest, RealLife™ has been kicking my rear lately. For the time being, I need to cut back on my gaming subscriptions until I've achieved a bit more balance.

I still want to stay subscribed to the Rulebook and Modules lines, but please cancel my subscriptions to both the Adventure Path and Maps lines.

Lastly, I do want to purchase the Strategy Guide, but I can't tell if I've properly pre-ordered it or not. If it's already in my Sidecart then does that mean I've successfully pre-ordered it, or is there something else I need to do?

Thanks in advance,

—Michael

Please cancel my subscription to the Pathfinder Pawns line. Thanks.

Didn't see any other posts mentioning this article, so I figured I'd share. Certainly a much more positive spin than the last one I read (which seemed focused recounting the old demon-worship hysteria more than anything else).

Enjoy...

40 years later, 'Dungeons & Dragons' still inspiring gamers

Just when your credit card thought it was safe...

Reaper Miniatures Bones II: The Return Of Mr Bones!

Yep, they're doing another one, and this time it looks like shipping is being handled in the order in which you select your base level pledge. Be eager to see how high this one goes, it's already up $100K from when I first saw it earlier today. O_O

When I clicked on the triangle to collapse/hide the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game forums, the entire listing of threads and forums vanished until I refreshed the forum page. Afterwards, the forum category I had attempted to collapse was still expanded.

While I use Chrome, I've duplicated the effect in FireFox, Safari, and IE wherein I confirmed that it is not just limited to the PACG forum. Additionally, I'm unable to expand previously collapsed forums such as Customer Service, Beginner's Box, etc.

And yes, I disabled Stylish (which I only have installed in Chrome and FF) to ensure that it was not the culprit.

Linkage: Screenshot

Hope this helps.

For each of the past few months, after receiving my preliminary notification, I've been going to the store and ordering additional products I need to nudge my final purchase above the $100 limit for purposes of discounted shipping.

However, after placing two orders this past weekend, I just now received my shipping notification, and none of those items are on the packing list.

I've never had this happen before. Did I do something wrong?

So I've been toying with the idea of transplanting my PbP to its own website in order to facilitate being able to have location-based sub-forums in which each 'scene' is its own thread. This would make it a lot easier to manage things when the party splits up or if two players want to break-out into a 1 on 1 while the main story moves on. Accomplishing all of that in a single thread has often proved... tiring.

The problem is, there are a few essential features that Paizo's forums have that I've had no luck finding elsewhere, namely the alias/NPC functionality.

Do any of you know of any forum packages that can duplicate the alias functionality found here in either the core software or via a plugin? There's just no way I'd want players (or myself) to have to login/out every time they need to author a post as a different character. A package that allows moderators to post as another user (within limits) would work too.

Any help would be appreciated. :)

Gary, et al:

Lately I was introduced to some freeform PbPs on other sites in which sub-forums are created for each city/region, and individual threads are created for each scene. Obviously this is very different from the single-thread PbPs found here, but I did find the setup intriguing. This would be especially handy for those times when the PCs might want/need to split up, or someone wants to continue a 1 on 1 scene past when the others are ready to move on.

Have you considered the possibility of implementing something like this? The post count for a game would be the sum of all its threads, but GMs would be able to organize things by creating sub-forums and threads beneath their main one.

I'd be tempted to implement this on my own site if not for the fact that there's much greater visibility here on Paizo.

Thoughts?

Are there any ways to use Strikethrough and Underlined text on the forums? I was trying to present some shipping manifests in-game, and while a lack of underlining (for filled-out form fields) wasn't so bad, the fact that <del>, <strike>, <s>, and [s] didn't work was... disappointing.

Gary, would there be any chance that GMs could someday gain moderator access to their own PbP threads? By moderator access, I mean the ability to delete, edit and move posts between all of the topics that are attributed to them.
.
.
.
The big reasons why this would be desirable are:

• Correct typos and changed URLs beyond the normal editing window.
  
• Shunt long conversations between 2 characters into a side-thread (so as not to delay the main one), and then move those posts back into the main thread in proper chronological order afterwards.
  
• Save on headaches when someone who has been authoring a lengthy reply gets ninja'd.
  
• Reattribute older posts to newer aliases when a 1-shot NPC ends up becoming a main-stay and merits their own alias.

In addition, it would also be nice for GMs to be able to upload custom avatars for NPC aliases as there are quite a few of us who have commissioned artists for character portraits. (Pretty sure I've used up all the decent elf avatars at this point.)

Honestly, if Paizo offered these abilities as a premium service (ala Gamespace), I'd happily subscribe for the same cost as my AP subscription. Heck, maybe that's a Kickstarter idea for after the PFO one has ended. :)

It is with a lot of pride in my heart that I'd like to congratulate all my players past and present for helping Rumble in the Jungle to break 5-digits. It's been THE best roleplaying experience I've ever had the pleasure to GM. Even though it's been a challenge sometimes, the story we've crafted together makes all the effort worthwhile. :)

I'd also like to thank Gary and the whole web team for building and maintaining such a great venue. There have been a LOT of improvements over the past few years, and with GameSpace around the corner I know that there are many more on the way. It wouldn't surprise me if my suggestions cause groans around Ye Olde Watercooler™, but I think I speak for all the GMs here when I say we really appreciate what you do... what you enable US to do.

Thanks again, players and Paizo both! :)

Is there any way to specify the various display options (particularly class) via a URL parameter for the Spell List Index?

i.e. http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/indices/spelllists.html&class=druid& amp;levels=0,1&source=all

Just wondering because I would like to be able to link directly to specific spell lists from my players' spell-tracking sheets. (I prefer the way these are laid out on the PRD over the implementation on the d20 PfSRD site.)

Likewise, is there a single common URL that can be used to access the detailed descriptions for ALL spells instead of having to know what book they come from? I've written a script to form the URLs for this purpose for the d20 PfSRD site, but the URLs in the PRD all include designators for the sourcebook in the URL which makes a universal script for this site impossible.

Please cancel my subscription to the Campaign Setting line. Thanks!

Hey all, given how huge of an influence he's had on our hobby, I figured folks would be interested to know about this project. The grand daddy of fantasy RPG artwork himself, Larry Elmore, is holding a Kickstarter for a massive artbook to collect nearly all of his work.

Check it out: Larry Elmore: The Complete Elmore Artbook (Hardback)

Gary, Lissa... Since the recent URL changes to the online campaigns section of the boards, I've found that lots of older links no longer work as they used to.

Example:
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/community/gaming/playByPost/pbPWardove sRumbleInTheJungle&page=38#1863

Used to go to the corresponding post on the correct page of the thread, however now it simply takes me to the first post of the PbP and shows the following URL in the address bar:
http://paizo.com/campaigns/WardovesRumbleInTheJungle/gameplay#1863

The desired/old behavior would have been to get taken here:
http://paizo.com/campaigns/WardovesRumbleInTheJungle/gameplay&page=38#1 863

Now if the server is able to forward/redirect the old URL path to the new one, I'm not sure why the page parameter would get dropped, but is there any chance this will get addressed (no pun intended)? I frequently cross-link between important posts in the forums and my wiki, and this just really made me go "Oof!"

FWIW, I'm seeing this behavior in both Chrome and IE 9 on my laptop; FF, Safari, and Chrome on my desktop (both of which are on Time Warner); and Chrome on my Droid (which is on Verizon with wi-fi turned-off as I test this). Hence, I suspect this behavior is server-side rather than client-side.

On a side-note, is there any way we can link to a specific post by number without knowing the page it's on? Any insight into either or both matters would be appreciated. :)

So while browsing the PRD today I noticed something that made me do a double-take:

Circlet of Persuasion

Slot: head
Description: This silver headband grants a +3 competence bonus on the wearer's Charisma-based checks.
Link: http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/magicItems/wondrousItems.html.

"That's not right," I thought, "was it always like that?" Then I looked in my 1st printing CRB and UE and was the same there. (In UE the description is longer, but it is still described as a headband.)

Now assuming this isn't a typo, then I can only conclude it's a well-intentioned change for purposes of maintaining game balance*. However, can we please get the fluff and crunch reconciled here? Ignoring the fact that I can just Rule 0 this, it just looks silly, and even worse, it's counter-intuitive.

Coronet of Persuasion

Slot: head
Description: This small silver crown grants a +3 competence bonus on the wearer's Charisma-based checks.
Note: I've already checked the pagination in UE and CRB and such a change would not increase the space needed. In fact, UE's description is actually longer than that found in the CRB.

So after noting that 3 of the final 4 from the last RPG Superstar were from NC, it go me to wondering why I haven't encountered more like-minded souls here in Charlotte.

For my part, my local Pathfinder group gets together on Tuesday evenings typically meeting up at New Zealand Cafe for sushi before heading back to my townhouse near McAlpine Park (S. Charlotte near Matthews). Games tend to be of the beer & pretzel variety, but the gang really loves getting into character and finding creative solutions to the encounters they come up against.

At this time, group demographics are...

M 36 (me/GM)
M 41
M 36
F 24
F 22
F 22
M 22

So then, who are you, where have you been hanging out, and what are you playing? Be cool to meet up and say hi at the upcoming ren faire at least. :)

Please cancel my subscription to the Pathfinder Player Companion.

Thanks!

In case any of you are wondering how to store all of your lovely new pawns, I figured out a pretty good storage scheme that should hopefully keep them from forming a huge mess inside the box.

If anyone else figures out good storage schemas of their own then be certain to share! :)

Link: Bestiary Box Pawn Storage

I accidentally clicked a bit too quickly and selected for the Bestiary Pawns to be shipped immediately rather than being held for my next shipment. Can you please correct this and ensure that anything I've presently got coming will all be in the same gigantic crate instead of a few little ones? :)

Also, is there a way to have new orders default to the side-cart rather than defaulting to ship immediately? I thought that there was, which is what led to my error.

Example 1: Screenshot
Example 2: This text is inside [ smaller ] tags.

Issue: The [ smaller ] tag is not formatting properly in the Campaign section (possibly other areas as well). On the preview screen, text that has been made smaller will show up smaller, however after submitting a post, the resulting output is the same size as normal text.

Since this is how whispering is typically denoted in PbPs, it's kind of annoying when it doesn't work — it makes it look like characters are just blabbing at normal volume.

I know it's been asked for by various other PbP GMS, but are there any plans in the works for helping us to show/hide which aliases appear in the Post-As box?

'Simple' Favorites: I think perhaps the simplest implementation would be to add a "Favorite" check box next to each alias on the My Account page. Any aliases flagged as favorites would appear in alphabetical order at the top of the Post As drop-down. Any remaining aliases would then be listed alphabetically after a dividing line in the drop-down.

Numbered Favorites: Expanding on the above idea, the check box would be replaced with a numbered field like we have when organizing a wish list. Favorites would then be sorted according to the numerical value placed next to them. Any remaining aliases would then be listed alphabetically after a dividing line in the drop-down.

Hi all, just finished work on a spreadsheet that allows you to create settlements quickly and easily by marking values in a spreadsheet. After you've finished, you can then select a city and export its stat block in one of 3 formats: plain text, bbcode (formatted for these messageboards), or wiki text (formatted for MediaWiki).

Further details, usage instructions, and the download link can be found on my wiki:

Link: Settlement Stat Block Calculator

If you find any bugs, or you just want to give feedback on whether it's useful or not, you can either leave a message here or send me a PM.

Enjoy!

Hi all, just figured I would make the kingdom-building tool I created available to the community. Unlike many of the other spreadsheets I've seen which are ideal for presenting a summary of a kingdom at-a-glance and summing multiple cities, the purpose of this sheet is somewhat different.

Instead of presenting a snapshot for one moment in time, this tool is a log and a calculator. It handles all of the various costs and factors on a month-by-month basis over a 10-year span. You can set the starting year, number of months in a year, and even export data at the end of one decade and import it at the start of a new decade. This enable you to see the growth of your city-state over time.

Since the level of information tracked would make supporting multiple cities unfeasible, my recommendation would be to track each city in its own sheet as a sub-kingdom. I know that there have been more than a few discussions about localized governments and such so I won't bother rehashing them. This is simply the method that lended itself best to development.

If you would like to try it out, the download is available from the Tools Category of my wiki, and any updates to the file will be made there, but you can inform me of bugs either via private message, or in this thread.

Note: This tool was constructed using the expanded rule set featured in Book of the River Nations by Jon Brazer Enterprises.

Hope some of you find this useful.

Gary, is there any chance you could increase the length of a PbP Campaign's "Short Description" field from the current 250-character limit up to around 1 or 2K characters?

I would really like to be able to maintain a short menu bar linking to the campaign's table of contents, wiki, and the character of the current party members, but the shortness of this field prevents the inclusion of any URLs.

[ Table of Contents | Wiki | Party: Alis | Amhranai | Darvesch | Isaac | Lureene | Tyralor ]

[ Table of Contents | Wiki | Party: Alis |

As a result of this limitation, I've simply be adding a more fluff-based header, but it really would be nice if I could add something with a bit more crunch.

While posting in the "Maybe OT: PBP Campaign Thread Help?" thread, I had a thought on something that might improve the utility of the messageboards as an information resource. Since Gary mentioned wanting to revisit the List functionality at some point soon, I thought it might be worth mentioning.

Lists are great for personal use, but have limited utility outside of those who know about a particular person list. Right now they function somewhat like file folders. While it's true that you can add a single post or thread to multiple lists, it's time-consuming and doesn't address the searchability issue.

What about adding the ability for board members to add GMail-style labels to threads or even individual posts?

On a site-wide scale, this would allow individuals to flag posts not merely for inclusion in a FAQ or for violations, but also to help categorize useful contributions. Forums that might be particularly well-served by the ability to tag posts/thread with multiple descriptive labels would be those concerning the various Adventure Paths, and the House-/Rules forums.

On a smaller scale, adding the ability for a GM and their players to label posts in their own campaign would make indexing the story, and noting posts with important information, new NPCs, and treasure vastly easier.

Naturally some support would need be be added to the search parameters, but with the ability to compose a tag/label-based search, it should help to filter results by categories and to know that these are posts other people have separated from the background noise.

In relevant forums, adding a tag-cloud for the currently viewed forum/thread would also help to give a high-level overview.

In terms of implementation, I'd say that a managed list of labels would be best. However, since it's impossible to think of everything up-front, the ability for people to suggest labels, and the ability to return an appropriate label when someone types a related keyword in their tag box would be ideal. Naturally in the PbP Campaigns, it might be desirable to allow the GM to control label creation and modification for their campaign threads only.

So what do you think? Too developer or CPU-intensive to implement? Would further elaboration or use cases be helpful?

Today's Dork Tower strip is about Pathfinder RPG, thought I'd share the link. :)

Dork Tower: Thursday, January 26th, 2012

After making rather extensive use of the list functionality on the site, there's a few things I wanted to suggest/request.

Mass Moves: (higher priority) This is the first and most important request I'd like to make. Right now I have a 512-entry "Table of Contents" (ToC) list for my PbP, but I would really like to split the entries into separate lists by-chapter. (By chapter of the story, not of the AP.) The problem is, currently you can only move items one-at-a-time.

Ideally, I would like to be able to specify a range of entries to move from the Edit list screen, and specify the first and last posts (using the List Order numbers) that I want to move.

A less optimal solution would at least being able to use the "Move to List" drop downs for multiple posts and then being able to click the "Update" or "Save Changes" buttons and actually have that process the moves.

List Entry Reordering: medium priority Remember back when people used to program in BASIC on Atari and Commodore and the best-practice was to number the lines in increments of 10 in case you needed to go back and add something later? Well, right now the list entries are listed consecutively with little to no space in-between entries. This makes it time-consuming to update the order of items in a list.

Usage Case: I make use of the ToC for my PbP players by listing posts that are either memorable, contain important information, or mark the start of a new day, etc. I then try to populate the description with mnemonic hints and keywords to make it easier to search the game from the ToC instead of using the site's search engine. However, if I miss a page of posts when I'm manually indexing and then need to go back and add those posts at a later date, it's difficult to do so because there are no gaps in the numbering.

List Reordering: lower priority Just like with editing list entries themselves, it would be handy to be able to reorder the lists themselves by number instead of clicking up/down.

Hi, I just subscribed to the Modules line and was hoping to start with Feast of Ravenmoor (which was listed as the option about 2 hours ago), but now it's beginning with the Ruby Phoenix Tournament instead.

I'm not concerned about paying for 2 or 3 modules all at once, but I really would like to receive Ravenmoor with the subscriber benefit.

Any chance you can make that happen?

EDIT: Oof! Is there also any way this can be combined with Order #1893085? I just got the email about those items getting ready to ship within the next week.

Is there any way to perform searches on specific phrases rather than merely on the words individually?

Example:
I wanted to do a search to see if there was any discussion on the Ultimate Combat spell "know the enemy" and its 1-minute casting time.

"know the enemy" "casting time"

That returns 9 results. Just looking at the top 3 results, I see instances of "casting time", but no instances of "know the enemy". Each result contains the words "know" and "enemy" only separately.

Performing the same search without quotes returns several 1000 results so obviously the quotes are having SOME effect, but they're not having the desired or expected results.

Other than trying to use Google to search a specific URL, is there a way to perform phrase-based searched on the boards? If not, is it on The List™?

Congrats Paizo. You know you've made it big time when you're featured on the mother of all gaming comics! :D

Penny Arcade: The Conflux, Part Four

Down in Gamer Life there's currently a topic entitled "Your favoured gaming fare?" However, the link you get when attempting to click on it or any replies are simply:

http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/community/gamerLife/talk
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/community/gamerLife/talk&page=1#3

The only way in which I was able to actually reply was to go into TOZ's list of recent posts and click reply from there.

Happy bug hunting! :D

Is there a way to remove a thread from our list of hidden threads?

The reason I ask is, it looks like I must have experienced some lag a few minutes ago while doing some housekeeping on my Focus page. I clicked the hide button next to a thread I wished to hide, and when it didn't disappear, I thought perhaps my wireless mouse was acting up so I clicked again. When I noticed the loading icon for the page wasn't moving, I then thought that perhaps Chrome had frozen so I clicked yet again (ok, probably several more clicks actually).

A few moments later, I was chagrined when the thread I had intended to hide along with about half a dozen others that I wanted to keep tabs on. ^_^;

Is there some way to get those back off my hidden list, I really don't want to reveal all my hidden threads as that will junk things up too much.

Ain'tcha glad you have a whole stable of free software testers? ;)

Within the next month or so, I'm planning to spin-off a new side-quest from my main campaign.

I already have an existing thread from the last time this happened, and my preference (for organizational purposes) would be to recycle it. However, the current name of the thread would need to be changed. If someone could handle this for me, I'd be appreciative.

Could someone please rename this thread:
http://paizo.com/campaigns/LimboPbPWardovesDungeonCrawlChallenge

From:
Limbo PbP: Wardove's Dungeon Crawl Challenge

To:
[PbP] Wardove's Side-Trek

Thanks for the help, and the newly implemented campaign support! :)

I just went to check the Paizo blog and discovered that it's currently displaying the Web Fiction instead (A Passage to Absalom, Chapter Two: Dry Sherry).

The URL shown when I hover over the middle tab looks correct though:
http://paizo.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Store.woa/wa/browse?path=paizo&tab= paizo

Alright, I understand the normal turning rules, but as first sentence of the optional rule for wide turns suggests, that abstraction sacrifices a bit too much verisimilitude for my liking.

Unfortunately, I've read the rules for wide turns about 5× now and even tried sketching this out on graph paper, but I'm still unable to visualize how this should look on a map grid:

Have the driver make a driving check as usual. If she succeeds at the check, she can turn the vehicle. When a vehicle makes a turn, it has a chance to make a vehicular overrun or ramming maneuver on any creature within the turning area, which is a square with sides equal to the vehicle’s length, with one vertex touching the front facing of the vehicle on the side opposite to the direction of the turn. In other words, put the square with one side running along the vehicle’s front, perpendicular to its forward facing, and another running the direction of its current forward facing. Place the square so its far corner is within the desired destination of the vehicle. If the turn is successful, the vehicle ends this movement in that area, facing toward the direction of the turn.

Could someone who has more coffee in their system perhaps please create a diagram in Excel showing how this works? I'm embarrassed to admit it, but my reading comprehension and powers of visualization are completely failing me right now. :(