GM Dylan's page

I'm highly interested, I love vows in roleplay, I've seen them played very well in palidins, and decently in monks (however the player was rather potentious so I don't consider it a fair evaluation.)

Do you have a chart or specific alternate features drawn up or are you still brainstorming?

Replace Arcane Bond with Eldritch Blast (3.5 Complete Arcane: Warlock) maybe? Also would metamagic feats apply?

very awesome stuff very awesome stuff thanks again to all! This will have to be considered into one of my future games.

Shift gears for a minute, what if:...

Adapt the Warlock from 3.5 complete arcane, then give him a spellbook. I'm thinking require a special feat to use it, maybe a 1.5 multiplier to spellbook costs, and most importantly give him a limited certain number of spells per day from his spellbook based of class levels.

Any thoughts?

@ Evil Lincoln:
But does he use the cost for copying spells or for scribing scrolls to add to his spellbook, and are the 'scrolls' expended when he casts them? Assuming the initial, thus making them permenent not expendable, it sounds quite effective. How does he play, not overpowered or whatnot?

Wow, great ideas y'all, I wasn't expecting quite a response.

I think my favorite idea so far is the sorcerer with the alternate bloodline and extented casting times for spellbook spells, it has all the flavor I'm looking for and 'seems' fair, I'll surely have to gametest it. My downfall was attempting to modify the wizard is some way to make it happen, I never thought to use sorcerer as the base concept.

Thanks again to all!

Perhaps it's a naive dream, but hey, anythings possible in Pathfinder right?

The idea is a Spellcaster who uses a a spellbook but can cast any spell from his book. I realize this would clearly be overpowered as a base class, overwhelming both sorcerer and wizard, but what kind of drawback could make it balanced?

My first though is a prestige class, a sorcerer/wizard combo as a prereq, that gains the ability after X levels in the prestige class. But that might be my inner 3.5 talking. I thought maybe some kind of feat, but that seems overpowered for just one feat, maybe a serious of feats like the prereqs to get Spring Attack. Maybe a 20th level wizard could take a feat to allow it.

Any thoughts? Optimism please, I want ideas on how to make it possible and balanced, cuz I already see how 'improbable' it is.

Very cool, I agree with fudging, it makes things move quicker, and I always have that one player who know's all the rules exclusively and can advice me when something really specific comes up. Also the additive of the artificer concept is great, especially if that's his knack, just don't let it get too out of hand or overpowered.

As for the revival, it's very interesting and I can't imagine why they wouldn't like it. When I first started DMing I was notorious for the tavern intro lol.

Menus for taverns... A brilliant idea I might have to steal. =)

Everything you just described to me sounds like amazing detail that I wish I had been adding to my campaigns, but that aside, I've always been the outside in GM, making a map of the kingdom, continent, and sometimes the planet before getting to the local village or first dungeon. However I try very hard to detail how every society interacts with others and within themselves, and get a whole lot of gisting potential. The super details like menu items I pull off the cuff as they come up, but I'm descently skilled at that so that's me.

I love handouts, I always love to get them as a player, my current group has gone green on facebook and we have a group we use to handle detailed information, some shopping, occasionally a side mission involving one or two characters, so that come game night we can jump right into the group dynamics.

But yeah, big picture maps (and plotlines), then based of where the players are going I'll detail everything in between, so I guess it's rather middlegroundish.

Ioun Stones are always a personal favorite of mine. =)

In a similar boat with DM Jeff, I look at the entirety of the 'task' in which the stealth role in being made. If it's open the door, then getting across the field, around the corner, and picking the lock without making noise, that's one stealth check with whatever modifiers that come up along that path. Now then, if that takes multiple rounds to accomplish, I'd give the gaurd a perc check one the first round to see if he just so happpens to notice, the every round after that, give him one only if he's looking (since he is a gaurd after all). Of course, exceptions would be if the rouge were to do something blatently hurtful to being stealthy, like swimming through a mote or breaking something open, end the effect of the first check and role a new one.

Yes, a plethora of exceptions exist, but as GM handle those as they come up, but limit the checks to as few as possible.

Very interesting intro, I love it.
I actually just got done with a small co-gm excrusion, in which one of my players built a dungeon and gm-ed it while I played a character (all still in my original world) for a few sessions. It seems to me that you're in more of a situation in which you're the GM, but you have a player helping you out with notes, stats, and maybe some plot, yes? Essentially he won't be taking over gm while you play and switching roles and such?

If that's the case, go for it, have a great time. If he's an experienced GM, he'll know how not to metagame, and if he does just address it with him and talk it out (outside of game time of course, either after or before the next game) and if it continues, just stop sharing notes with him, because some people may just not be able to help it, especially when the rouge forgets to check 'that one door' for traps, etc.

The only other problem that might arise could be rules debates, he might try and make a rules claim you don't agree with, or maybe you do but you're trying to stealthily fudge something to move plot forward. In the beginning it's useful because as a new GM you need to learn the rules and more importantly how to tweek them, but remember in the end you have the final say, so long as you're consistant. One technique I had to employ when I was running a 16-18 man group (good times) was in any debate that began to take too long, I'd hold a cardboard paper towell tube over the table and give my final descision, and they knew there'd be no further arguementation after that, it was time to move on. Silly, but effective and makes you feel rather bad-a**.

As for fleshing things out, I'd get the dungeon itself superdetailed first, go through the plot you want to acheive, then the major rooms for that plot. Go through the five senses, the aura of the place, the items in it, just to know the area. Then do the same for everywhere inbetween. For the island, I would approach it differently. Draw a map, put a little circle where the dungeon is. Don't worry about super detail yet, but work from the outside in, dot out the villages, scetch out the forests, beaches, major cities if any, tribes clans, mountains rivers volcanoes, just draw a map, all the while spending time to think about how each feature effects the others. Know the culture of the people there. If they're all hungry pagan cannibles, it'll go quicklyish, if there are more civilized sections, know their culture. Then!: go into detail on the immediate area around the dungeon, and have an idea of where your players want to go. I'd straight up ask then inbetween sessions before you're even close to getting out of the dungeon, but after you've had some time to do both combat and roleplay, hey guys, what do you want to do right after this dungeon. Some will say shop, find a certain item, train their skills, learn undercommon, go to a tavern, who knows, but use their ideas to flech out which areas of you island need fleshing, and because you not only drew but also learned that map, if they go down some random path, you may not know what 'is' there, but you have an idea of what 'would be' there.

First few sessions are okay to be linear in plot, that's fine, so long as they have the option to branch out after that, or maybe they'll like linear and want more, that depends on your groups gaming style.

Of course, most important rule of any game, have fun. If everyone is having fun then you're doing something right.

Hope this helps! Ask me anything.