Gailbraithe's page

Selk: I think it does make sense, simply because the monk si supposed to be a trained martial artist, and it seems natural that he would be better at doing complex manuevers like joint locks (grapples), pressure point attacks (disarms), breaking objects (sunder) and leg sweeps (trips). All of this fits well with how I imagine the monk.

hogarth: If I have to blow a feat to be competitive and function according to my core concept, then my class is broken.

No character should be more proficient at dodging a sweep at the legs than a monk. He's super mobile, he's a great leaper, he's quick, and he's good at reading his opponents intentions (WIS bonus to AC). At every level, the monk should be better at jumping over a sweep attack at his legs than the fighter or even the rogue.

I shouldn't have to waste a feat to achieve the central concept of my class. That's just...no.

So after watching a 3.5 Monk get clobbered by the new Combat manuever rules in my last session, I was eager to see how Jason would redo the monk. And for the most part I approve greatly. The Ki abilities alone bring the monk fully into the top tier of core classes, and I cannot wait to unload an eight strike flurry of blows on someone. It will be awesome. That said, the one thing i really wanted to see fixed is still broken.

Here's an example of my problem with the Monk vs Combat Manuevers:

Bandar is a 1st level Elven Monk with the following stats: Str 10, Dex 16, Wis 16. Bandar's starting AC is 16. Bandar's starting CMB is +0

Zurg is an 1st level Orc Warrior with an 18 Str and 10 Dex. He has a morningstar (weilded two handed). His attack is: +5 morningstar (1d8+6). Zurg and Bandar get into a fight. Zurg wins initiative.

If Zurg simply swings at Bandar with his morningstar, he has to roll an 11 to hit Bandar. If Zurg decides to Trip Bandar, he provokes an AOO and has to roll a 10 to successfully trip Bandar.

Wait...what? The super nimble Elven Monk whose amazing insight enables him to easily evade attacks despite his total lack of armor is easier to trip than to simply hit, when tripping someone is supposedly a much more complex maneuver than simply bashing on them?

That doesn't make any sense!

Let's advance Bandar forward to 3rd level, and now Bandar has Manuever Training. Bandar's AC is 16, and his CMB is +3. Zurg needs to roll an 11 to hit Bandar, and a 13 to trip him.

Advance Bandar to 10th level (all stat adds go to Wis): AC 19, CMB +10
Advance Bandar to 20th level (all stat adds go to Wis): AC 22, CMB +20

Now let's try something different. Instead of gaining Manuever Training, let's say that Bandar can add his AC bonus (WIS + level/4) to his CMB from first level.

Bandar at first level: AC 16, CMB +3
Bandar at third level: AC 16, CMB +5
Bandar at tenth level: AC 19, CMB +12
Bandar at twentieth level: AC 22, CMB: +23

Not a huge difference, but it prevents the oddity of fast, nimble monks that are easier to trip than hit at low levels, while reinforcing the central concept of the monk, that their insight makes them deadly fighters.

I'd love to hear any thoughts on this.

Does it really matter what the book says? I mean, aren't we (DMs running PRPG) all going to use whatever our favorite system is anyway? I mean, my favorite system is to assign everyone the Elite Array and place to suit. I hardly expect anyone to

Why even bother fretting over what it says in the book? Especially when it's just an OPTIONAL rule. If you don't like and think some other system would work better, then just freaking use it already.

I say keep the single price, but add a simple paragraph that tells you how you might change prices for things depending on availablility (and distance from the site of creation). Basically something like "Prices can vary from 50% to 200%, and even beyond in regions where the wares are available in abundance, or have to be important at high cost.

I just like the idea of having multiple tables worked out so I can say to my players "Use Table X in this town, Table Y if you make a trip to the city." and not have to, you know, write my own damn table.

It's just a lot easier to say "Use the village chart for equipment, but fish isn't available, because, you know, you're in the middle of a desert." than to write up separate tables. And it's hard enough getting my player's to keep accurate records of their expenditures without asking them to adjust the prices of the goods they are buying. I can barely get them to do basic addition and subtraction, and you want me to ask them to do multiplication and percentages?

Seriously, if there is any way to get Jason and the rest of PRPG crew to do as much of the boring heavy lifting before the game gets to me, then I'm all for that.

When I prepare for a session from an OGL adventure, I frequently have to rewrite most of the encounters to take advantage of all the WOTC splatbooks, simply because a core OGL SRD character has like minimal impact on the characters my players end up with after gaining a few levels. So I have to crank them up a few notches.

So I honestly don't care if I have to rewrite every monster, because I do that anyways. So far I've been doing less rewriting overall than average, and keeping monsters (in a Goodman Games DCC adventure, Castle Whiterock) more or less "as is." It's working out so far.

I'm all for streamlining rules so they play faster. So far I like the way they play out. My current campaign has already made extensive use of the CMB and Energy Channeling rules changes, and we like how quick they are.

I personally dig the way Turn Undead works now. Once WOTC defined turning undead as blasting them with a burst of positive energy, which could be "channeled" to other uses, this interpretation of the ability was sort of inevitable.

For me the breaking points are basically: adding non-generic setting elements that break from the D&D canon, adding things that won't fit in my "Mystara" campaign world (which is only nominally rooted in the TSR published Mystara). It absolutely must have Fighters, Magic Users, Clerics, Thieves, Elves (that can be Fighter/Magic Users), Dwarves, and Halflings. If it's going to have more than that, then I would prefer Gnomes, Half-Orcs, and Bards (*heart*) to Tieflings, Warlocks and Dragonborn (wtf? seriously? seriously? fu wotc).

But basically I just want something that updates and streamlines the game I'm already playing, and PRPG seems to be right on track to do just that.

We had our second session on Tuesday, and completed level 1 of Castle Whiterock. We picked up played exactly where we left off the week before, with the PCs charging through a breach at a pair of slavers with crossbows.

I made no significant modifications to any of the monsters, only calculating their CMBs and redoing their skill and feat lists. Because this is a 1st level adventure, this resulted in few changes.

The monsters were slightly weaker and less threatening, primarily due to the characters better stats compared to previous campaigns, and the extra +2 is pretty useful. The extra hit points also benefited the characters greatly, allowing them to take more hits in a combat.

I let them start off with a wand of lesser vigor, since they had no healer originally, but I'm going to have to take it away now that they gained a new member, the Elven Cleric Brandar. They used it maybe four times over the course of the first level, and gained Brandar halfway through the adventure. He took the Healing domain, and got to use his domain power twice -- once bringing a downed comrade back to 1 hp -- but still ended up blowing all of his spells on spontaneous healings, though this was partially because he managed to roll a 1 on every single use of Positive Energy Channeling. It was amazing.

Brandar used his Positive Energy Channeling twice while fighting a skeletal owlbear, and it played much more smoothly than 3.5 Turn Undead with the whole stupid table look up. The skeleton blew it's first will save, and the -2 to attack from Frightened turned a lot of hits into near misses, so it was still a very effective ability. If only Brandar could have stopped rolling 1's, he might have been able to avoid spontaneously wasting his prepared spells.

The only other significant Pathfinder related report involves a battle with a 2nd level 3.5 monk. Okay, I admit, not much of a threat to a party of four, but what ended up happening was pretty disgusting. The monk was hiding, leapt out and surprised the party, kicked the rogue in the head. The fighter and the cleric both swung and missed. Then the second fighter went to make a trip attack. and that was where something really dumb happened. The roll to trip the monk was easier than the roll to hit the monk. So he tripped the monk. And then the monk had no way to stand up without provoking AOOs, so he got chopped to pieces by the attacks he provoked standing up. Suckage. So, clearly a monk's wisdom bonus needs to be included in the calculation of their CMB.

I'm also thinking that Acrobatics should specify that a character can use Acrobatics to perform any move action without provoking attacks of opportunity. Because there's no reason a first level monk or rogue shouldn't be able to do a reliable kip up, or at least a five foot roll away from a fight. Definitely stuff that should be added to the Acrobatics table at a minimum.

I printed up a color copy of the Alpha playtest at my parent's place (small business owners with a color printer), then took it to Kinko's and had it spiral bound for about $6 with the smudge-proof clear cover and black vinyl backpage.

One of my players printed it up at work in B&W for free, 3-hole punched it, and put it in one of those presentation binders (not the big three ring kind, the light weight paper kind), cost him all of $2 for the binder (which I think he had already).

Isn't the Critical Hit Deck only for PC critical hits?

I would love to see equipment charts that cross indexed price with market size.

A chart that listed three separate prices -- Village, Town, City -- with some goods cheaper in the smaller markets where they are produced (foodstuffs, trade goods) and other goods (crafted items, imports) cheaper in the city, and luxury goods that are only availble in the larger markets (like spyglasses).

ETA: And I really dig the backpack that adds STR.

I think Charisma should remain the base for Intimidate.

Being able to intimidate people has a lot to do with confidence and the ability to project that confidence.

Let's say a Fighter with an 18 STR and 8 CHA is trying to intimidate a Bard with an 8 STR and 18 CHA. The Fighter may be physically capable of breaking all of the Bard's fingers, but if he's soft spoken, mumbles, and slouches, the Bard is going to feel pretty confident about his ability to talk his way out the situation, and will see any threats made by the Fighter as negiotiable, because the Fighter isn't self-assured enough

I personally think Wisdom is a better dump stat for Fighters, mostly because their Will save already blows chunks, and anyone who takes nothing but a sword into a dungeon and is willing to play a role commonly described as "meat shield" is clearly lacking in common sense, not confidence.

I love the minor magical abilities for the rogue. Ever since Basic D&D, the rogue has always been capable of eventually mastering a small amount of magical skill. I see these new abilities as merely reinforcing that possibility.

And I really like that it's now possible to play a jack-of-all-trades who isn't focused on music (though the Factotum already fills that spot nicely).

Changing the DC for a Tumble check will have some odd interplay with the Knight's Vigilant Defender ability, which adds their class level to the DC of the check.

I played a binder from 1 to 20, and my DM was begging me to play something else.

I played a binder for about five sessions (level 6 to 7), and then got myself killed so I could justify playing something else. I found the class obnoxious and tedious to play, and so underpowered as to be a hindrance to the campaign. The character was simply incapable of pulling his weight. And so much bookkeeping for so little benefit! I just went back to playing my Knight.

Since Pathfinder is OGL, anyone can write an OGL Binder with the serial numbers scraped off that works with PRPG. Depending on how the pathfinder license ends up, they might even be able to mention that it works with PRPG. In fact, I can easily imagine the first few third party products for Pathfinder being 3.P conversions of some of the stuff from the 3.5 books. Look out world, here comes the Curseblade (Hexblade), Warwizard (Warmage) and Sergeant (Marshall)!

I've personally always thought the Binder was the perfect mechanic for reproducing elements of Afro-Caribbean magic -- Houdon, Voodoo, etc. -- such as the concept of being "ridden by the loa." A-C folklore is filled with stories of magicians allowing loa (powerful spirits/minor gods) to temporarily posses them, and gaining powers as a result.

You could easily sneak the Binder into 3.P by calling it "The Bokor" (a voodoo sorcerer), and replacing the vestiges with loa like Chango (war god) and Baron Samedi (death god). All of which are public domain and not copyrightable!

I really like the idea of having familiars be capable of maintaining concentration on spells for their masters, and having other abilities that actually make them useful to wizards. I also like the borrowing idea, that seems very wizardy.

In my first session, I used the racial hit point bonuses, and it had exactly the effect I hoped it would: My players were more aggressive, and penetrated further into the dungeon than they would have otherwise. In fact, as of the end of the session, they hadn't rested yet, despite battling through four encounters. And they don't even have a healer with them.

What do people think of Mending being a 0 level spell and thus useable at will? With the broken condition, items will only ever be broken temporarily as long as there is a caster in the party.

I'm okay with that. If the caster has Mending memorized, then hey, at least it's actually useful for something. I'd be sundering my players stuff left and right just to reward the caster for having thought to memorize it.

And if someone wants to give up an action to remove the broken condition from a damaged shield or sword, then that seems a fair trade.

Started my new campaign, Castle Whiterock, using the Pathfinder Alpha playtest rules. I have five players, only three could make it to the first session.

We're using a 28 point buy system for character stats, and the racial hit point bonuses. The three characters that were made are:

• Goldenaxe, a Human Fighter. He took the Defensive Combat Training feat.
  
• Zoltan, a Halfling Rogue. Plans to multiclass to Hexblade.
  
• Barth, a Human Fighter. The player was pleased to discover he did not need to take Combat Expertise to take Improved Trip. Plans to multiclass to Wizard.
  

The first several battles in the campaign are against a band of human slavers, and despite the fact that hitting them would have been far more effective -- they had 6 hit points! -- Barth tripped them over and over again with a bill hook (::eyeroll:: players. feh!). We loved the new system for combat maneuvers. So much simpler and cleaner.

Hopefully next week we'll be adding a cleric and sorcerer.

Tomorrow I begin my new campaign. I'm using Pathfinder Alpha, and running Goodman Games' Castle Whiterock.

When I think of slaying dragons, I think of this Elmore painting from the basic set.

Little tiny dragons are silly. I always remove them from modules, and save dragons till higher levels. But I think they should exist, just to add an extra twist to encoutners with adult dragons.

Since the 100 GP cost of identify has been removed, I would like to see Bardic Knowledge have an Identify function for magic items, allowing the bard to recall items from legends and learn about their special abilities and command words as applicable.

I also find the Rogue's Sneak Attack ability unbalancing. I would like to see it either require a full round action, or be usable only against flat-footed opponents.

Either that, or the fighter should get an equivalent ability that allows him to add massive amounts of damage to attacks on a regular basis. The weapon mastery ability could do something like this. If a fighter got an extra die of damage with a weapon group every four levels, and could add that damage bonus with every attack, that would balance out the sneak attack ability without unbalancing the game.

My preference is for Game Master. I rather like Path Master as well.

Thank you! For years I've been telling people about this awesome book, one of Howard's absolute best, and no one has ever heard of it. I'm loathe to loan out any of my sword & sorcery books, so it's great to see this genre classic back in print -- I can finally tell them where to pick it up!

Gardner Fox's "Warrior of Llarn" and "Theif of Llarn" also deserve to be in print again, having been sadly out of print for thirty years. And if you guys were really cool, you'd get your hands on reprint rights for "Transit in Scorpio." Now that's an awesome book.

On the blue bar above, click on 'Dungeon.' Once that loads, scroll down and click on 'Resources.' Finally, click on 'Downloads' (or just click this handy link here).

Just download the Online Supplement for the issue in question, and you should find the Map of Mystery in the back.

Good gaming,
TK

p.s. Which Map are you using?

Hey, thanks a lot for the link, much appreciated. Unfortunately, the map I needed was from either #144 or #145 (the one with the room with the pool of acid), so I had to make something up myself. But all the same, i appreciate the help. :)

I know that Paizo makes the Maps of Mystery available for download, and I desperately need to download one of them for an adventure I'm running tomorrow (I can't find my copy of the issue anywhere!), but for the life of me I cannot figure where on this website they are hidden. Anyone want to throw me a bone? Please?

Are there any plans for a wilderness set? I use those giant white one-inch graph tablets that are used for business presentations for my battlemap, and with dungeons, caverns and other enclosed spaces just drawing thick black lines and the occasional square or circle for doors and statues works fine.

But when a fight happens in a wilderness clearing, or along a narrow forest trail, I'm stuck with either a huge blank map, or stuck drawing dozens and dozens of trees. Ick to both.

I love the Map Packs -- when I started using the Tavern from Pack One my players discovered a new love for bar fights -- and plan to buy them all, but would love a wilderness set more than anything.

Something like:
3 tile of narrow (5") trail
1 tile of switchback for the trail
4 tile meadow clearing
4 tile druid grove/standing stone circle
2 tile grotto with waterfall (for naiads, fossergrim, etc.)
1 tile dryad tree
1 tile campfire
1 tile ranger's cabin
1 tile forest shrine

Maybe for the first half of 2007?

We are currently working our way through the Dourstone Mine, having cleared the Whispering Cairn. Party consists of four:
Elar Stravan - Fighter 4 - Party leader. A miner from Diamond Lake interested in clearing the regions dungeons and developing a casino resort complex in Diamond Lake. He fights with a masterwork crowbar, and refuses to weild real weapons.
Elaine Stravan - Healer 2/Cleric 2 - Elar's baby sister and a pacifist. She has grown more militant in the face of the growing undead menace. Is developing a relationship with the paladin Melinde that causes Elar some consternation.
Abel Ablesone - Rogue 4 - An engineer who worked the mine equipment, now Elar's "security expert". Quiet, professional, and extremely dangerous to cross. Killed Filge in a fit of anger when Filge made one too many crass jokes.
Rissa Willowbrook - Sorceror 4 - A mysterious seductress who associates with Abel, and sells alchemical charm son the side. Powerful, but not trustworthy. Elaine dislikes the way she bends Elar's ear and leads him away from the straight and narrow.

The whole party is Chaotic Good with the exception of Elaine, who is NG leaning towards Lawful Good.

Many years ago I ran (under 2nd Ed.) a mercenary named Storm. He wore chain mail that had been enamled white, and a white tabard. He was a fairly competant warrior, but nothing remarkable. He did have a "unique talent" however, one that was never really explained. He could, through an act of will, teleport short distances. When he would teleport like this, he would leave behind a cloud of moisture, and there would be a loud pop and crackle as electricity dissipated. Like a tiny, momentary storm cloud (hence the name). Everytime he used the ability, he took a d6 damage, so he used it rarely, but he rapidly gained a reputation as the man who could hit anyone anywhere, and escape from any situation. Very fun character to play.