Garreth Baldwin's page

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Awesome work to the tech team for dealing with this so quickly. From what I can tell it was a pretty nasty thing to have to deal with the same day subscriptions started shipping.

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Thanks to all the tech team for keeping us up to date and working hard to get things rolling again. Just another reason I keep coming back to Paizo. :D

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Yes, you can be both a Ranger (Guide) and a Ranger (Urban Ranger) at the same time because NONE of the abilities replace any of the same abilities. However if any of the archetypes replace the same core abilities then they can not overlap.

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As a warning, Shattered Star is tied very closely with Rise of the Runelords with some tid bits from Second Darkness and Curse of the Crimson Throne. If you're playing in a RotRL game, running Shattered Star could spoil some of your game.

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Got mine today too. HOLY SMURF this thing is huge!!! I feel the need to put it on a pedestal and heavily trap the room to keep it from adventures. An amazing, wonderful product.

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Dotting, This shows so good promise

The walk back to the front of the tomb is a somber one. Janet seems on edge and eager to get out of the dark depths but is careful to follow your steps closely. The going is slow with Kiri carrying Grax over her shoulder but after what seems like a month underground you finally make your way back to the entrance room. Light streams in from the open doors leading outside and the man you left tied up is gone. You can hear the sound of voices from outside and as your eyes adjust to the brightness you can see the shapes of people. Janet runs outside and falls into the embrace of a man.

Janet: Oh Roldare, I was afraid those horrid things had killed you.

Roldare: Janet! I’ve been so worried. I’m sorry I ran off and left you. I just couldn’t face those things and figured the best thing was to go and get help. I ended up traped in the crypt in the supply room and almost died.

As Roldare ends his comments, the other group seems to notice you all for the first time. Besides Roldare (the wailing man from the tomb) and Janet, there are four strong looking young men standing beside a wagon. The group looks ready for a trip into the tomb and seems to have come well prepared. On the side of the wagon is a sign that reads “Hagfish Hopefuls.”

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Since I like Dark Mistress' and you don't want to use Worldwould again, what about:

Blighted Legacy

Or since everyone at Paizo seems so fond of alliteration

Light's Legacy

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I have a question about the map. Room 9 (Wood Golem) and Room 4 (Bombardier Beetle) have a set of stairs going to the middle of the map but stop 5 feet short. The room descriptions don't mention these stairs and the 2nd floor map shows no sign of connecting anywhere to them. Is this just a map mistake or am I missing the description for where they lead somewhere else?

My understanding of the map was that those stairways connected to each other as a small passage way between the two rooms. Seems to work out pretty well.

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I despise the term "cheese", as it has no set meaning to all parties.

I'm sure he's just talking about the Cheese from the core rulebook that you can get half a pound of for just 1 silver. Talk about OP :D

As to the Topic at hand, if you don't like it, house rule it out. As of right now it's legal for PFS play so there is no issue there as it is decided by higher ups. I like the idea of the spell, though I also do play with people who try to maximize every little thing, we just play a game we enjoy to have fun.

*edited due to being tried and getting confused

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So I'm having the same issues with Adobe and getting bad parameter errors on odd pages. Odd thing is that I have no problem with APs or Core books, but other pdfs give me the problem. I've tried on two different computers with both Adobe 9 and 10, the Adobe X copy is brand new and just installed. I can get SomePDF to work, but the quality of their images isn't that great. Anyone have anymore ideas on this? Thanks.

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Depending on what your over all goal is but look into maptools which is free. Good to use if you want to use a TV or projector. If you don't mind hand drawing maps you might look into gaming paper.

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This would seem to indicate that a mounted archer would only get one attack after his mount moves a full move action. Can someone show me where the rule the guys above is located?

From page 202 in the Core Rulebook:

You can use ranged weapons while your mount is taking a
double move, but at a –4 penalty on the attack roll. You can
use ranged weapons while your mount is running (quadruple
speed) at a –8 penalty. In either case, you make the attack roll
when your mount has completed half its movement. You can
make a full attack with a ranged weapon while your mount is
moving.

Mounted Skirmisher is meant to apply to melee attacks, not ranged.

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Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter. I cannot abide by the main character. At all.

You're not alone on this as the Hamilton herself has spoken on how much she now hates the main character. Apparently, at some point the market took over the character and her publisher started telling her how to write. I'm sure she'd just kill the series if it wasn't for the fact that it is her cash cow.

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A level 17 rouge! You might want to check on that.... :D
Sorry, couldn't resist. Though it would be interesting for it to have previous adventures who had tried to best it stuffed and displayed...

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Heh, touchscreen can be a nightmare. Should be page 506 in the crb if your on a pdf viewer.

OK, after looking at that and rereading what you typed I understand. I was meaning to say that my problem was with what should be considered 'market value' of the item. I have no problem say that a ranger could make something cheaper than a wizard could, eventually. If anything the ranger could stand to make a better profit if wizard prices were considered market value. So my main question about the item posted here is this: are these items meant to be bought by PC's or crafted by them? What is the intention? Over all the items do seem pretty awesome. I'm just missing the price gap of the buying price.

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"Garreth Baldwin" QUOTE wrote:

I do not believe that anything that I write is incorrect, however I did just find the entry about creating items at lower caster levels. My only real problem remaining is that it seems that the writer goes out of their way to say "lowest level caster" instead of lowest caster level which would have been a copy and paste. Minimum level for the ranger to make wondrous items would still be level 7 or CL 4, though he could make items that acted at CL 1.

ignoring the first line as thats a whole other can of worms if i understood what you typed there that would be correct. A single class ranger would need to be level seven the take the feat to craft items and at that time their caster level would be four, however the requirement to take the feat and craft items are two different things.

This is supported by the broach of shielding entry in the core rule book, the item is caster level one dispite the fact craft wonderous item is a pre req feat.

Sorry, I meant, wrote. Typing on a tablet has not been kind to me :P and as my books are PDFs, can you tell me where that item can be found so I can have a look?

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this is incorrect, you can craft items at a lower caster level than is required to take the feat, you can craft items lower than your caster level. You just can't do it until you qualify for the feat, conversly if you have the feat you don't need a caster level equal to the items to make it as long as you can make the spellcraft check and meet the other requirements(spells or +5 dc increase).

I do not believe that anything that I write is incorrect, however I did just find the entry about creating items at lower caster levels. My only real problem remaining is that it seems that the writer goes out of their way to say "lowest level caster" instead of lowest caster level which would have been a copy and paste. Minimum level for the ranger to make wondrous items would still be level 7 or CL 4, though he could make items that acted at CL 1.

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So I don't really want to throw gas on the fire here, but how is a 4th level ranger making any items? The feat to make wondrous item require CL 3rd, whic h means the ranger couldn't even take the feat til 6th level minimum, but since feats are gained at odd levels, it means the ranger would have to be level 7. Did you miss this or am I missing something.
Note: scrolls are the only thing that you can craft at Cl 1, everything else is Cl 3 or higher.

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I don't see it listed so I'll ask, does the print copy come with a PDF?

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Since I couldn't find another board for this, what monsters or heroes do you hope get made into minis?

I personally would love to see an owlbear and some of the lower level creatures from bestairy 2.

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So I'm sure this will be a quick question but I can't find the answer it seems:
Does a creature without an Int score get to make AoOs? (such as animated objects)
Thanks!

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Trap door spiders or anything with 15 ft reach. Let him provoke AoOs due to moving closer :-) or for monsters with class, phalanx with defenders in the front line.

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First off let me say that I love the questions you've raised. As a Sociology major, I actually think of a lot of these things when world building or just trying to flesh out NPCs

What would life be like for an average person? Would wizards rule everything?

I think a good popular example of how people would react to this is in Dragon Age. For the most part, access to magic would have to be controlled as close as possible. This may even include specialized groups to hunt down and deal with dangerous magi.

What would it mean in a society if a small minority of people lived twice or three times as long as everyone else?

It would also be interesting to confront sort of head-on the stipulated 19th-century Tolkien-esque racism inherent in the system.

Here you hit on an interesting note. Because we don't have any species on Earth who can be compared to our intelligence but still being so vastly different its hard to think how people would handle it. Many human governments might outlaw cross species relationships due to problems that could arise due to life span difference. I think any acceptance between races would be tense if anything.

And what about the ramifications of a clear existence of "good" people and "evil" people?

What would a legal system look like in a world where people could be tested for their true "alignment"?

I think you would find a lot more people being neutral than anything. In an RPG its easy to forget that there's actually a scale of how evil something is because normally adventurers are just worried if its evil at all. More of a shades of grey scale than just place and white. Also, remember, for all the magic that detects alignment, there's just as much that hides it. Though it does make you wonder about politicians and lawyers.... :D

What would the penalties be for using enslaving spells such as Charm Person?

I think that you would find laws very similar to current laws about drugging people or manipulating them into doing something. It may be much harder to prove in courts though.

Why don't more people use magic?

Training. Just because you're religious, doesn't mean you can cast spells like a druid or cleric. Clerics and Wizards most likely have to attend schools to be taught how to do what they do. According to the CRB, this can take between 2-12 years. Most likely the people have to pay some form of tuition, which makes the option unreachable for most. I think the only "common" magic you would see are Sorcercers, who would most likely be taken to a place to learn to control their magic once they should talent.

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I'm guessing that they will reword the entry to mention that even though it negates armor and shield bonus, it is not treated as a normal ranged touch attack.

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Remember that UC is a part of the Core Ruleset, which means that it is designed to be setting neutral. So what is or isn't in the Inner Sea Region doesn't matter.

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I for one would love a deluxe edition of something like this, especially for Rise of the Runelord. I'd happily shell out $150 for something like this. Especially if it had a nice leather cover with the Sihedron Rune on it. :D

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Really, the problem with pre-painted minis in general is the amount of time it takes to paint each one by hand. Say that you sell packs of 6 to 8 minis for $20 a box. That means that each mini costs about $3.34-$2.50 each. Now think about how much the person painting them is getting paid an hour and how long it takes to paint each mini. My friend and I have considered starting up a small homemade mini company for our Pathfinder games using AutoCAD and a small C&C mill. Making the mini's themselves isn't that hard or expensive after a moderate one time cost, but painting them is much more time consuming and expensive.

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Wow...I am in awe. My group frequently does things that turn to laughs and good memories but your group seem to be quite creative about it. You really should keep us updated on what else happens with this and how things evolve.

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...
*sigh* my players kill me with the "what's in it for me" thing. Any suggestions on handling the above if they decide to develop the mine "privately"? I'm thinking that knowledge of it could get out and cause unrest etc. Any other suggestions if they try to go this route?

Thank you again,
Mike

Well there's a lot that goes along with running a privately owned mine. Who pays the works? the security? the transportation of equipment and the moving of the raw ore. Who are they selling the raw ore to? sure Kingdoms may buy it, but if their own kingdom is buying it, that could cause some major unrest. *just think of how much scandal is caused when a politician gets discovered for only working with their friends* And remind the players that first all the expenses come out and then they can start mining. You may also have them have to buy the land from the kingdom. If they still go through with it, I'd say just pick a figure for how many pounds of ore they sell and give them cash for that. 50gp per a pound is the going rate I think, but that's pure gold.

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Quick question: there is no errata for Monuments? The +3 loyalty for such a small cost (esp if you have a Temple) may create some monument-heavy cities...

In this case I would take an approach similar to graveyard or dump heavy cities, have some sort of negative consequence. Perhaps a magical storm rolls in and all the monuments become animated at start rampaging and fighting each other. The main idea is not to power game the stats, which is very easy to do with the RAW.

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Is there any kind of preview for the product anywhere?

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...Boon Companion feat....

Full strength critter at 4th

Where is this feat from? I thought I saw it at some point but could never find it again.

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...Things like this, are good thought exercises.. but in reality you need to be very careful. Assuming the DM doesn't just say no- it'll be because he's grinning, and just figured out his next BBEG's bag of tricks....

This just gave me the mental image of a group of druids flying over a city using this tactic to carpet bomb them...a wonderful challenge for my kingmaker game :D

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It's presumably from being a Worm That Walks. Unfortunately there isn't a full Pathfinderized writeup of that template anywhere (that I know of). Maybe there will be one in Bestiary 2.

The original was in the Epic Level Handbook, and is quite a bit more powerful than that used for the Wriggling Man, so that doesn't help either (for instance, that template gives a +20 insight bonus to AC).

James already confirmed that there would be a write up in Bestiary 2. So hopefully just another month til we see the base stats

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Also, something that is along the lines of a witch hunter. Something made specifically for shutting down enemy casters.

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Since Pathfinder has rules for guns, a gun-slinger base class would be pretty cool. Something that can make ammo a bit easier and cheaper.

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I would just like to say how much I love this adventure. I personally think that it is a great end to the Kingmaker AP, with the underlying force behind everything coming out hard and fast. Up until this point I suspect that my PCs will be overly confidant that they know they can handle whatever is going on. (Especially since they started asking me for rules for building armies right after they started building their cities) With all the fey hitting against them within the course of one month it will throw them off their toes, which I like. Rulers get too comfortable, and things should catch them by surprise. After all, a good mastermind doesn't revel he (or she) is behind everything until it's pretty much too late to do anything about it.

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Gorbacz wrote:

A really good urban sourcebook....

That's a really interesting idea ...

However, that's a lot of material to cover. Would you (and everyone feel free to chime in) be interested in buying each section, as it got written, as small, cheap pdfs? Or would you want the whole thing done as a short prudct including all those topics before you'd be interested in getting it?

I'd pay for it in smaller installments, especially since I'm mainly interested in buying/maintaining house and such. Though I'd prob buy the complete works if they were offered in a print edition.

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Flying Arcane Archers with arrows infused with Anti-Magic Field. :D, sure you have to have to plink them down, but it takes away all their magic items and any supernatural or spell like abilities

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First allow me to clarify my use of the word broken. When I think something is "broken" is when it does not work correctly, be it due to complexity, over/under powered, or any other reason. Secondly, the comment about line of sight and range was in response to a few posts that said "But if there's line of sight, then stealth is impossible. Not to be flippant or rude, but that's the RAW." in response to a comment about distance.

So on the omni-vision issue: My group has questioned this at great length before and we figured the reason you are "aware" of everything around you in combat is due to allies calling out warnings, turning to look for new problems, etc. I'm not saying it makes perfect sense, but creating a rule that would deal with all possible situations would be very difficult from a Dev stand point. If you can do better (not an insult/challenge, but an invitation for how to make it work) then by all means suggest it. Edit: We have never found any rules in any form for facing, just going off what we learned from others.

On the flanking/moving issue: I can agree that it would be difficult to defend against multiple foes, but if the bonus stacked think about how easy it would be for goblins or kobold to kill 1st level PCs, or on the other end, how easy it would be to hit/damage the BBEG just cause everyone focuses on him.

I can agree that the stealth rules COULD be more specific, however I also understand how tedious and hard that can be from the Dev side, although admittedly I'm still new to that side of things. Also compare the number of people on the board who ask for this to be changed against the total number of people on the boards. If it really is a small minority then I can understand why Paizo hasn't changed them.

I'm not right about this, neither is anyone else. We each have our own ideas and opinions on how to make things work and so we have variation. Makes life more interesting. Also thank you both for your polite arguments, sorry if I ever came off as attacking or hostile.

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We have a druid of Sarenrae in our game and it works fairly well. All sunshine and fiery death., it's kinda cute for a gnome.

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Ok, so I'm pretty sure this is going to get me some flames my way but,

1. To everyone saying how it's broken: Have you developed a table top system without any flaws that requires no interpretation and can be play by using the book word for word?

2. House rules exist for a reason, the Devs know they can't make a system that's going to make everyone happy, it's actually pretty difficult to make a system realistic and still keep it balanced overall. So they allow for some custom rulings. I don't see how this is really a problem.

3. With my SCA experience, I've been in 3-1 fights in melee, sure its hard but I sure as hell know where my opponents are.

4. Line of sight can't always beat stealth. If something is too far away to see, then you don't even need to be stealthing.

5. This is a fantasy game. The characters are expected to be able to do things that there's no feasible way for us to do. If you want realism go play a system like HackMaster. Sure you can hide on the ceiling and such, but you're going to be dead long before you hit 0 hp too.

There was more, but that's enough for now. I'm not saying the rules are perfect. I don't expect them to be, I enjoy the game because it's fun and something different from the day to day grind.

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Garreth Baldwin wrote:

Do the shaken affect stack from demoralize? In second printing errata it said no, but the errata wasn't included in 3rd or 4th printings.

As Jason Bulmahn is so eager to point out, what I'm about to say is not a ruling on the rules, nor should it be taken as errata or the law...

...but no, shaken effects from demoralize should not stack. Frightened and Panicked are too overwhelming a condition to arise from a simple series of skill checks in my mind.

So there you have it. Kinda...

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Do the shaken affect stack from demoralize? In second printing errata it said no, but the errata wasn't included in 3rd or 4th printings.

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Blave: you are right, I misread your first (and quoted!) sentence. My bad.

I believe I know why they removed that sentence in the Demoralize description now. Appendix 2: Condidtions no longer has wording in it under the Shaken/Frightened/Panicked entries that say that fear conditions stack. It looks to me like they intentionally removed stackable fear effects.

Assuming I haven't missed it in my admittedly brief scan of the 4th printing Core Rulebook. If this is the case, I have to say I am SORELY disappointed. I designed my Pathfinder Society character around stacking multiple sources of fear effects, and now I might as well tear up his character sheet.

Fear not! Fear still stacks...apparently...

Page 563 from the Core Rulebook:
Becoming Even More Fearful: Fear effects are c umulative.
A shaken character who is made shaken again becomes
frightened, and a shaken character who is made frightened
becomes panicked instead. A frightened character who is
made shaken or frightened becomes panicked instead.

I don't know what this means for the intimidate skill though. Fixed in one errata but not included in the following 2 printings...

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The 3rd Printing of the Core Rulebook adds the sentence

"This shaken condition doesn’t stack with other shaken conditions to make an affected creature frightened."

I'm looked in both my 3rd and 4th printing books and couldn't find this. Any chance you have a page number or such?

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Would someone be good enough to list what the Leadership Roles are please? I thought I saw the list at one point but now I can't find it!

Thanks!!!

Page 56 and 57 of RRR list all the roles and how they impact the game.

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The reason armor hampers spells casting is because of how precise the movements must be. A MU is not use to how armor effects their movement (hence non-proficiency), so they suffer a spell failure chance. Note that there is are 2 feats that reduce this chance by taking armor proficiency and Arcane Armor Training. This compensates for the MU learning how to move in armor. Oh, and there is always the Meta-magic feat Still Spell.

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I can't find any flaw in this plan. The only thing I'm curious about is how your Pal/Defender is equipped. I just had to remind my Paladin that he couldn't lay on hands with a heavy shield and weapon equipped.