GeraintElberion's page

In the Inner Sea I would love more Andoran, Numeria, and the River Kingdoms (Brevoy as well).

I would also REALLY like to see something in Arcadia. I'm Native American in addition to (mostly) Irish and English. The Anglo/Celtic side of my ancestry is done to death in every fantasy setting ever, I think Arcadia is a perfect place to tap into some of the really excellent Native American mythology, and the several colonies already in existence there make an excellent tie in to the more familiar Inner Sea setting.

EDIT: I just finished my epub of City of the Fallen sky last night. Hope to get a longer review in, but it is currently tied with Plague of Shadows for my favorite.

I should also add that I will devour anything Dave Gross writes for Pathfinder. Seriously, publish Varian Jegarre's collected grocery lists, with a little commentary from Radovan, and I'll read it.

1. Nobody is saying never ever heal your buddy and/or let them die. That is ridiculous.
2. Nobody is saying you will never ever have to heal.
3. What is being said is that the bad guys can put out damage faster than you can heal so the best thing to do is kill bad guys. The less bad guys there are the less damage output there is.
4. Most of the time if you have decent characters and use good tactics you will not have to heal in combat.
5. Once again, most of the time does not mean never.
6. Bookmark this thread if you have too.

I'm glad you liked my tower GeraintElberion. Actually, the truth is I got the handle from the Mastodon song "The Last Baron". It's something of a happy coincidence that there's a similarly named Pathfinder module.

Table manners come first, RP issues come second. Worry more about your relations with real people, and less about pretend problems in a pretend world.

I would argue that the other players were the ones being rude. The cleric was there first, and by all accounts was being treated fairly by the party up until the mount arrived.

I agree with TOZ that the simplest solution may be to just move on, but perhaps you could talk to your DM and voice your concerns - but don't approach it in character; your concern is that the other players are ganging up on you, disrespecting your character, and this is making the game less enjoyable.

My general policy as a DM is to resolve intra-party complaints immediately. Things like this can fester and result in the loss of gaming groups.

By the way, this thread should be titled "Beating a Dead Horse"

Steve Geddes wrote:

I personally find it annoying when my clients try and tell me how to do my job better (they're nearly always wrong). If they began with an opening gambit of wishing me violence, I'd be even less inclined to engage with them.

The hell do I care? It's not like they're going to suddenly learn how to do math or care to produce a quality product.

Also, their forum interface is terrible.

Yeah, and their moderation policies are too lenient.

Enchanter Tom wanted to hit Jason Buhlman. Jason Buhlman used Combat Expertise to improve his AC. Enchanter Tom failed.

First: *TWITCH!* sorry, you reffering to Pathfinder as a Table-top MMO just...OUCH MAN!!!

Second: those tables can be printed off as there arent that many. The general rule of thumb I have is, I only need books I will actually reference at the table. All else should be PDF. Unfortunately, that rule of thumb was made AFTER I bought most of my PF books. I was slow to upgrade to the new reality of PDFs rocking.

Gamemastery Guide can be read as a PDF, the few elements that need to be at the gametable can be printed off beforehand.

Note: most of the rest of the books I prefer to have hardcopies. However, there are many that use PDFs exclusively at the table. For me, I need the 'place memory' of the hardcopies.

- Gauss

Sandpoint, Varisia 4712AR:

Earth tremors occasionlly rattled some of the houses in Sandpoint, most usually escaped with minor damage. After a series of particularly strong tremors a knock came at Old Quink's door late at night as he tried to place books and artifacts that had fallen back into their shelves.

"Who's there?", yelled the startled Quink.

At first there was silence, but shortly after a voice responded in a vaguely familiar language. Brodert Quink thought for a while as the knocking became stronger and the yelling became louder.

He finally realized that the voice. A male by the sound of it, was speaking in a highly accented form of Thassalonian. Quink's interest piqued and he gathered the courage to open the door.

With an orb of continuous light in one hand and his other firmly gripping the door handle he slowly opened the door.

He peered through the doorway and standing before him was a disheveled man in his mid-thirties with long dark hair, expressive eyebrows and piercing grey eyes. He wore a long robe of silky red material, highlighted with strange arcane symbols at the edges, some of which he recognized.

"Is this any way to treat a Warmage of the 3rd Legion" intoned the stranger.

"Umm, no...good Sir... where are you from.... and how ca..can I help you?" responded Brodert.

"You can help by telling me what happened to the Hellfire Flume! Did Karzoug's armies destroy it? Why is the Sea of Azlant so close to us? Why are the stars in a strange alignment?" rattled the stranger in rapid succession.

Brodert Quink took in all of this and a strange thought came upon him.
"Sir, where exactly did you just come from? a now inquisitive Brodert asked.

" I came from ruins of the Legion's Hellfire Flume, the last I remember Imlith, may Lissala curse his name, cast a stasis spell to ....to....I am not sure to what. My... memory has faded...perhaps some side effect of the spell..."

Quickly Brodert decided to allow the man inside as his mind raced with thoughts and endless possibilities. It had not occured to him but several years ago a group of adventurers ventured into the Hellfire Flume or the Old Light as it was now called. Brodert was sure it was a device of unimaginable power but was laughed out of Magnimar because of it. Now he may have made the discovery of a lifetime.

"Please Sir, come in. Welcome to my home. You did not give me your name. What is it?" said Brodert

"I am Eldarius of Thassilon, Warmage of Bakrakhan" intoned the stranger.

"I am Brodert Quink, a sage of some renown, I specialize in ancient history, particularly that of Ancient Thassilon, an empire that existed over ten thousand years ago." he let his last few words trail a bit to allow Eldarius time to absorb them.

"What is this nonsense you speak of old man?" said Eldarius.

"Why dont you come into my study and sit by the fire, I believe this will take a while." smiled Brodert.

And so began my seventh PFS Character Eldarius of Thassilon, Warmage of Bakrakhan!

Man, the 3.5 equivalent of this feat had so much less contention. Really, there only needs to be ONE change in the wording this feat to make it clear.

Benefit: The abilities of your animal companion or familiar are calculated as though your class were four levels higher, to a maximum effective druid level of equal to your character level. If you have more than one animal companion or familiar, choose one to receive this benefit.

There we go. See? No confusion if written like this.

A week ago I showed off a proof of concept of a Google Map of the Inner Sea.
I've since "started over and done it right", and it is now available for public perusal.

http://www.mapsofgolarion.com/

Maps of Golarion offers an unofficial interactive Google Map of the Inner Sea, with clickable markers, info windows with a blurb about the location, and additional links to the Pathfinder Wiki or matching products on paizo.com. It currently has about 60 locations defined based on the hardcoded values in the Community Use Inner Sea map. The first data milestone will be to fully mark out all those hardcoded values. After that, I'll be adding any and all other locations that have been mentioned (which will take a loOoOong time), as well as Adventure Path and Module "journeys". There are pie-in-the-sky plans for future functionality like on/off filters and custom user-uploaded locations for your own campaign setting.

It also works and was tested on an iPad, for game table use.

James Sutter wrote:

Don't worry, I'm sure we'll get a paladin protagonist before too long! In the meantime, in addition to the great web story mentioned above, Dave Gross's next novel has a true-believer paladin as one of the supporting characters. I should note as well that she's not a fallen paladin, either, but a happily righteous one. :)

Stay tuned!

Is this more Varian Jeggare and Radovan stuff?

Mr. Sutter, you are an incorrigible tease.

'Tis. And the paladin in question is the supporting character I've grown most fond of in this book. It's a shame what happens.

Wait.. the guy killed Seventy Seven people.... and he can only go to jail for 21 years...

Would some viking pazonian PLEASE explain THAT one?

Unlike him we don't believe in taking the right to kill someone else.

SO!

If you miss the class/race breakdowns... let us know WHAT you miss from them that the new format doesn't do for you.

Particular archetypes and such are not a big deal, but useful little notes like the fact that Illusionists and Enchanters often go to Brevoy and the River Kingdoms to study the First World, or that Brevoy has no major racial prejudice against Half-Orcs, or that there are small communities of Dwarves throughout the River Kingdoms (all found in the Kingmaker PG), or that the swampfolk of Graidmere make a good origin for Barbarians of Ustalav, or that a Magus in Ustalav is likely either a noble or an agent of one of the factions, or the degree of prejudice against Half-Elves present in Ustalav (all found in the Carrion Crown PG), all serve to both inspire character ideas and (perhaps more importantly) to make the settings feel real and alive in a way that's personal. That says something about how individual members of that Class in the area of the AP live, and perhaps which Classes and Races are most appropriate to be natives, and which foreigners, which commonplace and which unusual.

So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that I read them to get a description of the kind of people I'm likely to be playing. Of who lives and works in the area. Of the people involved.

I think, even among those of us who miss the descriptions, that something like that in Skull and Shackles plus some other format than the per-class/race breakdown for describing the people you're likely to be playing might be more than satisfactory.

Pirates have a code just like everyone else, in my estimation if you identify as a pirate and are lawful then you're fine as long as you're adhering to that pirates code

They're more like guidelines, really.

There are two things about this everyone should think about:

1. According to the folks at Paizo, this is the last AP for a while with a lot of subsystems.

2. People (myself included) clearly really like those Class/Race breakdowns, and find their absence upsetting.

So, I think it's likely we'll get those back next AP. Which admittedly doesn't help much with this AP, and doesn't mean we shouldn't speak up (heck, if we didn't maybe we wouldn't get them back), but it's still a comforting fact to me at least.

I don't actually have any experience with 3.x Psionic Power Point systems, but it seems very obvious to me that everybody here isn't so much responding to the OP's question, but responding to the idea that Psionic Power Points itself is being attacked/questioned.

The first post said:

He has decided to house-rule a few things, including the powers Zealous Fury, Vigor, and the special material Deepcrystal, and after bringing us up against our first real Psi-NPC to devastating effect, he has really turned a questioning eye in the direction of psionics.

...do you allow or disallow? If you allow, what material do you use?

That's hardly some black or white, love Psi-Points or hate them, type of question.

He already stated that his GM/group is modifying SOME STUFF from Dreamscarred (Zealous Fury, Vigor, Deepcrystal).
He was trying to poll the community on what they themselves play with, with what specific material is allowed.
This is hardly a topic unique to Psi-Power Points, specific Items/Feats/Spells/Archetypes/etc whether magic or martial, etc, are commonly disallowed for balance or any other reason... Is Dreamscarred really so perfect that they could never publishing something that perhaps could use some minor tweaking?

Many posts here on these boards recognize that ANYTHING in the game is accepted into to the game on a GM by GM basis. But I see very few responses here that can just humbly share their wisdom on the subject... Umbral Reaver seems to be the only one I saw:

It's probably fine with a bit of understanding.

Except for ego whip.

I have no idea if ego whip is truly problematic as written, but that's the sort of thing that seems more constructive to what the OP's looking for... Which is just how to improve his game he's been enjoying so far, not whether or not Psionic Power Points should be damned to hell or elevated to heaven.

The real issue regarding fantasy art work is age discrimination, not race. The only people over 30 years old I see in modern fantasy RPG art work are either elves or evil. The only women I see over 25 are either undead or invisible. There are laws against this kind of discrimination you know!

Ezren.

In there's still time, might you want to add "+6 with 3 or more ranks of Acrobatics" to Total Defense?

Dear Paizo Fans,

First off let me apologize for my long absence from the Internet. I don’t use it for anything beyond work email these days and I am about as far out of the electronic loop as is humanly possible – my own fault, and my undoing on many levels.

I deeply apologize for the debacle that was Sinister Adventures – I can honestly say there has been nothing in my life I regret more than attempting to run my own publishing company. I have done severe damage to my own finances over the past several years, ruined my reputation as a game designer, and transformed a hobby that used to be the most enjoyable part of my life into my own personal mire of misery and shame. But most importantly I have alienated a host of lovely people who love RPGS. I used to take great joy in communicating with my former fans, and felt a growing camaraderie with several of the people who enjoyed my work, or even hated my work, but just downright enjoyed this great hobby. I let those people down, betrayed them, and damaged their enthusiasm for the game, not to mention lost the hard-earned money they entrusted to me through pre-orders.

I dealt with the avalanche of problems Sinister experienced ineptly to say the least. The failure of this company combined with crushing stress from my 90 hour-a-week day job of the last three years shook the foundation of my sense of self. This led to a downward spiral of alcoholism and depression.

My recent move back to Hawaii has restored a great deal of the vitality and psychological well-being I lost over the last few years and I am finally in a place to take serious action against the start-up gaming company that has become my personal nemesis.

I have lost over $15,000 personally on this endeavor through my gross ineptitude as a publisher. I paid for a great deal of top quality art, web design and other start up costs and then as problems arose that siphoned off more funds, I found the company wallowing in destitution. As the problems piled up, I eventually lost any ability to deal with them and kept attempting to tell myself I would “get around to it soon” once I was able to save up more funds and free up more time. I grappled with the idea of bankruptcy, but didn’t want to end up not giving those who trusted me their money back.

Fortunately I have been able to shift some funds around recently and replenish Sinister’s coffers enough to get everyone their money back. To ensure this happens in a timely fashion I will not trust my own dire worthlessness with the task. Instead the heroic Lou is once again stepping up to bat.

Through the invaluable assistance of Louis Agresta – one of the truest friends a man could ask for – I am now in a position to refund all and sundry for their pre-orders to Sinister. Lou has very kindly offered to assist me yet again, this time pooling through my mangled attempts at record keeping to ensure all of you who have not yet been refunded get your money returned.

Lou has posted instructions and details above.

Now allow me to move off my own dire failures as a businessman and human being and move on to a more salient point.

Paizo Publishing is a true gem - A company full of caring individuals who are entirely the opposite of Sinister Adventures. They care deeply about their fans, their authors, and the hobby. From my close contact with them for years, first as a rabid fan and aspiring writer, then as a go-to freelancer, then as a brief employee I have a unique view of the fine people of Paizo inside and out. They are compassionate, professional, creative, enthusiastic, and possessed of a deep well of forgiveness and generosity. They don’t just uphold high standards of how companies should operate – they set the standards as far as I’m concerned.

It hurts me deeply that their remarkable feat of kindness and an attempt to rehabilitate the degenerate hobbyist and writer I have become over the last few years could result in any sort of backlash. These fine upstanding people pour their love, blood and sweat into their company daily.

To those of you hurt by the Sinister fiasco: I implore you to keep the sights of your (righteous) anger focused entirely on me. I will happily give ample opportunity for those of you slighted (or worse) by my mistakes and failures a chance to redress the wrongs you suffered at Sinister (and my) hands. I will gladly listen to your anger, apologize, and try to make amends as best I can at Paizocon. I will attempt to run games for those of you who suffered from Sinister’s flop, languishing in limbo while awaiting news or refunds from me.

I humbly apologize for the long and resounding silence and for thinking I could get things back on the rails.

Thank you for your time and patience. Please follow the instructions and details Lou posted above on how to FINALLY get your money back.

Yours,

Nicolas Logue

Hey there, here is a conversion of B4 The Lost City (Moldvay, Tom. TSR, 1982). Note: This is a re-imagined version, rather than a straight conversion.

Here is the file -> B4 The Lost City [67.75MB]

I recommend you right click the link and select "save as" to get the file; Otherwise, your browser may display a cached version.

Tried to capture the flavor of the original, after finding just how popular the adventure was. I never played it, but having gone deeply into the story, it was a real miss because it was a great concept with lots of hooks for a long term campaign. I had fun trying to re-imagne why the listed creatures were placed where they were. I also got great ideas from the sundry web sites devoted to the module - A lot of folks have trodden this road before me and looks like they had as much fun.

Release Notes: Never enough time to do quality assurance or even play testing; Anyone trying this out, please give feedback. I can come in an correct it every so often as needed. I was going to add pregens but time was getting tight and I wanted to get this posted. If someone else wants to post some pregens, that would be cool. I changed some of the maps (Tier 5 mostly) so that movement between tiers made more sense - the idea came from one of the web sites. I also created some basic bookmarks so navigation is a little easier.

Enjoy!

~D

Other Conversions:

X2 Castle Amber [74.25MB]
A1 Slave Pits of the Undercity [40.00MB]
G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl [23.41MB]
I2 Tomb of the Lizard King [43.75MB]
A Paladin in Hell [67.69MB] - (unfinished)

That said, there is very few countries on this earth who can claim having a clean nose (Norway perhaps?).

That's not what those poor monks at Lindisfarne said.

Well if the question had been:

Is Amelica a logue state?

...

A Logue State? Sounds Sinister.

So I think I have come up with a suitable alternative to awful awful gnomes. When the Advanced Race guide comes out I will recreate kobolds as a core race and then in my game lore of Golarion gnomes did exist at one time but there seperation from the first world drove them mad and they all eventually transformed into spriggans. What do you think?

Lame.

Gnomes are cool.

Having read the description and James's answers in this thread, I'm surprised by how much I don't dislike this book, at least so far.

I never cared much for prestige classes, as in 3.X they seemed to encourage horribly overpowered min-maxing (along with certain feat builds). When Paizo started adding 20th-level capstone abilities to their base classes, and then class archetypes, I was pretty much ready to write off prestige classes for good.

However, I think James is right to tie prestige classes to specific organizations. I've always felt that this helps to better define just what, in-game, a prestige class is actually supposed to represent (take that, dragon disciple!) - what separates it from a core class or an archetype in terms of its identity. Tying them to organizations is a very wise decision, in my opinion.

How would you defend Sandpoint against a horde of 300-400 2nd level Ulfen barbarian raiders led by a party of 7th-8th level PCs?

I would write an adventure in which the PCs learn about the threat a few weeks ahead of time, and have to delve into the hidden, ancient chambers below the Old Light to find a way to reactivate it as a Hellfire Flume that they could use to destroy the invading Ulfens!

I always thought that it was:

"To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women."

I understand when people get older it ends up involving things like "Hot water, good dentishtry and shoft lavatory paper."

H'okay, Azlant. As far as the defunct civilizations of Golarion go, we've probably been given the most information, but it's scattered around various sources, and in nowhere are we given a clear picture what life was like or a clear extent of the empire.
So on that note, this is my attempt to congeal useful and interesting factoids on Azlant and the Azlanti, and provide sources, since the PathfinderWiki is more than a bit outdated and incomplete on the matter. From this, I hope to be able to make non-canonical but logical extensions, hypotheses, and perhaps even a supposition or two. Spoilers, to about the level of actually reading the campaign setting books, exist below, along with more specific spoilers for the Serpent’s Skull adventure path.

The Azlanti People
—Physically tended towards dark, slightly receded hair (red, brown, black), olive to pale skin, and odd eye colors, including violet. (HG, ISWG, PCCS)
—Favored colors in clothing included crimson and deep green. (ISWG, PCCS)
—Names often started with vowels, and did not use surnames. (ISWG, PCCS)
—Once the majority human ethnicity by population. (ISWG, PCCS)
—Thassilonians, their civilization an offshoot of Azlant, were ethnically Azlanti (James Jacobs)
—Those Azlanti fleeing the Earthfall intermarried with local human tribes in Avistan, forming the Chelaxian and Taldan ethnicities. They also fled to the southern coast of Avistan and the northern coast of Garund. (HG)
—No pure High Azlanti remain; some Chelaxians and Taldans with seemingly-Azlanti physical features sometimes take up the known trappings of the Azlanti and call themselves such. (HG, ISWG, PCCS)
—Aroden, due to his agelessness brought on by deific ascension, was considered “The Last (pureblooded) Azlanti” (HG, ISWG, PCCS)
—Other Azlanti-descended peoples include the aquatic Gillmen (a.k.a. “The Low Azlanti”), and the dark folk, mongrelmen, and morlocks descended from those who fled into the Darklands. Skum were originally created from Azlanti humans. (ID, ISWG, PCCS)

Azlanti Culture/Relations
—Kept slaves. (ISWG, PCCS)
—Looked down on nonhumans. (PCCS)
—Warred with the elves. (PCCS)
—Fought with the Serpentfolk, exterminating them from the surface of Golarion, and driving them back to Sekamina. (ID, ISWG, SSA)
—The Azlanti hero Savith personally slew the avatar of the serpentfolk deity of Ydersius in the Darklands city of Ilmurea, but died in the attempt. The city of Saventh-Yhi was founded in her honor above the site of Ilmurea to guard against further Serpentfolk incursions. (ID, SSA)
—Taught/mentored by the aboleth, who eventually became prideful; the aboleth responded pre-emptively by performing a Colony Drop on Golarion, thus creating Eathfall. (HG, ISWG, PCCS)
—High Azlanti mages were haughty, and generally avoided getting their hands dirty/directly touching things if possible. (CP09, FSS)

Azlanti Architecture
—Includes cupolas, interlaced designs (ISWG)
—Includes marble columns, and the Pleasure Salon of Calistria in the columned style of classic Azlanti temples. (GA)
—Favored circular and square layouts, often nested or inscribed within one another. (CP09, FSS)
—Azlanti architecture on Garund incorporated stepped stones ziggurats. (SSAP)
—Included self-opening doors in some sites. (CP09, FSS)
—Inspired much of the architecture in Absalom and Andoran; the former’s Azlanti Era of architecture was largely designed by Aroden himself. (GA, ISWG, PCCS).
—The architecture of Ilvarandin, while a hodge-podge, contains some Azlanti elements. (ID)

The Azlanti Language
—Some to much of the actual language has been lost, though there’s enough for scholars to translate from, and it remains something of a liturgical language. (ISWG, PCCS)
—High Chelaxian Opera features librettos in Azlanti. (PCCS)
—The Mordant Spire elves are probably the last society to fluently speak Azlanti. (ISWG, PCCS)
—One of the most-spoken languages of its day, and influenced such languages as Hallit, Polyglot, Taldane (Common), and Varisian. (ISWG, PCCS)
—Absalom’s motto “Ex Prothex” (“From the First”) is Azlanti. (GA)
— Saventh-Yhi = “Savith’s Grave” (SSA)

Azlanti Magic/Studies/Technology
—Ioun stones were originally Azlanti, though the Thassilonians and the Pathfinder Society would later study and advance them. (CP09, SS)
—The Azlanti were obsessed with orbits (including those of celestial bodies), and not only made orreries and models of the Dark Tapestry, but entire floating buildings revolving around a central point. (CP09, FSS)
—Certain High Azlanti forewent traditional books for auto-levitating copper-leafed codices. (CP09, FSS)
—Some Azlanti magic items were in the form of metallic plates that when activated, would disassemble themselves and reposition themselves on or floating around a person, as if an article of jewelry or clothing. (FSS)
—Most Azlanti sites bear auras of extensive preservative magics, often reducing 10,000+ years of wear down to the equivalent of a few thousand. (ISWG, SSAP)
—The Azlanti possessed advanced knowledge of optics and lenses. (CP09, FSS, ISWG, LCG)
—Under the aboleths, the Azlanti developed “unparalleled art, philosophy, and science” in addition to magic. (ISWG)
—Entrapped/imprisoned/cultivated will-o’-wisps for lighting “like tulips” in glass cylinders. (CP09, FSS, LCG)

Known Azlanti Sites/Ruins
—Most Azlanti colonies were on the borders of the Inner Sea, and generally fall into three categories: the literal foundations for modern cities, ruined/little historical significance, or undiscovered and presumably valuable. (PCCS)
—What’s left of the continent of Azlant is a continent-sized archipelago of hazardous tors, mountains, reefs, and towers, jutting up from the Arcadian Ocean, and patrolled by the Mordant Spire Elves. (ISWG, PCCS).
—Escadar on the Isle of Kortos was built on an older Azlanti site, and houses an embassy for the gillmen. (GA)
—The Sightless Sea, the largest Orvian vault of the Darklands and one of the largest holds of the aboleth, is more or less directly underneath the continent of Azlant. (ID)
—Saventh-Yhi (“Savith’s Grave”) was an inland colony in the Mwangi on Garund, above the site of the serpentfolk city of Ilmurea, and survived Earthfall. (SSA)
—The Sun Temple Colony was a semi-recent attempt by Andoran to establish a colony on the ruined continent of Azlant itself. It Got Worse™. (ISWG, LCG, PCCS)

Azlanti Religion
—The Azlanti often had seemingly bizarre interpretations of the gods, by modern standards. (CP09, SSAP)
—Abadar was seen as a god of cities and wealth moreso than a deity of law. (SSAP)
—Acavna was a goddess of battle and the moon, who vanished/died shortly before Earthfall. (SSAP)
—Achaekek was seen as a god of monsters and natural disasters than as a god of assassinations. (SSAP)
—Amaznen was a pre-Nethys(?) god of magic, whose worship (and name!) was forbidden in Thassilon; he perished during Earthfall. (SSAP)
—Curchanus, a deity of travel, beasts, and endurance and mentor to Desna, survived Earthfall to be slain by Lamashtu. (GM, SSAP)
—Desna was seen primarily as a goddess of the stars/astronomy. (SSAP)
—Groetus was a late addition to the pantheon, added close to Earthfall. (SSAP)
—The demon lord Nurgal was considered the “vengeful aspect” of the sun, and placated. (LCG, SSAP)
—Pharasma was seen as a patron of prophecy moreso than as judge of the dead. (SSAP)
—Shelyn was seen as the muse and patron of the arts, and not of beauty. (SSAP)
—The demon lord Zura was originally an Azlanti queen whose thirst for immortality led to her dark ascension. Cults of Zura were infiltrating Azlant at the time of Earthfall, and might have undermined the civilization had Earthfall not happened. (LC, SSAP)

Sources
CP09: Chronicles: Pathfinder podcast #9, with Brandon Hodge
FSS: From Shore to Sea
GA: Guide to Absalom
GM: Gods and Magic
HG: Humans of Golarion
ID: Into the Darklands
ISWG: Inner Sea World Guide
James Jacobs: The word of the Creative Dinosaur himself, i.e. from a Paizo website or forum post.
LC: Book of the Damned vol. 2: Lords of Chaos
LCG: Lost Cities of Golarion
PCCS: Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting
SSAP: Serpent’s Skull Adventure Path
SS: Seekers of Secrets

mark: I'm laughing

mark: you just can't hear it through the typing

robot chris: I don't trust you

mark: how can you not trust this face?

gary: yoda8myface

cs erik: We Be Goblins Part Two: Squeely Nord's Revenge

It's the room with the monster and the treasure in it.

The Adventure Path product is one of our flagship lines. What does that mean? Among other things... it means that it makes us a HECK of a lot of money. Furthermore, it's the reason why Paizo exists today as a game company at all and not just, say, a game-focused web store. When we lost the license for Dragon and Dungeon, it was pretty much the success (and subscription and sales income) of Pathfinder that kept things afloat long enough for us to not only get Golarion off the ground... but to get the Pathfinder RPG off the ground. Furhtermore... back when we started Shackled City, Dungeon magazine was in dire condition—it was hemorrhaging subscribers and we were trying all sorts of things to get folks to keep subscribing and to even BUILD the subscriptions. Folks will doubtless remember numerous "stunts" we pulled with Dungeon back around issues 92–100—some of the bigger ones included bundling Polyhedron with the magazine, putting "subscriber only" content into the magazine, and going monthly with the magazine. Starting a series of linked adventures was one of those "stunts."

I've probably worked on Adventure Paths longer than anyone else in the industry today—I was brought on by Chris early on to write the second installment of Shackled City, and by the time the third installment was being published I'd been hired as an assistant editor for Dungeon. I've been working on Adventure Paths ever since, and during that time I've seen them work magic. They're the reason Dungeon not only kept going, but saw a dramatic INCREASE in subscription numbers. They win awards. And as mentioned above, they're the reason Paizo exists today.

During the last 10 years or so of Adventure Paths, we have indeed listened to feedback and tried new things with them. With each AP, I like to think we get a little closer to perfection... but I also believe that the "perfect" AP is a moving target you can never quite reach. So we DO keep making changes to the format... but those changes are, nowadays, relatively small. Things like adding an NPC index and magic item appendix like we did with Jade Regent.

And the idea that we don't take risks or try out strange adventures in an AP is, frankly, ridiculous. We've published adventures where the heroes have to star in a play, where they have to take part in a trial, where they wash ashore on a hostile island with very few resources, where they have to disguise themselves as drow and invade an evil society, where they get to use wishes over and over and over, where they lead armies, where the villains were deep into the "vile darkness territory," and where they need to build and run their own kingdoms. And we'll keep testing boundaries and limits with the APs. Coming up we've got things like naval battles, adventures that start the PCs out with NO equipment, true sequals to previous APs, and plenty more "risks and innovations" planned for the future for APs that I'm not yet at liberty to speak about.

Honestly, if I had to pick one thing that WON'T be going away from Paizo's book lines, that would be the Adventure Path line. As long as Paizo's around, our Adventure Paths will be around.

And to speak directly to the recent announcement from WotC... I personally think it would be the HEIGHT of foolishness for us to abandon the product line that's kept us afloat, helped define the company, and remains the flagship line at any time... but especially as a knee-jerk reaction to ANY announcement from ANY company.

I'm always eager to hear suggestions on how to change or add to or enhance the AP (with the caveat that I've seen a LOT of things tried with them over the past decade, and many suggestions aren't as viable as some folks think they might be)... but ending the line? Not gonna happen.

Sebastian wrote:

I'd prefer my rpg's to be free of political axe-grinding, no matter the flavor. The Crimson Throne relationships are good stories and don't stick out like a sore thumb. "Let's make a gay paladin and good doctor that provides abortions" and "one or more of the iconics is gay" strikes me as intentionally sticking the same sore thumb in the collective eye of people who are bothered by those ideas. Does Paizo really need to take a stand on these issue? What's next? Militant vegan iconics? Anti-union iconics? Does one iconic support the closing of the Chilexian border?

I could really do without yet another media outlet sneaking in their unrelated editorial bias. For what it's worth, I'm generally inclined to agree with the Paizo editorial bias, but that's not really the relevant question. The question is whether Paizo is serving the story or their political ideology. If it's the former, I'm groovy (I'm looking at you Crimson Throne), if it's the later, I'm a little disgusted (a gay iconic). Just as I would encourage my fellow posters to air their political views in the appropriate forums or threads, so too would I encourage my friends at Paizo with regards to their beliefs. I don't give a rat's ass what the sexual preferences of the iconics are in a vacuum - if you've got a story to tell and it involves those issues, I'll listen, but I can do without the pithy political soundbite and attempts to beat people with an unwelcome ideology, regardless of whether its my ideology or not.

Sebastian,

Thank you for wrapping up all my thoughts in that paragraph. After reading many of the posts of the Paizo staff I believe its the later.

I'm not certain why having a gay iconic would be any more disgusting than having an African (or at least Mwangi) iconic (Seelah), a renegade suffragette from a patriarchal culture (Amiri), or a runaway slave from an enslaved race (Lem). Certainly it could be boring to read long speeches from Seelah about the repression of the Mwangi people by colonial powers, exhaustive feminist tirades from Amiri about the evils of the patriarchy, and endless recitals of whatever the Cheliaxian analogues are for "John Brown's Body" and "Uncle Tom's Cabin" from Lem (though to be fair, I would love to see the Cheliaxian's faces at a production of the later, especially when Simon Le Gris is swallowed up by the river and Little Eva is taken up into Heaven).

Certainly gay rights is at the forefront of current day political dialogue, at least in the United States--it's already been pretty much settled everywhere else in the Western world, or at least in Canada, most of Europe, and I don't have time to look up the list. The Civil Rights movement was before that, at least in the US. Women's Suffrage before that. Before that the abolition of slavery. You get the general picture.

But rather than looking at the US, look at another modern wealthy nation like, say, Saudi Arabia where women still don't have the right to vote. Sure, they've been promised it--in 2015--but imagine running Amiri's bio sheet across the desk of some member of the Saudi religious police. Might he be offended at the sight of this unveiled woman in midriff-baring armor wielding a giant broadsword with an axe to grind and then some about women's rights?

I'm certain he'd be able to cite the relevant passages of the Koran as to why midriff-baring armor is taboo and related centuries of precedent as to why women voting isn't a great idea either. Most people reading this would write him off as a prudish repressive old coot who needs to get with the 21st century rather than hide behind one or two lines in an antiquated holy book. Women have voted in other countries for generations and the world hasn't ended yet. Similarly bikinis have failed to end it as well.

Move across the Atlantic to the US and imagine if, for example, in some new book, there was some brief scene with the iconics where it was revealed that Sajan was gay, Valeros was bi, Seoni was unconcerned with this revelation, and Merisiel was only upset that she hadn't been invited to watch--not that this stopped her--and it was a pity that Sajan didn't like girls because those Kama Sutra positions had looked really hot.

Could there be any objections to this beyond a line or two in an antiquated holy book and failure to get with the 21st century? I'm not talking about a scene with long pontificating about equal rights, just a bit of candid banter between old friends about sexual encounters and pairings that had happened off-stage, with this relevant in some way to the rules mechanics in the next section, like for example Sajan needing a catamite to charge up his kundalini to deal with the BBEG.

Also, if Merisiel became Sajan's new best friend, would she count as a hag for purposes completing a witch's coven?

The idea that Tolkien wasn't a great writer is ludicrous. He was one of the great stylists of the 20th century. Unlike most of the fantasists before (and after) he cared deeply about crafting great sentences, and great paragraphs, and great stories within the larger epic. Read the lengthy treatments of his writing process that are available and you'll see that this was a man who cared about his art. That's one.

Equally important is the fact that, unlike most fantasists before or since, he cared deeply about the psychology and inner lives of his characters. LOTR isn't "sword and sorcery" fantasy and it's also not a traditional epic. In both of those forms, the characters often have very little depth. Tolkien's characters feel profoundly. They suffer, they rejoice, they doubt.

Which brings me to the most profound way that he towers above almost all the writers you guys have mentioned: Most fantasists are creating escapist adventure. We love the idea of being the killer-swordsman or the bad-ass wizard or the sick-style ninja, because it's just cool.

Tolkien's characters you would NEVER want to be. They are absolutely wrecked by what they experience. Frodo Baggins is scarred profoundly for the rest of his life. The innocence of the Shire is permanently tainted. The power of the elves is shattered.

To tell that story, you have to be a great story-teller, but you also have to know how to string powerful words together. Tolkien did that better than all but a handful of other writers.

Marsh

I hope there's an Invisible Stalker pawn, using the artwork from 2E MM.

Benefit: The abilities of your animal companion or familiar are calculated as though your class were four levels higher, to a maximum effective druid level of equal to your character level. If you have more than one animal companion or familiar, choose one to receive this benefit.

This would make it clearer. And yes, you can take the feat if you're a single-classed ranger. It's actually pretty sweet deal.

Currently we don't have a place to post FAQ/update material for books other than the Pathfinder RPG hardcovers, so I can't attach this to a permanent FAQ, but consider this an official ruling on this question.

I think a good sequel should have some of the following:

- Familiar places. Sandpoint should be important in at least one adventure. Revisiting some of the old dungeons could be very interesting. I think Thistletop would make a good low level dungeon to revisit, or an interesting high level lair of a dragon or something.

- Familiar faces. Ameiko, Shalelu and the others should appear or at least be mentioned. Some of the old enemies should appear again. Maybe one of Nualia's party, the Skinsaw men, an ogrekin, a lamia and, of course, giants.

- Similar themes. I think the original AP is more about fighting giants than fighting Runelords (though I haven't read all the adventures yet). Yeah, Mr. K. is the power behind everything, but the players spend a lot of their time fighting giants and defending themselves against the giant army. I think a Runelord should be in the sequel, but I'll do it more 'Against the Giants' oriented.

- Different places. At least one arc of the AP should be in a new and unexpected environment. Maybe, a lost island with underwater encounters, lost ships, and pirates. Others should be expected but new: fortresses, Thassilonian catacombs, etc.

- Different faces. Some changes should be made in towns and cities, so the players can feel the time has passed. Some old characters are dead, some young are now mature, some shops closed and new ones opened, some event changed a lot of things, etc.

- Mystery: because it's an important part of the first AP, but also because players now know a lot about the Runelords, the Sihedron Rune, etc. I think the events of the first campaign should be completely known to the new characters, so they can talk and role-play without the fear of metagaming. And you can use that knowledge against them: if they discover a dungeon with the seven pointed star, they will know that's important to the adventure, they will know that it will probably be dangerous and they will feel rewarded for their knowledge and participation on the previous events.

I think that a sequel should play against the player's expectations. They will surely think that a sequel will have to do with another Runelord, that Sandpoint will be the starting friendly town, that the sihedron rune will mean problems, that all sexy women will probably be lamias in disguise, and that sooner or later they will face giants. I think the best course of action would be to deliver some of their expectations but in ways that they will never expect them.

What if Sandpoint is not the friendly town they remember, but a decadent small city hat grew a lot thanks to the Cathedral and now is full of crime and untrustworthy people? What if the sihedron rune is now the adopted symbol of a new organization? What if the lamias are now their allies? (Amiko, the Lamia Matriarch renegade? :O) and what if this time the giants are a neutral faction that could go to war or remain in peace depending on the PC's actions.

Also, I wouldn't use another Runelord as a main villain. It's what everyone expects, but I think that would be too predictable. I would probably use some of the other Runelords, but not as villains but as faction leaders trying to acquire power but also tangled in a great mystery that plagues the region.

As a main villain, I would like a giant warlord, maybe an ancient ogre-mage who worked for Karzoug, or a frost giant jarl that wants to use some Thassilonian doomsday machine to create a frozen realm. Or... a mysterious mage-slayer who's great purpose is to kill all the Runelords and steal their powers.

Lastly, as a low level introductory adventure, I think a great start should be Chopper's Isle, because that was an interesting plot that never got explored in the original AP and would make the players think that all that time it was in reality a preview for the sequel.

Hope this ideas help you!

Rhada.

In my own campaign, I can only tell that a PC is overpowered when he seems way more effective than the other PCs.

That's the best way to tell!

I'd say that something is overpowered when it causes the player or their party members to have less fun than if that thing were weaker.

Bickering over anecdotal GMs is stupid. Both sides upthread have extrapolated disastrous consequences that I haven't seen result from these styles in my own game. Therefore, the conclusions you're reaching are not necessarily a product of the rules, but rather of x-factors like player/GM personality.

If you want to sidestep all of those discussions about whether a GM can/should be authoritarian, I suggest this rule:

Game with people you would enjoy spending an evening with even if there was no gaming going on.

This one important idea is often overlooked because people are sometimes unable to find a group and they want to play. That's an unfortunate state of affairs.

However, if we look at the upthread disagreement as to the role of the GM, and many other reigning disagreements on the forums, they are all solved by observing this guideline.

Some people enjoy hashing out details with their friends, in a competitive/aggressive manner. These people are likely to enjoy the game, even during conversations that some other groups might dread or consider to be "derailing" the game.

Some groups are completely comfortable handing dictatorial powers over to the GM. Some are not, and would walk out on that behavior.

But if you have a game group that act like friends because they are friends, who care about each-other's emotional well-being, you will be able to work through your differences easily enough.

I have to go along with Pyongyang on this one. If they don't put a stop to this now then next year the South will have its tree up before Thanksgiving.

I am so very confused.

I am new to Pathfinder, and all this has me completely confused.

BATTY BAT?
RAGELANCEPOUNCE?
AM Barbarian?

Where did this start originally?

What does all of this even mean? I can't follow any of this.

Someone please help a newb out?

-Von

I'll help. Several threads ago. Yes, threads, who's telling the story?

Some people decided that full casters, specially wizards, were the most powerfull classes in the game and capable of singlehandedly defeating anything. While the powerful part we can all agree on, the part about being indefeatable hinges on what is called a 'schroedingers caster' wjo always has the right spells for the occasion including several already on. Several posters countered with martial builds and ideas to prove that other classes CAN be pretty powerful too and that casters aren't invincible. The most sucessfful by far is Trinam, who uses the idea of a mounted barbarian using a lance and with barbarian powers to give him good saves (Superstitous) and pouncing (Beast Totem tree). With a fast enough mount and good enough perception, he could find a caster from far enough away the caster can't see him yet, charge in the surprise round and deal a full attack (pounce), each attack dealing x4 damage(mounted lance charge), meaning he can kill almost anything in one round. And he did this using an alias (AM BARBARIAN) that always speaks in all caps with funny grammar. That is the basic of AM BARBARIAN and RAGELANCEPOUNCE. Note the capitals.
BATTY BAT is AMs mount. Originally a horse transfigured into a bat, several casters (casties or casty as AM says) started targeting the mount. So AM BARBARIAN got the Leadership talent and used it to get a Synthesist Summoner as a cohort. The sinthesist now turns into a giant bat with great saves, an enormous fly speed and enough perception to spot a caster from several miles away.
Nowadays the trend has revesed, instead of martial builds trying to defeat Schroedingers caster, it's the caster that are trying to come up with a plan to defeat AM BARBARIAN. That is what this thread is about.
That and creating AM BARBARIAN memes. Between Trinams constant succes in vexing caster defendants, AM BARBARIANs hilarious way of talking and his sheer awesomeness and badassery, many other AM CLASS aliases have been created, all speaking all caps with the same signature grammar (mostly) and most also having an unnatural hate of full-casters. I'm myself am AM INQUISITOR. Several AM BARBARIAN facts have also been invented, like 'AM BARBARIAN can sunder death' and 'sending AM BARBARIAN to another plane just means he will kill theyr casters until they give him the ability to plane shift at will'.
I think this covers all the basics. Also, this is, on both sides, an exercise on bending the rules as far as they can. No builds shown here would be acceptable in actual play.
Hope it helps.

This thread went well.

I have to say, the companions don't speak to me that much. I get them, I leaf through them, then that's about it. Sometimes my players ask to borrow one relevant to them but I often find they didn't read it afterwards.

To me, they just don't give you much good actionable player information. The Cheliax book was a good example. It was mainly stuff you already knew if you had read any other relevant materials, and didn't really give much good specific grist to players for their PCs. It tended to say over and over again in many different ways "You like slavery!" and "Asmodeus, at least kinda!" But in terms of "I want to make a character who has more Chelaxian about him that those 2-3 major traits," or even "as a GM I want to run an adventure set in Cheliax, what makes things look/feel different from everywhere else?" (again, besides Asmodeus and slaves). Perform this exercise - go through a PC and cross out every sentence that does not add something new (is a restatement of something already said, or is blazingly obvious and doesn't need to be said) or isn't really useful to a player and see what you have left. Much of that is really more GM-focused than PC-focused.

They are also not written in an engaging tone, by and large. I would think the point of a 32 pg players guide is to be extremely gripping; to fire people's imagination with ideas and images and not just be a fake textbook. More Vornheim and less Britannica. Maybe use some fiction; I got a lot more gameable fluff out of 32 pages of Prince of Wolves setting-wise than the 32-page Cheliax book despite it being "for reference".

I can say empirically, having owned a cat, yes.

That's fine my perfectly good analysis won't be noticed because it's the last post on the first page.

I like the irony that WotC and Paizo prefer that the PC be good aligned, but they have a ****load more options for Evil characters... Most worlds/campaign settings seems to be overun by evil outsiders, where are the good ones?

Without having tried the new stats* i think that this version will be quite an easy battle for the average half optimised party, and a mop for the floor for my players but then again after playing (as a player) through Kingmaker i realized that Paizo APs sometimes tend to be quite easy and need to be beefed up for our group.

Remember as well that she's not intended to be the only fight the PCs have that day. And that we don't build our adventures assuming highly-experienced players—if you've been gaming with the same group for a long time, they'll just be better at the game than the average party. We don't assume that.

PS. About Naulia, if you don't make her 6th level (and have her cleric 5/divine scion 1) and keep her 5th level with fighter 2/cleric 3 please switch the fighter levels to antipaladin levels and drop that damn bastard sword for a falchion (which is lamastu's favored weapon irrc).

I'm really REALLY trying not to change actual class levels around all that much. In many cases, due to the fact that NPCs are -1 CR in Pathfinder, NPCs do get one more character level in order to maintain the CRs from the conversion... but completely rebuilding a character's levels from the ground up isn't something I'll be doing much of at all.

In Nualia's case...

You could silence a thrown weapon and then throw that. Just remember the enemy could throw it back.

Or run away with it, sell it, and spend that money on moon pies and penny whistles.

Ma' mah sat on me when ay waz an egg, afta poop'n me oot. Sha kept ma all warm wit her hairy buns.
Blarg finds a bucket and some worm padding. Old shirts, rag or whatever. He makes a cozy nest for Gerblat and starts a'sitting on the bucket, keeping him warm.
Bralg's ah mommy now! he smile a big toothy grin.

Hush li'l eggy, dont say a work
Blarg gona sit on'ya, just like that bird
An since dat bird dont sing, Blarg gona keep da magic ring
An if this bucket hurts my ass, Blarg gona drink wiskey from a glass
An if dat glass run dry, Blarg gona poke some'on in da eye
An if dat eye pop outa da head, din dat creature's gona be dead
An if dat dead un' come back to life, Blarg gona run for his life
An if Blarg run far far away, ay leave ya hear, too bad fur you, la la la

Freehold DM wrote:

The only reason I look at feminism askance is because I have found in practice(not theory) that, due to human failings, some people always end up being more equal than others.

And that few feminists care about equality for both genders not just more for theirs at any cost....

Yes, poor men. We are so abused and oopressed. Why, maybe in our lifetime, there will be a male President. Or 43 of them. One after the other.

What I mean is playing the victim is NEVER EVER empowering. If a fictional idealized character makes you feel insecure then you need to look within for the souce of your troubles. Its just plain misandry to blame men for liking the female form. And for the record I don't see PETA on here complaining about the fictional enslavement of familiars. Maybe because they have REAL animals being abused? That and people would think they were mental...

Society should really stop making women into victims, then.

Nobody here is harping that women can be hot. I'm a straight dude. I'm all for hot women.

The problem is when it becomes exploitative. Cheesecake is often exploitative.

See here's the thing - how women are presented in media is absolutely important. Absolutely important. As a dude, I'm not surrounded by pictures of other men who are stunningly attractive. I've never felt like I had to match Brad Pitt. And what's more, the images of other people "similar" to me are all very powerful ones. I mean, I'm a white male. Do you have any idea how many role models I have access to? I don't, because I stopped counting! If I want images of sexy dudes, done. Easy. No problem. If I want images of rugged dudes, done. Ugly dudes. Men in armor. Men without armor. Ugly or sexy guys in or without armor. Any of the above carrying any sort of weapon that could ever be used, I have that.

If I was an asian woman making a character modeled after myself and wanted to be wearing heavy armor and wielding a two handed sword? I'm pretty much SOL. Maybe one or two pictures from L5R. There's the one picture where this badass warrior woman is covered in blood and holding an axe, that's pretty awesome. I need to really, really like that picture though, because that's about all there is.

But I can be a sexy sorceress. Or a sexy cleric. There's a few different types of sexy warrior, most of them not really wearing armor. White Male Cirno can be a battle scarred and brooding barbarian, White Female Cirno can be a topless thin barbarian girl who barely holds her sword.

And god help me if I'm Native American. I better like racial stereotypes a whole lot.

So yeah, images matter. A lot. I haven't even touched on the differences in growing up surrounded by different images and I've hopefully already pushed that images matter a whole lot.