Guy Humual's page

I am convinced that this is the greatest show on television.

Discuss:

The Boxed set arrived last Friday and by 3am Monday morning I'd read the entire set. The first two books were amazing but I didn't quite like the third one as much but over all I'd recommend the series. Sad, poignant, and yet at times amazingly funny. Honestly I hadn't heard of these books till the movie was announced but anything that can attract Donald Sutherland has to be good right? Comments questions? Let's put any plot elements in spoilers though.

Could we swap out the animate dead spell out of the Oracle of Bone's bonus mystery spell list in favor of something else?

Animate dead seems like a whole bag of unpleasantness for PFS play. First of all it's a permanent spell (which I know ends with the session and cannot carry over to the next session, but seeing as item creation feats and crafting items are forbidden) why allow spells that have a permanent duration for PCs? It would save a lot of time and trouble to just ban permanent spells from PFS altogether.

Second, without starting a whole new alignment debate, it's an evil spell and that in of itself is bound to cause controversy with GMs and players alike. Could we just avoid the entire debate by switching the spell for something else? Maybe a spell from UM or UC, or even a summon spell that summons undead instead of creating them?

I'm sorry if this has been covered elsewhere, but I did do a search on this topic but didn't find anything definitive.

Hey good people at Customer Service,

I just placed an order: # 1890032 and I was wondering if you could include my copy of Wayfinder #5 with that order?

Joey

Dies at age 92
So long you old grump.

So with the rise in the popularity of characters comes the greater chance that someone will try to copy said character and bring them into a RPG game. How soon before we start seeing Count Varian Jeggare and Radovan clones in appearing in our games? Or has it already happened? Share your story or tell me about your builds. I'm sure Dave Gross will be very interested ;)

Official leader of the opposition Jack Layton dies at the age of 61.

So I was thinking about this the other day, the sword cane is essentially a sword hidden inside a cane, yet the cane itself could be used as a club (which Ezren, the wizard iconic, does). The only real use for the sword cane appears to sneaking it into places disguised as a cane but when you look at their stats:

One-Handed Melee Weapons
Martial Weapon .Cost . .Dmg (S) Dmg (M) Critical . Range .Weight . Type
Sword cane . . . .45 gp . .1d4 . . .1d6 . . . . ×2 . . . . . — . . .4 lbs . . . .P

Vs.

One-Handed Melee Weapons
Simple Weapons Cost . .Dmg (S) Dmg (M) Critical .Range .Weight .Type
Club . . . . . . . . . . — . . . 1d4 . . . 1d6 . . . . . ×2 . . . 10 ft. . 3 lbs. . . . B

It seems that the difference between the two weapons, besides the bludgeoning vs slashing bit, is that the club is cheaper, lighter, and can be thrown. Also as a simple weapon instead of a martial weapon it's probably easier to use. Basically the club is the superior weapon in every way. Quite frankly the sword cane a seems like a devolution. Why go to the trouble of tying to sneak in a sword cane somewhere when a basic club is the superior weapon?

What I would like to see is the sword cane have a 19-20 threat range and usable with weapon finesse. As is the sword cane is a terrible weapon, a joke of a martial weapon, and should only be used by characters as flavor or for story reasons.

Please excuse the dots, I needed to find someway to make that chart work.

I'm not sure how much interest there would be but it might be cool to have a place to discuss published articles or even pitch ideas. Just a thought.

No mention of Guy Humual's short fiction? Or Arron Miller's art?

Oh well

I guess everyone else's stuff was worth plugging

I received a shipment notice for PF 28 today. Looking through my emails I see that I got a shipment notice for 26 on the 9/14/2009. Between then and now all I've received is a request for me to update my shipping information which I promptly did. It is possible that I deleted the shipment notice but I don't have a copy of PF 27 in my collection. Can you check your records and see if I was sent a copy of PF 27?

Star of stage, film and television, Edward Woodward, has died yesterday of Pneumonia. Woodward was best known as the star of the original Wicker man, the Australian TV series Callan, and the American TV series The Equalizer, but he was also a singer and a Shakespearean actor. He was highly respected and regarded. He will be missed.

I know there was a some problem with my credit card earlier this month (new expiry date) but I haven't seen notice that my copy of Pathfinder 25 has been mailed yet. I see that I do have a PDF in my downloads section and that's not normally made available till after my shipment notice but that document isn't in my in box.

Could someone check and ensure that Pathfinder 25 has been mailed out to me? Thank you.

Actor Les Lye, famous for his character Barth on Nickelodeon's You Can't Do That On Television, has passed away last Tuesday. I loved that show as a kid. Les Lye was a huge talent. He will be missed.

Link

It turns out that for this open call there are no winners only losers. I was one of them. Also no feedback . . . which was really my only reason for submitting.

So, seeing as Paizo won't be accepting or critiquing my submission I'd like to post it here . . . in this thread. Can anyone tell me if this is acceptable?

Got news about upcoming JA releases?

Want to share stories or memories from the JA franchise?

Got tactics or bugs?

Want to talk about your favorite mercenary?

This is the place to talk about Jagged Alliance.

I'm surprised no one is talking about this game. Fallout 1 and 2 were great post apocalyptic rpgs and although black isle went under, Beathesda (maker of the elder scrolls games) has taken over I'm extremely optimistic. Check out the tubes for various trailers.

I'm excited . . . what about you?

One of the things I’ve always hated about D&D is the fragility of the characters, low level PCs drop with a goblin’s confirmed critical, and high level PCs sometimes roll poorly in save or die situations. Some players probably enjoy this, they love building a new PC and trying them out, but I for one hate it. I also love building characters, but I generally go past the stats and spend some serious time building backgrounds and character motivation, and having a PC sliced down with a lucky (or unlucky) roll doesn’t sit well with me. I’ve noticed that Pathfinder (as well as 4th) has attempted to rectify low level survivability by giving PCs more hit points – I don’t much care for this solution. A first level character should be somewhat fragile, if you can’t be intimidated by a great axe at this level when’s it going to happen? What I’d like to see is PCs become more resilient to dying rather than more resilient to damage. Here’s some of the ideas I’ve been kicking around:

-10 is out, PCs can survive to –Con

Constitution determines how tough you are, so why is it that when a PC is knocked to the negatives the gnarled old dwarf dies as quickly as the asthmatic wood elf? Death’s door should be determined by the character’s constitution score wouldn’t you think? PCs can now survive to –CON before dying.

New Condition: Dying
1)-10 dead is gone. PCs now can survive up to –CON before dying.
2)The disabled condition now extends from 0 to –CON
3)After –CON PCs are dying loosing 1 HP a round until they have taken additional damage equal to CON bonus x Level. At this point the PC is dead.
4)Magical healing or use of the heal skill will stop the PC from losing any more HP but does not remove the dying condition. A PC must be healed back to positive HP before the dying condition is removed.
5)PCs do not heal normally while dying. Other characters may attempt to use the heal skill once per day to revive the fallen PC if magical healing is unavailable. The DC is equal to the total negative damage and the PC is healed 1 HP + the amount the check was exceeded by.
6)Massive damage rules and save Vs death now gives the dying status rather killing PCs outright. On a failed save the PC is immediately dropped to –CON -1, or simply apply the damage taken (which ever drops the PC lower). If this is enough damage to kill the PC outright then the PC is dead.

This change would make the PCs much harder to kill. An eighth level dwarven fighter with a 16 Con and 91 hit points could fight as normal until he took 91 damage, take partial actions until he dropped to -16, and linger at death’s door until he took a further 24 damage . . . meaning that this tough little dwarf could take 130 damage without being killed.

Hero points:

I first came across this idea in the Warhammer RPG. I think they may have been called fate points or some such. It’s a very simple fix: instead of complicating things with new conditions or rules simply give PCs hero points (let’s say an arbitrary 2 at level1). These are essentially “get out jail free” cards. Anytime a PC would be killed outright a PC may cash in a hero point and essentially avoid the catastrophe all together. In the case of massive damage or instant death the PC is instead dropped to -1 and stable.

New hero points should be awarded any time a PC does something extraordinary. Defeating a major villain, saving a town, or doing something particularly heroic are all great reasons for earning hero points. If a DM is using a pre-made adventure the completion of a module is also a great time to award a hero point. PCs are not invincible though and the gods only give so many chances so a PC can only hold a maximum of 3 hero points in reserve at a time. Only PCs and named villains should have hero points but I allow PCs to spend their own hero points to save their cohorts.

_____________
These are just some ideas I’ve been thinking about. Please feel free to post your own ideas or critics of these three.

Tristan Lidu Has recently achieved enough affiliation points to become a black dagger in the Witchwardens. Unfortunately I see no description of the daggers anywhere. I'm curious to hear what role (if any) affiliations have played in your STAP campaign, and what players and DMs alike have done with them.

Please remember if you have spoilers to use the proper BBCode

Number one question: Why on earth would the players destroy the tear?

I don't see any reason. Basically the players are told to destroy the tear by a (likely) chaotic evil ghost. Maybe I missed something but here's what I picked up as a player.

1) the Kopru take slaves
2) the Kopru give pearls
3) and destroying the tear supposedly ends the pearl operation

but how does that even remotely make sense? A ghost trapped in an underground temple is supposed to know that destroying the tear ends the creation of shadow pearls miles bellow the surface. Are we supposed to believe that the Kopru were talking about their greatest weakness while (or while waiting to) meet Troglodytes?

Know here's what we know about the Koprus
1) they're evil and sacrificing people
2) they're making shadow pearls
3) they breath underwater

Worse still, supposing the PCs flubbed all their Knowledge skills (which our group did), there's the matter of the 'demon fish' (a.k.a. the abolths)

1) they once were a source of great evil
2) they once caused enough destruction on the surface that the ancient Olmans were foced to build some sort of artifact to remove all the water.
3) they don't die out of water, rather they go into hibernation, and theoretically, if returned to water, they would be revived.
4)demon fish control people's minds.
5) demon fish breath only underwater

So, destroying the tear brings back the water, and at this point (for our party) most of the PCs don't breath underwater. So destroying the tear would

1) bring the water back
2) awaken the demon fish
3) increase the mobility of the Kopru
4) possibly drown the PCs

When we get to Golismorga we discover that there aren't even any Kopru guards around the tear! Now if this were an Achilles heel you'd at least expect to see Kopru guards! So, as best we can figure, if we destroy the pearl we flood the tunnels (trapping us) and possibly even dooming most of the PCs if we have no other way of escape. We bring back the demon fish. We may or may not end shadow pearl production. We restore the horrible city.

Why on earth would anyone destroy the tear? I would think the PCs would want to get into that ziggurat and see what's going on in there. Personally I think the obvious choice for the PCs would be to try to destroy the Kopru and leave the pearl alone.

I used to host D&D at my house, which was very convenient considering the amount of books I own, but later, when my friends were blessed with a child, getting them over to my place became near impossible! So these days I pack everything I figure I’ll need to play up and take it with me. This got me to thinking: Do many other people do this? What do they bring to their games? What do they figure they can’t play D&D without? So let’s have at it! Tell me what’s in your tool bag? <A tool bag is the list of items you need to get the job done . . . in this case the job is D&D> I travel pretty heavy actually. With me is my:
PHB
PHB II
DMG
MM
Spell Compendium
Dragon Compendium
Rules Compendium
Various Dungeon / Dragon magazines
Pound o’Dice
Miniatures
Binder with characters, notes, handouts, extra character sheets and scrap paper
File folder with extra maps and encounter ideas
Gamemastery flip-mat
Dry erase markers
Regular markers, pens, pencils, and erasers

My order is 743072, and even though the dice aren't listed as Preorder on your site, when I placed my order that's how they were listed. Could someone check the status of this item? If they are indeed still Preorder (which seems odd because I remember looking at them back in February) I'd like to swap them for a similar product that isn't Preorder.

This looks like a great mini are you expecting to get anymore in anytime soon?

What's happening with the Availability of this item? When I put it in my cart a few weeks ago it was available, shortly after that it went into backorder status, then it became available again, and now it currently unavailable! I placed my order on the 16th, shouldn't I have gotten my order filled when the books came in? I'm only wondering because I need some of these books for Christmas.

My order was #743069 if that matters

I'm probably dressing as Dracula again this year . . . yes, yes, I know: I suck . . .

What about you guys? Be it party, escorting the kids, or just dressing up to hand out candy, what are you going as this Halloween?

If you should open Dungeon 139, turn to pg 40, and look at section D23 you’ll find a Kobold cook by the name of Churtle. I see that many groups have killed her, others have spared her, and some have even added her to their groups. I’m curious what your group did with her. This is the official Churtle thread. Feel free to share your Churtle stories here.

I just received issue 359 today but despite the claims to the contrary I didn't have any giant poster inside.

We are roughly half-way through the final battle of ToD and I am really beginning to feel my character (Tristan Lidu) is only just slightly better then useless. It seems every BBEG and boss monster we fight lately has magic resistance of at least my level + 12 and some way of dismissing my summons. Her spell selection is weak because she hasn't found any spellbooks or scrolls to speak of. Being a wizard she lacks combat skills. Against the big boss monsters of these later campaigns Tristan performs the following functions: she is an extra target (58 hp at 10th level), she can cast a few buff spells on her team mates, and her spells sometimes soaks up a dispel magic or a dismissal. I love playing Tristan but I'm really tired of being the only one not contributing (damage) in the big battles. Am I wrong in guessing that this trend continues? Should I give up on magic all together and simply make a new character?

Hello everyone, after flipping through the various journals on this site (especially Steve Greer’s campaign), I’ve decided to share my own campaign journal with everyone. This journal will be slightly different the some on this site because it’s written from a player’s prospective . . . or more accurately from a player character’s prospective. My entries will be taken from my character’s personal diary.

I’ll try to update this journal every Monday (no promises though).

We play STAP once every two weeks. I currently have a small bundle of backlogs of diary entries prepared. As of this introduction, we have just been attacked by gargoyles on the Isle of dread, so I am quite a bit further along in the story then my current journal entry. Having said that though, I’d like to remind everyone posting in this thread: No Spoilers Please!

You are more then welcome to post your thoughts and comments, but please don’t talk about things or events that haven’t happened yet in the diaries. Chances are I’ve played through most events (I am in HTBM after all) but I really don’t want to worry about someone inadvertently spoiling the upcoming story for me.

Now onto the Diary of Tristan Lidu: