Hodgehangout's page

The people saying its not on your schedule are showing up on the back end side attendee list. We're currently trying to figure out why its not displaying and why it looks a little funky on our end.

Perfect, thanks!

I have clicked Serpent's Ire to add to my schedule, but it does not show up on my schedule when I refresh. Should I be concerned?

Also, if you do notice a mistake with an event and you can grab the URL of the event, please do, it makes it a really fast fix on our end.

Hi Sara,

Event http://paizo.com/events/v5748mkg0bibb (Owen KC Stephens Monday Emerald Spire game) is showing as signup on Monday, and the Saturday event is showing as a lottery. I just wanted to give you a heads-up as I'm not sure which is correct or if that is as intended.

What a great idea! I'm kind of surprised this is the first time I've seen something like this personally. Nice work Nick!

The Delve? 'Tis but an appetizer of terror. For the main course of mayhem, you must sign up in the PaizoCon lottery for Owen's Emerald Spire game! Upon that path true madness lies! Sign the Book of Heroes!

I can understand both the elation and less than elation, but it's not really different than some other publishing industries. Novels receive compilation treatments if they sell well after a certain amount of time. Comics also get trade paperbacks and hardcovers of certain story lines despite people buying the single issues first and it is not uncommon to add or update content in either of those examples. Both of the industries I mentioned also don't typically wait eight to ten years for those releases as Paizo did for RotRL or CotCT. If there is a market for it (and the market demand might be the only way any other Paths get the hardcover treatment, if at all), then I'll be interested to see how or if this evolves from here.

What character build generator (point buy, 3d6, etc.) do you use for your home Pathfinder games? Also, how is the developer CoC game going? I have not seen it mentioned in a while.

I'm looking into plane tickets for me and my son, trying to recall the schedule of things at PaizoCon. Am I correct in my recollection that on Monday there is only a morning session, which ends at 1:00?

And when do things typically get started on Friday? In past years, we've flown up from Cali early Sat morning, but I'd like to get in Friday evening this time.

As I recall you are correct regarding Monday and the end time of 1:00. For things on Friday, badge pickup starts around 8:00am, and the first event started at 9:00am. Following that, events started at 8:00am on the following days.

If people are making a gargantuan request list, here are mine as I pre-order the gargantuans from my FLGS and pick up minis as needed:

Tyrannosaurus (It indeed would be cool not to have to use a toy.)
Elementals (The four basic types)
Linnorm (Any type would be good, or just a general one.)
Carnivorous Blob (I know it's normally bigger, but a gargantuan one with stuff in it like the recently released cube would be awesome.)
Ravener
Warsworn (I think Wizkids could make a great pose out of it.)
Quanitum Golem (Inner Sea Bestiary, perhaps too niche.)
Megaprimatus Ape (Again, it would be cool not to use a toy, but I get why this would not necessarily not make it.)
Devastator
Wyrmwraith

Already looking forward to it. Just waiting on flights to catch up and be available!

This was my first time at Paizocon instead of Gencon, Dragoncon, etc. and I have to say wow! The staff were all very welcoming and approachable. Thanks for a truly great vacation. My feedback is as follows:

• Venue: The hotel was great and the staff were very pleasant. Breakfast and lunch were easy to get (thanks for the concession stand!), and a decent price considering the convenience of eating in the hotel. It was quite a hike from where the rooms were located to the main area though.

• Schedule Format: I very much enjoyed the break in the afternoon. In the future I might suggest if the afternoon break were a bit shorter and the morning events start a bit later. Something to the effect of 9:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m., then a break for seminars and such from 2:30 - 4:30 p.m., and an evening session (except for the banquet) from 5:00 p.m. until 10:00 p.m. It might then be possible to have the convention hall open from 10:00 p.m. until 2:00 a.m. if people want to do a late night pick-up game. This also gives staffers some extra time after closing if they want to hang out and mingle at the hotel bar.

• Tickets, Badges & Registrations: Extremely quick and efficient. Swag bag was a great deal, and I was very pleased to receive everything inside.

• PFS Location: There was plenty of space between tables. The only time I had difficulty hearing was during the specials. I also like the bar in the convention hall. I might suggest clearly defined lines for people with and without tickets outside the hall. That was a small challenge prior to the beginning of the specials.

• Pick-up Games: There was never a clear way to figure out what pick-up game was occurring at which table without interrupting people at times. Perhaps a dry-erase board or two for people to fill out the what and which table for the pick-up games? Or one person on staff with a clip board to help direct?

• PFS HQ: Nothing but the utmost love for PFS HQ! Very informative and helpful the entire time.

• PFS Games: They were awesome. The Friday and Sunday specials were great to play, and the regular scenarios I played in were very well run.

• Paizo Store: The store was very well run, and product was easy to locate. Staff were very attentive and helpful. Bryan and the volunteers at the Reaper area were hilarious and awesome to talk to. I would have liked to have seen a few more vendors.

• The Delve: Great part of the con. Watching Erik Mona fighting for an Ifrit's life against a group of four kids was one of the more memorable PaizoCon moments for me. I would like to see it go to 30 minute sessions instead of 20 just for cool things like that.

• Lottery Events: I got to play in Owen K.C. Stephens Emerald Spire session on Monday, and it was a great way to close out my con experience! Truly a memorable game, and a great time.

• Seminars and Events: I wanted to call special attention to Celebrity Gaming with Nicolas Logue and Auntie Lisa's Story Hour. Nicolas's session had the whole room laughing almost the entire time, and listening to Lisa and her love of the industry and her team was an incredible experience. The rest of the seminars were very enjoyable and informative.

Wow! A lot of great, creative ideas are going on here. I'll add my two cents below. Sorry for the length.

The Pathfinder tabletop roles with the easiest access to healing also tend to be capable combatants, rather than their main job being hanging in the back refilling health bars like in some games, and we're very likely to maintain that in PFO. That is, you'll probably have a hard time setting up as a "dedicated healer" in the first place, and you'd be giving up a lot of useful non-healing contributions if you do.

Focusing on any one skill is likely to end up with people giving up a lot of useful non-X contributions. I would imagine this to be the case with any game that develops skills based on training time. However, if you want to spend your training time on say, Heal, as a skill, I don't see a reason why it couldn't give you a passive bonus on healing spells as many MMOs do, and off you go. You're on your way to being a "dedicated healer", just as others who focus on skills for crit or damage will be "dedicated dps" and someone building skills for taking damage or raising their hp could be a "dedicated tank" if they focus on the appropriate wide but flat skills in their archtype in PFO, according to what I've been reading about the system.

I am very impressed with Rokolith's above post regarding Bloodlines Champions take on healing, and that does have possibilities. Please read Rokolith's post, as I'm trying to keep this short and already failing. :)

Thoughts from the Goblinworks blog (And yes, before anyone says it, things on the blog are subject to change and nothing is in stone.)

Weapon Slots

The first six slots on the action bar are weapon slots, tied directly to the weapon (or weapons if dual-wielding) you have equipped. (In this context, the term "weapon" includes staves, wands, holy symbols, and other magical implements.)

With this many weapon slots, wands become more of an option for healing if you don't have a dedicated healer, but still need healing. Perhaps something like Use Magic Device could be a skill to train, with each rank (or whatever they are going to call it) allowing the player to use higher and higher wands (CLW, CMW, etc.) This way, using a wand for heals reduces damage players deal for a short time, stimulates crafting and income, and wands could have a certain number of charges before going inert or being destroyed, and still substitues a healer to a point. Having a dedicated healer gives you sustain and healing, and costs less, but at the cost of damage.

Refresh Slots

Most combat abilities that are not tied to weapons are Refresh abilities, and they're placed in slots 7–10. These are things like spells, rage abilities, etc. If a character has a spellbook equipped, it can go into one of these slots; activating the spellbook turns all weapon slots into spell slots determined by the spellbook.

I know holy symbols are going into weapon slots, but with spells like various Restorations and Cures, if they are placed into Refresh Slots with a cooldown attached to each one, this places more emphasis on rotating cooldowns rather than a mana bar or spamming for all you are worth. For non-dedicated healers, this could be an area for a channelled ability like bandaging or a small HoT.

Consumable Slots

F3 and F4 are for consumable items like potions and scrolls.

See Weapon Slots above. Consumables lessen the blow for not having a healer, and if you deal enough damage, they will help with downtime while clearing a dungeon.

Characters have a chance to score a critical hit based on their attack bonus. If a critical hit is scored, the character suffers an Injury. An Injury is a long-term debuff that continues to affect the character until the character receives a certain amount of healing, with the amount depending on the severity of the critical. This means instead of critical hits causing random damage spikes, they'll inflict long-term debuffs, making combat more about attrition than wild damage swings. Injuries can be healed with any healing spell that heals enough damage, so the weaker debuffs are pretty easy to get rid of, but more powerful Injuries can be far more difficult to get rid of. Injuries can be removed through other means, such as hanging out at taverns or other safe locations, but they never really stop someone from pushing on if they want to—even when pushing on is perhaps unwise.

This is one of the reasons why I see dedicated healers and consumables for healing being a positive. Consumables make removing debuffs easier for those without a healer who wish to press on, but having dedicated healers make this recovery even easier while pressing on. Putting cooldowns on various heals makes normal healing and debuff removal a choice, and adds further depth to the various archtypes in the game.

This has become much longer and more involved than I planned, but many of the same principles I described above apply to PvP as well. I love healing in the variety of MMOs I have played, and I feel that CD based heals could be a very fun yet essential part of PFO.

This does look like a solid starting plan for PFO. Can't wait to see how it develops.