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 Recent Posts
While we're on the topic of a new kingdom book, I think it would be a good idea to put all three new rule sets into one book: exploration, kingdom building, and mass combat. The kingdom building and mass combat sections should be enough to fill up a hardcover I'd imagine. Though we won't know for sure until #35 comes out. Bah, not yet...
Bah, damn charter subscribers. I'm still waiting for my shipment notice. I'm really looking forward to the mass combat rules, and I'm glad the module is shipping sooner rather than later - in my current game (using the kingdom rules but not the Kingmaker plot) the guy playing the general is chomping at the bit to fight someone. Now I'm going to have to come up with an enemy for him to fight :)
The second best sword-smith concedes, having realized that the ability to prevent violence will always be better than the ability to create it.Peace through superior firepower? You can certainly read it that way, that the leaves are scared of the blade and avoid it. I took it a little less literally, and decided that the swords were representations of skills, one for war, one for peace. Then again, I'm one of those pinko pacifist lefties, so what do I know? ;-P
I thought there were some funny parts in the Book of Chuang Tzu, and there was some neat symbolism. But yeah, definitely not something that would captivate a 7-year-old :-p My favorite story is the one about the second best sword-smith in the land, who desperately wants to craft a sword better than that of the world's best sword-smith. He labors for years, and makes a sword that's folded 10,000 times, and challenges the best sword-smith.
The one advantage I will not take away from science is its ability to easily get rid of out dated theories and ideas. This is not always the case for some extreme beliefs in religion.Hurricane averted! You've hit on the most important point, the one that underlines the difference between truth claims made by the two. Both are human institutions, subject to error, but one of them has a correction mechanism in place; the other has a system of non-correction embedded in it. Exactly. The very heart of the scientific process is that it makes a hypothesis, and then tries to disprove that hypothesis to see if it works. Religion/supernaturalism does the opposite - they make something up, and then look exclusively for things that tend to support their claim.
No, it's just flavor text. The section talking about landmarks refers to pre-existing features that would already be in a hex, such as an impressive natural feature like the tree the mites live under in Kingmaker, or New Hampshire's Old Man of the Mountain (though it fell apart several years ago, so New Hampshire lost a point of Loyalty :-p ). In my current campaign (using the kingdom rules, but not Kingmaker plot) the PCs are thinking of building a bridge across a river. Now, at that particular site, there used to be a grand dwarven bridge that was the pride of the region, but it was destroyed in a massive flood over 100 years ago. The party could build a standard bridge as per the rules, but I'm also allowing them to rebuild the dwarven bridge if they want to. I don't have exact numbers on it yet, but I decided it would take at least a year to complete, and would require a lot of BP, but it would count as a Landmark and give a +1 Loyalty.
Yes. Though you can no longer use Combat Expertise, you still have the feat. Since you have the feat, you meet the prerequisites for Improved Trip and thus still get the bonus. Improved Trip, unlike Combat Expertise, does not require 13 Intelligence. Yes it does. See here. So, the answer would be no, you can't use Improved Trip if your Dex drops below 13 due to item loss (or poison, or a curse, etc).
There are plenty of (3.5) precedents that allow you to stack different class abilities, Daring Outlaw, Aescetic Mage, etc. ^ This. No, they don't stack by RAW, but since you're the GM, just make a homebrew feat that allows them to stack using those feats as precedent. Just be sure to allow the players to take it if they insist on reverse engineering the BBEG's stats. Or, you could simply allow them to stack, and attribute it to a special blessing from Zon-Kuthon specifically for this character. You're the GM, do whatever you want. :)
The second Kingmaker adventure, Rivers Run Red, will answer exactly the kind of questions you're asking. Seriously, pick it up - the kingdom rules were designed for exactly the kind of situation you're in right now. Edit - note that the kingdom building rules won't give you the exact number of trees cut down or the GP value of iron mined, it'll give you an abstraction. However, you don't really need to know those things; the abstracted rules work great for simulating the large scale without getting bogged down in nitpicky details.
It's the mark of a good GM that his/her players fully expect to be manacled in the future. ;D
All dwarven women have beards. Period. They're just not necessarily on their face.
You're not sane. ;) (object): The spell can be cast on objects, which receive saving throws only if they are magical or if they are attended (held, worn, grasped, or the like) by a creature resisting the spell, in which case the object uses the creature's saving throw bonus unless its own bonus is greater. This notation does not mean that a spell can be cast only on objects. Some spells of this sort can be cast on creatures or objects. A magic item's saving throw bonuses are each equal to 2 + 1/2 the item's caster level. Creatures receive saving throws against the spell. The object descriptor is just a tag added to show that the spell can affect objects as well as creatures. Also, it only shuts down spells with verbal components. Even if it did get through to a level 20 wizard, are you going to tell me that he doesn't have a method of silently effecting a targeted dispel magic effect?
As a paladin, it is her duty to bear the sword of righteousness, and to hold firm with the shield of faith. Said sword and shield must be tempered to match the fury of the forces of evil. A set of rusting chainmail and a wooden shield are not sufficient. She MUST, for the good of the faithful, take up those arms most appropriate for the fight in front of her. I would also avoid this approach. You don't want to tell the player that she is playing her character wrong. She has put some effort into being something more than a mindless drone PC or a dime-a-dozen Lawful Stupid paladin - you should reward and accomodate that, not try to reverse it. Besides, what's cooler: defeating the balor with nothing but an old sword, rusted chainmail, and an unwavering faith in Good and Justice...or defeating the balor with level-appropriate gear that the GM insisted you buy?
There is a character in a game I am in who follows a code, they 'sacrificed' a large sum of treasure to their deity, and dedicated their weapon to said deity, and it became magical as a result. Of course the cost was appropriate to the gain ... but it worked for all concerned. Pretty much exactly what I was going to say. The paladin donates gold to her church, and is blessed by her god in the form of improvements to her armor/sword/holy symbol/etc.
Same mechanical procedure, different RP. Works out for everyone. Also, instead of foisting items on the non-materialistic paladin, think in other ways. Depnding on the god, you could replace some items with tattoos or painted sigils on the paladin's skin or armor. Instead of a headband of charisma, how about a priest paints a small holy symbol on her brow. Same mechanical effect. A belt of strength could be a set of prayer beads that hang off her sword belt. I think what this player wants to avoid is having a PC that looks like a Christmas tree, since it wouldn't match the flavor of the character. There are many many ways to satisfy that.
I'm having a tough time seeing how you'd get a kingdom up and running. I haven't actually run a kingdom building session yet, but I imagine that the initial stages involve a lot of starting slow, building farmlands and roads, that sort of thing. New kingdoms would also be wise to start around some kind of natural resource that would increase their Economy score.
If a kingdom is broke and can't pay the BP, does the BP go negative (and keeps going) or does it hold at 0 until the kingdom makes some money? Look at page 61, step 2 of the upkeep phase. BP can indeed go negative. Every month that you end an upkeep phase with negative BP, you gain 2 unrest. Bankruptcy is bad news.
Apparently.
I could understand it for an item increasing a casting stat (the no-bonus-spell-yet), but Strength? What difference between a permanent and a temporary bonus? The only thing that the permanent verbiage lets you do is act as if that was part of your natural stat, for example for taking feats that require a higher ability score or as Wraith said for bonus spell slots. Emphasis mine. That, and making things consistent.
Thanks guys, that clarifies this matter for me. I really didn't know that you could cast a spell without concentration checks in any circumstances. I thought that you have to make a check for every spell to see if it works. Nope, every spell works automatically by default. :) A thought though. If you look at the chart for Concentration check DCs (HERE) you'll see that many of them are essentially Spell Level + modifier for circumstances. Conceivably, you could rule that you must make a Concentration check every time you cast a spell. In that case, it'd make sense for the base DC of the check to be equal to the level of the spell. So, casting fireball during a downpour would be DC 8 (3 for spell level + 5 for rain). Casting fireball on a sunny day with no distractions would be DC 3. This is simple extrapolation from the chart. However, this would produce results that are functionally identical to not requiring Concentration checks, since these rolls would be automatic successes. Anyone casting a fireball spell is at least 5th level, with at least a 13 in their casting stat. That gives them +6 to their concentration roll. Even if they roll a 1, they've still surpassed the 3 they needed to cast the spell (and notice that unlike saves or attacks, concentration rolls don't auto hit/miss on natural 20/1). So, there's your answer to why there's no required checks for non-stressful casting :) Fail-safe spellcasting is a staple (a holy cow even) of D&D. LMAO. I think you mean "sacred cow". ;D
Ah, okay, thanks for clarifying a bit. I still disagree with you, but at least now I fully comprehend the specific example you cited.
OMG I own the PDF of that and I completely forgot that I did. I'll have to go read that.
There's a reason I've got the Andoran symbol next to my name ;)
So, your group really dislikes fudging and handwaving, and prefers to follow the rules and the dice...so it was your duty to fudge to save the group from their own social contract? It seems to me that in those examples you gave, the only difference between you fudging and the GM fudging is that it presumably would have been noticeable if the GM did it. In those cases, your GM's hands were tied by your group's consensus on "no fudging the dice." Why is it okay for you to do and not for the GM? If the players knew you had cheated to save them fom the cloud giant, would they have been more or less upset than if the GM had fudged the dice to save them?
I love curling!Thanks for the help and the humor, guess I'll stick with the channels I have, and miss out on all the sweep mastery :) Sadly, it has been proven that sweeping has no statistically significant effect on the speed of the stone. Those darned Canadians keep on going though, blissful in their ignorance. To be fair though, curling becomes damn boring if you can't leap to your feet, Molson in hand, and shout "Sweep! SWEEP, you bastard!"
There was a huge thread about this very issue not long ago. Look towards the part of the book that describes leveling up. One of the steps is selecting and applying any new feat(s). Following the rules to the letter, you must complete this step before moving onto the next step. This means that if a player refuses to select a feat when he earns one, he is stuck part way between levels. Think about it this way - look at all the critical hit based feats, with prerequisites of having a certain BAB. A rogue gets 10 feats over 20 levels. Do you think it would be okay to allow the rogue to delay picking ALL of his feats until 20th level, so that he could take 8 critical feats all at once? Under the normal rules, the rogue would only be able to take 6 of those feats at most.
The two systems I was referring to are Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed/Evolved, which uses Hero Points, and the Cortex System RPG (the system behind the Serenity/Firefly, Demon Hunters, Supernatural, and Battlestar Galactica RPGs) which uses Plot Points similar to what I discussed above. Cortex also rewards Plot Points for being negatively affected by your character's Complications (flaws). When I implement my system, I think I'll have each player come up with 2 or 3 defining characteristics for their PCs in order to better judge roleplaying rewards.
Jagyr, you did pick up the Rewarding Roleplaying from Spes Magna, right? Actually, no, for two reasons. One is matter of personal opinion that I won't discuss lest I offend someone, but the second reason is more important: I realized I already owned a game system (or two) that has a huge focus on rewarding good play with in-game benefits, and my players are already used to that system.
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