Joana's page

Was thinking about ordering some of these as Christmas gifts, but the store's treating them like PDFs and not offering shipping options or charges for them.

Today, when I click the "More options" choice, the box that opens up with the extra races won't go away; nothing happens when I click on the X to close it. It stays open even when I select other options to refresh the avatars or go from one page to the next, and it covers up several avatars. I'm using Chrome.

Clicking on any thread in the Online Campaigns section just takes me to a blank screen headed Online Campaigns. This was working earlier today.

Hey, Gary, I'm getting that thing again where when you try to see who favorited. It's only in blog discussion threads, so maybe it's related to this?

I get an error screen, where I'm "Welcome, guest!" instead of being logged in, and it says:

Sorry

The requested URL was not found on this server, or you do not have permission to access this area.

Those interested in Planet Stories might also be intrigued by this project, which is apparently web-serializing and then print-publishing science fiction titles from 1904 to 1933. The focus is an earlier period than the pulp "Golden Age", but there's an H. Rider Haggard title on the list that looks like it might overlap with the Planet Stories feel.

The sea voyage from Magnimar was a short and uneventful one; weather in the Varisian Gulf is generally pleasant this time of year, and, whether due to luck or canny connections, the Rude Curse avoided any piratical attention. The first glimpse of the massive Cyphergate towering high over the natural harbor was impressive, and Phillip and Sarien noticed several of the sailors touching lucky charms or whispering quick prayers as they passed beneath the arch, even as they went about their preparations for docking; but any awe inspired by the sight was soon overwhelmed by the stench of rotting fish and sewage that hung over the still water and the shock of fetid heat between the protection of the cliffs to either side of the city proper, cut off from the fresh, cool breezes of the gulf. Phillip and Sarien had been pleasant enough to be generally well-liked on the ship, and as they prepared to disembark, a few of the sailors sidled up to them. "Don't know where your business might be taking you, but I'd advise the two of you to stick together, at least until you're through the wharves. Keep your weapons visible and look ready to draw them; a concealed dagger's a man's friend once a fight's started, but a blade in the open will stop many a miscreant from jumping you in the first place. And steer clear of the taverns by the docks, unless you want to find yourself putting to sea again, as a swab -- or as cargo. The only safe place for a stranger in Riddleport to buy a drink is the Publican House." Giving them directions to a clapboard and shingled tavern on the far side of the river, they wish the two luck -- with a tone that says they're going to need it.

-------------

In contrast to the experience of the Rude Curse, the Executioner had a much longer and harder journey to Riddleport, as might be expected from its origin far south in Corentyn. The initial leg through Hellmouth Gulf to Pezzack wasn't too strenuous, but from that point forward, there were no friendly ports to be found until the ship reached Varisia, and the waves in the Steaming Sea were choppy for most of the extended voyage, presenting nothing more to see than the occasional distant island and a wide vista of sky ever promising more bad weather. All the many unpleasant weeks of the journey, Braddon remembered why he hadn't taken to the sea like his father. To finally pass into the more protected waters of the Varisian Gulf was a relief, and when the Executioner passed beneath the Cyphergate, the sailors muttered prayers and kissed lucky coins with a fervor that said they weren't looking forward to the return voyage. When Braddon thankfully staggered down the gangplank to solid ground, one of the Chelish sailors, feeling sorry for the young halfbreed, took him aside and gave him the same advice Phil and Sarien had received: Try not to look like a newcomer fresh off the boat -- and patronize the Publican House.

------------

Although Malkith's family was bound for Ustalav, he found little trouble signing on with another caravan headed to Riddleport. Those with the Gift and their own set of cards are always welcome, both for luck while on the road and for attracting custom and coin in towns. As the wagons parked in Lubbertown to the north of the city, several of his fellow-travelers dropped by to ask him if he was sure he wouldn't rather stay with the caravan. The signs and portents had been clear, however, and he bade them a cheerful farewell. Starting down the riverbank into Riddleport proper, he wondered where he ought to begin. His family had been through Lubbertown many times but had rarely gone into the town itself, preferring to conduct their business among their own people than to risk being surrounded by outsiders and pirates while money was changing hands. There had been a few occasions, however, when the trading had gone particularly well and they had celebrated at a local tavern -- the Publican House.

-------------

The journey had been Tendal's first by caravan, and he was not impressed by the experience. Unlike the carriages to which he was accustomed, the heavy wagons had no springs to cushion their riders from the bumps and jolts of the road; he got out and walked for as long as he could stand it -- the interiors of the wagons imprisoned some interesting smells -- but he was constantly outdistancing the slow draft horses and having either to stop and wait for them to catch up or to consciously slow his pace and both experiments were vexing. As for the company -- well, some of the girls were pretty enough, if rustic, but there was absolutely no privacy and far too many protective fathers and cousins and older brothers around. His relief when the interminable journey finally reached its end was tempered by his first view of Riddleport from the vast muddy campground peppered with precarious wooden shacks and lean-tos in the north. Gods, what a dump -- like all the worst parts of Magnimar crumpled up and tossed along the banks of a river. Up there, though -- his eye is drawn by some sizeable and elegant homes high on the western ridgeline of the city; yes, that doesn't look so bad at all. Surely Orik's father must be up there somewhere. In his pocket, he fingers the letter Orik had given him to present to his father to prove it had really been he who sent him, and he remembers his friend's advice: When you get to Riddleport, don't trust anyone. You take directions from the wrong man, and you'll find yourself led down a dark alley for all his friends to rob. Go to the Publican House; the man behind the bar will steer you right.

------------

Desna was smiling on Daynadrian; that was certain. Not only had he managed to slip past the sentries patrolling the perimeter of Crying Leaf, but as he exited the southern edge of the Mierani Forest, he had almost immediately fallen in with a small group of the Eight Quah of Velashu, heading to Riddleport to sell horses. The Horselords have no quarrel with the elves of Crying Leaf in general, and his well-known last name was all the reference he needed to be welcomed to join them as they travelled south. Unlike the young elf, the horse traders seemed none too pleased to be heading toward the city and responded to his eager questions about their destination with shrugs and noncommittal grunts. When after setting out from camp in the morning as usual, the Horsemen called for a halt in the early afternoon and began setting up camp, Daynadrian asked why they were stopping so early. "It's only about an hour's ride to the outskirts of Riddleport," was the answer. "We'll set out again at dawn and have time to complete our business and be on the road north again before the sun sets; we'll not spend a night in town." Despite Daynadrian's attempts to persuade them, the uplanders were immovable. "You'll be in Riddleport first thing tomorrow -- and welcome to leave with us again before nightfall if you've had your fill of it." It had been the longest afternoon and evening of his life, but at last Daynadrian stood in Lubbertown, watching the rays of the morning sun glint off weather vanes and glass windows and the oily surface of the slow-flowing Velashu River. The people! And the houses! And the smell! Gods, it was glorious. He happily set out down the river into town, recalling the parting advice of his travelling companions: If you must go into Riddleport, go to the Publican House. You'll be less likely to be drugged and robbed blind.

Power Word Discuss!

Who is trying to ruin Saul Vankaskerkin? Everyone in Riddleport seems to have a motive; you probably will too by the time you've known him a few days. But right now he's offering you a job and a place to stay, two things that can be hard to come by for a newcomer to the City of Cyphers, and all he asks in return is that you find out who's trying to put him out of business and keep them from succeeding.

So, what's the deal? This is a game for 1st-level characters, set in Riddleport and loosely based on the events depicted in Shadow in the Sky. The mood is noir, and the format is a mystery. While there will be combat encounters, interactions with NPCs and social skills will make up a large part of advancing the plot. This is not a game for wallflowers or for people who don't like dialogue. There's always something going on in Riddleport, but if the PCs don't get out there and interact with it, they'll never know about it. I'm looking for active players who will take the initiative to make a story happen instead of waiting for the plot to pull into their station.

Who are you, anyway? Hi, I'm Joana; I've been active in play-by-post here since March 2009, but this will be my first attempt to GM a game. I am terrified, as I have seen many excellent GMs get overwhelmed and have to walk away. As such, I am loath to overpromise and underdeliver. I am committing to run this game up to level 3 or 4. If we all have fun and none of us have a nervous breakdown, I do have ideas to continue your PCs' story past the unraveling of the mystery at hand, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

What are you looking for? I'm not interested in numbers right now; just tell me who your PC is and how and why you came to Riddleport. You could have arrived on one of the many ships that make port every day, a sailor or pirate desiring a change of occupation. Maybe you were a stowaway, an escaped slave or just someone looking for travel or adventure. You could have arrived as part of an overland caravan, buying and selling exotic or not so exotic wares. Many dwarves travel to Riddleport seeking employment at the Gas Forges, where adamantine and other rare metals can be smelted and forged: a difficult and admittedly dangerous job but one which promises a steady income and benefits for family back home. Or maybe you're just looking to work your way up the ladder of one of the city's gangs and claim a piece of the action for yourself. Other inducements to visit Riddleport include one of the most infamous non-elven temples of Calistria in Avistan and the Cypherlodge, a mage's guild devoted to studying the Cyphergate, the ancient Thassilonian artifact that spans the harbor in a great semi-circle. Please be advised that, like many people who come to Riddleport, you may not end up doing what you thought you would there.

Any specifics? Core races only. 20 point buy. No Riddleport natives: I want the whole party to have to navigate city politics and rumors on an equal footing. Core classes preferred. Lawful types probably won't like living in Riddleport. Two traits, neither of which has to be a Second Darkness campaign trait.

Anything else? I was an English major, so spelling, punctuation, and grammar all count. Heaven knows I've blushed over enough mistakes in my own posts after the editing window has closed, but I expect everyone to make an effort. We all, I believe, know that the English language uses capital letters and punctuation marks, for example.

No dialect. If your PC has a heavy accent, that's fine; mention in your first few dialogue posts how hard they are to understand, but I do not want to have to interpret phonetic spellings every time your character speaks.

Actual girl gamer here. In my experience, the number of men who can believably play a female PC is much lower than the number who think they can. I have had the pleasure of gaming with several who are up to the challenge, but please think several times before pitching a cross-gender character. If you find yourself describing a potential PC as "buxom" or "curvy" or "sensuous," ask yourself if you have any male PCs whose genitalia you feel the need to qualify in the descriptive text; if not, you don't need to be specific about the female body either. It's squicky.

No RPing amongst yourselves in this thread. I don't recruit in your gameplay thread; please don't roleplay in my recruitment thread. Posts can easily get lost in the banter, and more importantly, the PCs' meeting for the first time will be handled in-game; I don't want you all "getting to know each other" in some make-believe tavern in the recruitment thread. The tavens in the gameplay thread are all entirely nonfictional, of course. ;)

Hey, Customer Servants!

At the top of your My Subscriptions page, you should have the option to hold for monthly shipments or ship things as they are released. Since the Comics and Minis are shipping later in the month, we're holding your other subscriptions (Ultimate Equipment and the like) until we get the comics, to be shipped together after GenCon.

If you select Never Hold Anything, you'll receive two shipments in August (your other subs sooner and the comics later.)

I would like to go ahead and ship my non-minis subscriptions, without holding them for the minis. If I change my settings to Never Hold Anything now and then change it back to Hold for Monthly Shipment after my subscriptions ship, would my minis wait for the September shipment or still ship on their own?

Gary, that thing is back where I get a security warning every time I add a new post:

Your connection to secure.paizo.com is encrypted with 256-bit encryption. However, this page includes other resources that are not secure. These resources can be viewed by others while in transit, and can be modified by an attacker to change the look of the page.

Since at least the weekend, and I think a few days before that, I've been getting the message that the posting page is unsecure. This is the message Chrome is giving me:

Your connection to secure.paizo.com is encrypted with 256-bit encryption. However, this page includes other resources with are not secure. These resources can be viewed by others while in transit, and can be modified by an attacker to change the behavior of the page.

IE gives me a pop-up bar saying "Only secure content is displayed." Not sure what element is unencrypted, but this is new behavior since last week.

Hey, Gary, just in case you're looking for something to fiddle with while snowed in, the "Online Campaigns" in the upper left corner of the campaign threads leads to paizo.com/campaigns, which is a blank page, rather than paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/community/campaigns, which is where I assume it's supposed to go.

Similarly, the "Paizo People" link in the same position on an alias page goes to the blank paizo.com/people. I'm not sure where it's meant to go, actually.

Elemental Subtype: An elemental is a being composed entirely from one of the four classical elements: air, earth, fire, or water. An elemental has the following features.

Immunity to bleed, paralysis, poison, sleep effects, and stunning.

Not subject to critical hits or flanking. Does not take additional damage from precision-based attacks, such as sneak attack.

Proficient with natural weapons only, unless generally humanoid in form, in which case proficient with all simple weapons and any weapons mentioned in its entry.

Proficient with whatever type of armor (light, medium, or heavy) it is described as wearing, as well as all lighter types. Elementals not indicated as wearing armor are not proficient with armor. Elementals are proficient with shields if they are proficient with any form of armor.

Elementals do not breathe, eat, or sleep.

It doesn't say elementals aren't subject to nonlethal damage, but ... really? It can't be stunned or put to sleep or sneak attacked, but I can hit a creature composed of earth or fire or air over the head with a sap and knock it unconscious? That seems just really, really weird. Am I missing something somewhere?

Hey, Gary, when I try to see who's favorited a post in a play-by-post campaign thread, like this one, it just takes me to the campaign info page. I know it used to work, so this is a relatively new development.

I just tried to reply to this post, and all I got in my Reply screen was

FYI: I reward players who make choices on what the character would do.

Have you done something to remove nested quotes or something? Because it just quoted what came after the quoted text.

With the latest site update, the number of posts visible on the reply screen has gone down from 25 to 10. Twenty-five was much better for PbP purposes, as you could almost always count on having relevant descriptions, or your PC's last action, or the initiative order, or whatever visible. Now I keep having to open up the thread in a separate window to get back to the information I'm looking for. Any chance it could be switched back the way it was?

If someone is poisoned and then delay poison is cast on them, does the poison have no further effect if its duration wears off before the spell does, or after the 1 hour per level, do they have to continue to save from where they left off when the spell was cast? That is, if the poison's duration is less than one hour per caster level, does the spell effectively end the effects of the poison?

School conjuration (healing); Level bard 2, cleric 2, druid 2, paladin 2, ranger 1

Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S, DF
Range touch
Target creature touched
Duration 1 hour/level
Saving Throw Fortitude negates (harmless); Spell Resistance yes (harmless)
The subject becomes temporarily immune to poison. Any poison in its system or any poison to which it is exposed during the spell's duration does not affect the subject until the spell's duration has expired. Delay poison does not cure any damage that poison may have already done.

Just noticed the "remove dot and stop tracking" isn't working this evening (in Google Chrome, anyway).

EDIT: Also, the tags ([b], [ooc], et al.) are showing up in the mouseover text on (x new) and latest post. Don't know if that's related.

Forgive me if this has been discussed, but I'm playing in this AP and don't want to be spoiled so I didn't do a search.

I made my PC with a few assumptions about the ages of the NPCs and was surprised when my DM said Ameiko's birthyear was given as 4689!

RotRL begain in 4707 and said Ameiko had returned from an adventuring career and bought the Rusty Dragon six years previously. When she was twelve?!?

What the heck, Paizo? I do hope we're not falling prey to the myth that a human woman of thirty can't still be an attractive option for a romance, especially considering that Sandru at "a few years from middle age" is a possible romantic partner for 1st-level PCs who could be sixteen by random roll. (Although Ameiko apparently started adventuring at the age of 10 or so.)

Hey, web guys! Just thought I'd point out that my (x new) tags aren't working this evening. There are new posts in some threads at the top of my focus view but no (1 new) next to them. The (1 new) next to brand new threads seems to be working, however.

EDIT: Also, I'm only getting dotted threads showing up in my focus, not the (x new) ones that I've read but haven't posted in.

:)

Sixth Sense (Ex)

At 3rd level, the superstitious barbarian gains a +1 bonus on initiative and a +1 insight bonus to AC during surprise rounds. This bonus increases by +1 for every three levels after 3rd.

This ability replaces trap sense.

I read this as "+1 to init during surprise rounds" and "+1 to AC during surprise rounds." Hero Lab, however, seems to be reading it as "+1 to init in all circumstances" and, separately, "+1 to AC during surprise rounds."

(Since Hero Lab doesn't break down how it arrives at numbers, I can't be sure this is what it's doing, but I don't know where else it would be giving my PC an extra +1 from.)

Can I ask for clarification on this?

I didn't see a thread about this yet (well, other than the one with a complaint) so I thought I'd start one.

I flipped through the Dungeon Crawl Classics book and, wow! is it old-school. Just looking at the old-style black and white drawings and maps was nostalgic. If I hadn't wanted We Be Goblins! and been limited to one item, I would totally have picked it up.

I remember spending Thanksgivings and such at my parents' house with my husband before we had kids along to entertain; one time, we dug through my old board games and got out my original Trivial Pursuit Genus I from 1981. It made for very interesting game play; we kept having to add the caveat "In 1981" before most of the questions. Sports records were the worst offenders; "In 1981, who held the MLB single season home run record?" "In 1981, which NFL team had won the most Super Bowls?" etc.

It adds a layer of complexity to the game; that's for sure. :)

Never mind. Apparently the Focus button now works for the whole messageboards page. Looks really weird....

My Second Darkness group is a little behind the leveling curve so I'm looking for a few encounters to pad out their time in the Darklands. I'd like to run a chase using the rules from the GMG, but I'm having a hard time coming up with fun obstacles and checks to overcome them. The group is level 10 and doesn't have a full caster.

Can anyone suggest some Darklands-suitable obstacles and checks/saves to overcome them to help fill out my chase cards?

My players are a bit behind the level curve in the AP I'm running for the moment, so I'm looking to insert a few encounters. I'd like to do something a little different than "You run into a wandering monster and fight" so I thought a chase would be fun. Looks like the Chase Cards will be coming out a month too late for my purposes, so I'll have to figure some out on my own. I have some questions about using the chase rules:

1. The rules say, "When assigning obstacles, it's best to have the DCs of both obstacles on a card be within 5 points of each other, but never identical -- this forces participants to make tactical choices." But then the example chase laid out on p. 233 has DCs 10 and even 15 points from each other, as do the sample cards from the chase deck. (Um, I guess that's not really a question, just a point of confusion. The text says a 5-point spread is the rule, but virtually all the examples use a 10-point spread.)

2. Is it okay to not tell the players which skills are required and what the DC is for each obstacle? It seems like that would lead to the players not paying attention to the actual obstacle (i.e., Steeply-Sloped Roof vs. Crumbling Rooftop) and just comparing the mechanics ("Well, I can't fail that Climb DC even if I roll a 1 so I'll pick that one.") Seems like I ought to describe the scene to them and make them pick which way to go without them knowing exactly how hard it's going to be.

3. "A character who wants to attempt to move three cards during his turn can do so by taking a full-round action. That character must overcome both obstacles on the card he is leaving." But if he succeeds at both, he completely skips the obstacles on the next card and goes to the third? Or does he actually move forward three cards like he rolled a 3 in a board game and skip over two obstacles?

4. "A character who becomes mired must spend another full-round action becoming unmired and effectively loses his next turn in the chase." Does he become unmired automatically by spending the full-round action, or does he have to roll to beat the DCs again?

5. Is it okay to give XP for "succeeding" in a chase? Would you award XPs equal to defeating a CR [party level] creature?

Woo hoo!

If it's a wand of a melee touch spell, like, say, shocking grasp, can a PC make an AoO with it? Or is he considered unarmed?

How does low-light vision affect the miss chance due to dim light, if at all?

Low-Light Vision

Characters with low-light vision have eyes that are so sensitive to light that they can see twice as far as normal in dim light. Low-light vision is color vision. A spellcaster with low-light vision can read a scroll as long as even the tiniest candle flame is next to him as a source of light.

Characters with low-light vision can see outdoors on a moonlit night as well as they can during the day.

Ignoring Concealment: Concealment isn't always effective. An area of dim lighting or darkness doesn't provide any concealment against an opponent with darkvision. Characters with low-light vision can see clearly for a greater distance than other characters with the same light source.

But then it says

In an area of dim light, a character can see somewhat. Creatures within this area have concealment (20% miss chance in combat) from those without darkvision or the ability to see in darkness. A creature within an area of dim light can make a Stealth check to conceal itself. Areas of dim light include outside at night with a moon in the sky, bright starlight, and the area between 20 and 40 feet from a torch.

Characters with low-light vision (elves, gnomes, and half-elves) can see objects twice as far away as the given radius. Double the effective radius of bright light, normal light, and dim light for such characters.

So, on a moonlit night, an elf can see as well as during the day ... but still has a 20% miss chance because the lighting conditions are "dim light?"

I just ran my 10th-level party through an encounter with a ghonhatine, and it completely ate their lunch. They only managed to do 45 points of damage to it, in toto, and ended up having to distract it and run the heck away.

Part of the problem was bad dice rolls on the saves. (No one ever managed to make the save, and I think the highest roll anyone made was a 10.) Part of the problem was that the party is weak at range and the only spellcaster they have is a bard. A DC 24 Fort save is pretty tough, though; the PC with the best Fort save in the party would have had to roll a 12, and a couple of them needed an 18. The nauseated condition is one of the worst out there, completely denying the PCs an attack and no way to remove it. And four attacks at such a high bonus when it gets a full attack is brutal as well. Even with the nauseated PC moving away every round, the monster was doing about 22 damage with every hit, plus another if they failed their Acrobatics check to avoid the AoO (and I don't know if I was even bending the rules by allowing them to do that as part of their single move action).

Am I wrong in thinking this creature is under-CRed? Was it just bad dice-rolling and a poor fit for my party's abilities? (They're a fighter 7/chevalier 3, monk 10, bard 10, and rogue 6/ranger 4.)

This is a thread for GMs to post ways they deviated from the plotline in running Second Darkness. What changes did you make?

In Shadow in the Sky, I didn't like Saul's sudden swing from liking the PCs to trying to get them killed, so I had him secretly working against them from the moment they foiled his plot to rob his own casino. Every mission he sent them on, he was purposely placing them in dangerous situations, hoping they wouldn't come back. When they went to the Foamrunner, instead of Braddikar Faje trying to steal from them, they ended up unknowingly stealing from him; the shipment of wine really was for Clegg Zincher, but Saul told him it was for the Goblin. Their act of theft and murder instigated Zincher's raid. Instead of a reverse-raid on the Gold Goblin after the Boneyard encounter, I had the PCs break into a locked-up casino just as Saul the veteran arsonist had it rigged to go up in flames. This served a double-purpose, as the Goblin sustained serious damage and the PCs were encouraged to go after the skymetal in the next book to get the money needed for repairs. The Teeth of Araska from the next book was the smuggling ship Depora Azrinae was using for shipments to Devil's Elbow and the one she leapt onto to make her escape.

Children of the Void changes coming up!

Okay, having looked at the Rogue & Advanced Talents vs. Ninja & Master Tricks, I don't really have a problem with them. The Ninja has some mystical options available that go beyond Minor & Major Magic, but that's the mystical flavor the class and they have to use their ki for it. (The exception is Wall Climber, which is so supernatural in effect that it really ought to have a ki cost, imo. The rest of the tricks that go beyond mundane possibility do.) As I said above, I think the ki pool might be a little much in comparision with evasion, but options are limited as to how to include the more mystical ninja flavor. The fact that the ki pool is tied to Charisma helps to balance it, as so many people like to use Cha as a dump stat. Yeah, there's a lot of powerful stuff in the trick list, but you only get ten over twenty levels, so that's self-limiting there.

I was a little concerned by the posts stating that ninjas could take rogue talents but rogues couldn't take ninja talents, but much like Combat Trick, Rogue Talent and Advanced Talent can both only be taken once. That limits Ninjas to only one rogue talent and one advanced talent, which doesn't seem overpowered to me. That said, though, it would be nice if what's good for the goose is good for the gander; that is, if the additional rogue talents and advanced talents in Ultimate Combat include Ninja Trick and Master Trick, with the caveat that rogues don't gain a ki pool so they'd be limited to non-ki-spending tricks unless they have monk levels. (And, hey, if you don't fix Wall Climber to be ki based, I know which one my rogue's taking!)

So, overall, I'm really pretty pleased with the ninja, barring the capstone ability, which is still nuts. Well done, Paizo. I've been wanting to roll up a Library Ninja a la Jacob Two-Two for a while now. Maybe I'll see what I can come up with. :)

Can this order ship with my subscription shipment, order # 1553602? I was planning to order this stuff to ship with it, and the "we are preparing to ship" e-mail caught me by surprise.

Here is the text on the spell. Can it be used to deliver a vocal bardic performance, like sing or oratory, to the targets?

Just noticed that when you roll dice, preview (to add result-specific fluff), then submit, the dice result changes. In this post, the roll previewed as 12+13 = 15; when I then hit Submit, it changed to 2+3 = 5.

Trick Shot (Ex): At 3rd level, an archer can choose one of

the following combat maneuvers or actions: disarm, feint, or
sunder. He can perform this action with a bow against any
target within 30 feet, with a –4 penalty to his CMB. Every
four levels beyond 3rd, he may choose an additional trick
shot to learn. These maneuvers use up arrows as normal.

If the archer chooses feint, does the denial of Dex to AC on the archer's next attack still apply only to melee attacks? That is, must the archer drop his bow and draw his sword (in addition to possibly taking a move action to get there) in order to use this ability. Or since this is a special ability for archers, does it allow him to use the denial of Dex to AC on a ranged attack?

I generally run Small characters, and the vast majority of loot a party takes off dead guys is sized Medium. Unless a GM specifically adds in Small-sized equipment, this really handicaps Small characters vis-a-vis their Medium party members, who can typically just pick up the bad guys' armor and/or weapons. (Yes, you can sell what you find, but the 50% markdown means you can't keep up with the rest of the group. And I suppose you could go to a smith and have the item resized -- at additional cost, and if you had enough down time in the adventure.)

The situation seems to cry out for a Reduce/Enlarge Item spell, but unless I'm missing it, I haven't found one. How can we make the situation more equitable for our Small-sized brethren? :)

If a PC wanted a pet shocker lizard, how much would it cost?

Hey, Cosmo and/or Sara Marie! Just placed this order today, and I don't know if it's too late for it to go out with my subscription shipment next week or if it'll have to wait for the GenCon shipment. I know it's the holiday weekend, but if someone gets a chance to shove it on in with Order #1461974, it would be appreciated!

If a PC finds a Headband of Mental Prowess or the like and he already has ranks in the associated skill, can he "retrain" his original ranks into another skill, or does he just let them be overlapped? Verisimilitude ought to demand that if he lost the Headband later he wouldn't therefore be ignorant of something he knew before magical enhancement, but a player might feel the treasure unfairly robbed him of skill points.

Looking at the shiny new Pathfinder page, I note that there are no spaces between the links and the description, i.e.

Pathfinder Roleplaying Gamebuilds on more than 10 years of system development and the largest open playtest in the history of tabletop gaming to create an unparalleled fantasy roleplaying experience. Players need only the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook to play, but Paizo Publishing produces a wide range of books and accessories to enhance your Pathfinder experience, from hardcover rules compendiums to complete campaigns to packets of beautiful full-color maps.

[bolded for emphasis]

Just passing it along for quick correction. :)

My players, when it first became clear that an encounter with the dragon was in the cards for them, immediately started wondering if they could negotiate with him. I know that the text says that Razorhorn attacks immediately, but I'd like to reward them for not assuming everything is mindless hack & slash. Plus, it seems to make sense that the dragon would be interested in a deal with the other side, now that the elves have the upper hand on the drow in Mierani, and the adventure also states he's unhappy with the situation Nolveniss has put him in.

However, I've never been comfortable putting PCs up against dragons, because I don't really feel I "get" the monster in question. So here's my question: assuming that the party bard with maxed-out Diplomacy makes some decent rolls, how might this negotiation play out? What could they offer that might interest the dragon? What kinds of demands might he have, and what concessions might he make? (The party is largely interested in rescuing the prisoners and finding a way out of the Echo before Earthfall.)

Just read that they're reprinting Dungeon Crawlin' Fools. Will Paizo be carrying it?

If guidance is used in conjuction with the Bit of Luck domain ability, does the +1 apply to both d20 rolls or just to the first one? I'm leaning toward applying it to both rolls, as they make up only one "single attack roll, saving throw, or skill check."

Whenever I go to "My Account" or some other secure part of the site, all the logos on the left are also secure with the exception of the PfRPG Compatible one. Is there a reason why?

Dumb question, like I said, but Vista keeps trying to protect me from it by asking if I want to see non-secure parts of the page and I get tired of having to click the box.

Right now I have a very nice laser printer, but it only prints in B&W. I've been considering getting an additional printer to print color battlemaps. A lot of the reviews of inkjet printers I've read complain about the cost of ink replacements: that the included cartridges run out fast and that replacing the ink costs about as much as the printer costs in the first place.

So should I get a mid-priced printer and buy replacement ink, or should I just get a cheap one and buy a whole new printer when the ink runs out?