Joshua J. Frost's page

A quick read of page 54 of the Core Rulebook reveals that the dinosaur in the druid animal companion entry is either a deinonychus or velociraptor.

The OP initially appeared to be addressing that dinosaur entry, not the specific animal companion entry for the tyrannosaurus on page 86 of the bestiary.

Edit: this post was a response to a post that appears to have been deleted expressing confusion between dinosaur entries.

I will include some of them in 2.1 of the guide book, yes.

No, but as close to it as I can make. NeonCon + illness + Thanksgiving holiday and gummed up my schedule and I'm working to clear it as fast as I can.

Click your name.

Sign in.

Click "sessions."

The 7th level advancement for a dinosaur is to make it medium instead of small.

When writing a full adventure, do stat blocks count as part of the 12,000 word count?

Joshua, is there a word document format I could download to work in? I'm particularly interested in stat block formatting.

Here's some general advice based on queries so far:

I'm not looking for vampire stories right now.

If you spell Absalom wrong in the first sentence, I'm probably going to stop reading right there. In fact, if you spell anything wrong in the first sentence, I'm going to stop right there. Your query is a reflection of you--if it has spelling errors and grammatical errors it reflects poorly on you as an author.

Keep submitting!

Yeah, but I bet I read one sentence of that proposal and reject it. :-)

The class description says the mount is "usually" a heavy horse or pony. But then it goes on to say that the mount functions as a druid animal companion using the Paladin's level as the effective druid level. This immediately gives you access to a companion from that list.

For the sake of riding, however, I'd say that to be a "suitable mount for riding" (as loosely defined in the Ride skill) the mount generally has to be a quadruped one size category or more larger than your character. It would be pretty silly if your medium-sized human paladin rode a medium-sized boar, for example. :-)

Nope. In fact, for Gen Con, there were entire tables of pre-gens sometimes and I reported the tables as having 0 players plus the GM just so the GM could have the record of running that table.

The short answer: you can report the table at any size.

In this instance, neither your STR modifier or DEX modifier would apply to the damage dealt from a flame blade.

Never, ever, ever, ever send people away. Forget everything you ever learned from other org play environments--our number 1 goal with Pathfinder Society is to get people playing as often as possible.

For last night's game, I would've been okay with the GM running a silent pre-gen just to get that table going. This should NEVER be the norm (always strive for 4 + the GM minimum) but if the choice is between the GM running a silent NPC to make the table happen or sending two players home, I would ALWAYS side with making the table happen.

I believe the intent for the cavalier is that their mount is combat-trained, but I'll need Jason to confirm this. I've emailed him this link.

It would need to be a complete submission.

As for the 500-word query, I may provide some feedback, but won't guarantee feedback since this could possibly turn into a monstrous pile of subs and a rejection letter might be all the time I have.

It's a query. I want to get the gist of your idea once I'm done reading it. I leave the format up to you.

So, the new open call format was announced today. You can read about it on the blog or here. I'm curious how everyone feels about it. Instead of a formulaic 750-word submission, you can send a sub 500-word query or, for the brave and perhaps previously published, a full adventure scenario for my perusal. I hope this promotes better entries, more frequent entries, and results in some fantastic scenario proposals and final adventures.

What do you think?

Be sure to read today's blog post.

Beating you at Ticket to Ride? Maybe?

Your GM number is your 4- or 5-digit Pathfinder Society number without a -# extension.

Let's form a party. I'll play the cleric.

Rich Parents is not allowed on Pathfinder Society. This is noted in the final table in the Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play.

It's important to note that if you've downloaded any previous version of the Guide (1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 2.0) you automatically have the newest version (currently 2.01) in your My Downloads.

I was talking specifically about things that would be changed or excluded to fit Society rules. The classes will have a write-up in 2.1 about how to deal with future changes and how to make your oracle/cavalier/etc final when the APG comes out.

I agree with you to a point, but I don't feel it's fair to assume that every author can know every possible way a scenario can be played, especially when once considers the always intangible and varied GM play styles. Even in a game where a full diplomacy group blows through a scenario, I'd ask some of the same questions that were asked above: did the GM do the diplomacy amidst roleplay or were there skill check dice rolls and nothing else? In the case of the archers, did all of the archers just relent or did one relent to diplomacy and the rest wonder what their buddy was doing and attack anyway? There are so many different ways to solve a scenario that I'm not sure the low word-count of a $4 product could cover them.

I appreciate the notion of expecting 4 hours of play and getting 1.5--that sucks. In an OP environment, though, I think you just have to know that sometimes your scenario will be short, sometimes it will run long and unfinished, and sometimes it'll be spot on. There are too many "outside the scenario" metrics to measure here to be sure we'll get it right every time.

Nope! Other than calculating CMD and CMB on the fly when necessary, you should be able to run the scenarios as written. There are a few threads on the Society messageboards where people are discussing this.

Go ahead and use the oracle and cavalier for Society play. I can't think of anything off the top of my head that I'll need to adjust in 2.1 beyond simply saying, "yes, use them."

I do want to get pregens up at the same time as 2.1, though.

This is a great example of the canon issue I'm talking about in the other thread. (Not to pick on you!) I created the NPC Bensi Skule in Classic Monsters Revisited in the troll write-up. The Bensi Skule that you seem to be using here is, in fact, dead. The creature currently using the name is a troll that Skule experimented on for years and who now uses the name to fund an information network to continue the experimentation--on himself. Skule is only loosely referenced in the Guide to Absalom and he's not fully referenced like he is in Classic Monsters Revisited.

When you pick pieces of canon (specifically NPC names) to use in your proposals and you pick a piece of canon and use it incorrectly, you nearly always shoot yourself in the foot doing so. This is why you should avoid the use of canonical NPCs and instead create your own story inside the framework of our world.

Yes, dialects are allowed. Keep in mind that for Pathfinder Society, common is called common and is not called whatever local dialects might call it (such as Taldane) and that all Pathfinder Society PCs must speak common first.

This was a tough scenario to write, and I feel like I also might have stepped over the line you've drawn here. But, while I understand that letting us use preexisting canon increases the chance of world-breaking, I also feel like all the canon that has been established goes to waste if we are discouraged from incorporating it.

What I'm more concerned about, and this is a tough thing to explain, is that there are elements of our world that while they are technically canon, they aren't elements we wish to further explore in our published works. So if you use a great deal of canonical NPCs or organizations, say, in your proposal, you run the risk of using something we don't want explored further. If you, instead, use a canon city (like Absalom) or even a district of the city and maybe a location from it (like a bar), and then create your own story ideas within that framework, not only are you much more likely to wow me with your creativity, you're also much more likely not to touch on something we're not interested in exploring.

I can appreciate that this sounds very much like a bait-and-switch use-our-world-but-don't situation, but I'm hoping most of you can catch the subtext here. I want to see YOUR creativity, not you using the creativity of another author.

You'll know that when #45 is published. :-)

I'm not a fan of firm dates when it comes to rules updates. "Soon" or "in a few weeks" is the best you're going to get.

As for the Bestiary--while parts of it will be in 2.1 as open, I will not be opening up any new races. Golarion is a humanocentric world and kobold fighters don't really fit the picture of the Pathfinder Society we're trying to establish. For at least the foreseeable future, standard core races from the Core Rulebook are going to be the only race choices.

In this case, I'd just use the 3.5 MM crocodile and call it a day.

Playing off your feedback, Rene, what happens when your party breezes through the scenario using diplomacy (which not everyone does) and then the GM sends them on non-written side missions to extend play and a player dies (and let's say can't afford to be rezzed) during a non-written side mission?

We'd have to see a solid and significant increase in sales and reporting before we'd consider releasing more than 28 scenarios per year. While Society play is seeing growth, it's not yet to a place where we can ask to expand.

So grow your local games, report report report, and continue to help me get to a place where I *can* ask for more. :-)

There will be details in 2.1 about using these classes. I also play to create pregens for them.

So long as the Pathfinder Society logo is being used to promote instances of actual game play, I'm okay with it being used for a show that charges admission. Gen Con, PaizoCon, NeonCon, etc are all examples of shows that charge admission but then can use the logo to promote Pathfinder Society play.

It will likely be #50, but I haven't assigned that yet nor will I for some time.

I agree with Farabor. :-)

Oh, I slept all but 4 hours on Thursday and maybe all but 8 on Friday. Whatever slapped me upside the head did so with a vengeance.

Or e-mail him josh@paizo.com.

From a super general observation standpoint, I received way too many submissions that took the fact that I was using a name from established canon (The Minotaur Prince) to mean they could either reinvent our canon, add to our canon, or farm pieces of our canon related to Absalom from several different sources and try to form them into a scenario.

You're nearly always better working within the framework of our canon (cities, events, ruins, etc) and building your own stories and ideas than taking our canon (NPCs, organizations, established canonical villains) and trying to make them your own story. I hope that makes sense.

Hey everyone,

After significant review of the scenarios received and some meetings with other folks in the editorial department, I've decided to assign this month's open call to an established scenario author rather than assign it to someone in the open call. I received a very low number of submissions this round and there weren't any clear solid choices that fit inside the framework of the feel that we're shooting for both for Absalom and for the minotaur prince. I'm going to try another approach to the open calls in this Thursday's blog, so stay-tuned for that--hopefully it's an approach that inspires better turnout for future open calls.

Hey Josh,

It was good playing at your table, you are an awesome GM.

Thanks
Dennis (aka BOB)

Hey all,

I'm running behind after NeonCon/Veteran's Day/Food Poisoning (IE, last week) and will be sparse on the boards this week. I'm working like a dog to get 37/38 out and there might be another week's bump on 2.1 of the Guide book, though that's coming along nicely. If you don't see me answering questions much, that's why.

It's highly likely most of the features of the APG will make it into Society play.

To be clear, we're never going to allow the 3.5 alternate class features into Pathfinder Society. I was correcting the "1.1" stated in the post above mine to "2.1."

Having met both Will and Adam, I don't see the resemblance. I'm also relatively sure that if I were to lose in a game of Ticket to Ride to Will, he wouldn't take his shirt off and dance on the table shouting obscenities and denigrations of my family heritage.

Thanks for the gift Paizonians!

When you're posting, there's a button at the bottom of your post that says "BBCode tags you can use: [show]". Click that button and it will teach you all that you need to know. :-)