Kassil's page

Could you please cancel my Maps and my Modules subscriptions? Trying to shed a little of my monthly cost, and I pretty much never use either, so... Thanks.

Is there a delay on these products? It's been a bit more than the advertised time on their shipping...

Is there any indication of when the backordered item - the synthetic opal dice - will be coming out of backorder? If not, or if it's too long from now, I need to cancel the order - kind of silly to have an anniversary gift that won't arrive until well after the event, after all.

And here's the OOC/discussion/banter/etc thread for the Shadows of the Force game. Players are encouraged to chatter. Kibitzers welcome.

Location: Pillar Station, geosynchronous orbit over rogue planet Pinnacle

The marking of a new year is cause for celebration for most of the galaxy, but for the inhabitants of the Pinnacle 'system', it passes by almost unremarked upon. In the wake of the Sith War, there is too much to do, too many threats left facing the galaxy, for time off for something so common to even be considered. Here, in the secretive stronghold of a little-known branch of the Jedi Order, there is only vigilance and industry.

Not only Jedi dwell here; numerous specialists also live in the station, on the frozen world below, or in one of the small orbiting stations or starships. Pilots, shipbuilders, engineers, scientists, and all the minor details that make up the response teams of the Jedi Sentinels live in the eternal dark of the interstellar void, ready to respond to the call of the Masters of the Sentinels, should the Seers detect a disturbance in need of correction.

So it is that one such small response team is aboard Pillar this day, waiting for their sponsoring Master to contact them with a mission.

The game opens in one of the station's cantinas, a place subdued and peaceful compared to the usual rowdiness of stationside cantinas...

Players can note where they are and what they're doing, and interact if they like.

...I give! How do I access my sidecart? I can't find anything clickable in regards to it in the My Account section!

Mainly just checking - when I put this in, it was expected to ship in 4-to-11 business days. It's been a /bit/ longer than that. Did it get delayed due to the Paizocon chaos, something else like a supply shortage, or just get lost in the shuffle (which would be understandable, given the con!)

Thanks!

If there was anyone who wanted in this event who didn't get it, let me know. While I have a slot, I'll cede it if someone wants it more than me, voluntarily.

A problem! My subscription is, and has been, set for UPS Ground. Yet my most recent shipment says it's going by USPS. Can this be fixed, and can the error be hunted down?

(It's like a shipping version of the Ghost of Christmas Past, I swear.)

Um. My subscription, as it should, is 'UPS ground' for shipping.

But the shipment notification I just got said it's going by USPS. Is i possible to change this to UPS, and to find out what's causing the UPS/USPS problem?

(Shades of service queries past! Does the shipping system just hate me or where I live?)

This order shows me as in line to get two items I already have via subscription:

Pathfinder Companion: Cheliax, Empire of Devils
Pathfinder Module: Crypt of the Everflame

If you guys could remove those from the current pending subscription order, I would greatly appreciate it.

I accidentally picked the wrong shipping method, guys! I meant to choose UPS. Can you fix it for me, please?

When I glanced at the order page, this order claims that it will be shipping in 33 to 66 days. I'm /fairly/ sure that's just a glitch, but thought I should bring it up here in case it's some more serious problem with the software...

-K

Can orders #1155955 and #1155663 be combined to a single shipment, please?

To quote the email...

A package containing 1 item from Paizo Order #1127269 is expected to ship from the Paizo warehouse by Monday, March 23 via Standard Postal Delivery, estimated 4 to 8 business days in transit.

Shipping Address:
*clipped*

The following products are included in this shipment:
1 x Pathfinder Adventure Path #19: "Howl of the Carrion King" (Legacy of Fire 1 of 6) (OGL) Print Edition

The problem is... The shipment linked, and all my subscriptions, are supposed to be UPS Ground shipments.

Since this has happened before, I know you fine folks can patch it up for me - USPS has a habit of 'losing' things sent to me, after all, thanks to our miserable local post office.

Does the shipping software just hate me or Nevada or something, guys?

I don't suppose anyone might know the expected release date on this?

It appears that rather than the Collected Book of Experimental Might, I have somehow wound up with Gus and Duncan's Comprehensive Guide to Star Wars Collectibles. While I'm sure this would be great as a gift for an obsessive Star Wars fan, I don't know any of those, and was really hoping to get the CBoEM for something to read on break and lunch at work over the weekend.

Can we rectify this problem, please?

A silly game; the object is to be properly nonsensical yet relatively comprehensible. The list you can find on the various sites around The Internewt is as follows:

Fnord is evaporated herbal tea without the herbs.
Fnord is that funny feeling you get when you reach for the Snickers bar and come back holding a slurpee.
Fnord is the 43 1/3rd state, next to Wyoming.
Fnord is this really, really tall mountain.
Fnord is the reason boxes of condoms carry twelve instead of ten.
Fnord is the blue stripes in the road that never get painted.
Fnord is place where those socks vanish off to in the laundry.
Fnord is an arcade game like Pacman without the little dots.
Fnord is a little pufflike cloud you see at 5pm.
Fnord is the tool the dentist uses on unruly patients.
Fnord is the blank paper that cassette labels are printed on.
Fnord is where the buses hide at night.
Fnord is the empty pages at the end of the book.
Fnord is the screw that falls from the car for no reason.
Fnord is why Burger King uses paper instead of foam.
Fnord is the little green pebble in your shoe.
Fnord is the orange print in the yellow pages.
Fnord is a pickle without the bumps.
Fnord is why ducks eat trees.
Fnord is toast without bread.
Fnord is a venetian blind without the slats.
Fnord is the lint in the navel of the mites that eat the lint in the navel of the mites that eat the lint in Fnord's navel.
Fnord is an apostrophe on drugs.
Fnord is the bucket where they keep the unused serifs for H*lvetica.
Fnord is the gunk that sticks to the inside of your car's fenders.
Fnord is the source of all the zero bits in your computer.
Fnord is the echo of silence.
Fnord is the parsley on the plate of life.
Fnord is the sales tax on happiness.
Fnord is the preposition at the end of sixpence.
Fnord is the feeling in your brain when you hold your breath too long.
Fnord is the reason latent homosexuals stay latent.
Fnord is the donut hole.
Fnord is the whole donut.
Fnord is an annoying series of email messages.
Fnord is the color only blind people can see.
Fnord is the serial number on a box of cereal.
Fnord is the Universe with decreasing entropy.
Fnord is a naked woman with herpes simplex 423.
Fnord is the yin without yang.
Fnord is a pyrotumescent retrograde onyx obelisk.
Fnord is why lisp has so many parentheses.
Fnord is the the four-leaf clover with a missing leaf.
Fnord is double-jointed and has a cubic spline.
Fnord never sleeps.
Fnord is the "een" in baleen whale.
Fnord is neither a particle nor a wave.
Fnord is the space in between the pixels on your screen.
Fnord is the guy that writes the Infiniti ads.
Fnord is the nut in peanut butter and jelly.
Fnord is an antebellum flagellum fella.
Fnord is a sentient vacuum cleaner.
Fnord is the smallest number greater than zero.
Fnord lives in the empty space above a decimal point.
Fnord is the odd-colored scale on a dragon's back.
Fnord is the redundant coin slot on arcade games.
Fnord was last seen in Omaha, Nebraska.
Fnord is the founding father of the phrase "founding father".
Fnord is the last bit of sand you can't get out of your shoe.
Fnord is Jesus's speech advisor.
Fnord keeps a spare eyebrow in his pocket.
Fnord invented the green hubcap.
Fnord is why doctors ask you to cough.
Fnord is the "ooo" in varooom of race cars.
Fnord uses two bathtubs at once.
Fnord is the nutritional value of a can of Spam.

So, what've you got?

Fnord is a reverse entropic enclave.
Fnord is the the Tarrasque's older brother.
Fnord play poker with Rovagug every week.
Fnord is the real reason Thassilon fell.
Fnord spreads conspiracy theories about spreading conspiracy theories.
Fnord plays with seven-sided dice.
Fnord knows how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
Fnord knows what fnord isn't cleared to know.
Fnord is what happens to the character sheet that goes missing.
Fnord lives in the land of lost socks.

I had forgotten the Modules line when I placed an order yesterday; while I placed a second order to make up for this, is there any way I can combine orders #1127255 and #1127269 for shipping purposes?

I can't believe I didn't notice this for almost a month, nor that I didn't notice it until after I noticed the same thing with #975294 (which you guys promptly corrected), but this order was also sent via standard postal delivery rather than UPS, and never arrived (useless primates at the post office, you just can't trust them to do things right).

I don't suppose you could do something about this shipment having gone astray? I wish I'd noticed in time to bring it up with #975294, alas. And I really, really hope the rest of the orders go to the correct shipping group, since UPS *can* find where I live even if the Postal Service can't.

So, is there a reason this order got shipped via Standard Postal Service? I checked my subscription page and it is still set to UPS delivery... I can promise that this particular order is never going to arrive at my residence; the USPS has no bloody clue how to find my physical address, and is unreliable even if I use the billing address instead, losing about 2 of 5 shipments.

I really don't like costing Paizo with mis-sent shipments; you guys are pretty much the only company I seriously order anything from on a regular basis anymore.

First, as noted elsewhere, there is still a trend toward the '15 minute adventuring day'. There are a number of proposed solutions, but the one I like best is doing away with the 8 hours of rest needed to refresh spells; keep the hour, but do away with the camping. Let the wizard spend an hour reading his spellbook, the cleric (and paladin, etc) an hour of prayer and ritual, the sorcerer an hour of meditation or pipeweed smoking or whatever, and the bard might be strumming some simple tunes or the like. If the hour gets interrupted by something like a fight it has to be restarted, but it can be done 'on the move' if the character can sit still - riding a horse, sitting in a wagon, or the like, as long as conditions are reasonably favorable. This should only refresh spells; daily powers such as cleric turning, barbarian rage, wildshape, and the like shouldn't refresh.

Second, differentiate the sorcerers and wizards. Give them distinct spell lists; sorcerers are innate spellcasters, wizards are learned. Sorcerers should have a primal feel to them, because they're tapping the raw wellspring of magic. I'm not sure exactly how to do this, but something between clerical domains (sorcerer bloodlines?) and spontaneous casting might do the trick.

Third, skills: I can definitely see how the changes dramatically speed up character creation and take the fiddly work out of tallying different skills at each level. I personally think that Open Lock belongs with Disable Device, but I can see the arguments for it as a part of Theft. Perhaps it could be used by either skill. I would honestly prefer to keep class/crossclass skills, but if each class gets to choose a skill or two 'extra' as Class Skills at the beginning, it could allow some wider range of character concepts - a fighter with Spellcraft to represent someone trained as either a Mageslayer ("Fall back, he's preparing a fireball!") or a wizard's bodyguard ("Best move to the side, the boss is setting up a Lightning Bolt..."), a necromancer with Stealth ("The better that no one see me in this graveyard, of course."), or other oddball ideas that strike a person's interest. That said, seriously consider removing the Fly skill; while it's a good concept, it adds paperwork that we really don't need; instead, if need be, add a maneuverability chart to the spells, and limit the flying creatures based on their maneuverability.

Fourth, magic; I really like the way the specialist wizards have been differentiated, and I like the domain powers. However, both Wish and Miracle have no business being involved in a 'granted ability' chart, particularly not once per day. Based on the universalist trait, I'd actually expect to see things along the lines of the 'artificer feats' from Eberron, letting the universal mages develop the ability to make magic items for a bit less time, XP, and gold than specialist mages; failing that, I could see them developing more free metamagic feats or item-creation feats (actually, while we're at it, can we ditch that absurd plethora of feats? Why do we need specialized feats for multiple item types? Shouldn't Knowledge (arcana) and Spellcraft suffice if you know the spells you need?)

Fifth, the feats: I sincerely agree with those who advocate dropping the array of skill feats and just creating a single Skill Affinity that lets the player choose any two skills to get a +2, or maybe make it a first-level feat that lets people gets CC skills as class skills, which would solve the idea mentioned in #3 above. If the one-hour-reset idea isn't viable, then maybe develop the idea of 'reserve feats' for casters - let them have lesser at-will magic as long as there's a more potent kind of magic prepared (or have a sorcerer sacrifice a spell slot in order to 'charge' the ability for the day).

These are just the ideas I've had since reading the book; make of them what you will.

With order #888544, how long should I wait before I start to get concerned about the print edition of KQ #3 not arriving? It was shipped on the 14th, and has not yet arrived.

Thanks,
Kassil

It's one thing to be asked what I want for my birthday. It's something else entirely to have my mother go by whilst I am browsing Paizo, only to have her hand me a credit card and inform me that my birthday gift is up to $150 of material off the website.

If I didn't already have subscriptions to everything, I'd have had a gleefest preordering things. As it is, I picked up some books I'd normally never bother with because they're quite a way down my list...

Just out of curiosity, is there anything holding order #888045 up, or is it just a matter of patience for it all to be boxed up and out the door?

I have a confession to make. I genuinely started the game with 2e (although my first-ever material was with the black box; I still have the D20 from it...); as such, the Realms were the setting I discovered first. I have never had much of a chance to lay my hands on genuine Greyhawk material.

So, my dear fellow gamers, I am requesting help. I have found the Canonfire! site, but I also want to find 'official' materials. If they can be found via a PDF site, in issues of Dragon and Dungeon, or if anyone knows someone willing to sell me some reasonably decent-quality tomes, please speak up.

I do indeed lament not having collected any material any sooner than this...

Your apology for not being able to deliver a few things from the Green Ronin sale has translated into a nearly $250 hit to my wallet when I went to use the code you offered.

I am honestly not sure if I should praise the lot of you or vow vengeance for the exemplary customer service that has led me to shop here over most anywhere else, at the price of 'Ooh, shiny! Oh, hey, it's tax refund time, I can afford it...'

I can only conclude that if certain larger gaming companies had this degree of customer service and attention, scaled up to match their larger size, they would be up for a Nobel Peace Prize by now. I can only hope that someday this company qualifies for it, instead.

And now, off to hide from the other things I wanted to buy but talked myself out of.

I was musing on the Thassilonian language early today, and how long it has been since the time of the Thassilonian empire, as well as the nature of the runes and the Runelords; then the following thought struck me.

What if at some point, the names of the runes representing the seven sins and thus the Runelords became mixed up with the names of the Runelords themselves? I rather imagine it would puzzle modern scholars who study ancient Thassilon to find references to nations ruled by Pride, Greed, Wrath, and so on.... And it might really serve to add some interesting flavor to the AP when the characters find out who happens to be behind everything. Imagine having a warlord confess it was working for Karzoug, only to have it be interpreted by the Thassilonian-speakers as a confession it is working 'for greed'. Bit of a red herring, that...

I have to say that between the GameMastery Modules and the Pathfinders, I think that the good folk here at Paizo and the freelancers who they hire have outdone themselves on this world. I have only been so enthused about a setting once before in the nearly two decades that I've been playing RPGs; Talislanta is the only world that I've ever seen that evoked a sense of the fantastic and wonder that Golarion does - and Talislanta does it as much on the power of breaking nearly every fantasy archetype as anything else, while Golarion very clearly draws on those roots and makes them better in ways that I've never seen a campaign setting manage.

Maybe Greyhawk had this kind of feel; I don't know, since my only exposure to Greyhawk proper was through incidental effects, rather than with any direct Greyhawk material. Golarion has a vibrancy other settings utterly lack. The other settings I've encountered have always felt one step removed - like a beautiful butterfly or flower that has been killed and preserved for one's viewing pleasure. Golarion, on the other hand, is like finding the flower or butterfly alive and well in the world at large.

I dearly wish my schedule aligned better with my friends; I think that even the ditzy ones would find themselves somewhat compelled after their first adventure in this world to actually play the game rather than turning a half-hour of roleplaying into a two-hour-long festival of innuendo and 'chaotic stupid' behavior.

I want to see a wizard set up shop in the catacombs in Pathfinder #1 to examine the well. I want to see a party deal with the phage in #2. I want to see them handle the keep in #3, and I want to run the unedited version just to see if it can cure them of their 'SEX SEX SEX OMG SEX' obsession. I want to run W1 and see how they handle the fey and the drakes. I want to see them go tearing through the kobolds in D1. I want to see the 'Smish-master' of my group drool over the wand rifle in J1.

I love this world. I love that the Paizo staff is actually interacting directly with us as they work on it; even those not involved in it are potentially having an influence just by our vibe on these boards. That's something I've never seen any other gaming company do.

Talislanta was easily my favorite setting until Golarion, by virtue of being different but intensely detailed. Golarion has beat it hands down, by being the fantasy I grew up with, but detailed and brought to life in a way that the novelists and TSR/WotC developers have never managed.

Kudos, guys. Keep up the awesome work.

So, there are several lists of this nature floating around the 'Net, the most famous being the list of things Skippy is no longer allowed to do, and, on the WotC boards, theings that the crew of the Forgotten Freedom (and Eberron airship) are forbidden from doing.

Since it struck me as a highly amusing thread, and since these boards are full of amusing and cheerily deranged minds, I figured I'd offer this up for everyone to fiddle around in with the same theme. There may or may not be spoily bits involved, I don't know.

So I'll kick it off.

• The party bard may not rewrite the 'Baker Man' rhyme to 'Skinsaw Man'.
  
• The sorcerer is not allowed to tattoo the Seven Runes of Sin in an attempt to get more power.
  
• Gnomes are not tinkers. We are not allowed to treat them as such.
  
• Wandrifles are not guns. They're crossbows that shoot wand charges.
  
• Goblins are not footballs.
  
• The barbarian may not taken Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Thrown Goblin.
  
• Or EWP: Goblin Corpse.
  
• Animating dead goblins is fine, but having them put on a children's play is just creepy, so the party necromancer is forbidden from doing this.
  
• Likewise, goblin corpses used as puppets are just disgusting.
  
• We are not on a mission from Desna.
  
• Except for the priest of Desna over there.
  
• Trying to sell masterwork dogslicers to the goblins is not allowed.
  
• The spellcasters may not research a Potion of Explosive Entrails in hopes of getting the goblins to destroy themselves with it.
  
• ...Because they'd likely explode inside a town or vital structure, that's why.
  
• The dark secret of the gnomes is not that they're all anime addicts.
  
• ...We hope.
  
• No one is permitted to sell masterwork items to the enemy unless said items are cursed.
  
• The barbarian is not the reincarnation of the Runelord of Wrath.
  
• The thief is not the reincarnation of the Runelord of Greed, nor the Runelord of Envy.
  
• ...Even if they do seem to fit the theme pretty well.
  

Apologies if this has been covered before in the depths someplace, but I'm curious.

What is Golarion's planar cosmology like? I have a fascination with the planes, and love fleshing out planar arrays - ranging from embellishing the core-game Great Wheel to wildly variant designs like the Planar Tree design.

I have the Pathfinder #1 and Player's Guide listed as Pending, and D2 - Seven Swords of Sin; and I opted to hold my Pathfinder modules for shipping with my GameMastery modules. But the Pathfinder material is being held as pending for U1, which is slated for October.

Did I misjudge the scheduling when I signed up for the GameMastery subscription, and thus am going to be stuck hanging on the words of others about Pathfinder until October, or is there a way for D2 and my Pathfinder #1 material to be put together, since they're both 'pending'?

It struck me in a recent discussion on LiveJournal that the PHBII affiliations might be a good way to handle the factions of Planescape. So, now I'm wondering if anyone else has considered this, and if so what, if anything, might have come of it.

I ordered W1 as a part of my Gamemastery Subscription, and recieved it a week ago. However, today I recieved another copy of it, to my startlement.

Was I charge twice and sent an extra copy by mistake? Am I somehow double-subscribed to the Gamemastery line? Was there a database error that resulted in it turning up twice?

I am extremely puzzled, and hope that this can be resolved quickly - the last thing I need is two subscriptions for the same product draining my bank account.