Kvantum's page

Replace "Greater Mage Armor" with Force Punch from Ultimate Magic. Keeps it all as OGC and Paizo-published.

It's going to come down to the license for 3rd party products. If WotC releases D&D Next with something resembling the OGL, I suspect that there might be real competition for #1 in the RPG market.

Now if they release it with something as bad as the GSL, or worse, then the current status quo may continue, D&D being the 2nd biggest game in the market, even if it has superior name recognition.

Flynn, I've been looking for a group in Katy for over a year now. Check your email.

There's Kirth's whole crew, but their game is so heavily modified it's not exactly mainline Pathfinder anymore.

Any word on whether Boggards will see some love in the Advanced Race Guide? I think we'd have a lot to contribute to the Golarion as a player race - I have an idea for a wandering Boggard ranger (fights with paired scimitars, has a giant cat companion) that does for Boggards what Drizz't Do'Urden did for the Drow.

Boggards are in the same boat as Bugbears - they have racial HD, so they aren't officially eligible to be PCs.

Still, limiting use of Insights to only one that modifies Disrupt Pattern at a time would make sense. Rogue Talents that enhance or alter Sneak Attack and Alchemist Discoveries affecting Bombs are similarly limited.

12 Con for a melee combatant? You'll get one round of mean, ugly damage, but average 62 hp or so (assuming favored class bonus) and a +4 Fort save (maybe +6 with a +2 cloak) means he won't last long.

And Power Specialization would not apply to Disrupt Pattern. It's a Supernatural ability, not a psionic power, so 4+6+4+4 = 14 damage additional per hit.

Compare that Cryptic's ability with what an 8th level half-orc sorcerer can pull off. He or she could cast a Flaring (see APG for the Flaring Spell feat) Fireball that does 8d6+4 fire damage in a 20 ft. level radius with a save DC of 20 (10 +3 + 7 from Int), and leaves its affected targets dazzled for 3 rounds afterwards if they take any damage from the spell. Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus can up that to DC 22. The Orc bloodline would up the damage to 8d6+12. Pick up the right feats (say, Bloatmage Initiate) and you can up that to 9d6+12. Powerful? Ab-so-lutely, but if you really want to min-max things you can come up with powerful examples of almost any class.

I could easily see a limit placed on Channel Disruption that it does not stack with Pattern-focused Insights, however.

The Mystic Theurge was thought to be overpowered at first, too, remember.

Depending on how one reads the wording for Disrupt Pattern and Vital Strike, the two may not stack. Disrupt Pattern is a Supernatural ability, whereas Vital Strike is for specific attacks. It's one of those grey areas, but depending on the GM, that issue may not even be valid.

Using Binding Pattern reduces all of your damage d6's to automatic 1s, so that damage becomes 4 + Int mod + 1/class level for an Elan Pattern Breaker. And I'd like to see your math on getting up to a +11 Int mod at level 10, even with an Elan, while still having enough ability score points to have the AC and hp to make for a meaningful TWF melee combat threat.

Class Skills: The dreamweaver adds Sense Motive to her list of class skills and removes Healing from her list of class skills.

Slight typo, folks.

Fireball
Magic Missile
Teleport
Cure ... Wounds
Fly
Invisibility
Resurrection/Raise Dead/Breath of Life/True Resurrection
Sleep
Wish/Miracle
Summon Monster

An adept or eldritch godling gains the spells of their lineage domains as bonus spells known. The advantage to this is that they can cast those spells multiple times (using their normal spell slots). The drawback is they gain no extra spells/day (there is no "domain spell slot.") They *also* gain the powers of their selected lineage domains.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Since when? Can you point me to the section of the PDF(s) that say(s) that? I thought they just added them to their class spells list and had to select them as spells known normally.

It's working, but wow, 237 MB? No wonder the customizer had issues. The "fat" version was 140 MB.

Chris, you might need to reboot that app again. Been trying to get a Lite version of the ISWG for almost an hour now, in both IE 9 and Chrome.

Well, as I feared, the poor server is overloaded, but I did manage to get Bestiary 3 Lite, and a thought hit me almost immediately: what about switching future actual print versions to the "Lite" edition? MASSIVE improvement in readability, for a minuscule reduction in physical appearance quality, if you ask me.

Even on my beast of a new system (i7-2600k, 16 GB RAM, 180 GB SSD), the Bestiary PDFs were slow to load, now I can scroll through it as fast as my mouse wheel will permit. Shocking amount of improvement here, folks.

I weep for the download server tonight and this weekend. Poor, poor download server.

Welp, time to go do my share of damage to it!

"Strider" only really means something to old school fans who've read Tolkein long before the movies came out. Now to those gamers it has a strong, instantly evocative meaning, but to anyone who started after 2e, it's unclear. For what it's worth, I'm in the "Strider" camp.

That, or we could just call it the Order of Aragorn.

According to the "My subscriptions" page, they should be sending emails out on May 11th.

Actually, it was the 10th. Or at least I got mine on the 10th, so the book should start shipping to subscribers on Monday.

Got my shipping soon email so we may see this as soon as Monday!

As I am without an active group at this point, there's not a lot of playtesting I can do right now, but if you want some theorycraft-work, hook me up. Loved the books, and if you ever want to hear about what a 60 HD Savrok Cyclopes can do to a group of Epic level PCs, let me know.

TimeCube the thread?

But seriously, yes, Paizo does things a bit differently than the publicly traded corporation. Lisa and Vic have to answer to... uhh... Lisa and Vic, and they seem to be firmly in the "keep the company in the black, and the products in the awesome, and as much as possible, err towards the latter" school of business management, rather than just focusing on next quarter's profit margins.

Epic level handbook 3rd edition had some rules for making spells above 9th lv. If I remember correctly you had to take epic feats to get the 10th lv spell slots and the spells required spellcraft checks to cast. I dont remember all that was required to create them but they had several examples.

Epic spells were not 10th level spells. 10th and higher level spell slots were for metamagic'd spells of 0th - 9th level. Epic spells were like True Enchantments from 2e, specific, created spells made from spell seeds and whatnot for each function and facet of the spell. Big, long, complicated mess, and thus easy to achieve both the ridiculously broken and the pointlessly absurd.

Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved had 10th level spells.

There's a specific chart for this on page 399 of the Core Rulebook, table 12-4. 410,000 gp is what is assumed for 17th level PCs. You can extrapolate from table 14-9 in Chapter 14, Creating NPCs, page 454 to get the estimated values for PCs, but basically figure 35% of the total for weapons, 25% for armor and protection, 30% for other permanent magical items (rings, wondrous items, etc.), 15% on limited user items, and the remainder on non-magical gear.

So for a 17th level PC, you might assume around 145k on weapons (this likely means staves for caster PCs), 105k on armor and protection, 125k on other permanent items (like stat boosters), 30k on limited use items, and the last 5k on miscellaneous gear.

Now by no means are these hard numbers, but just a rough guideline.

** spoiler omitted **

It's why I subscribe! :)

I feel the same way. Amazon.com has really good prices on Pathfinder stuff, but I am willing to pay for good products (which Pathfinder is).

So here's my question: If I buy stuff from Paizo directly do they get more profit than if I buy at Amazon?

You can get your products direct from Paizo and still save a good bit if you subscribe. Get a subscription to the AP volumes and you save 30% off of them, and 15% off any other physical products you order along with them (such as other Pathfinder subscriptions, like the RPG releases, the Companions, etc.)

http://paizo.com/products/btpy7xpn?Pathfinder-Adventure-Path-Subscription

AFAIR, and Paizonians please correct me if I am wrong, but subscribing is the preferred way for us fans to buy products since it tends to give them more reliable sales projections for the future.

The Craft Minor Artifact feat and the Eldritch Lense section aren't new. New to Pathfinder, sure, but not new. They're updated from Green Ronin's Advanced Gamemaster's Guide, also authored by a certain Mr. Owen K.C. Stephens...

(Now the Vile twists on minor artifacts, that is all new as far as I've seen before.)

Have you seen the series of blogs talking about the hard early years of Paizo? All of the pain and heartache came about due to Paizo's dependence on licensed properties. EA/Bioware would have to let Paizo literally write their own license terms for a Pathfinder-Mass Effect game to even have a snowball's chance in Asmodeus's throne room.

Now as Kazarath said, Pathfinder-compatible fan conversions of the Mass Effect universe? Hell yeah, I'd be all over that. "Yeah, my new character is named Blasto. He's a Hanar Evoker in C-Sec."

Lisa,

Once again you prove what makes Paizo different - there's somebody who actually CARES at the helm. It's not just all about the bottom line, but about the success and happiness of the business, the products, the fans, and the employees. Profit comes from greatness, but they are not one and the same.

If you ever for some insane reason want to leave Paizo, please only let it be to go teach Business Administration. This country would be a hell of a lot better with CEOs with your kind of attitude at the helm of our biggest corporations.

(The argument about whether or not those same corps would be better off under private ownership is for another time, though.)

Wampus Cats? Seriously? They better have six legs.

I went to high school in Conway, AR. Our mascot was the Wampus Cat.

Correct... this focuses pretty much entirely on NPCs made with Core Rulebook only options.

Unless we get an NPC Codex II using APG, UltM, and UltC, I am NOT a happy subscriber over this. I thought Paizo had moved on from the WotC school of "release a great big rules book and never mention its contents again".

Edit: Could we at least get stat treatments for the Iconics from the other base classes, if nothing else?

Dark_Mistress wrote:

Dragon78 wrote:

So the the variants do have different abilities and skill bonuses then, not just racial mods, cool. Thanks for the info Dark Mistress.

Yes and in case i wasn't clear. Each one also has 2 racial traits per variant above and beyond the general racial traits chapter.

I'm surprised you waited this long to jump in this thread, DM!

So tell me, since JJ said all of the tiefling variants had art ... who's the sexiest?

Probably the Beastbrood, AKA Rakshasa-spawn. Least sexy/most nightmare-inducingly ugly would have to go to the Motherless, AKA Qlippoth-spawn. Not that the Foulspawn (Demodand-born) are beauty contest winners, either, but they would just have people rearing back in revulsion if seen without a hood. The Motherless would send folks reaching for the pitchforks and torches, first for the Motherless tiefling, then for their own eyes.

Centaur Cavalier, Elf Druid with a Plant companion (Leshy?), and... whatever that last one is. OK, what the heck IS that last one?

Still haven't gotten my subscription notice... but the issue is up for download via the website... odd.

Monsters by CR and by Type are in the Appendices. Monsters by CR is page 313-314 in both books, for example.

Maybe we will get a bladesinger for the elves or is that not OGL?

Anything and everything Forgotten Realms is not OGC.

Would make for a decent fan conversion Magus archetype, though.

Is this one going to be posted on dungeonaday.com? Didn't see it up there yet.

Kvantum wrote:

At least this one I didn't create the name for on the NG boards a decade or so ago...

Tome of Horrors?

Bingo.

Criminey. I get laid off and this pre-order starts. Yet another mega release from FGG I'm gonna miss out on. At least this one I didn't create the name for on the NG boards a decade or so ago...

Is this the greatest setting book Paizo ever put out? I look at the picture of Kyra leaning out of a spaceship to high-five a flumph and determine "Yes."

Fluff-wise? Yeah, it is, even better than the ISWG. Quantity-of-crunch complaints can certainly be made, but fluff-wise it is #1, no contest.

To convert a date from the Imperial Calendar to Absalom Reckoning, simply subtract 2,500 from the year—thus, the current date in the Imperial Calendar, 7211 IC, corresponds to the year 4711 AR.

Scott Andrews wrote:

Ambrosia Slaad wrote:

James Sutter wrote:

Don't worry, there's some extensive weirdness coming down the line. :)

I now want an Ultimate Weirdness hardcover.

Seconded.

I would buy that in a minute!

Like what the Gamemastery Guide was supposed to be, but with a focus on crunch rather than just 2 page treatments on the various topics.

Shem wrote:

James is it the solar system hardcover??? :)

Sadly, there is no solar system hardcover currently in the works. :) But if we can sell a lot of Distant Worlds, you never know...

I think this is my single biggest problem with Paizo right now, in a nutshell - the "toe in the water" approach to weirdness and anything outside traditional pseudo-Medieval European fantasy. Give us the madness! We wants it! Numeria AP! Mythic level rules! Gazetteers for Geb and Nex, and the Mana Wastes and Alkenstar. Dragon Empires hardback. Embrace the weird already!

I'll sum up my opinions on this book in three words: A HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT. At the very least I expected racial stats for the Lashunta. This is going into the trash bin.

Psionic creatures require functional psionics rules. No functional official rules for it = no stats.

Massively overstated, but he kind of has a point. AMAZING book from a fluff point of view, incredibly diverse and inventive (though the physicist in me wonders about a space elevator on a tidally locked world), but crunch-wise? It's a disappointment.

Displacer Beast might not be, but Coeurls is really the proper name for tentacle cats. They were created for Voyage of the Space Beagle.

And unlike the WotC IP Displacer Beast, the Coeurl has seen print in a Paizo product, just not in an OGL form, sadly. The Coeurl was converted, with permission of the rights-holders to 3.5 rules by Paizo back in Pathfinder #22, The End of Eternity. Part of the license agreemenat was, though, that that conversion was not OGC, making it one of only two monsters to ever appear in a post-WotC contracts Paizo product that is not under the OGL.

(The other being Penny Arcade's Deep Crow.)

Check Kobold Quarterly #20. There are special feats for Middle-aged or even Old or Venerable PCs there.

Any chance of a hardback compilation of the series?

In addition... the middle adventures are the easy ones. The HARDEST part of an AP is starting it and ending it, because that involves more than just adventure development. Starting it requires the creation of an outline and concepts for the entire thing—a process that takes a LOT of work. Ending it requires the creation of a "Continuing the Campaign" article. Increasing those two sets of tasks to 3 times a year instead of 2 times would make it more difficult to pull off a monthly AP product, and as you can see by the fact that we're constantly struggling with keeping the thing on schedule... ANYTHING that makes it more complicated to produce is not really an option.

Especially, as in the case of doing 3 four-parters, that change would not only increase complexity, but result in an overall poor reaction from most of our customers, who, if anything, are asking for LONGER adventure paths overall (in that, as mentioned above, folks want APs that go to 20th level).

We've taken more steps recently to address the fact that our current methods of producing an AP aren't as efficient as they need to be, and I'm confident that over the course of 2012 we'll be able to get back on schedule and, more importantly, STAY on schedule—I can't really talk too much about those plans for the moment, but once we're comfortably on schedule... THAT'S the point to start thinking about making things more complicated. And even then I'd step carefully.

One 4-parter, and one 8-parter. Shut up the fans of simple and epic all in one year.

+1 flaming burst, icy burst, shocking burst, speed katana? Sure.

Tordek Rumnaheim wrote:

And this is why Paizo should relocate to Texas, Houston specifically. Pay no attention to those hurricane evacuation signs. Those are just for show for the tourists. Really.

I second this proposal!

Pay no attention to August weather reports. We do have air outside... It's not ALL water.

The 30 out of 31 days that were 100 degrees F (38 C) or hotter last August is just a myth too.

Make cool products while not losing money?