LazarX's page

Well, if we actually KNEW what was going on in other countries, we might not say things like that anymore.

Americans tend to have a very provincial attitude, like the Greeks, they tend to assume that most foreign customs are the work of heathens, illiterates, or savages.

I am similarly against gay marriage, but not because I think gay people shouldn't be allowed to marry. I'm against telling churches that they have to perform marriage ceremonies for folks that they don't believe should be getting married.

I do not believe that any serious advocate of equal marriage rights has said that Catholic churches should be forced to marry gay couples. What they are demanding is that the Catholic church should stop enforcing it's beliefs on non-Catholics. The Church isn't just fighting to stop itself from being forced to marry gay couples, it's trying to prevent anyone else from doing so, including Madam Mayor and Mr. Justice of the Peace.

My personal opinion is that if you're gay and you want to keep membership in a church, or political party, that hates your very existence, more power to you.

Also keep in mind that a church ceremony or lack of one is not the issue. Because that's not what legally marries you, it's the issuance of the marriage certificate, which is a civil function.

But yes. R'lyeh is on Earth. It's also certainly got portals to other planets within it... but I'm not a big fan of it "existing" on multiple planets. The fact that it's on Earth is kinda cool, I think.

Cthulhu's dreams can reach out to any world, in any event, so him being on Earth doesn't mean he can't get you.

I see that interpretation as kind of geo-centring the Mythos in a way that Lovecraft did not intend it to. Earth isn't that important to the Big C and the others, it's just another sand castle to kick over as an idle pastime.

In a practical sense, I've never seen "refluffing" work at the table. At least in my groups, people find it too difficult to get over their associations with the "real" race underlying the re-skin. If I tell people that they're not allowed to play elves, and they ask if they can play "Hyruleans" who have the elf crunch, they will always drag in the elf fluff as well, because, well, what they really want to play is an elf.

Unless of coursem they just want the crunch, those are the players who play elves as long-eared humans. That said, I'm no fan of re-skinning, re-fluffing, or whatever the term is this week.

Just like the positive channelers, you have to make that choice. Either heal the undead, or harm the living. (or vice versa for the positive folks) With just straight channeling, the two for one deal died with 3.5.

I believe there is an archetype that gives it back in exchange for halving it's power.

Another option would be a mass inflict spell.

Just about everything involving the Old Gods tends to be the kind of thing that would drive Euclid gibbering insane.

There's nothing preventing from being the kind of city that's multi-present. so it could be on Earth and a dozen other worlds at the same time, or times. In fact, to contain an Old One, it would have to be.

And if they PrC out of the class (like into Loremaster) they don't get freebies because their caster level has gone up.

Oladon wrote:

Where did you get the idea that this is PFS?

The OP: "[W]e go play Society games.."

Actually the context seems to imply that they both play Society games and Homebrew. If the banning above is during a GM'ed Homebrew game, then the player has to take his lumps. In PFS games, however the only reason for banning an allowed player mechanic is the lack of ownership of a required book.

Compared to what you had to spend in 1st edition BEFORE you could make weekly outlays for spell research, Pathfinder rules are cheap.

So far there has yest to be any form of neural medicine that doesn't have any severe side effects, some of which are potentially fatal.

I'd be doubly skeptical given that we really don't have a good working definition of intelligence yet. There are people who are capable of amazing stunts in certain facets of intelligence, but they've paid the price of being extremely handicapped in other mental or social functions, i.e. the "Rainman" effect.

I want a time war movie

The ship sailed on that a long time ago as it would have to involve either Paul McGann and/or Eccleston.

"End of Time" was a pretty close substitute for that, though, as it gives you a pretty good idea why the Doctor was driven to choose the solution he did.

Quote:

The Doctor mentioning his granddaughter in the Akhaten episode (1st Doctor), the Ice Warriors in the submarine episode (2nd Doctor), the use of the meditation crystal from Metebelis 3 in the haunted house episode (3rd). I didn't notice an overt four reference in this one, but then the Cloister Bell was introduced in Four's time, as were the ideas of multiple console rooms (the tertiary console room used through part of the Sarah Jane and Leela eras) and people invading the TARDIS (Invasion of Time).

The Eye of Harmony was first mentioned in the Fourth Doctor's era as well (although it was arguably mentioned in THE THREE DOCTORS in the Third's, but only as a generic black hole). Also, in addition to the Ice Warriors, the Hostile Activity Displacement System was introduced in the Second Doctor's era as well, and the whole episode was a 'base under siege' story, a format that was widely used in the Second Doctor's era (though arguably introduced in the final First Doctor story).

The problem in this is that The Eye of Harmony was a resident black hole on Gallifrey that broadcast power to all the extent TARDISes, which presumably went bye-bye when Gallifrey itself was destroyed along with the rest of the Time Lords. That's why the Doctor has to refuel at the Time Rift at Cardiff every so often.

The Eye of Harmony was a major plot device when the Death's Head Master tried to subvert it to regenerate his decaying form, nearly destroying Gallifrey in the process. He did manage to siphon enough energy to keep him going until "The Keeper of Traken".

IF the animal does anything more than function as a decorative feature, it counts as your combat animal.

Plus, you have to consider the character of the different races in question. Humans (or at least some of them), as evidenced by what we've done in the real world, like to form governments that are defined by geography and draw all sorts of imaginary borders between states and nations and civilizations and cultures and the like. However, who's to say that other fantasy races would have the same idea?

Elves consider Kyonin their sacred homeland on Golarion, and they're interested in controlling places like Celwynvian and Nagisa and Sevenarches and the ruins of Azlant for similar arcane and/or religious reasons. Other than that, however, they seem pretty content to just roam around and/or dwell among members of other races and leave governance to those silly humans.

There's also the fact that when they left all that territory vacant when they fled the planet prior to Earthfall, opportunists (which describes Human to a tee) moved in. In some cases the returning elves were able to get the newcomers removed, in others, not so much.

Threeshades wrote:

In Golarion lore is it possible for an outsider with an alignment subtype to have an alignment shift? Be it through "character development" or powerful magic forcing it. Like a demon becoming neutral on either axis or even lawful or good.

And if so, what would happen to the outsider then? (aside from its social life becoming much more complicated)

Also about dragons, I read in Dragons Revisited from 3.5 that chromatic and metallic dragons can in rare cases change their alignment, which also has a cosmetic change as a consequence (metallic dragon scales dulling etc). Is this still canon to golarion?

It's absolutely possible. That's how we get fallen angels, for one thing. And there'll be a a reverse of that—a risen demon—in Wrath of the Righteous. What would happen to the outsider would depend on lots of variables—it's not as easy as designing a template, since each case should be unique and handled as appropriate.

As for dragons—dragons can be any alignment, but they're almost always the alignments listed in their Bestiary entries. Alignment changes do not cause physical changes to their coloration.

In Nominee, given that the game was focused on roleplaying Angels and Demons focused on the topic quite a bit. It's a lot more difficult to redeem a Demon to an Angel, because a needed step is the requirement of a sponsoring Archangel to literally rebuild the Demon's corrupted Forces into Angelic lines. It takes a lot of effort for the Archangel, and the would be redemptive demon is sometimes destroyed in the process. (most of the effort expended by the Archangel is in trying to prevent that destruction) Knowledge of this possibility is enough to scare off many Demons from trying.

In Pathfinder terms that would be the equivalent of removing the evil subtype from a succubus undergoing redemption. Angels that fully fall, automatically lose their good subtype and acquire an evil one. I am of the opinion that Falling should be a lot easier process than Redemption.

I was thinking about something after playing pathfinder yesterday. Cure spells have a will save to resist them in their entry in the book, yet PCs do not tend to roll a save against healing.

Keep in mind that the reason for the will save is that Cure spells are also used as damaging spells against undead, the same way that Inflict spells are used against the living, which also allow a will save. Most GM's (like me) tend to believe that making PC's specify that they are dropping will saves for a cure is merely a way of bogging up time for no good effect, in most cases.

Player characters should not have a magic rune on their forehead that marks them as a PC. If you can't contribute to the party in a meaningful way you have no business being in the party. People in real life want the best help they can get and it should be the same in the game. Let's say you are accused of a crime and you have the choice of two lawyers. One graduated the top of his class from Harvard with years of experience, the other just got his diploma in the mail from Larrylaw.com. Who do you want defending you?

If you're going to resort to real life as an argument, chances are unless your last name is Kennedy, Bush, Clinton, or Rockefeller, your legal budget is going to be a lot closer to Larrylaw than Harvard. We don't always get to pick the optimal choice in real life.

hmm i thought draconic was the secret language of dragon disciple prestige class but i now see its a requirement!

thieves cant seems to be from 3.5 not pathfinder.

so... any secret languages other than druidic?

The secret languages are the ones you CAN'T take.

And, in Ed Greenwood's case, no need to optimize if your pet DMPCs are 46th level or whatever anyway, and competing with 1st - 14th level PCs.

You have to keep in mind that Greenwood was an old school GM. In those days many of them would keep uber level attack dog NPCs ready for when their PC's got out of hand. Elminster was one character created specifically for that purpose.

Ron Lundeen wrote:

As an aside, no one willing to invest a rank in UMD should have a +0 bonus. A masterwork UMD tool is only 50 gp and adds +2, so even a Cha 7 character should have +1 (1 rank, -2 Cha, +2 tool).

Except in Ultimate Equipment, look at the new rules for masterwork tool. I don't think you can just buy a generic +2 for UMD anymore.

You only could in the past by GM sufference. The rules text for "masterwork tools" included a rider that a GM may decide that some skills do not have a universal +2 masterwork tool for them. UMD is one of those that's on my list. The Manual as noted is only for UMD rolls with wands. I would not allow a refiling of the same item for scrolls.

how about simply letting them getting two favored class bonus' (simply choosing different ones). a tad bit better but not as good as a variable bonus feat.

That hasn't made Half-Elves that much more popular.

Hold Monster.

Am I the only one who sometimes has trouble at times with 11's accent. I had no problems with Pertwees, bakers, Tennants etc.

What exactly is your problem with it? That a time traveling somewhat mad space alien doesn't sound properly Londonian to you?

Werthead, I vehemently disagree that Doctor Who is not serious science fiction. The show holds, in the both the 20th and 21st centuries, the top 5 best characters and plots ever.

If your definition of "serious science fiction" is of the Forward school where the material has strong theorectical backing, then Dr. Who not only fails this mark by a long shot, but doesn't even make the attempt that many other shows do.

I've lately come to accept the fact that by any measure Dr. Who is not "Hard" science fiction. However I've also come to the position that the term science fiction itself is not a very useful delimiter. I do consider the show to be occasional good drama and character action in a format that might be considered a modern form of fantasy with science and horror elements. Not "space opera" the way that Star Wars is often described, and speculative fiction doesn't quite cut it. It's useful to call it sci-fi so that we can find a nice designated bin to put it in at the movie rental store, but that's about it.

The gems make it stand out, don't get me wrong. I've been watching my way through the classic series over the last few years and generally enjoying it. There's something to like in each of the Doctors and there are a lot of ways in which I prefer the direction of the old series. Doesn't mean there aren't a lot of stinkers back there.

There's a blog called "Wife In Space", where a blogger (who by his own admission is doing this for a book deal) asked his wife,who is a relative newbie to the Whoniverse to sit with him as they go through the various Who episodes from "Unearthly Child" in order, alternating between actual episodes where available and reconstructions and audio tracks where not. Her observations which are not clouded by fan allowances are pretty much on the mark.

I find that starting a game at level 1 encourages most players to pick humans for the bonus feat. I'm looking for recommendations for how to add a bonus feat to all other core classes and still keep the bonuses balanced so that I can get some diversity in my low level games.

Does anyone have input/ideas for how to balance this for each class? I'm not great with balance of this level.
Has anyone done this before?

Most players SHOULD be picking Human, it reflects human predominance. That said, I see a LOT of non-Humans at our local PFS tables, Humans aren' t quite as predominant as you might expect.

I'm always hesitant to play a fighter, because even in Pathfinder I find that I don't have any abilities that allow me to perform out of combat. Anyone have any solutions to shore up a fighter's usefulness out of combat? Any feats that might allow some utility?

There's this thing called roleplay?

Here's the real question... what is it that you want to do?

LazarX wrote:

The simple fact is...is that Doctor Who has never been as popular as it has become since the 2005 relaunch. It has gone mainstream enough to earn it's first TV Guide cover. Rail about it as you want but the numbers don't lie... the new format WORKS.

And of course, popularity has nothing to do with quality, so what point are you trying to make? Reality TV is popular too.

What 'works' is what the specific viewer in question enjoys, regardless of ratings. You can popularize Doctor Who by turning it into a soap opera, and you can boost cable-news ratings by turning it into infotainment and scream-fests... but is that an improvement?

On the other hand, unless you've got some credentials to back your opinion up, a poster here saying he doesn't like the show doesn't prove that it's backslid in quality. And quite frankly, a lot of the "Classic Who" shows were questionable at best.

And this is part of why I think we are ready for a new version.

"We" being you and those who seem to feel that we need to remake our games every few years or so.

I on the other hand see enough invested into this edition, that it would be hard to argue the benefits outweighing the sheer pain of a 2.0 that was nothing more than a language cleanup of 1.0.

Monopoly has survived unchanged for a century now. Why the urge to take apart our favorite game every half decade or so? Is there some sort of naive belief that remaking the game will put an end to the flood of rules questions and exploits? One might permit me my deep skepticism to such a stand.

This is actually incorrect. The original series got an all-time ratings high of 18 million viewers. It went through long periods of getting 11-14 million viewers every single week. The new series is currently getting around 7-8 million. That's still good considering how TV viewing has changed, but it's not quite as dominant as it was in the 1970s.

DOCTOR WHO is a UK show. It doing well in America is nice, but, due to the non-profit nature of the BBC, it doesn't actually help the show very much. What is important is the UK level of success, and that level is good, even impressive, but certainly not as big as it was back in the day.

That's somewhat misleading and inaccurate. Dr. Who in the day was back when most British viewers had a lot less to choose from and the acceptable standard allowed a rock quarry to stand in for a whole lot of planets. The standards as well as the number of shows have raised the bar, and quite frankly if the original Dr.Who premiered today, it would not last a season. As it was, the lackluster FOX movie almost killed the franchise here.

Also BBC collects a healthy amount of scratch from all of the Dr. Who licensing, so the show's success in America, does mean that it raises revenue. No one's giving anything away for free here.

S1. Instead of keeping your character information hidden from the other pcs so that they're forced to figure out what you've created by interacting with you in character, have you ever ran a game where you concealed your information not just from each other, but from the GM!? So that even the GM has to take the time to feel out what kind of character you've made, interacting with you exclusively as a 'character' instead of as a 'class' or a 'stat sheet' over which they have absolute purview?

The GM is the one person who MUST know your character. He's got to know it even better than YOU do. In fact he has to know things about your character that you don't even have a clue about. In a campaign where characters have real stories and real backgrounds, he's the one who's going to know how your past is going to bite you in the ass.

I could show up to an archery range in a blindfold. No sane range master however is going to let me shoot wearing one.

You see the show depending on one person as a recipe for disaster.

On the other hand, I need only point to the failures of Voyager, and the success of Babylon 5, to show that a creative force of one is always superior to design by committee.

The simple fact is...is that Doctor Who has never been as popular as it has become since the 2005 relaunch. It has gone mainstream enough to earn it's first TV Guide cover. Rail about it as you want but the numbers don't lie... the new format WORKS.

To me, River Song comes across as another 'producer's pet' character, i.e., "This character IS fascinating, and you WILL love her!"

Sorry, no. The Doctor is not supposed to be humiliated and shown up all the time by a wisecracking know-it-all... HE'S supposed to be the wisecracking know-it-all.

Actually most of the Doctors have tripped over themselves in various ways because they didn't know it all at the time. And River Song has a very good reason for her knowledge, remember she's from the future, when the bulk of these adventures have already been noted in her diary, which is safely ensconced in a library no one dares travel to.

LazarX wrote:

Silly gamer!

Don't you know that you have to make a wish first?!

Um I wish for more Proteans to be mailed out to everyone in the Paizo mailing lists?

Thing is... Cosmo is rather loose when it comes to swinging that fairy wand of his. You're never quite sure what he's going to come up with.

So with a wish like that, I'll be watching.... from five zip codes away.

That does bring up an interestion question. If you cast overland flight and you are in space do constantly go at a speed of 40 ft per round or do you accelerate? If you do go at a speed of 40 ft per round then what frame of reference are you using?

(If it does make something go a fix speed of 40f per round using the starting velocity and postion as a reference point I have a great idea for a missile. Most planets have hugely different velocities)

It's 40 feetX2 per round absolute. Which means that Overland Flight isn't meant for interplanetary travel.

MrSin wrote:

A changeling doesn't have to be a witch. They can choose to be a wizard. Its sort of weird that she would become a witch instead if she has any wizard training. Most likely if she was going to become a witch she may be contacted by a familiar or patron in some manner and be taught magic through that means. The details behind the witch patron are sort of vague, so I'm not sure what to say about that myself.

Well yes I know she doesn't HAVE to be a witch, but I want her to. As I said, her background is that her "father" was a wizard, and in fact doesn't even realize that she's a witch and not a wizard because she DOES study books and such. She just doesn't actually prepare spells from the books like he thinks she does.

Such a decision would make more sense if she loses her father, or plain out runs away before the question of apprenticeship comes up. Otherwise you really don't have much of a story justification other than "that's the way I want her to come out."

Silly gamer!

Don't you know that you have to make a wish first?!

And because the Abyss is a much more feminine place than masculine, and thus it makes sense for a society that worships demon lords to be matriarchal... just as the opposite holds true for arch devils and Hell. There may be an equal number of male and female demon lords... but the Abyss itself is feminine. The demon lords are led by a VERY feminine demon (Lamashtu), and the most powerful non-full-deity demon lord is ALSO female (Nocticula).

That caught me out of left field. Is this Pathfinder's take on the Abyss? Because I come up a bit short on how the Abyss has more female types of demons or leaders than the Hells. I remember Glasya, daughter of Asmodeus for example being quite influential in the Realms, apparantly working on getting deityhood for herself.

The whole point of this exercise was to REDUCE the number of factions.

We won't see any more before more factions join the Shadow and Lantern Lodges on the chopping block.

And more importantly. the story characters AREN"T their stats. The stats are just abstracted interpretations of the folks in the novels.

Because early on, authors discovered that if you tied your story too closely to the game rules, your stories wound up scoring massive suck. Because the game rules are for regulating wargames, not telling stories.

Also more importantly, the characters ARE NOT super powered heroes. That's why they're heroic, ironically enough. They're skilled and above average, but their stories are compelling in part because they have weak spots to overcome.

My answer to the initial question is because the game has always been about every person at the table having a distinct role, and the role of "healer" has been reserved for other classes. The game doesn't want a player to come to the table to play a sorcerer or wizard so they can heal, it wants them to come to the table to blast stuff with scorching rays, and fireballs.

However, with that said, I do understand that some tables really need a utility caster that can heal as well, for whatever reason.

Interestingly there is a "sort of" solution to this problem.

There is an item called: the ring of spell knowledge. Long story short on this item it lets an arcane caster learn an arcane spell that might not even be on their spell list, and to "know" the spell as an extra spell. Long story longer, in order to teach the spell to the ring, they must encounter a written, active, or cast version of the spell and make a DC 20 Spellcraft check. Witches cast arcane spells, which means they could cast a cure spell and the wiz/sorc could make the check to teach the ring, or the witch could scribe it onto a scroll, and the wiz could learn it that way. At that point you have an arcane healing spell.

Another option, that I've seen a few people use, is just to have the wiz/sorc max out Use Magic Device (which actually works better if you're a Magus or Sorcerer because it is one of their class skills), then they can use healing wands with a DC 20 check.

So a wiz/sorc can cast healing spells, it just takes a little extra work.

Or... play a witch?

Drogon wrote:

Please don't be upset with me when I present things to you that I think are a valid point in this discussion.

Understood, and not upset. There has been some amount of "you kids don't know how good you have it*," but I don't think it was coming from you.

The fear that people will ask for more is similar to the arguments floating around against 1st-level rebuilds (which I was around for). The relatively few people against the idea were afraid it would lead to entire character rebuilds on demand. And sure, people still ask to be able to retroactively apply a new Trait or an Archetype, but the campaign doesn't seem to have any problem saying "no" and moving on.

*Which is also a silly argument. We shouldn't shouldn't stop fighting for women to get equal pay just because they got their 75 cents to the dollar bumped up from 70.

Equating a reward issue from a volountary hobby activity with the major struggle for gender equality is not only an act of false equivalence, it's an extreme insult to an ongoing movement.

You got a slight problem. With two hands busy holding a greatsword, you don't have a hand free for casting.

Why would she buy a ressurrection? That would mean that she's no longer under the delusion that he's already alive.

By his very existance, an antipaladin is disruptive, an agent of chaos and destruction. He's sort of incapable of functioning alongside normal society and floats on the edges as a sort of engine of chaos and destruction, this is well and good for a higher level sort, but for low level guys? That first level antipaladin? He's going to be locked up or hung. And if you can't make it past first level, where do the higher ones come from?

Higher level other types that get remade as Anti-Paladins. In my book, they're usually Fallen Paladins or Fighter/Paladin combos.

The rule is there but few GMs enforce it..

I enforce it on a semi-soft basis. I let new players slide for their first session, but tell them quite firmly that they'll need to either bring in material or wartermarked PDF pages in the next session if they want to keep using non-core mechanics. If they're checking out classes and other stuff from the advanced books, then they aren't absolute newbs.

Artanthos wrote:

Brad McDowell wrote:

Watching their son being electrocuted by the evil emperor.

Instead of participating?

It worked Vader... But there was alot of stuff going on behind the scenes.

Vader was not an Anti-Paladin, he was Dark Jedi... different rules apply. In that world you could become a Dark Jedi by being too passionately good as well as evil.

OP: While I'm not fond of the way that DM rolls, so to speak. The way you handled the situation was a lot less than mature. You might have talked about why you weren't happy with the way the stats were rolled, why you felt the stats you got would impair your experience, and asked him if you were treated the exact same way as everyone else was.

Assuming the answer was yes and you still wouldn't accept it, I'd have picked a more gracious way to decline his game. In fact, I'd have walked off more graciously even if he did tell me he was handling me different.

Some folks LIKE gaming that way. Just because I couldn't stand it myself, does not require me to be rude to folks that do.

It's stories like these that perpetuate the image of gamers as unsocialised boors who retreat to escapist fantasies because of their inability or unwillingness to deal with people on a social level.

Roleplaying games are a social activity. They are a test of not only your system mastery, but also your ability to act like the adult, or reasonably mature adolescent you're presumed to be.

It would depend on a lot of things.

1. I would convert all of your gear towards Pathfinder equivalents. That conversion alone may very well change the equation right off the bat. After that it would be a case by case basis on what you had and where in level are you.

2. Wealth by level target is just a loose guideline, if what you have in my judgement at the end of step 1, makes you viable, then I don't see a reason for change.

Food they can't normally get. If you're giving them the gift on the surface, I'd lean towards some kind of sugar-based candy that would just dissolve if they brought it underwater, and/or maybe bacon or some other kind of jerky/cured meat.

You might also give them holy symbols, to show you trust them with something you consider sacred.

Perhaps, symbolically, some soil from your town center in a sealed jar so they can own part of your village.

Foods that they can't get will most likely be rubbish underwater. You want to give them things that will last. Gold scuplture, crafted gems would be good. And there are the same things that land people would appreciate, such as fine weapons (especially those applicable to undwerwater use) to defend themselves with. The sea is a much more hostile place than the land and all the threats are three-dimensional.