LazarX's page

LazarX wrote:

thejeff wrote:

Tacticslion wrote:

thejeff wrote:

Again though, Fighter isn't your basic grunt. That's a warrior. Fighters are the elite. They should be more skilled than the base grunt.

I've already established that he's elite. He's not a "basic grunt". That's a warrior, as you pointed out.

They are "more skilled" than the basic grunt. Those "skills" come by way of their impressive class features instead of skill points.

Yes, you already established it.

Following which, LazarX posted that Fighters don't need many skills because basic army grunts don't need them. That's what I was replying to.

Problem is that WAS not the argument you were making. You were listing the skills of I quote "The Basic Soldier". Fighters by definition aren't your basic soldier. They may be very well your squad leaders, or generals, but not your basic soldier which is your grunt warrior. And again most squad leaders aren't scouts, they'll have scouts under their command.

So take the larger question then: What role do fighters play in the military?

They're not the basic grunts: Those are warriors.
They're not the scouts: Those are rogues/rangers
They're not special forces: Those are rangers.
Are they leaders/officers? Do they have the skills/abilities for that?
(Cavaliers might fit that better in many cases.)
Some kind of elite grunts/champions?
Do they have any role in the army at all?

I would say not as much as you might think. Fighters are much less common than warriors, they are the more atypical combat masters. In armies, they'll be elite specialists, and their roles will vary by the individual. Some cultures (like elves) will have a much greater percentage of fighters, (in the elvish case,they'd be archer archetypes, or those who favor elvish weapons) over warriors. A high number of leaders will be fighters, simply because they will be the ones who survive more battles than many warriors (the promotion through survival as in "Starship Troopers")

Skills for leadership? not that much required beyond Intimidate which is a class skill for Fighters. Along with the physical skills that Fighters excel at.

Also keep in mind that beyond the Romans, most pre-tech military wasn't that well organised, and even many Roman auxillaries and mercenary armies weren't either. For the most part aside from the more skilled siege engineers and archers, most armies were simply a collection of armed mobs that ran at each other.

Like: WHY does the spell system have to be Vancian? Either from a fluff standpoint OR a mechanics standpoint? Just because that's the way it's always been?

The spell system being vancian is one of the core elements that have defined the game's D+D heritage, along with the core classes such as fighter, wizard, cleric, and thief/rogue. Along with d20 dice and weapon types.

Did the game HAVE to have any of these? Of course not, but the fact that it has for decades has defined the essential character of the game.

Could you do away with any or more of these? Sure, but then you'd be playing something quite different, a different game. And that would be another topic of discussion.

I was hosed from the get go. It's only a faction point. I'll never have the gold to spend to keep up with them anyways. It popped my Silver Crusade bubble, 'tis all. I thought they were the "good guys". I now know they are as steeped in gray moral dilemmas like everyone else.

Translation: Player learns that Silver Crusaders are people with depth, and not just two dimensional "shining knights".

You should be using a Shadow Lodge emblem :)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The goblins have committed no evil act yet, so they're neutral. As they grow up their actions will determine their alignment. For most goblins that's a tendency towards NE, but living in a different culture? Who knows.

What I don't get is the PC trying to claim that this is a neutral act? A neutral character would most likely not give a care either way. If a character is religiously neutral, then they might be trying to insure the babes stay alive to maintain balance: "we killed X number of creatures before finding the babes, now we must insure that X number of creatures live."

I can't really figure out any way that a neutral character would want to actively kill babies of any stripe.

Presumably because he thinks that doing this will establish his gamer cred as a successfully manipulative roleplayer who's also badass.

Obviously,jumping to the moon would be impossible. All of it withing reason. However, even a skilled climber can fail climbing a simple cliff.

If skilled climbers failed 5 percent of every climb they made, there'd be a lot fewer climbers. And tourist climbs would be virtually nonexistant.

Abandoned Arts wrote:

Huh. There's an iconic ninja? I thought there weren't iconic ninjas, samurai, or antipaladins since those classes are technically just alternate base and core classes.

There are Iconic ninja and samurai characters; it's only the poor antipaladin who has no Iconic.

One main reason... he wouldn't be allowed as a player choice in PFS. Those are what I call the major iconics, the minor iconics are those who are statted out but not approved for PFS play.

Purchase price of the animal does NOT include training.

Also keep in mind that while this tactic may seem awesome for lowbie characters who aren't going to have such money to spend, these critters aren't getting any more durable as the threat level of your challenges rises.

Funky Badger wrote:

The characters are meant to be Pathfinders first and foremost, faction agents second.

Yeah, that's kinda what I'm afraid of seeing happen.

I don't know if I am alone in this, but being an instrument of pillage and murder for ten masked entities is pretty depressing. The Decemvirate have done very little if anything to inspire loyalty in their soldiers, while they continually amass more and more of the world's magical items. The Hao Jin Tapestry, especially if they succeed at unlocking the power to connect the Grand Lodge to anywhere on Golarion, would arguably become the most powerful magical item ever known, in that it would be an infinite-use, infinite-range teleportation effect. That right there would vastly increase the Decemvirate's military and economic power, granting potential for trade and conquest unseen in the rest of Golarion. And we don't even know what they want, beyond, as we know, more power.

That's a bit of an unfair call for the following reasons.

1. The Society does not send you on murder hobo missions. They send you to gather artifacts and occasionally to put a check on groups that really are in the rape and pillage of precious sites, such as the Aspis. The fact that you do wind up in combat is part of the unfortunate world you live in. And occasionally they send you to stop some very serious threats such as the occaisonal rising Runelord. Quite frankly if anyone is of the murderous bent, it's the Andorans. And they're supposed to be the good guys!

2. There is no sign that the Society is planning on opening up the Hao Jin tapestry as a form of commercial mass transit. More than likely they'll keep reserving it's use to it's agents as they are now. The last thing they want to do is to start flaunting overt power in a world where many fear and hate them as it is. The Society fields archaeologists, not armies.

Every system will find people that love it or hate it to death.

I've come to the conclusion that none of them is inherently superior or inferior, they just answer to different drummers.

LazarX wrote:

Newsflash.

The next beta of Pathfinder Online will feature bleeding feet graphics for all those characters who are nailed to the ground by default.

For a special in app purchase though, you can get a claw hammer to have those nails removed. This will allow characters to jump, and elves and halflings to front flip.

Will the dwarves and gnomes be able to roll on the ground as well?

No, but un-nailing their feet will allow them to be punted or tossed as appropriate, by their betters.

Jason Wu wrote:

My concern is, "where is your focus"? I have had GMs that were pretty clearly there only because I was providing room and free convention entry, not because they were really wanting to GM. And it showed in the quality of their GMing, resulting in unhappy players. I ended up telling these 'volunteers', thanks but no thanks, I'll find someone else.

And your concern with the proposal of multiple GM credits per scenario is that it will attract more of these undesirable GMs?

If so, do you concede that it will also attract GMs who don't require credit, but would like to receive it?

And if so, isn't having so many GMs that you have to turn some away a good problem to have?

The thing is... GM's DO receive credit, on a one time basis per scenario, which is 100 percent more than any other network campaign ever did. Despite this, those campaigns who gave out no rewards, also managed to get a good number of people who stepped up to the plate.

We're not doing ourselves any favors by attracting a larger number of GM's if the deal breaker was getting bribed more than they already are.

Newsflash.

The next beta of Pathfinder Online will feature bleeding feet graphics for all those characters who are nailed to the ground by default.

For a special in app purchase though, you can get a claw hammer to have those nails removed. This will allow characters to jump, and elves and halflings to front flip.

I've gmed for several network campaigns before PFS,including Living Greyhawk, Living City, and Living Arcanis. And for the most part we got bupkis rewards for doing so... save for the pleasure of GMing itself. I've appreciate the already generous rewards that Paizo gives us presently, but I still GM for no credit those modules that I run multiple times.

If you won't step up to the plate for GMing unless you're going to be bribed for each and every time you do so, then quite frankly, you don't belong in this campaign, and for that matter no other network campaigns that I can think of, as a GM, because you're doing it for the wrong reasons, and with the wrong attitude.

LazarX wrote:

Lumiere Dawnbringer wrote:

but even though i approve banning gunslingers in dark sun because they are an ill fit for the setting. i wouldn't allow that Same DM to get away with banning Ninja in Golarion. especially when Golarion not only has a "Japan" Analogue. they have an "Assassin's" Analogue and even, "The Chelexian Hellstalkers."

Actually I could easily justify banning Ninja and the other Eastern character types for a Golarion campaign if the campaign specs are on the order of.

"I'm creating a campaign for Andoran characters." Or substitute any other homogenous region that's not Tian Xia.

You missed the point entirely. The ninja class is not eastern only. You can take off the label and call it assassin and it wouldn't change the class but you could easily change the fluff. An assassin who uses poisons and has a variety of skills doesn't sound different than any assassins I know. The ki could be relabeled as guile or focus if you have a problem with that(Ki doesn't even use any sort of wacky magic stuffs). Bombs are pretty mundane and I'm shocked they weren't part of the rogue package.

Don't let the names get to you. Samurai and ninja aren't eastern only. They don't have class specific features that require them to be from an eastern country. Beyond the name they have nothing to do with anything eastern. They could've easily been rogue or cavalier archetypes.

If you have a problem with the fluff of a pajama wearing ninja you should probably discuss that at character creation. No need to ban the class when you can just ask them to wear something more than black pajamas. If they had another name you might never have a problem with them in a non eastern setting at all.

I totally disagree. Samurai and Ninja are classes that evolved the way they did BECAUSE of their cultural and regional histories. That's why Japan had Samurai, Western Europe had Knights, and Eastern Europe developed Cossacks. The fluff of a class is an inherent part of it, not just a wrapper to be taken off and discarded at whim. Simmiarly the word Assassin was originally tied to a specific cult of murder for hire.

Simmiarly mechanics like Ki are absolutely dependent on having a certain world view, outside of Tian, such a viewpoint is only found in very enlightened monasteries.

Unlike many reskinners here, I don't consider "fluff" to be the trivial disposable part of any class. So if my campaign is an Andoran campaign and I say that the PC's are all Andoran natives, that leaves out the Eastern classes, and severely limits access to guns.

Playing the Lich as an idiot and removing all the possible buffs he could have is unrealistic.

Since the Lich is a Wizard, it is assumed he has a massive Intelligence score by the time he hits 20, and would thus be smart enough to hide his phylactery in an insanely hard to reach place, probably filled with guards called with Planar Binding or other means.

This is modified somewhat by the fact that the path that many Lichs take to their state tends to put them in various flavors of bat-crazy insanity. Remember that the roads casters take to lichdom generally require acts or procedures that only a severely bent person would contemplate. Or that they find themselves not nearly as mentally prepared to take the change as they thought.

"You never told me that I'd wouldn't be able to drink coffee again!"

Xykon

First off, has anyone some suggestions for opponents? Also, has anyone ever created a Sardaukar for Pathfinder?

I'm waiting until I finish filling Golarion with sand.

Bill Dunn wrote:

kmal2t wrote:

I know this is gonna get flack, but it's kind of a video game mentality to want to be the uber-character at everything. Traditional roleplaying assumes the character is like a person: someone who has strengths and weaknesses and is imperfect.

Video games have nothing to do with it. The attitude has been around since the first time role-playing games offered benefits for having high stats.

Obviously it existed to one extend or another, the issue is the mentality becoming increasingly more common these days and what a likely cause is.

At least part of the reason that the mentality is becoming more common is that GAMERS themselves are becoming more common. In fact compared to what it was in the early days, it's practically a mainstream hobby!

I'm 52 going on 53. And I started with AD+D in 1980 then went on to play games like Ars Magica, Talislanta, Villains +Vigilantes, Champions, GURPS, and other really fringe ones such as Amber Diceless. After trying out the original Hommelet again a few months ago, I remembered why I took a ten year vacation from TSR... it's because I'd gotten sick of AD+D and while doing that trip back down memory lane did bring back some fond memories it was of the people I played with back then, not the system itself.

I was able to tolerate and have fun with AD+D... until I found alternatives to it. Now I'm very confident that I'll not ever play 1E, 2E, again of my own volition and it's highly doubtful that I'd every want to play 3.X again. Playing any thing of D+D 3.5 and older is too much like going back.

I have a question is Int dose not mean how smart someone is what dose it mean? Whats the point of having a Int stat at all? I know where people are coming from but come on people so whats next str is not how strong you are? Is con not how healthy you are?

Strictly speaking, the purpose of stats is to regulate specific wargaming aspects, attacks, saves, skill use. The roleplaying aspect is whether you're going to roleplay the character appropriately or be a cheese weasel that insists that such numbers have nothing to do with what your character is.

10 is average, you're either at average or significantly above or below it. That should be a springboard on how to portray your character. This may be limited by your level of personal socialisation.

Keeping the focus on Raving Dork's SPECIFIC QUESTION...

If you want something that fairly amounts to being a Demonic Special Snowflake background for your character, you've essentially given the GM carte blanche to spring whatever consequences, whenever he feels appropriate, and you have no business crying when your background gives you grief.

I have learned long ago never to answer RD's specific questions in general terms as I do not believe that extreme theoretical corner cases of the kind he's fond of presenting should be used to set general policies. If anything, the general answer should be...on a Case by Case Basis.

Resubmitted it, eh? I wonder how many times you can resubmit a petition before they block you?

Infinitely. Computers have infinite patience, and the White House won't unnecessarily limit your ability to make a fool of yourself when it does not impact the efficiency of it's operations or the experience of others.

Ravingdork wrote:

thejeff wrote:

How does a human's wooden shield stand up to metal weapons of large creatures? Or Huge ones, for that matter?

Make no mistake, I was wondering that as well.

Firstly, a well-made shield is a composite: Wooden base, covered with cowhide, edged with steel and with a steel boss in the centre. The result is very strong and above all, very flexible - it bends to absorb the impact of a blow.

Secondly, you don't block flat with it, you use it to deflect attacks so they glance off the shield at an angle. That way the shield avoids damage and the user avoids getting hurt.

Someone actually gets the point. Shield Proficiency is a feat, even if there are classes that get it for free. It's not just strapping a piece of wood and metal to your arm, it means using it effectively in a dynamic combat situation.

Your problem RD is really that you miss the forest because you jam your eyes into the bark of single trees. You are so intent on analyzing single rule mechanics that you miss the zeitgeist of the composite whole.

[I don't like ninjas and samurai because they are derivative/unoriginal in terms of Pathfinder, and because they simply do not belong in traditional Western fantasy.

Golarion is not, and never has been "traditional Western Fantasy". And to a large part, Pathfinder owes very little to traditional Western Fantasy when you think of it's other roots. It's a product of decades of evolution of a distinct gaming culture, a different literary tradition. Golarion is not Greyhawk, it's not the Forgotten Realms, nor is it Middle Earth. It borrows from many sources including Horror, some light touches of steam punk, and classic science fiction, as well as fantasy.

And there are tropes that it uses whole and tropes it completely subverts.

In organized play? It most certainly does. If everyone doesn't agree to play by the rules, PFS doesn't even get off the ground for us to be talking about this. If "fun" trumps fairness, then lets give every 7 year old girl a 25 point build..

I'm afraid then that you are in a world of disappointment. The main mission of PFS is to provide an environment where players will have reasons to come back. If you think that means that players won't come back unless they're coddled, then you have a low opinion of your fellow players.

And if the players don't have fun, they're not coming back. Your problem is the insistence on seeing this as a black/white, all or nothing equation. If things were that simple, you would not need humans at the judging seat.

The answer to the OP's question is that there is no hard and fast answer on this issue. It's very much a go with your gut, and use your on the table judgement on this matter.

LazarX wrote:

The problem with all of the above suggestions.... they're too bloody obvious. A veiled master is more likely to be a nameless servant, or even a janitor, someone whom you're likely to forget as soon as you lay eyes off them... like the Silence.

Veiled Masters have mental powers they don't need to be these figures just someone who comes in contact with the right people every now and then.

As much as I like sensation "oooh" suggestions, there is a certain amount of good common sense to this.

The best place for a veiled master is close to the seat of power, but not necessarily the focus of it.

There are probably veiled masters lurking around places that have never been fully introduced or developed yet, like powerful drow cities.

Anyone who wants to be a veiled master can take lessons from the Silence, they were practically the ultimate masters of that trick. After all, they influenced Human history in order that a space program be created, all in order to create a mind controlling suit for a chosen pre-programmed psychopathic assassin. (Kurt Vonnegut fans take note!)

And I do not like an endless stream of additional rules options. That is not fun to me. It's bloat, and to me is indicative of a company catering to the least common denominator, in this case, the WOW crowd.

With this Goodwin maneuver, you've lost any sympathy I've had to your post, (and I was a major critic of 3.5's bloat back in the day)

You really don't know your audience do you? WOW players, D+D/Pathfinder Players and GM's, for a good chunk of people we're all part of the same crowd.

What you don't seem to be willing to face is that gamers like TOYS, and shinies, and new options. Paizo publishes these books, because Paizo's customers have made it clear that they WANT them. They want them bad enough to subscribe to these books. And unlike most companies, Paizo actually lets their customers TEST before they buy, by offering playtest pre-release documents.

Maybe the problem is not them, but your preferences. Look for a failing gaming company that's only selling to a dozen customers. That should keep the release schedule down to something you're more comfortable with.

I don't think Dinklage was saying he finds all halflings, dwarves, etc, offensive. He's saying that most depictions are shallow. I tend to agree. Last time I played a fantasy dwarf in Pathfinder another player asked me if he'd be Scottish or Russian.

Most don't even go that far, it generally goes no deeper than ale-swilling,foul mouth hacker of orcs and spitter at elves. And the cultural descriptions given in the First and Second Edition as well as the strict piegeonholing in Basic D+D didn't help.

[WARNING LONG] -

1 - Do not tailor the game to the players or their characters. Players should be encouraged to play whatever they want. If they come to an obstacle they cannot overcome, let them fail or come back to it later. This will influence players to be more well rounded in their character creation, or at least as a group.

I'm going to offer Erick Wujick, the creator of Amber Diceless, rebuttal to that principle.

"If your players build for Warfare, don't make your game be about Psyche."

Whether sandbox or storyline, your players ARE the Heroes, or at least Protagonists of your world. They are the reason you're there. So the campaign should reflect the characters that the players want to play.

[

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

In this venue it's more appropos to say that the Road to Hell is mapped by rules lawyers.

I was fond of original Marvel Superheroes,as well as Big Eyes Small Mouth. And Villans + Vigilantes will always hold a fond space in my roleplaying history, given that the campaign I ran became a source book in GURPS.

MrSin wrote:

Durngrun Stonebreaker wrote:

Rynjin wrote:

Does it need to be special as long as it's fun and interesting?

I guess it doesn't have to be. I like playing unique characters.

Most people like playing unique characters. Special Snowflakes make you feel extra special. I think its the person that makes the character special myself.

So you're against restrictions and uniqueness? Do we want more creativity or is creativity bad now? This seems really strange to me.

Most Special Snowflake characters aren't nearly as unique as their creators think. If it didn't take you that much effort to think of a character, odds are it was just as easy for someone else.

LazarX wrote:

That this is yet another proof of what James Jacobs stated years ago. That the Paladin is the most disruptive class in the game, and if he had had the choice would have been one of the first classes elimnated entirely, the second being the Summoner. The Paladin is a relic of an earlier generation with different social and moral codes than those of the present. And it simply does not belong in a game where the gm and players are playing the cultural relativism theme of morality.

I'm on my way out the door to work, and don't have time to search, right now. If you don't mind, would you link the original statement/thread, please? I would be interested in reading JJ's actual wording in his statement.

The James Jacobs thread is a pretty long one and it doesn't lend itself much to searching, but you can google the question like I did and you'll find a collection of his quotes

On Paladins of all alignments"

Such an event would likely require myself, Erik Mona, Jason Bulmahn, and a few other key employees at Paizo to no longer be making the decisions for the game. Since all of us are pretty firmly in the camp of "Paladins are lawful good."

Jason, in fact, DID tinker with mechanics for non-LG paladins as an archetype, and after working on it for a while, came to the realization that the actual mechanics just don't work. The paladin's powers can be "mirrored" once for the antipaladin, but you can't mirror them 7 more times, basically. And each time you DO mirror them, you dilute the core point of the paladin.

On Paladins as a disruptive class:

And second of all... I've always liked paladins the least. I've always felt that they're too disruptive to party cohesion. More so than evil characters. I still let players in my groups play them, though.

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2l7ns&page=293?Ask-James-Jacobs-ALL-your-Qu estions-Here

Let's refocus. This is Rules Question post, not Suggestions/House Rules/Home Brew one. Animal Companions are still animals. Animals get their own initiative. Nothing in the AC description says they now get their master’s initiative.

And there's nothing that says they DON'T. Go to any PFS table in any convention in the bloody planet. Everyone I've seen in conventions from Dexcon to Gencon have been running things this way since the days of D20.

Because it's one of the ways we get scenarios done in 4 hour time blocks.

And again as I've said before this game can't be run entirely on RAW. That's why we need GM's instead of just bookreaders.

Youre right, one's usuage of one's rights is limited. One cant yell "fire', just like one cant murder people. What we dont do is straight up ban certain words from ever being spoken

Actually we can and do... in public spaces, such as media. ergo the Seven Forbidden Words for TV and Radio.

And again, the Second Amendment does not address bacon, and I really don't care to address strawman hypotheticals. This is the text of the Second Amendment.

As passed by the Congress:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

In both versions the right to bear arms is specifically defined as being justified in the keeping of a "well regulated militia". You can't selectively ignore that part of the Amendment. The Amendment was never written with private ownership and carriage being it's primary target.

All the good magic items are prohibitively expensive. What am I gonna do with an Apparatus of the Crab that is so absurdly powerful I need to plunk down 90.000 gold for it?

But then again you wouldn't be plunking down 90,000 gold. Things like this are thrown in campaigns when the DM wants to introduce some underwater action. In my day,the bulk of the magic items we got were found or seized, not mail-ordered from Magic Mart.

This thread is circling around itself incandesently like debris orbiting a black hole.

Fact of the matter is that you don't have to put down wizards to find ways to have fun with a sorcerer, and the same goes for the reverse. I've played and will play both preparatory casters and spontaneous ones. I glory in the differences between both and have learned not to play one as the other.

Hmmm... New paladin question! Do paladins hate or look down upon freedom? Its in an opposite square on the 9 alignments.

For a Paladin, True Freedom is found by honoring the precepts of law and good. They ensure a level playing field and a society that treats all it's citizens justly.

They would argue that chaos leads to a dictatorship of the strong, which is hardly free at all. Or the anarchy of disunion which is not the same as freedom.

In other words, Freedom is not the exclusive property of the Chaotic alignments. Nor does Chaos guarantee freedom.

As I have said in other debates on the subject, the vast majority of cyclops hate is manufactured by bad writing by people who hated the character and did everything they could to ruin the character.

For some reason, the bulk of Marvel's writers who worked on the X-Men,decided that Scott Summers was going to be the Butt Monkey of the Marvel Universe. I suspect that these were the same people that expected you to actually be sympathetic for the pro-registration side during the Civil War despite that side being represented by some of the lowest scum performing some of the most despicable acts on the planet.

Then what's the difference between neutral good and lawful good?

A Lawful Good believes in the necessity for order to provide any lasting good. For them it's not enough to simply go out and bash a problem, you build a structure to make sure that things stay better. Lawful Goods also tend to believe that good arises outside themselves, that an ordered hierarchy is the method most likely to succeed in creating the greater good.

Ultimately they think of good in terms of "we". His chaotic good opposite thinks of good in terms of "me". The Neutral Good is somewhere in between.

That's fine, but in actuality the islands have been continuously inhabited by the British for 180 years and the entire population wants to remain British or, at worst, become fully independent. The Argentinian position - that this is irrelevant - is hugely problematic for dozens of countries around the world as extending that rule to everyone would result in many countries losing territory (including the USA and Argentina itself) against the will of the people who live there. That makes zero logical sense.

Given that the United States repeatedly displaced entire nations from land that they had occupied for millennia, not to mention that the Brits themselves did so at Palestine, this doesn't give the sheep herders of the Falklands any special status.

1. Generic. The book should be about HOW you play, not a bunch of fluff about a universe you ton't want to play in. Just the changes to Pathfinder to enjoy playing games in a modern or Scifi setting.

Quite frankly, if it wasn't for the setting, I'd have paid no attention to either Dragonstar or Traveller. Rules by themselves don't excite me. Grounding them in a default setting with ready to go adventures, one gives me something to care about and ensures that the rules set had some real playtesting to work out kinks.

It may be "fluff" to you, but it's the "meat" to me.

LazarX wrote:

And the customer in question should realize that he's asking for work to be done for free, and not a small amount of work at that. Herolab charges for each product they support, and most 3PP's are pretty tight on their budgets. So you should gauge your expectations appropriately.

OP said: "I recognize that the coding of Hero Lab files isn’t an insignificant undertaking. I realize that there are costs involved. However, I’d pay more for those PDFs if HL files were included. I’d also likely buy more as I’d be more likely to use them."

Doesn't sound like he wants something for nothing. At all.

He might, but quite frankly I imagine that quite a few would balk at an increased price tag. The other issue is that anything that involves software also involves support, which these companies might not have the means to deliver.

How receptive are you to the GMPC if he is low powered and doesn't contribute to many ideas or directions - just role play and combat help (though he gets a share of the loot and xp).

You're at a table to GM or Play. Mixing the two is a recipe for disaster because it skews your perspective as a GM.

There's a major difference between an NPC that accompanies the party as part of a story than a GMPC. The GMPC is something that the GM has emotional investment with the way the Players do their own PC's. That puts him in a conflict of interest scenario with his role as GM. So yes, it's a potential landmine.

Trying to look at it objectively for a moment, it's no surprise that a LN person such as yourself should prefer a vision where paladins believe law is more important than good, nor is it a surprise that a CG person such as myself should prefer a vision in which paladins believe that good is more important than law. However, I have both fluff and crunch to point to while you have only fluff.

From the point of view of a Paladin, a chaotic good is about as distant from him alignment wise (two steps) as a Lawful Evil. You can not dismiss the importance of Law to a Paladin. (and by the way, we've got a creative director's opinion to this so it's not just fluff. Good is somewhat more important in that Paladins will irrevocably fall for voluntarily committing an evil act, but they can't maintain their status by performing chaotic ones either.