Liquidsabre's page

Saying someone is cheating carries a moral implication. If you aren't trying to make a moral implication, that people making house rules is immoral, than you should stop using the term for this discussion.

I'm glad that you object to the term so strongly. You should.

A good number of people on these 'fudging' threads give the following advice: "never let your players know".

Why?

First a sub-group of them say never let your players know that you will 'fudge' dice rolls at all, as they (reasonably) won't trust your results after that. I see that we've abandoned defense of this.

Second another group says that even if you are honest with your players that you will alter dice (or the like) that you don't tell them when you decide to do so as such will spoil the game for the players. This is a little more grey than the first, so its where you need make your stand on it.

Both of these should have the eye catching warning signs that you react to when you see the word 'cheating'.

Imagine if the DM says 'well this was supposed to happen, so it does'. Oh it has to be more subtle than that, so that the players can fool themselves into believing it.... it's the same thing in the end however.

And if that's the game that you want to play 'I take back my move' 'well a miracle happens and you wake up alive' and the like... then you're not playing the same game as I am.

You're cheating at solitaire because you'd rather have an empty 'win' instead of facing even a little challenge. And when you cheat at solitaire you really are cheating yourself.

-James

I never try to kill anyone, but my games tend to be pretty hardcore sometimes. As a result, I have a lot of notches on the proverbial gun. Within recent years, it seems that there is at least one PC death in any campaign I've ran for an extended period of time. Let me recall a few.

Red Hand of Doom: About two or so years ago, I was running the adventure path Red Hand of Doom (by WotC). In this one campaign that stretches from about level 5 to 15, I had one of the PCs die twice. Once against an Ettin and once by a Gray Render (he was actively looking for the Render for some reason). His deaths were somewhat amusing to the group when they had to cast raise dead or similar.

Recent Games: In a recent game for my persistent world, one of the players was playing a venerable synthesist who had Str, Dex, and Con 1 when not bound to his eidolon. During one of their adventures, they angered a necromancer who was up to some bad stuff, and he sent a pack of plague zombies after them. After being attacked by a horde of plague-zombie bats (estimated CR 1/8th), several of the party members were plague-ridden. The old PC died during the night 24 hours later and rose as an amazingly frail crusty zombie (Str 3, Dex 1 :P) before he was put down by the group. The group is now looking to have the old guy reincarnated, but they are currently trapped in a town full of zombies (the plague lord ordered the undead bats to follow them and infect anyone around them). Thus they are somewhat cursed until they can deal with the whole flock of bats or overcome the BBEG.

In another recent game, I had an Imp Sorcerer whom the party found trapped in an ancient tomb. For releasing him, the Imp offers to provide the "lowly mortals" (egotistical little guy) some sort of boon for his release after all these years. The party's barbarian screams and charges into combat without so much as batting an eyelash to let the party know. Remaining alive via it's damage reduction, the little imp hops back and drops a potent fireball into the APL 3 group. He rolls particularly well, one of the party members rolls particularly unwell, and next thing you know a party member is BBQ.

In yet another fairly recent game, there was a 1st level adventure where a mage got tag-teamed by a group of 1st level kobolds who all hit him with flasks of alchemical goodies with Point Blank Shot. The wizard took 4d6+6 damage immediately and dropped. Later in a continuation of that same game, the kobolds ended up using a pit trap combined with a barrel of oil they had added in their WBL, some alchemist fires, and some acids to make life for a group of PCs hell. Surprisingly no one died during this encounter, but they basically got to be whipping boys for the kobolds.

In another game, I was running the Forsaken Churchyard adventure for a group that included a pair of 1st level spellcasters. During one scene involving a group of slow moving but very beefy zombies, both of the 1st level mages decided to run right up into melee with the zombies and begin casting burning hands and shocking grasp. It didn't end well for either of these mages.

In a game I was running as a favor for an online persistent world, I was asked to run a group whom I hadn't GMed with before through a tower of undead and have them ultimately battle a lich-wizard at the end of the tower. The GM assured me that the party was exceedingly powerful for their level (13th), and gave me a list of things he felt I should do to the lich to make it "last more than 2 rounds"; which included making the lich a 17th level wizard, giving it an artifact only the lich could use that gave it a 30 spell resistance and a +8 bonus to intelligence, exceptionally high ability scores, and PC WBL. Feeling this was a bit heavy handed, I generated the lich as a 15th level wizard using the standard NPC rules, NPC wealth, and none of the artifacts or anything like that.

As we were beginning the game, I asked for a quick headcount and introduced myself and got acquainted with everyone. The group was about 8 players strong, and apparently exceedingly used to steamrolling every encounter they came across. Half of them also complained about how amazingly overpowered one of the party members was (a beguiler who had heavily optimized her save DCs and dipped into Shadowcraft Mage). During the first encounter, the group is harried by a pack of CR 3 shadows, whom at their level weren't even worth XP except in excessively large groups (and even then it was a tiny amount of XP). The beguiler, who apparently had never thought to invest in any sort of AC improving item ever had both a 10 AC and a 9 strength at level 13. She dies in the first round.

Later, the party goes through the dungeon and encounters the lich, having been speaking to them through magic as they were storming through the tower, has already prepared a bit for their arrival. The epic encounter consisted of the lich and a pair of CR 8 advanced allips as her minions. Within the first three rounds of combat, half the party was either dealing with some sort of disabling spell like black tentacles or unconscious. The party's Planar Shepherd (yeah one of those) fled the combat by planeshifting early, realizing they had apparently attacked some sort of demigod. During the fight, the heavily warded Paladin (whom I believe was one of the more skilled players) continually used Use Magic Device and scrolls of Break Enchantment to begin freeing different PCs from bad conditions.

During the battle which their previous GM was afraid wouldn't last more than 2 rounds (it actually lasted closer to 30), several party members were thrown out of the tower, one of the party's sorceresses was turned to stone (twice), about half the party was Exhausted (barring the ones who thought to use defensive spells like deathward), and every few rounds another party member would break off and flee the battle which seemed to progressively be worsening for them as the lich used more of her powers to spank them around.

By about round 22 or so, even the Paladin grabbed the twice-petrified sorceress (after de-petrifying her again) and suggested they flee because he was running out of consumable items to keep countering her doom, and even if they beat her it would be an overall loss for them. The party's healer/cleric however refused to leave because (in the player's words "this is the greatest fight ever" and "if I'm going to die, it's going to be in this one!"). The battle raged on until both were suffering combat fatigue (IE they were low on spells and dirty tricks). Ultimately they ended up talking out their differences over a game of chess, the lich gifted the cleric with an intelligent magic item for being willing to talk and work out a solution to their differences civilly, and the cleric walked out of the tower successful.

That's by far not a comprehensive list, but that covers most of the deaths that spring to mind or were fairly memorable.

A Star Wars Adventure Path would be so utterly awesome that I can't even finish this sen

Yes, the Vancian spell system is just like democracy. It is clearly the worst possible magic system, except for all the other magic systems.

There may be some that work better, (not spell points, see the 3.5 psionicist, especially at mid to high levels - 15+ for complete gamebreaking domination), but it WILL NOT be D&D without it. Too many years, too many spells.

I feel that the art only becomes a problem when it starts driving players off from the game. Some amount of this is inevitable, yes, like KaeYoss says. But the girls I game with are not exactly repressed — they just react badly to a small number of very specific pieces, ones where I feel they have a point.

No, the girls you game with are ideological. They've bought into the Beauty Myth Myth.

I get that you think they have a point, but really...they don't. They don't like some of the art. Everyone doesn't like some of the art. The only difference between your friends and everyone else is that everyone else is expressing what is clearly a personal opinion, and your friends are masking their personal opinions behind a layer of what is, frankly, ideological nonsense in order to give their opinions the illusion of moral weight.

Paizo isn't going to sell one more book by giving into the demands of the ideologically motivated. Because that's a rabbit hole that has no bottom, and the only proper response to those kinds of complaints is to ignore them and focus on the people who are receptive to what you're doing.

People made these exact same complaints about D&D art way back when TSR regularly featured images of naked women being presented as sacrificial offerings and prizes to be pried from the hands of monsters. Thirty years later and the art has changed dramatically, with women no longer being presented as overly sexualized prizes to be taken. But you know what hasn't changed? At all? The nature and tone of the complaints. Now instead of complaining legitimately about naked women laid out on altars (which is a bit egregious), they complain that you can see Amri's bellybutton. Oh noes!

And they will never stop complaining. It will always be something. Because once you start giving people's opinions the illusion of moral force, they get addicted to the power of complaining. So they don't ever stop. The only way to deal with that is to ignore them.

And kudos for paizo for making a fantasy game for fans of fantasy, instead of caving into pressures from people who are just fans of complaining.

post the eidolons full build. most people end up messing up and giving eidolons abilities they didnt qualify for

I won't steal Sean's thunder by relating the fact that, statistically speaking, most of our books are more dependable than the most common forms of birth control. (Wait... damn....)

What I will say is that the FDA has guidelines for how much rat poop can show up in your food. Same with hair, dangerous chemicals, etc. Those numbers are not zero, because they *can't* be zero. Rat poop happens. What they've done is set the bar as high as seems feasible (and, hopefully, safe).

Editing is a lot like that. We do the best we can, but things will inevitably slip through. Are we always trying to make things better? You bet. And when errors crop up, we're terribly embarrassed (you should see the look in Chris Carey's eyes when he sees something he was *sure* he fixed). But the willingness to risk imperfection--and in fact, to totally bomb on occasion--is necessary for any artist or entertainer. It's part of the job. (Terrifyingly, the same is also true of surgeons and other professions where the consequences are much, much greater.)

This is not an excuse, it's just how it is. We're going to keep doing our best, and if that's not enough, it's not enough. But I hope that the totally awesome content in the books will continue to outweigh the occasional "teh" or convoluted feat description.

I told Erik that I wanted a set of these also. Heck, I even offered to design them just to get them going! Perhaps I can bug him again tomorrow. :)

-Lisa

Hi everyone.

I just wanted to make sure everyone understood about the upcoming Tome of Horrors Complete.

There are two versions--Pathfinder and Sword and Wizardry.

You can get more info and you can order here at the Frog God website:

Tome of Horrors Complete page

This thing is huge. And the conversion to Pathfinder from 3.5 was supervised by none other than GREG VAUGHAN! I think you Paizonians know who he is :)

The Tome of Horrors is probably the most vital of all the third party products ever produced. Back in the day, Wizards of the Coast gave me (well, gave Necromancer) permission to do the "lost and left behind" monsters that they never converted to 3E--classics such as the arial servant, kamadan, flumph, froghemoth, and all the other awesome monsters that Wizards left behind. In fact, it is the one and only third party book that was credited and cited in the Pathfinder core rules.

Well, now ALL THREE VOLUMES have been updated and compiled into ONE HUGE volume. This thing is bound like a chemistry textbook. Seriously.

But because of the cost to print, we can only print based on preorders. It is impossible and cost prohibitive to over-order.

SO, if you want a copy of this thing please get in there (to the above link) and preorder it. Once printed, you likely won't see it again. It will be both a mandatory game reference and a collector's item.

So please join me in preordering the Tome Complete so that we can know how many to print.

Clark

If you like the solar system article and fantasy adventures in space, stay tuned...

:D

I have a dream, where one day, at my custom built gaming table that I have made with my own two hands, all of my players will have a monitor and keyboard. This monitor will display satellite applications of Kyle's Combat Manager, allowing each player to manipulate their own character's entry in real-time, freeing me up from keeping track of their character's stats and conditions myself.

I will be able to 'speak telepathically' and pass notes to a player without alerting anyone else to what is going on and thereby preventing metagaming. Players will be able to pass notes to one another (through the GMs master screen) in a similar fashion. I will be able to generate monsters quickly, and in choosing a monster from the database, a picture will display on the players' screens depicting the horror that awaits them.

It is glorious.

I have created an HTML and CSS based toolkit for making city maps. It uses the building images from the Kingmaker Player's Guide, some basic HTML and some moderately complex CSS. Using it requires minor editing of the HTML. You shouldn't need to touch the CSS.

For an example, check out the Vessilion Commerce District. Move your mouse over a building to see its label. Buildings can be rotated by clicking them; note that 1x2 buildings are free to rotate on top of existing buildings, which causes things not to work.

It works fine in Firefox and Opera. Chrome works, but has problems with cutting off larger buildings if you rotate them after the page has loaded. Safari I have not tested, but it probably has the same behavior as Chrome. IE 8 works mostly, and IE 9 should be able to handle it just fine (though I don't have an IE 9 handy).

To get a copy and for complete documentation on how to use it, go to:

http://atuan.com/city-map-toolkit/

A few buildings were not implemented for lack of suitable images.

Note that I am not GM'ing this campaign, and we've only just finished Part 1. I built this strictly on the information available in the Player's Guide and in the Book of the River Nations Exploration and Kingdom Building Guide. So if there's something important that I'm missing, it's likely because I don't know about it (and no spoilers, pls & thx!).

If you have bug reports, patches, or comments, post them below.