Liquidsabre's page

Mid-30s gamer here looking for a weekday group in Manhattan. :)

Hello, I would like to discontinue my current subscription for the Adventure Path and cancel the current order.

Thanks!

Does anyone remember the Advanced Classes back in 3.x? These were essentially specialized 10-level base classes that you could qualify to take by 3rd level.

I've never seen the PF Prestige classes see much play and it seems to be the prevailing opinion they are not that popular. I'd like to change that, at least at my game table. To do this I'm planning on adapting them as Advanced Classes with entry availability around 3-4th level.

Here are a few examples:

ARCANE ARCHER REQUIREMENTS
Base Attack Bonus: +2
Feats: Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Weapon Focus (Bow).
Spells: Ability to cast 1st-level arcane spells.

ARCANE TRICKSTER REQUIREMENTS
Alignment: Any nonlawful.
Skills: Disable Device 2 ranks, Escape Artist 2 ranks, Knowledge (arcana) 2 ranks.
Spells: Ability to cast mage hand and able to cast 1st-level arcane spells.
Special: Sneak Attack +1d6

DUELIST REQUIREMENTS
Base Attack Bonus: +2
Skills: Acrobatics 2 ranks, Perform 2 ranks.
Feats: Dodge, Mobility, Weapon Finesse.

MYSTIC THEURGE REQUIREMENTS
Skills: Knowledge (arcana) 2 ranks, Knowledge (religion) 2 ranks.
Spells: Ability to cast 1st-level arcane and divine spells.

SHADOW DANCER REQUIREMENTS
Skills: Perform (dance) 2 ranks, Stealth 2 ranks.
Feats: Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Mobility.

For what you receive at the levels of the Prestige Classes the power is mediocre at the 6th-7th levels but at 3rd-4th levels they seem to have a better growth curve.

Anyone have experience with doing this? Any reactions that stick out to anyone with potential imbalance? Thanks in advance for taking a look guys!

Paizo has been really good with producing 1 'classic' vein AP and 1 AP to shake things up so-to-speak. Mummy AP (classic) followed by the Iron Gods AP (shaker). Next should be another classic, followed by another shaker! My vote is for:

1) Colonial Exploration AP (classic)

What's old is new again as factions of the Inner Sea vie for influence in the new world! Explore uncharted lands, support your chosen factions, discover new riches, and found villages on the frontier! Its got everything you want: Ships, Trade, Politics, Factions, Exploration, Wilds, Building! :)

2) Distant Worlds AP (shaker)

I'm a sucker for exploring other worlds. Even better, give me a ship and a star to guide her by! I NEED this AP to happen and with Iron Gods and the Distant Worlds source material out now. This...just...may...happen!! Woohoo!

Quick note, I did not see anyone suggest this yet: has anyone tried eliminating 5th level spells and higher but (and this is where it gets interesting) keeping spellcasting slots at higher levels? Heightened Spell feat I'd free. Casters can fill these slots with any of their spells or, better yet, fill them with metamagic-enhanced spells. This would help curtail the high level spell power but still allow an increase in spell power tied to the metamagic fears a caster has. I would provide an additional bonus feats every 2 levels to casters to help balance the dependency out.

Another vote here for higher res PDFs for the AP maps! Digital table tops are the future of table-top gaming and will keep the hobby alive well into the 21st century.

I have a projector and an LCD TV to lay down on the table for this exact use. Fog of war plus scrolling to explore the maps...players are back to mapping their progress to find their own ways out once again!! Dungeon-crawling is back in a BIG way using this format. New tech + old school ftw!!

Thanks guys for putting my Ice Rime Gloves in your Top 32 picks!

Incidentally, if anyone happens to have a copy of my submitted write up would you please send me it in a PM? I forgot to keep a copy of my final version! Thanks :)

Mandatory theme music linky!

I live in Lawrence and work in Overland Park. Any games I can get in on, or any interest in starting up? Don't want to go too much farther East if it can be avoided!

Looking to add at least one more player to a Pathfinder game here in Olathe. I'll be DMing. Game starts towards the end of July. Hit me up if interested!

Cold, Far East, Maritime, War, etc. are out.

My best guesses: Urban AP, Distant Worlds AP, or a Colonial Exploration AP (aka a new continent is revealed!)

Personally I think a new continent to explore would give us a little of all the things I enjoy seeing in an AP:

1) A new continent!!
2) Hexcrawl exploration!
3) Colony/fort building (minor kingdom building)
4) Harvesting resources to send back to purchase new supplies (minor mercantile)
5) Competing factions intrigue! (plus new vistas for the society to play in)
6) A Sandbox!! Haggle, conquer, plunder, or trade your way to fame as the greatest explorers in all of golarion!

This should be done before Distant Worlds AP because once you've seen other worlds the whole 'greatest explorers' selling point loses some of its umph. ;P

I've always used bonus XP for leveling as a reward but I suppose you can always put a gold into a 'magic item creation' pool to be used which might be fun for them as well if you didn't want to give them actual XP. We use Hero Points in our game so I might do something like reward 1/4 of a Hero Point for each entry.

The purpose of my current Pathfinder House Rules Document (PHRD) is to encourage my less rule-savy/number-crunching gamers to adventure 10+ level and beyond! Additionally, it encourages greater mobility allowing for fights to be more dynamic and a greater use of combat maneuvers.

Feel free to ask any questions on my experience with these rules and the nature of their origins. This set is currently being applied and play-tested at 11th level in the Kingmaker AP with 4 players.

Attacks of Opportunity
Attacks of opportunity work as normal except the attack is replaced with a free combat maneuver that does not provoke and failure by 10 or more has no effect.

Combat Maneuvers
All combat maneuvers may be performed in place of an attack roll.

Iterative Attacks
This variant replaces the normal progression of iterative attacks:

• At BAB +6, gain a 2nd attack but both suffer a -2/-2 penalty. Gain the Vital Strike feat.
• At BAB +11, this penalty is reduced to -1/-1. Gain the Improved Vital Strike feat.
• At BAB +16, the penalty is reduced to -0/-0. Gain the Greater Vital Strike feat.

Flurry of Blows, Rapid Shot, and Two Weapon Fighting provide one additional attack as normal. Flurry progression, improved, and greater two weapon fighting do not provide additional attacks but instead each reduce the penalty for all attacks by one.

Skills

• Bluff (Feint) = Move Action
• Intimidate (Demoralize) = Move Action

Feats

• Improved Feint: Feint = Swift Action
• Improved maneuver feats = +2 bonus and may be performed as a move action
• Greater maneuver feats = +4 bonus and may be performed as a swift action

Spontaneous Metamagic
When a metamagic feat is selected you may modify a spell 3/day, at the time of casting, with no increase in the spell's level. The maximum spell level the metamagic feat may be applied to is equal to the caster's highest spell level minus the level increase of the metamagic feat. Any number of metamagic feats may be used but may not exceed maximum spell level. Additional selections of the same metamagic feat allows the uses per day to stack.

Spontaneous casters may apply metamagic to their spells as a free action. Preparation casters may apply metamagic to their spells as a move action or may prepare their spells ahead of time using up a use per day as normal and cast their modified spell normally.

Magic Item Variant
In this variant all magical weapons, shields, armor, cloaks of protection, attribute enhancement belts/headbands, and attribute buffing spells that provide a numerical modifier are removed from the game. This variant also replaces attribute bonuses normally received at 4th level and every 4 levels after.

Magical arms and armor with special qualities still exist but without their numerical bonuses. Instead these become inherent bonuses for each character and these bonuses apply to all arms and armor of masterwork quality that the character has proficiency with. Starting characters receive 75% of their wealth by level (WBL) if they are non-martial/non-armor-based characters and 50% WBL for martial characters. The price of magical arms and armor begin at the +1 level and increase based on the special abilities added. So a flaming (+1) bane (+1) magical (+1 base) sword would cost 18,000 gp (at the +3 level).

• At 2nd and every 2 levels after: +1 to any two attributes
• At 2nd, 5th, and every 4 levels after: +1 to all saves
• At 2nd and every 4 levels after: +1 Armor
• At 3rd and every 4 levels after: +1 Shield
• At 4th and every 4 levels: +1 Atk/Dmg

NPCs and Monsters
Minion Template: NPCs and creatures modified by the minion template are reduced to 1 HP, become immune to magical and special ability secondary affects due to failed saving throws, AC -4 and CR -3. For effects dependent on hit dice, a minion's effective hit dice are equal to the base creature divided by 2.

Wow what a great host of items, gratz to all 36! Shame I had to wait until this year to submit an item when the competition goes through the roof! Great job to all through the entire process. :)

52 minutes left until we all frantically hit the refresh button crashing the site?

You cruel, sick, mischievous, glorious bastard! Thanks for all your wonderful, encouraging, and delightfully teasing posts Clark. :)

I'm not sure I've seen a 'plot item' per say. What constitutes an item being a plot device? When is a magic item more useful to a GM than a player? I can see how some items aren't that useful to a player but might be useful to a certain kind of NPC. Is this the same thing?

The trick though will be picking an archetype that someone else won't also try and submit. Quite a few River Kingdom archetypes will likely occur to many based on the content.

So far with design I have a long list of archetype names, followed by an extracted list of River Kingdom-based archetype names, followed by the top candidates flavor wise, and finally the last three or so with their first drafts to see what works and doesn't work flavor/marchanics-wise. Right now I'm having trouble making an archetype that will set it apart from others.

Woot! Still in. :P

We'll see how it goes from here, competition is getting narrower. Not sure if voting will be getting easier or even harder now.

I believe the rule of thumb that was suggested in the other thread was if an entrant brings up their item afterwards for critique on the forums, great, discuss away. Otherwise you do not talk about other entries, especially if you copied them and are thinking about posting it up. That is just in poor taste.

Again, if an entrant wishes to discuss, discuss, otherwise just don't go there. The threads we have up now about phrases and other entry pet peeves are great in their anonymity and usefulness for future entrants.

Sean K Reynolds wrote:

;)

*Holds up Boom-Box*

Song Plays

____________*Crying*

This is now my voting theme song! I shall have this on continuous loop while voting lol.

Yup, saw mine in the first few votes!

Aha! So the nefarious plot is revealed! This isn't some *new* voting technique or about saving the sanity of our beleaguered judges. This is about REVENGE for all of the thousands of entries suffered through in past years!

I love me a good revenge story. :)

Thanks for the heads up! Luckily I already have my hard copy here at home from running Kingmaker last year. I'd still love to have a pdf for my tablet though.

Now I'm all excited to see what folk come up with for their River Kingdom archetypes.

Do items that do no contain the title in the body of the text violate the rules? I was under the impression this was the case.

You guys aren't alone. I'm sitting here with google docs open and working on one of my archetype candidates while waiting. This whole twist-thingy has my guts all in, you guessed it, a twist! :P

This will be my first entry this year and boy what a fun ride the last 2 weeks have been. Good luck all and hope everyone successfully made their item crafting check!

Try this one instead! This was back after 3.5e ended and just before PF. Math should (more or less) still apply! Check out Trailblazer for more. Note, the vital strike chain of feats I added for my PF game. Provides even more damage balance for martial when they have a single attack.

This house rule was sourced from Trailblazer (pdf) and reduces the number of attacks rolled in combat at higher levels to speed game play and also results in an increase of damage by 15% across the majority of all foes for martial characters. No other changes are made and other means for gaining additional attacks apply as normal, such as the Two Weapon Fighting feat.

• At BAB +6, you gain a 2nd attack but both attacks suffer a -2 penalty; Gain the Vital Strike feat.
• At BAB +11, this penalty is reduced to -1/-1; Gain the Improved Vital Strike feat.
• At BAB +16, this penalty is reduced to -0/-0; Gain the Greater Vital Strike feat.

Yup I believe it has been said at 10 years they'd *look* at releasing a new edition. Paizo makes its profits off having a secure and fully supported system, not selling more books by reinventing the wheel.

Sure I've seen constellations for Dragonlance and other settings, though not depicted accurately in the night sky or anything like that.

I think the reason they cost so much is their recharge ability. They are, given enough recharge time, a powerful never-ending resource used in higher level play where cost would not be an issue. If it works for you I say go for it! Myself I tend to play casters that take craft staff so I won't have to pay full price, so take that in consideration as well since these will be 1/4 price when crafted under this house rule.

Wizard + Craft Staff + Efficient Quiver = Win! :P

I created a template that I like to use:

Minion Template

Creatures modified by the minion template must be of medium size or smaller, Reduce the base creature hit points to 1, they become immune to magical and special ability secondary affects due to failed saving throws, AC -4 and CR -3. For effects dependent on hit dice, a minion's effective hit dice are equal to the base creature divided by 2.

I'm also a fan of a modified mob template for handling mass combats with characters.

I removed the numerical magic item bonuses from armor, shields, and weapons and removed cloaks of protection and attribute boosting items from the game. These bonuses were then made part of a character's normal level progression.

Calculate price for these magic items starting at the '+2 item scale for arms and armor. I would also recommend eliminating attribute boosting spells from the game since everyone receives inherent attribute enhancements that would normally not stack with these spells. I chose to leave out amulet and ring bonuses to Armor Class due to these items taking up a slot space that can fit other types of neck/ring magical items as well.

At 2nd and every 2 levels after: +1 Any Two Attributes
At 2nd and every 4 levels after: +1 All Saving Throws
At 3rd and every 4 levels after: +1 Attack and Damage Bonus to Weapons Wielded*
At 3rd and every 4 levels after: +1 Shield Bonus to Equipped Shield*
At 4th and every 4 levels after: +1 Armor Bonus to Armor Worn*
* Must have proficiency with item to gain this bonus

This should go a ways towards cutting back the magic item economy. The attribute bonuses may seem like a lot but the math works out slightly less than max attribute bonuses provided by magic items. I am still in the process of calculating the adjustment to character WBL. Though tracking WBL may no longer be relevant since balanced game play could be had adding little to no magic items with this house rule in play.

Here's is my artificer conversion for PF that I used for my Eberron-Spelljammer campaign:

Liquid's Artificer

Also received inspiration from several fellow posters.

Green dragons possess the ability to move through dense foliage unimpeded. Wasn't this fight in thick/deep wood, nearby a water source, inside a large bramble mound, etc.? The majority of all green dragon fights would mostly likely suffer from LOS issues, severely hampering ranged attacks by interlopers.

Adult green dragons are also untraceable so there would be no way for the party to find one in the wild, the Green Dragon finds them! Though I think you said you used a young adult which doesn't yet have this ability.

Sounds like the Paladin was well buffed by party members, so in essence it wasn't only the paladin's actions that took down this dragon. It was a party effort. Plus it seems the party managed to discover and come upon their foes at the party's advantage as well and at range with no LOS problems. As far as green dragons are concerned they were able to sucker punch the dragon in his home ground, so that sounds about right.

Evil doers FEAR the paladin! In-game big bad evil things curl their fingers, flinch away, widen their eyes, and hiss between barred teeth at the mere mention of a Paladin. They are truly a force for Good to be reckoned with in PF! Not evil, not so bad! As it should be. :)

Oh my! What a wonderful surprise and gift, thanks guys! :)

The new PRD is a real beauty!

So we're looking at class ability modifications and not just replacements for archetype stackability, gotcha.

Wow that is an extremely useful table! Thanks for pointing it out Caedwyr.

Can a Paladin take all of the following archetypes: Holy Tactician (UC, Hospitaler (APG), and Warrior of the Holy Light (APG?

As far as I can tell this should work since all class abilities are there to be replaced and each archetype replaces different abilities. The only example where it might be argued is with the Hospitaler, which doesn't replace smite evil it just adds an additional use per day, and the Holy Tactician, which replaces smite evil with Weal's Champion.

So per RAW can a paladin take all three of these archetypes?

Thanks!

Has anyone looked into making use of the UDK or Unity3 game engines for software development? There's some righteous indie development going for these Pro engines for game design across platforms.

Hey Erik,

Not sure how much of a board game fan you might be but I know Ropecon will have a demo for the space empire building game Eclipse! I haven't heard if there will be a demo at GenCon or not (it'll be at the Asmodee booth there if they manage to get their demo copy in time).

I've been following the game's development all spring being a big fan of space 4X games (such as Twilight Imperium or Race for the Galaxy). So if you're into these sort of games check it out and safe travels to you both!

Here's what I use for my campaigns. It allows characters to use alignments as well as other allegiances!

Allegiances

Note: This mechanic replaces Alignments, incorporating a simplified version of Alignments into a modified d20 Modern Allegiance system.

At character creation, three allegiances are selected and ordered from 1 (most important) to 3 (less important). Allegiances represent a character's primary beliefs, loyalties, motivation, and alignment:

• An Ideal, Philosophy, or Alignment (Good, Lawful Good, Evil, or Chaotic Evil)
• A Lifelong Pursuit, Goal, or more immediate Quest
• Organization or Group
• Powerful Individual or Creature

The Allegiance system is a simple guide for defining a character's most important beliefs, values, motivations, and goals. As with Alignments, Allegiances change based upon a character's decisions and actions through game play. Characters that do not select an alignment as an allegiance are considered unaligned (neutral) for all in-game effects.

The same alignment restrictions apply as normal. For example, Barbarians and Bards cannot select Lawful Good, Druids cannot select Lawful Good or Chaotic Evil, Monks cannot select Chaotic Evil, Paladins must select Lawful Good as an allegiance, and Assassins must select Evil as an allegiance.

All other in-game effects for alignments remain unchanged.

Monsters with DR 10/good, Align Weapon spell, Detect Alignment spells, etc. all remain the same. Smite Evil works the same way on any creature that has Evil or Chaotic Evil allegiances, is in the process of committing an evil act, or has an allegiance to an evil or chaotic evil organization. All monsters with the evil alignment or evil sub-type will have an allegiance to evil as well.

Self Preservation, Family, Friends, or Loved Ones are presumed allegiances and do not need to be included as an Allegiance. Where such close relationship allegiances fall when choices between their other important allegiances are to be made will remain entirely up to the player to decide.

If you are using all of the languages for the Inner Sea then I like to allow characters that know the relevant language to roll Knowledge: Local for any regions that the language either originated from or is the dominant language. Its not perfect (since languages are spread out a bit in the Inner Sea) but cultural knowledge often is a crucial part of learning other languages, so it works for me!

I'm a GM about 75% of the time. The thing is I don't think of myself as a GM really. I'm more of a RPer than anything else. Which I always thought was odd.

Conjurer 1
Opposition Schools: Enchantment/Necromancy
Int 18

Spell Book
0th - All
1st - (7) Color Spray, Comprehend Languages, Expeditious Retreat, Grease*, Mage Armor, Magic Weapon, Obscuring Mist.

Prepared Spells (3/2+1)
0th - Acid Splash, Dancing Lights, [OPEN SLOT]
1st - Colorspray, Grease*, [OPEN SLOT]

I have been running our campaign for the last year or so at around 4-6 players. I tend to have around 5-6 players so that we will have a steady 4-5 at the table each week with the occasional full 6 game sessions.

During this time I have also been keeping a wait list of 3 players that expressed interest after the campaign filled up or or were invited but were unable to make the commitment at the time of the campaign start.

Over the course of the campaign (1st-8th) we invited 1 more player (started with 5 players) from the top of the wait list and he accepted. I added 1 more player to the wait list who expressed interest. I then had another player drop so the next guy on the wait list got invited but declined. The next on the wait list accepted the invite and we are once again at full capacity and with 2 more players on the wait list.

Set the number of players at the desirable crowd you like to have about your table. Accept players in order of acceptance and put the remainder on a wait list in order of original invite/past experience with. Should a player not work out you then have a ready and fair list of attendees to draw invites from.

Diplomatic Fighters, Self-Sacrificing Paladins, and Military Wizards. Though I have a nigh unnatural fondness for giving voice to piratical-accented dwarf characters.

This should be the upcoming release schedule for Pathfinder RPG:
1. Ultimate Combat
2. Bestiary 3
3. Advanced Race Guide
4. Ultimate Kingdoms
5. Advanced Rules Guide
6. Bestiary 4
7. Ultimate Villainy
8. Advanced Planar Guide

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

Woot! *does a happy dance*

Thanks Lisa!

Have you checked out the Condition Cards deck yet thenobledrake? It has been a great buy for the group as we use the cards most sessions.

When someone gets stunned for 4 rounds or nauseated (curse stinking cloud!) for 6 rounds they get the card and use either tokens or a die to track the number of rounds they are affected.

I agree Buff cards would need to be kept fairly simple. The biggest hurdle being how the buff bonuses vary based on the caster/character levels. I assume a Buff Card though would simply list the bonuses available and how those scale by level listed like:

Shield of Faith

1st, +2 Deflect Bonus to AC

6th, +3 Deflect Bonus to AC

12th, +4 Deflect Bonus to AC

Durations can be tracked in the same way we use for the condition cards. If there is a nicely spaced table like above for bonuses the buff provides you can place the duration die or tokens on that level of bonuses.

Our PF group enjoys the condition cards for easy reference during game play. As the campaign I'm running has reached mid-levels (currently 8th) we all sat around the game table and began wishing we had Buff cards for the various spell and class abilities to hand out to fellow players for on-the-table-and-in-front-of-you reminders of the buff itself and a reference for the associated bennies!

Any chance we might see Paizo release a Buff card set?

I'd love to have the wizard in the party cast haste and be able to hand out 4-5 Hasted cards to party members while the Bard does their thing and hands out Inspired +2 cards!

I am actually considering 'Pathfinder-izing' SW Saga myself. There's a whole lot of good work there that I would like to see PF move towards such as the axing of iterative attacks, grab rules instead of grapple/pin (trained-only), feat design, minions, etc. The three defenses enabling three different modes of attacking a character's HP I found to be quite inspiring (Will = Morale Damage, given by a demoralizing monologue from a villain, for example).

I wouldn't mind trying porting in a little Saga into PF either though. Has anyone considered doing a Words of Power mod for Force Powers? That should provide the flexibility that I think most would like to see in force use as well as a focus in general areas (words of power) that can be combined in different ways.