Majuba's page

Shirt! Shirt! Shirt! Shirt! :)

I don't know why it seems to have become fashionable to make fun of the Paizo staff so much lately, but I'd appreciate it if it would stop.

We're not perfect, we've never claimed to be. If you have criticism, by all means, share. But just piling on to provoke a reaction or accusations of generalized incompetence are not fair or funny.

So, i have a crafting wizard and we're playing kingmaker, we just hitted lvl 5 and started building the kingdom.

I'm a LN mage follower of Abadar, the other party member are a paladin a LG oracle, a NG inquisitor and a N druid.

I just realized that every single other member of your party can potentially craft as well. I would politely apologize to them for causing such a stir, admit that your character is too selfish to be trusted with this power and ask the GM to allow you to take another feat instead. Let one of the less selfish characters spend a feat to take on the charity crafting mantle.

*Grabs bucket of popcorn and waits eagerly*

Let's not make hateful posts. I do not think that will help at all.

Well its no different than the practiced caster of 3.5 the way i read it.Your damage output is the same as a 8th level caster ..Your Theurge should still only be casting level 3 spells.It could be read either way I grant you.However if you do it my way its far less overpowering and just means your spells have the same punch as a level 8 caster.I believe both Magical knack and esoteric training are meant to be replacements for the 3.5 knack and so should work exactly like that feat.

It can't, it's very clear. And ridiculously overpowered. Getting Practised spellcaster lookalikes for free is not that bad, but progressing your casting for free is balls-out crazy overpowered.

The time is the biggest factor that this affects.
I appluad the campaign organizers for responding to the actual number of players at a table.
But, the thing of it is, six players often are too much to begin with. This just gives an unwritten implication that it's expected that there must be six players at a table. When this goes into effect, four-player tables will almost cease to exist. I'm not saying that there won't be any at all, I'm just saying that this validates larger tables, making that be the expectation. The message it gives is "we want you to play with six, but if you have to play, and there's not six, you can technically do it with four, but, you have to make the adventure smaller, or less dangerous, and go through work to modify it." If GMs percieve that they have to do extra work to run a four-person table, they will be less likely to do so. I know that there are some GMs who won't mind, but, I would almost garauntee that you're about to see the number of six-person tables absolutely skyrocket, and four-pplayer tables all but disappear.

Overall I am pleased with this change, yet I have one major concern.

Time to complete the scenario. If the 6 man just has more monsters than the 4 man, then the time for each battle will go up as there will be more players. When these are designed for 6 players I really think that care must be taken that the 6 man is balanced for 4 hours of play. If the 4 man takes less time then I am ok with that.

My groups often are more than 4 hours. People joke around say OOC stuff thus lengthening the time it takes to complete a scenario. I really do wish we could get it down to 4 hours, and we often have 6 players at our tables. If this makes it harder to get in 4 hours then I probably would consider only doing season 1-3 scenarios.

Terek

Not a big fan of this change.

I don't see pushing things towards bigger tables being a good thing for the campaign.

Not a big fan of changing the baseline which I suspect will only lead to even bigger tables. Seems like it makes sense though if that's what most people are running already. Seven players 2 eidolons, 1 animal companion... the new norm.

To me its less the lack of challenge and more that I don't care for the big tables.

I will also be one to add that I almost always push to have 3-4 person tables, even if we need to strong-arm some of our players into GMing; that's simply because we typically have 3 1/2 to 4 hours per slot, and a 6-7 person table means not enough time for anyone.

Does Greg get paid per word or per PC killed? I think per word would be cheaper.

I have read what you said, and I see your point of view. I would not prefer this rule. I prefer the way it is currently designed. See other relevant threads and comments to this scattered across the forums for further info from me.

The thing that drives me nuts (in the case of the changes of heart on intelligent animal companions and weapon-using monks) is when people say "it's always worked that way" even when there's plenty of evidence to the contrary. Sigh...

Having read the description and James's answers in this thread, I'm surprised by how much I don't dislike this book, at least so far.

I never cared much for prestige classes, as in 3.X they seemed to encourage horribly overpowered min-maxing (along with certain feat builds). When Paizo started adding 20th-level capstone abilities to their base classes, and then class archetypes, I was pretty much ready to write off prestige classes for good.

However, I think James is right to tie prestige classes to specific organizations. I've always felt that this helps to better define just what, in-game, a prestige class is actually supposed to represent (take that, dragon disciple!) - what separates it from a core class or an archetype in terms of its identity. Tying them to organizations is a very wise decision, in my opinion.

First of all, a whole book of PrCs? Yay!!!

I just hope many of them are better than the new Inner Sea Pirate PrC we just got (yuck).

Swordlords, Gray Gardeners, Mammoth Riders, Arclords, and Shield Marshals all sound awesome. The only thing that concerns me is the use of archetypes as prerequisites. One or two here and there would be fine, but if 5 or 10 of these new PrCs have archetype prereqs then I am going to be sorely disappointed. The fact that you can accidentally bar your entry into certain PrCs during character creation just seems ludicrous. I can just see it now: "Sorry Joe, no you can't take the Awesome Bandit Lord™ PrC because when we made characters six months ago you just made a Rogue with a bunch of banditry related skills and tendencies, but you didn't make a Bandit archetype Rogue. Too bad."

And on top of that, having archetype requirements are extremely limiting. How many different ways are there to go into the Dragon Disciple PrC? Probably a hundred. How many ways are there to get into the Winter Witch PrC? One.

Like I said, a few of these are fine. A Winter Witch PrC sounds pretty awesome, actually. But I will get more use and more mileage out of the more flexible PrCs.

I love the books of paizo, I just hope that the prestige classes in this book will let you make a diferent character(and concepts) not just a more powerful one.

Because the Zen Archer concept hinges on the ability to take a flurry of blows with a single weapon, Jason has assured me that the Zen Archer, specifically, will be made to work as it currently does (taking a full flurry action with a single weapon). There is no timeline when this official clarification will be made, however. So, for Zen Archers, I encourage patience rather than a knee jerk rebuild.

So the single most busted concept behind this mass misinterpretation will be allowed to continue forward unhindered, but all the temple sword guys who were intentionally nerfing themselves by getting behind a sword (and giving up bigger damage dice later in their career with their fists) because they thought the concept was cool will have to rebuild?

Again, very counter-intuitive.

We won't be oblique at all. We'll assume that all three APs ended successfully, first of all. That means, among other things, things like...

** spoiler omitted **...

Can the wish spell be used to make my group meet more frequently? I definitely need to run CT and SD before I run this. Meh, I know I don't have to, but I still want to.

I did have an interesting conversation with my wife today:

ME: Paizo is coming out with this cool AP.
WIFE: Don't they have this thing where they will automatically send it to you?
ME: Yeah, it's the adventure path subscription.
WIFE: You should just do that.

SWEEEEEEET!

Cool, there can never be enough AP's for me!

But first the (to me better sounding) pirates AP!

My question is: The pirates have mostly water-based monsters in them, what will be the theme of monsters for this one?

There really isn't a "theme" for Shattered Star. It's really a "back to the basics" type AP, to help celebrate the fact that it's the 10 year anniversary of Paizo and the 5 year one for Pathfinder. So... I guess the theme could be:

"Varisian stuff"

or

"Classic Fantasy RPG stuff."

After doing so many heavily themed APs (horror, jungle, Asia, pirates), I suspect folks will be happy to see a "back to basics" AP.

Can we skip the pirate opne and go right to this?

I don't recall if this has been brought up here before (it probably has), but a quick search didn't find what I was looking for.

What is the Spellcraft DC to create a magic item supposed to be?

Successfully creating a magic item requires a Spellcraft check with a DC equal to 10 + the item's caster level. Alternatively, you can use an associated Craft or Profession skill to attempt this check instead, depending upon the item being crafted. See Magic Item Creation for more details on which Craft and Profession checks may be substituted in this manner. The DC of this check can increase if the crafter is rushed or does not meet all of the prerequisites. A failed check ruins the materials used, while a check that fails by 5 or more results in a cursed item. See Magic Items for more details

LINK Right under "Item Creation Feats."

The DC to create a magic item is 5 + the caster level for the item. Failing this check means that the item does not function and the materials and time are wasted. Failing this check by 5 or more results in a cursed item (see Cursed Items for more information).

LINK First paragraph.

Emphasis mine.

Thank you in advance.

I so wish I had any chance of talking my wife into moving cross-country. That Software Developer position sounds like a dream job for me. (That is, I might be qualified for it, and I'd absolutely LOVE to work for Paizo!)

Quote:

•Experience creating and maintaining user interfaces for applications using HTML, CSS and JavaScript

Man, never let a programmer design your interfaces, just have them implement the interface that your artsy people create (and give the artsy people a book on proper UI design first). I say this as a programmer myself, with full awareness of my kind's limitations - what we like as our interface is not what the average person will find intuitive and helpful.

Dear god no! Have a properly trained UI programmer (like me!) do the technical design with graphical design aid from an artist for icons. Would you design a bridge by giving an artist a book on structural mechanics?

This thread caused some serious thinking here, since I'm a software engineer and my wife is a kick-ass project manager. However, young child and, y'know, British - probably way too many ducks to wrangle into line.

Worth a shot -- application for Project Manager sent!

A six part Adventure Path
1 Module
2 Campaign Settings
1 Map Folio
1 Player Companion
Plus the focus of the PFS season;
And two-thirds of the Ultimate Combat classes.

As someone with no interest in oriental-themed adventures, I'll be glad when you folks are finally done with all this and move on to something else (I know, pirates are next. You're going to have to shine to offer more than the fantastic Freeport environment).

You've really blocked off an exceptionally large chunk of the catalogue for this one.

Probably around 500 souls.

As for people, maybe six or seven more than that...

An Oldy but a goody!

The Original intent of the Original PFS coordinator was to allow scrolls and Wands to be bought at Higher caster level, But a misunderstanding between myself, Mark (Yes that Mark) and Joshua led to a weird chain of events that it was not clarified in the guide and not added PFS.

And it is all My Fault!!!! *cries*

Here is the original post by Joshua

Here is a description of the weird chain of events that led to it not being added.

I have always felt bad about this one... :(

No, the OP clearly states that it's for listing what changes you want to see in future guides (without arguing over them).

That said: Please reinstate the Magical Knack trait. As it stands, spellcasters are essentially punished for multiclassing while the other classes suffer no such penalisation.

I actually think the Fighter's doing just fine.

People think he isn't versatile because they're so used to archetypes I'd guess. The normal fighter can fight up close, use a bow, fight unarmed and others better than most (multiple weapon groups instead of most archetypes only getting one.) Plus he can also do backflips in full plate due to armor training.

Give him feats and he does more average damage than virtually anyone in the game, and give him some intelligence and the skill point favored class bonus and you've got skills to be effective outside of combat. If you don't think he's got enough, there's always the house rule I see a lot of people use where all classes get +2 skill points.

The fighter lends himself to specialization like anyone else does, but if you want to make him versatile there's very few other classes in the game that can multi-specialize and still remain relevant. I'd say the fighter's doing just fine.

I don't understand where all the fighter hate comes from. The fighter is probably the single most versatile class out there because there are so many builds that one can make from a fighter. They be the common board and sword, two-weapon fighters, ranged type fighters, grapple experts, etc...

What's the problem?

Already taken care of. You can't take a 5 foot step in a mist because it has poor visibility, and therefore any sort of movement of a character costs x2. Like difficult terrain, you can't take 5 foot steps when you have poor visibility.

Sorry but no. You have poor visibility at 10 feet, not 5 feet. So you can 5ft adjust in a mist.

Any other ruling would mean that you can't move 5 ft in dim light either, since it has the exact same penalties to sight as obscuring mist.

Honestly, the way I read it after reading the thread is this :

Round 1 : Pop up mist, move and make stealth check while moving.
Round 2 : Sneak attack on one attack. 5 ft adjust and stealth.
Round 3 : Move/Stealth and Sneak attack. Take attack from enemy.
Round 4 : Attack normally once. 5 ft Adjust and stealth.
Repeat until mist is gone, you die, or he dies.

Obviously, if the guy moves after you, you can attack/adjust again instead of move/attack.

It's not all that powerful, and it can be defeated in various ways. The biggest issue is that you have to have some way of finding the guy once you've adjusted if he doesn't follow you but moves. It's a real corner case, and I don't see the rogue getting more than 1 or 2 hits with it. The only exception would be if he had 3-4 targets in the mist, he could just move/stealth until he could find a new target to attack.

This organization just doesn't grab me. In the face of such universal approbation, I have to concede that you're onto something, but for me this feels like a mere piggy-back on the unfettered eidolon concept. It's a novel design space for an organization, I guess, but in practice, I don't get anything from this organization that I don't get from the eidolon bestiary entry. In fact, by increasing their numbers and making them work together, you lose a bit of the mystery and strangeness in the unfettered eidolon concept.

I think that I'm just the wrong audience on this one. Could you have hooked me despite the fact that I'm not into eidolons and summoners? Maybe. James Jacobs piqued my interest in summoners here by suggesting something new and interesting about them (namely, that their eidolons are composite spiritual reflections of many disparate creatures, glued together by the summoner's personal energy). Generally speaking, if you want your entry to appeal to somebody who isn't already in love with your subject matter, you've got to add something new and different to "broaden the ticket." If these eidolons were on an existential journey to figure out what manner of being they are, for example, I'd be interested, because I'm a sucker for the philosophical stuff.

In short, you could have interested me in eidolons by scratching some other itch of mine, but this was a straight adaptation of material that didn't grab me when Paizo published it. There's a small missed opportunity there.

Just a bit of (hopefully helpful) feedback from somebody you didn't quite wow. It looks like I'm in a decided minority on that, so congratulations and good luck.

Sean pretty much covers what I have to say.
As a newcomer to the game I didn't know much about eidolons, so after reading the description I had to look them up on the PRD. After doing that I couldn't figure out how there would be enough (or even any) "Unfettered" around to make an organisation.

Also, having a slightly awkward and cumbersome name is entirely consistent with a political/social activist group.

This seems to keep getting missed, and I doubt this post will help, but the name actually makes sense. It is a gnomish name.

Maybe it needed a few more words to make the point (the Extrabulous Miracle Monster Reformation Alliance). This may also be where the comedy vibe is coming from. However, the name is consistent with gnomes and their naming conventions and should be read in that context.

Apologies for the bold, but sheesh people. If all you did was read the title and come here to b+!~&, do yourself a favor and take a few minutes to obtain an informed opinion.

Its a little meta, but very original.

I like it Mike, you have my vote. I like the duplicitous nature of this group, something that seems to have escaped notice in previous comments. A society of monsters trying to besmirtch adventurer's reps? A great curveball to toss at a cocky party. I can imagine the gnashing when the Alliance targets a party and attempts to turn the cityfolk against them. Kudos!

The official change log is a nice touch.

It's more than that -- it looks like our new campaign coordinator is bringing some (badly needed) experience in change control and communication to bear. Two thumbs up. :)

The official change log is a nice touch.

No

Don't fix what is not broken.

Just no.

No.

So you think the best time to alienate customers by requiring them to purchase a whole new set of expensive books is when your biggest competitor is alienating theirs as well? Bad, bad idea.

Isn't Paizo one of the companies that are leading the industry? Or perhaps even THE leading one? :)

What is or isn't bypassable with a +5 to your crafting Spellcraft check is something we are going to address in an eventual blog and FAQ.

Energy resistance costs what it should cost based on how powerful the ability is, not at what level some weird new class or race gets it.

Actually, all the banquet attendess have to submit a reservation request in 300 words or less. A panel of 4 judges then selects the Top 32 (plus alternates) who go on to compete in further rounds to determine who wins the ultimate prize--the banquet table of their choice. But try not to trample the hopes and dreams of all the other banquet attendees, as they'll be voting on your work in the rounds that follow. It's ultimately in their hands to decide who becomes the next PaizoCon Banquet Superstar!

Many years ago - pre Pathfinder - I had a player who had a God Wizard, who seemed to delight in making encounters boring.

He always seemed to have exactly the right spell for the occasion. Always.

So I had him write his daily spell memorization list down in ink and keep it in front of him where other players could see it...suddenly he seemed to be nowhere near as effective.

At which point, he started casting from a near infinite stockpile of scrolls...

Which I had him inventory. In ink. And then had him hand to the player to his left who tracked when they were used...

Exactly. Not to mention that pesky action to retrieve the scroll/wand...

Many years ago - pre Pathfinder - I had a player who had a God Wizard, who seemed to delight in making encounters boring.

He always seemed to have exactly the right spell for the occasion. Always.

So I had him write his daily spell memorization list down in ink and keep it in front of him where other players could see it...suddenly he seemed to be nowhere near as effective.

At which point, he started casting from a near infinite stockpile of scrolls...

Which I had him inventory. In ink. And then had him hand to the player to his left who tracked when they were used...

Put me firmly in the "no PF Basic line please". One box is enough for bringing in new players to the hobby, anything above that is going to drain resources from the main line.

Is there anyplace in the FAQ,

Given the number of people that confuse the *wonderfully* termed 'take 10' and 'take 20' rules, there really should be a FAQ entry.

-James