Mark Moreland's page

Wow! One of the great things about Paizo growing and expanding into more than just RPG publishing is that I occasionally find myself surprised by a development from another department. This is just such an instance! Very excited to see what the community comes up with and get professionally printed copies of new cards to expand the game beyond its current boundaries.

Any references to obscure 1990's video game tie-in comic books will be more subtle than that.

Beware, goblins do not keep written records of deposit, so there's no guarantee you'll ever see your coins again.

It's not from a 3PP, but you might want to check out Pathfinder Unchained when it comes out.

The cited sources from the article you linked to are the only placed to date that have mentioned the town of Dunholme. It began as a simple name-drop in the Bestiary section of Pathfinder #13, and has since appeared on maps of Taldor but has not been expanded upon in any way. You are free to use it in your game however works best for your story :-D

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Are you first thinking of a character and then testing specific perfumes you think might be a good fit, or testing all perfumes and seeing if one of them reminds you of a character? What do you use to cleanse your palette (That's not the right term, I'm sure)?

Ross, you know you could probably stroll over to Sutter's office and get an advanced peek, right?

That's quite a stroll, Dave!

Miiiiight beeee...

There seem to be at least 2 cloud castles in the skies over Avistan... ;-)

There are likely many more than that. Just as we don't map every goblin settlement or lizardfolk village or ogre enclave, we just haven't defined where all the cloud giants in the Inner Sea region live.

The spines for the comic book compilations bother me...

That's something you should take up with Dynamite, as they publish those and determine what the cover layout is going to look like.

I'm saddened by this news, as I played with Rick a number of times while I lived in New York. I'll always remember a game of The Frozen Fingers of Midnight he ran as a slot 0 for me and other GMs in the NYC PFS region, because it was during this game that I learned of the passing of my grandmother. Rick was extremely caring that night, and while I continued the game, he was very understanding and gave me as much time as I needed to compose myself. I hadn't played with Rick for many years before reading this, but I remember him as a kind, fair, and fun GM, and I'm sad for the New Jersey Pathfinder Society community, his family, and many friends.

We'd keep them more separate, but the building layout only allows us to put them so far away.

Getting back to the original question and ignoring the unwelcome vitriol between the OP and this one:

I think the best way to increase female participation (or, heck, participation of anyone who isn't oneself) is to be sensitive to their experiences and requests.

Some requests don't need to be stated, because they're taken for granted, as has been indicated elsewhere in this thread. One doesn't expect to need to ask others not to lick them, for example. Being licked by a stranger would make anyone uncomfortable, and thus we've accepted as a society that licking other people is not ok. We can sympathize with the victim in this situation, because we can all imagine being licked by a stranger.

To make gaming spaces (or any space, for that matter) welcoming to people not like oneself, be that someone of a different gender, race, class, sexual orientation, political affiliation, religion, physical or mental disability, etc, etc, etc, one must—at the bare minimum—be open to the fact that their experiences are also different, and there are therefore circumstances that are going to make them uncomfortable that might not even occur to you. And that's ok. No one expects everyone to anticipate every possible situation that will make another person uncomfortable. But when someone states their personal experience or makes a request to avoid discomfort, accepting that experience as valid and honoring the request to the best of your ability are the bare minimum required to make that person feel welcome in the space.

Being asked to change your behavior for another's benefit, or simply acknowledging experiences that do not mirror your own or that you haven't personally witnessed does not make you a victim. It makes you a human being in a society of other human beings. So if your aim is to increase the diversity of the other human beings in the microcosm of society that plays games together at a given event or location, be open to listening, accepting others' requests at face value, and making what changes you can to accommodate those requests. If you aren't willing to do that, you likely aren't genuine in your claims of wanting diversity and inclusiveness in your gaming group.

It might be hard to communicate with the little guy as he only speaks one language.

That's sort of the crux of Amber's story. He's not C-3PO with a complete mastery of all the galaxy' languages, after all.

A GM who feels her players could handle a titan could always add one to the campaign if she so desired, so even if there isn't one in the AP, there can be one at your table!

Ultimately, Pharasma still judges every soul, so it might not be true in every case. A paladin who happens to fall down the stairs (ha, a fallen paladin) would still likely be sent to Heaven, and a demoniac that gets run over by a cart would still probably end up in the Abyss. A neutral evil soul, however, that died a meaningless death could be sent to any one of a number of evil gods' realms, so it might be that Zyphus gets those souls. His followers, who actively try to kill people in meaningless and (supposedly) accidental ways are certainly evil, and would be dogeared for Zyphus's realm in the afterlife.

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OceanShieldWolf wrote:

I wanted vegepygmies, so I statted them up in Wayfinder #8. :)

I guess vegepygmy characters would be the wallflowers . . . .

Oceanshieldwolf wrote:

All interested might want to look at this THREAD or REDACTED.

Wow . . . where did this come from? Even seems to be a Paizo product from looking at it, but doesn't come up in the search for Paizo products. (Even looked at the beginning and end of the thread, but didn't see it. EDIT: Buried somewhere in the middle.)

That is not an official Paizo product, and actually violates a number of the terms of the various licenses we provide to allow people to make fan-generated content using Paizo's trademarks, artwork, and other intellectual property.

Will we get specific half-fiend (devil) templates for each core devil in this manual?

No, those appeared in Demons Revisited, and would likely appear in a similar Devils Revisited were we to do one. Rather than explore each type of devil in a general sense, this book will present specific members of different diabolic races (and some non-diabolic denizens of Hell as well) in the same manner we did for dragons and undead in their respective "Unleashed" titles.

You might also want to check out Gygax Magazine, which recently released issue number 4. Its content spans all sorts of RPGs, and skews toward an old-school style.

I suggest picking the outer plane of your choice and retiring there. Axis is nice all year round, they say.

I play by MY OWN rules!

Page 31 of Inner Sea Combat features a sidebar describing how the setting-neutral orders from the APG fit into the various nations of the Inner Sea region.

Well, returning only affects throwing weapons, so unless the grenade launcher has a Throwing property as well, it wouldn't do much.

And even if it did, it'd probably not work like you expect (unless you expect to throw away your grenade launcher and then have it return after it bonk'd someone in the head).

It was largely a joke, but thank you for the further clarification. :-P

We specifically changed the scale of the map for the Pathfinder Society Field Guide because it was too small in Guide to Absalom, so the latter scale is the one to use.

I grew up in Kansas City, so everything involves steak.

To add to James's more thorough analysis, I could see someone wanting to enhance a launcher with other abilities, such as seeking, distance, bane, or speed, which would be much more effective than the base enhancement bonus. Don't make a +1 returning grenade launcher, however.

In the same way an enhanced bow or sling applies its bonus to ammunition fired with it, a +1 grenade launcher would increase the to-hit bonus of attacks made with the launcher by 1, and increase the damage dealt by the fired ammunition by 1 as well. You are correct that the enhancement bonus would also be applied to any combat maneuvers associated with the weapon.

I wonder if this book will implement a Nemesis system for taking out Belkzen's captains and warchiefs. ;)

It will not. Many, many warchiefs are named and given class levels, however, so you can set your sights on any number of them to eliminate if you wish. There's no new rules subsystem introduced in the book, however.

I had a similar thought when the game was still in development a few years back and made a version of each of the Doctors, with regeneration simply replacing the old Doctor with the new one, and transferring over the same number of upgrades to the new incarnation. They each had a different set of abilities and stats based on their specific flavors (Reverse the Polarity for the Third Doctor, Jelly Babies for the Fourth Doctor, etc.) with slightly different stats.

I also toyed around with a few Companions, monsters, and items, like the sonic screwdriver, psychic paper, and different types of Dalek.

Ultimately, the task of creating a whole game in addition to my normal responsibilities was more than I had time for, and knowing that even if I completed it, I'd never be able to do anything with it without a license led me to give up the effort.

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Does anyone know who was responsible for the Pain Taster prestige class' revised write-up in Occult Mysteries? I would really like to get some answers to the questions above ...

As the lead developer on the project, I'm the one ultimately responsible, and those questions should come to me. Since I'm here, I can answer them! (Note that I already wrote a really long post doing just that, but RPG Superstar voting knocked the site out just prior to my finishing the post. I hope my repeated effort is not wasted.)

The Disciple of Pain class ability refers to daily hour-long self-torture routines, both the more intentse "starter" versions and the less intense "follow-up" versions. But nowhere do I see the hit point damage and other damage caused by these routines. And there must be some, considering both the descriptions and the reference under the Pain Mastery class ability.

Did something get left out, or am I suffering from selective blindness?

The ritual involved in the disciple of pain class ability does not deal hit point damage. To do so would make it one of the few class abilities that came with a built-in burden to characters who take levels in the class. The rituals are meant to be primarily flavorful means by which a character gains the benefit, similar to deific obediences from Inner Sea Gods or to a wizard preparing spells for the day. If a GM wishes to play out this hour-long ritual, she is welcome to do so, but we didn’t want to hard-code a penalty or hit point tax into the rules for all players. The reference to hit point damage in the pain mastery description is a legacy from changes made to the class last-minute that slipped through the cracks (see below).

And why did the authordeveloper (fixed that for you) remove the reference to the Fortitude DC 15 (or Will DC 20) saving throw needed to survive the initiation rite into the prestige class?

Because a character shouldn’t risk death when attempting to level up. As with many special requirements for entry into a prestige class (such as a Hellknight killing a devil or a Pathfinder Chronicler selling a written work for a certain amount of money), they are primarily flavorful elements to further cement the character into the theme of the prestige class in question. Individual GMs may choose to make this ritual into a much larger part of the campaign, and by not hard-coding how it works into the class, it gives GMs the freedom to push the boundaries of what her players are comfortable with as she sees fit. As written, the ritual may be attempted many times in the lead-up to a character’s entry into the prestige class, and a failure should be an opportunity for a more intricate story rather than an opportunity to make a new character.

In addition to that, I observed earlier that the 5th level Pain Mastery ability appears to be designed around the Disciple of Pain class ability, but instead refers to the Masochism ability (both in name and mechanics, sacrificing hit points for a bonus).

I imagine that, during conversion / updating, something got changed in mid-design, and not all changes were propogated successfully.

Your assessment is correct (see above). In order to fit the class on a single spread, we had to make some adjustments to its text in the late stages of editing and development, and this ability in particular changed pretty significantly. Pain mastery should work in conjunction with disciple of pain rather than masochism, as a result. If we ever pick the prestige class up elsewhere, we’ll aim to make the necessary adjustments to the language to clarify this.

I think that’s all the actual questions that remained unanswered. Sorry for the long delay!

I'd look at the average wealth by level of the PCs and decide on a value that seems appropriate. If one character is severely underequipped, an item of more value might make sense for her. If they're all on target for their level, I'd let each of them select an item that takes them about 20% of the way to their next wealth tier, as long as it was a single item. It's ultimately up to you as the GM, but the PCs should feel like they have actually attained something of value and that will be useful for them as a result of their success.

As an aside, does Dynamite Entertainment have any plans to offer pdf versions of their comics (and associated posters/maps) for sale? (I really like the posters and maps, but I don't much care for the creases the folding creates - it really detracts from the image when displayed.)

They're not PDF format, but Dynamite does offer Pathfinder comics (along with their other titles) digitally through Comixology.

While a few reasons we have not done (and don't currently plan to do) a time travel AP have been noted above, another one to consider are the number of deities that PCs might worship that weren't deities even a few thousand years in the past. What happens to a cleric of Cayden Cailean or Iomedae if they return to a time before their deity ascended?

Not a secret.

Adam Daigle wrote:

Hayato Ken wrote:

....I do hope it won´t all be somehow conquered and colonized territory....

Don't worry. I'll fight that approach as much as I possibly can. :)

And since I'm on the same page entirely as Adam... he won't have to fight that approach at all.

That's what the Aztecs thought. Colonists often have other plans...

Just looked at Oloch's picture again. Looks like it's some kind of Gorum holy symbol or censer. I think he uses it to bash people with though, as in the picture it appears to be dripping blood. Whatever it is, it's only a slightly different color than his armor. A little more brownish.

Whether it's a censer or not I can't tell, but it is definitely some sort of Gorumite charm or holy symbol. It is dripping blood, but since he uses a greatsword, he can't reasonably wield an improvised weapon in his off hand. Wayne Reynolds is really the person to ask, as the bits and bobs that make our iconic characters so unique are largely added by him when he's designing them. Lacking an answer from Wayne, I'd just go with it being his holy symbol (which he needs to cast spells). That it's covered in blood is just a bonus.

Use Calibre to convert into format your Kindle can read.

I read all of our fiction on my Kindle using this conversion method. It adds an extra step, but only about another minute or so all told.

Getting a temple for each of the core deities into Inner Sea Gods was something I pushed for, but there ultimately wasn't room. Given that, I wouldn't count such a product out of our future offerings, it's just not currently on the schedule.

The joys of writing blogs in between other projects. The above-mentioned edits have been made.

As the author of this scenario some 5 years ago, seeing it recapped in this manner, for this purpose, made me ever so happy. Please play your characters through other scenarios I wrote. I want to read how psychic magic works in those, too!

If there are any duplicate characters/pawns from other sets, it's an error on our part. The goal was to include new pawns that had never been previously released.

archmagi1 wrote:

So... you're saying Sutter is an alien, and Wes and Asmodeus have a working relationship?

Shhhhh.

I'm not saying, I'm just saying. That GIF, tho. LOL.

Hopefully, the Andoran book will answer questions like these. Right now, though, they look like they're bringing a mindset to battle that is at odds with the tech & tactics of the world in which they live. Unless they're magic-heavy (also not suggested by canon-to-date), they're going to get their butts kicked frequently unless they have overwhelming numbers in every engagement. Again, as a former vassal state, there's not much to suggest that this would be the case.

Without including the entire contents of the book here, I'll note that Andoran's conflict with nations like Cheliax, Taldor, and Qadira is more a war of ideals than a physical war in which two armies charge across a field of battle at one another. The armor of the Eagle Knights (especially the Steel Falcons, who largely operate outside Andoran's borders) needs to serve as much as fancy, memorable armor worthy of the defenders of the Inner Sea's greatest form of government as it needs to protect them from physical damage.

As for specific pieces of art in prior publications, consider that illustrations from our own world supposedly representing actual events are often not practical in their implementation. I doubt, for example, that Washington actual stood in a rowboat with one foot on the gunwale while it was traversing iceberg-filled waters as depicted in Washington Crossing the Delaware. But such an image inspires patriotism, valor, awe, and respect among those who view it. I'm not saying every illustration of Andoren military units is such a representation, just as I assume you're not saying they all need to be photorealistic.

A true Andoren wouldn't want to include only heavily armored soldiers fighting for the nation's ideals, after all. Doing so would send a message that only those who can afford such protection are capable of standing up for liberty, that dedicating one's life to what is right and true is inherently without risk, and the incorrect assertion that the common people are not stronger than the blades and arrows wielded by tyrants.

We've illustrated Eagle Knights in plate armor, and will continue to do so. For examples see The Inner Sea World Guide (265); Andoran, Spirit of Liberty (23, 29); Paths of Prestige (22); "Noble Sacrifice" (ch 1). Aside from the half-page illustration referenced as depicting impractical armor, all illustrations of Eagle Knights in unarmored blue clothes are of Gray Corsairs or other marine combatants (Andoran, Spirit of Liberty [cover, 2]; Ships of the Inner Sea [16], etc.) It should probably also be noted that the lightly armored soldiers in the referenced illustration are all cut up. It's pretty clear that their lack of armor had negative effects on their ability to maintain full hit points.

TL;DR: What you're afraid of happening with the art in this book is something we're specifically working to make sure doesn't happen.

Continue asking these questions, Child, for they lead the way to ultimate understanding. Only through omniscience can one find the peace to attain perfection.

Yay the Pathfinder Society Adventure Card Guild logo is now on the blog which leaves it free for use with the CUP!

Not true. See below, emphasis mine.

You may use any of the text or artwork published in the Paizo Blog at paizo.com/paizo/blog, with the exception of excerpts of Planet Stories publications, Pathfinder Comics, and any logos and icons that aren't also in the Community Use Package.

When the Adventure Card Guild logo is added to the Logos package, then it will be covered by the CUP, but not until such time as that update is made.

We'll likely do some previews and/or content reveals closer to the product's release, which is currently slated for early November. My advice is to check the blog in a week or two.

I only played Minecraft briefly when it first came out on Xbox, but I found the lack of story led to boredom, despite having complete creative freedom and ultimately the ability to build whatever the heck I wanted.

I heard the other day on a podcast, however, that BBC recently finalized a license with Microsoft to put Doctor Who skins and monsters into the game, so I'll be playing it again, I guess, so I can build my own TARDIS. How to make it bigger on the inside in a game like that, I haven't quite figured out yet.