Mark Moreland's page

I'm in a similar situation as everyone else. (Once again, no special treatment was provided me when technical difficulties hit. I have to work on that.) I have changed my subscriptions settings so that I receive shipments with my Pathfinder AP product. But now that I've done so, I'm getting the "waiting for Pathfinder 9" message others have, which I didn't before.

Aaargh! I just want to get as much as possible RIGHT NOW! Can't wait any more.

The only city in Andoran (the country that Falcon's Hollow is in) that has been described at all in print, is the capital, Almas. You can find more about it in the first issue of Pathinder: Rise of the Runelords in the section on the Pathfinder Society.

IIRC, the starting location for Guardians of Dragonfall is also in Andoran, though the name escapes me now (don't have my books here at work). I imagine it's even less important than either of the cities Mike mentioned, and since it's coastal, probably even father away.

Sorry if this has been asked or suggested before, but I couldn't find it anywhere. I see that Classic Monsters Revisited is in my sidecart awaiting my GameMastery module and Pathfinder #8. While I love the option of saving on shipping, I'd also like to get the pdf's as soon as they're available. Is there any way to pay for items as they become available (and thus get the pdf for download) while still holding the hard copy for shipping all at once? Shipping charges could be calculated and added to the charge for the final product.

Although backwards compatibility is very important to the Pathfinder RPG, I am a firm believer that having a fun and balanced game is the most important goal. Part of that is making sure that much of the content you have come to know and love over the past 8 years is still usable.

As long as there is a complete revised SRD available (PHB/DMG/MM) under Pathfinder rules, it seems to me that a simple chapter in each book on how to convert non-SRD 3.5 content to the new rules should make backwards compatibility much easier.

If you're running an adventure from a 2005 issue of Dungeon and it refers to a monster from the MM, replacing it with the new stats is as easy as looking at the monster's entry in the PRPG rules. If it refers to a monster from a splatbook or MM3, simply follow the step-by-step instructions on doing the conversion yourself. A similar table to instruction template can be applied to just about anything, from traps to PrC's to spell balance.

This all assumes there will be rules and statblocks for specific monsters in the PRPG rules, but if not, surely there will be easy guidelines for making conversions.

If we keep this up, I can only assume that in "Second Darknes" we'll have bad-ass sickle-fighting ninja.

Please do. Bad-ass sickle-fighting DROW ninjas. I can think of few things that sound better than that.

I enjoy getting into character early on and making ties to the NPCs by having a mentor (doing it now in STAP has helped my whole group get very attached to all sorts of random, non-plot-centric NPCs around Sasserine). So in addition to regional feats and descriptions of the area, making additional pseudo-feats (like a small bonus to one skill or a save bonus with very specific conditions) for choosing from a list of NPC mentors based on class, alignment, ethnicity, etc. would be awesome. It would be small enough to be primarily flavor, but any bonus is motivation for a 1st level character to get involved (hey, +1 to anything when you have 5 hp is a big deal.)

The affiliations that occupied a lot of the Worm Food and Savage Tidings articles would also be cool to know up front. With Pathfinder coming out in only a single issue, it's harder to mete out player/DM material as the adventure progresses, but to start with a bit more than a player has context for at least gives them the ability to use it later on when they see how it fits.

Some interesting things I heard. Apparently Margrette Weis Productions is "done" with Dragonlance RPG. Might just be because the license was for 3/3.5 products and it hasn't been renewed for 4th. They had no information on what's going to happen to the setting, if anything at all come 4th edition.

WotC mentioned on one of their preview/hype/brainwashing blogs about upcoming settings since all the Eberronners are up in arms over there being a FR setting before Eberron that they intended to make campaign settings for several existing worlds, including some older ones that have fans within the ranks of their editorial staff. I am pretty sure Dragonlance will be one of the first ones after FR and Eberron. Hence the grabbing up of the license.

I picked mine up the other day at FLGS and was a bit disappointed. The quality and detail of the minis themselves is less than previous editions and the new rules are, well, too 4e for my taste. I want my old alignments back!!

Quijenoth wrote:

NNOOOoooo! I love my Big Red and was hoping to get the rest of the dragons that get to Colossal size too :(

I guess it didn't sell well enough.

I think it was less sales (though it's fairly pricey for a single mini) and that had to have a negative effect on the numbers) and more that the extremes in size are just too hard to handle in combat. Something that big is far too unwieldy to work in most situations.

I have just received word from Mike McArtor that Wes Schneider has taken over the wiki initiative.

Does this mean that he will be overseeing and contributing to our wiki or will Paizo be making/hosting their own? Should I cease work on the existing wiki so as not to waste my efforts on something Wes will be doing or has already done?

Some things I'd love to see would be:

An overland/sea journey through a large swath of the world we have yet to see. Perhaps escorting a major dignitary to peace talks or something along those lines. Anything to see more of Golarion.

Exploration of non-human lands. I know it's a mainly human world, but an adventure centering around the few elven or dwarvish settlements might be cool as well.

How about an evil campaign? I sometimes run normal campaigns with evil parties, but have never seen a long format campaign designed to do this in.

Wow if it wasn't for this Post.. I would never have known that WotC page was taken off the Block list here at work.. the US Air Force must be happy with 4E D&D ;-)

That's because it's so much more combat oriented.

The phases of the moon and seasons are a nice touch. Did you just determine those by dividing the year in quarters or has this been published somewhere that I missed?

I think that it should be up to the DM to decide if this is a direction Golarion will take at that specific table. To make it part of core is infusing a certain level of maturity to a game which can otherwise (yes, murder aside) be run in a fairly morally neutral fashion. If it works for a particular character or story, then I don't think someone being the "result of violence" is inappropriate, but insinuating that a majority of half-breeds are due to rape is a bit much.

Now, if the history of Golarion that most of us don't know yet proves to be full of racically motivated wars that justify this, I guess that's another matter, but for the supposedly generic rules flavor text it might not be quite universal enough.

Several questions:

1) Since there's no mention of where in Golarion this location is, what have people been doing to tie it in with the rest of the world? I'd love to establish it as existing in a specific location so players can return to it, especially if they get it up and running again (which I can more than see them doing.)

2) This one's more for the editorial staff. Are there stats for running the Derhii as PCs? I assume there's a few levels worth of Level Adjustment, but beyond that, what are the Ability bumps, etc to consider?

Much of why I love this adventure is the sheer grisliness of it. It's rare to find a module that makes me cringe just reading it, but Nick Logue did it here in spades. Well done!

I can see that a table not into the extreme horror might not like it so much, though, and think that your scaling is good for the most part. For the chiselers, if you keep the turning to ice off-stage, it might be possible to take it for granted that doing so is just something they can do. Perhaps it's a fey ritual that takes long enough that it wouldn't threaten the PCs. I agree that throwing in a different ice shard will just confuse players, so I'd keep that out of it. You can also reduce the gore if you assume that the encased individuals are frozen so much as to shatter rather than just be slowly chiseled away by loved ones. There might be a lot of frozen fingers and body parts lying around, but as long as their blood and guts are frozen solid it would just be red ice and not quite so messy.

Please please more Event modules!

I see this has already been noted by Erik, but I want to throw in my seconding of the suggestion anyway.

I am totally with you. Unfortunately, we haven't found a way to make prepainted plastic miniatures that makes financial sense. When we do, we will do prepainted plastic. Because, trust me, I personally would rather have them painted for me. Just ask my hundreds of D&D minis. :)

-Lisa

Is the price difference in the painting or the profit margin for plastic vs. metal? I'd be willing to pay as much if not more than a booster box of DDMs for a set of prepainted plastics that fit directly into an AP I was running. Just name the price ;-)

Soon the size Tiny and Fine won't even exist in D&D. Colossal+ will become a more regularly used descriptor and a next size up will be offered: OMFG!

You're half right. Fine is out of 4e, but so it Colossal. Gargantuan is as big as they get from now on.

I'm no legal expert or anything, but based on similar wikis for other campaign settings, you should be able to list details of the world, but not provide any game rules information. Listing feats and where they can be found should be fine, but to actually post the details of said feats is a definite no-no. Same applies for monsters, guilds, spells, magic items, etc., etc.

I think that having a wiki will only help build enthusiasm for Golarion and increase the level of support and easy access to basic setting information that we as the gaming community can provide as opposed to always having to ask one of the Paizo staff for answers on things that have been published or could be found with some searching. I'm all for the wiki and look forward to using it an contributing to it when I can.

Now, to start with a new (and relatively inexperienced to newbie group), what AP do you suggest I start with? And if it is CotCT, what besides the AP modules would you suggest I need to go along with it? The amount of Pathfinder materials is getting a bit "unwieldly" (lacking a word for "not easy to keep track off anymore").

"Unwieldy" is, I believe, the correct word to use in this situation. It seems every time I check the site there's another new subscription tempting me.

As for supplemental material, I think that running either RotR or CotCT would be fine for a beginner group. You might want to ease them into playing the game before committing them to a full 20-level adventure path. Try one of the simple, low level GameMastery adventures like D0, D1, or TC1. This way everyone can get used to the mechanics and feel of a game before creating a character they could potentially spend several years with.

If you do go with CotCT, I would suggest getting the Pathfinder Chronicles: Guide to Korvosa and the Harrow Deck, which plays a large role in the AP.

I am getting ready to dive into Golarion myself and am in a similar situation of trying to ease players into the new world (as well as PRPG alpha rules) so let me know how things go! Best of luck!