I so fondly recall the excitement at the new 4E announcement back in the day. Ah those glorious rumors from GenCon and the excitingly looking forward to all the glory the new dawn of gaming would provide. Ooohing and Ahhhing at the idea of a fully supported electronic tabletop and a freedom from grapple checks. Such exciting times.
Sadly in 5 years I've played in zero 4E campaigns and only a handfull of one-shot adventures. Perhaps I should have worked harder to convince my friends that it was as amazing as I wanted it to be, but their counterpoints that the adventures were just dreadful (and they were - both LFR and the published line started off weak at best).
Then the electronic table top died a quiet death.
Then it rapidly became clear that the material printed in the core books was to be rapidly outstripped in power by supplements available first (and sometimes for years) only though the subscription model with the character creator software making those of us who bothered to buy books look like chumps.
That said I do like most of Monte Cook and Mike Mearls' work and so will be paying the new edition a fair bit of attention. It will honestly not have the same hooks in me that 4E did.
One significant note is that the announcement came not from any of the industry events (not even their own D&D experience) but via mainstream journalism. The jaded part of me wonders if this means that they no longer think the RPG customer is deserving of attention or if marketing at WotC is so terrified by their sales numbers that they don't think we're out here anymore.
Many tasks in a high economy game are often dull. The classic example of this would be player vs rock combat that is mining in eve. It is aproxamatly as exciting as watching paint dry.
Some games have however made what are in reality tedious and unfun tasks into exciting mini-games that challenge and reward those who excel in them. One of the best examples of this is Puzzle Pirates specifically the bilge pumping minigame. I served on a ship in the USN and there are few jobs more unfun than bilge pumping. In Puzzle Pirates is an exciting game of matching like things with escalating challenge as you become proficient.
Now Puzzle Pirates possibly went a bit far in making the entirety of the game about mini-games. That is clearly not called for in PFO. I do however think that some tasks could be made both more fun and more legitimate by creating minigames. The example brought up in another thread was chopping wood. I think a simple mechanic where you had to time the swings of your axe to either maintain a rhythm or hit a precise zone would add an aspect of gathering that simple player vs tree combat would be lacking.
We could extrapolate it further and perhaps accelerate crafting jobs by scoring critical success in a matching game or a tetris-like fit the pieces game for manufacturing or enchanting more refined goods.
Downsides to this idea would be the difficulty of implementing quality minigames (thats a whole separate field of game design and would probably require their own team). The other major flaw in the system is that it tests player skill vs character skill. For example no matter how good a set of boxing gloves or bonuses I get in Puzzle Pirates I will never be a good brawler that minigame just doesn't click for me. Therefore I think it essencial that these minigames only be noncombat in nature.
This is probably a sufficiently large topic to merit its own post on the goblinworks blog, but I can't help but wonder what direction the team is planning to go artistically.
concept: Inspired by the creatures in Magic: the Gathering with the same name. I first consider where it makes sense for elephant like people to hail from. Since I already put linonfolk in southern Garund and I don't want to fill that continent with anilmalistic peoples the other obvious choice is Vudra. Assuming a caste system on that little known continent and with the simularity to Genesha (a very cool deity ripe for inserting) it seems that perhaps we can consider the entire race to be part of the preistly caste at least as far as humans are concerned. Its somewhat amusing to me that in their own communitys they don't think so much of themselves and the idea of a simple loxadon baker being flustered by everyone treating him as superior is nice. With that in mind and the art from magic we think that perhaps this would work better as a primarily NPC race and set the goal of an advanced 20 point race build.
Trait choices:
Type: My inital impulse was to go for humanoid (elephant) but as read over the Monsterous Humanoid entry that seemd to fit a bit better.
Size: Elephants are big. The magic cards are generally a higher power and toughness than most humans. Considering both of those large size makes sense.
Speed: Elephants aren't noted for being exceptionally slow (espeically once they get moving) so I think I'll pick a normal speed of 30ft
Ability Mods: We've conceived of them as being of the priestly cast so a + wisdom seems right. Also the magic creatures are normally either clerics or soldiers so + str and + con also seem reasonable. Nothing about them screams high dex, but then we've already got a -2 to dex from size. As I see it the reasonable options are to go for advanced modifiers or flexible modifiers. I think the more intresting option is to go for advanced modifiers so we'll try that first. I see elephants as being really tough so +4 to con and the +2 to all mental stats keys into the reverence humans show them and some of the old folkore ("An elephant never forgets.").
Languages: considering that they are in peaceful contact with human setlements the standard array seems correct.
Ability Choices:
Defensive abilites: The thick hide of the creatures and terrable dex definatly justify getting Natural armor and at least one level of Improved natural armor to help them not be terrable at soldiering (one of their perfered professions). Hardy would also make a lot of sense, but by a strict reading of the playtest doc is not allowed becaue we have +4 con rather than +2 con.
Movment abilities: the only one that I even considered was sprinter to reprsenct the stampeed effect of a massed rank of loxodons charging but in the movies there always seems to be time to just barely get out of the way of a stampeed of elephants so I decided they don't necesarlly go that fast.
Offensive abilites: The single most iconic card associated with the loxodons in magic is not actually a loxodon but their two handed warhammer. Looking at d20pfsrd the Earth Breaker seems the closest fit.
Skill and feat abilities: The loxodon in magic are noted artificers and if dwarves are lacking in verunda thats not a bad nitche for them to fill there. It would be more intresting if the ability would let me pick two materials such as metal, cloth, stone or gem.
Magical Abilities: Dreamspeaker, Lightbringer, and a spell-like ability all seem like options to really push racial inclination to the clergy. Unfortunatly a quick tally of points shows that I'm at 19 and none of them really scream super aproprate to me so I think I will pass on magical abilities. +2 to all mental stats should encourage a fair number of casters.
Finalizing I have 19 points left and could just leave it there, but with one more point I can buy another point of natural armor and get my unarmored ac up to 10 base, so I think I'll go ahead and do that.
Price Breakdown:
Monsterous Humanoid - 2
-- Darkvision 60
Large - 7
-- +2 str, -2 dex
-- -1 AC and attack rolls
-- +1 CMB and CMD
-- space / reach : 10 / 5
Normal Speed - 0
Advanced Modifiers - 4
-- +4 con, +2 int, +2 wis, +2 cha, -2 dex
Standard Language Array - 1
-- Loxodon and Common (BL: Verundi, Sylvan, Elven, Gnome, Gnoll)
Natural Armor and Improved Natural Armor x2 - 4
-- +3 Natural Armor
Weapon Familiarity - 1
-- proficent in Earth Breakers and loxadon weapons
craftsman - 1
-- +2 bonus on Craft or Profession checks to make metal or stone items
Closing thoughts: It should be more clear that Hardy can be taken if you have greater than +2 con. Also I'd really like craftsman more if I could have picked it for cloth and metal.
The skill and feat ability skill bonus seems just ludicrously overpriced. First it assumes that all skills are created equal. 2 RP for a +2 to perception seems fine, but 2 RP for +2 to ride checks is just silly.
If the trait gave +2 to any two skills for 1 RP then I think it might be worth taking. As a side note its telling just how few times this ability gets used in player created races in the sample race thread vs how frequently its used in core races.
Inspired primarily by the leonin art in Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed books, magic cards, African folk tales and getting our paws on the shiny new rules me and Melissa went to work building a new race.
Lionfolk: Living in southern Gerund the reclusive natives to that continents plains are a young race. Newly emerging from mysterious origins the lionfolk's first encounter with humanity was a group of Chelish slavers who decided they would serve magnificently in chains. Capturing a lionin (as they call themselves) proved almost as difficult as keeping it alive afterward making them a rare but prized site in the slave pens. Some few have escaped captivity and make their way out of Cheliax and to the plains of Varisia where the naive nomadic peoples have shown these rare few a different side of humanity. Though the greater majority of the race still resides on the plains of Gerund.
Lionfolk (humanoid (leonine)). +2 str, +2 cha, -2 int. +1 natural armor. Lowlight vision. Speaks Leonine only base, bonus languages Mwangi, Gnoll, Common. +10 movement on a charge. +2 vs. fear. +2 dodge bonus to AC and CMB checks against humans. Perception and Stealth always in class.
Previously in another thread I was concerned about everyone being a dervish dancer if they wanted to be a dex biased melee combatant regardless of background.
Naturally the agile weapon enhancement was brought up, but I don't feel that a magic weapon (and defiantly not a +1 enchantment) is the right way to go about it.
I find myself in agreement with James Jacobs when he said that he would like to see more ways to add dex to damage, but am unsure how to go about it. Is a feet the right answer? Something akin to Improved Weapon Finesse that uses dex for damage with finessable weapons?
The only other option I can think of would be a rules patch that lets you choose to add dax to damage, though that seems kind of strong at first blush.
Anyone have other thoughts on how to encourage a more diverse set of dex fighters?
It was mentioned in another thread that there isn't a lot of beefcake shots of various male iconics. Is there any chance we might see say Lem wraring not much more than a thong or Valaros on the beach wearing short (and tight) trunks? The gays (and presumably the ladies too) are firing here.
No one bathhouse scene isn't enough.
Also feel free to forget about the old man wizard when making this art buy, okay? ;)
You’ll have opportunities to take on passengers for payments several times during the Jade Regent Adventure Path—your GM will inform you when such opportunities arise.
As there is no mention of it in the first to parts of the AP, should I assume that no one wants to travel from Sandport (if they head back first) or the villages along the way to Kalsgrad via caravan?
I have a small problem in that the archer character in my game (yes you there) murders any critter / npc up to cr +3 in about one round and this seems to be reducing the amount of fun that other characters are having.
Any tips on how to build an encounters to make melee or blaster characters shine at average party level 14?
One of my current goals as a DM is to incorporate the first rule of improv to my games. For the unfamiliar the first rule is to never say no. Yeah. My players immediately put this to the test. The witch in my game has recently learned charm monster and starts digging through the monster index for the most amazing minion he can find.
Don't you love gamist PCs?
He promptly hits on Rune Giants prompting a strong no. I elaborate that the difficulty will be one of ecology. Still I go out with the goal of being an enlightened DM and find myself squashing player ideas in the first two hours. Perhaps I should try to make them more aware of this concept or just trust them more?
Reading the recent monk thread about what role a monk fills I realized that there is no consus on what the roles even are. After a bit of thought (at least like 30 seconds) I came up with what I consider my views of what a groups roles are.
Heavy Meele - this group normally like to move forward and confront the enimies directly relying on thick armor and a large stack of hit points to not die. Fighters, paladins, cavaliers, some cleircs and orcles, and some barbarians, some magi do well to fill this role.
Light Meele - This group forsakes the heavy armor to gain hightend mobility and a tactical advantange from moving around these foes. This group excells at high terrain encounters (catwalks above vats of acid, crumbling ledges in a volcano, etc). They are not as druable as the heavy meele but often bring useful skills to the table. Rogues, bards, monks, inquisitors, some fighters, some rangers, barbarians, some alchemists, and magi fill this role well.
Ranged Damage - These guys very sensably kill things from over there. They bring the noise so to speak. Wizards, alchemists, rangers, some witches, sorcerers, gunslingers, some fighters.
Healing - Everyone takes damage. These guys make sure the opponents die first. Clerics and oracles are the top tier of healing. Druids, bards, paladins, inquisitors, witches and alchemists can also contribute depending on their build.
Combat Control - These guys keep everything under control though use of magic (walls, charms, wards, etc) or combat manuvers (grapple, disarm, trip, reposition, etc). Wizards, sorcerers, witches, summoners, figthers, monks, magi, druids, and bards all do well. The smoke bomb ninja also gets a nod here.
This is simply my opinion and may be subject to change. But I'm super happy if my group has these bases covered.
My PCs began their assault on Iavori's Palace of a Hundred Doors (evocative name but painful map) by charging the towers from the sky. This didn't work so well and they set of the alarm. They are now running around inside searching doors for traps and kicking them down. Yeah.
Anyway, I was inspided by the Chronicles: Pathfinder podcast and have decided to rework Irovetti as a sundering magus (yes, I am evil).
Anyway, an issue I'm having is that the Rod of Razors being a halberd is completely unsuited to magi. My thought is to shift it to being a battleaxe with reach vice a halberd that can hit adjacent targets. Would it be appropriate to increase the cost of the weapon in this case?
Its worth noting that I don't expect my PCs to care much about the weapon nor to do more than sell it when they're done beating him down. No one uses either axes or halberds as primary weapons.
The next session with the showdown happens tuesday so any input is appreciated.
I would enjoy being able to never see posts by people who are allowed to be insulting and rude to other players. I'm not sure why this is allowed but it is.
Regardless I think that an ignore function would make the boards a much more inviting digital space and I advocate its implementation.
So I'm reading UC and one thing that struck me was how odd it was that gnomes were a listed as a prerequisite for both the Earth Child style and Twin Thunders Flurry alongside dwarves. I though we were done with gnomes being dwarves smaller brothers.
These feets don't resonate at all with the first world flavor of Galrion's gnome population nor was the tie to earth and stone all that strong in the APG gnome writeup. Yes I know that the core line is 'setting neutral' but this looks like stuff recycled from 3.5. And I like my gnomes all feyish.
OTOH, the Haunted Gnome feet chain is so awesome I want to go build a character to use it. Maybe a paladin or a samurai.
I play the party cleric. I would love to memorize a non-domain spell that is not Lesser Restoration at some point in this hateful adventure path.
Please stop using the most obnoxious ability that should have been cut if Paizo had had more than two ounces of creative power when converting from 3.5. No one likes to continual recalculate their hit bonus and hp biased on random luck of hitting odd numbers or not.
Rage Rage Rage.
It is not cool to make the clerics job so freaking miserable.
BTW can I look forward to meeting Richard Pett at Gen Con? 'Cause I just want to meet him.
I was reading though Ultimate Magic and was glad to see exactly zero prestige classes being forced down my unwilling throat.
While I was initially enamored of the concept when 3.0 premiered by the time 3.5 was mature I was so sick of the 6 class dip builds that so many were fond of.
Thanks to Paizo the core classes are interesting and the archetypes provide more flexibility for a huge number of character concepts.
At 13th level, a monk gains spell resistance equal to his current monk level + 10. In order to affect the monk with a spell, a spellcaster must get a result on a caster level check (1d20 + caster level) that equals or exceeds the monk's spell resistance.
Spell Resistance:
Spell Resistance
Spell resistance is the extraordinary ability to avoid being affected by spells. Some spells also grant spell resistance.
To affect a creature that has spell resistance, a spellcaster must make a caster level check (1d20 + caster level) at least equal to the creature's spell resistance. The defender's spell resistance is like an Armor Class against magical attacks. If the caster fails the check, the spell doesn't affect the creature. The possessor does not have to do anything special to use spell resistance. The creature need not even be aware of the threat for its spell resistance to operate.
Only spells and spell-like abilities are subject to spell resistance. Extraordinary and supernatural abilities (including enhancement bonuses on magic weapons) are not. A creature can have some abilities that are subject to spell resistance and some that are not. Even some spells ignore spell resistance; see When Spell Resistance Applies, below.
A creature can voluntarily lower its spell resistance. Doing so is a standard action that does not provoke an attack of opportunity. Once a creature lowers its resistance, it remains down until the creature's next turn. At the beginning of the creature's next turn, the creature's spell resistance automatically returns unless the creature intentionally keeps it down (also a standard action that does not provoke an attack of opportunity).
...
Emphasis mine.
So, in summery the only way for a 13th level or higher monk to be reliably healed other than by channeling positive energy is spending his standard action to lower his SR every round. If the monk is unconscious and didn't lower it last round... well better hope the cleric has more channeling left.
This is monumentally stupid.
Most DMs will probably house rule that a Monk's SR stays off once he shuts it off that that's enough to make the ability simply useless. If it could be turned of with a swift action (even if it had to be turned off every round as a swift action) that would be interesting. By the RAW though this is an actively detrimental ability.
I was wondering if the Theologan archetype for clerics is any good? What's it do (give up and gain)? I'm trying to decide if I need to start petitioning my DM to let me switch.
I was just wondering if anyone liked the gun enchantments (Lucky, Reliable, and Steadfast)?
I know my group doesn't. Lucky feels weird as a weapon enchant. It seems wrong that the magic way to enchant grit costs more on a lawman's Axiomatic Pistol than a common thugs enchanted rifle. I do like increasing the grit pool but it feels weird here. I'd rather see Lucky as a flat cost increase (like many armor enchants) or divorced from weapons all together. I think an Ioun Stone that increased grit would be cool, as would a slotted item such as boots or a shirt.
Reliable guns still explode so its name is a lie. (Though if it could make the misfire mechanics go to zero I'd be a fan of it).
Both reliable and Steadfast do make the weapons they enchant do more damage so they make sense as weapon enchants, but I think steadfast is a bit overpriced. For a +3 I want to be shooting alchemic whammies from my shotgun with no misfire chance.
So, in another thread there was a discussion on ditching the grit recharge. I propose going a step further and ditching the grit mechanic entirely.
I'm not saying that grit ability is bad, rather I'm proposing that most would work better as class abilities untied to a resource pool. Some would be usable at will such as Gunslinger Initiative, Lighting Reload, Evasive (becomes Evasion), etc. Some abilities work better as 1/day abilities: Startling shot, Menacing Shot, Bleeding Wound, Slinger's Luck, Dead Shot, etc. And there may be ability that work as three times per day such as Targeting.
Yes this would in fact increase the gunslingers power. As it looks now, I don't think they'd be stronger than a bard.
In a game I'm running the party encounters a Dryad and Satyr who need the groups help to kill an evil plant running amok. The pair are fully stated up because if the PCs don't help the pair will atempt to magicly compel them. Instead as is this groups habbit they make friends and go off to slay the plant.
The grateful dryad rewards them with loot (coincidentally most of her combat gear) and agrees to help them out later. I award quest XP and XP for the monster. Should I also award them XP for defeating the Dryad and Satyr?
I didn't and it seems that the groups progression is fine but I was wondering what the other DMs on these boards thought.
One thing that I've learned from WoW is that leveling up is only part of the fun. I think that characters at level 20 are still able to progress via gear upgrades and have a blast. Some inevitably broken epic rules won't make our game any more fun.
I posit that the gunslinger is currently less good with guns than a fighter. Its especially bad if the fighter takes Armature Gunslinger feat (mostly just to quick clear).
I think that two things of fix this are more bonus feats. I'd recommend start at 2 and going every 2. Another possibility is to give Rapid Reload as a bonus feat at level 2 and keep the current bonus feats though I don't think that's as good an option.
Also I believe that the Gun Training feature needs to level up and continue to provide increasing bonuses on the first guns picked similar to a fighters Weapon Training.
As a side note Deadly Aim clearly needs to work better with guns but I hope that you guys are already on top of that.
Reads as never gona use this ability. Please replace with something that will be used. Anything really would work. Anything at all would be better really.
Its probably my L5R influence, but I don't see most samurai being mounted.
OTOH, the new cavalier orders seem good and i can probably simulate Lion clan with Fighters and make very effective non-mounted samurai. And these guys are ideal Unicorn clan samurai.
After a quick read and trying to draw up a few mid level npcs it seems clear to me that gunslingers have a much lower damage output than fighters using guns and one that only gets larger as they level up.
Fighter pros:
Extra feats at 2 and every four levels over gunslingers.
Armor Training means you can wear medium armor (or possibly even plate at high levels) and make full use of your dex. And move faster than a gunslinger.
Gunslinger cons:
Deeds don't do any extra damage except for aimed shot (torso) and beeding shot.
Unlike Weapon Training, the extra hit and damage from Gun Training never goes up.
How to fix:
Add the following to Gun Training:
In addition, the bonuses granted by previous weapon groups increase by +1 each. For example, when a gunslinger reaches 9th level, he receives a +1 bonus on attack rolls and adds his dex modifier to damage rolls with one firearm and a +2 bonus on attack rolls and adds his dex modifier +1 to damage rolls with the firearm selected at 5th level. [it might be simpler to have the ability add +1 to attack and damage rolls and add dex modifier to damage initially]
A gunslinger also adds this bonus to the Pistol-whip deeds attack and CMB. This bonus
also applies to the fighter’s Combat Maneuver Defense when defending against disarm and sunder attempts made against firearms chosen.
***
Add a deed that actually makes the gunslinger do more damage in the level 3 range.
All this is just my two cents. But it would make me sad to see another fighter variant that is less good at its specialization than a pure fighter.
The scenario went fine even though they played Tier 3-4 with one 1st and five 2nd level PCs.
Is this legit? I had thought you ran at the tier aproprate to the math for average party level. If so I know some of my PCs would be glad to play up for extra challenge.
Wand of Cure Light Wounds
Wand of Magic Missile
Masterwork Mighty Composite Longbow (+2/3 str bonus)
Wand of Enlarge Person
At 1 point (150gp or less)
Potion of Lesser Restoration
... crickets ...
This is mostly useful to very low level characters but can seriously help them get a leg up and stay useful especially if your society mods often include the bonus encounter.
Matthew Trent
