Morgen's page

Would your cap be on natural stats and not including magic?

What kind of point buy are you allowing in your campaign to start with to be seeing so many 20+'s?

Are your players having fun?

There are significantly more people playing lower level adventurers then higher level ones. There probably aren't that many higher level NPCs around in a campaign setting sense either.

Step 1 - Buy tiny barding and Exotic Saddle for Psuedodragon

Step 2 - Foolishly acquire Rod of Wonder

Step 3 - Activate said Rod until your 12" tall (You might also become purple as a warning)

Step 4 - Be awesome Dragon-rider Witch/Wizard/Sorcerer

Step 5 - Realize that doesn't work anymore because the Rod of Wonder has been changed. (Darn it!) Okay, change of plans. Enlarge Person on familiar, reduce person on halfling (or gnome) self. Gogo!

More seriously though your familiar can be a very significant part of your character so it's fun to have more options. Plus your a caster class so you don't need very many feats to be effective.

Your just looking at slightly different mechanics from 3rd edition D&D to the Pathfinder RPG. Some skills get condensed, some things got more hit points and it's all nothing that should mess with the narrative or story you or those writers came up with.

There might be some fine-tuning you'd want to go over before hand rather then just trying to convert on the fly and you'll want to decide what your doing at the start for experience and the like but otherwise it shouldn't add more then a minute or two to the usual prep time.

I think it varies between if the cleric knows that they might be in range or not. I don't see why they couldn't just choose not to heal someone if they potentially are in range. Don't get too gridded down.

Now for someone that the cleric actually didn't know was there (someone who was invisible before the cleric came into the room rather then someone the cleric watches turn invisible) would probably get some free healing.

The difference between knowing someone is about and not knowing it.

Hope we can finally get that solo Snails adventurer film we've all been dreaming of and asking for.

A better solution in my opinion would be to focus the campaign around things like investigation, exploration, role playing and puzzles rather then constantly throwing the smaller party into combats.

Also feel free to look at them hiring of NPCs for things like men-at-arms, or similar henchmen to help ease the burden of not having a lot of people-power.

That's why feats like Step Up are nice to have, plus there is always, "You can take a 5-foot step as part of your readied action, but only if you don't otherwise move any distance during the round" to consider too.

You have other tactics in your bag of tricks to use though so take care not to forget about them. The fighter in this case might have a better time of things moving up to the wizard and kicking him down to the floor with his standard action rather then readying if there is a lot of room to move around where they happen to be fighting.

There is even the possibility of throwing your weapon at them if you don't need to get too specific about what kind of attack your going to make if they start with all the crazy words and silly hand gestures.

I'm a bit curious what kind of scenario would have to be enacted for them to start fighting for an extended period of time. They're both a bit too smart to be tricked for long despite some differences in view point.

Any reasonable attempt at a versus would end up with a team up effort to defeat some greater evil and then probably respect.

May I present you with two films that I think should be in the running for dumbest movie ever.

1.) The Dark Backward (1991) - A garbage man grows a third arm out of his back while trying to become a stand up comedian and then everyone screws him over.

2.) Zardos (1974) - "In the far future, a savage trained only to kill finds a way into the community of bored immortals that alone preserves humanity's achievements."

They're.....just awful.

Plus just because people in Alkenstar distrust magic doesn't mean the firearms themselves are unenchantable.

Bleh, Yahoo is such a trash company these days. They're so irrelevant.

If we're going for realism, shouldn't the guns be much more dangerous to the people using them then any opponents they fight? After all more people died in the great western migration across the US to self inflicted gunshot wounds then those caused by others.

Plus we'd also have to give the gunfighter some kind of bluff bonus based upon the fact that most of the famous gunfighters and outlaws in history greatly and intentionally inflated their own legends. Need that in there definitely.

I know Sean basically swears by Future.

Think it's called like Pledge with Future Shine now though.

More to the point of the OP, the investment isn't too big so long as you think about what your going to paint before hand.

You'll probably need a metal or two, a flesh tone, maybe a brown wash (it's so versatile, leather, wood, and more!) and then a color or two for your outfits.

You want to make sure to prime your models before painting and even before that step I recommend properly cleaning the little extra bits and mold lines from your models and then probably washing them off with some warm water and soap. So don't forget the cost of a set of small files when looking at things. Primer and paint really help to bring out the flaws in a model.

Are you sure your not thinking of hardness instead of natural armour?

Most things don't even have 40 natural armour to begin with so any kind of special ruling like that doesn't come into play. Heck, the Tarrasque only has 35, which is the most I could find at a quick glance. I don't think that most creatures with more then 20 points of natural armour are going to care that much that you hit them given the other abilities and huge pile of hit points they tend to have.

They're adorable!!

A better solution would be to focus the campaign around things like investigation, exploration, role playing and puzzles rather then constantly throwing the smaller party into combat. Also feel free to look at the hiring of NPCs for things like men-at-arms, or similar henchmen to help ease the burden of not having a lot of people-power.

Think it's more important to point out that you burnt a feat slot to be able to craft a gun and save some gold. The guy with a longbow just invested a skill point, same as the gunsmith.

Though...shouldn't your adventurer focus more on adventure and less on sitting around making some items to save some coin. You could spend that time going out and earning that money to buy something better, or maybe even just find something usable in some ancient crypt or haunted mansion.

Actually I've got a suggestion if your the DM.

Stop attacking the guy's horse all the time. The guy on the horse is obviously much more dangerous to anything with an intelligence score.

I don't know how much AOE damage is thrown out there in later kingmaker adventures though.

Handle Animal is a great and often underused skill. Lots of druids don't even like to say, read the description of what it does and use it properly. :/

There are plenty of wild animals to capture and train in the game and your not limited to just animals. Magical Beasts or other creatures with an intelligence of 1 or 2 are also subject to being raised. If your campaign gives you enough down time to actually train things you can keep a very exotic stable of things, and probably make good money selling off others to people who need/want them for security/pets/mounts/etc.

Sure in higher level encounters your pet dog probably won't survive a fireball, but lots of other things will.

And let's not forget about the trained war-hydra.... >:D

I really hope the FLGS gets this in today and I can pick up my pre-order on Sunday! :D

I'm kind of leaning with the others that this might make the mounted classes a bit less special.

Of course I've never seen a game where it was that hard to keep a mount alive either....

Why are your DM's making you completely aware of the amount of hit points the monster's have left?

You shouldn't normally have access to that kind of information as a player.

Does no one use the DM's Screen anymore?

This was also already thought of for a composite longbow with a huge strength requirement. Not like your going to sell your bonded object.

I'd have to recommend almost anything found at http://twit.tv/.

I've always been a big fan of This Week in Tech, and there are lots of other fun tech related podcasts there too.

Though I to would love them to hit the FAQ/Errata hard, and sometimes I get upset they have been using the same reason why it is not done for years now, there is a blog that put this in a perspective that made me realize I was having entitlement problems..

Entitlement issues... by Neil Gaiman

Basically Paizo is not our b#*~!

An excellent article and a very good point. +9001 to you Dragnmoon.

We've been playing Pathfinder since the Alpha and somehow we don't spend 90% of the game trying to puzzle out rules. Apparently that's a rare thing given the tone some people in this thread are using.

I'm more worried to hear that Paizo is behind on their new products then rule contradictions that haven't even come up in a few years of playing the game.

Indeed, Happy GM's day to everyone who GM's in any way!

Don't forget about the people who worked so hard to give us the fun and friendship that gaming brought into our lives.

Also don't forget about Gary Con in only a few weeks! (March 25-27!)

Eh? What nerf bat?

Oh, the This demoralization effect can't be used to make them frightened thing. That's not what I was thinking demoralization was being used for honestly, haha.

I think the melee characters giving a group of people the penalties for shaken for a turn or two, combined with the rest of the chain for deadly stroke are fun to have for a fighter.

Dazzling Display seems very RPable too, which isn't always true for feats.

"Let it be known that you don't face any sword today, but Malthindor! Oblivion's Blade!"

Apparently a good heavy squeezing of gorilla glue when the binding starts to separate from the cover fixes this problem like crazy. At least that's what my friend did and it worked pretty well.

The guy can still just win initiative and cast sleep all over everyone.

Actually Sleep has a 1 round casting time so even if they win initiative everything would still get an entire turn before the wizard would finish casting the spell. Plenty of time to just hit him with a rock/bolt/arrow/thunderstone/etc and interrupt the spell casting or for them to move into melee with the other adventurers and limit the spell's usefulness considerably.

I played plenty back in the days of Basic and 1st Ed AD&D and I know what it is like to have to house rule because you sometimes had no idea what the real intent of a vague rule was meant to be. But in this modern day with the internet and pdf updates and such, I do not want to have to do that any longer. It is much easier now to get what the real intent of a rule is and then decide whether you need to house rule it or not. Using the magic item crafting rules as an example, if Paizo were to put out a 20-30 page pdf clarifying, updating and revamping this system and making it available for download for a dollar or two, I would buy it.

Yeah, but as I said it's different for different groups. We've been playing since the beta release biweekly and haven't house ruled anything. The only slightly ambiguous thing we've had come up was charging with Vital Strike which the GM decided he didn't mind. Not every group sees the same rules as vague or unusual.

I'm going to say no as well, it'd be a distraction for Paizo and not something I'd spend money on.

Actual errata and clarifications I'm happy to print out and a lot of the issues for one group that seem important (say, the crafting rules) are not at all an issue for other groups. It's all relative to your game and your players.

I dread the idea of a Pathfinder RPG.5.... *shudder-shudder*

Seeing as 3.5 had a few prestige classes you could get into by like 2nd or 3rd level that hardly seems very abusive by 3.5 standards.

If your GM wants to allow all the old stuff into their game, go for it I suppose.

can arcane spell casters trick the karma beads using umd to pretend they have access to divine spells?

Yep, you can UMD karma beads like that, great way to get your hours per level spells boosted.

I like the idea of Bear's Endurance buffing yourself and your familiar at the same time. It's fun.

I like your build, your familiar will be as tough as it can get without being too over the top! Your Earth Elemental wears boots too, hahaa!

XD

A combat effective familiar for a one-shot game? Sounds like a lot of fun! A bit hard with the changes to make the polymorph style spells not ridiculous, but still doable.

You'll have to make sure you don't waste too many rounds buffing it obviously of fights might be over before they start. I'd suggest making sure you've got a few good divination spells on hand along with the buff spells so you can get as many in as possible (hopefully) before combat stats. False Life for the familiar, one for you, Mage Armor for the familiar and some kind of miss chance for the both of you if you can help it. A scroll of Contingency might help out with some buffing with a good condition.

You'll likely want an improved familiar, probably an elemental or dire rat. Whatever has the best physical stats that you can get a hold of.

At 10th level for Wizard that should give you access to the Elemental Body II and Beast Shape III, which will be your primary way of changing your familiar into bigger and better things (well combining with Enlarge Person too most likely.)

I'd suggest nabbing Craft Wondrous Item if your DM will allow you to have it so you'll be able to save money and have some gear pre-crafted. Definitely get your familiar a nice little belt of physical stats.

You could also try to nab a scroll of Form of the Dragon depending on how much cash you've spent and how likely you think you'll be at making a caster level check to use the scroll. It'd be fun to have a trump card like that though. Could even go all out and grab Form of the Dragon III, rawr! It's a one-shot so have fun, get crazy and test out stuff that people would normally dismiss.

I had always assumed that these items weren't intentionally made, just old wizards or estates trying to pawn off the more worthless junk as best they can.

Something like it was a better ioun stone that got burnt out and the wizard had already cast continual flame on it before hand.

The realms should be ripe with the kind of kingdoms for someplace like Cheliax to come out of.

I...can't be more helpful then that, my experience is only with a few games.

Bring back THAC0!!

/ducks

Nah, VoP starts off being a bit better compared to average geared characters and then quickly becomes worthless as you get to higher levels.

That shift happens faster or slower the more or less gear and gold the party has access too.

That's not to say it isn't abusable but you really have to want to be like a monk/kensai or something to get anything close to real mileage out of it.

Effectively it's lame from a power gaming aspect unless your like one of two or three specific character concepts.

Hey there ho there.

Some of the ones I read that are kind of fun:

Slightly Damned is pretty good, and I kind of want a campaign setting from it honestly. The world isn't completely fleshed out but it seems like it'd be neat to have.

Nodwick.com really can't be more about gaming then it already is. Nifty blog posts, regular updates and 3 great comics to read during the week.

Girl Genius Online is something that you should absolutely check out. It's got a looooot of back issues to look through and is insanely well made. Probably my favorite comic ever.

You don't have a facing so there is no backwards and forwards. You are a 5' box, adjacent to another 5' box. During the course of your action your box shifts slightly to another square away from the 5' box your fighting if you haven't taken any other movement with your box.

If your opponent's box has a reach weapon your box would still be in danger, if not then that box has to shift slightly forward after you on it's actions unless it has a feat similar to Step Up.

It's a game, not a real life simulator.

Look at Monopoly, you can't say that you don't have to pay for staying in a hotel on boardwalk just because you wouldn't waste that kind of money in real life and choose to just sleep in your wheelbarrow. (A bit over the top for an example but about the same concept.)

Adding extra things to it wouldn't make it more fun, it'd just add unnecessary complications onto it and screw over spell casters more then any other characters as they tend to need that 5' step much more often then a fighter or thief.

If your looking for a sword-fighting spell caster perhaps you should go with a Magus instead of a sorcerer. That's kind of their shtick all in all.

Beyond taking ranks of perception and disable device, as well as not tanking the ability scores those are linked too, grab your masterwork thieves' tools and you should be just fine. All you'd normally need to worry about beyond that are magical traps.

If your in a game where traps are everywhere a familiar and skill focus: disable device could be a useful investment.

Anytime I've ever had a rogue or a cleric in melee combat I haven't had any more trouble hitting things then the fighter.

Just remember to stack your bonuses as best you can (flanking, etc) and that seems to be enough to help.

A campaign setting from the whole magic universe would make a heck of a lot more sense then a collectable card add-on for D&D....

I remember when it was WotC policy to give this kind of thing away as a reward for playing in RPGA events... :/

Woah, that's really well done. Good job!

It's sad to see it go down hill like that. I know pretty much all of my current friends due to Living Greyhawk and the RPGA community here in Minnesota. :(

We could use a new organization I think, something that helps support more then just one company's games.

I'm totally behind more Firefly. Need more of space and science and awesomeness. :)

13. Your language is ENGLISH for god sake and you shall use the Queens English when you write something... It is Colour not Color and it is Labour not Labor...

What are you talking about? Didn't you hear that we got special permission from the Queen herself to speak English as we like.

Well except we can't say that "we couldn't care less," or that we'd "hold down the fort." David Mitchell wouldn't lie to us I'm sure!