Mr Baron's page

Gorbacz wrote:

Easy - tell Todd that he has to turn in a regular 64 pages Chronicles book, while secretly up the count to 256 at the printer. This way, you will have to cut just 44 pages ! ;)

I'll still have to develop 256 pages tho. :/

PS...I will take the over...

PPS...James - Looking forward to book 2! Book 1 was excellent.

I will be using my CoB in LoF!

This looks really cool. Looking forward to seeing how this one turns out.

Mistwalker wrote:

Extensive guidelines for continuing the campaign after the end of the AP? Will this be a lead in to high level play, past 20th level?

We're not sure yet. The hope is to do an article like this for ALL of the Adventure Paths from Kingmaker on. A 6 or so page article that gives adventure seeds, plots, maybe even a few maps or stat blocks to help folks keep running the campaign after they finish the AP. Whether or not it takes you to 20th level depends on the wishes of your GM, but it should be enough to allow for that type of game if you want.

I really like the idea of a short article that gives ideas/seeds/maps/other cool stuff to keep the campaign going past book 6. Kingmaker is going to be great!

Cheers!

Hank,

This one does sound very cool. Looking forward to seeing the finished product!

Cheers!

yes it is!

Most excellent!

WOW!

So Greg, did you know this was coming, and when are parts 2 & 3 going to be published?

I changed mine to monthly as well....The Bestiary is a must have! I think once Jan rolls around I will switch it back to shiping with my Pathfinder AP.

Very good!

It would be awesome to see it ship out today! Good reading for the weekend!

Hey Nick!

I will be placing my pre-order very soon. A Pathfinder hardcopy version is too good to pass up!

Cheers!
Bret

The next printing is already gone to the printer. In addition to the changes found in the update document, there are a host of other changes that are grammatical in nature, cleaning up poor sentences or incorrect references. If these impacted the game rules, they are in the update, otherwise, they will be found in the second printing.

I am not 100% sure how things will go from here. We are still working up a policy for handling user feedback on the book.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing

I am assuming that the PDF will also be updated to incorporate the errata and will be available shortly. Is this a correct assumption?

As was mentioned above, in a convention setting, you have to have one eye on the clock, which does limit roleplay. Out of the convention setting, you can role play as much as you want, as time becomes less of an issue.

1) Yes - This applies to first level if this is your favored class

2) For the Finding Haleen trait, this was written with the old rules in mind, and it feel like adding this on to the Pathfinder rules would be a bit much. I would play it that with this trait, they get +1HP & +1 skill points, but it would not stack with the favored class benefits in the PF RPG. A trait is suppose to be equal to half a feat, so stacking this with the PF RPG feels like more than half a feat.

I kicked off my LoF/Necropolis campaign, which I am calling "The Forgotten Gods" Campaign, this weekend with character creation. I am using the new PF RPG rules, and I had 9 folks show up to create characters with another 2 or so who will be at my next session. There is a lot of excitment with the new rules, and I was a bit surprised at the large turnout.

I had the players start off at 2nd level, as it feels that PF 19 is a little light on encounters, and the final encounter in that one is a bit rough. I will be starting them out at a small dungeon (which is getting bigger by the moment, but that is a different story) several miles from the Sultan's Claw, in which their camels are currently at. The background is that they are basically treasure hunters looking for an artifact called "Rod of Rahotep" which they believe is in this dungeon, which I am calling "The Goblin Cave."

Next session is in 2 weeks, and then the fun really starts!

Sean & Crew,

Here are my thoughts on this:

1) Modules that are related to the AP's would be very useful. Modules that allow for play after an AP would be great (this idea seems to be a popular one). I would also be a fan of modules that allow for side treks on AP's to mix things up and make the AP feel more like a sandbox. I understand the difficulty to do this, but if you guys could pull it off, that would be awesome.

2) Modules that link together like what Jason is doing with his modules. A 2 or 3 part module series builds more interest than a stand alone module.

3) Off world modules that explore the different planets would be really cool, and this would be perfect for a 2 or 3 part series.

4) Thow in a double sized module every now and then. I am a huge fan of the special edition super sized module. Maybe a once a year double sized special, complete with a fold out map.

5) Dungeon crawl modules. What I mean is dungeon modules that link together to form a mega-dungeon.

6) Darkland modules. I am thinking of a module that loosely fleshes out an area of the darklands and then follow on modules add additional details to the area. For example in the original D series only a portion of the underdark map was detailed out. These empty areas would be perfect for a module to flesh out. My recommendation would be to build them out to be stand alone, but also could be linked together.

7) Modules that support the Chronicles. For example, if a PF Chronicle detailed a specific area, have a module directly link to it and be referenced in both places.

8) Cool dungeon crawls. A good generic dungeon crawl can be used anywhere.

9) Modules that are supported by flip maps. Jason's module was great.

10) Land of the Linnorn Kings modules!

My campaign kicks off this Saturday, and I am actually looking forward to running the gremlins, although I am sure that my players will hate them. I see them as mischievous fey that haunt various environments, and I plan to play them as such with a touch of comedy thrown in as well. I will be having some fun with the bad luck element of the creature.

Greg,

I know we talked about it quite a bit at GenCon, and I am hopeful that with the current success of PF RPG, ST will grow in interest.

Keep us posted!

Cheers!
Bret

I GM'ed this one 4 times at the Con, and at that specific point it was a bit brutal for all the parties. While I did not have a character death at my table, a number of characters dropped below 0, and needed emergency healing. There were definitely some tense moments.

When I got the Final Wish (PF-24), I had a hard time visualizing the Brazen Tower inside Kelmarane's Battle Market. So I whipped out my trusty old Sketchup and had a go at it. As I was working, I ran into some discrepancies between the text and the maps. In those places where the maps diverge from the text, I stuck with the text as best I could.

Sketchup doesn't really do structural damage well - I did the best I could. And I wasn't up to the task of adding rubble and debris. They don't let me out of my padded room long enough for that.

Anyway, it was a nice Sketchup exercise and I had a lot of fun making it. Feel free to yoink it if you think it will be of any help to you or your campaign.

Ciao.

http://www.rlucci.com/images/brazen.jpg

Go ARMY!
Beat NAVY!
HOO-AH!

Oh, wait, wrong fight. Excuse me.

Its go Navy,
Beat Army.

There was a nice take on sluagh, muryans, and others in the 2e Ravenloft book, The Shadow Rift; although I thought the good-aligned ones were too cutesy, the evil and CN ones were very nasty, and very cool! ;-)

As long as "the list" that the Flumphs are on that Wes referred to is a "never to be seen again list", I'll be happy with that.

On the other hand, the Ravenloft shadow rift stuff was very cool. I would like to see the Paizo version of that. I have always been a fan of shadow fey.

More on the Denizens of Leng. If we can not use githyanki or mind flyers, then this is a good substitute.

will this book be available at Gencon?

so the GM's will not be getting hard copies of the rules, just soft copies?

Here's an interesting concept...

The fact is, the physical size of an AP installment limits how many encounters we can cram in to those 40–50 pages, and the fact that on a monthly schedule, we can only produce about 40–50 pages of adventure per month gives us a pretty hard restriction on expanding the size of the adventure to make them capable of doing more encounters and thus awarding more XP.

Two ways we could, say, do a 1st–20th level adventure in a 6-part AP... IN THEORY:

1) Assume the fast track XP route for a campaign, and focus less on roleplaying and story and more on just cramming in fun encounters. For fans of the older D&D computer games, this means doing an AP more like the Icewind Dale games and less like the Baldur's Gate games.

2) Get more liberal with story awards. We can drop in any amount of story award XP to artificially increase the rate of level gaining. In this way, we could easily do an adventure, say, that splits into three main parts; a part might only have enough encounters to get you 2/3 of the way to the next level, but by saying "Award 3,500 xp to each PC once they successfully kill the goblin king and return the stolen gems to the merchant," we can shoot the party through more levels in an adventure than normal.

How do either of these options sound? Would they be good methods to use to try to aim for a 1st–20th level adventure path?

Personally, I sort of feel that both of the above "solutions" are less organic and less than optimal to creating the types of Adventure Paths that have made Paizo so successful and have helped keep us in business for the past 6 years or so, and so I'm a bit hesitant to try something crazy and experimental like this anytime soon (especially since the last few years have been particularly tumultuous for Paizo)... but I'd love to hear some gut-level reactions to the two options above.

1) I am ok with dropping some of the fluff to add additional encounters. I have always felt that they are a bit heavy on descriptions, and that by just cutting back slightly we could sneak in a few more encounters. For example, I thought that AP3 was too heavy on fluff, and too light on crunch.

2) Story awards are good, but I would not over do it. Even if you added in heavy award points, I would probably end up reducing them.

3) I think the base line assumption for experience points should be the middle advancement table. If folks want to deviate from that, it should be easy enough to do.

4) I do like the idea that if the AP's are only going to 10-12th level, creating a follow on AP (part 2) that goes from 10-20th. I am not saying that we need a part 2 to every AP, but it would be a change of pace. Potentially every 5th AP could get a part 2.

5) I do want to encourage the Paizo team to try different things with their AP's. I do not want to buy the same 'ole AP every 6 months. I realize that there will be AP's that I do not like, but that's ok. I want a little variety in the AP.

6) I would love to see a special edition AP modules to celebrate special milestones. When I say special edition, I mean double sized issues or a slightly bigger book that has special articles or a foldout map.

Yeah, I agree that a map would have been extra awesome, but describing the whole City of Brass in just 6 pages was already a pretty tall order.

And this way, of course, the map does not contradict the Necromancer version of COB. Thanks to Greg for convincing me that "not incompatible with Necro" was the way to go.

The_Minstrel_Wyrm wrote:

Aawww... shoot. I may be in the minority but I liked the set pieces.

I too liked set pieces. This is useful role-playing material right there.

What I absolutely do not care about (and I understand I very well may be in the minority here) is the fiction. If I want to read a piece of fiction I buy a book. In a role-playing game product I want role-playing game materials. Not pieces of fiction.

WOW!!!!!!!!!!

Nice job to everyone that worked on it. Amazing stuff.

One of the nice touches on Wayfinder was the forward by James. It is very cool when the company supports the fans on projects like this.

Looking forward to Wayfinder #2!

wow..

Does this mean that the word count for the adventures is going back up? My understanding is that the initial word counts for AP1 & 2 were 40K, AP 3 went down to 30K, and AP4 is at 35K. Should we be expecting 40K word count adventures once again?

To be honest, I think this is a good move.

I like it. The Paladin received some love by Jason & the Paizo team, in the form of some nice abilities. The lay hands and smite upgrades make this a very interesting class to play.

I would buy the Paizo version of John Carter series in a heart beat. That is a no brainer for me.

I'm in!

I have just taken a quick flip through, and it looks very impressive. One of the best in the series.

There better be a Paizocon 2010...I want to go!!!!!

This truly sounded like a great event. Thanks to everyone who attended for putting up info.

Will this be available at Gencon, or will it be a post gencon offering?

More PaizoCon pics!

I took some videos but those are quite slow to upload...So I'll do that laterz.

*goes to sleep now*

Thanks for posting the pics! Hopefully you guys will have plenty of addition pics and inside info on what is new at Paizo! I am so bumming that I could not attend.

cheers!

Thanks for the scoop! Any other insights gained in the seminars?

We need to get a section started for AP5 CoT, as August is rapidly approaching.

frozenwastes wrote:

I'm a big fan of the City of Brass stuff from Necromancer Games. From what I've read, Golarion was written pretty much the point where it just fits. I think even some of the Adventure Path stuff is written with it specifically in mind.

Yup. I used it as a reference source when writing The Impossible Eye so the two could blend togather easily for anyone running using Necro's boxed set.

Mr Baron wrote:

Greg,

At this point would you say that it is only a question of time before it gets released by Necro/Paizo using the PFRPG rules? With a probably date of late 2009/early 2010?

Cheers!

I'd say at least part of that is probably true. Both Erik and Clark have expressed strong interest in releasing it as PFRPG, so if I were to put my money on it, I'd say it'll be PFRPG. As to the timing of it, as far as I know it is not formally on any schedule yet so I would guess the lag time is greater than that if it's not already in the works. Erik and/or Clark would be better able to answer that.

Thanks for the note. I am hoping sooner rather than later, but I understand that the whole development cycle is rather long, and it could easily push into mid to late 2010. I am hoping that once the rule book is officially released, things will start to move along.

BTW, do you have the entire thing basically written or just part 1?

Cheers!

BTW...the next time you talk Nick, please tell him to get cracking! Fans are waiting for RC too! ;)

I think both will be great products, and I will buy both.

Todd,

As soon as I have it in my hands, I will write up a review, which I suspect will be in about 2-3 weeks. Mail to China is a bit dodgy...sometimes is quick and sometimes it takes a month.

I will also post a smaller version of the review on Paizo.

Cheers!

When are we going to see the updated cover art. I know a preview was posted on the blog, but when are we going to see it on the cover?

Robert - Thanks for the write up. I was thinking something very similar. I like the Druid/Ranger preferred classes along with the hatred of gnolls.

Steve - Thanks for the Litorian link. I am thinking about signing up!

Count me in as someone that would be interested in a Pathfinder Lite or a Pathfinder Basic, which would be based on the full Pathfinder rule set, but a lot of the more complex concepts would be left out - AoA, skills, feats, grappling, etc... My thought is that it would look a lot like OD&D, and would just contain the skeleton of the rule set and the individual groups could then add anything from the full rule set or just leave all that stuff out.

The added benefit from a rule light system is that it would make high-level play a lot simpler.

Hopefully pimpage = publication sooner. But I'll look into some kind of national tour at game stores. ;-)

And he got my money, too, but I know he's good for it. It stinks that his schedule collapsed on him like it did, but I've got faith in him that it'll be worth the wait. Though, undoubtedly ST will be way,way, way better.

At this point would you say that it is only a question of time before it gets released by Necro/Paizo using the PFRPG rules? With a probably date of late 2009/early 2010?

Cheers!

I like them both, so I will be using them in Golarion. If I start feeling really motivated, I will put up a supplemental character race document on my blog, as I think that there are several cool races out there that I would allow into my Golarion campaign.