Odraude's page

I wonder how army stats will handle going against character stats. Like, if one PC was going against an army, how would Army HP and such handle that?

Terribly mysterious.

Odraude wrote:

This topic is now about Imrijka and Valeros. And why Valeros has a thing for half-orc women dressed like Carmen Sandiego.

He likes it when she travels to different parts of Golarion and commits oddly complicated petty crimes and leaves clues for him to track down with the help of strange children.

It's why he'd never been able to get in Seoni's Skirt. His fetishes are just Too. Damned. Complicated.

Can you imagine how romantic that is? Imrijka stealing the Eiffel Tower so there's a beautiful landmark they can escape to to make love?

Where's Mikaze? I think we have a writing project to be done for NaNoWriMo this year.

This topic is now about Imrijka and Valeros. And why Valeros has a thing for half-orc women dressed like Carmen Sandiego.

I'm sure this is some kind of metaphor for how some people can see naughty things in something innocent, but I'm too busy preparing my sacrifice for Ultimate Campaign to release early.

Uh oh.

I think it's this part "| .][. | " that makes me think boobs.

I'm a terrible person :D

Jessica Price wrote:

Huh, I don't see any naughty bits.

Whenever I look at it, I see Imrijka wearing a pair of breasts as a belt.

Disturbing, on multiple counts.

Yeah that's what I see too!

Also, Imrijka and Valeros is like a thing on DeviantArt. Although I saw a cool picture of Valeros and Amiri being total bros. I'd imagine that's how they'd be like in real life.

"Dude bro, you wanna slay some dragons?"

"Hell yeah brah, afterwards we'll drink some ale from its skull!"

"DUDE BRAH!"

I'm trying to throw my money at my monitor, but it's not working!

I love WoP and I wish Paizo supported it more instead of treating it like a red headed stepchild. Consider me buying it.

There is something I don't get...I'll remind you I am all for characters of variety of sexual orientation and other areas of diversity....

Why does it matter that your role models...or people who you look up to have to be exactly like you? Personaly I look up to people in history or literature because of who they are and what they did...not who they love or the color of their skin, etc. I am not saying you are wrong...just trying to understand it.

Also...the only thing I don't like about having the Iconics sexuality defined at all is because there GMs who use them as pre gens for new players...and I rather have that new player definer that character. Though I don't mind them exploring these characters more in the comics book and giving them depth.

Because when you're young and you're pushed around all the time for being a different race or sexuality, or you're being the butt of sexist jokes, it's good to see someone like you in fiction to relate to and look up to. And when people around you tell you that you're worthless because you're not white, or not straight, or a woman, it can really make a difference to see a positive role model that proves society wrong and shows that being a hero transcends race, gender, and sexuality.

It's certainly better than what scraps we have in video games these days. I guess I can look forward to being the foreign sidekick, or the foreign minions of an evil guy.

Odraude wrote:

I've actually had people complain about Paizo's paladin for "pandering" to the African American crowd. In 2012, this argument still happens. Amazing.

On the other hand, it's also telling how often it doesn't happen in comparison to how much it might have several years ago.

The loudest objectors of any kind are rarely representative of majority opinion.

That is a good point. I am glad people these days are more accepting of other settings and people in those settings.

Odraude wrote:

I've actually had people complain about Paizo's paladin for "pandering" to the African American crowd. In 2012, this argument still happens. Amazing.

I would've been far more accepting of Seelah as well if well there was an Aryan paladin, not to denote racial superiority but just to display that sort of idealized English Knighthood of Sir Lancelot and the like that I've grown to love.

Then I found the Cavalier Iconic Alain, and was more than happy to see that hole was filled with a cliche I love.

That word actually doesn't mean what you think it means. What you're thinking of is a more Germanic look. Which honestly, I'm personally glad they didn't go with that stereotype for the Paladin. But it is cool to see them do it with Alain. Just like there's nothing wrong with me wanting a Native American iconic, there's nothing wrong with you wanting a white iconic. We all like heroes we can identify with :)

Sometimes it's nice to have an iconic or superhero that has something in common with you. Lord knows I wish there was a Hispanic hero I could look up when I was young. D&D-wise, I related more with half-orcs because they were always the subject of hate and racism and it reminded me of what I had to deal with in high school. Sadly, the D&D community wasn't much more accepting of me than the people at my high school. I actually had someone say something similar (but not nearly as offensive) to what Broken Arrow said, saying, and I quote, "Why do we have to cater to these n$~@+*s and c@!%&s? They don't run the world, we (whites) do! They don't get to ruin D&D like they've ruined everything else!"

Imagine being 12 and having an adult tell you that. Imagine being by yourself as everyone at the table was in agreement with him. This was in a public gaming store too, not someone's house. These people actually thought that non-whites shouldn't be iconics or illustrated in any D&D book because it would "ruin D&D". I wish I was making this up, I honestly do. I would never want someone to grow up and go through that. But that moment changed my life forever and I knew I didn't want to be like them, nor do I want a gaming company to listen to people like them who balk at the all-inclusiveness of a role-playing game.

There's nothing politically correct about including a demographic, not even in the slightest. And it won't ruin people's "precious Tolkien fantasy" of singing elves, drunk dwarves, and dancing hobbits if there's a black paladin or a lesbian cleric or transgendered wizard in the mix, no matter what any one says. And frankly, I hope Paizo continues to be all-inclusive and break the standard tropes of gender, race, and sexuality, so that women aren't just princesses to be saved, colored people aren't just sidekicks or bad guys, and those of alternative sexual preference are either non-existent or the bad guys. I'd rather Paizo "cater" to a new way to do fantasy rather than "pander" to those that would continue to bar others like they were outsiders. And if that makes me PC, then so be it. I'd rather be politically correct than some prejudiced c&#! that feigns some form of elitism to keep my precious game exclusive.*

*Not saying you are this kind of person, Broken Arrow, nor anyone else in this thread.

And like Jon Garrett has said, if you can have a heterosexual couple in a game and not allude to sex, then you can certainly have a homosexual couple in a game and not allude to sex. Being homosexual doesn't automatically mean you're going to be making the beast of two backs in every waking moment.

Now that I think about you couldn't even do stats for a farm because we do not have stats for cows and chickens.

I'd imagine cows are just aurochs with the docile special quality.

I'm actually really happy to hear that the retraining will take both time, money, and actually finding a trainer. I think that'll be a good way to balance it. I also am excited to see the new exploration rules and the rules for playing young characters! Randomly generated map, here I come!

Odraude wrote:

I can see it now. Mikaze's Orphanage of Monstrous Humanoids, complete with drow and goblin babies and run by orc staff ;)

Don't forget "founded by a tiefling".

Of course! A tiefling priest of Sarenrae and his half-orc paladin wife (whose birth was totes consensual of course) ;)

Jim Groves wrote:

I love the depiction of Seoni as a bride!

I've got an image in my head now of Seoni the bride with the rest of the female iconics as her bridesmaids, at Ye Olde Chypinndaels flinging coins at the male iconics going the full monty.

Make it hail, ladies!

I trained with an ancient japanese sword-master, it was pretty cool. I made my own katana, with steel folded 200 times. It takes a lot of work, most people don't realize.

Then I trained for years and years with it and I'm totally really good at it now.

Was it forged in the fires of Mt. Fuji so that it could cut through a tank?

Zaister wrote:

Why does Norgorber sound silly?

Mostly because someone (at my table) inevitably mispronounces his name as "Norburger".

No one takes the murder cult seriously anymore.

Yeah, I changed the name of Norgorber too because we pretty much snicker and call him Norgoober or Norbooger or Norborger of the Decepticons or my favorite, Norborkborkbork!

I'm torn on Aeons... I love the way they look, absolutely. But, they remind me too much of the Mordenkainen True Neutral stance of "good/evil can never hold power over evil/good" type of balance. To me, that never made sense and the aeons kind of reek of it. Still, they look really super cool and I even like the idea of the Monad. Shame to see no more aeons though. I think I'd rather have them as beings that had transcended things like morality and are more cosmic concepts, instead of the Reality Police, as Groves puts it.

I would love to see more proteans. I like the concept of agents of chaos and change and they'd fit well in my setting. I'm also a huge fan of psychopomps. Again, they fit in my setting really well and frankly, I just love them!

Odraude wrote:

I'd rather they not be afraid of experimenting because of money loss than play it safe with the usual cliche fantasy stuff.

I mean, Experiment yes, but do it until it works before it ships for sale!!

I mean, have you´ve seen the poor book?
when one regret the money dont experiment its way back home didn´t?

I did buy Book of the Night and honestly, I liked it and think the hate was WAY blown out of proportion. My only gripe was that I felt it needed to be bigger. Felt too crammed.

I recall playing a paladin character back in 3.5. I was a bit more of a redeemer, offering mercy to villains before smiting them. I certainly wasn't lawful stupid, but more of the Captain America type of character. I even had an ex-con as my understudy, showing him the err of his ways and teaching him virtue and all that good stuff.

So we come upon an evil and cruel bad guy, whom we defeat in combat but not kill (negatives though). I manacled him, stabilized him, and by my paladin's order, imprisoned him under my watch to be dealt with by the kingdom we were protecting. This wasn't an unusual thing, as my paladin believed himself to be merely a protector, not an executioner, and thus due process was given to all villains captured by myself. No one had any issue with it, least of all the GM.

Or so I thought...

After dropping off Mr. Bad Guy in the prison, we suddenly get visited in the middle of the town by a solar. A solar specifically asking for my paladin. Now I'm thinking "Gee, we must be going on some crazy quest so this'll be a huge honor!" Nope. Turns out that my paladin was being punished for allow evil to live on and propagate, trusting a (what the angel called) corrupt justice system to mete out justice instead of slaughtering them on the spot. He even said "My mercy will be my undoing" and took me and my compatriots to Heaven, where we spent a whole session in some kangaroo court trying in vain to prove my innocence. I was found guilty of aiding evil and not seeing the "big picture" and my paladin was sent to hell to be tortured for all eternity. The End. Don't Pass Go, Don't Collect $200.

So yeah, I actually got punished for being a good paladin. I didn't walk out though, as in my teenage years, I was more petty and angry. Instead I made a barbarian and just spent two sessions killing all of his precious NPCs, good or evil. Game kinda imploded after that. Can't say it was the right thing for me to do, but everyone else also thought the paladin ruling was pretty b*%@&!%~.

Odraude wrote:

I'd like your opinion on Devils, since you are the Devil Master Supreme! With demons and demon lords, they can take power with force and strength. Some examples include Noctula and Lamashtu. For devils and their Infernal Dukes and Archdevils, how does a devil usurp their power?

Something I never liked about many RPGs' visions of Hell was that it's so frequently presented as this squabbling court, full of backbiting, one-upmanship, and endless obvious betrayals. Most tended to have this intense vibe of warring Renaissance Italian families/city-states--which makes some sense considering that most are based off the Inferno--but nearly always taken to a ridiculous degree. Hell is as much about law as it is about evil, and the law aspect always seemed to be subsumed by the evil aspect.

(I'm breaking this up, as things got... out of hand.)

Alignment in Hell
I really enjoy the D&D/Pathfinder alignment system--probably because I played a lot of Planescape back in the day. But what's always irked me is the perception many players and designers seem to have that the alignment grid is actually a spectrum, with lawful good being the "goodest-good" and chaotic evil being the "baddest-bad." It didn't help that back then the demon lords were typically so much cooler than the rulers of Hell, leading to several adventures where these evil embodiments of chaos would have these far-reaching, structured, master plots going on while the archdevils were just... I don't know, bickering in Hell? Boring.

Hell is where lawful evil characters go when they die--characters of the mastermind alignment. So why did Hell's rulers never seem like Hannibal Lecter? Saruman? Palpatine? Maybe because convincing master plots by beings with deity-level intelligence are difficult for we mere mortals to convincingly write? Or was it just that these big-bads were so good that they were quietly taking over whole Material Plane planets in the background without anyone ever noticing?

Remaking...

Gotta say, as a fan of devils over demons (sorry James :) ), reading that was awesome!

So another devil question. Since Bearded Devils are more like elite warriors, what would be the rank and file subjects of Hell? The Bestiary mentions the damned, so could that be Hell petitioners?

I actually second the idea of an NPC codex with 3pp Classes. Pact magic, In the Company Classes, the SGG classes. I think it'd be awesome.

I find that I use fire elementals more for property damage rather than combat. Nothing can set fire to that orphana- I mean, villain lair quite like a fire elemental.

I'd like to see Frog God Games, Super Genius Games, and Jon Brazer Enterprises do a living city type of adventure. FGG has their chops with Rappan Athuk and Razor Coast, SGG can provide class and spell support, and JBE can do all the monsters and stuff for it. I think that'd be my dream team right there.

Or, LPJ and Dreamscarred together to do a Dreamlands-inpsired campaign. LPJ is pretty good at making radically different yet inspired settings, and I feel DSP's psionics would fit extremely well with the setting.

James Jacobs wrote:

Sincubus wrote:

Aren't they magical in their real faerytales and Myths as well?

They do come from mythology, but they're not deformed giants. We could DO them, but they'd be different from the things D&D players are used to, and as a result I'd rather not stat them up and just let folks keep using the deformed giants of their choice without worrying we overwrote them. (This is, incidentally, the same reason we called the magus what we did, and not a warlock.)

If you're looking for deformed giants or mutant giants for Pathfinder, the best bet currently are ogrekin for low CR and ash giants for higher CR foes.

Mmm, not to nit-pick, but in the Celtic myths, they ARE deformed giants. Oops, I guess that I am nit-picking...

However, in the sense that the write up in D&D is closed and you'd have to totally reinvent them I suppose that it would be of questionable value to put forth all that effort.

That's not completely true. Elatha and Bres were both considered to be beautiful. And some weren't ugly, they just had animal heads.

I had this post about how to do fomorians justice while keeping to the myths and not infringing on WotC's IP. I made them a bit more akin to nature-spirit titans that are sea marauders. Had the Elathan Fomorian as the highest CR and beautiful with some druid spells, had the Gabor-chind Fomorian as the more rank-and-file fomorians with the goat heads, and an unnamed fomorian that was based on Balor and his ability to poison people with his eye.

Also, if Paizo used this idea, I'd have absolutely no issues with that :)

I actually don't mind having non-deformed Fomorians. I'd prefer just having them in the game.

True, but how many take place on Earth? ;)

Also you did stir the pot a bit earlier with your teasing :p

Aww that's adorable. He still uses memes from three years ago.

PCs aren't dogs you can train by shoving their nose in dung when they don't search the way you want. If you want to get PCs to be more active with searches, the onus is on us, the GMs, to make it happen. Personally, I learned to get more descriptive with rooms. The more descriptive you as a GM get, the more people will attach to that description and search for it. Forcing people to constantly reroll when they aren't exact with where they are searching is lazy GMing and time consuming at the table and you will lose your PCs' focus.

And really, there isn't anything wrong with taking 20 to search a room, especially if there isn't anything story related in it. Just remember that there are penalties to distance (-1 per 10 feet) and you're still golden.

Does "w wysuszonych, sczerniałych trzcinowych szuwarach sześcionogi szczwany trzmiel bezczelnie szeleścił w szczawiu trzymając w szczękach strzęp szczypiorku i często trzepocząc skrzydłami" sound solid?

Google tells me this means "in dried, blackened six-legged cane reeds rustled leery bumblebee brazenly in sorrel holding the jaws shred chives and often flapping wings"

I feel this isn't right...

Quote:

Mahaha was a monster I proposed for the AP Bestiary when I was writing The Hungry Storm for Jade Regent but it got bounced in favor of other concepts. We will see if it shows up in B4.

Can't you try harder to get it in? ;-)

Gorbacz wrote:

Yup, even if 1800 of them were by one person ;)

At least I have many wishes, you just wish to make me look bad instead of making your own wishes, forever hammering on me with your never-longer-than-one-sentence posts. :-D

Actually, one of the devs said they stopped reading because you kept reprinting your lists over and over and over again. So please, refrain from doing that.

Well not everything in the bestiary is a mythological creature. Totenmaske is a good example of taking something in real life and using it to inspire a cool monster. Same thing with the Ecorche in the Bestiary 3 and the term écorché in artwork. You can make a lot of cool monsters with interesting concepts like that inspiring you.

Also read about the The Stone-Child of Sens. That'll send some shivers down your spine. It's rightfully creepy.

This is a pickled punk, and after reading that, I can't wait to see what they do with it.

If you're going to make a list, why not just make a Google Doc of it and update it periodically?

I'd actually prefer we avoid Varisia. We already have write ups for Sandpoint, Magnimar, and Korvosa. I'm pretty Varisia'd out. I'd like to see other towns from Taldor, Andoran... Maybe one in Garundi if that is possible?

Harsk isn't gay, he's tsundere.

Then again, all dwarves are tsundere.

I can see the updated cover. Is it not showing up for everyone else?

:( You are the pizza burn on the roof of the world's mouth. You're the opposite of Batman. So uncool :(

No my players don't, because my friends aren't c&!~s.

I actually really like the combination to make Shimye-Magalla because it shows how religions can evolve in completely different areas and cultures and how two completely different cultures can worship the same god in very different ways.

I am still trying to figure out how that feat is "hack&slash". You could play an entire session with no combat at all, and it could still be used.

Also, it's a feat. Taking a feat, and not getting mechanics from it.. would make it a pointless feat. So, unless all of the hardcore storybook "role-players" forsake taking feats, then complaining about new feats is also pointless.

But then, maybe my 25+ years of gaming has also made me realize that taking games so seriously is the most pointless thing of the bunch. Maybe I am jaded by living 8 miles from Glacier National Park, and spending most of my time outdoors in the most beautiful place on the planet.

Maybe...

Or not, because I'm not elitist. (Just pointing out how pointless being elitist is. There is always someone else that thinks that what you are being elite about is nothing special.))

There's a point where you realize it's a fool's errand to try and act superior when everyone is essentially playing pretend in a make-believe world where you play as your imaginary friend, killing monsters and bad guys around a bunch of other grown adults ;)

Not making fun of our hobby, just putting things in perspective. :D

If the character had to lie about it to his friends, probably means it wasn't a good act. *shrug*

As a note to the OP, it's best not to cherry pick verses from the Qur’an, lest someone do the same for the Bible. There are a lot of terrible verses in the Bible, and not just in the Old Testament. Although you can simply google it or search r/atheist and find them.

And whether you meant to attack Islam or not, you still put down a religion just to make yours look better. That's something I dislike about anyone. Actions will always speak louder than thoughts and your intents.

The comics revealed that it was Kyra, the iconic Cleric.

ShadowcatX wrote:

Welcome to the English language where a person no longer needs a subscription to be one who subscribes. . .

If THAT bothers you, don't go looking too closely at the rest of the language. You might need to lie down.

Indeed. Like, I hate any words that end in 'ough'. WHY IS THERE A G!?! WHY!?! WHAT IS THE PURPOSE!?!

Loving the book so far, though sad to see the moas didn't make the cut.

Don't tell them you're a necromancer... you can cast other schools of spells and what the townsfolk don't know can't hurt them, right?

Don't know much about the scores and stuff, but I'd actually suggest changing the name. I saw calimar and I immediately thought Squid people.

Well remember, they do two APs a year. So four years from now, there will be eight, and eight from now, there will be sixteen. They have many many more nations, planes, and worlds than sixteen so I'm confident that it will be a long time before we run out of a combination of settings, stories, and suspense.

I've found that as long as I'm playing in a game I enjoy, I'm aokay with running a game. Usually don't get burnt out.