RainyDayNinja's page

Figure out what's most important to them, and put it at risk. If all they want is to retire in comfort as bureaucrats, then have something put their social status in peril.

And just because he is a developer doesn't mean he is Dictator.

The game can be ruled by whoever the GM is. If a GM wants to rule differently, it's his game, his prerogative.

Sure, a GM can rule however he wants. But if you want to talk about that, take it to the Houserules/Homebrew forum. This is the Rules forum, where we talk about what the rules actually say, and the people who wrote the rules are the ultimate authority on that.

I heard Ledford is going to be a Prestige Class.

I'll just quote G. K. Chesterton, because he sums up my thoughts on Hermea quite well:

"The one objection to scientific marriage [i.e. selective breeding] which is worthy of final attention is simply that such a thing could only be imposed on unthinkable slaves and cowards. I do not know whether the scientific marriage-mongers are right (as they say) or wrong (as Mr. [H. G.] Wells says) in saying that medical supervision would produce strong and healthy men. I am only certain that if it did, the first act of the strong and healthy men would be to smash the medical supervision."

How many atheists are you familiar with who committed mass murder in the name of atheism?

For that matter, how many atheists are you familiar with who committed any crime in the name of atheism?

And, beyond that, what possible reasoning could there be behind lumping atheists together as having anything in common with one another, beyond simply not believing in a deity? Their atheism is a lack of belief, not the presence of a massive set of core tenets of faith.

Oh, so you don't like it when people lump atheists together based on that one incredibly broad label? Well, guess what?

I don't like it either. That was my point.

There have been billions and billions of Christians throughout history. Many were great humanitarians. Some were mass-murdering Nazis. Likewise, there have been billions of atheists throughout history. Many were great humanitarians. Some were mass-murdering communists. And while many gamers have even founded charities, a few have snapped and committed suicide or gone on crime sprees because they got too involved in their character.

But it's the bad ones that always make the news. As G. K. Chesterton said of newspapers, "They cannot announce the happiness of mankind at all. They cannot describe all the forks that are not stolen, or all the marriages that are not judiciously dissolved. Hence the complex picture they give of life is of necessity fallacious; they can only represent what is unusual." If you go through life assuming all Christians think like the Westboro Baptist Church or Pat Robertson by default, you're going to end up with a very skewed and cynical view of the world.

Back when I said I was moving to Seattle, I somehow instead ended up going to China for two weeks, coming back to Philly for two weeks of office drudgery, going back to China for two more weeks, and then going to South Korea for a week.

This is why you always triple-check your gate number before you board the plane.

Speaking from the GM perspective, I have always found it easy to make tactical adjustments or NPC choices to adjust an encounter from deadly to epic or memorable. However, I have never been able to take an under-powered encounter and make it epic or memorable unless the PCs happen to do something incredibly, well... dumb.

That's true, up to a point. I think you can use tactics to adjust the difficulty down a little bit, but if you do it too much, the bad guys come off just looking like incompetents. So the difficulty still needs to be fairly well-tuned.

The strange thing is, Season 4 was changed to expect 6-person tables, which fit my experience at the time. But ever since then, it seems more and more of my games are 3 or 4-player tables. In the majority of the games I've GMed in the last few months, I've had to run a pregen. And I don't feel the scaling for smaller parties is very significant. For instance, giving the sickened condition to a monster who kills people with a breath weapon isn't being very generous...

Let me post the question succinctly for FAQ purposes:

Does the alchemist's competence bonus to Craft (alchemy) checks for creating alchemical items apply to Day Job rolls?

I personally think yes. FAQ away!

Robert Matthews 166 wrote:

Perhaps there needs to be a rule that you must be within 1 level of a subtier in order to be eligible with that character.

Intriguing. This fixes the stated wealth issue that MMJ brought up just as well as their initial idea would, but shields high-tier PCs from getting cornered into the perma-loss of playing down, and also shields low-level PCs from the prospect of having to play up without additional compensation. Folks in the middle can still do the "I can play down this time and play up next time" thing people are talking about, but no one who should definitely be in the low tier can ever be bullied into the high tier, no matter what.

This idea also has the virtue of simplicity, being literally a single-sentence rule: "You must be within 1 level of a given subtier in order to play in that subtier."

I think I could probably support this as a solution.

But I don't want to see people sign up for a 7-11 scenario, show up with their level 8 character, and not be able to play because even though their character is a legal level for the tier, they're not really legal, because they fall outside the unadvertised subtier.

Pet peeve of the morning: people who ride your bumper (while you are going the speed limit) in a one-lane road, then when it becomes two lane speed up to pass you, get in front of you, then proceed to drive at 5-under.

After growing up watching my dad drive, I'm convinced that the most aggressive passers don't really care about going faster. They just can't stand to have someone in front of them. It's not a speed thing; it's a control thing.

I didn't mind the 2XP system, until someone pointed out that it will allow inexperience players to get into higher-level play too quickly, before they have the chance to really learn how to handle it. We'll end up with people who have only played 9 to 10 games in 7-11 scenarios and still don't really know what they're doing.

@1970Zombie: With what you're proposing, someone could sign up for a scenario in a tier they could legally play in, but show up and find out everyone else wants to play in the wrong subtier for him, and he legally can't play with anything other than a pregen. I think that's something we want to avoid.

Player 1: "I expect the campaign to conform to my schedule. If I'm out for a few sessions, everyone else should find a way to accommodate me."

You know, I could have made the same argument against Michael Brock's suggestion that I have the higher-level players go slow-track to accomodate the newer players.

Player 2: "Even though I have multiple other places to get my gaming fix, the campaign rules should be such that I can attend this one too without having to make any concessions to their limited resources or otherwise do anything but be a leech."

You've been living in the big city too long; not everyone has "multiple other places to get my gaming fix." The bi-weekly game I run is the only PFS within almost 100 miles. If one of my players gets subtiered out of my game, and they can't make the 1.5 hour drive to Asheville, they don't get to play for a month.

"I should always be able to play exactly the PC I want, in exactly the scenario I want, on exactly the date I want. I should never have to use a pregen, play a different PC/scenario, or even wait for a better opportunity.

Again, need I remind you how peeved you were when that happened to you at that Con we went to? When the only place you could play in Race for the Runecarved Key was the 12+ table with a level 10 character, wouldn't you have been even more upset if you didn't get 12+ level rewards?

If it was not for some players who often go out of there way to seat at tables in such a fashion that allowed them to constantly play up, this change and discussion would not even be necessary.

Exactly. If we want to say "These problems would be solved if people were just less self-centered," let's apply that to the handful of people gaming the current system.

RainyDayNinja wrote:

Michael Brock wrote:

You say the new players will never catch up. Why aren't your vets playing on slow track? After a few game days, the newer players catch up and are at the same level as the vet players, and every one can then play normal.

I can always ask them to, but I can't make them do slow track. If they aren't that selfless, then playing up for increased gold at least lets the new guys buy that +1 armor, pearl of power, etc. a little sooner, and stay a viable member of the team when they have to play up.

Just so I'm clear your argument is that low level characters need to get high tier gold so that they can contribute when playing up?

In the meantime, while I'm still trying to grow the community past one table per day and get someone other than me to GM, then yeah.

And then we come full circle and I will quote Jiggy's post from last page.

"Unless I'm missing something, every single situation used as a case against the "Podcast System" can be solved by one or two people just deciding to NOT be the most important person for one day."

He's right, that would solve all our problems. But that's not something the campaign staff or an event coordinator can enforce, so it shouldn't be an assumption that we base campaign rules on.

Wow, that's a lot of posts between last night and now... Definitely did not read them all.

Just from skimming, I do have this question:
Why are we trying to make a system in which no one ever has to play a pregen or make a new 1st-level PC or announce/check the game day's scenarios ahead of time, ever?

The main complaint I'm seeing against the solution presented in the podcast is that:
1) If there's a game where there's only one table, AND
2) If somehow a one-table game day has managed to produce PCs spanning a 4 or 5 level range, AND
3) All of the low-level players would rather go home than play a pregen, AND
4) All of the high-level players would rather go home than either play a pregen or start a second PC, AND
5) No one is willing to step up and GM a second table, AND
6) Either the organizer did not announce the scenario ahead of time, or none of the players could be bothered to pay attention to such an announcement and see the problem BEFORE arriving;
THEN, if all six of those conditions are met, we have an uncomfortable situation worthy of throwing the system out.

Are you guys serious?

Unless I'm missing something, every single situation used as a case against the "Podcast System" can be solved by one or two people just deciding to NOT be the most important person for one day.

At the local game that I run, we do have only one table. The PCs do range in level, because not everyone started at the same time. It's the same players every week, so if we made people play pregens instead of playing up, that's all they would ever be able to play, because they'll never catch up. I got the older players to start new characters, but then the new guy gets his PC up to level 2 or 3, then invites a friend to start at level 1, and the whole thing is about to happen all over again.

At my not-so-local game where I play, just about every game day we have an entire table worth of people showing up without having registered, so things get shuffled around, and people play in games or at tiers they didn't expect (you DO remember what happened at Con of the North with all those tables we signed up for ahead of time, right?).

These are not imaginary issues. While some players gaming the system will end up a couple of levels ahead in the WBL curve, as someone noted above, that difference pales in comparison to the difference caused by different levels of system mastery. While this new solution might make things a little more fair from a certain perspective, it does so by removing options for putting tables together, that will only make it harder to organize.

RainyDayNinja wrote:

divination

*bing* Information: You are all going to die.

If my cleric has to use Bing for his divination, I'm switching gods.

pronounce and spell their Faction correctly

Hey, what do you have against the Scazarzni?

I was able to get one of my players to try GMing the First Steps series after I brought in a couple of guest GMs from another city. I think it can help to break the mindset of "This guy GMs, these guys play." The First Steps is also a good one to get people started with, since it's free and they've probably already played it, so it's familiar too.

You might also consider putting on a small local convention to get some boons, and make sure the players know that if they GM, they automatically get a cool boon that lets them play an exotic race.

And since you're the store owner, you could even offer a small discount on snacks and GMing supplies (maps, initiative trackers, condition cards, etc.) to people on days that they're GMing a PFS game.

You're right that it's not worth it to put a rank in at every level. But a single rank in a skill for your best mental stat, plus the class skill bonus, and you've probably got a decent +5 at least.

But it boggles my mind how people claim that a Day Job isn't worth a single skill rank, but it's worth 5 Prestige Points. PP are a much scarcer resource than skill ranks for all but the dumbest fighters/paladins/clerics.

If you want a Day Job just for the gold, then no, it's not worth it.

If you want a Day Job for flavor/roleplaying purposes, then go crazy. I've got a monk with Profession (gardener), a cleric of Torag with Profession (miner) who fights with a shovel, and a fighter with Craft (fiction), who gives his novel manuscript to the VC at the end of the mission briefing to solicit comments.

If you want a useful Day Job skill, go with Profession (sailor) or Craft (traps), because those are the only ones I've ever seen specifically called out in the scenario to be really useful.

I've heard the Pathfinder Society described as "Indiana Jones, Inc.," so I always figured that made the Aspis Consortium "Belloq, Inc."

Maybe it has a goatee.

Also make sure you know how alchemists work for the final encounter. If I hadn't known that crits on bombs only double the first d6, or that he can't have Fast Bombs already at the low tier, I would have died in this one.

So stop telling the women here that their experiences and reactions to those experiences are invalid.

The only person I see telling people their experiences are invalid is you.

YOUR opinion is worthless. You don't know what it's like. I don't care how smart you are. How experienced you are. How sensitive you are. How you were bullied or made fun of for x or y problem you have. YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE!

If you want to keep this thread civil, I recommend you take a deep breath, take your finger off the caps lock button, and talk to people like they're people, and not "the problem."

A lot of white guys hear that term privilege and they just freak the f@&~ out. You can try explaining until you're blue in the face that it's not about them personally, it doesn't mean they're bad people or oppressing anyone or getting a special White Guy refund on their taxes. They process it as an insult -- a very sly and particular sort of insult. And they feel compelled to go all WHAT IS THIS PRIVILEGE and/or I AM NOT PRIVILEGED and/or THE VERY USE OF THIS TERM IS OFFENSIVE.

I have no problem with admitting that I benefit from a certain amount of privilege for being a straight, white male, at least in principle. In practice, however, it gets trickier. Because usually, especially on the internet, when someone starts pointing out my privilege, it's not being used as a tool for enlightenment, but as a weapon to shut me up.

Usually when someone brings up my privilege, they aren't saying "You don't understand what it's like for us, so let me give you some examples..." Instead, they're usually saying "You don't understand what it's like for us, so shut up and get out of this conversation." Of course, I don't see that in this thread*; I appreciate that the posters on this thread have kept the tone leaps and bounds ahead of what you'd find in the comments on a YouTube video, or even a CNN article. But frankly, I'm not surprised that some of the guys are getting defensive, because I, for one, have been throroughly conditioned to expect that when someone says "You don't know what it's like because of your privilege," the next sentence will be them jumping down my throat for daring to disagree with them.

That being said, I'm not sure what else Paizo can do, short of starting a charm school for under-socialized geeks. From what I've seen (which is restricted to Society play), the published content seems fair, with large numbers of female heroes, villains, and NPCs. The only hiccup I see is that all of the divine-powered iconics are female (unless you count Harsk the ranger, and honestly, can you ever be completely sure about dwarves?).

*EDIT:

So just hush up and listen.

And there it is. I knew it was too good to last.

RainyDayNinja wrote:

I think a reasonable guideline might be that if a scenario specifically says that PCs should spend X gp on fine clothing for an occassion, they can spend the same amount on professional grooming and accessories for their animal companion to make it presentable.

I don't care how pretty it is, you ain't bringing your Large Axe Beak into the wedding ceremony for the Blakros Wedding.

You only say that because you haven't seen my Axe Beak's disguise bonus.

"Why does that old woman keep squawking?"

I like to think that in a world where operas are attacked by hordes of zombies, weddings are crashed by demons, and tea parties are disrupted by squads of Pathfinders, no proper gentleman or lady would show up to a social function without a weapon.

Upon reaching the important rooms, I sent the ninja back to fetch the others while I searched. Not wanting any untimely interruptions, I locked the doors so I would have some warning first and could use the other disguise scroll if necessary.

What he failed to mention is that he kept the key to the room and locked it inside with him, despite my ninja specifically telling him to give it to me so I could get back in with the rest of the group. I'm never letting him live that down :-|

This tree sways silently in the wind, its scraggly branches swinging from side to side as if searching for prey to seize in its clutches.
Iceroot Devourer CR 3
XP 800
N Large plant (cold)
Init-1; Senses blindsense 30 ft., low-light vision; Perception +0
Aura silence (20 ft.)
----- Defense -----
AC 14, touch 8, flat-footed 14 (-1 Dex, +6 natural, -1 size)
hp 26 (4d8+8)
Fort +5, Ref +0, Will +1
Defensive Abilities plant traits; DR 3/slashing; Immune cold
Weaknesses vulnerability to fire
----- Offense -----
Speed 20 ft.
Melee 2 claws +5 (1d6+3 plus grab)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft.
Special Attacks constrict (1d6 cold), seeping chill (DC 14)
----- Statistics -----
Str 17, Dex 8, Con 14, Int —, Wis 10, Cha 5
Base Atk +3; CMB +7 (+11 to grapple); CMD 16
SQ camouflage, snow step
----- Ecology -----
Environment cold forests
Organization solitary, pair, or grove (3-6)
Treasure incidental
----- Special Abilities -----
Aura of Silence (Su) Iceroot devourers deaden the sound around them in a 20-ft. radius, as the silence spell.
Camouflage (Ex) Because an iceroot devourer looks like a normal tree when at rest, a DC 18 Perception check is required to notice it before it attacks for the first time. Anyone with ranks in Survival or Knowledge (nature) can use either of those skills instead of Perception to notice the tree.
Seeping Chill (Su) Whenever an iceroot devourer deals damage with its constrict attack, the target must succeed at a DC 14 Fortitude save, or else become fatigued. If already fatigued, the target instead becomes exhausted. If already exhausted, the target gains a temporary negative level. The save DC is Constitution-based.
Snow Step (Su) Iceroot devourers do not leave tracks when moving across snow, and cannot be tracked across it.

Iceroot devourers were once normal trees that became the final resting place of a traveler lost in the frozen wilderness. As the tree continued to grow around the corpse, it internalized the deathly cold and silence of the falling snow, and began to hunger for the warmth and life the traveler once possessed. When killed and broken open, the unfortunate traveler’s gear can usually be found intact within. The trunk is typically at least 3 feet in diameter, and the iceroot devourer can grow as tall as 40 feet. Most are formed from coniferous trees, but some deciduous versions exist, although they remain dormant during the warmer spring and summer months.

Iceroot devourers usually stay in one location, standing still while they wait for adventurers or animals to wander nearby. They can sense warm-blooded prey and other heat sources, and when that prey comes within reach, the iceroot devourer grabs it with claw-like branches to keep it from escaping, while the aura of silence keeps it from crying out to its companions.

Iceroot devourers are found mostly in the perpetual winter of Irrisen, but also in the more northerly taigas of the Lands of the Linnorm Kings and Mendev. There are even rumors that some of them were created on purpose through experiments with necromantic magic, by the servants of Baba Yaga.

I just noticed this line in the rules:

When you are finished, your monster stat block should not have ## or zz in it at all.

So now I have to trash my jazz-playing pizza monster, and come up with another idea!

Woohoo, I made it!

I'm going right now to quit my job, tell off my boss, and wait for the first check from Paizo. That's how this works, right?

The suspense is killing my nerves. If I make it to the next round, I'll have to go to the drug store to stock up on Pepto-Bismol. Also, some of that bitter stuff to keep me from biting my fingernails. And shampoo. I'm low on shampoo.

I don't want to flag individual posts, so consider this a flagging of this entire thread for locking and perhaps printing it out and burning as well.

To the mods who may end up removing this post, where would be a good place to petition the staff to remove the option for "No response required"? In numerous threads, it has just led to further arguments about what the lack of response response even means. These threads are poison to Pathfinder newcomers who might actually be confused about the topic mentioned. The answers might seem obvious to the staff, but if they are so obvious, it would take maybe a minute to point out the correct interpretation. It would take even less time to simply lock a thread that requires no response.

To make it even easier on the devs, how about a way to flag a post in the thread with something that says "This guy has the right answer"?

Is there another think "attack" is rolled against other than AC?

I'm honestly asking.

Yes. It's been pointed out several times already that Combat Maneuver checks are also attack rolls, and can auto-succeed/fail even though they aren't rolled against AC, because that is a property of attack rolls, not a property of AC.

If you play a non-1st-level pregenerated character, you may apply the credit to your character as soon as she reaches the level of the pregenerated character played.

So yeah, you've got to wait to apply it.

I voted for 4 of SteelDraco's picks, 5 of Isaac Duplechain's picks, and 3 of Tom Phillip's picks.

Hope that helps! :)

Great, now my unhealthy need for external validation depends on a game of Password!

All those z's in the template are making me sleepy... zzzz...

Hey, what are you guys doing messing around in here, when you could be out there voting for/heaping praise on my archetype?

Good luck everyone!, whatever happens, we should all have a blast! and maybe after this is done, we should go to the nearest tavern, gather some dice, and force the Judges to Game Master us a session for 36 people, beer and meat included of course. In such an event, I'm calling dibs - I'm the bard.

Better yet, we should all do a massive Kingmaker AP, and play our own archetypes! Sadly, out of 36 players, we'd still have no cleric, or full arcane caster!

I'm supervising an emissions test at work, and it should get done just before the entries are revealed. Of course, as you can tell by this post, "supervising" leaves plenty of time to use the internet while I wait, so I'm not spared from this obsessive following of the forums. #FirstWorldProblems

A question regarding the leeway given a player to make adjustments to his first level character.

After playing my halfling bard "dawnflower dervish" I realize that my goal of being a scouting, melllee-ing, skill monkey, face for the party, might be better suited to a high charisma Ninja. Can I rework said character to the completly different class (Ninja) or can I only make changes that are allowed within the bard class when about to level up to lvl two?

You can change absolutely anything about you character, except for the character number, and any consumables that have been used.

What if, instead of creating a brand-new monster, we had to take an existing monster, and add class levels using one of the winning archetypes?

Right now each submitter is hoping their archetype will be this year's Hound Master.

Sadly, I couldn't make my Dogs, Dogs, and More Dogs! summoner archetype fit the River Kingdoms, so I had to find something else.

Kind of.

I'm fairly sure that I didn't make something bad, but I just don't know if it's sufficiently good. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around why the Hound Master was so overwhelmingly popular 2 years ago, because it just didn't wow me.

But on the other hand, I just got a contract in my email yesterday from a magazine that wants to buy one of my short stories. So even if this doesn't go well, I've got that going for me. If I keep it up, I could earn a solid $50-100 per year doing that!

Gralton Infiltrator (Alchemist)
Blending arcane talent and innate guile, the Gralton infiltrator crafts deceptions with as much care and study as his alchemical tinctures. He devotes his talent to rescuing Galtan nobles or engaging in espionage for one of the many secret societies in Gralton, always staying a step ahead of the Gray Gardeners.
Class Skills: A Gralton infiltrator gains Bluff, Disguise, Knowledge (local and nobility), Linguistics, and Stealth as class skills, and does not gain Appraise, Disable Device, Fly, Heal, Knowledge (nature), or Survival as class skills.
Infiltrator's Draught (Su): Rather than enhancing physical prowess with mutagens, the Gralton infiltrator creates special draughts which allow him to go unnoticed. When a Gralton infiltrator drinks one of these draughts, he gains an alchemical bonus equal to 4 plus 1/3 his level on Bluff checks, Disguise checks, and Linguistics checks to create forgeries. In addition, the draught conceals his alignment from all forms of divination, and masks the auras of all carried or worn magical items as unmagical, as if under the effects of magic aura (Will save DC 10 + 1/2 the alchemist’s level + the alchemist’s Intelligence modifier). The effects last for 10 minutes per alchemist level. At 14th level, the effects last for 1 hour per level.

This ability otherwise functions as and replaces the mutagen and persistent mutagen class abilities (a Gralton infiltrator cannot create mutagens unless he selects the mutagen discovery).
Discoveries: A Gralton infiltrator may take the following rogue talents as discoveries: camouflage, convincing lie, honeyed words, and quick disguise. At 10th level, add the master of disguise rogue talent to this list. Treat his alchemist level as his rogue level for these talents.
Extracts: Add the following spells to the Gralton infiltrator's extract list as extracts of the given level: innocence (1st), misdirection (2nd), glibness (3rd), detect scrying (4th), false vision (5th), mislead (5th). These extracts must still be added to his formula book as normal.
Coach of Deception (Su): A Gralton infiltrator is skilled at smuggling allies past their enemies. If he has an unused extract slot, he can spend 1d4 minutes on personal coaching of an ally. The ally gains an insight bonus to Bluff and Disguise checks equal to double the level of the extract slot. This bonus lasts 24 hours, or until that extract slot is used (whichever comes first). The same extract slot cannot be used for more than one ally. This ability replaces the Brew Potion bonus feat.
Mental Defenses (Ex): At 2nd level, a Gralton infiltrator adds his Intelligence modifier to Will saves against spells of the divination school, and abilities that detect lies or force the truth. This ability replaces poison resistance.

Getting back to the contest, I wonder if changing up the Round 1 category could change the demographics. It seems to me (and these are of course broad generalizations, to which there are many exceptions, and on which we shouldn't base any assumptions about individuals) that males tend to be more interested in the technical/rules-oriented side of RPGs (such as designing new items), while females are more interested in the social/character-oriented side. It might be a worthwhile experiment if next year, rather than designing a Wondrous Item in the first round, we had to do a 300-word write-up of an NPC. Do you think that would shift the demographics of the contestants?