Robert Head's page

Word.

Why do people continue to think that not getting a reward or an incentive is a "loss" or a "penalty"?

'Cause it is. There is no mechanical difference between giving one player a bonus or another a penalty. The delta between them is the same.

One of the overriding considerations of game design is balance. Without it, you don't have equity between the players. Which ain't fun.

Favored classes are and have always been a crappy design. They actively *discourage* creative choices.

How would you prove such a thing? And really, anyone who holds that against you is being stupid and should probably be ignored anyways...

You can only easily prove the online purchases, which are obviously in paizo's db already.

And agreed. Badges are cool, but nobody should hold it against folks that don't have them attached to their avatars.

Tell us about the Pathfinder world so that we can be informed victims, er, consumers.

They've already said it will be generic enough that the previous adventure paths would fit well.

Not sure who the 'victim' is here.

Of course you're promoting it -- you need this "transition" (or rape) to be as smooth as possible.

May I modestly propose that we all agree not to the use the word 'rape' as a term for 'a little disappointed?'

Doesn't matter if he has magic items.

The currency of the game is gold. Whatever you can spend your gold on is a worthy substitute.

Strongholds, vehicles, kick-ass animal or monstrous companions, hired squires. There are a lot of possibilities.

Have fun!

Criminy, Gary!

Here's some love

I have to agree that The girl in the fireplace is not only the coolest Doctor Who ever it is epicly great sci-fi and was brilliant telly to boot.

Totally agree.

"What's a spacial-temporal gateway?"
"I have no idea. I just didn't want to say 'Magic Door'"

(If someone knows the actual quote, feel free to correct me.)

For me it was the peak of the second series.

Should I assume that those of you who have seen the whole season 2 are either in the EU or have purchased and/or pirated the British version?

Or am I just watching reruns? (I think not)

Add me to the list of people that really dig MM IV.

I absolutely *love* the new format.

I dig the new stat block, I dig the leveled creatures, and I dig the sample encounters and lairs.

Huge time savers and the quality is superb, especially what I've seen so far of the sample lairs.

Personally, between all the books and the magazines, I have almost zero need for new monsters. We can make those ourselves, too. What I like is the new level of detail.

Assuming properly random dice and 4d discard 1d rolling style the odds of rolling 6 18s are...

The odds of rolling an 18, per throw: 1 in 54
The odds of rolling straight 18s: (1/54)^6
Those odds are about 1 in 15 billion - a little worse, actually. (That's an American billion, not an English billion, if you were wondering. What brits in the audience would call a thousand million.)

By my calculations, the odds of rolling a single 18 are 21 in 1296, slightly worse than 1 in 54. But the point is the same.

Like others here, I'd bet my lucky dice that every one of you that has rolled all 18s was using a more favorable method.

Of course, maybe you have super powers. In which case, be sure to use your powers for good! : ]

Having said that, I see no reason why the DM should not embrace the results. If you don't like it, you shoulda picked a point-buy method.

As cheesy as it may seem, I think DMing a character with all 18s would be a blast.

The odds of a planet being hospitable towards carbon based life forms is projected to be far beyond the range of one hundred trillion. Mathimatically improbable is an adjective that describes our very existance.

I don't know who projected a probability "far beyond the range of one hundred trillion".

Here's how the game is played:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation

http://www.activemind.com/Mysterious/Topics/SETI/drake_equation.html

http://www.pbs.org/lifebeyondearth/listening/drake.html

I'll pass along your request to the art team.

cheers,
- rob

A good point. I suppose that, logically speaking, the most common conflict between evil beings is due to a difference on the ethical (Law vs. Chaos) axis. If that's the case, then they could simply use Protection from (Chaos/Law).

I'd argue that the most common conflict between evil beings is simply due to their evil. By definition, they have selfish and evil intentions, which leads inevitably to conflict.

I figured D&D was worth about 20 or 30 points on my verbal SAT score.

I mean, seriously... I learned 'charisma' and 'dexterity' when I was five years old.

That can't hurt.

Erik mentioned to me that he thinks the Carnivale soundtrack is perfect for Diamond Lake.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0006J2GA2/

I concur.

I've never understood why 3rd edition has such an every-encounter-must-be-planned attitude.

Random encounters were the source of most of the fun I had back in the day.

Interesting question.

I don't know if the levels and half-levels stack.

If there isn't an official word on this (I bet there is), personally I'd rule that the levels stack, even before 4th level Ranger.

Thanks, everyone.

And best wishes, Gavgoyle.

Small is good!

- rob

Here's what I did over the holiday vacation:

http://roberthead.net/images/family/JennNLila29Dec05.jpg

That's my wife Jennifer and my new baby Lila resting at home on day 4 of her life.

Vital Stats:

Girl
Lila Emerson Head
6lbs. 11oz. at birth
19.5" long
Daughter #3

Holiday cheer,
Rob Head
Duke of Staying Home with the Wife and Baby

I'm still not back at work to check the data (my wife just had a baby on Monday morning), but I can answer some of your questions.

I prolonged via your web site. So actually my prolongation should have been instantly in your systems, should it not?

Correct, our website should have known that your new subscription was a renewal of your existing subscription, assuming you subscribed under the same name and address. If the system failed to recognize that your order was a renewal, that is a problem I'll look at.

I'll ask the customer service guys to double-check your renewal to make sure it is set up correctly.

cheers,
- rob

I realize this might be a difficult thing to manage on a website, but what about the possibility of a Frequent Buyers Club or credit points to a dicount on your future purchases.

Funny you should mention it.

Stay tuned for an announcement (probably in January).

- rob

Guennarr,

First off, we are sorry that delivery is slower than you'd like.

I don't have your data in front of me because it's Christmas Eve and I'm at home, but I'll do my best to answer your questions.

1. After prolonging subscription, subscription reminder mails kept on bugging me - just a coincidence according to customer hotline.

If you renewed online and continued to receive renewal emails, then we had you in the system as two different subscribers. customer.service@paizo.com can take care of that for you. Sounds like you've already spoken to them, so you would have been straightened out already.

If you renewed by mail, it takes time for us to receive your renewal and enter it (just like it takes time to receive your magazine). In this case, additional renewals will almost certainly be sent out before your renewal gets processed. Obviously, that's anoying and we try to avoid it.

2. Dragon Issue #339 was sent on 11.29.. Today is the evening before christmas, i.e. almost one month since delivery (?). Today was when I visited my flgs and found issue #339, evily smiling at me.

You can check to see if #339 was sent for your subscription in particular by checking:

https://secure.paizo.com/paizo/account/subscriptions

If not, contact customer.service@paizo.com and we'll send it from our offices.

If #339 was sent...
Overseas, 25 days is not outside of our expectations. If you haven't received the issue by the end of the year, contact customer service and we will send a replacement copy.

Granted, it's quite frustrating to find an issue in the store before the subscription copy has come. As others have pointed out, that is a result of the differing delivery methods and distrubution channels of individual copies and store copies.

My questions:

Got things confused again?

We'll double check, but everything seems to be running smoothly for our European customers overall.

Does your website subscription info know different things than your administration?

Nope. Same data.

Will I ever get Dragon issue #339?

Certainly! If you don't have it by the end of the year, shoot an email to customer.service@paizo.com and we'll send you are replacement copy from our offices.

Will the current Dungeon issue which was supposed to be sent on december 20 ever reach me?

Likewise.

(Getting polemical:) Do I have to pay more money for european subscription in order to receive less service? (140.-$$ for a Dragon/ Dungeon combo subscription!).

First of all, nice word choice. Sometimes Germans speak English better than Americans!

Secondly, while I understand your frustration, the reason you pay more money for a European sub is because we are on the other side of the ocean and the nature of the international postal infrastructure demands a higher price. The cost of any subscription is almost entirely the cost of postage.

I'll double check your subscription data the next time I'm in the office, just to be sure we've got you set up properly.

Holiday Cheer!

Best regards,
Robert Head

If you get them to second level before they begin, that should just about do it.

Hopefully it's nothing like White Wolf's recent website problems. =/

Yeah, wow. Thankfully, nothing like that.

-rob

We had a few hours of downtime on Saturday and a few more this morning.

Everything is back up and we're investigating the cause.

regards,
rob

Personally, I don't consider "save or die" one of the fun parts of the game. I'd say I don't use it, except massive damage has never come up in my campaign.

One of the options I've seen (I believe in Unearthed Arcana), is to adjust the threshold by 10 for each size catagory (40 for small, 60 for large, etc.). That's kind of cool.

You should probably throw out the 2nd edition GP values and assess the converted items from scratch using the guidelines.

When I was a new player, it was good enough for me just to wander around in the woods and have random wilderness encounters.

Let's see...

0) you "ready an action" to move away if an enemy gets to an adjacent square

1) enemy approaches.

2) at ten feet away, the enemy has entered a threatened square.

3) since the enemy has a non-reach weapon, they continue to close.

4) as they attempt to leave the threatened square, you get an attack of opportunity.

5) Assuming you didn't kill the enemy, they enter an adjacent square, which is the trigger for your readied action.

6) You interupt their turn and move away.

I agree with Cernunos and others that it is neither against the rules, nor unbalanced.

The cost is pretty high. The character can do nothing else but wait for someone to approach. With each round, the character either slips in the initiative order or has completely wasted a round.

On second thought, I'm settin' up shop.

Rob's everburning torches.
My costs: Summon Monster IV = 280 GP
My sales: 7 everburning torches x 110 GP = 770 GP

Farewell2Kings is right, though. You can only do it once a month or something, and only in a big town.

Still a good living for a merchant.

For example huge amounts of cash can be obtained from using summon monster IV, Summon a lantern archon and have it use it's continual flame spell like ability on as many torches as possible, no cost whatsoever and each everburning torch generates 55 gold selling at half price

You could make even more money selling your services.

A 7th level caster can charge 280 GP for a 4th level spell.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/goodsAndServices.htm#spellcastingAndSer vices

I guess because the lantern archon lasts 7 rounds, you'd make 385 GP from the everburning torches. It's a little more cash, but you might have to convince the lantern archon (or more precisely, the DM) to do it for you.

Erik? James?

A little help?

- rob

1. what about the upper floors of said castle? it seemed to me that the dungeons below the castle were getting more play. the players have to get there somewhere, the key was a little too convienient.

1st edition goodness.

http://paizo.com/store/downloads/wizardsOfTheCoast/aDAndD1/greyhawk/v5748bt py7mee

Welcome to the new Maure Castle forum.

Maure Castle was featured in Dungeon #112 and Dungeon #124.

Did you know that the Maure Castle adventure won a Gold ENnie for Best Adventure?

2: Can you fail the Ref save on Entangle, then, on the next round, make the DC to escape and still move at half speed in the same round?

Yes.

Also, an entangled creature doesn't have to wait for the "next round". The save happens on the druid's initiative. If the creature fails, they can make their escape/move attempt on their own next initiative, whether it's later in the same round or in the next.

Entangle: "The creature can break free and move half it's normal speed by using a full round action to make a DC 20 Strength check or a DC 20 Escapre Artist check." ??? So, do you move in the round you break free, or the next one when you have to risk being entangled again? It is already an extremely powerful 1st level spell, considering the area of effect (40ft. RADIUS spread, meaning it will bend around corners to fill its area [80ft diameter] as best it can)

It says "break free AND move half it's normal speed". I have to assume that's what they mean. Any other reading makes an already over-powered spell ridiculously over-powered.

I live to serve.

: )
- rob

The site seems to have been unavailable for the last 6 hours or so.

Anyway, I dragged myself to work and it's all better now.

- rob

and got 1 rare, 3 uncommon, and 4 commons.

To address the original post... Unless I'm mistaken, any given box *should* have exactly the same number of rares, uncommons, and commons as in other box in the same set.

Was that glass half full enough for you Robert? ;)

lol.

You bet!

- rob

"Single Minis! Get Your Single Minis! Single Minis at paizo.com!"

For the price of the collectible singles--the very rare and rares...I'd rather just spend the money on a good metal mini and buy my artistic friend a four pack of Guiness so he'll paint it.

A glass-half-full kind of guy might mention that *many* of the things you are looking for are *not* rare and are reasonably priced. : )

it started with the Videogameization of DND and is starting to lead to the game's downfall.

Have to differ with you there, man.

Allow me to quote from Gods, Demi-gods, and Heroes, 1976.

"This volume is something else, also: our last attempt to reach the "Monty Hall" DM's. Perhaps now some of the 'giveaway' campaigns will look as foolish as they truly are. This is our last attempt to delineate the absurdity of 40+ level characters. When Odin, the All-Father has only(?) 300 hit points, who can take a 44th level Lord seriously?"

The above quote *predates* 1st edition. There have always been goofy players and DMs.

In my opinion, 3rd edition is actually part of the solution, not part of the problem, because it at least attempts to define how much wealth and power a character should have at any given level.