Ross Byers's page

Winning or losing?

If you call completing an adventure successfully winning with no one dying, then that's what I'm all about. Winning you know.

And it kind of goes beyond the scope of a thread like this, but there are a couple schools of thought about what the mechanics of this game imply.

One such school of thought says if you are a fighter, you darn well better one-shot the Balor, because he can one-shot you, or at least render you useless.

Heck I don't think I've seen a version of Valeros with a flying item. And with all those feats sunk into his version of two weapon fighting he isn't much of a threat with ranged. I figure a creature with both Wisdom and Intelligence of 24 will suss that out at a glance.

Now I can hear the chorus now, it's not a solo game, etc. No one said it was. Most level 20 parties (well maybe not apparently) are perfectly capable of winning initiative and one-shotting a Balor. And they had better because if they don't things are going to get a lot more interesting for them.

There are communities out there where D&D is a two-round rocket tag, WBL and CR are set in stone more firmly than the Commandments and the Constitution are, optimization is assumed and all game designers are considered to be brainless monkeys.

This is not one of those communities.

You are mistaken as to who is responsible for "every negative change" to the monks since they came out.

I am not functioning alone. The design team works together on these things. And before it goes to print, Jason reads all the rules content as a last-minute check.

How brass knuckles interact with monk attacks was a decision the design team reached after discussing it.

Monk vows were a decision the design team reached after discussing it. (Mind you, in the design turnover for the vow, the benefit was you got +1 ki for every 5 monk levels. So it's not like I took what was presented and nerfed it, I felt it needed more of a boost than as it was originally written. Clearly most people think it deserved more, but don't paint this situation like I did this to punish anyone or that I hate monks or vows.)

The wording for flurry of blows in the Core Rulebook was written by Jason (and as that TWF reference isn't in the Beta, it was probably added very late in the design process for the Core Rulebook). At the time, Jason felt his intent was clear. The blog preview for PFRPG monks shows flurry-as-TWF was his intent. "Sean's ruling" on how flurry works isn't my personal belief (derived independently with no input from Jason) of how the rule should work, it's the result of me checking and re-checking with Jason about it over the course of the boards discussion to make sure I understand what he meant by the text in the Core Rulebook.

As it turns out, the rules for the monk flurry aren't clear. I got it wrong when answering an earlier FAQ (perhaps I didn't explain myself well enough to Jason when addressing that FAQ issue, perhaps Jason misrembered that he changed how flurry works in PF). Other people on staff got it wrong when they built or developed stat blocks. Freelancers got it wrong when they wrote archetypes for the monk. Like much of the rules text in the Core Rulebook, the flurry text could really benefit from being rewritten and reworded. The design team hasn't decided what to do about that yet, but that doesn't change that Jason intended it to work like TWF. This isn't "Sean's ruling," this is "how Jason the designer wanted it to work."

It's really easy to make me the point man for your outrage and rude comments because I'm the guy who's always answering FAQ questions. And it's easy to want to "go ask mom" if you don't like the rule answer from "dad." But that's not how it works. If you don't like my answer, you can't ask Jason to override me... because what we say in the FAQ is the result of a discussion and consensus with the other designers, regardless of whose name (mine, Jason's, Stephen's) is attached to that specific FAQ. It's fine to disagree with a FAQ, or say you won't do it that way in your campaign, or ask for the design team to reconsider a FAQ decision, but you can't single out me or Stephen or Jason and say "that guy is wrong, I want another designer to correct them." That just makes you look foolish.

Yes, ProfessorCirno, your information is wrong about me designing the gunslinger. I have no idea where you got the idea that I had anything to do with the design of that class. Maybe you should think about what other information you think is true is actually wrong. And that goes for everyone in this flurry meta-topic. I've been reading all of this, and I can't help but laugh at some of the ridiculous and provably false things some people are quoting as the truth. One really good example is "Jason couldn't have meant flurry to work like TWF, that would make the sohei invalid, and Jason designed the sohei, and he wouldn't have designed the sohei that way if he meant flurry to work like TWF." Except that Jason didn't design the sohei (at least, Jason Bulmahn didn't... it was designed by freelancer Jason Nelson). You guys don't know who designed which parts, or who developed which parts, or what discussion led to a particular choice of wording. Talking as if you do know really puts you on shaky ground.

Does the brass knuckles ruling hurt the monk? Only in the sense that the monk is a weak class and needs to be fixed at its root, not patched with a weapon choice that would become the default weapon for monks if you don't want your monk PC to suck.

Does the vow of poverty hurt the monk? Only in the sense that the monk is a weak class and needs to be fixed at its root, not patched with a two-paragraph option for gearless monks that doesn't address the greater campaign issues of wealth by level, wealth in a party, and so on.

Does the flurry-as-TWF rule hurt the monk? Well, it certainly doesn't help that it breaks or forces weird interpretations of certain archetypes, and is written in a confusing way that led to unclear interpretations by most people who read it.

I don't want the monk merely patched, I want it fixed. I agree that it's hard to play an effective monk, the monk rules are convoluted, and it's expensive in terms of magic item and ability score needs. But I don't know that the monk can be sufficiently fixed without requiring significantly more explanatory text in the Core Rulebook--which we can't add without messing up the layout for pages and pages, which we can't do because we have that book and other books referring to things in the Core Rulebook by specific page number. I--and the other designers--don't want to just slap a bandage on it and call it good; this is a significant concern, just like the stealth rules, and deserves careful consideration.

My much-earlier point from the other thread still stands: I go out of my way to engage with people on the boards, discuss rules, and figure out what people want in the FAQ. When Jason and I discuss something in the rules, if I disagree with his ruling (for example, I think the trip weapon property is really weak), I'm not afraid to (1) explain the official ruling, and (2) admit that I disagree with that ruling. Yet too many people here think that I'm some kind of FAQ-lackey, making rulings without talking it over with other members of the staff, and think it's okay to be rude to me or go "over my head" when they disagree with the official ruling from the design team. I got tired of that attitude. And I stopped posting answers to rules, and stopped posting FAQs, because I didn't want to deal with it any more (which is sad, because I actually like answering rules questions). Because I'm not required to deal with rudeness and personal attacks, I won't do it.

And since I stopped posting rules clarifications and FAQs, there have been zero new FAQs posted.

Take that as you will.

You know, a new analogy came to mind earlier today and I figured I'd share it. It's easy to visualize and gives up more cognitive language nouns to work with.

A caster casting a spell = A caster petting a dog.
Petting is the verb, similarly to casting.
For all instances of spell, we will replace the noun dog.

A spell's components explain what you must do or possess to cast the spell.

A dog's components (this is the section of the book referring to a spell's description, and because the wording on this sounds odd, I will infer that this simply means that specific part of the spell's description. Essentially, I view this as a game term.) explain what you must do or possess to pet the dog.

Verbal component = "Nice doggy!"
Somatic component = The petting motion performed by the caster.
Material component = A doggy treat, or a brush perhaps.

You can apply metamagic feats to remove these, which basically means we can just stand there staring at the dog, and suddenly he's pet. He's happy, we're happy. This dog is now pet and I didn't even have to bend over to touch him.

You cast the spell, and there's (four legged, long nosed) spell looking back at you. The spell is there whether or not you said "Nice doggy".

Okay, so we're petting a dog? What's my point again?

Well, glad you asked, me!

Identify Spell Being Cast

Identifying a spell as it is being cast requires no action, but you must be able to clearly see the spell as it is being cast, and this incurs the same penalties as a Perception skill check due to distance, poor conditions, and other factors.

Okay, so:

Identifying a dog as it is being pet requires no action, but you must be able to clearly see the dog as it is being pet, and this incurs...

This helps us exemplify the fact that a spell (dog) is not the same as casting a spell (petting a dog).

So let's apply some metamagic feats! No more "Nice doggy" verbal component, no more petting motion, and no more doggy treat! Can we still see the dog?

Yes.

Now this is where things get tricky... let's translate this back into game terms. First, we'll make a pit-stop off at our verb. Try all of the above again, but remove "petting" and replace it with "creating". This gives us a stronger analogy without changing any of the logic. It's just... more Frankenweenie... which is grosser and harder to picture. We're now creating a dog, probably by sewing him up from all these dog parts we found laying around. The verbal component can be "It's ALIVE!", the somatic can be a stitching motion, and the materials can be thread. This new analogy helps show where all of our sticking point arguments come from.

So, the next question arises! When is there "dog"? We're now creating the dog, so do you have to finish before there is "dog"?

Well, considering that the counter-spelling requires a readied action that is completed before the actual action that spawned it, we could NEVER counter-spell unless there was "dog". It doesn't matter if you use the feats or not, you need "dog" to see "dog". This makes me surmise that the counter-spell rules must infer that there is "dog", even before the "creating" is completed. I guess all those organs and fur that we're patching together to create dog is considered dog.

Now comes the second point of argument! Some say there is no additional visual representation of "dog". We now have invisible dog that we are trying to create.

Unfortunately, invisible dog comes with the same fallacies. Even without using feats to create invisible dog, we need to see it to counter-spell it. So if we work under the assumption that there is no visual components, then once again, counter-spelling becomes impossible even without using the feats!

In order to make counter-spelling work even without the feats, we must be able to see the spell (no invisible dog), and it must exist before casting (partially created dog is still dog).

Yeah, weird analogy, but I think it simplifies a complex wordage issue.

I'd be surprised if Golarion didn't have a hollow earth scenario going on, since that's just too much fun not to deal with.

That said, I'd think the lhaksharut are more ounce-of-prevention-is-worth-a-pound-of-cure guys who think it's more important to stop small breaches from becoming large ones than focusing all their efforts on stuffing a giant cork into Krakatoa. Basically an army of little dutch boys looking for dikes to stick their fingers into.

The World Wound, as awful as it is, is relatively stable--something which must chafe the Abyss no end, since nothing says chaos like a known location and dimensions.

Fixing it? Well, the last one was formed when a god died. Presumably a new god being born could fix it, so the lhaksharut might be maneuvering a likely candidate towards the Test of the Starstone with his/her first miracle being the healing of the World Wound and either founding a new kingdom or restoring the old one.

Alternately, it may need to be lanced like a boil, releasing enough demons to relieve the pressure and allow it to be healed. Or, and this would be sneaky but sensible, the lhaksharut could work to enlist the help of someone who could fix this problem by making it her problem. If they shored up the World Wound on three sides such that the demons would do a mass invasion to the Realm of the Mammoth Lords then go thundering straight on through to Irrisen? Imagine how cross Baba Yaga would be to come back and find that her beautiful winterland was crawling with pesky demons. She'd soon put a stop to that. Sure, she might keep a few frost demons around if they amuse her, but they'd hate her iron fist, and she'd go sew the World Wound back up with her most potent witchcraft.

Admittedly this would mean Baba Yaga tripling the size of her realm, but so long as it didn't feature a permanent planar rift, the lhaksharut wouldn't much care.

This assumes Baba Yaga is a match for the Abyss, but given her reputation, I think that's a safe bet to make.

Quote:

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This seems so obvious, I presume I'm missing something...

It enrages me that a fighter who wants to trip or disarm or do anything beyond "I hit it hard" has to jump through hoops to make it work. I was going through the SRD and looking at feats, and I saw rows upon rows of crap. Combat Expertise merely caught my eye.

I see.

It's always seemed to me that fighters arent really feat poor, so that wasting a couple doesnt really matter (to them). I'm not very good at building effective characters, though so I wouldnt want to argue the point.

Having said that, it might be worth noting that there's a halfway decent chance that the person who actually did invent combat experitse (definitely the PF version, but possibly even the 3.5 version) may well see your thread. I personally find it annoying when my clients try and tell me how to do my job better (they're nearly always wrong). If they began with an opening gambit of wishing me violence, I'd be even less inclined to engage with them.

Jason: I'm scared. I'm getting under the table.

James Jacobs: Heh heh.

Jason: You put work under here!

for extra fun, make both ends inteligent. Then watch them argue :D

Dodos had no natural fear of man, so they wouldn't run away like other animals. So they were really easy for people to hunt.

I don't know if killing dodos can really be considered "hunting". If it qualified, I'd propose that buying shrink-wrapped chicken breasts at the supermarket is likewise "hunting".

a long time ago, in a 3rd ed gaming group, an unimaginitive min/maxer of ours made a paladin, cracking his charisma up to a whopping 26, and conversely, a 6 Int.
It was bad enough he *never* played any of his scores as bad as they really were, but the investment was returned heartily.

Our dm trapped us in a room where a titanic being hit us with a ray that swapped our souls one person to the left. My 'thrill seeker monk' was duly handed over, and I received wonder-boy here.

Everyone got a riot out of other people playing their characters up, except this guy, because I became Fabio with a severe stupid streak. I blundered into everything, ignored people yelling "don't touch that!" and generally belting out "Torm!" for no apparent reason.

I just have a problem with people viewing this as "fluff that has an unintended mechanical consequence." I would never have come up with that interpretation, as it seems completely obvious to me that the mechanical distinction *is* intentional, that the goal of the phrase is to eliminate the idea that the eidolon can be used to disguise the synthesist as anything he wants, and that it's not actually fluff at all.

It's one thing to argue that that it could be developed in a way that allows for more flexibility (like Kerney's conjoined twin idea) while still preventing the eidolon from being a "disguise myself as any monster" kit, but trying to argue that it's only a mechanical element by accident is actually pretty insulting in my view. Our writers—and Jason more than many—understand how to write description that doesn't include unintended mechanical elements.

As far as I'm concerned, this question is as appropriate as asking if you've ever run a table for all black people. What gender someone is doesn't change anything about how they play the game, just as it doesn't change if they're of a different ethnicity. If we wouldn't tolerate racial trolling on the boards, I don't see the need to tolerate gender trolling as well.

I think the question of running games for women to help overcome the stereotypes about women in gaming (or lack thereof) is a valid topic of discussion, but supporting those same stereotypes (by citing specific members of the community, no less) is what I have issue with here.

It really is going to depend on the story you want to tell. Want a bunch of border guards and tariffs? Sure, you have them. Want there to be free and easy passage? Sure, you can have that too.

Realistically, however, you've got some kingdoms with laws and trade and they're going to want to sell themselves as civilized places to do business.

So let's take Geb as example. Arazni, the Harlot Queen, an ancient lich who's the reanimated remains of a dead goddess, decides she wants to snuff some tourist, let's say the daughter of some merchant here to buy zombie-picked cotton or maybe some wizard's apprentice here to help his master research in Geb's archives. The people she kills are 1st level and don't have a chance.

Now, what happens next? The merchant, after the death of his daughter, and the wizard, after the death of his apprentice, flee the benighted land of Geb, never to return, and get their revenge on Arazni by means of the most potent of weapons--the Truth. The merchant tells everyone who will listen of the awful death of his daughter and how Geb is no civilized land for investment and how zombie-picked cotton is not worth it and you should instead by slave-picked cotton from Katapesh. He does his utmost with the church of Abadar to utterly ruin Geb's credit rating via the international exchange rate.

The wizard? Well, he's a powerful wizard, but no match for Arazni in magical might. All he can do is use his position as fellow of some magical university to get his alma mater to close its stacks to all visiting researchers from Geb, treating it as a pariah nation.

Arazni might be a mighty lich queen, but she's still a politician. These sanctions would start to sting, especially if they added up, and as such, she's really not at liberty to snuff random visiting merchant's daughters and wizard's apprentices just because she feels like it. And if the mighty lich queen doesn't get to do that in her own country, you think she's going to stand for random vampire Count Blargh doing it, causing troubles with the sale of cotton and the ability to do library research at foreign universities?

Humans may be cattle in Geb, but if the history of Ireland or the Old West show anything, it's that those cattle belong to someone and that someone is going to get mighty ticked if they catch you cattle rustling. And free humans who aren't chattel slaves aren't so much free range cattle so much as free range cattle under the protection of the crown. Did Arazni give you permission to drink random dude dry? No? Then you don't get to do it unless you want to answer to the Harlot Queen of Geb.

Yeah, there will be a few vampires with the political capital to spend to go ahead and slip of they feel like it, but even they will have a limited number of "Get Out of Jail Free" cards, and Arazni will have to be juggling plates to keep the merchant from being upset about his dead daughter or the wizard from being annoyed about his dead apprentice. At very least she's going to have buy a Raise Dead from Church of Urgathoa.

Cheliax? Similar deal but more so. If you're doing a massive PR deal to sell the Prince of Lies as the Prince of Law, you are going to have to be a nation of laws, both on paper and in appearance, and anything that goes counter to those laws is going to be a PR nightmare. Yes, they will likely be evil draconian laws, but the laws will need to accommodate trade and so forth if Cheliax is going to be a civilized nation.

Kevin Andrew Murphy wrote:

There are also norns, fey creatures based on the Norse norns, and if they don't do the fairy godmother shtick occasionally, I'd be rather surprised.

I thought about them when I looked through bestiary but I found them a bit lacking in this role... Unless you think that bestow curse or geas a decent blessing for a newborn godchild.

Who said they were for the godchild?

Norn: "You, charming prince, you will meet a girl wearing glass slippers. You will propose to her and marry her, forsaking all others and political realities of royal marriages, and you will see to it that she wants for nothing and lives happily ever after. And consider yourself lucky--I cursed her two stepsisters to have their eyes pecked out by pigeons."

Qlipploths are my favorite Outsider race. They're basically the grumpy grandparents of demons, screaming for all of reality to get off of their abyssal lawn.

In a game just a couple of weeks ago 3 of us had a large number of each of the feather tokens and spammed the message one that creastes a bird so that we could follow the bird to find our way through a maze.

That's clever.

A friend of mine has envisioned an acrobatic monk who's fighting style would revolve (literally) around using a pair of a immovable rods as clubs. By clicking the rods on while moving she could use it as a solid pivot around which she'd swing her body so as to hit/kick with added force. Click off, click on the other quickly and pivot/kick in the opposite direction. Aside from pivoting around a rod, the rod could be clicked on at the moment of striking a foe; forcing him off balance for your next strike with the other rod. Quickly clicking the rods on and off while swinging around and striking would form the basis for a fluid, frenetic, bewildering and elegant three-dimensional fighting style.

Unfortunately, the rules don't support the lighting-fast activation/deactivation of paired items to make this acrobatic style really viable. That and the rods are simply too expensive to focus your whole character build around them at low levels. The idea is sound however. A bit of work, a house-ruled archetype, monk fighting style, and combat feat tree might make it viable for a higher level character though.

Long ago, in 1st edition, got a flying carpet and a portable hole. Spread the portable hole out atop the carpet. Stacked up crates inside the portable hole so it became a portable fox hole and flew the carpet around through the dungeon, flying under the cracks of doors, thus bypassing traps on the locks, just holding on to the fringe at the front of the carpet so the portable hole wouldn't roll up. The party called this "the convertible" and it was particularly excellent for flying overhead and shooting arrows too.

This trick still works in Pathfinder.

If you want complete freedom of speech you can do it on your own website. When someone is behaving like a jerk we'll take whatever measures we need to to ensure that our messageboards remain a fun and friendly place. Agitating and campaigning across multiple threads rather than answering the questions posed is jerk behavior. The Pathfinder rules, as published by Paizo Publishing, LLC, are not the result of a democratic vote. They are OGL, so if you want to create your own version you can totally go for it.

Edition warring is still boring and pointless.

I'd like to address to hostility towards the 1-handed flurriers with a simple analogy: DOORS!

What? Doors? Yes, doors. Doors have different ways of opening them: handles, knobs, flat plates, horizontal bar, etc. Have you ever walked up to a door with a handle and tried to pull it, only to discover that you were actually supposed to push on it? What happened there? Well, next time you come across such a door in a crowded area, pull up a chair, sit somewhere you can see this door, and watch, as person after person comes up, tries to pull the door, gets flummoxed, and then pushes it open. What's going on? It's a design issue. People walk up to this door, see an object (the handle) and interpret that to mean "Pull on me to open". Thats what handles do, they say pull. Compare that to a door with a flat plate or a door with a bar, both of which "say" push. Now, who's fault is the misinterpretation? Do we say it's the people's fault? Some people probably figure out that the handle should actually be pushed on, so clearly all the others are just stupid, right? Does that seem fair? No, the problem is that the door was designed poorly by whoever decided to put a handle on that side of the door, rather than something that more obviously says "push".

Similarly, I'm really tired of hearing people say that those who misread the flurry MUST have been trying to powergame, and even if you weren't, YOU MISREAD therefore it's your own damn fault because you are stupid. This simply doesn't follow. The "door design" in this case, the wording on flurry, was unclear. How do you know that it was unclear? Well with the door example, you know because some large fraction of the population is using it incorrectly. This is the ONLY relevant measure of door interpretation accuracy. It doesn't matter if you cover the door with "push" signs, if people still come up and use it incorrectly, it is still the door designers fault. YOU CAN'T BLAME THE USER FOR MISINTERPRETING, YOU CAN ONLY BLAME THE BAD DESIGN! BLAMING THE USER IS NONSENSICAL! This obvious fact gets lost on these boards due to accusations of munchkining, which, ok, you can do when it's a couple people "cheating", you can't use this excuse when it's clearly a large fraction of the population.

All that said, I obviously hold no ill will towards the designers here :) any attacks on them are equally unjustified because mistakes are unavoidable. This is a particularly confusing mistake, but the overall quality of their stuff is obviously awesome, otherwise we wouldn't all be here.

"Hey dead person! I smell you're going to Elysium! You sure you want to be another you forever?

Taste what I have to sing for a moment. Wouldn't you like to be other things? You could be a tree. Or a song. Or a question. You could be all of those instead of just one thing.

Final states are boring-death. Why be only one pattern when you can be lessmoreother?

Go on if you wish. But if you grow weary, do come to the edge. We will be waiting to welcome you to ouryour wonders."

Sean K Reynolds wrote:

ProfessorCirno wrote:

Still waiting on that reason as to why certain characters "should" be mechanically inferior.

Still waiting on why you think all the options in the Core Rulebook are mechanically equal.

Did you just use "We were bad at developing" as an excuse for making a bad development choice?

No, I'm pointing out to you that "balance" in an RPG where you have healing classes and damage classes and support classes is an illusion. Is the cleric with the Healing domain "balanced" against one with the Travel or War domains? Is the healing cleric balanced against the fighter? Or the barbarian? Or the sorcerer? Or the bard? How do you rate how "balanced" they are against each other? By how much damage they do? By how much damage they prevent or cure? By their total skill point bonuses?

The game, dating all the way back to Basic D&D, isn't built for you to win, it's built for you to have fun. And if you're given different ways for you to have fun with your character, even if some of those ways mean you're not "balanced" against a character specialized purely in damage or healing or Diplomacy checks, you're still having fun. This isn't World of Warcraft where a bad talent tree for a class means you're overall damage is down 2.5% from the best spec and you get yelled at by trying to raid in that poor spec because you're making it harder to kill boss monsters. This is a cooperative game where the odds are stacked in the PCs' favor and you don't have to maximize a number to ensure survival of the group. You're allowed to make choices that suit the story of your character, even if those choices mean you're not the best at damage or healing or Diplomacy. The game has greatswords and longswords and short swords and daggers, and each has its place in terms of damage, utility, and character flavor. Yet I don't see you complaining that the dagger-specialized fighter isn't balanced against the greatsword-specialized fighter.

If you want every option to be mechanically equal, you need to play a different game.

Me, I'm going to write for, and play, a game where it's okay if you want to play a Indiana Jones-style wizard who starts with a 15 Dex and 12 Int and fights with a whip. And it's okay if you want to play a rapier-wielding swashbuckler rogue who multiclasses into fighter and cleric of luck because it suits his theme, even though it costs him BAB and access to some better feats. And it's okay if you want to play a dwarf fighter who's slow as hell, has a 20 Con and 100 hit points at level 7, and takes Great Cleave to finish off all the minions while his monk and barbarian buddies kill the leader. Because those are all fun character options. Even if the wizard is struggling to keep his Int in pace with the minimum needed for his higher-level spells... because sometimes the wizard pulls off an awesome move in combat that he couldn't do with a pathetic Dex. Even if the swashbuckler is always out-damaged by the lower-level paladin with a greatsword... because sometimes the swashbuckler crit-kills a beholder in one stab. Even if the dwarf only gets to use Great Cleave once in the entire campaign... because that one time he kills 8 foes in one round and convinces the campaign boss to surrender in the face of such might.

If you're not satisfied with your numbers, choose another options that makes you feel like more of a man. If you're not having fun, play something else.

To paraphrase my second post in this thread:
Basically, "worthwhile" is not solely defined as "something mechanically equal to other options."

Hi.

I've got a couple of questions about the OGL and no time to read it throughly. Besides, I don't have "legal" on my language list ;)

1) Would it be acceptable for me to use parts of the Pathfinder rules system - namely the CMB/CMD rules - for another D20 installment, such as a WW2 RPG?

2) Would it be acceptable for me to directly "steal" feats, skills and abilities that I like from the various classes and incorporate them into my own material?

3)I belive that the Ultimate series of books aren't covered by the OGL. Is this correct?

Thank you :)

Rocket,

Please do not take my words as harsh. They are not meant to be. They are meant to be blunt and emphasize the full impact of what you are asking:

If you have "no time to read it thoroughly" and "don't have "legal" on my language list" you should not be messing around with a legal document. People get cease and desist letters and court orders to destroy material material for failing to fully comply with this license. The license is not hard to understand. It was meant to be easy to understand. Read it. Thoroughly.

Having said all that, my first question is what is your intention? If you want to use this for your home game and never show it to anyone outside your group, you can do whatever you want with this material. If you bought a copy, you can make all the copies you want for your own personal use.

If you want to create material and release it on your website for free viewing, check out the Community Use Policy. Its easier to understand and comply with and you can use more material.

If you want to start your own third party publishing company, get a lawyer. You NEED to understand this license as well as the Pathfinder compatibility license like you understand how to walk. You have to have that fundamental level of understanding with it. Do not leave that lawyer's office until you are absolutely certain you know exactly what you can and cannot, do what you can and cannot use, and how much it will cost you to fight in court if you fail to fully comply this these licenses. This is serious business, even if it is for a fun hobby. You have to approach it seriously.

Vic Wertz wrote:

This book will be the more typical third-person, past tense.

I demand a second-person, future tense novel for the next PFT book.

You will walk with a quiet calm through the storm of everyday Varisian life until a pettifogging guard demands that you tell him of your lodgings. Indignant at such a slight you shall fall into a contemplative stance typical of ancient Vudran mystics until ennui takes hold and you are taken away by Amika Kaijitsu for a bloody good thrashing. You will surprise yourself by enjoying this very much.

This thread makes me so sad!

(wipes away tears)

When a product called the "Book of the Damned: Princes of Darkness" won't even attempt stats for the archdevils, you know you have a problem as a company.

I disagree. Of course, I'm pretty old school...I still prefer the older Call of Cthulhu entry for Cthulhu that says Attacks: Cthulhu devours 1d6 investigators per round.

For gods, and even for archdevils and equivalently powered entities, I have no problem with the lack of a stat block. After all, just because some munchkin rolls up a 300th level uber-character, that doesn't mean that Asmodeus still shouldn't be able to smack him around like he was a 0th level kobold commoner.

The perfect stat block for archdevils/gods:

Init He goes first; Senses all; Perception He sees you
DEFENSE
AC You don't hit him
hp More than you'll ever whittle away, even if you could hit him
Auto-Save vs Mortals
OFFENSE
Speed: Damn Fast
Melee: He kills you
Ranged: He kills you from across the room
Special Attacks: Lots of them
STATISTICS
Str High, Dex High, Con High, Int High, Wis High, Cha High
Base Atk His attack succeeds; CMB He gets you; CMD You don't get him
Feats: Most of them
Skills: Most of them Auto-Succeed
SQ: Lots of them
Combat Gear: Pretty much anything he wants

I'm thinking the Epic Level book should set the soft cap at 36 (for historical and mathematical reasons) and then describe rules that drastically dial down how much power you gain for levels past 36. That would allow them to keep the balance that Mr. Jacobs is concerned about, and yet not really limit in any way how far any given player might want to take a character. I gave a similar suggestion earlier in this thread, but here's the revised version:

+ CON modifier in hit points (no hit dice past 36th)
+ INT modifier in skill points (no class skill points past 36th)
BAB, saving throw, and ability score increases stop at 36th
Beyond 20th, feats are replaced with Epic Feats
Epic feat progression dials down to one feat every 4 (more? less?) levels past 36th level
Spell progression (spells knows for spontaneous casters, spells per day for all spellcasters) ceases at 36th
The vast majority of abilities that improve with level cease at 36th

As you can see, most power acquired would be through gaining epic feats (or regular feats, which could be substituted). If you want to run a more high powered campaign, epic feats could come every level instead of every odd-numbered level.

When I saw the title of the thread, I thought of "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner". Come to think of it, a zombie gunslinger seeking revenge on his killer would be a pretty cool plot - especially if one of the PCs were "van Owen".

Well... that was derailing. But now that the unhinged fellow with the persecution complex has... escorted himself out....

Armor doesn't always have to be perfectly realistic for men or women, and honestly is a lot more fun if you can roll some fashion into it without worrying about realistic movement and protection. It's once the "armor" crosses the line into obvious accentuating the wearer for the male gaze that I have issues (and, I'd like to think, a lot of other women feel the same way).

I for one love this one. She's heavily armored and still looks sweet and feminine. I'm not thrilled that she looks so skinny, but I've seen enough wiry women to accept it.

Okay, I am the last person who should be asking this with the way I pop off, but can we please knock off all the hostility, calm down, and discuss this rationally instead of insulting each other? Please?

Why is the enemy using untrained shlubs?

Because if they die before their 90-day probationary period is up, the enemy doesn't have to pay them benefits.

One thing to keep in mind is that it's very very hard. Four people in four thousand years have passed. That's one success per _millennium_. (Hmmm... it may be the Starstone requires a few centuries to recharge. Perhaps it needs to feed on enough would-be testers that there's enough energy to boost one lucky aspirant to godhood.)

I'm thinking that the Starstone is more a test of who you are than of what you can do. If you are a god in embryo, the Starstone will reveal that, and let you out to grow; if you're less than a god, it will reveal that too, and the revelation will destroy you. I had one PC ask Iomedae how she got through the Starstone, and the answer was, more or less, "I can't explain it till you've already been through; you wouldn't understand. What I can say is that the Stone _magnifies_ you."

(If you have to stat this out, there's probably a mirror of opposition in there somewhere. Face yourself, maybe multiples of yourself, and which is the true one?)

The Test should be light on the combat and heavy on the roleplaying. (If nothing else, as a GM you need to discover what sort of god the PC is going to become.)

It's been suggested that Norberger's four aspects are actually an adventuring party that made it through the Starstone. (See above about difficulty -- the secret he's hiding isn't so much "who am I?", but "how did you get four people into the Starstone together".)

In one of our recent encounters our DM deemed it necessary for his amusement that we should be eaten by sharks. As we crept (while swimming?) through some underwater caverns attempting to find an unruly Aboleth a shark caught my scent and got some very lucky rolls.
Rolled to hit through full concealment, grappled me, beat my initiative, swallowed me and then escaped from my party to digest his new found prize. Coming to terms with the fact that Shadow Jump would put me back within charging distance, and my light weapons would doubtfully cut a way out before its stomach could finish off my remaining 14 hp I opted for the more creative route (as suggested by the beautiful and lovely bard if she should ever read this post and think I was plagiarizing her ideas).

Move Action: Withdraw potion of Gaseous Form
Standard Action: Dump potion into the stomach I was now in
Free Action: Pray

After a fit of laughter from the party, my DM ruled that the shark exploded into a cloud of bubbles and started rising through the cracks within the cave system. And a successful bluff check now has my party's ranger believing I'm hiding more interesting powers up my sleeve.

His decision revolved around the idea that a 1 INT critter swallowing someone implied a willingness to devour anything on his person. Including a potion.

How far from RAW is this? My search-fu is weak, as such I cannot find any rules for force feeding a target a potion or how "willing" target interacts with this. Is this in the realm of homebrew or am I just being dense?

Looks like this will happen on monday. An e-mail will go out notifying people who purchased the ePubs that they've been updated.

You guys at Paizo are awesome. Can you imagine having a minor display issue with an ebook from say Apple or Amazon and having it personally addressed by an employee browsing the forums? During a snowstorm that nearly shut down the company? This is why fans are so dedicated to Pathfinder. Keep up the good work. You guys prove that good customer service with a personal touch really is possible in the internet age.

Callous Jack wrote:

Mark Moreland wrote:

Surprisingly, Jason's not the one with an infamous cache of booze at the office. Who those employees are, I'll leave to speculation.

My guess is Liz... oh, and Cosmo, of course.

>.>

<.<

Hey, those emoticons have two eyes!

crystal: Also: The Watch Guard and the Watch Officer... which is which?

sara marie: one has a lunch box!

sara marie: his wife packed it for him

sara marie: she even cut the crusts off like he likes

ross: ...now I can't see a lantern any more. Only a boxed lunch

liz: What sammich did he get today?

crystal: His wife really loves him, and worries about his dangerous job

crystal: Every time adventurers roll into town, she has nightmares

The Ruins PDF for this product has been updated.

You people are excellent human beings.

The thing I like about Paizo? dude took that much time out of his day to explain their reason, and didn't just say "because we said so" like 99% of any kind of company would do.

at first i thought 300 was too little words. i kept going over. it was so frustrating.

Then i took just one aspect of my item and made it it's own item.

Not just did the word count drop, but i found myself loving the item sooo much more!

Got mine today and put it in my Christmas card display. Then called in my 8-year-old daughter, she of the Beginner Box and heroes minis and pink sparkly dice, and asked her "Do you recognize any of these people?"

*delighted gasp* "That's Merisiel! And ... and the wizard! What was his name again? Ezren! And who's that? Kyra! And ... and ... I remember ... Valeros! That is so cool! Who sent you that? Give them twenty dollars! No, give them forty dollars!"

I realized in the shower this morning (yes, I do my best thinking under hot water) the true evil of infernal healing. It’s not the spell itself. It’s the ‘first hit is free’ nature of the spell.

Think about it this way. When you cast the spell, you’re temporarily flooding the target’s body with evil. Evil that heals him, makes him whole, but evil none the less. You’re either using ‘concentrated evil’ (devil blood) or ‘100% approved evil’ (unholy water) to cast the spell.* This should give any follower of Cayden, Sheyln or Saranae, pause.

That’s not the insidious nature of the spell. Think about kids today (well more kids before video games, but still). They play cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians. Wouldn’t Golarion kiddies play ‘Adventurers and Goblins?’ And if they go ‘pew pew’ with magic missiles then it would make sense to say “nuh uh! I’m not dead, I have been anointed with Devil Blood! I have infernal healing!

And in Hell, Asmodaeus smiles…

Also for the average adventurer, infernal healing is a gateway drug. “Here I’ll cast this spell and you’ll radiate evil, but you’ll heal!” Now picture higher level spells along these lines.

• ”Here’s a spell that will give you DR/Cold Iron. You just need to wear this specially prepared Unholy Symbol.”
  
• ”Here’s a spell that’s like resist energy (fire) but better! You just need to sign this blank piece of paper.”
  
• ”Here’s a spell that gives you great strength, you just need to break this holy symbol of Erastil…”
  
• ”Here’s this spell that will make you immune to fire, permanently! Just sign here…"
  

That's not even counting what other spells along those lines might do from other devils.

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and campaign setting specific spells like this.
*

I could care less about the rule set that an MMO follows. They are not the same and you should not aim for it. Pathfinder is a turn-based tabletop RPG. As a rules set for a TTOP RPG, it works quite well. However, a MMO is not a tabletop RPG. The people who think it should work like that do not get the design issues and probably never will.

I already know that the devs know this – but many of the fans here just don’t get it . Persuade your fans as to why – and with patience, the persuadable will be persuaded. However, some of these fans are NOT persuadable under any circumstances. That’s life. Keep selling them books and they will still be your customers, just not your online players. That’s okay. Let ‘em rant, because that isn’t Pathfinder.

I do see, however, a number of things that CAN work and DO feel like "Pathfinder,” to wit:

1 - Class Abilities: Pathfinder has improved upon and developed a number of class abilities that serve to distinguish the class from others. Those abilities should form a tangible aspect of a class design.

For example, we know what Paladins are. A Pathfinder: Online Paladin should have auras; smite evil, and have the ability to confer those benefits to others. Similarly, we know that a Witch has a familiar, can fly, and can cast hexes like misfortune and deep slumber. Alchemists in Pathfinder throw bombs and can use mutagens to increase their stats and body size. While something like a Vancian based arcane bond is not likely to matter in PF: O, Wizards should be able to throw a weapon and have it return to their hands. They should get some sort of metamagic and should be able to craft magic items. They should get a scorching ray and get multiple numbers of them as they advance (never mind what damage they actually do or how often it can be used) Barbarians are all about rage and DR. Gunslingers are all about guns, deeds, and grit, Ninjas can vanish, etc..

Keep the recognizable iconic abilities of classes and make them do similar sorts of things which are somewhat intuitive and recognizable to a player. The underlying math, lethality and so forth is irrelevant. Let the computer game designers of the MMO be computer game designers of an MMO. Nevertheless, some of the iconic powers of a class need to be represented and unique because that’s what fans expect and that’s what keeps up the verisimilitude of the Pathfinder brand.

2 - Look and Feel: Pathfinder has a distinctive art direction to its characters and many of its monsters. Some of that is going to work well in a computer game -- and some of it is not. Cut the stuff that will not work for polycount and animation reasons and do it without remorse.

But when you get right down to it, Pathfinder is Wayne Reynolds' art style. Make that come to life? You are golden in terms of art direction. Fail to deliver it and you dropped the ball and will alienate customers. Sorry – but in many respects it really IS that simple.

Above all, keep the cartoony look to your characters. There are strong benefits to this. On a technical design basis, it reduces polycount. As we move forward in the next five years, PC Gaming threatens to go off a cliff and the desktop will not be the primary platform for this game. Accordingly, anything that reduces graphical overhead and makes it more laptop friendly is good. Any CTO who tells you what the GPU capabilities are of the expected users of this game 4 years from now is making it up. He doesn’t know. That’s an ENORMOUS tech risk, so the engine and art direction has to be HIGHLY scaleable.

If you went for something like the CANVAS engine for your art style? You would not go wrong in terms of artistic impact (tech/economic feasibility is another matter). Apply the CANVAS engine's style and Wayne Reynolds art and color palettes and tell me you wouldn’t drool to play that game.

On a less technical basis, cartoony designs also serve to make the game look unique. The problem with realistic 3d models , shaders and middleware environmental options all designed to operate within the tech limits of the hardware platform of the day is that it all ends up looking the same, from game to game. Seeing as you are likely to have to use middleware for much of your environmental organic effects, anything that serves to distinguish the look of the game from that produced by others enhances the value. In this case, it also delivers on the expectations of fans – so double down on Wayne Reynolds' iconics and cartoony goblins.

Blizzard made the right call with WoW. Some people hated it and it turned them off -- but you cannot argue with that level of success. I can confirm that there was a significant debate within BioWare as to whether to go cartoony with SW:ToR. BioWare decided to go a little cartoony with their art direction in TOR too -- and it was the right call. Some people complained sure, but some people always complain.

3 - Golarion: At Paizo's current publication rate, it is likely that there will at that time of PF:O's release be more game material written about the world of Golarion than any other fantasy world in the history of RPGs. Even the FR (and that's saying something, damn it).

That is a VAST treasure trove of IP. It's the one thing Paizo brings to the table which it does BETTER THAN ANYBODY ELSE, in or outside of the computer development field. Do not sacrifice this on anybody's sandbox altar. Dance with the girl that brung ya.

That's what a Pathfinder: Online is to me. It's not rolling a 20, it's not Vancian Magic, longswords which do 1d8 or even magic missiles.

Gimme a Witch that hexes with a fox familiar, a chance to interact with the iconic characters which LOOK like Wayne Reynold's art come to life -- all set in a believable slice of Golarion.

That's a Pathfinder MMO to me.

My predilection is to side with people who aren't being smarmy and inconsiderate, even to people they may not respect.

You all are big teases !

Gary, Ross, and Liz have better things to do than clean up after us like poopy diaper babies.

Can everybody just chill, talk to everybody else with respect or something?

Use the brand spanking new "hide" function to hide things that annoy them or something?

I'm no angel either, but damn. Gary just had to type "quit making hate threads" like 15 times or something.
He could've probably written some code to do something cool. Or clicked some loafs, IDK.

Answer my last post :-)

Just did.

I'm not running the game.

Then what I say to you doesn't matter. Your GM is the one who makes the call. Feel free to send him or her to this thread for some food for thought, but I'm not here to provide you with ammunition to use against your GM in a rules argument.

Keep in mind that neither Paizo nor Wizards of the Coast are likely to post in this thread any secret future plans, so everything posted in here is going to be pure speculation, based on pure speculation.

So when you feel like disagreeing with someone (and you probably will, I can tell it has the potential to be that kind of thread), keep in mind that it's just their opinion. They're no more privy to the truth than you are.

And when you post your awesome idea that Paizo absolutely must do or else we're going to go out of business, please have faith in Lisa, Erik and the rest of us that we got to this point because we're not stupid.

In creating a new adventure world, should I incorporate government bureaucracies into it, or just handwave the PC interactions with their local government by having them interact with 2-3 main NPCs?

The reason for asking this is because of this article:

http://www.roleplayingtips.com/articles/how_to_create_a_bureaucracy.php

I can see its value, but have a bad gut feeling about forcing the PCs to heavily interact with lots of agencies and bureaucrats when they're in town. Thoughts?

Ross via text chat: Customer Service, are we clear for x?

Cosmo outloud: Yeah. Pull the trigger I guess...

Ross outloud: I noticed you responded in a way that doesn't leave a paper trail.

It's been one of those days. You know, the kind of day when you get home at like 8 o'clock and nobody has the gumption to prepare the sure-to-be super-awesome dinner you had planned. What to do? Why not the world's best grilled ham and cheese sammich? Why not indeed?

Tools and ingredients: Bread. Mild cheddar cheese, because it's on sale for five bucks for a two-pound brick. Sliced ham of unknown but assuredly delicious provenance. A cast iron pan. A lid. A shocking amount of butter.

The mechanics: Put some ham slices on a plate and zap them up in the microwave until steaming. Use the plastic microwave dish cover you got at Freddies for $2.49 that you never knew you needed until you saw it and then realized OMG I will never have to clean out the microwave again if I obtain this thing, because that ham gonna POP when it gets all zappified due to steam and whatnot.

While the ham's getting radiated, heat up the pan. Keep that thing on the down low, like maybe 3 on the one-to-ten if you're all electrified. If you're cooking with gas, I have no idea, that's for rich people around here what with all the hydroelectric and stuff. The idea is, you need to give the cheese a chance to melt before the bread gets all nicely browned. Also, slice up some cheese, because you need it. Cheese has vitamins and protein.

Get a slice of bread. No, get two, because your baby asked for this sammich in the first place and it'd be rude to make just one for yourself. Put cheese all over that bread. Grab the ham (because that ham like to be grabbed, yeahhhh), and cover that cheese with that ham. Important: if you want two layers of ham, and if you're like me, you totally do, put some cheese in between that ham. Because otherwise that ham be sliding alllll over the place when it's time to eat this masterpiece.

When you've put that ham all over that cheese, put some cheese on that ham, and cover that cheese with some bread. This is important. You are not making an open-face sammich, because an open-face sammich is just half a sammich with an attitude it really hasn't earned.

Add some butter to the pan. If you think, "Am I adding enough butter," the answer is no, no, you are not. Add some more. When the butter's mostly melted, spread it around a bit, and put those raw stacked sammich materials on it. Then put a lid on the pan. The lid is important because it lets you melt up all that cheese, and if you're like me, and you know you are, there's a LOT of it, without prematurely toasting up the bread. This is also why there must be more butter than you think could possibly be used in a single sammich. A grilled cheese is all about the buttery toasty bread and the melty gooey cheese. Just like a great cheeboigey.

Check it like a million times because you don't want to miss the precise moment it turns from a stack of ingredients into a half-cooked work of art. Scoop it up a bit and see if it's all golden brown yet. Pay attention to the melty. When it's right, transfer it, upside-down, to a plate so you can admire the toastiness. Butter up the pan again. Put the sammich back. Watch it like a hawk. When it is perfect, and it will be perfect, put it on a plate, cut that thing in half, add a couple pickle slices on the side if your baby asks for it like that, serve it up and EAT IT.

Not sure why you guys expected low numbers on this book. The Tomes were awesome when they came out, and this just triples that awesomeness in PF format!

Because we asked for preorders and we did our print run on that. We gave everyone tons of time and notice and we printed based on the preorders we got. If not for Paizo we wouldnt have printed as many as we did.

You can't spend tens of thousands of dollars on books the size of a Chemistry text and just sit on it and not sell them. We'd lose our houses and our wives would divorce us. That's why.

In this industry, unfortunately, awesomeness is no indicator of sales. Companies that overprint because their product is awesome go out of business.

Now, that said, I agree Tome is awesome and this certainly was a possible outcome. We did everything we could think of to validly gauge interest in advance and we got what we got.