Ross Byers's page

I removed some random edition-wars posting. Let's try to keep the playtest productive.

I removed some posts. DO NOT advocate IP piracy on our boards. Thank you.

I removed a post.

Feel free to repost the point with the vitriol taken out.

That text refers to the PDF being available for independent purchase: Generally, we do not make Paizo PDFs available until the 'street date'.

However, PDFs from subscriptions are available the instant we change & ship your copy.

The main difference between them and a cleric for purposes of wading into melee combat is armor proficiency, which is solved with a feat (or two) or a single multiclass into fighter.

Things are getting a bit heated here. I'd like to ask folks to keep their cool and discuss things politely.

I removed a couple posts. I'd rather the discussion stay civil and on-topic.

I've fixed the link in the blog.

I've corrected the incorrect session and adjusted your character's faction symbol.

I removed some posts (and replies to them.)

Please don't flame one another or resort to ad hominiem attacks.

I added a spoiler.

In other words, the oracle doesn't speak in tongues when she is stressed out by combat; she speaks in tongues when she falls into a trance. The oracle isn't constantly deaf; her hearing is drowned out by otherworldly sounds when she opens her mind to the voices of the gods. The oracle doesn't have a lame leg that always reduces her movement; she has strange stigmata that worsens whenever she channels the spirits.

This doesn't make sense for some curse though (being the opposite of how tongues works, or how wasting would be pretty bad as trance/combat only.)

Umm... Looking at the post now, I think I may have put in a bit too much non-OGL stuff in that, but for some reason the delete and edit buttons aren't working for me.

So I've flagged myself.

Sorry guys.

And I missed editing out some 'rogue' references too. Gah!

Discussion for this product should go to the Playtest Forums.

Okay, it's up.

assuming the truck doesn't explode on the way to our warehouse,

No Futurama fans today, eh?

"Tell my wife I said hello."

Everything is across the street from Starbucks.

I added a spoiler tag.

I removed some posts. Be adults, please.

You will probably recognize a couple of the paper minis were created from the new bestiary ... :)

I've removed a few posts. Debate is welcome here, but insults and threats of violence are simply uncalled for.

Not quite. Naturally, the Pit Fiend has fireball a will as a spell like ability.

The generic Pit Fiend also has Quicken Spell-like Ability (fireball), which means he can quicken his fireballs three times a day (the text of the feat specifies that the metamagic effect can be used at most 3 times a day, even if the affected spell-like ability has more uses). This change is reflected in the stat block.

So it isn't redundant: He has quickened fireball 3/day BECAUSE he has the feat, not ON TOP of it.

We'll go back to making large versions available.

opened a gate and kicked my lifeless corpse into the Negative Material Plane.

Posts have been removed. Do not advocate piracy on our messageboards.

Evil Lincoln wrote:

I'd still like a few words on why the change.

I think we just got it. It was outside the boundaries of being simple enough. PF DMs "needed" more simple.

In this post and more recently in this post I outlined why I felt that the old rules for Regeneration did not work as advertised. (The discussion at that link may be informative, but I'll state the important bits below.)

At first glance, the Regen rules look great: the troll can only be killed with fire/acid, but other attacks can at least faze it and/or tire it out from the energy used to heal. All its wounds will begin healing immediately unless they were made by acid or fire.

The problem is that the mechanical incentives don't match what the flavor incentives are. In theory, the proper way to fight a troll is use fire and acid as often as is practical. But the mechanics don't bear that out:

Case study: A troll
1) The party beats the troll unconcious with non-fire, non-acid weapons, then coup-de-graces it with something fire/burns it on a pyre/drown it. Result: The fight behaved exactly like the troll had Fast Healing.
2) The party beats down the troll with a combination of fire and melee. Once again, the unconcious troll is dispatched in some manner. Result: Once again, the fight behaved exactly like the troll had fast healing, unless it somehow gets away long enough to regenerate all of its nonlethal damage.
3) The party uses ONLY fire (somehow). Result: Regeneration is negated. However, forcing a melee character to deal only fire damage usually reduces their damage output.

The problem is that what the mechanics do and what they encourage people to do clashed.

As cool as the image of finding a troll with fire-scars a day after a fight is, what does stop that troll from simply clawing that flesh off, allowing the new claw-wounds to heal properly? Do fire and acid actually leave an imprint on a troll's soul, so that a severed and regrown arm will bear the same fire-induced wounds?

Under the new mechanics, there is actually an incentive to use fire and acid on a troll as often as possible! Player and character agree on what to do! A fireball is still good for something once the troll has nonlethal damage. A fighter has a reason to dig out that +1 flaming longsword instead of the +2 shocking burst one he usually fights with.

It's still not perfect (no rule is), but I think its a heck of a lot closer.

I removed a post. Let's all stay polite here.

Pathfinder #5's product description

And if you don't mind me asking, can you send me an email at ross.byers@paizo.com about where you downloaded Magic of Thassilon from, if it was not our site?

And when you're buying dice for 28 folks, you want as cheap as you can go with still having quality :) I mean, I love the kids I work with, but popping over to my FLGS and buying that many sets would bankrupt the Christmas budget! Whereas with the pouches I found, these dice and a set of the 144 d6s, I get away with about $2 a child. That's doable!

We'll get sample tiles up soon.

I removed a post. Please don't try to evade the profanity filter.

I hate to do this, but I think I'm going to have to call the game (unless someone wants to take over DM duties.)

As much fun as the game is, it's been sitting idle for a long time. I keep looking at the RSS feed and thinking "I have to update that after work/this weekend/when I get a day off/after dinner" and the fact of the matter is that I don't. Rather than continue to lead folks on, I'm going to have to bow out as DM.

Sorry, folks.

Basically, Gygax's monsters tended to have treasure that would help you recover from the special attacks of the monsters. Mentzer's monsters tended to have treasure that would have been REALLY useful against the monster you were fighting. So if Gygax had an encounter with a medusa, the medusa might have a scroll of stone to flesh, whereas a Mentzer's medusa would have a scroll of protection from petrification or a +1 sword, +3 vs. medusas.

I'd reject the write-up for being too crazy, I suspect.

Kinda reminds me of a discussion I had with Monte about adventures Gary Gygax wrote and adventures that Frank Mentzer wrote.

I removed a post in this thread. Keep in mind that name-calling is still name-calling even if you're speaking for someone else.

I cleaned up a couple posts in this thread. Name calling is bad, m'kay?

I've cleaned up a few posts in this thread. Seriously folks, be civil to one another.

pres man wrote:

Sorry to give you some bad news about this.

PRD wrote:

Splash weapons cannot deal precision-based damage (such as the damage from the rogue's sneak attack class feature).

That's odd. I think I saw a post by Jason (or was it james or someone else?) saying you can sneak atack using touch spells,ranged touch spells and rays. Perhaps acid splash wasn't mentioned, but In think it was.
Is acid splash considered a splash weapon or a spell? Does Anyone know?

pres man was referring to a rogue throwing flasks of acid or alchemists' fire, which are splash weapons.

Follow up question: If they gained an intelligence score, would they retroactively gain feats? Would that change their CR?

To be honest, I like that a flaming sword shuts down a troll. Under the old rules, the fact that your sword was Flaming didn't really matter unless the troll retreated long enough to heal up. If the sword was Frost instead, it would have dealt the same damage, and the troll would have regenerated just as much health (since it can regenerate the sword part). The difference doesn't really matter until its unconcious and coup-de-grace time comes. Even though, in theory, trolls are supposed to be weak against fire.

I like that the new mechanics make fire and acid the right attacks to actually fight trolls, instead of just to finish them off.

To the folks concerned about acid splash at will, I'd like to point out that if you've reduced the mage to casting a cantrip every round, you are significantly reducing the party's effectiveness, which means regeneration is doing its job.

(In contrast, the party comes out more ahead in the mage can deal (or help someone else in the party deal) 5 + 1d3 damage every round.)

Once combat is over and the troll is unconcious, I'd much rather have the mage be able to put it out of its misery with a single acid spash than painstakingly dissolve it with 200 separate castings.

There was a fairly drawn out discussion between Sean and myself on this topic (I can't find the thread now, but some else's google-fu may be greater than mine.)

Just because there aren't constructs with CL below 7 now doesn't mean there never will be. (From Paizo or third parties.)

Also, maybe making an animated footstool might require a lower CL?

Pathfinder #27 was delayed slightly. It is expected in mid-November.

You can always see the most up-to-date information on the Product Schedule page. You can also see when and what your subscriptions should be sending you by clicking the 'My Subscriptions' link at the top of the page.

Zark: Regeneration no longer dabbles in non-lethal damage. However, what it does do is provide a special rule that such a creature does not die from damage unless the regeneration is surpressed.

A troll at -30 HP is not dead as long as its regeneration is functioning. If it takes any fire or acid damage, however, its regeneration is supressed for a round. It will immediately die. Dead things no longer regenerate, so it stays dead until one of the usual exceptions comes up (Raise Dead, Ressurection, etc.)

That trio debated catching a troll alive and sticking in the basement of the party's fortified mansion....no lack of rations if they were ever besieged in it. Just carve off what meat you needed at the time and it grows back.

-Weylin

Had a party once with a goblin, a half-orc and a half-ogre in it whose solution to the troll problem was to eat the troll.

EDIT: Nevermind. Stomach deals acid damage.