I read somewhere that the GLaDOS voice filter they put her voice through was just for the trailer and that they'll use a different one in the finished film. Although I heard that second-hand at best, so I could be wrong.
Mathwei ap Niall wrote:
Orthos wrote:
Mathwei ap Niall wrote:
I can't seem to muster the suspension of disbelief necessary to think any rational government would spend billions on A giant robot to melee a giant monster rather then spend a fraction of that on a few thousand tactical nukes or orbital microwave emitters.
Why bother even letting the giant lizard out of the water when you can fry it from 100 miles away?
Because it's awesome.
Realism is intentionally left at the door in these kinds of things.
And that's the flaw with this genre of movie. If you have to so completely let go of realism to this extent then you're going to alienate a HUGE chunk of your potential market. I can't get behind this, it hurts my widdle head to let go of that much.
What about the collateral damage nukes and such would cause? As big as these robots are, the sea was only coming up to their knees - they're not that far off-shore.
I've never had a problem with Paladins and body mods, except for Diabolic/Demonic/Daemonic grafts.
And let's be honest - those go over about as well as walking into an Inquisitors of Sarenrae Conference with your whole body covered in symbols of Rovagug.
At least they'll appreciate the target practice. :P
I... wow. Something must be very wrong with that gaming group.
As for the last line of your post about Society games - it's a restriction in PFS because that's how Golarion's clerics work; by the setting's RAW, clerics have to follow a god to gain powers. Forgotten Realms had the same restriction in 3.5 - the base game allows clerics of ideals but the setting requires clerics to follow a god unless the GM allows otherwise.
EDIT: Ninja'd by a white dragon named after a Touhou character. :P
Also random, although there's a particularly high concentration of skymetals in Numeria.
That reminds me - how big was the ship that crashed in Numeria? I know it's bigger than a city since a chunk of it (granted; the biggest chunk of it) was big enough to be turned into a capital city.
Just how big was it? Size of a modern-day metropolis like Sydney or Seattle? Size of Florida? Mind you; if it was as big as the latter then the Darklands'd probably have a new skylight. :P
Ha, I'm not that bad. I'm only 8 hours ahead of the PST time. ;)
Well I'm ten hours ahead of you, so that's 18 ahead of the GM. I think that might be close enough to wrap 'round and come at it from the other side. :P
I've got a similar time-zone issue as CaptainChaos - I'm in Australia, which is GMT +10. For simplified reference; I'm making this post at about twenty-five to 9 in the morning.
EDIT: I shouldn't have trouble keeping up, though.
You are starting with average gold for 1st level, and anything more depends on your background story. PM if you want more pointers.
Thanks for the health re-roll - already updated her sheet.
As for the gold, I'm fine with average starting gold - the gear on her sheet was bought with average starting gold and still have plenty left over for miscellaneous stuff (was originally going to go towards a pack mule or something but that was back when Xan had a Strength of about 14 - she was pretty close to taking encumbrance penalties there thanks to the Fighter's Kit).
Would a potion brewed in the Mwangi Expanse have the same color, smell and taste as the same type of potion brewed in say, Tian-Xia, given that Potions & Oils are just liquid forms of spells and so require the same material components? I wasn't sure if it made more sense to assume that like Potions & Oils had the same look and/or flavor, regardless of where or by whom they were made, if nothing else but for the sake of simplicity, or if cultural or environmental differences made slight differences in the finished potions.
That's up to the GM. My preference is yes, they would have the same properties, because we don't have different Spellcrafts for different regions of the world. I'm not sure what complicating magic item identification would add to the game other than frustration.
Personally I'd say that potions would probably taste different depending on where they were made and what materials were available but that the components are only a small part of the potion or oil - what a Spellcraft check is looking at is the magic inside the potion or oil, like how some objects is space are analysed by observing the radiation they give off. For non-spellcasters with the skill, I'd say they'd have to use some external implements for it but small, common stuff not worth tracking on the sheet (just consider them part of the skill ranks) and watching how they react to what's inside the bottle to try and determine its effects.
That's just how I've always seen it working at least so take it for what you will. Doesn't change anything mechanically and adds a bit of extra flavour to the skill.
Ah, just noticed you wanted us to make them level 2. Should have Xan up there in a few minutes or so. I'm fine either way, but I assume we're not getting bonus gold for starting above level 1? Just checking - I'm fine for starting with average gold.
Level 2 HP:
1d10 + 4 ⇒ (2) + 4 = 6
EDIT: And there we go, Xantria Aldori is now at level 2.
Drawback there is that the AP doesn't deal with Brevoy much at all beyond the opening setup - you're always dealing with threats and politics in the River Kingdoms. Brevoy doesn't become involved in the PC's kingdom, you never go up there as part of the campaign; there'd never be a chance to learn about the nation because you're so far away from it for the whole duration of the AP.
Here are the pages on the wiki for Brevoy and the River Kingdoms if you're curious. More info than what's in the Player's Guide. The wiki's a great help and if you just look at religions, nations or specific cities, you can get plenty of stuff to help flesh out a character without spoiling anything for yourself.
The problem is that there are enough similarities that, by the time a reader finds the differences, they've already written the character off as a carbon-copy. And that's assuming they even read far enough to find the differences which, from my read, don't really come up til about the fourth paragraph of the Personality spoiler. By then, a lot of people will have given up reading on, thinking that you've just copied Lelouch exactly.
Besides which, the Orlovsky family in Golarion aren't rulers of anywhere - save perhaps some land around Brevoy and having a say in the King's court. The way you've got the background written gives the impression that Charles is the ruler of a whole nation, when Brevoy's current ruler is from House Surtova - King-Regent Noleski Surtova. And for the 200 years before that, House Rogarvia ruled. And before that, Brevoy hadn't been formed and was still two different nations - Rostland and Issia. So how your character bringing a single noble family down is going to help things is pretty debatable. Especially considering that the entirety of House Rogarvia vanished and the nation quickly organised themselves and appointed a regent.
Which is more-or-less what I was getting at when I posted Xantria here (granted, that was more out of a foolish hope rather than a solid belief the thread would get anywhere) - it's fine to use characters from other sources for inspiration, but don't just make a carbon-copy. I just overlooked the obvious possibility that Chris mentioned - that most GMs will bin a carbon-copy the moment they recognise it.
And one other thing while I think of it:
Lelouch Vi Orlovsky wrote:
A lot of GM'S ask for a complete build and so putting a ton of effort in, and rolling well but never having your characters picked when you've rolled well isn't fun in the slightest.
This is why I just stick to working out the concepts and maybe doing some preliminary stuff to see if the idea's viable - like an intelligent barbarian (something I've been wanting to use in RotRL, JR or SStar once it really sunk in that PF's Barbarians aren't Illiterate). Sometimes I'll see a class I want to try and I start getting ideas on what sort of character it could be. Other times I might be reading through an adventure or something and something about a room's layout or an encounter's design somehow prompts a mental image of a character facing that encounter and what they might do. I might also see a class feature, ability or spell and get an idea of how I might portray it in a PbP game - this last one's been a real pain since I got the Iron Kingdoms RPG core book; damn dual-class system keeps giving me character ideas.
Often I'll have a character's background and personality already outlined in my head - nothing detailed but the core points are there - and I save statting them out in full for when a game for them comes along. And if they don't get in, then I just copy-paste the now-completed character into a notepad file and save them for a later game, adapting them as-needed to the campaign and the GM's allowed sources/character-creation rules. Usually; this just requires a slight change to starting gold/equipment and ability scores - it's why I stick to using sheets on Myth Weavers; most of the calculations on there are automated.
If I do decide to stat a character up in full before a game for them comes along, I'll stick to 20 point-buy and average starting gold. Most GMs use these so it's easy enough to adapt from there.
In any event, the other potential issue is that 2d6+6 is not a common request from what I've experienced. I think if you want to have a pool of potential player threads (which isn't a bad idea actually), best to go with a 15 or 20 point build as that is what the majority of GM's seem to request for AP's (except for in the case of WoW which has the focus/foible method). Such a thread might actually be particularly useful for replacing players very quickly if need be.
It's easy enough to adjust the ability scores - Xantria started off with 20 point-buy and I adjusted her for the 2d6+6-using game that prompted the OP to make this thread.
I do agree with using 20 point-buy as a base for a thread like this, though.
I really like* those people who do what a friend of mine once referred to as "island hopping": driving faster than everyone else, overtaking other vehicles and/or changing lanes into the smallest gap, only because they think they get a speed advantage by that.
Speeding in broad daylight within city limits is basically senseless. You have to stop at the next traffic light anyway.
*no, I don't
Ah, those guys - saw one doing that on Ruthven St last weekend. I think the longest he spent in one lane was while waiting for the lights to change. Otherwise he seemed to be changing lanes every few seconds. Bloody nutcase.
Reminds me of a stand-up bit Dave Allen did on his show. Think it was sometime in the 70s or 80s (I just got it on a DVD with clips from all over his career) where he was talking about keeping yourself entertained in traffic jams. It's at the start of this video for those who want to see it.
The best is when the speed daemons that almost ran you off the road are right beside you again at the next traffic signal; maybe even better--when it changes and they're actually behind you because your lane just happens to move faster.
Or better yet; on a long, inter-city drive. Some bugger roars past you, doing half-again the speed limit at the least. Twenty minutes later you catch up to him because a cop's pulled him over for speeding.
Happened when I was driving down to Sydney for a holiday last year, think I was laughing about that for the next half-hour.
I just get annoyed at people who think Ruthven St is 70kph just because it's four lanes. There are signs, you blind, lead-footed gits; it's 60! Worst bit is that the stretch where this happens the most is outside a primary school. Then a high school further along. I swear; the people they get to do the children's crossing outside the primary school must have nerves of bloody steel! That street's a madhouse of a morning and afternoon and you've got half the people on there racing along at bloody 70!
One thing that is amusing about those lead-foots, though, is when they overtake you, roar past with the accelerator as far down as they can push it without breaking the damn pedal off and about a minute later have to stop and get stuck going at the speed limit again with no chance to overtake. Very cathartic to see that happen. Was driving along a few weeks or so ago and this great big 4-wheel-drive is practically tail-gating the bloke behind me for a few hundred metres, gets sick of the speed limit so roars past us. Go around the next corner and see that he's joined the long line of other cars stuck at a railway crossing. Congratulations, mate; you shaved five seconds off your trip, hope it was worth the petrol you burnt up passing me like that!
The popular story about how hard-to-kill Rasputin was was pure propaganda his killers spread. They just shot him in the back of the head, dumped the body and called it a night.
At the very least, the bit about baking cyanide into a cake is total bulldust - even if a lethal amount could survive the baking process, Raspy had a bad stomach and wouldn't have eaten it anyway.
You forgot number 11. Drivers who don't turn their indicators on until just as they're turning the wheel.
Half the time if those smegheads turned them on normally, I could've gotten into the other lane to go around them rather than getting stuck there til the oncoming traffic cleared enough for him to turn.
There's been some real shockers here in Toowoomba. You might need Google Earth and a reminder that we drive on the left down here, but anyway.
So, there's a street downtown that gets a fair bit of traffic called Victoria St. It's a two-lane, one-way street between the town library and a shopping centre. Runs South-to-North.
Now when you turn right to get into it off Herries St at the South end of it; there are two turning lanes, one for each lane in the street itself, and it's marked so that you stay in a particular lane, letting both turning lanes enter the street at the same time without a problem.
So I'm in the left one of those two turning lanes one day and while me and the guy in the other turning lane are making the turn, I look over and see that the stupid git's drifting over towards me! I slam on the brakes (thanking whatever deity was listening that there wasn't anyone behind me) and the idiot's gone into the left-hand lane from the right-hand turning lane almost wiping me out in the process! He must've thought it was a two-way street and that he had to be in the left lane because he turned right up a side-street partway down cutting right across the right lane. If someone else had been in that lane he could've been wiped out!
Another time, I was heading out along Ruthven St, out north to see a mate of mine. Now, Ruthven's a four-lane street, one of the city's main arteries and at the area I was in (north of North St) there's a big nature strip between the north and south-bound lanes. There's a ramp partway down that's for people to turn right off Ruthven into Kate St, like an exit ramp on a highway but much smaller. Now that's only for people turning right into Kate St because it's only one-car wide. So I'm driving along and I see some total smeghead driving down the ramp, drives about fifty or so metres down Ruthven on the wrong bloody side and pulls into a driveway!
If I or someone else had been wanting to go up that ramp to get into Kate, it would've been a head-on collision! He wasn't going slow or anything, he was going as fast as he could! Probably because he wanted to spend as little time as possible going that way as he could. Frankly, it would've been safer for him to go about a hundred or so metres further south and make a U-Turn.
EDIT: Actually, zooming right into Street View should help a lot. Current street view photos have cars on the street so you can see how the traffic is supposed to go.
Sadly, the GM said that he'd close recruitment at midnight, Thursday night (Pacific Time). And I think that was two hours ago. Feel free to correct me, though, I don't know what time it is Pacific Time.
Tieflings are seen with anything ranging from suspicion to immediate hostility. A tiefling had best hide his heritage in Mendev, or otherwise balance out the tiefling stuff by obviously being a paladin or good cleric or something like that—and even then, they'll face prejudice.
Aasimars on the other hand are treated VERY well, to the extent that often aasimars get overwhelmed and frustrated and annoyed at the pesky humans being overly adoring. Others automatically assume the aasimar is going to judge or arrest or scold them, and are antagonistic as a pre-emptive bit of behavior.
Both reactions tend to make tieflings and aasimars feel awkward and often unwelcome among crusaders.
All that said... I think a tiefling or aasimar PC would be a REALLY fun character to play in Wrath of the Righteous.
I figured that would be the case, but wanted to make sure. Got an aasimar Aldori Swordlord I've been trying to get into some Kingmaker games here and on Myth Weavers who left Nerosyan because her parents kept suggesting she join a paladin order or the like.
Now to decide between an Angel-Blooded Aasimar or a Demon-Spawn Tiefling. At least I'm not pressed for time. :P
This may be a stupid question, but is there anywhere on Golarion that tieflings don't get the short end of the societal stick?
How are tieflings and aasimar seen in Mendev? Particularly in Nerosyan?
I'm tempted to make a paladin of either species for Wrath of the Righteous. You've said yourself that the core concept of WotR (stemming a demonic invasion) is a cliché so I figure why not use it as an excuse for a character with a cliché core concept as well? Just add a few things to make them stand out, maybe make them a bit laid-back or relaxed about things until his code requires him to step in, and it could work.
That the Australian Evacuation of Gallipoli in World War 1 was originally predicted to suffer 50% casualties? The commander who originally gave this estimate (General Sir Ian Hamilton, who was more worried about damage to British Prestige) was soon replaced with one who projected 30% casualties; Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Monro. The actual casualties sustained during the evacuation? Two wounded.
How? Two cunning tricks. The first was the drip rifle, or Scurry Rifle, devised by then-Lance-Corporal William Scurry. Two tins, some string, some water and a box of rocks created an improvised delayed firing mechanism for a rifle - water would drip down from one tin into the other, eventually exerting enough force to drop the box of rocks and pull the trigger. This could give the Turks the impression that the trenches were still manned even after everyone in there had buggered-off twenty minutes ago.
The second was a bit of mental conditioning. Several times, at different points of the trenches, the Aussies would stop firing. The Turks would wonder what was going on and approach cautiously over No Man's Land, thinking the Australians had left or suffered some other setback. Naturally, No Man's Land got a bit messier when the Aussies popped out of cover at the last minute and opened fire on the exposed Turks. They repeated this ruse a few times and eventually, the Turks stopped falling for it. Meaning the long delay in firing as the troops evacuated was seen as just another attempt at an ambush. An impression that lasted longer thanks to Scurry's self-firing rifles. By the time the Turks realised that it wasn't another ambush and went to check, all they found were empty trenches with the Aussies well away.
Heh, doesn't bother me much - Aasimar have no negative ability score modifiers. I'm just hoping to get something higher than a 13 so I can get her old intelligence back (I'm using all of my skill points just for the pre-reqs for the Swordlord PrC) - hard to be a proper Swordlord without Combat Expertise, after all.
2d6 + 6 ⇒ (4, 5) + 6 = 15
EDIT: Impersonating one of Tycho's lines from Poker Night At The Inventory
That'll do dice, that'll do. >:D
If you roll less than a 10, reroll. I want no stat lower than 8 after racial modifiers. Your characters are heroes! and they'll die horribly if they're too weak...
Reroll the whole set or just the one roll below 10?
EDIT: If you can't find them on the sheet - I put Xantria's traits down in the Character Traits box near the bottom of the sheet, it's under the section for spells. The campaign trait is, naturally, Sword Scion.
Assuming the stat-rolls work out, I'm hoping to submit Xantria Aldori (formerly Belacos), an Angel-Blooded Aasimar Aldori Swordlord, to this. Her sheet's linked in the profile (I had her in a Kingmaker game on Myth Weavers that died the morning after the group arrived at Oleg's so figured, why throw the sheet away?) along with all of her fluff.
What templates would you consider applying to the child of a summoner and their Eidolon?
The "Im not sure that appropriate and its kinda creepy template".
That's sad. I kinda thought it was cool and potentially interesting and a logical outgrowth of the 'close personal relationship between a summoner and an Eidolon (provided you do it right)'. Oh well.
Is there a universal dislike of the summoner among the higher ups at Paizo?
It could just be that Jason's first image on hearing the word eidolon are weird creatures. Look at the one the Iconic summoner has - looks like a chicken crossed with an iguana.
Speaking of the Iconic summoner, any word on when we'll get his background? I think he's the only one who doesn't have a backstory yet.
If you want/need more info for Xantria, let me know. I've got some other info on Ureste (the other Swordlord apprentice she fought) lying around somewhere for a start.
Strictly-speaking, the only books you need to purchase for running Jade Regent is the Jade Regent books themselves - everything else you need is free in the PRD and organised by sourcebook.
If they were then their full statblocks would've been put into the adventure books - they do that for anything that can't be found on the PRD for free; monsters, templates, classes, feats, etc. They spell those out so you don't have to go buying another book.
Since two Kingmaker games I've been in on Myth Weavers died in under a month (GM for the first one disappeared and the game was instantly archived a few posts after we reached Oleg's while the second petered out the morning after the party arrived at Oleg's) I'm certainly up for this.
I can post just about every day, though I'm in Australia so time zones may cause some delays (for reference, Queensland is GMT+10).
Not in any PbP games here on the Paizo boards but I've been pretty regular over on Myth Weavers. Currently in a Rogue Trader game over there as well as a Jade Regent one (which is looking to be yet another victim of Vanishing GM Syndrome). Was in a great Council of Thieves campaign as well before the GM had to leave the site (I'd rather not say why for her sake, she told the players but I doubt she'd want me blabbing it on here).
The character I had in those stillborn Kingmaker games was an Angel-Blooded Aasimar from Mendev who travelled to Restov partly to get away from her parents constantly saying she should become a paladin to join the crusades against the Worldwound but mainly to try and become an Aldori Swordlord. She joined the expedition for two reasons; firstly, to better prove herself as a Swordlord and also from being badly defeated by a fellow aspiring Swordlord which made her realise that she needed some proper combat experience if she was going to beat him in a rematch.
Here's the full background if you're curious and her sheet from Myth Weavers. Can't recall what the second Kingmaker campaign had as rules for starting gold but that's easy enough to sort out if I get accepted into this one.
Spoiler:
Born in Mendev's capital city of Nerosyan, Xantria's celestial heritage instantly made people believe she would join the clergy or one of the numerous paladin orders that kept a presence in the city and would go on to help fight the demonic hordes of the Worldwound. Of course; batter this expectation over a child's head practically from the day she's born and don't be surprised when that becomes the last thing they want to do. She received some sword-training from her father - one of the conventional soldiers who fought in the crusades but was discharged for injury. Hard to fight as effectively with only one arm. Xan went with it, though more for the simple practicality of it and to stay in shape than from any desire to join the crusades or become a paladin.
After an off-hand remark about how she was being taught more to fight with one arm than with both, her father got her a book about the Aldori Swordlords of Restov - supremely skilled swordsmen who's techniques primarily relied on using the Aldori duelling sword with just one hand. The book was meant just to show Xan that there were no inherent flaws in fighting with just one arm, provided one learnt other techniques to support it, but the young aasimar ended up taking something very different from it - a burning desire to become a Swordlord herself.
Every coin she got off her parents almost instantly went into purchasing books containing stories of the Swordlords and could soon recite the legend of Sirian Aldori by heart. Apparently, her parents never noticed the growing obsession until, on her 18th birthday, she announced that he would travel to Brevoy and train to become a Swordlord. It seems that her parents had taken her joining a paladin order as a given and were naturally shocked by the change. While they reluctantly agreed to let her go, Xan is sure that they still harbour some belief that she would join an order when she returned and put the Aldori training to use alongside whatever training the paladin orders gave.
For the last two years, she has trained under a rather blunt (and somewhat alcoholic) Swordlord who explained that the aasimar would never really be accepted as one until she did something to prove herself worthy of the title. Or as he put it: "You're gonna have to beat the crap outta some real badasses if you ever wanna be called a Swordlord instead of a stupid foreign kid in way over her head!" It wasn't the most eloquent way of putting it, but Xan got the point. So when the call came for people willing to help expand into the Stolen Lands, Xan saw it as the perfect way to gain the renown she needed to be seen as a true Swordlord.
EDIT: I also wrote out the fight with the other apprentice partly out of boredom but also at the prompting of the second game's GM:
Spoiler:
"You took your time," I said as Ureste arrived. I'd chosen a quiet corner of a local park for this and he was already ten minutes late.
"I'm sorry, really, you'd be surprised at how many of the street merchants out today decided to indulge in a little 'hard sell'," he explained calmly, as though this was just a couple of friends hanging out, "you can't just walk away after all."
"Save it Ureste, you know why I asked you to come here."
"I apologise for all that - some of my subordinates have been getting a little rowdy-"
"They used my friend as a hostage and you call that 'a little rowdy'?! Even before that, they've been beating the crap out of people who don't deserve it. You need to stop all this, it's pointless."
"Pointless?" he said, something about his demeanour shifted, became colder. "And what about it is pointless? Every fight makes us stronger and we're getting criminals off the streets."
"And into medical care they shouldn't need. I'm not going to talk this out with you, though, because I know you won't listen." I walked back over to where I'd left my cloak and sword, picking up a pair of objects and tossing one to Ureste. A curved length of wood, roughly the same shape, size and balance of an Aldori duelling sword.
"Ureste Kantrel, on your honour as a disciple of the Aldori Swordlords of Restov, I challenge you to a practice duel and name the disbandment of your gang as my prize."
Ureste paused for a moment, looking me over. I swear to Cayden; if he decides I'm his prize in any way, I'm just gonna grab my real sword and kill him. Finally, he spoke as he picked up the practice blade I'd thrown him. "Your right gauntlet."
"That's all?" I asked. It may sound like a small price, but these gauntlets were a gift from my parents - about the only gift they'd given me that didn't suggest I become a paladin or some other religious warrior. They might be pushy, but they were still my parents and I didn't want to give away half of the one gift from them that I actually liked.
"The right one has an engraving that isn't on the left, it's written in Celestial so I can't read the whole thing, but I do recognise the characters for 'Mother' and 'Father'. I'd guess that it's from your parents - who I believe are still in Mendev - and means a lot to you. My men mean a lot to me so I consider it a fair prize."
I hesitated for a moment. We'd never sparred before, but from what I heard Ureste was at least my equal. Odds were that he was better than me. But I was the one who'd issued the challenge and I couldn't just back out now. Not when the prizes (to an outside party at least) seemed to be in my favour.
"Fine, I accept your named prize." I said, readying my blade. My acceptance also doubled as the signal for the fight to begin. One of the first lessons I'd learnt from Master Larek was that whoever landed the first blow was typically the victor. I rushed forward, swinging my blade in a horizontal swing from my right. It clattered against Ureste's own as he parried my strike up so it would harmlessly pass over his head. A common parry when one couldn't get one's body out of reach of an attack and I was ready, letting him guide my blade up as I turned the strike into a downward blow towards his head. Realising what I was doing, he leapt back, thought I felt my blade graze him.
As he readied his stance again, I saw Ureste touch his face where a faint red scratch ran from just above his eyebrow and down to his cheek. If I'd been using a real blade, that injury would take that eye out of the fight altogether whether the actual organ was damaged or not - all the blood from the top part of the cut would flow down, forcing it shut. Sadly, this wasn't a real fight and all I'd done was scratch him. I did see a faint smile on his face, though - perhaps he'd underestimated me and was glad to be proven wrong.
Whatever it was, I pressed the attack, bringing a two-handed swing from my left this time which he simply blocked, using his off-hand against the back of his sword's 'blade' to help absorb some of the force. Except that the blow never landed as I relaxed my wrist just before impact, shifting my blade past his in a feint that turned into a stab towards his chest. He was quick, though, bringing his sword across his body to parry the stab away. He'd turned too quickly, though, and left his back exposed. I used some of the momentum from his parry to quickly spin myself around and swing from my left once more. This time, his block did work.
He quickly pushed my blade away and retaliated with his own faster than I could follow. I felt the heavy wood hit my left shoulder as it exploded in pain. It was the first time my shoulder had been dislocated like that and all I could experience was pain.
"Don't worry; a good physician should have that arm back in its socket and good as new, provided you don't strain it too much here." I heard Ureste say. I felt some of my pain subside and be replaced with anger at what I knew his next suggestion was going to be. "I'd suggest yielding now, otherwise you might never become a Swordlord."
I calmed myself as I knelt and set my blade on the ground. "I'm not going to surrender," I said as I used my good arm to grab my opposite wrist and bring the hand to my belt. I couldn't move the arm, but I still had control of the hand, which gripped my belt so that it would stay out of the way and wouldn't fly about while I continued fighting. I'd heard stories of one Swordlord who continued by gripping the sleeve of his useless arm in his teeth. I'd have done the same if my top even had sleeves. Picking up my blade and standing again, I faced Ureste. "So bring it - you want to beat me, you're gonna have to do more than a little smack on the shoulder."
I punctuated the remark with a series of rapid strikes aimed at numerous parts of his body - a stab to the chest, a swing at his head, a slash at a knee, an overhand swing at his shoulder then going for his stomach on the backswing. None of them even grazed his clothing. Whatever trouble he'd had blocking and parrying my attacks before was now gone - he somehow knew exactly how I was going to strike and used the bare minimum of movement to protect himself. When he parried hard enough to push my blade well out of position, he struck my right thigh from the side and once more my world consisted of nothing but pain. He'd broken my leg.
As my vision cleared, I found myself lying on my back as Ureste knelt down beside me. "I have to admit, you surprised me," he said, "but I still won so I'll take my prize." I felt him lift my right arm and start to unbuckle the gauntlet. I tried to pull my arm away from him, but it was like my muscles had forgotten how strong they really were. I clenched my hand into a fist to stop him taking it off, which worked for a time. Until he stood and put his foot down on the break in my leg. By the time the gauntlet was off, I was unconscious.
I came to in my room at Master Larek's place. Panicking for a moment, I checked my arm and leg, finding both perfectly fine.
"Hope you're happy, kid," a gruff voice said from the doorway, "had to call in a favour from a healer. Was hopin' to save that for somethin' important." Master Larek was a giant of a man - something all the more surprising when you realised he was a half-elf - and was leaning in the doorway to my room, a bottle of ale in-hand.
"Let me guess," I said, "you followed me?" Larek choked a bit on a mouthful of ale as I spoke.
"W-well I wanted to see what my disciple was capable of, didn't think you'd get your ass kicked that badly." Larek wasn't much of a liar - if he'd been watching the whole fight, I was sure he'd been desperate to help me, but a Swordlord doesn't interfere in their disciple's fights. "So what're you gonna do now? That kid beat the crap outta you and you barely scratched him."
"I'm not giving up, if that's what you're asking."
"Alright, just makin' sure. Oh yeah; he put these in your pocket after you passed out." he handed me a few papers.
"Wait; I don't have any pockets."
"Well he, erm, put them in your, uh... 'lady's pocket'."
"Oh gods! He had his hand in my cleavage?!"
"Well maybe if you wore some normal pants for a change that wouldn't be an issue! Just read the damn letter, I gotta go buy some more booze."
Pushing the mental image of where Ureste had put his hands aside, I read the note.
"Xantria,
Sorry about where I left the letter- "Well so much for getting rid of that mental image," I remarked out-loud. but I figured you deserved to know what I was doing in that duel. It's a technique I learnt from a swordsman from Minkai, the Seikuken. It uses a deep clarity of mind, combined with a perfect awareness of your own reach and the rhythm of your opponent's attacks to create a sphere of total control around yourself. The diagram on the following page should help.
I know it sounds strange, like it's something every fighter has, but comparing that basic awareness to the Seikuken is like comparing a newly-hatched dragon to an ancient wyrm. I don't know if this is enough for you to learn the Seikuken yourself, but if you ever do manage to master it, I'll be happy to give you a rematch and a chance to win back your gauntlet.
The diagram he provided was basically a person demonstrating the reach of their weapon, with a circle drawn around them to highlight it. I understood the principle but how this 'Seikuken' differed from the basics I had no idea. And yet, whatever difference there was was enough to leave me broken on the ground in just two blows and barely dealing a scratch in return. Whatever gap was between me and Ureste, it wasn't going to be closed with just normal training - I needed real combat experience.
Most of the stuff where they just have a reference instead of full stats is stuff from the core books, which you can find on the Pathfinder Reference Document for free (it's the PRD link to the left, in the Links box under the search).
Has Bestiaries 1-3, the Ultimates, Gamemastery Guide, Advanced Player's Guide, Advanced Races Guide and, of course, the core book.
