SirUrza's page

What if the king (or queen) doesn't want to get married? What if he (or she) wants a harem? Is that considered? :)

This gnome and dwarf loving I've been seeing in this thread is creepy!

This is exactly what DTiles is great at doing. You can create your own tiles however you need them to be - and you can do it really, really fast!

Hmm DTiles looks more like a map tool software that lets you print out to scale..

SamuraiSpirit wrote:

And how did they all come together as a team? How did the meet?

They're not really one big team. There is a quartet of them in each AP and module, but it's always a different quartet.

Maybe if and when there will be fiction about the iconics, we learn more about their group dynamics.

My theory is that Lem and/or Merisiel is to blame for them all meeting. :)

None.

I'd have Attribute scores, modified by Race, modified by Class. Everything else would be skill based, including attacks/spells.

Wow, this thread is back. Let me say I don't think we get enough Seoni fan service. :)

Can you give me an example of a difference that you have noticed?

What he said. :)

I was actually thinking of some sort of new product. I do not want to speak for all gamers, but I for one like hardcover monster adventures. I realize that this sounds a lot like an AP, but I was thinking more of a dungeon crawl or some sort of supersized module.

It's been suggested before and they basically said that in order to do a mega adventure they would have to cancel the modules or an adventure path that year to have the resources to do one.

IMHO, most of us can't/don't (play) keep up with the rate of the monthly adventure paths come out anyway, a "new" hardcover mega adventure from Paizo is just something else that many gamers won't use.

At the moment, there's no plan to compile them outside of Pathfinder, but if you're looking for more novel-sized Pathfinder fiction, there's going to be an announcement very soon....

Terrible tease.

skip williams wrote:

"Characters who know a confrontation is about to commence might want to ready actions. Doing so would bend the rules because you're not supposed to use the ready action until after an encounter starts. The DM, however, might want to allow readying in this special situation. In any case, ready is an action itself, and the character with the readied action must give up other preparations."

Yeap, bending the rules. By the rules you can't.

Quote:

Remember, just because I say "I punch him" before initiatives are rolled doesn't mean I get to attack him first if he's going to fight back.

Even if he's not going to try and fight back until after you try and punch him?

Well then that's completely different.

If we're dealing with a "standoff" kind of situation, where neither side is attempting any combat actions, then the first one to attempt a combat action (including a "Ready Action") would be the first to have their action resolved because all "earlier" actors in that round have taken the delay action by not attempting any action.

It's up to the DM.

Think of a western standoff. Everyone's looking at each, hand on holstered pistol. Initiative COULD represents that supernatural quickness to draw and fire the gun first, even if the other guy attempted to draw and shoot first.

Surprise rounds only happen when the "target" is unaware of you.

In either case, if combat is unavoidable a smart DM would make everyone roll initiative. You then have your choice of readied action, pass, or attack.

If we're dealing with a situation where there is no confrontation/combat issue until some action occurs (like the guy with the crossbow knows that he and his buddies have set up the opponents for a double cross, so there are about to be blows exchanged that the other guys do not know are coming), then there would be surprise issues. If the non-confrontational situation allows the crossbow to be drawn, cocked and aimed without arising suspicion (sense motive and/or perception checks would seem in order here), then the ready action should certainly be allowed and the resulting conditional...

Nope, because even if it's drawn and ready, it doesn't mean the person holding it is aware, focused, and what not. Also, if you're pointed it at me, I may be "fast enough" to react before you can shoot. Thus initiative has to be rolled, it's why it exists.

The ONLY time surprise rounds happen are when "targets" are unaware. Confrontational or not.

I could see them getting reprinted one day in the novel line as a sort of "Best of" or even an anthology of Pathfinder Society short stories. But I don't think they have any specific plans to reprint articles out of each AP volume.

So an anniversary edition that updates the out-of-print Rise of the Runelords to PFRPG rules is interesting. The ruleset update satisfies the requirements of reinvention to at least some degree; then, so long as we made it clear that this was a one-time exception, and that waiting for, say, a complete Kingmaker compilation would probably be fruitless, that could satisfy the "not training people to wait" rule.

I would think that an "anniversary edition" would mandate at the very least a few new pages. To me, this means a new "anniversary edition forward" which would leave plenty of room to explain the purpose compilation (pathfinder's 5th anniversary,) it can't be used as an example of compilations coming. What you guys do for the 10th anniversary could and probably will be something different depending on customer trends. :)

Yes and no. It depends on the situation. Think of a sniper situation when the target is unaware of your presence. In such a case you'd be readying a surprise round action and then when you use the action (shooting the target in the surprise round) and then normal combat begins.

However, the way D&D combat works, when you're face to face, they're aware of you, so the moment you take a hostile action it triggers combat, initiatives are rolled, and if you don't get the initiative, well then you don't have an action yet.

Remember, just because I say "I punch him" before initiatives are rolled doesn't mean I get to attack him first if he's going to fight back.

Tavern talk. I'm sure sometime after the goblin attack the PCs will get something to drink. When they do, it's a great time for a PC to overhear to people talking about bad omens and mention her and curses and the link. :)

Anyway, if a lot of people will opt for quarterly shipment, there will be a lot of stuff sitting around in some warehouse taking up space, costing space money, and not getting payed for.

Alternatively though, bimonthly or quarterly subscriptions could be "billed when available, no refunds." So instead of billing at shipping, they bill immediately and then bill for shipping when the sub ships. Thus even if you cancel, you'll still have to pay the shipping fee since you're not getting your money back for the items being held for you.

According to "Lords of Darkness," an undead adventure pack/sourcebook from Forgotten Realms, First Edition AD&D,

Lords of Darkness p 19 wrote:

The presumed reason stems from the belief that elves are descendants of the god Corellon Larethian. Elven lore states that the purity of an elf's bloodline makes him h...

That's some great lore there. :)

If/when we reprint Big Game Hunter, I suspect that we'll give the attack and damage bonus a type, but I suspect that it'll still stack with favored enemy bonuses. It is, after all, a great feat for a ranger, both mechanically and thematically.

Will it come with a plastic red-orange rifle? :)

There are some great fan made ones as well. You will however need to search for them since I think many do not agree with the proper use rules that came out after they were made and as such had to be removed.

I did some. Heck I even still use one of the ones I made. :)

You'll have to identify what the "name" of the malware is. I'm sure you'll find plenty of instructions on completely removing it with a google search of the name.

The current PDF incorporates the errata and fixes we made to the first printing, so yes, it is indeed true. If your PDF says "second printing" on the bottom of the credits page, you have no need to repersonalize the file. When we do a 3rd printing (which will likely be pretty soon), we'll fix more of the typos and stuff, at which point you'll need to repersonalize it. At least... I THINK that's how it works on the user end... I can confirm, though, that we ARE incorporating the errata every time we reprint.

That's awesome that you guys identify stuff like that. Means I can purchase a new printed copy in a year or two and know it's up to date.

Goblins first.

And then Iconic plushies. :)

The only reason I can think NOT to take two-weapon fighting as a rogue is if you wanted to build a rogue that uses ranged attacks with a bow or crossbow.

Yay for Google Chrome.

I'll let Wes chime in with more details, but basically, we determine who writes the blog by a) who volunteers to write something and b) who gets stuck writing something if there is nobody volunteering. Who writes something in the latter case depends on who is closest to the project that we decide needs to have a blog.

That's it? No drawing straws? Epic nerf gun fights? Hide and go seek? Disappointing. :)

If you guys want Rise of the Runelords in a compilation hardcover I suggest petitioning for it when it's closer to it's 5 year anniversary. We might be able to sweet talk Lisa, Eric, and James into doing it then. :)

Ravenot wrote:

Grappling is worse, as it takes 2 successive grapple checks, 1 opposed grapple check, and two rounds to deal 6 to 8 damage.

I thought opposed grapple checks are completely gone, all being rolled into CMD.

I don't think he's playing pathfinder. :)

Here's a link to someone else's effort..

http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/adventurePa th/runelords/archives/rotRLInTheForgottenRealms

A DM can mitigate the problems of the system. They shouldn't have to, of course, but they can. Sometimes. But when there is power disparity within the party itself, it gets really hard. How do you challenge a group where one player can hit on a 2+ what everyone else needs 20s to hit? Or where one character isn't threatened except by spells that would wipe out the rest of the party?

Everyone needs 20s to hit.. wow. What, no spellcasters in the group?

In such a case you ignore the player who hits everything, he's going to hit everything ANYWAY.

Since you're obviously quite the FR fan, I can assume you're wanting to do this because R.A. Salvatore claims to have adapted some of his stories from roleplaying games. Unless they weren't playing D&D, the man is a liar. I have great respect for the man, but unless he took tremendous creative license with the player's actions there is just no way. Even great roleplayers don't just lie down and let the bad guy get away. They, most of all, strike back against every trope you throw their way. The plot would have...

Then you don't believe Ed Greenwood has done this as well with a lot of the Realms fluff?

Enough gold so the cavalier can buy a warhorse. :P

My crystal ball says no. Keep in mind the original Dungeon magazine adventure paths were Greyhawk... I don't know why everyone considers Greyhawk so neutral.

naked alchemists make extracts in a way I can't post about without violating the site's decency guidelines.

Indeed, but yoda8myhead does have a point.

The Fool wrote:

he

The word that made me lose all interest in this topic.

I was disappointed too. Now if we were talking a pretty female elf alchemist..

I have the hardbound version of The Shackled City, and though I love that they put it out (and would love to see Age of Worms hardbound), I much prefer the APs as they are now. They seem much easier to use and run.

Especially when you're running around with the great big Core Rulebook.

What I mean is that in 3rd edition, making a few bad choices or playing the wrong class put you behind the power curve very, very quickly.

Sweet! Power curves! It's awesome D&D doesn't have a flesh and blood, living DM who's job it is to evaluate what the PCs can handle and run adventure according.. wait...

Any way I could convince you to put all 6 books for each adventure path into larger hardbound books, and sell those?

Nope. They don't want people skipping on purchasing the individual books for the compilations.

I was just curious if there is any new info to update us on? I just recently got back into reading again and these would definitely be of interest to me.

Eric Mona teased... 2 weeks.

But then again he was wearing a three mask and kinda look like he had three breasts, so who knows what that means.

SirUrza wrote:

See, this is the part that really bothers me about D&D. Everyone tries to do Mass Combat "within the rules."

F@#$ the existing rules.

Which is exactly what Kingmaker will be doing. We've come up with some cool new rules, I think, to handle mass combats. Before we do an AP that's all about mass combats from start to end, though, I'd rather see how they work and interact with a single adventure in an AP. In this case, "War of the River Kings" in Pathfinder Adventure Path volume #35.

Well then this is make waving my fanboy flag once again. :)

I'd stick with fighter, you have enough feats to make him an archer if you want. Nothing in the Ranger classes says "Link ability" to me.

Paul Worthen wrote:

That's a big change from 3rd edition, where you were forced to optimize.

If you say so.

3rd edition allowed way more freedom if you ask me.

But the fact that the game doesn't really handle mass combat well (what we'll be doing in Kingmaker is a SUPER simplified method to handle it) means that we generally try to avoid anything that involves the PCs in big battles. It's not as much a creative choice as a logistical choice forced on us by the nature of what the rules can and can't do. If what we attempt in Kingmaker comes off well, that might change.

See, this is the part that really bothers me about D&D. Everyone tries to do Mass Combat "within the rules."

F@#$ the existing rules.

First off, it's mass combat. Let's say it's 25 on 25. No one wants to sit through 50 initiative rolls, 50 attack rolls. Are all 50 beings going to have their on character sheet? Certainly not! Why can't someone just make, use, or rip-off existing rules from one of the many wargames out there and stylize them to fit into a d20 game.

If the PCs are fighting together as a unit, then it's not really mass combat. Why? Well the PCs aren't commanding units, so what NPC commanders do becomes the realm of the DM and the DM should NOT be leaving such outcomes to chance. If the outcome hangs on the PCs succeeding in doing something (say killing the ogre mage general) then it's a standard encounter with essentially nameless, faceless, npcs fighting around the PCs as background elements.

SirUrza wrote:

I personally wish they'd just add a "Pass" feature so people subscribers could pass on items that were coming out.

It does sound like a good idea, but people might take advantage of that and "pass" on many products, only purchasing one or two products at discounted prices.

Simple, you loss your discount if you passed on last month's product. So people passing on the APs is as if they unsubscribed and thus lost their Advantage discount anyway.

and we're not making Dragon Dice.

Lol.. I can't believe you went there. :)

I want a major change every 5 years. Starting with open warfare between two nations (Cheliax/Andoran, Taldor/Qadira, Nex/Geb or perhaps a Mongol style invasion from Casmaron) in 2012.

*face palm*

Paizo should just spell plague the setting now and get it over with in that case.

GeraintElberion wrote:

If this book is re-released could it please not appear on the chronicles subscription.

If the reprint contains significantly more content, many people will want it both in print and pdf, so if it's not included in a subscription, it further increases the cost for many customers to upgrade, since they will have to purchase each format separately.

Ahh but you forget what they did BEFORE there was a subscription for every product line. Subscribers that preordered Pathfinder product that weren't organized into subscriptions yet got the PDFs for free anyway.

Same could be done with this if it were taken out of the general subscription rotation.

I personally wish they'd just add a "Pass" feature so people subscribers could pass on items that were coming out. Just set a hardline and set out an email the Monday before the deadline for Pass cut offs and everything out be good. Presumably the cut off date would be before they put in an order for the book so they know how many subscribers actually need.

James Jacobs wrote:

The MAIN reason we are hesitant to advance timelines is that is a great way to make your setting more unapproachable every time you print a new book. If we keep the timeline static and don't advance canon, then someone who gets into Golarion on day one starts at the same baseline as someone who gets into Golarion on day 1,001, and so on. It keeps the world a friendly and approachable place to new gamers. And that's good.

I agree with that and the constant changes of FR was a big turn off for me. I thought FR was well done and then they go and change things I loved. Anyways I am glad you guys are taking this approach with the setting.

Indeed. To me the Time of Troubles wasn't such a big deal. Some gods got shuffled around, some gods no one cared about died, and one big god died (he came back with no real backstory for 3e which was something a lot of fans were disappointed by too!) Post Time of Troubles, the Realms was pretty static from there through 3e. Yeah some stuff happened, but nothing that made books invalid. It's when 3.5 hit that the supplements were being obsoleted by the novels.. or the supplements were covering the events of the novels they were being marketed to be part of.

The biggest downfall to 4e Realms for me is the Timeline advancement. Even if you were ok with a god dying, a few npcs dying through the Spell Plague, the timeline advancement guarantees that EVERYONE ELSE has died of old age too. Political and social climates have changed and books that TSR published just can't be used anymore.

Luckily for the Eberron fans the 4e Realms backlash saved their setting. Unfortunately the 4e publishing strategy has left me feeling that 4e Eberron is Eberron-lite in that you need the 3e books to make up for all the missing material. But that's not really a problem for Eberron fans since they only got a dozen 3e supplements anyway.

(AND: The Pathfinder Novel Line will NOT be delving into vast, world-changing events. It's going to focus on smaller stories. It's probably better to compare what we're going for to the writing of authors like Robert E. Howard or Fritz Leiber, actually, than to the Forgotten Realms novels. There are some huge, epic stories about Conan, but the vast majority of them are pretty small scale that don't reshape the world after every "The End.")

None of the Realms fans wanted that, and when there was a cool The End, it wasn't supported in the RPG product anyway, which cheapened the novel line.

Callous Jack wrote:

Explain again why Paizo should drastically change the setting after only existing for a couple years?

To make good on their promises to tone down crazyness, the rampant level escalation, and the uber-NPCs syndrome, endemic to FR and similar settings? Or to make the setting less of FR clone in general, for that matter? Can you seriously explain why should I switch to Golarion from FR, if I already have quite a bit of books for the latter (which I do)? No, APs are not a decisive argument, FR is vast enough to cram them somewhere on the map with little problems.

And wasn't the downfall of the Realms not the uber-NPCs, but the continuous Realm Shaking Events that culminated into a super event?

Sorry, but wiping whole Nations off the map just seems too "Death of the Realms" to me.

The Realms might have it's flaws, the Realms might have reasons to criticize it, but it was VERY successful. Simple fact is, Ed Greenwood's novels about Elminster sold better then 90% (or more) of the other Realms novels. So some how Elminster didn't push that many people away from the Realms even if "uber-NPCs syndrome" was a problem.

I'd go with Cry Havoc or Advanced Gamemaster's Guide rules.

Advanced Gamemaster's Guide still happens to be on sale on Paizo btw. ;)

In regards to quality in DL fiction, I'd simply avoid anything that isn't written by Hickman or Weis. For me, Chronicles (trilogy) + Legends is easily the best, and everything else I regard as extra.

Same. The new Lost Chronicles trilogy is rather good because each is a filler novel for the gaps in the original Chronicles trilogy.