Skeld's page

As the title states, I would like to cancel my subscription to the RPG line. I would like to leave my other subscriptions as they are.

Thanks.

-Skeld

Any ideas?

Dear Most Awesome CS EvAr -

I'm obviously doing something wrong.

I bought some gift certificates a couple months ago in order to "bank" some fun money at Paizo. I've redeemed them, but they don't show up under store credit and I can't figure out how to spend them on the PFS scenarios I want to buy.

Thanks in advance!

-Skeld

Has anyone inserted the Megadungeon from dungeonaday into Golarion? I'm thinking about running a modified version for my next Pathfinder campaign and am interested in hearing where others have had successes or problems.

-Skeld

The Serpent's Skull AP hasn't made it to my reading list yet (I haven't had the free time). However, I've looked the issues-to-date over and wonder how well the AP would convert over to a 1930's pulp-styled campaign using the Savage Worlds rules?

Any folks running/reading the AP with SW experience care to comment?

-Skeld

I know some of this has been changing as of late, so I want to ask this to make sure I'm clear on the answer.

If I GM a PFS scenario and only muster 3 players, under PPP (Play, Play, Play!), I need to run a pre-gen so that we have a legal table of 4 characters.

Instead, can I run (as the GM) a personal PFS character (registered and legit) instead of the pre-gen?

I realize the answer here is likely "no," but I'd like to point out that running a personal character makes sense for some of the following reasons:
1) Under the updated GM credit rule, one of my characters would get credit for the scenario anyway.
2) The current pre-gens are only valid at discreet levels, such that if the players' characters are level 3, the GM pre-gen is forced to play up. [This might happen with a GM character as well, but the possibility of a better match is greater.]
3) The pre-gens currently lack options. Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, & Wizard are staples of an iconic adventuring party, but perhaps it would be more interesting to run an Alchemist to give the players a chance to see other classes in action.
4) A GM running a 1-shot pre-gen doesn't have anything invested in the pre-gen character. Consumables, life, death, etc. are not as much of a concern.

I know there are counter-points to what I've mentioned above, but I wanted to bring this up to get an answer and test the waters for any further changes.

-Skeld

Hypothetical situation: James Jacobs gets invited to a Pathfinder iconic-themed Halloween party. Due to PF's obvious lack of a Tyrannosaurus iconic, James is forced to dress as one of the other 18 iconics. Which should he dress as?

My preference, and solely for the irony of James' well-documented dislike for Dwarves: Harsk.

Please state your preference and reasoning.

-Skeld

Reposted from EN World.

LINK.

For your consumption.

-Mark

PS: Vote for me in the upcoming ENnies Judge election!

An interesting article that we could have used around here a couple years ago when the Alpha/Beta Playtests started up.

I saw this over at ENWorld this morning and wanted to link it up here for general consumption.

-Skeld

I want an avatar of this.

-Skeld

I have always disliked 3e's static DCs for Diplomacy checks. Pathfinder is an improvement, but still doesn't scratch my itch. I'm curious if anyone is using (or considering) Diplomacy as either an opposed check or as an "attack." I was thinking about the mechanics for these two methods. What do you think of the following:

Opposed Check: When using Diplomacy, the PC makes a Diplomacy check opposed by the NPC they are talking or debating with. If the PC wins the roll by 5 or more, the NPC moves up the attitude scale by 1 step. If the PC fails the opposed check by 5 or more, the NPC moves down the attitude scale by 1 step. During the course of a single encounter, a PC cannot move an NPC up or down the scale by more than 2 steps relative to the NPC's starting attitude.

Diplomacy "Attack": When using Diplomacy, the PC makes a Diplomacy check to set the DC of the "attack." The NPC is allowed a Will save versus the DC set by the PC's Diplomacy check. The NPC moves 1 step up the attitude scale on a failed save. The NPC's save is successful, their attitude remains the same, unless they beat the save DC by 5 or more, in which case their attitude moves down the scale by 1 step. Again, during the course of a single encounter, a PC cannot move an NPC up or down the scale by more than 2 steps relative to the NPC's starting attitude.

Currently, I'm leaning toward the opposed check method.

Thoughts?

-Skeld

I started playing D&D when I was 12 in 1985 with the Basic D&D Red Box Set. For those of you with similar stories, this should be nostalgic.

WOTC has a new "Red Box" coming out this September that is a 4E starter set.

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it yet. It's a box set, includes dice, a player guide, a DM guide, and some other goodies. Interestingly, only Human, Elf, Dwarf, and Halfling are playable races. Only Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, & Wizard are playable classes.

I'm not a 4e fan, but this might be worth checking out (MSRP = $20, currently). My big question is, since the PG includes a solo adventure, WILL BARGLE RETURN!?!

-Skeld

Hey guys -

Is anyone else having a problem downloading PF#28? When I download the ZIP and open it up, it appears empty. It's downloading 26.2 Mb worth of *something*.

I've repersonalized it to no avail. Also, I downloaded Masks of the Living God, Dwarves of Golarion, & the City Map Folio all without incident (ie same OS, zip utility, process, etc.).

Any ideas?

-Skeld

EDIT: I also don't get any kind of file corrupted or other errors.

RE-EDIT: I can DL the single file version fine, but the 1 file/chapter version has the issue (whatever it may be).

It's been pending since early this week. My only question is will it ship today, or am I stuck until Monday?

-Skeld

One Bad Egg, a small gaming company that had two 2009 ENnies nominations (for Death Mother and Hard Boiled Armies) and supported 4e, has announced they are shutting down.

They mention poor sales as being the main factor. Interestingly, they also mention 4e's DDI tools as another reason.

WOTC is doing a great job providing support for their game, and the online tools that come with a DDI subscription have had the curious side-effect of defining a product space that we can’t even touch, as third party publishers. Creating classes — already hard work — pretty much becomes a nonstarter when there’s no way to provide a “class definition” for use with the DDI character builder, and creating monsters (even ones as oogy fun as the Death Mother) starts to be questionable when a solid Monster Builder tool debuts from the primary publisher.

Too bad; they seemed like they had some good ideas.

-Skeld

...and found out today that my profile is up for voting. You can view it here

I thought it would be fun to be a judge, so I filled out the application thinking that there would enough candidates to make my chances of winning virtually nil. Well, there are only 13 candidates. I could actually win.

Since I've been a member of the Paizo community for a few years now, I hope I can count on the support of my fellow Paizoans to help get me the votes I need to be one of the five judges for 2010. Yeah, I'm shameless ... but it's all worth it if I make the cut!

Be sure to vote for me here. Thanks in advance!

-Skeld (aka Mark Green)

My group finished STAP last night by defeating Demogorgon and destroying the Master Pearl. Going into the last fight, the party consisted of:
Brogan - Fighter 19
"Zero" - Rogue 6 / Fighter 4 / Dervish Dancer 10
Hatori - Wu Jen 20
Kyra - Favored Soul [Kord] 20 (NPC; Yeah, I know, "Kyra," real imaginative)
Raighne - Rogue 2 / Druid 18

We started STAP on September 14th, 2007 and played 39 sessions, the last being April 17th, 2009. We typically play every-other Friday night for about 6 hours (with as much off-topic stuff as on-topic stuff). My group is made up of mostly college friends. We've been playing together in our current incarnation since 2000 (with a couple players dropping out, one getting kicked out, and a couple of newer additions over the years).

The invasion of Gaping Maw went splendidly. The party walked into the last encounter (with Demogorgon and Nulonga) unexpectedly and without spending any buff time. Fortunately, Gwynharwyf gave the a couple rounds to acclimate. The party was fortunate in that they landed a few lucky critical hits and Demogrogon suffered a couple of fumbled saves. After Demogrgon's demise, the party uniformly refused a chance to become the new Prince of Demons. Brogan, Malcanthet's proxy, was compelled to try but lost the title to Graz'zt on a tie reroll.

So next stop for our group is Star Wars Saga Edition and the Dawn of Defiance campaign. We're adding 2 players (one return and 1 player new to RPGs). My current estimate is that DoD will take 10-12 months to run. After that, I plan to move the group to Golarion and maybe run Legacy of Fire.

I really enjoyed running STAP. My group had alot of fun and that's what this hobby is all about.

-Skeld

I just downloaded PFS18 and, when I opened the zip file, I noticed it includes PDF's for both PFS17 & 18. I repersonalized it and downloaded again and the extra file is still there. You guys might want to fix that. ;)

-Skeld

The ability of dispel magic to be used as an area dispel against each spell in effect is a nightmare for a DM to adjudicate. The amount of checking for, say, a high-level encounter essentially stops the game and destroys whatever rhythm has built up (and rhythm is essential for high-level encounters). This leaves the DM with the choice of slowing the game to a creeping halt, or changing dispel magic.

So, my question is, can we just dump the option of using dispel magic against every effect within an area and go with a single effect in an area?

-Skeld

Since there's been so much talk of BAB/level increasing much faster than AC at a given level (not to mention all the talk of how expensive AC is), how about just increasing the base armor bonuses conferred by the various pieces of armor? Maybe just increase them all by +2. Padded would now be +3 and full plate would be +10. If +2 doesn't cut it, how about a different number? Or perhaps a sliding scale?

With regard to backward compatibility, this would be a relatively simple change. Depending on what type of armor the bad guy is using, just plus the AC up the appropriate amount.

Just some thoughts.

-Skeld

When I started my STAP campaign, I told my players that I was removing the "epic level character" requirement on most of the Epic Feats in the SRD. I did this for 2 reasons:
1) In opens up an entire crate of OGL material, and
2) It's doubtful that we otherwise would have ever used them.
Frankly, since the feats came out under 3e and were revised for the 3.5OGL, spalt-creep has overtaken a number of them. The low-point being the one of the Skill Tricks from Complete Scoundrel (I can't remember which one) effectively recreated an Epic Feat usable once/encounter.

It's worked out quite well. As long as they meet the other requirements (aside from the Epic requirement), they've been able to take most of the feats listed under the Epic rules.

Obviously, not all these feats make good choices for unlocking. Epic Toughness is flat out. However, other feats like, Sneak Attack of Opportunity are ripe for use by high-level, non-epic characters. As a matter of fact, my party's speak specialist Fighter has gotten some good mileage out of Spellcasting Harrier. Others would require some modifications (for instance Armor Skin might require Natural Armor as a racial or class feature) the most obvious being those that require a certain number of skill ranks.

Just wanted to throw that out there as food for thought.

-Skeld

After playtesting the Vital Strike feat tree, I think it's nice and works out well. most of the time, it seemed that sacrificing that low attack to get a bonus damage di on the other attack(s) was useful.

playing around with Vital Strike did bring up one issue: two-weapon fighting. There wasn't any clear direction on the interaction between these feats in the Beta. I ruled that when using VS and TWF, any attack sacrificed couldn't be transferred to the other hand. So, a Ranger couldn't give up an off-hand attack to deal more damage with his o-hand. This made sense to us because on- and off-hands might be different weapons and damage types. Clarifying text under VS would be nice.

Another question we had were in regard to the timing of these feats as a function of BAB. More specifically, why these feats don't scale with BAB. Since characters gain a second attack at BAB+6, why not move the requirement for VS from BAB+11 to BAB+6. This seemed to make more sense to us; 2 normal attacks or 1 vital strike (instead of the current implementation, which is 3 normal attacks or 2 vital strikes).

The same goes for IVS, make the requirement BAB+11 instead of +16 and you can get your 3 normal attacks, 2 vital strikes, or 1 improved vital strike.

This opens up an additional feat, Greater Vital Strike, that would require BAB+16 and allow to condense 4 normal attacks into 3 improved vital strikes, 2 vital strikes, or 1 greater vital strike.

This has the advantage of scaling directly with BAB (instead of step behind), handing another feat option to marital classes, and following the already established feat/improved feat/greater feat structure. After our playtest, we tried this out and it worked very well, allowing martial classes to get the biggest bang out of their highest BAB attack, but at a higher risk of putting all their eggs in one basket (so to speak).

Which brings up the last modification we tried. When fully condensing all attacks (under the above modifications) into a single attack, we allowed the single attack roll as a standard action instead of a full-round action (if a character used these feats and took more than one attack, it was still a full-round action). The result was that the Fighter took some of our combats from a toe-to-toe slugfest into a more dynamic "stick and move." We found that this went a small way to closing the gulf between Fighter (spend a full round to do your damage) and Wizard (do all your damage as a standard action). Quite accidentally, we found that the Fighter with VS feats could fight a respectable retreating action. Also, when combined with the Dodge-Mobility-Spring Attack tree, the single attack from Spring Attack (or Shot On the Run for that matter) became much more meaningful.

I realize this playtest-modify-playtest might go beyond what Jason is asking for, but with some slight modification and opening up, i think these VS feats could be a real boon to the martial classes that choose to invest in them. This would go some distance to addressing the disparity in economy of actions between the Martial characters and Caster.

Just some things to think on.

-Skeld

Sweet!

Apologies if this is the wrong time/place for this subject.

One of my biggest complaints about Clerics and Druids (also, Paladins and Rangers to a lesser extent) is the lack of any barrier to their adaptability when it comes to spellcasting.

Wizards have spellbooks (cost being the barrier), Sorcerers and Bards are limited by spells known. However, Clerics and Druids have no limit to the spells available for them to prepare with a simple night's rest.

The issue (to me) is that it devalues other spellcasting classes while adding value to spellcasting classes that are already chok-full of nice class abilities (especially the Druid). Once you add the fact that Clerics never need to prepare their cure spells, and Druids don't need to prepare summon nature's ally, these classes become even more adapatable.

I'm not against adaptability; I just think it's unbalancing in this case when viewed through the Wizard/Sorcerer prism. It also makes challenging the party more difficult from a DM perspective. All the Cleric or Druid needs is a night of rest; come tomorrow, the party is effectively immune to negative energy (or poison, or whatever else).

I would like to see some type of limiting feature added to the Cleric's and Druid's spellcasting preparation. For example, there could be a "Prayerbook" requirement levied on either or both classes that might be similar to the Wizard's Spellbook. Maybe something mechanically similar, but thematically different.

I realize this is probably too big of a change for backward compatibility's sake (and is coming late in the game), but I'd still like to get the thoughts of others on this subject.

-Skeld

I noticed the art in the Companion is segmented or something. I can't seem to select an entire picture using Adobe's "Selection Tool." I only get part of the picture (like the Riddleport map or the lady on page 6). This runs contrary to all the other Pathfinder products I've pulled art from.

Can we get unsegmented art in the future?

-Skeld

I noticed over the weekend that the page numbers in the Campaign Setting don't match the Table of Contents. For instance, according to the TOC, "Chapter 4: Organizations" should begin on page 186, but the actual page number is 188. It looks like "The Great Beyond" on page 178 has a higher page count than indicated by the TOC, forcing all the TOC page numbers after that to be 2 lower than they should. The TOC gets back on track in time for the Index.

Anyone else notice this? Apologies if it's already posted.

-Skeld

Is there any support for moving the Bard's Jack of All Trades ability up to an earlier level, say a level where it will actually have an impact on Bard gameplay?

I think it should move to Bard 4 or Bard 7. It makes the Bard much more useful earlier in his carreer, but isn't overpowering. Also, this would allow the Bard to "stand-in" better in a party with a missing "core" class (Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, Wizard).

-Skeld

I doubt this is realistic, but I think it would be cool as heck. Maybe not Eando Kline, but a similar character. He/she could grace the cover of PF12 and get a stat block for AP3. As a result, we could watch the character progress (maybe as a multiclass Rogue/Bard) until they take levels in whatever Pathfinder Prestige Class James, Jason, Erik, and Mike come up with. It would be an interesting experiment for readers to see the evolution of a Pathfinder during AP3.

I'm sure this is just wishful thinking, but it'd be a neat thing to see in print.

Thoughts?

-Skeld

I know Paladins haven't shown up in the Alpha yet, but I wanted to pitch a couple ideas out there to get everyone primed.

The Paladin's LG alignment requirement seems silly to me. This says that there are no followers of non-LG dieties out there that are such ardent supporters of the diety they they approach being Paladin-esque. This seems utterly silly to me.

Instead, open Paladins up to non-LG dieties. Require that a Paladin's alignment match his dieitiy's alignment exactly (such a CG Paladin of Desna). This opens up alot of possibilities for the Paladin.

A Paladin's choice of deity drives whether they serve Good or Evil and this becomes the guidepost for their Paladin abilities. For example, the Paladin of Desna would gain Aura of Good, Detect Evil, and Smite Evil 1/day at 1st level, while a Paladin of Asmodeus would have Aura of Evil, Detect Good, and Smite Good 1/day. This would also drive the turn/rebuke and Lay on Hands being positive of negative. Like a Cleric, Neutral Paladins would have to choose which way they "lean."

I can imagine that the evil Paladin's abilities would be similar to that of a Blackgaurd. Of course, since the Blackguard is a PrC and the Paladin is core, this would allow Evil Paladins from 1st level and would provide sometime for neutral Paladins (for which there is currently no analogue in the SRD).

Just some random toughts. Enjoy.

-Skeld

I just read the sidebar on broken weapons and items. It foes without saying that their needs to be some stated DM discretion here: a broken bow would likely be patently unusable.

The -2 to attacks with a broken weapons seems too low a penalty to me. For example, an improvised weapon or non-proficient user takes a -4 to attacks. I would suggest changing the broken weapon penalty to -4 to keep it "in family" with these other penalties.

The broken armor penalty seems fine; half the bonus but double the check penalty.

The broken item penalty might also change to -4. I don't have strong feelings about this one.

Thoughts?

-Skeld

I just wanted to make sure that this order was being processed. I fell into the "map folio pre-order left my order pending" bucket. I checked my order status and it still say that J2 and P5 are pending.

Thanks.

-Skeld

I noticed my J2/P5 are still pending and that the RotRL Map Folio is listed as a pre-order item (order #848624).

So is my Pathfinder being held up by the Map Folio? I've selected the "Hold subscription items to ship with my Pathfinder subscription" bundling option. My assumption was that "Pathfinder" meant Pathfinder and not Pathfinder Chronicles.

Thanks in advance.

-Skeld

I had never noticed this before, but the scroll tables in the DMG (and SRD) have Remove Fear (CL1) scroll listed as 50gp. The typical price for a CL1 1st level spell with no material componenet is 25gp. The player asked me why it was more expensive and I haven't been able to come up with an answer. Does anyone know why?

-Skeld

PS: I haven't checked the errata, but since it's listed for 50gp in the SRD...

The different steal abilities of the spelltheif (Steal Spell, Steal spell Effect, Steal Energy Resistance 10, etc.) all state that a Spelltheif can forego 1d6 of sneak Attack to steal said spell. Does this mean thta a 9th level spelltheif with 3d6 of Sneak Attack could steal a spell slot, spell effect, and energy resistance 10 all with a single Sneak Attack since each steal only costs 1d6 and he has 3d6 available. No mention of this is made in the class ability descriptions for Spelltheif (that I can find in Complete Adventurer) or in the FAQ.

I would be inclined to say the answer is no, but I don't thusfar have a rule to point to. Comments?

-Skeld

What are the chances there will be "offical" conversion notes on integrating the previous Dungeon adventure paths into pathfinder's setting? Or, due to the lack of a license of any kind, would this be the legal equivalent to a slurk?

Just curious.

-Skeld

If you had to choose just one of these AP's to run, which would it be?

-Skeld

Just curious what other's thoughts are. I spent all of 2 minutes looking at it and didn't find much of interest.

-Skeld

PS: just as a warning: the color scheme could give you brain tumors.