Terek's page

I think there may be a bug with shipping calculations or I have something configured wrong on my account.

I sidecarted my order to save on shipping and my option should be set to use the cheapest possible shipping method. My account's subscription page calculates shipping as 6 separate packages for 6 items using standard shipping at a really high amount.

I understand shipping costs are subject to change so I am not expecting accuracy but seeing it say it will ship them in 6 separate packages defeats the point of sidecarting an order.

Thank you for your help.

For some reason I received notification of this order when I have it set so the comic is sent with my monthly subscription and NOT alone. I do not want the comic sent alone as it doubles the price of the comic with the shipping cost.

As soon as I got the initial email about this order getting ready to be shipped I sent a response. Now I have been given a tracking number.

This is the third or fourth time this has occurred. However this time the shipping tracking info email came the same day before you could respond.

How do I stop this shipment?

I am really glad that you seem to be coming out with these a little faster than I am running them.

I love your style of artwork. I am using both these and your Emerald Spire paper minis.

In preparing this, there is something mentioned in both the backstory and blocked text that I don't entirely understand

Thanks

Just an area where you may do some research. Paizo did put out an interactive scenario (6-00 Legacy of the Stonelords) where

There are also three other scenarios that involve investigating other Sky Citadels that you could use to to see how they are linked and the kind of things that are in them. All three Glories of the past parts 1-3.

4-22 Halls of Dwarven Lore Glories of the Past part 1 has

4-24 The Price of Friendship Glories of the Past part 2 has

4-25 The Secrets Stones Keep Glories of the Past part 3 has

All of those scenarios could help you get ideas about what a sky citadel might be like but you don't have to use any of them.

A lot of season 5 pathfinder scenarios involve investigating the Worldwound to find out where Jormurdun is.

I just got mine in the mail.

The acting Venture Captain over the area I am in has announced that Eyes of the Ten is probably going to be retired soon.

Is this true? I hope it isn't because we have two groups ready to play it but are waiting for life events to make it so they have time to play it. One group is waiting for someone heavily involved in a major service activity that takes up over seventy hours a week for one more year. Another group has been waiting on someone that just had a baby and he is not participating in PFS at all so he can help his wife not feel as stressed during the difficulty of raising a newborn.

Why would it need to be retired? How would retiring it benefit Pathfinder Society. Every person I have talked to that has played it has said it is a really good arc that everyone needs to experience without spoilers.

Are newer players not allowed to participate in this story arc in PFS? Sure we could just "play it outside of PFS" but I have players that don't want to finish Emerald Spire outside of PFS even though getting through all of emerald spire doesn't help a single other character of theirs in PFS and puts you well into retirement. We are currently leveling up another replacement for someone who has stepped down so we can continue in the levels where there is no Pregen the GM could play to make a table of 3 legal for PFS.

When we've had people complain about there not being enough scenarios to play, why do we need to reduce the number of scenarios available to play? Especially ones that are held in such a high esteem as these?

I think I already know the answer.

My Emerald Spire group is having a problem, we had four people playing it since five people appeared to be too many for Emerald Spire's lower levels. However, one player has had life circumstances come up and we are almost to Floor 10 where the level ranges are 8-10.

My interpretation is you can't play floors 10-16 without four players because there is no Pregen a GM could play to make a table legal. Is there any exception to this?

Thanks

I had a blast running this one, other players at our store agreed that it was almost as good as the first one which we all loved.

I've wondered this for a while: In Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition, did Paizo remove or change anything because it was no longer 3.5 and as such couldn't use some material that wasn't under the OGL in 3.5?

I have both the original and anniversary edition and can't find anything.

With these changes are they going to make it so some scenarios require an effective star rating of 6 or 7?

Terek wrote:

Skylancer4 wrote:

Terek wrote:

The differences between psychic spells and psionic powers are not largely semantics. One is using Vancian casting... the other is using a point cost casting. Those two systems do not convert simply without throwing off balance.

There may be a few situations where the spells have very direct overlaps but overall the two systems are vastly different in general mechanics.

Actually they are, the default rules are transparency, where the psionic and spells are the same thing. Detect psionics is the same as detect magic, the overall effect is the same even if the game mechanics behind the scenes are different.

It is largely accepted that the psionic system is more "balanced" than the vancian casting, you need to play for things that are included in spells innately. As long as the balance of the subsystem is in fact balanced, it isn't an issue. Some systems may do things better than others, or lend themselves to certain tactics, but if they are balanced... Plug and play shouldn't be an issue mechanically.

Largely accepted it is more balanced? Last I heard all of Paizo's game designers prefer Vancian. I haven't heard what their newest designer (Rogue Eidolon) thinks of it. I love Dreamscarred Press's Ultimate Psionics. I think they fixed most of the problems I had with 3.0, and 3.5 psionics by WotC and prefer the system it uses over Vancian but I have never seen many people who agree with your statement. We will have to agree to disagree because I have seen no evidence to support it.

Preferring vanician casting isn't the same as it being more balanced, not even close

...

That doesn't refute what I said, and in your words "not even close"...

What Paizo designers have expressed as their preference was only a side note. The important line is "I have never seen many people who agree with your statement". To be largely accepted as more balanced there needs to be a large number of people who say it is more balanced.

Again, we can agree to disagree.

Terek wrote:

CBDunkerson wrote:

DungeonmasterCal wrote:

I looked at that, but I'd have to swap out all the psychic spells for psionic powers...

Again, this is largely semantics. The lich's "psychic spells" ARE "psionic powers".

I mean, what's the difference between a "Psychic" from Occult Adventures casting the 1st level psychic spell "Telempathic Projection" vs a "Psion" from Ultimate Psionics manifesting the 1st level psionic power "Telempathic Projection"?

The differences between psychic spells and psionic powers are not largely semantics. One is using Vancian casting... the other is using a point cost casting. Those two systems do not convert simply without throwing off balance.

There may be a few situations where the spells have very direct overlaps but overall the two systems are vastly different in general mechanics.

Actually they are, the default rules are transparency, where the psionic and spells are the same thing. Detect psionics is the same as detect magic, the overall effect is the same even if the game mechanics behind the scenes are different.

It is largely accepted that the psionic system is more "balanced" than the vancian casting, you need to play for things that are included in spells innately. As long as the balance of the subsystem is in fact balanced, it isn't an issue. Some systems may do things better than others, or lend themselves to certain tactics, but if they are balanced... Plug and play shouldn't be an issue mechanically.

Largely accepted it is more balanced? Last I heard all of Paizo's game designers prefer Vancian. I haven't heard what their newest designer (Rogue Eidolon) thinks of it. I love Dreamscarred Press's Ultimate Psionics. I think they fixed most of the problems I had with 3.0, and 3.5 psionics by WotC and prefer the system it uses over Vancian but I have never seen many people who agree with your statement. We will have to agree to disagree because I have seen no evidence to support it.

The major differences lie in the fact that a lot of the spells scale more based upon how many power points you spend to cast the spell and meta psionics feats normally cannot be used again until you spend actions to reacquire your psionic focus whereas in 3.x D&D Vancian you just have caster level, and you don't have to spend any actions to cast another spell with with a meta magic feat (but some classes increase the casting time on to cast with most metamagic feats). Also you can't use all of your casting ability to cast your highest level of spells in Vancian because you have spell slots, not points you can spread as you see fit (with a max per manifestation of your manifested level).

Those major differences are why I do not believe you can just call Paizo's Psionic Spells Psionic Powers and just assign a cost to manifest the spell.

DungeonmasterCal wrote:

I looked at that, but I'd have to swap out all the psychic spells for psionic powers...

Again, this is largely semantics. The lich's "psychic spells" ARE "psionic powers".

I mean, what's the difference between a "Psychic" from Occult Adventures casting the 1st level psychic spell "Telempathic Projection" vs a "Psion" from Ultimate Psionics manifesting the 1st level psionic power "Telempathic Projection"?

The differences between psychic spells and psionic powers are not largely semantics. One is using Vancian casting... the other is using a point cost casting. Those two systems do not convert simply without throwing off balance.

There may be a few situations where the spells have very direct overlaps but overall the two systems are vastly different in general mechanics.

Is there any way we could remove the watermark on the pregens we hand out? For security purposes I don't like to give out my paizo.com email address to people at conventions.

Just realized I put this in the wrong product discussion thread. It should have gone in Serpent's Rise

Is there any way we could remove the watermark on the pregens we hand out? For security purposes I don't like to give out my paizo.com email address to people at conventions.

Is there any way we could remove the watermark on the pregens we hand out? For security purposes I don't like to give out my paizo.com email address to people at conventions.

Sharaya,

Thanks for taking care of this, the new order has a much more reasonable shipping charge (but I think does look a little low).

However the item that shipped today shows that shipping is $9.47 for USPS which seems extremely high for a GM screen to the region of the US I live in and is higher than the combined shipping of all other items.

There is a problem with shipping on this order, it wants to ship my stuff in 5 separate packages.

This is the second month in a row where the subscription confirmation email wanted to ship my order in a large number of packages. I thought I would have time to get this resolved but I already got an email today saying one of the 5 packages is about to ship.

I confirmed on the original order for this item that it was to be sidecarted from the confirmation email you sent me on September 28th order #3730098.

Is there any way I can get the shipment fixed so everything is shipped together (or 2 packages if it is actually cheaper) so I don't pay an extremely large shipping fee for 37305370?

Is that an aspis badge? I've wondered what they look like for a very long time.

I love that cover!

Cheaters are gonna cheat, but the sign-off rule appears way too easy to exploit. I really don't want to make it too easy for them.

The issue with having people sign off on their ownership of physical books is someone could just borrow someone's book, get it signed off, then return the book after photocopying the pages they need.

Or, if they still own the book, they could sell the book to someone else but keep claiming they own one.

The fact that PDF's are non-transferable, and are watermarked with the buyer's name makes it a little more difficult to fake, but nothing is impossible. Plus you don't need to have an tablet or smartphone, just a way to print out the pertinent pages.

Mike,

Thanks for your hard work. You got the position around the same time I discovered Pathfinder Society, so I have no idea what it was PFS was like without you but the numbers speak for themselves. I don't think your job could have been easy at.

I wish you and your family well in all of your future endeavors.

I coordinate games at a store, and I know there is a Gamin follow up. The only sad thing is the level range of the Gamin followup can prevent people from doing both if they leveled up too much. Or if they happened to play with a different character. One of my players was disappointed because he didn't know about and lost his chance.

I wish I knew what the nexus scenario is so I could arrange it so players that come to games I coordinate could take part in it before they no longer can. That isn't as critical now because some of them have those characters on hold until they can get the bonekeep 3 on their character.

Why can't we have catfolk in PFS? What did you do?

Way to go Thirsty!

The store we play at is very generous and has offered to buy one scenario and print it out every time we meet. While I do not take advantage of this, we have GMs that need it but unfortunately their printer occasionally messes up, causing multiple sections to be unreadable. This happens the most for season 5 scenarios, their printer tends to fail with the really dark background season 5's have at the top and bottom of those pages.

Per instructions I've received from Paizo when I asked about their policies, pdfs of scenarios cannot be shared. So when this happens I look at my pdfs and send them the unreadable text of the small sections needed.

A few times, I have purchased the pdf through Paizo's gifting system for our more destitute GMs when the print out is so bad, I would have to send more than a few pages of information.

If I get my 5th star after this is released, will I get access to this or do I have to get my 5th star before it is released to qualify?

I am so close, I am just wondering if I need to make sure I get my last two specials and last few normal sessions out before GenCon.

First of all, thanks to Paizo and Syrinscape.

Score! I wonder if it will work okay over Roll20...

Syrinscape is working on a way to make this work over an internet connection but there are some tricks that people have come up with that could help you. Here is a paizo blog (with comments from people on how to implement it).

http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/v5748dyo5lh9j?So-How-Do-I-Use-Syrinscape-in-my- Pathfinder-Game

I am sure someone will fix my link. I just don't want to spend the time to learn how to properly link something on this forum.

Terek wrote:

Secane wrote:

My local community center's tabletop gaming group is planning to celebrate Free RPG Day with a full day event. Would We Be Goblins Free! only be available as part of the Free RPG Day kits for retailers?

Or is there a another way we could access and run it before July 1st?

Most likely not, because of contractual obligations any participating publisher most likely has with FreeRPDDay.

This is what is found on the FreeRPGDay 2015 sponsorship form.

FreeRPGDaySponsorshipForm.pdf Emphasis mine wrote:

I agree my product will meet the following:

• Print and/or PDF versions of the product will NOT be disseminated anywhere else until MONDAY, JULY 1ST, 2015.

So how is that supposed to work when July 1st, 2015 is a Wednesday?

Ask a lawyer and pay his legal fees if you want to challenge it? I don't know how contracts work when the contract has an impossible date mentioned. However, last time I checked Paizo announced that We Be Goblins Free would be made available on July 1st.

So if you want it sooner, you'd have to convince Paizo to risk the consequences of releasing before then, whatever those may be, legal, loss of good will and otherwise.

I am not associated with Paizo nor FreeRPGDay. I was just answering a question by pointing to what actually is posted by FreeRPGDay so they could take my explanation with a grain of salt and judge the likely answer to their own question.

My local community center's tabletop gaming group is planning to celebrate Free RPG Day with a full day event. Would We Be Goblins Free! only be available as part of the Free RPG Day kits for retailers?

Or is there a another way we could access and run it before July 1st?

Most likely not, because of contractual obligations any participating publisher most likely has with FreeRPDDay.

This is what is found on the FreeRPGDay 2015 sponsorship form.

I agree my product will meet the following:

• Inclusion of the Free RPG Day logo on the front or back of the product.
• No MSRP anywhere on the product (or a MSRP of $0.00 can be listed).
• If an independent RPG, the product should include quickstart rules at minimum, with a STRONG recommendation to include an
adventure and pre-generated characters to create a complete demo package for the consumer and retailer --- whereby 50% of the
product will include never-before-seen material.
• 100% never-before-seen material if purely an adventure module.
• Minimum page count of 16 pages (with or without cover, though we recommend a 10pt C1S color cover).
• Print and/or PDF versions of the product will NOT be disseminated anywhere else until MONDAY, JULY 1ST, 2015.
•Will arrive NO LATER than FRIDAY, MAY 1, 2015!

[

...
No, Gunslingers themselves are actually a bit UNDER-powered.
...
Guns hitting at Touch Attacks are nasty, but not OP, and several other Ranged classes have extremely similar tricks (including anyone with a Wand of Scorching Ray, which is MUCH more devastating than most firearms).
...

I will just disagree with you. From my experience, way too many times higher level gun users hit on a 2. If you make it so you add your dexterity to damage it becomes even worse; especially when you roll that natural 20 that is almost always confirmed at a x4.

Scorching ray wands are typically more expensive per shot (120 gp per shot unless you take craft wand) and you usually can only ever fire one a round. Also they do fire damage and fire resistance/immunity is one of the more common ones, in my opinion. Not to mention, gun users usually have a higher BAB so will hit more often.

With Rapid Reload and paper cartridges, gun users can shoot an amazing number of times, however the misfire rate does go up with paper cartridges.

So what do we do about games that GMs ran when they didn't know about these changes? Does the GM have to go back and retroactively remove a player's chronicle sheet because he didn't know about these rules the night he played the game and he played an APG summoner that didn't have 4 experience points?

The PFS guide says that a GM is not expected to be familiar with every post but cannot ignore posts that he is made aware of?

Nope. The text is fairly unambiguous:

Slashing grace wrote:

Choose one kind of one-handed slashing weapon (such as the longsword).

It says one handed weapons, and gives a clear example of what it means.

The general purpose of this wording is that it aims to make it hard to use slashing grace with TWF. You have to put more investment in to make it happen. That is the design principle behind TWF and dex based builds in general.

Just want to point out that there is one example where slashing grace affects a specific light one-handed weapon as well as a specific one-handed melee weapon. This leads me to believe that an individual can select a slashing one-handed Light Melee weapon or a slashing One-Handed Melee weapon

Add 1/4 to the swashbuckler’s effective class level to determine the extra damage she deals because of the precise strike deed when wielding a light pick or a heavy pick. If the swashbuckler has the Slashing Grace feat or another similar effect, she can treat the battleaxe or handaxe as a one-handed piercing melee weapon, and she gains this benefit when wielding the appropriate weapon for the feat as well.

I don't know if this has already been addressed but I'd like either a FAQ or clarification if possible.

Slashing grace has been clarified by the masses to only include weapons in the one-hand category due to how it is written. I'd love to find out if the developers meant for it to be this way or if they meant any weapon wielded in one hand.

Just want to point out that there is one example where slashing grace affects a specific light one-handed weapon as well as a specific one-handed melee weapon. This leads me to believe that an individual can select a slashing light one-handed Light Melee weapon or a slashing One-Handed Melee weapon

Add 1/4 to the swashbuckler’s effective class level to determine the extra damage she deals because of the precise strike deed when wielding a light pick or a heavy pick. If the swashbuckler has the Slashing Grace feat or another similar effect, she can treat the battleaxe or handaxe as a one-handed piercing melee weapon, and she gains this benefit when wielding the appropriate weapon for the feat as well.

Yes, there has been updates from a couple different developers in this thread:
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2s18b?Multisheet-module-PFS-reporting-still-bro ken

Also, I've seen them say that they are very reluctant to post when updates will be before hand. I think this is very likely because of how disappointed some people can be when waiting for something when there is a chance that a bug could delay the release.

Last year Michael Brock told me it was automatic now, and it would be added automatically. However, after a month I had to contact Paizo customer service to get it added to my account.

I believe when they get a new 4 star reward they just add it to all current 4 stars. If you become a new one you may have to ask customer service for it if you don't automatically get it.

I warned the group we are doing Emerald spire with that they need whatever character they take in to Emerald Spire to have exactly enough exp to level, with no extra scenarios if they want the same character to participate in every emerald spire level.

We haven't had a problem, but only because the players at my table knew about the potential problem beforehand.

Just want to make sure that you know your efforts are still appreciated. I am using your runes.

... [Awesome Advice]...

Thank you. I will have to play with this a little to see if I can get it done in a way that doesn't drown out other people talking.

What will please people even more is we are heading towards a player that will work online.

Kind of like this:
1. The GM will have a MASTER version which she uses normally.
2. The GM master Player will send server calls to SLAVE players on all the nonlocal machines.
3. None of Syrinscape's high quality audio will he jammed down the internet, just audio cues.

Sounds good?!?!?

Sounds amazing! I've been using Syrinscape since well before you came out with anything directly related to Paizo and I think this announcement has made me more excited than any other you've made.

This way people can change the volume on their own computer to play it the way that works best for them.

Is there any way to get Syrinscape to play over voice chat programs like teamspeak or ventrillo?

Now I will explain the real nemesis and one true enemy of this build.

Doors

There is a simple solution to this build that adds some hilarity and flavor. At the higher levels when the damage bonus is higher than the door's hardness, the songbird of doom could full attack the door!

"Few, it can't open doors so we are safe!"
[short pause]
[THUD THUD THUD]
[The door has three holes in it, none of which are big enough for the bird to fly through, yet]
"Oh crap we are gonna die! Oh crap we are gonna die!"

Wow,

This is my first paper mini's product purchase and I really like the feel/style of the artwork.

I think I am going to get more paper minis because of how useful these are.

How do you determine what adventure path/module you make?

Monstrous extremities will not work with the ring of seven lovely colors. You can only have one polymorph spell on at a time. You can only be affected by one or the other.

The ring lets the user use beast shape IV to transform into a songbird. Both beast shape and monstrous extremities are transmutation(polymorph) spells.

You can only be affected by one polymorph spell at a time. If a new polymorph spell is cast on you (or you activate a polymorph effect, such as wild shape), you can decide whether or not to allow it to affect you, taking the place of the old spell. In addition, other spells that change your size have no effect on you while you are under the effects of a polymorph spell.

I am seeing the same problem. Every time I add 6-15 I don't get the discount. 6-14 is getting the discount.

I personally like the current release rate. With Core becoming available they effectively made it so they have approximately 1 scenario per week come out as they usually have about 26 scenarios per year.

So those of us that play every other week don't run out of scenarios and keep up with the new scenarios, and those who play every week don't run out of options to play.

I really think that introducing the PFS Core campaign was a good decision.

As far as prices go, I'd rather they not increase it. Being a store coordinator, the cost of running games falls on me more than anyone else and I really don't want the cost to coordinate games increase. I buy every scenario so if there is an emergency I can run games as a backup GM.

The problem is not every game is reported and some games are reported inaccurately. My brother tried to get one game corrected to the correct character and used their link to point out the mistake and nothing ever happened.

For coordinating games at my local gaming store, I created a program that parses the html of Paizo's sessions pages (player sessions, GM sessions and event sessions). I let the players know if they want me to use their games played elsewhere in consideration for what we run in the future they need to just log in, go to their player and gm sessions page. Expand both then save the html as a complete html file and give me their file.

Personally I would have issues if paizo made this information publicly available to people not involved in reporting games.

It parses it and inserts their data into my database and thus I now have a current list of every scenario players have played or gm'd as it has been reported.

I am not sure I could legally give this program out so please don't ask. There are terms in the program that may fall under Paizo's intellectual property and may not fall under their community use policy. I am not willing to hire a lawyer to consult me for a program I cannot make any money off of either because of my contract with my current employer.

I wrote this program to learn more about various concepts that I used in the implementation.

Judging a season by its first 3 scenarios is not a great way to really know.

Judging a seasons's power evel by its first 3 scenarios... same thing.

I actually think Season 6, overall, is easier than Season 5, and some of the lower level stuff is quite on par with Season 2 or 3.

While that is true, At the store I coordinate games, there were a few new players that started on 6-1 and hated the technology. I told them the entire season won't be like his and they came back for 2 and 3 and then quit. Unfortunately the next one didn't have what they didn't like.

Over all I like season six, I don't think I have disliked any and my group deliberately do scenarios three months after they come out so we don't have to worry if there is a delay like there was December 2013 and January 2014. I think my favorite is Hall of the Flesh Eaters. I feel those people really missed out but it is a risk when you have that many abnormal scenarios all in a row.

Kevin and Qstor

Thank you.

How do I find out what the event codes are for the PFS specials?

This will be my first Gen Con, I've already got the ticket, how do you sign up for games? Dp we have to pay money for each game we sign up for? I've heard from multiple sources it will start in May and my brother and I do not want to miss out on the multi-table specials.

Mike Bramnik wrote:

I'm a big guy, so trust me when I say that this is difficult for me (especially with a bad knee and bad back) - but if this is the Blakros museum, I might literally jump for joy!

Miiiiight beeee...

If it is not now I am going to be sooooo disappointed. I've wanted this for a while. Plus with remodeling, I wonder what it would look like? It could even be a future remodel.