Tharen the Damned's page

Keep nipples where they belong: in the bedroom and on page three of British tabloid newspapers!

Nah, I like them attached to a breast and that breast attached to a body.

Much better than just a nipple.

Also, with the barrage of unhappy on the "torture porn" thread (you can't pay for advertising like that), it's prolly an especially bad idea right this moment. :-)

Hmm, but what about a Mammy Graul Wallpaper?

As I write this I have the bestest idea eva:

MAMMY GRAUL PLUSH!

or

MAMMY GRAUL T-Shirts!

or

MAMMY GRAUL EAU DE TOILET (no spelling error!)

endless merchandise possibilities!

How can you transform it back to a rod? If the buttons vanish in the transformation, there's no way to change it back =) (ok, maybe this is not important)

It's a single-use item! :-)

Ring of Genital Enhancement

Does this really need further explanation?

Hmm, this Item does not occupy a ring slot, does it?

As a wonderous item it is worn somehwere else...

Comes in Ogre, Stone Giant and Titan.

But beware of the cursed Item Ring of Halfling size.

Sorry, got carried away.

My 2cent:

I think a cool adventure will be a cool adventure in every system. This is why so many 1st an 2nd edition adventures were updated by various DMs and run under 3.x.

Paizos strength is creating cool high quality adventures and campaigns and it seems campaign worlds too.

Concerning 4th edition I think that the majority of the existing players will switch over and that 4th will attract a lot of new players.

But there will also be a lot more players who are happy with 3.x and the options available. Many DMs and Players have invested hundreds or more USD in WoC and 3rd party Supplements. They do not want to buy them all over again and they want to use them with new adventures.

There is a middle way where Paizo maight be able to sell to the 4thers and 3.xers.
Have a look at how Green Ronin did their Freeport Setting. It was system neutral. You can (or will be able to) buy supplements with stats, PC Classes and Races for D&D and True20.

So, if Paizo takes the adventure Path and creates a system neutral adventure and then sells rules related stuff as PDF maybe all will be happy.
I know that it is much harder to create an adventure without realting to specific Classes or Spells or so on.Maybe this works, maybe not.
Just an idea.

Very, very nice. However, what should the servant ghoul do when Aldern's differing personalities start taking over? If Aldern drops to his knees as His Lordship, would the ghoul continue attacking? Or do you think he'd command the servant to stop while he pleaded with his former friends?

Either the Ghoul could suddenly stand undecided or, and I like this idea, he also drops to his knees. As His Lordship pleads for his salvation, he unconsciously commands the Ghoul to do the same.

But can Iesha die so easily? She is already undead.

I think it makes for a dramatic story for the PCs and I do not want it to be to easy for them defeating Aldern. And lastly, the ywill not fight Iesha anyway.

So I let the narrative imperative triumph and story beats rules.

Reading through the Foxglove Manor section I had some ideas how to spice up the final encounter with Aldern.

I will ad a Ghoul dressed in Servant Livree to the room. This serves two purposes:
1) The Ghoul and Aldern can flank PCs so that Aldern can use his Sneak Attack

2) The Ghoul serves to make the scenario even more creepy. Aldern with his Lodship persona is still a noble and "noblesse obligé" after all.

Depending upon Alderns obsession the room looks different:

Lust: Aldern sits in the chair. The table in front of him laid out for a Dinner for two. A silken table cloth, once beautiful, but now spoiled and rotten. Two sets of stained and corroded silver dishes. Two sets of stained crystal glasses. A candle burning feebly, giving flickering light.
The servant is in the process of pouring clotted blood from a siver decanter into a crystal glass that Aldern daintily holds in his right hand.
On a sidetable heaps of rotten meat wait to be served by the servant.
Aldern invites the PC to sit down and share the meal (see pg. 38)

Envy: Aldern sits in an armchair, a book in his hand. A burning brazier in from of him fills the room with a red glow. A chrystal goblet stands on a dainty but rotten table beside the chair. Clotted blood fills it. A silver platter heaped with small morsels of rotten meat (snacks are essential while reading) stands also on the table.
The servant Ghoul stands beside armchair and table, ready to refill the goblet from his decanter.
Seing the PCs, Aldern closes the Book, pops a morsel of meat into his mouth and then speaks (see pg. 38)

Wrath: The Room is empty except for Aldern and his Ghoul Servant. Aldern has just shrugged out of his Coat which the Servant has taken over his left arm. With his right he holds a silver platter upon which the war razor lies. Aldern takes it and swings it a few times while speaking to th PC of his obsession (see pg. 38)

what about Iesha after/during the fight? I know DMs can do what they please with her, but would Aldern be able to take her out before the PCs arrive?

thanks
RM

As suggested by other posters, Aldern would use his Ghouls to overpower Iesha.

But keep in mind, that he always believed that the Brothers took care of her long ago.
Now he sees that he did not imagine the sobbing and wailing and Iesha is still there.
If the PCs take their time following Iesha I imagine the following set up:
Iesha is tighly bound, sitting helpless on a chair.
Aldern stands beside her as the PCs arrive, the war razor in his hand. His Lordship is in control.
Lust:"At last, you have come my love! Let me show you my love with this sacrifice! Let us share the meat like true lovers!
With this words he uses the War Razor to cut a chunk of putrid flesh out of Iesha and offer it to the PC he is obsessed about. As the PC in all likelihood won't take the gift, the Hurter takes over and attacks.

Envy:"You thought to take her from me a second time? You thought you could hurt me? Alas, that is not the case. See for yourself how I treat those who betry me"
With this words he cuts Ieshas throat with his war razor, killing her. Seeing that he killed his wife a second time, his lordship flees and the Hurter takes over

Wrath:"Did you really that she can defeat me? Did you really think your minions can do this to me?
With this words he cuts Ieshas throat with his war razor, killing her.
"Now I will defeat you and dine on your heart"
The hate in Alderns eyes burns like fire and the Hurter takes over.

Short question:

Was there ever an ecology article for the Winter Wolf or the Worg?

Thanks!

I'm still hoping Paizo will stick to 3,5. I am fairly certain that more people will continue to play 3,5 thant 2nd edition (when that jump was made), and I find it strange if there isn't a market for 3,5, even after 4.0.

There is a market for 3.5 but that market is to small for Paizo to flourish.

Even the 3.75 idea they are talking about with necromancer will only be a stopgap until they are able change to 4th.

On the other hand, nobody knows for sure if 4th will be the Mother of all roleplaying games and if it will be the success WoC needs for their flagging sales. We do not know how many Players will go 4th and how many will stick with 3x (though all are faily certain that the majority will go 4th -no pun intended).

We do not know yet how the OGL will be handled.

John McLane in Die Hard is for me the best example of Hit Point loss without Healing.
As the film evolves he gets more bruised and his shirt more dirty. But he still continues to fight.
See him as a fighter or paladin or whatever.
See the Nakamura Tower as a Tower/Dungeon and the Terrorists as the Monsters (with the rest of the hostages as NPCs).
McLane has almost no chance to cath a breath not to speak of resting but he still manages to take out the terrorists one by one.

Sure that saving throw mechanic takes a lot of work from the DM but it also generates some ridiculous situations:
Imagine a Dragon and in from of him 100 rogues. All are in the same level. 99 Rogues have Dex 16 one has Dex 18. Now it is just one roll of the die if a) all rogues will be affected fully b) 99 rogues will affected fully and one take half damage or c) if all take half damage.
Sound counterintuitive and unrealistic to me.
This mechanics will also assure that if a mass charm spell effects the cleric it will always effect the rogue and fighter too.
Same goes if it is Fortitude Save. If the Fighter goes down, so go all the other PCs. Or Rogues and Reflex.
Never again we will see a Rogue that is unaffected by the Charm and can rescue his Cleric Companion.
Of course, above examples assume that all PCs are on equal levels and have their best attributes on their main characteristics.

To sum it up, I know why they changed the mechanics and it will certainly help the DM but I do not like it very much.

Didn't Malhavoc sell Iron Heroes to another company? Would that limit Mearls' ability to use ideas from his own book? I wonder if WOTC has to limit comparison to Iron Heroes for legal reasons and therefore would play up the TOB connection instead. I would prefer 4e to be based more on Iron Heroes style than TOB if possible (ever since Fatespinner's description of a theoretical 4e battle scene "Power Ranger-style" in another thread, I've been having nightmares).

Monte sold Iron Heroes to Adam Windsor, one of the Playtesters for IH. Fiery Dragon publishes IH.

For more Info see: http://www.fierydragon.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&i d=72&Itemid=45

Also I do not think that Mike Mearls copy his own stuff. IH is different to D&D 3x in may aspects and 4th edition will be different to 3x in may aspects.
So I expect Mike Mearls to use some of his cool ideas and port them over and change them to fix the 4th edition context.

Mike Mearls was the creative mind behind Iron Heroes. Monte Cook was still working on Ptolus during this time.
Iron Heroes is like an unpolished diamond because there are so many ideas and cool mechanics that needed errata or clarification. This was because Mike Mearls left Malhavoc Press to work with WoC.
That was about 2 years ago.
That was the time WoC started working on 4th edition.
The more I read of 4th edition, the more similarities I see to Iron Heroes.
Imo, Iron Heroes definitely has already many elements we will see in 4th.
- terrain rules
- independence from magic items
- everybody can do something every round
- stunts and skill challenges. Do cool things like jump over the orcs or run along a vertical wall.
- skillsytem uses skill groups. PCs use their skill points to get ranks in this group (eg. athletics group and you get ranks for swimming, jump etc.)
- Feat Chains (might also be from SAGA as Talent Trees).

The mechanics work fine (with the errata) in Iron Heroes, so they should also work in 4th.

Not to mention, can we please get a few 4th edition articles that just present information instead of going off on a tangent about how horrible every previous edition was. Amazingly, even without 4th edition Soth became one of the most recognizable D&D villains ever, so I guess just as people made accidentally lame characters, designers must have made accidentally cool monsters and NPCs as well.

This is what irks me too. Every WoC article somewhere mentions how cool and easy and much better everything in 4th edition is.

I honestly think they are just very exited for their new creation but it comes over as condescending.

At the beginning of September I was very exited and looked forward to 4th edition, but this constant "our edition is the best thing since sliced bread" makes me angry. I am starting to feel antipathy towards 4th edition. And that has nothing to do with the new mechanics or killing of sacred cows.

I can only hope that 4th will live up to the extremely high expectations I and I think may other gamers have.

I'll be buying.

Of course, my children won't eat for a week, but that isn't Greg's problem. Oh no.

I have to sell my car, live in a tent and dance at streetcorners to be able to afford my roleplaying fix.

So do not complain about a little bit of dieting.
I have it so much worse than you.
But that isn't Greg's problem either.

mwbeeler wrote:

Must....drive...Seattle....pace...around....office.

That is the guaranteed #1 way to not make it to round 2.

;D

Wow, it finally is rock star cool to be in RPG industry.

Paizo got his first(?) stalker. Next step is screaming fanboys whenever you are in public.
And then there are the groupies (though you won't get undies thrown at you but the girls' favorite dice and instead of love letters you get PC sheets)
Then you do MTV cribs.
And after a while you can not handle the fame and public pressure. You are seen in a tattoo palor where you get a "WoC sucks" tattoo and then you are in a barber where they shave your head. Then you are seen with Paris Hilton. You loose your creativity and start taking drugs.
And from then on you are on a real downward spiral.

But hey, this is rockn' roll!

Talion09 wrote:

By compare notes, do you mean that each query was read by all three of you?

No. As early as tomorrow (but more likely Thursday) we'll all sit down in a room together and present our favorite 10 or so from the 50 we read. Then we'll go through those 30 together and figure out the 10 or so who advance to round 2.

Eyebite wrote:

I would just like to second other sentiments I've seen on the various Open Call threads - when the final 10 are selected, I would really appreciate a Blog post or even a small post by one of the Paizo boys about common things they noticed, mistakes that turned them off immediately, tips for a better submission for the next Open Call, pet peeves, etc.

It would be really helpful and much appreciated.

Hmm... an interesting idea. :)

Yes, helps us to produce better queries and you to get better queries.

A Win-Win situation!

Is "Flight of the Red Raven" a working Title or does the adventure have to include some reference to this title?

I got the email and can download the PDF!
I am living in Ireland.

No email for me yet. And I am at work. Means I have nothing better to do and could read the adventure.
Gaah, please come to me oh sweet PDF....

But you should probably make sure you've got someone in the group who can handle giants well... A dwarven ranger, as much as it galls me to admit, would be a pretty good choice.

Bah, hit'em with missile fire. Run. Repeat as oft as you like. Down they go!

Or let the halfling rogue sneak attack hard enough and the Giant will fall like a cut tree!
Can you use the Assassine's Death attack against a toe?

Surfing amazon.co.uk I found even more Pathfinder Goodness in the pipeline for 2008:
Pathfinder Chronicles.

I just surfed on amazon.co.uk and look what I found, the titles of the next Pathfinder Series. It will be called (according to amazon)
Pathfinder: Curse of the Crimson Throne.

Paizo Team: As this information is up on amazon and freely available I thought it ok to post it. Feel free to delete it if this is somehow giving the wrong information.

Will the Dungeon Issues that contain the Savage Tide AP be available as PDF?

What I have seen of Hawks Hollow looks very good. I especially like the map I can see in the daily Blog.

But here my Nitpick: shouldn't the paper Mill stand beside the river?
Then it could use the waterpower for milling the paper (pressing it etc.)

You might also look at Goodman Games Legends are Made, not Born. It's for 0 level characters.

Ah, but that is originally written for NPC Classes, so PC Classes will be on the strong side.

I had the idea to run Legends with "Apprentice Level" PCs. They are not yet adults (-2 on Str, Int, Wis, +2 on Dex, Cha). And basically 0 level PC Class (no First Level feat, only half of the Skill points, Spellcasters only have 0 lvl. Spells).
After the Adventure, the "finish" their Apprenticeship (or self Tutorial) and "advance" to adulthood and first Level (i.e. +2 Str, Int, Wis and -2 Dex and Cha; they get the first level Feat, the other half of their Skill points and the normal Spell allotment.

Manipulating the treasure to be found in this adventure, the PCs can start with a fair equipment and maybe even some scrolls and a minor magic item.

Monkeys rule!

Yeah, in the Jungle!

But leave the Abyss to somebody who is not two minds about every thing he does. Somebody whose appendages are not distracted by an indian snake charmer. Somebody who looks like a proper demonlord and not like an upstart chtulhu punk.
Leave the Abyss to Orcus!

Personally, I'm all for elevating Orcus to godhood, or at least Demogorgon's old spot as Baddest of All Abyssal Badasses.

Saern, you are a true follower of his dark Majesty!

Long live (uhm, un-live?) Orcus!

This is it, you are on the right way to become a new diciple!

Oooo... perhaps Orcus as a real god, not "just" a demon lord? God of the dead and undead. Of course, as I understand it, "demon lord" and "god" are going to be more interchangeable in Pathfinder's world (which I like!).

That would be a good idea!

I am a HUGE fan of demon lords, archdevils, arch angels, and the like. They will definately have a place in our campaign world.

Of all Demonlords I hope that Orcus will get the proper Treatment. After all, he is Celebrity! Forget the two headed shizo, old doghead or this abominable slimebag.

But give Orcus his due!
And don't get try to kill him. He only will come back meaner and stronger!

Something I would like to see for the new Gods is some advice how a cleric of a particular god behaves.

What do I wear as a Priest of the sungod? Is there a doctrine? Holy days? Do I pray under the open sky or inside a temple? Is there a common prayer? What is my churchs opinon to the other gods? Is my church hierachical or are there many small sects?

The only book that gives sufficient ideas how to play a Priest is in my opinon "The Book of the Righteous" by Green Ronin. Maybe you could take this as an inspiration.