The Thing from Beyond the Edge's page

Best not to read things. I mean I wrote like 16 words, and one of them was 7 letters long.

Witchcraft I tell you!

There's a point where it's just arguing to argue, and it's not really worth the electrons and eyeball juice any more.

Boah,..I caint unnerstand all them thar 10 gallon wurds. Yew messin wiff Texis?

Lol... you betcha since I'm from Tennessee and all the real Texans were just kicked out of Tennessee and had to move west...

Heh heh. Some lady asked me where I'm from.

I said "Florida."

So she said, "so you ain't a real Texan, orr you?"

I said, "no ma'am, and neither was Davy Crockett, I reckon."

Don't forget that Dallas is one of the most expensive cities in Texas. Less than Austin, but more than Houston or San Antonio. Definitely more than smaller cities like Amarillo, Brownsville, Texarkana, and El Paso.

Texas is really healthy right now. (Houston, where I live, is awash in energy jobs.)

Don't tell them that!

Texas sucks! It's just a bunch of slackjawed troglodytes with honky tonks with rebel flags and wooden native american statues out front!

Honky tonks called "Microsoft!" wudever thet thar mains.

Don't come here, unwashed masses!!! There's nothing for you!

There is also the fact that if your state is part of an open economic zone and the average income in your state is lower than in another state, your state has less wealth.

Belarus, for example according to Wikipedia has a ridiculously low unemployment rate, but only an average per capita of $15,028k.

Part of the reason the cost of living is higher in places comes from the fact more people want to live there.

Which, in turn, drives up the cost of living, and makes a statistic like "47 k in Dallas, Tx is the same as 65 k in Newark NJ" understandable.

I remember when I moved to Dallas, Tx. from Florida.
The.....the cars on the road,.........car for car were just.....so much nicer. I'm glad, though, that my anecdotal observation has been explained away and that I now know that I am indeed living in the US equivalent of Belarus.

Please, if you're out there, don't come to Texas right now.
Take Ciretose's explanation of the meaning of the statistics.
He doesn't have to actually be here in person, like me, to see these things.
He has......STATISTICS!!!

So having less wealth per family in your state makes your richer?

Well, when that statement is considered in a vacuum, of course not.

When you add in cost of living, then it becomes a little more complicated.

See, that's the problem with quoting statistics without truly considering what they mean, and instead saying "hey; this seems to back my position. I think I'll quote this and shout PROOF!!! and hope nobody actually thinks about it."

I just went to payscale.com.

Put in Dallas Tx vs. Newark, NJ.

Making 47 k in Dallas, Tx is the equivalent of making 64,860 in Newark NJ, multiplying 47 k by 1.38, since the COL is 38 % higher in Newark, New Jersey.

Hmmmm,....maybe I shouldn't move to NJ after all?......

I just had to copy paste the link's web address and put it up in my finder thingy;

New Jersey has the highest median family income with 66 k, and Texas is down in the bottom 10 states with 47 k.

Which proves that......there's really no work here.

Yeah.

That's the ticket.

Please, everybody stop coming to Texas for work. THERE'S NO WORK HERE!!! CIRETOSE JUST PROVED IT!!! GO TO NEW JERSEY; THE MEDIAN INCOME IS HIGHER!!!!! JUST...JUST DON'T TRY TO BUY REAL ESTATE THERE!!!!!

Got a job. That is all.

Ashe Ravenheart wrote:

Just for FHDM!

puts on the war paint

Okay, actually READ the article and I am AMAZED. I usually have to pay $30 for THAT kind of handshake. And the COMMENTS...Wow.

WHY am I putting every other word in ALL CAPS? Have I been reading too much Siembieda? Or is that italics and exclamation points(and parentheses and percentages!!!!)?

Thing is, what I said is still true. I have yet to meet an atheist that wants to outlaw religion. I have had the misfortune to meet far too many christians that want to outlaw any religion that is not THEIR version of christianity. I guess you guys couldn't be bothered to read my posts after that.

I've lived on both coasts and just about everywhere in between, and it's the same no matter where I've lived. I left christianity for a reason.

Well, if you're coming to Paizocon, let's have a beer and then you can say you know at least one Christian who believes very strongly in freedom of religion, or the lack thereof, as you see fit.

If you say a single negative thing about certain groups it is almost certainly a ban around here. Christians do not have that kind of protection afforded them, not on these boards, nor in society at large.

hmmm Chocolate

Extra deliciousness: A celestial sorcerer's Heavenly Fire ability will heal good undead just as much as good living creatures.

It's part of how we're keeping the dhampir paladin up in our Carrion Crown campaign.

Just returned form Irving and seeing my Father (87), Son (39), and Grandson (13) for first time in 8 years. Good trip. Four generations of Baker men in same place.

This book will not be "rebuilding" or "converting" any of the 3.5 prestige classes from Wizards of the Coast products at all, since all of those classes (save for the few that were in the Dungeon Master's Guide) are closed content.

Warning: I have strong feelings on this topic.

IMO, the class itself is fine. Even on the weakside.

Everyone looks at the class and freaks out because of...well exactly what your players noted.

But what do they get other than those things? They get some sensory enhancements, a feat or four, and some minor defenses. That's it. The dragon is everything to them. Without it, they're just a Warrior with better saves and better senses. Well, except they are in light armor only, due to that pesky ASF.

And the paladin analogy is, quite frankly, wrong. Paladins get an amazing boost to their saves from Divine Grace, have the simply wonderful Smite Evil, and can heal themselves as a swift action when the going gets bad. Not to mention the extremely powerful Divine Bond and Aura of Justice. Again, this guy gets some sensory enhancements and slight defensive boost (as opposed to the massive defensive boost of the Paladin). Oh, and they get a dragon. That they have to spend somewhat expensive actions on for most of the game, just to get them to do anything but be a plane.

Which due to it getting progressively larger, they can't always use. In fact, at a certain point it'd be pretty rare for them to use a dragon anywhere but outdoors. So what does the dragonrider do then? He has no real abilities to help him out. He has to spend his first round or so buffing up his defenses due to the light armor restriction.

These guys can't be primary casters. Their Cha isn't going to be high enough, and by the time they can cast spells, most things will be able to save against them anyways. Classes with 4 levels of spells are not going to be using any offensive spells with saves. Well, they might. But then they'll realize that they barely stick, and so they try other things.

It's a subtle class, and almost everyone misses the subtleties the first time they read it. I know when I first read it, I was horrified too. But then I read it again, and thought about it.

Prediction: James and co. come up with 30 flavourful, fun but not overwhelming mechanically PrCs that serve more as enrichment of the world and less as vehicle for powergaming.

The community goes into blaaargh 1-star review outrage at PrCs not being a bunch of Ur-priests, Planar Shepherds and Abjurant Cheesecakes.

I really hope I'm wrong on *both* counts.

My goal with this book is to come up with 30 flavorful, fun, and exciting prestige classes that do not include "player traps" (even though I think that what some folks think of as "player traps" are in fact "poor GM campaign expectation management failures," and that any prestige class, given the right campaign, can be fun), but in fact DO present ways to specialize your character so that he or she DOES become pretty good at whatever prestigious type of adventuring he or she wants to specialize in.

What I won't be doing are prestige classes that blatantly make it poor choices to not take the class, or prestige classes that blatantly just exist to up the power of everything a base class can do.

You WILL be giving up one element of your current class advancement when you prestige class, so that'll give folks plenty of reasons to complain I guess. Whether or not that causes the book to get a bevy of 1 star reviews... we'll see...

Will items have a reference to what book they originally appeared in?

Hang on, everyone. I am #1. So those of you who numbered yourselves above will have to renumber now. :)

-Lisa

Perhaps this has been mentioned elsewhere, but one thing i would love to see is list on what equipment PCs and NPCS will need by class and level. I would love to see something similar to what you see from pages 215-219 in the 3.5 Player's handbook 2.

Just to spare people some pain, it's pretty clear that since this book is coming out in August, there is no time for playtesting or revisions to names of things or whatnot. This has likely already been sent off to the printers.

It actually has NOT been sent to the printers. It's actually still being written.

But no... we will not be doing a public playtest of this book.

At this point, if we can't pull off a book of prestige classes that are flavorful and well balanced and fun without needing a hardcover's level of work and playtest and refinement and extra TLC... we might as well just print novels is my opinion.

Will there any additional rules for Artifacts?

New artifacts?

Creation rules?

No artifacts at all. Artifacts are, in my opinion, lessened by not having a specific game world setting to build off of; they're like deities in that regard. Further, one of our philosophies in "Ultimate Equipment" is "It's about stuff you can buy."

Artifacts, not having price tags, are not things you can buy.

Nor, as it turns out, are they they things we'll ignore for much longer... stay tuned!

I hope that some of the great items from the RPG Superstar competitions show up - suitably edited of course.

As a special treat, we plan to include selected wondrous items from this year’s Top 32 in 2012’s Ultimate Equipment Pathfinder RPG hardcover, which will also include selected favorites from previous years.

And congratulations to another Mikey! Badgah man gets another round! Woo hoo!

There is no Monkey ...Only Zuul

The question/problem is, when do we stop? When is enough enough? It never is, in many ways, and so people are going to perennially be upset. This isn't to say that improvements should cease, mind. Just that it should be recognized that it is a process, something in motion, not a goal. I would like rather celebrate victories along the way than bemoan failings (save for the most egregious).

I "passed" my first phone interview with Amazon, so now I've got one more phone interview, and, if all goes well, I'll be flying out to Seattle for an on-site interview.

If this works out, I'll be in Toronto just as it's thawing out. :)

houstonderek wrote:

Guy Humual wrote:

So I suppose Karl can't boot me out of here.

And awesome dude from chat! FAWTLy is looking good today!

Hey Derek :)

I'm hidding out here till I know what the heck is going on and where I stand with Paizo chat. Long story short: people there don't think clowns are funny. How are things going with you?

Hell, I'm the biggest clown I know. I think the only time anyone has asked me to chill was when I got into it with Kevin Mack one time. I think you'll be good, you're too much of a chat fixture to not be there!

I'm doing a thousand times better today than I was yesterday. I find out every moment during these trying times that I really do have a lot of amazing people in my life, many from here even (special shout out to Patrick Curtin, you know why, Wolfthulu for above and beyond the call, and Crimson Jester for being my point man!).

So, yeah, I feel blessed.

One of the VERY few pro athletes/"celebrities" that I actually respect. I'd like to meet the man and shake his hand, and I detest football.

I had this urge to have salsa and nachos for dinner. So, I poured a bunch of salsa into a bowl, added a bunch of sharp cheddar cheese, and then grabbed the sour cream. The expiration date was 14 OCT 11... :( ...and it sure tasted good! :D

My wife has been coughing and has had a sore throat for quite a while now. (Hopefully she's getting over it.) A week ago, she asked if we still had "that cough syrup in the cupboard". I looked -- sure enough it was there. "Let's check the expiration date to see if it's still good." Expiration date -- July, 1999.

So, uh, I should go to the store and get some new cough syrup then, right?

@Bravo Team: If you're leaning toward cleric, I say go cleric. As far as names, of the two suggested, Sylavael gets my vote. I'll also get of the fence on alignment and put in for NG, as it fits the majority and covers both of our extremes fairly well. For a group name, hmm...the Sylavael Exploratory Group of Adventurers(SEGA)?

BNW -- After sleeping on it, I think I'm done here. At least in "discussing" things with you. I'll try to explain why in the hope that it might help you in the future.

Here is one of the things you said that I really felt was, at best, VERY poorly said (and which you keep bringing up that I didn't understand)...

Its more along the lines of we're being more moral because we're not getting bogged down by the morals of some bronze age barbarian tribe.

Then again, many Christians are not getting bogged down by said morals, because you've effectively managed to free yourself from them by letting your morals lead your religion rather than the other way around.

From what was written, you seem to think that the potential problem with the first statement is the phrase "bogged down" since you repeated it in the second statement. The problem really begins with the implied message that Christianity is nothing more than a simple set of "morals" given to us by little more than cavemen.

But you don't stop there. You go on -- thinking that you are sufficiently changing the first statement so that I won't be offended with the second statement. Which is (kind of) a nice way of saying that I superimpose my own morals over the Word of God -- which still comes to us from little more than cavemen. And for some reason you think that this is correct (which it isn't) as well as somehow being "civil".

For your convenience -- "Civil" -- adhering to the norms of polite social intercourse; not deficient in common courtesy. (From dictionary.com)

Once I figured out why I was posting/reacting the way I was, I have done my best to tone it down. You have not.

I have tried to explain to you that the Bible is far more than a simple moral guidebook -- to which you ultimately tell me that what I believe is impossible.

You have said that I have given you "malarky" and have implied that my thinking is "convoluted".

You said -- "That's what they are to me. How else do you want me to treat them?" How about as human beings? Especially in a "civil" discussion. Otherwise, you seem to be becoming the very thing you are preaching against. (Even discounting that it was a pretty dumb thing to say. I could say that about so many things as justification to being an ass -- "That's what you are to me. How else do you want me to treat you?")

You do not seem to be interested in any form of discourse. You seem to be far more interested in correcting what I believe (before you even know me) and in attacking the Christian faith.

So, farewell and good luck.

My daughter turns 1 tomorrow, we are having a bit of a party for her today.

I think this conversation has jumped the shark, but I wanted to respond to two comments I've seen repeated here that some are mistaking as analogous to spanking.

First, hitting adults I don't know and spanking my kids have not one thing to do with one another. At all. I have no moral or ethical obligation to train up a jackass at a concert that won't keep his hands off my wife, so talk of corporal punishment doesn't apply. It might be against the law to use corporal punishment against prisoner,s but then no one has any parental responsibilities to teach them AND they have passed childhood, so they probably can't be taught anything that way. There's no correlation, and continuing to pretend there is in order to pass judgment on decent people you don't know, based on how you conduct your household, is more adversarial and self-serving than anything else. I admit that's only my opinion. But trust me when I say I'm a pretty good Dad, and no one is telling me how to raise my kids.

Secondly, some are demanding proof that good kids can't be raised without spanking. Those people aren't listening, despite the good intentions of most of them. More families spank than don't or at least did a generation ago. And kids have grown up as good kids for centuries whether they were spanked or not. Ask why my little girl's card is purple every day, she'll tell you because Daddy will spank her. A decade from now, she'll just listen at school cause that's what she's always done. Please provide proof that you CAN'T raise well-adjusted kids with good character by spanking them. When you realize you can't offer that proof, you should move to a position that says "that's not right for me, but I'm not judging anyone's parenting skills".

You want a war on drugs, take all the cocaine confiscated by the government, mix it with anthrax, and reintroduce it to the market. Solve the national debt and the drug war in one go.

Damn, I didn't know you hated strippers that much.

;P

Wait! Beiber's a dude?

I do all my shopping there.

only closed on C'thulmas. For one hour. At midnite.

In Stranger aeons, even WalMart may die...

Always low prices that can eternal lie....

ftagn! ftagn!!!

Gently warm a small cup of paint thinner and you'll have a good substitute.

Smash the banks!

My five-year-old son to mom -- "Mom, when you get to be as tall as daddy, you can grow a mustache too."