Akron Erix

Tudan's page

8 posts. Alias of Fredrik.




Based on this thread. The argument in a nutshell is that with the community at large having gone through the first round items, we're all judges now, and a single thread would be so chaotic as to be unusable.

I am personally of the opinion that message board psychology means that this year, everyone will end up making separate threads for their items anyway, just to be able to find the responses. It's merely a question of whether they do it in RPG Superstar/General Discussion, or RPG Superstar/Critique My Item (or whatever you want to call it).


Somebody has to say it; might as well be me. Here's why.

I just started voting today, and it seems like all I'm getting are middling items, neither awful nor awesome. I'm also seeing lots of repeats, and no easy decisions; for example, there was one that I saw a couple of times where I only knew that it didn't make sense because I took the time to look up a spell that it used -- otherwise, it would've seemed pretty cool.

If I understand the voting system correctly*, these are signs that the items have basically already been sorted into their proper categories. We could spend another week+ distinguishing between precise gradations of mediocrity, if necessary; but even that seems like kind of a waste to me, let alone going into the new year.

*:
The fewer votes up/down an item has, the higher the weighting for its random appearance. The more time passes, the more likely that an item will have ballots. The ones that are most likely to get "equally good/bad" are the ones in the middle, just by the nature of the beast; so in the end, the ones with the least ballots (and highest weightings to appear) will be mediocre ones that are hard to judge between. That's what I'm seeing, therefore we're done.


I've decided to try voting on some entries for fun, and I believe that anything worth doing at all is worth doing well, but I immediately found that I have no idea how to price magic items. I just never needed to learn it before, since I've never made my own items.

I've been tempted. RPG Superstar appeals to my competitive instincts; but at this time, I have no desire to be a professional writer. If anything, I'm averse to the thought of having a deadline on producing something good enough for other people to read. ;)

So anyway, while I consider other factors between the first two items -- coolness, bugginess/exploitability, grammar, formatting, etc. -- I'd also like to know how to figure out how well-priced they are. But I have no idea where to begin. Any tips?


Pg. 195 of the CRB: "When making a melee attack against a target that isn't adjacent to you (such as with a reach weapon), use the rules for determining cover from ranged attacks." And Improved Precise Shot changes those rules. Sound reasonable?


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Here and here.


When I select "Upgrade my pledge to the $50 level" I get a new section called Payment Method, with "Add a payment method" in red above a button reading Add a Payment Method (which is all a little redundant, but that's not the problem). The button doesn't actually do anything.


In the thread on Evoking Day, I wanted to search everyone's lists to see if anyone had made one of "holiday boons". But that wasn't an option, so I had to slog through the blog and make the list myself. Just a suggestion. :)


What if you could use an immediate action to perform a free action? Tell me how it would break the game! How creative can you get with doing one minor thing out of turn each round? Like ceasing concentration on a spell, dropping an item, dropping to the floor, or shifting your grip to threaten with your gauntlet instead of your polearm (or vice-versa). I proposed it as a house rule for a game that I'm in; but then I remembered about unintended consequences, so now I want to make sure that it isn't a bad idea.

If this sounds familiar, it's because my first question was fatally flawed. A non-response could mean anything from "I have no interest" to "I never tried it" to "I tried it and it was fine" to "I know exactly how I'd exploit it, but you didn't ask that". So I'm asking that. ;)


I proposed it for a game that I'm in; but if there's a fatal flaw, then I'd rather find out from your hard experience than mine. ;)


I figured that I could tinker around with it, or I could ask people who've already been there and done that. I chose the latter. ;)

(I'd just check the box for "no coin weight" and call it a day, but this is a PFS character. And I don't want to track the coin weight manually.)


I think that the formatting in the forum itself is pure awesomesauce, and that the formatting in the Messageboards view isn't working for me. I suggested some changes in the Tuesday Update thread, and there was immediate pushback. Here's what I said, followed by the reply.

Fredrik wrote:

In the Product Discussion forum, I love the way that you separate out the publisher's name. It's in its own column, so you can easily scan down looking for works by a particular publisher; and it's small, to place the emphasis on the product itself.

I'm not so happy with how it looks when viewing the messageboards as a whole. I would say, try putting a hyphen between the publisher and the title, and reversing the bolding (so that the title is bold and the publisher isn't). Maybe also italicize the publisher. I think that would be easier to use in the same way as the forum view, for the same reasons.

In an alternate universe, Messageboards wrote:

.

Headless Hydra Games - Viridian Legacy: The Wasting of Duny Slough (PFRPG) PDF
Last post: 12 minutes ago by jjaamm
Paizo Publishing, LLC - Pathfinder Online: Thornkeep (PFRPG)
Last post: 22 minutes ago by Ravenmantle
Frog God Games - Rappan Athuk (PFRPG)
Last post: 52 minutes ago by Blonde Frog
Paizo Publishing, LLC - Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Thornkeep Dungeons 2-Pack
Last post: 1 hour, 9 minutes ago by JohnF

-------------------

JohnF wrote:
I'd disagree - I find the way Paizo currently has it is much more to my taste.

-------------------

The way it is right now, when looking at the boards as a whole, I find it difficult to maintain attention to the end of the longer product titles; and I don't have that problem at all in the forum itself. (I don't have full-blown AD/HD like my mom, but I still have tendencies toward distraction and hyper-focus.) What's your opinion?


The Serpent's Skull game that I'm in (and its Discussion thread) have both finally shown new updates! They used to only show updates in FeedDemon if I deleted and re-added them. (I follow quite a few other games, including a couple more that I'm in, with no such problem.) I really hope that this isn't just a one-time thing caused by some kind of reboot, since I find RSS to be a handy backup to the campaign tracker.

Edit: Oh! I just got an update in FeedDemon of my latest post! That's never happened in that thread before. Something has definitely been fixed. 8)


And I'm not even talking about the problem of not showing updates to stale threads. I'm talking about how I posted to the Gameplay thread for DM Barcas - Kingmaker of Korvosa, and yet that campaign is still listed in my Previous Campaigns (from when I posted in the Discussion thread). Whazzup?


So, you moved this FAQ candidate thread to the Player Companion forum, since that's what it was about. But then there isn't a FAQ link to click any more. So now that I noticed the lack, I'm wondering what's the point of my latest thread. Hardcovers aren't the only things that get re-printed, you know. Us softcover fans deserve to FAQ too!


In honor of this product being down to less than 100 hardcopies left in the Paizo webstore, and my having a personal question, I've decided to make an errata thread for it. (Since I personally prefer to separate the product criticism from the product discussion.)

Pg. 26 - Extra Gnome Magic

My Proposal

Three additional uses per day of any of the 0-level spell-like abilities, or one of those and one of the 1st-level one.

The Reason Why

First off, the text starts by leaving out speak with animals from the parenthetical list of gnome spell-like abilities, even though it is one. Then it includes speak with animals in the example. Then it specifies that if your racial 0-level spell-like abilities are changed to other 0-level spells, then the feat applies to them instead (but with no such claim about the 1st-level spell-like ability).

So, here's my interpretation. It looks to me like it was originally written for all of them, then someone got concerned about giving three castings of a 1st-level spell for one feat, and who knew what future modifications would bring. But they missed editing the example.

In the meantime, the Naturally Gifted trait on pg. 15 gave one extra of any of the spell-like abilities for half a feat. And since then, Fell Magic, Magical Linguist, and Pyromaniac (all from the ARG) have been consistent about only having one 1st-level spell-like ability (chill touch, comprehend languages, and produce flame, respectively).

I have a feeling that you're leaning toward just allowing three additional uses per day of the 0-level abilities. But it would be underpowered compared to Naturally Gifted in that case, plus also requiring Cha 13, and so I think that it should at least offer one additional use of the 1st-level spell-like ability (original or changed) in place of two of the 0-level ones.


I searched and couldn't find a thread. Not even in the archives. Sorry.

Pg. 60 - Glyph-Finding

As I discussed in my epic post about trap spells, in the PFRPG, anyone can use Perception to find magical traps. So, Glyph-Finding is pointless. Here's one possible replacement.

In an alternate universe, Pathfinder Savant wrote:
Glyph-Altering (Ex): At 2nd level, a Pathfinder savant can use Spellcraft to disarm writing-based magical traps (including glyphs, runes, sigils, and symbols) in the same way that a character with trapfinding can use Disable Device.

ETA: I'm picturing a wild-eyed wizard whip out a piece of chalk and start drawing. He places signs of numbness and delay around the sinister markings, which gives him time to add loops and whorls that turn the sigil of flaming death into an offhand comment about how flowers are pretty. As the party passes over it, a wilting sprig of greenery in the band of the bard's hat revives and turns a very fancy shade of violet; but if anyone notices, they don't tell him, because they think it's funny...


I keep getting the nostore page when I click on the RSS symbol to subscribe to recent posts for an online campaign. And no RSS updates in FeedDemon since over 24 hours ago.


The Question

Here's what I said in Website Feedback.

Quote:

First, for anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about, see this recent post for an example. The character's gender, race, and class are all displayed next to the alias name; and as you can see from the following post, the tags can also be used to display all kinds of stats for the DM's convenience. They're pretty awesome, and one of my favorite upgrades -- so naturally, I want more! 8)

My preference would be for this feature to apply to the Online Campaigns subforum, so that any future sub-subfora would automatically have it too. But for now, adding it to Recruitment would be nice. Is it just me, or do other people feel the same way?

So. What do you prefer for Recruitment? To continue displaying the player's tags, or to show the character's tags instead?

Forum Placement Defense:
I already have a thread in Website Feedback aimed at the web developers. This thread is aimed at the users of this subforum, to see what they want, since there's no particular reason to expect them to read the Website Feedback subforum too.


First, for anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about, see this recent post for an example. The character's gender, race, and class are all displayed next to the alias name; and as you can see from the following post, the tags can also be used to display all kinds of stats for the DM's convenience. They're pretty awesome, and one of my favorite upgrades -- so naturally, I want more! 8)

My preference would be for this feature to apply to the Online Campaigns subforum, so that any future sub-subfora would automatically have it too. But for now, adding it to Recruitment would be nice. Is it just me, or do other people feel the same way?


Quote:
Hint: Use + and - to include and exclude terms, and quotation marks to search for phrases.

Yeah, no. Here are a couple of examples of searching the Paizo Products subforum.

Quotation marks: The results for ["elves of golarion"] include this post, which does not contain that phrase.

Minus: The results for [elves - golarion] and [elves -golarion] include this post, where the preview actually has golarion as a highlighted word.

Which reminds me, the highlighting is really dysfunctional. But at least + seems to work for excluding results without the following term.


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I felt like listing them all, but I haven't played many, so I'm just going by descriptions. Please tell me of any others. :)

Blakros Museum
Scenario #5, Mists of Mwangi
Scenario #35, Voice in the Void
Scenario #2-11, The Penumbral Accords
Scenario #3-07, Echoes of the Overwatched

House of the Immortal Son
Scenario #7, Among the Living
Scenario #49, Among the Dead

Dremdhet Salhar
Scenario #8, Slave Pits of Absalom
Scenario Intro 1, In Service to Lore

Fiend of Rachikan
Scenario #22, Fingerprints of the Fiend
Scenario #2-10, Fury of the Fiend

Tides of Time
Scenario #23, Tide of Morning
Scenario #3-05, Tide of Twilight

The Devil We Know
Scenario #29, Shipyard Rats
Scenario #30, Cassomir's Locker
Scenario #41, Crypt of Fools
Scenario #48, Rules of the Swift

Echoes of the Everwar
Scenario #36, The Prisoner of Skull Hill
Scenario #42, The Watcher of Ages
Scenario #44, Terror at Whistledown
Scenario #53, The Faithless Dead

Eyes of the Ten
Scenario #46, Requiem for the Red Raven
Scenario #54, The Maze of the Open Road
Scenario #2-05, Red Revolution
Scenario #2-22, Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained

The City of Strangers
Scenario #51, The Shadow Gambit
Scenario #52, The Twofold Demise

Before the Dawn
Scenario #2-01, The Bloodcove Disguise
Scenario #2-02, Rescue at Azlant Ridge

The Heresy of Man
Scenario #2-06, The First Heresy
Scenario #2-07, Where Dark Things Sleep
Scenario #2-09, Beneath Forgotten Sands

Shades of Ice
Scenario #2-15, Written in Blood
Scenario #2-17, Exiles of Winter
Scenario #2-19, Keep of the Huscarl King

Shadow's Last Stand
Scenario #2-23, At Shadow's Door
Scenario #2-24, Web of Corruption

The Rats of Round Mountain
Scenario #3-20, The Sundered Path
Scenario #3-22, Pagoda of the Rat

Aspis Consortium Demiplane
Scenario #3-25, Storming the Diamond Gate
Scenario #3-26, Portal of the Sacred Rune

First Steps
Scenario Intro 1, In Service to Lore
Scenario Intro 2, To Delve the Dungeon Deep
Scenario Intro 3, A Vision of Betrayal


Hi, I'm going to (finally!) start an AP subscription as soon as I can choose #61 -- which is August 16th -- so I'd like to put my Player Companion and Roleplaying Game subscriptions on hold until then, for the Pathfinder Advantage discount. (Or end them and then I re-subscribe in a couple of weeks, either way.) Is it too late? I see in My Account that they're scheduled to authorize payment today.


Because after reading CheshireElf's off-hand comment, I think that those would be awesome. 8)

The Bottom Line

I had a vision of how it could maybe work, going through the Paizo website up to twice. First, the DM fills out a web form that creates a PDF chronicle sheet that is watermarked in a specific way, and then added to both his and the player's downloads. Then, the player maybe fills out a different web form that completes the rest of it and watermarks it in a different way. But just a sec.

The Forum Placement Defense

This thread totally belongs in this forum, because I'll be talking about things that only the website peeps could do. Not the PFS ones. Thanks!!

(Sorry about that, but I've experienced that threads tend to be moved according to philosophical considerations of tidiness of logical organization, rather than practical considerations of who reads what forum and would like to read what thread.) So. Back to the topic at hand!

From the Top

PFS chronicles are PDFs that are watermarked with the purchaser's paizo.com #, name, email address, and date of purchase. However, the chronicle sheets at the end are not watermarked with those identifiers; they're something to be given away, not kept. They're also not form-fillable, which is reasonable on two counts: they're designed to be printed out for tabletop play, where you can just fill them in with a pen; and I've been given to understand that forms compromise the security of a PDF.

There are many different kinds of remote play, from internet chat and messageboard posts to webcams and virtual tabletops. (Sometime around 1990, I actually played a one-on-one Champions/Terminator mash-up one-shot over the phone; it went fine until the end, when I had an incredible string of great rolls, and the GM didn't believe it. Modern tech FTW!) The question is, how to distribute chronicle sheets afterward?

When I finished a PbP of First Steps Part I, my DM printed out the chronicle sheet, filled it in by hand, scanned it, turned it into a pdf, and emailed it to me. In order to finish that sheet, I'll have to print it out and fill it out by hand; then, for another PbP DM to see it, I'd have to scan it and email it. I think that you can make a better way. The key is that every PFS character has to be registered on the paizo.com website anyway.

I can already look at my PFS character's Sessions tab and see where my DM entered the date, event, session, GM, scenario, player, character, faction, prestige points, and notes. There's very little more that you'd need to ask for. (Entering GP gained? Crossing off items that were not found during the scenario? What else do GMs do to a sheet?) Suppose that you then generate a PDF for that scenario's chronicle sheet, merely modifying the original based on the form. (I've never tried to work programmatically with PDFs, so please forgive me if that isn't anywhere near as easy as I make it sound. But there's always a work-around for everything.) Then, you watermark it at the top with the GM's name, PFS #, and date of creation, and add it to the downloads of both the GM and player.

One possibility is that the player prints it out and fills it out by hand like an old-fashioned chronicle sheet. Alternatively, when the player completes an online form for the rest, then that updates the download and watermarks it at the bottom of the page with the player's name, character's name, PFS #, and date of update. But it would really be a PITA to have all those on the Downloads page, when the only place where you need them is in a column on the Sessions tab.

What I'm picturing is a record of a remote session that you could print out and take to a tabletop game, and the DM there could trust. If the player also filled it out digitally, then it would be equally accessible to online DMs; the only sticking point there would be somehow uploading chronicle sheets that were filled out by hand at a tabletop game. Also, for those characters with purely digitally-maintained records, I have a hazy vision of far-distant future upgrades to how those could be accessed and viewed. Finally -- and there might not even be any demand for it -- but I can also picture a future possibility of exposing hooks for other sites (like third-party VTTs) to submit all that info after collecting it in their own UI, and then there's a Paypal-like re-direct and you take the user's password directly.

I look forward to thoughtful replies! For the TL;DR crowd, I put the bottom line at the top. Hope that helps.

ETA: On second thought, I think that it would be better to require that a digitally-prepared chronicle sheet be completed digitally by the player too. Otherwise, you could re-print it and fill out your part differently later, which is something that you can't do with hand-written ones. Probably best to keep things on an even playing field.


2 people marked this as FAQ candidate.

As Gregg Reece pointed out...

Gregg Reece wrote:

Bad rule info on "Animal Companion/Cohort/Eidolon" page. Under offense it lists the CMB formula as "10+...".

Not sure if that's been caught by anyone else yet.

I would've just flagged it as a FAQ candidate, but for whatever reason you can't do that on product discussion threads, so you get an errata thread. Yay! :|


1 person marked this as FAQ candidate.

I decided to make this thread to continue a certain discussion outside of the thread for the product in general, and to make a place for similar questions. To get everyone up to speed...

Matrixryu wrote:

The new oracle curses are interesting to say the least, and not what I had been expecting after reading Blood of Fiends.

The Blackened curse gives you burnt hands and upper arms, causing you to get a hefty penalty to 'weapon' attack rolls. This also adds fire spells to your spells known over time. I have to wonder... does this penalty apply to ray and touch attack spells? I guess it should since we're allowed to take 'Weapon Focus (ray)'. Anyway, interesting flavor, and I don't think the bonus spells that it grants overlap with those from the Flames mystery.

Wolfscarred Face curses you with a deformed and wolf-like face and a permanent chance of failing to cast spells which have verbal components (but you don't lose the spell). You get a bite attack and Magic Fang spells added to your list in return. My inner munchkin tells me that a Dual Cursed Wolfscarred/Deaf oracle is a workable combo since Deaf makes all your spells silent spells, effectively negating the former curse. Of course, you would still need to hide your face, and would also have to deal with the horrible roleplaying side effect of being deaf, lol. Anyway, I guess this curse would generally be somehow linked to the Agathions?

-~-

Fredrik wrote:
Matrixryu wrote:
The Blackened curse gives you burnt hands and upper arms, causing you to get a hefty penalty to 'weapon' attack rolls. This also adds fire spells to your spells known over time. I have to wonder... does this penalty apply to ray and touch attack spells? I guess it should since we're allowed to take 'Weapon Focus (ray)'. Anyway, interesting flavor, and I don't think the bonus spells that it grants overlap with those from the Flames mystery.

I looked at Weapon Focus since you mentioned it, and I think you have it backwards.

Weapon Focus wrote:
Choose one type of weapon. You can also choose unarmed strike or grapple (or ray, if you are a spellcaster) as your weapon for the purposes of this feat.
So it specifically calls out unarmed strikes and rays as things that aren't weapons, but that you can take the feat for anyway -- and if they aren't weapons, then it stands to reason that melee touch attacks aren't either.

-~-

Matrixryu wrote:
Fredrik wrote:
So it specifically calls out unarmed strikes and rays as things that aren't weapons, but that you can take the feat for anyway -- and if they aren't weapons, then it stands to reason that melee touch attacks aren't either.
Ooo, good catch. So, basically if you have this curse you're going to be trying to use only spells and special abilities for attacking. Interesting....

-~-

Mort the Cleverly Named wrote:
Fredrik wrote:
So it specifically calls out unarmed strikes and rays as things that aren't weapons, but that you can take the feat for anyway -- and if they aren't weapons, then it stands to reason that melee touch attacks aren't either.
While that is a reasonable reading, there is actually a FAQ on this. Quick Version: rays are generally treated as weapons for all purposes. So, the curse would in all likelihood apply to them (though I don't have the book, and couldn't say for certain).

-~-

Matrixryu wrote:

The book just says that you get a -4 penalty on all 'weapon' attack rolls.

Hmmm, so the end result of this is either A: you get the penalty to all attack rolls or B: you get the penalty on all weapon attack rolls AND rays?

The problem with A is that if this was the case there would have been no reason to call out 'weapon' attack rolls specifically. The problem with B is that there is no reason why you should get the penalty on rays but not get it on melee touch attacks.

Then, there is also the issue that if you follow the curse as written then you would also get a -4 penalty to bite attacks (if you have one).

I'm beginning to think that this is a case where the the intent really is that the penalty only applies when you try to wield actual physical weapons (or use natural attacks) with your burnt hands, and that we need to just ignore the rule technicalities/implications of what exactly counts as a weapon.

Edit: Also, I think I should mention one of the bonus spells that this curse grants is Scorching Ray. I think that they wouldn't give you a ray spell if the curse itself made hitting with it much more difficult, though there is a possibility they figured that the BAB of the oracle class made up for it.

The FAQ linked by Mort the Cleverly Named also counts weapon-like spells as weapons. So, the question is whether they intended to include rays (e.g. scorching ray) and weapon-like spells (e.g. flame blade) in the penalty, or just manufactured weapons.


I've been told that it's not only allowed but recommended to use 2 PP to get a wand of cure light wounds ASAP. So I can use 1 PP to get an ioun torch? Because that would be awesome.


I keep on misreading this thread as roleplaying celebrities -- like, who you'd play if you were sitting around a table with your friends, roleplaying a celebrity that was thrown in with the others in some reality TV show or something.

So mine: I think that I could roleplay a good Vin Diesel. I don't have his build IRL, but that goes for my Mwangi ranger too. It's more about being able to pull off the personality, from what you've seen of them. So sky's the limit!


Seriously. Even when I went to this forum to post this thread, it was all wonky, with big spaces between each thread. And my motivation was because when I went to post in this thread -- where it seems like every other post has a different amount of space between quote and text -- I absolutely could not get a blank line between the first and second paragraph.

I'll go ahead and post it now, just to see if it works. ETA: nope.


So, this is a weird one. I thought maybe it was just me or just RSS, but now it's up to at least an odd coincidence, if not yet a pattern.

I use FeedDemon Lite to track quite a few campaigns for the pleasure of reading them. I'm only in three active ones, and yet one of them has a bug: the Gameplay and Discussion threads only show updates in RSS if I delete the feed and re-add it. I just check those bookmarks on a regular basis.

So now, a new player reports a similar problem with new posts in that particular Gameplay thread not showing up on his Campaigns tab. It would make sense if the two were related; I mean, I wouldn't bother writing more than one function for "how many posts in that thread have timestamps more recent than X".

I understand that one little PbP campaign's updates are not going to be a terribly high priority, but I figured that I'd at least get it on the list. :)


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Similar to this old thread about "from Irrisen", I'd like to know the best adjective for "from Kyonin". Except in my case it's just for the Race field that now shows up next to aliases in their PbP posts. I'm thinking "Elf (Kyoni)" but I don't know, maybe it's just "Elf (Kyonin)".


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I've given this goddess a lot of thought and research, because at one time I was considering making a Bonuwat (Ijo) cleric. (I still might someday.) She isn't statted out in any official product, so there's a lot of leeway. Here's one view.

James Jacobs wrote:

As a strange sort of combination of Desna and Gozreh, Shimye-Magalla is not actually one entity. It is, in fact, Desna and Gozreh. Worshipers of Shimye-Magalla can thus choose from the domains granted by Desna OR those granted by Gozreh.

However, if that messes with the admittedly pleasing to the OCD minded setup of every deity offering 5 domains, I would say that Shimye-Magalla would grant the following since they represent the strongest crossover between the two deities:

Air, Water, Luck, Travel, Weather

I'm not satisfied with that. I think that there's room for another non-LG deity, since there are three LG ones. Even if their prayers are actually being answered by Desna and Gozreh, worshipers of Shimye-Magalla have a specific idea of who she is, which will influence what boons they can receive from those two. So. What is she like?

Sargava, p.27 wrote:
It's generally known that Shimye-Magalla reflects Gozreh's female aspect -- that which matches the capriciousness of the sea -- and pairs it with Desna's love of travel, freedom, and the stars by which the Bonuwat navigate.
Gods & Magic, p.18 wrote:
Born of the ocean’s fury and the wind’s wrath, Gozreh is a fickle deity. Those who ply the waters or rely upon the rains know this better than most, and are sure to placate Gozreh and honor him when the winds and waves are favorable. Gozreh has two aspects, equally depicted in art and sculpture. When at sea, or over water, Gozreh is a woman, with wild, flowing green hair whose body transforms into endless waves. In the sky and over land, Gozreh appears as an aged man with a long white beard, emerging from a mighty storm cloud.

Looks like her portfolios are travel, freedom, the stars, and the sea. DM Alexander Kilcoyne's Sargavan Saga -- which I've been following avidly from the beginning -- eventually determined that she is chaotic neutral, her holy symbol is a piece of driftwood, and her favored weapon is a starknife or trident. That all sounds good to me.

If I were DMing a Bonuwat cleric today, I would say that Shimye-Magalla's domains are Chaos, Liberation, Luck, Travel, and Water. It ends up being mostly Desna with a little bit of Gozreh, but even Weather has a strong Air element to it, and that part of Gozreh is omitted.

My version of Shimye-Magalla's subdomains would include Gozreh's Oceans and Desna's Azata, Curse, Exploration, Fate, and Freedom. (I would also change Calistria to grant Protean instead of Azata.) I think that Luck should be the one to get two subdomains because of the famous superstitiousness of sailors; and anyway, the only other subdomain that either deity offers for her domains is Revolution, and that doesn't match her flavor.

Finally, the oracular mysteries that seem to be a good fit for a Shimye-Magalla worshiper are Heavens and Waves. It doesn't sound like a lot, but that's because Heavens is the only one associated with Desna, and the sea is the only aspect of Gozreh that is incorporated in this meta-deity.

Thoughts?


I'm making a new thread because I'm tired of people just responding to the old thread's title, when I've already moved on.

Gary Teter wrote:

We might make a new forum, but we won't do it today. We have a lot of forums, and adding another needs to be carefully considered. For one thing, I don't even know what we'd call that forum. Is it going to be called "5th edition"? Magic 8-Ball says "I dunno, check back later."

For now, think of the 4e forum as the "current state of Dungeons & Dragons" forum.

I know! I'm the one who complained about having to scroll through so many to get to the ones that matter. If careful consideration is called for, then I will be happy to have a dialogue on the philosophy of categorization.

Synopsis:
After a great deal of thinking out loud, I eventually come to the conclusion that a new "Future RPGs" forum for unreleased games (and major edition changes) would be perpetually useful. After 5e is a released product, then we'll see if there are still enough people who want to talk about it here to warrant a forum of their own.

To some extent, categories are always arbitrary. There is always some other type of scheme that could have been used to distinguish between types of things, and always some other level of granularity that could have been applied.

Let me make that concrete. You're deciding where to put the manual for your new ACME Widgizmo in your filing cabinet. Does it go under ACME, ACME - Widgizmo, gizmos, gizmos - ACME, widgets, widgets - ACME, or Widgizmo? And do you really have to do everything the same way, or could it depend on how willing you are to shuffle through folders and how many things would end up in each folder?

Of course, that's just you. In multi-user categories, it seems to me that different schema prioritize between four perspectives: the data itself, the one who puts it there, the one who maintains it, and the ones who look for it.

In the case of the Paizo fora, the data is the posts themselves, and a good scheme from their perspective is one that produces an elegantly logical arrangement. The people who place the data are posters, and well-chosen fora from their perspective are ones that make it clear where to put posts. The maintainers are the mods, and I expect some sense of responsibility to their employer, making sure that the scheme is good for Paizo. For lookers, a good set of categories is one that makes it easy to find posts that they would want to read.

So. Let me throw out some possibilities and consider them from each perspective.

One is to simply add a 5e forum under the 4e one. It has the advantages of being logically consistent with the precedent of a 4e forum, being clear to posters, and lookers can easily find 4e or 5e posts without having to scan through a jumble of irrelevant stuff. However, it would facilitate pre-release excitement over a competitor's easily-idealized product that can't disappoint, because it doesn't exist yet.

Another is to turn the 4e forum into a 4e-and-later forum. It has the advantages of being clear to posters, not adding to the number of fora, and making it more difficult to have a coherent dialogue about a competitor's products. However, it would be increasingly useless for lookers over time.

Another is create a forum for Future RPGs (including major edition changes). It has the advantages of elegance in requiring only the one new forum *total* to contain all such discussion, including possible Pathfinder edition changes; it would eventually become clear to posters; and due to being future-oriented, it would always remain useful to lookers wanting to read about the soon-to-be latest thing. However, it would merely postpone the choice of where to put discussion of the new RPG (or edition thereof) when it comes out.

Writing this all out has given me an idea that I did not have before. (That is one of the uses of philosophy.) Using option #3, to be followed by option #1 once the future RPG is released, would maximize the positives and minimize the negatives of both. I mean, make a Future RPGs forum for all in-discussion-yet-unreleased RPGs and major edition changes; and when 5e becomes an actual released product that you can purchase, read, play, and be disappointed by, then it gets its own forum right under 4e. Bam! All upside, no down.

Anyway. You get the idea. There are lots of different ways to do it. It isn't even just a question of how you want to prioritize the perspectives; sometimes you can find creative win/win solutions like I did.


I'm not speaking for anyone. They're speaking for themselves. You can tell the need/want for a 5th Edition forum from the number of supposedly "4th" edition posts that aren't. Also, I'm pretty sure that corroborating statements by the NY Times and the publisher are enough to take it from the realm of speculation to reality. Please task a coder as soon as might be convenient.


No, not the left hand where you can choose which weapon he holds. The other one The closed fist. (Figures it would be the one mini where there could be some confusion about whether a hand *should* be missing...)

So. Bad news: I'm a total minis newbie. (That's why I got a case.) Good news: the blue arm part broke off mostly *inside* the upper cuff of the brown gauntlet. It looks totally fixable to me. I just need to know the right glue, and any special techniques to use -- or pitfalls to avoid -- with putting a broken plastic mini back together. :)


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I hate having to scroll past tons of old defunct superstars, playtests, prerelease discussions, design forums, alpha junk, and then more defunct playtests, just to get to stuff that people actually still want to talk about. Please move all of the Paizo Licensed Products, Older Products, Dragon Magazine, Dungeon Magazine, Online Campaigns, Gaming, Gamer Life, and Paizo Community above RPG Superstar.

You can move the current year's Superstar to the very top if you want, I don't care. I just think that you're doing the community a disservice by taking things that are still worth talking about, and burying them below stuff that isn't.


So, I can see the News page just fine, but then when I click on a specific link (such as Paizo Licenses Pathfinder MMO Rights), it takes me to an error page that says

Quote:

Sorry

The requested URL was not found on this server, or you do not have permission to access this area.

Pretty sure that wasn't the whole press release, so I figured I'd let you know.


So, I'm starting to think that I might need to run a game myself, in order for it be a Goldilocks pace. There are games that I'm glad to *not* be in because they post too much for me to even follow as an observer, and others where I'll check threads for responses to my posts and find none. "Just right" would be nice.

However, I haven't run a tabletop RPG in many years, I've only run one-shots, and I've certainly never run a PbP game before. So. Aside from the obvious -- post frequently -- what are the PbP-specific challenges that I should expect for recruiting and running a game, and what are the tips and tricks you recommend for overcoming them? Common pitfalls and how to avoid them? Anything else you can think of?

And now I'm throwing the floor open to any other questions DMs (and potential DMs) might have, and any tips you want to share!


I hope you don't mind my re-purposing this forum a little, but PbP is different, and I want to be the best player that I can be. I think I've got the basics down: checking the threads frequently, knowing my character, knowing the game, initiating RP instead of just waiting for things to respond to. What I'm looking for are more intermediate to advanced tips.

Specifically, what tricks do you use (or have you seen) for making posts more interesting for other players to respond to? Life happens to DMs too; I try sometimes to stir things up when they slow down, and sometimes I'm even successful, but sometimes I'm not.

And now I'm throwing the floor open to any other questions players might have, and tips you want to share!


Awesome! I know just the right Christmas present for a friend who still has some boxed sets from way back in the day, and a daughter from six years ago. Now, anyone who can't stand editors and thinks that correction is mean or rude or whatever, please ignore the following.

Missing word: "... or have friends that are complete newcomers to the game, this boxed [set] is a perfect introduction ..."

Broken link: our special site


This is basically a test. I've been reading up a bit, and people seem to get kind of testy on this particular board. So. Here's a totally irrelevant question that I don't need to know the answer to yet: when can an Eagle Shaman turn into a roc, and who else can?

APG, p.102 wrote:
Wild Shape (Su): At 6th level, an eagle shaman's wild shape ability functions at her druid level - 2. If she takes on the form of an eagle or roc, she instead uses her druid level + 2.

However, the Bestiary p.236 states that a Roc is a Gargantuan animal, while the CRB p.51 doesn't say anything about Wild Shape allowing anything so big. Forgive me if I don't use these terms correctly, since I'm new; but I think what I'm saying is that the RAW is nonsensical, so I'm asking for the most commonsensical RAI, not a houserule.

What I would say is that the Eagle Shaman can in fact turn into a roc, which is the functional equivalent of beast shape IV (if that spell granted gargantuan animals, which it doesn't). That would put it at 10th level normally -- if anyone else could do it, but they can't -- and so an Eagle Shaman can turn into a roc at 8th (but no other druid ever). What would you say?


I apologize in advance if everyone else already knows this, but I kind of skipped over 3.x and haven't been here long. I just had a sudden realization: the BAB can be made multi-class friendly, in a balanced and easy-to-use way, with a class level multiplier. For 1/2-BAB classes like wizards, the BAB multiplier would be a 2; for 3/4-BAB classes like clerics and rogues, it would be a 3; and for full-BAB classes like fighters, it would be a 4. Just take your number of levels in a class, multiply that by its BAB multiplier, add the results for each of your classes together, divide the sum by 4, and round down. Voila! Your current BAB.

It came to me because I was looking at making a halfing fighter/rogue, and I wanted to become a halfling opportunist later, but then he'd suddenly become worse at hitting enemies in combat than any of his three classes by themselves. It didn't make sense and discouraged the creation of a really interesting character by underpowering it, so I thought, what if there was an easy fix? And I found one! Yay. I intend to try my hand at GMing someday, and I'll definitely be using this.