Valantrix1's page

That's why 4E is now where it is (on the way out). It tried to change the paradigm and failed at oh so many levels. Turns out, folks don't want absolute balance. They mostly don't care for it. I strongly believe (that's my opinion, not statement of a fact, before somebody flips out) that 90% of D&D/PF player base doesn't give a flip about the things we're nerdraging here about. If an average D&D customer would mind the difference between axes and swords as much as we do, the game would die in a year and we wouldn't even be having this convo, because D&D would be a faint memory of past.

Yes, this makes us special snowflakes, I guess that's a consolation of sorts.

Yes! Insert reality check here.

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Because, contrary to popular belief, some of us don’t think it’s all about the numbers. I pick out a concept for my character, and then I stick to it. Do I try and maximize my productivity within my concept? Hell yes, but I don’t compromise my idea to get a paltry extra few points of damage here or there.

Going... going... gone! Sold to the nerd in the corner.

Rock on Paizo, rock on! I forsaw 4 coming, but not all this goodness.

Valantrix1 wrote:

This year in the U.S. taxes arn’t due until the 16th. So apparently taxes aren’t quite as certain as death anymore! ;)

Don't fall for this! Just because last year the 15th was on a weekend and the following Monday was a holiday, thus taxes weren't due until the 17th, this year has none of those things. Taxes are due on the 15th!

This is what happens when you trust your accountant friend, they tell you lies!

While I don’t play PFS, this boon is certainly interesting. I must point out one thing that my anal personality won’t let go though. This year in the U.S. taxes arn’t due until the 16th. So apparently taxes aren’t quite as certain as death anymore! ;)

Yes, clever wording there! Also, I love the direction the companion line is heading.

Love these! Keep them coming!

The more small little details I get about this adventure path, the more I want it. James statting up demon lords just makes it all the sweeter!

"Caster level" is just a shorthand for "power level" in a scale that's normally used by spellcasters. A vampire fighter's dominate ability has a caster level, even though the vampire isn't a caster, yes? A rogue with the dispelling attack talent has a caster level, even though the rogue isn't actually a caster, yes?

Personally, I'd allow alchemists to create certain other kinds of magic items. But RAW they are not casters (they don't cast spells, extracts aren't spells), so they can't take the feats.

I agree with this 100%. Also, this is probably the best way I've ever heard this explained. The next time my players are haranguing me about this topic, I can now refer them to this explanation so that I don't get a headache trying to come up with words they can understand.

Generally, to do that you need to increase it's HD rather than add templates. There might be a template out there I'm unfamiliar with though.

In PFS, they use

"Equipment: ioun stones use method 1 for resonance and never use method 2. Additionally, only normal ioun stones have resonance—inferior ioun stones never do. Advanced ioun stones are not legal for play."

I'd suggest whoever is organizing your campaign just do something similar. Though in truth, I'd lean toward banning the book entirely is its 3.5 material. And the some of the resonant powers are very powerful.

Um, no it's not 3.5 material, but it can be a little powerful if you let it.

Valantrix1 wrote:

Mr. Sutter,

I have what is more of a technical question, perhaps you could help me. I have been wanting to read the fiction line for quite awhile because of the rave reviews my players have been giving it. I have a slight limitation though, and that is I’m blind.
I guess my question is: If I buy the novels in the PDF/Epub format, does it open with Adobe Reader, or do I need an Epub reader to use it. Thanks for any information you can give me, it will be greatly appreciated.

Hey Valantrix1! I'm glad your players are enjoying the novels. :)

If you buy an electronic version of any of the novels from us, you should get both a PDF (which should open in Adobe Reader) and an ePub which works with eReaders. If you have any problems with the files, just ping Customer Service and we'll either figure out a solution or refund your money. But they *should* work just fine! Thanks for giving the line a shot!

Awesome James! You just made my week! Just because I can, I'll start with your novel first!

Valantrix1 wrote:

Mr. Sutter,

I have what is more of a technical question, perhaps you could help me. I have been wanting to read the fiction line for quite awhile because of the rave reviews my players have been giving it. I have a slight limitation though, and that is I’m blind.
I guess my question is: If I buy the novels in the PDF/Epub format, does it open with Adobe Reader, or do I need an Epub reader to use it. Thanks for any information you can give me, it will be greatly appreciated.

Hi Valantrix1 I'm not sure about Adobe reader, but I use the epub versions with the kindle text - to - speech, and it works

Thanks, I'll have to experiment.

Mr. Sutter,
I have what is more of a technical question, perhaps you could help me. I have been wanting to read the fiction line for quite awhile because of the rave reviews my players have been giving it. I have a slight limitation though, and that is I’m blind.
I guess my question is: If I buy the novels in the PDF/Epub format, does it open with Adobe Reader, or do I need an Epub reader to use it. Thanks for any information you can give me, it will be greatly appreciated.

Congradulations, and good luck in the next round!

Surprise, pulled out of his behind house rules… Got to love those. Whether it was to further the story or because he was just being a dick, your GM hosed you. Either way, he should have warned you about his crazy idea way before it came up in a desperate situation.

Awesome! This line is shaping up to be my favorite!

I had a feeling this was coming down the pike! This will be the first revisited book I've really been interested to see in quite awhile. Keep them coming guys, and I'll keep buying them even if I'm not all that interested.

Note some undead have a lifesense ability that might not see androids or robots, this is especially true of Incorporeal Undead.

So for those romantic out there, no Ghost in the Machine.

Of all the monsters in the Pathfinder Universe, there are only 5 creatures with the lifesense ability, and not all of those are undead.

Each and every one of those creatures has a way of "seeing" without using lifesense.

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This magazine truly is a labor of love people, so check it out! Every issue, I find something useful and flavorful. It's free, so you can't beat the price. I haven't regreted one of these downloads yet, which I can't say for some of the things I've paid for...

Sounds awesome! Unfortunately, being blind makes it hard to read a comic without PDF support. I'd really like to get my hands on that back matter more than anything. Oh well...

Drejk wrote:

Wait you mean that at the moment we can't allow our players to retrain feats?!

Also, am I one of the few not thrilled by rules for young characters?

I'm utterly ambivalent about being able to play children. I guess I just don't understand the appeal at all of sending a kid on a dangerous quest risking decapitation, disembowelment, and mind warping magic*. Thankfully, it probably won't take up a large section of the book, so it's no huge loss, unless children actually end up being statistically better than adults for some classes. I really think that playing an underage character should have far more mechanical disadvantages than bonuses.

*I'm not accusing Paizo of encouraging child abuse or anything, don't worry. It's just personally why I don't want to play a kid - my games tend to be a bit dark.

I feel the same for the most part. A friend of mine always used to comment on Harry Potter, wondering why in the world a parent would let their kids go to a school where the chance of death is an every year possibility. Don't get me wrong, I believe that these rules will have benefit to the game, but I probably won't use them all that much. Options are a good thing after all, even if you don't use them.

Fanfreakingtastic! Enough said.

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I had a guy that did similar things in our 3.5 days. He always used to ask questions about how certain rules worked, then when he didn't like the answer he would say one of two things. Either that isn't the way it used to work in 2nd ed, or that isn't the way it works in real life. It was frustrating and annoying beyond belief.

It turns out the guy was jealous of how much the other players looked up to me because of my 30 years of playing the game, so he was trying to proove something. Unfortunately, all of his passive agressive behavior got him was not being invited to games anymore.

Thank you for the new replies, people!

@Komoda: What you're saying is mostly correct. When you compare a character based on classes to another, then things are more or less OK. (Just to be clear, this house rule is targeting difficulty just as much as fluff, so there's that.) But consider this instead:

Let's assume a level 10 rogue vs. CR 9 Tyrannosaurus.
Rogue - Dex +3, Acrobatics 13 (1/lvl=10+3 class bonus=13) = 16
Tyranossaurus - Target CMD = 39

Rogue now has to roll 23 or higher = NO chance of success.

Same stats with new rules:
Tyranossaurus - Total Reflex +12, base 11, Target Roll = 23

Rogue has to roll 7 or higher = 70% chance of success

As you can see, we're comparing a CR 9 monster to a 10 HD character. Still, it has no chance of succeeding on doing something that might as well be the basis of his character, that is, moving around in melee range without getting hit (or else he will be seeing the grave pretty fast...). The problem is that while CR = HD for PC-like characters, the same isn't true for monsters. That Tyranossaurus is CR 9, but has 18 HD. As you can imagine, things get out of control really fast (specially for "weaker" types, like Animals), and a simple monster can shut down a character without even being built for it. I can understand your reasoning, but I prefer the maneuver being 100% accurate against something and mildly difficult against other things than being mildly difficult against something and just plain impossible against other things. At least, it seems more fun to the players. Besides, you can always build something to shutdown a tumbler when you feel it's right :) Still, it might be TOO easy, so adding BAB to the mix might indeed be a good one, though it is increasing the rule's complexity.

@ZZTRaider & Lord Foul II: Exactly, this is more to enable a typical fantastic archetype than anything else, while the way it is today it is mostly impossible to do that with any good degree of success =/ Besides, this is simply to negate attacks of opportunity, it...

Sorry dude, but I don't think there is anything wrong with the way the system works now. As with anything in Pathfinder, you have to invest in it for it to become effective. Your example of a rogue above is pathetic to say the least. That character didn't invest in anything to become a better tumbler. First off he could have taken skill focus in acrobatic, which would have given him another +6 to the skill. Secondly he could have also taken the feat acrobatic to increase it by another 4. Thirdly he could have boots of elvenkind to give him another 5 bonus. Finally his dex mod is only a +3 at tenth level? Wow that is the worst rogue stats ever! It should be at the very minimum +5...

So that gives our new and improved rogue a +33 to acrobatics (10 skill, +3 class skill bonus, +5 dex, +6 skill focus, +4 acrobatic, +5 boots)

Wow! Suddenly the system doesn't seem all that bad. Frankly, I didn't even try to make the acrobatics skill as high as I know I could. Remember, everything isn't supposed to be able to be tumbled around. That leads down a path that doesn't require much creative thinking in the way combats work out.

It's your game, do what you will with it, but I have never had a problem with the way it works now. Enjoy!

Hi guys. First off, I just want to say that I love your products. Everything I have purchased and read I have loved. Your work is consistently the best out of all the third party publishers out there.

I have one little problem though. This product as well as the first Gothic Grimoire will not open as a PDF for me. The third one works fine, and I've tried redownloading them both, but they still won't open. Another bit of information would probably be helpful, and that is that I'm blind and use assistive software to view the PDF's, but like I said, I don't have problems with any of the other ones I've bought. I just thought you should know, because I don't even know if you can do anything for me anyways. Thanks either way, and keep up the fantastic work!

Nice! I'm looking forward to the next part. A halfling that doesn't annoy me... odd. :)

Awesome! I'm eagerly anticipating this one. Also, I didn't realize how much I missed these little previews until this showed up today.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Seranov wrote:

And that character would have done more damage if he'd used a full attack.

Extra damage dice are mostly meaningless - it's the bonus damage that does all the real work.

The ultimate issue is that Vital Strike suffers from not only random number generation (i.e. Damage Dice results), but also the lack of cumulative bonuses that others would normally get from Full Attacks. Vital Strike is great if your only chance to hit is with one hit (which greatly outweighs any Full Attack, though if you can only hit with one single attack, then there is a problem).

My fix is an attempt to close the gap, though I also don't want to make it so that Vital Strike doesn't just outright make Full Attacks useless. With my fix, Vital Strike is now much more useful in that it allows a character more consistent, powerful damage with single attacks, but it is also still weaker than a character who would otherwise make a Full Attack option with Haste.

This is exactly my point. Vital Strike is intended for characters who are not going to be making full attacks. It is not a feat for the power attacking barbarian with the greatsword standing on the front line. It is a more tactical feat. There is nothing wrong with that. Shot on the Run and Spring Attack are similarly tactical feats that are not recommended for characters who want to full attack. That does not make them worthless.

+1

As a native of Punxsutawney, I find this amusing.

Love these area/country books! Keep them coming, and I'll keep buying them.

0 degrees farenheit for that feat plus I forggot one feat

Witchbreaker
+2 save vs spells, spell like abilities, hexes, and supernatural abilities of witches and hags plus when you crit such an enemy any allies under the effects of mind-affecting effect from that creature get a new save as an immediate action.

Tribal Scars feat benefits for each clan
Bearbelt- +1 fortitude save and +2 intimidate checks.
Greattusk- +2 cmb with bullrush and overrun and +2 ride checks.
Ice Chasm- +1 reflex saves +2 climb checks.
Night Hunt- +2 perception and survival checks.
Raptorscale- +5 land speed and +2 acrobatic checks.
Slothjaw- +1 will saves and +2 handle animal checks.

Magic items
Buoyant Harpoon
Cloak of the Saga Keeper
Helm of the Mammoth Lord
Hex Nail
Mammoth Lance
Pelt of Primal Power
Saga of the Linnorm Kings
Shard of Winter

Thanks for the tidbits!

Anybody read through this and want to share some juicy tidbits? It's been way too long since I've had a new material pathfinder fix...

Lol Doug! Every time you post, I think should I be worried for our next gaming session?

I think they are exactly where they should be. That weapon property from the book of 9 swords was not priced right at all, and was overpowered as a result.
Being able to apply feats like Weapon focus, greater weapon focus, weapon specialization, and greater weapon specialization to everything in a weapon group is pretty darn good. Also, some weapons are in more than one group, so the feats in question would apply to every weapon in each of those groups. It keeps some fighter concepts from being one trick ponies.

For example, choose these feats with the starknife and it applies to the light weapon group and the thrown weapon group. Basically it frees up feat slots to use for other more flavorful choices.

Either way, we can discuss it when we play next.

Does anyone remember that feat from 3.5 that let you add sneak attack on a crit? That was fun, ridiculous, but fun

I believe the feat was called Telling blow.

As for the question at hand... I really don't care about the direct benefits of a weapon if they don't fit my concept. However if the weapons are very similar and fit my character concept equally, I tend to go with the wider crit range.

I guess it depends on if you rather have a bunch of little laughs, or one big hearty chuckle.

Thanks Paizo! This, and Memories of Light coming out tomorrow have made my night!

When Chik-lit, my 15th level Thri-keen Fighter/Tempest who was quad-wielding bastard swords killed a marilith in 4 seconds.

** spoiler omitted **

Yes, we tend to run high powered games, why do you ask? :)

I don't ask... I was there!

He failed to mention that we were in the process of confronting Graz't in his throne room. At the time we were working for a demon prince of our DM's own fancy that fed us all kinds of info on him.

Our half-fiend bard talked our way into the throne room and then proceeded to bluff him into letting down his guard a bit and then with a pre-arrange signal we opened up a can of whoop-ass on him.

Our party was maximized to the nines, and surprising enough none of our PCs took one point of damage in the whole battle. That was probably more luck than management. It was truly epic though.

I only have one thing to say. Use Magic Device.

Thanks for culling the heard. It definitely makes me want to vote more.

Frankly, it depends upon how good the players are at stratagy and tactics. I've run this AP 3 times with 3.5 rules and once in Pathfinder.
With 5 PCs in Pathfinder it was a cakewalk in the beginning. I had to seriously modify some of the more significant encounters to make them challenging. So, if you and your fellow players are at all competent, I'd worry about having a sixth PC.

You might consider this metagamey and it doesn't necessarily speak to your particular situation, but if I may... The problem here isn't a matter of tactics as it is the inclusion of instant gratification "I win" spells like greater invisibility. Awesome advantages, very few drawbacks.

I try to limit these types of spells in my campaigns, usually with houserules. For example, there is no greater invisibility (or I make it a higher level than 4, maybe 7 or 8). Fly can be speed-limited to the character's base speed (usually 30') and/or duration limited to rounds/level. Teleport is another one I dislike. The 100 mile range/level is far, far too much (I remember the affect it had on my STAP campaign once the PCs could just teleport back to Sasserine on a whim).

Just some thoughts.

-Skeld

Teleporting back to Sasserine was not near as easy as you make it out to be, considering it's, if I remember correctly, over 3,000 miles from the Isle of Dread to Sasserine. At the point at which you can obtain teleport, that means at least 3 castings of the spell to reach the city. This in itself would require good knowledge of those destinations, otherwise you have an off target arrival. So I don't think it's all that easy to use teleport to travel back to Sasserine.

The barbarian warlord would never have left the dungeon as soon as you had him do it. Under the artifact description, it states that it is physically transforming him into the swords previous owner, which should take a bit of time to accomplish. "it’s the wait for this subtle transformation to be complete that’s kept Armag in “meditation” in this chamber for so long."

That in my opinion would have solved much of your problem. He is totally dominated by the artifact, and would not make decisions on his own. This would have forced your party to, at the very least, revisit the last 3 rooms of the dungeon and it's encounters all over again.

Just my 2 cents.

I would say that any character, fighter or otherwise, that you plan out in its entirety at character creation, would wind up boring. I've tried it before. I've pre-planned fighters, sorcerers, monks, druids, and one bard (that I ended up never playing) from creation all the way to 20. I end up hating myself because I've now pigeon-holed myself into a very linear and specific progression. What you are describing, is completely self-inflicted and not the fault of the class itself.

That being said, I'm not saying you are doing it wrong or anything like that. Some people prefer to set their progression up in advance. Maybe they like to know what's coming. Maybe they are planning things out based on a theme. Maybe they're just OCD. Doesn't matter, that's the way they play, and there's nothing wrong with that. I am absolutely...

This... 100%

Even if the office wasn't closed, the US post office is.

Pendin Fust wrote:

Although, I've always wondered why the distinction between en-dash and em-dash. Sean, do you have any historical reasoning for the need to have the two?

No, merely personal speculation having to do with early moveable type and some stuffy old guy in the 1800s deciding one was right and the other wrong. :p

FYI, I'm pretty sure Paizo uses an en-dash in this way for the sake of readability: you're more likely to see the larger dash (and interpret –4 properly as "minus four") than you are with the smaller hyphen, which risks misinterpreting it as "four." Or perhaps that's something we inherited from Wizards of the Coast's style guide, but which was inherited from TSR...

Valantrix1 wrote:

It's nice to know why you guys do this sort of thing the way you do, but I'm telling you from a blind guy's perspective that it's very annoying in certain circumstances. For instance the En-Dash that is used before a number to indicate a penalty is quite tiresome. The reason for this is because the software I use to read my PDFs says it exactly the way you format it.

Honestly, it sounds like your program needs to be more contextually aware of punctuation. I have a list of similar complains about Microsoft Word. For example, the mathematical times symbol is × ... but if I use my OS's function to insert that symbol into Word, it appears as an underscore _ ... for no reason that I can tell. And if we import that Word file into InDesign, it's still an underscore, so it's not like Word isn't recognizing it properly and InDesign is, Word is messing up the character that's supposed to appear. :/

Anyway, Valantrix, maybe you could send an email to the company that makes your program and ask them if there's a way to have it recognize an en-dash as a minus?

Thanks Sean, I'll look into it. Frankly, until you mentioned it, the idea never even occured to me.

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It's nice to know why you guys do this sort of thing the way you do, but I'm telling you from a blind guy's perspective that it's very annoying in certain circumstances. For instance the En-Dash that is used before a number to indicate a penalty is quite tiresome. The reason for this is because the software I use to read my PDFs says it exactly the way you format it. So instead of saying minus4 it says En-Dash 4. I've actually copied whole documents into MS Word and reformatted just so I don't have to hear that. I don't want you to change the way you do things, I just wanted you to be aware of it. As always guys, keep up the good work.

#1 You must be new to the party. The whole Combat Maneuver thing IS an improvement. If you haven't played 3.5, perhaps now is the time to be locked in a closet and forced to grapple all day under that system.

#2 That your personal build has run up against some monsters against which it is not 100% guaranteed effective is called "challenge," not "broken."

But I suppose if people have begun tearing everything down and reconstructing whatever we want anytime we are dissatisfied, then now is the time for me to turn in my official list of complaints about what is wrong with the world.

I expect an answer as to when it will all be fixed, written in the OP's hand, in triplicate, in my mailbox by Tuesday morning.

+1!

Keep them coming guys, keep them coming...

Hmm... does this also mean that PDF versions of the previously mentioned products will also go up in price? I don't really care about a price increase. Quality is my first priority when purchasing RPG products, but I am blind and I'm curious about the medium in which I choose to obtain those products. Thanks, and keep up the excellent work!