Wicht's page

. I think the spirit of the word count is to prevent the 3000 word submissions and to really make you think about your submission.

Huh.

And here I thought the 200 word count was to see if you could follow instructions and deliver a product within the parameters specified.

How strict is the 'wondrous item' category?

If a person had an idea for a ring, rod, armor, etc.
Would these be rejected outright because they are not technically wondrous items?

If you read the tip thread you will see that they will be rejected. A wondrous item is, as you surmise, an object that can be crafted with the craft wondrous item feat.

Exploding Candles of Doom!!!

"Nothing here is as it seems. He's not the plucky hero. The alliance is not some evil empire. This is not the grand arena."

"And that's not incense..."

Guess that throws me out of the contest..

It only throws you out of the contest if you can only imagine a single world and the contents therein.

This contest is not about offering a person a chance to publish their own world (c.f. Eberron). As I understand it, its about offering an unknown a chance to publish a single module in Paizo's world.

Am I the last person in the United States who hasn't watched a whole episode of Idol?

Man, I need to stay in more. :)

I only see American Idol when clips of it are shown on some other show. Other then that - never seen an episode even partially.

Railroad

You keep using that word...

I do not think it means what you think it means.

Halderfast, I think what you are really upset about is the lack of what you undestand to be a real dungeon.

If I may make a suggestion. Stop playing your current campaign and pick up something like Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. If you are not having fun it becomes your fault after a while for continuing to do what you are not enjoying.

I submitted mine at about 160 words or so. No backstory.

I managed 131 words with backstory. Personally, for new magic items or unusual magic items, I like a little backstory. But you are right. The SRD has no stories in it to speak of about anything.

Try telling the back story in only 2-3 sentences. Much more than that and you are telling a real story, not describing a magic item. Remember that brevity is the soul of wit.

Classic - Moby Dick
I never made it very far into it. Just couldn't read it, get into it.

Pop Book - Eragon
It was so derivative that there was absolutely no suspense for me, no joy, nothing. I anticipated almost everything that was going to happen and recognized almost every story/book that was ripped off to write it. I recognize it was written by a kid and as such is not all that bad but I can't understand the thrill so many people got from it.

Watcher! wrote:

DarkArt wrote:

Well it's either a massacre or just one of those really fun passion parties.

You know, one of the previews of Chapter Three mentioned 'Ogre Love Children.'

I wonder what kinda freakery ol' Nick Logue is serving up to us? First CR15 Extra Dimensional Sea Serpent Octupuses, now 'ogre love kids'.

Where is this preview?

The end of Pathfinder #2

The point I was making is that you can go much further in dnd than the difference between Christianity and Islam. And with all of the magic and strange species you can justify it too.

I guess the point I am trying to make is that religious differences are not the same as cultural differences.

Religion affects questions of ... How did I get here? (Good dieties will be honest, evil dieties might lie) How should I live? i.e. moral choices, worship, etc. What happens when I die?

Culture deals with dress, food, manners, social norms, courtship, work, etc.

It is perfectly feasible for two races to worship the same god, believe they got there through divine providence in a similar fashion, believe they go to the same place when they die and yet still be totally different from each other biologically and culturally. Their culture will also shape their application of their religion but should not alter core truths (assuming those truths are divine).

At the same time, with multiple deities and alignments, two very different cultures will venerate very different gods. The answer is not to create a new god every time you want a new culture. The answer is to pick which of the existing deities best matches that cultural outlook and apply that one. Elves and Dwarves will almost always venerate different ideals. That seems only natural. But a human that venerates the same ideals and chooses a similar divine leader should ultimately find at least a little in common it seems to me with other worshippers of the same religion, no matter how little that have in common otherwise.

So yes, you can go further in DnD with the differences, but how many godlings does one need to show all the various ideals?

Both of these religions have the same creation myths,

Assuming that a divine pantheon of any sort views Creation as a reality, not a myth...

...wouldn't it follow that more than one race/culture/religion would be told the same story by their dieties.

Maybe from different perspectives but still the same overarching theme.

Or do we just assume the gods (including gods of law, order and honesty) make this stuff up for the benefit of their followers.

I understand the fact that different races and cultures may choose to flavor their interpretations of the gods' divine messages and sometimes might in fact make up their own stories. Still I wouldn't be surprised in a world created by divine beings to dig up ancient scriptures in a long lost tomb and find, surprise, they are identical to the scriptures we use... just in a different language.

Gnomes ARE NOT being replaced by Tieflings

It is the half orcs that are being replaced by Tieflings.

Gnomes are being replaced by a race of sentient dire beavers.

The system i have settled upon is to have players roll their hit-points, but if they choose to do so, they are allowed one reroll. They have to keep the second roll, even if it is lower than the first roll. Ones and twos are always thus rerolled, but they have to think real hard about rerolling if they roll a 6 on a d10 or a 7 on a d12. So far it seems to work to keep hit points on the high side and make the players feel like they have more control over their characters. Still, it is funny when they reroll that two and get a one. At least its funny to me.

just looked that up on amazon and if you hadnt recomended it i would have closed the window based on cover art alone. after reading the description however i must say im interested

Bone is critically aclaimed - and very well deserving IMO of all of the praise it gets. It will make you laugh and cry both.

If you can, obtain the big One Volume black and white edition (Cartoon Books). Scholastic has color editions of the first few parts but I do not believe they have colored the whole series yet.

"The Pig, The Prince and the Unicorn" (Karen A. Brush) stars a magic pig on an epic quest and has a different take on the whole saving the world from evil scenario.

Dennis L McKiernan's "Iron Tower Trilogy" features protagonists very much like halflings (very much modeled on Tolkien's hobbits).

"Rats, Bats and Vats" (Eric Flint, Daivd Freer) though Sci-fi not fantasy features intelligent Rats and Bats fighting alongside a human clone (vat) grunt.

The Orc queen series (by Morgan Howell) has a human female as the protagonist but Orcs play a major role (noble savages). Its not great but not bad either.

The Dhampir series (Barb and J.C Hendree) has a Dhampir heroine and a half-elf assassin sidekick.

Bone (Jeff Smith) (not a novel but a great read) has non-human main characters (sort of like gnomes maybe :p ) and in my opinion should be in every fantasy lovers library.

Dark Lord of Derkholm (Dianne Wynn Jones) and its followup, the Year of the Griffin (which I like better), has Griffin main characters.

David Weber's Bahzell Bahnakson series (Oath of Swords, War God's Own, Wind Rider's Oath) features a race called the Hradani and is a pretty good take on the Paladin genre.

Can't really think though of too many others.

Then again I'm looking forward to Alien VS Predator 2 so perhaps I'm crazy!

Well,...

it can't be much worse than the first one... can it?

Tons of cool AvP comics, novels, etc and they pick some mediocre script about the frozen wastes of earth???

/threadjack

I am looking forward to the next hellboy movie. And the two cartoons haven't been bad either...

[

Democrats: We support the troops by taking credit for someone else's charity.

Ok - that one was really, really funny.

At least it was to me.

Just one more, this one a religious song...

Her Majesty in Terror Reigns
Goblin Hymn of Sacrifice*

To be sung slow and majestically

Sharp teeth bite, the blood rolls out.
Every night we scream and shout.
Dark eyes gleam, to see them bleed -
Her Majesty in terror reigns.

Sharp claws tear, the blood is sweet.
Every night we pound our feet.
Dark teeth grin, to hear our din -
Her Majesty in terror reigns.

Sharp blades stab, the flesh is weak.
Every night our songs we sing.
Dark skin burns, our souls to turn -
Her Majesty in terror reigns

Sharp stones cut, we sacrifice.
Every night will just suffice.
Dark throat drinks, we give our thanks -
Her Majesty in terror reigns.

* Some goblins have been observed crying or otherwise misty eyed while singing this solemn hymn prior to a sacrifice. However once the song is ended, goblins routinely break out in hysterical laughter, screaming, stomping and exhibiting loud exhuberance - just as the priest(s) falls upon the victim with teeth, claws, and knife.

Just an additional note - If you know the Christian Hymn, "Pierce my ear," the lyrics well fit the tune. Otherwise try singing it somewhat like "Amazing Grace."

So, while the humans are might have a huge feast of thanks, consisting of both grains and meat, with much dancing and celebration, the elves would have a more solemn affair, with just grain and fruit on the table and a dance symbolic of the first harvest. There would be differences, but both the humans and the elves would instantly recognize it as a worship to their god. They might find some of the things the other does kind of weird, but not enough to pronounce them heretics.

Just my opinion.

I think you have the right tack. Let me add my own 2 cp.

Some semi-random thoughts.

Religion is always controversial because it deals with Truth. For this reason it can also be a unifying factor when two people from different backgrounds find a common reference for truth. Truth is not racial.

Lets consider for a moment the protestant - catholic wars. National identity in these wars played some importance but not as much as doctrinal identity. English Catholics would just as happily burn an English Protestant as a French Protestant (or maybe almost as happily). In later years American Protestants (and Catholics) would (and do) pray for the safety of their religious brethren in nations that persecuted them.

I have walked into a worship service in Mexico, where I did not speak the language, but the participants believed as I did and the worship was familiar to me.

To Varisia now... Imagine one god, we'll take Desna - worshipped by both humans and elves. It would be possible, maybe even probable, that splits in doctrine would be more a matter of the interpretation of truth and divine will and less a matter of race. I could see a disagreement in the Desna church - one side teaching the path to enlightenment lay with greater sleep - the other saying it lay with greater travel. They split sharply calling themselves Travelers and Sleepers. Give it some time and you could have a situation where an Elf Sleeper would feel tainted if she worshipped with an Elf Traveler but when visiting a human village she could slip into the Sleepers Ceremony there and though she thought the ceremony a bit simple, would recognize and appreciate all the elements.

A slightly different rythm to this one

A Goblin Travel Song
Goblins march on dusty feet along the stones of Longshanks street.
When the fire leaves the sky and comes the time for day to die,
then the throat cries out for drink and the belly longs for meat.
Goblins march on dusty feet along the stones of Longshanks street.

A slicer gripped in bloody hands brings fear of death to Longshank's lands.
Stones* sparkle in the cold, tiny fires that won't grow old.
They light the way for goblin eyes, blood to drink and flesh to eat.
A slicer gripped in bloody hands brings fear of death to Longshank's lands.

Goblin teeth rip Longshank's neck and goblin blades slice Longshank's flesh.
The open eye* shines bright above, singing white of goblin love.
Goblins love to sing and eat; goblins love blood to drink
Goblins march on dusty feet along the stones of Longshank's street.

* Stones is a goblin reference to stars; the open eye is the moon

Goblin Trash Digging Song
Some broken glass, a pot thats red
makes a club to smash his head.
When we find a metal bit,
we makes a knife to slash the git.

Oh what a sorry, wretched fool,
that tosses out his own death's tool.
Goblins bite and hack and slash -
Goblins dig through Longshank's trash.
Goblins bite and hack and slash -
when we dig through Longshank's trashhh!

Hey, if we can buy D&D stuff with gold pieces, sign me up!

I will seriously sell you almost every RPG book I have for 1 gp each. :-)

I would prefer 1 oz. coins minimum. I don't care about country of origin, just purity of the metal.

:D

I bought a copy of "World of Synnibar" just to see what made the worst RPG in history one of the worst so I recognize the librophile in me will ultimately compel the rest of me to buy D&D 4.0 (at least a book or two) just to see what it is like.

That being said, if Paizo continues to maintain a quality product with a compelling adventure/story line that I enjoy, it won't matter to me whether you go 4.0 or stay 3.5, 3.75, 3.805 or whatever model you want to use. You could probably swatch to AD&D and I would dig out my old books and houserule the rules to my satisfaction and go with it.

I can't tell you how much I appreciate the fact that you haven't gone the "racial deities" route. I've always found it to be truly annoying in a depersonalizing kind of way - people should worship gods that mean something to them spiritually, not merely who their race "tells" them to.

That was one of the selling points for Kingdoms of Kalamar for me, my campaign world of choice for the last six years or so.

Kudos to Paizo for making a product good enough to make me switch worlds for a while.

According to Rob Heinsoo the inclusion of the Tiefling was not based on any mechanical reasons or iconic status but on the fact that they thought their picture looked cool.

The problem is that including them as a PC race in the core books grants them iconic status and influences future products.

If one of the designers himself can't see including them in his personal campaign's core village maybe he should reconsider including them in the core rulebook.

I found it funny that he couldn't use tieflings in his setting start. Really? No place in a traditional looking D&D town for half demons? (or is it devils)?

My question is - what kind of world are the designers envisioning where tieflings are more iconic than gnomes.

Tiefling characters may be cool. But so, upon occassion are half-dragons, aasimars, undead vampires, half-giants, kobolds, etc., etc.

I appreciate making it possible and even easy to make these sort of PCs but to make any of these iconic character races just seems... wrong.

The absence of gnomes (always a fringe race as PCs) in the PHB bothers me less than the presence of tieflings et. al.

I greatly enjoy the blog, especially the artwork previews.

This is absolutely true. I can't blame them for their decision. In principle, it's a good one.

Actually, I think, in principle, its a bad decision. The more specific the flavor the narrower the audience.

One of the great things about both 3e and 3.5e is the flexibility inherit in the system. Part of the flexibility is the lack of tons of "flavor" incorporated into the rules (apart from the spells).

A fighter has cleave.

Cleave is a generic concept that "flavor-wise" can be moved from world to world. Same with "Bullrush" and "dodge."

"Dragon's tail Cut" is just too specific a "flavor" name. As others have said, they will have to rename the feat just to use it in their campaign. Rules wise the feat and the powers might be fine. But if anything is perturbing me about what I see with the new edition coming - it is this - they don't seem to be trying for maximum flexibility.

Which I believe was one of the core concepts with 3e.

Wil Save was never that bad... Grrr. What a waste of paper... oh... ummm no... what a waste of my time.

The more I think about it, the more I think that you (and I) are perhaps not the target audience for this piece. As I said, I could see my wife enjoying it as a read.

The thing is... somehow I wonder if the target audience is the sort that would bother reading Dragon (whether online or not) in the first place. Over the years my wife has come to look forward to playing (it was a hard slog at times on my part) but she can't be bothered to read any of the material.

i get the feeling the "life lessons" are aimed at those who are afraid of the new edition and the morale of the story is that if we just accept it we will all have brownies in the end.

Either that or somebody thought the new Dragon needed a little lighthearted, gossipy "girl" talk. Maybe they are trying to aim for the huge crowd of young women who were brought to the game through the author's book...

...which I did think of buying for my wife. She appreciates this sort of thing more than I.

I would think that once one had got past the initial damage reduction, any wounds are just that wounds. I would therefore allow bleeding damage to pay no notice of Damage Reduction (assuming of course the monster has blood).

I picture an epic blow that wounds the demon/dragon/whathaveyou. The wound is so grevious that actual blood flows from the monster. Horrified that he/she/it/whathaveyou has actually been hurt, the monster is stricken, gazing at their wound. "Never in a thousand years has any dared to strike me so," they intone in anger laced with fear.

I am trying to guess or imagine...
So, in conclusion, my guess is that the Cyphergate masks those things that pass through it from something else. Divination, tracking, scrying.. something.. it obscures something.. possibly identity.

Except if you read the city description it really sounded to me like the inhabitants had no idea what the Cypher gate does. It is a riddle to them that Scholars want to unravel.

I would guess its a huge focus of some sort - like a rune well or a soul lens.

Either that or a weapon part - like the Old Light.

The Cyphergate does have a purpose... and we'll reveal it eventually...

That looks like the Sin Rune for Greed on it to me...

Not sure if this is the right forum for this...but...

...I was looking at the Riddleport Illustration and one of my first thoughts was - That would make a great Jigsaw Puzzle. Then I thought about some of the other Pathfinder art, especially some of the cover art - the ogres and the ghouls in particular from Pathfinder 2 and 3 and thought about those as Jigsaws. Some of the art for the modules might work as well.

I sometimes put together jigsaws and if I like the artwork, I paste it, frame it and hang it. Makes for some interesting and inexpensive personal office wall hangings.

So I wondered if any of the Paizo crew had ever thought about looking into making Jigsaw Puzzles out of some of the art you commission for your products.

I know I would buy a few.

DarkArt wrote:

As I see it, I don't feel that WotC are intentionally insulting anyone. If they are, it's directly because they have a severe negative modifier to their Diplomacy checks and are rolling 1's.

I suspect this is a fairly accurate portrayal. I think they are really trying hard.... they just need to stop rolling ones on that diplomacy check pronto.

- Ashavan

Makes you wonder why they don't just 'take 10' on their roll

;)

Keep in mind, of course, that the Player's Guide was written several months before we had anything like languages or calendars worked out. :)

What?!

You mean you are making this stuff up as you go along!

:D

Thanks Erik.

It does my heart good to know you have thought these things out. The Pathfinder series looks to be a work of art in the making.

I would have assumed Chelaxian was the default language except the Players Guide lists it as an additional language available to those of that heritage.

I'm not familiar with Kalamar. It sounds like a kind of Cyperpunk rating. So, do the points go up from like 10 to 100? So the characters might possibly know scores of languages all at low scores or a few at very high scores?

It's a D20 skill, just without the level limit of other skills. DC of 10 to converse in the language or read a basic text. A character with a skill of +10 therefore can always understand basic conversation and read basic texts. Creating Poetry and scholarly writing might have higher DCs but scholars (and bards/poets) will of course have a higher skill in the language

And yes, a character might know scores of languages poorly or 1+int.bonus # of languages as native speakers (which is basicly the default for PCs anyway).

If they don't recognize the person, and they can't place by dress and mannerism what ethnicity they are, they'd probably try common first

-SNIP-
Deleting common and injecting a myriad of local languages will certainly make "Comprehend Languages" more handy for a spellbook, but then you may also want to take into account the limited amount of skill points.

But if there was no such thing as "common" they would speak what first? Chelaxian or Varisian?

I tend to use the language skill system (or something like it) found in the Kalamar Player's Guide. Players start with 1-2+int.bonus x 10 language skill points. A skill level of 10 in a language denotes a native grasp of a language. Then as the characters level I give them their intelligence bonus worth of language points each level (double for bards).

The demon Chopper got involved with and was worshiping was Pazuzu; Pazuzu and Lamashtu, while both being demon lords, do not get along.

The whole Chopper story is one I've got in pretty good detail still in my head; maybe one of these days I'll expand further on it...

OH: And Lamashtu is considered a goddess AND a demon by the people of Golarion.

Thanks!

One thing that has sometimes bothered me when I get detailed oriented about campaign worlds is the question of the 'common tongue'. JRRT used the phrase to describe the default spoken language of Middle Earth and it got taken up by GG as the default D&D language. It is not always realistic though to think that there is a universal language spoken by every creature in the world regardless of geography or culture.

I like the approach taken in Kingdoms of Kalamar where 'common' becomes 'merchant," a language of commerce with a limited vocabulary. Regional and National languages are the rule and a citizen of one city/country may not always be able to communicate with citizens from another region.

In the Pathfinder Players Guide, I notice that they do in fact have cultural languages for each character: Varisian, Chelaxian, etc. Which raises the question in my mind - where did the common tongue come from if it is not from Chelaxia or Varisia? I was thinking about just getting rid of the common tongue altogether and replace it with a more national tongue.

Which brings me to my question - what would be the default language of Sandpoint? Would it be Chelaxian, the language of the conquerors or would it be Varisian, the language of the natives? Or would it be both - most citizens are fluent in both languages to a greater or lesser extent?

Lamashtu a la Wikipedia. Except for perhaps the donkey ears, it fits in with what I recall about other references about her (I can't recall page numbers at the moment) and with traditional Mesopotamian elements. The image is also akin to Lilitu/Lilith, and the common element of harming infants being one of them.

I guess I don't think of a woman with wings, as a 'birdlike demon.'

Is Lamashtu considered a demon by the natives of Sandpoint or is she considered a goddess or is it a mixture, more akin to the Babylonians concept of gods and demons?

Are there any thoughts on the identity of the demon that Chopper was worshipping? For some reason I see a Vrock when I imagine it but I wondered if it wasn't perhaps supposed to be one of the campaigns dark gods.