Wolf Munroe's page

Cutest ratfolk ever!

Table manners come first, RP issues come second. Worry more about your relations with real people, and less about pretend problems in a pretend world.

I would argue that the other players were the ones being rude. The cleric was there first, and by all accounts was being treated fairly by the party up until the mount arrived.

I agree with TOZ that the simplest solution may be to just move on, but perhaps you could talk to your DM and voice your concerns - but don't approach it in character; your concern is that the other players are ganging up on you, disrespecting your character, and this is making the game less enjoyable.

My general policy as a DM is to resolve intra-party complaints immediately. Things like this can fester and result in the loss of gaming groups.

By the way, this thread should be titled "Beating a Dead Horse"

I hope to see more kitsune and halfling love!

Personally I wouldn't want to see any graphic kitsune and halfling love, I mean my god think of what their off spring would look like.

Very cool, though yeah being able to make notes on it would be nice. Also so would having all the known holidays listed on it. :)

Your wish is my command, Mistress. I included all the festivals and holidays listed in the ISWG. If there are any others from other sources please let me know and I'll try and add them later this week.

New, improved (With Festival & Holidays) Golarion Calendar [Adobe PDF]

New, improved (With Festival & Holidays) Golarion Calendar [MS Word]

It's kind of hard to look back on anything rules-wise to hold onto from editions previous to 3x. As an old timer, I vociferously hated limited race/class combinations,obscure multiple exp levelling (great, the rogue in the party's now four levels ahead of everyone else) as well as level caps that effectively made you expand into a useless-until-equal second and third class, that never did grow beyond that.

Pathfinder maintains a huge 'anything's possible' ruleset, while trying to hold back against the tide of personal publishing power creep that was seen in 3x.

cant stand tall elves though. seriously. they're ELVES!

Tolkiens elves were tall. Dragonlance elves are christmas elves dressed as Tolkien elves.

I did a search for the word "cacophony" on the PRD. I found a couple creatures with cacophony in ability descriptions.

I also looked up allip because I know it has an auditory attack.

Right now the text for my fire skull swarm reads:

Screaming (Su) Once every 1d4 rounds, a screaming beheaded can open its jaw and emit a bone-chilling scream. All creatures within 30 feet must make a Will save or be shaken for 1d4 rounds (DC 12). This is a sonic mind-affecting fear effect. Whether or not the save is successful, an affected creature is immune to the same skull swarm’s scream for 24 hours. The save DC is Charisma-based.

I think to get away with changing it to say:

Screaming Chorus (Su) A screaming skull swarm is composed of a multitude of screaming skulls. While individual screaming skulls may only scream every so many rounds, the swarm of them emits a constant cacophony of blood-curdling screams. Upon hearing the screaming chorus, all creatures within 30 feet must make a Will save or be shaken for 1d4 rounds (DC 12). This is a sonic mind-affecting fear effect. Whether or not the save is successful, an affected creature is immune to the same skull swarm's screaming chorus for 24 hours. The save DC is Charisma-based.

==========

Would that change the creature's CR or would that be a CR-neutral change? As far as I interpret it, it would be a rather neutral effect since the creatures that hear it can only be affected once per 24 hours anyway.

And I'm favoriting my own post just so I can find it later.

If I could cast alter self, I'd never leave the house.

Yes, but they SPARKLE! in the sunlight when they do. (So, so sorry.)

You're off the force McHinkle. Turn over your badge and your d20s.

We use a variation on the crit rules.

If you roll a 1, you miss, then roll again at the same Attack Bonus. If the second roll would miss as well, it becomes a critical fumble.

If you hit with the second roll, it is just a miss. This allows for a fighter who is good at what they do to roll a 1 but still recover from it easier than someone who has a worse attack bonus, thus working around the "experienced warrior shouldn't fumble as much as a novice one" idea.

WINNING!!!

While we're discussing NSFW, Menage a 3 is another of those. Seriously NSFW.

Red String is work-safe.

Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuuki is a bit NSFW.

That'll do for now.

"Why does the Salarian STG prestige class have Perform(oratory) as a class skill?"

I'm looking forward to the stuff regarding existing races. The 'making new races' stuff, I could take or leave.

They can start bringing sci-fi back by changing their name back to sci-fi.

SyFy? Really. How do I pronounce that? Siffie?

Ah, Map Folios, proof that the ease of subscribing is worth the pain of a few non-used elements every year.

...

To be fair, now that Paizo moved away from compiling the dungeon maps in the associated AP and switched over to making big versions of more generic areas, the Map Folios have gotten more useful.

For example, the Carrion Crown Map Folio is handy for any campaign set in Ustalav.

I love the nature of adventuring. Adventuring has traditionally been a very dangerous if lucrative profession. Adventurers die, and die, and die some more. Some are lucky enough to only have to die once. What separates the adventurers that make it from the ones who were just another party that never returned? Well, I think creativity and preparation make the largest difference. I didn't think much about this sort of thing, until Peter Stewart said the following in another thread.

Honestly some of your tactics here have given me a great deal to think of for future characters. I'd be interested in a general thread on purchases you think are viable or needed at various levels, along with various tricks. A heightened continual flame hadn't even occurred to me, for instance.

My party could use some more asymmetrical means of combating such problems, as right now our tendency is to bully through them using brute force (usually taking tons of damage and expending tons of resources in the process). We're coming up on a long period though were we'll be able to resupply and reequip. :)

So since Peter asked, here's the beginning of a short advice column concerning D&D/Pathfinder and preparing for adventure. I'm cool with people asking questions or advice or tips on specific things; and I'll also answer questions concerning D&D 3.x as well (though I may have to reference the 3.0 SRD for particularly old school stuff, to make sure I'm not blurring too much).

As a simple disclaimer, I want to let everyone know that the advice below will assume that the standard rules are in play. It doesn't assume house rules or changes to the system. Just the goods, plain and simple. If your GM has any quirks concerning item availability, changes any spells, or otherwise alters something, YMMV.

Enough babbling, on with the tips!
========================================================================

Introduction: Adventuring is a hard life. Few take up its call. Those who make it, go down as legends, and retire wealthy and with many amazing stories. Those who do not, inevitably forge their own stories as the ones who just survived, or never came back, or was the one that didn't make it. Yes, adventuring is a hard life. A life that takes you by surprise. The key to surviving isn't just about whose muscles are largest or who knows the most spells. Preparation, and clever thinking, can lead you to greater degrees of success. Shall you brave the dangers and come out on top, or be another tavern tale of the ones who never came back?

The first installment covers some general adventuring equipment.

Motel 6: There are a lot of monsters and enemies who like to spam darkness spells (and deeper darkness). Creatures like tieflings, drow, shadow demons, darklings, and dark folk are notorious for this. Many people complain that this is unfair; especially since most of these creatures either care nothing about the lighting condition's drawbacks, or can see through them fine (such as in the case of darklings and dark folk). So what is an adventurer to do?

Light spells (that is, the light subtype) such as light, continual flame, and daylight pierce magical darkness spells that are a lower level than themselves. A good adventuring tool is to have an item or two that has had a heightened continual flame spell cast on it to at least 4th level. That costs 330 gp including the material component, to have it purchased by NPC spellcasting. Suddenly, the legions of darklings and dark folk are nothing to you, as your continual torch (be it a torch, amulet, or even your belt buckle) shimmers and provides light that is unquenchable by spells such as darkness or deeper darkness unless they are also heightened. Since spell-like abilities are the level of the spell they are mimicing, that means a 4th level continual flame is never overpowered by a creature's SLAs.

I'm most fond of having continual flame cast on the inside of a locket, so you can conceal or reveal the light easily enough, and carry it without having hands free.

We'll leave the light on for you!

First Aid: There's a lot of terrible things that will hurt you in your adventuring career. Poisons, disease, incorporeal touch attacks. A lot of this stuff can leave you weathered, or even dead. So how do you deal with these things? How do you prepare for them away from the comfort of civilization?

Buy potions of delay poison and lesser restoration for 50 gp each. Yes, you heard me, 50 gp. Both are 1st level spells at 1st caster level, thanks to Paladins and Rangers. That sets the price of these items at 50 gp. The magic item creation rules clearly state that the value of magic items are based on the lowest possible caster levels, regardless of who makes 'em; so even if a cleric makes either, they're still only worth 50 gp.

Both potions are useful for helping a party keep up and going. Delay poison makes you immune to poison for 1 hour and ends poisons, but won't cure any of the ability damage taken beforehand. Lesser restoration removes ability penalties, heals 1d4 ability damage, and removes fatigue. Good potions all around to have on hand during an adventure.

+1 Swords? We don't need no stinkin' +1 Swords: Magic weapons are expensive, but sometimes you just need one. DR/Magic is pretty common, incorporeal creatures are a pain, that wizard is getting you down with protection from arrows; but you don't feel like shelling out 2,000 gp for what amounts to +1 damage over a masterwork blade?

Well magic weapon oils are 50 gp, and they last 1 minute at caster level 1. The oil can be applied to a melee weapon, ranged weapon, or poured right into a 50-stack ammunition sack. This is one of the main methods for 1st-3rd level PCs to even be able to combat incorporeal creatures like Shadows with any hope. Works for monk unarmed strikes as well. Since you can decide which weapon to apply it to, it's less of a gamble; as if you need it on your melee weapon, you use it on your melee; if you need it on your bow, you use it on your bow; and so forth.

Lay off the Juice Son: Okay, so steriods aren't a to be abused, but oils were made for it. You can apply an oil to a willing target during your turn. Having several party members slather down the party's melee with cheap potion effects can turn a fight really fast. Have one PC slather him or her with an oil of enlarge person, then the rest of the PCs apply oils like protection from evil or shield (I recently checked, yes you can make potions of shield, as personal range spells still declare you as a target), and expeditious retreat (see commentary about shield, above), true strike (see above, yadda-yadda), and remove fear.

Suddenly, you have a juggernaut of destruction, at the cost of 50 gp per potion. Best yet, the person you apply the oil provides you with soft cover if you come in directly behind them in relation to the enemy, which means enemies cannot make AoOs against you for applying the oil. Notice I mentioned using enlarge person first? Well there's a reason for that. Your ally expands, providing cover to the other PCs who jump in to apply oils.

For a 200 gp investment, you can hit your main tank with up to 4 solid buffs all in one round, many of which normally are only available to mages. Screw aid another. 50 gp can get your party's fighter a +20 to his next grapple check, which can end a fight instantly (hint: the penalty to bind up an enemy during a grapple is -10).

Right to Freedom of Alignment: Ok, let's face it. Sometimes your alignment bites you on the butt. It's great being a good guy and all, except when you're trying to infiltrate that evil cult that has the "No Paladins" sign hanging out side. So what's the poor poorly aligned fellow to do? Drink a potion. 50 gp nets you 24 hours of undetectable alignment. Thanks bards!

Alchemy? Alchem-you!: Alchemical goodies can often be overlooked, but they can be pretty useful, especially at low levels; but some are useful even at higher levels. Turn some vicious villains into trivial trials with a clever splash of chemical supremacy!

Alchemical weapons such as alchemist fire or acid flasks are beautiful when used by the whole party. They ignore damage reduction and target touch AC. They're ranged weapons, so they benefit from feats like Point Blank Shot, and Rapid Shot. They can be dual-wielded as well. By having your party focus-fire on a single tough cookie, you can bring them down to size in short order. For example, let's say you're facing down an enemy NPC in banded mail and carrying a tower shield. His AC is easily 22-23 at 1st level. Excellent time for a BBQ wrapped in tinfoil! Have everyone toss an alchemist fire. A 4 person party can easily land 4d6 damage on round 1, and another 4d6 on round 2 (from the burning). Sucks to be that guy!

Tanglefoot bags are amazingly good. Chuck a few of these at people or creatures you just don't like. It's an auto-entangle, which is already a petty nice debuff, but also threatens to glue them to the ground, prevent them from flying, and forces tough concentration checks to cast spells. Worst case scenario, the critter is still slowed by 1/2 its speed.

Probably the most overlooked alchemical item is the humble smoke stick. Cheap, and surprisingly effective. Unless wind conditions are much against you, dropping one of these lets you use Stealth as if you were a Ninja Turtle collecting bells, gain total concealment vs ranged attacks, and ruins sneak attacks. Yes, ruins sneak attacks. You can't sneak attack a target with concealment. You can drop a single smoke stick at your feet and even if you're surrounded by 20th level rogues, blind, and in the dark, you're immune to their sneak damage. Excellent against dirty roguish sorts, and even prevents an assassin's Death Attack. Brutally efficient.

Holy water. The anti-shadow. At 25 gp a pop, this stuff is kind of like acid of alchemist fire for undead and evil outsiders. Incidentally, it specifically affects incorporeal creatures as well. It deals 2d4 damage as a ranged touch attack that doesn't provoke attacks (see item description) if you shake the water at the enemy. 2d4 averages 5 damage, which means a 1st level party can tear a shadow apart by just running up and splashing it with holy water. Statistically, 4 holy waters will outright kill a shadow (and less should force the shadow to flee for its unlife), and frankly, 100 gp for a dead CR 3 enemy seems entirely reasonable to me! The fact it also deals splash damage, and is party friendly is double the fun. Alchemists even get to add their Intelligence modifier to the damage, allowing them to take apart some truly nasty critters in short order.

Aw, Nets: Nets are arguably one of the strongest weapons in the core handbook. They deal no damage, but are a non-magical ranged touch attack (meaning even the -4 non-proficiency penalty isn't so bad usually) which inflicts the Entangled condition on the target, and all that implies. To escape it, you must spend a full-round action to even attempt to be free (either via a hard Strength check or a DC 20 escape artist), which means that either an enemy has to deal with it, or waste actions to be free. Hitting the same enemy with multiple nets in the same round almost ensures the condition will remain for the entire encounter; because no one wants to spend round after round trying to de-net themselves.

Who you gonna call?: A good investment for anyone who really hates incorporeal creatures is a +1 ghost touch net. Valued at 8,000 gp, it's not a terribly expensive tool if the entire party chips in to get it. Why is this tool so great? Well it has full effect on incorporeal creatures, who auto-fail on Strength checks to move away from you (allowing you to control how far they move away from you), and since it counts as both corporeal and incorporeal, you can prevent them from moving through objects while ensnared in your net. Entangled is also a sucky (if rare) condition for incorporeal creatures, as they rely heavily on Dexterity for both offense and defense (-2 to attacks and -4 Dex means -4 to incorporeal touch attacks and -2 AC) and most thrive on improved mobility which is outright denied in this case.

I'll try the 9 Iron: Golf-bagging is often a complaint by some of the casual gamers. Personally, I love golf-bagging. I like having that extra weapon on hand for a particular occasion. Ever look at the Pathfinder iconics? Loaded with seemingly random assortments of weapons, with obvious spares and backups. Golf bagging has lots of advantages.

Grab a cold iron, silver (or mithral), and maybe adamantine weapon. Carrying them allows you to bypass the DR of virtually anything. Definitely have an assortment of silver and cold iron arrows (they're cheap and easy enough to store/carry). It's cheaper to carry lots of +2 weapons of different materials than it is to carry one or two +3 weapons, and it makes you less of a target vs sundering or shattering (because who bothers with that when you've got a backup weapon in easy reach?).

You can go a very long way with just different material weapons and a greater magic weapon spell to keep your hit and damage top notch. It's also easier to rely on special materials for all the low CR enemies who require things like silver or cold iron to hit (such as imps, quasits, lycanthropes, or fey).

It's not magic, it's brains: There's a lot of very mundane methods for dealing with magical effects that suck. One of my favorites is the bag of chalk. A piece of chalk is 1 copper piece. A hundred pieces of chalk is thus 1 gold piece. Crush the chalk up into chalk powder and store it in cloth bags with a tie. Now you have the perfect weapon against invisible people. Have you ever seen the clingy puffy mess that chalk dust makes just when you're dealing with basic chalk erasers in school? Now imagine grinding up 100 pieces of standard issue chalk and scattering it through the air. You'd create a nice 10 ft. cloud of super clinging dust. Better than flour for spotting invisible creatures! Anti-invisible grenades, for 1 gp. Eat that Will o' Whisp.

Clay jugs are pretty heavy when filled, but are pretty useful. Their obvious use is for carrying large quantities of water or similar liquids (ideally packed on burden beasts such as mules, horses, or oxen), but can often be adapted for adventuring purposes. They can just as easily carry coins and the like, or you could place food in them, fill them with black powder to make a bomb (if your campaign has such fare), create weapons or traps with them (fill them with spiders, scorpions, snakes, or whatever), or even keep potted plants in them (carrying around your own plants makes the entangle spell useful in the most amusing places). At only 2 copper pieces, you can figure out what to do with them later. Flasks are 3 coppers with similar uses.

Keeping a few vipers in a state of sedation (via nonlethal damage, sleep spells, or other means) can be a good method of extracting lots of injury poison for the budding assassin, alchemist, or other poison using character. Just milk their glands for poison daily. Finding and keeping vipers isn't usually very difficult for adventurers. In fact, the clay pots can be useful storage devices in this case. If someone has a viper familiar, you could just ask nicely for venom.

His name is Babe: Paul Bunyan had the right idea. Oxen rock as animal cohorts. They're cheap at 15 gp and share statistics with aurochs. They are large quadruped beasts of burden with impressive strength, which means they can carry some truly astounding loads. They are also beefy and dangerous in combat. They have gore attacks for 1d8+9 damage and can even trample. Training them for war is not a bad idea for someone with Handle Animal. Have the party ride around on these strong beasts with high Constitution, and just dare something to try and harass your mounts while you rest. For a good 1-4 levels, the oxen will be more dangerous than your PCs. You can train 3 of them at a time, and cover them in leather or studded leather barding on the cheap.

Oxen cost 15 gp, have a 40 ft. movement speed, +9 Perception, low-light vision, scent, +7 gore at (1d8+9), trample (2d6+9, DC 17), and the following carrying capacity: 600 lb. light, 1,200 lb. medium, 1,800 lb. heavy, 9,000 lb. push/drag. Horses are so last season.

=========================================

I'm going to pause here for a moment. I'm not even finished with equipment, but I need a bit of a break. ^-^"

I love forums, but eventually most of them leave a bad taste in my mouth, and I have to leave. I have to hand it to Paizo and the moderators: these are some of the most pleasant forums I've used. Great job keeping the troll away. I've known from day one that I liked these boards because people treat each other like human beings here.

I just realized a second big reason I love these forums:

No signatures!!! Thank you, thank you Paizo! I just wanted to say something because I'm sure you get the occasional request to add signatures. All you have to do is go to any forum that allows them and see how and why they'll ruin these beautiful boards as you do. Even on forums that limit the size of the signatures, it's amazing how obnoxious people can still be with them.

Kudos guys!

I like the concept of Ustalav just fine, but occasionally it makes me wonder how "normal folks" survive in a country seemingly brimming with hostile undead! (Or have most of those been cleansed from the country??

I promise I'll keep this one short.

Remember, these books are meant to focus on the interesting adventure locations. So if a town write-up only has two sentences about it and one of them talks about the cursed manor full of ghost gremlins, that's not meant to imply there's no pastry chefs or lamp lighters in town. Many places are perfectly pleasant little getaways, even if there is something creepy going on down that one alley.

There also tends to be a nice thing about "that one alley," or cemetery, or ruin, or whatever it might be: it's usually just that place. As in, it's a creepy place, and the things that make that place creepy tend not to leave - at least, not without good reason. Spooks from haunted crypts, mummies lying a old sarcophagi, golems in ruined laboratories, etc, they tend not to come out and pester folks unless they're pestered first. It's when that status quo gets tampered with that problems happen. That's a big reason why villagers all know about "that one place" where you just don't go. This is also a big part of why adventurers generally don't have a great reputation - they're the ones most likely to go and rile up trouble.

As for there being a lot of haunted towns and sites in Ustalav, that’s totally true. In general, in the shorter descriptions of spots on the map, I tended to hit on one big name haunt/spook/adventure hook per map tag. When you’re looking at a few dozen of these tags I can totally see how it looks like there’s a lot going on—and don’t get me wrong, Ustalav is meant to be spook central—but does that mean that each of these places is under threat from the creepy stuff going on there? No way. Try shifting perspective and instead of looking at all the creepy things going on in the entire nation, just look at the place you want to set your adventure. In fact, ask yourself if that place is any more haunted than the place you grew up? I grew up in Baltimore Maryland and here’s three websites dedicated to dozens of hauntings in just my home town. And that’s not even mentioning the Hell House we used to dare each other to run up to in high school, the broken gravestone split down the middle with a meal rod sticking out of it near my house, or general urban legends like Bloody Mary. And I’m sure this doesn’t even hold a candle to some of the stories our friends in Europe and elsewhere around the world could tell.

So yeah, there’s a lot of creepy stuff going on in Ustalav. But, turns out, there’s a lot of creepy stuff going on in any old town and folks manage well enough. Don’t worry about the old Ustalavs, they know not to stick their noses where they don’t belong. It’s those adventurers you’ve got to worry about.

(So much for keeping it short...)

I too know a guy that only plays females. He always plays them as lesbians (often also into bestiality) pretending to be male, until he reveals he is an "extremely beautiful and elegant lady". His female acting skills aren't as convincing as he thinks they are.

Out of character he claims to be a lesbian in a man's body. He's also super sensitive especially about drug jokes or poop jokes (which rarely comes up, but he reacts so strongly to them if they do). He is somehow managing a polygamous relationship with two girlfriends (who are also into each other, so it's an honest relationship). Oh yeah and he keeps random weapons hidden around his house (to be prepared for a burglar at any time) which he is proficient in (I cannot actually verify this claim, but I believe he spent the time to learn how to wield them). He's actually an okay guy, but definitely not what you would call normal.

Superman has DR X/Kryptonite.

THIS MAKES NO SENSE WHY WOULD HE BE VULNERABLE TO THE THING MOST USED AGAINST HIM!

When I found out that witches can't summon or conjure outsiders, I became very sad. After all... one of my FAVORITE witches is Lovecraft's Keziah Mason, from "Dreams in the Witch House," and not being able to build a witch like her annoys me.

Which is why I helped design Dimensional Occultist archetype, and its associated Dimensions patron, on page 28 of the Pathfinder Society Field Guide.

So what's the next super-huge project after Rappan Athuk? Tome of Horrors Complete 2: Electric Boogaloo?

Or maybe something I suggested in another thread: a colaberation with Flying Buffalo Games to put out Grimtooth's Traps: Complete?

Maybe a 2000 page tome that just says "Rocks fall, you all die." over and over and over....

'Twas brillig and the subscriptive toves
Did gyre and unsuspend in the wabe:
All mimsey were the bookiegroves,
And the pending order outgrabe.

BEWARE the Shipping Fee my son!
The Jaws that bite, the fee that catch!
Beware the Jubjub email, and shen
The frumious Ordersnatch!

I took my vorpal powers in hand:
Long time the manxome order I sought--
So rested me by the Off Topic tree,
and stood awhile in thought.

And, in uffish thought I stood
The Shipping Fee, with eyes of flame,
came whiffling through the tulgey order,
and burbled as it came!

One, TWO! One, TWO! And through and through
My Vorpal powers went snicker-snack!
And left it combined, and with it's new confirmation email
went galumphing back.

"And, hast thou slain the Shipping Fee, Cosmo?
I'll check out my order history, my beamish friend!
O frabjous Day! Callooh! Callay!"
You chortled in your joy.

'Twas brillig and the subscriptive toves
Did gyre and unsuspend in the wabe:
All mimsey were the bookiegroves,
And the pending order outgrabe.

Settings have specific Campaign Setting Books. Those override the rules as needed.

This would be the perfect sort of stuff to put in a 'Players Guide to Golarion.'

1) Clerics have to have a single, specific, approved Golarion god. Trumps information in Core, and setting-specific books like Gods & Magic, Heart of the Jungle, the NPC Guide, Humans of Golarion, Orcs of Golarion, the Campaign Setting, Sargava, Kaer Maga, etc.

2) Undead are always evil (or will turn that way soon) in Golarion, even if they are mindless and incapable of malevolence, trumping anything in a setting-neutral Bestiary.

2a) Whether or not there are not Int 0 mindless 'always good' things in Golarion, perhaps even mindless good creatures with Paladin levels, although that might be redundant...

3) That Rahadoum is LE, not LN, and introducing whatever special new rule allows 1st level Commoners of that nation to use knowledge (arcana) or knowledge (religion) or detect magic or spellcraft or *something* that allows them to replicate the effects of the 3rd level Arcane Sight spell and tell if magic is divine or arcane.

4) That Paladins that do worship a god, have to worship a god within one alignment step of LG (i.e. one of Lawful or Good, no true neutral, Chaotic anything or anything Evil).

4a) Whether or not Paladins that do not worship a specific god even exist in the first place... (Apple cart > horse.)

5) Whether or not casting evil spells will turn you evil, regardless of intent or result. Whether or not casting good spells will *not* turn you good, nor will casting law or chaos spells turn you lawful or chaotic, because 'that's a silly strawman.'

6) Whether or not Oracles are intended for all purposes where a 'cleric' would not worship a single specific god (such as pantheists, totemists, animists, nature-worshippers or 'concept clerics'), as it's been stated at other times that their powers come from a specific single god, which totally flies in the face of their design intent, and James statement that he wishes they hadn't included recommended Deities in the writeup in the first place.

7) Whether or not Rangers, Druids or Adepts worship gods, or not, or whatever. (Editor's Note: Wait? What's an Adept?)

7a) Whether or not the new Rahadoumi ability to detect divine spellcasters can tell if they are god-worshippers or atheists or get their power from the natural world, or their ancestors, or totem-spirits, or whatever. Won't be much relief for the accused, if they can only tell by huffing the smoke from burned heretics that they weren't god-worshippers... :)

8) Clerics of Pharasma have special spell replacement options for the Death Domain. Is there a special spell replacement for Clerics of Nethys with the Magic Domain (since, IIRC, he forbids the use of Imbue with Spell Ability)? Good place for that sort of thing.

9) Oracles Mysteries to represent setting-specific things like 'clerics' of Shimye-Magalla or the elven pantheon or the Shoanti totems or the Godclaw or the Prophecies of the Kalistrade. It's been repeatedly stated that this was the design intent of the entire class in the first place, after all. So it would be nice to actually get that stuff out there.

10) Special rules about whether or not Barbarians, Druids, Monks and / or Paladins can scoff at alignment suggestions or gear restrictions in this setting, as per the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (where Druids of Mielikki, like Druids of Erastil, could use longbows, or where certain types of Monk or Paladin could scoff at multi-classing restrictions, or Paladins could serve the CG goddess Sune) could also find a home here. Region-specific monks who toss out the faux-Asian weapon proficiencies for more Inner Sea-specific weapon proficiencies could go here, for instance.

11) Aroden. Really, really dead.

12) Desna. Not a Great Old One. Honest.

13) Melek Taus, the Peacock Angel. Not secretly also Ahrimanes, ruler of the evil Divs. I mean it!

14) Razmiran.

So I often use scripts. These are out-of-character cut-scenes that allow the PCs to get some flavour or some plot without experiencing it first hand. In my current game, one of the PCs is a Varisian follower of Desna, so these take the form of dreams to her, but they could be delivered in any number of ways, or even without explanation. We don't use these every session, just every now and again.

To use them, simply print out a few copies, hand them out and allocate characters. If possible, the DM should not be a character (ie, entirely player read), but otherwise you can just read a minor character.

Anyway, here are the scripts I used for the first two modules.
Script 1: Prologue to the campaign
Script 2: Murder in Ravengro
Script 3: Introducing Auren Vrood
Script 4: Count Caromarc as a young man

Some notes:

* Script 1 can be used as the very first action in the campaign. It allows the PCs to feel an immediate bond for the Professor and Kendra, which is useful I think. It foreshadows Judge Daramind (II), Estovion (III), and Modd (V).

* Script 2 is useful if your PCs haven't solved the Ravengro murders by the first time you escalate to a human. It throws suspicion on a bunch of characters in Ravengro in a murder-mystery style. (NB: the Lorrimor cheese collection was an in-game joke.).

* Script 3 deviates a little from the plot in that we have the Whispering Way kill Aleece and also have Luramin the money-lender a necromancer. To me, one of the changes the campaign needs is more of a prominent villain and more encounters with the Whispering Way. This allows for some WW action in Ravengro as well as framing a big bad evil guy for the PCs. (It also allows you to mask the real big bad, so Vrood is sleight-of-hand in a way).

* Script 4 is my take on a Count Caromarc origin story. Both Koch and Werner are added characters. Werner was the father of one of my PCs and Koch was an NPC at the University who could help out with various alchemy things related to the module, as well as enroll Kendra in class.

More scripts to come for later modules. The one I regret not doing is a script around the night of the fire in Harrowstone. I think there is a lot of cool information in the first module that goes to waste, and having that dramatic evening as a flash-back would work well.

Comments welcome...

Pathfinder goblins range in color from gray to a sort of grayish blue to green. Most of the ones we do in the Pathfinder Battles sets will be green, because we wanted to pick one color and stick with it.

All of our minis use specific Pantone colors, so I can tell you precisely what color an orc's skin will be, what color a goblin's skin will be, etc.

We will try to match colors and clothing styles within "factions" as much as possible. I'm certain that the Rise of the Runelords goblins, for example, will have the same color skin as the goblins in Heroes & Monsters.

To tell the truth, for basically every feature request related to our messageboards you can probably just go to my profile page, click on my posts tab, and search my posts for keywords related to the feature you're requesting. Or search the website feedback forum. It's rare that we get a request that hasn't been made before. And when I reply to a request with a bunch of links to previous posts where I've talked about that particular feature, that's what I'm doing to find those posts.

So, signatures: No. Animated gifs: No. Smilies: No. Inline images: No. Private messages: Someday. Volunteer moderators: No. Private avatars: No. Switching to 3rd-party bulletin board software: No. Firing the twelve-year-olds responsible for our website design and getting us out of the '90s: Someday. Using PHP: No. Outsourcing website design, maintenance, moderation: No. Adding features like focus, dots, x new, aliases, enhancing play-by-post, etc: ongoing.

What is it? It would be such an awesome feature to have. There are so many posts I want to pull out memes in response to.

All the more reason to not allow it.

Oh no. A class is immune to something another class does. We must fix this. It is a sin against God. Rar rar.

Didn't want to hijack the opposite thread:

I love the variety of cultures and ethnicities. I love that the core setting isn't just Medieval European Fantasy Again.

I love the Shoanti.

I love Osirion and all of its Egyptianess.

I love the Mwangi Explanse and the countless cultures found within. I love Jalmeray and all its over-the-top fantasic nature.

I love Numeria with its barbarians fighting robot scorpions with machine-gun mandibles.

I love that there's an island with Kamen Rider looking assassins that may or may not fight pirates and dinosaurs.

I love Dehrukani even if there's isn't much to know about it yet.

I love the entire Belkzen/Lastwall/Nirmathas/Molthrune stack of nations and all the themes that can be explored there.

I love how Ustalav covers all the Universal and Hammer tropes and still has room for everything Ravenloft was and more.

I love horrible, nightmarish Nidal.

I love the complicated and ethically murky scene in Katapesh.

I love the cultures and possibilities that have sprung out of Geb, Nex, and the Mana Wastes, and how they can easily grow into cultures that have absolutely no near-real-world analogues.

I love Varisia, period.

I love how weird the gnomes are. I love that the elves aren't presented as an infallible race as a whole. I love that good orcs, drow, goblins, etc have been pointed out with both examples and possibilities.

I love that almost every planet in Golarion's solar system is a campaign setting unto itself. I love that psionics have a place on both Golarion and those other worlds.

I love the fleshed out and complex pantheon, and all of the entanglements that tie it together. I love that the various gods and their churches have been developed so that opposing bodies of the faithful can easily be weaved into plots that aren't just good vs. evil/order vs. chaos. I love the nuance present there. I love that the benevolent goddess of dreams was originally a giant alien bug. I love that the god of courage got drunk and doesn't even remember how he became a god. I love the Shelyn/Zon-Kuthon conflict.

I love the way the Darklands are arranged, especially Orv.

I love the Andorens' uniforms right alongside the Egyptian-garb the Osirianis wear rigth alongside whatever wild clothing Carolina Eade designs for Jalmeray and Druma right alongside more medieval European attire coming from the various nations that support that. I love the variety.

I love how the various outsider races relate to each other, and how complicated some of their alliances can be, such as the coalition of good and evil outsiders guarding the stream of souls.

I love that there are demons living in Elysium by way of Calistria's realm, and how this makes one of the heavenly planes that much wilder and exciting.

I love the First World.

I love that so much is left open for us to build upon and make it our own.

Thank, Paizo.

Oh, great.

Now I have to buy this, and a new, structurally-reinforced coffee table for it to sit on.

"From ashes of Shadow, the Ruby Phoenix rises."

For some reason, when I read this, my first thought was, "When one falls, two shall rise!"

Hail Hydra!

Dreamscarred Press is excited to announce the From the Deep Adventure Path, the result of our open call for adventure writers earlier this year. This six-part adventure path takes place in the Third Dawn Campaign Setting and starts with the adventure Uncertain Futures in the Ophid Protectorate.

This six-part adventure path will take characters from 1st level up to 18th level, uncovering secrets within the Ophid Protectorate and the Maquoran Fleet, fighting nefarious creatures who have found a way to disrupt the very flow of psionics itself. Take the battle underground, underwater, and across the continents in this first adventure path from Dreamscarred Press.

Written by Michael McCarthy, Uncertain Futures begins in the Protectorate city of Arbil. Included in Uncertain Futures is a detailed write-up of the kobold race as it exists in the Third Dawn Campaign Setting, as well as the rules of psionic duels, the foundation of the society of the Ophid Protectorate.

The Player's Guide to the From the Deep Adventure Path is set to be released as a free download later this month, with the first adventure, Uncertain Futures, to follow shortly thereafter.

From the Deep requires Psionics Unleashed.

I would love if Paizo made a computer game similar to the baluder's gate games/planescape torrent. But what I truelly would support and love is a pathfinder version of Neverwinter Nights, with the module capablities, and toolset to design servers, it thus allows mutiplayer capablities without being mmo. I play on a NWN server set in ravenloft, and I think this type of game would be awesome and fun.

This is probably only funny to me and my group...

We were playing Vampire, and the group needed to distract the two heavily armed ghouls guarding a door so they could get in and mess up some cult of set activities...

The player elected to be the distraction says "Okay, I know how to really get their attention," with a tone that said "Don't worry, I've got this," his character then walks up the sidewalk until he is in front of the steps that lead up to the door being guarded and shouts "Hey you jerks, punch my butt!"

From Rise of the Runelords:

"This is embarrassing, I can't even hit a Goblin. I mean if I left it alone it would probably just set itself on fire."

I have no regrets pre-ordering even if Paizo offers some for sale. Because the reality is, there wouldn't be a book if significant number of us hadn't pre-ordered. Besides, even if 1,000 books are printed, that's still a very small run. By next year this thing will be a collector's item. In 10 years this thing will rare indeed.