Zherog's page

Hi Arnwyn.

To answer your question... each PC takes on a "leadership" role aboard the ship - captain, navigator, master of arms, engineer, etc. Each leadership role has tasks that he/she can perform during the character's "ship" initiative - load and fire cannons, extinguish fires, make repairs, change course, run a boarding crew, etc. Alternately, a PC can single-handedly replace multiple "minion" crew members. For example, a PC can load and fire a cannon on their own, even though that task usually requires several crew members to perform.

The design goal was simple - we wanted to avoid the captain being the only PC with something to do during a naval engagement. So we designed as many "officer" roles as possible, and even provided some guidelines for adding in your own.

There's no real answer to the question. It's Colossal because that's the decision we made. That decision was made very early on and never examined again.

If you wanted smaller, you could certainly treat 15x15 similar to "small" sized creatures, and give a +1 to AC and attack, and a -1 to CMB and CMD. Then you'd treat 10x10 as Tiny and give it +2/-2.

Awesome questions, Dragonriderje. Here's some answers that I hope will help.

1.) Are naval combat rounds considered to the normal six seconds in length?

Naval combat rounds are the standard six seconds. PCs get two actions - they're own "normal" turn in the initiative and their naval turn.

2.) Is a ship's speed ever reduced by how large it is?

I think you've probably raised a fair point here. The answer is no (other than encumbrance, but capacity goes up with Hull Locations so extra Hulls likely doesn't encumber the ship.

I'd like to say this was done intentionally just to be another place where it was a simplified abstraction. Truth is, we just didn't expect anybody would want to build a ship that had 50 Hull Locations and 4 Rigging Locations.

3.) A few times throughout the book, it mentions that it takes 2 rounds to deploy a sail and a Mate can make a Profession (sailor) check to reduce the time to one round.

I might be missing something but I can't see a reason for needing to simulate the deploying of sails. It seems like when the Navigator uses the Sudden Slow or Sudden Acceleration actions, its assumed that he is directing the crew to raise or lower the appropriate sail(s).

This is mostly a remnant from one of the first drafts, when we got really complicated and had rules for different sail patterns and sail types. However, that said you do nail exactly when it would matter - if you don't have your max sails deployed for whatever reason (drifting at night, sails lowered because of a storm, sails were recently damaged in combat and new ones need to deployed, etc) then it requires a check to get them up.

How long does it take to "un-deploy" your sails?

D'oh! I can't believe, in all our passes through the book, we never thought to address that! I'd say the same - two rounds, with a check to make it one round.

4.) This last thing isn't anything serious, but I was wondering what the reasoning was behind why oars can't provide extra speed but engines can. In every other naval combat rules system I've looked at, oars and sails stack their speeds. This made longships and galleys some of the fastest ships, at least in tactical combat. When you think about it, what are oars if not manual engines?

This was one of the very few things Lou and I didn't agree on (though it didn't take long to settle it, either). It's also one of the very few things where we had realism trump ease-of-play. A ship under sail can't have oarmen - Lou can explain it more, but the gist is you'll end up with dead oarmen. There's historical precedent for it, and Lou can explain it much more, since this is actually a field of expertise for him - one of the few things he actually knows something about. ;)

Also, in my Skulls and Shackles campaign, gunpowder is extremely rare so no one has cannons except for the pirate king. Has anyone had any direct experience using these rules with medieval siege weapons like ballista/catapults? The fact that these rules gel so well with the Pathfinder core rules means substitution won't be a problem since there are listed damages for all sorts of siege weapons in the Pathfinder core, but I worry about the combats possibly taking too long, and/or ships being too hard to damage. Does anyone have any insight into this?

We actually took this into account; there's a sidebar somewhere in the Equipment chapter about that. Basically, we call everything a cannon, but my all means we expect some people to make them catapults or ballista or alchemical-charged weapons or whatever. Stick with the same rules, and call the weapon whatever you like and it should all work out.

Thanks in advance and apologies for the long post!

No worries at all. I'm happy to help out, and these were great questions! Hope my answers helped.

Howdy, Xorial.

You're right - the smallest ship these rules allow for is 20x20x20, which is Colossal in size in the game.

You could certainly use a single Hull Location, and simply describe it as being less than 20x20x20. That wouldn't have any affect on the rules and would allow - for example - for something that was 15 feet long, 10 feet wide, and 10 feet high.

How small were you thinking?

Indeed. Thank you, Simon, for the kind words. I'm glad you're enjoying the book, and especially glad to hear you found ship building easy.

Hi Ferrin. Great question.

There is no real answer to it, because - much like, say, cannons - it was intended as a complete abstraction. Most of the time, what actually is or isn't below the waterline shouldn't matter. The below the waterline has its own hit points and potentially receives a cover bonus to AC (at least, from attacks above the water's surface), but exactly how much of the Hull Location lies beneath the waves is hand-waved for simplicity.

If it does matter for some reason, I'd say 5 feet for a light load, 10 ft. for a medium load, and 15 feet for a heavy load is probably a good off-the-cuff number.

Yeah, when I converted RC to pathfinder, that's exactly why I opted to make Harthy a unique new creature. The kraken is really amped up in Pathfinder compared to 3.5.

As promised, here are some Harthagoa stat blocks, building him based on the PF kraken rather than the 3.5 kraken.

First, just a straight conversion, taking the kraken and adding the half-fiend template:

Then, because just about anybody can take a standard monster and slap on the half-fiend template, I went a step further to give people something truly special. I added the advanced simple template,increased his HD by 50%, and increased his size. The CR I have here is probably low; if this were a true turnover, I'd look a lot closer at it. But for this, it should be close enough.

In both instances, I recommend GMs plan his treasure carefully, and make use of it. He should have an ass-ton of stuff and so should take advantage of that. Stat boosters, armor boosters (his AC is a bit low), wands, staves, etc.

Also, if you use him, don't forgot about his dominate monster ability. He should almost always be encountered with a bevy of animals to serve as meat shields.

Thanael wrote:

So the Fiend Below, Harthagoa, was converted from 3.5 to PF as "a unique, new creature that closely mirrors the 3.5 stats born of from adding a [3.5] half-fiend template to a [3.5] Kraken.".

Who will be the first to upgrade this to a PF kraken with the PF half-fiend template? Or will FGG be so kind and post this version of the CR21 Harthagoa as a web enhancement maybe?

I'll put it together. Might take me a few days, since I have other stuff that's due soon...

I'll be throwing this together this weekend. I plan to do a bit more than just take the PF kraken and applying the template; expect some Hit Die advancement and other tricks to make one bad-ass mo-fo. I'm figuring he'll be CR 23, maybe 24. After all, anybody can take a monster and apply a template; I'll give you a bit more than just that.

So the Fiend Below, Harthagoa, was converted from 3.5 to PF as "a unique, new creature that closely mirrors the 3.5 stats born of from adding a [3.5] half-fiend template to a [3.5] Kraken.".

Who will be the first to upgrade this to a PF kraken with the PF half-fiend template? Or will FGG be so kind and post this version of the CR21 Harthagoa as a web enhancement maybe?

I'll put it together. Might take me a few days, since I have other stuff that's due soon...

Thanks for the review and the kind words, Megan. It's appreciated by all of us who worked on this one!

Hi Nychus. Lou and I worked insanely hard on Fire as she Bears, so I excited to hear it's well-received. Thank you so much for taking the time to point out that you liked it.

As for the gun deck issue... when I was putting numbers together, that was a real tough balancing point. I re-wrote the "math" of Hull Locations easily a half-dozen times (maybe more) and at least two of those were to try and get gun decks to work better.

In the end, we went with complete abstractions for cannons. Reload times, distances, etc were all designed with game balance in mind rather than realism. Your observation that you can pack more "small" guns onto a deck is enirely accurate; that was the intention. The trade-off to doing so is that you lose range. If you're ship has nothing but 6-pounders and your opponent has a bunch of 36-pounders, then her best course of action is to try to stay away from you and fire at range, because your guns can't even reach her ship. On the flip side, if you manage to maneuver your ship into closer range, you then have the upper hand in the fight. You're brining more guns to the battle, and so have more chances to hit. And your reload time is less, so you're making those attacks more often.

It's all part of the chess game about how to build and equip your ship, coupled with the tactics you use out on the open seas.

Hope that helps bring a bit of understanding to the gun deck issue. Again, I'm so glad to hear you're digging the book. those sorts of comments make all the work worthwhile.

Jason Kirckof wrote:

Sling Master

“when using the sniping feature of the Stealth skill, her penalty is only –10 (rather than the usual –20)” is listed twice once at first level at Stealth Master and at 8th level with Superior Stealth. Is this a mistake?

Looks like this might have been a confusion in development and/or editing. The developer or editor made a change for a reason, so before I go ahead and post what I intended, let me talk it over with Wolfgang. I'll post a fix here, and he'll work it into the PDF.

Talked it over with the Boss-meister. We're going to make the 8th level ability reduce the penalty in half again, down to -5.

I'll be sending Wolfgang a complete list of the compiled errata up to this point, and he'll get the PDF updated so folks can re-download it with all the corrections.

I'm very glad to see people are digging it! Reviews on the product are always appreciated, if you have the time.

Some more answers:

Does Lightfoot allow a five step movement in the terrain mention?

The lightfoot ability of the elven archer is really just woodland stride and trackless step (from the druid) smashed together into one ability. So you'll want to handle this the same way you would handle the question if a druid or ranger with woodland stride were to ask. In my opinion, yes: a character with woodland strike / lightfoot can take a 5' step unimpeded in natural undergrowth.

Sling Master

“when using the sniping feature of the Stealth skill, her penalty is only –10 (rather than the usual –20)” is listed twice once at first level at Stealth Master and at 8th level with Superior Stealth. Is this a mistake?

Looks like this might have been a confusion in development and/or editing. The developer or editor made a change for a reason, so before I go ahead and post what I intended, let me talk it over with Wolfgang. I'll post a fix here, and he'll work it into the PDF.

Does Arrow Transport have any limit on how much it can be used? Seem extremely powerful if there isn't.

Yep, totally should have a limit. I'm going to suggest to Wolfgang that he add the following text to the end of the ability:

"She may use this ability a number of times per day equal to her Charisma bonus (minimum 1)."

If I use the class in my own games I'm tempted to change the casting stat to INT, I might even go as far as to make spells arcane rather divine. Do you think this would be unbalanced at all?

On switching to Int: Be careful, depending on the class. Some of them (like the mystic archer) use that stat for other benefits as well, and you generally don't want to make a class depend on too many stats. For the elven archer itself, though, there's little harm in making it Int-based casting, since none of that class's abilities rely on Wisdom. Honestly, Wisdom-based casting is just a relic from A) copying the ranger's spellcasting; and B) writing the class originally in 3.5, where elves didn't have the +2 to Int.

On switching from divine to arcane: I'd be a bit hesitant here as a designer. Going all the way back to 3.0, there are rules interpretations that allow sorcerers and wizards to add any arcane spell to their class list. (I don't recall the exact argument in favor of it, but it required reading something in an extreme literal fashion.) I find such interpretations to be utter hogwash, but it's still out there. I have seen folks on various message boards make the case that Pathfinder also allows it - that the wording is the same or almost the same and that the loophole wasn't removed in PF. So as a designer, I'm always careful when designing a new class that uses arcane spells.

At your table, though? Assuming your players aren't going to abuse all the ranger spells suddenly being arcane, I don't see a problem with it. I actually considered making the mystic archer arcane rather than divine, actually, but stuck with divine to avoid any potential cheese from the vocal minority.

So... hope that helps. Let me talk to Wolfgang about the sniping one, and I'll get you an answer on that in the near future.

Cheers!

Good questions. I won't be able to answer most of them until I'm home tonight and in front of my copy (as well as my handful of notes I kept).

But for your 3rd question: I opted to make the sling master and mystic use Charisma just for variety, to be honest. Charisma seemed to fit well for those two, so it was a good chance (in my mind at least) to mix things up a little bit.

I'll clear up the other questions tonight for you...

Hey, no worries. There are so many options out there, it's hard to keep track of it all. Let's try and get you some answers to your other questions...

Regarding the Crossbowyer, Armor Piercer just affects the dwarf, right? It doesn't lower the armor for others from the piercing-ness of the bolts.

Correct, just for the dwarf's attacks. The idea is that the dwarf is so good at placing his shots that he's picking weak spots, unarmored joints, etc.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but are there any abilities in the crossbowyer that helps close the chasm that is the damage output disparity between crossbows and bows?

Hmmm... I'm not sure what you mean here. A longbow does 1d8, a heavy crossbow does 1d10. Granted, once we hit iterative attacks that becomes a small problem, where the crossbowyer will need to spend two feats to overcome the reload time. But... assuming he spends most of his time underground, preferred environment gives him a +2 to attack and damage rolls, which the longbow user won't have. So at the cost of two feats (Rapid Reload, Crossbow Mastery) the dwarven crossbowyer is cranking out more damage per round than an elf with a longbow. He's doing 1d10 per shot, and he's getting the bonus from preferred environment (which rises to +4 at 10th ant +6 at 17th).

I don't know if that's what you had in mind, but that's what I see.

Does the bonus from Take Aim just affect attack rolls, or does it affect Damage rolls as well? The way it's phrased can be read both ways as it doesn't specify what he adds half his level to.

It's just to attack rolls. The idea is that he spends round 1 studying the opponent, then on round 2 every attack he makes gets the bonus to attack rolls equal to half his level.

Could it apply to damage as well without breaking things? Maybe; that will depend a lot on your group, to be honest. It would be a lot of bonus damage, though. It comes online at 13th level, so we're talking about 3 attacks, 4 with Rapid Shot, each getting a +6 bonus (minimum). Now consider that the bonus to attacks makes using Deadly Aim an even better deal, meaning even more bonus damage, and it could add up quickly.

If your group has a lot of spellcasters who min/max the system, then adding the bonus from take aim to damage rolls isn't going to hurt. If your game swings more towards the "traditional" group with the evocation-tossing wizard, etc then it's probably too much to give out the bonus damage.

As a designer, I'd prefer to make something a little bit too weak than a little bit too powerful. It's real easy for a GM to say to a player, "Hey. I'm going to take this ability you have and make it just a little bit better." Players like that. But if the GM has to say the opposite, players get angry. It's always easier for the GM to adjust upwards, so I prefer to come in on the light side if I have to. Of course, the goal really is perfect balance, but, well..

Presumably there's a feat for Precision and concealment much like Shadow Strike? Or can they just take that feat?

They could just take Shadow Strike; the only pre-req for it is BAB +1, and nothing in the feat text prohibits it from working with ranged attacks.

For your other questions, I'll provide answers later this evening. I'd prefer to be in front of my books - including my copy of the Elven Archer - before giving answers.

I have heard from the boss-meister that it shall be corrected soon. Thanks for pointing it out.

Thanks for the review, Trinite! I appreciate it, and the kind words.

I'm always happy to make something I worked on better. This one was a no-brainer of a fix, especially when nothing in my (admittedly few) notes indicated what I might have been thinking way back when I wrote it.

Wolfgang is a class act, so I'm not at all surprised he acted so quickly to upload the changes. I've never once felt slighted or disrespected while working for him. And sadly, I can't say that about every other publisher I've worked with over the years.

Trinite - I look forward to the review. They definitely help. Thanks.

Trinite wrote:

2. I was surprised by the precision requirement on some of the feats. For example, Ranged Disarm requires BAB +8 and precision +4d6 or better. But an elven archer doesn't get +4d6 precision until level 19. Doesn't seem to fit with the BAB requirement, unless you're expecting a multiclass rogue. Even worse is Improved Bloody Shot, which requires +6 precision and doesn't include the proviso that sneak attack counts for it, meaning that strictly as-written, an Elven Archer can never get this feat.

I'm wondering if originally the EA had a lot faster precision progression, and it got dialed back for balance, but the feats weren't amended?

That's... *scratches head* Hmmm... *scratches some more*

I'm at work, so don't have my notes with me. I'll dig into them when I get home tonight and see if I can figure out what happened there.

So, I've looked and gone through my notes (granted, there isn't much in the way of notes). And I can say I don't know what the heck I was thinking. That's one of the joys of getting older - lots of things are surprises. I've sent the following to Wolfgang to serve as errata, and I've been told the PDF will get updated and that I can share it here. So...

• On the feat Bloody Shot, reduce the precision prerequisite down to +2d6 and add "BAB +7" to the prerequisite list. Also, add the following:

  Special: Sneak attack, such as the rogue’s class ability, counts for the purposes of meeting the precision prerequisite.

  (We're adding the BAB pre-req to keep those pesky rogues from having access to this sooner than elven archers get access. We want rogues to have it if they want, just not significantly before the elven archer.)

• On the feat Improved Bloody Shot, reduce the prerequisite from 6d6 down to 3d6. Add the same "special" line at the end of the feat.

• On the feat Ranged Disarm feat, reduce the precision prerequisite to +2d6.

That should clear up the issues. Thanks for pointing them out, and my apologies for not getting it right the first time.

2. I was surprised by the precision requirement on some of the feats. For example, Ranged Disarm requires BAB +8 and precision +4d6 or better. But an elven archer doesn't get +4d6 precision until level 19. Doesn't seem to fit with the BAB requirement, unless you're expecting a multiclass rogue. Even worse is Improved Bloody Shot, which requires +6 precision and doesn't include the proviso that sneak attack counts for it, meaning that strictly as-written, an Elven Archer can never get this feat.

I'm wondering if originally the EA had a lot faster precision progression, and it got dialed back for balance, but the feats weren't amended?

That's... *scratches head* Hmmm... *scratches some more*

I'm at work, so don't have my notes with me. I'll dig into them when I get home tonight and see if I can figure out what happened there.

And no comments on the class variants, either. The halfling sling master is my favorite, but I'd love to hear others.

*thump* <-- me falling on face

With any luck, it'll improve your looks. Certainly can't make things any worse.

Gha. OK, 3 hours to go. I’m a $110 pledge who gets bumped to $150 for being an original backer in the day. I don’t get the ship combat rules unless I add on $7? $15? $20? Please let me know and I’ll do it to help push further!

$7 for a PDF version of Fire as She Bears and $15 for a print copy.

Will Bethany ever be commercially available?

And I am spent up, as much as I can be.

Paraphrasing previous answers from Blondie...

When they get this incarnation of the mini from Reaper, they'll order some extra and sell them through the FGG website. When they're gone, that's it.

There's talk of making a slighly different model, that won't officially be named Bethany Razor but will look similar. That model will be widely available.

If I got any of this wrong, it's Lou's fault...

Thanks, Mike. And Marc. And Christine. And everybody else.

I'm interested in hearing what people think of the expansion. If you bought it, I'd love to hear about your thoughts - what do you plan to use in your game, what grabbed your attention? What (if anything) left you a bit flat?

Cheers!

-- John Ling

So happy to see this one come out. When Wolfgang approached me at GenCon last summer to work on this, I was giddy at the idea.

So this class came about entirely because one of my players wanted to play an archer, but didn't really like the flavor of the ranger. She didn't want a lot of favored enemies, and didn't want an animal companion. But she liked things such as combat style, tracking, and the various "woodsy" features of the ranger. She knew fighter could give her some feats, and that rogue could give her some skills and neat tricks like sneak attack and evasion. She also knew there were some nifty prestige classes out there. (This is probably a good time to mention: the class was originally designed in 3.5.)

And so she looked at all that potential multiclassing, and had a small panic attack. So stepped in and built her a class that had the stuff she wanted, but kept things fairly straight forward. In fact, the entire reason the class is named "elven archer" is because she was wanted her character to be an elf. Honestly, had she wanted a half-orc, the class would've been the half-orc archer from the start. And, honestly, I'm glad she went elf because when Wolfgang talked about putting together KQ20 he mentioned it was a loose elven theme. "Hey! I have this class. You interested in seeing it?" And so was born the published version of the elven archer.

*

One of the things I wanted to do in this expanded version was steer it away from just being about elves. My original article in KQ20 had a paragraph about how to adapt to other classes, so this was my chance to stretch that idea a bit. And so this product has the halfling sling master and the dwarven crossbowyer - two different racial classes that use the basic chassis of the elven archer, and swap a few things out. I had a grand time coming up with "sling tricks" for the halfling, to be honest. On top of that, I also created the mystic archer, a class for any race that melds archery with mysticism and arcane energy to do some nifty things. My favorite? Using an arrow as a dimension door effect.

I didn't really get to explore everything I wanted. At least in depth. As publishers often do, Wolfgang put me on a word count limit. So there's also two archetypes: the royal guardian, sort of an urban-themed tweak; and the plains rider, which takes mounted archery and gives it some love.

*

And there's other goodies. Cool feats, alchemical arrows, an arrow made from a dragon's tooth, new spells (LOTS of new spells), new magic items.

My other favorite feature in here is an idea Wolfgang planted in my head when I started - the arrow tracking sheet. Never lose track of how many arrows of different types you possess again. The sheet is designed to allow you to fill in numerous different types and keep track of what you have, and what you've used.

*

Anyway, I've talked a lot. I'll happily answer questions. I'm really excited to see this one finally out, and thankful to Wolfgang for giving me the opportunity. I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention the wonderful editing work of Amanda Hamon. She was a pleasure to work with - she kept me in the loop for any important changes she was making, to make sure I was OK with what she was doing. It's always a pleasure to work with the folks over at Kobold Press!

How do you do the add ons? Im trying to back this one and cant see the fire as she bears or the herolabs add ons

It's a two step process, one now and one later.

1) Add the money to your pledge. So let's say you were already in for the $150 package. You want to add HeroLab and d20Pro files, which cost an additional $50. Simply go to Kickstarter and change your amount from $150 to $200, and re-select the $150 package.

2) When the KS ends, the fine folks over at FGG will send you a survey through Kickstarter. In that survey, you'll get to tell them what the extra $50 was for.

Hope that helps.

Fire as She Bears is the name of the book. "Fire as She Blows" is something about Lou's personal life that's best not discussed on the forums...

What exactly are the 8 indulgences? I get that they are supplements, but can someone provide a list with a brief description? Thanks.

Sure.

"Art of the Duel" by Craig Shackleton presents historical information about dueling, both with blades as well as pistols. (Craig has actually been in the news lately up in the Toronto area because of his expertise in the field.) After going over the historical aspects, there are some new weapons and new feats.

"Blood Waters" By Greg Vaughan is a 7th level adventure set in the Razor Coast. It's designed to fit into the campaign, without being absolutely necessary. There are places within the book, though, where it'll say, "Hey, here's a good place to put Blood Waters." Blood Waters takes PCs under the waves with some great encounters.

"Dajobas, Devourer of Worlds" by Nick Logue presents all the info you need about, well, Dajobas - an evil god bent on destroying everything in the world. Along with the usual god text, there's a new domain, info about his followers, a new monster, some new feats, and some magic weapons. There's also a prestige class so you can make your villains even more frightening.

"Death Beneath the Waves" by Wolfgang Baur is a look at running adventures underwater. It goes over the rules, expands them a bit, gives the GM ways to lure the PCs there. There's some spells to help PCs cope with the environment, and a wicked nasty CR 11 critter to challenge your PCs once they're there.

"Mysteries of the Razor Sea" by Nick is an adventure designed for 1st level PCs. It's a fantastic intro to some of the lore and such of the Razor Coast.

"Shrine of Frenzy" by Brendan Victorson and David Posener is a 7th level adventure that deals with cultists of Dajobas and the superstitions of the native people, the Tulita.

"Still Waters" by Rich Pett is a 6th level adventure that takes PCs into the marsh. Good depth and the typical creepy feeling Pett injects into his adventures.

"The Warrior's Way" by Nick goes into depth about the Tulita, natives of the Razor Coast. Some feats, items, and lots of flavor and background.

Those are quick summaries, anyway. There's good stuff in all 8.

John Ling whose talents go well and beyond most developers and crunch-lords.

Aw, shucks. Go on.... No, really. Go on. I like flattery...

Heart of the Razor = unlocked! Woohoo!

@Zherog - I am such a Necromancer fan boy that it didn't even occur to me to distinguish that it's not Pathfinder. Dead Man's Chest (and the companion Glades of Death) are EXCELLENT books.

Yep, both are indeed awesome. And both have plenty of material that can be used in any game. The science stuff in both books is spectacular. I just wanted to point it out for completeness in case somebody cares.

You've got the campaign book and the Player's Guide pdfs at the $50 level. The campaign book includes the 8 indulgences?

Yes, and they're converted to Pathfinder.

$110

...
Dead Man's Chest (Necromancer)

And just to be sure it's clear, this is 3.5 - though there's a ton in there that's useful to any game such as general information about oceanography and weather, random weather tables, and so forth.

Zherog wrote:

It can't be further than PaizoCon from the East Coast - I'll almost certainly be making the trek to Seattle this year.

As Ive promised many times, first round is on me.

SG

Excellent! I'd like a 6-pack as my first round, please! :)

It can't be further than PaizoCon from the East Coast - I'll almost certainly be making the trek to Seattle this year.

Zherog wrote:

Louis Agresta wrote:

John -- who also helped convert Freeport to Pathfinder -- I think you and I are already on the list... :)

Well, I haven't noticed any froggie assassins hanging out in front of my house. So either I didn't make the list, or Rachel is focusing on getting you first, Lou. :)

Wait! What was that noise?

hahahahahaha, you would never see or hear me coming

I think it would be impossible to not see a woman of your stunning beauty...

*there. that ought to keep her chasing after Lou and not me. Wait - am I using my outside voice? :confused: *

It's far too evil. It does things to you...terrible things.

Huh, odd. I've heard the same thing about Nick!

John -- who also helped convert Freeport to Pathfinder -- I think you and I are already on the list... :)

Well, I haven't noticed any froggie assassins hanging out in front of my house. So either I didn't make the list, or Rachel is focusing on getting you first, Lou. :)

Wait! What was that noise?

What we haven't announced is that Greg Vaughan, who participated in the conversion of Freeport to Pathfinder will be including a piece to the core Razor Coast book that explores integrating Freeport and Razor Coast.

Vaughan isn't the only person on this project who had a hand in converting Freeport/ ;)

1. Fire As She Bears

A Ship to Ship combat system written by myself and John Ling that I think solves the problems that plague many attempts at this. For one, everyone has something fun and important to do every single turn, and the cinematic power of Master and Commander style sea battles blends with historical, Age of Sail realities, melds with the RPG system. Not to mention tons of new magical items, spells, feats, and the ability to roll up an Age of Sail frigate (or other ship) from the keel out -- just like you'd design a new character.

I'll piggy back on this a little bit. My wife was kind enough to "play test" the build rules for us. She's a gamer, but she's not a "number cruncher." She was able to take the rules and build a fully functional warship within a half-hour. Best of all (to me at least) was that she reported that she started on page one and went straight through until the end. She didn't have to flip from section to section - just straight through, from one section to the next building out the ship.

After you build out your ship, as Lou mentioned the book then gives you a combat system that makes every player at the table important and meaningful. A lot of other systems out there give the captain a whole bunch of things to do, and everybody else sits around and makes towers out of their dice. While dice towers can be cool and all, we figured it was more fun to engage the entire table in the naval combat.

And then beyond that we give your PC a whole bunch of new options - spells, feats, magic items, new skill uses, and so on. Whether they're used by the PCs or the GM uses them to spice up the NPCs, they add a bunch of flavorful options to the game.

It's almost certainly the hardest project I've ever worked on. I called Lou a lot of names - sometimes in the emails we were exchanging, other times under my breath. But I really do think this is a killer system. I'm really proud of this book, and I'm really keeping my fingers crossed that we hit the stretch goal that allows it to get published.

And hopefully saying all this doesn't put me on Blondie's kill list...

It was nice knowing you, Lou...

Don't encourage him, Nick...

Woohoo! We broke $60K!

That video is ace!

Yeah, and the best part is watching Lou get crushed. I could watch that over and over again. Well, actually I can't - at least right now. My employer blocks Youtube. But you get the idea...

Well, in that case, you should totally go in for the Carribean cruise. :)

Yes, well. That's an entirely different CR to handle... ;)

I have yet to actually back the project, but rest assured, I will.

Just to make sure you know... if you pledge now, the money won't come out of your account until the project funds.

Just set live the newest update - Check it out: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/froggodgames/razor-coast/posts

Whoa!

Zherog wrote:

That Lou Agresta guy is as sharp as a marshmallow, I tell ya...

But can you roast him in Pele's fire like one?

I dunno, but I'm willing to find out. For science!