buddhaSMASH's page

Did everyone forget what this thread was about in the first place? /signed

I'm trying to adapt the sea route taken in Sea Wyvern's Wake to the Eberron campaign setting. My plan is to take the PCs south along the coast of Q'barra and into the Dragonreach, where I plan on placing the Isle of Dread. I'll be replacing the Olmans with a primitive clan of Seren barbarians. The barbarians were abandonded by their dragon leaders when they allowed Thanaclan to be destroyed.

Anyways, I digress. My question is this: Where can I get a single detailed, coherent map of the east coast of Khorvaire?

Are the conversion supplements going to be finished? Or are they being cancelled?

buddhaSMASH wrote:

Baka warui kyabetsu des!

** spoiler omitted **

boku wa baka janai, demo chotto warui;)

a kan be!

Yeah, see? No idea what that means. :-)

Baka warui kyabetsu des!

Rest assured, friends, that Core Beliefs and Demonomicon are among our favorite semi-regular series as well.

Need I say more? ^_^

Sweet. :-D

Guys,

We're working on submission guidelines for both Pathfinder and the GameMastery modules. I'm also seriously considering an annual book of short adventure (say, 30 or so) designed exclusively by folks who have not been assigned a Pathfinder adventure or GameMastery Module.

Our company has benefited greatly from the infusion of new talent the magazines generated, and we have no intention of "closing the door" to the next generation of game designers.

--Erik

You see? This is why Paizo is the best company in gaming history. Period.

I too am in shock, but making decisions (or law for that matter) when emotions are high tends to lead to bad results. Give it a few days or weeks and see where things are going.

My fear is if we all boycott WOTC the only thing that will happen is D&D will die. Not that people won't keep playing, but that Hasbro will see a dying line and won't publish it any more.

May cooler heads prevail...

I'm honestly not saying this just out of anger or to be inflammatory. If WotC stopped supporting D&D entirely, I wouldn't mind so much. Complete Adventurer was the last good supplement they created. Everything they've done since then has been sub-par. If they stopped supporting it, it would give smaller, more dedicated/worthy publishing houses (See: Paizo Publishing LLC) to maybe pick up the product line entirely.

*Edited for grammar*

I agree. I would be totally content to see as many Core Beliefs articles as possible in the remaining issues of Dragon. Even if that's all you have room for. :-D

Does Paizo have any plans to publish a Pathfinder Campaign Setting? Or is the current plan to just write the adventure paths and let the DMs convert them to GH, FR, Eb, or whichever setting they prefer? Personally, I haven't even read a single issue of Pathfinder and I'm already partial to the idea of switching to the campaign setting exclusively. F&!+ wizards.

I don't care. There's nothing I can do about it. BUT, I can walk away with my dignity.

Well said, Heath.

You will NEVER buy another WotC product if they do not give Paizo the rights to publish Dragon and Dungeon?

Really?

And would WotC really feel it?

Retailers will feel it first and hardest, and therefore the boycot will hurt THEM much more than WotC or Hasbro.

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

Make phone calls to WotC. Write well-thought-out and empassioned letters to them. THOSE they wil feel. Go to big cons and talk to them (if you can).

Support Paizo.

But a boycot?

I think a boycott would be incredibly effective. If the majority of the readers of Dragon and Dungeon magazine stopped purchasing WotC products, Hasbro would see an immediate income decline. The bottom line is all corporations really respond to. Worried about the consequences for retailers? Buy all of your Paizo products at your local gaming shop. Let the people who actually care about the fanbase fill the gap.

I second the motion to boycott. Stop buying WotC materials until Dragon and Dungeon are reinstituted. The CEOs at Wizards will only understand when they see the results in their bank accounts.

http://paizo.com/dragon/messageboards/generalDiscussion/atLastIKnowWhyTheIs suesAreRunningBehind

Thanks for all of the help and information, guys. This really is one of the best online communities around.

I'll admit that I had an ulterior motive when I asked this question. I'm a big fan of the dwarven race (ask my DMs, I plan them constantly), yet I hadn't encountered any material that gives a detailed outline of the Church of Moradin. So I've been toying with the idea of writing an article on my version of the church's holy family, which I have named the Kinrock clan. I just want to make sure that there isn't conflicting information floating around out there before I submit the article to Dragon for their consideration.

Question: Does the Thunder Blessing of FR exist in Greyhawk?

Pssh, make names up, it's easy. Just give them a Nordic first name, and a surname made of any two words relating to stone, axes, hammers, armour or facial hair.

I just don't want some rules lawyer PC raining on my parade.

This is pretty much the difinitive thread on the AoWHC.

That link isn't working for me. I think the thread may be dead.

Can anyone tell me where I can find information on dwarven society in Greyhawk, specifically the names of the high ranking members of the Church of Moradin? Or does nothing like this exist?

Damn. Ok. Well, give me some hope here. Is it at least safe to say that repeatedly getting published as a contributor can help you along the path to being hired as an editor?

Thanks for the responses guys. I also posted this question the Dungeon general board. They responded, and I posted this followup question:

"I've read the submission guidelines, and I see that the pay rate for submitted material is 5 cents per word published. Is there any significant increase in pay rate for repeated contributors? Also, can contributors work on irregular articles, like the Core Beliefs series, or are those large articles reserved for full time editors?"

Nobody there has answered that one yet, so I figured I'd try my hand here too. When I say "significant increase in pay rate", what I'm really asking is "Could someone make a passable living simply by being a repeat contributor for Paizo?"

buddhaSMASH wrote:

When you hire editors for Dragon and Dungeon, do you allow them to work from anywhere in the nation by correspondence, or do you require that they move to the Bellevue area and report to the office daily?

All of our employees work on-site. The ability for our people to have face-to-face interaction with teammates is an essential part of our strategy for producing quality products.

-Vic.
.

Thanks for the reply, Vic. I have a few more questions for you. I've read the submission guidelines, and I see that the pay rate for submitted material is 5 cents per word published. Is there any significant increase in pay rate for repeated contributors? Also, can contributors work on irregular articles, like the Core Beliefs series, or are those large articles reserved for full time editors?

Edit: Sorry. The "Core Beliefs" series is a Dragon article. I'll direct that question towards them.

zeal - fervor for a person, cause, or object; eager desire or endeavor; enthusiastic diligence; ardor.

So, you see, zeal is just a synonym for drive or conviction. It doesn't require virtue, necessarily. People can be just as zealotous about sowing chaos and destruction as others are about protecting the weak.

When you hire editors for Dragon and Dungeon, do you allow them to work from anywhere in the nation by correspondence, or do you require that they move to the Bellevue area and report to the office daily?

When you hire editors for Dragon and Dungeon, do you allow them to work from anywhere in the nation by correspondence, or do you require that they move to the Bellevue area and report to the office daily?

Does anyone know of any feats you can take to get the Detect Evil spell like ability, similar to the paladin class feature?

Edit: Or perhaps a cleric domain?

Why are all of the posters using this crazy olden broken english? I'm confused?

Uhmm...what? My head hurts.

Why are all of the posters using this crazy olden broken english? I'm confused?

Hey. Sorry guys. I was just looking through my recent posts, saw this and remembered it. Sorry for completely abandoning it. My PCs decided that they wanted to wait and play Savage Tide instead. Should have updated sooner. My apologies.

Well, if you're running it in Eberron, I'd look into the published adventures: The Forgotten Forge, Shadows of the Last War, Whispers of the Vampire's Blade, Grasp of the Emerald Claw. I PC'd in this adventure path and loved every minute of it.

One of my PCs wants to take an alternative class feature on his artificer to replace Craft Homonculus. Any ideas for balanced replacement options?

I would actually like to see an Eberron AP. I really like Eberron a lot, but I have yet to actually run a campaign there. Maybe once my current group finishes the Age of Worms AP (we play sloooowly... what can I say?).

I think Eberron features a lot of really cool, original ideas not found in other settings, nor explored in previous editions and/or game products. But most of the published adventures (to date) have been pretty weak. A good, solid, well-developed AP would really help encourage more people to give the setting a try, I think.

But it would be very hard to convert it to anything non-Eberron, so I can see the wisdom (from a business point of view) of trying to stay neutral and make as many people as happy as possible. But I really don't get the amount of "eberron hate" so many on these boards seem to have. Have you *read* the campaign setting book? There's really a lot of good stuff in there! I'm using lots of eberron material in my AoW - even though it's technically GreyHawk. Take what you like, ignore what you don't, etc., etc.

I can certainly understand that viewpoint, but this poses one major obstacle for dedicated Eberron players. Just as Eberron would be difficult to convert to Greyhawk, Greyhawk is also very difficult to convert to Eberron. The entire tone of the Eberron campaign setting is fundamentally different from the rest of D&D, Greyhawk included. For instance, most Greyhawk adventures are based around dungeon crawls and long travel sequences. Take the current Savage Tide adventure path as an example. It has been largely composed of sea travel interspersed with dungeon crawls. There's nothing wrong with this. I love the AP, and it's great as a Greyhawk material. But it becomes impossible to effectively convert to Eberron because of the heavy emphasis on water travel. I can already tell you what the PCs will say. "Why don't we just take a skyship? It would be a hell of alot faster." So Eberron DMs are forced to either make some lame excuse about why the skyship can't be used in "Sea Wyvern's Wake" or completely rewrite just about every encounter to support the skyship dynamics, at which point it isn't Savage Tide anymore. There's also the intrigue issue. In the Eberron Campaign Setting, Baker says that Eb adventures should be composed mainly of intricate intrigue interspersed with short, furious combat sequences. Most Greyhawk adventures just aren't built this way. And we won't even get into planar cosmology issues. That would require an entirely separate thread.

I guess my major complaint is that most of the Eberron features can't be taken advantage of by converting adventures from Greyhawk. What good is there in having skyships, lightning rails, intricate international intrigue relationships, and all of the defining characteristics of the Eberron adventure setting if you can't use them effectively. Converting GH to Eb can allow you to provide a basic Eberron flavor, but it doesn't allow you to take full advantage of the setting's features without putting hours and hours of work into completely reorganizing every adventure. Jeremy MacDonald was right when he said that a good, well written Eberron adventure would be nigh impossible to convert to Greyhawk. Well it works both ways. It's damn near impossible to take any GH or FR module and convert it into a convincing, fully rewarding Eberron adventure. I can't wait to see the day that Eberron DMs can simply unwrap their mag and run the adventure without having to deal with any conversion headaches. This is something Greyhawk and FR players have been able to do for years.

I have a PC who wants to play a monk of the Azure Cathedral. Where can I find more information on the associated deities?

Any input from a Paizo editor on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

"Aww, I can't heal my party and axe a monster in the face at the same time, waaaa..."

Suck it up, sir. That's my advice. Because the first time you ask me if you can heal someone by hitting them with your axe, I'm throwing you to the wolves.

-your friendly neighborhood DM

I find it funny how people recoil at this idea but are just fine with spell storing arrows that heal people. :-P You can heal them by shooting them in the neck. No problem. But healing by lightly touching them on the shoulder with your axe head is crrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrazay!

It's a moot point anyways. I was just looking over the rules and realized that you can loose a shield as a move action without dropping it. You just lose the AC bonus until you ready it again (also a move). I can deal with that.

I personally would see no problem using a weapon to channel a touch spell. As a matter of fact, I believe the Complete Arcane even mentions it, allowing you to, for instance, use shocking grasp through a weapon. The difference against a foe is that you have to hit their normal AC instead of their touch AC.

Where in Complete Arcane does it talk about this?

Are there any feats out there that allow you to channel a touch spell through your weapon? You see, I'm playing a favored soul right now, and sheating/drawing my axe every time I want to heal my party is getting tiresome. I need to find a way to heal my party while both of my hands are full. I'm taking the somatic weaponry feat from PH2, but that only allows me to cast the heal spell, not deliver it. Help.

Ok. So what you guys are saying, generally, is that you wouldn't want a consecutive 12 part Eberron specific AP, but if 12 connected Eberron adventures were printed in 3 part sets over a span of, say, two years, that would be better?

Oh man, I hope not.

Why not? They can build specifically for Greyhawk but not Eb?

If somebody submitted high quality adventures, would Dungeon be at all interested in publishing a 12 part adventure path tailor made specifically for Eberron?

Any progress?

Any word on those conversion notes?

Yeah; adding a 5th player doesn't really impact things that much. The group as a whole will gain XP slightly more slowly, and they'll have to split up the treasure more, so if you run the adventure as written it in large part self-corrects. You absolutely shouldn't up the level or hit dice of the foes to compensate, though. The best way to compensate for larger groups is instead to add a few more creatures to some encounters. Give the larger group more foes to fight, not tougher foes.

But one additional character's not going to be a problem. My group consists of long-time D&D players, and with 5 players at 28 point buy, the campaign's plenty challenging for them.

You know, it's really awesome that the Editor-in-Chief is this active on the boards. This is why the gaming community rocks. Thanks, James.

buddhaSMASH wrote:

I'm planning on using point buy for the character creation in my ST campaign. How many points would you guys recommend?

I'm running it for my Saturday group; 5 players, each building characters with 28 point buy. Seems to be working out pretty good.

That's a pretty good segue into my next question, actually. The AP is intended for play with four PCs, and it provides scaling info for players of inappropriate level. I, however, am thinking about running it with 5 PCs. Are there scaling notes anywhere for running with more PCs than it was originally intended for?

I'm planning on using point buy for the character creation in my ST campaign. How many points would you guys recommend?

Ok. I'm playing in an AoW game right now, and afterwards I am DMing ST. I don't want to run into any spoilers so.

1) Are there any AoW spoilers in ST?
2) Where are they, so that I may avoid them?
3) How severe are they and of what nature are they? Again, don't give anything away. Just tell me the nature of the spoiler. (ie "Reading this will tell you who the big baddy is before you should know!" or "Reading this will give away a major plot hook, so stay the hell away!"

Sounds like Paizo needs an extra staff member or two...or 7...

Hmmm. Alright guys. For some reason I can't edit my entries after a certain amount of time has passed, so I guess I'll just have to wait until I'm entirely finished and post the conversion notes as one big post. Sorry.

Chapter 1: Life’s Bazaar

The Adventure Begins
Event 1 Changes
Ruphus Laro is an acolyte of the Flamebearers instead of St. Cuthbert.
The Last Laugh thieves’ guild are followers of The Traveler instead of Olidammara.

Event 2 Changes
The Church of St. Cuthbert is changed to the Flamebearer Cathedral. All of the associated followers’ religions are appropriately altered.

Event 3 Changes
The Lantern Street Orphanage retains it’s name, all employees, and all residents, but it is officially supported and maintained by House Jorasco.

Event 4 Changes
The NPCs outlined here retain their names and all class abilities except the following: Instead of worshipping Fharlanghn, the Striders worship Kol Korran. As a result, Fellian’s domains become Charm and Travel.

Ghelve’s Locks
No changes to this section.

Vanishing in Jzadirune
No changes to this section.

Kazmojen’s Bazaar
Overview changes
Vervil Ashmantle, Kazmojen’s business partner, is from Darguun instead of Kingfisher Hollow.

Frank Steven Gimenez wrote:

Eberron is a special case, since a DM would need to come up with a good reason why any particular dragon is living around Cauldron instead of on the dragon continent--Argonesin?.

Well, not nessacarily... Granted, the dragons were given a very particular role and place in the world, but remember: there are always exceptions to EVERY rule (especially in Eberron). And, as was pointed out in the PGtE, sometimes, a dragon is just a dragon. They don't all have to be political power players.

I prefer to stick with the original, mystical view of Eberron dragons. If I had it my way it would be like that in most if not all campaign settings. Dragons are one of man's greatest mysteries. A dragon arriving in any adventure lower than 16th level just seems like a waste to me.

buddhaSMASH wrote:

Ok, this is probably going to sound like a really stupid question, but I can't find the answer to it anywhere on the boards. Do contributors get paid for the content they get published?

Yes. The info used to be in the Writing Guidelines, but I haven't checked in a while.

Where can I find the Writing Guidelines?