cartmanbeck's page

This question is not mine, but one found unanswered on another forum. Was hoping James could answer it, but he said to instead put it here.

"A small Cavalier can take a wolf mount at level one. A wolf has 13 hp (2d8+4), AC 14, and a 1d6 bite attack.

If you're at 4th level, you can get a dog mount. A dog has 6 hp (1d8+2), AC 13, and a 1d4 bite attack.

....How does that make sense!? You get access to an (objectively) less powerful mount at a higher level?"

My guess? Is it because the dog starts out small sized, then is medium at 4th level? If so, you guys might want to spell this out to people a little better.

You're doing it wrong. Cavaliers don't just get the default wolf or dog from the Bestiary. A cavalier's mount progresses exactly like a Druid's animal companion, so at 4th level your mount has 4 hit dice no matter what type it is.

Dear Mr. Jacobs:

1) This is a question coming from a development direction. Do you find it difficult to tell your fans "no" sometimes? I'll try to explain what I mean:

I've seen many people over the years clamoring for a dragonborn-style race of partial dragons as a player race. Paizo as a whole has shied away from that idea, and instead have given Kobolds the dragon-like feats and abilities. Another example would be non-evil undead (though the Juju Oracle snuck by).

So, do you ever feel like the pressure from fans of your work causes you difficulty in writing what you really want? Do you feel like we, as fans, contribute a lot to Golarion through our requests and demands of you, or do you have Golarion pretty fleshed out in your mind, and what the fans want takes a distinct backseat to that?

2) Have you gotten to play Munchkin Pathfinder yet, and if so can you tell me what the other two classes are? All we know so far are Witch and Alchemist, and it's KILLING me not knowing!

Thanks in advance for your replies, and just so you know, this is my favorite thread to read through when I'm not replying to questions about my guides or things like that!

Tyler Beck

Only think I have noticed so far.

The Witch favored class bonus that gives a spell to your familiar. It is the bonus to several races and you have a different color for each lol.

You start giving it a blue, and then it goes green, then orange, and finally red by the time you reach goblins lol.

I agree its a trap favored class bonus. You can spend gold to get spells for your familiar.

I would change all the races that get that bonus to Red.

Thanks for that, sometimes in a huge document like this you get confused about your own ratings LOL

I mentioned a good use for the wayang's Light and Dark ability earlier, but I suppose you missed it. The main cool thing is, it's an immediate action, which I'm pretty sure can be done whenever you feel like it. So, if you're up against something that's channeling negative energy at you, LOLNOPE I'M A WAYANG. Insta-switch your energy affinity and watch yourself heal.

The only problem with that is that an immediate action still doesn't actually interrupt a standard action, as far as I know. So you'd see the enemy channeling, the channel would go off and you'd take damage, and THEN your immediate action would take effect. The only types of actions that can actually interrupt standard actions are attacks of opportunity, unless you specifically prepared one of your own actions as an interrupt.

A Kitsune Wordcasting sorcerer could be ridiculously effective; the words of power system makes it very easy to have most of your wordspells take advantage of school bonuses.

I try not to include optional rules in this kind of guide, because a lot of GMs just won't allow it. I agree, however, that a wordcasting kitsune would kick some serious foxtail.

Alrightie, lets have a look-see.

Tengu. Alternate Race Traits. you misspelled smell.

Why yes, we goblins be insane little creatures! Ehehehehe!!
Oversized ears. There is a goblin only trait called Big Ears that grants you +2 on perception checks and when combined with oversized ears, you start with +6 to perception before skills. If you have perception as a class skill you get +10 perception at level 1 for a trait and a skill point. Goblins are incredibly perceptive...
And sneaky. With small size (+4), skilled (+4) and your racial dex bonus (+2) you start out with +10 to sneak.
A quick note about the barbarian (and especially the feral rager) you can get the Animal Fury rage power. This grants you a bite every time you maintain a grapple, effectively doubling your bite damage.
A quick note about the Fire Bomber alchemist. You get access to elemental body a level early, thrus potionable. You can also combine it with eternal potion to become a fire elemental permanently!
A goblin sorcerer makes so much more sense than a wizard one. Sad that it doesn't translate that way mechanically. (Picture books? I mean really?)

I assume you missed this (or forgot) but goblins have 4 exclusive discoveries. Im going to do a quick writeup for them :)
-----------------
Fire Brand. Blue. This may seem lackluster at first but once you realize its applications it is actually quite nice. Firstly, if you want to hold a charge and dont want to accidentally set it off prematurely you can wear something flammable like a silk glove. When you want to deliver the touch attack, its a swift action to burn the glove off and away you go. Secondly it works great with feral mutagen. Over the corse of 3 turns you steadily increase the damage you do, and who dosen't like the image of a self-immolating goblin charging down a foe with fire coming out of its mouth? It is a lot more...

Thanks as always, Gobo! I put in those quick notes, and I copy-pasted your descriptions for those goblin-specific discoveries and just edited them a bit for content.

The tengu exotic weapon thing is just awesome, it's something that people gloss over but can be super useful.

I hadn't thought about the strange kitsune feat thing, I'll try to figure out a good place to mention that.

I will add a note about the Mystic Theurge for samsarans later today if I can remember to do so.

That smokestick combo can be done even better... you can be the ultimate sneak attacking sniper if you dip a single level of Oracle of Waves and pick the Water Sight discovery. Then you can just cast obscuring mist around yourself at the beginning of every battle (you start with like 5 or 6 casts per day for having just the one Oracle level) and then snipe from inside, getting sneak damage on every attack because no one else can see you!!!

Thank you very much sir! Two minor points:

1. Vulpine Pounce requires a +10 BA ability so whilst it might be relatively easy to acquire, it won't be until the character is quite high level.
2. Fast Shifter replaces Kitsune Magic, which requires 11+ Charisma, if someone has a Kitsune Character with less than 11 Charisma (Yes, WHY?) then there is nothing to lose by taking Fast Shifter

But as said well done and thank you.

I've made notes of both of your suggestions, and made Fast Shifter a combo Red/Orange instead of plain Red.

Kitsune are up, and they include the first sky-blue rating for the Sorcerer class in the whole guide! :-D

Your guide doesn't have kobolds or fetchlings!! O:<

Don't worry, I'll get to them! Fetchlings are on the list after Kitsune.

Well I am responding to this thread LATE. but let us see what there is to see.

Sure go ahead and use the jinx feats, you have my permission to use anything I post. Altho I think I missed one, Ill have to double check.

Android barbarian. Alright fair enough! Keep it red.
I can understand your point about the gunslinger, it is a race guide :)
I dunno why I am so biased against the mysterious stranger, I guess it is mostly to do with the perceived lack of damage that the Mysterious stranger can deal, having to spend a grit point and a swift to equal pistolero/musket master. Guns deal static damage (ie no dex/str bonus like almost every other weapon) and you cannot really boost it without a huge expendure. But I will leave that as my opinion :)

I reaally have to ask about the hateful rager again. I just cant see the benefits/draw/usefulness of it at ALL. Could you just explain your thinking on it a bit more?
Here is what I posted above on it again, for reference.
** spoiler omitted **...

On Hateful Rager: I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but I still think it's a flavorful archetype with a lot of decent benefits, and the favored class bonus for the half-orc makes up for lost rage rounds, so I'm leaving it green but I toned down the description of it, pointing out the possibility of losing control mid-battle. :-D

Dotty dot dot. Very well written, though I do think you should make a short blurb about Wizards, Oracles, and Witches as reanimators too.

If you're taking requests, cartmanbeck, would you mind taking a crack at Ifrits next?

Sure, I'll go Kitsune -> Fetchling -> Ifrit.

Voyd211 wrote:

I think he said he was going to work on tengu over the weekend.

Yeah, I didn't get to them yet. My planned order is tengu -> kitsune -> fetchling.

Tengu is up!

Oh man, now we know two of the classes and two of the factions! AAAHHH SO EXCITED FOR THIS!

AND LAMASHTU AS THE 20th LEVEL MONSTER!!! AAHHHHHH!!!!!

I think he said he was going to work on tengu over the weekend.

Yeah, I didn't get to them yet. My planned order is tengu -> kitsune -> fetchling.

Hm... there don't seem to be any sky-blue Sorcs or Wizards. So sad.

Don't forget, I'm focusing on the races here, not the classes. The fact that there are no sky blue for some classes simply means that most races are flexible enough to be good at several different classes. Any sky blue classes for a specific race simply means that that class is by far the best for that specific race. :)

I really like the suggestions and such for the samsaran, but there's something that needs to be clarified. Mystic past life lets you add spells to your spell list for your class. If the spells already exist, even as a higher level on our spell list than another, then it doesn't meet the requirements. So that sorcerer suggestion needs to be slightly edited.

But otherwise, spot on! I always loved them for oracle, but now I see witch is even nastier for them.

Actually, James Jacobs has confirmed that you can take spells which are on your spell list as a lower-level spell:

I for one take James's responses as close to the "correct" interpretation as you can get without an official FAQ, so for me his word is good enough. Others disagree, but my guide is written assuming his answers are the right answers.

Edit: It's important to note, though, that you can only take spells from ONE other class with Mystic Past Life, so if you do decide to go for early access to haste, you have to pick spells from the Summoner list for all your other choices. For a Witch, this is probably still the best option, though.

Great guide.

Constructive feedback:
The Wanderer monk Archetype is listed several times for non-human races, including Aasimar, when this Archetype is intended for human only. I think the jury is still out on whether or not half-orcs and half elves can take human only Archetypes, so I am more concerned about it showing for Aasimar.

I list it for Aasimar because there is an alternate racial trait that allows an Aasimar to be treated as a human instead of an outsider, and it SHOULD qualify them for the racial archetype. This won't work in PFS, but in other games should be allowable.

I'll edit right now to make that more clear.

Will you be doing tengu next?

Since you asked for them, sure! I'll try to get them done this weekend.

Hey, Cartman - you missed a really important feat for the goblin entry.

Roll With It (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/roll-with-it-combat-goblin) is one of the best 2 or 3 feats in the whole of pathfinder.

It basically lets you negate damage with an acrobatics check _and_ negate melee full-attacks, with easy pre-reqs. It is incredibly good for any ranged character, and very good for any melee character.

-Cross

I've added that feat along with three others that I also missed because they weren't on the Goblins page on d20pfsrd.com (which was probably my own fault, LOL). I mentioned that I doubt many player characters will want to spend a feat slot on it, but I'll be throwing it onto every goblin NPC I send at my players, because it's AWESOME!

Samsarans are up now!

Wayangs are up, I don't have time for Samsaran at the moment but I'll get there soon!

At your suggestions, I'll attack Wayang and Samsaran right now!

Alright then. Which one are you currently working on, if anything?

Hadn't started on another one at the moment, but I will have time later today to do so. Do you have a request? I was thinking maybe I'd go straight down the list of "Featured" races, which would put Fetchling next, but I'm open to concentrating on ones that people want specifically.

Also, there are several races not covered that are permitted by Pathfinder Society that you missed. Specifically, the other five kinds of Planetouched (fetchlings, ifrits, oreads, sylphs and undines), nagaji, wayangs, kitsune, and tengu.

I know from reading that Wayangs would be surprisingly good for a melee race. It's a Small race without a Strength penalty!

Oh I know, I'll get to them. I'm juggling writing my PhD dissertation with a bunch of other stuff right now, so I'll try to get a new race up each week or so for a while, but that's probably the most I'll be able to accomplish for at least a few months.

Have you considered adding the Drow Noble, if only to make fun of how completely and totally broken they are?

The Drow Noble is just too powerful to ever be seriously considered as a player race. I might throw in a blurb at the start of the Drow section just saying "Don't ever let your players play as Drow Nobles. Ever." or something like that. LOL

** spoiler omitted **

** spoiler omitted **

We where having a discussion in our game if this spell is too powerful for it's level. Specifically if it is too powerful at it's level for a Cleric/Oracle, but in general. So I figured I would ask what others think.

In my opinion, it's good, but not overly broken. It seems flavor wise to be a perfect fit for a divine spell fit for a Cleric type. I do feel that the Long Range should probably drop to Close, if not originating at the Caster, but what is your opinion.

I was just about to post about this spell when you beat me to it!

I don't think it's OVERLY powerful, personally, but it definitely IS powerful. It's also one of the few damage-dealing [good]-descriptor spells that Sorcerers get access to, which makes it the IDEAL spell for an Aasimar Sorcerer. Why, you may ask?

First, Aasimar can take the Heavenborn racial option, which treats them as +1 caster level for [good] and [light] descriptor spells (which this spell is both). On top of that, the Aasimar Sorcerer favored class bonus gives you +1/4 to your caster level for [good] descriptor spells. This means that at 4th level, when you gain access to this spell, you can already be doing 6d4 damage and dazzled with no save and possibly blinded to all evil creatures nearby, as long as you picked up a lesser Rod of Intensify.

I'm definitely going to be building myself a new Aasimar Sorcerer for PFS now! :-D

Are you going to add kobolds, or are they just horrible and I should feel bad for liking them?

I can guess that their strong points would be spellcasting or ranged attacks, thanks to their Str and Con penalties and Dex bonus. No mental boosts or losses here.

I was actually going to wait to do Kobolds after "Kobolds of Golarion" comes out in like a month. I'm sure there will be a lot of new options in that book that will sway my optimization decisions.

You didn't actually assign a color to the Rogue option under the Goblin's Racial Favored Class Options. I assume it to be light blue, based on your commentary.

I am really enjoying your guide!

Fixed!

Goblins have now been added to the guide! Check it out here:
Cartmanbeck's Guide to Pathfinder Races

WARNING: Extremely long post ahead

You have been warned…

Hey guys, hey Cartmanbeck, I read over your guide and I really like what I am seeing there. It is concise, informative, well written and was enjoyable to read. While I was reading over it, I kept notes on things I saw and here are my findings. I have organized everything into 3 sections, Spell Check and Minor Additions, Rating Changes, and Big Changes. I hope you see this for what I intend it to be, constructive and not harsh, helpful and not overbearing (it is long), and generally useful to you. I really enjoyed your guide on sorcerer bloodlines and have enjoyed this one immensely as well. Keep up the good work!
PS: I also really look forward to seeing goblins come out, and have quite a few opinions and ideas on what you could do for that one, but that must come later ;)
Well this turned out longer than I intended, so I am going to have to split it up a bit

Spell check and minor additions
1. In gnome, classes, paladin, third line, 5th word says 5yh and instead should say 5th
2. Half-elf, prestige classes, rage prophet, second line, 7th word says taht and instead should say that
3. Dampir, opening paragraph, first line, 17th word says wel and should say well
4. Tiefling, racial favored class options, needs a space in between Sorcerer entry and Summoner entry
5. Tiefling, prestige classes, aspis agent, url does not work; I believe Aspis Agent is indeed Guide Agent. Mistake? Just bringing it to your attention
6. Elf, classes, druid, 5th line, 4th word, moon caller druids gain Darkvision at second level
7. Alternate racial traits, catfolk, damphir, tiefling; missing what traits they replace
8. Tiefling, variant heritages, demodand-spawn,...

Hi Gobo!

I read through all of your suggestions here, and made MANY of them. There are a few I don't agree with, though.

You suggest that I should rethink the Android Barbarian option because rage gives straight bonuses. While you can still benefit from many rage powers, the lack of the +4 to Strength and Con just doesn't lend itself to be a good option, so I'm going to keep this one red.

I have no idea how I completely missed the Halfling Jinx feats, but if you're okay with it, I've pasted your suggestions for those feats directly into the guide (with a nod to you, of course!)

I have also read through your Gunslinger stuff, and I just really can't understand why you think Mysterious Stranger is so terrible. There are a LOT of races that have boosts to Charisma, and for those races, if you want to play as a Gunslinger, how could you not want to use a Charisma-based archetype?

I think one fundamental thing you're not getting about my guide is that it's a guide to optimizing the RACE, not the CLASS. I definitely agree that if you want to play a Gunslinger, some races are better than others. BUT, if you are starting with the RACE as the important part (which is what this guide is about), then the Mysterious Stranger archetype is the only one that makes sense for some of the races (such as the Gnome).

Given all of that, seriously thank you for your help with all of this. Your suggestions were all very good and extremely helpful!

Can you put a link to this discussion thread in the guide? that way it's easier to find this thread if you have a question or suggestion.

Done!

Cartmanbeck?? Are you there? Please come back and bring the promised Goblin section with you :)

WOW! I got busy at work and TOTALLY hadn't checked the thread for way too long!

Okay, so I've started updating with some of Gobo Horde's smaller suggestions. I'll read through more of the larger ones tomorrow. I will DEFINITELY attack goblins sometime this week. I'm so sorry I was away, and I LOVE that you guys like my guide so much!!

So, I usually try to be more subtle than this, but I'm going to just go ahead and be blunt.

My point is not "having a plant companion sucks because the RAW means you can't polymorph your companion."

My point is "stop playing by RAW when the RAW is obviously stupid--find a GM that knows the rules well enough to houserule properly."

While I'd love to agree with you, this will be a character for PFS so I need to stick to RAW completely. I can deal with no polymorph spells, there are enough transmutation spells that I can still use to enhance the companion. Thanks guys!

Tiny Coffee Golem wrote:

Jay the Madman wrote:

I disagree. I think Share Spell would effect the plant companion the same as it would you. The Plant Companion functions the same as an Animal Companion in this regard. So long as it is You casting a spell from your Druid spell list on Your Companion, it should work. If it didn't work, then Share Spell would be largely useless.

The bond between a Treesinger and their companion is so strong that the Treesinger's magic can overcome any resistance to aid his leafy friend.

Just out of curiosity, what spell did you want to cast? Also which companion do you have?

Jay is correct. You can cast spells on your animal companion with a ranger of personal even if they don't normally affect creatures of that type.

Targeting a creature with a spell and the spell actually affecting the target are two completely different things.

Charm person can be cast on a humanoid creature, you cast it on a disguised tiefling, the spell outright fails because of the tieflings type.

And all of these inconsistencies are why I asked for opinions. I think the intent of the ability was definitely to let you treat it as an animal companion in all ways, in that you would be able to affect the plant companion with spells it normally wouldn't be affected with. This is one of those things that if I made a Treeshaper for PFS I might run into someone with some of these interpretations.

Spells that I would LIKE to be able to cast on a plant companion that are of the polymorph subtype:
Aspect of the Bear
Animal Aspect
Vermin shape spells
etcetera....

All of these would help to make the plant companion much more versatile, and all of them are spells that you can cast on your animal companion.

Another interesting thought: If you multi-classed Treesinger Druid and Sorcerer with Sylvan bloodline, I believe you would add your Sorcerer companion levels to the plant companion, and be able to cast spells from the Sorcerer spell list on it, correct? (This definitely works for a regular animal companion, as I have a Sylvan Sorcerer who routinely casts enlarge person on his dinosaur).

Hi everyone!
I think this works, because of the text of the "share spells" ability for animal companions, as follows:

...A druid may cast spells on her animal companion even if the spells normally do not affect creatures of the companion's type (animal). ...

Normally, plant-type creatures are immune to polymorph effects, but I THINK a Druid with a plant companion would be able to use polymorph-school spells on her companion anyway, thanks to the share spells ability. Does anyone disagree, and if so, why?

Thanks!
Cartmanbeck

A sorcerer wants to use cast Transformation on his animal companion. Share Spells says he can cast personal spells on his pet but the spell uses the word 'you' a number of times and I'm trying to work out what that means here.

My interpretation of RAW is:
He must feed a potion of bull's strength to his pet as part of the casting of the spell.
The pet gains enhancement bonuses to stats and fortitude saves but the natural armour bonus doesn't stack with its inherent natural armour.
Proficiency with martial weapons won't apply to an animal.
The pet gains BAB equal to its hit dice (not to the caster's character level).
The sorcerer can still cast spells while the duration is running.

Does that seem fair?

Yep, seems exactly correct to me.

Having mobile food, drink, and trash carts visiting each table may have been the single greatest amenity I have ever experienced at a Con. This was a wonderful event and I will be looking forward to it next year.

-Jessie, you did a wonderful job keeping us entertained and on track on notoriously difficult to GM adventures, Murder on the Silken Caravan and Murder on the Throaty Mermaid. Someone at Paizo must love Agatha Christie!

-Matt, The Many Fortunes of Grandmaster Torch (aka the pantless wonder) was quite a fun experience! My wife was sorry she was unable to attend as we both had a blast at your table for Race for the Runcecarved Key at Owlcon. Sorry for turning every encounter into combat…Please give Chris and Jamie my regards and tell them to contact me on the boards.

-Jacob, thank you very much for picking up a third table on The Citadel of Flame on such short notice. You were able to keep the scenario together while having to deal with the first and last humanoid encounters rolling 1s VS Michael’s charm person, no easy feat.

-Kelly, once again a spectacular job storytelling and DMing! Day of the Demon was a blast and I am looking forward to season 5 as a result.

I also wanted to chime in and say that MagCon was an excellent experience for me (though I was sadly only available for Saturday). The food carts were a great idea, and even though the venue is fairly far-out for me, I'll definitely come back next year!

Yeah, I just flat-out disagree with the OP. And I'm NOT a WOW-player (or a player of any MMOs). I never even played Magic the Gathering. I look forward with rabid urgency to every new character option that comes out so that I can read it and find one of my characters to apply it to. It has nothing to do with wanting to "pwn" anyone, I just enjoy the character-building aspect of the game.

The Golarion-focused content just isn't as interesting to me (except where it concerns the Iconic characters, all of whom I love dearly. This is why I get the comics).

Patrick Renie wrote:

The text in the Target line is an error. It should instead read as follows: "Target: One willing animal or magical beast touched". This is then further clarified in the description text of the spell as meaning an animal or magical beast that has an attitude of helpful toward you.

Oh great, take this away from us who invested in an improved familiar.

Improved familiars have enough benefits, I don't think it's super important that you be able to cast this specific spell on them.

cartmanbeck wrote:

As long as you're not selling the generator, and only giving it away for free, you are free to use ALL rules in any Paizo book, any images that have been posted on the Paizo blog, and images from the community use pack, which includes the iconic characters. You can also use names of those characters, and proper names of places and gods of Golarion, freely.

While this is generally correct in principal, it's a gross oversimplification of our Community Use Policy, which really can't be summed up in a paragraph; please refer to the full policy document if you think it might apply to you.

cartmanbeck wrote:

If you were going to sell the item, you could still use any RULES that have been published by Paizo in their core books and most supplements (there's a list on the paizo site here somewhere, can't remember where, though), but you can't have any proper names of gods or iconics or places. This also means you may have to change the name of feats, archetypes, etc, like we did on d20pfsrd.com (Aldori Swordlord, for instance, is now just Swordlord).

This is a gross oversimplification of the OGL. Please consult the OGL itself, plus the individual statements of Open Game Content and Product Identity in each product you wish to draw from (as it does occasionally vary from product to product).

(I suspect the list cartmanbeck is referring to is Exhibit B from the Pathfinder RPG Compatibility License, which doesn't apply to software and is thus not relevant to the original question.)

Fair enough, I stand corrected! I was operating under the assumption that free software would use the same rules as fan websites and things like that, but clearly I was mistaken.

Bloodline powers at full rate, easier spell exchange, turned full-caster with reduced per-day, access to full-range non-bomb discoveries... Which, sidenote, would include cognatogen...

Good start, but you've basically made a sorcerer who has a few less spells in exchange for higher DC's, fast healing, and so on. Need to cut down on that rate of discovery... maybe move them to 3rd, 6th, 9th, etc? Still allows for that precious +8 alchemical to charisma, though... hm.

I agree with Raider, this is probably a bit OP as it's written. I'll attack it more later tonight and get back with what I think you should do to pare it down a bit.

That certainly simplifies things - Thanks.

I'd like to be able to offer this generator as a viable alternative to the currently licensed character generator (an ambitious goal to be sure) but only time will tell.

One last clarification - Once I'm ready to open it up to public use (and scrutiny), under which subforum should I post the link - general discussion?

I would probably post it under "Compatible Products from Other Publishers".

After a little more than a year of off-and-on work I'm getting close to completing work on a character generator. I know there are already ones out there but I want to bring my own slant to it.

What I need to find out is, what material I can or cannot include in my generator? I would suspect anything from the Core Rulebook is fair game (OGL, I think) but I'm not 100% sure about this, neither am I sure about other published material, like the APG for example. I read through the community use FAQ but I want to avoid stepping on any legal toes.

As long as you're not selling the generator, and only giving it away for free, you are free to use ALL rules in any Paizo book, any images that have been posted on the Paizo blog, and images from the community use pack, which includes the iconic characters. You can also use names of those characters, and proper names of places and gods of Golarion, freely.

If you were going to sell the item, you could still use any RULES that have been published by Paizo in their core books and most supplements (there's a list on the paizo site here somewhere, can't remember where, though), but you can't have any proper names of gods or iconics or places. This also means you may have to change the name of feats, archetypes, etc, like we did on d20pfsrd.com (Aldori Swordlord, for instance, is now just Swordlord).

We were finally able to meet up for our second session, and it was a great time! For this session we had Valeros (the Fighter), Merisiel (the Rogue), Lirianne (the Gunslinger) and Feiya (the Witch). I began the characters during the "second" day of the festival, since they had already spent an entire day doing other things. I had the butterfly release happen, and then when the PCs were inside the cathedral checking it out, they started hearing screams, and then I played the mp3 version of the goblin song for them. They loved it!

They rushed out of the cathedral to see the first group of goblins breaking apart a cart of food, and engaged them. As relative newbies to Pathfinder, the combat took some time, but in the end they were victorious, with only Valeros taking any real damage.

I didn't give them any time to rest, however, before bringing in the second group of goblins including the goblin bard. I played the mp3 of the goblin song again for them at this point.

This second battle was a little quicker as the players were getting more used to combat turns. Valeros also started using Two-Weapon Fighting, and learned that sometimes it's best to stick with one weapon to make sure he actually hits. Merisiel also started moving more tactically to set herself up for sneak attacks. Feiya's sleep hex worked on only one goblin, but she was able to heal Valeros several times, so she didn't feel useless. Lirianne is quickly learning that 1st-level gunslingers are very painful, as it costs 6gp per bullet (paper cartriges) and the action economy for loading is also pretty sucky. However, hitting against touch AC definitely makes up for it.

After that battle was over, the group got a little breather and some time to heal, before they heard another battle going on, and I flipped the flip-mat to the second area of the town. This battle involved 3 goblins, a goblin dog, and the goblin commando. The group was able to defeat the commando in just two turns thanks to some lucky attacks from Valeros and Merisiel, and they were actually able to capture one of the goblins and tie him up. I had great fun acting the part of an insane goblin, and they were able to get just enough information out of him to make them eager for more ("Nualia is gonna kill me! Oh... OOPS! Shouldn't have said that!") My favorite part was when the goblin said "I'm hungry!" and Valeros tried to intimidate him by saying "You'll eat my damn boot!" and throwing his boot at the goblin's head, at which point the goblin snatched the boot out of the air with his mouth and swallowed it. My Valeros player's shocked expression was classic!

After a few more minutes of trying to interrogate the goblin to no avail, a member of the town guard came up and said "Oh! You captured one of the buggers! Come on, we'll put him in the dungeon!" The players didn't want to give up their hostage, so the three female characters decided that they wanted to try to seduce the guard into letting them hang onto the goblin. Lirianne was the main seducer, assisted by Feiya and Merisiel. Sadly, the roll wasn't quite high enough, and the guard insisted on taking the goblin to the dungeons.

I flashed forward to a few days later, when the town has mostly recovered from the goblin attack. The PCs are well-known heroes, and at this point I let them decide where they wanted to go. Valeros went straight to the bar, so I initiated the encounter with Shayliss Vinder. Valeros didn't recognize Shayliss from the brothel (check out my first post for that info) but even after Merisiel nudged him and told him who it was, he was still all about going home to "clear out some rats from her basement". Once at the Vinder residence, Shayliss got him partially undressed before her father showed up. Unluckily for Valeros, Ven Vinder overpowered him and knocked him out with a few unarmed strikes (Valeros was trying to deal nonlethal damage to Ven, but the -4 penalty from attacking with the flat of his blades was too much to overcome). Valeros woke up in the town guard's jail cell, accused of attacking Ven and Shayliss both. Luckily, word had spread through the grapevine that one of the heroes of the town had been arrested, and his lady friends came to his aid. This time, Feiya was the one playing the seductress, and the girls were able to convince the guard to let Valeros out of the cell, as they'd be paying the bail (4gp) when the three of them all came to the guard's residence later that night.

The final encounter of the night was triggered by entering the cathedral, where Father Zantus had discovered the desecration of the previous priest's burial site. The PCs were asked to investigate by the sheriff, as many of his men were tending to other matters in the wake of the goblin raid. The group went behind the cathedral and quickly noticed the disturbed earth around the tomb. Valeros pushed aside the broken door, and two skeleton jumped out to attack him. This was the new players' first experience with damage reduction, and they definitely didn't like it. Valeros stuck to his swords and didn't really deal much damage. Feiya tried to use her wand of cure light wounds offensively, but just couldn't hit with the touch attack in either of two consecutive rounds. Merisiel was able to take one of the skeletons out with a critical hit-sneak attack, and the other got whittled down by Valeros and Lirianne.

After dispatching the skeletons, the party was rewarded with 10gp each by Father Zantus from the church's coffers as a thank you, though he was deeply disturbed to learn that the remains had been stolen. They were also able to sell the "Robe formerly known as a Robe of Bones" for 50gp as a novelty item. At the end of the session, the players decided that they'd like to try to release the goblin and follow him to see where he came from, so I'm trying to decide how to run that next time.

All in all, it was an EXCELLENT session, and the players really had a lot of fun!

I just e-mailed the submission address last week to check on one of my submissions from January, and was told that they are definitely still planning to look through submissions, but they usually wait until they get to "critical mass" before they start attacking all of them. Honestly, it's still a possibility that they'll eventually get to them, but I think you may be better off submitting to a fan magazine or something directly at this point, if you just want to get it out there.

I thought she did well with her preview. Paizo is a company, they need to sell things, so I have no issue with marketing.

The place of distribution of Community Use Projects does not matter. If you choose to charge for any materials, you would need to operate under the Compatibly License, which is significantly different than the Community Use Policy and excludes use of items in the CUP.

Excellent, thanks for the quick answer! Is there a system in place for getting materials like this up on the Paizo web store? Someone specifically I need to e-mail a copy to?

Hi all!
I was wondering if this is appropriate:
A group I'm a part of has been working for a long time on a set of archetypes. We've just recently started making PDFs of them, as opposed to just having them posted on our personal sites. The PDFs include images of the iconic characters from the community use pack.

Would we be able to distribute these PDFs (FOR FREE, NO COST AT ALL) on web stores such as d20pfsrd.com and RPGnow.com? Would the Paizo web store be willing to post these as free downloads for us? Or does distribution through these avenues make us "publishers" in Paizo's eyes?

The legitimacy of distributing the PDFs through these web-stores is what we're going for here, not any kind of compensation, and to hopefully get our names noticed by people at Paizo and other game publishers!

Thanks!

I wish there was a way to subscribe to these but skip the Character Add-On Deck. I just don't see myself playing a 5-6 player version of the game, since if we have that many players for a game night, we would probably just play the RPG anyway :-P

Tamago, I'd suggest getting the character add-on deck anyway to give your players more options, because every character plays completely differently. I personally loved the monk's and druid's play styles, and even if I was never planning to play with more than 4 players would want the character add-on deck just for those.