deinol's page

I managed to pick up some Star Wars minis at a local store, so whenever the Tie Interceptor and A-Wing come back in stock I only need one each now instead of two.

Thanks again for all your help along the way. You guys are always fast and responsive.

PS: Wave 3 ships pre-ordered so I'll get them on release this time. ;)

30 hours left to back our Kickstarter. We've unlocked three expansions, and voting on the third expansion is happening now.

Previous Results Summary

1st Expansion: Goals and Motivations.

2nd Expansion: Plot Twists and Events.

Magnets: Horrific, Geeky, Unnerving, Melodramatic, and Optimistic.

Buttons: Clueless, Gullible, Expendable, Weird, Greedy, Kind, Complicated, Stormy, Cute, and Fearless.

5x7 Prints: Any Card.

We reached goal in under 48 hours! Thanks to everyone for their support!

I'm running a Kickstarter for Short Order Heroes a rules light game designed for easy role-playing. It is a deck of 54 cards that can also be used for spontaneous NPC generation in any RPG. I'd appreciate it if you checked it out!

Got the order, thanks.

Back to the Shadowrun Anniversary edition, I found a copy in a local store so you can cancel that. I still want everything else that is pending though.

Did my order (2468004) somehow end up in perpetual pending? I'd expected the available items to have shipped by now.

Thanks.

Considering the Mythic rules will be available free on the PRD (eventually), the additional cost argument isn't a good reason to protest. Paizo is very generous on how much they give away via the OGL.

I'm sure Paizo is aware that people don't want all Mythic APs all the time. They've already said the next two after this won't be Mythic APs. Since they probably won't pull the trigger on a second Mythic AP until seeing the feedback from the first, I expect we'll see a Mythic AP once every two years at the absolutely most frequent. And then only if a significant number of customers clamor for them. I expect it'll be more like a Mythic AP every 3-5 years, with perhaps on Mythic Module a year.

I put it in that forest in the Kingmaker AP. ;)

What do you do when your roommates never do the dishes?

I just started playing Dragon's Dogma (I know, I'm behind the curve on video games), but I was quite pleased at the variety and detail you can put on your character model. Of course, when it comes to clothing you pick whatever is the best boost to stats. My main's current fur leggings show a more leg than I would like. My female companion's robe doesn't show much of anything.

Ok, I'll leave the orders as is for now, and see if I spot them elsewhere.

Ps: Thanks for your prompt and informative response!

I just got my notification that my subscription is about to ship. It doesn't seem to include the Shadowrun 20th Anniversary book and the Star Wars minis I ordered. Are these actually available or should I hunt down other sources? I know the Shadowrun book is going out of print. I've also heard the new wave of X-Wing minis is selling out.

kevin_video wrote:

Hey JJ, does the hold spells (Hold Person, Hold Monster, etc) count as offensive attack spells for the purpose of causing Invisibility to be dismissed?

Absolutely.

Wouldn't a good rule of thumb be any spell that doesn't say "harmless" in the save info is probably an offensive spell?

Sounds like an epic story,just hope it doesn't look too much like a good Warhammer campaign and retains some sort of originality!

I don't understand this. A good Warhammer campaign should look like a good RPG campaign. And good campaigns are original.

Unless you mean you hope it isn't like the Enemy Within Campaign, which had an excellent arc in books 1-3, a good but ultimately a sidequest in book 4, and a giant mess for the conclusion in book 5.

But any AP that manages to get close to Enemy Within books 1-3 is gold in my book.

Cheapy wrote:

Soooooo.... who is secretly a veiled master?

well someone had to do it.

At least one of the NPCs that you wouldn't expect.

I'm betting I know! It's Lem, isn't it?

Steve Geddes wrote:

I wonder what proportion of customers buy a single AP instalment without being concerned about having the rest?

I really REALLY wonder that.

I hope we get some customer survey things going someday soon.

I'm fairly certain when they do, it's not for the AP part of the content. Really wanting the article on X god or Y race or Z location would be the reason I'd pick up one.

On the other hand, I'm not the right person to ask. I had to take a break from my subscription, but I'm only missing 8 volumes and plan to pick them up soon.

When they do come up, they are a very worthwhile experience. I'd also like to add that my (very small) contributions to Open Design projects saved me $350 in Comic Con passes this year alone. Well worth the amount I put toward Open Design kickstarters last year. The opportunity to see your name in print (even if it is simply "Additional Design By" for a couple paragraphs you've contributed) is worth the price of admission.

Quite a few productive members of Open Design projects have gone on to freelance for Paizo. You still have to pitch good stuff and follow through under deadlines though.

The problem with putting something in the public domain is then you don't even need to credit the source. That's why I prefer something like the Creative Commons license, which you can designate By Attribution and leave it at that.

And I've seen tons of 3PP that adapted and used other 3PP. Most OGL declarations show more than just Wizards SRD and Pathfinder Core.

It does depend a lot on the type of product you are making. An adventure is likely to use different monsters, but unlikely to bring in random feats from another source.

I have to highly recommend Christina Stiles, she's done great work for Kobold Press.

A month late is like 6 months early compared to most kickstarters. ;)

DrDeth wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

Oozi McOoze wrote:

Anything in the works for an Osirion based, pyramid tromping adventure path.

I dunno.

Would folks like an adventure path like that?

If you guys could get the rights to that old Gary Gygax Egyptian adventure, that'd be super cool.

You mean "Necropolis?" I'm actually running that for several folks here at Paizo every other Thursday. It's pretty deadly... but it's not nearly big enough to be an Adventure Path. Furthermore... we've not yet used an Adventure Path to update a previous company's adventure, so that'd be weird in and of itself.

I'd be in for an Osirion AP.

Would it be possible to do an update like that in the Modules line? Or just as a special project? Not that you don't have enough to do with the Emerald Spire added onto your workload.

James Jacobs wrote:

Whether or not the feat succeeds at making that tactic viable is a matter of opinion, and not one I'm interested in arguing, but that's what it was built for—to enable higher level characters more mobility on the combat field without forcing them to give up their extra attacks.

Between monsters being too good at vital strike and PCs often being a bit weak at it, I kind-of wish that Vital Strike was a flat +2d6 per feat. There may be some corner-cases where this makes the Vital Strike better than a full-round, but I think I'd be okay with that.

That seems a fair solution. As it is, in my home games, I like making Vital Strike one feat that scales with level instead of a whole tree. Three feats seem too much, even for a fighter at 20th level.

...Frog God Games posting new their products no longer here and on OBS?

I don't understand this. I thought they posted all their products to both places. Did this chance?

Jeff Erwin wrote:

I felt I need to share this with you, James.

Spawn of Azathoth!

Anyway, how related to Ghroth is Groetus? Are the similarities conscious?

Cool pictures!

Groetus is absolutely inspired by Ramsey Campbel's short story "The Tugging." Had I never read "The Tugging," I would not have been inspired to create Groetus.

But assuming Ghroth is part of the Material Plane, it and Groetus are not related. They're both planetary sized entities, but that doesn't make them any more related than Batman is to Harry Potter or Ghengis Khan or me or you (since all of them are humans).

Did you know that a significant percentage of the world's population is descended from Ghengis Khan? He had a lot of children in a lot of places, from China to Eastern Europe.

(Ok, it's about 0.5% of the world's population, but still quite high for one guy.)

Ok, maybe I missed it with the length of this thread already, but I'd like clarification on the $100 level.

So I get access to the Early Enrollment, and start playing a year or two before Open Enrollment. I also get 3 months of a subscription.

Does that mean playing during the entire Early Enrollment phase as if I had a subscription, then playing 3 months of Open Enrollment as a subscriber? When does the subscription period start? When will Subscriber vs Free Player start to matter?

I don't have access to this map, what is the rough surface area covered by the city?

The other thing to remember is that this is not a medieval town. Golarion has a moderately high magic level, making towns and cities much closer to renaissance levels than medieval.

Also, it's just a game. Sometimes you need a few extra inns or cathedrals to make things interesting. 1000 people is still a very, very small town.

Ravenmantle wrote:

flash_cxxi, the problem with your suggestion is that putting out two books like the NPC Codex in quick succession (which is how I understand your suggestion) would most likely kill the good folks at Paizo. Certainly two books the size of the NPC Codex. I can only imagine the time, effort, blood, sweat, and tears put into such a book.

No no, still the same release timeframe. Just instead of Ultimate Campaign next we'd get the "Advanced NPC Codex".

That would have had to have been decided about 9 months ago. Ultimate Campaign is probably nearing the end of its development already and needs to be sent to the printers by the end of the year (just guesses, but books have to begin development far in advance). It's not like they don't start development of the next book until after the previous one ships.

As it is, two books in a row are a terrible idea. There's a reason we didn't see Bestiary 1, 2, and 3 back to back.

If this one does well enough, Advanced NPC Codex may indeed be put on the schedule. But it'll be at least a year from now as the schedule is already full to that point.

bodrin wrote:

Will the NPC art be on a seperate page to the stats, or maybe as a full page illustration? So the players will only see the art but not the stats associated with the NPC!

As a DM aid and a player aid I'd like to have the art and stats seperate, my crafty players would look at the stats before the artwork even registered.

Dude, you can screw with them so bad! You're getting hundreds of statblocks and hundreds of pieces of art. Show them a page with cool picture A and hardcore stats A, but then use the stats for a similar character on page X. "Hold on, there wasn't anything about baleful polymorph in his sta-... oops." :P

Although if you buy the PDF you can extract the pictures and print them separately as portraits. I've done that for important NPCs before.

Actually, according to the website of the U.S. Copyright Office, you can use the names of (most) of WotC's monsters without using the OGL:

copyright.gov wrote:

Copyright does not protect names, titles, slogans, or short phrases. In some cases, these things may be protected as trademarks. Contact the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office... for further information. However, copyright protection may be available for logo artwork that contains sufficient authorship. In some circumstances, an artistic logo may also be protected as a trademark.

Beholders and a few other iconic WotC monsters probably qualify as trademarks of WotC. The names of OGL monsters, on the other hand, are now used by so many different publishers they can't possibly qualify as trademarks.

Even if you could grab just the name under possible fair use, the name Otyugh in combination with the specific description that gives rise to the picture they are using is definitely copyright-able.

Besides, why does it matter? The Pathfinder Core rules are built using the OGL. The monsters in the Bestiary are built using the OGL. It doesn't hurt Paizo any to include an OGL statement with the Bestiary Box means they are protected enough that it would never go to court. Even if a defense can be made, the remotest possibility that they would need to defend their decision is enough of a risk to make using the OGL a no brainer. The cost of including an OGL statement is less than one hour of a lawyer's court costs.

I'll be honest, I'm not exactly certain what the point of this conversation is. Is there some argument that the Bestiary Box would somehow be noticeably improved without the OGL?

OK, so, the argument was made that 80% of Paizo's Bestiaries is either real world myth, cryptozoology or Old D&D Tradition.

What I'm asking or attempting to clarify is that, if you accepted the OGL, then you accept that those monsters in the SRD (that themselves are real world myth, cryptozoology or Old D&D Tradition) are WotC property licensed for perpetual use under the OGL, yes or no?

Or, are you allowed to make your own unicorn that's closed content?

Are you talking about the Bestiary Box specifically or in general?

If all the monsters in the Bestiary Box were from myth, cryptozoology, or Paizo created, they wouldn't need to use the OGL, since they aren't duplicating any of the game stats created by WotC in the product or other rules elements. But to get access to the names of a few specific monsters that are only available via the OGL, they include the OGL.

But if you wanted to make a type of unicorn unique to their game world and declare it product identity, that's totally allowable under the OGL. In fact, there is nothing in the OGL that requires you to make new content open. Paizo is very generous in that respect.

As an European, I usually have about 20 parties to choose from. Of course, two or three of them are usually favourites. It's been taht way for ages. Guess what ? it still works out.

Best of luck in the election.

I'm assuming you don't have a system that is run by two parties. Election boards are by law made up of half one party and half the other. They make it so that it becomes difficult for 3rd parties to get on the ballot.

The other big factor is money. The DNC and the RNC are both well entrenched in the money raising business. They can afford to have offices everywhere. They know how to get money out of lobbyists. They can get their chosen candidates in touch with the right people. It would take a huge amount of money to setup that kind of political machine for a third party. It just isn't going to happen.

As much as I dislike it, the best way to change a party is from the inside. The left could take a note of how the Tea Party works. It isn't a distinct party, but a movement within the Republican party. If you want more "Green" candidates, we need to rally behind them and get them nominated as Democrats. Or if you prefer Libertarian, you could probably get them nominated for either party depending on the particular state or district.

Okay, this needs some explanation. Amending the U.S. Constitution requires ratification by three-quarters of the states in the union. The electoral college system very heavily favors states with small and medium populations, especially those that don't vote reliably one way or the other.

Although if enough states pass the National Popular Vote Compact we can legally make the electoral college simply a formality that confirms the results of the popular election.

Diego Rossi wrote:

Half of Bane Wraith problem is about taking multiple classes (prestige or not) that give sneak attack at first level so that the character will be capable to get a higher sneak attack damage than a rogue of the same level.

To me having a character that get 5d6 (or whatever) of sneak damage at level 7 mixing 1 level of rogue, one of vivisectionist, one of this and one of that and absolutely this one and that one and that other one seem a unwanted effect and strongly against the spirit of the rules.

So the question:
mixing multiple classes to get a more sneak attack damage dices than a rogue of the same level is an intended effect or not?

I can't imagine it's intended. Sneak attack is the core rogue class feature. Having a class be able to do that better would be like having a non-wizard be able to cast 10th level wizard spells, or having a non fighter be able to make 5 iterative attacks in a round.

In my experience from trying to make that work in the 3.5 days is that most classes that grant sneak attack at first level don't grant a base attack bonus. So in theory you could multiclass and get a lot of extra damage dice, but when you have +2 BAB at level 7 you start to regret it.

Yah, some day I'd like to list all of the deity's sacred animals, favored colors, holy days, etc. in a big table. Need the right book to do that though.

So when will we get an expanded Gods & Magic for Pathfinder? ;)

I wish I had an actual iPad instead of an iPad mini.

I did not address it earlier, but your 'they were released under the OGL so it's okay' response is a bit off.

Other than the iconics you mention, Paizo has created a number of unique monsters and released them under the OGL.

Per your response it would be all right to sell paintings, or illustrated books or miniatures based off of those OGLed monsters? If not, why are those monsters different than the flumph, flail snail or aboleth?

Which is why he mentioned the iconics, which are product identity, not open content.

Although strictly speaking, if you are making a painting of an OGL'd monster, you should include a copy of the OGL and the proper copyright statements with it.

As it is Robert, you are arguing from a standpoint of wanting to change the existing laws. So you are showing cases that push the boundaries. I do agree that copyright law needs to be reigned in. 100+ years is too long for copyright. But maybe 30-50 years is ok. But there's a difference between civil disobedience of a law you don't like and ignoring a law you don't like to make money.

DeathQuaker wrote:

Echoing Flashohol -- where can I legally watch this online in the U.S. (can't watch on BBC iPlayer, that's restricted to UK only)?

Ideal if it's a place I don't have to sign up for to use.

I think that the only legal option in the US is iTunes. It's not free, or streaming, but it's a cheap download.

The US DVD/Blu-Ray of Series 7 Part 1 (that's the first 5 episodes) is due November 13.

They are usually about a Season behind, but Netflix instant watch also eventually adds Doctor Who.

I wonder, given how APs are designed to have the PCs level up at certain points, are there any groups out there that do away with XP altogether, with the GM simply stating at certain key accomplishment, "Ding-ding-ding! You level up!"? How is that working for you if you do?

My last game I started with me handing out XP at the end of every session. Eventually my players said: "hey, why don't you just tell us when we level?" so we switched to that. It worked great.

I've played in this type of game before, though, and didn't like it. As a player, the concreteness of gaining a number that I can add to an existing number as physical proof that I progressed on my path toward the next level by playing a session is really important, and it helps me gauge how fast I'm leveling up and prepares me (and lets me anticipate) when a session is likely to give me xp enough to level up.

Of course, not everyone likes that system. So I suggest you ask your group which way they prefer. The game works fine either way.

Lisa,

If it is the case that WizKids underprinted, would they do another print run?

That is always a difficult question. Since there are certain minimum thresholds you need to reach when doing a production run.

I'll give an example with smaller numbers.

Say the demand for a product is about 1,200 items. Minimum print run size is 1,000 units. Producer isn't certain how well the item will do, so only prints 1,000 units. Those sell out immediately, and there is 200 units of demand left. But printing 1,000 more units to sell 200 is like losing money. On the other hand, had they known originally what the demand was like, they could have printed 1,500 units at a slightly better cost.

So the short answer is, probably not. Not unless they think they only managed to reach ~50-60% of existing demand.

Cpt_kirstov wrote:

The owner of the store I work for asked his rep every week if he could preorder the RotRL minis yet, and was told no until 2 weeks before the street date. And at that point he told the rep to preorder 2 cases 2 rune giants and 2 of anything else on preorder (I told him there would be 3 things) and the rep told him the standard boosters and rune giants were all that was on preorder.

I can't vouch for what your store's rep might have said, but I personally observed that Alliance's database listed both regular bricks and huge bricks as preorder items several months ago.

Do people still talk to reps to make orders these days? I thought everything was computerized.

The Slumbering Tsar Saga was for sale before those who pre-ordered the books.

Because stores broke the street date.

There is absolute zero we can do about that.

In my experience most game stores don't know that there are street dates on RPG products. And the only company big enough to actually make them stick to them is Wizards, although I'm fairly certain they care more about Magic street dates than D&D ones.

hustonj wrote:

kenmckinney wrote:

I was not aware that Mind Flayers were ever open content, nor had I heard that things once made open could be made closed. Are you absolutely certain of this?

Absolutely.

Paradigm Concepts, Inc. had written up a smaller pamphlet product ABOUT the Illithids, paid the author, paid the artists, finished the lay-out and sent it to the printers.

During the period while they were awaiting delivery of the product, WotC removed Mind Flayers from the OGL. They received permission from the WotC lawyers to distribute and sell the product NOW based on closed content PROBABLY (I'm guessing here) because WotC didn't want to be fiscally responsible for the costs of somebody else's product which was created in good faith using property advertised as open content before it was sent to the printer . . ..

I have a copy of this book in the other room. I know the story because I know the guys who are Paradigm Concepts, Inc, and one of them vented at me about this before WotC gave them permission to sell the product anyway.

This is still weird though... I too was under the impression that mind-flayers were never open content.

I could be wrong but my understanding is that the OGL is not revocable. Once something is made available under the OGL it cannot be retracted. If that was possible then what would stop WotC (or even Paizo) from removing all content that they have made available under the OGL. The OGL would be practically pointless if it was partly or in whole revocable at will...

I believe what actually happened is that at the very early days of 3E, the SRD wasn't finalized yet. But a provisional OGL was available early. So companies could start working on products with the assumption that most of the core books were going to be open content. When the SRD was released and listed specifically what was allowable, some things like mind flayers and beholders weren't there.

I remember this came up in a discussion of reprinting some of Monte Cook's early 3PP work, as Demon God's Fane had a beholder in it. So if it were ever reprinted he'd have to change it.

It is hard to respect IP law when IP law has deviated so far from its original intention. We as a society believed that furthering art was beneficial to us and so we granted the content producers with exclusive rights to their creations for a limited time to encourage them to produce that content with the intention it would be gifted to the people afterwards.

Now that copyright term is 90 years rather than 14, and will probably go up again in the next twenty years, it is impossible to respect IP law. I would ask Paizo how much they would like it if none of Lovecraft's, Shakespeare's or even Plato's works were available for them to draw on to produce the game.

This would be a more convincing argument if people were waiting 15-20 years to pirate stuff "after a reasonable time" like IP laws originally intended. But since Paizo hasn't even been in existence for 15 years, it's not like they are sitting on their legacy of 50 year old content. That, and as has been pointed out, they already put more Open Game Content out than any other RPG company.

I'll roll one for you at the top of each round. Unless Anton wakes you up as part of his action.

No commercially successful MMO is using Source as the engine for an MMO, and neither will we.

Like many similar solutions it's just a client-side engine. The server-side is half the battle.

My guess is more like 80% of the battle.

uriel222 wrote:

Spam level 0 spells. Create water is a favourite. Either torrents of water flood the dungeon, kill all the monsters, and the PCs pick the loot off the bodies, or else the game screeches to a halt to be replaced by a graduate-level physics class detailing water volumes and dispersal rates.

Graduate-level physics aren't really required.

The level at which you can reasonably expect to be able to get away with this (in terms of the dungeon's residents not having tricks in place to circumvent this, or simply kill you for trying) is about level 5, I'd say.

Even a small dungeon easily contains 35,000 cubic feet of space. That same space can hold in excess of 260,000 gallons of water. Casting create water every round for 24 hours straight, no breaks, no sleep, will result in a conjured 144,000 gallons of water; enough to fill the dungeon halfway, but not to drown anyone in torrents. And, at that point, water will start to disappear at the same rate that you create it, so the dungeon will never become more full.

And bear in mind that this is for a small dungeon of about five rooms. And even then, the water would pour in at about the speed of your bathtub faucet. Hardly life-threatening.

And that includes the ludicrous assumption that the dungeon is hermetically sealed and no water will seep into the ground.

We already did an AP set pretty much entirely in a city, in fact. Council of Thieves does take a few side treks just outside the city walls... but one of the specific goals we had for that AP was that the ENTIRE ADVENTURE PATH had to take place in locations that we could tag on the city map.

So... yeah, I think it would be fun, and not only has it happened already, I can pretty much guarantee that some day it will happen again.

When we finally get an Absalom AP, right? ;)

Between this:

MMCJawa wrote:

Assuming that time and development dollars were not an issue and you were the sole deciding person, what would be the next hardcover Pathfinder book you would like to see released (excluding announced but unreleased books, like the item or NPC guide)

Something that's actually getting released that I've wanted us to do for years, so I can't say yet because it'll be announced at PaizoCon.

And this:

Theos Imarion wrote:

I'm sorry if you have answered this recently, I don't want to go through 800+ posts but does Paizo have plans for mythic levels in the near future, say by the end of next year? Thanks.

We've not said yea or nay to Mythic rules public yet. I'd love to do them someday though. Stay tuned!

Is it just me that is hoping the Mythic Adventures Hardcover will be announced at Paizo Con? ;)

Don't worry, for the first time I can think of, we're giving you instruction manuals for these game changers.

Classic Treasures Revisited comes close, with some good advice on stuff like the Staff of the Magi and Well of Worlds. So are these legendary artifacts a step above those?

Sorry for disappearing. I got sick last weekend and then work was crazy busy trying to catch up. I'll post in the AM and we'll jump to meeting Aeda again.