See, now I liked the flashback artwork. So, now I'm looking forward to the next story arc.
Will there still be gaming maps in each of the comincs. Love them.
Yes, I understand that all of the characters are supposed to be flawed, but I hope Val becomes less of a jerk soon. I like the way he's portrayed in the RPG and I'd hate for the comic to be someone's impression of what the character should be like.
Jim Zub wrote:
I appreciate your honest feedback.
As mentioned here and elsewhere, the artist on the series is changing for our second story arc. Jake Bilbao (the artist from the flashbacks in issue #5) is coming on board with issue #7. You can see his test pages here:
Andrew's art wasn't to everyone's taste but I do think he brought a strong comic sensibility to the world. I'm sorry it didn't work for you.
In terms of Valeros- Keep in mind this first story is early in the group's adventuring career. We wanted to present them as flawed and in need of growth/improvement. Valeros is heroic, but obviously still quite rough and far from the person he will become over time.
I picked up issue #1 today. I liked the story quite a bit.
The art is going to take some getting used to.
I like the story, but the artwork is a big deterrant for me. I think the characters are horribly over-exaggerated and the lines are ugly and out of proportion. It takes a lot fo getting used to and I would hate for this to be anyone's first view of Golarion.
I also don't like how they made Valeros into such an obnoxious "frat boy". (Someone else in this thread coined that and I think it fits too well.) I never pictured Val as suave or sophistivated, but I never saw him as obnoxiouusly crude or arrogantly egotistical. (Was he really that much of a @$$%^&!! when he was being playtested?) That and the art made me almost drop the comic from my subscription.
The rest of it is pretty good, and the artwork for the flashback/ internal doubt section in the most recent issue is really pretty good. I'd love to see them dump Huerta and go with the new artist ASAP.
The story itself is interesting and I like how the goblins and the rest of the characters are written. I hope to see more about everyone's backgrounds.
However, the extra fluff and maps make this an excellent value even with the horrible initial art and the Fratboy hero. I'll keep reading, but I hope some things improve a little.
I've set up a replacement for the order. We are all out of the Year of the Risen Rune shirts in your size so I have credited you with store credit for that item. You can use store credit on subscriptions by visiting your My subscriptions page.
Please double check the address on the email confirmation to make sure the replacement is going to the correct address. If the original package still shows up, let me know.
thanks
sara marie
This month's subscription arrived OK and the replacement packaage also arrived (both were put in the plastic bin...thanks)
Thank you for your help. I will let you know if the original package is found.
I will do both of those. If the original package shows up, I can send it back if you like.
My only other thought here is that Feb 16th was a day with light snow and 15-18 mph winds, but I'm not sure thats anywhere close enough to move a package that heavy...
Is there a way to put a note on the package to place box in orange bin next to side door? (It has a lid to protect packages from the weather).
That is the correct address. However, the last package that was sent out ended up at my old PO Box. Let me check there before you send out a replacement.
I've checked by both doors and in the bin I have for large packages that the postman normally uses. How big would this box have been?
You know I've said this before, but when you get through the core races, how about some of the things like Catfolk, Grippli, Tieflings, and so on.
And a set of familiars and companions would be great... (And I happen to know you already have a pseudo dragon, firepelt, small dragon, and cat completed... :D )
I'd rather see more hardcover regional detail books over more hardcovers with additional equipment, character upgrades, and so on.
While I've loved something from every HC so far, I can imagine that rules bloat may be coming. But background bloat is never a bad thing (and there can be rules in there as well).
I'm about halfway through the novel (it sat on my shelf until I read Misery's Mirror...then I had make it my next read!)
Great job. I really like how you captured the feel of Nidal and made it make a little sense...how people who didn't know any better would accept such a horrible nation...
I'm not done reading it yet, but it's been agreat read so far. (Now I gotta go find some of the other stuff you wrote too...)
I'm not going to do an extensive review of the BoEF (others have done that in other places) I will say that overall it's remarkable mediocre in it's execution.
Some of my core complaints with it
1)It brings in a 7th stat: appearance. Seriously did they not ever mess with 1e Unearthed Arcana. If Gygax couldn't get buy-in for comeliness I don't see why they though appearance would work.
2) Feats are poorly written and balanced. Look I know this was published in the 3.0 landslide of bad 3rd Party Products but a ton of this stuff isn't playable.
3) D&D is already designed around limited options per level. Unless I'm playing a sex focused game sacrificing utility in one aspect of the game in order to get better at sex isn't really smart.
4) The art is basically photo manipulations. It's not even good photomanipulation but stuff that would probably fail in a shoop-de-woop thread on 4chan ;) At least it's not poser3d art.
5) Appearance as a 7th stat. Seriously it bear repeating.
It's not the worst product put out during the glut of 3rd party products in the 3.0 goldrush but it's pretty much a miss beyond the novelty factor.
If it was available as a cheap PDF document or in a bargain bin, I'd say go for it but otherwise it simply doesn't offer the cost-to-benefit ratio necessary to make it a good buy. I think 99% of gamers would benefit from buying any number of other products available in the store ahead of this one.
I was given this as a gift and I was unimpressed...pretty much for the reasons you've cited.
The rules were only OK and while it did deal with the subject matter in a more mature vein than some other books, it was still nothing great.
As for the art...it was just bad. I expect the art in a book that size to be at least viewable. I didn't necessarily want anything more or less erotic, just less amateurish. It really made the thing look horrible.
That being said...how many more rules do you need for sex and romance?
Well I imagine the witch as more distant, but she definetly doesn't get her hands dirty and is at least as much about magic as the wizard.
The cleric and the oracle don't wear shades as they want to see their god.
Which leaves us with the epitome of coolness, the alchemist.
Use magic device with wand of cure light wounds and that discovery to use your "spells" on other people and for the rest you have to decide if it's either physicical coolness (chuck a potion and smash someone in the face) or mental coolness (chuck a potion and outsmart everybody, and throw bombs while putting your sunglasses on).
As she's a woman I bet she goes for the latter, I would go mindchemyst, and perhaps psychonaut if you expect the game to last till later levels and she enjoys the power behind the throne kind of thing. Kirin strike is a nice feat to up the damage considerably with insane high intelligence.
On the other hand this is just my opinion and you can play every class in cool manner. The inquisitor can be like the Punisher, or the cleric like Captain America.
Don't expect however to be like monk or like a ninja, they can still heal with use magic device, but don't have such an innate ability.
I'm a big fan of the Witch with a Healing Hex. Cure everyone once a day for free, healing spells on top of that, lots of combat and non-combat abilities, fun spells, and a pet to interact with.
If the files are already out there, then buying from Paizo is just giving them money to take on risk, and no other benefit that piracy doesn't already provide.
Then buy the PDFs, never download them, and instead use the pirate version. You've paid your share; you have your 'risk free' PDFs. Problem solved - it may even be legal depending on where you live.
Pirated files aren't risk free. They're a favorite for those happy little munchkins who spread viruses. I think I'll take my chances with Paizo. Even if there was no risk to pirated files I prefer to pay my share...
There are benefits to having downloads on your paizo.com account. You can redownload your assets any number of times (handy for multiple devices of if they get deleted). You are notified when the document is updated (with errata or better bookmarks, for example), and get the new version for free.
And of course, there is the slightly more abstract benefit that Paizo gets the revenue to pay its staff and continue to make products that you (presumably) enjoy.
This became important to me when both my harddrive crashed and the backup drive was damaged beyond repair...
I could be way off on this, but I also thought that selling your soul and bargaining with the lower powers also got you past the Lemure/Manes level of fiendishness. In other words, you get to Hell/Abyss and you get promoted to one of the other Devil/Demon types...based on your crimes in life.
That's how I play it anyway.
And Lords of the Damned is great for this because most of the demons/devils/Daemons have listed crimes from life...
I grew up in Buffalo, moved to Oswego, spent a year in Rochester, moved to a Syracuse suburb for 20 years and just moved back to Buffalo. (Fist bump)
But I've had college roommates from NYC/Long Island and I had to work in that area for 7 months...
I had a roommate from Long Island who considered everything north of the George Washington Bridge to be upstate. And I've got customers who consider Armonk and Brewster to be upstate. (Both within commuting distance of NYC).
Of course, I also had a LI roommate who seriously didn't think that Syracuse had the ability to use credit cards. ("I need to bring cash, right? Do you use credit cards up here?" He wasn't joking.)
What's weird to me is that while Buffalo seems to have a lot more gamers, Syracuse and Rochester each have more actual game stores...
Think about the chess game at the end of the first Harry Potter. The entire game wasn't shown in detail, in the book or movie. It was described briefly, and just enough shown to evoke feelings of suspense. But in the end, it came down to Ron's skill as a player vs the enemy, which I'd say sounds like a single skill check in Pathfinder terms.
I'd say make it a single skill check, but the GM makes his roll in secret and describes the game in enough detail to build the suspense.
Or if you want more detail, possibly make it three skill checks - one for the opening, one for the middle game, and one for the endgame. If one side wins by a large enough amount (maybe 11+) in the first two parts, then they checkmate early and win instantly. Otherwise, the winner of each part earns a bonus to carry into the next roll. Maybe make the bonus that they carry into the next roll equal to half or one third of the amount that they won this roll by, rounded down.
I'd rather see this as one or two opposed skill checks. I've never found Chess itself to be all that exciting.
For the 4th level adventure, you could also level up Into the Haunted Woods, which is set at the south end of Darkmoon Vale.
Spoiler:
Basically, just increase the levels of each of the NPCs, give a few templates to the monsters and increase their number, and add a little treasure. The main scenario is still good and the final magic items (Panapoly of Narven) can be whatever you wish. For 4th level, I'd suggest:
Wand of Earth's Ire: Wand of Burning Hands that acts like a staff (10 ch, uses caster's level, rechargable)
Codex of the Firmament: Scroll that acts as a wizard's Bonded Item for divine casters
Breastplate of Holy Fire: +1 Breastplate that gives Resist Fire 5 and has the continual flame ability
Vial of Pure Water: 1/day will turn any liquid (up to a pint) placed inside into pure water. And/or can be used 1/day to create one Potion if the Weilder has the Create Potion Feat. Potion becomes inert if placed in another container.
Spirit Staff of Narven: +1 Staff with the Ghost Touch ability. Wielder gains +4 to resist Negative Energy Effects (Level Drain, Ghoul Touch, etc.)
Just as an idea. The items are a little powerful, but they are fun and shouldn't overpower the party much.
Knowing the little I know about SGG, they are probably looking at charging $1 for a page or two of paper minis, much like the Bullet Point products. I imagine that depending on what each product is, it would be something like the following:
-SGG Paper Minis: Familiars: one or two pages with all the familiars represented
-SGG Paper Minis: Animal Companions: one or two pages with all the animal compaion options represented
-SGG Paper Minis: Summon Monster I-IV: 2 pages with all the monsters from Summon Monster I through Summon Monster IV represented
-SGG Paper Minis: Commoners: 2 pages of commoners of different ages and sexes
Rinse Wash Repeat the Awesomeness. For the record, I would pay $1 for any of the above.
Do the APs and modules assume that the characters are maxing out the big six at most opportunities?
I'm reading some of the nid to high level adventures and the groups I'm GMing look like they would get stomped in one or two encoutners because they don't have the Big Six all the time.
Hells, I would rather skip a family vacation than miss a day at work. Or the dentist. Or proctologost. (At least the embarassment and uncomfortable situations are over quick with Dr. Coldfinger.)
The nice thing about the new tiefling and Aasimar sourcebooks is that you can simply make any half-outsider into a Aasimar or Tiefling regardless of parent races. Parents were gnomish and Infernal, you're a devil-blooded tiefling. A short one. Parents were elven and Solar? You're an Aasimar...probably with pointy ears.
Your ancestor was Aroden...probably an Aasimar. Pick one...
Because Aasimars and Tieflings are often several generations removed from their non-mortal ancestors, you could have a mix of heritages.
(Remember that drunken Cayden-Calistria-Nethys-Aroden-Desna-Sarenrae-Gozreh party...well...your great grandparents were all offspring from that one...and Gozreh played all sides.)
I love it. PCs can now look like just about anything and play either aasimar or tiefling...
In my cart...but my bank is swithing to a new owner, so I can't use my old CC anymore and the new one won't be authorized til monday. (How come they get my money right away, but I can't use it til monday...grrrr...)
The one really good use I have ever had with cut-scenes is as background material to fill in the players themselves of what the heck is going on.
Sort of like in Diablo 2 or occasionally in WoW, the character is chugging along and then suddenly there is a great animation telling some story of the Big Bad End Guy's history, or some other revelation about the plot. EVERYONE loves these in the video games, and if done well can be great for an RPG as well.
I beg to differ about this (unless you're being sarcastic). I think that most people HATE these in video games. And even moreso in RPGs.
Nope... just go to Youtube and look at the number of watches and likes on the cut scenes for World of Warcraft alone. Every single player I knew in the game would rave when they managed to get to a cut scene and see some cool animation that enhanced the story line.
Think of cut scenes this way (using Star Wars as an example)... every single scene of Darth Vader searching for the droids, killing the ship captain, choking the arrogant naval officer, etc was a cut scene to give plot development and character story to the audience.
In an RPG you have an usual situation where the players are both audience and characters in the story. Carefully worked, a cut scene can fill in the details to the audience, and later that same information can be slowly filtered to the characters.
For example, in Carrion Crown, the information was filtered to the PCs over 4 books. By the time they had all of the clues they had no freaking clue what they clues meant, and they even missed that some of the info were clues at all. Had I inserted cut scenes, introducing the villain so the players got a taste of him and could really build a hatred of him, had I put in a cut scene of the research and development of the potion, then when the PCs were handed the clues they would have realized what they were. Addditionally, when the PCs finally fought the witches that produced the...
Well, the cut scenes in a movie are very different from the cut scenes in a video game. (In a movie, they're moving the story I'm watching along. In a video game, they're keeping me from participating in the story.)
Now, your experience may differ, and I never use youtube as a defence of an arguement...there's just about anything posted there...but at least among my friends and gamers, we all hate the cut scenes in video games and find very few of them to be cool. Normally its a "why isn't there a button to skip this part" moment.
But that's us.
That being said, I can see a use for cut scenes in some styles of gaming. In my games, I normally have a yahoo group set up so that players can post their own ideas and observations. In addition, they normally end up adopting an NPC for the party...either to fill a gap (like healer) or just because they like them. I use the group as a place to post NPC "diary" entries so that I can add observations and clues that the party may have missed.
My falcion weilding Shaitan bad ass scored a crit on the party 1/2 Orc Barbarian Tank. I'm thinking about creative ways to replace his hand without using a regeneration spell or the like.
I was thinking something like Army of Darkness! Dwarves could construct a bad ass replacement of some kind.
Do you guys have any ideas?
Thanks!
Step 1. Throw critical deck in trash.
Step 2. Create a sentient animated object out of an adamantine gauntlet that stretches up your arm, and give it the ability to telepathically communicate and respond to your empathic feelings. Sort of like this. For bonus points, give it a snarky sarcastic attitude like D's possessed hand from VHD.
I think its fun to play with a group of 5+ characters, where you can fill the niche of backup brick or limited arcane spellmonkey. Its not a perfect class, but I've had fun with mine so far.
But we also have a party that works well together.
The one really good use I have ever had with cut-scenes is as background material to fill in the players themselves of what the heck is going on.
Sort of like in Diablo 2 or occasionally in WoW, the character is chugging along and then suddenly there is a great animation telling some story of the Big Bad End Guy's history, or some other revelation about the plot. EVERYONE loves these in the video games, and if done well can be great for an RPG as well.
I beg to differ about this (unless you're being sarcastic). I think that most people HATE these in video games. And even moreso in RPGs.
so Im wondering peoples opinions on such devices. I think they lead to great story line but others may see them as overly railroady or a sign of poor GMing (if you cant make a plot that does not rely on such plot control you suck.)
what do you think?
I think there are three no-goes when DMing.
- Regularily maneuvering the PCs into situations from which they can't escape alone and then have an npc come saving them (even worse if the npc is someone you play as pc at another table)
- Dictating what the pcs do or what happens to them just because you want it to happen (this includes: You are hit by the spell and fail your savingthrows)
- Make ruleschanges (houserules) that unbalance the game without talking them over with your players. Even worse if it happens during play and strongly affects single players.
Agreed on all these points.
If your players don't want to stick to the plot...work with it. Maybe the Dragon is actually an ally and can get them back on track.
If they kill the BBEG too early, so be it...come up with another one, his/her boss. Or a flunkie.
If they comepletely and deliberately ignore the main plot, roll with it for a night and then ask them why they're so obviously avoiding the obvious plot. (You might find out they didn't realise what was going on...remember, as a GM, you know what is supposed to happen, sometimes, adventurers can miss a key clue...)
And if they change things too much, well, that's part of being a GM. Always be prepared for the players to not follow the adventure as written. (I'm running a SD campaign right now where the heroes haven't even gotten to the Golden Goblin yet...)
Sometimes, and even better adventure can be made from the players going off the plot. (I played in a MERP game two decades ago where the heroes (played by players who had never read LOTR), not knowing who he was, got an obnoxious hobbit drunk and stole his magic sword, mithril shirt, and ring of invisibility...the GM freaked, but it could have been interesting to see how the heroes would have gotten the ring to Mt Doom...)
In the end, its not just your adventure, its everyones and railroading the players into a certain plot is bad for everyone. (Dragonlance is an excellent example of that...)
