janxious's page

Cool to see you support PFRPG. I like the item, too. It seems more like something an NPC would have than something a character would seek out, but there's nothing wrong with that.

Will the book be available on paizo.com? Is it print? Will it be at Gencon?

Entombed with the Pharoahs - yay desert adventure
Gallery of Evil - yay urban adventure
Seven Swords of Sin - yay dungeon adventure (note: this was used as a con delve and then turned into a module. It is very brutal and the 'story' around it is pretty laughable. Kick in the door and take the loot)
Crown of the Kobold King - yay kobold adventure
Crucible of Chaos - Flying monkeys and a shoggoth! Wolfgang Baur!

I haven't read some of the very newest stuff, but those were my favs so far. I have run 3 (kobold king, seven swords, crucible of chaos) of the 5 with my weekly group, and the adventures proved fun for all.

Paizo had a great big sign outside their playroom displaying some of the great WAR art from PF. Every time I walked past the PFS room between 8AM and 5PM (4h games at 8am and 1pm), the place was electric.

A buddy and I played Silent Tide on the second session of second day. Mike Kortez was our GM, so he knew his stuff (and did a great job).
Somehow, I was the only cleric left after all the 4-man teams had filled their tables to 6. That left one cleric for about 30 people. High demand. :)

The module was a blast.

Anyway, thanks Mike and other members of the PC group. You guys were great and I had a good time running around Absolom with ya. Thanks Paizo for making PFS a reality!

Janxious, I'm glad you liked the Benthic Serpent and the hooks!

Personally, I liked writing the new spells in the "Death below the Waves" piece, and I loved Craig's take on "Art of the Duel" as well.

I could get used to the Indulgences, definitely.

"If we are all here for Lamm, then Lamm is the connection. He could know about all of us, and he might have laid a trap. This is why I remain wary."

The Benthic Serpent was rad, and the plot hooks around it were better.

I also enjoyed the art of the duel piece. I have no plans to run anything where it might come up, but the history included was the appropriate amount, and the story bit at the start of the article set a great tone.

Anyway, I like it, and 6 bucks is a great price.

But you get more back ground material in the module... right?

That said, Kaer Maga is my second favourite fantasy city after Ptolus even with the sparse amount of knowledge given out.

Also, the adventure is super cool.

I would say that we have to include the social encounters in the module total. I read that the expectation is that in 4E a party will level after 10-12 encounters. We are probably not going to have a good insight into this until the DMG4E comes out where the social encounter system is explained.

janxious wrote:

It's all headed to the same endpoint. A graph of the paths a party can take wouldn't be too hard to create. Label nodes with expected levels, possible sidequests, etc. I always wanted something like that for an AP. If I have time tomorrow, I will throw something together that maps Burnt Offerings under 3.5 rules to demonstrate.

Umm - well if you do this post it on the RotRLs forum, but, uhh .... thats a hell of a lot of work and I'm not really sure how applicable it will even be to this conversion. We don't know how the XP system works in 4E and we are not in 100% of agreement on what we are even aiming for as the end point as of yet. I'm just concerned that you'll pump 40 hours into this and it won't be all that important in terms of doing a conversion.

That said, I still have a little left over and I think there's probably a place for something similar to my original idea. I did a test run with the 3.5 rules and quickly learned the mapping I originally envisioned was ill-suited. I came up with something different in a spreadsheet, but it's not where it needs to be yet. The utility I got out of my experiment was a listing of all the pre-ordained points in the module where XP is given out. This is a good start on helping a DM see where XP is coming from and what the encounter levels are like throughout the module. Let me give an example (from memory, calculations are at home.):
Against the Goblins; EL 3; 8xCR1/3, 1xCR3; Expected Party Level (Main Quests Only):1; Expected Party Level (Main Quests + Side Quests):2; XP (Main Only): 425 (Overpowering); XP (Main + Side): 425 (Very Difficult);

Adapting this to 4e wouldn't be hard, and having variations for all the different flavours that are developed would be as simple as adding another row to a spreadsheet. Assuming some sort of wiki, one could just add his own conversion entry to the list and a quick identification of why it is unique. We could also remove expected levels bits because we know 4e is based on a static XP for level x monsters, regardless of party level. Anyway, if there's no perceived value from anyone, I'll just drop this idea entirely. :)

It's all headed to the same endpoint. A graph of the paths a party can take wouldn't be too hard to create. Label nodes with expected levels, possible sidequests, etc. I always wanted something like that for an AP. If I have time tomorrow, I will throw something together that maps Burnt Offerings under 3.5 rules to demonstrate.

Ending it at 20 with the big bad being an epic caster might make sense when the rules are out. As things go, the power levels for casters in 3e DO change significantly at 13, so pushing the campaign into 4e epic realms may be "appropriately flavoured" for the threats in books 5 and 6.

Erik Mona said on the Tome show from Monday (I think) that it would be about two weeks. Don't know when exactly that was recorded, though.

It's all a Paizo ruse to drive us bonkers!

I'm already working on Valeros.

Seoni- Deviantart

A final thought (well, as sure as I say that I'll re-read Suzerain and come up with something else...):

The system for initiative and combat order in Suzerain is very interesting to me. It breaks actions down into:

Full Actions (includes movement, attacking, etc.)

Free actions (because we always have to clarify that witty repartee is okay!)

and

Double Actions (take two actions and merge them into one, but with check penalties--similar to the Savage Worlds multi-action penalty mechanic)
...

Any chance you will give a go at adapting the rules for the interrupts and dynamic initiative to work in 3e town?

Another Suzerain thought-nugget...

I've seen some discussions on social encounter mechanics, intimidation, diplomacy, etc. here as folks think on this approach for Pathfinder. Suzerain's approach to this is a unified health system tied to three separate attributes--Physical health measures what we'd understand as HP in d20; how much damage you can take before going down. The innovation comes in having Mental and Social/Spiritual health as well.
...

Anyway, it's a cool idea. I'm not so hot on the spiritual health, though I guess you could model how close to living one's god's ideal. Maybe give you x Spritual HP, and when you hit zero, your alignment changes, you lose spells, or you need atonement (or all of the above).

The tie-in to stats is interesting. too. I think it would work better in DnD terms to be able to "burn" stats to recharge your HP and then get restoration and what have you for at least the mental and physical HP.

Good stuff.

I think the forums changed structure a bit.
Re-bookmark to here.

How'd that work Janx? Too many 1 point skills before? I would have thought at least combining Concentration and Spellcraft would have helped.

I got an Int boost out of the change, so made my task a bit easier I'll admit.

My conversion was a mixed bag. Skills got somewhat worse. Spellcasting got better.
It will probably be more interesting once we see what Buhlman & Co. have to say about the sorcerer class. :D

janxious wrote:

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Wow - I really don't like these two. The first is not much of an issue. We basically already have the go ahead from Paizo to do some kind of a conversion though they may want to clarify things a little if they don't like the direction where going with some aspect of the conversion or another.

But these two aspects of the licence are concerning. Their especially concerning in that we are using some one elses IP with their (implied) permission and can't give Google rights to use it as they please since we don't have the rights ourself.

Just take the Donkey (which might be the hardest part - is there a donkey in 3.5?) add the Phrenic and Fiendish Templates.

Yes, the 24 range seems nice (6 levels for each module)

It may turn out that high level magic is total shenanigans in 4e, which might make some of the BBEGs a lower|higher level encounter. I really do think we'll have to wait until we see a PHB|DMG|MM. I know some of the thinking in 4E is designing creatures with a small set of cool abilities, but that really does seem to do a big disservice to some of the bad dudes in the last couple of ROTRL modules. I think it would be handy to put out a "Bad Guy as PC" sidebar alongside a simplified stat block for some of the baddies. I fully admit this is because I don't want to see the big bads neutered like 4E dragons (where's my spellz?!), though I could probably be convinced otherwise if the simplified stat block was... compelling.

Also, my current stance is I'm not planning on converting to 4E, but I hope I can help those who do want to.

Would like to see some Da Vinci style drawings for the races. Alternatively, 2 or 3 different drawings with different heights|weights|ages for each race. What does an elderly half-orc look like? How about a morbidly obese gnome? Do they even exist?

Always a fight when you come up to the other scribes' waists. As long as I get a bit of the ear. Hope he hasn't been carrying it around too long. They do get soggy in the moisture from the Jaggere! That jerk Kettering had better not keep me back from the food today. One of these days I'll show him a little something he's not expecting.
*knife flourish*
Theft (1d20+2=6)
"Oops. Fumbling my dagger here. Just wanted to cut a piece of that oliphant ear off. Don't mind me!"
Made two rolls, this is the first. I forgot to put in the new name for sleight of hand.

I believe Jam is now compliant.

Indiana Volunteer!

Another think that I noticed is that the RoTR is made for up to four 16 level characters. Having in mind that fourth edition is designed till lvl 30, I am wondering whether we should decide up to which lvl the conversion will take the PCs.

Jeremy Mac Donald wrote:

I've recently been looking at ways to have schedules that are web-based and editable(?) by groups which led me to looking at some of the offerings from Google.

An alternative to a wiki would be to look at Google Docs. They are web-based, can be accessed and edited by groups, and could be modified, copied/pasted/printed and I believe linked to. Haven't used them myself, but may be an alternative.

Why do you think Paizo would not let us host a Wiki on converting their adventures to 4E here?

Over the past few days I've made a whole bunch of changes to the website software aimed at improving performance. Is it performing better for you now?

If these can't be run through the normal print channels, maybe Lulu or something similar could be used. Monte Cook's BoXM was released on Lulu and it turned out very well. Anyway, it's an option!

I think the best would be a paizo-hosted wiki, but there's very little chance of that happening. We could probably use a free/personally-hosted wiki to do initial layouts, maybe discuss it here, and then create pdfs and post them here...

janxious wrote:

Abyssal Donkey is copyright 2007 janxious. Do not look at, poke, or ridicule abyssal donkeys. They're not nice.

Hmm - I don't think it was Abyssal, but I know someone who, while running a 3.5 game, almost got a TPK with a Psionic Donkey...

...I know that the Paizians (and a lot of customers) were not happy with the "shoving books out the door just to sell product" idiology that Wizards had with the complete/races series so I am guessing we will not see a repeat of that.
...

Stolen from [url=http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathfinderRPG/general/worldContentInTheRulebook[/url]

There will be an enormous amount of this type of material in Pathfinder itself, in the Pathfinder Chronicles line, and in the Pathfinder Companion. More to the point, there most likely be follow-up Pathfinder RPG books with new rules additions, expansions, etc. Stuff like classes and alternate races and the like.

We first need to make sure that the core foundation is solid, but we won't stop there.

janxious wrote:

These guys seem really tough to me (based on the tactics section in the PF1 book). That doesn't mean I don't like them. :)

Hmm, tough in which way? 1st level 4e monsters are fairly tough, yes - I could have gone with minions, but that felt like they'd have less chance to use their abilities.

janxious wrote:

That said, I don't really like how pyromaniac works. Maybe rolling 2 attacks per ability (?) is common in 4e monsters.

It happens - it's not ultra common, nor ultra rare. In this case I went that route because using the attack rolled would likely _also_ miss an alternative goblin target. I'm okay with autohitting and killing goblin minions, but for the 'set on fire' effect it needs to hit a real person.

Of course, alternatively it could just hit the skirmisher himself.

janxious wrote:

There's also no rule about the dogslicer breaking on a 1, which would cause the goblin to flee in terror.

Nope, I went with it hurting itself instead. I intended to have the minions use that rule, but not the pyros (among other things, because the pyros _have_ another weapon)

Most of my comments might be coming from not seeing this torchbearer and his minions all at once. You've explained this stuff well and convinced me. It's the kind of stuff I would want to see in a sidebar, actually. :D

Ross Byers wrote:

Jackdaedalus wrote:

Possible way to accommodate dabbling would be to buy 2 in class skill up to the cross-class level with the option to buy them up to full value at one of the later bumps.

I like that, actually. Anyone opposed to that option?

Erm... not at all. Jack, I think you just saved the new skill system in my home game. We need a name for this. For now I'm calling it "Class" and "Dabbled". "Cross-Class" would be equal to, but distinct, from "Dabbled".

Anyway, not opposed to trying anything. Additionally, maybe you should suggest this in the alpha feedback forum, Jack? Maybe you already have and I missed it. There are ever so many threads.

Thanks for the respect folks. ;)

Anyway, the reason I thought it might be misleading is if you go back to the quote, you see:

wrote:

When Paizo made the decision to go full steam ahead with ongoing 3.5 support, I brought the rules into the office and we began poring over them as a team. A lot of great work came out of the past few months with nearly everybody in our editorial staff offering up suggestions and ideas to make the rules even better.

...
Now maybe the problem is just my reading compression, or maybe Jason just mispoke.

If the excitement is there for "spiritual" conversions of the source material, that is probably where it will end up. Always easier to get stuff when people are excited about it, right?

I agree that use of sidebars would be keen both as a "why this is a good fit for 4e" and a "here's a way to change it up to make it closer to the original".

As for encouraging the purchase of modules and referencing them, all (afaik) the Pathfinders and Modules have easy reference numbers (e.g. B1, C2, etc.) and I'm guessing a good way to go about it might be something like this:

Section Q2
Original: 3 Goblin Donkey Riders & 5 Abyssal Donkeys
Update:
Goblin Donkey Rider
Level 4 Skirmisher
<stuff>
<abilities>
Exploding Donkey
M +4 vs Armor When rider is slain, donkey explodes to spite the party for 3d6 donkey damage.
<more stuff>

Sidebar
You might want to make the abyssal donkey more of a threat. Here are stats for an Abyssal Donkey. Remove Exploding Donkey ability from Goblin Donkey Rider and increase the to hit on his spirited donkey corraling to +8 from +6.
<Abyssal Donkey stats>

Just my take on how things might be handled.
Abyssal Donkey is copyright 2007 janxious. Do not look at, poke, or ridicule abyssal donkeys. They're not nice.

http://www.avclub.com/content/topics/The_Box_Of_Paperbacks_Book_Club

Just figure I can prod this slightly every now and then until release day and we can get serious... so, a possible look on Goblin Pyros.

Went with skirmisher.

That said, I don't really like how pyromaniac works. Maybe rolling 2 attacks per ability (?) is common in 4e monsters. I need to go and look at the big list I have again. Anyway, I would suggest just making the torch hit a random goblin adjacent to the original target or to just use the attack bonus rolled the first time and leave it "random goblin in range".

There's also no rule about the dogslicer breaking on a 1, which would cause the goblin to flee in terror.

Thanks, Keith.

This is from the Burnt Offerings conversion thread. I'm moving it here becuase my commentary really is about conversions in general and not about RotRLs in particular.

janxious wrote:

I haven't run any RotRL, but I've thought about the attack on Sandpoint. I think it would be fun to have the gobos find some enlarge potions. Hilarious shenanigans ensue. :D I'm imagining the big ones suddenly turning on the little ones to get back at them for past transgressions.

As for converting, you could probably base an enlarged goblin on the gnoll stats and just add in the goofy qualities like falling on their own sword with a 1.

I've argued above that we need to decide whether we want to make a 'spiritual' versus a 'pure' conversion pretty much prior to actually doing a conversion. However I think this idea moves outside of each model. Whats being suggested here is more is something that simply is not part of an adventure. This is basically an enhancement. You take an idea that you like and add it to the module. I generally don't feel this sort of thing has any place in a conversion. A conversion is not really the place to show off our good ideas - though if we went with some kind of a Wiki model we could have a place that includes good ideas. They should not be part of the core product however.

Secrets of Pact Magic (d20) PDF is NOW AVAILABLE right here at the Paizo store!

http://paizo.com/store/downloads/radianceHouse

Thank you forgottenprince and others. I think we now know why Paizo has been so busy recently... and if you want your fix of more D&D today, 336 pages of fantasy goodness are only a few clicks away :-).

I really like Skeld's suggestion about making iteratives into feats...but in order to be more backwards compatible they'll likely keep it as-is.

In _my_ perfect world they'd go to 2 standard actions in a round - you can move and attack or attack twice, or move twice. No full round attacks, just a double-attack if you don't want to move.

I would not like psionics in the main book, but only because of the size and resulting cost of the final book. I don't want something the size of the Ptolus book to lug around.

Re: recharge mechanic.
I would suggest something along the lines of restoring mem'ed spells at something easy. Maybe 1 min/spell cast. Replacing something in your list should be harder. Maybe 1 min/level. This would mean a high level character could keep rolling at full power most of the time, but would still have to conserve and be strategic with spells when in a hurry. Hell, maybe your wizard needs to get back that horrid wilting and the party has to guard him for a minute. This would probably require some concentration checks....
That's my 2 bits.

Edit: I'm not saying this as a problem for me. I love the attrition of spells over an adventuring day. This is just a solution that might or might not work.

I'm working my way through the Alpha rules. It is 65 pages, after all. Expect house rules changes later tonight.

Also, Taemin is not proficient with his Throwing Knives. Neither is Jam.

Clerics can burn spell for cure or inflict. Maybe wizards and sorcerers should be able to burn spells for straight up damage. This would require a few new spells|feats|class features and I would see it as a strictly optional thing. It would be nice to be a wizard and say "oops, I don't need fog cloud right now. Burn for 2d4 <x> damage".

Wow. I like it a lot.

yeah, I can see other non melee classes without the iterative attacks.

For me it is not the number of attacks per round, or the number of spells available per round, it is that as you get higher the casters get literally dozens of spells to choose from.

Truly, when we were playing at 20th level and I had 5 attacks my attacks took a few moments to finish. But the cleric could literally take 10 minutes to pick out that one spell he was going to use. Then the wizard was next and he takes 10 minutes to find his one spell. Then the Rogue gets in her attacks and is done in seconds, then back to me real quick. Twenty Five minutes for a round; five for two melee characters and twenty for the two casters.

While I had 5 attacks the casters spend disproportional amount of time in combat.

Is this not a problem for others? Do others find that casters are able to choose from dozens of spells more quickly than a few attacks can be resolved?

As to this question, it generally comes down to how hard the DM is on people. If he lets your casters get away with it (or if no one in the party minds) then I it will happen. If it's a problem, your group just needs to come up with something to *make* the casters choose. Egg timer, loss of turn, etc. I've played a high level caster and for me I usually had 4 or 5 spells "on deck" and would pick one when my time came up. Getting through all the effects a high level spell can have is a completely different can of worms. Books like Complete Mage added at will abilities for wizards. I know it has helped a lot for our group to have reliable damage from our caster with no complicated effects. He can basically sit back and lob damage and bring out the funky spells as necessary.

Here's hoping for some PF:RPG logo branding!