jreyst's page

You may have seen my posts on Twitter and Facebook that I’m devoting all my time these days to working on Shadowsfall to the exclusion of all else. However, I do not want to drop off the face of the earth. So, I’m going to be posting some various pieces of material that are developed but are waiting for me to finish writing more in a similar vein (which I’m not doing these days). Goto JonBrazer.com and subscribe to our post feed to not miss a post.

Today we're starting off with a CR 19 monster called a Guardian of the Mountains. Find out what can cause an entire mountain to arise and smash entire cities.

Fire in the hole! I've submitted a Pathfinder adventure, as well as a couple of different RPG Superstar panel discussions. The latter probably aren't lottery events, per se. But, I wanted to make sure they got on the schedule somewhere.

Submitted again - this is the third year for this event, new prop pictures are in the works. If by chance it doesn't get into the event schedule, Ill run it anyway at a free table.

==============

Event Name: Failed Sanity Check

Event Description: You bolt up after a mind shattering experience in a strange and unpleasant place with no memory of who you are, with only a smeared reflection as you guide. Bring two colors of d6 dice for this direct sequel to one of HP Lovecraft's most famous stories. This is a mystery-horror adventure - only sign up if you've never played in it before. No experience required.

Category: RPG
Game Master Name: Lynn Fredricks
Game/Rules/System: Don't Rest Your Head
Game Edition: Don't Rest Your Head
Will you be providing pregenerated characters?: Yes
Age Rating: 17+
Game Complexity: Easy
Experience Required: None

Whatever's in there, just please review the rules more carefully. I was sorely disappointed in Adventurer's Armory, and many of the most crucial FAQ's from that book have never been addressed (especially all the monk/unarmed stuff). Whatever goes in here, please give it more of a game mechanics pass-over than previous.

Please, please fix the staff pricing discrepancy between the Core Rulebook and the APG. (The staves in the Core Rulebook follow the formula, but the staves in the APG all seem to cost half as much as the formula says they should). My entire group has been curious for months about whether the formula is correct as shown in the Core Rulebook, or whether the APG pricing method (which uses the formula to determine the price of the staff rather than cost) is correct instead.

Categories and an organizational structure for mundane equipment, creatures, and services. Spell out what items/services are Alchemical, what are under the writing/books category, what are animals, etc. Doing this will help open up another design target and make finding things much easier.

I hope this request is already in there somewhere, but:

Please rework treasure generation and placement. The current CRB+GMG system is kludgey to the point of unusable. Percentage tables take up an incredible amount of space in the Core Rulebook and GMG, and yet I have never successfully generated treasure in a way that was easy or satisfying.

If the designers would have us pick treasure and place it in a semi-random way, let the rules call that out.

Include slots for "Reroll or roll from a book of the GM's choice" or some other way we can expand this table to subsequent books.

Include treasure hoard "templates" instead of 100% random — just a list of all the item types you ought to include, and a quick roll to randomize that (double potions, no scrolls, etc). Then some guidelines on places to stash treasure in the adventure (how much NPC gear? How much hidden cache? How much in monster bellies?)

Do everything you can to eliminate the frustrating process of generating invalid results and going back to the beginning.

Make sure these results work correctly with things like the settlement statblocks — I ran into problems with that the last time I tried the CRB+GMG method. I can't remember the specifics, I banished them with self-inflicted head trauma.

I do understand that these are legacy issues that stretch back even beyond 3.0... but it would be a shame to have this book released and miss the opportunity to fix it. Think of the effort you'll save on behalf of all those GMs! They'll run more games, which means more people will play, which means more sales! It's totally worth it!

(I apologize for my inappropriately strong feelings on this issue)

august is a sexy month for a book like this WOOT WOOT!!!

do yourselves and us a favor by standardizing terminologys in the book. have a formula for creating discriptions so they will not be misinterpreted or misused. if you guys would impliment a series of key words it would cut down on the need for errata.

Yay for FAQ posts! Can we make this a daily thing? Maybe I'm the only one who'd enjoy that...

So how about Take 10 and Take 20? :D

YES! PLEASE MAKE FAQ UPDATES A WEEKLY (or bi-weekly) BLOG STAPLE!

Seriously, please don't taunt us with a single seasonal instalment. I'd actually check out the blog regularly if I knew there'd be dependable product support updates. It'd renew my faith that clicking the FAQ button accomplishes something. Even if these particular answers don't help me, this is the sort of thing I desperately want to see from Paizo. Thanks very much and please keep up the good work!

Edit: Looking at blinding flash again, I just noticed that the descriptive text says "You can temporarily blind your opponent...", so I'm becoming convinced that the dazzled condition must be some sort of editing error. If this is the case, the feat will become much better once an errata comes out.

Unlike Sickened/Nauseated, Shaken/Panicked and Fatigued/Exhausted, the Dazzled/Blind 'tree' starts off with a total crap debuff.

Change it to a -2 to Perception checks and all foes of the Dazzled target benefitting from partial concealment (20% miss chance) and the Dazzled condition is actually worth taking (and the Flare and Flare Burst spells actually worth casting).

As written, since 3.0, Dazzled has been the saddest condition to take up a sentence or two in the Condition summary.

How they handle Magic is pretty make-or-break IMO. Every 3Eer hates high level spells ruining near every story a DM can come up with, every 3Eer also hates 4E "powers" as the dumbed-down solution. How to offer a simpler magic system to attract newcomers, retaining enough flavor for 3E grognards, AND making high levels playable... solve that and I think they will be on to something that PF lacks. Modularity may be a big part of the answer.

Yes. There has to be some sort of medium between the gamey, but fairly balanced nature of 4E magic, and the flavourful but broken mess that is 3E magic. That would certainly have to be a major goal of the system.

So, with this rule and the fact that you can create any magic item in Pathfinder without knowing the required spells, is there any reason not to do the same as Paizo and simply ban Item Creation?

I've been trying to give a "behind the scenes" feel to my miniature posts, though lately it's been more about making my way through final images of the set, so there's not so much of a look at the process.

I think people will be very pleased next week when we start talking about the Rise of the Runelords set (and showing off preview images), but if you don't care about minis posts now, I'm not sure there's much I can do to make them more interesting for you.

I dunno. Maybe use that time to get an early start on the weekend or something?

Your minis posts are great and I've enjoyed them. However, I, like some others, would prefer to see such things in the Store Blog (and fiction reserved to the Fiction Blog).

The Bestiary 3 will be added sometime this month. :)

Fixing this keeps getting shoved aside for other more pressing matters, but it's been broken long enough. We'll try to have this fixed next week.

Question: Is an unconscious creature automatically considered willing? I'm the GM and ... not sure how to rule this one.

I like the layout but am not fond of the material. What I mean is that I agree with some of the above posters about the lack of material for certain classes, the overabundance for others, and sometimes the complete uselessness of some of the material to a player.

Each category should provide fluff and crunch for that area for every type of character. Examples:

Combat: This should have feats, traits, gear, etc. relating to combat. Making it funner, easier, better, etc.

Faith: This should have feats, traits, gear, etc. relating to faith. It should have new domains, spells relating to deities, special deity weapons, etc.

Magic: This should have the same stuff as above for magic. It should have new spells, power components, items like special scrolls, wands, staves, etc.

Social: This should again have the same kind of stuff but for social uses. Traits, feats, new skill uses, secret languages, body language, etc.

Of course all of it would be relating to the material the book is about. I just feel that making the categories for specific classes really limits what you can write and include.

Here is an example of what you could do for a book about Kobolds:

COVER
FLUFF ABOUT KOBOLDS AND THEIR SOCIETY
COMBAT: Kobold weapons, special Kobold fighting styles
FAITH: Kobold deities, a set of magic items representing one of the deities
MAGIC: What kind of spells Kobolds like, new kobold spells for all casting classes
SOCIAL: Discussion about the Kobold language, new skill use of Linguistics for talking in a special form of Kobold body language
BACK COVER

I suppose I can see that. The "you're a doody head" response really does nothing. I guess I expected more than that from a developer. I am not mad, but rather, a bit sad, and disappointed.

Yeah, this is really confusing to me.
Besides that there are multiple version of the whip, in resources that are all PFS legal themselves...
The reach aspect is just incoherent to me. Whips have 15´ Pseudo-Reach. Scorpion Whips don´t have any Reach.
So if you can use a scorpion whip as a whip, does that mean you can use it with 15´ Pseudo-Reach?
i.e. you can choose how you use it/what Reach it has?
Does that mean you can also inflict non-lethal damage without penalty if you wish?

I hit the FAQ button on this. I don´t know why this is so complicated. It´s freaking EQUIPMENT.

I just wanted to say a few words about Temerlyth the Undying and about TPK Games in general. Though it isn't readily apparent from the product description I'm his humble creator. It may sound as though I'm bragging on myself, for which I apologize, but I just want to mention a couple of my personal accomplishments to help reassure about quality of this product. I'm really proud of my work on this despicable villain.

I participated in the RPG Superstar 2010 Contest and placed in the top 8--doesn't buy me a beer at the local house, but there it is. :)

Anyway you may recall my Needles of the Ebon Strand, my Splorudra or perhaps the Green Barrow, my round 8 map and adventure pitch. These were all favorites with some.

My name also appears in Ultimate Combat as one of the contributing designers (Richard A. Hunt... that's me!). This is also my very first work for a game company, other than as a contributor or in some old Dragon Magazine articles. I'd like to see Temerlyth's evil spread world wide... Muhahahah! *Ahem*

To close, we think Temerlyth came out so well, that I've also written his lair--what I hope will be our next major companion product. So what you'll be getting is just the tip of the iceberg! We have big plans to produce hundreds of weird and wonderful products--all simple to use, filled with old school goodness, built on the chassis of the best RPG system in the world and in some cases as dark and twisted as the hair in a demon's arm pit. Haha!

Essentially, the most important limitation on spells is that the caster is restricted to a set number of castings per day, with the highest spell levels the most limited. The other limiting factors include casting time, material components, potential targets, versatility, duration, and relevance. What is overpowered on one campaign or setting may be worthless in another, but in general, these spells are better then similar spells of the same level in many circumstances.

Finally, I left out the spells that can be exploited by setting up a business based on casting the spell, such as the 3.5 version of Wall of Iron. If a high level wizard wants to become an NPC iron salesman, go for it.

1. Dominate Person
Where do I begin with this one... This is worse then death, since it basically turns you into the personal hand puppet of the caster. It allows the caster to give you commands and even know what you are seeing, hearing, etc. from anywhere on the plane! And if all of this isn't bad enough, the duration is DAYS/level! You don't even have to memorize or cast this everyday and you can walk around with a pet storm giant or BBEG caster. Dominate Monster is a 9th level spell, considering that humanoids (now with giants!) are the most common type of creature in most games, this is like getting a 9th level spell as an 11th level character.

2. Hold Person
I feel this spell is overpowered because it allows a 3rd level cleric to set up a coup de grace of a humanoid regardless of AC or total HP. Sure there is a save every round, but if the caster times the spell for when an ally is already in melee, the victim is going to need to roll a 20 to survive.

3. Protection from Evil
This 1st level spell basically grants blanket immunity from most of the enchantment school of magic. If you are already enchanted, you get a second chance with a bonus. It also makes you essentially immune from summoned creatures. If it was +2 to AC and saves, it would be a fine 1st level spell, as it is, it is probably the single best spell in the game.

4. Blindness/(but not deafness)
For almost any creature, sight is incredibility important. There isn't much you can do to affect things if you can't see them. This is by far the most powerful save-or-suck spell of the low levels, and basically shuts down any creature that fails the save. Oddly, deafness is probably one of the worst spells.

5. Feeblemind
Int and Cha drop to 1. Arcane casters get -4 on the save. Pretty much any mage vs. mage combat should start (and probably end) with this spell. Many creatures special and spell-like abilities will either become unusable, or lower the DC to the point of uselessness.

6. Haste
Just a great spell if you have a couple of attackers on your side. If you cast it on creatures that have one natural attack (dire wolf), or most 2 handed weapon types, they become twice as nasty as before.

7. Invisibility, Greater
I only included this spell because it turns rogues into auto-sneak attacking killing machines. Considering that your victim is blind to you, this is really nasty. Situational, but super powerful.

8. Liveoak, Spellstaff
Give an 11th level druid a day off, and they get a pet treant, and an extra casting of their highest level spell. No need to memorize that spell each day, you got a treant for 11 days, and the staff is permanent until discharged.

9 Magic Jar
This spell is a strange one to say the least. In ways it is like a super dominate monster, that allows you to inhabit the host, and not die when the body is killed. I think this spell might be best in the hands of witches, and eldritch knights. Some amazing applications for combat and out of combat uses.

10. Planar Ally and Planar Binding spells
These spells allow you to buy power. If you know you got a tough encounter coming up, (especially if you know there is going to be lots of treasure), this is a no-brainer investment. It basically adds a outsider party member for a session or encounter, usually at the cost of some throwaway type treasure. Some GM's will limit this, but that is left fairly vague in the spell description.

Honorable mentions go to Charm Person, Command Undead, and Color Spray.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not crying for these spells to be nerfed or changed. Many of them are classic or built into the game, but they are just better then other spell choices of the same level.

I'm working on a list of the least powerful spells as well, so we can talk about Circle of Death and Command Plants next week.

Back in the day, here were my votes as a member of the "panel" to evaluate the top 30 adventures of all time. It was cool of Erik to include me. We each sent in our top 10. Here are mine, with comments. Note G3's prominence.

TOP 10 MODULES OF ALL TIME

1. Tomb of Horrors. This is the definitive module. It is not the best from a playability standpoint, but for sheer Gygaxian genius, which is what D&D is all about, it has no peer. This module has "total party kill" written all over it. Not just in one spot, but in practically every room, trap or encounter. The false lich. The introduction of the demi-lich. Plus, it is a high level adventure and those are so hard to write. The one knock on Tomb of Horrors is that it is so evil, so fully trapped and the PCs are so aware that a wrong turn means death that it can slow play to a crawl. But for pure inspired genius it is unmatched. Plus, to top off what is already perfection, two words: "player handouts." And with Trampier art I might add!

2. Tie: Hall of the Fire Giant King and Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl. I might have to give it to Fire Giant by a nose, mostly for sheer size and scope and because it provides the first real taste of the then mysterious (now ubiquitous) drow. From the Trampier art to the great encounters, these babies have it all. The physical setting of Frost Giant is better. The rift is just such a cool setting for an adventure. It was probably the first module to be something more than a building, dungeon or caves. The rift itself was very unique. If Frost Giant had a third level, it might edge Fire Giant. For some reason, Frost Giant always plays the best of the Giant series. And for some reason the battles are always epic. It is just balanced perfectly to AD&D, in an old school way. No goofy ELs here.

3. Judges Guild’s Caverns of Thracia. Bill likes Thieves' Fortress, but I like Thracia. This module to me is what Judges Guild is all about. Great writing and design by Paul Jaquays. Great ideas, but plenty of room for you to flesh out in the way that classic products let you but that is for some reason seen as a bad thing these days.

4. Keep on the Borderlands. More players probably started their campaigns with this module than any other module in the history of gaming. And that right there qualifies it as being in the top 10. You have to put Village of Homlet in this category too, but I like the Caves of Chaos from Borderlands way better than the ruined keep from Homlet. Plus, Homlet doesn’t stand on its own and Borderlands does.

5. Vault of the Drow. Wow. Nothing like this had been done before (or, frankly, since). Sure, Judges Guild had done the City State of the Invincible Overlord, but this was an underground city of evil monsters—the drow, who, then, were new and mysterious as opposed to tired and overused as they are today. The Fane. Lolth. The Vampire/Succubus encounter before you even get to the city. More Gygaxian genius.

6. Palace of the Vampire Queen by Wee Warriors. What is a top 10 list without this one—the very first module ever produced, even before TSR. Just like “Video Killed the Radio Star” makes video top 10 lists because it was the first video ever played on MTV, Vampire Queen will forever go down in history as the first module ever made (even though they called it a “DM Kit”), and it was done by a tiny little independent company called Wee Warriors run by Pat and Judy Kerestan. Sure, Temple of the Frog appeared in the Blackmoor supplement as an adventure, but Vampire Queen was the first module published just as a module.

7. White Plume Mountain. The three artifacts, Wave, Whelm and Blackrazor. Heck, you could chuck out the first two and just have Blackrazor and this thing is a classic. I can't tell you how many players have wanted to take on WPM just to try to get Blackrazor. Because what kid playing D&D in the early 80s like me didn’t want to have Elric's sword? Everyone, duh! And the design—the cheesy puzzles, one-off rooms clearly designed to challenge adventurers and not for any practical purpose. I love it! That is D&D to me. I know that to many people, these things I am calling strengths are what they consider its problems. To those people I say "get a life, its a game." The only black mark on the module is the lack of detail on the wizard rooms above and the efreets that intervene in the end. I wanted that stuff detailed out, which is saying alot for me since I normally love a little room for expansion. But in this case, it hurt the module.

8. Greyhawk Ruins. I know there are Greyhawk pursits who will kill me for this, since this module wasn’t written by Gygax, but it was amazing to finally have the ruins of Greyhawk detailed, particularly after the embarrassing garbage that was the Castle Greyhawk module. This module is gi-normous, far surpassing anything else in size and scope. Even the love-it-or-hate-it Undermountain doesn’t come close to this many rooms and this much detail.

9. The Desert of Desolation series (Pharoah, Oasis of the White Palm and the Lost Tomb of Martek). I didn’t want to put a series of modules as a winner, since Giants and Drow could so easily have made the top 10, but I thought that this series was so good and so tight that it needed to be included as a series.

10. The original Ravenloft. This module spawned a setting. It had amazing maps, a great NPC antagonist—perhaps one of the best villains of all time behind Acererak the demi-lich and Eclavdra from the G-D Series. You could arguably put the first few Dragonlance modules here, but no single one of them is better than Ravenloft and the series as a whole is weak except for the first few. So Ravenloft takes it.
I have to admit, I really wanted to put one of my own modules in the top 10, but the ones above are just better.

Runners Up:
These ones were really hard to leave out of the top 10.

11. Judges Guild’s Dark Tower. A total dungeon classic that embodies the coolness that is Judges Guild.

12. Village of Homlet. More Gygaxian flavor and a total classic campaign starter.

13. Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth. A hugely overlooked module. The second module ever written (behind Wee Warriors’ Palace of the Vampire Queen) and its original form is one of the most collectable modules ever.

14. The Dragonlance series (the first few). The first ones were good. Great story. Interesting setting. Great NPCs and adventure locations. And more awesome maps like Ravenloft. Maybe some of the only Second Edition stuff that I can tolerate.

15. Necromancer Games’ Rappan Athuk series. I thought we hit a First Edition home run with these three modules. Tomb of Abysthor (which was inspired in part by the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth and the Temple of the Frog) is a better individual module, but the RA series just rules.

HONORABLE MENTION

1. Masks of Nyarlathotep for Call of Cthulhu. This is the best designed adventures of all times for any game system, period. It is that good. Certianly in scope and depth, this thing is unmatched. And on top of that it is for Call of Cthulhu, which may be one of the hardest games to design for both from a playability standpoint and from a literary one. It is nearly impossible to have a good extended CoC campaign because of the high rate of character death, but this thing pulls it off. Plus, the story is so Lovecraftian. You really feel the mythos. It is so true to the subject matter. If this were a D&D module it would be on the top of my list right there with Tomb of Horrors.

2. Gygax's Necropolis for Lejendary Adventures. This module just blew me away when I got the original. Necromancer Games redid it for d20, and I am tempted to put Necro’s conversion in the main list as a d20 module, but I don’t think that is right since it was just a conversion. Necropolis is a LA module, not a D&D module, despite the fact I think Necro’s conversion rules. This is right up there with Masks.

3. Twilight's Peak for Traveller. This is an amazing adventure. It took the dungeon concept and ported it to a future setting. With a great story, a great build up, and a challenging and significant conclusion that impacts any campaign that includes it. Very well done. And Traveller had some excellent “double adventures,” like Chamax Plague/Horde, Shadows/Annic Nova, and Argon Gambit/Death Station. Classic Traveller is one of the best game series that has ever been created in my opinion and deserves far more credit and recognition than it gets. If it were a D&D module it would easily be in my top 10.

I must say that if it hadn't been for d20pfsrd I would never have given Pathfinder a chance and would probably have given up on table top or still be using my old 3.5 material.

The fact that I could look at the classes, rules, ect. It allowed me to start up a Pathfinder game with my friends and see if it was for me. I approved of the changes it made and decided to start buying the books.

I truly fell in love with the art work and fluff from the books. Pathfinder books are really top notch but I wouldn't have even known about them had I not had the d20pfsrd.

Brilliant is an understatement when describing the benefits of that site for free advertisement. That site has caused over 20 people in 3 different states I know alone to start buying Pathfinder. (I'm in the military and move around). So thank you d20pfsrd and thank you Paizo for being open minded in allowing a site like this.

P.S. I have created a few conversions of prestige classes for pathfinder... namely the Rage Mage and the Frenzied Berserker. Where would the best place be to share it?

deinol wrote:

Bestiary 2 doesn't have a FAQ yet, but guess what? Nothing in the 140 or so compiled errors have a meaningful impact on actual play.

Does the undefined ability in the totenmaske entry not have a meaningful impact on play? [That's one I remember off the top of my head.]

It's strange that the Devour Memories is in the turnover, and in the version that went to layout, but not in the final book. It must have been cut in a later pass to make it fit with the art, and the reference in the SA line didn't get cut with it. Here's the info:

Devour Memories (Su) A totenmaske can eat the memories and dreams of a creature it bites. The target must make a DC 19 Will save or take 1d4 points of Charisma drain. A totenmaske gains a +4 bonus on Disguise checks made to impersonate a victim whose memories it has drained. The save DC is Charisma-based.

If you're doing spells with missing Components sections then don't forget Fickle Winds,Battlemind, Blood Crow Strike, Share Memory, and Spit Venom.

Can we get a FAQ on the bolded spells ASAP? Kind of hard to cast these spells without knowing the components to the spell >.>

Battlemind Link: V, S

Since Maneuvers seem like they may be getting more FAQ/Errata love soon,
I thought I`d be thorough in getting some more of the `hanging` issues out here in sight, to be addressed.

First, the action usage of maneuvers / `in place of melee attack` thing:

The only place `in place of melee attack` seems to be defined is in a foot-note to the Actions in Combat table:
¨Some combat maneuvers substitute for a melee attack, not an action. As melee attacks, they can be used once in an attack or charge action, one or more times in a full-attack action, or even as an attack of opportunity. Others are used as a separate action. ¨
Now I can see how it could be reasonable to expect people to understand that `in place of melee attack` means any melee attack roll without any further definition, but it seems like Paizo DOES think it`s something that needs definition, since it WAS included... But at the bottom of a table doesn`t seem the place to define something like that.
In addition, the specific wording is actually structured more like an exhaustive list, rather than using wording like `such as` which more clearly indicates that it`s just a list of common examples, and other attacks apply. PRPG has obviously gone in the direction of more new unique combat actions, i.e. cleave, spell combat, etc, and by the RAW one could understand that those actions can`t `deliver` CMBs, which isn`t in line with RAI as far as I understand.

Also, there are several things specific to Grapple which I brought up in a Grapple-specific thread, some I`ve brought up before, some I just posted now...here.

Cartigan wrote:

The opposition to correcting problems is one thing really bothering me about how Paizo is running Pathfinder.

This. A hundred times, this!

This. A hundred times, this!

and the fact the are things "fixed" apparently without take a look twice at them. See Cockatrice Strike errata.

I'd like to see a "voting" system setup where the community can identify issues they'd most like to see addressed. Paizo should present a weekly/monthly poll with contentious issues. For each issue, a thread should exist where people can discuss exactly what about the issue that interests/confuses them.

I vote for the Antagonize feat! The silence on this one is driving me crazy.

Disciple of Sakura wrote:

The grapple rules are better than they were in 3.5, but they're still not particularly good,

I actually disagree with that, IMHO the 3.5 Grapple rules are at least clear and don't contradict one another. They also don't add in the confusion of winning grappler and losing grappler. Hopefully Paizo will manage to get Grappling right in PF 2e.

We shouldn't have to wait an indefinite amount of time for a theoretical and intangible game revision to fix system problems.

The opposition to correcting problems is one thing really bothering me about how Paizo is running Pathfinder.