magnuskn's page

If you say so.

magnuskn wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

magnuskn wrote:

Look, that's perfect already. :) I can take it from there and do the rest, the basics are all I needed.

I'm a bit sorry that you were not as involved as you had wanted, given how Ameiko basically is your invention. :( Well, maybe one day ( when the timeline is advanced and official continuity established ^^ ) you can do another AP with Ameiko involved. I hope it happens!

Thanks! Ameiko's story, though, is pretty much told. I'm not sure what another Ameiko AP would even be about.

Eh, Ameiko as Empress sending a new group of adventurers to root out Oni influence in Minkai, culminating with the adventurers liberating Chu Ye, with Kasai as their prime base and Ameiko as a recurring quest-giver NPC. ;) Easy peasy!

That's not an Ameiko story though. That's just a new AP with Ameiko doing a cameo as a quest-giver. Doesn't advance her storyline at all; less even than Runelords did, and she's hardly got a starring role in Runelords.

That entirely depends on how much involvement you give her as a questgiver and recurring NPC. :) You can't expect me to make up an entire storyline just off the cuff in three minutes. :p

magnuskn wrote:

Look, that's perfect already. :) I can take it from there and do the rest, the basics are all I needed.

I'm a bit sorry that you were not as involved as you had wanted, given how Ameiko basically is your invention. :( Well, maybe one day ( when the timeline is advanced and official continuity established ^^ ) you can do another AP with Ameiko involved. I hope it happens!

Thanks! Ameiko's story, though, is pretty much told. I'm not sure what another Ameiko AP would even be about.

Eh, Ameiko as Empress sending a new group of adventurers to root out Oni influence in Minkai, culminating with the adventurers liberating Chu Ye, with Kasai as their prime base and Ameiko as a recurring quest-giver NPC. ;) Easy peasy!

If you guys release a complete Tian Xia campaign setting one day, not only the Gazeteer ( which I already own ), I'd run that campaign, even homebrew it again. :)

Ah, so it was 14 years from Academy to command, that's what it was.

Worse, the Kirk of the original series was in the academy for, what, 14 years before getting his ship? This one went from cadet to captain in one day.

I still think that he learnt his lesson in responsibility. We'll see next movie.

Yes every spont caster that can get 20 bonus spells gets 20 bonus spells. I've seen GMs allow the human favored class bonus to other races so they can see more races.

First thing I did when that came out. Not that I think it's a bad bonus, it was sorely needed.

Plus ** spoiler omitted **

Yes, because cold real world realism is best applied to magic in a fantasy setting.

Vancian spellcasting is by now iconic to Pathfinder/D&D and needs to stay within any new edition for me to even recognize it as being part of the D&D tradition.

That being said, I think there needs to be some thinking on making rest periods between spell/ability recovery shorter. The 15 minute workday remains a problem which Pathfinder actually excerbated with their new classes, due to the focus on limited use powers. I'd really like to see that partys can do more in a day than spend their powers and have to rest for a full day to recover. But that's a topic of a future thread of its own.

Um, unless I'm counting my fingers wrong, we are estimating the next edition to hit in half a decade and we are already 5 years ( with the beta ) into the current one. Makes ten in my aruthmeiticz skilz. ;)

Look, that's perfect already. :) I can take it from there and do the rest, the basics are all I needed.

I'm a bit sorry that you were not as involved as you had wanted, given how Ameiko basically is your invention. :( Well, maybe one day ( when the timeline is advanced and official continuity established ^^ ) you can do another AP with Ameiko involved. I hope it happens!

As an aside, I always wondered who was buying all this stuff. I mean, what is the implied economy where wandering adventurers are just cruising through your towns EVERY MONTH scooping up medium and major magic items that, for most of their careers, your player characters themselves couldn't afford to buy, and they're supposed to be the rulers of the kingdom! Why don't these nameless, faceless NPCs just kick the PCs out of the palace and take over, if they have that much money to toss around every month? :)

Yeah, that was one of the things which broke my immersion like a dry twig. Thank you for taking care of that. :)

magnuskn wrote:

It was a big loophole in Kingmaker, where savvy players exploited that the best way to make endless BP was to build lots of magic item generating buildings, which spiraled the economy completely out of control and made most of the checks and balances of the system obsolete. Paizo got a lot of feedback about that, so I'd probably think that they worked out those kinks. I just wanted to ask if you could confirm, but no problem if you never heard of the issue before. I'll just wait for someone who played Kingmaker and noticed those problems. :)

In the revised kingdom-building rules, selling magic items that your buildings produce gives the kingdom no BP.

None.

All selling a magic item does is clear the item slot for you to generate a new/different item that someone could buy. You can buy an item with your own cash and donate it to the kingdom for BP, which is no different from donating any other valuable property to the kingdom for BP.

Excellent! Thanks, Jason! :)

I think this conversation about a "new Pathfinder" would be more relevant in the year 2019, rather than the year 2013.

Not completely. While I agree that PF 2.0 is about half a decade down the line, what I mean is the release. The developers will have to gather feedback and begin working internally on the new iteration way, way ahead of that. I just hope that they begin publically asking for that feedback before finalizing their ideas. ^^

magnuskn wrote:

What are the colors of house Amatatsu, i.e. their banner? I think this is going to come up soon in my Jade Regent campaign, when Ameiko raises her army to re-conquer Minkai.

Blue and red. Jade being the color of the emperor/empress. That's why Ameiko's dressed int he colors she is on the last cover.

Thanks! :) Um, any particular pattern on their banner? Or any decoration, like flowers, or squares... y'know, like Japanese house banners.

What are the colors of house Amatatsu, i.e. their banner? I think this is going to come up soon in my Jade Regent campaign, when Ameiko raises her army to re-conquer Minkai.

Right, that's how the movie starts and then it proceeds to make him realize that he can't just hare off and do whatever he wants.

Wow, some people seem absolutely determined to hate this movie. I thought it was so far the best movie I have seen this year.

You expected it to end? I expect to be having to ignore advance/don't-advance threads even after the AP's out.

Well, d'uh. It will probably pop up as its own thread shortly. At the moment I feel like I've made my point and I can't add much new to the topic, but after Wrath has finished, I already have the feeling that the changes will be so significant that this discussion will have to be revisited.

Pish posh, magnuskn. It works out great!!

No consequences for bad stuff. He not only violates the Prime Directive to save his officer, but he lies on his official report and (1) gets a second chance and gets the job of first officer on the Enterprise, and (b) gets command of a real ship by the end of the movie.

As I said, nepotism.

No consequences for heroic stuff. He sacrifices himself to save the Enterprise. No permanent consequences. He disobeys direct orders from an admiral. No court martial.

I'll send a note of my stern disapproval to every action movie hero ever.

No consequences for personal stuff. He demands that Scotty resign. He blows Uhura's diplomacy. He turns around to see Carol undressed after she told him not to. Scotty's still a pal. Uhura doesn't hold a grudge. Carol's still happy to be part of his family.

Kirk is just awesome. All those lens flares just make his teeth sparkle.

And how exactly is this different and makes the new version worse than the old series?

It was a big loophole in Kingmaker, where savvy players exploited that the best way to make endless BP was to build lots of magic item generating buildings, which spiraled the economy completely out of control and made most of the checks and balances of the system obsolete. Paizo got a lot of feedback about that, so I'd probably think that they worked out those kinks. I just wanted to ask if you could confirm, but no problem if you never heard of the issue before. I'll just wait for someone who played Kingmaker and noticed those problems. :)

Tsuji-Giri wrote:

A part of me hopes that Paizo finds it in their hearts to put the PDF on sale tomorrow rather than making me wait a week. Normally I'm very patient about these things but I'm incredibly excited for the updated kingdom building rules.

They added 3 new ruler positions

Consort and Heir, who can act as ruler when he's missing, but add 1/2 the cha bonus, not the full Cha bonus on rolls
And I can't recall the third.

New tiles for settlement design, new buildings for settlements

Did they fix the magic shop hack?

I don't think I'd agree with that assessment. On one hand, it teaches him to listen to the advice of people he trusts. Scotty balks over the torpedoes - Kirk comes to realize he's right. Spock badgers him into rethinking the morality of the mission - Kirk agrees which leads to the exposure of the main plot. In both of those cases, failure to listen leads to or would lead to trouble.

I'd say a lot of people learn that authority and power clearly don't make anyone trustworthy and it's good to have a surprise play at hand.

Also, it shows right at the beginning that actions do have consequences. Kirk chooses to completely disregard the prime directive to save Spock and promptly gets his ship yanked out from under him and sent back to the academy. From where he is rescued by his personal friend into being first officer on the Enterprise and then gets back command of the ship by, um, "luck", but aside from the power of nepotism ( and intrigue ), it is shown that his being super gung-ho and trying to be not accountable to the rules simply doesn't work out well for him.

Spoony did a Vlog for the movie here, if anyone is interested.

Oh, there were a lot of lulz around the table, especially since the player currently is vacationing in the US. But since hero points saved the day, I thought a proper write-up wouldn't be necessary. This double-death action here could not be contained, though ^^

I installed MEHEM today and I must say, this ending works much more to my satisfaction. What can I say, I'm a sucker for happy endings. And no more Catalyst, which is a giant plus, too.

Too bad it can't remove the ginormous plot hole where the Reapers capture the Citadel and for some reason decide not to shut off the mass relays ( the entire point of Sovereigns plan in Mass Effect 1 ), but what can ya do.

Character Name: Toshiro Kurosawa ( Fighter 1/Wizard 5/ Eldritch Knight 5 )
Adventure: The Ruby Phoenix Tournament ( Interlude to replace Munasukarus Penance )
Location: The last exhibition match
Catalyst: Standing in front of an Atamahuta without much of a plan and no defensive magic deployed

What happened:

The last exhibition match before the finale was underway, and the party faced a lowly Ettin. Well, not really an Ettin, but a shapechanged Atamahuta. Sadly for the party, none of the players bought a clue and tried to find out what was wrong with that scenario, although they did manage to see that Kiang Zheng, the Earth Yai bound into service to the tournament, showed an unusual interest in this fight. Still, nobody made any connection.

The match began and after Toshiro and Chidori, one of the two party Ninjas, had made their move, the rest of the party was trapped in a very well rolled Black Tentacles spell ( CMB 16 + rolled 18 = vs. CMD 34 ). This occupied the party for the next 1 1/2 rounds, until Kazumi Kaijitsu, the party bard, managed to make her concentration check and dispel the magical effect.

By this point, however, Chidori and Toshiro had engaged the Atamahuta in close combat. Chidori went down in the first round, yet still found herself alive, albeit at negative hitpoints. In the second round, when the Black Tentacles went down, Falk, the archer fighter, began hammering down the hitpoints of the Atamahuta, although about 40 points of damage per round remained stuck in the Stoneskin spell it had running. Toshiro was the next to go. The Atamahuta critted him right down to -40 HP with his third attack, yet Toshiro spent two hero points to stabilize at -1 HP. Dario Nevara, the partys priest of Saranrae, revived him with a channel energy and Toshiro took up Suishen and tried to stand up... which of course triggered an attack of opportunity, dropping him straight down to -18 HP, killing him again, for real this time.

He subsequently was returned from the dead in the same round via Breath of Life and the Atamahuta went down under the constant barrage of arrows from Falk... but I hope this time the player finally learned his lesson about standing in front of giant creatures when they are about to full attack. His last character was Akira, the Samurai.

Oh, and in the session last week, Falk got hit by Hok Fun the Eunuch with a Confusion spell and critted Dario from full 63 HP to -17 HP ( dead ) with one arrow. But Dario spent his two hero points and is fine, so it didn't seem worth an obituary. ^^

In general I am happy with the game. But there are areas where improvements could and should be made.

I am quite aware, especially after a lot of developer feedback from James and Sean, that big changes to existing rules won't happen in this edition. So, I could either just shut up until the next edition comes along OR give feedback right now, participate in discussions where problem areas are crystallized and generally have fun with ( the large majority ) of the regulars on this board.

I'll take option two. :) Paizo is doing great, but they could still do better. Giving constructive criticism is helping good writers to become even better.

What I would like to see with a Pathfinder 2.0:

- A serious look by the developers at what the most constant complaints on the forum are about bad classes ( Monks, Rogues, Summoners, Gunslingers, IMO ) and a revision of them into something more appealing.
- Trying to make the math work at the higher levels
- An alternative way to deal with the magic item inflation ( Christmas tree effect, big six, etc. )
- A look at the core philosophies for some of the game systems, in the sense of "Why are these things working in this particular way?", in regards to magic item crafting and the "rest system - 15 minute work day" problem.

And that is just a bad summary of topics which would need to be expanded much more to make real sense, but which all should be examined in more detail when the time for a new edition comes.

"Roy, you beat Xykon, got your dad's approval, and proved to the world that fighters don't suck"

Bwahaha! :D

- Vancian Casting -

The magic mechanics needs to get away from this tired and annoying concept.

No, it does not. Seriously, this is one of the iconic things of D&D. 4E tried to get rid of it, and where are they now?

Cheapy wrote:

The ignore script works very well. It'd be interesting to see who most people get it for. I know I've given it out to a number of users due to a specific person.

I like to think that I'm the #1 most blocked person.

Considering that I can't think of a single negative incident regarding your person, I highly doubt it. :p

Considering that the one person on my ignore list is responsible for negative incidents in the high double digits, I'm pretty sure who is the most blocked person.

Thanks for the clarification. I wouldn't mind a more comple metaplot, but I just love those long novel series, so my preference is pretty clear on that alone.

Well, I think I already made my point at least two times, so repeating it once again would not add much radically new to the discussion. I'll let it lie, my feedback has already been given and obviously read by James and others from the development staff. It's up to them how and if they intend to act upon it in the future.

If you don't mind the conversion work from 3.5 to PF ( which has been mostly done by other people already and is available in the sub-forum ), Curse of the Crimson Throne is an excellent AP, which has good segments of everything one would like to see in a campaign.

Charging should not be a limited use ability at all, rather one on a cooldown like a breath weapon. Also, it needs to be made clear that you can charge through anything, even friendlies and enemies alike.

Also, the Nova equivalent should give a limited invulnerability effect ( Damage Reduction, perhaps? ).

magnuskn wrote:

The two of them were together in the original series, she was the father of his son ( who subsequently was killed in the third movie ).

Wait, wait, wait. How does that work?!

Brainfart on my part, sorry. Of course she's the mother of Kirks son in the original timeline.

I'm going to ask you to go back and read what's already been said. I think you're missing some crucial pieces of the discussion. I'll be happy to help clear up specific questions you have, but much of this is already asked-and-answered, as it were.

It's not important that most parties have, at some point, worked for the "greater good" or on behalf of a higher belief. It is noteworthy that nearly all of them have, at some point, tackled incredibly dangerous challenges, repeatedly, for the sake of personal gain in a way that no actual person would do unless they exhibited the traits I outlined (psychotically-suicidal, foolish, etc.).

This is a direct result of the dichotomy between how actual people behave, and how people controlling imaginary people behave, particularly within the construct of a fantasy roleplaying game where this behavior is expected and even encouraged. The disincentives that might be present in the real world (the danger of actual death, for instance) do not threaten the people playing imaginary characters in a fantasy world, and even though most try to exhibit some semblance of "realistic" portrayal of their characters, the desire to act in such an unconventional way seeps through.

This has nothing to do with whether I love adventuring. Of course I love adventuring. Who doesn't? It's one of the main reasons I play D&D. What I'm not a fan of is looking too closely at the game world, or expecting it to be highly "realistic". Those are not reasonable expectations to have of a fantasy roleplaying game, and it is almost unfailing that people who play a fantasy roleplaying game with those expectations will eventually become disillusioned by the experience's failure to live up to what they came in expecting. It's much better to go in with the understanding that you are playing a game, and that this game is - by necessity - a highly imperfect attempt at simulating a fantasy world. Enjoy it for what it is, rather than what you wish it could have been.

The mistake I see you making is that, even while saying that you can't look to closely for realism in Pathfinder, you are still doing exactly that.

Player characters are not normal human beings ( completely putting aside that they are often not even humans at all... they are mostly still humanoids played by humans ). They may start out as equivalents to us in many regards, but after a certain level, they are super-people. You can throw a 10th level character off a 200 meter cliff and he will probably survive the fall, dust himself off and go about his business a few seconds later.

Since leveling mostly happens very fast, the player characters may not have too good an idea of what they really are capable of, but most of them will be cognizant of that very fast. Hence, the insane idea of taking on a dragon as big as a house is not as insane for them as you seem to view it yourself. They know that they are capable of getting it done.

Random encounters and such are not supposed to give treasure in APs. The adventure has about 120% WBL ( if we expect everything to be sold at 50% for items and 100% for gems/art ) for four characters in it, to account for groups missing some stuff. If you have a non-standard group size, you need to adjust the loot somewhat if you want to keep within WBL.

Also there was that one scene where the new female science-officer character strips to her undies for no reason, because apparently the perfect egalitarian future is STILL super sexist. Great.

Well, she was changing clothes, which involves stripping down. But I agree that it was a hamfisted way of building some ( very minor ) sexual tension between her and Kirk. The two of them were together in the original series, she was the father of his son ( who subsequently was killed in the third movie ).

Except that Specialist Wizards all get Capstone abilities. So why not the Generalist? And what makes a level 20 Cleric so much more awesome than a level 20 Druid or a level 20 Specialist Wizard?

That's true, although I think my point still stands: Those classes are already awesome, they don't really need to be awesome-er at the last possible level of the game.

magnuskn wrote:

Well, it's not as if you guys are impotent to change things in, uh, your game. ^^ Errata is always possible ( if not always practical, which I do understand ).

Errata is about fixing things that are broken; adding *new* rules is a different thing altogether. New rules are added to the game in new books, not quietly slipped in to new printings of existing books. Doing that would annoy a lot of people.

Fair enough, although I think the fixes to the Monk from a few months ago are kind of a borderline case. But I do know the problems with new rules for existing classes, James explained that at length a few months ago.

Which is why I am not as averse to the very idea of a new edition a few years down the line as many other people here are. I only hope that you guys do a gigantic round of feedback gathering before committing to your own ideas when it happens. ;)

Okay. Let me expand upon that then. ;) Why did the design team choose not to give capstone abilities to Clerics or Generalist Wizards? It almost seems... odd seeing the capstone is meant to encourage a player to stick with a sole class instead of bouncing between several classes.

Because those classes already are awesomely powerful and sticking with them gives you huge rewards, against which, frankly said, the capstones of other classes are just lackluster. A single extra level 9 spell per day is way, way better than any "save vs. death... if you manage to hit me" effect.

Edit: And this was said playfully. If you're ready to stop, please don't let me egg you on. It might be time to just disagree. :)

Yeah, I think everybody here has said her/his piece and recognizes by now that our positions are not reconcilable. ^^

Saw it last week. Great movie, better and more emotional than Iron Man 3.

I feel like a lot of folks proposing Swashbuckler crunch are really just proposing a list of 5-6 feats that could show up in an Ultimate Intrigue resource someday, and be picked up by a fighter, rogue or our much-hungered for swashbuckler base class.

I don't. ^^

A new base class should come with a new mechanic completely unlike any we already have - something different than grit, magus arcana, judgements, etc. Otherwise those could just be "swashbuckling" archetypes for those respective classes.

I don't think we need to cook up completely new mechanics all the time do have an exciting class.

Steve Geddes wrote:

Personally, I dont think there's anything wrong with just granting the capstone ability at whatever you think is likely to be the final level of the campaign.

This.

Oh my god how I wish we'd put this in print in the core rules. "Your capstone ability can be gained at the final level planned for your campaign."

Of course, I also wish we'd given a capstone ability to clerics... but that's a different story.

Well, it's not as if you guys are impotent to change things in, uh, your game. ^^ Errata is always possible ( if not always practical, which I do understand ).

Actually, no. Right now I do NOT have a Paizo book about Golarion elves. Thus whether or not the book is accurate makes no difference to me.

So, consistency in your argumentation is fully optional. Got it.

However, why don't you go and create a "Paizo needs to create a new edition of Pathfinder" discussion thread and let this one return to the discussion of Wrath of the Righteous. Which I tried to do and you promptly ignored in order to keep beating on a hooved mammal that is pining for the fjords.

You can yell at Jim, too, for that matter, since he pointed out that this topic has relevance to Wrath.

Anyway, since it is very apparent that we already said out pieces and won't agree, I'll stop it here.

One thing to consider about Paizo is if the company is privately owned or publicly. It's a Limited Liability Company, which suggests to me it's privately owned. As such, constant growth is not as important as making a profit. Thus you don't need new editions every X years to make investors happy. Instead, you come out with a new edition if it is needed. Until it is needed, we won't see one. And rules conflicts because of Feats or the like is not an "as-needed" model as FAQs and Rules Clarifications can always be posted online... or maybe just maybe the GM can decide for him or herself on which rule has priority.

You are seriously suggesting that Paizo not ever bring out a new edition, because... uh, stuff. Really?

You have RIGHT NOW a Paizo book about Golarion elves which is not accurate in some regards as to how the race actually works, i.e. sleeping habits and probably some other stuff. Edition changes happen, man.

Of course I do. Same answer.

Because, simply put, the more effort you need to invest in order to learn a new game game, the less likely you are to do so. Really think about it for a moment with a viewpoint as objective as possible. Maybe you are special and delight in delving into a world that went through several jumps in timeline, requiring you to learn not only the way things are in the "present" but also SEVERAL older versions of the same world (and it will be several, because according to your own logic, Pathfinder 2.0 would eventualy be replaced by Pathfinder 3.0, and so on), but for most people that's just too much of a headache. Or it might be. Any way you look at it, increasing the "bar of entry" - that is, the minimal effort you need to invest in order to get into a game - also filters away all the people for whom the previous bar of entry was borderline...

Well, I guess Paizo better stop publishing new campaign material RIGHT NOW, because by your logic, new players would be too confoozled by all those nations on the map and all those books and APs which are already out, dealing with those nations.

Hey, judging by wraithstrikes comment, I wonder if he would get into Golarion as a new player, if he would have the choice to do so right now. There's already so many materials to buy and read and understand...

My point: Advancing the timeline is not significantly different to your argument than the world filling up with published sourcebooks. Have some faith that players, especially RPG players, are more intelligent and capable and willing to learn about something they want to get into.

Here's the question: Why would Pathfinder need a new edition? Perhaps the only complaint I have over Pathfinder is the ultra-short spell durations (and the fact that the feat Spell Extension is pretty much useless for spells like Invisibility or the like). The game mechanics work fairly well, so really the only genuine need would be to either consolidate all the classes and races into one book (doubtful), or to revise the rules for small fixes and the like to improve playability.

Is there a desperate need for the latter? If not, then why have a new edition?

Editions have cycles. First, there are the additional rulebooks, which give more options and more details. Then, after those are done, there come the exacting details, which only serve a niche audience ( Undead book, Dragon book, and so on ). Paizo is burning the candle at both ends in that regard, because their setting books basically are printing those end-of-cycle books at the same time when their RPG line is doing the crunch books. As far as the crunch books go, we are already at "NPC statblocks" and "campaign advice", so there's still about one major round of "new classes and feats" left after that and a bit more fluff disguised as crunch.

But at the end of the day, at some time you have done all the crunch you can do and the system is groaning under all the weight of the rules ( which tend to begin to conflict with each other with each new set of feats, spells and classes added ). So you don't really have new material to publish, which means you need to make a decision: Fire people or publish something new and exciting. And a new edition normally makes people excited. Oh, and you can republish all that material you already published once, only "new and improved".

That's why a new edition is inevitable. The question is only, how long until the day arrives when the developers are ready to admit that they are going to publish one.

Which, as far as my players go, can still be significant. One of the most common complaints I hear from them is that "we used to play until level 20". Every AP which finishes early ( most at level 16, it seems ) is somewhat of a disappointment to them.