mearrin69's page

Maybe it should have it, why not? I'd houserule it in if my player wanted his barbarian to have Profession...except maybe Librarian, unless he had a darned good reason. "You. Owe. Garn. LATE FEE!!!"

BUT you don't need to put skill points into Profession (xyz) to have that as part of your background. Honestly, how many Profession (Goatherd) checks are you really going to be called upon to make in game? That's better handled mechanically with Handle Animal anyway. Profession (Prostitute) checks? Not in my game but YMMV.

Profession doesn't come into much use in my games anyway though I try to put it into play if players pay skill points to add it to their sheets (that's only fair). Mostly ends up being akin to a Knowledge check, though I could see something like Sailor getting used a lot in a nautical campaign.

I'm a firm believer that this game should have primary (i.e. adventuring) skills, that work the way skills currently do, and background skills, that get paid for out of some pot available at character creation...and maybe along the way with character advancement too. Otherwise most players will rarely put skill points into interesting "character-building" skills like profession and craft.
M

A note on systems: Saga is quite good, especially if you're used to 3.5. The old Alternity was pretty good as well. If you want more detail/realism maybe have a look at GURPS. Finally, and I have yet to play it, but Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader look pretty good if you like that universe and WHFRP-style rules.

I think that the same elements that make sci-fi fiction entertaining come together to make sci-fi gaming good as well...and it's highly dependent upon what genre/playstyle you and your players like. Decide if you're playing Alien, Aliens, Dune, Hitchhiker's Guide, Lost in Space, Outland, Red Dwarf, Star Trek, Star Wars, or what. Obviously I don't mean to choose one of those universes (unless you want that) but that you should think about your game adn how you want it to feel...and those movies/books/shows and others will be a good way to relate to each other how you expect the game to be. If a guy shows up wanting to play a game like Aliens he's going to be disappointed with your Red Dwarf game (most likely).
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Now my internet's down while they upgrade...posting from Crackberry. Assume bless and divine favor are up. Could you guys take actions for Rani in the meantime? This thing isn't made for message board posting. Thanks!
M

My group prefers to roll over receiving average hp...but we have a house rule that if you don't like your roll you can have the DM reroll for you (and you keep his/her roll even if it's worse). Works well for us.

As a DM I use average hp for all opponents as I assume this is figured into their challenge rating and I don't really want to mess with that in either direction...with my luck Karzoug would end up with minimum hp, and that wouldn't be a very climactic battle, would it?
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The PCs in my RotRL game loot a little but have passed on many valuable things that they have perceived as 'tainted' - unholy ogre hooks, magical masks made from leather of humanoid origin, pricy unholy symbols of demonic gods, etc. They've also simply burned down various evil places rather than searching room-by-room for goodies.

I don't sit down and add up missed treasure and try to match it GP for GP but I am certainly more inclined to add specific items that meet some party need where there were none. If they were stripping the wallpaper from the dens of evil and trying to sell it second-hand I would be much less likely to do that.
M

I'd definitely be up for playing if so. If not maybe I'll try to put a game together...but I'd rather play. :)
M

Heya. Maybe check out the D&D 3.5 book Frostburn (think that's what it is called). Lots of relevant stuff in there, including both natural and supernatural hazards...like negative-energy snow and such. I plan to raid that book when we get to that part of the AP.
M

Good deal, glad you'll be there again. Get those quick. I hear they're getting hard to find. :) I still need to get a couple of the last books (War, Intrigue, Droids, forget if there's another one) for the sake of completism.

Okay: everyone please give me a vote for era and what sort of stuff you'd be interested in doing and what types of characters you'd like to play. I'm pretty well decided that I don't want to run a Jedi game unless it's all-Jedi, BTW. Despite assurances to the contrary I think Jedi are more powerful than characters of other classes.

Thanks!
M

Well, that's two - and one vote for Dark Times. Can we count on Attic Whisperer as well?

@zylphryx: Oh yeah. It's all about the brains.

Heya. We sure do. I had the adventure I ran last year on-tap but don't have anything ready to go this year. I'm pretty sure we can get enough people together for a good game (as I'm bringing at least one friend, maybe three) but I'll need to figure out what to run...you have any preferences?

Nice treat. I guess we'll forgive you for missing out on the ongoing discussion for a while :) Enjoy the show...never been to one of their concerts but I'm a newly minted fan of their music (yeah, I skipped music appreciation class for the last fifteen years and am only now catching up).
M

I played the Frogger LARP last year. No turtles or gators but a heck of a lot of Hondas and Acuras. Oh, and, this year, you want to be especially careful of the *Toyotas*. :)
M

High Priest here, I guess. Have to learn more about the roles, though. Not sure what a Marshal does. We talking Wyatt Earp or what?
M

This is absolutely the way we played RPGs back in the day. I don't even remember a sketch of the battlefield happening.

With 3.5 and Pathfinder, however, I have a hard time picturing just how to do it because combat is very tactical and so many of the PCs abilities are "square-based". It would lead to utter confusion in my games, even if I was able to maintain a perfect map of the action in my head...which I could not do if I had a gun pointed at me.

So, I have no tips for you except that maybe you want to look at all of the precise tactical abilities available and make sure they work within your more abstract combat style...and let players know how they work with it as well. I presume you must already be doing something like this since you seem to be running games successfully with this style.
M

Yeah, color me confused too. I read Ed Greenwood's description before I read the monster info...and I said ??? (no, really, I did). :)

My guess is that this description is for another, upcoming monster? Didn't notice the wyrm-thing's description, though.
M

Other than that, it looks like we just need to see the cleric and we'll be rounded out and ready to rock!

Working on it! :) Will post it in my profile shortly [edit]Okay, mainly up. Still have to choose gear, which will let me fill in melee weapon and get a real AC in there. Also, still working on the description/background.[/edit]

LOL. Cleric it is...I haven't had a chance to play one yet under Pathfinder so it's cool with me.
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Man. You guys are on the case! :) Still doing some last-minute real-world work but will try to get a character worked out tonight and posted by in the morning.

@Max: Did you decide on a character yet? I had thought maybe I'd be interested in either a ranger or a cleric (Erastil, maybe) but I don't want to step on your toes since you already mentioned a ranger.
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Hi guys,
Unfortunately it looks like we lost most of the cast as well as our DM. I'm going to take the opportunity to join a Kingmaker PbP that's just starting up.
M

Great. I'll work on something tonight and post it in my profile for review. I have no idea about a concept at the moment but will read the players guide again quickly for some inspiration.
M

Awesome. Looking forward to it!
M

Inundated indeed. :) Looks like you'll get a full complement of players pretty quickly.

BTW, I have no preference on race/class. Maybe cleric but I'm completely open.
M

Couldn't say what's written but look at the real world: it's harder to get what you originally paid when you try to sell a used hammer (even a really nice one in good shape) but you can probably sell a ring or piece of artwork for the original price or even more, depending upon style etc. (assuming you paid a fair price to begin with).

Also, the value of art objects is entirely subjective - one man's trash is another man's treasure. A fine work of "art" in the goblin community might be worth nothing in a human town. A dwarf's "noodling" at the foundary might sell for a fortune in that same human town. Pablo Picasso could have paid for your entire family's dinner (and I'm including distant relatives here) by doodling on a napkin and handing it to the waiter.

I usually let the PCs sell treasure items at the listed value with exceptions: 1) if they're in an undesirable form (platinum idols to evil gods and the like) and they have trouble finding a buyer I'll usually mark them down 50%, sold as scrap; and 2) they're highly desirable to some buyer, in which case they might get a lot more for the item (books to a collector, etc.) YMMV.
M

Hey there. I'd love to give Kingmaker a go. Was all queued up for a Legacy of Fire PbP but the DM for that took ill and then disappeared. It would be my first time playing a PbP too and I can't even imagine how tough it is to run one.

The character I made for LoF is in my profile...she obviously wouldn't work for this game but I offer it as an example. I'm not opposed to powerful characters but my main interest is in telling a story, not number-crunching (and I'm not particularly good at it.)

I can probably manage to post something at least once a day during play, often more than that.

You can see from my "descriptor line" that I'm an AP subscriber...so I have in fact seen the first book and perused it. I'd be willing to put the others on the shelf as they arrive, however, and I'm capable of keeping player knowledge out of my character's hands.

I'll check back to see how the recruiting goes but I'm definitely interested in playing if you can pull it together.
M

Holy...I thought I had problems. Some of those kids need to get eaten by Malfeshnekor. :)
M

Okay. I've officially taken it too easy on the party. We just finished book three with no deaths - oh, sure, lots of bystanders and such. Guess I need to make life a bit more difficult because I sure figured I'd be posting here at some point with a RIP or two.
M

I do a mix; having the bad guys do whatever I think they should do in a given situation. Honestly, the most powerful ones (that aren't also crazy) usually have a way out if they can swing it at all - and I rewrite the encounters of published adventures to give them that backdoor. Why the heck wouldn't you fly away if you could, or d-door, or teleport, etc. if you were getting your butt kicked and still had some evil plans that needed executing?

That said, I don't try to frustrate my players by having every bad guy get away...but it has definitely made them more aware of potential escape attempts when the enemy's starting to look like he's done with the fight because they know not everybody's going to fight to the death.
M

We usually agree that items go to the party member who can most benefit the party by having it. If you don't have that explicit "contract" within your party it might be time to do so. Barring that you might try the "even-split" thing where everything found goes into a pool and is split evenly - if someone wants to "buy" a found item they pony up enough of their cash split to play half of the cost of the item, otherwise it gets sold.
M

Oh, also, tongue-in-cheek: I think the rouge should only lay claim to whatever sponge applicators the party might come across. ;P~ Maybe bristle-sticks too, assuming the party doesn't need them for Nystul's Magical Pigments (or whatever non-descript name they've been given in Pathfinder). :) Sorry. Couldn't resist.

I have said before but don't think I received an answer that there appears to be an error in the rulebook. In one passage it says that you can't cast spells with a somatic component while grappled but under grappling it says that you can do anything that requires only one free hand AND the description of somatic components says that it requires one free hand.

Just looking at that one set of items alone says to me that something is in error in the rules: the first item I mentioned directly contradicts the other two and I can't see any way to reconcile the two. In my game, until I get a clarification, I rule that you can indeed cast spells with a somatic component while grappled (not while pinned, of course, and not while you're the grappler).
M

I think it was noted somewhere that W.A.R. was inspired by his wife's bath sponge one day while taking a shower. I looked around but haven't found anything similar.

I'm thinking a trip to Michael's would yield some nice googly eyes and other things for making a nice gobbo hand puppet.
M

Heh. It just developed naturally. :)

The cleric's player is our group's other DM. She ran Crypt of the Everflame and plans on moving us into a modified Red Hand of Doom next. In the interim we fought off some bugbears/hobgoblins that had taken over a local goblin tribe and was forcing them to raid caravans and such (they had never been a problem before). My paladin (Iomedae) and the rest of the group sided with the ousted goblin shaman and helped "liberate" the tribe (with little loss of goblin life). Turns out they had turned a shrine to Torag in the ruins they were lairing in into some sort of primitive sun-worship temple. My character gave them some inspiring stories of Sarenrae and I'm pretty sure they're in the process of becoming little zealots. I'm hoping they take part in the upcoming story...I'm dying to see a goblin pally of Sarenrae.
M

Awesome. Never thought of it but I am so going to get a puppet now...or make one.

My group's cleric of Sarenrae rescued a baby goblin from Thistletop and has commended it to the care of Father Zanthus while she's out adventuring...but she checks in on it whenever she's back in Sandpoint. He's growing quickly and has taken to playing with a wooden scimitar and absolutely LOVES fire. We think he will be a devout Golarionly messenger for the Dawn Flower someday...and we think the goblin tribes of the Lost Coast will really take to his sermonizing. Goblins? Fire? Natch.
M

I don't know the answer by RAW, but I'd allow it in my game - there's not really a good reason IMHO to force him to take it at level-up. Flavor-wise, maybe he's spending his time working on the techniques that will result in him acquiring the feat next level.
M

I was really looking forward to *playing* this. :) If nobody else in the group is able/willing, however, I might be able to step in...I know it's a heck of a lot of work, though.

I think we lost MythrilDragon/Eli already. Is everyone else still on deck?
M

I recommend the font creations of Nate Piekos.

Thanks for that link. For the record, I sort of like Papyrus...but, yeah, I probably wouldn't use it for anything I did beyond our gaming table because of "designer rage". :) Worse than "nerd rage" any day.

I will certainly run something but haven't had a chance to put anything together yet. What's the deadline for getting on the official calendar? I ran a Star Wars game last year but didn't get it 'registered' for the list.
M

Well, them too. :) I don't really know any, though...though I am aware of Hugo Solis (did a lot of the wayfinder stuff, right?). Maybe we should get a list of "local" artists together so that we can know who to approach for commissions.

I myself, along with GP, make a decent map (IMHO, anyway) if somebody's looking. Here's one of mine along with a work in progress for the community worldbuilding project over at Cartographer's Guild. Look up some of GP's in that forum...he's got some great stuff.
M

We hung out for a lo0ong time playing Star Wars in one of the meeting rooms...nobody came to kick us out. Think we finished near 11 pm.
M

I'm in the same boat as you but took the route of trying to improve my art skills as I work on my product. Probably will end up trying to commission some cheap-but-good art from one of the artists on a forum (deviantart, conceptart, etc.)

Bad art can really ruin the presentation of a product. I *love* Steve Jackson Games' GURPS 4th edition but a lot of the art is pretty bad (they used to stick with black-and-white passable art but went with color this time and didn't budget much for art) *especially* in Magic, where the artist mostly did pretty crummy Poser paint-overs. I still like the book...but BOB I hate looking at the pictures.
M

Awesome. The artist managed to make Karzoug cute(ish)?
M

Man, I actually loved the mites vs kobolds thing. I like when you can do non-standard stuff in D&D...getting on the good side of a kobold tribe is definitely non-standard.

I'm playing in a game that started with Crypt of the Everflame and is merging into some sort of take on Red Hand of Doom. We ran into a tribe of goblins that had been taken over by some hobgoblin/bugbear soldier types and, instead of slaying the goblins and taking their gear (yech!), my paladin (Iomedae) and the rest of the group managed to liberate them (with only a couple of casualties on the goblin side) and convert their nascent sun-worship into a budding love of the goddess Sarenrae. I think they'll play a part in the story to come...if I know the DM, that is.

I also liked the fey encounter (the fairy dragon and grig girl-bug thingie).

Tombs and dungeons are good too, of course.
M

@James: If it's any consolation I'd like to note that I thought I would not be interested in KM in the least. Now that I have it and have read it I am actually pretty excited...to the point that I wish I wasn't in the middle of running RotR at the moment. I may not run it as the next item on my agenda but I will, at the very least, do something similar.
M

Last year was a little close...I found out the scenario just a few days before heading up and received a draft copy (Word doc) to prep for the game. Even so, I think I had plenty of time to read it through, grab minis, etc. I was able to get a copy of the final adventure (or nearly final? not sure) when I got to the event.

I wouldn't expect it to be that close this year; sounded like that might have been a special circumstance.
M

I guess if we don't hear from CH soon we'll have to declare him missing in action...hope he's okay. Aaliyah may decide to look for another caravan to Kelmarane as well. CH, you there?
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Yeah. If you want it that badly I'll part with mine for only 100 large. When Saga's Starships of the Galaxy became hard to find it was listed in the hundreds on Amazon by some mook...but you could still get it from a number of online distributors at below list.

As my mother used to say, "Askin' ain't gettin'"
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Hey, those are great!
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Heya CH! Hope you're feeling better. If you can please drop us a note so we know you're still alive. No pressure to start the game until you're fully well but we want to know if we need to send someone over to check on you. :)
M

We have a potentially fumbling character make a DC 15 Dex check to avoid it...otherwise draw a card. Just couldn't see how the AC of the opposing party had anything to do with it.
M

These are awesome.
M

I don't have a lot of experience but will echo the comments of Majuba and Sean. I ran a Star Wars game at Paizocon last year and expected it to be long (i.e. not a 4-hour slot) but I still planned for how I might remove a number of the scenes if we were going long (but had them handy if we blazed through). It really is best if you can get your regular group to play through whatever you're thinking of running to make sure you've got all of the gotchas and timing down.
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