sunbeam's page

1,589 posts. No reviews. No lists. No wishlists.


1 to 50 of 134 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | next > last >>

1 person marked this as a favorite.

What about a miniature copy of your character? Could call him "Mini-me."


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Can a Ravener Hunter use the ring that gives an extra revelation?


1 person marked this as a favorite.

What is the beef with thread necromancy? If there is still debate about the original topic (and there are things that still have not been officially clarified since Pathfinder came out 7 years or so ago), why not?


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Berinor wrote:


Edit: In the interest of full disclosure, I'm generally not disturbed by importing skilled labor. It's a net gain to the US productivity if we reap the benefits of their education and don't have to pay for it.

The problem with that is that the world is awash in surpluses of skilled labor.

What actually happens is that H1B visas are issued, for example, and the existing labor force finds itself replaced by cheaper labor, and finds its potential earnings curtailed versus what they would be in a market where this wasn't possible. All so that Microsoft and Facebook have a better bottom line for their Satanic Code Mills.

There is literally nothing (not even the common example of doctors), that requires an advanced degree or professional training that isn't in surplus in the developed world (kind of curious term, but I got nothing better).

And actually there is an argument that countries such as the US "braindrain" countries that train people to be doctors, then see them emigrate to the US (or UK) for higher earnings.

That said, there are other aspects of your argument that you aren't considering.

One is that we have a surplus of people like physicists and engineers. And have had for a long time. Every year people are doing their last postdoc at Fermilab and realizing "That faculty job somewhere? That... that isn't going to happen, is it."

Another is that the native born population finds opportunities for advancement curtailed because of the fact that the limited number of niches are already filled. In this case, they never bother to go through the credentialing process that the physicist I mentioned above went through. An example of this is employing Idris Elba on The Wire. Fat chance anyone from Baltimore gets a gig like that in England.

Now you can pull examples of atypical geniuses, and this is commonly referenced in arguments like this: Einstein, Von Neumann, Kurt Godel, etc. But they are uncommon, and even in periods where it was much more difficult to immigrate to this country, they were allowed in.

(As an aside check out Canada's official policies for legal immigration. You just are not emigrating there unless you are an actuarial benefit to that country. Or you do it illegally, claim you are a refugee, or just plain put a wad of cash down in an investment in Canada. And yes they have actual Canadian dollar amounts you can look up.)

But the whole developed is suffering from underemployment, and it is an increasing challenge to deal with it. Automation, laissez faire trade policies, and the like have contributed to it.

Well except for Asian nations. They never bought into all this free trade stuff, and are happily pursuing nationalistic trade policies.

Well the wealthy ones are.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

I thought this thread was going to be a little more abstract. You know like what kind of Dwarven artwork would be Evil.

And I was thinking anything that involved nudity.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Related to that, is something that you used to see on occasion.

Let's say a series has a number of one, two, even three issue stories. But in the background, a panel or two here, one there, something is cooking behind the scenes.

The Great Darkness Saga had little things running in the background leading up to it.

The Korvac saga had a buildup going on for a couple of years before they really started the storyline.

I agree with your point, the ability of writers to write a one issue story is kind of lacking now (along with the short story becoming a lost art form).

But one of the unique things about comics is that they also on occasion develop things that can take years to come about.

Another example of that would be the Hobgoblin storyline in Spiderman, though the writer totally screwed that one up when he took over (think Peter David?). He made a plot recovery, but I remember reading an anecdote by him saying that he killed Ned Leeds before he got a chance to read through all the backstory that had been developing, then it was "Oh Crap, it had to be him."

And one of the hallmarks of the first DC crisis story was how it was integrated in continuity in the DC books leading up to it.

Something they have tried to imitate with the later ones to mixed success.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Scythia wrote:

The Curse of Innocent Tears

The bearer of this curse no longer ages naturally. Although they can still be affected by aging effects (gaining penalties as normal, but not bonuses), they cannot die from age. Any time the bearer of this curse would be reduced to zero HP or affected by any effect that would otherwise kill them, the damage or effect they have suffered is inflicted upon a child (the children of the bearer are chosen first, then children related to the bearer, then finally at random), and the bearer is mentally forced to experience the terror, anguish, and suffering the child experiences during this process. The process takes one round, and is considered a Death effect for the child, and the child cannot be returned to life by any means short of divine intervention so long as the bearer of this curse still lives. The child's stolen life energy restores the bearer to full health. The shock of this experience does 1d3 Constitution damage to the bearer and leaves them Shaken for 1 hour. Should the curse be lifted, the bearer may choose to relinquish their life in order to restore one child victim of their choice to life.

Got to congratulate you. That is a first rate plot hook.

Although I think it would probably make a better book than adventure module.

Maybe he writes the name of every child down that has died because of him on his skin? And talks to them in his restless sleep?


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:
strated by her inability to learn magic despite the fact that she clearly does have the Intelligence needed to do so. So while there is no mechanic for the "Gift" as you amply stated, doesn't mean that like gods, you can't have it as a purely story element.

I like that stories like that. NPC Codex was a book right? What was the Rogue's name?


2 people marked this as a favorite.

Here's a question that interests me.

Let's say the setting has an infinite number of "Primes" (you know like in some D&D versions).

A wizard uses a spell to somehow travel to our world and look around.

Would he necessarily like what he sees?

A world where nerds aren't feared and little short of gods as in his own?

A world where frankly the health care isn't as good as a trip to the local temple with a bag of gold?

Just saying that maybe a lot of people would be very interested in seeing a world such as ours never arise.

Heck what's the point of living if you have to use an airplane to fly, or can't read minds, or charm or dominate whoever you choose?

And the wonderful things you can do can be done by ANYONE if they use one of those silly machines instead of putting in decades of study.

No thanks, the world is just the way it should be, and Progress need not apply.

Actually if Progress knocks on the door, it's going to get a fireball in the face.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Ashiel wrote:
Goddity wrote:
Can I propose a ninja for the melee team? Or are we sticking to fighters? "You can't hit what you can't see" and evasion should work ok. (Only if 20th though)
Bards make excellent ninjas. Having in house access to concealment on demand at low levels and greater invisibility at mid levels is pretty sweet. Especially when you're such a martial powerhouse.

To be fair though, golems were a pretty standard anti-caster thing in previous editions (1e, 2e).

But 3rd edition started with the whole thing of conjuration ignoring spell resistance. Then defining things like the Golem's abilities as "perfect spell resistance" or something. It could have have been as nebulous as it always was, you know "total immunity to magic" or something. But it was like someone on the design team had their finger on the scales for casters. Probably because they weren't powerful enough in 2e I guess.

Along with all the other things that made casting easier and more powerful in 3.x (and there were a truckload, all addressed in other threads here and there).

Then Pathfinder adds even more conjuration spells that can affect a fight.

I know what it says on the label, but I think Pathfinder is worse than 3.x as far as this martial/caster disparity goes.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Aelryinth wrote:

Main problem with slingers is how long they take to train to become accurate.

At that same range, with the same targets, likely an archer could have hit two to three times as often, and a crossbowman more often yet.

And while slings are great on bombardment, they don't work as well against rigid armor (but can still break bones on lighter armor and with head shots). Mechanically, the simple fact is you can reach MUCH higher concentrations of force with the use of bows.

Not that slings can't be awesome in their own way, of course.

==Aelryinth

It was either here or on the old WOTC boards, but I read one of the typical threads that came up once about medieval weapons (you know the ones, where everyone has a black belt and practices with slings or longbows or whatever 4 hours a day).

But I went through a lot of the links and did some reading.

Not sure if something like an English Longbow would be included, but the sling is just as lethal and accurate at the same range as most bows.

The caveat is what you said. The proficiency thing from hardest to master to easiest is something like sling -> bow -> firearm.

There were some slingers from some islands off the coast of Spain (Balearic Slingers?) that trained from childhood with the sling, and the Romans found them utterly lethal and dangerous to face in combat.

I guess I could google and find some of that on the web somewhere. And I won't swear I don't have one of my facts wrong.

But the Romans had a very, very healthy respect for the slingers I mentioned. (And as most here will be aware they were using "bullets," not random stones from the ground.)


2 people marked this as a favorite.

You could have a whole pantheon.

Andre, God of Giants
Roddy, God of Pipers and Rowdiness
Rick, God of Rudeness and Ravishing
Adrian, God of Exotica
Hulk, God of Mania
Hillbilly, God of Jimness
Sheikh, God of Iron and Guardian of the Desert
Flair, God of Nature and Boyhood
McMahon, Evil God of the Underworld and Dark Schemes
Ricky, God of the River and Steamboats
.
You can tell my knowledge of wrestling dates to the 80's.

Hmmm you could have mysterious outsiders "Unsanctioned Foreign Objects" in the game.

And Steroids, the food of the gods.
.
Sorry if that was of no help..


1 person marked this as a favorite.

That's another hole with these awards, they don't include self-published titles.

I hope this isn't meandering, but I think that focusing your work into forms that are marketable now, can kind of affect the quality of what you are doing.

To me when you are writing something it is as long as it needs to be to tell a story - and no longer.

I think a lot of fiction, particularly in this genre is bloated, and gets stretched way out. Not only as phone book sized novels, but in series.

If a book I really liked back in the day, Lord of Light by Zelazny, were published today I think they would have forced him to make it longer. And I think it would have been a worse book.

So I guess I am contradicting myself somewhat. I'm not keen on the kind of things literary types look for, but I also think marketing can affect a book from a storytelling viewpoint for the worse as well.

I was kind of struck by all the Martin adulation I've seen online. I was reading him during his Tuf Voyaging/Dying of the Light/Wildcards days. I never bothered to pick up any of his Game of Thrones books because I was totally burned out by all these long series when it started. The same goes for Jordan and Goodkind (though I don't think Goodkind is really that good a writer, his first one was ok, then it dragged on and on - advances be damned, it has to end sometime). I'm still not reading it (Game), HBO is more than enough for me when want some of that.

And as a cynic, I wonder just what the response to Game of Thrones would be if Vox Day wrote it. Let's postulate a world where Martin kicked off about 90 or so from a heart attack; we take all the manuscripts for Game of Thrones to an alternate world and give them to Vox Day to publish through whatever his publishing house is.

Man I bet that would be a feeding frenzy. I can feel the winds of deconstruction across the dimensional boundaries.

To me comics are the best medium for stories taking their natural length. You know the book will be around (well sometimes) long after you are off the book. So you can tell a story in one issue, two, three, have it running in the background for years, whatever the editor will let you get away with.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Lord Snow wrote:
Some ends justify some means

I take it you would be the one to decide that?


1 person marked this as a favorite.
thejeff wrote:

So basically, you've got one site where someone openly provides a slate and says "to nominate them precisely as they are" for the purpose of sticking it to the SJWs and boasts about tapping GamerGate for followers.

And then of course the other side could be doing the same thing or worse, but there is no evidence. Some blog discussions about good books. Some authors posting which books of theirs are eligible.
Sure, someone could do the same on the left. But there's no evidence that they are.

Here's the previous years numbers, btw. 5950 voters this year. 3,587 in 2014. 2122 nominators this year, 1923 in 2014.
You could look further back easily enough.

Ah, evidence. If things happened as I speculate, where would be the evidence?

Looking at the web page, Sad Puppies started in 2013. I'm uncertain as to whether they had any effect that year, but they certainly did in 2014.

So:

2015 - 5950 votes, 2122 nominators
2014 - 3587 votes, 1923 nominators

Okay it would be informative to pull up these numbers for years previous.

But I have a question. Is the discrepancy between votes cast and nominators a feature of this system somehow? Because honestly I don't understand this. I'd think they would be a lot more in synch. I'm not sure how it would play out, but I'd almost expect that you would have more nominators than voters in any given contest. Of course you would have to pull the numbers for previous years (that site you linked to only had two years for the Hugo, 1939 I think was the other).

So 2015 (and 2014 too) had more votes than nominations.

So what happened, the Silent Majority decide to take a stand?

This whole thing is a quandary for me. I'm all for light hearted fun things like John Carter, Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, even Tarzan. I'm all for serious things that make you think.

But I can't imagine wanting to read anything called "Monster Hunter Nation" (okay I guess it is the name for a series of books, but whatever).

And I definitely don't think a story about someone who comes out as gay to their parents because if you lie you get rained on is worth reading in any way. Maybe I'm wrong, but we all have our filters and this sounds just plain dumb. But just to muse, maybe some authors could pull it off. But not it's not likely this was the case for this story.

Heck I turned around one day and found I wasn't really reading science fiction anymore, hadn't done it in years. Last series I saw I was interested in was something about Neanderthals evolving in a parallel world and a crossover, but I didn't pick it up.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Krensky wrote:

Yes, yes...

Everything made after your childhood ended is bad.

You realize old farts have been saying that for as long as we have recorded rants by them, right?

This is country now:

Six Country Song Mashup

These are some oldtimers in their depends, just screwing around:

Ghost Riders

Heck let's go way back, this one had a lot of blues in it, and was covered by a number of bands out of genre:

T For Texas

To me country music is a genre that doesn't exist anymore, at least in what you hear on country stations that play Nashville stuff. Modern country is pop from 20 years ago, with an increasing amount of rap inserted into it. All sung with some incomprehensible accent (too keep it real I guess) that actual coal miners and cotton pickers never had.

Alt country is alive and well I guess. Bluegrass is still around, and never got "corrupted" because there wasn't any money in it.

Kind of sad that my favorite "country" singer now is Corb Lund, from Alberta. Not that I have anything against Alberta, but well you know.

Okay, my argument is that music has declined. I don't think that in general they can play instruments as well, they don't have stage presence or perform as well. There are three bigger problems though.

One is that modern performers and the music business don't seem to be able to write a song. Let's play a little game. Name an iconic TV show theme.

Here's a few to get you started:

Peter Gunn
Perry Mason
Gunsmoke
Bonanza
High Chaparral
Hawaii 5-0
Magnum PI
Gilligan's Island
Maude

Now name me one, or just hum it to yourself from the past 25 years. Other than the Friends theme I got nothin. And if I thought about it, I could add a lot more from pre-1980 like the Andy Griffith theme.

Obviously these are TV theme songs, not standalone works. But if you want I could compare things like "Eve of Destruction" or anything by Bob Dylan to Lady GaGa. You might also say I am cherry picking from roughly 65 years of music (since 1950 or so), and I'd be guilty for obvious reasons.

But I just can't pick out many, if any songs, from about 1990 to now I think will stand the test of time. Meaning that if I turn on the radio I'll hear it played.

I expect to hear this in 2035:

For What It's Worth

I don't anyone will know what a Miley Cyrus or Alan Thicke's kid ever were.

Heck I'll still hear this once in a blue moon somewhere or other in 2035:

In-A-Gadda-DaVidda

Okay this post is getting way long, but you are not all the way off my lawn yet.

Once upon a time you couldn't swing a stick without hitting a vocalist.

Here's one who fell off a turnip truck almost literally and was in a one hit wonder band (with the most hippie song ever it seemed to me):

Baby It's You

Part of this paucity of vocalists is the change in society I think. If you look at the bios of all these 60's and 70's pop stars they ALL sang in church choirs. Plus I don't think kids now try to sing as much. Once upon a time when the radio came on you might hear people start to sing the song (this was so common at one time). They sang in the shower.

Now they twitch on their phones or watch TV or look around on the internet. There's more to do now. But they just aren't actually singing like they once did.

I have to add something to this. I once saw Christina Aguilera on Jimmy Fallon. They gave her some skit to do where she emulated different singers like Cher singing the Folger's Coffee Jingle.

It was incredible. She had range, she could hit notes. But uh, it really wasn't much like anything else in her musical career. A point I want to address in my third "beef."

As an aside I saw a youtube video where Stevie Nicks was doing a duet with Taylor Swift. There is a kind of WTF look and real irritation with Stevie Nicks, because Taylor Swift was off-key and came in at the wrong times. Divas don't put up with much I guess. But Aretha Franklin wouldn't have had that problem, she would have nailed it the first time, probably after one rehearsal.

Another thing to me is that real talent can't make it anymore, if they have the wrong look. Cass Elliot literally could not have had a career in modern commercial music. It used to be black women could get away with being overweight, but that is a vanishing sub-genre as well as least as far as mass market music goes. But again my third beef.

My biggest beef with music now is commercialization. They have always wanted to sell records and make money, even the "artists." But now... it is market research, focus groups, algorithms.

To me the worst genre for this is country. I literally think they shop for people with the right look, then prop them up as performers. It is like a marketing campaign.

Then there are the interchangeable girl singers that are marketed to teenage girls. Kesha, Katy Perry, ... Lady GaGa (she is outside that genre though she appeals to the same demo, she is just so mediocre she pushes my buttons). They are almost all identical, one day they vanish, and someone just like them appears.

I know you've heard them, but compare them to a "hammer:"

Ball and Chain

Well I guess you escaped my lawn. The gnomes wanted a piece of you.

Next time.

But here is a performance on Soul Train from the early 70's (used to be a heck of a show, they started to suck before the end):

Thank You For Letting Me Be Myself

This is another one I expect to hear in 2035, when most of what we have heard the past 25 years or so is forgotten. I put this up because it wasn't the biggest hit of all time, but listening to this, then flipping through channels while I drive...

My god, what's wrong with you kids? Can't you do anything?

Okay, this post is all about music. But the SAME arguments can be made about movies. You are probably bored with this by now though.

And god, I could write so much about animation and artwork. But another time perhaps. Well probably not.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

If this were a computer game, even one based on Pathfinder or D&D things would play out differently as far as balancing goes.

I've played a lot of these games and these are some of the things you will see:

1) Vampires got you down? Well if you equip this weapon you have permanent protection from level drain.

2) Vampires still got you down? Well this helmet gives you total immunity to charm and compulsion spells.

3) This armor gives you 50% fire resistance (well you could see it in a PF derived game, but it would probably be fire dr). That one gives you cold resistance.

4) Those boots of haste work all the time, not 10 rounds a day or whatever. So you can run really fast and "pull" the mobs.

I could go on an on. Some of it is the fact that most of the games we think of in this genre predate 3e, and the items are drawn and inspired by previous editions.

But it is also that the designers of these games made sure that non-casters got the tools needed to accomplish things.

Heck there were some slippers in Neverwinter Nights that made you immune to knockdown.

Now these games obviously have a more limited range than pen and paper. They actually don't allow you to use spells like dimension door and teleport. And a whole lot of things that are doable in pen and paper just aren't implementable in these games (like detect thoughts, charm person interrogation, etc).

But the thing is the kinds of items that can make a difference come on line when needed.

You get things like short swords that have permanent free action, ones that cast haste once a day or mirror image once a day.

If for some reason fly is incorporated into the game, those winged boots will work all the time.

I know most people here have played most of these games. But a Fighter in BGII with all those items at the end is a lot different animal than a fighter of the same level in Neverwinter Nights.

Compare items you see now to items you see in the computer games. The ones in the games are explicitly designed to help the PC overcome challenges.

Plus artifacts are in the books. But when have you ever seen one? I played the Demonweb pits way back and one of the PC's in my game had the Hammer of Thunderbolts/Girdle of Giant Strength/Gauntlets of Ogre power combo.

And he had these things because he had actually played in a module by TSR where it was found.

I've never even seen an artifact in any published adventure since 2000. Obviously there are a ton I haven't.

But the thing is, they used to be found by players. The Hammer I mentioned is totally gimp compared to what it used to be, for a number of reasons.

But even in a written fantasy story it isn't unknown for "Main Character" to find Death's Bane which protects him from level drain, charm, and domination, and go to town on Podunk's vampire infestation.

You just don't see that anymore. It's more like +2 flaming longsword now.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Oooh tough one.

I guess maybe the Sodden Lands cultures that are pretty much destroyed?

Other than that Rahadoum sorta.

Not sure you could map a clear analogue.

Funny how we all have different takes on things. I view Andorran as being something like colonial America (think this one is pretty popular).

I think Cheliax is something like the Spain of the conquistadors.

Nirmathas and Lastwall have some similarities to England and Scotland to my eye.

Always kind of thought as Taldor as French, but you could go Italian with it easily.

Guess it is an eye of the beholder thing.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I know it is a minor point, but I was overjoyed to see that Iris' mother was mentioned at the end of the episode.

No idea how they will play this, or even if it is supposed to be a red herring.

But I really would like to see Iris' mother be from the future. In the comics it was past Zoom's future.

This isn't really a spoiler because there was no mention of anything other than she was gone.

But I got fanboy hopes and dreams now...

Guess they would roll with Bart, but as I've said earlier in this thread I'd love to see XS.

Of course that is a lot to come up with from a name drop, but still...


1 person marked this as a favorite.
LazarX wrote:


The problem is the one YOU"RE brushing aside, the reason for the change in the Summoner, is that your conceptual/mechanically interesting eidolon is also the overpowered eidolon, when it's teamed with the Summoner's equally over powered spell list.

Geez.

Yes or no, a summoner could deal with any given situation better than a wizard or cleric.

Yes or no.

I'd also like to point you to the Beastmass threads. The only summoner I saw in those was a Synthesist.

So, let me get this straight. Even though there were a number of classes that were considered to be more effective than the Summoner (Wizard, Cleric, Sorcerer, Witch for sure with hexes, Oracle probably, Druids even just casting), and classes that did the fighting sidekick thing just as well or better (Druid, some Inquisitors, now Hunters)...

It was necessary to nerf the Summoner. Come on Druids can overmatch melee with wildshape, or overmatch melee with animal companions (minimal spell augmentation), not to mention they are full casters.

Come on. With this system any full caster rocks the world. Heck a Bard with leadership and a cohort can buff up the cohort seriously.

And Summoners were the problem. Right.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Hmmm decided to do a little googling to find all time best selling authors in this genre. I'll choose to accept their categorization and numbers because it was a little more difficult to find than i would have thought.

From: http://thewertzone.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-updated-sff-all-time-sales-list .html

1) J.K Rowling (c. 450 million)
2) Stephen King (c. 350 million)
3) JRR Tolkien (c. 300 million)
4) Stephanie Meyer (250 million)
Dean Koontz (c. 200 million)
Michael Crichton (c. 200 million)
5) Anne Rice (136 million)
6) CS Lewis (120 million+)
7) Edgar Rice Burroughs (100 million+)
8) Sir Arthur C. Clarke (100 million+)
9) Suzanne Collins (100 million+)
10) Andre Norton (90 million+)

I have no idea why they have 3 people listed at 4. I'd have thought Stephanie Meyer would be number 4, and everyone else moved down, but whatever.

A couple things. Most of the people who have mega sales are of what I would call the modern era. Also it appears that for the most part to really sell a lot of books you need to be sellable to a mass market, not a genre one. Also the internationalization of bookselling to the extent it is done with popular products now was much rarer back when.

Even if SF/Fantasy fans read a lot of those books, Tolkien is the only one I'd call a genre author (even if he might have laughed at being lumped in with them, probably Lewis too). Both of the brits really sold mainstream more than genre somehow, especially Lewis.

Tarzan kind of escapes the genre ghetto, pushing Burroughs up (John Carter too, though he is less well known but always in print).

Not sure Clarke would be up here if he hadn't had the good fortune of having Stanley Kubrick make a very successful movie in the late 60's.

So from what I can gather (again assuming the numbers are correct), if you just include pure "genre" authors (and excluding anything with shiny vampires, sexy vampires, horror crossover guys, Hogwarts, Kubrick films, or Oxbridge)...

Edgar Rice Burroughs is number one, with Andre Norton on his heels. Which not surprisingly to me indicates she outsold Heinlein, EE Doc Smith, Asimov, any other Golden Ager, Larry Niven, Frank Herbert, and almost surprisingly Terry Pratchett.

I was actually shocked that Marion Zimmer Bradley was 32 (25 million) and Anne McCaffrey (18 million). It's always seemed like their books sold like hotcakes (or A Princess of Mars though that has been in print and selling since the 1910's).


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Geez they try to give things the patina of history, just like in some fantasy story.

Then attach nuts and bolts to it.

Look, don't have your guy take secondhand titles.

Instead have him say, "History begins now, with me. What came before is unimportant."

Then call himself Powerlord or Magelord or something.

In ten thousand years they won't remember any Runelords. They'll be dungeon delving in the history he made.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I think the Gold Standard for this thread's title was the Chicken Infested Commoner from 3.5. It depended on your commoner having the "Chicken Infested" curse or flaw or whatever it was from Dragon Magazine.

But you could destroy whole worlds with your chickens. There were variations of it that had Iajutsu Chicken Masters, even others that let you throw Flaming Chickens at people.

No way you could duplicate it, but it is a goal to shoot for I think.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Nezzmith wrote:

My personal experience has been that it is the good characters that end up betraying the evil ones in my campaigns.

This series of pictures depicts one of our campaigns.

Evil characters done right can add a lot to a game, and I highly recommend playing one if you think you can pull it off. It's quite a balancing act, but think of the benefits! When that Demon casts Blasphemy you're immune!

Wow that is neat. How did you make that? Is it just a powerpoint kind of thing?

I like what you did, but am even more curious as to how you generated that.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Just musing here, I know that the OP specified a wizard.

But if you think about what a 20th level Bard could possibly do in this scenario...

He doesn't need to summon anything or cast any reality warping spells.

He could literally just show up at the gates, spend a few minutes chatting with the guards, then go inside and unleash holy hell in a very short period of time.

Only thing is that it would be a lot of dice rolling, and put one heck of a load on the dm and the player.

But honestly, what stops a Bard of this level from walking into a city large enough to support Armies of the type mentioned, and convincing them to surrender in a day?

I mean any tavern he visited is going to flip from wholeheartedly supporting the war to being vehemently opposed after he plays his lute a little while.

Like I said no one likes to really play out these things, but he would be a walking mindscrew spreading chaos just by walking through the city.

And the only people who might resist are those with high wisdom, class levels, or extremely high wisdom.

And that is a Bard that is not optimized. If he was you'd have to have class levels and high wisdom to resist the effects. Heck he might convince the King to join the rebellion.

"The Bard Who Came To Sarnath"

My two cents anyway. But other than magic this probably is the easiest way to do something like this.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

Why are you bothering with armies and whatnot?

Just have the wizard take this city by himself.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

I so desperately want this show to be really successful.

This is the only show based on super-hero comics I've ever seen that totally embraces the subject matter, and flips a middle finger at trying to be "realistic."

So utterly cool in that respect. Even movies haven't gone far down this side of things to be honest.

I'm willing to overlook a lot of logical holes (and as we have discussed here the logic holes are in the comics as well) for the sake of seeing this.

Also Harrison... that is a most interesting can of worms.

I love it.

Also big kudos to this show for the special effects they have been able to carry off with the kind of budget they have for a serial tv show.

Incidentally, while I can't imagine any other actors playing Joe West (although that character is invented for the show apparently) or Iris West (now), I was kind of puzzled at the casting decision to change Iris's race.

But then I started thinking, maybe in years to come we'll see one of the kid speedsters from the future. As a legion fan I think I would prefer to see XS as opposed to Bart Allen.

But thinking way ahead, Joe evidently had a wife at some point, and she has never been mentioned as far as I can tell.

I'd think it extremely unlikely, but I wonder if the show would ever incorporate the comic's version of Iris being from the future originally? Seems totally dispensable (is that even in continuity now?), and maybe just adds clutter.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Maybe they ought to drop the whole thing about the Rogue having to flank or have the opponent flatfooted and just give the Rogue some kind of precision damage feature like other classes have. Kind of a break with the past, but maybe it is time.

Another thing might be to actually go back to the ways 3.5 had of getting off sneak attacks (blink, grease, ball bearings, splash damage..) it wasn't overpowered in 3.5, and it definitely wouldn't be in Pathfinder (at least assuming nothing else was changed).

But there are other rogue issues like stealth being hard to pull off, rogues actually being worse at spotting ambushes than wis classes, and other such things.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Phantom Steeds die if something so much as looks at it past a certain level.

"You conjure a Large, quasi-real, horse-like creature (the exact coloration can be customized as you wish). It can be ridden only by you or by the one person for whom you specifically created the mount. A phantom steed has a black head and body, gray mane and tail, and smoke-colored, insubstantial hooves that make no sound. It has what seems to be a saddle, bit, and bridle. It does not fight, but animals shun it and refuse to attack it.

The mount is AC 18 (-1 size, +4 natural armor, +5 Dex) and 7 hit points + 1 hit point per caster level. If it loses all its hit points, the phantom steed disappears. "

One fireball and odds are you are dismounted, not to mention any kind of melee or directed attack.

I like your idea, but to me you are going to need to get something more durable.

I wish there was a guide to mounts in general. Usually you see something for a particular class that discusses it in light of that class' features.

But I'd like to see one that detailed what you could buy, be it an animal or exotic mount, a figurine of some sort, a cohort, or monstrous mount. Then tell how you actually use a skill like handle animal to train mounts.

Actually I'd like to see a guide to handle animal that didn't have anything to do with druids or rangers. Seems like you could do something with a low level fighter and a pack of dogs, but you never see anything like this.

Or a pack of cats. You will destroy villages of commoners with ease.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
andreww wrote:
Evasion is decent but Revelation is better, especially if you have the UMD to activate off Mystery Revelations.

Is this actually a thing now? For all I know the devs said it was legal, but this has been debated in the past with little in the way of a consensus reached.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I wouldn't mind seeing Android ported onto desktop systems. Really you could do the same with Linux, but Android has so many phone and tablet users.

What made Windows big (the fact that end users only want to deal with one OS) could kill it as well.

Just depends on how things play out. But I think it would be a positive thing to have the basic OS people use to be out of the hands of a single company.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

Actually I'm pretty sure they all go to an island in the frozen north somewhere.

Then one day an elf and a reindeer with a glowing nose show up...


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Geez. I'm not the one you addressed, but I'll answer your question. Well with what I think about it.

People say "Shazam," and they have no idea why they say it or where it comes from. Captain Marvel is iconic, just like Batman, Superman, Spider Man, Captain America, the Hulk, Wonder Woman...

The character still has the record for most sales per month (was close to 5 million issues if you added up all the titles he appeared in).

To be honest, Captain Marvel was probably a more popular character than Superman from some time in the 40's to the time the Marvel Family was cease and desisted. It's been a long time but you can google up the legal antics from the 50's. I think knowledgeable people think in retrospect Fawcett could have won a legal battle against DC, but elected not to fight it out.

Now Captain Marvel has a "world" and peeps just like Superman. The wizard Shazam, Uncle Dudley, the Lieutenant Marvels, Tawky Tawny, Captain Marvel Jr (he who Elvis styled his hair after), Mary Marvel, whoever the guy at WHIZ radio was, and a whole lot more. He kind of had some accoutrements like the magic subway train, the Rock of Eternity, the statues of the Seven Deadly Enemies of Man, probably more that didn't stick in my memory.

Captain Marvel's enemies are great, at LEAST as good as Batman's or Flash's, and probably better in total than what Superman had. Doctor Sivana (as Grant Morrison noted he is the template for all other mad scientists), Kull, IBAC, Mister Atom, Black Adam, Mr. Mind, Captain Nazi, give me a while and I'll think of some more.

Now I'd like to state that most of what I am talking about is the original Fawcett run of the Captain, before the publication stoppage.

It's not my theory (though I believe it), but Captain Marvel the original one, just doesn't translate to the modern era. Too much humor, too much goofiness, he had things like Hoppy the Marvel Bunny for pete's sakes.

Attempts to reimagine him in the modern day usually don't really work. If you read the original Fawcett version (DC has or had some hardcover reprints), then read something like Geoff Johns' version of the character you are really put off. Or at least I was.

But the guy is iconic. The gimmick (a kid who becomes a superpowerful champion, the "World's Mightiest Mortal") has been used a few times I know of: Prime, the 2nd incarnation of Mar-Vell in Marvel comics with Rick Jones and the Nega Bands (who says comic book writers don't have a sense of humor?).

Funny thing is that some of the creative guys still get the character. The version in the cartoons Brave and the Bold and Young Justice was well in the spirit of the original character.

In the end, all I can say is read the original stories (40's and early 50's) with an idea for appreciating them with a sensibility not confined to a particular era.

If you do that modern incarnations of the character really just don't seem like The Big Red Cheese, rather just some kind of variant Superman.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

If Batman doesn't work in to this show, I don't get the appeal of the whole thing.

The demographic of people that watch Law and Order and these other procedural shows is probably not the demo watching Gotham.

If I am representative of the target audience, we are going to get real bored of this procedural stuff pretty quickly.

What is this show without Batman? Gritty violence and drama with a cartoonish twist? How long is anyone going to follow a Nygma who never riddles? A Penguin without trick umbrellas?

Maybe comics and Batman give different things to different people. But run of the mill crime bosses like we have seen so far (Maroni, Falcone, Mooney) don't pay the rent in Gotham. Nor do the hitmen types we have seen so far (whoever the black guy was, Victor Szasz, any of the others). Those just aren't the kind of antagonists I personally am interested in. When I was a kid I collected Spider-Man, and I hated, just hated issues with nothing but the Kingpin, Hammerhead, or any of the other "mundanes."

Without the villains going over the top, without Batman and his collection of stuff, you've got just another cop show. Maybe the sensibilities are a little more four-color, but in the end it is just guys with badges and guns running around a generic city.

I think the Nerd audience is going to get bored, and the kinds of folks that normally watch that kind of show will never tune in.

Maybe I'm wrong, what keeps me watching right now is seeing what happens with Penguin, what Nygma does, the odd name drop, and seeing who else shows up. I'm quite positive I'm not going to keep that up for four or five years or whatever would satisfy the makers of this show. I kind of doubt I'll keep it up a whole season.

In retrospect this past episode was a little disappointing. For god's sake, we had a "retcon" with Penguin and Falcone.

Then there is the fact that the Mayor now knows Gordon is willing and wants to arrest him. That has to be a little awkward. Even without killing him, there are all kinds of ways to get a guy like Gordon drummed off the force, since as presented every politician in Gotham is owned by someone. Who exactly would stick their neck out, or go out of their way to defend Gordon or pull strings if he was stuck with a sexual harassment charge or something and fired? It might be ludicrous to anyone that knows Gordon, but you can manufacture and spin anything if you want, and the papers and media will eat what is in front of them.

I kind of think this show is overusing Penguin so far. Even with the way they are using him, it would be a stretch if he could get Gordon out of something like that.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I don't know if it an edition wars thing, but I am very interested in 5e.

The reason is my favorite version of the game is the Rules Codex/BECMI version. I am sick and tired of combats taking so long, of so much prep time to run something, of so many different spells, fiddly bits like CMD and CMB, attacks of opportunity, I could go on and on.

I want to be able to make up something by pulling it from my rear end as we play. I want to be able to actually make up a session in a couple of hours, and yes 3.x/Pathfinder takes me a lot longer than that when you get to higher levels.

I'm tired of the christmas tree and all the items.

Look 3.x/Pathfinder is a pleasure to make characters in. But in the end you have to play them. And less and less as time goes on do I want to do this, the prep time and the actual gameplay.

Maybe Herolabs is the way to go with doing this. Maybe. But I'd rather have a system where I didn't need to.

Just like it used to be.

Some guy is going to go on about how the math isn't that hard. That guy would be right. But I am sick of having to do all this addition and subtraction and forgetting about such and such getting dispelled as you go.

I'm ready for something else. I have no idea how many of us there are out there, or what Paizo has coming out. (Pathfinder Unchained?)

I really have no idea if 5e is what I am looking for. I have downloaded the pdf things, it looks ok but it doesn't grab you from the beginning.

It is possible that actually playing it, would make me a convert.

I will say that 8 people is probably the ideal size to actually make the game (assuming artists aren't in that number). I have a feeling though that it hasn't been thoroughly playtested. If there is some 5.5e coming out in a year or two I won't be happy.

I really need to buy the Player's Handbook and check out the spells. That is usually the source of a lot of the problems with any of these D&D systems.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

Geez there are so many ways to keep this secret, so many items, so many spells. Some with duration limits like spells.

Heck if you made or acquired an item that enhanced disguise and put skill points in that you could do it as well (Eventually. One level of skill points dumped into it would be a good start).

If you are a wizard, face it, this isn't the oddest thing that could happen to you. Unless your family is just really against gnolls for some reason, I don't know why they would totally shun you (even if they did want to keep it on the downlow).

I like your idea about taking a ranger level and going eldritch knight. An ingame event happens, and changes the direction you are taking your character. Seems like a cool thing to me. Personally I wouldn't retrain, I'd just let things flow organically from then on.

And there are a number of ways you can fix this. One is that if and when you get to 15th level you can Polymorph Any Object yourself into... whatever really. If it is ever dispelled you just do it again.

If you are evil you can find a way to use Magic Jar to get yourself a new body. You might have to *cough take care of a loose end, but it is doable.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Orfamay Quest wrote:


IIRC from when we ran that particular module, it was hand-waved away as "sailors think drinking magically-created water is bad luck." Which at least has the advantage of being a believable GM backpedalling, given the number of other stupid nautical superstitions that are actually documented.

I wonder what their position would have been on magically created booze.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Has anyone tinkered with this? It is a pretty interesting idea, but it is mechanically awful, so much so I wonder why they did it the way they did. It is a pretty common and pretty valid argument to say the best White Haired Witch is a normal witch or a hexcrafter magus with the prehensile hair hex.

So far what I have come up with is to have caster level be the bab with attacks and maneuvers made with the hair, along with int being the bonus for attack and damage with it.

I'd also adjust the base reach of the hair to be 10 feet at level 1, meaning it would top out at 35 feet of reach if you ever made 20. I would add any blurb from the prehensile hair hex about the hair being usable as an extra hand to the archetype.

Also I never understood why the grapple attempts were changed from free to swift actions. Even though the hair can attack as if it were large for maneuver attempts, that is still not saying much. You really have to have a little more than that to make maneuvers practical as you level up.

What really gets me is what to do with the Rogue talents instead of hexes. That addition really makes no sense, so does anyone have an ideas? The hair is pretty good if my changes go in, but by no means would it be an even trade for full hex potential.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

True Strike is really good.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Ed Reppert wrote:
What is a "tier 3" class? For that matter, what is a tier 1 or tier 2 or tier 4 or higher class?

I'm not sure whether you are trying to be ironic or something. But if you are honestly asking you can search for "tier system" on these boards, or google it with something like "tier system d&d."

Now this came out in 3.5, and the originator had definite opinions on who went in what tier. And it has changed some in Pathfinder. For example most people thought Fighters were Tier 5 on a good day. Rogues in 3.5 could get sneak attacks off much easier with rings of blinking, and do things like sneak attack with splash weapons. So quite often they would be considered a tier higher than Fighters, Tier 4 in this case. (though I have seen people put Fighters with warriors and commoners in Tier 6).

Everyone pretty much says Wizards, Clerics, and Druids are Tier 1. Some people like me think that if you pick the right race (bonus spells known per level) spontaneous casters are Tier 1 now. In 3.5 they were Tier 2, but even without the favored class bonus it is closer in Pathfinder due to the bloodline spells and abilities.

We could go on and on about this. Bard is Tier 2 or 3 depending on who you ask.

But Fighters are pretty much the bottom in 3.5, with Rogues elbowing past them into last place in the Pathfinder Tier ratings.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Can you give us any info on the characters, like domains and bloodlines?

Nothing in depth, just that. Morg has been around a while, and a Vivisectionist is self explanatory, so no need to say anything about them.

Hmmm familiar. I guess the gnome is an Arcane Bloodline.

I will say I am disappointed The Rock isn't staying around. He was a kick in the pants.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Consider Tattoed Sorcerer. Being able to store the little guy as a tattoo can be really handy.

I still want to find a way to get a flying monkey as a familiar and have the tattoo on my butt.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Bigdaddyjug wrote:
Well, if a bardiche would qualify for Wood Bond, the Wood mystery just became a lot more appealing. I've never played a reach character, and I love the fact that the bardiche is both reach and has a 19-20 critical threat range. The biggest problem with the Wood mystery is that the only revelations I could really see myself taking are Wood Bond, Wood Armor, and Thorn Burst, and I could have all of those by level 3. If I multi-class, Wood Bond loses some of its usefulness. If I don't multi-class, what do I do after level 4? I could maybe take Wood Weapon at 7 to get a bow for when I can't make it into melee, but it definitely seems like multi-classing into fighter or slayer or even paladin would be better at that point.

Geez, I didn't wake up this morning thinking I am going to defend the Wood Oracle mystery.

But:

"Bend the Grain (Sp): Once per day as a standard action, you can shape or warp wooden objects. This functions as either wood shape or warp wood. At 11th level, you can use this ability to push wood away from you, as repel wood. At 7th level, and again at 14th level, you can use this ability an additional time per day."

Useful a lot more often than you would think, wood shape. It doesn't seem to come up as much as Stone Shape, but it can be useful. Warp Wood is occasionally useful. But Repel Wood? A lot of weapons have wood in them as a rule. Depends on your dm's interpretation I guess. Other than swords and spiked chains I can't think of too many that are all metal.

"Tree Form (Sp): As a standard action, you can assume the form of a Large living or dead tree or shrub, as tree shape. At 9th level, you can assume the form of a Small or Medium plant creature, as plant shape I. At 11th level, you can assume the form of a Large plant creature, as plant shape II. At 13th level, you can assume the form of a Huge plant creature, as plant shape III. You can use this ability once per day, but the duration is 1 hour/level. You must be at least 3rd level to select this revelation."

Plant shapes get dissed on these boards. But this still gives you some useful forms, and the really important size, strength, and natural armor bonuses. What's not intimidating about a huge treant swinging a telephone pole?

But this is another thing that is open to interpretation. How does this shapechange interact with gear? Some of the available forms should be able to use weapons, make gestures, and speak like the mentioned treant. Others probably not.

Plus it is not clear to me what happens to any armor worn (including the Wood Armor).

No one would blink an eyelash if I made a treant wearing armor and wielding weapons. Or a treant spellcaster.

But shapeshift into one and questions come out of the woodwork (ha).

"Lignification (Su): Once per day, you can turn a creature into wood. As a standard action, you may direct your gaze against a single creature within 30 feet. The targeted creature (along with all its carried gear) must make a Fortitude save or turn into a mindless, inert statue made out of wood for a number of rounds equal to 1/2 your oracle level. This ability otherwise functions as a flesh to stone spell, except the target turns to wood instead of stone. This can be reverse by any effect that can reverse flesh to stone. At 15th level, you can use this ability twice per day. You must be at least 11th level to select this revelation."

It's a crowd control spell. Worst thing you can say about it is the fortitude save. Not as useful as some other things, but the dc should still be pretty high when you do use it.

"Wood Sight (Su): As a move action, you can alter your vision to see through underbrush and plant growth that would normally grant concealment, up to a range of 60 feet (though darkness and other obstacles still may block your sight). At 7th level, you can use this ability to see through wood or other plant material as easily as if it were transparent glass, penetrating a number of feet of wood equal to your oracle level. You can use this ability a number of rounds per day equal to your oracle level, but these rounds do not need to be consecutive."

When you can use it, it is useful. You should be able to use this to good effect in a city or wilderness setting. And like all the abilities like this it comes in handier than just reading it implies.

"Speak with Wood (Sp): You can talk to wood and learn what it knows. You must spend 1 minute meditating on and communing with the wood. At the end of this time, you can speak with the wood. This functions as the stone tell spell, except with wood instead of stones. You can use this ability for 1 minute per oracle level. This duration does not need to be consecutive, but it must be used in 1-minute increments. You can speak with natural or worked wood. You must be at least 11th level to select this revelation."

There is an awful lot of wood out there that might know something interesting. Walls, doors, picture frames, weapon hafts, tools, trees, panelling, buildings,...

Anyway I get that people don't think it is that cool. But I think it really does have some handy features.

Woodland Stride is the only one that is really meh I think.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I don't understand this guide. You might be able to make a case for the Divine Hunter archetype being useful if you had a bunch of archers in your party. But how often do you have more than one in a group?

Also if you have other archers in your group, they are already going to have the feats you can give your companions... because they are archers.

I mean what is the whole idea here? Everyone carries a bow, so they can drop whatever it is they normally do, swing blades, cast spells, etc. so the Divine Hunter can make archers of them?

Only use for it I see is if you are leading a group of mooks or something, and you can make a skilled group of ranged attackers out of peasants or warriors or something.

This archetype seems totally useless to me. I really don't think it makes a better archer than the base Paladin to be honest. Unless you are enhancing your mob of peasants, what makes this a better archer than a base paladin?


2 people marked this as a favorite.

Nirmathas.

I guess it is because it makes me think of the Dalelands.

Ed Greenwood got old and wonky, and they put way too much detail into Forgotten Realms. But that old grey box set was really good before the splatbook explosions.

They have a built in enemy in Molthune (like the Zhents when they were cool). They have a big lake (a Great Lake really), a forest seating, unexplored wilderness, ruins, history, places that aren't terribly far off for adventure hooks (Lastwall, Worldwound, Isger, Cheliax, Five Kings mountain territories, Ustalav, even the River Kingdoms aren't implausibly far away).

Just seems like a great place for 1-10 level adventures. Then you could go on road trips if you can't think of anything else to set in the Nirmathas area.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

I think it is because most fantasy worlds have a certain way they want to look.

And they handwave away what the implications of magic as they present it in the rules would be on the world and societies.

Personally I think EVERY nation would be some kind of mageocracy or theocracy. How would you get around it?


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Wiggz wrote:


Community Minded (increases duration of Morale bonuses you give to yourself or others by 2 rounds) is ideal for Barbarians, Heroism Clerics and Orcish Bloodline users, among others.

I'll bite. Does this mean that Barbarian bonuses last two rounds after you end rage? And I guess for whatever morale bonuses Bardic performance gives, though that is a little more complicated.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I don't have many publications so my sampling is limited.

I really liked Her Majesty's Expeditionary from Entombed with the Pharoahs (think that is the adventure; it was a 3.5 pre Pathfinder system).

They were so cool. Particularly the half-orc Fighter that was an alternate Fighter (basically his version traded feats for sneak attack damage). He had a Tower Shield that had a special hand crossbow that opened some kind of door on it when fired. Can't remember if it was repeating, but he got sneak attack damage when he used this.

Not sure if you really did rule-fu on it that it should have worked even then, but the idea of a sneaky Fighter that cheated like that...

Oh yeah, the Tower Shield was made to look like a sarcophagus lid.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Tirisfal wrote:


sunbeam wrote:
Once again: "If you reduce the sex appeal of your art, of the female characters depicted, you will sell less to women."
Citation needed. I'm going to need some serious marketing data on this one.

Hmmm here is one, from a middlebrow magazine. Not any statistics of course, and studies. I'd have to do a lot more googling to find that kind of thing. The signal to noise is kind of high on this issue.

You Can Give a Boy a Doll, but You Can't Make Him Play With It.

It's probably still fashionable to rail against wikipedia, but this link has an intro to the topic, and some references, though they seem to be mostly links to UK newspaper articles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girls%27_games_and_toyshttp://en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Girls%27_games_and_toys

Here is an interesting link to some comments by Paul Dini.

http://io9.com/paul-dini-superhero-cartoon-execs-dont-want-largely-f-148375 8317

I think he is missing the forest for the trees though. The people in question would be quite happy to sell advertisements for entire lines of girl's toys all dressed in militaristic blue uniforms, and sporting giant size rocket launchers.

If that is what would pay for all the grown up toys and lifestyle they want.

After all people not much different from them make tons off of selling salt, sugar, and high fructose corn syrup mislabeled as food, and they don't lose a wink of sleep over the obesity epidemic.

I will say I found all kinds of impassioned articles railing against forcing gender on to impressionable toddlers using "what kind of toys do little girls like marketing" as a search phrase.

Tirisfal wrote:


This is dismissive at best, disingenuous at worst, and totally entitled and rude in general. You're attempting to pass the burden of proof off onto someone else when you should be the one attempting to support your argument.

My argument is none of those things. Rather I'm saying "Water is wet," and you are choosing to argue the point because your worldview says it's wet only because we tell it that it is wet in water pre-school, and we buy water appropriate toys to stereotype it as wet.

Actually I'd say your comments are far more appropriate to yourself.

1 to 50 of 134 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | next > last >>