ubiquitous42's page

Bring back Damiel!

The Goblin interloper is #NotMyAlchemist

Thanks so much to the community for being so fantastic during my tenure as VC. Happy gaming, everyone!

Anything I can help with locally, CireJack?

I'd also like to shout out to AJ (sorry, I don't remember your last name!) who was my GM for The Sky Key Solution at Tier 10-11. The table was full of fantastic players, but AJ in particular was able to smoothly run a scenario after we jerks sat down and asked him to run a tier that he didn't have prepared. His role-playing was spot-on and felt like a dialogue, not a flat response to skill checks. I'd love to see what he can do when not blindsided. :)

My friend commented as we were leaving that Brett Sweeney did a great job with Returned to the Sky on Sunday

Thank your friend for me for the kind words! This GenCon was my favorite in recent history, due in large part to the positive players that I had at each of my tables. That Returned to Sky table was a lot of fun, and I got to see some great roleplaying and ingenuity by the players. I'm glad that your friend enjoyed it!

So, a question on how reporting actually works.
A character dies in a session, and the rest of the party succeeds in the scenario. The dead character's player gets to immediately start a new character, and apply one of the game upgrades to the new character. How is that tracked on chronicles (for the player) and tracking sheets (for the organizer)? I can't report the same player twice on the same tracker, but otherwise, their new character gets a deck upgrade that'll never be collected on a tracking sheet. Is the new character just reported on a single-player failure version of the first tracker? The example of reporting results really needs to include this.

Thanks!

Hi, card gamers!

I'm happy to announce that Kevin Hanley has stepped into the role of Venture-Lieutenant for the ACG in St. Louis, Missouri! Now that class decks are easily obtained in our local game stores, and that barrier to entry has dropped, Kevin has ran some very successful card game events. He's very enthusiastic, and it's kind of infectious. Hopefully he'll be able to get the ACG going in a few more stores in our area! If you see him, say hi, and bonus points to you if you help him shuffle the location decks.

Hi, Pathfinders!

I'm happy to announce that Josh Hancock has officially been appointed as an RPG Venture-Lieutenant for St. Louis, Missouri! Josh has been an integral part of our community for years now, and I'm beyond pleased that he wants to step up into the role. He's become a fantastic GM through his time adventuring with us, so hopefully you can catch him at a table at GenCon!

You've done amazing work over these four years, Mike! I think you'll be a tough act for your replacement to follow. Best of luck in the future, and if you're ever in St. Louis, you always have a seat at my table.

I'm happy to announce that Eric Jackson (CireJack), a long-time member of our community, has successfully earned his 5th star! Eric's really pulled some amazing feats in his pursuit of the final star, including attending multiple conventions on the same weekend, over a hundred miles apart! He's an absolutely pleasure to play with on both sides of the table, and I hope that more of you will have the chance!

Hey again, folks. Still working with them to find out when it will be available on the website, but here is the schedule that I submitted to them:

Session 1: 6-18, 6-19, 6-21, 2-01 (CORE)
Session 2: 6-11, 6-15, 6-20, 2-02 (CORE)
Session 3: 6-11, 6-17, 6-18, 2-15 (CORE)
Session 4: 6-08, 6-19, 6-21, 2-17 (CORE)
Session 5: 6-17, 6-18, 6-19, 2-19 (CORE)
Session 6: 6-09, 6-15, 6-21, 6-12 (CORE)
Session 7: 6-09, 6-18, 6-20, 6-14 (CORE)
Session 8: 6-08, 6-17, 6-19, 6-16 (CORE)

There are also two more tables per slot for any pick-up games, or additional tables of other scenarios in that slot.

Scenarios have been finalized, and convention leadership tells me that Warhorn should be up at going as of early this week!

Hey, FlySkyHigh!

Currently, the best time to play in the St. Louis area is on Tuesday and Wednesday night at Game Nite. We start the scenario at 7 PM, so be there a little bit beforehand and we can make sure your character and Pathfinder Society information is all sorted out.

Here's the event information, which includes Game Nite's location:
http://paizo.com/events/v5748mkg0am00

If Tuesday and Wednesday don't work for you, we hold a monthly Saturday game day at the same location. The next one will be in mid-to-late January.

I've been surprised by how many scrolls of Breath of Life and Restoration she keeps in her "personal collection."

I'm happy to announce that our Venture-Lieutenant, Nathan King, has recently achieved his 5th GM star! Quite the accomplishment, especially for someone that only started tabletop gaming back in April of 2012!

Congrats, Nathan!

A caster may only use one metamagic rod on any given spell. You'll need to take one of them as a feat to add both Intensified and Selective to your burning hands.

Ranged touch attacks are also ranged attacks, so the caster would also add his/her BAB and Dex modifier to the roll. The attack roll then checks against the target's touch AC.

A ranged touch spell is not any spell with a range, though. Spells that require ranged touch attacks will explicitly say so in their description.

I'm pleased to announce that Nathan King is stepping into the role of Venture-Lieutenant for St. Louis, MO!

Since becoming involved with Pathfinder Society in April 2012, Nathan has put an amazing amount of work into the campaign. Not only does he do a fantastic job at convention organizing (like the area saw with his Too Poor for GenCon event last year), but he's also already a 4-star GM!

Congratulations, Nathan!

Congrats, Nathan!

You've been an amazing force in the St. Louis (and surrounding) communities, and I'm always glad that you decided to join us!

I'm going to assume you'll be on track to have five stars in another four to five months, then? ;)

Eric - Thanks for posting my info! I don't often check the Gamer Connection boards, so I probably never would have seen it!

Currently, there are a lot of games going on in our area, Caer! I'll list the PFS stuff first, then some possible avenues for non-PFS games.

Tuesdays:
Every week: 6:30 PM, Game Nite, 8330 Watson Rd., St. Louis, MO

Wednesdays:
Every week: 6:30 PM, Game Nite, 8330 Watson Rd., St. Louis, MO

Thursdays:
Twice a month: 6 PM, St. Charles Fantasy Shop, 2426 West Clay, St. Charles, MO
(Check with store for which weeks are the "on" weeks. It can be sporadic.)

Saturdays:
Once a month: 10 AM, 3 PM, 8 PM, St. Charles Fantasy Shop, 2426 West Clay, St. Charles, MO
(This is our monthly area game day. The next one is on Feb 2.)

Sundays:
Every week: Noon, 258 Fort Zumwalt Square, O'Fallon, MO
Every week: (Two sessions, check with store for times) Ogre's Games, 4501 S Kingshighway Blvd, St Louis, MO

(There are a few of budding groups starting up at the Florissant Fantasy Shop, B and B games in Eureka, and at SCGN Loft in Washington, MO. Their schedule hasn't solidified since last I communicated with them.)

Now, as for non-Society games, your best option is likely to check the various posting boards at Game Nite and the various Fantasy Shop locations (St. Charles, Florissant, Maplewood, and South County). I regularly see people find home games through those means. Unfortunately, I'm in a couple of home games of my own at the moment, so I end up glossing over most of those flyers. They're definitely present, though!

If you need any more information, please don't hesitate to email me!

Are you remembering misfires? With paper cartridges, you're at a 1-3 misfire range, and just one of those will stop your whole attack chain.

I think more like, they have a Bunch of Experienced GMs who just bring a bunch of crap with them to be able to run what ever people pick.

There is no prior list.

Yep, that's the gist of it. The regular GMs are ready to run just about anything, and each have a few scenarios that they prefer to run if there are players available for it.

To answer Chris's question from a few posts back, new GMs are handled in a more "typical" fashion. If a player is interested in GMing, I'll pick a scenario that I think is relatively easy to run (no Throaty Mermaid!), and let them borrow my paper copy a week in advance to prepare. For the day/night that they run, I make sure that they have GMing materials. This usually means lending them a battlemat or appropriate flip-mats, as well as minis from my collection. I also have physical copies of the hardcover books that they can borrow, but most players around here already own them.

I find that shortly after their first session, if not before, these new GMs start buying mats, minis, markers, and an initiative tracking method of their own. From there, it's all up to their comfort levels and quality of game.

Not sure of the exact number (Maybe Brett, our VC, could give an exact number) but St. Louis probably has 2 full tables of lvl 12+ characters.

Well, the third Eyes of the Ten group is in progress, with a fourth ready to go! All said, I think we're at 22 12+ characters.

Oh, and I never added my own character to this list:
Venture-Captain Kol'Tar the Righteous, Half-Orc Paladin 14 of Iomedae, Silver Crusader, Valiant Explorer of the Runecarved Key's Portal

Well, I'd first like to thank Don for pointing me to this thread. It's probably time I chime in!

In short, it's all true, to an extent. I just don't feel that "running cold" is an accurate description of what typically takes place at a St. Louis game day, though. Our regular GMs come prepared to run, with copious supplies, a crate full of scenario print-outs, a nearly-complete set of flip mats, and a few stars under their belts. These GMs have played the majority of the scenario list, and have GMed a sizable complement of them as well.

Do we declare what scenarios we're running ahead of time? In general, no, but that's a conscious decision, not one due to laziness. From week to week, many players in the area won't know if they can make a game day, due to work or life getting in the way. Personally, I never want a player to feel like they can't come to a game day because they didn't foresee their ability to do so a week ahead of time, nor do I want to promote the "if you didn't sign up, you don't have a spot" mentality that I've seen many other game days operate under. Worse yet are problems with people who don't show up after signing up. By choosing scenarios once everyone is gathered, it adds some time to the process, but ensures that everyone who shows up can have fun for the night. In two years of monthly game days, only two players have ever been turned away for lack of a table.

I understand, and have understood, that some players are uncomfortable with this method of organization. While I get the occasional complaint, far outnumbering them are the good words from happy players. To the players who don't like this style of marshaling, I help them get in touch with other players, through Facebook or email, so they can organize a table ahead of time. For GMs who want to run a particular scenario, I help spread the word among the players through the same social channels that if there is enough interest, that scenario will be featured the next week or month. This is also the process I take with players who are interested in GMing their first few games.

It makes sense to me that what we do around here might be anathema to some of you out there, but please believe me when I say that it seems to work rather well for us.

(As an aside, I'm speaking only of the large game days that I organize myself, at St. Charles Fantasy Shop and Game Nite. If any complaints are involving game days at other stores, then I would very much like to hear more about those issues, since they'd be news to me.)

Not necessarily true.There are ways of having insane skill bonuses at level 1:

A character of mine,female half elf infernal bloodline sorcerer with the feat Skill Focus Bluff (+3) Charisma 19 (+4) the trait Charming (+1) and the Bluff class skill (+3) started playing with a net +11 to bluff!!!!!!

You forgot the extra +1 from your rank. +12 total. :)

When a session is reported, a link is provided to the page of each character that was already registered to a player's account.

If the session is edited, though, perhaps to change an erroneous character number, that link is not updated, and still points to the old character's page.

Welcome aboard, Bryan! Best of luck to your area!

If you're asking for a way for someone to download someone else's sessions, that's not something we're likely to ever do for privacy reasons.

Nah, I understand the privacy stuff involved, and I wasn't expecting anyone to download anyone else's session info. This way, though, we could have the players who wish to register with us simply download their own info, then quickly upload their session data to our database, rather than someone being forced to enter the data by hand.

Feegle, that's the way we've been doing it so far. With our growing playerbase, though, it's becoming somewhat taxing to do for everyone. Still better than not having it at all, though.

Would it be at all possible to make a player's PFS data downloadable in an easy-to-parse format?

I'm asking because a friend and I are in the process of writing a local database to organize what scenarios have been played, so that we can automatically marshal tables based on who's in attendance. We're meeting a lot of resistance from players who find it too time-consuming to enter in all of their information by hand.

If this isn't possible, I definitely understand, but it would certainly be convenient. :)

I ran this once and killed 2. First hit was a crit. Is it me or does this scenario have alot of fist hit crits?

It gets worse in Tier 6-7. An amusing side-note, one character death at my table was actually due to that PC's defensive buff!

I may be visiting St Louis (Webster Grove actually) sometime this year and look forward to seeing all the action.

Toss me a PM when/if you get into the area, and I'll let you know about games that're happening while you're here. It's always exciting when people we aren't acquainted with join us!

I'll have to see if I can organize a caravan to make its way down!

On Sunday the 19th, what scenarios are you running at what times? My wife and I might be interested in driving up to play with you guys, but Id hate to get there to find you playing something we've already done. :P

If you make the drive, we'll make a table for you. Our game days generally run without all of the scenarios pre-determined, just so unexpected Pathfinders have a place to join in. The first session will start as close to 11am as we can manage, with the second session starting around 5pm.

Biggest problem is that at until you get Imp Whip Master, a whip doesn't threaten squares you can reach, thus you can't flank for Sneak Attack damage (and until you get Whip Mastery, you'll provoke attacks of opporunity for doing so!).

You don't need to threaten the square you attack with a whip in order to get the flanking bonus:

When making a melee attack, you get a +2 flanking bonus if your opponent is threatened by another enemy character or creature on its opposite border or opposite corner.

Adam, Alex and I are well-acquainted, but when are you going to get up here and game with us, Michael? :p

How many PCs have you fine GMs killed in the final encounter of The Dalsine Affair?

I was GMing a Tier 6-7 table this week where one PC dropped or died per round, the whole party feeling that a visit with Pharasma was in their near future. I don't seek to kill PCs, but I do roll my dice in the open and let what happens happen. Even if I was the sort to tweak die rolls, there's only so much you can say when that many dice hit the table.

That's two dead in St. Louis. Let's total some numbers, here!

When the St. Louis group first started organizing monthly game days, we would announce the scenario(s) ahead of time. It quickly became apparent that we were turning away players by doing so, either because players who had already played it would just stay home, or new-to-the-group players would show up, only to find they didn't have a table to join.

As a test, some players began deciding one scenario that would definitely be played the next game day, while leaving other players unassigned. I began acting as a "floating" GM, promising to find a scenario that overflow players could play. We started seeing a larger turnout almost instantly. I can't in good conscience recommend this for all groups, though, because you need a GM that is either great at running a scenario cold, or has a lot of scenarios pre-prepared at a moment's notice.

If you really want to play the higher-end stuff, Quishadi, remember that players without characters for that tier can pick up a pregen and play along. Since the new edition of the Guide to Organized Play, they'll get a chronicle to apply when a character of theirs reaches the appropriate level.