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 Recent Posts
If you play on a grid, and you like mixing it up in a fight, and you have a high Dex, Combat Reflexes is a really good choice. Your attacks are at full, and you are no longer limited to one AoO per round. This comes up more often than one might think! I am a fan, both as a DM and as a player of a 9th level rogue. (The fighter in our group finally took CR and it's paying for itself.)
Nice item. It essentially saves the wielder a move action to apply an oil to a weapon. Since you have to reload (and that's limited by money to purchase alchemicals), it's like a charged item. You get two or three uses per combat (or less if you don't reload). Thus the question is, what's a charge of a move action worth?
If you use firefox, there is an add on you can download called web develper, with allows you to turn off all images Most corporations (like my own neutral evil masters) require that you use their browser. So I am stuck with IE. There's no "turn off avatars" option there. If there were, I bet that I would browse here more often. Except for the monitoring software. Yeah.
Cope with it.... Deal with it... I think without these clauses that come across sounding like you're at home listening to your parents, your point would come across stronger. In fact, all it does is allowing you to skip boring and unchallenging (for 11th levels) parts of the adventure and get to the insteresting stuff faster. Oh, and to avoid some traps, but remember, that 11th level characters can simply... This is a reasonable perspective, especially when you view the game through the lens of what the players want to do. Which, in D&D, is "find things, kill things, take their stuff". Many DMs ascribe to a different point of view though, and hence the issue with Find the Path. There might be good and valid story reasons to want a few encounters along the way. I really like the focus idea as a fix. That's excellent, and it opens the door for many new and appropriate plots.
Excellent setup. Sounds like if you play it right, you have all the makings of a total final battle of excellence. It's not the clues, so much as the timing. In other words, play it straight as a school until just before you're ready for the Big Reveal. Or the Final Battle with The Doppelganger(s). Then drop a bomb or two and let matters unfold.
Apparently the group enjoys the game enough to religiously keep coming back... but the simulationist would like to see otherwise. Whoa, hold up please. They keep coming back religiously. One, count him, one player has an issue. One. You're worried about this? Dude, you got a score. This is like everyone arguing about where to eat and who's picking up the check. There's one guy who whines about the restaurant choice every week while cadging free appetizers from the waitress and getting you guys to cover his dessert and tip.
It was a lot of fun, it never took itself too seriously, and it had Bruce Campbell. Pirates in the old west? Technological advances - sorta? A blonde femme fatal? A horse (Comet) that communicates with his rider? Besides, if you haven't seen the twin Swedish blacksmiths, the Schwenke sisters, you haven't watched it enough.
Yes, indeed, Etherscope and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen! I would also recommend Stirling's book The Difference Engine about a world shaped by the early development of Babbage's counting device. Additionally, it only lasted one season, but there's a Canadian TV show that was called the The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne. (Despite the occasional cheesy bit - an army of rocket-propelled vampires, say - it had great visuals and some nice technology like you're talking about.)
Ki Strike under the core rules. You can buypass hardness at 16th level and higher when your unarmed strikes are treated as adamantine for purposes of bypassing DR and Hardness. A nice ability, yes. Not the be all and end all for the 15 levels before that of monk identity. Note also that you are only able to ignore Hardness 19 or less. Magic helps the 16th level BBEG wizard harden up his staff or other tools to 20 if he knows what's good for him.
If the monk is already good at grappling, then what's the difference? The problem is with the grappling rules, not the ability to deal a little extra damage. Monks are secondary fighters. At high levels, fighters can deal out damage between 50-150 per round. Monks can't match that output. If they can increase it a little bit when grappling, fine. (They're still stuck in a grapple now, and not running around....)
One thing that strikes me is that Open Design Projects have been both exclusive and non-exclusive. I would wager Paizo would want it to be non-exclusive so that they could sell it in their webstore and to their fan base for some time to come. Just speculation. If they want to make it happen, I'm sure there are ways to guarantee some form of exclusivity. Off the top of my head, I can think of a couple. You can let the patrons have it for six months. They could get a level of manuscript or supplement no one else does. Wolfgang could write in Easter Eggs and give the codes/secrets away only to patrons. It sounds very cool, especially if it has Paizo agreement.
Along the way, did you ever take Iron Will? At +2, it's a hard one to pass up. I just leveled my rogue/fighter to 9, and found that since I already had what I wanted (Spring Attack), boosting Will saves was in order. I took the feat. Another possibility is begging a party caster to hit you with Owl's Wisdom in key encounters (+4 to Wisdom = +2 to Will Saves). That is a bit of a pain though.
These are all good analyses of the issue. (Don't forget that if he has the Craft Wondrous Item feat that it will only cost him xp and half the gp value to create it.) I wouldn't be averse to charging 47,500 gp myself. It is an appropriate item for a wizard of this level. It might not come up often, but I think I'd limit the amount of magic missile damage to a daily max of 100 hp. That would be a houserule of course.
4)...any general timeline on how long it will take to produce?The estimate from Editor Bill Collis is 6 months, he has a great deal more experience than I do with patronage projects from his work as Editor for projects like Open Design's Kingdom of the Ghouls and Blood of the Gorgon, the final draft of the manuscript is due from Frank to Bill on OCT 23rd. That would be me as editor. The long lead time also includes time for playtesting and patron comments. I hope to start a game myself while working on editing the manuscript. I have copies of Ashanderai's rough drafts, and there's a wealth of materials here (not to mention a lot of text too). The goal is to have it out before next Gen Con.
Why? I don't know really. Maybe I do have a subconscious need to be in control, but I think the real thing is that I hate feeling like I'm in competition with the other players. I'm definitely a career DM. I've got a few years of experience. There's nothing like the thrill of watching player's eyes go large at a most interesting moment in the game. That said, I've enjoyed playing more and more as I've gotten older. Why? Because I learn new tricks and techniques from watching other DMs and from being part of the group, not the focus of it. In the quiet, windless moments when the spotlight is elsewhere, a tiny whisper of insight often tickles your mind.
I think there's at least one patron of the project who has. Did you try posting this over at www.koboldquarterly.com message boards? (I edited the adventure, and the only thing I recall that could be an issue is the huge number of ghouls outside the final encounter. If the party starts a fracas in the camp, the ghouls go grappling clerics and wizards. It might be a problem. :)
It can work as a two player game: Once Upon a Time brief blurb at http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/1234
What I like about it (aside from it just being fun) is using one's imagination and the elements on the cards to tell a story. Once in a great while, you even get the magical moment where everyone stops playing cards to become Storyteller and just listens. Because they want to hear the end of the tale.
If the player invested a feat, and has the item, and runs around charging to do double damage, yes, they will have some visually impressive piles of hit points dealt. I think that's really cool! (The Jump rules may be "realistic" but they kinda suck for doing really fun stuff like a movie.) Remember that a player who is moving is not doing iterative attacks. The net result may be close to the same.
It comes down to three principles almost: Be fair, have fun and get everyone involved. I do second the recommendation for Robin Laws. (The cynic in me notes that he included a lot of this advice in DMG II but the terms were much better in the SJG pamphlet.) This thread does have many excellent pointers.
If that's the case, then your friends are having a hard time adjusting to the fact that they can't control you. Or they might just like to argue? I have seen very reasonable social types devolve into I-must-be-right-yah! folks in a gaming context. They can't stand to lose. When we play a game of chess, we agree to play the enemy to a friend. When that game is over, we walk away from the board, and we are allies again. When we play an RPG, one friend must be the enemy, and when we walk away, we know they must play the enemy tomorrow. This is philosophy gold by the way. I thought it worth calling attention to again. Point your gaming friends who argue with you to this thread. You might find a different perspective once they post here. You may all benefit!
Nor should it IMO! It's cool that the wizard gets an alternate form of (weightless) armor, but it shouldn't stack with regular armor. Now, there's a separate question as to whether you should be allowed to enchant your mage armor like regular armor. ;)I would allow it if made permanent, but that really hurts for dispel magic. I think if I allowed this variant, the enchanted mage armor would return full strength plus enhancements at next casting.
Assuming this is a known problem (i.e. that evil clerics have done this for centuries), what's to stop villages, towns and cities from protecting public places with certain magics that inhibit such negative energy, or at the least boost the saves of the locals? That aside, I love the idea! It's evil, it's dramatic and few clerics with the ability are going to risk their lives. Unless it's an evil cleric in charge of a village, who routinely tortures and kills inhabitants with this ability so his wizard can animate their corpses.
One of the way that Sprytes in Arcana Evolved achieve a form of parity with other characters is in their size. They are Tiny. So they lose a lot of damage ability in exchange for gaining flight. Other "flying from the start" races that I've seen generally get gliding at level one as already mentioned in the thread. Flight still gives a whole third dimension of movement that can negate a lot of plot and adventure elements. (These elements start to go out the window at L5 and disappear almost entirely by L9 or L10.) So a character that can fly from day one needs to be weaker in some other characteristics. Or they could simply be able to fly less, not more. You know how dwarves and clerics moving at 15 feet or 20 feet per round slow down the party, never get to the action until its almost gone, and at a full run are a lot slower than anyone else when fleeing the big lava river? How about reducing the flight speed to 20 feet at L1. Then over the course of the next several levels, they gain more speed. Or they have to take a feat to get the speed, or something. I would also suggest brushing up on flying rules for the player. If they don't know that it's going to take twice as much movement to go up, they might get stuck at the wrong moment. I personally ignore the degrees of movement for flying since it introduces facing where the game has none and it's needlessly complex.
I'm going to agree that under RAW the spell would function against the swarm. Now, is that the intent? I don't think so. Sanctuary was designed to let clerics move about the battlefield unmolested (i.e. avoid getting targeted by spells and other enemies). Swarms are basically the old Wandering Damage Table given form. I personally appreciate your bringing this to my attention so I can houserule sanctuary from here on out and tell my players that it doesn't stop a swarm.
Gen Con is Mecca for gamers! If you can at all go, the way to do it is to plan for it. Start saving now. (Like a Christmas Club account, but for Gen Con.) Buy your badge early to get the discount, and sign up for a hotel room with friends. Even if you can only go once, it's worth it! (Oh, if you would like to read some 2008 recaps, go to www.varianor.livejournal.com for some of mine. Scroll back a couple days. Click on Calendar and go to August 0f 2005, 2006 and 2007 for even older ones!)
Speaking of adventures for AE, there are a number both on Monte's site and on www.diamondthrone.com. These are all free for download. Also, for the fans, you might want to note that after many years in the making, the Lands of the Jade Oath supplement has found an aggressive publisher to bring it to market: http://www.ritepublishing.com/landsofthejadeoath.html
To build upon the Pied Piper idea, it is a master bard leading away the infernal children from the village of Hamelin, preventing their transformation into devils. Or how about the Bluebeard tale made stranger? In truth it is a doppelganger wizard slaying young maidens. He uses magic to hide the truth in the room, but something is still awry.
Malhavoc Press is pretty much out of publishing new gaming products (BoXM and BoXM II notwithstanding). Arcana Evolved support continues with a few third party publishers, most notably Fiery Dragon, who just put out an adventure, and Rite Publishing, who have just released a couple short supplements. There's a press release due from Rite Publishing Monday that will be pretty cool. That said, AE is probably compatible with Pathfinder and the world of Golarion with just a few tweaks. However, I'd be very surprised to find Paizo supporting it in any official way. They're busy enough with all this cool Pathfinder stuff! Edit: I have personally met a lot of people who like to use AE classes and races in either homebrew settings or in the default setting of the Diamond Throne. YMMV.
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